"Taisez-vous!" he said sharply, with singular purity of accent. I

complied. The wind moaned fearfully in the chimney, and the light

burned dimly. I shuddered in spite of myself. "Ah, you tremble, girl!"

"It is a fearful night."

"Fearful! Call you this fearful, ha! ha! ha! Look! you wretched

little atom, look!" and he dashed forward, and, leaping out of the

window, stood like a statue in the pelting storm, with folded arms. He

did not stay long, but in a few minutes returned by way of the hall

chimney. I saw from the way that he wiped his feet on my dress that he

had again forgotten my presence.

"You are a governess. What can you teach?" he asked, suddenly and

fiercely thrusting his face in mine.

"Manners!" I replied, calmly.

"Ha! teach ME!"

"You mistake yourself," I said, adjusting my mittens. "Your manners

require not the artificial restraint of society. You are radically

polite; this impetuosity and ferociousness is simply the sincerity

which is the basis of a proper deportment. Your instincts are moral;

your better nature, I see, is religious. As St. Paul justly

remarks--see chap. 6, 8, 9, and 10--"

He seized a heavy candlestick, and threw it at me. I dodged it

submissively but firmly.

"Excuse me," he remarked, as his under jaw slowly relaxed. "Excuse me,

Miss Mix--but I can't stand St. Paul! Enough--you are engaged."

CHAPTER IV.

I followed the housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. As we

passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was closed by an

iron gate with a grating. Three of the doors on the corridor were

likewise grated. A strange noise, as of shuffling feet and the howling

of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. Bidding the housekeeper

good night, and taking the candle, I entered my bedchamber.

I took off my dress, and, putting on a yellow flannel nightgown, which

I could not help feeling did not agree with my complexion, I composed

myself to rest by reading Blair's Rhetoric and Paley's Moral

Philosophy. I had just put out the light, when I heard voices in the

corridor. I listened attentively. I recognized Mr. Rawjester's stern

tones.

"Have you fed No. 1?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said a gruff voice, apparently belonging to a domestic.

"How's No. 2?"

"She's a little off her feed, just now, but will pick up in a day or

two!"

"And No. 3?"

"Perfectly furious, sir. Her tantrums are ungovernable."

"Hush!"

The voices died away, and I sank into a fitful slumber.

I dreamed that I was wandering through a tropical forest. Suddenly I

saw the figure of a gorilla approaching me. As it neared me, I

recognized the features of Mr. Rawjester. He held his hand to his side

as if in pain. I saw that he had been wounded. He recognized me and

called me by name, but at the same moment the vision changed to an

Ashantee village, where, around the fire, a group of negroes were

dancing and participating in some wild Obi festival. I awoke with the

strain still ringing in my ears.

"Hokee-pokee wokee fum!"

Good Heavens! could I be dreaming? I heard the voice distinctly on the

floor below, and smelt something burning. I arose, with an indistinct

presentiment of evil, and hastily putting some cotton in my ears and

tying a towel about my head, I wrapped myself in a shawl and rushed

down stairs. The door of Mr. Rawjester's room was open. I entered.

Mr. Rawjester lay apparently in a deep slumber, from which even the

clouds of smoke that came from the burning curtains of his bed could

not rouse him. Around the room a large and powerful negress, scantily

attired, with her head adorned with feathers, was dancing wildly,

accompanying herself with bone castanets. It looked like some terrible

fetich.

I did not lose my calmness. After firmly emptying the pitcher, basin,

and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to the garden,

and, returning with the garden-engine, I directed a small stream at Mr.

Rawjester.

At my entrance the gigantic negress fled. Mr. Rawjester yawned and

woke. I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the reason

of my presence. He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or

discomposed. He gazed at me curiously.

"So you risked your life to save mine, eh? you canary-colored teacher

of infants."

I blushed modestly, and drew my shawl tightly over my yellow flannel

nightgown.

"You love me, Mary Jane,--don't deny it! This trembling shows it!" He

drew me closely toward him, and said, with his deep voice tenderly

modulated:--

"How's her pooty tootens,--did she get her 'ittle tootens wet,--bess

her?"

I understood his allusion to my feet. I glanced down and saw that in

my hurry I had put on a pair of his old india-rubbers. My feet were

not small or pretty, and the addition did not add to their beauty.

"Let me go, sir," I remarked quietly. "This is entirely improper; it

sets a bad example for your child." And I firmly but gently extricated

myself from his grasp. I approached the door. He seemed for a moment

buried in deep thought.

"You say this was a negress?"

"Yes, sir."

"Humph, No. 1, I suppose?"

"Who is Number One, sir?"

"My FIRST," he remarked, with a significant and sarcastic smile. Then,

relapsing into his old manner, he threw his boots at my head, and bade

me begone. I withdrew calmly.

CHAPTER V.

My pupil was a bright little girl, who spoke French with a perfect

accent. Her mother had been a French ballet-dancer, which probably

accounted for it. Although she was only six years old, it was easy to

perceive that she had been several times in love. She once said to

me:--

"Miss Mix, did you ever have the grande passion? Did you ever feel a

fluttering here?" and she placed her hand upon her small chest, and

sighed quaintly, "a kind of distaste for bonbons and caromels, when the

world seemed as tasteless and hollow as a broken cordial drop."

"Then you have felt it, Nina?" I said quietly. "O dear, yes. There was

Buttons,--that was our page, you know,--I loved him dearly, but papa

sent him away. Then there was Dick, the groom, but he laughed at me,

and I suffered misery!" and she struck a tragic French attitude.

"There is to be company here to-morrow," she added, rattling on with

childish naivete, "and papa's sweetheart--Blanche Marabout--is to be

here. You know they say she is to be my mamma."

What thrill was this shot through me? But I rose calmly, and,

administering a slight correction to the child, left the apartment.

Blunderbore House, for the next week, was the scene of gayety and

merriment. That portion of the mansion closed with a grating was

walled up, and the midnight shrieks no longer troubled me.

But I felt more keenly the degradation of my situation. I was obliged

to help Lady Blanche at her toilet and help her to look beautiful. For

what? To captivate him? O--no, no,--but why this sudden thrill and

faintness? Did he really love her? I had seen him pinch and swear at

her. But I reflected that he had thrown a candlestick at my head, and

my foolish heart was reassured.

It was a night of festivity, when a sudden message obliged Mr.

Rawjester to leave his guests for a few hours. "Make yourselves merry,

idiots," he added, under his breath, as he passed me. The door closed

and he was gone.

An half-hour passed. In the midst of the dancing a shriek was heard,

and out of the swaying crowd of fainting women and excited men a wild

figure strode into the room. One glance showed it to be a highwayman,

heavily armed, holding a pistol in each hand.

"Let no one pass out of this room!" he said, in a voice of thunder.

"The house is surrounded and you cannot escape. The first one who

crosses yonder threshold will be shot like a dog. Gentlemen, I'll

trouble you to approach in single file, and hand me your purses and

watches."

Finding resistance useless, the order was ungraciously obeyed.

"Now, ladies, please to pass up your jewelry and trinkets."

This order was still more ungraciously complied with. As Blanche

handed to the bandit captain her bracelet, she endeavored to conceal a

diamond necklace, the gift of Mr. Rawjester, in her bosom. But, with a

demoniac grin, the powerful brute tore it from its concealment, and,

administering a hearty box on the ear of the young girl, flung her

aside.

It was now my turn. With a beating heart I made my way to the robber

chieftain, and sank at his feet. "O sir, I am nothing but a poor

governess, pray let me go."

"O ho! A governess? Give me your last month's wages, then. Give me

what you have stolen from your master!" and he laughed fiendishly.

I gazed at him quietly, and said, in a low voice: "I have stolen

nothing from you, Mr. Rawjester!"

"Ah, discovered! Hush! listen, girl!" he hissed, in a fiercer whisper,

"utter a syllable to frustrate my plans and you die; aid me, and--"

But he was gone.

In a few moments the party, with the exception of myself, were gagged

and locked in the cellar. The next moment torches were applied to the

rich hangings, and the house was in flames. I felt a strong hand seize

me, and bear me out in the open air and place me upon the hillside,

where I could overlook the burning mansion. It was Mr. Rawjester.

"Burn!" he said, as he shook his fist at the flames. Then sinking on

his knees before me, he said hurriedly:--

"Mary Jane, I love you; the obstacles to our union are or will be soon

removed. In yonder mansion were confined my three crazy wives. One of

them, as you know, attempted to kill me! Ha! this is vengeance! But

will you be mine?"

I fell, without a word, upon his neck.

GUY HEAVYSTONE;

OR,

"ENTIRE."

A MUSCULAR NOVEL.

BY THE AUTHOR or "SWORD AND GUN."

CHAPTER I.

"Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus."

A dingy, swashy, splashy afternoon in October; a school-yard filled

with a mob of riotous boys. A lot of us standing outside.

Suddenly came a dull, crashing sound from the school-room. At the

ominous interruption I shuddered involuntarily, and called to

Smithsye:--

"What's up, Smithums?"

"Guy's cleaning out the fourth form," he replied.

At the same moment George de Coverly passed me, holding his nose, from

whence the bright Norman blood streamed redly. To him the plebeian

Smithsye laughingly:--

"Cully! how's his nibs?"

I pushed the door of the school-room open. There are some spectacles

which a man never forgets. The burning of Troy probably seemed a

large-sized conflagration to the pious Aeneas, and made an impression

on him which he carried away with the feeble Anchises.

In the centre of the room, lightly brandishing the piston-rod of a

steam-engine, stood Guy Heavystone alone. I say alone, for the pile of

small boys on the floor in the corner could hardly be called company.

I will try and sketch him for the reader. Guy Heavystone was then only

fifteen. His broad, deep chest, his sinewy and quivering flank, his

straight pastern, showed him to be a thoroughbred. Perhaps he was a

trifle heavy in the fetlock, but he held his head haughtily erect. His

eyes were glittering but pitiless. There was a sternness about the

lower part of his face,--the old Heavystone look,--a sternness,

heightened, perhaps, by the snaffle-bit which, in one of his strange

freaks, he wore in his mouth to curb his occasional ferocity. His

dress was well adapted to his square-set and herculean frame. A

striped knit undershirt, close-fitting striped tights, and a few

spangles set off his figure; a neat Glengarry cap adorned his head. On

it was displayed the Heavystone crest, a cock regardant on a dunghill

or, and the motto, "Devil a better!"

I thought of Horatius on the bridge, of Hector before the walls. I

always make it a point to think of something classical at such times.

He saw me, and his sternness partly relaxed. Something like a smile

struggled through his grim lineaments. It was like looking on the

Jungfrau after having seen Mont Blanc,--a trifle, only a trifle less

sublime and awful. Resting his hand lightly on the shoulder of the

head-master, who shuddered and collapsed under his touch, he strode

toward me.

His walk was peculiar. You could not call it a stride. It was like

the "crest-tossing Bellerophon,"--a kind of prancing gait. Guy

Heavystone pranced toward me.

CHAPTER II.

"Lord Lovel he stood at the garden gate,

A-combing his milk-white steed."

It was the winter of 186- when I next met Guy Heavystone. He had left

the University and had entered the 76th "Heavies." "I have exchanged

the gown for the sword, you see," he said, grasping my hand, and

fracturing the bones of my little finger, as he shook it.

I gazed at him with unmixed admiration. He was squarer, sterner, and

in every way smarter and more remarkable than ever. I began to feel

toward this man as Phalaster felt towards Phyrgino, as somebody must

have felt toward Archididasculus, as Boswell felt toward Johnson.

"Come into my den," he said, and lifting me gently by the seat of my

pantaloons he carried me up stairs and deposited me, before I could

apologize, on the sofa. I looked around the room. It was a bachelor's

apartment, characteristically furnished in the taste of the proprietor.

A few claymores and battle-axes were ranged against the wall, and a

culverin, captured by Sir Ralph Heavystone, occupied the corner, the

other end of the room being taken up by a light battery. Foils,

boxing-gloves, saddles, and fishing-poles lay around carelessly. A

small pile of billets-doux lay upon a silver salver. The man was not

an anchorite, nor yet a Sir Galahad.

I never could tell what Guy thought of women. "Poor little beasts," he

would often say when the conversation turned on any of his fresh

conquests. Then, passing his hand over his marble brow, the old look

of stern fixedness of purpose and unflinching severity would straighten

the lines of his mouth, and he would mutter, half to himself, "S'death!"

"Come with me to Heavystone Grange. The Exmoor Hounds throw off

to-morrow. I'll give you a mount," he said, as he amused himself by

rolling up a silver candlestick between his fingers. "You shall have

Cleopatra. But stay," he added, thoughtfully; "now I remember, I

ordered Cleopatra to be shot this morning."

"And why?" I queried.

"She threw her rider yesterday and fell on him--"

"And killed him?"

"No. That's the reason why I have ordered her to be shot. I keep no

animals that are not dangerous--I should add--DEADLY!" He hissed the

last sentence between his teeth, and a gloomy frown descended over his

calm brow.

I affected to turn over the tradesman's bills that lay on the table,

for, like all of the Heavystone race, Guy seldom paid cash, and said:--

"You remind me of the time when Leonidas--"

"O, bother Leonidas and your classical allusions. Come!"

We descended to dinner.

CHAPTER III.

"He carries weight, he rides a race,

'Tis for a thousand pound."

"There is Flora Billingsgate, the greatest coquette and hardest rider

in the country," said my companion, Ralph Mortmain, as we stood upon

Dingleby Common before the meet.

I looked up and beheld Guy Heavystone bending haughtily over the

saddle, as he addressed a beautiful brunette. She was indeed a

splendidly groomed and high-spirited woman. We were near enough to

overhear the following conversation, which any high-toned reader will

recognize as the common and natural expression of the higher classes.

"When Diana takes the field the chase is not wholly confined to objects

ferae naturae," said Guy, darting a significant glance at his

companion. Flora did not shrink either from the glance or the meaning

implied in the sarcasm.

"If I were looking for an Endymion, now--" she said archly, as she

playfully cantered over a few hounds and leaped a five-barred gate.

Guy whispered a few words, inaudible to the rest of the party, and,

curvetting slightly, cleverly cleared two of the huntsmen in a flying

leap, galloped up the front steps of the mansion, and dashing at full

speed through the hall leaped through the drawing-room window and

rejoined me, languidly, on the lawn.

"Be careful of Flora Billingsgate," he said to me, in low stern tones,

while his pitiless eye shot a baleful fire. "Gardez vous!"

"Gnothi seauton," I replied calmly, not wishing to appear to be behind

him in perception or verbal felicity.

Guy started off in high spirits. He was well carried. He and the

first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence,

while the hounds were rolling over their fox a hundred yards farther in

the open.

But an unexpected circumstance occurred. Coming back, his chestnut

mare refused a ten-foot wall. She reared and fell backward. Again he

led her up to it lightly; again she refused, falling heavily from the

coping. Guy started to his feet. The old pitiless fire shone in his

eyes; the old stern look settled around his mouth. Seizing the mare by

the tail and mane he threw her over the wall. She landed twenty feet on

the other side, erect and trembling. Lightly leaping the same obstacle

himself, he remounted her. She did not refuse the wall the next time.

CHAPTER IV.

"He holds him by his glittering eye."

Guy was in the North of Ireland, cock-shooting. So Ralph Mortmain told

me, and also that the match between Mary Brandagee and Guy had been

broken off by Flora Billingsgate. "I don't like those Billingsgates,"

said Ralph, "they're a bad stock. Her father, Smithfield de

Billingsgate, had an unpleasant way of turning up the knave from the

bottom of the pack. But nous verrons; let us go and see Guy."

The next morning we started for Fin-ma-Coul's Crossing. When I reached

the shooting-box, where Guy was entertaining a select company of

friends, Flora Billingsgate greeted me with a saucy smile.

Guy was even squarer and sterner than ever. His gusts of passion were

more frequent, and it was with difficulty that he could keep an

able-bodied servant in his family. His present retainers were more or

less maimed from exposure to the fury of their master. There was a

strange cynicism, a cutting sarcasm in his address, piercing through

his polished manner. I thought of Timon, etc., etc.

One evening, we were sitting over our Chambertin, after a hard day's

work, and Guy was listlessly turning over some letters, when suddenly

he uttered a cry. Did you ever hear the trumpeting of a wounded

elephant? It was like that.

I looked at him with consternation. He was glancing at a letter which

he held at arm's length, and snorting, as it were, at it as he gazed.

The lower part of his face was stern, but not as rigid as usual. He

was slowly grinding between his teeth the fragments of the glass he had

just been drinking from. Suddenly he seized one of his servants, and,

forcing the wretch upon his knees, exclaimed, with the roar of a

tiger:--

"Dog! why was this kept from me?"

"Why, please, sir, Miss Flora said as how it was a reconciliation from

Miss Brandagee, and it was to be kept from you where you would not be

likely to see it,--and--and--"

"Speak, dog! and you--"

"I put it among your bills, sir!"

With a groan, like distant thunder, Guy fell swooning to the floor.

He soon recovered, for the next moment a servant came rushing into the

room with the information that a number of the ingenuous peasantry of

the neighborhood were about to indulge that evening in the national

pastime of burning a farm-house and shooting a landlord. Guy smiled a

fearful smile, without, however, altering his stern and pitiless

expression.

"Let them come," he said calmly; "I feel like entertaining company."

We barricaded the doors and windows, and then chose our arms from the

armory. Guy's choice was a singular one: it was a landing net with a

long handle, and a sharp cavalry sabre.

We were not destined to remain long in ignorance of its use. A howl

was heard from without, and a party of fifty or sixty armed men

precipitated themselves against the door.

Suddenly the window opened. With the rapidity of lightning, Guy

Heavystone cast the net over the head of the ringleader, ejaculated

"Habet!" and with a back stroke of his cavalry sabre severed the member

from its trunk, and, drawing the net back again, cast the gory head

upon the floor, saying quietly:--

"One."

Again the net was cast, the steel flashed, the net was withdrawn, and

an ominous "Two!" accompanied the head as it rolled on the floor.

"Do you remember what Pliny says of the gladiator?" said Guy, calmly

wiping his sabre. "How graphic is that passage commencing 'Inter nos,

etc.'" The sport continued until the heads of twenty desperadoes had

been gathered in. The rest seemed inclined to disperse. Guy

incautiously showed himself at the door; a ringing shot was heard, and

he staggered back, pierced through the heart. Grasping the door-post in

the last unconscious throes of his mighty frame, the whole side of the

house yielded to that earthquake tremor, and we had barely time to

escape before the whole building fell in ruins. I thought of Samson,

the Giant Judge, etc., etc.; but all was over.

Guy Heavystone had died as he had lived,--HARD.

MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY.

A NAVAL OFFICER.

BY CAPTAIN M--RRY--T, R. N.

CHAPTER I.

My father was a north-country surgeon. He had retired, a widower, from

her Majesty's navy many years before, and had a small practice in his

native village. When I was seven years old he employed me to carry

medicines to his patients. Being of a lively disposition, I sometimes

amused myself; during my daily rounds, by mixing the contents of the

different phials. Although I had no reason to doubt that the general

result of this practice was beneficial, yet, as the death of a

consumptive curate followed the addition of a strong mercurial lotion

to his expectorant, my father concluded to withdraw me from the

profession and send me to school.

Grubbins, the schoolmaster, was a tyrant, and it was not long before my

impetuous and self-willed nature rebelled against his authority. I

soon began to form plans of revenge. In this I was assisted by Tom

Snaffle,--a schoolfellow. One day Tom suggested:--

"Suppose we blow him up. I've got two pounds of powder!"

"No, that's too noisy," I replied.

Tom was silent for a minute, and again spoke:--

"You remember how you flattened out the curate, Pills! Couldn't you

give Grubbins something--something to make him leathery sick--eh?"

A flash of inspiration crossed my mind. I went to the shop of the

village apothecary. He knew me; I had often purchased vitriol, which I

poured into Grubbins's inkstand to corrode his pens and burn up his

coat-tail, on which he was in the habit of wiping them. I boldly asked

for an ounce of chloroform. The young apothecary winked and handed me

the bottle.

It was Grubbins's custom to throw his handkerchief over his head,

recline in his chair and take a short nap during recess. Watching my

opportunity, as he dozed, I managed to slip his handkerchief from his

face and substitute my own, moistened with chloroform. In a few

minutes he was insensible. Tom and I then quickly shaved his head,

beard, and eyebrows, blackened his face with a mixture of vitriol and

burnt cork, and fled. There was a row and scandal the next day. My

father always excused me by asserting that Grubbins had got drunk,--but

somehow found it convenient to procure me an appointment in her

Majesty's navy at an early day.

CHAPTER II.

An official letter, with the Admiralty seal, informed me that I was

expected to join H. M. ship Belcher, Captain Boltrope, at Portsmouth,

without delay. In a few days I presented myself to a tall,

stern-visaged man, who was slowly pacing the leeward side of the

quarter-deck. As I touched my hat he eyed me sternly:--

"So ho! Another young suckling. The service is going to the devil.

Nothing but babes in the cockpit and grannies in the board. Boatswain's

mate, pass the word for Mr. Cheek!"

Mr. Cheek, the steward, appeared and touched his hat. "Introduce Mr.

Breezy to the young gentlemen. Stop! Where's Mr. Swizzle?"

"At the masthead, sir."

"Where's Mr. Lankey?"

"At the masthead, sir."

"Mr. Briggs?"

"Masthead, too, sir."

"And the rest of the young gentlemen?" roared the enraged officer.

"All masthead, sir."

"Ah!" said Captain Boltrope, as he smiled grimly, "under the

circumstances, Mr. Breezy, you had better go to the masthead too."

CHAPTER III.

At the masthead I made the acquaintance of two youngsters of about my

own age, one of whom informed me that he had been there three hundred

and thirty-two days out of the year.

"In rough weather, when the old cock is out of sorts, you know, we

never come down," added a young gentleman of nine years, with a dirk

nearly as long as himself, who had been introduced to me as Mr. Briggs.

"By the way, Pills," he continued, "how did you come to omit giving the

captain a naval salute?"

"Why, I touched my hat," I said, innocently.

"Yes, but that isn't enough, you know. That will do very well at other

times. He expects the naval salute when you first come on

board--greeny!"

I began to feel alarmed, and begged him to explain.

"Why, you see, after touching your hat, you should have touched him

lightly with your forefinger in his waistcoat, so, and asked, 'How's

his nibs?'--you see?"

"How's his nibs?" I repeated.

"Exactly. He would have drawn back a little, and then you should have

repeated the salute remarking, 'How's his royal nibs?' asking

cautiously after his wife and family, and requesting to be introduced

to the gunner's daughter."

"The gunner's daughter?"

"The same; you know she takes care of us young gentlemen; now don't

forget, Pillsy!"

When we were called down to the deck I thought it a good chance to

profit by this instruction. I approached Captain Boltrope and repeated

the salute without conscientiously omitting a single detail. He

remained for a moment, livid and speechless. At length he gasped out:--

"Boatswain's mate?"

"If you please, sir," I asked, tremulously, "I should like to be

introduced to the gunner's daughter!"

"O, very good, sir!" screamed Captain Boltrope, rubbing his hands and

absolutely capering about the deck with rage. "O d--n you! Of course

you shall! O ho! the gunner's daughter! O, h--ll! this is too much!

Boatswain's mate!" Before I well knew where I was, I was seized, borne

to an eight-pounder, tied upon it and flogged!

CHAPTER IV.

As we sat together in the cockpit, picking the weevils out of our

biscuit, Briggs consoled me for my late mishap, adding that the "naval

salute," as a custom, seemed just then to be honored more in the BREACH

than the observance. I joined in the hilarity occasioned by the

witticism, and in a few moments we were all friends. Presently Swizzle

turned to me:--

"We have been just planning how to confiscate a keg of claret, which

Nips, the purser, keeps under his bunk. The old nipcheese lies there

drunk half the day, and there's no getting at it."

"Let's get beneath the state-room and bore through the deck, and so tap

it," said Lankey.

The proposition was received with a shout of applause. A long

half-inch auger and bit was procured from Chips, the carpenter's mate,

and Swizzle, after a careful examination of the timbers beneath the

ward-room, commenced operations. The auger at last disappeared, when

suddenly there was a slight disturbance on the deck above. Swizzle

withdrew the auger hurriedly; from its point a few bright red drops

trickled.

"Huzza! send her up again!" cried Lankey.

The auger was again applied. This time a shriek was heard from the

purser's cabin. Instantly the light was doused, and the party

retreated hurriedly to the cockpit. A sound of snoring was heard as

the sentry stuck his head into the door. "All right, sir," he replied

in answer to the voice of the officer of the deck.

The next morning we heard that Nips was in the surgeon's hands, with a

bad wound in the fleshy part of his leg, and that the auger had NOT

struck claret.

CHAPTER V.

"Now, Pills, you'll have a chance to smell powder," said Briggs as he

entered the cockpit and buckled around his waist an enormous cutlass.

"We have just sighted a French ship."

We went on deck. Captain Boltrope grinned as we touched our hats. He

hated the purser. "Come, young gentlemen, if you're boring for french

claret, yonder's a good quality. Mind your con, sir," he added,

turning to the quartermaster, who was grinning.

The ship was already cleared for action. The men, in their eagerness,

had started the coffee from the tubs and filled them with shot.

Presently the Frenchman yawed, and a shot from a long thirty-two came

skipping over the water. It killed the quartermaster and took off both

of Lankey's legs. "Tell the purser our account is squared," said the

dying boy, with a feeble smile.

The fight raged fiercely for two hours. I remember killing the French

Admiral, as we boarded, but on looking around for Briggs, after the

smoke had cleared away, I was intensely amused at witnessing the

following novel sight:--

Briggs had pinned the French captain against the mast with his cutlass,

and was now engaged, with all the hilarity of youth, in pulling the

captain's coat-tails between his legs, in imitation of a dancing-jack.

As the Frenchman lifted his legs and arms, at each jerk of Briggs's, I

could not help participating in the general mirth.

"You young devil, what are you doing?" said a stifled voice behind me.

I looked up and beheld Captain Boltrope, endeavoring to calm his stern

features, but the twitching around his mouth betrayed his intense

enjoyment of the scene. "Go to the masthead--up with you, sir!" he

repeated sternly to Briggs.

"Very good, sir," said the boy, coolly preparing to mount the shrouds.

"Good by, Johnny Crapaud. Humph!" he added, in a tone intended for my

ear, "a pretty way to treat a hero. The service is going to the devil!"

I thought so too.

CHAPTER VI.

We were ordered to the West Indies. Although Captain Boltrope's manner

toward me was still severe, and even harsh, I understood that my name

had been favorably mentioned in the despatches.

Reader, were you ever at Jamaica? If so, you remember the negresses,

the oranges, Port Royal Tom--the yellow fever. After being two weeks

at the station, I was taken sick of the fever. In a month I was

delirious. During my paroxysms, I had a wild distempered dream of a

stern face bending anxiously over my pillow, a rough hand smoothing my

hair, and a kind voice saying:--

"Bess his 'ittle heart! Did he have the naughty fever?" This face

seemed again changed to the well-known stern features of Captain

Boltrope.

When I was convalescent, a packet edged in black was put in my hand.

It contained the news of my father's death, and a sealed letter which

he had requested to be given to me on his decease. I opened it

tremblingly. It read thus:--

"My dear Boy:--I regret to inform you that in all probability you are

not my son. Your mother, I am grieved to say, was a highly improper

person. Who your father may be, I really cannot say, but perhaps the

Honorable Henry Boltrope, Captain R. N., may be able to inform you.

Circumstances over which I have no control have deferred this important

disclosure.

"YOUR STRICKEN PARENT."

And so Captain Boltrope was my father. Heavens! Was it a dream? I

recalled his stern manner, his observant eye, his ill-concealed

uneasiness when in my presence. I longed to embrace him. Staggering to

my feet, I rushed in my scanty apparel to the deck, where Captain

Boltrope was just then engaged in receiving the Governor's wife and

daughter. The ladies shrieked; the youngest, a beautiful girl, blushed

deeply. Heeding them not, I sank at his feet, and, embracing them,

cried:--

"My father!"

"Chuck him overboard!" roared Captain Boltrope.

"Stay," pleaded the soft voice of Clara Maitland, the Governor's

daughter.

"Shave his head! he's a wretched lunatic!" continued Captain Boltrope,

while his voice trembled with excitement.

"No, let me nurse and take care of him," said the lovely girl, blushing

as she spoke. "Mamma, can't we take him home?"

The daughter's pleading was not without effect. In the mean time I had

fainted. When I recovered my senses I found myself in Governor

Maitland's mansion.

CHAPTER VII.

The reader will guess what followed. I fell deeply in love with Clara

Maitland, to whom I confided the secret of my birth. The generous girl

asserted that she had detected the superiority of my manner at once.

We plighted our troth, and resolved to wait upon events.

Briggs called to see me a few days afterward. He said that the purser

had insulted the whole cockpit, and all the midshipmen had called him

out. But he added thoughtfully: "I don't see how we can arrange the

duel. You see there are six of us to fight him."

"Very easily," I replied. "Let your fellows all stand in a row, and

take his fire; that, you see, gives him six chances to one, and he must

be a bad shot if he can't hit one of you; while, on the other hand, you

see, he gets a volley from you six, and one of you'll be certain to

fetch him."

"Exactly"; and away Briggs went, but soon returned to say that the

purser had declined,--"like a d--d coward," he added.

But the news of the sudden and serious illness of Captain Boltrope put

off the duel. I hastened to his bedside, but too late,--an hour

previous he had given up the ghost.

I resolved to return to England. I made known the secret of my birth,

and exhibited my adopted father's letter to Lady Maitland, who at once

suggested my marriage with her daughter, before I returned to claim the

property. We were married, and took our departure next day.

I made no delay in posting at once, in company with my wife and my

friend Briggs, to my native village. Judge of my horror and surprise

when my late adopted father came out of his shop to welcome me.

"Then you are not dead!" I gasped.

"No, my dear boy."

"And this letter?"

My father--as I must still call him--glanced on the paper, and

pronounced it a forgery. Briggs roared with laughter. I turned to him

and demanded an explanation.

"Why, don't you see, Greeny, it's all a joke,--a midshipman's joke!"

"But--" I asked.

"Don't be a fool. You've got a good wife,--be satisfied."

I turned to Clara, and was satisfied. Although Mrs. Maitland never

forgave me, the jolly old Governor laughed heartily over the joke, and

so well used his influence that I soon became, dear reader, Admiral

Breezy, K. C. B.

JOHN JENKINS;

OR,

THE SMOKER REFORMED.

BY T. S. A--TH--R.

CHAPTER I.

"One cigar a day!" said Judge Boompointer.

"One cigar a day!" repeated John Jenkins, as with trepidation he

dropped his half-consumed cigar under his work-bench.

"One cigar a day is three cents a day," remarked Judge Boompointer,

gravely; "and do you know, sir, what one cigar a day, or three cents a

day, amounts to in the course of four years?"

John Jenkins, in his boyhood, had attended the village school, and

possessed considerable arithmetical ability. Taking up a shingle which

lay upon his work-bench, and producing a piece of chalk, with a feeling

of conscious pride he made an exhaustive calculation.

"Exactly forty-three dollars and eighty cents," he replied, wiping the

perspiration from his heated brow, while his face flushed with honest

enthusiasm.

"Well, sir, if you saved three cents a day, instead of wasting it, you

would now be the possessor of a new suit of clothes, an illustrated

Family Bible, a pew in the church, a complete set of Patent Office

Reports, a hymn-book, and a paid subscription to Arthur's Home

Magazine, which could be purchased for exactly forty-three dollars and

eighty cents; and," added the Judge, with increasing sternness, "if you

calculate leap-year, which you seem to have strangely omitted, you have

three cents more, sir; THREE CENTS MORE! What would that buy you, sir?"

"A cigar," suggested John Jenkins; but, coloring again deeply, he hid

his face.

"No, sir," said the Judge, with a sweet smile of benevolence stealing

over his stern features; "properly invested, it would buy you that

which passeth all price. Dropped into the missionary-box, who can tell

what heathen, now idly and joyously wantoning in nakedness and sin,

might be brought to a sense of his miserable condition, and made,

through that three cents, to feel the torments of the wicked?"

With these words the Judge retired, leaving John Jenkins buried in

profound thought. "Three cents a day," he muttered. "In forty years I

might be worth four hundred and thirty-eight dollars and ten

cents,--and then I might marry Mary. Ah, Mary!" The young carpenter

sighed, and, drawing a twenty-five cent daguerreotype from his

vest-pocket, gazed long and fervidly upon the features of a young girl

in book muslin and a coral necklace. Then, with a resolute expression,

he carefully locked the door of his workshop and departed.

Alas! his good resolutions were too late. We trifle with the tide of

fortune which too often nips us in the bud and casts the dark shadow of

misfortune over the bright lexicon of youth! That night the

half-consumed fragment of John Jenkins's cigar set fire to his workshop

and burned it up, together with all his tools and materials. There was

no insurance.

CHAPTER II.

THE DOWNWARD PATH.

"Then you still persist in marrying John Jenkins?" queried Judge

Boompointer, as he playfully, with paternal familiarity, lifted the

golden curls of the village belle, Mary Jones.

"I do," replied the fair young girl, in a low voice, that resembled

rock candy in its saccharine firmness,--"I do. He has promised to

reform. Since he lost all his property by fire--"

"The result of his pernicious habit, though he illogically persists in

charging it to me," interrupted the Judge.

"Since then," continued the young girl, "he has endeavored to break

himself of the habit. He tells me that he has substituted the stalks

of the Indian ratan, the outer part of a leguminous plant called the

smoking-bean, and the fragmentary and unconsumed remainder of cigars

which occur at rare and uncertain intervals along the road, which, as

he informs me, though deficient in quality and strength, are

comparatively inexpensive." And, blushing at her own eloquence, the

young girl hid her curls on the Judge's arm.

"Poor thing!" muttered Judge Boompointer. "Dare I tell her all? Yet I

must."

"I shall cling to him," continued the young girl, rising with her

theme, "as the young vine clings to some hoary ruin. Nay, nay, chide

me not, Judge Boompointer. I will marry John Jenkins!"

The Judge was evidently affected. Seating himself at the table, he

wrote a few lines hurriedly upon a piece of paper, which he folded and

placed in the fingers of the destined bride of John Jenkins.

"Mary Jones," said the Judge, with impressive earnestness, "take this

trifle as a wedding gift from one who respects your fidelity and

truthfulness. At the altar let it be a reminder of me." And covering

his face hastily with a handkerchief, the stern and iron-willed man

left the room. As the door closed, Mary unfolded the paper. It was an

order on the corner grocery for three yards of flannel, a paper of

needles, four pounds of soap, one pound of starch, and two boxes of

matches!

"Noble and thoughtful man!" was all Mary Jones could exclaim, as she

hid her face in her hands and burst into a flood of tears.

* * * * *

The bells of Cloverdale are ringing merrily. It is a wedding. "How

beautiful they look!" is the exclamation that passes from lip to lip,

as Mary Jones, leaning timidly on the arm of John Jenkins, enters the

church. But the bride is agitated, and the bridegroom betrays a

feverish nervousness. As they stand in the vestibule, John Jenkins

fumbles earnestly in his vest-pocket. Can it be the ring he is anxious

about? No. He draws a small brown substance from his pocket, and

biting off a piece, hastily replaces the fragment and gazes furtively

around. Surely no one saw him? Alas! the eyes of two of that wedding

party saw the fatal act. Judge Boompointer shook his head sternly.

Mary Jones sighed and breathed a silent prayer. Her husband chewed!

CHAPTER III.

AND LAST.

"What! more bread?" said John Jenkins, gruffly. "You're always asking

for money for bread. D--nation! Do you want to ruin me by your

extravagance?" and as he uttered these words he drew from his pocket a

bottle of whiskey, a pipe, and a paper of tobacco. Emptying the first

at a draught, he threw the empty bottle at the head of his eldest boy,

a youth of twelve summers. The missile struck the child full in the

temple, and stretched him a lifeless corpse. Mrs. Jenkins, whom the

reader will hardly recognize as the once gay and beautiful Mary Jones,

raised the dead body of her son in her arms, and carefully placing the

unfortunate youth beside the pump in the back yard, returned with

saddened step to the house. At another time, and in brighter days, she

might have wept at the occurrence. She was past tears now.

"Father, your conduct is reprehensible!" said little Harrison Jenkins,

the youngest boy. "Where do you expect to go when you die?"

"Ah!" said John Jenkins, fiercely; "this comes of giving children a

liberal education; this is the result of Sabbath schools. Down, viper!"

A tumbler thrown from the same parental fist laid out the youthful

Harrison cold. The four other children had, in the mean time, gathered

around the table with anxious expectancy. With a chuckle, the now

changed and brutal John Jenkins produced four pipes, and, filling them

with tobacco, handed one to each of his offspring and bade them smoke.

"It's better than bread!" laughed the wretch hoarsely.

Mary Jenkins, though of a patient nature, felt it her duty now to

speak. "I have borne much, John Jenkins," she said. "But I prefer

that the children should not smoke. It is an unclean habit, and soils

their clothes. I ask this as a special favor!"

John Jenkins hesitated,--the pangs of remorse began to seize him.

"Promise me this, John!" urged Mary upon her knees.

"I promise!" reluctantly answered John.

"And you will put the money in a savings-bank?"

"I will," repeated her husband; "and I'LL give up smoking, too."

"'Tis well, John Jenkins!" said Judge Boompointer, appearing suddenly

from behind the door, where he had been concealed during this

interview. "Nobly said! my man. Cheer up! I will see that the

children are decently buried." The husband and wife fell into each

other's arms. And Judge Boompointer, gazing upon the affecting

spectacle, burst into tears.

From that day John Jenkins was an altered man.

NO TITLE.

By W--LK--E C--LL--NS.

PROLOGUE.

The following advertisement appeared in the "Times" of the 17th of

June, 1845:--

WANTED.--A few young men for a light genteel employment.

Address J. W., P. O.

In the same paper, of same date, in another column:--

TO LET.--That commodious and elegant family mansion, No. 27 Limehouse

Road, Pultneyville, will be rented low to a respectable tenant if

applied for immediately, the family being about to remove to the

continent.

Under the local intelligence, in another column:--

MISSING.--An unknown elderly gentleman a week ago left his lodgings in

the Kent Road, since which nothing has been heard of him. He left no

trace of his identity except a portmanteau containing a couple of

shirts marked "209, WARD."

To find the connection between the mysterious disappearance of the

elderly gentleman and the anonymous communication, the relevancy of

both these incidents to the letting of a commodious family mansion, and

the dead secret involved in the three occurrences, is the task of the

writer of this history.

A slim young man with spectacles, a large hat, drab gaiters, and a

note-book, sat late that night with a copy of the "Times" before him,

and a pencil which he rattled nervously between his teeth in the

coffee-room of the "Blue Dragon."

CHAPTER I.

MARY JONES'S NARRATIVE.

I am upper housemaid to the family that live at No. 27 Limehouse Road,

Pultneyville. I have been requested by Mr. Wilkey Collings, which I

takes the liberty of here stating is a gentleman born and bred, and has

some consideration for the feelings of servants, and is not above

rewarding them for their trouble, which is more than you can say for

some who ask questions and gets short answers enough, gracious knows,

to tell what I know about them. I have been requested to tell my story

in my own langwidge, though, being no schollard, mind cannot conceive.

I think my master is a brute. Do not know that he has ever attempted to

poison my missus,--which is too good for him, and how she ever came to

marry him, heart only can tell,--but believe him to be capable of any

such hatrosity. Have heard him swear dreadful because of not having his

shaving-water at nine o'clock precisely. Do not know whether he ever

forged a will or tried to get my missus' property, although, not having

confidence in the man, should not be surprised if he had done so.

Believe that there was always something mysterious in his conduct.

Remember distinctly how the family left home to go abroad. Was putting

up my back hair, last Saturday morning, when I heard a ring. Says

cook, "That's missus' bell, and mind you hurry or the master 'ill know

why." Says I, "Humbly thanking you, mem, but taking advice of them as

is competent to give it, I'll take my time." Found missus dressing

herself and master growling as usual. Says missus, quite calm and easy

like, "Mary, we begin to pack to-day." "What for, mem?" says I, taken

aback. "What's that hussy asking?" says master from the bedclothes

quite savage like. "For the Continent--Italy," says missus--"Can you

go Mary?" Her voice was quite gentle and saintlike, but I knew the

struggle it cost, and says I, "With YOU mem, to India's torrid clime,

if required, but with African Gorillas," says I, looking toward the

bed, "never." "Leave the room," says master, starting up and catching

of his bootjack. "Why Charles!" says missus, "how you talk!" affecting

surprise. "Do go Mary," says she, slipping a half-crown into my hand.

I left the room scorning to take notice of the odious wretch's conduct.

Cannot say whether my master and missus were ever legally married. What

with the dreadful state of morals nowadays and them stories in the

circulating libraries, innocent girls don't know into what society they

might be obliged to take situations. Never saw missus' marriage

certificate, though I have quite accidental-like looked in her desk

when open, and would have seen it. Do not know of any lovers missus

might have had. Believe she had a liking for John Thomas, footman, for

she was always spiteful-like--poor lady--when we were together--though

there was nothing between us, as Cook well knows, and dare not deny,

and missus needn't have been jealous. Have never seen arsenic or

Prussian acid in any of the private drawers--but have seen paregoric

and camphor. One of my master's friends was a Count Moscow, a Russian

papist--which I detested.

CHAPTER II.

THE SLIM YOUNG MAN'S STORY.

I am by profession a reporter, and writer for the press. I live at

Pultneyville. I have always had a passion for the marvellous, and have

been distinguished for my facility in tracing out mysteries, and

solving enigmatical occurrences. On the night of the 17th June, 1845,

I left my office and walked homeward. The night was bright and

starlight. I was revolving in my mind the words of a singular item I

had just read in the "Times." I had reached the darkest portion of the

road, and found my self mechanically repeating: "An elderly gentleman a

week ago left his lodgings on the Kent Road," when suddenly I heard a

step behind me.

I turned quickly, with an expression of horror in my face, and by the

light of the newly risen moon beheld an elderly gentleman, with green

cotton umbrella, approaching me. His hair, which was snow white, was

parted over a broad, open forehead. The expression of his face, which

was slightly flushed, was that of amiability verging almost upon

imbecility. There was a strange, inquiring look about the widely

opened mild blue eye,--a look that might have been intensified to

insanity, or modified to idiocy. As he passed me, he paused and partly

turned his face, with a gesture of inquiry. I see him still, his white

locks blowing in the evening breeze, his hat a little on the back of

his head, and his figure painted in relief against the dark blue sky.

Suddenly he turned his mild eye full upon me. A weak smile played

about his thin lips. In a voice which had something of the

tremulousness of age and the self-satisfied chuckle of imbecility in

it, he asked, pointing to the rising moon, "Why?--hush!"

He had dodged behind me, and appeared to be looking anxiously down the

road. I could feel his aged frame shaking with terror as he laid his

thin hands upon my shoulders and faced me in the direction of the

supposed danger.

"Hush! did you not hear them coming?"

I listened; there was no sound but the soughing of the roadside trees

in the evening wind. I endeavored to reassure him, with such success

that in a few moments the old weak smile appeared on his benevolent

face.

"Why?--" But the look of interrogation was succeeded by a hopeless

blankness.

"Why!" I repeated with assuring accents.

"Why," he said, a gleam of intelligence flickering over his face, "is

yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean, casting a flood of

light o'er hill and dale, like-- Why," he repeated, with a feeble

smile, "is yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean--" He

hesitated,--stammered,--and gazed at me hopelessly, with the tears

dripping from his moist and widely opened eyes.

I took his hand kindly in my own. "Casting a shadow o'er hill and

dale," I repeated quietly, leading him up the subject, "like-- Come,

now."

"Ah!" he said, pressing my hand tremulously, "you know it?"

"I do. Why is it like--the--eh--the commodious mansion on the

Limehouse Road?"

A blank stare only followed. He shook his head sadly. "Like the young

men wanted for a light, genteel employment?"

He wagged his feeble old head cunningly.

"Or, Mr. Ward," I said, with bold confidence, "like the mysterious

disappearance from the Kent Road?"

The moment was full of suspense. He did not seem to hear me. Suddenly

he turned.

"Ha!"

I darted forward. But he had vanished in the darkness.

CHAPTER III.

NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD.

It was a hot midsummer evening. Limehouse Road was deserted save by

dust and a few rattling butchers' carts, and the bell of the muffin and

crumpet man. A commodious mansion, which stood on the right of the

road as you enter Pultneyville, surrounded by stately poplars and a

high fence surmounted by a chevaux de frise of broken glass, looked to

the passing and footsore pedestrian like the genius of seclusion and

solitude. A bill announcing in the usual terms that the house was to

let, hung from the bell at the servants' entrance.

As the shades of evening closed, and the long shadows of the poplars

stretched across the road, a man carrying a small kettle stopped and

gazed, first at the bill and then at the house. When he had reached

the corner of the fence, he again stopped and looked cautiously up and

down the road. Apparently satisfied with the result of his scrutiny,

he deliberately sat himself down in the dark shadow of the fence, and

at once busied himself in some employment, so well concealed as to be

invisible to the gaze of passers-by. At the end of an hour he retired

cautiously.

But not altogether unseen. A slim young man, with spectacles and

note-book, stepped from behind a tree as the retreating figure of the

intruder was lost in the twilight, and transferred from the fence to

his note-book the freshly stencilled inscription, "S--T--1860--X."

CHAPTER IV.

COUNT MOSCOW'S NARRATIVE.

I am a foreigner. Observe! To be a foreigner in England is to be

mysterious, suspicious, intriguing. M. Collins has requested the

history of my complicity with certain occurrences. It is nothing, bah!

absolutely nothing.

I write with ease and fluency. Why should I not write? Tra la la? I

am what you English call corpulent. Ha, ha! I am a pupil of

Macchiavelli. I find it much better to disbelieve everything, and to

approach my subject and wishes circuitously, than in a direct manner.

You have observed that playful animal, the cat. Call it, and it does

not come to you directly, but rubs itself against all the furniture in

the room, and reaches you finally--and scratches. Ah, ha, scratches! I

am of the feline species. People call me a villain--bah!

I know the family, living No. 27 Limehouse Road. I respect the

gentleman,--a fine, burly specimen of your Englishman,--and madame,

charming, ravishing, delightful. When it became known to me that they

designed to let their delightful residence, and visit foreign shores, I

at once called upon them. I kissed the hand of madame. I embraced the

great Englishman. Madame blushed slightly. The great Englishman shook

my hand like a mastiff.

I began in that dexterous, insinuating manner, of which I am truly

proud. I thought madame was ill. Ah, no. A change, then, was all

that was required. I sat down at the piano and sang. In a few minutes

madame retired. I was alone with my friend.

Seizing his hand, I began with every demonstration of courteous

sympathy. I do not repeat my words, for my intention was conveyed more

in accent, emphasis, and manner, than speech. I hinted to him that he

had another wife living. I suggested that this was balanced--ha!--by

his wife's lover. That, possibly, he wished to fly; hence the letting

of his delightful mansion. That he regularly and systematically beat

his wife in the English manner, and that she repeatedly deceived me. I

talked of hope, of consolation, of remedy. I carelessly produced a

bottle of strychnine and a small vial of stramonium from my pocket, and

enlarged on the efficiency of drugs. His face, which had gradually

become convulsed, suddenly became fixed with a frightful expression.

He started to his feet, and roared: "You d--d Frenchman!"

I instantly changed my tactics, and endeavored to embrace him. He

kicked me twice, violently. I begged permission to kiss madame's hand.

He replied by throwing me down stairs.

I am in bed with my head bound up, and beef-steaks upon my eyes, but

still confident and buoyant. I have not lost faith in Macchiavelli.

Tra la la! as they sing in the opera. I kiss everybody's hands.

CHAPTER V.

DR. DIGGS'S STATEMENT.

My name is David Diggs. I am a surgeon, living at No. 9 Tottenham

Court. On the 15th of June, 1854, I was called to see an elderly

gentleman lodging on the Kent Road. Found him highly excited, with

strong febrile symptoms, pulse 120, increasing. Repeated incoherently

what I judged to be the popular form of a conundrum. On closer

examination found acute hydrocephalus and both lobes of the brain

rapidly filling with water. In consultation with an eminent

phrenologist, it was further discovered that all the organs were more

or less obliterated, except that of Comparison. Hence the patient was

enabled to only distinguish the most common points of resemblance

between objects, without drawing upon other faculties, such as Ideality

or Language, for assistance. Later in the day found him

sinking,--being evidently unable to carry the most ordinary conundrum

to a successful issue. Exhibited Tinct. Val., Ext. Opii, and Camphor,

and prescribed quiet and emollients. On the 17th the patient was

missing.

CHAPTER LAST.

STATEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER.

On the 18th of June, Mr. Wilkie Collins left a roll of manuscript with

us for publication, without title or direction, since which time he has

not been heard from. In spite of the care of the proof-readers, and

valuable literary assistance, it is feared that the continuity of the

story has been destroyed by some accidental misplacing of chapters

during its progress. How and what chapters are so misplaced, the

publisher leaves to an indulgent public to discover.

N N.

BEING A NOVEL IN THE FRENCH PARAGRAPHIC STYLE.

--Mademoiselle, I swear to you that I love you.

--You who read these pages. You who turn your burning eyes upon these

words--words that I trace-- Ah, Heaven! the thought maddens me.

--I will be calm. I will imitate the reserve of the festive

Englishman, who wears a spotted handkerchief which he calls a Belchio,

who eats biftek, and caresses a bulldog. I will subdue myself like him.

--Ha! Poto-beer! All right--Goddam!

--Or, I will conduct myself as the free-born American--the gay Brother

Jonathan! I will whittle me a stick. I will whistle to myself "Yankee

Doodle," and forget my passion in excessive expectoration.

--Hoho!--wake snakes and walk chalks.

The world is divided into two great divisions,--Paris and the

provinces. There is but one Paris. There are several provinces, among

which may be numbered England, America, Russia, and Italy.

N N. was a Parisian.

But N N. did not live in Paris. Drop a Parisian in the provinces, and

you drop a part of Paris with him. Drop him in Senegambia, and in

three days he will give you an omelette soufflee, or a pate de foie

gras, served by the neatest of Senegambian filles, whom he will call

Mademoiselle. In three weeks he will give you an opera.

N N. was not dropped in Senegambia, but in San Francisco,--quite as

awkward.

They find gold in San Francisco, but they don't understand gilding.

N N. existed three years in this place. He became bald on the top of

his head, as all Parisians do. Look down from your box at the Opera

Comique, Mademoiselle, and count the bald crowns of the fast young men

in the pit. Ah--you tremble! They show where the arrows of love have

struck and glanced off.

N N. was also near-sighted, as all Parisians finally become. This is a

gallant provision of Nature to spare them the mortification of

observing that their lady friends grow old. After a certain age every

woman is handsome to a Parisian.

One day, N N. was walking down Washington street. Suddenly he stopped.

He was standing before the door of a mantuamaker. Beside the counter,

at the farther extremity of the shop, stood a young and elegantly

formed woman. Her face was turned from N N. He entered. With a

plausible excuse, and seeming indifference, he gracefully opened

conversation with the mantuamaker as only a Parisian can. But he had to

deal with a Parisian. His attempts to view the features of the fair

stranger by the counter were deftly combated by the shop-woman. He was

obliged to retire.

N N. went home and lost his appetite. He was haunted by the elegant

basque and graceful shoulders of the fair unknown, during the whole

night.

The next day he sauntered by the mantuamaker. Ah! Heavens! A thrill

ran through his frame, and his fingers tingled with a delicious

electricity. The fair inconnue was there! He raised his hat

gracefully. He was not certain, but he thought that a slight motion of

her faultless bonnet betrayed recognition. He would have wildly darted

into the shop, but just then the figure of the mantuamaker appeared in

the doorway.

--Did Monsieur wish anything?

Misfortune! Desperation. N N. purchased a bottle of Prussic acid, a

sack of charcoal, and a quire of pink note-paper, and returned home.

He wrote a letter of farewell to the closely fitting basque, and opened

the bottle of Prussic acid.

Some one knocked at his door. It was a Chinaman, with his weekly linen.

These Chinese are docile, but not intelligent. They are ingenious, but

not creative. They are cunning in expedients, but deficient in tact.

In love they are simply barbarous. They purchase their wives openly,

and not constructively by attorney. By offering small sums for their

sweethearts, they degrade the value of the sex.

Nevertheless, N N. felt he was saved. He explained all to the faithful

Mongolian, and exhibited the letter he had written. He implored him to

deliver it.

The Mongolian assented. The race are not cleanly or sweet-savored, but

N N. fell upon his neck. He embraced him with one hand, and closed his

nostrils with the other. Through him, he felt he clasped the

close-fitting basque.

The next day was one of agony and suspense. Evening came, but no

Mercy. N N. lit the charcoal. But, to compose his nerves, he closed

his door and first walked mildly up and down Montgomery Street. When

he returned, he found the faithful Mongolian on the steps.

--All lity!

These Chinese are not accurate in their pronunciation. They avoid the

r, like the English nobleman.

N N. gasped for breath. He leaned heavily against the Chinaman.

--Then you have seen her, Ching Long?

--Yes. All lity. She cum. Top side of house.

The docile barbarian pointed up the stairs, and chuckled.

--She here--impossible! Ah, Heaven! do I dream?

--Yes. All lity,--top side of house. Good by, John.

This is the familiar parting epithet of the Mongolian. It is

equivalent to our au revoir.

N N. gazed with a stupefied air on the departing servant.

He placed his hand on his throbbing heart. She here,--alone beneath

this roof. O Heavens, what happiness!

But how? Torn from her home. Ruthlessly dragged, perhaps, from her

evening devotions, by the hands of a relentless barbarian. Could she

forgive him?

He dashed frantically up the stairs. He opened the door. She was

standing beside his couch with averted face.

A strange giddiness overtook him. He sank upon his knees at the

threshold.

--Pardon, pardon. My angel, can you forgive me?

A terrible nausea now seemed added to the fearful giddiness. His

utterance grew thick and sluggish.

--Speak, speak, enchantress. Forgiveness is all I ask. My Love, my

Life!

She did not answer. He staggered to his feet. As he rose, his eyes

fell on the pan of burning charcoal. A terrible suspicion flashed

across his mind. This giddiness,--this nausea. The ignorance of the

barbarian. This silence. O merciful heavens! she was dying!

He crawled toward her. He touched her. She fell forward with a

lifeless sound upon the floor. He uttered a piercing shriek, and threw

himself beside her.

* * * * *

A file of gendarmes, accompanied by the Chef Burke, found him the next

morning lying lifeless upon the floor. They laughed brutally,--these

cruel minions of the law,--and disengaged his arm from the waist of the

wooden dummy which they had come to reclaim for the mantuamaker.

Emptying a few bucketfuls of water over his form, they finally

succeeded in robbing him, not only of his mistress, but of that Death

he had coveted without her.

Ah! we live in a strange world, Messieurs.

FANTINE.

AFTER THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.

PROLOGUE.

As long as there shall exist three paradoxes, a moral Frenchman, a

religious Atheist, and a believing sceptic; so long, in fact, as

booksellers shall wait--say twenty-five years--for a new gospel; so

long as paper shall remain cheap and ink three sous a bottle, I have no

hesitation in saying that such books as these are not utterly

profitless.

VICTOR HUGO.

I.

To be good is to be queer. What is a good man? Bishop Myriel.

My friend, you will possibly object to this. You will say you know

what a good man is. Perhaps you will say your clergyman is a good man,

for instance.

Bah! you are mistaken; you are an Englishman, and an Englishman is a

beast.

Englishmen think they are moral when they are only serious. These

Englishmen also wear ill-shaped hats, and dress horribly!

Bah! they are canaille.

Still, Bishop Myriel was a good man,--quite as good as you. Better

than you, in fact.

One day M. Myriel was in Paris. This angel used to walk about the

streets like any other man. He was not proud, though fine-looking.

Well, three gamins de Paris called him bad names. Says one:--

"Ah, mon Dieu! there goes a priest; look out for your eggs and

chickens!"

What did this good man do? He called to them kindly.

"My children," said he, "this is clearly not your fault. I recognize

in this insult and irreverence only the fault of your immediate

progenitors. Let us pray for your immediate progenitors."

They knelt down and prayed for their immediate progenitors.

The effect was touching.

The Bishop looked calmly around.

"On reflection," said he, gravely, "I was mistaken; this is clearly the

fault of Society. Let us pray for Society."

They knelt down and prayed for Society.

The effect was sublimer yet. What do you think of that? You, I mean.

Everybody remembers the story of the Bishop and Mother Nez Retrousse.

Old Mother Nez Retrouse sold asparagus. She was poor; there's a great

deal of meaning in that word, my friend. Some people say "poor but

honest." I say, Bah!

Bishop Myriel bought six bunches of asparagus. This good man had one

charming failing; he was fond of asparagus. He gave her a franc and

received three sous change.

The sous were bad,--counterfeit. What did this good Bishop do? He

said: "I should not have taken change from a poor woman."

Then afterwards, to his housekeeper: "Never take change from a poor

woman."

Then he added to himself: "For the sous will probably be bad."

II.

When a man commits a crime, society claps him in prison. A prison is

one of the worst hotels imaginable. The people there are low and

vulgar. The butter is bad, the coffee is green. Ah, it is horrible!

In prison, as in a bad hotel, a man soon loses, not only his morals,

but what is much worse to a Frenchman, his sense of refinement and

delicacy.

Jean Valjean came from prison with confused notions of society. He

forgot the modern peculiarities of hospitality. So he walked off with

the Bishop's candlesticks.

Let us consider: candlesticks were stolen; that was evident. Society

put Jean Valjean in prison; that was evident, too. In prison, Society

took away his refinement; that is evident, likewise.

Who is Society?

You and I are Society.

My friend, you and I stole those candlesticks!

III.

The Bishop thought so, too. He meditated profoundly for six days. On

the morning of the seventh he went to the Prefecture of Police.

He said: "Monsieur, have me arrested. I have stolen candlesticks."

The official was governed by the law of Society, and refused.

What did this Bishop do?

He had a charming ball and chain made, affixed to his leg, and wore it

the rest of his life.

This is a fact!

IV.

Love is a mystery.

A little friend of mine down in the country, at Auvergne, said to me

one day: "Victor, Love is the world,--it contains everything."

She was only sixteen, this sharp-witted little girl, and a beautiful

blonde. She thought everything of me.

Fantine was one of those women who do wrong in the most virtuous and

touching manner. This is a peculiarity of French grisettes.

You are an Englishman, and you don't understand. Learn, my friend,

learn. Come to Paris and improve your morals.

Fantine was the soul of modesty. She always wore high-neck dresses.

High-neck dresses are a sign of modesty.

Fantine loved Tholmoyes. Why? My God! What are you to do? It was

the fault of her parents, and she hadn't any. How shall you teach her?

You must teach the parent if you wish to educate the child. How would

you become virtuous?

Teach your grandmother!

V.

When Tholmoyes ran away from Fantine,--which was done in a charming,

gentlemanly manner,--Fantine became convinced that a rigid sense of

propriety might look upon her conduct as immoral. She was a creature of

sensitiveness,--and her eyes were opened.

She was virtuous still, and resolved to break off the liaison at once.

So she put up her wardrobe and baby in a bundle. Child as she was, she

loved them both. Then left Paris.

VI.

Fantine's native place had changed.

M. Madeline--an angel, and inventor of jet work--had been teaching the

villagers how to make spurious jet.

This is a progressive age. Those Americans,--children of the

West,--they make nutmegs out of wood.

I, myself, have seen hams made of pine, in the wigwams of those

children of the forest.

But civilization has acquired deception too. Society is made up of

deception. Even the best French society.

Still there was one sincere episode.

Eh?

The French Revolution!

VII.

M. Madeline was, if anything, better than Myriel.

M. Myriel was a saint. M. Madeline a good man.

M. Myriel was dead. M. Madeline was living.

That made all the difference.

M. Madeline made virtue profitable. I have seen it written:--

"Be virtuous and you will be happy."

Where did I see this written? In the modern Bible? No. In the Koran?

No. In Rousseau? No. Diderot? No. Where then?

In a copy-book.

VIII.

M. Madeline was M. le Maire.

This is how it came about.

For a long time he refused the honor. One day an old woman, standing

on the steps, said:--

"Bah, a good mayor is a good thing.

"You are a good thing.

"Be a good mayor."

This woman was a rhetorician. She understood inductive ratiocination.

IX.

When this good M. Madeline, whom the reader will perceive must have

been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to justice

as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was turned away

from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses from society.

Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:--

First her lover.

Then her child.

Then her place.

Then her hair.

Then her teeth.

Then her liberty.

Then her life.

What do you think of society after that? I tell you the present social

system is a humbug.

X.

This is necessarily the end of Fantine. There are other things that

will be stated in other volumes to follow. Don't be alarmed; there are

plenty of miserable people left.

Au revoir--my friend.

"LA FEMME."

AFTER THE FRENCH OF M. MICHELET.

I.

WOMEN AS AN INSTITUTION.

"If it were not for women, few of us would at present be in existence."

This is the remark of a cautious and discreet writer. He was also

sagacious and intelligent.

Woman! Look upon her and admire her. Gaze upon her and love her. If

she wishes to embrace you, permit her. Remember she is weak and you

are strong.

But don't treat her unkindly. Don't make love to another woman before

her face, even if she be your wife. Don't do it. Always be polite,

even should she fancy somebody better than you.

If your mother, my dear Amadis, had not fancied your father better than

somebody, you might have been that somebody's son. Consider this.

Always be a philosopher, even about women.

Few men understand women. Frenchmen, perhaps, better than any one

else. I am a Frenchman.

II.

THE INFANT.

She is a child--a little thing--an infant.

She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are

married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free--they are

married--perhaps--they love one another--who knows?

But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant--a small thing--a

trifle!

She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, and

positively ugly. She feels this keenly and cries. She weeps. Ah, my

God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are really

distressing.

Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously like

M. Alphonse de Lamartine in his Confessions.

If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will examine

her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even YOU,

misunderstand her.

Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her dimpled

arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a language of her

own. She says, "goo goo," and "ga ga."

She demands something--this infant!

She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be restored.

Restore her, Mother!

It is the first duty of a mother to restore her child!

III.

THE DOLL.

She is hardly able to walk; she already totters under the weight of a

doll.

It is a charming and elegant affair. It has pink cheeks and

purple-black hair. She prefers brunettes, for she has already, with

the quick knowledge of a French infant, perceived she is a blonde, and

that her doll cannot rival her. Mon Dieu, how touching! Happy child!

She spends hours in preparing its toilet. She begins to show her taste

in the exquisite details of its dress. She loves it madly, devotedly.

She will prefer it to bonbons. She already anticipates the wealth of

love she will hereafter pour out on her lover, her mother, her father,

and finally, perhaps, her husband.

This is the time the anxious parent will guide these first outpourings.

She will read her extracts from Michelet's L'Amour, Rousseau's Heloise,

and the Revue des deux Mondes.

IV.

THE MUD PIE.

She was in tears to-day.

She had stolen away from her bonne and was with some rustic infants.

They had noses in the air, and large, coarse hands and feet.

They had seated themselves around a pool in the road, and were

fashioning fantastic shapes in the clayey soil with their hands. Her

throat swelled and her eyes sparkled with delight as, for the first

time, her soft palms touched the plastic mud. She made a graceful and

lovely pie. She stuffed it with stones for almonds and plums. She

forgot everything. It was being baked in the solar rays, when madame

came and took her away.

She weeps. It is night, and she is weeping still.

V.

HER FIRST LOVE.

She no longer doubts her beauty. She is loved. She saw him secretly.

He is vivacious and sprightly. He is famous. He has already had an

affair with Finfin, the fille de chambre, and poor Finfin is desolate.

He is noble. She knows he is the son of Madame la Baronne Couturiere.

She adores him.

She affects not to notice him. Poor little thing! Hippolyte is

distracted--annihilated--inconsolable and charming.

She admires his boots, his cravat, his little gloves his exquisite

pantaloons--his coat, and cane.

She offers to run away with him. He is transported, but magnanimous.

He is wearied, perhaps. She sees him the next day offering flowers to

the daughter of Madame la Comtesse Blanchisseuse.

She is again in tears.

She reads Paul et Virginie. She is secretly transported. When she

reads how the exemplary young woman laid down her life rather than

appear en deshabille to her lover, she weeps again. Tasteful and

virtuous Bernardine de St. Pierre!--the daughters of France admire you!

All this time her doll is headless in the cabinet. The mud pie is

broken on the road.

VI.

THE WIFE.

She is tired of loving and she marries.

Her mother thinks it, on the whole, the best thing. As the day

approaches, she is found frequently in tears. Her mother will not

permit the affianced one to see her, and he makes several attempts to

commit suicide.

But something happens. Perhaps it is winter, and the water is cold.

Perhaps there are not enough people present to witness his heroism.

In this way her future husband is spared to her. The ways of

Providence are indeed mysterious. At this time her mother will talk

with her. She will offer philosophy. She will tell her she was

married herself.

But what is this new and ravishing light that breaks upon her? The

toilet and wedding clothes! She is in a new sphere.

She makes out her list in her own charming writing. Here it is. Let

every mother heed it.*

* * * * *

* * * * *

She is married. On the day after, she meets her old lover, Hippolyte.

He is again transported.

* The delicate reader will appreciate the omission of certain articles

for which English synonymes are forbidden.

VII.

HER OLD AGE.

A Frenchwoman never grows old.

MARY MCGILLUP.

A SOUTHERN NOVEL.

AFTER BELLE BOYD.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. A. S--LA.

INTRODUCTION.

"Will you write me up?"

The scene was near Temple Bar. The speaker was the famous rebel Mary

McGillup,--a young girl of fragile frame, and long, lustrous black

hair. I must confess that the question was a peculiar one, and, under

the circumstances, somewhat puzzling. It was true I had been kindly

treated by the Northerners, and, though prejudiced against them, was to

some extent under obligations to them. It was true that I knew little

or nothing of American politics, history, or geography. But when did

an English writer ever weigh such trifles? Turning to the speaker, I

inquired with some caution the amount of pecuniary compensation offered

for the work.

"Sir!" she said, drawing her fragile form to its full height, "you

insult me,--you insult the South."

"But look ye here, d'ye see--the tin--the blunt--the ready--the stiff;

you know. Don't ye see, we can't do without that, you know!"

"It shall be contingent on the success of the story," she answered

haughtily. "In the mean time take this precious gem." And drawing a

diamond ring from her finger, she placed it with a roll of MSS. in my

hands and vanished.

Although unable to procure more than L1 2s. 6 d. from an intelligent

pawnbroker to whom I stated the circumstances and with whom I pledged

the ring, my sympathies with the cause of a downtrodden and chivalrous

people were at once enlisted. I could not help wondering that in rich

England, the home of the oppressed and the free, a young and lovely

woman like the fair author of those pages should be obliged to thus

pawn her jewels--her marriage gift--for the means to procure her bread!

With the exception of the English aristocracy,--who much resemble

them,--I do not know of a class of people that I so much admire as the

Southern planters. May I become better acquainted with both!

Since writing the above, the news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination has

reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied with the

result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet there will be

men who will charge this act upon the chivalrous South. This leads me

to repeat a remark once before made by me in this connection which has

become justly celebrated. It is this:--

"It is usual, in cases of murder, to look for the criminal among those

who expect to be benefited by the crime. In the death of Lincoln, his

immediate successor in office alone receives the benefit of his dying."

If her Majesty Queen Victoria were assassinated, which Heaven forbid,

the one most benefited by her decease would, of course, be his Royal

Highness the Prince of Wales, her immediate successor. It would be

unnecessary to state that suspicion would at once point to the real

culprit, which would of course be his Royal Highness. This is logic.

But I have done. After having thus stated my opinion in favor of the

South, I would merely remark that there is One who judgeth all

things,--who weigheth the cause between brother and brother,--and

awardeth the perfect retribution; and whose ultimate decision I, as a

British subject, have only anticipated.

G. A. S.

CHAPTER I.

Every reader of Belle Boyd's narrative will remember an allusion to a

"lovely, fragile-looking girl of nineteen," who rivalled Belle Boyd in

devotion to the Southern cause, and who, like her, earned the enviable

distinction of being a "rebel spy."

I am that "fragile" young creature. Although on friendly terms with

the late Miss Boyd, now Mrs. Hardinge, candor compels me to state that

nothing but our common politics prevents me from exposing the

ungenerous spirit she has displayed in this allusion. To be dismissed

in a single paragraph after years of-- But I anticipate. To put up

with this feeble and forced acknowledgment of services rendered would

be a confession of a craven spirit, which, thank God, though "fragile"

and only "nineteen," I do not possess. I may not have the "blood of a

Howard" in my veins, as some people, whom I shall not disgrace myself

by naming, claim to have, but I have yet to learn that the race of

McGillup ever yet brooked slight or insult. I shall not say that

attention in certain quarters seems to have turned SOME PEOPLE'S heads;

nor that it would have been more delicate if certain folks had kept

quiet on the subject of their courtship, and the rejection of certain

offers, when it is known that their forward conduct was all that

procured them a husband! Thank heaven, the South has some daughters

who are above such base considerations! While nothing shall tempt me

to reveal the promises to share equally the fame of certain

enterprises, which were made by one who shall now be nameless, I have

deemed it only just to myself to put my own adventures upon record. If

they are not equal to those of another individual, it is because,

though "fragile," my education has taught me to have some consideration

for the truth. I am done.

CHAPTER II.

I was born in Missouri. My dislike for the Northern scum was inherent.

This was shown, at an early age, in the extreme distaste I exhibited

for Webster's spelling-book,--the work of a well-known Eastern

Abolitionist. I cannot be too grateful for the consideration shown by

my chivalrous father,--a gentleman of the old school,--who resisted to

the last an attempt to introduce Mitchell's Astronomy and Geography

into the public school of our district. When I state that this same

Mitchell became afterward a hireling helot in the Yankee Army, every

intelligent reader will appreciate the prophetic discrimination of this

true son of the South.

I was eight years old when I struck the first blow for Southern freedom

against the Northern Tyrant. It is hardly necessary to state that in

this instance the oppressor was a pale, overworked New England

"schoolmarm." The principle for which I was contending, I felt,

however, to be the same. Resenting an affront put upon me, I one day

heaved a rock* at the head of the Vandal schoolmistress. I was seized

and overpowered. My pen falters as I reach the climax. English

readers will not give credit to this sickening story,--the civilized

world will avert its head,--but I, Mary McGillup, was publicly SPANKED!

* NOTE, BY G. A. S.--In the Southwest, any stone larger than a pea is

termed "a rock."

CHAPTER III.

But the chaotic vortex of civil war approached, and fell destruction,

often procrastinated, brooded in storm.* As the English people may

like to know what was really the origin of the rebellion, I have no

hesitation in giving them the true and only cause. Slavery had nothing

to do with it, although the violation of the Declaration of

Independence, in the disregard by the North of the Fugitive Slave

Law,** might have provoked a less fiery people than the Southrons. At

the inception of the struggle a large amount of Southern indebtedness

was held by the people of the North. To force payment from the

generous but insolvent debtor--to obtain liquidation from the Southern

planter--was really the soulless and mercenary object of the craven

Northerners. Let the common people of England look to this. Let the

improvident literary hack; the starved impecunious Grub Street debtor;

the newspaper frequenter of sponging-houses, remember this in their

criticisms of the vile and slavish Yankee.

* I make no pretension to fine writing, but perhaps Mrs. Hardinge can

lay over that. O, of course! M. McG.

** The Declaration of Independence grants to each subject "the pursuit

of life, liberty, and happiness." A fugitive slave may be said to

personify "life, liberty, and happiness." Hence his pursuit is really

legal. This is logic. G. A. S.

CHAPTER IV.

The roasting of an Abolitionist, by a greatly infuriated community, was

my first taste of the horrors of civil war. Heavens! Why will the

North persist in this fratricidal warfare? The expulsion of several

Union refugees, which soon followed, now fairly plunged my beloved

State in the seething vortex.

I was sitting at the piano one afternoon, singing that stirring

refrain, so justly celebrated, but which a craven spirit, unworthy of

England, has excluded from some of her principal restaurants, and was

dwelling with some enthusiasm on the following line:--

"Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!"

when a fragment of that scum, clothed in that detestable blue uniform

which is the symbol of oppression, entered the apartment. "I have the

honor of addressing the celebrated rebel spy, Miss McGillup," said the

Vandal officer.

In a moment I was perfectly calm. With the exception of slightly

expectorating twice in the face of the minion, I did not betray my

agitation. Haughtily, yet firmly, I replied:--

"I am."

"You looked as if you might be," the brute replied, as he turned on his

heel to leave the apartment.

In an instant I threw myself before him. "You shall not leave here

thus," I shrieked, grappling him with an energy which no one, seeing my

frail figure, would have believed. "I know the reputation of your

hireling crew. I read your dreadful purpose in your eye. Tell me not

that your designs are not sinister. You came here to insult me,--to

kiss me, perhaps. You sha'n't,--you naughty man. Go away!"

The blush of conscious degradation rose to the cheek of the Lincoln

hireling as he turned his face away from mine.

In an instant I drew my pistol from my belt, which, in anticipation of

some such outrage, I always carried, and shot him.

CHAPTER V.

"Thy forte was less to act than speak,

Maryland!

Thy politics were changed each week,

Maryland!

With Northern Vandals thou wast meek,

With sympathizers thou wouldst shriek,

I know thee--O, 'twas like thy cheek!

Maryland! my Maryland!"

After committing the act described in the preceding chapter, which

every English reader will pardon, I went up stairs, put on a clean pair

of stockings, and, placing a rose in my lustrous black hair, proceeded

at once to the camp of Generals Price and Mosby to put them in

possession of information which would lead to the destruction of a

portion of the Federal Army. During a great part of my flight I was

exposed to a running fire from the Federal pickets of such coarse

expressions as, "Go it, Sally Reb," "Dust it, my Confederate beauty,"

but I succeeded in reaching the glorious Southern camp uninjured.

In a week afterwards I was arrested, by a lettre de cachet of Mr.

Stanton, and placed in the Bastile. British readers of my story will

express surprise at these terms, but I assure them that not only these

articles but tumbrils, guillotines, and conciergeries were in active

use among the Federals. If substantiation be required, I refer to the

Charleston Mercury, the only reliable organ, next to the New York Daily

News, published in the country. At the Bastile I made the acquaintance

of the accomplished and elegant author of Guy Livingstone,* to whom I

presented a curiously carved thigh-bone of a Union officer, and from

whom I received the following beautiful acknowledgment:--

"Demoiselle:--Should I ever win hame to my ain countrie, I make mine

avow to enshrine in my reliquaire this elegant bijouterie and offering

of La Belle Rebelle. Nay, methinks this fraction of man's anatomy were

some compensation for the rib lost by the 'grand old gardener,' Adam."

* The recent conduct of Mr. Livingstone renders him unworthy of my

notice. His disgusting praise of Belle Boyd, and complete ignoring of

my claims, show the artfulness of some females and puppyism of some

men. M. McG.

CHAPTER VI.

Released at last from durance vile and placed on board of an Erie

canal-boat, on my way to Canada, I for a moment breathed the sweets of

liberty. Perhaps the interval gave me opportunity to indulge in

certain reveries which I had hitherto sternly dismissed. Henry

Breckinridge Folair, a consistent copperhead, captain of the

canal-boat, again and again pressed that suit I had so often rejected.

It was a lovely moonlight night. We sat on the deck of the gliding

craft. The moonbeam and the lash of the driver fell softly on the

flanks of the off horse, and only the surging of the tow-rope broke the

silence. Folair's arm clasped my waist. I suffered it to remain.

Placing in my lap a small but not ungrateful roll of checkerberry

lozenges, he took the occasion to repeat softly in my ear the words of

a motto he had just unwrapped--with its graceful covering of the tissue

paper--from a sugar almond. The heart of the wicked little rebel, Mary

McGillup, was won!

The story of Mary McGillup is done. I might have added the journal of

my husband, Henry Breckinridge Folair, but as it refers chiefly to his

freights, and a schedule of his passengers, I have been obliged,

reluctantly, to suppress it.

It is due to my friends to say that I have been requested not to write

this book. Expressions have reached my ears, the reverse of

complimentary. I have been told that its publication will probably

insure my banishment for life. Be it so. If the cause for which I

labored have been subserved, I am content.

LONDON, May, 1865.