Still haunted with the idea that not one of the past incidents,
inclusive of Judge Pyncheon's visit, could be real, the recluse of the
Seven Gables murmured in her brother's ear,-"Clifford! Clifford! Is not this a dream?"
"A dream, Hepzibah!" repeated he, almost laughing in her face. "On the
contrary, I have never been awake before!"
Meanwhile, looking from the window, they could see the world racing
past them. At one moment, they were rattling through a solitude; the
next, a village had grown up around them; a few breaths more, and it
had vanished, as if swallowed by an earthquake. The spires of
meeting-houses seemed set adrift from their foundations; the
broad-based hills glided away. Everything was unfixed from its
age-long rest, and moving at whirlwind speed in a direction opposite to
their own.
Within the car there was the usual interior life of the railroad,
offering little to the observation of other passengers, but full of
novelty for this pair of strangely enfranchised prisoners. It was
novelty enough, indeed, that there were fifty human beings in close
relation with them, under one long and narrow roof, and drawn onward by
the same mighty influence that had taken their two selves into its
grasp. It seemed marvellous how all these people could remain so
quietly in their seats, while so much noisy strength was at work in
their behalf. Some, with tickets in their hats (long travellers these,
before whom lay a hundred miles of railroad), had plunged into the
English scenery and adventures of pamphlet novels, and were keeping
company with dukes and earls. Others, whose briefer span forbade their
devoting themselves to studies so abstruse, beguiled the little tedium
of the way with penny-papers. A party of girls, and one young man, on
opposite sides of the car, found huge amusement in a game of ball.
They tossed it to and fro, with peals of laughter that might be
measured by mile-lengths; for, faster than the nimble ball could fly,
the merry players fled unconsciously along, leaving the trail of their
mirth afar behind, and ending their game under another sky than had
witnessed its commencement. Boys, with apples, cakes, candy, and rolls
of variously tinctured lozenges,--merchandise that reminded Hepzibah of
her deserted shop,--appeared at each momentary stopping-place, doing up
their business in a hurry, or breaking it short off, lest the market
should ravish them away with it. New people continually entered. Old
acquaintances--for such they soon grew to be, in this rapid current of
affairs--continually departed. Here and there, amid the rumble and the
tumult, sat one asleep. Sleep; sport; business; graver or lighter
study; and the common and inevitable movement onward! It was life
itself!
Clifford's naturally poignant sympathies were all aroused. He caught
the color of what was passing about him, and threw it back more vividly
than he received it, but mixed, nevertheless, with a lurid and
portentous hue. Hepzibah, on the other hand, felt herself more apart
from human kind than even in the seclusion which she had just quitted.