When he got safe into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him, he was aware of a respite from alarms.The room was quite dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and incongruous furniture; several great pier glasses, in which he beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, framed and unframed, standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with tapestry hangings. The windows opened to the floor; but by great good fortune the lower part of the shutters had been closed, and this concealed him from the neighbors. Here, then, Markheim drew in a packing case before the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It was a long business, for there were many; and it was irksome, besides; for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him. With the tail of his eye he saw the door—even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences. But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ; children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-flyers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high, genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to recall), and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the Ten Commandments in the chancel.
And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the knob, and the lock clicked, and the door opened. Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether the dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows. But when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round the room, looked at him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and then withdrew again, and the door closed behind it, his fear broke loose from his control in a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the visitant returned.
"Did you call me?" he asked pleasantly, and with that he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candlelight of the shop: and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of living terror, there lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing was not of the earth and not of God.
And yet the creature had a strange air of the commonplace, as he stood looking on Markheim with a smile; and when he added: "You are looking for the money, I believe?" it was in the tones of everyday politeness.
Markheim made no answer.
"I should warn you," resumed the other, "that themaid has left her sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be here. If Mr. Markheim be found in this house, I need not describe to him the consequences."
"You know me?" cried the murderer.
The visitor smiled. "You have long been a favorite of mine," he said; "and I have long observed and often sought to help you."
"What are you?" cried Markheim: "the devil?"
"What I may be," returned the other, "cannot affect the service I propose to render you."
"It can," cried Markheim; "it does! Be helped by you? No, never; not by you! You do not know me yet; thank God, you do not know me!"
"I know you," replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or rather firmness. "I know you to the soul."
"Know me!" cried Markheim. "Who can do so? My life is but a travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them. You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos have seized and muffled in a cloak. If they had their own control—if you could see their faces, they would be altogether different, they would shine out for heroes and saints! I am worse than most; myself is more overlaid; my excuse is known to me and God. But, had I the time, I could disclose myself."
"To me?" inquired the visitant.
"To you before all," returned the murderer. "I supposed you were intelligent. I thought—since you exist—you would prove a reader of the heart. And yet you would propose to judge me by my acts! Think of it; my acts! I was born and I have lived in a land of giants; giants have dragged me by the wrists since I was bornout of my mother—the giants of circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts! But can you not look within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me? Can you not see within me the clear writing of conscience, never blurred by any wilful sophistry although too often disregarded? Can you not read me for a thing that surely must be common as humanity—the unwilling sinner?"
"All this is very feelingly expressed," was the reply, "but it regards me not. These points of consistency are beyond my province, and I care not in the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away, so as you are but carried in the right direction. But time flies; the servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pictures on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer; and remember, it is as if the gallows itself were striding toward you through the Christmas streets! Shall I help you—I, who know all? Shall I tell you where to find the money?"
"For what price?" asked Markheim.
"I offer you the service for a Christmas gift," returned the other.
Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter triumph. "No," said he, "I will take nothing at your hands; if I were dying of thirst, and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips, I should find the courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing to commit myself to evil."
"I have no objection to a death-bed repentance," observed the visitant.
"Because you disbelieve their efficacy!" Markheim cried.
"I do not say so," returned the other; "but I look on these things from a different side, and when the life isdone my interest falls. The man has lived to serve me, to spread black looks under color of religion, or to sow tares in the wheat field, as you do, in a course of weak compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to his deliverance, he can add but one act of service—to repent, to die smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a master. Try me. Accept my help. Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for your greater comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God. I came but now from such a death-bed, and the room was full of sincere mourners, listening to the man's last words; and when I looked into that face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it smiling with hope."
"And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?" asked Markheim. "Do you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin, and sin, and sin, and, at last, sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the thought. Is this, then, your experience of mankind? or is it because you find me with red hands that you presume such baseness? and is this crime of murder indeed so impious as to dry up the very springs of good?"
"Murder is to me no special category," replied the other. "All sins are murder, even all life is war. I behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each other's lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting; I find in all that the last consequence is death; and to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her motherwith such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness of a nail, they are both scythes for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues. And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but because you are Markheim, that I offered to forward your escape."
"I will lay my heart open to you," answered Markheim. "This crime on which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many lessons; itself is a lesson, a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bondslave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches—both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past; something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the sound of the church organ, of what I forecast when I shed tears over noble books, or talked, an innocent child, with my mother. There lies my life; I have wandered a few years, but now I see once more my city of destination."
"You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, I think?" remarked the visitor; "and there, if I mistake not, you have already lost some thousands?"
"Ah," said Markheim, "but this time I have a sure thing."
"This time, again, you will lose," replied the visitor, quietly.
"Ah, but I keep back the half!" cried Markheim.
"That also you will lose," said the other.
The sweat started upon Markheim's brow. "Well, then, what matter?" he exclaimed. "Say it be lost, say I am plunged again in poverty, shall one part of me, and that the worse, continue until the end to override the better? Evil and good run strong in me, hailing me both ways. I do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows their trials better than myself? I pity and help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts."
But the visitant raised his finger. "For six-and-thirty years that you have been in this world," said he, "through many changes of fortune and varieties of humor, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil?—five years from now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward lies your way; nor can anything but death avail to stop you."
"It is true," Markheim said huskily, "I have in some degree complied with evil. But it is so with all: the verysaints, in the mere exercise of living, grow less dainty, and take on the tone of their surroundings."
"I will propound to you one simple question," said the other; "and as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go in all things with a looser rein?"
"In any one?" repeated Markheim, with an anguish of consideration. "No," he added, with despair, "in none! I have gone down in all."
"Then," said the visitor, "content yourself with what you are, for you will never change; and the words of your part on this stage are irrevocably written down."
Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it was the visitor who first broke the silence. "That being so," he said, "shall I show you the money?"
"And grace?" cried Markheim.
"Have you not tried it?" returned the other. "Two or three years ago, did I not see you on the platform of revival meetings, and was not your voice the loudest in the hymn?"
"It is true," said Markheim; "and I see clearly what remains for me by way of duty. I thank you for these lessons from my soul; my eyes are opened, and I behold myself at last for what I am."
At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang through the house; and the visitant, as though this were some concerted signal for which he had been waiting, changed at once in his demeanor.
"The maid!" he cried. "She has returned, as I forewarned you, and there is now before you one more difficult passage. Her master, you must say, is ill; you must let her in, with an assured but rather serious countenance—no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!" he cried: "up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the scales: up, and act!"
Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. "If I be condemned to evil acts," he said, "there is still one door of freedom open—I can cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you say truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy and courage."
The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely change: they brightened and softened with a tender triumph; and, even as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as chance-medley—a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed it, tempted him no longer; but on the farther side he perceived a quiet haven for his bark. He paused in thepassage, and looked into the shop, where the candle still burned by the dead body. It was strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his mind, as he stood gazing. And then the bell once more broke out into impatient clamor.
He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile.
"You had better go for the police," said he: "I have killed your master."
"An officer and a gentleman."
His full name was Percival William Williams, but he picked up the other name in a nursery-book, and that was the end of the christened titles. His mother'sayahcalled him Willie-Baba, but as he never paid the faintest attention to anything that theayahsaid, her wisdom did not help matters.
His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough to understand what Military Discipline meant, Colonel Williams put him under it. There was no other way of managing the child. When he was good for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; and when he was bad, he was deprived of his good-conduct stripe. Generally he was bad, for India offers so many chances to little six-year-olds of going wrong.
Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then delivered himself of his opinion.
"I like you," said he, slowly, getting off his chair andcoming over to Brandis. "I like you. I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair. Do youmindbeing called Coppy? it is because of ve hair, you know."
Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Here was one of the most embarrassing of Wee Willie Winkie's peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for some time, and then, without warning or explanation, would give him a name. And the name stuck. No regimental penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. He lost his good-conduct badge for christening the Commissioner's wife "Pobs"; but nothing that the Colonel could do made the Station forego the nickname, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. "Pobs" till the end of her stay. So Brandis was christened "Coppy," and rose, therefore, in the estimation of the regiment.
If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in any one, the fortunate man was envied alike by the mess and the rank and file. And in their envy lay no suspicion of self-interest. "The Colonel's son" was idolized on his own merits entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His face was permanently freckled, as his legs were permanently scratched, and in spite of his mother's almost tearful remonstrances he had insisted upon having his long yellow locks cut short in the military fashion. "I want my hair like Sergeant Tummil's," said Wee Willie Winkie, and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was accomplished.
Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful affections on Lieutenant Brandis—henceforward to be called "Coppy" for the sake of brevity—Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things and far beyond his comprehension.
Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous minutes his own big sword—just as tall as Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier puppy; and Coppy had permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more—Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no one except his father, who could give or take away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weakness of kissing—vehemently kissing—a "big girl," Miss Allardyce to wit? In the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and cantered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to his father, but he felt instinctively that this was a matter on which Coppy ought first to be consulted.
"Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside that subaltern's bungalow early one morning—"I want to see you, Coppy!"
"Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast in the midst of his dogs. "What mischief have you been getting into now?"
Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for three days, and so stood on a pinnacle of virtue.
"I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself into a long chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel's languor after a hot parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, asked: "I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?"
"By Jove! You're beginning early. Who do you want to kiss?"
"No one. My muvver's always kissing me if I don't stop her. If it isn't pwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last morning, by ve canal?"
Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft managed to keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. There were urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how matters stood for at least another month, and this small marplot had discovered a great deal too much.
"I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkie, calmly. "But ve groom didn't see. I said, 'Hut jao.'"
"Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip," groaned poor Coppy, half amused and half angry. "And how many people may you have told about it?"
"Only me myself. You didn't tell when I twied to wide ve buffalo ven my pony was lame; and I fought you wouldn't like."
"Winkie," said Coppy, enthusiastically, shaking the small hand, "you're the best of good fellows. Look here, you can't understand all these things. One of these days—hang it, how can I make you see it!—I'm going to marry Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs. Coppy, as you say. If your young mind is so scandalized at the idea of kissing big girls, go and tell your father."
"What will happen?" said Wee Willie Winkie, who firmly believed that his father was omnipotent.
"I shall get into trouble," said Coppy, playing his trump card with an appealing look at the holder of the ace.
"Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie, briefly. "But my faver says it's un-man-ly to be always kissing, and I didn't finkyou'ddo vat, Coppy."
"I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's only now and then, and when you're bigger you'll do it too. Your father meant it's not good for little boys."
"Ah!" said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully enlightened. "It's like ve sputter-brush?"
"Exactly," said Coppy, gravely.
"But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss big girls, nor no one, 'cept my muvver. And Imustvat, you know."
There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie.
"Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?"
"Awfully!" said Coppy.
"Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha—or me?"
"It's in a different way," said Coppy. "You see, one of these days Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you'll grow up and command the Regiment and—all sorts of things. It's quite different, you see."
"Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. "If you're fond of ve big girl, I won't tell any one. I must go now."
Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding: "You're the best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days from now you can tell if you like—tell any one you like."
Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was dependent on a little child's word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He was trying to discover why Coppy should have kissed her. She was not half so nice as his ownmother. On the other hand, she was Coppy's property, and would in time belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny pistol.
The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made what he called a "campfire" at the bottom of the garden. How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would have lighted the Colonel's little hayrick and consumed a week's store for the horses? Sudden and swift was the punishment—deprivation of the good-conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days' confinement to barracks—the house and veranda—coupled with the withdrawal of the light of his father's countenance.
He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery—called by him "my quarters." Coppy came in the afternoon and attempted to console the culprit.
"I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie, mournfully, "and I didn't ought to speak to you."
Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house—that was not forbidden—and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride.
"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie.
"Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward.
Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by a river—dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy—the almost almighty Coppy—had never set footbeyond it. Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the Princess and the Goblins—a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halves of the windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce's big girl, Coppy's property, preparing to venture into their borders! What would Coppy say if anything happened to her? If the Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie's Princess? She must at all hazards be turned back.
The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a moment on the very terrible wrath of his father; and then—broke his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, on the trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since the one great sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flower-borders.
The devastating track of the pony's feet was the last misdeed that cut him off from all sympathy of Humanity.He turned into the road, leaned forward, and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in the direction of the river.
But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through the crops, beyond the Police-post, when all the guards were asleep, and her mount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her overnight that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson.
Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having thus demonstrated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony.
"Are you badly, badly hurted?" shouted Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range. "You didn't ought to be here."
"I don't know," said Miss Allardyce, ruefully, ignoring the reproof. "Good gracious, child, what areyoudoing here?"
"You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. "And nobody—not even Coppy—must go acwoss ve wiver,and I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, and now you've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and—I've bwoken my awwest! I've bwoken my awwest!"
The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved.
"Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? What for?"
"You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!" wailed Wee Willie Winkie, disconsolately. "I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and come back. You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I've bwoken my awwest."
"I can't move, Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, with a groan. "I've hurt my foot. What shall I do?"
She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears were the depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be permitted to break down.
"Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when you've rested a little, ride back and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts fearfully."
The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed her eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony's neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed toward the cantonments.
"Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?"
"Hush!" said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's a man coming—one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. Myfaver says a man mustalwayslook after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey'll come and look for us. Vat's why I let him go."
Not one man but two or three had appeared from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father's grooms lately dismissed. People who spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. They were only natives after all.
They came up to the boulders on which Miss Allardyce's horse had blundered.
Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically "Jao!" The pony had crossed the river-bed.
The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and why they did not depart. Other men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face with an audience some twenty strong. Miss Allardyce screamed.
"Who are you?" said one of the men.
"I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at once. You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must run into cantonments and take the news that Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel's son is here with her."
"Put our feet into the trap?" was the laughing reply. "Hear this boy's speech!"
"Say that I sent you—I, the Colonel's son. They will give you money."
"What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the girl, and we can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages on the heights," said a voice in the background.
Thesewerethe Bad Men—worse than Goblins—and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie's training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he felt that to cry before a native, excepting only his mother'sayah, would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he as future Colonel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his back.
"Are you going to carry us away?" said Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and uncomfortable.
"Yes, my littleSahib Bahadur," said the tallest of the men, "and eat you afterward."
"That is child's talk," said Wee Willie Winkie. "Men do not eat men."
A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly,—"And if you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in a day and kill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message to the Colonel Sahib?"
Speech in any vernacular—and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with three—was easy to the boy who could not yet manage his "r's" and "th's" aright.
Another man joined the conference, crying: "O foolish men! What this babe says is true. He is the heart's heart of those white troops. For the sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will breakloose and gut the valley.Ourvillages are in the valley, and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda Yar's breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains. Better to send a man back to take the message and get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him."
It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his "wegiment," his own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of his extremity.
The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the Color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars! There's something happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted.
"He couldn't fall off! S'elp me, 'ecouldn'tfall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's go over the river."
"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out to the river—sharp!"
So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed.
Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a look-out fired two shots.
"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning! Thepultonare out already and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with the boy!"
The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared.
"The wegiment is coming," said Wee Willie Winkie, confidently, to Miss Allardyce, "and it's all wight. Don't cwy!"
He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allardyce's lap.
And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and rejoicings; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the presence of the men.
But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made him proud of his son.
"She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. "Iknewshe didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent Jack home."
"You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy—"apukkahero!"
"I don't know what vat means," said Wee Willie Winkie, "but you mustn't call me Winkie any no more. I'm Percival Will'am Will'ams."
And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into his manhood.
Washington Irving, the son of a Scotch merchant, was born in New York, April 3, 1783. As his health was delicate his education was desultory, and at sixteen he began to study law but without much seriousness. He spent most of the time in reading, being in this way really self-educated. His health continuing a matter of concern, he took many excursions up the state to the woods, with much physical benefit. In many of the up-state towns he mingled in society to such a degree that he was in danger of becoming a mere society man. However, all the time he was doing some writing, a part of which appeared inThe Morning Chroniclewhen he was but nineteen.
In 1804, his health continuing poor, it was decided to send him to Europe. There he stayed nearly two years, visiting France, England, and Italy, being everywhere received by society and meeting the best people, as he was a remarkably agreeable young man. The trip completely restored his health.
On his return to America in 1806, he again plunged into society, giving, however, a hint of his future occupation inSalmagundi, a semi-monthly periodical of short duration, on the model ofThe Spectator, written in conjunction with two of his brothers in 1807-1808. In the meantime he had been admitted to the bar. In 1809 appeared "The Knickerbocker History of New York," a piece of humor and satire which made him famous. At this time occurred the death of his fiancée, a loss from which he never recovered. At the beginning of the War of 1812 he served for four months on the staff of the Governor of New York.
In 1815 he went again to Europe, this time on the business of his brothers' firm, to which he had been admitted, and he stayed there seventeen years. The firm failing in 1818, he turned to literature and began the publication in 1819 of "The Sketch-Book," a collection of sketches and narratives in the manner ofThe Spectator. This book definitely established him as an author, being received bothin America and in England with delight. Besides being successful financially it gave him an introduction to literary society. "Bracebridge Hall" and "The Tales of a Traveller" appeared soon after, in 1822 and 1824 respectively. Irving himself had been for years much of a traveller, both from inclination and from the demands of his health.
In 1826 Irving went to Spain to write his "Life and Voyages of Columbus," which appeared in 1828. This residence in Spain, which lasted till September, 1829, was a fruitful one, as Spanish subjects appealed to his imagination. Besides the "Columbus," he wrote "The Conquest of Granada," "The Companions of Columbus," and "The Alhambra." These books were financially profitable in addition to being literary successes. Throughout these years he enjoyed, as usual, the pleasures of charming society. His stay in Spain was terminated by his unexpected appointment as Secretary of Legation to the Court of St. James.
Returning to England, he was received with honors, the Royal Society of Literature awarding him in 1830 one of the two annual medals and the University of Oxford making him an honorary D.C.L. In 1831 he resigned and the next year returned to America.
America greeted him with enthusiasm. After an extended tour of the South and West he settled at Tarrytown, on the Hudson, a few miles north of New York, to enjoy the domestic life afforded by numerous relatives, and to do the writing which was more than ever necessary for the support of the relatives who had become dependent on him. At Sunnyside, as his place was named, he resolutely devoted himself to literary work, after declining several offers of public office. He was a regular contributor toThe Knickerbocker Magazineat an annual salary, and he wrote several volumes, not now much read, while working on more ambitious literary projects.
In 1842 he received the unexpected and unsolicited honor of appointment as Minister to Spain. For four years he continued in office, performing his duties with tact and discretion. In 1846 he returned finally to his home, where he devoted his last days to a long-contemplated "Life of Washington," a task almost beyond his powers. On the 28th of November, 1850, he died, honored as no American man of letters had ever been.
BiographyWarner: Washington Irving.Boynton: Washington Irving.CriticismHowells: My Literary Passions.Thackeray: Nil Nisi Bonum (Roundabout Papers).Richardson: American Literature.
This story appeared with four other papers in the first number of "The Sketch-Book," which was published in America in May, 1819, as the work of one Geoffrey Crayon.
Page1.Diedrich Knickerbocker: the supposed author of "The Knickerbocker History of New York." All this prefatory matter is merely to carry out the pretence, as do the Note and Postscript at the end.
2.Peter Stuyvesant: last Dutch governor of New York, born in Holland in 1592, died in New York in 1672. A man of short temper and with a wooden leg from the knee.Fort Christina: built by the Swedes on the Delaware River near the present city of Wilmington. There was no fighting.
15.Federal or Democrat: the two political parties after the close of the Revolutionary War.tory: name applied to all followers of the king during the war.
16.Stony Point: this promontory on the west bank of the Hudson was captured by the British, and later recaptured by the Americans under General Anthony Wayne.Antony's Nose: a bold cliff, in the shape of a nose, on the east bank of the river. The name is now usually spelled with anh.
18.Hendrick Hudson: really Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India Company. He was on a voyage to discover a north-east passage, when he explored the river which bears his name. TheHalf Moonwas the name of his boat.
Edgar Allan Poe, the child of poor travelling actors, was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. Left an orphan in his third year, he was taken into the family of Mr. John Allan of Richmond, who gave him his name. Soon he became a great pet of his foster-parents, who rather spoiled him. In 1815 the Allans went to England, where the boy was in school at Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, till June, 1820, when the family returned to Richmond. His education was continued in private schools and by the aid of tutors till he entered the University of Virginia, February 14, 1826. At the University he developed a passion for drink and gambling, which led Mr. Allan to place him in his own counting-room at the end of the session in December, though he had done extremely well in some of his studies. Not liking the irksomeness of this occupation, Poe left to make his own way.
He first went to Boston, where he succeeded in having some of his verses published. His resources failing, he enlisted in the United States Army, being assigned to the artillery and serving in different stations, among them Fort Moultrie at Charleston, South Carolina. His conduct being excellent, he was appointed Sergeant-major in 1829. Shortly afterward he was reconciled to Mr. Allan, who secured him an appointment to West Point. At the Academy he neglected his duty, was court-martialled, and was dismissed March 7, 1831.
Poe now settled in Baltimore, where he devoted himself to writing, winning a prize of one hundred dollars for his tale, "A MS. Found in a Bottle." He lived with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, to whose daughter he became engaged and whom he married in 1836 in Richmond, where he had gone to become an assistant onThe Southern Literary Messenger.
His habits and unfortunate disposition made it impossible for him to remain long in one position. After some drifting, he settled in Philadelphia in 1838, where he did hack work until he became associate editor ofBurton's Gentleman's Magazine and American Monthly Reviewin July, 1839. In 1840 appeared a volume of histales which attracted favorable notice. In 1841 he became editor ofGraham's Magazine, but in this year, too, his wife became a hopeless invalid. Anxiety about her had doubtless much to do with the subsequent condition of Poe's mind. In the next year again he lost his position. At this time he fell into wretched poverty. Then, as always, his aunt gave him the devotion of a mother. The fortunate gaining of another hundred-dollar prize, this time for "The Gold Bug," helped along together with some work onGraham'sin a minor capacity.
New York was his next location, where he was onThe Evening Mirror. In 1845 his "Raven" was published and at once sprang into phenomenal favor. Lecturing, magazine work, and the editing ofThe Broadway Journaloccupied the next year. In 1846 he moved to Fordham. There ill-health and poverty so oppressed him that money had to be raised to take care of the family. In 1847 Mrs. Poe died. From this time till his own death, October 7, 1849, his mind, long clouded and affected by his habits, became hopelessly diseased.
Poe was a genius of great analytical power and imagination, but unstable and morbid. His ability has always received great recognition in Europe, particularly in France, where a translation of his tales appeared in his lifetime.
BiographyWoodberry: Edgar Allan Poe.Harrison: The Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe.CriticismStedman: Poets of America.Gates: Studies and Appreciations.Brownell: American Prose Masters.
This story, which is classed in the group entitled "Stories of Ratiocination" (see Introduction), was first published inThe Dollar Newspaperof Philadelphia in June, 1843, winning a prize of one hundred dollars.
Page23.Tarantula: the bite of this spider was once supposed to cause a form of madness which made the victim dance. Compare the musical term "tarantelle."Huguenot: French Protestant. Many fled to South Carolina from persecutions in France.Sullivan's Island: Poe has been criticised for his inaccuracies concerning this island. He should have known it well, as he was stationed at Fort Moultrie in 1828 when a private in the United States Artillery.
24.Swammerdamm: Jan Swammerdam—one finalmaccording to the Century Dictionary—(1637-1680). A distinguished Dutch naturalist.
27.scarabæus caput hominis: (Latin)a man's head beetle. There is no such species known.
29.syphon: Negro dialect for ciphering, a colloquial word for "reckoning in figures." Poe hardly seems successful in representing the sounds of the speech of Negroes. Not much attention had been paid to the subject in literature at that time. To-day, since the work of Joel Chandler Harris in "Uncle Remus" and of Thomas Nelson Page in "In Ole Virginia," we rather look down on these early crude attempts.noovers: Negro dialect for manœuvres in the sense of movements.
32.empressement: (French)eagerness.
44.curvets and caracoles: the prancing and turning of a horse.
45.violent howlings of the dog: it is popularly supposed that a dog, through its extraordinary sense of smell, can indicate the presence of parts of a human body, though buried.
48.counter: obsolete term for pieces of money.
49.solution of this most extraordinary riddle: this story exemplifies Poe's power in such work. He specialized on it in magazines.
52.long boat: "The largest and strongest boat belonging to a sailing ship."—Century Dictionary.
54.aqua regia: (Latin)royal water. A chemical compound so called from its power of dissolving gold.regulus of cobalt: early chemical term referring to the metallic mass of an ore.
55.Captain Kidd: William Kidd, about whose early life nothing is positively known, was commissioned by the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1695 to put down piracy. With a good ship under him, however, he himself turned pirate. On his return hewas arrested, sent to England, tried, and executed in London in 1701. Some of his buried treasure was recovered by the colonial authorities in 1699.
58.Golconda: a place near Hyderabad, India, noted for its diamonds.cryptographs: from two Greek words meaninghiddenandwrite. The commoner term is "cryptogram."
59.Spanish main: the ocean near the coast of South America and the adjacent parts of the Caribbean Sea over which the Spaniards exercised power.
67.insignium: (Latin)a sign.
This detective story was published in "The Gift" for 1845.
Page69.Nil sapientiæ, etc.: (Latin)Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than too great acuteness.C. Auguste Dupin: clever amateur who solves the mysteries which baffle the police. Most writers of detective stories follow this example set by Poe.au troisième: (French)on the third floor.Faubourg: (French) section of a city.Saint Germain: a section of Paris on the south bank of the Seine, once the abode of the French nobility.affair of the Rue Morgue: a reference to the detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."the murder of Marie Rogêt: a reference to another detective story, "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt." The writer is playing the same part as does Dr. Watson in the various Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle.Prefect: (French)chief.
71.cant of diplomacy: set phrases used in intercourse between representatives of governments by which they hint at their meaning.
73.hôtel: (French)residence.au fait: (French)expert.
76.microscope: since Poe's time the microscope is, in stories, almost an invariable part of a detective's outfit.
79.Abernethy: John Abernethy (1764-1831). A celebrated London physician.
80.escritoire: "A piece of furniture with conveniences for writing, as an opening top or falling front panel, places for inkstand, pens, and stationery, etc."—Century Dictionary.Procrustean bed: In Greek mythology, Procrustes (derivatively "the stretcher") wasa giant who tied those whom he caught on a bed, making them fit by stretching them out if too short, and by cutting off their limbs if too long.
82.Rochefoucauld: François La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680). A French moralist known for his "Maxims" published in 1665.La Bougive: In the edition of Poe's works prepared by Edmund Clarence Stedman and Professor George Edward Woodberry, this name is given as La Bruyère. Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) was a French moralist.Machiavelli: Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). A celebrated statesman and writer of Florence, Italy, whose book "The Prince" is based on unscrupulous principles.Campanella: Tomaso Campanella (1568-1639). An Italian writer.
83.recherché: (French)far-fetched.policial: a rare word, meaning "pertaining to the police."
84.non distributio medii: (Latin)a non-distribution of the middle, or the undistributed middle. This is a mistake in reasoning. When the Prefect reasons that all fools are poets, therefore all poets are fools, he has no middle term at all; that is, no class of which poets and fools are both members. Correct reasoning is represented by this: all men are mortal; John is a man; therefore John is mortal. Between mortal and John, two terms, there is a middle term, men, of which both are members.Differential Calculus: a higher form of mathematics.par excellence: (French)above all.Il y a, etc.: (French).The odds are that every public idea, every accepted convention, is a foolish trick, for it is suitable for the greatest number.Chamfort: Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794). A French writer of maxims.ambitus: (Latin)a going around. Poe means by this example and by those that follow that mere similarity of two words does not make them of the same meaning.
85.Bryant: Jacob Bryant (1715-1804). An English writer on mythology.
86.intrigant: (French)intriger.
87.vis inertiæ: (Latin)the force of inertia, the same asinertia, a term of physics which denotes the tendency of a body to remain at rest or in motion.
88.ministerial hôtel: house of the minister or cabinet officer.
92.facilis descensus Averni: a misquotation from Vergil's "Aeneid," Book VI, line 126. It should be "facilis descensusAverno,"easy is the descent to Avernus.Catalani: Angelica Catalani (1779-1849). An Italian singer.monstrum horrendum: (Latin)a horrible monster, the epithet applied to the one-eyed giant, Polyphemus, in Vergil's "Aeneid," Book III, line 658.Un dessein, etc.: (French).A design so fatal, if it is not worthy of Atrée, it is worthy of Thyeste.Crébillon's "Atrée": Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762). A French tragic poet. His play, "Atrée et Thyeste," bears the date 1707.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, or Hathorne, as it was spelled before he changed it, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. His family, settled in New England since 1630, had played its part in the activities of the land in various capacities, including the persecution of so-called witches. His father, a sea-captain, died on a voyage when the lad was four years old. The excessive mourning then in vogue made the widow practically seclude herself in her room, throwing a consequent gloom over the household and affecting the boy's spirits. From this depressing atmosphere he found relief in an early developed taste for reading. In 1818 the family moved to a lonely part of Maine, where in roaming the lonely woods he gained a liking for solitude as well as for nature. He returned to Salem in 1819 to prepare for Bowdoin College, which he entered in 1821. After an undistinguished course he went back to his native town, whither his mother had also returned.
In Salem he remained for twelve years, a recluse in a family of recluses, devoting himself to reading and writing. In 1828 his first book, "Fanshawe," was published at his own expense. Its failure caused him to destroy all the copies he could find. Some of the stories which he wrote during this period were published in the annuals, then fashionable, and inThe New England Magazine, but without making much impression.
This hermit-like existence was healthily broken in 1836 by his becoming the editor of an obscure magazine, though it was hack work and lasted but a short time. The anonymity to which he had stubbornly clung was also dispelled by one friend, and the publication of his "Twice-Told Tales" was arranged for by another, his classmate, Horatio Bridge. These two facts made him known and mark the beginning of the disappearance of his solitary depression, which was ended by his engagement to Sophia Peabody.
In January, 1839, he became a weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, a position which he lost in April, 1841, owing to a change in the political administration. Then for a few months he was a member of the Brook Farm Community, a group of reformers whotried to combine agriculture and education. In the Custom House and at Brook Farm he worked so hard as to have little energy for literature, publishing only some children's books. On July 9, 1842, occurred his marriage.
For the next three years Hawthorne resided in Concord at the Old Manse. In this retired town, where such eminent people as Emerson and Thoreau were to be met, he lived a very happy, quiet life, given to musing and observation. But he had lost a considerable sum of money in the Brook Farm experiment, the failure ofThe Democratic Reviewprevented payment for his contributions, and he began to feel the pinch of poverty. At this juncture his college mates, Bridge and Pierce, came to the rescue, and on March 23, 1846, he was appointed surveyor of the port of Salem, that spot in which the Hawthorne family was so firmly rooted, whither he had previously returned with his wife and daughter, Una, born in Concord in 1844.
Though happy for a short time at getting into the stir of actual life, the routine and sordidness soon palled and he began to fret in the harness. This mood kept him from composition till he forced from himself, in 1848, the last of his short stories, including "The Great Stone Face" and "Ethan Brand." Despite the effort, the stories rank well. In 1849 he was dismissed from office by a change of political administration, not because of inefficiency. He took this dismissal hard because some of his townspeople had been opposed to him. Again he was in money difficulties from which he was released by a donation from his loyal friends. The leisure thus made possible was devoted to the production of his greatest work, a novel, "The Scarlet Letter," which is a study in the darker side of Puritanism. Its publication in April, 1850, brought him fame. In the same year he moved to the Berkshire Hills.
The year and a half in the hills was thoroughly happy. He had the incentive of success, the tranquillity of mind due to sufficient means, physical comfort, and a loving household now enlarged by the birth of a second daughter, Rose. During this time he wrote and published (1851) his novel, "The House of the Seven Gables," the study of an inherited curse, made pleasing as a story by means of its realistic portrayal of ordinary life. He also put many of the stories of classical mythology into a form understandable by children, publishing the results in "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" (1852) and "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys" (1853). In 1852 appeared "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales," containing hitherto uncollected contributions to various magazines.
Believing the Berkshire air rather enervating, Hawthorne moved in November, 1851, to a temporary residence in West Newton, where he wrote "The Blithedale Romance," which was published in 1852. This novel, founded on his Brook Farm experience, is a study of the failure of the typical reformer. In June, 1852, the family moved to a place of their own, called "The Wayside" in Concord. Here the ideal family life continued. In the summer he brought out "The Life of Franklin Pierce," the biography of his old college mate, who was shortly after elected to the presidency of the United States, and made Hawthorne United States Consul at Liverpool in 1853.
The holding of office was never a congenial occupation to Hawthorne, though he was a good official. It always became irksome and dried up his creative power. The consulship was no exception, and when he resigned in 1857 he felt much relief. By this time he had obtained a competence which afforded him the gratification of paying back the money once raised for him by his friends. When in England he had seen much of the country; now he determined to see more of Europe. The family travelled through France to Italy, which they greatly enjoyed, staying there till 1859. For some months they had occupied the old villa of Montauto, where Hawthorne composed most of "The Marble Faun." The illness of Una compelling them to seek a different climate, they returned to England, where he finished the book, which was published the next year. "The Marble Faun" is "an analytical study of evil"; but despite the subject, the artistic effects and the interpretation of Italy lend it charm.
In 1860 the family returned to Concord. Hawthorne's health had been failing for some time, and now he became incapable of sustained work. However, in 1863 was published "Our Old Home," the theme of which is well expressed by the sub-title "A Series of English Sketches," which had been composed previously. He continued to do some work, and even promised a new novel to thepress, but he came to realize that he would never finish it. In 1864 he went on a carriage trip with his old friend Pierce, during which he peacefully died in his sleep.
BiographyWoodberry: Nathaniel Hawthorne.James: Nathaniel Hawthorne.CriticismHutton: Literary Essays.Stephen: Hours in a Library.
This story was first published inThe Democratic Reviewfor May, 1838, and was republished in 1842 in an enlarged edition of "Twice-Told Tales." It exemplifies the work in which Hawthorne was the pioneer—that of building a story about a situation. The idea of this particular one is found in the following entry in "American Note-Books": "A phantom of the old royal governors, or some such showy shadowy pageant, on the night of the evacuation of Boston by the British." Hawthorne was accustomed to jot down in his note-books hints for stories which often can be traced in his developed writings.
In "Howe's Masquerade" can be clearly seen the fact that he had not mastered the method of writing the short-story as we have it to-day. There is too much introduction and too much conclusion. He takes too long to get the story into motion, and he spoils the effect by tacking to the end a moral. These mistakes or crudities Poe did not make; however, each writer contributed to the development of the short-story some element of value, as has been pointed out in the Introduction.
This story is one of "The Legends of the Province House," stories joined together by the scheme of having an old inhabitant tell them to some visitor. Such machinery with its prologues and end-links, more or less elaborate, has been often used, as is seen in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and in Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn." The taste for this method has largely passed,though it has been recently revived by Alfred Noyes in "The Tales of the Mermaid Tavern."