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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XXXI. October, 1847. No. 4.
Contents
=Fiction, Literature and Articles=
The Village Doctor
The General Court and Jane Andrews’ Firkin of
Butter
Was She a Coquette?
An Indian Legend
The Islets of the Gulf (continued)
The Stratagem
The Man with the Big Box
The Sportsman
Review of New Books
=Poetry, Music and Fashion=
Le Follet
Brain Work and Hand Work
The Invalid Stranger
Jenny Low
Lines For Music
The Lay Of The Wind
Echo
Sonnet to ——
Ode to Time
A Winter’s Night in the Wilderness
Midnight, and Daybreak
Pioneers of Western New York
When Eyes are Beaming
The Mariner Returned
Burial of a German Emigrant’s Child at Sea
Hermione
Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
Anaïs Toudouze
LE FOLLET
Boulevart S^{t}. Martin, 61
_Coiffure de_ F. Hamelin, _pass. du Saumon, 21—Chapeau de M^{me}._ Baudry,
_r. Richelieu, 87;_
_Plumes et fleurs de_ Chagot—_Robes de_ Palmyre—_Dentelles de_ Violard,
_r. Choiseul, 2^{bis};_
_Mouchoirs de_ L. Chapron & Dubois, _r. de la Paix, 7;_
_Eventail de_ Vagneur Dupré, _r. de la Paix, 19—Chaussures de_ Baptiste,
_b^{t}. S^{t}. Denis, 4._
Graham’s Magazine.]
* * * * *
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XXXI. PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1847. No. 4.
* * * * *
THE VILLAGE DOCTOR.
A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY LEONARD MYERS.
“Heavens! what is this?” exclaimed, with one accord, several personages
who were assembled in the dining-room of the castle of Burcy.
The Countess de Moncar had just inherited—by the death of an uncle, who
had lived at a great distance, and was little regretted by her—an old
castle which she had never even seen, although it was scarcely fifteen
leagues from her own summer residence. Madame de Moncar, one of the most
elegant, perhaps one of the prettiest women in Paris, was not very fond
of the country. Leaving Paris in the end of June and returning in the
beginning of October, she usually took with her to Morvan some of the
companions of her winter amusements, and some gallants chosen from the
most attentive of her partners in the dance. Madame de Moncar was
married to a man much older than herself, and one who very seldom
favored her with his company. Without abusing the liberty allowed her,
she was charmingly coquettish; could trifle admirably, and be made happy
by a compliment, a tender word, or the success of an hour; loving the
dance for the pleasure of making herself agreeable, loving the very love
she inspired, to see the flower which had fallen from her bouquet handed
to her, and when occasionally some sober old relation mildly
remonstrated with her, “_Mon dieu_,” she would reply, “let me laugh and
live gayly, it is at least less dangerous than to remain in solitude
listening to the beatings of one’s own heart—as for me, I scarcely know
whether I possess one.” The fact is, the Countess de Moncar had never
thought about the matter at all; it was all important for her that she
should remain in doubt on the subject, and she found the most prudent
method was never to allow herself time for reflection.
One beautiful morning, then, in the month of September, she and her
guests started on a visit to the unknown castle, intending to spend the
day. A cross-road, which had been represented to them as passable, would
reduce their journey to twelve leagues, and was therefore resolved on.
The cross-road was shockingly bad, they lost their way in the woods, one
of the coaches broke down, and it was not until mid-day that our
travelers, overcome with fatigue, and little enraptured with the
picturesque beauties of the route, reached the castle of Burcy, the
appearance of which was not calculated to console them for the troubles
of their journey.
It was a large structure, with blackened walls, in front of the steps a
kitchen-garden, then uncultivated, sloped from terrace to terrace, for
the castle being almost buried in the sides of a wooded hill had no
level space around it. Craggy mountains begirt it on every side, and the
trees springing up amid the rocks lent a sombre verdure that was sad to
look upon. Its forsaken condition added still more to the disorder of
its natural wildness. Madame de Moncar stood riveted in amazement on the
threshold of this old castle.
“This looks very little like a party of pleasure,” said she. “I could
weep at the melancholy aspect of the place. Nevertheless, here we have
fine trees, stupendous rocks, and a roaring torrent—there is no doubt a
degree of beauty in all this, but it is all too serious for me,” she
added, smiling. “Let us enter and look at the interior.”
“Yes, yes,” replied the hungry guests, “let us see if the cook, who left
yesterday to prepare for us, has arrived more successfully than
ourselves.”
They were soon made aware of the joyful fact that a plentiful breakfast
would be served in all haste, and meanwhile set about reconnoitering the
castle. The antiquated furniture, with well-worn linen covers, chairs
with only three feet, rickety tables, and the discordant sounds of a
piano which had lain neglected for twenty years, furnished a thousand
subjects for pleasant jokes. Their gayety returned, and it was agreed
that instead of fretting at the inconveniences of their uncomfortable
abode, they would laugh and joke at every thing. Besides, for this young
and thoughtless company, this day was an event, a campaign, almost a
perilous one, the originality of which began to appeal to the
imagination. A fagot had been lighted in the large hall chimney, but
puffs of smoke filling every nook, they made their escape into the
garden. Here, too, the aspect was strange: the stone seats were covered
with moss, the walls of the terraces in many places crumbling in, had
left space between the ill-joined stones, where a thousand wild plants
were growing, now shooting up straight and tall, now bending over to the
ground like flexible vines; the walks were hidden beneath the green
turf, and the parterres reserved for cultivated flowers had been invaded
by wild ones, which spring up wherever the skies let fall one drop of
rain or the sun sheds a ray. The white convolvulus twined round and
choked up the monthly rose, the wild mulberry mingled with the red fruit
of the currant, and the long fern, the sweet-scented mint, and the
prickly thistle grew by the side of some long forgotten lilies. The
minute the party entered the garden, innumerable little insects,
frightened at the unusual noise, took refuge under the grass, and birds
quitting their nests flew from branch to branch. The silence which had
reigned for so many years in this peaceful spot gave place to the hum of
voices and merry bursts of laughter. None of them appreciated this
solitude, none even meditated on it, it was disturbed, profaned without
respect. Numerous anecdotes were related of the different episodes of
the most pleasant of their winter _soirées_, anecdotes mingled with
agreeable allusions, expressive glances, hidden compliments; in fine,
with all those thousand nothings that accompany the conversation of such
as seek to be pleased, not yet claiming the right to be serious.
The steward, after having vainly searched high and low through the whole
castle to find a bell which might be heard at some distance, at last
decided on calling out from the top of the steps, that breakfast was
served up, while the half smile accompanying his words, showed that he,
as well as his superiors, had made up his mind for that day at least to
dispense with his ordinary habits of etiquette and propriety. They sat
gayly down to table. The old castle was forgotten, the deserted
condition in which they had found it, and the sadness that reigned
around. All spoke at the same time, and they drank to the health of
their hostess, or rather of the fairy whose presence alone made of that
decayed habitation an enchanted palace. Suddenly every eye was turned
toward the dining-room window.
“Heavens! what is this?” they exclaimed.
Before the castle windows a small cariole of osier, painted green, with
large wheels, as high as the body of the vehicle itself, was seen to
drive up and stop; it was drawn by a short gray horse, whose eyes seemed
to be endangered by the shafts of the cabriolet, and were constantly
turned upward. The drawn curtains of the cabriolet only disclosed a pair
of arms covered with the sleeves of a blue surtout, and a whip that
tickled the ears of the gray horse.
It was this singular arrival which caused the exclamation of surprise
related in the commencement of our story.
“Gracious! ladies,” said Madame de Moncar, “I had forgotten to tell you
that I was absolutely forced to invite the village doctor to breakfast
with us; he is an old man who formerly rendered services to my uncle’s
family, and whom I have seen once or twice. But be not alarmed at this
new guest, he is very silent. After a few words of common politeness we
may act as though he were not here—besides, I do not think he will stay
long.”
At this period the door opened and Doctor Barnabé entered. He was a
little feeble old man, with a mild and calm countenance. His white hair
was tied behind in a queue of the old style. A sprinkling of powder
covered his temples as well as his forehead, which was furrowed with
wrinkles. He wore a black coat, and breeches with steel buckles. On one
arm hung a great-coat, lined with puce colored taffeta. The other hand
held a large cane and his hat. The _toute-ensemble_ of the toilette of
the village doctor gave evidence that he had that day taken great pains
with his dress; but his black stockings and coat were covered with large
splashes of mud, as though the poor old man had fallen into some ditch.
He stopped short on the threshold of the door, astonished at finding
himself in so large a company. A slight embarrassment was depicted for a
moment on his features, but he recovered himself and bowed without
speaking. At this strange entrance the guests were seized with a great
desire to laugh, which they repressed as well as they could. Madame de
Moncar alone, who could not, as the mistress of the house, be wanting in
politeness, remained serious.
“Goodness! doctor, have you been upset?” she asked.
Doctor Barnabé, before answering, glanced at the company around him, and
however plain and naïve his countenance might be, it was impossible for
him not to detect the hilarity caused by his arrival. He answered
tranquilly,
“I was not upset. A poor wagoner had fallen under the wheels of his car,
I was passing by and assisted him.”
And the doctor made toward the chair which had been left empty for him.
He took his napkin, unfolded it, passed one end through the button-hole
of his coat, and spread the rest over his breast and knees.
At this _début_, numerous smiles played on the lips of the guests, and
some titters broke the silence. This time the doctor did not raise his
eyes, perchance did not notice.
“Are there many sick in the village?” said Madame de Moncar, whilst the
new comer was being helped.
“Yes, madame, many.”
“The country, then, is unhealthy?”
“No, madame.”
“But from what do these diseases proceed, then?”
“From the great heat during the harvests, and the cold and damp in
winter.”
Here one of the guests, assuming great gravity, mingled in the
conversation. “Then, sir, in this healthy place they are sick all the
year round?”
The doctor raised his eyes to his questioner, looked at him, hesitated,
and seemed to be suppressing or seeking for an answer. Madame de Moncar
kindly came to his assistance.
“I know,” said she, “that you are the savior here of all who suffer.”
“O! you are too good,” the old man replied, and he appeared deeply
occupied in a slice of _paté_ he had just helped himself to.
Doctor Barnabé was now left to himself and the conversation went on as
before.
If their eyes fell by chance on the peaceful old man, it was to glance a
slight sarcasm, which, coupled with the conversation, might, they
thought, pass unnoticed by him who was the object of it; not that these
young persons were habitually impolite, and possessed no goodness of
heart; but the occasion itself, the journey, the preparation for
breakfast, their meeting, the smiles which commenced with the events of
the day, all led to an unseasonable gayety, an infectious spirit of
ridicule, which rendered them relentless to the poor victim whom chance
had thrown in their path. The doctor appeared to eat tranquilly, without
raising his eyes, without even seeming to listen, or uttering a word;
they began to treat him as one deaf and dumb, and the breakfast was
finished without restraint.
When they rose from the table Doctor Barnabé stepped back a little,
allowing each gentleman to choose the lady he wished to escort to the
parlor. One being left alone he timidly advanced and offered her, not
his arm, but his hand. The young lady’s fingers were scarcely grazed by
those of the doctor, who, with an inclination of respect, proceeded with
measured steps to the parlor. New smiles awaited this entrance, but no
frown was seen on the old man’s brow, and they now declared him blind as
well as deaf and dumb.
Dr. Barnabé, leaving his partner, sought the smallest and plainest chair
in the room. He drew it apart from the rest of the party, seated
himself, placed his cane between his knees, crossed his hands upon the
pommel of the cane, and leaned his chin on his hands. He remained silent
in this meditative posture, and from time to time closed his eyes, as
though a sweet sleep which he neither courted nor shunned was about to
overcome him.
“Madame de Moncar,” said one of the party, “you surely do not intend to
reside among these ruins?”
“No, indeed, that is not my intention; but here are tall trees and dense
forests. M. de Moncar might easily be tempted to pass some months here
in the game season.”
“But then you would have to pull down, rebuild, and clear away.”
“Come, we will think of a plan,” said the countess, “let us go out and
trace the future garden of my domains.”
The pleasure party, however, seemed doomed to ill luck. At that moment a
heavy cloud burst overhead, and a fine thick rain beginning to fall, it
was impossible for them to go out of doors.
“Gracious! what are we to do?” said Madame de Moncar, “our horses need
several hours rest—it will evidently rain for some time—the grass is
so wet that we cannot walk a step for a week—the wires of the piano are
all broken—there is not a book to be obtained for miles round, and this
parlor is as chilly and gloomy as death. What will become of us?”
In truth, the company but late so merry was imperceptibly losing its
cheerfulness. Titterings and laughter gave way to silence. They went to
the windows and looked at the sky, which remained dark and cloudy. All
hopes of a walk were now put an end to. They seated themselves as well
as they could on the old furniture—they tried to revive the
conversation, but there are thoughts which, like flowers, need a little
sun, and droop when the sky is dark. Those young heads seemed bent by
the storm, like the garden poplars which we see wave before the wind. An
hour passed tediously away.
Their hostess, a little discouraged by the failure of her pleasure
party, leaned languidly against the balcony of a window, and gazed on
the country before her,
“There,” said she, “down there on the top of the hill is a small white
house which I shall have pulled down, it obstructs the view.”
“The white house!” exclaimed the doctor. For more than an hour Doctor
Barnabé had remained motionless in his seat. Joy, listlessness, the sun
and the rain had followed each other without exciting one word from him.
His presence had been entirely forgotten; so that when he pronounced
those three words, “the white house!” all eyes were immediately turned
upon him.
“What interest have you in this house, doctor?” the countess asked.
“_Mon dieu!_ madame, do not mind what I said. It will be torn down,
doubtless, since such is your wish.”
“But why do you regret this decayed old building?”
“Because—alas! because it was inhabited by those I loved, and—”
“And do they intend to return to it, doctor?”
“They are dead—long since, madame—they died when I was young.”
And the old man gazed sadly at the white house, which rose from the
woods on the hill like a daisy springing mid the grass.
There were some moments of silence.
“Madame,” said one of the party, aside to Madame de Moncar, “there is a
mystery in this: see how sad our Esculapius has grown; some pathetic
drama has taken place down there; a youthful love perhaps. Let us ask
the doctor to tell us the story.”
“Yes, yes,” was whispered on all sides, “let us have the narrative. A
tale, a tale, and if there is no interest in it, we shall have the
eloquence of the orator to amuse us.”
“Not so, gentlemen,” Madame de Moncar answered, in a low tone, “if I ask
Dr. Barnabé to tell the story of the white house, it is on condition
that no one shall laugh.”
Each having promised to be polite and attentive, Madame de Moncar drew
near Doctor Barnabé.
“Doctor,” said she, seating herself near him, “I perceive some
remembrance of former times is connected with this house, which is dear
to you. Will you tell it to us? I should be very sorry, indeed, to cause
you a grief that it lay in my power to spare you. I will allow the house
to remain if you will tell me why you cherish it.”
Doctor Barnabé appeared astonished, and was silent. The countess drew
still nearer to him, and said—
“Dear doctor, see what bad weather it is, how dull every thing looks;
you are older than any of us, tell us a tale, that we may forget the
rain, the fog and the cold.”
The doctor seemed more astonished than ever.
“This is no idle tale,” he said. “That which transpired in the white
house is very simple, and can have no interest for any one but myself.
Strangers would not credit such a story. And then I cannot descant at
length when there are listeners. Besides, what I have to recount is sad,
and you have come here to be amused.”
And the doctor again leant his chin on his cane.
“Dear doctor,” returned the countess, “the house shall stand if you will
only narrate to us what has caused your love for it.”
The old man seemed moved; he crossed and uncrossed his legs, felt for
his snuff-box, replaced it in his pocket unopened, and turned to the
countess.
“You will not tear it down,” he said, pointing with his thin and
trembling hand to the dwelling which was seen in the horizon.
“I promise it you.”
“Well, be it so then. I will do this much for them—I will preserve the
house where they were happy. Ladies, I am no orator, yet I think the
least learned may make himself understood, when relating that which he
has seen. I tell you beforehand the story is not gay. We call a musician
when we would dance or sing, a doctor when we are suffering or about to
die.”
A circle was formed round Doctor Barnabé, who, with his hands still
crossed over the head of his cane, calmly began the following narrative,
in the midst of an auditory that all the while fully intended to laugh
at his recital.
* * * * *
It was long ago, it happened when I was young, for I too have been
young—youth is a possession that all enjoy, the rich and poor, but
which remains to no one. I had just passed my examination, having become
a doctor; and well persuaded that, thanks to me, men would now cease to
die, I returned to my native village to display my great talents. My
village is not far from here. From my little chamber window I saw this
white house, on the opposite side from that you are now gazing on. My
village would certainly have no great beauty in your eyes, but to me it
was superb. I was born there and loved it. Each one sees in his own
particular manner the things he loves, and adapts himself to continue
this love. The Almighty permits us at times to be somewhat blind, for he
knows that to see every thing clearly in this lower world is not always
desirable. This country then appeared smiling and animated to me, for I
could live happily here: the white house alone, each day when I rose and
opened my shutters, struck disagreeably on my sight—it was always
closed, noiseless and sad, like a deserted thing. Never had I seen its
windows open and shut, its door ajar, or the garden-gate give entrance
to any one. Your uncle, who had no use for a dwelling by the side of his
castle, endeavored to let it, but the price was rather high, and there
was no one near wealthy enough to reside in it. Thus it continued
tenantless, whilst in the village, at the slightest noise which made the
dogs bark, the forms of two or three happy children might be seen at
every window, putting aside the branches of the gilly-flower to look
into the street. But one morning on awaking I was agreeably surprised at
seeing a ladder against the walls of the white house, a painter was
painting the window-shutters green; a servant was cleaning the panes of
glass, and a gardener digging the garden.
“So much the better,” I said, “a good roof like that sheltering no one
is so much lost.”
From day to day the house changed its appearance, boxes of flowers
concealed the nakedness of the walls; a parterre was laid out before the
steps, the walks, cleared of their weeds, were graveled, and muslin
curtains, white as the driven snow, glittered in the sun when his rays
shone in the windows. Finally, one day a post-chaise passed through the
village and stopped before the enclosure of the little house. Who were
these strangers? none knew, though every one in the village was longing
to ascertain. For a long time nothing was known of what took place
within the dwelling, but the roses bloomed and the green grass on the
lawn grew. How many conjectures were made on this mystery—they were
adventurers who were concealing themselves, perhaps a youth and his
mistress; in fine, every thing was guessed but the truth. The truth is
so plain that often we do not think of it; for when once the imagination
is set to work, it seeks right and left, nor dreams of looking straight
forward. As for me, I troubled myself but little about it.
What matters it, thought I, who they are, they are human beings who must
undergo sickness before long, and then I shall be sent for. I waited
patiently.
In reality, one morning I was sent word that Mr. William Meredith
desired to see me. So I dressed myself with great care, and endeavoring
to put on a gravity fitting my station, I passed through the whole
village, not a little proud of my importance, and many envied me that
day, they even stood at their doors to see me pass, saying, “he is going
to the white house;” and I, to all appearance disdaining a vulgar
curiosity, walked slowly along, nodding to my neighbors, the peasants,
with an “_au revoir_, my friends, I will see you again later on; this
morning I have business on hand.” And in this manner I reached the abode
there on the hill.
When I entered the parlor of this house I was pleased at the sight that
presented itself; all was at once plain and elegant. The handsomest
ornaments of the house were the flowers, which were so artistically
arranged that gold could not have adorned it better. White muslin
festooned the windows, and there were white coverings on the arm-chairs,
this was all—but there were roses and jessamines, and flowers of every
kind, as in a garden. The light was softened by the window curtains, the
air was filled with the delicious perfume of flowers, and reclining on a
sofa a young girl, or rather a young woman, fair and fresh as all that
surrounded her, welcomed me with a smile. A handsome young man, who was
seated on a stool near her, rose when Dr. Barnabé was announced.
“Sir,” said he, with a strongly marked foreign accent, “your skill is so
highly spoken of here that I expected to have seen an old man.”
“Sir,” I replied, “I have studied deeply, and am convinced of the
importance of my station. You may place reliance in me.”
“Very well,” said he, “I commit my wife to your care, her present
situation calls for some advice as well as precaution. Born far from
here, she left home and friends to follow me, and I to guard and repay
her have nothing but love—no experience. I rely upon you, sir, to keep
her if possible from every suffering.”
And the young man as he spoke cast on his wife a look so full of love
that her large blue eyes glistened with tears of gratitude. She dropped
a child’s cap she was embroidering, and with both hands pressed the hand
of her husband.
I beheld them, and should have found that their lot was enviable, but
did not. I had often seen persons weep and called them happy. I saw Mr.
Meredith and his wife smile, and yet could not repress the thought that
they had their sorrows. I took a seat near my charming patient. Never
have I seen aught as beautiful as that face covered with the long
ringlets of her fair hair.
“How old, are you, madame?” I asked.
“Seventeen years.”
“And this distant country in which you were born, is the climate there
very different from ours?”
“I was born in America, at New Orleans. Oh! the sun is brighter there.”
And fearing, doubtless, that she had expressed a regret, she added—
“But every country is beautiful when it is the abode of one’s husband,
and we are near him, expecting the birth of his child.”
Her eyes sought those of William Meredith, then, in a language I did not
understand, she spoke some words, in so sweet a tone, they must have
been of love. After a short stay I left, promising to return soon.
I did return—and at the end of two months was almost a friend for this
young couple. Mr. and Madame Meredith had no selfish happiness, they
could still spare the time to think of others. They could understand
that a poor village doctor, having no other society than that of
peasants, would deem an hour well spent that was passed in listening to
polished conversation. They attracted me to them, told me of their
travels, and soon, with the frank confidence that characterizes youth,
they related to me their story. It was the young wife who spoke—
“Doctor,” she said, “beyond the seas I have a family, father, sisters
and friends, whom I long loved till the day when I loved William; but
then I closed my heart against those who spurned my friend. William’s
father forbade him to love me, because he was too noble for the daughter
of an American planter; my father forbade me to love William, for he was
too proud to give his daughter to a man whose family would not have
welcomed her with love. They would have separated us—but we loved! For
a long time we implored, wept, asked forgiveness of those to whom we
owed obedience, but they were inflexible—and we loved each other!
Doctor, have you ever loved? I hope so, that you may be indulgent to us.
We were privately married and fled toward France. Oh! how beautiful the
sea appeared to me the first days of our love! It was hospitable for the
two fugitives. Wandering in the midst of the waves, we passed happy
hours seated in the shade of the large sails of the vessel, dreaming of
the pardon of our parents, and seeing nothing but joy in the future.
Alas! it did not come to pass thus: they wished to pursue us, and by the
aid of some irregularity of form in our clandestine marriage, William’s
ambitious family harbored the cruel idea of separating us. We have taken
refuge in these mountains and woods, under an assumed name, and live
unknown. My father did not pardon me, no, he cursed me! this is the
reason, doctor, why I cannot always be gay even with William by my
side.”
Good God! how they loved. Never have I known a soul given to another,
like that of Eva Meredith to her husband. Whatever employment she chose,
she always placed herself where she might see William on raising her
eyes. She read no book but that he read: with her head reclining on her
husband’s shoulder, her eyes would follow the same lines that his
traced; she even wished they both might have the same thoughts at the
same time; and when I crossed the garden to reach the house, I could not
sometimes refrain from smiling at seeing on the sand the traces of Eva’s
little feet beside the foot prints of William. What a difference,
ladies, between that solitary old house you see before you, and the
pretty dwelling of my young friends—how flowers covered the walls and
bouquets rested on all the tables, how many pleasant books of love tales
resembled their love, and blithe birds sung around them. Oh! it was
something to live and be beloved by those who loved so well. But mark
how much reason we have in saying that our happy days are not long on
this earth, and that God, who creates happiness, bestows but little
here.
One morning Eva Meredith seemed to be in pain. I questioned her with all
the interest I felt for her, but she said hastily—
“Hold, doctor, do not seek so far for the cause of my affliction, do not
feel my pulse, it is my heart which beats too quick. Ascribe it to what
you will, but I am vexed this morning. William is about to leave me, he
is going to the next village, on the other side of the mountain, to
receive some money sent to us.”
“And when will he return?” I asked.
She smiled, blushed slightly, and then with a look that seemed to say,
do not laugh at me, answered, “this evening.”
I could not help smiling, in spite of her imploring look.
At this moment a servant brought to the steps the horse that Mr.
Meredith was going to ride. Eva rose, went down into the garden,
approached the horse, and playing with his mane, leaned her head on the
animal’s neck, perhaps to hide her tears. William came, and springing on
his horse, gently raised his wife’s head.
“Child,” he said, whilst he fondly gazed on her and kissed her forehead.
“William, it is because we have not yet been separated so many hours
together.”
Mr. Meredith bent forward, and again impressed a kiss on her forehead;
he then put spurs to his horse and rode off at full speed. I am
confident he, too, was somewhat affected. Nothing is so contagious as
the weakness of those we love; tears beget tears, and he has self
command, indeed, who can look on a weeping friend and resist their
influence.
I left the spot and entered my own little chamber, where I began to
think of the great happiness of loving. I put the question to myself
whether an Eva would ever partake of my humble dwelling. I did not
consider if I was worthy of love. Good heavens! when we look on beings
devoted to each other, we can easily see that it is not on account of
certain reasons and things they love so well—they love because it is
necessary for them, inevitably so; they love on account of their own
heart, not that of others. Well, this happy chance, which brings
together souls that have need of love, I sought to find, even as in my
morning walks I would seek for a scented flower. And thus I dreamed,
although it is a culpable feeling which, on seeing the happiness of
others, makes us regret our own want of it. Is it not partly envy? And
if joy could be stolen, like gold, should we not be tempted to possess
ourselves of it?
The day slipped away, and I had just finished my frugal supper, when a
message came from Madame Meredith, imploring me to come to her house. In
five minutes I was at the door of the white house. I found Eva still
alone, seated on a sofa, unemployed, without even a book, pale and
flurried. “Come in, doctor, come in,” she said, in her sweet manner; “I
cannot stay alone any longer. See how late it is; he should have been
here two hours ago, and he has not yet returned.”
I was surprised at the protracted stay of Mr. Meredith, but in order to
cheer his wife, I answered, without evincing any emotion, “What can we
know of the time necessary to transact his business in when he reached
the town? He may have been compelled to wait, or perhaps the notary was
absent; papers may have had to be drawn and signed, and—”
“Ah, doctor! I knew you would speak consoling words to me. I did not
hesitate to send for you. I needed to hear some one tell me it was
foolish in me to tremble thus. How long the day has been. Great God! are
there persons who can exist alone? Do they not die at once, as though
you were to take from them one half the air they breathed. But it is
striking eight.”
In truth it was eight o’clock. I could not understand why William had
not returned. At all events I answered;
“Madame, the sun is barely gone down; it is still daylight, and the
evening is beautiful; let us inhale the sweet scent of your flowers; let
us go to the spot where we are likely to meet him—your husband will
then find you on his path.”
She leant on my arm, and slowly walked toward the garden-gate. I
endeavored to draw her attention to surrounding objects. She answered me
at first as a child obeys, but I felt that her thoughts were far away.
She gazed uneasily on the green gate which still remained half open as
when William left, and leaning against the trellis, listened to me with
now and then a smile of acknowledgment, for in proportion as it grew
later did she lose the courage to answer me. Her eyes watched in the
heavens the setting sun, and the gray tints that followed the brilliancy
of its rays, gave certain evidence of the progress of time. Every thing
grew dark around us. The turnings of the road, which till then had been
visible through the woods, now disappeared beneath the shade of the
lofty trees, and the village clock struck nine. Eva trembled; as for me,
every stroke seemed to reach my heart. I felt for the sufferings of this
poor young creature.
“Remember, madame,” I said, (she had not spoken to me, but I read her
uneasiness in every feature,) “remember that Mr. Meredith can only
return slowly; the roads through the woods are continually over rocks,
which do not admit of a quick passage.”
I spoke thus to remove her apprehensions; but the truth was, I could no
longer account for William’s absence. I, who was so well acquainted with
the distance, knew that I could have been twice to the town and back
since he had left. The evening dews began to moisten our clothes, and
especially the thin muslin that Eva wore. I drew her arm within mine,
and led her toward the house. Hers was a gentle disposition—all
submission, even her grief. Slowly she walked, her head bowed down, her
eyes riveted on the marks which her husband’s horse had left on the
sand. Good heavens! it was sad, returning thus at night, and still
without William. In vain did we listen, all was silent—that grand
silence of nature, which, in the country, at nightfall, nothing
disturbs. How every feeling of restlessness is increased at such a time.
The earth looked so sad; in the midst of the obscurity, it seemed to
remind us that in life, likewise, all at times becomes clouded. It was
the sight of this young woman which caused these reflections; had I been
alone, they never would have entered my mind.
We re-entered the house. Eva sat down on the couch, and remained
motionless, her hands clasped on her knees, and her head sunk on her
breast. A lamp had been placed on the mantle, and the light fell full on
her face. Never shall I forget its expression; she was pale—pale as
marble; her forehead and cheeks of the same deathly hue; the dampness of
the evening had lengthened the curls of her hair, which fell in disorder
over her shoulders. Bright drops trembled beneath her eye-lids, and the
quivering of her livid lips, but too plainly betrayed the effort to
restrain her tears. She was so young that her countenance seemed rather
that of a child forbidden to weep.
I began to feel disturbed, and did not know how to conduct myself toward
her. Suddenly I recollected (it was truly a doctor’s idea) that amid her
grief Eva had taken no nourishment since the morning; and the situation
she was in rendered it imprudent to prolong this privation of all food.
At the first mention I made of it, she raised her eyes reproachfully to
mine, and this time the motion of her eye-lids caused two hot tears to
course down her cheeks.
“For your child, madame,” I said, respectfully.
“Ah! it is true!” she murmured; and she rose and went into the
dining-room. But in the dining-room there were two plates on the little
table; this, for the moment, appeared to me so afflicting, that I stood
still without uttering a word. The uneasiness that was creeping over me
made me quite awkward. I was not even skillful enough to say things
which I did not believe. The silence continued; and, nevertheless, I
would say to myself, I am here to console her—it was for this she sent
for me. There are, doubtless, a thousand reasons that might explain this
delay; let me think of one—but I sought, and sought in vain. I then
remained silent, inwardly cursing the little wit of a poor village
doctor.
Eva did not eat any thing, but leaned on her hands. Suddenly she turned
toward me, and bursting into sobs, said,
“Ah, doctor! you also are disturbed, I see it.”
“No, madame, no, indeed,” I replied, speaking at random; “why should I
be uneasy? He has, no doubt, stopped to dinner with the notary. The
country is safe, and beside, no one knows that he has money with him.”
One of my presentiments had thus unconsciously escaped me. I knew that a
company of strange reapers had passed through the village that very
morning, on their way to a neighboring district.
Eva gave a shriek.
“Robbers! there are robbers, then. Oh! I never thought of that danger.”
“But, madame, my only mention of them was to tell you there were none.”
“Oh! you would never have thought of it, doctor, had you not supposed
this misfortune possible. William! my William! why did you leave me!”
and she wept.
I stood there, vexed at my blunder, hesitating before every thought,
stammering out some disconnected words, and feeling that to cap my
misfortune, my eyes were filling with tears. At last a thought struck
me.
“Madame Meredith,” said I, “I cannot see you thus, and stay by your side
without a consoling word. I will go in quest of your husband; I will, at
all risks, take one of the roads leading through the woods; I will
search every where, will call him by name, and go, if necessary, as far
as the town itself.”
“Oh, thanks! thanks, my friend!” Eva cried; “take with you the gardener
and the servant, search in every direction.”
We quickly returned to the parlor, and Eva rung the bell loudly several
times. All the residents of the little house hurried into the room.
“Follow Dr. Barnabé,” said Madame Meredith.
Just then, the gallop of a horse was distinctly heard on the gravel
walks. Eva uttered a cry of happiness that reached every heart. I can
never forget the divine expression of joy which instantly lit that face,
still bedewed with tears.
We both rushed to the steps. The moon at this moment broke forth from
the clouds, and shone full on a horse, covered with foam, and riderless,
whose bridle dragged the ground, whilst the empty stirrups beat against
his dusty sides. Another cry this time, a dreadful one, burst from Eva’s
lips. She then turned toward me, her eyes fixed, her lips parted, and
her arms dropping listless by her side.
“My friends,” I said, to the frightened domestics, “light torches, and
follow me. Madame, we will return soon, and, I trust, with your husband,
who may be slightly hurt—a stumble, perhaps; do not despond, we will
soon return.”
“I will follow you,” murmured Eva Meredith, in a choking voice.
I told her that it was impossible. “We must go swiftly,” I said,
“perhaps a great distance; and in the state you are in, it would be
risking your own life as well as your child’s.”
“I will follow you,” she replied.
O! then I felt how sad was the loneliness of this woman. If a father or
mother had been there they would have commanded her to stay, they would
have detained her forcibly; but she was alone on earth, and to my
earnest entreaties, she still answered hoarsely, “I will follow you.”
We set out, but clouds now hid the moon; there was no light in the
heavens, nor on the earth, and we could scarcely grope our way by the
unsteady blaze of our torches. The servant led the way, and waved the
torch he held from right to left, to light the ditches and streams by
the road-side. Behind him Madame Meredith, the gardener, and myself
watched the glare of light, seeking with anguish for some object to
present itself. From time to time we raised our voices, and called on
William Meredith, and after us a stifled sob murmured the name of
William, as though her heart depended on the instinct of love to make
her sobs heard sooner than our shouts.
We reached the woods. The rain began to fall, and the drops pattering on
the leaves sounded so mournful, it seemed that all was weeping around
us.
The thin garments Eva wore were soon saturated by the cold rain. The
water streamed from the hair and forehead of the poor young woman. She
bruised her feet against the stones in the road, and frequently
tottered, and was on the point of falling; but she sustained herself
with all the energy of despair, and continued on her way.
It was a mournful sight. The red glare of our torches lit in turn each
rock and leafless trunk. Occasionally, at a bend in the road, the wind
would almost extinguish this light, and we stopped, lost in darkness. We
had called on William Meredith till our voices became so tremulous that
we ourselves shuddered at them. I did not dare to look at Eva; in truth
I feared she would fall dead before me. At last, at a moment when worn
out and discouraged we were moving silently along, Madame Meredith
suddenly pushed us aside, and darting forward, sprung across a heap of
brush. We followed—as soon as we could raise a torch to distinguish
objects, alas! we saw her on her knees beside the body of William; he
lay stretched on the ground motionless, his eyes glazed, and his
forehead covered with the blood that trickled from a wound on the left
side of his head.
“Doctor?” said Eva.
That single word said—does he still live?
I leaned forward and felt his pulse; I put my hand on his heart, and
stood silent. Eva had watched every movement I made, but when I
continued silent, the awful truth flashed upon her—she spoke no word,
she uttered no cry, but fell in a swoon on the dead body of her husband.
“But, ladies,” said Doctor Barnabé, turning to his audience, “see, the
sun is shining; you can now go out. Let us leave this mournful story.”
Madame de Moncar drew near the old man; “Doctor,” said she, “pray be
good enough to finish. Look at us, and you will not doubt the interest
with which we have listened to you.”
And it was so, there were no more smiles of derision on those young
faces that were gathered round the village doctor. Perhaps even tears
could have been detected in some of their eyes. He resumed his
narrative.
Madame Meredith was carried home, and lay for several hours senseless on
her bed. I felt that it was at the same time a duty and a cruelty to
lavish on her the assistance of my art to recall her to life. I dreaded
the heart-rending scenes that would follow this state of immobility; and
I bent over her, bathing her temples with cooling water, and anxiously
awaiting the grievous, but happy moment when I should see the breath of
life issue from her lips. I was deceived in my anticipations, for I had
never before seen a terrible misfortune. Eva opened her eyes, and closed
them again instantly; the lids were not even moistened by a tear. She
lay cold and silent, without motion; and I should have thought her dead,
had I not felt her heart begin to throb beneath my hand. How mournful it
is to witness a grief we know to be beyond all consolation. I felt that
to remain silent seemed a want of pity for this unhappy woman, but that
to speak consolingly were not to appreciate the depth of her sorrow. I,
who was unable even to soothe her uneasiness—how could I hope to be
more eloquent in the face of such an affliction. I adopted the safest
plan, that of a complete silence. I said to myself that I would remain
and take care of the physical evil; so I stood by her side as a faithful
dog would have couched at her feet. My resolution once taken, I was
calmer. In the course of a few hours I put a spoonful of a beverage that
I deemed necessary to her lips. Eva slowly turned her head to the other
side. In a few minutes I again attempted it.
“Drink, madame,” I said; and I gently raised the spoon to her lips, but
they continued closed.
“Madame, for your child,” I said, in a low voice.
Eva opened her eyes, and raising herself with difficulty, rested on her
elbow, leaned over toward the drink I presented, and took it; she then
fell back on her pillow.
“I must wait till another life is separated from mine,” she murmured.
From that time Madame Meredith spoke no more, but she followed my
prescriptions mechanically. Stretched on her bed of grief, she seemed to
sleep eternally; but whenever, in my lowest tone, I said to her, “raise
yourself and drink this,” she obeyed at the first word, which proved to
me that the soul was ever awake in that body, and found no moment of
forgetfulness or repose.
There was no one but myself to attend to William’s funeral. Nothing
positive was ever known as to the cause of his death. The money that he
was to have brought from the town was not found upon him; perhaps he had
been robbed and assassinated; perhaps this money, given in notes, had
fallen from his pocket at the time when his horse might have stumbled,
and as they never thought of looking for it till some time afterward, it
was not impossible that the rain had buried it in the muddy ground and
wet grass. Some inquiries were instituted, but without result, and all
search was soon given over.
I endeavored to learn from Eva Meredith if it was not necessary to write
some letters to inform her family, or her husband’s, of what had taken
place. It was difficult to obtain an answer from her; but I succeeded at
last in finding out that I had only need to acquaint their agent with
it, and he would do all that was requisite. I hoped, then, that from
England at least some news would come to decide the future of this
unfortunate young woman. But days passed on and no one on earth appeared
to know that the widow of William Meredith was living in utter solitude
in a poor country village. Soon after this, in order to recall Eva to
the feeling of existence, I expressed a desire that she would rise. The
next morning I found her risen, and dressed in black; she was but the
ghost of the beautiful Eva Meredith. Her hair was parted over her pale
forehead; she was seated near a window, and remained motionless as when
she had been in bed.
And thus I passed long evenings near her. Each day I would accost her
with words of condolence; but her only answer was a look of thanks, and
then we sat still without speaking. I patiently waited for some
opportunity to exchange a few thoughts with her; but my awkwardness and
respect for her misfortune either could not find one, or if it occurred,
let it pass by. By degrees I became accustomed to this absence of all
conversation, to this reserve; and beside, what could I have said? It
was of consequence she should feel that she was not absolutely alone in
the world; and the support that was left her, humble though it might be,
was still a consolation. I only visited her to say by my presence—I am
here.
It was a strange episode in my life, and had a great influence on the
rest of my destiny. Had I not evinced to you so much regret at the
thought of the white house being torn down, I would quickly pass to the
conclusion of this recital; but you wished to know why this house was to
me a consecrated place. It is necessary, then, for me to tell you that
which I thought and felt beneath its humble roof. Ladies, you will
excuse some serious reflections; it does the young no harm to be made
sad at times, for they have plenty of time before them to laugh and
forget.
The son of a rich farmer, I had been sent to Paris to complete my
studies. During the four years that I lived in that great city, I
retained my awkwardness of manner, and my simplicity of style, but I had
rapidly lost the ingenuousness of my sentiments. I returned to these
mountains almost learned, but at the same time nearly incredulous as to
every thing calculated to make us live happily beneath a thatched roof,
surrounded by a family, with the prospect of the grave before us.
When Eva Meredith was happy, her felicity began to afford me useful
lessons. “They deceived me there,” I said. “There _are_ true hearts,
then; there are souls as pure as these children. The pleasure of a
moment is not every thing in this life of ours; there are feelings which
do not expire with the year; we can love for a length of time, perhaps
forever.”
And whilst I contemplated the love of William and Eva, I recovered my
former artless peasant’s nature. I began to dream of a virtuous, sincere
woman; one who was industrious, and would adorn my home by her diligence
and solicitude. I saw myself proud of the sweet firmness of her
countenance, disclosing the faithful and even austere wife. Certes,
these were not my dreams at Paris, at the end of a boisterous evening
passed with my comrades. But a terrible misfortune had fallen like a
thunderbolt upon Eva Meredith, and this made me slower in understanding
the great lessons each day unfolded to me.
Eva always sat near the window with her eyes sadly fixed on the heavens.
This position, which is peculiar to those who indulge in reveries,
attracted my attention but little at first, but before long it created a
deep impression. Whilst my book lay open on my knees, I watched Madame
Meredith, and being sure that her eyes would not detect me, I observed
her closely. Eva gazed up to heaven, and my eyes followed the same
direction as hers. “Ah!” I said, with a half smile, “she thinks that she
will rejoin him above!” and I would turn to my book, thinking how happy
it was for the weakness of woman, that such fancies came to the aid of
her grief.
As I told you, my sojourn in the midst of students had filled my head
with notions of an evil tendency. But each day I saw Eva in the same
attitude, and each day my reflections were recalled to the same subject.
By degrees I began to think that hers was a pleasant dream; and I even
regretted that I could not believe it a true one. The soul, heaven, an
eternity, all that my curate had formerly impressed on me, passed
through my mind, as I sat at eve before the open window, and I said,
“What the old curate taught me is more consoling than the cold realities
which science discloses;” and then I would look on Eva, who still gazed
on the heavens, whilst the bell of the village church sounded in the
distance, and the rays of the setting sun shone brightly upon the cross
of the steeple. And often did I return and sit near that poor widow,
firm in her grief as in her holy hopes.
What! thought I, is so much love no longer attached but to a little dust
already mingled with the earth; do these sighs all tend to no good?
William is gone, in the flower of his youth, and with him his strong
affections, and his heart where all was still in bloom; she loved him
but a year, one little year, and all is told. There is naught above us
but the air—love, that feeling so deep within us, is but a flame placed
in the dark prison of our body, where it shines and burns, but dies away
when the frail wall around it crumbles! A little dust is all that
remains of our loves, our hopes and thoughts and passions, of all that
breathes and moves and elevates within us!
And there was a long silence in my breast.
In truth, I had ceased to think. I was as one stupefied, between that
which I no longer denied nor yet believed. At last, on a beautiful
starlight evening, when Eva clasped her hands in prayer, I could not
account for it, but my hands too closed, and my lips opened to breathe a
prayer. Then, through a happy chance, for the first time, did Eva
Meredith see what was passing around her, as if a secret instinct had
warned her that my soul was united in harmony with her own.
“Thanks,” said she, extending her hand to me, “remember him, and pray
for him sometimes.”
“Oh! madame,” I cried, “may we all find a better world, whether our
lives be long or short, happy, or sorely tried.”
“The immortal soul of William is on high,” she said, in a grave tone;
and her gaze, at once sad and bright, was again fixed on heaven.
Since that day, in accomplishing the duties of my profession, I have
often seen men die, but to them who survived, I have ever spoken
consoling words of a better life—and those words I truly felt.
A month after these silent events, Eva gave birth to a son. When, for
the first time, they brought the child to her, the widowed mother
pronounced the name “William,” and tears, ready tears, too long refused
to her grief, gushed in torrents from her eyes. The infant bore the
beloved name of William, and its little cradle was placed close by the
bed of its mother. Then Eva’s gaze, which had been directed to heaven,
returned once more to earth. She now looked on her son as she had on
heaven. She would bend over him to trace the likeness to his father, for
God had permitted a perfect resemblance between William and the son he
was never destined to see. A great change took place. Eva, who had
consented to live till her babe was born, I could see wished still to
live, since she felt how much it needed the protection of her love. She
passed whole days and nights by its cradle, and when I came to see her,
O! then she spoke to me, questioned me as to the duties requisite for
her son; when he suffered told me of it, and asked me what ought to be
done to spare him the smallest pain. She feared for the babe the heat of
a ray of the sun or the cold of the least breeze. She would hug him to
her bosom and warm him with her caresses; once I even thought I
perceived a smile on her lips, but she never would sing to him while
rocking the cradle—she called the nurse and told her to sing his
lullaby, during which time her tears would flow over her darling
William. Poor babe! he was beautiful, mild, tractable, but, as though
his mother’s grief had even before his birth had an effect on him, he
rarely cried and never smiled. He was calm, and calmness at that age
makes us think of suffering. It seemed to me that the tears shed over
his cradle had chilled his little soul. I wished that his caressing arms
should already be thrown round his mother’s neck; I could have wished
him to return the kisses lavished on him. But what am I dreaming?
thought I, can one expect that this little creature, scarcely a year
old, should have an idea that it was born to love and console this
woman?
It was, I assure you, ladies, a touching sight to look upon, this young
mother, pale, exhausted, having renounced all the future for herself,
returning as it were to life for a little infant which could not even
say “thanks, mother.” What a mystery is the human heart! that of so
little it can make so much! Give it but a grain of sand, it will raise a
mountain; or in its last throb show it an atom to love, and it again
commences to beat; it does not cease its pulsations forever till nothing
is left around it but space, and even the shadow of what was dear to it
has fled from earth!
Eva placed her child on a rug at her feet, then looking at it, she would
say to me—“Doctor, when my son is grown up I wish him to become
distinguished, and when once taught I will choose for him a noble
career. I will follow him everywhere—on the sea if he is in the navy,
in India if in the army: he must win glory and honors; and I will lean
on his arm and proudly say—I am his mother! Will he not let me follow
him, doctor? a poor woman who needs but silence and solitude that she
may weep, can incommode no one, is it not so?”
And then we would discuss the different pursuits to be chosen; we placed
twenty years on that infant’s head, both of us forgetting that those
twenty years would make us old. But, alas! we rarely dwell on ourselves,
and never think of being otherwise than young and happy, when youth and
happiness abide within us.
In listening to those bright anticipations, I could not help regarding
with fear the child on whom another’s existence so materially depended.
An indefinable dread crept over me in spite of myself; but, thought I,
she has shed tears enough, and God, whom she implores, owes her some
happiness.
Things were in this situation when I received a letter from my uncle,
(the only surviving relation I had.) My uncle, a member of the faculty
at Montpellier, sent for me that I might in that learned city perfect
myself in the secrets of my profession. This letter, worded like a
request, was in fact a command, and I was forced to go. The next
morning, with a heart swelling at the thought of the isolation in which
I should leave the widow and orphan, I repaired to the white house, to
bid adieu to Eva Meredith. When I told her that I was about to quit her
for a long time, I scarcely know if a shade of sadness passed over her
features, her beautiful face since William’s death had worn a look of
such deep melancholy, that it was impossible ever to trace on it more
than the faintest smile; as for sadness, it was always there.
“Are you going to leave us,” she said, “your services were so beneficial
to my child!”
The poor woman had no word of regret for her only friend who was leaving
her, the mother alone grieved for the doctor so useful to her son; I did
not complain. To be of use is the sweetest recompense for our devotion
to others.
“Farewell,” she said, giving me her hand. “Wherever you may be, may God
bless you; and if at any time it is his will that you should be unhappy,
may He provide you a heart as compassionate as your own.” I bent my
forehead to her hand and retired deeply affected.
The child lay sleeping on the lawn before the steps, I took him in my
arms and embraced him over and over again; I gazed on him for a long
time attentively, and sadly, and a tear dimmed my eye. “Oh! no, it
cannot be, I am deceived,” I murmured, and hurried from the house.
“Heavens! doctor,” simultaneously exclaimed all the listeners of the
village doctor, “what then did you fear for this child?”
“Allow me, ladies,” replied the doctor, “to finish this narrative in my
own manner—every thing shall be told in its place; I am relating the
events in the order in which they happened.”
[_Conclusion in our next._
* * * * *
BRAIN WORK AND HAND WORK.
BY CHARLES STREET.
In a garret cold and dreary
Sat a laborer deep in thought,
And his brow looked worn and weary.
As though hardly he had wrought;
And I watched his throbbing brain,
Like a wild bird to be free,
Struggling to fly back again
To its cageless liberty—
And the muscles and the fibres,
And the flesh upon the bone,
Like a mass of burning embers
Self-consumingly they shone.
And I turned my vision backward
To the scenes of other days,
While the sword within the scabbard
Of the mind yet feebly lays;
Ere the boy, grown into manhood,
Felt the cravings of his soul,
Ere keen hunger shivering stood
On his threshold crying _fool_!
For the midnight oil he’d wasted
Scanning books o’er page by page,
For neglect of luxuries tasted
In this money-making age.
And I saw an infant sleeping,
Softly pillowed by the side
Of a widowed mother weeping,
Fearing death might take its guide,
And to stranger hands and cold
Leave the darling of her heart;
To the swearer—to the scold—
’Mid the rocks without a chart—
God of mercy! help the helpless,
Teach them how to earn their bread;
Oh to trust alone—’tis madness—
To the labor of the head.
By the willing arm that fails not,
By the workings of the hand,
In this free and hallowed spot,
In this great and mighty land,
Where before us rivers deep,
Forests wide and mountains high,
Where, beneath the rocky steep,
Treasures all exhaustless lie,
By a will of stern resolve,
Making all things own his sway,
Man may thus the mystery solve
How to live—while live he may.
Not to fling away existence,
Toiling early—toiling late—
Not to succumb for subsistence,
Calling penury your fate.
Brain alone will not support thee—
Trace the history of the past—
Study well and study deeply,
You will find the truth at last.
Brain and Hand and Hand and Brain,
Let each urge the other on,
And—_the dollars_ shall again
Reward thee when thy work is done.
* * * * *
THE GENERAL COURT AND JANE ANDREWS’ FIRKIN OF BUTTER.
BY SEBA SMITH, THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF MAJOR DOWNING.
The fame of “blue laws,” does not belong to Connecticut alone; nor is
her claim to the title of “land of steady habits,” so pre-eminent over
her neighbors, as to throw them entirely in the shade. Were the early
judicial records of the old Bay State, and even of her daughter, Maine,
while she was a young province, duly examined, they would afford ample
evidence of enactments as numerous, and as strong, and as rigidly
enforced in favor of good order and decorous deportment, as those which
have conferred everlasting honor upon the early character of good old
Connecticut.
We beg leave here to quote a few examples in proof of our position.
1654. “The Court doth order that Jane Berry is to acknowledge that she
hath done goodman Abbit wrong, in dealing without witness. And that
Sarah Abbit is to acknowledge that she hath done goodwife Berry wrong in
evil speeches.”
1655. “The Grand Jury do present Thomas Furson, for swearing ‘by God,’
and cursing his wife, and saying, ‘a pox take her.’ Sentenced to pay ten
shillings, and to be bound unto his good behavior in a bond of ten
pounds.”
“The Grand Jury do present the wife of Matthew Giles for swearing, and
reviling the constabell when he came for the rates, and likewise railing
on the prudenshall men and their wives. Sentenced to be whipped seven
stripes, or to be redeemed with forty shillings, and to be bound to her
good behavior.”
“The Grand Jury do present Jane Canney, the wife of Thomas Canney, for
beating her son-in-law, Jeremy Tibbets, and his wife; and likewise for
striking her husband in a canoe, and giving him reviling speeches.
Admonished by the Court, and to pay two shillings and sixpence.”
“The Grand Jury do present Philip Edgerly for threatening his wife to
break her neck if she would not go out of doors; that for fear she came
into goodman Beard’s house in the night on the Lord’s day, as she
complained to William Beard the next morning. Sentenced to be bound to
his good behavior in a bond of forty pounds.”
1657. “Thomas Crowlie is presented for calling constable Alt, constable
rogue; is admonished by the Court, and to pay fees two shillings and
sixpence.”
1670. “The Grand Jury present Thomas Taylor for abusing Capt. Francis
Rayns, being in authority, by _theeing and thouing of him_, and many
other abusive speeches.”
“The Grand Jury present Mrs. Sarah Morgan for striking of her husband.
The delinquent to stand with a gag in her mouth half an hour at Kittery,
at a public town-meeting, and the cause of her offence writ and put upon
her forehead, or pay fifty shillings to the Treasurer.”
“Richard Gibson, for striking Capt. Frost at the head of his company, is
appointed to receive twenty-five stripes on the bare back, which were
given him this day in presence of this court.”
“The Grand Jury do present Charles Potum, for living an idle, lazy life,
following no settled employment. Major Bryant Pembleton is joined with
the Selectmen of Cape Porpus, to dispose of Potum according to law, and
to put him under family government.”
Small chance was there, in the primitive times of which we speak, for
any rogue or knave to escape punishment for his offences. There was no
complaint then “of the law’s delay.” Justice was meted out with
certainty and despatch. Could this great and wicked city of New York be
blest with an administration of justice as prompt, as searching, and as
effective, what a world of crime might be prevented. Now, in the
multiplied refinements of law and legislation, there are a thousand
chances for the culprit to escape the punishment he deserves. The labor
of government is now so much divided and subdivided, that the villain,
before he meets with his deserts, has to go through almost as many hands
as a brass pin does in being manufactured; and it is ten to one if he
does not slip through the fingers of some of them, and escape at last.
In the first place we must have a Legislature to make up a batch of laws
to keep on hand ready for use, for the regulation of society, and the
punishment of wrong-doing. After that, the Legislature has no more care
over the laws than the ostrich has over her eggs, but leaves them to
hatch out as they may. Then we must have a judiciary; and the culprit
who has committed a crime or misdemeanor, must be carried into court for
trial. After the matter is clearly proved out, fair and square, the
court hunts up the laws that the Legislature has made, and if there is
one that exactly applies to the case in every point and tittle, the
fellow may stand some chance of being punished. If the law does not so
apply, he is told he may go. When the law suits the case, the court
orders the delinquent to be punished; and he is then handed over to
another set of officers, who belong to the executive branch of the
government; and if these all happen to do their duty throughout, and no
mistake, punishment after a while follows the crime.
Two hundred years ago, in the New England colonies, things were not left
at such loose ends. Then the work of government was bound up in a snug
bundle. The legislative, judicial, and executive powers were all vested
in the same body, who, of course, always knew what they had to do, and
could always tell when that work was done. This omnipotent body in a
number of instances was styled the General Court; an appellation which
is applied to the legislative department in the old Bay State unto this
day.
When a fellow was found committing depredations of any description
whatever upon his neighbor, or upon the peace and good order of society,
he was taken before the court, and the witnesses were examined; and if
the thing was proved, and there was no law at hand that told how the
fellow should be punished, the court instantly made one on the spot, and
ordered its officers to carry it into execution.
It may not be amiss in this place to go a little more into detail, and
trace one of these General Courts from its origin, and show how it was
constituted and made up.
After the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempts to colonize Virginia,
during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the spirit of discovery and
settlement of the New World was greatly revived under the reign of King
James. In the year 1606, that monarch granted two charters to companies
of gentlemen, who united for the purpose, dividing the country into two
districts, called North and South Virginia. The limits of the northern
district were within thirty-eight and forty-five degrees of north
latitude. This charter was granted to gentlemen of Plymouth and other
towns in the west of England, who were denominated the Plymouth Company,
and afterward, under a new modification of their charter, “The Council
of Plymouth.”
Some of the first attempts by this company to colonize New England were
very unsuccessful; the company soon grew discouraged, and were inactive
a number of years. One member of the company, however, Sir Ferdinando
Gorges, never “gave up the ship.” He alone remained undiscouraged by
their ill success, and when the company would do nothing, he kept at
work upon his own hook. He sent out vessels several times at his own
expense, to explore the coast of New England with a view of making
settlements. In 1616, one of his vessels, under the command of Richard
Vines, wintered on the coast at the mouth of Saco river in Maine. The
harbor which gave them shelter was afterward called Winter Harbor.
In 1620, the Plymouth Company received a new impulse. Their charter was
renewed, their powers enlarged, and their boundaries extended from the
fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and from sea to
sea. This year the first permanent settlement was commenced in
Massachusetts by the pilgrim band at Plymouth.
In 1622, the Council of Plymouth, as the company in England was now
styled, made a grant to their active member, Sir F. Gorges, in company
with John Mason, of all the territory between the Merrimac and Kennebec
rivers, and under their auspices settlements now began to be scattered
along the coast. In 1629, Mason and Gorges divided their possessions,
and, like Abraham and Lot, one went to the right and the other to the
left. Mason took that portion of the territory lying west of the
Piscataqua river, to which he gave the name of New Hampshire, while the
country east of the Piscataqua remained in the possession of Gorges, and
was called for some years New Somersetshire, and afterward the Province
of Maine.
After this, various grants were made along the coast of Maine to
different individuals and companies, and the limits of these grants,
often being very indefinite, led to many long and bitter controversies.
In 1635, Gorges attempted to establish a General Court for the
government of his province, and sent over commissions to several persons
for that purpose. Understanding, however, that affairs were not well
managed, a year or two after he sent over an order to the authorities of
Massachusetts Bay “to govern his province of New Somersetshire, and to
oversee his servants and private affairs.”
The authorities of Massachusetts Bay, however, declined interfering in
the matter, and the province remained without a good and efficient local
government till 1640, when Sir Ferdinando commissioned the following
persons to be his counsellors for the administration of the government
of his province: viz. “his trusty and well beloved cousin, Thomas
Gorges, Esq., Richard Vines, Esq., his steward-general, Francis
Champernoon, his loving nephew, Henry Jocelyn and Richard Bonython,
Esqrs., and William Hook and Edward Godfrey, gentlemen.”
These persons constituted a General Court, with legislative, judicial,
and executive powers, and in the name of “Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Knight,
Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maine,” exercised entire control over
all the affairs of the province. The first court was held at Saco, on
the 25th of June, 1640; and another was holden in September following.
Among the earlier weighty matters that came under the cognizance of this
court was the affair of Jane Andrews and her firkin of butter. The
General Court was in session, and the judges, or the counsellors, as
their commissions styled them, were seated round a long table, looking
over some accounts that were in dispute between two neighbors, when Mr.
Nicholas Davis came in, with a look and air of unusual agitation. He
stood for a minute looking round the room, which was pretty well filled
with spectators, and then he looked at the judges with an earnestness
that showed he had something uncommon on his mind.
Mr. Davis was a short, thick man, inclined to be fleshy; the day was
warm, and large drops of sweat stood upon his face. He drew a checked
cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped and rubbed his face till
it was as red as a boiled lobster. Then he stepped up to one of the
judges and began to whisper in his ear. Presently the judge rolled up
his eyes and looked astonished. Mr. Davis put his hand down into his
right-hand coat pocket and pulled out a stone as large as his two fists.
And then he drew another from his left-hand pocket, a little larger, and
handed it to the judge. And then they whispered together again. The
people looked wild, and the rest of the judges impatient. At last the
judge turned round and whispered to the rest of the court for the space
of two minutes. And then they called Mr. Constable Frost and told him to
show Mr. Davis into the room with the grand jury.
After Mr. Davis had retired into the jury-room, the court seemed
restless and unfitted to go on with business. One of the judges got up,
and putting both hands into his coat pockets, walked gravely back and
forth from one end of the table to the other. Two more sat whispering
very earnestly to each other; and the rest were tipped back in their
chairs, with a settled frown upon their brows, and looking unutterable
things upon the multitude in the court-room. The people in low whispers
began to speculate upon the mysterious business of Mr. Davis in the
grand jury-room.
One guessed somebody “had been throwing stones at him, and he was going
to bring ’em up to the ring-bolt.” Another “didn’t believe but what
somebody had been breaking his windows, and if they had, they’d got to
buy it.” And some guessed that “somebody had been stoning his cattle;
and if they had, they’d got to hug it, for there was nothing would rouse
Mr. Davis’ dander quicker than that, for he was very particular about
his cattle.” In all their speculations, however, the imaginations of
none of them reached the height of the enormity that had occurred.
After the lapse of about half an hour, the door of the grand jury-room
was opened, and Mr. Davis walked out and took a seat on a bench in front
of the court. In about three minutes more the grand jury came out in a
body, with long and solemn faces, and arranging themselves upon the
benches appropriated for their use, the foreman rose with a piece of
paper in his hand and read as follows:
“We present Jane, the wife of John Andrews, for selling of a Firkin of
Butter unto Mr. Nic. Davis; that had two stones in it, which contained
fourteen pounds, wanting two ounces, in weight.”
This came upon John Andrews, who was sitting there right in the middle
of the court-room with the rest of the folks, like a heavy thunder-clap.
Everybody turned and looked at him, and in half a minute his face turned
as red as a coal of fire.
“Mr. Andrews,” said the first judge, “is your wife at home?”
“Well—ah—I don’t know,” said John; “yes, I believe she is; I’ll go and
see;” and he rose to leave the court-house.
“No, you needn’t go and see,” said the judge; “come back to your seat
again.” John returned to his seat.
“How far is it to your house?” said the judge.
“About four miles,” said John.
“It is too far,” said the judge, “to bring her into court this
afternoon. Which will you do, come under bonds of ten pounds to bring
her into court to-morrow morning for trial, or have two constables go
and take charge of her to-night?”
“I’ll come under bonds to bring her into court, if she’ll come,” said
John.
“But you must bring her, whether she will come or not,” said the judge;
“or else the officers must go after her immediately, and put her into
confinement to-night.”
“Well, then,” said John, “I’ll come under bonds; rather than have the
constables going to the house to frighten the children.”
The bonds were accordingly taken, in the sum of ten pounds, and
acknowledged by John, and he was ordered to have his wife in court the
next morning at nine o’clock. Mr. Nicholas Davis was ordered to be
present at the same hour with his witnesses.
After adding up a few more accounts, the court adjourned till next
morning. In the meanwhile John Andrews went home to break the matter to
his wife.
“Now, Jane,” said he, “here’s a pretty kettle of fish we’ve got to fry.
What under the sun could induce you to put them stones into the firkin
of butter you sold to Mr. Davis?”
“Hang his old picter,” said Jane, “I don’t know any thing about the
stones.”
“Now, what’s the use of denying it?” said John; “you know you did it.
You know I see you putting of ’em in once, and made you take ’em out
again and throw ’em away. And you went and put ’em in again afterward, I
know, or else he’d never gone into the General Court about it, and swore
to it.”
“He haint been into the Gineral Court though?” said Jane, rolling up the
white of her eyes.
“I guess you’ll find he has though, by to-morrow,” said John; “and
you’ve got me into as bad a scrape about it as can be, and yourself into
a worse one.”
“But if there was stones in the butter,” said Jane, “he can’t prove that
I put ’em in, and he can’t swear that I put ’em in.”
“Well, he can swear that he had the butter of you, and that he found the
stones in it; and that’ll be enough to fix your flint for you. And
you’ve got to go to court to-morrow morning and have your trial.”
“I swow I wont go into court,” said Jane, “for nobody; if he wants to
settle it he may come here.”
“But he wont come here,” said John; “he has carried it into court, and
the grand jury has presented you, and the judges say you must be there
to-morrow morning at nine o’clock for your trial.”
“I don’t care for the grand jury, nor none of ’em,” said Jane; “I wont
go to court; I’ll go off into the woods first, and stay a week, or stay
till the court is over.”
“But you can’t do that,” said John. “I’m under bonds of ten pounds to
carry you to court to-morrow morning.”
“You under bonds!” said Jane; “I should like to know what business you
have to be under bonds to carry me to court?”
“I had to,” said John, “or else the constables were coming right over
here to take you and put you into confinement to-night. So I had to give
a bond of ten pounds that you should be there to-morrow morning.”
“Well, I can’t go,” said Jane; “you may pay the ten pounds.”
“But I can’t pay it,” said John; “I could not raise it any way in the
world.”
“Well, what’ll they do if you don’t pay it?” said Jane, “and I don’t go
to the court?”
“They’d put me in jail,” said John, “till it was paid; and that would be
longer than I should want to stay there. So you’ve got to go to court
to-morrow morning, and that’s a settled pint.”
When John said any thing was “a settled pint,” Jane always knew the
thing was fixed, and it was no use to have any more words about it. So
she sat down and gave herself up to a hearty crying spell.
When morning came, John tackled up his wagon and took Jane in and
carried her to the General Court. When he arrived, the court-room was
already full of spectators; the judges were seated by the long table,
and Mr. Davis was there with his wife and daughter and hired girl. The
case was immediately called, and the prisoner, being put to the bar, was
told to hearken to an indictment found against her by the grand jury.
The clerk then read the indictment, and ended with the usual question;
“Jane Andrews, what say you to this indictment, are you guilty thereof
or not guilty?”
“I don’t know nothin’ at all about it, sir,” said Jane, “any more than
the child that’s unborn; as for that are firkin of butter that I sold to
Mr. Davis, if there was any stones in it, they must be put in by
somebody’s else hands besides mine, for I packed it all down myself,
and—”
“Stop, Mrs. Andrews,” said the first judge, “you must not talk; you must
give a direct answer to the question; are you guilty or not guilty?”
“I’m as innocent as the man in the moon,” said Jane; “I never was
accused before; I can bring folks to swear to my character ever since I
was a child; I think it is too bad—”
“Stop,” said the judge; “if you don’t give a direct answer to the
question immediately, you shall be sent to prison; are you guilty or not
guilty?”
“No, I aint guilty,” said Jane.
“She pleads not guilty,” said the judge; “now let the witnesses be
sworn. Mr. Davis, you take the stand, and tell the court and the jury
what you know about this affair.”
Mr. Davis was sworn and took the stand.
“Whereabouts shall I begin?” said he, hesitating, and rubbing his sleeve
over his face to brush away the perspiration.
“Tell the whole story just as it happened,” said the judge, “from first
to last: that is, what relates to this particular transaction about the
firkin of butter.”
“Well, it was a week ago last Saturday mornin’,” said the witness,
putting one foot up upon the bench that stood before him, “I’d been down
to the mill with my wagon, and was going home, I should say about nine
o’clock in the mornin’; it might be a little more, and it might be a
little less, but I should say it wasn’t much odds of nine o’clock,
judging from my feelin’s, for I hadn’t been to breakfast; I generally go
to mill before breakfast, when I go, and I commonly get back about nine
o’clock; but I judged I was about half an hour later that mornin’ than
common, owing to a kind of warm dispute I got into with the miller about
his streakin’ the toll-dish. I told him he ought to streak it with a
straight stick, but he always would take his hand to streak with, and
always kept the roundin’ side of his hand up, and that made the dish a
little heapin’—”
“But I don’t see what all this has to do with the tub of butter, Mr.
Davis,” said the judge; “you must confine yourself to the case before
the court. What was this transaction about the tub of butter?”
“Well, I was coming along to it byme by,” said the witness.
“But you must come along to it now,” said the judge; “relate what you
know about the case presented by the grand jury, and not talk about any
thing else.”
“Well,” said Davis, “I should judge it wasn’t much odds of nine o’clock,
when I come along up by Mr. Andrews’ house, and I see Miss Andrews out
to the door feedin’ the chickens; and says I, ‘good mornin’, Miss
Andrews;’ and says she, ‘good mornin’, Mr. Davis;’ and says I, ‘how’s
all to home?’ and says she, ‘middlin’; how does your folks do?’”
“But that isn’t coming to the butter,” said the judge, with an air and
tone of great impatience.
“Yes ’tis,” said Davis, “I’m close to the butter now; for then says I,
‘Miss Andrews, have you got another firkin of butter to sell?’ And says
she, ‘yes.’ I said another firkin, because I bought one of her last
winter, that weighed about twenty pounds, and it turned out to be a very
good firkin of butter, though it was rather hard salted; but I think
that’s a good fault in butter; it makes it spend better, and I like the
taste of it full as well, though my wife doesn’t. That firkin of butter
lasted us—”
“No matter how long it lasted,” said the judge; “that is not the firkin
with which we have to do now. You must come right down to the particular
firkin that was the cause of this trial.”
“Well, I’m jest agoing to take hold of that now,” said Davis; “and so,
says I, ‘Miss Andrews, have you got another firkin of butter to sell?’
And says she, ‘Yes, I have.’ And says I, ‘How big is it?’ Says she, ‘It
weighs thirty-six pounds, and the firkin weighs six pounds, and that
leaves thirty pounds of butter.’ And says I, ‘How much is it a pound?’
Says she, ‘Tenpence.’ So, after I went in and looked at it, I agreed to
take it. It come to one pound five, and I took out the money and paid
her, and put the firkin in my wagon and carried it home. Well, we never
mistrusted there was any thing in the butter; and we went right to using
of it; I guess we had some of it on the table that very night for
supper; didn’t we, Judy?” turning to his wife.
“You needn’t ask your wife any questions,” said the judge. “Tell what
you know yourself about the matter, and then she may tell what she knows
about it.”
“Well, what I know myself about the butter is, we eat out of it about a
week, and then Judy comes to me, and says she, ‘Mr. Davis, the first
layin’ is all out.’ Says I, ‘It can’t be out so quick, it aint but a
week since we had it.’ ‘Well, ’tis out,’ says she, ‘every morsel of it;
but the layin’ wasn’t more than half as thick as it was in t’other
firkin.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘Judy, if the first layin’ is out, you must dig
into the second, that’s all.’ So off she went to get some butter for
supper, and we was jest a setting down to the table, and byme by back
she comes, all in a fluster, her eyes staring out of her head half as
big as saucers, and she sot a plate on to the table with a great stone
in it, half as big as my head; and says she, ‘there, Mr. Davis, if
you’re a mind to eat such butter as that, you’re welcome to, but I shall
wait till I get a new set of teeth before I try it.’ Says I, ‘Judy, what
do you mean? where did that stone come from?’ Says she, ‘It came right
out of the middle of the butter tub.’”
“You may be a little particular along here,” said the judge, “for you
are getting into the very marrow of the subject now. What happened
next?”
“Well, says I, ‘Judy, I should like to see the hen that lays such eggs
as that; let’s go and look at it.’ So we went to the firkin, and, sure
enough, there was the hole in the middle of the butter where she took
the stone out. Says I, ‘Judy, I guess it’s best to probe that are wound
a little more, as the doctors say.’ So I took a knife and run down into
the butter a little further, and struck on another stone; and we went to
work and dug that out; and after we cut round enough to be satisfied
there wasn’t any more, we took the two and weighed ’em, and found they
weighed fourteen pounds lacking two ounces. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘Judy, this
matter aint agoin’ to stop short of the Gineral Court.’ She thought I
better hush it up, cause it would hurt Miss Andrews’ feelin’s; but I
told her no, honesty’s the best policy, and fair play’s a jewel, and if
Miss Andrews isn’t old enough to know that yet, it is time she was larnt
it, and if I don’t carry her into the Gineral Court, it’s because my
name isn’t Nicholas Davis. And that’s pretty much all I know about it.”
“The case is every way clear,” said the first judge; “it seems to be
hardly worth while to go any further. But Mrs. Davis may take the stand
a few minutes; the court would like to ask her a few plain questions.”
Mrs. Davis was accordingly sworn, and took the stand.
“How do you know,” said the judge, “that the stones were not put into
the butter after the tub was brought to your house?”
“Because they couldn’t be,” said Mrs. Davis. “I didn’t do it, and Hannah
didn’t do it, and Polly didn’t do it; and there wasn’t nobody else that
could do it.”
“Well, how do you know that Mrs. Andrews did it?” said the judge.
“Because,” said Mrs. Davis, “it’s jest like her. She loves fine clothes,
and fine clothes costs money; and so she always will have money; and so
I know as well as can be she did it.”
“Very true,” said the judge, “this love of finery is the cause of a
world of crime. You may describe a little more particularly how you
first found the stones.”
“Well, we sot down to the table; I guess the sun was about an hour high,
we commonly eat supper this time of year about an hour before sunset;
Mr. Davis always wants his supper airly, because he don’t think it’s
healthy to eat jest before going to bed; he says it gives him the
nightmare. Well, Mr. Davis he looks round upon the table, and says he,
‘Judy’—he always calls me Judy, ever since we’ve been married, which I
don’t think is exactly the thing for a person of my age, but he seems to
like it, so I don’t make a fuss about it—says he, ‘Judy, here isn’t
butter enough for supper on the table, you better get some more.’ Says
I, ‘I hate to disturb that are second layin’ to-day, it’s packed down so
nice.’ But he insisted upon it, there wasn’t enough on the table for
supper—Mr. Davis eats a good deal of butter, and he doesn’t like to see
a scanty plate of it on the table. So I took a knife and a plate and
went into the buttery, and took the kiver off the firkin and sot it down
on the floor; and then I was een a most a good mind to go back without
any, when I see how smooth the second layin’ looked, for I do hate to
cut into a new layin’, it seems to go away so soon. But I knew Mr. Davis
would have some, so I took the knife and begun to cut down into the
middle of the butter, and instead of cutting through, as it did in the
first layin’, it come down chuck on to a stone. And that’s the way I
found it.”
“It’s a very clear case,” said the judge. “It is unnecessary to proceed
any further with witnesses.”
And then he turned to the jury and charged them, that the guilt of the
prisoner was fairly made out, and they had nothing to do but bring in a
verdict of guilty. Accordingly the jury retired, and having staid out
just long enough to count noses and see that they were all present, came
in with a verdict of guilty.
The court then went into deep consultation with regard to the sentence;
and after a half hour’s whispering, and talking, and voting, the first
judge rose and pronounced the sentence as follows:
“The court doth order, that Jane Andrews shall stand at the public
town-meeting which is to be held on Monday next, and in the most
conspicuous part thereof till two hours time be expired, with her
offence written in capital letters and fastened upon her forehead.”
This sentence was duly executed, according to the letter and spirit
thereof, on the following Monday. But it must be left to the imagination
of the reader to portray the scenes that occurred on that occasion. We
may simply hint, however, that the meeting was unusually thronged, being
more, numerously attended than any town-meeting in the place for three
years previous. Some old people, who had not been out on any public
occasion for half a dozen years, came now several miles to see the crime
of Mrs. Andrews justly and properly punished.
Everybody, as they went into the town-house, turned square round, and
stood and looked Mrs. Andrews in the face several minutes, and read the
inscription on her forehead. Old Deacon White, who was rather
long-sighted, put on his spectacles and stood facing her, about a yard
off, and read the inscription over three times, loud enough to be heard
all over the room. And long-legged, razor-faced Peter Johnson, who was
very short-sighted, put on his spectacles and stood so near her to read
the inscription, that his nose almost touched hers, causing some rather
rude and irreverent laughs among the younger portion of the multitude.
In short, the punishment was effectual, and the sin of selling stones
for butter was not repeated again by the housewives of New Somersetshire
during the life-time of that generation.
* * * * *
THE INVALID STRANGER.
A SKETCH FROM LIFE.
BY MISS MARY E. LEE.
I ne’er had seen her face before, and yet
’Twas difficult to own that she was but
A common stranger; till a little while
I gave my fancy freedom, and was pleased
To shadow out some former spirit-sphere,
Where we had held companionship, and twined
A subtile link of sympathy and love.
Where lay her secret spell? What charm of hers
Thus played upon the harp-string of my mind,
Stirring it up to music? I knew not!
The maiden was all loveliness, and wore
Her beauty like a queenly robe, but yet
It was not that which won my lingering gaze,
And made me yearn to ask her tale of life,
And tell it out in poetry. ’Twas strange!—
Yet, though I studied long, I could not learn
The color of her eye, that seemed to change
Beneath the ivory lid, from brilliant black
To liquid hazel, then to full, soft gray,
Fast melting into violet: Nor the hue
Of her loose curls, to which each passing breeze
Gave some new shaping; making them appear
Within the shade, pale auburn; but when stirred
In sunny light, like sprinkling gleams of gold
Within a silken tissue. More than all,
Were I an artist, it were needless task
To seek to match the tinting of her cheek,
One moment wan to sickliness, and then
Trying which best became it, the pure snow
Of the white lily, or the delicate blush
Of the pale, perfumed wild-rose. I was blind
To all this touching beauty, and looked not
Upon the outward temple, for my mind
Had caught some glimpses of the shrine within,
And gave _that_ all my worship. It was _soul_.
High, holy, living, intellectual soul,
That lit her perfect features, like a lamp,
That burns in alabaster; or some star
Whose rays vibrating through the ether’s space,
Transmit its _softened image_ from afar.
Yes! this it was that made me read her face,
E’en as one reads the language of a book,
With a forgetful earnestness, until
The secret fountains of my heart were moved,
Unto the Giver of all good for her,
And oh! may it be answered.
God of Love!
Lend, for her sake, to winter’s frosty sky,
A genial influence, till the prisoned bird
Of health shall flatter fearlessly beyond
The narrow bars of sickness, and with life
Sparkling and clear, as diamond newly set,
The graceful stranger safely may return
Unto the fitting casket of her home!
* * * * *
WAS SHE A COQUETTE?
BY MRS. LYDIA JANE PIERSON.
LETTERS FROM MISS LUCY LEE TO MRS. KATE KING.
_Cincinnati, Ohio, June 4._
Dear Kate,—Here we are, all safe and sound. Mother has arranged her
furniture, and set her new house in order. Father has entered on the
duties of his office, and I am fast forming a circle of elegant
acquaintances. I fancy we shall be very happy in this fine city. Father
and mother seem delighted with every thing; and as I brought my whole
heart with me, I shall have no cause for home-sickness. Some very wise
people have said that I am destitute of a heart, but I do not put any
faith in such sayings; and yet a heart is no very desirable possession,
if one may be allowed to judge from what one sees of its
demonstrations—it invariably makes a woman a fool, and a man
ridiculous. For instance, there is Harry Brown, who was moping, and
sighing, and rhyming, on my account, during the last six months of my
stay in our dear native city—did he not make himself supremely
ridiculous? I could laugh at his folly, but for a feeling of contempt,
that turns mirth to bitterness. I received yesterday a dolorous letter
from aunt Alice, accusing me of having broken his heart, and rendered
him miserable for life, and all that. But, dear Kate, I don’t believe in
broken-hearts. There was Fred Gay, who used to “worship” me, when I was
a baby of fourteen. I do not know why it was, but I felt an insuperable
aversion to him. I was miserable in his company, and my very hand shrunk
instinctively from his touch; yet as he visited at our house, common
politeness obliged me to treat him civilly, which was all the
encouragement I ever gave him. At length he found opportunity to
propose. I, of course, rejected him at once; but he was resolved not to
take no for his answer, he pleaded, and promised, and lamented, and
wept, and said he was undone forever, and took the most solemn oath that
he would never, _never_ marry any other woman living. Well, I did pity
him very much, but I could not say him yes; yet I wept myself sick on
his account, and was verily afraid that I had done wrong. So I made a
confidant of my dear mother, and she said to me, you have done right,
Lucy; never marry a man whom you do not love. Still I was troubled, and
felt that if he was, indeed, undone, I should never know happiness.
Well, what followed? Why, in less than a year, he married that old,
ugly, ill-natured, Ann Bear; and I had the consolation of knowing that
such a woman had consoled him for my loss. Next came Charles Grant. I
did like Charley; but after a while I heard that he said he would win me
if possible, but if he could not get me, there was one he could have.
So, on inquiry, I found that he had been paying very particular
attentions to Miss May for a long time, and that they were said to be
engaged. I told him what I had heard. He denied any affection for her,
said he had given no occasion for such reports, either to her or others,
and protested all manner of fine things to me. However, I did not credit
his avowals, and dismissed him; and, lo! in three weeks he became the
husband of Miss May. This affair also gave me much pain. Then there was
Robert Austin; I did think that he would win me. I had a real regard for
him, but one evening as we sat together, he playfully bade me kiss him.
I refused. He insisted earnestly that I should do it. I told him
seriously that I would never kiss any man except my husband. Instead of
respecting this resolve, he became the more importunate. I still
refused, and at length he told me, in a pet, that such stubbornness was
a lovely sample of my disposition. I was hurt and offended—and so we
parted. He huffed a long time; and when he thought that he had punished
me sufficiently, he came and asked me, in the most smiling and
affectionate manner, if I would not give him a right to that exclusive
kiss. But I had seen too much of his tyrannical nature to put my neck
into his yoke; so I was forced to endure his lamentations and
reproaches. By this time I was branded _a coquette_. Now, Kate, was not
that unjust? Should I have married Fred, disliking him as I did? If I
had been as weak as many such young girls are, and sacrificed myself out
of pity to him, should we not both have been inevitably miserable? And
what would have shielded my heart in after years from that sympathy with
a congenial mind, which, under such circumstances, might have led to
guilt and ruin? When I permitted the attentions of Charles Grant, I did
not know that I was allowing him to wrong one to whom his faith was
plighted, if not by word, by the stronger language of actions. Yet if I
had become his wife, the voice of the world would have laid the blame on
me, and Ellen May would have cursed me as a traitor. I did sincerely
purpose to become Mrs. Robert Austin, but he gave me a specimen of his
temper too soon for his own peace; for it does seem that he is still
unhappy. As for Harry, though the censors say I coqueted with him, I
declare I am innocent. I never gave him any encouragement, unless it be
so to treat a visiter at your father’s house with decent civility. What
can a young lady do? Must she say to every gentleman that calls on her,
don’t presume to fall in love with me, for I do not know as I shall like
you on further acquaintance? The world is a fool on the subject of
coquetry. I am sick to death of all the ridiculous cant, and
milk-and-water stories about coquettes. After all, what does it amount
to? Simply that a young lady is attractive, and much admired; that she
has sense enough to discriminate between good and evil, and firmness of
character sufficient to enable her to reject those whom she cannot love,
however worthy; and those she can love when they prove themselves
unworthy. If a young lady is so destitute of all attractions, as to have
no expectation of ever finding a lover, she may possibly fall into the
arms of the first man who professes to love her, with a yes, and thank
you, too; and she is a woman with a heart, and no _coquette_. Now don’t
get angry, though you did accept the first offer, that first offer was
every way worthy of acceptance—and your heart felt it to be so. If such
had been my fortune, I should not have been a coquette either. Aunt
Alice exhorts me not to resume my old business of breaking hearts here
in my new location. We shall see. I certainly will not hunt, or trap, or
angle for them, neither will I immure myself like a Turkish maiden, nor
put on repulsive airs to frighten them; nor will I promise to accept the
first or second offer that I may receive. I have grown too old a bird to
be decoyed by chaff. I shall not marry lightly, for I do not think that
a single life is so much to be dreaded. On the contrary, I must receive
an equivalent for the careless freedom of girlhood, and the friends from
whom I must be severed, as well as a balance for the inevitable sorrows,
and fears, and pains, and humiliations of woman’s lot. Now I am free, my
own mistress, and many are happy to do me homage. If I become a wife, I
accept a master, whom it must be my study to please. I must not only
defer to all his opinions and wishes, but I must make this deference my
pleasure; and for the _homage_ of the scores who now kneel at my feet, I
must be content to receive the commendation of “well done, good and
faithful servant.” Knowing all this, my husband, if I have one, must be
one whom I can love and honor. Now if I am pleased with a gentleman’s
exterior, I shall not attribute to him all mental excellence, and so
take him on trust, but shall endeavor to become thoroughly acquainted
with him. If this acquaintance shall develop qualities which I cannot
approve of, I shall certainly dismiss him; and if this is coquetry why I
am a _determined_ coquette. I am not seeking perfection, but I will have
truth, honor, a good temper, and real love. When these offer, I shall be
found weak, and like another man (woman.) I know, dear Kate, that you
will laugh at all this, and shake your wise head, with your old
remark—a woman’s love makes any man perfect. But now I must say
good-by, and write myself
Your loving,
Lucy Lee.
* * * * *
_Cincinnati, Sept. 9._
Kate, Dear Kate!—I almost begin to think that I really have no heart.
Here is a gentleman who, to all that I require in a husband, adds a very
handsome and commanding person, a high and acknowledged genius, and a
large fortune; and yet, Kate, I do not love him. He attached himself to
me, on our very first acquaintance, and still continues his assiduities.
My father is anxious to call him son, and all my friends urge me to
accept him. I have received several magnificent presents from him. I
could not reject them without rejecting him; and, indeed, I would like
to be his wife, if I could but love him. Aunt Alice says I am a fool;
that not one woman in a hundred loves her husband before marriage. Ah,
Kate, if it is so, no wonder there is so much domestic misery and
conjugal infidelity in the world. I do not understand how woman can
endure her lot, unsupported by love; and, certainly, it is not wonderful
that man should seek elsewhere the sunshine of affectionate sympathy,
which is not his at home. Kate, I am half inclined to become Mrs.
Melwin, but when I think seriously about it, my very heart shudders. Oh,
Kate! there is a yearning for something which I have not found, a
sympathy that could draw me into its very heart, with all my feelings
and failings undisguised, and fearless of reproach. To stand at the
altar, _fearing_ that he to whom you pledge your vows will discover the
perjury of your heart—for is it not perjury to promise to love one whom
you feel you cannot love? And yet, perhaps, my notions of love are all
romance, never to be realized. Perhaps I love Mr. Melwin as well as I
can ever love any man. Perhaps I had best accept his hand. Ah, me! what
shall I do? I wish I could know myself. With him I certainly should have
no cause of sorrow which did not spring from my own bosom. I am almost
resolved to accept him. Do advise me, my dear, wise Kate, and save me
from all these distracting doubts, and the fears of self-reproach, that
now torment almost to distraction.
Your poor, wavering,
Lucy Lee.
* * * * *
_Cincinnati, Jan. —._
Kate! Kate!—I have a heart, a warm, confiding, loving heart! Strange
that it has slept so long. But it is awake now. I have met one at whose
feet I am willing to lay down the sceptre of my pride, for whose love I
am ready to forego all my girlhood’s treasures. He loves me, and I shall
be his wife. Ah! dear Kate, if you could know how I am tormented now,
when my heart is so happy. Father calls me a fool, an unaccountable
simpleton; mother sighs whenever her eyes rest on me, and she calls me a
perverse child. My friends ridicule me; and Mr. Melwin—oh, Kate! I wish
he had never seen me—I believe he takes a malicious pleasure in
upbraiding me whenever he can find opportunity. I tell him honestly that
I could not be his, because I could not love him. Then he asks why I
coqueted with him? Coqueted! Now is not that provoking. I endured his
attentions, because he was every way an excellent man, and I thought
that if I could learn to love him, I should be most happy as his wife.
How did I know that I could never love him until I tested my feeling by
being much in his society? It does seem that the world is resolved to
take from woman her only prerogative—that of _choosing_ whom she will
serve. Kate, love! am I not right? Since woman, on her wedding-day,
loses her identity, and is thenceforth merged—name, honor, fame,
fortune, every thing in him to whom she plights herself—does it not
become her to be cautious to whom she thus resigns herself. Since our
only freedom is this privilege of choosing a husband, should we not be
suffered to exercise it? And yet if we reject one, two, or three
suitors, we are heartless, and coquettes. If there were more such
coquettes in the world, there would be infinitely less misery. I am of
Aunt Alice’s opinion, that most girls marry before they know any thing
of love. You will see a vain child, just from boarding-school, tricked
out in all the pride of fashion, and introduced to the _world_ at some
splendid ball or party. Of course, she is flattered, and admired, and
complimented—she has made a splendid _début_. Presently some gentleman
pays her marked attentions. She is flattered by his preference. She has
imbibed the prevalent opinion that the end of all woman’s duties and
aspirations is an eligible marriage. Her admirer is an unexceptionable
man. She will accept him; and then, oh, how she will queen it as a
bride, at the head of a splendid establishment. Her friends encourage
her, applaud her choice, and she is married. Afterward, her husband
discovers with astonishment, that in place of a meek, loving woman, he
has got a selfish, arrogant, proud, and petulant child to manage as he
best may. But then she never was a coquette! But to return. When I asked
Mr. Melwin if he could desire me to give him my hand without love, he
invariably replies, if you could not love me, why did you not tell me
so, before I had centered in you all my hopes, and braided you in every
strand of my future life! Dear me! how could I tell him before I knew it
myself? I did wish to love him, and try to love him; and if I had been a
silly child of fifteen, should doubtless have laid the foundation of our
future misery by becoming his—shall I say wife? But, you will ask, who
and what is the man of my choice? He is Horace Glynn, a young lawyer,
scarcely older than myself, and, of course, unknown to fame or worldly
honor. I will not say that he is handsome, and he is not rich; but he
has genius, a lofty sense of honor, and unblemished character, and a
heart full of all the sweet and gentle sympathies. More than all, he
loves me, just as I always longed to be beloved. I feel that my pulse
can echo his; that all my feelings and opinions blend and flow in the
current of his. In short, that I am ready to resign my own will, and
yield him a cheerful deference, and forsaking all that my young heart
has known, or loved, follow him, and minister to him until death. I am
so thankful that I did not marry until I felt this sweet devotion. The
world will say—“Well, Lucy Lee, like all other incorrigible coquettes,
has, after rejecting half a dozen excellent offers, thrown herself away
upon a poor young fellow, infinitely beneath her other suitors.” But I
shall be blest with a whole heart happiness, and home will be my world.
Oh, Kate! am I not happy!
Lucy Lee.
* * * * *
JENNY LOW.
BY C. M. JOHNSON.
When first I pressed thy cheek, love,
’Twas in the month of May,
You chidingly rebuked me,
Yet bid me longer stay—
And gave me back my kiss, love,
Before I went away.
And when I met thee last, love,
Beneath the trysting-tree,
Before I went away, love,
Beyond the roaring sea,
That dewy kiss at parting
Was a priceless gem to me.
They wrote me of thy death, love,
How could it ever be!
And that those lips in dying
Were whispering for me—
The very lips that I had pressed
Beneath the trysting-tree.
O! all the wealth I’ve hoarded
I’d freely give away,
Could I that day live o’er again,
In the pleasant month of May;
And could I but renew that kiss
I’d give my life away.
* * * * *
AN INDIAN LEGEND.
The Indian race is rapidly becoming extinct; even now some tribes that
once numbered their thousand warriors no longer exist, and those that
still have a name are degraded and debased both in mind and body, and
are fast vanishing away, “like snow-wreaths in a thaw.” Not three
centuries have elapsed since the white man landed on our shores, and
begged as a gift, or bought for a trifle, from the rightful owners of
the soil, a small tract of land; and _now_ he owns it all, and noble
cities and thriving villages stand on the loved hunting-grounds and
burial-places of the red man. In a few years more the race will have
passed away, and the place that once knew them will know them no more
forever.
Yet we shall never forget them, for our country is full of monuments to
their memory; we have Indian names for our towns, villages and
rivers—and there are Indian legends attached to almost every high hill,
every dark, dismal cave, or bold, bare rock. These legends are always
thrilling, and often painfully so, for they show vividly the strongly
marked characteristics of the Indian race, their endurance and contempt
of hardship, their stoical indifference to suffering and death, their
lasting remembrance of kindness received, and, above all, their deadly
revenge of injuries.
In the present county of La Salle, and state of Illinois, there is a
rock some forty or fifty feet high, standing out boldly from the bank of
the Illinois river. The summit is level, perfectly destitute of
vegetation, and is attained only by a narrow and difficult foot-path. In
that prairie land, the rock is very notable, as being the only elevation
for miles around; its bold, jagged and nearly perpendicular lines on the
river-side seem to swell its height and increase its frightfulness,
while the dull gray color of the rock itself, and its scathed
appearance, contrast strangely with the “smoothness and sheen” of the
river and the verdant prairie.
That rock was, in days long gone by, the scene of an Indian tribe’s
extinction, and is called in reference to the event, the “Starved Rock;”
and the white settlers of that region believe and tell the legend as it
has been gathered from Indian tradition.
In the vicinity of “Starved Rock”—so the legend runs—there once lived
two small tribes of Indians, the Coriaks and Pinxies. They were friendly
toward each other, and often leagued together for mutual defence, or to
destroy some common foe. On the return of the warriors of both tribes
from an expedition in which they had proved victorious, and had taken an
unusual number of prisoners, a feast was given by the Coriaks, to
celebrate the event; and the braves of each tribe met to dance about
their victims, to throw with unerring aim their sharp-pointed arrows
into their defenceless bodies, and to drown the death-song of expiring
foes in unearthly shouts and loud boasts of their own bloody deeds. At
this feast Canabo, one of the Pinxie braves, saw and loved the beautiful
Anacaona, who was to be the wife of Wyamoke, a chief of her own (the
Coriak) tribe, as soon as he had with his own hand obtained deer-skins
enough to furnish his wigwam, and a sufficient number of scalps to
ornament his girdle.
Anacaona, or the “Golden Flower,” as her name signified, was tall,
graceful and dignified—her dark, brilliant eyes were shaded by drooping
lids and long silken lashes—her long, black, glossy hair fell over her
smooth neck and shoulders; indeed the stream that flowed past her wigwam
door never reflected from its bright bosom so lovely an object as it did
when the “Golden Flower” looked in its depths and dressed her hair.
Canabo joined in the feast, the wild song and the dance, but he thought
only of the beautiful Anacaona; his keen eye soon detected the love
glances that passed between her and Wyamoke—he saw the color deepen in
her cheek when that brave approached—he saw that her eye flashed and
her head was thrown back with pride when he sang of the victims he had
slain, and the captives he had made; and there sprung up in his heart,
and grew side by side, the deadly night-shade of hate and the sweet
flower of love—hate, never ending hate, of his rival; and love, deep
and wild, for the Indian girl.
Canabo felt that it would be in vain to try and win away her love with
daring deeds or soft winning words, for Wyamoke was bold and brave as
himself, and his voice was gentle and sweet as the sighing wind when he
spoke to Anacaona, and called her his wild rose-bud, or his gentle fawn.
The feast was ended, and Canabo, who with true Indian cunning had
refrained from the mention or exhibition of his love or his hate,
returned with his tribe to their own camp.
It was the close of a beautiful summer day when Anacaona left her lodge,
and with stealthy steps took her way through the tangled wood; now and
then she paused in a listening altitude, as if she expected to hear some
other sound than the humming of the insects or the singing of the birds.
At last a slight sound reached her ear—it was as if a withered branch
broke beneath the tread of a foot. Her own loved Wyamoke had been absent
three days—he was to return that night. Anacaona was sure it was her
lover’s step, and with a wild silvery laugh that rung through the
forest, and which the echoes caught up and repeated, she bounded forth
to meet him. It was indeed a step she heard, and soon, alas! too soon,
she was clasped, not in the arms of Wyamoke, but in those of the wily
Canabo. Instantly he placed one hand over her mouth to stifle her cries,
and raised her lightly in his arms, and picking his way carefully,
stepping only on things that revealed no foot-print, till he gained the
bank of the river, he removed the blanket from the now insensible girl,
and threw it into the stream, and then stepping into the water himself,
commenced walking rapidly but cautiously up the river. The next morning
Anacaona’s blanket was found, but there were no traces of her, and her
lover and tribe mourned her as dead. Canabo reached his own camp late at
night—no one saw him come in—no one knew aught about the girl he had
brought with him save his brother, whom he had trusted with his secret.
He placed Anacaona in his lodge, and though he would not force her to be
his wife, he kept her alone day after day, in hopes she would weary of
her solitude and consent. At length the autumn hunting season came on,
and Canabo, as chief of his tribe, was obliged to accompany them to the
hunt; and after giving his brother strict charge to guard the young girl
with his life, he departed.
All was quiet and still in that Indian camp—the smoke curled gracefully
but slowly up from the almost extinguished fires of those who remained
to guard the village of the Pinxies; some few children were playing
about, and one or two old squaws were weaving baskets beside their huts,
but there was only one man visible, and he might easily have been
mistaken for a statue, so motionless did he lie stretched out before the
door of one of the principal lodges of the camp. The clear note of a
whippowil sounded through the wood, and the Indian moved—again it
sounded, and he half rose from his recumbent posture; it sounded nearer
and clearer and the young Indian sprung to his feet, just as the
laughing face of a girl peered out from the side of the lodge. She was
slight and childlike in her form, and her hair, which was fastened back
with a wreath of bright red flowers, fell almost to her feet; she held
her bow and arrows in one hand, and in the other a dead bird. She called
him in a sweet, musical voice to come and see the bird, but he pointed
to the door of the lodge before which he stood, and shook his head.
Nainee was vexed, and turning her back to him, she began to shoot her
arrows at every thing she saw, and finally tossing her little head, and
throwing back her hair, she moved away; but curiosity conquered pride,
and just as her lover began to wish he had detained her, she returned,
and taking a flower from her hair, pressed it to her lips and threw it
on the ground before her lover. He moved from his post to get the
flower, and as he bent down, Nainee placing her hand on his shoulder,
bounded by him, and ere the astonished Indian could prevent her, she had
lifted the skin that served for a door, and passed into the lodge. A low
laugh escaped from the Indian; he knew that Nainee could be trusted;
that the secret was still safe—and he was pleased with her daring and
cunning; she could hit a bird on the wing—she could outrun the deer,
and now she had cunningly foiled him. “Yes, Nainee was indeed worthy of
a brave Indian’s love.”
Anacaona was reclining on a pile of furs, her face buried in her hands,
and so engrossed in her own sad thoughts that she was unconscious of the
entrance of the visiter, until Nainee uttered an exclamation of
surprise. She looked up—the sight of her beautiful face filled Nainee
with jealousy, and her eyes flashed with unnatural brilliancy; but
Anacaona sprung up eagerly, and leading her to the place she had
vacated, compelled her to be seated. Then she told her who she was, and
the story of her capture, and begged her in soft, plaintive tones to aid
her, and restore her to her lover and her tribe. All jealousy vanished
from Nainee’s heart, as she listened, and throwing her arms about
Anacaona’s neck, when she had ended the story, she promised to help her,
and kindly kissing her hand, drew aside the deer-skin door and in a
moment stood without at the Indian’s side. But he seemed not to heed her
presence, and she threw herself down beside him, and taking some long
grass in her hand, she commenced braiding it together, while the words
of an impromptu song burst from her lips. She sang of Anacaona’s
desolate home—of her broken-hearted mother and brave lover who mourned
her loss—of the lone captive girl who longed to look once more on the
greenwood, and whose proud spirit pined to be free. Nainee paused a
moment to note the effect, and then commenced a low recitation of the
former noble bearing and brave deeds of Canabo: He had been called
“magnanimous,” and his name was the “Eagle,” but, alas! he had wronged
his friend, disgraced his tribe, and had, like the hawk, stolen a dove
from its nest; then, turning suddenly to the young Indian, Nainee
raising her voice said,
“You will save Canabo—send the girl away—bid her swear by the Great
Spirit never to tell where she has been, and let her go to her own
people. Canabo will soon forget her, and you will have kept your brother
from dishonor.”
But the Indian was true, and would not betray his trust.
The shadows of evening gathered thick about that Indian camp, and the
rippling of the river, and the occasional bark of some watchful dog,
were all the sounds that were heard, as Nainee took her way to
Anacaona’s lodge. Soon the two beautiful girls, followed by the young
Indian, were walking side by side along the banks of the Illinois, the
moon and the bright stars lighting their way. Anacaona knew that the
same stream flowed past her own loved home, and she broke off a branch
from one of the trees near by, and throwing it upon the water, bade it
take her farewell to her lover. It was late ere they returned. Nainee
had brought some bark and paints—these she gave to Anacaona to amuse
herself with, and promising to come again the next evening, she took her
leave. All the next day Anacaona busily employed herself in making a
small bark canoe, on the bottom of which she painted a rude picture of
herself, with her hands bound, in token of her captivity; and on the
side there was an eagle’s feather, the badge of Canabo’s tribe. At night
she went forth again to walk, and under her blanket was hid the little
canoe. She watched the moon, and when a cloud shut out its light, she
bent down to the river, as if to bathe her face, and slid her canoe into
the stream; her heart beat almost audibly—she feared the Indian might
see and get it, and then, she knew, her only hope of escape would be
blighted; but he did not notice it, and soon it was carried so far down
by the current that in the pale moonlight it could not be seen.
On their return, Nainee entered the lodge, and told Anacaona that she
would come the next night and engage the Indian’s attention, and while
thus engaged, Anacaona could push aside a log of the lodge that was
loose, and escape—“The heart of the Golden Flower is strong,” said
Nainee, “and to her the night and the lone woods have no terrors; her
heart, too, is true and kind, and she will not seek revenge, or cause
harm to fall on Nainee’s tribe.”
Anacaona pressed the girl to her bosom, and vowed for her sake to
remember only the kindness and forget the wrong. Love, deep and pure,
for each other had sprung up in their hearts, and they grieved that they
were to part—but they were Indian girls, and no tears were shed, no
words wasted; the deep waters of the heart were troubled, but the
surface was calm and unruffled, and seemingly unmoved they parted
forever.
The next night Anacaona made her escape, and for hours she fled,
following the banks of the river. As morning began to dawn, the weary
girl threw herself down on the grass, and fell asleep. She knew not how
long she slept, but when she awoke, it was with a cry of terror, for the
wild whoops of the Indians were ringing in her ears, and she knew that
the tribe of her captor were on her track. She listened a moment, but
there were no friendly sounds mingling with the savage yell. She looked
around, but there was no aid, no refuge near—and on she fled. A huge
rock was before her; she saw at a glance that the ascent was difficult,
but nothing daunted the fearless girl, and up its steep and rugged side
she pushed. The horrid yells of the savages fell more and more
distinctly on her ear, and when she reached the summit of the rock, they
were close behind. There was no escape, and Anacaona stretching out her
arms to heaven, uttered a shriek of despair, and leaped off into the
foaming river beneath. Alas! for the unfortunate Anacaona! Had she
delayed one moment, she would have heard her father’s and her lover’s
loud cry. Her little canoe had fulfilled its mission, and the wild wood
was full of armed braves thronging to deliver or avenge her. Wyamoke and
his tribe from afar had seen Anacaona’s fatal leap, and all the fierce
passions of their nature were stirred within them. Canabo and his
warriors were between them and the rock, and were driven up on to it
with terrible slaughter. The Coriaks posted themselves at its base in
force, and for days and days besieged their foes. Every sortie was
successfully opposed, and individual attempts at escape foiled. Cooped
up on that rock, starvation stared the Pinxies in the face—despair
reigned among them; some of the warriors, resolving both to end their
lives and take revenge, rushed down the rock—notwithstanding their
efforts they were slain; others sang their death-song, and threw
themselves off into the river and perished; others, with Indian
calmness, laid themselves down to die of starvation.
On the evening of the fourth day, a young Indian girl came to Wyamoke.
She told him she had been kind to Anacaona, and assisted her to escape,
and in return she only asked to join her lover on the rock. Way was made
for her to pass, and Nainee wound her way up the difficult path, amid
the dead and dying of her tribe. Her young lover saw her coming, and met
her. They looked over the sad scene and talked mournfully together, she
leading him toward the edge of the rock; the brave hesitated a
moment—then clasping her in his arms, leaped off into the stream; and
the two beautiful Indian girls, Nainee and Anacaona, slept beneath the
same bright waters.
Days passed away, and one by one Canabo’s tribe, parched by thirst,
wasted by famine, or self-destroyed passed into the spirit-land, till
none were left but one old man. He, the last of his tribe, as the
Coriaks crowded up the rock to finish their work of revenge, raised his
shout of boasting and defiance, and died. No remnant of the tribe was
left, even their name is lost, except in the terrible tradition that
commemorates their extinction at Starved Rock.
M.
* * * * *
LINES FOR MUSIC.
In golden dreams my night goes by,
And sweet the life of sleep to me;
For, moon-like ’mid the starry sky,
My brightest dream is still of thee.
And as the moonlight stirs the deeps
Of ocean with her gentle sway,
So to thy glance my spirit leaps,
And thrills beneath the trembling ray.
G. G. F.
* * * * *
THE LAY OF THE WIND.
BY LILIAS.
I rove at my pleasure, all gayly and free,
O’er the wide spreading land and the loud roaring sea,
I’m at home ’mid the bright sunny bowers of the South,
And at home on the wild frozen wastes of the North;
While I whisper sweet things to the flowers in their bloom,
And breathe a sad strain round the aisle and the tomb.
When Winter all sternly comes forth from his cave,
To still the glad streamlet and fetter the wave,
I howl, as the tempest sweeps by in its wrath,
Or scatter the snow from the icy king’s path,
And chant, in the midnight all lonely and still,
A dirge for the fallen, by valley and hill.
And Spring, lovely maiden! Oh what would _she_ be
Without her mild breezes on land and on sea?
And what would awaken the sweet-scented flowers
To burst in their beauty in lone forest bowers?
Did _I_ not bend o’er them and joyfully sing—
“A loved one is coming, the maiden is Spring.”
Gay Summer, bright Summer, all joyous and fair,
Gives life to the desert, perfume to the air,
But the rays of her sun are too scorching and bright,
The lovely flowers languish and droop ere the night:
Then stealing at twilight from out my lone cave,
I wander along o’er the cool starry wave,
To fan Flora’s gems with my magical wing,
And low, while the dew-drops are falling, to sing.
Then hie me away to a child in its dreams,
And whisper of fountains and cool running streams.
When Autumn steals on, clad in purple and gold,
The mountains and woods in his robe to enfold,
And flowers, as they gaze on the dull, paling sky,
Grow weary of life and so bow them to die;
When forest-leaves gently are falling to earth,
And gay singing waters forgetting their mirth,
O’er vale and o’er upland I breathe a sad lay,
For the fair and the lovely all passing away.
My hours are ne’er stolen by sorrow or sleep,
When weary of forests I fly to the deep;
My course is _to-day_ amid sunshine and bloom,
_To-morrow_, it may be with tempests and gloom;
But though I ne’er linger, I’m joyous and free,
If sighing ’mid blossoms, or sweeping the sea,
For my way is right on through the long-coming years,
And I turn not aside for your hopes or your fears.
* * * * *
ECHO.
BY JOHN S. MOORE.
Sweet Echo, dweller in cavernous mountains,
Amid dark forests by abounding fountains,
Much loved that self-adoring boy,
The fair son of Cephisus,
And chased his footsteps with consuming joy,
Crying aloud “Narcissus!”
But vain were all her cries and all her wooing;
The youth replied not to the nymph pursuing,
But fled from her desiring gaze,
Filling her heart with anguish;
Then, like a flower scorched by the sun’s hot rays,
Echo began to languish.
Afar, in deepest solitudes reclining,
She hid her from the woodland maids, repining,
Wasting the day with idle plaint—
With unavailing sorrow,
And every day her beauty grew more faint,
More pale by every morrow.
At last, out-worn by grief and passion violent,
Sweet Echo died within her grottoes silent,
Leaving her story unto fame.—
Her voice will never perish;
The prattling rocks still rattle with her name,
The hills her memory cherish.
* * * * *
SONNET TO ——.
WRITTEN AFTER A MIDNIGHT WALK.
BY R. H. BACON.
An arrow tipped with solar fire should write
Upon the tablet of a cloudless sky
Its burning characters, so that the bright
And glowing fancies of my soul could lie
Faintly portrayed before thee, were the high,
Unwonted thoughts that thrill my wondering heart
Fitly expressed. Alas! I have no art
To body forth emotion; nor to lay
Upon the edge of words a fringe of fire:
Day turns to night, and night gives place to day.
While I am baffled in my vain desire!
Yet, haunted by the memory of the moon
And mystic stars that walk night’s gentle noon,
I string again my long-neglected lyre.
* * * * *
THE ISLETS OF THE GULF;
OR, ROSE BUDD.
Ay, now I am in Arden; the more fool
I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but
Travelers must be content. As You Like It.
=BY THE AUTHOR OF “PILOT,” “RED ROVER,” “TWO ADMIRALS,” “WING-AND-WING,”
“MILES WALLINGFORD,” ETC.=
[Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by
J. Fenimore Cooper, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court
of the United States, for the Northern District of New York.]
(_Continued from page 145._)
PART XII.
But no—he surely is not dreaming.
Another minute makes it clear,
A scream, a rush, a burning tear,
From Inez’ cheek, dispel the fear
That bliss like his is only seeming.
Washington Alston.
A moment of appalled surprise succeeded the instant when Harry and Rose
first ascertained the real character of the vessel that had entered the
haven of the Dry Tortugas. Then the first turned toward Jack Tier and
sternly demanded an explanation of his apparent faithlessness.
“Rascal,” he cried, “has this treachery been intended? Did you not see
the brig and know her?”
“Hush, Harry—_dear_ Harry,” exclaimed Rose, entreatingly. “My life for
it, Jack has _not_ been faithless.”
“Why, then, has he not let us know that the brig was coming? For more
than an hour has he been aloft, on the look-out, and here are we taken
quite by surprise. Rely on it, Rose, he has seen the approach of the
brig, and might have sooner put us on our guard.”
“Ay, ay, lay it on, maty,” said Jack, coolly, neither angry nor
mortified, so far as appearances went, at these expressions of
dissatisfaction; “my back is used to it. If I didn’t know what it is to
get hard raps on the knuckles, I should be but a young steward. But, as
for this business, a little reflection will tell you I am not to blame.”
“Give us your own explanations, for without them I shall trust you no
longer.”
“Well, sir, what good would it have done, _had_ I told you the brig was
standing for this place? There she came down, like a race-horse, and
escape for you was impossible. As the wind is now blowin’ the Molly
would go two feet to the boat’s one, and a chase would have been
madness.”
“I don’t know that, sirrah,” answered the mate. “The boat might have got
into the smaller passages of the reef, where the brig could not enter,
or she might have dodged about among these islets, until it was night,
and then escaped in the darkness.”
“I thought of all that, Mr. Mulford, but it came too late. When I first
went aloft, I came out on the north-west side of the lantern, and took
my seat, to look out for the sloop-of-war, as you bade me, sir. Well,
there I was sweeping the horizon with the glass for the better part of
an hour, sometimes fancyin’ I saw her, and then givin’ it up; for to
this moment I am not sartain there isn’t a sail off here to the
westward, turning up toward the light on a bowline; but if there be,
she’s too far off to know any thing partic’lar about her. Well, sir,
there I sat, looking out for the Poughkeepsie, for the better part of an
hour, when I thought I would go round on t’other side of the lantern and
take a look to windward. My heart was in my mouth, I can tell you, Miss
Rose, when I saw the brig; and I felt both glad and sorry. Glad on my
own account, and sorry on your’n. There she was, however, and no help
for it, within two miles of this very spot, and coming down as if she
despised touching the water at all. Now, what could I do? There wasn’t
time, Mr. Mulford, to get the boat out, and the mast stepped, afore we
should have been within reach of canister, and Stephen Spike would not
have spared _that_, in order to get you again within his power.”
“Depend on it, Harry, this is all true,” said Rose, earnestly. “I know
Jack well, and can answer for his fidelity. He wishes to, and if he can
he _will_ return to the brig, whither he thinks his duty calls him, but
he will never willingly betray _us_—least of all _me_. Do I speak as I
ought, Jack?”
“Gospel truth, Miss Rose, and Mr. Mulford will get over this squall, as
soon as he comes to think of matters as he ought. There’s my hand, maty,
to show I bear no malice.”
“I take it, Jack, for I must believe you honest, after all you have done
for us. Excuse my warmth, which, if a little unreasonable, was somewhat
natural under the circumstances. I suppose our case is now hopeless, and
that we shall all be soon on board the brig again; for Spike will hardly
think of abandoning me again on an island provisioned and fitted as is
this!”
“It’s not so sartain, sir, that you fall into his hands at all,” put in
Jack. “The men of the brig will never come here of their own accord,
depend on that, for sailors do not like graves. Spike has come in here
a’ter the schooner’s chain, that he dropped into the water when he made
sail from the sloop-of-war, at the time he was here afore, and is not
expecting to find us here. No—no—he thinks we are beating up toward
Key West at this very minute, if, indeed, he has missed us at all. ’Tis
possible he believes the boat has got adrift by accident, and has no
thought of our being out of the brig.”
“That is impossible, Jack. Do you suppose he is ignorant that Rose is
missing?”
“Sartain of it, maty, if Mrs. Budd has read the letter well that Miss
Rose left for her, and Biddy has obeyed orders. If they’ve followed
instructions, Miss Rose is thought to be in her state-room, mourning for
a young man who was abandoned on a naked rock, and Jack Tier, havin’ eat
something that has disagreed with him, is in his berth. Recollect, Spike
will not be apt to look into Miss Rose’s state-room or my berth, to see
if all this is true. The cook and Josh are both in my secret, and know I
mean to come back, and when the fit is over I have only to return to
duty, like any other hand. It is my calculation that Spike believes both
Miss Rose and myself on board the Molly at this very moment.”
“And the boat; what can he suppose has become of the boat?”
“Sartainly, the boat makes the only chance ag’in us. But the boat was
riding by its painter astern, and accidents sometimes happen to such
craft. Then we two are the wery last he will suspect of having made off
in the boat by ourselves. There’ll be Mrs. Budd and Biddy as a sort of
pledge that Miss Rose is aboard, and as for Jack Tier, he is too
insignificant to occupy the captain’s thoughts just now. He will
probably muster the people for’ard, when he finds the boat is gone, but
I do not think he’ll trouble the cabins or state-rooms.”
Mulford admitted that this was _possible_, though it scarcely seemed
probable to him. There was no help, however, for the actual state of
things, and they all now turned their attention to the brig, and to the
movements of those on board her. Jack Tier had swung to the outer door
of the house, as soon as the Swash came in view through it, and
fortunately none of the windows on that side of the building had been
opened at all. The air entered to windward, which was on the rear of the
dwelling, so that it was possible to be comfortable and yet leave the
front, in view from the vessel, with its deserted air. As for the brig,
she had already anchored and got both her boats into the water. The yawl
was hauled alongside, in readiness for any service that might be
required of it, while the launch had been manned at once, and was
already weighing the anchor, and securing the chain, to which Tier had
alluded. All this served very much, to lessen the uneasiness of Mulford
and Rose, as it went far to prove that Spike had not come to the Dry
Tortugas in quest of them, as, at first, both had very naturally
supposed. It might, indeed, turn out that his sole object was to obtain
this anchor and chain, with a view to use them in raising the ill-fated
vessel that had now twice gone to the bottom.
“I wish an explanation with you, Jack, on one other point,” said the
mate, after all three had been for some time observing the movements on
board and around the Swash. “Do you actually intend to get on board the
brig?”
“If it’s to be done, maty. My v’y’ge is up with you and Miss Rose. I may
be said to have shipped for Key West and a market, and the market is
found at this port.”
“You will hardly leave us _yet_, Jack,” said Rose, with a manner and
emphasis that did not fail to strike her betrothed lover, though he
could in no way account for either. That Rose should not wish to be left
alone with him in that solitary place was natural enough; or, might
rather be referred to education and the peculiar notions of her sex; but
he could not understand why so much importance should be attached to the
presence of a being of Jack Tier’s mould and character. It was true,
that there was little choice, under present circumstances, but it
occurred to Mulford that Rose had manifested the same strange
predilection when there might have been something nearer to a selection.
The moment, however, was not one for much reflection on the subject.
“You will hardly leave us yet, Jack?” said Rose, in the manner related.
“It’s now or never, Miss Rose. If the brig once gets away from this
anchorage without me, I may never lay eyes on her ag’in. Her time is
nearly up, for wood and iron wont hold together always, any more than
flesh and blood. Consider how many years I have been busy in hunting her
up, and how hard ’twill be to lose that which has given me so many weary
days and sleepless nights to find.”
Rose said no more. If not convinced, she was evidently silenced, while
Harry was left to wonder and surmise, as best he might. Both quitted the
subject, to watch the people of the brig. By this time the anchor had
been lifted, and the chain was heaving in on board the vessel, by means
of a line that had been got around its bight. The work went on rapidly,
and Mulford observed to Rose that he did not think it was the intention
of Spike to remain long at the Tortugas, inasmuch as his brig was riding
by a very short range of cable. This opinion was confirmed, half an hour
later, when it was seen that the launch was hooked on and hoisted in
again, as soon as the chain and anchor of the schooner were secured.
Jack Tier watched every movement with palpable uneasiness. His
apprehensions that Spike would obtain all he wanted, and be off before
he could rejoin him, increased at each instant, and he did not scruple
to announce an intention to take the boat and go alongside of the Swash
at every hazard, rather than be left.
“You do not reflect on what you say, Jack,” answered Harry; “unless,
indeed, it be your intention to betray us. How could you appear in the
boat, at this place, without letting it be known that we must be hard
by?”
“That don’t follow at all, maty,” answered Jack. “Suppose I go alongside
the brig and own to the captain that I took the boat last night, with
the hope of finding you, and that failing to succeed, I bore up for this
port, to look for provisions and water. Miss Rose he thinks on board at
this moment, and in my judgment he would take me at my word, give me a
good cursing, and think no more about it.”
“It would never do, Jack,” interposed Rose, instantly. “It would cause
the destruction of Harry, as Spike would not believe you had not found
him, without an examination of this house.”
“What are they about with the yawl, Mr. Mulford?” asked Jack, whose eye
was never off the vessel for a single moment. “It is getting to be so
dark that one can hardly see the boat, but it seems as if they are about
to man the yawl.”
“They are, and there goes a lantern into it. And that is Spike himself
coming down the brig’s side this instant.”
“They can only bring a lantern to search this house,” exclaimed Rose.
“Oh! Harry, you are lost!”
“I rather think the lantern is for the light-house,” answered Mulford,
whose coolness, at what was certainly a most trying moment, did not
desert him. “Spike may wish to keep the light burning, for once before,
you will remember, he had it kindled after the keeper was removed. As
for his sailing, he would not be apt to sail until the moon rises; and
in beating back to the wreck the light may serve to let him know the
bearings and position of the reef.”
“There they come,” whispered Rose, half breathless with alarm. “The boat
has left the brig, and is coming directly hither!”
All this was true enough. The yawl had shoved off, and with two men to
row it, was pulling for the wharf in front of the house, and among the
timbers of which lay the boat, pretty well concealed beneath a sort of
bridge. Mulford would not retreat, though he looked to the fastenings of
the door as a means of increasing his chances of defence. In the
stern-sheets of the boat sat two men, though it was not easy to
ascertain who they were by the fading light. One was known to be Spike,
however, and the other, it was conjectured, must be Don Juan
Montefalderon, from the circumstance of his being in the place of honor.
Three minutes solved this question, the boat reaching the wharf by that
time. It was instantly secured, and all four of the men left it. Spike
was now plainly to be discerned by means of the lantern which he carried
in his own hands. He gave some orders, in his customary authoritative
way, and in a high key, after which he led the way from the wharf,
walking side by side with the Señor Montefalderon. These two last came
up within a yard of the door of the house, where they paused, enabling
those within not only to see their persons and the working of their
countenances, but to hear all that was said; this last the more
especially, since Spike never thought it necessary to keep his powerful
voice within moderate limits.
“It’s hardly worth while, Don Wan, for you to go into the light-house,”
said Spike. “Tis but a greasy, dirty place at the best, and ones clothes
are never the better for dealin’ with ile. Here, Bill, take the lantern,
and get a filled can, that we may go up and trim and fill the lamp, and
make a blaze. Bear a hand, lads, and I’ll be a’ter ye afore you reach
the lantern. Be careful with the flame about the ile, for seamen ought
never to wish to see a light-house destroyed.”
“What do you expect to gain by lighting the lamps above, Don Esteban?”
demanded the Mexican, when the sailors had disappeared in the
light-house, taking their own lantern with them.
“It’s wisest to keep things reg’lar about this spot, Don Wan, which will
prevent unnecessary suspicions. But, as the brig stretches in toward the
reef to-night, on our way back, the light will be a great assistance. I
am short of officers, you know, and want all the help of this sort I can
get.”
“To be sincere with you, Don Esteban, I greatly regret you _are_ so
short of officers, and do not yet despair of inducing you to go and take
off the mate, whom I hear you have left on a barren rock. He was a fine
young fellow, Señor Spike, and the deed was not one that you will wish
to remember a few years hence.”
“The fellow run, and I took him at his word, Don Wan. I’m not obliged to
receive back a deserter unless it suits me.”
“We are all obliged to see we do not cause a fellow creature the loss of
life. This will prove the death of the charming young woman who is so
much attached to him, unless you relent and are merciful!”
“Women have tender looks but tough hearts,” answered Spike, carelessly,
though Mulford felt certain, by the tone of his voice, that great
bitterness of feeling lay smothered beneath the affected indifference of
his manner; “few die of love.”
“The young lady has not been on deck all day; and the Irish woman tells
me that she does nothing but drink water—the certain proof of a high
fever.”
“Ay, ay, she keeps her room if you will, Don Wan, but she is not about
to make a dupe of me by any such tricks. I must go and look to the
lamps, however, and you will find the graves you seek in the rear of
this house, about thirty yards behind it, you’ll remember. That’s a very
pretty cross you’ve made, señor, and the skipper of the schooner’s soul
will be all the better for your setting it up at the head of his grave.”
“It will serve to let those who come after us know that a Christian
sleeps beneath the sand, Don Esteban,” answered the Mexican, mildly. “I
have no other expectation from this sacred symbol.”
The two now separated, Spike going into the light-house, a little in a
hurry, while Don Juan Montefalderon walked round the building to its
rear in quest of the grave. Mulford waited a moment for Spike to get a
short distance up the stairs of the high tower he had to ascend, when
placing the arm of Rose within his own, he opened the door in the rear
of the house, and walked boldly toward the Mexican. Don Juan was
actually forcing the pointed end of his little cross into the sand, at
the head of his countryman’s grave, when Mulford and his trembling
companion reached the spot. Although night had shut in, it was not so
dark that persons could not be recognized at small distances. The Señor
Montefalderon was startled at an apparition so sudden and unexpected,
when Mulford saluted him by name; but recognizing first the voice of
Harry, and then the persons of himself and his companion, surprise,
rather than alarm, became the emotion that was uppermost.
Notwithstanding the strength of the first of these feelings, he
instantly saluted the young couple with the polished ease that marked
his manner, which had much of the courtesy of a Castilian in it,
tempered a little, perhaps, by the greater flexibility of a Southern
American.
“I _see_ you,” exclaimed Don Juan, “and must believe my eyes. Without
their evidence, however, I could scarce believe it can be you two, one
of whom I thought on board the brig, and the other suffering a most
miserable death on a naked rock.”
“I am aware of your kind feelings in our behalf, Don Juan,” said
Mulford, “and it is the reason I now confide in you. I was taken off
that rock by means of the boat, which you doubtless have missed; and
this is the gentle being who has been the means of saving my life. To
her and Jack Tier, who is yonder, under the shadows of the house, I owe
my not being the victim of Spike’s cruelty.”
“I now comprehend the whole matter, Don Henrique. Jack Tier has managed
the boat for the señorita; and those whom we were told were too ill to
be seen on deck, have been really out of the brig!”
“Such are the facts, señor, and from _you_ there is no wish to conceal
them. We are then to understand that the absence of Rose and Jack from
the brig is not known to Spike.”
“I believe not, señor. He has alluded to both, once or twice to-day, as
being ill below; but would you not do well to retire within the shade of
the dwelling, lest a glance from the lantern might let those in it know
that I am not alone?”
“There is little danger, Don Juan, as they who stand near a light cannot
well see those who are in the darkness. Beside, they are high in the
air, while we are on the ground, which will greatly add to the obscurity
down here. We can retire, nevertheless, as I have a few questions to
ask, which may as well be put in perfect security, as put where there is
any risk.”
The three now drew near the house, Rose actually stepping within its
door, though Harry remained on its exterior, in order to watch the
proceedings of those in the light-house. Here the Señor Montefalderon
entered into a more detailed explanation of what had occurred on board
the brig, since the appearance of day, that very morning. According to
his account of the matter, Spike had immediately called upon the people
to explain the loss of the boat. Tier was not interrogated on this
occasion, it being understood he had gone below and turned in, after
having the look-out for fully half the night. As no one could, or would,
give an account of the manner in which the boat was missing, Josh was
ordered to go below and question Jack on the subject. Whether it was
from consciousness of his own connection with the escape of Jack, and
apprehensions of the consequences, or from innate good-nature, and a
desire to befriend the lovers, this black now admitted that Jack
confessed to him that the boat had got away from him while endeavoring
to shift the turns of its painter from a cleet where they ought not to
be to their proper place. This occurred early in Jack’s watch, according
to Josh’s story, and had not been reported, as the boat did not properly
belong to the brig, and was an incumbrance rather than an advantage. The
mate admired the negro’s cunning, as Don Juan related this part of his
story, which put him in a situation to throw all the blame on Jack’s
mendacity in the event of a discovery, while it had the effect to allow
the fugitives more time for their escape. The result was, that Spike
bestowed a few hearty curses, as usual, on the clumsiness of Jack Tier,
and seemed to forget all about the matter. It is probable he connected
Jack’s abstaining from showing himself on deck, and his alleged
indisposition, with his supposed delinquency in this matter of the boat.
From that moment the captain appeared to give himself no further concern
on the subject, the boat having been, in truth, an incumbrance rather
than a benefit, as stated.
As for Rose, her keeping her room, under the circumstances, was so very
natural, that the Señor Montefalderon had been completely deceived, as,
from his tranquillity on this point, there was no question was the case
with Spike also. Biddy appeared on deck, though the widow did not, and
the Irish woman shook her head anxiously when questioned about her young
mistress, giving the spectators reason to suppose that the latter was in
a very bad way.
As respects the brig and her movements, Spike had got under way as soon
as there was light enough to find his course, and had run through the
passage. It is probable that the boat was seen; for something that was
taken for a small sail had just been made out for a single instant, and
then became lost again. This little sail was made, if made at all, in
the direction of the Dry Tortugas, but so completely was all suspicion
at rest in the minds of those on the quarter-deck of the Swash, that
neither Spike nor the Mexican had the least idea what it was. When the
circumstance was reported to the former, he answered that it was
probably some small wrecker, of which many were hovering about the reef,
and added, laughing, though in a way to prove how little he thought
seriously on the subject at all, “who knows but the light-house boat has
fallen into their hands, and that they’ve made sail on _her_; if they
have, my word for it, that she goes, hull, spars, rigging, canvas, and
cargo, all in a lump, for salvage.”
As the brig came out of the passage, in broad day, the heads of the
schooner’s masts were seen, as a matter of course. This induced Spike to
heave-to, to lower a boat, and to go in person to examine the condition
of the wreck. It will be seen that Jack’s presence could now be all the
better dispensed with. The examination, with the soundings, and other
calculations connected with raising the vessel, occupied hours. When
they were completed, Spike returned on board, run up his boat, and
squared away for the Dry Tortugas. Señor Montefalderon confirmed the
justice of Jack Tier’s surmises, as to the object of this unexpected
visit. The brig had come solely for the chain and anchor mentioned, and
having secured them, it was Spike’s intention to get under way and beat
up to the wreck again as soon as the moon rose. As for the sloop-of-war,
he believed she had given him up; for by this time she must know that
she had no chance with the brig, so long as the latter kept near the
reef, and that she ran the constant hazard of shipwreck, while playing
so near the dangers herself.
Before the Señor Montefalderon exhausted all he had to communicate, he
was interrupted by Jack Tier with a singular proposition. Jack’s great
desire was to get on board the Swash; and he now begged the Mexican to
let Mulford take the yawl and scull him off to the brig, and return to
the islet before Spike and his companions should descend from the
lantern of the light-house. The little fellow insisted there was
sufficient time for such a purpose, as the three in the lantern had not
yet succeeded in filling the lamps with the oil necessary to their
burning for a night—a duty that usually occupied the regular keeper for
an hour. Five or six minutes would suffice for him; and if he were seen
going up the brig’s side, it would be easy for him to maintain that he
had come ashore in the boat. No one took such precise note of what was
going on, as to be able to contradict him; and as to Spike and the men
with him, they would probably never hear any thing about it.
Don Juan Montefalderon was struck with the boldness of Jack Tier’s plan,
but refused his assent to it. He deemed it too hazardous, but
substituted a project of his own. The moon would not rise until near
eleven, and it wanted several hours before the time of sailing. When
they returned to the brig, he would procure his cloak, and scull himself
ashore, being perfectly used to managing a boat in this way, under the
pretence of wishing to pass an hour longer near the grave of his
countryman. At the expiration of that hour he would take Jack off,
concealed beneath his cloak—an exploit of no great difficulty in the
darkness, especially as no one would be on deck but a hand or two
keeping the anchor-watch. With this arrangement, therefore, Jack Tier
was obliged to be content.
Some fifteen or twenty minutes more passed, during which the Mexican
again alluded to his country, and his regrets at her deplorable
situation. The battles of the 8th and 9th of May, two combats that ought
to, and which will reflect high honor on the little army that won them,
as well as on that hardly worked, and in some respects hardly used,
service to which they belong, had been just fought. Don Juan mentioned
these events without reserve, and frankly admitted that success had
fallen to the portion of much the weaker party. He ascribed the victory
to the great superiority of the American officers of inferior rank; it
being well-known that in the service of the “Republic of the North,” as
he termed America, men who had been regularly educated at the military
academy, and who had reached the period of middle life, were serving in
the stations of captains, and sometimes in that of lieutenants; men who,
in many cases, were fitted to command regiments and brigades, having
been kept in these lower stations by the tardiness with which promotion
comes in an army like that of this country.
Don Juan Montefalderon was not sufficiently conversant with the subject,
perhaps, else he might have added, that when occasions _do_ offer to
bestow on these gentlemen the preferment they have so hardly and
patiently earned, they are too often neglected, in order to extend the
circle of vulgar political patronage. He did not know that when a new
regiment of dragoons was raised, one permanent in its character, and
intended to be identified with the army in all future time, that,
instead of giving its commissions to those who had fairly earned them by
long privations and faithful service, they were given, with one or two
exceptions, to strangers.
No government trifles more with its army and navy than our own. So
niggardly are the master-spirits at Washington of the honors justly
earned by military men, that we have fleets still commanded by captains,
and armies by officers whose regular duty it would be to command
brigades. The world is edified with the sight of forces sufficient, in
numbers, and every other military requisite, to make one of Napoleon’s
_corps de armée_, led by one whose commission would place him properly
at the head of a brigade, and nobly led, too. Here, when so favorable an
occasion offers to add a regiment or two to the old permanent line of
the army, and thus infuse new life into its hope-deferred, the
opportunity is overlooked, and the rank and file are to be obtained by
cramming, instead of by a generous regard to the interests of the
gallant gentlemen who have done so much for the honor of the American
name, and, unhappily, so little for themselves. The extra-patriots of
the nation, and they form a legion large enough to trample the “Halls of
the Montezumas” under their feet, tell us that the reward of those other
patriots beneath the shadows of the Sierra Madre, is to be in the love
and approbation of their fellow citizens, at the very moment when they
are giving the palpable proof of the value of this esteem, and of the
inconstancy of popular applause, by pointing their fingers, on account
of an inadvertent expression in a letter, at the gallant soldier who
taught, in our own times, the troops of this country to stand up to the
best appointed regiments of England, and to carry off victory from the
pride of Europe, in fair field-fights. Alas! alas! it is true of nations
as well as of men, in their simplest and earliest forms of association,
that there are “secrets in all families;” and it will no more do to
dwell on our own, than it would edify us to expose those of poor Mexico.
The discourse between the Señor Montefalderon and Mulford was
interesting, as it ever has been when the former spoke of his
unfortunate country. On the subject of the battles of May he was candid,
and admitted his deep mortification and regrets. He had expected more
from the force collected on the Rio Grande, though, understanding the
northern character better than most of his countrymen, he had not been
as much taken by surprise as the great bulk of his own nation.
“Nevertheless, Don Henrique,” he concluded, for the voice of Spike was
just then heard as he was descending the stairs of the light-house,
“Nevertheless, Don Henrique, there is one thing that your people, brave,
energetic, and powerful as I acknowledge them to be, would do well to
remember, and it is this—no nation of the numbers of ours can be, or
ever was conquered, unless by the force of political combinations. In a
certain state of society a government may be overturned, or a capital
taken, and carry a whole country along with it, but our condition is one
not likely to bring about such a result. We are of a race different from
the Anglo-Saxon, and it will not be easy either to assimilate us to your
own, or wholly to subdue us. In those parts of the country, where the
population is small, in time, no doubt, the Spanish race might be
absorbed, and your sway established; but ages of war would be necessary
entirely to obliterate our usages, our language, and our religion from
the peopled portions of Mexico.”
It might be well for some among us to reflect on these matters. The
opinions of Don Juan, in our judgment, being entitled to the
consideration of all prudent and considerate men.
As Spike descended to the door of the light-house, Harry, Rose, and Jack
Tier retired within that of the dwelling. Presently the voice of the
captain was heard hailing the Mexican, and together they walked to the
wharf, the former boasting to the latter of his success in making a
brilliant light. Brilliant it was, indeed; so brilliant as to give
Mulford many misgivings on the subject of the boat. The light from the
lantern fell upon the wharf and he could see the boat from the window
where he stood, with Spike standing nearly over it, waiting for the men
to get his own yawl ready. It is true, the captain’s back was toward the
dangerous object, and the planks of the bridge were partly between him
and it; but there was a serious danger that was solely averted by the
circumstance that Spike was so earnestly dilating on some subject to Don
Juan, as to look only at that gentleman’s face. A minute later they were
all in the yawl, which pulled rapidly toward the brig.
Don Juan Montefalderon was not long absent. Ten minutes sufficed for the
boat to reach the Swash, for him to obtain his cloak, and to return to
the islet alone, no one in the vessel feeling a desire to interfere with
his imaginary prayers. As for the people, it was not probable that one
in the brig could have been induced to accompany him to the graves at
that hour, though every body but Josh had turned in, as he informed
Mulford, to catch short naps previously to the hour of getting the brig
under way. As for the steward, he had been placed on the look-out as the
greatest idler on board. All this was exceedingly favorable to Jack
Tier’s project, since Josh was already in the secret of his absence, and
would not be likely to betray his return. After a brief consultation, it
was agreed to wait half an hour or an hour, in order to let the sleepers
lose all consciousness, when Don Juan proposed returning to the vessel
with his new companion.
The thirty or forty minutes that succeeded were passed in general
conversation. On this occasion the Señor Montefalderon spoke more freely
than he had yet done of recent events. He let it be plainly seen how
much he despised Spike, and how irksome to him was the intercourse he
was obliged to maintain, and to which he only submitted through a sense
of duty. The money known to be in the schooner, was of a larger amount
than had been supposed; and every dollar was so important to Mexico, at
that moment, that he did not like to abandon it, else, did he declare,
that he would quit the brig at once, and share in the fortunes of Harry
and Rose. He courteously expressed his best wishes for the happiness of
the young couple, and delicately intimated that, under the
circumstances, he supposed that they would be united as soon as they
could reach a place where the marriage rite could be celebrated. This
was said in the most judicious way possible; so delicately as not to
wound any one’s feeling, and in a way to cause it to resemble the
announcement of an expectation rather than the piece of paternal advice
for which it was really intended. Harry was delighted with this
suggestion of his Mexican friend—the most loyal American may still have
a sincere friend of Mexican birth and Mexican feelings, too—since it
favored not only his secret wishes, but his secret expectations also.
At the appointed moment, Don Juan Montefalderon and Jack Tier took their
leave of the two they left behind them. Rose manifested what to Harry
seemed a strange reluctance to part with the little steward; but Tier
was bent on profiting by this excellent opportunity to get back to the
brig. They went, accordingly, and the anxious listeners, who watched the
slightest movement of the yawl, from the shore, had reason to believe
that Jack was smuggled in without detection. They heard the familiar
sound of the oar falling in the boat, and Mulford said that Josh’s voice
might be distinguished, answering to a call from Don Juan. No noise or
clamor was heard, such as Spike would certainly have made, had he
detected the deception that had been practiced on himself.
Harry and Rose were now alone. The former suggested that the latter
should take possession of one of the little bed-rooms that are usually
to be found in American dwellings of the dimensions and humble character
of the light-house abode, while he kept watch until the brig should
sail. Until Spike was fairly off, he would not trust himself to sleep;
but there was no sufficient reason why Rose should not endeavor to
repair the evil of a broken night’s rest, like that which had been
passed in the boat. With this understanding, then, our heroine took
possession of her little apartment, where she threw herself on the bed
in her clothes, while Mulford walked into the air, as the most effective
means of helping to keep his eyes open.
It was now some time past ten, and before eleven the moon would rise.
The mate consequently knew that his watch could not be long before Spike
would quit the neighborhood—a circumstance pregnant with immense relief
to him at least. So long as that unscrupulous, and now nearly desperate,
man remained any where near Rose, he felt that she could not be safe;
and as he paced the sands, on the off, or outer side of the islet, in
order to be beyond the influence of the light in the lantern, his eye
was scarcely a moment taken away from the Swash, so impatiently and
anxiously did he wait for the signs of some movement on board her.
The moon rose, and Mulford heard the well-known raps on the booby-hatch,
which precedes the call of “all hands,” on board a merchant-man. “All
hands up anchor, ahoy!” succeeded, and in less than five minutes the
bustle on board the brig announced the fact, that her people were
“getting the anchor.” By this time it had got to be so light that the
mate deemed it prudent to return to the house, in order that he might
conceal his person within its shadows. Awake Rose he would not, though
he knew she would witness the departure of the Swash with a satisfaction
little short of his own. He thought he would wait, that when he did
speak to her at all, it might be to announce their entire safety. As
regarded the aunt, Rose was much relieved on her account, by the
knowledge that Jack Tier would not fail to let Mrs. Budd know every
thing connected with her own situation and prospects. The desertion of
Jack, after coming so far with her, had pained our heroine in a way we
cannot at present explain; but go he would, probably feeling assured
there was no longer any necessity for his continuance with the lovers,
in order to prevail on Rose to escape from Spike.
The Swash was not long in getting her ground-tackle, and the brig was
soon seen with her top-sail aback, waiting to cast the anchor. This
done, the yards swung round and the top-sail filled. It was blowing just
a good breeze for such a craft to carry whole sail on a bowline with,
and away the light and active craft started, like the racer that is
galloping for daily exercise. Of course there were several passages by
which a vessel might quit the group of islets, some being larger, and
some smaller, but all having sufficient water for a brigantine of the
Molly’s draught. Determined not to lose an inch of distance
unnecessarily, Spike luffed close up to the wind, making an effort to
pass out to windward of the light. In order to do this, however, it
became necessary for him to make two short tacks within the haven, which
brought him far enough to the southward and eastward to effect his
purpose. While this was doing, the mate, who perfectly understood the
object of the manœuvres, passed to the side of the light-house that was
opposite to that on which the dwelling was placed, with a view to get a
better view of the vessel as she stood out to sea. In order to do this,
however, it was necessary for the young man to pass through a broad bit
of moon-light; but he trusted for his not being seen, to the active
manner in which all hands were employed on board the vessel. It would
seem that, in this respect, Mulford trusted without his host, for as the
vessel drew near, he perceived that six or eight figures were on the
guns of the Swash, or in her rigging, gesticulating eagerly, and
seemingly pointing to the very spot where he stood. When the brig got
fairly abeam of the light, she would not be a hundred yards distant from
it, and fearful to complete the exposure of his person, which he had so
inadvertently and unexpectedly commenced, our mate drew up close to the
wall of the light-house, against which he sustained himself in a
position as immovable as possible. This movement had been seen by a
single seaman on board the Swash, and the man happened to be one of
those who had landed with Spike only two hours before. His name was
Barlow.
“Capt. Spike, sir,” called out Barlow, who was coiling up rigging on the
forecastle, and was consequently obliged to call out so loud as to be
heard by all on board, “yonder is a man, at the foot of the
light-house.”
By this time, the moon coming out bright through an opening in the
clouds, Mulford had become conscious of the risk he ran, and was drawn
up, as immovable as the pile itself, against the stones of the
light-house. Such an announcement brought everybody to leeward, and
every head over the bulwarks. Spike himself sprang into the lee
main-chains, where his view was unobstructed, and where Mulford saw and
recognized him, even better than he was seen and recognized in his own
person. All this time the brig was moving ahead.
“A man, Barlow!” exclaimed Spike, in the way one a little bewildered by
an announcement expresses his surprise. “A man! that can never be. There
is no one at the light-house, you know.”
“There he stands, sir, with his back to the tower, and his face this
way. His dark figure against the white-washed stones is plain enough to
be seen. Living, or dead, sir, that is the mate!”
“_Living_ it cannot be,” answered Spike, though he gulped at the words
the next moment.
A general exclamation now showed that everybody recognized the mate,
whose figure, stature, dress, and even features, were by this time all
tolerably distinct. The fixed attitude, however, the immovable,
statue-like rigidity of the form, and all the other known circumstances
of Harry’s case, united to produce a common and simultaneous impression
among the superstitious mariners, that what they saw was but the ghostly
shadow of one lately departed to the world of spirits. Even Spike was
not free from this illusion, and his knees shook beneath him, there
where he stood, in the channels of a vessel that he had handled like a
top in so many gales and tempests. With him, however, the illusion was
neither absolute nor lasting. A second thought told him it could
scarcely be so, and then he found his voice. By this time the brig was
nearly abreast of where Harry stood.
“You, Josh!” called out Spike, in a voice of thunder, loud enough to
startle even Mrs. Budd and Biddy in their berths.
“Lor’ help us all!” answered the negro, “what _will_ come next t’ing
aboard dis wessel! Here I be, sir.”
“Pass the fowling-piece out of my state-room. Both barrels are loaded
with ball; I’ll try him, though the bullets _are_ only lead.”
A common exclamation of dissatisfaction escaped the men, while Josh was
obeying the order, “It’s no use.” “You never can hurt one of them
things,” “Something will befall the brig on account of this,” and “It’s
the mate’s sperit, and sperits can’t be harmed by lead or iron,” were
the sort of remarks made by the seamen, during the short interval
between the issuing the order for the fowling-piece and its execution.
“There ’tis, Capt. Spike,” said Josh, passing the piece up through the
rigging, “but ’twill no more shoot _that_ thing, than one of our
carronades would blow up Gibraltar.”
By this time Spike was very determined, his lips being compressed and
his teeth set, as he took the gun and cocked it. Then he hailed. As all
that passed occurred, as it might be, at once, the brig even at that
moment was little more than abreast of the immovable mate, and about
eighty yards from him.
“Light-house, there!” cried Spike—“Living or dead, answer or I fire.”
No answer came, and no motion appeared in the dark figure that was now
very plainly visible, under a bright moon, drawn in high relief against
the glittering white of the tower. Spike dropped the muzzle to its aim
and fired.
So intense was the attention of all in the Swash, that a wink of Harry’s
could almost have been seen, had he betrayed even that slight sign of
human infirmity at this flash and the report. The ball was flattened
against a stone of the building, within a foot of the mate’s body; but
he did not stir. All depended now on his perfect immovability, as he
well knew, and he so far commanded himself as to remain rigid as if of
stone himself.
“There! one can see how it is—no life in that being,” said one. “I
know’d how it would end,” added another. “Nothing but silver, and that
cast on purpose, will ever lay it,” continued a third. But Spike
disregarded all. This time he was resolved that his aim should be
better, and he was inveterately deliberate in getting it. Just as he
pulled the trigger, however, Don Juan Montefalderon touched his elbow,
the piece was fired, and there stood the immovable figure as before,
fixed against the tower. Spike was turning angrily to chide his Mexican
friend for deranging his aim, when the report of an answering musket
came back like an echo. Every eye was turned toward the figure, but it
moved not. Then the humming sound of an advancing ball was heard, and a
bullet passed, whistling hoarsely, through the rigging, and fell some
distance to windward. Every head disappeared below the bulwarks. Even
Spike was so far astonished as to spring in upon deck, and, for a single
instant, not a man was to be seen above the monkey-rail of the brig.
Then Spike recovered himself and jumped upon a gun. His first look was
toward the light-house, now on the vessel’s lee-quarter; but the spot
where had so lately been seen the form of Mulford, showed nothing but
the glittering brightness of the white-washed stones!
The reader will not be surprised to learn that all these events produced
a strange and deep impression on board the Molly Swash. The few who
might have thrown a little light on the matter were discreetly silent,
while all that portion of the crew which was in the dark, firmly
believed that the spirit of the murdered mate was visiting them, in
order to avenge the wrongs which had been inflicted on it in the flesh.
The superstition of sailors is as deep as it is general. All those of
the Molly, too, were salts of the old school, sea-dogs of a past
generation, properly speaking, and mariners who had got their notions in
the early part of the century, when the spirit of progress was less
active than it is at present.
Spike himself might have had other misgivings, and believe that he had
seen the living form of his intended victim, but for the extraordinary
and ghost-like echo of his last discharge. There was nothing visible, or
intelligible, from which that fire could have come, and he was perfectly
bewildered by the whole occurrence. An intention to round-to, as soon as
through the passage, down boat and land, which had been promptly
conceived when he found that his first aim had failed, was as suddenly
abandoned, and he gave the command to “board fore-tack;” immediately
after his call was to “pack on the brig,” and not without a little
tremor in his voice, as soon as he perceived that the figure had
vanished. The crew was not slow to obey these orders, and in ten minutes
the Swash was a mile from the light, standing to the northward and
eastward, under a press of canvas, and with a freshening breeze.
To return to the islets. Harry, from the first, had seen that every
thing depended on his remaining motionless. As the people of the brig
were partly in shadow, he could not, and did not, fully understand how
completely he was himself exposed, in consequence of the brightness of
all around him, and he had at first hoped to be mistaken for some
accidental resemblance to a man. His nerves were well tried by the use
of the fowling-piece, but they proved equal to the necessities of the
occasion. But, when an answering report came from the rear, or from the
opposite side of the islet, he darted round the tower, as much taken by
surprise, and overcome by wonder, as any one else who heard it. It was
this rapid movement which caused his flight to be unnoticed, all the men
of the brig dodging below their own bulwarks at that precise instant.
As the light-house was now between the mate and the brig, he had no
longer any motive for trying to conceal himself. His first thought was
of Rose, and, strange as it may seem, for some little time he fancied
that she had found a musket in the dwelling and discharged it, in order
to aid his escape. The events had passed so swiftly that there was no
time for the cool consideration of any thing, and it is not surprising
that some extravagances mingled with the first surmises of all these.
On reaching the door of the house, therefore, Harry was by no means
surprised at seeing Rose standing in it, gazing at the swiftly receding
brigantine. He even looked for the musket, expecting to see it lying at
her feet, or leaning against the wall of the building. Rose, however,
was entirely unarmed, and as dependent on him for support as when he had
parted from her, an hour or two before.
“Where did you find that musket, Rose, and what have you done with it?”
inquired Harry, as soon as he had looked in every place he thought
likely to hold such an implement.
“Musket, Harry! I have had no musket, though the report of fire-arms,
near by, awoke me from a sweet sleep.”
“Is this possible! I had imprudently trusted myself on the other side of
the light-house, while the moon was behind clouds, and when they broke
suddenly away its light betrayed me to those on board the brig. Spike
fired at me twice, without injuring me; when, to my astonishment, an
answering report was heard from the islet. What is more, the piece was
charged with a ball cartridge, for I heard the whistling of the bullet
as it passed on its way to the brig.”
“And you supposed I had fired that musket?”
“Whom else could I suppose had done it? You are not a very likely person
to do such a thing, I will own, my love, but there are none but us two
here.”
“It must be Jack Tier,” exclaimed Rose suddenly.
“That is impossible, since he has left us.”
“One never knows. Jack understood how anxious I was to retain him with
us, and he is so capricious and full of schemes, that he may have
contrived to get out of the brig, as artfully as he got on board her.”
“If Jack Tier be actually on this islet, I shall set him down as little
else than a conjurer.”
“Hist!” interrupted Rose, “what noise is that in the direction of the
wharf? It sounds like an oar falling in a boat.”
Mulford heard that well-known sound, as well as his companion, and,
followed by Rose, he passed swiftly through the house, coming out at the
front next the wharf. The moon was still shining bright, and the mystery
of the echoing report and answering shot was immediately explained. A
large boat, one that pulled ten oars at least, was just coming up to the
end of the wharf, and the manner in which its oars were unshipped and
tossed, announced to the mate that the crew were man-of-war’s men. He
walked hastily forward to meet them.
Three officers first left the boat together. The gold bands of their
caps showed that they belonged to the quarter-deck, a fact that the
light of the moon made apparent at once, though it was not strong enough
to render features distinct. As Mulford continued to advance, however,
the three officers saluted him.
“I see you have got the light under way once more,” observed the leader
of the party. “Last night it was as dark as Erebus in your lantern.”
“The light-house keeper and his assistant have both been drowned,”
answered Mulford. “The lamps have been lit to-night by the people of the
brig which has just gone out.”
“Pray, sir, what brig may that be?”
“The Molly Swash, of New York; a craft that I lately belonged to myself,
but which I have left on account of her evil doings.”
“The Molly Swash, Stephen Spike master and owner, bound to Key West and
a market, with a cargo of eight hundred barrels of flour, and that of a
quality so lively and pungent that it explodes like gunpowder! I beg
your pardon, Mr. Mate, for not recognizing you sooner. Have you
forgotten the Poughkeepsie, Capt. Mull, and her far-reaching Paixhans?”
“I ought to ask your pardon, Mr. Wallace, for not recognizing _you_
sooner, too. But one does not distinguish well by moon-light. I am
delighted, to see you, sir, and now hope that, with my assistance, a
stop can be put to the career of the brig.”
“What, Mr. Mate, do _you_ turn against your craft?” said Wallace, under
the impulsive feeling which induces all loyal men to have a distaste for
treachery of every sort, “the seaman should love the very planks of his
vessel.”
“I fully understand you, Mr. Wallace, and will own that, for a long
time, I was tied to rascality by the opinions to which you allude. But,
when you come to hear my explanation, I do not fear your judgment in the
least.”
Mulford now led the way into the house, whither Rose had already
retreated, and where she had lighted candles, and made other womanly
arrangements for receiving her guests. At Harry’s suggestion, some of
the soup was placed over coals, to warm up for the party, and our
heroine made her preparations to comfort them also with a cup of tea.
While she was thus employed Mulford gave the whole history of his
connection with the brig, his indisposition to quit the latter, the full
exposure of Spike’s treason, his own desertion, if desertion it could be
called, the loss of the schooner, and his abandonment on the rock, and
the manner in which he had been finally relieved. It was scarcely
possible to relate all these matters, and altogether avoid allusions to
the schemes of Spike in connection with Rose, and the relation in which
our young man himself stood toward her. Although Mulford touched on
these points with great delicacy, it was as a seaman talking to seamen,
and he could not entirely throw aside the frankness of the profession.
Ashore, men live in the privacy of their own domestic circles, and their
secrets, and secret thoughts, are “family secrets,” of which it has
passed into a proverb to say, that there are always some, even in the
best of these communities. On shipboard, in the camp it is very
different. The close contact in which men are brought with each other,
the necessity that exists for opening the heart and expanding the
charities, gets in time to influence the whole character, and a certain
degree of frankness and simplicity takes the place of the reserve and
acting that might have been quickened in the same individual, under a
different system of schooling. But Mulford was frank by nature, as well
as by his sea-education, and his companions on this occasion were pretty
well possessed of all his wishes and plans, in reference to Rose, even
to his hope of falling in with the chaplain of the Poughkeepsie, by the
time his story was all told. The fact that Rose was occupied in another
room, most of the time, had made these explanations all the easier, and
spared her many a blush. As for the man-of-war’s men, they listened to
the tale with manly interest and a generous sympathy.
“I am glad to hear your explanation, Mr. Mate,” said Wallace, cordially,
as soon as Harry had done, “and there’s my hand, in proof that I approve
of your course. I own to a radical dislike of a turncoat, or a traitor
to his craft, Brother Hollins,”—looking at the elder of his two
companions, one of whom was the midshipman who had originally
accompanied him on board the Swash—“and am glad to find that our friend
Mulford here is neither. A true-hearted sailor can be excused for
deserting even his own ship, under such circumstances.”
“I am glad to hear even this little concession from you, Wallace,”
answered Hollins, good naturedly, and speaking with a mild expression of
benevolence, on a very calm and thoughtful countenance. “Your mess is as
heteredox as any I ever sailed with, on the subject of our duties, in
this respect.”
“I hold it to be a sailor’s duty to stick by his ship, _reverend_ and
dear sir.”
This mode of address, which was used by the “ship’s gentleman” in the
cant of the ward-room, as a pleasantry of an old shipmate, for the two
had long sailed together in other vessels, at once announced to Harry
that he saw the very chaplain for whose presence he had been so
anxiously wishing. The “reverend and dear sir” smiled at the sally of
his friend, a sort of thing to which he was very well accustomed, but he
answered with a gravity and point that, it is to be presumed, he thought
befitting his holy office.
It may be well to remark here, that the Rev. Mr. Hollins was not one of
the “launch’d chaplains” that used to do discredit to the navy of this
country, or a layman dubbed with such a title, and rated that he might
get the pay and become a boon companion of the captain, at the table and
in his frolicks ashore. Those days are gone by, and ministers of the
gospel are now really employed to care for the souls of the poor
sailors, who so long have been treated by others, and have treated
themselves, indeed, as if they were beings without souls altogether. In
these particulars the world has certainly advanced, though the wise and
the good, in looking around them, may feel more cause for astonishment
in contemplating what it once was, than to rejoice in what it actually
is. But intellect has certainly improved in the aggregate, if not in its
especial dispensations, and men will not now submit to abuses that,
within the recollections of a generation, they even cherished. In
reference to the more intellectual appointments of a ship of war, the
commander excepted, for we contend he who directs all ought to possess
the most capacity, but, in reference to what are ordinarily believed to
be the more intellectual appointments of a vessel of war, the surgeon
and the chaplain, we well recollect opinions that were expressed to us,
many years since, by two officers of the highest rank known to the
service. “When I first entered the navy,” said one of these old Benbows,
“if I had occasion for the amputation of a leg, and the question lay
between the carpenter and the doctor, d—e, but I would have tried the
carpenter first, for I felt pretty certain he would have been the most
likely to get through with the job.” “In old times,” said the other,
“when a chaplain joined a ship, the question immediately arose whether
the mess were to convert the chaplain, or the chaplain the mess, and the
mess generally got the best of it.” There was very little exaggeration
in either of these opinions. But, happily, all this is changed vastly
for the better, and a navy-surgeon is necessarily a man of education and
experience; in very many instances men of high talents are to be found
among them; while chaplains can do something better than play at
back-gammon, eat terrapins, when in what may be called terrapin-ports,
and drink brandy and water, or pure Bob Smith.[1]
“It is a great mistake, Wallace, to fancy that the highest duty a man
owes is either to his ship or to his country,” observed the Rev. Mr.
Hollins quietly. “The highest duty of each and all of us is to God; and
whatever conflicts with that duty must be avoided as a transgression of
his laws, and consequently as a sin.”
“You surprise me, reverend and dear sir! I do not remember ever to have
heard you broach such opinions before, which might be interpreted to
mean that a fellow might be disloyal to his flag.”
“Because the opinion might be liable to misinterpretation. Still, I do
not go as far as many of my friends on this subject. If Decatur ever
really said, “our country, right or wrong,” he said what might be just
enough, and creditable enough, in certain cases, and taken with the fair
limitations that he probably intended should accompany the sentiment;
but, if he meant it as an absolute and controlling principle, it was not
possible to be more in error. In this last sense, such a rule of conduct
might, and in old times often would, have justified idolatry; nay, it
_is_ a species of idolatry in itself, since it is putting country before
God. Sailors may not always be able to make the just distinctions in
these cases, but the quarter-deck should be so, _ir_reverend and dear
sir.”
Wallace laughed, and then he turned the discourse to the subject more
properly before them.
“I understand you to say, Mr. Mulford,” he remarked, “that, in your
opinion, the Swash has gone to try to raise the unfortunate Mexican
schooner, a second time, from the depths of the ocean?”
“From the rock on which she lies. Under the circumstances, I hardly
think he would have come hither for the chain and cable, unless with
some such object. We know, moreover, that such _was_ his intention when
we left the brig.”
“And you can take us to the very spot where that wreck lies?”
“Without any difficulty. Her masts are partly out of water, and we hung
on to them in our boat, no later than the last night, or this morning
rather.”
“So far, well. Your conduct in all this affair will be duly appreciated,
and Capt. Mull will not fail to represent it in a right point of view to
the government.”
“Where is the ship, sir? I looked for her most anxiously, without
success, last evening; nor had Jack Tier, the little fellow I have named
to you, any better luck; though I sent him aloft, as high as the lantern
in the light-house, for that purpose.”
“The ship is off here to the northward and westward, some six leagues or
so. At sunset she may have been a little further. We have supposed that
the Swash would be coming back hither, and had laid a trap for her,
which came very near taking her alive.”
“What is the trap you mean, sir?—though taking Stephen Spike alive is
sooner said than done.”
“Our plan has been to catch him with our boats. With the greater draught
of water of the Poughkeepsie, and the heels of your brig, sir, a regular
chase about these reefs, as we knew from experience, would be almost
hopeless. It was, therefore, necessary to use head-work, and some
man-of-war traverses, in order to lay hold of him. Yesterday afternoon
we hoisted out three cutters, manned them, and made sail in them all,
under our luggs, working up against the trades. Each boat took its own
course, one going off the west end of the reef, one going more to the
eastward, while I came this way, to look in at the Dry Tortugas. Spike
will be lucky if he do not fall in with our third cutter, which is under
the fourth lieutenant, should he stand on far on the same tack as that
on which he left this place. Let him try his fortune, however. As for
our boat, as soon as I saw the lamps burning in the lantern, I made the
best of my way hither, and got sight of the brig just as she loosened
her sails. Then I took in my own luggs and came on with the oars. Had we
continued under our canvas, with this breeze, I almost think we might
have overhauled the rascal.”
“It would have been impossible, sir. The moment he got a sight of your
sails he would have been off in a contrary direction, and that brig
really seems to fly, whenever there is a pressing occasion for her to
move. You did the wisest thing you could have done, and barely missed
him as it was. He has not seen you at all, as it is, and will be all the
less on his guard against the next visit from the ship.”
“Not seen me! Why, sir, the fellow fired at us twice with a musket; why
he did not use a carronade is more than I can tell.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Wallace; those two shots were intended for me, though I
now fully comprehend why you answered them.”
“Answered them! yes, indeed; who would not answer such a salute, and gun
for gun, if he had a chance! I certainly thought he was firing at us,
and having a musket between my legs, I let fly in return, and even the
chaplain here will allow that was returning ‘good for evil.’ But explain
your meaning.”
Mulford now went into the details of the incidents connected with his
coming into the moon-light, at the foot of the light-house. That he was
not mistaken as to the party for whom the shots were intended, was plain
enough to him, from the words that passed aloud among the people of the
Swash, as well as from the circumstance that both balls struck the
stones of the tower quite near him. This statement explained every thing
to Wallace, who now fully comprehended the cause and motive of each
incident.
It was now near eleven, and Rose had prepared the table for supper. The
gentlemen of the Poughkeepsie manifested great interest in the movements
of the Hebe-like little attendant who was caring for their wants. When
the cloth was to be laid, the midshipman offered his assistance, but his
superior directed him to send a hand or two up from the wharf, where the
crew of the cutter were lounging or sleeping after their cruise. These
men had been thought of, too, and a vessel filled with smoking soup was
taken to them by one of their own number.
The supper was as cheerful as it was excellent. The dry humor of
Wallace, the mild intelligence of the chaplain, the good sense of Harry,
and the spirited information of Rose, contributed, each in its
particular way, to make the meal memorable in more senses than one. The
laugh came easily at that table, and it was twelve o’clock before the
party thought of breaking up.
The dispositions for the night were soon made. Rose returned to her
little room, where she could now sleep in comfort, and without
apprehension. The gentlemen made the disposition of their persons that
circumstances allowed, each finding something on which to repose that
was preferable to a plank. As for the men, they were accustomed to hard
fare, and enjoyed their present good-luck to the top of their bent. It
was quite late before they had done “spinning their yarns” and “cracking
their jokes” around the pot of turtle-soup, and the can of grog that
succeeded it. By half past twelve, however, every body was asleep.
Mulford was the first person afoot the following morning. He left the
house just as the sun rose, and perceiving that the “coast was clear” of
sharks, he threw off his light attire, and plunged into the sea.
Refreshed with this indulgence, he was returning toward the building,
when he met the chaplain coming in quest of him. This gentleman, a man
of real piety, and of great discretion, had been singularly struck, on
the preceding night, with the narrative of our young mate; and he had
not failed to note the allusions, slight as they were, and delicately
put as they had been, to himself. He saw at once the propriety of
marrying a couple so situated, and now sought Harry with a view to bring
about so desirable an event, by intimating his entire willingness to
officiate. It is scarcely necessary to say that very few words were
wanting to persuade the young man to fall into his views; and as to
Rose, he had handed her a short note on the same subject, which he was
of opinion would be likely to bring her to the same way of thinking.
An hour later, all the officers, Harry and Rose, were assembled in what
might be termed the light-house parlor. The Rev. Mr. Hollins had neither
band, gown, nor surplice; but he had what was far better, feeling and
piety. Without a prayer-book he never moved; and he read the marriage
ceremony with a solemnity that was communicated to all present. The ring
was that which had been used at the marriage of Rose’s parents, and
which she wore habitually, though not on the left hand. In a word, Harry
and Rose were as firmly and legally united, on that solitary and almost
unknown islet, as could have been the case had they stood up before the
altar of mother Trinity itself with a bishop to officiate, and a legion
of attendants. After the compliments which succeeded the ceremony, the
whole party sat down to breakfast.
If the supper had been agreeable, the morning meal was not less so. Rose
was timid and blushing, as became a bride, though she could not but feel
how much more respectable her position became under the protection of
Harry as his wife, than it had been while she was only his betrothed.
The most delicate deportment, on the part of her companions, soon
relieved her embarrassment, however, and the breakfast passed off
without cause for an unhappy moment.
“The ship’s standing in toward the light, sir,” reported the cockswain
of the cutter, as the party was still lingering around the table, as if
unwilling to bring so pleasant a meal to a close. “Since the mist has
broke away, we see her, sir, even to her ports and dead-eyes.”
“In that case, Sam, she can’t be very far off,” answered Wallace. “Ay,
there goes a gun from her at this moment, as much as to say, ‘what has
become of all of my boats.’ Run down and let off a musket; perhaps she
will make out to hear that, as we must be rather to windward, if any
thing.”
The signal was given and understood. A quarter of an hour later, the
Poughkeepsie began to shorten sail. Then Wallace stationed himself in
the cutter, in the centre of one of the passages, signalling the ship to
come on. Ten minutes later still, the noble craft came into the haven,
passing the still burning light, with her top-sails just lifting, and
making a graceful sweep under very reduced sail, she came to the wind,
very near the spot where the Swash had lain only ten hours before, and
dropped an anchor.
-----
[1] In the palmy days of the service, when Robert Smith was so long
Secretary of the Navy, the ship’s whisky went by this familiar
_sobriquet_.
[_To be continued._
* * * * *
THE STRATAGEM.
A SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE.
BY MRS. ALFRED H. REIP.
CHAPTER I.
“’Tis as the book of God before thee set,
Wherein to view his wondrous works.”
On a warm afternoon, in the summer of 1843, a solitary horseman might
have been seen advancing along a sylvan road not far from the Washington
House, in the neighborhood of the White Mountains. Our traveler was
apparently very young, and had quite a prepossessing appearance. His
figure, though well knit, was delicate, and he rode his spirited steed
with graceful ease. Suddenly the road emerged from the woodlands, and he
found himself in one of those bright green valleys with which our
beautiful land is embellished. He involuntarily drew in his rein, and
stopped to gaze on the landscape. On one side the view presented the
White Hills, with their mighty peaks, stupendous and grand. On the other
side, in the distance, swelled up a gentle elevation, covered with green
fields and clumps of forest. Immediately before him a streamlet went
purling on its course, warbling its murmuring music, seeming the spirit
of peace whispering “all’s well.”
After a few minutes the young man put spurs to his horse, and in a
gallop dashed down the road with unabated speed until he arrived at the
Washington House, kept by Horace Fabyan, which lay concealed in the lap
of the mountain, like the modest violet nestling in a quiet nook. After
refreshing himself, our hero, whom we shall call Harry Thatcher, urged
on by his enthusiastic love of nature, and contrary to the advice of his
landlord, who thought it rather late to make the attempt alone, resolved
to gain the summit of Mount Deception. From the beginning the ascent led
through winding ravines, thickets, and a rough broken path; but
surmounting these difficulties without much fatigue, he at length found
himself standing alone on the “mountain’s silent brow.” Here his spirit
drank in the intensity of sublimity on which he gazed. On all sides a
vast pile of mountains met his eye, with Mount Washington towering above
the rest with frowning majesty in all its “azure somberness.” Solitude
and silence reigned. No sound came up from beneath, and the breeze was
too gentle to be heard. The wooded summits of the adjacent hills were
bathed in a flood of golden radiance, which pierced the thickets of
underwood, and revealed many a nook of vernal beauty. Our hero had
chosen a situation where he could view the setting sun, and catch the
zephyrs that played lightly in its dying beam, and then swept on where
the ferns, the mosses, and the wild flowers grow. The gazer might well
call up a dream of romance, and forget for a time the plodding, busy
world, for here was plenty of food for romantic rumination,
“Beneath, around, above,
Earth, water, air, seemed full of love.”
The place seemed the very Eden for Cupid’s votaries, the silence and
solitude the very sanctuary for love’s impassioned confessions, and
Harry wondered if there were no legend connected with the spot. Whilst
musing upon the scene, a solitary bird came floating along leisurely,
balancing its way in the air, and took its station on the bough of a
tree near him. The stillness was interrupted; for it commenced gayly to
warble its evening lullaby. Harry had lingered without observing the
thick mass of clouds that hovered over him, at first almost
imperceptible, but now gradually assuming a threatening aspect, whose
portentous appearance gave signs of bursting into storm; and twilight,
which in a mountainous country is so rapidly succeeded by darkness, was
fading away beneath the sable veil of night. The wind commenced sighing
along the ground in low, sullen murmurs, then all at once rushing into a
gust, swept like the roar of artillery through the trees, bending and
tearing off their topmost branches. To seek the nearest shelter was the
first impulse of our hero, as the quick splashing sound of rain-drops
fell upon the ground, and sharp flashes of lightning, followed by the
loud thunder, began to chase each other through the black clouds that
now seemed to cover the boundless expanse of heaven. He paced rapidly
along the single narrow precipitous path, nearly overgrown with thorns
and bushes, and had progressed but a short distance, when he found he
had mistaken his way, for the passage became impregnable; rocks seemed
piled one upon another, and innumerable clusters of wild vines and
thistles were so thick as to defy intrusion. It was growing intensely
dark, and the rain commenced falling in torrents. The rumbling sound of
the water as it dashed down the mountain—the angry whistle of the wind
as it swept along in destruction and fury, while the arrowy bolts of
lightning lighted up the darkness, and the deep thunder that rocked the
earth, like a tremendous cannonading, as clash after clash rent the
clouds, blended with the low muttered growls of the wild beasts, made it
an awful night, and would have sent a chill through the stoutest heart.
An awe as of some mighty presence fell upon the spirits of Harry as he
watched the progress of the terrific storm. Presently a bolt of
lightning more vivid than the rest flashed near him, like the spirit of
destruction, tearing a large tree to atoms. He sunk back appalled, and a
sickening sensation of loneliness and dread came over him, as he
strained his sight in vain to catch, through the thick and almost
impenetrable gloom, a glimpse of some opening by which he could leave
this fearful spot. Presently he thought he heard the report of a gun,
and assuming a listening altitude, he distinctly heard, during the lulls
of the now fast subsiding storm, a succession of firing. Although aware
of the proximity of friends, yet it was difficult to ascertain their
locality, for the distance between them prevented intercourse with the
voice. But to his great relief he soon heard his own name repeatedly
called, and answered to the call with shouts which echoed from rock to
rock. Footsteps were also approaching, and as they drew nearer, the
forms of three men were indistinctly seen emerging from a thicket of
brushwood.
“Never were the forms of mortals so welcome to the sight as yours are to
mine, my good friends,” exclaimed Harry, grasping their hands in his
delight.
“Mr. Fabyan, fearing you had lost yourself among these intricate
windings, sent us to search for you, and guide you safely down,” replied
one of the three.
“Thank you! you are all very kind!” said Harry, “and but for your
assistance I might have had a perfect Radcliffe adventure; for I verily
believe this is the haunt for gnomes, witches, and all the dread family
of evil spirits, who would choose such a night as this to walk abroad.”
Under the guidance of these men, Harry descended the declivity; first
ascending a rough and almost imperceptible path, which a thick hedge of
laurels hid entirely from view, until they came to the footway which led
below. The descent was tedious, and would have been, without the escort
of one thoroughly acquainted with the path, totally impracticable in the
darkness.
Harry Thatcher was a Virginian by birth. His health had been delicate
for some time, and a tour north had been recommended by his physicians,
with a view to his entire recovery. Already he had visited Saratoga,
Niagara Falls, Canada and the Lakes, and was now taking a homeward route
through New England. Wherever he went the hand of friendship was
extended to him, and a sigh of regret was heaved at his departure, for
he inherited from nature all those qualities which, properly cultivated,
can render a man esteemed.
It would prolong this story too much to detail all his voyages of
discovery over the summits of this exceedingly picturesque and wild
“Alpine region.” It was to the end full of interest and excitement. The
Willey house, which has been celebrated by the catastrophe which
happened in 1826, when a whole family were swept from a living world
into eternity, particularly interested him, as also did the far-famed
Notch, which is a “sundering of the mountains” supposed to have been
caused by a convulsion of nature.