Holgrave

“ Holgrave raised himself erect as the men departed. Wild thoughts, such as he had never known before, rushed through his heart. It is dangerous to snatch from any man, even the lowest of the species, that which he values above every other thing. Be the thing what it may—be it grand or mean, base or beautiful, still the soul has clung to it, has treasured it up, has worshipped before it; and none but the bereaved can comprehend the desolation which the bereavement causes. Holgrave's idol was his freedom ”

“ Holgrave gazed at her, as he rolled up his manuscript, and recognized an incipient stage of that curious psychological condition, which, as he had himself told Phœbe, he possessed more than an ordinary faculty of producing. A veil was beginning to be muffled about her, in which she could behold only him, and live only in his thoughts and emotions. His glance, as he fastened it on the young girl, grew involuntarily more concentrated; in his attitude there was the consciousness of power, investing his hardly mature figure with a dignity that did not belong to its physical manifestation. ”

“ He then sprung up the ladder, and threw himself upon the heap of rushes.
The extreme agitation of Wells, although it surprised Holgrave, by no means displeased him;—be sympathy ever so extravagant, still, generally speaking, it is gratifying; and Holgrave, at that moment, would have laid down his life in defence of the man who could feel so keenly.
Nature had given the galleyman a good and a kind heart, but evil associates had done much, and dissipation still more, to demoralize his soul ”

“ His smile, however, was full of genuine warmth, and had in it a joy, by far the most vivid expression that Phœbe bad ever witnessed, shining out of the New England reserve with which Holgrave habitually masked whatever lay near his heart. It was the look wherewith a man, brooding alone over some fearful object, in a dreary forest or illimitable desert, would recognize the familiar aspect of his dearest friend, bringing up all the peaceful ideas that belong to home, and the gentle current of every-day affairs. ”

“ Holgrave had read very little, and that little in passing through the thoroughfare of life, where the mystic language of his books, was necessarily mixed up with the babble of the multitude, so that both one and the other were apt to lose any sense that might have been properly their own. He considered himself a thinker, and was certainly of a thoughtful turn, but, with his own path to discover, had perhaps hardly yet reached the point where an educated man begins to think. ”

“ I shall sink down and perish!"
"Ah, Phœbe!" exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile that was burthened with thought. "It will be far otherwise than as you forbode. The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. ”

“ Holgrave, struck with awe, relinquished his hold, and Black Jack and his jurors instantly fled.
"Fly, knaves!" cried the galleyman, addressing Byles and Calverley, as he released the latter. "And now, meddling steward, if you attempt to interfere with her who is in that holy berth yonder, or injure the honest yeoman, her son, for this night's doings, the Lord have mercy upon you! Here, Stephen," (walking towards Holgrave, who had thrown himself beside the grave,) "up, and jump behind on my horse, for the cry of sacrilege will edge their brands, and friend or foe will have little chance. ”

“ But he had now no longer hope; it had fled with the spirit of his little babe; its last faint breath had dissipated all the illusions of far-off happiness; and he now looked forward to a life of degradation, and a death of dishonour.
"Can it be?" said Holgrave, as he looked before him at the castle, which the tapers revealed—"Can it be, that the lord of this castle and I are the sons of the same heavenly Father? Can the same God have created us?—and is his child to live and grow to manhood, that he may trample on his fellow men, as his father has trampled on me? ”

“ The baron had earned for his son the curse of "the swelling heart and the burning cheek," and the lad should know the toils and sufferings of a bondman.
"We shall talk further," said Holgrave: "in the mean time, we must consult for your own safety. If your father was a villein of this barony, it is not likely that the old steward, or the new one—the fiend Calverley—should forget you; and——"
"Tush, tush!" interrupted the galleyman; "if Stephen Holgrave has forgotten Robin Wells, how should Thomas Calverley remember him?" ”

“ Oh! it is a fine thing," he continued, as if following up some reflection in his mind, "to bury those we hate—deep, deep—so that they may never blast our sight again!—Byles, you perjured yourself in that affair of the buck. You swore to aid me. You had gold for the service, and yet it would have been better that the beast were still alive, than to have left it behind in the chase: it has only brought suspicion on me, and given Holgrave a fresh triumph!" ”

“ Always, in his interviews with Phœbe, the artist made especial inquiry as to the welfare of Clifford whom, except at the Sunday festival, he seldom saw.
"Does he still seem happy?" he asked, one day.
"As happy as a child," answered Phœbe; "but—like a child, too—very easily disturbed."
"How disturbed?" inquired Holgrave. "By things without, or by thoughts within?"
"I cannot see his thoughts! How should I?" replied Phœbe, with simple piquancy. "Very often, his humor changes without any reason that can be guessed at, just as a cloud comes over the sun. ”

“ Holgrave then knew that some mishap must have befallen the monk; and the possibility of his being in the Tower occurred to all.
"Hollo!" cried the galleyman, as, at this moment, a party of men approached—"with whom hold ye, mates?"
"With whom should we hold," said the foremost, "but with King Richard and the true commons?"
"Well met, then," said Wells; "for the true commons are up—no time is to be lost—the prophet is in prison. Let each man steer his own course, muster all the hands he can, and meet on Tower-hill. Hark! ”

“ We before observed that Stephen Holgrave's dwelling was situated at a short distance from the little Eastbourne; and, on the night of All-hallows fair, a quick knocking was heard at the door just after Holgrave had retired to rest. Holgrave, concluding it was some mandate from the castle, arose, and, in a surly voice, demanded who was there?
"A stranger who wants a shelter—open the door."
It was instantly opened; and the galleyman, with his saturated garments, and his long black hair hanging dripping over his shoulders, entered the cottage. ”

“ Holgrave, the modern young man, who has been a Jack-of-all-trades and is at the period of the story a daguerreotypist, is an attempt to render a kind of national type—that of the young citizen of the United States whose fortune is simply in his lively intelligence, and who stands naked, as it were, unbiased and unencumbered alike, in the centre of the far-stretching level of American life. ”

“ Margaret nodded assent.
"Yes, there is your boy—would you let him grow up a bondman?"
"No," said Holgrave. "Now you speak of the boy, I will not leave this place. Let him live and toil, and suffer, and——"
"And if he was a headstrong boy, and felt one stroke of the lash," interrupted the galleyman, "would he not fly from the bondage, even to become a thing like me? Hark you, Holgrave," he continued, starting upon his feet, extending his right arm, and fixing his full black eyes on his face—"hark you, Holgrave! my father was as honest a man as ever drew the breath of heaven ”

“ It was evident, that, with but one wave of his hand and a corresponding effort of his will, he could complete his mastery over Phœbe’s yet free and virgin spirit: he could establish an influence over this good, pure, and simple child, as dangerous, and perhaps as disastrous, as that which the carpenter of his legend had acquired and exercised over the ill-fated Alice.
To a disposition like Holgrave’s, at once speculative and active, there is no temptation so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire over the human spirit ”

“ But hark you, Stephen Holgrave—I have come to you for shelter, and I expect you will give it."
"While I have a roof the way-faring man shall never sleep——"
"I do not talk of sleep," interrupted the stranger; "I would not trouble any man for the sake of a night's rest: but to be plain with you, my life is sought for—the hue and cry is even now after me;—so, if you mean to keep your word, give me some dry clothing, and hide me—anywhere."
Holgrave turned from the galleyman in silence, and, opening the large chest, took out his only spare clothing—a suit of medley ”

“ But I have no such knowledge."
"You hold something back! "said Phœbe.
"Nothing,—no secrets but my own," answered Holgrave. "I can perceive, indeed, that Judge Pyncheon still keeps his eye on Clifford, in whose ruin he had so large a share. His motives and intentions, however, are a mystery to me. He is a determined and relentless man, with the genuine character of an inquisitor; and had he any object to gain by putting Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he would wrench his joints from their sockets, in order to accomplish it. ”

“ This is in the form of dialogue; but Hawthorne's own attitude toward reform is clearly disclosed in the analytic passages in which he discusses Holgrave, though it is observable that he embodies no adverse criticism upon it in the character itself, as he was to do in his next novel. He appears to take the same view of reform that is sometimes found in respect to prayer, that it has great subjective advantages and is good for the soul, but is futile in the world of fact. It was well for Holgrave, he says, to think as he did ”

“ On arrival, his errand was made known to Neville, the deputy constable of St. Briavel's, who readily attended him with his men. As they rode towards the foundry, which had been indicated as the place of Holgrave's employment, a suppressed murmur from the trees by the road side attracted the constable's attention, and it was said by those nearest, that he gave a significant smile as he passed. The party dismounted at the foundry, and on entering, Holgrave was observed standing close to the forge, surrounded by about a dozen smiths. ”

“ I have neither hurt nor harmed; I only gave a pretty little fair-going dame a Genoese piece instead of an English one."
"Ah! well," said Holgrave; "if she was fool enough to trust a dusty-foot, she must look to it. I care not what you did so long as you kept your hand from blood: so come up this way." He then took one of the branches that were still blazing on the hearth, and conducted the fugitive to the loft.
The stranger instantly divested himself of his wet apparel, and attired himself in Holgrave's yeoman's garb ”

“ Such a wife would make any man think little of her price. If you have made yourself a villein, is the world so small that there is no place but the manor of Sudley to live in? Come, come, let us talk like friends—we are not such strangers as you suppose."
"No," said Holgrave; "but I cannot think where we have met."
"Never mind that. As for me, I am not quite foundered, although I have left a cargo behind at Winchcombe that would have bought a dozen bondmen's freedom. ”

“ Man's own youth is the world's youth; at least, he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth's granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes. So it was with Holgrave. He could talk sagely about the world's old age, but never actually believed what he said; he was a young man still, and therefore looked upon the world—that gray-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without being venerable—as a tender stripling, capable of being improved into all that it ought to be, but scarcely yet had shown the remotest promise of becoming. ”

“ Maule’s curse is fulfilled in yet another generation. The suspicion that would have fallen anew on Clifford is averted by Holgrave. But Holgrave, as he chooses to call himself, is the last living representative of the family of Maule the wizard. And it was for one of the persecuted race to save the unhappiest member of the family by which his own had suffered. Holgrave marries Phœbe Pyncheon and the blood of the two families is united.
Holgrave’s sole inheritance from his wizard ancestor, as he laughingly explained, was a knowledge of the hiding-place of the now worthless Indian deed. ”

“ Who knows but we might get hold of that mortal fiend, John of Gaunt; if we once had him, by St. Nicholas! we might ask for what we liked. Stephen Holgrave, do you keep watch here, and let no one come or go: should there be any thing to be said, you know what to say—that is enough." And then, marshalling off a strong and picked body from among his followers, the smith hurried forward, accompanied by the galleyman and Kirkby, through the city, injuring neither person nor property, but only exacting from every one they encountered in their progress, a shout and a God-speed for the true commons. ”

“ But Father John knew, that although by a disclosure he might avert his own fate, yet he would assuredly draw down inevitable ruin on Holgrave, and that the hopes he had himself cherished—for the reader cannot be ignorant that it was he who was the author of the mysterious document—would utterly fall to the ground; and with that noble-mindedness, that would rather sacrifice self than betray the confidence of another, he still refused to answer. ”

“ But, with all his oddities, he is a quiet kind of a person, and has such a way of taking hold of one’s mind, that, without exactly liking him (for I don’t know enough of the young man) , I should be sorry to lose sight of him entirely. A woman clings to slight acquaintances when she lives so much alone as I do.”
“But if Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person!” remonstrated Phœbe, a part of whose essence it was to keep within the limits of law. ”