and the castle was taken. Many of the soldiers were put to death, but
Douglas protected the woman and the child. I dare say she made no more
songs about the Black Douglas.
_XXXI.--THE BLACK AGNES._
1. Among the warlike exploits of this period, we must not forget the
defense of the Castle of Dunbar, by the celebrated Countess of March.
Her lord had embraced the side of David Bruce, and had taken the field
with the regent. The countess, who from her complexion was termed
Black Agnes, by which name she is still familiarly remembered, was a
high-spirited and courageous woman, the daughter of Thomas Randolph,
Earl of Moray, and the heiress of his valor and patriotism. The Castle
of Dunbar itself was very strong, being built upon a chain of rocks
stretching into the sea, having only one passage to the mainland, which
was well fortified. It was besieged by Montague, Earl of Salisbury,
who employed to destroy its walls great military engines, constructed
to throw huge stones, with which machines fortifications were attacked
before the use of cannon.
2. Black Agnes set all his attempts at defiance, and showed herself
with her maids on the walls of the castle, wiping the places where the
huge stones fell with a clean towel, as if they could do no ill to her
castle, save raising a little dust, which a napkin could wipe away. The
Earl of Salisbury then commanded them to bring forward to the assault
an engine of another kind, being a species of wooden shed, or house,
rolled forward on wheels, with a roof of peculiar strength, which from
resembling the ridge of a hog's back, occasioned the machine to be
called a sow. This, according to the old mode of warfare, was thrust
up to the walls of a besieged castle or city, and served to protect
from the arrows and stones of the besieged a party of soldiers placed
within the sow, who were in the mean while to undermine the wall, or
break an entrance through it with pick-axes and mining-tools. When the
Countess of March saw this engine advanced to the walls of the castle,
she called out to the Earl of Salisbury in derision, and making a kind
of rhyme----
"Beware, Montagow,
For farrow shall thy sow!"
At the same time she made a signal, and a huge fragment of rock, which
hung prepared for the purpose, was dropped down from the wall upon the
sow, whose roof was thus dashed to pieces. As the English soldiers who
had been within it were running away as fast as they could to get out
of the way of the arrows and stones from the wall, Black Agnes called
out, "Behold the litters of English pigs!"
3. The Earl of Salisbury could jest also on such serious occasions.
One day he rode near the walls with a knight dressed in armor of
proof, having three folds of mail over an acton, or leathern jacket:
notwithstanding which, one William Spens shot an arrow with such force
that it penetrated all these defenses and reached the heart of the
wearer. "That is one of my lady's love-tokens," said the earl, as he
saw the knight fall dead from his horse. "Black Agnes's love-shafts
pierce to the heart!"
4. Upon another occasion, the Countess of March had well-nigh made the
Earl of Salisbury her prisoner. She made one of her people enter into
a treaty with the besiegers, pretending to betray the castle. Trusting
to this agreement, the earl came at midnight before the gate, which
he found open, and the portcullis drawn up. As Salisbury was about
to enter, one John Copland, a squire of Northumberland, pressed on
before him, and, as soon as he passed the threshold, the portcullis
was dropped; and thus the Scots missed their principal prey, and made
prisoner only a person of inferior condition.
5. At length, the Castle of Dunbar was relieved by Alexander Ramsay,
of Dalwolsy, who brought the countess supplies by sea, both of men and
provisions. The Earl of Salisbury, learning this, despaired of success,
and raised the siege, which had lasted nineteen weeks. The minstrels
made songs in praise of the perseverance and courage of Black Agnes.
The following lines are nearly the sense of what is preserved:
6. "She kept a stir in tower and trench,
The brawling, boisterous Scottish wench;
Came I early, came I late,
I found Agnes at the gate."
MISCELLANEOUS STORIES.
_XXXII.--A LITTLE MAID._
1. Away off in the beautiful country of Greece, a long, long time ago,
there lived a little maiden, the daughter of a king. Her name was
Gorgo--not a very pretty name, perhaps, to us who are used to calling
little girls Maud and Ethel and Helen, but a strong name, and therefore
quite appropriate to the little maid who bore it, as you shall see.
In those old times there used to be many wars, and the country of
Sparta, the part of Greece where Gorgo lived, was famous for its brave
warriors, who never thought for a moment of their own safety when their
country was in danger. Sometimes these were not good wars, but wars for
spite and revenge, instead of for freedom and for loyalty to beautiful
Greece.
2. Some wicked man would wish to avenge an injury he had received, and
in order to do this he would go about among the different kingdoms and
persuade the rulers to join with him and try to overcome his enemy; and
then there would be terrible bloodshed in order to satisfy one wicked
man's revenge. Aristagoras was such a man as this. He was dissatisfied
with his king, and wished to become a king himself instead. One day
he came to Sparta on this evil errand, and tried to persuade King
Cleomenes, the father of little Gorgo, to help his base project. He
talked with the king a long time. He promised him power and honor and
money if he would do as he wished; more and more money, and, as the
king refused, still more and more money he offered, and at last the
king almost consented.
3. But it had happened that when Aristagoras had come into the presence
of the king, the king's little daughter was standing by his side with
her hand in his. Aristagoras wanted Cleomenes to send her away, for he
knew very well that it is much harder to induce a man to do something
wrong when there is a dear little child at his side. But the king had
said, "No, say what you have to say in her presence, too." And so
little Gorgo had sat at her father's feet, looking up into his face
with her innocent eyes, and listening intently to all that was said.
She felt that something was wrong, and when she saw her father look
troubled and hesitate, and cast down his eyes, she knew the strange
visitor was trying to make him do something he did not quite want to
do. She stole her little hand softly into her father's, and said,
"Papa, come away--come, or this strange man will make you do wrong."
4. This made the king feel strong again, and, clasping the little
maid's hand tightly in his own, he rose and left the tempter, and went
away with the child who had saved him and his country from dishonor.
Gorgo was only ten years old then, but she was worthy to be a king's
daughter, because, being good and true herself, she helped her father
to be good and true also.
5. When she grew to be a woman she became the wife of a king, and
then she showed herself as noble a queen as she had been a princess.
Her husband was that King Leonidas who stood in the narrow pass of
Thermopylæ with his small army, and fought back the great hosts of the
Persians until he and all his heroic band were killed. But, before this
happened, there was a time when the Grecians did not know that the
great Persian army was coming to try and destroy them, and a friend of
theirs, who was a prisoner in the country where the great Xerxes lived,
wishing to warn the Spartans of the coming of the Persians, so that
they might prepare, sent a messenger to King Leonidas. But when the
messenger arrived, all he had to show for his message was a bare, white
waxen tablet. The king and all the lords puzzled over this strange
tablet a long time, but could make nothing out of it. At last they
began to think it was done for a jest, and did not mean anything.
6. But just then the young Queen Gorgo said, "Let me take it," and
after looking it all over she exclaimed, "There must be some writing
underneath the wax!" They scraped away the wax from the tablet, and
there, sure enough, written on the wood beneath, was the message of the
Grecian prisoner and his warning to King Leonidas.
7. Thus Gorgo helped her country a second time; for, if the Spartans
had not known that the army was coming, they could not have warned the
other kingdoms, and perhaps the Persians would not have been conquered.
But as it was, Leonidas and the other kings called their armies
together, and, when the Persian host came sweeping over the plains,
the Greeks were ready to meet them, and to fight and die for their
beautiful Greece.
8. So this one little maid of hundreds of years ago, princess and
queen, helped to save her father from disgrace and her country from
ruin. And we may feel sure that she was strong and true to the last,
even when her brave husband, Leonidas, lay dead in the fearful pass of
Thermopylæ, and she was left to mourn in the royal palace at Sparta.
_XXXIII.--ALEXANDER SELKIRK._
1. Nearly two hundred years ago, an Englishman, living in London, named
Daniel Defoe, wrote the story of Robinson Crusoe to interest and amuse
boys and girls. Only think of it! Before that time nobody knew anything
about the lonely island, or about the ship that was wrecked there.
Nobody could know that Robinson was washed ashore and saved. Nobody
could see him build his hut, and plan how to live day by day. Nobody
could see his tame goats run out to meet him, or hear his parrot cry,
"Poor Robinson Crusoe!" Nobody could form the acquaintance of the
faithful man Friday, whom Robinson saved from the cannibals, and who
became such a dear friend to him. None of this could any boy or girl at
that time enjoy, because the story had not yet come out of the head of
Defoe.
2. But, while Robinson Crusoe is a story that never really happened,
Daniel Defoe had something to make it out of. In 1704 a Scotch sailor,
named Alexander Selkirk, then twenty-eight years old, was left upon
Juan Fernandez, an uninhabited island in the Pacific, off the coast
of Chili. He had quarreled with the captain of the ship in which he
sailed, and the captain sent him ashore to improve his temper. Here he
lived alone for four years and four months, when, an English vessel
appearing, he was carried back to his native country.
3. About half of what is said to have happened to Robinson Crusoe
really happened to Alexander Selkirk. The hut was built; search was
made for food; fish were drawn from the water, and turtles found upon
the shore. Cabbage-palm grew in the woods, and, from seeds found in the
wrecked vessels, turnips, parsnips, and radishes were grown. The goats,
too, were a living reality, and, when his powder gave out, the active
young Scotchman could run down a young goat, and so secure a dinner.
[Illustration]
4. Here this sailor remained during the long years, busy and lonesome.
The poet Cowper has supposed that he was made entirely unhappy by
his longing for society and friends, and has expressed his supposed
sentiments in the following poem:
5. I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute:
From the center all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.
6. I am out of humanity's reach;
I must finish my journey alone;
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts that roam over the plain
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.
7. Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestowed upon man,
Oh, had I the wings of a dove,
How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth;
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheered by the sallies of youth.
8. Religion! what treasures untold
Reside in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that the earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when the Sabbath appeared.
9. But the sea-fowl has gone to her nest,
The beast has laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,
And I to my cabin repair.
There's mercy in every place;
And mercy, encouraging thought,
Gives even affliction a grace,
And reconciles man to his lot.
10. Selkirk might sometimes have indulged in thoughts like these, but
generally he was too busy to give much heed to them. Besides, the life
itself had its charms, and, after his rough usage upon the ship, he
keenly felt the joy of perfect freedom. Then the animals which he tamed
began to appear as real friends, and, though no man Friday came to
cheer and comfort him, he began to really love his new home and enjoy
the life which he led.
11. This is the account given of the appearance of Selkirk by Rogers,
captain of the vessel that finally took Selkirk off from the island:
"At night, after we came to anchor, we discovered a bright light upon
the island. In the morning we sent our yawl ashore with six men, all
armed, and, as it was gone some time, we sent our pinnace, with the men
armed, for we were afraid lest the Spaniards were there and had seized
our boat. We put out a signal for the boat, when our pinnace returned
from the shore and brought abundance of craw-fish, with a man clothed
in goat-skins, who looked wilder than the first owners of them. At his
first coming on board us, he had so much forgot his language for want
of use that one could scarcely understand him, for he seemed to speak
his words by halves. We offered him a dram, but he would not touch it,
having drunk nothing but water since he came upon the island, and it
was some time before he could relish our victuals.
12. "He took goats by speed of foot, for his way of living, and
continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross
humors, so that he ran with wonderful swiftness through the woods, and
up the rocks and hills. We had a bull-dog, which we sent with several
of our nimblest runners, to help him in catching goats, but he tired
both the dog and men, caught the goats, and brought them back to us.
Being forced to shift without shoes, his feet had become so hard that
he ran everywhere without annoyance; and it was some time before he
could wear shoes after we found him; for, not being used to any so
long, his feet swelled when he came first to use them again."
13. Selkirk returned to his native country, married, and settled down
to a steady life. He never forgot his lonely isle, and often wished
himself back among his goats and cats. He learned dram-drinking once
more, and, as he began to eat and drink as people did around him, he
lost much of the health and strength which he gained in his solitary
home. From him we may all learn that the simple, natural way of living
may be the best for us in giving us health to enjoy life and perform
our duties.
_XXXIV.--THE OLD-FASHIONED SCHOOL._
1. Imagine yourselves in Master Ezekiel Cheever's school-room. It is a
large, dingy room, with a sanded floor, and is lighted by windows that
turn on hinges, and have little, diamond-shaped panes of glass. The
scholars sit on long benches, with desks before them. At one end of
the room is a great fireplace, so spacious that there is room enough
for three or four boys to stand in each of the chimney-corners. This
was the good old fashion of fireplaces when there was wood enough in
the forests to keep people warm without their digging into the bowels
of the earth for coal.
2. It is a winter's day when we take our peep into the school-room.
See what logs of wood have been rolled into the fireplace, and what a
broad, bright blaze goes leaping up the chimney! And every few moments
a vast cloud of smoke is puffed into the room, which sails slowly over
the heads of the scholars, until it gradually settles upon the walls
and ceiling. They are blackened with the smoke of many years already.
3. Do you see the venerable schoolmaster, severe in aspect, with a
black skull-cap on his head, like an ancient Puritan, and the snow of
his white beard drifting down to his very girdle? What boy would dare
to play or whisper, or even glance aside from his book, while Master
Cheever is on the outlook behind his spectacles? For such offenders, if
any such there be, a rod of birch is hanging over the fireplace, and a
heavy ferule lies on the master's desk.
[Illustration]
4. And now school is begun. What a murmur of multitudinous tongues,
like the whispering of leaves of a wind-stirred oak, as the scholars
con over their various tasks! Buzz! buzz! buzz! Amid just such a murmur
has Master Cheever spent about sixty years; and long habit has made it
as pleasant to him as the hum of a bee-hive when the insects are busy
in the sunshine. Now a class in Latin is called to recite. Forth steps
a row of queer-looking little fellows, wearing square-skirted coats
and small-clothes, with buttons at the knee. They look like so many
grandfathers in their second childhood.
5. These lads are to be sent to Cambridge and educated for the
learned professions. Old Master Cheever has lived so long, and seen
so many generations of school-boys grow up to be men, that now he
can almost prophesy what sort of a man each boy will be. One urchin
shall hereafter be a doctor, and administer pills and potions, and
stalk gravely through life, perfumed with asafoetida. Another shall
wrangle at the bar, and fight his way to wealth and honors, and, in his
declining age, shall be a worshipful member of his Majesty's Council. A
third shall be a worthy successor to the old Puritan ministers now in
their graves. But as they are merely school-boys now, their business is
to construe Virgil.
6. Next comes a class in arithmetic. These boys are to be the
merchants, shopkeepers, and mechanics of a future period. Hitherto
they have traded only in marbles and apples. Others will upheave the
blacksmith's hammer, or drive the plane over the carpenter's bench, or
take the lapstone and the awl, and learn the trade of shoemaking. Many
will follow the sea, and become bold, rough sea-captains. Wherefore,
teach them their multiplication-table, good Master Cheever, and whip
them well when they deserve it; for much of the country's welfare
depends on these boys.
7. But, alas! Master Cheever's watchful eye has caught two boys at
play. Now we shall see awful times. The malefactors are summoned
before the master's chair. Master Cheever has taken down that terrible
birch-rod! Short is the trial--the sentence quickly passed--and now
the judge prepares to execute it in person. Thwack! thwack! thwack! In
those good old times a schoolmaster's blows were well laid on. And thus
the forenoon passes away. Now it is twelve o'clock. The master looks at
his great silver watch, and then, with tiresome deliberation, puts the
ferule into the desk. "You are dismissed," says Master Cheever.
8. The boys retire, treading softly until they have passed the
threshold; but fairly out of the school-room lo, what a joyous shout!
What a scampering and trampling of feet! What care they for the
ferule and birch-rod now? Were boys created merely to study Latin
and arithmetic? No; the better purposes of their being are to sport,
to leap, to run, to shout, to slide upon the ice, to snow-ball. Happy
boys! Enjoy your play-time now, and come again to study and to feel the
birch-rod and the ferule to-morrow.
9. Now the master has set everything to rights, and is ready to go home
to dinner. Yet he goes reluctantly. The old man has spent so much of
his life in the smoky, noisy, buzzing school-room, that, when he has a
holiday, he feels as if his place were lost, and himself a stranger in
the World.
_Hawthorne._
_XXXV.--STORY OF FRANKLIN'S KITE._
1. It was in the spring of 1752 that Franklin thought of trying
the experiment with a kite; and it was during one of the June
thunder-storms of that year that the immortal kite was flown.
2. Who does not know the story? How he made his kite of a large silk
handkerchief, and fastened to the top of the perpendicular stick a
piece of sharpened iron wire. How he stole away, upon the approach of
a storm, into the common not far from his own house, say about the
corner of Race and Eighth Streets, near a spot where there was an old
cow-shed. How, wishing to avoid the ridicule of possible failure, he
told no one what he was going to do, except his son, who accompanied
him, and who was then not the small boy he is represented in a
hundred pictures, but a braw lad of twenty-two, one of the beaux of
Philadelphia.
3. How the kite was raised in time for the coming gust, the string
being hempen, except the part held in the hand, which was silk. How, at
the termination of the hempen string, a common key was fastened; and in
the shed was deposited a Leyden bottle, in which to collect from the
clouds, if the clouds should contain it, the material requisite for an
electric shock. How father and son stood for some time under the shed,
presenting the spectacle, if there had been any one to behold it, of
two escaped lunatics, flying a kite in the rain; the young gentleman,
no doubt, feeling a little foolish. How, at last, when a thunder-cloud
appeared to pass directly over the kite, and yet no sign of electricity
appeared the hopes of the father, too, began to grow faint. How, when
both were ready to despair of success, Franklin's heart stood still
as he suddenly observed the fibers of the hempen string to rise,
as a boy's hair rises when he stands on the insulating-stool. How,
with eager, trembling hand, he applied his knuckle to the key, and
drew therefrom an unmistakable spark, and another and another, and as
many as he chose. How the Leyden vial was charged, and both received
the most thrilling shock ever experienced by man; a shock that might
have been figuratively styled electric, if electric it had not really
been. How, the wet kite being drawn in, and the apparatus packed, the
philosopher went home exulting, the happiest philosopher in Christendom.
4. And this was only the beginning of triumph. The next ships that
arrived from the Old World brought him the news that the same
experiment, in the mode originally suggested by him, of erecting an
iron rod upon an eminence, had been successfully performed in France,
so that his name had suddenly become one of the most famous in Europe.
_XXXVI.--THE CASE OF JOHN HOOK._
1. Wirt, in his life of Patrick Henry, gives this specimen of the
eloquence of the great orator. In Campbell County, Virginia, lived a
Scotchman, named Hook, who was suspected of being a Tory. The American
army was greatly distressed for food, and a commissary, named Venable,
took two of Hook's steers, without his consent, to feed the starving
soldiers. After the war, a lawyer, named Cowan, advised Hook to sue
Venable for trespass. Venable employed Patrick Henry. The case was
tried in the old court-house in New London.
2. Mr. Henry depicted the distress of the American army in the most
gloomy colors, and then asked: "Where was the man with an American
heart, who would not have thrown open his fields, his barns, his
cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to have
received with open arms the meanest soldier of that little band of
famished patriots? Where is the man? There he stands; but whether the
heart of an American beats in his bosom, you, gentlemen, are to judge?"
He then carried the jury, by the powers of his imagination, to the
plains around York, the surrender of which had followed shortly after
the act complained of.
3. He depicted the surrender in the most glowing and noble colors of
his eloquence. The audience saw before their eyes the dejection of the
British as they marched out of the trenches; they saw the triumph which
lighted up every patriotic face, and heard the shouts of victory and
the cry of "Washington and liberty!" as it rang through the American
ranks and echoed back from hill and shore. "But hark! what notes of
discord are these which disturb the general joy? They are notes of John
Hook, hoarsely bawling through the American camp, '_Beef! beef! beef!_'"