At some paces from Alice, with his arms uplifted in the air, the carpenter made a gesture as if directing downward a slow, ponderous, and invisible weight upon the maiden.
The carpenter was standing erect in front of Alice's chair, and pointing his finger towards the maiden with an expression of triumphant power, the limits of which could not be defined, as, indeed, its scope stretched vaguely towards the unseen and the infinite.
"There she is!" said the carpenter. "Speak to her!"
Pyncheon!" said the carpenter with scornful composure.
In the further progress of the legend, there is a long, grotesque, and occasionally awe-striking account of the carpenter's incantations(if so they are to be called), with a view of discovering the lost document.
Nevertheless, not to be too hard with fair Mistress Alice, I will leave her in your keeping; but I do not warrant you that she shall never have occasion to remember Maule, the carpenter."
On recognizing Matthew Maule, she assumed an air of somewhat cold but gentle dignity, the rather, as there was a certain peculiar smile on the carpenter's visage that stirred the native pride of the fair Alice.
"Alice, laugh!"--the carpenter, beside his hearth, would say; or perhaps intensely will it, without a spoken word.