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_ Hollingsworth and I--we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon,
while the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of
the farm--sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock
lunch, when we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field.
He had admitted himself from the roadside through a turnstile, and
seemed to have a purpose of speaking with us.
And, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale,
especially from people who sympathized with our theories, and perhaps
held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as
there should appear a reliable promise of its success. It was rather
ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had insensibly
been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day's
toil), it was absolutely funny, therefore, to observe what a glory
was shed about our life and labors, in the imaginations of these
longing proselytes. In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians,
besides being as practical as the hardest-fisted husbandmen in
Massachusetts. We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to
our sheep, or warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood. But
they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with
a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cow-yards and
pig-sties were as delightfully fragrant as a flower garden. Nothing
used to please me more than to see one of these lay enthusiasts
snatch up a hoe, as they were very prone to do, and set to work with
a vigor that perhaps carried him through about a dozen ill-directed
strokes. Men are wonderfully soon satisfied, in this day of shameful
bodily enervation, when, from one end of life to the other, such
multitudes never taste the sweet weariness that follows accustomed
toil. I seldom saw the new enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy
and flaccid as the proselyte's moistened shirt-collar, with a quarter
of an hour's active labor under a July sun.
But the person now at hand had not at all the air of one of these
amiable visionaries. He was an elderly man, dressed rather shabbily,
yet decently enough, in a gray frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue,
and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years
gone by. His hair was perfect silver, without a dark thread in the
whole of it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means
indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted
symbol. He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would
doubtless drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more
than was good for him,--not, however, with a purpose of undue
exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his spirits up to the
ordinary level of the world's cheerfulness. Drawing nearer, there
was a shy look about him, as if he were ashamed of his poverty, or,
at any rate, for some reason or other, would rather have us glance at
him sidelong than take a full front view. He had a queer appearance
of hiding himself behind the patch on his left eye.
"I know this old gentleman," said I to Hollingsworth, as we sat
observing him; "that is, I have met him a hundred times in town, and
have often amused my fancy with wondering what he was before he came
to be what he is. He haunts restaurants and such places, and has an
odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind a door whenever
practicable, and holding out his hand with some little article in it
which he wishes you to buy. The eye of the world seems to trouble
him, although he necessarily lives so much in it. I never expected
to see him in an open field."
"Have you learned anything of his history?" asked Hollingsworth.
"Not a circumstance," I answered; "but there must be something
curious in it. I take him to be a harmless sort of a person, and a
tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of
those of a rat,--a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the
teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite. See, now! He means to
skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side
of our clump of maples."
We soon heard the old man's velvet tread on the grass, indicating
that he had arrived within a few feet of where we Sat.
"Good-morning, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth, addressing the
stranger as an acquaintance; "you must have had a hot and tiresome
walk from the city. Sit down, and take a morsel of our bread and
cheese."
The visitor made a grateful little murmur of acquiescence, and sat
down in a spot somewhat removed; so that, glancing round, I could see
his gray pantaloons and dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly
hidden behind the shrubbery. Nor did he come forth from this
retirement during the whole of the interview that followed. We
handed him such food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses
and water (would that it had been brandy, or some thing better, for
the sake of his chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty
sacrifice to an enshrined and invisible idol. I have no idea that he
really lacked sustenance; but it was quite touching, nevertheless, to
hear him nibbling away at our crusts.
"Mr. Moodie," said I, "do you remember selling me one of those very
pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a monopoly in
the market? I keep it to this day, I can assure you."
"Ah, thank you," said our guest. "Yes, Mr. Coverdale, I used to sell
a good many of those little purses."
He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an
inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again.
He seemed a very forlorn old man. In the wantonness of youth,
strength, and comfortable condition,--making my prey of people's
individualities, as my custom was,--I tried to identify my mind with
the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking
through a smoke-blackened glass at the sun. It robbed the landscape
of all its life. Those pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm,
descending towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled
the brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long sedges on its
hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding
water; that peculiar picturesqueness of the scene where capes and
headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of the
meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories;
the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light falling into
its depths; the sultry heat-vapor, which rose everywhere like incense,
and in which my soul delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in
the passionate day, and in the earth that was burning with its love,--
I beheld all these things as through old Moodie's eyes. When my
eyes are dimmer than they have yet come to be, I will go thither
again, and see if I did not catch the tone of his mind aright, and if
the cold and lifeless tint of his perceptions be not then repeated in
my own.
Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in him.
"Have you any objection," said I, "to telling me who made those
little purses?"
"Gentlemen have often asked me that," said Moodie slowly; "but I
shake my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as
well as I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be
told one thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another.
But it happens just now, Mr. Coverdale, that you can tell me more
about the maker of those little purses than I can tell you."
"Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?"
interrupted Hollingsworth. "You must have known, long ago, that it
was Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her?
Well, I am glad of it. You will find her altered very much for the
better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge.
Why, Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!"
"Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of
slow wonder. "Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid
I shall not know my little girl. And is she happy?"
"Just as happy as a bird," answered Hollingsworth.
"Then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively," I don't think it
well for me to go any farther. I crept hitherward only to ask about
Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I
can do no better than to creep back again. If she were to see this
old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which
we have spent together. Some very sad times, indeed! She has
forgotten them, I know,--them and me,--else she could not be so happy,
nor have a bloom in her cheeks. Yes--yes--yes," continued he, still
with the same torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, Mr.
Hollingsworth, I will creep back to town again."
"You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth bluffly.
"Priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make
her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I'll venture to say it is
just the sight of your face. Come,--we will go and find her."
"Mr. Hollingsworth!" said the old man in his hesitating way.
"Well," answered Hollingsworth.
"Has there been any call for Priscilla?" asked Moodie; and though his
face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the
mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question. "You know, I
think, sir, what I mean."
"I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, Mr. Moodie,"
replied Hollingsworth; "nobody, to my knowledge, has called for
Priscilla, except yourself. But come; we are losing time, and I have
several things to say to you by the way."
"And, Mr. Hollingsworth!" repeated Moodie.
"Well, again!" cried my friend rather impatiently. "What now?"
"There is a lady here," said the old man; and his voice lost some of
its wearisome hesitation. "You will account it a very strange matter
for me to talk about; but I chanced to know this lady when she was
but a little child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be a
very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the world, with her
beauty, and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches. I
should recognize this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent
flower in her hair."
"What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks of
Zenobia!" I whispered to Hollingsworth. "But how can there possibly
be any interest or connecting link between him and her?"
"The old man, for years past," whispered Hollingsworth, "has been a
little out of his right mind, as you probably see."
"What I would inquire," resumed Moodie, "is whether this beautiful
lady is kind to my poor Priscilla."
"Very kind," said Hollingsworth.
"Does she love her?" asked Moodie.
"It should seem so," answered my friend. "They are always together."
"Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?" suggested the old
man.
There was something so singular in his way of saying this, that I
could not resist the impulse to turn quite round, so as to catch a
glimpse of his face, almost imagining that I should see another
person than old Moodie. But there he sat, with the patched side of
his face towards me.
"Like an elder and younger sister, rather," replied Hollingsworth.
"Ah!" said Moodie more complacently, for his latter tones had
harshness and acidity in them,--"it would gladden my old heart to
witness that. If one thing would make me happier than another, Mr.
Hollingsworth, it would be to see that beautiful lady holding my
little girl by the hand."
"Come along," said Hollingsworth, "and perhaps you may."
After a little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they
set forth together, old Moodie keeping a step or two behind
Hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look
him in the face. I remained under the tuft of maples, doing my
utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. In
spite of Hollingsworth's off-hand explanation, it did not strike me
that our strange guest was really beside himself, but only that his
mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the
strings of which have ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply.
Methought it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life,
to welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as one of us, and
let him creep about our domain, in order that he might be a little
merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a little sadder for his.
Human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of
the sable or the gray. And then, too, should any of our fraternity
grow feverish with an over-exulting sense of prosperity, it would be
a sort of cooling regimen to slink off into the woods, and spend an
hour, or a day, or as many days as might be requisite to the cure, in
uninterrupted communion with this deplorable old Moodie!
Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk of
a tree, gazing earnestly towards a particular window of the farmhouse;
and by and by Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing
along Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was blazing
down upon us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced towards her
noon. I was convinced that this pretty sight must have been
purposely arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. But either
the girl held her too long, or her fondness was resented as too great
a freedom; for Zenobia suddenly put Priscilla decidedly away, and
gave her a haughty look, as from a mistress to a dependant. Old
Moodie shook his head; and again and again I saw him shake it, as he
withdrew along the road; and at the last point whence the farmhouse
was visible, he turned and shook his uplifted staff. _
Read next: CHAPTER XI - THE WOOD-PATH
Read previous: CHAPTER IX - HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA
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