The Ancestral Footstep (fragment)
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Nathaniel Hawthorne >> The Ancestral Footstep (fragment)
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"So it might be," replied Middleton, "only that our relations with
England remain far more numerous than our disconnections, through the
bonds of history, of literature, of all that makes up the memories, and
much that makes up the present interests of a people. And therefore I
must still continue to pore over these old folios, and hunt around these
precincts, spending thus the little idle time I am likely to have in a
busy life. Possibly finding little to my purpose; but that is quite a
secondary consideration."
"If you choose to tell me precisely what your aims are," said Hammond,
"it is possible I might give you some little assistance."
_May 7th, Friday_.--Middleton was in fact more than half ashamed of the
dreams which he had cherished before coming to England, and which since,
at times, had been very potent with him, assuming as strong a tinge of
reality as those [scenes?] into which he had strayed. He could not
prevail with himself to disclose fully to this severe, and, as he
thought, cynical old man how strong within him was the sentiment that
impelled him to connect himself with the old life of England, to join on
the broken thread of ancestry and descent, and feel every link well
established. But it seemed to him that he ought not to lose this fair
opportunity of gaining some light on the abstruse field of his
researches; and he therefore explained to Hammond that he had reason,
from old family traditions, to believe that he brought with him a
fragment of a history that, if followed out, might lead to curious
results. He told him, in a tone half serious, what he had heard
respecting the quarrel of the two brothers, and the Bloody Footstep, the
impress of which was said to remain, as a lasting memorial of the tragic
termination of that enmity. At this point, Hammond interrupted him. He
had indeed, at various points of the narrative, nodded and smiled
mysteriously, as if looking into his mind and seeing something there
analogous to what he was listening to. He now spoke.
"This is curious," said he. "Did you know that there is a manor-house in
this neighborhood, the family of which prides itself on having such a
blood-stained threshold as you have now described?"
"No, indeed!" exclaimed Middleton, greatly interested. "Where?"
"It is the old manor-house of Smithell's," replied Hammond, "one of those
old wood and timber [plaster?] mansions, which are among the most ancient
specimens of domestic architecture in England. The house has now passed
into the female line, and by marriage has been for two or three
generations in possession of another family. But the blood of the old
inheritors is still in the family. The house itself, or portions of it,
are thought to date back quite as far as the Conquest."
"Smithell's?" said Middleton. "Why, I have seen that old house from a
distance, and have felt no little interest in its antique aspect. And it
has a Bloody Footstep! Would it be possible for a stranger to get an
opportunity to inspect it?"
"Unquestionably," said Hammond; "nothing easier. It is but a moderate
distance from here, and if you can moderate your young footsteps, and
your American quick walk, to an old man's pace, I would go there with you
some day. In this languor and ennui of my life, I spend some time in
local antiquarianism, and perhaps I might assist you in tracing out how
far these traditions of yours may have any connection with reality. It
would be curious, would it not, if you had come, after two hundred years,
to piece out a story which may have been as much a mystery in England as
there in America?"
An engagement was made for a walk to Smithell's the ensuing day; and
meanwhile Middleton entered more fully into what he had received from
family traditions and what he had thought out for himself on the matter
in question.
"Are you aware," asked Hammond, "that there was formerly a title in this
family, now in abeyance, and which the heirs have at various times
claimed, and are at this moment claiming? Do you know, too,--but you can
scarcely know it,--that it has been surmised by some that there is an
insecurity in the title to the estate, and has always been; so that the
possessors have lived in some apprehension, from time immemorial, that
another heir would appear and take from them the fair inheritance? It is
a singular coincidence."
"Very strange," exclaimed Middleton. "No; I was not aware of it; and, to
say the truth, I should not altogether like to come forward in the light
of a claimant. But this is a dream, surely!"
"I assure you, sir," continued the old man, "that you come here in a very
critical moment; and singularly enough there is a perplexity, a
difficulty, that has endured for as long a time as when your ancestors
emigrated, that is still rampant within the bowels, as I may say, of the
family. Of course, it is too like a romance that you should be able to
establish any such claim as would have a valid influence on this matter;
but still, being here on the spot, it may be worth while, if merely as a
matter of amusement, to make some researches into this matter."
"Surely I will," said Middleton, with a smile, which concealed more
earnestness than he liked to show; "as to the title, a Republican cannot
be supposed to think twice about such a bagatelle. The estate!--that
might be a more serious consideration."
They continued to talk on the subject; and Middleton learned that the
present possessor of the estates was a gentleman nowise distinguished
from hundreds of other English gentlemen; a country squire modified in
accordance with the type of to-day, a frank, free, friendly sort of a
person enough, who had travelled on the Continent, who employed himself
much in field-sports, who was unmarried, and had a sister who was
reckoned among the beauties of the county.
While the conversation was thus going on, to Middleton's astonishment
there came a knock at the door of the room, and, without waiting for a
response, it was opened, and there appeared at it the same young woman
whom he had already met. She came in with perfect freedom and
familiarity, and was received quietly by the old gentleman; who, however,
by his manner towards Middleton, indicated that he was now to take his
leave. He did so, after settling the hour at which the excursion of the
next day was to take place. This arranged, he departed, with much to
think of, and a light glimmering through the confused labyrinth of
thoughts which had been unilluminated hitherto.
To say the truth, he questioned within himself whether it were not better
to get as quickly as he could out of the vicinity; and, at any rate, not
to put anything of earnest in what had hitherto been nothing more than a
romance to him. There was something very dark and sinister in the events
of family history, which now assumed a reality that they had never before
worn; so much tragedy, so much hatred, had been thrown into that deep
pit, and buried under the accumulated debris, the fallen leaves, the rust
and dust of more than two centuries, that it seemed not worth while to
dig it up; for perhaps the deadly influences, which it had taken so much
time to hide, might still be lurking there, and become potent if he now
uncovered them. There was something that startled him, in the strange,
wild light, which gleamed from the old man's eyes, as he threw out the
suggestions which had opened this prospect to him. What right had he--an
American, Republican, disconnected with this country so long, alien from
its habits of thought and life, reverencing none of the things which
Englishmen reverenced--what right had he to come with these musty claims
from the dim past, to disturb them in the life that belonged to them?
There was a higher and a deeper law than any connected with ancestral
claims which he could assert; and he had an idea that the law bade him
keep to the country which his ancestor had chosen and to its
institutions, and not meddle nor make with England. The roots of his
family tree could not reach under the ocean; he was at most but a
seedling from the parent tree. While thus meditating he found that his
footsteps had brought him unawares within sight of the old manor-house of
Smithell's; and that he was wandering in a path which, if he followed it
further, would bring him to an entrance in one of the wings of the
mansion. With a sort of shame upon him, he went forward, and, leaning
against a tree, looked at what he considered the home of his ancestors.
_May 9th, Sunday_.--At the time appointed, the two companions set out on
their little expedition, the old man in his Hospital uniform, the long
black mantle, with the bear and ragged staff engraved in silver on the
breast, and Middleton in the plain costume which he had adopted in these
wanderings about the country. On their way, Hammond was not very
communicative, occasionally dropping some shrewd remark with a good deal
of acidity in it; now and then, too, favoring his companion with some
reminiscence of local antiquity; but oftenest silent. Thus they went on,
and entered the park of Pemberton Manor by a by-path, over a stile and
one of those footways, which are always so well worth threading out in
England, leading the pedestrian into picturesque and characteristic
scenes, when the highroad would show him nothing except what was
commonplace and uninteresting. Now the gables of the old manor-house
appeared before them, rising amidst the hereditary woods, which doubtless
dated from a time beyond the days which Middleton fondly recalled, when
his ancestors had walked beneath their shade. On each side of them were
thickets and copses of fern, amidst which they saw the hares peeping out
to gaze upon them, occasionally running across the path, and comporting
themselves like creatures that felt themselves under some sort of
protection from the outrages of man, though they knew too much of his
destructive character to trust him too far. Pheasants, too, rose close
beside them, and winged but a little way before they alighted; they
likewise knew, or seemed to know, that their hour was not yet come. On
all sides in these woods, these wastes, these beasts and birds, there was
a character that was neither wild nor tame. Man had laid his grasp on
them all, and done enough to redeem them from barbarism, but had stopped
short of domesticating them; although Nature, in the wildest thing there,
acknowledged the powerful and pervading influence of cultivation.
Arriving at a side door of the mansion, Hammond rang the bell, and a
servant soon appeared. He seemed to know the old man, and immediately
acceded to his request to be permitted to show his companion the house;
although it was not precisely a show-house, nor was this the hour when
strangers were usually admitted. They entered; and the servant did not
give himself the trouble to act as a cicerone to the two visitants, but
carelessly said to the old gentleman that he knew the rooms, and that he
would leave him to discourse to his friend about them. Accordingly, they
went into the old hall, a dark oaken-panelled room, of no great height,
with many doors opening into it. There was a fire burning on the hearth;
indeed, it was the custom of the house to keep it up from morning to
night; and in the damp, chill climate of England, there is seldom a day
in some part of which a fire is not pleasant to feel. Hammond here
pointed out a stuffed fox, to which some story of a famous chase was
attached; a pair of antlers of enormous size; and some old family
pictures, so blackened with time and neglect that Middleton could not
well distinguish their features, though curious to do so, as hoping to
see there the lineaments of some with whom he might claim kindred. It was
a venerable apartment, and gave a good foretaste of what they might hope
to find in the rest of the mansion.
But when they had inspected it pretty thoroughly, and were ready to
proceed, an elderly gentleman entered the hall, and, seeing Hammond,
addressed him in a kindly, familiar way; not indeed as an equal friend,
but with a pleasant and not irksome conversation. "I am glad to see you
here again," said he. "What? I have an hour of leisure; for, to say the
truth, the day hangs rather heavy till the shooting season begins. Come;
as you have a friend with you, I will be your cicerone myself about the
house, and show you whatever mouldy objects of interest it contains."
He then graciously noticed the old man's companion, but without asking or
seeming to expect an introduction; for, after a careless glance at him,
he had evidently set him down as a person without social claims, a young
man in the rank of life fitted to associate with an inmate of Pemberton's
Hospital. And it must be noticed that his treatment of Middleton was not
on that account the less kind, though far from being so elaborately
courteous as if he had met him as an equal. "You have had something of a
walk," said he, "and it is a rather hot day. The beer of Pemberton Manor
has been reckoned good these hundred years; will you taste it?"
Hammond accepted the offer, and the beer was brought in a foaming
tankard; but Middleton declined it, for in truth there was a singular
emotion in his breast, as if the old enmity, the ancient injuries, were
not yet atoned for, and as if he must not accept the hospitality of one
who represented his hereditary foe. He felt, too, as if there were
something unworthy, a certain want of fairness, in entering clandestinely
the house, and talking with its occupant under a veil, as it were; and
had he seen clearly how to do it, he would perhaps at that moment have
fairly told Mr. Eldredge that he brought with him the character of
kinsman, and must be received on that grade or none. But it was not easy
to do this; and after all, there was no clear reason why he should do it;
so he let the matter pass, merely declining to take the refreshment, and
keeping himself quiet and retired.
Squire Eldredge seemed to be a good, ordinary sort of gentleman,
reasonably well educated, and with few ideas beyond his estate and
neighborhood, though he had once held a seat in Parliament for part of a
term. Middleton could not but contrast him, with an inward smile, with
the shrewd, alert politicians, their faculties all sharpened to the
utmost, whom he had known and consorted with in the American Congress.
Hammond had slightly informed him that his companion was an American; and
Mr. Eldredge immediately gave proof of the extent of his knowledge of
that country, by inquiring whether he came from the State of New England,
and whether Mr. Webster was still President of the United States;
questions to which Middleton returned answers that led to no further
conversation. These little preliminaries over, they continued their
ramble through the house, going through tortuous passages, up and down
little flights of steps, and entering chambers that had all the charm of
discoveries of hidden regions; loitering about, in short, in a labyrinth
calculated to put the head into a delightful confusion. Some of these
rooms contained their time-honored furniture, all in the best possible
repair, heavy, dark, polished; beds that had been marriage beds and dying
beds over and over again; chairs with carved backs; and all manner of old
world curiosities; family pictures, and samplers, and embroidery;
fragments of tapestry; an inlaid floor; everything having a story to it,
though, to say the truth, the possessor of these curiosities made but a
bungling piece of work in telling the legends connected with them. In one
or two instances Hammond corrected him.
By and by they came to what had once been the principal bed-room of the
house; though its gloom, and some circumstances of family misfortune that
had happened long ago, had caused it to fall into disrepute in latter
times; and it was now called the Haunted Chamber, or the Ghost's Chamber.
The furniture of this room, however, was particularly rich in its antique
magnificence; and one of the principal objects was a great black cabinet
of ebony and ivory, such as may often be seen in old English houses, and
perhaps often in the palaces of Italy, in which country they perhaps
originated. This present cabinet was known to have been in the house as
long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and how much longer neither
tradition nor record told. Hammond particularly directed Middleton's
attention to it.
"There is nothing in this house," said he, "better worth your attention
than that cabinet.' Consider its plan; it represents a stately mansion,
with pillars, an entrance, with a lofty flight of steps, windows, and
everything perfect. Examine it well."
There was such an emphasis in the old man's way of speaking that
Middleton turned suddenly round from all that he had been looking at, and
fixed his whole attention on the cabinet; and strangely enough, it seemed
to be the representative, in small, of something that he had seen in a
dream. To say the truth, if some cunning workman had been employed to
copy his idea of the old family mansion, on a scale of half an inch to a
yard, and in ebony and ivory instead of stone, he could not have produced
a closer imitation. Everything was there.
"This is miraculous!" exclaimed he. "I do not understand it."
"Your friend seems to be curious in these matters," said Mr. Eldredge
graciously. "Perhaps he is of some trade that makes this sort of
manufacture particularly interesting to him. You are quite at liberty, my
friend, to open the cabinet and inspect it as minutely as you wish. It is
an article that has a good deal to do with an obscure portion of our
family history. Look, here is the key, and the mode of opening the outer
door of the palace, as we may well call it." So saying, he threw open the
outer door, and disclosed within the mimic likeness of a stately entrance
hall, with a floor chequered of ebony and ivory. There were other doors
that seemed to open into apartments in the interior of the palace; but
when Mr. Eldredge threw them likewise wide, they proved to be drawers and
secret receptacles, where papers, jewels, money, anything that it was
desirable to store away secretly, might be kept.
"You said, sir," said Middleton, thoughtfully, "that your family history
contained matter of interest in reference to this cabinet. Might I
inquire what those legends are?"
"Why, yes," said Mr. Eldredge, musing a little. "I see no reason why I
should have any idle concealment about the matter, especially to a
foreigner and a man whom I am never likely to see again. You must know,
then, my friend, that there was once a time when this cabinet was known
to contain the fate of the estate and its possessors; and if it had held
all that it was supposed to hold, I should not now be the lord of
Pemberton Manor, nor the claimant of an ancient title. But my father, and
his father before him, and his father besides, have held the estate and
prospered on it; and I think we may fairly conclude now that the cabinet
contains nothing except what we see."
And he rapidly again threw open one after another all the numerous
drawers and receptacles of the cabinet.
"It is an interesting object," said Middleton, after looking very closely
and with great attention at it, being pressed thereto, indeed, by the
owner's good natured satisfaction in possessing this rare article of
vertu. "It is admirable work," repeated he, drawing back. "That mosaic
floor, especially, is done with an art and skill that I never saw
equalled."
There was something strange and altered in Middleton's tones, that
attracted the notice of Mr. Eldredge. Looking at him, he saw that he had
grown pale, and had a rather bewildered air.
"Is your friend ill?" said he. "He has not our English ruggedness of
look. He would have done better to take a sip of the cool tankard, and a
slice of the cold beef. He finds no such food and drink as that in his
own country, I warrant."
"His color has come back," responded Hammond, briefly. "He does not need
any refreshment, I think, except, perhaps, the open air."
In fact, Middleton, recovering himself, apologized to Mr. Hammond
[Eldredge?]; and as they had now seen nearly the whole of the house, the
two visitants took their leave, with many kindly offers on Mr. Eldredge's
part to permit the young man to view the cabinet whenever he wished. As
they went out of the house (it was by another door than that which gave
them entrance), Hammond laid his hand on Middleton's shoulder and pointed
to a stone on the threshold, on which he was about to set his foot. "Take
care!" said he. "It is the Bloody Footstep."
Middleton looked down and saw something, indeed, very like the shape of a
footprint, with a hue very like that of blood. It was a twilight sort of
a place, beneath a porch, which was much overshadowed by trees and
shrubbery. It might have been blood; but he rather thought, in his wicked
skepticism, that it was a natural, reddish stain in the stone. He
measured his own foot, however, in the Bloody Footstep, and went on.
_May 10th, Monday_.--This is the present aspect of the story: Middleton
is the descendant of a family long settled in the United States; his
ancestor having emigrated to New England with the Pilgrims; or, perhaps,
at a still earlier date, to Virginia with Raleigh's colonists. There had
been a family dissension,--a bitter hostility between two brothers in
England; on account, probably, of a love affair, the two both being
attached to the same lady. By the influence of the family on both sides,
the young lady had formed an engagement with the elder brother, although
her affections had settled on the younger. The marriage was about to take
place when the younger brother and the bride both disappeared, and were
never heard of with any certainty afterwards; but it was believed at the
time that he had been killed, and in proof of it a bloody footstep
remained on the threshold of the ancestral mansion. There were rumors,
afterwards, traditionally continued to the present day, that the younger
brother and the bride were seen, and together, in England; and that some
voyager across the sea had found them living together, husband and wife,
on the other side of the Atlantic. But the elder brother became a moody
and reserved man, never married, and left the inheritance to the children
of a third brother, who then became the representative of the family in
England; and the better authenticated story was that the second brother
had really been slain, and that the young lady (for all the parties may
have been Catholic) had gone to the Continent and taken the veil there.
Such was the family history as known or surmised in England, and in the
neighborhood of the manor-house, where the Bloody Footstep still remained
on the threshold; and the posterity of the third brother still held the
estate, and perhaps were claimants of an ancient baronage, long in
abeyance.
Now, on the other side of the Atlantic, the second brother and the young
lady had really been married, and became the parents of a posterity,
still extant, of which the Middleton of the romance is the surviving
male. Perhaps he had changed his name, being so much tortured with the
evil and wrong that had sprung up in his family, so remorseful, so
outraged, that he wished to disconnect himself with all the past, and
begin life quite anew in a new world. But both he and his wife, though
happy in one another, had been remorsefully and sadly so; and, with such
feelings, they had never again communicated with their respective
families, nor had given their children the means of doing so. There must,
I think, have been something nearly approaching to guilt on the second
brother's part, and the bride should have broken a solemnly plighted
troth to the elder brother, breaking away from him when almost his wife.
The elder brother had been known to have been wounded at the time of the
second brother's disappearance; and it had been the surmise that he had
received this hurt in the personal conflict in which the latter was
slain. But in truth the second brother had stabbed him in the emergency
of being discovered in the act of escaping with the bride; and this was
what weighed upon his conscience throughout life in America. The American
family had prolonged itself through various fortunes, and all the ups and
downs incident to our institutions, until the present day. They had some
old family documents, which had been rather carelessly kept; but the
present representative, being an educated man, had looked over them, and
found one which interested him strongly. It was--what was it?--perhaps a
copy of a letter written by his ancestor on his death-bed, telling his
real name, and relating the above incidents. These incidents had come
down in a vague, wild way, traditionally, in the American family, forming
a wondrous and incredible legend, which Middleton had often laughed at,
yet been greatly interested in; and the discovery of this document seemed
to give a certain aspect of veracity and reality to the tradition.
Perhaps, however, the document only related to the change of name, and
made reference to certain evidences by which, if any descendant of the
family should deem it expedient, he might prove his hereditary identity.
The legend must be accounted for by having been gathered from the talk of
the first ancestor and his wife. There must be in existence, in the early
records of the colony, an authenticated statement of this change of name,
and satisfactory proofs that the American family, long known as
Middleton, were really a branch of the English family of Eldredge, or
whatever. And in the legend, though not in the written document, there
must be an account of a certain magnificent, almost palatial residence,
which Middleton shall presume to be the ancestral home; and in this
palace there shall be said to be a certain secret chamber, or receptacle,
where is reposited a document that shall complete the evidence of the
genealogical descent.
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