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Chanticleer: A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family, a fiction by Cornelius Mathews |
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CHAPTER 2. ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT AND HIS PEOPLE |
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_ CHAPTER 2. ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT AND HIS PEOPLE "It is William and Hannah," said the Patriarch, towering above the household grouped about him, and gaining an advantage in observation from his commanding height, "I am glad the oldest is the first to come!" When the two comers reached the door-yard gate the man entered in without rendering the least assistance or paying the slightest heed to his companion, who followed humbly in his track. He was some sixty years of age, large-featured and inclining to tallness; his dress was oldmanish and plain, consisting of a long-furred beaver hat, a loose made coat, and other apparel corresponding, with low cut shoes. He smiled as he came upon the balcony, greeting old Sylvester with a shake of the hand, but taking no notice whatever either of the widow, little Sam, or Mopsey. His wife, on the contrary, spoke to all, but quietly and submissively, which was in truth, her whole manner. She was spare and withered, with a pinched, colorless face, constrained in a scared and apprehensive look as though in constant dread of an impending violence or injury. Over one eye she wore a green patch, which greatly heightened the pallor and strangeness of her features. "Where's the Captain and Henrietta?" old Sylvester asked when the greetings were over. "They started from the city in a chay," he was answered by William Peabody, "some hours before us,--the captain,--seaman--way of driving irreg'lar. Nobody can tell what road he may have got into. Should'nt be surprised if did'nt arrive till to-morrow morning. Will always have high-actioned horse." William Peabody had scarcely spoken when there arose in the distance down the road, a violent cloud of dust, from which there emerged a two-wheeled vehicle at a thundering pace, and which, in less than a minute's time, went whirling past the Homestead. It was supposed to contain Captain Saltonstall and wife; but what with the speed and dust, no eye could have guessed with any accuracy who or what they were. In less than a minute more it came sweeping back with the great white horse, passing the house again like an apparition, or the ghost of a horse and gig. With another sally down the road and return, with a long curve in the road before the Homestead, it at last came to at the gate, and disclosed in a high sweat and glowing all over his huge person, the jovial Captain, and at his side his pretty little cherry-faced girl of a wife, Henrietta Peabody, daughter of William Peabody, who, be it known, is old Sylvester's oldest son. There also emerged from the one-horse gig, after the captain had made ground, and jumped his little wife to the same landing in his arms, a red-faced boy, who must have been closely stowed somewhere, for he came out of the vehicle highly colored, and looking very much as if he had been sat upon for a couple of hours or more. The Captain having freed his horse from the traces, and at old Sylvester's suggestion, set him loose in the door-yard to graze at his leisure, rushed forward upon the balcony very much in the character of a good natured tornado, saluted the widow Margaret with a whirlwind kiss, threw little Sam high in the air and caught him as he came within half an inch of the ground, shook the old grandfather's readily extended hand with a sturdy grasp, and wound up, for a moment, with a great cuff on the side of the head with a roll of stuff for a new gown for Mopsey, saying as he delivered it, "Dere, what d'ye say to dat, Darkey!" Darkey brightened into a sort of nocturnal illumination, and shuffling away, in the loose shoes, to the keeping of which on her feet the better half of the best energies of her life were directed, gave out that she must be looking after dinner. It was but for a moment only that the Captain paused, and in less than five minutes he had said and done so many good-natured things, had shown himself so free of heart withal, and so little considerate of self or the figure he cut, that in spite of his great clumsy person, and the gash in his face, and the somewhat exorbitant character of his dress, his coat being a bob as long and straight in the line across the back, as the edge of a table, you could not help regarding him as a decidedly well made, well dressed, and quite handsome person; in fact the Captain passed with the whole family for a fine-looking man. "Where's my little girl Miriam?" asked the jovial Captain, after a moment's rest in a seat by the side of old Sylvester. "I must see my Dolphin, or she'll think I'm growing old." Being advised that the young lady in question was somewhere within, the Captain rushed into the house, pursued by all the family in a body, save William Peabody, who remained with old Sylvester, seated and in silence. "How go matters in the city, William?" he said, removing his hand from his brow, where it had rested in contemplation for several minutes. "After the old fashion, father," William Peabody answered, smiling with a fox-like glance at his father; "added three new houses to my property since last year." "Three new houses?" "Three, all of brick,--good streets--built in the latest style. The city grows and I grow!" "Three new houses, and all in the latest style--and how does Margaret's little property pay?" "Poorly, father, poorly. Elbridge made a bad choice when he bought it--greatly out of repair--rents come slowly." "In a word, the old story, the widow gets nothing again from the city. I had hopes you would be able to bring her some returns this time, for she needs it sadly." "I do the best I can, but money's not to be got out of stone walls." "And you have three new houses which pay well," old Sylvester continued, turning his calm blue eye steadily upon his son. "Capital--best in the city! Already worth twice I gave for 'em. The city grows and I grow!" "My son, do you never think of that other house reserved for us all?" William Peabody was about to answer, it was nonsense for a man only sixty and in sound condition of body and mind to think too much of that, when his eye, ranging across the fields, espied in shadow as it were, through the dim atmosphere, the mist clearing away a little in that direction, an old sorrel horse--a long settler with the family and well-known to all its members--staggering about feebly in a distant orchard, and in her wanderings stumbling against the trees.--"Is old Sorrel blind?" he asked, shading his own eyes from the light. "She is, William," old Sylvester replied; "her sight went from her last New-Year's day." "My birth-day," said the merchant, a sudden pallor coming upon his countenance. "Yes, you and old Sorrel are birth-mates, my son." "We are; she was foaled the day I was born," said William Peabody, and added, as to himself, musingly, "Old Sorrel is blind! So we pass--so we pass--young to-day--to-morrow old--limbs fail us--sight is gone." They sat silently, contemplating the still morning scene before them, and meditating, each in his own particular way, on the history of the past. To William, the merchant, it brought chiefly a recollection how in his early manhood he had set out from those quiet fields for a hard struggle with the world, with a bare dollar in his pocket, and when that was gone the whole world seemed to combine in a desperate league against him to prevent his achieving another. How at last, on the very edge of starvation and despair, he had wrung from it the means of beginning his fortunes; and how he had gone on step by step, forgetting all the pleasant ties of his youth, all recollections of nature and cheerful faces of friends and kinsfolk, adding thousand to thousand, house to house; building, unlike Jacob, a ladder, that descended to the lower world, up which all harsh and dark spirits perpetually thronged and joined to drag him down; and yet he smiled grimly at the thought of the power he possessed, and how many of his early companions trembled before him because he was grown to be a rich man. Old Sylvester, on the other hand, in all his memory had no thought of himself. His recollection ran back to the old times when his neighbors sat down under a king's sceptre in these colonies, how that chain had been freed, the gloomy Indian had withdrawn his face from their fields, how the darkness of the woods had retired before the cheering sun of peace and plenty; and how from a little people, his dear country, for whose welfare his sword had been stained, had grown into a great nation. Scattered up and down the long line of memory were faces of friends and kindred, which had passed long ago from the earth. He called to mind many a pleasant fire-side chat; many a funeral scene, and burying in sun-light and in the cold rain; the young Elbridge too was in his thoughts last of all; could he return to them with a name untainted, the old man would cheerfully lie down in his grave and be at peace with all the world. In the meanwhile, within the house the Captain in high favor was seated in a great cushioned arm-chair with little Sam Peabody on his knee, and the women of the house gathered about him, looking on as he narrated the courses and adventures of his last voyage. The widow listened with a sad interest. Mopsey rolled her eyes and was mirthful in the most serious and stormiest passages; while little Sam and the Captain's wife rivalled each other in regarding the Captain with innocent wonder and astonishment, as though he were the most extraordinary man that ever sailed the sea, or sat in a chair telling about it, in the whole habitable globe. Miriam Haven alone was distant from the scene, gliding to and fro past the door, busied in household duties in a neighboring apartment, and catching a word here and there as she glanced by. It was a wonderful story, certainly, the Captain was telling, and it seemed beyond all belief that it could be true that one man could have seen the whales, the icebergs, the floating islands, the ships in the air, the sea-dogs, and grampuses, the flying-fish, the pirates, and the thousand other wonders the Captain reported to have crossed his path in a single trip across the simple Atlantic and back. He also averred to have distinctly seen the sea-serpent, and what was more, to have had a conversation with a ship in the very middle of the ocean. Was there anything wonderful in that? it occurs every day--but listen to the jovial Captain!--a ship--and he had news to tell them of one they would like to hear about. They pressed close to the Captain and listened breathlessly; Miriam Haven pausing in her task, and stopping stone-still like a statue, in the door, while her very heart stayed its beating. Go on--Captain--go on--go on! "Well, what do you think; we were in latitude--no matter, you don't care about that--we had just come out of a great gale, which made the sea pitch-dark about us; when the first beam of the sun opened the clouds, we found ourselves along side a ship with the old stars and stripes flying like a bird at the mast-head. There was a sight, my hearties. We hailed her, she hailed us, we threw her papers, she threw us, and we parted forever." "Is that all?" "Not half. One of these was a list of passengers; I run my eye up, and I run my eye down, and there, shining out like a star amongst them all, I find, whose d'ye think--Elbridge Peabody--as large as life." Miriam Haven staggered against the door-post, the widow fell upon her knees, "Thank God, my boy is heard from." Little Sam Peabody darted from the Captain's knee and rushed upon the balcony, crying at the top of his lungs, "Grandfather, brother Elbridge is heard from." "I don't believe it," said William Peabody; the poor old blind sorrel had disappeared from sight into a piece of woods near the orchard, and the merchant had quite recovered his usual way of speaking. "Never will believe it. You hav'nt heard of that youngster,--never will. Always knew he would run away some day--never come back again." The Captain's story was rapidly explained by the different members of the family, who had followed little Sam, to repeat it to old Sylvester, each in her own way. Miriam and Hannah Peabody, who at sound of the commotion had come forth from an inner chamber, whither she had been retired by herself, joined the company of lookers on. "What all amount to," he continued, in his peculiar clipped style of speech. "Expect to see him again, do you. Mighty fine chance--where going to?" The Captain could'nt tell. "One of the Captain's fine stories--no--no--if that boy ever comes back again, I'll--" There was a deep silence to hear what the hard old merchant proposed. "I'll hand over to him the management of his late father's property, he was always hankering after, and thought he could make so much more of than his hard-fisted old uncle." This was a comfortable proposition, and little Sam Peabody, as though it were a great pear or red pippin that was spoken of, running to his mother, said, "Mother, I'd take it." "I do," said the widow, "and call you all to witness." William Peabody smiled grimly on Margaret; his countenance darkened suddenly, and he was, no doubt, on the point of retracting his confident offer, when his wife uttered in an under tone, half entreaty, half authority, "William," at the same time turning on her husband the side of the countenance which wore the green shade. He stifled what he intended to utter, and shifting uneasily in his seat, he looked toward the city and was silent. Whatever the reason, it was clear that when they were seated at the table, partaking of the meal, it was Captain Saltonstall that had the best attention from every member of the household, (and the best of the dish,) from all save old Sylvester, who held himself erect, as usual, and impartial in the matter. "The ways of Providence are strange," said old Sylvester. "Out of darkness he brings marvellous light, and from the frivolous acorn he spreads the branches wide in the air, which are a shelter, and a solace, and a shadowy play-ground to our youth and old age. We must wait the issue, and whatever comes, to Him must we give thanks." With this sentiment for a benediction, the patriarch dismissed his family to their slumbers, which to each one of the household brought its peculiar train of speculation; to two, at least, Miriam and the widow Margaret, they brought dreams which only the strong light of day could disprove to be realities. _ |
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