THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE

FANSHAWE, AND SEPTIMIUS FELTON

With An Appendix Containing

THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP

by

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

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THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP:

OUTLINES OF AN ENGLISH ROMANCE. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

"Septimius Felton" was the outgrowth of a project, formed by Hawthorneduring his residence in England, of writing a romance, the scene of whichshould be laid in that country; but this project was afterwardsabandoned, giving place to a new conception in which the visionary searchfor means to secure an earthly immortality was to form the principalinterest. The new conception took shape in the uncompleted "DolliverRomance. " The two themes, of course, were distinct, but, by a curiousprocess of thought, one grew directly out of the other: the whole historyconstitutes, in fact, a chapter in what may be called the genealogy of aromance. There remained, after "Septimius Felton" had been published, certain manuscripts connected with the scheme of an English story. One ofthese manuscripts was written in the form of a journalized narrative; theauthor merely noting the date of what he wrote, as he went along. Theother was a more extended sketch, of much greater bulk, and without date, but probably produced several years later. It was not originally intendedby those who at the time had charge of Hawthorne's papers that either ofthese incomplete writings should be laid before the public; because theymanifestly had not been left by him in a form which he would haveconsidered as warranting such a course. But since the second and largermanuscript has been published under the title of "Dr. Grimshawe'sSecret, " it has been thought best to issue the present sketch, so thatthe two documents may be examined together. Their appearance places inthe hands of readers the entire process of development leading to the"Septimius" and "The Dolliver Romance. " They speak for themselves muchmore efficiently than any commentator can expect to do; and little, therefore, remains to be said beyond a few words of explanation in regardto the following pages. 

The Note-Books show that the plan of an English romance, turning upon thefact that an emigrant to America had carried away a family secret whichshould give his descendant the power to ruin the family in the mothercountry, had occurred to Hawthorne as early as April, 1855. In August ofthe same year he visited Smithell's Hall, in Bolton le Moors, concerningwhich he had already heard its legend of "The Bloody Footstep, " and fromthat time on, the idea of this footprint on the threshold-stone of theancestral mansion seems to have associated itself inextricably with thedreamy substance of his yet unshaped romance. Indeed, it leaves its markbroadly upon Sibyl Dacy's wild legend in "Septimius Felton, " andreappears in the last paragraph of that story. But, so far as we can knowat this day, nothing definite was done until after his departure forItaly. It was then, while staying in Rome, that he began to put uponpaper that plot which had first occupied his thoughts three years before, in the scant leisure allowed him by his duties at the Liverpoolconsulate. Of leisure there was not a great deal at Rome, either; for, asthe "French and Italian Note-Books" show, sight-seeing and socialintercourse took up a good deal of his time, and the daily record in hisjournal likewise had to be kept up. But he set to work resolutely toembody, so far as he might, his stray imaginings upon the hauntingEnglish theme, and to give them connected form. April 1, 1858, he began;and then nearly two weeks passed before he found an opportunity toresume; April 13th being the date of the next passage. By May he getsfully into swing, so that day after day, with but slight breaks, hecarries on the story, always increasing in interest for us who read asfor him who improvised. Thus it continues until May 19th, by which timehe has made a tolerably complete outline, filled in with a good deal ofdetail here and there. Although the sketch is cast in the form of aregular narrative, one or two gaps occur, indicating that the author hadthought out certain points which he then took for granted without makingnote of them. Brief scenes, passages of conversation and of narration, follow one another after the manner of a finished story, alternating withsynopses of the plot, and queries concerning particulars that neededfurther study; confidences of the romancer to himself which formcertainly a valuable contribution to literary history. The manuscriptcloses with a rapid sketch of the conclusion, and the way in which it isto be executed. Succinctly, what we have here is a romance in embryo;one, moreover, that never attained to a viable stature and constitution. During his lifetime it naturally would not have been put forward asdemanding public attention; and, in consideration of that fact, it hassince been withheld from the press by the decision of his daughter, inwhom the title to it vests. Students of literary art, however, and manymore general readers will, I think, be likely to discover in it a charmall the greater for its being in parts only indicated; since, as itstands, it presents the precise condition of a work of fiction in itsfirst stage. The unfinished "Grimshawe" was another development of thesame theme, and the "Septimius" a later sketch, with a new elementintroduced. But the present experimental fragment, to which it has beendecided to give the title of "The Ancestral Footstep, " possesses afreshness and spontaneity recalling the peculiar fascination of thosechalk or pencil outlines with which great masters in the graphic art havebeen wont to arrest their fleeting glimpses of a composition stillunwrought. 

It would not be safe to conclude, from the large amount of preliminarywriting done with a view to that romance, that Hawthorne always adoptedthis laborious mode of making several drafts of a book. On the contrary, it is understood that his habit was to mature a design so thoroughly inhis mind before attempting to give it actual existence on paper that butlittle rewriting was needed. The circumstance that he was obliged towrite so much that did not satisfy him in this case may account partlyfor his relinquishing the theme, as one which for him had lost itsseductiveness through too much recasting. 

It need be added only that the original manuscript, from which thefollowing pages are printed through the medium of an exact copy, issingularly clear and fluent. Not a single correction occurs throughout;but here and there a word is omitted, obviously by mere accident, andthese omissions have been supplied. The correction in each case is markedby brackets, in this printed reproduction. The sketch begins abruptly;but there is no reason to suppose that anything preceded it except theunrecorded musings in the author's mind, and one or two memoranda in the"English Note-Books. " We must therefore imagine the central figure, Middleton, who is the American descendant of an old English family, ashaving been properly introduced, and then pass at once to the openingsentences. The rest will explain itself. 

G. P. L. 

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THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP. 

OUTLINES OF AN ENGLISH ROMANCE. 

I. 

April 1, 1858. _Thursday_. --He had now been travelling long in those richportions of England where he would most have wished to find the object ofhis pursuit; and many had been the scenes which he would willingly haveidentified with that mentioned in the ancient, time-yellowed record whichhe bore about with him. It is to be observed that, undertaken at firsthalf as the amusement, the unreal object, of a grown man's play-day, ithad become more and more real to him with every step of the way that hefollowed it up; along those green English lanes it seemed as ifeverything would bring him close to the mansion that he sought; everymorning he went on with renewed hopes, nor did the evening, though itbrought with it no success, bring with it the gloom and heaviness of areal disappointment. In all his life, including its earliest and happiestdays, he had never known such a spring and zest as now filled his veins, and gave lightsomeness to his limbs; this spirit gave to the beautifulcountry which he trod a still richer beauty than it had ever borne, andhe sought his ancient home as if he had found his way into Paradise andwere there endeavoring to trace out the sight [site] of Eve's bridalbower, the birthplace of the human race and its glorious possibilities ofhappiness and high performance. 

In these sweet and delightful moods of mind, varying from one dream toanother, he loved indeed the solitude of his way; but likewise he lovedthe facility which his pursuit afforded him, of coming in contact withmany varieties of men, and he took advantage of this facility to anextent which it was not usually his impulse to do. But now he came forthfrom all reserves, and offered himself to whomever the chances of the wayoffered to him, with a ready sensibility that made its way through everybarrier that even English exclusiveness, in whatever rank of life, couldset up. The plastic character of Middleton was perhaps a variety ofAmerican nature only presenting itself under an individual form; he couldthrow off the man of our day, and put on a ruder nature, but then it waswith a certain fineness, that made this only [a] distinction between itand the central truth. He found less variety of form in the Englishcharacter than he had been accustomed to see at home; but perhaps thiswas in consequence of the external nature of his acquaintance with it;for the view of one well accustomed to a people, and of a stranger tothem, differs in this--that the latter sees the homogeneity, the oneuniversal character, the groundwork of the whole, while the former sees athousand little differences, which distinguish the individual men apart, to such a degree that they seem hardly to have any resemblance amongthemselves. 

But just at the period of his journey when we take him up, Middleton hadbeen for two or three days the companion of an old man who interested himmore than most of his wayside companions; the more especially as heseemed to be wandering without an object, or with such a dreamy object asthat which led Middleton's own steps onward. He was a plain old manenough, but with a pale, strong-featured face and white hair, a certainpicturesqueness and venerableness, which Middleton fancied might havebefitted a richer garb than he now wore. In much of their conversation, too, he was sensible that, though the stranger betrayed no acquaintancewith literature, nor seemed to have conversed with cultivated minds, yetthe results of such acquaintance and converse were here. Middleton wasinclined to think him, however, an old man, one of those itinerants, suchas Wordsworth represented in the "Excursion, " who smooth themselves bythe attrition of the world and gain a knowledge equivalent to or betterthan that of books from the actual intellect of man awake and activearound them. 

Often, during the short period since their companionship originated, Middleton had felt impelled to disclose to the old man the object of hisjourney, and the wild tale by which, after two hundred years, he had beenblown as it were across the ocean, and drawn onward to commence thissearch. The old man's ordinary conversation was of a nature to draw forthsuch a confidence as this; frequently turning on the traditions of thewayside; the reminiscences that lingered on the battle-fields of theRoses, or of the Parliament, like flowers nurtured by the blood of theslain, and prolonging their race through the centuries for the wayfarerto pluck them; or the family histories of the castles, manor-houses, andseats which, of various epochs, had their park-gates along the roadsideand would be seen with dark gray towers or ancient gables, or more modernforms of architecture, rising up among clouds of ancient oaks. Middletonwatched earnestly to see if, in any of these tales, there werecircumstances resembling those striking and singular ones which he hadborne so long in his memory, and on which he was now acting in so strangea manner; but [though] there was a good deal of variety of incident inthem, there never was any combination of incidents having the peculiarityof this. 

"I suppose, " said he to the old man, "the settlers in my country may havecarried away with them traditions long since forgotten in this country, but which might have an interest and connection, and might even piece outthe broken relics of family history, which have remained perhaps amystery for hundreds of years. I can conceive, even, that this might beof importance in settling the heirships of estates; but which now, onlythe two insulated parts of the story being known, remain a riddle, although the solution of it is actually in the world, if only these twoparts could he united across the sea, like the wires of an electrictelegraph. "

"It is an impressive idea, " said the old man. "Do you know any suchtradition as you have hinted at?"

_April 13th_. --Middleton could not but wonder at the singular chance thathad established him in such a place, and in such society, so strangelyadapted to the purposes with which he had been wandering through England. He had come hither, hoping as it were to find the past still alive and inaction; and here it was so in this one only spot, and these few personsinto the midst of whom he had suddenly been cast. With these reflectionshe looked forth from his window into the old-fashioned garden, and at thestone sundial, which had numbered all the hours--all the daylight andserene ones, at least--since his mysterious ancestor left the country. And [is] this, then, he thought to himself, the establishment of whichsome rumor had been preserved? Was it here that the secret had itshiding-place in the old coffer, in the cupboard, in the secret chamber, or whatever was indicated by the apparently idle words of the documentwhich he had preserved? He still smiled at the idea, but it was with apleasant, mysterious sense that his life had at last got out of the dustyreal, and that strangeness had mixed itself up with his daily experience. 

With such feelings he prepared himself to go down to dinner with hishost. He found him alone at table, which was placed in a dark old roommodernized with every English comfort and the pleasant spectacle of atable set with the whitest of napery and the brightest of glass andchina. The friendly old gentleman, as he had found him from the first, became doubly and trebly so in that position which brings out whateverwarmth of heart an Englishman has, and gives it to him if he has none. The impressionable and sympathetic character of Middleton answered to thekindness of his host; and by the time the meal was concluded, the twowere conversing with almost as much zest and friendship as if they weresimilar in age, even fellow-countrymen, and had known one another alltheir life-time. Middleton's secret, it may be supposed, came often tothe tip of his tongue; but still he kept it within, from a naturalrepugnance to bring out the one romance of his life. The talk, however, necessarily ran much upon topics among which this one would have come inwithout any extra attempt to introduce it. 

"This decay of old families, " said the Master, "is much greater thanwould appear on the surface of things. We have such a reluctance to partwith them, that we are content to see them continued by any fiction, through any indirections, rather than to dispense with old names. In yourcountry, I suppose, there is no such reluctance; you are willing that onegeneration should blot out all that preceded it, and be itself the newestand only age of the world. "

"Not quite so, " answered Middleton; "at any rate, if there be such afeeling in the people at large, I doubt whether, even in England, thosewho fancy themselves possessed of claims to birth, cherish them more as atreasure than we do. It is, of course, a thousand times more difficultfor us to keep alive a name amid a thousand difficulties sedulouslythrown around it by our institutions, than for you to do, where yourinstitutions are anxiously calculated to promote the contrary purpose. Ithas occasionally struck me, however, that the ancient lineage might oftenbe found in America, for a family which has been compelled to prolongitself here through the female line, and through alien stocks. "

"Indeed, my young friend, " said the Master, "if that be the case, Ishould like to [speak?] further with you upon it; for, I can assure you, there are sometimes vicissitudes in old families that make me grieve tothink that a man cannot be made for the occasion. "

All this while, the young lady at table had remained almost silent; andMiddleton had only occasionally been reminded of her by the necessity ofperforming some of those offices which put people at table under aChristian necessity of recognizing one another. He was, to say the truth, somewhat interested in her, yet not strongly attracted by the neutraltint of her dress, and the neutral character of her manners. She did notseem to be handsome, although, with her face full before him, he had notquite made up his mind on this point. 

_April 14th_. --So here was Middleton, now at length seeing indistinctly athread, to which the thread that he had so long held in his hand--thehereditary thread that ancestor after ancestor had handed down--mightseem ready to join on. He felt as if they were the two points of anelectric chain, which being joined, an instantaneous effect must follow. Earnestly, as he would have looked forward to this moment (had he insober reason ever put any real weight on the fantasy in pursuit of whichhe had wandered so far) he now, that it actually appeared to be realizingitself, paused with a vague sensation of alarm. The mystery was evidentlyone of sorrow, if not of crime, and he felt as if that sorrow and crimemight not have been annihilated even by being buried out of human sightand remembrance so long. He remembered to have heard or read, how thatonce an old pit had been dug open, in which were found the remains ofpersons that, as the shuddering by-standers traditionally remembered, haddied of an ancient pestilence; and out of that old grave had come a newplague, that slew the far-off progeny of those who had first died by it. Might not some fatal treasure like this, in a moral view, be brought tolight by the secret into which he had so strangely been drawn? Such werethe fantasies with which he awaited the return of Alice, whose lightfootsteps sounded afar along the passages of the old mansion; and thenall was silent. 

At length he heard the sound, a great way off, as he concluded, of herreturning footstep, approaching from chamber to chamber, and along thestaircases, closing the doors behind her. At first, he paid no greatattention to the character of these sounds, but as they drew nearer, hebecame aware that the footstep was unlike those of Alice; indeed, asunlike as could be, very regular, slow, yet not firm, so that it seemedto be that of an aged person, sauntering listlessly through the rooms. Wehave often alluded to Middleton's sensitiveness, and the quick vibrationsof his sympathies; and there was something in this slow approach thatproduced a strange feeling within him; so that he stood breathlessly, looking towards the door by which these slow footsteps were to enter. Atlast, there appeared in the doorway a venerable figure, clad in a rich, faded dressing-gown, and standing on the threshold looked fixedly atMiddleton, at the same time holding up a light in his left hand. In hisright was some object that Middleton did not distinctly see. But he knewthe figure, and recognized the face. It was the old man, his long sincecompanion on the journey hitherward. 

"So, " said the old man, smiling gravely, "you have thought fit, at last, to accept the hospitality which I offered you so long ago. It might havebeen better for both of us--for all parties--if you had accepted itthen!"

"You here!" exclaimed Middleton. "And what can be your connection withall the error and trouble, and involuntary wrong, through which I havewandered since our last meeting? And is it possible that you even thenheld the clue which I was seeking?"

"No, --no, " replied Rothermel. "I was not conscious, at least, of sodoing. And yet had we two sat down there by the wayside, or on thatEnglish stile, which attracted your attention so much; had we sat downthere and thrown forth each his own dream, each his own knowledge, itwould have saved much that we must now forever regret. Are you even nowready to confide wholly in me?"

"Alas, " said Middleton, with a darkening brow, "there are many reasons, at this moment, which did not exist then, to incline me to hold my peace. And why has not Alice returned?--and what is your connection with her?"

"Let her answer for herself, " said Rothermel; and he called her, shoutingthrough the silent house as if she were at the furthest chamber, and hewere in instant need: "Alice!--Alice!--Alice!--here is one who would knowwhat is the link between a maiden and her father!"

Amid the strange uproar which he made Alice came flying back, not inalarm but only in haste, and put her hand within his own. "Hush, father, "said she. "It is not time. "

Here is an abstract of the plot of this story. The Middleton whoemigrated to America, more than two hundred years ago, had been a darkand moody man; he came with a beautiful though not young woman for hiswife, and left a family behind him. In this family a certain heirloom hadbeen preserved, and with it a tradition that grew wilder and strangerwith the passing generations. The tradition had lost, if it ever had, some of its connecting links; but it referred to a murder, to theexpulsion of a brother from the hereditary house, in some strange way, and to a Bloody Footstep which he had left impressed into the threshold, as he turned about to make a last remonstrance. It was rumored, however, or vaguely understood, that the expelled brother was not altogether aninnocent man; but that there had been wrong done, as well as crimecommitted, insomuch that his reasons were strong that led him, subsequently, to imbibe the most gloomy religious views, and to buryhimself in the Western wilderness. These reasons he had never fullyimparted to his family; but had necessarily made allusions to them, whichhad been treasured up and doubtless enlarged upon. At last, onedescendant of the family determines to go to England, with the purpose ofsearching out whatever ground there may be for these traditions, carryingwith him certain ancient documents, and other relics; and goes about thecountry, half in earnest, and half in sport of fancy, in quest of the oldfamily mansion. He makes singular discoveries, all of which bring thebook to an end unexpected by everybody, and not satisfactory to thenatural yearnings of novel readers. In the traditions that he broughtover, there was a key to some family secrets that were still unsolved, and that controlled the descent of estates and titles. His influence uponthese matters involves [him] in divers strange and perilous adventures;and at last it turns out that he himself is the rightful heir to thetitles and estate, that had passed into another name within the lasthalf-century. But he respects both, feeling that it is better to make avirgin soil than to try to make the old name grow in a soil that had beendarkened with so much blood and misfortune as this. 

_April 27th. Tuesday_. --It was with a delightful feeling of release fromordinary rules, that Middleton found himself brought into this connectionwith Alice; and he only hoped that this play-day of his life might lastlong enough to rest him from all that he had suffered. In the enjoymentof his position he almost forgot the pursuit that occupied him, nor mighthe have remembered for a long space if, one evening, Alice herself hadnot alluded to it. "You are wasting precious days, " she suddenly said. "Why do not you renew your quest?"

"To what do you allude?" said Middleton, in surprise. "What object do yousuppose me to have?"

Alice smiled; nay, laughed outright. "You suppose yourself to be aperfect mystery, no doubt, " she replied. "But do not I know you--have notI known you long--as the holder of the talisman, the owner of themysterious cabinet that contains the blood-stained secret?"

"Nay, Alice, this is certainly a strange coincidence, that you shouldknow even thus much of a foolish secret that makes me employ this littleholiday time, which I have stolen out of a weary life, in a wild-goosechase. But, believe me, you allude to matters that are more a mystery tome than my affairs appear to be to you. Will you explain what you wouldsuggest by this badinage?"

Alice shook her head. "You have no claim to know what I know, even if itwould be any addition to your own knowledge. I shall not, and must notenlighten you. You must burrow for the secret with your own tools, inyour own manner, and in a place of your own choosing. I am bound not toassist you. "

"Alice, this is wilful, wayward, unjust, " cried Middleton, with a flushedcheek. "I have not told you--yet you know well--the deep and realimportance which this subject has for me. We have been together asfriends, yet, the instant when there comes up an occasion when theslightest friendly feeling would induce you to do me a good office, youassume this altered tone. "

"My tone is not in the least altered in respect to you, " said Alice. "Allalong, as you know, I have reserved myself on this very point; it being, I candidly tell you, impossible for me to act in your interest in thematter alluded to. If you choose to consider this unfriendly, as beingless than the terms on which you conceive us to have stood give you aright to demand of me--you must resent it as you please. I shall not theless retain for you the regard due to one who has certainly befriended mein very untoward circumstances. "

This conversation confirmed the previous idea of Middleton, that somemystery of a peculiarly dark and evil character was connected with thefamily secret with which he was himself entangled; but it perplexed himto imagine in what way this, after the lapse of so many years, shouldcontinue to be a matter of real importance at the present day. All theactors in the original guilt--if guilt it were--must have been long agoin their graves; some in the churchyard of the village, with thosemoss-grown letters embossing their names; some in the church itself, withmural tablets recording their names over the family-pew, and one, itmight be, far over the sea, where his grave was first made under theforest leaves, though now a city had grown up around it. Yet here was he, the remote descendant of that family, setting his foot at last in thecountry, and as secretly as might be; and all at once his mere presenceseemed to revive the buried secret, almost to awake the dead who partookof that secret and had acted it. There was a vibration from the otherworld, continued and prolonged into this, the instant that he steppedupon the mysterious and haunted ground. 

He knew not in what way to proceed. He could not but feel that there wassomething not exactly within the limits of propriety in being here, disguised--at least, not known in his true character--prying into thesecrets of a proud and secluded Englishman. But then, as he said tohimself on his own side of the question, the secret belonged to himselfby exactly as ancient a tenure and by precisely as strong a claim, as tothe Englishman. His rights here were just as powerful and well-founded asthose of his ancestor had been, nearly three centuries ago; and here thesame feeling came over him that he was that very personage, returnedafter all these ages, to see if his foot would fit this bloody footstepleft of old upon the threshold. The result of all his cogitation was, asthe reader will have foreseen, that he decided to continue hisresearches, and, his proceedings being pretty defensible, let the resulttake care of itself. 

For this purpose he went next day to the hospital, and ringing at theMaster's door, was ushered into the old-fashioned, comfortable library, where he had spent that well-remembered evening which threw the first rayof light on the pursuit that now seemed developing into such strange andunexpected consequences. Being admitted, he was desired by the domesticto wait, as his Reverence was at that moment engaged with a gentleman onbusiness. Glancing through the ivy that mantled over the window, Middleton saw that this interview was taking place in the garden, wherethe Master and his visitor were walking to and fro in the avenue of box, discussing some matter, as it seemed to him, with considerableearnestness on both sides. He observed, too, that there was warmth, passion, a disturbed feeling on the stranger's part; while, on that ofthe Master, it was a calm, serious, earnest representation of whateverview he was endeavoring to impress on the other. At last, the interviewappeared to come toward a climax, the Master addressing some words to hisguest, still with undisturbed calmness, to which the latter replied by aviolent and even fierce gesture, as it should seem of menace, not towardsthe Master, but some unknown party; and then hastily turning, he left thegarden and was soon heard riding away. The Master looked after himawhile, and then, shaking his white head, returned into the house andsoon entered the parlor. 

He looked somewhat surprised, and, as it struck Middleton, a littlestartled, at finding him there; yet he welcomed him with all his formercordiality--indeed, with a friendship that thoroughly warmed Middleton'sheart even to its coldest corner. 

"This is strange!" said the old gentleman. "Do you remember ourconversation on that evening when I first had the unlooked-for pleasureof receiving you as a guest into my house? At that time I spoke to you ofa strange family story, of which there was no denouement, such as anovel-writer would desire, and which had remained in that unfinishedposture for more than two hundred years! Well; perhaps it will gratifyyou to know that there seems a prospect of that wanting termination beingsupplied!"

"Indeed!" said Middleton. 

"Yes, " replied the Master. "A gentleman has just parted with me who wasindeed the representative of the family concerned in the story. He is thedescendant of a younger son of that family, to whom the estate devolvedabout a century ago, although at that time there was search for the heirsof the elder son, who had disappeared after the bloody incident which Irelated to you. Now, singular as it may appear, at this late day, aperson claiming to be the descendant and heir of that eldest son hasappeared, and if I may credit my friend's account, is disposed not onlyto claim the estate, but the dormant title which Eldredge himself hasbeen so long preparing to claim for himself. Singularly enough, too, theheir is an American. "

_May 2d, Sunday. _--"I believe, " said Middleton, "that many Englishsecrets might find their solution in America, if the two threads of astory could be brought together, disjoined as they have been by time andthe ocean. But are you at liberty to tell me the nature of the incidentsto which you allude?"

"I do not see any reason to the contrary, " answered the Master; "for thestory has already come in an imperfect way before the public, and thefull and authentic particulars are likely soon to follow. It seems thatthe younger brother was ejected from the house on account of a loveaffair; the elder having married a young woman with whom the younger wasin love, and, it is said, the wife disappeared on the bridal night, andwas never heard of more. The elder brother remained single during therest of his life; and dying childless, and there being still no news ofthe second brother, the inheritance and representation of the familydevolved upon the third brother and his posterity. This branch of thefamily has ever since remained in possession; and latterly therepresentation has become of more importance, on account of a claim to anold title, which, by the failure of another branch of this ancientfamily, has devolved upon the branch here settled. Now, just at thisjuncture, comes another heir from America, pretending that he is thedescendant of a marriage between the second son, supposed to have beenmurdered on the threshold of the manor-house, and the missing bride! Isit not a singular story?"

"It would seem to require very strong evidence to prove it, " saidMiddleton. "And methinks a Republican should care little for the title, however he might value the estate. "

"Both--both, " said the Master, smiling, "would be equally attractive toyour countryman. But there are further curious particulars in connectionwith this claim. You must know, they are a family of singularcharacteristics, humorists, sometimes developing their queer traits intosomething like insanity; though oftener, I must say, spending stupidhereditary lives here on their estates, rusting out and dying withoutleaving any biography whatever about them. And yet there has always beenone very queer thing about this generally very commonplace family. It isthat each father, on his death-bed, has had an interview with his son, atwhich he has imparted some secret that has evidently had an influence onthe character and after life of the son, making him ever after adiscontented man, aspiring for something he has never been able to find. Now the American, I am told, pretends that he has the clue which hasalways been needed to make the secret available; the key whereby the lockmay be opened; the something that the lost son of the family carried awaywith him, and by which through these centuries he has impeded theprogress of the race. And, wild as the story seems, he does certainlyseem to bring something that looks very like the proof of what he says. "

"And what are those proofs?" inquired Middleton, wonder-stricken at thestrange reduplication of his own position and pursuits. 

"In the first place, " said the Master, "the English marriage-certificateby a clergyman of that day in London, after publication of the banns, with a reference to the register of the parish church where the marriageis recorded. Then, a certified genealogy of the family in New England, where such matters can be ascertained from town and church records, withat least as much certainty, it would appear, as in this country. He haslikewise a manuscript in his ancestor's autograph, containing a briefaccount of the events which banished him from his own country; thecircumstances which favored the idea that he had been slain, and which hehimself was willing should be received as a belief; the fortune that ledhim to America, where he wished to found a new race wholly disconnectedwith the past; and this manuscript he sealed up, with directions that itshould not be opened till two hundred years after his death, by whichtime, as it was probable to conjecture, it would matter little to anymortal whether the story was told or not. A whole generation has passedsince the time when the paper was at last unsealed and read, so long ithad no operation; yet now, at last, here comes the American, to disturbthe succession of an ancient family!"

"There is something very strange in all this, " said Middleton. 

And indeed there was something stranger in his view of the matter than hehad yet communicated to the Master. For, taking into consideration therelation in which he found himself with the present recognizedrepresentative of the family, the thought struck him that his cominghither had dug up, as it were, a buried secret that immediately assumedlife and activity the moment that it was above ground again. For sevengenerations the family had vegetated in the quietude of English countrygentility, doing nothing to make itself known, passing from the cradle tothe tomb amid the same old woods that had waved over it before hisancestor had impressed the bloody footstep; and yet the instant that hecame back, an influence seemed to be at work that was likely to renew theold history of the family. He questioned with himself whether it were notbetter to leave all as it was; to withdraw himself into the secrecy fromwhich he had but half emerged, and leave the family to keep on, to theend of time perhaps, in its rusty innocence, rather than to interferewith his wild American character to disturb it. The smell of that darkcrime--that brotherly hatred and attempted murder--seemed to breathe outof the ground as he dug it up. Was it not better that it should remainforever buried, for what to him was this old English title--what thisestate, so far from his own native land, located amidst feelings andmanners which would never be his own? It was late, to be sure--yet nottoo late for him to turn back: the vibration, the fear, which hisfootsteps had caused, would subside into peace! Meditating in this way, he took a hasty leave of the kind old Master, promising to see him againat an early opportunity. By chance, or however it was, his footstepsturned to the woods of ---- Chace, and there he wandered through itsglades, deep in thought, yet always with a strange sense that he wastreading on the soil where his ancestors had trodden, and where hehimself had best right of all men to be. It was just in this state offeeling that he found his course arrested by a hand upon his shoulder. 

"What business have you here?" was the question sounded in his ear; and, starting, he found himself in the grasp, as his blood tingled to know, ofa gentleman in a shooting-dress, who looked at him with a wrathful brow. "Are you a poacher, or what?"

Be the case what it might, Middleton's blood boiled at the grasp of thathand, as it never before had done in the course of his impulsive life. Heshook himself free, and stood fiercely before his antagonist, confrontinghim with his uplifted stick, while the other, likewise, appeared to beshaken by a strange wrath. 

"Fellow, " muttered he--"Yankee blackguard!--impostor--take yourself oilthese grounds. Quick, or it will be the worse for you!"

Middleton restrained himself. "Mr. Eldredge, " said he, "for I believe Ispeak to the man who calls himself owner of this land on which westand, --Mr. Eldredge, you are acting under a strange misapprehension ofmy character. I have come hither with no sinister purpose, and amentitled, at the hands of a gentleman, to the consideration of anhonorable antagonist, even if you deem me one at all. And perhaps, if youthink upon the blue chamber and the ebony cabinet, and the secretconnected with it, "--

"Villain, no more!" said Eldredge; and utterly mad with rage, hepresented his gun at Middleton; but even at the moment of doing so, hepartly restrained himself, so far as, instead of shooting him, to raisethe butt of his gun, and strike a blow at him. It came down heavily onMiddleton's shoulder, though aimed at his head; and the blow was terriblyavenged, even by itself, for the jar caused the hammer to come down; thegun went off, sending the bullet downwards through the heart of theunfortunate man, who fell dead upon the ground. Eldredge[1] stoodstupefied, looking at the catastrophe which had so suddenly occurred. 

[1] Evidently a slip of the pen; Middleton being intended. 

_May 3d, Monday. _--So here was the secret suddenly made safe in this soterrible way; its keepers reduced from two parties to one interest; theother who alone knew of this age-long mystery and trouble now carrying itinto eternity, where a long line of those who partook of the knowledge, in each successive generation, might now be waiting to inquire of him howhe had held his trust. He had kept it well, there was no doubt of it; forthere he lay dead upon the ground, having betrayed it to no one, thoughby a method which none could have foreseen, the whole had come into thepossession of him who had brought hither but half of it. Middleton lookeddown in horror upon the form that had just been so full of life andwrathful vigor--and now lay so quietly. Being wholly unconscious of anypurpose to bring about the catastrophe, it had not at first struck himthat his own position was in any manner affected by the violent death, under such circumstances, of the unfortunate man. But now it suddenlyoccurred to him, that there had been a train of incidents all calculatedto make him the object of suspicion; and he felt that he could not, underthe English administration of law, be suffered to go at large withoutrendering a strict account of himself and his relations with thedeceased. He might, indeed, fly; he might still remain in the vicinity, and possibly escape notice. But was not the risk too great? Was it justeven to be aware of this event, and not relate fully the manner of it, lest a suspicion of blood-guiltiness should rest upon some innocent head?But while he was thus cogitating, he heard footsteps approaching alongthe wood-path; and half-impulsively, half on purpose, he stept aside intothe shrubbery, but still where he could see the dead body, and whatpassed near it. 

The footsteps came on, and at the turning of the path, just whereMiddleton had met Eldredge, the new-comer appeared in sight. It wasHoper, in his usual dress of velveteen, looking now seedy, poverty-stricken, and altogether in ill-case, trudging moodily along, with his hat pulled over his brows, so that he did not see the ghastlyobject before him till his foot absolutely trod upon the dead man's hand. Being thus made aware of the proximity of the corpse, he started back alittle, yet evincing such small emotion as did credit to his Englishreserve; then uttering a low exclamation, --cautiously low, indeed, --hestood looking at the corpse a moment or two, apparently in deepmeditation. He then drew near, bent down, and without evincing any horrorat the touch of death in this horrid shape, he opened the dead man'svest, inspected the wound, satisfied himself that life was extinct, andthen nodded his head and smiled gravely. He next proceeded to examineseriatim the dead man's pockets, turning each of them inside out andtaking the contents, where they appeared adapted to his needs: forinstance, a silken purse, through the interstices of which some gold wasvisible; a watch, which however had been injured by the explosion, andhad stopt just at the moment--twenty-one minutes past five--when thecatastrophe took place. Hoper ascertained, by putting the watch to hisear, that this was the case; then pocketing it, he continued hisresearches. He likewise secured a note-book, on examining which he foundseveral bank-notes, and some other papers. And having done this, thethief stood considering what to do next; nothing better occurring to him, he thrust the pockets back, gave the corpse as nearly as he could thesame appearance that it had worn before he found it, and hastened away, leaving the horror there on the wood-path. 

He had been gone only a few minutes when another step, a light woman'sstep, [was heard] coming along the pathway, and Alice appeared, having onher usual white mantle, straying along with that fearlessness whichcharacterized her so strangely, and made her seem like one of thedenizens of nature. She was singing in a low tone some one of those airswhich have become so popular in England, as negro melodies; whensuddenly, looking before her, she saw the blood-stained body on thegrass, the face looking ghastly upward. Alice pressed her hand upon herheart; it was not her habit to scream, not the habit of that strong, wild, self-dependent nature; and the exclamation which broke from her wasnot for help, but the voice of her heart crying out to herself. For aninstant she hesitated, as [if] not knowing what to do; then approached, and with her white, maiden hand felt the brow of the dead man, tremblingly, but yet firm, and satisfied herself that life had whollydeparted. She pressed her hand, that had just touched the dead man's, onher forehead, and gave a moment to thought. 

What her decision might have been, we cannot say, for while she stood inthis attitude, Middleton stept from his seclusion, and at the noise ofhis approach she turned suddenly round, looking more frightened andagitated than at the moment when she had first seen the dead body. Shefaced Middleton, however, and looked him quietly in the eye. "You seethis!" said she, gazing fixedly at him. "It is not at this moment thatyou first discover it. "

"No, " said Middleton, frankly. "It is not. I was present at thecatastrophe. In one sense, indeed, I was the cause of it; but, Alice, Ineed not tell you that I am no murderer. "

"A murderer?--no, " said Alice, still looking at him with the same fixedgaze. "But you and this man were at deadly variance. He would haverejoiced at any chance that would have laid you cold and bloody on theearth, as he is now; nay, he would most eagerly have seized on anyfair-looking pretext that would have given him a chance to stretch youthere. The world will scarcely believe, when it knows all about yourrelations with him, that his blood is not on your hand. Indeed, " saidshe, with a strange smile, "I see some of it there now!"

And, in very truth, so there was; a broad blood-stain that had dried onMiddleton's hand. He shuddered at it, but essayed vainly to rub it off. 

"You see, " said she. "It was foreordained that you should shed this man'sblood; foreordained that, by digging into that old pit of pestilence, youshould set the contagion loose again. You should have left it buriedforever. But now what do you mean to do?"

"To proclaim this catastrophe, " replied Middleton. "It is the only honestand manly way. What else can I do?"

"You can and ought to leave him on the wood-path, where he has fallen, "said Alice, "and go yourself to take advantage of the state of thingswhich Providence has brought about. Enter the old house, the hereditaryhouse, where--now, at least--you alone have a right to tread. Now is thehour. All is within your grasp. Let the wrong of three hundred years berighted, and come back thus to your own, to these hereditary fields, thisquiet, long-descended home; to title, to honor. "

Yet as the wild maiden spoke thus, there was a sort of mockery in hereyes; on her brow; gleaming through all her face, as if she scorned whatshe thus pressed upon him, the spoils of the dead man who lay at theirfeet. Middleton, with his susceptibility, could not [but] be sensible ofa wild and strange charm, as well as horror, in the situation; it seemedsuch a wonder that here, in formal, orderly, well-governed England, sowild a scene as this should have occurred; that they too [two?] shouldstand here, deciding on the descent of an estate, and the inheritance ofa title, holding a court of their own. 

"Come, then, " said he, at length. "Let us leave this poor fallenantagonist in his blood, and go whither you will lead me. I will judgefor myself. At all events, I will not leave my hereditary home withoutknowing what my power is. "

"Come, " responded Alice; and she turned back; but then returned and threwa handkerchief over the dead man's face, which while they spoke hadassumed that quiet, ecstatic expression of joy which often is observed tooverspread the faces of those who die of gunshot wounds, however fiercethe passion in which the spirits took their flight. With this strange, grand, awful joy did the dead man gaze upward into the very eyes andhearts, as it were, of the two that now bent over him. They looked at oneanother. 

"Whence comes this expression?" said Middleton, thoughtfully. "Alice, methinks he is reconciled to us now; and that we are members of onereconciled family, all of whom are in heaven but me. "

_Tuesday, May 4th. _--"How strange is this whole situation between you andme, " said Middleton, as they went up the winding pathway that led towardsthe house. "Shall I ever understand it? Do you mean ever to explain it tome? That I should find you here with that old man, [2] so mysterious, apparently so poor, yet so powerful! What [is] his relation to you?"

[2] The allusion here is apparently to the old man who proclaims himself Alice's father, in the portion dated April 14th. He figures hereafter as the old Hospitaller, Hammond. The reader must not take this present passage as referring to the death of Eldredge, which has just taken place in the preceding section. The author is now beginning to elaborate the relation of Middleton and Alice. As will be seen, farther on, the death of Eldredge is ignored and abandoned; Eldredge is revived, and the story proceeds in another way. --G. P. L. 

"A close one, " replied Alice sadly. "He was my father!"

"Your father!" repeated Middleton, starting back. "It does but heightenthe wonder! Your father! And yet, by all the tokens that birth andbreeding, and habits of thought and native character can show, you are mycountrywoman. That wild, free spirit was never born in the breast of anEnglishwoman; that slight frame, that slender beauty, that frailenvelopment of a quick, piercing, yet stubborn and patient spirit, --arethose the properties of an English maiden?"

"Perhaps not, " replied Alice quietly. "I am your countrywoman. My fatherwas an American, and one of whom you have heard--and no good, alas!--formany a year. "

"And who then was he?" asked Middleton. 

"I know not whether you will hate me for telling you, " replied Alice, looking him sadly though firmly in the face. "There was a man--long yearssince, in your childhood--whose plotting brain proved the ruin of himselfand many another; a man whose great designs made him a sort of potentate, whose schemes became of national importance, and produced results evenupon the history of the country in which he acted. That man was myfather; a man who sought to do great things, and, like many who have hadsimilar aims, disregarded many small rights, strode over them, on his wayto effect a gigantic purpose. Among other men, your father was trampledunder foot, ruined, done to death, even, by the effects of his ambition. "

"How is it possible!" exclaimed Middleton. "Was it Wentworth?"

"Even so, " said Alice, still with the same sad calmness and notwithdrawing her steady eyes from his face. "After his ruin; after thecatastrophe that overwhelmed him and hundreds more, he took to flight;guilty, perhaps, but guilty as a fallen conqueror is; guilty to such anextent that he ceased to be a cheat, as a conqueror ceases to be amurderer. He came to England. My father had an original nobility ofnature; and his life had not been such as to debase it, but rather suchas to cherish and heighten that self-esteem which at least keeps thepossessor of it from many meaner vices. He took nothing with him; nothingbeyond the bare means of flight, with the world before him, althoughthousands of gold would not have been missed out of the scatteredfragments of ruin that lay around him. He found his way hither, led, asyou were, by a desire to reconnect himself with the place whence hisfamily had originated; for he, too, was of a race which had something todo with the ancient story which has now been brought to a close. Arrivedhere, there were circumstances that chanced to make his talents andhabits of business available to this Mr. Eldredge, a man ignorant andindolent, unknowing how to make the best of the property that was in hishands. By degrees, he took the estate into his management, acquiringnecessarily a preponderating influence over such a man. "

"And you, " said Middleton. "Have you been all along in England? For youmust have been little more than an infant at the time. "

"A mere infant, " said Alice, "and I remained in our own country under thecare of a relative who left me much to my own keeping; much to theinfluences of that wild culture which the freedom of our country gives toits youth. It is only two years that I have been in England. "

"This, then, " said Middleton thoughtfully, "accounts for much that hasseemed so strange in the events through which we have passed; for theknowledge of my identity and my half-defined purpose which has alwaysglided before me, and thrown so many strange shapes of difficulty in mypath. But whence, --whence came that malevolence which your father'sconduct has so unmistakably shown? I had done him no injury, though I hadsuffered much. "

"I have often thought, " replied Alice, "that my father, though retaininga preternatural strength and acuteness of intellect, was really notaltogether sane. And, besides, he had made it his business to keep thisestate, and all the complicated advantages of the representation of thisold family, secure to the person who was deemed to have inherited them. Asuccession of ages and generations might be supposed to have blotted outyour claims from existence; for it is not just that there should be noterm of time which can make security for lack of fact and a fewformalities. At all events, he had satisfied himself that his duty was toact as he has done. "

"Be it so! I do not seek to throw blame on him, " said Middleton. "Besides, Alice, he was your father!"

"Yes, " said she, sadly smiling; "let him [have] what protection thatthought may give him, even though I lose what he may gain. And now herewe are at the house. At last, come in! It is your own; there is none thatcan longer forbid you!"

They entered the door of the old mansion, now a farmhouse, and there wereits old hall, its old chambers, all before them. They ascended thestaircase, and stood on the landing-place above; while Middleton hadagain that feeling that had so often made him dizzy, --that sense of beingin one dream and recognizing the scenery and events of a former dream. Sooverpowering was this feeling, that he laid his hand on the slender armof Alice, to steady himself; and she comprehended the emotion thatagitated him, and looked into his eyes with a tender sympathy, which shehad never before permitted to be visible, --perhaps never before felt. Hesteadied himself and followed her till they had entered an ancientchamber, but one that was finished with all the comfortable luxurycustomary to be seen in English homes. 

"Whither have you led me now?" inquired Middleton. 

"Look round, " said Alice. "Is there nothing here that you ought torecognize?--nothing that you kept the memory of, long ago?"

He looked round the room again and again, and at last, in a somewhatshadowy corner, he espied an old cabinet made of ebony and inlaid withpearl; one of those tall, stately, and elaborate pieces of furniture thatare rather articles of architecture than upholstery; and on which ahigher skill, feeling, and genius than now is ever employed on suchthings, was expended. Alice drew near the stately cabinet and threw widethe doors, which, like the portals of a palace, stood between twopillars; it all seemed to be unlocked, showing within some beautiful oldpictures in the panel of the doors, and a mirror, that opened a longsuccession of mimic halls, reflection upon reflection, extending to aninterminable nowhere. 

"And what is this?" said Middleton, --"a cabinet? Why do you draw myattention so strongly to it?"

"Look at it well, " said she. "Do you recognize nothing there? Have youforgotten your description? The stately palace with its architecture, each pillar with its architecture, those pilasters, that frieze; youought to know them all. Somewhat less than you imagined in size, perhaps;a fairy reality, inches for yards; that is the only difference. And youhave the key?"

And there then was that palace, to which tradition, so false at once andtrue, had given such magnitude and magnificence in the traditions of theMiddleton family, around their shifting fireside in America. Looming afarthrough the mists of time, the little fact had become a gigantic vision. Yes, here it was in miniature, all that he had dreamed of; a palace offour feet high!

"You have the key of this palace, " said Alice; "it has waited--that is, its secret and precious chamber has, for you to open it, these threehundred years. Do you know how to find that secret chamber?"

Middleton, still in that dreamy mood, threw open an inner door of thecabinet, and applying the old-fashioned key at his watch-chain to a holein the mimic pavement within, pressed one of the mosaics, and immediatelythe whole floor of the apartment sank, and revealed a receptacle within. Alice had come forward eagerly, and they both looked into thehiding-place, expecting what should be there. It was empty! They lookedinto each other's faces with blank astonishment. Everything had been sostrangely true, and so strangely false, up to this moment, that theycould not comprehend this failure at the last moment. It was thestrangest, saddest jest! It brought Middleton up with such a suddenrevulsion that he grew dizzy, and the room swam round him and the cabinetdazzled before his eyes. It had been magnified to a palace; it haddwindled down to Liliputian size; and yet, up till now, it had seemed tocontain in its diminutiveness all the riches which he had attributed toits magnitude. This last moment had utterly subverted it; the whole greatstructure seemed to vanish. 

"See; here are the dust and ashes of it, " observed Alice, takingsomething that was indeed only a pinch of dust out of the secretcompartment. "There is nothing else. "

II. 

_May 5th, Wednesday_. --The father of these two sons, an aged man at thetime, took much to heart their enmity; and after the catastrophe, henever held up his head again. He was not told that his son had perished, though such was the belief of the family; but imbibed the opinion that hehad left his home and native land to become a wanderer on the face of theearth, and that some time or other he might return. In this idea he spentthe remainder of his days; in this idea he died. It may be that theinfluence of this idea might be traced in the way in which he spent someof the latter years of his life, and a portion of the wealth which hadbecome of little value in his eyes, since it had caused dissension andbloodshed between the sons of one household. It was a common mode ofcharity in those days--a common thing for rich men to do--to found analmshouse or a hospital, and endow it, for the support of a certainnumber of old and destitute men or women, generally such as had someclaim of blood upon the founder, or at least were natives of the parish, the district, the county, where he dwelt. The Eldredge Hospital wasfounded for the benefit of twelve old men, who should have been wanderersupon the face of the earth; men, they should be, of some education, butdefeated and hopeless, cast off by the world for misfortune, but not forcrime. And this charity had subsisted, on terms varying little or nothingfrom the original ones, from that day to this; and, at this very time, twelve old men were not wanting, of various countries, of variousfortunes, but all ending finally in ruin, who had centred here, to liveon the poor pittance that had been assigned to them, three hundred yearsago. What a series of chronicles it would have been if each of thebeneficiaries of this charity, since its foundation, had left a record ofthe events which finally led him hither. Middleton often, as he talkedwith these old men, regretted that he himself had no turn for authorship, so rich a volume might he have compiled from the experience, sometimessunny and triumphant, though always ending in shadow, which he gatheredhere. They were glad to talk to him, and would have been glad andgrateful for any auditor, as they sat on one or another of the stonebenches, in the sunshine of the garden; or at evening, around the greatfireside, or within the chimney-corner, with their pipes and ale. 

There was one old man who attracted much of his attention, by thevenerableness of his aspect; by something dignified, almost haughty andcommanding, in his air. Whatever might have been the intentions andexpectations of the founder, it certainly had happened in these latterdays that there was a difficulty in finding persons of education, of goodmanners, of evident respectability, to put into the places made vacant bydeaths of members; whether that the paths of life are surer now than theyused to be, and that men so arrange their lives as not to be left, in anyevent, quite without resources as they draw near its close; at any rate, there was a little tincture of the vagabond running through these twelvequasi gentlemen, --through several of them, at least. But this old mancould not well be mistaken; in his manners, in his tones, in all hisnatural language and deportment, there was evidence that he had been morethan respectable; and, viewing him, Middleton could not help wonderingwhat statesman had suddenly vanished out of public life and taken refugehere, for his head was of the statesman-class, and his demeanor that ofone who had exercised influence over large numbers of men. He sometimesendeavored to set on foot a familiar relation with this old man, butthere was even a sternness in the manner in which he repelled theseadvances, that gave little encouragement for their renewal. Nor did itseem that his companions of the Hospital were more in his confidence thanMiddleton himself. They regarded him with a kind of awe, a shyness, andin most cases with a certain dislike, which denoted an imperfectunderstanding of him. To say the truth, there was not generally much lovelost between any of the members of this family; they had met with toomuch disappointment in the world to take kindly, now, to one another orto anything or anybody. I rather suspect that they really had morepleasure in burying one another, when the time came, than in any otheroffice of mutual kindness and brotherly love which it was their part todo; not out of hardness of heart, but merely from soured temper, andbecause, when people have met disappointment and have settled down intofinal unhappiness, with no more gush and spring of good spirits, there isnothing any more to create amiability out of. 

So the old people were unamiable and cross to one another, and unamiableand cross to old Hammond, yet always with a certain respect; and theresult seemed to be such as treated the old man well enough. And thus hemoved about among them, a mystery; the histories of the others, in thegeneral outline, were well enough known, and perhaps not very uncommon;this old man's history was known to none, except, of course, to thetrustees of the charity, and to the Master of the Hospital, to whom ithad necessarily been revealed, before the beneficiary could be admittedas an inmate. It was judged, by the deportment of the Master, that theold man had once held some eminent position in society; for, though boundto treat them all as gentlemen, he was thought to show an especial andsolemn courtesy to Hammond. 

Yet by the attraction which two strong and cultivated minds inevitablyhave for one another, there did spring up an acquaintanceship, anintercourse, between Middleton and this old man, which was followed up inmany a conversation which they held together on all subjects that weresupplied by the news of the day, or the history of the past. Middletonused to make the newspaper the opening for much discussion; and it seemedto him that the talk of his companion had much of the character of thatof a retired statesman, on matters which, perhaps, he would look at allthe more wisely, because it was impossible he could ever more have apersonal agency in them. Their discussions sometimes turned upon theaffairs of his own country, and its relations with the rest of the world, especially with England; and Middleton could not help being struck withthe accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which sofew Englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of theAmerican character, --shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree ofjustice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of whatwas likely to happen, --prophecies which, in one instance, were singularlyverified, in regard to a complexity which was then arresting theattention of both countries. 

"You must have been in the United States, " said he, one day. 

"Certainly; my remarks imply personal knowledge, " was the reply. "But itwas before the days of steam. "

"And not, I should imagine, for a brief visit, " said Middleton. "I onlywish the administration of this government had the benefit to-day of yourknowledge of my countrymen. It might be better for both of these kindrednations. "

"Not a whit, " said the old man. "England will never understand America;for England never does understand a foreign country; and whatever you maysay about kindred, America is as much a foreign country as France itself. These two hundred years of a different climate and circumstances--of lifeon a broad continent instead of in an island, to say nothing of theendless intermixture of nationalities in every part of the United States, except New England--have created a new and decidedly original type ofnational character. It is as well for both parties that they should notaim at any very intimate connection. It will never do. "

"I should be sorry to think so, " said Middleton; "they are at all eventstwo noble breeds of men, and ought to appreciate one another. And Americahas the breadth of idea to do this for England, whether reciprocated ornot. "

_Thursday, May 6th. _--Thus Middleton was established in a singular wayamong these old men, in one of the surroundings most unlike anything inhis own country. So old it was that it seemed to him the freshest andnewest thing that he had ever met with. The residence was made infinitelythe more interesting to him by the sense that he was near the place--asall the indications warned him--which he sought, whither his dreams hadtended from his childhood; that he could wander each day round the parkwithin which were the old gables of what he believed was his hereditaryhome. He had never known anything like the dreamy enjoyment of thesedays; so quiet, such a contrast to the turbulent life from which he hadescaped across the sea. And here he set himself, still with that sense ofshadowiness in what he saw and in what he did, in making all theresearches possible to him, about the neighborhood; visiting every littlechurch that raised its square battlemented Norman tower of gray stone, for several miles round about; making himself acquainted with each littlevillage and hamlet that surrounded these churches, clustering about thegraves of those who had dwelt in the same cottages aforetime. He visitedall the towns within a dozen miles; and probably there were few of theinhabitants who had so good an acquaintance with the neighborhood as thisnative American attained within a few weeks after his coming thither. 

In course of these excursions he had several times met with a youngwoman, --a young lady, one might term her, but in fact he was in somedoubt what rank she might hold, in England, --who happened to be wanderingabout the country with a singular freedom. She was always alone, alwayson foot; he would see her sketching some picturesque old church, someivied ruin, some fine drooping elm. She was a slight figure, much more sothan English women generally are; and, though healthy of aspect, had notthe ruddy complexion, which he was irreverently inclined to call thecoarse tint, that is believed the great charm of English beauty. Therewas a freedom in her step and whole little womanhood, an elasticity, anirregularity, so to speak, that made her memorable from first sight; andwhen he had encountered her three or four times, he felt in a certain wayacquainted with her. She was very simply dressed, and quite as simple inher deportment; there had been one or two occasions, when they had bothsmiled at the same thing; soon afterwards a little conversation had takenplace between them; and thus, without any introduction, and in a way thatsomewhat puzzled Middleton himself, they had become acquainted. It was sounusual that a young English girl should be wandering about the countryentirely alone--so much less usual that she should speak to astranger--that Middleton scarcely knew how to account for it, butmeanwhile accepted the fact readily and willingly, for in truth he foundthis mysterious personage a very likely and entertaining companion. Therewas a strange quality of boldness in her remarks, almost of brusqueness, that he might have expected to find in a young countrywoman of his own, if bred up among the strong-minded, but was astonished to find in a youngEnglishwoman. Somehow or other she made him think more of home than anyother person or thing he met with; and he could not but feel that she wasin strange contrast with everything about her. She was no beauty; verypiquant; very pleasing; in some points of view and at some momentspretty; always good-humored, but somewhat too self-possessed forMiddleton's taste. It struck him that she had talked with him as if shehad some knowledge of him and of the purposes with which he was there;not that this was expressed, but only implied by the fact that, onlooking back to what had passed, he found many strange coincidences inwhat she had said with what he was thinking about. 

He perplexed himself much with thinking whence this young woman had come, where she belonged, and what might be her history; when, the next day, heagain saw her, not this time rambling on foot, but seated in an openbarouche with a young lady. Middleton lifted his hat to her, and shenodded and smiled to him; and it appeared to Middleton that aconversation ensued about him with the young lady, her companion. Now, what still more interested him was the fact that, on the panel of thebarouche were the arms of the family now in possession of the estate ofSmithell's; so that the young lady, his new acquaintance, or the younglady, her seeming friend, one or the other, was the sister of the presentowner of that estate. He was inclined to think that his acquaintancecould not be the Miss Eldredge, of whose beauty he had heard many talesamong the people of the neighborhood. The other young lady, a tall, reserved, fair-haired maiden, answered the description considerablybetter. He concluded, therefore, that his acquaintance must be a visitor, perhaps a dependent and companion; though the freedom of her thought, action, and way of life seemed hardly consistent with this idea. However, this slight incident served to give him a sort of connection with thefamily, and he could but hope that some further chance would introducehim within what he fondly called his hereditary walls. He had come tothink of this as a dreamland; and it seemed even more a dreamland nowthan before it rendered itself into actual substance, an old house ofstone and timber standing within its park, shaded about with itsancestral trees. 

But thus, at all events, he was getting himself a little wrought into thenet-work of human life around him, secluded as his position had at firstseemed to be, in the farmhouse where he had taken up his lodgings. For, there was the Hospital and its old inhabitants, in whose monotonousexistence he soon came to pass for something, with his liveliness ofmind, his experience, his good sense, his patience as a listener, hiscomparative youth even--his power of adapting himself to these stiff andcrusty characters, a power learned among other things in his politicallife, where he had acquired something of the faculty (good or bad asmight be) of making himself all things to all men. But though he amusedhimself with them all, there was in truth but one man among them in whomhe really felt much interest; and that one, we need hardly say, wasHammond. It was not often that he found the old gentleman in aconversible mood; always courteous, indeed, but generally cool andreserved; often engaged in his one room, to which Middleton had never yetbeen admitted, though he had more than once sent in his name, whenHammond was not apparent upon the bench which, by common consent of theHospital, was appropriated to him. 

One day, however, notwithstanding that the old gentleman was confined tohis room by indisposition, he ventured to inquire at the door, and, considerably to his surprise, was admitted. He found Hammond in hiseasy-chair, at a table, with writing-materials before him; and asMiddleton entered, the old gentleman looked at him with a stern, fixedregard, which, however, did not seem to imply any particular displeasuretowards this visitor, but rather a severe way of regarding mankind ingeneral. Middleton looked curiously around the small apartment, to seewhat modification the character of the man had had upon the customaryfurniture of the Hospital, and how much of individuality he had given tothat general type. There was a shelf of books, and a row of them on themantel-piece; works of political economy, they appeared to be, statisticsand things of that sort; very dry reading, with which, however, Middleton's experience as a politician had made him acquainted. Besidesthese there were a few works on local antiquities, a county-historyborrowed from the Master's library, in which Hammond appeared to havebeen lately reading. 

"They are delightful reading, " observed Middleton, "these oldcounty-histories, with their great folio volumes and their minute accountof the affairs of families and the genealogies, and descents of estates, bestowing as much blessed space on a few hundred acres as otherhistorians give to a principality. I fear that in my own country we shallnever have anything of this kind. Our space is so vast that we shallnever come to know and love it, inch by inch, as the English antiquariansdo the tracts of country with which they deal; and besides, our land isalways likely to lack the interest that belongs to English estates; forwhere land changes its ownership every few years, it does not becomeimbued with the personalities of the people who live on it. It is but somuch grass; so much dirt, where a succession of people have dwelt toolittle to make it really their own. But I have found a pleasure that Ihad no conception of before, in reading some of the English localhistories. "

"It is not a usual course of reading for a transitory visitor, " saidHammond. "What could induce you to undertake it?"

"Simply the wish, so common and natural with Americans, " saidMiddleton--"the wish to find out something about my kindred--the localorigin of my own family. "

"You do not show your wisdom in this, " said his visitor. "America hadbetter recognize the fact that it has nothing to do with England, andlook upon itself as other nations and people do, as existing on its ownhook. I never heard of any people looking hack to the country of theirremote origin in the way the Anglo-Americans do. For instance, England ismade up of many alien races, German, Danish. Norman, and what not: it hasreceived large accessions of population at a later date than thesettlement of the United States. Yet these families melt into the greathomogeneous mass of Englishmen, and look hack no more to any othercountry. There are in this vicinity many descendants of the FrenchHuguenots; but they care no more for France than for Timbuctoo, reckoningthemselves only Englishmen, as if they were descendants of the aboriginalBritons. Let it he so with you. "

"So it might be, " replied Middleton, "only that our relations withEngland remain far more numerous than our disconnections, through thebonds of history, of literature, of all that makes up the memories, andmuch that makes up the present interests of a people. And therefore Imust still continue to pore over these old folios, and hunt around theseprecincts, spending thus the little idle time I am likely to have in abusy life. Possibly finding little to my purpose; but that is quite asecondary consideration. "

"If you choose to tell me precisely what your aims are, " said Hammond, "it is possible I might give you some little assistance. "

_May 7th, Friday_. --Middleton was in fact more than half ashamed of thedreams which he had cherished before coming to England, and which since, at times, had been very potent with him, assuming as strong a tinge ofreality as those [scenes?] into which he had strayed. He could notprevail with himself to disclose fully to this severe, and, as hethought, cynical old man how strong within him was the sentiment thatimpelled him to connect himself with the old life of England, to join onthe broken thread of ancestry and descent, and feel every link wellestablished. But it seemed to him that he ought not to lose this fairopportunity of gaining some light on the abstruse field of hisresearches; and he therefore explained to Hammond that he had reason, from old family traditions, to believe that he brought with him afragment of a history that, if followed out, might lead to curiousresults. He told him, in a tone half serious, what he had heardrespecting the quarrel of the two brothers, and the Bloody Footstep, theimpress of which was said to remain, as a lasting memorial of the tragictermination of that enmity. At this point, Hammond interrupted him. Hehad indeed, at various points of the narrative, nodded and smiledmysteriously, as if looking into his mind and seeing something thereanalogous to what he was listening to. He now spoke. 

"This is curious, " said he. "Did you know that there is a manor-house inthis neighborhood, the family of which prides itself on having such ablood-stained threshold as you have now described?"

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Middleton, greatly interested. "Where?"

"It is the old manor-house of Smithell's, " replied Hammond, "one of thoseold wood and timber [plaster?] mansions, which are among the most ancientspecimens of domestic architecture in England. The house has now passedinto the female line, and by marriage has been for two or threegenerations in possession of another family. But the blood of the oldinheritors is still in the family. The house itself, or portions of it, are thought to date back quite as far as the Conquest. "

"Smithell's?" said Middleton. "Why, I have seen that old house from adistance, and have felt no little interest in its antique aspect. And ithas a Bloody Footstep! Would it be possible for a stranger to get anopportunity to inspect it?"

"Unquestionably, " said Hammond; "nothing easier. It is but a moderatedistance from here, and if you can moderate your young footsteps, andyour American quick walk, to an old man's pace, I would go there with yousome day. In this languor and ennui of my life, I spend some time inlocal antiquarianism, and perhaps I might assist you in tracing out howfar these traditions of yours may have any connection with reality. Itwould be curious, would it not, if you had come, after two hundred years, to piece out a story which may have been as much a mystery in England asthere in America?"

An engagement was made for a walk to Smithell's the ensuing day; andmeanwhile Middleton entered more fully into what he had received fromfamily traditions and what he had thought out for himself on the matterin question. 

"Are you aware, " asked Hammond, "that there was formerly a title in thisfamily, now in abeyance, and which the heirs have at various timesclaimed, and are at this moment claiming? Do you know, too, --but you canscarcely know it, --that it has been surmised by some that there is aninsecurity in the title to the estate, and has always been; so that thepossessors have lived in some apprehension, from time immemorial, thatanother heir would appear and take from them the fair inheritance? It isa singular coincidence. "

"Very strange, " exclaimed Middleton. "No; I was not aware of it; and, tosay the truth, I should not altogether like to come forward in the lightof a claimant. But this is a dream, surely!"

"I assure you, sir, " continued the old man, "that you come here in a verycritical moment; and singularly enough there is a perplexity, adifficulty, that has endured for as long a time as when your ancestorsemigrated, that is still rampant within the bowels, as I may say, of thefamily. Of course, it is too like a romance that you should be able toestablish any such claim as would have a valid influence on this matter;but still, being here on the spot, it may be worth while, if merely as amatter of amusement, to make some researches into this matter. "

"Surely I will, " said Middleton, with a smile, which concealed moreearnestness than he liked to show; "as to the title, a Republican cannotbe supposed to think twice about such a bagatelle. The estate!--thatmight be a more serious consideration. "

They continued to talk on the subject; and Middleton learned that thepresent possessor of the estates was a gentleman nowise distinguishedfrom hundreds of other English gentlemen; a country squire modified inaccordance with the type of to-day, a frank, free, friendly sort of aperson enough, who had travelled on the Continent, who employed himselfmuch in field-sports, who was unmarried, and had a sister who wasreckoned among the beauties of the county. 

While the conversation was thus going on, to Middleton's astonishmentthere came a knock at the door of the room, and, without waiting for aresponse, it was opened, and there appeared at it the same young womanwhom he had already met. She came in with perfect freedom andfamiliarity, and was received quietly by the old gentleman; who, however, by his manner towards Middleton, indicated that he was now to take hisleave. He did so, after settling the hour at which the excursion of thenext day was to take place. This arranged, he departed, with much tothink of, and a light glimmering through the confused labyrinth ofthoughts which had been unilluminated hitherto. 

To say the truth, he questioned within himself whether it were not betterto get as quickly as he could out of the vicinity; and, at any rate, notto put anything of earnest in what had hitherto been nothing more than aromance to him. There was something very dark and sinister in the eventsof family history, which now assumed a reality that they had never beforeworn; so much tragedy, so much hatred, had been thrown into that deeppit, and buried under the accumulated debris, the fallen leaves, the rustand dust of more than two centuries, that it seemed not worth while todig it up; for perhaps the deadly influences, which it had taken so muchtime to hide, might still be lurking there, and become potent if he nowuncovered them. There was something that startled him, in the strange, wild light, which gleamed from the old man's eyes, as he threw out thesuggestions which had opened this prospect to him. What right had he--anAmerican, Republican, disconnected with this country so long, alien fromits habits of thought and life, reverencing none of the things whichEnglishmen reverenced--what right had he to come with these musty claimsfrom the dim past, to disturb them in the life that belonged to them?There was a higher and a deeper law than any connected with ancestralclaims which he could assert; and he had an idea that the law bade himkeep to the country which his ancestor had chosen and to itsinstitutions, and not meddle nor make with England. The roots of hisfamily tree could not reach under the ocean; he was at most but aseedling from the parent tree. While thus meditating he found that hisfootsteps had brought him unawares within sight of the old manor-house ofSmithell's; and that he was wandering in a path which, if he followed itfurther, would bring him to an entrance in one of the wings of themansion. With a sort of shame upon him, he went forward, and, leaningagainst a tree, looked at what he considered the home of his ancestors. 

_May 9th, Sunday_. --At the time appointed, the two companions set out ontheir little expedition, the old man in his Hospital uniform, the longblack mantle, with the bear and ragged staff engraved in silver on thebreast, and Middleton in the plain costume which he had adopted in thesewanderings about the country. On their way, Hammond was not verycommunicative, occasionally dropping some shrewd remark with a good dealof acidity in it; now and then, too, favoring his companion with somereminiscence of local antiquity; but oftenest silent. Thus they went on, and entered the park of Pemberton Manor by a by-path, over a stile andone of those footways, which are always so well worth threading out inEngland, leading the pedestrian into picturesque and characteristicscenes, when the highroad would show him nothing except what wascommonplace and uninteresting. Now the gables of the old manor-houseappeared before them, rising amidst the hereditary woods, which doubtlessdated from a time beyond the days which Middleton fondly recalled, whenhis ancestors had walked beneath their shade. On each side of them werethickets and copses of fern, amidst which they saw the hares peeping outto gaze upon them, occasionally running across the path, and comportingthemselves like creatures that felt themselves under some sort ofprotection from the outrages of man, though they knew too much of hisdestructive character to trust him too far. Pheasants, too, rose closebeside them, and winged but a little way before they alighted; theylikewise knew, or seemed to know, that their hour was not yet come. Onall sides in these woods, these wastes, these beasts and birds, there wasa character that was neither wild nor tame. Man had laid his grasp onthem all, and done enough to redeem them from barbarism, but had stoppedshort of domesticating them; although Nature, in the wildest thing there, acknowledged the powerful and pervading influence of cultivation. 

Arriving at a side door of the mansion, Hammond rang the bell, and aservant soon appeared. He seemed to know the old man, and immediatelyacceded to his request to be permitted to show his companion the house;although it was not precisely a show-house, nor was this the hour whenstrangers were usually admitted. They entered; and the servant did notgive himself the trouble to act as a cicerone to the two visitants, butcarelessly said to the old gentleman that he knew the rooms, and that hewould leave him to discourse to his friend about them. Accordingly, theywent into the old hall, a dark oaken-panelled room, of no great height, with many doors opening into it. There was a fire burning on the hearth;indeed, it was the custom of the house to keep it up from morning tonight; and in the damp, chill climate of England, there is seldom a dayin some part of which a fire is not pleasant to feel. Hammond herepointed out a stuffed fox, to which some story of a famous chase wasattached; a pair of antlers of enormous size; and some old familypictures, so blackened with time and neglect that Middleton could notwell distinguish their features, though curious to do so, as hoping tosee there the lineaments of some with whom he might claim kindred. It wasa venerable apartment, and gave a good foretaste of what they might hopeto find in the rest of the mansion. 

But when they had inspected it pretty thoroughly, and were ready toproceed, an elderly gentleman entered the hall, and, seeing Hammond, addressed him in a kindly, familiar way; not indeed as an equal friend, but with a pleasant and not irksome conversation. "I am glad to see youhere again, " said he. "What? I have an hour of leisure; for, to say thetruth, the day hangs rather heavy till the shooting season begins. Come;as you have a friend with you, I will be your cicerone myself about thehouse, and show you whatever mouldy objects of interest it contains. "

He then graciously noticed the old man's companion, but without asking orseeming to expect an introduction; for, after a careless glance at him, he had evidently set him down as a person without social claims, a youngman in the rank of life fitted to associate with an inmate of Pemberton'sHospital. And it must be noticed that his treatment of Middleton was noton that account the less kind, though far from being so elaboratelycourteous as if he had met him as an equal. "You have had something of awalk, " said he, "and it is a rather hot day. The beer of Pemberton Manorhas been reckoned good these hundred years; will you taste it?"

Hammond accepted the offer, and the beer was brought in a foamingtankard; but Middleton declined it, for in truth there was a singularemotion in his breast, as if the old enmity, the ancient injuries, werenot yet atoned for, and as if he must not accept the hospitality of onewho represented his hereditary foe. He felt, too, as if there weresomething unworthy, a certain want of fairness, in entering clandestinelythe house, and talking with its occupant under a veil, as it were; andhad he seen clearly how to do it, he would perhaps at that moment havefairly told Mr. Eldredge that he brought with him the character ofkinsman, and must be received on that grade or none. But it was not easyto do this; and after all, there was no clear reason why he should do it;so he let the matter pass, merely declining to take the refreshment, andkeeping himself quiet and retired. 

Squire Eldredge seemed to be a good, ordinary sort of gentleman, reasonably well educated, and with few ideas beyond his estate andneighborhood, though he had once held a seat in Parliament for part of aterm. Middleton could not but contrast him, with an inward smile, withthe shrewd, alert politicians, their faculties all sharpened to theutmost, whom he had known and consorted with in the American Congress. Hammond had slightly informed him that his companion was an American; andMr. Eldredge immediately gave proof of the extent of his knowledge ofthat country, by inquiring whether he came from the State of New England, and whether Mr. Webster was still President of the United States;questions to which Middleton returned answers that led to no furtherconversation. These little preliminaries over, they continued theirramble through the house, going through tortuous passages, up and downlittle flights of steps, and entering chambers that had all the charm ofdiscoveries of hidden regions; loitering about, in short, in a labyrinthcalculated to put the head into a delightful confusion. Some of theserooms contained their time-honored furniture, all in the best possiblerepair, heavy, dark, polished; beds that had been marriage beds and dyingbeds over and over again; chairs with carved backs; and all manner of oldworld curiosities; family pictures, and samplers, and embroidery;fragments of tapestry; an inlaid floor; everything having a story to it, though, to say the truth, the possessor of these curiosities made but abungling piece of work in telling the legends connected with them. In oneor two instances Hammond corrected him. 

By and by they came to what had once been the principal bed-room of thehouse; though its gloom, and some circumstances of family misfortune thathad happened long ago, had caused it to fall into disrepute in lattertimes; and it was now called the Haunted Chamber, or the Ghost's Chamber. The furniture of this room, however, was particularly rich in its antiquemagnificence; and one of the principal objects was a great black cabinetof ebony and ivory, such as may often be seen in old English houses, andperhaps often in the palaces of Italy, in which country they perhapsoriginated. This present cabinet was known to have been in the house aslong ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and how much longer neithertradition nor record told. Hammond particularly directed Middleton'sattention to it. 

"There is nothing in this house, " said he, "better worth your attentionthan that cabinet. ' Consider its plan; it represents a stately mansion, with pillars, an entrance, with a lofty flight of steps, windows, andeverything perfect. Examine it well. "

There was such an emphasis in the old man's way of speaking thatMiddleton turned suddenly round from all that he had been looking at, andfixed his whole attention on the cabinet; and strangely enough, it seemedto be the representative, in small, of something that he had seen in adream. To say the truth, if some cunning workman had been employed tocopy his idea of the old family mansion, on a scale of half an inch to ayard, and in ebony and ivory instead of stone, he could not have produceda closer imitation. Everything was there. 

"This is miraculous!" exclaimed he. "I do not understand it. "

"Your friend seems to be curious in these matters, " said Mr. Eldredgegraciously. "Perhaps he is of some trade that makes this sort ofmanufacture particularly interesting to him. You are quite at liberty, myfriend, to open the cabinet and inspect it as minutely as you wish. It isan article that has a good deal to do with an obscure portion of ourfamily history. Look, here is the key, and the mode of opening the outerdoor of the palace, as we may well call it. " So saying, he threw open theouter door, and disclosed within the mimic likeness of a stately entrancehall, with a floor chequered of ebony and ivory. There were other doorsthat seemed to open into apartments in the interior of the palace; butwhen Mr. Eldredge threw them likewise wide, they proved to be drawers andsecret receptacles, where papers, jewels, money, anything that it wasdesirable to store away secretly, might be kept. 

"You said, sir, " said Middleton, thoughtfully, "that your family historycontained matter of interest in reference to this cabinet. Might Iinquire what those legends are?"

"Why, yes, " said Mr. Eldredge, musing a little. "I see no reason why Ishould have any idle concealment about the matter, especially to aforeigner and a man whom I am never likely to see again. You must know, then, my friend, that there was once a time when this cabinet was knownto contain the fate of the estate and its possessors; and if it had heldall that it was supposed to hold, I should not now be the lord ofPemberton Manor, nor the claimant of an ancient title. But my father, andhis father before him, and his father besides, have held the estate andprospered on it; and I think we may fairly conclude now that the cabinetcontains nothing except what we see. "

And he rapidly again threw open one after another all the numerousdrawers and receptacles of the cabinet. 

"It is an interesting object, " said Middleton, after looking very closelyand with great attention at it, being pressed thereto, indeed, by theowner's good natured satisfaction in possessing this rare article ofvertu. "It is admirable work, " repeated he, drawing back. "That mosaicfloor, especially, is done with an art and skill that I never sawequalled. "

There was something strange and altered in Middleton's tones, thatattracted the notice of Mr. Eldredge. Looking at him, he saw that he hadgrown pale, and had a rather bewildered air. 

"Is your friend ill?" said he. "He has not our English ruggedness oflook. He would have done better to take a sip of the cool tankard, and aslice of the cold beef. He finds no such food and drink as that in hisown country, I warrant. "

"His color has come back, " responded Hammond, briefly. "He does not needany refreshment, I think, except, perhaps, the open air. "

In fact, Middleton, recovering himself, apologized to Mr. Hammond[Eldredge?]; and as they had now seen nearly the whole of the house, thetwo visitants took their leave, with many kindly offers on Mr. Eldredge'spart to permit the young man to view the cabinet whenever he wished. Asthey went out of the house (it was by another door than that which gavethem entrance), Hammond laid his hand on Middleton's shoulder and pointedto a stone on the threshold, on which he was about to set his foot. "Takecare!" said he. "It is the Bloody Footstep. "

Middleton looked down and saw something, indeed, very like the shape of afootprint, with a hue very like that of blood. It was a twilight sort ofa place, beneath a porch, which was much overshadowed by trees andshrubbery. It might have been blood; but he rather thought, in his wickedskepticism, that it was a natural, reddish stain in the stone. Hemeasured his own foot, however, in the Bloody Footstep, and went on. 

_May 10th, Monday_. --This is the present aspect of the story: Middletonis the descendant of a family long settled in the United States; hisancestor having emigrated to New England with the Pilgrims; or, perhaps, at a still earlier date, to Virginia with Raleigh's colonists. There hadbeen a family dissension, --a bitter hostility between two brothers inEngland; on account, probably, of a love affair, the two both beingattached to the same lady. By the influence of the family on both sides, the young lady had formed an engagement with the elder brother, althoughher affections had settled on the younger. The marriage was about to takeplace when the younger brother and the bride both disappeared, and werenever heard of with any certainty afterwards; but it was believed at thetime that he had been killed, and in proof of it a bloody footstepremained on the threshold of the ancestral mansion. There were rumors, afterwards, traditionally continued to the present day, that the youngerbrother and the bride were seen, and together, in England; and that somevoyager across the sea had found them living together, husband and wife, on the other side of the Atlantic. But the elder brother became a moodyand reserved man, never married, and left the inheritance to the childrenof a third brother, who then became the representative of the family inEngland; and the better authenticated story was that the second brotherhad really been slain, and that the young lady (for all the parties mayhave been Catholic) had gone to the Continent and taken the veil there. Such was the family history as known or surmised in England, and in theneighborhood of the manor-house, where the Bloody Footstep still remainedon the threshold; and the posterity of the third brother still held theestate, and perhaps were claimants of an ancient baronage, long inabeyance. 

Now, on the other side of the Atlantic, the second brother and the younglady had really been married, and became the parents of a posterity, still extant, of which the Middleton of the romance is the survivingmale. Perhaps he had changed his name, being so much tortured with theevil and wrong that had sprung up in his family, so remorseful, sooutraged, that he wished to disconnect himself with all the past, andbegin life quite anew in a new world. But both he and his wife, thoughhappy in one another, had been remorsefully and sadly so; and, with suchfeelings, they had never again communicated with their respectivefamilies, nor had given their children the means of doing so. There must, I think, have been something nearly approaching to guilt on the secondbrother's part, and the bride should have broken a solemnly plightedtroth to the elder brother, breaking away from him when almost his wife. The elder brother had been known to have been wounded at the time of thesecond brother's disappearance; and it had been the surmise that he hadreceived this hurt in the personal conflict in which the latter wasslain. But in truth the second brother had stabbed him in the emergencyof being discovered in the act of escaping with the bride; and this waswhat weighed upon his conscience throughout life in America. The Americanfamily had prolonged itself through various fortunes, and all the ups anddowns incident to our institutions, until the present day. They had someold family documents, which had been rather carelessly kept; but thepresent representative, being an educated man, had looked over them, andfound one which interested him strongly. It was--what was it?--perhaps acopy of a letter written by his ancestor on his death-bed, telling hisreal name, and relating the above incidents. These incidents had comedown in a vague, wild way, traditionally, in the American family, forminga wondrous and incredible legend, which Middleton had often laughed at, yet been greatly interested in; and the discovery of this document seemedto give a certain aspect of veracity and reality to the tradition. Perhaps, however, the document only related to the change of name, andmade reference to certain evidences by which, if any descendant of thefamily should deem it expedient, he might prove his hereditary identity. The legend must be accounted for by having been gathered from the talk ofthe first ancestor and his wife. There must be in existence, in the earlyrecords of the colony, an authenticated statement of this change of name, and satisfactory proofs that the American family, long known asMiddleton, were really a branch of the English family of Eldredge, orwhatever. And in the legend, though not in the written document, theremust be an account of a certain magnificent, almost palatial residence, which Middleton shall presume to be the ancestral home; and in thispalace there shall be said to be a certain secret chamber, or receptacle, where is reposited a document that shall complete the evidence of thegenealogical descent. 

Middleton is still a young man, but already a distinguished one in hisown country; he has entered early into politics, been sent to Congress, but having met with some disappointments in his ambitious hopes, andbeing disgusted with the fierceness of political contests in our country, he has come abroad for recreation and rest. His imagination has dweltmuch, in his boyhood, on the legendary story of his family; and thediscovery of the document has revived these dreams. He determines tosearch out the family mansion; and thus he arrives, bringing half of astory, being the only part known in America, to join it on to the otherhalf, which is the only part known in England. In an introduction I mustdo the best I can to state his side of the matter to the reader, hehaving communicated it to me in a friendly way, at the Consulate; as manypeople have communicated quite as wild pretensions to Englishgenealogies. 

He comes to the midland counties of England, where he conceives hisclaims to lie, and seeks for his ancestral home; but there aredifficulties in the way of finding it, the estates having passed into thefemale line, though still remaining in the blood. By and by, however, hecomes to an old town where there is one of the charitable institutionsbearing the name of his family, by whose beneficence it had indeed beenfounded, in Queen Elizabeth's time. He of course becomes interested inthis Hospital; he finds it still going on, precisely as it did in the olddays; and all the character and life of the establishment must bepicturesquely described. Here he gets acquainted with an old man, aninmate of the Hospital, who (if the uncontrollable fatality of the storywill permit) must have an active influence on the ensuing events. Isuppose him to have been an American, but to have fled his country andtaken refuge in England; he shall have been a man of the Nicholas Biddlestamp, a mighty speculator, the ruin of whose schemes had crushedhundreds of people, and Middleton's father among the rest. Here he hadquitted the activity of his mind, as well as he could, becoming a localantiquary, etc. , and he has made himself acquainted with the familyhistory of the Eldredges, knowing more about it than the members of thefamily themselves do. He had known in America (from Middleton's father, who was his friend) the legends preserved in this branch of the family, and perhaps had been struck by the way in which they fit into the Englishlegends; at any rate, this strikes him when Middleton tells him his storyand shows him the document respecting the change of name. After variousconversations together (in which, however, the old man keeps the secretof his own identity, and indeed acts as mysteriously as possible), theygo together to visit the ancestral mansion. Perhaps it should not be intheir first visit that the cabinet, representing the stately mansion, shall be seen. But the Bloody Footstep may; which shall interestMiddleton much, both because Hammond has told him the English traditionrespecting it, and because too the legends of the American family madesome obscure allusions to his ancestor having left blood--a bloodyfootstep--on the ancestral threshold. This is the point to which thestory has now been sketched out. Middleton finds a commonplace oldEnglish country gentleman in possession of the estate, where hisforefathers have lived in peace for many generations; but there must becircumstances contrived which shall cause Middleton's conduct to beattended by no end of turmoil and trouble. The old Hospitaller, Isuppose, must be the malicious agent in this; and his malice must bemotived in some satisfactory way. The more serious question, what shallbe the nature of this tragic trouble, and how can it be brought about?

_May 11th, Tuesday_. --How much better would it have been if this secret, which seemed so golden, had remained in the obscurity in which twohundred years had buried it! That deep, old, grass-grown grave beingopened, out from it streamed into the sunshine the old fatalities, theold crimes, the old misfortunes, the sorrows, that seemed to havedeparted from the family forever. But it was too late now to close it up;he must follow out the thread that led him on, --the thread of fate, ifyou choose to call it so; but rather the impulse of an evil will, astubborn self-interest, a desire for certain objects of ambition whichwere preferred to what yet were recognized as real goods. Thus reasoned, thus raved, Eldredge, as he considered the things that he had done, andstill intended to do; nor did these perceptions make the slightestdifference in his plans, nor in the activity with which he set abouttheir performance. For this purpose he sent for his lawyer, and consultedhim on the feasibility of the design which he had already communicated tohim respecting Middleton. But the man of law shook his head, and, thoughdeferentially, declined to have any active concern with the matter thatthreatened to lead him beyond the bounds which he allowed himself, into aseductive but perilous region. 

"My dear sir, " said he, with some earnestness, "you had much bettercontent yourself with such assistance as I can professionally andconsistently give you. Believe [me], I am willing to do a lawyer'sutmost, and to do more would be as unsafe for the client as for the legaladviser. "

Thus left without an agent and an instrument, this unfortunate man had tomeditate on what means he would use to gain his ends through his ownunassisted efforts. In the struggle with himself through which he hadpassed, he had exhausted pretty much all the feelings that he had tobestow on this matter; and now he was ready to take hold of almost anytemptation that might present itself, so long as it showed a goodprospect of success and a plausible chance of impunity. While he was thusmusing, he heard a female voice chanting some song, like a bird's amongthe pleasant foliage of the trees, and soon he saw at the end of awood-walk Alice, with her basket on her arm, passing on toward thevillage. She looked towards him as she passed, but made no pause nor yethastened her steps, not seeming to think it worth her while to beinfluenced by him. He hurried forward and overtook her. 

So there was this poor old gentleman, his comfort utterly overthrown, decking his white hair and wrinkled brow with the semblance of a coronet, and only hoping that the reality might crown and bless him before he waslaid in the ancestral tomb. It was a real calamity; though by no meansthe greatest that had been fished up out of the pit of domestic discordthat had been opened anew by the advent of the American; and by the usewhich had been made of it by the cantankerous old man of the Hospital. Middleton, as he looked at these evil consequences, sometimes regrettedthat he had not listened to those forebodings which had warned him backon the eve of his enterprise; yet such was the strange entanglement andinterest which had wound about him, that often he rejoiced that for oncehe was engaged in something that absorbed him fully, and the zeal for thedevelopment of which made him careless for the result in respect to itsgood or evil, but only desirous that it show itself. As for Alice, sheseemed to skim lightly through all these matters, whether as a spirit ofgood or ill he could not satisfactorily judge. He could not think herwicked; yet her actions seemed unaccountable on the plea that she wasotherwise. It was another characteristic thread in the wild web ofmadness that had spun itself about all the prominent characters of ourstory. And when Middleton thought of these things, he felt as if it mightbe his duty (supposing he had the power) to shovel the earth again intothe pit that he had been the means of opening; but also felt that, whether duty or not, he would never perform it. 

For, you see, on the American's arrival he had found the estate in thehands of one of the descendants; but some disclosures consequent on hisarrival had thrown it into the hands of another; or, at all events, hadseemed to make it apparent that justice required that it should be sodisposed of. No sooner was the discovery made than the possessor put on acoronet; the new heir had commenced legal proceedings; the sons of therespective branches had come to blows and blood; and the devil knows whatother devilish consequences had ensued. Besides this, there was muchfalling in love at cross-purposes, and a general animosity of everybodyagainst everybody else, in proportion to the closeness of the naturalties and their obligation to love one another. 

The moral, if any moral were to be gathered from these petty and wretchedcircumstances, was, "Let the past alone: do not seek to renew it; presson to higher and better things, --at all events, to other things; and beassured that the right way can never be that which leads you back to theidentical shapes that you long ago left behind. Onward, onward, onward!"

"What have you to do here?" said Alice. "Your lot is in another land. You have seen the birthplace of your forefathers, and have gratified yournatural yearning for it; now return, and cast in your lot with your ownpeople, let it be what it will. I fully believe that it is such a lot asthe world has never yet seen, and that the faults, the weaknesses, theerrors, of your countrymen will vanish away like morning mists before therising sun. You can do nothing better than to go back. "

"This is strange advice, Alice, " said Middleton, gazing at her andsmiling. "Go back, with such a fair prospect before me; that were strangeindeed! It is enough to keep me here, that here only I shall seeyou, --enough to make me rejoice to have come, that I have found youhere. "

"Do not speak in this foolish way, " cried Alice, panting. "I am givingyou the best advice, and speaking in the wisest way I am capableof, --speaking on good grounds too, --and you turn me aside with a sillycompliment. I tell you that this is no comedy in which we are performers, but a deep, sad tragedy; and that it depends most upon you whether or noit shall be pressed to a catastrophe. Think well of it. "

"I have thought, Alice, " responded the young man, "and I must let thingstake their course; if, indeed, it depends at all upon me, which I see nopresent reason to suppose. Yet I wish you would explain to me what youmean. "

To take up the story from the point where we left it: by the aid of theAmerican's revelations, some light is thrown upon points of familyhistory, which induce the English possessor of the estate to suppose thatthe time has come for asserting his claim to a title which has long beenin abeyance. He therefore sets about it, and engages in great expenses, besides contracting the enmity of many persons, with whose interests heinterferes. A further complication is brought about by the secretinterference of the old Hospitaller, and Alice goes singing and dancingthrough the whole, in a way that makes her seem like a beautiful devil, though finally it will be recognized that she is an angel of light. Middleton, half bewildered, can scarcely tell how much of this is due tohis own agency; how much is independent of him and would have happenedhad he stayed on his own side of the water. By and by a further andunexpected development presents the singular fact that he himself is theheir to whatever claims there are, whether of property or rank, --allcentring in him as the representative of the eldest brother. On thisdiscovery there ensues a tragedy in the death of the present possessor ofthe estate, who has staked everything upon the issue; and Middleton, standing amid the ruin and desolation of which he has been the innocentcause, resigns all the claims which he might now assert, and retires, armin arm with Alice, who has encouraged him to take this course, and to actup to his character. The estate takes a passage into the female line, andthe old name becomes extinct, nor does Middleton seek to continue it byresuming it in place of the one long ago assumed by his ancestor. Thus heand his wife become the Adam and Eve of a new epoch, and the fittingmissionaries of a new social faith, of which there must be continualhints through the book. 

A knot of characters may be introduced as gathering around Middleton, comprising expatriated Americans of all sorts: the wandering printer whocame to me so often at the Consulate, who said he was a native ofPhiladelphia, and could not go home in the thirty years that he had beentrying to do so, for lack of the money to pay his passage; the largebanker; the consul of Leeds; the woman asserting her claims to halfLiverpool; the gifted literary lady, maddened by Shakespeare, &c. , &c. The Yankee who had been driven insane by the Queen's notice, slight as itwas, of the photographs of his two children which he had sent her. I havenot yet struck the true key-note of this Romance, and until I do, andunless I do, I shall write nothing but tediousness and nonsense. I do notwish it to be a picture of life, but a Romance, grim, grotesque, quaint, of which the Hospital might be the fitting scene. It might have so muchof the hues of life that the reader should sometimes think it wasintended for a picture, yet the atmosphere should be such as to excuseall wildness. In the Introduction, I might disclaim all intention to drawa real picture, but say that the continual meetings I had with Americansbent on such errands had suggested this wild story. The descriptions ofscenery, &c. , and of the Hospital, might be correct, but there should bea tinge of the grotesque given to all the characters and events. Thetragic and the gentler pathetic need not be excluded by the tone andtreatment. If I could but write one central scene in this vein, all therest of the Romance would readily arrange itself around that nucleus. Thebegging-girl would be another American character; the actress too; thecaravan people. It must be humorous work, or nothing. 

III. 

_May 12th, Wednesday_. --Middleton found his abode here becoming dailymore interesting; and he sometimes thought that it was the sympathieswith the place and people, buried under the supergrowth of so many ages, but now coming forth with the life and vigor of a fountain, that, longhidden beneath earth and ruins, gushes out singing into the sunshine, assoon as these are removed. He wandered about the neighborhood withinsatiable interest; sometimes, and often, lying on a hill-side andgazing at the gray tower of the church; sometimes coming into the villageclustered round that same church, and looking at the old timber andplaster houses, the same, except that the thatch had probably been oftenrenewed, that they used to be in his ancestor's days. In those oldcottages still dwelt the families, the ----s, the Prices, the Hopnorts, the Copleys, that had dwelt there when America was a scattered progeny ofinfant colonies; and in the churchyard were the graves of all thegenerations since--including the dust of those who had seen hisancestor's face before his departure. 

The graves, outside the church walls indeed, bore no marks of thisantiquity; for it seems not to have been an early practice in England toput stones over such graves; and where it has been done, the climatecauses the inscriptions soon to become obliterated and unintelligible. But, within the church, there were rich words of the personages and timeswith whom Middleton's musings held so much converse. 

But one of his greatest employments and pastimes was to ramble throughthe grounds of Smithell's, making himself as well acquainted with itswood paths, its glens, its woods, its venerable trees, as if he had beenbred up there from infancy. Some of those old oaks his ancestor mighthave been acquainted with, while they were already sturdy and well-growntrees; might have climbed them in boyhood; might have mused beneath themas a lover; might have flung himself at full length on the turf beneaththem, in the bitter anguish that must have preceded his departure foreverfrom the home of his forefathers. In order to secure an uninterruptedenjoyment of his rambles here, Middleton had secured the good-will of thegame-keepers and other underlings whom he was likely to meet about thegrounds, by giving them a shilling or a half-crown; and he was now freeto wander where he would, with only the advice rather than the caution, to keep out of the way of their old master, --for there might be trouble, if he should meet a stranger on the grounds, in any of his tantrums. But, in fact, Mr. Eldredge was not much in the habit of walking about thegrounds; and there were hours of every day, during which it wasaltogether improbable that he would have emerged from his own apartmentsin the manor-house. These were the hours, therefore, when Middleton mostfrequented the estate; although, to say the truth, he would gladly haveso timed his visits as to meet and form an acquaintance with the lonelylord of this beautiful property, his own kinsman, though with so manyages of dark oblivion between. For Middleton had not that feeling ofinfinite distance in the relationship, which he would have had if hisbranch of the family had continued in England, and had not intermarriedwith the other branch, through such a long waste of years; he rather feltas if he were the original emigrant who, long resident on a foreignshore, had now returned, with a heart brimful of tenderness, to revisitthe scenes of his youth, and renew his tender relations with those whoshared his own blood. 

There was not, however, much in what he heard of the character of thepresent possessor of the estate--or indeed in the strong familycharacteristic that had become hereditary--to encourage him to attemptany advances. It is very probable that the religion of Mr. Eldredge, as aCatholic, may have excited a prejudice against him, as it certainly hadinsulated the family, in a great degree, from the sympathies of theneighborhood. Mr. Eldredge, moreover, had resided long on the Continent;long in Italy; and had come back with habits that little accorded withthose of the gentry of the neighborhood; so that, in fact, he was almostas much of a stranger, and perhaps quite as little of a real Englishman, as Middleton himself. Be that as it might, Middleton, when he sought tolearn something about him, heard the strangest stories of his habits oflife, of his temper, and of his employments, from the people with whom heconversed. The old legend, turning upon the monomania of the family, wasrevived in full force in reference to this poor gentleman; and many atime Middleton's interlocutors shook their wise heads, saying with aknowing look and under their breath that the old gentleman was lookingfor the track of the Bloody Footstep. They fabled--or said, for it mightnot have been a false story--that every descendant of this house had acertain portion of his life, during which he sought the track of thatfootstep which was left on the threshold of the mansion; that he soughtit far and wide, over every foot of the estate; not only on the estate, but throughout the neighborhood; not only in the neighborhood but allover England; not only throughout England but all about the world. It wasthe belief of the neighborhood--at least of some old men and women init--that the long period of Mr. Eldredge's absence from England had beenspent in the search for some trace of those departing footsteps that hadnever returned. It is very possible--probable, indeed--that there mayhave been some ground for this remarkable legend; not that it is to becredited that the family of Eldredge, being reckoned among sane men, would seriously have sought, years and generations after the fact, forthe first track of those bloody footsteps which the first rain of drippyEngland must have washed away; to say nothing of the leaves that hadfallen and the growth and decay of so many seasons, that covered alltraces of them since. But nothing is more probable than that thecontinual recurrence to the family genealogy, which had been necessitatedby the matter of the dormant peerage, had caused the Eldredges, fromfather to son, to keep alive an interest in that ancestor who haddisappeared, and who had been supposed to carry some of the mostimportant family papers with him. But yet it gave Middleton a strangethrill of pleasure, that had something fearful in it, to think that allthrough these ages he had been waited for, sought for, anxiouslyexpected, as it were; it seemed as if the very ghosts of his kindred, along shadowy line, held forth their dim arms to welcome him; a linestretching back to the ghosts of those who had flourished in the old, oldtimes; the doubletted and beruffled knightly shades of Queen Elizabeth'stime; a long line, stretching from the mediaeval ages, and theirduskiness, downward, downward, with only one vacant space, that of himwho had left the Bloody Footstep. There was an inexpressible pleasure(airy and evanescent, gone in a moment if he dwelt upon it toothoughtfully, but very sweet) to Middleton's imagination, in this idea. When he reflected, however, that his revelations, if they had any effectat all, might serve only to quench the hopes of these long expectants, itof course made him hesitate to declare himself. 

One afternoon, when he was in the midst of musings such as this, he sawat a distance through the park, in the direction of the manor-house, aperson who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon theground. He was a long way off when Middleton first perceived him; andthere were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tractsof sunny lawn, between them. The person, whoever he was, kept on, andplunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on theground, as if intensely searching for something. When he emerged from theconcealment of the first clump of shrubbery, Middleton saw that he was atall, thin person, in a dark dress; and this was the chief observationthat the distance enabled him to make, as the figure kept slowly onward, in a somewhat wavering line, and plunged into the second clump ofshrubbery. From that, too, he emerged; and soon appeared to be a thinelderly figure, of a dark man with gray hair, bent, as it seemed toMiddleton, with infirmity, for his figure still stooped even in theintervals when he did not appear to be tracking the ground. But Middletoncould not but be surprised at the singular appearance the figure had ofsetting its foot, at every step, just where a previous footstep had beenmade, as if he wanted to measure his whole pathway in the track ofsomebody who had recently gone over the ground in advance of him. Middleton was sitting at the foot of an oak; and he began to feel someawkwardness in the consideration of what he would do if Mr. Eldredge--forhe could not doubt that it was he--were to be led just to this spot, inpursuit of his singular occupation. And even so it proved. 

Middleton could not feel it manly to fly and hide himself, like a guiltything; and indeed the hospitality of the English country gentleman inmany cases gives the neighborhood and the stranger a certain degree offreedom in the use of the broad expanse of ground in which they and theirforefathers have loved to sequester their residences. The figure kept on, showing more and more distinctly the tall, meagre, not unvenerablefeatures of a gentleman in the decline of life, apparently in ill-health;with a dark face, that might once have been full of energy, but nowseemed enfeebled by time, passion, and perhaps sorrow. But it was strangeto see the earnestness with which he looked on the ground, and theaccuracy with which he at last set his foot, apparently adjusting itexactly to some footprint before him; and Middleton doubted not that, having studied and re-studied the family records and the judicialexaminations which described exactly the track that was seen the dayafter the memorable disappearance of his ancestor, Mr. Eldredge was now, in some freak, or for some purpose best known to himself, practicallyfollowing it out. And follow it out he did, until at last he lifted uphis eyes, muttering to himself: "At this point the footsteps whollydisappear. "

Lifting his eyes, as we have said, while thus regretfully anddespairingly muttering these words, he saw Middleton against the oak, within three paces of him. 

_May 13th, Thursday_. --Mr. Eldredge (for it was he) first kept his eyesfixed full on Middleton's face, with an expression as if he saw him not;but gradually--slowly, at first--he seemed to become aware of hispresence; then, with a sudden flush, he took in the idea that he wasencountered by a stranger in his secret mood. A flush of anger or shame, perhaps both, reddened over his face; his eyes gleamed; and he spokehastily and roughly. 

"Who are you?" he said. "How come you here? I allow no intruders in mypark. Begone, fellow!"

"Really, sir, I did not mean to intrude upon you, " said Middletonblandly. "I am aware that I owe you an apology; but the beauties of yourpark must plead my excuse; and the constant kindness of [the] Englishgentleman, which admits a stranger to the privilege of enjoying so muchof the beauty in which he himself dwells as the stranger's taste permitshim to enjoy. "

"An artist, perhaps, " said Mr. Eldredge, somewhat less uncourteously. "Iam told that they love to come here and sketch those old oaks and theirvistas, and the old mansion yonder. But you are an intrusive set, youartists, and think that a pencil and a sheet of paper may be yourpassport anywhere. You are mistaken, sir. My park is not open tostrangers. "

"I am sorry, then, to have intruded upon you, " said Middleton, still ingood humor; for in truth he felt a sort of kindness, a sentiment, ridiculous as it may appear, of kindred towards the old gentleman, andbesides was not unwilling in any way to prolong a conversation in whichhe found a singular interest. "I am sorry, especially as I have not eventhe excuse you kindly suggest for me. I am not an artist, only anAmerican, who have strayed hither to enjoy this gentle, cultivated, tamednature which I find in English parks, so contrasting with the wild, rugged nature of my native land. I beg your pardon, and will retire. "

"An American, " repeated Mr. Eldredge, looking curiously at him. "Ah, youare wild men in that country, I suppose, and cannot conceive that anEnglish gentleman encloses his grounds--or that his ancestors have doneso before him--for his own pleasure and convenience, and does notcalculate on having it infringed upon by everybody, like your ownforests, as you say. It is a curious country, that of yours; and in ItalyI have seen curious people from it. "

"True, sir, " said Middleton, smiling. "We send queer specimens abroad;but Englishmen should consider that we spring from them, and that wepresent after all only a picture of their own characteristics, a littlevaried by climate and in situation. "

Mr. Eldredge looked at him with a certain kind of interest, and it seemedto Middleton that he was not unwilling to continue the conversation, if afair way to do so could only be offered to him. A secluded man oftengrasps at any opportunity of communicating with his kind, when it iscasually offered to him, and for the nonce is surprisingly familiar, running out towards his chance-companion with the gush of a dammed-uptorrent, suddenly unlocked. As Middleton made a motion to retire, he putout his hand with an air of authority to restrain him. 

"Stay, " said he. "Now that you are here, the mischief is done, and youcannot repair it by hastening away. You have interrupted me in my mood ofthought, and must pay the penalty by suggesting other thoughts. I am alonely man here, having spent most of my life abroad, and am separatedfrom my neighbors by various circumstances. You seem to be an intelligentman. I should like to ask you a few questions about your country. "

He looked at Middleton as he spoke, and seemed to be considering in whatrank of life he should place him; his dress being such as suited a humblerank. He seemed not to have come to any very certain decision on thispoint. 

"I remember, " said he, "you have no distinctions of rank in your country;a convenient thing enough, in some respects. When there are no gentlemen, all are gentlemen. So let it be. You speak of being Englishmen; and ithas often occurred to me that Englishmen have left this country and beenmuch missed and sought after, who might perhaps be sought theresuccessfully. "

"It is certainly so, Mr. Eldredge, " said Middleton, lifting his eyes tohis face as he spoke, and then turning them aside. "Many footsteps, thetrack of which is lost in England, might be found reappearing on theother side of the Atlantic; ay, though it be hundreds of years since thetrack was lost here. "

Middleton, though he had refrained from looking full at Mr. Eldredge ashe spoke, was conscious that he gave a great start; and he remainedsilent for a moment or two, and when he spoke there was the tremor in hisvoice of a nerve that had been struck and still vibrated. 

"That is a singular idea of yours, " he at length said; "not singular initself, but strangely coincident with something that happened to beoccupying my mind. Have you ever heard any such instances as you speakof?"

"Yes, " replied Middleton. "I have had pointed out to me the rightful heirto a Scottish earldom, in the person of an American farmer, in hisshirt-sleeves. There are many Americans who believe themselves to holdsimilar claims. And I have known one family, at least, who had in theirpossession, and had had for two centuries, a secret that might have beenworth wealth and honors if known in England. Indeed, being kindred as weare, it cannot but be the case. "

Mr. Eldredge appeared to be much struck by these last words, and gazedwistfully, almost wildly, at Middleton, as if debating with himselfwhether to say more. He made a step or two aside; then returned abruptly, and spoke. 

"Can you tell me the name of the family in which this secret was kept?"said he; "and the nature of the secret?"

"The nature of the secret, " said Middleton, smiling, "was not likely tobe extended to any one out of the family. The name borne by the familywas Middleton. There is no member of it, so far as I am aware, at thismoment remaining in America. "

"And has the secret died with them?" asked Mr. Eldredge. 

"They communicated it to none, " said Middleton. 

"It is a pity! It was a villainous wrong, " said Mr. Eldredge. "And so, itmay be, some ancient line, in the old country, is defrauded of its rightsfor want of what might have been obtained from this Yankee, whosedemocracy has demoralized them to the perception of what is due to theantiquity of descent, and of the bounden duty that there is, in allranks, to keep up the honor of a family that has had potence enough topreserve itself in distinction for a thousand years. "

"Yes, " said Middleton, quietly, "we have sympathy with what is strong andvivacious to-day; none with what was so yesterday. "

The remark seemed not to please Mr. Eldredge; he frowned, and mutteredsomething to himself; but recovering himself, addressed Middleton withmore courtesy than at the commencement of their interview; and, with thisgraciousness, his face and manner grew very agreeable, almostfascinating: he [was] still haughty, however. 

"Well, sir, " said he, "I am not sorry to have met you. I am a solitaryman, as I have said, and a little communication with a stranger is arefreshment, which I enjoy seldom enough to be sensible of it. Pray, areyou staying hereabouts?"

Middleton signified to him that he might probably spend some little timein the village. 

"Then, during your stay, " said Mr. Eldredge, "make free use of the walksin these grounds; and though it is not probable that you will meet me inthem again, you need apprehend no second questioning of your right to behere. My house has many points of curiosity that may be of interest to astranger from a new country. Perhaps you have heard of some of them. "

"I have heard some wild legend about a Bloody Footstep, " answeredMiddleton; "indeed, I think I remember hearing something about it in myown country; and having a fanciful sort of interest in such things, Itook advantage of the hospitable custom which opens the doors of curiousold houses to strangers, to go to see it. It seemed to me, I confess, only a natural stain in the old stone that forms the doorstep. "

"There, sir, " said Mr. Eldredge, "let me say that you came to a veryfoolish conclusion; and so, good-by, sir. "

And without further ceremony, he cast an angry glance at Middleton, whoperceived that the old gentleman reckoned the Bloody Footstep among hisancestral honors, and would probably have parted with his claim to thepeerage almost as soon as have given up the legend. 

Present aspect of the story: Middleton on his arrival becomes acquaintedwith the old Hospitaller, and is familiarized at the Hospital. He pays avisit in his company to the manor-house, but merely glimpses at itsremarkable things, at this visit, among others at the old cabinet, whichdoes not, at first view, strike him very strongly. But, on musing abouthis visit afterwards, he finds the recollection of the cabinet strangelyidentifying itself with his previous imaginary picture of the palatialmansion; so that at last he begins to conceive the mistake he has made. At this first [visit], he does not have a personal interview with thepossessor of the estate; but, as the Hospitaller and himself go from roomto room, he finds that the owner is preceding them, shyly flitting like aghost, so as to avoid them. Then there is a chapter about the characterof the Eldredge of the day, a Catholic, a morbid, shy man, representingall the peculiarities of an old family, and generally thought to beinsane. And then comes the interview between him and Middleton, where thelatter excites such an interest that he dwells upon the old man's mind, and the latter probably takes pains to obtain further intercourse withhim, and perhaps invites him to dinner, and [to] spend a night in hishouse. If so, this second meeting must lead to the examination of thecabinet, and the discovery of some family documents in it. Perhaps thecabinet may be in Middleton's sleeping-chamber, and he examines it byhimself, before going to bed; and finds out a secret which will perplexhim how to deal with it. 

_May 14th, Friday_. --We have spoken several times already of a younggirl, who was seen at this period about the little antiquated village ofSmithells; a girl in manners and in aspect unlike those of the cottagesamid which she dwelt. Middleton had now so often met her, and in solitaryplaces, that an acquaintance had inevitably established itself betweenthem. He had ascertained that she had lodgings at a farm-house near by, and that she was connected in some way with the old Hospitaller, whoseacquaintance had proved of such interest to him; but more than this hecould not learn either from her or others. But he was greatly attractedand interested by the free spirit and fearlessness of this young woman;nor could he conceive where, in staid and formal England, she had grownup to be such as she was, so without manner, so without art, yet socapable of doing and thinking for herself. She had no reserve, apparently, yet never seemed to sin against decorum; it never appeared torestrain her that anything she might wish to do was contrary to custom;she had nothing of what could be called shyness in her intercourse withhim; and yet he was conscious of an unapproachableness in Alice. Often, in the old man's presence, she mingled in the conversation that went onbetween him and Middleton, and with an acuteness that betokened a sphereof thought much beyond what could be customary with young Englishmaidens; and Middleton was often reminded of the theories of those in ourown country, who believe that the amelioration of society depends greatlyon the part that women shall hereafter take, according to theirindividual capacity, in all the various pursuits of life. These deeperthoughts, these higher qualities, surprised him as they showedthemselves, whenever occasion called them forth, under the light, gay, and frivolous exterior which she had at first seemed to present. Middleton often amused himself with surmises in what rank of life Alicecould have been bred, being so free of all conventional rule, yet so niceand delicate in her perception of the true proprieties that she nevershocked him. 

One morning, when they had met in one of Middleton's rambles about theneighborhood, they began to talk of America; and Middleton described toAlice the stir that was being made in behalf of women's rights; and hesaid that whatever cause was generous and disinterested always, in thatcountry, derived much of its power from the sympathy of women, and thatthe advocates of every such cause were in favor of yielding the wholefield of human effort to be shared with women. 

"I have been surprised, " said he, "in the little I have seen and heard ofEnglish women, to discover what a difference there is between them and myown countrywomen. "

"I have heard, " said Alice, with a smile, "that your countrywomen are afar more delicate and fragile race than Englishwomen; pale, feeblehot-house plants, unfit for the wear and tear of life, without energy ofcharacter, or any slightest degree of physical strength to base it upon. If, now, you had these large-framed Englishwomen, you might, I shouldimagine, with better hopes, set about changing the system of society, soas to allow them to struggle in the strife of politics, or any otherstrife, hand to hand, or side by side with men. "

"If any countryman of mine has said this of our women, " exclaimedMiddleton, indignantly, "he is a slanderous villain, unworthy to havebeen borne by an American mother; if an Englishman has said it--as I knowmany of them have and do--let it pass as one of the many prejudices onlyhalf believed, with which they strive to console themselves for theinevitable sense that the American race is destined to higher purposesthan their own. But pardon me; I forgot that I was speaking to anEnglishwoman, for indeed you do not remind me of them. But, I assure you, the world has not seen such women as make up, I had almost said the massof womanhood in my own country; slight in aspect, slender in frame, asyou suggest, but yet capable of bringing forth stalwart men; theythemselves being of inexhaustible courage, patience, energy; soft andtender, deep of heart, but high of purpose. Gentle, refined, but bold inevery good cause. "

"Oh, yea have said quite enough, " replied Alice, who had seemed ready tolaugh outright, during this encomium. "I think I see one of theseparagons now, in a Bloomer, I think you call it, swaggering along with aBowie knife at her girdle, smoking a cigar, no doubt, and tipplingsherry-cobblers and mint-juleps. It must be a pleasant life. "

"I should think you, at least, might form a more just idea of what womenbecome, " said Middleton, considerably piqued, "in a country where therules of conventionalism are somewhat relaxed; where woman, whatever youmay think, is far more profoundly educated than in England, where a fewill-taught accomplishments, a little geography, a catechism of science, make up the sum, under the superintendence of a governess; the mind beingkept entirely inert as to any capacity for thought. They are cowards, except within certain rules and forms; they spend a life of oldproprieties, and die, and if their souls do not die with them, it isHeaven's mercy. "

Alice did not appear in the least moved to anger, though considerably tomirth, by this description of the character of English females. Shelaughed as she replied, "I see there is little danger of your leavingyour heart in England. " She added more seriously, "And permit me to say, I trust, Mr. Middleton, that you remain as much American in otherrespects as in your preference of your own race of women. The Americanwho comes hither and persuades himself that he is one with Englishmen, itseems to me, makes a great mistake; at least, if he is correct in such anidea he is not worthy of his own country, and the high development thatawaits it. There is much that is seductive in our life, but I think it isnot upon the higher impulses of our nature that such seductions act. Ishould think ill of the American who, for any causes of ambition, --anyhope of wealth or rank, --or even for the sake of any of those old, delightful ideas of the past, the associations of ancestry, theloveliness of an age-long home, --the old poetry and romance that hauntthese ancient villages and estates of England, --would give up the chanceof acting upon the unmoulded future of America. "

"And you, an Englishwoman, speak thus!" exclaimed Middleton. "You perhapsspeak truly; and it may be that your words go to a point where they areespecially applicable at this moment. But where have you learned theseideas? And how is it that you know how to awake these sympathies, thathave slept perhaps too long?"

"Think only if what I have said be truth, " replied Alice. "It is nomatter who or what I am that speak it. "

"Do you speak, " asked Middleton, from a sudden impulse, "with any secretknowledge affecting a matter now in my mind?"

Alice shook her head, as she turned away; but Middleton could notdetermine whether the gesture was meant as a negative to his question, ormerely as declining to answer it. She left him; and he found himselfstrangely disturbed with thoughts of his own country, of the life that heought to be leading there, the struggles in which he ought to be takingpart; and, with these motives in his impressible mind, the motives thathad hitherto kept him in England seemed unworthy to influence him. 

_May 15th, Saturday_. --It was not long after Middleton's meeting with Mr. Eldredge in the park of Smithells, that he received--what it is preciselythe most common thing to receive--an invitation to dine at themanor-house and spend the night. The note was written with muchappearance of cordiality, as well as in a respectful style; and Middletoncould not but perceive that Mr. Eldredge must have been making someinquiries as to his social status, in order to feel him justified inputting him on this footing of equality. He had no hesitation inaccepting the invitation, and on the appointed day was received in theold house of his forefathers as a guest. The owner met him, not quite onthe frank and friendly footing expressed in his note, but still with aperfect and polished courtesy, which however could not hide from thesensitive Middleton a certain coldness, a something that seemed to himItalian rather than English; a symbol of a condition of things betweenthem, undecided, suspicious, doubtful very likely. Middleton's own mannercorresponded to that of his host, and they made few advances towards moreintimate acquaintance. Middleton was however recompensed for his host'sunapproachableness by the society of his daughter, a young lady bornindeed in Italy, but who had been educated in a Catholic family inEngland; so that here was another relation--the first female one--to whomhe had been introduced. She was a quiet, shy, undemonstrative youngwoman, with a fine bloom and other charms which she kept as much in thebackground as possible, with maiden reserve. (There is a Catholic priestat table. )

Mr. Eldredge talked chiefly, during dinner, of art, with which his longresidence in Italy had made him thoroughly acquainted, and for which heseemed to have a genuine taste and enjoyment. It was a subject on whichMiddleton knew little; but he felt the interest in it which appears to benot uncharacteristic of Americans, among the earliest of theirdevelopments of cultivation; nor had he failed to use such fewopportunities as the English public or private galleries offered him toacquire the rudiments of a taste. He was surprised at the depth of someof Mr. Eldredge's remarks on the topics thus brought up, and at thesensibility which appeared to be disclosed by his delicate appreciationof some of the excellences of those great masters who wrote their epics, their tender sonnets, or their simple ballads, upon canvas; and Middletonconceived a respect for him which he had not hitherto felt, and whichpossibly Mr. Eldredge did not quite deserve. Taste seems to be adepartment of moral sense; and yet it is so little identical with it, andso little implies conscience, that some of the worst men in the worldhave been the most refined. 

After Miss Eldredge had retired, the host appeared to desire to make thedinner a little more social than it had hitherto been; he called for apeculiar species of wine from Southern Italy, which he said was the mostdelicious production of the grape, and had very seldom, if ever beforebeen imported pure into England. A delicious perfume came from thecradled bottle, and bore an ethereal, evanescent testimony to the truthof what he said: and the taste, though too delicate for wine quaffed inEngland, was nevertheless delicious, when minutely dwelt upon. 

"It gives me pleasure to drink your health, Mr. Middleton, " said thehost. "We might well meet as friends in England, for I am hardly more anEnglishman than yourself; bred up, as I have been, in Italy, and comingback hither at my age, unaccustomed to the manners of the country, withfew friends, and insulated from society by a faith which makes mostpeople regard me as an enemy. I seldom welcome people here, Mr. Middleton; but you are welcome. "

"I thank you, Mr. Eldredge, and may fairly say that the circumstances towhich you allude make me accept your hospitality with a warmer feelingthan I otherwise might. Strangers, meeting in a strange land, have a sortof tie in their foreignness to those around them, though there be nopositive relation between themselves. "

"We are friends, then?" said Mr. Eldredge, looking keenly at Middleton, as if to discover exactly how much was meant by the compact. Hecontinued, "You know, I suppose, Mr. Middleton, the situation in which Ifind myself on returning to my hereditary estate, which has devolved tome somewhat unexpectedly by the death of a younger man than myself. Thereis an old flaw here, as perhaps you have been told, which keeps me out ofa property long kept in the guardianship of the crown, and of a barony, one of the oldest in England. There is an idea--a tradition--a legend, founded, however, on evidence of some weight, that there is still inexistence the possibility of rinding the proof which we need, to confirmour cause. "

"I am most happy to hear it, Mr. Eldredge, " said Middleton. 

"But, " continued his host, "I am bound to remember and to consider thatfor several generations there seems to have been the same idea, and thesame expectation; whereas nothing has ever come of it. Now, among othersuppositions--perhaps wild ones--it has occurred to me that thistestimony, the desirable proof, may exist on your side of the Atlantic;for it has long enough been sought here in vain. "

"As I said in our meeting in your park, Mr. Eldredge, " replied Middleton, "such a suggestion may very possibly be true; yet let me point out thatthe long lapse of years, and the continual melting and dissolving offamily institutions--the consequent scattering of family documents, andthe annihilation of traditions from memory, all conspire against itsprobability. "

"And yet, Mr. Middleton, " said his host, "when we talked together at ourfirst singular interview, you made use of an expression--of oneremarkable phrase--which dwelt upon my memory and now recurs to it. "

"And what was that, Mr. Eldredge?" asked Middleton. 

"You spoke, " replied his host, "of the Bloody Footstep reappearing on thethreshold of the old palace of S------. Now where, let me ask you, didyou ever hear this strange name, which you then spoke, and which I havesince spoken?"

"From my father's lips, when a child, in America, " responded Middleton. 

"It is very strange, " said Mr. Eldredge, in a hasty, dissatisfied tone. "I do not see my way through this. "

_May 16, Sunday. _--Middleton had been put into a chamber in the oldestpart of the house, the furniture of which was of antique splendor, wellbefitting to have come down for ages, well befitting the hospitalityshown to noble and even royal guests. It was the same room in which, athis first visit to the house, Middleton's attention had been drawn to thecabinet, which he had subsequently remembered as the palatial residencein which he had harbored so many dreams. It still stood in the chamber, making the principal object in it, indeed; and when Middleton was leftalone, he contemplated it not without a certain awe, which at the sametime he felt to be ridiculous. He advanced towards it, and stoodcontemplating the mimic façade, wondering at the singular fact of thispiece of furniture having been preserved in traditionary history, when somuch had been forgotten, --when even the features and architecturalcharacteristics of the mansion in which it was merely a piece offurniture had been forgotten. And, as he gazed at it, he half thoughthimself an actor in a fairy portal [tale?]; and would not have beensurprised--at least, he would have taken it with the composure of adream--if the mimic portal had unclosed, and a form of pigmy majesty hadappeared within, beckoning him to enter and find the revelation of whathad so long perplexed him. The key of the cabinet was in the lock, andknowing that it was not now the receptacle of anything in the shape offamily papers, he threw it open; and there appeared the mosaic floor, therepresentation of a stately, pillared hall, with the doors on eitherside, opening, as would seem, into various apartments. And here shouldhave stood the visionary figures of his ancestry, waiting to welcome thedescendant of their race, who had so long delayed his coming. Afterlooking and musing a considerable time, --even till the old clock from theturret of the house told twelve, he turned away with a sigh, and went tobed. The wind moaned through the ancestral trees; the old house creakedas with ghostly footsteps; the curtains of his bed seemed to waver. Hewas now at home; yes, he had found his home, and was sheltered at lastunder the ancestral roof after all those long, long wanderings, --afterthe little log-built hut of the early settlement, after the straight roofof the American house, after all the many roofs of two hundred years, here he was at last under the one which he had left, on that fatal night, when the Bloody Footstep was so mysteriously impressed on the threshold. As he drew nearer and nearer towards sleep, it seemed more and more tohim as if he were the very individual--the self-same one throughout thewhole--who had done, seen, suffered, all these long toils andvicissitudes, and were now come back to rest, and found his weariness sogreat that there could he no rest. 

Nevertheless, he did sleep; and it may be that his dreams went on, andgrew vivid, and perhaps became truer in proportion to their vividness. When he awoke he had a perception, an intuition, that he had beendreaming about the cabinet, which, in his sleeping imagination, had againassumed the magnitude and proportions of a stately mansion, even as hehad seen it afar from the other side of the Atlantic. Some dimassociations remained lingering behind, the dying shadows of very vividones which had just filled his mind; but as he looked at the cabinet, there was some idea that still seemed to come so near his consciousnessthat, every moment, he felt on the point of grasping it. During theprocess of dressing, he still kept his eyes turned involuntarily towardsthe cabinet, and at last he approached it, and looked within the mimicportal, still endeavoring to recollect what it was that he had heard ordreamed about it, --what half obliterated remembrance from childhood, whatfragmentary last night's dream it was, that thus haunted him. It musthave been some association of one or the other nature that led him topress his finger on one particular square of the mosaic pavement; and ashe did so, the thin plate of polished marble slipt aside. It disclosed, indeed, no hollow receptacle, but only another leaf of marble, in themidst of which appeared to be a key-hole: to this Middleton applied thelittle antique key to which we have several times alluded, and found itfit precisely. The instant it was turned, the whole mimic floor of thehall rose, by the action of a secret spring, and discovered a shallowrecess beneath. Middleton looked eagerly in, and saw that it containeddocuments, with antique seals of wax appended; he took but one glance atthem, and closed the receptacle as it was before. 

Why did he do so? He felt that there would be a meanness and wrong ininspecting these family papers, coming to the knowledge of them, as hehad, through the opportunities offered by the hospitality of the owner ofthe estate; nor, on the other hand, did he feel such confidence in hishost, as to make him willing to trust these papers in his hands, with anycertainty that they would be put to an honorable use. The case was onedemanding consideration, and he put a strong curb upon his impatientcuriosity, conscious that, at all events, his first impulsive feeling wasthat he ought not to examine these papers without the presence of hishost or some other authorized witness. Had he exercised any casuistryabout the point, however, he might have argued that these papers, according to all appearance, dated from a period to which his ownhereditary claims ascended, and to circumstances in which his ownrightful interest was as strong as that of Mr. Eldredge. But he had actedon his first impulse, closed the secret receptacle, and hastening histoilet descended from his room; and, it being still too early forbreakfast, resolved to ramble about the immediate vicinity of the house. As he passed the little chapel, he heard within the voice of the priestperforming mass, and felt how strange was this sign of mediaeval religionand foreign manners in homely England. 

As the story looks now: Eldredge, bred, and perhaps born, in Italy, and aCatholic, with views to the church before he inherited the estate, hasnot the English moral sense and simple honor; can scarcely be called anEnglishman at all. Dark suspicions of past crime, and of the possibilityof future crime, may be thrown around him; an atmosphere of doubt shallenvelop him, though, as regards manners, he may be highly refined. Middleton shall find in the house a priest; and at his first visit heshall have seen a small chapel, adorned with the richness, as to marbles, pictures, and frescoes, of those that we see in the churches at Rome; andhere the Catholic forms of worship shall be kept up. Eldredge shall havehad an Italian mother, and shall have the personal characteristics of anItalian. There shall be something sinister about him, the more apparentwhen Middleton's visit draws to a conclusion; and the latter shall feelconvinced that they part in enmity, so far as Eldredge is concerned. Heshall not speak of his discovery in the cabinet. 

_May 17th, Monday_. --Unquestionably, the appointment of Middleton asminister to one of the minor Continental courts must take place in theinterval between Eldredge's meeting him in the park, and his inviting himto his house. After Middleton's appointment, the two encounter each otherat the Mayor's dinner in St. Mary's Hall, and Eldredge, startled atmeeting the vagrant, as he deemed him, under such a character, remembersthe hints of some secret knowledge of the family history, which Middletonhad thrown out. He endeavors, both in person and by the priest, to makeout what Middleton really is, and what he knows, and what he intends; butMiddleton is on his guard, yet cannot help arousing Eldredge's suspicionsthat he has views upon the estate and title. It is possible, too, thatMiddleton may have come to the knowledge--may have had some knowledge--ofsome shameful or criminal fact connected with Mr. Eldredge's life on theContinent; the old Hospitaller, possibly, may have told him this, fromsome secret malignity hereafter to be accounted for. Supposing Eldredgeto attempt his murder, by poison for instance, bringing back into modernlife his old hereditary Italian plots; and into English life a sort ofcrime which does not belong to it, --which did not, at least, although atthis very period there have been fresh and numerous instances of it. There might be a scene in which Middleton and Eldredge come to a fierceand bitter explanation; for in Eldredge's character there must be theEnglish surly boldness as well as the Italian subtlety; and here, Middleton shall tell him what he knows of his past character and life, and also what he knows of his own hereditary claims. Eldredge might havecommitted a murder in Italy; might have been a patriot, and betrayed hisfriends to death for a bribe, bearing another name than his own in Italy;indeed, he might have joined them only as an informer. All this he hadtried to sink, when he came to England in the character of a gentleman ofancient name and large estate. But this infamy of his previous charactermust be foreboded from the first by the manner in which Eldredge isintroduced; and it must make his evil designs on Middleton appear naturaland probable. It may be, that Middleton has learned Eldredge's previouscharacter, through some Italian patriot who had taken refuge in America, and there become intimate with him; and it should be a piece of secrethistory, not known to the world in general, so that Middleton might seemto Eldredge the sole depositary of the secret then in England. He feels anecessity of getting rid of him; and thenceforth Middleton's path liesalways among pitfalls; indeed, the first attempt should follow promptlyand immediately on his rupture with Eldredge. The utmost pains must betaken with this incident to give it an air of reality; or else it must bequite removed out of the sphere of reality by an intensified atmosphereof romance. I think the old Hospitaller must interfere to prevent thesuccess of this attempt, perhaps through the means of Alice. 

The result of Eldredge's criminal and treacherous designs is, somehow orother, that he comes to his death; and Middleton and Alice are left toadminister on the remains of the story; perhaps, the Mayor being hisfriend, he may be brought into play here. The foreign ecclesiastic shalllikewise come forward, and he shall prove to be a man of subtile policyperhaps, yet a man of religion and honor; with a Jesuit's principles, buta Jesuit's devotion and self-sacrifice. The old Hospitaller must die inhis bed, or some other how; or perhaps not--we shall see. He may just aswell be left in the Hospital. Eldredge's attempt on Middleton must be insome way peculiar to Italy, and which he shall have learned there; and, by the way, at his dinner-table there shall be a Venice glass, one of thekind that were supposed to be shattered when poison was put into them. When Eldredge produces his rare wine, he shall pour it into this, with ajesting allusion to the legend. Perhaps the mode of Eldredge's attempt onMiddleton's life shall be a reproduction of the attempt made two hundredyears before; and Middleton's knowledge of that incident shall be themeans of his salvation. That would be a good idea; in fact, I think itmust be done so and no otherwise. It is not to be forgotten that there isa taint of insanity in Eldredge's blood, accounting for much that is wildand absurd, at the same time that it must be subtile, in his conduct; oneof those perplexing mad people, whose lunacy you are continuallymistaking for wickedness or _vice versa_. This shall be the priest'sexplanation and apology for him, after his death. I wish I could get holdof the Newgate Calendar, the older volumes, or any other book ofmurders--the Causes Celébrès, for instance. The legendary murder, orattempt at it, will bring its own imaginative probability with it, whenrepeated by Eldredge; and at the same time it will have a dreamlikeeffect; so that Middleton shall hardly know whether he is awake or not. This incident is very essential towards bringing together the past timeand the present, and the two ends of the story. 

_May 18th, Tuesday. _--All down through the ages since Edward haddisappeared from home, leaving that bloody footstep on the threshold, there had been legends and strange stories of the murder and the mannerof it. These legends differed very much among themselves. According tosome, his brother had awaited him there, and stabbed him on thethreshold. According to others, he had been murdered in his chamber, anddragged out. A third story told, that he was escaping with his lady love, when they were overtaken on the threshold, and the young man slain. Itwas impossible at this distance of time to ascertain which of theselegends was the true one, or whether either of them had any portion oftruth, further than that the young man had actually disappeared from thatnight, and that it never was certainly known to the public that anyintelligence had ever afterwards been received from him. Now, Middletonmay have communicated to Eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as, for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that wasstill kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. Of course, that willnot do. It must be some very ingenious and artificially natural thing, anartistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of such a man asEldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to beapplied to his own requirements and purposes. I do not at present see inthe least how this is to be wrought out. There shall be everything tomake Eldredge look with the utmost horror and alarm at any chance that hemay be superseded and ousted from his possession of the estate; for heshall only recently have established his claim to it, tracing out hispedigree, when the family was supposed to be extinct. And he is come tothese comfortable quarters after a life of poverty, uncertainty, difficulty, hanging loose on society; and therefore he shall be willingto risk soul and body both, rather than return to his former state. Perhaps his daughter shall be introduced as a young Italian girl, to whomMiddleton shall decide to leave the estate. 

On the failure of his design, Eldredge may commit suicide, and be founddead in the wood; at any rate, some suitable end shall be contrived, adapted to his wants. This character must not be so represented as toshut him out completely from the reader's sympathies; he shall havetaste, sentiment, even a capacity for affection, nor, I think, ought heto have any hatred or bitter feeling against the man whom he resolves tomurder. In the closing scenes, when he thinks the fate of Middletonapproaching, there might even be a certain tenderness towards him, adesire to make the last drops of life delightful; if well done, thiswould produce a certain sort of horror, that I do not remember to haveseen effected in literature. Possibly the ancient emigrant might besupposed to have fallen into an ancient mine, down a precipice, into somepitfall; no, not so. Into a river; into a moat. As Middleton'spretensions to birth are not publicly known, there will be no reason why, at his sudden death, suspicion should fix on Eldredge as the murderer;and it shall be his object so to contrive his death as that it shallappear the result of accident. Having failed in effecting Middleton'sdeath by this excellent way, he shall perhaps think that he cannot dobetter than to make his own exit in precisely the same manner. It mightbe easy, and as delightful as any death could be; no ugliness in it, noblood; for the Bloody Footstep of old times might be the result of thefailure of the old plot, not of its success. Poison seems to be the onlyelegant method; but poison is vulgar, and in many respects unfit for mypurpose. It won't do. Whatever it may be, it must not come upon thereader as a sudden and new thing, but as one that might have beenforeseen from afar, though he shall not actually have foreseen it untilit is about to happen. It must be prevented through the agency of Alice. Alice may have been an artist in Rome, and there have known Eldredge andhis daughter, and thus she may have become their guest in England; or hemay be patronizing her now--at all events she shall be the friend of thedaughter, and shall have a just appreciation of the father's character. It shall be partly due to her high counsel that Middleton foregoes hisclaim to the estate, and prefers the life of an American, with its loftypossibilities for himself and his race, to the position of an Englishmanof property and title; and she, for her part, shall choose the conditionand prospects of woman in America, to the emptiness of the life of awoman of rank in England. So they shall depart, lofty and poor, out ofthe home which might be their own, if they would stoop to make it so. Possibly the daughter of Eldredge may be a girl not yet in her teens, forwhom Alice has the affection of an elder sister. 

It should be a very carefully and highly wrought scene, occurring justbefore Eldredge's actual attempt on Middleton's life, in which all thebrilliancy of his character--which shall before have gleamed upon thereader--shall come out, with pathos, with wit, with insight, withknowledge of life. Middleton shall be inspired by this, and shall viewith him in exhilaration of spirits; but the ecclesiastic shall look onwith singular attention, and some appearance of alarm; and the suspicionof Alice shall likewise be aroused. The old Hospitaller may have gainedhis situation partly by proving himself a man of the neighborhood, byright of descent; so that he, too, shall have a hereditary claim to be inthe Romance. 

Eldredge's own position as a foreigner in the midst of English home life, insulated and dreary, shall represent to Middleton, in some degree, whathis own would be, were he to accept the estate. But Middleton shall notcome to the decision to resign it, without having to repress a deepyearning for that sense of long, long rest in an age-consecrated home, which he had felt so deeply to be the happy lot of Englishmen. But thisought to be rejected, as not belonging to his country, nor to the age, nor any longer possible. 

_May 19th, Wednesday_. --The connection of the old Hospitaller with thestory is not at all clear. He is an American by birth, but deriving hisEnglish origin from the neighborhood of the Hospital, where he hasfinally established himself. Some one of his ancestors may have beensomehow connected with the ancient portion of the story. He has been afriend of Middleton's father, who reposed entire confidence in him, trusting him with all his fortune, which the Hospitaller risked in hisenormous speculations, and lost it all. His fame had been great in thefinancial world. There were circumstances that made it dangerous for hiswhereabouts to be known, and so he had come hither and found refuge inthis institution, where Middleton finds him, but does not know who he is. In the vacancy of a mind formerly so active, he has taken to the study oflocal antiquities; and from his former intimacy with Middleton's father, he has a knowledge of the American part of the story, which he connectswith the English portion, disclosed by his researches here; so that he isquite aware that Middleton has claims to the estate, which might be urgedsuccessfully against the present possessor. He is kindly disposed towardsthe son of his friend, whom he had so greatly injured; but he is now veryold, and----. Middleton has been directed to this old man by a friend inAmerica, as one likely to afford him all possible assistance in hisresearches; and so he seeks him out and forms an acquaintance with him, which the old man encourages to a certain extent, taking an evidentinterest in him, but does not disclose himself; nor does Middletonsuspect him to be an American. The characteristic life of the Hospital isbrought out, and the individual character of this old man, vegetatinghere after an active career, melancholy and miserable; sometimes torpidwith the slow approach of utmost age; sometimes feeble, peevish, wavering; sometimes shining out with a wisdom resulting from originallybright faculties, ripened by experience. The character must not beallowed to get vague, but, with gleams of romance, must yet be kepthomely and natural by little touches of his daily life. 

As for Alice, I see no necessity for her being anywise related to orconnected with the old Hospitaller. As originally conceived, I think shemay be an artist--a sculptress--whom Eldredge had known in Rome. No; shemight be a granddaughter of the old Hospitaller, born and bred inAmerica, but who had resided two or three years in Rome in the study ofher art, and have there acquired a knowledge of the Eldredges and havebecome fond of the little Italian girl his daughter. She has lodgings inthe village, and of course is often at the Hospital, and often at theHall; she makes busts and little statues, and is free, wild, tender, proud, domestic, strange, natural, artistic; and has at bottom thecharacteristics of the American woman, with the principles of thestrong-minded sect; and Middleton shall be continually puzzled at meetingsuch a phenomenon in England. By and by, the internal influence[evidence?] of her sentiments (though there shall be nothing to confirmit in her manner) shall lead him to charge her with being an American. 

Now, as to the arrangement of the Romance;--it begins as an integral andessential part, with my introduction, giving a pleasant and familiarsummary of my life in the Consulate at Liverpool; the strange species ofAmericans, with strange purposes, in England, whom I used to meet there;and, especially, how my countrymen used to be put out of their senses bythe idea of inheritances of English property. Then I shall particularlyinstance one gentleman who called on me on first coming over; adescription of him must be given, with touches that shall puzzle thereader to decide whether it is not an actual portrait. And then thisRomance shall be offered, half seriously, as the account of the fortunesthat he met with in his search for his hereditary home. Enough of hisancestral story may be given to explain what is to follow in the Romance;or perhaps this may be left to the scenes of his intercourse with the oldHospitaller. 

The Romance proper opens with Middleton's arrival at what he has reasonto think is the neighborhood of his ancestral home, and here he makesapplication to the old Hospitaller. Middleton shall be described asapproaching the Hospital, which shall be pretty literally copied afterLeicester's, although the surrounding village must be on a much smallerscale of course. Much elaborateness may be given to this portion of thebook. Middleton shall have assumed a plain dress, and shall seek to makeno acquaintances except that of the old Hospitaller; the acquaintance ofAlice naturally following. The old Hospitaller and he go together to theold Hall, where, as they pass through the rooms, they find that theproprietor is flitting like a ghost before them from chamber to chamber;they catch his reflection in a glass, &c. , &c. When these have beenwrought up sufficiently, shall come the scene in the wood, where Eldredgeis seen yielding to the superstition that he has inherited, respectingthe old secret of the family, on the discovery of which depends theenforcement of his claim to a title. All this while, Middleton hasappeared in the character of a man of no note; and now, through somepolitical change, not necessarily told, he receives a packet addressed tohim as an ambassador, and containing a notice of his appointment to thatdignity. A paragraph in the "Times" confirms the fact, and makes it knownin the neighborhood. Middleton immediately becomes an object ofattention; the gentry call upon him; the Mayor of the neighboringcounty-town invites him to dinner, which shall be described with all itsantique formalities. Here he meets Eldredge, who is surprised, remembering the encounter in the wood; but passes it all off, like a manof the world, makes his acquaintance, and invites him to the Hall. Perhaps he may make a visit of some time here, and become intimate, to acertain degree, with all parties; and here things shall ripen themselvesfor Eldredge's attempt upon his life.