"But, if you have business with this young man, pray let me go again.
You know I do not love this room, in spite of that Claude, with which you try to bring back sunny recollections." "Stay a moment, young lady, if you please!" said Matthew Maule.
"My business with your father is over. With yourself, it is now to begin!"
Alice looked towards her father, in surprise and inquiry.
"Yes, Alice," said Mr. Pyncheon, with some disturbance and confusion.
"This young man—his name is Matthew Maule—professes, so far as I can understand him, to be able to discover, through your means, a certain paper or parchment, which was missing long before your birth.
The importance of the document in question renders it advisable to neglect no possible, even if improbable, method of regaining it.
You will therefore oblige me, my dear Alice, by answering this person's inquiries, and complying with his lawful and reasonable requests, so far as they may appear to have the aforesaid object in view.
As I shall remain in the room, you need apprehend no rude nor unbecoming deportment, on the young man's part; and, at your slightest wish, of course, the investigation, or whatever we may call it, shall immediately be broken off."
"Mistress Alice Pyncheon," remarked Matthew Maule, with the utmost deference, but yet a half-hidden sarcasm in his look and tone, "will no doubt feel herself quite safe in her father's presence, and under his all-sufficient protection." "I certainly shall entertain no manner of apprehension, with my father at hand," said Alice, with maidenly dignity.
"Neither do I conceive that a lady, while true to herself, can have aught to fear, from whomsoever or in any circumstances!"
Poor Alice!
By what unhappy impulse did she thus put herself at once on terms of defiance against a strength which she could not estimate?
"Then, Mistress Alice," said Matthew Maule, handing a chair—gracefully enough for a craftsman—"will it please you only to sit down, and do me the favor (though altogether beyond a poor carpenter's deserts) to fix your eyes on mine!"
Alice complied.
She was very proud.
Setting aside all advantages of rank, this fair girl deemed herself conscious of a power—combined of beauty, high, unsullied purity, and the preservative force of womanhood—that could make her sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed by treachery within.
She instinctively knew, it may be, that some sinister or evil potency was now striving to pass her barriers; nor would she decline the contest. So Alice put woman's might against man's might; a match not often equal on the part of woman.
Her father, meanwhile, had turned away, and seemed absorbed in the contemplation of a landscape by Claude, where a shadowy and sun-streaked vista penetrated so remotely into an ancient wood, that it would have been no wonder if his fancy had lost itself in the picture's bewildering depths.
But, in truth, the picture was no more to him, at that moment, than the blank wall against which it hung.
His mind was haunted with the many and strange tales which he had heard attributing mysterious if not supernatural endowments to these Maules, as well as the grandson, here present, as his two immediate ancestors.
Mr. Pyncheon's long residence abroad, and intercourse with men of wit and fashion—courtiers, worldlings, and freethinkers—had done much towards obliterating the grim Puritan superstitions, which no man of New England birth, at that early period, could entirely escape.
But, on the other hand, had not a whole community believed Maule's grandfather to be a wizard?
Had not the crime been proved?
Had not the wizard died for it?
Had he not bequeathed a legacy of hatred against the Pyncheons to this only grandson, who, as it now appeared, was now about to exercise a subtle influence over the daughter of his enemy's house? Might not this influence be the same that was called witchcraft?
Turning half around, he caught a glimpse of Maule's figure in the looking-glass.
At some paces from Alice, with his arms uplifted in the air, the carpenter made a gesture, as if directing downward a slow, ponderous, and invisible weight upon the maiden.
"Stay, Maule!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon, stepping forward.
"I forbid your proceeding further!" "Pray, my dear father, do not interrupt the young man," said Alice, without changing her position.
"His efforts, I assure you, will prove very harmless."
Again Mr. Pyncheon turned his eyes towards the Claude.
It was then his daughter's will, in opposition to his own, that the experiment should be fairly tried. Henceforth, therefore, he did but consent, not urge it.
And was it not for her sake, for more than his own, that he desired its success?
That lost parchment once restored, the beautiful Alice Pyncheon, with the rich dowry which he could then bestow, might wed an English duke, or a German reigning-prince, instead of some New England clergyman or lawyer!
At the thought, the ambitious father almost consented, in his heart, that, if the devil's power were needed to the accomplishment of this great object, Maule might evoke him.
Alice's own purity would be her safeguard.
With his mind full of imaginary magnificence, Mr. Pyncheon heard a half-uttered exclamation from his daughter.
It was very faint and low, so indistinct that there seemed but half a will to shape out the words, and too undefined a purport to be intelligible.
Yet it was a call for help!—his conscience never doubted it—and little more than a whisper to his ear, it was a dismal shriek, and long re-echoed so, in the region round his heart! But, this time, the father did not turn.
After a further interval, Maule spoke.
"Behold your daughter!" said he.
Mr. Pyncheon came hastily forward.
The carpenter was standing erect in front of Alice's chair, and pointing his finger towards the maiden with an expression of triumphant power, the limits of which could not be defined, as, indeed, its scope stretched vaguely towards the unseen and the infinite.
Alice sat in an attitude of profound repose, with the long brown lashes drooping over her eyes.
"There she is!" said the carpenter. "Speak to her!" "Alice!
My daughter!" exclaimed Mr. Pyncheon.
"My own Alice!" She did not stir.
"Louder!" said Maule, smiling. "Alice! awake!" cried her father.
"It troubles me to see you thus!