II.
_May 5th, Wednesday_.--The father of these two sons, an aged man at the
time, took much to heart their enmity; and after the catastrophe, he
never held up his head again. He was not told that his son had perished,
though such was the belief of the family; but imbibed the opinion that he
had left his home and native land to become a wanderer on the face of the
earth, and that some time or other he might return. In this idea he spent
the remainder of his days; in this idea he died. It may be that the
influence of this idea might be traced in the way in which he spent some
of the latter years of his life, and a portion of the wealth which had
become of little value in his eyes, since it had caused dissension and
bloodshed between the sons of one household. It was a common mode of
charity in those days--a common thing for rich men to do--to found an
almshouse or a hospital, and endow it, for the support of a certain
number of old and destitute men or women, generally such as had some
claim of blood upon the founder, or at least were natives of the parish,
the district, the county, where he dwelt. The Eldredge Hospital was
founded for the benefit of twelve old men, who should have been wanderers
upon the face of the earth; men, they should be, of some education, but
defeated and hopeless, cast off by the world for misfortune, but not for
crime. And this charity had subsisted, on terms varying little or nothing
from the original ones, from that day to this; and, at this very time,
twelve old men were not wanting, of various countries, of various
fortunes, but all ending finally in ruin, who had centred here, to live
on the poor pittance that had been assigned to them, three hundred years
ago. What a series of chronicles it would have been if each of the
beneficiaries of this charity, since its foundation, had left a record of
the events which finally led him hither. Middleton often, as he talked
with these old men, regretted that he himself had no turn for authorship,
so rich a volume might he have compiled from the experience, sometimes
sunny and triumphant, though always ending in shadow, which he gathered
here. They were glad to talk to him, and would have been glad and
grateful for any auditor, as they sat on one or another of the stone
benches, in the sunshine of the garden; or at evening, around the great
fireside, or within the chimney-corner, with their pipes and ale.
There was one old man who attracted much of his attention, by the
venerableness of his aspect; by something dignified, almost haughty and
commanding, in his air. Whatever might have been the intentions and
expectations of the founder, it certainly had happened in these latter
days that there was a difficulty in finding persons of education, of good
manners, of evident respectability, to put into the places made vacant by
deaths of members; whether that the paths of life are surer now than they
used to be, and that men so arrange their lives as not to be left, in any
event, quite without resources as they draw near its close; at any rate,
there was a little tincture of the vagabond running through these twelve
quasi gentlemen,--through several of them, at least. But this old man
could not well be mistaken; in his manners, in his tones, in all his
natural language and deportment, there was evidence that he had been more
than respectable; and, viewing him, Middleton could not help wondering
what statesman had suddenly vanished out of public life and taken refuge
here, for his head was of the statesman-class, and his demeanor that of
one who had exercised influence over large numbers of men. He sometimes
endeavored to set on foot a familiar relation with this old man, but
there was even a sternness in the manner in which he repelled these
advances, that gave little encouragement for their renewal. Nor did it
seem that his companions of the Hospital were more in his confidence than
Middleton himself. They regarded him with a kind of awe, a shyness, and
in most cases with a certain dislike, which denoted an imperfect
understanding of him. To say the truth, there was not generally much love
lost between any of the members of this family; they had met with too
much disappointment in the world to take kindly, now, to one another or
to anything or anybody. I rather suspect that they really had more
pleasure in burying one another, when the time came, than in any other
office of mutual kindness and brotherly love which it was their part to
do; not out of hardness of heart, but merely from soured temper, and
because, when people have met disappointment and have settled down into
final unhappiness, with no more gush and spring of good spirits, there is
nothing any more to create amiability out of.
So the old people were unamiable and cross to one another, and unamiable
and cross to old Hammond, yet always with a certain respect; and the
result seemed to be such as treated the old man well enough. And thus he
moved about among them, a mystery; the histories of the others, in the
general outline, were well enough known, and perhaps not very uncommon;
this old man's history was known to none, except, of course, to the
trustees of the charity, and to the Master of the Hospital, to whom it
had necessarily been revealed, before the beneficiary could be admitted
as an inmate. It was judged, by the deportment of the Master, that the
old man had once held some eminent position in society; for, though bound
to treat them all as gentlemen, he was thought to show an especial and
solemn courtesy to Hammond.
Yet by the attraction which two strong and cultivated minds inevitably
have for one another, there did spring up an acquaintanceship, an
intercourse, between Middleton and this old man, which was followed up in
many a conversation which they held together on all subjects that were
supplied by the news of the day, or the history of the past. Middleton
used to make the newspaper the opening for much discussion; and it seemed
to him that the talk of his companion had much of the character of that
of a retired statesman, on matters which, perhaps, he would look at all
the more wisely, because it was impossible he could ever more have a
personal agency in them. Their discussions sometimes turned upon the
affairs of his own country, and its relations with the rest of the world,
especially with England; and Middleton could not help being struck with
the accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which so
few Englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of the
American character,--shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree of
justice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of what
was likely to happen,--prophecies which, in one instance, were singularly
verified, in regard to a complexity which was then arresting the
attention of both countries.
"You must have been in the United States," said he, one day.
"Certainly; my remarks imply personal knowledge," was the reply. "But it
was before the days of steam."
"And not, I should imagine, for a brief visit," said Middleton. "I only
wish the administration of this government had the benefit to-day of your
knowledge of my countrymen. It might be better for both of these kindred
nations."
"Not a whit," said the old man. "England will never understand America;
for England never does understand a foreign country; and whatever you may
say about kindred, America is as much a foreign country as France itself.
These two hundred years of a different climate and circumstances--of life
on a broad continent instead of in an island, to say nothing of the
endless intermixture of nationalities in every part of the United States,
except New England--have created a new and decidedly original type of
national character. It is as well for both parties that they should not
aim at any very intimate connection. It will never do."
"I should be sorry to think so," said Middleton; "they are at all events
two noble breeds of men, and ought to appreciate one another. And America
has the breadth of idea to do this for England, whether reciprocated or
not."
_Thursday, May 6th._--Thus Middleton was established in a singular way
among these old men, in one of the surroundings most unlike anything in
his own country. So old it was that it seemed to him the freshest and
newest thing that he had ever met with. The residence was made infinitely
the more interesting to him by the sense that he was near the place--as
all the indications warned him--which he sought, whither his dreams had
tended from his childhood; that he could wander each day round the park
within which were the old gables of what he believed was his hereditary
home. He had never known anything like the dreamy enjoyment of these
days; so quiet, such a contrast to the turbulent life from which he had
escaped across the sea. And here he set himself, still with that sense of
shadowiness in what he saw and in what he did, in making all the
researches possible to him, about the neighborhood; visiting every little
church that raised its square battlemented Norman tower of gray stone,
for several miles round about; making himself acquainted with each little
village and hamlet that surrounded these churches, clustering about the
graves of those who had dwelt in the same cottages aforetime. He visited
all the towns within a dozen miles; and probably there were few of the
inhabitants who had so good an acquaintance with the neighborhood as this
native American attained within a few weeks after his coming thither.
In course of these excursions he had several times met with a young
woman,--a young lady, one might term her, but in fact he was in some
doubt what rank she might hold, in England,--who happened to be wandering
about the country with a singular freedom. She was always alone, always
on foot; he would see her sketching some picturesque old church, some
ivied ruin, some fine drooping elm. She was a slight figure, much more so
than English women generally are; and, though healthy of aspect, had not
the ruddy complexion, which he was irreverently inclined to call the
coarse tint, that is believed the great charm of English beauty. There
was a freedom in her step and whole little womanhood, an elasticity, an
irregularity, so to speak, that made her memorable from first sight; and
when he had encountered her three or four times, he felt in a certain way
acquainted with her. She was very simply dressed, and quite as simple in
her deportment; there had been one or two occasions, when they had both
smiled at the same thing; soon afterwards a little conversation had taken
place between them; and thus, without any introduction, and in a way that
somewhat puzzled Middleton himself, they had become acquainted. It was so
unusual that a young English girl should be wandering about the country
entirely alone--so much less usual that she should speak to a
stranger--that Middleton scarcely knew how to account for it, but
meanwhile accepted the fact readily and willingly, for in truth he found
this mysterious personage a very likely and entertaining companion. There
was a strange quality of boldness in her remarks, almost of brusqueness,
that he might have expected to find in a young countrywoman of his own,
if bred up among the strong-minded, but was astonished to find in a young
Englishwoman. Somehow or other she made him think more of home than any
other person or thing he met with; and he could not but feel that she was
in strange contrast with everything about her. She was no beauty; very
piquant; very pleasing; in some points of view and at some moments
pretty; always good-humored, but somewhat too self-possessed for
Middleton's taste. It struck him that she had talked with him as if she
had some knowledge of him and of the purposes with which he was there;
not that this was expressed, but only implied by the fact that, on
looking back to what had passed, he found many strange coincidences in
what she had said with what he was thinking about.
He perplexed himself much with thinking whence this young woman had come,
where she belonged, and what might be her history; when, the next day, he
again saw her, not this time rambling on foot, but seated in an open
barouche with a young lady. Middleton lifted his hat to her, and she
nodded and smiled to him; and it appeared to Middleton that a
conversation ensued about him with the young lady, her companion. Now,
what still more interested him was the fact that, on the panel of the
barouche were the arms of the family now in possession of the estate of
Smithell's; so that the young lady, his new acquaintance, or the young
lady, her seeming friend, one or the other, was the sister of the present
owner of that estate. He was inclined to think that his acquaintance
could not be the Miss Eldredge, of whose beauty he had heard many tales
among the people of the neighborhood. The other young lady, a tall,
reserved, fair-haired maiden, answered the description considerably
better. He concluded, therefore, that his acquaintance must be a visitor,
perhaps a dependent and companion; though the freedom of her thought,
action, and way of life seemed hardly consistent with this idea. However,
this slight incident served to give him a sort of connection with the
family, and he could but hope that some further chance would introduce
him within what he fondly called his hereditary walls. He had come to
think of this as a dreamland; and it seemed even more a dreamland now
than before it rendered itself into actual substance, an old house of
stone and timber standing within its park, shaded about with its
ancestral trees.
But thus, at all events, he was getting himself a little wrought into the
net-work of human life around him, secluded as his position had at first
seemed to be, in the farmhouse where he had taken up his lodgings. For,
there was the Hospital and its old inhabitants, in whose monotonous
existence he soon came to pass for something, with his liveliness of
mind, his experience, his good sense, his patience as a listener, his
comparative youth even--his power of adapting himself to these stiff and
crusty characters, a power learned among other things in his political
life, where he had acquired something of the faculty (good or bad as
might be) of making himself all things to all men. But though he amused
himself with them all, there was in truth but one man among them in whom
he really felt much interest; and that one, we need hardly say, was
Hammond. It was not often that he found the old gentleman in a
conversible mood; always courteous, indeed, but generally cool and
reserved; often engaged in his one room, to which Middleton had never yet
been admitted, though he had more than once sent in his name, when
Hammond was not apparent upon the bench which, by common consent of the
Hospital, was appropriated to him.
One day, however, notwithstanding that the old gentleman was confined to
his room by indisposition, he ventured to inquire at the door, and,
considerably to his surprise, was admitted. He found Hammond in his
easy-chair, at a table, with writing-materials before him; and as
Middleton entered, the old gentleman looked at him with a stern, fixed
regard, which, however, did not seem to imply any particular displeasure
towards this visitor, but rather a severe way of regarding mankind in
general. Middleton looked curiously around the small apartment, to see
what modification the character of the man had had upon the customary
furniture of the Hospital, and how much of individuality he had given to
that general type. There was a shelf of books, and a row of them on the
mantel-piece; works of political economy, they appeared to be, statistics
and things of that sort; very dry reading, with which, however,
Middleton's experience as a politician had made him acquainted. Besides
these there were a few works on local antiquities, a county-history
borrowed from the Master's library, in which Hammond appeared to have
been lately reading.
"They are delightful reading," observed Middleton, "these old
county-histories, with their great folio volumes and their minute account
of the affairs of families and the genealogies, and descents of estates,
bestowing as much blessed space on a few hundred acres as other
historians give to a principality. I fear that in my own country we shall
never have anything of this kind. Our space is so vast that we shall
never come to know and love it, inch by inch, as the English antiquarians
do the tracts of country with which they deal; and besides, our land is
always likely to lack the interest that belongs to English estates; for
where land changes its ownership every few years, it does not become
imbued with the personalities of the people who live on it. It is but so
much grass; so much dirt, where a succession of people have dwelt too
little to make it really their own. But I have found a pleasure that I
had no conception of before, in reading some of the English local
histories."
"It is not a usual course of reading for a transitory visitor," said
Hammond. "What could induce you to undertake it?"
"Simply the wish, so common and natural with Americans," said
Middleton--"the wish to find out something about my kindred--the local
origin of my own family."
"You do not show your wisdom in this," said his visitor. "America had
better recognize the fact that it has nothing to do with England, and
look upon itself as other nations and people do, as existing on its own
hook. I never heard of any people looking hack to the country of their
remote origin in the way the Anglo-Americans do. For instance, England is
made up of many alien races, German, Danish. Norman, and what not: it has
received large accessions of population at a later date than the
settlement of the United States. Yet these families melt into the great
homogeneous mass of Englishmen, and look hack no more to any other
country. There are in this vicinity many descendants of the French
Huguenots; but they care no more for France than for Timbuctoo, reckoning
themselves only Englishmen, as if they were descendants of the aboriginal
Britons. Let it he so with you."
"So it might be," replied Middleton, "only that our relations with
England remain far more numerous than our disconnections, through the
bonds of history, of literature, of all that makes up the memories, and
much that makes up the present interests of a people. And therefore I
must still continue to pore over these old folios, and hunt around these
precincts, spending thus the little idle time I am likely to have in a
busy life. Possibly finding little to my purpose; but that is quite a
secondary consideration."
"If you choose to tell me precisely what your aims are," said Hammond,
"it is possible I might give you some little assistance."
_May 7th, Friday_.--Middleton was in fact more than half ashamed of the
dreams which he had cherished before coming to England, and which since,
at times, had been very potent with him, assuming as strong a tinge of
reality as those [scenes?] into which he had strayed. He could not
prevail with himself to disclose fully to this severe, and, as he
thought, cynical old man how strong within him was the sentiment that
impelled him to connect himself with the old life of England, to join on
the broken thread of ancestry and descent, and feel every link well
established. But it seemed to him that he ought not to lose this fair
opportunity of gaining some light on the abstruse field of his
researches; and he therefore explained to Hammond that he had reason,
from old family traditions, to believe that he brought with him a
fragment of a history that, if followed out, might lead to curious
results. He told him, in a tone half serious, what he had heard
respecting the quarrel of the two brothers, and the Bloody Footstep, the
impress of which was said to remain, as a lasting memorial of the tragic
termination of that enmity. At this point, Hammond interrupted him. He
had indeed, at various points of the narrative, nodded and smiled
mysteriously, as if looking into his mind and seeing something there
analogous to what he was listening to. He now spoke.
"This is curious," said he. "Did you know that there is a manor-house in
this neighborhood, the family of which prides itself on having such a
blood-stained threshold as you have now described?"
"No, indeed!" exclaimed Middleton, greatly interested. "Where?"
"It is the old manor-house of Smithell's," replied Hammond, "one of those
old wood and timber [plaster?] mansions, which are among the most ancient
specimens of domestic architecture in England. The house has now passed
into the female line, and by marriage has been for two or three
generations in possession of another family. But the blood of the old
inheritors is still in the family. The house itself, or portions of it,
are thought to date back quite as far as the Conquest."
"Smithell's?" said Middleton. "Why, I have seen that old house from a
distance, and have felt no little interest in its antique aspect. And it
has a Bloody Footstep! Would it be possible for a stranger to get an
opportunity to inspect it?"
"Unquestionably," said Hammond; "nothing easier. It is but a moderate
distance from here, and if you can moderate your young footsteps, and
your American quick walk, to an old man's pace, I would go there with you
some day. In this languor and ennui of my life, I spend some time in
local antiquarianism, and perhaps I might assist you in tracing out how
far these traditions of yours may have any connection with reality. It
would be curious, would it not, if you had come, after two hundred years,
to piece out a story which may have been as much a mystery in England as
there in America?"
An engagement was made for a walk to Smithell's the ensuing day; and
meanwhile Middleton entered more fully into what he had received from
family traditions and what he had thought out for himself on the matter
in question.
"Are you aware," asked Hammond, "that there was formerly a title in this
family, now in abeyance, and which the heirs have at various times
claimed, and are at this moment claiming? Do you know, too,--but you can
scarcely know it,--that it has been surmised by some that there is an
insecurity in the title to the estate, and has always been; so that the
possessors have lived in some apprehension, from time immemorial, that
another heir would appear and take from them the fair inheritance? It is
a singular coincidence."
"Very strange," exclaimed Middleton. "No; I was not aware of it; and, to
say the truth, I should not altogether like to come forward in the light
of a claimant. But this is a dream, surely!"
"I assure you, sir," continued the old man, "that you come here in a very
critical moment; and singularly enough there is a perplexity, a
difficulty, that has endured for as long a time as when your ancestors
emigrated, that is still rampant within the bowels, as I may say, of the
family. Of course, it is too like a romance that you should be able to
establish any such claim as would have a valid influence on this matter;
but still, being here on the spot, it may be worth while, if merely as a
matter of amusement, to make some researches into this matter."
"Surely I will," said Middleton, with a smile, which concealed more
earnestness than he liked to show; "as to the title, a Republican cannot
be supposed to think twice about such a bagatelle. The estate!--that
might be a more serious consideration."
They continued to talk on the subject; and Middleton learned that the
present possessor of the estates was a gentleman nowise distinguished
from hundreds of other English gentlemen; a country squire modified in
accordance with the type of to-day, a frank, free, friendly sort of a
person enough, who had travelled on the Continent, who employed himself
much in field-sports, who was unmarried, and had a sister who was
reckoned among the beauties of the county.
While the conversation was thus going on, to Middleton's astonishment
there came a knock at the door of the room, and, without waiting for a
response, it was opened, and there appeared at it the same young woman
whom he had already met. She came in with perfect freedom and
familiarity, and was received quietly by the old gentleman; who, however,
by his manner towards Middleton, indicated that he was now to take his
leave. He did so, after settling the hour at which the excursion of the
next day was to take place. This arranged, he departed, with much to
think of, and a light glimmering through the confused labyrinth of
thoughts which had been unilluminated hitherto.
To say the truth, he questioned within himself whether it were not better
to get as quickly as he could out of the vicinity; and, at any rate, not
to put anything of earnest in what had hitherto been nothing more than a
romance to him. There was something very dark and sinister in the events
of family history, which now assumed a reality that they had never before
worn; so much tragedy, so much hatred, had been thrown into that deep
pit, and buried under the accumulated debris, the fallen leaves, the rust
and dust of more than two centuries, that it seemed not worth while to
dig it up; for perhaps the deadly influences, which it had taken so much
time to hide, might still be lurking there, and become potent if he now
uncovered them. There was something that startled him, in the strange,
wild light, which gleamed from the old man's eyes, as he threw out the
suggestions which had opened this prospect to him. What right had he--an
American, Republican, disconnected with this country so long, alien from
its habits of thought and life, reverencing none of the things which
Englishmen reverenced--what right had he to come with these musty claims
from the dim past, to disturb them in the life that belonged to them?
There was a higher and a deeper law than any connected with ancestral
claims which he could assert; and he had an idea that the law bade him
keep to the country which his ancestor had chosen and to its
institutions, and not meddle nor make with England. The roots of his
family tree could not reach under the ocean; he was at most but a
seedling from the parent tree. While thus meditating he found that his
footsteps had brought him unawares within sight of the old manor-house of
Smithell's; and that he was wandering in a path which, if he followed it
further, would bring him to an entrance in one of the wings of the
mansion. With a sort of shame upon him, he went forward, and, leaning
against a tree, looked at what he considered the home of his ancestors.
_May 9th, Sunday_.--At the time appointed, the two companions set out on
their little expedition, the old man in his Hospital uniform, the long
black mantle, with the bear and ragged staff engraved in silver on the
breast, and Middleton in the plain costume which he had adopted in these
wanderings about the country. On their way, Hammond was not very
communicative, occasionally dropping some shrewd remark with a good deal
of acidity in it; now and then, too, favoring his companion with some
reminiscence of local antiquity; but oftenest silent. Thus they went on,
and entered the park of Pemberton Manor by a by-path, over a stile and
one of those footways, which are always so well worth threading out in
England, leading the pedestrian into picturesque and characteristic
scenes, when the highroad would show him nothing except what was
commonplace and uninteresting. Now the gables of the old manor-house
appeared before them, rising amidst the hereditary woods, which doubtless
dated from a time beyond the days which Middleton fondly recalled, when
his ancestors had walked beneath their shade. On each side of them were
thickets and copses of fern, amidst which they saw the hares peeping out
to gaze upon them, occasionally running across the path, and comporting
themselves like creatures that felt themselves under some sort of
protection from the outrages of man, though they knew too much of his
destructive character to trust him too far. Pheasants, too, rose close
beside them, and winged but a little way before they alighted; they
likewise knew, or seemed to know, that their hour was not yet come. On
all sides in these woods, these wastes, these beasts and birds, there was
a character that was neither wild nor tame. Man had laid his grasp on
them all, and done enough to redeem them from barbarism, but had stopped
short of domesticating them; although Nature, in the wildest thing there,
acknowledged the powerful and pervading influence of cultivation.
Arriving at a side door of the mansion, Hammond rang the bell, and a
servant soon appeared. He seemed to know the old man, and immediately
acceded to his request to be permitted to show his companion the house;
although it was not precisely a show-house, nor was this the hour when
strangers were usually admitted. They entered; and the servant did not
give himself the trouble to act as a cicerone to the two visitants, but
carelessly said to the old gentleman that he knew the rooms, and that he
would leave him to discourse to his friend about them. Accordingly, they
went into the old hall, a dark oaken-panelled room, of no great height,
with many doors opening into it. There was a fire burning on the hearth;
indeed, it was the custom of the house to keep it up from morning to
night; and in the damp, chill climate of England, there is seldom a day
in some part of which a fire is not pleasant to feel. Hammond here
pointed out a stuffed fox, to which some story of a famous chase was
attached; a pair of antlers of enormous size; and some old family
pictures, so blackened with time and neglect that Middleton could not
well distinguish their features, though curious to do so, as hoping to
see there the lineaments of some with whom he might claim kindred. It was
a venerable apartment, and gave a good foretaste of what they might hope
to find in the rest of the mansion.
But when they had inspected it pretty thoroughly, and were ready to
proceed, an elderly gentleman entered the hall, and, seeing Hammond,
addressed him in a kindly, familiar way; not indeed as an equal friend,
but with a pleasant and not irksome conversation. "I am glad to see you
here again," said he. "What? I have an hour of leisure; for, to say the
truth, the day hangs rather heavy till the shooting season begins. Come;
as you have a friend with you, I will be your cicerone myself about the
house, and show you whatever mouldy objects of interest it contains."
He then graciously noticed the old man's companion, but without asking or
seeming to expect an introduction; for, after a careless glance at him,
he had evidently set him down as a person without social claims, a young
man in the rank of life fitted to associate with an inmate of Pemberton's
Hospital. And it must be noticed that his treatment of Middleton was not
on that account the less kind, though far from being so elaborately
courteous as if he had met him as an equal. "You have had something of a
walk," said he, "and it is a rather hot day. The beer of Pemberton Manor
has been reckoned good these hundred years; will you taste it?"
Hammond accepted the offer, and the beer was brought in a foaming
tankard; but Middleton declined it, for in truth there was a singular
emotion in his breast, as if the old enmity, the ancient injuries, were
not yet atoned for, and as if he must not accept the hospitality of one
who represented his hereditary foe. He felt, too, as if there were
something unworthy, a certain want of fairness, in entering clandestinely
the house, and talking with its occupant under a veil, as it were; and
had he seen clearly how to do it, he would perhaps at that moment have
fairly told Mr. Eldredge that he brought with him the character of
kinsman, and must be received on that grade or none. But it was not easy
to do this; and after all, there was no clear reason why he should do it;
so he let the matter pass, merely declining to take the refreshment, and
keeping himself quiet and retired.
Squire Eldredge seemed to be a good, ordinary sort of gentleman,
reasonably well educated, and with few ideas beyond his estate and
neighborhood, though he had once held a seat in Parliament for part of a
term. Middleton could not but contrast him, with an inward smile, with
the shrewd, alert politicians, their faculties all sharpened to the
utmost, whom he had known and consorted with in the American Congress.
Hammond had slightly informed him that his companion was an American; and
Mr. Eldredge immediately gave proof of the extent of his knowledge of
that country, by inquiring whether he came from the State of New England,
and whether Mr. Webster was still President of the United States;
questions to which Middleton returned answers that led to no further
conversation. These little preliminaries over, they continued their
ramble through the house, going through tortuous passages, up and down
little flights of steps, and entering chambers that had all the charm of
discoveries of hidden regions; loitering about, in short, in a labyrinth
calculated to put the head into a delightful confusion. Some of these
rooms contained their time-honored furniture, all in the best possible
repair, heavy, dark, polished; beds that had been marriage beds and dying
beds over and over again; chairs with carved backs; and all manner of old
world curiosities; family pictures, and samplers, and embroidery;
fragments of tapestry; an inlaid floor; everything having a story to it,
though, to say the truth, the possessor of these curiosities made but a
bungling piece of work in telling the legends connected with them. In one
or two instances Hammond corrected him.
By and by they came to what had once been the principal bed-room of the
house; though its gloom, and some circumstances of family misfortune that
had happened long ago, had caused it to fall into disrepute in latter
times; and it was now called the Haunted Chamber, or the Ghost's Chamber.
The furniture of this room, however, was particularly rich in its antique
magnificence; and one of the principal objects was a great black cabinet
of ebony and ivory, such as may often be seen in old English houses, and
perhaps often in the palaces of Italy, in which country they perhaps
originated. This present cabinet was known to have been in the house as
long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and how much longer neither
tradition nor record told. Hammond particularly directed Middleton's
attention to it.
"There is nothing in this house," said he, "better worth your attention
than that cabinet.' Consider its plan; it represents a stately mansion,
with pillars, an entrance, with a lofty flight of steps, windows, and
everything perfect. Examine it well."
There was such an emphasis in the old man's way of speaking that
Middleton turned suddenly round from all that he had been looking at, and
fixed his whole attention on the cabinet; and strangely enough, it seemed
to be the representative, in small, of something that he had seen in a
dream. To say the truth, if some cunning workman had been employed to
copy his idea of the old family mansion, on a scale of half an inch to a
yard, and in ebony and ivory instead of stone, he could not have produced
a closer imitation. Everything was there.
"This is miraculous!" exclaimed he. "I do not understand it."
"Your friend seems to be curious in these matters," said Mr. Eldredge
graciously. "Perhaps he is of some trade that makes this sort of
manufacture particularly interesting to him. You are quite at liberty, my
friend, to open the cabinet and inspect it as minutely as you wish. It is
an article that has a good deal to do with an obscure portion of our
family history. Look, here is the key, and the mode of opening the outer
door of the palace, as we may well call it." So saying, he threw open the
outer door, and disclosed within the mimic likeness of a stately entrance
hall, with a floor chequered of ebony and ivory. There were other doors
that seemed to open into apartments in the interior of the palace; but
when Mr. Eldredge threw them likewise wide, they proved to be drawers and
secret receptacles, where papers, jewels, money, anything that it was
desirable to store away secretly, might be kept.
"You said, sir," said Middleton, thoughtfully, "that your family history
contained matter of interest in reference to this cabinet. Might I
inquire what those legends are?"
"Why, yes," said Mr. Eldredge, musing a little. "I see no reason why I
should have any idle concealment about the matter, especially to a
foreigner and a man whom I am never likely to see again. You must know,
then, my friend, that there was once a time when this cabinet was known
to contain the fate of the estate and its possessors; and if it had held
all that it was supposed to hold, I should not now be the lord of
Pemberton Manor, nor the claimant of an ancient title. But my father, and
his father before him, and his father besides, have held the estate and
prospered on it; and I think we may fairly conclude now that the cabinet
contains nothing except what we see."
And he rapidly again threw open one after another all the numerous
drawers and receptacles of the cabinet.
"It is an interesting object," said Middleton, after looking very closely
and with great attention at it, being pressed thereto, indeed, by the
owner's good natured satisfaction in possessing this rare article of
vertu. "It is admirable work," repeated he, drawing back. "That mosaic
floor, especially, is done with an art and skill that I never saw
equalled."
There was something strange and altered in Middleton's tones, that
attracted the notice of Mr. Eldredge. Looking at him, he saw that he had
grown pale, and had a rather bewildered air.
"Is your friend ill?" said he. "He has not our English ruggedness of
look. He would have done better to take a sip of the cool tankard, and a
slice of the cold beef. He finds no such food and drink as that in his
own country, I warrant."
"His color has come back," responded Hammond, briefly. "He does not need
any refreshment, I think, except, perhaps, the open air."
In fact, Middleton, recovering himself, apologized to Mr. Hammond
[Eldredge?]; and as they had now seen nearly the whole of the house, the
two visitants took their leave, with many kindly offers on Mr. Eldredge's
part to permit the young man to view the cabinet whenever he wished. As
they went out of the house (it was by another door than that which gave
them entrance), Hammond laid his hand on Middleton's shoulder and pointed
to a stone on the threshold, on which he was about to set his foot. "Take
care!" said he. "It is the Bloody Footstep."
Middleton looked down and saw something, indeed, very like the shape of a
footprint, with a hue very like that of blood. It was a twilight sort of
a place, beneath a porch, which was much overshadowed by trees and
shrubbery. It might have been blood; but he rather thought, in his wicked
skepticism, that it was a natural, reddish stain in the stone. He
measured his own foot, however, in the Bloody Footstep, and went on.
_May 10th, Monday_.--This is the present aspect of the story: Middleton
is the descendant of a family long settled in the United States; his
ancestor having emigrated to New England with the Pilgrims; or, perhaps,
at a still earlier date, to Virginia with Raleigh's colonists. There had
been a family dissension,--a bitter hostility between two brothers in
England; on account, probably, of a love affair, the two both being
attached to the same lady. By the influence of the family on both sides,
the young lady had formed an engagement with the elder brother, although
her affections had settled on the younger. The marriage was about to take
place when the younger brother and the bride both disappeared, and were
never heard of with any certainty afterwards; but it was believed at the
time that he had been killed, and in proof of it a bloody footstep
remained on the threshold of the ancestral mansion. There were rumors,
afterwards, traditionally continued to the present day, that the younger
brother and the bride were seen, and together, in England; and that some
voyager across the sea had found them living together, husband and wife,
on the other side of the Atlantic. But the elder brother became a moody
and reserved man, never married, and left the inheritance to the children
of a third brother, who then became the representative of the family in
England; and the better authenticated story was that the second brother
had really been slain, and that the young lady (for all the parties may
have been Catholic) had gone to the Continent and taken the veil there.
Such was the family history as known or surmised in England, and in the
neighborhood of the manor-house, where the Bloody Footstep still remained
on the threshold; and the posterity of the third brother still held the
estate, and perhaps were claimants of an ancient baronage, long in
abeyance.
Now, on the other side of the Atlantic, the second brother and the young
lady had really been married, and became the parents of a posterity,
still extant, of which the Middleton of the romance is the surviving
male. Perhaps he had changed his name, being so much tortured with the
evil and wrong that had sprung up in his family, so remorseful, so
outraged, that he wished to disconnect himself with all the past, and
begin life quite anew in a new world. But both he and his wife, though
happy in one another, had been remorsefully and sadly so; and, with such
feelings, they had never again communicated with their respective
families, nor had given their children the means of doing so. There must,
I think, have been something nearly approaching to guilt on the second
brother's part, and the bride should have broken a solemnly plighted
troth to the elder brother, breaking away from him when almost his wife.
The elder brother had been known to have been wounded at the time of the
second brother's disappearance; and it had been the surmise that he had
received this hurt in the personal conflict in which the latter was
slain. But in truth the second brother had stabbed him in the emergency
of being discovered in the act of escaping with the bride; and this was
what weighed upon his conscience throughout life in America. The American
family had prolonged itself through various fortunes, and all the ups and
downs incident to our institutions, until the present day. They had some
old family documents, which had been rather carelessly kept; but the
present representative, being an educated man, had looked over them, and
found one which interested him strongly. It was--what was it?--perhaps a
copy of a letter written by his ancestor on his death-bed, telling his
real name, and relating the above incidents. These incidents had come
down in a vague, wild way, traditionally, in the American family, forming
a wondrous and incredible legend, which Middleton had often laughed at,
yet been greatly interested in; and the discovery of this document seemed
to give a certain aspect of veracity and reality to the tradition.
Perhaps, however, the document only related to the change of name, and
made reference to certain evidences by which, if any descendant of the
family should deem it expedient, he might prove his hereditary identity.
The legend must be accounted for by having been gathered from the talk of
the first ancestor and his wife. There must be in existence, in the early
records of the colony, an authenticated statement of this change of name,
and satisfactory proofs that the American family, long known as
Middleton, were really a branch of the English family of Eldredge, or
whatever. And in the legend, though not in the written document, there
must be an account of a certain magnificent, almost palatial residence,
which Middleton shall presume to be the ancestral home; and in this
palace there shall be said to be a certain secret chamber, or receptacle,
where is reposited a document that shall complete the evidence of the
genealogical descent.
Middleton is still a young man, but already a distinguished one in his
own country; he has entered early into politics, been sent to Congress,
but having met with some disappointments in his ambitious hopes, and
being disgusted with the fierceness of political contests in our country,
he has come abroad for recreation and rest. His imagination has dwelt
much, in his boyhood, on the legendary story of his family; and the
discovery of the document has revived these dreams. He determines to
search out the family mansion; and thus he arrives, bringing half of a
story, being the only part known in America, to join it on to the other
half, which is the only part known in England. In an introduction I must
do the best I can to state his side of the matter to the reader, he
having communicated it to me in a friendly way, at the Consulate; as many
people have communicated quite as wild pretensions to English
genealogies.
He comes to the midland counties of England, where he conceives his
claims to lie, and seeks for his ancestral home; but there are
difficulties in the way of finding it, the estates having passed into the
female line, though still remaining in the blood. By and by, however, he
comes to an old town where there is one of the charitable institutions
bearing the name of his family, by whose beneficence it had indeed been
founded, in Queen Elizabeth's time. He of course becomes interested in
this Hospital; he finds it still going on, precisely as it did in the old
days; and all the character and life of the establishment must be
picturesquely described. Here he gets acquainted with an old man, an
inmate of the Hospital, who (if the uncontrollable fatality of the story
will permit) must have an active influence on the ensuing events. I
suppose him to have been an American, but to have fled his country and
taken refuge in England; he shall have been a man of the Nicholas Biddle
stamp, a mighty speculator, the ruin of whose schemes had crushed
hundreds of people, and Middleton's father among the rest. Here he had
quitted the activity of his mind, as well as he could, becoming a local
antiquary, etc., and he has made himself acquainted with the family
history of the Eldredges, knowing more about it than the members of the
family themselves do. He had known in America (from Middleton's father,
who was his friend) the legends preserved in this branch of the family,
and perhaps had been struck by the way in which they fit into the English
legends; at any rate, this strikes him when Middleton tells him his story
and shows him the document respecting the change of name. After various
conversations together (in which, however, the old man keeps the secret
of his own identity, and indeed acts as mysteriously as possible), they
go together to visit the ancestral mansion. Perhaps it should not be in
their first visit that the cabinet, representing the stately mansion,
shall be seen. But the Bloody Footstep may; which shall interest
Middleton much, both because Hammond has told him the English tradition
respecting it, and because too the legends of the American family made
some obscure allusions to his ancestor having left blood--a bloody
footstep--on the ancestral threshold. This is the point to which the
story has now been sketched out. Middleton finds a commonplace old
English country gentleman in possession of the estate, where his
forefathers have lived in peace for many generations; but there must be
circumstances contrived which shall cause Middleton's conduct to be
attended by no end of turmoil and trouble. The old Hospitaller, I
suppose, must be the malicious agent in this; and his malice must be
motived in some satisfactory way. The more serious question, what shall
be the nature of this tragic trouble, and how can it be brought about?
_May 11th, Tuesday_.--How much better would it have been if this secret,
which seemed so golden, had remained in the obscurity in which two
hundred years had buried it! That deep, old, grass-grown grave being
opened, out from it streamed into the sunshine the old fatalities, the
old crimes, the old misfortunes, the sorrows, that seemed to have
departed from the family forever. But it was too late now to close it up;
he must follow out the thread that led him on,--the thread of fate, if
you choose to call it so; but rather the impulse of an evil will, a
stubborn self-interest, a desire for certain objects of ambition which
were preferred to what yet were recognized as real goods. Thus reasoned,
thus raved, Eldredge, as he considered the things that he had done, and
still intended to do; nor did these perceptions make the slightest
difference in his plans, nor in the activity with which he set about
their performance. For this purpose he sent for his lawyer, and consulted
him on the feasibility of the design which he had already communicated to
him respecting Middleton. But the man of law shook his head, and, though
deferentially, declined to have any active concern with the matter that
threatened to lead him beyond the bounds which he allowed himself, into a
seductive but perilous region.
"My dear sir," said he, with some earnestness, "you had much better
content yourself with such assistance as I can professionally and
consistently give you. Believe [me], I am willing to do a lawyer's
utmost, and to do more would be as unsafe for the client as for the legal
adviser."
Thus left without an agent and an instrument, this unfortunate man had to
meditate on what means he would use to gain his ends through his own
unassisted efforts. In the struggle with himself through which he had
passed, he had exhausted pretty much all the feelings that he had to
bestow on this matter; and now he was ready to take hold of almost any
temptation that might present itself, so long as it showed a good
prospect of success and a plausible chance of impunity. While he was thus
musing, he heard a female voice chanting some song, like a bird's among
the pleasant foliage of the trees, and soon he saw at the end of a
wood-walk Alice, with her basket on her arm, passing on toward the
village. She looked towards him as she passed, but made no pause nor yet
hastened her steps, not seeming to think it worth her while to be
influenced by him. He hurried forward and overtook her.
So there was this poor old gentleman, his comfort utterly overthrown,
decking his white hair and wrinkled brow with the semblance of a coronet,
and only hoping that the reality might crown and bless him before he was
laid in the ancestral tomb. It was a real calamity; though by no means
the greatest that had been fished up out of the pit of domestic discord
that had been opened anew by the advent of the American; and by the use
which had been made of it by the cantankerous old man of the Hospital.
Middleton, as he looked at these evil consequences, sometimes regretted
that he had not listened to those forebodings which had warned him back
on the eve of his enterprise; yet such was the strange entanglement and
interest which had wound about him, that often he rejoiced that for once
he was engaged in something that absorbed him fully, and the zeal for the
development of which made him careless for the result in respect to its
good or evil, but only desirous that it show itself. As for Alice, she
seemed to skim lightly through all these matters, whether as a spirit of
good or ill he could not satisfactorily judge. He could not think her
wicked; yet her actions seemed unaccountable on the plea that she was
otherwise. It was another characteristic thread in the wild web of
madness that had spun itself about all the prominent characters of our
story. And when Middleton thought of these things, he felt as if it might
be his duty (supposing he had the power) to shovel the earth again into
the pit that he had been the means of opening; but also felt that,
whether duty or not, he would never perform it.
For, you see, on the American's arrival he had found the estate in the
hands of one of the descendants; but some disclosures consequent on his
arrival had thrown it into the hands of another; or, at all events, had
seemed to make it apparent that justice required that it should be so
disposed of. No sooner was the discovery made than the possessor put on a
coronet; the new heir had commenced legal proceedings; the sons of the
respective branches had come to blows and blood; and the devil knows what
other devilish consequences had ensued. Besides this, there was much
falling in love at cross-purposes, and a general animosity of everybody
against everybody else, in proportion to the closeness of the natural
ties and their obligation to love one another.
The moral, if any moral were to be gathered from these petty and wretched
circumstances, was, "Let the past alone: do not seek to renew it; press
on to higher and better things,--at all events, to other things; and be
assured that the right way can never be that which leads you back to the
identical shapes that you long ago left behind. Onward, onward, onward!"
"What have you to do here?" said Alice. "Your lot is in another land.
You have seen the birthplace of your forefathers, and have gratified your
natural yearning for it; now return, and cast in your lot with your own
people, let it be what it will. I fully believe that it is such a lot as
the world has never yet seen, and that the faults, the weaknesses, the
errors, of your countrymen will vanish away like morning mists before the
rising sun. You can do nothing better than to go back."
"This is strange advice, Alice," said Middleton, gazing at her and
smiling. "Go back, with such a fair prospect before me; that were strange
indeed! It is enough to keep me here, that here only I shall see
you,--enough to make me rejoice to have come, that I have found you
here."
"Do not speak in this foolish way," cried Alice, panting. "I am giving
you the best advice, and speaking in the wisest way I am capable
of,--speaking on good grounds too,--and you turn me aside with a silly
compliment. I tell you that this is no comedy in which we are performers,
but a deep, sad tragedy; and that it depends most upon you whether or no
it shall be pressed to a catastrophe. Think well of it."
"I have thought, Alice," responded the young man, "and I must let things
take their course; if, indeed, it depends at all upon me, which I see no
present reason to suppose. Yet I wish you would explain to me what you
mean."
To take up the story from the point where we left it: by the aid of the
American's revelations, some light is thrown upon points of family
history, which induce the English possessor of the estate to suppose that
the time has come for asserting his claim to a title which has long been
in abeyance. He therefore sets about it, and engages in great expenses,
besides contracting the enmity of many persons, with whose interests he
interferes. A further complication is brought about by the secret
interference of the old Hospitaller, and Alice goes singing and dancing
through the whole, in a way that makes her seem like a beautiful devil,
though finally it will be recognized that she is an angel of light.
Middleton, half bewildered, can scarcely tell how much of this is due to
his own agency; how much is independent of him and would have happened
had he stayed on his own side of the water. By and by a further and
unexpected development presents the singular fact that he himself is the
heir to whatever claims there are, whether of property or rank,--all
centring in him as the representative of the eldest brother. On this
discovery there ensues a tragedy in the death of the present possessor of
the estate, who has staked everything upon the issue; and Middleton,
standing amid the ruin and desolation of which he has been the innocent
cause, resigns all the claims which he might now assert, and retires, arm
in arm with Alice, who has encouraged him to take this course, and to act
up to his character. The estate takes a passage into the female line, and
the old name becomes extinct, nor does Middleton seek to continue it by
resuming it in place of the one long ago assumed by his ancestor. Thus he
and his wife become the Adam and Eve of a new epoch, and the fitting
missionaries of a new social faith, of which there must be continual
hints through the book.
A knot of characters may be introduced as gathering around Middleton,
comprising expatriated Americans of all sorts: the wandering printer who
came to me so often at the Consulate, who said he was a native of
Philadelphia, and could not go home in the thirty years that he had been
trying to do so, for lack of the money to pay his passage; the large
banker; the consul of Leeds; the woman asserting her claims to half
Liverpool; the gifted literary lady, maddened by Shakespeare, &c., &c.
The Yankee who had been driven insane by the Queen's notice, slight as it
was, of the photographs of his two children which he had sent her. I have
not yet struck the true key-note of this Romance, and until I do, and
unless I do, I shall write nothing but tediousness and nonsense. I do not
wish it to be a picture of life, but a Romance, grim, grotesque, quaint,
of which the Hospital might be the fitting scene. It might have so much
of the hues of life that the reader should sometimes think it was
intended for a picture, yet the atmosphere should be such as to excuse
all wildness. In the Introduction, I might disclaim all intention to draw
a real picture, but say that the continual meetings I had with Americans
bent on such errands had suggested this wild story. The descriptions of
scenery, &c., and of the Hospital, might be correct, but there should be
a tinge of the grotesque given to all the characters and events. The
tragic and the gentler pathetic need not be excluded by the tone and
treatment. If I could but write one central scene in this vein, all the
rest of the Romance would readily arrange itself around that nucleus. The
begging-girl would be another American character; the actress too; the
caravan people. It must be humorous work, or nothing.
