There being no corkscrew in the house, he smote the neck of the bottle with old Peter Goldthwaite’s rusty key, and decapitated the sealed cork at a single blow. He then filled two little china teacups which Tabitha had brought from the cupboard. So clear and brilliant was this aged wine that it shone within the cups and rendered the sprig of scarlet flowers at the bottom of each more distinctly visible than when there had been no wine there. Its rich and delicate perfume wasted itself round the kitchen.
“Drink, Tabitha!” cried Peter. “Blessings on the honest old fellow who set aside this good liquor for you and me! And here’s to Peter Goldthwaite’s memory!”
“And good cause have we to remember him,” quoth Tabitha as she drank.
How many years, and through what changes of fortune and various calamity, had that bottle hoarded up its effervescent joy, to be quaffed at last by two such boon-companions! A portion of the happiness of a former age had been kept for them, and was now set free in a crowd of rejoicing visions to sport amid the storm and desolation of the present time. Until they have finished the bottle we must turn our eyes elsewhere.
It so chanced that on this stormy night Mr. John Brown found himself ill at ease in his wire-cushioned arm-chair by the glowing grate of anthracite which heated his handsome parlor. He was naturally a good sort of a man, and kind and pitiful whenever the misfortunes of others happened to reach his heart through the padded vest of his own prosperity. This evening he had thought much about his old partner, Peter Goldthwaite, his strange vagaries and continual ill-luck, the poverty of his dwelling at Mr. Brown’s last visit, and Peter’s crazed and haggard aspect when he had talked with him at the window.
“Poor fellow!” thought Mr. John Brown. “Poor crack-brained Peter Goldthwaite! For old acquaintance’ sake I ought to have taken care that he was comfortable this rough winter.” These feelings grew so powerful that, in spite of the inclement weather, he resolved to visit Peter Goldthwaite immediately.
The strength of the impulse was really singular. Every shriek of the blast seemed a summons, or would have seemed so had Mr. Brown been accustomed to hear the echoes of his own fancy in the wind. Much amazed at such active benevolence, he huddled himself in his cloak, muffled his throat and ears in comforters and handkerchiefs, and, thus fortified, bade defiance to the tempest. But the powers of the air had rather the best of the battle. Mr. Brown was just weathering the corner by Peter Goldthwaite’s house when the hurricane caught him off his feet, tossed him face downward into a snow-bank and proceeded to bury his protuberant part beneath fresh drifts. There seemed little hope of his reappearance earlier than the next thaw. At the same moment his hat was snatched away and whirled aloft into some far-distant region whence no tidings have as yet returned.
Nevertheless Mr. Brown contrived to burrow a passage through the snow-drift, and with his bare head bent against the storm floundered onward to Peter’s door. There was such a creaking and groaning and rattling, and such an ominous shaking, throughout the crazy edifice that the loudest rap would have been inaudible to those within. He therefore entered without ceremony, and groped his way to the kitchen. His intrusion even there was unnoticed. Peter and Tabitha stood with their backs to the door, stooping over a large chest which apparently they had just dragged from a cavity or concealed closet on the left side of the chimney. By the lamp in the old woman’s hand Mr. Brown saw that the chest was barred and clamped with iron, strengthened with iron plates and studded with iron nails, so as to be a fit receptacle in which the wealth of one century might be hoarded up for the wants of another.
Peter Goldthwaite was inserting a key into the lock.
“Oh, Tabitha,” cried he, with tremulous rapture, “how shall I endure the effulgence? The gold!—the bright, bright gold! Methinks I can remember my last glance at it just as the iron-plated lid fell down. And ever since, being seventy years, it has been blazing in secret and gathering its splendor against this glorious moment. It will flash upon us like the noonday sun.”