Twice Told Tales

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

  DAVID SWAN.

  A FANTASY.

  We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actuallyinfluence our course through life and our final destiny. There areinnumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come closeupon us, yet pass away without actual results or even betraying theirnear approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across ourminds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life wouldbe too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to affordus a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by apage from the secret history of David Swan.

  We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age oftwenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston,where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take himbehind the counter. Be it enough to say that he was a native of NewHampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinaryschool education with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy.After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer'sday, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit downin the first convenient shade and await the coming up of thestage-coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared alittle tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the midst, and sucha fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for anywayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirstylips and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head uponsome shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped cottonhandkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yetrise from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday, and his grassylair suited the young man better than a bed of down. The springmurmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across theblue sky overhead, and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams withinits depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events which hedid not dream of.

  While he lay sound asleep in the shade other people were wide awake,and passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback and in all sorts ofvehicles, along the sunny road by his bedchamber. Some looked neitherto the right hand nor the left and knew not that he was there; somemerely glanced that way without admitting the slumberer among theirbusy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept, and severalwhose hearts were brimming full of scorn ejected their venomoussuperfluity on David Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else wasnear, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that theyoung fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer sawhim, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening'sdiscourse as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the roadside.

  But censure, praise, merriment, scorn and indifference were allone--or, rather, all nothing--to David Swan. He had slept only a fewmoments when a brown carriage drawn by a handsome pair of horsesbowled easily along and was brought to a standstill nearly in front ofDavid's resting-place. A linch-pin had fallen out and permitted one ofthe wheels to slide off. The damage was slight and occasioned merely amomentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who werereturning to Boston in the carriage. While the coachman and a servantwere replacing the wheel the lady and gentleman sheltered themselvesbeneath the maple trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain andDavid Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblestsleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as thegout would allow, and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silkgown lest David should start up all of a sudden.

  "How soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "From what adepth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought onwithout an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income, forit would suppose health and an untroubled mind."

  "And youth besides," said the lady. "Healthy and quiet age does notsleep thus. Our slumber is no more like his than our wakefulness."

  The longer they looked, the more did this elderly couple feelinterested in the unknown youth to whom the wayside and the mapleshade were as a secret chamber with the rich gloom of damask curtainsbrooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down uponhis face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside so as tointercept it, and, having done this little act of kindness, she beganto feel like a mother to him.

  "Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to herhusband, "and to have brought us hither to find him, after ourdisappointment in our cousin's son. Methinks I can see a likeness toour departed Henry. Shall we waken him?"

  "To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "We know nothing ofthe youth's character."

  "That open countenance!" replied his wife, in the same hushed voice,yet earnestly. "This innocent sleep!"

  While these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not throb,nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the leasttoken of interest. Yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to letfall a burden of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and hadno heir to his wealth except a distant relative with whose conduct hewas dissatisfied. In such cases people sometimes do stranger thingsthan to act the magician and awaken a young man to splendor who fellasleep in poverty.

  "Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady, persuasively.

  "The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind.

  The old couple started, reddened and hurried away, mutually wonderingthat they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so veryridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage andoccupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum forunfortunate men of business. Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap.

  The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two when a prettyyoung girl came along with a tripping pace which showed precisely howher little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merrykind of motion that caused--is there any harm in saying it?--hergarter to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth--if silk itwere--was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of themaple trees, and there found a young man asleep by the spring.Blushing as red as any rose that she should have intruded into agentleman's bedchamber, and for such a purpose too, she was about tomake her escape on tiptoe. But there was peril near the sleeper. Amonster of a bee had been wandering overhead--buzz, buzz, buzz--nowamong the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and nowlost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on theeyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. Asfree-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder withher handkerchief, brushed him soundly and drove him from beneath themaple shade. How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished, withquickened breath and a deeper blush she stole a glance at the youthfulstranger for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air.

  "He is handsome!" thought she, and blushed redder yet.

  How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that,shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder and allow himto perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smileof welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose soul,according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from hisown, and whom in all his vague but passionate desires he yearned tomeet. Her only could he love with a perfect love, him only could shereceive into the depths of her heart, and now her image was faintlyblushing in the fountain by his side; should it pass away, its happylustre would never gleam upon his life again.

  "How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl. She departed, but did nottrip along the road so lightly as when she came.

  Now, this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in theneighborhood, and happened at that identical time to be looking outfor just such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a waysideacquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father'sclerk, and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had goodfortune--the best of fortunes--stolen so near that her garmentsbrushed against him, and he knew nothing of the matter.

  The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath themaple shade. Both had
dark faces set off by cloth caps, which weredrawn down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet hada certain smartness. These were a couple of rascals who got theirliving by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim ofother business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece ofvillainy on a game of cards which was to have been decided here underthe trees. But, finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogueswhispered to his fellow:

  "Hist! Do you see that bundle under his head?"

  The other villain nodded, winked and leered.

  "I'll bet you a horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap haseither a pocketbook or a snug little hoard of small change stowed awayamongst his shirts. And if not there, we will find it in hispantaloons pocket."

  "But how if he wakes?" said the other.

  His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of adirk and nodded.

  "So be it!" muttered the second villain.

  They approached the unconscious David, and, while one pointed thedagger toward his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneathhis head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled and ghastly with guilt andfear, bent over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mistakenfor fiends should he suddenly awake. Nay, had the villains glancedaside into the spring, even they would hardly have known themselves asreflected there. But David Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect,even when asleep on his mother's breast.

  "I must take away the bundle," whispered one.

  "If he stirs, I'll strike," muttered the other.

  But at this moment a dog scenting along the ground came in beneath themaple trees and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men and thenat the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain.

  "Pshaw!" said one villain. "We can do nothing now. The dog's mastermust be close behind."

  "Let's take a drink and be off," said the other.

  The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom and drewforth a pocket-pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a singledischarge. It was a flask of liquor with a block-tin tumbler screwedupon the mouth. Each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot withso many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickednessthat they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing. In a fewhours they had forgotten the whole affair, nor once imagined that therecording angel had written down the crime of murder against theirsouls in letters as durable as eternity. As for David Swan, he stillslept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hungover him nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow waswithdrawn. He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour'srepose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness with whichmany hours of toil had burdened it. Now he stirred, now moved his lipswithout a sound, now talked in an inward tone to the noonday spectresof his dream. But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louderalong the road, until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David'sslumber; and there was the stagecoach. He started up with all hisideas about him.

  "Halloo, driver! Take a passenger?" shouted he.

  "Room on top!" answered the driver.

  Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily toward Boston without somuch as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude. Heknew not that a phantom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon itswaters, nor that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur, northat one of Death had threatened to crimson them with his blood, allin the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, wehear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen.Does it not argue a superintending Providence that, while viewless andunexpected events thrust themselves continually athwart our path,there should still be regularity enough in mortal life to renderforesight even partially available?