CHAPTER X.

Nearly dead with terror and indignation, I crept stealthily to my own

chamber, in which I locked myself up securely, resisting all friendly

overtures of the enemy, except one cup of tea, received from the hand of

a servant through the half-opened door (which was instantly relocked) of

my citadel.

My resolution was formed that night. I would leave Monfort Hall, and

even forsake Mabel, until I could return and legally claim both. At my

majority, Mabel would be of age to select between her guardians, by that

time, according to law, and--we should see! As for poor Morton, I would

write to him and claim his prayers alone. Age like his is so

irresponsible. I dared not trust him farther!

It was all very brief and bitter!

As yet I had digested no plan of action. I would go westward, I thought,

but just as far away as my money would carry me from these fiends,

trusting to God for the rest, just as a boat puts off from a blazing

ship.

Of course, I must adopt another name--what should it be? I should need

clothing; and _how_ secure and convey away my trunk unseen by Evelyn? My

diamonds must be secreted or disposed of--how should this be done? Could

I trust Mrs. Austin--Mabel?

No, the suggestion was discarded at once as unworthy of consideration.

One was too old, too self-indulged, too selfish; and in age people

usually worship expediency alone. The other far too young not to be

necessarily indiscreet and impulsive. To have been otherwise at her

tender age would have been simply monstrous!

No, I must forego even the sweet satisfaction of saying farewell to

Mabel; we must part perhaps forever, as we might meet again within an

hour, and all her distress and anxiety must pass unshared and unheeded.

There was no one else I cared very much about leaving, but the love of

locality was a strong feature in my disposition, and every room in my

father's house was dear to me, as was every book in his study, and every

plant in our deep-green, shadowed garden.

The very streets were sacred in my sight, that I had trodden from

childhood, but my liberty was more precious to my heart than scenes of

old associations, and to gain one the other must be sacrificed. There

was no hesitating now: I was on the tread-mill of fate, and must

proceed, or fall and be crushed beneath.

And here again I repeat, what I have said so recently: "On what slight

pivots our destiny often turns!--through what small channels Providence

works its wondrous ways!"

A pair of shoes had been sent home for me that day, which still lay on

the table, wrapped and corded. In truth, they came very opportunely; "I

shall want these soon," I thought, as I examined the strong and elastic

bootees, which had been made for me in view of my morning walks, a part

of dear Dr. Pemberton's regimen, which I strenuously and advantageously

carried out.

As I spoke, the paper in which they had been enveloped rustled down on

the floor by my side. I stooped, languidly, to pick it up, merely from a

sense of order, and my eye fell on a long column, headed "Wanted," and,

almost for lack of resolution to withdraw it, wandered down its

paragraphs, step by step.

It was a Democratic paper, such as was never patronized by

Evelyn--herself a zealous conservative in politics, as our father had

been before us--and, as I cared little for newspaper-reading, I had

never suggested a subscription to any sheet that she did not fancy,

although I inclined to democracy.

I was somewhat amused by the quaintness of some of the advertisements of

this sheet for the people, that style of literature being new to me; and

found myself smiling over the perfections set forth as necessary, by the

paragons of the earth, in both wife and servant, when I came to a dead

stand. Here was the very thing I should have selected, could I have

chosen my own destination instead of depending on _chance_ (as if,

indeed, there were such a thing _possible_ with God--the predestinator

of the universe), or necessity (is the name a much better one as applied

to the all-seeing Deity?), or fate (a more comprehensive but little

less-abused term, perhaps), to do this for me!

The advertisement ran thus, and quite fascinated me with its

eccentricity, as well as congeniality to my condition:

"A gentleman and lady, now sojourning for a short time at the Mansion

House, wish to employ, immediately, for the benefit of their children,

an instructress, who must be, _imprimis_, a lady--and young; secondly,

soundly constituted and well educated; thirdly, a good reader, and able

to teach elocution, and entertain a circle; fourthly, willing to reside

with cheerfulness on a Southern plantation; fifthly, content with a

moderate _modicum_ as salary. None other need apply--no references given

or asked. Inquire for _Somnus_."

I laid down the paper, and drew a long, free breath; then rang a peal of

merriment, startling under the circumstances. It was the first hearty

laugh that had left my lips for many days. "What an oddity, one or the

other of these people must be!" I thought, "the man most probably--yes,

I am sure it is he--no woman ever was so independent of references, or

made youth a _sine qua non_, nor elocution either. But am I soundly

constituted? ay, there's the rub! suppose my terrible foe sees fit to

interfere, 'Epilepsy,' as Evelyn called it, and perhaps with reason--God

alone knows!--what then? Well, I will hazard it--that is all--I will

charge nothing for lost days, and try to be zealous in the interval;

besides, it is a long time since one of these obliteration spells

occurred; for I shall ever believe Evelyn dosed me for her own purposes

on that last occasion! Fiend!--fiend!--and yet my little sister _must_

remain in such hands for a season, protected by her guardian angel

only."

I passed a feverish night, employing the first part of it in quilting my

diamonds into a belt which I placed about my waist; and the remainder in

putting together as many useful, as well as a few handsome clothes, as

my travelling-trunk would contain; bonnets, evening-dresses, which

require room to dispose of, and the like vanities, I abandoned to

Evelyn's tender mercies. I rose early and, as usual whenever the weather

permitted, sallied forth before breakfast, but this time unaccompanied

by my usual attendant, Charity.

The "Mansion House" was at no great distance from our own residence.

The beautiful home of the Bingham family, then converted into an hotel,

destroyed by fire at a later period, like our own house, was situated in

the ancient part of the city, from which fashion had gradually emerged,

and shrank away to found new streets and dwellings.

I rang at the private door, and asked the porter for "_Somnus_;" at the

same time sending up a card, on which was written:

"'Miriam Harz,' applicant for the post of teacher."

A few moments later a grave, copper-colored servant, respectably clad,

and with an air of responsibility about him that was almost oppressive,

invited me solemnly to follow him up the winding marble stair--so often

trodden by the feet of Washington and his court, when a gracious

assemblage filled the halls above--and ushered me into a small but lofty

parlor at its head, in which a gentleman sat reading the morning

journal.

Very wide awake, indeed, seemed he who affected the title of the god of

sleep, as he arose courteously from his chair, still holding his paper

in one hand, and waved me to a seat on the worn horse-hair sofa between

the windows.

He was a tall, thin, sallow, hooked-nosed gentleman, of middle age, with

a certain air of distinction about him in contrast with his singular

homeliness.

"Miss Harz?" he said, interrogatively, glancing at the card over the

mantel-shelf--near which he had been sitting--above an unseasonable,

smouldering coal-fire.

I bowed affirmatively for all reply. "And I," he continued, "am Prosper

La Vigne, of the '_Less durneer_' settlement" (for thus he pronounced

this anglicized French name) "Maurice County, Georgia," with an air

that seemed to say, "You have heard of me, of course!" and again I

bowed, as my only alternative.

"Lay off your bonnet, if you please," he said, coolly; "I would like to

see the shape of your head before proceeding further. Mine, you see, is

an ill-balanced affair," smiling quizzically in his effort to be

condescending, perhaps. "This is a mere business transaction, you know,"

seeing that I hesitated to comply, "and your phrenological developments

must atone for my deficiencies, or all will go wrong at once--but do as

you like. Now that you have thrown back your veil, I can see that the

brow is a good one. That will suffice, I suppose. I will take the moral

qualities on trial for the nonce. My wife is wholly occupied with her

domestic and private affairs, you must understand, when we are at home,

and much will devolve on you; that is, if we suit one another, which is

dubious. That reminds me! I have not heard the sound of your voice yet;

I am much governed by intonation in my estimates of people, and usually

form a perfect opinion at first sight. Be good enough to read this

item," and he handed me the morning paper, formally indicating it with

his long, lithe forefinger. It was from one of Mr. Clay's speeches. I

did as he requested, without hesitation.

"People trot out horses and negroes when they wish to purchase; why not

governesses?" I questioned, dumbly. "He did well to ask no references;

his examination is thorough, I perceive," and I laid the paper down,

half amused, half provoked, when I had finished. He was gazing at me

open-mouthed--no unusual thing with him, I found later--and was silent

for a few moments.

"Splendid! admirable!" he exclaimed, suddenly; "both, voice and

elocution perfect--you possess the greatest of all accomplishments,

madam, next to conversational excellence," rising to his feet, and

bowing low and seating himself again, in a formal way of his own. "Music

is a mockery compared to such reading! as well set a jew's-harp against

the winds of heaven! You understand my meaning, of course; it is not

precisely that, however. Now let us converse a little."

"The advertisement did not refer to that, I believe, as a condition," I

said, somewhat indignantly, and flushing hotly as I spoke. "I really

cannot converse to order. I am a person of moods, and do not feel always

like talking at all," and I rose and prepared to draw down my veil, take

up my parasol, and depart.

"I like you none the worse for a proper exhibition of spirit," he said,

nodding kindly, and settling himself once more to his paper composedly.

"Sit still, miss, and compose yourself by the time Madame La Vigne comes

in, or she _may_ think you high-tempered, and I am sure you are nothing

of the kind--only very properly proud. There, now, that is right! You

seem to be a very sensible, well-conditioned young person indeed, and I

think you will suit. You are the tenth since yesterday morning," smiling

and bowing blandly, "and the only one that could read intelligibly.

Elocution, you see, is my hobby. I forgot to say," looking up from his

paper, after a pause, "the salary is six hundred dollars--not enough,

perhaps, for a lady of your merit--but quite as much as we can afford to

give. This I call a _modicum_."

"It is not very important," I remarked, "what I receive in the shape of

money, so that I am at no expense beyond my clothing, and other personal

matters, and that I find myself well situated. My engagement will, in

no case, extend beyond a year. You have your peculiarities, I see, and

I have mine. The question is, might they not jar occasionally?"

"Oh, never, never! '_noblesse oblige_,' you know," with a wave of the

hand, soft and urbane. "I hope I shall know how to treat a lady and a

teacher, both in one, and a member of my household. Besides that, I

shall have very little to do with you, indeed. Just now it is

different--we are coming to terms; we have not made them yet, however. I

always save my wife this trouble, if possible.--Ah! there she comes, at

last," as a mild, lady-like looking woman emerged from an adjoining

chamber, somewhat elaborately dressed for that early hour, and followed

by a stream of pale, pretty little girls. "Madame La Vigne," he said,

rising ceremoniously, "permit me to introduce to you Miss Miriam Harz,"

reading the name slowly from the card again, which he took from the

wall, "'a candidate for the position of instructress at

Beauseincourt.'--Say, how do you like her looks?"

I had come to the conclusion by this time that Mr. La Vigne was

decidedly as eccentric as his advertisement, and that his vagaries and

personalities were not worth minding or estimating in the consideration

in question.

So, when Madame La Vigne replied to his abrupt query, "Oh, very, _very_

much, indeed!" and held out her kind hand to me, I took it without

misgiving, and the first glance we interchanged contained freemasonry.

From that time Colonel Prosper La Vigne fell gracefully back into his

proper position, and I talked away fluently enough with his lady, as he

pompously called his wife. In short, at the end of an hour it was

settled that I was to join them the same evening, at their hotel, and

proceed with them thence to New York, there to take the packet for

Savannah (their first destination) on the same night. The plantation on

which they lived, they informed me, was nearly a day's journey, by

carriage-conveyance, beyond that city, but eligibly situated for health

(though not for productiveness), among a low range of hills known as the

"Les Dernier" Mountains, the name being anglicized into "Less derneer,"

with the accent on the last syllable, so as to metamorphose it

completely to the ear, instead of translating it.

"It is a very lonely place though, Miss Harz, in the winter-time--mamma

ought to tell you that," whispered Marion, the eldest daughter, as she

nestled so closely to me, and looked so kindly in my face, that the

intruding thought of her unwillingness for my society was instantly

banished. "In the summer it is pleasant enough, so many people come to

their cottages in the hills; but, during eight months of the year, we

have but one near neighbor, and not a very social one either."

"From circumstances alone unsocial, Marion," said Madame La Vigne,

flushing slightly (her usual complexion was of a fair sallowness, common

to Southern ladies). "Cousin Celia is certainly devoted at heart to

every one of us, but she cannot, you know, leave home often."

"Oh, I know, mamma! I only meant to keep Miss Harz from being

disappointed."

"Miss Harz has internal resources, I have no doubt," rejoined Madame La

Vigne; "and, even if she had not, I fear her duties would preclude much

longing for excitement.--It is a very onerous task you are undertaking,

my dear young lady, certainly," turning kindly to me. "Five ignorant

little Southern girls, well disposed but imperfectly trained, will fill

your hands to positive overflowing, I fear. You will find me exacting,

too, sometimes. I am sure I shall enjoy your society whenever you

choose to bestow it on me, and Colonel La Vigne as well."

To which declaration on the part of his wife, that gentleman responded

by laying his hand on his breast, complacently, and bowing profoundly

from his chair, ending the ceremony by a flourish of his delicate

cambric handkerchief, and the exhibition at the same time of a slender,

sickly, and peculiarly-shaped hand, decorated with an onyx seal-ring. He

looked the gentleman, however, unmistakably plain and peculiar as his

appearance was, and pompous and pretentious as was his manner.

If words could do the work of the photographer, I should like to show

him to my readers, as he appeared to me on that first interview; though

later his whole aspect underwent a change in my sight, reflected from

the cavernous depths within, so that, what seemed somewhat ludicrous in

the beginning, came to be solemnly serious and even sophistically

tragical and awful on later acquaintance.

We have all more or less witnessed this phenomenon of transformation in

some familiar aspect, either through love or hatred, respect or

contempt, fear or admiration, until we find ourselves marveling at past

impressions, received, in ignorance of the truth, in the commencement of

our observations.

I remember that Mr. La Vigne struck me on that occasion as a superficial

man in every way, but kindly, courteous, and vivacious, though certainly

eccentric and somewhat absurd. One would have supposed him even a

flippant, whimsical person, seen casually; but, on later examination,

the droop of his eyelids and under lip, and the depressed corners of his

mouth, gave to the close observer a surer indication of his character.

The shape of his narrow, conical, and somewhat elegantly-placed head,

denoted an inclination to fanaticism, which had been skillfully combated

by a perfectly skeptical education, so as to turn this stream of

character into strange channels.

Hobbyism was his infirmity, perhaps, and he was essentially a man of one

idea at a time. The word "odd" applied to him peculiarly, which is in

itself a sort of social ostracism when attached to any one, and raises a

barrier at once between a man and his fellow-bipeds that not even

superiority could surmount.

He was emphatically a tawny man as to coloring--hair, skin, and eyes,

being all pretty much of the same hue of "the ribbed sea-sands." Yet

there were vestiges about him of an originally fair complexion. His

wrists and temples were white as those of a woman. His face was long,

lank, and cadaverous; his eyes shone with a clear, amber, and steady

light, and had an abstracted expression usually, accompanied with a not

unfrequent and most peculiar warp of the pupils.

His hair was singularly shaggy and picturesque in its tawny grayness,

and wavy, wiry length. Above his eyes his heavy brows of the same

texture and color seemed to make a pent-house, from which the high, pale

brow receded gradually; his profile was aquiline to absolute

grotesqueness. The idea of "Punchinello" presented itself irresistibly

at the sight of his parrot-like nose and suddenly-upturned chin.

His gait was as peculiar as his countenance and manner; he glided, in

walking, carrying himself erectly, with his arms closely pinioned to his

sides. He was altogether so extraordinary looking that I felt myself

staring almost rudely at him on our first interview; yet his dress was

in no way remarkable except for an air of old-fashioned and speckless

neatness.

Madame La Vigne was a pretty and well-preserved woman, of about

thirty-five, a fair brunette, originally, to whom most of her daughters

bore a close resemblance. One alone, the plainest of the band,

presenting a resemblance, most unfortunately for her, of "Colonel La

Vigne," as his wife called him, with scrupulous punctilio.

One son, the eldest of their family, they spoke of as the pride of their

hearts even on that first interview. He was in the navy, and,

consequently, much from home. They regretted this for many reasons, they

said, and, among others, on my account. He was so genial, so

companionable--their own dear Walter--"such a delightful fellow," as his

sister Madge declared exultingly--the second of this band of

sisters--and, as far as I could observe, on first acquaintance, the

brightest. Marion, the elder, was extremely pretty and gentle; and

Bertie, the third, taciturn and unprepossessing, yet evidently sensible.

She it was who alone resembled her father.

* * * * *

Fortunately, for the uninterrupted success of my scheme, Evelyn had one

of her sick turns that day, and remained closely shut up in her room. At

one o'clock, I summoned Franklin to my chamber.

"There is a trunk," I said, "that I wish you would take to the Mansion

House--to the care of a Mr. Somnus lodging there--here is the card

attached, with his name; place it with his baggage. It is to go to New

York, for a Miss Harz, a relation of mine--a teacher, I believe, who has

applied to me for assistance; but he understands all that, so you need

not be at, any trouble to explain. Be quiet, Franklin, in removing it,

as Evelyn is very nervous to-day, and dislikes noise; and go with the

drayman yourself to insure its safe delivery."

So passed my first lesson in deception, but I schooled lip and eye to

obedience, so that Franklin suspected nothing, and, being a discreet

servant, who never let his right hand know what his left was doing,

especially when gold crossed the palm, I was sure of silence on the

subject, at least until after my own departure.

Mabel and I dined _tête-à-tête_ at two; I had caused dinner to be served

earlier than usual for my own convenience, though indeed I found it a

mere form--for how could I swallow a morsel, choked as I was with grief,

while the fair child I worshipped, yet was forsaking, sat so calmly and

unconsciously in my sight!

After dinner I sought Mrs. Austin, leading Mabel by the hand. I had been

kissing her, almost wildly, every foot of the way up-stairs, and she

gazed on me, I could not help perceiving, with a sort of fond surprise,

for it was not my habit to lavish such passionate caresses, even on her,

without occasion.

"I am obliged to go out now," I said, in a broken voice, which I vainly

tried to command. "Take our darling, Mrs. Austin, and keep her very

safely until I come again. Promise me this!" I added, eagerly seizing

her hand.

"La! Miss Miriam, what's the use of promising for one afternoon, when I

have taken the best of care of her all her life? You act so singularly

to-day!" she added, pettishly, and she began to smooth Mabel's hair,

grumblingly. I turned away without another word, murmuring blessings in

my heart on that dear head.

There was no time to be lost now! The carriage was already at the door

of the Mansion House to convey us to the steamboat when I reached it,

and Colonel La Vigne standing, rather anxiously, on the pavement,

looking up and down.

"I was afraid you had rued your promise and were not coming," said

Marion, springing forth from the door-way eagerly, to greet me.

"And we had forgotten to ask your address," added Madame La Vigne, "or

we might have called for you, and saved you a long walk, perhaps."

"We should not have carried off your trunk, even had you not appeared,

Miss Harz," said Colonel La Vigne, blandly. "There it is you see,

distinctly labeled, on the baggage-wagon in front, directed to the care

of 'Mr. Somnus!'--a good deal of waggery about you, I perceive, or had

you forgotten my name?"

"No, no! I had reasons--but, you remember, no questions were to be

asked; you must wait for voluntary communications."

"I am so glad--so glad you are going with us!" said little Louey La

Vigne, pressing my hand, as she sat before me in the carriage by Aunt

Felicité, her nurse--Colonel La Vigne and three of his daughters having

been consigned to another hack--Louey and her sable attendant, stately

with her large gold ear-hoops, and brilliant cotton handkerchief, being

inseparable accompaniments of his wife.

"I have banished Mr. La Vigne, I fear," I said, in a broken voice; "it

would have been best for me, perhaps, to have gone with the young

ladies. Let me begin at once."

"No, it is much best as it is," she answered, affectionately; "think of

yourself just now, and take no charge until we all get home. You are

our guest until then, remember. I know it is a sad trial to go with

strangers, but you will find us friends, I hope;" and she clasped my

hand in hers, and so held it until we reached the wharf.

Tears rained down my face, beneath the friendly shelter of my veil, but

Madame La Vigne, with the tact of good-breeding, affected not to remark

them. Once little Louey, a child of eight years old, the youngest and

prettiest of all, leaned forward, as if to soothe or question me, but

she was plucked quickly back into her place by the decorous Aunt

Felicité, who had not lived so long with quality without acquiring some

delicacy of behavior, at least, even if it struck no deeper root.

I had commanded myself, before the carriage stopped beside the panting

steamboat, and soon we were gliding along the placid river toward the

point whence the railroad was to carry us on to our goal. At New York,

we found ourselves hurried for time to reach the packet Magnolia, and

went directly from the depot to the quay, for embarkation.

By the pilot, who left us at the Narrows, I sent back a few lines to

Mabel, also enjoining him, with the gift of a piece of gold, to mail my

letters on the following day, and receiving his promise to do so.

In this brief communication, I promised my dear child that we should

meet at my majority, and enjoined her to patience. "You will hear from

me again before long," I said, in conclusion; "and I will try and

arrange some plan of correspondence. Bad people have obliged me to this

step. Do not forget me, my darling, nor my lessons and counsel, and

believe ever in the honor and devotion of your sister. _Pray for me,

Mabel_! MIRIAM."

My letter to Evelyn Erie, without date, written on the ship, and sent

back by the pilot to be mailed also at New York, revealed my

acquaintance with a portion of her duplicity, and Mr. Bainrothe's dark

design.

I promised her my forgiveness on two conditions alone: one was, that she

should not seek to trace me, since all effort to regain me would be

fruitless; another, that she would be kind to Mabel, and my father's

ancient servants until my return, and, of these last, especially Morton.

I uttered no threats nor reproaches--asked no favors, beyond those which

I had a right to demand at her hands as my father's ward--long supported

by him, and even cherished with paternal tenderness--and the guardian of

his child. I knew that the use of my house and furniture would amply

compensate her for all Mabel's expenses, among the principal of which

would be that liberal education which I demanded for her, as her right.

I was very nearly twenty, now; Mabel, ten. There was still time to

redeem the past, and carry out all my frustrated intentions, after the

expiration of one year of abeyance and exile. Yes! I would "stand and

wait," trusting so "to serve."

_LIFE AT "LESDERNIER."_

"Break the dance and scatter the song,

Some depart, and some remain;

_These_ beyond heaven are borne along,

Others the bonds of earth retain."

SHELLEY.

PART II.

_LIFE AT "LESDERNIER."_

AN INTERLUDE.

I purpose here to give only a brief sketch of my sojourn under the roof

of the La Vignes. In another book, and at another time, when some that

now live shall have passed away, or years shall have made dim the memory

of results rather than events (for until _then_ the last must continue,

with their causes, to be _mysteries_), I may unfold the tissues of a

dire tragedy enacted, by some strange providence, under my peculiar view

alone, and thus inexplicable to others.

Of this no more, not even a hint, at present; lest, dropping the

substance for the shadow, the reader should cease to find interest where

I most wish to concentrate it for a season. The heroine so far of my own

story, I cannot yet voluntarily relinquish the privilege of sympathy, so

dear to the narrator of adventure, though I did, indeed, for a time

forget my own identity in the dark shadow, the mysterious crimes, the

unprecedented and speedy retributions that followed quickly on the heels

of guilt at Beauseincourt.

The picturesque old place, with its quaint French name and architecture

and antique furniture, did truly at first enchant my fancy (which

learned to shudder at its aspect later), as did, in the beginning, the

contiguous estates of "Bellevue" with its exquisite grounds, fountains,

and white-stuccoed mansion closely simulating the finest Italian marble.

Later, in accordance with the law of associations, this, too, became as

sorrowful in my sight as was the Hall of Vathek to those who mingled in

its mournful yet magnificent pageantry.

The denizens of this lonely abode were a most interesting couple. Still

young comparatively, virtually childless, and bearing the name (also a

Huguenot appellation) of "_Favraud_" the husband was bright,

intelligent, frivolous--the wife, an invalid of rare loveliness and

sweetness of character, who seldom emerged from her solitude. Both were

perfectly well bred.

These were relatives of Colonel La Vigne, whose son Walter was the

residuary legatee of Bellevue, with but one imbecile life, after that of

Madame Favraud, between him and enormous wealth. Great intimacy existed

between the families, although from circumstances--nameless here--the

ladies seldom met, and never at Bellevue.

Major Favraud was a constant visitor at Beauseincourt, when on his

estates. He was, however, of a roving disposition, and, though tenderly

attached to his wife, was often absent, negligent, and careless of her

feelings. He was a renowned duelist, and deemed a challenge the

essential element and result of every unsettled discussion. A typical

Southerner of his day, I felt keen interest in the scrutiny of his

character, until events developed those venomous tendencies which came

very near destroying my peace of mind forever, with the life of the

noble man whom, after a brief acquaintance, I had learned to love

against my own desires.

The occasion of this belligerent demonstration was afforded at the

Christmas festival, held yearly at Beauseincourt, by Colonel and Mrs. La

Vigne--in the great, many-windowed drawing-room with its waxed

parquet--its ebony-framed mirrors, its pier consoles, and faded damask

furniture.

There were assembled around the bright pine-fire, on the occasion of

this universal anniversary, neighbors, and guests from a distance,

invited specially for a certain number of days, among whom the

unexpected advent of a troop of engineers, of Northern extraction, made

a desirable variety.

One of these gentlemen only, the chief-engineer, who came to make new

roads for Lesdernier,[1] by order of government, had already been a

visitor of some weeks, and a strong attachment, vital from the first,

had sprung up between us; so far, unacknowledged by either.

During the dessert which succeeded the sumptuous Christmas-dinner, where

old and young took part, and "all went merry as a marriage-bell," the

health of John C. Calhoun, then heading the nullification party, was

formally proposed by Colonel La Vigne, as "first of men, and greatest of

statesmen."

This toast Captain Wentworth (the chief of the corps of engineers)

tacitly refused to drink, and was seconded in this resolve by all of his

party. There was, however, no active demonstration of unwillingness.

The representatives of government contented themselves with pressing

their hands above their glasses, and so refusing to fill them with the

wine that flowed freely to the welcome pledge, standing rigidly and

silently while it was drunk with enthusiasm by the remaining guests--all

Southern and sectional.

This defalcation to the common cause was apparently unnoticed at the

time, but was made the subject of remark, and subsequently of a

challenge by the Mars of the family, as Gregory denominated Major

Favraud--a challenge which circumstances compelled Captain Wentworth

reluctantly to accept.

No fire-eater, yet truly brave, he weighed the matter well, and decided

on his course; the one most expedient, if not absolutely necessary for a

stranger whose character for courage had still to be proved. In the

interval of the pending duel, of which all the inmates of Beauseincourt

were unconscious, save its master, who considered it as a mere matter of

course, Gregory (to whom I have alluded, the evil genius of the house

henceforth) arrived to reënforce the engineering corps.

Subtle, accomplished, versatile, graceful even in his singular

homeliness, and peculiar insolent style of address, he yet made himself

so acceptable to the family as to dare to seek the hand of the second

daughter of Colonel La Vigne, and, though at first tolerated by her

parents only, at last came to be well received.

At the very time that he was enlisting the innocent heart of Madge, he

was making to me, the governess, whenever he could find the slightest

opportunity, avowals of a desperate and audacious passion, which waxed

the stronger for the absolute loathing vouchsafed in return. In this

place it may be as well to reveal the end of this ill-fated and

unsuitable courtship, which never had my sanction, nor even toleration.

When the cloud gathered over Beauseincourt, so soon to burst in fury and

destruction, when ruin was imminent, Gregory withdrew on frivolous

pretexts, and turned his back on Lesdernier, and her who had so loved

him, forever!

While pretending to be the devoted friend and even abject servant of

Captain Wentworth, he was seeking, in every way, and on every hand,

secretly to undermine him. This effort produced in my mind only mistrust

and disdain; but with others it was, unfortunately, more successful.

Soon after my arrival at Lesdernier, I found, in one of the papers that

I had ordered to be sent there from my native city to the address of

"Miss Harz," an atrocious advertisement, describing me personally as an

escaped lunatic, and offering a reward for my apprehension. Fortunately,

these papers were not objects of interest to the family in which I found

myself, where periodicals of all sorts were rife, as well as books,

ancient and modern, and newspapers were thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.

In the silence of my chamber I read and destroyed, or concealed this

evidence of enmity, malice, and all uncharitableness. I would trust no

one with my identity--none save God--until the hour should come of my

majority and emancipation; then, armed with Judaic vengeance, I would

return to claim my sister, my fortune, and my rights.

Soon afterward I read in the same sheet, sent weekly to Lesdernier, the

notice of the marriage of Claude Bainrothe and Evelyn Erle. This was the

test of truth! I bore it bravely. Not a heart-beat gave tribute to the

love of other days. The fire was dead, and ashes alone remained on the

deserted hearth-stone. Lower down in the columns of the same paper,

however, was something that smote my soul. The Parthian dart was there,

and it quivered in its target! I saw that the wedding-party had sailed

for Europe on the same day of the nuptials, to be absent a year, and had

taken with them my dear one!

So far away! Seas rolling between us! Foreign lands, foreign laws

intervening, which might, for all I knew, deprive me of her presence

forever, who was my hope, my life!

"O little sister," I groaned, "was I right, after all, in forsaking you

for a season? Should I not have dared every thing, rather than have so

openly yielded my authority?"

* * * * *

In the mean while, the sanguinary preparations went silently on. In the

gray of a foggy February morning the duel was fought, and Captain

Wentworth fell, as it was at first thought, mortally wounded.

At the request of his excellent physician, Dr. Durand, when the watchers

were exhausted, and vigilance was all-essential in his case, I accepted,

rather than proposed to take, the post of watcher for one night, in

company with his devoted friend and coadjutor Edward Vernon, and

discovered, in my anguish, and in my power over his distracted senses,

my so-far-hidden gift of magnetism.

Insomnolency was destroying him; opiates had been tried in vain to

compose him, and now, under my waving fingers and strained will, he

slept the sweet, refreshing magnetic slumber. He lived, some were

pleased to say, and among others, his physician, through my agency--my

admirable nursing--for none save Vernon ever knew the secret of my sway.

We became engaged during his convalescence, simply, quietly,

unostentatiously.

In due time we made our troth-plight known to the household of

Beauseincourt, all of whom, from its formal master to my best-beloved,

brightest, and ever-tantalizing pupil, Bertie, accorded me their

heart-felt congratulations. Gregory alone--the evil genius of the

place--cast his poisonous sneers and doubts above our happiness--a

structure too firmly based, too far removed from him, however, for his

arrows to reach or destroy. Circumstances seemed later to favor his

malicious designs, as shall be shown in the conclusion of this work;

but, together, and in the full flush of our happiness, we were

invincible.

A sudden summons from the seat of government compelled Captain Wentworth

to leave Lesdernier a few hours after its reception--hours of which he

passed, through the necessity of speedy preparation, but one with me. So

far I had delayed the revelation of my true history and name, preferring

to postpone this to my majority and our marriage-day; but, after his

departure, I rued my resolution, and concluded to write to him a hasty

summary of my life and motives of action. This letter was, as a matter

of necessity, confided to the care of Luke Gregory (never a chosen

depositary of mine in any way), who followed him to Savannah to receive

some parting instructions for the conduct of their work, and who was to

return to Lesdernier after the interval of a week.

In the ardor of my impulse, I could not slight an opportunity of so soon

receiving a reply to my somewhat startling and, I felt now,

too-long-delayed communication, and thus testing my lover's trust and

confidence in me. When Gregory returned to Beauseincourt, he assured me

he had delivered my letter punctually (I never doubted this, for he knew

the man he had to deal with), adding, carelessly, that it was well

Wentworth had said he would write soon, as he had been unfortunate

enough to lose the hastily-pencilled reply, with his own pocket-book, at

the Lenoir Landing, where both were food for fishes.

My disappointment was extreme, and many weeks of constrained silence

passed before I received the promised letter from Captain Wentworth--so

gloomy, so incomprehensible, so portentous, that it filled me with

despair. In this letter he spoke of obstacles between us--in which blood

bore part--of the wreck of all earthly happiness for him--perchance for

me. Yet he conjured me to be calm and patient, as he could not be, and

alluded to my silence as conclusive of his misery. He referred

frequently to the letter he had intrusted to the care of Gregory as

explanatory of all that might otherwise seem inexplicable--that letter

at rest beneath the dark waters of the Bayou Noir--if--if, indeed! But

no! not even of Gregory could I harbor on slight grounds such

suspicions. "Let the devil himself have the full benefit of--doubt!"

says Rabelais. I wrote to Wentworth that I would come and make all

plain, as he desired, in June.

Suffering severely myself, I saw clouds gathering and rising around a

happy household that for a time drew me from the depths of my own

affliction in the vain effort to solace their woes.

Father and son and infant in one house, wife and imbecile daughter in

another, at last fell at one dread swoop. To dishonor was added the

crime of suicide, and poverty and breaking hearts were there, for the

heritage of Beauseincourt was, by reason of debt and mismanagement, to

pass, after the death of its master, into strange hands--the cruel hands

of creditors!

Walter La Vigne was dead, and the succession of Bellevue passed over the

daughters of the house, to vest in a distant kinsman. He came, toward

the last of my stay, to take his own; and, unexpectedly, George Gaston,

the playmate of my childhood, the lover of my first youth, stood before

me in the residuary legatee of Armand La Vigne!

His advent was a revelation of my secret, through the necessity of

surprise; and as, when the banquet is announced and the ball draws near

its close, the maskers, so far unknown to each other, lay by their

disguises, glad to be so relieved, draw breath and clasp hands once more

in the freedom of social reality, so I, who had played too long a weary

part, felt a new life infused into my veins when my mask was suddenly

laid aside, and the necessity of disguise was over.

The time was so near at hand now, I felt, when I could claim my own from

Bainrothe, and cast off all shackles of guardianship and minority, that

I no longer feared the consequences of this revelation. In September we

should meet on new ground. I, no more a minor, would be beyond the reach

of his subtle mastery; and, until then--the time assigned for the

expiration of his year of trust--he would remain in Europe, with the

wide sea between us, and little probability of information through the

medium of public rumor.

I would be secret, cautious, abide in the shadow, until the hour arrived

to emerge therefrom, and, with the aid of God and Wardour Wentworth,

defeat his schemes and vindicate the truth!

Alas for human foresight! Alas for Fate!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pronounced popularly "_Less der-neer_."]

_SEA AND SHORE_

"No fears hath she! Her giant form

Majestically calm would go

O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,

'Mid the deep darkness, white as snow!

So stately her bearing, so proud her array,

The main she will traverse forever and aye!

Many ports shall exult in the gleam of her mast--

Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer, this hour is her last!"

WILSON, "_Isle of Palms_."

* * * * *

"Then hold her

Strictly confined in sombre banishment,

And doubt not but she will ere long, full gladly,

Her freedom purchase at the price you name."

* * * * *

"No, subtle snake!

It is the baseness of thy selfish mind,

Full of all guile, and cunning, and deceit,

That severs us so far, and shall do _ever_."

* * * * *

"Despair shall give me strength--where is the door?

Mine eyes are dark! I cannot find it now.

O God! protect me in this awful pass!"

JOANNA BAILLIE, _Tragedy of "Orra."_

PART III.

_SEA AND SHORE_.

CHAPTER I.

It was a calm and hazy morning of Southern summer that on which I turned

my face seaward from the "keep" of Beauseincourt, never, I knew, to see

its time-stained walls again, save through the mirage of memory. There

is an awe almost as solemn to me in a consciousness like this as that

which attends the death-bed parting, and my straining eye takes in its

last look of a familiar scene as it might do the ever-to-be-averted face

of friendship.

The refrain of Poe's even then celebrated poem was ringing through my

brain on that sultry August day, I remember, like a tolling bell, as I

looked my last on the gloomy abode of the La Vignes; but I only said

aloud, in answer to the sympathizing glances of one who sat before

me--the gentle and quiet Marion--who had suddenly determined to

accompany me to Savannah, nerved with unwonted impulse:

"Madame de Staël was right when she said that 'nevermore' was the

saddest and most expressive word in the English tongue" (so harsh to her

ears, usually). "I think she called it the sweetest, too, in sound; but

to me it is simply the most sorrowful, a knell of doom, and it fills my

soul to-day to overflowing, for 'never, never more' shall I look on

Beauseincourt!"

"You cannot tell, Miss Harz, what _time_ may do; you may still return to

visit us in our retirement, you and Captain Wentworth," urged Marion,

gently, leaning forward, as she spoke, to take my hand in hers.

"'Time the tomb-builder'" fell from my lips ere they were aware. "That

is a grand thought--one that I saw lately in a Western poem, the

New-Year's address of a young editor of Kentucky called Prentice. Is it

not splendid, Marion?"

"Very awful, rather," she responded, with a faint shudder. "Time the

'comforter,' let us say, instead, Miss Miriam--Time the

'veil-spreader.'"

"Why, Marion, you are quite poetic to-day, quite Greek! That is a sweet

and tender saying of yours, and I shall garner it. I stand reproved, my

child. All honor to Time, the _merciful_, whether he builds palaces or

tombs! but none the less do I reverence my young poet for that

stupendous utterance of his soul. I shall watch the flight of that

eaglet of the West with interest from this hour! May he aspire!"

"Not if he is a Jackson Democrat?" broke in the usually gentle Alice

Durand, fired with a ready defiance of all heterodox policy, common, if

not peculiar, to that region.

"Oh, but he is not; he is a good Whig instead--a Clay man, as we call

such."

"Not a Calhoun man, though, I suppose, so I would not give a snap of my

fingers for him or his poetry! It is very natural, for you, Miss Harz,"

in a somewhat deprecating tone, "to praise your partisans. I would not

have you neutral if I could, it is so contemptible."

A little of the good doctor's spirit there, under all that exterior of

meekness and modesty, I saw at a glance, and liked her none the less for

it, if truth were told. And now we were nearing the gate, with its

gray-stone pillars, on one of which, that from which the marble ball had

rolled, to hide in the grass beneath, perchance, until the end of all, I

had seen the joyous figure of Walter La Vigne so lightly poised on the

occasion of my last exodus from Beauseincourt. A moment's pause, and the

difficult, disused bolts that had once exasperated the patience of

Colonel La Vigne were drawn asunder, and the clanking gates clashed

behind us as we emerged from the shadowed domain into the glare and dust

of the high-road.

Here Major Favraud, accompanied by Duganne, awaited us, seated in state

in his lofty, stylish swung gig (with his tiny tiger behind), drawn

tandem-wise by his high-stepping and peerless blooded bays, Castor and

Pollux. Brothers, like the twins of Leda, they had been bred in the

blue-grass region of Kentucky and the vicinity of Ashland, and were

worthy of their ancient pedigree, their perfect training and classic

names, the last bestowed when he first became their owner, by Major

Favraud, who, with a touch of the whip or a turn of the hand, controlled

them to subjection, fiery coursers although they were!

Dr. Durand, too, with his spacious and flame-lined gig, accompanied by

his son, a lad of sixteen, awaited our arrival, and served to swell the

cavalcade that wound slowly down the dusty road, with its sandy surface

and red-clay substratum. A few young gentlemen on horseback completed

our _cortége_.

Major Favraud sat holding his ribbons gracefully in one gauntleted

hand, while he uncovered his head with the other, bowing suavely in his

knightly fashion, as he said:

"Come drive with me, Miss Harz, for a while, and let the young folks

take it together."

"Oh, no, Major Favraud; you must excuse me, indeed! I feel a little

languid this morning, and I should be poor company. Besides, I cannot

surrender my position as one of the young folks yet."

"Nay, I have something to say to you--something very earnest. You shall

be at no trouble to entertain me; but you must not refuse a poor, sad

fellow a word of counsel and cheer. I shall think hard of you if you

decline to let me drive you a little way. Besides, the freshness of the

morning is all lost on you there. Now, set Marion a good example, and

she will, in turn, enliven me later."

So adjured, I consented to drive to the Fifteen-mile House with Major

Favraud, and Duganne glided into the coach in my stead, to take my place

and play _vis-à-vis_ to Sylphy, who, as usual, was selected as

traveling-companion on this occasion, "to take kear of de young ladies."

"I am so glad I have you all to myself once more, Miss Harz! I feel now

that we are fast friends again. And I wanted to tell you, while I could

speak of her, how much my poor wife liked you. (The time will come when

I must not, _dare_ not, you know.) But for circumstances, she would have

urged you to become our guest, or even in-dweller; but you know how it

all was! I need not feign any longer, nor apologize either."

"It must have been that she saw how lovely and _spirituelle_ I found

_her_," I said, "and could not bear to be outdone in consideration, nor

to owe a debt of social gratitude. She knew so little of me. But these

affinities are electric sometimes, I must believe."

"Yes, there is more of that sort of thing on earth, perhaps, 'than is

dreamed of in our philosophy'--antagonism and attraction are always

going on among us unconsciously."

"I am inclined to believe so from my own experience," I replied,

vaguely, thinking, Heaven knows, of any thing at the moment rather than

of him who sat beside me.

"Your mind is on Wentworth, I perceive," he said, softly; after a short

pause, "now give up your dream for a little while and listen to this

sober reality--sober to-day, at least," he added, with a light laugh.

"By-the-way, talking of magnetism, do you know, Miss Harz, I think you

are the most universally magnetic woman I ever saw? All the men fall in

love with you, and the women don't hate you for it, either."

"How perfectly the last assertion disproves the first!" I replied; "but

I retract, I will not, even for the sake of a syllogism, abuse my own

sex; women are never envious except when men make them so, by casting

down among them the golden apple of admiration."

"I know one man, at least, who never foments discord in this way!

Wentworth, from the beginning, had eyes and ears for no one but

yourself, yet I never dreamed the drama would be enacted so speedily; I

own I was as much in the dark as anybody."

I could not reply to this _badinage_, as in happier moments I might have

done, but said, digressively:

"By-the-by, while I think of it, I must put down on my tablet the order

of Mr. Vernon. He wants 'Longfellow's Poems,' if for sale in Savannah.

He has been permeating his brain with the 'Psalms of Life,' that have

come out singly in the _Knickerbocker Magazine,_ until he craves every

thing that pure and noble mind has thrown forth in the shape of a song."

And I scribbled in my memorandum-book, for a moment, while Major Favraud

mused.

"Longfellow!" he said, at last, "Phoebus, what a name!" adding

affectedly, "yet it seems to me, on reflection, I _have_ heard it

before. He is a Yankee, of course! Now, do you earnestly believe a

native of New England, by descent a legitimate witch-burner, you know,

_can_ be any thing better than a poll-parrot in the poetical line?"

"Have we not proof to the contrary, Major Favraud?"

"What proof? Metre and rhyme, I grant you--long and short--but show me

the afflatus! They make verse with a penknife, like their wooden

nutmegs. They are perfect Chinese for ingenuity and imitation, and the

resemblance to the real Simon-pure is very perfect--externally. But when

it comes to grating the nut for negus, we miss the aroma!"

"Do you pretend that Bryant is not a poet in the grain, and that the

wondrous boy, Willis, was not also 'to the manner born?' Read

'Thanatopsis,' or are you acquainted with it already? I hardly think you

can be. Read those scriptural poems."

"A very smooth school-exercise the first, no more. There is not a

heart-beat in the whole grind. As to Willis--he failed egregiously, when

he attempted to 'gild refined gold and paint the lily,' as he did in his

so-called 'Sacred Poems.' He can spin a yarn pretty well, and coin a new

word for a make-shift, amusingly, but save me from the foil-glitter of

his poetry." [2]

"This is surprising! You upset all precedent. I really wish you had not

said these things. I now begin to see the truth of what my copy-book

told me long ago, that 'evil association corrupts good manners,' or I

will vary it and substitute 'opinions.' I must eschew your society, in a

literary way, I must indeed, Major Favraud."

"Now comes along this strolling Longfellow minstrel," he continued,

ignoring or not hearing my remark, "with _his_ dreary hurdy-gurdy to cap

the climax. Heavens! what a nasal twang the whole thing has to me. Not

an original or cheerful note! 'Old Hundred' is joyful in comparison!"

"You shall not say that," I interrupted; "you shall not dare to say that

in my presence. It is sheer slander, that you have caught up from some

malignant British review, and, like all other serpents, you are venomous

in proportion to your blindness! I am vexed with you, that you will not

see with the clear, discerning eyes God gave you originally."

"But I do see with them, and very discerningly, notwithstanding your

comparison. Now there is that 'Skeleton in Armor,' his last effusion, I

believe, that you are all making such a work over--fine-sounding thing

enough, I grant you, ingenious rhyme, and all that. But I know where the

framework came from! Old Drayton furnished that in his 'Battle of

Agincourt.'" Then in a clear, sonorous voice, he gave some specimens of

each, so as to point the resemblance, real or imaginary.

"You are content with mere externs in finding your similitudes, Major

Favraud! In power of thought, beauty of expression, what comparison is

there? Drayton's verse is poor and vapid, even mean, beside

Longfellow's."

"I grant you that. I have never for one moment disputed the ability of

those Yankees. Their manufacturing talents are above all praise, but

when it comes to the 'God-fire,' as an old German teacher of mine used

to say, our simple Southern poets leave them all behind--'Beat them all

hollow,' would be their own expression. You see, Miss Harz, that

Cavalier blood of ours, that inspired the old English bards, _will_

tell, in spite of circumstances."

"But genius is of no rank--no blood--no clime! What court poet of his

day, Major Favraud, compared with Robert Burns for feeling, fire, and

pathos? Who ever sung such siren strains as Moore, a simple Irishman of

low degree? No Cavalier blood there, I fancy! What power, what beauty in

the poems of Walter Scott! Byron was a poet in spite of his condition,

not because of it. Hear Barry Cornwall--how he stirs the blood! What

trumpet like to Campbell! What mortal voice like to Shelley's? the

hybrid angel! What full orchestra surpassed Coleridge for harmony and

brilliancy of effect? Who paints panoramas like Southey? Who charms like

Wordsworth? Yet these were men of medium condition, all--I hate the

conceits of Cowley, Waller, Sir John Suckling, Carew, and the like. All

of your Cavalier type, I believe, a set of hollow pretenders mostly."

"All this is overwhelming, I grant," bowing deferentially. "But I return

to my first idea, that Puritan blood was not exactly fit to engender

genius; and that in the rich, careless Southern nature there lurks a

vein of undeveloped song that shall yet exonerate America from the

charge of poverty of genius, brought by the haughty Briton! Yes, we will

sing yet a mightier strain than has ever been poured since the time of

Shakespeare! and in that good time coming weave a grander heroic poem

than any since the days of Homer! Then men's souls shall have been

tried in the furnace of affliction, and Greek meets not Greek, but

Yankee. For we Southerners _only bide our time_!"

And he cut his spirited lead-horse, until it leaped forward suddenly, as

though to vent his excitement, and, setting his small white teeth

sternly, with an eye like a burning coal, looked forward into space, his

whole face contracting.

"The Southern lyre has been but lightly swept so far, Miss Harz," he

continued, a moment later, "and only by the fingers of love; we need

Bellona to give tone to our orchestra."

I could not forbear reciting somewhat derisively the old couplet--

"'Sound the trumpet, beat the drum,

Tremble France, we come, we come!'

"Is that the style Major Favraud?" I asked. "I remember the time when I

thought these two lines the most soul-stirring in the language--they

seem very bombastic now, in my maturity."

He smiled, and said: "The time is not come for our war-poem, and, as for

love, let me give you one strain of Pinckney's to begin with;" and,

without waiting for permission, he recited the beautiful "Pledge," with

which all readers are now familiar, little known then, however, beyond

the limits of the South, and entirely new to me, beginning with--

"I fill this cup to one made up

Of loveliness alone,

A woman of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon"--

continuing to the end with eloquence and spirit.

"Now, that is poetry, Miss Harz! the real afflatus is there; the bead on

the wine; the dew on the rose; the bloom on the grape! Nothing wanting

that constitutes the indefinable divine thing called genius! You

understand my idea, of course; explanations are superfluous."

I assented mutely, scarce knowing why I did so.

"Now, hear another." And the woods rang with his clear, sonorous accents

as he declaimed, a little too scanningly, perhaps--too much like an

enthusiastic boy:

"Love lurks upon my lady's lip,

His bow is figured there;

Within her eyes his arrows sleep;

His fetters are--her hair!"

"I call that nothing but a bundle of conceits, Major Favraud, mostly of

the days of Charles II., of Rochester himself--" interrupting him as I

in turn was interrupted.

"But hear further," and he proceeded to the end of that marvelous

ebullition of foam and fervor, such as celebrated the birth of Aphrodite

herself perchance in the old Greek time; and which, despite my perverse

intentions, stirred me as if I had quaffed a draught of pink champagne.

Is it not, indeed, all _couleur de rose?_ Hear this bit of melody, my

reader, sitting in supreme judgment, and perhaps contempt, on your

throne apart:

"'Upon her cheek the crimson ray

By changes comes and goes,

As rosy-hued Aurora's play

Along the polar snows;

Gay as the insect-bird that sips

From scented flowers the dew--

Pure as the snowy swan that dips

Its wings in waters blue;

Sweet thoughts are mirrored on her face,

Like clouds on the calm sea,

And every motion is a grace,

Each word a melody!'"

"Yes, that is true poetry, I acknowledge, Major Favraud," I exclaimed,

not at all humbled by conviction, though a little annoyed at the pointed

manner in which he gave (looking in my face as he did so) these

concluding lines:

"Say from what fair and sunny shore,

Fair wanderer, dost thou rove,

Lest what I only should adore

I heedless think to love?"

"The character of Pinckney's genius," I rejoined, "is, I think,

essentially like that of Praed, the last literary phase with me--for I

am geological in my poetry, and take it in strata. But I am more

generous to your Southern bard than you are to our glorious Longfellow!

I don't call that imitation, but coincidence, the oneness of genius! I

do not even insinuate plagiarism." My manner, cool and careless,

steadied his own.

"You are right: our 'Shortfellow' _was_ incapable of any thing of the

sort. Peace be to his ashes! With all his nerve and _vim_, he died of

melancholy, I believe. As good an end as any, however, and certainly

highly respectable. But you know what Wordsworth says in his

'School-master'--

"'If there is one that may bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own,

It is the man of mirth.'"

He sighed as he concluded his quotation--sighed, and slackened the pace

of his flying steeds. "But give me something of Praed's in return," he

said, rallying suddenly; "is there not a pretty little thing called 'How

shall I woo her?'" glancing archly and somewhat impertinently at me, I

thought--or, perhaps, what would simply have amused me in another man

and mood shocked me in him, the recent widower--widowed, too, under such

peculiar and awful circumstances! I did not reflect sufficiently,

perhaps, on his ignorance of many of these last.

How I deplored his levity, which nothing could overcome or restrain; and

yet beneath which I even then believed lay depths of anguish! How I

wished that influence of mine could prevail to induce him to divide his

dual nature, "To throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer

with the better half!" But I could only show disapprobation by the

gravity of my silence.

"So you will not give me 'How shall I woo her?' Miss Harz?" a little

embarrassed, I perceived, by my manner. "I have a fancy for the title,

nevertheless, not having heard any more, and should be glad to hear the

whole poem. But you are prudish to-day, I fancy."

"No, there is nothing in that poem, certainly, that angels might not

hear approvingly; but it would sadden you, Major Favraud."

"I will take the chance of that," laughing. "Come, the poem, if you care

to please your driver, and reward his care. See how skillfully I avoided

that fallen branch--suppose I were to be spiteful, and upset you against

this stump?"

Any thing was preferable to his levity; and, as I had warned him of the

possible effect of the poem he solicited, I could not be accused of want

of consideration in reciting it. Besides, he deserved the lesson, the

stern lesson that it taught.

As this could in no way be understood by such of my readers as are

unacquainted with this little gem, I venture to give it here--exquisite,

passionate utterance that it is, though little known to fame, at least

at this, writing:

"'How shall I woo her? I will stand

Beside her when she sings,

And watch her fine and fairy hand

Flit o'er the quivering strings!

But shall I tell her I have heard,

Though sweet her song may be,

A voice where every whispered word

_Was more than song to me_?

"'How shall I woo her? I will gaze,

In sad and silent trance,

On those blue eyes whose liquid rays

Look love in every glance.

But shall I tell her eyes more bright,

Though bright her own may beam,

Will fling a deeper spell to-night

_Upon me in my dream_?'"

I hesitated. "Let me stop here, Major Favraud, I counsel you," I

interpolated, earnestly; but he only rejoined:

"No, no! proceed, I entreat you! it is very beautiful--very touching,

too!" Speaking calmly, and slacking rein, so that the grating of the

wheels among the stems of the scarlet _lychnis_, that grew in immense

patches on our road, might not disturb his sense of hearing, which,

by-the-way, was exquisitely nice and fastidious.

"As you please, then;" and I continued the recitation.

"'How shall I woo her? I will try

The charms of olden time,

And swear by earth, and sea, and sky,

And rave in prose and rhyme--

And I will tell her, when I bent

My knee in other years,

I was not half so _eloquent_;

I could not speak--_for tears_!'"

I watched him narrowly; the spell was working now; the poet's hand was

sweeping, with a gust of power, that harp of a thousand strings, the

wondrous human heart! And I again pursued, in suppressed tones of

heart-felt emotion, the pathetic strain that he had evoked with an idea

of its frivolity alone:

"'How shall I woo her? I will bow

Before the holy shrine,

And pray the prayer, and vow the vow,

And press her lips to mine--And

I will tell her, when she starts

From passion's thrilling kiss,

That _memory_ to many hearts

Is dearer far than bliss!'"

It was reserved for the concluding verse to unnerve him completely; a

verse which I rendered with all the pathos of which I was capable, with

a view to its final effect, I confess:

"'Away! away! the chords are mute,

The bond is rent in twain;

You _cannot_ wake the silent lute,

Or clasp its links again.

Love's toil, I know, is little cost;

Love's perjury is light sin;

But souls that lose what I have lost,

What have they left to win?'"

"What, indeed?" he exclaimed, impetuously--tears now streaming over his

olive cheeks. He flung the reins to me with a quick, convulsive motion,

and covered his face with his hands. Groans burst from his murmuring

lips, and the great deeps of sorrow gave up their secrets. I was sorry

to have so stirred him to the depths by any act or words of mine, and

yet I enjoyed the certainty of his anguish.

I checked the horses beneath a magnolia-tree, and sat quietly waiting

for the flood of emotion to subside as for him to take the initiative. I

had no word to say, no consolation to offer. Nay, after consideration,

rather did I glory in his grief, which redeemed his nature in my

estimation, though grieved in turn to have afflicted him. For, in spite

of all his faults, and my earlier prejudices, I loved this impulsive

Southron man, as Scott has it, "right brotherly."

At last, looking up grave, tearless, and pale, and resuming his reins

without apology for having surrendered them, he said, abruptly:

"All is so vain! Such mockery now to me! She was the sole reality of

this universe to my heart! I grapple with shadows unceasingly. There is

not on the face of this globe a more desolate wretch. You understand

this! You feel for me, you do not deride me! You know how perfect, how

spiritual she was! You loved her well--I saw it in your eyes, your

manner--and for that, if nothing else, you have my heart-felt gratitude.

So few appreciated her unearthly purity. Yet, was it not strange she

should have loved a man so gross, so steeped in sensuous, thoughtless

enjoyment--so remote from God as I am--have ever been? But the song

speaks for me"--waving his gauntleted hand--"better than I can speak:

"'Away! away! the chords are mute,

the bond is rent in twain.'"

"I shall never marry again--never! Miss Miriam, I know now, and shall

know evermore, in all its fullness, and weariness, and bitterness, the

meaning of that terrible word--alone! Eternal solitude. The Robinson

Crusoe of society. A sort of social Daniel Boone. 'Thus you must ever

consider me. And yet, just think of it. Miss Harz!"

"Oh, but you will not always feel so; there may come a time of

reaction." I hesitated. It was not my purpose to encourage change.

"No, never! never!" he interrupted, passionately; "don't even suggest

it--don't! and check me sternly if ever I forget my grief again in

frivolity of any sort in your presence. You are a noble, sweet woman,

with breadth enough of character to make allowances for the shortcomings

of a poor, miserable man like me--trying to cheat himself back into

gayety and the interests of life. I have sisters, but they are not like

you. I wish to Heaven they were! There is not a woman in the world on

whom I have any claims--on whose shoulder I can lean my head and take a

hearty cry. And what are men at such a season? Mocking fiends, usually,

the best of them! I shall go abroad, Miss Harz. I am no anchorite. You

will hear of me as a gay man of the world, perhaps; but, as to being

happy, that can never be again! The bubble of life has burst, and my

existence falls flat to the earth. Victor Favraud, that airy nothing, is

scarcely a 'local habitation and a name' now!"

"Let him make a name, then," I urged. "With military talents like yours,

Major Favraud, the road to distinction will soon be open to you. Our

approaching difficulties with France--"

"Oh, that will all be patched up, or has been, by this time. Van Buren

is a crafty but peace-loving fox! Something of an epicurean, too, in his

high estate. What grim old Jackson left half healed, he will complete

the cure of. Ah, Miss Harz, I had hoped to flesh my sword in a nobler

cause!"

I knew what he meant. That dream of nullification was still uppermost

in his soul--dispersed, as it was, in the eyes of all reasonable men. I

shook my head. "Thank God! all that is over," I said, gravely,

fervently; "and my prayer to Him is that he may vouchsafe to preserve us

for evermore an unbroken people!"

"May He help Israel when the time comes," he murmured low, "for come it

will, Miss Harz, as surely as there is a sun in the heavens! 'and may I

be there to see!' as John Gilpin said, or some one of him--which was

it?"

And, whipping up his lagging steeds as we gained the open road, we

emerged swiftly from the shadows of the forest--between nodding

cornfields, already helmed and plumed for the harvest, and plantations

green with thrifty cotton-plants, with their half-formed bolls,

promising such bounteous yield, and meadows covered with the tufted

Bermuda grass, with its golden-green verdure, we sped our way toward

Lenoir's Landing.

This peninsula was formed by the junction of two rivers, between which

intervened a narrow point of land, with a background of steep hills,

covered with a growth of black-jack and yellow-pine to the summit. Here

was a ferry with its Charon-like boat, of the primitive sort--flat

barge, poled over by negroes, and capable of containing at one time many

bales of cotton, a stagecoach or wagon with four horses, besides

passengers _ad libitum._

This ferry constituted the chief source of revenue of Madame Grambeau,

an old French lady, remarkable in many ways. She kept the stage-house

hard by, with its neat picketed inclosure, its overhanging live-oak

trees and small trim parterre, gay at this season with various annual

flowers, scarce worth the cultivation, one would think, in that land of

gorgeous perennial bloom. But Queen Margarets, ragged robins, variegated

balsams, and tawny marigolds, have their associations, doubtless, to

make them dear and valuable to the foreign heart, to which they seem

essential, wherever a plot of ground be in possession.

Mignonette, I have observed, is a special passion with the French exile,

recalling, doubtless, the narrow boxes, fitted to the stone window-sill

of certain former lofty lodgings across the sea, perhaps, situated in

the heart of some great city, and overlooking roofs and court-yards--the

street being quite out of the question in such a view, distant, as it

seems, from them, as the sky itself, though in an opposite direction.

I have used the word "exile" advisedly with regard to Madame Grambeau,

and not figuratively at all. She was, I had been told, a _bourgeoise_,

of good class, who had taken part in the early revolution, but who, when

the _canaille_ triumphed and drenched the land in blood, in the second

phase of that fearful outburst of volcanic feeling, had fled before the

whirlwind with her child and husband to embark for America. At the point

of embarcation--like Evangeline--the husband and wife had been separated

accidentally, and on her arrival in a strange land she found herself

alone and penniless with her son, scarce six years old. Her husband had

been carried to a Southern port, she learned by the merest chance, and,

disguising herself in man's attire, and leading her little son by the

hand, she set forth in quest of him, carrying with her a violin, which,

together with the clothes she wore, had been found in the trunk of

Monsieur Grambeau, brought on the vessel in which she came, but which

depository she had been obliged to abandon, when setting forth on her

pilgrimage.

She was no unskillful performer on this instrument, and solely by such

aid she gained her food and lodging to the interior of Georgia. Reaching

her destination after a long and painful journey and delays of many

kinds, she found her husband living in a log-hut, on the border of

Talupa River, a hut which he had built himself, and earning his bread by

ferrying travellers across that stream.

Yet here, with the characteristic contentment of her people under all

circumstances, she settled down quietly to aid him and make his home

happy; bore him many children (most of whom were dead at the time I saw

her, as those living were separated from her at that period), reared and

educated them herself, toiled for and with them, late and early,

strained every nerve in the arduous cause of duty, and found herself, in

extreme old age, widowed and alone, having amassed but little of the

world's lucre, yet cheerful and energetic even if dependent still on her

own exertions.

All this and much more I had heard before I saw Madame Grambeau or her

abode--a picturesque affair in itself, however humble--consisting

originally of a log-house, to which more recently white frame wings had

been attached, projecting a few feet in front of the primitive building,

and connected thereto by a shed-roofed gallery, which embraced the whole

front of the log-cottage, along which ran puncheon-steps the entire

length of the grand original tree-trunk, as of the porch itself. It was

a triumph of rural art.

Over this portico, so low in front as barely to admit the passage of a

tall man beneath its eaves, without stooping, a wild multiflora rose,

then in full flower, was artistically trained so as to present a series

of arches to the eye as the wayfarer approached the dwelling; no

tapestry was ever half so lovely.

The path which led from the little white gate, with its swinging chain

and ball, was covered with river-pebbles and shells, and bordered by

box, trimly clipped and kept low, and the two broad steps, that led to

the porch, bore evidence of recent scouring, though rough and unpainted.

Framed in one of those pointed natural cathedral-windows of vivid green,

gemmed with red roses, of which the division-posts of the porch formed

the white outlines, stood the most remarkable-looking aged woman I have

ever seen. At a first glance, indeed, the question of sex would have

arisen, and been found difficult to decide. Her attire seemed that of a

friar, even to the small scalloped cape that scantily covered her

shoulders, and the coarse black serge, of which her strait gown was

composed, leaving exposed her neatly though coarsely clad feet, with

their snow-white home-knit stockings, and low-quartered, well-polished

calf-skin shoes, confined with steel buckles, and elevated on heels,

then worn by men alone.

She wore a white habit shirt, the collar, bosom, and wristbands of which

were visible; but no cap covered her silver hair, which was cropped in

the neck, and divided at one side in true manly fashion. It was brushed

well back from her expansive, fair, and unwrinkled forehead, beneath

which large blue eyes looked out with that strange solemnity we see

alone in the orbs of young, thoughtful children, or the very old.

Scott's description of the "Monk of Melrose Abbey" occurred to me, as I

gazed on this calm and striking figure:

"And strangely on the knight looked he,

And his blue eyes gleamed wild and wide."

She stood watching our approach, leaning with both hands on her ebony,

silver-headed cane, above which she stooped slightly, her aged and

somewhat severe, but serene face fully turned toward us, in the clear

light of morning, with a grave majesty of aspect.

Above her head in its wicker cage swung the gray and crimson parrot, of

which Sylphy had spoken, and to which, it may be remembered, she had so

irreverently likened her master on one occasion; bursting forth, as it

saw us coming, into a shrill, stereotyped phrase of welcome--"_Bien

venu, compatriote_," that was irresistibly ludicrous and irrelevant.

"Tremble, France! we come--we come," said Major Favraud; "there's your

quotation well applied this time, Miss Harz! It is impressive, after

all."

"Hush! she will hear you," I remonstrated, quite awed in that still,

majestic presence, for now we stood before our aged hostess, who, with a

cold but stately politeness after Major Favraud's salutation and

introduction, waved us in and across her threshold. As for Major

Favraud, he had turned to leave us on the door-sill, to see to the

comfort and safety of his horses; not liking, perhaps, the appearance of

the superannuated ostler, who lounged near the stable of the inn, if

such might be called this rustic retreat without sign, lodging, or

bar-rooms.

"Are we in the mansion of a decayed queen, or the log-hut of a wayside

innkeeper?" I questioned low of Marion.

"Both in one, it seems to me," was the reply. "But Madame Grambeau is no

curiosity, no novelty to me, I have stopped here so frequently. I ought

to have told you, before we came, not to be surprised."

Pausing at the door of a large, square room, from which voices

proceeded, she invited us with a singularly graceful though formal

courtesy to enter, smiling and pointing forward silently as she did so,

and then, like Major Favraud, she turned and abandoned us at the

door-sill, on which we stood riveted for a moment by the sound of a

vibrant and eager voice speaking some never-to-be-forgotten words.

"For the slave is the coral-insect of the South," said the voice within;

"insignificant in himself, he rears a giant structure--which will yet

cause the wreck of the ship of state, should its keel grate too closely

on that adamantine wall. '_L'état c'est moi_,' said Louis XIV., and that

'slavery is the South' is as true an utterance. Our staple--our

patriarchal institution--our prosperity--are one and indissoluble, and

the sooner the issue comes the better for the nation!"

Standing with his hand on the back of a chair near the casement-window

of the large, low apartment, in close conversation with two other

gentlemen, was the speaker of these remarkable words, which embraced the

whole genius and policy of the South as it then existed, and which were

delivered in those clear and perfectly modulated tones that bespeak the

practised orator and the man of dominant energies.

I felt instinctively that I stood in the presence of one of the anointed

princes of the earth--felt it, and was thrilled.

"Do you know that gentleman, Marion?" I whispered, as we seated

ourselves on the old-fashioned settle, or rather sofa, in one corner of

the room, gazing admiringly, as I spoke, on the tall, slight figure,

with its air of power and poise, that stood at some distance, with

averted face.

"No, I have no idea who it is, or who are his companions either," she

replied; "unless"--hesitating with scrutiny in her eyes--

"His companions, I do not care to question of them!--but that man

himself--the speaker--has a sovereign presence! Can it be possible--"

The entrance of Major Favraud interrupted further conjecture, for at the

sound of those emphatic boots the stranger turned, and for one moment

the splendor of his large dark eyes, in their iron framing, met my own,

then passed recognizingly on to rest on the face of Major Favraud, and

advancing with extended hands, made more cordial by his voice and smile,

he greeted him familiarly as "Victor."

Major Favraud stood for a moment spell-bound--then suddenly rushing

forward, flung his hat to the floor, caught the hand of the stranger

between his own and pressed it to his heart. (To his lips, I think, he

would fain have lifted it, falling on one knee, perchance, at the same

time, in a knightly fashion of hero-worship that modern reticence

forbids.) But he contented himself with exclaiming:

"Mr. Calhoun! best of friends, welcome back to Georgia!" And tears

started to his eyes and choked his utterance. Thus was my conjecture

confirmed. I never felt so thrilled, so elated, by any presence.

There was a momentary pause after this fervent greeting, emotional on

one part only.

"But why did you not meet me at Milledgeville?" asked Mr. Calhoun. "Most

of my friends in this vicinity sustained me there. I have been

discussing the great question[3] again, Favraud, and I should have been

glad of your countenance."

"I have been detained at home of late by a cruel necessity," was the

faltering reply, "or I should never have played recreant to my old

master."

"Good fortune spoiled me a fine lawyer in your case, Victor! But

introduce me to your wife. Remember, I have never had the pleasure of

meeting Madame Favraud," advancing, as he spoke, toward me, with his

hand on Major Favraud's shoulder (above whom he towered by a head),

courteously and impulsively.

"Miss Harz, Miss La Vigne, Miss Durand--Mr. Calhoun," said Major

Favraud, pale as death now, and trembling as he spoke. "These ladies are

friends of mine--one, a distant relative"--he hesitated--"within the

last six weeks I have had the misfortune to lose my wife, Mr. Calhoun.

You understand matters better now."

All conversation was cut short by this sudden announcement. Deeply

shocked, Mr. Calhoun led Major Favraud aside, with a brief apology to me

for his misapprehension, and they stood together, talking low, at the

extreme end of the apartment, affording me thus an admirable opportunity

for observing the _personnel_ of the great Southern leader, during the

brief space of time accorded by the change of stage-horses. For, with

his friends, he was then _en route_ for another appointment. He was

canvassing the State, with a view to a final rally of its resources,

preparatory to his last great effort--to scotch the serpent of the

North, which finally, however, wound its insidious folds around the

heart of brotherly affection, stifling it, as the snakes of fable were

sent to do the baby Hercules.

No picture of Mr. Calhoun has ever done him justice[4], although his

was a physiognomy that an artist could scarcely fail to make an extern

likeness of, from its remarkable characteristics. It was truly an

iron-bound face, condensed, powerful in every nerve, muscle, and

lineament, and fraught, beyond almost all others, with intellect and

resolution. But the glory and power of that glance and smile no painter

could convey--those attributes of man which more fully than aught else

betray the immortal soul!

Just as I beheld him that day, bending above Major Favraud in his

tender, half-paternal dignity and solicitude combined, soothing and

condoling with him (I could not doubt, from the expression of his

speaking countenance), I see him still in mental vision; nor can I

wonder more at the depth and strength of enthusiasm he awakened in the

hearts of his friends.

It belongs not to every great man to excite this devotion, yet, where it

blends with greatness, it is irresistible. Mohammed, Cyrus, Alexander,

Darius, Pericles, Napoleon, were thus magnetically gifted. I recall few

instances of others so distinguished in station who possessed this

power, which has its root, perhaps, after all, in the great

master-passion of mortality, the yearning for exalted sympathy, so

seldom accorded.

This observation of mine was but a glimpse at best, for the winding of

the stage-horn was the signal for Mr. Calhoun's departure, and I never

saw him more. But that glimpse alone opened to my eyes a mighty volume!

A few days before I should have rejected as wearisome the details to

which I listened with eagerness now, and which I even sought to elicit

as to Mr. Calhoun--his mode of life, his mountain-home, and his passion

for those heights he inhabited, and which, no doubt, contributed to

train his character to energy and strengthen his _physique_ to endure

its brain-burden. I heard with pleasure the account of one who had

passed much of his youth beneath his roof, and who, however

enthusiastic, was, in the very framing of his nature, strictly truthful

with regard to the mutual devotion of the master and slaves, the

invariable courtesy and sweetness of his deportment to his own family,

his justice and regard for the feelings of his lowest dependant, his

simplicity, his cheerfulness.

"A grave and even gloomy man in public life, he is all life and interest

in the social circle," said Major Favraud. "His range of thought is the

grandest and most unlimited, his powers of conversation are the rarest I

have ever met with. Yet he never refused, on any occasion, to answer

with minuteness the inquiries of the smallest child or most

insignificant dependant. 'Had he not been Alexander, he must have been

Parmenio.' Had fortune not struck out for him the path of a statesman,

he would have made the most impressive and perfect of teachers. As it

was, without the slightest approach to pedagogism, he involuntarily

instructed all who came near him, without effort or weariness on either

side."

"Does he love music--poetry?" I asked.

"Oh, yes; Scottish songs and classic verse, especially, are his

delights. He has no affectation. His tastes are all his own--his

opinions all genuine. He is, indeed, a man of very varied attainment, as

well as great grasp of intellect. Yet, as you see, he likes his

opposites sometimes. Miss Harz," and he laid his hand proudly on his

own manly breast.

Talking thus in that large, low, scantily-furnished parlor, with its

split-bottomed chairs, in primitive frames (and in somewhat strange

contrast to its well-polished mahogany tables, dark with time, and walls

adorned with good engravings), with its floor freshly scoured and

sanded, while a simple deal stand in the centre bore a vase filled with

the rarest and most exquisite wild-flowers I had ever seen (from the

gorgeous amaryllis and hibiscus of these regions, down to wax-like

blossoms of fragile delicacy and beauty, whose very names I knew not),

and its many small diamond-paned casement-windows, all neatly curtained

with coarse white muslin bordered with blue, time passed unconsciously

until the noonday meal was announced.

We followed the Mercury of the establishment, a grave-looking little

yellow boy, who seemed to have grown prematurely old, from his constant

companionship, probably, with his preceptor and mistress, into a long,

low apartment in the rear of the dwelling, where a table was spread for

our party, with a damask cloth and napkins, decorated china and

cut-glass, that proved Madame Grambeau's personal superintendence; and

which elicited from Major Favraud, as he entered, a long, low whistle of

approval and surprise, and the exclamation "Heh! madame! you are

overwhelming us to-day with your magnificence."

I was amused with the response. "Sit down, Victor Favraud, and eat your

dinner Christian-like, without remarks! You have never got over the

spoiling you received when you lay wounded under this roof. I shall

indulge you no longer." Shaking her long forefinger at him. "Your

familiarity needs to be checked." Her manner of grave and kindly irony

removed all impression of rebuke from this speech, which Major Favraud

received very coolly, spoiled child that he really was, rubbing his

hands as he took the foot of the table. At the sight of the _bouilli_

before him, from which a savory steam ascended to his epicurean

nostrils, he said, notwithstanding: "Soup and _bouilli_ too! Ah, madame,

I see why you absented yourself so cruelly this morning. You have been

engaged in good works!"

"Only the sauces, Favraud!--_seulement les sauces_" "The sauces--it's

just that!--Tide is a mere charlatan in comparison," turning to me.

"Miss Harz, you never tasted any thing before like madame's soup and

sauces. I wish she would take me in partnership for a while, if only to

teach me the recipes that will otherwise die with her. What a restaurant

we two could keep together!"

"You are too unsteady, Favraud, for my _maître d'hôtel._ Your mind is

too much engrossed by the bubbles of politics, you would spoil all my

materials, and realize the old proverb that 'the devil sends cooks.' But

go to work like a good fellow, and carve the dish before you; by that

time the soup will be removed. I have a fine fish, however, in reserve

(let me announce this at once), for my end of the table."

"Here are croquets too, as I live," said Duganne, lifting a cover before

him and peeping in, then returning it quietly to its place. "Are you a

fairy, madame?"

"Much more like a witch," she said, with gayety. "You young men, at

least, think every old, toothless gray-haired crone like me ready for

the stake, you know."

"Not when they make such steaks," said Dr. Durand, attacking the dish,

with its savory surroundings, before him.

"Ah! you make calembourgs, my good doctor.--What do you call them,

Favraud? It is one of the few English words I do not know--or forget. I

believe, to make them, however, is a medical peculiarity."

"Puns, madame, puns, not pills. Don't forget it now. It is time you were

beginning to master our language. You know you are almost grown up!" and

Favraud looked at her saucily.

"A language which madame speaks more perfectly than any foreigner I have

ever known," I remarked. She bowed in answer, well pleased.

In truth, the accent of Madame Grambeau was barely detectable, and her

phraseology was that of a well-translated book--correct, but not

idiomatic, and bearing about it the idiosyncrasy of the language from

which it was derived. She was evidently a person of culture and native

power of intellect combined, and her finely-moulded face, as well as

every gesture and tone, indicated superiority and character.

In that lonely wild, and beneath that lowly roof, there abode a spirit

able and worthy to lead the _coteries_ of the great, and to preside over

the councils of statesmen, and (to rise in climax) the drawing-room of

the _grande monde._ But it was her whim rather than her necessity to

tarry where she could alone be strictly independent, a _sine qua non_ of

her being.

The son she had led by the hand from New York to Georgia, and who,

standing by her side, distinctly remembered to have seen the head of the

Princess Lamballe borne on a pole through the streets of Paris, was now

a prominent member of the Legislature, and, through his rich wife, the

incumbent of a great plantation.

But the teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that philosophic sign-post,

still influenced his mother, in her refusal to live under his splendid

roof, and partake of his bounty, however liberally offered.

"I have a home of my own," she said, "a few faithful servants, brains,

and energy still, besides a small account with General Curzon, in his

bank at Savannah, wherewith to meet emergencies; while these things

last, I will owe to no man or woman for bread or shelter. And, when

these depart, may the grave cover my bones, and the good God receive my

soul!"

Books alone she accepted as gifts from her son, and of these, in a

little three-cornered library, she had a goodly store in the two

languages which she read with equal facility, if not delight.

She showed us this nook before we left, and I saw, lying face downward,

as she had recently left it, the volume she was then perusing at

intervals--one of Madame Sand's novels, "Les Mauprats," I remember, a

singular and powerful romance, then recently issued, whose root I have

always thought might be found in Walter Scott's "Rob Roy," and more

particularly in the Osbaldistone family commemorated in that work.

On suggesting this to Madame Grambeau, she too saw the resemblance I

spoke of, and she agreed, with me, that the coincidence of genius

furnished many such parallels, where no charge of plagiarism could be

attached to either side.

A few bottles of "wild-berry wine," as Elizabeth Barrett called such

fluids, were added to the dinner toward its close, and Marion begged

permission to have her basket of cakes and fruits brought in for

dessert, which else had been wanting to our repast; to which request

Madame Grambeau graciously acceded.

"I make no confections," she said, "but I have lived on the juices of

good meats, well prepared, with such vegetables as the Lord lets grow in

this poor region, many years, and behold I am old and still able to do

his service!"

"And a little good wine, too, occasionally--eh, madame?" added Major

Favraud, impertinently.

"When attainable, Favraud. You drank good wine yourself, when you were

here, and I partook with you moderately. But I buy none such. I drown

not, Clarence-like, even in butts of malmsey, my hard-earned gold; and I

own I am not fond of the juices of the muscadine of your hills;" and she

tapped her snuffbox.

"You are going to hear her talk now," whispered Favraud; "that is a

sign--equal to General Finistere's--the snuffbox tapping, I mean. The

oracle is beginning to arouse! Come! let me stir her further!" and he

inclined his head before her.

"I'll tell you what, madame, you must take a little cognac to keep off

the chills of age. I have some of the best, and will send you down a

demijohn, if you say the word; and in return you shall pray for me. I am

a great sinner, Miss Harz thinks."

"Miss Harz is correct; and we will both promise you our prayers. She,

too, is Catholic, I hope. No? I regret so, for her own sake; but your

brandy I reject, Victor; remember that, and offend me not by sending it.

You must not forget the fate of your malvoisie."

"Ah, madame, that was cruel! but I have forgiven you long since. I

think, however, that the grape-vines bore better that year than ever

before--thus watered, or wined, I mean.--Just think of it, Miss Harz! To

pour good wine round the roots of a Fontainebleau grape, rather than

replenish the springs of life with it! Was there ever waste like that

since Cleopatra dissolved her pearl in vinegar?"

"Miss Harz will agree with me that a principle that could not resist the

gift of a dozen bottles of choice wine was little worth. Of such stuff

was made not the fathers of your Revolution. But stay, there is an

explanation due to me, yet unrendered," she pursued. "I am a puzzled

_bourgeoise_, I confess," she said, shaking her head. "Come, Favraud,

explain. Who is this young lady?"

"A _bourgeoise_ also," I replied for him, anxious to turn the tide of

conversation into another channel for some reasons. "I had thought you

an expatriated marquise, at least, madame!" I continued. "As for me, I

am simply a governess."

"It is my glory, mademoiselle, to have been of that class to which

belonged Madame Roland herself, and which represented that _juste

milieu_ which maintained the balance of society in France. When the

dregs of the _bas peuple_ rose to the surface of the revolution,

commenced by the sound middle classes, we regarded the scum of

aristocracy as the smaller of the two evils. As soon as the true element

had ceased to assert itself in France, I fled forever from a land of

bloodshed and misrule, and took shelter under the broad wing of your

boasted American eagle."

"Which still continues to flap over you shelteringly, madame," I

rejoined, somewhat flippantly, I fear, "and will to the end, no doubt;

for, in its very organization, our country can never be subjected to the

fluctuations of other lands--revolt and revolution."

"I am not so certain of this," she observed, shaking her white head

slowly as she spoke, and, lifting a pinch of snuff from her

tortoise-shell box (the companion of her whole married life, as she

acquainted us), she inhaled it with an air of meditative

self-complacency, then offered it quietly to the gentlemen, who were

still sitting over their wine and peaches; passing by Marion, Alice

Durand, and myself, completely, in this ovation.

"Good snuff is not to be sneezed at," said Major Favraud. "None offered

to young ladies, it seems," taking a huge pinch, and thrusting it

bravely up his nostrils, as one takes a spoonful of unpleasant medicine.

Then contradicting his own assertion immediately afterward, he succeeded

in expelling most of it in a series of violent sternutatory spasms,

which left him breathless, red-faced, and watery-eyed, with a

handkerchief much begrimed.

But Madame Grambeau seemed not to have noticed this ridiculous

proceeding, which, of course, created momentary mirth at the expense of

the penitent Favraud, to whom Dr. Durand repeated the tantalizing

saying, that "it is a royal privilege to take snuff gracefully"--giving

the example as he spoke, in a mock-heroic manner, quite as absurd and

irrelevant as Favraud's own.

Lost in deep thought, and gently tapping her snuffbox as she mused--the

tripod of her inspiration, as it seemed--Madame Grambeau sat silently,

with what memories of the past and what insight into the future none can

know save those like herself grown hoary with wisdom and experience.

At last she spoke, addressing her remarks to me, as though the careless

words I had hazarded had just been spoken, and the attention of her

hearers undiverted by divers absurdities--among others the affected

gambols of Duganne--anxious to place himself in an agreeable aspect

before both of his _inamoratas_, past and present.

"I do not agree with you, mademoiselle. I am one of those who think

that in the very framing of this Constitution of ours the dragon's teeth

were sown, whose harvest is not yet produced. Mr. Calhoun, with his

prophetic eye, foresees that this crop of armed men is inevitable from

such germs, as does Mr. Clay, were he only frank, which he is not,

because he deludes himself--the most incurable and inexcusable of all

deceptions."

And she applied herself again assiduously to her snuffbox, tapping it

peremptorily before opening it, and, with a gloomy eye fixed on space,

she continued:

"In all lands, from the time of Cassandra and Jeremiah up, there have

been prophets. Prophets for good and prophets for ill--of which some few

have been God-appointed, and the sayings of such alone have been

preserved. The rest vanish away into oblivion like chaff before the

wind--never mind what their achievement, what their boast.

"In this nation we have only two true prophets, Calhoun and Clay--both

men of equal might, and resolution, and intellect--gifted as beseems

their vocation, masterful and heroic; and to these all other men are

subordinate in the great designs of Providence."

"Where do you leave Mr. Webster, John Quincy Adams, General Jackson

himself, in such a category, madame?" I asked, eagerly.

"They are doing, or have done, the work God has appointed for them to

do, I suppose, mademoiselle; but they are accessories merely of the

times, and will pass away with the necessities of the moment."

"'The earth has bubbles as the water hath, and these are of them,'" said

Major Favraud aside, between his short, set teeth, nodding to me as he

spoke, and lending the next moment implicit attention to what Madame

Grambeau was saying; for the brief pause she had made for another pinch

of snuff was ended, and she continued impetuously, as if no interval had

occurred:

"Clay is, unconsciously, I trust, for the honor of mankind, fulfilling

his destiny--this great prophet who still refuses to prophesy. He is

entering the wedge for what he declines to admit the possibility of--yet

there must be moments when that eye of power pierces the clouds of

prejudice and party, wherewith it seeks to blind its kingly vision, and

descries the horrors beyond as the result of the acts he is now

committing; and when such moments of clear conviction come to him, the

ambitious tool of a party, I envy not his sensations," and she shook her

head mournfully. "Not Napoleon at St. Helena, not Prometheus on his

rock, were more to be pitied than he! the man whose ambition shall never

know fruition, whose measures shall pass and leave no trace in less than

fifty years after he has ceased to exist--the splendid failure of our

century!"

She ceased for a moment, with her eye fixed on space, her hands clasped,

her whole face and manner uplifted, as if, indeed, on her likewise the

prophet's mantle had dropped from a chariot of fire.

"As to Calhoun--he is God-fearing," she continued, fervently. "In the

solitudes of a spiritual Mount Sinai, he has received the tablets of the

Lord, and bends every energy to their fulfillment. He, too,

foresees--not with an eye like Clay's, clear only at intervals--and

clouded by vanity, ambition, and sophistry, at other seasons--he, too,

foresees the coming of our doom! His clear vision embraces anarchy,

dissension, civil war, with all its attendant horrors, as the

consequence of man's injustice; and, like Moses, he beholds the promised

land into which he can never enter! Would that it were given to him to

appoint his Joshua, or even to see him face to face, recognizingly! But

this is not God's will. He lurks among the shadows yet--this Joshua of

the South, but God shall yet search him out and bring him visibly before

the people! Not while I live," she added, solemnly, "but within the

natural lives of all others who sit this day around my table!"

"She is equal to Madame Le Normand!" said Major Favraud, aside, nodding

approvingly at me.

"If one waits long enough, most prophecies may be fulfilled," I

ventured; "but, madame, your words point to results too terrible--too

unnatural, it seems to me, ever to be realized in these enlightened

times or in this land of moderation."

"Child," she responded, "blood asserts itself to the end of races. There

are two separate civilizations in this land, destined some day to come

in fearful conflict; and the wars of Scylla, of the Jews themselves,

shall be outdone in the horror and persistence of that strife of

partners--I will not say brothers--for there is no brotherhood of blood

between South and North, of which Clay and Calhoun stand forth to my

mind as distinct types. No union of the red and white roses possible."

"But you forget, madame, that Mr. Clay is a Western man, a Virginian, a

Kentuckian, and the representative of slave-holders," I remonstrated.

"His interests are coincident with those of the South. His hope of the

presidency itself vests in his constituents, and the wand would be

broken in his hand were he to lend himself to partiality of any kind.

Mr. Clay is a great patriot, I believe, Jacksonite though I am--he knows

no South nor North, nor East nor West, but the Union alone, solid and

undivided."

"All this is true," she answered, "in one sense. It is thus he speaks,

and, like all partial parents, even thinks he feels toward his

offspring; but observe his acts narrowly from first to last. He has a

manufacturer's heart, with all his genius. He loves machinery--the sound

of the mill, the anvil, the spinning-jenny, the sight of the ship upon

the high-seas, or steamboat on the river, the roar of commerce, far more

than the work of the husbandman. We are an agricultural people, we of

the South and West--and especially we Southerners, with our poverty of

invention, our one staple, our otherwise helpless habits, incident to

the institution which, however it may be our curse, is still our wealth,

and to which, for the present time, we are bound, Ixion-like, by every

law of necessity. What does this tariff promise? Where will the profit

rest? Where will the loss fall crushingly? The slow torture of which we

read in histories of early times was like to this. Each day a weight was

added to that already lying on the breast of a strong man, bound on his

back by the cords of his oppressors, until relief and destruction came

together, and the man was crushed; such was the _peine forte et dure_."

"Calhoun is patriarchal,[5] and is now placing all his individual

strength to the task of heaving off this incubus from the breast of our

body politic, but with small avail, for he has no lever to assist

him--no fulcrum whereon to rest it; otherwise he might say with

Archimedes, 'With these I could move a world.' He is unaided, this

eagled-eyed prophet of ours, looking sorrowfully, sagaciously down into

the ages! South Carolina is the Joseph, that his cruel brothers, the

remaining Southern States, have sold to the Egyptians, as a bond-slave.

But they shall yet come to drink of his cup, and eat of his bread of

opinion, in the famine of their Canaan. Nullification shall leave a

fitting successor, as Philip of Macedon left Alexander to carry out his

plans. The abolitionist and the slave-holder are as distinct as were

Charles I. and Cromwell, or Catharine de Medicis and Henry of Navarre.

The germ that Calhoun has planted shall lie long in the earth, perhaps,

but when it breaks the surface, it shall grow in one night to maturity,

like that in your so famous 'Mother Goose' story of 'Jack and his

Bean-stalk,' forming a ladder wherewith to scale the abode of giants and

slay them in their drunken sleep of security. But he who does this deed,

this Joshua of the Lord's, this fierce successor of our gentle Moses,

shall wade through his oceans of blood to gain the stone. God

knoweth--He only--how all this shall end, whether in success or

overthrow. It is so far wrapped in mystery."

As if she saw from some spiritual height the reign of terror she

predicted, she dropped her head upon her hands and closed her eyes, and

I felt my blood creep slowly through my veins as I followed her in

thought across the waste of woe and desolation. For there was something

in her manner, her voice (august and solemn with age and wisdom as these

were), that impressed all who heard, with or in spite of their own

consent, and for a time profound silence succeeded this harangue.

Dr. Durand was the first to recover himself. "I trust, my dear madame,"

he remarked, "that the substantial horrors realized in your youth still

cast their dark shadows over the coming years, and so deceive you into

prophecies that it is sad to hear from lips so reverent, and which, let

us all pray, may never be realized. You yourself will say amen to that,

I am convinced."

"Amen!" she murmured.

"Nonsense, Durand! don't play at hypocrite in your old age, after having

been a true man all your life," broke in Major Favraud. "What is a

conservative, after all, but a social parrot, who repeats 'wise saws and

modern instances,' until he believes himself possessed of the wisdom of

all the ages, and is incapable of conceiving of the existence even of an

original idea?"

"By-the-by," digressed Duganne, weary of discussion, "hear that old

fellow outside, how he is going on, Favraud, _à propos_ of poll parrots,

you know, as if all else, but the name of the bird, had been lost on his

ear. Just listen!"

"Yes, hear him, and be edified," was the sarcastic response of Favraud

to Duganne, who took no other notice, even if he understood the point,

than to lead the way to the portico, where swung the cage of the jolly

bird in question; and, headed by Madame Grambeau leaning on her cane, we

followed simultaneously, with the exception of Major Favraud, who

continued at the table with his cigar and cognac-flask, in sullen and

solitary state.

"Nutmegs and nullification!" shrieked the parrot, as we stood before

him. "Ha, ha, ha!"

"That is condensing the matter, certainly," I observed.

"_Bienvenu, compatriote!_" he repeated many times, laughing loudly, the

next moment, as if in mockery.

"What a fiend it is!" said Marion, timidly; "only look at its black

tongue, Miss Harz! Then what a laugh!"

"Danton! Danton! have you nothing to say to this strange lady?" said

Madame Grambeau, addressing her bird by name; "you must not neglect my

friends, Danton Pardi!"

"Bird of freedom, moulting--moulting!" was the whimsical rejoinder.

"Jackson! give us your paw, Old Hick--Hick--Hickory!"

"This is the stuff Major Favraud taught him," she apologized, "when he

used to lie on his porch day after day, after his hostile meeting with

Juarez, which took place on that hill," signifying the site of the duel

with her slender cane. "It was there they fought their duel, _à

l'outrance_, and I knew it not until too late! His wife was too ill to

come to him at that time, and the task of nursing him devolved on me,

since when, on maternal principles, the lad has grown into my

affections."

"The lad of forty-odd!" sneered Duganne, unnoticed, apparently, by the

aged lady, however, at the moment, but not without amusing other hearers

by this sally. Dr. Durand was especially delighted.

"For he is a boy at heart," she said later, "this same Victor Favraud of

ours," gazing reprovingly around. "Indeed, he is the only American I

have ever seen who possessed real _gaieté de coeur_, and for that, I

imagine, he must thank his French extraction."

"Calhoun and cotton!" "Coal and codfish!" shouted the parrot at the top

of his voice. "Catfish and coffee!"--"Rice cakes for breakfast"--"All in

my eye, Betty Martin"--"Yarns and Yankees"--"Shad and shin-plasters"--"Yams

and yaller boys," and so on, in a string of the most irrelevant

alliteration and folly, that, like much other nonsense, evoked peals

of laughter, by its unexpected utterance, and which at last mollified

and brought out Major Favraud himself, from his dignified retirement.

"You have ruined the morals of my bird," said Madame Grambeau,

reproachfully. "Approach, Favraud, and justify yourself. In former times

his discourse was discreet. He knew many wise proverbs and polite

salutations in French and English both, most of which he has discarded

in favor of your profane and foolish teachings. He is as bad as the

'Vert-vert' of Voltaire. I shall have to expel him soon, I fear."

"Danton, how can you so grieve your mistress?" remonstrated Major

Favraud, lifting at the same time an admonitory finger, at which

recognized signal, a part of past instructions probably, the parrot

burst forth at once in a series of the most grotesque and _outré_ oaths

ear ever heard, ending (by the aid of some prompting from his teacher)

by dismally croaking the fragment of a popular song thus travestied:

"My ole mistis dead and gone,

She lef to me her ole jawbone.

Says she, 'Charge up in dem yaller pines,

And slay dem Yankee Philistines!'"--