GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XVIII. January, 1841. No. 1.
Contents
Fiction, Literature and Articles
The Lost Evening
Yoo-Ti-Hu
Leaves from a Lawyer’s Port-Folio
My Progenitors
The Blind Girl
The Reefer of ’76
The Syrian Letters
Clara Fletcher
Sports and Pastimes
Angling
Review of New Books
Poetry, Music and Fashion
The Young Rambler
The Waters of Lethe
Language of the Wild Flowers
A Soldier’s the Lad for Me
To the Pine on the Mountain
Sabbath Bells.—Impromptu
A Sea Scene
Thine—Only Thine
The Indian Maid
The Latest Fashions, January 1841
Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
* * * * *
GRAHAM’S
LADY’S AND GENTLEMAN’S
MAGAZINE.
(THE CASKET AND GENTLEMAN’S UNITED.)
EMBRACING
EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE:
EMBELLISHED WITH
ENGRAVINGS, FASHIONS, AND MUSIC,
ARRANGED FOR THE
PIANO-FORTE, HARP, AND GUITAR.
VOLUME XVIII.
PHILADELPHIA:
GEORGE R. GRAHAM.
1841.
* * * * *
INDEX
TO THE
EIGHTEENTH VOLUME.
FROM JANUARY, TO JUNE, 1841, INCLUSIVE.
Alchymist, the, by Mrs. Lambert, 105
Blind Girl, the, by Mrs. C. Durang, 26
Blind Girl of Pompeii, the, (_illustrated_), 49
Clara Fletcher, 40
Confessions of a Miser, the, by J. Ross Browne, 83, 102, 189
Clothing of the Ancients, the, by Willam Duane, Jr. 269
Destroyer’s Doom, the, 115
Defaulter, the, by J. T. Maull, 164
Descent into the Maelström, a, by Edgar A. Poe, 235
Empress, the, 122
Father’s Blessing, the, by Mrs. S. A. Whelpley, 132
Grandmother’s Tankard, my, by Jesse E. Dow, 59
Grandfather’s Story, my, by Lydia Jane Pierson, 217
Haunted Castle, the, a Legend of the Rhine, 214
Island of the Fay, the, by Edgar A. Poe, 253
(_illustrated_,)
Lost Evening, the, by Jesse E. Dow, 2
Leaves from a Lawyer’s Port-Folio, 13, 224
Lady Isabel, the, (_illustrated_,) 97, 145
Lost Heir, the, by H. J. Vernon, 261
Life Guardsman, the, by Jesse E. Dow, 275
My Progenitors, by S. W. Whelpley, A. M. 21
Maiden’s Adventure, the, 109
Major’s Wedding, the, by Jeremy Short, Esq. 129
Murders in the Rue Morgue, the, by Edgar A. Poe, 166
May-Day. A Rhapsody, by Jeremy Short, Esq. 242
Our Bill, by Mrs. Lambert, 150
Outlaw Lover, the, by J. H. Dana, 189
Parsonage Gathering, the, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 221
Poetry: the Uncertainty of its Appreciation, by Joseph 288
Evans Snodgrass,
Reefer of ’76, the, by the Author of “Cruizing in the 30, 51, 125,
Last War,” 180, 210, 256
Review of New Books, 47, 92, 142,
197, 248, 294
Rescued Knight, the, 64
Syrian Letters, the, 36, 78, 265
Sports and Pastimes, 44, 90, 140,
196, 246, 292
Silver Digger, the, by M. Topham Evans, 68
Saccharineous Philosophy, the, 81
Sketch from Life, a, by J. Tomlin, 136
Self-Devotion, by Mrs. E. C. Embury, 159
Thunder Storm, the, by J. H. Dana, 285
Unequally Yoked, by Rev. J. Kennaday, 159
Ugolino. A Tale of Florence, by M. Topham Evans, 279
Worth and Wealth: or the Choice of a Wife, by Ellen 206
Ashton,
Yoo-ti-hu, by J. Ross Browne, 10
POETRY.
A Soldier’s the Lad for me, by A. McMakin, 25
April Day, an, by Alex. A. Irvine, 179
Æolian Harp, to the, 179
Alethe, by J. S. Freligh, 216
Brilliant Nor-West, the, by Dr. J. K. Mitchell, 149
“Blue-Eyed Lassie,” to the, by the late J. G. Brooks, 223
Callirhöe, by H. Perceval, 100
Comparisons, by C. West Thompson, 165
Chimes of Antwerp, the, by J. Hickman, 192
Dream of the Delaware, the, 56
Departed, the, 128
Dusty White Rose, the, by Mrs. Volney E. Howard, 209
Fairy’s Home, the, 87
I am your Prisoner, by Thos. Dunn English, M. D. 135
Invitation, the, by E. G. Mallery, 137
I Cling to Thee, by T. G. Spear, 234
Joys of Former Years have Fled, the, by S. A. Raybold, 289
June, by A. A. Irvine, 287
Language of Wild Flowers, by Thos. Dunn English, M. D. 20
Little Children, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 67
Lines, by E. Clementine Stedman, 114
Lake George, 124
Life, by Martin Thayer, Jr. 243
Lay of the Affections, the, by Mrs. M. S. B. Dana, 268
Lord Byron, to, by R. M. Walsh, 273
Mother’s Pride, the, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 205
(_illustrated_),
Not Lost, but Gone before, by Chas. West Thompson, 87
Napoleon, by J. E. Dow, 113
Old Memories, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 188
Old Rock, to an, by G. G. Foster, 223
Pine on the Mountain, to the, by Lydia Jane Pierson, 29
Picture, a, by Mrs. M. S. B. Dana, 158
Sabbath Bells, Impromptu, by Willis G. Clark, 35
Sea Scene, a, by Robert Morris, 35
Skating, by George Lunt, 77
Soul’s Destiny, the, by Mrs. M. S. B. Dana, 80
Slighted Woman, a, by the Author of “Howard Pinckney,” 156
Soliloquy of an Octogenarian, by Pliney Earle, M. D. 241
Sighs for the Unattainable, by Charles West Thompson, 264
Sonnet written in April, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 278
Thine—Only Thine, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 39
Time’s Changes, by John W. Forney, 260
Voice of the Spring Time, by Martin Thayer, Jr. 209
Voice of the Wind, the, by Emma, 255
Waters of Lethe, the, by N. C. Brooks, A. M. 9
Winter, by J. W. Forney, 82
Winter Scene, a, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 163
Winter Scene, a, by L. J. Pierson, 192
Young Rambler, the, by Thomas J. Spear, 1
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
The Playmates.
Fashions for January (three figures) colored.
The Blind Girl of Pompeii.
Fashions for February (four figures) colored.
Why don’t he Come?
Fashions for March (three figures) colored.
He Comes.
Fashions for April (four figures) colored.
The Mother’s Pride.
Fashions for May. Ladies of Queen Victoria’s
Court—correct likenesses—(seven figures) colored.
The Island of the Fay.
Fashions for June, (three figures) colored.
MUSIC.
The Indian Maid, by S. Nelson, 42
Not for Me! Not for Me! by M. W. Balfe, 88
You never knew Annette, by C. M. Sola, 138
Oh! Gentle Love, by T. Cooke, 193
The Sweet Birds are Singing, by J. Moschelles, 244
Let Me Rest in the Land of my Birth, by J. Harroway, 290
* * * * *
[Illustration: Painted by J. Lucas. Engraved by J. Sartain.
The Playmates.
Engraved for Graham’s Magazine]
* * * * *
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XVIII. JANUARY, 1841. No. 1.
* * * * *
THE YOUNG RAMBLER.
BY THOMAS G. SPEAR
O’er a landscape array’d in the verdure of June,
While the sky was serene, and the birds were in tune,
From his vine-cover’d home, with his dog and his toy,
Went the glad-hearted youth in the hey-day of joy.
He saunter’d away in his quest of delight,
As heedless of rest as a bird in its flight,
Allur’d by the flowers, and sooth’d by the gale,
O’er the green-sloping hill and the fair sunny vale.
With a fondness to roam, and a wish to be free,
He bounded in triumph, or whistled in glee,
Now crushing a blossom, or plucking a bough,
Or climbing a tree by the cliff’s rugged brow.
With his dog at his side, o’er the heather he flew,
Where the clover-bed bloom’d, or the strawberry grew,
And trampled the grass that encumber’d the plain,
While flutter’d the flock from the clustering grain.
He knew the lone spots of the forest and glen,
The rook of the crow, and the nest of the wren,
And hied as a forager there for his prey,
But left the wood-tenants unharm’d in their play.
By hedge-row, and brushwood, and briar, and brake,
To the pebble-shor’d brook, and the wild-wooded lake,
He rov’d, while the pathway was leafy and green,
Where bow’d the old oaks o’er the silvery scene.
And there by the brookside, when tir’d of play,
He gazed on the charms of the slow-dying day,
And thought, as it gave to some lovelier land,
The blaze of that light which the zenith had spann’d,
That a ray there must be to illumine the heart—
A guide and a goal for man’s innermost part—
A Glory unknown, to be follow’d and bless’d,
That again would recall what it gave to its breast.
When Love can a lustre so beautiful shed,
It were sad if the soul could be lost or misled,
Or its flight to its source be less cheerful and bright,
Than the blaze of that sun ’neath the curtains of night.
With the lovely illusions of day’s mellow’d scene,
All around him was radiant, and vocal, and green,
But now as he gaz’d on the sky and the air,
No melody rose, and no splendour was there.
“Oh! keep me,” he said, “in the path where I stray,
Illum’d by the warmth of some soul-cheering ray—
That my glance may be clear thro’ the cloud and the storm,
When the night of the grave has o’ershadow’d my form.”
He look’d as a child, but he felt as a man,
And in Wisdom concluded what Folly began;
Then in silence his steps he was fain to resume,
Ere the shadowy fall of the thick-coming gloom.
Soon up from the shore, and away from the stream,
He wended as one that was wak’d from a dream,
For the voice of a thought had been heard in his heart,
And the lingering whisper was slow to depart.
His vine-cover’d home in the twilight was nigh,
And the whipporwill sending its plaint to the sky,
And the bark of his dog, and the voice at the door,
He welcom’d with joy when his ramble was o’er.
Though dear to his vision that forest-bound scene,
With its dwelling of peace on a carpet of green,
The wild spot his memory loves to restore,
Is the path to that stream, and the oak by its shore.
* * * * *
THE LOST EVENING.
BY JESSE E. DOW.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the
flood, leads on to fortune.”
“Maurice stay and go with me to the ball at Mrs. Wilson’s this evening,”
said a fairy formed creature with eyes that sparkled with anticipated
delight, as she rested her hand upon a young naval officer’s arm and
gazed upon his manly features.
“Mary, dearest Mary,” replied the young man in a hesitating manner. “The
stage will leave here at eleven to-night, and if I miss it I shall lose
my only chance of reaching my Frigate. She is under sailing orders—and
will be off in the twinkling of a marline spike, and there’s glory to be
won and——”
“A seaman’s sepulchre—” said the lovely girl, as the tears started into
her eyes and glittered like tiny pearls upon her long dark eye-lashes.
“But Maurice, you can go at eleven and accompany me to the ball beside.
The last evening you spend at Belleview should be spent with your
friends.”
The young man hesitated no longer. “Mary,” said he, “you have conquered,
I will accompany you to Mrs. Wilson’s and leave at eleven—I shall then
bear with me your last impression; and when the tempest howls and the
billows toss their snowy spray around me, when the never wearied Petril
sings in the hollows of ocean astern, and the thunder awakes the echo of
the deep—then while the good ship scuds along her lightning way, will I
recall this evening of light and beauty, and with my dread-nought
wrapped about me, keep my midnight watch, happier far, than the lazy
commodore who snores in a velvet night-cap in his luxurious cabin.”
“Well, Maurice, you have finished at last,” said the laughing girl
leaning upon his arm, “I never expected to hear the end of your rhapsody
when you commenced—but come let us go in for I have much to do and the
evening approaches.” The young man returned her animated glance with a
gaze of deep devotion and following her, entered the house from the
garden Verandah. There was no one in the drawing-room when Maurice
Fitzgerald and Mary Howard entered.
“Maurice,” said the young maiden as she pointed out upon the ocean, and
then turned to a table of magazines and annuals, “Nature and art are
placed before you, and I shall leave you to be amused by them until my
father’s return.” Thus saying, the light hearted girl bounded away to
dress for the coming rout. Fitzgerald answered with a smile and then
turned to gaze upon the prospect that spread out before his uncle’s
mansion. The broad Atlantic was seen for several miles rolling in the
crimson light of the setting sun, and the hollow roar of its distant
breakers burst upon his ear. The sea-birds in forked trains were seen
winging their garrulous flight toward the land, and the successful
fishermen were casting their scaly spoil upon the beach. It was a quiet
evening, notwithstanding the wind in cat’s paws ruffled the surface of
the deep, and wailed sadly amid the branches of the elm trees that lined
the avenue in front of the mansion.
As Fitzgerald gazed upon the scene he thought of his lovely cousin and
then of the glorious profession that he had chosen. The eye of the
mariner loves the ocean. His ear delights in its hollow murmurs, its
lashing surges, its misty shadows, and its constant motion. He feels
that the land is not for him and that his home is on the deep, deep sea.
He sickens in the forest. He grows weary upon the mountain side, the
fairest valley smiles in vain for him, and the babbling river but
carries him away to that mightier deep whose ebb and flood surrounds the
world. The very air—the scent of the sea is far more pleasant to him
than the spicy breezes that sigh o’er India’s isles, and the stout ship
with its tar and rope-yarn, its salt junk, called by sea-men mahogany,
and its duff puddings that defy the tooth of time, is far more agreeable
to him than the altar’d palace of an eastern prince with tables crushing
beneath the weight of costly viands and richest wines. No one can
appreciate the beauty and majesty of the heavens but him who has been
shut out from every other prospect for days and weeks together. How
beautiful it is to lean upon the taffrail in a moonlight night upon an
eastern sea while the sails of the gallant ship from sky to water are
gently filled by the dying Levanter, and watch the broad bright moon as
she travels up the high way of heaven and sheds a brighter lustre upon
the stars. Then the eye penetrates, aye even into the deep blue space
beyond her and as when gazing upon the calm bosom of the middle ocean
sees naught but mysterious shadowings—a waving curtain of eternal blue.
The topsails of a ship now flashed upon the edge of the horizon, the
quick eye of Fitzgerald soon discovered her to be a vessel of war. He
watched her with intense interest, and as she approached the land the
sun went down to his rest in the deep.
As the last ray of the golden orb flashed upon the vessel, Fitzgerald
saw plainly that the Cross of Saint George floated at her ensign peak
and that she was an enemy of his country. The stranger having drawn in
sufficiently near to the land, now tacked, and in the uncertain haze of
evening, faded away.
“I will be the first to communicate the glad tidings to my commander,”
said the young officer, proudly; “and ere many days the haughty Briton
shall humble himself to the stars of the republic.”
“Well said, my gallant boy,” cried Col. Howard, as he hobbled up to his
future son-in-law, who started like one awakened from a glorious dream.
“Uncle,” said Fitzgerald with a smile, “I did not hear you enter.”
“No matter, boy,” said the old soldier, as he screwed his features into
the proper expression for a severe twinge of the gout, and stood silent
for a moment, and then as the pain _evaporated_, continued, “I heard you
and am pleased with your thoughts; you must leave this evening.”
“Certainly,” said Fitzgerald, smiling.
The tea urn was now brought in, and the family of Colonel Howard
assembled around the well spread table. A short blessing interrupted by
a few short pishes and pshaws! on account of the severe pains that
constantly seized the old gentleman’s leg, was now said by him; and then
the evening meal was quietly and systematically disposed of. Sage
surmises as to the course of the belligerent stranger, and sager
speculations as to the result of her meeting with an American cruizer,
now occupied the thoughts and conversational powers of the little party;
at length Colonel Howard began to grow drowsy. His arm chair was now
wheeled to the right about—he gave his blessing to his nephew with a
good will, grasped his hand with the frankness of a soldier, and bade
him adieu; then bringing his crutch to the third position of the manual,
he went to sleep. Soon the young couple heard the old man muttering in
his visions of the revolution, “on to Princeton—ha, there goes Knox, I
know his fire—onward my boys—huzza, they fly—the day is ours,” and
then a twinge of the gout played the deuce with his dream, and when it
past away he slumbered as sweetly as a child upon its mother’s breast.
Fitzgerald and Mary now departed for Mrs. Wilson’s, the former having
taken his baggage in the carriage, so as to be ready to step from the
ball room to the stage-coach.
Mrs. Wilson was one of those comets of fashion who regularly appear with
every cycle of time, and who after setting the cities in a blaze, retire
to the inland towns to renew their fires, and shine forth as planets of
the first magnitude amid inferior stars; believing it to be better to be
the head of a village than the tail of a city. It was currently reported
by scandalising spinsters that she had been a milliner in England, and
having a handsome person was hired by the manager of a country theatre,
there to act the _goddess_ in the play of Cherry and Fair Star. Here she
entrapped the affections of a young nobleman, who by a mock marriage
became her reputed husband. The honey moon soon passed away, and with
the realities of wedded life, came the astounding _denouement_ that the
nobleman’s coachman had officiated as chaplain on the occasion, and that
the marriage was a humbug. This was a downfall to Mrs. Wilson, but she
had no help excepting to marry the butler of his lordship, a man of
considerable wealth, and emigrate to America. His lordship was generous
on the occasion: and the honest butler found himself with a wife, an
estate, and an heir presumptive, all at the same moment. Having money
and a handsome person, the beautiful and well dressed Mrs. Wilson soon
imposed herself upon an aristocratic family in New York as a branch of a
noble stock in England. Mr. Wilson, it may be proper to observe, died on
his passage, and Mrs. Wilson was a widow when she made the highlands of
Neversink.
There is over all those stale meat pies, ycleped large cities, a
self-styled upper crust that rises in puffs above the solids. It rejects
every thing that is not as light and as trifling as itself, and to say
the least of it, has but little virtue or consistency. It covers the
virtues and the vices of the social compact, and smothers in _flour_ and
_paste_ the unhappy genius who endeavors to penetrate it. As nothing was
made in vain, perhaps this self-important crust, like the web of the
spider, was designed to catch the painted and gilded drones, whose
presence and senseless buzzing might otherwise have disturbed the
working party of mankind at their labors, and have caused them to leave
the world to starve. To this upper stratum of society in New York, Mrs.
Wilson was introduced by her new made friends, and she continued in the
ascendent for three months, but unfortunately for human greatness, one
evening at a large and fashionable rout, a noble marquis was announced,
who to the astonishment of every person present exclaimed, as he was
presented to Mrs. Wilson, “Poll Johnson are you here, when did you leave
the millinary line?” This was sufficient—the party broke up in
confusion, as though a case of plague had occurred in the _circle_. Mrs.
Wilson fainted, and was sent home in a hack as a bundle of soiled linen
is sent to the washerwomen, duly marked and numbered upon the outside;
and the aristocratic family who had been imposed upon by her, went
through with a three weeks’ purification at Saratoga Springs, whence
they returned with a sin offering, in the shape of a real nobleman—a
perfect simpleton of a count—whose soul lay in whiskers, and whose
heart was in bottle green.
Mrs. Wilson, like the jack daw, stripped of borrowed plumes, left New
York in great haste, and settled upon a country farm near Belleview,
where at the opening of my sketch she reigned mistress of the ton.
As Mary Howard and Fitzgerald entered the saloon, a number of light
footed creatures preceded by the super-human Mrs. W. came sailing across
the room to meet them.
The ball had commenced, and numbers were dancing to a tune which was
then in vogue, and which had been made for these words—
“Come list to me a minute,
A song I’m going to begin it,
There’s something serious in it,
’Tis all about the Law,
L!——A!——W!——law!
Has got a deuce of a claw.”
Here the ladies all curtesied to the gentlemen, and the gentlemen all
bowed to the ladies, and all continued for five seconds looking in their
partners faces with pendent arms, straight under-pinnings, body and
breast bent into a half circle, and head erect—
Like some brass God of Heathen make
In shape unheard of——;
but as soon as the note expressive of the word _claw_ was ended, which
in the language of Milton, was like
“Linked sweetness long drawn out;”
every body like an unstrung bow, resumed its straight position, and then
such a double shuffle commenced as bade defiance to the most agile of
the monkeys of Paraguay, and would have caused a mutiny in the lodge of
the Upper Mandans had the dance been introduced there by the
incomparable Mrs. Wilson.
The ball went on in its vigor—small talk and sour lemonade, with some
of the thinnest slices of smoked beef, between two equally thin slices
of bread, oiled on one side, and patted down on the other, filled up the
interstices of the evening, and the company were as amiable and as
ceremonious as possible.
A young gentleman in checkered pantaloons, and a bottle green coat, with
a spotted cravat, and a retiring dickey around his neck, now approached
Miss Howard and her cousin, and was introduced by the presiding deity as
Count Frederick Ampisand, of Hesse Cassel, Germany.
Fitzgerald did not like the appearance of the count; he gave him a
formal return of civilities and retired to another corner of the room.
Mary Howard who was a perfectly artless creature; but still perverse in
her nature from the indulgence of an invalid mother, and proud of having
her own way, became pleased with the foreigner as Fitzgerald became
disgusted. She admired his pretty broken sentences; his captivating
lisp, his manner of pulling up his dickey, and of raising his quizzing
glass whenever a lady passed him. Forgetting all but her own
gratification, and being desirous of giving Fitzgerald a commentary upon
jealousy—that green-eyed jade—she neglected her lover, and hung upon
the Count’s aspirations as Eve did upon the devil’s whisper in Eden’s
bower.
Fitzgerald was piqued. In fact he became angry, and joining the dance,
which he had heretofore declined, became the gayest of the gay. He
skipped through a cotillion like a reefer at a dignity ball in
Barbadoes, and the light-footed Mrs. Wilson declared that she discovered
new graces in Mr. Fitzgerald every time he jumped over the music-stool.
Mary Howard now became piqued in turn, and she joined heartily in the
laugh against her lover. A rude remark of the Count’s, and a heartier
laugh of his beloved, at his expense, now stung the young officer to the
soul. He looked at the little knot of critics. The Count was gazing at
him through an enormous quizzing glass, and a smile of scorn curled his
moustached lip.
Fitzgerald was impetuous and brave. Nature had given him great strength,
and a good share of modest assurance. He walked deliberately up to the
party—“Miss Howard,” said he, “I beg of you to excuse the Count for a
moment. I have a laughable trick to show him in the hall.” The Count did
not relish the proposition to go into the dark entry with the officer.
He had discovered a spice of devil lurking in his eye. But Mary,
suspecting that her cousin was about to divert them with a sea trick
that required the aid of a second person, insisted upon Count Ampisand’s
going with him to oblige her.
“Aye, ver well to oblige Miss ’Oward. I will go with Neptune,” said the
Count magnanimously.
“Get your hat,” said Fitzgerald, as the Count left the saloon.
“I ave him in my pocket,” said Ampisand, pulling from his coat an opera
hat, that answered the double purpose of a “bustle” and a beaver, and
clapping it upon his head. The two lovers now stood at the outside door
from which several steps led to the muddy street.
“Count Ampisand,” said Fitzgerald, “you are an imposter and a pitiful
scoundrel. I have called you out to insult you. Now, sir, take that, and
be off.” So saying, before the thunder-stricken Ampisand could reply,
Fitzgerald seized him by the nose, and, after giving it no infant’s
pull, presented his front to the street, and administered an impetus to
his after body that carried him into a horse-pond in the middle of the
road.
“I will ave the satisfacione, begar, Mr. Lieutenant to shoot you wid de
small sword dis night,” said the Count, gathering himself up, and
retreating to the two Golden Eagles in no small haste. Fitzgerald
laughed aloud, and closing the door behind him, walked lazily toward the
shore of the ocean. After walking for half an hour upon the wild sea
beach, Fitzgerald turned his steps toward Mrs. Wilson’s for the purpose
of bidding his cousin farewell.
Coming footsteps now aroused him from his reverie, and soon a young
gentleman from the city, accompanied by a surgeon, and Count Ampisand,
came up to him. A challenge was received and accepted, and Fitzgerald
named the present as the only time. After much haggling about the
unseasonableness of the hour, and the disturbance the duel might create
in the vicinity of Mrs. Wilson’s,—on the part of the challenging
party—the count, who had been refreshing his courage with some old
port, prepared to meet his antagonist on the spot.
Small swords had been brought by Ampisand’s friend, and the surgeon, who
was an acquaintance of Fitzgerald, undertook to act as his second. The
gentle breeze was singing a lullaby to the ocean, and the sound of the
distant viol broke upon their ears. The ground was now paced out—the
principals were placed, and the words, one! two! three! guard! were
given, and the duel commenced. For a few seconds the parties appeared to
be equally matched, but at length the count, whose body seemed
wonderfully to have increased in size since the insult, began to pant
and blow like a porpoise out of water. Fitzgerald now caught the count’s
sword in the fleshy part of his arm, and ran him through the body. The
wounded man dropped his weapon, and fell heavily upon the ground.
Fitzgerald and the surgeon ran up to him,—“Forgive me,” said the
apparently dying man, whispering in Fitzgerald’s ear, “I loved Mary
Howard, and would have borne her away from you, but now, alas, my
prospects are blighted, and I must pay for my folly with my blood.”
“He does not bleed,” said the surgeon, mournfully.
“Alas, my friend is mortally wounded,” said the count’s second, putting
a bottle of Scotch snuff to his mouth, instead of a phial of brandy. The
wounded man grated his teeth violently, and rejected all aid. Lights now
came from Mrs. Wilson’s toward them, notwithstanding the moon shone
brightly to dim them.
“Is there no hope?” said Fitzgerald to the surgeon. The medical man
raised the body up—a cold sweat was upon the face—death seemed nigh at
hand. He shook his head.
“Fly, sir,” said Ampisand’s second, “or you will be taken, the crowd are
near at hand.”
“Go to my lodgings,” said the surgeon, “and I will meet you there in a
few minutes.”
Ampisand’s friend and Fitzgerald now took the swords and ran across the
churchyard, which made a short cut to the surgeon’s. As they reached the
street they heard a stage-coach rattling furiously down the main street.
Fitzgerald stopped. He saw it was far ahead—he uttered a faint cry—his
chance of reaching his frigate was past. The surgeon soon came. The
wounded man was in the charge of a German doctor, at Mrs. Wilson’s. The
ladies had nearly all gone home in fainting fits, and Mary Howard had
left in a flood of tears. This confirmed Fitzgerald’s suspicions. “She
loved him,” said he “and, oh, what have I lost by this evening’s
devotion!”
Fitzgerald’s arm pained him considerably, and the surgeon dressed it. A
carriage was then sent for, to bear the young officer to his post; and
while it was being made ready, he threw himself upon the surgeon’s
truckle bed, and caught an unquiet nap. It was nearly 3 o’clock of a
cold wet morning,—for a storm had ushered in the day,—when the unhappy
Fitzgerald departed in a close carriage from Belleview.
For the first stage he had a hope of overtaking the post, but his horses
began to lag with the advance of day, and it was three P. M. before he
arrived at the point of embarkation. As he drew up at the Bowery House,
he watched eagerly for some one of his brother officers, but none
appeared to greet him. He paid his coachman and bounded into the
passage. The bar-keeper met him at the door.
“Where is the Frigate, Dennis?” said he impatiently.
“She sailed at nine this morning,” said the bar-keeper, “and is now out
at sea.”
Maurice Fitzgerald, I have said, was a brave man. He could have faced
death upon the blood-stained deck, and gloriously braved the brunt of
battle, but now he felt his strength depart, and retiring suddenly to
his room, burst into a flood of tears. After a few moments, his moral
courage returned. “I have merited this,” said he, “by acceding to her
girlish whims. I must now make the best of a bad matter, and trust to
fortune for success.” He now proceeded to act in a calm manner. He wrote
a hasty note to Col. Howard, detailing the circumstances of the case as
they occurred, and sending his formal respects to Mary. He wrote a line
to his aged father, of the same character, and furthermore stated his
intention of joining his vessel by the aid of a pilot boat. Having paid
his bill, he sold a check upon his banker, purchased a sea-cloak and a
brace of pistols, and with his valise in his hand, boarded a fast
sailing pilot, at Beckman’s Slip. A bargain was soon struck, and the
light craft, with Fitzgerald at the helm, turned her head to the sea. On
the way down, they met the pilot who had taken the frigate to sea, and
ascertained her course. Trusting, then, to the swiftness of the boat,
that had several days provision on board, the young officer boldly
steered for the Atlantic, and when the sun set, the highlands of
Neversink were astern.
During the night, which continued wet and gloomy, the wind, in fitful
puffs, hurled them swiftly o’er the waves, and, when the morning came,
the long, swelling billows of the ocean tumbled o’er them, and the
sheer-water darted ahead along the thunder-chaunting waves. Nothing was
to be seen but the clouds above, and the gloomy waves below, which came
together at the edge of the horizon like the lid and bottom of a
circular tobacco box, when closed. The old pilot was now confident that
the frigate had changed her course during the evening preceding, and
that all possibility of his overtaking her was gone. With a heavy heart,
therefore, Fitzgerald put his helm down, the tacks and sheets were
shifted, the snowy canvass felt again the side-long breath of the gale,
and the little bark drew in toward the distant shore.
A suspicious looking schooner now hove in sight, and bore down upon them
with the swiftness of the wind. The pilot, from the first, did not like
her appearance, and Fitzgerald, although he said nothing to alarm his
companion, felt confident that she was a pirate. In less than an hour,
the warlike stranger shot across their bows, fired a gun, loaded with
grape, at their sails, and hoisted the black flag of the Bucaniers.
All resistance to this antagonist would have been madness, and the pilot
obeyed the hoarse hail, and ran alongside the pirate. Twenty rough
looking rascals, each armed to the teeth, with a young man of higher
rank at their head, sprang into the pilot boat, and after making sundry
motions, which seemed to imply a speedy cutting of their throats, bound
the pilot and his men. Fitzgerald, however, resisted the party that came
upon him, and with his pistols soon wounded two of the pirates. A
cutlass now flashed before his eyes, and sense and reason departed.
When Fitzgerald again became conscious of existence, he found himself in
a cot, swinging in a beautiful cottage, in the vicinity of the sea, for
he could hear the solemn roar of breakers, and the screams of the
sea-birds, as they revelled amid the foam. A beautiful Creole maiden
stood by his bed side, chaunting a low, mournful tune, while she brushed
away the flies from his pillow with a long fan made of peacock’s
feathers.
He looked at her for some seconds, and then as the thought of his cousin
past across his brain, a deep sigh burst from his lips. The maiden
started—“hush,” said she, putting her finger to her lips, and stepping
to the side table, handed him a composing draught in a silver goblet. He
drank the contents with gratitude, and soon fell into a sweet sleep.
It was nearly sunset when Fitzgerald awoke, completely invigorated in
body and mind. He looked around him,—no one was to be seen. He called,
but no one answered his summons. He now determined to find out where he
was. His clothes were in a chair beside his cot, and his valise was upon
the dressing table. He raised himself slowly upon his arm,—finding that
he was not in want of strength, he sprang out of the cot and dressed
himself. He now viewed his face in a huge Spanish mirror, that hung over
a taper, with the holy letters I. H. S. below it. He started back in
astonishment. A cruel cut had laid open his marble forehead to the
scull, and a long, purple scar, scarcely healed, marked the track of the
cutlass. Having brushed his long, black hair over the disfiguration, he
went to the window and looked out upon the surrounding face of nature.
He saw he was upon a small island, in the midst of a host of others, and
that the narrow passes between them were filled with clippers and
man-o’-war boats, apparently returning from cruizes upon the main. It
was a romantic spot, unlike any other in the world. About sixty
cottages, like the one he occupied, rose in the distance, each with its
garden and verandah. Groves of orange and lemon trees, loaded with ripe
fruit, waved their tops of eternal green around, and filled the
atmosphere with a delicious odor.
The waves broke over the long, bold reefs that lined the islands, and
the sky was dotted with flocks of sea-birds. Here and there a solitary
pine tree sprung from a crevice in the rocks, where its cone had been
thrown up by the dash of some sweeping wave whose crest had borne it
across the sea. It was Noman’s Group, and was not far from Cape Flyaway.
Fitzgerald had hardly made the discoveries above related, when the
lovely Creole, with an officer in a naval uniform, entered the chamber.
They saluted Fitzgerald with kindness, and appeared to be astonished at
his sudden improvement. He now found a ready market for the smattering
of Spanish he had picked up among the Dagos of Mahon, and in half an
hour his store was exhausted.
From them he learned that the pilot had been set adrift in his boat,
after having furnished all the information desired; but that he, from
his resistance, had been retained to be killed at leisure. Having,
however, from a fever of the brain, continued insensible so long,—it
being then the thirtieth day,—the pirates concluded to send him to the
Hospital Island, to be restored to health. He was now with his surgeon
and attentive nurse, and would be reported “_well_,” on the coming
Saturday. His attendants refused to tell him where he was. All distances
and names of places were carefully concealed, and all that he could
ascertain was, that a direct communication was kept up with the American
Continent, and that newspapers were brought to the islands from the
United States weekly, and would be furnished him if he desired them.
Fitzgerald was lavish of his thanks for such kindness, and begged that
the latest newspapers from New York might be given him.
The Creole girl left the room immediately, and presently a boat was seen
putting off to a brig in the pass, opposite the cottage.
The surgeon now drew his chair closer to that of his patient, and became
less reserved. The latter soon understood that it had been decided by
the pirates that upon his recovery he should join them or be shot upon
the cliff. The blood of Fitzgerald boiled in his veins at the bare
proposal of the Bucanier, but before he gave his anger words, his lovely
Creole approached with a package of New York dailies, taken the week
previous from an outward bound brig. Forgetting every thing else in his
desire to hear from his native land, he opened the first paper that met
his eye, and read the following:—“Arrived, the United States Frigate
——, with His Britannic Majesty’s Ship —— of forty-four guns, in tow,
as a prize. The action lasted thirty minutes, when the British frigate
struck her flag. Capt. —— immediately left the frigate and proceeded
to Washington with the enemy’s flag. The official account of this
gallant action will be given to-morrow. Suffice it to say that every
officer and man did his duty, and that promotion, and the thanks of a
grateful country await the victors.” In another paper he read a list of
promotions in the navy, and his own dismissal from the service. The
marriage list now caught his eye, and he read,—“Married in Belleview,
on the 1st instant, by the Reverend Mr. Smell Fungus, Count Frederick
Ampisand, of Hesse Cassel, Germany, to Miss Mary Howard, the only
daughter of Col. John Howard, of the revolutionary army.
“Love is the silken cord that binds
Two willing hearts together.”
Every word of this paragraph remained like an impression from types of
fire upon his melancholy brain.
“Doctor,” said Fitzgerald, throwing down the paper, while the blood
oozed from his scarcely-healed wound,—“tell your leaders that
henceforth I am with them body and soul. The victim of circumstance—the
sport of the world—a cork floating upon the stream of time.—I will be
dreaded, if I cannot be loved.”
The morning came, and Fitzgerald was introduced to the bucaniers in
their strong hold. Bold and generous, two qualities that always sail in
company, he became a universal favorite at the melee, and o’er the bowl;
and in the course of a short time, he paced along the weather quarter of
the gun brig, King Fisher,—“the monarch of her peopled deck.”
It was a beautiful summer’s night. The sun had sunk in a dense cloud
bank behind the Bahamas; and the small red bow in the northwest,
accompanied by a hollow sound, as though cannons had been fired far down
beneath the surface of the ocean, gave evidence of the near approach of
a norther.
The brig was soon prepared for the war of the elements, whose signal
guns had been heard wakening the lowest echoes of the deep. Her head was
brought so as to receive the first burst of the tempest’s fury;
conductors were rigged aloft, and their chains of steel rattled sharply
as they descended into the sea along side. The light spars were sent
down, her storm stay-sail was set, and she rode the heaving billows like
a duck.
A tall merchantman, bound apparently to the Havana, now swept along to
the windward of the islands under a press of canvass. Fitzgerald saw
that she was crowded with passengers, and his soul sickened at the
thought, that ere the morning dawned that gallant bark would be a wreck
upon an iron-bound coast, and her host of human beings would lie the
play things of the shark, and the lifeless sport of the thunder-pealing
waves. A sudden throb of sympathy moved his heart, a tear—the first, he
had shed for months—started to his eye. He grasped his trumpet—his
topsails were unfurled and in less than an hour he occupied a station to
the windward of THE DOOMED SHIP. His canvass was now reduced as before,
and under the smallest possible sail, he stretched ahead of the
merchantman.
The norther now came on in its fury—from the red bow that had reached
the zenith, a bright flash of blinding lightning darted in a long bright
stream and parted into a thousand forks, and then came a crash of
thunder with the almost resistless wind. The King Fisher was borne down
to her bearings, and then righted again, and gallantly faced the blast.
Not so with the crank merchantman. Her tall masts were whipped out of
her in a twinkling; the ocean surges swept her deck fore and aft: and
she lay tossing in the trough of the sea a helpless wreck.
At midnight the fury of the blast died away, and the sea that had rolled
in terrific waves began to go down. The brig under a reefed foresail and
maintopsail now danced again from billow to tasseled-tipt billow, and
gained rapidly upon the sea washed wreck. As the King Fisher drew near
the once gallant vessel, Fitzgerald heard a voice crying in agony for
help. He looked over the head and saw a female floating upon a spar, a
short distance before him. To brace round his topsail-yard, lay to, and
lower the life boat, was but the work of a moment, and with six trusty
fellows he launched out upon the midnight deep.
In a few moments he caught the almost lifeless female by the hair, and
wrapped her in his sea-cloak—“To the wreck,” said he, in a voice of
thunder, as his starboard oars backed water to return to their craft.
The crew gave way with a will, and immediately the life boat made fast
to the loose rigging of the wreck. Preceded by Fitzgerald, two of his
men mounted the vessel’s side. Fitzgerald as he sprang upon the deck
started back with astonishment. Colonel Howard stood before him in a
long robe of white flannel, apparently as free from the gout as the
youngest of the party.
“Uncle,” said the young officer, with a cry of delight, “what a
meeting!”
The old man looked up, “Rash and impetuous boy,” said he, with a voice
trembling with joy and astonishment, “you have not lost all sympathy
yet; I have been in search of you, but little did I expect such a
meeting. Poor Mary, oh, that she had remained a few moments longer.”
“Is Mary here?” said Fitzgerald, casting a troubled glance around the
anxious crowd that had gathered around the speakers.
“No,” said the old veteran, clasping his hands and lifting up his eyes
streaming with tears—“She was swept out of my aged arms by the last
sea, and is now in heaven.”
“She is in my boat,” said Fitzgerald, “I thought that voice was Mary’s
as it came from the deep, but come let us haste, the wreck may go down
with us while we stand here.”
“Are you all armed in the boat?” hailed Fitzgerald, in a voice of
thunder.
“Aye, aye, sir,” was the gruff answer from the ones who remained in her.
“Then shoot the first person who attempts to enter her without my
orders,” said Fitzgerald; the pirates cocked their pistols, and sat
ready to execute his commands. The two men who had boarded the wreck
with him were now ordered to make ropes fast to the ends of a hammock;
one rope was then thrown to the boat’s crew, while the other remained on
board the wreck. The aged men and women, one by one, were now lowered by
this simple contrivance to the boat; and when she was sufficiently
loaded, Fitzgerald ordered one of his men on board to steer her, with
orders to see that the passengers were not molested until he came on
board. Seven times the life boat, filled with the passengers and crew of
the Rosalie, whose captain had been washed away, made its voyage of
mercy, and having cleared the wreck, the noble-hearted
Fitzgerald—plunged into the waves and reached the boat in safety—this
had been made necessary by the parting of the rigging that held the
boat. The whole were saved, and as the life boat was run up to the
davits, the wreck plunged heavily to leeward, a heavy wave rolled over
her and she was seen no more.
It was a bright morning at the Bahamas when the King Fisher took her
departure for the Florida reef. Fitzgerald now entered his cabin for the
first time since the rescue, and the thousand thanks that were showered
upon him by the aged and the young—by the strong man—the gentle
woman—and the lisping child almost overpowered him.
He received their congratulations in a proper manner, and modestly
informed them that he had but performed his duty. He bade them welcome
to the best his poor brig afforded, and promised to land them at the
nearest port. Mary Howard, pale and weak, now came out of her little
state-room. She cast her round black eyes which beamed fearfully bright
upon Fitzgerald. A crimson cloud past over her snowy face,—“It is he,”
she screamed, while the tears that had so long refused to flow from
their sealed fountains filled her eyes; Fitzgerald sprang to meet her,
and in a moment she fell lifeless into his open arms.
Colonel Howard now bade the young officer place his daughter upon the
sofa in the after cabin: and having seen her revive, retired and left
them alone.
The unfortunate Mary now became calm and collected, and with a heart
overflowing with gratitude, and eyes suffused with tears, related to
Fitzgerald the events that had transpired since his departure, and the
cause of her present voyage amid the horrors and uncertainties of war.
It seems that Count Ampisand had stuffed his clothes with pillows, and
that Fitzgerald’s sword had barely grazed his noble body, having been
warded off by the feathers that filled his stuffing. This accounted for
the entire absence of blood. The count of course soon became
convalescent.
Mary Howard ever generous, and feeling that she had been the unhappy
cause of the duel, prevailed upon her father to take the wounded
foreigner to his house on the night of the duel. Ampisand was delighted
with this state of things, and he pressed his suit upon Mary Howard
warmly: but she repelled his advances with scorn. Mrs. Wilson, however,
and her scandalising circle, could not wait for Count Ampisand to get
married in the regular way, and believing in the absence of Fitzgerald
that Mary Howard could not refuse the amiable and accomplished count,
they prevailed upon a travelling letter writer—one of those drag nets
for second-handed news—to put a paragraph in his _master’s_ paper for
the fun of it.
This was the notice that Fitzgerald saw, and which had caused him so
much terrible agony of mind.
“It is too late to repair the evil,” said Fitzgerald, as he paced the
cabin with a countenance tortured by despair.
“It is never too late to do a good action,” said Mary Howard,
firmly—“Maurice Fitzgerald you are not the one to bring dishonor upon a
patriot father’s name: or to call down the curse of a sainted mother
upon your head.” The young man bowed his head upon the rudder case, and
the fair girl resumed her narrative.
The arrival of the scandalous paragraph caused the speedy ejection of
the count from Colonel Howard’s domicil, in no ceremonious manner, and
the instant departure of Mrs. Wilson, bag and baggage.
Colonel Howard raved like a madman for a week; threatened the editor of
the offending paper with a prosecution; discovered the perpetrators of
the scandal; placarded the whole party as retailers and manufacturers of
falsehoods; and posted Count Ampisand as an imposter and a villain in
every section of the Union.
The count was shortly afterward tried for stealing spoons and convicted.
The next day he changed his lodgings, and occupied a room on the ground
floor of the castellated building at Moyamensing, which had but one
_grate_, and that was before the window, while Sanderson, the terror of
the genteel sucker, had him served up in his amusing diary of a
Philadelphia Landlord on the next Saturday.
The departure of Fitzgerald from New York was commended by his brother
officers, but his long absence from the ship could not be satisfactorily
accounted for, and he was dismissed by the navy department. Enquiries
had been made in every section of the country for him by his almost
distracted father; and at last a reward was offered in the newspapers
for any information concerning him. The pilot who had left him wounded
with the pirates, now came forward, and related the circumstances under
which he and Fitzgerald had parted company. Fitzgerald’s father, an aged
man of great wealth, and who had no other child to attract his love, now
insisted upon Colonel Howard’s proceeding to ransom his son. Mary, whose
health was rapidly declining, was directed by her physician to perform a
sea voyage, and thus father and daughter were induced to brave the
dangers of that sea, whose waves teemed with freebooters, and whose
isles flashed with cutlasses and boarding-pikes.
The Rosalie had agreed, for a great sum of money, to land the Howards at
New Providence: and then proceed on to New Orleans, her port of final
destination. Once landed, they were to trust to opportunity for the
means of transportation to their native land.
The norther brought them together as before related; and the warring
elements of nature produced a reconciliation between the lovers.