The Ambitious Guest Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Ambitious Guest

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1 September dark a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled it high with the

driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of theast pine, and the splintered ruins of neat

copse that had come up crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and

brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and female parent had a sober

gladness; the children laughed; the eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at

seventeen; and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image

of Happiness grown quondam. They had found the "herb, heart'southward-ease," in the bleakest spot of all

New England. This family nosotrosre situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the wind

was precipitous throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the wintertime,--giving their cottage all its

fresh inclemency before information technology descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot

and a dangerous one; for a mountain towered in a higher place their heads, and so steep, that the stones

would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight.

The daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them all with mirth, when the

air current came through the Notch and seemed to suspension before their cottage--rattling the door,

with a sound of wailing and lamentation, before information technology passed into the valley. For a moment it

saddened them, though there due westas nothing unusual in the tones. Merely the family were glad

again when they perceived that the latch was lifted past some traveller, whose footsteps had

been unheard amid the dreary nail which heralded his approach, and wailed every bit he was

entering, and went moaning away from the door.

Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the globe. The

romantic pass of the Notch is a great avenue, through which the life-blood of internal

commerce is continually throbbing between Maine, on one side, and the Light-green Mountains

and the shores of the St. Lawrence, on the other. The stage-coach e'er drew upwardly before the

door of the cottage. The due westayfarer, with no companion only his staff, paused hither to commutation

a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him ere he could laissez passer

through the cleft of the mountain, or reach the beginning business firm in the valley. And hither the

teamster, on his fashion to Portland market, would put upward for the night; and, if a bachelor,

might sit an 60 minutes beyond the usual bedtime, and steal a kiss from the mount maid at

parting. It was one of those primitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and

lodging, merely meets with a homely kindness beyond all cost. When the footsteps were

heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, the whole family rose upward,

grandmother, children and all, as if about to welcome some one who belonged to them, and

whose fate was linked with theirs.

The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore the melancholy expression,

almost despondency, of i who travels a wild and bleak road, at nightfall and alone, just

soon brightened upwardly when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his heart spring

forward to run into them all, from the old woman, who wiped a chair with her frock, to the

lilliputian child that held out its artillery to him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a

ground of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter.

"Ah, this fire is the correct thing!" cried he; "especially when there is such a pleasant circleast

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round information technology. I am quite coasting; for the Notch is just similar the pipe of a great pair of bellows;

information technology has blown a terrible blast in my face all the way from Bartlett."

"Then you are going towards Vermont?" said the primary of the firm, as he helped to take a

lite knapsack off the young man's shoulders.

"Yep; to Burlington, and far enough existyond," replied he. "I meemmet to have been at Ethan

Crawford's to-nighttime; but a pedestrian lingers along such a road as this. Information technology is no thing; for,

when I saw this good fire, and all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it on

purpose for me, and nosotrosre waiting gy arrival. And so I shall sit down among you, and make

myself at habitation."

The frank-hearted stranger had simply drawn his chair to the burn down when something like a heavy

stride was heard without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain, as with long and

rapid strides, and taking such a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the opposite

precipice. The family held their breath, because they knew the audio, and their guest held

his past instinct.

"The old mountain has thrown a stone at u.s., for fear we should forget him," said the

landlord, recovering himself. "He sometimes nods his head and threatens to come down;

just we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty well upon the whole. As well we accept a

sure identify of refuge difficult by if he should exist coming in proficient earnest."

Let us now suppose the stranger to have terminateed his supper of bear'south meat; and, by his

natural felicity of manner, to have placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole

family, so that they talked equally freely together as if he vested to their mountain breed. He

was of a proud, yet grandentle spirit--haughty and reserved among the rich and great; only ever

fix to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at the poor

man's fireside. In the household of the Notch he plant warmth and simplicity of feeling, the

pervading intelligence of New England, and a verse of native growth, which they had

gathered when they piddling thought of it from the mountain peaks and chasms, and at the very

threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode. He had travelled far and lone; his whole

life, indeed, had been a lonely path; for, with the lofty caution of his nature, he had kept

himself autonomously from those who might otherwise have been his companions. The family, too,

though so kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among themselves, and

separation from the world at largeast, which, in every domestic circle, should stil50 go along a holy

identify where no stranger gay intrude. But this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the

refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and

constrained them to answer him with the aforementioned gratis confidence. And thus it should have

been. Is non the kindred of a mutual fate a closer tie than that of birth?

The secret of the young man's character was a high and abstracted appetite. He could take

borne to live an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire

had been transformed to hope; and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty, that,

obscurely every bit he journeyed at present, a glory was to axle on all his pathway,--though not,

peradventure, while he was treading it. But when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of

what was at present the present, they westould trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as

meaner glories faded, and confess that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb

with none to recognize him.

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"As yet," cried the stranger--his cheek glowing and his eye flashing with enthusiasm--"as

even so, I accept done nothing. Were I to vanish from the earth to-morrow, none would know so

much of me equally you: that a nameless youth came up at nightfall from the valley of the Saco,

and opened his centre to you in the evening, and passed through the Notch by sunrise, and

was seen no more than. Not a soul would inquire, 'Who was he? Whither did the wanderer go?' Only I

cannot die till I havdue east achieved my destiny. Then, let Death come up! I shall have built my

monument!"

At that place was a continual flow of natural emotion, gushing forth amidst abstracted reverie, which

enabled the family to understand this young man's sentiments, though then strange from their

own. With quick sensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the avidity into which heastward had been

betrayed.

"You express mirth at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter'due south hand, and laughing himself. "You lot

think my ambition as nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the elevation of Mount

Washington, only that people might spy at me from the land round atour. And, truly,

that would exist a noble pedestal for a man's statue!"

"It is better to sit here by this fire," answecrimson the girl, blushing, "and be comfy and

contented, though nobody thinks about us."

"I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there is something natural in what the

young man says; and if my mind had been turned that style, I might have felt just the same.

It is strange, married woman, how his talk has set gy caput running on things that are pretty certain

never to come to laissez passer."

"Possibly they may," observed the wife. "Is the human being thinking what he will do when he is a

widower?"

"No, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness. "When I call back of your

death, Esther, I recall of mine, too. Just I westwardequally wishing we had a good subcontract in Bartlett, or

Bethlehem, or Littleton, or another township circular the White Mountains; simply not where

they could tumble on our heads. I should want to stand up well with my northwardeighbors and be

called Squire, and sent to General Court for a term or 2; for a plain, honest man may do

every bit much good there every bit a lawyer. And when I should be grown quite an old human, and you lot an

quondam woman, so as not to be long apart, I might die happy eastwardnough in my bed, and get out you

all cryinthousand around me. A slate gravestone would accommodate me as well as a marble one--with just

my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let people know that I lived an

honest homo and died a Christian."

"In that location now!" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our natureast to desire a monument, be it slate or

marble, or a colonnade of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man."

"Nosotros're in a strange way, to-night," said the wife, with tears in her eyes. "They say it's a sign

of something, when folks' minds go a wandering so. Hark to the children!"

They listened accordingly. The younger children had been put to bed in another room, but

with an open door between, and so that they could be heard talking busily amid themselves.

Ane and all seemed to have caught the infection from the fireside circle, and were outvying

each other in wild wishes, and childish projects of what they would do when they came to

be men and women. At length a little male child, instead of addressing his brothers and sisters,

called out to his mother.

"I'll tell you lot what I wish, mother," cried he. "I want you lot and father and grandma'chiliad, and all

of united states of america, and the stranger too, to showtime correct away, and thouo and take a drink out of the basin of

the Flume!"

Nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a warm bed, and dragginyard them

from a cheerful fire, to visit the basin of the Flume,--a brook, which tumbles over the

precipice, deep westwardithin the Notch. The boy had inappreciably spoken when a wagon rattled along

the road, and stopped a moment before the door. It appeared to incorporate two or three men,

who were cheering their hearts with the rough chorus of a song, which resounded, in broken

notes, between the cliffs, while the singersouth hesitated whether to continue their journeying or

put up hither for the nighttime.

"Father," said the girl, "they are calling you by name."

But the adept man doubted whether they had really called him, and was unwilling to testify

himself as well solicitous of gain past inviting people to patronize his house. He therefore did not

hurry to the door; and the lash being soon applied, the travellers plunged into the Notch,

still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart

of the mountain.

"There, mother!" cried the boy, again. "They'd take given united states a ride to the Flume."

Again they laughed at the child'southward pertinacious fancy for a night constitutional. But it happened that

a low-cal cloud passed over the daughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the burn, and drew a

breath that was almost a sigh. It forced its way, in spite of a littldue east struggle to repress it. Then

starting and blushing, she looked quickly round the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse

into her bosom. The stranger enquireed what she had been thinking of.

"Nothing," answered she, with a downcast grinning. "Only I felt lonesome just so."

"Oh, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other people's hearts," said he, half

seriously. "Shall I tell the secrets of yousrs? For I know what to think when a young girl

shivers past a warm hearth, and complains of lonesomeness at her female parent's side. Shall I put

these feelings into words?"

"They would not be a daughter'southward ironelings whatever longer if they could be put into words," replied the

mountain nymph, laughing, but avoiding his middle.

All this was said autonomously. Maybe a germ of loveastward was springing in their hearts, then pure that it

might blossom in Paradise, since information technology could non exist matured on earth; for women worship such

gentle dignity asouthward his; and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly soul is oftenest captivated by

simplicity like hers. But while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness,

the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's northature, the wind through the Notch

took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, similar the choral

strain of the spirits of the boom, who in old Indian times had their dwelling among these

mountains, and fabricated their heights and recesses a sacred region. At that place was a wail forth the

road, every bit if a funeral were passing. To chase away the gloom, the family threw pino branches

on their fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again a scene

of peace and humble happiness. The low-cal hovered about them fondly, and caressed them

all. At that place were the little faces of the children, peeping from their bed apart and here the

father's frame of force, the female parent's subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youthursday,

the budding daughter, and the mood quondam grandam, withal knitting in the warmest identify. The aged

adult female looked upwards from her task, and, with fingers ever decorated, westas the next to speak.

"Onetime folks have their notions," said she, "likewise as young ones. You lot've been wishing and

planning; and letting your heads run on i thing and another, till you've southwardet my listen a

wandering too. Now what should an onetime woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two

earlier she comes to her grave? Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you."

"What is it, mother?" cried the hubby and wife at in one case.

Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circumvolve closer round the fire,

informed them that she had provided her graveclothes some years before,--a nice linen

shroud, a cap with a muslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her

wedding day. But this evening an one-time superstition had strangely recurred to her. It used to

be said, in her younger days, that if anything were amiss with a corpse, if only the ruff were

not smooth, or the cap did not set right, the corpse in the coffin and beneath the clods would

strive to put up its common cold hands and accommodate it. The bare thought fabricated her nervous.

"Don't talk so, grandmother!" said the girl, shuddering.

"Now,"--continued the former woman, with atypical earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her

ain folly,--"I want one of you lot, my children--when your mother is dressed and in the

coffin--I want one of y'all to hold a looking-glass over grandy face. Who knows but I granday take a

glimpse at myself, and see whether all'south right?"

"Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the stranger youth. "I

wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking, and they, unknown and

undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean--that wide and nameless sepulchre?"

For a moment, the sometime adult female's grandhastly conception so engrossed the thouinds of her hearers

that a sound abroad in the night, rise like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep, and

terrible, before the fated group were conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled;

the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the

last trump. Young and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an instant, stake,

affrighted, without utterance, or power to movement. And then the aforementioned shriek burst simultaneously

from all their lips.

"The Slide! The Slide!"

The simplest words must intimate, but non portray, the unutterable horror of the catastrophe.

The victims rushed from their cottage, and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot--

where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reablood-red. Alas! they

had quitted their security, and fled right into the pathway of devastation. Down came the

whole side of the mountain, in a cataract of ruin. Just before information technology reached the business firm, the stream

broke into two branches--shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity,

blocked upwardly the route, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. Long ere the thunder

of the bang-up Slide had ceased to roar among thursdaye mountains, the mortal agony had been

endured, and the victims were at peace. Their bodies were never plant.

The next morning, the low-cal fume was seen stealing from the cottage chimney upwards the

mount side. Within, the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle

round it, as if the inhabitants had simply gone forth to view the devastation of the Slide, and

would shortly render, to thank Heaven for their miraculous escape. All had left split

tokens, past which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. Who

has non heard their name? The story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend

of these mountains. Poets have sung their fate.

At that place were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into

the cottage on this awful night, and hadvertizement shared the ending of all its inmates. Others

denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for the high-souled

youth, with his dream of Earthly Immortality! His name and person utterly unknown; his

history, his mode of life, his plans, a yardystery due northever to be solved, his expiry and his existence

as a doubt! Whose was the agony of that death moment?

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The Ambitious Guest Nathaniel Hawthorne,

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