CHAPTER XIII.

HARPER'S

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

NO. X.--MARCH, 1851.--VOL. II.

SPRING.

BY JAMES THOMSON.

[Illustration: Come gentle Spring]

Come, gentle SPRING, ethereal mildness, come;

And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,

While music wakes around, vail'd in a shower

Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts

With unaffected grace, or walk the plain

With innocence and meditation join'd

In soft assemblage, listen to my song,

Which thy own season paints; when Nature all

Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.

And see where surly winter passes off

Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:

His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,

The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale;

While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,

Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,

The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.

As yet the trembling year is unconfirm'd,

And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,

Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets

Deform the day delightless; so that scarce

The bittern knows his time with bill engulf'd

To shake the sounding marsh; or, from the shore

The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,

And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.

At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,

And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more

The expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold;

But, full of life and vivifying soul,

Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,

Fleecy, and white, o'er all surrounding heaven.

Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfin'd,

Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.

Joyous, the impatient husbandman perceives

Relenting nature, and his lusty steers

Drives from their stalls to where the well-us'd plow

Lies in the furrow, loosen'd from the frost.

There, unrefusing, to the harness'd yoke

They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,

Cheer'd by the simple song and soaring lark.

Meanwhile, incumbent o'er the shining share

The master leans, removes the obstructing clay,

Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.

While, through the neighboring fields the sower stalks

With measur'd step; and, liberal, throws the grain

Into the faithful bosom of the ground:

The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.

[Illustration: Lend their shoulder, and begin their toil]

Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man

Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!

Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!

And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,

Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live

In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,

Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear:

Such themes as these the rural Maro sung

To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height

Of elegance and taste, by Greece refin'd.

In ancient times, the sacred plow employ'd

The kings and awful fathers of mankind;

And some, with whom compar'd your insect tribes

Are but the beings of a summer's day,

Have held the scale of empire, rul'd the storm

Of mighty war, then with victorious hand,

Disdaining little delicacies, seiz'd

The plow, and greatly independent scorn'd

All the vile stores corruption can bestow.

Ye generous Britons, venerate the plow!

And o'er your hills and long withdrawing vales

Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun,

Luxuriant and unbounded! As the sea,

Far through his azure turbulent domain,

Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores

Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports,

So with superior boon may your rich soil,

Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour

O'er every land, the naked nations clothe,

And be the exhaustless granary of a world!

[Illustration: Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports]

Nor only through the lenient air this change,

Delicious, breathes: the penetrative sun,

His force deep-darting to the dark retreat

Of vegetation, sets the steaming power

At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth,

In various hues; but chiefly thee, gay green!

Thou smiling Nature's universal robe!

United light and shade! where the sight dwells

With growing strength, and ever-new delight.

From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill,

Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs;

And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye.

The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves

Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,

Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,

In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales;

Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,

And the birds sing conceal'd. At once, array'd

In all the colors of the flushing year

By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,

The garden glows, and fills the liberal air

With lavish fragrance; while the promis'd fruit

Lies yet a little embryo, unperceiv'd,

Within its crimson folds. Now from the town,

Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,

Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,

Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops

From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze

Of sweetbrier hedges I pursue my walk;

Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend

Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,

And see the country, far diffus'd around,

One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower

Of mingled blossoms: where the raptur'd eye

Hurries from joy to joy; and, hid beneath

The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

[Illustration: The deer rustle through the brake]

If, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale

Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings

The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe

Untimely frost--before whose baleful blast

The full-blown Spring through all her foliage shrinks,

Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.

For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,

Myriads on myriads, insect armies waft

Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful eat,

Through buds and bark, into the blacken'd core

Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft

The sacred sons of vengeance! on whose course

Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year.

To check this plague, the skillful farmer chaff

And blazing straw before his orchard burns--

Till, all involv'd in smoke, the latent foe

From every cranny suffocated falls;

Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust

Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe;

Or, when the envenom'd leaf begins to curl,

With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest:

Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,

The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

[Illustration: Blazing straw before his orchard burns]

Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds

Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep, repress'd,

Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharg'd with rain,

That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

In endless train, would quench the summer blaze,

And, cheerless, drown the crude unripen'd year.

The northeast spends his rage, and now shut up

Within his iron caves--the effusive south

Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven

Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.

At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,

Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees,

In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapor sails

Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep,

Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom:

Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,

Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,

And full of every hope and every joy,

The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze

Into a perfect calm; that not a breath

Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,

Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves

Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffus'd

In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse

Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,

And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks

Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye

The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense,

The plumy people streak their wings with oil,

To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;

And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once,

Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,

And forests seem, impatient, to demand

The promis'd sweetness. Man superior walks

Amid the glad creation, musing praise,

And looking lively gratitude. At last,

The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,

And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool

Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,

In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world.

The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard

By such as wander through the forest walks,

Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.

But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends

In universal bounty, shedding herbs,

And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?

Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;

And, while the milky nutriment distills,

Beholds the kindling country color round.

[Illustration: The shower is scarce to patter heard]

Thus all day long the full-distended clouds

Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth

Is deep-enrich'd with vegetable life;

Till, in the western sky, the downward sun

Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush

Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.

The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes

The illumin'd mountain; through the forest streams;

Shakes on the floods; and in a yellow mist,

Far smoking o'er the interminable plain,

In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around

Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,

Mix'd in wild concert, with the warbling brooks

Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills,

The hollow lows responsive from the vales,

Whence blending all the sweeten'd zephyr springs

Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,

Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow

Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,

In fair proportion running from the red

To where the violet fades into the sky.

Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds

Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;

And to the sage-instructed eye unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd

From the white mingling maze. Not so the swain:

He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,

Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs

To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd

Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,

Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,

A soften'd shade; and saturated earth

Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,

Rais'd through ten thousand different plastic tubes,

The balmy treasures of the former day.

Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,

O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power

Of botanist to number up their tribes:

Whether he steals along the lonely dale,

In silent search; or through the forest, rank

With what the dull incurious weeds account,

Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain rock,

Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.

With such a liberal hand has Nature flung

Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,

Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mould

The moistening current, and prolific rain.

But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,

With vision pure, into these secret stores

Of health, and life, and joy? the food of man,

While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told

A length of golden years, unflesh'd in blood;

A stranger to the savage arts of life,

Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease--

The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.

[Illustration: While yet man lived in innocence]

The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladdened race

Of uncorrupted man, nor blushed to see

The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam;

For their light slumbers gently fum'd away,

And up they rose as vigorous as the sun.

Or to the culture of the willing glebe,

Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.

Meantime the song went round; and dance and sport,

Wisdom and friendly talk successive stole

Their hours away; while in the rosy vale

Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free,

And full replete with bliss; save the sweet pain

That, inly thrilling, but exalts it more

Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,

Was known among these happy sons of heaven;

For reason and benevolence were law.

Harmonious Nature, too, look'd smiling on.

Clear shone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales,

And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun

Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds

Dropp'd fatness down; as, o'er the swelling mead,

The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure.

This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,

The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart

Was meeken'd, and he join'd his sullen joy;

For music held the whole in perfect peace:

Soft sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard,

Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round

Applied their choir; and winds and waters flow'd

In consonance. Such were those prime of days.

[Illustration: The song went round, and dance]

But now those white unblemish'd minutes, whence

The fabling poets took their golden age,

Are found no more amid these iron times,

These dregs of life! Now the distemper'd mind

Has lost that concord of harmonious powers,

Which forms the soul of happiness; and all

Is off the poise within: the passions all

Have burst their bounds; and reason half-extinct,

Or impotent, or else approving, sees

The foul disorder. Senseless and deform'd,

Convulsive anger storms at large; or, pale

And silent, settles into fell revenge.

Base envy withers at another's joy,

And hates that excellence it can not reach.

Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full,

Weak and unmanly, loosens every power.

Even love itself is bitterness of soul,

A pensive anguish pining at the heart;

Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more

That noble wish, that never-cloy'd desire,

Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone

To bless the dearer object of its flame.

Hope sickens with extravagance; and grief,

Of life impatient, into madness swells,

Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours.

These, and a thousand mix'd emotions more,

From ever changing views of good and ill,

Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind

With endless storm; whence, deeply rankling, grows

The partial thought, a listless unconcern,

Cold, and averting from our neighbor's good;

Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles

Coward deceit, and ruffian violence.

At last, extinct each social feeling, fell

And joyless inhumanity pervades

And petrifies the heart. Nature disturb'd

Is deem'd, vindictive, to have chang'd her course.

Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came:

When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arch'd

The central waters round, impetuous rush'd,

With universal burst, into the gulf,

And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur'd earth

Wide-dash'd the waves, in undulation vast;

Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds,

A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.

The Seasons since have, with severer sway,

Oppress'd a broken world: the Winter keen

Shook forth his waste of snows; and Summer shot

His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before,

Green'd all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush'd,

In social sweetness, on the self-same bough.

Pure was the temperate air; an even calm

Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland

Breath'd o'er the blue expanse: for then nor storms

Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;

Sound slept the waters; no sulphureous glooms

Swell'd in the sky, and sent the lightning forth;

While sickly damps, and cold autumnal fogs,

Hung not, relaxing, on the springs of life.

But now, of turbid elements the sport,

From clear to cloudy toss'd, from hot to cold,

And dry to moist, with inward-eating change,

Our drooping days are dwindled down to naught,

Their period finish'd ere 'tis well begun.

And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies,

Though with the pure exhilarating soul

Of nutriment, and health, and vital powers,

Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious blest.

For, with hot ravin fir'd, ensanguin'd man

Is now become the lion of the plain,

And worse. The wolf, who from the nightly fold

Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drank her milk,

Nor wore her warming fleece; nor has the steer,

At whose strong chest the deadly tiger hangs,

E'er plow'd for him. They too are temper'd high,

With hunger stung and wild necessity;

Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.

But man, whom Nature form'd of milder clay,

With every kind emotion in his heart,

And taught alone to weep--while from her lap

She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs,

And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain

Or beams that gave them birth--shall he, fair form!

Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on heaven,

E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd,

And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey,

Blood-stain'd deserves to bleed; but you, ye flocks,

What have you done? ye peaceful people, what,

To merit death? you, who have given us milk

In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat

Against the Winter's cold? And the plain ox,

That harmless, honest, guileless animal,

In what has he offended? he, whose toil,

Patient and ever ready, clothes the land

With all the pomp of harvest?--shall he bleed,

And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands

Even of the clowns he feeds? and that, perhaps,

To swell the riot of the autumnal feast,

Won by his labor? This the feeling heart

Would tenderly suggest; but 'tis enough,

In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd

Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.

High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous strain,

Whose wisest will has fixed us in a state

That must not yet to pure perfection rise:

Beside, who knows, how rais'd to higher life,

From stage to stage, the vital scale ascends?

Now, when the first foul torrent of the brooks,

Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away--

And, whitening, down their mossy-tinctur'd stream

Descends the billowy foam--now is the time,

While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile,

To tempt the trout. The well dissembled fly,

The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring,

Snatch'd from the hoary steed the floating line,

And all thy slender watery stores, prepare.

But let not on thy hook the tortur'd worm,

Convulsive, twist in agonizing folds;

Which, by rapacious hunger swallow'd deep,

Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast

Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch,

Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand.

When, with his lively ray, the potent sun

Has pierc'd the streams, and rous'd the finny race

Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair;

Chief should the western breezes curling play,

And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds,

High to their fount, this day, amid the hills,

And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks,

The next, pursue their rocky-channel'd maze,

Down to the river, in whose ample wave

Their little naiads love to sport at large.

Just in the dubious point where with the pool,

Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils

Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank

Reverted plays in undulating flow,

There throw nice-judging, the delusive fly;

And, as you lead it round in artful curve,

With eye attentive mark the springing game.

Straight as above the surface of the flood

They wanton rise, or urg'd by hunger leap,

Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook;

Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,

And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some,

With various hand proportion'd to their force.

If yet too young, and easily deceived,

A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,

Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space

He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven,

Soft disengage, and back into the stream

The speckled infant throw. But should you lure

From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots

Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,

Behooves you then to ply your finest art.

Long time he, followed cautious, scans the fly,

And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft

The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.

At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun

Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death,

With sullen plunge. At once he darts along,

Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line

Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,

The cavern'd bank, his old secure abode;

And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,

Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,

That feels him still, yet to his furious course

Gives way, you, now retiring, following now

Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage;

Till floating broad upon his breathless side,

And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore

You gayly drag your unresisting prize.

[Illustration: Throw nice judging the delusive fly]

[Illustration: You gayly drag your unresisting prize]

Thus pass the temperate hours: but when the sun

Shakes from his noonday throne the scattering clouds,

Even shooting listless languor through the deeps,

Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd,

Where scatter'd wild the lily of the vale

Its balmy essence breathes, where cowslips hang

The dewy head, where purple violets lurk,

With all the lowly children of the shade;

Or lie reclin'd beneath yon spreading ash

Hung o'er the steep, whence borne on liquid wing

The sounding culver shoots; or where the hawk

High in the beetling cliff his eyry builds.

There let the classic page thy fancy lead

Through rural scenes, such as the Mantuan swain

Paints in the matchless harmony of song;

Or catch thyself the landscape, gliding swift

Athwart imagination's vivid eye;

Or, by the vocal woods and waters lull'd,

And lost in lonely musing, in a dream,

Confus'd, of careless solitude, where mix

Ten thousand wandering images of things,

Soothe every gust of passion into peace--

All but the swellings of the soften'd heart,

That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind.

Behold, yon breathing prospect bids the muse

Throw all her beauty forth. But who can paint

Like Nature? Can imagination boast,

Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,

And lose them in each other, as appears

In every bud that blows? If fancy, then,

Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task,

Ah, what shall language do? ah, where find words

Ting'd with so many colors; and whose power,

To life approaching, may perfume my lays

With that fine oil, those aromatic gales,

That inexhaustive flow continual round?

Yet, though successless, will the toil delight.

Come then, ye virgins and ye youths whose hearts

Have felt the raptures of refining love;

And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song!

Form'd by the Graces, loveliness itself!

Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet,

Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul--

Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd.

Shines lively fancy, and the feeling heart:

Oh come! and while the rosy-footed May

Steals blushing on, together let us tread

The morning dews, and gather in their prime

Fresh-blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hair

And thy lov'd bosom that improves their sweets.

[Illustration: Together let us tread the morning dews]

[Illustration: Gather fresh flowers to grace thy hair]

See, where the winding vale its lavish stores,

Irriguous, spreads. See, how the lily drinks

The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass,

Of growth luxuriant; or the humid bank,

In fair profusion, decks. Long let us walk,

Where the breeze blows from yon extended field,

Of blossom'd beans. Arabia can not boast

A fuller gale of joy than, liberal, thence

Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravish'd soul.

Nor is the mead unworthy of thy foot,

Full of fresh verdure, and unnumber'd flowers,

The negligence of Nature, wide and wild;

Where, undisguis'd by mimic art, she spreads

Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.

Here their delicious task the fervent bees,

In swarming millions, tend: around, athwart,

Through the soft air the busy nations fly,

Cling to the bud, and with inserted tube

Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul;

And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare

The purple heath, or where the wild-thyme grows,

And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.

At length the finish'd garden to the view

Its vistas opens, and its alleys green.

Snatch'd through the verdant maze, the hurried eye

Distracted wanders: now the bowery walk

Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day

Falls on the lengthen'd gloom, protracted sweeps;

Now meets the bending sky; the river now

Dimpling along, the breezy-ruffled lake,

The forest darkening round, the glittering spire,

The ethereal mountain, and the distant main.

But why so far excursive? when at hand,

Along these blushing borders, bright with dew,

And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers,

Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace:

Throws out the snow-drop and the crocus first;

The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue,

And polyanthus of unnumber'd dyes;

The yellow wallflower, stain'd with iron-brown;

And lavish stock, that scents the garden round;

From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,

Anemonies; auriculas, enrich'd

With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves:

And full ranunculus, of glowing red.

Then comes the tulip-race, where beauty plays

Her idle freaks: from family diffus'd

To family, as flies the father-dust,

The varied colors run; and, while they _break_

On the charm'd eye, the exulting florist marks,

With secret pride, the wonders of his hand.

No gradual bloom is wanting; from the bud,

First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes:

Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin-white,

Low-bent, and blushing inward; nor jonquils,

Of potent fragrance; nor narcissus fair,

As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still;

Nor broad carnations; nor gay-spotted pinks;

Nor, shower'd from every bush, the damask-rose.

Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells,

With hues on hues expression can not paint,

The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom.

[Illustration: The garden to the view its vistas open]

Hail, Source of Beings! Universal Soul

Of heaven and earth! Essential Presence, hail!

To thee I bend the knee; to thee my thoughts,

Continual, climb; who, with a master-hand,

Hast the great whole into perfection touch'd.

By thee the various vegetative tribes,

Wrapp'd in a filmy net, and clad with leaves,

Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew.

By thee dispos'd into congenial soils,

Stands each attractive plant, and sucks, and swells

The juicy tide; a twining mass of tubes.

At thy command the vernal sun awakes

The torpid sap, detruded to the root

By wintry winds, that now in fluent dance,

And lively fermentation, mounting, spreads.

All this innumerous-color'd scene of things.

As rising from the vegetable world

My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend,

My panting muse; and hark, how loud the woods

Invite you forth in all your gayest trim.

Lend me your song, ye nightingales! oh, pour

The mazy-running soul of melody

Into my varied verse! while I deduce,

From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings,

The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme

Unknown to fame--the passion of the groves.

When first the soul of love is sent abroad,

Warm through the vital air, and on the heart

Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin,

In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing;

And try again the long forgotten strain,

At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows

The soft infusion prevalent, and wide,

Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows

In music unconfin'd. Up springs the lark,

Shrill-voic'd and loud, the messenger of morn:

Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings

Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts

Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse

Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush

Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads

Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,

Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush

And woodlark, o'er the kind contending throng

Superior heard, run through the sweetest length

Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns

To let them joy, and purposes, in thought

Elate, to make her night excel their day.

The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake;

The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove;

Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze

Pour'd out profusely, silent: join'd to these

Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade

Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix

Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,

And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone,

Aid the full concert; while the stockdove breathes

A melancholy murmur through the whole.

'Tis love creates their melody, and all

This waste of music is the voice of love;

That even to birds and beasts the tender arts

Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind

Try every winning way inventive love

Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates

Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around,

With distant awe, in airy rings they rove,

Endeavoring by a thousand tricks to catch

The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance

Of their regardless charmer. Should she seem,

Softening, the least approvance to bestow,

Their colors burnish, and, by hope inspir'd,

They brisk advance; then, on a sudden struck,

Retire disorder'd; then again approach;

In fond rotation spread the spotted wing,

And shiver every feather with desire.

Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods

They haste away, all as their fancy leads,

Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts;

That Nature's great command may be obey'd:

Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive

Indulg'd in vain. Some to the holly-hedge

Nestling repair, and to the thicket some;

Some to the rude protection of the thorn

Commit their feeble offspring. The cleft tree

Offers its kind concealment to a few,

Their food its insects, and its moss their nests.

Others, apart, far in the grassy dale,

Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave

But most in woodland solitudes delight,

In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks,

Steep, and divided by a babbling brook.

Whose murmurs soothe them all the livelong day,

When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots

Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream,

They frame the first foundation of their domes;

Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,

And bound with clay together. Now 'tis naught

But restless hurry through the busy air,

Beat by unnumber'd wings. The swallow sweeps

The slimy pool, to build his hanging house

Intent. And often, from the careless back

Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills

Pluck hair and wool; and oft, when unobserv'd,

Steal from the barn a straw: till soft and warm,

Clean and complete, their habitation grows.

[Illustration: Hazel pendent o'er the plaintive stream]

As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,

Not to be tempted from her tender task,

Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight,

Though the whole loosen'd Spring around her blows

Her sympathizing lover takes his stand

High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings

The tedious time away; or else supplies

Her place a moment, while she sudden flits

To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time

With pious toil fulfill'd, the callow young,

Warm'd and expanded into perfect life,

Their brittle bondage break, and come to light

A helpless family, demanding food

With constant clamor. Oh, what passions then,

What melting sentiments of kindly care,

On the new parents seize! Away they fly.

Affectionate, and undesiring bear

The most delicious morsel to their young

Which equally distributed, again

The search begins. Even so a gentle pair,

By fortune sunk, but form'd of generous mould,

And charm'd with cares beyond the vulgar breast,

In some lone cot amid the distant woods,

Sustained alone by providential Heaven,

Oft, as they weeping eye their infant train,

Check their own appetites and give them all.

[Illustration: A gentle pair, by fortune sunk]

[Illustration: They weeping eye their infant train]

Nor toil alone they scorn: exalting love,

By the great Father of the Spring inspir'd

Gives instant courage to the fearful race,

And to the simple, art. With stealthy wing,

Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest,

Amid a neighboring bush they silent drop,

And whirring thence, as if alarm'd, deceive

The unfeeling schoolboy. Hence, around the head

Of wandering swain, the white-winged plover wheels

Her sounding flight, and then directly on

In long excursion skims the level lawn,

To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence,

O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste

The heath-hen flutters, pious fraud! to lead

The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray.

Be not the muse asham'd here to bemoan

Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man

Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage

From liberty confin'd, and boundless air.

Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull,

Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost;

Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes,

Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech.

Oh, then, ye friends of love and love-taught song,

Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear!

If on your bosom innocence can win,

Music engage, or piety persuade.

But let not chief the nightingale lament

Her ruin'd care, too delicately fram'd

To brook the harsh confinement of the cage.

Oft when, returning with her loaded bill,

The astonish'd mother finds a vacant nest,

By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns

Robb'd, to the ground the vain provision falls

Her pinions ruffle, and, low-drooping, scarce

Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade.

Where all abandon'd to despair she sings

Her sorrows through the night; and, on the bough

Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall

Takes up again her lamentable strain

Of winding woe, till wide around the woods

Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.

But now the feather'd youth their former bounds,

Ardent, disdain; and, weighing oft their wings,

Demand the free possession of the sky.

This one glad office more, and then dissolves

Parental love at once, now needless grown:

Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain.

'Tis on some evening, sunny, grateful, mild,

When naught but balm is breathing through the woods.

With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes

Visit the spacious heavens, and look abroad

On Nature's common, far as they can see,

Or wing their range and pasture. O'er the boughs

Dancing about, still at the giddy verge

Their resolution fails--their pinions still,

In loose liberation stretch'd, to trust the void

Trembling refuse--till down before them fly

The parent guides, and chide, exhort, command,

Or push them off. The surging air receives

The plumy burden; and their self-taught wings

Winnow the waving element. On ground

Alighted, bolder up again they lead,

Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight,

Till, vanish'd every fear, and every power

Rous'd into life and action, light in air

The acquitted parents see their soaring race,

And, once rejoicing, never know them more.

High from the summit of a craggy cliff,

Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns

On utmost Kilda's shore, whose lonely race

Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,

The royal eagle draws his vigorous young;

Strong-pounc'd, and ardent with paternal fire.

Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own,

He drives them from his fort, the towering seat,

For ages, of his empire; which, in peace,

Unstain'd he holds, while many a league to sea

He wings his course, and preys in distant isles.

Should I my steps turn to the rural seat,

Whose lofty elms and venerable oaks

Invite the rook, who high amid the boughs,

In early Spring, his airy city builds,

And ceaseless caws amusive--there, well pleas'd,

I might the various polity survey

Of the mix'd household-kind. The careful hen

Calls all her chirping family around,

Fed and defended by the fearless cock;

Whose breast with ardor flames, as on he walks

Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond,

The finely checker'd duck before her train

Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan

Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;

And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet

Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle,

Protective of his young. The turkey nigh,

Loud-threatening, reddens; while the peacock spreads

His every-color'd glory to the sun,

And swims in radiant majesty along.

O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove

Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls

The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck.

While thus the gentle tenants of the shade

Indulge their purer loves, the rougher world

Of brutes, below, rush furious into flame

And fierce desire. Through all his lusty veins

The bull, deep-scorch'd, the raging passion feels.

Of pasture sick, and negligent of food,

Scarce seen, he wades among the yellow broom,

While o'er his ample sides the rambling sprays

Luxuriant shoot; or through the mazy wood

Dejected wanders, nor the enticing bud

Crops, though it presses on his careless sense.

And oft, in jealous maddening fancy wrapt,

He seeks the fight; and, idly butting, feigns

His rival gor'd in every knotty trunk.

Him should he meet, the bellowing war begins:

Their eyes flash fury; to the hollow'd earth,

Whence the sand flies, they mutter bloody deeds,

And groaning deep the impetuous battle mix;

While the fair heifer, balmy-breathing, near,

Stands kindling up their rage. The trembling steed,

With this hot impulse seiz'd in every nerve,

Nor heeds the rein, nor hears the sounding thong;

Blows are not felt; but, tossing high his head,

And by the well-known joy to distant plains

Attracted strong, all wild he bursts away;

O'er rocks, and woods, and craggy mountains flies;

And, neighing, on the aerial summit takes

The exciting gale; then, steep-descending, cleaves

The headlong torrents foaming down the hills,

Even where the madness of the straiten'd stream

Turns in black eddies round--such is the force

With which his frantic heart and sinews swell.

[Illustration: On the aerial summit takes the gale]

Nor undelighted by the boundless Spring

Are the broad monsters of the foaming deep:

From the deep ooze and gelid caverns rous'd,

They flounce and tumble in unwieldy joy.

Dire were the strain, and dissonant, to sing

The cruel raptures of the savage kind;

How, by this flame their native wrath sublim'd,

They roam, amid the fury of their heart,

The far-resounding waste in fiercer bands,

And growl their horrid loves. But this, the theme

I sing, enraptur'd, to the British fair,

Forbids; and leads me to the mountain brow,

Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf,

Inhaling, healthful, the descending sun.

Around him feeds his many-bleating flock,

Of various cadence; and his sportive lambs,

This way and that convolv'd, in friskful glee,

Their frolics play. And now the sprightly race

Invites them forth; when swift, the signal given,

They start away, and sweep the massy mound

That runs around the hill; the rampart once

Of iron war, in ancient barbarous times,

When disunited Britain ever bled,

Lost in eternal broil: ere yet she grew

To this deep-laid indissoluble state,

Where wealth and commerce lift the golden head;

And, o'er our labors, liberty and law

Impartial watch--the wonder of a world!

What is this mighty breath, ye curious, say,

That, in a powerful language, felt not heard,

Instructs the fowls of heaven; and through their breast

These arts of love diffuses? What, but God?

Inspiring God! who, boundless spirit all,

And unremitting energy, pervades,

Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole.

He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone

Seems not to work; with such perfection fram'd

Is this complex stupendous scheme of things.

But, though conceal'd, to every purer eye

The informing Author in his works appears:

Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes,

The smiling God is seen; while water, earth,

And air attest his bounty--which exalts

The brute creation to this finer thought,

And annual melts their undesigning hearts

Profusely thus in tenderness and joy.

Still let my song a nobler note assume,

And sing the infusive force of Spring on man,

When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie

To raise his being, and serene his soul,

Can he forbear to join the general smile

Of Nature? can fierce passions vex his breast,

While every gale is peace, and every grove

Is melody? Hence! from the bounteous walks

Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth,

Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe,

Or only lavish to yourselves; away!

But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought;

Of all his works, creative bounty burns

With warmest beam; and on your open front

And liberal eye sits, from his dark retreat

Inviting modest want. Nor till invok'd

Can restless goodness wait: your active search

Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplor'd;

Like silent-working Heaven, surprising oft

The lonely heart with unexpected good.

For you the roving spirit of the wind

Blows Spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds

Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world;

And the sun sheds his kindest rays for you.

Ye flower of human race! In these green days,

Reviving sickness lifts her languid head;

Life flows afresh; and young-ey'd health exalts

The whole creation round. Contentment walks

The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss

Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings

To purchase. Pure serenity apace

Induces thought, and contemplation still.

By swift degrees the love of Nature works,

And warms the bosom; till at last, sublim'd

To rapture and enthusiastic heat,

We feel the present Deity, and taste

The joy of God to see a happy world!

These are the sacred feelings of thy heart,

Thy heart inform'd by reason's purer ray,

O Lyttelton, the friend! thy passions thus

And meditations vary, as at large,

Courting the muse, through Hagley Park you stray;

Thy British Tempè! There along the dale,

With woods o'erhung, and shagg'd with mossy rocks,

Whence on each hand the gushing waters play.

And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall,

Or gleam in lengthen'd vista through the trees,

You silent steal; or sit beneath the shade

Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts

Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand,

And pensive listen to the various voice

Of rural peace: the herds, the flocks, the birds,

The hollow-whispering breeze, the plaint of rills,

That, purling down amid the twisted roots

Which creep around, their dewy murmurs shake

On the sooth'd ear. From these abstracted oft,

You wander through the philosophic world;

Where in bright train continual wonders rise,

Or to the curious or the pious eye.

And oft, conducted by historic truth,

You tread the long extent of backward time:

Planning, with warm benevolence of mind,

And honest zeal unwarp'd by party rage,

Britannia's weal; how from the venal gulf

To raise her virtue, and her arts revive.

Or, turning thence thy view, these graver thoughts

The muses charm; while, with sure taste refin'd,

You draw the inspiring breath of ancient song,

Till nobly rises, emulous, thy own.

Perhaps thy lov'd Lucinda shares thy walk,

With soul to thine attun'd. Then Nature all

Wears to the lover's eye a look of love;

And all the tumult of a guilty world,

Toss'd by ungenerous passions, sinks away.

The tender heart is animated peace;

And as it pours its copious treasures forth,

In varied converse, softening every theme,

You, frequent-pausing, turn, and from her eyes,

Where meeken'd sense, and amiable grace,

And lively sweetness dwell, enraptur'd drink

That nameless spirit of ethereal joy,

Inimitable happiness! which love

Alone bestows, and on a _favor'd few_.

Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow

The bursting prospect spreads immense around;

And snatch'd o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn,

And verdant field, and darkening heath between,

And villages embosom'd soft in trees,

And spiry towns by surging columns mark'd

Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams;

Wide-stretching from the hall, in whose kind haunt

The hospitable genius lingers still,

To where the broken landscape, by degrees

Ascending, roughens into rigid hills--

O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds

That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.

[Illustration: Through Hagley Park, thy British Tempè]

Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year,

Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom

Shoots, less and less, the live carnation round;

Her lips blush deeper sweets; she breathes of youth:

The shining moisture swells into her eyes

In brighter flow; her wishing bosom heaves

With palpitations wild; kind tumults seize

Her veins, and all her yielding soul is love.

From the keen gaze her lover turns away,

Full of the dear ecstatic power, and sick

With sighing languishment. Ah, then, ye fair!

Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts:

Dare not the infectious sigh; the pleading look,

Downcast and low, in meek submission dress'd,

But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,

Prompt to deceive, with adulation smooth,

Gain on your purpos'd will. Nor in the bower,

Where woodbines flaunt and roses shed a couch,

While evening draws her crimson curtains round,

Trust your soft minutes with betraying man.

And let the aspiring youth beware of love,

Of the smooth glance beware; for 'tis too late,

When on his heart the torrent-softness pours.

Then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame

Dissolves in air away; while the fond soul,

Wrapp'd in gay visions of unreal bliss,

Still paints the illusive form, the kindling grace,

The enticing smile, the modest-seeming eye,

Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying heaven

Lurk searchless cunning, cruelty, and death;

And still, false warbling in his cheated ear,

Her siren voice, enchanting, draws him on

To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.

Even present, in the very lap of love

Inglorious laid--while music flows around,

Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours--

Amid the roses, fierce repentance rears

Her snaky crest: a quick-returning pang

Shoots through the conscious heart; where honor still,

And great design, against the oppressive load

Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave.

But absent, what fantastic woes, arous'd,

Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed,

Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life!

Neglected fortune flies; and, sliding swift,

Prone into ruin fall his scorn'd affairs

'Tis naught but gloom around. The darken'd sun

Loses his light. The rosy-bosom'd Spring

To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch,

Contracted, bends into a dusky vault.

All nature fades extinct; and she alone

Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought,

Fills every sense, and pants in every vein.

Books are but formal dullness, tedious friends;

And sad amid the social band he sits,

Lonely and unattentive. From the tongue

The unfinish'd period falls: while, borne away

On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies

To the vain bosom of his distant fair;

And leaves the semblance of a lover, fixed

In melancholy site, with head declined,

And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,

Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs

To glimmering shades and sympathetic glooms,

Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream,

Romantic, hangs; there through the pensive dusk

Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost,

Indulging all to love; or on the bank

Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze

With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears.

Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day;

Nor quits his deep retirement, till the moon

Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy east,

Enlighten'd by degrees, and in her train

Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,

Beneath the trembling languish of her beam,

With softened soul, and woos the bird of eve

To mingle woes with his; or, while the world

And all the sons of care lie hush'd in sleep,

Associates with the midnight shadows drear;

And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours

His idly tortur'd heart into the page

Meant for the moving messenger of love--

Where rapture burns on rapture, every line

With rising frenzy fir'd. But if on bed

Delirious flung, sleep from his pillow flies.

All night he tosses, nor the balmy power

In any posture finds; till the gray morn

Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch,

Exanimate by love: and then perhaps

Exhausted nature sinks awhile to rest,

Still interrupted by distracted dreams,

That o'er the sick imagination rise

And in black colors paint the mimic scene.

Oft with the enchantress of his soul he talks;

Sometimes in crowds distress'd, or if retir'd

To secret-winding flower-enwoven bowers,

Far from the dull impertinence of man,

Just as he, credulous, his endless cares

Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,

Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he knows not how,

Through forests huge, and long untravel'd heaths

With desolation brown, he wanders waste,

In night and tempest wrapp'd; or shrinks, aghast,

Back from the bending precipice; or wades

The turbid stream below, and strives to reach

The farther shore, where succorless and sad

She with extended arms his aid implores,

But strives in vain: borne by the outrageous flood

To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,

Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy sinks.

These are the charming agonies of love,

Whose misery delights. But through the heart

Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,

'Tis then delightful misery no more,

But agony unmix'd, incessant gall,

Corroding every thought, and blasting all

Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,

Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,

Farewell. Ye gleamings of departed peace,

Shine out your last! the yellow-tinging plague

Internal vision taints, and in a night

Of livid gloom imagination wraps.

Ah! then, instead of love-enliven'd cheeks,

Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes

With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed,

Suffus'd and glaring with untender fire;

A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek,

Where the whole poison'd soul malignant sits,

And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears

Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views

Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms

For which he melts in fondness, eat him up

With fervent anguish, and consuming rage.

In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,

Deceitful pride, and resolution frail,

Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours,

Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought;

Her first endearments, twining round the soul

With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.

Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew;

Flames through the nerves, and boils along the veins;

While anxious doubt distracts the tortur'd heart:

For even the sad assurance of his fears

Were peace to what he feels. Thus the warm youth,

Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds,

Through flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life

Of fever'd rapture, or of cruel care;

His brightest aims extinguish'd all, and all

His lively moments running down to waste.

[Illustration: On the bank thrown amid drooping lilies]

[Illustration: In soft anguish he consumes the day]

[Illustration: Woos the bird of eve to mingle woes]

[Illustration: Still interrupted by distracted dreams]

But happy they! the happiest of their kind!

Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate

Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend,

'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,

Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,

That binds their peace, but harmony itself,

Attuning all their passions into love;

Where friendship full-exerts her softest power,

Perfect esteem enliven'd by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will

With boundless confidence: for naught but love

Can answer love, and render bliss secure.

Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent

To bless himself from sordid parents buys

The loathing virgin, in eternal care,

Well-merited, consume his nights and days;

Let barbarous nations whose inhuman love

Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel;

Let eastern tyrants, from the light of heaven

Seclude their bosom-slaves, meanly possess'd

Of a mere lifeless, violated form:

While those whom love cements in holy faith,

And equal transport, free as Nature live,

Disdaining fear. What is the world to them,

Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all!

Who in each other clasp whatever fair

High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;

Something than beauty dearer, should they look

Or on the mind, or mind-illumin'd face--

Truth, goodness, honor, harmony, and love,

The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven.

Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,

And mingles both their graces. By degrees,

The human blossom blows; and every day,

Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,

The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.

Then infant reason grows apace, and calls

For the kind hand of an assiduous care.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,

To teach the young idea how to shoot,

To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,

To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix

The generous purpose in the glowing breast.

[Illustration: By degrees the human blossom blows]

[Illustration: Delightful task! to rear the tender thought]

Oh, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear

Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,

All various nature pressing on the heart;

An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,

Ease and alternate labor, useful life,

Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.

These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;

And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,

As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,

Still find them happy; and consenting Spring

Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:

Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;

When after the long vernal day of life,

Enamor'd more, as more remembrance swells

With many a proof of recollected love,

Together down they sink in social sleep;

Together freed, their gentle spirits fly

To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

THE HEART OF JOHN MIDDLETON; OR, THE POWER OF LOVE.

I was born at Sawley, where the shadow of Pendle Hill falls at sunrise.

I suppose Sawley sprang up into a village in the time of the monks, who

had an abbey there. Many of the cottages are strange old places; others

again are built of the abbey stones, mixed up with the shale from the

neighboring quarries; and you may see many a quaint bit of carving

worked into the walls, or forming the lintels of the doors. There is a

row of houses, built still more recently, where one Mr. Peel came to

live for the sake of the water-power, and gave the place a fillip into

something like life, though a different kind of life, as I take it, from

the grand slow ways folks had when the monks were about.

Now, it was six o'clock--ring the bell, throng to the factory; sharp

home at twelve; and even at night, when work was done, we hardly knew

how to walk slowly, we had been so bustled all day long. I can't

recollect the time when I did not go to the factory. My father used to

drag me there when I was quite a little fellow, in order to wind reels

for him. I never remember my mother. I should have been a better man

than I have been, if I had only had a notion of the sound of her voice,

or the look on her face.

My father and I lodged in the house of a man, who also worked in the

factory. We were sadly thronged in Sawley, so many people came from

different parts of the country to earn a livelihood at the new work; and

it was some time before the row of cottages I have spoken of could be

built. While they were building, my father was turned out of his

lodgings for drinking and being disorderly, and he and I slept in the

brick-kiln--that is to say, when we did sleep o' nights; but, often and

often we went poaching; and many a hare and pheasant have I rolled up in

clay, and roasted in the embers of the kiln. Then, as followed to

reason, I was drowsy next day over my work; but father had no mercy on

me for sleeping, for all he knew the cause of it, but kicked me where I

lay, a heavy lump on the factory-floor, and cursed and swore at me till

I got up for very fear, and to my winding again. But when his back was

turned I paid him off with heavier curses than he had given me, and

longed to be a man that I might be revenged on him. The words I then

spoke I would not now dare to repeat; and worse than hating words, a

hating heart went with them. I forget the time when I did not know how

to hate. When I first came to read, and learnt about Ishmael, I thought

I must be of his doomed race, for my hand was against every man, and

every man's against me. But I was seventeen or more before I cared for

my book enough to learn to read.

After the row of works was finished, father took one, and set up for

himself, in letting lodgings. I can't say much for the furnishing; but

there was plenty of straw, and we kept up good fires; and there is a

set of people who value warmth above every thing. The worst lot about

the place lodged with us. We used to have a supper in the middle of the

night; there was game enough, or if there was not game, there was

poultry to be had for the stealing. By day we all made a show of working

in the factory; by night we feasted and drank.

Now, this web of my life was black enough and coarse enough; but

by-and-by, a little golden filmy thread began to be woven in; the dawn

of God's mercy was at hand.

One blowy October morning, as I sauntered lazily along to the mill, I

came to the little wooden bridge over a brook that falls into the

Bribble. On the plank there stood a child, balancing the pitcher on her

head, with which she had been to fetch water. She was so light on her

feet that, had it not been for the weight of the pitcher, I almost

believe the wind would have taken her up, and wafted her away, as it

carries off a blow-ball in seed-time; her blue cotton dress was blown

before her, as if she were spreading her wings for a flight; she turned

her face round, as if to ask me for something, but when she saw who it

was, she hesitated, for I had a bad name in the village, and I doubt not

she had been warned against me. But her heart was too innocent to be

distrustful; so she said to me, timidly:

"Please, John Middleton, will you carry me this heavy jug just over the

bridge?"

It was the very first time I had ever been spoken to gently. I was

ordered here and there by my father and his rough companions; I was

abused and cursed by them if I failed in doing what they wished; if I

succeeded, there came no expression of thanks or gratitude. I was

informed of facts necessary for me to know. But the gentle words of

request or entreaty were aforetime unknown to me, and now their tones

fell on my ear soft and sweet as a distant peal of bells. I wished that

I knew how to speak properly in reply; but though we were of the same

standing, as regarded worldly circumstances, there was some mighty

difference between us, which made me unable to speak in her language of

soft words and modest entreaty. There was nothing for me but to take up

the pitcher in a kind of gruff, shy silence, and carry it over the

bridge as she had asked me. When I gave it her back again, she thanked

me, and tripped away, leaving me, wordless, gazing after her, like an

awkward lout, as I was. I knew well enough who she was. She was

grandchild to Eleanor Hadfield, an aged woman, who was reputed as a

witch by my father and his set, for no other reason, that I can make

out, than her scorn, dignity, and fearlessness of rancor. It was true we

often met her in the gray dawn of the morning when we returned from

poaching, and my father used to curse her, under his breath, for a

witch, such as were burnt, long ago, on Pendle Hill top; but I had heard

that Eleanor was a skillful sick-nurse, and ever ready to give her

services to those who were ill; and I believe that she had been sitting

up through the night (the night that we had been spending under the wild

heavens, in deeds as wild), with those who were appointed to die. Nelly

was her orphan grand-daughter; her little hand-maiden; her treasure; her

one ewe-lamb. Many and many a day have I watched by the brook-side,

hoping that some happy gust of wind, coming with opportune bluster down

the hollow of the dale, might make me necessary once more to her. I

longed to hear her speak to me again. I said the words she had used to

myself, trying to catch her tone; but the chance never came again. I do

not know that she ever knew how I watched for her there. I found out

that she went to school, and nothing would serve me but that I must go

too. My father scoffed at me; I did not care. I knew naught of what

reading was, nor that it was likely that I should be laughed at; I, a

great hulking lad of seventeen or upward, for going to learn my A, B, C,

in the midst of a crowd of little ones. I stood just this way in my

mind: Nelly was at school; it was the best place for seeing her, and

hearing her voice again. Therefore I would go too. My father talked, and

swore, and threatened, but I stood to it. He said I should leave school

weary of it in a month. I swore a deeper oath than I like to remember,

that I would stay a year, and come out a reader and a writer. My father

hated the notion of folks learning to read, and said it took all the

spirit out of them; besides, he thought he had a right to every penny of

my wages; and though, when he was in good humor, he might have given me

many a jug of ale, he grudged my two-pence a week for schooling.

However, to school I went. It was a different place to what I had

thought it before I went inside. The girls sat on one side, and the boys

on the other; so I was not near Nelly. She, too, was in the first class;

I was put with the little toddling things that could hardly run alone.

The master sat in the middle, and kept pretty strict watch over us. But

I could see Nelly, and hear her read her chapter; and even when it was

one with a long list of hard names, such as the master was very fond of

giving her, to show how well she could hit them off without spelling, I

thought I had never heard a prettier music. Now and then she read other

things. I did not know what they were, true or false; but I listened

because she read; and, by-and-by, I began to wonder. I remember the

first word I ever spoke to her was to ask her (as we were coming out of

school) who was the father of whom she had been reading; for when she

said the words "Our Father," her voice dropped into a soft, holy kind of

low sound, which struck me more than any loud reading, it seemed so

loving and tender. When I asked her this, she looked at me with her

great blue wondering eyes, at first shocked; and then, as it were,

melted down into pity and sorrow, she said in the same way, below her

breath, in which she read the words "Our Father,"

"Don't you know? It is God."

"God?"

"Yes; the God that grandmother tells me about."

"Tell me what she says, will you?" So we sat down on the hedge-bank, she

a little above me, while I looked up into her face, and she told me all

the holy texts her grandmother had taught her, as explaining all that

could be explained of the Almighty. I listened in silence, for indeed I

was overwhelmed with astonishment. Her knowledge was principally

rote-knowledge; she was too young for much more; but we, in Lancashire,

speak a rough kind of Bible language, and the texts seemed very clear to

me. I rose up, dazed and overpowered. I was going away in silence, when

I bethought me of my manners, and turned back, and said, "Thank you,"

for the first time I ever remember saying it in my life. That was a

great day for me, in more ways than one.

I was always one who could keep very steady to an object when once I had

set it before me. My object was to know Nelly. I was conscious of

nothing more. But it made me regardless of all other things. The master

might scold, the little ones might laugh; I bore it all without giving

it a second thought. I kept to my year, and came out a reader and

writer; more, however, to stand well in Nelly's good opinion, than

because of my oath. About this time, my father committed some bad, cruel

deed, and had to fly the country. I was glad he went; for I had never

loved or cared for him, and wanted to shake myself clear of his set. But

it was no easy matter. Honest folk stood aloof; only bad men held out

their arms to me with a welcome. Even Nelly seemed to have a mixture of

fear now with her kind ways toward me. I was the son of John Middleton,

who, if he were caught, would be hung at Lancaster Castle. I thought she

looked at me sometimes with a sort of sorrowful horror. Others were not

forbearing enough to keep their expression of feeling confined to looks.

The son of the overlooker at the mill never ceased twitting me with my

father's crime; he now brought up his poaching against him, though I

knew very well how many a good supper he himself had made on game which

had been given him to make him and his father wink at late hours in the

morning. And how were such as my father to come honestly by game?

This lad, Dick Jackson, was the bane of my life. He was a year or two

older than I was, and had much power over the men who worked at the

mill, as he could report to his father what he chose. I could not always

hold my peace when he "threaped" me with my father's sins, but gave it

him back sometimes in a storm of passion. It did me no good; only threw

me farther from the company of better men, who looked aghast and shocked

at the oaths I poured out--blasphemous words learned in my childhood,

which I could not forget now that I would fain have purified myself of

them; while all the time Dick Jackson stood by, with a mocking smile of

intelligence; and when I had ended, breathless and weary with spent

passion, he would turn to those whose respect I longed to earn, and ask

if I were not a worthy son of my father, and likely to tread in his

steps. But this smiling indifference of his to my miserable vehemence

was not all, though it was the worst part of his conduct, for it made

the rankling hatred grow up in my heart, and overshadow it like the

great gourd-tree of the Prophet Jonah. But his was a merciful shade,

keeping out the burning sun; mine blighted what it fell upon.

What Dick Jackson did besides, was this, his father was a skillful

overlooker, and a good man; Mr. Peel valued him so much, that he was

kept on, although his health was failing; and when he was unable,

through illness, to come to the mill, he deputed his son to watch over

and report the men. It was too much power for one so young--I speak it

calmly now. Whatever Dick Jackson became, he had strong temptations when

he was young, which will be allowed for hereafter. But at the time of

which I am telling, my hate raged like a fire. I believed that he was

the one sole obstacle to my being received as fit to mix with good and

honest men. I was sick of crime and disorder, and would fain have come

over to a different kind of life, and have been industrious, sober,

honest, and right-spoken (I had no idea of higher virtue then), and at

every turn Dick Jackson met me with his sneers. I have walked the night

through, in the old abbey field, planning how I could out-wit him, and

win men's respect in spite of him. The first time I ever prayed, was

underneath the silent stars, kneeling by the old abbey walls, throwing

up my arms, and asking God for the power of revenge upon him.

I had heard that if I prayed earnestly, God would give me what I asked

for, and I looked upon it as a kind of chance for the fulfillment of my

wishes. If earnestness would have won the boon for me, never were wicked

words so earnestly spoken. And oh, later on, my prayer was heard, and my

wish granted! All this time I saw little of Nelly. Her grandmother was

failing, and she had much to do in-doors. Besides, I believed I had read

her looks aright, when I took them to speak of aversion; and I planned

to hide myself from her sight, as it were, until I could stand upright

before men, with fearless eyes, dreading no face of accusation. It was

possible to acquire a good character; I would do it--I did it: but no

one brought up among respectable, untempted people, can tell the

unspeakable hardness of the task. In the evenings I would not go forth

among the village throng; for the acquaintances that claimed me were my

father's old associates, who would have been glad enough to enlist a

strong young man like me in their projects; and the men who would have

shunned me and kept me aloof, were the steady and orderly. So I staid

in-doors, and practiced myself in reading. You will say, I should have

found it easier to earn a good character away from Sawley, at some

place where neither I nor my father was known. So I should; but it would

not have been the same thing to my mind. Besides, representing all good

men, all goodness to me, in Sawley Nelly lived. In her sight I would

work out my life, and fight my way upward to men's respect. Two years

passed on. Every day I strove fiercely; every day my struggles were made

fruitless by the son of the overlooker; and I seemed but where I

was--but where I must ever be esteemed by all who knew me--but as the

son of the criminal--wild, reckless, ripe for crime myself. Where was

the use of my reading and writing. These acquirements were disregarded

and scouted by those among whom I was thrust back to take my portion. I

could have read any chapter in the Bible now; and Nelly seemed as though

she would never know it. I was driven in upon my books; and few enough

of them I had. The peddlers brought them round in their packs, and I

bought what I could. I had the "Seven Champions," and the "Pilgrim's

Progress;" and both seemed to me equally wonderful, and equally founded

on fact. I got Byron's "Narrative," and Milton's "Paradise Lost;" but I

lacked the knowledge which would give a clew to all. Still they afforded

me pleasure, because they took me out of myself, and made me forget my

miserable position, and made me unconscious (for the time at least) of

my one great passion of hatred against Dick Jackson.

When Nelly was about seventeen her grandmother died. I stood aloof in

the church-yard, behind the great yew tree, and watched the funeral. It

was the first religious service that ever I heard; and, to my shame, as

I thought, it affected me to tears. The words seemed so peaceful and

holy that I longed to go to church, but I durst not, because I had never

been. The parish church was at Bolton, far enough away to serve as an

excuse for all who did not care to go. I heard Nelly's sobs filling up

every pause in the clergyman's voice; and every sob of hers went to my

heart. She passed me on her way out of the church-yard; she was so near

I might have touched her; but her head was hanging down, and I durst not

speak to her. Then the question arose, what was to become of her? She

must earn her living; was it to be as a farm-servant, or by working at

the mill? I knew enough of both kinds of life to make me tremble for

her. My wages were such as to enable me to marry, if I chose; and I

never thought of woman, for my wife, but Nelly. Still, I would not have

married her now, if I could; for, as yet, I had not risen up to the

character which I had determined it was fit that Nelly's husband should

have. When I was rich in good report, I would come forward, and take my

chance; but until then, I would hold my peace. I had faith in the power

of my long-continued, dogged, breasting of opinion. Sooner or later it

must, it should yield, and I be received among the ranks of good men.

But, meanwhile, what was to become of Nelly? I reckoned up my wages; I

went to inquire what the board of a girl would be, who should help her

in her household work, and live with her as her daughter, at the house

of one of the most decent women of the place; she looked at me

suspiciously. I kept down my temper, and told her I would never come

near the place; that I would keep away from that end of the village; and

that the girl for whom I made the inquiry should never know but what the

parish paid for her keep. It would not do; she suspected me; but I know

I had power over myself to have kept to my word; and besides, I would

not for worlds have had Nelly put under any obligation to me, which

should speck the purity of her love, or dim it by a mixture of

gratitude--the love that I craved to earn, not for my money, not for my

kindness, but for myself. I heard that Nelly had met with a place in

Bolland; and I could see no reason why I might not speak to her once

before she left our neighborhood. I meant it to be a quiet, friendly

telling her of my sympathy in her sorrow. I felt I could command myself.

So, on the Sunday before she was to leave Sawley, I waited near the

wood-path, by which I knew that she would return from afternoon church.

The birds made such a melodious warble, such a busy sound among the

leaves, that I did not hear approaching footsteps, till they were close

at hand; and then there were sounds of two persons' voices. The wood was

near that part of Sawley where Nelly was staying with friends; the path

through it led to their house, and theirs only, so I knew it must be

she, for I had watched her setting out to church alone.

But who was the other?

The blood went to my heart and head, as if I were shot, when I saw that

it was Dick Jackson. Was this the end of it all? In the steps of sin

which my father had trode, I would rush to my death and to my doom. Even

where I stood I longed for a weapon to slay him. How dared he come near

my Nelly? She too--I thought her faithless, and forgot how little I had

ever been to her in outward action; how few words, and those how

uncouth, I had ever spoken to her; and I hated her for a traitoress.

These feelings passed through me before I could see, my eyes and head

were so dizzy and blind. When I looked I saw Dick Jackson holding her

hand, and speaking quick, and low, and thick, as a man speaks in great

vehemence. She seemed white and dismayed; but all at once, at some word

of his (and what it was she never would tell me), she looked as though

she defied a fiend, and wrenched herself out of his grasp. He caught

hold of her again, and began once more the thick whisper that I loathed.

I could bear it no longer, nor did I see why I should. I stepped out

from behind the tree where I had been lying. When she saw me, she lost

her look of one strung up to desperation, and came and clung to me; and

I felt like a giant in strength and might. I held her with one arm, but

I did not take my eyes off him; I felt as if they blazed down into his

soul, and scorched him up. He never spoke, but tried to look as though

he defied me; at last his eyes fell before mine. I dared not speak; for

the old horrid oaths thronged up to my mouth; and I dreaded giving them

way, and terrifying my poor trembling Nelly.

At last he made to go past me; I drew her out of the pathway. By

instinct she wrapped her garments round her, as if to avoid his

accidental touch; and he was stung by this I suppose--I believe--to the

mad, miserable revenge he took. As my back was turned to him, in an

endeavor to speak some words to Nelly that might soothe her into

calmness, she, who was looking after him, like one fascinated with

terror, saw him take a sharp shaley stone, and aim it at me. Poor

darling! she clung round me as a shield, making her sweet body into a

defense for mine. It hit her, and she spoke no word, kept back her cry

of pain, but fell at my feet in a swoon. He--the coward! ran off as soon

as he saw what he had done. I was with Nelly alone in the green gloom of

the wood. The quivering and leaf-tinted light made her look as if she

were dead. I carried her, not knowing if I bore a corpse or not, to her

friend's house. I did not stay to explain, but ran madly for the doctor.

Well! I can not bear to recur to that time again. Five weeks I lived in

the agony of suspense; from which my only relief was in laying savage

plans for revenge. If I hated him before, what think ye I did now? It

seemed as if earth could not hold us twain, but that one of us must go

down to Gehenna. I could have killed him; and would have done it without

a scruple, but that seemed too poor and bold a revenge. At length--oh!

the weary waiting oh! the sickening of my heart--Nelly grew better--as

well as she was ever to grow. The bright color had left her cheek; the

mouth quivered with repressed pain, the eyes were dim with tears that

agony had forced into them, and I loved her a thousand times better and

more than when she was bright and blooming! What was best of all, I

began to perceive that she cared for me. I know her grandmother's

friends warned her against me, and told her I came of a bad stock; but

she had passed the point where remonstrance from bystanders can take

effect--she loved me as I was, a strange mixture of bad and good, all

unworthy of her. We spoke together now, as those do whose lives are

bound up in each other. I told her I would marry her as soon as she had

recovered her health. Her friends shook their heads; but they saw she

would be unfit for farm-service or heavy work, and they perhaps thought,

as many a one does, that a bad husband was better than none at all.

Anyhow we were married; and I learned to bless God for my happiness, so

far I beyond my deserts. I kept her like a lady. I was a skillful

workman, and earned good wages; and every want she had I tried to

gratify. Her wishes were few and simple enough, poor Nelly! If they had

been ever so fanciful, I should have had my reward in the new feeling of

the holiness of home. She could lead me as a little child, with the

charm of her gentle voice, and her ever-kind words. She would plead for

all when I was full of anger and passion; only Dick Jackson's name

passed never between our lips during all that time. In the evenings she

lay back in her bee-hive chair, and read to me. I think I see her now,

pale and weak, with her sweet young face, lighted by her holy, earnest

eyes, telling me of the Saviour's life and death, till they were filled

with tears. I longed to have been there, to have avenged him on the

wicked Jews. I liked Peter the best of all the disciples. But I got the

Bible myself, and read the mighty acts of God's vengeance in the Old

Testament, with a kind of triumphant faith, that, sooner or later, He

would take my cause in hand, and revenge me on mine enemy.

In a year or so, Nelly had a baby--a little girl, with eyes just like

hers, that looked with a grave openness right into yours. Nelly

recovered but slowly. It was just before winter, the cotton-crop had

failed, and master had to turn off many hands. I thought I was sure of

being kept on, for I had earned a steady character, and did my work

well; but once again it was permitted that Dick Jackson should do me

wrong. He induced his father to dismiss me among the first in my branch

of the business; and there was I, just before winter set in, with a wife

and new-born child, and a small enough store of money to keep body and

soul together, till I could get to work again. All my savings had gone

by Christmas Eve, and we sat in the house foodless for the morrow's

festival. Nelly looked pinched and worn; the baby cried for a larger

supply of milk than its poor starving mother could give it. My right

hand had not forgot its cunning; and I went out once more to my

poaching. I knew where the gang met; and I knew what a welcome back I

should have--a far warmer and more hearty welcome than good men had

given me when I tried to enter their ranks. On the road to the

meeting-place I fell in with an old man--one who had been a companion to

my father in his early days.

"What, lad!" said he, "art thou turning back to the old trade? It's the

better business now, that cotton has failed."

"Ay," said I, "cotton is starving us outright. A man may bear a deal

himself, but he'll do aught bad and sinful to save his wife and child."

"Nay, lad," said he, "poaching is not sinful; it goes against man's

laws, but not against God's."

I was too weak to argue or talk much. I had not tasted food for two

days. But I murmured, "At any rate, I trusted to have been clear of it

for the rest of my days. It led my father wrong at first. I have tried

and I have striven. Now I give all up. Right or wrong shall be the same

to me. Some are fore-doomed; and so am I." And as I spoke, some notion

of the futurity that would separate Nelly, the pure and holy, from me,

the reckless and desperate one, came over me with an irrepressible burst

of anguish. Just then the bells of Bolton-in-Bolland struck up a glad

peal, which came over the woods, in the solemn midnight air, like the

sons of the morning shouting for joy--they seemed so clear and jubilant.

It was Christmas Day; and I felt like an outcast from the gladness and

the salvation. Old Jonah spoke out:

"Yon's the Christmas bells. I say, Johnny, my lad, I've no notion of

taking such a spiritless chap as thou into the thick of it, with thy

rights and thy wrongs. We don't trouble ourselves with such fine

lawyer's stuff, and we bring down the 'varmint' all the better. Now,

I'll not have thee in our gang, for thou art not up to the fun, and

thou'd hang fire when the time came to be doing. But I've a shrewd guess

that plaguy wife and child of thine are at the bottom of thy

half-and-half joining. Now, I was thy father's friend afore he took to

them helter-skelter ways; and I've five shillings and a neck of mutton

at thy service. I'll not list a fasting man; but if thou'lt come to us

with a full stomach, and say, 'I like your life, my lads, and I'll make

one of you with pleasure, the first shiny night,' why, we'll give you a

welcome and a half; but to-night, make no more ado but turn back with me

for the mutton and the money."

I was not proud; nay, I was most thankful. I took the meat, and boiled

some broth for my poor Nelly. She was in a sleep, or a faint, I know not

which; but I roused her, and held her up in bed, and fed her with a

teaspoon, and the light came back to her eyes, and the faint moonlight

smile to her lips; and when she had ended, she said her innocent grace,

and fell asleep with her baby on her breast. I sat over the fire, and

listened to the bells, as they swept past my cottage on the gusts of the

wind. I longed and yearned for the second coming of Christ, of which

Nelly had told me. The world seemed cruel, and hard, and strong, too

strong for me; and I prayed to cling to the hem of his garment, and be

borne over the rough places when I fainted and bled, and found no man to

pity or help me, but poor old Jonah the publican and sinner. All this

time my own woes and my own self were uppermost in my mind, as they are

in the minds of most who have been hardly used. As I thought of my

wrongs and my sufferings, my heart burned against Dick Jackson; and as

the bells rose and fell, so my hopes waxed and waned, that in those

mysterious days of which they were both the remembrance and the

prophecy, he would be purged from off the earth. I took Nelly's Bible,

and turned, not to the gracious story of the Saviour's birth, but to the

records of the former days when the Jews took such wild revenge upon

all their opponents. I was a Jew--a leader among the people. Dick

Jackson was as Pharaoh, as the King Agag, who walked delicately,

thinking the bitterness of death was past--in short, he was the

conquered enemy over whom I gloated, with my Bible in my hand--that

Bible which contained our Saviour's words on the Cross. As yet, those

words seemed faint and meaningless to me, like a tract of country seen

in the starlight haze; while the histories of the Old Testament were

grand and distinct in the blood-red color of sunset. By-and-by that

night passed into day; and little piping voices came round,

carol-singing. They wakened Nelly. I went to her as soon as I heard her

stirring.

"Nelly," said I, "there's money and food in the house; I will be off to

Padiham seeking work, while thou hast something to go upon."

"Not to-day," said she; "stay to-day with me. If thou wouldst only go to

church with me this once"--for you see I had never been inside a church

but when we were married, and she was often praying me to go; and now

she looked at me, with a sigh just creeping forth from her lips, as she

expected a refusal. But I did not refuse. I had been kept away from

church before because I dared not go; and now I was desperate and dared

do any thing. If I did look like a heathen in the face of all men, why,

I was a heathen in my heart; for I was falling back into all my evil

ways. I had resolved, if my search of work at Padiham should fail, I

would follow my father's footsteps, and take with my own right hand and

by my strength of arm, what it was denied me to obtain honestly. I had

resolved to leave Sawley, where a curse seemed to hang over me; so what

did it matter if I went to church, all unbeknowing what strange

ceremonies were there performed? I walked thither as a sinful

man--sinful in my heart. Nelly hung on my arm, but even she could not

get me to speak. I went in; she found my places, and pointed to the

words, and looked up into my eyes with hers, so full of faith and joy.

But I saw nothing but Richard Jackson--I heard nothing but his loud

nasal voice, making response, and desecrating all the holy words. He was

in broadcloth of the best--I in my fustian jacket. He was prosperous and

glad--I was starving and desperate. Nelly grew pale as she saw the

expression in my eyes; and she prayed ever and ever more fervently as

the thought of me tempted by the Devil, even at that very moment, came

more fully before her.

By-and-by she forgot even me, and laid her soul bare before God, in a

long silent weeping prayer, before we left the church. Nearly all had

gone--and I stood by her, unwilling to disturb her, unable to join her.

At last she rose up, heavenly calm. She took my arm, and we went home

through the woods, where all the birds seemed tame and familiar. Nelly

said she thought all living creatures knew it was Christmas Day, and

rejoiced, and were loving together. I believed it was the frost that had

tamed them; and I felt the hatred that was in me, and knew that whatever

else was loving, I was full of malice and uncharitableness, nor did I

wish to be otherwise. That afternoon I bade Nelly and our child

farewell, and tramped to Padiham. I got work--how I hardly know; for

stronger and stronger came the force of the temptation to lead a wild,

free life of sin; legions seemed whispering evil thoughts to me, and

only my gentle, pleading Nelly to pull me back from the great gulf.

However, as I said before, I got work, and set off homeward to move my

wife and child to that neighborhood. I hated Sawley, and yet I was

fiercely indignant to leave it; with my purposes unaccomplished. I was

still an outcast from the more respectable, who stood afar off from such

as I; and mine enemy lived and flourished in their regard. Padiham,

however, was not so far away, for me to despair--to relinquish my fixed

determination. It was on the eastern side of the great Pendle Hill; ten

miles away, maybe. Hate will overleap a greater obstacle.

I took a cottage on the Fell, high up on the side of the hill. We saw a

long bleak moorland slope before us, and then the gray stone houses of

Padiham, over which a black cloud hung; different from the blue wood or

turf smoke about Sawley. The wild winds came down, and whistled round

our house many a day when all was still below. But I was happy then. I

rose in men's esteem. I had work in plenty. Our child lived and throve.

But I forgot not our country proverb: "Keep a stone in thy pocket for

seven years: turn it, and keep it seven years more; but have it ever

ready to cast at thine enemy when the time comes."

One day a fellow workman asked me to go to a hill-side preaching. Now I

never cared to go to church; but there was something newer and freer in

the notion of praying to God right under His great dome; and the open

air had had a charm to me ever since my wild boyhood. Besides, they said

these ranters had strange ways with them, and I thought it would be fun

to see their way of setting about it; and this ranter of all others had

made himself a name in our parts. Accordingly we went; it was a fine

summer's evening, after work was done. When we got to the place we saw

such a crowd as I never saw before, men, women, and children; all ages

were gathered together, and sat on the hill-side. They were care-worn,

diseased, sorrowful, criminal; all that was told on their faces, which

were hard, and strongly marked. In the midst, standing in a cart, was

the ranter. When I first saw him, I said to my companion, "Lord! What a

little man to make all this pother! I could trip him up with one of my

fingers;" and then I sat down, and looked about me a bit. All eyes were

fixed on the preacher; and I turned mine upon him too. He began to

speak; it was in no fine-drawn language, but in words such as we heard

every day of our lives, and about things we did every day of our lives.

He did not call our short-comings, pride or worldliness or

pleasure-seeking, which would have given us no clear notion of what he

meant, but he just told us outright what we did, and then he gave it a

name, and said that it was accursed--and that we were lost if we went on

so doing.

By this time the tears and sweat were running down his face; he was

wrestling for our souls. We wondered how he knew our innermost lives as

he did, for each one of us saw his sin set before him in plain-spoken

words. Then he cried out to us to repent; and spoke first to us, and

then to God, in a way that would have shocked many--but it did not shock

me. I liked strong things; and I liked the bare full truth: and I felt

brought nearer to God in that hour--the summer darkness creeping over

us, and one after one the stars coming out above us, like the eyes of

the angels watching us--than I had ever done in my life before. When he

had brought us to our tears and sighs, he stopped his loud voice of

upbraiding, and there was a hush, only broken by sobs and quivering

moans, in which I heard through the gloom the voices of strong men in

anguish and supplication, as well as the shriller tones of women.

Suddenly he was heard again; by this time we could not see him; but his

voice was now tender as the voice of an angel, and he told us of Christ,

and implored us to come to Him. I never heard such passionate entreaty.

He spoke as if he saw Satan hovering near us in the dark dense night,

and as if our only safety lay in a very present coming to the Cross; I

believe he did see Satan; we know he haunts the desolate old hills,

awaiting his time, and now or never it was, with many a soul. At length

there was a sudden silence; and by the cries of those nearest to the

preacher, we heard that he had fainted. We had all crowded round him, as

if he were our safety and our guide; and he was overcome by the heat and

the fatigue, for we were the fifth set of people whom he had addressed

that day. I left the crowd who were leading him down, and took a lonely

path myself.

Here was the earnestness I needed. To this weak and weary, fainting man,

religion was a life and a passion. I look back now, and wonder at my

blindness as to what was the root of all my Nelly's patience and

long-suffering; for I thought, now I had found out what religion was,

and that hitherto, it had been all an unknown thing to me.

Henceforward, my life was changed. I was zealous and fanatical. Beyond

the set to whom I had affiliated myself I had no sympathy. I would have

persecuted all who differed from me, if I had only had the power. I

became an ascetic in all bodily enjoyments. And, strange and

inexplicable mystery, I had some thoughts that by every act of

self-denial I was attaining to my unholy end, and that, when I had

fasted and prayed long enough, God would place my vengeance in my

hands. I have knelt by Nelly's bedside, and vowed to live a self-denying

life, as regarded all outward things, if so that God would grant my

prayer. I left it in His hands. I felt sure He would trace out the token

and the word; and Nelly would listen to my passionate words, and lie

awake sorrowful and heart-sore through the night; and I would get up and

make her tea, and re-arrange her pillows, with a strange and willful

blindness that my bitter words and blasphemous prayers had cost her

miserable, sleepless nights. My Nelly was suffering yet from that blow.

How or where the stone had hurt her I never understood; but in

consequence of that one moment's action, her limbs became numb and dead,

and, by slow degrees, she took to her bed, from whence she was never

carried alive. There she lay, propped up by pillows, her meek face ever

bright, and smiling forth a greeting; her white pale hands ever busy

with some kind of work; and our little Grace was as the power of motion

to her. Fierce as I was away from her, I never could speak to her but in

my gentlest tones. She seemed to me as if she had never wrestled for

salvation as I had; and when away from her, I resolved, many a time and

oft, that I would rouse her up to her state of danger when I returned

home that evening--even if strong reproach were required I would rouse

her up to her soul's need. But I came in and heard her voice singing

softly some holy word of patience, some psalm which, maybe, had

comforted the martyrs, and when I saw her face, like the face of an

angel, full of patience and happy faith, I put off my awakening speeches

till another time.

One night, long ago, when I was yet young and strong, although my years

were past forty, I sat alone in my house-place. Nelly was always in bed,

as I have told you, and Grace lay in a cot by her side. I believed them

to be both asleep; though how they could sleep I could not conceive, so

wild and terrible was the night. The wind came sweeping down from the

hill-top in great beats, like the pulses of Heaven; and, during the

pauses, while I listened for the coming roar, I felt the earth shiver

beneath me. The rain beat against windows and doors, and sobbed for

entrance. I thought the Prince of the Air was abroad; and I heard, or

fancied I heard, shrieks come on the blast, like the cries of sinful

souls given over to his power.

The sounds came nearer and nearer. I got up and saw to the fastenings of

the door, for though I cared not for mortal man, I did care for what I

believed was surrounding the house, in evil might and power. But the

door shook as though it, too, were in deadly terror, and I thought the

fastenings would give way. I stood facing the entrance, lashing my heart

up to defy the spiritual enemy that I looked to see, every instant, in

bodily presence; and the door did burst open; and before me stood--what

was it? man or demon? a gray-haired man, with poor worn clothes all

wringing wet, and he himself battered and piteous to look upon, from the

storm he had passed through.

"Let me in!" he said. "Give me shelter. I am poor, or I would reward

you. And I am friendless too," he said, looking up in my face, like one

seeking what he can not find. In that look, strangely changed, I knew

that God had heard me; for it was the old cowardly look of my life's

enemy. Had he been a stranger I might not have welcomed him, but as he

was mine enemy, I gave him welcome in a lordly dish. I sat opposite to

him. "Whence do you come?" said I. "It is a strange night to be out on

the fells."

He looked up at me sharp: but in general he held his head down like a

beast or hound.

"You won't betray me. I'll not trouble you long. As soon as the storm

abates, I'll go."

"Friend!" said I, "what have I to betray?" and I trembled lest he should

keep himself out of my power and not tell me. "You come for shelter, and

I give you of my best. Why do you suspect me?"

"Because," said he, in his abject bitterness, "all the world is against

me. I never met with goodness or kindness; and now I am hunted like a

wild beast. I'll tell you--I am a convict returned before my time. I was

a Sawley man," (as if I, of all men did not know it!) "and I went back

like a fool to the old place. They've hunted me out where I would fain

have lived rightly and quietly, and they'll send me back to that hell

upon earth, if they catch me. I did not know it would be such a night.

Only let me rest and get warm once more, and I'll go away. Good kind

man! have pity upon me." I smiled all his doubts away; I promised him a

bed on the floor, and I thought of Jael and Sisera. My heart leaped up

like a war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, and said, "Ha, ha, the

Lord hath heard my prayer and supplication; I shall have vengeance at

last!"

He did not dream who I was. He was changed; so that I, who had learned

his features with all the diligence of hatred, did not at first

recognize him; and he thought not of me, only of his own woe and

affright. He looked into the fire with the dreamy gaze of one whose

strength of character, if he had any, is beaten out of him; and can not

return at any emergency whatsoever. He sighed and pitied himself, yet

could not decide on what to do. I went softly about my business, which

was to make him up a bed on the floor; and, when he was lulled to sleep

and security, to make the best of my way to Padiham, and summon the

constable, into whose hands I would give him up to be taken back to his

"hell upon earth." I went into Nelly's room. She was awake and anxious.

I saw she had been listening to the voices.

"Who is there?" said she. "John, tell me--it sounded like a voice I

knew. For God's sake, speak."

I smiled a quiet smile. "It is a poor man who has lost his way. Go to

sleep my dear--I shall make him up on the floor. I may not come for some

time. Go to sleep;" and I kissed her. I thought she was soothed, but not

fully satisfied. However, I hastened away before there was any further

time for questioning. I made up the bed; and Richard Jackson, tired out,

lay down and fell asleep. My contempt for him almost equaled my hate. If

I were avoiding return to a place which I thought to be a hell upon

earth, think you I would have taken a quiet sleep under any man's roof,

till somehow or another I was secure? Now comes this man, and with

incontinence of tongue, blabs out the very thing he most should conceal,

and then lies down to a good, quiet, snoring sleep. I looked again. His

face was old, and worn, and miserable. So should mine enemy look. And

yet it was sad to gaze upon him, poor hunted creature!

I would gaze no more, lest I grew weak and pitiful. Thus I took my hat

and softly opened the door. The wind blew in, but did not disturb him,

he was so utterly weary. I was out in the open air of night. The storm

was ceasing, and instead of the black sky of doom, that I had seen when

I last looked forth, the moon was come out, wan and pale, as if wearied

with the fight in the heavens; and her white light fell ghostly and calm

on many a well-known object. Now and then a dark torn cloud was blown

across her home in the sky, but they grew fewer and fewer, and at last

she shone out steady and clear, I could see Padiham down before me. I

heard the noise of the water-courses down the hill-side. My mind was

full of one thought, and strained upon that one thought, and yet my

senses were most acute and observant. When I came to the brook, it was

swollen to a rapid, tossing river; and the little bridge, with its

hand-rail was utterly swept away. It was like the bridge at Sawley,

where I had first seen Nelly; and I remembered that day even then in the

midst of my vexation at having to go round. I turned away from the

brook, and there stood a little figure facing me. No spirit from the

dead could have affrighted me as it did; for I saw it was Grace, whom I

had left in bed by her mother's side.

She came to me, and took my hand. Her bare feet glittered white in the

moonshine; and sprinkled the light upward, as they plashed through the

pool.

"Father," said she, "Mother bade me say this." Then pausing to gather

breath and memory, she repeated these words, like a lesson of which she

feared to forget a syllable.

"Mother says, 'There is a God in Heaven; and in His house are many

mansions. If you hope to meet her there, you will come back and speak to

her; if you are to be separate forever and ever, you will go on; and may

God have mercy on her and on you!' Father, I have said it right--every

word."

I was silent. At last I said,

"What made mother say this? How came she to send you out?"

"I was asleep, Father, and I heard her cry. I wakened up, and I think

you had but just left the house, and that she was calling for you. Then

she prayed, with the tears rolling down her cheeks, and kept

saying--'Oh, that I could walk!--Oh, that for one hour I could run and

walk!' So I said, 'Mother, I can run and walk. Where must I go?' And she

clutched at my arm; and bade God bless me; and told me not to fear, for

that he would compass me about; and taught me my message; and now,

Father, dear Father, you will meet mother in Heaven, won't you--and not

be separate forever and ever?" She clung to my knees and pleaded once

more in her mother's words. I took her up in my arms and turned

homeward.

"Is yon man there, on the kitchen floor?" asked I.

"Yes!" she answered. At any rate, my vengeance was not out of my power

yet.

When we got home I passed him, dead asleep!

In our room, to which my child guided me, was Nelly. She sat up in bed,

a most unusual attitude for her, and one of which I thought she had been

incapable of attaining to without help. She had her hands clasped, and

her face wrapt as if in prayer; and when she saw me, she lay back with a

sweet, ineffable smile. She could not speak at first; but when I came

near, she took my hand and kissed it, and then she called Grace to her,

and made her take off her cloak and her wet things, and, dressed in her

short scanty night-gown, she slipped into her mother's warm side, and

all this time my Nelly never told me why she summoned me; it seemed

enough that she should hold my hand, and feel that I was there. I

believed she had read my heart; and yet I durst not speak to ask her. At

last she looked up. "My husband," said she, "God has saved you and me

from a great sorrow this night." I would not understand, and I felt her

look die away into disappointment.

"That poor wanderer in the house-place is Richard Jackson, is it not?"

I made no answer. Her face grew white and wan.

"Oh," said she, "this is hard to bear. Speak what is in your mind, I beg

of you. I will not thwart you harshly; dearest John, only speak to me."

"Why need I speak? You seem to know all."

"I do know that his is a voice I can never forget; and I do know the

awful prayers you have prayed; and I know how I have lain awake, to pray

that your words might never be heard; and I am a powerless cripple. I

put my cause in God's hands. You shall not do the man any harm. What you

have it in your thoughts to do I can not tell. But I know that you can

not do it. My eyes are dim with a strange mist, but some voice tells me

that you will forgive even Richard Jackson. Dear husband--dearest John,

it is so dark I can not see you; but speak once to me."

I moved the candle--but when I saw her face, I saw what was drawing the

mist over those loving eyes--how strange and woeful that she could die!

Her little girl lying by her side looked in my face, and then at her;

and the wild knowledge of death shot through her young heart and she

screamed aloud.

Nelly opened her eyes once more. They fell upon the gaunt, sorrow-worn

man who was the cause of all. He roused him from his sleep, at that

child's piercing cry, and stood at the doorway looking in. He knew Nelly

and understood where the storm had driven him to shelter. He came toward

her:

"Oh, woman--dying woman--you have haunted me in the loneliness of the

Bush far away--you have been in my dreams forever--the hunting of men

has not been so terrible as the hunting of your spirit--that stone--that

stone!" he fell down by her bedside in an agony--above which her

saint-like face looked on us all, for the last time, glorious with the

coming light of heaven. She spoke once again:

"It was a moment of passion--I never bore you malice for it. I forgive

you--and so does John, I trust."

Could I keep my purpose there? It faded into nothing. But above my

choking tears, I strove to speak clear and distinct, for her dying ear

to hear, and her sinking heart to be gladdened.

"I forgive you, Richard; I will befriend you in your trouble."

She could not see; but instead of the dim shadow of death stealing over

her face, a quiet light came over it, which we knew was the look of a

soul at rest.

That night I listened to his tale for her sake; and I learnt that it is

better to be sinned against than to sin. In the storm of the night mine

enemy came to me; in the calm of the gray morning, I let him forth, and

bade him "God speed." And a woe had come upon me, but the burning burden

of a sinful, angry heart was taken off. I am old now, and my daughter is

married. I try to go about preaching and teaching in my rough, rude way;

and what I teach is how Christ lived and died, and what was Nelly's

faith of love.

[From Fraser's Magazine.]

PHANTOMS AND REALITIES.--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

PART THE FIRST--MORNING.

I.

The sapling, green and tender, yields readily to wind and sun and the

hand of the trainer; the grown tree resists the storm, and 'tis well

with it if it be not torn up by the roots; the aged trunk, dried to the

core, spreads out its branches and perishes. This is human life.

At first, all wonder and curiosity, we are moulded by surrounding

circumstances, which often affect our after lives, as colors laid at the

root of bulbous plants are said to transmit their tints to the blossom;

next comes the age of knowledge, when reason struggles with passion,

and is not always the victor; lastly, the decay, when passion is

extinct, and we live on a little longer on our memories, and then drop

into dust.

When I formed the resolution to set down the events that have agitated

my life, and marked it out with a strange difference from the lives of

other men, I did not see the difficulties that beset my confession on

the very threshold. They grew upon me by degrees. The more I reflected

on it, the more reluctance I felt at the thought of writing about things

which no man would believe. Looking back upon them from the verge of the

grave, which can not now be long untenanted, they seem, even to me, more

like fantastic dreams or wild allegories than real occurrences. How then

can I expect others to accept as true a narration which contradicts

their experience and convictions, and which I can not elucidate myself?

I can explain nothing; I can only relate what has happened to me,

careful not to deviate a hair's breadth into exaggeration. It would be

little to the purpose to say that truth is stranger than fiction, an

axiom which every body admits as a loose generality, but which nobody

will consent to apply in the instances by which it is illustrated. I can

attest, out of my own knowledge, that truth often presents inexplicable

phenomena, and is sometimes irreconcilable with the laws of nature. But

who will credit me, I said, when I narrate such things?

Again and again I approached the subject, and as often recoiled from the

execution of my design. It was only by repeated efforts that I summoned

up sufficient moral courage to overcome the fear and shame that

overwhelmed me, from the apprehension that I should be regarded as one

who had been himself deceived, or who was practicing a deception on

others. A patient examination of the motives upon which my resolution

was founded, determined me, however, to brave all such risks, in the

assurance that they who, exercising their literal judgment, as they have

a right to do, might see reason for doubting my veracity, could not

fail, upon the whole, to draw a practical moral from my revelations. For

the rest, I must appease my own scruples by declaring that I have herein

written nothing that is not strictly true, and related exactly as it

occurred.

II.

My earliest recollections of my father do not extend to his form or

lineaments. I remember nothing of him except his voice, the tone of

which lingers as distinctly in my ear to this hour as if I had heard it

yesterday. It was low and tremulous, and seemed to have a thrill in it

of suffering, or anger, I know not which. The only parent I knew was my

mother, with whom I lived in a solitude that I can not contemplate at

this distance of time without shuddering.

Our house was situated on a lonely moor in the north of England, close

upon the bleak border--a dismal neighborhood, savage, cold, and

desolate. It was built so far back as the reign of Richard II., and

with its flanking walls, crumbling on all sides into ruin, and its paved

court-yards, covered a considerable area. Most of the apartments were

large and gloomy, and hung with arras of so great an age, that the

colors had grown dim, and the thread in many places appeared to be

dropping into powder. Long corridors and smaller rooms ran round the

quadrangle; and as the uses for which this huge pile was designed by its

founders had long since passed away with the bands of retainers and

extravagant pomp that distinguished the days of feudal hospitality and

royal progresses, only a small part of it was kept up in an inhabitable

condition by my mother. Unfortunately for my after life, the part so

preserved lay in the very centre of the mansion, approachable only by

dark passages, utterly obscure at night, and barely lighted in the

day-time by narrow latticed windows, such as we see indented in the

thick walls of old cloisters. To reach the inhabited rooms it was

necessary to make many windings, to twine up a short spiral stair that

led from the outer court, and to traverse two sides of the quadrangle.

This was always a fearful thing to me, which use by no means deprived of

its terrors. There were many legends whispered from one to another in

the winter nights of revolting crimes which had taken place there in

former times, and which rose re-embodied before me as I cowered past the

spots where they were said to have been enacted. The aspect of the

dreary building, within and without, by day and night, made it all real.

If the moon shone brightly into the passages, strange shadows were

discernible flitting across the floor or creeping up the walls; and as I

involuntarily glanced through shattered doors and inner casements,

remnants of armor hanging about, and fragments of tapestry fluttering

against the windows, and other relics of a 'sheeted ancestry,' would

seem to glide out of the darkness, and fill the open spaces with forms

swaying and undulating before my eyes. I remember how my limbs used to

totter under me as I tried not to see these sights, and crept on,

stifling the fear that was distilling drops of agony over my body by the

greater fear of uttering a cry, lest the slightest noise might bring

worse horrors round me. I am speaking of my childhood--and children will

understand me.

Let no man scoff at these terrors. The wisest and bravest have quailed

under them. Skepticism may laugh, but it would be more profitably

employed in endeavoring to solve the problems which concern the

connection between the material and the spiritual universe. Why is it

that adults, as well as children, are impressed with a certain

uneasiness in the dark? Not a fear of ghosts, or robbers, or accidents,

or of any thing upon which the mind can reason, or of which the senses

are cognizant; but a vague consciousness of invisible influences. In the

daylight we have no such sensations; they belong exclusively to silence

and darkness.

As a child, I grew up in the awe of these influences, fostered by

loneliness and the moody companionship of a wayward woman, who held

little intercourse with the outer world, and shut herself up in dreams

and superstitions. An incident which occurred at this period helped to

give a supernatural turn to many circumstances that were, no doubt,

capable of a simple solution.

Toward the extremity of a court to the south of the old pile, there was

a chasm in the ground, partly filled up with loose stones and brambles.

The whole place was over-run with grass and weeds, and the walls and

outbuildings that surrounded it were in ruins. I had heard that this

spot, which gaped so grimly through the tall, lank bushes and

accumulated rubbish, was formerly the entrance to a series of

subterranean galleries, that had been excavated below the foundations

for the purpose of concealing troops, or stowing away prisoners, in

times of trouble; and that they had been used in that way during the

Civil War, when the mansion stood out a long siege against some of

Fairfax's generals. An irresistible curiosity to explore these galleries

seized upon me. I was fascinated by the very fear with which the stories

related about them had inspired me. I never could pass that yawning

chasm, which, now nearly choked up, was hardly wide enough to admit of

the descent of a grown person, without longing to plunge into its

depths. I often lingered there in the twilight, when the shadows were

falling about, enhancing the terror and the temptation; and one evening

in the autumn I took courage, and, clearing away the brambles with

trembling hands, I forced myself down, bringing with me a torrent of

stones and earth.

Finding my feet at the bottom, and rubbing my eyes, I tried to grope my

way onward. At first there was a dim light at a great distance above me,

in a slanting direction, but in an instant afterward I was in total

darkness. My first impulse was to laugh at the exploit I had achieved;

but as I pattered along, plashing sometimes in pools of water, and

sometimes knocking my head against the rough stones that jutted out on

each side, my mirth deserted me. When I became accustomed to the

darkness, I fancied I could discern shapeless figures rising up and

vanishing in the gloom--the walls seemed to move out of their places,

and heave to and fro like wrecks in a storm--then they would open, and

collapse, and disappear: all was in motion, black and tumultuous, and a

surging sound, as of winds and waters lashing and wailing in a confined

space, moaned dismally in my ears. Even when I closed my eyes, and

pressed my fingers upon them to shut out these sights, they were still

before me. This was, of course, the work of mere fright; but what

followed can not be so easily accounted for.

While I stood hesitating how I should proceed, for I had lost my track,

and knew not whether I ought to go backward or forward, I heard a

distinct rushing sound, quite close to me. It swept past, and all was

silent again. It was like a rush of silk or satin, or some fabric that,

suddenly crushed, gives out a crackling noise. All the blood in my body

gathered into my head; my eyes emitted fire, as if they had been struck

by a cord. A stifling sensation bubbled up to my throat, and I

involuntarily uttered a cry, which was echoed from a hundred recesses,

and continued at intervals, reverberating like a succession of shots in

the distance. I panted with horror, as I grasped the wall and listened.

My fear was too great to suffer me to cry out for help. The apprehension

of again invoking these dreadful echoes appalled me; I hardly breathed,

and stood still to listen, I know not how long. A death-like silence

pervaded the darkness. The soughing of the winds had ceased, or I

fancied so, the stillness was so heavy. It may be that my faculties were

intent upon that palpable sound I had heard, and could distinguish

nothing else.

At last I began to move, treading softly, and stopping at intervals to

watch and listen. I had scarcely proceeded in this way a dozen paces,

when I felt as plainly as if I saw the object in the broad glare of the

sun, a quick motion at my side in a nook or crevice of the wall. It was

like the effort of a person to shrink down and escape from me. In an

excess of fright and desperation I clutched at it with my hands, and

caught it--I say caught it, for a substance resembling a thick silk

filled the palms of both my hands. I held it with the grasp of one who

was struggling for life, and tried to speak, but my tongue was dry; and

I could not articulate a word: and while I held it, I was conscious that

the object was moving away--it moved away, and still I thought I held

it. I had not the power to loosen my fingers, which I had a strong

impulse to do--and then the silk glided out of them, although they were

coiled in it--and the next moment a grasp of muscles, cold and sharp,

was on my neck, and pressed into my flesh. I was distraught with terror,

and my senses forsook me.

When I recovered, I found myself lying on a couch in the great room, my

mother sitting at a distance, and an ancient female servant watching

over me.

This woman was the oldest domestic in the house. She had lived all her

life in the family, and had seen two generations into the grave. It was

from her lips I had learned most of the traditions that filled my head

with such alarm and curiosity; it was from her I had acquired a

knowledge of those subterranean passages in which I had encountered this

singular adventure; and as soon as my mother left the room I related the

whole story to her. She heard it to the end with a dark expression of

anger on her face, which I interpreted into a reproof on my willfulness

and folly in venturing into such places; and then she questioned me

severely as to what I heard and saw, and what I thought it could have

been. Finding that I could give her no satisfactory answers to these

questions, she enjoined me to hold my tongue about it, and above all

things not to speak of it to my mother. She rated me soundly for saying

that I firmly believed I had caught something like a woman's dress in my

hands; and she made me feel her old stuff gown, that I might assure

myself it was no such texture as that. "How could I be so silly as to

suppose that a woman, or even a man, would hide in vaults and passages

that had not been opened for hundreds of years? What could I imagine

they were doing there? It was more likely that rats, and toads, and bats

were to be found there than human beings." And a great deal more to the

like effect, as if she wanted to impress upon me that it was altogether

the fancy of a distempered brain, and no reality.

Yet, in spite of every thing she said, my conviction remained unaltered.

I could not be deceived in a fact so clearly attested by my own

sensations. But the mystery was never cleared up; and I brooded over it

in secret so perversely, that it exercised a blighting influence for a

long time upon my imagination.

Many years afterward a suspicion crossed my mind, that this woman knew

more about the matter than she cared to acknowledge. It was she who

carried me into the house, having discovered me, as she stated, lying

insensible in the court-yard; but I had no recollection of having found

my way out into the air--a circumstance which at the time did not

present itself to me in the light in which I am disposed to regard it

now. Nor should I, perhaps, have been led to suspect her of duplicity,

had she not acted with ingratitude at a time when sorrow and misfortune

had fallen upon the house that had nurtured her from infancy.

III.

My mother had no companion. Even the servants lived apart, and performed

their allotted offices at hours when she was not present; so that our

table was laid and our wants supplied, for the most part by unseen

hands. Such was my mother's way of life. Solitude and early griefs had

fallen heavily upon her spirits, and fretted her temper. She rarely

exchanged words with the servants, and never except upon unavoidable

occasions. A spoken language was almost interdicted among us, and in its

place the language of books was substituted. We dwelt in a world of our

own, in which the unreal was invested with a living interest.

Conversation wearied her; she had no sympathy with the actual life

around her, and had long closed her heart against it. But the charm of

books was ever fresh and inexhaustible. She possessed in a higher degree

than any person I ever knew the power of realizing their contents.

Portraits stepped out of them, and became as familiar to her as if they

had moved about her bodily in the flesh. This daily intercourse with the

creations of the brain fed her morbid desire for seclusion, and was

cultivated with an earnestness that proved fatal at last.

Her taste lay entirely in one direction; the marvelous and extravagant

alone interested her. She prohibited all works that treated of real

life, and sought for the excitement she loved in the region of wonder

and romance. Her library (a room of which I will speak more particularly

presently) was filled with histories of sorcery and enchantment--of

miraculous escapes and perils--providential interpositions--dreams,

omens, and spectral appearances--astrology and witchcraft--church-yard

legends, and the superstitions which ascribe a mysterious power to

spells, charms, and incantations--traditions of giants and

monsters--feats of the genii and evil spirits, and narratives that

embraced the whole round of that curious lore which relates to the

alchemists and diviners.

These books were the delight and occupation of her life; and when her

eyes latterly began to grow dim with age, it was my task to read them

aloud to her. At first, I revolted from this labor; it hung drearily

upon me, and sickened me. Youth is naturally mutinous under confinement,

and yearns for activity and freedom. But it was surprising how soon I

fell into her tastes, and found myself kindling, as she used to do, over

the horrors these terrible books unfolded. And now they took possession

of me, I began to believe in them as she did; and with belief, or the

awe which is so closely allied to it, my eagerness to penetrate further

and further grew into an irresistible passion. Many a time in the bleak

autumn nights, when the sharp winds snapped the leaves from the trees,

and drifted their crisp spoils against the windows, have I sat gasping

over some hideous tale, to which, by an involuntary association of

ideas, the desolation of the season imparted additional terrors. I was

wrought upon by that sort of fascination which resides in the eyes of

the snake, when it fixes its gaze upon the face of a child.

Children who have been brought up in a healthy collision with the world

know nothing of the state of fear and mental slavery I am describing. A

little judicious counsel would have dispelled these delusions; a little

timely explanation would have shown me their absurdity. But where was I

to seek it? In my isolation I had not a single adviser. I took all I

read for granted. The book could not dissipate the chaos of doubts and

importunities of struggling reason it generated; it was dumb, and could

not answer my questions. If I appealed to my mother, she was chafed at

the interruption and the heresy, and commanded me to read on. At last I

doubted no longer. Wonder after wonder swept away my feeble judgment. I

believed in a spiritual kingdom--in the return of the dead to the

earth--in the power of prophecy and the agency of demons--in second

sight and the elixir vitæ--in amulets and miraculous invocations; the

crystal mirror of Cornelius Agrippa, the witches of the Brocken, the

Flying Dutchman, the Wandering Jew, were all realities to me. The

ignorant alone believe in such things; but in this ignorance consisted

all the knowledge that was thrown open to me.

The library was at some distance from the inhabited part of the house.

It was an oblong room, with deep recesses, in which stood the old oak

book-cases. If we had had the power of selecting a theatre for the

performance of the legends which were read aloud here every night, we

could not have found one better adapted to the purpose. The apartment

was large and gloomy; and the tapestried walls, the ponderous draperies,

the polished floor, the painted ceiling, the high-backed chairs, and the

vast fire-place, with its carved mantle-shelf, supplied the very style

of scene and furniture best adapted to give a striking effect to tales

of crime and enchantment. Except close to the fire, and round the table

on which we placed our lights, the library, from its height and extent,

was buried in deep shadow; so that there was nothing wanted to help the

imagination to a fitting locality for all kinds of mysteries.

I shall never forget my mother's sensations on one occasion when I read

to her in this room an account of some man who kept watch through a

whole night in a haunted chamber, and was never heard of afterward. She

fancied that the tapestry moved, and called upon me to observe it. I did

so, and fancied I saw it too. Twice she grasped my arm, and bade me

cease; and looking shudderingly round, she twice desired me to listen,

and tell her if I did not hear a foot-fall passing the extremity of the

apartment in the dark with solemn regularity. I heard something--it was

like the slow tread of a sentinel.

It was in that room, which cast its gloom over every page, blotting out

its lines of sunshine wherever any happened to fall, that I read the

_Decameron_. The groups in the garden--radiant, joyous, and in rapt

attitudes of expectation and attention--were distinctly present to me,

but darkened by immediate associations. Sorrow and anguish seemed to sit

in their faces; there was no flush of emotion, no lightening in the

eyes, no intensity in the cleft lips, no streaming hair, or burning

cheeks, or startled gestures. All was cold, as if it were cut in marble.

That pallid circle of listeners, disposed in such picturesque forms,

seemed to me to be lying in a trance, so completely did the miserable

influence of that room kill the gayety of all objects, and leave nothing

but the skeleton behind.

We were never at a loss for excitement of this kind, which appeared,

indeed, the only thing for which we lived. Our pursuits were interrupted

for a time by the serious illness of my mother; but her irritable

temperament rendered her impatient of sickness, and before the signs of

the malady had passed out from her stricken frame she insisted upon

returning to her nightly vigils.

Night after night she continued at her dangerous indulgence, while her

eyes were visibly contracting a dull film, her cheeks wasting and

falling in, and her pulse growing fainter and fainter. It was not a

sight for a son to look upon, and tend with idle fancies and the

levities of fable. I felt this and remonstrated, and the agonizing

reality before me awakened me for a moment to the vanities of books. But

she persisted in her demand and still preserved her listening posture,

although the sense of hearing and the faculty of attention were sinking

rapidly.

Some weeks had been consumed in this way, when one winter night she

desired me to read a certain history from a favorite volume of old

legends. The history she selected was that of a supernatural appearance

that was alleged to have followed a gentleman of Verona with the

fidelity of a shadow. The history set forth the arts and devices by

which he endeavored to perplex and evade it--how he went into dark and

lonely places, and how still his spectral companion stood at his

side--how he rushed into crowded scenes, forcing his way violently

through the mass, in the hope that he would thus escape; but no matter

how dense the multitude, or by what stratagems and confederacy the

gentleman sought to bury himself out of sight, the apparition in its

human shape was ever standing or moving close beside him. The strangest

thing was that it bore an unnatural likeness to him, not only in its

face and form, but in its actions, which were always so faithfully and

so instantaneously copied after him, that they resembled a reflection in

a mirror. He tried the most painful and unexpected contortions, only to

see them reproduced with a rapidity that mocked his despair.

The history went on to say how he invented various schemes, and

underwent many fearful trials of sorcery, in the hope of banishing or

subduing his horrid familiar, but all in vain, for the fiend baffled all

his efforts, and was still found at his side, day and night, whether he

rode or walked, or threw himself on his couch for repose--how he

summoned courage to speak to it at last, and was answered by the echoes

of his own voice--how he swam floods with the ghastly thing floating

along with him on the surge--how he climbed the highest hills and fled

into savage caverns, the familiar still toiling or groveling beside

him--how, in a fit of madness, he tried to grapple it on the edge of a

precipice with the desperate intent of dragging it down with him into

the abyss below, and how the shape wrought in the struggle, impalpable

to the touch, but visible to the sight, like painted air--how, after

enduring horrible tortures, the man wasted away, and became a mere

shadow, the spirit waning and fading in like manner--and how the priests

of a holy order, in the solitudes of the Apennines, hearing of these

strange events, bethought them of shriving the man, and expelling the

incarnate devil that had worked such inexplicable misery upon him.

The history next went on to relate how the monks found the man so weak

and emaciated that he could scarcely take food or answer their

questions--and how they had him conveyed to their chapel at midnight,

amid the glare of torches and the chants of the holy brotherhood, the

imperishable fiend lying stretched by his side in the litter, in open

spite of the holy water with which they had sprinkled it, and of the

care with which they had caused it to be made so small that it was

thought impossible for him to find room upon it--and how, when the

wretched man was brought to the altar, they placed him upright before

it, and began to pray, the fiend all the while being in his usual place

next to his mortal fellow--and how, as the prayers proceeded and the

voices of the assembled priests, of whom numbers had collected from

distant places to witness the scene, ascended to the roof, filling the

sanctuary with solemn and blessed music, the man turned a look of

deathly fear, and gazed into the eyes of the spirit, the spirit giving

back the look with the same thrilling and awful expression--and how the

sufferer, when the venerable abbot came to the benediction, and offered

to place his hands upon his head, sank gradually down, the fiend sinking

with him--and how, as the last word was uttered, they vanished together

into the earth, and on the instant the torches were extinguished, as by

a sudden gust of wind.

When I came to this point of the story, I lifted my eyes to look upon my

mother. She sat upon her great chair opposite to me, looking straight at

me with a glassy and vacant stare. Her limbs were rigid, and a spasm sat

upon her features.

"Mother!" I exclaimed; "mother!" I could not speak more. I was choking

for utterance, my hair coiled out like living fibres, the room seemed to

swim round and round. I stretched out my arms and seized her hands--they

were cold, cold and clammy. Let me not dwell on it--in that spectral

chamber I was alone with the dead!

IV.

For many days afterward the house was like a tomb. My mother was laid

out in the state-room, which, never having been used in our time, had a

dank, earthy smell, and was wretchedly bleak and naked. She lay upon the

old square bed, whose hangings, swept up into a ring over head, were

once a bright orange damask, but now an undistinguishable tawny mass,

from which tracery and color had long disappeared. There was no other

article of furniture in the apartment, which bore dreary evidence of the

neglect into which it had fallen. The fire-place was closed up with a

screen; and the fragments of arras that hung from the walls were eaten

into shreds by the damp. Desolate was the pomp of the poor corpse that

lay freezing under its stately coverlid, in the icy air of that room.

The old woman, of whom I have already spoken, undertook the melancholy

office of watching the dead. She suffered nobody else to approach the

body. The house felt as if it were empty. Wherever a foot trod in the

passage it gave out a hollow sound; and the servants, scared by

undefined terror, immured themselves in their rooms, where they remained

cooped and huddled together till the last rites were over.

Then went forth a scanty procession of ashy faces, winding down the

black hills to the church-yard; and when she was laid in the grave, a

shudder passed among them, and they whispered one to another, and then

their eyes rested upon me. The action was significant of the feeling

with which they regarded my situation. I was the last of my race, and my

inheritance was little more than the mausoleum of my ancestors.

The old woman had done well to monopolize the tending of the dead, and

the management of the funeral. She knew my unfitness, from grief and

ignorance of the world, to enter upon such details; and she took them

all off my hands, with a most careful watchfulness of my ease--and her

own interest. During that brief interval of sorrow--when the whole

household had withdrawn into retirement--she collected all the plate,

valuables, and moneys, she could find in the house; and when the grave

was closed, and the servants had returned home, she was nowhere to be

found. She had, in short, made ample provision for the rest of her life

out of such spoils as she could secure; for which, I afterward

discovered, she had been making industrious preparations long before.

Some attempts were made to trace her, but they were fruitless.

This was my first experience of the heartlessness of the world; and,

although it is an incident of every-day occurrence in all civilized

communities, it was new to me at that time, and stung me to the soul.

After months of seclusion through the biting winter and spring, summer

came round again, and I thought I would venture abroad, in hope that the

air and a little activity and change of scene would recruit my health;

for I was shattered and nervous, and conscious of a prostration of mind

almost amounting to disease. The country round about was abrupt and

wild, covered with heather for the most part, broken up and picturesque,

and studded here and there with patches of bright verdure, invaded by

clumps of forest trees. In some places it took a mountainous character,

and brawling streams rushing through deep gorges and rocky glens

assimilated the scenery to the general tone of the region that lies

still farther to the north. The neighborhood was lonely and

unfrequented; it resembled the hilly solitudes of Arran and Bute; there

were few homesteads in the distant landscape to send up cheerful volumes

of smoke among the trees: and you might ride a whole morning without

meeting a wayfarer.

I was on horseback one day, passing leisurely in an idle mood out of the

mouth of a ravine that led to an open valley, when I saw a lady, in a

riding-habit, mounted at no great distance from me. Her horse was

apparently picking his way slowly through the hillocks that dotted the

surface of the sward. The appearance of a lady alone loitering in so

unfrequented a spot surprised me. Had I seen an apparition I could not

have been more astonished.

As she moved past toward the opposite side she turned her head, and her

clear, pensive eyes, fell full upon my face with an expression of

ineffable sweetness.

Where had I seen those features before? They seemed quite familiar to

me. The dress, the action of her arm as she reined up her horse, and,

above all, the sad beauty of her eyes, I could have protested I had seen

a hundred times. Yet an instant's reflection would have sufficed to

convince me that I was under a mistake, for visitors or friends like her

there were none in our lonely house.

Her brief, quiet glance, had something in it of a look of recognition. I

felt as if there was a recognition on both sides. I felt, too, or

imagined, that she was slightly agitated by it. I knew that my own heart

fluttered wildly. My solitary life had rendered me nervous, and the

dangerous lore with which my head was filled gave to the incident an

immediate coloring of romance. A new sensation had taken possession of

me, a new world was opening to me; the solitude and remoteness of the

place, and the unexpectedness of that vision rising up among the wild

flowers and the dark green heather, acted like a charm upon me, and

awakened me to a sense of bewildering delight I had never experienced

before.

There is always an awkwardness in country places at rencounters between

people who are unaccustomed to strangers. I hardly knew whether I should

advance or retreat, and suffering my horse to take his own course, he

carried me a little circuit behind a patch of trees that intervened

between us. When I looked again she was gone. Scarcely a moment had

elapsed, and she had vanished like a sunbow. I could hardly believe in a

disappearance so miraculous, and rubbed my eyes, and gazed again and

again over the vacant space before me. But she was nowhere to be seen.

My curiosity was highly excited, and, dashing at full speed over the

very spot she had so recently occupied, I traversed every outlet, but

without success. It was broad noon. I knew all the bridle-tracks in and

out of the valley, and it was impossible she could have taken any of

them, and escaped my vigilant search in so short a time. What, then, was

this form I had beheld? I had heard of Second Sight, and other visual

deceptions--was this one of them? Had she melted into air? Had she come

there only to mock me? Was I the victim of a self-delusion? The tortures

of Tantalus were slight in comparison with the misery I felt as I rode

round and round that sequestered dell, hoping in vain that she would

return. But it was unlike any misery that had ever preyed upon me

before. There was a strange thrill of expectation and uncertainty in

it, and it pointed to an object in the future which, from that hour,

gave me a novel interest in life. A total change had passed over me, and

any change was welcome.

Every day I renewed my visit to the same place, but the nymph of my

pilgrimage never returned to the spot where I had first beheld her.

Under this disappointment fancy liberally supplied a picture which

sustained and heightened my desire to gaze once more on the reality. By

a mental process, of which I can give no further account than that it is

very well known to all readers of romance who are endowed with faith and

imagination, I culled the most lovable and fascinating qualities of a

hundred heroines--the tenderness and devotion, gentleness and grace, of

all the Amandas, Isidoras, and Ethelindas, my brain had become

intimately acquainted with--and compiled out of them a suitable Ideal

for the worship of my perturbed affections. Nor was I satisfied with

creating this imaginary enchantress by a sweeping contribution from the

special charms of all the fine heroines I had read of, but I must needs

put her into every possible emergency that could show off her beauty and

her virtues to advantage. I believe I made her run the gauntlet of more

perilous adventures and extraordinary trials than ever befell any single

heroine in the whole library of fiction.

I could not for an instant dismiss her from my thoughts; and that one

look that had enthralled me was ever present to me. Even in sleep I was

haunted by its disturbing influence, and the tantalizing scene in the

valley was re-enacted, with sundry alterations and additions, over and

over again in my dreams. As it had then become the sole occupation of my

life to think of her, and to explore the country every day in search of

her, it was not very wonderful that her image should have resolved

itself into a settled illusion, possessing me so entirely that, in the

image conjured up by my distempered imagination, I should at last

believe that I actually saw before me that which I so cordially desired

to see, and the seeing which was the object that engrossed me to the

exclusion of all other pursuits. When one idea thus tyrannically absorbs

the mind, the very monotony of its pressure is apt to overlay the

reasoning faculties and coerce them into delusions. People mourning to

excess over the dead have sometimes supposed that they saw them again

"in their habit as they lived." Under the influence of great excitement,

profound grief has done the work of fever; and assuredly there is a

fever of the mind as well as of the body.

Thus it was that, laboring under this constant agony of desire, I saw

that abstraction of all conceivable loveliness once more. She was seated

in the library--in the very chair in which my mother died. I then little

suspected that I was entranced by a phantom of my own making, and that

the exquisite appearance that sat in my presence was of no more

substance than a beam of light, into which outlines and colors of

immortal beauty were infused by my heated fancy. I spoke to her--she

turned aside, and raised her hand with a motion, as I thought, of

surprise. Again I addressed her, and she rose, and passed noiselessly

toward the door. I confess that, anxious as I was to detain her, and

procure some explanation from her, my courage gave way at this movement,

and I spoke no more; but I followed her with my eyes, trying to read the

feeling that seemed to flit in hers. It was clear to me, ambiguous as

its expression was, and difficult as it is to explain it. The melancholy

smile that played over her features contained a history. There was love

(of course, having created her, it was natural I should make her return

my passion), intense love, darkened by some great sorrow, as if

insuperable obstacles stood in its way, and turned it to despair. She

retired to the door-way, and stood there for a moment in the attitude of

leave-taking. She was not, I thought, to be lost thus, and perhaps

forever--one effort, and I might yet preserve her. I advanced hastily to

grasp her hand, but as I stretched out mine to touch it, a chill, not of

fear, but awe, came upon me, and I stood looking helplessly upon the

inexplicable magic of her departure. She did not leave me in the manner

of one who fled from my approach, but rather as if she left me

reluctantly and by constraint, slowly and lingeringly dissolving from my

sight--like a bright cloud fainting from twilight into darkness.

A long illness followed this visitation. During the fever that

supervened, I was reunited in a delicious rapture to her who had so

mysteriously fascinated me. Alone with her in weird solitudes, I gazed

into the deep light of her eyes, fearing to speak lest at the sound of

my voice she might again vanish from me. Silence appeared to be

understood between us as the condition of our intercourse, so

unconsciously did my imagination adapt itself to the spiritual nature of

the delusion. At length the fever passed away, but although the body was

delivered from the raging fires that had consumed its strength, the mind

was still devoured by the same insatiable longing to discover the object

of my inextinguishable passion. I was shattered in health and spirits;

incapable of much exertion; and harassed by disappointments. I tried to

shake off the despair that was rapidly gaining an ascendency over me;

but the bleakness and loneliness of my life only helped to encourage it;

and I finally resolved to leave the country, and seek relief and

oblivion in new scenes and excitements. And so I forsook the old mansion

with a heavy heart, and directed my course to London.

V.

It was my first experiment in the world. I had no friends or

acquaintances in the great metropolis. I was a stranger in its thronged

thoroughfares, which are more desolate to a stranger than a howling

wilderness.

At first I was distracted out of myself by the whirl of the vortex in

which I found myself engulfed. The eternal din, the countless

multitudes, the occupation that was legibly written in every man's face,

gave me something to think of, and forced me into a sort of blind

activity. But the novelty of this uproar and bustle, in which my own

sympathies or interests were in no way engaged, soon palled upon me, and

threw me back upon the morbid humors which the sudden change had only

temporarily lulled. I panted again for quiet, and sought it in the depth

of the town.

At that time the church, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields was buried in a

mass of dingy buildings, which, clustering up about it on all sides,

blotted it out from the sun. These buildings were intersected by

numerous dark courts and passages, and in one of them there was a

retired tavern frequented by a few persons, mostly of an intellectual

caste--artists, musicians, authors; men of high aspirations, but whom

fortune never seemed weary of persecuting, and who met here of an

evening to compare notes, and vent their complaints against the world.

This was exactly the sort of company that fell in with my tastes. It was

a satisfaction to me to herd with disappointed men, and hear them rail

at the prosperity which refused to crown their merits. Their failures in

life had given a peculiar turn to their minds, and tinged their

conversation with a spirit of fatalism. They were one and all clearly

convinced that it was in vain to struggle against destiny--that no

genius, however original or lofty, could secure its legitimate rewards

by legitimate means--and that, in short, the only individuals really

deserving of success were those who, by a perverse dispensation of

laurels, never could attain it. This view of the wrongs and injustice

they suffered from society stirred up much pride and bitterness among

them, and led them into many abstract disquisitions, which were rendered

attractive to me, no less by the nature of the topics they selected,

than by the piquancy and boldness with which they dissected them.

The most remarkable person in this little knot was a young man of the

name of Forrester. Like myself, he was of no profession, and appeared to

be drawn into the circle by much the same motives. He was tall and pale,

and generally reserved in speech; but subject to singular

fluctuations--sometimes all sunshine, breaking out into fits of wild

enthusiasm, and sometimes overwhelmed with despondency. These

vicissitudes of mood and temperament, which indicated a troubled

experience beyond his years, interested my sympathies. The more intimate

I became with him, the more reason I had to suspect that his life, like

my own, was the depository of some heavy secret; but I did not venture

to question him on this point, from an apprehension which his bearing

toward me led me to entertain that a similar suspicion lurked in his

mind respecting me. I confess that I dreaded any allusion to my own

history, and carefully avoided all subjects likely to lead to it; for I

should have been ashamed to acknowledge the sufferings I underwent from

a cause which most men would have treated with ridicule and skepticism.

I was quite aware that it was vulnerable to attacks of that sort, and

the terror of having the deception, if it were one, which I had

cherished with such fervor, rudely assailed and beaten down by common

sense, made me preserve a strict silence in every thing relating to

myself--a precaution that probably gave a keener zest to the curiosity I

desired to baffle.

A strong friendship grew up between me and Forrester. We were both

idlers, and we discovered that, by a happy coincidence, our literary

tastes--if an industrious prosecution of desultory and unprofitable

reading may be dignified by such a term--lay in the same channels. He

was as deeply learned in the literature of the marvelous as I was

myself; and during the summer evenings we used to take long walks into

the country, beguiling the way by discussions upon a variety of

wonderful matters which we turned up out of our old stores. The exercise

at least was healthy, and the very disputations upon the evidence and

likelihood of these things strengthened my faculties, and cleared off

some clouds of credulity. This collision with another mind was a novelty

to me, and, for a time, diverted me from other thoughts.

At our tavern Forrester and I enjoyed distinguished popularity. Every

body listened to our opinions with attention, not so much because they

were remarkable for their soundness, as because they were generally

opposed to established notions, and were urged with earnestness. We

always spoke like men who speak out of their convictions, while most of

the others argued merely for argument's sake, and were ready to take any

side of a question for the pleasure of getting up a controversy, and

showing off their ingenuity.

One evening the conversation turned upon the possibility of the dead

revisiting the earth, and the theory of manifest warnings before

dissolution. The debate, which began in levity, soon took a more serious

tone, and we had been arguing a full hour before I discovered that

Forrester and I had engrossed the discussion to ourselves, the rest of

the company maintaining a profound silence, and listening to our

observations with undisguised wonder and astonishment. This discovery

abashed me a little, for I never meant to make such a display, and I

looked across at Forrester for the purpose of drawing his attention to

the circumstance. I perceived, then, for the first time, that his face

had undergone an extraordinary change. The natural pallor had taken an

almost livid hue. The ordinary placidity of his features had given place

to an expression of severe pain and alarm.

"What is the matter?" I inquired. "Are you ill?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"You look dreadfully pale." He only smiled at this remark--but it was a

ghastly smile.

"I know that something is the matter," I cried. "What is it, Forrester?"

"Nothing. What can be the matter? Are we not all living men talking upon

equal terms, and in the best possible humor, about the dead? Why should

that affect me more than any body else?"

"I know not why it should," I replied, "but I feel it does."

"Are you quite sure," he returned, in a low voice, "that it does not

affect you as deeply?" He looked at me as if he knew my whole life,

which he could not have known; and, in spite of a violent effort to

suppress my feelings, I was conscious that I betrayed the agitation into

which I was thrown by that searching look.

"Come, come," he exclaimed, rallying wildly, "we have both looked death

in the face before now; and although use can not make it familiar, still

a sight often repeated must lose some of its horrors."

"No, you are wrong. I have not seen death often."

"Once--only once," he replied, in the same hollow voice; "but you have

seen many deaths in one."

"How do you know that?" I demanded; "or assume to know it?"

"One day you shall learn," he answered, calmly.

"You amaze me. Speak openly to me, Forrester, and not in these dark

enigmas. I can bear to hear."

"Can you bear to suffer?" he asked.

"I can--I think I can," I replied, shrinking at my heart from the ordeal

I invited. "I have suffered that which I should once have thought

utterly fabulous, and beyond human endurance."

"I know it. But endurance has its limits. The earthly can bear only that

which is of the earth--test them with sufferings that look out beyond

this world into the darkness of eternity, and they perish. The trial is

not in those things that are dated, bounded, and finite: it is where

speculation can not reach nor reason avail us, where human knowledge and

human strength are blind and idle, that the trial of that suffering

begins, which is akin to the penalties of immortal spirits--a beginning

without an end."

"I do not understand you," I answered.

"You _will_ understand me, however, when the hour arrives." Then

stopping short, he whispered, "they are observing us; this is not the

place for such a theme. We shall meet again, when you shall be

satisfied."

"When?"

"Soon--I fear too soon. No matter--we shall meet, and you shall be

satisfied."

He rose and left the room.

I was restrained from following him only by the consideration that I

should expose myself to the criticisms of our companions, who, I had

observed, were fond of making merry at the expense of their absent

friends; and as I was beginning to feel very sensitive to ridicule, I

determined not to give them an opportunity of exercising their wit upon

me.

When Forrester was gone, they immediately took him to pieces. His

character, habits, life, and opinions, furnished them with abundant

materials for commentary, which they were all the less scrupulous in

dealing freely with because they really knew little or nothing about

him. One said that there was a mysterious something about Forrester that

he couldn't make out--it might be all right, but, for his part, he liked

people to be candid with you and above-board; another remarked, that a

man who lived nobody knew exactly how, and who disappeared every night

at pretty much the same hour, and was so very incommunicative about his

pursuits, laid himself open to suspicion, at all events; a third

suggested that, probably, he had experienced some blight, which had

spoiled him for company--perhaps he had been crossed in love (here there

was a general laugh, and a rapid succession of puns); while a fourth,

who made it a rule never to form a judgment on any man's character

without knowing him thoroughly, could not help observing that Mr.

Forrester certainly held some rather extraordinary doctrines about

ghosts and other nonsense of that sort, which, to be sure, was no

imputation on his character, but--here the speaker stopped short, and

shook his head in a very significant manner.

These opinions, delivered off-hand, puzzled me exceedingly, for I could

not arrive at their meaning. It was evident that Forrester was an object

of mystery to our friends--and so he was to me. But neither they nor I

could get any farther in the matter. They, however, dismissed him from

their minds with the drain of their glasses, while I lay restlessly all

night ruminating on what had occurred.

I was passing through a state of transition from the seclusion in which

my faculties had been kept dormant into a section of society which was

eminently calculated to awaken and sharpen them for use. I was already

getting into a habit of reasoning with myself, of trying to trace

effects to causes, and examining with suspicion many things which I had

hitherto taken upon trust. At first I committed numerous blunders, and

fell into all sorts of mistakes, in my eagerness to emulate the

cleverness of the experienced individuals with whom I was in the habit

of associating. And I could not have dropped upon a clique better

qualified or disposed to ride roughshod over the whole region of

romance. They were generally practical men and some of them were worldly

men; for although not one of them was able to do any thing for himself,

they were all adepts in the knowledge of what other people ought to do.

They looked with supreme contempt upon sentimental people, and took

infinite pleasure in running them down. They were not the sort of men to

be tricked by appearances or clap-trap. They despised finery, and

ostentation, and outside manners. They loved to look at things as they

were, and to call them by their proper names; never, by any accident,

over-rating an excellence, but very frequently exaggerating a defect,

which they considered as an error on the right side. In this severe

school I acquired a few harsh practical views of life, and was beginning

to feel its realities growing up about me; but in the progress from the

visionary to the real there were many shapes of darkness yet to be

struggled with.

A few nights afterward I met Forrester on his way to the rendezvous.

There was the same unaccountable reserve in his manner which he betrayed

at our last abrupt parting; but my anxiety, awakened more by his looks

than his words, would not brook delay. I resolved to get an explanation

on the spot.

"Forrester," I said, "you have inflicted a pain upon me which no man has

a right to inflict upon another, without giving him at the same time his

full confidence. You have made use of strange allusions and hints, which

you are bound to explain. You seem to know more about me than I have

myself ever confided to you, or than you could have known through any

channels with which I am acquainted. I ask you to satisfy me at once

whether it is so, or not?"

"It is so," he replied. "You see I am as frank as you are curious."

"But that does not satisfy me. You say you know more about me than I

have thought it necessary or desirable to impart to you. What is it that

you know?"

"Little," he returned with a singularly disagreeable smile.

"Then it will be the sooner told. What is that little?" and I uttered

the last word with rather a bitter and satirical emphasis.

Forrester drew up gravely at this, and replied to me slowly,

"That little is all. All that has ever happened to you, and the whole

may be expressed in a single word. Your life has scarcely had enough of

action in it to stir the surface; it has been a life of inward strife."

"You have described it truly. My world has not been like that of other

men."

"Nor mine; but I have come out of the mist, and you are in it still."

"You speak riddles, and involve me in deeper obscurity than ever. But I

am resolved to be satisfied, and will be trifled with no longer. What is

that which you said, nay, pledged yourself I should soon learn?"

"You must not be impatient. Do not fear that I will not keep my pledge.

If you knew all, you would understand that I dare not break it.

To-morrow night, at this hour precisely, meet me on this spot, and you

shall be made wiser; happier, I will not promise. Better it should never

be, than that it should be too late. This is dark to you now, it will

soon be clear enough."

We shook hands after the promise of meeting on the following night, and

so parted. Neither of us was in a condition to join the cynics at the

tavern.

After a night of feverish suspense I rose early the next morning, my

brain full of the prospect, clouded as it was, of the interview with

Forrester. The day was passed in a ferment of agitation; I could not

remain at home; I wandered abroad, forgot to dine, and was racked with a

presentiment that my fate, for good or evil, hung upon the issue of the

night.

VI.

At last the appointed hour arrived. Forrester was punctual to the

moment. He was evidently affected by some strong emotion, which he made

fearful efforts to control. I was too much touched by his condition, and

had too much dread about what was coming, to venture upon any questions,

particularly as he seemed to desire silence. He locked his arm in mine

violently, and, without uttering a word, we traversed several streets

till we reached a part of the town with which I was unacquainted. As we

went forward Forrester's agitation sensibly increased; and when we

entered a small square, in the centre of which there was a stunted

plantation, with a mutilated fountain in the midst, he suddenly stopped,

and turning, looked me full in the face.

"Have you courage?" he demanded.

"Mortal courage," I replied, "no more."

"Well, well, we are fools," he continued; "very worms, to think that we

can cope with that which even to endure in ignorance is a task that

sublimes our nature. Suffering is retributive and purifying. This is my

last agony."

He then advanced hastily to a house, the door of which was screened by a

low porch, tastefully covered with creepers. In his attitude at this

instant there was a grandeur that made a deep impression upon me; it was

derived from the triumph of his manly spirit over the anguish that was

laboring at his heart. He knocked, and the door was hurriedly opened by

a servant in mourning.

I should here remark that I had never been at his house before, although

I had known him many months; nor was I even then aware that the house we

were entering was his.

Motioning me to follow him up the stairs, which he ascended stealthily,

I crept up after him with a very uneasy mind. When he reached the

drawing-room door he paused for a moment, then turning the handle slowly

and noiselessly, he entered the room. One glance at the apartment gave

me a general idea of its character. It was small and fashionably

furnished, but had an air of neglect and disorder which indicated that

its tenant had been long confined by illness. At the opposite side was a

sofa, which, for convenience, had been moved near the fire. A lady,

apparently in a very delicate state of health (I could only judge by the

languor of her position, for I could not see her face), lay resting upon

it. Forrester stole quietly to her side, and took her hand.

"Gertrude, how do you feel this evening?"

A sigh, from the depths of her heart, answered him.

"Don't be alarmed; I am not alone; we have come to--"

"Who?" she demanded, suddenly raising herself from the sofa. "Who is

come? Come!--come!--you!--Henry--and--"

She looked at me; I stood in the full light of the fire; our eyes met;

every vein and artery in my body seemed to beat audibly; she uttered an

hysterical cry, and fell back upon the sofa. I rushed to catch her,

sobbed, gasped, tried to speak, flung myself upon my knees before her,

and madly clasped the drooping hand, the living hand, of her who had so

long enthralled my soul, and who, until this hour, had appeared to me

more like a spirit of another world than a being of the earth like

myself.

During this short and agitated scene, Forrester stood looking at us with

a mixed expression of grief and satisfaction. His mind was evidently

relieved of some weight that had oppressed it, but there still remained

a heavy pang behind. His fortitude was admirable.

"It is accomplished!" he exclaimed, flinging himself into a chair; "and

if there be a hope of repose left, perhaps I may live to look back upon

this night with tranquillity."

The excitement of the moment affected the invalid so much that her

strength sank under it, and she fainted in my arms. I did not perceive

this until Forrester, whose watchfulness respecting her was unceasing,

gently directed my attention to it, at the same time moving her to an

easier position. I was too much bewildered to have sufficient

self-possession to know what to do, but, trivial as this accident was,

it instantly awoke me to the full consciousness that she lived and

breathed before me; she who had hitherto been to me like the invisible

spirit that accompanied the knight of old, uttering sweet sounds in the

air, until his heart was consumed by the love of that Voice which poured

its faithful music into his ears. It was a new life to know that she

lived, and that the happiness I had so hopelessly yearned for was now

within my reach.

"Enough," cried Forrester, "for the present. Let us leave her. She will

be tended by more skillful leeches than we should prove."

A servant entered the room just as we retired, and after one long gaze,

in which all past delusions seemed to expire, I followed him hastily

into the street.

I stopped at the first retired place we reached. The explanation could

no longer be delayed, but my impatience was so great that I interrupted

it by a flood of questions. My mind was full of wonder, and I broke

forth into a series of interrogatories, for the purpose of getting the

information I wanted in the order of my own thoughts.

"Resolve me, Forrester," I concluded,--"resolve me on all these points,

for I begin to fear that my life has hithertofore been but a dream, and

that even the reality which I have just looked upon will perish like the

rest."

"Patience, patience!" he returned; "my thoughts are as confused as

yours. I have as many scattered recollections to gather up as you have

questions to put, and I know not if either of us can be satisfied in the

end. But I am worn out. This new demand on my spirits has exhausted me.

Let us go forward to a seat."

We advanced into the shrubbery, and in one of the recesses we found a

seat. After a pause, Forrester began his revelations.

(_To be continued._)

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

(_Continued from Page 372._)

CHAPTER XXIII. "THE TOWN-MAJOR OF CASTLEBAR."

I am at a loss to know whether or not I owe an apology to my reader for

turning away from the more immediate object of this memoir of a life, to

speak of events which have assumed an historical reputation. It may be

thought ill-becoming in one who occupied the subordinate station that I

did, to express himself on subjects so very far above both his

experience and acquaintance; but I would premise, that in the opinions I

may have formed, and the words of praise or censure dropped, I have been

but retailing the sentiments of those older and wiser than myself, and

by whose guidance I was mainly led to entertain not only the

convictions, but the prejudices, of my early years.

Let the reader bear in mind, too, that I was very early in life thrown

into the society of men--left self-dependent, in a great measure, and

obliged to decide for myself on subjects which usually are determined by

older and more mature heads. So much of excuse, then, if I seem

presumptuous in saying that I began to conceive a very low opinion

generally of popular attempts at independence, and a very high one of

the powers of military skill and discipline. A mob, in my estimation,

was the very lowest, and an army about the very highest, object I could

well conceive. My short residence at Castlebar did not tend to

controvert these impressions. The safety of the town and its inhabitants

was entirely owing to the handful of French who held it, and who,

wearied with guards, pickets, and outpost duty, were a mere fraction of

the small force that had landed a few days before.

Our "allies" were now our most difficult charge. Abandoning the hopeless

task of drilling and disciplining them, we confined ourselves to the

more practical office of restraining pillage and repressing violence--a

measure, be it said, that was not without peril, and of a very serious

kind. I remember one incident, which, if not followed by grave

consequences, yet appeared at the time of a very serious character.

By the accidental mis-spelling of a name, a man named Dowall, a

notorious ruffian and demagogue, was appointed "Commandant-de-Place," or

Town-Major, instead of a most respectable shopkeeper named Downes, and

who, although soon made aware of the mistake, from natural timidity,

took no steps to undeceive the General. Dowall was haranguing a mob of

half-drunken vagabonds, when his commission was put into his hands; and

accepting the post as an evidence of the fears the French entertained of

his personal influence, became more overbearing and insolent than ever.

We had a very gallant officer, the second major of the 12th Regiment of

the Line, killed in the attack on Castlebar, and this Dowall at once

took possession of poor Delactre's horse, arms, and equipment. His coat

and chako, his very boots and gloves, the scoundrel appropriated; and,

as if in mockery of us and our poor friend, assumed a habit that he had,

when riding fast, to place his sabre between his leg and the saddle, to

prevent its striking the horse on the flanks.

I need scarcely say that thoroughly disgusted by the unsightly

exhibition, our incessant cares, and the endless round of duty we were

engaged in, as well as the critical position we occupied, left us no

time to notice the fellow's conduct by any other than a passing sign of

anger or contempt--provocations that he certainly gave us back as

insolently as we offered them. I do not believe that the General ever

saw him, but I know that incessant complaints were daily made to him

about the man's rapacity and tyranny, and scarcely a morning passed

without a dozen remonstrances being preferred against his overbearing

conduct.

Determined to have his own countrymen on his side, he issued the most

absurd orders for the billeting of the rabble, the rations and

allowances of all kinds. He seized upon one of the best houses for his

own quarters, and three fine saddle-horses for his personal use, besides

a number of inferior ones for the ruffian following he called his staff!

It was, indeed, enough to excite laughter, had not indignation been the

more powerful emotion, to see this fellow ride forth of a morning--a

tawdry scarf of green, with deep gold fringe, thrown over his shoulder,

and a saddle-cloth of the same color, profusely studded with gold

shamrocks, on his horse; a drawn sword in his hand, and his head erect,

followed by an indiscriminate rabble on foot or horseback--some with

muskets, some pikes, some with sword-blades, bayonets, or even knives

fastened on sticks, but all alike ferocious-looking and savage.

They affected to march in order, and, with a rude imitation of soldiery,

carried something like a knapsack on their shoulders, surmounted by a

kettle, or tin-cup, or sometimes an iron-pot--a grotesque parody on the

trim-cooking equipment of the French soldier. It was evident, from their

step and bearing, that they thought themselves in the very height of

discipline; and this very assumption was far more insulting to the real

soldier than all the licentious irregularity of the marauder. If to us

they were objects of ridicule and derision, to the townspeople they were

images of terror and dismay. The miserable shopkeeper who housed one of

them lived in continual fear; he knew nothing to be his own, and felt

that his property and family were every moment at the dictate of a

ruffian gang, who acknowledged no law, nor any rule save their own will

and convenience. Dowall's squad were indeed as great a terror in that

little town as I had seen the great name of Robespierre in the proud

city of Paris.

In my temporary position on General Serazin's staff, I came to hear much

of this fellow's conduct. The most grievous stories were told me every

day of his rapacity and cruelty; but harassed and overworked, as the

General was, with duties that would have been over-much for three or

four men, I forbore to trouble him with recitals, which could only fret

and distress _him_, without affording the slightest chance of relief to

_others_. Perhaps this impunity had rendered him more daring; or,

perhaps, the immense number of armed Irish, in comparison with the small

force of disciplined soldiers, emboldened the fellow; but certainly he

grew, day by day, more presumptuous and insolent, and at last so far

forgot himself as to countermand one of General Serazin's orders, by

which a guard was stationed at the Protestant church to prevent its

being molested or injured by the populace.

General Humbert had already refused the Roman Catholic priest his

permission to celebrate mass in that building; but Dowall had determined

otherwise, and that, too, by a written order under his own hand. The

French sergeant who commanded the guard of course paid little attention

to this warrant; and when Father Hennisy wanted to carry the matter with

a high hand, he coolly tore up the paper, and threw the fragments at

him. Dowall was soon informed of the slight offered to his mandate. He

was at supper at the time, entertaining a party of his friends, who all

heard the priest's story, and of course, loudly sympathized with his

sorrows, and invoked the powerful leader's aid and protection. Affecting

to believe that the sergeant had merely acted in ignorance, and from not

being able to read English, Dowall dispatched a fellow, whom he called

his aid-de-camp, a schoolmaster named Lowrie, and who spoke a little bad

French, to interpret his command, and to desire the sergeant to withdraw

his men, and give up the guard to a party of "the squad."

Great was the surprise of the supper party, when, after the lapse of

half an hour, a country fellow came in to say that he had seen Lowrie

led off to prison between two French soldiers. By this time Dowall had

drunk himself into a state of utter recklessness; while encouraged by

his friend's praises, and the arguments of his own passions, he fancied

that he might dispute ascendency with General Humbert himself. He at

once ordered out his horse, and gave a command to assemble the "squad."

As they were all billeted in his immediate vicinity, this was speedily

effected, and their numbers swelled by a vast mass of idle and curious,

who were eager to see how the matter would end; the whole street was

crowded, and when Dowall mounted, his followers amounted to above a

thousand people.

If our sergeant, an old soldier of the "Sambre et Meuse," had not

already enjoyed some experience of our allies, it is more than likely

that, seeing their hostile advance, he would have fallen back upon the

main guard, then stationed in the market-square. As it was, he simply

retired his party within the church, the door of which had already been

pierced for the use of musketry. This done, and one of his men being

dispatched to head-quarters for advice and orders, he waited patiently

for the attack.

I happened that night to make one of General Serazin's dinner party, and

we were sitting over our wine, when the officer of the guard entered

hastily with the tidings of what was going on in the town.

"Is it the Commandant-de-Place himself is at the head?" exclaimed

Serazin, in amazement, such a thought being a direct shock to all his

ideas of military discipline.

"Yes, sir," said the officer; "the soldier knows his appearance well,

and can vouch for its being him."

"As I know something of him, General," said I, "I may as well mention

that nothing is more likely."

"Who is he--what is he?" asked Serazin hastily.

A very brief account--I need not say not a flattering one--told all that

I knew or had ever heard of our worthy "Town Major." Many of the

officers around corroborating, as I went on, all that I said, and

interpolating little details of their own about his robberies and

exactions.

"And yet I have heard nothing of all this before," said the General,

looking sternly around him on every side.

None ventured on a reply, and what might have followed there is no

guessing, when the sharp rattle of musketry cut short all discussion.

"That fire was not given by soldiers," said Serazin. "Go, Tiernay, and

bring this fellow before me at once."

I bowed, and was leaving the room, when an officer, having whispered a

few words in Serazin's ear, the General called me back, saying,

"You are not to incur any risk, Tiernay; I want no struggle, still less

a rescue. You understand me."

"Perfectly, General; the matter will, I trust, be easy enough!"

And so I left the room, my heart, shall I avow it, bumping and throbbing

in a fashion that gave a very poor corroboration to my words. There

were always three or four horses ready saddled for duty at each

general's quarters, and taking one of them, I ordered a corporal of

dragoons to follow me, and set out. It was a fine night of autumn; the

last faint sunlight was yet struggling with the coming darkness, as I

rode at a brisk trot down the main street toward the scene of action.

I had not proceeded far when the crowds compelled me to slacken my pace

to a walk, and finding that the people pressed in upon me in such a way

as to prevent any thing like a defense if attacked, still more, any

chance of an escape by flight, I sent the corporal forward to clear a

passage, and announce my coming to the redoubted "Commandant." It was

curious to see how the old dragoon's tactics effected his object, and

with what speed the crowd opened and fell back, as with a flank movement

of his horse he "passaged" up the street, prancing, bounding, and

back-leaping, yet all the while perfectly obedient to the hand, and

never deviating from the straight line in the very middle of the

thoroughfare.

I could catch from the voices around me that the mob had fired a volley

at the church-door, but that our men had never returned the fire, and

now a great commotion of the crowd, and that swaying, surging motion of

the mass, which is so peculiarly indicative of a coming event, told that

something more was in preparation; and such was it; for already numbers

were hurrying forward with straw-fagots, broken furniture, and other

combustible material, which, in the midst of the wildest cries and

shouts of triumph, were now being heaped up against the door. Another

moment, and I should have been too late--as it was, my loud summons to

"halt," and a bold command for the mob to fall back, only came at the

very last minute.

"Where's the Commandant?" said I, in an imperious tone. "Who wants him?"

responded a deep husky voice, which I well knew to be Dowall's.

"The general in command of the town," said I, firmly; "General Serazin."

"Maybe I'm as good a general as himself," was the answer. "I never

called him my superior yet! Did I, boys?"

"Never--devil a bit--why would you?" and such like, were shouted by the

mob around us, in every accent of drunken defiance.

"You'll not refuse General Serazin's invitation to confer with your

Commandant, I hope?" said I, affecting a tone of respectful civility,

while I gradually drew nearer and nearer to him, contriving, at the

same, by a dexterous plunging of my horse, to force back the bystanders,

and thus isolate my friend Dowall.

"Tell him I've work to do here," said he, "and can't come; but if he's

fond of a bonfire he may as well step down this far and see one."

By this time, at a gesture of command from me, the corporal had placed

himself on the opposite side of Dowall's horse, and by a movement

similar to my own, completely drove back the dense mob, so that we had

him completely in our power, and could have sabred or shot him at any

moment.

"General Serazin only wishes to see you on duty, Commandant," said I,

speaking in a voice that could be heard over the entire assemblage; and

then, dropping it to a whisper, only audible to himself, I added,

"Come along, quietly, sir, and without a word. If you speak, if you

mutter, or if you lift a finger, I'll run my sabre through your body."

"Forward, way, there," shouted I aloud, and the corporal, holding

Dowall's bridle, pricked the horse with the point of his sword, and

right through the crowd we went at a pace that defied following, had any

the daring to think of it.

So sudden was the act and so imminent the peril, for I held the point of

my weapon within a few inches of his back, and would have kept my word

most assuredly too, that the fellow never spoke a syllable as we went,

nor ventured on even a word of remonstrance till we descended at the

General's door. Then, with a voice tremulous with restrained passion, he

said,

"If ye think I'll forgive ye this thrick, my fine boy, may the flames

and fire be my portion! and if I hav'n't my revenge on ye yet, my name

isn't Mick Dowall."

With a dogged, sulky resolution he mounted the stairs, but as he neared

the room where the General was, and from which his voice could even now

be heard, his courage seemed to fail him, and he looked back as though

to see if no chance of escape remained. The attempt would have been

hopeless, and he saw it.

"This is the man, General," said I, half pushing him forward into the

middle of the room, where he stood with his hat on, and in attitude of

mingled defiance and terror.

"Tell him to uncover," said Serazin; but one of the aids-de-camp, more

zealous than courteous, stepped forward and knocked the hat off with his

hand. Dowall never budged an inch, nor moved a muscle, at this insult;

to look at him you could not have said that he was conscious of it.

"Ask him if it was by his orders that the guard was assailed?" said the

General.

I put the question in about as many words but he made no reply.

"Does the man know where _he_ is? Does he know who _I_ am?" repeated

Serazin, passionately.

"He knows both well enough, sir," said I; "this silence is a mere

defiance of us."

"Parbleu!" cried an officer, "that is the 'coquin' took poor Delactre's

equipments; the very uniform he has on was his."

"The fellow was never a soldier," said another.

"I know him well," interposed a third, "he is the very terror of the

townsfolk."

"Who gave him his commission?--who appointed him?" asked Serazin.

Apparently the fellow could follow some words of French, for as the

General asked this he drew from his pocket a crumpled and soiled paper,

which he threw heedlessly upon the table before us.

"Why this is not his name, sir," said I: "this appointment is made out

in the name of Nicholas Downes, and our friend here is called Dowall."

"Who knows him? who can identify him?" asked Serazin.

"I can say that his name is Dowall, and that he worked as a porter on

the quay in this town when I was a boy," said a young Irishman who was

copying letters and papers at a side-table. "Yes, Dowall," said the

youth, confronting the look which the other gave him, "I am neither

afraid nor ashamed to tell you to your face that I know you well, and

who you are, and what you are."

"I'm an officer in the Irish Independent Army now," said Dowall,

resolutely. "To the divil I fling the French commission and all that

belongs to it. 'Tisn't troops that run and guns that burst we want. Let

them go back again the way they came, we're able for the work

ourselves."

Before I could translate this rude speech an officer broke into the

room, with tidings that the streets had been cleared, and the rioters

dispersed; a few prisoners of the squad, too, were taken, whose muskets

bore trace of being recently discharged.

"They fired upon our pickets, General," said the officer, whose excited

look and voice betrayed how deeply he felt the outrage.

The men were introduced; three ragged, ill-looking wretches, apparently

only roused from intoxication by the terror of their situation, for each

was guarded by a soldier with a drawn bayonet in his hand.

"We only obeyed ordhers my lord; we only did what the Captain tould us;"

cried they in a miserable, whining tone, for the sight of their leader

in captivity had sapped all their courage.

"What am I here for? Who has any business with _me_?" said Dowall,

assuming before his followers, an attempt at his former tone of bully.

"Tell him," said Serazin, "that wherever a French general stands in full

command he will neither brook insolence nor insubordination. Let those

fellows be turned out of the town, and warned never to approach the

quarters of the army under any pretense whatever. As for this scoundrel

we'll make an example of him. Order a peloton into the yard and shoot

him."

I rendered this speech into English as the General spoke it, and never

shall I forget the wild scream of the wretch as he heard the sentence.

"I'm an officer in the army of Ireland. I don't belong to ye at all.

You've no power over me. Oh, Captain, darlin'; oh, gentlemen, speak for

me! General, dear; General, honey, don't sintince me! don't for the love

of God!" and in groveling terror the miserable creature threw himself

on his knees to beg for mercy.

"Tear off his epaulettes," cried Serazin, "never let a French uniform be

so disgraced."

The soldiers wrenched off the epaulettes at the command, and not

satisfied with this they even tore away the lace from the cuffs of the

uniform, which now hung in ragged fragments over his trembling hands.

"Oh, sir, oh, General! oh, gentlemen, have marcy!"

"Away with him," said Serazin contemptuously; "it is only the cruel can

be such cowards. Give the fellow his fusillade with blank cartridge, and

the chances are fear will kill outright."

The scene that ensued is too shocking, too full of abasement to record;

there was nothing that fear of death, nothing that abject terror could

suggest, that this miserable wretch did not attempt to save his life; he

wept--he begged in accents that were unworthy of all manhood--he kissed

the very ground at the General's feet in his abject sorrow; and when at

last he was dragged from the room his screams were the most terrific and

piercing.

Although all my compassion was changed into contempt, I felt that I

could never have given the word to fire upon him, had such been my

orders; his fears had placed him below all manhood, but they still

formed a barrier of defense around him. I accordingly whispered a few

words to the sergeant as we passed down the stairs, and then affecting

to have forgotten something, I stepped back toward the room, where the

General and his staff were sitting. The scuffling sound of feet, mingled

with the crash of fire-arms, almost drowned the cries of the still

struggling wretch; his voice, however, burst forth into a wild cry, and

then there came a pause--a pause that at last became insupportable to my

anxiety, and I was about to rush down stairs, when a loud yell, a savage

howl of derision and hate burst forth from the street; and on looking

out I saw a vast crowd before the door, who were shouting after a man,

whose speed soon carried him out of reach. This was Dowall, who thus

suffered to escape, was told to fly from the town, and never to return

to it.

"Thank heaven," muttered I, "we've seen the last of him."

The rejoicing, was, however, premature.

CHAPTER XXIV. "THE MISSION TO THE NORTH."

I have never yet been able to discover whether General Humbert really

did feel the confidence that he assumed at this period, or that he

merely affected it, the better to sustain the spirits of those around

him. If our success at Castlebar was undeniable, our loss was also

great, and far more than proportionate to all the advantages we had

acquired. Six officers and two hundred and forty men were either killed

or badly wounded, and as our small force had really acquired no

reinforcement worth the name, it was evident that another such costly

victory would be our ruin.

Not one gentleman of rank or influence had yet joined us, few of the

priesthood, and, even among the farmers and peasantry, it was easy to

see that our recruits comprised those whose accession could never have

conferred honor or profit on any cause.

Our situation was any thing but promising. The rumors that reached us,

and we had no other or more accurate information than rumors, told that

an army of thirty thousand men under the command of Lord Cornwallis, was

in march against us; that all the insurrectionary movements of the south

were completely repressed; that the spirit of the rebels was crushed,

and their confidence broken, either by defeat or internal treachery. In

a word that the expedition had already failed, and the sooner we had the

means of leaving the land of our disasters the better.

Such were the universal feelings of all my comrades; but Humbert, who

often had told us that we were only here to "éclairer la route" for

another and more formidable mission, now pretended to think that we were

progressing most favorably toward a perfect success. Perhaps he firmly

believed all this, or perhaps he thought that the pretense would give

more dignity to the finale of an exploit, which he already saw was

nearly played out! I know not which is the true explanation, and am half

disposed to think that he was actuated as much by one impulse as the

other.

"The army of the North" was the talisman, which we now heard of for the

first time, to repair all our disasters, and insure complete victory.

"The Army of the North," whose strength varied from twenty to

twenty-five, and sometimes reached even thirty thousand men, and was

commanded by a distinguished Irish general, was now the centre to which

all our hopes turned. Whether it had already landed, and where, of what

it consisted, and how officered, not one of us knew any thing; but by

dint of daily repetition and discussion we had come to believe in its

existence as certainly as though we had seen it under arms.

The credulous lent their convictions without any trouble to themselves

whatever; the more skeptical studied the map, and fancied twenty

different places in which they might have disembarked; and thus the

"Army of the North" grew to be a substance and reality, as undoubted as

the scenes before our eyes.

Never was such a ready solution of all difficulties discovered as this

same "Army of the North." Were we to be beaten by Cornwallis it was only

a momentary check, for the Army of the North would come up within a few

days and turn the whole tide of war. If our Irish allies grew

insubordinate or disorderly, a little patience, and the Army of the

North would settle all that. Every movement projected was fancied to be

in concert with this redoubted corps, and at last every trooper that

rode in from Killala or Ballina was questioned as to whether his

dispatches did not come from the Army of the North.

Frenchmen will believe any thing you like for twenty-four hours. They

can be flattered into a credulity of two days, and, by dint of great

artifice and much persuasion, will occasionally reach a third; but

there, faith has its limit; and if nothing palpable, tangible, and real

intervene, skepticism ensues; and what with native sarcasm, ridicule,

and irony, they will demolish the card edifice of credit far more

rapidly than ever they raised it. For two whole days the "Army of the

North" occupied every man among us. We toasted it over our wine; we

discussed it at our quarters; we debated upon its whereabouts, its

strength, and its probable destination; but on the third morning a

terrible shock was given to our feelings by a volatile young Lieutenant

of Hussars exclaiming--

"_Ma foi!_ I wish I could see this same 'Army of the North!'"

Now, although nothing was more reasonable than this wish, nor was there

any one of us who had not felt a similar desire, this sudden expression

of it struck us all most forcibly, and a shrinking sense of doubt spread

over every face, and men looked at each other, as though to say, "Is the

fellow capable of supposing that such an army does not exist?" It was a

very dreadful moment--a terrible interval of struggle between the broad

day-light of belief and the black darkness of incredulity; and we turned

glances of actual dislike at the man who had so unwarrantably shaken our

settled convictions.

"I only said I should like to see them under arms," stammered he, in the

confusion of one who saw himself exposed to public obloquy.

This half apology came too late, the mischief was done! and we shunned

each other like men who were afraid to read the accusation of even a

shrewd glance. As for myself, I can compare my feelings only to those of

the worthy alderman, who broke out into a paroxysm of grief on hearing

that "Robinson Crusoe" was a fiction. I believe, on that sudden

revulsion of feeling, I could have discredited any and every thing. If

there was no Army of the North, was I quite sure that there was any

expedition at all? Were the generals mere freebooters, the chiefs of a

marauding venture? Were the patriots any thing but a disorderly rabble,

eager for robbery and bloodshed? Was Irish Independence a mere phantom?

Such were among the shocking terrors that came across my mind as I sat

in my quarters, far too dispirited and depressed to mix among my

comrades.

It had been a day of fatiguing duty, and I was not sorry, as night fell,

that I might betake myself to bed, to forget, if it might be, the

torturing doubts that troubled me. Suddenly I heard a heavy foot upon

the stair, and an orderly entered with a command for me to repair to the

head-quarters of the General at once. Never did the call of duty summon

me less willing, never found me so totally disinclined to obey. I was

weary and fatigued; but worse than this, I was out of temper with

myself, the service, and the whole world. Had I heard that the Royal

forces were approaching, I was exactly in the humor to have dashed into

the thick of them, and sold my life as dearly as I could, out of

desperation.

Discipline is a powerful antagonist to a man's caprices, for with all my

irritability and discontent, I arose, and resuming my uniform, set out

for General Humbert's quarters. I followed "the orderly," as he led the

way through many a dark street and crooked alley, till we reached the

square. There, too, all was in darkness, save at the mainguard, where,

as usual, the five windows of the first story were a blaze of light, and

the sounds of mirth and revelry, the nightly orgies of our officers,

were ringing out in the stillness of the quiet hour. The wild chorus of

a soldier-song, with its "ran-tan-plan" accompaniment of knuckles on the

table, echoed through the square, and smote upon my ear with any thing

but a congenial sense of pleasure.

In my heart I thought them a senseless, soulless crew, that could give

themselves to dissipation and excess on the very eve, as it were, of our

defeat, and with hasty steps I turned away into the side street, where a

large lamp, the only light to be seen, proclaimed General Humbert's

quarters.

A bustle and stir, very unusual at this late hour, pervaded the passages

and the stairs, and it was some time before I could find one of the

staff to announce my arrival, which at last was done somewhat

unceremoniously, as an officer hurried me through a large chamber

crowded with the staff, into an inner room, where, on a small field-bed,

lay General Humbert, without coat or boots, a much-worn scarlet cloak

thrown half over him, and a black handkerchief tied round his head. I

had scarcely seen him since our landing, and I could with difficulty

recognize the burly high-complexioned soldier of a few days back in the

worn and haggard features of the sick man before me. An attack of ague,

which he had originally contracted in Holland, had relapsed upon him,

and he was now suffering all the lassitude and sickness of that most

depressing of all maladies.

Maps, books, plans, and sketches of various kinds scattered the bed, the

table, and even the floor around him; but his attitude as I entered

betrayed the exhaustion of one who could labor no longer, and whose

worn-out faculties demanded rest. He lay flat on his back, his arms

straight down beside him, and, with half closed eyes, seemed as though

falling off to sleep.

His first aid-de-camp, Merochamp, was standing with his back to a small

turf fire, and made a sign to us to be still, and make no noise as we

came in.

"He's sleeping," said he, "it's the first time he has closed his eyes

for ten days."

We stood for a moment uncertain, and were about to retrace our steps,

when Humbert said, in a low, weak voice,

"No! I'm not asleep, come in."

The officer who presented me now retired, and I advanced toward the

bed-side.

"This is Tiernay, General," said Merochamp, stooping down and speaking

low, "you wished to see him."

"Yes, I wanted him. Ha! Tiernay, you see me a good deal altered since we

parted last; however, I shall be all right in a day or two; it's a mere

attack of ague, and will leave when the good weather comes. I wished to

ask you about your family, Tiernay; was not your father Irish?"

"No, sir; we were Irish two or three generations back, but since that we

have belonged either to Austria or to France."

"Then where were you born?"

"In Paris; sir, I believe, but certainly in France."

"There, I said so, Merochamp; I knew that the boy was French."

"Still I don't think the precaution worthless," replied Merochamp;

"Teeling and the others advise it."

"I know they do," said Humbert, peevishly, "and for themselves it may be

needful, but this lad's case will be injured not bettered by it. He is

not an Irishman; he never was at any time a British subject. Have you

any certificate of birth or baptism, Tiernay?"

"None, sir, but I have my 'livret' for the school of Saumur, which sets

forth my being a Frenchman by birth."

"Quite sufficient, boy, let me have it."

It was a document which I always carried about with me since I landed,

to enable me any moment, if made prisoner, to prove myself an alien, and

thus escape the inculpation of fighting against the flag of my country.

Perhaps there was something of reluctance in my manner as I relinquished

it, for the General said, "I'll take good care of it, Tiernay, you shall

not fare the worse because it is in my keeping. I may as well tell you

that some of our Irish officers have received threatening letters. It is

needless to say they are without name, stating that if matters go

unfortunately with us in this campaign, they will meet the fate of men

taken in open treason; and that their condition of officers in our

service will avail them nothing. I do not believe this. I can not

believe that they will be treated in any respect differently from the

rest of us. However, it is only just that I should tell you, that your

name figures among those so denounced; for this reason I have sent for

you now. You, at least, have nothing to apprehend on this score. You are

as much a Frenchman as myself. I know Merochamp thinks differently from

me, and that your Irish descent and name will be quite enough to involve

you in the fate of others."

A gesture, half of assent but half of impatience, from the aid-de-camp,

here arrested the speaker.

"Why not tell him frankly how he stands?" said Humbert, eagerly. "I see

no advantage in any concealment."

Then addressing me, he went on. "I purpose, Tiernay, to give you the

same option I gave the others, but which they have declined to accept.

It is this: we are daily expecting to hear of the arrival of a force in

the north, under the command of Generals Tandy and Rey."

"The Army of the North?" asked I, in some anxiety.

"Precisely; the Army of the North. Now I desire to open a communication

with them, and at the same time to do so through the means of such

officers as, in the event of any disaster here, may have the escape to

France open to them; which this army will have, and which, I need not

say, we have no longer. Our Irish friends have declined this mission, as

being more likely to compromise them if taken; and also as diminishing

and not increasing their chance of escape. In my belief that you were

placed similarly, I have sent for you here this evening, and at the same

time desire to impress upon you that your acceptance or refusal is

purely a matter at your own volition."

"Am I to regard the matter simply as one of duty, sir? or as an

opportunity of consulting my personal safety?"

"What shall I say to this Merochamp?" asked Humbert, bluntly.

"That you are running to the full as many risks of being hanged for

going as by staying; such is my opinion," said the aid-de-camp. "Here as

a rebel, there as a spy."

"I confess, then," said I smiling at the cool brevity of the speech,

"the choice is somewhat embarrassing! May I ask what you advise me to

do, General?"

"I should say go, Tiernay."

"Go, by all means, lad," broke in the aid-de-camp, who throughout

assumed a tone of dictation and familiarity most remarkable. "If a stand

is to be made in this miserable country, it will be with Rey's force;

here the game will not last much longer. There lies the only man capable

of conducting such an expedition, and his health can not stand up

against its trials!"

"Not so, Merochamp; I'll be on horseback to-morrow or the day after at

furthest; and if I never were to take the field again, there are others,

yourself among the number, well able to supply my place: but to

Tiernay--what says he?"

"Make it duty, sir, and I shall go, or remain here with an easy

conscience," said I.

"Then duty be it, boy," said he; "and Merochamp will tell you every

thing, for all this discussion has wearied me much, and I can not endure

more talking."

"Sit down here," said the aid-de-camp, pointing to a seat at his side,

"and five minutes will suffice."

He opened a large map of Ireland before us on the table, and running his

finger along the coast-line of the western side, stopped abruptly at

the bay of Lough Swilly.

"There," said he, "that is the spot. There, too, should have been our

own landing! The whole population of the North will be with them--not

such allies as these fellows, but men accustomed to the use of arms,

able and willing to take the field. They say that five thousand men

could hold the passes of those mountains against thirty."

"Who says this?" said I, for I own it, that I had grown marvelously

skeptical as to testimony.

"Napper Tandy, who is a general of division, and one of the leaders of

this force;" and he went on: "The utmost we can do will be to hold these

towns to the westward till they join us. We may stretch away thus far,"

and he moved his finger toward the direction of Leitrim, but no further.

"You will have to communicate with them; to explain what we have done,

where we are, and how we are. Conceal nothing--let them hear fairly,

that this patriot force is worth nothing, and that even to garrison the

towns we take they are useless. Tell them, too, the sad mistake we made

by attempting to organize what never can be disciplined, and let them

not arm a population, as we have done, to commit rapine and plunder."

Two letters were already written--one addressed to Rey, the other to

Napper Tandy. These I was ordered to destroy if I should happen to

become a prisoner; and with the map of Ireland, pen-marked in various

directions, by which I might trace my route, and a few lines to Colonel

Charost, whom I was to see on passing at Killala, I was dismissed. When

I approached the bed-side to take leave of the General, he was sound

asleep. The excitement of talking having passed away, he was pale as

death, and his lips totally colorless. Poor fellow, he was

exhausted-looking and weary, and I could not help thinking, as I looked

on him, that he was no bad emblem of the cause he had embarked in!

I was to take my troop-horse as far as Killala, after which I was to

proceed either on foot, or by such modes of conveyance as I could find,

keeping as nigh the coast as possible, and acquainting myself, so far as

I might do, with the temper and disposition of the people as I went. It

was a great aid to my sinking courage to know that there really was an

"Army of the North," and to feel myself accredited to hold intercourse

with the generals commanding it.

Such was my exultation at this happy discovery, that I was dying to

burst in among my comrades with the tidings, and proclaim at the same

time my own high mission. Merochamp had strictly enjoined my speedy

departure without the slightest intimation to any whither I was going,

or with what object.

A very small cloak-bag held all my effects, and with this slung at my

saddle, I rode out of the town just as the church clock was striking

twelve. It was a calm, starlight night, and once a short distance from

the town, as noiseless and still as possible; a gossoon, one of the

numerous scouts we employed in conveying letters or bringing

intelligence, trotted along on foot beside me to show the way, for there

was a rumor that some of the Royalist cavalry still loitered about the

passes to capture our dispatch-bearers, or make prisoners of any

stragglers from the army.

These "gossoons," picked up by chance, and selected for no other

qualification than because they were keen-eyed and swift of foot, were

the most faithful and most worthy creatures we met with. In no instance

were they ever known to desert to the enemy, and stranger still, they

were never seen to mix in the debauchery and excesses so common to all

the volunteers of the rebel camp. Their intelligence was considerable,

and to such a pitch had emulation stimulated them in the service, that

there was no danger they would not incur in their peculiar duties.

My companion on the present occasion was a little fellow of about

thirteen years of age, and small and slight even for that; we knew him

as "Peter," but whether he had any other name, or what, I was ignorant.

He was wounded by a sabre cut across the hand, which nearly severed the

fingers from it, at the bridge of Castlebar, but with a strip of linen

bound round it now, he trotted along as happy and careless as if nothing

ailed him.

I questioned him as we went, and learned that his father had been a herd

in the service of a certain Sir Roger Palmer, and his mother a

dairy-maid in the same house; but as the patriots had sacked and burned

the "Castle," of course they were now upon the world. He was a good deal

shocked at my asking what part his father took on the occasion of the

attack, but for a very different reason than that which I suspected.

"For the cause, of course!" replied he, almost indignantly, "why

wouldn't he stand up for ould Ireland!"

"And your mother--what did she do?"

He hung down his head, and made no answer till I repeated the question.

"Faix," said he, slowly and sadly, "she went and towld the young ladies

what was goin' to be done, and if it hadn't been that the 'boys' caught

Tim Hynes, the groom, going off to Foxford with a letter, we'd have had

the dragoons down upon us in no time! They hanged Tim, but they let the

young ladies away, and my mother with them, and off they all went to

Dublin."

"And where's your father now?" I asked.

"He was drowned in the bay of Killala four days ago. He went with a

party of others to take oatmeal from a sloop that was wrecked in the

bay, and an English cruiser came in at the time and fired on them; at

the second discharge the wreck and all upon it went down!"

He told all these things without any touch of sorrow in voice or

manner. They seemed to be the ordinary chances of war, and so he took

them. He had three brothers and a sister; of the former, two were

missing, the third was a scout; and the girl--she was but nine years

old--was waiting on a canteen, and mighty handy, he said, for she knew a

little French already, and understood the soldiers when they asked for a

"goutte," or wanted "du feu" for their pipes.

Such, then, was the credit side of the account with Fortune, and,

strange enough, the boy seemed satisfied with it; and although a few

days had made him an orphan and houseless, he appeared to feel that the

great things in store for his country were an ample recompense for all.

Was this, then, patriotism? Was it possible that one, untaught and

unlettered as he was, could think national freedom cheap at such a cost?

If I thought so for a moment, a very little further inquiry undeceived

me. Religious rancor, party feuds, the hate of the Saxon--a blind,

ill-directed, unthinking hate--were the motives which actuated him. A

terrible retribution for something upon somebody, an awful wiping out of

old scores, a reversal of the lot of rich and poor, were the main

incentives to his actions, and he was satisfied to stand by at the

drawing of this great lottery, even without holding a ticket in it!

It was almost the first moment of calm reflective thought I had enjoyed,

as I rode along thus in the quiet stillness of the night, and I own that

my heart began to misgive me as to the great benefits of our expedition.

I will not conceal the fact, that I had been disappointed in every

expectation I had formed of Ireland.

The bleak and barren hills of Mayo, the dreary tracts of mountain and

morass, were about as unworthy representatives of the boasted beauty and

fertility, as were the half-clad wretches who flocked around us of that

warlike people of whom we had heard so much. Where were the chivalrous

chieftains with their clans behind them? Where the thousands gathering

around a national standard? Where that high-souled patriotism, content

to risk fortune, station--all, in the conflict for national

independence? A rabble led on by a few reckless debauchees, and two or

three disreputable or degraded priests, were our only allies; and even

these refused to be guided by our counsels, or swayed by our authority.

I half-suspected Serazin was right when he said, "Let the Directory send

thirty thousand men, and make it a French province; but let us not fight

an enemy to give the victory to the 'sans culottes.'"

As we neared the pass of Burnageeragh, I turned one last look on the

town of Castlebar, around which, at little intervals of space, the

watch-fires of our pickets were blazing; all the rest of the place was

in darkness.

It was a strange and a thrilling thought to think that there, hundreds

of miles from their home, without one link that could connect them to

it, lay a little army in the midst of an enemy's country, calm,

self-possessed, and determined. How many, thought I, are destined to

leave it? How many will bring back to our dear France the memory of this

unhappy struggle?

CHAPTER XXV. A PASSING VISIT TO KILLALA.

I found a very pleasant party assembled around the Bishop's

breakfast-table at Killala. The Bishop and his family were all there,

with Charost and his staff, and some three or four other officers from

Ballina. Nothing could be less constrained, more easy, or more

agreeable, than the tone of intimacy which in a few days had grown up

between them. A cordial good feeling seemed to prevail on every subject,

and even the reserve, which might be thought natural on the momentous

events then happening, was exchanged for a most candid and frank

discussion of all that was going forward, which I must own astonished as

much as it gratified me.

The march on Castlebar, the choice of the mountain-road, which led past

the position occupied by the Royalists, the attack and capture of the

artillery, had all to be related by me for the edification of such as

were not conversant with French; and I could observe that however

discomfited by the conduct of the militia, they fully relied on the

regiments of the line and the artillery. It was amusing, too, to see

with what pleasure they listened to all our disparagement of the Irish

volunteers.

Every instance we gave of insubordination or disobedience delighted

them, while our own blundering attempts to manage the people, the absurd

mistakes we fell into, and the endless misconceptions of their character

and habits, actually convulsed them with laughter.

"Of course," said the Bishop to us, "you are prepared to hear that there

is no love lost between you, and that they are to the full as

dissatisfied with _you_ as you are dissatisfied with _them_."

"Why, what can they complain of?" asked Charost, smiling; "we gave them

the place of honor in the very last engagement!"

"Very true, you did so, and they reaped all the profit of the situation.

Monsieur Tiernay has just told the havoc that grape and round-shot

scattered among the poor creatures. However, it is not of this they

complain--it is their miserable fare, the raw potatoes, their beds in

open fields and highways, while the French, they say, eat of the best

and sleep in blankets; they do not understand this inequality, and

perhaps it is somewhat hard to comprehend."

"Patriotism ought to be proud of such little sacrifices," said Charost,

with an easy laugh; "besides, it is only a passing endurance, a month

hence, less, perhaps, will see us dividing the spoils, and reveling in

the conquest of Irish independence."

"You think so, Colonel?" asked the Bishop, half slyly.

"Parbleu! to be sure I do, and you?"

"I'm just as sanguine," said the Bishop, "and fancy that about a month

hence we shall be talking of all these things as matters of history; and

while sorrowing over some of the unavoidable calamities of the event,

preserving a grateful memory of some who came as enemies, but left us

warm friends."

"If such is to be the turn of fortune," said Charost, with more

seriousness than before, "I can only say that the kindly feelings will

not be one-sided."

And now the conversation became an animated discussion on the chances of

success or failure. Each party supported his opinion ably and eagerly,

and with a degree of freedom that was not a little singular to the

by-standers. At last, when Charost was fairly answered by the Bishop on

every point, he asked:

"But what say you to the Army of the North?"

"Simply, that I do not believe in such a force," rejoined the Bishop.

"Not believe it--not believe on what General Humbert relies at this

moment, and to which that officer yonder is an accredited messenger!

When I tell you that a most distinguished Irishman, Napper Tandy--"

"Napper Tandy!" repeated the Bishop, with a good-humored smile; "the

name is quite enough to relieve one of any fears, if they ever felt

them. I am not sufficiently acquainted with your language to give him

the epithet he deserves; but if you can conceive an empty, conceited

man, as ignorant of war as of politics, rushing into a revolution for

the sake of a green uniform, and ready to convulse a kingdom that he may

be called a major-general; only enthusiastic in his personal vanity, and

wanting even in that heroic daring which occasionally dignifies weak

capacities--such is Napper Tandy."

"What in soldier-phrase we call a 'Blaque,'" said Charost, laughing.

"I'm sorry for it."

What turn the conversation was about to take I can not guess, when it

was suddenly interrupted by one of the Bishop's servants rushing into

the room, with a face bloodless from terror. He made his way up to where

the Bishop sat, and whispered a few words in his ear.

"And how is the wind blowing, Andrew?" asked the Bishop, in a voice that

all his self-command could not completely steady.

"From the north, or the northwest, and mighty strong, too, my Lord,"

said the man, who trembled in every limb.

The affrighted aspect of the messenger, the excited expression of the

Bishop's face, and the question as to the "wind," at once suggested to

me the idea that a French fleet had arrived in the bay, and that the

awful tidings were neither more nor less than the announcement of our

reinforcement.

"From the northwest," repeated the Bishop; "then, with God's blessing,

we may be spared." And so saying, he arose from the table, and with an

effort that showed that the strength to do so had only just returned to

him. "Colonel Charost, a word with you!" said he, leading the way into

an adjoining room.

"What is it?--what has happened?--what can it be?" was asked by each in

turn. And now groups gathered at the windows, which all looked into the

court of the building, which was now crowded with people, soldiers,

servants, and country-folk, gazing earnestly toward the roof of the

castle.

"What's the matter, Terry?" asked one of the Bishop's sons, as he threw

open the window.

"'Tis the chimbley on fire, Master Robert," said the man; "the kitchen

chimbly, wid those divils of Frinch!"

I can not describe the burst of laughter that followed the explanation!

So much terror for so small a catastrophe was inconceivable; and whether

we thought of Andrew's horrified face, or the worthy Bishop's pious

thanksgiving as to the direction of the wind, we could scarcely refrain

from another outbreak of mirth. Colonel Charost made his appearance at

the instant, and although his step was hurried, and his look severe,

there was nothing of agitation or alarm on his features.

"Turn out the guard, Truchet, without arms," said he. "Come with me,

Tiernay--an awkward business enough," whispered he, as he led me along.

"These fellows have set fire to the kitchen chimney, and we have three

hundred barrels of gunpowder in the cave!" Nothing could be more easy

and unaffected than the way he spoke this; and I actually stared at him,

to see if his coldness was a mere pretense; but far from it--every

gesture and every word showed the most perfect self-possession, with a

prompt readiness for action.

When we reached the court, the bustle and confusion had reached its

highest; for, as the wind lulled, large masses of inky smoke hung, like

a canopy, over head, through which a forked flame darted at intervals,

with that peculiar furnace-like roar that accompanies a jet of fire in

confined places. At times, too, as the soot ignited, great showers of

bright sparks floated upward, and afterward fell, like a fiery rain, on

every side. The country people, who had flocked in from the

neighborhood, were entirely occupied with these signs, and only intent

upon saving the remainder of the house, which they believed in great

peril, totally unaware of the greater and more imminent danger close

beside them.

Already they had placed ladders against the walls, and, with ropes and

buckets, were preparing to ascend, when Truchet marched in with his

company, in fatigue-jackets, twenty sappers with shovels accompanying

them.

"Clear the court-yard, now," said Charost, "and leave this matter to

us."

The order was obeyed somewhat reluctantly, it is true, and at last we

stood the sole occupants of the spot, the Bishop being the only civilian

present, he having refused to quit the spot, unless compelled by force.

The powder was stored in a long shed adjoining the stables, and

originally used as a shelter for farming tools and utensils. A few

tarpaulins we had carried with us from the ships were spread over the

barrels, and on this now some sparks of fire had fallen, as the burning

soot had been carried in by an eddy of wind.

The first order was, to deluge the tarpaulins with water; and while this

was being done, the sappers were ordered to dig trenches in the garden,

to receive the barrels. Every man knew the terrible peril so near him;

each felt that at any instant a frightful death might overtake him, and

yet every detail of the duty was carried on with the coldest unconcern;

and when at last the time came to carry away the barrels, on a species

of handbarrow, the fellows stepped in time, as if on the march, and

moved in measure, a degree of indifference, which, to judge from the

good Bishop's countenance, evidently inspired as many anxieties for

their spiritual welfare, as it suggested astonishment and admiration for

their courage. He himself, it must be owned, displayed no sign of

trepidation; and in the few words he spoke, or the hints he dropped,

exhibited every quality of a brave man.

At moments the peril seemed very imminent indeed. Some timber having

caught fire, slender fragments of burning wood fell in masses, covering

the men as they went, and falling on the barrels, whence the soldiers

brushed them off with cool indifference. The dense, thick smoke, too,

obscuring every object a few paces distant, added to the confusion, and

occasionally bringing the going and returning parties into collision, a

loud shout, or cry, would ensue; and it is difficult to conceive how

such a sound thrilled through the heart at such a time. I own that more

than once I felt a choking fullness in the throat, as I heard a sudden

yell, it seemed so like a signal for destruction. In removing one of the

last barrels from the hand-barrow, it slipped, and falling to the

ground, the hoops gave way, it burst open, and the powder fell out on

every side. The moment was critical, for the wind was baffling, now

wafting the sparks clear away, now whirling them in eddies around us. It

was then that an old sergeant of Grenadiers threw off his upper coat and

spread it over the broken cask, while, with all the composure of a man

about to rest himself, he lay down on it, while his comrades went to

fetch water. Of course his peril was no greater than that of every one

around him; but there was an air of quick determination in his act which

showed the training of an old soldier. At length the labor was ended,

the last barrel was committed to the earth, and the men, formed into

line, were ordered to wheel and march. Never shall I forget the Bishop's

face as they moved past. The undersized and youthful look of our

soldiers had acquired for them a kind of depreciating estimate in

comparison with the more mature and manly stature of the British

soldier, to whom, indeed, they offered a strong contrast on parade; but

now, as they were seen in a moment of arduous duty, surrounded by

danger, the steadiness and courage, the prompt obedience to every

command, the alacrity of their movements, and the fearless intrepidity

with which they performed every act, impressed the worthy Bishop so

forcibly, that he muttered half aloud, "Thank heaven there are but few

of them!"

Colonel Charost resisted steadily the Bishop's proffer to afford the men

some refreshment; he would not even admit of an extra allowance of

brandy to their messes. "If we become too liberal for slight services,

we shall never be able to reward real ones," was his answer; and the

Bishop was reduced to the expedient of commemorating what he could not

reward. This, indeed, he did with the most unqualified praise, relating

in the drawing-room all that he had witnessed, and lauding French valor

and heroism to the very highest.

The better to conceal my route, and to avoid the chances of being

tracked, I sailed that evening in a fishing-boat for Killybegs, a small

harbor on the coast of Donegal, having previously exchanged my uniform

for the dress of a sailor, so that if apprehended I should pretend to be

an Ostend or Antwerp seaman, washed overboard in a gale at sea.

Fortunately for me I was not called on to perform this part, for as my

nautical experiences were of the very slightest, I should have made a

deplorable attempt at the impersonation. Assuredly the fishermen of the

smack would not have been among the number of the "imposed upon," for a

more sea-sick wretch never masqueraded in a blue jacket than I was.

My only clew, when I touched land, was a certain Father Doogan, who

lived at the foot of the Bluerock Mountains, about fifteen miles from

the coast, and to whom I brought a few lines from one of the Irish

officers, a certain Bourke of Ballina. The road led in this direction,

and so little intercourse had the shore folk with the interior, that it

was with difficulty any one could be found to act as a guide thither. At

last an old fellow was discovered, who used to travel these mountains

formerly with smuggled tobacco and tea; and although, from the

discontinuance of the smuggling trade, and increased age, he had for

some years abandoned the line of business, a liberal offer of payment

induced him to accompany me as guide.

It was not without great misgivings that I looked at the very old and

almost decrepit creature, who was to be my companion through a solitary

mountain region.

The few stairs he had to mount in the little inn where I put up seemed a

sore trial to his strength and chest; but he assured me that once out of

the smoke of the town, and with his foot on the "short grass of the

sheep-patch," he'd be like a four-year-old; and his neighbor having

corroborated the assertion, I was fain to believe him.

Determined, however, to make his excursion subservient to profit in his

old vocation, he provided himself with some pounds of tobacco and a

little parcel of silk handkerchiefs, to dispose of among the country

people, with which, and a little bag of meal slung at his back, and a

walking-stick in his hand, he presented himself at my door just as day

was breaking.

"We'll have a wet day, I fear, Jerry." said I, looking out.

"Not a bit of it," replied he. "'Tis the spring tides makes it cloudy

there beyant; but when the sun gets up it will be a fine mornin'; but

I'm thinkin' ye'r strange in them parts;" and this he said with a keen

sharp glance under his eyes.

"Donegal is new to me, I confess," said I guardedly.

"Yes, and the rest of Ireland, too," said he, with a roguish leer. "But

come along, we've a good step before us;" and with these words he led

the way down the stairs, holding the balustrade as he went, and

exhibiting every sign of age and weakness. Once in the street however he

stepped out more freely, and before we got clear of the town, walked at

a fair pace, and, to all seeming, with perfect ease.

(_To be continued._)

THE DEATH OF A GOBLIN.

There is a by-street, called the Pallant, in an old cathedral city--a

narrow carriage-way, which leads to half a dozen antique mansions. A

great number of years ago, when I began to shave, the presence of a very

fascinating girl induced me to make frequent calls upon an old friend of

our family who lived in one of the oldest of these houses, a plain,

large building of red brick. The father, and the grandfather, and a

series of great-great-great and other grandfathers of the then occupant,

Sir Francis Holyoke, had lived and died beneath its roof. So much I

knew; and I had inkling of a legend in connection with the place, a very

horrible affair. How and when I heard the story fully told, I have good

reason to remember.

We were in the great dark wainscoted parlor one December evening; papa

was out. I sat with Margaret by the fire-side, and saw in the embers

visions of what might come to pass, but never did. Ellen was playing at

her harpsichord in a dark corner of the room, singing a quaint and

cheerful duet out of Grétry's Coeur de Lion with my old school-fellow,

Paul Owen, a sentimental youth, who became afterward a martyr to the

gout, and broke his neck at a great steeple-chase. "The God of Love a

bandeau wears," those two were singing. Truly, they had their own eyes

filleted. The fire-light glow, when it occasionally flickered on the

cheek over which Paul was bending, could not raise the semblance of

young health upon its shining whiteness. That beautiful white hand was

fallen into dust before Paul Owen had half earned the wedding-ring that

should encircle it.

"Thanks to you, sister--thanks, too, to Grétry for a pleasant ditty.

Now, don't let us have candles. Shall we have ghost stories?"

"What! in a haunted house?"

"The very thing," cried Paul; "let us have all the story of the Ghost

of Holyoke. I never heard it properly."

Ellen was busy at her harpsichord again, with fragments from a Stabat

Mater. Not Rossini's luscious lamentation, but the deep pathos of that

Italian, who in days past "moerebat et dolebat," who moved the people

with his master-piece, and was stabbed to death by a rival at the

cathedral door.

"Why, Ellen, you look as if you feared the ghosts."

"No, no," she said; "we know it is an idle tale. Go to the fire, Paul,

and I will keep you solemn with the harpsichord, in order that you may

not laugh while Margaret is telling it."

"Well, then," began Margaret, "of course this story is all nonsense."

"Of course it is," said I.

"Of course it is," said Paul.

Ellen continued playing.

"I mean," said Margaret, "that really and truly no part of it can

possibly be any thing but fiction. Papa, you know, is a great

genealogist, and he says that our ancestor, Godfrey of Holyoke, died in

the Holy Land, and had two sons, but never had a daughter. Some old

nurse made the tale that he died here, in the house, and had a daughter

Ellen. This daughter Ellen, says the tale, was sought in marriage by a

young knight who won her good-will, but could not get her father's. That

Ellen--very much unlike our gentle, timid sister in the corner

there--was proud and willful. She and her father quarreled. His health

failed, because, the story hints mysteriously, she put a slow and subtle

poison into his after-supper cup night after night. One evening they

quarreled violently, and the next morning Sir Godfrey was gone. His

daughter said that he had left the house in anger with her. The tale,

determined to be horrible, says that she poisoned him outright, and with

her own hands buried him in an old cellar under this room. That

cellar-door is fastened with a padlock, to which there is no key

remaining. Not being wanted, it has not been opened probably for scores

of years."

"Well!"

"Well--in a year or two the daughter married, and in time had children

scampering about this house. But her health failed. The children fell

ill, and, excepting one or two, all died. One night--"

"Yes."

"One night she lay awake through care; and in the middle of the night a

figure like her father came into the room, holding a cup like that from

which he used to drink after his supper. It moved inaudibly to where she

lay, placed the cup to her lips; a chill came over her. The figure

passed away, but in a few minutes she heard the shutting of the

cellar-door. After that she was often kept awake by dread, and often saw

that she was visited. She heard the cellar-door creak on its hinge, and

knew it was her father coming. Once she watched all night by the

sick-bed of her eldest child; the goblin came, and put the cup to her

child's lips; she knew then that her children who were dead, and she

herself who was dying, and that child of hers, had tasted of her

father's poison. She died young. And ever since that time, the legend

says, Sir Godfrey walks at night, and puts his fatal goblet to the lips

of his descendants, of the children and children's children of his cruel

child. It is quite true that sickliness and death occur more frequently

among those who inhabit this house than is to be easily accounted for.

So story-tellers have accounted for it, as you see. But it is certain

that Sir Godfrey fell in Palestine, and had no daughter."

Ellen continued playing with her face bowed down over the harpsichord.

Margaret, a healthy cheerful girl, had lived generally with an old aunt

in the south of England. But the two girls wore mourning. In the flower

of her years their mother had departed from them, after long lingering

in broken health. The bandeau seemed to have been unrolled from poor

Paul's eyes, for, after a long pause, which had been filled by Ellen's

music, he said:

"Ellen, did _you_ ever see Sir Godfrey?"

She left her harpsichord and came to him, and leaning down over his

shoulder, kissed him.

Was she thinking of the sorrow that would come upon him soon?

The sudden closing of a heavy door startled us all. But a loud jovial

voice restored our spirits. Sir Francis had come in from his afternoon

walk and gossip, and was clamoring for tea.

"Why, boys and girls, all in the dark! What mischief are you after?"

"Laughing at the Holyoke Ghost, papa," said Margaret.

"Laughing, indeed; you look as if you had been drinking with him. Silly

tale! silly tale! Look at me, I'm hale and hearty. Why don't Sir Godfrey

tackle me? I'd like a draught out of his flagon."

A door below us creaked upon its hinges. Ellen shrank back visibly

alarmed.

"You silly butterfly," Sir Francis cried, "it's Thomas coming up out of

the kitchen with the candles you left me to order. Tea, girls, tea!"

Sir Francis, a stout, warm-faced, and warm-hearted gentleman, kept us

amused through the remainder of that evening. My business the next day

called me to London, from whence I sailed in a few days for Valparaiso.

While abroad, I heard of Ellen's death. On my return to England, I went

immediately to the old cathedral city, where I had many friends. There I

was shocked to hear that Sir Francis himself had died of apoplexy, and

that Margaret, the sole heir and survivor, had gone back, with her

health injured, to live with her aunt in the south of England. The dear

old house, ghost and all, had been To Let, and had been taken by a

school-mistress. It was now "Holyoke House Seminary for Young Ladies."

The school had succeeded through the talent of its mistress; but

although she was not a lady of the stocks and backboard school, the

sickliness among her pupils had been very noticeable. Scarlet fever,

too, had got among them, of which three had died. The school had become

in consequence almost deserted, and the lady who had occupied the house

was on the point of quitting. Surely, I thought, if this be Sir

Godfrey's work, he is as relentless an old goblin as can be imagined.

For private reasons of my own, I traveled south. Margaret bloomed again;

as for her aunt, she was a peony in fullest flower. She had a breezy

house by the sea-side, abominated dirt and spiders, and, before we had

been five minutes together, abused me for having lavender-water upon my

handkerchief. She hated smells, it seemed; she carried her antipathy so

far as to throw a bouquet out of the window which I had been putting

together with great patience and pains for Margaret.

We talked of the old house at ----.

"I tell you what it is, Peggy," she said, "if ever you marry, ghost or

no ghost, you're the heir of the Holyokes, and in the old house you

shall live. As soon as Miss Williams has quitted, I'll put on my bonnet

and run across with you into the north."

And so she did. We stalked together into the desolate old house. It

echoed our tread dismally.

"Peggy," said aunt Anne with her eyes quite fixed, "Peggy, I smell a

smell. Let's go down stairs." We went into the kitchen.

"Peggy," the old lady said, "it's very bad. I think it's Sir Godfrey."

"O aunt!" said Margaret, laughing; "he died in Palestine, and is dust

long ago."

"I'm sure it's Sir Godfrey," said aunt Anne. "You fellow," to me, "just

take the bar belonging to that window-shutter, and come along with me.

Peggy, show us Sir Godfrey's cellar."

Margaret changed color. "What," said the old lady, "flinch at a ghost

you don't believe in! I'm not afraid, see; yet I'm sure Sir Godfrey's in

the cellar. Come along."

We came and stood before the mysterious door with its enormous padlock.

"I smell the ghost distinctly," said aunt Anne.

Margaret did not know ghosts had a smell.

"Break the door open, you chap." I battered with the bar, the oaken

planks were rotten and soon fell apart--some fell into the cellar with a

plash. There was a foul smell. A dark cellar had a very little daylight

let into it--we could just see the floor covered with filth, in which

some of the planks had sunk and disappeared.

"There," said the old lady, "there's the stuff your ghost had in his

cup. There's your Sir Godfrey who poisons sleepers, and cuts off your

children and your girls. Bah! We'll set to work, Peggy; it's clear your

ancestors knew or cared nothing about drainage. We'll have the house

drained properly, and that will be the death of the goblin."

So it was, as our six children can testify.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

The following sketch of his life was given to me by the subject of it,

while living as M. Hippolyte in a retired quarter of Paris, and

procuring a subsistence by following the profession of a baker:

"My name is Palamede de Tour la Roche. I was the third son of the Duc de

Tour la Roche, who, with his wife, eldest son, and daughter, perished in

the Revolution in '93. The earliest thing I remember was living in the

Hôtel Tour la Roche in great luxury and splendor--'the curled darling'

of my beautiful mother, and the spoiled pet and plaything of all the

house and all the company who came to it. My youth took no heed of

passing events; but one evening our hôtel was attacked, and from that

day to this I saw no more of my father and brothers--but my mother and

sister continued to live as before, only they were now continually

weeping, clasping me to their bosoms in passionate fondness, and never

going out of the great gates. Every thing was changed: we had no longer

any servants except an old woman, her daughter, and a lame son, with

whom I played in the garden, undisturbed by the cries which reached us

there, because I attached no ideas that I can remember to them, and I

was told not to be frightened, for it was only wicked, drunken people

shouting. When I inquired after my papa, and Henri, and Philippe--they

were called unexpectedly to England, and would be back again one of

these days, was the answer, which contented me. Although full eleven

years old, my mind had been kept so much under, and I had lived so

entirely in the perfumed atmosphere of the drawing-room--where, being

little of my age, people forgot it, and made a plaything of me--that

many a boy of seven or eight knew more of the world than I did.

"One night, after being some time in bed, I was awakened by a terrible

noise in the house, and loud voices, and lights glancing in the court. I

felt greatly frightened, but did not dare to move; in a little time it

ceased entirely, and, childlike, I again sunk to slumber. I lay awake

long next morning. I remember singing to myself, and wondering why old

Marotte did not, as usual, come to dress me; so at last I got up and

went into my mother's room. Every thing there was in disorder, and

neither mother, sister, nor servant to be seen. I cried bitterly, and

ran from room to room, searching in every corner in vain. All was

silent. My passionate cries of 'Maman! Maman! Louise! Louise!' remained

unanswered; and the doors were fastened or locked, all but the one which

led out of a small chamber into the garden, that had probably been

overlooked. At last they opened, and such a rabble came pouring in, that

I was frightened to death, and could scarcely make use of my trembling

limbs to convey me to the garden, where I crept into a very thick bush,

and remained happily unseen. There I sat, I suppose, for hours: I heard

sounds of revelry, of quarreling, and breaking, and gun-firing; saw

furniture thrown out of the windows--furniture I knew so well! and

people with bloody hands and faces standing at them. I think I must have

fainted. When I recovered my senses, however, it was getting quite dusk;

so, when the coast was pretty clear, I stole out into the street, and

wandering away toward the Champs Elysées, lay down under a tree, and

slept--forgetting grief, terror, hunger, and cold, in the dreamless

sleep of innocent childhood--the last I was ever to know--for the scenes

that I witnessed the day following 'my early bloom of heart destroyed.'

When I stood up, and saw where I was, and the events of the preceding

evening crowded to my confused mind, a sort of madness, I suppose,

seized me; I thought I was in my little gilded bed in my own alcove at

home, and was dreaming a frightful dream, not uncommon to children who

have been indulging in pastry or rich dishes. I therefore quietly turned

my steps toward the hôtel, expecting there to find things as usual. I

can scarcely tell what images passed through my brain, but the full

horror of my helpless situation did not break upon me until I found

myself before the well-known _porte cochère_, which was _shut_. Then I

knew it was no dream, and that all was real; and from that hour to this

I have never entered my father's house--never even seen him, my

brothers, my sister: my mother I saw once more--on the scaffold!"

Here the poor old man, whose voice had faltered two or three times,

stopped and sobbed audibly.

"Pray," said I, "do not go on, my dear Monsieur de Tour la Roche."

"Do not call me by that dear name: I can not bear it. No; I called

myself Hippolyte after one of our footmen: I could not bear to hear the

name my darling mother addressed me by profaned by the lips that

surrounded me afterward. But to proceed--"

"Oh no; pray spare yourself."

"On the contrary, it is a relief to my long-pent-up grief: I had for

some time lived in the streets, subsisting upon chance; and I was

standing on a heap of rubbish, just where the corner-house on the

left-hand side of the Rue Royale now stands, looking at the guillotine

doing its dreadful work. A man, a woman mounted, and their heads fell;

two other women, coarsely attired, stood waiting; one turned--Oh God! it

was my mother!--my gentle, timid, kind, darling mother! Timid and gentle

no longer, she looked calm and cold, moved resolutely, looking for one

moment up to Heaven, and said words I would now give my life-blood to

hear. My blood curdled, my heart stopped, as I heard the rattle and clap

of the descending guillotine. 'Maman! maman!' I shrieked. It was over!

'Encore une autre!' shouted a fierce man beside me. 'Maman! maman!'

'Wring the neck of that little aristocrat!' cried the mob. The man

advanced, as I hoped, to kill me at once, but he only grasped me fast,

saying, 'No, I shall take him home, pour le tuer à mon aise.' Death I

wished for; but torture!--I fainted; and when I came to myself I was in

an unfrequented street, still tightly held by the man. 'Don't be afraid,

my child--I shan't hurt you; but never, as you value your life, whisper

your name; if you do--here he swore a terrific oath--I _will_ kill you

_cruelly_. Now come with me. You shall sleep with mon petit Pierre: call

yourself Achille, Hercule, Hippolyte--what you please, if not your own

name.' Hippolyte, then, and Hippolyte I have been ever since--Jean

Hippolyte, when I signed my name. The house he carried me to was

wretched, dark, and dirty; the food given coarse, but plentiful; and

here I groveled, moody, and nearly mad, for more than a year, wandering

through the streets idle and in rags, seldom speaking, unless forced,

lest I should inadvertently betray myself. At last this man, whose name

was Jean Leroux, told me he had obtained employment for both Pierre and

me in a boulangerie. We were clothed somewhat more decently, and sent

about with bread to different parts of the neighborhood, and employed in

various little ways at first, sweeping out the shop, ovens, &c.; but by

degrees we made progress. As I could both read and write, which Pierre

could not do, and he was also naturally a slow, indolent boy, I was

preferred before him; but he was not ill-natured, and bore me no malice.

I grew up healthy enough, and tall; got forward at my trade, and soon

made money. I served also seven years under the Emperor, and brought

away, besides my laurels, two trifling wounds. Upon my return, still

keeping my secret, which, however, there was now no longer danger in

discovering, I commenced a search for my elder brother Philippe, of

whose death I have never heard; but without success; although I

ascertained that my father and Henri had been guillotined, and that my

poor sister had been massacred in the streets. I recommenced my former

business, and worked early and late to make enough to enable me to live

in peace and seclusion, waiting anxiously, but I hope patiently, until

He who in his wisdom has thought fit to afflict me, shall take me to

those realms where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes. I built this

house back from those which line the street: passages and kitchens look

into the courts; but I never go near those parts except at an early hour

to mass. I live in my garden, and with my books. Monsieur Butterini--who

never assumed the title his wife is so proud of, although he had an

undoubted right to bear it, poor man--married the daughter of the person

at whose house he lodged before taking up his abode in mine, as a matter

of economy, for she saved him a seamstress, a nurse, and a servant. She

is vain, weak, and vulgar, as you see, but has ever been correct in her

conduct, attentive to him while he lived, as she now is to me, in return

for my allowing her to retain two of the rooms she before occupied,

money enough to dress upon in the mean time, and a small annuity when I

die. The people whom I occasionally entertain, and to whom I shall leave

the little wealth I possess, are the families of Jean Leroux's children,

and those of my first master; but I feel still, as I have ever felt,

that I am of noble birth. When my will is read, all will then know that

a De Tour la Roche has baked their bread, but not until then. It has

been a great relief to my mind to tell all this to you, madame; and if

Philippe or his descendants _should_ be in England, promise that you

will seek them out, and speak to them of me, and perhaps even yet some

of my own blood will pray over my grave!"

I was deeply impressed by this melancholy history; and afterward spent

many an hour with the old man in his garden, where he always welcomed me

with a smile, and talked unreservedly, sometimes even cheerfully. He

lived several years afterward, but last winter died of bronchitis. Many

know parts of this story now, and I see no reason why I should not

relate the sad tale as he himself told it to me. Some worldly-wise

people may ask why he did not take his own proper title, and move in his

proper sphere, when he could do so; but I can very easily comprehend his

feelings. His heart was almost broken; he took no pleasure in this

world, nor in the things of this world, except those by which he could

"look up through nature unto nature's God." What were the vanities of

life to him? Obtaining his estate and title--the first of which would

have been difficult, if not impossible--would only have hindered his

desire of leading the life of calm, unpretending seclusion which pleased

him best; and, besides this, he was impressed with the idea that

Philippe, who was the rightful Duc de Tour la Roche, or his children,

were in existence somewhere. He was in no want of money, having made by

his own exertions more than enough for his moderate requirements: no,

nor of the world's respect. All respected him for his integrity and

charity; and his air and manner in themselves were sufficient to impress

those who came in contact with him, even while they knew he was but a

retired tradesman. I can understand it all perfectly. Some of those who

chance to read this paper may possibly have seen his tomb at Père la

Chaise: but they will not find the name of Tour la Roche, for that of

course is fictitious.

THE STORY OF FINE-EAR.

Ten or twelve years ago, there was, in the prison at Brest, a man

sentenced for life to the galleys. I do not know the exact nature of his

crime, but it was something very atrocious. I never heard, either, what

his former condition of life had been; for even his name had passed into

oblivion, and he was recognized only by a number. Although his features

were naturally well formed, their expression was horrible: every dark

and evil passion seemed to have left its impress there; and his

character fully corresponded to its outward indications. Mutinous,

gloomy, and revengeful, he had often hazarded his life in desperate

attempts to escape, which hitherto had proved abortive. Once, during

winter, he succeeded in gaining the fields, and supported, for several

days, the extremity of cold and hunger. He was found, at length, half

frozen and insensible under a tree, and brought back to prison, where,

with difficulty, he was restored to life. The ward-master watched him

more closely, and punished him more severely by far, than the other

prisoners, while a double chain was added to his heavy fetters. Several

times he attempted suicide, but failed, through the vigilance of his

guards. The only results of his experiments in this line were an asthma,

caused by a nail which he hammered into his chest, and the loss of an

arm, which he fractured in leaping off a high wall. After suffering

amputation, and a six months' sojourn in the hospital, he returned to

his hopeless life-long task-work.

One day this man's fierce humor seemed softened. After the hours of

labor, he seated himself, with the companion in misery to whom he was

chained, in a corner of the court; and his repulsive countenance assumed

a mild expression. Words of tenderness were uttered by the lips which

heretofore had opened only to blaspheme; and with his head bent down, he

watched some object concealed in his bosom.

The guards looked at him with disquietude, believing he had some weapon

hidden within his clothes; and two of them approaching him stealthily

from behind, seized him roughly, and began to search him before he could

make any resistance. Finding himself completely in their power, the

convict exclaimed: "Oh, don't kill him! Pray, don't kill him!"

As he spoke, one of the guards had gained possession of a large rat,

which the felon had kept next his bosom.

"Don't kill him!" he repeated. "Beat me, chain me; do what you like with

me; but don't hurt my poor rat! Don't squeeze him so between your

fingers! If you will not give him back to me, let him go free!"--And

while he spoke, for the first time, probably, since his childhood, tears

filled his eyes, and ran down his cheeks.

Rough and hardened men as were the guards, they could not listen to the

convict, and see his tears, without some feeling of compassion. He who

was about to strangle the rat, opened his fingers and let it fall to the

ground. The terrified animal fled with the speed peculiar to its

species, and disappeared behind a pile of beams and rubbish.

The felon wiped away his tears, looked anxiously after the rat, and

scarcely breathed until he had seen it out of danger. Then he rose, and

silently, with the old savage look, followed his companion in bonds, and

lay down with him on their iron bedstead, where a ring and chain

fastened them to a massive bar of the same metal.

Next morning, on his way to work, the convict, whose pale face showed

that he had passed a sleepless night, cast an anxious, troubled glance

toward the pile of wood, and gave a low, peculiar call, to which nothing

replied. One of his comrades uttered some harmless jest on the loss of

his favorite; and the reply was a furious blow, which felled the

speaker, and drew down on the offender a severe chastisement from the

task-master.

Arrived at the place of labor, he worked with a sort of feverish ardor,

as though trying to give vent to his pent-up emotion; and, while

stooping over a large beam, which he and some others were trying to

raise, he felt something gently tickle his cheek. He turned round, and

gave a shout of joy. There, on his shoulder, was the only friend he had

in the world--his rat!--who, with marvelous instinct, had found him out,

and crept gently up to his face. He took the animal in his hands,

covered it with kisses, placed it within his nest, and then, addressing

the head jailer, who happened to pass by at the moment, he said:

"Sir, if you will allow me to keep this rat, I will solemnly promise to

submit to you in every thing, and never again to incur punishment."

The ruler gave a sign of acquiescence, and passed on. The convict opened

his shirt, to give one more fond look at his faithful pet, and then

contentedly resumed his labor.

That which neither threats nor imprisonment, the scourge nor the chain,

could effect, was accomplished, and rapidly, by the influence of _love_,

though its object was one of the most despised among animals. From the

moment when the formidable convict was permitted to cherish his pet

night and day in his bosom, he became the most tractable and

well-conducted man in the prison. His Herculean strength, and his moral

energy, were both employed to assist the governors in maintaining peace

and subordination. Fine-Ear, so he called his rat, was the object of his

unceasing tenderness. He fed it before he tasted each meal, and would

rather fast entirely than allow it to be hungry. He spent his brief

hours of respite from toil in making various little fancy articles,

which he sold, in order to procure dainties which Fine Ear

liked--gingerbread and sugar, for example. Often, during the period of

toil, the convict would smile with delight when his little friend,

creeping from its nestling place, would rub its soft fur against his

cheek. But when, on a fine sunshiny day, the rat took up his position on

the ground, smoothed his coat, combed his long mustaches with his sharp

nails, and dressed his long ears with his delicate paws, his master

would testify the utmost delight, and exchange tender glances with the

black, roguish eyes of Master Fine-Ear.

The latter, confiding in his patron's care and protection, went, came,

sported, or stood still, certain that no one would injure him; for to

touch a hair of the rat's whisker would be to incur a terrible penalty.

One day, for having thrown a pebble at him, a prisoner was forced to

spend a week in hospital, ere he recovered the effects of a blow

bestowed on him by Fine-Ear's master.

The animal soon learned to know the sound of the dinner-bell, and jumped

with delight on the convict when he heard the welcome summons.

Four years passed on in this manner, when one day poor Fine-Ear was

attacked by a cat, which had found her way into the workshop, and

received several deep wounds before his master, flying to the rescue,

seized the feline foe, and actually tore her to pieces.

The recovery of the rat was tedious. During the next month the convict

was occupied in dressing his wounds. It was strange, the interest which

every one connected with the prison took in Fine-Ear's misfortune. Not

only did the guards and turnkeys speak of it as the topic of the day,

but the hospital nurses furnished plasters and bandages for the wounds;

and even the surgeon condescended to prescribe for him.

At length the animal recovered his strength and gayety, save that one of

his hind paws dragged a little, and the cicatrice still disfigured his

shin. He was more tame and affectionate than ever, but the sight of a

cat was sufficient to throw his master into a paroxysm of rage, and,

running after the unlucky puss, he would, if possible, catch and destroy

her.

A great pleasure was in store for the convict. Thanks to his good

conduct during the past four years, his sentence of imprisonment for

life had been commuted into twenty years, in which were to be included

the fifteen already spent in prison.

"Thank God!" he cried, "under His mercy it is to Fine-Ear I owe this

happiness!" and he kissed the animal with transport. Five years still

remained to be passed in toilsome imprisonment, but they were cut short

in an unlooked-for manner.

One day, a mutinous party of felons succeeded in seizing a turnkey, and

having shut him up with themselves in one of the dormitories, they

threatened to put him to death if all their demands were not instantly

complied with, and a full amnesty granted for this revolt.

Fine-Ear's master, who had taken no part in the uproar, stood silently

behind the officials and the soldiers, who were ready to fire on the

insurgents. Just as the attack was about to commence, he approached the

chief superintendent, and said a few words to him in a low voice.

"I accept your offer," replied the governor: "remember, you risk your

life; but if you succeed, I pledge my word that you shall be strongly

recommended to the government for unconditional pardon, this very

night."

The convict drew forth Fine-Ear from his bosom, kissed him several

times, and then placing him within the vest of a young fellow-prisoner

with whom the rat was already familiar, he said, in a broken voice:

"If I do not return, be kind to him, and love him as I have loved him."

Then, having armed himself with an enormous bar of iron, he marched with

a determined step to the dormitory, without regarding the missiles which

the rebels hurled at his head. With a few blows of his bar, he made the

door fly open, and darting into the room, he over-turned those who

opposed his entrance, threw down his weapon, and seizing the turnkey,

put him, or rather flung him, out safe and sound into the passage.

While in the act of covering the man's escape from the infuriated

convicts, he suddenly fell to the ground, bathed in blood. One of the

wretches had lifted the iron bar and struck down with it his heroic

comrade.

He was carried dying to the hospital, and, ere he breathed his last, he

uttered one word--it was "Fine-Ear!"

Must I tell it? the rat appeared restless and unhappy for a few days,

but he soon forgot his master, and began to testify the same affection

for his new owner that he had formerly shown to him who was dead.

Fine-Ear still lives, fat, and sleek, and strong; indeed, he no longer

fears his feline enemies, and has actually succeeded in killing a

full-grown cat and three kittens. But he no longer remembers the dead,

nor regards the sound of his master's number, which formerly used to

make him prick up his ears and run from one end of the court to the

other.

Does it only prove that rats, as well as men, may be ungrateful? Or is

it a little illustration of the wise and merciful arrangement, that the

world must go on, die who will?

[From Colburn's United Service Magazine.]

GENERAL ROSAS, AND THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

In the provinces of the Argentine confederation, as well as throughout

the whole of South America, the population is divided into two distinct

families; the city and the country. The inhabitants of the

cities--issues of the Spanish colonization--are, as it were, intimately

blended with the foreign element, which they seem to represent; the

inhabitants of the country, on the other hand, constitute the indigenous

element, with all the customs of primitive life. Until the accession to

power of General Rosas, who from the first had especially applied

himself to the task of incorporating these two distinct races under one

general head, by taming down the half savage nature of the country

party, this strongly marked separation between the two castes, had been

the principal cause of the numerous revolutions which had hitherto

distracted and laid waste the country. This fusion, it must be allowed,

was a difficult task to perform: and though not yet perfectly

accomplished, it is, nevertheless, easily recognizable in the province

of Buenos Ayres; above all, in that portion of it which lies round the

capital.

The inhabitant of the country, who is styled a Gaucho, is, as it were,

an isolated being on the face of creation; for in vain do we seek his

counterpart either in the deserts of Asia, or in the sands of Africa.

The provinces of the Argentine Confederation may almost be termed

deserts; since, over the entire face of a territory equal in extent to

the whole of France, is scattered a population numbering but 800,000

souls. In these vast and almost deserted plains, there are no cities to

be found, but merely _estancias_--a species of solitary farms planted

amid immense solitudes. Alone, among his peons (or daily laborers)

Gauchos like himself, the _estancier_ lives as absolute master, without

desires, without industry, without agricultural labor. His sole

occupation consists in branding, and, when the proper time shall come,

in slaughtering the cattle, which form his entire wealth. The Gaucho

exists on meat and water only; the use of bread, vegetables, fruits, or

spirituous liquors being unknown to him. As for his outward apparel, he

rudely manufactures it out of the hides of oxen, or the fleeces of the

sheep; a few sticks, and three or four ox hides, suffice for the

construction of his tent, when he sojourns for any length of time in one

spot; for ordinarily, he sleeps in the open air, enveloped in his

poncho. His simple, but formidable arms, are reduced to the _lasso_, and

the _bolas_, and to a large knife, which he wears stuck into his

waist-belt. The Gaucho remains for weeks and months entire, without

perceiving the face of a human being; passing his time in wandering amid

the innumerable flocks and herds which cover the plains.

Whenever he feels the calls of hunger, he springs on horseback, pursues

a bull, _lassoes_ it, slaughters it, and out of the still palpitating

flesh cuts the piece he prefers; rarely does he take the trouble to have

it cooked, but contents himself before devouring his steak, with

softening it, by leaving it for a while under his saddle.

It may easily be understood how completely this wild and solitary

existence tends to destroy in the breast of the Gaucho every social

sentiment; and what profound hatred he must nourish against the

inhabitant of the city, who knows how to enjoy all the blessings of

civilization, and derive profit from the produce of his rude and

toilsome trade.

In the same ratio as the Gaucho has held himself aloof from all social

progress, has the inhabitant of the city eagerly met it half-way. In the

dwelling of the latter, thanks to the activity of commerce, which pours

forth in profusion all its riches into the lap of its votary, we find

not only all our European comforts, but even our tastes, in science,

literature, and the arts. But, as we have said before, the causes of the

separation of the two races are beginning to disappear; and taking into

consideration the ever active and increasing stride of European

civilization, we may safely presume that in a very few years, there will

remain scarcely a trace of the former strongly marked difference.

Throughout the entire province of Buenos Ayres, the country is

completely naked, a dense grass alone covers the plains, which are

watered by numerous rivulets, that wind through the vast prairies; the

country is almost a perfect level, and the soil of which it is composed,

though still virgin of all implements of husbandry, of an extraordinary

degree of fertility; it is indeed with difficulty that we can discover

in the environs of the city, a few gardens where it has been even

turned.

The city of Buenos Ayres has been constructed upon an uniform plan; it

is divided into _suadres_, which intersect each other at right angles.

The houses are composed simply of a ground floor; they are painted

entirely white, and have a very neat and pleasing aspect. Buenos Ayres

is now very thickly peopled; its inhabitants numbering more than a

hundred thousand souls; it would appear, also, to be in a highly

flourishing condition, as regards its commerce, for in the course of

last year, upward of three hundred European ships entered its harbor,

bearing merchandise from almost every quarter of the world.

John Manuel Ortes de Rosas, the sovereign dictator of the republic,

personifies the country party, and is, according to his own account at

least, the descendant of an old and noble Spanish family, which, in the

time of the conquest, emigrated to South America; what is indisputable,

is, that he is a Gaucho. At the period when the first troubles broke out

in the country, he was proprietor of a considerable _estancia_; which,

by his skill and perseverance, he had been able to render a model

establishment. Rosas had been endowed by nature with all the talents and

virtues of the most finished Gaucho; there was not an inhabitant of the

plain who could tame a wild horse like him, or handle with more skill

and dexterity the _lasso_, or the _bolas_; not a Gaucho was there, who

possessed his dexterity in the use of the knife; or who, having thrown

himself in the midst of danger, could withdraw himself therefrom with

more good fortune. These physical qualities would alone have sufficed to

place him in the very first rank among these half-savage men, who

recognize no other law than that of force; but to these advantages,

Rosas joined those of a superior intellect, and a degree of

understanding very uncommon in a land so far removed from every source

of enlightened instruction. Appointed at first officer of militia, it

was not long ere he became commandant of the country; shortly after

this, he entered Buenos Ayres, drove Lavalle out of the city, and had

himself proclaimed governor.

Rosas is now a man of about fifty-eight or sixty years of age; and

though, according to popular rumor, suffering from gout, and other

infirmities, no traces of these disorders are perceptible upon his

person. He is a man of lofty stature; his features are regular, and

announce firmness; and his vivid and piercing eyes possess a degree of

penetration, which takes nothing away from the austerity of his personal

appearance. When conversing with strangers, the dignity of his mien, the

gravity of his gestures, and the choice of his expressions, would lead

one to imagine that he has constantly lived in the society of men

eminent for their learning and talents; occasionally he affects, but

without success, a sort of natural _bonhomie_; but he well knows that

this little deceit is easily seen through, and he seldom employs it,

except when in company with men whom he knows to be his inferiors in

point of intellect. When, on the contrary, Rosas finds himself amid his

old companions, the Gauchos, his tone and manner entirely change: it is

no longer the polished and civilized man, the man of the cabinet and the

study, that is before us, but rather the horse and bull tamer, the lion

hunter, and the wild dweller on the prairies. His speech, perhaps a

moment before elegant and scholarly, now becomes gross and obscene,

while his gestures assume an expression known only to the desert.

What we have just stated regarding Rosas, will suffice to make our

readers comprehend his consummate skill; if we add to this an obstinate

and resolute character, and a will which has never recoiled before any

necessity to attain its ends--did this necessity even involve an

assassination or a massacre--and an enormous superiority of intellect

over all the men who surround him, the almost boundless power which this

man has succeeded in grasping and maintaining in his country, may easily

be comprehended. What augments still further the degree of his power, is

the secret manner in which it is exercised. Although in reality reigning

as absolute sovereign over the country whose constitution and

institutions he is daily trampling under foot, Rosas has ever been

enabled to dissemble his power, and, nominally at least, shelter himself

behind the rampart of legality.

Thus, among the apparent rights which he has left to the Chamber of

Representatives, if it is necessary that it should give a decision upon

any question, he demands it by a public and official message, almost

with humility: but by a private letter addressed at the same time to the

President, he directs him as to the precise form which is to be adopted

by the Chamber in pronouncing the resolution to be taken, as well as the

exact day and hour when the said resolution is to be made known to him.

To such a point are these things carried, that it is in the very cabinet

of Rosas himself that the fulsome votes of thanks periodically passed by

the different provincial assemblies of the Confederation to _the hero of

the desert_, the _saviour of the country_, the _restorer of the laws_,

&c., &c., &c., are drawn up.

Rosas attained to power uttering the war whoop of "Death to the

Unitarians,"[1] and by giving himself out as the restorer of the

federal government; and yet it is a notorious fact, that there is not on

the face of the earth a system of government more centralizing, more

despotic, more Unitarian, if we must say the word, than that which he

has constituted; and it is this fact alone which clearly proves the

extraordinary skill of this man. He has been enabled to push beyond the

limits of the possible the sciences of audacity and falsehood. It is

with the assistance of the federalists that he has been enabled to

conquer; true, he has dubbed himself federalist in name, but as far as

regards the principle of the thing, he has done his utmost to wipe away

from the institutions and customs of the country every thing that might

bear the most remote resemblance to this form of government, by

collecting together in his own hands more than the sum of the public

power--in fact, assuming in all things the sovereign will of an

autocratic dictator, from whose decrees there can be no appeal.

One of the glaring defects of the Argentine character is the thirst for

power, which possesses the inhabitants, to obtain which no obstacle will

restrain them. Previous to attaining to the supreme power, though

recognized as the chief of the country party, Rosas was surrounded by

_caudillos_, whose devotion to his interests did not appear to him to be

completely absolute; in fact, he well knew that on the very first

occasion which should present itself, each of them, profiting by the

ascendency which he individually exercised over his partisans, would

make no scruple of disputing with him the power he envied. It was

absolutely necessary that he should rid himself of this obnoxious

body-guard, and this step he at once resolved upon, and forthwith put

into execution. In a very brief space of time, steel and poison had done

their work, and delivered him from all those rivals which his ambition

had to dread, while the provinces very soon lost, under the terror which

they experienced at this wholesale slaughter, the bare idea of

resistance. There still remained, however, the city: Buenos Ayres had

not supported Lavalle as it ought to have done, nevertheless it inclosed

within its walls a goodly number of men who, though they had indeed

reason to manifest indifference for the Unitarian government, were too

enlightened not to feel a bitter regret for their own culpable weakness.

It was as a fire smouldering within the city, which sooner or later

would not fail to burst forth into a flame. Rosas comprehended this

movement, and bethought himself of the means of stifling it in the bud.

It was then that he founded the famous popular society of the

_mashorca_. It has been asserted, and we believe with reason, that this

society by its number of outrages on human life, merits in the criminal

annals of the world a renown greater than that of the celebrated Jacobin

Club, and the revolutionary tribunal of the first French Revolution.

Recruited from among the ranks of the savage, ignorant, and cruel men

who surrounded the new Dictator, the members of the _mashorca_ set to

work with ardor to _moralize_ the country according to the will of

General Rosas. By the mere terror which this formidable _mashorca_

inspired, Rosas was enabled to make the world believe, that he was at

once the elect of his fellow citizens and the depository of their wishes

and desires. It served him also to drill the nation to the manifestation

of either enthusiasm or furious rage, of which he might, according to

circumstances, stand in need.

The people, docile as a flock of sheep, accordingly howled or applauded

in the streets, or upon the public places, at the will of the dictator.

The means of action of the _mashorqueros_ upon the multitude are well

known--they consist in violence and assassination. Although in

appearance mute and devoted to Rosas, the city of Buenos Ayres still

bears mourning for the victims which were then sacrificed to his fury

and ambition. Obedient to the resentments of the _elect of the people_,

the _mashorqueros_, at certain days and certain hours, would spread

themselves far and wide throughout the streets, poinard in hand, and,

penetrating into the dwellings pointed out to them, would pitilessly

immolate the Unitarian _savages_ which the _federal pacificator_ had

previously marked as victims for their homicidal fury. The precise

number of these victims of the blind rage of a sanguinary party is

unknown; but it must have been considerable, for during an entire week

the blood flowed unceasingly, and at that period it was no uncommon

sight to behold the decapitated heads of the slain exposed in the public

market-place; at length, one day, a cart, preceded by musicians, made

the circuit of the city, to collect the dead bodies which lay in piles

before the houses.

It is not difficult to comprehend the effect of a similar system of

government upon a population by no means numerous, exhausted by long

civil dissensions, and which would have been completely annihilated at

the very first symptom of any thing approaching resistance. It submitted

in silence. Rosas, now certain from henceforth of being able to reign by

terror, began to moderate his excesses, and only from time to time had

recourse to violence, in order to intimidate those among the population

in whose breasts there might still lurk the remnants of some generous or

patriotic sentiment.

Rosas possesses an incredible power of continuous labor: he sleeps

during the greater part of the day, and passes the night in his cabinet.

It is not until four o'clock in the afternoon that he quits his bedroom.

During the summer, when he is in the country, he may be seen from this

hour until six o'clock galloping through the gardens, open to all

comers, or playing in front of the house with an enormous tigress,

which, though of the greatest ferocity with strangers, trembles and

crouches to the earth, at his voice. At six o'clock he takes a light

repast; after which he sits down to work, and does not leave off until

five or six in the morning. It is at this hour that he dines in company

with a couple of jesters, dressed in an eccentric manner, one of whom

goes by the name of _the governor_, who seek to amuse him by their

witticisms, their grotesque games, and sometimes by fighting. It has

been said that Rosas is surrounded by guards. But this is utterly false.

His house, which is vast and elegant, stands upon the highway, and the

doors, according to the general custom of the country, are always wide

open. So far from it being the case that he keeps his person carefully

guarded, it is, on the contrary, frequently a very difficult matter on

entering the house to meet with even a domestic to announce you; and the

visitor could with as much ease reach his private cabinet or his

bed-chamber as he could the courts upon which these apartments open.

There is not even a sentry or a porter at the principal door.

Next to Rosas, the personage who plays the most important part in all

the Confederation, is his daughter, Manuelita. The position which this

woman has acquired for herself is unique, like that of her father,

although relatively less important, since she is not consulted upon

State affairs. She possesses, nevertheless, with regard to all that

appertains to the second rank, a liberty of action entirely her own.

Manuelita is, as it were, an under Secretary of State in the cabinet of

a minister in charge of a vast administration. She has her secretaries,

her offices, her correspondence; and is well able to attend to a vast

amount of important business without neglecting those duties toward

society, which her intellectual acquirements and natural amiability of

disposition impose upon her. By many writers, Manuelita has been

portrayed as a species of bacchante, unceasingly exciting her father to

the commission of acts of violence, giving herself up to all the

irregularities of a life of dissipation, and scandalizing society by the

spectacle of incessant orgies. Now nothing can be less true, nothing

more false, than this. It is not necessary to know Manuelita, it is

sufficient to have seen her but for a few moments to be convinced of the

utter falsehood of these mendacious travelers' tales. Manuelita is

Rosas' daughter, and consequently has many prejudices to overcome, many

hatreds to conquer: yet she is esteemed and loved by all, which, be it

remarked, is no mean praise in a country where it may be said that no

one is esteemed. This is, in our idea, the best reply to offer to the

various calumnies it has pleased the "many-headed" to heap upon her. And

how, we may ask, can it be otherwise? If there is a being on the earth

who can soften the rigors of Rosas' tyrannical government, can solicit

and obtain mercy or justice, it is Manuelita. She is the sole hope of

the unfortunate, of the oppressed, of the poor, and rarely is this hope

deceived.

Manuelita is tall and elegantly formed. Her age has been stated to be

about four-and-thirty although she looks no more than twenty-seven or

twenty-eight. Her features are regular and bear the Spanish impress,

that is to say, that they are strongly marked. Her large black eyes

announce great strength of mind, yet the glances which shoot therefrom

have an expression of infinite gentleness and kindness. Her jet black

hair serves to bring out in more prominent relief the ivory fairness of

her skin. Her entire person, in short, breathes an air of grace and

refinement to be met with only in the Spanish women, who possess the

rare art of being able to join to the charms of beauty a certain

_abandon_ unknown to the women of other countries.

Manuelita possesses in a high degree the "knowledge of the salons," as

the French would call it; she speaks English, French, and Italian, as

her mother tongue, and whatever turn the conversation may take, whether

"grave or gay, lively or severe," she is equally enabled to shine in it

either by judicious observations, or brilliant repartee. Manuelita

entertains for her father a degree of affection amounting to absolute

devotion; often has she been seen to shed tears on learning the

cruelties practiced by Rosas. In the excess of grief which the acts of

the Dictator caused her, she has sometimes let her indignation burst

forth before her friends, but nothing can sever the bonds of that filial

love which bind her to her father. And happy is it for the country that

this is the case, for it is very evident that were it not for her, the

fury of Rosas would have displayed itself more fatally than it has yet

done. We have heard related by two eye-witnesses a scene which took

place between her and her father, during the period of the first

_mashorca_ executions, which shows the degree of dominion which the

latter exercises over her. One evening while Manuelita was seated at her

piano-forte singing to her auditors some Spanish romance, Rosas entered

the room holding in his hand a silver salver, upon which was deposited a

pair of human ears cut from the head of a _savage_ Unitarian; advancing

slowly to the instrument he placed the salver upon the piano before the

eyes of his daughter. Manuelita started up violently from her seat and

with features almost livid with rage and horror, she seized her piece of

music and cast it over the plate, then turning round she was about to

give free course to her indignation, when her eyes met the fixed and

terrible glance of the general; she ceded to this power and fell

fainting to the ground.

We could relate a thousand facts of this nature, which abundantly prove

the falsity of the many imputations directed against the character of

Manuelita.

We have just said that the two individuals alone worthy of attention and

study throughout the whole of the Argentine Confederation, are first of

all General Rosas, and afterward, his daughter, Manuelita. In fact it is

in them, in their will or their caprices, that are concentrated the

entire policy and administration of the republic. The men who, below

them nominally fill the higher offices of the State, are but mutes,

divested alike of either power or will. Like the stage representatives

of noble knights and powerful monarchs, the higher functionaries of the

republic and especially the secretaries of state hold office without

filling any character. They serve occasionally to make known the will of

the governor without being permitted in any case to interpret it. Even

the general officers in command of the armed forces dispersed over the

territory are obliged to keep near their persons certain subaltern

agents enjoying the confidence of the governor, whose orders and

directions they are obliged implicitly to follow. Although nominally and

apparently holding appointments which seem to invest them with a certain

degree of authority, the state functionaries are in this respect no

better off than their less fortunate countrymen, but are like all the

rest of the Argentines, in a state of absolute and slavish dependence.

When General Rosas seized the reins of government, his first and

principal care was to transform completely the Argentine society. In

place of the enlightened men whom Rivadavia had applied himself to seek

out, Rosas has raised to the first rank, the crew of unlettered ignorant

men, stained with every crime which disgraces human nature, who had

seconded his ambitious views. The biographies of the individuals who

formed the _mashorca_ are well known to every one, but such is the

terror inspired by the Dictator, that each, even the sons, brothers, and

widows of those who fell beneath their murderous knives, eagerly hasten

to show all the civility and deference in their power for the particular

friends of the governor. Never in any country have we had so many

examples of abject and shameful servility as in this. The Argentine

society possesses neither morality, religion, honor, nor courage. All

look forward to the day when the country shall be delivered from the

reign of despotism and tyranny which has so long oppressed it; but there

is not a man in all Buenos Ayres who has the courage to manifest his

feelings of disgust and repugnance for those who aid the governor in

retaining power. And let not the reader imagine that it is only a tacit

assent which is rendered to the tyrant's iron rule; each after venting

curses "not loud but deep" when he is certain of not being heard,

against the Dictator and his acolytes, rushes into the streets to take

part in the public manifestations commanded by Rosas. The savage device

that we read upon the _cinta_[2] is the cry which the watchmen shout

aloud every hour of the night in the streets of the city; it is the cry

which the actors give utterance to upon the stage on federal days, by

way of prologue, previous to the commencement of the piece; it is the

shout which the troops and militia under arms howl forth when the

governor rides down the ranks, and as if the threat of death to the

Unitarians which it contains was not sufficient, it is augmented

according to circumstances by similar denunciations directed against any

particular marked individual who may have rendered himself obnoxious to

the government, and also against foreigners, as well as by _vivats_ in

honor of the immortal warrior, of the king of justice, of the restorer

of the laws, of the great, the magnificent, the high and mighty Rosas,

in a word.

If the thorough abasement of moral character, the inevitable result of

despotism, which we observe in the Buenos Ayreans, did not counteract

the feelings of sympathy one is naturally disposed to show for this

population, the Argentine society would possess great attractions for

the traveler. The men who represent the Unitarian element are in general

of polished and agreeable manners. All the women without exception are

possessed of a remarkable degree of beauty, and if their education is

not quite so finished as it might be, they are, like all Spanish women,

endowed with a sort of natural grace and tact which stand them in lieu

of it: they display an extraordinary degree of luxury in their toilets,

and one might say that they outstrip the Parisian fashions, which are

with them more ephemeral even than in the spot which has given them

birth. For luxury and lavish expenditure as regards the adornment of the

person, nothing is comparable to the interior of the Opera-house on a

crowded night; the dazzled eye perceives at first but a vast

amphitheatre sparkling with gold, jewels, silk and lace, so disposed as

to impart fresh attractions to the ivory shoulders and ebon locks they

deck, lending all the charms of art to the riches of nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The centralizing party in the confederation is thus denominated.

[2] This device is thus conceived: "Long live the Argentine

Confederation! Death to the savage, filthy, and disgusting Unitarians!"

A NEW PHASE OF BEE-LIFE.

About the middle of an afternoon in July, 1848, we had landed on a low

sand-bank, which, for a short distance, skirted the right bank of the

stream, for the purpose of encamping for the night; and right glad were

we to stretch our limbs after ten hours' paddling. The Indians had

started in their wood-skin up the neighboring creek, in quest of game

for our evening's repast, and the women were clearing a space beneath

the branches for our hammocks, and collecting fuel for the nightly fire.

All who have wandered with the pleasant Waterton in his chivalrous

Expedition on the Essequibo, will remember his first guiltless attempt

to hook the wary cayman, before seeking more skillful allies in the

Indian settlement higher up the river. The sand-bank in which we were

about to bivouac, was that mentioned in his narrative, where, for four

days, he had impatiently waited for the shades of evening, and as often

turned into his hammock at day-break with his longings ungratified.

It was, as usual, intensely hot in the sun. To seek some relief, for the

first time during the day, I strolled--or rather straggled, for every

step through the tangled creepers had to be gained by hacking and hewing

with a cutlass--down to the cool banks of the creek, whose overhanging

branches, forming a magnificent arcade of verdure, almost excluded (or

admitted only at distant intervals), the scorching rays.

Seating myself on the smooth gray trunk of a tree, which lay prostrate

across the sluggish water, whose broken limbs shone bright in the gay

drapery of a scarlet-blossomed epiphyte, I lighted my pipe, and taking a

book from my pocket, began lazily turning over the pages and lightly

gleaning the pleasant thought of a witty and social poet. My attention

now and again drawn away by the ceaseless tappings of a yellow-headed

woodpecker on a decaying tree close at hand, to the glittering flashes

of a Karabimitas, a Topaz-throated humming-bird--a frequenter of dark

and solitary creeks, capturing flies among the gay petals, for his

nest-keeping partner, who, a few paces up the stream was gently swinging

with the evening breezes in her tiny home. I had been in this position

for some time, little regarding the whizzing hum of insects constantly

passing and repassing--when, my gaze chancing to fall a yard or more

from my resting-place, I detected a small bright-gray bee, about the

third of an inch in length, disappearing in what seemed a solid part of

the trunk.

There was no hole or crevice perceptible to the eye, nor did that

portion of the bark feel less smooth than that immediately adjoining. I

might be mistaken--nay, _I must be_. I had just arrived at this last

conclusion, when a tiny piece of the bark was suddenly raised, and out

flew the little gentleman I had seen disappear, or one too like him not

to belong to the same family. The mystery was solved. Some ingenious

bee-architect had devised an entrance-gate, fitting so admirably as to

defy discovery when shut; while I was certain that I could lay my finger

almost on the precise spot, the closest inspection failed to reveal any

trace of its outline. The bark, though polished and even, was covered

with faint interlaced streaks, from which even the smoothest bark is

never free; and the skillful carpenter had adapted the irregular

tracings of nature to his object of concealment. Wishing to inspect the

workmanship without injuring its delicacy, I had to wait patiently until

it should again fly open; nor was I kept long in expectation, for it

presently popped up to permit the egress of another of the fraternity,

and a ready twig prevented its descending. I found it designedly crooked

and jagged at the edges, with an average width of about a quarter of an

inch, and twice that in length; its substance was little more than the

outer skin of the bark, and, being still connected at one end, opened

and closed as with a spring. The cunning workman had no doubt been aware

that had he made it much shorter--which the size of the passengers would

have permitted--it would have required to be thrown farther back, when

the greater tension would soon have destroyed the elasticity of the

hinge, and, with that, its power of fitting close to the tree.

Immediately within the doorway was a small ante-chamber, forming a sort

of porter's lodge to the little surly gray-liveried gentleman inside,

who, without quitting his retreat, showed his displeasure at my

intrusion in a manner too pointed to be mistaken, and certainly

manifesting neither trepidation nor alarm at the sight of one of the

"lords of the creation," though probably the first offered to his

inspection. From the entrance-hall, two circular tunnels conducted into

the interior of the establishment, from whence came the confused murmurs

of a numerous and busy community. I had just allowed the door to close,

and was admiring the exceeding neatness of the workmanship, when another

of the family returned home, signifying his arrival, and obtaining

admittance in a manner at once novel and singular.

After darting against the entrance, and touching it with his feet, he

rose again into the air, and taking a wide swoop round the trunk came up

on the other side, this time, flying straight toward the "trap," which

was quickly raised, when he was a few inches distant, and, on his

entering, as quickly closed. The office of the pugnacious individual

inside was explained; he was actually the doorkeeper, and his returning

comrades, having, like any other modern gentleman, politely rapped,

circled out of the observation of prying eyes, till he was prepared to

admit them. Numbers were constantly arriving, and all went through the

process I have described, each flying away, after knocking, in a

different direction, but all allowing the same time to elapse before

returning for admission; thus, the door was never opened save at the

proper moment.

After watching their proceedings for some time, I discovered the reason

of their not waiting quietly at the entrance. Sneaking among the stray

leaves and rubbish in the trunk, and in the holes and cavities of the

bark, were numbers of small insects, of the same color as the bees, but

with the addition of one or two minute bands of black across the

abdomen; their slender, graceful forms and partially exposed ovipositors

revealed, however, the cause of their slinking about, and stamped them

the parasitic ichneumons of the hive. I thought that, after the habits

of their tribe, they were endeavoring to obtain an entrance, when they

pouncingly hovered over the bees as they were disappearing in the

door-way; but, as none ever succeeded, I conjectured that they had

devised and were pursuing some other plan of introducing their

blood-thirsty progeny. Further observation showed this to be correct.

The rascals were endeavoring to attach their eggs to the small pellets

of pollen with which each bee was laden, and they often succeeded, in

spite of the admirably devised tactics to prevent them.

The duties of the janitor were gradually ceasing; all the bees had

returned save a few stragglers, and even these were becoming scarce; the

last parting rays of the sun--a signal for the twilight birds to issue

from their lurking places--warned me, that in a few minutes I should

have some difficulty in penetrating through the thick underwood, for I

was in a clime where the sun "sinks at once, and all is night."

I was about to retrace my steps, when the measured stroke of paddles

caught my ear, and presently the Indian "corial," with a brave batch of

maroudis, and some smaller birds, turned a bend in the sinuous creek,

and swiftly glided toward me, guided through the fallen trees and

branches, which in some places almost choked the narrow stream, by the

skillful arm of old Paley, as I had dubbed our usual steersman. The same

keen eye that kept the frail bark clear of besetting obstacles, quickly

detected me--though it was almost dark--stretched in the tree above him.

Staying the progress of the "wood-skin" beneath, I slipped off my boots,

and cautiously lowered myself down.

I wouldn't advise any one to squat with booted heel in a flimsy "bark,"

especially when--intended for two and accommodating four--it is skimming

along with the water an inch or so from the edge. A lurch to one side,

and over you go--pleasantly enough in shallow water on a hot day, but

any thing but that with twenty feet of black fluid beneath, and you not

able to swim. A few weeks' practice had enabled me to balance myself

without endangering others; so we landed safely.

The birds, soon ready for the pot, were in a few minutes boiling away

among the "cassareep" and peppers. We made hearty suppers that night;

and as I lay in my hammock, taking the usual "soothing whiff" before

resigning myself to sleep, the howling of monkeys, the bellowings of

caymen, and the various cries of goatsucker, owl, and tiger-bird,

blending with the occasional roar of the jaguar in his midnight

courtship, the soughing of the breeze among the trees, and the murmur of

the distant falls, made as discordant and motley a "hushaby" as one

could imagine. Fortunately, all the screeching and howling in the

universe would have failed to drive away my slumbers; so I quietly fell

asleep, with the swaying branches brushing past my face. My latest

waking thoughts, I remember, now recalling the wandering Waterton (he

might have slept suspended from the same branch), and his fishing for

caymen; now, the bees and their tiny trap-doors; now, my tiger-robbed

coverlet, and the rapids we were to "shoot" in the morning; and, lastly,

blending into a confused murmur--raising pleasant recollections of the

old school-room buzz, and of the kindly comrades and anxious friends in

my far-off home.

We were up and away down the sparkling river at daybreak the next

morning; and I had no other opportunity of observing the economy of the

bees and their enemies; nor in my rambles did I ever chance to meet with

another family of the same species, or with kindred habits.

ANECDOTE OF A HAWK.

An English work on Game Birds and Wild Fowls, recently published,

contains the following curious anecdote:

"A friend of Colonel Bonham--the late Col. Johnson, of the Rifle

Brigade--was ordered to Canada with his battalion, in which he was then

a captain, and being very fond of falconry, to which he had devoted much

time and expense, he took with him two of his favorite peregrines, as

his companions, across the Atlantic.

"It was his constant habit during the voyage to allow them to fly every

day, after 'feeding them up,' that they might not be induced to take off

after a passing sea-gull, or wander out of sight of the vessel.

Sometimes their rambles were very wide and protracted. At others they

would ascend to such a height as to be almost lost to the view of the

passengers, who soon found them an effectual means of relieving the

tedium of a long sea voyage, and naturally took a lively interest in

their welfare; but as they were in the habit of returning regularly to

the ship, no uneasiness was felt during their occasional absence. At

last, one evening, after a longer flight than usual, one of the falcons

returned alone. The other--the prime favorite--was missing. Day after

day passed away and, however much he may have continued to regret his

loss, Captain Johnson had at length fully made up his mind that it was

irretrievable, and that he should never see her again. Soon after the

arrival of the regiment in America, on casting his eyes over a Halifax

newspaper, he was struck by a paragraph announcing that the captain of

an American schooner had at that moment in his possession a fine hawk,

which had suddenly made its appearance on board his ship during his late

passage from Liverpool. The idea at once occurred to Captain Johnson

that this could be no other than his much-prized falcon, so having

obtained immediate leave of absence, he set off for Halifax, a journey

of some days. On arriving there he lost no time in waiting on the

commander of the schooner, announcing the object of his journey, and

requested that he might be allowed to see the bird; but Jonathan had no

idea of relinquishing his prize so easily, and stoutly refused to admit

of the interview, 'guessing' that it was very easy for an Englisher to

lay claim to another man's property, but 'calculating' that it was a

'tarnation sight' harder for him to get possession of it; and concluded

by asserting, in unqualified terms, his entire disbelief in the whole

story. Captain Johnson's object, however, being rather to recover his

falcon than to pick a quarrel with the truculent Yankee, he had

fortunately sufficient self-command to curb his indignation, and

proposed that his claim to the ownership of the bird should be at once

put to the test by an experiment, which several Americans who were

present admitted to be perfectly reasonable, and in which their

countryman was at last persuaded to acquiesce. It was this. Captain

Johnson was to be admitted to an interview with the hawk--who, by the

way, had as yet shown no partiality for any person since her arrival in

the New World; but, on the contrary, had rather repelled all attempts at

familiarity--and if at this meeting she should not only exhibit such

unequivocal signs of attachment and recognition as should induce the

majority of the bystanders to believe that he really was her original

master, but especially if she should play with the buttons of his coat,

then the American was at once to waive all claim to her. The trial was

immediately made. The Yankee went up-stairs, and shortly returned with

the falcon; but the door was hardly opened before she darted from his

fist, and perched at once on the shoulder of her beloved and long-lost

protector, evincing, by every means in her power, her delight and

affection, rubbing her head against his cheek, and taking hold of the

buttons of his coat and champing them playfully between her mandibles,

one after another. This was enough. The jury were unanimous. A verdict

for the plaintiff was pronounced; even the obdurate heart of the

sea-captain was melted, and the falcon was at once restored to the arms

of her rightful owner."

NOTES ON THE NILE.

BY AN AMERICAN.

"Nile Notes, by an Howadji" (the Eastern name for traveler) is the title

of a new book, by a young American, soon to be issued from the press of

Messrs. Harper and Brothers. It is written with great vivacity, and will

compare favorably with "E[=o]then," or the best books of the day on the

East. The following extracts will be found attractive.

THE MUSIC OF THE EAST.

While the Hadji Hamed fluttered about the deck, and the commander served

his kara kooseh, the crew gathered around the bow and sang.

The stillness of early evening had spelled the river, nor was the

strangeness dissolved by that singing. The men crouched in a circle upon

the deck, and the reis, or captain, thrummed the tarabuka, or Arab drum,

made of a fish-skin stretched upon a gourd. Raising their hands, the

crew clapped them above their heads, in perfect time, not ringingly, but

with a dead, dull thump of the palms--moving the whole arm to bring them

together. They swung their heads from side to side, and one clanked a

chain in unison. So did these people long before the Ibis nestled to

this bank, long before there were Americans to listen.

For when Diana was divine, and thousands of men and women came floating

down the Nile in barges to celebrate her festival, they sang and

clapped, played the castanets and flute, stifling the voices of Arabian

and Lybian echoes with a wild roar of revelry. They, too, sang a song

that came to them from an unknown antiquity, Linus, their first and

only song, the dirge of the son of the first king of Egypt.

This might have been that dirge that the crew sang in a mournful minor.

Suddenly, one rose and led the song, in sharp, jagged sounds, formless

as lightning. "He fills me the glass full, and gives me to drink," sang

the leader, and the low-measured chorus throbbed after him, "Hummeleager

malooshee." The sounds were not a tune, but a kind of measured

recitative. It went on constantly faster and faster, exciting them, as

the Shakers excite themselves, until a tall, gaunt Nubian rose in the

moonlight and danced in the centre of the circle, like a gay ghoul among

his fellows.

The dancing was monotonous, like the singing, a simple jerking of the

muscles. He shook his arms from the elbows, like a Shaker, and raised

himself alternately upon both feet. Often the leader repeated the song

as a solo, then the voices died away, the ghoul crouched again, and the

hollow throb of the tarabuka continued as an accompaniment to the

distant singing of Nero's crew, that came in fitful gusts through the

little grove of sharp, slim masts:

"If you meet my sweetheart,

Give her my respects."

The melancholy monotony of this singing in unison, harmonized with the

vague feelings of that first Nile night. The simplicity of the words

became the perpetual childishness of the men, so that it was not

ludicrous. It was clearly the music and words of a race just better than

the brutes. If a poet could translate into sound the expression of a

fine dog's face, or that of a meditative cow, the Howadji would fancy

that he heard Nile music. For, after all, that placid and perfect animal

expression would be melancholy humanity. And with the crew only, the

sound was sad; they smiled, and grinned, and shook their heads with

intense satisfaction. The evening and the scene were like a chapter of

Mungo Park. I heard the African mother sing to him as he lay sick upon

her mats, and the world and history forgotten, those strange, sad sounds

drew me deep into the dumb mystery of Africa.

But the musical Howadji will find a fearful void in his Eastern life.

The Asiatic has no ear, and no soul for music. Like other savages and

children, he loves a noise, and he plays on shrill pipes--on the

tarabuka, on the tár, or tambourine, and a sharp, one-stringed fiddle,

or rabáb. Of course, in your first Oriental days, you will decline no

invitation, but you will grow gradually deaf to all entreaties of

friends, or dragomen, to sally forth and hear music. You will remind him

that you did not come to the East to go to Bedlam.

This want of music is not strange, for silence is natural to the East

and the tropics. When, sitting quietly at home, in midsummer, sweeping

ever sunward in the growing heats, we at length reach the tropics in the

fixed fervor of a July noon, the day is rapt, the birds are still, the

wind swoons, and the burning sun glares silence on the world.

The Orient is that primeval and perpetual noon. That very heat explains

to you the voluptuous elaboration of its architecture, the brilliance of

its costume, the picturesqueness of its life. But no Mozart was needed

to sow Persian gardens with roses breathing love and beauty, no

Beethoven to build mighty Himmalayas, no Rossini to sparkle and sing

with the birds and streams. Those realities are there, of which the

composers are the poets to Western imaginations. In the East, you feel

and see music, but hear it never.

Yet, in Cairo and Damascus the poets sit at the cafés, surrounded by the

forms and colors of their songs, and recite the romances of the Arabian

Nights, or of Aboo Zeyd, or of Antar, with no other accompaniment than

the tár, or the rabáb, then called the "Poet's Viol," and in the same

monotonous strain. Sometimes the single strain is touching, as when on

our way to Jerusalem, the too-enamored camel-driver, leading the litter

of the fair Armenian, saddened the silence of the desert noon with a

Syrian song. The high, shrill notes trembled and rang on the air. The

words said little, but the sound was a lyric of sorrow. The fair

Armenian listened silently as the caravan wound slowly along, her eyes

musingly fixed upon the East, where the flower-fringed Euphrates flows

through Bagdad to the sea. The fair Armenian had her thoughts, and the

camel-driver his; also the accompanying Howadji listened and had theirs.

The Syrian songs of the desert are very sad. They harmonize with the

burning monotony of the landscape in their long recitative and shrill

wail. The camel steps more willingly to that music, but the Howadji,

swaying upon his back, is tranced in the sound, so naturally born of

silence.

Meanwhile our crew are singing, although we have slid upon their music,

and the moonlight, far forward into the desert. But these are the forms

and feelings that their singing suggested. While they sang I wandered

over Sahara, and was lost in the lonely Libyan hills--a thousand simple

stories, a thousand ballads of love and woe trooped like drooping birds

through the sky-like vagueness of my mind. Rosamond Grey, and the child

of Elle passed phantom-like with vailed faces--for love, and sorrow, and

delight, are cosmopolitan, building bowers indiscriminately of

palm-trees or of pines.

The voices died away like the Muezzins', whose cry is the sweetest and

most striking of all Eastern sounds. It trembles in long-rising and

falling cadences from the balcony of the minaret, more humanly alluring

than bells, and more respectful of the warm stillness of Syrian and

Egyptian days. Heard in Jerusalem it has especial power. You sit upon

your house-top reading the history whose profoundest significance is

simple and natural in that inspiring clime; and as your eye wanders from

the aerial dome of Omar, beautiful enough to have been a dome of

Solomon's Temple, and over the olives of Gethsemane climbs the Mount of

Olives--the balmy air is suddenly filled with a murmurous cry, like a

cheek suddenly rose-suffused--a sound near, and far, and every where,

but soft and vibrating, and alluring, until you would fain don turban,

kaftan, and slippers, and kneeling in the shadow of a cypress on the

sun-flooded marble court of Omar, would be the mediator of those faiths,

nor feel yourself a recreant Christian.

Once I heard the Muezzin cry from a little village on the edge of the

desert, in the starlight before the dawn: it was only a wailing voice in

the air. The spirits of the desert were addressed in their own

language--or was it themselves lamenting, like water-spirits to the

green boughs overhanging them, that they could never know the gladness

of the green world, but were forever demons and denizens of the desert?

But the tones trembled away, without echo or response, into the starry

solitude. Al-lá-hu Ak-bar, Al-lá-hu Ak-bar!

So with songs and pictures, with musings, and the dinner of a Mecca

pilgrim, passed the first evening upon the Nile.

A CHARACTER.

Verde Giovane was joyous and gay. He had already been to the pyramids,

and had slept in a tomb, and had his pockets picked as he wandered

through their disagreeable darkness. He had come freshly and fast from

England, to see the world, omitting Paris and Western Europe on his way,

as he embarked at Southampton for Alexandria. Being in Cairo, he felt

himself abroad. Sternhold and Hopkins were his Laureates, for

perpetually on all kinds of wings of mighty winds he came flying all

abroad. He lost a great deal of money at billiards to "jolly" fellows

whom he afterward regaled with cold punch and choice cigars. He wrangled

wildly with a dragoman of very imperfect English powers, and packed his

tea for the voyage in brown paper parcels. He was perpetually on the

point of leaving. At breakfast, he would take a loud leave of the

"jolly" fellows, and if there were ladies in the room, he slung his gun

in a very abandoned manner over his shoulder, and while he adjusted his

shot-pouch with careless heroism, as if the enemy were in ambush on the

stairs, as who should say, "I'll do their business easily enough," he

would remark with a meaning smile, that he should stop a day or two at

Esne, probably, and then go off humming a song from the Favorita--or an

air whose words were well known to the jolly fellows, but would scarcely

bear female criticism.

After this departure, he had a pleasant way of reappearing at the

dinner-table, for the pale ale was not yet aboard, or the cook was ill,

or there had been another explosion with the dragoman. Verde Giovane

found the Cairene evenings "slow." It was astonishing how much execution

he accomplished with those words of very moderate calibre, "slow,"

"jolly," and "stunning." The universe arraying itself in Verde Giovane's

mind, under those three heads. Presently it was easy to predicate his

criticisms in any department. He had lofty views of travel. Verde

Giovane had come forth to see the world, and vainly might the world seek

to be unseen. He wished to push on to Sennaar and Ethiopia. It was very

slow to go only to the _cataracts_. Ordinary travel, and places already

beheld of men, were not for Verde. But if there were any Chinese wall to

be scaled, or the English standard were to be planted upon any vague and

awful Himmalayan height, or a new oasis were to be revealed in the

desert of Sahara, here was the heaven-appointed Verde Giovane, only

awaiting his pale ale, and determined to dally a little at Esne. After

subduing the East by travel, he proposed to enter the Caucasian

Mountains, and serve as a Russian officer. These things were pleasant to

hear, as to behold at Christmas those terrible beheadings of giants by

Tom Thumb, for you enjoyed a sweet sense of security and a consciousness

that no harm was done. They were wild Arabian romances, attributable to

the inspiration of the climate, in the city he found so slow. The

Cairenes were listening elsewhere to their poets, Verde Giovane was

ours; and we knew very well that he would go quietly up to the first

cataract, and then returning to Alexandria, would steam to Jaffa, and

thence donkey placidly to Jerusalem, moaning in his sleep of Cheapside

and St. Paul's.

PROSPECTS OF THE EAST.

That the East will never regenerate itself, contemporary history shows;

nor has any nation of history culminated twice. The spent summer

reblooms no more--the Indian summer is but a memory and a delusion. The

sole hope of the East is Western inoculation. The child must suckle the

age of the parent, and even "Medea's wondrous alchemy" will not restore

its peculiar prime. If the East awakens, it will be no longer in the

turban and red slippers, but in hat and boots. The West is the sea that

advances forever upon the shore, the shore can not stay it, but becomes

the bottom of the ocean. The Western, who lives in the Orient, does not

assume the kaftan and the baggy breeches, and those of his Muslim

neighbors shrink and disappear before his coat and pantaloons. The

Turkish army is clothed, like the armies of Europe. The grand Turk

himself, Mohammad's vicar, the Commander of the Faithful, has laid away

the magnificence of Haroun Alrashid, and wears the simple red Tarboosh,

and a stiff suit of military blue. Cairo is an English station to India,

and the Howadji does not drink sherbert upon the pyramids, but

champagne. The choice Cairo of our Eastern imagination is contaminated

with carriages. They are showing the secrets of the streets to the sun.

Their silence is no longer murmurous, but rattling. The "Uzbeekeeyah,"

public garden of Cairo, is a tea garden, of a Sunday afternoon crowded

with ungainly Franks, listening to bad music. Ichabod, Ichabod! steam

has towed the Mediterranean up the Nile to Boulak, and as you move on to

Cairo, through the still surviving masquerade of the Orient, the cry of

the melon-merchant seems the sadly significant cry of each sad-eyed

Oriental, "Consoler of the embarrassed, O Pips!"

The century has seen the failure of the Eastern experiment, headed as it

is not likely to be headed again, by an able and wise leader. Mohammad

Alee had Egypt and Syria, and was mounting the steps of the sultan's

throne. Then he would have marched to Bagdad, and sat down in Haroun

Alrashid's seat, to draw again broader and more deeply the lines of the

old Eastern empire. But the West would not suffer it. Even had it done

so, the world of Mohammad Alee would have crumbled to chaos again when

he died, for it existed only by his imperial will, and not by the

perception of the people.

At this moment the East is the El Dorado of European political hope. No

single power dares to grasp it, but at last England and Russia will meet

there, face to face, and the lion and the polar bear will shiver the

desert silence with the roar of their struggle. It will be the return of

the children to claim the birth-place. They may quarrel among

themselves, but whoever wins, will introduce the life of the children

and not of the parent. A possession and a province it may be, but no

more an independent empire. Father Ishmael shall be a sheikh of honor,

but of dominion no longer, and sit turbaned in the chimney corner, while

his hatted heirs rule the house. The children will cluster around him,

fascinated with his beautiful traditions, and curiously compare their

little black shoes with his red slippers.

THE DANCING WOMEN OF THE EAST.

The Howadji entered the bower of the Ghazeeyah. A damsel admitted us at

the gate, closely vailed, as if women's faces were to be seen no more

forever. Across a clean little court, up stone steps that once were

steadier, and we emerged upon a small, inclosed stone terrace, the

sky-vaulted ante-chamber of that bower. Through a little door that made

us stoop to enter, we passed into the peculiar retreat of the Ghazeeyah.

It was a small, white, oblong room, with but one window, opposite the

door, and that closed. On three sides there were small holes to admit

light, as in dungeons, but too lofty for the eye to look through, like

the oriel windows of sacristies. Under these openings were small glass

vases holding oil, on which floated wicks. These were the means of

illumination.

A divan of honor filled the end of the room; on the side was another,

less honorable, as is usual in all Egyptian houses; on the floor a

carpet, partly covering it. A straw matting extended beyond the carpet

toward the door, and between the matting and the door was a bare space

of stone floor, whereon to shed the slippers.

Hadji Hamed, the long cook, had been ill, but hearing of music and

dancing and Ghawazee, he had turned out for the nonce, and accompanied

us to the house, not all unmindful possibly, of the delectations of the

Mecca pilgrimage. He stood upon the stone terrace afterward, looking in

with huge delight! The solemn, long tomb-pilgrim! The merriest lunges of

life were not lost upon him, notwithstanding.

The Howadji seated themselves orientally upon the divan of honor. To sit

as Westerns sit is impossible upon a divan. There is some mysterious

necessity for crossing the legs; and this Howadji never sees a tailor

now in lands civilized, but the dimness of Eastern rooms and bazaars,

the flowingness of robe, and the coiled splendor of the turban, and a

world reclining leisurely at ease, rise distinct and dear in his

mind--like that Sicilian mirage seen on divine days from Naples--but

fleet as fair. To most men a tailor is the most unsuggestive of mortals;

to the remembering Howadji he sits a poet.

The chibouque and nargileh and coffee belong to the divan, as the parts

of harmony to each other. I seized the flowing tube of a brilliant

amber-hued nargileh, such as Hafiz might have smoked, and prayed Isis

that some stray Persian might chance along to complete our company. The

Pacha inhaled at times a more sedate nargileh, at times the chibouque of

the Commander, who reclined upon the divan below.

A tall Egyptian female, filially related, I am sure, to a gentle giraffe

who had been indiscreet with a hippopotamus, moved heavily about,

lighting the lamps, and looking as if her bright eyes were feeding upon

the flame, as the giraffes might browse upon lofty autumn leaves. There

was something awful in this figure. She was the type of those tall,

angular, Chinese-eyed, semi-smiling, wholly homely and bewitched beings

who sit in eternal profile in the sculptures of the temples. She was

mystic, like the cow-horned Isis. I gradually feared that she had come

off the wall of a tomb, probably in Thebes hard by, and that our

Ghawazee delights would end in a sudden embalming, and laying away in

the bowels of the hills with a perpetual prospect of her upon the walls.

Avaunt, Spectre! The Fay approaches, and Kushuk Arnem entered her bower.

A bud no longer, yet a flower not too fully blown. Large laughing eyes,

red pulpy lips, white teeth, arching nose, generous-featured, lazy,

carelessly self-possessed, she came dancing in, addressing the Howadji

in Arabic--words whose honey they would not have distilled through

interpretation. Be content with the aroma of sound, if you can not catch

the flavor of sense--and flavor can you never have through another

mouth. Smiling and pantomime were our talking, and one choice Italian

word she knew--_buono_. Ah! how much was _buono_ that choice evening.

Eyes, lips, hair, form, dress, every thing that the strangers had or

wore, was endlessly _buono_. Dancing, singing, smoking, coffee--_buono,

buono, buonissimo_! How much work one word will do!

The Ghazeeyah entered--not mazed in that azure mist of gauze and muslin

wherein Cerito floats fascinating across the scene, nor in the peacock

plumage of sprightly Lucille Grahn, nor yet in that June cloudiness of

airy apparel which Carlotta affects, nor in that sumptuous Spanishness

of dark drapery wherein Fanny is most Fanny.

The glory of a butterfly is the starred brilliance of its wings. There

are who declare that dress is divine--who aver that an untoileted woman

is not wholly a woman, and that you may as well paint a saint without

his halo, as describe a woman without detailing her dress. Therefore,

while the coarser sex vails longing eyes, will we tell the story of the

Ghazeeyah's apparel.

Yellow morocco slippers hid her feet, rosy and round; over these brooded

a bewildering fullness of rainbow silk--Turkish trowsers we call them,

but they are shintyan in Arabic. Like the sleeve of a clergyman's gown,

the lower end is gathered somewhere, and the fullness gracefully

over-falls. I say rainbow, although to the Howadji's little cognizant

eye was the shintyan of more than the seven orthodox colors. In the

bower of Kushuk, nargileh-clouded, coffee-scented, are eyes to be

strictly trusted?

Yet we must not be entangled in this bewildering brilliance. A satin

jacket, striped with velvet, and of open sleeves, wherefrom floated

forth a fleecy cloud of under-sleeve, rolling adown the rosy arms, as

June clouds down the western rosiness of the sky, inclosed the bust. A

shawl, twisted of many folds, cinctured the waist, confining the silken

shintyan. A golden necklace of charms girdled the throat, and the hair,

much unctuated, as is the custom of the land, was adorned with a pendent

fringe of black silk, tipped with gold, which hung upon the neck behind.

Let us confess to a dreamy, vaporous vail, overspreading, rather

suffusing with color, the upper part of the arms and the lower limits of

the neck. That rosiness is known as tób to the Arabians--a mystery

whereof the merely masculine mind is not cognizant. Beneath the tób,

truth allows a beautiful bud-burstiness of bosom; yet I swear, by John

Bunyan, nothing so aggravating as the Howadji beholds in saloons

unnamable nearer the Hudson than the Nile. This brilliant cloud, whose

spirit was Kushuk Arnem, our gay Ghazeeyah, gathered itself upon a

divan, and she inhaled vigorously a nargileh. A damsel in tób and

shintyan exhaling azure clouds of aromatic smoke, had not been

displeasing to that Persian poet, for whose coming I had prayed too

late.

But more welcome than he, came the still-eyed Xenobi. She entered

timidly like a bird. The Howadji had seen doves less gracefully sitting

upon palm-boughs in the sunset, than she nestled upon the lower divan. A

very dove of a Ghazeeyah--a quiet child, the last born of Terpsichore.

Blow it from Mount Atlas, a modest dancing-girl. She sat near this

Howadji, and handed him, O Haroun Alrashid! the tube of his nargileh.

Its serpentine sinuosity flowed through her fingers, as if the golden

gayety of her costume were gliding from her alive. It was an electric

chain of communication, and never until some Xenobi of a houri hands the

Howadji the nargileh of Paradise, will the smoke of the weed of Shiraz

float so lightly, or so sweetly taste.

Xenobi was a mere bud, of most flexile and graceful form, ripe and round

as the spring fruit of the tropics. Kushuk had the air of a woman for

whom no surprises survive; Xenobi saw in every new day a surprise, haply

in every Howadji a lover.

She was more richly dressed than Kushuk. There were gay gold bands and

clasps upon her jacket; various necklaces of stamped gold and metallic

charms clustered around her neck, and upon her head a bright silken web,

as if a sun-suffused cloud were lingering there, and, dissolving,

showered down her neck in a golden rain of pendants. Then, O Venus! more

azure still--that delicious gauziness of tób, whereof more than to dream

is delirium. Wonderful the witchery of a tób! Nor can the Howadji deem a

maiden quite just to nature, who glides through the world unshintyaned

and untóbed.

Xenobi was perhaps sixteen years old, and a fully developed woman;

Kushuk Arnem, of some half-dozen summers more. Kushuk was unhennaed; but

the younger, as younger maidens may, graced herself with the genial

gifts of nature. Her delicate filbert nails were rosily tinted on the

tips with henna, and those peddler poets meeting her in Paradise would

have felt the reason of their chant, "Odors of Paradise, O flowers of

the henna!" But she had no kohl upon the eyelashes, nor like Fatima of

Damascus, whom the Howadji later saw, were her eyebrows shaved and

replaced by thick, black arches of kohl. Yet fascinating are the

almond-eyes of Egyptian women, bordered black with the kohl, whose

intensity accords with the sumptuous passion that mingles moist and

languid with their light. Eastern eyes are full of moonlight--Eastern

beauty is a dream of passionate possibility, which the Howadji would

fain awaken by the same spell with which the prince of Faery dissolved

the enchanted sleep of the princess. Yet kohl and henna are only

beautiful for the beautiful. In a coffee-shop at Esne, bold-faced among

the men, sat a coarse courtesan sipping coffee and smoking a nargileh,

whose kohled eyebrows and eyelashes made her a houri of hell.

"There is no joy but calm," I said, as the moments, brimmed with beauty,

melted in the starlight, and the small room became a bower of bloom and

a Persian garden of delight. We reclined, breathing fragrant fumes, and

interchanging, through the Golden-sleeved, airy nothings. The Howadji

and the houris had little in common but looks. Soulless as Undine, and

suddenly risen from a laughing life in watery dells of lotus, sat the

houris; and, like the mariner, sea-driven upon the enchanted isle of

Prospero, sat the Howadji, unknowing the graceful gossip of Faery. But

there is a faery always folded away in our souls, like a bright

butterfly chrysalized, and sailing eastward, layer after layer of

propriety, moderation, deference to public opinion, safety of sentiment,

and all the thick crusts of compromise and convention roll away, and

bending southward up the Nile, you may feel the faery fairly flutter her

wings. And if you pause at Esne, she will fly out, and lead you a

will-o'-the-wisp dance across all the trim sharp hedges of accustomed

proprieties, and over the barren flats of social decencies. Dumb is that

faery, so long has she been secluded, and can not say much to her

fellows. But she feels and sees and enjoys all the more exquisitely and

profoundly for her long sequestration.

Presently an old woman came in with a tár, a kind of tambourine, and her

husband, a grisly old sinner, with a rabáb, or one-stringed fiddle. Old

Hecate was a gone Ghazeeyah--a rose-leaf utterly shriveled away from

rosiness. No longer a dancer, she made music for dancing. And the

husband, who played for her in her youth, now played with her in her

age. Like two old votaries who feel when they can no longer see, they

devoted all the force of life remaining to the great game of pleasure,

whose born thralls they were.

There were two tarabukas and brass castanets, and when the old pair were

seated upon the carpet near the door, they all smote their rude

instruments, and a wild clang rang through the little chamber. Thereto

they sang. Strange sounds--such music as the angular, carved figures

upon the temples would make, had they been conversing with us--sounds to

the ear like their gracelessness to the eye.

This was Egyptian Polyhymnia preluding Terpsichore.

TERPSICHORE.

"The wind is fair

The boat is in the bay,

And the fair mermaid Pilot calls away--"

Kushuk Arnem quaffed a goblet of hemp arrack. The beaker was passed to

the upper divan, and the Howadji sipping, found it to smack of anniseed.

It was strong enough for the Pharaohs to have imbibed--even for Herod

before beholding Herodias, for these dances are the same. This dancing

is more ancient than Aboo Simbel. In the land of the Pharaohs, the

Howadji saw the dancing they saw, as uncouth as the temples they built.

This dancing is to the ballet of civilized lands what the gracelessness

of Egypt was to the grace of Greece. Had the angular figures of the

temple sculptures preluded with that music, they had certainly followed

with this dancing.

Kushuk Arnem rose and loosened her shawl girdle in such wise, that I

feared she was about to shed the frivolity of dress, as Venus shed the

sea-foam, and stood opposite the divan, holding her brass castanets. Old

Hecate beat the tár into a thunderous roar. Old husband drew sounds from

his horrible rabáb, sharper than the sting of remorse, and Xenobi and

the Giraffe each thrummed a tarabuka until thought the plaster would

peel from the wall. Kushuk stood motionless, while this din deepened

around her, the arrack aerializing her feet, the Howadji hoped, and not

her brain. The sharp surges of sound swept around the room, dashing in

regular measure against her movelessness, until suddenly the whole

surface of her frame quivered in measure with the music. Her hands were

raised, clapping the castanets, and she slowly turned upon herself, her

right leg the pivot, marvelously convulsing all the muscles of her body.

When she had completed the circuit of the spot on which she stood, she

advanced slowly, all the muscles jerking in time to the music, and in

solid, substantial spasms.

It was a curious and a wonderful gymnastic. There was no graceful

dancing--once only there was the movement of dancing when she advanced,

throwing one leg before the other as gipsies dance. But the rest was

most voluptuous motion--not the lithe wooing of languid passion, but the

soul of passion starting through every sense, and quivering in every

limb. It was the very intensity of motion, concentrated and constant.

The music still swelled savagely in maddened monotony of measure. Hecate

and the old husband, fascinated with the Ghazeeyah's fire, threw their

hands and arms excitedly above their instruments, and an occasional cry

of enthusiasm and satisfaction burst from their lips. Suddenly stooping,

still muscularly moving, Kushuk fell upon her knees, and writhing with

body, arms and head upon the floor, still in measure--still clanking the

castanets, and arose in the same manner. It was profoundly dramatic. The

scenery of the dance was like that of a characteristic song. It was a

lyric of love which words can not tell--profound, oriental, intense, and

terrible. Still she retreated, until the constantly down-slipping shawl

seemed only just clinging to her hips, and making the same circuit upon

herself, she sat down, and after this violent and extravagant exertion

was marbly cold.

Then timid but not tremulous, the young Xenobi arose bare-footed, and

danced the same dance, not with the finished skill of Kushuk, but

gracefully and well, and with her eyes fixed constantly upon the elder.

With the same regular throb of the muscles she advanced and retreated,

and the Paradise-pavilioned prophet could not have felt his heavenly

harem complete, had he sat smoking and entranced with the Howadji.

Form so perfect was never yet carved in marble; not the Venus is so

mellowly moulded. Her outline has not the voluptuous excess which is not

too much--which is not perceptible to mere criticism, and is more a

feeling flushing along the form, than a greater fullness of the form

itself. The Greek Venus was sea-born, but our Egyptian is sun-born. The

brown blood of the sun burned along her veins--the soul of the sun

streamed shaded from her eyes. She was still, almost statuesquely still.

When she danced it was only stillness intensely stirred, and followed

that of Kushuk as moonlight succeeds sunshine. As she went on, Kushuk

gradually rose, and joining her, they danced together. The Epicureans of

Cairo indeed, the very young priests of Venus, assemble the Ghawazee in

the most secluded adyta of their dwellings, and there eschewing the

mystery of the shintyan, and the gauziness of the tób, they behold the

unencumbered beauty of these beautiful women. At festivals so fair,

arrack, raw brandy, and "depraved human nature," naturally improvise a

ballet whereupon the curtain here falls.

Suddenly, as the clarion call awakens the long-slumbering spirit of the

war-horse, old Hecate sprang to her feet, and loosening her girdle,

seized the castanets, and, with the pure pride of power, advanced upon

the floor, and danced incredibly. Crouching before like a wasting old

willow, that merely shakes its drooping leaves to the tempest, she now

shook her fibres with the vigor of a nascent elm, and moved up and down

the room with a miraculous command of her frame.

In Venice I had heard a gray gondolier, dwindled into a ferryman,

awakened in a moonlighted midnight, as we swept by with singers chanting

Tasso, pour his swan-song of magnificent memory into the quick ear of

night.

In the Champs Elysées I had heard a rheumy-eyed Invalide cry with the

sonorous enthusiasm of Austerlitz, "Vive Napoleon!" as a new Napoleon

rode by.

It was the Indian summer goldening the white winter--the Zodiacal light

far flashing day into the twilight. And here was the same in dead old

Egypt--in a Ghazeeyah who had brimmed her beaker with the threescore and

ten drops of life. Not more strange, and unreal, and impressive in their

way, the inscrutable remains of Egypt, sand-shrouded but undecayed, than

in hers this strange spectacle of an efficient Coryphée of seventy.

Old Hecate! thou wast pure pomegranate also, and not banana, wonder most

wonderful of all--words which must remain hieroglyphics upon these

pages--and whose explication must be sought in Egypt, as they must come

hither who would realize the freshness of Karnak.

Slow, sweet singing followed. The refrain was plaintive, like those of

the boat songs--soothing, after the excitement of the dancing, as

nursery lays to children after a tired day. "Buono," Kushuk Arnem! last

of the Arnems, for so her name signified. Was it a remembering refrain

of Palestine, whose daughter you are? "Taib," dove Xenobi! Fated, shall

I say, or favored? Pledged life-long to pleasure! Who would dare to be?

Who but a child so careless would dream that these placid ripples of

youth will rock you stormless to El Dorado?

O Allah! and who cares? Refill the amber nargileh, Xenobi--another

fingan of mellow mocha. Yet another strain more stirring. Hence, Hecate!

shrivel into invisibility with the thundering tár, and the old husband

with his diabolical rabáb. Waits not the one-eyed first officer below,

with a linen lantern, to pilot as to the boat? And the beak of the Ibis

points it not to Syene, Nubia, and a world unknown?

Farewell, Kushuk! Addio, still-eyed dove! Almost thou persuadest me to

pleasure. O Wall-street, Wall-street! because you are virtuous, shall

there be no more cakes and ale?

CURRAN, THE IRISH ORATOR.[3]

The next year after the exertions of Grattan had secured the

independence of the Irish legislature, and just as the great question of

reform began to loom up in the political horizon, there entered

parliament another man, whose name is imperishably connected with the

history of Ireland, JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. Of a slight and ungainly

figure, there was nothing about him to overawe a legislative assembly.

Grattan was the Colossus of debate. Curran, like a skillful gladiator,

played round the arena, and sometimes thrusting himself into the lists

in the lighter armor of his wit, carried off the victory where his giant

ally would have been less successful. But, in truth, this was not his

proper theatre. He came into the Parliament-house in the evening, after

having been all day in court. He was then jaded in body and mind, and

chose rather to listen than to speak. As Grattan was most at home in

parliament, Curran was most in his element at the bar. It was in the

Four Courts that he rose above all other men; that he won the reputation

of being the most eloquent advocate that Ireland had ever produced.

But it is on other accounts that Curran deserves a more minute sketch in

this history. He represents, perhaps more than any of his celebrated

countrymen, the Irish character--a nature compounded of imagination and

sensibility. Though of less kingly intellect than Grattan, he was of a

warmer temperament, and more fitted to be a popular idol.

Curran sprang from the people. He was born at Newmarket, an obscure town

in the county of Cork, in 1750--being thus four years younger than

Grattan. On the father's side he was descended from one of Cromwell's

soldiers. Passing his childhood in the country, he was thrown much among

the people. He loved to recall the days when he played marbles in the

street of Newmarket, or assumed the part of Punch's man at a country

fair. He loved to visit the peasantry in their cabins, and to listen to

their tales. There he saw the Irish character--its wit, its humor, its

sensibility to mirth and tears. There too, in those rough natures, which

appear so sullen and savage, when brought face to face with their

oppressors, he found the finest and tenderest affections of the human

heart. There too he found a natural poetry and eloquence. He was a

constant attendant at the weddings and wakes of his neighborhood. It was

customary at that time to employ hired mourners for the dead, and their

wild and solemn lamentations struck his youthful imagination. In

after-years, he acknowledged that his first ideas of eloquence were

derived from listening to the laments of mourners at the Irish burials.

When transferred to Trinity College in Dublin, he became distinguished

chiefly for his social powers. Full of the exuberant life of youth,

overflowing with spirits, and fond of fun and frolic, he was always a

welcome companion among the students.

His mother had designed him for the church. When he came out of college,

his tastes took another turn. But his mother never got over her

disappointment at his not being a preacher. Not even his brilliant

reputation at the bar and in parliament, could satisfy her maternal

heart. She lived to see the nation hanging on the lips of this almost

inspired orator. Yet even then she would lament over him, "O Jacky,

Jacky, what a preacher was lost in you!" Her friends reminded her that

she had lived to see her son one of the judges of the land. "Don't speak

to me of _judges_," she would reply, "John was fit for any thing; and

had he but followed our advice, it might hereafter be written upon my

tomb that I had died the mother of a bishop."

But no one as yet knew that he had extraordinary talent for eloquence.

Indeed he did not suspect it himself. In his boyhood he had a confusion

in his utterance, from which he was called by his school-fellows

"stuttering Jack Curran." It was not until many years after, while

studying law at the Temple, that he found out that he _could speak_.

After his fame was established, a friend dining with him one day, could

not repress his admiration of Curran's eloquence, and remarked that it

must have been born with him. "Indeed, my dear sir," replied Curran, "it

was not, it was born twenty-three years and some months after me." But

when he had made the important discovery of this concealed power, he

employed every means to render his elocution perfect. He accustomed

himself to speak very slowly to correct his precipitate utterance. He

practiced before a glass to make his gestures graceful. He spoke aloud

the most celebrated orations. One piece he was never weary of repeating,

the speech of Antony over the body of Cæsar. This he recommended to his

young friends at the bar as a model of eloquence.

And while he thus used art to smooth a channel for his thoughts to flow

in, no man's eloquence ever issued more freshly and spontaneously from

the heart. It was always the heart of the man that spoke. It was because

his own emotions were so intense, that he possessed such power over the

feelings of others.

His natural sympathies were strong. Like every truly great man, he was

simple as a child. He had all those tastes which mark a genuine man. He

loved nature. He loved children. He sympathized with the poor. It was

perhaps from these popular sympathies that he preferred Rousseau among

the French writers, and that his friendship was so strong with Mr.

Godwin.

His nature was all sensibility. He was most keenly alive to gay, or to

mournful scenes. He had a boyish love of fun and frolic. He entered into

sports with infinite glee. In these things he remained a child to the

end of his days; while in sensibility to tears he had the heart of a

woman. Thus to the last hour of life he kept his affections fresh and

flowing.

He had the delicate organization of genius. His frame vibrated to music

like an Eolian harp. He had the most exquisite relish for the beauties

of poetry. He was extravagantly fond of works of imagination. He

devoured romances. And when in his reading he met with a passage which

gratified his taste, he was never weary of repeating it to himself, or

reading it to the friends who came to see him.

In conversation, perhaps the most prominent faculty of his mind was

fancy--sportive, playful, tender, and pathetic. His conversation was a

stream which never ceased to flow. His brilliant imagination, and the

warmth with which he entered into every thing, gave it a peculiar

fascination. Byron said that Curran had spoken more poetry than any man

had ever written. In a circle of genial friends, after dinner, his

genius was in its first action. His countenance lighted up, and his

conversation, beginning to flow, now sparkled, now ran like wine.

Flashes of wit played round him. Mirth gleamed from his eye and shot

from his tongue. He had an endless store of anecdote, to which his

extraordinary dramatic talent enabled him to give the happiest effect.

He told stories, and hitting off the point of Irish character by the

most exquisite mimicry; he "set the table on a roar," following perhaps

with some touching tale which instantly brought tears into every eye.

"You wept," says Phillips, "and you laughed, and you wondered; and the

wonderful creature, who made you do all at will, never let it appear

that he was more than your equal, and was quite willing, if you chose,

to become your auditor."

The wit of Curran was spontaneous. It was the creation of the moment,

the electric sparks shot from a mind overcharged with imagery and

feeling. In this it differed from the wit of another great Irishman.

Sheridan had more of the actor about him. His brilliant sayings were

prepared beforehand. He aimed at display in the receptions at Holland

House as much as when writing a comedy for Drury-lane.

Perhaps no foreigner, who has visited England, has had a better

opportunity of seeing its distinguished men than Madame De Stael. She

was constantly surrounded by the most brilliant society of London. Yet

even in that blaze of genius, she was most struck, as she often told her

friends, with the conversational powers of Curran. This too, was in

1813, when his health had sunk, and his spirits were so depressed, as to

make it an effort to support his part at all in society.

From the vivacity of his conversation, one would hardly have suspected

the depth and seriousness of his character. In talking with ladies or

with young persons, his mind was remarkable for its constant

playfulness. A gleam of sunshine illumined his whole being. Yet those

who knew him intimately were aware that he was subject all his life to

constitutional melancholy. Like many other men celebrated for their wit,

his gayety alternated with deep depression. The truth was that he

sympathized too intensely with the scenes of real life, to be uniformly

gay. In his country he saw so much to sadden him, that his feelings took

a melancholy tone. The transition was often instantaneous from humor to

pathos. His friends, who saw him in his lighter moods, were surprised at

the sudden change of his countenance. "In grave conversation, his voice

was remarkable for a certain plaintive sincerity of tone"--a sadness

which fascinated the listener like mournful music.

In his eloquence appeared the same transitions of feeling and variety of

talent. He could descend to the dryest details of law or evidence.

Thomas Addis Emmet, who, though younger, practiced at the same bar, says

that Curran possessed a logical head. From this he could rise to the

highest flights of imagination, and it was here, and in appeals to the

feelings, that he was most at home. Sometimes his wit ran away with him.

His fancy was let off like a display of fireworks. It flew like a

thousand rockets, darting, whizzing, buzzing, lighting up the sky with

fantastic shapes.

By turns he could use the lightest or the heaviest weapon, as suited the

object of his attack. Where ethereal wit or playful irony were likely to

be thrown away upon some gross and insensible subject, he could point

the keenest edge of ridicule, or the coarsest invective, or the most

withering sarcasm.

When dissecting the character of a perjured witness, he seemed to

delight in making him feel the knife. His victim, at such a time,

appeared like an insect whom he had lanced with a needle, and was

holding up to the laughter and scorn of the world. Thus, when treating

the evidence of O'Brien, a hired informer, who had come on the stand to

swear away the lives of men whom the government had determined to

sacrifice, Curran apostrophized the patriotic individual, "Dearest,

sweetest, Mr. James O'Brien," exposing the utter rottenness of his

character in a tone of irony, until the man, who had a forehead of

brass, was forced to slink back into the crowd, and to escape from the

court.

So in his place in parliament, when exposing the corruption of the

officers of government, he did not spare nor have pity. A swarm of

blood-suckers had fastened on the state, who were growing fat from

draining the life of their unhappy country. Curran proclaimed the

immaculate virtue of "those saints on the pension list, that are like

lilies of the field--they toil not, neither do they spin, but they are

arrayed like Solomon in his glory." The extent to which this corruption

had gone was incredible. "This polyglot of wealth," said Curran, "this

museum of curiosities, the pension list, embraces every link in the

human chain, every description of men, women, and children, from the

exalted excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney, to the debased situation of

the lady who humbleth herself that she may be exalted." The road to

advancement at that day in Ireland, to the peerage, to the judicial

bench, was to betray the country. Curran branded those who thus came

into power by one of the strongest figures in English eloquence. "Those

foundlings of fortune, overwhelmed in the torrent of corruption at an

early period, lay at the bottom like drowned bodies, while soundness or

sanity remained in them; but at length becoming buoyant by putrefaction,

they rose as they rotted, and floated to the surface of the polluted

stream, where they were drifted along, the objects of terror, and

contagion, and abomination."

At the bar he often indulged in sallies of wit, and thus conciliated the

attention of the court. His delicate satire, his comical turns of

thought, convulsed the court with laughter. Then suddenly he stopped,

his lip quivered, his sentences grew slow and measured, and he poured

forth strains of the deepest pathos, as he pictured the wrongs of his

country, or lamented the companions of other days, the illustrious

departed, "over whose ashes the most precious tears of Ireland had been

shed." His voice excelled in the utterance of plaintive emotions, and

the homage which had been paid to his eloquence by mirth, was now paid

in the sound of suppressed weeping, which alone broke the death-like

stillness of the room. In pleading for one on trial for his life, his

voice subsided toward the close and sunk away in tones of solemnity and

supplication. Thus would he say, "Sweet is the recollection of having

done justice in that hour when the hand of death presses on the human

heart! Sweet is the hope which it gives birth to! From you I demand that

justice for my client, your innocent and unfortunate fellow-subject at

the bar; and may you have it for a more lasting reward than the

perishable crown we read of, which the ancients placed on the brow of

him who saved in battle the life of a fellow-citizen!"

But the trait which appears most conspicuous in the public efforts of

Curran, and which made him the idol of his countrymen, was his

enthusiastic love of Ireland. Says his biographer, "Ireland was the

choice of his youth, and was from first to last regarded by him, not so

much with the feelings of a patriot, as with the romantic idolatry of a

lover." In early life he had learned to love the Irish peasantry, and no

lapse of time could chill his affection. No temptation of office could

seduce him from the side of the poor and the oppressed. He knew their

noble qualities, and his bosom burned at the wrongs which they suffered.

One of his first causes at the bar was pleading for a Catholic priest

who had been brutally assaulted by a nobleman. Such was the fear of

incurring the displeasure of a lord, that no one dared to undertake the

prosecution, until Curran stepped forward, then a young lawyer. His

effort was successful. Not long after, the priest was called away from

the world. He sent for Curran to his bedside. Gold and silver he had

none. But he gave him all in his power, the benediction of a dying man.

He caused himself to be raised up in his bed, and stretching out his

trembling hands to place them upon the head of the defender, invoked for

him the blessing of the Almighty. Such scenes as this, while they

excited the enthusiasm of the Catholic population throughout Ireland for

the young advocate, who had dared to defend a priest of their proscribed

religion, at the same time strengthened his determination to make common

cause with his countrymen in their sufferings.

It is melancholy to reflect that efforts so great for the liberty and

happiness of Ireland, were not crowned with complete success. But the

patriotism and the courage were not less noble because overborne by

superior power. It is the honor of Curran that he loved Ireland in her

woe, and loved her to the last. Toward the close of life he said, "To

our unhappy country, what I had, I gave. I might have often sold her. I

could not redeem her. I gave her the best sympathies of my heart,

sometimes in tears, sometimes in indignation, sometimes in hope, but

often in despondence."

FOOTNOTE:

[3] From the "Irish Confederates," by _Henry M. Field_, in the press of

Harper and Brothers.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

GHOST STORIES OF CHAPELIZOD.

Take my word for it, there is no such thing as an ancient village,

especially if it has seen better days, unillustrated by its legends of

terror. You might as well expect to find a decayed cheese without mites,

or an old house without rats, as an antique and dilapidated town without

an authentic population of goblins. Now, although this class of

inhabitants are in nowise amenable to the police authorities, yet as

their demeanor greatly affects the comforts of her Majesty's subjects, I

can not but regard it as a grave omission that the public have hitherto

been left without any statistical returns of their numbers, activity,

&c., &c. And I am persuaded that a Commission to inquire into and report

upon the numerical strength, habits, haunts, &c., &c., of supernatural

agents resident in Ireland, would be a great deal more innocent and

entertaining than half the Commissions for which the country pays, and

at least as instructive. This I say more from a sense of duty, and to

deliver my mind of a grave truth than with any hope of seeing the

suggestion adopted. But, I am sure, my readers will deplore with me that

the comprehensive powers of belief, and apparently illimitable leisure,

possessed by parliamentary commissions of inquiry, should never have

been applied to the subject I have named, and that the collection of

that species of information should be confided to the gratuitous and

desultory labors of individuals, who, like myself, have other

occupations to attend to. This, however, by the way.

Among the village outposts of Dublin, Chapelizod once held a

considerable, if not a foremost rank. Without mentioning its connection

with the history of the great Kilmainham Preceptory of the Knights of

St. John, it will be enough to remind the reader of its ancient and

celebrated castle, not one vestige of which now remains, and of the fact

that it was for, we believe, some centuries, the summer residence of the

Viceroys of Ireland. The circumstance of its being up, we believe, to

the period at which that corps was disbanded, the head-quarters of the

Royal Irish Artillery, gave it also a consequence of an humbler, but not

less substantial kind. With these advantages in its favor, it is not

wonderful that the town exhibited at one time an air of substantial and

semi-aristocratic prosperity unknown to Irish villages in modern times.

A broad street, with a well-paved foot-path, and houses as lofty as were

at that time to be found in the fashionable streets of Dublin; a goodly

stone-fronted barrack; an ancient church, vaulted beneath, and with a

tower clothed from its summit to its base with the richest ivy; an

humble Roman Catholic chapel; a steep bridge spanning the Liffey, and a

great old mill at the near end of it, were the principal features of the

town. These, or at least most of them, remain, but still the greater

part in a very changed and forlorn condition. Some of them indeed

superseded, though not obliterated by modern erections, such as the

bridge, the chapel, and the church in part; the rest forsaken by the

order who originally raised them, and delivered up to poverty, and in

some cases to absolute decay.

The village lies in the lap of the rich and wooded valley of the Liffey,

and is overlooked by the high grounds of the beautiful Phoenix Park on

the one side, and by the ridge of the Palmerstown hills on the other.

Its situation, therefore is eminently picturesque; and factory fronts

and chimneys notwithstanding, it has, I think, even in its decay, a sort

of melancholy picturesqueness of its own. Be that as it may, I mean to

relate two or three stories of that sort, which may be read with very

good effect by a blazing fire on a shrewd winter's night, and are all

directly connected with the altered and somewhat melancholy little town

I have named. The first I shall relate concerns

THE VILLAGE BULLY.

About thirty years ago there lived in the town of Chapelizod an

ill-conditioned fellow of Herculean strength, well known throughout the

neighborhood by the title of Bully Larkin. In addition to his remarkable

physical superiority, this fellow had acquired a degree of skill as a

pugilist which alone would have made him formidable. As it was, he was

the autocrat of the village, and carried not the sceptre in vain.

Conscious of his superiority, and perfectly secure of impunity, he

lorded it over his fellows in a spirit of cowardly and brutal insolence,

which made him hated even more profoundly than he was feared.

Upon more than one occasion he had deliberately forced quarrels upon men

whom he had singled out for the exhibition of his savage prowess; and,

in every encounter his overmatched antagonist had received an amount of

"punishment" which edified and appalled the spectators, and in some

instances left ineffaceable scars and lasting injuries after it.

Bully Larkin's pluck had never been fairly tried. For, owing to his

prodigious superiority in weight, strength, and skill, his victories had

always been certain and easy; and in proportion to the facility with

which he uniformly smashed an antagonist, his pugnacity and insolence

were inflamed. He thus became an odious nuisance in the neighborhood,

and the terror of every mother who had a son, and of every wife who had

a husband who possessed a spirit to resent insult, or the smallest

confidence in his own pugilistic capabilities.

Now it happened that there was a young fellow named Ned Moran--better

known by the _soubriquet_ of "Long Ned," from his slender, lathy

proportions--at that time living in the town. He was, in truth, a mere

lad, nineteen years of age, and fully twelve years younger than the

stalwart bully. This, however, as the reader will see, secured for him

no exemption from the dastardly provocations of the ill-conditioned

pugilist. Long Ned, in an evil hour, had thrown eyes of affection upon a

certain buxom damsel, who, notwithstanding Bully Larkin's amorous

rivalry, inclined to reciprocate them.

I need not say how easily the spark of jealousy, once kindled, is blown

into a flame, and how naturally, in a coarse and ungoverned nature, it

explodes in acts of violence and outrage.

"The bully" watched his opportunity, and contrived to provoke Ned Moran,

while drinking in a public-house with a party of friends, into an

altercation, in the course of which he failed not to put such insults

upon his rival as manhood could not tolerate. Long Ned, though a simple,

good-natured sort of fellow, was by no means deficient in spirit, and

retorted in a tone of defiance which edified the more timid, and gave

his opponent the opportunity he secretly coveted.

Bully Larkin challenged the heroic youth, whose pretty face he had

privately consigned to the mangling and bloody discipline he was himself

so capable of administering. The quarrel, which he had himself contrived

to get up, to a certain degree covered the ill-blood and malignant

premeditation which inspired his proceedings, and Long Ned, being full

of generous ire and whisky punch, accepted the gage of battle on the

instant. The whole party, accompanied by a mob of idle men and boys, and

in short, by all who could snatch a moment from the calls of business,

proceeded in slow procession through the old gate into the Phoenix Park,

and mounting the hill overlooking the town, selected near its summit a

level spot on which to decide the quarrel.

The combatants stripped, and a child might have seen in the contrast

presented by the slight, lank form and limbs of the lad, and the

muscular and massive build of his veteran antagonist, how desperate was

the chance of poor Ned Moran.

"Seconds" and "bottle-holders"--selected, of course, for their love of

the game--were appointed, and "the fight" commenced.

I will not shock my readers with a description of the cool-blooded

butchery that followed. The result of the combat was what any body might

have predicted. At the eleventh round, poor Ned refused to "give in;"

the brawny pugilist, unhurt, in good wind, and pale with concentrated,

and as yet, unslaked revenge, had the gratification of seeing his

opponent seated upon his second's knee, unable to hold up his head, his

left arm disabled; his face a bloody, swollen, and shapeless mass; his

breast scarred and bloody, and his whole body panting and quivering with

rage and exhaustion.

"Give in Ned, my boy," cried more than one of the by-standers.

"Never, never," shrieked he, with a voice hoarse and choking.

Time being "up," his second placed him on his feet again. Blinded with

his own blood, panting and staggering, he presented but a helpless mark

for the blows of his stalwart opponent. It was plain that a touch would

have been sufficient to throw him to the earth. But Larkin had no notion

of letting him off so easily. He closed with him without striking a blow

(the effect of which, prematurely dealt, would have been to bring him at

once to the ground, and so put an end to the combat), and getting his

battered and almost senseless head under his arm, fast in that peculiar

"fix" known to the fancy pleasantly by the name of "chancery," he held

him firmly, while with monotonous and brutal strokes, he beat his fist,

as it seemed, almost into his face. A cry of "shame" broke from the

crowd, for it was plain that the beaten man was now insensible, and

supported only by the Herculean arm of the bully. The round and the

fight ended by his hurling him upon the ground, falling upon him at the

same time, with his knee upon his chest.

The bully rose, wiping the perspiration from his white face with his

blood-stained hands, but Ned lay stretched and motionless upon the

grass. It was impossible to get him upon his legs for another round. So

he was carried down, just as he was, to the pond which then lay close to

the old Park gate, and his head and body were washed beside it. Contrary

to the belief of all, he was not dead. He was carried home, and after

some months, to a certain extent, recovered. But he never held up his

head again, and before the year was over he had died of consumption.

Nobody could doubt how the disease had been induced, but there was no

actual proof to connect the cause and effect, and the ruffian Larkin

escaped the vengeance of the law. A strange retribution, however,

awaited him.

After the death of Long Ned, he became less quarrelsome than before, but

more sullen and reserved. Some said, "he took it to heart," and others,

that his conscience was not at ease about it. Be this as it may,

however, his health did not suffer by reason of his presumed agitations,

nor was his worldly prosperity marred by the blasting curses with which

poor Moran's enraged mother pursued him; on the contrary, he had rather

risen in the world, and obtained regular and well-remunerated employment

from the Chief-secretary's gardener, at the other side of the Park. He

still lived in Chapelizod, whither, on the close of his day's work, he

used to return across the Fifteen Acres.

It was about three years after the catastrophe we have mentioned, and

late in the autumn, when, one night, contrary to his habit, he did not

appear at the house where he lodged, neither had he been seen any where,

during the evening, in the village. His hours of return had been so very

regular, that his absence excited considerable surprise, though, of

course, no actual alarm; and, at the usual hour, the house was closed

for the night, and the absent lodger consigned to the mercy of the

elements, and the care of his presiding star. Early in the morning,

however, he was found lying in a state of utter helplessness upon the

slope immediately overlooking the Chapelizod gate. He had been smitten

with a paralytic stroke; his right side was dead; and it was many weeks

before he had recovered his speech sufficiently to make himself at all

understood.

He then made the following relation: he had been detained, it appeared,

later than usual, and darkness had closed in before he commenced his

homeward walk across the Park. It was a moonlight night, but masses of

ragged clouds were slowly drifting across the heavens. He had not

encountered a human figure, and no sounds but the softened rush of the

wind sweeping through bushes and hollows, met his ear. These wild and

monotonous sounds, and the utter solitude which surrounded him, did not,

however, excite any of those uneasy sensations which are ascribed to

superstition, although he said he did feel depressed, or, in his own

phraseology, "lonesome." Just as he crossed the brow of the hill which

shelters the town of Chapelizod, the moon shone out for some moments

with unclouded lustre, and his eye, which happened to wander by the

shadowy inclosures which lay at the foot of the slope, was arrested by

the sight of a human figure climbing, with all the haste of one pursued,

over the church-yard wall, and running up the steep ascent directly

toward him. Stories of "resurrectionists" crossed his recollection, as

he observed this suspicious-looking figure. But he began, momentarily,

to be aware, with a sort of fearful instinct which he could not explain,

that the running figure was directing his steps, with a sinister

purpose, toward himself.

The form was that of a man with a loose coat about him, which, as he

ran, he disengaged, and as well as Larkin could see, for the moon was

again wading in clouds, threw from him. The figure thus advanced until

within some two score yards of him; it arrested its speed, and

approached, with a loose, swaggering gait. The moon again shone out

bright and clear, and, gracious God! what was the spectacle before him?

He saw as distinctly as if he had been presented there in the flesh, Ned

Moran, himself, stripped naked from the waist upward, as if for

pugilistic combat, and drawing toward him in silence. Larkin would have

shouted, prayed, cursed, fled across the Park, but he was absolutely

powerless; the apparition stopped within a few steps, and leered on him

with a ghastly mimicry of the defiant stare with which pugilists strive

to cow one another before combat. For a time, which he could not so much

as conjecture, he was held in the fascination of that unearthly gaze,

and at last the thing, whatever it was, on a sudden swaggered close up

to him with extended palms. With an impulse of horror, Larkin put out

his hand to keep the figure off, and their palms touched--at least, so

he believed--for a thrill of unspeakable agony, running through his arm,

pervaded his entire frame, and he fell senseless to the earth.

Though Larkin lived for many years after, his punishment was terrible.

He was incurably maimed; and being unable to work, he was forced, for

existence, to beg alms of those who had once feared and flattered him.

He suffered, too, increasingly, under his own horrible interpretation of

the preternatural encounter which was the beginning of all his miseries.

It was vain to endeavor to shake his faith in the reality of the

apparition, and equally vain, as some compassionately did, to try to

persuade him that the greeting with which his vision closed, was

intended, while inflicting a temporary trial, to signify a compensating

reconciliation.

"No, no," he used to say, "all won't do. I know the meaning of it well

enough; it is a challenge to meet him in the other world--in Hell, where

I am going--that's what it means, and nothing else."

And so, miserable and refusing comfort, he lived on for some years, and

then died, and was buried in the same narrow church-yard which contains

the remains of his victim.

I need hardly say how absolute was the faith of the honest inhabitants,

at the time when I heard the story, in the reality of the preternatural

summons which, through the portals of terror, sickness, and misery, had

summoned Bully Larkin to his long, last home, and that, too, upon the

very ground on which he had signalized the guiltiest triumph of his

violent and vindictive career.

I recollect another story of the preternatural sort, which made no small

sensation, some five-and-thirty years ago, among the good gossips of the

town; and, with your leave, courteous reader, I shall relate it.

THE SEXTON'S ADVENTURE.

Those who remember Chapelizod a quarter of a century ago, or more, may

possibly recollect the parish sexton. Bob Martin was held much in awe by

truant boys who sauntered into the church-yard on Sundays, to read the

tombstones, or play leap-frog over them, or climb the ivy in search of

bats or sparrows' nests, or peep into the mysterious aperture under the

eastern window, which opened a dim perspective of descending steps

losing themselves among profounder darkness, where lidless coffins gaped

horribly among tattered velvet, bones, and dust, which time and

mortality had strewn there. Of such horribly curious, and otherwise

enterprising juveniles, Bob was, of course, the special scourge and

terror. But terrible as was the official aspect of the sexton, and

repugnant as his lank form, clothed in rusty, sable vesture, his small,

frosty visage, suspicious, gray eyes, and rusty, brown scratch-wig,

might appear to all notions of genial frailty; it was yet true, that Bob

Martin's severe morality sometimes nodded, and that Bacchus did not

always solicit him in vain.

Bob had a curious mind, a memory well stored with "merry tales," and

tales of terror. His profession familiarized him with graves and

goblins, and his tastes with weddings, wassail, and sly frolics of all

sorts. And as his personal recollections ran back nearly three score

years into the perspective of the village history, his fund of local

anecdote was copious, accurate, and edifying.

As his ecclesiastical revenues were by no means considerable, he was not

unfrequently obliged, for the indulgence of his tastes, to arts which

were, at the best, undignified.

He frequently invited himself when his entertainers had forgotten to do

so; he dropped in accidentally upon small drinking-parties of his

acquaintance in public-houses, and entertained them with stories, queer

or terrible, from his inexhaustible reservoir, never scrupling to accept

an acknowledgment in the shape of hot whisky-punch, or whatever else was

going.

There was at that time a certain atrabilious publican, called Philip

Slaney, established in a shop nearly opposite the old turnpike. This man

was not, when left to himself, immoderately given to drinking; but being

naturally of a saturnine complexion, and his spirits constantly

requiring a fillip, he acquired a prodigious liking for Bob Martin's

company. The sexton's society, in fact, gradually became the solace of

his existence, and he seemed to lose his constitutional melancholy in

the fascination of his sly jokes and marvelous stories.

This intimacy did not redound to the prosperity or reputation of the

convivial allies. Bob Martin drank a good deal more punch than was good

for his health, or consistent with the character of an ecclesiastical

functionary. Philip Slaney, too, was drawn into similar indulgences, for

it was hard to resist the genial seductions of his gifted companion; and

as he was obliged to pay for both, his purse was believed to have

suffered even more than his head and liver.

Be this as it may, Bob Martin had the credit of having made a drunkard

of "black Phil Slaney"--for by this cognomen was he distinguished; and

Phil Slaney had also the reputation of having made the sexton, if

possible, a "bigger bliggard" than ever. Under these circumstances, the

accounts of the concern opposite the turnpike became somewhat entangled;

and it came to pass one drowsy summer morning, the weather being at once

sultry and cloudy, that Phil Slaney went into a small back parlor, where

he kept his books, and which commanded, through its dirty window-panes,

a full view of a dead wall, and having bolted the door, he took a loaded

pistol, and clapping the muzzle in his mouth, blew the upper part of his

skull through the ceiling.

This horrid catastrophe shocked Bob Martin extremely; and partly on this

account, and partly because having been, on several late occasions,

found at night in a state of abstraction, bordering on insensibility,

upon the high road, he had been threatened with dismissal; and, as some

said, partly also because of the difficulty of finding any body to

"treat" him as poor Phil Slaney used to do, he for a time forswore

alcohol in all its combinations, and became an eminent example of

temperance and sobriety.

Bob observed his good resolutions, greatly to the comfort of his wife,

and the edification of the neighborhood, with tolerable punctuality. He

was seldom tipsy, and never drunk, and was greeted by the better part of

society with all the honors of the prodigal son.

Now it happened, about a year after the grisly event we have mentioned,

that the curate having received, by the post, due notice of a funeral to

be consummated in the church-yard of Chapelizod, with certain

instructions respecting the site of the grave, dispatched a summons for

Bob Martin, with a view to communicate to that functionary these

official details.

It was a lowering autumn night: piles of lurid thunder-clouds, slowly

rising from the earth, had loaded the sky with a solemn and boding

canopy of storm. The growl of the distant thunder was heard afar off

upon the dull, still air, and all nature seemed, as it were, hushed and

cowering under the oppressive influence of the approaching tempest.

It was past nine o'clock when Bob, putting on his official coat of seedy

black, prepared to attend his professional superior.

"Bobby, darlin'," said his wife, before she delivered the hat she held

in her hand to his keeping, "sure you won't, Bobby, darlin'--you

won't--you know what."

"I _don't_ know what," he retorted, smartly, grasping at his hat.

"You won't be throwing up the little finger, Bobby, acushla?" she said,

evading his grasp.

"Arrah, why would I, woman? there, give me my hat, will you?"

"But won't you promise me, Bobby darlin'--won't you, alanna?"

"Ay, ay, to be sure I will--why not? there, give me my hat, and let me

go."

"Ay, but you're not promisin', Bobby mavourneen; you're not promisin'

all the time."

"Well, divil carry me if I drink a drop till I come back again," said

the sexton, angrily; "will that do you? And _now_ will you give me my

hat?"

"Here it is, darlin'," she said, "and God send you safe back."

And with this parting blessing she closed the door upon his retreating

figure, for it was now quite dark, and resumed her knitting till his

return, very much relieved; for she thought he had of late been oftener

tipsy than was consistent with his thorough reformation, and feared the

allurements of the half dozen "publics" which he had at that time to

pass on his way to the other end of the town.

They were still open, and exhaled a delicious reek of whisky, as Bob

glided wistfully by them; but he stuck his hands in his pockets and

looked the other way, whistling resolutely, and filling his mind with

the image of the curate and anticipations of his coming fee. Thus he

steered his morality safely through these rocks of offense, and reached

the curate's lodging in safety.

He had, however, an unexpected sick call to attend, and was not at home,

so that Bob Martin had to sit in the hall and amuse himself with the

devil's tattoo until his return. This, unfortunately, was very long

delayed, and it must have been fully twelve o'clock when Bob Martin set

out upon his homeward way. By this time the storm had gathered to a

pitchy darkness, the bellowing thunder was heard among the rocks and

hollows of the Dublin mountains, and the pale, blue lightning shone upon

the staring fronts of the houses.

By this time, too, every door was closed; but as Bob trudged homeward,

his eye mechanically sought the public-house which had once belonged to

Phil Slaney. A faint light was making its way through the shutters and

the glass panes over the door-way, which made a sort of dull, foggy halo

about the front of the house.

As Bob's eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity by this time, the

light in question was quite sufficient to enable him to see a man in a

sort of loose riding-coat seated upon a bench which, at that time, was

fixed under the window of the house. He wore his hat very much over his

eyes, and was smoking a long pipe. The outline of a glass and a quart

bottle were also dimly traceable beside him; and a large horse saddled,

but faintly discernible, was patiently awaiting his master's leisure.

There was something odd, no doubt, in the appearance of a traveler

refreshing himself at such an hour in the open street; but the sexton

accounted for it easily by supposing that, on the closing of the house

for the night, he had taken what remained of his refection to the place

where he was now discussing it _al fresco_.

At another time Bob might have saluted the stranger, as he passed, with

a friendly "good-night;" but, somehow, he was out of humor and in no

genial mood, and was about passing without any courtesy of the sort,

when the stranger, without taking the pipe from his mouth, raised the

bottle, and with it beckoned him familiarly, while, with a sort of lurch

of the head and shoulders, and at the same time shifting his seat to the

end of the bench, he pantomimically invited him to share his seat and

his cheer. There was a divine fragrance of whisky about the spot, and

Bob half-relented; but he remembered his promise just as he began to

waver, and said,

"No, I thank you, sir, I can't stop to-night."

The stranger beckoned with vehement welcome, and pointed to the vacant

place on the seat beside him.

"I thank you for your polite offer," said Bob, "but it's what I'm too

late as it is, and haven't time to spare, so I wish you a good-night."

The traveler jingled the glass against the neck of the bottle, as if to

intimate that he might at least swallow a dram without losing time. Bob

was mentally quite of the same opinion; but, though his mouth watered,

he remembered his promise, and, shaking his head with incorruptible

resolution, walked on.

The stranger, pipe in mouth, rose from his bench, the bottle in one

hand, and the glass in the other, and followed at the sexton's heels,

his dusky horse keeping close in his wake.

There was something suspicious and unaccountable in this importunity.

Bob quickened his pace, but the stranger followed close. The sexton

began to feel queer, and turned about. His pursuer was behind, and still

inviting him with impatient gestures to taste his liquor.

"I told you before," said Bob, who was both angry and frightened, "that

I would not taste it, and that's enough. I don't want to have any thing

to say to you or your bottle; and in God's name," he added, more

vehemently, observing that he was approaching still closer, "fall back,

and don't be tormenting me this way."

These words, as it seemed, incensed the stranger, for he shook the

bottle with violent menace at Bob Martin; but, notwithstanding this

gesture of defiance, he suffered the distance between them to increase.

Bob, however, beheld him dogging him still in the distance, for his pipe

shed a wonderful red glow, which duskily illuminated his entire figure,

like a lurid atmosphere of meteor.

"I wish the devil had his own, my boy," muttered the excited sexton,

"and I know well enough where you'd be."

The next time he looked over his shoulder, to his dismay he observed the

importunate stranger as close as ever upon his track.

"Confound you," cried the man of skulls and shovels, almost beside

himself with rage and horror, "what is it you want of me?"

The stranger appeared more confident, and kept wagging his head and

extending both glass and bottle toward him as he drew near, and Bob

Martin heard the horse snorting as it followed in the dark.

"Keep it to yourself, whatever it is, for there is neither grace nor

luck about you," cried Bob Martin, freezing with terror; "leave me

alone, will you."

And he fumbled in vain among the seething confusion of his ideas for a

prayer or an exorcism. He quickened his pace almost to a run; he was now

close to his own door, under the impending bank by the river side.

"Let me in, let me in, for God's sake; Molly, open the door!" he cried,

as he ran to the threshold, and leant his back against the plank. His

pursuer confronted him upon the road; the pipe was no longer in his

mouth, but the dusky red glow still lingered round him. He uttered some

inarticulate cavernous sounds, which were wolfish and indescribable,

while he seemed employed in pouring out a glass from the bottle.

The sexton kicked with all his force against the door, and cried at the

same time with a despairing voice,

"In the name of God Almighty, once for all, leave me alone!"

His pursuer furiously flung the contents of the bottle at Bob Martin;

but, instead of fluid, it issued out in a stream of flame, which

expanded and whirled round them, and for a moment they were both

enveloped in a faint blaze; at the same instant a sudden gust whisked

off the stranger's hat, and the sexton beheld that his skull was

roofless. For an instant he beheld the gaping aperture, black and

shattered, and then he fell senseless into his own doorway, which his

affrighted wife had just unbarred.

I need hardly give my reader the key to this most intelligible and

authentic narrative. The traveler was acknowledged by all to have been

the spectre of the suicide, called up by the Evil One to tempt the

convivial sexton into a violation of his promise, sealed, as it was, by

an imprecation. Had he succeeded, no doubt the dusky steed, which Bob

had seen saddled in attendance, was destined to have carried back a

double burden to the place from whence he came.

As an attestation of the reality of this visitation, the old thorn-tree

which overhung the doorway was found in the morning to have been blasted

with the infernal fires which had issued from the bottle, just as if a

thunderbolt had scorched it.

The moral of the above tale is upon the surface, apparent, and, so to

speak, _self-acting_--a circumstance which happily obviates the

necessity of our discussing it together. Taking our leave, therefore, of

honest Bob Martin, who now sleeps soundly in the same solemn dormitory

where, in his day, he made so many beds for others, I come to a legend

of the Royal Irish Artillery, whose head-quarters were for so long a

time in the town of Chapelizod. I don't mean to say that I can not tell

a great many more stories, equally authentic and marvelous, touching

this old town; but as I may possibly have to perform a like office for

other localities, and as Anthony Poplar is known, like Atropos, to carry

a shears, wherewith to snip across all "yarns" which exceed reasonable

bounds, I consider it, on the whole, safer to dispatch the traditions of

Chapelizod with one tale more.

Let me, however, first give it a name; for an author can no more

dispatch a tale without a title, than an apothecary can deliver his

physic without a label. We shall, therefore, call it,

THE SPECTRE LOVERS.

There lived some fifteen years since in a small and ruinous house,

little better than a hovel, an old woman who was reported to have

considerably exceeded her eightieth year, and who rejoiced in the name

of Alice, or popularly, Ally Moran. Her society was not much courted,

for she was neither rich, nor, as the reader may suppose, beautiful. In

addition to a lean cur and a cat, she had one human companion, her

grandson, Peter Brien, whom, with laudable good-nature, she had

supported from the period of his orphanage down to that of my story,

which finds him in his twentieth year. Peter was a good-natured slob of

a fellow, much more addicted to wrestling, dancing, and love-making,

than to hard work, and fonder of whisky-punch than good advice. His

grandmother had a high opinion of his accomplishments, which, indeed,

was but natural, and also of his genius, for Peter had of late years

begun to apply his mind to politics; and as it was plain that he had a

mortal hatred of honest labor, his grandmother predicted, like a true

fortune-teller, that he was born to marry an heiress, and Peter himself

(who had no mind to forego his freedom even on such terms), that he was

destined to find a pot of gold. Upon one point both were agreed, that,

being unfitted by the peculiar bias of his genius for work, he was to

acquire the immense fortune to which his merits entitled him by means of

a pure run of good luck. This solution of Peter's future had the double

effect of reconciling both himself and his grandmother to his idle

courses, and also of maintaining that even flow of hilarious spirits

which made him every where welcome, and which was, in truth, the natural

result of his consciousness of approaching affluence.

It happened one night that Peter had enjoyed himself to a very late hour

with two or three choice spirits near Palmerstown. They had talked

politics and love, sung songs, and told stories, and, above all, had

swallowed, in the chastened disguise of punch, at least a pint of good

whisky, every man.

It was considerably past one o'clock when Peter bid his companions

good-by, with a sigh and a hiccough, and, lighting his pipe, set forth

on his solitary homeward way.

The bridge of Chapelizod was pretty nearly the midway point of his night

march, and from one cause or another his progress was rather slow, and

it was past two o'clock by the time he found himself leaning over its

old battlements, and looking up the river, over whose winding current

and wooded banks the soft moonlight was falling.

The cold breeze that blew lightly down the stream was grateful to him.

It cooled his throbbing head, and he drank it in at his hot lips. The

scene, too, had, without his being well sensible of it, a secret

fascination. The village was sunk in the profoundest slumber, not a

mortal stirring, not a sound afloat, a soft haze covered it all, and the

fairy moonlight hovered over the entire landscape.

In a state between rumination and rapture, Peter continued to lean over

the battlements of the old bridge, and as he did so he saw, or fancied

he saw, emerging one after another along the river bank in the little

gardens and inclosures in the rear of the street of Chapelizod, the

queerest little white-washed huts and cabins he had ever seen there

before. They had not been there that evening when he passed the bridge

on the way to his merry tryst. But the most remarkable thing about it

was the odd way in which these quaint little cabins showed themselves.

First he saw one or two of them just with the corner of his eye, and

when he looked full at them, strange to say, they faded away and

disappeared. Then another and another came in view, but all in the same

coy way, just appearing and gone again before he could well fix his gaze

upon them; in a little while, however, they began to bear a fuller gaze,

and he found, as it seemed to himself, that he was able by an effort of

attention to fix the vision for a longer and a longer time, and when

they waxed faint and nearly vanished, he had the power of recalling them

into light and substance, until at last their vacillating indistinctness

became less and less, and they assumed a permanent place in the moonlit

landscape.

"Be the hokey," said Peter, lost in amazement, and dropping his pipe

into the river unconsciously, "them is the quarist bits iv mud cabins I

ever seen, growing up like musharoons in the dew of an evening, and

poppin' up here and down again there, and up again in another place,

like so many white rabbits in a warren; and there they stand at last as

firm and fast as if they were there from the Deluge; bedad it's enough

to make a man a'most believe in the fairies."

This latter was a large concession from Peter, who was a bit of a

free-thinker, and spoke contemptuously in his ordinary conversation of

that class of agencies.

Having treated himself to a long last stare at these mysterious fabrics,

Peter prepared to pursue his homeward way; having crossed the bridge and

passed the mill, he arrived at the corner of the main-street of the

little town, and casting a careless look up the Dublin road, his eye

was arrested by a most unexpected spectacle.

This was no other than a column of foot-soldiers, marching with perfect

regularity toward the village, and headed by an officer on horseback.

They were at the far side of the turnpike, which was closed; but much to

his perplexity he perceived that they marched on through it without

appearing to sustain the least check from that barrier.

On they came at a slow march; and what was most singular in the matter

was, that they were drawing several cannons along with them; some held

ropes, others spoked the wheels, and others again marched in front of

the guns and behind them, with muskets shouldered, giving a stately

character of parade and regularity to this, as it seemed to Peter, most

unmilitary procedure.

It was owing either to some temporary defect in Peter's vision, or to

some illusion attendant upon mist and moon-light, or perhaps to some

other cause, that the whole procession had a certain waving and vapory

character which perplexed and tasked his eyes not a little. It was like

the pictured pageant of a phantasmagoria reflected upon smoke. It was as

if every breath disturbed it; sometimes it was blurred, sometimes

obliterated; now here, now there. Sometimes, while the upper part was

quite distinct, the legs of the column would nearly fade away or vanish

outright, and then again they would come out into clear relief, marching

on with measured tread, while the cocked hats and shoulders grew, as it

were, transparent, and all but disappeared.

Notwithstanding these strange optical fluctuations, however, the column

continued steadily to advance. Peter crossed the street from the corner

near the old bridge, running on tip-toe, and with his body stooped to

avoid observation, and took up a position upon the raised foot-path in

the shadow of the houses, where, as the soldiers kept the middle of the

road, he calculated that he might, himself undetected, see them

distinctly enough as they passed.

"What the div--, what on airth," he muttered, checking the irreligious

ejaculation with which he was about to start, for certain queer

misgivings were hovering about his heart, notwithstanding the factitious

courage of the whisky-bottle. "What on airth is the mainin' of all this?

is it the French that's landed at last to give us a hand and help us in

airnest to this blessed repale? If it is not them, I simply ask who the

div--, I mane who on airth are they, for such sogers as them I never

seen before in my born days?"

By this time the foremost of them were quite near, and truth to say,

they were the queerest soldiers he had ever seen in the course of his

life. They wore long gaiters and leather breeches, three-cornered hats,

bound with silver lace, long blue coats, with scarlet facings and

linings, which latter were shown by a fastening which held together the

two opposite corners of the skirt behind; and in front the breasts were

in like manner connected at a single point, where, and below which, they

sloped back, disclosing a long-flapped waistcoat of snowy whiteness;

they had very large, long cross-belts, and wore enormous pouches of

white leather hung extraordinarily low, and on each of which a little

silver star was glittering. But what struck him as most grotesque and

outlandish in their costume was their extraordinary display of

shirt-frill in front, and of ruffle about their wrists, and the strange

manner in which their hair was frizzed out and powdered under their

hats, and clubbed up into great rolls behind. But one of the party was

mounted. He rode a tall white horse, with high action and arching neck;

he had a snow-white feather in his three-cornered hat, and his coat was

shimmering all over with a profusion of silver lace. From these

circumstances Peter concluded that he must be the commander of the

detachment, and examined him as he passed attentively. He was a slight,

tall man, whose legs did not half fill his leather breeches, and he

appeared to be at the wrong side of sixty. He had a shrunken,

weather-beaten, mulberry-colored face, carried a large black patch over

one eye, and turned neither to the right nor to the left, but rode right

on at the head of his men with grim, military inflexibility.

The countenance of these soldiers, officers as well as men, seemed all

full of trouble, and, so to speak, scared and wild. He watched in vain

for a single contented or comely face. They had, one and all, a

melancholy and hang-dog look; and as they passed by, Peter fancied that

the air grew cold and thrilling.

He had seated himself upon a stone bench, from which, staring with all

his might, he gazed upon the grotesque and noiseless procession as it

filed by him. Noiseless it was; he could neither hear the jingle of

accoutrements, the tread of feet, nor the rumble of the wheels; and when

the old colonel turned his horse a little, and made as though he were

giving the word of command, and a trumpeter, with a swollen blue nose

and white feather fringe round his hat, who was walking beside him,

turned about and put his bugle to his lips, still Peter heard nothing,

although it was plain the sound had reached the soldiers, for they

instantly changed their front to three abreast.

"Botheration!" muttered Peter, "is it deaf I'm growing?"

But that could not be, for he heard the sighing of the breeze and the

rush of the neighboring Liffey plain enough.

"Well," said he, in the same cautious key, "by the piper, this bangs

Banagher fairly! It's either the Frinch army that's in it, come to take

the town iv Chapelizod by surprise, an' makin' no noise for feard iv

wakenin' the inhabitants; or else it's--it's--what it's--somethin' else.

But, tundher-an-ouns, what's gone wid Fitzpatrick's shop across the

way?"

The brown, dingy stone building at the opposite side of the street

looked newer and cleaner than he had been used to see it; the front door

of it stood open, and a sentry, in the same grotesque uniform, with

shouldered musket, was pacing noiselessly to and fro before it. At the

angle of this building, in like manner, a wide gate (of which Peter had

no recollection whatever) stood open, before which, also, a similar

sentry was gliding, and into this gateway the whole column gradually

passed, and Peter finally lost sight of it.

"I'm not asleep; I'm not dhramin'," said he, rubbing his eyes, and

stamping slightly on the pavement, to assure himself that he was wide

awake. "It is a quare business, whatever it is; an' it's not alone that,

but every thing about the town looks strange to me. There's Tresham's

house new painted, bedad, an' them flowers in the windies! An' Delany's

house, too, that had not a whole pane of glass in it this morning, and

scarce a slate on the roof of it! It is not possible it's what it's

dhrunk I am. Sure there's the big tree, and not a leaf of it changed

since I passed, and the stars overhead, all right. I don't think it is

in my eyes it is."

And so looking about him, and every moment finding or fancying new food

for wonder, he walked along the pavement, intending, without further

delay, to make his way home.

But his adventures for the night were not concluded. He had nearly

reached the angle of the short lane that leads up to the church, when

for the first time he perceived that an officer, in the uniform he had

just seen, was walking before, only a few yards in advance of him.

The officer was walking along at an easy, swinging gait, and carried his

sword under his arm, and was looking down on the pavement with an air of

reverie.

In the very fact that he seemed unconscious of Peter's presence, and

disposed to keep his reflections to himself, there was something

reassuring. Besides, the reader must please to remember that our hero

had a _quantum sufficit_ of good punch before his adventure commenced,

and was thus fortified against those qualms and terrors under which, in

a more reasonable state of mind, he might not impossibly have sunk.

The idea of the French invasion revived in full power in Peter's fuddled

imagination, as he pursued the nonchalant swagger of the officer.

"Be the powers iv Moll Kelly, I'll ax him what it is," said Peter, with

a sudden accession of rashness. "He may tell me or not, as he plases,

but he can't be offinded, anyhow."

With this reflection having inspired himself, Peter cleared his voice,

and began,

"Captain," said he, "I ax your pardon, captain, an' maybe you'd be so

condescendin' to my ignorance as to tell me, if it's plaisin' to yer

honor, whether your honor is not a Frinchman, if it's plaisin' to you."

This he asked, not thinking that, had it been as he suspected, not one

word of his question, in all probability, would have been intelligible

to the person he addressed. He was, however, understood, for the officer

answered him in English, at the same time slackening his pace, and

moving a little to the side of the pathway, as if to invite his

interrogator to take his place beside him.

"No; I am an Irishman," he answered.

"I humbly thank your honor," said Peter, drawing nearer--for the

affability and the nativity of the officer encouraged him--"but maybe

your honor is in the _sarvice_ of the King of France?"

"I serve the same king as you do," he answered, with a sorrowful

significance which Peter did not comprehend at the time; and,

interrogating in turn, he asked, "But what calls you forth at this hour

of the day?"

"The _day_, your honor!--the night, you mane."

"It was always our way to turn night into day, and we keep to it still,"

remarked the soldier. "But, no matter, come up here to my house; I have

a job for you, if you wish to earn some money easily. I live here."

As he said this, he beckoned authoritatively to Peter, who followed

almost mechanically at his heels, and they turned up a little lane near

the old Roman Catholic chapel, at the end of which stood, in Peter's

time, the ruins of a tall, stone-built house.

Like every thing else in the town, it had suffered a metamorphosis. The

stained and ragged walls were now erect, perfect, and covered with

pebble-dash; window-panes glittered coldly in every window; the green

hall-door had a bright brass knocker on it. Peter did not know whether

to believe his previous or his present impressions; seeing is believing,

and Peter could not dispute the reality of the scene. All the records of

his memory seemed but the images of a tipsy dream. In a trance of

astonishment and perplexity, therefore, he submitted himself to the

chances of his adventure.

The door opened, the officer beckoned with a melancholy air of authority

to Peter, and entered. Our hero followed into a sort of hall, which was

very dark, but he was guided by the steps of the soldier, and in silence

they ascended the stairs. The moonlight, which shone in at the lobbies,

showed an old, dark wainscoting, and a heavy, oak bannister. They passed

by closed doors at different landing-places, but all was dark and silent

as, indeed, became that late hour of the night.

Now they ascended to the topmost floor. The captain paused for a minute

at the nearest door, and, with a heavy groan, pushing it open, entered

the room. Peter remained at the threshold. A slight female form in a

sort of loose, white robe, and with a great deal of dark hair hanging

loosely about her, was standing in the middle of the floor, with her

back toward them.

The soldier stopped short before he reached her, and said, in a voice of

great anguish, "Still the same, sweet bird--sweet bird! still the

same." Whereupon, she turned suddenly, and threw her arms about the neck

of the officer, with a gesture of fondness and despair, and her frame

was agitated as if by a burst of sobs. He held her close to his breast

in silence; and honest Peter felt a strange terror creep over him, as he

witnessed these mysterious sorrows and endearments.

"To-night, to-night--and then ten years more--ten long years--another

ten years."

The officer and the lady seemed to speak these words together; her voice

mingled with his in a musical and fearful wail, like a distant summer

wind, in the dead hour of night, wandering through ruins. Then he heard

the officer say, alone, in a voice of anguish,

"Upon me be it all, forever, sweet birdie, upon me."

And again they seemed to mourn together in the same soft and desolate

wail, like sounds of grief heard from a great distance.

Peter was thrilled with horror, but he was also under a strange

fascination; and an intense and dreadful curiosity held him fast.

The moon was shining obliquely into the room, and through the window

Peter saw the familiar slopes of the Park, sleeping mistily under its

shimmer. He could also see the furniture of the room with tolerable

distinctness--the old balloon-backed chairs, a four-post bed in a sort

of recess, and a rack against the wall, from which hung some military

clothes and accoutrements; and the sight of all these homely objects

reassured him somewhat, and he could not help feeling unspeakably

curious to see the face of the girl whose long hair was streaming over

the officer's epaulet.

Peter, accordingly, coughed, at first slightly, and afterward more

loudly, to recall her from her reverie of grief; and, apparently, he

succeeded; for she turned round, as did her companion, and both,

standing hand-in-hand, looked upon him fixedly. He thought he had never

seen such large, strange eyes in all his life; and their gaze seemed to

chill the very air around him, and arrest the pulses of his heart. An

eternity of misery and remorse was in the shadowy faces that looked upon

him.

If Peter had taken less whisky by a single thimbleful, it is probable

that he would have lost heart altogether before these figures, which

seemed every moment to assume a more marked and fearful, though hardly

definable contrast to ordinary human shapes.

"What is it you want with me?" he stammered.

"To bring my lost treasure to the church-yard," replied the lady, in a

silvery voice of more than mortal desolation.

The word "treasure" revived the resolution of Peter, although a cold

sweat was covering him, and his hair was bristling with horror; he

believed, however, that he was on the brink of fortune, if he could but

command nerve to brave the interview to its close.

"And where," he gasped, "is it hid--where will I find it?"

They both pointed to the sill of the window, through which the moon was

shining at the far end of the room, and the soldier said:

"Under that stone."

Peter drew a long breath, and wiped the cold dew from his face,

preparatory to passing to the window, where he expected to secure the

reward of his protracted terrors. But looking steadfastly at the window,

he saw the faint image of a new-born child sitting upon the sill in the

moonlight with its little arms stretched toward him, and a smile so

heavenly as he never beheld before.

At sight of this, strange to say, his heart entirely failed him, he

looked on the figures that stood near, and beheld them gazing on the

infantine form with a smile so guilty and distorted, that he felt as if

he were entering alive among the scenery of hell, and shuddering, he

cried in an irrepressible agony of horror:

"I'll have nothing to say with you, and nothing to do with you; I don't

know what yez are or what yez want iv me, but let me go this minute,

every one of yez, in the name of God."

With these words there came a strange rumbling and sighing about Peter's

ears; he lost sight of every thing, and felt that peculiar and not

unpleasant sensation of falling softly, that sometimes supervenes in

sleep, ending in a dull shock. After that he had neither dream nor

consciousness till he wakened, chill and stiff, stretched between two

piles of old rubbish, among the black and roofless walls of the ruined

house.

We need hardly mention that the village had put on its wonted air of

neglect and decay, or that Peter looked around him in vain for traces of

those novelties which had so puzzled and distracted him upon the

previous night.

"Ay, ay," said his old mother, removing her pipe, as he ended his

description of the view from the bridge, "sure enough I remember myself,

when I was a slip of a girl, these little white cabins among the gardens

by the river side. The artillery sogers that was married, or had not

room in the barracks, used to be in them, but they're all gone long

ago."

"The Lord be marciful to us!" she resumed, when he had described the

military procession, "it's often I seen the regiment marchin' into the

town, jist as you saw it last night, acushla. Oh, voch, but it makes my

heart sore to think iv them days; they were pleasant times, sure enough;

but is not it terrible, avick, to think it's what it was, the ghost of

the rigiment you seen? The Lord betune us an' harm, for it was nothing

else, as sure as I'm sittin' here."

When he mentioned the peculiar physiognomy and figure of the old officer

who rode at the head of the regiment--

"_That_," said the old crone, dogmatically, "was ould Colonel Grimshaw,

the Lord presarve us! he's buried in the church-yard iv Chapelizod, and

well I remember him, when I was a young thing, an' a cross ould

floggin' fellow he was wid the men, an' a devil's boy among the

girls--rest his soul!"

"Amen!" said Peter; "it's often I read his tombstone myself; but he's a

long time dead."

"Sure, I tell you he died when I was no more nor a slip iv a girl--the

Lord betune us and harm!"

"I'm afeard it is what I'm not long for this world myself, afther seeing

such a sight as that," said Peter, fearfully.

"Nonsinse, avourneen," retorted his grandmother, indignantly, though she

had herself misgivings on the subject; "sure there was Phil Doolan, the

ferryman, that seen black Ann Scanlan in his own boat, and what harm

ever kem of it?"

Peter proceeded with his narrative, but when he came to the description

of the house, in which his adventure had had so sinister a conclusion,

the old woman was at fault.

"I know the house and the ould walls well, an' I can remember the time

there was a roof on it, and the doors an' windows in it, but it had a

bad name about being haunted, but by who, or for what, I forget

intirely."

"Did you ever hear was there gold or silver there?" he inquired.

"No, no, avick, don't be thinking about the likes; take a fool's advice,

and never go next or near them ugly black walls again the longest day

you have to live; an' I'd take my davy, it's what it's the same word the

priest himself 'ud be afther sayin' to you if you wor to ax his

riverence consarnin' it, for it's plain to be seen it was nothing good

you seen there, and there's neither luck nor grace about it."

Peter's adventure made no little noise in the neighborhood, as the

reader may well suppose; and a few evenings after it, being on an errand

to old Major Vandeleur, who lived in a snug old-fashioned house, close

by the river, under a perfect bower of ancient trees, he was called on

to relate the story in the parlor.

The major was, as I have said, an old man; he was small, lean, and

upright, with a mahogany complexion, and a wooden inflexibility of face;

he was a man, besides, of few words, and if _he_ was old, it follows

plainly that his mother was older still. Nobody could guess or tell

_how_ old, but it was admitted that her own generation had long passed

away, and that she had not a competitor left. She had French blood in

her veins, and although she did not retain her charms quite so well as

Ninon de l'Enclos, she was in full possession of all her mental

activity, and talked quite enough for herself and the major.

"So, Peter," she said, "you have seen the dear, old Royal Irish again in

the streets of Chapelizod. Make him a tumbler of punch, Frank; and

Peter, sit down, and while you take it let us have the story."

Peter accordingly, seated near the door, with a tumbler of the nectarian

stimulant steaming beside him, proceeded with marvelous courage,

considering they had no light but the uncertain glare of the fire, to

relate with minute particularity his awful adventure. The old lady

listened at first with a smile of good-natured incredulity; her

cross-examination touching the drinking-bout at Palmerstown had been

teasing, but as the narrative proceeded she became attentive, and at

length absorbed, and once or twice she uttered ejaculations of pity or

awe. When it was over, the old lady looked with a somewhat sad and stern

abstraction on the table, patting her cat assiduously meanwhile, and

then suddenly looking upon her son, the major, she said,

"Frank, as sure as I live he has seen the wicked Captain Devereux."

The major uttered an inarticulate expression of wonder.

"The house was precisely that he has described. I have told you the

story often, as I heard it from your dear grandmother, about the poor

young lady he ruined, and the dreadful suspicion about the little baby.

_She_, poor thing, died in that house heart-broken, and you know he was

shot shortly after in a duel."

This was the only light that Peter ever received respecting his

adventure. It was supposed, however, that he still clung to the hope

that treasure of some sort was hidden about the old house, for he was

often seen lurking about its walls, and at last his fate overtook him,

poor fellow, in the pursuit; for climbing near the summit one day, his

holding gave way, and he fell upon the hard uneven ground, fracturing a

leg and a rib, and after a short interval died, and he, like the other

heroes of these true tales, lies buried in the little church-yard of

Chapelizod.

A MORNING WITH MORITZ RETZSCH.

BY MRS. S.C. HALL.

At Dresden we enjoyed the advantage of friendly intercourse with one who

is honored as much for his virtues as his talents, and whom it is a

gratification to name--Professor Vogel von Vogelstein, whose latest work

decorates a new church at Leipzig, designed by the estimable and highly

gifted Professor Heidelhoff of Nuremberg. The simplicity of life of the

great German masters, is very striking; they care nothing for display,

except that upon their canvas, or their walls. One of the great secrets

of their success is their earnestness of purpose. Professor Vogel seldom

leaves his studio except to render courtesy to friend or stranger: and

it is happy for those who have the privilege of his acquaintance, to

know that such labors of love draw him frequently forth. As yet, years

have not diminished the ardor with which he works--respected and beloved

by all who know him. It was a true pleasure to sit in his studio, and

converse with him; not only about Art, but about England; where he spent

some time in communion with Wilkie, and Callcott, and Lawrence, and

others, who, though passed away, have left immortalities behind them.

While conversing with Professor Vogel one morning we expressed an

earnest wish to see Moritz Retzsch--who had so wonderfully embodied the

conceptions of Goethe, of Shakspeare, and of Schiller; his extraordinary

powers of invention and description, with a few strokes of his pencil,

had rendered him an object of the deepest interest to us, many years ago

when an artist friend, now dead and gone, first made him known to us;

and although he resided we had been told, "a long way out of Dresden,"

we resolved, if we could, to visit him at his home. It was therefore

very pleasant when Professor Vogel offered to accompany us himself, and

present us to the great artist. In the evening, as we stood on the noble

bridge that spans the rapid Elbe, a summer-house crowning one of the

distant vine-clad hills, was pointed out to us as belonging to him whom

we so much desired to know.

"His dwelling," said our friend, "is directly below that hill, and he

resides on his paternal acres; his father's vineyards are as green as

ever; and the artist's love of nature, is fostered amid its beauties."

Nothing could be more charming than the scene. We had left the Bruhl

Terrace crowded with company, driven away from its music and society by

the clouds of tobacco smoke which wrap the Germans in an elysium

peculiarly "their own;" but the music was softened by distance, into

sweeter harmony. The sun was setting, warming the pale green of the

vineyards into autumnal richness, and casting delicious tints upon the

undulating waters; the atmosphere was so pure, so free from what sad

experience teaches us to consider the natural vapors of city life, that

the spires and public buildings looked as if carved in ivory; the mighty

river swept freely on, its strong current hopelessly contending with the

massive masonry of the bridge; one or two steamers were puffing their

way from some of the distant villages; and a party near the shore were

moving their oars, rather than rowing, singing what sounded to us like a

round and chorus, in that perfect tune and time, where the voices seem

as one; twilight came down without any haze, so that the range of hills

was still visible, and still we fancied we saw the Pavilion of Moritz

Retzsch. Our friend told us he was born at Dresden in 1779, and had

never visited the distant schools, nor wandered far from his native

city; in early childhood he manifested a talent for Art; modeling in

clay, carving in wood, and exercising his imitative, as well as his

imaginative powers, by drawing with any thing, or upon any thing,

whatever he saw or fancied. He never intended to become an artist; he

had not received what is called "an artistic education." He looked at

and loved whatever was beautiful in nature, and copied it without an

effort. At that period, the profession of Art would have been all too

tranquil a dream for his boyhood to enjoy; nay, his "hot youth," ardent

and desiring excitement, full of visions of adventure and liberty, had,

at one time, nearly induced him to become a huntsman, or forester--(one

of the jägers made familiar to us on the stage, in green hunting dress

and buckskin, with belt and bugle)--in the Royal service; a little

consideration, a few speaking facts, however, taught him that this

project would not have secured him the freedom he coveted so much; and,

most fortunately, when he entered his twentieth year, he determined on

the course which has given both to himself and to the world, such

delicious pleasure. He abandoned himself to Art, and has ever since

exercised it with a devotion and enthusiasm, a sacred freedom, that,

despite his excitable temperament, has rendered him happy. Such was our

friend's information concerning the author of those wonderful "OUTLINES"

which have been the admiration of the world for nearly half a century,

and are scarcely better known in Germany than they are in England.

"Nothing," he added, "could surpass the ardor with which the young

artist labored. His soul was animated by the grand conceptions of Goethe

and Schiller; his ears drank in the beauty and sublimity of their

poetry; and he lived in the mingled communion of great men, and the

lovely and softened beauty of Saxon fatherland." In 1828, he was

nominated Professor of Painting in the Dresden Royal Academy; but fame,

much as he sought and loved it, did not fill his soul. The older he

grew, the more his great heart yearned for that continuous sympathy with

some object to comprehend and appreciate his noble pursuit, and to value

him, as he believed he deserved. He coveted affection as much as fame.

One of the dwellers near his father's vineyard was rich in the

possession of a little daughter of extraordinary grace and beauty. She

inspired the artist with some of his brightest conceptions of that

peculiar infantine loveliness which his pencil has rendered with such

eloquent fidelity.

The child crept into his heart--the young girl took possession of it.

The poet-painter made no effort to dispossess her; on the contrary, he

increased her power by giving her an excellent education; and when she

had arrived at the age of womanhood, he made her his wife. Their married

years have numbered many. One may be considered old, the other is no

longer young; but their happiness has been, as far as it can be, without

a shadow. Although they have no children, they do not seem to have

desired them. Some gallant husbands pen a sonnet to a wife on her

birth-day, or the anniversary of her marriage, but Moritz Retzsch

_sketches_ his birthday ode, in which the beauty and worth of his

cherished wife, his own tenderness and happiness, their mingled hopes

and prayers, are penciled in forms the most poetic and expressive. From

year to year these designs have enriched the album of Madame Retzsch;

and never was a more noble tribute laid at the feet of any lady-love,

even in the times of old romance!

Professor Vogel had promised that Moritz Retzsch should show us his

drawings; and we were full of hope that we should also have the

privilege of seeing this Album. The sunset had given promise of--

"A goodly day to-morrow."

And it was with no small delight that, on our return to our hotel, we

found an hour had been fixed for our visit to the village, or Weinberg,

and that Professor Vogel would be ready to accompany us at the time

appointed.

We were prepared to expect allegorical designs; and Mrs. Jameson has

long since converted us to a belief in the great power and benefit of

symbolic painting, particularly on the minds and imaginations of the

young. "To address the moral faculties through the medium of the

imagination," says this distinguished lady, "for any permanent or

beneficial purpose, is the last thing thought of by our legislators and

educators. Fable, except as a mere nomenclature of heathen gods and

goddesses, is banished from the nursery, and allegory in Poetry and the

Fine Arts is out of fashion;" and then she mingles her ink with gall,

and adds, "it is deemed the child's play of the intellect, fit only for

the days of Dante, or Spenser, or Michael Angelo."

Wearied with pleasure, we slept; but what we had seen and what we

anticipated rendered _repose_ impossible. The morning was bright, and

warm, and sunny; and when our kind friend entered the carriage, we felt

assured of a day's enjoyment. We soon skirted the city, and found

ourselves rolling in sight of the river; the road was overshadowed by

trees, which had not yielded a leaf to the insidious advances of autumn;

the villas--not certainly with shaven lawns and carefully-tended

gardens, were picturesque and charming from the novelty of their

construction, and not the less striking because the foliage was left to

twine about them in unconstrained luxuriance. We had become accustomed

to the wicker wagons, and the heavy oxen, and slow paces of men and

horses; but there is something always to admire in the broad faces of

the well-built Saxons, and the frank and kindly expression of their

clear blue eyes.

We soon reached the narrow roads that wound along the base of the

vine-clad hills, rising so abruptly as to form terrace after terrace,

until they achieved the topmost height. Nothing can be more delightful

than the situation of the houses at the foot of these hills, commanding,

as they do, the whole of the rich valley in which Dresden is placed.

"They call it Paradise," said our kind companion; "and truly it deserves

the name."

It was positively refreshing to hear how Professor Vogel delighted in

extolling Professor Retzsch. His eulogiums were so warm from the heart,

and the desire to do his friend service so sincere, that we honored him

more than ever. At last we paused at the garden-gate of the

cottage-house of the illustrator of Faust, and entered. Wide-spreading

trees overshadowed the path which led along the side of the house to a

sort of stone verandah, formed by the upper story projecting over the

lower, and supported by rude stone pillars. At the further end were

stairs leading to the living-rooms; and down these stairs came a

gentleman who must have riveted attention wherever seen. His figure was

somewhat short and massive, and his dress not of the most modern

fashion; yet the head was magnificent. His whole appearance recalled

Cuvier to us so forcibly, that we instantly murmured the name of the

great naturalist; but when his clear wild blue eyes beamed their

welcome, and his lips parted into a smile to give it words, we were even

more strongly reminded of Professor Wilson; in each, a large,

well-developed head, masculine features, a broad and high forehead, a

mouth strongly expressive of a combination of generosity and force,

bespoke the careful thinker and acute observer; and in both, the hair,

"sable silvered," seemed to have been left to the wild luxuriance of

nature. He preceded us to the drawing-room--an uncarpeted chamber,

furnished with old-fashioned German simplicity. Several birthday

garlands were hung upon the walls. There were three doors opening into

the apartment, and a long sofa extending along one of the sides; this

sofa was canopied by ivy, growing in pots at either end, and entwined

round a delicate framework. In Heidelhoff's house, at Nüremberg, we had

seen wreaths of ivy growing round the window-curtains in a peculiarly

graceful manner; and at Berlin, in the costly and beautiful dwelling of

the admirable sculptor Wichmann, the door leading from the dining into

the billiard-room--where Mendelssohn delighted to play while Jenny Lind

sat by and sung, enjoying, as she always does, the enjoyment of

others--that door is trellised with ivy, the trellis being formed of

light bamboo, and the foliage contrasting charmingly with the color of

the trellis. The dust of our carpets, perhaps, prevents the introduction

of this charming ornament generally into our rooms; but it is difficult

to conceive how much this simple loan from nature may be made to enrich

the interiors of our dwellings.

Nothing can be more frank and cordial than Retzsch's manner, mingling,

as it does, much simplicity with promptness and decision. After the

lapse of a few minutes, the servant who had opened the gate brought in a

couple of easels, and upon them the artist placed two paintings; both

exquisitely drawn and designed, but so unlike what we had expected in

color, that for a moment we felt disappointed. Our enthusiasm and

admiration however, soon revived; and when, shortly afterward, he

conducted us into an inner room, and, having seated us with due

formality, in a great chair, opposite a little table, produced a

portfolio of _drawings_, the kind face of Professor Vogel was illumined:

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "now you will be delighted. I have brought many to

my friend's studio; I have looked at these drawings over and over

again, yet each time I see something to admire anew; there is always a

discovery to be made--some allegory, half hidden under a rose-leaf; some

wise and playful satire, peeping beneath the wing of a Cupid, or from

the fardel of a traveler. What a pity you do not understand German, that

you might hear him read those exquisite lyrics, beautiful as the sonnets

of your own Shakspeare, or Wordsworth--but I will interpret--I will

interpret."

And so he did--with considerate patience: there we sat turning over page

after page of the most exquisite fancies; the overflowings not only of

the purest and most brilliant imagination, but of the deepest tenderness

and exalted independence. The allegories of Moritz Retzsch, are not of

the "hieroglyphic caste," such as roused the indignation of Horace

Walpole; there were no sentimental Hopes supported by anchors: no

fat-cheeked Fames puffing noiseless trumpets; no common-place Deaths,

with dilapidated hour-glasses; they were triumphs of pure Art, conveying

a poetical idea, a moral or religious truth, a brilliant satire,

brilliant and sharp as a cutting diamond, by "graphical representation;"

each subject was a bit of the choicest lyric poetry, or an epigram, in

which a single idea or sentiment had been illustrated and embodied,

giving "a local habitation," a name, a history, in the smallest compass,

and in the most intelligible and attractive form.

With what delight we turned over these matchless drawings, many of them

little more than outlines, yet so full of meaning--pausing between each,

to glance at the face of the interpreter; though so distinctly was the

idea conveyed, that there needed none; only it was such a rare delight

to hear him tell his meaning in his own full sounding tongue, his face

expressing all he wished to say, before the words were spoken.

We could have lingered over that portfolio for hours, and like Professor

Vogel have found something new at each inspection of the same drawing;

but the artist seemed to grow gently impatient to show us his wife's

Album--the book of which we had heard so much on the previous evening;

there it was, carefully cased and covered--and before he opened it, he

explained, with smiling lips, that on each of Madame Retzsch's

birthdays, he had presented to her a drawing expressive of his devotion,

his faith in her virtues, or the hopes or disappointments to which the

destiny of life had subjected them. However delicate and endearing may

be the love of youth, with it there is always associated a dread that it

may not endure until the end--that the world may tarnish or destroy it;

that,

"A word unkind or wrongly taken,"

may be the herald of harshness and of estrangement; but when, after a

lapse of accumulated years, Cupid folds his wings without the loss of a

single feather, and laughs at his arch-enemy "Time," the sunshine of the

picture creates an atmosphere of happiness that excites the best

sympathies of our nature. While he descanted on these results of his

luxuriant and overflowing imagination and affection, never was genius

more thoroughly love-inspired; never, as we had heard, did poet pen more

exquisite birthday odes, than were framed by the tender and eloquent

pencil of Moritz Retzsch on the birthdays of his wife.

We did not feel it to be a defect in the graphic allegories, so rich and

varied in thought and expression, that they required, or rather

received, the eloquent explanations, of their great originator; the

scene around that little table was in exquisite harmony; Professor

Vogel's expressions of delight were as enthusiastic as our own; he

repeatedly said that a visit to his old friend was a renewal of his own

youth; he hailed the precious Album with as much pleasure as ourselves,

and reveled in the poetry and originality of its illustrations, with a

freshness of feeling supposed only to belong to the early years of life.

We can not remember that Retzsch sat down once during our long visit; he

was standing or moving about, the entire time, and frequently passed his

fingers through the masses of his long gray hair, so that it assumed

most peculiar styles; but nothing could detract from the picturesque

magnificence of his noble head. His restlessness was certainly peculiar,

he passed and repassed into the room where his precious drawings were

scattered in such rich profusion, returning again and again to the

window, enjoying our pleasure, the expression of his face varying so

eloquently and honestly, that a young child could have read his

thoughts: and then the indescribable brightness of that face; stormy, it

no doubt could be at times, but the thunder would have been as nothing

to the lightning.

The great artist seemed as curious about England as a country child is

about London; indeed the mingling of simplicity and wisdom, is one of

the strongest phases in his character; so gigantic, and yet so delicate,

in Art; so full of the rarest knowledge; animated by an unsurpassable

imagination; proud of the distinction his talents command, and yet of a

noble and heroic independence which secures universal respect. The

artist and his wife accompanied us to the gate which was soon to shut us

out of "Paradise;" and, amply gratified as we were with our visit and

its results, we felt that there was still so much more to say and to

see, that the past hours appeared like winged moments, reminding us

how--

"Noiseless falls the foot of time

That only treads on flowers."

It seemed as though the gate had closed upon an old friend, instead of

upon one seen for so brief a space, and never perhaps to be met with

again in this world. One of the dreams of a life-time had been fully

realized. We had paid Moritz Retzsch the involuntary compliment, of

forgetting the celebrity of the artist, in the warmth of our admiration

of the man. The gate was closed, and we were driving rapidly toward

Dresden--the scenery softened and mellowed by the gray and purply tone

which follows a golden sunset. Yes, we felt as if we had parted from a

friend; and surely the sacred lovingness we bear to those--honored

though unseen--who have been as friends within our homes, dispersing by

the power of their genius all trace, for a time, of the fret and turmoil

of the busy world; soothing our sorrows; teaching us how to endure, and

how to triumph; or enriching our minds by that ART-KNOWLEDGE, which, in

the holiness of its beauty, is only second to the wisdom "which cometh

from above;"--surely a higher tribute than either gratitude or

admiration, is that of placing them within our hearts, there to remain

until the end; amid the good, the beautiful, the true, and the beloved

of life itself.

THE QUEEN'S TOBACCO-PIPE.

We have seen pipes of all sorts and sizes in our time. In Germany, where

the finest cnaster is but twenty-pence a pound, and excellent

leaf-tobacco only five-pence, we have seen pipes that resembled actual

furnaces compared with the general race of pipes, and have known a man

smoke out half a pound of cnaster and drink a gallon of beer at a

sitting. But this is perfectly pigmy work when compared with the royal

pipe and consumptive tobacco power of Victoria of England. The queen's

pipe is, beyond all controversy--for we have seen it--equal to any other

thousand pipes that can be produced from the pipial stores of this

smoking world. She has not only an attendant to present it whenever she

may call for it, but his orders are to have it always in the most

admirable smoking state--always lighted, without regard to the quantity

of tobacco it may consume; and, accordingly, her pipe is constantly kept

smoking day and night without a moment's intermission, and there are,

besides the grand pipe-master, a number of attendants incessantly

employed in seeking the most suitable tobacco, and bringing it to the

grand-master. There is no species of tobacco which the queen has not in

her store-room. Shag, pig-tail, Cavendish, Manilla, Havanna, cigars,

cheroots, negrohead, every possible species of nicotian, she gives a

trial to, by way of variety. A single cigar she holds in as much

contempt as a lion would a fly by way of mouthful. We have seen her

grand-master drop whole handfuls of Havannas at once into her pipe, and

after them as many Cubas.

It may abate the wonder of the reader at this stupendous smoking power

of the queen, if we admit, as must, indeed, have become apparent in the

course of our remarks, that the queen performs her smoking, as she does

many of her other royal acts, by the hands of her servants. In truth, to

speak candidly, the queen never smokes at all, except through her

servants. And this will appear very likely, when we describe the actual

size of her royal pipe. It is, indeed of most imperial dimensions. The

head alone is so large, that while its heel rests on the floor of her

cellar, its top reaches out of the roof. We speak a literal fact, as any

one who procures an order for the purpose may convince himself by actual

inspection. We are sure that the quantity of tobacco which is required

to supply it, must amount to some tons in the year. Nay, so considerable

is it, that ships are employed specially to bring over this tobacco, and

these ships have a dock of one acre in extent at the port of London

entirely for their exclusive reception. In a word, the Queen's

Tobacco-pipe, its dimensions, its attendance, its supply and consumption

of tobacco, are without any parallel in any age or any nation.

If we have raised any wonder in the breasts of our readers, we shall not

diminish that wonder by some further explanations regarding this

extraordinary pipe; if we have raised any incredulity, what we are now

about to add will at once extinguish it.

The Queen's Tobacco-pipe, then, is a furnace built in the very centre of

the great Tobacco Warehouse at the London Docks. This furnace is kept

for the purpose of consuming all the damaged tobacco which comes into

port. As the warehouse is the Queen's Warehouse, the furnace is really

termed the Queen's Pipe; and all that we have related of it is literally

true, and is, in itself and all the circumstances connected with it, one

of the most remarkable things in this country.

If any one would form any thing like an adequate conception of the

wonders of London, and of the power and wealth of this country, he

should pay a visit to the London Docks. After having traversed the

extent, and amazed himself at the myriad population, the intense

activity, the stupendous affluence, and the endless variety of works

going on in this capital of the globe, he will, on arriving at the

Docks, feel a fresh and boundless astonishment. From near the Tower all

the way to Blackwall, a distance of four miles, he will find it a whole

world of docks. The mass of shipping, the extent of vast warehouses,

many of them five and seven stories high, all crowded with ponderous

heaps of merchandise from every region of the globe, have nothing like

it besides in the world, and never have had. The enormous wealth here

collected is perfectly overwhelming to the imagination.

If the spectator first enter St. Katherine's Docks, he finds them

occupying twenty-three acres, with water capable of accommodating one

hundred and twenty ships, and warehouses of holding one hundred and ten

thousand tons of goods; the capital of the company alone exceeding two

millions of pounds. Proceeding to the London Docks, properly so called,

there he will find an extent of more than one hundred acres, offering

water for five hundred ships, and warehouse room for two hundred and

thirty-four thousand tons of goods; the capital of the company amounting

to four millions of pounds. The West India Docks next present

themselves, being three times as extensive as the London Docks, having

an area of no less than two hundred and ninety-five acres, with water to

accommodate four hundred vessels, and warehouse-room for one hundred and

eighty thousand tons of merchandise; the capital of the company is more

than six millions of pounds, and the value of goods which have been on

the premises at one time twenty millions. Lastly, the East India Docks

occupy thirty-two acres, and afford warehouse-room for fifteen thousand

tons of goods.

The whole of these docks occupying four hundred and fifty acres,

offering accommodations for one thousand two hundred ships, and for five

hundred and thirty thousand tons of goods.

But these are only the docks on the left bank of the river; on the other

side, docks extend from Rotherhithe to Deptford; the Surrey Docks, the

Commercial Docks, and the East Country Docks. When the gigantic extent

of these docks, and the mass of property in them, are considered, Tyre

and Sidon shrink up into utter insignificance.

But of all these astonishing places, our present attention is devoted

only to the London Docks, properly so called, as being connected with

the operations of the Queen's Pipe; the damaged and unsalable goods of

these docks being its food. In these docks are especially warehoused

wine, wool, spices, tea, ivory, drugs, tobacco, sugars, dye-stuffs,

imported metals, and sundry other articles. Except the teas and spices,

you may procure inspection of all these articles, as they lie in their

enormous quantities, by a ticket from the secretary. If you wish to

taste the wines, you must have a tasting order for the purpose.

Imagine yourselves, then, entering the gateway of the London Docks. If

you wish only to walk round and see the shipping, and people at work,

you can do that without any order. As you advance, you find yourself

surrounded right and left by vast warehouses, where numbers of people,

with carts and trucks, are busily at work taking in and fetching out

goods. On your right you soon pass the ivory warehouse, where no lady is

admitted except by a _special_ order. The cause of this singular

regulation, by no means complimentary to the fair sex, we were unable to

ascertain. No lady could very well be suspected of carrying off in her

muff an elephant's tooth of some hundred weight, but there must have

been female thieves, dexterous enough to secrete, perhaps a rhinoceros's

tooth, of perhaps some dozen pounds, valued at one pound seven shillings

per pound; and thus contrived to bring a stigma on the whole sex.

Vast heaps of ivory lie on the floor of this warehouse, in huge

elephants' tusks, of from twenty to a hundred pounds weight each; tusks

of rhinoceros, and the ivory weapons of sword-fish and sea-unicorns.

Here lay, on our last visit, the African spoils of Mr. Gordon Cumming;

and, indeed, the spectacle is one that carries you away at once to the

African deserts, and shows you what is going on there while we are

quietly and monotonously living at home.

Proceeding down the dock-yard, you see before you a large area literally

paved with wine-casks, all full of the most excellent wines. On our last

visit, the wine then covering the ground was delicious Bordeaux, as you

might easily convince yourself by dipping a finger into the bunghole of

any cask; as, for some purpose of measurement, or testing the quality,

the casks were most of them open. This is, in fact, the great depôt of

the wine of the London merchants, no less than sixty thousand pipes

being capable of being stored away in the vaults here. One vault alone,

which formerly was seven acres, has now been extended under Gravel-lane,

so that at present it contains upward of twelve acres! These vaults are

faintly lit with lamps, but on going in, you are at the entrance

accosted with the singular demand--"Do you want a cooper?" Many people,

not knowing its meaning, say, "No, by no means!" The meaning of the

phrase is, "do you want to taste the wines?" when a cooper accompanies

you to pierce the casks, and give you the wine. Parties are every day,

and all day long, making these exploratory and tasting expeditions.

Every one on entering is presented with a lamp at the end of a lath,

about two feet long, and you soon find yourselves in some of the most

remarkable caving in the world. Small streets, which you perceive are of

great extent, by the glimmering of lamps in the far distance, extend

before you, and are crossed by others in such a manner that none but

those well acquainted with the geography of these subterranean regions

could possibly find their way about them. From the dark vaulted roof

over head, especially in one vault, hang strange figures, black as

night, light as gossamer, and of a yard or more in length, resembling

skins of beasts, or old shirts dipped in soot. These are fed to this

strange growth by the fumes of the wine.

For those who taste the wines the cooper bores the heads of the pipes,

which are ranged throughout these vast cellars on either hand in

thousands and tens of thousands, and draws a glassful. These glasses,

though shaped as wine-glasses, resemble much more goblets in their size,

containing each as much as several ordinary wine-glasses. What you do

not drink is thrown upon the ground; and it is calculated that at least

a hogshead a day is thus consumed. Many parties who wish for a cheap

carouse, procure a tasting order, take biscuits with them, and drink of

the best of all sorts of wine in the cellars, and in quantities enough

to terrify any disciple of Father Mathew. Here, again, we find a

regulation permitting no ladies to enter these cellars after one

o'clock. For such a rule there must be a sufficient cause, and the fact

which we have just stated may perhaps furnish the key to it.

Not less striking than those cellars is the Mixing House above, where

there are vats into which merchants who wish to equalize all their

wines of one vintage can have them emptied, and then re-drawn into their

casks. The largest of these vats contains twenty-three thousand two

hundred and fifty gallons; and to it the famous Heidelburg Tun is a mere

keg.

But the reader may ask, what have these wine-cellars to do with the

Queen's Pipe? It is this: in the centre of the great east vault you come

to a circular building without any entrance. It is the root and

foundation of the Queen's Pipe. Quitting the vault, and ascending into

the warehouse over it, you find that you are in the Great Tobacco

Warehouse, called the Queen's Warehouse, because the Government rent the

Tobacco Warehouses here for fourteen thousand pounds per annum. This one

warehouse has no equal in any other part of the world. It is five acres

in extent, and yet it is covered with a roof, the framework of which is

of iron, erected, we believe, by Mr. Barry, the architect of the new

houses of parliament, and of so light and skillful a construction, that

it admits of a view of the whole place; and so slender are the pillars,

that the roof seems almost to hang upon nothing. Under this roof is

piled a vast mass of tobacco in huge casks, in double tiers; that is,

two casks in height. This warehouse is said to hold, when full,

twenty-four thousand hogsheads, averaging one thousand two hundred

pounds each, and equal to thirty thousand tons of general merchandise.

Each cask is said to be worth, duty included, two hundred pounds; giving

a sum total of tobacco in this one warehouse, when filled, of four

millions, eight hundred thousand pounds in value! Besides this, there is

another warehouse of nearly equal size, where finer kinds of tobacco are

deposited, many of them in packages of buffalo-hide, marked "Giron," and

Manilla for cheroots, in packages of sacking lined with palmetto leaves.

There is still another warehouse for cigars, called the Cigar Floor, in

which there are frequently one thousand five hundred chests, valued at

one hundred pounds each, at an average, or one hundred and fifty

thousand pounds in cigars alone.

The scene in the Queen's Warehouse, to which we return, is very

singular. Long streets stretch right and left between the walls of

tobacco-casks; and when the men are absent at one of their meals, you

find yourself in an odd sort of solitude, and in an atmosphere of

tobacco. Every one of these giant hogsheads is stripped twice from the

tobacco during its stay in this warehouse; once on entrance, to weigh

it, and again before leaving, to ascertain whether the mass is

uninjured; and to weigh what is found good for the duty, and for the

sale price to the merchant. Thus the coopers take all these hogsheads

twice to pieces, and put them together again. This tobacco is of the

strong, coarse kind, for pigtail, shag, snuff, &c. The finer kinds, as

we have said, go to the other warehouse.

But your eye is now attracted by a guide-post, on which is painted, in

large letters, "TO THE KILN." Following this direction, you arrive at

the centre of the warehouse, and at the Queen's Pipe. You enter a door

on which is rudely painted the crown royal and the initials "V.R.," and

find yourself in a room of considerable size, in the centre of which

towers up the kiln; a furnace of the conical kind, like a glass-house or

porcelain furnace. On the door of the furnace is again painted the crown

and the "V.R." Here you find, in the furnace, a huge mass of fire, and

around are heaps of damaged tobacco, tea, and other articles ready to be

flung upon it, as it admits of it. This fire never goes out, day or

night, from year to year. There is an attendant who supplies it with its

fuel, as it can take it; and men, during the day-time, constantly coming

laden with great loads of tobacco, cigars, and other stuff, condemned to

the flames. Whatever is forfeited, and is too bad for sale, be it what

it will, is doomed to the kiln. At the other Docks damaged goods, we

were assured, are buried till they are partly rotten, and then taken up

and disposed of as rubbish or manure. Here the Queen's Pipe smokes all

up, except the greater quantity of the tea, which, having some time ago

set the chimney of the kiln on fire, is now rarely burnt. And strange

are the things that sometimes come to this perpetually burning furnace.

On one occasion, the attendant informed us, he burnt nine hundred

Australian mutton-hams. These were warehoused before the duty came off.

The owner suffered them to remain till the duty ceased, in hopes of

their being exempt from it; but this not being allowed, they were left

till so damaged as to be unsalable. Yet a good many, the man declared,

were excellent; and he often made a capital addition to his breakfast

from the roast that, for some time, was so odoriferously going on. On

another occasion he burnt thirteen thousand pairs of condemned French

gloves.

In one department of the place often lie many tons of the ashes from the

furnace, which are sold by auction, by the ton, to gardeners and

farmers, as manure, and for killing insects, to soap-boilers and

chemical manufacturers. In a corner are generally piled cart-loads of

nails, and other pieces of iron, which have been swept up from the

floors, or have remained in the broken pieces of casks and boxes which

go to the kiln. Those which have been sifted from the ashes are eagerly

bought up by gunsmiths, sorted, and used in the manufacture of

gun-barrels, for which they are highly esteemed, as possessing a

toughness beyond all other iron, and therefore calculated,

pre-eminently, to prevent bursting. Gold and silver, too, are not

unfrequently found among these ashes; for many manufactured articles, if

unsalable, are broken up, and thrown in. There have sometimes, indeed,

been vast numbers of foreign watches, professing themselves to be gold

watches, but being gross impostors, which have been ground up in a mill,

and then flung in here.

Such is the Queen's Tobacco-Pipe, unique of its kind, and in its

capacity of consumption. None of the other Docks have any thing like

it. It stands alone. It is _the_ Pipe--and as we have said, establishes

the Queen of England, besides being the greatest monarch on the globe,

as the greatest of all smokers--not excepting the Grand Turk, or the

Emperor of Austria, the greatest tobacconist of Europe.

THE METAL-FOUNDER OF MUNICH.

When we gaze in admiration at some great work of plastic art, our

thoughts naturally recur rather to the master mind whence the conception

we now see realized first started into life, than to any difficulties

which he or others might have had to overcome in making the quickened

thought a palpable and visible thing. All is so harmonious; there is

such unity throughout; material, form, and dimensions, are so adapted

and proportioned one to the other, that we think not of roughnesses or

of opposing force as connected with a work whence all disparities are

removed, and where every harshness is smoothed away. There stands the

achieved fact in its perfect completeness: there is nothing to remind us

of its progress toward that state, for the aids and appliances thereunto

have been removed; and the mind, not pausing to dwell on an intermediate

condition, at once takes in the realized creation as an accomplished

whole. And if even some were inclined to follow in thought such a work

in its growth, there are few among them who, as they look at a monument

of bronze, have any notion how the figure before them grew up into its

present proportions. They have no idea how the limbs were formed within

their earthen womb, and how many and harassing were the anxieties that

attended on the gigantic birth.

The sculptor, the painter, the engraver, has each, in his own

department, peculiar difficulties to overcome; but these for the most

part are such as skill or manual dexterity will enable him to vanquish.

He has not to do with a mighty power that opposes itself to his human

strength, and strives for the mastery. He has not to combat an element

which he purposely rouses into fury, and then subjugates to his will.

But the caster in metal has to do all this. He flings into the furnace

heaps of brass--cannon upon cannon, as though they were leaden toys; and

he lights a fire, and fans and feeds the flames, till within that

roaring hollow there is a glow surpassing what we have yet seen of fire,

and growing white from very intensity. Anew it is plied with fuel, fed,

gorged. The fire itself seems convulsed and agonized with its own

efforts; but still it roars on. Day by day, and night after night, with

not a moment's relaxation, is this fiery work carried on. The air is hot

to breathe; the walls, the rafters, are scorched, and if the ordeal last

much longer, all will soon be in a blaze. The goaded creature becomes

maddened and desperate, and is striving to burst its prison; while above

it a molten metal sea, seething and fiery, is heaving with its ponderous

weight against the caldron's sides!

Lest it be thought this picture is too highly colored, or that it owes

any thing to the imagination for its interest, let us look into the

foundry of Munich, and see what was going on there at midnight on the

11th of October 1845.

When King Louis I. had formed the resolution of erecting a colossal

statue of Bavaria, it was Schwanthaler whom he charged to execute the

work. The great artist's conception responded to the idea which had

grown in the mind of the king, and in three years' time a model in clay

was formed, sixty-three feet in height, the size of the future bronze

statue. The colossus was then delivered over to the founder, to be cast

in metal. The head was the first large portion that was executed. While

the metal was preparing for the cast, a presentiment filled the master's

mind that, despite his exact reckoning, there might still be

insufficient materials for the work, and thirty cwt. were added to the

half-liquid mass. The result proved how fortunate had been the

forethought: nothing could be more successful. And now the chest of the

figure was to be cast, and the master conceived the bold idea of forming

it in one piece. Those who have seen thirty or forty cwt. of metal

rushing into the mould below, have perhaps started back affrighted at

the fiery stream. But 400 cwt. were requisite for this portion of the

statue; and the formidable nature of the undertaking may be collected

from the fact that till now, not more than 300 cwt. had ever filled a

furnace at one time.

But see, the mass begins slowly to melt; huge pieces of cannon float on

the surface, like boats on water, and then gradually disappear.

Presently upon the top of the mass a crust is seen to form, threatening

danger to the furnace as well as to the model prepared to receive the

fluid bronze. To prevent this crust from forming, six men were employed

day and night in stirring the lava-like sea with long poles of iron;

retiring, and being replaced by others every now and then; for the

scorching heat, in spite of wetted coverings, causes the skin to crack

like the dried rind of a tree. Still the caldron was being stirred,

still the fire was goaded to new efforts, but the metal was not yet

ready to be allowed to flow. Hour after hour went by, the day passed,

and night came on. For five days and four nights the fire had been kept

up and urged to the utmost intensity, and still no one could tell how

long this was yet to last. The men worked on at their tremendous task in

silence; the fearful heat was increasing, and as though it would never

stop. There was a terrible weight in the burning air, and it pressed

upon the breasts of all. There was anxiety in their hearts, though they

spoke not, but most of all in his who had directed this bold

undertaking. For five days he had not left the spot, but, like a

Columbus watching for the hourly-expected land, had awaited the final

moment. On the evening of the fifth day exhausted nature demanded

repose, and he sat down to sleep. Hardly had he closed his eyes when his

wife roused him with the appalling cry, "Awake, awake, the foundry is

on fire!" And it was so. Nothing could stand such terrific heat. The

rafters of the building began to burn. To quench the fire in the usual

way was impossible, for had any cold fluid come in contact with the

liquid metal, the consequences would have been frightful: the furnace

would have been destroyed, and the 400 cwt. of bronze lost. With wet

cloths, therefore, the burning rafters were covered to smother the

flames. But the walls were glowing, too; the whole building was now like

a vast furnace. Yet still more fuel on the fire!--the heat is not

enough; the metal boils not yet! Though the rafters burn, and the walls

glow, still feed, and gorge, and goad the fire!

At last the moment comes!--the whole mass is boiling! Then the

metal-founder of Munich, Miller by name, called to the men who were

extinguishing the burning beams, "Let them burn; the metal is ready for

the cast!" And it was just midnight, when the whole of the rafters of

the interior of the building were in flames, that the plug was knocked

in, and the fiery flood rushed out into the mould below.

All now breathed more freely: there was an end of misgiving and

foreboding; and the rude workmen, as if awe-struck by what they had

accomplished, stood gazing in silence, and listening to the roar of the

brazen cataract. It was not till the cast was completed that the master

gave the signal for extinguishing the burning roof.

In due time the bell of the little chapel of Neuhausen was heard

summoning thither the master and his workmen to thank God for the happy

completion of the work. No accident had occurred to any during its

progress; not one had suffered either in life or limb.

THE FAIRY QUEEN.

THE LAST TALE BY THE AUTHOR OF "PUSS IN BOOTS," "CINDERELLA," "LITTLE

RED RIDING-HOOD," ETC.

"Once upon a time," in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, was

born Charles Perrault. We pass over his boyhood and youth to the period

when, after having long filled the situation of Commissioner of Public

Buildings, he fell into disgrace with his patron, the prime minister

Colbert, and was obliged to resign his situation. Fortunately he had not

been unmindful of prudential economy during the days of prosperity, and

had made some little savings on which he retired to a small house in the

Rue St. Jacques, and devoted himself to the education of his children.

About this time he composed his fairy tales. He himself attached little

literary importance to productions destined to be handed down to

posterity, ever fresh and ever new. He usually wrote in the morning the

story intended for the evening's amusement. Thus were produced in their

turn "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding-Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in

Boots," "Riquet with the Tuft," and many other wondrous tales which men

now, forsooth, pretend to call fictions. Charles Lamb knew better. He

was once looking for books for a friend's child, and when the

bookseller, seeing him turn from shelves loaded with Mrs. Trimmer and

Miss Edgeworth, offered him modern tales of fay and genii, as

substitutes for his old favorites, he exclaimed, "These are not my own

_true_ fairy tales!"

When surrounded by his grandchildren, Perrault related to them the

stories he had formerly invented for his children. One evening after

having repeated for the seventh or eighth time the clever tricks of

"Puss in Boots," Mary, a pretty little girl of seven years of age,

climbed up on her grandfather's knee, and giving him a kiss, put her

little dimpled hands into the curls of the old man's large wig.

"Grandpapa," said she, "why don't you make beautiful stories for us as

you used to do for papa and my uncles?"

"Yes," exclaimed the other children, "dear grandpapa, you must make a

story entirely for ourselves."

Charles Perrault smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in the smile.

"Ah, dear children," said he, "it is very long since I wrote a fairy

tale, and I am not as young as I was then. You see I require a stick to

enable me to get along, and am bent almost double, and can walk but

very, very slowly. My eyes are so dim, I can hardly distinguish your

little merry faces; my ear can hardly catch the sound of your voices;

nor is my mind what it was. My imagination has lost its vigor and

freshness; memory itself has nearly deserted me; but I love you dearly,

and like to give you pleasure. However, I doubt if my poor bald head

could now make a fairy tale for you, so I will tell you one which I

heard so often from my mother that I think I can repeat it word for

word."

The children joyfully gathered round the old man, who passed his hands

for a moment across his wrinkled brow, and began the story as follows:

My mother and your great-grandmother, Madeline Geoffrey, was the

daughter of a linendraper, who, at the time I speak of, had been

residing for three years in the Rue des Bourdonnais, close to the

Cemetery of the Innocents. One evening, having gone alone to vespers at

the church of St. Eustace, as she was hastening home to her mother, who

had been prevented by illness from accompanying her, she heard a great

noise at the top of the street, and looking up saw an immense mob

hurrying along, shouting and hooting. As they were then in the midst of

the troubles of the Fronde, Madeline in alarm hurried toward the house,

and having opened the door by a latch-key, was turning to close it, when

she was startled on seeing behind her a woman wrapped in a black mantle

holding two children by the hand. This woman rushed past Madeline into

the shop, exclaiming, "In the name of all you hold most dear, save me!

Hide me and my children in some corner of your house! However helpless

and unfortunate I may appear at this moment, doubt not my power to prove

my gratitude to you."

"I should want no reward for helping the distressed," said Madeline,

deeply touched by the mother's agony; "but poor protection can this

house afford against a brutal mob." The stranger cast a hurried and

tearful glance around; when, suddenly uttering a cry of joy, she fixed

her eye upon part of the floor almost concealed by the shop counter, and

rushing to the spot, exclaimed, "I have it!--I have it!" As she spoke,

she lifted a trap-door contrived in the floor, opening on a stone

staircase which led to a subterranean passage; and snatching up her

children in her arms, darted down into the gulf, leaving my mother

stupefied with astonishment. But the cries of the mob, who had by this

time reached the shop, and were clamorously demanding admittance, roused

her; and quickly closing the trap-door, she called her father who came

down in great alarm.

After a short parley, he opened the door, which they were beginning to

force. The mob consisted of two or three hundred miserable tattered

wretches, who poured into the house; and after searching every corner of

it, without finding any thing, were so furious with disappointment, that

they seized upon Madeline and her father.

"Deliver up to us the woman we are looking for!" they exclaimed. "She is

a vile sorceress--an enemy to the citizens of Paris; she takes the part

of the hated Austrian against us; she is the cause of all the famine and

misery that is desolating Paris. We must have her and her children, that

we may wreak just vengeance on them!"

"We know not who you mean," replied my grandfather, who, in truth, was

quite ignorant of what had occurred; "we have not seen any one--no one

has entered the house."

"We know how to make such obstinate old wretches speak," exclaimed one

of the ringleaders. He seized my mother, and pointing a loaded pistol at

her breast, cried, "The woman! We want the woman!"

At this moment Madeline, being exactly over the trap-door, heard a

slight rustle underneath; and fearing that it would betray the

stranger's hiding-place, endeavored to drown the noise from below by

stamping with her foot, while she boldly replied, "I have no one to give

up to you."

"Well, then, you shall see how it fares with those who dare to resist

us!" roared one of the infuriated mob. Tearing off her vail, he seized

Madeline by the hair, and pulled her to the ground.

"Speak!" he exclaimed, "or I will drag you through the streets of Paris

to the gibbet on the Place de la Grève." My mother uttered not a word,

but silently commended herself to God. What might have been the issue

Heaven only knows, had not the citizens in that quarter, on seeing their

neighbor's house attacked, hastily armed themselves, and dispersed the

mob. Madeline's first care was to reassure her almost fainting mother.

After which, rejoining her father, she helped him to barricade the

door, so as to be prepared for any new incursion, and then began to

prepare the supper as usual.

While laying the cloth, the young girl debated whether she should tell

her father of the refuge afforded to the stranger by the subterraneous

passage; but after a fervent prayer to God, to enable her to act for the

best, she decided that it would be more prudent not to expose him to any

risk arising from the possession of such a secret. Arming herself,

therefore, with all the resolution she could command, she performed her

usual household duties; and when her father and mother had retired to

rest, and all was quiet in the house, she took off her shoes, and

stealing down stairs into the shop, cautiously opened the trap-door, and

entered the vault with provisions for those who already were indebted to

her for life and safety.

"You are a noble girl," said the stranger to her. "What do I not owe to

your heroic devotedness and presence of mind? God will reward you in

heaven, and I trust he will permit me to recompense you here below."

Madeline gazed with intense interest on the stranger, as the light of

the lamp in her hand, falling full upon her face, gave to view features

whose dignified and majestic expression inspired at the very first

glance a feeling of respect. A long black mantle almost wholly concealed

her figure and a vail was thrown over her head. Her children lay at her

feet in a quiet sleep.

"Thanks for the food you have brought," said she to Madeline. "Thanks,

dear girl. As for me, I can not eat; but my children have tasted nothing

since morning. I will ask you to leave me your light; and now go, take

some rest, for surely you must want it after the excitement you have

undergone." Madeline looked at her in surprise.

"I should have thought, madam," said she, "that you would make an effort

to find some asylum, if not more secure, at least more comfortable than

this."

"Be not uneasy about me, my good girl. When my time is come, it will be

as easy for me to leave this place as it was to reveal to you the secret

of its existence. Good-night, my child. Perhaps we may not meet again

for some time; but remember I solemnly promise that I will grant any

three wishes you may form!" She motioned to her to retire; and that

indescribable air of majesty which accompanied every gesture of the

unknown seemed as if it left Madeline no choice but to obey.

Notwithstanding her fatigue, Madeline hardly slept that night. The

events of the day had seized hold of her imagination, and she exhausted

herself in continued and wondering conjecture. Who could this woman be,

pursued by the populace, and accused of being a sorceress, and an enemy

to the people? How could she know of a place of concealment of which the

inhabitants of the house were ignorant? As vainly did Madeline try to

explain her entire composure, the certainty with which she spoke of

being able to leave the vault whenever she pleased, and, above all, the

solemn and mysterious promise she had made to fulfill any three wishes

of the young girl.

Had you, my dear children, been in your great-grandmother's place,

should you not have been very much excited and very curious? What think

you? would you have slept a bit better than Madeline did? I hardly think

you would, if I may judge from those eager eyes.

The whole of the next day Madeline could think of nothing but her

secret. Seated behind the counter, in her usual place, she started at

the slightest sound. At one moment, it seemed to her as if every one who

entered the shop must discover the trap-door; at the next she expected

to see it raised to give egress to the unknown, till, dizzy and

bewildered, she scarcely knew whether to believe her whose life she had

saved to be a malignant sorceress or a benevolent fairy. Then smiling at

her own folly, she asked herself how a woman endowed with supernatural

power could need her protection. It is unnecessary to say how long the

time appeared to her till she could revisit the subterranean passage,

and find herself once more in the presence of the stranger. Thus the

morning, the afternoon, and the evening wore slowly away, and it seemed

ages to her till her father, mother, and the shopmen were fairly asleep.

As soon as the clock struck twelve, she rose, using still more

precaution than on the preceding night, opened the trap-door, descended

the stone staircase, and entered the subterraneous passage, but found no

one. She turned the light in every direction. The vault was empty: the

stranger and her children had disappeared! Madeline was almost as much

alarmed as surprised; however, recovering herself, she carefully

examined the walls of the vault. Not an opening, not a door, not the

smallest aperture was to be seen. She stamped on the ground, but no

hollow sound was heard. Suddenly she thought she perceived some written

characters on the stone-flag. She bent down, and by the light of her

lamp read the following words, evidently traced with some pointed

instrument: "Remember, Madeline, that she who owes to thee the life of

her children, promises to grant thee three wishes."

Here Perrault stopped.

"Well, children," said he, "what do you think of this first part of my

story, and of your great-grandmother's adventures? What conjectures have

you formed as to the mysterious lady?"

"She is a good fairy," said little Mary, "for she can grant three

wishes, like the fairy in Finetta."

"No, she is a sorceress," objected Louisa. "Did not the people say so,

and they would not have wanted to kill her unless she was wicked?"

"As for me," replied Joseph, the eldest of the family, "I believe

neither in witches nor fairies, for there are no such things. Am not I

right, grandpapa?"

Charles Perrault smiled, but contented himself with saying--"Now, be off

to bed. It is getting late. Do not forget to pray to God to make you

good children; and I promise, if you are very diligent to-morrow, to

finish for you in the evening the wonderful adventures of your

great-grandmother."

The children kissed their grandpapa, and went to bed to dream of

Madeline and the fairy.

The next evening, the old man, taking his usual seat in the arm-chair,

resumed his story without any preamble, though a preamble is generally

considered as important by a story-teller as a preface is by the writer

of a romance. He spoke as follows:

It would seem that my mother, in her obscure and peaceful life, had

nothing to wish for, or that her wishes were all fulfilled as soon as

formed; for she not only never invoked the fairy of the vault, but even

gradually lost all remembrance of the promises made her by the unknown,

and the whole adventure at last faded from her memory. It is true that

thirteen years had passed away, and the young girl had become a wife and

mother. She had long left the house where the occurrence I have related

to you took place, and had come to live in the Rue St. Jacques, where we

now reside, though I have since then rebuilt the former tenement.

My father, as you know, was a lawyer. Though of noble birth, he did not

think it beneath him to marry the daughter of a shopkeeper, with but a

small dowry. He found in Madeline's excellent qualities, her gentleness

and beauty, irresistible attractions--and who that knew her could

disapprove of his choice? Madeline possessed in an eminent degree that

natural refinement of mind and manner which education and a knowledge of

the world so often fail to give, while it seems intuitive in some. She

devoted herself entirely to the happiness of her husband and her four

sons, of whom I was the youngest. My father's income was quite

sufficient for all the expenses of our happy family; for a truly happy

family it was, till it pleased God to lay heavy trial upon us. My father

fell ill, and for a whole year was obliged to give up the profits of his

situation to provide a substitute; and he had scarcely begun, after his

recovery, to endeavor to repair the losses he had suffered, when a fresh

misfortune occurred.

One night, as my mother was lying quietly in bed, with her four little

cubs around her, she was awakened by an unusual noise to behold the

house wrapped in flames, which had already almost reached the room in

which we were. At this moment my father appeared, and took my eldest

brothers in his arms, while my mother had charge of Nicholas and me, who

were the two youngest. Never shall I forget this awful moment. The

flames crackled and hissed around us, casting a livid hue over the pale

faces of my father and mother, who boldly advanced through the fire.

With great difficulty they gained the staircase. My father dashed

bravely forward. Nicholas, whom my mother held by the hand, screamed

violently, and refused to go a step further. She caught him up in her

arms, but during the short struggle the staircase had given way, and for

a few moments my mother stood paralyzed by despair. But soon the

imminent danger roused all the energy of her heroic nature. Your

grandmother was no common woman. She immediately retraced her steps, and

firmly knotting the bedclothes together, fastened my brother and myself

to them, and letting us down through the window, my father received us

in his arms. Her children once saved, my mother thought but little of

danger to herself, and she waited in calm self-possession, till a ladder

being brought, she was rescued.

This trial was but a prelude to many others. The loss of our house

completed the ruin of which my father's illness was the beginning. He

was obliged to dispose of his situation, and take refuge in small

lodgings at Chaillot, and there set to work steadily and cheerfully to

support his family, opening a kind of pleader's office for legal

students; but his health soon failed, and he became dangerously ill. My

noble-minded mother struggled hard to ward off the want that now seemed

inevitable; but what availed the efforts of one woman to support a sick

husband and four children? One night came when we had literally nothing

to eat. I shall never forget my mother's face, and the tears which

streamed down her cheeks, when one of us cried, "Mother, we are very

hungry!"

She now resolved to apply for help to the nuns of Chaillot; a step

which, to her independent spirit, was a far greater trial than to brave

the threats of the mob or the fury of the flames. But what is there too

hard for a mother who has heard her children ask for food which she had

not to give them? With sinking heart, and cheek now pale, now crimson

from the struggle within her, she presented herself at the convent, and

timidly made known her desire to speak with the superior. Her well-known

character procured her instant admission, and her tale once told,

obtained for her much kindly sympathy and some relief. As she was

passing through the cloisters on her way back, she was startled by a

voice suddenly demanding, "Art thou not Madeline Perrault?"

My mother started; the tones of that voice found an echo in her memory,

and though thirteen years had elapsed since she had heard it, she

recognized it to be that of the being whom her husband was wont to call

her "Fairy." She turned round, and as the pale moonbeams that were now

struggling through the long dim aisle fell upon the well-remembered

stately form, in its black garb and flowing mantle, it seemed to

Madeline's excited imagination to be indeed a being of some other world.

"I made thee a promise," said the unknown--"didst thou doubt my power,

that thou hast never invoked my aid?" My mother crossed herself

devoutly, now convinced that she was dealing with a supernatural being.

The phantom smiled at her awe-struck look, and resumed, "Yet fear not;

you have but to name three wishes, and my promise is still sure: they

shall be granted." "My husband--oh, if he were but once more well!" "I

say not that to give life or healing is within my province to bestow.

God alone holds in his hands the issues of life and death. Say what else

lies near thine heart?"

"Bread for my husband and children. Save them and me from beggary and

want!"

"This is but one wish, and I would grant two more."

"I ask not--wish not for more."

"Be it so, then, Madeline Perrault; hold yourself in readiness to obey

the orders that shall reach you before twelve hours have passed over

your head." And she disappeared from Madeline's sight as suddenly as she

had appeared to her.

My mother returned home in considerable agitation, and told my father

all that had occurred. He tried to persuade her that the whole scene had

been conjured up by her own excited imagination. But my mother persisted

in repeating that nothing could be real if this was but fancy; and they

passed a sleepless night in bewildering conjectures.

Early the next day a carriage stopped at the door, and a footman

announced to my mother that it was sent to convey her and her family to

a place appointed by one whose summons there was good reason they should

obey. No questioning could extract from him any further information. You

may well fancy how long my father and mother debated as to the prudence

of obeying the mysterious summons. But curiosity at last prevailed; and

to the unmixed delight of the children of the party, we all got into the

carriage, which took the road to Paris, and drove on rapidly till we

reached the Rue St. Jacques, where it drew up before a new house; and as

the servant opened the carriage-door and let down the steps, my father

perceived that it occupied the site of his house which had been burned

down.

Our little party was met in the entrance by a deputation of the civic

authorities, who welcomed my father to his house, and congratulated him

on his being reinstated in the situation he had so long held with such

credit to himself, and, as they were pleased to add, to themselves as

members of the body to which he was such an honor.

My father stood as if in a dream, while my mother shed tears of joy and

gratitude. A letter was now handed to her; and, hastily breaking the

seal, she read, "Madeline, hast thou still a wish? Speak, and it shall

be gratified!"

"Only that I may be allowed to see my benefactress, to pour out at her

feet my heart's gratitude."

And at the instant the door opened, and the unknown appeared. Madeline,

with clasped hands, darted suddenly forward; then, as suddenly checking

herself, uttered some incoherent words, broken by sobs.

"Madeline," said the lady, "I have paid but a small part of the debt I

owe you. But for you a ferocious mob would have murdered me and my

children. To you I owe lives dearer to me than my own. Do not deem me

ungrateful in so long appearing to have forgotten you. It has pleased

our Heavenly Father to visit me also with heavy trials. Like you, I have

seen my children in want of food which I had not to give, and without a

spark of fire to warm their chilled limbs. But more, my husband was

traitorously put to death, and I have been myself proscribed. When you

rescued me, they were hunting me like a wild beast, because I refused to

take part against the son of my brother. But brighter days have dawned.

My son is restored to the throne of his fathers, and Henrietta of

England can now pay the debt of gratitude she owes Madeline Perrault."

"But how can poor Madeline ever pay the debt she owes?" exclaimed my

mother.

"By sometimes coming to visit me in my retreat at Chaillot; for what has

a queen without a kingdom, a widow weeping for her murdered husband, a

mother forever separated from her children--what has she any more to do

with the world whose nothingness she has so sadly experienced? To know

that amid my desolation I have made one being happy, will be soothing to

me, and your children's innocent merriment perchance may beguile some

lonely hours. Henceforth, Madeline, our intercourse will not bear the

romantic character that has hitherto marked it, and which chance, in the

first instance, and afterward a whim of mine, has made it assume. By

accident I was led to take refuge in your house in the Rue des

Bourdonnais, and instantly recollected it as the former abode of

Ruggieri, my mother's astrologer. His laboratory was the vault which

doubtless you have not forgotten, and the entrance to which was as well

known to me as the subterraneous passage by which I left it, and which

led to the Cemetery of the Innocents. Last night I heard all you said to

the superior, and was about to inquire directly of yourself, when,

seeing the effect of my sudden appearance, I was induced to play the

fairy once more. The instant you left me I put in requisition the only

fairy wand I possessed, and money soon placed at my disposal the house

which I have the happiness of making once again your own. You now know

my secret, but though no fairy, I have still some influence, and you

shall ever have in me a firm friend and protectress."

And from that time the queen never lost an opportunity of serving my

mother and her family, and it is to her I owe the favor and patronage of

the minister Colbert.

"And now, children," said Perrault, "how do you like my last fairy tale?"

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

THE EFFORTS OF A GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF DESPAIR.

Mr. Blackbrook lived in a world of his own. It was his pleasure to

believe that men were phantoms of a day. For life he had the utmost

contempt. He pronounced it to be a breath, a sigh, a fleeting shadow.

His perpetual theme was, that we are only here for a brief space of

time. He likened the uncertainty of existence to all the most frightful

ventures he could conjure up. He informed timid ladies that they were

perpetually on the edge of a yawning abyss; and warned little boys that

their laughter might be turned to tears and lamentation, at the shortest

notice. Mr. Blackbrook was a welcome guest in a large serious circle.

From his youth he had shown a poetic leaning, of the most serious order.

His muse was always in deep mourning--his poetic gum oozed only from his

favorite grave-yard.

He thought "L'Allegro" Milton's worst performance; and declared that

Gray's "Elegy in a Country Church-yard" was too light and frivolous. His

life was not without its cares; but, then, he reveled in his

misfortunes. He was always prepossessed with a man who wore a hatband.

The owl was his favorite bird. A black cat was the only feline specimen

he would admit to his sombre apartment; and his garden was stocked with

yew-trees. He reveled in the charm of melancholy--he would not, if he

could, be gay. His meditations raised him so great a height above his

family, that little sympathy could exist between them. Eternity so

engaged him, that his brothers and sisters--mere phantoms--did not cost

him much consideration. His youthful Lines to the Owl, in the course of

which he called the bird in question "a solemn messenger," "a dread

image of the moral darkness which surrounds us," "a welcome voice," and

"a mysterious visitant," indicated the peculiar turn of his mind. His

determination to be miserable was nothing short of heroic. In his

twenty-second year a relation left him a modest fortune. His friends

flocked about him to congratulate him; but they found him in a state of

seraphic sorrow, searching out a proper rhyme to the urn in which he had

poetically deposited the ashes of his benefactor. On looking over the

lines he had distilled from his prostrate heart, his friends, to their

astonishment, discovered that he had alluded to the bequest in question

in the most contemptuous strain:

Why leave to one thy velvet and thy dross,

Whose wealth is boundless, and whose velvet's moss?

So ran his poetic commentary. His boundless wealth consisted of

intellectual treasures exclusively, and the sweet declaration that moss

was his velvet, was meant to convey to the reader the simplicity and

Arcadian nature of his habits. The relation who had the assurance to

leave him a fortune, was dragged remorselessly through fifty lines as a

punishment for his temerity. Yet, in a fit of abstraction, Mr.

Blackbrook hurried to Doctors' Commons to prove the will; hereby

displaying his resignation to the horrible degree of comfort which the

money assured to him. It was not for him, however, to forget that life

was checkered with woe, that it was a vale of tears--a brief, trite,

contemptible matter. The gayety of his house and relations horrified

him; they interfered, at every turn, with his melancholy mood. He sighed

for the fate of Byron or Chatterton! Why was he doomed to have his three

regular meals per diem; to lie, at night, upon a feather-bed, and the

recognized layers of mattresses; to have a new coat when he wanted one;

to have money continually in his pocket, and to be accepted when he made

an offer of marriage? The fates were obviously against him. One of his

sisters fell in love. How hopefully he watched the course of her

passion! How fondly he lingered near, in the expectation, the happy

expectation, of a lovers' quarrel. But his sister had a sweet

disposition--a mouth made to distill the gentlest and most tender

accents. The courtship progressed with unusual harmony on both sides.

Only once did fortune appear to favor him. One evening, he observed that

the lovers avoided each other, and parted coldly. Now was his

opportunity; and in the still midnight, when all the members of his

household were in bed, he took his seat in his chamber, and, by the

midnight oil, threw his soul into some plaintive lines "On a Sister's

Sorrow." He mourned for her in heart-breaking syllables; likened her

lover to an adder in an angel's path; dwelt on her quiet gray eyes, her

stately proportions, and her classic face. He doomed her to years of

quiet despair, and saw her fickle admirer the gayest of the gay. He

concluded with the consoling intelligence, that he would go hand in hand

with her along the darkened passage to the grave. His sister, however,

did not avail herself of this proffered companionship, but chose rather

to be reconciled, and to marry her lover.

Mr. Blackbrook found some consolation for this disappointment in the

composition of an epithalamium of the most doleful character on the

occasion of his sister's marriage, in the course of which he informed

her that Jove's thunderbolts might be hurled at her husband's head at

any period of the day; that we all must die; that the bride may be a

widow on the morrow of her nuptials; and other equally cheerful truths.

Yet at his sister's wedding-breakfast, Mr. Blackbrook coquetted with the

choice parts of a chicken, and drowned his sorrow in a delectable jelly.

When for a short time he was betrayed into the expression of any

cheerful sentiment, if he ever allowed that it was a fine day, he

quickly relapsed into congenial gloom, and discovered that there might

be a thunder-storm within the next half-hour. His only comfort was in

the reflection that his maternal uncle's family were consumptive. Here

he anticipated a fine field for the exercise of his poetic gifts, and,

accordingly, when his aunt was gathered to her fore-fathers, her dutiful

nephew laid a sheet of blank paper upon his desk, and settled himself

down to write "a Dirge." He began by attributing all the virtues to

her--devoting about six lines to each separate virtue. Her person next

engaged his attention, and he discovered, though none of her friends had

ever remarked her surpassing loveliness, that her step was as the breath

of the summer-wind on flowers (certainly no gardener would have trusted

her upon his box-borders); that she was fresh as Hebe (she always

breakfasted in bed); that she had pearly teeth (her dentist has

maliciously informed us that they were made of the very best ivory);

and, finally, that her general deportment was most charming--so charming

that Mr. Blackbrook never dared trust himself in her seductive presence.

Having proceeded thus far with his melancholy duty, the poet ate a

hearty supper of the heaviest cold pudding, and--we had almost

written--went to bed--but we remember that Mr. Blackbrook always

"retired to his solitary couch." He rose, betimes, on the following

morning, looking most poetically pale. His dreams had been of woe, and

darkness, and death; the pudding had had the desired effect. Again he

placed himself at his desk, and having read over the prefatory lines

which we have endeavored to describe, he threw his fragrant curl from

his marble forehead, and thought of the funeral-pall, the darkened

hall--of grief acute, and the unstrung lute. He put his aunt's sorrowing

circle in every possible position of despair. He represented his

surviving uncle as threatening to pass the serene portals of reason; he

discovered that a dark tide rolled at the unhappy man's feet; that the

sun itself would henceforth look dark to him; that he would never smile

again; and that, in all probability, the shroud would soon enwrap his

manly form. He next proceeded to describe minutely the pearly tears of

his cousins, and the terrible darkness that had come over their bright,

young dreams. An affecting allusion to his own unfathomable grief on the

occasion, was concluded by the hope that he might soon join his sainted

aunt, though he had never taken the least trouble to pay her a visit

while she lived in St. John's Wood. This touching dirge was printed upon

mourning paper, and distributed among Mr. Blackbrook's friends. The

death of an aunt was an affecting incident, but still it fell short of

the brink of despair. Mr. Blackbrook's natural abiding-place was the

edge of a precipice. His muse must be fed on heroic sorrows, hopeless

agony, and other poetical condiments of the same serious nature. The

course of modern life was too level for his impetuous spirit; but in the

absence of that terrible condition to which he aspired, he caught at

every incident that could nerve the pinion of his muse for grander

flights. A dead fly, which he found crushed between the leaves of a

book, furnished him with a theme for one of his tenderest compositions.

He speculated upon the probable career of the fly--opined that it had a

little world of its own, a family, and a sense of the beautiful. This

effusion met with such fervent praise, that he followed it up by

"Thoughts on Cheese-dust," in which he dived into the mysteries of these

animalculæ, and calculated the myriads of lives that were sacrificed to

give a momentary enjoyment to the "pampered palate of man." His

attention was called, however, from these minor poetic considerations,

to a matter approaching in its gravity to that heroic pitch of sorrow

which he had sought so unsuccessfully hitherto.

His cousin was drowned by the upsetting of a pleasure-boat. At such a

calamity it was reasonable to despair--to refuse comfort--to leave his

hair uncombed--to look constantly on the ground--to lose all

appetite--to write flowing verse. Mr. Blackbrook entered upon his

vocation with a full sense of its heroism. At least one hundred lines

would be expected from him on so tremendous an occasion. The catastrophe

was so poetical! The sea-weed might have been represented entangled in

the golden tresses of the poor girl, had the accident happened only a

little nearer the Nore; and the print of her fair form might have been

faintly traced upon "the ribbed sea-sand." This was unfortunate. In

reality, the "melancholy occurrence" took place at Richmond. Mr.

Blackbrook began by calling upon the willows of Richmond and its

immediate vicinity to dip their tender branches in the stream, in token

of their grief. Mr. Blackbrook, felicitously remembering that Pope once

lived not far from Richmond, next invoked that poet's shade, and begged

the loan of his melodious rhythm. But the shade in question not

answering to the summons, all that remained for the sorrowing poet to do

was to take down his dictionary of rhymes, and tune his own lyre to its

most mournful cadences. He set to work: he called the Thames a

treacherous stream; he christened the wherry a bark; he declared that

when the pleasure-party embarked at Richmond-bridge, Death, the lean

fellow, was standing upon the beach with his weapon upraised. Asterisks

described the death; and some of his friends declared this passage the

best in the poem. He then went on to inform his readers that all was

over; but by this expression the reader must not infer that the dirge

was brought to a conclusion: by no means. Mr. Blackbrook had made up his

mind that his state of despair required, at least, one hundred lines to

give it adequate expression. He had devoted twenty to the death of a

fly--surely, then, a female cousin deserved one hundred. This logical

reflection spurred him on. He pulled down the blinds, and in a gloom

that suited well with his forlorn state of mind, he began a picture of

his condition. With the aid of his dictionary, having asserted that the

shroud enwrapped a cousin's form, he reflected that he envied the place

of the winding-sheet, and was jealous of the worms. He felt that he was

warming into his subject. He tried to think of the condition in which

the remains of his relative would speedily be; and having carefully

referred to an eminent medical work as to the length of time which the

human body requires to resolve itself into its original earth (for he

was precise in his statements), he proceeded to describe, with

heart-rending faithfulness, the various stages of this inevitable decay.

That was true poetry. He declared that the worm would crawl upon those

lips that the lover had fondly pressed, and that the hand which once

touched the harp so magically was now motionless forever. Having brought

this tragic description to a conclusion, he proceeded to number the

flowers that should spring from his cousin's grave, and to promise that

----from year to year,

Roses shall flourish, moistened by a tear.

This vow evidently eased his heart a little, and enabled him to conclude

the poem in a more cheerful spirit. He wound up with the reflection,

that care was the lot of humanity, and that it was his duty to bear his

proportion of the common load with a patient though bruised spirit. He

felt that to complete his poetic destiny he ought to wander, none knew

whither, and to turn up only at most unseasonable hours, and in most

solemn places. But unhappily he was informed that it was necessary he

should remain on the spot for the proper management of his affairs. Fate

would have it so. Why was he not allowed to pursue his destiny? He was

one day mentally bewailing the even tenor of his way, when a few kind

friends suggested that he should publish his effusions. At first he

firmly refused. What was fame to him--a hopeless, despairing man on the

brink of the grave! His friends, however, pressed him in the end into

compliance; and in due time Mr. Blackbrook's "Life-drops from the Heart"

were offered to the public for the price of ten shillings--little more

than one shilling per drop.

An eminent critic wrote the following opinion of our friend and his

poetry:

"We notice Mr. Blackbrook as the representative of a school--the Doleful

School. He draws terrible pictures; but what are his materials? He does

not write from the heart, inasmuch as, if he really felt that incessant

agony, which is his everlasting theme, we should find in his

performances some original imagery--something with an individual stamp.

We rather hold Mr. Blackbrook to be a very deliberate, vain, and

calculating being, who takes advantage of a domestic calamity to display

his knack of verse-making; who composedly turns a couplet upon the

coffin of his mistress; whose sympathy and sensibility are only the

ingenious masks of inordinate self-esteem. His view of the poetic is

only worthy of an undertaker. He sees nature through a black-crape vail.

He describes graves with the minuteness of a body-snatcher; and when he

would be impressive is disgusting. You see the actor, not the poet. He

admits you (for he can not help it) behind the scenes. His rhymes are

not the music of a poetic faculty; but rather the jingle of a parrot. He

is one of a popular school, however; and while the public buy his wares,

he will continue to fashion them. Materialist to the back-bone, he

simpers about the littleness of human dealings and human sympathies. He

who pretends to be melted with pity over the fate of a fly, would use

his mother's tombstone as a writing-desk. He deals in human sorrow, as

his baker deals in loaves. Nervous dowagers, who love tears and

'dreadful descriptions;' who enjoy 'a good cry;' and who have the

peculiar faculty of seeing the dark side of every thing, enjoy his dish

of verses amazingly. To sensitive young ladies there is a terrible

fascination in his inventories of the tomb and its appendages; and

children are afraid to walk about in the dark, after listening to one of

his effusions. The followers of his school include one or two formidable

young ladies, who enter into descriptions of death--that is to say, the

material part of death--with a minuteness that must excite the envy even

of the most ingenious auctioneer. When bent upon a fresh composition,

these terrible young poetesses, having killed a child, proceed to trace

its journey to the tomb--its return to earth. How they gloat over the

dire changes!--how systematically the painful portrait is proceeded

with! In this they rival Chinese artists. And people of ill-regulated

sympathy, who, containing within them all the elements of spiritual

culture, are yet affected only by sensual appeals, regard these doleful

effusions as the outpourings of true human suffering.

"Mr. Blackbrook and his disciples are hapless materialists, verse-makers

without a sense of the beautiful. They are patronized by those to whom

they write down; and the effect of their lucubrations is to enchain the

imagination, to debase the moral capacity, to weaken that spiritual

faith which disdains the horrors of the church-yard. Mr. Blackbrook's

adventures in search of despair were undertaken, to our mind, in a

cold-blooded spirit. A resolute determination to discover the gloomiest

phase of every earthly matter, a longing for the applause of a foolish

clique, and a confused idea that Chatterton was a poet because he

perished miserably, while Byron owed his inspiration to his domestic

unhappiness--make up that picture of a verse-writer which we have

endeavored to delineate. When extraordinary vanity is allied to very

ordinary ability, the combination is an unwholesome, ascetic, weak, and

deformed mind: such a mind has Mr. Blackbrook. He endeavors to drag us

into a vault, when we would regard the heavenly aspect of death. Ask him

to solve the great mystery, and he points to the fading corpse. His

tears suggest the use of onions; and his threats of self-destruction,

remind us of the rouge and Indian ink of an indifferent melodramatic

actor. We have no respect for his misfortunes, since we find that he

esteems them only as opportunities for display: we know that despair is

welcome to him. He turns his back to the sun, and rejoices to see the

length of shade he can throw upon the earth. Nature to him is only a

vast charnel-house--so constructed that he may sing a life-long requiem.

He would have us journey through life with our eyes fixed upon the

ground, scenting the gases of decay. But wiser men--poets of the

soul--bid us look up to heaven, nor disdain, as we raise our heads, to

mark the beauty of the lily--to gather, and with hearty thanks, the

fragrance of the rose."

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

(_Continued from page 396._)

CHAPTER XIII.

Whatever may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs

upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavelian sagacity with which the Italian

had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily

and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the Parson's,

charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask

pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was

bid, he owed an agonizing defeat and a shameful incarceration. And, to

Mrs. Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply

offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the

stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was it

without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his

lessons at school; nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his

mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though

sullenly; and the Parson thought it better to temporize as to the more

unpalatable demand. Unluckily Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that

awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though

Stirn at first kept his own counsel, the Tinker blabbed the whole

affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night,

all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So

then Stirn told his story, as the Tinker had told his own; both tales

were very unfavorable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern boy had broken

the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the

bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in

spying out the misdemeanors of his equals: therefore Leonard Fairfield,

in both capacities of degraded pattern boy and baffled spy, could expect

no mercy; he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.

It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster, and under the eye

of Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the

moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.

Some pointed and mowed at him; some cursed him for a sneak, and all

shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed

through the village at dusk, "Who was put in the stocks? baa!" "Who got

a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn? baa!" To resist this species

of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head and a

colder temper than our poor pattern boy's. He took his resolution at

once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after Dr.

Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself on

the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said he to

the Doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his red

silk umbrella over his head.

"Please, sir, if you'll be good enough to take me now, and give me any

hole to sleep in, I'll work for your honor night and day; and as for the

wages, mother says 'just suit yourself, sir.'"

"My child," said the Doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at

him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, "I knew you would come! and

Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them

by-and-by."

Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the

vacant chair, where he had so long sate in the place of her beloved

Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all to

itself, that she could bear it no longer.

Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny--perhaps

more so; and one morning she hailed the Steward as he was trotting his

hog-maned cob beside the door, and bade him tell the Squire that "she

would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice

for the land and premises she held--there were plenty to step into the

place at a much better rent."

"You're a fool," said the good-natured Steward; "and I'm very glad you

did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You've been doing

extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing."

"Nothin' as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feeling," said the

widow. "And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I

should like to go and live near him."

"Ah, yes--I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino--more fool

he; but, bless your heart, 'tis no distance--two miles or so. Can't he

come home every night after work?"

"No, sir," exclaimed the widow almost fiercely; "he shan't come home

here, to be called bad names and jeered at! he whom my dead good-man was

so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as I

said to Mrs. Dale, and as I will say to the Squire hisself. Not that I

don't thank him for all favors--he be a good gentleman, if let alone;

but he says he won't come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin.

Pardin for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could ha'

seen his nose, sir--as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! If the Squire

had had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd ha' been

axing. But I let's the passion get the better of me--I humbly beg you'll

excuse it, sir. I'm no scollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny would have

been, if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore just get the

Squire to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit o' hay and

what's on the grounds and orchard, the new-comer will no doubt settle

that."

The Steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow to

relinquish her resolution, took her message to the Squire. Mr.

Hazeldean, who was indeed rarely offended at the boy's obstinate refusal

to make the _amende honorable_ to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed

a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and

son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more

gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow,

he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and

_brusque_ enough on her own account, and in such business as might

especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she

never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a

herald of peace and mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that

she undertook this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son

were great favorites of hers. She entered the cottage with the

friendliest beam in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest

tone of her frank, cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she

was no more successful than the Steward had been. The truth is, that I

don't believe the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so

proud as your plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to

propitiate and deal with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are

there many of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we

are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr.

Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely

sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank Heaven! _that_

he rarely meets with unjustly); but to be looked down upon, and mocked,

and pointed at by his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the

soul. And if you can succeed in breaking this pride, and destroying this

sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He can never recover his

self-esteem, and you have chucked him half way--a stolid, inert, sullen

victim--to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.

Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the

honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not

have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.

But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff,

plain-spoken one--and, after all, she had some little feeling for the

son of a gentleman, and a decayed fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's

account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor

could she, with her strong common sense, attach all the importance which

Mrs. Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs,

which, she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken of

it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazeldean departed--with

much chagrin and some displeasure.

Mrs. Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had

made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked, the

key left at a neighbor's to be given to the Steward; and, on farther

inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been

removed by the errand-cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had succeeded

in finding a cottage, on the road-side, not far from the Casino; and

there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother to breakfast,

and show how he had spent the night in arranging her furniture.

"Parson!" cried the Squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was

walking arm-in-arm with Mr. Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in

the Alms-house, "this is all your fault. Why did not you go and talk to

that brute of a boy, and that dolt of a woman? You've got 'soft sawder

enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang."

"As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!" said the Parson, in a

tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. "But it was in vain! O

Squire, if you had taken my advice about the Stocks--_quieta non

movere_!"

"Bother!" said the Squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant, a

Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having

things smart and tidy! Stocks, indeed!--your friend Rickeybockey said he

was never more comfortable in his life--quite enjoyed sitting there. And

what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentleman-like man he

is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to Master Leonard

Fairfield. But 'tis no use talking! What's to be done now? The woman

must not starve, and I'm sure she can't live out of Rickeybockey's wages

to Lenny (by the way, I hope he don't board him upon his and Jackeymo's

leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and sticklebacks--faugh!). I'll

tell you what, Parson, now I think of it--at the back of the cottage

which she has taken there are some fields of capital land just vacant.

Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded me as to the rent when he

was at the Hall. I only half promised him the refusal. And he must give

up four or five acres of the best land round the cottage to the

widow--just enough for her to manage--and she can keep a dairy. If she

wants capital, I'll lend her some in your name--only don't tell Stirn;