PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE.
"And so, Peter, you won't even consider of the business?" said Mr.John Brown, buttoning his surtout over the snug rotundity of hisperson and drawing on his gloves. "You positively refuse to let mehave this crazy old house, and the land under and adjoining, at theprice named?"
"Neither at that, nor treble the sum," responded the gaunt, grizzledand threadbare Peter Goldthwaite. "The fact is, Mr. Brown, you mustfind another site for your brick block and be content to leave myestate with the present owner. Next summer I intend to put a splendidnew mansion over the cellar of the old house."
"Pho, Peter!" cried Mr. Brown as he opened the kitchen door; "contentyourself with building castles in the air, where house-lots arecheaper than on earth, to say nothing of the cost of bricks andmortar. Such foundations are solid enough for your edifices, whilethis underneath us is just the thing for mine; and so we may both besuited. What say you, again?"
"Precisely what I said before, Mr. Brown," answered Peter Goldthwaite."And, as for castles in the air, mine may not be as magnificent asthat sort of architecture, but perhaps as substantial, Mr. Brown, asthe very respectable brick block with dry-goods stores, tailors' shopsand banking-rooms on the lower floor, and lawyers' offices in thesecond story, which you are so anxious to substitute."
"And the cost, Peter? Eh?" said Mr. Brown as he withdrew in somethingof a pet. "That, I suppose, will be provided for off-hand by drawing acheck on Bubble Bank?"
John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly known to thecommercial world between twenty and thirty years before under the firmof Goldthwaite & Brown; which copartnership, however, was speedilydissolved by the natural incongruity of its constituent parts. Sincethat event, John Brown, with exactly the qualities of a thousand otherJohn Browns, and by just such plodding methods as they used, hadprospered wonderfully and become one of the wealthiest John Browns onearth. Peter Goldthwaite, on the contrary, after innumerable schemeswhich ought to have collected all the coin and paper currency of thecountry into his coffers, was as needy a gentleman as ever wore apatch upon his elbow. The contrast between him and his former partnermay be briefly marked, for Brown never reckoned upon luck, yet alwayshad it, while Peter made luck the main condition of his projects, andalways missed it. While the means held out his speculations had beenmagnificent, but were chiefly confined of late years to such smallbusiness as adventures in the lottery. Once he had gone on agold-gathering expedition somewhere to the South, and ingeniouslycontrived to empty his pockets more thoroughly than ever, whileothers, doubtless, were filling theirs with native bullion by thehandful. More recently he had expended a legacy of a thousand or twoof dollars in purchasing Mexican scrip, and thereby became theproprietor of a province; which, however, so far as Peter could findout, was situated where he might have had an empire for the samemoney--in the clouds. From a search after this valuable real estatePeter returned so gaunt and threadbare that on reaching New Englandthe scarecrows in the corn-fields beckoned to him as he passed by."They did but flutter in the wind," quoth Peter Goldthwaite. No,Peter, they beckoned, for the scarecrows knew their brother.
At the period of our story his whole visible income would not havepaid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him. It was one ofthose rusty, moss-grown, many-peaked wooden houses which are scatteredabout the streets of our elder towns, with a beetle-browed secondstory projecting over the foundation, as if it frowned at the noveltyaround it. This old paternal edifice, needy as he was, and though,being centrally situated on the principal street of the town, it wouldhave brought him a handsome sum, the sagacious Peter had his ownreasons for never parting with, either by auction or private sale.There seemed, indeed, to be a fatality that connected him with hisbirthplace; for, often as he had stood on the verge of ruin, andstanding there even now, he had not yet taken the step beyond it whichwould have compelled him to surrender the house to his creditors. Sohere he dwelt with bad luck till good should come.
Here, then, in his kitchen--the only room where a spark of fire tookoff the chill of a November evening--poor Peter Goldthwaite had justbeen visited by his rich old partner. At the close of their interview,Peter, with rather a mortified look, glanced downward at his dress,parts of which appeared as ancient as the days of Goldthwaite & Brown.His upper garment was a mixed surtout, woefully faded, and patchedwith newer stuff on each elbow; beneath this he wore a threadbareblack coat, some of the silk buttons of which had been replaced withothers of a different pattern; and, lastly, though he lacked not apair of gray pantaloons, they were very shabby ones, and had beenpartially turned brown by the frequent toasting of Peter's shinsbefore a scanty fire. Peter's person was in keeping with his goodlyapparel. Gray-headed, hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked and lean-bodied, hewas the perfect picture of a man who had fed on windy schemes andempty hopes till he could neither live on such unwholesome trash norstomach more substantial food. But, withal, this Peter Goldthwaite,crack-brained simpleton as, perhaps, he was, might have cut a verybrilliant figure in the world had he employed his imagination in theairy business of poetry instead of making it a demon of mischief inmercantile pursuits. After all, he was no bad fellow, but as harmlessas a child, and as honest and honorable, and as much of the gentlemanwhich Nature meant him for, as an irregular life and depressedcircumstances will permit any man to be.
As Peter stood on the uneven bricks of his hearth looking round at thedisconsolate old kitchen his eyes began to kindle with theillumination of an enthusiasm that never long deserted him. He raisedhis hand, clenched it and smote it energetically against the smokypanel over the fireplace.
"The time is come," said he; "with such a treasure at command, it werefolly to be a poor man any longer. Tomorrow morning I will begin withthe garret, nor desist till I have torn the house down."
Deep in the chimney-corner, like a witch in a dark cavern, sat alittle old woman mending one of the two pairs of stockings wherewithPeter Goldthwaite kept his toes from being frost-bitten. As the feetwere ragged past all darning, she had cut pieces out of a cast-offflannel petticoat to make new soles. Tabitha Porter was an old maidupward of sixty years of age, fifty-five of which she had sat in thatsame chimney-corner, such being the length of time since Peter'sgrandfather had taken her from the almshouse. She had no friend butPeter, nor Peter any friend but Tabitha; so long as Peter might have ashelter for his own head, Tabitha would know where to shelter hers,or, being homeless elsewhere, she would take her master by the handand bring him to her native home, the almshouse. Should it ever benecessary, she loved him well enough to feed him with her last morseland clothe him with her under-petticoat. But Tabitha was a queer oldwoman, and, though never infected with Peter's flightiness, had becomeso accustomed to his freaks and follies that she viewed them all asmatters of course. Hearing him threaten to tear the house down, shelooked quietly up from her work.
"Best leave the kitchen till the last, Mr. Peter," said she.
"The sooner we have it all down, the better," said Peter Goldthwaite."I am tired to death of living in this cold, dark, windy, smoky,creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger manwhen we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please Heaven, weshall by this time next autumn. You shall have a room on the sunnyside, old Tabby, finished and furnished as best may suit your ownnotions."
"I should like it pretty much such a room as this kitchen," answeredTabitha. "It will never be like home to me till the chimney-cornergets as black with smoke as this, and that won't be these hundredyears. How much do you mean to lay out on the house, Mr. Peter?"
"What is that to the purpose?" exclaimed Peter, loftily. "Did not mygreat-grand-uncle, Peter Goldthwaite, who died seventy years ago, andwhose namesake I am, leave treasure enough to build twenty such?"
"I can't say but he did, Mr. Peter," said Tabitha, threading herneedle.
Tabitha well understood that Peter had reference to an immense hoardof the precious metals which was said to exist somewhere in the cellaror walls, or under the fl
oors, or in some concealed closet or otherout-of-the-way nook of the old house. This wealth, according totradition, had been accumulated by a former Peter Goldthwaite whosecharacter seems to have borne a remarkable similitude to that of thePeter of our story. Like him, he was a wild projector, seeking to heapup gold by the bushel and the cart-load instead of scraping ittogether coin by coin. Like Peter the second, too, his projects hadalmost invariably failed, and, but for the magnificent success of thefinal one, would have left him with hardly a coat and pair of breechesto his gaunt and grizzled person. Reports were various as to thenature of his fortunate speculation, one intimating that the ancientPeter had made the gold by alchemy; another, that he had conjured itout of people's pockets by the black art; and a third--still moreunaccountable--that the devil had given him free access to the oldprovincial treasury. It was affirmed, however, that some secretimpediment had debarred him from the enjoyment of his riches, and thathe had a motive for concealing them from his heir, or, at any rate,had died without disclosing the place of deposit. The present Peter'sfather had faith enough in the story to cause the cellar to be dugover. Peter himself chose to consider the legend as an indisputabletruth, and amid his many troubles had this one consolation--that,should all other resources fail, he might build up his fortunes bytearing his house down. Yet, unless he felt a lurking distrust of thegolden tale, it is difficult to account for his permitting thepaternal roof to stand so long, since he had never yet seen the momentwhen his predecessor's treasure would not have found plenty of room inhis own strong-box. But now was the crisis. Should he delay the searcha little longer, the house would pass from the lineal heir, and withit the vast heap of gold, to remain in its burial-place till the ruinof the aged walls should discover it to strangers of a futuregeneration.
"Yes," cried Peter Goldthwaite, again; "to-morrow I will set aboutit."
The deeper he looked at the matter, the more certain of success grewPeter. His spirits were naturally so elastic that even now, in theblasted autumn of his age, he could often compete with the springtimegayety of other people. Enlivened by his brightening prospects, hebegan to caper about the kitchen like a hobgoblin, with the queerestantics of his lean limbs and gesticulations of his starved features.Nay, in the exuberance of his feelings, he seized both of Tabitha'shands and danced the old lady across the floor till the oddity of herrheumatic motions set him into a roar of laughter, which was echoedback from the rooms and chambers, as if Peter Goldthwaite werelaughing in every one. Finally, he bounded upward, almost out ofsight, into the smoke that clouded the roof of the kitchen, and,alighting safely on the floor again, endeavored to resume hiscustomary gravity.
"To-morrow, at sunrise," he repeated, taking his lamp to retire tobed, "I'll see whether this treasure be hid in the wall of thegarret."
"And, as we're out of wood, Mr. Peter," said Tabitha, puffing andpanting with her late gymnastics, "as fast as you tear the house downI'll make a fire with the pieces."
Gorgeous that night were the dreams of Peter Goldthwaite. At one timehe was turning a ponderous key in an iron door not unlike the door ofa sepulchre, but which, being opened, disclosed a vault heaped up withgold coin as plentifully as golden corn in a granary. There werechased goblets, also, and tureens, salvers, dinner-dishes anddish-covers of gold or silver-gilt, besides chains and other jewels,incalculably rich, though tarnished with the damps of the vault; for,of all the wealth that was irrevocably lost to man, whether buried inthe earth or sunken in the sea, Peter Goldthwaite had found it in thisone treasure-place. Anon he had returned to the old house as poor asever, and was received at the door by the gaunt and grizzled figure ofa man whom he might have mistaken for himself, only that his garmentswere of a much elder fashion. But the house, without losing its formeraspect, had been changed into a palace of the precious metals. Thefloors, walls and ceilings were of burnished silver; the doors, thewindow-frames, the cornices, the balustrades and the steps of thestaircase, of pure gold; and silver, with gold bottoms, were thechairs, and gold, standing on silver legs, the high chests of drawers,and silver the bedsteads, with blankets of woven gold and sheets ofsilver tissue. The house had evidently been transmuted by a singletouch, for it retained all the marks that Peter remembered, but ingold or silver instead of wood, and the initials of his name--whichwhen a boy he had cut in the wooden door-post--remained as deep in thepillar of gold. A happy man would have been Peter Goldthwaite exceptfor a certain ocular deception which, whenever he glanced backward,caused the house to darken from its glittering magnificence into thesordid gloom of yesterday.
Up betimes rose Peter, seized an axe, hammer and saw which he hadplaced by his bedside, and hied him to the garret. It was but scantilylighted up as yet by the frosty fragments of a sunbeam which began toglimmer through the almost opaque bull-eyes of the window. A moralizermight find abundant themes for his speculative and impracticablewisdom in a garret. There is the limbo of departed fashions, agedtrifles of a day and whatever was valuable only to one generation ofmen, and which passed to the garret when that generation passed to thegrave--not for safekeeping, but to be out of the way. Peter saw pilesof yellow and musty account-books in parchment covers, whereincreditors long dead and buried had written the names of dead andburied debtors in ink now so faded that their moss-grown tombstoneswere more legible. He found old moth-eaten garments, all in rags andtatters, or Peter would have put them on. Here was a naked and rustysword--not a sword of service, but a gentleman's small Frenchrapier--which had never left its scabbard till it lost it. Here werecanes of twenty different sorts, but no gold-headed ones, andshoebuckles of various pattern and material, but not silver nor setwith precious stones. Here was a large box full of shoes with highheels and peaked toes. Here, on a shelf, were a multitude of phialshalf filled with old apothecary's stuff which, when the other half haddone its business on Peter's ancestors, had been brought hither fromthe death-chamber. Here--not to give a longer inventory of articlesthat will never be put up at auction--was the fragment of afull-length looking-glass which by the dust and dimness of its surfacemade the picture of these old things look older than the reality. WhenPeter, not knowing that there was a mirror there, caught the fainttraces of his own figure, he partly imagined that the former PeterGoldthwaite had come back either to assist or impede his search forthe hidden wealth. And at that moment a strange notion glimmeredthrough his brain that he was the identical Peter who had concealedthe gold, and ought to know whereabout it lay. This, however, he hadunaccountably forgotten.
"Well, Mr. Peter!" cried Tabitha, on the garret stairs. "Have you tornthe house down enough to heat the teakettle?"
"Not yet, old Tabby," answered Peter, "but that's soon done, as youshall see." With the word in his mouth, he uplifted the axe, and laidabout him so vigorously that the dust flew, the boards crashed, and ina twinkling the old woman had an apron full of broken rubbish.
"We shall get our winter's wood cheap," quoth Tabitha.
The good work being thus commenced, Peter beat down all before him,smiting and hewing at the joints and timbers, unclenching spike-nails,ripping and tearing away boards, with a tremendous racket from morningtill night. He took care, however, to leave the outside shell of thehouse untouched, so that the neighbors might not suspect what wasgoing on.
Never, in any of his vagaries, though each had made him happy while itlasted, had Peter been happier than now. Perhaps, after all, there wassomething in Peter Goldthwaite's turn of mind which brought him aninward recompense for all the external evil that it caused. If he werepoor, ill-clad, even hungry and exposed, as it were, to be utterlyannihilated by a precipice of impending ruin, yet only his bodyremained in these miserable circumstances, while his aspiring soulenjoyed the sunshine of a bright futurity. It was his nature to bealways young, and the tendency of his mode of life to keep him so.Gray hairs were nothing--no, nor wrinkles nor infirmity; he might lookold, indeed, and be somewhat disagreeably connected with a gaunt oldfigure much the worse for wear, but the true, the essential Peter wasa y
oung man of high hopes just entering on the world. At the kindlingof each new fire his burnt-out youth rose afresh from the old embersand ashes. It rose exulting now. Having lived thus long--not too long,but just to the right age--a susceptible bachelor with warm and tenderdreams, he resolved, so soon as the hidden gold should flash to light,to go a-wooing and win the love of the fairest maid in town. Whatheart could resist him? Happy Peter Goldthwaite!
Every evening--as Peter had long absented himself from his formerlounging-places at insurance offices, news-rooms, and book-stores, andas the honor of his company was seldom requested in privatecircles--he and Tabitha used to sit down sociably by the kitchenhearth. This was always heaped plentifully with the rubbish of hisday's labor. As the foundation of the fire there would be agoodly-sized back-log of red oak, which after being sheltered fromrain or damp above a century still hissed with the heat and distilledstreams of water from each end, as if the tree had been cut downwithin a week or two. Next there were large sticks, sound, black andheavy, which had lost the principle of decay and were indestructibleexcept by fire, wherein they glowed like red-hot bars of iron. On thissolid basis Tabitha would rear a lighter structure, composed of thesplinters of door-panels, ornamented mouldings, and such quickcombustibles, which caught like straw and threw a brilliant blaze highup the spacious flue, making its sooty sides visible almost to thechimney-top. Meantime, the gloom of the old kitchen would be chasedout of the cobwebbed corners and away from the dusky cross-beamsoverhead, and driven nobody could tell whither, while Peter smiledlike a gladsome man and Tabitha seemed a picture of comfortable age.All this, of course, was but an emblem of the bright fortune which thedestruction of the house would shed upon its occupants.
While the dry pine was flaming and crackling like an irregulardischarge of fairy-musketry, Peter sat looking and listening in apleasant state of excitement; but when the brief blaze and uproar weresucceeded by the dark-red glow, the substantial heat and the deepsinging sound which were to last throughout the evening, his humorbecame talkative. One night--the hundredth time--he teased Tabitha totell him something new about his great-granduncle.
"You have been sitting in that chimney-corner fifty-five years, oldTabby, and must have heard many a tradition about him," said Peter."Did not you tell me that when you first came to the house there wasan old woman sitting where you sit now who had been housekeeper to thefamous Peter Goldthwaite?"
"So there was, Mr. Peter," answered Tabitha, "and she was near about ahundred years old. She used to say that she and old Peter Goldthwaitehad often spent a sociable evening by the kitchen fire--pretty much asyou and I are doing now, Mr. Peter."
"The old fellow must have resembled me in more points than one," saidPeter, complacently, "or he never would have grown so rich. Butmethinks he might have invested the money better than he did. Nointerest! nothing but good security! and the house to be torn down tocome at it! What made him hide it so snug, Tabby?"
"Because he could not spend it," said Tabitha, "for as often as hewent to unlock the chest the Old Scratch came behind and caught hisarm. The money, they say, was paid Peter out of his purse, and hewanted Peter to give him a deed of this house and land, which Peterswore he would not do."
"Just as I swore to John Brown, my old partner," remarked Peter. "Butthis is all nonsense, Tabby; I don't believe the story."
"Well, it may not be just the truth," said Tabitha, "for some folkssay that Peter did make over the house to the Old Scratch, and that'sthe reason it has always been so unlucky to them that lived in it. Andas soon as Peter had given him the deed the chest flew open, and Petercaught up a handful of the gold. But, lo and behold! there was nothingin his fist but a parcel of old rags."
"Hold your tongue, you silly old Tabby!" cried Peter, in great wrath."They were as good golden guineas as ever bore the effigies of theking of England. It seems as if I could recollect the wholecircumstance, and how I, or old Peter, or whoever it was, thrust in myhand, or his hand, and drew it out all of a blaze with gold. Old ragsindeed!"
But it was not an old woman's legend that would discourage PeterGoldthwaite. All night long he slept among pleasant dreams, and awokeat daylight with a joyous throb of the heart which few are fortunateenough to feel beyond their boyhood. Day after day he labored hardwithout wasting a moment except at meal-times, when Tabitha summonedhim to the pork and cabbage, or such other sustenance as she hadpicked up or Providence had sent them. Being a truly pious man, Peternever failed to ask a blessing--if the food were none of the best,then so much the more earnestly, as it was more needed--nor to returnthanks, if the dinner had been scanty, yet for the good appetite whichwas better than a sick stomach at a feast. Then did he hurry back tohis toil, and in a moment was lost to sight in a cloud of dust fromthe old walls, though sufficiently perceptible to the ear by theclatter which he raised in the midst of it.
How enviable is the consciousness of being usefully employed! Nothingtroubled Peter, or nothing but those phantoms of the mind which seemlike vague recollections, yet have also the aspect of presentiments.He often paused with his axe uplifted in the air, and said to himself,"Peter Goldthwaite, did you never strike this blow before?" or "Peter,what need of tearing the whole house down? Think a little while, andyou will remember where the gold is hidden." Days and weeks passed on,however, without any remarkable discovery. Sometimes, indeed, a leangray rat peeped forth at the lean gray man, wondering what devil hadgot into the old house, which had always been so peaceable till now.And occasionally Peter sympathized with the sorrows of a female mousewho had brought five or six pretty, little, soft and delicate youngones into the world just in time to see them crushed by its ruin. Butas yet no treasure.
By this time, Peter, being as determined as fate and as diligent astime, had made an end with the uppermost regions and got down to thesecond story, where he was busy in one of the front chambers. It hadformerly been the state-bedchamber, and was honored by tradition asthe sleeping-apartment of Governor Dudley and many other eminentguests. The furniture was gone. There were remnants of faded andtattered paper-hangings, but larger spaces of bare wall ornamentedwith charcoal sketches, chiefly of people's heads in profile. Thesebeing specimens of Peter's youthful genius, it went more to his heartto obliterate them than if they had been pictures on a church wall byMichael Angelo. One sketch, however, and that the best one, affectedhim differently. It represented a ragged man partly supporting himselfon a spade and bending his lean body over a hole in the earth, withone hand extended to grasp something that he had found. But closebehind him, with a fiendish laugh on his features, appeared a figurewith horns, a tufted tail and a cloven hoof.
"Avaunt, Satan!" cried Peter. "The man shall have his gold." Upliftinghis axe, he hit the horned gentleman such a blow on the head as notonly demolished him, but the treasure-seeker also, and caused thewhole scene to vanish like magic. Moreover, his axe broke quitethrough the plaster and laths and discovered a cavity.
"Mercy on us, Mr. Peter! Are you quarrelling with the Old Scratch?"said Tabitha, who was seeking some fuel to put under the dinner-pot.
Without answering the old woman, Peter broke down a further space ofthe wall, and laid open a small closet or cupboard on one side of thefireplace, about breast-high from the ground. It contained nothing buta brass lamp covered with verdigris, and a dusty piece of parchment.While Peter inspected the latter, Tabitha seized the lamp and began torub it with her apron.
"There is no use in rubbing it, Tabitha," said Peter. "It is notAladdin's lamp, though I take it to be a token of as much luck. Lookhere, Tabby!"
Tabitha took the parchment and held it close to her nose, which wassaddled with a pair of iron-bound spectacles. But no sooner had shebegun to puzzle over it than she burst into a chuckling laugh, holdingboth her hands against her sides.
"You can't make a fool of the old woman," cried she. "This is your ownhandwriting, Mr. Peter, the same as in the letter you sent me fromMexico."
"There is certainly a considerable resemblance," said
Peter, againexamining the parchment. "But you know yourself, Tabby, that thiscloset must have been plastered up before you came to the house or Icame into the world. No; this is old Peter Goldthwaite's writing.These columns of pounds, shillings and pence are his figures, denotingthe amount of the treasure, and this, at the bottom, is doubtless areference to the place of concealment. But the ink has either faded orpeeled off, so that it is absolutely illegible. What a pity!"
"Well, this lamp is as good as new. That's some comfort," saidTabitha.
"A lamp!" thought Peter. "That indicates light on my researches."
For the present Peter felt more inclined to ponder on this discoverythan to resume his labors. After Tabitha had gone down stairs he stoodporing over the parchment at one of the front windows, which was soobscured with dust that the sun could barely throw an uncertain shadowof the casement across the floor. Peter forced it open and looked outupon the great street of the town, while the sun looked in at his oldhouse. The air, though mild, and even warm, thrilled Peter as with adash of water.
It was the first day of the January thaw. The snow lay deep upon thehousetops, but was rapidly dissolving into millions of water-drops,which sparkled downward through the sunshine with the noise of asummer shower beneath the eaves. Along the street the trodden snow wasas hard and solid as a pavement of white marble, and had not yet grownmoist in the spring-like temperature. But when Peter thrust forth hishead, he saw that the inhabitants, if not the town, were alreadythawed out by this warm day, after two or three weeks of winterweather. It gladdened him--a gladness with a sigh breathing throughit--to see the stream of ladies gliding along the slippery sidewalkswith their red cheeks set off by quilted hoods, boas and sable capeslike roses amidst a new kind of foliage. The sleigh bells jingled toand fro continually, sometimes announcing the arrival of a sleigh fromVermont laden with the frozen bodies of porkers or sheep, and perhapsa deer or two; sometimes, of a regular marketman with chickens, geeseand turkeys, comprising the whole colony of a barn-yard; andsometimes, of a farmer and his dame who had come to town partly forthe ride, partly to go a-shopping and partly for the sale of some eggsand butter. This couple rode in an old-fashioned square sleigh whichhad served them twenty winters and stood twenty summers in the sunbeside their door. Now a gentleman and lady skimmed the snow in anelegant car shaped somewhat like a cockle-shell; now a stage-sleighwith its cloth curtains thrust aside to admit the sun dashed rapidlydown the street, whirling in and out among the vehicles thatobstructed its passage; now came round a corner the similitude ofNoah's ark on runners, being an immense open sleigh with seats forfifty people and drawn by a dozen horses. This spacious receptacle waspopulous with merry maids and merry bachelors, merry girls and boysand merry old folks, all alive with fun and grinning to the full widthof their mouths. They kept up a buzz of babbling voices and lowlaughter, and sometimes burst into a deep, joyous shout which thespectators answered with three cheers, while a gang of roguish boyslet drive their snow-balls right among the pleasure-party. The sleighpassed on, and when concealed by a bend of the street was stillaudible by a distant cry of merriment.
Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene than was constituted by allthese accessories--the bright sun, the flashing water-drops, thegleaming snow, the cheerful multitude, the variety of rapid vehiclesand the jingle-jangle of merry bells which made the heart dance totheir music. Nothing dismal was to be seen except that peaked piece ofantiquity Peter Goldthwaite's house, which might well look sadexternally, since such a terrible consumption was preying on itsinsides. And Peter's gaunt figure, half visible in the projectingsecond story, was worthy of his house.
"Peter! How goes it, friend Peter?" cried a voice across the street asPeter was drawing in his head. "Look out here, Peter!"
Peter looked, and saw his old partner, Mr. John Brown, on the oppositesidewalk, portly and comfortable, with his furred cloak thrown open,disclosing a handsome surtout beneath. His voice had directed theattention of the whole town to Peter Goldthwaite's window, and to thedusty scarecrow which appeared at it.
"I say, Peter!" cried Mr. Brown, again; "what the devil are you aboutthere, that I hear such a racket whenever I pass by? You are repairingthe old house, I suppose, making a new one of it? Eh?"
"Too late for that, I am afraid, Mr. Brown," replied Peter. "If I makeit new, it will be new inside and out, from the cellar upward."
"Had not you better let me take the job?" said Mr. Brown,significantly.
"Not yet," answered Peter, hastily shutting the window; for ever sincehe had been in search of the treasure he hated to have people stare athim.
As he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty, yet proud of thesecret wealth within his grasp, a haughty smile shone out on Peter'svisage with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalidchamber. He endeavored to assume such a mien as his ancestor hadprobably worn when he gloried in the building of a strong house for ahome to many generations of his posterity. But the chamber was verydark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very dismal, too, in contrast withthe living scene that he had just looked upon. His brief glimpse intothe street had given him a forcible impression of the manner in whichthe world kept itself cheerful and prosperous by social pleasures andan intercourse of business, while he in seclusion was pursuing anobject that might possibly be a phantasm by a method which most peoplewould call madness. It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode oflife that each person rectifies his mind by other minds and squareshis conduct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to be lost ineccentricity. Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influenceby merely looking out of the window. For a while he doubted whetherthere were any hidden chest of gold, and in that case whether it wasso exceedingly wise to tear the house down only to be convinced of itsnon-existence.
But this was momentary. Peter the Destroyer resumed the task whichFate had assigned him, nor faltered again till it was accomplished. Inthe course of his search he met with many things that are usuallyfound in the ruins of an old house, and also with some that are not.What seemed most to the purpose was a rusty key which had been thrustinto a chink of the wall, with a wooden label appended to the handle,bearing the initials "P.G." Another singular discovery was that of abottle of wine walled up in an old oven. A tradition ran in the familythat Peter's grandfather, a jovial officer in the old French war, hadset aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the benefit of topersthen unborn. Peter needed no cordial to sustain his hopes, andtherefore kept the wine to gladden his success. Many half-pence did hepick up that had been lost through the cracks of the floor, and somefew Spanish coins, and the half of a broken sixpence which haddoubtless been a love-token. There was likewise a silver coronationmedal of George III. But old Peter Goldthwaite's strong-box fled fromone dark corner to another, or otherwise eluded the second Peter'sclutches till, should he seek much farther, he must burrow into theearth.
We will not follow him in his triumphant progress step by step.Suffice it that Peter worked like a steam-engine and finished in thatone winter the job which all the former inhabitants of the house, withtime and the elements to aid them, had only half done in a century.Except the kitchen, every room and chamber was now gutted. The housewas nothing but a shell, the apparition of a house, as unreal as thepainted edifices of a theatre. It was like the perfect rind of a greatcheese in which a mouse had dwelt and nibbled till it was a cheese nomore. And Peter was the mouse.
What Peter had torn down, Tabitha had burnt up, for she wiselyconsidered that without a house they should need no wood to warm it,and therefore economy was nonsense. Thus the whole house might be saidto have dissolved in smoke and flown up among the clouds through thegreat black flue of the kitchen chimney. It was an admirable parallelto the feat of the man who jumped down his own throat.
On the night between the last day of winter and the first of springevery chink and cranny had been ransacked except within the precinctsof the kitchen. This fated evening was an ugly one. A snow-storm hadset in some hours before, and was s
till driven and tossed about theatmosphere by a real hurricane which fought against the house as ifthe prince of the air in person were putting the final stroke toPeter's labors. The framework being so much weakened and the inwardprops removed, it would have been no marvel if in some strongerwrestle of the blast the rotten walls of the edifice and all thepeaked roofs had come crashing down upon the owner's head. He,however, was careless of the peril, but as wild and restless as thenight itself, or as the flame that quivered up the chimney at eachroar of the tempestuous wind.
"The wine, Tabitha," he cried--"my grandfather's rich old wine! Wewill drink it now."
Tabitha arose from her smoke-blackened bench in the chimney-corner andplaced the bottle before Peter, close beside the old brass lamp whichhad likewise been the prize of his researches. Peter held it beforehis eyes, and, looking through the liquid medium, beheld the kitchenilluminated with a golden glory which also enveloped Tabitha andgilded her silver hair and converted her mean garments into robes ofqueenly splendor. It reminded him of his golden dream.
"Mr. Peter," remarked Tabitha, "must the wine be drunk before themoney is found?"
"The money _is_ found!" exclaimed Peter, with a sort of fierceness."The chest is within my reach; I will not sleep till I have turnedthis key in the rusty lock. But first of all let us drink."
There being no corkscrew in the house, he smote the neck of the bottlewith old Peter Goldthwaite's rusty key, and decapitated the sealedcork at a single blow. He then filled two little china teacups whichTabitha had brought from the cupboard. So clear and brilliant was thisaged wine that it shone within the cups and rendered the sprig ofscarlet flowers at the bottom of each more distinctly visible thanwhen there had been no wine there. Its rich and delicate perfumewasted itself round the kitchen.
"Drink, Tabitha!" cried Peter. "Blessings on the honest old fellow whoset aside this good liquor for you and me! And here's to PeterGoldthwaite's memory!"
"And good cause have we to remember him," quoth Tabitha as she drank.
How many years, and through what changes of fortune and variouscalamity, had that bottle hoarded up its effervescent joy, to bequaffed at last by two such boon-companions! A portion of thehappiness of a former age had been kept for them, and was now set freein a crowd of rejoicing visions to sport amid the storm and desolationof the present time. Until they have finished the bottle we must turnour eyes elsewhere.
It so chanced that on this stormy night Mr. John Brown found himselfill at ease in his wire-cushioned arm-chair by the glowing grate ofanthracite which heated his handsome parlor. He was naturally a goodsort of a man, and kind and pitiful whenever the misfortunes of othershappened to reach his heart through the padded vest of his ownprosperity. This evening he had thought much about his old partner,Peter Goldthwaite, his strange vagaries and continual ill-luck, thepoverty of his dwelling at Mr. Brown's last visit, and Peter's crazedand haggard aspect when he had talked with him at the window.
"Poor fellow!" thought Mr. John Brown. "Poor crack-brained PeterGoldthwaite! For old acquaintance' sake I ought to have taken carethat he was comfortable this rough winter." These feelings grew sopowerful that, in spite of the inclement weather, he resolved to visitPeter Goldthwaite immediately.
The strength of the impulse was really singular. Every shriek of theblast seemed a summons, or would have seemed so had Mr. Brown beenaccustomed to hear the echoes of his own fancy in the wind. Muchamazed at such active benevolence, he huddled himself in his cloak,muffled his throat and ears in comforters and handkerchiefs, and, thusfortified, bade defiance to the tempest. But the powers of the air hadrather the best of the battle. Mr. Brown was just weathering thecorner by Peter Goldthwaite's house when the hurricane caught him offhis feet, tossed him face downward into a snow-bank and proceeded tobury his protuberant part beneath fresh drifts. There seemed littlehope of his reappearance earlier than the next thaw. At the samemoment his hat was snatched away and whirled aloft into somefar-distant region whence no tidings have as yet returned.
Nevertheless Mr. Brown contrived to burrow a passage through thesnow-drift, and with his bare head bent against the storm flounderedonward to Peter's door. There was such a creaking and groaning andrattling, and such an ominous shaking, throughout the crazy edificethat the loudest rap would have been inaudible to those within. Hetherefore entered without ceremony, and groped his way to the kitchen.His intrusion even there was unnoticed. Peter and Tabitha stood withtheir backs to the door, stooping over a large chest which apparentlythey had just dragged from a cavity or concealed closet on the leftside of the chimney. By the lamp in the old woman's hand Mr. Brown sawthat the chest was barred and clamped with iron, strengthened withiron plates and studded with iron nails, so as to be a fit receptaclein which the wealth of one century might be hoarded up for the wantsof another.
Peter Goldthwaite was inserting a key into the lock.
"Oh, Tabitha," cried he, with tremulous rapture, "how shall I endurethe effulgence? The gold!--the bright, bright gold! Methinks I canremember my last glance at it just as the iron-plated lid fell down.And ever since, being seventy years, it has been blazing in secret andgathering its splendor against this glorious moment. It will flashupon us like the noonday sun."
"Then shade your eyes, Mr. Peter!" said Tabitha, with somewhat lesspatience than usual. "But, for mercy's sake, do turn the key!"
And with a strong effort of both hands Peter did force the rusty keythrough the intricacies of the rusty lock. Mr. Brown, in the meantime, had drawn near and thrust his eager visage between those of theother two at the instant that Peter threw up the lid. No sudden blazeilluminated the kitchen.
"What's here?" exclaimed Tabitha, adjusting her spectacles and holdingthe lamp over the open chest. "Old Peter Goldthwaite's hoard of oldrags!"
"Pretty much so, Tabby," said Mr. Brown, lifting a handful of thetreasure.
Oh what a ghost of dead and buried wealth had Peter Goldthwaite raisedto scare himself out of his scanty wits withal! Here was the semblanceof an incalculable sum, enough to purchase the whole town and buildevery street anew, but which, vast as it was, no sane man would havegiven a solid sixpence for. What, then, in sober earnest, were thedelusive treasures of the chest? Why, here were old provincial billsof credit and treasury notes and bills of land-banks, and all otherbubbles of the sort, from the first issue--above a century and a halfago--down nearly to the Revolution. Bills of a thousand pounds wereintermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no more than they.
"And this, then, is old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure!" said JohnBrown. "Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself; and whenthe provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five percent, he bought it up in expectation of a rise. I have heard mygrandfather say that old Peter gave his father a mortgage of this veryhouse and land to raise cash for his silly project. But the currencykept sinking till nobody would take it as a gift, and there was oldPeter Goldthwaite, like Peter the second, with thousands in hisstrong-box and hardly a coat to his back. He went mad upon thestrength of it. But never mind, Peter; it is just the sort of capitalfor building castles in the air."
"The house will be down about our ears," cried Tabitha as the windshook it with increasing violence.
"Let it fall," said Peter, folding his arms, as he seated himself uponthe chest.
"No, no, my old friend Peter!" said John Brown. "I have house-room foryou and Tabby, and a safe vault for the chest of treasure. To-morrowwe will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house;real estate is well up, and I could afford you a pretty handsomeprice."
"And I," observed Peter Goldthwaite, with reviving spirits, "have aplan for laying out the cash to great advantage."
"Why, as to that," muttered John Brown to himself, "we must apply tothe next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash; and ifPeter insists upon speculating, he may do it to his heart's contentwith old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure."
Twice Told Tales Page 32