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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7119-8.txt b/7119-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f13d975 --- /dev/null +++ b/7119-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2035 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dolliver Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Dolliver Romance + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: September 14, 2014 [EBook #7119] +Release Date: December, 2004 +First Posted: March 12, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +BY + +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + + +CONTENTS. + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +In "The Dolliver Romance," only three chapters of which the author +lived to complete, we get an intimation as to what would have been the +ultimate form given to that romance founded on the Elixir of Life, for +which "Septimius Felton" was the preliminary study. Having abandoned +this study, and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in 1862, Hawthorne +was moved to renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as +the plan of the romance had now seemingly developed to his +satisfaction, he listened to the publisher's proposal that it should +begin its course as a serial story in the "Atlantic Monthly" for +January, 1864--the first instance in which he had attempted such a mode +of publication. + +But the change from England to Massachusetts had been marked by, and +had perhaps in part caused, a decline in his health. Illness in his +family, the depressing and harrowing effect of the Civil War upon his +sensibilities, and anxiety with regard to pecuniary affairs, all +combined to make still further inroads upon his vitality; and so early +as the autumn of 1862 Mrs. Hawthorne noted in her private diary that +her husband was looking "miserably ill." At no time since boyhood had +he suffered any serious sickness, and his strong constitution enabled +him to rally from this first attack; but the gradual decline continued. +After sending forth "Our Old Home," he had little strength for any +employment more arduous than reading, or than walking his accustomed +path among the pines and sweetfern on the hill behind The Wayside, +known to his family as the Mount of Vision. The projected work, +therefore, advanced but slowly. He wrote to Mr. Fields:-- + +"I don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the +Romance ready so soon as you want it. There are two or three chapters +ready to be written, but I am not yet robust enough to begin, and I +feel as if I should never carry it through." + +The presentiment proved to be only too well founded. He had previously +written:-- + +"There is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. I linger +at the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantasms +to be encountered if I enter. I wish God had given me the faculty of +writing a sunshiny book." + +And again, in November, he says: "I foresee that there is little +probability of my getting the first chapter ready by the 15th, although +I have a resolute purpose to write it by the end of the month." He did +indeed send it by that time, but it began to be apparent in January +that he could not go on. + +"Seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has, for the present, +lost its temper and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had +better keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigor if I wait +quietly for it; perhaps not." In another: "I hardly know what to say to +the public about this abortive Romance, though I know pretty well what +the case will be. I shall never finish it.... I cannot finish it unless +a great change comes over me; and if I make too great an effort to do +so, it will be my death." + +Finally, work had to be given over indefinitely. In April he went +southward with Mr. Ticknor, the senior partner of his publishing house; +but Mr. Ticknor died suddenly in Philadelphia, and Hawthorne returned +to The Wayside more feeble than ever. He lingered there a little while. +Then, early in May, came the last effort to recover tone, by means of a +carriage-journey, with his friend Ex-President Pierce, through the +southern part of New Hampshire. A week passed, and all was ended: at +the hotel in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where he and his companion had +stopped to rest, he died in the night, between the 18th and the 19th of +May, 1864. Like Thackeray and Dickens, he was touched by death's +"petrific mace" before he had had time to do more than lay the +groundwork and begin the main structure of the fiction he had in hand; +and, as in the case of Thackeray, the suddenness of his decease has +never been clearly accounted for. The precise nature of his malady was +not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical +advice. His friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who +had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he +did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in Boston before +Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, with that slight +opportunity, to reach any definite conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed +and had put up for him a remedy to palliate some of the poignant +symptoms, and this Hawthorne carried with him; but "I feared," Dr. +Holmes writes to the editor, "that there was some internal +organic--perhaps malignant--disease; for he looked wasted and as if +stricken with a mortal illness." + +The manuscript of the unfinished "Dolliver Romance" lay upon his coffin +during the funeral services at Concord, but, contrary to the impression +sometimes entertained on this point, was not buried with him. It is +preserved in the Concord Public Library. The first chapter was +published in the "Atlantic" as an isolated portion, soon after his +death; and subsequently the second chapter, which he had been unable to +revise, appeared in the same periodical. Between this and the third +fragment there is a gap, for bridging which no material was found among +his papers; but, after hesitating for several years, Mrs. Hawthorne +copied and placed in the publishers' hands that final portion, which, +with the two parts previously printed, constitutes the whole of what +Hawthorne had put into tangible form. + +Hawthorne had purposed prefixing a sketch of Thoreau, "because, from a +tradition which he told me about this house of mine, I got the idea of +a deathless man, which is now taking a shape very different from the +original one." This refers to the tradition mentioned in the editor's +note to "Septimius Felton," and forms a link in the interesting chain +of evidence connecting that romance with the "Dolliver Romance." With +the plan respecting Thoreau he combined the idea of writing an +autobiographical preface, wherein The Wayside was to be described, +after the manner of his Introduction to the "Mosses from an Old Manse"; +but, so far as is known, nothing of this was ever actually committed to +paper. + +Beginning with the idea of producing an English romance, fragments of +which remain to us in "The Ancestral Footstep," and the incomplete work +known as "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret," he replaced these by another +design, of which "Septimius Felton" represents the partial execution. +But that elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "The Dolliver +Romance." The last-named work, had the author lived to carry it out, +would doubtless have become the vehicle of a profound and pathetic +drama, based on the instinctive yearning of man for an immortal +existence, the attempted gratification of which would have been set +forth in a variety of ways: First, through the selfish old sensualist, +Colonel Dabney, who greedily seized the mysterious elixir and took such +a draught of it that he perished on the spot; then, through the simple +old Grandsir, anxious to live for Pansie's sake; and, perhaps, through +Pansie herself, who, coming into the enjoyment of some ennobling love, +would wish to defeat death, so that she might always keep the +perfection of her mundane happiness,--all these forms of striving to be +made the adumbration of a higher one, the shadow-play that should +direct our minds to the true immortality beyond this world. + +G. P. L. + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +Dr. Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused +rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child +Pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning old Martha (who performed +the duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's +establishment) to take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old +gentleman woke with more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking +a moment to gather his wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen +curtains of his ancient bed, and thrust his head into a beam of +sunshine that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. This transitory +glimpse of good Dr. Dolliver showed a flannel night-cap, fringed round +with stray locks of silvery white hair, and surmounting a meagre and +duskily yellow visage, which was crossed and criss-crossed with a +record of his long life in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but +with such cramped chirography of Father Time that the purport was +illegible. It seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch to get out of +bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow into the summer day that was +made for younger folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means of that +opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living +twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found +himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his +rusty joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have +made them pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight +upon the floor. Nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those +tonsorial, ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt +to become so intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, after performing +them daily and daily for fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding +them still as immitigably recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could +nowise account for this happy condition of his spirits and physical +energies, until he remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain +cordial which was long ago prepared by his grandson, and carefully +sealed up in a bottle, and had been reposited in a dark closet, among a +parcel of effete medicines, ever since that gifted young man's death. + +"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the doctor, shaking his +head as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor +Edward oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous drugs. +But I will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, which +may have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's +sake." + +A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, +taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's +respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities, which, with +their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the +closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. +Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those +of yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it +passed gradually off with a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew +to be almost agreeable. Pain is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. +With cautious movements, and only a groan or two, the good Doctor +transferred himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile, +gazing from one piece of quaint furniture to another (such as +stiff-backed Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers carved +cunningly with shapes of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table with +multitudinous legs, a family record in faded embroidery, a shelf of +black-bound books, a dirty heap of gallipots and phials in a dim +corner),--gazing at these things, and steadying himself by the bedpost, +while his inert brain, still partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly +into accordance with the realities about him. The object which most +helped to bring Dr. Dolliver completely to his waking perceptions was +one that common observers might suppose to have been snatched bodily +out of his dreams. The same sunbeam that had dazzled the doctor between +the bed-curtains gleamed on the weather-beaten gilding which had once +adorned this mysterious symbol, and showed it to be an enormous +serpent, twining round a wooden post, and reaching quite from the floor +of the chamber to its ceiling. + +It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, +the dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its +tail; and it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind +of gray moss had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a +swallow, or other familiar little bird in some by-gone summer, seemed +to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked +like a kind of Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a +pedestal for a century or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in +the open air, until the impious sect perished from among men,--all save +old Dr. Dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber for the +convenience of private devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting +such a fantasy to the prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to +have been as pious and upright a Christian, and with as little of the +serpent in his character, as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make +a further mystery about a very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten +reptile was once the medical emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous +Dr. Swinnerton, who practised physic in the earlier days of New +England, when a head of Aesculapius or Hippocrates would have vexed the +souls of the righteous as savoring of heathendom. The ancient dispenser +of drugs had therefore set up an image of the Brazen Serpent, and +followed his business for many years with great credit, under this +Scriptural device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and +humble friend of the learned Swinnerton's old age, had inherited the +symbolic snake, and much other valuable property by his bequest. + +While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth was very genial to his system, and +yet made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the +reviving blood tingled through them with a half-painful and only +half-pleasurable titillation. For the first few moments after creeping +out of bed, he kept his back to the sunny window, and seemed +mysteriously shy of glancing thitherward; but, as the June fervor +pervaded him more and more thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and +looked forth at a burial-ground on the corner of which he dwelt. There +lay many an old acquaintance, who had gone to sleep with the flavor of +Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and powders upon his tongue; it was the +patient's final bitter taste of this world, and perhaps doomed to be a +recollected nauseousness in the next. Yesterday, in the chill of his +forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon to stretch out his weary +bones among that quiet community, and might scarcely have shrunk from +the prospect on his own account, except, indeed, that he dreamily mixed +up the infirmities of his present condition with the repose of the +approaching one, being haunted by a notion that the damp earth, under +the grass and dandelions, must needs be pernicious for his cough and +his rheumatism. But, this morning, the cheerful sunbeams, or the mere +taste of his grandson's cordial that he had taken at bedtime, or the +fitful vigor that often sports irreverently with aged people, had +caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere within him, to +expand. + +"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his +throat of the dregs of a ten-years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone +with me as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a +little age-stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere +faint-heartedness, a great deal sooner than they need." + +He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if +to impress the apothegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and, +for his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who +stood as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather +to the other. This child of three years old occupied all the +unfossilized portion of Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that +he formerly had, and the entire confraternity of persons whom he once +loved, had long ago departed; and the poor Doctor could not follow +them, because the grasp of Pansie's baby-fingers held him back. + +So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a +patchwork morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was +said to have been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat +and the silken skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest +granddaughter had taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor +Bessie, the beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the grave. +Throughout many of the intervening years, as the garment got ragged, +the spinsters of the old man's family had quilted their duty and +affection into it in the shape of patches upon patches, rose-color, +crimson, blue, violet, and green, and then (as their hopes faded, and +their life kept growing shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) +sober gray and great fragments of funereal black, until the Doctor +could revive the memory of most things that had befallen him by looking +at his patchwork-gown, as it hung upon a chair. And now it was ragged +again, and all the fingers that should have mended it were cold. It had +an Eastern fragrance, too, a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and +spicy gums, gathered from the many potent infusions that had from time +to time been spilt over it; so that, snuffing him afar off, you might +have taken Dr. Dolliver for a mummy, and could hardly have been +undeceived by his shrunken and torpid aspect, as he crept nearer. + +Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand, and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was +somewhat steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, +putting his left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick +to assist him in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he +became a living illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it +describes the aged as being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth +that is often found to have a sadder purport than its external one. +Half-way to the bottom, however, the Doctor heard the impatient and +authoritative tones of little Pansie,--Queen Pansie, as she might +fairly have been styled, in reference to her position in the +household,--calling amain for grandpapa and breakfast. He was startled +into such perilous activity by the summons, that his heels slid on the +stairs, the slippers were shuffled off his feet, and he saved himself +from a tumble only by quickening his pace, and coming down at almost a +run. + +"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, +and, methinks, my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? +Well, well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing +down this steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" + +He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and +meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's +descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her +haste to come at him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a +rather pale and large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might +well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful +house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man and a kitten, +and no better atmosphere within-doors than the odor of decayed +apothecary's stuff, nor gayer neighborhood than that of the adjacent +burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her great-grandmother +downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is bedtime!" even in +the prime of the summer morning. For those dead women-folk, especially +her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand-aunts, could not +but be anxious about the child, knowing that little Pansie would be far +safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must +be, in this difficult and deceitful world. + +Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic +movement in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable +progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom +was, having never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down +her voice), till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. + +"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver, cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?" + +"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, +remembering the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to +herself. "It shall do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her +mouth to apply the remedy. + +"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I +had in my drugs," replied the patriarch, with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for +my feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken +neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." + +In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and +Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third +in the party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, +delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke: then she +took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a +spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, +and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting +out a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on +its way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she +scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and +hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as +was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly +creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no +worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his +remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the +early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his +great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm +the tiny figure of Pansie) had met one another at the two extremities +of the life-circle: her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating +his locks of silver and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous shimmer +of twinkling light. + +Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had +died the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, +a numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary +track in their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing, +how it had all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an +infant's small fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead +progeny come and go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this +solitary child represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many +that had gone before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to +him. She seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. +A whole family of grand-aunts (one of whom had perished in her cradle, +never so mature as Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in +autumnal maidenhood, yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, +and still another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its +vitality, and grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest +then),--all their hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face +of the great-grandchild, and their long-inaudible voices sobbed, +shouted, or laughed, in her familiar tones. But it often happened to +Dr. Dolliver, while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the +one reality looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,--it often +happened that his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception of what +a sad and poverty-stricken old man he was, already remote from his own +generation, and bound to stray further onward as the sole playmate and +protector of a child! + +As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient +to give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title +of Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, +perhaps, one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and +over-jealous of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these +crusty graduates were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from +their fraternity. He had never received the degree of any medical +school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or a child's +rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some such trifling +malady) had he ever been even a practitioner of the awful science with +which his popular designation connected him. Our old friend, in short, +even at his highest social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than +an apothecary, and, in these later and far less prosperous days, +scarcely so much. Since the death of his last surviving grandson +(Pansie's father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries of his +science, and who, being distinguished by an experimental and inventive +tendency, was generally believed to have poisoned himself with an +infallible panacea of his own distillation),--since that final +bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's once pretty flourishing business had +lamentably declined. After a few months of unavailing struggle, he +found it expedient to take down the Brazen Serpent from the position to +which Dr. Swinnerton had originally elevated it, in front of his shop +in the main street, and to retire to his private dwelling, situated in +a by-lane and on the edge of a burial-ground. + +This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and +a drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance +to our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife +over the threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with +the human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept +accumulating beneath their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor +Bessie herself had gone early to rest there, it is probable that an +influence from her grave may have prematurely calmed and depressed her +widowed husband, taking away much of the energy from what should have +been the most active portion of his life. Thus he never grew rich. His +thrifty townsmen used to tell him, that, in any other man's hands, Dr. +Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, I presume, the inherited credit +and good-will of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years' +time to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. Dolliver's keeping, as we +have seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the greater part of what +superficial gilding it originally had. Matters had not mended with him +in more advanced life, after he had deposited a further and further +portion of his heart and its affections in each successive one of a +long row of kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them, +holding Pansie by the hand and looking down upon the coffin of his +grandson, it is no wonder that the old man wept, partly for those gone +before, but not so bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. +Why had not God taken her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he +was, so destitute of possibilities of good, his weary frame, his +decrepit bones, his dried-up heart, might have crumbled into dust at +once, and have been scattered by the next wind over all the heaps of +earth that were akin to him. + +This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character +to be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness +and simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even +before he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly +cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's +warm little hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly +for her protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty +nor quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the +sloth of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency +which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. + +To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, +he was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell +into popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed +the old man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to +possess more skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial +apothecary, having been regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, +throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the +medicines which he prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, +that the ancient physician had learned the art at the world-famous +drug-manufactory of Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people +half-malignly whispered, had perfected himself under masters more +subtle than were to be found even there. Unquestionably, in many +critical cases he was known to have employed remedies of mysterious +composition and dangerous potency, which, in less skilful hands, would +have been more likely to kill than cure. He would willingly, it is +said, have taught his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, +but the latter, being of a timid character and delicate conscience, had +shrunk from acquaintance with them. It was probably as the result of +the same scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had always declined to enter +the medical profession, in which his old instructor had set him such +heroic examples of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. +Nevertheless, the aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned +Swinnerton's reputation, had clung to our friend through life; and +there were elaborate preparations in the pharmacopoeia of that day, +requiring such minute skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter +that the physicians were still glad to confide them to one in whom +these qualities were so evident. + +Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and +mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, +pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about +their toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were +beautiful. Among this class of customers there was still a demand for +certain comfortable little nostrums (delicately sweet and pungent to +the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath), the +proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic +Swinnerton had left behind him. And, besides, these old ladies had +always liked the manners of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his +gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something +to admire; though of later years, an unrefined, and almost rustic +simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have +taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in +their late decay. + +But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the +Doctor's marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably +damaged by a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional +intimacy with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in +his delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such +minute quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too +little or too much, leaving out life with the deficiency, or spilling +in death with the surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were +beginning to think that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind +appeared absolutely to depart from him, while his frail old body worked +on mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close +supervision of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to convince +the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if +anything could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener +happened, to tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick +to detect) thus to interfere with his long-familiar business. + +The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his +professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps +their oldest fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire +and the Great Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the +terrible epoch of Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the +breaking out of King Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy +days, had received a benediction from the patriarchal Governor +Bradstreet, and thus could boast (somewhat as Bishops do of their +unbroken succession from the Apostles) of a transmitted blessing from +the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among whom the venerable +magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their townsman in +this aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with which they +had heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly as +Grandsir Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare +garb (the fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century +ago), his gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his +shrunken, frosty figure, and its feeble movement,--all these +characteristics had a wholeness and permanence in the public +recognition, like the meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. All the +younger portion of the inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of +aged immortality to Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and reverend presence. +They fancied that he had been born old (at least, I remember +entertaining some such notions about age-stricken people, when I myself +was young), and that he could the better tolerate his aches and +incommodities, his dull ears and dim eyes, his remoteness from human +intercourse within the crust of indurated years, the cold temperature +that kept him always shivering and sad, the heavy burden that invisibly +bent down his shoulders,--that all these intolerable things might bring +a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir Dolliver, as the lifelong conditions of +his peculiar existence. + +But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a +perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to +it, but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning +life, and patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward +consciousness that these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, +this cloudiness of sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men +and affairs, were troublesome accidents that did not really belong to +him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass +away. Youth, however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, +permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into +this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never +absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A +sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our +true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes +of many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but +beneath them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable flame. So powerful is +this instinctive faith, that men of simple modes of character are prone +to antedate its consummation. And thus it happened with poor Grandsir +Dolliver, who often awoke from an old man's fitful sleep with a sense +that his senile predicament was but a dream of the past night; and +hobbling hastily across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would +be grievously disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles +and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy mask of +Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange and sad enchantment +had involved him for years gone by! + +To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman +looked as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too +artfully wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping +figure should be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his +brows, and his much-enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green +coverlet spread over them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would +recognize her youthful companion in spite of his ugly garniture of +decay. He longed to be gazed at by the loving eyes now closed; he +shrank from the hard stare of them that loved him not. Walking the +streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a dreary impulse to elude the +people's observation, as if with a sense that he had gone irrevocably +out of fashion, and broken his connecting links with the net-work of +human life; or else it was that nightmare-feeling which we sometimes +have in dreams, when we seem to find ourselves wandering through a +crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some wild extravagance +of dress or nudity. He was conscious of estrangement from his +towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why he +should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude. If they +spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated itself +faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him by the hand, it +was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed the kindly pressure and +the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion of his walk, her +childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer +relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of +indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, into +which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away. + +Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the +great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if +his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and +Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, +instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled +sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm +contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as +it stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his +memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music +lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it +might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put +to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the +massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses +with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our +twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone +years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, +stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on +her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a +calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet +not so vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had +been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a +glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of +an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. + + + + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + +[Footnote: This scene was not revised by the author, but is printed +from his first draught.] + +We may now suppose Grandsir Dolliver to have finished his breakfast, +with a better appetite and sharper perception of the qualities of his +food than he has generally felt of late years, whether it were due to +old Martha's cookery or to the cordial of the night before. Little +Pansie had also made an end of her bread and milk with entire +satisfaction, and afterwards nibbled a crust, greatly enjoying its +resistance to her little white teeth. + +How this child came by the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was +really her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was +one of those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or +out of some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for +and unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true +name by which the child's guardian angel would know it,--a name with +playfulness and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the +practice of those who love the child best, the name that they carefully +selected, and caused the clergyman to plaster indelibly on the poor +little forehead at the font,--the love-name, whereby, if the child +lives, the parents know it in their hearts, or by which, if it dies, +God seems to have called it away, leaving the sound lingering faintly +and sweetly through the house. In Pansie's case, it may have been a +certain pensiveness which was sometimes seen under her childish frolic, +and so translated itself into French (_pensée_), her mother having been +of Acadian kin; or, quite as probably, it alluded merely to the color +of her eyes, which, in some lights, were very like the dark petals of a +tuft of pansies in the Doctor's garden. It might well be, indeed, on +account of the suggested pensiveness; for the child's gayety had no +example to sustain it, no sympathy of other children or grown +people,--and her melancholy, had it been so dark a feeling, was but the +shadow of the house, and of the old man. If brighter sunshine came, she +would brighten with it. This morning, surely, as the three companions, +Pansie, puss, and Grandsir Dolliver, emerged from the shadow of the +house into the small adjoining enclosure, they seemed all frolicsome +alike. + +The Doctor, however, was intent over something that had reference to +his lifelong business of drugs. This little spot was the place where he +was wont to cultivate a variety of herbs supposed to be endowed with +medicinal virtue. Some of them had been long known in the pharmacopœia +of the Old World; and others, in the early days of the country, had +been adopted by the first settlers from the Indian medicine-men, though +with fear and even contrition, because these wild doctors were supposed +to draw their pharmaceutic knowledge from no gracious source, the Black +Man himself being the principal professor in their medical school. From +his own experience, however, Dr. Dolliver had long since doubted, +though he was not bold enough quite to come to the conclusion, that +Indian shrubs, and the remedies prepared from them, were much less +perilous than those so freely used in European practice, and singularly +apt to be followed by results quite as propitious. Into such heterodoxy +our friend was the more liable to fall, because it had been taught him +early in life by his old master, Dr. Swinnerton, who, at those not +infrequent times when he indulged a certain unhappy predilection for +strong waters, had been accustomed to inveigh in terms of the most +cynical contempt and coarsest ridicule against the practice by which he +lived, and, as he affirmed, inflicted death on his fellow-men. Our old +apothecary, though too loyal to the learned profession with which he +was connected fully to believe this bitter judgment, even when +pronounced by his revered master, was still so far influenced that his +conscience was possibly a little easier when making a preparation from +forest herbs and roots than in the concoction of half a score of +nauseous poisons into a single elaborate drug, as the fashion of that +day was. + +But there were shrubs in the garden of which he had never ventured to +make a medical use, nor, indeed, did he know their virtue, although +from year to year he had tended and fertilized, weeded and pruned them, +with something like religious care. They were of the rarest character, +and had been planted by the learned and famous Dr. Swinnerton, who, on +his death-bed, when he left his dwelling and all his abstruse +manuscripts to his favorite pupil, had particularly directed his +attention to this row of shrubs. They had been collected by himself +from remote countries, and had the poignancy of torrid climes in them; +and he told him, that, properly used, they would be worth all the rest +of the legacy a hundred-fold. As the apothecary, however, found the +manuscripts, in which he conjectured there was a treatise on the +subject of these shrubs, mostly illegible, and quite beyond his +comprehension in such passages as he succeeded in puzzling out (partly, +perhaps, owing to his very imperfect knowledge of Latin, in which +language they were written), he had never derived from them any of the +promised benefit. And, to say the truth, remembering that Dr. +Swinnerton himself never appeared to triturate or decoct or do anything +else with the mysterious herbs, our old friend was inclined to imagine +the weighty commendation of their virtues to have been the idly solemn +utterance of mental aberration at the hour of death. So, with the +integrity that belonged to his character, he had nurtured them as +tenderly as was possible in the ungenial climate and soil of New +England, putting some of them into pots for the winter; but they had +rather dwindled than flourished, and he had reaped no harvests from +them, nor observed them with any degree of scientific interest. + +His grandson, however, while yet a school-boy, had listened to the old +man's legend of the miraculous virtues of these plants; and it took so +firm a hold of his mind, that the row of outlandish vegetables seemed +rooted in it, and certainly flourished there with richer luxuriance +than in the soil where they actually grew. The story, acting thus early +upon his imagination, may be said to have influenced his brief career +in life, and, perchance, brought about its early close. The young man, +in the opinion of competent judges, was endowed with remarkable +abilities, and according to the rumor of the people had wonderful +gifts, which were proved by the cures he had wrought with remedies of +his own invention. His talents lay in the direction of scientific +analysis and inventive combination of chemical powers. While under the +pupilage of his grandfather, his progress had rapidly gone quite beyond +his instructor's hope,--leaving him even to tremble at the audacity +with which he overturned and invented theories, and to wonder at the +depth at which he wrought beneath the superficialness and mock-mystery +of the medical science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft +and running a hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. +Especially did he devote himself to these plants; and under his care +they had thriven beyond all former precedent, bursting into luxuriance +of bloom, and most of them bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, +in two or three instances, had the sort of natural repulsiveness that +the serpent has in its beauty, compelled against its will, as it were, +to warn the beholder of an unrevealed danger. The young man had long +ago, it must be added, demanded of his grandfather the documents +included in the legacy of Professor Swinnerton, and had spent days and +nights upon them, growing pale over their mystic lore, which seemed the +fruit not merely of the Professor's own labors, but of those of more +ancient sages than he; and often a whole volume seemed to be compressed +within the limits of a few lines of crabbed manuscript, judging from +the time which it cost even the quick-minded student to decipher them. + +Meantime these abstruse investigations had not wrought such disastrous +effects as might have been feared, in causing Edward Dolliver to +neglect the humble trade, the conduct of which his grandfather had now +relinquished almost entirely into his hands. On the contrary, with the +mere side results of his study, or what may be called the chips and +shavings of his real work, he created a prosperity quite beyond +anything that his simple-minded predecessor had ever hoped for, even at +the most sanguine epoch of his life. The young man's adventurous +endowments were miraculously alive, and connecting themselves with his +remarkable ability for solid research, and perhaps his conscience being +as yet imperfectly developed (as it sometimes lies dormant in the +young), he spared not to produce compounds which, if the names were +anywise to be trusted, would supersede all other remedies, and speedily +render any medicine a needless thing, making the trade of apothecary an +untenable one, and the title of Doctor obsolete. Whether there was real +efficacy in these nostrums, and whether their author himself had faith +in them, is more than can safely be said; but, at all events, the +public believed in them, and thronged to the old and dim sign of the +Brazen Serpent, which, though hitherto familiar to them and their +forefathers, now seemed to shine with auspicious lustre, as if its old +Scriptural virtues were renewed. If any faith was to be put in human +testimony, many marvellous cures were really performed, the fame of +which spread far and wide, and caused demands for these medicines to +come in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. Our +old apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his +grandson's character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, +stood behind the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with +an odd kind of fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to +enjoy this new prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was +to be seen dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle +and by the dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what +he feared was trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of +every ancient physician who might chance to be passing by, but withal +examining closely the silver, or the New England coarsely printed +bills, which he took in payment, as if apprehensive that the delusive +character of the commodity which he sold might be balanced by equal +counterfeiting in the money received, or as if his faith in all things +were shaken. + +Is it not possible that this gifted young man had indeed found out +those remedies which Nature has provided and laid away for the cure of +every ill? + +The disastrous termination of the most brilliant epoch that ever came +to the Brazen Serpent must be told in a few words. One night, Edward +Dolliver's young wife awoke, and, seeing the gray dawn creeping into +the chamber, while her husband, it should seem, was still engaged in +his laboratory, arose in her nightdress, and went to the door of the +room to put in her gentle remonstrance against such labor. There she +found him dead,--sunk down out of his chair upon the hearth, where were +some ashes, apparently of burnt manuscripts, which appeared to comprise +most of those included in Dr. Swinnerton's legacy, though one or two +had fallen near the heap, and lay merely scorched beside it. It seemed +as if he had thrown them into the fire, under a sudden impulse, in a +great hurry and passion. It may be that he had come to the perception +of something fatally false and deceptive in the successes which he had +appeared to win, and was too proud and too conscientious to survive it. +Doctors were called in, but had no power to revive him. An inquest was +held, at which the jury, under the instruction, perhaps, of those same +revengeful doctors, expressed the opinion that the poor young man, +being given to strange contrivances with poisonous drugs, had died by +incautiously tasting them himself. This verdict, and the terrible event +itself, at once deprived the medicines of all their popularity; and the +poor old apothecary was no longer under any necessity of disturbing his +conscience by selling them. They at once lost their repute, and ceased +to be in any demand. In the few instances in which they were tried the +experiment was followed by no good results; and even those individuals +who had fancied themselves cured, and had been loudest in spreading the +praises of these beneficent compounds, now, as if for the utter +demolition of the poor youth's credit, suffered under a recurrence of +the worst symptoms, and, in more than one case, perished miserably: +insomuch (for the days of witchcraft were still within the memory of +living men and women) it was the general opinion that Satan had been +personally concerned in this affliction, and that the Brazen Serpent, +so long honored among them, was really the type of his subtle +malevolence and perfect iniquity. It was rumored even that all +preparations that came from the shop were harmful: that teeth decayed +that had been made pearly white by the use of the young chemist's +dentifrice; that cheeks were freckled that had been changed to damask +roses by his cosmetics; that hair turned gray or fell off that had +become black, glossy, and luxuriant from the application of his +mixtures; that breath which his drugs had sweetened had now a +sulphurous smell. Moreover, all the money heretofore amassed by the +sale of them had been exhausted by Edward Dolliver in his lavish +expenditure for the processes of his study; and nothing was left for +Pansie, except a few valueless and unsalable bottles of medicine, and +one or two others, perhaps more recondite than their inventor had seen +fit to offer to the public. + +Little Pansie's mother lived but a short time after the shock of the +terrible catastrophe; and, as we began our story with saying, she was +left with no better guardianship or support than might be found in the +efforts of a long superannuated man. + +Nothing short of the simplicity, integrity, and piety of Grandsir +Dolliver's character, known and acknowledged as far back as the oldest +inhabitants remembered anything, and inevitably discoverable by the +dullest and most prejudiced observers, in all its natural +manifestations, could have protected him in still creeping about the +streets. So far as he was personally concerned, however, all bitterness +and suspicion had speedily passed away; and there remained still the +careless and neglectful good-will, and the prescriptive reverence, not +altogether reverential, which the world heedlessly awards to the +unfortunate individual who outlives his generation. + +And now that we have shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the +best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the +present position of Grandsir Dolliver, we may let our story pass +onward, though at such a pace as suits the feeble gait of an old man. + +The peculiarly brisk sensation of this morning, to which we have more +than once alluded, enabled the Doctor to toil pretty vigorously at his +medicinal herbs,--his catnip, his vervain, and the like; but he did not +turn his attention to the row of mystic plants, with which so much of +trouble and sorrow either was, or appeared to be, connected. In truth, +his old soul was sick of them, and their very fragrance, which the warm +sunshine made strongly perceptible, was odious to his nostrils. But the +spicy, homelike scent of his other herbs, the English simples, was +grateful to him, and so was the earth-smell, as he turned up the soil +about their roots, and eagerly snuffed it in. Little Pansie, on the +other hand, perhaps scandalized at great-grandpapa's neglect of the +prettiest plants in his garden, resolved to do her small utmost towards +balancing his injustice; so with an old shingle, fallen from the roof, +which she had appropriated as her agricultural tool, she began to dig +about them, pulling up the weeds, as she saw grandpapa doing. The +kitten, too, with a look of elfish sagacity, lent her assistance, +plying her paws with vast haste and efficiency at the roots of one of +the shrubs. This particular one was much smaller than the rest, perhaps +because it was a native of the torrid zone, and required greater care +than the others to make it flourish; so that, shrivelled, cankered, and +scarcely showing a green leaf, both Pansie and the kitten probably +mistook it for a weed. After their joint efforts had made a pretty big +trench about it, the little girl seized the shrub with both hands, +bestriding it with her plump little legs, and giving so vigorous a +pull, that, long accustomed to be transplanted annually, it came up by +the roots, and little Pansie came down in a sitting posture, making a +broad impress on the soft earth. "See, see, Doctor!" cries Pansie, +comically enough giving him his title of courtesy,--"look, grandpapa, +the big, naughty weed!" + +Now the Doctor had at once a peculiar dread and a peculiar value for +this identical shrub, both because his grandson's investigations had +been applied more ardently to it than to all the rest, and because it +was associated in his mind with an ancient and sad recollection. For he +had never forgotten that his wife, the early lost, had once taken a +fancy to wear its flowers, day after day, through the whole season of +their bloom, in her bosom, where they glowed like a gem, and deepened +her somewhat pallid beauty with a richness never before seen in it. At +least such was the effect which this tropical flower imparted to the +beloved form in his memory, and thus it somehow both brightened and +wronged her. This had happened not long before her death; and whenever, +in the subsequent years, this plant had brought its annual flower, it +had proved a kind of talisman to bring up the image of Bessie, radiant +with this glow that did not really belong to her naturally passive +beauty, quickly interchanging with another image of her form, with the +snow of death on cheek and forehead. This reminiscence had remained +among the things of which the Doctor was always conscious, but had +never breathed a word, through the whole of his long life,--a sprig of +sensibility that perhaps helped to keep him tenderer and purer than +other men, who entertain no such follies. And the sight of the shrub +often brought back the faint, golden gleam of her hair, as if her +spirit were in the sunlights of the garden, quivering into view and out +of it. And therefore, when he saw what Pansie had done, he sent forth a +strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of aged +and decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "Naughty Pansie, to pull up +grandpapa's flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Poison, +Pansie, poison! Fling it away, child!" + +And dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little +girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while Pansie, as +apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of +mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was +ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this +fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten. + +"Stop, naughty Pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "You will tumble +into the grave!" The kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems +to affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back. + +And, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more +literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate +communicated with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little +Pansie's track there was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant +that afternoon. Pansie, however, fled onward with outstretched arms, +half in fear, half in fun, plying her round little legs with wonderful +promptitude, as if to escape Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir +Dolliver, and happily avoiding the ominous pitfall that lies in every +person's path, till, hearing a groan from her pursuer, she looked over +her shoulder, and saw that poor grandpapa had stumbled over one of the +many hillocks. She then suddenly wrinkled up her little visage, and +sent forth a full-breathed roar of sympathy and alarm. + +"Grandpapa has broken his neck now!" cried little Pansie, amid her sobs. + +"Kiss grandpapa, and make it well, then," said the old gentleman, +recollecting her remedy, and scrambling up more readily than could be +expected. "Well," he murmured to himself, "a hair's-breadth more, and I +should have been tumbled into yonder grave. Poor little Pansie! what +wouldst thou have done then?" + +"Make the grass grow over grandpapa," answered Pansie, laughing up in +his face. + +"Poh, poh, child, that is not a pretty thing to say," said grandpapa, +pettishly and disappointed, as people are apt to be when they try to +calculate on the fitful sympathies of childhood. "Come, you must go in +to old Martha now." + +The poor old gentleman was in the more haste to leave the spot because +he found himself standing right in front of his own peculiar row of +gravestones, consisting of eight or nine slabs of slate, adorned with +carved borders rather rudely cut, and the earliest one, that of his +Bessie, bending aslant, because the frost of so many winters had slowly +undermined it. Over one grave of the row, that of his gifted grandson, +there was no memorial. He felt a strange repugnance, stronger than he +had ever felt before, to linger by these graves, and had none of the +tender sorrow, mingled with high and tender hopes, that had sometimes +made it seem good to him to be there. Such moods, perhaps, often come +to the aged, when the hardened earth-crust over their souls shuts them +out from spiritual influences. + +Taking the child by the hand,--her little effervescence of infantile +fun having passed into a downcast humor, though not well knowing as yet +what a dusky cloud of disheartening fancies arose from these green +hillocks,--he went heavily toward the garden-gate. Close to its +threshold, so that one who was issuing forth or entering must needs +step upon it or over it, lay a small flat stone, deeply imbedded in the +ground, and partly covered with grass, inscribed with the name of "Dr. +John Swinnerton, Physician." + +"Ay," said the old man, as the well-remembered figure of his ancient +instructor seemed to rise before him in his grave-apparel, with beard +and gold-headed cane, black velvet doublet and cloak, "here lies a man +who, as people have thought, had it in his power to avoid the grave! He +had no little grandchild to tease him. He had the choice to die, and +chose it." + +So the old gentleman led Pansie over the stone, and carefully closed +the gate; and, as it happened, he forgot the uprooted shrub, which +Pansie, as she ran, had flung away, and which had fallen into the open +grave; and when the funeral came that afternoon, the coffin was let +down upon it, so that its bright, inauspicious flower never bloomed +again. + + + + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +"Be secret!" and he kept his stern eye fixed upon him, as the coach +began to move. + +"Be secret!" repeated the apothecary. "I know not any secret that he +has confided to me thus far, and as for his nonsense (as I will be bold +to style it now he is gone) about a medicine of long life, it is a +thing I forget in spite of myself, so very empty and trashy it is. I +wonder, by the by, that it never came into my head to give the Colonel +a dose of the cordial whereof I partook last night. I have no faith +that it is a valuable medicine--little or none--and yet there has been +an unwonted briskness in me all the morning." + +Then a simple joy broke over his face--a flickering sunbeam among his +wrinkles--as he heard the laughter of the little girl, who was running +rampant with a kitten in the kitchen. + +"Pansie! Pansie!" cackled he, "grandpapa has sent away the ugly man +now. Come, let us have a frolic in the garden." + +And he whispered to himself again, "That is a cordial yonder, and I +will take it according to the prescription, knowing all the +ingredients." Then, after a moment's thought, he added, "All, save one." + +So, as he had declared to himself his intention, that night, when +little Pansie had long been asleep, and his small household was in bed, +and most of the quiet, old-fashioned townsfolk likewise, this good +apothecary went into his laboratory, and took out of a cupboard in the +wall a certain ancient-looking bottle, which was cased over with a +net-work of what seemed to be woven silver, like the wicker-woven +bottles of our days. He had previously provided a goblet of pure water. +Before opening the bottle, however, he seemed to hesitate, and pondered +and babbled to himself; having long since come to that period of life +when the bodily frame, having lost much of its value, is more tenderly +cared for than when it was a perfect and inestimable machine. + +"I triturated, I infused, I distilled it myself in these very rooms, +and know it--know it all--all the ingredients, save one. They are +common things enough--comfortable things--some of them a little +queer--one or two that folks have a prejudice against--and then there +is that one thing that I don't know. It is foolish in me to be dallying +with such a mess, which I thought was a piece of quackery, while that +strange visitor bade me do it,--and yet, what a strength has come from +it! He said it was a rare cordial, and, methinks, it has brightened up +my weary life all day, so that Pansie has found me the fitter playmate. +And then the dose--it is so absurdly small! I will try it again." + +He took the silver stopple from the bottle, and with a practised hand, +tremulous as it was with age, so that one would have thought it must +have shaken the liquor into a perfect shower of misapplied drops, he +dropped--I have heard it said--only one single drop into the goblet of +water. It fell into it with a dazzling brightness, like a spark of ruby +flame, and subtly diffusing itself through the whole body of water, +turned it to a rosy hue of great brilliancy. He held it up between his +eyes and the light, and seemed to admire and wonder at it. + +"It is very odd," said he, "that such a pure, bright liquor should have +come out of a parcel of weeds that mingled their juices here. The thing +is a folly,--it is one of those compositions in which the chemists--the +cabalists, perhaps--used to combine what they thought the virtues of +many plants, thinking that something would result in the whole, which +was not in either of them, and a new efficacy be created. Whereas, it +has been the teaching of my experience that one virtue counteracts +another, and is the enemy of it. I never believed the former theory, +even when that strange madman bade me do it. And what a thick, turbid +matter it was, until that last ingredient,--that powder which he put in +with his own hand! Had he let me see it, I would first have analyzed +it, and discovered its component parts. The man was mad, undoubtedly, +and this may have been poison. But its effect is good. Poh! I will +taste again, because of this weak, agued, miserable state of mine; +though it is a shame in me, a man of decent skill in my way, to believe +in a quack's nostrum. But it is a comfortable kind of thing." + +Meantime, that single drop (for good Dr. Dolliver had immediately put a +stopper into the bottle) diffused a sweet odor through the chamber, so +that the ordinary fragrances and scents of apothecaries' stuff seemed +to be controlled and influenced by it, and its bright potency also +dispelled a certain dimness of the antiquated room. + +The Doctor, at the pressure of a great need, had given incredible pains +to the manufacture of this medicine; so that, reckoning the pains +rather than the ingredients (all except one, of which he was not able +to estimate the cost nor value), it was really worth its weight in +gold. And, as it happened, he had bestowed upon it the hard labor of +his poor life, and the time that was necessary for the support of his +family, without return; for the customers, after playing off this cruel +joke upon the old man, had never come back; and now, for seven years, +the bottle had stood in a corner of the cupboard. To be sure, the +silver-cased bottle was worth a trifle for its silver, and still more, +perhaps, as an antiquarian knick-knack. But, all things considered, the +honest and simple apothecary thought that he might make free with the +liquid to such small extent as was necessary for himself. And there had +been something in the concoction that had struck him; and he had been +fast breaking lately; and so, in the dreary fantasy and lonely +recklessness of his old age, he had suddenly bethought himself of this +medicine (cordial,--as the strange man called it, which had come to him +by long inheritance in his family) and he had determined to try it. And +again, as the night before, he took out the receipt--a roll of antique +parchment, out of which, provokingly, one fold had been lost--and put +on his spectacles to puzzle out the passage. + +Guttam unicam in aquam puram, two gills. "If the Colonel should hear of +this," said Dr. Dolliver, "he might fancy it his nostrum of long life, +and insist on having the bottle for his own use. The foolish, fierce +old gentleman! He has grown very earthly, of late, else he would not +desire such a thing. And a strong desire it must be to make him feel it +desirable. For my part, I only wish for something that, for a short +time, may clear my eyes, so that I may see little Pansie's beauty, and +quicken my ears, that I may hear her sweet voice, and give me nerve, +while God keeps me here, that I may live longer to earn bread for dear +Pansie. She provided for, I would gladly lie down yonder with Bessie +and our children. Ah! the vanity of desiring lengthened +days!--There!--I have drunk it, and methinks its final, subtle flavor +hath strange potency in it." + +The old man shivered a little, as those shiver who have just swallowed +good liquor, while it is permeating their vitals. Yet he seemed to be +in a pleasant state of feeling, and, as was frequently the case with +this simple soul, in a devout frame of mind. He read a chapter in the +Bible, and said his prayers for Pansie and himself, before he went to +bed, and had much better sleep than usually comes to people of his +advanced age; for, at that period, sleep is diffused through their +wakefulness, and a dim and tiresome half-perception through their +sleep, so that the only result is weariness. + +Nothing very extraordinary happened to Dr. Dolliver or his small +household for some time afterwards. He was favored with a comfortable +winter, and thanked Heaven for it, and put it to a good use (at least +he intended it so) by concocting drugs; which perhaps did a little +towards peopling the graveyard, into which his windows looked; but that +was neither his purpose nor his fault. None of the sleepers, at all +events, interrupted their slumbers to upbraid him. He had done +according to his own artless conscience and the recipes of licensed +physicians, and he looked no further, but pounded, triturated, infused, +made electuaries, boluses, juleps, or whatever he termed his +productions, with skill and diligence, thanking Heaven that he was +spared to do so, when his contemporaries generally were getting +incapable of similar efforts. It struck him with some surprise, but +much gratitude to Providence, that his sight seemed to be growing +rather better than worse. He certainly could read the crabbed +handwriting and hieroglyphics of the physicians with more readiness +than he could a year earlier. But he had been originally near-sighted, +with large, projecting eyes; and near-sighted eyes always seem to get a +new lease of light as the years go on. One thing was perceptible about +the Doctor's eyes, not only to himself in the glass, but to everybody +else; namely, that they had an unaccustomed gleaming brightness in +them; not so very bright either, but yet so much so, that little Pansie +noticed it, and sometimes, in her playful, roguish way, climbed up into +his lap, and put both her small palms over them; telling Grandpapa that +he had stolen somebody else's eyes, and given away his own, and that +she liked his old ones better. The poor old Doctor did his best to +smile through his eyes, and so to reconcile Pansie to their brightness: +but still she continually made the same silly remonstrance, so that he +was fain to put on a pair of green spectacles when he was going to play +with Pansie, or took her on his knee. Nay, if he looked at her, as had +always been his custom, after she was asleep, in order to see that all +was well with her, the little child would put up her hands, as if he +held a light that was flashing on her eyeballs; and unless he turned +away his gaze quickly, she would wake up in a fit of crying. + +On the whole, the apothecary had as comfortable a time as a man of his +years could expect. The air of the house and of the old graveyard +seemed to suit him. What so seldom happens in man's advancing age, his +night's rest did him good, whereas, generally, an old man wakes up ten +times as nervous and dispirited as he went to bed, just as if, during +his sleep he had been working harder than ever he did in the daytime. +It had been so with the Doctor himself till within a few months. To be +sure, he had latterly begun to practise various rules of diet and +exercise, which commended themselves to his approbation. He sawed some +of his own fire-wood, and fancied that, as was reasonable, it fatigued +him less day by day. He took walks with Pansie, and though, of course, +her little footsteps, treading on the elastic air of childhood, far +outstripped his own, still the old man knew that he was not beyond the +recuperative period of life, and that exercise out of doors and proper +food can do somewhat towards retarding the approach of age. He was +inclined, also, to impute much good effect to a daily dose of Santa +Cruz rum (a liquor much in vogue in that day), which he was now in the +habit of quaffing at the meridian hour. All through the Doctor's life +he had eschewed strong spirits: "But after seventy," quoth old Dr. +Dolliver, "a man is all the better in head and stomach for a little +stimulus"; and it certainly seemed so in his case. Likewise, I know not +precisely how often, but complying punctiliously with the recipe, as an +apothecary naturally would, he took his drop of the mysterious cordial. + +He was inclined, however, to impute little or no efficacy to this, and +to laugh at himself for having ever thought otherwise. The dose was so +very minute! and he had never been sensible of any remarkable effect on +taking it, after all. A genial warmth, he sometimes fancied, diffused +itself throughout him, and perhaps continued during the next day. A +quiet and refreshing night's rest followed, and alacritous waking in +the morning; but all this was far more probably owing, as has been +already hinted, to excellent and well-considered habits of diet and +exercise. Nevertheless he still continued the cordial with tolerable +regularity,--the more, because on one or two occasions, happening to +omit it, it so chanced that he slept wretchedly, and awoke in strange +aches and pains, torpors, nervousness, shaking of the hands, +bleared-ness of sight, lowness of spirits and other ills, as is the +misfortune of some old men,--who are often threatened by a thousand +evil symptoms that come to nothing, foreboding no particular disorder, +and passing away as unsatisfactorily as they come. At another time, he +took two or three drops at once, and was alarmingly feverish in +consequence. Yet it was very true, that the feverish symptoms were +pretty sure to disappear on his renewal of the medicine. "Still it +could not be that," thought the old man, a hater of empiricism (in +which, however, is contained all hope for man), and disinclined to +believe in anything that was not according to rule and art. And then, +as aforesaid, the dose was so ridiculously small! + +Sometimes, however, he took, half laughingly, another view of it, and +felt disposed to think that chance might really have thrown in his way +a very remarkable mixture, by which, if it had happened to him earlier +in life, he might have amassed a larger fortune, and might even have +raked together such a competency as would have prevented his feeling +much uneasiness about the future of little Pansie. Feeling as strong as +he did nowadays, he might reasonably count upon ten years more of life, +and in that time the precious liquor might be exchanged for much gold. +"Let us see!" quoth he, "by what attractive name shall it be +advertised? 'The old man's cordial?' That promises too little. Poh, +poh! I would stain my honesty, my fair reputation, the accumulation of +a lifetime, and befool my neighbor and the public, by any name that +would make them imagine I had found that ridiculous talisman that the +alchemists have sought. The old man's cordial,--that is best. And five +shillings sterling the bottle. That surely were not too costly, and +would give the medicine a better reputation and higher vogue (so +foolish is the world) than if I were to put it lower. I will think +further of this. But pshaw, pshaw!" + +"What is the matter. Grandpapa," said little Pansie, who had stood by +him, wishing to speak to him at least a minute, but had been deterred +by his absorption; "why do you say 'Pshaw'?" + +"Pshaw!" repeated Grandpapa, "there is one ingredient that I don't +know." + +So this very hopeful design was necessarily given up, but that it had +occurred to Dr. Dolliver was perhaps a token that his mind was in a +very vigorous state; for it had been noted of him through life, that he +had little enterprise, little activity, and that, for the want of these +things, his very considerable skill in his art had been almost thrown +away, as regarded his private affairs, when it might easily have led +him to fortune. Whereas, here in his extreme age, he had first +bethought himself of a way to grow rich. Sometimes this latter spring +causes--as blossoms come on the autumnal tree--a spurt of vigor, or +untimely greenness, when Nature laughs at her old child, half in +kindness and half in scorn. It is observable, however, I fancy, that +after such a spurt, age comes on with redoubled speed, and that the old +man has only run forward with a show of force, in order to fall into +his grave the sooner. + +Sometimes, as he was walking briskly along the street, with little +Pansie clasping his hand, and perhaps frisking rather more than became +a person of his venerable years, he had met the grim old wreck of +Colonel Dabney, moving goutily, and gathering wrath anew with every +touch of his painful foot to the ground; or driving by in his carriage, +showing an ashen, angry, wrinkled face at the window, and frowning at +him--the apothecary thought--with a peculiar fury, as if he took +umbrage at his audacity in being less broken by age than a gentleman +like himself. The apothecary could not help feeling as if there were +some unsettled quarrel or dispute between himself and the Colonel, he +could not tell what or why. The Colonel always gave him a haughty nod +of half-recognition; and the people in the street, to whom he was a +familiar object, would say, "The worshipful Colonel begins to find +himself mortal like the rest of us. He feels his years." "He'd be glad, +I warrant," said one, "to change with you, Doctor. It shows what +difference a good life makes in men, to look at him and you. You are +half a score of years his elder, me-thinks, and yet look what +temperance can do for a man. By my credit, neighbor, seeing how brisk +you have been lately, I told my wife you seemed to be growing younger. +It does me good to see it. We are about of an age, I think, and I like +to notice how we old men keep young and keep one another in heart. I +myself--ahem--ahem--feel younger this season than for these five years +past." + +"It rejoices me that you feel so," quoth the apothecary, who had just +been thinking that this neighbor of his had lost a great deal, both in +mind and body, within a short period, and rather scorned him for it. +"Indeed, I find old age less uncomfortable than I supposed. Little +Pansie and I make excellent companions for one another." + +And then, dragged along by Pansie's little hand, and also impelled by a +certain alacrity that rose with him in the morning, and lasted till his +healthy rest at night, he bade farewell to his contemporary, and +hastened on; while the latter, left behind, was somewhat irritated as +he looked at the vigorous movement of the apothecary's legs. + +"He need not make such a show of briskness neither," muttered he to +himself. "This touch of rheumatism troubles me a bit just now, but try +it on a good day, and I'd walk with him for a shilling. Pshaw! I'll +walk to his funeral yet." + +One day, while the Doctor, with the activity that bestirred itself in +him nowadays, was mixing and manufacturing certain medicaments that +came in frequent demand, a carriage stopped at his door, and he +recognized the voice of Colonel Dabney, talking in his customary stern +tone to the woman who served him. And, a moment afterwards, the coach +drove away, and he actually heard the old dignitary lumbering up +stairs, and bestowing a curse upon each particular step, as if that +were the method to make them soften and become easier when he should +come down again. "Pray, your worship," said the Doctor from above, "let +me attend you below stairs." + +"No," growled the Colonel, "I'll meet you on your own ground. I can +climb a stair yet, and be hanged to you." + +So saying, he painfully finished the ascent, and came into the +laboratory, where he let himself fall into the Doctor's easy-chair, +with an anathema on the chair, the Doctor, and himself; and, staring +round through the dusk, he met the wide-open, startled eyes of little +Pansie, who had been reading a gilt picture-book in the corner. + +"Send away that child, Dolliver," cried the Colonel, angrily. "Confound +her, she makes my bones ache. I hate everything young." + +"Lord, Colonel," the poor apothecary ventured to say, "there must be +young people in the world as well as old ones. 'T is my mind, a man's +grandchildren keep him warm round about him." + +"I have none, and want none," sharply responded the Colonel; "and as +for young people, let me be one of them, and they may exist, otherwise +not. It is a cursed bad arrangement of the world, that there are young +and old here together." + +When Pansie had gone away, which she did with anything but reluctance, +having a natural antipathy to this monster of a Colonel, the latter +personage tapped with his crutch-handled cane on a chair that stood +near, and nodded in an authoritative way to the apothecary to sit down +in it. Dr. Dolliver complied submissively, and the Colonel, with dull, +unkindly eyes, looked at him sternly, and with a kind of intelligence +amid the aged stolidity of his aspect, that somewhat puzzled the +Doctor. In this way he surveyed him all over, like a judge, when he +means to hang a man, and for some reason or none, the apothecary felt +his nerves shake, beneath this steadfast look. + +"Aha! Doctor!" said the Colonel at last, with a doltish sneer, "you +bear your years well." + +"Decently well, Colonel; I thank Providence for it," answered the meek +apothecary. + +"I should say," quoth the Colonel, "you are younger at this moment than +when we spoke together two or three years ago. I noted then that your +eyebrows were a handsome snow-white, such as befits a man who has +passed beyond his threescore years and ten, and five years more. Why, +they are getting dark again, Mr. Apothecary." + +"Nay, your worship must needs be mistaken there," said the Doctor, with +a timorous chuckle. "It is many a year since I have taken a deliberate +note of my wretched old visage in a glass, but I remember they were +white when I looked last." + +"Come, Doctor, I know a thing or two," said the Colonel, with a bitter +scoff; "and what's this, you old rogue? Why, you've rubbed away a +wrinkle since we met. Take off those infernal spectacles, and look me +in the face. Ha! I see the devil in your eye. How dare you let it shine +upon me so?" + +"On my conscience, Colonel," said the apothecary, strangely struck with +the coincidence of this accusation with little Pansie's complaint, "I +know not what you mean. My sight is pretty well for a man of my age. We +near-sighted people begin to know our best eyesight, when other people +have lost theirs." + +"Ah! ah! old rogue," repeated the insufferable Colonel, gnashing his +ruined teeth at him, as if, for some incomprehensible reason, he wished +to tear him to pieces and devour him. "I know you. You are taking the +life away from me, villain! and I told you it was my inheritance. And I +told you there was a Bloody Footstep, bearing its track down through my +race. + +"I remember nothing of it," said the Doctor, in a quake, sure that the +Colonel was in one of his mad fits. "And on the word of an honest man, +I never wronged you in my life, Colonel." + +"We shall see," said the Colonel, whose wrinkled visage grew absolutely +terrible with its hardness; and his dull eyes, without losing their +dulness, seemed to look through him. + +"Listen to me, sir. Some ten years ago, there came to you a man on a +secret business. He had an old musty bit of parchment, on which were +written some words, hardly legible, in an antique hand,--an old deed, +it might have been,--some family document, and here and there the +letters were faded away. But this man had spent his life over it, and +he had made out the meaning, and he interpreted it to you, and left it +with you, only there was one gap,--one torn or obliterated place. Well, +sir,--and he bade you, with your poor little skill at the mortar, and +for a certain sum,--ample repayment for such a service,--to manufacture +this medicine,--this cordial. It was an affair of months. And just when +you thought it finished, the man came again, and stood over your cursed +beverage, and shook a powder, or dropped a lump into it, or put in some +ingredient, in which was all the hidden virtue,--or, at least, it drew +out all the hidden virtue of the mean and common herbs, and married +them into a wondrous efficacy. This done, the man bade you do certain +other things with the potation, and went away"--the Colonel hesitated a +moment--"and never came back again." + +"Surely, Colonel, you are correct," said the apothecary; much startled, +however, at the Colonel's showing himself so well acquainted with an +incident which he had supposed a secret with himself alone. Yet he had +a little reluctance in owning it, although he did not exactly +understand why, since the Colonel had, apparently, no rightful claim to +it, at all events. + +"That medicine, that receipt," continued his visitor, "is my hereditary +property, and I challenge you, on your peril, to give it up." + +"But what if the original owner should call upon me for it," objected +Dr. Dolliver. + +"I'll warrant you against that," said the Colonel; and the apothecary +thought there was something ghastly in his look and tone. "Why, 't is +ten year, you old fool; and do you think a man with a treasure like +that in his possession would have waited so long?" + +"Seven years it was ago," said the apothecary. "Septem annis passatis: +so says the Latin." + +"Curse your Latin," answers the Colonel. "Produce the stuff. You have +been violating the first rule of your trade,--taking your own +drugs,--your own, in one sense; mine by the right of three hundred +years. Bring it forth, I say!" + +"Pray excuse me, worthy Colonel," pleaded the apothecary; for though +convinced that the old gentleman was only in one of his insane fits, +when he talked of the value of this concoction, yet he really did not +like to give up the cordial, which perhaps had wrought him some +benefit. Besides, he had at least a claim upon it for much trouble and +skill expended in its composition. This he suggested to the Colonel, +who scornfully took out of his pocket a net-work purse, with more +golden guineas in it than the apothecary had seen in the whole seven +years, and was rude enough to fling it in his face. "Take that," +thundered he, "and give up the thing, or I will have you in prison +before you are an hour older. Nay," he continued, growing pale, which +was his mode of showing terrible wrath; since all through life, till +extreme age quenched it, his ordinary face had been a blazing-red, +"I'll put you to death, you villain, as I've a right!" And thrusting +his hand into his waistcoat pocket, lo! the madman took a small pistol +from it, which he cocked, and presented at the poor apothecary. The old +fellow, quaked and cowered in his chair, and would indeed have given +his whole shopful of better concocted medicines than this, to be out of +this danger. Besides, there were the guineas; the Colonel had paid him +a princely sum for what was probably worth nothing. + +"Hold! hold!" cried he as the Colonel, with stern eye pointed the +pistol at his head. "You shall have it." + +So he rose all trembling, and crept to that secret cupboard, where the +precious bottle--since precious it seemed to be--was reposited. In all +his life, long as it had been, the apothecary had never before been +threatened by a deadly weapon; though many as deadly a thing had he +seen poured into a glass, without winking. And so it seemed to take his +heart and life away, and he brought the cordial forth feebly, and stood +tremulously before the Colonel, ashy pale, and looking ten years older +than his real age, instead of five years younger, as he had seemed just +before this disastrous interview with the Colonel. + +"You look as if you needed a drop of it yourself," said Colonel Dabney, +with great scorn. "But not a drop shall you have. Already have you +stolen too much," said he, lifting up the bottle, and marking the space +to which the liquor had subsided in it in consequence of the minute +doses with which the apothecary had made free. "Fool, had you taken +your glass like a man, you might have been young again. Now, creep on, +the few months you have left, poor, torpid knave, and die! Come--a +goblet! quick!" + +He clutched the bottle meanwhile voraciously, miserly, eagerly, +furiously, as if it were his life that he held in his grasp; angry, +impatient, as if something long sought were within his reach, and not +yet secure,--with longing thirst and desire; suspicious of the world +and of fate; feeling as if an iron hand were over him, and a crowd of +violent robbers round about him, struggling for it. At last, unable to +wait longer, just as the apothecary was tottering away in quest of a +drinking-glass, the Colonel took out the stopple, and lifted the flask +itself to his lips. + +"For Heaven's sake, no!" cried the Doctor. "The dose is one single +drop!--one drop, Colonel, one drop!" + +"Not a drop to save your wretched old soul," responded the Colonel; +probably thinking that the apothecary was pleading for a small share of +the precious liquor. He put it to his lips, and, as if quenching a +lifelong thirst, swallowed deep draughts, sucking it in with +desperation, till, void of breath, he set it down upon the table. The +rich, poignant perfume spread itself through the air. + +The apothecary, with an instinctive carefulness that was rather +ludicrous under the circumstances, caught up the stopper, which the +Colonel had let fall, and forced it into the bottle to prevent any +farther escape of virtue. He then fearfully watched the result of the +madman's potation. + +The Colonel sat a moment in his chair, panting for breath; then started +to his feet with a prompt vigor that contrasted widely with the infirm +and rheumatic movements that had heretofore characterized him. He +struck his forehead violently with one hand, and smote his chest with +the other: he stamped his foot thunderously on the ground; then he +leaped up to the ceiling, and came down with an elastic bound. Then he +laughed, a wild, exulting ha! ha! with a strange triumphant roar that +filled the house and reechoed through it; a sound full of fierce, +animal rapture,--enjoyment of sensual life mixed up with a sort of +horror. After all, real as it was, it was like the sounds a man makes +in a dream. And this, while the potent draught seemed still to be +making its way through his system; and the frightened apothecary +thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon himself. Finally, +he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of which his voice +broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, starting +forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life that was +being rent away,--and fell forward with a dead thump upon the floor. + +"Colonel! Colonel!" cried the terrified Doctor. + +The feeble old man, with difficulty, turned over the heavy frame, and +saw at once, with practised eye, that he was dead. He set him up, and +the corpse looked at him with angry reproach. He was so startled, that +his subsequent recollections of the moment were neither distinct nor +steadfast; but he fancied, though he told the strange impression to no +one, that on his first glimpse of the face, with a dark flush of what +looked like rage still upon it, it was a young man's face that he +saw,--a face with all the passionate energy of early manhood,--the +capacity for furious anger which the man had lost half a century ago, +crammed to the brim with vigor till it became agony. But the next +moment, if it were so (which it could not have been), the face grew +ashen, withered, shrunken, more aged than in life, though still the +murderous fierceness remained, and seemed to be petrified forever upon +it. + +After a moment's bewilderment, Dolliver ran to the window looking to +the street, threw it open, and called loudly for assistance. He opened +also another window, for the air to blow through, for he was almost +stifled with the rich odor of the cordial which filled the room, and +was now exuded from the corpse. + +He heard the voice of Pansie, crying at the door, which was locked, +and, turning the key, he caught her in his arms, and hastened with her +below stairs, to give her into the charge of Martha, who seemed half +stupefied with a sense of something awful that had occurred. + +Meanwhile there was a rattling and a banging at the street portal, to +which several people had been attracted both by the Doctor's outcry +from the window, and by the awful screech in which the Colonel's spirit +(if, indeed, he had that divine part) had just previously taken its +flight. + +He let them in, and, pale and shivering, ushered them up to the +death-chamber, where one or two, with a more delicate sense of smelling +than the rest, snuffed the atmosphere, as if sensible of an unknown +fragrance, yet appeared afraid to breathe, when they saw the terrific +countenance leaning back against the chair, and eying them so +truculently. + +I would fain quit the scene and have done with the Colonel, who, I am +glad, has happened to die at so early a period of the narrative. I +therefore hasten to say that a coroner's inquest was held on the spot, +though everybody felt that it was merely ceremonial, and that the +testimony of their good and ancient townsman, Dr. Dolliver, was amply +sufficient to settle the matter. The verdict was, "Death by the +visitation of God." + +The apothecary gave evidence that the Colonel, without asking leave, +and positively against his advice, had drunk a quantity of distilled +spirits; and one or two servants, or members of the Colonel's family, +testified that he had been in a very uncomfortable state of mind for +some days past, so that they fancied he was insane. Therefore nobody +thought of blaming Dr. Dolliver for what had happened; and, if the +plain truth must be told, everybody who saw the wretch was too well +content to be rid of him, to trouble themselves more than was quite +necessary about the way in which the incumbrance had been removed. + +The corpse was taken to the mansion in order to receive a magnificent +funeral; and Dr. Dolliver was left outwardly in quiet, but much +disturbed, and indeed almost overwhelmed inwardly, by what had happened. + +Yet it is to be observed, that he had accounted for the death with a +singular dexterity of expression, when he attributed it to a dose of +distilled spirits. What kind of distilled spirits were those, Doctor? +and will you venture to take any more of them? + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Dolliver Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 7119-8.txt or 7119-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/1/7119/ + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Dolliver Romance + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: September 14, 2014 [EBook #7119] +Release Date: December, 2004 +First Posted: March 12, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +BY + +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + + +CONTENTS. + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +In "The Dolliver Romance," only three chapters of which the author +lived to complete, we get an intimation as to what would have been the +ultimate form given to that romance founded on the Elixir of Life, for +which "Septimius Felton" was the preliminary study. Having abandoned +this study, and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in 1862, Hawthorne +was moved to renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as +the plan of the romance had now seemingly developed to his +satisfaction, he listened to the publisher's proposal that it should +begin its course as a serial story in the "Atlantic Monthly" for +January, 1864--the first instance in which he had attempted such a mode +of publication. + +But the change from England to Massachusetts had been marked by, and +had perhaps in part caused, a decline in his health. Illness in his +family, the depressing and harrowing effect of the Civil War upon his +sensibilities, and anxiety with regard to pecuniary affairs, all +combined to make still further inroads upon his vitality; and so early +as the autumn of 1862 Mrs. Hawthorne noted in her private diary that +her husband was looking "miserably ill." At no time since boyhood had +he suffered any serious sickness, and his strong constitution enabled +him to rally from this first attack; but the gradual decline continued. +After sending forth "Our Old Home," he had little strength for any +employment more arduous than reading, or than walking his accustomed +path among the pines and sweetfern on the hill behind The Wayside, +known to his family as the Mount of Vision. The projected work, +therefore, advanced but slowly. He wrote to Mr. Fields:-- + +"I don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the +Romance ready so soon as you want it. There are two or three chapters +ready to be written, but I am not yet robust enough to begin, and I +feel as if I should never carry it through." + +The presentiment proved to be only too well founded. He had previously +written:-- + +"There is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. I linger +at the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantasms +to be encountered if I enter. I wish God had given me the faculty of +writing a sunshiny book." + +And again, in November, he says: "I foresee that there is little +probability of my getting the first chapter ready by the 15th, although +I have a resolute purpose to write it by the end of the month." He did +indeed send it by that time, but it began to be apparent in January +that he could not go on. + +"Seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has, for the present, +lost its temper and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had +better keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigor if I wait +quietly for it; perhaps not." In another: "I hardly know what to say to +the public about this abortive Romance, though I know pretty well what +the case will be. I shall never finish it.... I cannot finish it unless +a great change comes over me; and if I make too great an effort to do +so, it will be my death." + +Finally, work had to be given over indefinitely. In April he went +southward with Mr. Ticknor, the senior partner of his publishing house; +but Mr. Ticknor died suddenly in Philadelphia, and Hawthorne returned +to The Wayside more feeble than ever. He lingered there a little while. +Then, early in May, came the last effort to recover tone, by means of a +carriage-journey, with his friend Ex-President Pierce, through the +southern part of New Hampshire. A week passed, and all was ended: at +the hotel in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where he and his companion had +stopped to rest, he died in the night, between the 18th and the 19th of +May, 1864. Like Thackeray and Dickens, he was touched by death's +"petrific mace" before he had had time to do more than lay the +groundwork and begin the main structure of the fiction he had in hand; +and, as in the case of Thackeray, the suddenness of his decease has +never been clearly accounted for. The precise nature of his malady was +not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical +advice. His friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who +had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he +did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in Boston before +Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, with that slight +opportunity, to reach any definite conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed +and had put up for him a remedy to palliate some of the poignant +symptoms, and this Hawthorne carried with him; but "I feared," Dr. +Holmes writes to the editor, "that there was some internal +organic--perhaps malignant--disease; for he looked wasted and as if +stricken with a mortal illness." + +The manuscript of the unfinished "Dolliver Romance" lay upon his coffin +during the funeral services at Concord, but, contrary to the impression +sometimes entertained on this point, was not buried with him. It is +preserved in the Concord Public Library. The first chapter was +published in the "Atlantic" as an isolated portion, soon after his +death; and subsequently the second chapter, which he had been unable to +revise, appeared in the same periodical. Between this and the third +fragment there is a gap, for bridging which no material was found among +his papers; but, after hesitating for several years, Mrs. Hawthorne +copied and placed in the publishers' hands that final portion, which, +with the two parts previously printed, constitutes the whole of what +Hawthorne had put into tangible form. + +Hawthorne had purposed prefixing a sketch of Thoreau, "because, from a +tradition which he told me about this house of mine, I got the idea of +a deathless man, which is now taking a shape very different from the +original one." This refers to the tradition mentioned in the editor's +note to "Septimius Felton," and forms a link in the interesting chain +of evidence connecting that romance with the "Dolliver Romance." With +the plan respecting Thoreau he combined the idea of writing an +autobiographical preface, wherein The Wayside was to be described, +after the manner of his Introduction to the "Mosses from an Old Manse"; +but, so far as is known, nothing of this was ever actually committed to +paper. + +Beginning with the idea of producing an English romance, fragments of +which remain to us in "The Ancestral Footstep," and the incomplete work +known as "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret," he replaced these by another +design, of which "Septimius Felton" represents the partial execution. +But that elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "The Dolliver +Romance." The last-named work, had the author lived to carry it out, +would doubtless have become the vehicle of a profound and pathetic +drama, based on the instinctive yearning of man for an immortal +existence, the attempted gratification of which would have been set +forth in a variety of ways: First, through the selfish old sensualist, +Colonel Dabney, who greedily seized the mysterious elixir and took such +a draught of it that he perished on the spot; then, through the simple +old Grandsir, anxious to live for Pansie's sake; and, perhaps, through +Pansie herself, who, coming into the enjoyment of some ennobling love, +would wish to defeat death, so that she might always keep the +perfection of her mundane happiness,--all these forms of striving to be +made the adumbration of a higher one, the shadow-play that should +direct our minds to the true immortality beyond this world. + +G. P. L. + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +Dr. Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused +rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child +Pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning old Martha (who performed +the duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's +establishment) to take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old +gentleman woke with more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking +a moment to gather his wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen +curtains of his ancient bed, and thrust his head into a beam of +sunshine that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. This transitory +glimpse of good Dr. Dolliver showed a flannel night-cap, fringed round +with stray locks of silvery white hair, and surmounting a meagre and +duskily yellow visage, which was crossed and criss-crossed with a +record of his long life in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but +with such cramped chirography of Father Time that the purport was +illegible. It seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch to get out of +bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow into the summer day that was +made for younger folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means of that +opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living +twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found +himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his +rusty joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have +made them pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight +upon the floor. Nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those +tonsorial, ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt +to become so intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, after performing +them daily and daily for fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding +them still as immitigably recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could +nowise account for this happy condition of his spirits and physical +energies, until he remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain +cordial which was long ago prepared by his grandson, and carefully +sealed up in a bottle, and had been reposited in a dark closet, among a +parcel of effete medicines, ever since that gifted young man's death. + +"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the doctor, shaking his +head as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor +Edward oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous drugs. +But I will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, which +may have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's +sake." + +A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, +taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's +respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities, which, with +their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the +closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. +Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those +of yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it +passed gradually off with a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew +to be almost agreeable. Pain is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. +With cautious movements, and only a groan or two, the good Doctor +transferred himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile, +gazing from one piece of quaint furniture to another (such as +stiff-backed Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers carved +cunningly with shapes of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table with +multitudinous legs, a family record in faded embroidery, a shelf of +black-bound books, a dirty heap of gallipots and phials in a dim +corner),--gazing at these things, and steadying himself by the bedpost, +while his inert brain, still partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly +into accordance with the realities about him. The object which most +helped to bring Dr. Dolliver completely to his waking perceptions was +one that common observers might suppose to have been snatched bodily +out of his dreams. The same sunbeam that had dazzled the doctor between +the bed-curtains gleamed on the weather-beaten gilding which had once +adorned this mysterious symbol, and showed it to be an enormous +serpent, twining round a wooden post, and reaching quite from the floor +of the chamber to its ceiling. + +It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, +the dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its +tail; and it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind +of gray moss had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a +swallow, or other familiar little bird in some by-gone summer, seemed +to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked +like a kind of Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a +pedestal for a century or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in +the open air, until the impious sect perished from among men,--all save +old Dr. Dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber for the +convenience of private devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting +such a fantasy to the prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to +have been as pious and upright a Christian, and with as little of the +serpent in his character, as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make +a further mystery about a very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten +reptile was once the medical emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous +Dr. Swinnerton, who practised physic in the earlier days of New +England, when a head of Aesculapius or Hippocrates would have vexed the +souls of the righteous as savoring of heathendom. The ancient dispenser +of drugs had therefore set up an image of the Brazen Serpent, and +followed his business for many years with great credit, under this +Scriptural device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and +humble friend of the learned Swinnerton's old age, had inherited the +symbolic snake, and much other valuable property by his bequest. + +While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth was very genial to his system, and +yet made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the +reviving blood tingled through them with a half-painful and only +half-pleasurable titillation. For the first few moments after creeping +out of bed, he kept his back to the sunny window, and seemed +mysteriously shy of glancing thitherward; but, as the June fervor +pervaded him more and more thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and +looked forth at a burial-ground on the corner of which he dwelt. There +lay many an old acquaintance, who had gone to sleep with the flavor of +Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and powders upon his tongue; it was the +patient's final bitter taste of this world, and perhaps doomed to be a +recollected nauseousness in the next. Yesterday, in the chill of his +forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon to stretch out his weary +bones among that quiet community, and might scarcely have shrunk from +the prospect on his own account, except, indeed, that he dreamily mixed +up the infirmities of his present condition with the repose of the +approaching one, being haunted by a notion that the damp earth, under +the grass and dandelions, must needs be pernicious for his cough and +his rheumatism. But, this morning, the cheerful sunbeams, or the mere +taste of his grandson's cordial that he had taken at bedtime, or the +fitful vigor that often sports irreverently with aged people, had +caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere within him, to +expand. + +"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his +throat of the dregs of a ten-years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone +with me as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a +little age-stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere +faint-heartedness, a great deal sooner than they need." + +He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if +to impress the apothegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and, +for his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who +stood as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather +to the other. This child of three years old occupied all the +unfossilized portion of Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that +he formerly had, and the entire confraternity of persons whom he once +loved, had long ago departed; and the poor Doctor could not follow +them, because the grasp of Pansie's baby-fingers held him back. + +So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a +patchwork morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was +said to have been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat +and the silken skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest +granddaughter had taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor +Bessie, the beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the grave. +Throughout many of the intervening years, as the garment got ragged, +the spinsters of the old man's family had quilted their duty and +affection into it in the shape of patches upon patches, rose-color, +crimson, blue, violet, and green, and then (as their hopes faded, and +their life kept growing shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) +sober gray and great fragments of funereal black, until the Doctor +could revive the memory of most things that had befallen him by looking +at his patchwork-gown, as it hung upon a chair. And now it was ragged +again, and all the fingers that should have mended it were cold. It had +an Eastern fragrance, too, a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and +spicy gums, gathered from the many potent infusions that had from time +to time been spilt over it; so that, snuffing him afar off, you might +have taken Dr. Dolliver for a mummy, and could hardly have been +undeceived by his shrunken and torpid aspect, as he crept nearer. + +Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand, and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was +somewhat steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, +putting his left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick +to assist him in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he +became a living illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it +describes the aged as being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth +that is often found to have a sadder purport than its external one. +Half-way to the bottom, however, the Doctor heard the impatient and +authoritative tones of little Pansie,--Queen Pansie, as she might +fairly have been styled, in reference to her position in the +household,--calling amain for grandpapa and breakfast. He was startled +into such perilous activity by the summons, that his heels slid on the +stairs, the slippers were shuffled off his feet, and he saved himself +from a tumble only by quickening his pace, and coming down at almost a +run. + +"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, +and, methinks, my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? +Well, well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing +down this steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" + +He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and +meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's +descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her +haste to come at him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a +rather pale and large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might +well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful +house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man and a kitten, +and no better atmosphere within-doors than the odor of decayed +apothecary's stuff, nor gayer neighborhood than that of the adjacent +burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her great-grandmother +downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is bedtime!" even in +the prime of the summer morning. For those dead women-folk, especially +her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand-aunts, could not +but be anxious about the child, knowing that little Pansie would be far +safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must +be, in this difficult and deceitful world. + +Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic +movement in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable +progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom +was, having never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down +her voice), till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. + +"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver, cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?" + +"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, +remembering the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to +herself. "It shall do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her +mouth to apply the remedy. + +"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I +had in my drugs," replied the patriarch, with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for +my feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken +neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." + +In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and +Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third +in the party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, +delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke: then she +took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a +spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, +and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting +out a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on +its way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she +scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and +hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as +was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly +creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no +worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his +remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the +early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his +great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm +the tiny figure of Pansie) had met one another at the two extremities +of the life-circle: her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating +his locks of silver and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous shimmer +of twinkling light. + +Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had +died the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, +a numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary +track in their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing, +how it had all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an +infant's small fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead +progeny come and go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this +solitary child represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many +that had gone before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to +him. She seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. +A whole family of grand-aunts (one of whom had perished in her cradle, +never so mature as Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in +autumnal maidenhood, yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, +and still another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its +vitality, and grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest +then),--all their hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face +of the great-grandchild, and their long-inaudible voices sobbed, +shouted, or laughed, in her familiar tones. But it often happened to +Dr. Dolliver, while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the +one reality looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,--it often +happened that his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception of what +a sad and poverty-stricken old man he was, already remote from his own +generation, and bound to stray further onward as the sole playmate and +protector of a child! + +As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient +to give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title +of Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, +perhaps, one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and +over-jealous of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these +crusty graduates were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from +their fraternity. He had never received the degree of any medical +school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or a child's +rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some such trifling +malady) had he ever been even a practitioner of the awful science with +which his popular designation connected him. Our old friend, in short, +even at his highest social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than +an apothecary, and, in these later and far less prosperous days, +scarcely so much. Since the death of his last surviving grandson +(Pansie's father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries of his +science, and who, being distinguished by an experimental and inventive +tendency, was generally believed to have poisoned himself with an +infallible panacea of his own distillation),--since that final +bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's once pretty flourishing business had +lamentably declined. After a few months of unavailing struggle, he +found it expedient to take down the Brazen Serpent from the position to +which Dr. Swinnerton had originally elevated it, in front of his shop +in the main street, and to retire to his private dwelling, situated in +a by-lane and on the edge of a burial-ground. + +This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and +a drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance +to our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife +over the threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with +the human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept +accumulating beneath their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor +Bessie herself had gone early to rest there, it is probable that an +influence from her grave may have prematurely calmed and depressed her +widowed husband, taking away much of the energy from what should have +been the most active portion of his life. Thus he never grew rich. His +thrifty townsmen used to tell him, that, in any other man's hands, Dr. +Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, I presume, the inherited credit +and good-will of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years' +time to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. Dolliver's keeping, as we +have seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the greater part of what +superficial gilding it originally had. Matters had not mended with him +in more advanced life, after he had deposited a further and further +portion of his heart and its affections in each successive one of a +long row of kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them, +holding Pansie by the hand and looking down upon the coffin of his +grandson, it is no wonder that the old man wept, partly for those gone +before, but not so bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. +Why had not God taken her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he +was, so destitute of possibilities of good, his weary frame, his +decrepit bones, his dried-up heart, might have crumbled into dust at +once, and have been scattered by the next wind over all the heaps of +earth that were akin to him. + +This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character +to be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness +and simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even +before he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly +cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's +warm little hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly +for her protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty +nor quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the +sloth of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency +which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. + +To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, +he was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell +into popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed +the old man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to +possess more skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial +apothecary, having been regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, +throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the +medicines which he prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, +that the ancient physician had learned the art at the world-famous +drug-manufactory of Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people +half-malignly whispered, had perfected himself under masters more +subtle than were to be found even there. Unquestionably, in many +critical cases he was known to have employed remedies of mysterious +composition and dangerous potency, which, in less skilful hands, would +have been more likely to kill than cure. He would willingly, it is +said, have taught his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, +but the latter, being of a timid character and delicate conscience, had +shrunk from acquaintance with them. It was probably as the result of +the same scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had always declined to enter +the medical profession, in which his old instructor had set him such +heroic examples of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. +Nevertheless, the aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned +Swinnerton's reputation, had clung to our friend through life; and +there were elaborate preparations in the pharmacopoeia of that day, +requiring such minute skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter +that the physicians were still glad to confide them to one in whom +these qualities were so evident. + +Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and +mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, +pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about +their toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were +beautiful. Among this class of customers there was still a demand for +certain comfortable little nostrums (delicately sweet and pungent to +the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath), the +proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic +Swinnerton had left behind him. And, besides, these old ladies had +always liked the manners of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his +gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something +to admire; though of later years, an unrefined, and almost rustic +simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have +taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in +their late decay. + +But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the +Doctor's marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably +damaged by a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional +intimacy with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in +his delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such +minute quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too +little or too much, leaving out life with the deficiency, or spilling +in death with the surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were +beginning to think that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind +appeared absolutely to depart from him, while his frail old body worked +on mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close +supervision of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to convince +the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if +anything could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener +happened, to tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick +to detect) thus to interfere with his long-familiar business. + +The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his +professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps +their oldest fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire +and the Great Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the +terrible epoch of Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the +breaking out of King Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy +days, had received a benediction from the patriarchal Governor +Bradstreet, and thus could boast (somewhat as Bishops do of their +unbroken succession from the Apostles) of a transmitted blessing from +the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among whom the venerable +magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their townsman in +this aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with which they +had heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly as +Grandsir Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare +garb (the fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century +ago), his gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his +shrunken, frosty figure, and its feeble movement,--all these +characteristics had a wholeness and permanence in the public +recognition, like the meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. All the +younger portion of the inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of +aged immortality to Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and reverend presence. +They fancied that he had been born old (at least, I remember +entertaining some such notions about age-stricken people, when I myself +was young), and that he could the better tolerate his aches and +incommodities, his dull ears and dim eyes, his remoteness from human +intercourse within the crust of indurated years, the cold temperature +that kept him always shivering and sad, the heavy burden that invisibly +bent down his shoulders,--that all these intolerable things might bring +a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir Dolliver, as the lifelong conditions of +his peculiar existence. + +But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a +perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to +it, but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning +life, and patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward +consciousness that these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, +this cloudiness of sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men +and affairs, were troublesome accidents that did not really belong to +him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass +away. Youth, however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, +permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into +this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never +absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A +sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our +true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes +of many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but +beneath them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable flame. So powerful is +this instinctive faith, that men of simple modes of character are prone +to antedate its consummation. And thus it happened with poor Grandsir +Dolliver, who often awoke from an old man's fitful sleep with a sense +that his senile predicament was but a dream of the past night; and +hobbling hastily across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would +be grievously disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles +and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy mask of +Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange and sad enchantment +had involved him for years gone by! + +To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman +looked as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too +artfully wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping +figure should be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his +brows, and his much-enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green +coverlet spread over them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would +recognize her youthful companion in spite of his ugly garniture of +decay. He longed to be gazed at by the loving eyes now closed; he +shrank from the hard stare of them that loved him not. Walking the +streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a dreary impulse to elude the +people's observation, as if with a sense that he had gone irrevocably +out of fashion, and broken his connecting links with the net-work of +human life; or else it was that nightmare-feeling which we sometimes +have in dreams, when we seem to find ourselves wandering through a +crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some wild extravagance +of dress or nudity. He was conscious of estrangement from his +towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why he +should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude. If they +spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated itself +faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him by the hand, it +was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed the kindly pressure and +the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion of his walk, her +childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer +relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of +indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, into +which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away. + +Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the +great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if +his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and +Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, +instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled +sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm +contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as +it stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his +memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music +lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it +might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put +to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the +massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses +with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our +twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone +years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, +stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on +her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a +calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet +not so vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had +been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a +glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of +an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. + + + + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + +[Footnote: This scene was not revised by the author, but is printed +from his first draught.] + +We may now suppose Grandsir Dolliver to have finished his breakfast, +with a better appetite and sharper perception of the qualities of his +food than he has generally felt of late years, whether it were due to +old Martha's cookery or to the cordial of the night before. Little +Pansie had also made an end of her bread and milk with entire +satisfaction, and afterwards nibbled a crust, greatly enjoying its +resistance to her little white teeth. + +How this child came by the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was +really her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was +one of those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or +out of some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for +and unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true +name by which the child's guardian angel would know it,--a name with +playfulness and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the +practice of those who love the child best, the name that they carefully +selected, and caused the clergyman to plaster indelibly on the poor +little forehead at the font,--the love-name, whereby, if the child +lives, the parents know it in their hearts, or by which, if it dies, +God seems to have called it away, leaving the sound lingering faintly +and sweetly through the house. In Pansie's case, it may have been a +certain pensiveness which was sometimes seen under her childish frolic, +and so translated itself into French (_pensee_), her mother having been +of Acadian kin; or, quite as probably, it alluded merely to the color +of her eyes, which, in some lights, were very like the dark petals of a +tuft of pansies in the Doctor's garden. It might well be, indeed, on +account of the suggested pensiveness; for the child's gayety had no +example to sustain it, no sympathy of other children or grown +people,--and her melancholy, had it been so dark a feeling, was but the +shadow of the house, and of the old man. If brighter sunshine came, she +would brighten with it. This morning, surely, as the three companions, +Pansie, puss, and Grandsir Dolliver, emerged from the shadow of the +house into the small adjoining enclosure, they seemed all frolicsome +alike. + +The Doctor, however, was intent over something that had reference to +his lifelong business of drugs. This little spot was the place where he +was wont to cultivate a variety of herbs supposed to be endowed with +medicinal virtue. Some of them had been long known in the pharmacopoeia +of the Old World; and others, in the early days of the country, had +been adopted by the first settlers from the Indian medicine-men, though +with fear and even contrition, because these wild doctors were supposed +to draw their pharmaceutic knowledge from no gracious source, the Black +Man himself being the principal professor in their medical school. From +his own experience, however, Dr. Dolliver had long since doubted, +though he was not bold enough quite to come to the conclusion, that +Indian shrubs, and the remedies prepared from them, were much less +perilous than those so freely used in European practice, and singularly +apt to be followed by results quite as propitious. Into such heterodoxy +our friend was the more liable to fall, because it had been taught him +early in life by his old master, Dr. Swinnerton, who, at those not +infrequent times when he indulged a certain unhappy predilection for +strong waters, had been accustomed to inveigh in terms of the most +cynical contempt and coarsest ridicule against the practice by which he +lived, and, as he affirmed, inflicted death on his fellow-men. Our old +apothecary, though too loyal to the learned profession with which he +was connected fully to believe this bitter judgment, even when +pronounced by his revered master, was still so far influenced that his +conscience was possibly a little easier when making a preparation from +forest herbs and roots than in the concoction of half a score of +nauseous poisons into a single elaborate drug, as the fashion of that +day was. + +But there were shrubs in the garden of which he had never ventured to +make a medical use, nor, indeed, did he know their virtue, although +from year to year he had tended and fertilized, weeded and pruned them, +with something like religious care. They were of the rarest character, +and had been planted by the learned and famous Dr. Swinnerton, who, on +his death-bed, when he left his dwelling and all his abstruse +manuscripts to his favorite pupil, had particularly directed his +attention to this row of shrubs. They had been collected by himself +from remote countries, and had the poignancy of torrid climes in them; +and he told him, that, properly used, they would be worth all the rest +of the legacy a hundred-fold. As the apothecary, however, found the +manuscripts, in which he conjectured there was a treatise on the +subject of these shrubs, mostly illegible, and quite beyond his +comprehension in such passages as he succeeded in puzzling out (partly, +perhaps, owing to his very imperfect knowledge of Latin, in which +language they were written), he had never derived from them any of the +promised benefit. And, to say the truth, remembering that Dr. +Swinnerton himself never appeared to triturate or decoct or do anything +else with the mysterious herbs, our old friend was inclined to imagine +the weighty commendation of their virtues to have been the idly solemn +utterance of mental aberration at the hour of death. So, with the +integrity that belonged to his character, he had nurtured them as +tenderly as was possible in the ungenial climate and soil of New +England, putting some of them into pots for the winter; but they had +rather dwindled than flourished, and he had reaped no harvests from +them, nor observed them with any degree of scientific interest. + +His grandson, however, while yet a school-boy, had listened to the old +man's legend of the miraculous virtues of these plants; and it took so +firm a hold of his mind, that the row of outlandish vegetables seemed +rooted in it, and certainly flourished there with richer luxuriance +than in the soil where they actually grew. The story, acting thus early +upon his imagination, may be said to have influenced his brief career +in life, and, perchance, brought about its early close. The young man, +in the opinion of competent judges, was endowed with remarkable +abilities, and according to the rumor of the people had wonderful +gifts, which were proved by the cures he had wrought with remedies of +his own invention. His talents lay in the direction of scientific +analysis and inventive combination of chemical powers. While under the +pupilage of his grandfather, his progress had rapidly gone quite beyond +his instructor's hope,--leaving him even to tremble at the audacity +with which he overturned and invented theories, and to wonder at the +depth at which he wrought beneath the superficialness and mock-mystery +of the medical science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft +and running a hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. +Especially did he devote himself to these plants; and under his care +they had thriven beyond all former precedent, bursting into luxuriance +of bloom, and most of them bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, +in two or three instances, had the sort of natural repulsiveness that +the serpent has in its beauty, compelled against its will, as it were, +to warn the beholder of an unrevealed danger. The young man had long +ago, it must be added, demanded of his grandfather the documents +included in the legacy of Professor Swinnerton, and had spent days and +nights upon them, growing pale over their mystic lore, which seemed the +fruit not merely of the Professor's own labors, but of those of more +ancient sages than he; and often a whole volume seemed to be compressed +within the limits of a few lines of crabbed manuscript, judging from +the time which it cost even the quick-minded student to decipher them. + +Meantime these abstruse investigations had not wrought such disastrous +effects as might have been feared, in causing Edward Dolliver to +neglect the humble trade, the conduct of which his grandfather had now +relinquished almost entirely into his hands. On the contrary, with the +mere side results of his study, or what may be called the chips and +shavings of his real work, he created a prosperity quite beyond +anything that his simple-minded predecessor had ever hoped for, even at +the most sanguine epoch of his life. The young man's adventurous +endowments were miraculously alive, and connecting themselves with his +remarkable ability for solid research, and perhaps his conscience being +as yet imperfectly developed (as it sometimes lies dormant in the +young), he spared not to produce compounds which, if the names were +anywise to be trusted, would supersede all other remedies, and speedily +render any medicine a needless thing, making the trade of apothecary an +untenable one, and the title of Doctor obsolete. Whether there was real +efficacy in these nostrums, and whether their author himself had faith +in them, is more than can safely be said; but, at all events, the +public believed in them, and thronged to the old and dim sign of the +Brazen Serpent, which, though hitherto familiar to them and their +forefathers, now seemed to shine with auspicious lustre, as if its old +Scriptural virtues were renewed. If any faith was to be put in human +testimony, many marvellous cures were really performed, the fame of +which spread far and wide, and caused demands for these medicines to +come in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. Our +old apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his +grandson's character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, +stood behind the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with +an odd kind of fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to +enjoy this new prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was +to be seen dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle +and by the dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what +he feared was trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of +every ancient physician who might chance to be passing by, but withal +examining closely the silver, or the New England coarsely printed +bills, which he took in payment, as if apprehensive that the delusive +character of the commodity which he sold might be balanced by equal +counterfeiting in the money received, or as if his faith in all things +were shaken. + +Is it not possible that this gifted young man had indeed found out +those remedies which Nature has provided and laid away for the cure of +every ill? + +The disastrous termination of the most brilliant epoch that ever came +to the Brazen Serpent must be told in a few words. One night, Edward +Dolliver's young wife awoke, and, seeing the gray dawn creeping into +the chamber, while her husband, it should seem, was still engaged in +his laboratory, arose in her nightdress, and went to the door of the +room to put in her gentle remonstrance against such labor. There she +found him dead,--sunk down out of his chair upon the hearth, where were +some ashes, apparently of burnt manuscripts, which appeared to comprise +most of those included in Dr. Swinnerton's legacy, though one or two +had fallen near the heap, and lay merely scorched beside it. It seemed +as if he had thrown them into the fire, under a sudden impulse, in a +great hurry and passion. It may be that he had come to the perception +of something fatally false and deceptive in the successes which he had +appeared to win, and was too proud and too conscientious to survive it. +Doctors were called in, but had no power to revive him. An inquest was +held, at which the jury, under the instruction, perhaps, of those same +revengeful doctors, expressed the opinion that the poor young man, +being given to strange contrivances with poisonous drugs, had died by +incautiously tasting them himself. This verdict, and the terrible event +itself, at once deprived the medicines of all their popularity; and the +poor old apothecary was no longer under any necessity of disturbing his +conscience by selling them. They at once lost their repute, and ceased +to be in any demand. In the few instances in which they were tried the +experiment was followed by no good results; and even those individuals +who had fancied themselves cured, and had been loudest in spreading the +praises of these beneficent compounds, now, as if for the utter +demolition of the poor youth's credit, suffered under a recurrence of +the worst symptoms, and, in more than one case, perished miserably: +insomuch (for the days of witchcraft were still within the memory of +living men and women) it was the general opinion that Satan had been +personally concerned in this affliction, and that the Brazen Serpent, +so long honored among them, was really the type of his subtle +malevolence and perfect iniquity. It was rumored even that all +preparations that came from the shop were harmful: that teeth decayed +that had been made pearly white by the use of the young chemist's +dentifrice; that cheeks were freckled that had been changed to damask +roses by his cosmetics; that hair turned gray or fell off that had +become black, glossy, and luxuriant from the application of his +mixtures; that breath which his drugs had sweetened had now a +sulphurous smell. Moreover, all the money heretofore amassed by the +sale of them had been exhausted by Edward Dolliver in his lavish +expenditure for the processes of his study; and nothing was left for +Pansie, except a few valueless and unsalable bottles of medicine, and +one or two others, perhaps more recondite than their inventor had seen +fit to offer to the public. + +Little Pansie's mother lived but a short time after the shock of the +terrible catastrophe; and, as we began our story with saying, she was +left with no better guardianship or support than might be found in the +efforts of a long superannuated man. + +Nothing short of the simplicity, integrity, and piety of Grandsir +Dolliver's character, known and acknowledged as far back as the oldest +inhabitants remembered anything, and inevitably discoverable by the +dullest and most prejudiced observers, in all its natural +manifestations, could have protected him in still creeping about the +streets. So far as he was personally concerned, however, all bitterness +and suspicion had speedily passed away; and there remained still the +careless and neglectful good-will, and the prescriptive reverence, not +altogether reverential, which the world heedlessly awards to the +unfortunate individual who outlives his generation. + +And now that we have shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the +best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the +present position of Grandsir Dolliver, we may let our story pass +onward, though at such a pace as suits the feeble gait of an old man. + +The peculiarly brisk sensation of this morning, to which we have more +than once alluded, enabled the Doctor to toil pretty vigorously at his +medicinal herbs,--his catnip, his vervain, and the like; but he did not +turn his attention to the row of mystic plants, with which so much of +trouble and sorrow either was, or appeared to be, connected. In truth, +his old soul was sick of them, and their very fragrance, which the warm +sunshine made strongly perceptible, was odious to his nostrils. But the +spicy, homelike scent of his other herbs, the English simples, was +grateful to him, and so was the earth-smell, as he turned up the soil +about their roots, and eagerly snuffed it in. Little Pansie, on the +other hand, perhaps scandalized at great-grandpapa's neglect of the +prettiest plants in his garden, resolved to do her small utmost towards +balancing his injustice; so with an old shingle, fallen from the roof, +which she had appropriated as her agricultural tool, she began to dig +about them, pulling up the weeds, as she saw grandpapa doing. The +kitten, too, with a look of elfish sagacity, lent her assistance, +plying her paws with vast haste and efficiency at the roots of one of +the shrubs. This particular one was much smaller than the rest, perhaps +because it was a native of the torrid zone, and required greater care +than the others to make it flourish; so that, shrivelled, cankered, and +scarcely showing a green leaf, both Pansie and the kitten probably +mistook it for a weed. After their joint efforts had made a pretty big +trench about it, the little girl seized the shrub with both hands, +bestriding it with her plump little legs, and giving so vigorous a +pull, that, long accustomed to be transplanted annually, it came up by +the roots, and little Pansie came down in a sitting posture, making a +broad impress on the soft earth. "See, see, Doctor!" cries Pansie, +comically enough giving him his title of courtesy,--"look, grandpapa, +the big, naughty weed!" + +Now the Doctor had at once a peculiar dread and a peculiar value for +this identical shrub, both because his grandson's investigations had +been applied more ardently to it than to all the rest, and because it +was associated in his mind with an ancient and sad recollection. For he +had never forgotten that his wife, the early lost, had once taken a +fancy to wear its flowers, day after day, through the whole season of +their bloom, in her bosom, where they glowed like a gem, and deepened +her somewhat pallid beauty with a richness never before seen in it. At +least such was the effect which this tropical flower imparted to the +beloved form in his memory, and thus it somehow both brightened and +wronged her. This had happened not long before her death; and whenever, +in the subsequent years, this plant had brought its annual flower, it +had proved a kind of talisman to bring up the image of Bessie, radiant +with this glow that did not really belong to her naturally passive +beauty, quickly interchanging with another image of her form, with the +snow of death on cheek and forehead. This reminiscence had remained +among the things of which the Doctor was always conscious, but had +never breathed a word, through the whole of his long life,--a sprig of +sensibility that perhaps helped to keep him tenderer and purer than +other men, who entertain no such follies. And the sight of the shrub +often brought back the faint, golden gleam of her hair, as if her +spirit were in the sunlights of the garden, quivering into view and out +of it. And therefore, when he saw what Pansie had done, he sent forth a +strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of aged +and decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "Naughty Pansie, to pull up +grandpapa's flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Poison, +Pansie, poison! Fling it away, child!" + +And dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little +girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while Pansie, as +apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of +mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was +ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this +fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten. + +"Stop, naughty Pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "You will tumble +into the grave!" The kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems +to affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back. + +And, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more +literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate +communicated with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little +Pansie's track there was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant +that afternoon. Pansie, however, fled onward with outstretched arms, +half in fear, half in fun, plying her round little legs with wonderful +promptitude, as if to escape Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir +Dolliver, and happily avoiding the ominous pitfall that lies in every +person's path, till, hearing a groan from her pursuer, she looked over +her shoulder, and saw that poor grandpapa had stumbled over one of the +many hillocks. She then suddenly wrinkled up her little visage, and +sent forth a full-breathed roar of sympathy and alarm. + +"Grandpapa has broken his neck now!" cried little Pansie, amid her sobs. + +"Kiss grandpapa, and make it well, then," said the old gentleman, +recollecting her remedy, and scrambling up more readily than could be +expected. "Well," he murmured to himself, "a hair's-breadth more, and I +should have been tumbled into yonder grave. Poor little Pansie! what +wouldst thou have done then?" + +"Make the grass grow over grandpapa," answered Pansie, laughing up in +his face. + +"Poh, poh, child, that is not a pretty thing to say," said grandpapa, +pettishly and disappointed, as people are apt to be when they try to +calculate on the fitful sympathies of childhood. "Come, you must go in +to old Martha now." + +The poor old gentleman was in the more haste to leave the spot because +he found himself standing right in front of his own peculiar row of +gravestones, consisting of eight or nine slabs of slate, adorned with +carved borders rather rudely cut, and the earliest one, that of his +Bessie, bending aslant, because the frost of so many winters had slowly +undermined it. Over one grave of the row, that of his gifted grandson, +there was no memorial. He felt a strange repugnance, stronger than he +had ever felt before, to linger by these graves, and had none of the +tender sorrow, mingled with high and tender hopes, that had sometimes +made it seem good to him to be there. Such moods, perhaps, often come +to the aged, when the hardened earth-crust over their souls shuts them +out from spiritual influences. + +Taking the child by the hand,--her little effervescence of infantile +fun having passed into a downcast humor, though not well knowing as yet +what a dusky cloud of disheartening fancies arose from these green +hillocks,--he went heavily toward the garden-gate. Close to its +threshold, so that one who was issuing forth or entering must needs +step upon it or over it, lay a small flat stone, deeply imbedded in the +ground, and partly covered with grass, inscribed with the name of "Dr. +John Swinnerton, Physician." + +"Ay," said the old man, as the well-remembered figure of his ancient +instructor seemed to rise before him in his grave-apparel, with beard +and gold-headed cane, black velvet doublet and cloak, "here lies a man +who, as people have thought, had it in his power to avoid the grave! He +had no little grandchild to tease him. He had the choice to die, and +chose it." + +So the old gentleman led Pansie over the stone, and carefully closed +the gate; and, as it happened, he forgot the uprooted shrub, which +Pansie, as she ran, had flung away, and which had fallen into the open +grave; and when the funeral came that afternoon, the coffin was let +down upon it, so that its bright, inauspicious flower never bloomed +again. + + + + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +"Be secret!" and he kept his stern eye fixed upon him, as the coach +began to move. + +"Be secret!" repeated the apothecary. "I know not any secret that he +has confided to me thus far, and as for his nonsense (as I will be bold +to style it now he is gone) about a medicine of long life, it is a +thing I forget in spite of myself, so very empty and trashy it is. I +wonder, by the by, that it never came into my head to give the Colonel +a dose of the cordial whereof I partook last night. I have no faith +that it is a valuable medicine--little or none--and yet there has been +an unwonted briskness in me all the morning." + +Then a simple joy broke over his face--a flickering sunbeam among his +wrinkles--as he heard the laughter of the little girl, who was running +rampant with a kitten in the kitchen. + +"Pansie! Pansie!" cackled he, "grandpapa has sent away the ugly man +now. Come, let us have a frolic in the garden." + +And he whispered to himself again, "That is a cordial yonder, and I +will take it according to the prescription, knowing all the +ingredients." Then, after a moment's thought, he added, "All, save one." + +So, as he had declared to himself his intention, that night, when +little Pansie had long been asleep, and his small household was in bed, +and most of the quiet, old-fashioned townsfolk likewise, this good +apothecary went into his laboratory, and took out of a cupboard in the +wall a certain ancient-looking bottle, which was cased over with a +net-work of what seemed to be woven silver, like the wicker-woven +bottles of our days. He had previously provided a goblet of pure water. +Before opening the bottle, however, he seemed to hesitate, and pondered +and babbled to himself; having long since come to that period of life +when the bodily frame, having lost much of its value, is more tenderly +cared for than when it was a perfect and inestimable machine. + +"I triturated, I infused, I distilled it myself in these very rooms, +and know it--know it all--all the ingredients, save one. They are +common things enough--comfortable things--some of them a little +queer--one or two that folks have a prejudice against--and then there +is that one thing that I don't know. It is foolish in me to be dallying +with such a mess, which I thought was a piece of quackery, while that +strange visitor bade me do it,--and yet, what a strength has come from +it! He said it was a rare cordial, and, methinks, it has brightened up +my weary life all day, so that Pansie has found me the fitter playmate. +And then the dose--it is so absurdly small! I will try it again." + +He took the silver stopple from the bottle, and with a practised hand, +tremulous as it was with age, so that one would have thought it must +have shaken the liquor into a perfect shower of misapplied drops, he +dropped--I have heard it said--only one single drop into the goblet of +water. It fell into it with a dazzling brightness, like a spark of ruby +flame, and subtly diffusing itself through the whole body of water, +turned it to a rosy hue of great brilliancy. He held it up between his +eyes and the light, and seemed to admire and wonder at it. + +"It is very odd," said he, "that such a pure, bright liquor should have +come out of a parcel of weeds that mingled their juices here. The thing +is a folly,--it is one of those compositions in which the chemists--the +cabalists, perhaps--used to combine what they thought the virtues of +many plants, thinking that something would result in the whole, which +was not in either of them, and a new efficacy be created. Whereas, it +has been the teaching of my experience that one virtue counteracts +another, and is the enemy of it. I never believed the former theory, +even when that strange madman bade me do it. And what a thick, turbid +matter it was, until that last ingredient,--that powder which he put in +with his own hand! Had he let me see it, I would first have analyzed +it, and discovered its component parts. The man was mad, undoubtedly, +and this may have been poison. But its effect is good. Poh! I will +taste again, because of this weak, agued, miserable state of mine; +though it is a shame in me, a man of decent skill in my way, to believe +in a quack's nostrum. But it is a comfortable kind of thing." + +Meantime, that single drop (for good Dr. Dolliver had immediately put a +stopper into the bottle) diffused a sweet odor through the chamber, so +that the ordinary fragrances and scents of apothecaries' stuff seemed +to be controlled and influenced by it, and its bright potency also +dispelled a certain dimness of the antiquated room. + +The Doctor, at the pressure of a great need, had given incredible pains +to the manufacture of this medicine; so that, reckoning the pains +rather than the ingredients (all except one, of which he was not able +to estimate the cost nor value), it was really worth its weight in +gold. And, as it happened, he had bestowed upon it the hard labor of +his poor life, and the time that was necessary for the support of his +family, without return; for the customers, after playing off this cruel +joke upon the old man, had never come back; and now, for seven years, +the bottle had stood in a corner of the cupboard. To be sure, the +silver-cased bottle was worth a trifle for its silver, and still more, +perhaps, as an antiquarian knick-knack. But, all things considered, the +honest and simple apothecary thought that he might make free with the +liquid to such small extent as was necessary for himself. And there had +been something in the concoction that had struck him; and he had been +fast breaking lately; and so, in the dreary fantasy and lonely +recklessness of his old age, he had suddenly bethought himself of this +medicine (cordial,--as the strange man called it, which had come to him +by long inheritance in his family) and he had determined to try it. And +again, as the night before, he took out the receipt--a roll of antique +parchment, out of which, provokingly, one fold had been lost--and put +on his spectacles to puzzle out the passage. + +Guttam unicam in aquam puram, two gills. "If the Colonel should hear of +this," said Dr. Dolliver, "he might fancy it his nostrum of long life, +and insist on having the bottle for his own use. The foolish, fierce +old gentleman! He has grown very earthly, of late, else he would not +desire such a thing. And a strong desire it must be to make him feel it +desirable. For my part, I only wish for something that, for a short +time, may clear my eyes, so that I may see little Pansie's beauty, and +quicken my ears, that I may hear her sweet voice, and give me nerve, +while God keeps me here, that I may live longer to earn bread for dear +Pansie. She provided for, I would gladly lie down yonder with Bessie +and our children. Ah! the vanity of desiring lengthened +days!--There!--I have drunk it, and methinks its final, subtle flavor +hath strange potency in it." + +The old man shivered a little, as those shiver who have just swallowed +good liquor, while it is permeating their vitals. Yet he seemed to be +in a pleasant state of feeling, and, as was frequently the case with +this simple soul, in a devout frame of mind. He read a chapter in the +Bible, and said his prayers for Pansie and himself, before he went to +bed, and had much better sleep than usually comes to people of his +advanced age; for, at that period, sleep is diffused through their +wakefulness, and a dim and tiresome half-perception through their +sleep, so that the only result is weariness. + +Nothing very extraordinary happened to Dr. Dolliver or his small +household for some time afterwards. He was favored with a comfortable +winter, and thanked Heaven for it, and put it to a good use (at least +he intended it so) by concocting drugs; which perhaps did a little +towards peopling the graveyard, into which his windows looked; but that +was neither his purpose nor his fault. None of the sleepers, at all +events, interrupted their slumbers to upbraid him. He had done +according to his own artless conscience and the recipes of licensed +physicians, and he looked no further, but pounded, triturated, infused, +made electuaries, boluses, juleps, or whatever he termed his +productions, with skill and diligence, thanking Heaven that he was +spared to do so, when his contemporaries generally were getting +incapable of similar efforts. It struck him with some surprise, but +much gratitude to Providence, that his sight seemed to be growing +rather better than worse. He certainly could read the crabbed +handwriting and hieroglyphics of the physicians with more readiness +than he could a year earlier. But he had been originally near-sighted, +with large, projecting eyes; and near-sighted eyes always seem to get a +new lease of light as the years go on. One thing was perceptible about +the Doctor's eyes, not only to himself in the glass, but to everybody +else; namely, that they had an unaccustomed gleaming brightness in +them; not so very bright either, but yet so much so, that little Pansie +noticed it, and sometimes, in her playful, roguish way, climbed up into +his lap, and put both her small palms over them; telling Grandpapa that +he had stolen somebody else's eyes, and given away his own, and that +she liked his old ones better. The poor old Doctor did his best to +smile through his eyes, and so to reconcile Pansie to their brightness: +but still she continually made the same silly remonstrance, so that he +was fain to put on a pair of green spectacles when he was going to play +with Pansie, or took her on his knee. Nay, if he looked at her, as had +always been his custom, after she was asleep, in order to see that all +was well with her, the little child would put up her hands, as if he +held a light that was flashing on her eyeballs; and unless he turned +away his gaze quickly, she would wake up in a fit of crying. + +On the whole, the apothecary had as comfortable a time as a man of his +years could expect. The air of the house and of the old graveyard +seemed to suit him. What so seldom happens in man's advancing age, his +night's rest did him good, whereas, generally, an old man wakes up ten +times as nervous and dispirited as he went to bed, just as if, during +his sleep he had been working harder than ever he did in the daytime. +It had been so with the Doctor himself till within a few months. To be +sure, he had latterly begun to practise various rules of diet and +exercise, which commended themselves to his approbation. He sawed some +of his own fire-wood, and fancied that, as was reasonable, it fatigued +him less day by day. He took walks with Pansie, and though, of course, +her little footsteps, treading on the elastic air of childhood, far +outstripped his own, still the old man knew that he was not beyond the +recuperative period of life, and that exercise out of doors and proper +food can do somewhat towards retarding the approach of age. He was +inclined, also, to impute much good effect to a daily dose of Santa +Cruz rum (a liquor much in vogue in that day), which he was now in the +habit of quaffing at the meridian hour. All through the Doctor's life +he had eschewed strong spirits: "But after seventy," quoth old Dr. +Dolliver, "a man is all the better in head and stomach for a little +stimulus"; and it certainly seemed so in his case. Likewise, I know not +precisely how often, but complying punctiliously with the recipe, as an +apothecary naturally would, he took his drop of the mysterious cordial. + +He was inclined, however, to impute little or no efficacy to this, and +to laugh at himself for having ever thought otherwise. The dose was so +very minute! and he had never been sensible of any remarkable effect on +taking it, after all. A genial warmth, he sometimes fancied, diffused +itself throughout him, and perhaps continued during the next day. A +quiet and refreshing night's rest followed, and alacritous waking in +the morning; but all this was far more probably owing, as has been +already hinted, to excellent and well-considered habits of diet and +exercise. Nevertheless he still continued the cordial with tolerable +regularity,--the more, because on one or two occasions, happening to +omit it, it so chanced that he slept wretchedly, and awoke in strange +aches and pains, torpors, nervousness, shaking of the hands, +bleared-ness of sight, lowness of spirits and other ills, as is the +misfortune of some old men,--who are often threatened by a thousand +evil symptoms that come to nothing, foreboding no particular disorder, +and passing away as unsatisfactorily as they come. At another time, he +took two or three drops at once, and was alarmingly feverish in +consequence. Yet it was very true, that the feverish symptoms were +pretty sure to disappear on his renewal of the medicine. "Still it +could not be that," thought the old man, a hater of empiricism (in +which, however, is contained all hope for man), and disinclined to +believe in anything that was not according to rule and art. And then, +as aforesaid, the dose was so ridiculously small! + +Sometimes, however, he took, half laughingly, another view of it, and +felt disposed to think that chance might really have thrown in his way +a very remarkable mixture, by which, if it had happened to him earlier +in life, he might have amassed a larger fortune, and might even have +raked together such a competency as would have prevented his feeling +much uneasiness about the future of little Pansie. Feeling as strong as +he did nowadays, he might reasonably count upon ten years more of life, +and in that time the precious liquor might be exchanged for much gold. +"Let us see!" quoth he, "by what attractive name shall it be +advertised? 'The old man's cordial?' That promises too little. Poh, +poh! I would stain my honesty, my fair reputation, the accumulation of +a lifetime, and befool my neighbor and the public, by any name that +would make them imagine I had found that ridiculous talisman that the +alchemists have sought. The old man's cordial,--that is best. And five +shillings sterling the bottle. That surely were not too costly, and +would give the medicine a better reputation and higher vogue (so +foolish is the world) than if I were to put it lower. I will think +further of this. But pshaw, pshaw!" + +"What is the matter. Grandpapa," said little Pansie, who had stood by +him, wishing to speak to him at least a minute, but had been deterred +by his absorption; "why do you say 'Pshaw'?" + +"Pshaw!" repeated Grandpapa, "there is one ingredient that I don't +know." + +So this very hopeful design was necessarily given up, but that it had +occurred to Dr. Dolliver was perhaps a token that his mind was in a +very vigorous state; for it had been noted of him through life, that he +had little enterprise, little activity, and that, for the want of these +things, his very considerable skill in his art had been almost thrown +away, as regarded his private affairs, when it might easily have led +him to fortune. Whereas, here in his extreme age, he had first +bethought himself of a way to grow rich. Sometimes this latter spring +causes--as blossoms come on the autumnal tree--a spurt of vigor, or +untimely greenness, when Nature laughs at her old child, half in +kindness and half in scorn. It is observable, however, I fancy, that +after such a spurt, age comes on with redoubled speed, and that the old +man has only run forward with a show of force, in order to fall into +his grave the sooner. + +Sometimes, as he was walking briskly along the street, with little +Pansie clasping his hand, and perhaps frisking rather more than became +a person of his venerable years, he had met the grim old wreck of +Colonel Dabney, moving goutily, and gathering wrath anew with every +touch of his painful foot to the ground; or driving by in his carriage, +showing an ashen, angry, wrinkled face at the window, and frowning at +him--the apothecary thought--with a peculiar fury, as if he took +umbrage at his audacity in being less broken by age than a gentleman +like himself. The apothecary could not help feeling as if there were +some unsettled quarrel or dispute between himself and the Colonel, he +could not tell what or why. The Colonel always gave him a haughty nod +of half-recognition; and the people in the street, to whom he was a +familiar object, would say, "The worshipful Colonel begins to find +himself mortal like the rest of us. He feels his years." "He'd be glad, +I warrant," said one, "to change with you, Doctor. It shows what +difference a good life makes in men, to look at him and you. You are +half a score of years his elder, me-thinks, and yet look what +temperance can do for a man. By my credit, neighbor, seeing how brisk +you have been lately, I told my wife you seemed to be growing younger. +It does me good to see it. We are about of an age, I think, and I like +to notice how we old men keep young and keep one another in heart. I +myself--ahem--ahem--feel younger this season than for these five years +past." + +"It rejoices me that you feel so," quoth the apothecary, who had just +been thinking that this neighbor of his had lost a great deal, both in +mind and body, within a short period, and rather scorned him for it. +"Indeed, I find old age less uncomfortable than I supposed. Little +Pansie and I make excellent companions for one another." + +And then, dragged along by Pansie's little hand, and also impelled by a +certain alacrity that rose with him in the morning, and lasted till his +healthy rest at night, he bade farewell to his contemporary, and +hastened on; while the latter, left behind, was somewhat irritated as +he looked at the vigorous movement of the apothecary's legs. + +"He need not make such a show of briskness neither," muttered he to +himself. "This touch of rheumatism troubles me a bit just now, but try +it on a good day, and I'd walk with him for a shilling. Pshaw! I'll +walk to his funeral yet." + +One day, while the Doctor, with the activity that bestirred itself in +him nowadays, was mixing and manufacturing certain medicaments that +came in frequent demand, a carriage stopped at his door, and he +recognized the voice of Colonel Dabney, talking in his customary stern +tone to the woman who served him. And, a moment afterwards, the coach +drove away, and he actually heard the old dignitary lumbering up +stairs, and bestowing a curse upon each particular step, as if that +were the method to make them soften and become easier when he should +come down again. "Pray, your worship," said the Doctor from above, "let +me attend you below stairs." + +"No," growled the Colonel, "I'll meet you on your own ground. I can +climb a stair yet, and be hanged to you." + +So saying, he painfully finished the ascent, and came into the +laboratory, where he let himself fall into the Doctor's easy-chair, +with an anathema on the chair, the Doctor, and himself; and, staring +round through the dusk, he met the wide-open, startled eyes of little +Pansie, who had been reading a gilt picture-book in the corner. + +"Send away that child, Dolliver," cried the Colonel, angrily. "Confound +her, she makes my bones ache. I hate everything young." + +"Lord, Colonel," the poor apothecary ventured to say, "there must be +young people in the world as well as old ones. 'T is my mind, a man's +grandchildren keep him warm round about him." + +"I have none, and want none," sharply responded the Colonel; "and as +for young people, let me be one of them, and they may exist, otherwise +not. It is a cursed bad arrangement of the world, that there are young +and old here together." + +When Pansie had gone away, which she did with anything but reluctance, +having a natural antipathy to this monster of a Colonel, the latter +personage tapped with his crutch-handled cane on a chair that stood +near, and nodded in an authoritative way to the apothecary to sit down +in it. Dr. Dolliver complied submissively, and the Colonel, with dull, +unkindly eyes, looked at him sternly, and with a kind of intelligence +amid the aged stolidity of his aspect, that somewhat puzzled the +Doctor. In this way he surveyed him all over, like a judge, when he +means to hang a man, and for some reason or none, the apothecary felt +his nerves shake, beneath this steadfast look. + +"Aha! Doctor!" said the Colonel at last, with a doltish sneer, "you +bear your years well." + +"Decently well, Colonel; I thank Providence for it," answered the meek +apothecary. + +"I should say," quoth the Colonel, "you are younger at this moment than +when we spoke together two or three years ago. I noted then that your +eyebrows were a handsome snow-white, such as befits a man who has +passed beyond his threescore years and ten, and five years more. Why, +they are getting dark again, Mr. Apothecary." + +"Nay, your worship must needs be mistaken there," said the Doctor, with +a timorous chuckle. "It is many a year since I have taken a deliberate +note of my wretched old visage in a glass, but I remember they were +white when I looked last." + +"Come, Doctor, I know a thing or two," said the Colonel, with a bitter +scoff; "and what's this, you old rogue? Why, you've rubbed away a +wrinkle since we met. Take off those infernal spectacles, and look me +in the face. Ha! I see the devil in your eye. How dare you let it shine +upon me so?" + +"On my conscience, Colonel," said the apothecary, strangely struck with +the coincidence of this accusation with little Pansie's complaint, "I +know not what you mean. My sight is pretty well for a man of my age. We +near-sighted people begin to know our best eyesight, when other people +have lost theirs." + +"Ah! ah! old rogue," repeated the insufferable Colonel, gnashing his +ruined teeth at him, as if, for some incomprehensible reason, he wished +to tear him to pieces and devour him. "I know you. You are taking the +life away from me, villain! and I told you it was my inheritance. And I +told you there was a Bloody Footstep, bearing its track down through my +race. + +"I remember nothing of it," said the Doctor, in a quake, sure that the +Colonel was in one of his mad fits. "And on the word of an honest man, +I never wronged you in my life, Colonel." + +"We shall see," said the Colonel, whose wrinkled visage grew absolutely +terrible with its hardness; and his dull eyes, without losing their +dulness, seemed to look through him. + +"Listen to me, sir. Some ten years ago, there came to you a man on a +secret business. He had an old musty bit of parchment, on which were +written some words, hardly legible, in an antique hand,--an old deed, +it might have been,--some family document, and here and there the +letters were faded away. But this man had spent his life over it, and +he had made out the meaning, and he interpreted it to you, and left it +with you, only there was one gap,--one torn or obliterated place. Well, +sir,--and he bade you, with your poor little skill at the mortar, and +for a certain sum,--ample repayment for such a service,--to manufacture +this medicine,--this cordial. It was an affair of months. And just when +you thought it finished, the man came again, and stood over your cursed +beverage, and shook a powder, or dropped a lump into it, or put in some +ingredient, in which was all the hidden virtue,--or, at least, it drew +out all the hidden virtue of the mean and common herbs, and married +them into a wondrous efficacy. This done, the man bade you do certain +other things with the potation, and went away"--the Colonel hesitated a +moment--"and never came back again." + +"Surely, Colonel, you are correct," said the apothecary; much startled, +however, at the Colonel's showing himself so well acquainted with an +incident which he had supposed a secret with himself alone. Yet he had +a little reluctance in owning it, although he did not exactly +understand why, since the Colonel had, apparently, no rightful claim to +it, at all events. + +"That medicine, that receipt," continued his visitor, "is my hereditary +property, and I challenge you, on your peril, to give it up." + +"But what if the original owner should call upon me for it," objected +Dr. Dolliver. + +"I'll warrant you against that," said the Colonel; and the apothecary +thought there was something ghastly in his look and tone. "Why, 't is +ten year, you old fool; and do you think a man with a treasure like +that in his possession would have waited so long?" + +"Seven years it was ago," said the apothecary. "Septem annis passatis: +so says the Latin." + +"Curse your Latin," answers the Colonel. "Produce the stuff. You have +been violating the first rule of your trade,--taking your own +drugs,--your own, in one sense; mine by the right of three hundred +years. Bring it forth, I say!" + +"Pray excuse me, worthy Colonel," pleaded the apothecary; for though +convinced that the old gentleman was only in one of his insane fits, +when he talked of the value of this concoction, yet he really did not +like to give up the cordial, which perhaps had wrought him some +benefit. Besides, he had at least a claim upon it for much trouble and +skill expended in its composition. This he suggested to the Colonel, +who scornfully took out of his pocket a net-work purse, with more +golden guineas in it than the apothecary had seen in the whole seven +years, and was rude enough to fling it in his face. "Take that," +thundered he, "and give up the thing, or I will have you in prison +before you are an hour older. Nay," he continued, growing pale, which +was his mode of showing terrible wrath; since all through life, till +extreme age quenched it, his ordinary face had been a blazing-red, +"I'll put you to death, you villain, as I've a right!" And thrusting +his hand into his waistcoat pocket, lo! the madman took a small pistol +from it, which he cocked, and presented at the poor apothecary. The old +fellow, quaked and cowered in his chair, and would indeed have given +his whole shopful of better concocted medicines than this, to be out of +this danger. Besides, there were the guineas; the Colonel had paid him +a princely sum for what was probably worth nothing. + +"Hold! hold!" cried he as the Colonel, with stern eye pointed the +pistol at his head. "You shall have it." + +So he rose all trembling, and crept to that secret cupboard, where the +precious bottle--since precious it seemed to be--was reposited. In all +his life, long as it had been, the apothecary had never before been +threatened by a deadly weapon; though many as deadly a thing had he +seen poured into a glass, without winking. And so it seemed to take his +heart and life away, and he brought the cordial forth feebly, and stood +tremulously before the Colonel, ashy pale, and looking ten years older +than his real age, instead of five years younger, as he had seemed just +before this disastrous interview with the Colonel. + +"You look as if you needed a drop of it yourself," said Colonel Dabney, +with great scorn. "But not a drop shall you have. Already have you +stolen too much," said he, lifting up the bottle, and marking the space +to which the liquor had subsided in it in consequence of the minute +doses with which the apothecary had made free. "Fool, had you taken +your glass like a man, you might have been young again. Now, creep on, +the few months you have left, poor, torpid knave, and die! Come--a +goblet! quick!" + +He clutched the bottle meanwhile voraciously, miserly, eagerly, +furiously, as if it were his life that he held in his grasp; angry, +impatient, as if something long sought were within his reach, and not +yet secure,--with longing thirst and desire; suspicious of the world +and of fate; feeling as if an iron hand were over him, and a crowd of +violent robbers round about him, struggling for it. At last, unable to +wait longer, just as the apothecary was tottering away in quest of a +drinking-glass, the Colonel took out the stopple, and lifted the flask +itself to his lips. + +"For Heaven's sake, no!" cried the Doctor. "The dose is one single +drop!--one drop, Colonel, one drop!" + +"Not a drop to save your wretched old soul," responded the Colonel; +probably thinking that the apothecary was pleading for a small share of +the precious liquor. He put it to his lips, and, as if quenching a +lifelong thirst, swallowed deep draughts, sucking it in with +desperation, till, void of breath, he set it down upon the table. The +rich, poignant perfume spread itself through the air. + +The apothecary, with an instinctive carefulness that was rather +ludicrous under the circumstances, caught up the stopper, which the +Colonel had let fall, and forced it into the bottle to prevent any +farther escape of virtue. He then fearfully watched the result of the +madman's potation. + +The Colonel sat a moment in his chair, panting for breath; then started +to his feet with a prompt vigor that contrasted widely with the infirm +and rheumatic movements that had heretofore characterized him. He +struck his forehead violently with one hand, and smote his chest with +the other: he stamped his foot thunderously on the ground; then he +leaped up to the ceiling, and came down with an elastic bound. Then he +laughed, a wild, exulting ha! ha! with a strange triumphant roar that +filled the house and reechoed through it; a sound full of fierce, +animal rapture,--enjoyment of sensual life mixed up with a sort of +horror. After all, real as it was, it was like the sounds a man makes +in a dream. And this, while the potent draught seemed still to be +making its way through his system; and the frightened apothecary +thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon himself. Finally, +he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of which his voice +broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, starting +forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life that was +being rent away,--and fell forward with a dead thump upon the floor. + +"Colonel! Colonel!" cried the terrified Doctor. + +The feeble old man, with difficulty, turned over the heavy frame, and +saw at once, with practised eye, that he was dead. He set him up, and +the corpse looked at him with angry reproach. He was so startled, that +his subsequent recollections of the moment were neither distinct nor +steadfast; but he fancied, though he told the strange impression to no +one, that on his first glimpse of the face, with a dark flush of what +looked like rage still upon it, it was a young man's face that he +saw,--a face with all the passionate energy of early manhood,--the +capacity for furious anger which the man had lost half a century ago, +crammed to the brim with vigor till it became agony. But the next +moment, if it were so (which it could not have been), the face grew +ashen, withered, shrunken, more aged than in life, though still the +murderous fierceness remained, and seemed to be petrified forever upon +it. + +After a moment's bewilderment, Dolliver ran to the window looking to +the street, threw it open, and called loudly for assistance. He opened +also another window, for the air to blow through, for he was almost +stifled with the rich odor of the cordial which filled the room, and +was now exuded from the corpse. + +He heard the voice of Pansie, crying at the door, which was locked, +and, turning the key, he caught her in his arms, and hastened with her +below stairs, to give her into the charge of Martha, who seemed half +stupefied with a sense of something awful that had occurred. + +Meanwhile there was a rattling and a banging at the street portal, to +which several people had been attracted both by the Doctor's outcry +from the window, and by the awful screech in which the Colonel's spirit +(if, indeed, he had that divine part) had just previously taken its +flight. + +He let them in, and, pale and shivering, ushered them up to the +death-chamber, where one or two, with a more delicate sense of smelling +than the rest, snuffed the atmosphere, as if sensible of an unknown +fragrance, yet appeared afraid to breathe, when they saw the terrific +countenance leaning back against the chair, and eying them so +truculently. + +I would fain quit the scene and have done with the Colonel, who, I am +glad, has happened to die at so early a period of the narrative. I +therefore hasten to say that a coroner's inquest was held on the spot, +though everybody felt that it was merely ceremonial, and that the +testimony of their good and ancient townsman, Dr. Dolliver, was amply +sufficient to settle the matter. The verdict was, "Death by the +visitation of God." + +The apothecary gave evidence that the Colonel, without asking leave, +and positively against his advice, had drunk a quantity of distilled +spirits; and one or two servants, or members of the Colonel's family, +testified that he had been in a very uncomfortable state of mind for +some days past, so that they fancied he was insane. Therefore nobody +thought of blaming Dr. Dolliver for what had happened; and, if the +plain truth must be told, everybody who saw the wretch was too well +content to be rid of him, to trouble themselves more than was quite +necessary about the way in which the incumbrance had been removed. + +The corpse was taken to the mansion in order to receive a magnificent +funeral; and Dr. Dolliver was left outwardly in quiet, but much +disturbed, and indeed almost overwhelmed inwardly, by what had happened. + +Yet it is to be observed, that he had accounted for the death with a +singular dexterity of expression, when he attributed it to a dose of +distilled spirits. What kind of distilled spirits were those, Doctor? +and will you venture to take any more of them? + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Dolliver Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 7119.txt or 7119.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/1/7119/ + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Dolliver Romance + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7119] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 12, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +BY + +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + + +CONTENTS. + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +In "The Dolliver Romance," only three chapters of which the author lived +to complete, we get an intimation as to what would have been the ultimate +form given to that romance founded on the Elixir of Life, for which +"Septimius Felton" was the preliminary study. Having abandoned this study, +and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in 1862, Hawthorne was moved to +renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as the plan of the +romance had now seemingly developed to his satisfaction, he listened to +the publisher's proposal that it should begin its course as a serial story +in the "Atlantic Monthly" for January, 1864--the first instance in which +he had attempted such a mode of publication. + +But the change from England to Massachusetts had been marked by, and had +perhaps in part caused, a decline in his health. Illness in his family, +the depressing and harrowing effect of the Civil War upon his +sensibilities, and anxiety with regard to pecuniary affairs, all combined +to make still further inroads upon his vitality; and so early as the +autumn of 1862 Mrs. Hawthorne noted in her private diary that her husband +was looking "miserably ill." At no time since boyhood had he suffered any +serious sickness, and his strong constitution enabled him to rally from +this first attack; but the gradual decline continued. After sending forth +"Our Old Home," he had little strength for any employment more arduous +than reading, or than walking his accustomed path among the pines and +sweetfern on the hill behind The Wayside, known to his family as the Mount +of Vision. The projected work, therefore, advanced but slowly. He wrote to +Mr. Fields:-- + +"I don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the +Romance ready so soon as you want it. There are two or three chapters +ready to be written, but I am not yet robust enough to begin, and I feel +as if I should never carry it through." + +The presentiment proved to be only too well founded. He had previously +written:-- + +"There is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. I linger at +the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantasms to be +encountered if I enter. I wish God had given me the faculty of writing a +sunshiny book." + +And again, in November, he says: "I foresee that there is little +probability of my getting the first chapter ready by the 15th, although I +have a resolute purpose to write it by the end of the month." He did +indeed send it by that time, but it began to be apparent in January that +he could not go on. + +"Seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has, for the present, lost +its temper and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had better +keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigor if I wait quietly +for it; perhaps not." In another: "I hardly know what to say to the public +about this abortive Romance, though I know pretty well what the case will +be. I shall never finish it.... I cannot finish it unless a great change +comes over me; and if I make too great an effort to do so, it will be my +death." + +Finally, work had to be given over indefinitely. In April he went +southward with Mr. Ticknor, the senior partner of his publishing house; +but Mr. Ticknor died suddenly in Philadelphia, and Hawthorne returned to +The Wayside more feeble than ever. He lingered there a little while. Then, +early in May, came the last effort to recover tone, by means of a +carriage-journey, with his friend Ex-President Pierce, through the +southern part of New Hampshire. A week passed, and all was ended: at the +hotel in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where he and his companion had stopped +to rest, he died in the night, between the 18th and the 19th of May, 1864. +Like Thackeray and Dickens, he was touched by death's "petrific mace" +before he had had time to do more than lay the groundwork and begin the +main structure of the fiction he had in hand; and, as in the case of +Thackeray, the suddenness of his decease has never been clearly accounted +for. The precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet +hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr. Oliver +Wendell Holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even +a cursory view of his case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and +conversation in Boston before Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he +was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite +conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed and had put up for him a remedy to +palliate some of the poignant symptoms, and this Hawthorne carried with +him; but "I feared," Dr. Holmes writes to the editor, "that there was some +internal organic--perhaps malignant--disease; for he looked wasted and as +if stricken with a mortal illness." + +The manuscript of the unfinished "Dolliver Romance" lay upon his coffin +during the funeral services at Concord, but, contrary to the impression +sometimes entertained on this point, was not buried with him. It is +preserved in the Concord Public Library. The first chapter was published +in the "Atlantic" as an isolated portion, soon after his death; and +subsequently the second chapter, which he had been unable to revise, +appeared in the same periodical. Between this and the third fragment there +is a gap, for bridging which no material was found among his papers; but, +after hesitating for several years, Mrs. Hawthorne copied and placed in +the publishers' hands that final portion, which, with the two parts +previously printed, constitutes the whole of what Hawthorne had put into +tangible form. + +Hawthorne had purposed prefixing a sketch of Thoreau, "because, from a +tradition which he told me about this house of mine, I got the idea of a +deathless man, which is now taking a shape very different from the +original one." This refers to the tradition mentioned in the editor's +note to "Septimius Felton," and forms a link in the interesting chain of +evidence connecting that romance with the "Dolliver Romance." With the +plan respecting Thoreau he combined the idea of writing an +autobiographical preface, wherein The Wayside was to be described, after +the manner of his Introduction to the "Mosses from an Old Manse"; but, so +far as is known, nothing of this was ever actually committed to paper. + +Beginning with the idea of producing an English romance, fragments of +which remain to us in "The Ancestral Footstep," and the incomplete work +known as "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret," he replaced these by another design, +of which "Septimius Felton" represents the partial execution. But that +elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "The Dolliver Romance." The last- +named work, had the author lived to carry it out, would doubtless have +become the vehicle of a profound and pathetic drama, based on the +instinctive yearning of man for an immortal existence, the attempted +gratification of which would have been set forth in a variety of ways: +First, through the selfish old sensualist, Colonel Dabney, who greedily +seized the mysterious elixir and took such a draught of it that he +perished on the spot; then, through the simple old Grandsir, anxious to +live for Pansie's sake; and, perhaps, through Pansie herself, who, coming +into the enjoyment of some ennobling love, would wish to defeat death, so +that she might always keep the perfection of her mundane happiness,--all +these forms of striving to be made the adumbration of a higher one, the +shadow-play that should direct our minds to the true immortality beyond +this world. + +G. P. L. + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +Dr. Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused rather +prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child Pansie, in an +adjoining chamber, summoning old Martha (who performed the duties of +nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's establishment) to +take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old gentleman woke with +more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking a moment to gather his +wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen curtains of his ancient bed, +and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine that caused him to wink and +withdraw it again. This transitory glimpse of good Dr. Dolliver showed a +flannel night-cap, fringed round with stray locks of silvery white hair, +and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow visage, which was crossed and +criss-crossed with a record of his long life in wrinkles, faithfully +written, no doubt, but with such cramped chirography of Father Time that +the purport was illegible. It seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch +to get out of bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow into the summer +day that was made for younger folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means +of that opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living +twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found +himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty +joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have made them +pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the +floor. Nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, +ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so +intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, after performing them daily and +daily for fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding them still as +immitigably recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could nowise account for +this happy condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he +remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long +ago prepared by his grandson, and carefully sealed up in a bottle, and had +been reposited in a dark closet, among a parcel of effete medicines, ever +since that gifted young man's death. + +"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the doctor, shaking his head +as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor Edward +oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous drugs. But I +will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, which may have +temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's sake." + +A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, taught +him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's respite from +the intrusive family of aches and infirmities, which, with their +proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the closest +acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. Nevertheless, +he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those of yesterday; and, +moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it passed gradually off with +a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew to be almost agreeable. Pain +is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. With cautious movements, and only +a groan or two, the good Doctor transferred himself from the bed to the +floor, where he stood awhile, gazing from one piece of quaint furniture to +another (such as stiff-backed Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers +carved cunningly with shapes of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table +with multitudinous legs, a family record in faded embroidery, a shelf of +black-bound books, a dirty heap of gallipots and phials in a dim +corner),--gazing at these things, and steadying himself by the bedpost, +while his inert brain, still partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly +into accordance with the realities about him. The object which most helped +to bring Dr. Dolliver completely to his waking perceptions was one that +common observers might suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his +dreams. The same sunbeam that had dazzled the doctor between the bed- +curtains gleamed on the weather-beaten gilding which had once adorned this +mysterious symbol, and showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round +a wooden post, and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to its +ceiling. + +It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, the +dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its tail; and +it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind of gray moss +had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a swallow, or +other familiar little bird in some by-gone summer, seemed to have built +its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked like a kind of +Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a pedestal for a century +or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in the open air, until the +impious sect perished from among men,--all save old Dr. Dolliver, who had +set up the monster in his bedchamber for the convenience of private +devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting such a fantasy to the +prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to have been as pious and +upright a Christian, and with as little of the serpent in his character, +as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make a further mystery about a +very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten reptile was once the medical +emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous Dr. Swinnerton, who practised +physic in the earlier days of New England, when a head of Aesculapius or +Hippocrates would have vexed the souls of the righteous as savoring of +heathendom. The ancient dispenser of drugs had therefore set up an image +of the Brazen Serpent, and followed his business for many years with great +credit, under this Scriptural device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the +apprentice, pupil, and humble friend of the learned Swinnerton's old age, +had inherited the symbolic snake, and much other valuable property by his +bequest. + +While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth was very genial to his system, and yet +made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the reviving +blood tingled through them with a half-painful and only half-pleasurable +titillation. For the first few moments after creeping out of bed, he kept +his back to the sunny window, and seemed mysteriously shy of glancing +thitherward; but, as the June fervor pervaded him more and more +thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground +on the corner of which he dwelt. There lay many an old acquaintance, who +had gone to sleep with the flavor of Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and powders +upon his tongue; it was the patient's final bitter taste of this world, +and perhaps doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. +Yesterday, in the chill of his forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon +to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet community, and might +scarcely have shrunk from the prospect on his own account, except, indeed, +that he dreamily mixed up the infirmities of his present condition with +the repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a notion that the damp +earth, under the grass and dandelions, must needs be pernicious for his +cough and his rheumatism. But, this morning, the cheerful sunbeams, or the +mere taste of his grandson's cordial that he had taken at bedtime, or the +fitful vigor that often sports irreverently with aged people, had caused +an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere within him, to expand. + +"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his throat +of the dregs of a ten-years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone with me +as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a little age- +stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere faint-heartedness, a +great deal sooner than they need." + +He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if to +impress the apothegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and, for +his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who stood +as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to the +other. This child of three years old occupied all the unfossilized portion +of Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that he formerly had, and +the entire confraternity of persons whom he once loved, had long ago +departed; and the poor Doctor could not follow them, because the grasp of +Pansie's baby-fingers held him back. + +So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a patchwork +morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was said to have +been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the silken +skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter had +taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor Bessie, the beloved of +his youth, had been half a century in the grave. Throughout many of the +intervening years, as the garment got ragged, the spinsters of the old +man's family had quilted their duty and affection into it in the shape of +patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, and green, and +then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept growing shadier, and their +attire took a sombre hue) sober gray and great fragments of funereal +black, until the Doctor could revive the memory of most things that had +befallen him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as it hung upon a chair. +And now it was ragged again, and all the fingers that should have mended +it were cold. It had an Eastern fragrance, too, a smell of drugs, strong- +scented herbs, and spicy gums, gathered from the many potent infusions +that had from time to time been spilt over it; so that, snuffing him afar +off, you might have taken Dr. Dolliver for a mummy, and could hardly have +been undeceived by his shrunken and torpid aspect, as he crept nearer. + +Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand, and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was somewhat +steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, putting his +left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist him in +making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became a living +illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it describes the aged as +being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth that is often found to have +a sadder purport than its external one. Half-way to the bottom, however, +the Doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of little Pansie,-- +Queen Pansie, as she might fairly have been styled, in reference to her +position in the household,--calling amain for grandpapa and breakfast. He +was startled into such perilous activity by the summons, that his heels +slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled off his feet, and he saved +himself from a tumble only by quickening his pace, and coming down at +almost a run. + +"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, and, +methinks, my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? Well, +well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing down this +steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" + +He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and meanwhile +Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's descent, and was +pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her haste to come at +him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a rather pale and large- +eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might well be the case with a +motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful house, with no other playmates +than a decrepit old man and a kitten, and no better atmosphere within- +doors than the odor of decayed apothecary's stuff, nor gayer neighborhood +than that of the adjacent burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her +great-grandmother downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is +bedtime!" even in the prime of the summer morning. For those dead women- +folk, especially her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand- +aunts, could not but be anxious about the child, knowing that little +Pansie would be far safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, +as she soon must be, in this difficult and deceitful world. + +Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement +in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable progenitor. +She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom was, having +never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down her voice), +till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. + +"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver, cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?" + +"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering +the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "It shall do +poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the remedy. + +"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I had +in my drugs," replied the patriarch, with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for my +feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken neck; +so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." + +In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and Pansie +side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in the +party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, delicately +sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke: then she took post on +the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a spinning-wheel, trying her +claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, and still more impressively +reminding him of her presence by putting out a paw to intercept a warmed- +over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its way to the Doctor's mouth. After +skilfully achieving this feat, she scrambled down upon the breakfast-table +and began to wash her face and hands. Evidently, these companions were all +three on intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many +childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simple-minded old man; +insomuch that, if no worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had +disturbed him, his remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily +enjoyed as the early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. +Dolliver and his great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed +quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of Pansie) had met one another at the +two extremities of the life-circle: her sunrise served him for a sunset, +illuminating his locks of silver and hers of golden brown with a +homogeneous shimmer of twinkling light. + +Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had died +the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, a +numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track in +their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing, how it had +all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an infant's small +fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead progeny come and +go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this solitary child +represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many that had gone +before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to him. She seemed +the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. A whole family of +grand-aunts (one of whom had perished in her cradle, never so mature as +Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal maidenhood, +yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still another, a +forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and grew to be +merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then),--all their hitherto +forgotten features peeped through the face of the great-grandchild, and +their long-inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or laughed, in her familiar +tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, while frolicking amid this +throng of ghosts, where the one reality looked no more vivid than its +shadowy sisters,--it often happened that his eyes filled with tears at a +sudden perception of what a sad and poverty-stricken old man he was, +already remote from his own generation, and bound to stray further onward +as the sole playmate and protector of a child! + +As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient to +give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title of +Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, perhaps, +one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and over-jealous +of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these crusty graduates +were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from their fraternity. He +had never received the degree of any medical school, nor (save it might be +for the cure of a toothache, or a child's rash, or a whitlow on a +seamstress's finger, or some such trifling malady) had he ever been even a +practitioner of the awful science with which his popular designation +connected him. Our old friend, in short, even at his highest social +elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an apothecary, and, in these +later and far less prosperous days, scarcely so much. Since the death of +his last surviving grandson (Pansie's father, whom he had instructed in +all the mysteries of his science, and who, being distinguished by an +experimental and inventive tendency, was generally believed to have +poisoned himself with an infallible panacea of his own distillation),-- +since that final bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's once pretty flourishing +business had lamentably declined. After a few months of unavailing +struggle, he found it expedient to take down the Brazen Serpent from the +position to which Dr. Swinnerton had originally elevated it, in front of +his shop in the main street, and to retire to his private dwelling, +situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a burial-ground. + +This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and a +drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance to +our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over the +threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with the human +dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept accumulating beneath +their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor Bessie herself had gone +early to rest there, it is probable that an influence from her grave may +have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband, taking away +much of the energy from what should have been the most active portion of +his life. Thus he never grew rich. His thrifty townsmen used to tell him, +that, in any other man's hands, Dr. Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, +I presume, the inherited credit and good-will of that old worthy's trade) +would need but ten years' time to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. +Dolliver's keeping, as we have seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the +greater part of what superficial gilding it originally had. Matters had +not mended with him in more advanced life, after he had deposited a +further and further portion of his heart and its affections in each +successive one of a long row of kindred graves; and as he stood over the +last of them, holding Pansie by the hand and looking down upon the coffin +of his grandson, it is no wonder that the old man wept, partly for those +gone before, but not so bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. +Why had not God taken her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he was, +so destitute of possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit +bones, his dried-up heart, might have crumbled into dust at once, and have +been scattered by the next wind over all the heaps of earth that were akin +to him. + +This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character to +be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness and +simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even before +he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly cheering +and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's warm little +hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly for her +protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty nor +quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the sloth +of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency which he +had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. + +To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, he +was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell into +popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed the old +man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to possess more +skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial apothecary, having been +regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, throughout his long +practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the medicines which he +prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, that the ancient +physician had learned the art at the world-famous drug-manufactory of +Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people half-malignly whispered, +had perfected himself under masters more subtle than were to be found even +there. Unquestionably, in many critical cases he was known to have +employed remedies of mysterious composition and dangerous potency, which, +in less skilful hands, would have been more likely to kill than cure. He +would willingly, it is said, have taught his apprentice the secrets of +these prescriptions, but the latter, being of a timid character and +delicate conscience, had shrunk from acquaintance with them. It was +probably as the result of the same scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had +always declined to enter the medical profession, in which his old +instructor had set him such heroic examples of adventurous dealing with +matters of life and death. Nevertheless, the aromatic fragrance, so to +speak, of the learned Swinnerton's reputation, had clung to our friend +through life; and there were elaborate preparations in the pharmacopoia of +that day, requiring such minute skill and conscientious fidelity in the +concocter that the physicians were still glad to confide them to one in +whom these qualities were so evident. + +Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and mindful +of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, pomanders, +and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their toilet- +tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were beautiful. Among +this class of customers there was still a demand for certain comfortable +little nostrums (delicately sweet and pungent to the taste, cheering to +the spirits, and fragrant in the breath), the proper distillation of which +was the airiest secret that the mystic Swinnerton had left behind him. +And, besides, these old ladies had always liked the manners of Dr. +Dolliver, and used to speak of his gentle courtesy behind the counter as +having positively been something to admire; though of later years, an +unrefined, and almost rustic simplicity, such as belonged to his humble +ancestors, appeared to have taken possession of him, as it often does of +prettily mannered men in their late decay. + +But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the Doctor's +marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by a +crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy with +the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his delicate +scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute quantities, +that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or too much, +leaving out life with the deficiency, or spilling in death with the +surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to think +that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared absolutely to +depart from him, while his frail old body worked on mechanically) rendered +him not quite trustworthy without a close supervision of his proceedings. +It was impossible, however, to convince the aged apothecary of the +necessity for such vigilance; and if anything could stir up his gentle +temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to tears, it was the attempt +(which he was marvellously quick to detect) thus to interfere with his +long-familiar business. + +The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his professional +aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps their oldest +fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire and the Great +Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the terrible epoch of +Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the breaking out of King +Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy days, had received a +benediction from the patriarchal Governor Bradstreet, and thus could boast +(somewhat as Bishops do of their unbroken succession from the Apostles) of +a transmitted blessing from the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among +whom the venerable magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their +townsman in this aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with +which they had heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly +as Grandsir Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare +garb (the fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century ago), +his gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his shrunken, +frosty figure, and its feeble movement,--all these characteristics had a +wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like the meeting-house +steeple or the town-pump. All the younger portion of the inhabitants +unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to Grandsir Dolliver's +infirm and reverend presence. They fancied that he had been born old (at +least, I remember entertaining some such notions about age-stricken +people, when I myself was young), and that he could the better tolerate +his aches and incommodities, his dull ears and dim eyes, his remoteness +from human intercourse within the crust of indurated years, the cold +temperature that kept him always shivering and sad, the heavy burden that +invisibly bent down his shoulders,--that all these intolerable things +might bring a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir Dolliver, as the lifelong +conditions of his peculiar existence. + +But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a perennial +novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, but, long +as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and patient as +he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that these stiffened +shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of sight and brain, this +confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were troublesome accidents that +did not really belong to him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea +that they might pass away. Youth, however eclipsed for a season, is +undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we +look closely into this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that +it never absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. +A sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our +true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of +many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath +them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this +instinctive faith, that men of simple modes of character are prone to +antedate its consummation. And thus it happened with poor Grandsir +Dolliver, who often awoke from an old man's fitful sleep with a sense that +his senile predicament was but a dream of the past night; and hobbling +hastily across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would be grievously +disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the +ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy mask of Age, in which, as he +now remembered, some strange and sad enchantment had involved him for +years gone by! + +To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked +as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully wrought +disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should be +straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his +much-enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread over +them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful +companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. He longed to be gazed +at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them +that loved him not. Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a +dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense that +he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting links +with the net-work of human life; or else it was that nightmare-feeling +which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to find ourselves +wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some +wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious of estrangement +from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why +he should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude. If they +spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated itself +faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him by the hand, it was +as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed the kindly pressure and the +warmth. When little Pansie was the companion of his walk, her childish +gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer relationship +with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of indefinable +remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, into which old Grandsir +Dolliver had so strangely crept away. + +Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the great- +grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if his +faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and Pansie +moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, instead of +the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled sensibilities had +probably been touched and quickened by the warm contiguity of his little +companion through the medium of her hand, as it stirred within his own, or +some inflection of her voice that set his memory ringing and chiming with +forgotten sounds. While that music lasted, the old man was alive and +happy. And there were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when +Pansie had been kissed and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his +fireside gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into +those cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence come angels +or fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them +in by-gone years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire- +gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on her +pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm +surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not so +vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been +kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse +within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of an +intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. + + + + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + +[Footnote: This scene was not revised by the author, but is printed from +his first draught.] + +We may now suppose Grandsir Dolliver to have finished his breakfast, with +a better appetite and sharper perception of the qualities of his food than +he has generally felt of late years, whether it were due to old Martha's +cookery or to the cordial of the night before. Little Pansie had also made +an end of her bread and milk with entire satisfaction, and afterwards +nibbled a crust, greatly enjoying its resistance to her little white +teeth. + +How this child came by the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was really +her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was one of +those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or out of +some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for and +unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true name by +which the child's guardian angel would know it,--a name with playfulness +and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the practice of +those who love the child best, the name that they carefully selected, and +caused the clergyman to plaster indelibly on the poor little forehead at +the font,--the love-name, whereby, if the child lives, the parents know +it in their hearts, or by which, if it dies, God seems to have called it +away, leaving the sound lingering faintly and sweetly through the house. +In Pansie's case, it may have been a certain pensiveness which was +sometimes seen under her childish frolic, and so translated itself into +French (_pensee_), her mother having been of Acadian kin; or, quite +as probably, it alluded merely to the color of her eyes, which, in some +lights, were very like the dark petals of a tuft of pansies in the +Doctor's garden. It might well be, indeed, on account of the suggested +pensiveness; for the child's gayety had no example to sustain it, no +sympathy of other children or grown people,--and her melancholy, had it +been so dark a feeling, was but the shadow of the house, and of the old +man. If brighter sunshine came, she would brighten with it. This morning, +surely, as the three companions, Pansie, puss, and Grandsir Dolliver, +emerged from the shadow of the house into the small adjoining enclosure, +they seemed all frolicsome alike. + +The Doctor, however, was intent over something that had reference to his +lifelong business of drugs. This little spot was the place where he was +wont to cultivate a variety of herbs supposed to be endowed with medicinal +virtue. Some of them had been long known in the pharmacopoia of the Old +World; and others, in the early days of the country, had been adopted by +the first settlers from the Indian medicine-men, though with fear and even +contrition, because these wild doctors were supposed to draw their +pharmaceutic knowledge from no gracious source, the Black Man himself +being the principal professor in their medical school. From his own +experience, however, Dr. Dolliver had long since doubted, though he was +not bold enough quite to come to the conclusion, that Indian shrubs, and +the remedies prepared from them, were much less perilous than those so +freely used in European practice, and singularly apt to be followed by +results quite as propitious. Into such heterodoxy our friend was the more +liable to fall, because it had been taught him early in life by his old +master, Dr. Swinnerton, who, at those not infrequent times when he +indulged a certain unhappy predilection for strong waters, had been +accustomed to inveigh in terms of the most cynical contempt and coarsest +ridicule against the practice by which he lived, and, as he affirmed, +inflicted death on his fellow-men. Our old apothecary, though too loyal to +the learned profession with which he was connected fully to believe this +bitter judgment, even when pronounced by his revered master, was still so +far influenced that his conscience was possibly a little easier when +making a preparation from forest herbs and roots than in the concoction of +half a score of nauseous poisons into a single elaborate drug, as the +fashion of that day was. + +But there were shrubs in the garden of which he had never ventured to make +a medical use, nor, indeed, did he know their virtue, although from year +to year he had tended and fertilized, weeded and pruned them, with +something like religious care. They were of the rarest character, and had +been planted by the learned and famous Dr. Swinnerton, who, on his death- +bed, when he left his dwelling and all his abstruse manuscripts to his +favorite pupil, had particularly directed his attention to this row of +shrubs. They had been collected by himself from remote countries, and had +the poignancy of torrid climes in them; and he told him, that, properly +used, they would be worth all the rest of the legacy a hundred-fold. As +the apothecary, however, found the manuscripts, in which he conjectured +there was a treatise on the subject of these shrubs, mostly illegible, and +quite beyond his comprehension in such passages as he succeeded in +puzzling out (partly, perhaps, owing to his very imperfect knowledge of +Latin, in which language they were written), he had never derived from +them any of the promised benefit. And, to say the truth, remembering that +Dr. Swinnerton himself never appeared to triturate or decoct or do +anything else with the mysterious herbs, our old friend was inclined to +imagine the weighty commendation of their virtues to have been the idly +solemn utterance of mental aberration at the hour of death. So, with the +integrity that belonged to his character, he had nurtured them as tenderly +as was possible in the ungenial climate and soil of New England, putting +some of them into pots for the winter; but they had rather dwindled than +flourished, and he had reaped no harvests from them, nor observed them +with any degree of scientific interest. + +His grandson, however, while yet a school-boy, had listened to the old +man's legend of the miraculous virtues of these plants; and it took so +firm a hold of his mind, that the row of outlandish vegetables seemed +rooted in it, and certainly flourished there with richer luxuriance than +in the soil where they actually grew. The story, acting thus early upon +his imagination, may be said to have influenced his brief career in life, +and, perchance, brought about its early close. The young man, in the +opinion of competent judges, was endowed with remarkable abilities, and +according to the rumor of the people had wonderful gifts, which were +proved by the cures he had wrought with remedies of his own invention. His +talents lay in the direction of scientific analysis and inventive +combination of chemical powers. While under the pupilage of his +grandfather, his progress had rapidly gone quite beyond his instructor's +hope,--leaving him even to tremble at the audacity with which he +overturned and invented theories, and to wonder at the depth at which he +wrought beneath the superficialness and mock-mystery of the medical +science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft and running a +hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. Especially did he devote +himself to these plants; and under his care they had thriven beyond all +former precedent, bursting into luxuriance of bloom, and most of them +bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, in two or three instances, had +the sort of natural repulsiveness that the serpent has in its beauty, +compelled against its will, as it were, to warn the beholder of an +unrevealed danger. The young man had long ago, it must be added, demanded +of his grandfather the documents included in the legacy of Professor +Swinnerton, and had spent days and nights upon them, growing pale over +their mystic lore, which seemed the fruit not merely of the Professor's +own labors, but of those of more ancient sages than he; and often a whole +volume seemed to be compressed within the limits of a few lines of crabbed +manuscript, judging from the time which it cost even the quick-minded +student to decipher them. + +Meantime these abstruse investigations had not wrought such disastrous +effects as might have been feared, in causing Edward Dolliver to neglect +the humble trade, the conduct of which his grandfather had now +relinquished almost entirely into his hands. On the contrary, with the +mere side results of his study, or what may be called the chips and +shavings of his real work, he created a prosperity quite beyond anything +that his simple-minded predecessor had ever hoped for, even at the most +sanguine epoch of his life. The young man's adventurous endowments were +miraculously alive, and connecting themselves with his remarkable ability +for solid research, and perhaps his conscience being as yet imperfectly +developed (as it sometimes lies dormant in the young), he spared not to +produce compounds which, if the names were anywise to be trusted, would +supersede all other remedies, and speedily render any medicine a needless +thing, making the trade of apothecary an untenable one, and the title of +Doctor obsolete. Whether there was real efficacy in these nostrums, and +whether their author himself had faith in them, is more than can safely be +said; but, at all events, the public believed in them, and thronged to the +old and dim sign of the Brazen Serpent, which, though hitherto familiar to +them and their forefathers, now seemed to shine with auspicious lustre, as +if its old Scriptural virtues were renewed. If any faith was to be put in +human testimony, many marvellous cures were really performed, the fame of +which spread far and wide, and caused demands for these medicines to come +in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. Our old +apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his grandson's +character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, stood behind +the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of +fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new +prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was to be seen +dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle and by the +dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what he feared was +trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of every ancient +physician who might chance to be passing by, but withal examining closely +the silver, or the New England coarsely printed bills, which he took in +payment, as if apprehensive that the delusive character of the commodity +which he sold might be balanced by equal counterfeiting in the money +received, or as if his faith in all things were shaken. + +Is it not possible that this gifted young man had indeed found out those +remedies which Nature has provided and laid away for the cure of every +ill? + +The disastrous termination of the most brilliant epoch that ever came to +the Brazen Serpent must be told in a few words. One night, Edward +Dolliver's young wife awoke, and, seeing the gray dawn creeping into the +chamber, while her husband, it should seem, was still engaged in his +laboratory, arose in her nightdress, and went to the door of the room to +put in her gentle remonstrance against such labor. There she found him +dead,--sunk down out of his chair upon the hearth, where were some ashes, +apparently of burnt manuscripts, which appeared to comprise most of those +included in Dr. Swinnerton's legacy, though one or two had fallen near the +heap, and lay merely scorched beside it. It seemed as if he had thrown +them into the fire, under a sudden impulse, in a great hurry and passion. +It may be that he had come to the perception of something fatally false +and deceptive in the successes which he had appeared to win, and was too +proud and too conscientious to survive it. Doctors were called in, but had +no power to revive him. An inquest was held, at which the jury, under the +instruction, perhaps, of those same revengeful doctors, expressed the +opinion that the poor young man, being given to strange contrivances with +poisonous drugs, had died by incautiously tasting them himself. This +verdict, and the terrible event itself, at once deprived the medicines of +all their popularity; and the poor old apothecary was no longer under any +necessity of disturbing his conscience by selling them. They at once lost +their repute, and ceased to be in any demand. In the few instances in +which they were tried the experiment was followed by no good results; and +even those individuals who had fancied themselves cured, and had been +loudest in spreading the praises of these beneficent compounds, now, as if +for the utter demolition of the poor youth's credit, suffered under a +recurrence of the worst symptoms, and, in more than one case, perished +miserably: insomuch (for the days of witchcraft were still within the +memory of living men and women) it was the general opinion that Satan had +been personally concerned in this affliction, and that the Brazen Serpent, +so long honored among them, was really the type of his subtle malevolence +and perfect iniquity. It was rumored even that all preparations that came +from the shop were harmful: that teeth decayed that had been made pearly +white by the use of the young chemist's dentifrice; that cheeks were +freckled that had been changed to damask roses by his cosmetics; that hair +turned gray or fell off that had become black, glossy, and luxuriant from +the application of his mixtures; that breath which his drugs had sweetened +had now a sulphurous smell. Moreover, all the money heretofore amassed by +the sale of them had been exhausted by Edward Dolliver in his lavish +expenditure for the processes of his study; and nothing was left for +Pansie, except a few valueless and unsalable bottles of medicine, and one +or two others, perhaps more recondite than their inventor had seen fit to +offer to the public. + +Little Pansie's mother lived but a short time after the shock of the +terrible catastrophe; and, as we began our story with saying, she was left +with no better guardianship or support than might be found in the efforts +of a long superannuated man. + +Nothing short of the simplicity, integrity, and piety of Grandsir +Dolliver's character, known and acknowledged as far back as the oldest +inhabitants remembered anything, and inevitably discoverable by the +dullest and most prejudiced observers, in all its natural manifestations, +could have protected him in still creeping about the streets. So far as he +was personally concerned, however, all bitterness and suspicion had +speedily passed away; and there remained still the careless and neglectful +good-will, and the prescriptive reverence, not altogether reverential, +which the world heedlessly awards to the unfortunate individual who +outlives his generation. + +And now that we have shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the +best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the present +position of Grandsir Dolliver, we may let our story pass onward, though at +such a pace as suits the feeble gait of an old man. + +The peculiarly brisk sensation of this morning, to which we have more than +once alluded, enabled the Doctor to toil pretty vigorously at his +medicinal herbs,--his catnip, his vervain, and the like; but he did not +turn his attention to the row of mystic plants, with which so much of +trouble and sorrow either was, or appeared to be, connected. In truth, his +old soul was sick of them, and their very fragrance, which the warm +sunshine made strongly perceptible, was odious to his nostrils. But the +spicy, homelike scent of his other herbs, the English simples, was +grateful to him, and so was the earth-smell, as he turned up the soil +about their roots, and eagerly snuffed it in. Little Pansie, on the other +hand, perhaps scandalized at great-grandpapa's neglect of the prettiest +plants in his garden, resolved to do her small utmost towards balancing +his injustice; so with an old shingle, fallen from the roof, which she had +appropriated as her agricultural tool, she began to dig about them, +pulling up the weeds, as she saw grandpapa doing. The kitten, too, with a +look of elfish sagacity, lent her assistance, plying her paws with vast +haste and efficiency at the roots of one of the shrubs. This particular +one was much smaller than the rest, perhaps because it was a native of the +torrid zone, and required greater care than the others to make it +flourish; so that, shrivelled, cankered, and scarcely showing a green +leaf, both Pansie and the kitten probably mistook it for a weed. After +their joint efforts had made a pretty big trench about it, the little girl +seized the shrub with both hands, bestriding it with her plump little +legs, and giving so vigorous a pull, that, long accustomed to be +transplanted annually, it came up by the roots, and little Pansie came +down in a sitting posture, making a broad impress on the soft earth. "See, +see, Doctor!" cries Pansie, comically enough giving him his title of +courtesy,--"look, grandpapa, the big, naughty weed!" + +Now the Doctor had at once a peculiar dread and a peculiar value for this +identical shrub, both because his grandson's investigations had been +applied more ardently to it than to all the rest, and because it was +associated in his mind with an ancient and sad recollection. For he had +never forgotten that his wife, the early lost, had once taken a fancy to +wear its flowers, day after day, through the whole season of their bloom, +in her bosom, where they glowed like a gem, and deepened her somewhat +pallid beauty with a richness never before seen in it. At least such was +the effect which this tropical flower imparted to the beloved form in his +memory, and thus it somehow both brightened and wronged her. This had +happened not long before her death; and whenever, in the subsequent years, +this plant had brought its annual flower, it had proved a kind of talisman +to bring up the image of Bessie, radiant with this glow that did not +really belong to her naturally passive beauty, quickly interchanging with +another image of her form, with the snow of death on cheek and forehead. +This reminiscence had remained among the things of which the Doctor was +always conscious, but had never breathed a word, through the whole of his +long life,--a sprig of sensibility that perhaps helped to keep him +tenderer and purer than other men, who entertain no such follies. And the +sight of the shrub often brought back the faint, golden gleam of her hair, +as if her spirit were in the sunlights of the garden, quivering into view +and out of it. And therefore, when he saw what Pansie had done, he sent +forth a strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of +aged and decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "Naughty Pansie, to pull up +grandpapa's flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Poison, Pansie, +poison! Fling it away, child!" + +And dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little +girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while Pansie, as +apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of +mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was +ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this +fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten. + +"Stop, naughty Pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "You will tumble +into the grave!" The kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems to +affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back. + +And, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more +literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate communicated +with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little Pansie's track there +was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant that afternoon. Pansie, +however, fled onward with outstretched arms, half in fear, half in fun, +plying her round little legs with wonderful promptitude, as if to escape +Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir Dolliver, and happily avoiding +the ominous pitfall that lies in every person's path, till, hearing a +groan from her pursuer, she looked over her shoulder, and saw that poor +grandpapa had stumbled over one of the many hillocks. She then suddenly +wrinkled up her little visage, and sent forth a full-breathed roar of +sympathy and alarm. + +"Grandpapa has broken his neck now!" cried little Pansie, amid her sobs. + +"Kiss grandpapa, and make it well, then," said the old gentleman, +recollecting her remedy, and scrambling up more readily than could be +expected. "Well," he murmured to himself, "a hair's-breadth more, and I +should have been tumbled into yonder grave. Poor little Pansie! what +wouldst thou have done then?" + +"Make the grass grow over grandpapa," answered Pansie, laughing up in his +face. + +"Poh, poh, child, that is not a pretty thing to say," said grandpapa, +pettishly and disappointed, as people are apt to be when they try to +calculate on the fitful sympathies of childhood. "Come, you must go in to +old Martha now." + +The poor old gentleman was in the more haste to leave the spot because he +found himself standing right in front of his own peculiar row of +gravestones, consisting of eight or nine slabs of slate, adorned with +carved borders rather rudely cut, and the earliest one, that of his +Bessie, bending aslant, because the frost of so many winters had slowly +undermined it. Over one grave of the row, that of his gifted grandson, +there was no memorial. He felt a strange repugnance, stronger than he had +ever felt before, to linger by these graves, and had none of the tender +sorrow, mingled with high and tender hopes, that had sometimes made it +seem good to him to be there. Such moods, perhaps, often come to the aged, +when the hardened earth-crust over their souls shuts them out from +spiritual influences. + +Taking the child by the hand,--her little effervescence of infantile fun +having passed into a downcast humor, though not well knowing as yet what a +dusky cloud of disheartening fancies arose from these green hillocks,--he +went heavily toward the garden-gate. Close to its threshold, so that one +who was issuing forth or entering must needs step upon it or over it, lay +a small flat stone, deeply imbedded in the ground, and partly covered with +grass, inscribed with the name of "Dr. John Swinnerton, Physician." + +"Ay," said the old man, as the well-remembered figure of his ancient +instructor seemed to rise before him in his grave-apparel, with beard and +gold-headed cane, black velvet doublet and cloak, "here lies a man who, as +people have thought, had it in his power to avoid the grave! He had no +little grandchild to tease him. He had the choice to die, and chose it." + +So the old gentleman led Pansie over the stone, and carefully closed the +gate; and, as it happened, he forgot the uprooted shrub, which Pansie, as +she ran, had flung away, and which had fallen into the open grave; and +when the funeral came that afternoon, the coffin was let down upon it, so +that its bright, inauspicious flower never bloomed again. + + + + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +"Be secret!" and he kept his stern eye fixed upon him, as the coach began +to move. + +"Be secret!" repeated the apothecary. "I know not any secret that he has +confided to me thus far, and as for his nonsense (as I will be bold to +style it now he is gone) about a medicine of long life, it is a thing I +forget in spite of myself, so very empty and trashy it is. I wonder, by +the by, that it never came into my head to give the Colonel a dose of the +cordial whereof I partook last night. I have no faith that it is a +valuable medicine--little or none--and yet there has been an unwonted +briskness in me all the morning." + +Then a simple joy broke over his face--a flickering sunbeam among his +wrinkles--as he heard the laughter of the little girl, who was running +rampant with a kitten in the kitchen. + +"Pansie! Pansie!" cackled he, "grandpapa has sent away the ugly man now. +Come, let us have a frolic in the garden." + +And he whispered to himself again, "That is a cordial yonder, and I will +take it according to the prescription, knowing all the ingredients." Then, +after a moment's thought, he added, "All, save one." + +So, as he had declared to himself his intention, that night, when little +Pansie had long been asleep, and his small household was in bed, and most +of the quiet, old-fashioned townsfolk likewise, this good apothecary went +into his laboratory, and took out of a cupboard in the wall a certain +ancient-looking bottle, which was cased over with a net-work of what +seemed to be woven silver, like the wicker-woven bottles of our days. He +had previously provided a goblet of pure water. Before opening the bottle, +however, he seemed to hesitate, and pondered and babbled to himself; +having long since come to that period of life when the bodily frame, +having lost much of its value, is more tenderly cared for than when it was +a perfect and inestimable machine. + +"I triturated, I infused, I distilled it myself in these very rooms, and +know it--know it all--all the ingredients, save one. They are common +things enough--comfortable things--some of them a little queer--one or two +that folks have a prejudice against--and then there is that one thing +that I don't know. It is foolish in me to be dallying with such a mess, +which I thought was a piece of quackery, while that strange visitor bade +me do it,--and yet, what a strength has come from it! He said it was a +rare cordial, and, methinks, it has brightened up my weary life all day, +so that Pansie has found me the fitter playmate. And then the dose--it is +so absurdly small! I will try it again." + +He took the silver stopple from the bottle, and with a practised hand, +tremulous as it was with age, so that one would have thought it must have +shaken the liquor into a perfect shower of misapplied drops, he dropped--I +have heard it said--only one single drop into the goblet of water. It fell +into it with a dazzling brightness, like a spark of ruby flame, and subtly +diffusing itself through the whole body of water, turned it to a rosy hue +of great brilliancy. He held it up between his eyes and the light, and +seemed to admire and wonder at it. + +"It is very odd," said he, "that such a pure, bright liquor should have +come out of a parcel of weeds that mingled their juices here. The thing is +a folly,--it is one of those compositions in which the chemists--the +cabalists, perhaps--used to combine what they thought the virtues of many +plants, thinking that something would result in the whole, which was not +in either of them, and a new efficacy be created. Whereas, it has been the +teaching of my experience that one virtue counteracts another, and is the +enemy of it. I never believed the former theory, even when that strange +madman bade me do it. And what a thick, turbid matter it was, until that +last ingredient,--that powder which he put in with his own hand! Had he +let me see it, I would first have analyzed it, and discovered its +component parts. The man was mad, undoubtedly, and this may have been +poison. But its effect is good. Poh! I will taste again, because of this +weak, agued, miserable state of mine; though it is a shame in me, a man of +decent skill in my way, to believe in a quack's nostrum. But it is a +comfortable kind of thing." + +Meantime, that single drop (for good Dr. Dolliver had immediately put a +stopper into the bottle) diffused a sweet odor through the chamber, so +that the ordinary fragrances and scents of apothecaries' stuff seemed to +be controlled and influenced by it, and its bright potency also dispelled +a certain dimness of the antiquated room. + +The Doctor, at the pressure of a great need, had given incredible pains to +the manufacture of this medicine; so that, reckoning the pains rather than +the ingredients (all except one, of which he was not able to estimate the +cost nor value), it was really worth its weight in gold. And, as it +happened, he had bestowed upon it the hard labor of his poor life, and the +time that was necessary for the support of his family, without return; for +the customers, after playing off this cruel joke upon the old man, had +never come back; and now, for seven years, the bottle had stood in a +corner of the cupboard. To be sure, the silver-cased bottle was worth a +trifle for its silver, and still more, perhaps, as an antiquarian knick- +knack. But, all things considered, the honest and simple apothecary +thought that he might make free with the liquid to such small extent as +was necessary for himself. And there had been something in the concoction +that had struck him; and he had been fast breaking lately; and so, in the +dreary fantasy and lonely recklessness of his old age, he had suddenly +bethought himself of this medicine (cordial,--as the strange man called +it, which had come to him by long inheritance in his family) and he had +determined to try it. And again, as the night before, he took out the +receipt--a roll of antique parchment, out of which, provokingly, one fold +had been lost--and put on his spectacles to puzzle out the passage. + +Guttam unicam in aquam puram, two gills. "If the Colonel should hear of +this," said Dr. Dolliver, "he might fancy it his nostrum of long life, and +insist on having the bottle for his own use. The foolish, fierce old +gentleman! He has grown very earthly, of late, else he would not desire +such a thing. And a strong desire it must be to make him feel it +desirable. For my part, I only wish for something that, for a short time, +may clear my eyes, so that I may see little Pansie's beauty, and quicken +my ears, that I may hear her sweet voice, and give me nerve, while God +keeps me here, that I may live longer to earn bread for dear Pansie. She +provided for, I would gladly lie down yonder with Bessie and our children. +Ah! the vanity of desiring lengthened days!--There!--I have drunk it, +and methinks its final, subtle flavor hath strange potency in it." + +The old man shivered a little, as those shiver who have just swallowed +good liquor, while it is permeating their vitals. Yet he seemed to be in a +pleasant state of feeling, and, as was frequently the case with this +simple soul, in a devout frame of mind. He read a chapter in the Bible, +and said his prayers for Pansie and himself, before he went to bed, and +had much better sleep than usually comes to people of his advanced age; +for, at that period, sleep is diffused through their wakefulness, and a +dim and tiresome half-perception through their sleep, so that the only +result is weariness. + +Nothing very extraordinary happened to Dr. Dolliver or his small household +for some time afterwards. He was favored with a comfortable winter, and +thanked Heaven for it, and put it to a good use (at least he intended it +so) by concocting drugs; which perhaps did a little towards peopling the +graveyard, into which his windows looked; but that was neither his purpose +nor his fault. None of the sleepers, at all events, interrupted their +slumbers to upbraid him. He had done according to his own artless +conscience and the recipes of licensed physicians, and he looked no +further, but pounded, triturated, infused, made electuaries, boluses, +juleps, or whatever he termed his productions, with skill and diligence, +thanking Heaven that he was spared to do so, when his contemporaries +generally were getting incapable of similar efforts. It struck him with +some surprise, but much gratitude to Providence, that his sight seemed to +be growing rather better than worse. He certainly could read the crabbed +handwriting and hieroglyphics of the physicians with more readiness than +he could a year earlier. But he had been originally near-sighted, with +large, projecting eyes; and near-sighted eyes always seem to get a new +lease of light as the years go on. One thing was perceptible about the +Doctor's eyes, not only to himself in the glass, but to everybody else; +namely, that they had an unaccustomed gleaming brightness in them; not so +very bright either, but yet so much so, that little Pansie noticed it, and +sometimes, in her playful, roguish way, climbed up into his lap, and put +both her small palms over them; telling Grandpapa that he had stolen +somebody else's eyes, and given away his own, and that she liked his old +ones better. The poor old Doctor did his best to smile through his eyes, +and so to reconcile Pansie to their brightness: but still she continually +made the same silly remonstrance, so that he was fain to put on a pair of +green spectacles when he was going to play with Pansie, or took her on his +knee. Nay, if he looked at her, as had always been his custom, after she +was asleep, in order to see that all was well with her, the little child +would put up her hands, as if he held a light that was flashing on her +eyeballs; and unless he turned away his gaze quickly, she would wake up in +a fit of crying. + +On the whole, the apothecary had as comfortable a time as a man of his +years could expect. The air of the house and of the old graveyard seemed +to suit him. What so seldom happens in man's advancing age, his night's +rest did him good, whereas, generally, an old man wakes up ten times as +nervous and dispirited as he went to bed, just as if, during his sleep he +had been working harder than ever he did in the daytime. It had been so +with the Doctor himself till within a few months. To be sure, he had +latterly begun to practise various rules of diet and exercise, which +commended themselves to his approbation. He sawed some of his own fire- +wood, and fancied that, as was reasonable, it fatigued him less day by +day. He took walks with Pansie, and though, of course, her little +footsteps, treading on the elastic air of childhood, far outstripped his +own, still the old man knew that he was not beyond the recuperative period +of life, and that exercise out of doors and proper food can do somewhat +towards retarding the approach of age. He was inclined, also, to impute +much good effect to a daily dose of Santa Cruz rum (a liquor much in vogue +in that day), which he was now in the habit of quaffing at the meridian +hour. All through the Doctor's life he had eschewed strong spirits: "But +after seventy," quoth old Dr. Dolliver, "a man is all the better in head +and stomach for a little stimulus"; and it certainly seemed so in his +case. Likewise, I know not precisely how often, but complying +punctiliously with the recipe, as an apothecary naturally would, he took +his drop of the mysterious cordial. + +He was inclined, however, to impute little or no efficacy to this, and to +laugh at himself for having ever thought otherwise. The dose was so very +minute! and he had never been sensible of any remarkable effect on taking +it, after all. A genial warmth, he sometimes fancied, diffused itself +throughout him, and perhaps continued during the next day. A quiet and +refreshing night's rest followed, and alacritous waking in the morning; +but all this was far more probably owing, as has been already hinted, to +excellent and well-considered habits of diet and exercise. Nevertheless he +still continued the cordial with tolerable regularity,--the more, because +on one or two occasions, happening to omit it, it so chanced that he slept +wretchedly, and awoke in strange aches and pains, torpors, nervousness, +shaking of the hands, bleared-ness of sight, lowness of spirits and other +ills, as is the misfortune of some old men,--who are often threatened by a +thousand evil symptoms that come to nothing, foreboding no particular +disorder, and passing away as unsatisfactorily as they come. At another +time, he took two or three drops at once, and was alarmingly feverish in +consequence. Yet it was very true, that the feverish symptoms were pretty +sure to disappear on his renewal of the medicine. "Still it could not be +that," thought the old man, a hater of empiricism (in which, however, is +contained all hope for man), and disinclined to believe in anything that +was not according to rule and art. And then, as aforesaid, the dose was so +ridiculously small! + +Sometimes, however, he took, half laughingly, another view of it, and felt +disposed to think that chance might really have thrown in his way a very +remarkable mixture, by which, if it had happened to him earlier in life, +he might have amassed a larger fortune, and might even have raked together +such a competency as would have prevented his feeling much uneasiness +about the future of little Pansie. Feeling as strong as he did nowadays, +he might reasonably count upon ten years more of life, and in that time +the precious liquor might be exchanged for much gold. "Let us see!" quoth +he, "by what attractive name shall it be advertised? 'The old man's +cordial?' That promises too little. Poh, poh! I would stain my honesty, my +fair reputation, the accumulation of a lifetime, and befool my neighbor +and the public, by any name that would make them imagine I had found that +ridiculous talisman that the alchemists have sought. The old man's +cordial,--that is best. And five shillings sterling the bottle. That +surely were not too costly, and would give the medicine a better +reputation and higher vogue (so foolish is the world) than if I were to +put it lower. I will think further of this. But pshaw, pshaw!" + +"What is the matter. Grandpapa," said little Pansie, who had stood by him, +wishing to speak to him at least a minute, but had been deterred by his +absorption; "why do you say 'Pshaw'?" + +"Pshaw!" repeated Grandpapa, "there is one ingredient that I don't know." + +So this very hopeful design was necessarily given up, but that it had +occurred to Dr. Dolliver was perhaps a token that his mind was in a very +vigorous state; for it had been noted of him through life, that he had +little enterprise, little activity, and that, for the want of these +things, his very considerable skill in his art had been almost thrown +away, as regarded his private affairs, when it might easily have led him +to fortune. Whereas, here in his extreme age, he had first bethought +himself of a way to grow rich. Sometimes this latter spring causes--as +blossoms come on the autumnal tree--a spurt of vigor, or untimely +greenness, when Nature laughs at her old child, half in kindness and half +in scorn. It is observable, however, I fancy, that after such a spurt, age +comes on with redoubled speed, and that the old man has only run forward +with a show of force, in order to fall into his grave the sooner. + +Sometimes, as he was walking briskly along the street, with little Pansie +clasping his hand, and perhaps frisking rather more than became a person +of his venerable years, he had met the grim old wreck of Colonel Dabney, +moving goutily, and gathering wrath anew with every touch of his painful +foot to the ground; or driving by in his carriage, showing an ashen, +angry, wrinkled face at the window, and frowning at him--the apothecary +thought--with a peculiar fury, as if he took umbrage at his audacity in +being less broken by age than a gentleman like himself. The apothecary +could not help feeling as if there were some unsettled quarrel or dispute +between himself and the Colonel, he could not tell what or why. The +Colonel always gave him a haughty nod of half-recognition; and the people +in the street, to whom he was a familiar object, would say, "The +worshipful Colonel begins to find himself mortal like the rest of us. He +feels his years." "He'd be glad, I warrant," said one, "to change with +you, Doctor. It shows what difference a good life makes in men, to look at +him and you. You are half a score of years his elder, me-thinks, and yet +look what temperance can do for a man. By my credit, neighbor, seeing how +brisk you have been lately, I told my wife you seemed to be growing +younger. It does me good to see it. We are about of an age, I think, and I +like to notice how we old men keep young and keep one another in heart. I +myself--ahem--ahem--feel younger this season than for these five years +past." + +"It rejoices me that you feel so," quoth the apothecary, who had just been +thinking that this neighbor of his had lost a great deal, both in mind and +body, within a short period, and rather scorned him for it. "Indeed, I +find old age less uncomfortable than I supposed. Little Pansie and I make +excellent companions for one another." + +And then, dragged along by Pansie's little hand, and also impelled by a +certain alacrity that rose with him in the morning, and lasted till his +healthy rest at night, he bade farewell to his contemporary, and hastened +on; while the latter, left behind, was somewhat irritated as he looked at +the vigorous movement of the apothecary's legs. + +"He need not make such a show of briskness neither," muttered he to +himself. "This touch of rheumatism troubles me a bit just now, but try it +on a good day, and I'd walk with him for a shilling. Pshaw! I'll walk to +his funeral yet." + +One day, while the Doctor, with the activity that bestirred itself in him +nowadays, was mixing and manufacturing certain medicaments that came in +frequent demand, a carriage stopped at his door, and he recognized the +voice of Colonel Dabney, talking in his customary stern tone to the woman +who served him. And, a moment afterwards, the coach drove away, and he +actually heard the old dignitary lumbering up stairs, and bestowing a +curse upon each particular step, as if that were the method to make them +soften and become easier when he should come down again. "Pray, your +worship," said the Doctor from above, "let me attend you below stairs." + +"No," growled the Colonel, "I'll meet you on your own ground. I can climb +a stair yet, and be hanged to you." + +So saying, he painfully finished the ascent, and came into the laboratory, +where he let himself fall into the Doctor's easy-chair, with an anathema +on the chair, the Doctor, and himself; and, staring round through the +dusk, he met the wide-open, startled eyes of little Pansie, who had been +reading a gilt picture-book in the corner. + +"Send away that child, Dolliver," cried the Colonel, angrily. "Confound +her, she makes my bones ache. I hate everything young." + +"Lord, Colonel," the poor apothecary ventured to say, "there must be young +people in the world as well as old ones. 'T is my mind, a man's +grandchildren keep him warm round about him." + +"I have none, and want none," sharply responded the Colonel; "and as for +young people, let me be one of them, and they may exist, otherwise not. It +is a cursed bad arrangement of the world, that there are young and old +here together." + +When Pansie had gone away, which she did with anything but reluctance, +having a natural antipathy to this monster of a Colonel, the latter +personage tapped with his crutch-handled cane on a chair that stood near, +and nodded in an authoritative way to the apothecary to sit down in it. +Dr. Dolliver complied submissively, and the Colonel, with dull, unkindly +eyes, looked at him sternly, and with a kind of intelligence amid the aged +stolidity of his aspect, that somewhat puzzled the Doctor. In this way he +surveyed him all over, like a judge, when he means to hang a man, and for +some reason or none, the apothecary felt his nerves shake, beneath this +steadfast look. + +"Aha! Doctor!" said the Colonel at last, with a doltish sneer, "you bear +your years well." + +"Decently well, Colonel; I thank Providence for it," answered the meek +apothecary. + +"I should say," quoth the Colonel, "you are younger at this moment than +when we spoke together two or three years ago. I noted then that your +eyebrows were a handsome snow-white, such as befits a man who has passed +beyond his threescore years and ten, and five years more. Why, they are +getting dark again, Mr. Apothecary." + +"Nay, your worship must needs be mistaken there," said the Doctor, with a +timorous chuckle. "It is many a year since I have taken a deliberate note +of my wretched old visage in a glass, but I remember they were white when +I looked last." + +"Come, Doctor, I know a thing or two," said the Colonel, with a bitter +scoff; "and what's this, you old rogue? Why, you've rubbed away a wrinkle +since we met. Take off those infernal spectacles, and look me in the face. +Ha! I see the devil in your eye. How dare you let it shine upon me so?" + +"On my conscience, Colonel," said the apothecary, strangely struck with +the coincidence of this accusation with little Pansie's complaint, "I know +not what you mean. My sight is pretty well for a man of my age. We near- +sighted people begin to know our best eyesight, when other people have +lost theirs." + +"Ah! ah! old rogue," repeated the insufferable Colonel, gnashing his +ruined teeth at him, as if, for some incomprehensible reason, he wished to +tear him to pieces and devour him. "I know you. You are taking the life +away from me, villain! and I told you it was my inheritance. And I told +you there was a Bloody Footstep, bearing its track down through my race. + +"I remember nothing of it," said the Doctor, in a quake, sure that the +Colonel was in one of his mad fits. "And on the word of an honest man, I +never wronged you in my life, Colonel." + +"We shall see," said the Colonel, whose wrinkled visage grew absolutely +terrible with its hardness; and his dull eyes, without losing their +dulness, seemed to look through him. + +"Listen to me, sir. Some ten years ago, there came to you a man on a +secret business. He had an old musty bit of parchment, on which were +written some words, hardly legible, in an antique hand,--an old deed, it +might have been,--some family document, and here and there the letters +were faded away. But this man had spent his life over it, and he had made +out the meaning, and he interpreted it to you, and left it with you, only +there was one gap,--one torn or obliterated place. Well, sir,--and he bade +you, with your poor little skill at the mortar, and for a certain sum,-- +ample repayment for such a service,--to manufacture this medicine,--this +cordial. It was an affair of months. And just when you thought it +finished, the man came again, and stood over your cursed beverage, and +shook a powder, or dropped a lump into it, or put in some ingredient, in +which was all the hidden virtue,--or, at least, it drew out all the hidden +virtue of the mean and common herbs, and married them into a wondrous +efficacy. This done, the man bade you do certain other things with the +potation, and went away"--the Colonel hesitated a moment--"and never came +back again." + +"Surely, Colonel, you are correct," said the apothecary; much startled, +however, at the Colonel's showing himself so well acquainted with an +incident which he had supposed a secret with himself alone. Yet he had a +little reluctance in owning it, although he did not exactly understand +why, since the Colonel had, apparently, no rightful claim to it, at all +events. + +"That medicine, that receipt," continued his visitor, "is my hereditary +property, and I challenge you, on your peril, to give it up." + +"But what if the original owner should call upon me for it," objected Dr. +Dolliver. + +"I'll warrant you against that," said the Colonel; and the apothecary +thought there was something ghastly in his look and tone. "Why, 't is ten +year, you old fool; and do you think a man with a treasure like that in +his possession would have waited so long?" + +"Seven years it was ago," said the apothecary. "Septem annis passatis: so +says the Latin." + +"Curse your Latin," answers the Colonel. "Produce the stuff. You have been +violating the first rule of your trade,--taking your own drugs,--your own, +in one sense; mine by the right of three hundred years. Bring it forth, I +say!" + +"Pray excuse me, worthy Colonel," pleaded the apothecary; for though +convinced that the old gentleman was only in one of his insane fits, when +he talked of the value of this concoction, yet he really did not like to +give up the cordial, which perhaps had wrought him some benefit. Besides, +he had at least a claim upon it for much trouble and skill expended in its +composition. This he suggested to the Colonel, who scornfully took out of +his pocket a net-work purse, with more golden guineas in it than the +apothecary had seen in the whole seven years, and was rude enough to fling +it in his face. "Take that," thundered he, "and give up the thing, or I +will have you in prison before you are an hour older. Nay," he continued, +growing pale, which was his mode of showing terrible wrath; since all +through life, till extreme age quenched it, his ordinary face had been a +blazing-red, "I'll put you to death, you villain, as I've a right!" And +thrusting his hand into his waistcoat pocket, lo! the madman took a small +pistol from it, which he cocked, and presented at the poor apothecary. The +old fellow, quaked and cowered in his chair, and would indeed have given +his whole shopful of better concocted medicines than this, to be out of +this danger. Besides, there were the guineas; the Colonel had paid him a +princely sum for what was probably worth nothing. + +"Hold! hold!" cried he as the Colonel, with stern eye pointed the pistol +at his head. "You shall have it." + +So he rose all trembling, and crept to that secret cupboard, where the +precious bottle--since precious it seemed to be--was reposited. In all his +life, long as it had been, the apothecary had never before been threatened +by a deadly weapon; though many as deadly a thing had he seen poured into +a glass, without winking. And so it seemed to take his heart and life +away, and he brought the cordial forth feebly, and stood tremulously +before the Colonel, ashy pale, and looking ten years older than his real +age, instead of five years younger, as he had seemed just before this +disastrous interview with the Colonel. + +"You look as if you needed a drop of it yourself," said Colonel Dabney, +with great scorn. "But not a drop shall you have. Already have you stolen +too much," said he, lifting up the bottle, and marking the space to which +the liquor had subsided in it in consequence of the minute doses with +which the apothecary had made free. "Fool, had you taken your glass like a +man, you might have been young again. Now, creep on, the few months you +have left, poor, torpid knave, and die! Come--a goblet! quick!" + +He clutched the bottle meanwhile voraciously, miserly, eagerly, furiously, +as if it were his life that he held in his grasp; angry, impatient, as if +something long sought were within his reach, and not yet secure,--with +longing thirst and desire; suspicious of the world and of fate; feeling as +if an iron hand were over him, and a crowd of violent robbers round about +him, struggling for it. At last, unable to wait longer, just as the +apothecary was tottering away in quest of a drinking-glass, the Colonel +took out the stopple, and lifted the flask itself to his lips. + +"For Heaven's sake, no!" cried the Doctor. "The dose is one single drop!-- +one drop, Colonel, one drop!" + +"Not a drop to save your wretched old soul," responded the Colonel; +probably thinking that the apothecary was pleading for a small share of +the precious liquor. He put it to his lips, and, as if quenching a +lifelong thirst, swallowed deep draughts, sucking it in with desperation, +till, void of breath, he set it down upon the table. The rich, poignant +perfume spread itself through the air. + +The apothecary, with an instinctive carefulness that was rather ludicrous +under the circumstances, caught up the stopper, which the Colonel had let +fall, and forced it into the bottle to prevent any farther escape of +virtue. He then fearfully watched the result of the madman's potation. + +The Colonel sat a moment in his chair, panting for breath; then started to +his feet with a prompt vigor that contrasted widely with the infirm and +rheumatic movements that had heretofore characterized him. He struck his +forehead violently with one hand, and smote his chest with the other: he +stamped his foot thunderously on the ground; then he leaped up to the +ceiling, and came down with an elastic bound. Then he laughed, a wild, +exulting ha! ha! with a strange triumphant roar that filled the house and +reechoed through it; a sound full of fierce, animal rapture,--enjoyment of +sensual life mixed up with a sort of horror. After all, real as it was, it +was like the sounds a man makes in a dream. And this, while the potent +draught seemed still to be making its way through his system; and the +frightened apothecary thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon +himself. Finally, he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of +which his voice broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, +starting forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life +that was being rent away,--and fell forward with a dead thump upon the +floor. + +"Colonel! Colonel!" cried the terrified Doctor. + +The feeble old man, with difficulty, turned over the heavy frame, and saw +at once, with practised eye, that he was dead. He set him up, and the +corpse looked at him with angry reproach. He was so startled, that his +subsequent recollections of the moment were neither distinct nor +steadfast; but he fancied, though he told the strange impression to no +one, that on his first glimpse of the face, with a dark flush of what +looked like rage still upon it, it was a young man's face that he saw,--a +face with all the passionate energy of early manhood,--the capacity for +furious anger which the man had lost half a century ago, crammed to the +brim with vigor till it became agony. But the next moment, if it were so +(which it could not have been), the face grew ashen, withered, shrunken, +more aged than in life, though still the murderous fierceness remained, +and seemed to be petrified forever upon it. + +After a moment's bewilderment, Dolliver ran to the window looking to the +street, threw it open, and called loudly for assistance. He opened also +another window, for the air to blow through, for he was almost stifled +with the rich odor of the cordial which filled the room, and was now +exuded from the corpse. + +He heard the voice of Pansie, crying at the door, which was locked, and, +turning the key, he caught her in his arms, and hastened with her below +stairs, to give her into the charge of Martha, who seemed half stupefied +with a sense of something awful that had occurred. + +Meanwhile there was a rattling and a banging at the street portal, to +which several people had been attracted both by the Doctor's outcry from +the window, and by the awful screech in which the Colonel's spirit (if, +indeed, he had that divine part) had just previously taken its flight. + +He let them in, and, pale and shivering, ushered them up to the death- +chamber, where one or two, with a more delicate sense of smelling than the +rest, snuffed the atmosphere, as if sensible of an unknown fragrance, yet +appeared afraid to breathe, when they saw the terrific countenance leaning +back against the chair, and eying them so truculently. + +I would fain quit the scene and have done with the Colonel, who, I am +glad, has happened to die at so early a period of the narrative. I +therefore hasten to say that a coroner's inquest was held on the spot, +though everybody felt that it was merely ceremonial, and that the +testimony of their good and ancient townsman, Dr. Dolliver, was amply +sufficient to settle the matter. The verdict was, "Death by the visitation +of God." + +The apothecary gave evidence that the Colonel, without asking leave, and +positively against his advice, had drunk a quantity of distilled spirits; +and one or two servants, or members of the Colonel's family, testified +that he had been in a very uncomfortable state of mind for some days past, +so that they fancied he was insane. Therefore nobody thought of blaming +Dr. Dolliver for what had happened; and, if the plain truth must be told, +everybody who saw the wretch was too well content to be rid of him, to +trouble themselves more than was quite necessary about the way in which +the incumbrance had been removed. + +The corpse was taken to the mansion in order to receive a magnificent +funeral; and Dr. Dolliver was left outwardly in quiet, but much disturbed, +and indeed almost overwhelmed inwardly, by what had happened. + +Yet it is to be observed, that he had accounted for the death with a +singular dexterity of expression, when he attributed it to a dose of +distilled spirits. What kind of distilled spirits were those, Doctor? and +will you venture to take any more of them? + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Dolliver Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + +This file should be named 7doll10.txt or 7doll10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7doll11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7doll10a.txt + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Dolliver Romance + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7119] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 12, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +BY + +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + + +CONTENTS. + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +In "The Dolliver Romance," only three chapters of which the author lived +to complete, we get an intimation as to what would have been the ultimate +form given to that romance founded on the Elixir of Life, for which +"Septimius Felton" was the preliminary study. Having abandoned this study, +and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in 1862, Hawthorne was moved to +renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as the plan of the +romance had now seemingly developed to his satisfaction, he listened to +the publisher's proposal that it should begin its course as a serial story +in the "Atlantic Monthly" for January, 1864--the first instance in which +he had attempted such a mode of publication. + +But the change from England to Massachusetts had been marked by, and had +perhaps in part caused, a decline in his health. Illness in his family, +the depressing and harrowing effect of the Civil War upon his +sensibilities, and anxiety with regard to pecuniary affairs, all combined +to make still further inroads upon his vitality; and so early as the +autumn of 1862 Mrs. Hawthorne noted in her private diary that her husband +was looking "miserably ill." At no time since boyhood had he suffered any +serious sickness, and his strong constitution enabled him to rally from +this first attack; but the gradual decline continued. After sending forth +"Our Old Home," he had little strength for any employment more arduous +than reading, or than walking his accustomed path among the pines and +sweetfern on the hill behind The Wayside, known to his family as the Mount +of Vision. The projected work, therefore, advanced but slowly. He wrote to +Mr. Fields:-- + +"I don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the +Romance ready so soon as you want it. There are two or three chapters +ready to be written, but I am not yet robust enough to begin, and I feel +as if I should never carry it through." + +The presentiment proved to be only too well founded. He had previously +written:-- + +"There is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. I linger at +the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantasms to be +encountered if I enter. I wish God had given me the faculty of writing a +sunshiny book." + +And again, in November, he says: "I foresee that there is little +probability of my getting the first chapter ready by the 15th, although I +have a resolute purpose to write it by the end of the month." He did +indeed send it by that time, but it began to be apparent in January that +he could not go on. + +"Seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has, for the present, lost +its temper and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had better +keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigor if I wait quietly +for it; perhaps not." In another: "I hardly know what to say to the public +about this abortive Romance, though I know pretty well what the case will +be. I shall never finish it.... I cannot finish it unless a great change +comes over me; and if I make too great an effort to do so, it will be my +death." + +Finally, work had to be given over indefinitely. In April he went +southward with Mr. Ticknor, the senior partner of his publishing house; +but Mr. Ticknor died suddenly in Philadelphia, and Hawthorne returned to +The Wayside more feeble than ever. He lingered there a little while. Then, +early in May, came the last effort to recover tone, by means of a +carriage-journey, with his friend Ex-President Pierce, through the +southern part of New Hampshire. A week passed, and all was ended: at the +hotel in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where he and his companion had stopped +to rest, he died in the night, between the 18th and the 19th of May, 1864. +Like Thackeray and Dickens, he was touched by death's "petrific mace" +before he had had time to do more than lay the groundwork and begin the +main structure of the fiction he had in hand; and, as in the case of +Thackeray, the suddenness of his decease has never been clearly accounted +for. The precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet +hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr. Oliver +Wendell Holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even +a cursory view of his case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and +conversation in Boston before Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he +was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite +conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed and had put up for him a remedy to +palliate some of the poignant symptoms, and this Hawthorne carried with +him; but "I feared," Dr. Holmes writes to the editor, "that there was some +internal organic--perhaps malignant--disease; for he looked wasted and as +if stricken with a mortal illness." + +The manuscript of the unfinished "Dolliver Romance" lay upon his coffin +during the funeral services at Concord, but, contrary to the impression +sometimes entertained on this point, was not buried with him. It is +preserved in the Concord Public Library. The first chapter was published +in the "Atlantic" as an isolated portion, soon after his death; and +subsequently the second chapter, which he had been unable to revise, +appeared in the same periodical. Between this and the third fragment there +is a gap, for bridging which no material was found among his papers; but, +after hesitating for several years, Mrs. Hawthorne copied and placed in +the publishers' hands that final portion, which, with the two parts +previously printed, constitutes the whole of what Hawthorne had put into +tangible form. + +Hawthorne had purposed prefixing a sketch of Thoreau, "because, from a +tradition which he told me about this house of mine, I got the idea of a +deathless man, which is now taking a shape very different from the +original one." This refers to the tradition mentioned in the editor's +note to "Septimius Felton," and forms a link in the interesting chain of +evidence connecting that romance with the "Dolliver Romance." With the +plan respecting Thoreau he combined the idea of writing an +autobiographical preface, wherein The Wayside was to be described, after +the manner of his Introduction to the "Mosses from an Old Manse"; but, so +far as is known, nothing of this was ever actually committed to paper. + +Beginning with the idea of producing an English romance, fragments of +which remain to us in "The Ancestral Footstep," and the incomplete work +known as "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret," he replaced these by another design, +of which "Septimius Felton" represents the partial execution. But that +elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "The Dolliver Romance." The last- +named work, had the author lived to carry it out, would doubtless have +become the vehicle of a profound and pathetic drama, based on the +instinctive yearning of man for an immortal existence, the attempted +gratification of which would have been set forth in a variety of ways: +First, through the selfish old sensualist, Colonel Dabney, who greedily +seized the mysterious elixir and took such a draught of it that he +perished on the spot; then, through the simple old Grandsir, anxious to +live for Pansie's sake; and, perhaps, through Pansie herself, who, coming +into the enjoyment of some ennobling love, would wish to defeat death, so +that she might always keep the perfection of her mundane happiness,--all +these forms of striving to be made the adumbration of a higher one, the +shadow-play that should direct our minds to the true immortality beyond +this world. + +G. P. L. + + + + +THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +Dr. Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused rather +prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child Pansie, in an +adjoining chamber, summoning old Martha (who performed the duties of +nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's establishment) to +take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old gentleman woke with +more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking a moment to gather his +wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen curtains of his ancient bed, +and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine that caused him to wink and +withdraw it again. This transitory glimpse of good Dr. Dolliver showed a +flannel night-cap, fringed round with stray locks of silvery white hair, +and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow visage, which was crossed and +criss-crossed with a record of his long life in wrinkles, faithfully +written, no doubt, but with such cramped chirography of Father Time that +the purport was illegible. It seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch +to get out of bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow into the summer +day that was made for younger folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means +of that opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living +twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found +himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty +joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have made them +pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the +floor. Nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, +ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so +intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, after performing them daily and +daily for fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding them still as +immitigably recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could nowise account for +this happy condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he +remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long +ago prepared by his grandson, and carefully sealed up in a bottle, and had +been reposited in a dark closet, among a parcel of effete medicines, ever +since that gifted young man's death. + +"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the doctor, shaking his head +as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor Edward +oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous drugs. But I +will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, which may have +temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's sake." + +A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, taught +him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's respite from +the intrusive family of aches and infirmities, which, with their +proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the closest +acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. Nevertheless, +he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those of yesterday; and, +moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it passed gradually off with +a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew to be almost agreeable. Pain +is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. With cautious movements, and only +a groan or two, the good Doctor transferred himself from the bed to the +floor, where he stood awhile, gazing from one piece of quaint furniture to +another (such as stiff-backed Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers +carved cunningly with shapes of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table +with multitudinous legs, a family record in faded embroidery, a shelf of +black-bound books, a dirty heap of gallipots and phials in a dim +corner),--gazing at these things, and steadying himself by the bedpost, +while his inert brain, still partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly +into accordance with the realities about him. The object which most helped +to bring Dr. Dolliver completely to his waking perceptions was one that +common observers might suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his +dreams. The same sunbeam that had dazzled the doctor between the bed- +curtains gleamed on the weather-beaten gilding which had once adorned this +mysterious symbol, and showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round +a wooden post, and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to its +ceiling. + +It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, the +dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its tail; and +it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind of gray moss +had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a swallow, or +other familiar little bird in some by-gone summer, seemed to have built +its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked like a kind of +Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a pedestal for a century +or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in the open air, until the +impious sect perished from among men,--all save old Dr. Dolliver, who had +set up the monster in his bedchamber for the convenience of private +devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting such a fantasy to the +prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to have been as pious and +upright a Christian, and with as little of the serpent in his character, +as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make a further mystery about a +very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten reptile was once the medical +emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous Dr. Swinnerton, who practised +physic in the earlier days of New England, when a head of Aesculapius or +Hippocrates would have vexed the souls of the righteous as savoring of +heathendom. The ancient dispenser of drugs had therefore set up an image +of the Brazen Serpent, and followed his business for many years with great +credit, under this Scriptural device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the +apprentice, pupil, and humble friend of the learned Swinnerton's old age, +had inherited the symbolic snake, and much other valuable property by his +bequest. + +While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth was very genial to his system, and yet +made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the reviving +blood tingled through them with a half-painful and only half-pleasurable +titillation. For the first few moments after creeping out of bed, he kept +his back to the sunny window, and seemed mysteriously shy of glancing +thitherward; but, as the June fervor pervaded him more and more +thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground +on the corner of which he dwelt. There lay many an old acquaintance, who +had gone to sleep with the flavor of Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and powders +upon his tongue; it was the patient's final bitter taste of this world, +and perhaps doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. +Yesterday, in the chill of his forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon +to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet community, and might +scarcely have shrunk from the prospect on his own account, except, indeed, +that he dreamily mixed up the infirmities of his present condition with +the repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a notion that the damp +earth, under the grass and dandelions, must needs be pernicious for his +cough and his rheumatism. But, this morning, the cheerful sunbeams, or the +mere taste of his grandson's cordial that he had taken at bedtime, or the +fitful vigor that often sports irreverently with aged people, had caused +an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere within him, to expand. + +"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his throat +of the dregs of a ten-years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone with me +as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a little age- +stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere faint-heartedness, a +great deal sooner than they need." + +He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if to +impress the apothegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and, for +his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who stood +as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to the +other. This child of three years old occupied all the unfossilized portion +of Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that he formerly had, and +the entire confraternity of persons whom he once loved, had long ago +departed; and the poor Doctor could not follow them, because the grasp of +Pansie's baby-fingers held him back. + +So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a patchwork +morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was said to have +been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the silken +skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter had +taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor Bessie, the beloved of +his youth, had been half a century in the grave. Throughout many of the +intervening years, as the garment got ragged, the spinsters of the old +man's family had quilted their duty and affection into it in the shape of +patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, and green, and +then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept growing shadier, and their +attire took a sombre hue) sober gray and great fragments of funereal +black, until the Doctor could revive the memory of most things that had +befallen him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as it hung upon a chair. +And now it was ragged again, and all the fingers that should have mended +it were cold. It had an Eastern fragrance, too, a smell of drugs, strong- +scented herbs, and spicy gums, gathered from the many potent infusions +that had from time to time been spilt over it; so that, snuffing him afar +off, you might have taken Dr. Dolliver for a mummy, and could hardly have +been undeceived by his shrunken and torpid aspect, as he crept nearer. + +Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand, and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was somewhat +steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, putting his +left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist him in +making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became a living +illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it describes the aged as +being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth that is often found to have +a sadder purport than its external one. Half-way to the bottom, however, +the Doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of little Pansie,-- +Queen Pansie, as she might fairly have been styled, in reference to her +position in the household,--calling amain for grandpapa and breakfast. He +was startled into such perilous activity by the summons, that his heels +slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled off his feet, and he saved +himself from a tumble only by quickening his pace, and coming down at +almost a run. + +"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, and, +methinks, my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? Well, +well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing down this +steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" + +He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and meanwhile +Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's descent, and was +pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her haste to come at +him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a rather pale and large- +eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might well be the case with a +motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful house, with no other playmates +than a decrepit old man and a kitten, and no better atmosphere within- +doors than the odor of decayed apothecary's stuff, nor gayer neighborhood +than that of the adjacent burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her +great-grandmother downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is +bedtime!" even in the prime of the summer morning. For those dead women- +folk, especially her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand- +aunts, could not but be anxious about the child, knowing that little +Pansie would be far safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, +as she soon must be, in this difficult and deceitful world. + +Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement +in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable progenitor. +She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom was, having +never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down her voice), +till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. + +"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver, cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?" + +"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering +the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "It shall do +poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the remedy. + +"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I had +in my drugs," replied the patriarch, with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for my +feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken neck; +so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." + +In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and Pansie +side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in the +party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, delicately +sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke: then she took post on +the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a spinning-wheel, trying her +claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, and still more impressively +reminding him of her presence by putting out a paw to intercept a warmed- +over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its way to the Doctor's mouth. After +skilfully achieving this feat, she scrambled down upon the breakfast-table +and began to wash her face and hands. Evidently, these companions were all +three on intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many +childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simple-minded old man; +insomuch that, if no worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had +disturbed him, his remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily +enjoyed as the early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. +Dolliver and his great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed +quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of Pansie) had met one another at the +two extremities of the life-circle: her sunrise served him for a sunset, +illuminating his locks of silver and hers of golden brown with a +homogeneous shimmer of twinkling light. + +Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had died +the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, a +numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track in +their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing, how it had +all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an infant's small +fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead progeny come and +go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this solitary child +represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many that had gone +before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to him. She seemed +the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. A whole family of +grand-aunts (one of whom had perished in her cradle, never so mature as +Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal maidenhood, +yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still another, a +forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and grew to be +merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then),--all their hitherto +forgotten features peeped through the face of the great-grandchild, and +their long-inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or laughed, in her familiar +tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, while frolicking amid this +throng of ghosts, where the one reality looked no more vivid than its +shadowy sisters,--it often happened that his eyes filled with tears at a +sudden perception of what a sad and poverty-stricken old man he was, +already remote from his own generation, and bound to stray further onward +as the sole playmate and protector of a child! + +As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient to +give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title of +Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, perhaps, +one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and over-jealous +of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these crusty graduates +were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from their fraternity. He +had never received the degree of any medical school, nor (save it might be +for the cure of a toothache, or a child's rash, or a whitlow on a +seamstress's finger, or some such trifling malady) had he ever been even a +practitioner of the awful science with which his popular designation +connected him. Our old friend, in short, even at his highest social +elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an apothecary, and, in these +later and far less prosperous days, scarcely so much. Since the death of +his last surviving grandson (Pansie's father, whom he had instructed in +all the mysteries of his science, and who, being distinguished by an +experimental and inventive tendency, was generally believed to have +poisoned himself with an infallible panacea of his own distillation),-- +since that final bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's once pretty flourishing +business had lamentably declined. After a few months of unavailing +struggle, he found it expedient to take down the Brazen Serpent from the +position to which Dr. Swinnerton had originally elevated it, in front of +his shop in the main street, and to retire to his private dwelling, +situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a burial-ground. + +This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and a +drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance to +our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over the +threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with the human +dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept accumulating beneath +their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor Bessie herself had gone +early to rest there, it is probable that an influence from her grave may +have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband, taking away +much of the energy from what should have been the most active portion of +his life. Thus he never grew rich. His thrifty townsmen used to tell him, +that, in any other man's hands, Dr. Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, +I presume, the inherited credit and good-will of that old worthy's trade) +would need but ten years' time to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. +Dolliver's keeping, as we have seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the +greater part of what superficial gilding it originally had. Matters had +not mended with him in more advanced life, after he had deposited a +further and further portion of his heart and its affections in each +successive one of a long row of kindred graves; and as he stood over the +last of them, holding Pansie by the hand and looking down upon the coffin +of his grandson, it is no wonder that the old man wept, partly for those +gone before, but not so bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. +Why had not God taken her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he was, +so destitute of possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit +bones, his dried-up heart, might have crumbled into dust at once, and have +been scattered by the next wind over all the heaps of earth that were akin +to him. + +This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character to +be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness and +simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even before +he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly cheering +and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's warm little +hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly for her +protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty nor +quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the sloth +of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency which he +had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. + +To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, he +was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell into +popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed the old +man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to possess more +skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial apothecary, having been +regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, throughout his long +practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the medicines which he +prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, that the ancient +physician had learned the art at the world-famous drug-manufactory of +Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people half-malignly whispered, +had perfected himself under masters more subtle than were to be found even +there. Unquestionably, in many critical cases he was known to have +employed remedies of mysterious composition and dangerous potency, which, +in less skilful hands, would have been more likely to kill than cure. He +would willingly, it is said, have taught his apprentice the secrets of +these prescriptions, but the latter, being of a timid character and +delicate conscience, had shrunk from acquaintance with them. It was +probably as the result of the same scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had +always declined to enter the medical profession, in which his old +instructor had set him such heroic examples of adventurous dealing with +matters of life and death. Nevertheless, the aromatic fragrance, so to +speak, of the learned Swinnerton's reputation, had clung to our friend +through life; and there were elaborate preparations in the pharmacopœia of +that day, requiring such minute skill and conscientious fidelity in the +concocter that the physicians were still glad to confide them to one in +whom these qualities were so evident. + +Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and mindful +of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, pomanders, +and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their toilet- +tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were beautiful. Among +this class of customers there was still a demand for certain comfortable +little nostrums (delicately sweet and pungent to the taste, cheering to +the spirits, and fragrant in the breath), the proper distillation of which +was the airiest secret that the mystic Swinnerton had left behind him. +And, besides, these old ladies had always liked the manners of Dr. +Dolliver, and used to speak of his gentle courtesy behind the counter as +having positively been something to admire; though of later years, an +unrefined, and almost rustic simplicity, such as belonged to his humble +ancestors, appeared to have taken possession of him, as it often does of +prettily mannered men in their late decay. + +But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the Doctor's +marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by a +crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy with +the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his delicate +scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute quantities, +that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or too much, +leaving out life with the deficiency, or spilling in death with the +surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to think +that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared absolutely to +depart from him, while his frail old body worked on mechanically) rendered +him not quite trustworthy without a close supervision of his proceedings. +It was impossible, however, to convince the aged apothecary of the +necessity for such vigilance; and if anything could stir up his gentle +temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to tears, it was the attempt +(which he was marvellously quick to detect) thus to interfere with his +long-familiar business. + +The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his professional +aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps their oldest +fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire and the Great +Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the terrible epoch of +Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the breaking out of King +Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy days, had received a +benediction from the patriarchal Governor Bradstreet, and thus could boast +(somewhat as Bishops do of their unbroken succession from the Apostles) of +a transmitted blessing from the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among +whom the venerable magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their +townsman in this aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with +which they had heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly +as Grandsir Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare +garb (the fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century ago), +his gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his shrunken, +frosty figure, and its feeble movement,--all these characteristics had a +wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like the meeting-house +steeple or the town-pump. All the younger portion of the inhabitants +unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to Grandsir Dolliver's +infirm and reverend presence. They fancied that he had been born old (at +least, I remember entertaining some such notions about age-stricken +people, when I myself was young), and that he could the better tolerate +his aches and incommodities, his dull ears and dim eyes, his remoteness +from human intercourse within the crust of indurated years, the cold +temperature that kept him always shivering and sad, the heavy burden that +invisibly bent down his shoulders,--that all these intolerable things +might bring a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir Dolliver, as the lifelong +conditions of his peculiar existence. + +But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a perennial +novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, but, long +as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and patient as +he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that these stiffened +shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of sight and brain, this +confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were troublesome accidents that +did not really belong to him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea +that they might pass away. Youth, however eclipsed for a season, is +undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we +look closely into this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that +it never absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. +A sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our +true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of +many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath +them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this +instinctive faith, that men of simple modes of character are prone to +antedate its consummation. And thus it happened with poor Grandsir +Dolliver, who often awoke from an old man's fitful sleep with a sense that +his senile predicament was but a dream of the past night; and hobbling +hastily across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would be grievously +disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the +ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy mask of Age, in which, as he +now remembered, some strange and sad enchantment had involved him for +years gone by! + +To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked +as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully wrought +disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should be +straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his +much-enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread over +them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful +companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. He longed to be gazed +at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them +that loved him not. Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a +dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense that +he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting links +with the net-work of human life; or else it was that nightmare-feeling +which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to find ourselves +wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some +wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious of estrangement +from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why +he should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude. If they +spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated itself +faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him by the hand, it was +as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed the kindly pressure and the +warmth. When little Pansie was the companion of his walk, her childish +gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer relationship +with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of indefinable +remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, into which old Grandsir +Dolliver had so strangely crept away. + +Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the great- +grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if his +faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and Pansie +moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, instead of +the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled sensibilities had +probably been touched and quickened by the warm contiguity of his little +companion through the medium of her hand, as it stirred within his own, or +some inflection of her voice that set his memory ringing and chiming with +forgotten sounds. While that music lasted, the old man was alive and +happy. And there were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when +Pansie had been kissed and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his +fireside gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into +those cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence come angels +or fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them +in by-gone years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire- +gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on her +pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm +surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not so +vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been +kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse +within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of an +intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. + + + + +ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE + + +[Footnote: This scene was not revised by the author, but is printed from +his first draught.] + +We may now suppose Grandsir Dolliver to have finished his breakfast, with +a better appetite and sharper perception of the qualities of his food than +he has generally felt of late years, whether it were due to old Martha's +cookery or to the cordial of the night before. Little Pansie had also made +an end of her bread and milk with entire satisfaction, and afterwards +nibbled a crust, greatly enjoying its resistance to her little white +teeth. + +How this child came by the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was really +her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was one of +those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or out of +some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for and +unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true name by +which the child's guardian angel would know it,--a name with playfulness +and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the practice of +those who love the child best, the name that they carefully selected, and +caused the clergyman to plaster indelibly on the poor little forehead at +the font,--the love-name, whereby, if the child lives, the parents know +it in their hearts, or by which, if it dies, God seems to have called it +away, leaving the sound lingering faintly and sweetly through the house. +In Pansie's case, it may have been a certain pensiveness which was +sometimes seen under her childish frolic, and so translated itself into +French (_pensée_), her mother having been of Acadian kin; or, quite +as probably, it alluded merely to the color of her eyes, which, in some +lights, were very like the dark petals of a tuft of pansies in the +Doctor's garden. It might well be, indeed, on account of the suggested +pensiveness; for the child's gayety had no example to sustain it, no +sympathy of other children or grown people,--and her melancholy, had it +been so dark a feeling, was but the shadow of the house, and of the old +man. If brighter sunshine came, she would brighten with it. This morning, +surely, as the three companions, Pansie, puss, and Grandsir Dolliver, +emerged from the shadow of the house into the small adjoining enclosure, +they seemed all frolicsome alike. + +The Doctor, however, was intent over something that had reference to his +lifelong business of drugs. This little spot was the place where he was +wont to cultivate a variety of herbs supposed to be endowed with medicinal +virtue. Some of them had been long known in the pharmacopœia of the Old +World; and others, in the early days of the country, had been adopted by +the first settlers from the Indian medicine-men, though with fear and even +contrition, because these wild doctors were supposed to draw their +pharmaceutic knowledge from no gracious source, the Black Man himself +being the principal professor in their medical school. From his own +experience, however, Dr. Dolliver had long since doubted, though he was +not bold enough quite to come to the conclusion, that Indian shrubs, and +the remedies prepared from them, were much less perilous than those so +freely used in European practice, and singularly apt to be followed by +results quite as propitious. Into such heterodoxy our friend was the more +liable to fall, because it had been taught him early in life by his old +master, Dr. Swinnerton, who, at those not infrequent times when he +indulged a certain unhappy predilection for strong waters, had been +accustomed to inveigh in terms of the most cynical contempt and coarsest +ridicule against the practice by which he lived, and, as he affirmed, +inflicted death on his fellow-men. Our old apothecary, though too loyal to +the learned profession with which he was connected fully to believe this +bitter judgment, even when pronounced by his revered master, was still so +far influenced that his conscience was possibly a little easier when +making a preparation from forest herbs and roots than in the concoction of +half a score of nauseous poisons into a single elaborate drug, as the +fashion of that day was. + +But there were shrubs in the garden of which he had never ventured to make +a medical use, nor, indeed, did he know their virtue, although from year +to year he had tended and fertilized, weeded and pruned them, with +something like religious care. They were of the rarest character, and had +been planted by the learned and famous Dr. Swinnerton, who, on his death- +bed, when he left his dwelling and all his abstruse manuscripts to his +favorite pupil, had particularly directed his attention to this row of +shrubs. They had been collected by himself from remote countries, and had +the poignancy of torrid climes in them; and he told him, that, properly +used, they would be worth all the rest of the legacy a hundred-fold. As +the apothecary, however, found the manuscripts, in which he conjectured +there was a treatise on the subject of these shrubs, mostly illegible, and +quite beyond his comprehension in such passages as he succeeded in +puzzling out (partly, perhaps, owing to his very imperfect knowledge of +Latin, in which language they were written), he had never derived from +them any of the promised benefit. And, to say the truth, remembering that +Dr. Swinnerton himself never appeared to triturate or decoct or do +anything else with the mysterious herbs, our old friend was inclined to +imagine the weighty commendation of their virtues to have been the idly +solemn utterance of mental aberration at the hour of death. So, with the +integrity that belonged to his character, he had nurtured them as tenderly +as was possible in the ungenial climate and soil of New England, putting +some of them into pots for the winter; but they had rather dwindled than +flourished, and he had reaped no harvests from them, nor observed them +with any degree of scientific interest. + +His grandson, however, while yet a school-boy, had listened to the old +man's legend of the miraculous virtues of these plants; and it took so +firm a hold of his mind, that the row of outlandish vegetables seemed +rooted in it, and certainly flourished there with richer luxuriance than +in the soil where they actually grew. The story, acting thus early upon +his imagination, may be said to have influenced his brief career in life, +and, perchance, brought about its early close. The young man, in the +opinion of competent judges, was endowed with remarkable abilities, and +according to the rumor of the people had wonderful gifts, which were +proved by the cures he had wrought with remedies of his own invention. His +talents lay in the direction of scientific analysis and inventive +combination of chemical powers. While under the pupilage of his +grandfather, his progress had rapidly gone quite beyond his instructor's +hope,--leaving him even to tremble at the audacity with which he +overturned and invented theories, and to wonder at the depth at which he +wrought beneath the superficialness and mock-mystery of the medical +science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft and running a +hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. Especially did he devote +himself to these plants; and under his care they had thriven beyond all +former precedent, bursting into luxuriance of bloom, and most of them +bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, in two or three instances, had +the sort of natural repulsiveness that the serpent has in its beauty, +compelled against its will, as it were, to warn the beholder of an +unrevealed danger. The young man had long ago, it must be added, demanded +of his grandfather the documents included in the legacy of Professor +Swinnerton, and had spent days and nights upon them, growing pale over +their mystic lore, which seemed the fruit not merely of the Professor's +own labors, but of those of more ancient sages than he; and often a whole +volume seemed to be compressed within the limits of a few lines of crabbed +manuscript, judging from the time which it cost even the quick-minded +student to decipher them. + +Meantime these abstruse investigations had not wrought such disastrous +effects as might have been feared, in causing Edward Dolliver to neglect +the humble trade, the conduct of which his grandfather had now +relinquished almost entirely into his hands. On the contrary, with the +mere side results of his study, or what may be called the chips and +shavings of his real work, he created a prosperity quite beyond anything +that his simple-minded predecessor had ever hoped for, even at the most +sanguine epoch of his life. The young man's adventurous endowments were +miraculously alive, and connecting themselves with his remarkable ability +for solid research, and perhaps his conscience being as yet imperfectly +developed (as it sometimes lies dormant in the young), he spared not to +produce compounds which, if the names were anywise to be trusted, would +supersede all other remedies, and speedily render any medicine a needless +thing, making the trade of apothecary an untenable one, and the title of +Doctor obsolete. Whether there was real efficacy in these nostrums, and +whether their author himself had faith in them, is more than can safely be +said; but, at all events, the public believed in them, and thronged to the +old and dim sign of the Brazen Serpent, which, though hitherto familiar to +them and their forefathers, now seemed to shine with auspicious lustre, as +if its old Scriptural virtues were renewed. If any faith was to be put in +human testimony, many marvellous cures were really performed, the fame of +which spread far and wide, and caused demands for these medicines to come +in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. Our old +apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his grandson's +character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, stood behind +the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of +fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new +prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was to be seen +dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle and by the +dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what he feared was +trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of every ancient +physician who might chance to be passing by, but withal examining closely +the silver, or the New England coarsely printed bills, which he took in +payment, as if apprehensive that the delusive character of the commodity +which he sold might be balanced by equal counterfeiting in the money +received, or as if his faith in all things were shaken. + +Is it not possible that this gifted young man had indeed found out those +remedies which Nature has provided and laid away for the cure of every +ill? + +The disastrous termination of the most brilliant epoch that ever came to +the Brazen Serpent must be told in a few words. One night, Edward +Dolliver's young wife awoke, and, seeing the gray dawn creeping into the +chamber, while her husband, it should seem, was still engaged in his +laboratory, arose in her nightdress, and went to the door of the room to +put in her gentle remonstrance against such labor. There she found him +dead,--sunk down out of his chair upon the hearth, where were some ashes, +apparently of burnt manuscripts, which appeared to comprise most of those +included in Dr. Swinnerton's legacy, though one or two had fallen near the +heap, and lay merely scorched beside it. It seemed as if he had thrown +them into the fire, under a sudden impulse, in a great hurry and passion. +It may be that he had come to the perception of something fatally false +and deceptive in the successes which he had appeared to win, and was too +proud and too conscientious to survive it. Doctors were called in, but had +no power to revive him. An inquest was held, at which the jury, under the +instruction, perhaps, of those same revengeful doctors, expressed the +opinion that the poor young man, being given to strange contrivances with +poisonous drugs, had died by incautiously tasting them himself. This +verdict, and the terrible event itself, at once deprived the medicines of +all their popularity; and the poor old apothecary was no longer under any +necessity of disturbing his conscience by selling them. They at once lost +their repute, and ceased to be in any demand. In the few instances in +which they were tried the experiment was followed by no good results; and +even those individuals who had fancied themselves cured, and had been +loudest in spreading the praises of these beneficent compounds, now, as if +for the utter demolition of the poor youth's credit, suffered under a +recurrence of the worst symptoms, and, in more than one case, perished +miserably: insomuch (for the days of witchcraft were still within the +memory of living men and women) it was the general opinion that Satan had +been personally concerned in this affliction, and that the Brazen Serpent, +so long honored among them, was really the type of his subtle malevolence +and perfect iniquity. It was rumored even that all preparations that came +from the shop were harmful: that teeth decayed that had been made pearly +white by the use of the young chemist's dentifrice; that cheeks were +freckled that had been changed to damask roses by his cosmetics; that hair +turned gray or fell off that had become black, glossy, and luxuriant from +the application of his mixtures; that breath which his drugs had sweetened +had now a sulphurous smell. Moreover, all the money heretofore amassed by +the sale of them had been exhausted by Edward Dolliver in his lavish +expenditure for the processes of his study; and nothing was left for +Pansie, except a few valueless and unsalable bottles of medicine, and one +or two others, perhaps more recondite than their inventor had seen fit to +offer to the public. + +Little Pansie's mother lived but a short time after the shock of the +terrible catastrophe; and, as we began our story with saying, she was left +with no better guardianship or support than might be found in the efforts +of a long superannuated man. + +Nothing short of the simplicity, integrity, and piety of Grandsir +Dolliver's character, known and acknowledged as far back as the oldest +inhabitants remembered anything, and inevitably discoverable by the +dullest and most prejudiced observers, in all its natural manifestations, +could have protected him in still creeping about the streets. So far as he +was personally concerned, however, all bitterness and suspicion had +speedily passed away; and there remained still the careless and neglectful +good-will, and the prescriptive reverence, not altogether reverential, +which the world heedlessly awards to the unfortunate individual who +outlives his generation. + +And now that we have shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the +best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the present +position of Grandsir Dolliver, we may let our story pass onward, though at +such a pace as suits the feeble gait of an old man. + +The peculiarly brisk sensation of this morning, to which we have more than +once alluded, enabled the Doctor to toil pretty vigorously at his +medicinal herbs,--his catnip, his vervain, and the like; but he did not +turn his attention to the row of mystic plants, with which so much of +trouble and sorrow either was, or appeared to be, connected. In truth, his +old soul was sick of them, and their very fragrance, which the warm +sunshine made strongly perceptible, was odious to his nostrils. But the +spicy, homelike scent of his other herbs, the English simples, was +grateful to him, and so was the earth-smell, as he turned up the soil +about their roots, and eagerly snuffed it in. Little Pansie, on the other +hand, perhaps scandalized at great-grandpapa's neglect of the prettiest +plants in his garden, resolved to do her small utmost towards balancing +his injustice; so with an old shingle, fallen from the roof, which she had +appropriated as her agricultural tool, she began to dig about them, +pulling up the weeds, as she saw grandpapa doing. The kitten, too, with a +look of elfish sagacity, lent her assistance, plying her paws with vast +haste and efficiency at the roots of one of the shrubs. This particular +one was much smaller than the rest, perhaps because it was a native of the +torrid zone, and required greater care than the others to make it +flourish; so that, shrivelled, cankered, and scarcely showing a green +leaf, both Pansie and the kitten probably mistook it for a weed. After +their joint efforts had made a pretty big trench about it, the little girl +seized the shrub with both hands, bestriding it with her plump little +legs, and giving so vigorous a pull, that, long accustomed to be +transplanted annually, it came up by the roots, and little Pansie came +down in a sitting posture, making a broad impress on the soft earth. "See, +see, Doctor!" cries Pansie, comically enough giving him his title of +courtesy,--"look, grandpapa, the big, naughty weed!" + +Now the Doctor had at once a peculiar dread and a peculiar value for this +identical shrub, both because his grandson's investigations had been +applied more ardently to it than to all the rest, and because it was +associated in his mind with an ancient and sad recollection. For he had +never forgotten that his wife, the early lost, had once taken a fancy to +wear its flowers, day after day, through the whole season of their bloom, +in her bosom, where they glowed like a gem, and deepened her somewhat +pallid beauty with a richness never before seen in it. At least such was +the effect which this tropical flower imparted to the beloved form in his +memory, and thus it somehow both brightened and wronged her. This had +happened not long before her death; and whenever, in the subsequent years, +this plant had brought its annual flower, it had proved a kind of talisman +to bring up the image of Bessie, radiant with this glow that did not +really belong to her naturally passive beauty, quickly interchanging with +another image of her form, with the snow of death on cheek and forehead. +This reminiscence had remained among the things of which the Doctor was +always conscious, but had never breathed a word, through the whole of his +long life,--a sprig of sensibility that perhaps helped to keep him +tenderer and purer than other men, who entertain no such follies. And the +sight of the shrub often brought back the faint, golden gleam of her hair, +as if her spirit were in the sunlights of the garden, quivering into view +and out of it. And therefore, when he saw what Pansie had done, he sent +forth a strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of +aged and decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "Naughty Pansie, to pull up +grandpapa's flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Poison, Pansie, +poison! Fling it away, child!" + +And dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little +girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while Pansie, as +apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of +mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was +ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this +fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten. + +"Stop, naughty Pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "You will tumble +into the grave!" The kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems to +affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back. + +And, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more +literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate communicated +with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little Pansie's track there +was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant that afternoon. Pansie, +however, fled onward with outstretched arms, half in fear, half in fun, +plying her round little legs with wonderful promptitude, as if to escape +Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir Dolliver, and happily avoiding +the ominous pitfall that lies in every person's path, till, hearing a +groan from her pursuer, she looked over her shoulder, and saw that poor +grandpapa had stumbled over one of the many hillocks. She then suddenly +wrinkled up her little visage, and sent forth a full-breathed roar of +sympathy and alarm. + +"Grandpapa has broken his neck now!" cried little Pansie, amid her sobs. + +"Kiss grandpapa, and make it well, then," said the old gentleman, +recollecting her remedy, and scrambling up more readily than could be +expected. "Well," he murmured to himself, "a hair's-breadth more, and I +should have been tumbled into yonder grave. Poor little Pansie! what +wouldst thou have done then?" + +"Make the grass grow over grandpapa," answered Pansie, laughing up in his +face. + +"Poh, poh, child, that is not a pretty thing to say," said grandpapa, +pettishly and disappointed, as people are apt to be when they try to +calculate on the fitful sympathies of childhood. "Come, you must go in to +old Martha now." + +The poor old gentleman was in the more haste to leave the spot because he +found himself standing right in front of his own peculiar row of +gravestones, consisting of eight or nine slabs of slate, adorned with +carved borders rather rudely cut, and the earliest one, that of his +Bessie, bending aslant, because the frost of so many winters had slowly +undermined it. Over one grave of the row, that of his gifted grandson, +there was no memorial. He felt a strange repugnance, stronger than he had +ever felt before, to linger by these graves, and had none of the tender +sorrow, mingled with high and tender hopes, that had sometimes made it +seem good to him to be there. Such moods, perhaps, often come to the aged, +when the hardened earth-crust over their souls shuts them out from +spiritual influences. + +Taking the child by the hand,--her little effervescence of infantile fun +having passed into a downcast humor, though not well knowing as yet what a +dusky cloud of disheartening fancies arose from these green hillocks,--he +went heavily toward the garden-gate. Close to its threshold, so that one +who was issuing forth or entering must needs step upon it or over it, lay +a small flat stone, deeply imbedded in the ground, and partly covered with +grass, inscribed with the name of "Dr. John Swinnerton, Physician." + +"Ay," said the old man, as the well-remembered figure of his ancient +instructor seemed to rise before him in his grave-apparel, with beard and +gold-headed cane, black velvet doublet and cloak, "here lies a man who, as +people have thought, had it in his power to avoid the grave! He had no +little grandchild to tease him. He had the choice to die, and chose it." + +So the old gentleman led Pansie over the stone, and carefully closed the +gate; and, as it happened, he forgot the uprooted shrub, which Pansie, as +she ran, had flung away, and which had fallen into the open grave; and +when the funeral came that afternoon, the coffin was let down upon it, so +that its bright, inauspicious flower never bloomed again. + + + + +ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +"Be secret!" and he kept his stern eye fixed upon him, as the coach began +to move. + +"Be secret!" repeated the apothecary. "I know not any secret that he has +confided to me thus far, and as for his nonsense (as I will be bold to +style it now he is gone) about a medicine of long life, it is a thing I +forget in spite of myself, so very empty and trashy it is. I wonder, by +the by, that it never came into my head to give the Colonel a dose of the +cordial whereof I partook last night. I have no faith that it is a +valuable medicine--little or none--and yet there has been an unwonted +briskness in me all the morning." + +Then a simple joy broke over his face--a flickering sunbeam among his +wrinkles--as he heard the laughter of the little girl, who was running +rampant with a kitten in the kitchen. + +"Pansie! Pansie!" cackled he, "grandpapa has sent away the ugly man now. +Come, let us have a frolic in the garden." + +And he whispered to himself again, "That is a cordial yonder, and I will +take it according to the prescription, knowing all the ingredients." Then, +after a moment's thought, he added, "All, save one." + +So, as he had declared to himself his intention, that night, when little +Pansie had long been asleep, and his small household was in bed, and most +of the quiet, old-fashioned townsfolk likewise, this good apothecary went +into his laboratory, and took out of a cupboard in the wall a certain +ancient-looking bottle, which was cased over with a net-work of what +seemed to be woven silver, like the wicker-woven bottles of our days. He +had previously provided a goblet of pure water. Before opening the bottle, +however, he seemed to hesitate, and pondered and babbled to himself; +having long since come to that period of life when the bodily frame, +having lost much of its value, is more tenderly cared for than when it was +a perfect and inestimable machine. + +"I triturated, I infused, I distilled it myself in these very rooms, and +know it--know it all--all the ingredients, save one. They are common +things enough--comfortable things--some of them a little queer--one or two +that folks have a prejudice against--and then there is that one thing +that I don't know. It is foolish in me to be dallying with such a mess, +which I thought was a piece of quackery, while that strange visitor bade +me do it,--and yet, what a strength has come from it! He said it was a +rare cordial, and, methinks, it has brightened up my weary life all day, +so that Pansie has found me the fitter playmate. And then the dose--it is +so absurdly small! I will try it again." + +He took the silver stopple from the bottle, and with a practised hand, +tremulous as it was with age, so that one would have thought it must have +shaken the liquor into a perfect shower of misapplied drops, he dropped--I +have heard it said--only one single drop into the goblet of water. It fell +into it with a dazzling brightness, like a spark of ruby flame, and subtly +diffusing itself through the whole body of water, turned it to a rosy hue +of great brilliancy. He held it up between his eyes and the light, and +seemed to admire and wonder at it. + +"It is very odd," said he, "that such a pure, bright liquor should have +come out of a parcel of weeds that mingled their juices here. The thing is +a folly,--it is one of those compositions in which the chemists--the +cabalists, perhaps--used to combine what they thought the virtues of many +plants, thinking that something would result in the whole, which was not +in either of them, and a new efficacy be created. Whereas, it has been the +teaching of my experience that one virtue counteracts another, and is the +enemy of it. I never believed the former theory, even when that strange +madman bade me do it. And what a thick, turbid matter it was, until that +last ingredient,--that powder which he put in with his own hand! Had he +let me see it, I would first have analyzed it, and discovered its +component parts. The man was mad, undoubtedly, and this may have been +poison. But its effect is good. Poh! I will taste again, because of this +weak, agued, miserable state of mine; though it is a shame in me, a man of +decent skill in my way, to believe in a quack's nostrum. But it is a +comfortable kind of thing." + +Meantime, that single drop (for good Dr. Dolliver had immediately put a +stopper into the bottle) diffused a sweet odor through the chamber, so +that the ordinary fragrances and scents of apothecaries' stuff seemed to +be controlled and influenced by it, and its bright potency also dispelled +a certain dimness of the antiquated room. + +The Doctor, at the pressure of a great need, had given incredible pains to +the manufacture of this medicine; so that, reckoning the pains rather than +the ingredients (all except one, of which he was not able to estimate the +cost nor value), it was really worth its weight in gold. And, as it +happened, he had bestowed upon it the hard labor of his poor life, and the +time that was necessary for the support of his family, without return; for +the customers, after playing off this cruel joke upon the old man, had +never come back; and now, for seven years, the bottle had stood in a +corner of the cupboard. To be sure, the silver-cased bottle was worth a +trifle for its silver, and still more, perhaps, as an antiquarian knick- +knack. But, all things considered, the honest and simple apothecary +thought that he might make free with the liquid to such small extent as +was necessary for himself. And there had been something in the concoction +that had struck him; and he had been fast breaking lately; and so, in the +dreary fantasy and lonely recklessness of his old age, he had suddenly +bethought himself of this medicine (cordial,--as the strange man called +it, which had come to him by long inheritance in his family) and he had +determined to try it. And again, as the night before, he took out the +receipt--a roll of antique parchment, out of which, provokingly, one fold +had been lost--and put on his spectacles to puzzle out the passage. + +Guttam unicam in aquam puram, two gills. "If the Colonel should hear of +this," said Dr. Dolliver, "he might fancy it his nostrum of long life, and +insist on having the bottle for his own use. The foolish, fierce old +gentleman! He has grown very earthly, of late, else he would not desire +such a thing. And a strong desire it must be to make him feel it +desirable. For my part, I only wish for something that, for a short time, +may clear my eyes, so that I may see little Pansie's beauty, and quicken +my ears, that I may hear her sweet voice, and give me nerve, while God +keeps me here, that I may live longer to earn bread for dear Pansie. She +provided for, I would gladly lie down yonder with Bessie and our children. +Ah! the vanity of desiring lengthened days!--There!--I have drunk it, +and methinks its final, subtle flavor hath strange potency in it." + +The old man shivered a little, as those shiver who have just swallowed +good liquor, while it is permeating their vitals. Yet he seemed to be in a +pleasant state of feeling, and, as was frequently the case with this +simple soul, in a devout frame of mind. He read a chapter in the Bible, +and said his prayers for Pansie and himself, before he went to bed, and +had much better sleep than usually comes to people of his advanced age; +for, at that period, sleep is diffused through their wakefulness, and a +dim and tiresome half-perception through their sleep, so that the only +result is weariness. + +Nothing very extraordinary happened to Dr. Dolliver or his small household +for some time afterwards. He was favored with a comfortable winter, and +thanked Heaven for it, and put it to a good use (at least he intended it +so) by concocting drugs; which perhaps did a little towards peopling the +graveyard, into which his windows looked; but that was neither his purpose +nor his fault. None of the sleepers, at all events, interrupted their +slumbers to upbraid him. He had done according to his own artless +conscience and the recipes of licensed physicians, and he looked no +further, but pounded, triturated, infused, made electuaries, boluses, +juleps, or whatever he termed his productions, with skill and diligence, +thanking Heaven that he was spared to do so, when his contemporaries +generally were getting incapable of similar efforts. It struck him with +some surprise, but much gratitude to Providence, that his sight seemed to +be growing rather better than worse. He certainly could read the crabbed +handwriting and hieroglyphics of the physicians with more readiness than +he could a year earlier. But he had been originally near-sighted, with +large, projecting eyes; and near-sighted eyes always seem to get a new +lease of light as the years go on. One thing was perceptible about the +Doctor's eyes, not only to himself in the glass, but to everybody else; +namely, that they had an unaccustomed gleaming brightness in them; not so +very bright either, but yet so much so, that little Pansie noticed it, and +sometimes, in her playful, roguish way, climbed up into his lap, and put +both her small palms over them; telling Grandpapa that he had stolen +somebody else's eyes, and given away his own, and that she liked his old +ones better. The poor old Doctor did his best to smile through his eyes, +and so to reconcile Pansie to their brightness: but still she continually +made the same silly remonstrance, so that he was fain to put on a pair of +green spectacles when he was going to play with Pansie, or took her on his +knee. Nay, if he looked at her, as had always been his custom, after she +was asleep, in order to see that all was well with her, the little child +would put up her hands, as if he held a light that was flashing on her +eyeballs; and unless he turned away his gaze quickly, she would wake up in +a fit of crying. + +On the whole, the apothecary had as comfortable a time as a man of his +years could expect. The air of the house and of the old graveyard seemed +to suit him. What so seldom happens in man's advancing age, his night's +rest did him good, whereas, generally, an old man wakes up ten times as +nervous and dispirited as he went to bed, just as if, during his sleep he +had been working harder than ever he did in the daytime. It had been so +with the Doctor himself till within a few months. To be sure, he had +latterly begun to practise various rules of diet and exercise, which +commended themselves to his approbation. He sawed some of his own fire- +wood, and fancied that, as was reasonable, it fatigued him less day by +day. He took walks with Pansie, and though, of course, her little +footsteps, treading on the elastic air of childhood, far outstripped his +own, still the old man knew that he was not beyond the recuperative period +of life, and that exercise out of doors and proper food can do somewhat +towards retarding the approach of age. He was inclined, also, to impute +much good effect to a daily dose of Santa Cruz rum (a liquor much in vogue +in that day), which he was now in the habit of quaffing at the meridian +hour. All through the Doctor's life he had eschewed strong spirits: "But +after seventy," quoth old Dr. Dolliver, "a man is all the better in head +and stomach for a little stimulus"; and it certainly seemed so in his +case. Likewise, I know not precisely how often, but complying +punctiliously with the recipe, as an apothecary naturally would, he took +his drop of the mysterious cordial. + +He was inclined, however, to impute little or no efficacy to this, and to +laugh at himself for having ever thought otherwise. The dose was so very +minute! and he had never been sensible of any remarkable effect on taking +it, after all. A genial warmth, he sometimes fancied, diffused itself +throughout him, and perhaps continued during the next day. A quiet and +refreshing night's rest followed, and alacritous waking in the morning; +but all this was far more probably owing, as has been already hinted, to +excellent and well-considered habits of diet and exercise. Nevertheless he +still continued the cordial with tolerable regularity,--the more, because +on one or two occasions, happening to omit it, it so chanced that he slept +wretchedly, and awoke in strange aches and pains, torpors, nervousness, +shaking of the hands, bleared-ness of sight, lowness of spirits and other +ills, as is the misfortune of some old men,--who are often threatened by a +thousand evil symptoms that come to nothing, foreboding no particular +disorder, and passing away as unsatisfactorily as they come. At another +time, he took two or three drops at once, and was alarmingly feverish in +consequence. Yet it was very true, that the feverish symptoms were pretty +sure to disappear on his renewal of the medicine. "Still it could not be +that," thought the old man, a hater of empiricism (in which, however, is +contained all hope for man), and disinclined to believe in anything that +was not according to rule and art. And then, as aforesaid, the dose was so +ridiculously small! + +Sometimes, however, he took, half laughingly, another view of it, and felt +disposed to think that chance might really have thrown in his way a very +remarkable mixture, by which, if it had happened to him earlier in life, +he might have amassed a larger fortune, and might even have raked together +such a competency as would have prevented his feeling much uneasiness +about the future of little Pansie. Feeling as strong as he did nowadays, +he might reasonably count upon ten years more of life, and in that time +the precious liquor might be exchanged for much gold. "Let us see!" quoth +he, "by what attractive name shall it be advertised? 'The old man's +cordial?' That promises too little. Poh, poh! I would stain my honesty, my +fair reputation, the accumulation of a lifetime, and befool my neighbor +and the public, by any name that would make them imagine I had found that +ridiculous talisman that the alchemists have sought. The old man's +cordial,--that is best. And five shillings sterling the bottle. That +surely were not too costly, and would give the medicine a better +reputation and higher vogue (so foolish is the world) than if I were to +put it lower. I will think further of this. But pshaw, pshaw!" + +"What is the matter. Grandpapa," said little Pansie, who had stood by him, +wishing to speak to him at least a minute, but had been deterred by his +absorption; "why do you say 'Pshaw'?" + +"Pshaw!" repeated Grandpapa, "there is one ingredient that I don't know." + +So this very hopeful design was necessarily given up, but that it had +occurred to Dr. Dolliver was perhaps a token that his mind was in a very +vigorous state; for it had been noted of him through life, that he had +little enterprise, little activity, and that, for the want of these +things, his very considerable skill in his art had been almost thrown +away, as regarded his private affairs, when it might easily have led him +to fortune. Whereas, here in his extreme age, he had first bethought +himself of a way to grow rich. Sometimes this latter spring causes--as +blossoms come on the autumnal tree--a spurt of vigor, or untimely +greenness, when Nature laughs at her old child, half in kindness and half +in scorn. It is observable, however, I fancy, that after such a spurt, age +comes on with redoubled speed, and that the old man has only run forward +with a show of force, in order to fall into his grave the sooner. + +Sometimes, as he was walking briskly along the street, with little Pansie +clasping his hand, and perhaps frisking rather more than became a person +of his venerable years, he had met the grim old wreck of Colonel Dabney, +moving goutily, and gathering wrath anew with every touch of his painful +foot to the ground; or driving by in his carriage, showing an ashen, +angry, wrinkled face at the window, and frowning at him--the apothecary +thought--with a peculiar fury, as if he took umbrage at his audacity in +being less broken by age than a gentleman like himself. The apothecary +could not help feeling as if there were some unsettled quarrel or dispute +between himself and the Colonel, he could not tell what or why. The +Colonel always gave him a haughty nod of half-recognition; and the people +in the street, to whom he was a familiar object, would say, "The +worshipful Colonel begins to find himself mortal like the rest of us. He +feels his years." "He'd be glad, I warrant," said one, "to change with +you, Doctor. It shows what difference a good life makes in men, to look at +him and you. You are half a score of years his elder, me-thinks, and yet +look what temperance can do for a man. By my credit, neighbor, seeing how +brisk you have been lately, I told my wife you seemed to be growing +younger. It does me good to see it. We are about of an age, I think, and I +like to notice how we old men keep young and keep one another in heart. I +myself--ahem--ahem--feel younger this season than for these five years +past." + +"It rejoices me that you feel so," quoth the apothecary, who had just been +thinking that this neighbor of his had lost a great deal, both in mind and +body, within a short period, and rather scorned him for it. "Indeed, I +find old age less uncomfortable than I supposed. Little Pansie and I make +excellent companions for one another." + +And then, dragged along by Pansie's little hand, and also impelled by a +certain alacrity that rose with him in the morning, and lasted till his +healthy rest at night, he bade farewell to his contemporary, and hastened +on; while the latter, left behind, was somewhat irritated as he looked at +the vigorous movement of the apothecary's legs. + +"He need not make such a show of briskness neither," muttered he to +himself. "This touch of rheumatism troubles me a bit just now, but try it +on a good day, and I'd walk with him for a shilling. Pshaw! I'll walk to +his funeral yet." + +One day, while the Doctor, with the activity that bestirred itself in him +nowadays, was mixing and manufacturing certain medicaments that came in +frequent demand, a carriage stopped at his door, and he recognized the +voice of Colonel Dabney, talking in his customary stern tone to the woman +who served him. And, a moment afterwards, the coach drove away, and he +actually heard the old dignitary lumbering up stairs, and bestowing a +curse upon each particular step, as if that were the method to make them +soften and become easier when he should come down again. "Pray, your +worship," said the Doctor from above, "let me attend you below stairs." + +"No," growled the Colonel, "I'll meet you on your own ground. I can climb +a stair yet, and be hanged to you." + +So saying, he painfully finished the ascent, and came into the laboratory, +where he let himself fall into the Doctor's easy-chair, with an anathema +on the chair, the Doctor, and himself; and, staring round through the +dusk, he met the wide-open, startled eyes of little Pansie, who had been +reading a gilt picture-book in the corner. + +"Send away that child, Dolliver," cried the Colonel, angrily. "Confound +her, she makes my bones ache. I hate everything young." + +"Lord, Colonel," the poor apothecary ventured to say, "there must be young +people in the world as well as old ones. 'T is my mind, a man's +grandchildren keep him warm round about him." + +"I have none, and want none," sharply responded the Colonel; "and as for +young people, let me be one of them, and they may exist, otherwise not. It +is a cursed bad arrangement of the world, that there are young and old +here together." + +When Pansie had gone away, which she did with anything but reluctance, +having a natural antipathy to this monster of a Colonel, the latter +personage tapped with his crutch-handled cane on a chair that stood near, +and nodded in an authoritative way to the apothecary to sit down in it. +Dr. Dolliver complied submissively, and the Colonel, with dull, unkindly +eyes, looked at him sternly, and with a kind of intelligence amid the aged +stolidity of his aspect, that somewhat puzzled the Doctor. In this way he +surveyed him all over, like a judge, when he means to hang a man, and for +some reason or none, the apothecary felt his nerves shake, beneath this +steadfast look. + +"Aha! Doctor!" said the Colonel at last, with a doltish sneer, "you bear +your years well." + +"Decently well, Colonel; I thank Providence for it," answered the meek +apothecary. + +"I should say," quoth the Colonel, "you are younger at this moment than +when we spoke together two or three years ago. I noted then that your +eyebrows were a handsome snow-white, such as befits a man who has passed +beyond his threescore years and ten, and five years more. Why, they are +getting dark again, Mr. Apothecary." + +"Nay, your worship must needs be mistaken there," said the Doctor, with a +timorous chuckle. "It is many a year since I have taken a deliberate note +of my wretched old visage in a glass, but I remember they were white when +I looked last." + +"Come, Doctor, I know a thing or two," said the Colonel, with a bitter +scoff; "and what's this, you old rogue? Why, you've rubbed away a wrinkle +since we met. Take off those infernal spectacles, and look me in the face. +Ha! I see the devil in your eye. How dare you let it shine upon me so?" + +"On my conscience, Colonel," said the apothecary, strangely struck with +the coincidence of this accusation with little Pansie's complaint, "I know +not what you mean. My sight is pretty well for a man of my age. We near- +sighted people begin to know our best eyesight, when other people have +lost theirs." + +"Ah! ah! old rogue," repeated the insufferable Colonel, gnashing his +ruined teeth at him, as if, for some incomprehensible reason, he wished to +tear him to pieces and devour him. "I know you. You are taking the life +away from me, villain! and I told you it was my inheritance. And I told +you there was a Bloody Footstep, bearing its track down through my race. + +"I remember nothing of it," said the Doctor, in a quake, sure that the +Colonel was in one of his mad fits. "And on the word of an honest man, I +never wronged you in my life, Colonel." + +"We shall see," said the Colonel, whose wrinkled visage grew absolutely +terrible with its hardness; and his dull eyes, without losing their +dulness, seemed to look through him. + +"Listen to me, sir. Some ten years ago, there came to you a man on a +secret business. He had an old musty bit of parchment, on which were +written some words, hardly legible, in an antique hand,--an old deed, it +might have been,--some family document, and here and there the letters +were faded away. But this man had spent his life over it, and he had made +out the meaning, and he interpreted it to you, and left it with you, only +there was one gap,--one torn or obliterated place. Well, sir,--and he bade +you, with your poor little skill at the mortar, and for a certain sum,-- +ample repayment for such a service,--to manufacture this medicine,--this +cordial. It was an affair of months. And just when you thought it +finished, the man came again, and stood over your cursed beverage, and +shook a powder, or dropped a lump into it, or put in some ingredient, in +which was all the hidden virtue,--or, at least, it drew out all the hidden +virtue of the mean and common herbs, and married them into a wondrous +efficacy. This done, the man bade you do certain other things with the +potation, and went away"--the Colonel hesitated a moment--"and never came +back again." + +"Surely, Colonel, you are correct," said the apothecary; much startled, +however, at the Colonel's showing himself so well acquainted with an +incident which he had supposed a secret with himself alone. Yet he had a +little reluctance in owning it, although he did not exactly understand +why, since the Colonel had, apparently, no rightful claim to it, at all +events. + +"That medicine, that receipt," continued his visitor, "is my hereditary +property, and I challenge you, on your peril, to give it up." + +"But what if the original owner should call upon me for it," objected Dr. +Dolliver. + +"I'll warrant you against that," said the Colonel; and the apothecary +thought there was something ghastly in his look and tone. "Why, 't is ten +year, you old fool; and do you think a man with a treasure like that in +his possession would have waited so long?" + +"Seven years it was ago," said the apothecary. "Septem annis passatis: so +says the Latin." + +"Curse your Latin," answers the Colonel. "Produce the stuff. You have been +violating the first rule of your trade,--taking your own drugs,--your own, +in one sense; mine by the right of three hundred years. Bring it forth, I +say!" + +"Pray excuse me, worthy Colonel," pleaded the apothecary; for though +convinced that the old gentleman was only in one of his insane fits, when +he talked of the value of this concoction, yet he really did not like to +give up the cordial, which perhaps had wrought him some benefit. Besides, +he had at least a claim upon it for much trouble and skill expended in its +composition. This he suggested to the Colonel, who scornfully took out of +his pocket a net-work purse, with more golden guineas in it than the +apothecary had seen in the whole seven years, and was rude enough to fling +it in his face. "Take that," thundered he, "and give up the thing, or I +will have you in prison before you are an hour older. Nay," he continued, +growing pale, which was his mode of showing terrible wrath; since all +through life, till extreme age quenched it, his ordinary face had been a +blazing-red, "I'll put you to death, you villain, as I've a right!" And +thrusting his hand into his waistcoat pocket, lo! the madman took a small +pistol from it, which he cocked, and presented at the poor apothecary. The +old fellow, quaked and cowered in his chair, and would indeed have given +his whole shopful of better concocted medicines than this, to be out of +this danger. Besides, there were the guineas; the Colonel had paid him a +princely sum for what was probably worth nothing. + +"Hold! hold!" cried he as the Colonel, with stern eye pointed the pistol +at his head. "You shall have it." + +So he rose all trembling, and crept to that secret cupboard, where the +precious bottle--since precious it seemed to be--was reposited. In all his +life, long as it had been, the apothecary had never before been threatened +by a deadly weapon; though many as deadly a thing had he seen poured into +a glass, without winking. And so it seemed to take his heart and life +away, and he brought the cordial forth feebly, and stood tremulously +before the Colonel, ashy pale, and looking ten years older than his real +age, instead of five years younger, as he had seemed just before this +disastrous interview with the Colonel. + +"You look as if you needed a drop of it yourself," said Colonel Dabney, +with great scorn. "But not a drop shall you have. Already have you stolen +too much," said he, lifting up the bottle, and marking the space to which +the liquor had subsided in it in consequence of the minute doses with +which the apothecary had made free. "Fool, had you taken your glass like a +man, you might have been young again. Now, creep on, the few months you +have left, poor, torpid knave, and die! Come--a goblet! quick!" + +He clutched the bottle meanwhile voraciously, miserly, eagerly, furiously, +as if it were his life that he held in his grasp; angry, impatient, as if +something long sought were within his reach, and not yet secure,--with +longing thirst and desire; suspicious of the world and of fate; feeling as +if an iron hand were over him, and a crowd of violent robbers round about +him, struggling for it. At last, unable to wait longer, just as the +apothecary was tottering away in quest of a drinking-glass, the Colonel +took out the stopple, and lifted the flask itself to his lips. + +"For Heaven's sake, no!" cried the Doctor. "The dose is one single drop!-- +one drop, Colonel, one drop!" + +"Not a drop to save your wretched old soul," responded the Colonel; +probably thinking that the apothecary was pleading for a small share of +the precious liquor. He put it to his lips, and, as if quenching a +lifelong thirst, swallowed deep draughts, sucking it in with desperation, +till, void of breath, he set it down upon the table. The rich, poignant +perfume spread itself through the air. + +The apothecary, with an instinctive carefulness that was rather ludicrous +under the circumstances, caught up the stopper, which the Colonel had let +fall, and forced it into the bottle to prevent any farther escape of +virtue. He then fearfully watched the result of the madman's potation. + +The Colonel sat a moment in his chair, panting for breath; then started to +his feet with a prompt vigor that contrasted widely with the infirm and +rheumatic movements that had heretofore characterized him. He struck his +forehead violently with one hand, and smote his chest with the other: he +stamped his foot thunderously on the ground; then he leaped up to the +ceiling, and came down with an elastic bound. Then he laughed, a wild, +exulting ha! ha! with a strange triumphant roar that filled the house and +reechoed through it; a sound full of fierce, animal rapture,--enjoyment of +sensual life mixed up with a sort of horror. After all, real as it was, it +was like the sounds a man makes in a dream. And this, while the potent +draught seemed still to be making its way through his system; and the +frightened apothecary thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon +himself. Finally, he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of +which his voice broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, +starting forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life +that was being rent away,--and fell forward with a dead thump upon the +floor. + +"Colonel! Colonel!" cried the terrified Doctor. + +The feeble old man, with difficulty, turned over the heavy frame, and saw +at once, with practised eye, that he was dead. He set him up, and the +corpse looked at him with angry reproach. He was so startled, that his +subsequent recollections of the moment were neither distinct nor +steadfast; but he fancied, though he told the strange impression to no +one, that on his first glimpse of the face, with a dark flush of what +looked like rage still upon it, it was a young man's face that he saw,--a +face with all the passionate energy of early manhood,--the capacity for +furious anger which the man had lost half a century ago, crammed to the +brim with vigor till it became agony. But the next moment, if it were so +(which it could not have been), the face grew ashen, withered, shrunken, +more aged than in life, though still the murderous fierceness remained, +and seemed to be petrified forever upon it. + +After a moment's bewilderment, Dolliver ran to the window looking to the +street, threw it open, and called loudly for assistance. He opened also +another window, for the air to blow through, for he was almost stifled +with the rich odor of the cordial which filled the room, and was now +exuded from the corpse. + +He heard the voice of Pansie, crying at the door, which was locked, and, +turning the key, he caught her in his arms, and hastened with her below +stairs, to give her into the charge of Martha, who seemed half stupefied +with a sense of something awful that had occurred. + +Meanwhile there was a rattling and a banging at the street portal, to +which several people had been attracted both by the Doctor's outcry from +the window, and by the awful screech in which the Colonel's spirit (if, +indeed, he had that divine part) had just previously taken its flight. + +He let them in, and, pale and shivering, ushered them up to the death- +chamber, where one or two, with a more delicate sense of smelling than the +rest, snuffed the atmosphere, as if sensible of an unknown fragrance, yet +appeared afraid to breathe, when they saw the terrific countenance leaning +back against the chair, and eying them so truculently. + +I would fain quit the scene and have done with the Colonel, who, I am +glad, has happened to die at so early a period of the narrative. I +therefore hasten to say that a coroner's inquest was held on the spot, +though everybody felt that it was merely ceremonial, and that the +testimony of their good and ancient townsman, Dr. Dolliver, was amply +sufficient to settle the matter. The verdict was, "Death by the visitation +of God." + +The apothecary gave evidence that the Colonel, without asking leave, and +positively against his advice, had drunk a quantity of distilled spirits; +and one or two servants, or members of the Colonel's family, testified +that he had been in a very uncomfortable state of mind for some days past, +so that they fancied he was insane. Therefore nobody thought of blaming +Dr. Dolliver for what had happened; and, if the plain truth must be told, +everybody who saw the wretch was too well content to be rid of him, to +trouble themselves more than was quite necessary about the way in which +the incumbrance had been removed. + +The corpse was taken to the mansion in order to receive a magnificent +funeral; and Dr. Dolliver was left outwardly in quiet, but much disturbed, +and indeed almost overwhelmed inwardly, by what had happened. + +Yet it is to be observed, that he had accounted for the death with a +singular dexterity of expression, when he attributed it to a dose of +distilled spirits. What kind of distilled spirits were those, Doctor? and +will you venture to take any more of them? + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Dolliver Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE *** + +This file should be named 8doll10.txt or 8doll10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8doll11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8doll10a.txt + +Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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