The House of the Seven Gables

At this juncture, Maule turned to Mr. Pyncheon.

"It will never be allowed," said he. "The custody of this secret, that

would so enrich his heirs, makes part of your grandfather's

retribution. He must choke with it until it is no longer of any value.

And keep you the House of the Seven Gables! It is too dear bought an

inheritance, and too heavy with the curse upon it, to be shifted yet

awhile from the Colonel's posterity."

Mr. Pyncheon tried to speak, but--what with fear and passion--could

make only a gurgling murmur in his throat. The carpenter smiled.

"Aha, worshipful sir!--so you have old Maule's blood to drink!" said he

jeeringly.

"Fiend in man's shape! why dost thou keep dominion over my child?"

cried Mr. Pyncheon, when his choked utterance could make way. "Give me

back my daughter. Then go thy ways; and may we never meet again!"

"Your daughter!" said Matthew Maule. "Why, she is fairly mine!

Nevertheless, not to be too hard with fair Mistress Alice, I will leave

her in your keeping; but I do not warrant you that she shall never have

occasion to remember Maule, the carpenter."

He waved his hands with an upward motion; and, after a few repetitions

of similar gestures, the beautiful Alice Pyncheon awoke from her

strange trance. She awoke without the slightest recollection of her

visionary experience; but as one losing herself in a momentary reverie,

and returning to the consciousness of actual life, in almost as brief

an interval as the down-sinking flame of the hearth should quiver again

up the chimney. On recognizing Matthew Maule, she assumed an air of

somewhat cold but gentle dignity, the rather, as there was a certain

peculiar smile on the carpenter's visage that stirred the native pride

of the fair Alice. So ended, for that time, the quest for the lost

title-deed of the Pyncheon territory at the Eastward; nor, though often

subsequently renewed, has it ever yet befallen a Pyncheon to set his

eye upon that parchment.

But, alas for the beautiful, the gentle, yet too haughty Alice! A

power that she little dreamed of had laid its grasp upon her maiden

soul. A will, most unlike her own, constrained her to do its grotesque

and fantastic bidding. Her father as it proved, had martyred his poor

child to an inordinate desire for measuring his land by miles instead

of acres. And, therefore, while Alice Pyncheon lived, she was Maule's

slave, in a bondage more humiliating, a thousand-fold, than that which

binds its chain around the body. Seated by his humble fireside, Maule

had but to wave his hand; and, wherever the proud lady chanced to

be,--whether in her chamber, or entertaining her father's stately

guests, or worshipping at church,--whatever her place or occupation,

her spirit passed from beneath her own control, and bowed itself to

Maule. "Alice, laugh!"--the carpenter, beside his hearth, would say;

or perhaps intensely will it, without a spoken word. And, even were it

prayer-time, or at a funeral, Alice must break into wild laughter.

"Alice, be sad!"--and, at the instant, down would come her tears,

quenching all the mirth of those around her like sudden rain upon a

bonfire. "Alice, dance."--and dance she would, not in such court-like

measures as she had learned abroad, but some high-paced jig, or

hop-skip rigadoon, befitting the brisk lasses at a rustic merry-making.

It seemed to be Maule's impulse, not to ruin Alice, nor to visit her

with any black or gigantic mischief, which would have crowned her

sorrows with the grace of tragedy, but to wreak a low, ungenerous scorn

upon her. Thus all the dignity of life was lost. She felt herself too

much abased, and longed to change natures with some worm!