PART SECOND. LESSON I. DAVID SWAN. BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a distinguished American novelist and essayist, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825, and in 1837 published his Twice-told Tales, a volume of sketches and tales which had formerly appeared in the American periodicals. His retiring habits led him to take up his residence at an old manse at Concord, where, for three years, he occupied himself in writing some charming tales and sketches, which he afterwards published under the title of Mosses from an Old Manse. This popular work was followed by those extraordinary romances, The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, and many others. In his peculiar field of fiction HAWTHORNE stands unrivaled and alone, and he has done honor to the American name by the production of some of the finest literature of the time. His best works have a permanent value, and have been republished in both England and Germany. It is difficult, within the compass of a selection for a reading-book, to give an adequate example of an author's style; the following, from "Twice-told Tales," may, however, give a hint of his distinguishing traits. He died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, 1864. WE PART FIRST. E can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life, and our final destiny. There are innumerable other events-if such they may be called-which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan. 2. We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say, that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy. 3. After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a litle tuft of maples, with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh, bubbling spring, that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. 4. He kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise from the road, after the heavy rain of yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of. 5. While he lay sound asleep in the shade, other people were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bedchamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor the left, and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that way without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. 6. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening's discourse as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the road-side. But censure, praise, merriment, scorn, and indifference, were all one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan. 7. He had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a stand-still nearly in front of David's resting-place. A linch-pin had fallen out, and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. 8. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow; and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown lest David should start up all of a sudden. 9. "How soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "From what a depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income, for it would suppose health and an untroubled mind." "And youth besides," said the lady. "Healthy and quiet age does not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more like this than our wakefulness." 10. The longer they looked the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the wayside and a maple shade were as a secret chamber with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside, so as to intercept it; and having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him. 11. "Providence seems to have laid him here!" whispered she to her husband, "and to have brought us hither to find him after our disappointment in our cousin's son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we wake him?" 12. To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "We know nothing of the youth's character." "That open countenance!" replied the wife, in the same hushed voice, yet earnestly. "This innocent sleep!" 13. While these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of interest; yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth, except a distant relative, with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. In such cases, people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician, and awaken a young man to splendor who fell asleep in poverty. 14. "Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady, persuasively. "The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind. The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business. Meanwhile David Swan enjoyed his nap. 15. The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a pretty young girl came along, with a tripping pace, which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. There was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead,—buzz, buzz, buzz,—now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from beneath the maple shade. How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath, and a deeper blush, she stole a glance at the youthful stranger, for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air. 16. How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder, and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? "How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl. She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came. Now, this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in the neighborhood, and happened, at that identical time, to be looking out for just such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become her father's clerk, and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had good fortune-the best of fortunes-stolen so near that her garments brushed against him; and he knew nothing of the matter. THE LESSON II. DAVID SWAN. PART SECOND. HE girl was hardly out of sight, when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartThese were a couple of rascals, who got their living by whatever the devil sent them; and now, in the interim of other ness. |