Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Complete Novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne - All 8 Books in One Edition

“It must depend upon yourself, whether you shall meet him in a few days or never.”

“Never!” repeated Ellen. “Is he ill? Is he in danger?”

“He is in danger,” replied the man, “but not from illness. Your father is a ruined man. Of all his friends, but one remains to him. That friend has travelled far to prove if his daughter has a daughter’s affection.”

“And what is to be the proof?” asked Ellen, with more calmness than the stranger had anticipated; for she possessed a large fund of plain sense, which revolted against the mystery of these proceedings. Such a course, too, seemed discordant with her father’s character, whose strong mind and almost cold heart were little likely to demand, or even to pardon, the romance of affection.

“This letter will explain,” was the reply to Ellen’s question. “You will see that it is in your father’s hand; and that may gain your confidence, though I am doubted.”

She received the letter; and many of her suspicions of the stranger’s truth were vanquished by the apparent openness of his manner. He was preparing to speak further, but paused, for a footstep was now heard, approaching from the lower part of the garden. From their situation,— at some distance from the path, and in the shade of the tree,— they had a fair chance of eluding discovery from any unsuspecting passenger; and, when Ellen saw that the intruder was Fanshawe, she hoped that his usual abstraction would assist their concealment.

But, as the student advanced along the path, his air was not that of one whose deep inward thoughts withdrew his attention from all outward objects. He rather resembled the hunter, on the watch for his game; and, while he was yet at a distance from Ellen, a wandering gust of wind waved her white garment, and betrayed her.

“It is as I feared,” said Fanshawe to himself. He then drew nigh, and addressed Ellen with a calm authority that became him well, notwithstanding that his years scarcely exceeded her own. “Miss Langton,” he inquired, “what do you here at such an hour, and with such a companion?”

Ellen was sufficiently displeased at what she deemed the unauthorized intrusion of Fanshawe in her affairs; but his imposing manner and her own confusion prevented her from replying.

“Permit me to lead you to the house,” he continued, in the words of a request, but in the tone of a command. “The dew hangs dank and heavy on these branches; and a longer stay would be more dangerous than you are aware.”

Ellen would fain have resisted; but though the tears hung as heavy on her eyelashes, between shame and anger, as the dew upon the leaves, she felt compelled to accept the arm that he offered her. But the stranger, who, since Fanshawe’s approach, had remained a little apart, now advanced.

“You speak as one in authority, young man,” he said. “Have you the means of compelling obedience? Does your power extend to men? Or do you rule only over simple girls? Miss Langton is under my protection, and, till you can bend me to your will, she shall remain so.”

Fanshawe turned calmly, and fixed his eyes on the stranger. “Retire, sir,” was all he said.

Ellen almost shuddered, as if there were a mysterious and unearthly power in Fanshawe’s voice; for she saw that the stranger endeavored in vain, borne down by the influence of a superior mind, to maintain the boldness of look and bearing that seemed natural to him. He at first made a step forward, then muttered a few half-audible words; but, quailing at length beneath the young man’s bright and steady eye, he turned and slowly withdrew.

Fanshawe remained silent a moment after his opponent had departed, and, when he next spoke, it was in a tone of depression. Ellen observed, also, that his countenance had lost its look of pride and authority; and he seemed faint and exhausted. The occasion that called forth his energies had passed; and they had left him.

“Forgive me, Miss Langton,” he said almost humbly, “if my eagerness to serve you has led me too far. There is evil in this stranger, more than your pure mind can conceive. I know not what has been his errand; but let me entreat you to put confidence in those to whose care your father has intrusted you. Or if I— or — or Edward Walcott — But I have no right to advise you; and your own calm thoughts will guide you best.”

He said no more; and, as Ellen did not reply, they reached the house, and parted in silence.

Table of Contents

“The seeds by nature planted

Take a deep root in the soil, and though for a time

The trenchant share and tearing harrow may

Sweep all appearance of them from the surface,

Yet with the first warm rains of spring they’ll shoot,

And with their rankness smother the good grain.

Heaven grant, it mayn’t be so with him.”

RICHES.

The scene of this tale must now be changed to the little inn, which at that period, as at the present, was situated in the vicinity of Harley College. The site of the modern establishment is the same with that of the ancient; but everything of the latter that had been built by hands has gone to decay and been removed, and only the earth beneath and around it remains the same. The modern building, a house of two stories, after a lapse of twenty years, is yet unfinished. On this account, it has retained the appellation of the “New Inn,” though, like many who have frequented it, it has grown old ere its maturity. Its dingy whiteness, and its apparent superfluity of windows (many of them being closed with rough boards), give it somewhat of a dreary look, especially in a wet day.

The ancient inn was a house, of which the eaves approached within about seven feet of the ground; while the roof, sloping gradually upward, formed an angle at several times that height. It was a comfortable and pleasant abode to the weary traveller, both in summer and winter; for the frost never ventured within the sphere of its huge hearths; and it was protected from the heat of the sultry season by three large elms that swept the roof with their long branches, and seemed to create a breeze where there was not one. The device upon the sign, suspended from one of these trees, was a hand holding a long-necked bottle, and was much more appropriate than the present unmeaning representation of a black eagle. But it is necessary to speak rather more at length of the landlord than of the house over which he presided.

Hugh Crombie was one for whom most of the wise men, who considered the course of his early years, had predicted the gallows as an end before he should arrive at middle age. That these prophets of ill had been deceived was evident from the fact that the doomed man had now passed the fortieth year, and was in more prosperous circumstances than most of those who had wagged their tongues against him. Yet the failure of their forebodings was more remarkable than their fulfilment would have been.

He had been distinguished, almost from his earliest infancy, by those precocious accomplishments, which, because they consist in an imitation of the vices and follies of maturity, render a boy the favorite plaything of men. He seemed to have received from nature the convivial talents, which, whether natural or acquired, are a most dangerous possession; and, before his twelfth year, he was the welcome associate of all the idle and dissipated of his neighborhood, and especially of those who haunted the tavern of which he had now become the landlord. Under this course of education, Hugh Crombie grew to youth and manhood; and the lovers of good words could only say in his favor, that he was a greater enemy to himself than to any one else, and that, if he should reform, few would have a better chance of prosperity than he.