Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in him.
“Have you any objection,” said I, “to telling me who made those little purses?”
“Gentlemen have often asked me that,” said Moodie slowly; “but I shake my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as well as I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be told one thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another. But it happens just now, Mr. Coverdale, that you can tell me more about the maker of those little purses than I can tell you.”
“Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?” interrupted Hollingsworth. “You must have known, long ago, that it was Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her? Well, I am glad of it. You will find her altered very much for the better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge. Why, Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!”
“Has my pale little girl a bloom?” repeated Moodie with a kind of slow wonder. “Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid I shall not know my little girl. And is she happy?”
“Just as happy as a bird,” answered Hollingsworth.
“Then, gentlemen,” said our guest apprehensively, “I don’t think it well for me to go any farther. I crept hitherward only to ask about Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I can do no better than to creep back again. If she were to see this old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which we have spent together. Some very sad times, indeed! She has forgotten them, I know, — them and me, — else she could not be so happy, nor have a bloom in her cheeks. Yes — yes — yes,” continued he, still with the same torpid utterance; “with many thanks to you, Mr. Hollingsworth, I will creep back to town again.”
“You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie,” said Hollingsworth bluffly. “Priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I’ll venture to say it is just the sight of your face. Come, — we will go and find her.”
“Mr. Hollingsworth!” said the old man in his hesitating way.
“Well,” answered Hollingsworth.
“Has there been any call for Priscilla?” asked Moodie; and though his face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question. “You know, I think, sir, what I mean.”
“I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, Mr. Moodie,” replied Hollingsworth; “nobody, to my knowledge, has called for Priscilla, except yourself. But come; we are losing time, and I have several things to say to you by the way.”
“And, Mr. Hollingsworth!” repeated Moodie.
“Well, again!” cried my friend rather impatiently. “What now?”
“There is a lady here,” said the old man; and his voice lost some of its wearisome hesitation. “You will account it a very strange matter for me to talk about; but I chanced to know this lady when she was but a little child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the world, with her beauty, and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches. I should recognize this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent flower in her hair.”
“What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks of Zenobia!” I whispered to Hollingsworth. “But how can there possibly be any interest or connecting link between him and her?”
“The old man, for years past,” whispered Hollingsworth, “has been a little out of his right mind, as you probably see.”
“What I would inquire,” resumed Moodie, “is whether this beautiful lady is kind to my poor Priscilla.”
“Very kind,” said Hollingsworth.
“Does she love her?” asked Moodie.
“It should seem so,” answered my friend. “They are always together.”
“Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?” suggested the old man.
There was something so singular in his way of saying this, that I could not resist the impulse to turn quite round, so as to catch a glimpse of his face, almost imagining that I should see another person than old Moodie. But there he sat, with the patched side of his face towards me.
“Like an elder and younger sister, rather,” replied Hollingsworth.
“Ah!” said Moodie more complacently, for his latter tones had harshness and acidity in them, — ”it would gladden my old heart to witness that. If one thing would make me happier than another, Mr. Hollingsworth, it would be to see that beautiful lady holding my little girl by the hand.”
“Come along,” said Hollingsworth, “and perhaps you may.”
After a little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they set forth together, old Moodie keeping a step or two behind Hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look him in the face. I remained under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. In spite of Hollingsworth’s offhand explanation, it did not strike me that our strange guest was really beside himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which have ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply. Methought it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life, to welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as one of us, and let him creep about our domain, in order that he might be a little merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a little sadder for his. Human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray. And then, too, should any of our fraternity grow feverish with an over-exulting sense of prosperity, it would be a sort of cooling regimen to slink off into the woods, and spend an hour, or a day, or as many days as might be requisite to the cure, in uninterrupted communion with this deplorable old Moodie!
Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk of a tree, gazing earnestly towards a particular window of the farmhouse; and by and by Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing along Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was blazing down upon us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced towards her noon. I was convinced that this pretty sight must have been purposely arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. But either the girl held her too long, or her fondness was resented as too great a freedom; for Zenobia suddenly put Priscilla decidedly away, and gave her a haughty look, as from a mistress to a dependant. Old Moodie shook his head; and again and again I saw him shake it, as he withdrew along the road; and at the last point whence the farmhouse was visible, he turned and shook his uplifted staff.
XI. THE WOODPATH
Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of too constant labor out of my bones, and to relieve my spirit of the irksomeness of a settled routine, I took