Hollingsworth and I--we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of the farm--sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock lunch, when we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field.He had admitted himself from the roadside through a turnstile, and seemed to have a purpose of speaking with us.
And, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale, especially from people who sympathized with our theories, and perhaps held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as there should appear a reliable promise of its success.It was rather ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had insensibly been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day's toil), it was absolutely funny, therefore, to observe what a glory was shed about our life and labors, in the imaginations of these longing proselytes.In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians, besides being as practical as the hardest-fisted husbandmen in Massachusetts.We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood.But they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cowyards and pigsties were as delightfully fragrant as a flower garden.Nothing used to please me more than to see one of these lay enthusiasts snatch up a hoe, as they were very prone to do, and set to work with a vigor that perhaps carried him through about a dozen ill-directed strokes.Men are wonderfully soon satisfied, in this day of shameful bodily enervation, when, from one end of life to the other, such multitudes never taste the sweet weariness that follows accustomed toil.
I seldom saw the new enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy and flaccid as the proselyte's moistened shirt-collar, with a quarter of an hour's active labor under a July sun.
But the person now at hand had not at all the air of one of these amiable visionaries.He was an elderly man, dressed rather shabbily, yet decently enough, in a gray frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue, and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years gone by.
His hair was perfect silver, without a dark thread in the whole of it;his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted symbol.He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more than was good for him,--not, however, with a purpose of undue exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his spirits up to the ordinary level of the world's cheerfulness.Drawing nearer, there was a shy look about him, as if he were ashamed of his poverty, or, at any rate, for some reason or other, would rather have us glance at him sidelong than take a full front view.He had a queer appearance of hiding himself behind the patch on his left eye.
"I know this old gentleman," said I to Hollingsworth, as we sat observing him; "that is, I have met him a hundred times in town, and have often amused my fancy with wondering what he was before he came to be what he is.He haunts restaurants and such places, and has an odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind a door whenever practicable, and holding out his hand with some little article in it which he wishes you to buy.The eye of the world seems to trouble him, although he necessarily lives so much in it.I never expected to see him in an open field.""Have you learned anything of his history?" asked Hollingsworth.
"Not a circumstance," I answered; "but there must be something curious in it.I take him to be a harmless sort of a person, and a tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat,--a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite.See, now! He means to skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side of our clump of maples."We soon heard the old man's velvet tread on the grass, indicating that he had arrived within a few feet of where we Sat.
"Good-morning, Mr.Moodie," said Hollingsworth, addressing the stranger as an acquaintance; "you must have had a hot and tiresome walk from the city.Sit down, and take a morsel of our bread and cheese."The visitor made a grateful little murmur of acquiescence, and sat down in a spot somewhat removed; so that, glancing round, I could see his gray pantaloons and dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly hidden behind the shrubbery.Nor did he come forth from this retirement during the whole of the interview that followed.We handed him such food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses and water (would that it had been brandy, or some thing better, for the sake of his chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty sacrifice to an enshrined and invisible idol.Ihave no idea that he really lacked sustenance; but it was quite touching, nevertheless, to hear him nibbling away at our crusts.
