The Great Stone Face, and Other Tales of the White Mountains Read online

  THE GREAT CARBUNCLE

  A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

  (The Indian tradition, on which this somewhat extravagant tale isfounded, is both too wild and too beautiful to be adequately wroughtup in prose. Sullivan, in his History of Maine, written since theRevolution, remarks, that even then the existence of the Great Carbunclewas not entirely discredited.)

  AT nightfall, once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of theCrystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves, aftera toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had comethither, not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, saveone youthful pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing forthis wondrous gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strongenough to induce them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rudehut of branches, and kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that haddrifted down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bankof which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their number,perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural sympathies, by theabsorbing spell of the pursuit, as to acknowledge no satisfaction at thesight of human faces, in the remote and solitary region whither they hadascended. A vast extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearestsettlement, while scant a mile above their heads was that black vergewhere the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest trees, andeither robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the sky. The roarof the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance if only asolitary man had listened, while the mountain stream talked with thewind.

  The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings, and welcomedone another to the hut, where each man was the host, and all were theguests of the whole company. They spread their individual supplies offood on the flat surface of a rock, and partook of a general repast; atthe close of which, a sentiment of good fellowship was perceptible amongthe party, though repressed by the idea, that the renewed search for theGreat Carbuncle must make them strangers again in the morning. Seven menand one young woman, they warmed themselves together at the fire, whichextended its bright wall along the whole front of their wigwam. As theyobserved the various and contrasted figures that made up the assemblage,each man looking like a caricature of himself, in the unsteady lightthat flickered over him, they came mutually to the conclusion, thatan odder society had never met, in city or wilderness, on mountain orplain.

  The eldest of the group, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man, some sixtyyears of age, was clad in the skins of wild animals, whose fashion ofdress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the wolf, and thebear, had long been his most intimate companions. He was one of thoseill-fated mortals, such as the Indians told of, whom, in their earlyyouth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness, and became thepassionate dream of their existence. All who visited that region knewhim as the Seeker and by no other name. As none could remember when hefirst took up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the Saco,that for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had beencondemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time, still withthe same feverish hopes at sunrise--the same despair at eve. Near thismiserable Seeker sat a little elderly personage, wearing a high-crownedhat, shaped somewhat like a crucible. He was from beyond the sea, aDoctor Cacaphodel, who had wilted and dried himself into a mummy bycontinually stooping over charcoal furnaces, and inhaling unwholesomefumes during his researches in chemistry and alchemy. It was told ofhim, whether truly or not, that, at the commencement of his studies, hehad drained his body of all its richest blood, and wasted it, with otherinestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment--and had neverbeen a well man since. Another of the adventurers was Master bodPigsnort, a weighty merchant and selector Boston, and an elder of thefamous Mr. Norton's church. His enemies had a ridiculous story thatMaster Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer time,every morning and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense quantityof pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage ofMassachusetts. The fourth whom we shall notice had no name that hiscompanions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer that alwayscontorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair of spectacles, whichwere supposed to deform and discolor the whole face of nature, to thisgentleman's perception. The fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name,which was the greater pity, as he appeared to be a poet. He was abright-eyed man, but woefully pined away, which was no more thannatural, if, as some people affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morningmist, and a slice of the densest cloud within his reach, sauced withmoonshine, whenever he could get it. Certain it is, that the poetrywhich flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties. The sixth ofthe party was a young man of haughty mien, and sat somewhat apart fromthe rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders, while thefire glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress and gleamed intenselyon the jewelled pommel of his sword. This was the Lord de Vere, who,when at home, was said to spend much of his time in the burial vault ofhis dead progenitors, rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of allthe earthly pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust;so that, besides his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of hiswhole line of ancestry.

  Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side ablooming little person, in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve wasjust melting into the rich glow of a young wife's affection. Her namewas Hannah, and her husband's Matthew; two homely names, yet well enoughadapted to the simple pair, who seemed strangely out of place amongthe whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog by the GreatCarbuncle.

  Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire,sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a singleobject, that, of whatever else they began to speak, their closing wordswere sure to be illuminated with the Great Carbuncle. Several relatedthe circumstances that brought them thither. One had listened to atraveller's tale of this marvellous stone in his own distant country,and had immediately been seized with such a thirst for beholding it ascould only, be quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago aswhen the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it blazingfar at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening years tillnow that he took up the search. A third, being camped on a huntingexpedition full forty miles south of the White Mountains, awoke atmidnight, and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, sothat the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. They spoke of theinnumerable attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and ofthe singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from alladventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source alight that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It wasobservable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of every otherin anticipating better fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcelyhidden conviction that he would himself be the favored one. As if toallay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the Indian traditionsthat a spirit kept watch about the gem, and bewildered those who soughtit either by removing it from peak to peak of the higher hills, or bycalling up a mist from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But thesetales were deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe thatthe search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance inthe adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct thepassage to any given point among the intricacies of forest, valley, andmountain.

  In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious spectacleslooked round upon the party, making each individual, in turn, the objectof the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his countenance.

  'So, fellow-pilgrims,' said he, 'here we are, seven wise men, and onefair damsel--who, doubtless, is as wise as any graybeard of the company:here we are, I say, all bound on the same goodly enterprise. Methinks,now, it were not amiss that each of us declare what he proposes to dowith the Great Carbuncle, provided he have the good hap to clutch it.What says our friend in the bear skin? How mean you, good sir, to enjoythe prize which you have been seeking, the
Lord knows how long, amongthe Crystal Hills?'

  'How enjoy it!' exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. 'I hope for noenjoyment from it; that folly has passed long ago! I keep up the searchfor this accursed stone because the vain ambition of my youth has becomea fate upon me in old age. The pursuit alone is my strength--the energyof my soul--the warmth of my blood--and the pith and marrow of my bones!Were I to turn my back upon it I should fall down dead on the hitherside of the Notch, which is the gateway of this mountain region. Yet notto have my wasted lifetime back again would I give up my hopes of theGreat Carbuncle! Having found it, I shall bear it to a certain cavernthat I wot of, and there, grasping it in my arms, lie down and die, andkeep it buried with me forever.'

  'O wretch, regardless of the interests of science!' cried DoctorCacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. 'Thou art not worthy tobehold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most