Twice-told tales
to unlock the chest the Old Scratch came behind and caught his arm. The
money, they say, was paid Peter out of his purse, and he wanted Peter
to give him a deed of this house and land, which Peter swore he would
not do.”
“Just as I swore to John Brown, my old partner,” remarked Peter. “But
this is all nonsense, Tabby; I don’t believe the story.”
“Well, it may not be just the truth,” said Tabitha, “for some folks say
that Peter did make over the house to the Old Scratch, and that’s the
reason it has always been so unlucky to them that lived in it. And as
soon as Peter had given him the deed the chest flew open, and Peter
caught up a handful of the gold. But, lo and behold! there was nothing
in 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 the king
of England. It seems as if I could recollect the whole circumstance,
and how I, or old Peter, or whoever it was, thrust in my hand, or his
hand, and drew it out all of a blaze with gold. Old rags indeed!”
But it was not an old woman’s legend that would discourage Peter
Goldthwaite. All night long he slept among pleasant dreams, and awoke
at daylight with a joyous throb of the heart which few are fortunate
enough to feel beyond their boyhood. Day after day he labored hard
without wasting a moment except at meal-times, when Tabitha summoned
him to the pork and cabbage, or such other sustenance as she had picked
up or Providence had sent them. Being a truly pious man, Peter never
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 return thanks, if
the dinner had been scanty, yet for the good appetite which was better
than a sick stomach at a feast. Then did he hurry back to his toil, and
in a moment was lost to sight in a cloud of dust from the old walls,
though sufficiently perceptible to the ear by the clatter which he
raised in the midst of it.
How enviable is the consciousness of being usefully employed! Nothing
troubled Peter, or nothing but those phantoms of the mind which seem
like 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, and
you will remember where the gold is hidden.” Days and weeks passed on,
however, without any remarkable discovery. Sometimes, indeed, a lean
gray rat peeped forth at the lean gray man, wondering what devil had
got into the old house, which had always been so peaceable till now.
And occasionally Peter sympathized with the sorrows of a female mouse
who had brought five or six pretty, little, soft and delicate young
ones into the world just in time to see them crushed by its ruin. But
as yet no treasure.
By this time, Peter, being as determined as fate and as diligent as
time, had made an end with the uppermost regions and got down to the
second story, where he was busy in one of the front chambers. It had
formerly been the state-bedchamber, and was honored by tradition as the
sleeping-apartment of Governor Dudley and many other eminent guests.
The furniture was gone. There were remnants of faded and tattered
paper-hangings, but larger spaces of bare wall ornamented with charcoal
sketches, chiefly of people’s heads in profile. These being specimens
of Peter’s youthful genius, it went more to his heart to obliterate
them than if they had been pictures on a church wall by Michael Angelo.
One sketch, however, and that the best one, affected him differently.
It represented a ragged man partly supporting himself on a spade and
bending his lean body over a hole in the earth, with one hand extended
to grasp something that he had found. But close behind him, with a
fiendish laugh on his features, appeared a figure with horns, a tufted
tail and a cloven hoof.
“Avaunt, Satan!” cried Peter. “The man shall have his gold.” Uplifting
his axe, he hit the horned gentleman such a blow on the head as not
only demolished him, but the treasure-seeker also, and caused the whole
scene to vanish like magic. Moreover, his axe broke quite through 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 of
the wall, and laid open a small closet or cupboard on one side of the
fireplace, about breast-high from the ground. It contained nothing but
a brass lamp covered with verdigris, and a dusty piece of parchment.
While Peter inspected the latter, Tabitha seized the lamp and began to
rub it with her apron.
“There is no use in rubbing it, Tabitha,” said Peter. “It is not
Aladdin’s lamp, though I take it to be a token of as much luck. Look
here, Tabby!”
Tabitha took the parchment and held it close to her nose, which was
saddled with a pair of iron-bound spectacles. But no sooner had she
begun to puzzle over it than she burst into a chuckling laugh, holding
both her hands against her sides.
“You can’t make a fool of the old woman,” cried she. “This is your own
handwriting, Mr. Peter, the same as in the letter you sent me from
Mexico.”
“There is certainly a considerable resemblance,” said Peter, again
examining the parchment. “But you know yourself, Tabby, that this
closet must have been plastered up before you came to the house or I
came into the world. No; this is old Peter Goldthwaite’s writing. These
columns of pounds, shillings and pence are his figures, denoting the
amount of the treasure, and this, at the bottom, is doubtless a
reference to the place of concealment. But the ink has either faded or
peeled off, so that it is absolutely illegible. What a pity!”
“Well, this lamp is as good as new. That’s some comfort,” said Tabitha.
“A lamp!” thought Peter. “That indicates light on my researches.”
For the present Peter felt more inclined to ponder on this discovery
than to resume his labors. After Tabitha had gone down stairs he stood
poring over the parchment at one of the front windows, which was so
obscured with dust that the sun could barely throw an uncertain shadow
of the casement across the floor. Peter forced it open and looked out
upon the great street of the town, while the sun looked in at his old
house. The air, though mild, and even warm, thrilled Peter as with a
dash of water.
It was the first day of the January thaw. The snow lay deep upon the
housetops, but was rapidly dissolving into millions of water-drops,
which sparkled downward through the sunshine with the noise of a summer
shower beneath the eaves. Along the street the trodden snow was as hard
and solid as a pavement of white marble, and had not yet grown moist in
the spring-like temperature. But when Peter thrust forth his head, he
saw that the inhabitants, if not the town, were already thawed out by
this warm day, after two or three weeks of winter weather. It gladdened
him—a gladness with a sigh breathing through it—to see the stream of
ladies gliding along the slippery sidewalks with their red cheeks set
off by quilted hoods, boas and sable capes like roses amidst a new kind
of foliage. The sleigh bells jingled to and fro continually, sometimes
announcing the arrival of a sleigh from Vermont laden with the frozen
bodies of porkers or sheep, and perhaps a deer or two; sometimes, of a
regular marketman with chickens, geese and turkeys, comprising the
whole colony of a barn-yard; and sometimes, of a farmer and his dame
who had come to town partly for the ride, partly to go a-shopping and
partly for the sale of some eggs and butter. This couple rode in an
old-fashioned square sleigh which had served them twenty winters and
stood twenty summers in the sun beside their door. Now a gentleman and
lady skimmed the snow in an elegant car shaped somewhat like a
cockle-shell; now a stage-sleigh with its cloth curtains thrust aside
to admit the sun dashed rapidly down the street, whirling in and out
among the vehicles that obstructed its passage; now came round a corner
the similitude of Noah’s ark on runners, being an immense open sleigh
with seats for fifty people and drawn by a dozen horses. This spacious
receptacle was populous with merry maids and merry bachelors, merry
girls and boys and merry old folks, all alive with fun and grinning to
the full width of their mouths. They kept up a buzz of babbling voices
and low laughter, and sometimes burst into a deep, joyous shout which
the spectators answered with three cheers, while a gang of roguish boys
let drive their snow-balls right among the pleasure-party. The sleigh
passed on, and when concealed by a bend of the street was still audible
by a distant cry of merriment.
Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene than was constituted by all
these accessories—the bright sun, the flashing water-drops, the
gleaming snow, the cheerful multitude, the variety of rapid vehicles
and the jingle-jangle of merry bells which made the heart dance to
their music. Nothing dismal was to be seen except that peaked piece of
antiquity Peter Goldthwaite’s house, which might well look sad
externally, since such a terrible consumption was preying on its
insides. And Peter’s gaunt figure, half visible in the projecting
second story, was worthy of his house.
“Peter! How goes it, friend Peter?” cried a voice across the street as
Peter was drawing in his head. “Look out here, Peter!”
Peter looked, and saw his old partner, Mr. John Brown, on the opposite
sidewalk, portly and comfortable, with his furred cloak thrown open,
disclosing a handsome surtout beneath. His voice had directed the
attention of the whole town to Peter Goldthwaite’s window, and to the
dusty scarecrow which appeared at it.
“I say, Peter!” cried Mr. Brown, again; “what the devil are you about
there, that I hear such a racket whenever I pass by? You are repairing
the old house, I suppose, making a new one of it? Eh?”
“Too late for that, I am afraid, Mr. Brown,” replied Peter. “If I make
it 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 since
he had been in search of the treasure he hated to have people stare at
him.
As he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty, yet proud of the
secret wealth within his grasp, a haughty smile shone out on Peter’s
visage with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalid
chamber. He endeavored to assume such a mien as his ancestor had
probably worn when he gloried in the building of a strong house for a
home to many generations of his posterity. But the chamber was very
dark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very dismal, too, in contrast with
the living scene that he had just looked upon. His brief glimpse into
the street had given him a forcible impression of the manner in which
the world kept itself cheerful and prosperous by social pleasures and
an intercourse of business, while he in seclusion was pursuing an
object that might possibly be a phantasm by a method which most people
would call madness. It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of
life that each person rectifies his mind by other minds and squares his
conduct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to be lost in
eccentricity. Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influence
by merely looking out of the window. For a while he doubted whether
there were any hidden chest of gold, and in that case whether it was so
exceedingly wise to tear the house down only to be convinced of its