back and inform Miss Scragg of the fact. She will go into hysterics, and
I shall get a job.” And so saying, the apothecary mounted his horse, and
followed in Rattle’s track.
“What have you done with the killed, Mr. Buzz?”
“Oh, we have skinned him, and hung him up to dry, to be sure. One of the
gents _would_ have a slice of him for dinner, but he found it rather
tough eating I suspect; not quite equal to the ducks.”
“What!” exclaimed Fuzz, turning pale and starting back with horror. “Are
they cannibals?”
“Yes, to be sure,” responded Buzz, who did not fully comprehend the
question.
“Gentlemen, we must pursue the guilty fugitives,” said the squire. “What
direction did they take, landlord? No equivocation, sir. The law will
bear us out in adopting the most rigorous measures. Where are they?”
“Bless me, they are cosily seated at dinner in my little back parlor. I
wouldn’t interrupt them now. It may make them mad.”
“Landlord! Lead us to them at once—at once, I say,” exclaimed Fuzz,
turning very red about the gills.
“Well, squire, don’t talk so loud. I will show you the way, but mind
that I say I shouldn’t wonder if they resented it.”
Buzz led the way through a long entry to a door, which he pointed out to
the squire as communicating with the apartment where the “young
gentlemen” were assembled. It needed not his words to convince Fuzz and
his two remaining companions of this fact. A noise of uproarious mirth,
mingled with the jingling of glasses, the clash of plates and the
stamping of feet, plainly foretold the state of things within. Fuzz
buttoned his coat, and tried to look undismayed.
“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “stand by me. Don’t flinch.”
He made a bold step forward, but as his palm approached the door-handle,
an explosion of laughter, loud and long, made him recoil like a man who
has barely saved himself from falling over a precipice. He looked at his
associates, puffed out his cheeks, and seemed to be gathering energy for
a renewed essay. Again he stopped suddenly, and assuming a look of
unwonted sagacity, remarked that it was best to proceed gently and
craftily about the business. Then motioning the bystanders to keep
silence, he cautiously turned the handle of the door, and, opening it an
inch or two, stealthily looked in upon the convivial party. It consisted
of four nice young men. They were seated at a round table, which was
plentifully covered with bottles, decanters, glasses, and the remains of
a dessert. Two of the party were strangers to Fuzz, but the other two
were, marvellous to behold, no other than Fobb and Snobb, not seamed
with ghastly wounds, but quaffing champagne and clapping each other on
the back with the affectionate familiarity of old friends.
At this spectacle, Fuzz was no less amazed than he would have been, had
he seen one of the editors trussed, spitted and “done to a turn,” served
up in a big dish on the table, while the other was flourishing his knife
with the savory anticipation of making a meal of him. Cautiously
shutting the door, Fuzz communicated the astounding fact to his brethren
of the committee, and then reopening the door so that they might hear
without seeing or being seen, they listened “with all their ears.”
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the voice of Fobb in tones of mock solemnity,
“you behold in that abandoned individual, my unworthy brother Zeke
Peabody, otherwise known as Simon Snobb—you behold in him, I repeat,
the ruthless, unhung murderer of the unfortunate Amanda W——.”
Here a roar of obstreperous laughter, in which Snobb’s lungs seemed to
crow like chanticleer, interrupted the speaker for a moment. He
continued:
“If you ask me for proofs, consider for a moment the fact of the red
silk handkerchief—the white crape scarf—the old pruning-knife that was
found under the cherry-tree. If these circumstances be not enough to
convict that cowering culprit—then pass along the champagne, and fill
to my toast.”
“Fill to Fobb’s toast!” exclaimed three voices amid shouts of laughter.
“My toast,” said Fobb, “is one that cannot fail to be appreciated by
this intelligent company. You, my dear Timms, will drink to it with a
tear in your eye, for are you not the immortal inventor of the
world-renowned Tricogrophpophphlogidion, that invaluable and
never-to-be-sufficiently-commended preparation for the hair, by merely
spreading which over a wig-block, you find there the next morning, a
beautiful, curly wig, redundant and glossy? And you, O modest and
retiring Jones, are not you the man that, by your grandfather’s
celebrated pills, have rejuvenated suffering humanity? Have you not
‘floored consumption,’ and broken the back of dispepsia? Isn’t it a
man’s own fault now if he is sick? Do not children cry for your
incomparable lozenges? Are they not a blessing to mothers, and a curse
to the doctors? Cannot a hand-cart-man, with your powerful ‘poor man’s
plaster’ on his back, draw fifty times the weight that he could without
it? Estimable, philanthropic Jones! Posterity will do you justice. And
you, brother Zeke, in Tattletown known as Snobb, where shall we find an
editor in the country who can fight windmills and make people think they
are devouring despots with a better grace than yourself? My own
accomplishments modesty forbids me to speak at length; but I flatter
myself, that the story of Amanda W—— and the pruning-knife—and my
eloquent denunciations of the monster, Snobb—are not unworthy specimens
of those talents which entitle me to rank myself in your fraternity, and
to participate in the emotions, which the sentiment I am now about to
offer is calculated to excite. I will give you, gentlemen: _Vive la
humbug!_”
Hardly had the peals of laughter consequent upon this prolonged sally
subsided, when Fuzz, who was holding on to the door by the handle, being
pressed upon from behind by his own companions, and two or three
bar-room loungers, whom the sound of speech-making had attracted to the
spot, suddenly let the handle slip from his grasp, whereupon the whole
body of eaves-droppers, preceded by the squire, were precipitated into
the room, where the two editors and their friends were at their revels.
Imagining it to be a hostile invasion, the four friends, whose tempers
had been pretty well primed with champagne, immediately “squared off,”
and showed their “science.”
Fuzz was greeted by Timms with what the latter was pleased to call “a
settler in his bread-basket,” which had the effect of lifting him from
his feet, and spinning him into a corner of the room with a most
unmagisterial celerity. Mr. Ponder, the “celebrated lecturer on matters
and things in general,” was attended to in the most prompt manner by
Jones, who, as he technically expressed himself, “punished him by a dig
in his dice-box,” meaning that his blow took effect somewhere in the
region of his teeth. As for Rumble, the auctioneer, he was knocked down
by a bottle in the hand of Snobb, like an old remnant of goods disposed
of under his own hammer. The rest of the invaders met with due attention
from Fobb, who broke two chairs over as many heads.
The battle was speedily fought and won. The committee sent by the select
men of Tattletown returned home that night in melancholy disarray, and
imprecating vengeance upon their assailants. There was an immediate
demand in the village for brown paper and vinegar, court plaster and
lint. It was long before Mr. Ponder could deliver another lecture at the
new Lyceum, owing to the disfigurement of his countenance. As for Snobb
and Fobb, who were in fact the originators of the whole mischief, they
issued no more numbers of their sprightly papers. The “Independent,” and
the “Free and Independent” were abruptly stopped. The two brother
editors were never more seen in Tattletown. The last I heard of them,
one was lecturing on Animal Magnetism, while the other accompanied him
as a subject for his experiments. Their wonderful feats in clairvoyance
have been so trumpeted by the country press, that it is unnecessary for
me to allude to them more minutely.
* * * * *
THE OLD MAN RETURNED HOME.
BY G. G. FOSTER.
The dews fall softly from the dropping skies,
And winds are dallying with the wanton flowers,
That like young maidens in their coy retreats
Unveil their beauties for the spirit stars
Alone to gaze on.—Age, they say, dries up
The fountain of enthusiasm, and the hues
That morning sunlight pictures in the wave,
Shrink like scared spirits away beneath the disc
Of noontide sun, or evening’s cheerless beam.
Now, I have seen old Time’s retreating tide
Leave its white froth upon me—aye, gray hairs
Have sprung from out the furrows of my brain,
As weeds will grow upon the o’erwrought soil,
To tell me that I’m _old_—bid me put off
The misty mantle of life’s morning dreams,
And plod in dull indifference to the grave.
Why, ’tis a lie! I feel the air as fresh—
I scent the fragrance of this beauteous eve
As gratefully—I watch the paling moon
Stealing to her magnificent repose
Behind the starry curtains of the west,
With as unchanged and vigorous delight
As when, a boy, beside my own dear lake
I lay, and saw the same moon kiss the wave
That in strange music murmured out its joy.
The whippoorwill amid the hazel boughs
Sings his old tunes _unchanged_—as are the leaves
And skies and waves that echo it. ’Tis _man_,
And not man’s real _nature_, which dims o’er
The gold of feeling with pernicious rust,
Drawn, like the poison of the asp, from flowers
Which spring forever, would he cherish them,
Within his heart of hearts.
What! I grow old?
I haven’t felt so young for forty years!
And, were it not my mother’s hair is white—
My father dead, and all that’s _human_, changed—
I’d deem the past but as a school-boy’s dream
Over an ill-conned lesson—and awake
To the reality of living joy.
* * * * *
STANZAS
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.
BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.
“I have a passion” for the budding Spring,
Who clasps the wanton Earth in her embrace,
For, like a glorious vision, she doth bring
Rich fruits and flowers, which the tropics grace;
And shining bands, that make our forests ring
With melodies so rich, that they efface
All thoughts of gloomy winter from my mind,
And leave my heart as free as is the summer wind!
“I have a passion” for the girdled mountain,
That rears its crowned head beneath the sky,
Which bends above it like a blue, sealed fountain,
Whose waters flow not in those realms on high!
Though many of these hours I cannot count on,
Yet when these glories meet mine eager eye,
I stand entranced upon the mount or lea,
For hours like these are years—are years of bliss to me!
But more than these, I love the restless sea,
The kingly element!—Its dark blue waves
Were ever like some gentle friends to me!
For oft, in dreams, I’ve wandered through its caves
Like some pale spirit of the dead, now free;
I’ve seen the bright, but tombless “place of graves,”
Where Ocean gathers all his dead to sleep,
The pale and shadowy sleep, which Death’s phantasms keep!
“I have a passion” for all lovely features
That deck fair nature’s ever glowing face;
Rocks, hills and waves to me seem glorious creatures,
Endowed with life, and majesty, and grace!
They are to us as everlasting teachers,
In whose revealings, truths divine we trace;
They bid us raise, when sad, our tearful eyes,
And seek perfection only ’mid the blissful skies.
* * * * *
THE BACHELOR’S EXPERIMENT.
BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.
There are some persons in the world who seem born to evil fortune; they
grow up under the shadow of care, and misfortune dogs their footsteps
like a sleuth-hound eager for his prey. Reversing the old fable of King
Midas, every thing they touch becomes valueless. Their best efforts are
rewarded with disappointment,—their life is a perpetual
struggle,—troubles come not in a host which might be confronted at
once, but in slow and sure succession, one evil being overcome only to
make room for another, until at length the energies of the worn spirit
are all exhausted, and patient endurance is the only trace which still
remains of the high capabilities with which it was originally gifted.
But there are others who are decidedly born to good luck. (Poor Power!
how do we check the career of laughter with a sigh, when some passing
word recalls the inimitable skill with which he ruled the chords of
mirth!) There are people to whom success is a sort of natural
inheritance,—who never put forth a finger to beckon fortune onwards,
and yet find her following in their track, dropping her golden favours
in their way, and smoothing with obsequious care the asperities in their
path of life. Such an one was the hero of the following sketch.
Mr. Simon D. Waldie, or rather S. De Courcy Waldie, (for thus he always
wrote it; having rather a leaning towards aristocracy even in the
trifling matter of names,) was the son of a highly respectable merchant,
who, conscious of the defects in his own early education, determined to
bestow on his child all the advantages of scholarship. As young De
Courcy exhibited evidences of talent, and indeed was looked upon as a
remarkably precocious boy ere he attained his fifth year, he was early
banished from his paternal roof to the residence of a private tutor in
the country. This plan was adopted in order to rescue him from the
temptations to idleness which exist in large schools, and, so far, it
was very judicious. But to a constitution naturally delicate and a
temper exceedingly reserved, a public school offered some advantages
which were not to be found in the home of a secluded student, and the
want of which had no small influence on the future life of young De
Courcy. Shut out from other companionship than that of his pedantic
tutor, he devoted himself to study with most indefatigable zeal, and his
close application was rewarded by the attainment of the highest honours,
when called to pass through the ordeal of a collegiate examination.
Of course all those who were interested in his future welfare
anticipated great results from this early development of mind. But in
the education of the young student one most material point had been
forgotten. He had been taught to labor but no object had been offered to
his future attainment:—he had learned to delve the classic mine but he
knew not how to coin the fine gold he there discovered:—he had been
trained to run a race without having any fixed goal to direct his steps.
His life was a perfectly aimless one,—he had no definite end in view.
His father’s competent fortune placed him above the necessity of seeking
a livelihood, and nothing short of absolute want seemed likely to drive
the solitary student into the haunts of men. When desired to choose a
profession he was utterly confounded. The various claims of Law, Gospel
and Physic were placed before him in every possible light; but they were
exhibited after his habits of desultory thought and profitless study had
become too deeply rooted. At first he was inclined to adopt the law; but
a few days attendance on court, (where he heard the finest powers of
reasoning and the noblest gifts of eloquence exerted in behalf of one of
the vilest criminals that ever stood before the bar of Justice,)
sickened him of this profession. “I cannot spend some of the best years
of my life,” said he, “in learning to make the worse appear the better
reason.” The delight with which he sometimes listened to the gifted
preacher, who spoke as if his lips had been ‘touched with a live coal
from the altar,’ tempted him to the study of divinity. But his delicate
sense of duty checked the impulse ere it became a wish, for he dared not
assume the ‘form’ without the ‘spirit of godliness’ or enter into the
‘holy of holies’ with the soil of earth upon his garments’ hem. The
study of medicine attracted him by the facilities which it afforded for
relieving the sufferings of mortality; but the illness of a young friend
showed him the darker side of the picture also. He beheld the weeping
relatives looking up to the medical attendant as if he were an angel
endowed with the power of life and death. He learned how fearful is the
responsibility of him who ministers at the bed of sickness, and how
deeply it is felt by the honest and conscientious physician. He was
disgusted with the heartlessness of those (and there are such) who
calculate a patient’s means of payment ere they enter his sick room; and
he was intimidated by the remembrance of the wear and tear of feeling
which is necessarily suffered by the man of science who puts heart and
soul into his duties at the couch of suffering. Commerce, De Courcy
abhorred, for the details of its busy scenes were little suited to his
reserved habits and refined tastes. Viewed in its fairest light he
recognised it as a noble calling, but those who pursued it were but too
apt to wander with idolatry and bow down before the golden calf.
So the youth hesitated, and deferred his decision, passing his days amid
his books in the seclusion of his study until his habits of reverie were
rather rudely broken by the sudden death of his father. This startled
him from his torpor and had he been then called to enter upon the active
duties of life, might have aroused him more effectually. But the elder
Mr. Waldie had been one of those careful bodies who trust nothing to
chance. Every thing was in such perfect order, his business was so
admirably arranged, and his will was so precise in its directions that
De Courcy had nothing to do and little to reflect upon. The head clerk
assumed the business and purchased the stock in trade,—the income of
the property was bequeathed to mother and son during life with a
reversion of the whole estate to the survivor, and after the legal forms
had been properly attended to, every thing went on in its usual manner.
The only perceptible difference was that when rents, or interests on
bonds and mortgages became due the bold and flourishing signature of S.
De Courcy Waldie was appended to the receipts instead of the cramped and
queer hieroglyphics which were formerly presumed to designate the name
of his parent.
There was something in the mode of life peculiarly calculated to cherish
the secluded habits of De Courcy Waldie. Their abode was situated in one
of those narrow gloomy streets, where the sun is only visible at
noonday,—a street which formed, in old times, a portion of the
‘court-end’ of the city, but which is now occupied principally by
elderly proprietors or decayed gentlewomen, who, compelled to live on a
small income, yet unwilling to appear shorn of their former honors,
haunt the scenes of their youthful gaiety, and affect to despise the
upstart ‘nobodies’ of B—— Street and —— Place. The tall, dusky
houses stand wedged in close array, looking upon their opposite
neighbors like a row of their old time-worn spinsters in an old
fashioned contra-dance; in one of these sleepy-looking mansions, resided
the Waldie family. Every thing in the house bore evidences of Dutch
neatness in housekeeping. The faded but unworn carpets were the same
which had been the wonder of the neighborhood when the parents of our
hero were first married; the carved chairs belonged to that
perpendicular race now rarely to be found except in rubbish rooms; the
narrow necked china jars on the high chimney-piece were relics of a
by-gone age; and the tall clock, standing in the very spot where it had
been placed thirty years before, rolled its Ethiop eyes, and ticked its
monotonous warnings in a most drowsy and slumber-inducing voice. Dark
heavy curtains in winter, and yellow Venitian half-blinds in summer,
added to the gloomy appearance of apartments in which the sun never
shone. The sound of the clock, the low purr of the cat as she stretched
her overgrown body on the soft hearth-rug, and the dull clicking of Mrs.
Waldie’s knitting-needles, which she plied with unceasing assiduity,
alone broke the deep silence of the apartment, and the most sincere
votary of indolence could scarcely have imagined a more comfortable sort
of domestic “sleepy-hollow.”
Here would Mr. De Courcy Waldie sit hour after hour, pondering over some
learned treatise, digging out Greek roots, exhausting his ingenuity in
patching up some mutilated fragment of antiquity, and occasionally, by
way of light reading, arousing himself with the Latin Poets, but never
condescending to look into any thing which could not boast the musty
flavor of past ages, except the daily newspapers. It is not strange that
a man of such habits should soon learn to mistake _reverie_ for
_reflection_, and _feasible projects_ for _good resolutions_. There was
always something which he meant to do at some future time. He would tilt
himself back in his chair, plant his feet against the chimney-piece,
and, with a cigar in his mouth, indulge those vague and pleasant but
idle dreams, which such men are apt to dignify with the name of
thoughts. The household went on with a kind of mechanical regularity.
The important affairs of indoor life were managed by two old servants,
who, before the abolition of slavery in New York, had been the property
of Mr. Waldie, and had been carefully trained in all the duties of their
station, (a class, by the way, who make the very best domestics, but who
are now almost extinct; thanks to the spirit of philanthropy, which has
thrown them upon their own resources and left them to die by want, vice
and intemperance.) Mrs. Waldie walked into the kitchen every morning,
and gave, or fancied she gave directions for the day; but Dinah needed
no such watchfulness,—she knew her business and went about it as
regularly as if she were wound up like the clock every Saturday night.
In the early part of his life it had been suggested that De Courcy ought
to look out for a wife. But the idea of returning into a throng of giddy
giggling girls, was quite too trying to the poor youth’s feelings. He
was sometimes conscious of an emotion of pleasure when, as he sat at the
head of his pew in church, his eye fell upon the rosy cheek and bright
eye of some fair damsel. Yet he only admired at a respectful distance,
for a single word from a lady, or even the necessity of touching his hat
to her in the street, would crimson his face with the painful blush of
most officious modesty. If perchance he did venture to play the
agreeable to some female less volatile than her companions, his
constrained manner and pedantic compliments evinced a much more intimate
acquaintance with the Daphnes and Chloes of antiquity, than with the
luring, breathing, captivating beauties of the nineteenth century. By
degrees all hope of taming the shy young student was relinquished. His
female contemporaries married less intractable individuals, and long
before he had made up his mind as to the propriety of assuming the
responsibilities of wedlock, a second race of giggling girls was
springing up around him. However he seemed quite contented with his
celibacy. Perhaps some of my readers may consider this as a very
integral portion of the good fortune which had fallen to his lot, and
this I will not venture to dispute, for to a man of his dreamy temper
and indolent habits, a wife would have been a positive annoyance—unless
indeed, he could have found a sister to the inimitable “_fat boy_” of
Pickwick.