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+Project Gutenberg EBook The Seven Vagabonds, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+From "Twice Told Tales"
+#40 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
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+Title: The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales")
+
+Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+Release Date: Nov, 2005  [EBook #9213]
+[This file was first posted on August 31, 2003]
+[Last updated on February 5, 2007]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE SEVEN VAGABONDS ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger  [widger@cecomet.net]
+
+
+
+
+
+                        TWICE TOLD TALES
+
+                      THE SEVEN VAGABONDS
+
+                     By Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+
+
+Rambling on foot in the spring of my life and the summer of the year,
+I came one afternoon to a point which gave me the choice of three
+directions.  Straight before me, the main road extended its dusty
+length to Boston; on the left a branch went towards the sea, and would
+have lengthened my journey a trifle of twenty or thirty miles; while
+by the right-hand path, I might have gone over hills and lakes to
+Canada, visiting in my way the celebrated town of Stamford.  On a
+level spot of grass, at the foot of the guidepost, appeared an object,
+which, though locomotive on a different principle, reminded me of
+Gulliver's portable mansion among the Brobdignags.  It was a huge
+covered wagon, or, more properly, a small house on wheels, with a door
+on one side and a window shaded by green blinds on the other.  Two
+horses, munching provender out of the baskets which muzzled them, were
+fastened near the vehicle: a delectable sound of music proceeded from
+the interior; and I immediately conjectured that this was some
+itinerant show, halting at the confluence of the roads to intercept
+such idle travellers as myself.  A shower had long been climbing up
+the western sky, and now hung so blackly over my onward path that it
+was a point of wisdom to seek shelter here.
+
+"Halloo!  Who stands guard here?  Is the doorkeeper asleep?" cried I,
+approaching a ladder of two or three steps which was let down from the
+wagon.
+
+The music ceased at my summons, and there appeared at the door, not
+the sort of figure that I had mentally assigned to the wandering
+showman, but a most respectable old personage, whom I was sorry to
+have addressed in so free a style.  He wore a snuff colored coat and
+small-clothes, with white-top boots, and exhibited the mild dignity of
+aspect and manner which may often be noticed in aged schoolmasters,
+and sometimes in deacons, selectmen, or other potentates of that kind.
+A small piece of silver was my passport within his premises, where I
+found only one other person, hereafter to be described.
+
+"This is a dull day for business," said the old gentleman, as he
+ushered me in; "but I merely tarry here to refresh the cattle, being
+bound for the camp-meeting at Stamford."
+
+Perhaps the movable scene of this narrative is still peregrinating New
+England, and may enable the reader to test the accuracy of my
+description.  The spectacle--for I will not use the unworthy term of
+puppet-show--consisted of a multitude of little people assembled on a
+miniature stage.  Among them were artisans of every kind, in the
+attitudes of their toil, and a group of fair ladies and gay gentlemen
+standing ready for the dance; a company of foot-soldiers formed a line
+across the stage, looking stern, grim, and terrible enough, to make it
+a pleasant consideration that they were but three inches high; and
+conspicuous above the whole was seen a Merry-Andrew, in the pointed
+cap and motley coat of his profession.  All the inhabitants of this
+mimic world were motionless, like the figures in a picture, or like
+that people who one moment were alive in the midst of their business
+and delights, and the next were transformed to statues, preserving an
+eternal semblance of labor that was ended, and pleasure that could be
+felt no more.  Anon, however, the old gentleman turned the handle of a
+barrel-organ, the first note of which produced a most enlivening
+effect upon the figures, and awoke them all to their proper
+occupations and amusements.  By the self-same impulse the tailor plied
+his needle, the blacksmith's hammer descended upon the anvil, and the
+dancers whirled away on feathery tiptoes; the company of soldiers
+broke into platoons, retreated from the stage, and were succeeded by a
+troop of horse, who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets
+and trampling of hoofs, as might have startled Don Quixote himself;
+while an old toper, of inveterate ill habits, uplifted his black
+bottle and took off a hearty swig.  Meantime the Merry-Andrew began to
+caper and turn somersets, shaking his sides, nodding his head, and
+winking his eyes in as life-like a manner as if he were ridiculing the
+nonsense of all human affairs, and making fun of the whole multitude
+beneath him.  At length the old magician (for I compared the showman
+to Prospero, entertaining his guests with a mask of shadows) paused
+that I might give utterance to my wonder.
+
+"What an admirable piece of work is this!" exclaimed I, lifting up my
+bands in astonishment.
+
+Indeed, I liked the spectacle, and was tickled with the old man's
+gravity as he presided at it, for I had none of that foolish wisdom
+which reproves every occupation that is not useful in this world of
+vanities.  If there be a faculty which I possess more perfectly than
+most men, it is that of throwing myself mentally into situations
+foreign to my own, and detecting, with a cheerful eye, the desirable
+circumstances of each.  I could have envied the life of this gray-
+headed showman, spent as it had been in a course of safe and
+pleasurable adventure, in driving his huge vehicle sometimes through
+the sands of Cape Cod, and sometimes over the rough forest roads of
+the north and east, and halting now on the green before a village
+meeting-house, and now in a paved square of the metropolis.  How often
+must his heart have been gladdened by the delight of children, as they
+viewed these animated figures!  or his pride indulged, by haranguing
+learnedly to grown men on the mechanical powers which produced such
+wonderful effects! or his gallantry brought into play (for this is an
+attribute which such grave men do not lack) by the visits of pretty
+maidens!  And then with how fresh a feeling must he return, at
+intervals, to his own peculiar home!
+
+"I would I were assured of as happy a life as his," thought I. Though
+the showman's wagon might have accommodated fifteen or twenty
+spectators, it now contained only himself and me, and a third person
+at whom I threw a glance on entering.  He was a neat and trim young
+man of two or three and twenty; his drab hat, and green frock-coat
+with velvet collar, were smart, though no longer new; while a pair of
+green spectacles, that seemed needless to his brisk little eyes, gave
+him something of a scholar-like and literary air.  After allowing me a
+sufficient time to inspect the puppets, he advanced with a bow, and
+drew my attention to some books in a corner of the wagon.  These he
+forthwith began to extol, with an amazing volubility of well-sounding
+words, and an ingenuity of praise that won him my heart, as being
+myself one of the most merciful of critics.  Indeed, his stock
+required some considerable powers of commendation in the salesman;
+there were several ancient friends of mine, the novels of those happy
+days when my affections wavered between the Scottish Chiefs and Thomas
+Thumb; besides a few of later date, whose merits had not been
+acknowledged by the public.  I was glad to find that dear little
+venerable volume, the New England Primer, looking as antique as ever,
+though in its thousandth new edition; a bundle of superannuated gilt
+picture-books made such a child of me, that, partly for the glittering
+covers, and partly for the fairy-tales within, I bought the whole; and
+an assortment of ballads and popular theatrical songs drew largely on
+my purse.  To balance these expenditures, I meddled neither with
+sermons, nor science, nor morality, though volumes of each were there;
+nor with a Life of Franklin in the coarsest of paper, but so showily
+bound that it was emblematical of the Doctor himself, in the court
+dress which he refused to wear at Paris; nor with Webster's Spelling
+Book, nor some of Byron's minor poems, nor half a dozen little
+Testaments at twenty-five cents each.
+
+Thus far the collection might have been swept from some great
+bookstore, or picked up at an evening auction-room; but there was one
+small blue-covered pamphlet, which the peddler handed me with so
+peculiar an air, that I purchased it immediately at his own price; and
+then, for the first time, the thought struck me, that I had spoken
+face to face with the veritable author of a printed book.  The
+literary man now evinced a great kindness for me, and I ventured to
+inquire which way he was travelling.
+
+"O," said he, "I keep company with this old gentleman here, and we are
+moving now towards the camp-meeting at Stamford!"
+
+He then explained to me, that for the present season he had rented a
+corner of the wagon as a bookstore, which, as he wittily observed, was
+a true Circulating Library, since there were few parts of the country
+where it had not gone its rounds.  I approved of the plan exceedingly,
+and began to sum up within my mind the many uncommon felicities in the
+life of a book-peddler, especially when his character resembled that of
+the individual before me.  At a high rate was to be reckoned the daily
+and hourly enjoyment of such interviews as the present, in which he
+seized upon the admiration of a passing stranger, and made him aware
+that a man of literary taste, and even of literary achievement, was
+travelling the country in a showman's wagon.  A more valuable, yet not
+infrequent triumph, might be won in his conversation with some elderly
+clergyman, long vegetating in a rocky, woody, watery back settlement of
+New England, who, as he recruited his library from the peddler's stock
+of sermons, would exhort him to seek a college education and become
+the first scholar in his class.  Sweeter and prouder yet would be his
+sensations, when, talking poetry while he sold spelling-books, he
+should charm the mind, and haply touch the heart of a fair country
+schoolmistress, herself an unhonored poetess, a wearer of blue
+stockings which none but himself took pains to look at.  But the scene
+of his completest glory would be when the wagon had halted for the
+night, and his stock of books was transferred to some crowded bar-room.
+Then would he recommend to the multifarious company, whether
+traveller from the city, or teamster from the hills, or neighboring
+squire, or the landlord himself, or his loutish hostler, works suited
+to each particular taste and capacity; proving, all the while, by
+acute criticism and profound remark, that the lore in his books was
+even exceeded by that in his brain.
+
+Thus happily would he traverse the land; sometimes a herald before the
+march of Mind; sometimes walking arm in arm with awful Literature; and
+reaping everywhere a harvest of real and sensible popularity, which
+the secluded bookworms, by whose toil he lived, could never hope for.
+
+"If ever I meddle with literature," thought I, fixing myself in
+adamantine resolution, "it shall be as a travelling bookseller."
+
+Though it was still mid-afternoon, the air had now grown dark about
+us, and a few drops of rain came down upon the roof of our vehicle,
+pattering like the feet of birds that had flown thither to rest.  A
+sound of pleasant voices made us listen, and there soon appeared half-
+way up the ladder the pretty person of a young damsel, whose rosy face
+was so cheerful, that even amid the gloomy light it seemed as if the
+sunbeams were peeping under her bonnet.  We next saw the dark and
+handsome features of a young man, who, with easier gallantry than
+might have been expected in the heart of Yankee-land, was assisting
+her into the wagon.  It became immediately evident to us, when the two
+strangers stood within the door, that they were of a profession
+kindred to those of my companions; and I was delighted with the more
+than hospitable, the even paternal kindness, of the old showman's
+manner, as he welcomed them; while the man of literature hastened to
+lead the merry-eyed girl to a seat on the long bench.
+
+"You are housed but just in time, my young friends," said the master
+of the wagon.  "The sky would have been down upon you within five
+minutes."
+
+The young man's reply marked him as a foreigner, not by any variation
+from the idiom and accent of good English, but because he spoke with
+more caution and accuracy, than if perfectly familiar with the
+language.
+
+"We knew that a shower was hanging over us," said he, "and consulted
+whether it were best to enter the house on the top of yonder hill, but
+seeing your wagon in the road--"
+
+"We agreed to come hither," interrupted the girl, with a smile,
+"because we should be more at home in a wandering house like this."
+
+I, meanwhile, with many a wild and undetermined fantasy, was narrowly
+inspecting these two doves that had flown into our ark. The young man,
+tall, agile, and athletic, wore a mass of black shining curls
+clustering round a dark and vivacious countenance, which, if it had
+not greater expression, was at least more active, and attracted
+readier notice, than the quiet faces of our countrymen.  At his first
+appearance, he had been laden with a neat mahogany box, of about two
+feet square, but very light in proportion to its size, which he had
+immediately unstrapped from his shoulders and deposited on the floor
+of the wagon.
+
+The girl had nearly as fair a complexion as our own beauties, and a
+brighter one than most of them; the lightness of her figure, which
+seemed calculated to traverse the whole world without weariness,
+suited well with the glowing cheerfulness of her face; and her gay
+attire, combining the rainbow hues of crimson, green, and a deep
+orange, was as proper to her lightsome aspect as if she had been born
+in it.  This gay stranger was appropriately burdened with that mirth-
+inspiring instrument, the fiddle, which her companion took from her
+hands, and shortly began the process of tuning.  Neither of us--the
+previous company of the wagon-needed to inquire their trade; for this
+could be no mystery to frequenters of brigade-musters, ordinations,
+cattle-shows, commencements, and other festal meetings in our sober
+land; and there is a dear friend of mine, who will smile when this
+page recalls to his memory a chivalrous deed performed by us, in
+rescuing the show-box of such a couple from a mob of great double-
+fisted countrymen.
+
+"Come," said I to the damsel of gay attire, "shall we visit all the
+wonders of the world together?"
+
+She understood the metaphor at once; though indeed it would not much
+have troubled me, if she had assented to the literal meaning of my
+words.  The mahogany box was placed in a proper position, and I peeped
+in through its small round magnifying window, while the girl sat by my
+side, and gave short descriptive sketches, as one after another the
+pictures were unfolded to my view.  We visited together, at least our
+imaginations did, full many a famous city, in the streets of which I
+had long yearned to tread; once, I remember, we were in the harbor of
+Barcelona, gazing townwards; next, she bore me through the air to
+Sicily, and bade me look up at blazing AEtna; then we took wing to
+Venice, and sat in a gondola beneath the arch of the Rialto; and anon
+she sat me down among the thronged spectators at the coronation of
+Napoleon. But there was one scene, its locality she could not tell,
+which charmed my attention longer than all those gorgeous palaces and
+churches, because the fancy hammed me, that I myself, the preceding
+summer, had beheld just such a humble meeting-house, in just such a
+pine-surrounded nook, among our own green mountains. All these
+pictures were tolerably executed, though far inferior to the girl's
+touches of description; nor was it easy to comprehend, how in so few
+sentences, and these, as I supposed, in a language foreign to her, she
+contrived to present an airy copy of each varied scene.  When we had
+travelled through the vast extent of the mahogany box, I looked into
+my guide's face.
+
+"Where are you going, my pretty maid?"  inquired I, in the words of an
+old song.
+
+"Ah," said the gay damsel, "you might as well ask where the summer
+wind is going.  We are wanderers here, and there, and everywhere.
+Wherever there is mirth, our merry hearts are drawn to it.  To-day,
+indeed, the people have told us of a great frolic and festival in
+these parts; so perhaps we may be needed at what you call the camp-
+meeting at Stamford."
+
+Then in my happy youth, and while her pleasant voice yet sounded in my
+ears, I sighed; for none but myself, I thought, should have been her
+companion in a life which seemed to realize my own wild fancies,
+cherished all through visionary boyhood to that hour. To these two
+strangers the world was in its golden age, not that indeed it was less
+dark and sad than ever, but because its weariness and sorrow had no
+community with their ethereal nature. Wherever they might appear in
+their pilgrimage of bliss, Youth would echo back their gladness, care-
+stricken Maturity would rest a moment from its toil, and Age,
+tottering among the graves, would smile in withered joy for their
+sakes.  The lonely cot, the narrow and gloomy street, the sombre
+shade, would catch a passing gleam like that now shining on ourselves,
+as these bright spirits wandered by.  Blessed pair, whose happy home
+was throughout all the earth!  I looked at my shoulders, and thought
+them broad enough to sustain those pictured towns and mountains; mine,
+too, was an elastic foot, as tireless as the wing of the bird of
+paradise; mine was then an untroubled heart, that would have gone
+singing on its delightful way.
+
+"O maiden!" said I aloud, "why did you not come hither alone?"
+
+While the merry girl and myself were busy with the show-box, the
+unceasing rain had driven another wayfarer into the wagon.  He seemed
+pretty nearly of the old showman's age, but much smaller, leaner, and
+more withered than he, and less respectably clad in a patched suit of
+gray; withal, he had a thin, shrewd countenance, and a pair of
+diminutive gray eyes, which peeped rather too keenly out of their
+puckered sockets.  This old fellow had been joking with the showman,
+in a manner which intimated previous acquaintance; but perceiving that
+the damsel and I had terminated our affairs, he drew forth a folded
+document, and presented it to me.  As I had anticipated, it proved to
+be a circular, written in a very fair and legible hand, and signed by
+several distinguished gentlemen whom I had never heard of, stating
+that the bearer had encountered every variety of misfortune, and
+recommending him to the notice of all charitable people.  Previous
+disbursements had left me no more than a five-dollar bill, out of
+which, however, I offered to make the beggar a donation, provided he
+would give me change for it.  The object of my beneficence looked
+keenly in my face, and discerned that, I had none of that abominable
+spirit, characteristic though it be, of a full-blooded Yankee, which
+takes pleasure in detecting every little harmless piece of knavery.
+
+"Why, perhaps," said the ragged old mendicant, "if the bank is in good
+standing, I can't say but I may have enough about me to change your
+bill."
+
+"It is a bill of the Suffolk Bank," said I, "and better than the
+specie."
+
+As the beggar had nothing to object, he now produced a small buff-
+leather bag, tied up carefully with a shoe-string.  When this was
+opened, there appeared a very comfortable treasure of silver coins of
+all sorts and sizes; and I even fancied that I saw, gleaming among
+them, the golden plumage of that rare bird in our currency, the
+American Eagle.  In this precious heap was my bank, note deposited,
+the rate of exchange being considerably against me.  His wants being
+thus relieved, the destitute man pulled out of his pocket an old pack
+of greasy cards, which had probably contributed to fill the buff
+leather bag, in more ways than one.
+
+"Come," said he, "I spy a rare fortune in your face, and for twenty-
+five cents more, I'll tell you what it is."
+
+I never refuse to take a glimpse into futurity; so, after shuffling
+the cards, and when the fair damsel had cut them, I dealt a portion to
+the prophetic beggar.  Like others of his profession, before
+predicting the shadowy events that were moving on to meet me, he gave
+proof of his preternatural science, by describing scenes through which
+I had already passed.  Here let me have credit for a sober fact.  When
+the old man had read a page in his book of fate, he bent his keen gray
+eyes on mine, and proceeded to relate, in all its minute particulars,
+what was then the most singular event of my life.  It was one which I
+had no purpose to disclose, till the general unfolding of all secrets;
+nor would it be a much stranger instance of inscrutable knowledge, or
+fortunate conjecture, if the beggar were to meet me in the street
+to-day, and repeat, word for word, the page which I have here written.
+The fortune-teller, after predicting a destiny which time seems loath
+to make good, put up his cards, secreted his treasure-bag, and began
+to converse with the other occupants of the wagon.
+
+"Well, old friend," said the showman, "you have not yet told us which
+way your face is turned this afternoon."
+
+"I am taking a trip northward, this warm weather," replied the
+conjurer, "across the Connecticut first, and then up through Vermont,
+and may be into Canada before the fall.  But I must stop and see the
+breaking up of the camp-meeting at Stamford."
+
+I began to think that all the vagrants in New England were converging
+to the camp-meeting, and had made this wagon their rendezvous by the
+way.  The showman now proposed that, when the shower was over, they
+should pursue the road to Stamford together, it being sometimes the
+policy of these people to form a sort of league and confederacy.
+
+"And the young lady too," observed the gallant bibliopolist, bowing to
+her profoundly, "and this foreign gentleman, as I understand, are on a
+jaunt of pleasure to the same spot.  It would add incalculably to my
+own enjoyment, and I presume to that of my colleague and his friend,
+if they could be prevailed upon to join our party."
+
+This arrangement met with approbation on all hands, nor were any of
+those concerned more sensible of its advantages than myself, who had
+no title to be included in it.  Having already satisfied myself as to
+the several modes in which the four others attained felicity, I next
+set my mind at work to discover what enjoyments were peculiar to the
+old   "Straggler," as the people of the country would have termed the
+wandering mendicant and prophet. As he pretended to familiarity with
+the Devil, so I fancied that he was fitted to pursue and take delight
+in his way of life, by possessing some of the mental and moral
+characteristics, the lighter and more comic ones, of the Devil in
+popular stories. Among them might be reckoned a love of deception for
+its own sake, a shrewd eye and keen relish for human weakness and
+ridiculous infirmity, and the talent of petty fraud.  Thus to this old
+man there would be pleasure even in the consciousness, so
+insupportable to some minds, that his whole life was a cheat upon the
+world, and that, so far as he was concerned with the public, his
+little cunning had the upper hand of its united wisdom.  Every day
+would furnish him with a succession of minute and pungent triumphs: as
+when, for instance, his importunity wrung a pittance out of the heart
+of a miser, or when my silly good-nature transferred a part of my
+slender purse to his plump leather bag; or when some ostentatious
+gentleman should throw a coin to the ragged beggar who was richer than
+himself; or when, though he would not always be so decidedly
+diabolical, his pretended wants should make him a sharer in the scanty
+living of real indigence.  And then what an inexhaustible field of
+enjoyment, both as enabling him to discern so much folly and achieve
+such quantities of minor mischief, was opened to his sneering spirit
+by his pretensions to prophetic knowledge.
+
+All this was a sort of happiness which I could conceive of, though I
+had little sympathy with it.  Perhaps, had I been then inclined to
+admit it, I might have found that the roving life was more proper to
+him than to either of his companions; for Satan, to whom I had
+compared the poor man, has delighted, ever since the time of Job, in
+"wandering up and down upon the earth"; and indeed a crafty
+disposition, which operates not in deep-laid plans, but in
+disconnected tricks, could not have an adequate scope, unless
+naturally impelled to a continual change of scene and society.  My
+reflections were here interrupted.
+
+"Another visitor!" exclaimed the old showman.
+
+The door of the wagon had been closed against the tempest, which was
+roaring and blustering with prodigious fury and commotion, and beating
+violently against our shelter, as if it claimed all those homeless
+people for its lawful prey, while we, caring little for the
+displeasure of the elements, sat comfortably talking.  There was now
+an attempt to open the door, succeeded by a voice, uttering some
+strange, unintelligible gibberish, which my companions mistook for
+Greek, and I suspected to be thieves' Latin.  However, the showman
+stepped forward, and gave admittance to a figure which made me
+imagine; either that our wagon had rolled back two hundred years into
+past ages, or that the forest and its old inhabitants had sprung up
+around us by enchantment.
+
+It was a red Indian, armed with his bow and arrow.  His dress was a
+sort of cap, adorned with a single feather of some wild bird, and a
+frock of blue cotton, girded tight about him; on his breast, like
+orders of knighthood, hung a crescent and a circle, and other
+ornaments of silver; while a small crucifix betokened that our Father
+the Pope had interposed between the Indian and the Great Spirit, whom
+he had worshipped in his simplicity.  This son of the wilderness, and
+pilgrim of the storm, took his place silently in the midst of us.
+When the first surprise was over, I rightly conjectured him to be one
+of the Penobscot tribe, parties of which I had often seen, in their
+summer excursions down our Eastern rivers.  There they paddle their
+birch canoes among the coasting schooners, and build their wigwam
+beside some roaring milldam, and drive a little trade in basket-work
+where their fathers hunted deer.  Our new visitor was probably
+wandering through the country towards Boston, subsisting on the
+careless charity of the people, while he turned his archery to
+profitable account by shooting at cents, which were to be the prize of
+his successful aim.
+
+The Indian had not long been seated, ere our merry damsel sought to
+draw him into conversation.  She, indeed, seemed all made up of
+sunshine in the mouth of May; for there was nothing so dark and dismal
+that her pleasant mind could not cast a glow over it; and the wild
+Indian, like a fir-tree in his native forest, soon began to brighten
+into a sort of sombre cheerfulness.  At length, she inquired whether
+his journey had any particular end or purpose.
+
+"I go shoot at the camp-meeting at Stamford," replied the Indian.
+
+"And here are five more," said the girl, "all aiming at the camp-
+meeting too.  You shall be one of us, for we travel with light hearts;
+and as for me, I sing merry songs, and tell merry tales, and am full
+of merry thoughts, and I dance merrily along the road, so that there
+is never any sadness among them that keep me company.  But, O, you
+would find it very dull indeed, to go all the way to Stamford alone!"
+
+My ideas of the aboriginal character led me to fear that the Indian
+would prefer his own solitary musings to the gay society thus offered
+him; on the contrary, the girl's proposal met with immediate
+acceptance, and seemed to animate him with a misty expectation of
+enjoyment.  I now gave myself up to a course of thought which, whether
+it flowed naturally from this combination of events, or was drawn
+forth by a wayward fancy, caused my mind to thrill as if I were
+listening to deep music.  I saw mankind, in this weary old age of the
+world, either enduring a sluggish existence amid the smoke and dust of
+cities, or, if they breathed a purer air, still lying down at night
+with no hope but to wear out to-morrow, and all the to-morrows which
+make up life, among the same dull scenes and in the same wretched toil
+that had darkened the sunshine of to-day.  But there were some, full
+of the primeval instinct, who preserved the freshness of youth to
+their latest years by the continual excitement of new objects, new
+pursuits, and new associates; and cared little, though their
+birthplace might have been here in New England, if the grave should
+close over them in Central Asia.  Fate was summoning a parliament of
+these free spirits; unconscious of the impulse which directed them to
+a common centre, they had come hither from far and near; and last of
+all appeared the representative of those mighty vagrants, who had
+chased the deer during thousands of years, and were chasing it now in
+the Spirit Land.  Wandering down through the waste of ages, the woods
+had vanished around his path; his arm had lost somewhat of its
+strength, his foot of its fleetness, his mien of its wild regality,
+his heart and mind of their savage virtue and uncultured force; but
+here, untamable to the routine of artificial life, roving now along
+the dusty road, as of old over the forest leaves, here was the Indian
+still.
+
+"Well," said the old showman, in the midst of my meditations, "here is
+an honest company of us,--one, two, three, four, five, six,--all going
+to the camp-meeting at Stamford.  Now, hoping no offence, I should
+like to know where this young gentleman may be going?"
+
+I started.  How came I among these wanderers?  The free mind, that
+preferred its own folly to another's wisdom; the open spirit, that
+found companions everywhere; above all, the restless impulse, that had
+so often made me wretched in the midst of enjoyments: these were my
+claims to be of their society.
+
+"My friends!" cried I, stepping into the centre of the wagon, "I am
+going with you to the camp-meeting at Stamford."
+
+"But in what capacity?" asked the old showman, after a moment's
+silence.  "All of us here can get our bread in some creditable way.
+Every honest man should have his livelihood.  You, sir, as I take it,
+are a mere strolling gentleman."
+
+I proceeded to inform the company, that, when Nature gave me a
+propensity to their way of life, she had not left me altogether
+destitute of qualifications for it; though I could not deny that my
+talent was less respectable, and might be less profitable, than the
+meanest of theirs.  My design, in short, was to imitate the
+storytellers of whom Oriental travellers have told us, and become an
+itinerant novelist, reciting my own extemporaneous fictions to such
+audiences as I could collect.
+
+"Either this," said I, "is my vocation, or I have been born in vain."
+
+The fortune-teller, with a sly wink to the company, proposed to take
+me as an apprentice to one or other of his professions, either of
+which, undoubtedly, would have given full scope to whatever inventive
+talent I might possess.  The bibliopolist spoke a few words in
+opposition to my plan, influenced partly, I suspect, by the jealousy
+of authorship, and partly by an apprehension that the _viva voce_
+practice would become general among novelists, to the infinite
+detriment of the book-trade. Dreading a rejection, I solicited the
+interest of the merry damsel.
+
+"Mirth," cried I, most aptly appropriating the words of L'Allegro, "to
+thee I sue!  Mirth, admit me of thy crew!"
+
+"Let us indulge the poor youth," said Mirth, with a kindness which
+made me love her dearly, though I was no such coxcomb as to
+misinterpret her motives.  "I have espied much promise in him. True, a
+shadow sometimes flits across his brow, but the sunshine is sure to
+follow in a moment.  He is never guilty of a sad thought, but a merry
+one is twin born with it.  We will take him with us; and you shall see
+that he will set us all a-laughing before we reach the camp-meeting at
+Stamford."
+
+Her voice silenced the scruples of the rest, and gained me admittance
+into the league; according to the terms of which, without a community
+of goods or profits, we were to lend each other all the aid, and avert
+all the harm, that might be in our power.  This affair settled, a
+marvellous jollity entered into the whole tribe of us, manifesting
+itself characteristically in each individual.  The old showman,
+sitting down to his barrel-organ, stirred up the souls of the pygmy
+people with one of the quickest tunes in the music-book; tailors,
+blacksmiths, gentlemen, and ladies, all seemed to share in the spirit
+of the occasion; and the Merry-Andrew played his part more facetiously
+than ever, nodding and winking particularly at me.  The young
+foreigner flourished his fiddle-bow with a master's hand, and gave an
+inspiring echo to the showman's melody.  The bookish man and the merry
+damsel started up simultaneously to dance; the former enacting the
+double shuffle in a style which everybody must have witnessed, ere
+Election week was blotted out of time; while the girl, setting her
+arms akimbo with both hands at her slim waist, displayed such light
+rapidity of foot, and harmony of varying attitude and motion, that I
+could not conceive how she ever was to stop; imagining, at the moment,
+that Nature had made her, as the old showman had made his puppets, for
+no earthly purpose but to dance jigs.  The Indian bellowed forth a
+succession of most hideous outcries, somewhat afrighting us, till we
+interpreted them as the war-song, with which, in imitation of his
+ancestors, he was prefacing the assault on Stamford.  The conjurer,
+meanwhile, sat demurely in a corner, extracting a sly enjoyment from
+the whole scene, and, like the facetious Merry Andrew, directing his
+queer glance particularly at me.
+
+As for myself, with great exhilaration of fancy, I began to arrange
+and color the incidents of a tale, wherewith I proposed to amuse an
+audience that very evening; for I saw that my associates were a little
+ashamed of me, and that no time was to be lost in obtaining a public
+acknowledgment of my abilities.
+
+"Come, fellow-laborers," at last said the old showman, whom we had
+elected President; "the shower is over, and we must be doing our duty
+by these poor souls at Stamford."
+
+"We'll come among them in procession, with music and dancing," cried
+the merry damsel.
+
+Accordingly--for it must be understood that our pilgrimage was to be
+performed on foot--we sallied joyously out of the wagon, each of us,
+even the old gentleman in his white-top boots, giving a great skip as
+we came down the ladder.  Above our heads there was such a glory of
+sunshine and splendor of clouds, and such brightness of verdure below,
+that, as I modestly remarked at the time, Nature seemed to have washed
+her face, and put on the best of her jewelry and a fresh green gown,
+in honor of our confederation.  Casting our eyes northward, we beheld
+a horseman approaching leisurely, and splashing through the little
+puddles on the Stamford road.  Onward he came, sticking up in his
+saddle with rigid perpendicularity, a tall, thin figure in rusty
+black, whom the showman and the conjurer shortly recognized to be,
+what his aspect sufficiently indicated, a travelling preacher of great
+fame among the Methodists.  What puzzled us was the fact, that his
+face appeared turned from, instead of to, the camp-meeting at
+Stamford.  However, as this new votary of the wandering life drew near
+the little green space, where the guidepost and our wagon were
+situated, my six fellow-vagabonds and myself rushed forward and
+surrounded him, crying out with united voices,--
+
+"What news, what news from the camp-meeting at Stamford?"
+
+The missionary looked down, in surprise, at as singular a knot of
+people as could have been selected from all his heterogeneous
+auditors.  Indeed, considering that we might all be classified under
+the general head of Vagabond, there was great diversity of character
+among the grave old showman, the sly, prophetic beggar, the fiddling
+foreigner and his merry damsel, the smart bibliopolist, the sombre
+Indian, and myself, the itinerant novelist, a slender youth of
+eighteen.  I even fancied that a smile was endeavoring to disturb the
+iron gravity of the preacher's mouth.
+
+"Good people," answered he, "the camp-meeting is broke up."
+
+So saying, the Methodist minister switched his steed, and rode
+westward.  Our union being thus nullified, by the removal of its
+object, we were sundered at once to the four winds of heaven. The
+fortune-teller, giving a nod to all, and a peculiar wink to me,
+departed on his northern tour, chuckling within himself as he took the
+Stamford road.  The old showman and his literary coadjutor were
+already tackling their horses to the wagon, with a design to
+peregrinate southwest along the seacoast.  The foreigner and the merry
+damsel took their laughing leave, and pursued the eastern road, which
+I had that day trodden; as they passed away, the young man played a
+lively strain, and the girl's happy spirit broke into a dance; and
+thus, dissolving, as it were, into sunbeams and gay music, that
+pleasant pair departed from my view.  Finally, with a pensive shadow
+thrown across my mind, yet emulous of the light philosophy of my late
+companions, I joined myself to the Penobscot Indian, and set forth
+towards the distant city.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE SEVEN VAGABONDS ***
+By Nathaniel Hawthorne
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