The next morning, the light smoke was seen stealing from thecottage chimney up the mountain side. Within, the fire was yetsmouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, asif the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of theSlide, and would shortly return, to thank Heaven for theirmiraculous escape. All had left separate tokens, by which those whohad known the family were made to shed a tear for each. Who has notheard their name? The story has been told far and wide, and willforever be a legend of these mountains. Poets have sung their fate.
There were circumstances which led some to suppose that astranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night, andhad shared the catastrophe of all its inmates. Others denied thatthere were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Wo for thehigh-souled youth, with his dream of Earthly Immortality! His name andperson utterly unknown; his history, his way of life, his plans, amystery never to be solved, his death and his existence equally adoubt! Whose was the agony of that death moment?
THE END
.
1844
TWICE-TOLD TALES
THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
AN ELDERLY MAN, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passingalong the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy eveninginto the light that fell across the pavement from the window of asmall shop. It was a projecting window; and on the inside weresuspended a variety of watches- pinchbeck, silver, and one or two ofgold- all with their faces turned from the street, as if churlishlydisinclined to inform the wayfarers what o'clock it was. Seated withinthe shop, sidelong to the window, with his pale face bent earnestlyover some delicate piece of mechanism, on which was thrown theconcentrated lustre of a shade-lamp, appeared a young man.
"What can Owen Warland be about?" muttered old Peter Hovenden-himself a retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same youngman, whose occupation he was now wondering at. "What can the fellow beabout? These six months past, I have never come by his shop withoutseeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would be a flightbeyond his usual foolery to seek for the Perpetual Motion. And yet Iknow enough of my old business to be certain, that what he is now sobusy with is no part of the machinery of a watch.""Perhaps, father," said Annie, without showing much interest in thequestion, "Owen is inventing a new kind of time-keeper. I am sure hehas ingenuity enough.""Pooh, child! he has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anythingbetter than a Dutch toy," answered her father, who had formerly beenput to much vexation by Owen Warland's irregular genius. "A plagueon such ingenuity! All the effect that ever I knew of it was, to spoilthe accuracy of some of the best watches in my shop. He would turn thesun out of its orbit, and derange the whole course of time, if, as Isaid before, his ingenuity could grasp anything bigger than achild's toy!""Hush, father! he hears you," whispered Annie, pressing the oldman's arm. "His ears are as delicate as his feelings, and you know howeasily disturbed they are. Do let us move on."So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on, withoutfurther conversation, until, in a by-street of the town, they foundthemselves passing the open door of a blacksmith's shop. Within wasseen the forge, now blazing up, and illuminating the high and duskyroof, and now confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of thecoal-strewn floor, according as the breath of the bellows was puffedforth, or again inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In the intervalsof brightness, it was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners ofthe shop, and the horse-shoes that hung upon the wall; in themomentary gloom, the fire seemed to be glimmering amidst the vaguenessof un-enclosed space. Moving about in this red glare and alternatedusk, was the figure of the blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in sopicturesque an aspect of light and shade, where the bright blazestruggled with the black night, as if each would have snatched hiscomely strength from the other. Anon, he drew a white-hot bar ofiron from the coals, laid it on the anvil, uplifted his arm ofmight, and was seen enveloped in the myriads of sparks which thestrokes of his hammer scattered into the surrounding gloom.
"Now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old watchmaker. "I knowwhat it is to work in gold, but give me the worker in iron, afterall is said and done. He spends his labor upon a reality. What sayyou, daughter Annie?""Pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered Annie. "RobertDanforth will hear you.""And what if he should hear me?" said Peter Hovenden; "I say again,it is a good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main strength andreality, and to earn one's bread with the bare and brawny arm of ablacksmith. A watchmaker gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within awheel, or loses his health or the nicety of his eyesight, as was mycase; and finds himself, at middle age, or a little after, pastlabor at his own trade, and fit for nothing else, yet too poor to liveat his ease. So, I say once again, give me main strength for my money.
And then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear ofa blacksmith being such a fool as Owen Warland, yonder?""Well said, uncle Hovenden!" shouted Robert Danforth, from theforge, in a full, deep, merry voice, that made the roof reecho. "Andwhat says Miss Annie to that doctrine? She, I suppose, will think it agenteeler business to tinker up a lady's watch than to forge ahorse-shoe or make a gridiron!"Annie drew her father onward, without giving him time for reply.
