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September (search for this): chapter 3
the wall. It was a whim of his, he said; and once only I got out of him something about the resemblance of the house to some Portuguese mansion, --at Madeira, perhaps, or at Rio Janeiro, but he did not say,--with which he had no pleasant associations. Yet he afterwards seemed to wish to deny this remark, or to confuse my impressions of it, which naturally fixed it the better in my mind. I remember well the morning when he was at last coaxed into approaching the house. It was late in September, and a day of perfect calm. As we looked from the broad piazza, there was a glassy smoothness over all the bay, and the hills were coated with a film, or rather a mere varnish, inconceivably thin, of haze more delicate than any other climate in America can show. Over the water there were white gulls flying, lazy and low; schools of young mackerel displayed their white sides above the surface; and it seemed as if even a butterfly might be seen for miles over that calm expanse. The bay wa
Minerva (search for this): chapter 3
' season, and the fishermen found there a favorite lounging-place; but nobody scaled the wall of the house save myself, and I went there very often. The gate was sometimes opened by Paul, the silent Bavarian gardener, who was master of the keys; and there were also certain great cats that were always sunning themselves on the steps, and seemed to have grown old and gray in waiting for mice that had never come. They looked as if they knew the past and the future. If the owl is the bird of Minerva, the cat should be her beast; they have the same sleepy air of unfathomable wisdom. There was such a quiet and potent spell about the place that one could almost fancy these constant animals to be the transformed bodies of human visitors who had stayed too long. Who knew what tales might be told by these tall, slender birches, clustering so closely by the sombre walls?--birches which were but whispering shrubs when the first gray stones were laid, and which now reared above the eaves the
Jean Paul (search for this): chapter 3
e very often. The gate was sometimes opened by Paul, the silent Bavarian gardener, who was master oom my own mind, I got the key of the house from Paul, explored it thoroughly, and was satisfied thatcross the doorway. This did no great credit to Paul's stewardship, but was, perhaps, a slight relied. Either it was pure fancy, I said, or it was Paul the gardener. But here he was prepared for mscaled the wall, and looked in at the window of Paul's little cottage, where the man and his wife weclimbed it, as Severance had done, to look into Paul's cottage. That worthy was just getting into b Failing to get any clew, I waited one day for Paul's absence, and made a call upon the wife, underwn by the storm. I therefore went inside, with Paul's household, leaving the fishermen without. lness he told me all he had to tell; and though Paul and his family disappeared next day,--perhaps gs country, and joined her sister, Paul's wife. Paul had received her reluctantly, and only on condi[3 more...]
Rutherford (search for this): chapter 3
then, human. After all, thought I, it is a commonplace thing enough, this masquerading in a cloak and hood. Some one has observed Severance's nocturnal visits, and is amusing himself at his expense. The peculiarity was, that the thing was so well done, and the figure had such an air of dignity, that somehow it was not so easy to make light of it in talking with him. I went into his room, next day. His sick headache, or whatever it was, had come on again, and he was lying on his bed. Rutherford's strange old book on the Second Sight lay open before him. Look there, he said; and I read the motto of a chapter:-- In sunlight one, In shadow none, In moonlight two, In thunder two, Then comes Death. I threw the book indignantly from me, and began to invent doggerel, parodying this precious incantation. But Severance did not seem to enjoy the joke, and it grows tiresome to enact one's own farce and do one's own applauding. For several days after he was laid up in earnest; bu
Severance (search for this): chapter 3
yself. It was easy to explain all this to Severance, but he shook his head. So cool a philosophas called out of town for a week or two. If Severance would go with me, it would doubtless complet was not surprised to hear, soon after, that Severance was seriously ill. This brought me back a. It seemed that, on seeing the two figures, Severance had at once left the piazza, and, with an inough far more faintly than in the sunlight. Severance then joined me, and his reflected shape stoowatched awhile uselessly, and went home with Severance, a good deal puzzled. r By daylight thewith her apron full of turnips, told me that Severance had been missing since nightfall, after beinore than all. Outside the western window lay Severance, his white face against the pane, his eyes geighbor in whom they had placed confidence. Severance, while convalescing at a country-house in Fa just too late for them; and the money which Severance left, as his only reparation for poor Emilia[23 more...]
Fayal (Portugal) (search for this): chapter 3
psized punt. Mother ain't a Bavarian, quoth the young salt. Father's a Bavarian; mother's a Portegee. Portegees wear them hoods. I am a Portuguese, sir, from Fayal, said the woman, prolonging with sweet intonation the soft name of her birthplace. This is my caplote, she added, taking up with pride the uncouth costume, while peculiar local costume with any other. Returning to Severance's chamber, I said nothing of all this. He was, by an odd coincidence, looking over a portfolio of Fayal sketches made by himself during his late voyage. Among them were a dozen studies of just such capotes as I had seen,--some in profile, completely screening the weeck,--I afterwards learned all the remaining facts from the only neighbor in whom they had placed confidence. Severance, while convalescing at a country-house in Fayal, had fallen passionately in love with a young peasant-girl, who had broken off her intended marriage for love of him, and had sunk into a half-imbecile melancholy
Nantucket (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): chapter 3
ad haunted the great house, which, she said, reminded her of her own island, so that she liked to wear thither the capote which had been the pride of her heart at home. On the few occasions when she had caught a glimpse 6f Severance, he had seemed to her, no doubt, as much a phantom as she seemed to him. On the night of the storm, they had both sought their favorite haunt, unconscious of each other, and the friends of each had followed in alarm. I got traces of the family afterwards at Nantucket, and later at Narragansett, and had reason to think that Paul was employed, one summer, by a farmer on Conanicut; but I was always just too late for them; and the money which Severance left, as his only reparation for poor Emilia, never was paid. The affair was hushed up, and very few, even among the neighbors, knew the tragedy that had passed by them with the storm. After Severance died, I had that temporary feeling of weakened life which remains after the first friend or the first l
Tiverton (Rhode Island, United States) (search for this): chapter 3
ng his late voyage. Among them were a dozen studies of just such capotes as I had seen,--some in profile, completely screening the wearer, others disclosing women's faces, old or young. He seemed to wish to put them away, however, when I came in. Really, the plot seemed to thicken; and it was a little provoking to understand it no better, when all the materials seemed close to one's hands. A day or two later, I was summoned to Boston. Returning thence by the stage-coach, we drove from Tiverton, the whole length of the island, under one of those wild and wonderful skies which give, better than anything in nature, the effect of a field of battle. The heavens were filled with ten thousand separate masses of cloud, varying in shade from palest gray to iron-black, borne rapidly to and fro by upper and lower currents of opposing wind. They seemed to be charging, retreating, breaking, recombining, with puffs of what seemed smoke, and a few wan sunbeams sometimes striking through for
Point Judith (Rhode Island, United States) (search for this): chapter 3
ps; and one of the men whispered hoarsely to me, that a Nantucket brig had parted her cable, and was drifting in shore. As we entered the garden, lights gleamed in the shrubbery. To my surprise, it was Paul and his wife, with their two oldest children,--these last being quite delighted with the stir, and showing so much illumination, in the lee of the house, that it was quite a Feast of Lanterns. They seemed a little surprised at meeting us, too; but we might as well have talked from Point Judith to Beaver Tail as to have attempted conversation there. I walked round the building; but a flash of lightning showed nothing on the western piazza save a birch-tree, which lay across, blown down by the storm. I therefore went inside, with Paul's household, leaving the fishermen without. Never shall I forget that search. As we went from empty room to room, the thunder seemed rolling on the very roof, and the sharp flashes of lightning appeared to put out our lamps and then kindle th
Montreal (Canada) (search for this): chapter 3
aying more submarine cables than ever. When we were not on the water, we both liked to mouse about the queer streets and quaint old houses of that region, and to chat with the fishermen and their grandmothers. There was one house, however, which was very attractive to me,--perhaps because nobody lived in it, and which, for that or some other reason, he never would approach. It was a great square building of rough gray stone, looking like those sombre houses which every one remembers in Montreal, but which are rare in the States. It had been built many years before by some millionnaire from New Orleans, and was left unfinished, nobody knew why, till the garden was a wilderness of bloom, and the windows of ivy. Oldport is the only place in New England where either ivy or traditions will grow; there were, to be sure, no legends about this house that I could hear of, for the ghosts in those parts were feeble-minded and retrospective by reason of age, and perhaps scorned a mansion whe
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