Nathaniel Hawthorne
 


   David Swan
    A Fantasy
    From Twice-Told Tales


    We can be but  partially  acquainted  even  with  the  events  which  actually 
influence our course through life, and our final destiny.  There  are  innumerable 
other events - if such they may be called - which come close  upon  us,  yet  pass 
away without actual results,  or  even  betraying  their  near  approach,  by  the 
reflection of any light or  shadow  across  our  minds.  Could  we  know  all  the 
vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear,  exultation 
or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea  may  be 
illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan.
    We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of  twenty,  on 
the high road from his native place to  the  city  of  Boston,  where  his  uncle, 
a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him  behind  the  counter.  Be  it 
enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable  parents, 
and had received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year  at 
Gilmanton Academy. After journeying on foot  from  sunrise  till  nearly  noon  of 
a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to  sit  down 
in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage-coach.  As  if 
planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a  little  tuft  of  maples,  with 
a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh bubbling spring that it  seemed 
never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not,  he  kissed 
it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the  brink,  pillowing  his 
head upon some shirts and a pair of  pantaloons,  tied  up  in  a  striped  cotton 
handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise from the 
road after the heavy rain of yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the  young  man 
better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily beside him;  the  branches 
waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead; and a deep  sleep,  perchance  hiding 
dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events  which 
he did not dream of.
    While he lay sound asleep in the shade, other  people  were  wide  awake,  and 
passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback, and in all sorts of  vehicles,  along  the 
sunny road by his bedchamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor the  left, 
and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that  way,  without  admitting 
the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept; 
and several, whose hearts were brimming full  of  scorn,  ejected  their  venomous 
superfluity on David Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near,  thrust 
her head a little way into the recess, and vowed  that  the  young  fellow  looked 
charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David  into 
the texture of his evening's discourse, as an awful instance of  dead  drunkenness 
by the roadside. But censure, praise, merriment, scorn, and indifference were  all 
one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan.
    He had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage,  drawn  by  a  handsome 
pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to  a  standstill  nearly  in 
front of David's resting-place. A linchpin had fallen out, and  permitted  one  of 
the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a  momentary 
alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning  to  Boston  in  the 
carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady  and 
gentleman sheltered themselves beneath  the  maple-trees,  and  there  espied  the 
bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the  awe  which 
the humblest sleeped usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the 
gout would allow; and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown,  lest 
David should start up all of a sudden.
    "How soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "From what  a  depth  he 
draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be 
worth more to me than  half  my  income;  for  it  would  suppose  health  and  an 
untroubled mind."
    "And youth, besides," said the lady. "Healthy and quiet  age  does  not  sleep 
thus. Our slumber is no more like his than our wakefulness."
    The longer they looked the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the 
unknown youth, to whom the wayside and the maple shade were as a  secret  chamber, 
with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a  stray
sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch  aside, 
so as to intercept it. And having done this little act of kindness, she  began  to 
feel like a mother to him.
    "Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to her  husband,  "and 
to have brought us hither to find him, after our  disappointment  in  our cousin's 
son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we waken him?"
    "To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating.  "We  know  nothing  of  the 
youth's character."
    "That open countenance!" replied his wife,  in  the  same  hushed  voice,  yet 
earnestly. "This innocent sleep!"
    While these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not throb, nor  his 
breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of  interest.  Yet 
Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden  of  gold.  The  old 
merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his  wealth  except  a  distant
relative, with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. In such cases, people  sometimes 
do stranger things than to act the magician, and awaken a young  man  to  splendor 
who fell asleep in poverty.
    "Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady persuasively.
    "The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind.
    The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away,  mutually  wondering  that 
they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous.  The  merchant 
threw himself back in the carriage,  and  occupied  his  mind  with  the  plan  of 
a magnificent asylum for  unfortunate  men  of  business.  Meanwhile,  David  Swan 
enjoyed his nap.
    The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a pretty young girl 
came along, with a tripping pace, which showed precisely how her little heart  was 
dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of  motion  that  caused - is 
there any harm in saying it? - her garter to slip its  knot.  Conscious  that  the 
silken girth - if silk it were - was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into  the 
shelter of the maple-trees, and there found a young  man  asleep  by  the  spring! 
Blushing as red as any rose that she  should  have  intruded  into  a  gentleman's 
bedchamber, and for such a purpose, too, she was  about  to  make  her  escape  on 
tiptoe. But there was peril near  the  sleeper.  A  monster  of  a  bee  had  been 
wandering overhead - buzz, buzz, buzz - now among the leaves, now flashing through 
the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally  he  appeared 
to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan.  The  sting  of  a  bee  is  sometimes 
deadly. As free hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the  intruder  with
her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from beneath the  mapleshade. 
How sweet a picture! This good  deed  accomplished,  with  quickened  breath,  and 
a deeper blush, she stole a glance at the youthful stranger for whom she had  been 
battling with a dragon in the air.
    "He is handsome!" thought she, and blushed redder yet.
    How could it be that no dream of  bliss  grew  so  strong  within  him,  that, 
shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder, and allow him to  perceive 
the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten  upon 
his face? She was come, the maid whose soul, according to the  old  and  beautiful 
idea, had been severed from his own, and whom, in all  his  vague  but  passionate 
desires, he yearned to meet. Her, only, could he love with a  perfect  love;  him, 
only, could she receive into the depths of  her  heart;  and  now  her  image  was 
faintly blushing in the fountain, by his side; should  it  pass  away,  its  happy 
lustre would never gleam upon his life again.
    "How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl.
    She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came.
    Now, this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in  the  neighborhood, 
and happened, at that identical time, to be looking out for just such a young  man 
as David Swan. Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would 
have become the father's clerk, and all  else  in  natural  succession.  So  here, 
again, had good fortune - the best of fortunes - stolen so near that her  garments 
brushed against him; and he knew nothing of the matter.
    The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath  the  maple 
shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth caps, which were  drawn  down  aslant 
over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a  certain  smartness.  These 
were a couple of rascals who got their living by whatever the devil sent them, and 
now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their  next 
piece of villany on a game of cards, which was to have been decided here under the 
trees. But, finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his
fellow,
    "Hist! - Do you see that bundle under his head?"
    The other villain nodded, winked, and leered.
    "I'll bet you a horn of brandy," said the first, "that  the  chap  has  either 
a pocket-book, or a snug little hoard of small change,  stowed  away  amongst  his 
shirts. And if not there, we shall find it in his pantaloons pocket."
    "But how if he wakes?" said the other.
    His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk, and 
nodded.
    "So be it!" muttered the second villain.
    They approached the unconscious David,  and,  while  one  pointed  the  dagger 
towards his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneath  his  head.  Their 
two faces, grim, wrinkled, and ghastly  with  guilt  and  fear,  bent  over  their 
victim, looking horrible enough to be mistaken  for  fiends,  should  he  suddenly 
awake. Nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would hardly 
have known themselves as reflected there. But David Swan had  never  worn  a  more 
tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his mother's breast.
    "I must take away the bundle," whispered one.
    "If he stirs, I'll strike," muttered the other.
    But, at this moment, a dog scenting along the  ground,  came  in  beneath  the 
maple-trees, and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men, and  then  at  the 
quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain.
    "Pshaw!" said one villain. "We can do nothing now. The dog's  master  must  be 
close behind."
    "Let's take a drink and be off," said the other.
    The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom, and drew  forth 
a pocket pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a single  discharge.  It  was 
a flask of liquor, with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon  the  mouth.  Each  drank 
a comfortable dram, and left the spot, with so many jests, and  such  laughter  at 
their unaccomplished wickedness, that they might be said to have gone on their way 
rejoicing. In a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair, nor  once  imagined 
that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls, 
in letters as durable as eternity. As for David  Swan,  he  still  slept  quietly, 
neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him, nor of the glow of 
renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn.
    He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour's repose had snatched, 
from his elastic frame, the weariness with which many hours of toil  had  burdened 
it. Now he stirred - now, moved his lips, without a  sound - now,  talked,  in  an 
inward tone, to the noonday spectres of his dream. But  a  noise  of  wheels  came
rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed through the  dispersing 
mist of David's slumber-and there was the stage-coach. He started up with all  his 
ideas about him.
    "Halloo, driver! - Take a passenger?" shouted he.
    "Room on top!" answered the driver.
    Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily towards Boston, without so much as a 
parting glance at that  fountain  of  dreamlike  vicissitude.  He  knew  not  that 
a phantom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters - nor that one of Love 
had sighed softly to their murmur - nor  that  one  of  Death  had  threatened  to 
crimson them with his blood - all, in the brief hour since he lay down  to  sleep. 
Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps  of  the  strange  things  that 
almost happen. Does it not argue a superintending Providence that, while  viewless 
and unexpected events thrust themselves continually athwart our path, there should 
still be regularity enough in mortal  life  to  render  foresight  even  partially 
available?

    1837

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