tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35600399897411399242024-03-12T20:54:50.773-07:00Sabrinas Glasswork WebnovelUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-60211035870378597992022-09-07T23:15:00.000-07:002022-09-07T23:15:00.188-07:00Beechenbrook Part 6If you are looking for Beechenbrook Part 6 you are coming to the right place. Beechenbrook is a Webnovel created by Margaret Junkin Preston. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>A simple, sodded mound of earth, Without a line above it; With only daily votive flowers To prove that any love it: The token flag that silently Each breeze's visit numbers, Alone keeps martial ward above The hero's dreamless slumbers.</p><p>No name?--no record? Ask the world; The world has read his story-- If all its annals can unfold A prouder tale of glory:-- If ever merely human life Hath taught diviner moral,-- If ever round a worthier brow Was twined a purer laurel!</p><p>A twelvemonth only, since his sword Went flashing through the battle-- A twelvemonth only, since his ear Heard war's last deadly rattle-- And yet, have countless pilgrim-feet The pilgrim's guerdon paid him, And weeping women come to see The place where they have laid him.</p><p>Contending armies bring, in turn, Their meed of praise or honor, And Pallas here has paused to bind The cypress wreath upon her: It seems a holy sepulchre, Whose sanct.i.ties can waken Alike the love of friend or foe,-- Of Christian or of pagan.</p><p>THEY come to own his high emprise, Who fled in frantic ma.s.ses, Before the glittering bayonet That triumphed at Mana.s.sas: Who witnessed Kernstown's fearful odds, As on their ranks he thundered, Defiant as the storied Greek, Amid his brave three hundred!</p> <p>They well recall the tiger spring, The wise retreat, the rally, The tireless march, the fierce pursuit, Through many a mountain valley: Cross Keys unlock new paths to fame, And Port Republic's story Wrests from his ever-vanquish'd foes, Strange tributes to his glory.</p><p>Cold Harbor rises to their view,-- The Cedars' gloom is o'er them; Antietam's rough and rugged heights, Stretch mockingly before them: The lurid flames of Fredericksburg Right grimly they remember, That lit the frozen night's retreat, That wintry-wild December!</p><p>The largess of their praise is flung With bounty, rare and regal; --Is it because the vulture fears No longer the dead eagle?</p><p>Nay, rather far accept it thus,-- An homage true and tender, As soldier unto soldier's worth,-- As brave to brave will render, </p><p>But who shall weigh the wordless grief That leaves in tears its traces, As round their leader crowd again, The bronzed and veteran faces!</p><p>The "Old Brigade" he loved so well-- The mountain men, who bound him With bays of their own winning, ere A tardier fame had crowned him; </p><p>The legions who had seen his glance Across the carnage flashing, And thrilled to catch his ringing "_charge_"</p><p>Above the volley crashing;-- Who oft had watched the lifted hand, The inward trust betraying, And felt their courage grow sublime, While they beheld him praying!</p><p>Good knights and true as ever drew Their swords with knightly Roland; Or died at Sobieski's side, For love of martyr'd Poland; Or knelt with Cromwell's Ironsides; Or sang with brave Gustavus; Or on the plain of Austerlitz, Breathed out their dying AVES!</p><p>Rare fame! rare name!--If chanted praise, With all the world to listen,-- If pride that swells a nation's soul,-- If foemen's tears that glisten,-- If pilgrims' shrining love,--if grief Which nought may soothe or sever,-- If THESE can consecrate,--this spot Is sacred ground forever!</p><p>[A] In the month of June the singular spectacle was presented at Lexington, Va., of two hostile armies, in turn, reverently visiting Jackson's grave.</p><p>WHEN THE WAR IS OVER.</p><p>A CHRISTMAS LAY.</p><p>I.</p><p>Ah! the happy Christmas times!</p><p>Times we all remember;-- Times that flung a ruddy glow O'er the gray December;-- Will they never come again, With their song and story?</p><p>Never wear a remnant more Of their olden glory?</p><p>Must the little children miss Still the festal token?</p><p>Must their realm of young romance All be marred and broken?</p><p>Must the mother promise on, While her smiles dissemble, And she speaks right quietly, Lest her voice should tremble:-- </p><p>"Darlings! wait till father comes-- Wait--and we'll discover Never were such Christmas times, When the war is over!"</p><p>II.</p><p>Underneath the midnight sky, Bright with starry beauty, Sad, the shivering sentinel Treads his round of duty: For his thoughts are far away, Far from strife and battle, As he listens dreamingly, To his baby's prattle;-- As he clasps his sobbing wife, Wild with sudden gladness, Kisses all her tears away-- Chides her looks of sadness-- Talks of Christmas nights to come,-- And his step grows lighter, Whispering, while his stiffening hand Grasps his musket tighter:-- </p><p>"Patience, love!--keep heart! keep hope!</p><p>To your weary rover, What a home our home will be, When the war is over!"</p><p>III.</p><p>By the twilight Christmas fire, All her senses laden With a weight of tenderness, Sits the musing maiden: From the parlor's cheerful blaze, Far her visions wander, To the white tent gleaming bright, On the hill-side yonder.</p><p>Buoyant in her brave, young love, Flushed with patriot honour, No misgiving, no fond fear, Flings its shade upon her.</p><p>Though no mortal soul can know Half the love she bears him, Proudly, for her country's sake, From her heart she spares him.</p><p>--G.o.d be thanked!--she does not dream, That her gallant lover Will be in a soldier's grave, When the war is over!</p><p>IV.</p><p>'Midst the turmoil and the strife Of the war-tide's rushing, Every heart its separate woe In its depths is hushing.</p><p>Who has time for tears, when blood All the land is steeping?</p><p>--In our poverty we grudge Even the waste of weeping!</p><p>But when quiet comes again, And the bands, long broken, Gather round the hearth, and breathe Names now seldom spoken-- _Then_ we'll miss the precious links-- Mourn the empty places-- Read the hopeless "_Nevermore_,"</p><p>In each other's faces!</p><p>--Oh! what aching, anguish'd hearts O'er lone graves will hover, With a new, fresh sense of pain, When the war is over!</p><p>V.</p><p>Stern endurance, bitterer still, Sharp with self-denial, Fraught with loftier sacrifice, Fuller far of trial-- Strews our flinty path of thorns-- Marks our b.l.o.o.d.y story-- Fits us for the victor's palm-- Weaves our robe of glory!</p><p>Shall we faint with G.o.d above, And His strong arm under-- And the cold world gazing on, In a maze of wonder?</p><p>No! with more resistless march, More resolved endeavor, Press we onward--struggle still, Fight and win forever!</p><p>--Holy peace will heal all ills, Joy all losses cover, Raptures rend our Southern skies, When the war is over!</p><p><a href="https://al.beauty" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Beautiful and Healthy</span></b></a></p><p>VIRGINIA CAPTA.</p><p>APRIL 9TH, 1865.</p><p>I.</p><p>Unconquered captive!--close thine eye, And draw the ashen sackcloth o'er, And in thy speechless woe deplore The fate that would not let thee die!</p><p>II.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-55912565485588232212022-09-06T17:30:00.000-07:002022-09-06T17:30:00.197-07:00Beechenbrook Part 5If you are looking for Beechenbrook Part 5 you are coming to the right place. Beechenbrook is a Webnovel created by Margaret Junkin Preston. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>The Chaplain's recital is ended:--no word From Alice's white, breathless lips has been heard; Till, rousing herself from her pa.s.sionless woe, She simply and quietly says--"I will go."</p><p>There are moments of anguish so deadly, so deep-- That numbness seems over the senses to creep, With interposition, whose timely relief, Is an anodyne-draught to the madness of grief.</p><p>Such mercy is meted to Alice;--her eye That sees as it saw not, is vacant and dry: The billows' wild fury sweeps over her soul, And she bends to the rush with a pa.s.sive control.</p><p>Through the dusk of the night--through the glare of the day, She urges, unconscious, her desolate way: One image is ever her vision before, --That blanketed form on the hospital floor!</p><p>Her journey is ended; and yonder she sees The spot where _he_ lies, looming white through the trees: Her torpor dissolves with a shuddering start, And a terrible agony clutches her heart.</p> <p>The Chaplain advances to meet her:--he draws Her silently onward;--no question--no pause-- Her finger she lays on her lip;--if she spake, She knows that the spell that upholds her, would break.</p><p>She has strength to go forward; they enter the door,-- And there, on the crowded and blood-tainted floor, Close wrapped in his blanket, lies Dougla.s.s:--his brow Wore never a look so seraphic as now!</p><p>She stretches her arms the dear form to enfold,-- G.o.d help her!..., she shrieks ..., it is silent and cold!</p><p>X.</p><p>"Break, my heart, and ease this pain-- Cease to throb, thou tortured brain; Let me die,--since he is slain, --Slain in battle!</p><p>Blessed brow, that loved to rest Its dear whiteness on my breast-- Gory was the gra.s.s it prest, --Slain in battle!</p><p>Oh! that still and stately form-- Never more will it be warm; Chilled beneath that iron storm, --Slain in battle!</p><p>Not a pillow for his head-- Not a hand to smooth his bed-- Not one tender parting said, --Slain in battle!</p><p>Straightway from that b.l.o.o.d.y sod, Where the trampling hors.e.m.e.n trod-- Lifted to the arms of G.o.d; --Slain in battle!</p><p>Not my love to come between, With its interposing screen-- Naught of earth to intervene; --Slain in battle!</p><p>s.n.a.t.c.hed the purple billows o'er, Through the fiendish rage and roar, To the far and peaceful sh.o.r.e; --Slain in battle!</p><p>_Nunc demitte_--thus I pray-- What else left for me to say, Since my life is reft away?</p><p>--Slain in battle!</p><p>Let me die, oh! G.o.d!--the dart Rankles deep within my heart,-- Hope, and joy, and peace, depart; --Slain in battle!"</p><p>'Tis thus through her days and her nights of despair, Her months of bereavement so bitter to bear, That Alice moans ever. Ah! little they know, Who look on that brow, still and white as the snow, Who watch--but in vain--for the sigh or the tear, That only comes thick when no mortal is near,-- Who whisper--"How gently she bends to the rod!"</p><p>Because all her heart-break is kept for her G.o.d,-- Ah! little _they_ know of the tempests that roll Their desolate floods through the depths of her soul!</p><p>Afar in our sunshiny homes on the sh.o.r.e, We heed not how wildly the billows may roar; We smile at our firesides, happy and free, While the rich-freighted argosy founders at sea!</p><p>Though wrapped in the weeds of her widowhood, pale,-- Though life seems all sunless and dim through the veil That drearily shadows her sorrowful brow,-- Is the cause of her country less dear to her now?</p><p>Does the patriot-flame in her heart cease to stir,-- Does she feel that the conflict is over for her?</p><p>Because the red war-tide has deluged her o'er,-- Has wreaked its wild wrath, and can harm _her_ no more,-- Does she stand, self-absorbed, on the wreck she has braved, Nor care if her country be lost or be saved?</p><p>By her pride in the soil that has given her birth-- By her tenderest memories garnered on earth-- By the legacy blood-bought and precious, which she Would leave to her children--the right to be free,-- By the altar where once rose the hymn and the prayer; By the home that lies scarred in its solitude there,-- By the pangs she has suffered,--the ills she has borne,-- By the desolate exile through which she must mourn,-- By the struggles that hallow this fair Southern sod, By the vows she has breathed in the ear of her G.o.d,-- By the blood of the heart that she worshipped,--the life That enfolded her own; by her love, as his wife; By his death on the battle-field, gallantly brave,-- By the shadow that ever will wrap her--his grave-- By the faith she reposes, oh! Father! in Thee, She claims that her glorious South MUST be free!</p><p>VIRGINIA.</p><p>A SONNET.</p><p>Grandly thou fillest the world's eye to-day, My proud Virginia! When the gage was thrown-- The deadly gage of battle--thou, alone, Strong in thy self-control, didst stoop to lay The olive-branch thereon, and calmly pray We might have peace, the rather. When the foe Turned scornfully upon thee,--bade thee go, And whistled up his war-hounds, then--the way Of duty full before thee,--thou didst spring Into the centre of the martial ring-- Thy brave blood boiling, and thy glorious eye, Shot with heroic fire, and swear to claim Sublimest victory in G.o.d's own name,-- Or, wrapped in robes of martyrdom,--to die!</p><p>JACKSON.</p><p>A SONNET.</p><p>Thank G.o.d for such a Hero!--Fearless hold His diamond character beneath the sun, And brighter scintillations, one by one, Come flashing from it. Never knight of old Wore on serener brow, so calm, yet bold, Diviner courage: never martyr knew Trust more sublime,--nor patriot, zeal more true,-- Nor saint, self-abnegation of a mould Touched with profounder beauty. All the rare, Clear, starry points of light, that gave his soul Such lambent l.u.s.tre, owned but one sole aim,-- Not for himself, nor yet his country's fame, These glories shone: he kept the cl.u.s.tered whole A jewel for the crown that Christ shall wear!</p><p>DIRGE FOR ASHBY.</p><p>Heard ye that thrilling word-- Accent of dread-- Flash like a thunderbolt, Bowing each head-- Crash through the battle dun, Over the booming gun-- "_Ashby, our bravest one_,-- _Ashby is dead!_"</p><p>Saw ye the veterans-- Hearts that had known Never a quail of fear, Never a groan-- Sob 'mid the fight they win, --Tears their stern eyes within,-- "Ashby, our Paladin, Ashby is gone!"</p><p>Dash,--dash the tear away-- Crush down the pain!</p><p>"_Dulce et decus_," be Fittest refrain!</p><p>Why should the dreary pall Round him be flung at all?</p><p>Did not our hero fall Gallantly slain?</p><p>Catch the last word of cheer Dropt from his tongue; Over the volley's din, Loud be it rung-- "_Follow me! follow me!_"-- Soldier, oh! could there be Paean or dirge for thee, Loftier sung!</p><p>Bold as the Lion-heart, Dauntless and brave; Knightly as knightliest Bayard could crave; Sweet with all Sidney's grace-- Tender as Hampden's face-- Who--who shall fill the s.p.a.ce Void by his grave?</p><p>'Tis not _one_ broken heart, Wild with dismay; Crazed with her agony, Weeps o'er his clay: Ah! from a thousand eyes Flow the pure tears that rise; Widowed Virginia lies Stricken to-day!</p><p>Yet--though that thrilling word-- Accent of dread-- Falls like a thunderbolt, Bowing each head-- Heroes! be battle done Bravelier every one, Nerved by the thought alone-- _Ashby is dead!_ </p><p>STONEWALL JACKSON'S GRAVE.[A]</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-34448937592872723652022-09-05T11:44:00.000-07:002022-09-05T11:44:00.193-07:00Beechenbrook Part 4If you are looking for Beechenbrook Part 4 you are coming to the right place. Beechenbrook is a Webnovel created by Margaret Junkin Preston. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>Oh! sirs!--there lurks a fiercer foe, Than this that treads your soil, Who springs from unseen ambuscades, To drag you as his spoil.</p><p>He drugs the heedless conscience, till, No wary watch it keeps, And parleys with the treacherous heart, While fast the warder sleeps.</p><p>He captive leads the wavering will With specious words, and fair, And enters the beleaguered soul, And rules, a conqueror there.</p><p>Will ye who fling defiance forth, Against a temporal foe, And rather die, than stoop to wear The chains that gall you so,-- </p><p>Will ye succ.u.mb beneath a power, That grasps at full control, And binds its helpless victims down In servitude of soul?</p> <p>Nay,--act like brave men, as ye are,-- Nor let the despot, sin, Wrest those immortal rights away, Which Christ has died to win.</p><p>For Heaven--best home--true fatherland, Bear toil, reproach and loss, Your highest honor,--holiest name,-- The soldiers of the Cross!</p><p>VIII.</p><p>"My Dougla.s.s! my darling!--there once was a time, When we to each other confessed the sublime And perfect sufficiency love could bestow, On the hearts that have learned its completeness to know; We felt that we too had a well-spring of joy, That earthly convulsions could never destroy,-- A mossy, sealed fountain, so cool and so bright, It could solace the soul, let it thirst as it might.</p><p>"'Tis easy, while happiness strews in our path, The richest and costliest blessings it hath, 'Tis easy to say that no sorrow, no pain, Could utterly beggar our spirits again; 'Tis easy to sit in the sunshine, and speak Of the darkness and storm, with a smile on the cheek!</p><p>"As hungry and cold, and with weariness spent, You droop in your saddle, or crouch in your tent; Can you feel that the love so entire, so true, The love that we dreamed of,--is all things to you?</p><p>That come what there may,--desolation or loss, The p.r.i.c.k of the thorn, or the weight of the cross-- You can bear it,--nor feel you are wholly bereft, While the bosom that beats for you only, is left?</p><p>While the birdlings are spared that have made it so blest, Can you look, undismayed, on the wreck of the nest?</p><p>"There's a love that is tenderer, sweeter than this-- That is fuller of comfort, and blessing, and bliss; That never can fail us, whatever befall-- Unchanging, unwearied, undying, through all: We have need of the support--the staff and the rod;-- Beloved! we'll lean on the bosom of G.o.d!</p><p>"You guess what I fain would keep hidden:--you know, Ere now, that the trail of the insolent foe Leaves ruin behind it, disastrous and dire, And burns through our Valley, a pathway of fire.</p><p>--Our beautiful home,--as I write it, I weep, Our beautiful home is a smouldering heap!</p><p>And blackened, and blasted, and grim, and forlorn, Its chimneys stand stark in the mists of the morn!</p><p>"I stood in my womanly helplessness, weak-- Though I felt a brave color was kindling my cheek-- And I plead by the sacredest things of their lives-- By the love that they bore to their children,--their wives, By the homes left behind them, whose joys they had shared, By the G.o.d that should judge them,--that mine should be spared.</p><p>"As well might I plead with the whirlwind to stay As it crashingly cuts through the forest its way!</p><p>I know that my eye flashed a pa.s.sionate ire, As they scornfully flung me their answer of--fire!</p><p>"Why harrow your heart with the grief and the pain?</p><p>Why paint you the picture that's scorching my brain?</p><p>Why speak of the night when I stood on the lawn, And watched the last flame die away in the dawn?</p><p>'Tis over,--that vision of terror,--of woe!</p><p>Its horrors I would not recall;--let them go!</p><p>I am calm when I think what I suffered them for; I grudge not the quota _I_ pay to the war!</p><p>"But, Dougla.s.s!--deep down in the core of my heart, There's a throbbing, an aching, that will not depart; For memory mourns, with a wail of despair, The loss of her treasures,--the subtle, the rare, Precious things over which she delighted to pore, Which nothing,--ah! nothing, can ever restore!</p><p>"The rose-covered porch, where I sat as your bride-- The hearth, where at twilight I leaned at your side-- The low-cushioned window-seat, where I would lie, With my head on your knee, and look out on the sky:-- The chamber all holy with love and with prayer, The motherhood memories cl.u.s.tering there-- The vines that _your_ hand has delighted to train, The trees that _you_ planted;--Oh! never again Can love build us up such a bower of bliss; Oh! never can home be as hallow'd as this!</p><p>"Thank G.o.d! there's a dwelling not builded with hands, Whose pearly foundation, immovable stands; There struggles, alarms, and disquietudes cease, And the blissfulest balm of the spirit is--peace!</p><p>Small trial 'twill seem when our perils are past, And we enter the house of our Father at last,-- Light trouble, that here, in the night of our stay, The blast swept our wilderness lodging away!</p><p>"The children--dear hearts!--it is touching to see My Beverly's beautiful kindness to me; So buoyant his mein--so heroic--resigned-- The boy has the soul of his father, I find!</p><p>Not a childish complaint or regret have I heard,-- Not even from Archie, a petulant word: Once only--a tear moistened Sophy's bright cheek: '_Papa has no home now!_'--'twas all she could speak.</p><p>"A stranger I wander midst strangers; and yet I never,--no, not for a moment forget That my heart has a home,--just as real, as true, And as warm as if Beechenbrook sheltered me too.</p><p>G.o.d grant that this refuge from sorrow and pain-- This blessedest haven of peace, may remain!</p><p>And, then, though disaster, still sharper, befall, I think I can patiently bear with it all: For the rarest, most exquisite bliss of my life Is wrapped in a word, Dougla.s.s ... I am your wife!"</p><p>IX.</p><p>When fierce and fast-thronging calamities rush Resistless as destiny o'er us, and crush The life from the quivering heart till we feel Like the victim whose body is broke on the wheel-- When we think we have touched the far limit at last, --One throe, and the point of endurance is pa.s.sed-- When we shivering hang on the verge of despair-- There still is capacity left us to bear.</p><p>The storm of the winter, the smile of the Spring, No respite, no pause, and no hopefulness bring; The demon of carnage still breathes his hot breath, And fiercely goes forward the harvest of death.</p><p>Days painfully drag their slow burden along; And the pulse that is beating so steady and strong, Stands still, as there comes, from the echoing sh.o.r.e Of the winding and clear Rappahannock, the roar Of conflict so fell, that the silvery flood Runs purple and rapid and ghastly with blood.</p><p>--Grand army of martyrs!--though victory waves Them onward, her march must be over _their_ graves: They feel it--they know it,--yet steadier each Close phalanx moves into the desperate breach: Their step does not falter--their faith does not yield,-- For yonder, supreme o'er the fiercely-fought field, Erect in his leonine grandeur, they see The proud and magnificent calmness of LEE!</p><p>'Tis morn--but the night has brought Alice no rest: The roof seems to press like a weight on her breast; And she wanders forth, wearily lifting her eye, To seek for relief 'neath the calm of the sky.</p><p>The air of the forest is spicy and sweet, And dreamily babbles a brook at her feet; Her children are 'round her, and sunshine and flowers, Try vainly to banish the gloom of the hours.</p><p>With a volume she fain her wild thoughts would a.s.suage, But her vision can trace not a line on the page, And the poet's dear strains, once so soft to her ear, Have lost all their mystical power to cheer.</p><p>The evening approaches--the pressure--the woe Grows drearer and heavier,--yet she must go, And stifle between the dead walls, as she may, The heart that scarce breathed in the free, open day.</p><p>She reaches the dwelling that serves as her home; A horseman awaits at the entrance;--the foam Is flecking the sides of his fast-ridden steed, Who pants, over-worn with exhaustion and speed; And Alice for support to Beverly clings, As the soldier delivers the letter he brings.</p><p>Her ashy lips move, but the words do not come, And she stands in her whiteness, bewildered and dumb: She turns to the letter with hopeless appeal, But her fingers are helpless to loosen the seal: She lifts her dim eyes with a look of despair,-- Her hands for a moment are folded in prayer; The strength she has sought is vouchsafed in her need: --"I think I can bear it now, Beverly ... read."</p><p>The boy, with the resolute nerve of a man, And a voice which he holds as serene as he can, Takes quietly from her the letter, and reads:-- </p><p>"Dear Madam,--My heart in its sympathy bleeds For the pain that my tidings must bear you: may G.o.d Most tenderly comfort you, under His rod!</p><p>"This morning, at daybreak, a terrible charge Was made on the enemy's centre: such large And fresh reinforcements were held at his back, He stoutly and stubbornly met the attack.</p><p>"Our cavalry bore themselves splendidly:--far In front of his line galloped Colonel Dunbar; Erect in his stirrups,--his sword flashing high, And the look of a conqueror kindling his eye, His silvery voice rang aloft through the roar Of the musketry poured from the opposite sh.o.r.e: --'Remember the Valley!--remember your wives!</p><p>And on to your duty, boys!--on--with your lives!'</p><p>"He turned, and he paused, as he uttered the call-- Then reeled in his seat, and fell,--pierced by a ball.</p><p>"He lives and he breathes yet:--the surgeons declare, That the balance is trembling 'twixt hope and despair.</p><p>In his blanket he lies, on the hospital floor,-- So calm, you might deem all his agony o'er; And here, as I write, on his face I can see An expression whose radiance is startling to me.</p><p>His faith is sublime:--he relinquishes life, And craves but one blessing,--_to look on his wife!_"</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-16243934362199531312022-09-04T05:59:00.000-07:002022-09-04T05:59:00.181-07:00Beechenbrook Part 3If you are looking for Beechenbrook Part 3 you are coming to the right place. Beechenbrook is a Webnovel created by Margaret Junkin Preston. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>She dares not to stir with a question, _her_ woe, One word,--and the bitter-brimm'd heart would o'erflow: But speechless, and moveless, and stony of eye, Scarce conscious of aught in the earth or the sky, In a swoon of the heart, all her senses have reeled,-- But she prays for endurance,--for here is the field.</p><p>The flight and pursuit, so hara.s.sing, so hot, Have drifted all combatants far from the spot: And through the spa.r.s.e woodlands, and over the plain, Lie gorily scattered, the wounded and slain.</p><p>Oh! the sickness,--the shudder,--the quailing of fear, As it leaps to her lips,--"What if Dougla.s.s be here!"</p><p>Yet she frames not a question; her spirit can bear Oh! anything,--all things, but hopeless despair: Does her darling lie stretched on the slope of yon hill?</p><p>Let her doubt--let her hug the suspense, if she will!</p> <p>She watches each ambulance-burden with dread; She loots in the faces of dying and dead: And hour after hour, with steady control, She bends to her task all the strength of her soul; She comforts the wounded with pity's sweet care, And the spirit that's pa.s.sing, she speeds with her prayer.</p><p>She starts as she hears, from her stout-hearted boy, A wild exclamation, half doubt and half joy:-- </p><p>"Oh! Surgeon!--some brandy! he's fainting!--Ah! now The colour comes back to his cheek and his brow:-- He breathes again--speaks again--listen!--you are 'An orderly'--is it?--'of Colonel Dunbar?'</p><p>'He fought like a lion!' (I knew it!) and pa.s.sed Untouched through the battle, 'unhurt to the last?'</p><p>--My father is safe,--mother!--safe!--what a joy!</p><p>And here is Macpherson,--our barefooted boy!"</p><p>Poor Alice!--her grief has been tearless and dumb, But the pressure once lifted, her senses succ.u.mb: Too quick the revulsion,--too glad the surprise,-- The mists of unconsciousness curtain her eyes: 'Tis only a moment they suffer eclipse, And words of thanksgiving soon thrill on her lips.</p><p>To Beechenbrook's quiet, with tenderest care, They hasten the wounded, wan soldier to bear; And never hung mother more patiently o'er The couch of the child, her own bosom that bore, Than Alice above the lone orphan, who lay Submissively breathing his spirit away.</p><p>He knows that existence is ebbing; his brain Is lucid and calm, in the pauses of pain; But his round boyish cheek with no weeping is wet, And his smile is not touched with a shade of regret.</p><p>No murmur is uttered--no lingering sigh Escapes him;--so young,--yet so willing to die!</p><p>His garment of flesh he has worn undefiled, His faith is the beautiful faith of a child: He knows that the Crucified hung on the tree, That the pathway to bliss might be open and free: He believes that the cup has been drained,--he can find Not a drop of the wrath that had filled it,--behind.</p><p>If ever a doubt or misgiving a.s.sails, His finger he puts on the print of the nails; If sometimes there springs an emotion of fear, He lays his cold hand on the mark of the spear!</p><p>He thinks of his darling, dead mother;--the light Of the Heavenly City falls full on his sight: And under the rows of the palms, by the brim Of the river--he knows she is waiting for him.</p><p>But the present comes back;--and on Alice's ear, Fall whispers like these, as she pauses to hear: </p><p>"Only a private;--and who will care When I may pa.s.s away,-- Or how, or why I perish, or where I mix with the common clay?</p><p>They will fill my empty place again, With another as bold and brave; And they'll blot me out, ere the Autumn rain Has freshened my nameless grave.</p><p>Only a private:--it matters not, That I did my duty well; That all through a score of battles I fought, And then, like a soldier, fell: The country I died for,--never will heed My unrequited claim; And history cannot record the deed, For she never has heard my name.</p><p>Only a private;--and yet I know, When I heard the rallying call, I was one of the very first to go, And ... I'm one of the many who fall: But, as here I lie, it is sweet to feel, That my honor's without a stain;-- That I only fought for my Country's weal, And not for glory or gain.</p><p>Only a private;--yet He who reads Through the guises of the heart, Looks not at the splendour of the deeds, But the way we do our part; And when He shall take us by the hand, And our small service own, There'll a glorious band of privates stand As victors around the throne!"</p><p>The breath of the morning is heavy and chill, And gloomily lower the mists on the hill: The winds through the beeches are shivering low, With a plaintive and sad _miserere_ of woe: A quiet is over the Cottage,--a dread Clouds the children's sweet faces,--Macpherson is dead!</p><p>VII.</p><p>'Tis Autumn,--and Nature the forest has hung With arras more gorgeous than ever was flung From Gobelin looms,--all so varied, so rare, As never the princeliest palaces were.</p><p>Soft curtains of haze the far mountains enfold, Whose warp is of purple, whose woof is of gold, And the sky bends as peacefully, purely above, As if earth breathed an atmosphere only of love.</p><p>But thick as white asters in Autumn, are found The tents all bestrewing the carpeted ground; The din of a camp, with its stir and its strife, Its motley and strange, mult.i.tudinous life, Floats upward along the brown slopes, till it fills The echoing hollows afar in the hills.</p><p>'Tis the twilight of Sabbath,--and sweet through the air, Swells the blast of the bugle, that summons to prayer: The signal is answered, and soon in the glen Sits Colonel Dunbar in the midst of his men.</p><p>The Chaplain advances with reverent face, Where lies a felled oak, he has chosen his place; On the stump of an ash-tree the Bible he lays, And they bow on the gra.s.s, as he solemnly prays.</p><p>Underneath thine open sky, Father, as we bend the knee, May we feel thy presence nigh, --Nothing 'twixt our souls and thee!</p><p>We are weary,--cares and woes Lay their weight on every breast, And each heart before thee knows, That it sighs for inward rest.</p><p>Thou canst lift this weight away, Thou canst bid these sighings cease; Thou canst walk these waves and say To their restless tossings--"Peace!"</p><p>We are tempted;--snares abound,-- Sin its treacherous meshes weaves; And temptations strew us round, Thicker than the Autumn leaves.</p><p>Midst these perils, mark our path, Thou who art 'the life, the way;'</p><p>Rend each fatal wile that hath Power to lead our souls astray.</p><p>Prince of Peace! we follow Thee!</p><p>Plant thy banner in our sight; Let thy shadowy legions be Guards around our tents to-night."</p><p>Through the aisles of the forest, far-stretching and dim As a cloister'd Cathedral, the notes of a hymn Float tenderly upward,--now soft and now clear, As if twilight had silenced its breathing to hear; Now swelling, a lofty, triumphant refrain,-- Now sobbing itself into sadness again.</p><p>The Bible is opened, and stillness profound Broods over the listeners scattered around; And warning, and comfort, and blessing, and balm, Distil from the beautiful words of the Psalm.</p><p>Then simply and earnestly pleading,--his face Lit up with persuasive and eloquent grace, The Chaplain pours forth, from the warmth of his heart, His words of entreaty and truth, ere they part.</p><p>"I see before me valiant men, With courage high and true, Who fight as only heroes fight, And die, as heroes do.</p><p>Your serried ranks have never quailed Before the battle-shock, Whose maddest fury beats and breaks Like foam against the rock.</p><p>Ye've borne the deadly brunt of war, Through storm, and cold, and heat, Yet never have ye turned your backs Nor fled before defeat.</p><p>Behind you lie your cheerful homes, And all of sweet or fair,-- The only remnants earth has left Of Eden-life, are there.</p><p>Ye know that many a once bright cheek Consuming care, makes wan; Ye know the old, dear happiness That blest your hearths,--is gone.</p><p>Ye see your comrades smitten down,-- The young, the good, the brave,-- Ye feel, the turf ye tread to-day, May be to-morrow's grave.</p><p>Yet not a murmur meets the ear, Nor discontent has sway, And not a sullen brow is seen, Through all the camp to-day.</p><p>No Greek, in Greece's palmiest days, His javelin ever threw, Impelled by more heroic zeal, Or n.o.bler aim than you.</p><p>No mailed warrior ever bore Aloft his shining lance, More proudly through the tales that fire The page of old romance.</p><p>Oh! soldiers!--well ye bear your part; The world awards its praise: Be sure,--this grandest tourney o'er,-- 'Twill crown you with its bays!</p><p>But there's sublimer work than even To free your native sod; --Ye may be loyal to your land, Yet traitors to your G.o.d!</p><p>No Moslem heaven for him who falls, A bribed requital doles; And while ye save your country,--ye, Alas! may lose your souls!</p><p>No glorious deeds can urge their claim,-- No merits, entrance win,-- The pierced hand of Christ alone, Must freely let you in.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-43526662164784250572022-09-03T00:13:00.000-07:002022-09-03T00:13:00.210-07:00Beechenbrook Part 2If you are looking for Beechenbrook Part 2 you are coming to the right place. Beechenbrook is a Webnovel created by Margaret Junkin Preston. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>"I turn a deaf ear to the scream of the wind, I leave the rude camp and the forest behind; And Beechenbrook, wrapped in its raiment of white, Is tauntingly filling my vision to-night.</p><p>I catch my sweet little ones' innocent mirth, I watch your dear face, as you sit at the hearth; And I know, by the tender expression I see, I know that my darling is musing of me.</p><p>Does her thought dim the blaze?--Does it shed through the room A chilly, unseen, and yet palpable gloom?</p><p>Ah! then we are equal! _You_ share all my pain, And _I_ halve your blessedness with you again!</p><p>"Don't think that my hardships are bitter to bear; Don't think I repine at the soldier's rough fare; If ever a thought so unworthy steals on, I look upon Ashby,--and lo! it is gone!</p> <p>Such chivalry, fort.i.tude, spirit and tone, Make brighter, and stronger, and prouder, my own.</p><p>Oh! Beverly, boy!--on his white steed, I ween, A princelier presence has never been seen; And as yonder he lies, from the groups all apart, I bow to him loyally,--bow with my heart.</p><p>"What brave, buoyant letters you write, sweet!--they ring Through my soul like the blast of a trumpet, and bring Such a flame to my eye, such a flush to my cheek,-- That often my hand will unconsciously seek The hilt of my sword as I read,--and I feel As the warrior does, when he flashes the steel In fiery circles, and shouts in his might, For the heroes behind him, to follow its light!</p><p>True wife of a soldier!--If doubt or dismay Had ever, within me, one instant held sway, Your words wield a spell that would bid them be gone, Like bodiless ghosts at the touch of the dawn.</p><p>"Could the veriest craven that cowers and quails Before the vast horde that insults and a.s.sails Our land and our liberties,--could he to-night, Sit here on the ice-girdled log where I write, And look on the hopeful, bright brows of the men, Who have toiled all the day over mountain, through glen,-- Half-clothed and unfed,--would he doubt?--would he dare, In the face of such proof, yield again to despair?</p><p>"The hum of their voices comes laden with cheer, As the wind wafts a musical swell to my ear,-- Wild, clarion catches,--now flute-like and low; --Would you like me to give you their Song of the Snow?</p><p>Halt!--the march is over!</p><p>Day is almost done; Loose the c.u.mbrous knapsack, Drop the heavy gun: Chilled and wet and weary, Wander to and fro, Seeking wood to kindle Fires amidst the snow.</p><p>Round the bright blaze gather, Heed not sleet nor cold,-- Ye are Spartan soldiers, Stout and brave and bold: Never Xerxian army Yet subdued a foe, Who but asked a blanket On a bed of snow.</p><p>Shivering midst the darkness Christian men are found, There devoutly kneeling On the frozen ground,-- </p><p>Pleading for their country, In its hour of woe,-- For its soldiers marching Shoeless through the snow.</p><p>Lost in heavy slumbers, Free from toil and strife; Dreaming of their dear ones,-- Home, and child, and wife; Tentless they are lying, While the fires burn low,-- Lying in their blankets, Midst December's snow!</p><p>Come, Sophy, my blossom! I've something to say Will chase for a moment your gambols away: To-day as we climbed the steep mountain-path o'er, I noticed a bare-footed lad in my corps; "How comes it,"--I asked,--"you look careful and bold, How comes it you're marching, unshod, through the cold?"</p><p>"Ah, sir! I'm a poor, lonely orphan, you see; No mother, no friends that are caring for me; If I'm wounded, or captured, or killed, in the war, 'Twill matter to n.o.body, Colonel Dunbar."</p><p>Now, Sophy!--your needles, dear!--Knit him some socks, And send the poor fellow a pair in my box; Then he'll know,--and his heart with the thought will be filled,-- There is _one_ little maiden will care if he's killed.</p><p>The fire burns dimly, and scattered around, The men lie asleep on the snow-covered ground; But ere in my blanket I wrap me to rest, I hold you, my darling, close,--close, to my breast: G.o.d love you! G.o.d grant you His comforting light!</p><p>I kiss you a thousand times over!--Good night!</p><p>V.</p><p>"To-morrow is Christmas!"--and clapping his hands, Little Archie in joyful expectancy stands, And watches the shadows, now short and now tall, That momently dance up and down on the wall.</p><p>Drawn curtains of crimson shut out the cold night, And the parlor is pleasant with odours and light; The soft lamp suspended, its mellowness throws O'er cl.u.s.ter'd geranium, jasmine and rose; The sleeping canary hangs caged midst the blooms, A Sybarite slumberer steeped in perfumes; For Alice still clings to her birds and her flowers, Sweet tokens of kindlier, happier hours.</p><p>"To-morrow is Christmas!--but Beverly,--say, Will it do to be glad when Papa is away?"</p><p>And the face that is tricksy and blythe as can be, Tries vainly to temper its shadowless glee.</p><p>"For _you_, pet, I'm sure it is right to be glad; 'Tis a pitiful thing to see little ones sad; But for Sophy and me, who are older, you know,-- We dare not be glad when we look at the snow!</p><p>I shrink from this comfort, this light and this heat, This plenty to wear, and this plenty to eat, When the soldiers who fight for us,--die for us,--lie, With nothing around and above, but the sky; When their clothes are so light, and the rations they deal, Are only a morsel of bacon and meal: And how can I fold my thick blankets around, When I know that my father's asleep on the ground?</p><p>I'm ashamed to be happy, or merry, or free, As if war and its trials were nothing to me: Oh! I never can know any frolic or fun,-- Any real, mad romps,--till the battles are done!"</p><p>And the face of the boy, so heroic and fair, Is touched with the singular shadow of care.</p><p>Sophy ceases her warbling, subdues her soft mirth, And draws her low ottoman up to the hearth: </p><p>"But, brother, what good would it do to refuse The comforts and blessings G.o.d gives us, or use Them quite with indifference, as much as to say, We care not how soon they are taken away!</p><p>I am sure I would give my last blanket, and spread My pretty, blue cloak, at night, over my bed,-- (Mamma, you know, covers herself with her shawl, Since we've sent all our blankets,)--but, then, it's too small!</p><p>Would Papa be less hungry or cold, do you think, If _we_ had too little to eat or to drink?</p><p>So I mean to be busy,--I mean to be glad; Mamma says there's time enough yet to be sad; I'll work for the soldiers,--I'll pray, and I'll plan, And just be as happy as ever I can; I've made the grey shirt, and I've finished the socks:-- So come, let us help,--they are packing the box."</p><p>How grateful the task is to Alice! her cares Are quite put aside, and her countenance wears A look of enjoyment as eager, as bright, As Santa Claus brings little dreamers to-night; For Dougla.s.s away in his camp, is to share The daintiest cates that her larder can spare.</p><p>The turkey, well seasoned, and tenderly browned, Is flanked by the spiciest _a la mode_ "round;"</p><p>The great "priestly ham," in its juiciest pride, Is there,--with the tenderest surloin beside; Neat bottles, suggestive of ketchups and wines, And condiments racy, of various kinds; And firm rolls of b.u.t.ter as yellow as gold, And patties and biscuit most rare to behold, And sauces that richest of odors betray,-- Are marshalled in most appetizing array.</p><p>Then Beverly brings of his nuts a full store, And Archie has apples, a dozen or more; While Sophy, with gratified housewifery, makes Her present of spicy "Confederate cakes."</p><p>And then in a snug little corner, there lies A pacquet will brighten the orphan boy's eyes; For Beverly claims it a pleasure to use His last cherish'd h.o.a.rdings in buying him shoes.</p><p>Sophy's socks too are there; and she catches afar-- "There's _somebody_ cares for me, Colonel Dunbar!"</p><p>What subtlest of essences, sovereign to cheer-- What countless, uncatalogu'd tokens are here!</p><p>What lavender'd memories, tenderly green, Lie hidden, these grosser of viands between!</p><p>What food for the heart-life,--unreckon'd, untold-- What manna enclosed in its chalice of gold!</p><p>What caskets of sweets that Love only unlocks,-- What mysteries Dougla.s.s will find in the box!</p><p>VI.</p><p>The lull of the Winter is over; and Spring Comes back, as delicious and buoyant a thing, As airy, and fairy, and lightsome, and bland, As if not a sorrow was dark'ning the land;-- So little has Nature of pa.s.sion or part In the woes and the throes of humanity's heart.</p><p>The wild tide of battle runs red,--dashes high, And blots out the splendour of earth and of sky; The blue air is heavy, and sulph'rous, and dun, And the breeze on its wings bears the boom of the gun.</p><p>In faster and fiercer and deadlier shocks, The thunderous billows are hurled on the rocks; And our Valley becomes, amid Spring's softest breath, The valley, alas! of the shadow of death.</p><p>The crash of the onset,--the plunge and the roll, Reach down to the depth of each patriot's soul; It quivers--for since it is human, it must; But never a tremor of doubt or distrust, Once blanches the cheek, or is wrung from the mouth, Or lurks in the eye of the sons of the South.</p><p>What need for dismay? Let the live surges roar, And leap in their fury, our fastnesses o'er, And threaten our beautiful Valley to fill With rapine and ruin more terrible still: What fear we?--See Jackson! his sword in his hand, Like the stern rocks around him, immovable stand,-- The wisdom, the skill and the strength that he boasts, Sought ever from him who is Leader of Hosts: --He speaks in the name of his G.o.d:--lo! the tide,-- The red sea of battle, is seen to divide; The pathway of victory cleaves the dark flood;-- And the foe is o'erwhelmed in a deluge of blood!</p><p>The spirit of Alice no longer is bowed By the troubles, and tumults, and terrors, that crowd So closely around her:--the willow's lithe form Bends meekly to meet the wild rush of the storm.</p><p>Yet pale as Ca.s.sandra, unconscious of joy, With visions of Greeks at the gates of her Troy, All day she has waited and watched on the lawn, Till the purple and gold of the sunset are gone; For the battle draws near her:--few leagues intervene Her home and that Valley of slaughter, between.</p><p>The tidings and rumors come thick and come fast, As riders fly hotly and breathlessly past; They tell of the onslaught,--the headlong attack Of the foe with a quadruple force at his back: They boast how they hurl themselves,--shiver and fall Before their stout rampart, the valiant "Stonewall."</p><p>At length, with the gradual fading of day,-- The tokens of battle are floated away: The booming no longer makes sullen the air, And the silence of night seems as holy as prayer.</p><p>Gray shadows still linger the beeches among, And scarce has the earliest matin been sung, Ere Alice with Beverly pale at her side, Yet firm as his mother, is ready to ride.</p><p>With sympathy, womanly, tender, divine,-- With lint and with bandage, with bread and with wine,-- She hastes to the battle-field, eager to bear Relief to the wounded and perishing there: To breathe, like an angel of mercy, the breath Of peace over brows that are fainting in death.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-34206361387850678062022-09-01T18:27:00.000-07:002022-09-01T18:27:00.187-07:00Beechenbrook Part 1If you are looking for Beechenbrook Part 1 you are coming to the right place. Beechenbrook is a Webnovel created by Margaret Junkin Preston. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>Beechenbrook.</p><p>by Margaret J. Preston.</p><p>I.</p><p>There is sorrow in Beechenbrook Cottage; the day Has been bright with the earliest glory of May; The blue of the sky is as tender a blue As ever the sunshine came shimmering through: The songs of the birds and the hum of the bees, As they merrily dart in and out of the trees,-- The blooms of the orchard, as sifting its snows, It mingles its odors with hawthorn and rose,-- The voice of the brook, as it lapses unseen,-- The laughter of children at play on the green,-- Insist on a picture so cheerful, so fair, Who ever would dream that a grief could be there!</p><p>The last yellow sunbeam slides down from the wall, The purple of evening is ready to fall; The gladness of daylight is gone, and the gloom Of something like sadness is over the room.</p> <p>Right bravely all day, with a smile on her brow, Has Alice been true to her duty,--but now Her tasks are all ended,--naught inside or out, For the thoughtfullest love to be busy about; The knapsack well furnished, the canteen all bright, The soldier's grey dress and his gauntlets in sight, The blanket tight strapped, and the haversack stored, And lying beside them, the cap and the sword; No last, little office,--no further commands,-- No service to steady the tremulous hands; All wife-work,--the sweet work that busied her so, Is finished:--the dear one is ready to go.</p><p>Not a sob has escaped her all day,--not a moan; But now the tide rushes,--for she is alone.</p><p>On the fresh, shining knapsack she pillows her head, And weeps as a mourner might weep for the dead.</p><p>She heeds not the three-year old baby at play, As donning the cap, on the carpet he lay; Till she feels on her forehead, his fingers' soft tips, And on her shut eyelids, the touch of his lips.</p><p>"Mamma is _so_ sorry!--Mamma is _so_ sad!</p><p>But Archie can make her look up and be glad: I've been praying to G.o.d, as you told me to do, That Papa may come back when the battle is thro':-- He says when we pray, that our prayers shall be heard; And Mamma, don't you _always_ know, G.o.d keeps his word?"</p><p>Around the young comforter stealthily press The arms of his father with sudden caress; Then fast to his heart,--love and duty at strife,-- He s.n.a.t.c.hes with fondest emotion, his wife.</p><p>"My own love! my precious!--I feel I am strong; I know I am brave in opposing the wrong; I could stand where the battle was fiercest, nor feel One quiver of nerve at the flash of the steel; I could gaze on the enemy guiltless of fears, But I quail at the sight of your pa.s.sionate tears: My calmness forsakes me,--my thoughts are a-whirl, And the stout-hearted man is as weak as a girl.</p><p>I've been proud of your fort.i.tude; never a trace Of yielding, all day, could I read in your face; But a look that was resolute, dauntless and high, As ever flashed forth from a patriot's eye.</p><p>I know how you cling to me,--know that to part Is tearing the tenderest cords of your heart: Through the length and the breadth of our Valley to-day, No hand will a costlier sacrifice lay On the altar of Country; and Alice,--sweet wife!</p><p>I never have worshipped you so in my life!</p><p>Poor heart,--that has held up so brave in the past,-- Poor heart! must it break with its burden at last?"</p><p>The arms thrown about him, but tighten their hold, The cheek that he kisses, is ashy and cold, And bowed with the grief she so long has suppressed, She weeps herself quiet and calm on his breast.</p><p>At length, in a voice just as steady and clear As if it had never been choked by a tear, She raises her eyes with a softened control, And through them her husband looks into her soul.</p><p>"I feel that we each for the other could die; Your heart to my own makes the instant reply: But dear as you are, Love,--my life and my light,-- I would not consent to your stay, if I might: No!--arm for the conflict, and on, with the rest; Virginia has need of her bravest and best!</p><p>My heart--it must bleed, and my cheek will be wet, Yet never, believe me, with selfish regret: My ardor abates not one jot of its glow, Though the tears of the wife and the woman _will_ flow.</p><p>"Our cause is so holy, so just, and so true,-- Thank G.o.d! I can give a defender like you!</p><p>For home, and for children,--for freedoms--for bread,-- For the house of our G.o.d,--for the graves of our dead,-- For leave to exist on the soil of our birth,-- For everything manhood holds dearest on earth: When _these_ are the things that we fight for--dare I Hold back my best treasure, with plaint or with sigh?</p><p>My cheek would blush crimson,--my spirit be galled, If _he_ were not there when the muster was called!</p><p>When we pleaded for peace, every right was denied; Every pressing pet.i.tion turned proudly aside; Now G.o.d judge betwixt us!--G.o.d prosper the right!</p><p>To brave men there's nothing remains, but to fight: I grudge you not, Dougla.s.s,--die, rather than yield,-- And like the old heroes,--come home on your shield!"</p><p>The morning is breaking:--the flush of the dawn Is warning the soldier, 'tis time to be gone; The children around him expectantly wait,-- His horse, all caparisoned, paws at the gate: With face strangely pallid,--no sobbings,--no sighs,-- But only a luminous mist in her eyes, His wife is subduing the heart-throbs that swell, And calming herself for a quiet farewell.</p><p>There falls a felt silence:--the note of a bird, A tremulous twitter,--is all that is heard; The circle has knelt by the holly-bush there,-- And listen,--there comes the low breathing of prayer.</p><p>"Father! fold thine arms of pity Round us as we lowly bow; Never have we kneeled before Thee With such burden'd hearts as now!</p><p>Joy has been our constant portion, And if ill must now befall, With a filial acquiescence, We would thank thee for it all.</p><p>In the path of present duty, With Thy hand to lean upon, Questioning not the hidden future, May we walk serenely on.</p><p>For this holy, happy home-love, Purest bliss that crowns my life,-- For these tender, trusting children,-- For this fondest, faithful wife,-- </p><p>Here I pour my full thanksgiving; And, when heart is torn from heart, Be our sweetest tryst-word, '_Mizpah_,'-- Watch betwixt us while we part!</p><p>And if never round this altar, We should kneel as heretofore,-- If these arms in benediction Fold my precious ones no more,-- </p><p>Thou, who in her direst anguish, Sooth'dst thy mother's lonely lot, In thy still unchanged compa.s.sion, Son of Man! forsake them not!"</p><p>The little ones each he has caught to his breast, And clasped them, and kissed them with fervent caress; Then wordless and tearless, with hearts running o'er, _They_ part who have never been parted before: He springs to his saddle,--the rein is drawn tight,-- And Beechenbrook Cottage is lost to his sight.</p><p>II.</p><p>The feathery foliage has broadened its leaves, And June, with its beautiful mornings and eves, Its magical atmosphere, breezes and blooms, Its woods all delicious with thousand perfumes,-- First-born of the Summer,--spoiled pet of the year,-- June, delicate queen of the seasons, is here!</p><p>The sadness has pa.s.sed from the dwelling away, And quiet serenity brightens the day: With innocent prattle, her toils to beguile, In the midst of her children, the mother _must_ smile.</p><p>With matronly cares,--those relentless demands On the strength of her heart and the skill of her hands,-- The hours come tenderly, ceaselessly fraught, And leave her small s.p.a.ce for the broodings of thought.</p><p>Thank G.o.d!--busy fingers a solace can find, To lighten the burden of body or mind; And Eden's old curse proves a blessing instead,-- "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou toil for thy bread."</p><p>For the bless'd relief in all labours that lurk, Aye, thank Him, unhappy ones,--thank Him for work!</p><p>Thus Alice engages her thoughts and her powers, And industry kindly lends wings to the hours: Poor, petty employments they sometimes appear, And on her bright needle there plashes a tear,-- Half shame and half pa.s.sion;--what would she not dare Her fervid compatriots' struggles to share?</p><p>It irks her,--the weakness of womanhood then,-- Yet such are the tears that make heroes of men!</p><p>She feels the hot blood of the nation beat high; With rapture she catches the rallying cry: From mountain and valley and hamlet they come!</p><p>On every side echoes the roll of the drum.</p><p>A people as firm, as united, as bold, As ever drew blade for the blessings they hold, Step sternly and solemnly forth in their might, And swear on their altars to die for the right!</p><p>The clangor of muskets,--the flashing of steel,-- The clatter of spurs on the stout-booted heel,-- The waving of banners,--the resonant tramp Of marching battalions,--the fiery stamp Of steeds in their war-harness, newly decked out,-- The blast of the bugle,--the hurry, the shout,-- The terrible energy, eager and wild, That lights up the face of man, woman and child,-- That burns on all lips, that arouses all powers; Did ever we dream that such times would be ours?</p><p>One thought is absorbing, with giant control,-- With deadliest earnest, the national soul:-- "The right of self-government, crown of our pride,-- Right, bought with the sacredest blood,--is denied!</p><p>Shall we tamely resign what our enemy craves?</p><p>No! martyrs we _may_ be!--we _cannot_ be slaves!"</p><p>Fair women who naught but indulgence have seen, Who never have learned what denial could mean,-- </p><p>Who deign not to clipper their own dainty feet, Whose wants swarthy handmaids stand ready to meet, Whose fingers decline the light kerchief to hem,-- What aid in this struggle is hoped for from them?</p><p>Yet see! how they haste from their bowers of ease, Their dormant capacities fired,--to seize Every feminine weapon their skill can command,-- To labor with head, and with heart, and with hand.</p><p>They st.i.tch the rough jacket, they shape the coa.r.s.e shirt, Unheeding though delicate fingers be hurt; They bind the strong haversack, knit the grey glove, Nor falter nor pause in their service of love.</p><p>When ever were people subdued, overthrown, With women to cheer them on, brave as our own?</p><p>With maidens and mothers at work on their knees, When ever were soldiers as fearless as these?</p><p>June's flower-wreathed sceptre is dropped with a sigh, And forth like an empress steps stately July: She sits all unveiled, amidst sunshine and balms, As Zen.o.bia sat in her City of Palms!</p><p>Not yet has the martial horizon grown dun, Not yet has the terrible conflict begun: But the tumult of legions,--the rush and the roar, Break over our borders, like waves on the sh.o.r.e.</p><p>Along the Potomac, the confident foe Stands marshalled for onset,--prepared, at a blow, To vanquish the daring rebellion, and fling Utter ruin at once on the arrogant thing!</p><p>How sovran the silence that broods o'er the sky, And ushers the twenty-first morn of July; --Date, written in fire on history's scroll,-- --Date, drawn in deep blood-lines on many a soul!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-24075084017152935542022-08-31T12:42:00.000-07:002022-08-31T12:42:00.188-07:00Reigning Beauty Chapter 2If you are looking for Reigning Beauty Chapter 2 you are coming to the right place. Reigning Beauty is a Webnovel created by Elaine Yang. This lightnovel is currently ongoing. <p> The leader of the geishas nodded and tapped a bamboo tube, ushering in a young woman in a golden dress, whose face was covered with a red sash. Her steps were dainty yet ethereal, and while her face was not visible, her dancing was magical. It was as if she flew in front of the various court officials and the emperor, all while pouring fragrant wine for each guest. Some officials even stood up, so amazed were they by her performance.</p><p>Just as some men wanted to get closer to her, Nongyue leapt up and shook her sleeves, tumbling out rainbow-colored sashes, which swirled around her as she danced.</p><p>Unlike other geishas, this woman's style was feminine yet powerful. The gentle swaying of her sleeves were like swipes of sharp swords, yet without menace, turning each strong wave into a gentle breeze.</p><p>She danced faster and faster, as if she had turned into a golden cloud enveloped by rainbows. The audience was utterly enchanted.</p><p>"Who knew there was such amazing dancing? This Nongyue is really something else!" Emperor Qi clapped and told his servants to reward the dancer.</p><p>When she finished dancing, Nongyue stepped forward and bowed toward Emperor Qi. "I hope my humble dancing pleased you."</p><p>Everyone clapped and praised the geisha; only Bingqiu seemed a little numb and didn't react.</p><p>"No need to bow. Here, I'll tip you well. Come—"</p><p>When Emperor Qi was stepping off his throne, his body seemed to be out of control and he swayed.</p><p>"Lord, are you all right?" His servants a.s.sumed he had over-imbibed and hurried to support him. But within seconds, his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth all gushed black blood, shocking everyone present.</p><p>"Father! What's happening? Why is everyone standing around? Get the doctor!" Qi Huaiyi rushed forward to catch his falling father, wiping off the blood on the older man's face with a handkerchief. Emperor Qi was already unable to talk. He was slurring his words with pale lips, and his facial muscles were twitching.</p><p> "Huaiyi, you . . ." He collapsed into his son's embrace, trying to touch him with the last of his energy, but his limbs wouldn't work. He stopped breathing.</p><p>"The Emperor is gone. It seems he was poisoned . . ." Nongyue seemed to understand what had happened as she whispered to Qi Huaiyi.</p><p>"What?" Qi Huaiyi remembered how his cousin Qi Huaixin had offered his father the wine earlier. Enraged, he grabbed Qi Huaixin's collar and tried to stab him with a knife.</p><p>Qi Huaixin was quick to react, slashing his right palm across Huaiyi's wrist so the knife fell. Then he broke his wine gla.s.s on the ground and shouted, "Qi Huaiyi, how dare you? You wanted to be number one, so you poisoned your own father and want to kill me?"</p><p>His yelling turned the whole banquet into a hornet's nest. Everyone gathered around them in a tight circle, and several military officials protected him like stoic mountains. </p><p>"Nonsense! My father drank the poisoned wine you offered and that's why he died. But you're accusing me?" Qi Huaiyi looked indignant as he gave orders to a servant. "Use a silver hairpin to test the wine in front of everyone. We'll see who is really guilty!"   </p><p>The servant dipped a silver hairpin into the leftover goblet of wine, but when the hairpin was removed it was still shiny. Huaixin frowned. He ordered someone to grab the handkerchief from his cousin's hand and wiped it off on the hairpin. The hairpin turned black!</p><p>"You, Qi Huaiyi, are indeed evil! Poisoning your own father for power? The heavens will not forgive you! C'mon, grab him!"</p><p>"You're the evil one! You pretended to respect my father but really wanted to overthrow him! Why didn't Ling Ruosong come today? He's probably working for you, too. You're the ones worth our scorn!"</p><p>Instantly the banquet turned into a slaughter as knives swung back and forth and bodies fell to the floor. geishas, servants, and officials were terrified as they tried to flee, only to be met with even more military officials and soldiers outside the banquet hall. The only people protecting Qi Huaiyi were Ling Bingqiu, two military officials, and six close servants.</p><p>"You must go,prince! We'll cover you!"</p><p>Qi Huaiyi watched his underlings being cut down in pools of blood, but he couldn't seem to take a single step. It was as if he was numb.</p><p>"What are you waiting for? Let's go!" Someone shoved him hard in the back, awakening him from his stupor; he tried to run.</p><p>The person was Ling Bingqiu, the elderly official who had no fighting experience. At the moment, though, he carried a long sword and stood guard in front of Qi Huaiyi.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Ling, I . . ." Qi Huaiyi gritted his teeth, afraid to look back. Before he could run out the door, a knife pierced his heart. When the knife was pulled, bright red blood spattered onto his face.</p><p>Qi Huaiyi collapsed in front of the killer, whose face he didn't get to see. One of his eyes was open in desperation, while the other closed. Plum flowers in the courtyard blew every which way, covering his face and body, making it hard to tell what was flower and what was snow. The white was soon stained red with his blood.</p><p>Ling Bingqiu hurried to tend to Huaiyi, yelling as he looked up. "You rotten son, how could you collude with Qi Huaixin to kill the emperor and his son?"</p><p>Ling Ruosong sheathed his knife and laughed without mirth. "Father, you used to be pretty smart; why are you so stupid now? Prince Huaixin is a good leader, and he has already agreed to marry his sister, Princess Huaili, to the second prince of Fanling Kingdom. After getting Guimian, and controlling Fanling, too, he can rule everything. It's a good idea that you pledge your allegiance to Prince Huaixin now. He likes talent, and you could still have a nice post in his reign."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-35519242717601281122022-08-30T06:56:00.000-07:002022-08-30T06:56:00.223-07:00Reigning Beauty Chapter 1If you are looking for Reigning Beauty Chapter 1 you are coming to the right place. Reigning Beauty is a Webnovel created by Elaine Yang. This lightnovel is currently ongoing. <p>Humans lived in the world not to enjoy happiness but to bear witness to brutality.</p><p> There was no heaven to be found, only people fighting to live on the battlefield of blood and tears. Even if it took their last bit of strength, they still searched for heaven inside their soul.</p><p> In the Kingdom of Shuanghua, it was snowing in the city of Shuofang. The snow, as light as daffodils, fell silently without a trace.</p><p>The number of pedestrians didn't seem to decrease on the streets, however, even in the early evening, and all the restaurants remained open. The doorways of the shops lining the streets were decorated with little pots of pine trees, their branches covered in glistening snow. The shopkeepers looked out from time to time, watching for other shops' closing times. Young women had red cheeks from the freezing weather, but still showed no intention of covering up. Whenever they pa.s.sed anyone on the street, they casually showed off their expensive jewelry.</p><p>Ever since Kingdom of Shuanghua defeated the neighboring Kingdom of Guimian, Emperor Qi Yixian had ordered feasts for everyone. The country welcomed its most festive time. The mansion of the court historian, a block away from the emperor's residence, replaced its stone lions at the entrance with two gold ones.</p><p>Inside that mansion, the newly appointed court historian, Ling Ruosong, sat next to a table and chatted with his new wife, Ji. He played with an intricate snuff bottle made of jade.</p><p>"My lord, are you really going to be Prince Huaixin's right hand?" Ji asked as she reached out her dainty hand to deliver one piece of tangerine to her husband's lips. </p><p>Ling Ruosong bit into the fruit and caressed his wife's soft cheeks. "It is smart to follow the times. The Kingdom of Guimian may be controlled by Shuanghua now, but the emperor is elderly, and his son Prince Huaiyi is not yet eighteen years old. He's a decent guy, but not as visionary as Prince Huaixin."</p><p>"You make it sound so easy. No matter how great Prince Huaixin is, a nephew is not a son, plus, the emperor is still alive. Court officials who support Prince Huaiyi are led by Official Ling, your father. You would fight your own father to support Prince Huaixin?"</p><p>"My lady, we're supporting Prince Huaixin in our weaker position now, but we're not just biding our time. Don't worry, the sun will break through the darkness soon; it's a matter of time before the holy light is upon us."</p><p>Ling Ruosong squinted his eyes and sniffed a piece of orange peel. He called for a maid to clean up and gave orders to another servant.</p><p>"Are the geishas from Liaoyuan Kingdom all here?"</p><p>"Yes, sir, I've already settled all of them at the hotel. They're busy preparing for tomorrow night's banquet."  "Very good. Give this message to Prince Huaixin and all the officials: Since I'm sick with a cold, I request that Prince Huaixin deliver the thousand-year-old ginseng to the emperor."</p><p>Ji looked at her husband and her lips delicately frowned. "Why aren't you going to the banquet? Are you afraid of being seduced by the gorgeous geishas of Liaoyuan?"</p><p>Ling Ruosong smiled and didn't answer. He blew out the candles on the table. Snow continued to fall outside, adding a sense of chill.</p><p>Less than ten li from Emperor Qi's mansion was a lavishly-decorated hotel that the emperor used to host all the artists and performers in town. Among the nine kingdoms, the Kingdom of Liaoyuan had a wealth of talented people. Many royals had marveled that they could die without regret if they only had the fortune of seeing the beautiful and enchanting Liaoyuan geishas.</p><p>On the evening of the banquet, Emperor Qi waited in the hall. The minute the stunning geishas appeared, before they even performed, he and his entourage were already mesmerized. When the show was halfway done, he coughed and touched his chubby chins, looking toward Ling Bingqiu, a court official. </p><p>"Official Ling, is your son Ruosong not here today?"</p><p>Ling Bingqiu was about to reply when a tall and richly-dressed young man stood up first, took out a box wrapped in red cloth and delivered it to Emperor Qi.</p><p>"Uncle, Ruosong told me to let you know that he is sick at home, and was afraid to come here and ruin the celebration. He asked me to deliver this gift for him. It's a thousand-year-old ginseng grown on a snowy slope, great for extending life and generating energy. Please accept it."</p><p>"Qi Huaixin, don't you have any manners?" a chubby young man said. "My dad was talking to Official Ling and not you." </p><p>"Huaiyi, what's your problem? Huaixin was just making a joke at the party. No need to make a fuss about it."</p><p>Seeing Emperor Qi scolding Huaiyi, his son, Huaixin smiled slyly and asked the servants to present his own gift to the emperor.</p><p>The eyes of Emperor Qi shone like stars when he opened the gift. "Isn't this my older brother's treasured wine? Red Plum in the Snow? Huaixin, your dad didn't want to share the wine with me when he was alive. You really understand Uncle." Huaixin nodded. "Uncle is too kind. My dad died way too young, so not sharing this wine—made with melted snow collected from plum trees on the mountain—was always his regret. Today is the fortieth anniversary of us having the wine, so I'm presenting it for him. I hope you get to enjoy it." </p><p>"Great, wonderful." Emperor Qi sipped the wine, his eyes moist.</p><p>"I, Huaixin, want to thank Uncle. I believe that my dad in heaven will be gratified. Today is the celebration of our kingdom getting Guimian Kingdom back. Please don't be melancholy. Enjoy the show."</p><p>Qi Huaixin bowed and returned to his seat.</p><p>The leader of the Liaoyuan geishas spoke. "Lord, the next performer is a geisha from our kingdom. Her name is Nongyue. Her face is not beautiful, so please pardon the red scarf on her face. I guarantee her dancing will satisfy you."  Emperor Qi seemed intrigued. "Ugly but talented? I want to see this. Make her come out."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-20154086250683864772022-08-29T01:11:00.000-07:002022-08-29T01:11:00.195-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 9If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 9 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>"Am I here, or there?" cried Robin, starting; for all at once, when his thoughts had become visible and audible in a dream, the long, wide, solitary street shone out before him.</p><p>He aroused himself, and endeavored to fix his attention steadily upon the large edifice which he had surveyed before. But still his mind kept vibrating between fancy and reality; by turns, the pillars of the balcony lengthened into the tall, bare stems of pines, dwindled down to human figures, settled again into their true shape and size, and then commenced a new succession of changes. For a single moment, when he deemed himself awake, he could have sworn that a visage--one which he seemed to remember, yet could not absolutely name as his kinsman's--was looking towards him from the Gothic window. A deeper sleep wrestled with and nearly overcame him, but fled at the sound of footsteps along the opposite pavement. Robin rubbed his eyes, discerned a man pa.s.sing at the foot of the balcony, and addressed him in a loud, peevish, and lamentable cry.</p><p>"Hallo, friend! must I wait here all night for my kinsman, Major Molineux?"</p><p>The sleeping echoes awoke, and answered the voice; and the pa.s.senger, barely able to discern a figure sitting in the oblique shade of the steeple, traversed the street to obtain a nearer view. He was himself a gentleman in his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether prepossessing countenance. Perceiving a country youth, apparently homeless and without friends, he accosted him in a tone of real kindness, which had become strange to Robin's ears.</p><p>"Well, my good lad, why are you sitting here?" inquired he. "Can I be of service to you in any way?"</p><p>"I am afraid not, sir," replied Robin, despondingly; "yet I shall take it kindly, if you'll answer me a single question. I've been searching, half the night, for one Major Molineux, now, sir, is there really such a person in these parts, or am I dreaming?"</p><p>"Major Molineux! The name is not altogether strange to me," said the gentleman, smiling. "Have you any objection to telling me the nature of your business with him?"</p><p>Then Robin briefly related that his father was a clergyman, settled on a small salary, at a long distance back in the country, and that he and Major Molineux were brothers' children. The Major, having inherited riches, and acquired civil and military rank, had visited his cousin, in great pomp, a year or two before; had manifested much interest in Robin and an elder brother, and, being childless himself, had thrown out hints respecting the future establishment of one of them in life.</p><p>The elder brother was destined to succeed to the farm which his father cultivated in the interval of sacred duties; it was therefore determined that Robin should profit by his kinsman's generous intentions, especially as he seemed to be rather the favorite, and was thought to possess other necessary endowments.</p><p>"For I have the name of being a shrewd youth," observed Robin, in this part of his story.</p><p>"I doubt not you deserve it," replied his new friend, good-naturedly; "but pray proceed."</p><p>"Well, sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well grown, as you see," continued Robin, drawing himself up to his full height, "I thought it high time to begin in the world. So my mother and sister put me in handsome trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of his last year's salary, and five days ago I started for this place, to pay the Major a visit. But, would you believe it, sir! I crossed the ferry a little after dark, and have yet found n.o.body that would show me the way to his dwelling; only, an hour or two since, I was told to wait here, and Major Molineux would pa.s.s by."</p><p>"Can you describe the man who told you this?" inquired the gentleman.</p><p>"Oh, he was a very ill-favored fellow, sir," replied Robin, "with two great b.u.mps on his forehead, a hook nose, fiery eyes; and, what struck me as the strangest, his face was of two different colors. Do you happen to know such a man, sir?"</p><p>"Not intimately," answered the stranger, "but I chanced to meet him a little time previous to your stopping me. I believe you may trust his word, and that the Major will very shortly pa.s.s through this street. In the mean time, as I have a singular curiosity to witness your meeting, I will sit down here upon the steps and bear you company."</p><p>He seated himself accordingly, and soon engaged his companion in animated discourse. It was but of brief continuance, however, for a noise of shouting, which had long been remotely audible, drew so much nearer that Robin inquired its cause.</p><p>"What may be the meaning of this uproar?" asked he. "Truly, if your town be always as noisy, I shall find little sleep while I am an inhabitant."</p><p>"Why, indeed, friend Robin, there do appear to be three or four riotous fellows abroad to-night," replied the gentleman. "You must not expect all the stillness of your native woods here in our streets. But the watch will shortly be at the heels of these lads and--"</p><p>"Ay, and set them in the stocks by peep of day," interrupted Robin recollecting his own encounter with the drowsy lantern-bearer. "But, dear sir, if I may trust my ears, an army of watchmen would never make head against such a mult.i.tude of rioters. There were at least a thousand voices went up to make that one shout."</p><p>"May not a man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?"</p><p>said his friend.</p><p>"Perhaps a man may; but Heaven forbid that a woman should!" responded the shrewd youth, thinking of the seductive tones of the Major's housekeeper.</p><p>The sounds of a trumpet in some neighboring street now became so evident and continual, that Robin's curiosity was strongly excited. In addition to the shouts, he heard frequent bursts from many instruments of discord, and a wild and confused laughter filled up the intervals.</p><p>Robin rose from the steps, and looked wistfully towards a point whither people seemed to be hastening.</p><p>"Surely some prodigious merry-making is going on," exclaimed he "I have laughed very little since I left home, sir, and should be sorry to lose an opportunity. Shall we step round the corner by that darkish house and take our share of the fun?"</p><p>"Sit down again, sit down, good Robin," replied the gentleman, laying his hand on the skirt of the gray coat. "You forget that we must wait here for your kinsman; and there is reason to believe that he will pa.s.s by, in the course of a very few moments."</p><p>The near approach of the uproar had now disturbed the neighborhood; windows flew open on all sides; and many heads, in the attire of the pillow, and confused by sleep suddenly broken, were protruded to the gaze of whoever had leisure to observe them. Eager voices hailed each other from house to house, all demanding the explanation, which not a soul could give. Half-dressed men hurried towards the unknown commotion stumbling as they went over the stone steps that thrust themselves into the narrow foot-walk. The shouts, the laughter, and the tuneless bray the antipodes of music, came onwards with increasing din, till scattered individuals, and then denser bodies, began to appear round a corner at the distance of a hundred yards.</p><p>"Will you recognize your kinsman, if he pa.s.ses in this crowd?" inquired the gentleman.</p><p>"Indeed, I can't warrant it, sir; but I'll take my stand here, and keep a bright lookout," answered Robin, descending to the outer edge of the pavement.</p><p>A mighty stream of people now emptied into the street, and came rolling slowly towards the church. A single horseman wheeled the corner in the midst of them, and close behind him came a band of fearful wind instruments, sending forth a fresher discord now that no intervening buildings kept it from the ear. Then a redder light disturbed the moonbeams, and a dense mult.i.tude of torches shone along the street, concealing, by their glare, whatever object they illuminated. The single horseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war personified; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning that attends them. In his train were wild figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes without a model, giving the whole march a visionary air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight streets.</p><p>A ma.s.s of people, inactive, except as applauding spectators, hemmed the procession in; and several women ran along the sidewalk, piercing the confusion of heavier sounds with their shrill voices of mirth or terror.</p><p>"The double-faced fellow has his eye upon me," muttered Robin, with an indefinite but an uncomfortable idea that he was himself to bear a part in the pageantry.</p><p>The leader turned himself in the saddle, and fixed his glance full upon the country youth, as the steed went slowly by. When Robin had freed his eyes from those fiery ones, the musicians were pa.s.sing before him, and the torches were close at hand; but the unsteady brightness of the latter formed a veil which he could not penetrate. The rattling of wheels over the stones sometimes found its way to his ear, and confused traces of a human form appeared at intervals, and then melted into the vivid light. A moment more, and the leader thundered a command to halt: the trumpets vomited a horrid breath, and then held their peace; the shouts and laughter of the people died away, and there remained only a universal hum, allied to silence. Right before Robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day, and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat his kinsman, Major Molineux!</p><p>He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul; but steady as it was, his enemies had found means to shake it. His face was pale as death, and far more ghastly; the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his eyes were red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering lip. His whole frame was agitated by a quick and continual tremor, which his pride strove to quell, even in those circ.u.mstances of overwhelming humiliation. But perhaps the bitterest pang of all was when his eyes met those of Robin; for he evidently knew him on the instant, as the youth stood witnessing the foul disgrace of a head grown gray in honor. They stared at each other in silence, and Robin's knees shook, and his hair bristled, with a mixture of pity and terror. Soon, however, a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his mind; the preceding adventures of the night, the unexpected appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused din and the hush that followed, the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great mult.i.tude,--all this, and, more than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety. At that moment a voice of sluggish merriment saluted Robin's ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind the corner of the church stood the lantern-bearer, rubbing his eyes, and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. Then he heard a peal of laughter like the ringing of silvery bells; a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and he saw the lady of the scarlet petticoat. A sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, standing on tiptoe in the crowd, with his white ap.r.o.n over his head, he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. And lastly, there sailed over the heads of the mult.i.tude a great, broad laugh, broken in the midst by two sepulchral hems; thus, "Haw, haw, haw,--hem, hem,--haw, haw, haw, haw!"</p><p>The sound proceeded from the balcony of the opposite edifice, and thither Robin turned his eyes. In front of the Gothic window stood the old citizen, wrapped in a wide gown, his gray periwig exchanged for a nightcap, which was thrust back from his forehead, and his silk stockings hanging about his legs. He supported himself on his polished cane in a fit of convulsive merriment, which manifested itself on his solemn old features like a funny inscription on a tombstone. Then Robin seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guests of the inn, and of all who had made sport of him that night. The contagion was spreading among the mult.i.tude, when all at once, it seized upon Robin, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the street,--every man shook his sides, every man emptied his lungs, but Robin's shout was the loudest there. The cloud-spirits peeped from their silvery islands, as the congregated mirth went roaring up the sky! The Man in the Moon heard the far bellow. "Oho," quoth he, "the old earth is frolicsome to-night!"</p><p>When there was a momentary calm in that tempestuous sea of sound, the leader gave the sign, the procession resumed its march. On they went, like fiends that throng in mockery around some dead potentate, mighty no more, but majestic still in his agony. On they went, in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied merriment, trampling all on an old man's heart. On swept the tumult, and left a silent street behind.</p><p>"Well, Robin, are you dreaming?" inquired the gentleman, laying his hand on the youth's shoulder.</p><p>Robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone post to which he had instinctively clung, as the living stream rolled by him. His cheek was somewhat pale, and his eye not quite as lively as in the earlier part of the evening.</p><p>"Will you be kind enough to show me the way to the ferry?" said he, after a moment's pause.</p><p>"You have, then, adopted a new subject of inquiry?" observed his companion, with a smile.</p><p>"Why, yes, sir," replied Robin, rather dryly. "Thanks to you, and to my other friends, I have at last met my kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see my face again. I begin to grow weary of a town life, sir. Will you show me the way to the ferry?"</p><p>"No, my good friend Robin,--not to-night, at least," said the gentleman. "Some few days hence, if you wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-5139905638417305072022-08-27T19:25:00.000-07:002022-08-27T19:25:00.178-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 8If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 8 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>He resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that the street now became wider, and the houses more respectable in their appearance. He soon discerned a figure moving on moderately in advance, and hastened his steps to overtake it. As Robin drew nigh, he saw that the pa.s.senger was a man in years, with a full periwig of gray hair, a wide-skirted coat of dark cloth, and silk stockings rolled above his knees. He carried a long and polished cane, which he struck down perpendicularly before him at every step; and at regular intervals he uttered two successive hems, of a peculiarly solemn and sepulchral intonation.</p><p>Having made these observations, Robin laid hold of the skirt of the old man's coat just when the light from the open door and windows of a barber's shop fell upon both their figures.</p><p>"Good evening to you, honored sir," said he, making a low bow, and still retaining his hold of the skirt. "I pray you tell me whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux."</p><p>The youth's question was uttered very loudly; and one of the barbers, whose razor was descending on a well-soaped chin, and another who was dressing a Ramillies wig, left their occupations, and came to the door.</p><p>The citizen, in the mean time, turned a long-favored countenance upon Robin, and answered him in a tone of excessive anger and annoyance. His two sepulchral hems, however, broke into the very centre of his rebuke, with most singular effect, like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among wrathful pa.s.sions.</p><p>"Let go my garment, fellow! I tell you, I know not the man you speak of. What! I have authority, I have--hem, hem--authority; and if this be the respect you show for your betters, your feet shall be brought acquainted with the stocks by daylight, tomorrow morning!"</p><p>Robin released the old man's skirt, and hastened away, pursued by an ill-mannered roar of laughter from the barber's shop. He was at first considerably surprised by the result of his question, but, being a shrewd youth, soon thought himself able to account for the mystery.</p><p>"This is some country representative," was his conclusion, "who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's door, and lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civilly. The man is old, or verily--I might be tempted to turn back and smite him on the nose. Ah, Robin, Robin! even the barber's boys laugh at you for choosing such a guide! You will be wiser in time, friend Robin."</p><p>He now became entangled in a succession of crooked and narrow streets, which crossed each other, and meandered at no great distance from the water-side. The smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils, the masts of vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of the buildings, and the numerous signs, which Robin paused to read, informed him that he was near the centre of business. But the streets were empty, the shops were closed, and lights were visible only in the second stories of a few dwelling-houses. At length, on the corner of a narrow lane, through which he was pa.s.sing, he beheld the broad countenance of a British hero swinging before the door of an inn, whence proceeded the voices of many guests. The cas.e.m.e.nt of one of the lower windows was thrown back, and a very thin curtain permitted Robin to distinguish a party at supper, round a well-furnished table. The fragrance of the good cheer steamed forth into the outer air, and the youth could not fail to recollect that the last remnant of his travelling stock of provision had yielded to his morning appet.i.te, and that noon had found and left him dinnerless.</p><p>"Oh, that a parchment three-penny might give me a right to sit down at yonder table!" said Robin, with a sigh. "But the Major will make me welcome to the best of his victuals; so I will even step boldly in, and inquire my way to his dwelling."</p><p>He entered the tavern, and was guided by the murmur of voices and the fumes of tobacco to the public-room. It was a long and low apartment, with oaken walls, grown dark in the continual smoke, and a floor which was thickly sanded, but of no immaculate purity. A number of persons--the larger part of whom appeared to be mariners, or in some way connected with the sea--occupied the wooden benches, or leatherbottomed chairs, conversing on various matters, and occasionally lending their attention to some topic of general interest. Three or four little groups were draining as many bowls of punch, which the West India trade had long since made a familiar drink in the colony. Others, who had the appearance of men who lived by regular and laborious handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss of an unshared potation, and became more taciturn under its influence. Nearly all, in short, evinced a predilection for the Good Creature in some of its various shapes, for this is a vice to which, as Fast Day sermons of a hundred years ago will testify, we have a long hereditary claim. The only guests to whom Robin's sympathies inclined him were two or three sheepish countrymen, who were using the inn somewhat after the fashion of a Turkish caravansary; they had gotten themselves into the darkest corner of the room, and heedless of the Nicotian atmosphere, were supping on the bread of their own ovens, and the bacon cured in their own chimney-smoke. But though Robin felt a sort of brotherhood with these strangers, his eyes were attracted from them to a person who stood near the door, holding whispered conversation with a group of ill-dressed a.s.sociates. His features were separately striking almost to grotesqueness, and the whole face left a deep impression on the memory.</p><p>The forehead bulged out into a double prominence, with a vale between; the nose came boldly forth in an irregular curve, and its bridge was of more than a finger's breadth; the eyebrows were deep and s.h.a.ggy, and the eyes glowed beneath them like fire in a cave.</p><p>While Robin deliberated of whom to inquire respecting his kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the innkeeper, a little man in a stained white ap.r.o.n, who had come to pay his professional welcome to the stranger. Being in the second generation from a French Protestant, he seemed to have inherited the courtesy of his parent nation; but no variety of circ.u.mstances was ever known to change his voice from the one shrill note in which he now addressed Robin.</p><p>"From the country, I presume, sir?" said he, with a profound bow. "Beg leave to congratulate you on your arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. Fine town here, sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may interest a stranger. May I hope for the honor of your commands in respect to supper?"</p><p>"The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has guessed that I am related to the Major!" thought Robin, who had hitherto experienced little superfluous civility.</p><p>All eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing at the door, in his worn three-cornered hat, gray coat, leather breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning on an oaken cudgel, and bearing a wallet on his back.</p><p>Robin replied to the courteous innkeeper, with such an a.s.sumption of confidence as befitted the Major's relative. "My honest friend," he said, "I shall make it a point to patronize your house on some occasion, when"--here he could not help lowering his voice--"when I may have more than a parchment three-pence in my pocket. My present business," continued he, speaking with lofty confidence, "is merely to inquire my way to the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux."</p><p>There was a sudden and general movement in the room, which Robin interpreted as expressing the eagerness of each individual to become his guide. But the innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall, which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recurrences to the young man's figure.</p><p>"What have we here?" said he, breaking his speech into little dry fragments. "'Left the house of the subscriber, bounden servant, Hezekiah Mudge,--had on, when he went away, gray coat, leather breeches, master's third-best hat. One pound currency reward to whosoever shall lodge him in any jail of the providence.' Better trudge, boy; better trudge!"</p><p>Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every countenance induced him to relinquish his purpose of breaking the courteous innkeeper's head. As he turned to leave the room, he encountered a sneering glance from the bold-featured personage whom he had before noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper's voice might be distinguished, like the dropping of small stones into a kettle.</p><p>"Now, is it not strange," thought Robin, with his usual shrewdness, "is it not strange that the confession of an empty pocket should outweigh the name of my kinsman, Major Molineux? Oh, if I had one of those grinning rascals in the woods, where I and my oak sapling grew up together, I would teach him that my arm is heavy though my purse be light!"</p><p>On turning the corner of the narrow lane, Robin found himself in a s.p.a.cious street, with an unbroken line of lofty houses on each side, and a steepled building at the upper end, whence the ringing of a bell announced the hour of nine. The light of the moon, and the lamps from the numerous shop-windows, discovered people promenading on the pavement, and amongst them Robin had hoped to recognize his. .h.i.therto inscrutable relative. The result of his former inquiries made him unwilling to hazard another, in a scene of such publicity, and he determined to walk slowly and silently up the street, thrusting his face close to that of every elderly gentleman, in search of the Major's lineaments. In his progress, Robin encountered many gay and gallant figures. Embroidered garments of showy colors, enormous periwigs, gold-laced hats, and silver-hilted swords glided past him and dazzled his optics. Travelled youths, imitators of the European fine gentlemen of the period, trod jauntily along, half dancing to the fashionable tunes which they hummed, and making poor Robin ashamed of his quiet and natural gait. At length, after many pauses to examine the gorgeous display of goods in the shop-windows, and after suffering some rebukes for the impertinence of his scrutiny into people's faces, the Major's kinsman found himself near the steepled building, still unsuccessful in his search. As yet, however, he had seen only one side of the thronged street; so Robin crossed, and continued the same sort of inquisition down the opposite pavement, with stronger hopes than the philosopher seeking an honest man, but with no better fortune. He had arrived about midway towards the lower end, from which his course began, when he overheard the approach of some one who struck down a cane on the flag-stones at every step, uttering at regular intervals, two sepulchral hems.</p><p>"Mercy on us!" quoth Robin, recognizing the sound.</p><p>Turning a corner, which chanced to be close at his right hand, he hastened to pursue his researches in some other part of the town. His patience now was wearing low, and he seemed to feel more fatigue from his rambles since he crossed the ferry, than from his journey of several days on the other side. Hunger also pleaded loudly within him, and Robin began to balance the propriety of demanding, violently, and with lifted cudgel, the necessary guidance from the first solitary pa.s.senger whom he should meet. While a resolution to this effect was gaining strength, he entered a street of mean appearance, on either side of which a row of ill-built houses was straggling towards the harbor. The moonlight fell upon no pa.s.senger along the whole extent, but in the third domicile which Robin pa.s.sed there was a half-opened door, and his keen glance detected a woman's garment within.</p><p>"My luck may be better here," said he to himself.</p><p>Accordingly, he approached the doors and beheld it shut closer as he did so; yet an open s.p.a.ce remained, sufficing for the fair occupant to observe the stranger, without a corresponding display on her part. All that Robin could discern was a strip of scarlet petticoat, and the occasional sparkle of an eye, as if the moonbeams were trembling on some bright thing.</p><p>"Pretty mistress," for I may call her so with a good conscience thought the shrewd youth, since I know nothing to the contrary,--"my sweet pretty mistress, will you be kind enough to tell me whereabouts I must seek the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"</p><p>Robin's voice was plaintive and winning, and the female, seeing nothing to be shunned in the handsome country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth into the moonlight. She was a dainty little figure with a white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. Moreover, her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom, which triumphed over those of Robin.</p><p>"Major Molineux dwells here," said this fair woman.</p><p>Now, her voice was the sweetest Robin had heard that night, yet he could not help doubting whether that sweet voice spoke Gospel truth. He looked up and down the mean street, and then surveyed the house before which they stood. It was a small, dark edifice of two stories, the second of which projected over the lower floor, and the front apartment had the aspect of a shop for petty commodities.</p><p>"Now, truly, I am in luck," replied Robin, cunningly, "and so indeed is my kinsman, the Major, in having so pretty a housekeeper. But I prithee trouble him to step to the door; I will deliver him a message from his friends in the country, and then go back to my lodgings at the inn."</p><p>"Nay, the Major has been abed this hour or more," said the lady of the scarlet petticoat; "and it would be to little purpose to disturb him to-night, seeing his evening draught was of the strongest. But he is a kind-hearted man, and it would be as much as my life's worth to let a kinsman of his turn away from the door. You are the good old gentleman's very picture, and I could swear that was his rainy-weather hat. Also he has garments very much resembling those leather small-clothes. But come in, I pray, for I bid you hearty welcome in his name."</p><p>So saying, the fair and hospitable dame took our hero by the hand; and the touch was light, and the force was gentleness, and though Robin read in her eyes what he did not hear in her words, yet the slender-waisted woman in the scarlet petticoat proved stronger than the athletic country youth. She had drawn his half-willing footsteps nearly to the threshold, when the opening of a door in the neighborhood startled the Major's housekeeper, and, leaving the Major's kinsman, she vanished speedily into her own domicile. A heavy yawn preceded the appearance of a man, who, like the Moonshine of Pyramus and Thisbe, carried a lantern, needlessly aiding his sister luminary in the heavens. As he walked sleepily up the street, he turned his broad, dull face on Robin, and displayed a long staff, spiked at the end.</p><p>"Home, vagabond, home!" said the watchman, in accents that seemed to fall asleep as soon as they were uttered. "Home, or we'll set you in the stocks by peep of day!"</p><p>"This is the second hint of the kind," thought Robin. "I wish they would end my difficulties, by setting me there to-night."</p><p>Nevertheless, the youth felt an instinctive antipathy towards the guardian of midnight order, which at first prevented him from asking his usual question. But just when the man was about to vanish behind the corner, Robin resolved not to lose the opportunity, and shouted l.u.s.tily after him, "I say, friend! will you guide me to the house of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"</p><p>The watchman made no reply, but turned the corner and was gone; yet Robin seemed to hear the sound of drowsy laughter stealing along the solitary street. At that moment, also, a pleasant t.i.tter saluted him from the open window above his head; he looked up, and caught the sparkle of a saucy eye; a round arm beckoned to him, and next he heard light footsteps descending the staircase within. But Robin, being of the household of a New England clergyman, was a good youth, as well as a shrewd one; so he resisted temptation, and fled away.</p><p>He now roamed desperately, and at random, through the town, almost ready to believe that a spell was on him, like that by which a wizard of his country had once kept three pursuers wandering, a whole winter night, within twenty paces of the cottage which they sought. The streets lay before him, strange and desolate, and the lights were extinguished in almost every house. Twice, however, little parties of men, among whom Robin distinguished individuals in outlandish attire, came hurrying along; but, though on both occasions, they paused to address him such intercourse did not at all enlighten his perplexity.</p><p>They did but utter a few words in some language of which Robin knew nothing, and perceiving his inability to answer, bestowed a curse upon him in plain English and hastened away. Finally, the lad determined to knock at the door of every mansion that might appear worthy to be occupied by his kinsman, trusting that perseverance would overcome the fatality that had hitherto thwarted him. Firm in this resolve, he was pa.s.sing beneath the walls of a church, which formed the corner of two streets, when, as he turned into the shade of its steeple, he encountered a bulky stranger m.u.f.fled in a cloak. The man was proceeding with the speed of earnest business, but Robin planted himself full before him, holding the oak cudgel with both hands across his body as a bar to further pa.s.sage.</p><p>"Halt, honest man, and answer me a question," said he, very resolutely.</p><p>"Tell me, this instant, whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux!"</p><p>"Keep your tongue between your teeth, fool, and let me pa.s.s!" said a deep, gruff voice, which Robin partly remembered. "Let me pa.s.s, or I'll strike you to the earth!"</p><p>"No, no, neighbor!" cried Robin, flourishing his cudgel, and then thrusting its larger end close to the man's m.u.f.fled face. "No, no, I'm not the fool you take me for, nor do you pa.s.s till I have an answer to my question. Whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?" The stranger, instead of attempting to force his pa.s.sage, stepped back into the moonlight, unm.u.f.fled his face, and stared full into that of Robin.</p><p>"Watch here an hour, and Major Molineux will pa.s.s by," said he.</p><p>Robin gazed with dismay and astonishment on the unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. The forehead with its double prominence the broad hooked nose, the s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes were those which he had noticed at the inn, but the man's complexion had undergone a singular, or, more properly, a twofold change. One side of the face blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight, the division line being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth which seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or red, in contrast to the color of the cheek. The effect was as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage. The stranger grinned in Robin's face, m.u.f.fled his party-colored features, and was out of sight in a moment.</p><p>"Strange things we travellers see!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Robin.</p><p>He seated himself, however, upon the steps of the church-door, resolving to wait the appointed time for his kinsman. A few moments were consumed in philosophical speculations upon the species of man who had just left him; but having settled this point shrewdly, rationally, and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look elsewhere for his amus.e.m.e.nt. And first he threw his eyes along the street. It was of more respectable appearance than most of those into which he had wandered, and the moon, creating, like the imaginative power, a beautiful strangeness in familiar objects, gave something of romance to a scene that might not have possessed it in the light of day. The irregular and often quaint architecture of the houses, some of whose roofs were broken into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep and narrow, into a single point, and others again were square; the pure snow-white of some of their complexions, the aged darkness of others, and the thousand sparklings, reflected from bright substances in the walls of many; these matters engaged Robin's attention for a while, and then began to grow wearisome. Next he endeavored to define the forms of distant objects, starting away, with almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye appeared to grasp them, and finally he took a minute survey of an edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street, directly in front of the church-door, where he was stationed. It was a large, square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by a balcony, which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window, communicating therewith.</p><p>"Perhaps this is the very house I have been seeking," thought Robin.</p><p>Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening to a murmur which swept continually along the street, yet was scarcely audible, except to an unaccustomed ear like his; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded of many noises, each of which was at too great a distance to be separately heard. Robin marvelled at this snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever its continuity was broken by now and then a distant shout, apparently loud where it originated. But altogether it was a sleep-inspiring sound, and, to shake off its drowsy influence, Robin arose, and climbed a window-frame, that he might view the interior of the church. There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down upon the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet aisles. A fainter yet more awful radiance was hovering around the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared to rest upon the open page of the great Bible.</p><p>Had nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the house which man had builded? Or was that heavenly light the visible sanct.i.ty of the place,--visible because no earthly and impure feet were within the walls? The scene made Robin's heart shiver with a sensation of loneliness stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his native woods; so he turned away and sat down again before the door.</p><p>There were graves around the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded into Robin's breast. What if the object of his search, which had been so often and so strangely thwarted, were all the time mouldering in his shroud? What if his kinsman should glide through yonder gate, and nod and smile to him in dimly pa.s.sing by?</p><p>"Oh that any breathing thing were here with me!" said Robin.</p><p>Recalling his thoughts from this uncomfortable track, he sent them over forest, hill, and stream, and attempted to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and weariness had been spent by his father's household. He pictured them a.s.sembled at the door, beneath the tree, the great old tree, which had been spared for its huge twisted trunk and venerable shade, when a thousand leafy brethren fell. There, at the going down of the summer sun, it was his father's custom to perform domestic worship that the neighbors might come and join with him like brothers of the family, and that the wayfaring man might pause to drink at that fountain, and keep his heart pure by freshening the memory of home.</p><p>Robin distinguished the seat of every individual of the little audience; he saw the good man in the midst, holding the Scriptures in the golden light that fell from the western clouds; he beheld him close the book and all rise up to pray. He heard the old thanksgivings for daily mercies, the old supplications for their continuance to which he had so often listened in weariness, but which were now among his dear remembrances. He perceived the slight inequality of his father's voice when he came to speak of the absent one; he noted how his mother turned her face to the broad and knotted trunk; how his elder brother scorned, because the beard was rough upon his upper lip, to permit his features to be moved; how the younger sister drew down a low hanging branch before her eyes; and how the little one of all, whose sports had hitherto broken the decorum of the scene, understood the prayer for her playmate, and burst into clamorous grief. Then he saw them go in at the door; and when Robin would have entered also, the latch tinkled into its place, and he was excluded from his home.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-76524725030775461592022-08-26T13:39:00.000-07:002022-08-26T13:39:00.184-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 7If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 7 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>"And of mine, too," thought I.</p><p>"You remember," continued Oberon, "how the h.e.l.lish thing used to suck away the happiness of those who, by a simple concession that seemed almost innocent, subjected themselves to his power. Just so my peace is gone, and all by these accursed ma.n.u.scripts. Have you felt nothing of the same influence?"</p><p>"Nothing," replied I, "unless the spell be hid in a desire to turn novelist, after reading your delightful tales."</p><p>"Novelist!" exclaimed Oberon, half seriously. "Then, indeed, my devil has his claw on you! You are gone! You cannot even pray for deliverance! But we will be the last and only victims; for this night I mean to burn the ma.n.u.scripts, and commit the fiend to his retribution in the flames."</p><p>"Burn your tales!" repeated I, startled at the desperation of the idea.</p><p>"Even so," said the author, despondingly. "You cannot conceive what an effect the composition of these tales has had on me. I have become ambitious of a bubble, and careless of solid reputation. I am surrounding myself with shadows, which bewilder me, by aping the realities of life. They have drawn me aside from the beaten path of the world, and led me into a strange sort of solitude,--a solitude in the midst of men,-where n.o.body wishes for what I do, nor thinks nor feels as I do. The tales have done all this. When they are ashes, perhaps I shall be as I was before they had existence. Moreover, the sacrifice is less than you may suppose, since n.o.body will publish them."</p><p>"That does make a difference, indeed," said I.</p><p>"They have been offered, by letter," continued Oberon, reddening with vexation, "to some seventeen booksellers. It would make you stare to read their answers; and read them you should, only that I burnt them as fast as they arrived. One man publishes nothing but school-books; another has five novels already under examination."</p><p>"What a voluminous ma.s.s the unpublished literature of America must be!"</p><p>cried I.</p><p>"Oh, the Alexandrian ma.n.u.scripts were nothing to it!" said my friend.</p><p>"Well, another gentleman is just giving up business, on purpose, I verily believe, to escape publishing my book. Several, however, would not absolutely decline the agency, on my advancing half the cost of an edition, and giving bonds for the remainder, besides a high percentage to themselves, whether the book sells or not. Another advises a subscription."</p><p>"The villain!" exclaimed I.</p><p>"A fact!" said Oberon. "In short, of all the seventeen booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read my tales; and he--a literary dabbler himself, I should judge--has the impertinence to criticise them, proposing what he calls vast improvements, and concluding, after a general sentence of condemnation, with the definitive a.s.surance that he will not be concerned on any terms."</p><p>"It might not be amiss to pull that fellow's nose," remarked I.</p><p>"If the whole 'trade' had one common nose, there would be some satisfaction in pulling it," answered the author. "But, there does seem to be one honest man among these seventeen unrighteous ones; and he tells me fairly, that no American publisher will meddle with an American work,--seldom if by a known writer, and never if by a new one,--unless at the writer's risk."</p><p>"The paltry rogues!" cried I. "Will they live by literature, and yet risk nothing for its sake? But, after all, you might publish on your own account."</p><p>"And so I might," replied Oberon. "But the devil of the business is this. These people have put me so out of conceit with the tales, that I loathe the very thought of them, and actually experience a physical sickness of the stomach, whenever I glance at them on the table. I tell you there is a demon in them! I antic.i.p.ate a wild enjoyment in seeing them in the blaze; such as I should feel in taking vengeance on an enemy, or destroying something noxious."</p><p>I did not very strenuously oppose this determination, being privately of opinion, in spite of my partiality for the author, that his tales would make a more brilliant appearance in the fire than anywhere else.</p><p>Before proceeding to execution, we broached the bottle of champagne, which Oberon had provided for keeping up his spirits in this doleful business. We swallowed each a tumblerful, in sparkling commotion; it went bubbling down our throats, and brightened my eyes at once, but left my friend sad and heavy as before. He drew the tales towards him, with a mixture of natural affection and natural disgust, like a father taking a deformed infant into his arms.</p><p>"Pooh! Pish! Pshaw!" exclaimed he, holding them at arm's-length. "It was Gray's idea of heaven, to lounge on a sofa and read new novels.</p><p>Now, what more appropriate torture would Dante himself have contrived, for the sinner who perpetrates a bad book, than to be continually turning over the ma.n.u.script?"</p><p>"It would fail of effect," said I, "because a bad author is always his own great admirer."</p><p>"I lack that one characteristic of my tribe,--the only desirable one,"</p><p>observed Oberon. "But how many recollections throng upon me, as I turn over these leaves! This scene came into my fancy as I walked along a hilly road, on a starlight October evening; in the pure and bracing air, I became all soul, and felt as if I could climb the sky, and run a race along the Milky Way. Here is another tale, in which I wrapt myself during a dark and dreary night-ride in the month of March, till the rattling of the wheels and the voices of my companions seemed like faint sounds of a dream, and my visions a bright reality. That scribbled page describes shadows which I summoned to my bedside at midnight: they would not depart when I bade them; the gray dawn came, and found me wide awake and feverish, the victim of my own enchantments!"</p><p>"There must have been a sort of happiness in all this," said I, smitten with a strange longing to make proof of it.</p><p>"There may be happiness in a fever fit," replied the author. "And then the various moods in which I wrote! Sometimes my ideas were like precious stones under the earth, requiring toil to dig them up, and care to polish and brighten them; but often a delicious stream of thought would gush out upon the page at once, like water sparkling up suddenly in the desert; and when it had pa.s.sed, I gnawed my pen hopelessly, or blundered on with cold and miserable toil, as if there were a wall of ice between me and my subject."</p><p>"Do you now perceive a corresponding difference," inquired I, "between the pa.s.sages which you wrote so coldly, and those fervid flashes of the mind?"</p><p>"No," said Oberon, tossing the ma.n.u.scripts on the table. "I find no traces of the golden pen with which I wrote in characters of fire. My treasure of fairy coin is changed to worthless dross. My picture, painted in what seemed the loveliest hues, presents nothing but a faded and indistinguishable surface. I have been eloquent and poetical and humorous in a dream,--and behold! it is all nonsense, now that I am awake."</p><p>My friend now threw sticks of wood and dry chips upon the fire, and seeing it blaze like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, seized the champagne bottle, and drank two or three br.i.m.m.i.n.g b.u.mpers, successively. The heady liquor combined with his agitation to throw him into a species of rage. He laid violent hands on the tales. In one instant more, their faults and beauties would alike have vanished in a glowing purgatory.</p><p>But, all at once, I remembered pa.s.sages of high imagination, deep pathos, original thoughts, and points of such varied excellence, that the vastness of the sacrifice struck me most forcibly. I caught his arm.</p><p>"Surely, you do not mean to burn them!" I exclaimed.</p><p>"Let me alone!" cried Oberon, his eyes flashing fire. "I will burn them! Not a scorched syllable shall escape! Would you have me a d.a.m.ned author?--To undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! A hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! An outlaw from the protection of the grave,--one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! Am I to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me from the whole? No!</p><p>There go the tales! May my hand wither when it would write another!"</p><p>The deed was done. He had thrown the ma.n.u.scripts into the hottest of the fire, which at first seemed to shrink away, but soon curled around them, and made them a part of its own fervent brightness. Oberon stood gazing at the conflagration, and shortly began to soliloquize, in the wildest strain, as if Fancy resisted and became riotous, at the moment when he would have compelled her to ascend that funeral pile. His words described objects which he appeared to discern in the fire, fed by his own precious thoughts; perhaps the thousand visions which the writer's magic had incorporated with these pages became visible to him in the dissolving heat, brightening forth ere they vanished forever; while the smoke, the vivid sheets of flame, the ruddy and whitening coals, caught the aspect of a varied scenery.</p><p>"They blaze," said he, "as if I had steeped them in the intensest spirit of genius. There I see my lovers clasped in each other's arms.</p><p>How pure the flame that bursts from their glowing hearts! And yonder the features of a villain writhing in the fire that shall torment him to eternity. My holy men, my pious and angelic women, stand like martyrs amid the flames, their mild eyes lifted heavenward. Ring out the bells! A city is on fire. See!--destruction roars through my dark forests, while the lakes boil up in steaming billows, and the mountains are volcanoes, and the sky kindles with a lurid brightness! All elements are but one pervading flame! Ha! The fiend!"</p><p>I was somewhat startled by this latter exclamation. The tales were almost consumed, but just then threw forth a broad sheet of fire, which flickered as with laughter, making the whole room dance in its brightness, and then roared portentously up the chimney.</p><p>"You saw him? You must have seen him!" cried Oberon. "How he glared at me and laughed, in that last sheet of flame, with just the features that I imagined for him! Well! The tales are gone."</p><p>The papers were indeed reduced to a heap of black cinders, with a mult.i.tude of sparks hurrying confusedly among them, the traces of the pen being now represented by white lines, and the whole ma.s.s fluttering to and fro in the draughts of air. The destroyer knelt down to look at them.</p><p>"What is more potent than fire!" said he, in his gloomiest tone. "Even thought, invisible and incorporeal as it is, cannot escape it. In this little time, it has annihilated the creations of long nights and days, which I could no more reproduce, in their first glow and freshness, than cause ashes and whitened bones to rise up and live. There, too, I sacrificed the unborn children of my mind. All that I had accomplished--all that I planned for future years--has perished by one common ruin, and left only this heap of embers! The deed has been my fate. And what remains? A weary and aimless life,--a long repentance of this hour,--and at last an obscure grave, where they will bury and forget me!"</p><p>As the author concluded his dolorous moan, the extinguished embers arose and settled down and arose again, and finally flew up the chimney, like a demon with sable wings. Just as they disappeared, there was a loud and solitary cry in the street below us. "Fire!" Fire! Other voices caught up that terrible word, and it speedily became the shout of a mult.i.tude. Oberon started to his feet, in fresh excitement.</p><p>"A fire on such a night!" cried he. "The wind blows a gale, and wherever it whirls the flames, the roofs will flash up like gunpowder.</p><p>Every pump is frozen up, and boiling water would turn to ice the moment it was flung from the engine. In an hour, this wooden town will be one great bonfire! What a glorious scene for my next--Pshaw!"</p><p>The street was now all alive with footsteps, and the air full of voices. We heard one engine thundering round a corner, and another rattling from a distance over the pavements. The bells of three steeples clanged out at once, spreading the alarm to many a neighboring town, and expressing hurry, confusion, and terror, so inimitably that I could almost distinguish in their peal the burden of the universal cry,--"Fire! Fire! Fire!"</p><p>"What is so eloquent as their iron tongues!" exclaimed Oberon. "My heart leaps and trembles, but not with fear. And that other sound, too,--deep and awful as a mighty organ,--the roar and thunder of the mult.i.tude on the pavement below! Come! We are losing time. I will cry out in the loudest of the uproar, and mingle my spirit with the wildest of the confusion, and be a bubble on the top of the ferment!"</p><p>From the first outcry, my forebodings had warned me of the true object and centre of alarm. There was nothing now but uproar, above, beneath, and around us; footsteps stumbling pell-mell up the public staircase, eager shouts and heavy thumps at the door, the whiz and dash of water from the engines, and the crash of furniture thrown upon the pavement.</p><p>At once, the truth flashed upon my friend. His frenzy took the hue of joy, and, with a wild gesture of exultation, he leaped almost to the ceiling of the chamber.</p><p>"My tales!" cried Oberon. "The chimney! The roof! The Fiend has gone forth by night, and startled thousands in fear and wonder from their beds! Here I stand,--a triumphant author! Huzza! Huzza! My brain has set the town on fire! Huzza!"</p><p>MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX </p><p>After the kings of Great Britain had a.s.sumed the right of appointing the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldom met with the ready and generous approbation which had been paid to those of their predecessors, under the original charters. The people looked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise of power which did not emanate from themselves, and they usually rewarded their rulers with slender grat.i.tude for the compliances by which, in softening their instructions from beyond the sea, they had incurred the reprehension of those who gave them. The annals of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six governors in the s.p.a.ce of about forty years from the surrender of the old charter, under James II, two were imprisoned by a popular insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was driven from the province by the whizzing of a musket-ball; a fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was hastened to his grave by continual bickerings with the House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as well as their successors, till the Revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court party, in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life. These remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years ago. The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial affairs, is requested to dispense with an account of the train of circ.u.mstances that had caused much temporary inflammation of the popular mind.</p><p>It was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, when a boat crossed the ferry with a single pa.s.senger, who had obtained his conveyance at that unusual hour by the promise of an extra fare. While he stood on the landing-place, searching in either pocket for the means of fulfilling his agreement, the ferryman lifted a lantern, by the aid of which, and the newly risen moon, he took a very accurate survey of the stranger's figure. He was a youth of barely eighteen years, evidently country-bred, and now, as it should seem, upon his first visit to town.</p><p>He was clad in a coa.r.s.e gray coat, well worn, but in excellent repair; his under garments were durably constructed of leather, and fitted tight to a pair of serviceable and well-shaped limbs; his stockings of blue yarn were the incontrovertible work of a mother or a sister; and on his head was a three-cornered hat, which in its better days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the lad's father. Under his left arm was a heavy cudgel formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a part of the hardened root; and his equipment was completed by a wallet, not so abundantly stocked as to incommode the vigorous shoulders on which it hung. Brown, curly hair, well-shaped features, and bright, cheerful eyes were nature's gifts, and worth all that art could have done for his adornment.</p><p>The youth, one of whose names was Robin, finally drew from his pocket the half of a little province bill of five shillings, which, in the depreciation in that sort of currency, did but satisfy the ferryman's demand, with the surplus of a s.e.xangular piece of parchment, valued at three pence. He then walked forward into the town, with as light a step as if his day's journey had not already exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye as if he were entering London city, instead of the little metropolis of a New England colony. Before Robin had proceeded far, however, it occurred to him that he knew not whither to direct his steps; so he paused, and looked up and down the narrow street, scrutinizing the small and mean wooden buildings that were scattered on either side.</p><p>"This low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling," thought he, "nor yonder old house, where the moonlight enters at the broken cas.e.m.e.nt; and truly I see none hereabouts that might be worthy of him. It would have been wise to inquire my way of the ferryman, and doubtless he would have gone with me, and earned a shilling from the Major for his pains. But the next man I meet will do as well."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-36570845512619554502022-08-25T07:54:00.000-07:002022-08-25T07:54:00.182-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 6If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 6 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>In accordance with this proposal, the whole party stationed themselves round the stone cistern; the two children, being very weary, fell asleep upon the damp earth, and the pretty Shaker girl, whose feelings were those of a nun or a Turkish lady, crept as close as possible to the female traveller, and as far as she well could from the unknown men. The same person who had hitherto been the chief spokesman now stood up, waving his hat in his hand, and suffered the moonlight to fall full upon his front.</p><p>"In me," said he, with a certain majesty of utterance,--"in me, you behold a poet."</p><p>Though a lithographic print of this gentleman is extant, it may be well to notice that he was now nearly forty, a thin and stooping figure, in a black coat, out at elbows; notwithstanding the ill condition of his attire, there were about him several tokens of a peculiar sort of foppery, unworthy of a mature man, particularly in the arrangement of his hair which was so disposed as to give all possible loftiness and breadth to his forehead. However, he had an intelligent eye, and, on the whole, a marked countenance.</p><p>"A poet!" repeated the young Shaker, a little puzzled how to understand such a designation, seldom heard in the utilitarian community where he had spent his life. "Oh, ay, Miriam, he means a va.r.s.e-maker, thee must know."</p><p>This remark jarred upon the susceptible nerves of the poet; nor could he help wondering what strange fatality had put into this young man's mouth an epithet, which ill-natured people had affirmed to be more proper to his merit than the one a.s.sumed by himself.</p><p>"True, I am a verse-maker," he resumed, "but my verse is no more than the material body into which I breathe the celestial soul of thought.</p><p>Alas! how many a pang has it cost me, this same insensibility to the ethereal essence of poetry, with which you have here tortured me again, at the moment when I am to relinquish my profession forever! O Fate!</p><p>why hast thou warred with Nature, turning all her higher and more perfect gifts to the ruin of me, their possessor? What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste? How can I rejoice in my strength and delicacy of feeling, when they have but made great sorrows out of little ones? Have I dreaded scorn like death, and yearned for fame as others pant for vital air, only to find myself in a middle state between obscurity and infamy? But I have my revenge! I could have given existence to a thousand bright creations. I crush them into my heart, and there let them putrefy! I shake off the dust of my feet against my countrymen! But posterity, tracing my footsteps up this weary hill, will cry shame upon the unworthy age that drove one of the fathers of American song to end his days in a Shaker village!"</p><p>During this harangue, the speaker gesticulated with great energy, and, as poetry is the natural language of pa.s.sion, there appeared reason to apprehend his final explosion into an ode extempore. The reader must understand that, for all these bitter words, he was a kind, gentle, harmless, poor fellow enough, whom Nature, tossing her ingredients together without looking at her recipe, had sent into the world with too much of one sort of brain, and hardly any of another.</p><p>"Friend," said the young Shaker, in some perplexity, "thee seemest to have met with great troubles; and, doubtless, I should pity them, if--if I could but understand what they were."</p><p>"Happy in your ignorance!" replied the poet, with an air of sublime superiority. "To your coa.r.s.er mind, perhaps, I may seem to speak of more important griefs when I add, what I had well-nigh forgotten, that I am out at elbows, and almost starved to death. At any rate, you have the advice and example of one individual to warn you back; for I am come hither, a disappointed man, flinging aside the fragments of my hopes, and seeking shelter in the calm retreat which you are so anxious to leave."</p><p>"I thank thee, friend," rejoined the youth, "but I do not mean to be a poet, nor, Heaven be praised! do I think Miriam ever made a va.r.s.e in her life. So we need not fear thy disappointments. But, Miriam," he added, with real concern, "thee knowest that the elders admit n.o.body that has not a gift to be useful. Now, what under the sun can they do with this poor va.r.s.e-maker?"</p><p>"Nay, Josiah, do not thee discourage the poor man," said the girl, in all simplicity and kindness. "Our hymns are very rough, and perhaps they may trust him to smooth them."</p><p>Without noticing this hint of professional employment, the poet turned away, and gave himself up to a sort of vague reverie, which he called thought. Sometimes he watched the moon, pouring a silvery liquid on the clouds, through which it slowly melted till they became all bright; then he saw the same sweet radiance dancing on the leafy trees which rustled as if to shake it off, or sleeping on the high tops of hills, or hovering down in distant valleys, like the material of unshaped dreams; lastly, he looked into the spring, and there the light was mingling with the water. In its crystal bosom, too, beholding all heaven reflected there, he found an emblem of a pure and tranquil breast. He listened to that most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets, coming in full choir upon the wind, and fancied that, if moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that. Finally, he took a draught at the Shaker spring, and, as if it were the true Castalia, was forthwith moved to compose a lyric, a Farewell to his Harp, which he swore should be its closing strain, the last verse that an ungrateful world should have from him. This effusion, with two or three other little pieces, subsequently written, he took the first opportunity to send, by one of the Shaker brethren, to Concord, where they were published in the New Hampshire Patriot.</p><p>Meantime, another of the Canterbury pilgrims, one so different from the poet that the delicate fancy of the latter could hardly have conceived of him, began to relate his sad experience. He was a small man, of quick and unquiet gestures, about fifty years old, with a narrow forehead, all wrinkled and drawn together. He held in his hand a pencil, and a card of some commission-merchant in foreign parts, on the back of which, for there was light enough to read or write by, he seemed ready to figure out a calculation.</p><p>"Young man," said he, abruptly, "what quant.i.ty of land do the Shakers own here, in Canterbury?"</p><p>"That is more than I can tell thee, friend," answered Josiah, "but it is a very rich establishment, and for a long way by the roadside thee may guess the land to be ours, by the neatness of the fences."</p><p>"And what may be the value of the whole," continued the stranger, "with all the buildings and improvements, pretty nearly, in round numbers?"</p><p>"Oh, a monstrous sum,--more than I can reckon," replied the young Shaker.</p><p>"Well, sir," said the pilgrim, "there was a day, and not very long ago, neither, when I stood at my counting-room window, and watched the signal flags of three of my own ships entering the harbor, from the East Indies, from Liverpool, and from up the Straits, and I would not have given the invoice of the least of them for the t.i.tle-deeds of this whole Shaker settlement. You stare. Perhaps, now, you won't believe that I could have put more value on a little piece of paper, no bigger than the palm of your hand, than all these solid acres of grain, gra.s.s, and pasture-land would sell for?"</p><p>"I won't dispute it, friend," answered Josiah, "but I know I had rather have fifty acres of this good land than a whole sheet of thy paper."</p><p>"You may say so now," said the ruined merchant, bitterly, "for my name would not be worth the paper I should write it on. Of course, you must have heard of my failure?"</p><p>And the stranger mentioned his name, which, however mighty it might have been in the commercial world, the young Shaker had never heard of among the Canterbury hills.</p><p>"Not heard of my failure!" exclaimed the merchant, considerably piqued.</p><p>"Why, it was spoken of on 'Change in London, and from Boston to New Orleans men trembled in their shoes. At all events, I did fail, and you see me here on my road to the Shaker village, where, doubtless (for the Shakers are a shrewd sect), they will have a due respect for my experience, and give me the management of the trading part of the concern, in which case I think I can pledge myself to double their capital in four or five years. Turn back with me, young man; for though you will never meet with my good luck, you can hardly escape my bad."</p><p>"I will not turn back for this," replied Josiah, calmly, "any more than for the advice of the va.r.s.e-maker, between whom and thee, friend, I see a sort of likeness, though I can't justly say where it lies. But Miriam and I can earn our daily bread among the world's people as well as in the Shaker village. And do we want anything more, Miriam?"</p><p>"Nothing more, Josiah," said the girl, quietly.</p><p>"Yea, Miriam, and daily bread for some other little mouths, if G.o.d send them," observed the simple Shaker lad.</p><p>Miriam did not reply, but looked down into the spring, where she encountered the image of her own pretty face, blushing within the prim little bonnet. The third pilgrim now took up the conversation. He was a sunburnt countryman, of tall frame and bony strength, on whose rude and manly face there appeared a darker, more sullen and obstinate despondency, than on those of either the poet or the merchant.</p><p>"Well, now, youngster," he began, "these folks have had their say, so I'll take my turn. My story will cut but a poor figure by the side of theirs; for I never supposed that I could have a right to meat and drink, and great praise besides, only for tagging rhymes together, as it seems this man does; nor ever tried to get the substance of hundreds into my own hands, like the trader there. When I was about of your years, I married me a wife,--just such a neat and pretty young woman as Miriam, if that's her name,--and all I asked of Providence was an ordinary blessing on the sweat of my brow, so that we might be decent and comfortable, and have daily bread for ourselves, and for some other little mouths that we soon had to feed. We had no very great prospects before us; but I never wanted to be idle; and I thought it a matter of course that the Lord would help me, because I was willing to help myself."</p><p>"And didn't He help thee, friend?" demanded Josiah, with some eagerness.</p><p>"No," said the yeoman, sullenly; "for then you would not have seen me here. I have labored hard for years; and my means have been growing narrower, and my living poorer, and my heart colder and heavier, all the time; till at last I could bear it no longer. I set myself down to calculate whether I had best go on the Oregon expedition, or come here to the Shaker village; but I had not hope enough left in me to begin the world over again; and, to make my story short, here I am. And now, youngster, take my advice, and turn back; or else, some few years hence, you'll have to climb this hill, with as heavy a heart as mine."</p><p>This simple story had a strong effect on the young fugitives. The misfortunes of the poet and merchant had won little sympathy from their plain good sense and unworldly feelings, qualities which made them such unprejudiced and inflexible judges, that few men would have chosen to take the opinion of this youth and maiden as to the wisdom or folly of their pursuits. But here was one whose simple wishes had resembled their own, and who, after efforts which almost gave him a right to claim success from fate, had failed in accomplishing them.</p><p>"But thy wife, friend?" exclaimed the younger man. "What became of the pretty girl, like Miriam? Oh, I am afraid she is dead!"</p><p>"Yea, poor man, she must be dead,--she and the children, too," sobbed Miriam.</p><p>The female pilgrim had been leaning over the spring, wherein latterly a tear or two might have been seen to fall, and form its little circle on the surface of the water. She now looked up, disclosing features still comely, but which had acquired an expression of fretfulness, in the same long course of evil fortune that had thrown a sullen gloom over the temper of the unprosperous yeoman.</p><p>"I am his wife," said she, a shade of irritability just perceptible in the sadness of her tone. "These poor little things, asleep on the ground, are two of our children. We had two more, but G.o.d has provided better for them than we could, by taking them to Himself."</p><p>"And what would thee advise Josiah and me to do?" asked Miriam, this being the first question which she had put to either of the strangers.</p><p>"'Tis a thing almost against nature for a woman to try to part true lovers," answered the yeoman's wife, after a pause; "but I'll speak as truly to you as if these were my dying words. Though my husband told you some of our troubles, he didn't mention the greatest, and that which makes all the rest so hard to bear. If you and your sweetheart marry, you'll be kind and pleasant to each other for a year or two, and while that's the case, you never will repent; but, by and by, he'll grow gloomy, rough, and hard to please, and you'll be peevish, and full of little angry fits, and apt to be complaining by the fireside, when he comes to rest himself from his troubles out of doors; so your love will wear away by little and little, and leave you miserable at last.</p><p>It has been so with us; and yet my husband and I were true lovers once, if ever two young folks were ."</p><p>As she ceased, the yeoman and his wife exchanged a glance, in which there was more and warmer affection than they had supposed to have escaped the frost of a wintry fate, in either of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. At that moment, when they stood on the utmost verge of married life, one word fitly spoken, or perhaps one peculiar look, had they had mutual confidence enough to reciprocate it, might have renewed all their old feelings, and sent them back, resolved to sustain each other amid the struggles of the world. But the crisis pa.s.sed and never came again.</p><p>Just then, also, the children, roused by their mother's voice, looked up, and added their wailing accents to the testimony borne by all the Canterbury pilgrims against the world from which they fled.</p><p>"We are tired and hungry!" cried they. "Is it far to the Shaker village?"</p><p>The Shaker youth and maiden looked mournfully into each other's eyes.</p><p>They had but stepped across the threshold of their homes, when lo! the dark array of cares and sorrows that rose up to warn them back. The varied narratives of the strangers had arranged themselves into a parable; they seemed not merely instances of woful fate that had befallen others, but shadowy omens of disappointed hope and unavailing toil, domestic grief and estranged affection, that would cloud the onward path of these poor fugitives. But after one instant's hesitation, they opened their arms, and sealed their resolve with as pure and fond an embrace as ever youthful love had hallowed.</p><p>"We will not go back," said they. "The world never can be dark to us, for we will always love one another."</p><p>Then the Canterbury pilgrims went up the hill, while the poet chanted a drear and desperate stanza of the Farewell to his Harp, fitting music for that melancholy band. They sought a home where all former ties of nature or society would be sundered, and all old distinctions levelled, and a cold and pa.s.sionless security be subst.i.tuted for mortal hope and fear, as in that other refuge of the world's weary outcasts, the grave.</p><p>The lovers drank at the Shaker spring, and then, with chastened hopes, but more confiding affections, went on to mingle in an untried life.</p><p>THE DEVIL IN Ma.n.u.sCRIPT </p><p>On a bitter evening of December, I arrived by mail in a large town, which was then the residence of an intimate friend, one of those gifted youths who cultivate poetry and the belles-lettres, and call themselves students at law. My first business, after supper, was to visit him at the office of his distinguished instructor. As I have said, it was a bitter night, clear starlight, but cold as Nova Zembla,--the shop-windows along the street being frosted, so as almost to hide the lights, while the wheels of coaches thundered equally loud over frozen earth and pavements of stone. There was no snow, either on the ground or the roofs of the houses. The wind blew so violently, that I had but to spread my cloak like a main-sail, and scud along the street at the rate of ten knots, greatly envied by other navigators, who were beating slowly up, with the gale right in their teeth. One of these I capsized, but was gone on the wings of the wind before he could even vociferate an oath.</p><p>After this picture of an inclement night, behold us seated by a great blazing fire, which looked so comfortable and delicious that I felt inclined to lie down and roll among the hot coals. The usual furniture of a lawyer's office was around us,--rows of volumes in sheepskin, and a mult.i.tude of writs, summonses, and other legal papers, scattered over the desks and tables. But there were certain objects which seemed to intimate that we had little dread of the intrusion of clients, or of the learned counsellor himself, who, indeed, was attending court in a distant town. A tall, decanter-shaped bottle stood on the table, between two tumblers, and beside a pile of blotted ma.n.u.scripts, altogether dissimilar to any law doc.u.ments recognized in our courts. My friend, whom I shall call Oberon,--it was a name of fancy and friendship between him and me,--my friend Oberon looked at these papers with a peculiar expression of disquietude.</p><p>"I do believe," said he, soberly, "or, at least, I could believe, if I chose, that there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers. You have read them, and know what I mean,--that conception in which I endeavored to embody the character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written records of witchcraft. Oh, I have a horror of what was created in my own brain, and shudder at the ma.n.u.scripts in which I gave that dark idea a sort of material existence! Would they were out of my sight!"</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-2433331174166791942022-08-24T02:08:00.000-07:002022-08-24T02:08:00.194-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 5If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 5 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>Viewed through the magnifying-gla.s.ses, the boy's round, rosy visage a.s.sumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense t.i.tanic child, the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature overflowing with fun at the joke. Suddenly, however, that merry face turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and excitable child had become sensible that the eye of Ethan Brand was fixed upon him through the gla.s.s.</p><p>"You make the little man to be afraid, Captain," said the German Jew, turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage from his stooping posture. "But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to see somewhat that is very fine, upon my word!"</p><p>Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back, looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently; for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld only a vacant s.p.a.ce of canvas.</p><p>"I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman.</p><p>"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremberg, with a dark smile, "I find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,--this Unpardonable Sin! By my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry it over the mountain."</p><p>"Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace yonder!"</p><p>The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly dog--who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid claim to him--saw fit to render himself the object of public notice.</p><p>Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog, going round from one to another, and, by way of being sociable, offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would take so much trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,--as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first sc.r.a.ped acquaintance with the company.</p><p>As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the spectators.</p><p>Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, as it might be, by a perception of some remote a.n.a.logy between his own case and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inward being. From that moment, the merriment of the party was at an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. Then, whispering one to another that it was late,--that the moon was almost down,-that the August night was growing chill,--they hurried homewards, leaving the lime-burner and little Joe to deal as they might with their unwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings, the open s.p.a.ce on the hill-side was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. Beyond that darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on the stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. And it seemed to little Joe--a timorous and imaginative child--that the silent forest was holding its breath until some fearful thing should happen.</p><p>Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest.</p><p>"For myself, I cannot sleep," said he. "I have matters that it concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do in the old time."</p><p>"And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I suppose,"</p><p>muttered Bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as many devils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the better for a snooze. Come, Joe!"</p><p>As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had enveloped himself.</p><p>When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that issued through the c.h.i.n.ks of the door. These trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change that had been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted himself. He remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,--how the dark forest had whispered to him,--how the stars had gleamed upon him,--a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! But where was the heart? That, indeed, had withered,--had contracted,--had hardened,--had perished! It had ceased to partake of the universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study.</p><p>Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with his intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable development,--as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor,--he had produced the Unpardonable Sin!</p><p>"What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" said Ethan Brand to himself. "My task is done, and well done!"</p><p>Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circ.u.mference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. It was a s.p.a.ce of perhaps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense ma.s.s of broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were redhot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and mult.i.tudinous activity. As the lonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against his person with a breath that, it might be supposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment.</p><p>Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.</p><p>"O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose brotherhood I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and upward!--farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly element of Fire,-henceforth my familiar friend! Embrace me, as I do thee!"</p><p>That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel, when they opened their eyes to the daylight.</p><p>"Up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "Thank Heaven, the night is gone, at last; and rather than pa.s.s such another, I would watch my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand, with his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no such mighty favor, in taking my place!"</p><p>He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold of his father's hand. The early sunshine was already pouring its gold upon the mountain-tops, and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. The village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand of Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little spires of the two churches pointed upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded weather-c.o.c.ks. The tavern was astir, and the figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the stoop.</p><p>Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. Scattered likewise over the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the surrounding mountains, there were heaps of h.o.a.ry mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it.</p><p>To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while Echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain of airy sweetness.</p><p>Little Joe's face brightened at once.</p><p>"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange man is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!"</p><p>"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not spoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like tossing him into the furnace!"</p><p>With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln.</p><p>After a moment's pause, he called to his son.</p><p>"Come up here, Joe!" said he.</p><p>So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its surface, in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the att.i.tude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the ribs--strange to say--was the shape of a human heart.</p><p>"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in some perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into what looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a bushel the richer for him."</p><p>So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled into fragments.</p><p>THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS </p><p>The summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over a broad extent of uneven country. Some of its brightest rays were flung into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the writer has, up the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failed to quench his thirst. The work of neat hands and considerate art was visible about this blessed fountain. An open cistern, hewn and hollowed out of solid stone, was placed above the waters, which filled it to the brim, but by some invisible outlet were conveyed away without dripping down its sides. Though the basin had not room for another drop, and the continual gush of water made a tremor on the surface, there was a secret charm that forbade it to overflow. I remember, that when I had slaked my summer thirst, and sat panting by the cistern, it was my fanciful theory that Nature could not afford to lavish so pure a liquid, as she does the waters of all meaner fountains.</p><p>While the moon was hanging almost perpendicularly over this spot, two figures appeared on the summit of the hill, and came with noiseless footsteps down towards the spring. They were then in the first freshness of youth; nor is there a wrinkle now on either of their brows, and yet they wore a strange, old-fashioned garb. One, a young man with ruddy cheeks, walked beneath the canopy of a broad-brimmed gray hat; he seemed to have inherited his great-grandsire's square-skirted coat, and a waistcoat that extended its immense flaps to his knees; his brown locks, also, hung down behind, in a mode unknown to our times. By his side was a sweet young damsel, her fair features sheltered by a prim little bonnet, within which appeared the vestal muslin of a cap; her close, long-waisted gown, and indeed her whole attire, might have been worn by some rustic beauty who had faded half a century before. But that there was something too warm and life-like in them, I would here have compared this couple to the ghosts of two young lovers who had died long since in the glow of pa.s.sion, and now were straying out of their graves, to renew the old vows, and shadow forth the unforgotten kiss of their earthly lips, beside the moonlit spring.</p><p>"Thee and I will rest here a moment, Miriam," said the young man, as they drew near the stone cistern, "for there is no fear that the elders know what we have done; and this may be the last time we shall ever taste this water."</p><p>Thus speaking, with a little sadness in his face, which was also visible in that of his companion, he made her sit down on a stone, and was about to place himself very close to her side; she, however, repelled him, though not unkindly.</p><p>"Nay, Josiah," said she, giving him a timid push with her maiden hand, "thee must sit farther off, on that other stone, with the spring between us. What would the sisters say, if thee were to sit so close to me?"</p><p>"But we are of the world's people now, Miriam," answered Josiah.</p><p>The girl persisted in her prudery, nor did the youth, in fact, seem altogether free from a similar sort of shyness; so they sat apart from each other, gazing up the hill, where the moonlight discovered the tops of a group of buildings. While their attention was thus occupied, a party of travellers, who had come wearily up the long ascent, made a halt to refresh themselves at the spring. There were three men, a woman, and a little girl and boy. Their attire was mean, covered with the dust of the summer's day, and damp with the night-dew; they all looked woebegone, as if the cares and sorrows of the world had made their steps heavier as they climbed the hill; even the two little children appeared older in evil days than the young man and maiden who had first approached the spring.</p><p>"Good evening to you, young folks," was the salutation of the travellers; and "Good evening, friends," replied the youth and damsel.</p><p>"Is that white building the Shaker meeting-house?" asked one of the strangers. "And are those the red roofs of the Shaker village?"</p><p>"Friend, it is the Shaker village," answered Josiah, after some hesitation.</p><p>The travellers, who, from the first, had looked suspiciously at the garb of these young people, now taxed them with an intention which all the circ.u.mstances, indeed, rendered too obvious to be mistaken.</p><p>"It is true, friends," replied the young man, summoning up his courage.</p><p>"Miriam and I have a gift to love each other, and we are going among the world's people, to live after their fashion. And ye know that we do not transgress the law of the land; and neither ye, nor the elders themselves, have a right to hinder us."</p><p>"Yet you think it expedient to depart without leave-taking," remarked one of the travellers.</p><p>"Yea, ye-a," said Josiah, reluctantly, "because father Job is a very awful man to speak with; and being aged himself, he has but little charity for what he calls the iniquities of the flesh."</p><p>"Well," said the stranger, "we will neither use force to bring you back to the village, nor will we betray you to the elders. But sit you here awhile, and when you have heard what we shall tell you of the world which we have left, and into which you are going, perhaps you will turn back with us of your own accord. What say you?" added he, turning to his companions. "We have travelled thus far without becoming known to each other. Shall we tell our stories, here by this pleasant spring, for our own pastime, and the benefit of these misguided young lovers?"</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-80383233653817376082022-08-22T20:23:00.000-07:002022-08-22T20:23:00.186-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 4If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 4 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and gra.s.s and wild-flowers rooting themselves into the c.h.i.n.ks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the limeburner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.</p><p>The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his business. At frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole. Within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And when, again, the iron door was closed, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago.</p><p>The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were heard ascending the hill-side, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that cl.u.s.tered beneath the trees.</p><p>"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!"</p><p>"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside."</p><p>To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a coa.r.s.e brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed his eyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of note within it.</p><p>"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so late in the day?"</p><p>"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is finished."</p><p>"Drunk!--or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have trouble with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."</p><p>The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if he were a sane and sensible man, after all.</p><p>"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already been burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone to lime."</p><p>"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as well acquainted with my business as I am myself."</p><p>"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a newcomer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"</p><p>"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram, with a laugh.</p><p>"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and therefore he comes back again."</p><p>"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in amazement. "I am a new-comer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen years since you left the foot of Graylock. But, I can tell you, the good folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln.</p><p>Well, and so you have found the Unpardonable Sin?"</p><p>"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.</p><p>"If the question is a fair one," proceeded Bartram, "where might it be?"</p><p>Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.</p><p>"Here!" replied he.</p><p>And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the same slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the lime-burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach.</p><p>The solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child,--the madman's laugh,--the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,--are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills.</p><p>"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has come back, and that he has found the Unpardonable Sin!"</p><p>The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. He sat on a log of wood, looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child was out of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain-path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. He felt that the little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guest and himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on his own confession, had committed the one only crime for which Heaven could afford no mercy. That crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed to overshadow him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that a.s.serted their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish. They were all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast and Ethan Brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other.</p><p>Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so long absence, that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. Ethan Brand, it was said, had conversed with Satan himself in the lurid blaze of this very kiln. The legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but looked grisly now. According to this tale, before Ethan Brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot furnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in order to confer with him about the Unpardonable Sin; the man and the fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of guilt which could neither be atoned for nor forgiven. And, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensest element of fire until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible guilt beyond the scope of Heaven's else infinite mercy.</p><p>While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that he almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot, from the raging furnace.</p><p>"Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, for mercy's sake, bring out your Devil now!"</p><p>"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I do but act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a lime-burner, as I was once."</p><p>He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened upon his face. The lime-burner sat watching him, and half suspected this strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to plunge into the flames, and thus vanish from the sight of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln.</p><p>"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful pa.s.sions than yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"</p><p>"What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then he shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be answered.</p><p>"It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied Ethan Brand, standing erect with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. "A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for G.o.d, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! The only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again, would I incur the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribution!"</p><p>"The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "He may be a sinner like the rest of us,--nothing more likely,--but, I'll be sworn, he is a madman too."</p><p>Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with Ethan Brand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush.</p><p>Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since Ethan Brand's departure. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open s.p.a.ce before the lime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair view of Ethan Brand, and he of them.</p><p>There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous man, now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was the stage-agent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his person. Another well-remembered, though strangely altered, face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people still called him in courtesy; an elderly ragam.u.f.fin, in his soiled shirtsleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp pract.i.tioner, and in great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and c.o.c.ktails, imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and degrees of bodily labor, till at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into a soap-vat. In other words, Giles was now a soap-boiler, in a small way.</p><p>He had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a part of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine. Yet, though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, since he had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, and with his one hand--and that the left one--fought a stern battle against want and hostile circ.u.mstances.</p><p>Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain points of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of difference. It was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier period of his life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to Ethan Brand during the latter's supposed insanity. He was now a purple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and manners. Brandy possessed this man like an evil spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him such wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which medical science could impart, that society caught hold of him, and would not let him sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and fro upon his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all the sick-chambers for miles about among the mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite as often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon.</p><p>The doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always alight with h.e.l.l-fire.</p><p>These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted Ethan Brand each after his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of the contents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find something far better worth seeking than the Unpardonable Sin. No mind, which has wrought itself by intense and solitary meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was now subjected. It made him doubt--and, strange to say, it was a painful doubt--whether he had indeed found the Unpardonable Sin, and found it within himself. The whole question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a delusion.</p><p>"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! I have done with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts and found nothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!"</p><p>"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way you respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell you the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boy Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow,--I told you so twenty years ago,-neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fit companion of old Humphrey, here!"</p><p>He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin visage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person had been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he met for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of circus-performers, and occasionally tidings of her came to the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance as she rode on horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on the tight-rope.</p><p>The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed unsteadily into his face.</p><p>"They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his hands with earnestness. "You must have seen my daughter, for she makes a grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she send any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?"</p><p>Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. That daughter, from whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the Esther of our tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, Ethan Brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process.</p><p>"Yes," he murmured, turning away from the h.o.a.ry wanderer, "it is no delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!"</p><p>While these things were pa.s.sing, a merry scene was going forward in the area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of the hut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried up the hill-side, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand, the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. Finding nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect,--nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire as if he fancied pictures among the coals,--these young people speedily grew tired of observing him. As it happened, there was other amus.e.m.e.nt at hand. An old German Jew travelling with a diorama on his back, was pa.s.sing down the mountain-road towards the village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them company to the lime-kiln.</p><p>"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!"</p><p>"Oh yes, Captain," answered the Jew,--whether as a matter of courtesy or craft, he styled everybody Captain,--"I shall show you, indeed, some very superb pictures!"</p><p>So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and girls to look through the gla.s.s orifices of the machine, and proceeded to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face to impose upon his circle of spectators. The pictures were worn out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with tobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Some purported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in Europe; others represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea-fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,--which might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, it was only the showman's,--pointing its forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical ill.u.s.trations. When, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the box.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-17925274314324797652022-08-21T14:37:00.000-07:002022-08-21T14:37:00.191-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 3If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 3 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>Magnificent preparations were made to receive the ill.u.s.trious statesman; a cavalcade of hors.e.m.e.n set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the State, and all the people left their business and gathered along the wayside to see him pa.s.s. Among these was Ernest.</p><p>Though more than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature, that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch the blessing from on high when it should come. So now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the Great Stone Face.</p><p>The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that the visage of the mountain-side was completely hidden from Ernest's eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback; militia officers, in uniform; the member of Congress; the sheriff of the county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits of the ill.u.s.trious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling familiarly at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be trusted, the mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvellous. We must not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the echoes of the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud triumph of its strains; so that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice, to welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when the far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.</p><p>All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, "Huzza for the great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!" But as yet he had not seen him.</p><p>"Here he is, now!" cried those who stood near Ernest. "There! There!</p><p>Look at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if they are not as like as two twin-brothers!"</p><p>In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his ma.s.sive head uncovered, sat the ill.u.s.trious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.</p><p>"Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, "the Great Stone Face has met its match at last!"</p><p>Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the mountain-side. The brow, with its ma.s.sive depth and loftiness, and all the other features, indeed, were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than heroic, of a t.i.tanic model. But the sublimity and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its ponderous granite substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Something had been originally left out, or had departed. And therefore the marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings or a man of mighty faculties and little aims, whose life, with all its high performances, was vague and empty, because no high purpose had endowed it with reality.</p><p>Still, Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and pressing him for an answer.</p><p>"Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the Mountain?"</p><p>"No!" said Ernest bluntly, "I see little or no likeness."</p><p>"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!" answered his neighbor; and again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.</p><p>But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down, and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it had worn for untold centuries.</p><p>"Lo, here I am, Ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "I have waited longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come."</p><p>The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's heels. And now they began to bring white hairs, and scatter them over the head of Ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows in his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure.</p><p>Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained from books, but of a higher tone,--a tranquil and familiar majesty, as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Whether it were sage, statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together, his face would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. Pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went their way; and pa.s.sing up the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember where.</p><p>While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet to this earth. He likewise, was a native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips. This man of genius, we may say, had come down from heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. If his theme were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the emotions of the song. Thus the world a.s.sumed another and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork. Creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so complete it.</p><p>The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were the subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the common dust of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in it, were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. He showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth that made them worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's fancy. Let such men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have been sp.a.w.ned forth by Nature with a contemptuous bitterness; she having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. As respects all things else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth.</p><p>The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage-door, where for such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing at the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benignantly.</p><p>"O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the Great Stone Face, "is not this man worthy to resemble thee?"</p><p>The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.</p><p>Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the n.o.ble simplicity of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took pa.s.sage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his guest.</p><p>Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.</p><p>"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveller a night's lodging?"</p><p>"Willingly," answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, "Methinks I never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."</p><p>The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have attained alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful music which neither of them could have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. They led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful that they desired to be there always.</p><p>As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face was bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing eyes.</p><p>"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said.</p><p>The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.</p><p>"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then,--for I wrote them."</p><p>Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back, with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and sighed.</p><p>"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.</p><p>"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when I read these poems, I hoped that it might be fulfilled in you."</p><p>"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz.</p><p>Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the ill.u.s.trious three, and record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I speak it, Ernest--I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image."</p><p>"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those thoughts divine?"</p><p>"They have a strain of the Divinity," replied the poet. "You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even--shall I dare to say it?--I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which my own words are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?"</p><p>The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise, were those of Ernest.</p><p>At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was to discourse to an a.s.semblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles.</p><p>At a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there appeared a niche, s.p.a.cious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the gra.s.s, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pa.s.s. In another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.</p><p>Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this precious draught. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a n.o.bler strain of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with h.o.a.ry mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world.</p><p>At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest a.s.sumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft and shouted, "Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!"</p><p>Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.</p><p>ETHAN BRAND </p><p>A CHAPTER FROM AN ABORTIVE ROMANCE </p><p>Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching his kiln at nightfall, while his little son played at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest.</p><p>"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees.</p><p>"Oh, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner; "some merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. So here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylock."</p><p>"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the noise frightens me!"</p><p>"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the merry fellow now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."</p><p>Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable Sin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that portentous night when the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. It was a rude, round, tower-like structure about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circ.u.mference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the tower, like an over-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and provided with a ma.s.sive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the c.h.i.n.ks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hill-side, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-24059554481563472242022-08-20T08:51:00.000-07:002022-08-20T08:51:00.185-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 2If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 2 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>"Yes, father," said Violet looking reproachfully at him, through her tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!"</p><p>"Naughty father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We told you how it would be! What for did you bring her in?"</p><p>And the Heidenberg stove, through the isingla.s.s of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had done!</p><p>This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. The remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious cla.s.s of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for instance, might be, that it behooves men, and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. What has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony,--though by no means very wholesome, even for them,--but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image.</p><p>But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr.</p><p>Lindsey's stamp. They know everything,--oh, to be sure!--everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. And, should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system, they will not recognize it, even if it come to pa.s.s under their very noses.</p><p>"Wife," said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence, "see what a quant.i.ty of snow the children have brought in on their feet! It has made quite a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring some towels and mop it up!"</p><p>THE GREAT STONE FACE </p><p>One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.</p><p>They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.</p><p>And what was the Great Stone Face?</p><p>Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so s.p.a.cious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hill-sides. Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. But all of them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors.</p><p>The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a t.i.tan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains cl.u.s.tering about it, the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.</p><p>It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were n.o.ble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine.</p><p>As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The child's name was Ernest.</p><p>"Mother," said he, while the t.i.tanic visage smiled on him, "I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should love him dearly."</p><p>"If an old prophecy should come to pa.s.s," answered his mother, "we may see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that."</p><p>"What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest.</p><p>"Pray tell me about it!"</p><p>So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very old, that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree-tops. The purport was, that, at some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and n.o.blest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or n.o.bler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared.</p><p>"O mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his head, "I do hope that I shall live to see him!"</p><p>His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. So she only said to him, "Perhaps you may."</p><p>And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, a.s.sisting her much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, un.o.btrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret was that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became his peculiar portion.</p><p>About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His name--but I could never learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life--was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous acc.u.mulation of this one man's wealth.</p><p>The cold regions of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the East came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit of it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.</p><p>As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weatherbeaten farm-house. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of trans.m.u.tation, had been accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with silver k.n.o.bs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of but one enormous pane of gla.s.s, so transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere.</p><p>Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but it was reported, and with good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or bra.s.s in other houses was silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his eyelids.</p><p>In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants, the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the n.o.ble man, the man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest to his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and a.s.sume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountain-side. While the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.</p><p>"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were a.s.sembled to witness the arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!"</p><p>A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.</p><p>Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had trans.m.u.ted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together.</p><p>"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come, at last!"</p><p>And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw--the very same that had clawed together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed, "He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"</p><p>But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to say?</p><p>"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"</p><p>The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with him. A simple soul,--simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance.</p><p>By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest part of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled yellow skin.</p><p>Since the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ign.o.ble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain-side. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers, mult.i.tudes of whom came, every summer, to visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown into the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to come.</p><p>It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had now become an ill.u.s.trious commander. Whatever he may be called in history, he was known in camps and on the battle-field under the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed that now, at last, the likeness of the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. An aid-de-camp of Old Blood-and-Thunder, travelling through the valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance. Moreover the schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaid general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy, only the idea had never occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for years before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked.</p><p>On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people of the valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.</p><p>Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor they were a.s.sembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared s.p.a.ce of the woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the general's chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, p.r.i.c.ked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, being of an un.o.btrusive character, was thrust quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on the battle-field. To console himself, he turned towards the Great Stone Face, which, like a faithful and long remembered friend, looked back and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear the remarks of various individuals, who were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant mountain-side.</p><p>"'Tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.</p><p>"Wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another.</p><p>"Like! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous looking-gla.s.s!" cried a third. "And why not? He's the greatest man of this or any other age, beyond a doubt."</p><p>And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which communicated electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the mountains, until you might have supposed that the Great Stone Face had poured its thunderbreath into the cry. All these comments, and this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he think of questioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had found its human counterpart. It is true, Ernest had imagined that this long-looked-for personage would appear in the character of a man of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. But, taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended that Providence should choose its own method of blessing mankind, and could conceive that this great end might be effected even by a warrior and a b.l.o.o.d.y sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters so.</p><p>"The general! the general!" was now the cry. "Hush! silence! Old Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech."</p><p>Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-worn and weatherbeaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and even if the Great Stone Face had a.s.sumed his look of stern command, the milder traits would still have tempered it.</p><p>"This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest to himself, as he made his way out of the throng. "And must the world wait longer yet?"</p><p>The mists had congregated about the distant mountain-side, and there were seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. As he looked, Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him and the object that he gazed at. But--as it always did--the aspect of his marvellous friend made Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.</p><p>"Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the Great Face were whispering him,--"fear not, Ernest; he will come."</p><p>More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By imperceptible degrees, he had become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he labored for his bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. But he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm and well-considered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its course. Not a day pa.s.sed by, that the world was not the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily too, he had become a preacher. The pure and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech.</p><p>He uttered truths that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those who heard him. His auditors, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did Ernest himself suspect it; but, inevitably as the murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken.</p><p>When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between General Blood-and-Thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage on the mountain-side. But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. He, like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics. Instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It was the blast of war, the song of peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of princes and potentates,--after it had made him known all over the world, even as a voice crying from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e,--it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the Presidency. Before this time,--indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated,--his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and the Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck by it, that throughout the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old Stony Phiz. The phrase was considered as giving a highly favorable aspect to his political prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the Popedom, n.o.body ever becomes President without taking a name other than his own.</p><p>While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was born. Of course, he had no other object than to shake hands with his fellow-citizens and neither thought nor cared about any effect which his progress through the country might have upon the election.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-62048339893466650982022-08-19T03:06:00.000-07:002022-08-19T03:06:00.199-07:00The Snow Image and other stories Part 1If you are looking for The Snow Image and other stories Part 1 you are coming to the right place. The Snow Image and other stories is a Webnovel created by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>The Snow Image.</p><p>by Nathaniel Hawthorne.</p><p>THE SNOW-IMAGE: </p><p>A CHILDISH MIRACLE </p><p>One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was known by the style and t.i.tle of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is important to say, was an excellent but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, and was st.u.r.dily accustomed to take what is called the common-sense view of all matters that came under his consideration.</p><p>With a heart about as tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to sell. The mother's character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty,--a delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood.</p><p>So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their mother to let them run out and play in the new snow; for, though it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, it had a very cheerful aspect, now that the sun was shining on it. The children dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-place than a little garden before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, and with a pear-tree and two or three plum-trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in front of the parlor-windows. The trees and shrubs, however, were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage, with here and there a pendent icicle for the fruit.</p><p>"Yes, Violet,--yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother, "you may go out and play in the new snow."</p><p>Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her darlings in woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece, by way of a spell to keep away Jack Frost. Forth sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snow-drift, whence Violet emerged like a snow-bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom. Then what a merry time had they! To look at them, frolicking in the wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and Peony; and that they themselves had beer created, as the snow-birds were, to take delight only in the tempest, and in the white mantle which it spread over the earth.</p><p>At last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at little Peony's figure, was struck with a new idea.</p><p>"You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony," said she, "if your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me in mind! Let us make an image out of snow,--an image of a little girl,--and it shall be our sister, and shall run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be nice?"</p><p>"Oh yes!" cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a little boy. "That will be nice! And mamma shall see it!"</p><p>"Yes," answered Violet; "mamma shall see the new little girl. But she must not make her come into the warm parlor; for, you know, our little snow-sister will not love the warmth."</p><p>And forthwith the children began this great business of making a snow-image that should run about; while their mother, who was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling at the gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a live little girl out of the snow. And, to say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work in precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in which Violet and Peony now undertook to perform one, without so much as knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the mother; and thought, likewise, that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be excellent material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold.</p><p>She gazed at the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their little figures,--the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and so delicately colored that she looked like a cheerful thought more than a physical reality; while Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and st.u.r.dy legs as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work.</p><p>What it was I forget; but she was either tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs.</p><p>Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with their snow-image.</p><p>Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls at their task! Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter. Violet a.s.sumed the chief direction, and told Peony what to do, while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow-figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised at this; and the longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew.</p><p>"What remarkable children mine are!" thought she, smiling with a mother's pride; and, smiling at herself, too, for being so proud of them. "What other children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out of snow at the first trial? Well; but now I must finish Peony's new frock, for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and I want the little fellow to look handsome."</p><p>So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her needle as the two children with their snow-image. But still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one another all the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. Except at intervals, she could not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood, and were enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making the snow-image went prosperously on. Now and then, however, when Violet and Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as if they had been spoken in the very parlor where the mother sat. Oh how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even though they meant nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all!</p><p>But you must know a mother listens with her heart much more than with her ears; and thus she is often delighted with the trills of celestial music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind.</p><p>"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another part of the garden, "bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. I want it to shape our little snow-sister's bosom with. You know that part must be quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!"</p><p>"Here it is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone,--but a very sweet tone, too,--as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, how beau-ti-ful she begins to look!"</p><p>"Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; "our snow-sister does look very lovely. I did not quite know, Peony, that we could make such a sweet little girl as this."</p><p>The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an incident it would be, if fairies, or still better, if angel-children were to come from paradise, and play invisibly with her own darlings, and help them to make their snow-image, giving it the features of celestial babyhood! Violet and Peony would not be aware of their immortal playmates,--only they would see that the image grew very beautiful while they worked at it, and would think that they themselves had done it all.</p><p>"My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal children ever did!" said the mother to herself; and then she smiled again at her own motherly pride.</p><p>Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagination; and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse out of the window, half dreaming that she might see the golden-haired children of paradise sporting with her own golden-haired Violet and bright-cheeked Peony.</p><p>Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit, while Peony acted rather as a laborer, and brought her the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper understanding of the matter, too!</p><p>"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet; for her brother was again at the other side of the garden. "Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear-tree. You can clamber on the snowdrift, Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our snow-sister's head!"</p><p>"Here they are, Violet!" answered the little boy. "Take care you do not break them. Well done! Well done! How pretty!"</p><p>"Does she not look sweetly?" said Violet, with a very satisfied tone; "and now we must have some little shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'Tush! nonsense!--come in out of the cold!'"</p><p>"Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony; and then he shouted l.u.s.tily, "Mamma! mamma!! mamma!!! Look out, and see what a nice 'ittle girl we are making!"</p><p>The mother put down her work for an instant, and looked out of the window. But it so happened that the sun--for this was one of the shortest days of the whole year--had sunken so nearly to the edge of the world that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes.</p><p>So she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not very distinctly observe what was in the garden. Still, however, through all that bright, blinding dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld a small white figure in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful deal of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and Peony,--indeed, she looked more at them than at the image,--she saw the two children still at work; Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the figure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model.</p><p>Indistinctly as she discerned the snow-child, the mother thought to herself that never before was there a snow-figure so cunningly made, nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it.</p><p>"They do everything better than other children," said she, very complacently. "No wonder they make better snow-images!"</p><p>She sat down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as possible; because twilight would soon come, and Peony's frock was not yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad, pretty early in the morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers.</p><p>The children, likewise, kept busily at work in the garden, and still the mother listened, whenever she could catch a word. She was amused to observe how their little imaginations had got mixed up with what they were doing, and carried away by it. They seemed positively to think that the snow-child would run about and play with them.</p><p>"What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long!" said Violet. "I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold!</p><p>Sha'n't you love her dearly, Peony?"</p><p>"Oh yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her, and she shall sit down close by me and drink some of my warm milk!"</p><p>"Oh no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister.</p><p>Little snow people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony; we must not give her anything warm to drink!"</p><p>There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully,--"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud! and the color does not go away! Is not that beautiful!"</p><p>"Yes; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, p.r.o.nouncing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet, only look at her hair!</p><p>It is all like gold!"</p><p>"Oh certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very much a matter of course. "That color, you know, comes from the golden clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now.</p><p>But her lips must be made very red,--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them!"</p><p>Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.</p><p>"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.</p><p>"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and now her lips are very red. And she blushed a little, too!"</p><p>"Oh, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.</p><p>Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west-wind, sweeping through the garden and rattling the parlor-windows. It sounded so wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with her thimbled finger, to summon the two children in, when they both cried out to her with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise, although they were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, but which they had been looking for, and had reckoned upon all along.</p><p>"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is running about the garden with us!"</p><p>"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother, putting the last few st.i.tches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange, too that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are! I can hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has really come to life!"</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-56360992561772908842022-08-17T21:20:00.000-07:002022-08-17T21:20:00.183-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 8If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 8 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>'Of course,' he continued, 'that won't stop you from being harmed by anyone else.'</p><p>The smile disappeared as fast as it had arrived. Typical, I thoughtthere's always a downside. Mind you, at least I was safe from the two people currently most likely to do me harmboth of whom, along with their respective entourages, were backing away quietly from me so as not to incur any further pain or humiliation.</p><p>I couldn't resist it; I ran quickly towards them. It was one of the finest moments of my life. Imagine, if you will, one very fat oriental gentleman, a goat, two large gorillas in tuxedos, a disorganised swarm of Orcs, and Edna (who had trouble walking let alone moving any faster) all desperately clambering backwards over each other in a frantic effort to get as far away from me as they could. The resulting scrum made me laugh out loud for the first time in quite awhile.</p><p>I think it was at that point I realised that the case was more or less over. All I needed to do was tie up a few loose ends and explain to Jack what had happened.</p><p>13.</p> <p>Exposition, Basili.</p><p>'But how did you know it was the genie?' Jack asked.</p><p>The three of usJack, the genie and Iwere in my office, sitting around my desk drinking coffee. Much as I'd like to take all the credit for solving the casebeing a famous detective and allif Jack hadn't turned up at Edna's wielding the leg from a suit of armour, chances are I'd have ended up a permanent face-down resident in the sewers I'd come to love so much. The least he deserved was an explanation.</p><p>The genie, on the other hand, was just hanging around. Now that he was homeless, seeing as he couldn't fit into his lamp any more, he had latched on to meand it was placing me in a very difficult position.</p><p>In my job, I needed to be discreet, and discretion was going to be very difficult when you were being shadowed by a large dark-skinned ex-genie whose idea of sartorial elegance was a bright yellow turban, a yellow and red patterned waistcoat that seemed twenty sizes too small and a pair of baggy yellow silk trousers that ended just above the ankles and looked like someone had inflated a large hot-air balloon in each leg. On his feet a pair of yellow slippers that curled up at the front just added the final lurid touch.</p><p>Oh, and he farted a lotan awful lot.</p><p>But I digress. Elbows on my desk, I rested my head on my trotters, made sure I had everyone's attention and began.</p><p>'It was the lamp. I'd stared at it for most of the night trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar. Then, just as I was on the point of giving up, I went to bed and it struck me.'</p><p>'The bed struck you?' said Jack. 'How?'</p><p>'No, not the bed,' I replied wearily. 'An idea. I suddenly realised where I'd seen it before and why it had taken so long to work it out. I'd seen it from the inside.'</p><p>'Huh?' The look on Jack's face said it all.</p><p>'It was when I was in that white room. The curved walls were the same shape as the body of the lamp. I'd been pulled into it by our friend Basili here,' I said, nodding at the genie. 'Of course, I didn't know it at the time; I just thought I'd been taken prisoner by an insane interior decorator.</p><p>'Once I figured that the genie was looking for his own lamp, it all began to fall into place.'</p><p>I could see the confusion on Jack's face and held up a warning trotter before he could ask another 'why' or 'how' question.</p><p>'When I rubbed the lamp, nothing happened,' I continued. 'My first reaction was that it was all a hoax and the lamp was exactly that: a lamp; with no magic, no three wishes and no genie. No offence.' I looked across the table at the genie.</p><p>'None taken,' he replied calmly.</p><p>'Then I figured that if the last owner hadn't used up all his wishes yet, then rubbing the lamp would probably have no effect. However, once the three wishes had been granted then the lamp was up for grabs again, making it a very valuable antique indeed.'</p><p>The genie nodded his agreement.</p><p>'This would explain why Aladdin had kept the lamp so securely under lock and key. As long as he had it, he still had a last wish, but it was useless to anyone else unless they could get him to use up that last wish.</p><p>'Now, if you were the genie that provided this somewhat unique service, I imagine that it would get quite tedious, if not downright frustrating, being stuck in a lamp with no way of getting out, just sitting there waiting for that last rub to happen.'</p><p>I turned to Basili. 'How long were you waiting after Aladdin's second wish?'</p><p>The genie heaved a deep sigh. 'Forty years.'</p><p>'Wow!' exclaimed Jack. 'You were stuck in there for forty years? What did you do to pa.s.s the time?'</p><p>'Initially, I read, watched TV and ate a lot,' said Basili. From his size, it didn't need a detective to work that out. 'Then with the arrival of the computer age and the information superhighway, I learned everything about PCs and used them to interface with the outside world, looking for an opportunity to set myself free.'</p><p>'Which is how he met Benny,' I said.</p><p>'Poor Benny,' said Basili with a sympathetic shake of the head and a loud fart. 'I'm sorry about that but he was my only option.'</p><p>'Don't worry, he's probably already forgotten about it. Gnomes have a very short attention span.' I looked at the genie. 'What I want to know is how you managed to find out so much about security systems?'</p><p>Basili's grin was so wide his head looked like it was split in two. In fact, I don't believe he'd actually stopped smiling since he'd been freed. 'Hacking.'</p><p>'Hacking?' I repeated stupidly.</p><p>'Yes, hacking. With twenty years of computer experience, I was at the cutting edge of cyber crime from the word go. There isn't a system out there I can't crack. Aladdin's just needed a bit of time. Once I had access, it was easy to figure out where the weaknesses were. I just wish I'd picked someone brighter to actually steal the lamp.' There was another loud rumble from his side of the desk, which I hoped was his stomach telling him it was hungry. A few moments later that hope was cruelly dashed and I walked over to the window to let some fresher air in. Basili gave me another apologetic look.</p><p>I figured it was about time I took back control of the conversation and make myself the centre of attention once more. I walked back to the desk and looked at the other two.</p><p>'Once I figured that the genie was the one who was calling the shots, or at least one of the three calling the shots, I thought that if I could strike a deal with him I might get the other two off my backa.s.suming he was willing to play ball.'</p><p>'And I was,' grinned Basili. Paarp! Phut-phut-phut-phut! 'All I wanted was someone to help me gain my freedom and Mr Harry here was most anxious to help me, as well as himself.'</p><p>I nodded furiously. 'Using the same email address Benny had used, I told him that I knew who he was and proved it by cryptically suggesting that the person who controlled the third wish effectively controlled the genie. If the message was understood then all he had to do was follow my lead at Wilde Park when I was hopefully going to make him appear.' I smiled at the memory of the look on Aladdin's face when he realised he'd been duped. 'Fortunately for us all, everything went more or less according to plan. Basili was set free and I got Aladdin and Edna off my back. Unfortunately, as I was no longer flavour of the month with Aladdin, he declined to pay me for my services.'</p><p>As usual things hadn't panned out yet again for the proprietor of the Third Pig Detective Agency. Then again, I was getting used to it. This time, however, I had also picked up a straya very large, yellow stray that, partly thanks to me, no longer had a home.</p><p>To my surprise (and embarra.s.sment) Basili stood up, walked around the desk to me and gave me a big hug. It was the kind of hug that large bears used to crush their prey but he managed to break off before any major organs were ruptured. Struggling for breath, I dropped back into my chair.</p><p>'It is not so big a problem, Mr Harry.' His smile was even broader. I suspected that both ends met at the back of his head. 'While I waited in my lamp for all those years, I also used my computer to play the market. I have been very successful and have built up a most valuable and highly diverse portfolio. Perhaps I can recompense you somewhat for your efforts in this matter.'</p><p>If this had been a cartoon, my jaw would have bounced off the ground in surprise. I struggled to get words out. 'You mean, you're rich?' I gasped.</p><p>'But of course,' Basili replied. 'How else would I have been able to help Benny with his most audacious plans for the theme park? I insist that you be paid for the most successful resolution of this case.' He thought for a moment. 'Hey, maybe I can become your backerlike Charlie in Charlie's Angels.'</p><p>I was about to point out that I looked nothing like any of Charlie's Angels when I became aware of a commotion from reception. Two voices were raised in argument. One was clearly Gloria's but the other was unfamiliar and very loud, very female and very commanding. For one awful minute I thought Edna or one of her sisters had come to 'pay me a visit', but the voice sounded a little more cultured than those of the Wicked Witch sisters so I relaxed a littlebut not too much.</p><p>'But you don't have an appointment,' I could hear Gloria say.</p><p>'Nevertheless, I must see him,' said the other voice, in a tone that suggested she wasn't used to being obstructed. She didn't realise that she was being obstructed by the best. If she managed to get past Gloria, she deserved an appointment.</p><p>'No appointment, no meeting,' said Gloria emphatically. 'Mr Pigg is a very busy detective and can't afford to have his time wasted. If you care to make an appointment, I can organise a suitable time.'</p><p>'No way, lady,' came the reply. 'I know he's in that office and I am going in to see him now. Please do not get in my way.'</p><p>Now I was starting to get scared. What kind of monster was in my reception area and why did she want to see me? More to the point, did I really want to see her?</p><p>I could see that Jack and Basili were giving me anxious looks as well. We all started to back away from the door slowly and quietly. In hindsight there wasn't really any point. The only thing behind us was the window; we were on the third floor and there was no fire escape.</p><p>Note to self: speak to new landlord about fire safety regulations.</p><p>Through the frosted gla.s.s I could see a large red shape move towards the door.</p><p>'Do not go in there,' shouted Gloria.</p><p>'Try and stop me, lady.' There was a sound of scuffling and then the door burst open, banging off the wall with a loud crash.</p><p>A very large lady dressed in black boots, bright red trousers and a hooded red jacket stood there. Gloria was clinging on to one of her legs. She had clearly been dragged across the room in her efforts to keep this person out.</p><p>'Sorry, Harry,' she gasped. 'She got by me when I wasn't looking.'</p><p>'It's OK, Gloria,' I said and walked over to her to help her up. 'Let's see what this lady wants that's so urgent.'</p><p>I looked at the new arrival. Her face was as red as the clothing she was wearingpresumably from her altercation with Gloria. White fur lined the cuffs of her jacket and rimmed her hood. For some reason her appearance suggested Christmas.</p><p>I indicated one of the seats recently vacated by my colleagues.</p><p>'Ma'am,' I said, turning on the charm, 'if you'd care to sit down.'</p><p>As she sat I turned to the others. 'If I could perhaps speak to this fine lady alone,' I suggested. Gloria nodded and, grabbing the other two by the arm, dragged them both out of the office before they could protest.</p><p>I nodded towards the door as they left. 'My partners. They may not look like much but they've got it where it counts.'</p><p>As I spoke, I realised that they had indeed become partners, either by virtue of the help one had given or the financial backing the other was offering. Looked like the Third Pig Detective Agency was expanding.</p><p>I turned to my newest prospective client.</p><p>'Now then,' I said. 'How may the Third Pig Detective Agency be of help, Miss, Mrs, Ms...?'</p><p>'Claus. It's Mrs Claus and I need you to find my husband. He's been kidnapped and it's only two days to 25th December. If he's not found soon we may have to cancel Christmas.'</p><p>The End.</p><p>The Third Pig Detective Agency will return.</p><p>in The Ho Ho Ho Mystery.</p><p>Acknowledgements.</p><p>This book's formative years were spent on the web so huge thanks go to all at Writelink for the initial encouragement and those at YouWriteOnespecially Edward Smith and Michael Legatwhose critiques (good, bad and otherwisebut always constructive) helped shape the opening chapters into something approaching legibility.</p><p>I owe a lot to the good people at the Friday Project: especially Scott, whose unflagging belief in Harry's adventures and championing of the cause kept the book alive when things didn't look so good.</p><p>Thanks to Dooradoyle and Adare Libraries for providing a quiet corner to write in and to Carol Anderson for a wonderful copy-edit.</p><p>I also owe a debt of grat.i.tude to my parents who instilled a love of reading in me at a very young age. This is all your fault!</p><p>Above all, huge thanks go to my wife Gemma and my three boys, Ian, Adam and Stephen, whose support, belief, encouragement and the occasional 'get back in there and write another chapter now' made all this worthwhile.</p><p>No, Ian, we won't be getting a Gulfstream jet with the proceeds. Yes, Adam, the book will be in the shops. No, Stephen, you can't have your teayou only had your dinner an hour ago.</p><p>Harry would like to thank the Big Bad Wolf, for giving him that first big break; Little Red Riding Hood, for not appearing in this book and making a show of herself; Jack Horner, for the pizza (you know what I'm talking about!) and his legions of fanshe knows you're out there somewhere, you just haven't made yourself known to him yet.</p><p>end.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-58665260896061093382022-08-16T15:35:00.000-07:002022-08-16T15:35:00.236-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 7If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 7 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>On the street below, three Orcs that had obviously been asked to guard the hotel entrance looked up vacantly as I fell towards them. Taken completely by surprise, they didn't have time to get out of the way as a large glowing 'TY INN' and a purple-hued pig landed on them. For once I got lucky as I dropped on the largest and fattest of the Orcs and was exceedingly grateful for the soft landing. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to express my grat.i.tude properly, seeing as the rest of his buddies were about to come charging out of the hotel in hot pursuit of my blood. In any event the poor guy was unconscious and I didn't have the luxury of enough time to even write a thank-you note; not that I would have anywayI wasn't that grateful!</p><p>Checking to ensure I still had the lamp, I slowly got to my feet and racedwell, staggered actuallydown the street. Seconds later, what was left of the Orc posse charged from the hotel and, spotting me limping towards the next intersection, howled in triumph as they ran after me.</p><p>I now had two objectives: evade my pursuers any way I possibly could and, a.s.suming I was successful and didn't end up skewered by a large and rusty spear, get to an Internet cafe so I could send the most important email of my life.</p><p>I made the intersection and ran up the next street looking for somethinganythingthat might get the Orcs off my back. All I could see was the usual collection of seedy bars, dodgy clubs and occasional p.a.w.nshop that seemed to proliferate in the more disreputable parts of town. Despite my vain hope, there didn't appear to be any obvious cavalry-corning-over-the-hill-type rescue operation waiting for me. I had to admit it was looking grim. I could hear the grunts and shouts of the Orcs as they gained on me. Surely it was only a matter of seconds before I became a pork kebab.</p><p>Then I spotted it: a possible way out of my current predicament. Limping across the street, I staggered through the doors of the Tingling Finger Bar and Grill, hoping that the name reflected the nature of its clientele. I almost fell to my knees in relief (and pain and exhaustion) as every elf in the bar stopped what he was doing and stared at me in surprise.</p> <p>Hanging on to the door for support with one arm, I indicated back over my shoulder with the other.</p><p>'Orcs,' I gasped. 'Following...me, trying...to...kill...'</p><p>I couldn't get any more out and clutched the door, trying to catch my breath.</p><p>Despite my semi-coherent gasping, they got the thrust of my message quickly enough. Then again, all they really needed to hear was 'Orc', as it tended to provoke an almost Pavlovian response when uttered in the presence of an elf. All the rest of the message was just supplemental information.</p><p>As any reader of fantasy fiction will tell you, Orcs and elves are sworn enemies. All it takes is for one to unexpectedly b.u.mp into the other at, say, a movie premiere for a small-scale war to break out. As a rule, hostilities usually only cease when one of the two opposing sides has been rendered totally unconsciousor worse.</p><p>It was no surprise, therefore, when my arrival resulted in the entire bar suddenly changing from a bunch of happy-go-lucky elves (if elves could ever be described as happy-go-lucky) trying unsuccessfully to get drunk to an efficient and very hostile fighting machine waiting for their enemy to burst through the door.</p><p>They didn't have long to wait, as the leading Orc pushed his way in, to be met by the heavily moisturised fist of the lead elf, the impact of which drove him back out again and into the arms of his colleagues.</p><p>'Orcs in the pub; blood will be spilled this night,' shouted one of the elves as he followed his leader outside to give both moral and physical support. Within seconds the bar was empty, apart from the barman and me. Like barmen the world over, he nodded at me and continued to clean gla.s.ses with a pristine white cloth as if nothing untoward had actually happened. Maybe his customers poured out of the bar every night in search of a row but I doubted it; elves usually preferred a quiet drink as opposed to a full-blooded brawlexcept, that is, where Orcs were involved.</p><p>Still hurting, I staggered to the bar and looked up at the barman.</p><p>'Back...door?' I asked him.</p><p>He indicated a door at the back of the room with a brief twist of his head.</p><p>'Nearest...Internet...cafe?' Barmen usually knew everything about the locality; I just hoped this chap was one of them.</p><p>'Out the door; turn right; two blocks down. It's called the Cyber Punk. You can't miss it.'</p><p>I thanked him and struggled onwards out of the bar and down the street. The Cyber Punk was exactly where he described it. Looking around to confirm I was no longer being followed, I pushed the door open and made my way to the counter. A geeky goblin (the actual Cyber Punk presumably) sat behind it, glancing through a magazine. I waved a twenty under his nose to get his attention. He looked down at me over gla.s.ses that were so thick they could have been used as bullet-proof windows.</p><p>'I need to access the web,' I said to him and waved the twenty from side to side. His head moved back and forth tracking every movement, his eyes never leaving the money.</p><p>'Pick any one you want,' he said slowly reaching for the bill.</p><p>Picking a terminal at the back of the room, where I was less likely to be seen from the street, I accessed one of my many email accounts. I began to carefully compose the most important email I was probably ever going to send. After typing furiously for a few minutes, I reviewed what I had written. I hoped it was enough to get the attention of the recipient without giving too much away to anyone else that might intercept it.</p><p>Dear Criminal Mastermind, I know who you are and why you stole the lamp. I understand your need for complete secrecy, although transporting me to your hideout ultimately gave the game away (and employing Benny certainly didn't help your cause, either). To prove I know what's going on, I offer you this: he who controls the third option controls the power. It may be cryptic but I think you'll understand what I mean.</p><p>I think I can help you. Be prepared to be present at the original drop point early tomorrow morning and take your cue from me. If all goes to plan we may both find ourselves out of this sorry mess for once and for all.</p><p>Best regards, Harry Pigg After a moment's panic when I couldn't remember it, I typed in the address Benny had used previously (), hit the send b.u.t.ton and my email disappeared from the screen. All I needed to do now was to get the other two players in this dangerous game to meet me tomorrow, and hope I could pull off a very elaborate stunt.</p><p>If I was successful, then I would be free of any unpleasant entanglements forever. If not, then I was likely to be caught in a very unsavoury Aladdin and Edna sandwichwith me as the filling.</p><p>I borrowed a phone from the Cyber Punk and, with a certain degree of trepidation, I made two very nervous calls. With nowhere else to go, I spent the rest of the night in the Cyber Punk, alternately surfing the web and playing World of War craft.</p><p>12.</p><p>A Gripping Finale.</p><p>Even early in the morning, Wilde Park was busy. The Three Blind Mice were begging as usual at the main gate. Fairy G.o.dmothers fussed around their charges, making sure they were well wrapped up against the morning chill as they played on the swings. An occasional elf jogger in pastel Lycra running gear panted along the pathways. Show-offsalways more concerned with looking good than actually keeping fit.</p><p>I had picked the most public area I could find for my dangerous rendezvous: a large open area with a small clump of trees to one side. Hidden in the trees was a very nervous Jack.</p><p>I had called him first thing and briefed him on the plan. He wasn't going to be in any danger but his role was critical. Precise timing was essential so I drilled him over and over on his instructions.</p><p>'You sure you know what to do?' I asked him as we walked towards the bushes.</p><p>'For goodness sake, Mr Pigg, we've gone over it twenty times. Just give me the lamp.' Grabbing it from my hands he forced his way into the bushes and crouched down.</p><p>'Just wait for my signal, OK?' I said to him as I walked away. 'And keep yourself hidden until then.'</p><p>He gave me a thumbs-up sign and disappeared from view. I walked to the middle of the park and looked back. Satisfied that he couldn't be detected, I stood where anyone entering could see me and waited.</p><p>I didn't have to wait long. There was a loud rumbling from above and a helicopter flew low over the trees. It circled the park twice and then landed close to me, the blast of wind from the rotors covering me in dust, potato chip packets and candy wrappers. This case had certainly found diverse and interesting ways of getting me dirty.</p><p>Peeling away a potato chip packet that had stuck to my forehead, I watched as Aladdin and my good friend Gruff alighted from the 'copter. The wind from the rotors didn't appear to affect Aladdin in the slightest. Nothing stuck to his suit, and his hair moved so little it must have been glued to his head. If nothing else, the man had style in spades.</p><p>'Mr Aladdin.' I stretched out my trotter. 'Glad you could make it at such short notice.' I didn't acknowledge Gruff and, strangely, he didn't offer to shake my trotter either.</p><p>Aladdin gave my trotter a perfunctory shake. 'Mr Pigg. I a.s.sume from your call that you have my lamp.'</p><p>'It's nearby and very safe,' I replied. 'Please be patient and you'll have it back shortly.'</p><p>From the look he gave me, patience clearly wasn't going to be top of Aladdin's order of business for the day. I hoped that Edna was going to arrive soon as I didn't know how long Aladdin's fuse was.</p><p>Fortunately, the Wicked Witch of the West Side was as anxious to recover the lamp as everyone else. A long line of stretch limos snaked from the main entrance of the park to where we waited. A small army (in both size and number) of henchOrcs disgorged from the cars and took up positions around us.</p><p>Two very large minders in black tuxedos and sungla.s.ses squeezed themselves out of a large black Merc and stood beside the rear door as Edna made her entrance. These bodyguards exuded menace and were the kind of muscle that would still look intimidating dressed in pink tutus. They stood at either side of Edna as she walked towards us, their faces (at least what I could see of them behind the shades) expressionless. When they got closer I could see they were actually gorillas (as in silverbacks and mutual grooming). Clearly Edna relied on minders that were a little bit more effective than Ogre Security (Not On Our Watch). Her gorillas were the genuine article.</p><p>Aladdin and Edna both eyed each other warily. Clearly both wanted to know what the other was doing here, but neither was going to be the first to ask. They had their pride. I let them posture and sweat for a bit longer just to show who was nominally in charge, but primarily because I was thinking of a thousand ways how my plan (which seemed so foolproof last night) might, in the light of day, actually blow up in my face now that all the key players were here.</p><p>Edna broke the silence first.</p><p>'Harry Pigg again,' she sneered. 'And smelling so much nicer than when we last met. Care to tell me what we're all doing here?'</p><p>'A very good question, Mr Pigg.' Aladdin looked at me steadily. 'More to the point, do you have my lamp?'</p><p>'Your lamp?' exclaimed Edna, turning her attention to Aladdin. 'No way, pal. It's my lamp.'</p><p>Aladdin took a step towards her and the two bouncers suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his way. I was interested to see that Gruff was keeping himself a safe distance away from his master, which was quite understandable, considering the size of Edna's minders, but hardly a career-enhancing move. Unless he backed up his employer, it was quite possible his next job could be propping up a bridgefrom inside the concrete support. Mr Aladdin had certain expectations of his employees.</p><p>'Ma'am,' said Aladdin, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture, 'I a.s.sure you the lamp is mine. In fact, I employed Mr Pigg here,' and he waved an arm in my direction, 'to locate it for me.' He looked at me again. 'And you have found it, haven't you?' he said levelly. 'Because I really hope you didn't bring me to this accursed place at this unearthly hour of the day for any other reason.'</p><p>Despite my best effort I was now the centre of attention and that was the last place I wanted to be. Beads of sweat formed on my brow.</p><p>Edna took a few steps towards me. 'Well, Pigg, is this true? Is it his lamp?'</p><p>I coughed nervously and cleared my throat.</p><p>'OK folks,' I stammered. 'Let me explain. Now if you could all step back a small bit and give me some room, I'll begin.'</p><p>I didn't really need the room; I just wanted to be able to see where Jack was hiding.</p><p>Everyone shuffled back slowly, muttering and giving me foul looks. If this didn't work, chances were I'd become the b.o.o.by prize in a turf-war between Aladdin and Edna and I really didn't fancy my head being mounted over the fireplace of the winner.</p><p>'Ladies, gentlemen, foul-smelling Orcs, very muscular simian bodyguards and offensive goat,' I began. 'Let me tell you a little story.</p><p>'Once upon a time, a very rich man had a magic lamp that he treasured above all else. One night the lamp was stolen by person or persons unknown and, through a series of bizarre circ.u.mstances, ended up in the hands of another of our foremost citizens.' I nodded towards Edna, who just continued to scowl at me.</p><p>I know, I know; I was piling it on with a trowel but I had to keep both of them sweet for a little while longer.</p><p>'Now this lady,' I nodded at Edna, the word 'lady' sticking in my throat, 'a.s.sumed that the lamp was now her property, possession being nine-tenths of the law and all that.</p><p>'Unfortunately, the original owner of the lamp employed the town's foremost detective to track it down and return it.' For some reason there was much coughing, clearing of throats and disbelieving glances at this statementI can't imagine why.</p><p>'Through prodigious feats of deduction,' more coughing, 'he tracked down and recovered the missing lamp and can now return it to its rightful owner.'</p><p>I looked straight at where Jack was hiding and nodded my head. I caught a glimpse of him as he bent down and began to cover the lamp in mud. When the lamp was liberally smeared, he cautiously made his way towards me, holding it carefully in both hands.</p><p>'Tell me, Mr Aladdin,' I asked, 'what do you most wish for right now?'</p><p>As I waited for his reply, I took the lamp from Jack and handed it to him. He looked at it aghast.</p><p>'For goodness sake, Pigg. Could you not have cleaned it before you handed it back?'</p><p>Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed a handkerchief and began cleaning the lamp.</p><p>I was sweating profusely nowlike a pig, in fact. The success of my plan depended on the next few minutes.</p><p>'I'm sorry, Mr Aladdin, I just hadn't time. I wanted to get it back to you as soon as I could. But you haven't answered my question.'</p><p>He continued rubbing the lamp furiously, oblivious to the plume of white smoke that was beginning to pour from the nozzle.</p><p>'Oh yes, your question,' he said. 'What I really wish for most right now is to find out who stole my lamp and why.'</p><p>There was a loud crack and the white smoke solidified into a very large and very happy-looking genieall turban, silk trousers and a cone of smoke where his feet should have been.</p><p>'BEHOLD, I AM THE GENIE OF THE LAMP,' he bellowed. 'AND YOUR THIRD WISH SHALL BE GRANTED. IT WAS I WHO STOLE YOUR LAMP.'</p><p>Aladdin looked at him in horror and with dawning comprehension. He'd been had.</p><p>I turned quickly to Jack while everyone was looking in astonishment at the genie.</p><p>'Jack, now!' I roared.</p><p>Quickly, Jack ran to Aladdin and, before he could react, had grabbed the lamp and flung it at me. Catching it skilfully, I quickly rubbed it again.</p><p>The genie looked at me and his smile grew even broader.</p><p>'I AM THE GENIE OF THE LAMP. YOU HAVE THREE WISHES. WHAT IS YOUR BIDDING, MY MASTER?'</p><p>I took a deep breath and in a very loud voiceto ensure everyone could hearoutlined my first wish.</p><p>'I wish that if, as a result of this case, any harm should come to me or any of my a.s.sociates at the hands of either Aladdin or Edna, or anyone connected with them for that matter, both will suffer cruel and unusual punishmentsuch punishment at the genie's discretion.' Granted, it was a mouthful but I needed to cover all the bases.</p><p>The genie bowed deeply.</p><p>'YOUR WISH IS GRANTED.'</p><p>From the horrified look on their faces, I could see that both Edna and Aladdin clearly understood what had happened. I was safe from any retaliation by either of them and, in the context of what had happened in this case, that had understandably been my first priority. I was untouchableat least by themand was savouring the moment. But I wasn't finished yet.</p><p>'My second wish is that, after thousands of years of imprisonment at the hands of selfish masters, the genie is to set himself free.'</p><p>The genie bowed even more deeply and waved his arms theatricallyobviously playing to his audience.</p><p>'YOUR WISH IS GRANTED.'</p><p>As he said this, the smoke began to drift away on the wind and, from his knees down, the rest of his legs began to materialise. Slowly he descended to the ground and landed carefully, testing his balance. Satisfied that he could at least stand without falling over (if not actually walk) he smiled at me and nodded his grat.i.tude.</p><p>'I thank you, sir, from the bottom of my heart. For too long have I been in thrall to masters who have used me for their own devices with no thought for my wishes. Now I am free and shall be no man's slave from here on in.'</p><p>I didn't want to point out to him that now that he was free he'd have to get a job. I wondered what skills he did have but imagined that being an ex-genie wouldn't necessarily endear him to potential employers. I also noticed that he wasn't shouting in block capitals any morepresumably another advantage of being a free man, and one that wasn't quite as hard on the ears of anyone within a ten-mile radius.</p><p>As he spoke I noticed Edna nod to her gorillas. They surrept.i.tiously made their way towards me, trying (not very successfully it has to be said) to be un.o.btrusive. As they advanced I began to back away ever so slowly. As I did so, the genie shook his head and, with a slight wave of his hand, motioned for me to stop.</p><p>I gave him a 'you must be joking; have you seen who's coming after me' look but he nodded more emphatically. As he did so I noticed that as the heavies got to about ten feet from me, they suddenly shrank to the size of garden gnomes. I suddenly became very brave and raised my foot to stomp down on them. Squealing in fear they ran back towards Edna and, as they did so, they quickly grew back to their original height. My enthusiasm for squashing them evaporated, primarily because they were now more than capable of squashing me first.</p><p>I looked at the genie in confusion.</p><p>'It's very simple,' he said. 'Even though I'm free and no longer capable of magic, any spell I've already cast remains in force. If either of them,' he nodded at Edna and Aladdin, 'tries to harm you, or employs someone to do so, they will suffer most unpleasant consequences indeed.'</p><p>I smiled at my sudden invulnerability.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-81114540506466565062022-08-15T09:49:00.000-07:002022-08-15T09:49:00.188-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 6If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 6 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>'How long do you think we should give him?' said the first voice again.</p><p>'I dunno,' replied the second. 'But I know I'm getting bored just waiting here. The fun is going out of it.'</p><p>'Let's not wait any more,' said the first voice again. 'Let's just do it now.'</p><p>'OK. On a count of three: one...two...three.'</p><p>Before I had a chance to make any kind of sense of the conversation, the door swung open and two pairs of hands reached out and grabbed me. Hauling me into the room, they threw me unceremoniously to the floor where I lay panting, aching, smelling and trying to get my bearings.</p> <p>'Well, paint my backside green and call me a goblin,' said a loud and very familiar voice from right in front of me. 'If it isn't Harry Pigg, c.r.a.p detective and failed burglar. I don't think I've ever seen anyone take so long to pick a lock. What kept you?'</p><p>My eyes ran slowly up past two legs so fat they were doing GBH to a pair of green stretch trousers. They traversed a torso that suggested its owner enjoyed several square meals a day (quite possibly a few circular, triangular and oval ones as well) and up to a face that defined new levels of ugliness, even for a witch. Imagine Jabba the Hutt with bright red lipstick and a long off-blonde straggly wig and you may get some idea of just how repulsive Ednafor it was sheactually was.</p><p>She grinned at me, which was a particularly unpleasant experience as it showed off a mouth with teeth that varied in shades of yellow and green, and that gave off a breath so unpleasant that I almost smelled good in comparison.</p><p>'There I was, wondering exactly what was so special about that lamp I took from Benny when suddenly you appear, stinking to high heaven and apparently eager to take it back.' She looked me straight in the eyeor at least as straight as someone whose eyeb.a.l.l.s rotated in two different directions couldand leaned forward so our faces were almost touching. 'Looks like you're the man who can answer this most intriguing of questions. What a timely arrival, eh?'</p><p>She was about to slap me enthusiastically on the shoulder but quickly reconsidered when she saw what I was coated in.</p><p>She turned to the two henchOrcs who had dragged me into the room. They were small but very mean-looking.</p><p>'Tie him to a chair and hose him down,' she ordered. 'I'm not asking him questions until he smells better than he does now.'</p><p>She walked towards the door and, as she opened it, she appeared to have an afterthought.</p><p>'Oh and I'm going for a bath, boys,' she said with a malicious gleam in the eye that was currently looking at me. 'So no need to use up all the hot water on him, is there?' And with a long, loud and unpleasantly mocking laugh, she left the room.</p><p>10.</p><p>Anyone for Pizza?.</p><p>As you can imagine, it doesn't take too long for two very burly henchOrcs to tie a relatively defenceless pig securely to a chaireven a pig that they had to keep at arm's length owing to the smell. And there was going to be none of that slowly working the trotters free while being interrogated either. These guys were pros in the tying-up game. My trotters had been tied to each other, then to my body and then to the chair. I felt my extremities begin to go numb as the ropes constricted the flow of blood. The only way I was going to free myself was by diligent use of a chainsaw and there didn't appear to be one conveniently to hand. I had been trussed up more securely than Hannibal Lecter; all I was missing was the hockey mask.</p><p>While the goons located a long hose and began running it out of the room and down to the nearest bathroom, I took the opportunity to have a closer look at my surroundings. As I expected, bearing in mind what had just happened to me, the lamp was nowhere to be seen. The room itself was relatively bare. All it contained were a few chairs, a long table and what looked like a drinks cabinet. Considering where Aladdin had kept the lamp, this room was a bit of a surprise. I had expected more hi-tech surveillance and security systems.</p><p>A large oval mirror hung from the wall directly opposite me (presumably deliberately, so I could see just how bad I looked). Without going into too much detail, my skin was no longer a fetching shade of pink and the new coloration wasn't entirely due to bruising. What was left of my Orc costume was sodden and covered in a variety of strange substances that didn't warrant a more detailed forensic examination.</p><p>It looked as though whoever had supplied the plans to Mr Big had led him up the garden path (and into the garden shed whereupon they had hit him across the back of the head with a shovel), as there certainly wasn't any sign of a lamp here.</p><p>Even I couldn't figure out how to rescue myself from this particular predicament. Apart from the unpleasant experience of being hosed down with cold water, I also had the pleasure of Edna's interrogation to look forward toand I was a.s.suming this was going to be a little bit more intense than just having a bright light shone in my eyes while she shouted 'you will answer the questions' at me.</p><p>I was still looking around the room when the Orcs came back in. From the expression on their faces, it appeared as though they were relishing the thought of hosing me down. Can't say I blamed them; I was looking forward to a shower myselfalbeit a somewhat hotter one than the one I was about to receive.</p><p>Grinning at each other, the two henchOrcs lifted the hose, aimed it at me and began to twist the nozzle. I turned away to shield my face and braced myself for the freezing deluge. There was silence, then two loud clangs in quick succession and the sound of the nozzle hitting the ground. After another brief pause this was followed by two more thudsthis time slightly further apart and much heavier. More importantly, I didn't seem to be getting wet.</p><p>I looked around very slowly and not without some trepidation as I had no idea what had just happened. To my utter amazement, both Orcs were lying unconscious on the ground. Standing over them, wielding a large metal legpresumably borrowed from one of the suits of armour outsidewas a very satisfied-looking Jack Horner.</p><p>'Jack,' I asked, somewhat stunned at this unexpected turn of events, 'what are you doing here?'</p><p>'Hey Mr Pigg,' he said cheerfully, 'I'm rescuing you. I told you you'd need my help.'</p><p>'But how did you find me?' I asked weakly.</p><p>'C'mon Mr Pigg,' he replied. 'You smell very strongly of shi...I mean poo. How difficult do you think it was to find you? I just had to follow my nose. Anyway, you left a trail of muddy footprints all over the building. It was easy.'</p><p>'And you got in how exactly?'</p><p>'Almost as easy. After I followed you here, I just bought a pizza from the takeaway around the corner, stuck a red hat on my head, called to the front door and said I was delivering a super pepperoni to Grazgkh. There's always a Grazgkh around, it's the Orc version of Joe.'</p><p>And I was supposed to be the detective!</p><p>'Then I just made my way up through the building, following your trail,' he continued, obviously enjoying himself. 'These Orcs aren't too observant, are they? Not one noticed me all the way up. Then I crept up behind those two guys and hit them over the head with this leg.' He swung it around with some relish. 'They were so busy with the hose they never heard me.'</p><p>'Good work, Jack,' I said. 'Now, can you untie me and we can get the h.e.l.l out of here before someone discovers I've escaped.'</p><p>'Righty-o,' he replied and went behind me to untangle the spaghetti of knots that bound me to the chair.</p><p>After a few minutes I still hadn't noticed any relieving flow of blood coursing back into my numb trotters.</p><p>'How are things going back there, Jack?' I asked.</p><p>'Not too good, Mr Pigg,' Jack replied. 'I can't seem to get these knots undone.'</p><p>'Well, try to find something that you can use to cut the ropes,' I said, scanning the room for anything that might have a sharp edge. 'But hurry. I'm sure Edna will be back soon, suitably refreshed, smelling very nice and eager to inflict pain.'</p><p>Jack began searching the room frantically, shifting bits of furniture aside as he looked for anything that might be used to set me free. As he searched I struggled to loosen the knots but my efforts were as fruitless as his. I could see that he was beginning to panic so I tried to calm him down.</p><p>'Take it easy, Jack. You need to calm down and focus. There must be something here we can use.'</p><p>'But I can't see anything, Mr Pigg.'</p><p>As I looked around the room yet again, I caught my reflection in the mirror. Inspiration struck meand it was probably the only thing that had struck me recently that hadn't hurt me in some form or another.</p><p>'Jack,' I said urgently. 'Take that thing you hit the goblins with and throw it at the mirror. Cover your eyes as you do.'</p><p>After a moment's incomprehension, Jack suddenly understood and, grabbing the metal leg, he flung it at his reflection. There was a loud crash and shards of gla.s.s flew in all directions. When the noise died down, Jack slowly brought his arm away from his eyes and scanned the floor for a suitable piece of gla.s.s. He picked up a shard so big and sharp it looked like it could have beheaded an elephant and, with great care, began sawing at the ropes. As they began to fall to the ground, I could hear what sounded like a small army pounding across the floor overhead. Someone (or lots of someones) was coming to investigate the noise and I really didn't fancy being here when they arrived.</p><p>'Come on, Jack,' I muttered. 'Speed it up, speed it up.'</p><p>'I'm going as fast as I can,' he replied, panting from the effort. 'I don't want to cut my hands.'</p><p>'Cut hands will be the least of your worries if we don't get out of here soon.' As I spoke, the ropes binding my trotters fell to the floor. Despite the pain as the blood rushed back in, I grabbed the gla.s.s off Jack and attacked the other ropes binding me. The sharp edge cut cleanly through them and I stood upa little bit unsteady but ready to accelerate out of the room as fast as I could.</p><p>'Good work, Jack. Now let's not be here.' I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door. As we were halfway across the room he stopped unexpectedly, almost pulling me off balance. I turned to him. He was looking at the broken or in fascination.</p><p>'Jack, what are you doing? We don't have time for admiring our reflections.' I was on the point of lifting him onto my shoulders and carrying him out when I saw what he was looking at. What he had broken wasn't a mirror; it was a door cleverly disguised as a mirror. With the gla.s.s surface now all over the floor we could see into the room beyond and sitting on a shelf (along with what I suspected was a lot of very expensive and probably very stolen artifacts) was what looked like Aladdin's lamp. It certainly looked battered enough.</p><p>'Nice one, Jack, I take it back. Get to the door and tell me when the ravening hordes charge down the corridor. If I'm quick enough we may be able to grab the lamp before they get here.'</p><p>Jack peered cautiously around the door.</p><p>'Nothing out there yet,' he reported, 'but there's definitely someone coming. I can hear lots of grunting, stomping and shouting. Hurry up.'</p><p>Very cautiously, so as not to cut myself on the jagged edges that were still embedded in the rim, I sidled through the doorway and into the storeroom beyond. Not even pausing to look at what other goodies might be on the shelves, I grabbed the lamp, stuffed it into my wetsuit and reversed just as carefully back out again. Once I was safely back out of the storeroom, I ran out the door, dragging Jack by the scruff of the neck as I went. Together we ran back down the corridor towards the stairs. As we did so, a horde of Orcs brandishing an interesting array of sharp and pointy objects came around the corner at the opposite end. Immediately spotting us (not that it was too difficult) they roared angrily and gave chase.</p><p>Fortunately for us, there were so many of them and the corridor was so narrow that they fell over each other in their eagerness to catch us. This slowed them down enough that we were able to get to the stairs. The two Orcs that manned the guard post on the landing tried to block our way but my impetus, speed and bulk bowled them easily aside and they tumbled down the stairs in front of us.</p><p>Tucking Jack under one arm, I threw a leg over the banister and slid down, trying to maintain what was a very precarious balance. For once, Jack didn't treat it as a theme park ride; presumably he was as scared as I was. The banister itself spiralled down in wide arcs all the way to the ground floor so I had no hairpin bends to navigate, which was probably just as well because with the rate we were accelerating, any sudden departure from the stairs would probably have resulted in us splattering against the wall at the far side of the room. Spotting a number of Orcs running up the stairs towards us I yelled at Jack to hold out his metal leg (which he'd shown the good foresight to hold on to) and he cut a swathe through them as we pa.s.sed, their bodies cascading down the stairs like ugly skittles.</p><p>We reached the ground floor and flew off the end of the banister. Fortunately, the thick carpet broke our fall and we avoided a collision with any of the furniture. Dizzy but otherwise unhurt, we staggered to our feet and ran through the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Grabbing the leg from Jack, I placed one end on the ground and wedged the other under the door handle. It wasn't going to hold our pursuers at bay for long but might give us enough of a lead to enable us to get to the drain safely.</p><p>As we charged recklessly down another flight of stairs there was a very satisfactory thump as the first of our pursuers. .h.i.t the door, followed by more thumps and much shouting as the rest of the pack hit it (and the leading Orcs) with equal force.</p><p>'Quickly, Jack, let's go,' I urged. 'It won't hold them up for long.'</p><p>Jack nodded and picked up speed. Now he was beginning to leave me behind. Willing my body to one last effort, I caught up with him and we ran for the manhole. As we reached it, there was a loud splintering from behind us as the door finally gave way. We only had minutes before the Orcs reached us. Grabbing Jack, I threw him into the tunnel and dropped down behind him.</p><p>'Go, go, go,' I roared.</p><p>Jack disappeared down the tunnel and I followed as fast as I could. Thankfully, someonemost probably Ednahad taken a bath since my last pa.s.sage through the drain, as it wasn't quite as unpleasant as previously, making our progress relatively more comfortable than before. In front of me, Jack was sliding away down the tunnel and I tried pigfully to keep up with him. Behind me I could hear voices raised in argument as the Orcs decided whether or not to follow us.</p><p>'You go first,' said one.</p><p>'Me? I'm not going in there,' said another in reply.</p><p>'Ma'am will be very angry.'</p><p>'Well you go, then.'</p><p>'I'll go if you go first.'</p><p>As is usual with Orcs in these situations, they then started squabbling and this soon erupted into a fully blown brawl. Orcs are good like thatlow attention spans but high animosity. By the time we reached the main sewer, they'd probably have either all killed each other or forgotten all about who they were chasing in the first place. We made our way through the water back to the ladder and climbed up to the street.</p><p>As we headed back to the car, it struck me that Edna would be somewhat miffed that I had stolen back the lamp. She would be probably even more annoyed that she hadn't had the chance to slap me around a bit. I figured it wouldn't take her too long to track me downespecially as both my apartment and office were in the phone book.</p><p>I was going to have to come up with a plan to resolve this dilemma and this had to be the plan to beat all plans. In fact, this one had to be a doozy or I was quite possibly going to end up revisiting the sewersthis time face down and probably not breathing.</p><p>11.</p><p>I Have a Cunning Plan!.</p><p>With Jack safely dropped off home, I decided to lie low to try to avoid detection by all the various factions that were by now, presumably, scouring the town for meand that didn't come any lower than the Humpty Inn chain of hotels. It was the cheapest and least reputable hotel chain in town. If they were any seedier you could have used them to feed birds. Fortunately, their very seediness meant that they were the perfect place to hide out as no one noticed, or even cared about, who was in the rooms.</p><p>Comfort wasn't high on the list of facilities offered by the hotel. The bed felt like it was made of rocks, there was a strange fungus growing on one of the walls and, yes, the room was lit up by the garish purple light from the neon sign that ran vertically along the front of the building and flashed on and off at regular intervals. The curtains didn't do much to block this light out as they looked to be made out of tissue paper.</p><p>The room had one very important feature, howevera working bathroom. Despite the imminent threat to my person, the first order of business was a long, hot, luxurious shower. I have to say I wallowed. If someone had broken in and pointed a gun at me, I'd have told them to get on with it and died a happy pig. Of such little pleasures is life made.</p><p>After my shower, and smelling a lot better, I sat at the wobbly dresser and studied the lamp carefully. It was as battered as its photograph suggested. The amount of dents in the metal suggested it had had a long and interesting historyquite a bit of which seemed to involve it being used as a football. It was so tarnished it was hard to make out what its original colour was. Try as I might, I couldn't open the lid. Although it didn't look to be sealed shut in any way, it just would not lift. I tried using a knife but it wouldn't budge. It was one stubborn lid.</p><p>There were no markings of any type on the surface, or at least none that I could see. I did contemplate dropping it in a fire to see if the flames revealed any mysterious writings but I didn't actually have a fireplace and I figured that a match wouldn't be quite as effective. In all probability, the room was so flammable even lighting a match would have caused it to catch fire.</p><p>I put the lamp on the dresser and stared at it. Then I stared at it some more and, just as I was about to give up, I stared at it especially hard. It didn't make any difference; it still sat there mocking me with its dullness and downright shabbiness.</p><p>Then I had a really outrageous idea: what if I rubbed it? What was there to lose? There was certainly a lot to gain, a.s.suming the rumours were true. If all went according to legend then I was on the point of leaving all my troubles behind. Wealth beyond my wildest dreams was within my grasp. No more worries; no more Aladdin, mysterious stranger or Edna. And that could be a real result rather than just a turn of phrase.</p><p>The more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me. What could possibly go wrong? I figured that the more I thought about it the more likely I was to talk myself out of it. Best be decisive and take immediate action.</p><p>I grabbed the lamp with my left trotter. It wasn't easy but I managed it. Holding it level with my eyes I contemplated it one last time; it was still as dingy and battered as before. I slowly raised my right arm and, taking a deep breath, I brought the lamp towards my trotter and when they touched, I rubbed the surface furiously.</p><p>There was a...well...nothing actually. No sudden clap of thunder. No flash of light. No puff of smoke. No intimidating eastern gentleman with a trail of vapour where his lower legs should be. No deep and terrifying voice shouting 'I am the Genie of the Lamp. What are your wishes, my Lord?'</p><p>Nothing!</p><p>The lamp still sat there silently mocking both my efforts and me. Either that or it wasn't as highly positioned on the alchemical plane as had previously been speculated. With a grunt, I flung it back on the dresser and headed for the bed. As I prepared for what looked like a very uncomfortable night's sleep, I took one last look back. Something about the shape of the lamp tried to trigger a thought at the back of my mind. My mind, however, was refusing to play ball and the door marked 'Free a.s.sociation' stayed resolutely shut. In the off chance that my subconscious would do what my waking mind couldn't, I stumbled into the bed, pulled the flimsy blankets over me and was asleep in seconds.</p><p>I was also awake within seconds as the synapses in my brainthat had steadfastly refused to work earlierset off a chain reaction that jolted me back to full consciousness. I sat bolt upright in the bed with a large grin on my face.</p><p>'You are so clever,' I shouted gleefully. 'No wonder you wanted to steal the lamp. If it was me, I'd probably have done the same. Any wonder it didn't work when I rubbed it.'</p><p>The beginnings of a really dastardly plan began to form in my mind as I tried to figure out where the nearest Internet cafe was. As I dressed, I thought I heard a noise from the corridor outside my room. I padded carefully to the door and put my ear against the wood. Fortunately, the quality of the workmanship was as poor as everything else in the hotel. The door was so thin I could hear clearly what was happening on the other side. As per usual, it didn't bode well for me.</p><p>'Is this the room?' whispered a voicevery low and very guttural; very Orcish, in fact.</p><p>'Yeah, he only checked in an hour ago,' replied a second voice I recognised as the concierge from downstairs. So much for anonymity. Obviously Edna's grapevine was very efficient. Once he'd heard she was looking for a pig, it didn't take the concierge too long to make both the obvious connection and the inevitable phone call and no doubt pocket the reward.</p><p>As I was only seconds from having a horde of Orcs explode into my room I had to think very fast. I grabbed the dresser and pulled it in front of the door. It wouldn't be a barricademore a minor hindrancebut it might give me a few seconds' head start. Grabbing the lamp, I ran to the window, forced it open and prepared to drop onto the fire escape that I realised at the last minute wasn't there. Well, I did say it was a seedy hotel and safety regulations obviously weren't high on management's list of priorities. As I quickly tried to formulate a Plan B, there was a splintering noise from the opposite side of the room and the door was reduced to matchwood under the onslaught of a variety of crude swords and axes although, in fairness, you could probably have broken it down with a rubber knife without too much effort.</p><p>The horde swarmed into the roomor at least would have if they hadn't, yet again, fallen over each other in their eagerness to get me. It appeared that Madame Edna had placed a very high bounty on my head.</p><p>'There he is,' growled one, stating the very obvious as they could hardly have missed me sitting on the window ledge. 'Get him.'</p><p>There was only one thing for it. Taking a deep breath, I swung my legs over the ledge and threw myself at the neon sign. My luck was in and I managed to grab the crossbar of the letter 'T' in Humpty. My luck wasn't in for long, however, as, with a screech of metal, the whole letter detached from the wall and slowly fell outwards and downwards. Like a demented stuntman, with my skin glowing purple, I clung on for dear life wondering if the rest of the letters would stay fixed to the wall. My question was quickly answered as, to my total lack of surprise, the other letters advertising the hotel slowly peeled away from the hotel wall and down towards the ground in a gigantic neon arc.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-16375555046327624682022-08-14T04:03:00.000-07:002022-08-14T04:03:00.189-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 5If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 5 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>I nodded weakly as I could see where this was going and I didn't need a map to give me directions.</p><p>'I think I now need to utilise the resources of a more accomplished craftsman to reacquire the lamp and you will probably not be surprised when I tell you that I have chosen you, Mr Pigg.'</p><p>I opened my mouth to object with whatever reasons I could think of but before I could even come up with 'Scintillating Excuse Number One to Avoid Locating a Stolen Lamp', I was interrupted.</p><p>'I will, of course, not tolerate any refusal on your part,' said the voice with an uncanny sense of antic.i.p.ation. 'My need for this lamp is far greater than your need to refuse and I can change you into anything I choose should you prove to be difficult.'</p><p>Now I was getting paranoid. There was a definite trend here and it wasn't one I was particularly enamoured with. Why was everyone suddenly so intent on hiring me and, when I expressed any kind of reluctance, quite prepared to use very effective threats of bodily harm to compel me to agree to work for them? Was I really that good, or was I just that unlucky? Was it possible for anyone to be that unlucky? Maybe I just had that kind of face.</p> <p>Whatever the reason, it now looked like I had two clients, both of whom wanted the same thing and one of them was now telling me I had to steal back an already stolen lamp from one of our most ruthless criminals or face an unpleasant, but as yet undefined, alternative. With my imagination, however, I could think of quite a few 'alternatives', none of which were remotely attractive and none of which I particularly wanted to face. It looked like I was about to add breaking and entering to my already extensive set of skills.</p><p>'OK,' I said, resigning myself to the inevitable. 'What do I have to do?'</p><p>The whirring sound increased in volume and a large amount of paper was ejected from one of the printers at the high-tech end of the room. From what I could see, it was building plans of some kind.</p><p>'Blueprints of Madame Edna's building,' confirmed the voice. 'My understanding is that the lamp is in a room on the third floor, securely under lock and key. Unfortunately, security in the building is, by definition, rather tight. This means, of course, that it will be difficult to find a means of access that won't be guarded in some way. I, however, have a high degree of confidence that, if undetected access can be found, then you are just the pig to find it. I would suggest that, if you are successful, you should reflect on the options available to you and, perhaps, the recovery of the lamp may not be as difficult as it first appears.'</p><p>Great, now he was talking in riddles as well. I grabbed the sheaf of papers and looked at the ceiling.</p><p>'In the off chance that I do manage to get the lamp back, how do I contact you again?'</p><p>'You don't,' came the reply. 'I shall contact you.'</p><p>'Great,' I said, with a considerable lack of enthusiasm. 'Can I go now?'</p><p>There was another loud bang and a.s.sociated white light. When my head cleared I found myself back outside the Blarney Tone, staring into Benny's ugly mug. As Messrs Lewis and Carroll were still in close proximity it mitigated against his taking advantage of my disorientation. When asked, they confirmed that I had disappeared from right in front of their eyes, had been absent for about ten minutes, and then reappeared in exactly the same spot.</p><p>This had been one of the strangest days of my life and I should know; I've had quite a few. I decided it was time to cut my losses and plan for tomorrow before things got any weirder.</p><p>I turned to Benny. 'Benny, stick to the day job and give up burglary.' I paused for a moment and reconsidered. 'On second thoughts give up the day job as well. You suck at it. And while we're on the subject, please don't ever let me see you within a mile of me, or my a.s.sociates here may play with your neck again.'</p><p>Benny went pale but nodded in agreement.</p><p>'Very good, Benny; you're a quick study.'</p><p>He disappeared up the street so fast I was impressed with his powers of recovery.</p><p>Satisfied that they were no longer required, Lewis and Carroll disappeared back into the darkness.</p><p>Clutching the plans I'd been given, I trudged slowly home to formulate some way that would allow me to enter Edna's base of operations, steal back the lamp from under her very prominent witch's nose, escape undetected and return it to one of its alleged owners, while trying to keep the other alleged owner from doing something unpleasant to me.</p><p>Easy!.</p><p>8.</p><p>A Brief Interlude in which Harry Doesn't Get.</p><p>Threatened or Beaten up by Anyone.</p><p>In the relative safety of my apartment I finally managed to find some time to consider the case.</p><p>None of it seemed to make any sense. The original theft was clearly an inside job because of the in-depth knowledge of the security systems, but I didn't figure either of the two possible suspects (Gruff or Aladdin) for it. Aladdin had no obvious need to steal his own lamp and was wealthy enough to suggest that an insurance scam wasn't high on his list of priorities. Gruff seemed to be too loyal to his employer to consider stealing the lamp and was probably only too aware of the likely consequences if he was found to have been responsible. There was n.o.body else in Aladdin's employ that had either the smarts or the access, so where did that leave me?</p><p>Well, I'd (sort of) met someone who claimed to have masterminded the job even if I didn't have the faintest idea who he was either. He seemed to fall into the criminal megalomaniac category Boy Blue had referred to, as he had all the tricks of the trade: deep dramatic voice, an impressive HQat least what I saw of itand a strong desire to show off. All he needed to complete the effect was a white Persian cat to sit in his lap and be petted constantlya.s.suming he actually had a lap.</p><p>Mind you, having used Benny as the actual thief also demonstrated a certain fallibility on his part. Maybe he wasn't as all-powerful as he thought. Of course, he was powerful enough to compel me into reacquiring the lamp for hima task I had to take somewhat seriously or suffer embarra.s.sing, if not downright unpleasant, consequences.</p><p>Heaving a sigh of such resignation that it would have evoked sympathy from a zombie, I resigned myself to my lot, rolled out the plans and studied them as best I could. I didn't know how Mr Big (I know, I know, tremendously cliched but I couldn't keep calling him by the more pretentious and even more unoriginal 'mysterious stranger' moniker now, could I?) had gotten the plans but they were incredibly detailed. Were there any premises in Grimmtown he didn't have an in-depth knowledge of?</p><p>The plans, however, confirmed what I had already suspected: all access to Edna's residence was controlled by yet more sophisticated and, no doubt, very effective security systems. Complementing these were somewhat less sophisticatedbut no less effectiveguards who were, in all probability, armed with a variety of interesting instruments of pain. The only way I was going in the front door was as the main ingredient in a Chinese takeawayand that was a step that I was, understandably, very reluctant to take.</p><p>The more I studied the plans, the more unlikely the prospect of recovering the lamp became. I could see no way in that avoided me being detected and if I couldn't get in then my career as Grimmtown's foremost detective would come to a premature end.</p><p>I was about to ball the plans up and fling them in the garbage when I noticed a small tunnel I hadn't seen before. At first glance, it looked like it led into one of the lower levels of the house from under the street. Upon closer examination, it became clear that it didn't lead into the house as such. Rather, its primary function was to take some unpleasant material away from the house. Yes, you've guessed it; if I was to successfully enter the house undetected, I was going to have to do it via the sewage outlet. Yet another lucky break for me, eh? And if I actually managed to get into the building, I still had to navigate my way to where the lamp was kept, find some way of taking it and make my way back out againall without alerting anybody. No problem!</p><p>Ah well, may as well be hung for a boar as for a piglet. All it needed was a little bit of careful preparation, a ma.s.sive slice of good luck, no one to flush suddenly and I might yet get out of this smelling of roses (or possibly not, bearing in mind what I was going to have to crawl through).</p><p>I reached for the phone as, once more, I was going to have to utilise the resources of another of my many contactsand I was well connected. There may have been a thinness on the ground when it came to my informants but, when I needed to lay my hands on 'stuff, I knew some people who knew some people who could source anything: from doork.n.o.bs to a tactical nuclear warhead.</p><p>Ezekiel Clubfoote was the man to go to for all your gumshoe shopping requirements. If he didn't have it, or couldn't get his hands on it, then chances were it didn't exist or you never really needed it in the first place. He had been an exceedingly poor shoemaker (from both a finance and quality perspective) some years back. Business had, consequently, been pretty bad but, on the brink of total ruin, he had allegedly made some deal with elves that rescued his career. Apparently, whatever raw material he left in the shop at close of business each day would have been transformed into high quality footwear by the next morning. Suddenly his shoes and, by extension, his services were in popular demand and in Grimmtown being in popular demand made you a very wealthy person indeed.</p><p>Not one to miss an opportunity, he experimented with leaving other materials out for the elves each night. No matter what he left out, the next morning he'd be presented with a finished product of some description. Put out some clayget high-cla.s.s porcelain. Leave some wood: an antique chair. From such small beginnings are large warehouses of equipmentand a thriving distribution companymade.</p><p>I dialled and waited. I didn't have to wait long.</p><p>'Yes?' came a very cultured voice from the other end of the phone.</p><p>'Zeke, it's Harry. I need something from your elves.'</p><p>'Of course you do. Big or small?'</p><p>'Not too big this time; I only need a lock pick, a wetsuit and an Orc costume.'</p><p>Considering the last time I had contacted him, I had looked for infrared gla.s.ses, four kangaroos, a machete and a rocket launcher (remind me to tell you sometime), a lock pick wasn't too excessive a demand.</p><p>'An Orc costume?' I imagined his eyes opening wide in surprise. 'There isn't really any such thing. It's more of a collection of smelly furs and skins held together by dirt and an occasional chain. You don't so much acquire one as have bits of one stick to you after rolling around in a rubbish tip.'</p><p>Considering what happened during my initial encounter with Benny, I knew what he meant.</p><p>'And what kind of lock will you be picking? And, no, I don't want to know the personal detailsjust the technical ones,' said Zeke.</p><p>'Well, there's the problem,' I replied. You see, I'm not really sure. I suspect that the door I have to open will more than likely be locked, but I have no idea how sophisticated this lock may be.'</p><p>'Hmmm, without knowing the details, I suspect that you'll need the Masterblaster. It's so good, a man, or indeed a pig, with no fingers could open any lock with it. It's a "Choice of the Month" in Lock Pickers Ill.u.s.trated and it doesn't come more highly recommended that that, let me tell you.'</p><p>I rolled my eyes upwards. He did so like his little sales pitches.</p><p>'Fine, fine. How soon can I have them?'</p><p>'Give me an hour. I need to make sure it's in my next run so I'll organise to have them dropped off to you as soon as I get them.'</p><p>'Thanks, Zeke. I owe you.'</p><p>'Yes, you do. And I'll collect.' Zeke hung up, leaving me with the dial tone for company.</p><p>While I waited for the equipment, I studied the plans some more. Edna's outlet (if you'll forgive the phrase) connected to a main sewer that serviced the entire block where her headquarters was located. Access to this larger sewer could be gained via a number of manholes; I just needed to find one that wasn't too public and just far enough away to avoid being seen by whatever surveillance systems she had in operation. Mind you, that was the easy part. After that I had to make my way up a very narrow tunnel and hope that the exit at the other end was a little larger than a U-bend.</p><p>In the short term, personal hygiene would be a thing of the past and a shower very much an aspirational goal until I had what I came fora.s.suming I managed to get that far in the first place.</p><p>I can't say I was particularly looking forward to the next few hours.</p><p>9.</p><p>Flushed with Success.</p><p>Of course, no matter how well I plan these jobs, there's always something. Well, have you ever tried to open a manhole using trotters? Let me tell you, it's not easy. For one thing, it's hard to get a grip on the rim. For another, manhole covers are heavy and, thirdly, I was on my own. Lastly, I was wearing a bright blue wetsuit (although it was so worn and full of holes it could be more accurately described as a dampsuit) under a foul-smelling collection of rags that could probably have represented the height of fashion from an Orc's perspective. All this, and I had to try not to appear too conspicuous as well. As a result, by the time I finally got the drain open (with the help of a tyre iron), my wetsuit had even more holes, my back hurt, and my skin was a darker shade of pink than usual from my exertions.</p><p>As I levered the manhole cover off, I lost my grip on it but, thanks to my quick reflexes and uncanny sense of self-preservation, I didn't lose any body parts as it fell heavily (and with a very loud clang) to the ground. Fortunately, as Edna's stronghold was in an area where the occasional loud noise wasn't an undue cause for concern, it didn't appear to have attracted any attention.</p><p>I shone my torch down the manhole and looked in carefully. At first glance, the sewers didn't look (or smell) too unpleasant. In actual fact they smelled better than me. This, I suspected, was largely because of the recent heavy rains, which had run off via storm drains and into the sewage system, effectively washing most of the unpleasant stuff away.</p><p>Now that was something to be thankful for.</p><p>Grabbing the top rung of a metal ladder that led from the street down into the sewers, I slowly and carefully made my descent. Arriving safely at the bottom I took my bearings with the help of the plans.</p><p>I was in a large tunnel that stretched off into the darkness in both directions. Smaller tunnels opened out from the walls as far as I could see but none, I was glad to note, seemed to be active. The only evidence of any discharge other than rainwater from these tunnels was a trail of green sc.u.m that dripped downwards towards the floor of the main sewer. Although I was ankle deep in liquid, it appeared to be mostly water. Then again, I had no intention of examining it too closely. What I didn't know, wouldn't hurt me.</p><p>I had a quick look at the plans, figured I had to go right and slowly made my way up the tunnel trying to keep the sloshing to a minimumjust in case. Although I wasn't entirely sure which of the smaller outlets led into Edna's HQ, it didn't take me long to figure it out. Not surprisingly, it was the one with the large securely-padlocked grille that covered the entire tunnel entrance. After a few pulls it was evident that this grille wasn't going to come away from the wall that easily.</p><p>'OK Harry,' I said to myself as I reached for the lock pick. 'Let's see how good the Masterblaster is.'</p><p>In fairness, I haven't had much cause to pick locks in the past. Any time I've had to 'enter' a residence without legally coming in via the front door, I've found that the old credit card trick so beloved of TV detectives actually worked. It was, therefore, no surprise that jiggling little iron pins in a keyhole wasn't quite as simple as it first appeared. No matter how I tweaked, twisted and pulled at the lock, it stubbornly refused to open. Even reverting to Plan Bswearing at the grilledidn't appear to have any effect either.</p><p>In total frustration I hit out at the lock with my torch. To my surprise the lock broke and fell to the ground in pieces. Years of rust and an application of brute strength had succeeded where subtlety and bad language had failed.</p><p>Of course, it wouldn't be a Harry Pigg case without something bad happening as well. In this instance, the breaking of the lock had also resulted in the unfortunate breaking of the torch. I now had to navigate my way through a sewage outlet and into Edna's lair in total darkness, using only my sense of touch (and possibly smell).</p><p>I felt for the grille and dragged it away from the entrance. Aware that I was now possibly within earshot of one of Edna's more alert henchbeasts, I struggled to keep it from falling to the groundwhich I managed to do at the expense of a large tear in my wetsuit and a pulled muscle in my shoulder. As if my job wasn't difficult enough already!</p><p>At least I was able to use the bars of the grille as a mini-ladder to lift myself into the smaller outlet. My shoulder objected strongly to being forced to help in dragging me up and into the tunnel but I managed to pull myself up without doing any additional damage.</p><p>This new tunnel was a tight squeeze and I was forced to crawl along, rubbing against the walls and roof as I did so. It was much narrower, much smellier and showed very distinct signs of much more frequent usage. Unpleasant substances stuck to my back and legs and I had no great urge to investigate what they actually were. In an effort to take my mind off my current situation, I pictured myself in a hot shower liberally applying sweet-smelling soap to my body. This seemed to work and I was wallowing in the imaginary sensation until my reverie was broken by a gurgling noise from somewhere up ahead.</p><p>'Oh no,' I said anxiously. 'Please don't let it be someone flushing. Anything but that.'</p><p>The gurgling grew noisier and it was joined by a loud flowing sound as something large and liquid made its way down towards me.</p><p>Frantically, I tried to reverse back down but in my panic I only succeeded in wedging myself tightly into the tunnel. Firmly stuck and unable to move, I could only close my eyes and mouth as a noxious brown liquid washed over (and under and around) me, covering me liberally in a foul-smelling residue.</p><p>Coughing and spluttering (and now smelling even worse than before), I tried to wipe my face clean but only succeeded in spreading the vile substance around even more. As there was no point in going back now, I slowly twisted and turned until I had forced myself free and gradually made my way up the tunnel again. Some things just shouldn't happen to a hard-working detective and getting liberally covered in raw sewage was most certainly one of them.</p><p>As I crawled slowly forward I saw a thin crack of light shining faintly through the roof ahead. Eager for any way of getting out of the tunnel, I struggled on. To my intense relief, the light came from where the side of a square metal drain cover wasn't flush (no pun intended) to the edge of a manhole. Hoping that I could push the cover off, I wedged my back underneath it and pushed upwards with all that was left of my strength. Slowly but surely it lifted away and slid off my back gently onto the floor above.</p><p>Muscles howling in pain, I hauled myself up and carefully peered over the edge. I was looking at a dimly lit corridor. From the dust on the floor, it wasn't one that was used too often so, thankful for one lucky break, I heaved myself out of the sewer and lay on the ground panting heavily, stretching my knotted muscles and trying to get my breath back. Now all I had to do was find the room where the lamp was kept, if the plans were to be believed, and steal it back.</p><p>I took the building plans from inside my wetsuit where I had stored them for safekeeping. Although stained with sweat and effluent they had escaped the worst of the deluge so I was able to work out where I was without too much difficulty.</p><p>If I was reading the plans correctly, I appeared to be in a bas.e.m.e.nt. I just needed to make my way to the stairs at the end of the pa.s.sageway, go up four levels, find the room halfway down a long corridor and take the lamp. Of course, I had no idea exactly how well protected the room was but at least I now knew how to get there. Limping slightly, smelling heavily of unmentionable substances and groaning as quietly as I could, I struggled towards the stairs.</p><p>If walking caused some discomfort then climbing the stairs was an exercise in agony. Every step upwards jarred another aching limb or my torn muscle. I felt as though I'd been skinned and roasted over a roaring fire. Everything burned or stung in some respect after my tunnel experience and, with my luck, there was no obvious hope of easing this agony in the near future.</p><p>When I eventually dragged myself to the top of the stairs, all I wanted to do was lie down and be mothered. As there wasn't a mother to be seen in the vicinity and as lying down would probably result in me not getting back up again for probably quite a few months, I willed myself to go on and through the door.</p><p>Fortunately, the door wasn't locked, as I probably wouldn't have been able to bend down to try my luck at another lock-picking attempt. Opening the door slightly as quietly as I could, I peered down the corridor. It looked more used than the one I'd just left but there didn't appear to be anyone on guard that I could see. Pushing the door open just enough to squeeze through I squelched carefully down the corridor towards the next flight of stairs.</p><p>I managed to climb three flights before meeting anyone. On the third floor landing two henchOrcs were standing guard. Now the reason for my cunning disguise could be revealed. Most of Edna's troops were Orcsnot too smart and not too alert but very handy in a fight. Looking like them, although a trifle larger, I might be able to make my way around the building without being too obvious.</p><p>I was about to find out how convincing my costume was. Keeping my head down, I shuffled towards the guards. As I got close, they recoiled at the smell. Good, at least they wouldn't look too closely. It also appeared as though I actually smelled worse than they didwhich in itself was quite an achievement and something that, in other circ.u.mstances, I might have taken some (but not a lot of) pride in.</p><p>I knew some very basic Orcishwhich to all intents and purposes sounds like a flu-ridden gorilla strangling a hyenaso when they hailed me I muttered something along the lines of being required on the third floor in order to relieve a sentry there. At least that's what I think I said; I could have just as easily asked the sentries for some hot, b.u.t.tered toast and a gla.s.s of dragon's blood. Sometimes it was difficult to get those choking sounds just right. I must have been convincing (or smelly) enough, as they let me pa.s.s without examining me too carefully. Can't say I blame them. If I had been on sentry duty, I wouldn't have been too eager to examine me either.</p><p>I made my way up another, and hopefully last, flight of stairs. At the top I paused for breath and to give my long-suffering body some respite. A long corridor, covered in a luxurious red carpet, stretched out in front of me. Suits of armour lined the corridor, one beside each door. With one exception, all the doors were made of very ornate patterned wood. The exception was the door behind which, presumably, all Edna's interesting stuff was kept.</p><p>I walked up to it. It looked like a standard metal security door: grey, impregnable and securely locked. Heaving yet another of my many sighs of resignation, I took the lock pick from my pocket, cleaned it as best I could and began to jiggle the levers in the keyhole.</p><p>After ten minutes or so it had become clear that I was never going to add breaking and entering to my long list of skills. My efforts to pick the lock had resulted in very sore trotters, a rising sense of frustration and a door that steadfastly refused to be unlocked. Maybe I was doing something wrong or maybe it was just that the Masterblaster wasn't actually the state-of-the-art tool I had been promised. In any event, I suspected that hitting the door with whatever implement was to hand wouldn't be quite as successful as it had been down in the sewer. As I sweated and struggled, I became aware of a conversation from behind the door.</p><p>'How's he doing?' said a rough-sounding male voice.</p><p>'Not too good,' came the reply. 'He's been out there for a quite a while now and he still hasn't managed it.'</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-48968370669052027722022-08-12T22:18:00.000-07:002022-08-12T22:18:00.178-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 4If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 4 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>There was a sudden screech of metal as the object I was investigating came off in my hand. With a loud shout, I fell back off the branch and plummeted to the ground. Fortunately for Jack I missed him when I landed. Unfortunately for me I also managed to miss anything remotely resembling a soft landing and hit the ground with a very unsatisfactory (from my viewpoint, at any rate) thud. As I groaned in pain and checked all extremities for damage for the second time in a day, I swore I could hear the ash tree sn.i.g.g.e.ring in tones so low I could feel my fillings vibrate. He was obviously enjoying a minor victory at my expense. As I'm not a petty pigbut more because there was a small boy in the vicinityI refrained from making an obscene gesture at him, although someone had once pointed out to me that it was very hard to make obscene gestures when you didn't have any fingers.</p><p>I was, by now, mastering the art of getting gingerly to my trotters so I managed it much better this time. Once I had dusted off the leaves and other debris, I examined the object, the removal of which had caused me to fall in the first place.</p><p>'What is it, Harry?' asked Jack.</p><p>'Exactly what I'd expected,' I replied. 'It's a very small but very powerful camera.'</p><p>'What was it doing on the front of the car?'</p> <p>'Well, think of it like this, if you were really small and had to drive a car, how would you be able to see where you were going if you couldn't see over the front dash?'</p><p>I had now dismissed the idea of being beaten up by an invisible superhero. All the evidence I'd gathered during the course of the day had led me to a different, less super and far more irritating solution. The camera had now confirmed my suspicions. I now needed to pay a visit to someone very annoying. This someone would not appreciate me visiting him, so, in order to prevent a recurrence of the previous night's unfortunate incident, I needed some additional protection.</p><p>'OK Jack, let's head back to the ranch. There's nothing more to see here.'</p><p>As we walked back to the car, being very careful to avoid any aggressive branches, I reached for my shiny new phone and made a quick call. For my next trick I would definitely require a very specific type of a.s.sistance, and I knew exactly who could provide it.</p><p>6.</p><p>The Gift of the Gab.</p><p>It was early evening when we got back into town. After dropping Jack at home with a promise I'd call him again if I needed him, I drove back to the office, parked the car and headed back towards the main street. After the previous night's experience I kept a regular look over both shoulders and avoided any dark, or even not that brightly lit, alleyways. If there weren't at least twenty people in the same street as me then it wasn't going to be one I was going to walk down, across or through. Once bittenor once punched, threatened and deposited in garbagehad made me very careful and I was also concerned about the impact that constantly being decorated with rotten vegetables was having on my laundry billnot to mention my personal grooming.</p><p>After navigating the side streets of Grimmtown without attracting any undue attention, I turned onto Hans Christian Andersen Street. Dusk had made way for night and the city's bright young things were all out in their vampire-look finery again. On every corner a girl from Little Matchgirls Inc. was hawking hot dogs, burgers and fried chickenthe company had diversified over the years, especially after smoking fell out of favour. The sound of people having a good time (at least, everyone except me) could be heard through the doors as I pa.s.sed the mult.i.tude of bars and restaurants that proliferated both sides of the street. Much as I enjoyed a quiet drink and some intellectual conversation in my local, the bar I was heading to was one where I didn't expect the conversation to be particularly stimulating. It was located about halfway up the street and had a particularly distinctive frontageit was bright green. Outside the Blarney Tone, Grimmtown's only Irish bar ('Come for the Music, You'll Stay for the Craic'), a very small man in a very shiny bright green and white costume was exhorting pa.s.sers-by to come in and enjoy the fun inside. Benny was a gnome and Grimmtown's worst leprechaun impersonator. I stopped behind him to listen to his patter. He had the worst Irish accent I'd ever heard; yes, even worse than Tom Cruise's in Far and Awayand I should know, my grandfather was prime Irish bacon.</p><p>'Ah sure now, will ye not come in and try a Guinness. 'Tis only the best in the town, brought in specially, direct from the brewery in Dublin. There's a free plate of crubeens thrown in for good measure. You won't see the like anywhere else.' As he spoke he did a little jig that caused the rather large silver buckles on his black shoes to clang like a set of enormous bells.</p><p>The rest of his outfit was just as subtle as his shoes. Bright white socks stretched up to just below the knees, where they were met by bright green plus fours that were kept up by a large black belt. White frills that seemed to explode from a shirt so white it hurt to look at it fronted an equally lurid green jacket. An obviously fake ginger beard and curly wig covered most of his grey-skinned face like a bright orange fungus. On his head he wore a long black hat with yet another shiny buckle. It looked like someone had rammed a bucket upside-down on his head.</p><p>He was possibly the least convincing leprechaun in history but he was also just the man I needed to talk to. Despite the ludicrous outfit he was very st.u.r.dily built. In fact, he was the type of guy who could deliver a hefty punch to your midriff while, owing to his size, every attempt you made to hit him back just went over his head.</p><p>He still hadn't noticed me as I approached him carefully and tapped him on the shoulder.</p><p>'Evening Benny,' I said cheerfully.</p><p>He spun around and for a split second his face dropped as he recognised me. Like the true pro he vainly aspired to be, he immediately recovered and began his Irish shtick again but his first reaction had given him away.</p><p>'Begorrah Mr Pigg, is it yourself that's in it. And out on a fine night like this too. Sure why not drop in and try a pint of the black stuff. 'Tis the best in town.' As he spoke he made to move towards me. This time I was somewhat better prepared and, as I quickly stepped back, I nodded to two large shapes that had just as quickly, but a lot more silently, moved up behind him. As he tried to land a punch on me a large hand grabbed his neck from behind and suddenly jerked him backwards and upwards. He dangled in midair, legs kicking so fast he looked like he was pedalling an invisible bicycle. The hand held his head level with my eyes and squeezed ever so slightly. Benny's face began to turn an interesting shade of bright red as his neck began to constrict under the pressure.</p><p>'Now, Benny,' I said cheerfully, 'perhaps we can discuss your recent forays into robbery and GBH.'</p><p>'I...don't...know...what...you...mean,' he managed to choke out. By now his face was turning from red to purple and I watched with fascination (and no small degree of pleasure I must shamefully admit).</p><p>'Ah, but how remiss of me,' I said. 'I'm forgetting my manners. Before we start, allow me to introduce my colleagues, Mr Lewis and Mr Carroll. They're ogres.' Considering their size, strength and skin colour it was probably stating the obvious, but I wanted to see Benny sweat and show him that I meant business. My 'colleagues' were each over eight feet tall with skin that almost matched Benny's jacket in hue. Their impressively muscular frames were barely contained by the immaculate evening suits they had squeezed into. They were definitely the type of guys (or creatures) that you needed when there was a possibility of any unpleasantness, as they tended to be a very effective deterrentas they were now proving.</p><p>'Now that the introductions are over, perhaps we can get down to business,' I said to Benny. 'Let me put some perspective on this for you, Justin case you're confused.'</p><p>As Benny wasn't the sharpest tack in the box I figured I'd better spell it out for him. Before I could start, however, I noticed that his face was now bright blue. Perhaps the ogres were being a trifle too eager.</p><p>'Mr Lewis, perhaps a little less pressure.'</p><p>Lewis grunted and relaxed his hand slightly. Benny's face returned to its previous shade of purple.</p><p>'OK, Benny,' I said, 'let's begin. Once upon a time there was a gnome named Benny. Not too bright but always on the lookout for an opportunity, he made a living as a dodgy leprechaun impersonator trying to get gullible customers into the local Irish bar. And, by the way, you need to work on that accent. Are you with me so far?'</p><p>He nodded, his head barely moving.</p><p>'Good. Now, our friend Benny probably got an offer from someone to help him acquire a valuable antique from a local businessman. It certainly wasn't Benny's idea, what with him not being too bright and all, but the offer was impressive enough to encourage him. How am I doing so far?'</p><p>Benny gave another little nod.</p><p>'This is called detecting, Benny. It's what I do. I examine the clues and determine what's going on. This then allows me to follow a specific line of inquiry. This specific line of inquiry has, most fortuitously, brought me to you.</p><p>'In this instance, your mysterious client clearly needed someone with some subterranean delving skills and who would also do what he was told, no questions asked, as long as the price was right.</p><p>'Unfortunately he picked you,' I continued. 'You may be a great digger, which of course pointed me in the right direction, but you were a trifle careless at the scene of the crime.' I reached into my pocket and removed a small envelope. Inside was the green thread I'd found on the tree outside Aladdin's. 'You appear to have picked up a minor tear on your sleeve and, look, the thread I happen to have here matches almost perfectly. What a coincidence, eh?'</p><p>There was another gurgle that could have meant anything from 'What great detective work. You've certainly rumbled me. I confess' to 'I'm slowly choking to death here, could you ask your moron to reduce the pressure on my neck somewhat.'</p><p>I chose to interpret it as the latter, although I certainly wouldn't describe Lewis as a moronat least not to his face. Another nod and Lewis eased his grip slightly more.</p><p>'Now I know that you aren't working alone, not only because you haven't got the smarts to pull this off on your own, but even you couldn't drive a car into the enchanted forest, crash it rather spectacularly and then get back here to play little green man with the tourists so quickly. Nice trick by the way, getting one of your idiot cronies to use the camera to see where he was going because he was too small to look over the wheel. I take it you didn't come up with that idea either?' The response was another faint shake of the head.</p><p>'Now I know that, as a rule, when goblins get together, rather than the total being greater than the sum of the parts, the collective IQ tends drop to well below that of the dumbest membera kind of anti-synergy. I suspect, therefore, that you were the mere executors of this cunning plan that, in all likelihood, was probably written out in very small words and very short sentences so you and your cronies could follow it without s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g upwhich you failed miserably to do. So here's what I'm going to do.' I looked Benny straight in the eye to let him know that I still meant business. 'I'm going to instruct Mr Lewis here to let you go. When he does so you will make no attempt to do anything other than answer whatever questions I may put to you. Should you attempt to a.s.sault either of the ogres (which would be rather foolish) or me or even try to make a break for it, the only break you will experience will be a random a.s.sortment of your limbs. Understood?'</p><p>Benny nodded ever so slightly. I looked at Lewis and he dropped the goblin with such force that he lay on the ground groaning pitifully. I nudged him with my shoe.</p><p>'C'mon Benny, up you get. If you need some help you only have to ask. Either Mr Lewis or Mr Carroll will be only too delighted to a.s.sist you.'</p><p>This suggestion seemed to give Benny some incentive as he struggled to his feet slowly and, I have to add, with a lot less style than I had shown previously. Maybe he just didn't have as much practice at getting up as me.</p><p>'OK, Benny, your starter for ten: where's the lamp?'</p><p>Benny looked up at me with an expression that would have made his mother clutch him to her chest and console him with lots of 'there, theres'. Fortunately for both of us I wasn't his mother so he didn't get the sympathy vote from me. He also spared me the 'what lamp?' routine, presumably as even he could figure out exactly how much I already knew and that I wasn't prepared to tolerate being messed around any moreor maybe it was just the large and very obvious presence of my two companions. Despite this, however, his reply was only marginally more helpful (which wasn't saying a lot).</p><p>'I don't have it,' he gasped.</p><p>'Not a good answer, Benny,' I said. 'I'd have thought that by now you'd realise there is no point in playing dumbor, in your case, even more dumb than usualwith us. We're really not in the mood.'</p><p>'No, really, I don't have it. Honest.' From the fearful look on his face I suspected that he was finally telling the truth. Now all I had to do was find out what he had done with the lamp, get it back to Aladdin, pocket a large pay packet and wallow in the satisfaction of a job well done. Smiling with antic.i.p.ation, I asked the obvious question again and received a not-so-obvious answer that wiped the smirk off my face and plummeted me even deeper into the murk that was Grimmtown's underworld.</p><p>'One last time, where's the lamp, Benny?'</p><p>'Edna has it,' he answered.</p><p>I looked at him, dumbfounded. 'Edna?' I repeated.</p><p>He nodded his head gingerly. 'Edna,' he said with more conviction.</p><p>'Edna, as in Edna?'</p><p>He nodded again. 'Yep, that's her.'</p><p>'Please tell me you're joking and this is just another idiotic attempt to throw me off the track,' I begged, but I knew Benny was telling the truth, I just didn't want to believe it. I just wanted him to suddenly spring to his feet and yell, 'Gotcha! I had it in me rucksack all the time.' I knew this wouldn't happen. Quite apart from the fact that he could barely stand anyway, his entire demeanour suggested he was being truthfuland without being coerced any further, either.</p><p>If Edna was involved, I needed to tread very carefully indeed. In actual fact I needed to run very quickly in the opposite direction if I wished to retain the use of all my limbs. This was more like a Harry Pigg case: lots of different people vying to be the next to hurt me in new and interesting ways while I manfully (or pigfully) tried to represent my client to the best of my ability (and he was one of those people threatening to hurt me). I figured I'd get whatever information Benny hadn't yet imparted and then decide whether it would be more advisable to get the next bus out of town or stay and get beaten up at least one more time.</p><p>'OK Benny, let's take it from the topand don't leave anything out.'</p><p>7.</p><p>In the White Room.</p><p>'Emerald Isle of Adventure? Are you serious?' Benny nodded glumly. 'Emerald Isle of Adventure,' he repeated. Repet.i.tion tended to happen a lot when you talked to Benny. It helped him focus.</p><p>'You really were going to call the theme park that?' This beggared belief. I knew Benny was as dumb as a bucket of shrimp, I just didn't realise the extent of his stupidity. This master plan of his plumbed new depths of imbecility.</p><p>Benny and his 'Brains' Trust' of gnomish friends had decided that, with the proliferation of successful and highly profitable theme parks based on our ill.u.s.trious history that had sprung up all around Grimmtown, it might be a rather splendid idea to develop one based around Ireland and its past, him and his buddies being leprechaun impersonators and all. 'A sure fire hit' was how he'd described it. So far I had been regaled with how it would include Finn McCool's Rollercoaster of Terror, the Lucky Leprechaun Log Flume and the Find the Crock o' Gold Hall of Mirrors. When you eventually grew tired of all the excitement you could then relax in Mother Ireland's Bacon and Cabbage Emporium with a nice Guinness.</p><p>Now I like my thrills as much as the next manexcept in this case seeing as the next man was Bennybut I just didn't think this particular wonderland had the necessary pizzazz. In fact, if it managed to draw more than twenty gullible tourists on the day it opened (if it ever did), I'd eat my own head.</p><p>To cut a long, very rambling and disjointed story short (and to spare you many tedious digressions, pauses and nonsensical musings, because I know even your patience would wear very thin), Benny had put an ad in the local press describing the concept and seeking investors for this surefire hit. To hisand no one else'ssurprise, the take-up on the proposal was less than stellar but, just as he was about to abandon his plan, he received an email (and yes the address was ) promising him a very large investment in the scheme in return for a very small favour. This favour (and I'm sure you can see what's coming, even if Benny couldn't) involved Benny and the boys using their burrowing skills to recover an artifact that had allegedly been stolen from this mysterious benefactor many years previously. The story was embellished by references to family heirlooms, dastardly thieves, a poor granny pining for her long lost lamp and, of course, the dangling of the incentive of part of the investment up front with the rest to follow upon successful delivery of the lamp. Benny had swallowed it hook, line, sinker, fishing rod and angler.</p><p>The down payment had arrived and Benny had acquired the lampwhich considering his track record had to qualify as a spectacular success. All he then had to do was deliver it and the Emerald Isle of Adventure would be a reality. As you can imagine, the delivery hadn't gone according to planhardly surprising when you consider who the delivery boys were.</p><p>Benny and his band of idiots had begun making their way to the drop-off point. If the sight of a band of gnomes trying to look furtive while walking through the busiest part of town dressed in lurid green outfits didn't grab attention, the same group babbling on loudly about how they were going to spend their newly-acquired fortune surely would. Unfortunately for them, it grabbed the attention of two of Edna's henchmen.</p><p>Now I need to digress slightly here, as I'm sure you're asking, 'Who is Edna?' and 'Why does she want to divest those poor unfortunate gnomes of their one chance of a happy ending?' The answer to the second question is easy once you understand the first. Edna is one of a group of four witches who basically run all of Grimmtown's organised crimea kind of Mezzo-sopranos or Contraltos, if you will. They've unofficially divided the town up into four districts and Edna runs the West Sidehence her t.i.tle: the Wicked Witch of the West Side. Their control of all criminal activity is total. Nothing illegal moves without them knowing about it or profiting from it to some extent. They are a family I had kept well clear of over the years and I had no wish to alter that status any time soon. If, however, Edna did have the lamp, then that was a wish that was evidently about to come true, despite my best efforts to the contrary.</p><p>'So,' I said to Benny, 'to summarise the plan: there you were, a band of gnomes heading to a drop-off point in the middle of town, babbling on heedlessly about how you were going to be fabulously rich once you pa.s.sed the lamp over to your mysterious benefactor, a lamp, incidentally, which one of you was actually carrying in a bright red shopping bag. Where in this cunning strategy do you think the obvious flaw was?'</p><p>Benny dropped his head in a semblance of shame and chose not to answer.</p><p>'So. On your way to the drop-off pointah, where was this place, anyway?' I asked.</p><p>'Litter bin on the south corner of Wilde Park,' mumbled Benny.</p><p>'Of course it was. Instead of somewhere quiet and secluded, you picked one of the busiest intersections in the city. Could you have been any more obvious?' I laughed. Benny's story was becoming more nonsensical by the minute.</p><p>'So, as I say, you were on your way to the drop-off point when someone from Edna's gang grabbed the bag. Now, what I can't figure out is this: you guys are thick but can certainly pack a punch.' I rubbed my stomach at the memory of just how packed the punch was. 'How come they got the lamp so easily?'</p><p>Benny mumbled again.</p><p>'Speak up, Benny,' I asked. 'I can't make out a word you're saying.'</p><p>'Otto took it,' said Benny, a little more articulate this time. 'He just flew down out of nowhere, grabbed the bag in his claws and scrammed again.'</p><p>Otto the Owl was one of Edna's henchbirds and I suppose that a bright red bag wasn't too hard to miss if you had spent your formative years flying around a forest hunting tiny rodents in total darkness.</p><p>To put it mildly, this new development presented me with a problem: my client's lamp was now in the possession of one of Grimmtown's most ruthless criminal families; a family who would have no compunction about rearranging my anatomy should I even hint that it might be a good idea for them to return it. My client would also, in all likelihood, rearrange my anatomy if I failed to return his lampand probably evict me to boot. Either way it seemed that anatomy rearranging was about to become my newest pastime and one I didn't particularly feel like taking up, especially as we were talking about my anatomy and its capacity to be rearranged. In the faint hope that I might get something else out of him, I turned back to Benny.</p><p>'Apart from emails,' I asked, 'I don't suppose you ever got to meet this investor of yours?'</p><p>'Not as such, no,' Benny said. 'But I came close one night or, at least, I think I did.'</p><p>'What do you mean?'</p><p>'Well, the night we were due to receive our down payment my instructions were to go into the men's rest room in the Blarney Tone, make sure I was alone, send a text message to a particular number that I was ready, and wait for further instructions. When I got in there, I waited until it was empty, did as I was asked and stood there. Suddenly there was a loud bang, everything went white and next thing I knew I was in a room with funny walls, lots of rugs and carpets and stuff like that. I couldn't see anyone in the room but a voice told me to pick up a bag that was on a table beside me. As soon as I did, I was suddenly back in the rest room again with my down payment.' He looked at me. 'I know how it sounds, but it's the truth, Mr Pigg. Honest.'</p><p>I was just about to tell him how ludicrous his story was and did he really expect me to swallow something so ridiculous when there was a loud bang, everything went white and I was suddenly in a room with funny walls, lots of rugs and carpets and stuff like that.</p><p>As you can imagine, it took a few seconds to get my bearings seeing as I had suddenly been transported from Point A to Point B without any knowledge of where Point B actually was, how far it was from Point A, or exactly how precarious my situation now was as a result. At first glance, fortunately, precarious didn't seem to figure high on the agenda. I was in a long oval-shaped room with no windows or obvious doors. Bright white walls curved inwards from an equally white floor to an oval ceiling. Lamps ran along the walls illuminating the room with a soothing white light. It was, in fact, a very white room.</p><p>The only sop to an alternative colour scheme were the very expensive-looking rugs (expensive to my unsophisticated eyes at any rate) that were casually flung on the floor in a feng-shui kind of way and the colourful tapestries that hung from the walls. The decor suggested the Orient, which, considering my current a.s.signment, hardly seemed like a coincidence. Whoever had summoned me here was clearly connected to Aladdin in some wayif only by culture. My suspicion, however, based on Benny's tale was that I was in the presence of his mysterious stranger, although the room was currently devoid of any presence other than me. As most of the people I'd encountered in this case so far seemed intent on doing me harm, this was a small mercy for which I was incredibly thankful.</p><p>As I stood there I became aware of a faint whirring behind me. I turned aroundever so slowlyto see if some strange mechanical torture device was about to dismember me. To my relief, I found myself gazing at a not-so-sinister, large and very hi-tech-looking computer. There were so many wires, cables and other devices hanging from it, it looked like it was in an intensive care unit. With all the printers, modems, scanners, microphones and a.s.sorted paraphernaliathat even I couldn't figure out the use ofthere seemed to be enough hardware to run a small country and still have enough processing power for a quick game of Half-Life while affairs of state were being mulled over.</p><p>It also occurred to me that the computer might shed some light on the ident.i.ty of the thief and maybe even some clue as to their motive. As I surrept.i.tiously reached for the keyboard a voice erupted from the walls around the room.</p><p>'Naughty, naughty, Mr Pigg,' it boomed. 'Please step away from my machine.'</p><p>I raised my trotters over my head and took three steps back from the hardware. Looking around, I tried to see where the voice was coming from. Best I could figure was that there were speakers hidden behind the wall hangings and, from the quality of the sound, they were clearly very expensive.</p><p>'Please forgive both my brusque manner and the somewhat unorthodox kidnapping,' the voice continued. 'I hadn't meant for us to meet in quite these circ.u.mstances. In fact, I hadn't intended for us to meet at all but I suspect that my original choice of miners left much to be desired when it came to not leaving obvious, or indeed any, clues behind. Clearly I should have been more discriminating in my selection.'</p><p>'If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,' I said. I enjoy a cliche every now and again and it was the only thing I could come up with while I tried to figure out what to do next. I'm not always witty and quick with the rapier-like reparteehard, as I'm sure it is, for you to believe.</p><p>'Indeed,' said the voice. 'And while you're trying, no doubt, to figure out where you are, who I am and what you should do next, allow me to recommend that you make yourself comfortable while I make some suggestions.'</p><p>I slowly sank onto a very ornate and very comfortable ottoman and waited.</p><p>As you have probably already deduced, the gnomes were clearly not a good investment. In less than twenty-four hours they stole the lamp but left clues so blatant that a corpse could have followed them. They then managed, with an incredible lack of subtlety, to make Grimmtown's organised crime fraternity aware that they had an object of immense value and then, while bringing it to me, succeeded in handing it over to one of our more ill.u.s.trious criminal masterminds in the process. Do I summarise the situation accurately?'</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-8759010139075350952022-08-11T16:32:00.000-07:002022-08-11T16:32:00.216-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 3If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 3 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>'Yeah,' he replied. 'The entrance is just up ahead.'</p><p>'Stop when you get there. We'll come to meet you.'</p><p>'Roger wilco. Over and out.' He'd obviously been watching too many war films.</p><p>Guided by Aladdin and Gruff, I walked back through the maze that was the inside of the house and made my way outside. As I walked across the lawn, I heard Jack's voice advising that he had reached the entrance to the tunnel. I told him to stick his head out and describe what he saw.</p><p>'It's a hole in the ground, surrounded by trees. I can hear cars so there must be a road nearby but I can't see it from where I'm standing.'</p> <p>And, by extension, no one could see the hole from the road either.</p><p>I turned to Aladdin.</p><p>'From the signal, it looks as though the tunnel comes up just outside that wall there.' I pointed to the high wall running along the side of his estate. 'What's on the other side?'</p><p>Aladdin thought for a minute, and then for a few more. It was obvious he hadn't the faintest idea. He'd most likely never even noticed what was out there as he went in and out of his house every dayprobably in a large limo with tinted windows.</p><p>I turned to Gruff. As chief of security I imagined he should know.</p><p>'It's a small open area between this house and the next. It's used occasionally by the local residents for walking their dogs, or at least those residents that, from time to time, actually venture out of their houses by means of their feet,' he said, glancing meaningfully at his boss. 'There are a few clumps of trees there. Most likely that's where your minion will be.'</p><p>We made our way out the main gate and along by those very imposing walls around Aladdin's house. It was easy to see why the thieves had gone under. The walls were very high with barbed wire on top and, as Gruff explained while we walked, equipped with more pressure sensors. If anything heavier than a sparrow landed on them, the alarms would go off. Even if an intruder was able to get over the walls without setting off the alarms (maybe he was a good pole-vaulter, I don't know) the grounds were full of heat sensors and more cameras. If he managed to get past those minor inconveniences, Ogre 'Not On Our Watch' Security would probably have fun using him as a volleyball. Your common or garden thief didn't stand a chance. It made me even more curious as to what type of thief I was dealing with.</p><p>We arrived at the open ground and could see Jack waving at us from a clump of trees about fifty feet from the wall.</p><p>'Over here,' he shouted.</p><p>When we got to him he was only too eager to show us where he had come out. We pushed through the trees with difficulty as they were very close together, and examined the tunnel. It looked like a very professional job: perfectly circular, level floor and smooth walls with supports to prevent accidental collapse. From its size, the diggers were also apparently quite small. I would have had problems had I been obliged to navigate it.</p><p>As I looked at the area around the tunnel entrance, something hanging off one of the branches caught my eye. Closer inspection revealed a bright green thread blowing gently in the wind. One of the thieves must have snagged an exceedingly loud item of clothing on the tree as he made his escape.</p><p>At this stage my brain, which, for obvious reasons, had understandably been functioning below par for most of the day, began to power itself up and began asking key questions (although not aloud). More to the point it also began to answer them. Perhaps my a.s.sailant wasn't quite as mysterious as I had thought. Putting the information about the tunnel together with the thread and my strange encounter of the previous night, a pattern began to emerge. I needed to get an expert opinion about tunnels and the creatures that dug them. It was time for a trip to the enchanted forest.</p><p>I turned to my client.</p><p>'Mr Aladdin,' I said. 'I believe, based on what we've just seen, that I am beginning to make some progress in the matter of your missing lamp. I need to make some calls and meet some people. I should have an update for you by tonight. May I contact you then?'</p><p>He whipped a card out of his inside pocket.</p><p>'My direct number; I am always available. Is there anything you'd care to share now?'</p><p>Of course there wasn't. All I had were a few ideas and a bizarre theory that was slowly taking shape but I wasn't going to tell him that.</p><p>'Not at this time. I will provide a full update later.'</p><p>He grunted, which I a.s.sumed was an acknowledgement, and we walked back to the house.</p><p>'Until later, then,' he said as Jack and I got into my car.</p><p>'Later,' I agreed and drove away. As the huge walls disappeared from view behind us, I told Jack where we were going.</p><p>'Are we really going into the enchanted forest?' he asked. 'I've never been.'</p><p>It should be pointed out right here that no self-respecting fairy tale town like ours would be without an enchanted forest. It was the location of choice for any laboratory, workshop or secret lair for magicians, wizards, warlocks, witches, alchemists, thaumaturges, vampires and the obligatory mad scientist. There is usually at least one mountain smack in the middle guarded by a horrible monster (usually a dragon) and reputed to be the location of a h.o.a.rd of treasure.</p><p>If truth be known, however, most of the mountains were now just tourist attractions, the treasure having been plundered centuries before and the dragon killed in the process (and replaced by a very realistic animatronic duplicate to keep the punters happy). If you were looking for magic trees (of wood as opposed to those car air freshners that smell nice), cottages made of confectionery, any sword embedded in a stone, unofficial spell-casters, illegal potion sellers or two-headed birds, the enchanted forest was the place to go. Grimmtown's forest had an additional attraction for me, however, one that might go a long way towards solving this case.</p><p>We made our way back down from the lofty plateau of Frog Prince Heights, drove across town and into the forest. Fortunately, our destination wasn't too far in. There were far too many unpleasant things lying in wait deep in the forest for unsuspecting adventurers or unaccompanied tour parties and I had no urge to encounter any of them again (yes, I've been there before). After a short drive along a dark, tree-lined road, I pulled up to yet another large gate with yet another anonymous security system.</p><p>'The Heigh Ho Diamond Mining Company,' said Jack, reading the ornate sign over the gate. 'Why are we coming here?'</p><p>'Because if anyone can tell me anything about who built that tunnel,' I said, leaning out of the car to activate the speaker beside the gate, 'it's the chaps who run this place.'</p><p>'Name?' crackled a voice from the speaker. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was the same voice as the one at Aladdin's.</p><p>'Just tell the lads it's Harry and I'd appreciate a moment of their time.'</p><p>Almost as soon as I'd finished speaking, the gates swung opena lot slower and with a lot more gravitas than those at Aladdin's. There was no drive up to the building though; the offices were right beside the gate. There were seven parking s.p.a.ces marked 'Director', all occupied by very fast, very sleek and very expensive cars. I was almost embarra.s.sed to park my heap of junk beside them. Almost, but not quiteI'm unusually thick-skinned for a pig. We got out of the car and entered the office. As I opened the door, I turned to Jack.</p><p>'Not a word, kid,' I warned. 'Just let me do the talking. Some of these guys can be a bit difficult to deal with so stay shtum.'</p><p>'Yes sir,' said Jack, giving me a very official-looking salute that I hoped was tongue in cheek.</p><p>The reception area consisted of a few garish plastic chairs grouped around a battered coffee table, which was stacked with the inevitable dog-eared three-year-old magazines. Behind a desk and facing the entrance a sour-looking receptionist glowered at me, as if my arrival was a personal affront to him and had somehow ruined his day. Behind him, running the length of the wall, were seven portraitsone for each of the company's directors.</p><p>'Take a seat,' he snapped. 'One of the Seven will meet you shortly.'</p><p>'Who are "the Seven"?' whispered Jack, as we sat down. 'Are they some kind of secret society with blood oaths, strange pa.s.swords and funny handshakes?'</p><p>'Nah,' I replied nonchalantly, picking up a well-thumbed copy of Miner's Monthly. 'Nothing so mysterious. They're seven dwarves, all brothers, who set up a diamond mining company here years ago. It's been very profitable. They've cornered the diamond market locally. If anyone knows about digging tunnels, these guys do; they're experts in their chosen fieldor under their chosen field even.'</p><p>Fortunately we weren't kept waiting too long. A door in the wall facing us opened and a large, red, bulbous nose appeared followedit seemed like hours laterby the rest of the dwarf. Unfortunately it was Grumpy, my least favourite.</p><p>'Well Pigg, whaddya want?' he growled. His interpersonal skills tended to leave a lot to be desiredmost noticeably anything remotely resembling good manners. As a rule his brothers tended not to let him do press conferences when they announced their yearly results.</p><p>I, of course, knew exactly which b.u.t.tons to press.</p><p>I'm looking for some a.s.sistance please, Mr...ah...it's Dopey, isn't it?' I replied, knowing full well how much it would aggravate him.</p><p>His nose turned even redder and the flush spread to the rest of his face. He glowered at me. 'It's Grumpy,' he said. 'G-R-U-M-P-Y!'</p><p>'By name and by nature,' I said under my breath to Jack. He looked down and I could see his cheeks bulge as he tried not to laugh. It's tough being a detective's a.s.sistant; you must maintain a calm demeanour at all times, especially when confronted with stressful situations.</p><p>He took up the magazine I'd been reading and developed an intense interest in an article on new methods of extracting metals from abandoned mines.</p><p>'Apologies, Mr Grumpy. I tend to confuse you and your brothers,' I lied. 'I'm looking for information about tunnels and those who dig them. As you have an undoubted expertise in this area, I figure that if anyone can help me it will be you.'</p><p>Flattery will obviously get you everywhere as Grumpy positively preened when he heard me compliment him. He puffed up his chest and strutted across the room. I could see his face gradually a.s.sume a less aggressive shade of red as he came towards me.</p><p>'What kind of information?' he asked.</p><p>I gave him the details of the tunnel I'd found without revealing where it had been dug or why. He considered what I'd said.</p><p>'Definitely made by experts from the sound of it, which does narrow it down. The best in the business are little People. It's almost genetic with us. We have an affinity with stone; we love being underground and have an innate skill in burrowing, digging and making holes.'</p><p>What kind of little People are we talking about?' I asked.</p><p>'Well, apart from my brothers and meand you know it isn't us,' he said, 'you've got other dwarves, who usually dig in rock; Halflings, who are good with earth, and fairies, good for small and very basic holes only and purely for sleeping in.'</p><p>I wasn't aware of any of these operating illegally in or around Grimmtown and neither was Mr Grumpy. As his company tended to employ all the expert diggers in the region, he would know of any newcomersparticularly as he would probably end up giving them a job, especially if they showed any kind of talent for tunnelling.</p><p>'Anyone else?' I asked.</p><p>'There are a few others that have shown tunnelling tendencies in the past. Kobolds, leprechauns, gnomes, the occasional Orc and, on very rare occasions, elves, although they've got soft hands so they tend to lotion a lot afterwards.'</p><p>I could tell he didn't hold elves in high esteem. I shared his opinion. They tended to stand around looking mysteriously into the middle distance declaiming loudly and pompously such phrases as 'The saucer is broken; milk will be spilled this night.' They never got invited to parties as they usually drank all the beer and, most annoyingly, never seemed to get drunkapart from a tingling sensation in their fingers.</p><p>I figured that this was about as much information as I was going to get. It wasn't a lot but it did give me an inkling of where I should go next. I thanked Grumpy, dragged Jack away from his magazine and headed back to the car.</p><p>5.</p><p>If You Go Down to the Woods Today.</p><p>As I drove back through the forest I kept going over the events of the past two days. Things were starting to make a little sensealthough not much. As I mulled over the case Jack nudged me in the side with a very bony elbow.</p><p>'Mr Pigg,' he said, 'don't look now, but I think we're being followed.'</p><p>'What makes you say that?' I asked.</p><p>'Well, the car behind us doesn't appear to have a driver and it's been tailing us since we left the dwarves' place.'</p><p>I looked in the mirror. He was right. Directly behind us was a very large, very black and very battered car with no driver obviously behind the wheel. As I looked it began to speed up. I could see the steering wheel rotate but it seemed to be doing so of its own accord. Maybe the Invisible Man was driving the car but, frankly, I doubted ithe had been advised to take taxis, as, every time he got behind the wheel, he tended to cause a small panic.</p><p>This was now getting beyond a joke and I wasn't the one who was laughing. Suddenly, the car accelerated again and rammed us from behind. The impact jolted us forward. Fortunately, apart from being winded, we didn't suffer any injuries, our seatbelts preventing any major harm.</p><p>'Wheel' shouted Jack. 'This is just like a roller coaster. Does this always happen when you drive?'</p><p>'No,' I said, trying to keep one eye on the road ahead and one on the car behind (not an easy task). 'Only on good days.'</p><p>Of course, car chases never take place on straight wide roads that run for miles with no sharp turns or oncoming traffic. Oh no, apparently convention dictates that they must take place through a busy metropolis with lots of hills, a narrow dirt track running along a sheer drop into the ocean or, as in my case, through a dark forest with a twisty road, lots of sharp bends and (being an enchanted forest) trees that might take exception to being woken up and take a swipe at whatever vehicle had done the waking. The bigger the tree, the more likely your car was to suddenly develop the art of flight when one of its branches made contact. Typically it wasn't the flying that one needed to be worried about; usually it was the landingwhich tended to be uncontrolled, totally lacking in technique and, almost inevitably, resulted in your vehicle being embedded up to its rear doors in the ground. Most cars tended never to get back on the road after contact with one of our magic trees.</p><p>As I swerved to avoid hitting one of these trees and to try to ensure that my pursuer didn't, I had another of my really bright ideas.</p><p>'Hold tight,' I roared at Jack as I pressed hard on the accelerator. 'This could get scary.'</p><p>'You mean it gets better?' he shouted back, grinning from ear to ear. 'This is the coolest ride I've ever been on. Go Harry!' He stretched both arms up over his head, as people do just as they get their photograph taken on the scary part of a roller coaster ride, and yelled at the top of his voice. Truly this child had no fear.</p><p>The sudden burst of acceleration had, for a few seconds, taken me away from my pursuer. Rather than head towards the forest's edge, however, I took one of the trails deeper into the trees. I had a very specific destination in mind and one that might, if my timing was right, get this particular pursuer permanently off our backs.</p><p>As we drove further into the forest, the trees grew closer together and, eventually, their branches became so entwined over the road they formed a natural tunnel, shutting out daylight completely. I flicked on the headlights and they gave just enough illumination to prevent me driving off the road. On either side, gnarled branches were trying to grab at the car as we pa.s.sed but I was going so fast they only sc.r.a.ped off the sides. They might be ruining the bodywork, but at least the bodies inside the car were undamagedfor now.</p><p>I recklessly navigated turn after turn (by the skin of my teeth in most cases), the road getting narrower and windier as we drove. I wasn't particularly scared of the forest; being chased by an invisible maniac tended to force all other thoughts of being frightened from one's mind. Our pursuer wasn't quite as reckless though, preferring to drive fast enough to keep us in his sights but not so fast as to spin off the road. We would hardly have been that lucky but that wasn't my main objective. It would, however, have made what I was about to do much less of a riskespecially to Jack and meif he'd managed to hit something other than us in the interim.</p><p>A fork in the road came up so fast that, even though I was expecting it, I still nearly ploughed straight into the tree that stood right where the road split in two. I swung the steering wheel in an effort to keep the car on track. It screeched around the right-hand turn, leaving a liberal helping of rubber on the road. I was hoping my pursuer might not be so lucky but as I looked in the mirror I saw him take the fork a little less dramatically than I had and continue his relentless pursuit. We were now driving in total darkness such was the tree cover all around us. Even the car's headlamps didn't do much to light the way.</p><p>I was now driving purely on instinct. Bends came and went in a blur and all the while I could see the lights of the other car behind us, never closing the gap but never losing any ground either. Well, if things went according to plan, there would soon be a fair, and somewhat unexpected, distance between us. I turned to Jack.</p><p>'Hold on tight. Things might get a little b.u.mpier.'</p><p>His face lit up like a searchlight. 'You mean it gets better?'</p><p>'Oh yeah, much better,' I replied grimly. 'Just make sure you're well strapped in.'</p><p>At last we were arriving at our destination. In front of us the road narrowed and curved around sharply to the left. Right on the bend stood a large and very old ash tree. Its gnarled branches hung down over the road, trailing long green strands of moss. As we approached they began to twitch as if antic.i.p.ating our imminent arrival. I stood on the brakes and the car stopped abruptly just in front of the tree, jerking both of us forward. Moss draped across the windscreen, obscuring our visibility, but I was only interested in what I could see out of my side window. Jack was looking over his shoulder to see where our pursuer was and was finally starting to panic.</p><p>'Why have you stopped, Harry? He's getting closer.'</p><p>'I know. Just another few seconds.' I began to rev up the car.</p><p>'We don't have a few seconds. He's right on us.' Jack was really panicking now.</p><p>There was a blurred movement of something grey and gnarled coming towards us from the side and I instantly accelerated. The car shot forward as if it had been fired from a cannon. Our pursuer, who had sped into the s.p.a.ce we'd just vacated, was suddenly swept sideways by a large and very fast moving branch. There was a loud wail from inside the car as it was catapulted across the road and smashed through the undergrowth on the opposite side, leaving a large and impressive vehicle-shaped hole in the bushes. Where the car had been on the road, a few leaves floated gently to the ground.</p><p>'Now that's what I call a flying car,' I muttered with satisfaction. 'James Bond, eat your heart out.'</p><p>Before I could take too much pleasure in the somewhat premature end to the chase, I had to drive my own car out of reach of the ash tree's branches before it had a second swipe. Better safe than even more damaged, I always say.</p><p>'Well, let's take a look at the incredible flying car,' I said, as I opened the door and got out. 'From the noise that it made as it flew through the air with the greatest of ease, I very much doubt that it was driverless.'</p><p>As Jack joined me and we began to make our way across to where the other car had landed I turned to the ash tree. 'Thanks Leslie,' I said. 'I can always depend on you to miss me.'</p><p>The tree shook its branches violently and sprayed moss in all directions.</p><p>'Maybe next time, Pigg,' it said in a voice that made Treebeard sound like a soprano. 'You can't be lucky forever.'</p><p>'What's his problem?' asked Jack.</p><p>'Some other time,' I replied. 'It's a long story. Suffice to say that, ever since my last encounter with him, he's had a deep longing to play baseball with meusing me as the ball.'</p><p>We made our way through the undergrowth. It wasn't too difficult as the flying car had cleared a wide path for us. We found it in a tree, jammed into the junction of two large branches. On the driver's side the door was open. Fortunately for me it was within climbing distance. Very carefully, I climbed up to the car and peered inside. Whoeveror whateverhad been driving had clearly done a runner, leaving nothing in the way of clues behind. Apart from the gla.s.s all over the floor, the inside of the car was spotlessly clean. I was now convinced that, despite initial appearances to the contrary, there had been a driver. Something had been screaming in terror as the car took flight and that same something had managed to open the door and disappear before we got there. All I had to do now was figure out what that something was, and if there's one thing I'm good at (actually, there are lots of things I'm good at) it's figuring things out. I hadn't actually expected to find anything in the carthat was a long shot. I was more interested in what may have been on the front. I swung around to the remains of the hood. Steam hissed from the mangled engine but there was no obvious smell of gasoline so I figured I was safe. I ran my trotters carefully over the front grille and felt something jammed in.</p><p>'Let's see what we've got here,' I muttered, pulling at the mysterious object.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-62742493375770440882022-08-10T10:47:00.000-07:002022-08-10T10:47:00.193-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 2If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 2 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>'Thanks for the beauty tips,' I replied. 'Maybe you should take it up professionally. You're obviously wasted in this job.'</p><p>'Now, now, I'm only trying to help.'</p><p>'Well, try harder.' I headed for the door and walked down to where my car was parked. Sliding into the driver's seat I gave myself a last once-over in the mirror.</p><p>'Presentable,' I murmured. 'Not at my best, but I should pa.s.s muster. At least they won't know that I spent the night sleeping in an alleyway.'</p><p>I started the car and drove uptown to see how the other half lived. Nestling in the foothills on the north side of town, Frog Prince Heightspossibly Grimmtown's most exclusive residential areawas home to the richest, most famous and probably most downright crooked of our citizens. Most of the very large and tasteless mansions had their own security service and enough electronic surveillance to make even the most paranoid of residents comfortable in their beds at night. As was the case with all residential areas of this type, the higher up the hills you went, the bigger the estates got. To my total lack of surprise, my client's home (if a word like home could do justice to the palace I drove up to) was right at the top of the hill overlooking the entire town.</p> <p>'Master of all he surveys, no doubt,' I said, as I pulled up at the very large, very imposing and very closed gates that were embedded in even larger and more imposing walls. Just to the left of the gates was a small speaker underneath which was a bright red b.u.t.ton. Pressing the b.u.t.ton, I waited for a response. As I sat there, I imagined that very hidden, very small, very expensive and very-high-resolution cameras were even now trained on me, watching my every move. I didn't have to wait too long.</p><p>'Yes,' crackled a voice from the speaker.</p><p>'Harry Pigg. I have an appointment.'</p><p>'Just one moment.'</p><p>A please would have been nice, but I imagined detectives were as high in the food chain of visitors to the mansion as the mailman and the garbage collector so I figured manners weren't part of standard operating procedure.</p><p>The gates swung open very quietly and very quickly. I was a bit disappointed; I had imagined they'd be more imposing and ominous with lots of creaking and rattling.</p><p>The intercom crackled again. 'Drive through,' said the voice. 'Follow the road around to the side. You'll be met there.'</p><p>I followed the driveway up to the house, past lawns that looked as though they were manicured with nail scissors rather than mown. The house itself was a monument to bad taste or blind architects. Someone had clearly tried to incorporate my client's eastern origins into a gothic pile. It was as if a giant (and we have plenty in the locality) had dropped the Taj Mahal on Dracula's Castle and then cemented bits of Barad-dur on afterwards for effect. Minarets jostled for s.p.a.ce with paG.o.das, battlements and some downright ugly and bored-looking gargoyles. It hurt my eyes just to look at it, and I was wearing shades.</p><p>I drove around the side of this tasteless monstrosity to be greeted by another one. Waiting for me at what I presumed was the tradesman's entrance was an ogre, proudly displaying his 'Ogre SecurityNot On Our Watch' badge. He was an imposing figureall muscle and boils. Slowly he checked my ID before letting me out of the car. I could see his lips move as he read the details. The fact that he could actually read impressed me no endmost ogres I knew preferred to eat books rather than read them. Good roughage, apparently.</p><p>'So you weren't watching the other night, then?' I asked.</p><p>'Huh?' he replied.</p><p>I pointed to his badge.</p><p>'The other night?' I repeated. 'On your watch? Did you guys take the night off when the lamp was stolen?'</p><p>'What lamp?'</p><p>'Your boss's lamp. The one that...' Seeing the blank look on his face it was obvious that Ogre Security provided the muscle to keep the grounds free of intruders but didn't have too much input to the more sophisticated security inside the house. 'Never mind. Can I go in now?'</p><p>He even held the door open for me as I entered the house. A polite security guard, whatever next?</p><p>Inside, my good friend Gruff was waiting for me and, by the look on his face, wasn't relishing the job.</p><p>'Ah Mr Gruff, so good of you to meet me. I recognised your foul stench as soon as I came aboard. Showers broken, eh?'</p><p>He looked at me and I could tell he was struggling to come back with a witty reply, or indeed any reply. I smiled at his discomfort.</p><p>'Never mind,' I said. 'If you practise hard in front of a mirror maybe you'll learn to string more than two words together for the next time we meet. Wouldn't that be nice?'</p><p>He glowered as he led me through the house. It was just as tasteless on the inside as on the out. Furniture of various styles, shapes and sizes jostled for position with figurines, sculptures, a.s.sorted suits of exotic armour and a variety of plants. It looked like a storage depot for an antiques store run by a florist rather than a place someone actually lived in.</p><p>I was led through so many pa.s.sages and rooms that I soon lost my way and had to depend on my guide to stop me from getting lost.</p><p>Eventually we arrived at a steel door that dominated the end of yet another long corridor. It was the kind of door that was more suited to the front of a large castle to keep invading hordes at bay rather than guarding a rich man's trinkets.</p><p>'The study,' said Gruff. 'I'll let you in once I've switched off the security system.'</p><p>He pressed some numbers on a keypad beside the door. There was a grinding noise and some sequential clunking as locks were deactivated. The door slowly slid into the wall. Lights in the room flickered on as we entered. If the rest of the house had been a monument to clutter, this room was a testament to minimalism. Apart from a large cylindrical black pedestal in the middle of the room, it was completely empty. There were no windows and the only door was the one we had just come through.</p><p>I walked towards the pedestal to have a look. It was a column of black marble that came up roughly to my chest. On top was a smaller display stand covered in black velvet, upon which, presumably, the lamp had stood. On closer inspection I could still see the imprint of the lamp's base in the cloth.</p><p>'So this is where the lamp was kept,' I said.</p><p>'Yes,' said a familiar voice behind me. 'Hi-tech security and surveillance systems and still it disappeared.'</p><p>Aladdin strode into the room and shook my trotter. 'Glad you could make it.'</p><p>'My pleasure. Exactly how hi-tech was the security here?' I asked.</p><p>'If you care to step back to the door, we can show you.'</p><p>We all walked back to the entrance and Aladdin turned to the goat.</p><p>'Mr Gruff, if you would be so kind.'</p><p>Gruff punched some more numbers on the keypad and the lights in the room dimmed again.</p><p>'Firstly,' began my employer/landlord, 'the floor is basically one giant pressure pad. Once the security system is switched on anything heavier than a spider running across the room will trigger the alarm. Observe.' Taking a very clean, very expensive and very unused silk handkerchief from his jacket pocket he lobbed it gently into the room. It floated slowly downwards and had hardly touched the floor when strident alarms rang all over the house.</p><p>'In addition,' he continued, as Gruff frantically pressed b.u.t.tons to silence the ringing, 'there is a laser grid in the room which will detect anyone that might, for example, try to suspend themselves from the ceiling and lower themselves down to the pedestal.'</p><p>Another flourish of the arm, some more b.u.t.ton-punching from Gruff and suddenly a bright red criss-cross of beams filled the room. It looked like a 3-D map of New York. A network of lasers covered every part of the s.p.a.ce, wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Anything that might possibly get into the room certainly wouldn't get very far without breaking one of the beams. I didn't need the alarm to be triggered again to tell me that.</p><p>'Cameras?' I enquired.</p><p>'On the wall,' came the reply and he pointed to a lens that tracked back and forth across the room. 'It scans the room constantly and the output is monitored from our security centre, which you may visit shortly. The entire system is controlled via this keypad here.' He pointed to the unit on the wall. 'It is activated every night at ten and disabled again at seven each morning. All access is monitored and recorded. On the night of the...ah...disappearance none of the systems were deactivated, the cameras showed nothing else in the room and the lasers weren't triggered. It is most intriguing.'</p><p>Intriguing wasn't the word I'd have used; downright baffling was the phrase that came into my head, but I suspected Aladdin was trying to maintain an outward demeanour of cool in keeping with his image.</p><p>'Has the camera footage been examined?' I asked.</p><p>'Yes,' said Aladdin. 'But it didn't show anything. On one sweep the lamp was there, on the next it was gone.'</p><p>'Well, just to be on the safe side, I'd like to have a look. Maybe something was missed.'</p><p>From the snort of indignation behind me, I a.s.sumed Gruff didn't agree with my supposition. Good.</p><p>Aladdin led me to the security centre. The footage from the previous night was loaded by the guard on duty and the tape forwarded to when the lamp vanished. The camera scanned the room from left to right and the lamp was clearly on its pedestal. When it tracked back on its next sweep the lamp was just as clearly gone, as Aladdin had claimed.</p><p>'See,' said Gruff in a very superior tone, as if challenging me to find something he'd missed. 'Now you see it; now you don't. Any ideas?'</p><p>Not being one to refuse a challenge, I asked for the footage to be replayed and studied the screen carefully, trying to spot anything out of place. On the fifth or sixth repeat, I saw it.</p><p>'Stop,' I exclaimed and the security guard immediately paused the tape. 'Look there, right at the base of the smaller pedestal. See?' I pointed to a tiny flash of light that sparkled briefly and disappeared almost immediately afterwards. 'Any chance of getting that enhanced?'</p><p>The guard worked his voodoo and magnified the picture.</p><p>'What is it, Mr Pigg?' Aladdin's face was so close to the screen, he blocked everyone else's view. 'I can't seem to make it out.'</p><p>I moved him gently aside and examined the camera footage carefully.</p><p>'If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a micro camera, the kind they use in hospitals to have a poke around people's insides,' I said when I had the opportunity for a closer look.</p><p>'But what the h.e.l.l is it doing inside the display stand? It's solid marble.'</p><p>I was obviously putting two and two together and getting four slightly faster than the othersalthough in Gruff's case I suspected that he was only able to get to three with great difficulty and the help of crayons. It seemed to me that if the thieves couldn't drop into the room or walk across it without setting off any alarms, there was only one other method of entry for any creative burglara method that demanded incredible technique and no small amount of nerve.</p><p>I looked at Aladdin. 'I think I need to have a closer look at the room,' I said.</p><p>'But of course,' replied Aladdin and we walked back to the study.</p><p>As Gruff deactivated the alarm system again I noticed something else.</p><p>'Hold it,' I said. 'Turn it on again.'</p><p>As the red beams criss-crossed the room again, I pointed to the pedestal. 'Notice how the beams don't actually cross the area where the lamp was? If the lamp was taken, it wouldn't set off the alarm.'</p><p>'That's a crock,' sneered Gruff. 'No one can actually get to the lamp without breaking a beam or standing on the floor. How do you think they entered the roomthey teleported in?'</p><p>'Maybe they didn't,' I said. 'Disable the lasers again so I can have another look.'</p><p>Once the alarm was off I walked towards the pedestal. A gla.s.s dome that didn't look as if it had ever been touched, let alone lifted, covered the top of the pedestal and was firmly clamped to the base. I was obviously in top detecting mode today as, when I looked at the surface of the pedestal through the gla.s.s, I could see what looked like a few tiny grains of saltalmost invisible to the human eye; but then again, I'm not human.</p><p>'Can you disable the clamps on the gla.s.s and turn the lights on full please?' I asked.</p><p>More b.u.t.tons were pressed, and the clamps disengaged loudly. The lights came up to full strength as, very carefully, I lifted the gla.s.s dome off and put it gently on the floor. As I examined the pedestal Aladdin came up behind me.</p><p>'What do you see?' he asked.</p><p>'I'm not sure,' I replied, as I leaned in towards the pedestal for a more detailed examination. 'It may be nothing but...'</p><p>I picked up some of the grains and put them on my tongue. They weren't salt; they were tiny grains of sand. I looked more closely at the pedestal. Ever so gently I pushed the velvet stand. It slid easily to one side, revealing a gaping hole underneath.</p><p>'What in the blazes is this?' exclaimed Aladdin.</p><p>'Clearly, when your thieves couldn't access the room from above or through the walls, they went under. They used the micro camera to check when the surveillance system on the wall was sweeping the room and stole the lamp when it was off-camera.'</p><p>'But who could have done this and where does the hole go?'</p><p>'I don't know who, but that's what you've employed me to find out,' I replied. 'As to the where, I don't know that yet, either, but I think I know someone who can help me work it out.'</p><p>4.</p><p>It's Off to Work We Go!.</p><p>'You mean you want me to climb down there to see where it goes? Cool.'</p><p>Jack Horner was clearly excited by his new Apprentice Gumshoe role as he gazed into the hole. As Tom Thumb was out of town on a small vacation (sorry!), he was my next and only other choice, seeing as the hole was too small to allow anyone else to climb into it. After a.s.suring an understandably concerned mother that he would come to no harm, she had reluctantly allowed him to come with me.</p><p>'No heroics, Jack,' I told him. 'Just follow the tunnel until we can find out where it comes out.' I pointed to the equipment he was wearing. 'The rope is for safety, the torch will light your way and the little gadget on your belt is a tracker. We can follow you wherever you go. You can talk to us with this.' I handed him a walkie-talkie.</p><p>'Will there be monsters down there?' he asked.</p><p>'I doubt that very much,' I said, as I checked the rope one more time and lifted him up onto the pedestal. He seemed disappointed at my response.</p><p>'Ready?' I asked. He nodded in reply.</p><p>'OK then, here we go.'</p><p>He stood on the pedestal, looked into the hole again and prepared for his descent. Slowly, he made his way down until he was holding on to the edge by his fingertips. He glanced at me, nodded that he was ready and then let go. I took the strain and lowered him down carefully, as much to avoid any back injury on my part as for his own safety. It didn't take long for him to reach the bottom.</p><p>'There's a pa.s.sage leading away but I don't see any daylight.' His voice came through clearly on my walkie-talkie. 'I'm walking along it now.'</p><p>'OK Jack,' I said. 'Follow it slowly but be careful.'</p><p>After a few minutes I could hear a strange noise on the walkie-talkie.</p><p>'Jack? Are you OK?'</p><p>'Yeah, why?'</p><p>'I'm hearing some odd noises on the walkie-talkie.'</p><p>'Oh, that's just me singing,' Jack replied. 'I do it sometimes to pa.s.s the time when I'm walking.'</p><p>'Uh, right.' Was this kid afraid of anything?</p><p>'I've come to a turn in the tunnel,' he said after a few more minutes. 'It bends to the left.'</p><p>From the signal on the tracker screen, he looked to be outside the house now.</p><p>'OK Jack,' I said. 'Keep going. Can you see daylight now?'</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3560039989741139924.post-41502481679799602122022-08-09T05:01:00.000-07:002022-08-09T05:01:00.195-07:00The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 1If you are looking for The Third Pig Detective Agency Part 1 you are coming to the right place. The Third Pig Detective Agency is a Webnovel created by Bob Burke. This lightnovel is currently completed. <p>The Third Pig Detective Agency.</p><p>Bob Burke.</p><p>To Gem, for believing.</p><p>1.</p><p>A New Client.</p> <p>It was another slow day in the office. Actually, it had been a slow week in the office. No, if the truth be known, it had been a lousy month for the Third Pig Detective Agency. That's me by the way: Harry Pigg, the Third Pig.</p><p>Where did the name come from? Well, I was the pig that built the house out of bricks while my idiot brothers took the easy route and went for cowboy builders and cheap materials. Let me tell you, wood and straw ain't much use when Mr Wolf comes calling. Those guys were pork-chops as soon as he drew in his first breath and filled those giant lungs of his. Blow your house down, indeed.</p><p>And while we're on the subject, don't believe what you read in those heavily edited stories you find in children's books of fairy tales saying how the wolf fell down the chimney into the pot, scalded his tail, ran out of the house and was never seen again. When that wolf came down my chimney and into that boiling saucepan, I screwed the lid on and made sure it stayed on by weighing it down with a few spare bricks (never throw anything away, you never know when it could come in useful). He didn't do too much huffing and puffing then.</p><p>'Little pig, little pig, let me come out,' he'd begged in a scared whimper.</p><p>'Not by the hair on my...' I began, but then gave up. I just couldn't come up with something clever to rhyme with 'I won't let you out' so I just left it. Hey, I can't come up with a witty reply every time.</p><p>By the time the pot went quiet and I opened it again all that was left was some sc.u.mmy hair floating on the surface and boneslots of bones. The little dog sure laughed a lot that day. He hadn't seen that many broken bones since the cow's first attempt to jump over the moon, and they'd kept him in three square meals a day for over a week.</p><p>After that I was kind of a cult hero. Apart from that Red Riding Hood dame, no one else had ever come out on top in a skirmish with the Wolf family sol became a local celebrity. After the usual civic receptions and TV appearances, I decided to capitalise on my new-found fame and become a detective. Well, why not? Someone needs to do it and there's always an opening for a good one.</p><p>At first business was booming. I was the one who not only found those two missing kids, Hansel and Gretel, but I also fingered them for the murder of that sweet old woman in the gingerbread house. Their story was too pat: wicked old lady plans to eat the kids, only way out was to kill her; you know the drill. In my book their story stank. Two kids, a house made of gingerbread and an old dear whose only crime was to get in the way. It was always going to end in tearsprimarily hers.</p><p>As I said, I was on the pig's back (excuse the pun) for a while but then things kind of dried up. No one seemed to want the services of a good detective agency and, with the exception of the kids in Hamelin (which wasn't even one of my cases), there didn't even seem to be too many missing persons any more. The bills were mounting up. Gloria, my bovine receptionist, hadn't been paid in a month. Even her legendary patience was wearing thin. And no, before all you politically correct fairy tale readers get on my case, I'm not casting any aspersions on her looks; she really is a cow and the meanest typist in Grimmtown (even with the hoofs). Unless I got a big caseand soonI was going be neck-deep in apple sauce and Gloria would be back to cheerleading for the Lunar Leapers Bovine Acrobatics Team. Things were most definitely not looking good.</p><p>But I digress (a little). On this particular slow day I was sitting in my office (cheap furniture, lousy decor, creaky wooden flooryou know the type) with my rear trotters on my desk, trying to work out 5 down. 'Sounds like fierce brothers in the fairy tale world. Five letters ending in 'm'. Hmmm.' I mulled this over while nibbling the end of my pen. Crosswords really weren't my strong suit.</p><p>As my creative juices attempted to flow I became aware of voices in the outer office. Voices meant more than one person, so Gloria either had a debt-collector or a potential customer on her handsand there was no one in town more adept at evading debt-collectors than me. Once I heard her say, 'Mr Pigg is quite busy at present, but I'll see if he can squeeze you in', it meant an obviously discerning client wished to utilise my services. I swung my trotters off the desk, smoothed down my jacket as best I could and tried to look busy while squashing the newspaper into the wastebasket with my left trotter.</p><p>The intercom buzzed.</p><p>'Mr Pigg,' crackled Gloria's deep, husky voice. 'There is a gentleman here to see you. Should I get him to make an appointment?'</p><p>As my diary was conspicuously blank for the foreseeable future I figured that my need for hard cash far outweighed any need to impress a potential punter. I pressed the intercom b.u.t.ton.</p><p>'I can see the gentleman now, Gloria,' I said. 'Please send him in.' I stood up to meet my potential cash cow.</p><p>Through the opaque gla.s.s in the connecting door, I could see a large shape making its way through reception and towards my office. The door slowly opened and an oriental gentleman the size and shape of a zeppelin entered. He was wearing a silk suit, the amount of cloth of which would have made easily the most expensive marquee tent in history, and he was weighed down with enough gold to pay off all of my debts for the next twenty years. His shiny black hair was pulled back from his forehead and tied in a long plait that stretched all the way down his back to a voluminous rear end. The guy exuded wealthand I hadn't failed to notice it. If this were a cartoon, dollar signs would be going 'ka-ching' in my eyes.</p><p>It was time to be ultra-smooth, ultra-polite and ultra-I'm-the-best-detective-you're-ever-likely-to-meet-and-you-will-be-eternally-grateful-for-employing-me.</p><p>I extended my trotter, 'Mr?'</p><p>'Aladdin,' he replied, grasping my trotter in a grip like a clam's. 'Just call me Mr Aladdin.'</p><p>Although I didn't recognise him, of course I had heard of Aladdin. Everyone in Grimmtown had. He was probably the most famous and most reclusive of our many eccentric citizensand quite possibly the richest. Rumour had it he owned half of the town but very few people had seen him in recent years, as he preferred to live behind closed doors in a huge mansion in the hills.</p><p>His story was the stuff dreams (at least other people's dreams) were made of. He had started off working in a local laundry. After a few years he bought out the owner although no one knew, despite much speculation and rumour, where the money had come from. Over the years his business had expanded (as had he) and he had begun to diversify. Apart from the chain of laundries he had built up, he owned bars, restaurants, department stores, gas stations and most local politicians. The key word in the above description is, of course, 'richest'. If Mr 'Just call me' Aladdin wanted to employ my services, it would be most churlish of me to turn him downespecially if he was prepared to throw large wads of cash in my direction.</p><p>Ka-ching! Ka-ching!</p><p>I took a deep breath and prepared to tell my new best friend how wonderful I was and how he had showed exceptional judgement in availing himself of my services.</p><p>'Mr Aladdin, how may I be of service?'</p><p>That's me: cool and straight to the point. Inside, my mind was screaming, 'Show me the money', and I was trying not to dance on the table with joy.</p><p>Mr Aladdin looked carefully at me, raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.</p><p>'Gruff,' he said. 'My bag, please.'</p><p>Someone, hidden up to now by his employer's large ma.s.s, walked out from behind him carrying a large leather, and undoubtedly very expensive, briefcase. My heart sank. Things had just started taking a turn for the worse. It always happens to me. Just when I think things can't get any better, they inevitably don't and take another downward slide into even more unpleasantness. Aladdin's employee was a st.u.r.dy white goat. Not just any goat however, this was a Gruff. And, unless I was very much mistaken, he was the eldest Gruff.</p><p>The Gruffs were three brothers who had come to town a few years ago. After sorting out a little (well big, actually) troll problem we were having at a local bridge (a trollbridge, if you will), they had decided to stay and give the town the benefit of their 'unique' skill setwhich usually involved threats, intimidation and the carrying of blunt instruments. Starting out as bouncers at 'Cinders', one of Grimmtown's least reputable clubs, they had subsequently branched out into more profitable (and much less legal) operations. Whether it was smuggling live gingerbread men across the border or evicting the old lady in the shoe for not paying the rent, the three billy goats Gruff were usually involved in some capacity.</p><p>Eventually the eldest brother had distanced himself from the day-to-day operations of the family business. I'd heard he'd gone into consultancy of a sort usually described as 'security', but not much had been seen of him recently. Now I knew why. If he was employed by this particular client, I suspected he worked for him to the exclusion of any others. Mr Aladdin was that kind of employer; apart from total commitment, it was rumoured he also demanded total secrecy from his staff. If Gruff was involved, it stood to reason that there were some less than legal factors of which I was yet to be made aware.</p><p>Wonderful!</p><p>Gruff handed the briefcase to his boss and looked me up and down.</p><p>'I don't like you,' he sneered.</p><p>I shrugged my shoulders. 'You don't like most people.'</p><p>'But I especially don't like pigs.'</p><p>'Well then, perhaps you'd be more comfortable somewhere elsean empty shoe, a prison cell, maybe propping up abridge somewhere?'</p><p>Snarling, he made to move towards me but his employer restrained him with a large and heavily bejewelled hand. With that amount of rings on his fingers it was a wonder he actually had the strength to lift it.</p><p>'Gentlemen, please. Enough of this petty squabbling! Gruff, keep an eye on the door, will you? There's a good goat.'</p><p>Reluctantly the goat backed towards the door, never taking his eyes off me. I met his gaze all the way. No goat was going to outstare me.</p><p>Happy that his employee was a safe (or at least a less-threatening) distance away, Aladdin turned towards me.</p><p>'Might we continue?' he said.</p><p>'Of course,' I replied, returning to my chair while, at the same time, ensuring that a large and heavy desk was strategically placed between a highly unstable goat and me. Picking up a letter opener in as non-intimidating a fashion as possible, I began to clean my front trotters and looked expectantly at Aladdin.</p><p>'Mr Pigg,' he began. 'You have a reputation as a manI apologise, of course I mean pigwho not only gets results but knows when to be discreet.'</p><p>I nodded politely at the compliment.</p><p>'In my experience, an indiscreet detective doesn't stay in business too long,' I pointed out.</p><p>'Nevertheless,' he continued, 'in this particular instance, discretion is of paramount importance. I must insist that you do not discuss what I am about to reveal with anyone other than my a.s.sociate Mr Gruff, and me.'</p><p>I nodded, wondering what was going to come next.</p><p>Opening the briefcase, Aladdin took out a large sheet of paper. 'I have recently mislaid an item of immense personal value and I wish you to locate it for me.'</p><p>He handed the sheet of paper to me. I looked at it with interest. It was a photograph of a very old and very battered lamp.</p><p>'It's a lamp,' I said, stating the blindingly obvious.</p><p>'Not just any lamp,' said Aladdin. 'This is a family heirloom and one which I am most anxious to have located as soon as possible.'</p><p>'Where was it mislaid?' I asked.</p><p>'It was last seen in a display cabinet in my study. Last night it was most definitely there; this morning it was gone.'</p><p>'Lost? Stolen? Melted down and sold for sc.r.a.p? Can you be a little more specific?' I looked at the picture again. The lamp didn't look up to much. It was about the size of a gravy boat, coloured an off-shade of gold and had more dents than the Tin Man. I clearly needed more information.</p><p>'I...ah...suspect it may have been stolen but I am unable to prove this at present.'</p><p>'Have you spoken to the police?'</p><p>Again, rumour had it that local law enforcement was more akin to Aladdin's private security force than public servants. If anyone could locate an artifact of this nature quickly and with a minimum of fuss, it was them. In all likelihood, their jobs would depend on it.</p><p>Aladdin looked at me carefully. 'The police have been more than helpful but, at this time, they have neither a suspect nor a specific line of inquiry. It is my firm belief that someone of your talents might be of more use in this particular instance.'</p><p>'Because?' I enquired.</p><p>'Because, as I have already mentioned, you can be discreet. I think that perhaps you can exploit particular avenues of inquiry that may be outside the scope of the law and you have your snout in all the right information troughsforgive the a.n.a.logy, I mean no offence.'</p><p>'None taken,' I replied. Offended or not, I wasn't going to abandon this client just yet, certainly not on the basis of a less than politically correct a.n.a.logy. 'However, I don't normally take on cases that are still under investigation by the police.'</p><p>'Trust me,' came the very smooth reply. 'The police have exhausted all avenues and will not bother you during the course of your investigation.'</p><p>In other words they'd come up with nothingor at least n.o.body they could pin the theft on. Either that or this lamp was something that Aladdin would prefer not having the police involved with. This case stank higher than an abattoir in a heatwaveand I should know, my office looks out on one and it wasn't a nice place to be in the summer.</p><p>My only question now was should I take this particular case on? If the lamp had been stolen, chances were that someone with more than a pa.s.sing grudge towards Aladdin had taken it. By extension, they were probably not nice people. Not nice people didn't normally worry mein my line of work I come across quite a fewbut I suspected this particular category of not nice people probably wouldn't have too many qualms about serving me up for breakfast along with some scrambled eggs. I decided cowardice was the better part of valour in this instance.</p><p>'Mr Aladdin, I'm flattered that you saw fit to choose the Third Pig Detective Agency but I don't think I'm in a position to take you on at the moment. My caseload is somewhat heavy.'</p><p>He looked at me extremely carefully. 'I think, perhaps, you might reconsider,' he said, very quietly but very ominously.</p><p>'No, really. It's just not possible right now. I am sorry.'</p><p>Aladdin turned to his henchgoat. 'Mr Gruff?'</p><p>Gruff opened the briefcase again and took out a large folder which he handed to his employer. He was smiling at me as he did so.</p><p>Aladdin opened the folder and began to flick through the pages. 'Mr Pigg, what I have here, among other things, are your last six bank statements, a number of bills from certain of your suppliersmost of which are, apparently, very overdueand a number of demands for rent, which seems considerably in arrears. Your former landlord seems particularly unhappy with you.'</p><p>I was about to launch into a robust defence of my financial situation, which would include claims of invasion of privacy, how unjust certain of my suppliers were in their demands and how things weren't actually as bad as they looked, when the last part of his statement suddenly sunk in.</p><p>'Former landlord?' I said.</p><p>'Oh yes, didn't I mention? As of...' he glanced at his watch, 'forty-five or so minutes ago, I now own this building. You appear to owe me quite an amount of rent.' He handed the folder back to Gruff. 'Shall I have Mr Gruff here organise for collection? I do believe he is a most effective debt-collector. I certainly haven't had any complaints about his methods.'</p><p>That sealed it for me. I could have lived with owing half of Grimmtown money and having Aladdin as my new landlord, but I wasn't going to give the goat the satisfaction of coming around with a large baseball bat to collect any outstanding rent.</p><p>With as much dignity as I could muster, I caved in.</p><p>'Mr Aladdin, you are a most persuasive client. I a.s.sume you would like me to start immediately?'</p><p>Aladdin smiled at me. It was the kind of smile that suggested one of his grandparents was a shark.</p><p>'Delighted to hear it. If you need anything, Mr Gruff will be more than happy to accommodate you.'</p><p>I decided to make Gruff suffer a bit. 'I'd like to see where you kept the lamp. Can your goat make himself available to show me around?'</p><p>The expression on Gruff's face at this comment suggested that he'd sooner play catch with dynamite. Hey, it was a small victory but I had to take 'em where I got 'em. Aladdin was heading for the door. Barely looking over his shoulder he askedno, toldme to call at the house at twelve the next day and Gruff would show me around.</p><p>As the door closed behind him I sank back down into my chair and exhaled loudly. My client was now my landlord. He was missing something that he wanted to get back badly. He wanted little or no involvement with the law and, for reasons known only to himself, he had chosen me rather than any of the other detectives operating in town to do the recovery. Sometimes I just got all the breaks.</p><p>'Oh Harry, Harry, Harry,' I breathed. 'What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now?'</p><p>2.</p><p>Come Blow Your Horn.</p><p>If television is to be believed, we detectives have contacts everywhere. All it takes is a quick phone call to Izzy or Sammy or Buddy and, hey presto, there it isinformation at your fingertips. Barmen, bouncers, paperboys, waitresses; you name them, your average detective has them in his little black book. They have their ears to the ground and are always willing to give exactly the information you're looking for exactly when you need it, in return for a small fee.</p><p>Wrong!</p><p>Forget what you see on TV. Most detectives I know, myself included, can muster up one informant if we're really lucky; usually unreliable, rarely cheap and never around when you want them. My particular source of 'useful' information was a lazy former shepherd. He had got himself into a spot of bother whenafter falling asleep on the job one dayhis flock had disappeared. Blacklisted and unable to hold down any other kind of agricultural employment, he eked out a living playing the trumpet in some of the town's cheaper bars. He usually then spent the money drinking in the same bars. When people talked of someone with his ear to the ground they meant literally in his case. He did get around, however, and if something was going on in town, there was always the remote possibility he might have heard about it. More than likely, however, he hadn't.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0