Failing to shake his constancy, the next thing was to destroy his

reputation. It was given out that he was on the point of

recanting; that he had betrayed his friends; that he had divulged

the names of the gentlemen who harbored him. To give color to

these charges, a great many Catholics were arrested, in

consequence, it was said, of Campion's confession. For a while

these infamous charges, fortified with plausible confirmation,

were generally believed; but it was soon ascertained that the

betrayal had been wrung from some of Campion's companions on the

rack. To render the missionary contemptible, it was thought

necessary to answer his challenge for a public disputation in

some way or another, and a large number of the most eminent

Anglican divines were appointed to meet him in a public hall and

discuss the chief points of controversy. They had all the time

they wanted to prepare, free access to libraries, and every

possible favor. Campion was not informed of the arrangement until

two hours before the assembly opened. Then, with his limbs still

smarting from the torment of the rack, he was placed in the

middle of the room, without books, without even a table to lean

upon, with no assistance whatever, except the assistance of

heaven. The dispute continued several days. It was distinguished,

as might have been supposed, by gross unfairness and bad language

on the part of the Protestants, while Campion conciliated all

honest-minded listeners, not only by the acuteness of his

answers, but by his mild and affectionate spirit. Though he had

been educated to a familiarity with dialectics, and lived in a

day when controversy was an almost universal passion, he was far

from being a disputatious man, and the _odium theologicum_

had no place in his warm and tender heart. With all the advantage

given to the Protestant side, it was evident that the Catholics

were profiting by the conferences, and the government abruptly

closed them. But it was too late. Campion's fame was restored;

the slanders against him had been refuted; and the popular

enthusiasm broke forth in ballads, of which Mr. Simpson gives a

sample.

Nothing remained now but to try him for treason. It was first

proposed to indict him for having on a certain day in Oxfordshire

traitorously pretended to have power to absolve her majesty's

subjects from their allegiance, and endeavored to attach them to

the obedience of the pope and the faith of the Roman church; but

this was too plainly a religious prosecution.

{299}

A plot was therefore forged, which it was pretended that Campion,

Allen, Morton, Parsons, and fourteen priests and others then in

custody, had concerted at Rome and Rheims to dethrone the queen

and raise a civil war. On this charge Campion, Sherwin, Cottam,

and five others, were arraigned at Westminster Hall on the 14th

of November. When Campion was called upon, according to custom,

to hold up his hands in pleading, his arms were so cruelly

wounded by the rack that he could not lift them without

assistance. The trial took place on the 20th. The principal

witnesses for the crown were George Eliot and three hired

wretches named Munday, Sledd, and Caddy, who pretended to have

observed the meetings of the conspirators at Rome; but their

testimony was so weak, and the answers of Campion so admirable,

that when the jury retired it was generally believed in court

that the verdict must be one of acquittal. Court and jury,

however, had been bought beforehand. The prisoners were all found

guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Then

Campion broke forth in a loud hymn of praise, "_Te Deum

laudamus_" and Sherwin and others took up the song, until the

multitude were visibly affected.

After he had been remanded to the Tower, the traitor Eliot came

to his cell, and Campion received him so sweetly, forgiving his

offence, and offering to provide for him an asylum with a

Catholic noble in Germany, whither he might escape from the odium

and danger which haunted him at home, that the keeper, who

witnessed the interview was induced by it to become a Catholic.

The few days which intervened between conviction and death were

passed by the holy man in fasting and other mortifications. The

execution was appointed for the 29th of November. Campion,

Sherwin, and Briant were to suffer together. At the execution

Campion was interrupted by a long dialogue respecting his alleged

treason, and subjected to a great deal of questioning. Somebody

asked him to pray for the queen. While he was doing so, the cart

was drawn away, amid the tears and groans of the multitude, and

his body left dangling in the air.

So ended the good fight. Sherwin and Briant met their fate with

like joy and constancy, and many another good priest and devoted

layman trod afterward in the same awful but glorious path. And as

it has been since the days of St. Stephen, the blood of the

martyrs proved the seed of the church. Henry Walpole estimated

that no fewer than ten thousand persons were converted by the

spectacle of Champion's death. That is probably an exaggeration;

but it is certain that the execution had a marked effect upon the

progress of the faith in England, and covered the Anglican clergy

with an odium from which they were long in recovering.

Of the life by Mr. Simpson, upon which we have so freely drawn

for the materials of this hasty sketch, we must not close without

a word of praise. Written originally for a monthly periodical,

and long interrupted by the failure of that publication, it lacks

the neat finish and compactness which the author would probably

have given it, had it been composed under more favorable

circumstances. But it has evidently been prepared with great

industry; it is written in a good style; and with a little

judicious pruning and rearrangement, it will make one of the most

interesting of modern religious biographies.

----------

{300}

The Catholic Sunday-School Union. [Footnote 56]

[Footnote 56: _First Report of the Catholic Sunday-School

Union_, of the city of New York. January 1, 1868.]

Few of the evidences of the zealous spirit which is stirred up in

these latter days, have given us more unfeigned pleasure than the

information which this report conveys. The Sunday-School Union

began as all Catholic works begin, has prospered thus far as they

prosper, and will share in their triumph. A few earnest souls,

observing how much more good could be accomplished in the

catechism-classes if the exercises and methods of teaching were

made more systematic and co-operative, met together, on the

evening of July 9th, 1866, debated the subject, formed

resolutions, went to work, and now the catechetical education of

the 20,237 children reported from eighteen Sunday-schools of this

city, (about one half of the whole number,) is practically under

the control of this admirable association. The good fruits of

their labors are already noticeable in the more regular

attendance of the children, the conferences of teachers for

mutual instruction and encouragement, the better regulated

programme of exercises, and the increased interest manifested in

the schools by all who are in any way connected with them.

The competent knowledge which our people, as a mass, have of

their religion, of the dogmas of faith--knowledge which they are

bound to have under pain of sin--and that other "knowledge unto

salvation" which is shown in the faithful performance of their

Christian duties, depends, as all know, upon the catechetical

instruction they receive in youth. Priests may preach sermon

after sermon, and each and every such discourse may be well

calculated to enlighten the mind and move the heart; but as a

rule, all sermons nowadays suppose the hearers to be already in

possession of Christian principles, and disciplined to the

practices of a Christian life. Sound and thorough catechetical

instruction is, then, one of the primary duties of a pastor of

souls. That each pastor should assume the whole of this labor to

himself is simply impossible. Those of the laity who by their

character and education are fitted to be his coadjutors in this

pastoral duty, must therefore be called upon to aid him in it.

The time when it is feasible to assemble children together for

religious instruction is on Sunday. Hence the Sunday-school and

its corps of lay teachers; both of necessity, as experience has

shown, for every parish, if the people are to have, as they ought

to have, a befitting knowledge of their religion--if they are to

be indoctrinated with its spirit, and receive its ministrations

by a devout, conscientious attendance upon its worship, and a due

appreciation of, and worthy preparation for, the holy sacraments.

The first thought which naturally presents itself in reference to

these lay coadjutors of the clergy, is that of their competence

and fitness to teach. We do not care to send our children to be

educated by any and every schoolmaster. We not only ask, Is he

capable? but we ask, Who is he, and what is he? If these

questions may be very properly put concerning a teacher of

geography and arithmetic, we may be pardoned for asking them

concerning one who professes to teach Christian doctrine and

morality.

{301}

Is he well versed in the truths of faith himself, and, if you

please, what is his own moral character?

The Sunday-school is an excellent institution, a necessary

institution in our times; but if it is to be of any value,

teachers, who are in the first place competent for the task, and

who in the second place are practical Christians, must be

secured. In small parishes, the pastor may possibly find a

sufficient number who possess all the requisite qualifications,

(although, so far, our experience has been to the contrary,) but

in large and populous parishes, such as are found in all our

cities, it is plain that a sufficient number are not easily

obtained for the purpose, nor will those who are in all respects

fitted for the work and are ready to answer the call of the

pastor, be able to control and reduce the heterogeneous elements

of a city Sunday-school to any order or regular observance of

rules laid down by the pastor, or devised by themselves, without

mutual co-operation, counsel, and a systematic organization.

Besides, into a corps of such teachers, who are not themselves

subjected to some organized form of association, persons wholly

incompetent or deficient in moral standing will intrude, and

prove either a hinderance to others, or do positive harm.

When chance-comers offer their services as teachers in his

Sunday-school, it is difficult if not impossible for the pastor

to examine them in order to test their knowledge before accepting

them, and it may be equally difficult for him to find out what

may be their moral worth. Their daily lives are, as a rule,

better known to the members of his congregation than they are to

him. In the ill-regulated voluntary system which has hitherto

been so common amongst us, many evils have resulted from this

which were unavoidable. Teachers of religion ought to be

themselves good exemplars of it. Children learn at the

Sunday-school a good deal more than the verbal answer to as many

questions as are printed in the catechism. Those who occupy the

office of teacher exert a moral influence over the children.

Example is the master-teacher, and bad example will teach (we are

sorry to say) quite as well as good example. You cannot gather

grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. During the time that a

man or woman is engaged in conversation with children, much of

his or her own character is infused into the minds of their

youthful companions by words, gestures, looks, and manner. Shall

I permit my children to be thus placed one whole hour every week,

under the influence of an ignorant man, a non-practical Catholic,

and possibly a person of vicious habits and of vulgar demeanor--a

person whom I could not allow my children to converse with at

all, in the street or elsewhere, outside of the Sunday-school

room? Certainly not. I must have some guarantee that my children

shall have such associations as I can approve of, as well in the

Sunday-school as in any other place where they may happen to be.

One who might make such reflections as the foregoing need occupy

no higher position in society than that of being a good

Christian, watchful over the souls of his little ones, and

anxious to guard them from contamination with persons ignorant of

the faith in which he wishes them to be educated, or such as by

their personal want of piety are certain to damage the growth of

it in the souls of

the children he presumes to instruct.

{302}

If we mistake not, these considerations were in part those which

animated the zealous and worthy founders of the Sunday-School

Union, whose first report lies before us. This appears to us in

the pages of the report, especially under the head of "objects."

We quote:

"The objects of the Sunday-school Union are of a religious,

educational, and social character. The fundamental object is,

of course, the benefit and improvement of the Sunday-schools;

the secondary end is the association of the Catholic young men

of the city, in a manner sanctioned by religion, for purposes

of mutual acquaintance and improvement, and the creation of a

common tie of sympathy and interest, such as should exist

between them as members of the same, One, Holy, and Universal

Church. By the comparisons of systems, and experience, and

through the increased opportunities of receiving advice and

counsel from the clergy, improvements have been introduced in

many of the schools, and the teachers have been led to take

greater interest in their duties."

We need only quote to ourselves the trite old proverb, that

"Birds of a feather," etc., to feel assured that the "Union" will

remove in great part the dangers arising from incompetence and

unfitness on the part of teachers, to which we have alluded. The

leading spirits of an association of this kind will impress their

own character upon the whole body, and we have the utmost

confidence that such persons will be of the right stamp, young

men of solid piety, of sufficient knowledge, and animated by the

highest and purest motives. They will draw to them other young

men of like character and dispositions with themselves.

Association will stimulate exertion, promote harmony, and be

productive of the best and happiest results; not only for the

children, but, what is of no little moment to us, for the young

men themselves.

Under their intelligent direction the Sunday-school will assume a

higher standard of religious education. It has too long been

deemed sufficient to teach the children the catechism as one

teaches parrots, getting them to repeat a certain answer to a

given question, without stopping to consider if the scholars have

any intelligent apprehension of the meaning of either question or

answer. We remember being present in a Sunday-school when the

following instruction was overheard by us:

Sunday-School Teacher.

"Are we bound to obey the commandments of the church?"

Boy.

"A--a, because--a--" (gives it up.)

Teacher, (speaking as rapidly as a clerk of the Senate, and

looking everywhere but at the pupil.)

"Yes, because Christ has said to the pastors of his church,

he that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises

me." (Then with a savage look at the child,) "Now, sir!"

Boy,(whining.)

"Yes, sir--because--here's you and here's me. He despises you

and he despises me."

Boy's ears cuffed with the catechism.

Yet it must be confessed that the recitation of the answer by the

teacher was pretty faithfully imitated by the child, who aimed at

catching a certain number of sounds and repeating them, without

thinking of their meaning.

It is very well that the children should learn to recite portions

of the catechism which they have learned by rote; but this will

not suffice to give them an intelligent comprehension of the

truths of religion. There is hardly a question and response in

the catechism which does not need some additional explanation and

illustration suited to their capacities.

{303}

This is no easy task, and one that might well engage the highest

cultivated minds. Teachers must therefore themselves be taught.

No one can impart that which he does not possess. We are glad,

therefore, to see that one of the objects of our Sunday-School

Union is of an "educational" character.

The object which is denominated "religious" is also of primary

importance. The Sunday-school teacher is a teacher of religion in

more senses than in imparting a mere verbal knowledge of the

doctrines of religion. It comes properly within his sphere to

edify his pupils by holy words, good counsel, and good example.

If he does not so edify them, he will infallibly do the contrary.

Our experience leads us to assert that there is no middle term

here between edification and disedification. He who has no words

of holiness and sweet Christian counsel in his mouth, is pretty

sure of having words and counsel which smack of the world and its

ungodly principles. Let no one imagine that he can assume for the

time and occasion the tone, speech, and manner of a good, pious

Christian, if he be not one in reality. Children have the keenest

scent for hypocrisy. They instinctively mark and loathe a

Pecksniff or a Chadband. The lessons of piety, the words of

kindly warning or encouragement, the appeals to their Christian

sentiment, falling from the lips of men who have no solid piety,

and whose ordinary daily life is little better than that of a

respectable heathen, if as good, will have no other effect than

to excite the sceptical sneers of youths who are not to be

deceived by sham appearances.

Our Sunday-schools, therefore, urgently demand the aid of

"religious" teachers; we mean teachers who are practical

Christians themselves, and carry out in their lives the lessons

they are desirous of teaching others. They need teachers who are

more than Catholics by profession. In a Sunday-school which is

fortunate enough to possess teachers of religion who are men of

living faith, devout, prayerful, scrupulous, and exact in the

performances of their religious duties, exhibiting in their

manner a deep reverence for holy things, modesty, patience,

benignity, earnestness, and zeal for the glory of God, there will

the children also be found exact types of their spiritual

instructors.

The Sunday-School Union will form a corps of just such men. It

will find itself composed of members who are moved by the Holy

Spirit of God to take some part in this important work, and who

will engage in it as a labor of love, in the spirit of sacrifice

and apostolic zeal. They will, for the most part, bring hearts

well prepared for it; but the Union will itself do much toward

sustaining and advancing the spiritual good of its members. The

most noble spectacle to be presented in this world of temptation

and sin, is a band of young men, strong in the faith and loyal to

the holy traditions of religion emulating each other in the

practice of virtue and works of Christian charity. Such is the

spectacle which this association is striving to present to our

eyes, and our prayers should not be wanting that God may

strengthen them and enlarge the sphere of their holy labors.

The third object spoken of is the "social" character which the

Union proposes. We think we understand this, and have already

hinted at it. They aim at making the tone of their association

high and select. And this is a point worthy of our reflection.

Children naturally imitate the manners of their elders,

particularly of those with whom they are associated in the

capacity of pupils.

{304}

Let the teacher be rough, boorish, and uncouth in his deportment,

negligent in his personal appearance, unceremonious and

irreverent in the church, unguarded in his language, of an

ungoverned temper, tardy in his attendance, and distracted in his

instructions, you will find that the class of which he has

unfortunately the charge will very soon be an exact copy of

himself. We commiserate the Sunday-school where even one such

teacher is to be found. He and his ill-regulated and

worse-behaved class are a positive hinderance to the good order

of the whole school, and the sooner he is got rid of the better.

The Union, by its power of associating like to like, will

eliminate this worthless class of individuals, and substitute in

their stead punctual, earnest, courteous, self-denying, and

reverent-minded teachers, whose very presence in the

Sunday-school will be an example of deportment becoming the

Christian and the gentleman, commanding respect, obedience, and

attention on the part of all the scholars, and the esteem of his

fellow-teachers. What affection, too, the children instinctively

bestow upon such!

The love for these young souls, of which their heart is full, is

abundantly reciprocated, and the influence for good which such

teachers have is beyond measure. They are regarded by these

little ones of Christ in their true light, as coadjutors of the

pastor, and their admonitions are received with humble and loving

obedience. "O ma!" says a little child to its parent on returning

from Sunday-school, "we have the nicest teacher in the world,

_so_ good, and he knows _so_ much, and he is _such a

gentleman!_" Yes; children are quick of observation--none

quicker; and when they have found one who presents all the

qualities which should distinguish a worthy teacher, they from

that moment begin to count the hours which will intervene until

they shall have the happiness of meeting him again. If we aim at

having first-class Sunday-schools, which will not only teach the

children their catechism, and encourage them in the practice of

virtue, but also elevate and refine their manners, and educate

them in that, for which, after all, Catholic children are

remarkable, namely, Christian politeness, we must secure teachers

who, like the teacher of the little child mentioned above, are

_so_ good, know _so_ much, and are _such

gentlemen!_ We have every confidence that the Sunday-School

Union, by its "social" character, will bring this about.

We are making no invidious reflections, and would feel pained to

think we should be thus adjudged. We presume to speak from

experience. We know something of Sunday-schools, and of their

working in small and large parishes, in the city and in the

country. We have had to feel the many difficulties which a pastor

has to surmount in this matter. We aim at encouraging and bidding

God speed to an enterprise which we know is needed, and which we

are certain cannot fail of producing incalculable good.

Among other works which the Union proposes, is that of

establishing Sunday-schools for colored children. That zealous

and apostolic priest, the Rev. Father Duranquet, of the Society

of Jesus, did not shrink from adding this to his many other

labors when it presented itself to him in the course of his

ministry. But just such a power was needed as the Sunday-School

Union affords to reach these much-neglected children, and bring

them under the influence of the Catholic religion, to care for

those of that class who are of her household, to insure a lively,

personal, loving interest being taken in them, and thus to show

that our holy church is the church of all the people, of white

and black, of bond and free.

{305}

We bless God for this effort of theirs. It is very near and dear

to our own heart. The world sneers and scoffs at them, but there

is no caste in the Catholic Church, and they are, as well as we,

souls for whom Christ died.

The Catholic priest and the Catholic Sunday-school teacher can do

more for them, we know, than all the so-called philanthropists

from Dan to Beersheba. God forbid that we should turn aside from

this labor and leave these precious souls to perish!

The Sunday-School Union is formed exclusively of men. "The female

teachers," says the report, "are invited to all the public

lectures and discourses, and to participate in as many of the

undertakings of the Union as possible." This is all very proper.

We know, however, that the ladies have hitherto taken rather the,

shall we say, lion's share in the hardest of the undertakings to

which the young men of the Sunday-School Union can possibly

devote their energies, which is, the work of teaching. In most

parishes they have far outnumbered the male teachers. We refrain

from making any comparison of their efficiency. For ourselves, we

say we do not know how we could possibly have got along without

them, nor do we see how their aid can be dispensed with in the

future. We are not aware that the Sunday-School Union has any

such intention. The ladies do a good by their presence which we

of the stronger, rougher sex may not hope to accomplish, besides

being the fittest persons to teach the female classes. We are

sure that they will cheerfully abide by any rules and regulations

laid down by the Union, and do their utmost to carry out any

suggestions made to them for the better conducting of their

classes. We are not afraid of their resisting the powers that be.

But why may they not also meet together for mutual encouragement,

instruction, and edification? We shall look for some movement of

this kind before long.

As for the Union itself, we look upon it not as a simple local

expedient to meet a local want. It has a national interest, and

sooner or later must find imitation in all our large cities and

towns. We hope soon to hear that such has been the case in many

other places, and then the influence of such associations will be

increased in the ratio of the union of their separate and

distinct bodies, at least, such an union as we trust and pray

will soon be exhibited in all great Catholic works in this

country--the assembly of their members for mutual acquaintance,

cooperation, and debate, in a National Catholic Congress. The

good that is done, the power that is elicited from assemblies of

this kind, is well known to all our readers who have perused our

articles on the Catholic Congress of Malines, in former numbers

of _The Catholic World_. The Sunday-School Union would do

well to consider this matter in the light of their own interest.

In their union they have found strength. Let them seek to extend

their efforts by encouraging, in so far as they are able, any

such associations as may be started, or are in operation, in

other places, inviting a correspondence and offering all their

aid, looking forward, at the same time, to a union with them on a

larger and general basis, and to the discussion of their mutual

interests in a grand congressional assembly.

{306}

We trust that our remarks will be received in the spirit in which

they are meant. They have been prompted by the deep, heart-felt

interest which we feel in the subject, and the entire sympathy

which we have for the noble, holy, Christian work to which our

friends have devoted their energies. They have not begun too

soon. Every year thousands of our children, in this city of New

York alone, leave school to engage in various occupations, where

they are thrown into the society of youths of all religions and

of no religion. Protestantism has practically no influence over

children, and generally leaves them to shift for themselves, and

pick up what scraps of religion they may.

Unfortunately, the mass of them, being totally ignorant of the

blessings and comfort of the Catholic faith, and not having had

any very cheerful experience of religion as it has been presented

to them by the bald, repulsive, unchild-like nature of

Protestantism, break away from its restraints, and run wildly

into the deserts of rationalism or infidelity. Poor children! our

hearts bleed for them. But, while we pity them, let us not forget

that they are to be the daily associates of our own lambs of the

flock. How necessary, then, that we should strive by every effort

to prepare ours for the dangers to which they will be exposed by

giving them, while we may, a thorough knowledge of their holy

faith, and send them forth guarded by a panoply of virtue,

accustomed to a regular attendance upon the divine offices of the

church, and to a frequent reception of the Holy Sacraments. Let

it be our aim to dismiss each and every child from our

Sunday-schools a loyal, devout, intelligent Catholic, whose faith

is firm as a rock, and whose soul is bright and pure with the

indwelling grace of God. Our blessed Lord, the lover of little

children, will not fail to remember our care of those of whom He

said: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

--------------

Sonnet On "Le Recit D'une Soeur,"

By Mrs. Augustus Craven.

Whence is the music? Minstrel see we none;

Yet, soft as waves that, surge succeeding surge,

Roll forward--now subside--anon emerge--

Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun,

Those beatific harmonies sweep on:

O'er earth they sweep from utmost verge to verge,

Triumphant Hymeneal, Hymn, and Dirge,

Blending in everlasting unison.

Whence is the music? Stranger! These were they

That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved:

These were true lovers, for in God they loved:

With God these spirits rest in endless day.

Yet still, for love's behoof, on wings outspread

Float on o'er earth betwixt the angels and the dead.

Aubrey de Vere.

-----------

{307}

Nellie Netterville;

or, One Of The Transplanted.

Chapter VI.

The party from the tower came on meantime at a rapid rate; and,

peeping cautiously from behind her hiding-place, Nellie saw that

they had already reached the foot of the hill where she and her

grandfather stood awaiting their approach. The lady--even at that

distance Nellie fancied she could see that she was young and

pretty, and, though clad in the saddest and strictest of

Puritanic attire, anything but a Puritan in her looks and

bearing--rode in front, with the military-looking personage,

described already, upon one side, and a younger cavalier, with

the air likewise of a soldier, on the other, while a couple of

followers brought up the rear. At first the three foremost of the

party rode abreast, but, as the up-hill path began to narrow, the

lady pushed her horse ahead so as to lead the way, and Nellie

could hear one of her companions shouting to her to ride

cautiously until she had turned the sharp corner of rock behind

which Nellie herself was at that moment standing. The warning

came, as warnings often _do_ come, too late by a single

second. It could have scarcely reached the lady's ears ere she

had dashed round the corner, and her horse, wild and unmanageable

enough already, plunged violently at the unexpected apparition of

Nellie and her grandfather on the other side. If the path had not

widened considerably at that spot, the struggle must have ended

fatally, and even as it was, Nellie expected every moment to see

both horse and rider roll over the edge of the precipice to which

the heels of the former were in such fearful proximity.

The lady, however, sat him to perfection, and after a short,

sharp struggle for the mastery, she succeeded in forcing him to

rush at a wild gallop straight down the path leading to the

valley, the only safe course of action she could possibly have

adopted.

Her companions had by this time reached the spot where Nellie had

watched the contest, and the younger of the two was about to spur

his horse on to the rescue, when his older and wiser companion

shouted to him to forbear.

"Let her be, Ormiston! Let her be!" he cried. "She knows well

enough what she is about, my Ruth. And you will but infuriate her

horse by following at his heels."

Thus adjured, the young man, addressed as "Ormiston," had no

choice but to remain quiet. He drew in bridle, therefore, beside

his chief, and watched as patiently as he could the down-hill

gallop of the lady. The result fortunately justified the

confidence of the elder horseman. No sooner had she reached the

wide bottom of the glen below, than she checked her horse

suddenly, and turning him almost before he had time to suspect

her intentions, galloped him up the hill again with such right

good-will that he was glad enough to stop and breathe of his own

accord by the time she had rejoined her companions.

Relieved from all anxiety on her account, the old Cromwellian

officer, for such his scarf and embroidered shoulder-belt

announced him, turned the vials of his wrath, as even the best

men will upon such occasions, upon those who, however

unwittingly, had been the cause of the disaster.

{308}

In the present case Nellie and her grandfather were only too

evidently the offenders, and the storm was accordingly sent full

upon their heads. They were still standing in the recess formed

by the shoulder of the retreating bank, and as Nellie, by an

unconscious movement of girlish timidity, had retired behind Lord

Netterville, he formed for a moment the chief figure in the

group. Thoroughly roused and wakened up at thus finding himself

unexpectedly face to face with his arch enemies, the old man

stood out upon the foreground like a picture, his eyes sparkling,

his white hair falling on his shoulders, and a grave and noble

pride in his very attitude which belied alike the meanness of his

apparent station and the disfigurement of his stained and

travel-worn attire. The latter indeed consisting entirely of the

so-called "Irish weeds," the Cromwellian officer naturally enough

concluded him to be a native, and addressed him, accordingly, in

such terms of contemptuous abuse as it was too often the Saxon

fashion of those unhappy times to bestow upon the Celt.

"How now, thou 'Irish dogg'? How hast thou dared, thou and thy

wench, to cross our path, and so put the life of the Lord's elect

in danger? Give place at once and let us pass, if thou wouldst

not that I should do unto thee as I did at Tredagh, where my

sword, from the rising even to the setting of the sun, wrought

the vengeance of the Lord on an idolatrous and misguided people."

Lord Netterville, during this agreeable harangue, had stepped

right into the centre of the path, so that the other could hardly

have passed him without a struggle, and he barely awaited its

conclusion ere, with eyes flashing fire, he violently retorted:

"'Irish dogg!' sayest thou? Learn, thou unmannerly Saxon churl,

that my blood is as English perhaps more so than thine own; and

certainly from a nobler fountain! I am of the English pale," he

continued, drawing himself up to his full height, and gaining in

dignity what he lost in passion, "and one of no mean standing in

it either--a Netterville of the old Norman race, since the days

of the first Plantagenet."

"Lord Netterville--father!" said the young Amazon in a low voice,

pushing her horse forward and touching the officer's shoulder

with her riding-whip in order to attract his attention. "It must

be the Lord Netterville of whom there was some question, I

remember, when you were in negotiation for these lands."

"Ha, wench! thou also to blaspheme!" he cried, turning furiously

upon her. "Knowest thou not that there is but one Lord, and that

the pride of them that assume his titles stinks in his nostrils

like the burning pitch of Tophet? And thou," he added, addressing

himself to Lord Netterville, "in vain dost thou boast of thy race

or lineage; for whatever they once were, they have, I doubt not,

been so often renewed in the blood of the Irish as to have little

or naught left of English honesty or honor to bestow upon their

owner."

"Little or much!" cried the old lord furiously, "if thou, black

dog of Cromwell as thou art, will but dismount and bid one of thy

lackeys put a sword into my hands, I will show thee that, in

spite of my seventy years and odd, I have still enough of English

manhood left to chastise impertinence, wherever or in whomsoever

I may chance to find it."

"Sir," cried Nellie, terrified at the turn affairs were taking,

and placing herself between the disputants, "there is no need for

all these taunting words and bandying of harsh challenges.

{309}

In peace have we come hither, and we do but seek to possess our

own in peace--their honors, the commissioners at Loughrea, having

assigned to us our residence amidst these mountains."

"Residence!" cried the officer, roused at once into a far more

bitter and personal feeling than the sort of proud contempt,

which was all that he had hitherto deigned to bestow upon the

strangers. "Residence among these mountains, dost thou say? Nay,

then, young maiden, thou hast mistaken thy mark, and that most

widely, since all these lands, as far as the eye can see--even

this land of Murrisk, which we English call the 'Owles,' with its

upper and its lower barony as well--have been made over to me

already, as mine own inheritance, the land which the Lord hath

given (for the laborer is worthy of his hire) as the fruit of

long service in the battle-field."

"This is my grandfather. Lord Netterville, and we are, as he has

rightly told you, of the old English of the pale," said Nellie,

making one step nearer in order to present her certificate. "At

first, in common with the other inhabitants of Meath, we were to

have been sent into the more eastern baronies of Connaught; but

the numbers set down for transplantation to those parts having

been found greater than could be accommodated on the land, we

were assigned at last our portion in the same barony of Murrisk."

The officer looked at first as if greatly inclined to refuse the

paper which she held up for his acceptance; but suddenly changing

his intention, he snatched it rudely from her hand, and ran his

eye over the contents.

"Humph! ha!" he continued to mutter as he read; and then turning

to Nellie, he said in a voice in which, toned down as it was to

an affectation of cold indifference, her quick ear detected,

nevertheless, a lurking tone of triumph.

"This certificate bears a date, as I see, of some three months

earlier in the year. How, then, is it, maiden, that it was not

presented sooner?"

"It is five months to-day since we left our home--our pleasant

home in Meath," said Nellie sadly; "and "much of that time was

spent perforce at Loughrea. At first we were kept there in sore

suspense as to the settlement of our just claim for land, and

after that we were detained by sickness. Our servant fell ill and

died of the plague; my grandfather suffered also much from the

same malady, and he has in some measure recovered from it; it

has, alas! reduced him from a hale and hearty old age, to the

wreck--mind and body--that you see before you. In this way our

scanty stock of money was soon exhausted, and when at last he was

fit to travel, we had to sell our horses and the best part of our

wearing apparel, in order to satisfy the debts incurred during

his illness; after which there was nothing for it but to finish

the journey as best we could on foot."

"How marvellous are the mercies of the Lord--the mercies which he

has laid up for them that fear him," cried the officer, turning

triumphantly toward his companions, and yet shrinking, in spite

of himself, beneath the angry glances shot at him from the blue

eyes of his daughter. "Surely his hand and his wisdom are visible

in this matter," he added, in a less openly exultant manner; "for

look ye, maiden, had you and the man you call Lord Netterville

come hither at the time when, according to the date of your

certificate, you should have done, you might, peradventure, have

found no one to dispute possession with ye.

{310}

But behold! instead of that, the Lord hath vexed and troubled ye;

he hath forced ye to tarry, even as he forced his rebellious

people to tarry in the wilderness; he hath afflicted ye with

sickness; he hath even visited ye with death, in order that I,

his servant and soldier on the battle-field, might go up and take

peaceable possession of that land which ye vainly fancied to be

all your own."

"But are not these the very lands--a portion of the barony of

Murrisk--which are set down in our certificate?" said Nellie, not

even yet comprehending thoroughly the greatness of the impending

blow. "How, then, noble sir, do you speak of them as yours?"

"Yea, and indeed," replied the officer, "these are of a certainty

those very lands. Nevertheless, maiden, thou hast yet to learn

that, if thou hast a certificate, I also am provided with a

debenture, signed and delivered to me two months ago.

Consequently, my order on the estate being of a later date, doth

override and make void thine own, which, moreover, on looking

closer, I do perceive to be merely a _de bene esse_, a poor

make-shift for the time being, until something more permanent

could be assigned thee."

"God help us, then!" cried Nellie; utterly overwhelmed by this

last announcement. "God help us, then, and pardon those who have

trifled so cruelly with our fortunes! Strangers we are, and

without a place whereon to lay our heads; what then is to become

of us in these deserted mountains?"

"Thou shouldst have looked to all that ere coming hither," he

answered harshly; "as matters are at present, I would counsel

thee to return to Loughrea at thy quickest speed, and to seek

some other grant of land from their honors the commissioners, ere

all that which is left in their hands has been absolutely

disposed of."

"We cannot," said Nellie in a tone of hopeless sorrow, which,

save that of the old fanatic himself, touched the hearts of all

who heard her. "Look!" she added, turning, and with a sudden wave

of the arm indicating Lord Netterville, who, utterly exhausted by

his late excitement, was leaning against the bank in a half state

of stupor. "Look at that old man, and tell me how is he to

retrace his footsteps? Hope, indeed, aided him on his journey

hither, but what hope is left to give him courage to go back?"

"As I have already said, thou shouldst have looked to all that

ere undertaking such a journey," he answered shortly, and

preparing to ride forward; for he saw that in his daughter's face

which made him feel sure that she would not remain much longer

silent. "And now get you both hence at once, I counsel ye; for my

choler is apt to rise in the presence of the enemies of the Lord,

and I may not much longer be able to restrain my hand from

striking--"

"Strike, if you will, but hear me!" cried Nellie, springing

forward so suddenly that she had caught hold of his bridle-rein

ere he was even aware of her intention. "If yonder tower is

indeed your home, give him a night's shelter in it--only one

night--a single night--that he may rest from his weary travels."

"Nay, by the sword of Gideon, not even for an hour!" he cried

furiously. "Let go, maiden, let go! or I will strike thee as if

thou wert a mad dog in my path."

But Nellie was by this time driven to desperation, and she would

not let go. She clung to the bridle-rein, crying out, "Only one

night--one little night.

{311}

God is my witness that if there was but so much as a peasant's

hut within reach, I would die sooner than ask such a favor at

your hands."

Nearly as frantic with passion as she was with despair, he forced

his horse to rear again and again, in order to compel her to let

go; but finding, at last, that he could not shake her off, he

raised his riding-whip, and it would have fallen heavily on her

shoulders if, by a similar and almost simultaneous movement,

Ormiston and his daughter had not hastily interfered.

"Major Hewitson!" cried the former in a warning voice--and,

"Father, you shall not! you dare not!" cried the girl, spurring

her horse eagerly forward, and utterly regardless of the fact

that its heels were actually grazing the edge of the precipice as

she tried to wrest his whip from her father's grasp.

All the tenderness of the man's heart was wrapt up in his

daughter, and even in the midst of that moment of mad passion he

saw her danger, and cried out:

"Have a care, child, have a care! or you and your horse will be

over the precipice ere you know what you are doing."

"Throw away your whip then, or I will back him over it with my

own hands," she cried passionately; "for I would sooner perish at

once than see my own father strike a helpless girl like myself."

"Send the Irish beggar hence at once then, will you?" he answered

furiously, flinging away his whip as he spoke, and, tearing his

rein by main force from Nellie's grasp, he galloped rapidly down

the hill.

Instead of following him, the girl backed her horse further into

the recess in order to make room, and then waved her hand with

the gesture of an empress to the others to pass on. With the

exception of Ormiston they all obeyed, and no sooner had they got

to a little distance than she flung herself off her horse, and,

tossing the reins to her companion, threw herself into the arms

of the astonished Nellie, exclaiming:

"O my God, my God! and these are the deeds that we do in thy

name! When wilt thou arise and come to judgment?"

"Nay, grieve not thus, dear lady," said Nellie, generously

forgetting her own great wrongs at the sight of such voluntary

humiliation. "You at any rate have no cause to grieve, for

willingly you have done no wrong."

"Call me not lady; I am but a girl, a woman like yourself; only"--she

added with a touch of pride so like humility that it was

almost as beautiful--"only, probably, of meaner nature, and

certainly of less lofty lineage. What can I do for you? Alas!

alas! why do I ask, for what _can_ I do? Shelter, except in

my father's house, I have none to offer; and in that, after what

he has said just now, I could not even ensure your lives."

Here the young officer, who had by this time dismounted and

approached the girl, endeavored to insinuate his purse into her

hands; but she shook her head impatiently, and said, "Money!

money! of what use can money be in such wilds as these?"

Nevertheless, on second thoughts, she took the purse, and would,

perhaps, in a hesitating, shame-faced sort of way, have offered

it to Nellie, if the latter had not said decidedly:

"As you say, dear lady, it would be worse than useless. Neither

are we beggars. We did but seek what we thought to be our own.

And now," she added sadly, "we ask still less--even that which

the very beggars are thought to have a right to claim--but a

shelter for a single night."

{312}

"And even that I cannot give you," said the girl disconsolately;

"but at least," she added suddenly, in a brighter tone, "I think

I can tell you where to find that." She pointed with her whip to

a narrow path branching off a little lower down the hill, and

leading apparently in the direction of the sea. "Follow that

path--it is neither long nor difficult--and it will lead you to

the waters of the creek below. At the very foot of the hill,

where the path ends, you will find a hut; if empty, it will at

least give you shelter; if otherwise, its owner will, I doubt

not, make you welcome. He ought at least," she added quickly,

"for he also has lost something. Trust me, you are not the only

ones whom we have robbed for the achievement of our own

greatness. Farewell! and if ever you pray for your enemies, put

us among the worst and foremost."

She turned to her horse as she finished speaking. Her companion

would fain have aided her to mount; but putting him pettishly on

one side, she leaped into the saddle without assistance, and

galloped back by the road which she had come. The officer, thus

repulsed, bowed respectfully to Nellie, and then, remounting his

own horse, followed in the same direction. She cantered on,

however, as if unconscious of his existence, merely urging her

horse to a quicker speed, in order to escape him--a manoeuvre

which he took care, by imitating, to render useless. Finding, at

last, that he would not be shaken off, she pulled up suddenly,

and said angrily, and without even deigning to look round:

"Why do you follow me? Why do you dog my footsteps? Ride back to

my father, will you? He is of your own creed and calling, and

will better appreciate your society that I can."

"Nay, Ruth," he was beginning, but she interrupted him almost

fiercely--

"Call me by my own name if you wish that I should answer you. To

you at least, and to the world, I will still be Henrietta, though

at my father's hands I am compelled to submit to this mummery of

a change of name."

"Well, then, Henrietta," he answered quietly, but very gravely,

"believe me, I did not mean to anger you. I said 'Ruth,' because

that name is so often on your father's lips that it has begun to

come almost naturally to mine. I would not willingly anger you at

any time, and least of all, just now, when, in spite of what I

must call your unkind waywardness toward myself, I love and

worship you, as I never did before, for that nobleness of nature

which recoils, at any cost, from all that savors of injustice."

"Carry your love and worship elsewhere, then, for I will have

none of it," she said, evidently in nowise mollified by his

apology. "What should I care for your good opinion? Do you not

feel in your heart of hearts, or must I tell you, that we are

divided, as far as the north pole from the south, in our most

intimate convictions, and that what you and my father call

religion I consider as fanaticism--or that something which is

worse than fanaticism, or almost than crime--hypocrisy."

"You cannot believe what you are saying," he answered, now

indignant in his turn; "you know how well and truly I have loved

you, and you cannot believe that I am a hypocrite; you

cannot--you could not--you would not so dishonor me in your

thoughts--you who have promised to be my wife!"

{313}

"I retract that promise, then," she answered passionately,

"wholly and entirely I retract it. Never, so help me God, will I

become the mother of a race of fanatics, who will find, for such

deeds as we have seen done today, their pretext in religion."

"Henrietta!" he cried, the blood rushing to his temples, "you

cannot be in earnest!"

"See if I am not!" she answered coldly. "Ride back to my father

now, and let me go my ways alone to the tower."

"I will go to him, Henrietta; but it will only be to tell him

that I am about to return to my appointment in Dublin--unless,

indeed," he added, with a lingering hope of

reconciliation--"unless, Henrietta, you retract."

"I never retract," she answered shortly.

"Then, farewell!" he said, with a half movement, as if he would

have taken her hand."

"Farewell!" she answered, affecting not to see his offered hand,

and shaking the reins loose on her horse's neck.

Ormiston turned his horse's head in the opposite direction, and

went forward a few paces; then he stopped and looked after his

late companion. She was moving on, but slowly, and like one lost

in thought. Stirred by a sudden honest impulse of regret, he

turned and followed her. Henrietta heard him, and instantly

checked her horse, as if determined not to suffer him to ride any

longer at her side.

"Henrietta!" he said.

"What would you?" she asked sullenly.

"Only unsay that one word, 'hypocrisy,' and let things be as they

were before."

"I never unsay what I have said," she answered coldly.

"Neither do I," he retorted, now angry in earnest; "and I swear

to you that I will see you no more until under your own hand and

seal you retract, of your own accord, what you have said to-day,

and tell me to return."

"Farewell, then, for ever," she replied, with rather a bad

assumption of indifference--"for ever, if so it must be."

"Farewell," he answered, without, however, as even in that moment

Henrietta noticed, adding the ominous "for ever." "Farewell, and

God forgive you for so trifling with the honest heart that loves

you, and has loved you from your childhood. Some day--too late,

perhaps--you will do me justice."

And so they parted.

Chapter VII.

Left to herself, Nellie Netterville sat down to collect her

scattered senses. The situation in which she found herself

needed, in truth, a calm sense and courage, not often the

heritage of petted girlhood, in order to bear up successfully

against its difficulties. Happily for herself, the brave Irish

girl was possessed of both in no common degree, and the trials

and troubles of the last few months had ripened these faculties

into almost unnatural maturity. The tale she had just told to

Major Hewitson was free of the smallest attempt at exaggeration,

being, in fact, rather under than over the measure of the truth.

Lord Netterville, in common with many another unfortunate

gentleman of the English Pale, had been kept dancing attendance

on the commissioners at Loughrea until both hope and money failed

him.

{314}

The absence of home comforts told heavily upon a frame already

weakened by age and sorrow; and just at the moment when he could

least bear up against it, he was attacked by the plague, or some

disease analogous to the plague, which at that very time was

making most impartial havoc among the native Irish and their

foes. Thanks to an iron constitution, he recovered, but he rose

from his sickbed, if not absolutely a child in mind, yet as

utterly incapable of aiding Nellie by advice, or of steering his

own way unassisted through the troubled waters on which his ill

fate had cast him, as if he had been in very deed an infant. His

servant was already dead, therefore the whole responsibility of

their future movements devolved upon his granddaughter. She

proved herself, fortunately, not altogether unequal to the

occasion, never losing sight for a moment of the purpose which

had brought her to Loughrea, and tormenting the commissioners

until, less moved by her youth and helplessness than by a desire

to rid themselves of her troublesome importunities, they gave her

the certificate which she had shown to Major Hewitson, and which,

as he had instantly perceived, was rendered worse than useless to

its possessor by the fact of its being merely a temporary

arrangement. Ignorant alike of Latin and law language, Nellie

had, naturally enough, supposed it to be a permanent appointment;

and, selling their horses and every article of value in her

possession, in order to pay the debts contracted at Loughrea, she

had made the rest of the journey on foot, leading, soothing, and

encouraging the old man as if he had been a child, and buoying up

his courage and her own by fanciful descriptions of that home in

the far west, where she trusted his last days might be passed in

peace. She had tried to deceive _him_; she never attempted

to deceive _herself_ as to the nature of their future

prospects; yet unpleasant as her anticipations had been, they

were so much more agreeable than the terrible realities upon

which she had just stumbled, that she felt for a few moments, as

she sat there alone among the hills, as if the very gates of an

earthly Paradise had been closed against her. But it was no

moment for the indulgence of such natural regrets. She looked at

her grandfather, and felt that his life was in her hands. She

remembered, too, her promise to her mother to be son as well as

daughter to his age; and sternly and tearlessly, for tears were

too weak an expression for such desolation as she was feeling

then, she set herself to consider what her next move ought to be.

Food and shelter for the old man--(and it needed not another

glance at his pale face to tell her how much both were needed)

food and shelter--these must be her first object. It would be

time enough after they had been secured to decide as to the

feasibility of a return journey to Loughrea. She rose, and

drawing her hood, which, in her struggle with Major Hewitson, had

fallen back upon her shoulders, once more over her head, she took

her grandfather by the hand, and led him quietly and silently

down the path pointed out to her by Henrietta. It had originally

been a sheep-path, and proved far less difficult than she had

expected, winding gradually round the hills until it reached a

sort of creek or estuary formed by the inrushing, for a couple of

miles, of the waters from the bay beyond. It was a lonely, but a

lovely spot, and Nellie's heart beat more calmly as she paused to

listen to the soft rocking of the waters in their inland bed, and

to feel the fresh breeze which they brought from the ocean

playing on her heated brow.

{315}

There were no visible signs near her of that human habitation of

which Major Hewitson's daughter had so confidently spoken; but at

last, after having searched the landscape steadily in all

directions, she thought she saw something like a blue curl of

smoke rising out of a sort of mound, which, at first sight,

seemed neither more nor less than a cairn of unusually large

dimensions, nearly hidden by clumps of gorse and heather at least

six feet high, and bushy and luxuriant in proportion. On nearer

inspection, however, it proved to be a hut, such a hut as even to

this day may be sometimes seen in the wildest parts of the wild

west, rounded at the gables, built of rough stones, rudely yet

solidly put together, and with a roof laid on of fern and

shingle, carefully secured from the violence of the western winds

by bands of twisted straw. A hole in this roof stood proxy both

for window and for chimney, and the doorway was literally

doorless. A sort of grass mat hung across it from the inside,

being evidently considered by the inhabitants as ample protection

against cold and wet, the only foes which extreme poverty has got

to boast of.

For five seconds, at the very least, Nellie stood gazing on this

frail barrier with a feeling as if it would require more than

human courage to announce her presence to the human beings (she

knew not whether they were friends or enemies) who might be

stowed away behind it. At last, with a shaking hand, she drew

back a small corner of the matting, and, without daring to look

in, saluted the possible inmates, as the natives of the country

salute each other to this day in Irish, "God save all here!"

There was no answer, and, lifting the curtain a little higher,

she looked in.

The hut was empty, though a few embers burning on the floor gave

sufficient evidence of its having been recently inhabited. Of

furniture, save a single wooden settle, Nellie could discover

none; but a gun was standing upright against the opposite wall,

and near it hung a very Spanish-seeming mantle, looking as much

out of place in that miserable abode as its owner would probably

have done if he had been there to claim it. The solitude, and the

sight of that gun and mantle, made her feel far more nervous than

she would have felt if a dozen of the natives of the soil had

been congregated within. It seemed to imply some mystery, and, to

the helpless, mystery always has a touch of fear about it.

Moreover, it made her suddenly conscious that she was an

intruder, an idea which would never have come into her head if

her possible hosts had been of that frank-hearted race to whom

the virtue of hospitality comes so easily that it does not even

occur to them to call it "virtue." On the other hand, her

grandfather's pale face and sunken features seemed to plead with

her against all unseasonable timidity. Hastily, therefore, and as

though she were about to commit a theft, she put aside the

matting, drew the old man inside, and then replaced the screen as

carefully as if she hoped in this manner to hide her audacious

proceedings from the owner of the hut--or rather, if the truth

must be told, from the owner of the mysterious mantle. This first

step fairly taken, Nellie suddenly grew brave, and resolving to

make the most of their impromptu habitation, she drew the settle

nearer to the fire, and made Lord Netterville sit down upon it.

{316}

The sight of the embers seemed to revive the latter, less perhaps

from any need he felt of its warmth on that bright sunny day than

from the home-like associations which it awakened in his mind. He

smiled a wintry smile, with more of old age than of gladness in

it, and stretched forth his withered hands to warm them in the

blaze. Then, as if suddenly waking up for the first time to a

perception of his being foodless, he asked Nellie if supper would

soon be ready, for that in truth he was well-nigh starving.

Starving he must have been, that poor Nellie knew well enough

already; for they had exhausted their scanty stock of food that

very day, and he had tasted nothing since the early dawn. She

soothed him, however, and besought him to have yet a little

patience, and then, with a desperate resolution to appropriate to

his use whatever of food the hut might happen to contain, she

commenced a careful examination of its hidden nooks. There were,

of course, neither shelves nor cupboards, or anything, indeed,

which even suggested the idea of provisions having been ever kept

there; but at last, when she had almost begun to give up the

search in despair, she espied something like the handle of a

basket peeping out from beneath a bundle of firewood which lay

heaped in one corner of the hut upon the floor. Pouncing upon

this at once, she discovered that it contained a couple of

sea-trout, upon which the owner of the mansion had probably

intended making an early dinner, for they were already prepared

for broiling. With renewed energy Nellie took a handful of dried

brushwood, and threw it upon the half-extinguished fire, after

which she proceeded, in her new character of cook, to lay, in a

very leisurely and scientific manner, the fish upon the embers.

So engrossed was she in this occupation, that she never perceived

that the mat curtain over the doorway had been once more lifted

up, and that some one was watching her proceedings from the

outside. This some one was a man, apparently about twenty-five or

thirty years of age, with a figure rather above than below the

middle height, and a face which, full of energy and expression as

it was, was by no means regularly handsome, though the large,

Murillo-looking eyes by which it was lighted up deceived casual

beholders into a conviction that it was.

He was clad in a garb which might have belonged to the native

fishermen of the coast, yet no one could have mistaken him for

other than a gentleman and soldier, as he stood there, holding

back the screen of matting, and gazing, with a look curiously

compounded of amusement and annoyance, at the scene presented by

the interior of the cottage. The latter feeling, however, was

evidently in the ascendant--so much so, indeed, that he had

actually made a half-movement, as if to retreat and leave the hut

to its uninvited occupants, when something--was it a glimpse of

Nellie's delicate profile, as she stooped over the glowing

embers?--induced him to change his mind, and stepping quietly

over the threshold, he dropped the screen behind him with an

energy and good-will which seemed to indicate that, instead of

his premeditated flight, he had made up his mind to accept with a

good grace, and perhaps even to enjoy, this unexpected addition

to his society. The sound of the falling mat warned Nellie of the

advent of a stranger, and, crimson with shame and fear, she stood

up to receive him. He gazed upon her steadily, the half-feeling

of annoyance, still visible on his clouded brow, yielding

gradually to a look of intense but reverent admiration, and

removing his fisherman's cap from his head, he bowed courteously,

and said in English:

{317}

"God save all here, and a hundred thousand welcomes also, if, as

I apprehend, you are fugitives like myself from tyranny and

injustice."

There was an indescribable tact and courtesy in the way in which

he combined this announcement of his being the master of the hut

with a frank and ready welcome to his unknown visitants, which

made Nellie feel at once that she had to do, not only with a man

of gentle birth but of high and polished breeding also. Yet this

fact seemed for the moment rather to add to her difficulty than

to decrease it, and secretly wishing that the fish could be made,

by some magical process, to disappear from the embers upon which

it was comfortably broiling, she placed herself as much as she

could between it and the stranger as she stammered out her

apology for intrusion. Did he see the fish? and did he guess at

the petty larceny she had just committed? Nellie fancied she saw

something like an amused look in his eye, which made her feel hot

and cold by turns with the consciousness of discovered guilt, but

the rest of his features wore no smile, nothing but an expression

of kind and courteous sympathy as he eagerly interrupted her

excuses--

"Say no more, dear lady, say no more, trust me I have not now to

learn for the first time to what dire straits the sad necessity

of these days of woe may bring us. And, therefore, to all who

come to this poor hut, but more especially to those who, for

honor and for conscience sake, have laid down wealth and power

elsewhere, I have but one word--one greeting, and that is the

old Irish one, of a hundred thousand welcomes."

"A hundred thousand welcomes!" repeated a feeble, quivering voice

close to the stranger's elbow. He turned and looked for the first

time steadily at Lord Netterville, of whose presence up to that

moment he had been barely conscious. The old man had risen from

his seat, and stood smiling and bowing courteously, evidently

thinking he was doing the honors of a home, of which--however

humble--he was yet the undoubted master.

"Our house is poor, sir," he went on, "once, indeed, we boasted

of a better; but let that pass. Such as it is--such as our

enemies have made it--you may reckon assuredly upon meeting an

Irish welcome in it."

"Sir," whispered Nellie through her tears, fearing lest the

stranger might break in too rudely on the old man's delusion. "He

is old--he has been ill--he fancies he has reached his home; you

must excuse him."

The unknown turned his eyes upon the girl with a look so full of

reverent sympathy, that it went straight to her heart, never

afterward to be effaced from thence. She felt that her

grandfather would be safe in such kindly hands, and was turning

quietly away when Lord Netterville, still enacting his fancied

character of host, threw a handful of dry wood upon the fire, and

the blaze that instantly ensued fell full upon his features,

which had hitherto been barely visible in the gloom. The stranger

started violently.

"Good God!" he cried, in a tone of irrepressible astonishment.

"Is it possible that I see Lord Netterville, and in such a

plight?"

"You know my grandfather, then?" cried Nellie joyously, feeling

as if the stranger must have been sent by Providence especially

to help her in the hour of her utmost need. "You know my

grandfather?"

{318}

"I ought, at any rate," he answered, with a sad smile, as he took

Lord Netterville's proffered hand. "For we fought together and

were beaten at Kilrush; my first battle, and, as I suppose, his

last."

"Ha!" cried the old man, "Kilrush! Kilrush! who speaks to me of

Kilrush? Were you there, sir? Time must have played sad tricks

upon my memory then, for, truth to say, I do not recognize you."

"Nay, my good lord," said the stranger soothingly, "it would be

stranger still if you had done so, for I was but a beardless boy

in those days. Nevertheless, I remember _you_, Lord

Netterville, and surely you cannot have altogether forgotten the

cheer we gave when you, a tried and veteran soldier, rode up to

serve with us as a volunteer in the regiment of your gallant

son."

"I remember! I remember!" cried the old man eagerly. "It was a

bright and glorious morning, and we charged them gallantly--a

bright and glorious morning, but with a sad and bloody ending.

Alas! alas!" he added, his voice falling suddenly from its

trumpet-like tone of exultation to an old man's wail of sorrow.

"Alas! alas! how many of the best and bravest that we had among

us lay dead and trampled in the dust, as we withdrew from that

fatal field."

He bowed his head upon his breast, and remained for a little

while absorbed in thought, and Nellie took advantage of the pause

to say:

"You knew my father, sir? You must have known him if you were

near Lord Netterville at Kilrush; for father and son charged side

by side, and were seldom, as I have since been told, ten minutes

out of each other's sight during the whole of that bloody

battle."

"Knew your father? Yes, dear lady--if your father was, as I

suppose, Colonel Netterville--I knew him well. He was the bosom

friend of my uncle and namesake, Roger Moore of Leix, who placed

me in his regiment when I joined the Irish army."

"Roger Moore of Leix," cried Nellie, a flash of enthusiasm

lighting up her face; "Roger Moore--the brave--the gifted--the

first leader in a noble cause, whose very name was a battle-cry,

and whose followers rushed into fight, shouting for 'God--our

Lady--and Roger Moore!' Yes, yes; he was my father's friend. I

remember even when I was a child how he used to talk about him.

And _you_," she added, with a sudden change of voice and

manner, and placing both her hands in his, "_you_, then, are

that Roger Moore, the younger, in whose arms my poor father

died."

"At the battle of Benburb," said Moore, in a low voice; "a

glorious battle--well fought, and well won, and yet for ever to

be regretted, for the loss of one of Ireland's bravest and most

faithful soldiers."

"Grandfather," cried Nellie, suddenly withdrawing her hands from

Roger, and blushing scarlet at the inadvertence of her own action

which had placed them in his, "this is Captain Moore, who bore my

wounded father out of the press of battle, and to whom we are

indebted for that last and loving farewell which he sent to us in

dying."

But instead of replying with an eagerness corresponding to her

own, Lord Netterville gazed vacantly upon the stranger, evidently

without the slightest recollection of his name or person, and

repeated, in a low mechanical voice, his previously-muttered

welcome.

"He does not remember!" said Roger. "Alas! alas! for that bright

intellect, once cloudless as a summer's noon!"

{319}

"Hush, hush!" whispered Nellie. "Recollection is beginning to

return." And Lord Netterville did, in fact, seem to be making a

languid effort at gathering up his scattered thoughts, for he

looked at Roger, and said feebly:

"You knew my son, sir?--you knew my son?--then, indeed, you are

very welcome. He was a brave boy, and fought for his king and

country--fought and fell--on the field of--the field of--the

name--which I thought never to forget--has almost escaped me."

"Benburb," Roger ventured to interpose.

"Benburb! Ay, that was the very name--Benburb!--my memory does

not fail me, sir; but I have been much tried of late--or we rode

too far this morning--for I feel very faint."

He tried to draw back from the fire as he spoke, but he tottered,

and would have fallen if Roger had not caught him by the arm, and

made him sit down upon the settle.

"He is faint for want of food," said Nellie hastily; "we have

been wandering all day among the hills, and he has not broken his

fast since morning."

Roger did not answer, but signing to her to support Lord

Netterville, he went straight to some invisible cranny in the

walls of the hut, and drew thence a bottle of strong cordial.

Pouring a little of this into a broken mug, he made the old man

swallow it, and then stood beside him, anxiously watching the

result. Happily it was favorable--in a few minutes Lord

Netterville revived, the color returned to his wan cheek, and

turning to Nellie, he asked her, in a half-whisper, "if supper

would soon be ready?" Shyly, and blushing scarlet, Nellie nodded

an affirmative, and forgetting all her previous shame in anxiety

for her grandfather, she was about to resume her office as cook,

when, with a half-smile on his face, Roger Moore put her quietly

aside.

"Nay, Mistress Netterville, remember that I am master here, and

that I forbid you to lay hands upon that fish? I have always been

cook in my own proper person to the establishment, and I cannot

allow you to supersede me in the office."

"Forgive me!" said Nellie, tears starting to her eyes, and half

fancying in her confusion that he was angry in earnest. "I could

not help it, for he was starving."

"Do not misunderstand me, I entreat you," said Roger, in a voice

of deep and real feeling; "I should be a brute if I objected to

anything you have or could have done; I only meant that I

objected to your continuing in that office; for so long as the

daughter of my old colonel is under my roof, (even though it be

but a poor mud sheeling,) she shall do no work, with my

good-will, unfit for the hands of a princess." He busied himself

while speaking in drawing forth, from that same recess in which

he had found the cordial, some thin oaten cakes, a few wooden

platters, and one or two knives and spoons of such massive

silver, that Nellie could not help thinking they were as much out

of keeping with the rest of the furniture as Roger himself

appeared to be with the hut, of which he was doing the honors in

such simple and yet such courtly fashion. He would not even let

her hold the platter upon which he placed the fish as he took it

from the embers, and he himself then brought it to Lord

Netterville, and pressed him, as tenderly as if he had been a

child, to partake of this impromptu supper.

{320}

The old man yielded, nothing loath, and so, indeed, did his

grandchild; for, though very fair to look at, no goddess was poor

Nellie, but a young and growing girl with the healthy appetite of

sixteen. She accepted, therefore, Roger's invitation without the

smallest affectation of reluctance, and sitting down on the floor

beside her grandfather, shared the contents of his platter with

innocent and undisguised enjoyment. With all her sense and

courage, she was as yet in many things a perfect child, yielding

as easily as a child might do to the first ray of sunshine that

brightened on her path, and accepting the happiness of the

present moment as unrestrainedly as if never even suspecting the

shadows that were lurking in her future. Now, therefore, that she

felt her grandfather was in safe and helpful keeping, she threw

off the sense of responsibility which had weighed her down for

months, and became almost gay. Color rose to her wasted cheek,

light sparkled in her eyes, and she responded to Roger's efforts

to make her feel comfortable and at home, with such innocent and

unbounded faith in his wish and power to befriend them, that he

vowed an inward vow never to forsake her, but to guard her, as if

she had been in very deed his sister, through the trials and

dangers of her unprotected exile. When their meal was over, and

while her grandfather slumbered in the quiet warmth of the

peat-fire, she told Roger Moore her story, simply and briefly as

she might have told it to a brother, beginning at her departure

from her ancestral home, and ending with her encounter with the

English strangers among the mountains.

"It is Major Hewitson," said Roger, "in whose favor I have been

despoiled of my old home. Major Hewitson and his pretty daughter

'Ruth,' as he chooses to call her, in order to blot out the fact

that her name is Henrietta, and that she had a popish queen for

her godmother. She forgets it not herself, however," he added,

with a smile; "for her mother was of noble race, and they say

that she is a true cavalier at heart, and pines like a caged bird

in the network of demure fanaticism which her father has twined

around her."

"She has a lovely face and a kind and honest heart, for certain,"

said Nellie. "She knows you also, now I think of it; for she it

was who directed me to this hut, with a hint that I should here

find a friend."

"Did she?" said Roger, with genuine fervour. "Nay, then, for that

one good deed I needs must pardon her, that she, or her father

for her, have robbed me of my inheritance. And now I think of

it," he added, with a touch of sly malice in his smile, "you

also, if you came hither to seek land, must have been bound on

the same errand; for both these baronies, 'Umhall uaghtragh' and

'Umhall ioghtragh,' is the country of the O'Mailly's, and, in

right of my grandmother, my own."

Nellie blushed scarlet. "Alas!" she said, "I knew not whither or

to whom they sent us; but sure am I, at all events, that we never

would have accepted of any home at the expense of its rightful

owners."

"Nay," said Roger, "I did but jest. Would indeed that it was to

you I had been compelled to yield it! In spite of that fact you

should have had, I promise you, a right royal welcome. And now I

must needs explain. This sheeling, you must know, is not really

my home. It is but a temporary refuge, of which I have two or

three along the coast; for I have fought battles enough against

England's new-fangled government to have deserved the honors of

outlawry at her hands.

{321}

My life consequently has been none too safe at any time these six

months past, and now that yonder gray-haired fanatic, who would

ask nothing better than to seal his title in my blood, has got

possession of these lands, it is of course less secure than ever.

My most permanent home, however, is on an island, facing the bay

on this side, and washed by the waters of the Atlantic on the

other. It is poor enough, God knows, yet capable of giving better

accommodation than such a hut as this is. Will you and your

grandfather be content to share it with me?"

Tears rushed into the dark eyes of Nellie.

"Providence is good," she answered simply--"Providence is very

good, and gives us friends when we least expect them."

"Well, then, it is a bargain," cried Roger gayly; "and now.

Mistress Netterville, come and see the craft in which you will

have to make the voyage."

He pulled down the "mysterious mantle" as he spoke, and Nellie

saw that, instead of covering the bare wall as she had imagined,

it merely concealed an opening into an inner and smaller portion

of the hut, built right over the creek, and made to answer the

purpose of a boat-house. Into this the water rushed, so as to

form a basin deep enough for the floating of a boat, and one

accordingly lay safe within it, concealed by the overhanging roof

from observation on the outside.

It was not flat-bottomed like the native craft, but had been

evidently built both for strength and speed by one who understood

his business, and its chief cargo at this particular moment

seemed to be a quantity of luxuriant heather.

To this Roger pointed with a smile. "If I were a Highlander," he

said, "you might suspect me of second-sight; for I have gathered,

without thinking of it, double the usual quantity of heather,

that which we outlaws perforce use for bedding. I hope you will

not mind roughing it a little."

"I have roughed it a good deal within the last few months," said

Nellie, "and I do not think you will find me difficult to please.

Is the boat quite safe? I have never been out on the real sea

before."

"Safe!" said the young man, with a little pardonable pride in his

dark eyes. "I built her myself, and she has weathered more than

one bad storm since the first day that I sailed her. I call her

the 'Grana Uaille,' after the stout old chieftainess whose island

kingdom I inhabit, and which, with the other lands of which Major

Hewitson has robbed me, I inherit from my grandmother. But the

sun is getting low. Do you not think we had better start at once,

and get the voyage over before night-fall?"

To this Nellie gladly assented, and between them they conducted

Lord Netterville to the boat. Roger arranged the heather so as to

form a sort of couch, and, with the mantle thrown over him to

protect him from the damp, the old man found himself so

comfortable that he settled himself quietly for slumber. Then

Roger put up his sail, and with a fresh and favorable wind they

glided down the creek.

Nellie would not lie down, but she sat back in the boat with a

lazy kind of gladness in her heart, which, rightly interpreted,

would probably have been found to mean perfect rest of body and

mind. Such rest as she had not felt for months! The waters

widened as they approached the bay, and Nellie marked each new

feature in the scene with an interest all the keener and more

enjoyable, that everything she saw was so unlike anything she had

ever seen before.

{322}

Accustomed as she had been to the tamer cultivation of her native

country, the savage grandeur of that wild west, with its poverty

in human life, its wealth in that which was merely animal, took

her completely by surprise, and she gazed with unwearied

interest, now on the undulating ranges of blue mountains which

crossed and recrossed each other like network against the sky,

then on the broad, black tracts of peat and bog land which

covered the country at their feet like a pall; listened now to

the bittern and plover as they answered each other from the

marshes, then to the shrill screams of the curlews as they rose

before the boat, darkening the air with their uncounted numbers;

or she watched a heron sweeping slowly homeward from its distant

fishing-ground--or a grand old eagle soaring solemnly upward, as

if bent on a visit to the departing sun; and her delight and

astonishment at last reached their climax in the apparition of a

seal, which, just as they cleared the creek, popped its head up

above the waves, leaving her, in spite of Roger's laughing

assurances to the contrary, well-nigh persuaded that she had seen

a mermaid. The wind continuing steady, Roger shook out his last

remaining reef, and, responding gayly to the fresh impulse, the

boat sprang forward at a racing pace. They were in Clew Bay at

last, and Nellie uttered a cry of joy--never had she seen

anything so beautiful before. Masses of clouds, with tints just

caught from the presence of the sun, soft greens and lilacs, and

pale primrose and delicate pearly white, so clear and filmy that

the evening star could be seen glancing through them, hung right

overhead, shedding a thousand hues, each more beautiful than the

other, upon the bay beneath, until it flowed like a liquid opal

round its multitude of tribute isles. Opposite, right in the very

mouth of the harbor, stood Clare Island, all alight and glowing,

as if it were in very deed the pavilion of the setting sun,

which, as it sank into the waves beyond it, wrapped tower, and

church, and slanting cliff, and winding shoreline, in such a

glory of gold and purple as made the old kingdom of Grana Uaille

look for the moment like a palace of the fairies. Nellie was

still straining her eyes for a glimpse of the Atlantic on the

other side, when the deep baying of a hound came like sad, sweet

music over the waters, and Roger slightly touched her shoulder.

They were close to the island; in another moment he had run his

boat cleverly into the little harbor and laid her alongside the

pier. A huge wolf-dog, of the old Irish breed, instantly bounded

in, nearly oversetting Nellie in his eagerness to greet his

master.

Roger laid one restraining hand on the dog's massive head, and

removing his cap with the other, said, smiling courteously:

"You must not be afraid of Maida, Mistress Netterville, she is as

gentle as she is strong, and has only come to add her voice to

her master's, and to bid you welcome to the outlaw's home."

Chapter VIII.

Nellie slept that night the peaceful slumbers of a child; but the

habits of long weeks of care were not to be so easily shaken off,

and the first ray of sunshine that found its way through the

narrow window of her chamber roused her from her well-earned

repose.

{323}

Her first impulse was, as it had ever been of late, to spring

from her couch with a painful sense of hard duty to be

accomplished that very day; her next was to thank God with all

the fervor of a young and innocent heart for the haven of safety

into which he had guided her at last. Then she lay back upon her

pillow, and, yielding to the delightful consciousness that there

was now no immediate call upon her for exertion either of body or

mind, glanced languidly round the dimly-lighted room, and

endeavored to make a mental inventory of its contents. It was a

square chamber, forming the second story of the old tower in

which Roger had taken up his abode, and which was all that was

yet remaining of the old stronghold of Grana Uaille. The

apartment had evidently no furniture of its own to boast of, but,

having been used as a sort of lumber-room, was abundantly

supplied with articles brought hither from more favored mansions.

Nellie soon perceived that much of this so-called lumber was of

the costliest description, and represented probably the sum total

of all that had been saved from the wreck of Roger's fortune.

There were cabinets of curious workmanship, a table carved in oak

as black as ebony, a few high-backed chairs of the same material,

ornaments in gold and silver, some of ancient Celtic manufacture,

others in their more delicate workmanship bearing marks of

artistic handling, which, even to Nellie's unaccustomed eye,

betrayed their foreign origin. There were pictures, too, most of

them with the dark shadow of a Spanish hand upon them, and

swords, bucklers, weapons, and armor of all kinds, old and new,

defensive and offensive, piled up here and there in picturesque

confusion in the corners of the turret. Nellie had been amusing

herself for some minutes scanning all these treasures over and

over, and guessing at their various uses, when her attention

became suddenly riveted upon a huge coffer with bands and

mouldings of curiously-wrought brass, which stood against the

wall exactly opposite to the foot of her bed. She was still quite

girl enough to be willing to amuse herself by imagining all sorts

of impossibilities respecting the contents of this mysterious

looking piece of furniture, and she was watching it as anxiously

as if she half expected it to open of itself, when the door of

the chamber was cautiously unclosed, and the old woman, who

represented the office of cook, valet, and everything else in

Roger's establishment, crept up to her bedside as quietly as if

she fancied her to be sleeping still.

"God's blessing and the light of heaven be on your sweet smiling

face," she ejaculated, as Nellie turned her bright, wide-open

eyes with a grateful smile upon the old hag. "Lie still a bit,

a-lannah, lie still, and take a sup of this fresh goat's whey

that I have been making for you. It will bring the color, may be,

into your pretty cheeks again; for troth, a-lannah, they are as

pale this morning as mountain roses, and not at all what they

should be in regard to a young and well-grown slip of a lassie

like yourself."

Nellie took the tempting beverage, which Nora presented to her in

an old-fashioned silver goblet, readily enough; but checking

herself just as she was about to put it to her lips, she said,

gayly:

"Thanks, a thousand times, my dear old woman, but I do not feel

that I need it much, and this whey would be the very thing for my

poor old grandfather. He was always accustomed to something of

the sort in the days when we were able to indulge ourselves in

such luxuries."

{324}

"Lord bless the child!" said the delighted Nora. "If she isn't as

gay as a bird in its mother's nest this morning, for all the

weary worry of her last night's travels. But there's no need to

be sparing of the whey, my honey, for sure I've a good sup of it

left on purpose for the old lord as soon as ever he awakens. So

drink up every drop of this, if you wouldn't have the master

scold me; for he sent it up himself, he did, and it's downright

mad he'd be if it came back to him and it not empty."

Something in this speech, or in old Nora's way of making it,

caused the blood, the absence of which she had been just

deploring, to rush once more into Nellie's cheek; and perhaps it

was partly to hide this weakness that she took the goblet without

another word, and drained it to the dregs, playfully turning its

wrong side up as she gave it back to Nora, in order to show her

how thoroughly her directions had been complied with. Made happy

on this important point, the old woman trotted gayly out of the

room, and then Nellie rose, half-reluctantly, it must be

confessed, and commenced the duties of the toilet. They were

simple enough in her case, yet difficult, also, from their very

simplicity. Her hair, long and smooth and shining, was easily

enough disposed in braids, which, folded tightly round her head,

gave a grace and elegance to her appearance none of the fantastic

head-gear then in vogue could possibly have imparted; but when

she came to inspect the habiliments she had worn the day before,

and which perforce she must wear again that day, she became

painfully, and, perhaps for the first time, fully conscious of

the dilapidations which time and travel had wrought upon them. In

vain she rubbed out mud and grass stains, in vain she plied her

needle. The garments absolutely defied her skill, and, painfully

conscious of the fact, she was about perforce to don them as they

were, when Nora burst into the room with a look of gladness on

her face, which vanished, however, to do her justice, as

completely as if it had never been, at the sight of poor Nellie,

shame-faced and sad, vainly trying to smooth her rags into

something like decent poverty around her.

"God help you, a-cushla!" she cried in a tone of unfeigned

compassion, laying at the same time her withered hand upon the

tattered kerchief which Nellie was trying to fold round her

stately shoulders. "God help ye! and is this all that them black

scum of Saxon robbers left ye when they turned ye out upon the

wide world to seek your fortune?"

"It cannot be helped," said Nellie with a little choking in her

voice, though she tried hard to veil it beneath an assumption of

indifference. "And after all, these rags do but make me seem what

in fact I am--a beggar. Only I hope," she added, with a little

nervous laugh, "I hope that Colonel O'More" (she had learned his

military rank and his real name, Moore being only its Saxon

rendering, the night before from Nora) "will not be utterly

disgusted this morning when he finds out to what a pauper he

extended his hospitality last night."

"The colonel? Is it the master that you mean? The master be

disgusted! Ah! now, listen to me, asthore, and don't be filling

your head with them ugly fancies; for you may just take my word

for it, and don't I know every turn of his mind as well as if I

was inside of it? You may just take old Nora's word for it, that

he worships the very ground you tread on, and would, too, all the

same, if you had never a brogue to the foot or a kirtle to the

back.

{325}

Beggar, indeed! Why, could not he see for himself last night that

you had been just robbed and murdered like out of your own by

them thieving Saxons, and wasn't it for that very reason that,

before he went off to his fishing this blessed morning, he gave

me the key of that big black box, and says--says he, 'Nora, my

old woman, I have been thinking that the young lady up-stairs has

been so long on the road that may be she'll be in want of a new

dress like; so, as there is nothing like decent woman-tailoring

to be found in the island, maybe she'll condescend to see if

there's anything in my poor mother's box that would suit her for

the present.' And troth, my darling," old Nora went on, "it's you

that are going to have the pick and choice of fine things; for

she was a grand Spanish lady, she was, and always went about

among us dressed like a princess."

Nora had opened the box at the beginning of this speech, and with

every fresh word she uttered, she flung out such treasures of

finery on the floor as fully justified her panegyric on the

deceased lady's wardrobe.

Nellie soon found herself the centre of a heap of thick silks and

shiny satins, and three-piled velvets and brocaded stuffs,

standing upright by virtue of their own rich material, and of

laces so delicate and fine, that they looked as if she had only

to breathe upon them in order to make them float away upon the

air like cobwebs.

She was quite too much of a girl as yet to be able to resist a

close and curious examination of such treasures; nevertheless,

her instinct of the fitness of things was stronger than her

vanity, and there was an incongruity between these courtly

habiliments and her broken fortunes, which made her feel that it

would be an absolute impossibility to wear them. Selecting,

therefore, a few articles of linen clothing, she told old Nora

that everything else was far too fine for daily wear, and began,

of her own accord, to restore them to their coffer. Not so,

however, the good old Nora. That _any_ thing could be too

fine for the adornment of any one whom "the master" delighted to

honor, was a simple absurdity in her mind; and she became so

clamorous in her remonstrances, that Nellie was fain to shift her

ground, and to explain that she was bent at that moment upon

"taking a long ramble by the sea-shore, for which anything like a

dress of silk or satin (Nora's own good sense must tell her)

would be, to say the least of it, exceedingly inappropriate."

At these words a new light seemed to dawn upon the old woman's

mind, and, plunging almost bodily down into the deep coffer in

her eagerness to gratify her _protégé_, she exclaimed, "So

it's for a walk you'd be going this morning, is it? and after all

your bother last night! Well, well, you are young still, and

would rather, I daresay, be skipping about like a young kid among

the rocks than sitting up in silks and satins as grave and

stately as if you were a princess in earnest. Something plain and

strong? That's what you'll be wanting, isn't it, a-lannah? Wait a

bit, will you? for I mind me now of a dress the old mistress had

made when she was young, for a frolic, like, that she might go

with me unnoticed to a 'pattern.' And may I never sin if I

haven't got it," she cried, diving down once more into the

coffer, and bringing up from its shining chaos a dress which,

consisting as it did simply of a madder-colored petticoat and

short over-skirt of russet brown, was not by any means very

dissimilar to the habitual costume of a peasant girl of the west

at the present hour.

{326}

Nora was right. It was, as ladies have it, "the very thing!"

Stout enough and plain enough to meet all Nellie's ideas of

propriety, and yet presenting a sharp contrast of coloring which

(forgive her, my reader, she was only sixteen) she was by no

means sorry to reflect would be exceedingly becoming to her

clear, pale complexion, and the blue-black tresses of her hair.

It was with a little blush of pleasure, therefore, that she took

it from the old woman's hand, exclaiming, "Oh! thank you, dear

Nora. It is exactly what I was wishing for--so strong and pretty.

It will make me feel just as I want to feel, like a good strong

peasant girl, able and willing to work for her living; and, to

say the truth, moreover," she added, somewhat confidentially, "I

should not at all have liked making my appearance in those fine

Spanish garments. I should have been so much afraid of the O'More

taking me for his mother."

The annunciation of this grave anxiety set off old Nora in a fit

of laughing, under cover of which Nellie contrived to complete

her toilette. Madder-dyed petticoat, and, russet skirt, and long

dark mantle, she donned them all; but the effect, though

exceedingly pretty, was by no means exactly what she had

expected; for Nora, turning her round and round for closer

inspection, declared, with many an Irish expletive, which we

willingly spare our readers, "That dress herself how she might,

no one could ever mistake her for anything but what she really

was, namely, a born lady, and perhaps even, moreover, a princess

in disguise." With a smile and a courtesy Nellie accepted of the

compliment, and then tripped down the winding staircase of her

turret, took one peep at Lord Netterville as he lay in the room

below, in the "calliogh" or nook by the hearth, which, screened

off by a bent matting, had been allotted to him as the warmest

and most comfortable accommodation the tower afforded, and having

satisfied herself that he was still fast asleep, stepped out

gayly into the open air. She was met at the door by "Maida," who

nearly knocked her down in her boisterous delight at beholding

her again, and she was playfully defending herself from the too

rapturous advances of her four-footed friend when Roger ran his

fishing-boat alongside the pier, and, evidently mistaking Nellie

for some bare-footed visitor of Nora's, called out in Irish:

"Hilloa, ma colleen dhas! run back to the tower, will you, and

tell Nora to fetch me down a basket, and you shall have a good

handful of fish for your pains, for I have caught enough to

garrison the island for a week."

Guessing his mistake and enchanted at the success of her

masquerade, Nellie instantly darted into the kitchen, seized a

fishing-creel which was lying near the hearth, and rushed down to

the pier. Roger was still so busy disentangling the fish from the

net in which he had caught them, that he never even looked at

Nellie until he turned round to place them in her basket. Then

for the first time he saw who it was whom he had been so

unceremoniously ordering about upon his commission. Had Nellie

been rich and prosperous, he would probably have laughed and made

exceedingly light of the matter; but poor, and almost dependent

on his bounty as she was, he flushed scarlet to the forehead, and

apologized with an eager deference, which was not only very

touching in itself, but very characteristic of the sensitive and

generous-hearted race from which he sprung.

{327}

"But, after all," he added, in conclusion, smiling and laying his

finger lightly on the folds of Nellie's mantle, "after all, how

could I dream that, her weeks of weary wandering only just

concluded, Mistress Netterville would have been up again with the

sun, looking as fresh and bright as the morning dew, and

masquerading like a peasant girl?"

"But I am not masquerading at all," said Nellie, laughing, and

yet evidently quite in earnest. "I am as poor as a peasant girl,

and mean to dress like one, ay, and to work like one too, so long

as I needs must be dependent upon others."

"Not if I am still to be master here," said Roger, very

decidedly, taking the fishing-creel out of her hands. "Like a

wandering princess you have come to me; and like a wandering

princess I intend that you shall be treated, so long as you

condescend to honor me by your presence in this kingdom of barren

rocks."

"But the fish," said the laughing and blushing Nellie; "in the

meantime, what is to be done with the fish? Nora will be in pain

about it; for she told me last night that there wasn't a blessed

fish in the bay that would be worth a 'thraneen' if only

half-an-hour were suffered to elapse between their exit from the

ocean and their introduction to her kitchen."

"Nora is quite right," said Roger, responding freely to the young

girl's merry laugh; "and it has cost me both time and pains, I do

assure you, to impress that fact upon her mind. But Maida has

already told her all about it; and here she comes," he added, as

he caught a glimpse of the old woman descending leisurely toward

the pier. "So now we may leave the fish with a safe conscience to

her tender mercies, and, if you are inclined for a stroll, I will

take you up to yonder rocky platform, from whence you will see

the Atlantic, as unfortunately we but seldom see it on this wild

coast, in all the calm glories of a summer day."

To Be Continued.

--------

{328}

Mexico, By Baron Humboldt [Footnote 57]

[Footnote 57: _Essai politique sur le Royaume de

Nouvelle-Espagne_. 2 vols. fol. Chez F. Schoell. Paris.]

Some old books, like some old married couples, deserve a second

celebration. Fifty years are surely long enough to wait for a

rehearsal of nuptials; and a married pair who can for a

half-century live at peace with themselves and the public,

respected and esteemed, receive a merited recognition and a

pleasing recompense. Books that have circulated with an equal

longevity and enjoyed universal appreciation, have also their

rights for a share of the cakes and ale. If the old people have

only a new coat and a new gown, they look young again; if the old

favorite volumes are honored with a fresh binding, their

backbones seems strengthened. It is charming to witness an

ancient dame clinging to the side of her equally ancient husband

for time almost out of mind; and it has a home look to find two

venerable tomes, called Volume One and Volume Two, supporting and

comforting each other on the same shelf in the library. When one

of the aged who have trudged on through life together drops off,

how soon the second follows after; and when one book is lost or

destroyed, its companion pines away in dust, if not in ashes,

till, finally neglected, it mysteriously disappears.

But Baron Humboldt's two folios on New Spain or Mexico indicate

that time, as yet, has written no wrinkles on their brow. They

are good for another lease of life of equal length; their high

state of preservation has imparted a healthy appearance; and

perhaps grandchildren hereafter will be delighted to make their

acquaintance. On the present occasion, the compliments of the

season, and of the editor, must be extended to them. And in the

interchange of courtesies, let us hear what they have to say for

themselves. It is somewhat surprising in modern times that

Humboldt's folios on Mexico should have retained so long their

pre-eminence. The baron wrote upon subjects wherein our knowledge

is continually increasing, where important changes are daily made

by new discoveries, and where a constant demand is kept up for

new books. His great essay is devoted to branches of political

and social sciences, which in their nature are progressive

sciences,--geography, topography, economical and commercial

statistics. But in the case of the baron, an exception is found

in the general law in relation to the rise, reign, and fall of

standard authorities. His supremacy in the department of Mexico

was established in the first decade of the present age; it may

not be destroyed in the last. Yet one fact is truly remarkable:

his essay was published in 1811 in Paris, in the most imposing

and expensive form, in two volumes in folio; it had been

anxiously expected; it was instantly translated into all the

modern languages of Europe; it was received with eulogiums and

commendations; but no second edition was ever called for. This

singular fate of a performance so much extolled, and still

quoted, needs some explanation; and in giving this, the interest

manifested abroad in the situation of Mexico must also be

explained; for in truth, the popularity of the essay was, for the

most part, due to the importance of and attention bestowed upon

that rich province of the king of Spain on the western shores of

the Atlantic.

{329}

Mexico had been a resplendent gem in the Spanish crown from the

time of the conquest by Cortez in 1521; it had been the envy of

rival nations, and often the prize which they desired to win from

its rightful sovereign. England was eager to supply its market

with African slaves, in order to gain access to its ports, and

thereby stimulate the contraband trade. France was perpetually on

guard at the Bahamas to capture its bullion fleets, bearing their

precious cargoes from Vera Cruz to Cadiz. The Dutch defeated the

best of Spanish admirals, and carried off the richest spoils;

while all three, English, French, and Dutch cruisers, partly

privateers, partly public armed vessels with their piratical

captains and crews, in times of profound peace made private war

on every ship sailing under the flag of Castile. The capital of

that far-off country was described in the last century as one of

the wonders of the modern world. We read in _Spence's

Anecdotes_, that a travelled gentlemen who had seen several of

the most splendid courts abroad, stated in the presence of Mr.

Pope, the poet, that he had never been struck so much with

anything as by the magnificence of the City of Mexico, with its

seven hundred equipages and harness of solid silver, and ladies

walking on the paseo waited upon by their black slaves, to hold

up the trains, and shade with umbrellas their fair mistresses

from the sun. But this New Spain had nothing attractive beyond

its wealth; it had no arts, sciences, or history; no literature,

poetry, or romance. With the death of Hernando Cortez, these had

died out. No one desired more on these subjects. But everybody

wished to learn all that could be learned of its prolific

revenues, and of its enormous resources in the precious metals,

then supplying the commerce of all nations with coin. Nothing was

talked of, listened to, or considered, when discussing the

condition of that country, except its vast production of silver.

"Thank you," said Tom Hood, when dining with a London Amphictyon,

who was helping his plate too profusely, "thank you, alderman;

but if it is all the same to you, I will take the balance in

money." Interest in Mexico was taken in nothing else.

It must be remembered that credit in commerce is of recent

origin, and paper currency of still more recent creation. Both,

comparatively speaking, were in their infancy at the close of the

last century. Precious metals were then the sole, or at least the

great, medium of commercial exchanges; and consequently, silver

and gold performed a more important part in the markets than they

do now. They were more highly appreciated and sought after. Then

it was, that the Mexican mines yielded the far greater portion of

the total product; and, of course, the control of these mines was

supposed to afford the control of the commerce of the world.

Economists and statesmen, therefore, turned their gaze upon that

strange land beyond sea, as the only land in that direction

worthy of their notice. But the notice bestowed upon it was

absorbing. Napoleon, availing himself of the imbecility of the

king of Spain, and of the venality of the Prince of Peace,

endeavored to divert the Mexican revenues from the royal House of

Trado at Seville to the imperial treasury of France. Ouvrard,

also, the most daring speculator in the most gigantic schemes

under Napoleon, the contractor-general for the armies and navy of

the French empire, undertook, on his own responsibility, to enter

into a private partnership with the Spanish sovereign to

monopolize the trade of Mexico, and divide equally the profits.

{330}

Napoleon assented to this arrangement; English bankers took part

in the negotiation; and the British government under William Pitt

gave it their sanction and aid. Yet, strange to relate, all this

transpired while England was at war with France and Spain, and a

British fleet blockaded the harbor of Vera Cruz. These hostile

nations were drained of money, and wanted an immediate supply.

France had anticipated the public revenues to meet the imperial

necessity; the Bank of England had stopped specie payments;

Madrid was threatened with a famine from a series of failures in

the crops at home, and no funds were in the royal coffers to

purchase wheat abroad. Thus all were clamorous for coin, which

Mexico only could produce. It was known that fifty millions of

silver dollars were on deposit in the Consulado of Vera Cruz,

awaiting shipment to Spain; and it was well known, also, that, if

shipped, the greater portion of the amount would soon find its

way to Paris and London. In this state of affairs, the emergency

became so pressing upon the belligerents, that their war policy

was compelled to succumb; the blockade was raised and the bullion

exported. We shall not soon forget how a similar exigency in the

late war compelled the Lincoln administration to permit

provisions being furnished to the Confederates, in order to

procure cotton to strengthen our finances. Cotton was king of

commerce in 1864, Silver was king in 1804.

England, at the same time, was meditating seriously upon the

resources and riches of New Spain. Aware of the importance

attached by the British cabinet to the subject, Dumouriez, the

distinguished French republican exile, then in London, addressed

Mr. Windham, the Secretary of War and for the Colonies, a paper

advocating its conquest. The general called attention to the fact

that, once in English occupancy, "the commerce of the two seas

will be in your hands; the metallic riches of Spanish America

will pour into England; you will deprive Spain and Bonaparte of

them; and this monetary revolution will change the political face

of Europe." It seems Mr. Windham entertained the project, and

referred it to Sir Arthur Wellesley. In the sixth volume of the

_Wellington Supplementary Dispatches_, the proposition is

examined.

While such was the state of public opinion in Europe, finding

expression daily in high quarters, and of which the above are

only isolated examples, Humboldt undertook his scientific

expedition to Spanish America, and was preparing his great essay

on New Spain. He landed in Mexico in March, 1803, and remained in

the country for one year, engaged in the study of the physical

structure and political condition of the vast realm, and in the

investigation of the causes having the greatest influence on the

progress of its population and native industry. But no printed

work could be found to aid him in his researches with materials,

and therefore he resorted to manuscripts in great numbers,

already in general circulation. He had also free, uninterrupted

access to official records; records which for the first time were

permitted to be examined by a private gentleman. Finally, he

embodied his topographical, geographical, statistical, and other

collections, into a separate work on New Spain, "hoping they

would be received with interest at a time when the new continent,

more than ever, attracts the attention of Europeans."

{331}

The original sketch was drawn up in Spanish for circulation, and

from the comments thereon, he informs us, he "was enabled to make

many important corrections." The _Essay_ reviews the extent

and physical aspect of the country; the influence of the

inequalities of surface on the climate, on agriculture, commerce,

and defence of the coasts; the population, and its divisions into

castes; the census and area of the intendencias--calculated from

the maps drawn up by him from his astronomical observations; its

agriculture and mines, commerce and manufactures; the revenues

and military defences. But Humboldt very candidly confesses, as

incident to such an undertaking, that, "notwithstanding the

extreme care which I have bestowed in verifying results, no doubt

many serious errors have been committed." It can be readily

imagined what attention was given in Europe to the first rude

sketch of statistics published by him in 1804-5, The cupidity and

ambition of merchants, statesmen, and military men were aroused

by this first authentic revelation of Mexican revenues and

resources. All nations were anxious to learn more; all classes of

people listened in wonder to this true account respecting the

prodigious production of the precious metals. In this pleasing

excitement, Humboldt was preparing his complete _Essay_, to

satisfy the public desire. Having learned caution from the

inaccuracies pointed out in his first rough publication, he was

in no great haste to send forth the final result of his labors.

Thus, he waited for four or five years; and, unfortunately for

his own profit, he waited too long. The interest in Mexico had

gone by; the golden visions of its boundless opulence had

vanished; its fascinations, that had charmed for years, like some

castle raised by magic in a night, resplendent with gems of ruby,

amethyst, and jasper, had passed away; the spell of enchantment

was broken. For the rebellion burst out in 1810, and commerce,

revenues, industry, all perished in the general ruin it created.

It was now, in common estimation, one of the poorest colonies of

Spain; and what cared the public for more Spanish poverty beyond

the Atlantic, when too much of it already was visible in the

peninsula? The great _Essay_, therefore, when finally

published, was not purchased with impatient eagerness; it fell

flat on the market. For Mexico was now ruined, the public

thought; and so does the public continue to think, even unto the

present day. Thenceforth, Mexican antiquities only were

attractive. The _Edinburgh Review_, in 1811, writing on the

essay, commences: "Since the appearance of our former article on

this valuable and instructive work, a great and, for the present

at least, lamentable revolution has taken place in the countries

it describes. Colonies which were at that time the abode of peace

and industry have now become the seat of violence and desolation.

A civil war, attended with various success, but everywhere marked

with cruelty and desolation, has divided the colonists, and armed

them for their mutual destruction. Blood has been shed profusely

in the field and unmercifully on the scaffold. Flourishing

countries, that were advancing rapidly in wealth and

civilization, have suffered alike from the assertors of their

liberties and from the enemies of their independence." The

_Quarterly Review_ did not notice the _Essay_, making

no sign of its existence.

{332}

It is true, some learned gentlemen gave a look into the work, and

scientific men studied it well. But the learned and scientific

were only a small, select number in the general mass of readers;

and Humboldt had not designed his information for, and waited not

the approbation of, the select alone, but of all classes alike

that could read. Europe closed the map of Mexico when the

revolution broke forth, and shut out all further inquiry into its

political and industrial condition. Then it was that, instead of

a cordial greeting with open arms at every fire side, which

Humboldt reasonably anticipated for his production, the door was

almost rudely slammed in his face. He never forgot that treatment

of the book; he never wrote more upon Mexico; never furnished to

the learned or unlearned a new edition, with emendations and

corrections, notes and new maps. As it went from the hands of the

author then, we receive it now.

At the moment, however, when Europe closed the map, America for

the first time seriously opened it; and just in proportion with

receding time, as Mexico has faded into insignificance from

European view, in the same proportion with advancing time has

Mexico loomed up into importance with us. They refused to

Humboldt then the high consideration his _Essay_ merited; we

bestow upon him now more respect and veneration than his

_Essay_ deserves. To the European mind, Humboldt's New Spain

was Mexico no more; to the American, Mexico is the same New

Spain--changed, to be sure, but still the land for enterprise and

riches. It was not altogether unknown to us before our

revolution. It had a consideration while the States were English

colonies; for Northern merchants sometimes smuggled into its

ports, and sometimes, too, our fillibusters buccaneered on its

coasts, like other loyal English subjects sailing under "the

brave old English flag." When our revolution came, aid was

invoked from Spain as well as from France; for the Spanish

sovereign had a personal insult to avenge on the British, and

Spanish supremacy on the seas to maintain. But Spain, though

willing, had, first of all, to concentrate her fleets. One armada

was contending with the Portuguese in South America; another was

acting as convoy for the galleons, with cargoes of silver,

proceeding from Mexico to Spain. Treaties with Portugal were

hastily patched up, and "the ordinanza of free trade" liberated

the convoy from protecting the ships laden with the silver. The

policy of that ordinance Humboldt, and many respectable Mexican

writers after him, have much misunderstood; and they are greatly

mistaken in their estimate of its beneficial effects on mining

prosperity. After the United States became an independent nation,

Spain, in order to be rid of the Louisiana incumbrance, which was

dependent upon the revenues of Mexico for support, transferred

that territory to France; and Napoleon, in turn, sold it to the

American government. But did its boundaries extend to the Sabine

or the Rio Grande, on the south? And did they extend to the

Russian Pacific possessions on the north? These were uncertain

questions, and hence from this purchase originated those many

diplomatic complications, and no less numerous domestic

controversies, which have been the fruitful source of change in

cabinets and of defeats of national parties, with the downfall of

not a few distinguished men. Hence, also, the first settlements

in Texas; next the American colonists, and the question of

annexation; the war with Mexico; the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,

and the acquisition of California. Before these measures were

decided, however, Colonel Burr had already, with his band of

adventurers, undertaken that mysterious enterprise in the same

direction, whose object seems to have been as vague as the

boundaries to be invaded were uncertain.

{333}

Ouvrard, also, had solicited and effected the co-operation of

leading merchants in Northern cities, in his joint speculation

with the king of Spain, for the vast Mexican commercial scheme.

And herein was given the great impulse to amassing those large

private fortunes, by Mr. Gray of Boston, Mr. Oliver of Baltimore,

Mr. Girard of Philadelphia, and the Parish family. Subsequently

came the Mexican revolution, protracted for twelve years, during

which period the commerce of that country, previously a Spanish

monopoly, was completely under the control of Americans. At the

close of the Napoleon wars Spain desired the monopoly restored,

in order to transfer it to France. This movement called forth, in

favor of free commerce, the celebrated message announcing the

Monroe doctrine. The message gave umbrage to Russia in reference

to her American possessions, and fixed their ultimate destiny. It

also forced England to disclose her claim for the first time, and

to exhibit her title to the Vancouver country south of the

Russian--a title until then unheard of and unknown to American

statesmen. The Missouri Compromise grew out of the acquisition of

Louisiana, and its repeal grew out of the acquisition of

California. As a supplement to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,

was concluded the treaty for the Messilla Valley, which

negotiation sprung from a mistake in Humboldt's maps, faithfully

copied by Disturnell, in giving a wrong location, in longitude

and latitude, to El Paso on the Rio Grande. The invasion of

Mexico by France in 1862, nearly kindled a desolating war between

the United States and the French empire. Unforeseen obstacles,

however, induced Louis Napoleon to pause in the conquest; for he

had, in its inception, been deceived respecting the condition of

Mexico and the Mexican people, and misled as to the easy

development by France of the abundant resources of the country.

The moral support, moreover, extended to the liberal party by the

American government compelled the French to abandon an expedition

which was properly appreciated in all its imposing magnitude by

the emperor, but which so many to this day do not comprehend.

No one can fail to be astonished in contemplating the large space

occupied by Mexico in American affairs; the immense acquisition

of territory made from within her ancient landmarks; the princely

private fortunes accumulated from her commerce; the vast

treasures discovered in her former mines; the rich agricultural

crops gathered from her Louisiana valley, her Texas loamy soil,

and her California plains; while, upon the margin of the

Mississippi river, a city, created by Mexican aid and

contributions, has grown into an opulent mart of commerce,

surpassing all other American cities in the value of its exports,

in the happy era of our greatest prosperity. Nor can that

prosperity ever return until New Orleans once more becomes the

leading emporium for the outlet of the great staples of this

republic. It is no less surprising to recall the fate of so many

statesmen, and others of mark, who have risen to distinction, or

who have been forced to retire, from questions growing out of

their policy toward Mexico.

{334}

It is no longer disputed that the first fatal error of the first

Napoleon was his invasion of Spain, thereby to control the

Mexican revenues; perhaps it will soon be conceded that the first

fatal error of Louis Napoleon was, in too closely following in

the footsteps, in the same direction, of his illustrious uncle.

Colonel Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, from his

ill-starred adventure, fell into disgrace and sunk into an

infamous notoriety. General Wilkinson, once upon the military

staff of Washington, was both the accomplice and ruin of Burr,

and died in obscurity in a voluntary exile. The Missouri

Compromise destroyed the aspirations of many Northern statesmen

who opposed its adoption, and shattered the popularity of others

who afterward advocated its repeal. The question of annexing

Texas was the fatal rock upon which were wrecked the hopes of

President Van Buren for renomination; it defeated Mr. Clay; it

elected Mr. Polk. In succession to the presidency, were elected

General Taylor and General Pierce, from their distinguished

positions in the war with Mexico. To the like cause, Colonel

Frémont was indebted for his popular nomination, nearly crowned

with success. Winfield Scott was made a Brevet Lieutenant-General

for his meritorious services in the Mexican campaign, and many of

the greatest generals in the recent strife, both Federal and

Confederate, received their first practical lessons in the art of

war on the same distant field. To all of these historical

celebrities, the crude statistics or the elaborate _Essay_

of Humboldt were well known; for Humboldt's publications were the

only source of authentic information on Mexico of much value.

Other foreign authors, who followed after, copied extensively

from him, and native writers have not failed to quote from the

same source. But although foreign authors have drawn more from

the _Essay_, they have been less circumspect in verifying

the accuracy of its statements; while the Mexican writers,

availing themselves sparingly of extracts, sometimes, at least,

favor the public with interesting corrections. Travellers too

often have given us too much of Humboldt. Indeed, it may be said,

they have fed upon him; they have imbibed him with their pulque,

and taken him solid with their toasted tortilla. His _Essay_

has been pulled apart leaf by leaf, to be reprinted page after

page in their, for the most part, ephemeral productions. Humboldt

in pieces has been dished up to suit all customers. An oyster

could not be served in more varieties of style. Even foreign

embassies have supplied some of these literary cooks. None of

them seemed to know that man, even in Mexico, must have more than

Humboldt. In a fervid imagination, they thought he could be

improved upon, by reducing the _Essay_ to sublimated

extracts. But Doctor Samuel Johnson hinted, long ago, that

extracts from a work are as silly specimens of its author as was

that by the foolish old Greek, who exhibited a brick from his

house as a specimen of its architecture. Mr. Prescott, on the

contrary, in his celebrated history of the Conquest, with his

usual discriminating judgment, has properly availed himself of

the _Essa_y to afford his readers a vivid and veracious

picture of the natural configuration of the country. And to

understand the country properly, this is the primary lesson to be

attentively studied. But it is much to be regretted that Mr.

Duport, in his standard French work on the production of its

precious metals, was misled by errors existing in the maps

accompanying the _Essay_. In consequence, he has made

serious mistakes in describing its geological structure, in the

run and inclinations of the strata in the silver rock, in the

silver-bearing region.

{335}