But John _was_ very angry indeed. He was dreadfully disappointed at

losing the delicacies that his sick appetite hungered for, and which, he

fancied, would do more to restore him than all the _doctors' stuff_ in

London; and, so far, he was perhaps right. He bitterly reproached Mary

for want of sympathy with his sufferings, and was peevish and cross all

day. At night, however, his better nature regained the ascendant; and

when he saw the poor girl wipe the tears from her eyes, as her nimble

needle flew through the seams of a shirt she was making for a cheap

warehouse in the Strand, his heart relented, and, holding out his hand,

he drew her fondly toward him.

"You're right, Mary," he said, "and I'm wrong; but I'm not myself with

this long illness, and I often think if I had good food I should get

well, and be able to do something for myself. It falls hard upon you, my

girl: and often when I see you slaving to support my useless life, I

wish I was dead and out of the way; and then you could do very well for

yourself, and I think that pretty face of yours would get you a husband

perhaps." And Mary flung her arms about his neck, and told him how

willing she was to work for him, and how forlorn she should be without

him, and desired she might never hear any more of such wicked wishes.

Still, she had an ardent desire to give him the fowl and the ale he had

longed for, for his next Sunday's dinner; but, alas!--she could not

compass it. But on that very Sunday, the one that succeeded these little

events, Leah Leet appeared with a smart new bonnet and gown, at a

tea-party given by Mr. Benjamin to three or four of his intimate

friends. He was in the habit of giving such small inexpensive

entertainments, and he made it a point to invite Leah; partly because

she made the tea for him, and partly because he wished to keep her out

of other society, lest she should get married and leave him--a thing he

much deprecated on all accounts. She was accustomed to his business, he

was accustomed to her, and, above all, she was so honest!

But there are various kinds of honesty. Mary Glegg's was of the pure

sort; it was such as nature and her mother had instilled into her; it

was the honesty of high principle. But Leah was honest, because she had

been taught that honesty is the best policy; and as she had her living

to earn, it was extremely necessary that she should be guided by the

axiom, or she might come to poverty and want bread, like others she saw,

who lost good situations from failing in this particular.

Now, after all, this is but a sandy foundation for honesty; because a

person who is not actuated by a higher motive, will naturally have no

objection to a little peculation in a safe way--that is, when they think

there is no possible chance of being found out. In short, such honesty

is but a counterfeit, and, like all counterfeits, it will not stand the

wear and tear of the genuine article. Such, however, was Leah's, who had

been bred up by worldly-wise teachers, who neither taught nor knew any

better. Entirely ignorant of Mr. Benjamin's eccentric method of seeking

what, two thousand years ago, Diogenes thought it worth while to look

for with a lantern, she considered that the guinea brought back by Mary

was a waif, which might be appropriated without the smallest danger of

being called to account for it. It had probably, she thought, been

dropped into the meal-tub by some careless customer, who would not know

how he had lost it; and, even if it were her master's, he must also be

quite ignorant of the accident that had placed it where it was found.

The girl was a stranger in the shop; she had never been there till the

day before, and might never be there again; and, if she were, it was not

likely she would speak to Mr. Benjamin. So there could be no risk, as

far as she could see; and the money came just apropos to purchase some

new attire that the change of season rendered desirable.

Many of us now alive can remember the beginning of what is called the

sanitary movement, previous to which era, as nothing was said about the

wretched dwellings of the poor, nobody thought of them, nor were the ill

consequences of their dirty, crowded rooms, and bad ventilation at all

appreciated. At length the idea struck somebody, who wrote a pamphlet

about it, which the public did not read; but as the author sent it to

the newspaper editors, they borrowed the hint, and took up the subject,

the importance of which, by slow degrees, penetrated the London mind.

Now, among the sources of wealth possessed by Mr. Benjamin were a great

many houses, which, by having money at his command, he had bought cheap

from those who could not afford to wait; and many of these were situated

in squalid neighborhoods, and were inhabited by miserably poor people;

but as these people did not fall under his eye, he had never thought of

them--he had only thought of their rents, which he received with more or

less regularity through the hands of his agent. The sums due, however,

were often deficient, for sometimes the tenants were unable to pay them,

because they were so sick they could not work; and sometimes they died,

leaving nothing behind them to seize for their debts. Mr. Benjamin had

looked upon this evil as irremediable; but when he heard of the sanitary

movement, it occurred to him, that if he did something toward rendering

his property more eligible and wholesome, he might let his rooms to a

better class of tenants, and that greater certainty of payment, together

with a little higher rent, would remunerate him for the expense of the

cleaning and repairs. The idea being agreeable both to his love of gain

and his benevolence, he summoned his builder, and proposed that he

should accompany him over these tenements, in order that they might

agree as to what should be done, and calculate the outlay; and the house

inhabited by Glegg and his daughter happening to be one of them, the old

gentleman, in the natural course of events, found himself paying an

unexpected visit to the unconscious subject of his last experiment; for

the last it was, and so it was likely to remain, though three months had

elapsed since he made it; but its ill success had discouraged him. There

was something about Mary that so evidently distinguished her from his

usual customers; she looked so innocent, so modest, and withal so

pretty, that he thought if he failed with her, he was not likely to

succeed with any body else.

"Who lives in the attics?" he inquired of Mr. Harker, the builder, as

they were ascending the stairs.

"There's a widow, and her daughter, and son-in-law, with three children,

in the back-room," answered Mr. Harker. "I believe the women go out

charring, and the man's a bricklayer. In the front, there's a man called

Glegg and his daughter. I fancy they're people that have been better off

at some time of their lives. He has been a tradesman--a cooper, he tells

me; but things went badly with him; and since he came here, his wife

died of the fever, and he's been so weakly ever since he had it, that he

can earn nothing. His daughter lives by her needle."

Mary was out; she had gone to take home some work, in hopes of getting

immediate payment for it. A couple of shillings would purchase them coal

and food, and they were much in need of both. John was sitting by the

scanty fire, with his daughter's shawl over his shoulders, looking wan,

wasted, and desponding,

"Mr. Benjamin, the landlord, Mr. Glegg," said Harker.

John knew they owed a little rent, and was afraid they had come to

demand it. "I'm sorry my daughter's out, gentlemen," he said. "Will you

be pleased to take a chair."

"Mr. Benjamin is going round his property," said Harker. "He is

proposing to make a few repairs, and do a little painting and

whitewashing, to make the rooms more airy and comfortable."

"That will be a good thing, sir," answered Glegg--"a very good thing;

for I believe it is the closeness of the place that makes us country

folks ill when we come to London. I'm sure I've never had a day's health

since I've lived here."

"You've been very unlucky, indeed, Mr. Glegg," said Harker. "But you

know, if we lay out money, we shall look for a return. We must raise

your rent."

"Ah, sir, I suppose so," answered John, with a sigh; "and how we're to

pay it, I don't know. If I could only get well, I shouldn't mind; for

I'd rather break stones on the road, or sweep a crossing, than see my

poor girl slaving from morning to night for such a pittance."

"If we were to throw down this partition, and open another window here,"

said Harker to Mr. Benjamin, "it would make a comfortable apartment of

it. There would be room, then, for a bed in the recess."

Mr. Benjamin, however, was at that moment engaged in the contemplation

of an ill-painted portrait of a girl, that was attached by a pin over

the chimney-piece. It was without a frame, for the respectable gilt one

that had formerly encircled it, had been taken off, and sold to buy

bread. Nothing could be coarser than the execution of the thing, but as

is not unfrequently the case with such productions, the likeness was

striking; and Mr. Benjamin, being now in the habit of seeing Mary, who

bought all the meal they used at his shop, recognized it at once.

"That's your daughter, is it?" he said.

"Yes, sir; she's often at your place for meal; and if it wasn't too

great a liberty, I would ask you, sir, if you thought you could help her

to some sort of employment that's better than sewing; for it's a hard

life, sir, in this close place for a young creature that was brought up

in the free country air; not that Mary minds work, but the worst is,

there's so little to be got by the needle, and it's such close

confinement."

Mr. Benjamin's mind, during this address of poor Glegg's, was running on

his guinea. He felt a distrust of her honesty--or rather of the honesty

of both father and daughter; and yet, being far from a hard-hearted

person, their evident distress and the man's sickness disposed him to

make allowance for them. "They couldn't know that the money belonged to

me," thought he; adding aloud: "Have you no friends here in London?"

"No, sir, none. I was unfortunate in business in the country, and came

here hoping for better luck; but sickness overtook us, and we've never

been able to do any good. But, Mary, my daughter, doesn't want for

education, sir; and a more honest girl never lived!"

"Honest, is she?" said Mr. Benjamin, looking Glegg in the face.

"I'll answer for her, sir," answered John, who thought the old gentleman

was going to assist her to a situation. "You'll excuse me mentioning it,

sir; but perhaps it isn't every body, distressed as we were, that would

have carried back that money she found in the meal: but Mary _would_ do

it, even when I said perhaps it wasn't yours, and that nobody might know

whose it was; which was very wrong of me, no doubt; but one's mind gets

weakened by illness and want, and I couldn't help thinking of the food

it would buy us; but Mary wouldn't hear of it. I'm sure you might trust

Mary with untold gold, sir; and it would be a real charity to help her

to a situation, if you knew of such a thing."

Little deemed Leah that morning, as she handed Mary her quart of meal

and the change for her hard-earned shilling, that she had spoiled her

own fortunes, and that she would, ere night, be called upon to abdicate

her stool behind the counter in favor of that humble customer; and yet

so it was. Mr. Benjamin could not forgive her dereliction from honesty;

and the more he had trusted her, the greater was the shock to his

confidence. Moreover, his short-sighted views of human nature, and his

incapacity for comprehending its infinite shades and varieties, caused

him to extend his ill opinion further than the delinquent merited. In

spite of her protestations, he could not believe that this was her first

misdemeanor; but concluded that, like many other people in the world,

she had only been reputed honest because she had not been found out.

Leah soon found herself in the very dilemma she had deprecated, and the

apprehension of which had kept her so long practically honest--without a

situation, and with a damaged character.

As Mary understood book-keeping, the duties of her new office were soon

learned; and the only evil attending it was, that she could not take

care of her father. But determined not to lose her, Mr. Benjamin found

means to reconcile the difficulty by giving them a room behind the shop,

where they lived very comfortably, till Glegg, recovering some portion

of health, was able to work a little at his trade.

In process of time, however, as infirmity began to disable Mr. Benjamin

for the daily walk from his residence to his shop, he left the whole

management of the business to the father and daughter, receiving every

shilling of the profits, except the moderate salaries he gave them,

which were sufficient to furnish them with all the necessaries of life,

though nothing beyond. But when the old gentleman died, and his will was

opened, it was found that he had left every thing he possessed to Mary

Glegg; except one guinea, which, without alleging any reason, he

bequeathed to Leah Leet.

A FORGOTTEN CELEBRITY.

"Time and chance," as King Solomon says, "happen to all;" and this is

peculiarly the case in the matter of fame and reputation. Many who have

done much, and have enjoyed a fine prospect of a name that should

survive them, have scarcely earned an epitaph; while others, by a mere

accident, have rolled luxuriously down to posterity, like a fly on the

chariot-wheels of another's reputation. "The historic muse" is a very

careless jade, and many names with which she has undertaken to march

down to latest times, have been lost by the way, like the stones in the

legend that fell through the devil's apron when he was carrying them to

build one of his bridges. The chiffonniers of literature pick up these

histories from time to time; sometimes they are valuable, sometimes only

curious. Mademoiselle de Gournay's story is a curiosity.

Marie de Jars, Demoiselle de Gournay, was born at Paris in 1566. She was

of a noble and ancient family; her father, at his death, left what in

those days was a handsome fortune; but Mademoiselle de Gournay, his

widow, had an unfortunate mania for building, which devoured it. When

she took her place beside her husband in his grave, she left little but

mortgages behind her.

Judging from the portraits prefixed to her works, Marie de Jars must in

her youth have possessed some personal attractions, in spite of her

detractors: her figure was of middle height, her face rather round than

oval, but with a pleasing expression, and adorned with a pair of large

black eyes and a pretty little mouth. Her own account of herself, in a

copy of verses, addressed to her friend Mademoiselle de Ragny, is, that

she was of a very lively and obliging disposition. That she was

obliging and kind-hearted, many circumstances of her life could prove;

but for liveliness, we are inclined to think that she flattered herself:

nothing can be further removed from liveliness than her works--they are

pompously serious.

Her father died when she was very young, leaving five children: two

elder and two younger than Marie. The eldest daughter married; the son

entered the army; and Marie, the eldest of the remaining three, seems to

have been left pretty much to follow her own devices. From her earliest

years she had a passion for reading, and showed a wonderful sagacity in

the choice of books: her favorites were Amyot, Ronsard, and Montaigne;

to these authors she afterward added Racan. She was so faithfully

exclusive in her taste, that she never cared to read any others. It was

in 1580 that Montaigne published the two first volumes of his Essays.

Marie de Jars was scarcely fourteen when they fell accidentally in her

way, and her admiration amounted to enthusiasm: she sent a friend to

tell Montaigne, who was then in Paris, how much she admired him, and the

esteem in which she held his book. This proceeding from so young a

person, who was moreover "fort demoiselle," flattered Montaigne very

sensibly. He went the very next day to pay a visit to Mademoiselle de

Gournay: her conversation and enthusiasm won the heart of the

philosopher. In their first interview Montaigne offered her the

affection of a father for a daughter and Mademoiselle de Gournay proudly

assumed the title of the adopted daughter of Montaigne; and in a letter

addressed to him, which is still to be seen, she says, "that she feels

as proud of that title as she should be to be called the mother of the

Muses themselves." This friendship never failed or diminished; it was

the best thing Marie ever achieved in this life, and is her chief claim

on the sympathy and interest of posterity. But Marie de Jars became

possessed by the demon of wishing to become a distinguished woman on her

own account. To accomplish this, she set to work to learn Greek and

Latin, and though she brought more zeal than method to her studies, she

worked with so much perseverance as to obtain a good insight into both

languages.

Montaigne, in the next edition of his Essays, added the following

passage to the seventeenth chapter of the second book: "I have taken a

delight to publish in many places the hopes I have of Marie de Gournay

de Jars, my adopted daughter, beloved by me with more than a paternal

love, and treasured up in my solitude and retirement as one of the best

parts of my own being. I have no regard to any thing in this world but

to her. If a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be

capable of very great things; and, among others, of that perfection of

friendship of which we do not read that any of her sex could yet arrive

at; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already sufficient for

it; her affection toward me more than superabundant, and such as that

there is nothing more to be wished, if not that the apprehension she

has of my end from the five-and-fifty years I had reached when she knew

me, might not so much afflict her.

"The judgment she made of my first Essays, being a woman so young, and

in this age, and alone in her order, place, and the notable vehemence

with which she loved and desired me, upon the sole esteem she had of me

before ever she saw my face, are things very worthy of consideration."

Any woman might justly have been proud of such a tribute, and one feels

to like Montaigne himself all the better for it. In 1588 Montaigne went

with Mademoiselle de Gournay and her mother to their château at

Gournay-sur-Aronde, and spent some time with them.

In the year following she published her first book, calling it

"Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne." She dedicated it to him, and sent a

copy to him at Bordeaux, where he was then residing. That must have been

a very proud day for Marie! This "Proumenoir" was not, as its title

might suggest, any account of Montaigne, or relics of his conversation,

but only a rambling Arabian story, which if gracefully told by Marie

herself, might perhaps have been interesting during the course of a

walk, but which, set down upon paper, is insipid to a degree, and of an

interminable length. Montaigne is answerable for the sin of having

encouraged her to write it, thus adding to the weary array of books that

nobody is able to read.

At her mother's death, Mademoiselle de Gournay did something much

better: she took charge of her younger brother and sister, and

administered the affairs of the family (which, as we have said, Madame

de Gournay had left in great embarrassment) with so much discretion and

judgment, that she redeemed all the mortgages, paid off all the debts,

and was in possession of about two thousand pounds in money.

Montaigne died in 1592, at Bordeaux. Enthusiastic and devoted,

Mademoiselle de Gournay set off as soon as she was informed of it, and,

providing herself with passes, crossed almost the whole kingdom of

France alone, to visit his widow and daughter, to console them as best

she might--and to weep with them the loss they had sustained.

Madame de Montaigne gave her the Essays, enriched with notes in her

husband's hand-writing, in order that she might prepare a new and

complete edition of them. This was a labor of love to Marie: she revised

all the proofs, which were executed with so much correctness, that she

is well entitled to call it, as she does, "le bon et vieux exemplaire."

It remains to this day the principal edition as regards authenticity of

text, and one of the handsomest as regards typography. It appeared in

1595 (Paris, Abel Langlier). Mademoiselle de Gournay wrote a preface,

which is not without eloquence. She vigorously repels all the objections

that had been raised against the work, and alludes to her adoption by

Montaigne with genuine feeling. We translate the passage: "Reader,

having the desire to make the best of myself to thee, I adorn myself

with the noble title of this adoption. I have no other ornament, and I

have a good right to call him my true father, from whom all that is good

or noble in my soul proceeds. The parent to whom I owe my being, and

whom my evil fortune snatched from me in my infancy, was an excellent

father, and a most virtuous and clever man--and he would have felt less

jealousy in seeing the second to whom I gave this title of father, than

he would have felt pride in seeing the manner of man he was." The good

lady's style is of the most intractable to render into common language.

With Montaigne's death, the whole course of Mademoiselle de Gournay's

life seemed to be arrested. Henceforth all her strength and enthusiasm

were expended in keeping herself exactly where he had left her. She

resolutely set her face against all the improvements and innovations

which were every day being brought into the French language, which was

making rapid progress; but Mademoiselle de Gournay believed that she had

seen the end of all perfection when Montaigne died. Not only in her

style of writing, but also in her mode of living, she remained

obstinately stereotyped after the fashion of the sixteenth century,

during the first half of the seventeenth. While still young, she became

a whimsical relic of a by-gone mode--a caricature out of date. She

resided in Paris, where there was at that time a mania for playing

practical jokes; and Mademoiselle de Gournay, with her pedantry and

peculiarities, was considered as lawful game; many unworthy tricks were

played upon her by persons who, nevertheless, dreaded the explosions of

her wrath on discovery, which on such occasions were of an emphatic

simplicity of speech, startling to modern ears. The word "hoaxing" was

not then invented, but the thing itself was well understood. A forged

letter was written, purporting to come from King James the First of

England, requesting Mademoiselle de Gournay to send him her portrait and

her life. She fell into the snare, and sat for her picture, and spent

six weeks in writing her memoirs, which she actually sent to

England--where, of course, no one knew what to make of them. But when

Marshal Lavardin, who was the French embassador in England, returned to

Paris, the parties who forged the letter did not fail to tell

Mademoiselle de Gournay that the King of England had spoken most highly

of her to the embassador, and had shown him her autograph, which

occupied a distinguished place in his cabinet. As M. de Lavardin died

almost directly after his return, Mademoiselle de Gournay ran no risk of

being undeceived.

For a short time she abandoned literature and the belles-lettres to

plunge into alchemy, for which she had a mania. Her friends remonstrated

in vain; they told her how many other people alchemy had ruined, but she

not the less persisted in flinging the remains of her fortune into the

crucible. Like all who have been bewitched by this science, Marie

fancied that her experiments were arrested by poverty at the moment of

success. She retrenched in every way; in food, in clothing; reduced

herself to barest necessaries; and sat constantly with the bellows in

her hand, hanging over the smoke of her furnace. Of course, no gold

rewarded her research, and she was at length absolutely obliged to

abandon her laboratory, and betake herself afresh to literature. As

generous in adversity as she had been in prosperity, Mademoiselle de

Gournay was not hindered by her poverty from adopting an orphan child,

the daughter of Jamyn, the poet, and friend of Ronsard. In the society

of this young girl, and of a cat which she celebrated in verse, Marie de

Gournay allowed every thing in the world to change and progress as they

might, fully persuaded that the glory of French literature had died with

her adopted father, and that she had had the honor of burying it.

This cat deserves a special mention, as it was a very noticeable animal

in its day. It rejoiced in the name of _Piallion_, and during the twelve

years it lived with Mademoiselle de Gournay, it never once quitted the

apartments of its mistress to run with other cats upon the roofs and

gutters of the neighboring houses; it was, in all respects, discreet and

dignified, as became a cat of quality, and above all, as became the cat

of such a mistress as Mademoiselle de Gournay. If Mademoiselle de

Gournay had been young and handsome, _Piallion_ would, no doubt, have

been as celebrated as Leslie's sparrow; as it was, however, it only

shared in the satires and caricatures that were made upon its mistress.

When Mademoiselle de Gournay renounced alchemy, and began again to busy

herself in literature, she unfortunately mixed herself up in some

controversy of the day where the Jesuits were in question; we forget

what side she took, but she brought down upon herself much abuse and

scandal; among other things, she was accused of having led an irregular

life, and being even then, "_une femme galante!_" This charge distressed

her greatly, and she appealed to a friend to write her vindication. He

told her by way of consolation, that if she would publish her portrait,

it would be more effectual than a dozen vindications! Poor Mademoiselle

de Gournay had long since lost whatever good looks she had possessed in

early life, and her alchemical pursuits had added at least ten years to

her appearance.

In the midst of all the disagreeable circumstances of her lot, she was

not without some consolation. She kept up her relation with the family

of Montaigne, and went on a visit to them in Guyenne, where she remained

fifteen months. In all her distress, Mademoiselle Montaigne and her

daughter, Mademoiselle de Gamaches, never deserted her. There is a

touching passage in one of her works, in which the name of the "bonne

amye" is mentioned. There is little doubt but that it refers to one of

these ladies; it is as follows:

"If my condition be somewhat better than could have been expected, from

the miserable remnant of fortune that remained to me after the

quittance of all my debts, liabilities, and losses, it is the assistance

of a good friend, who took pleasure to see me keep up a decent

appearance, which is the cause of it."

Mademoiselle de Gournay also brightened the dull realities of her

existence with brilliant ideas of the fame she was laying up for herself

with posterity--hopes which neither Mademoiselle Jamyn nor Piallion were

likely to damp. In 1626, she published a collection of her works, in

prose and verse, which she entitled "L'Ombre de Mademoiselle de

Gournay," and sat in her retirement expecting the rebound of the

sensation she had no doubt of producing throughout Europe.

The book was written in imitation of Montaigne's "Essays"--all manner of

subjects treated of, without any regard to order or arrangement; long

dissertations, rambling from topic to topic in every chapter, without

any rule but her own caprice. It may be imagined what advantage such a

work would give to those disposed to find matter for ridicule; the

spirit of mystification and love of hoaxing were not extinct. There was

a pitiless clique of idle men attached to the Court, and circulating in

society, who were always on the watch for victims, at whose expense they

might make good stories, or whom they might make the subjects of a

practical jest. Mademoiselle de Gournay had fallen into their snares

years before, and she seemed a still more tempting victim now. A regular

conspiracy of wicked wits was formed against the poor old woman, who was

then not much under sixty years of age. Her vanity had grown to enormous

magnitude; her credulity was in proportion; while her power of

swallowing and digesting any flattery, however gross, was something

fabulous. No tribute that could be offered exceeded her notion of her

own deserts. She certainly offered fair game for ridicule, and she was

not spared.

Louis the Thirteenth, who labored under the royal malady of ennui,

enjoyed the accounts of the mystifications that were constantly put upon

the poor old lady.

They told her (and she believed them) that there was nothing talked

about at Court but her book; and that his Majesty, Louis the Thirteenth,

was her warm admirer. Mademoiselle de Gournay not unnaturally expected

that some solid proof of the royal admiration would follow; but nothing

came. Louis, well content to be amused by absurd stories about her,

never dreamed of rewarding her for them. She was made to believe that

her portrait adorned the galleries of Brussels and Antwerp; that in

Holland her works had been published with complimentary prefaces; that,

in Italy, Cæsar Carpaccio and Charles Pinto had celebrated her genius in

their own tongue, and spread the glory of her name from one end of the

peninsula to the other; and that no well-educated person in Europe was

ignorant of her name and works. Marie de Gournay, after having been

adopted by Montaigne, found all these marvels quite probable and easy

of belief. These splendid visions of fame and success were quite as good

as reality; they gilded her poverty, and invested her privations with a

dignity more than regal. Among many other mystifications played off upon

her, there was one which has since, in different forms, made the plot of

farces and vaudevilles without number; but it was for the behoof of

Mademoiselle de Gournay that it was originally made and invented. The

poet Racan, whose works were some of the few Mademoiselle de Gournay

condescended to read, had received a copy of "L'Ombre," and prepared to

pay her a visit to return thanks. It must be borne in mind that they had

never seen each other; the conspirators chanced to hear of his

intentions. Such a fine occasion was not to be neglected; having

ascertained the time appointed for the interview they took care to be

beforehand. The first who presented himself was the Chevalier de

Bresire; he caused himself to be announced by Mademoiselle Jamyn (the

orphan she had adopted; now her friend and companion), as M. Racan. He

was clever and agreeable, and flattered Mademoiselle de Gournay with so

much grace, that she was enchanted with him. He had scarcely departed,

when M. Yvrande arrived: "Announce M. Racan," said he to Mademoiselle

Jamyn.

"M. Racan has only this moment left us."

"Some vile trick!" said he, with indignation.

Mademoiselle de Gournay, seeing a young man, still handsomer and more

agreeable than the other, and whose compliments were still more

poetical, was easily pacified, and received him graciously. A few

moments after he had left, the poet himself made his appearance. He was

absent, nervous, shabbily dressed, awkward, and had, moreover, a

ridiculous pronunciation. He called himself "LACAN."

The old lady was now out of all patience.

"Must I, then, see nothing but _Racans_ all the days of my life!" she

exclaimed, and taking off her slipper, she flung it at his head, abusing

him vehemently for daring to impose upon her; and drove him out of the

house.

Of course this story was much too good not to have a great success; it

circulated not only through the Court, but all over Paris, and came at

last to the ears of poor Mademoiselle de Gournay herself, who could not

be consoled, as it revealed all the tricks to which she had been a

victim. The illusions thus rudely destroyed were far more precious than

the philosopher's stone she had so vainly sought, and involved a

disappointment infinitely more painful. Who can help sympathizing with

the poor woman, who thus saw all her fairy treasures resolved into their

intrinsic worthlessness?

However, good came out of evil. Cardinal Richelieu--who had been

especially delighted with the story of the three Racans, and was never

weary of hearing it repeated--took the fancy of wishing to see her that

he might try to make a good story out of her himself. He sent for her,

and indulged in some very clumsy pleasantry, of which he had the grace

to feel afterward ashamed. Willing to make her some amends, he settled

a pension upon her, in order that for the rest of her days, she, and her

friend, and her cat, might live on something better than dry bread.

Under the influence of this gleam of sunshine, Mademoiselle de Gournay

edited another edition of Montaigne's work, with an abridgment of her

former preface. She also published a fresh work of her own, entitled,

"Avis et Présens de Mademoiselle de Gournay," which had a moderate

success. Another edition of "L'Ombre" was also called for. All this, in

some measure, consoled her for past humiliations.

Her prosperity lasted until the death of Cardinal Richelieu.

Mademoiselle de Gournay, then in extreme old age, still survived him.

When the list of pensions granted by the Cardinal was submitted to the

king, her name caught his eye. Louis the Thirteenth--who might have had

some grateful recollection of the many hearty laughs his royalty had

enjoyed at her expense--declared that the Cardinal must have been mad to

grant such a woman a pension, and ordered it to be suppressed!

Mademoiselle de Gournay passed the few remaining years of her life in a

state of poverty painful to reflect upon. She died somewhere about 1646,

at the age of eighty.

Poor as she was, she made her will as became a person of her birth. She

bequeathed her clothes to Mademoiselle Jamyn, who, old and infirm,

survived her; a few books she left to different friends; and a curious

old Map of the World, to the poet Gombauld--a personage as eccentric as

herself, and one who lived and died in still greater penury, but who

valued her legacy, and transmitted it to his heirs as the most precious

treasure in the world.

DILIGENCE IN DOING GOOD.

Thomas Wright, of Manchester, is a worn but not a weary man of

sixty-three, who has for forty-seven years been weekly servant in a

large iron foundry, of which he is now the foreman. His daily work

begins at five o'clock in the morning, and closes at six in the evening;

for forty-seven years he has worked through twelve hours daily, to

support himself and those depending on him. Those depending on him are

not few; he has had nineteen children; and at some periods there have

been grandchildren looking to him for bread. His income never has

attained two hundred pounds a year. This is a life of toil. Exeter Hall

might plead for him as a man taxed beyond the standard limit; but he had

bread to earn, and knew that he had need to work for it: he did work

with great zeal and great efficiency, obtaining very high respect and

confidence from his employers. A man so laboring, and leading in his

home an exemplary, pious life, might be entitled to go to bed betimes,

and rest in peace between these days of industry and natural fatigue.

What could a man do, in the little leisure left by so much unremitting

work? Poor as he was--toiling as he did, a modest man of humble origin,

with no power in the world to aid him but the wonderful spiritual power

of an earnest will--Thomas Wright has found means, in his little

intervals of leisure, to lead back, with a gentle hand, three hundred

convicted criminals to virtue; to wipe the blot from their names and the

blight from their prospects; to place them in honest homes, supported by

an honest livelihood.

Fourteen years ago Mr. Wright visited, one Sunday, the New Bailey

Prison, at Manchester, and took an earnest interest in what he saw. He

knew that, with the stain of jail upon them, the unhappy prisoners,

after release, would seek in vain for occupation; and that society would

shut the door of reformation on them, and compel them, if they would not

starve, to walk on in the ways of crime. The jail-mark branding them as

dangerous, men buttoned up their pockets when they pleaded for a second

trial of their honesty, and left them helpless. Then, Thomas Wright

resolved, in his own honest heart, that he would visit in the prisons,

and become a friend to those who had no helper.

The chaplain of the New Bailey, Mr. Bagshawe, recognized in the

beginning the true practical benevolence of the simple-minded visitor.

On his second visit a convict was pointed out, on whom Mr. Wright might

test his power. It was certain power. From the vantage-ground of a

comparative equality of station, he pleaded with his fellow workman for

the wisdom of a virtuous and honest life. Heaven does, and Earth should,

wipe out of account repented evil. Words warm from the heart, backed

with a deep and contagious sense in the hearer of the high-minded virtue

shown by his companion, were not uttered, like lip-sympathy, in vain.

Then Thomas Wright engaged to help his friend, to get employment for

him; and, if necessary, to be surety with his own goods for his

honorable conduct. He fulfilled his pledge; and that man has been ever

since, a prosperous laborer, and an upright member of society.

So the work began. So earnest, so humble; yet, like other earnest,

humble efforts, with a blessing of prosperity upon it. In this way,

during the last fourteen years, by this one man, working in the leisure

of a twelve hours' daily toil, hundreds have been restored to peace. He

has sent husbands repentant to their wives; he has restored fathers to

the fatherless. Without incurring debt, supporting a large family on

little gains, he has contrived to spare out of his little; contenting

himself with a bare existence, that he might have clothes to give and

bits of money, where they were required to reinstate an outcast in

society.

Mr. Wright is a dissenter--free, of course, from bigotry; for bigotry

can never co-exist with charity so genuine. Although a dissenter working

spiritually in the prison, he never comes into jarring contact with the

chaplain. He makes a point of kindling in his outcast friends a

religious feeling; but that is not sectarian; he speaks only the largest

sentiments of Christianity, and asks only that they attend, once every

week, a place of worship, leaving them to choose what church or chapel

it may be. And, in the chapel he himself attends, wherever his eye

turns, he can see decent families who stand by his means there; men whom

he has rescued from the vilest courses, kneeling modestly beside their

children and their wives. Are not these families substantial prayers?

Very humbly all this has been done. In behalf of each outcast in turn,

Mr. Wright has pleaded with his own employer, or with others, in a

plain, manly way. Many now work under himself, in his own place of

occupation; his word and guarantees having been sufficient

recommendation. Elsewhere, he has, when rebuffed, persevered from place

to place, offering and laying down his own earnings as guarantee;

clothing and assisting the repentant unemployed convict out of his own

means, as far as possible; speaking words, or writing letters, with a

patient zeal, to reconcile to him his honest relatives, or to restore

lost friends. Bare sustenance for his own body by day, that he might

screw out of himself little funds in aid of his good deeds--and four

hours' sleep at night, after his hard work, that he might screw out of

his bed more time for his devoted labor--these tell their tale upon the

body of the man, who still works daily twelve hours for his family, and

six or eight hours for his race. He is now sixty-three years old, and

working forward on his course worn, but unwearied.

No plaudits have been in his ear, and he has sought none. Of his labor,

the success was the reward. Some ladies joined; and working quietly, as

he does, in an under-current of society, after a while, he had from them

the aid of a small charitable fund, to draw upon occasionally in the

interest of the poor friends for whom he struggled. Prison Inspectors

found him out, and praised him in reports. At first there were a few

words, and a note told of "this benevolent individual. His simple,

unostentatious, but earnest and successful labors on behalf of

discharged prisoners are above all praise." After a few years, the

reports grew in their enthusiasm, and strung together illustrations of

the work that has been done so quietly. Let us quote from this source

one or two examples:

"Five years ago I was," owns a certain G.J., "in the New Bailey,

convicted of felony, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment. When I

was discharged from prison, I could get no employment. I went to my old

employer, to ask him to take me again. He said, I need not apply to him,

for if he could get me transported he would; so I could get no work

until I met with Mr. Wright, who got me employed in a place, where I

remained some time, and have been in employment ever since. I am now

engaged as a screw-cutter--a business I was obliged to learn--and am

earning nineteen shillings and twopence a week. I have a wife and four

children, and but for Mr. Wright, I should have been a lost man."

Others tell how they were saved by the timely supplies of Mr. Wright's

money, which "kept their heads above water" till they obtained the trust

of an employer. Another, after telling his career, adds: "I am now,

consequently, in very comfortable circumstances; I am more comfortable

now than ever I was in my life; I wish every poor man was as comfortable

as I am. I am free from tippling, and cursing, and swearing; have peace

of mind, and no quarreling at home as there used to be. I dare say I was

as wicked a man as any in Manchester. I thought if I could once get

settled under such a gentleman as Mr. Wright, I would not abuse my

opportunity, and all I expected I have received. I have got Bibles,

hymn-book, prayer-book, and tracts; and those things I never had in my

house since I have been married before. My wife is delighted. My boy

goes to school, and my girl also."

Were the spirit of Mr. Wright diffused more generally through society,

the number of fallen men--who, being restored with all due prudence to a

generous confidence, "would not abuse their opportunity"--would tell

decidedly on the statistics of our criminal courts and prisons. To labor

as Mr. Wright has done, must be the prerogative of few, though all the

indolent may note, by way of spur, how much a man, even like Thomas

Wright, poor, humble, scantily instructed, may beget of good out of an

earnest will.

THE NIGHT TRAIN.

The curate and his daughter sat before the fire. Both had been for some

time silent, for the father had fallen into that listless dreaminess to

which nothing is so conducive as gazing on the glowing caverns in the

coals, and pretty little Faith cared not to disturb a rest that he was

not likely to be long suffered to enjoy unmolested. And so the flamelets

rose and sank, lighting their thoughtful faces, and glittering on the

gold-embossed backs of the treasured volumes on the shelves--the

curate's most constant friends. Twilight saddened into night. Up from

behind the gray church tower came the moon. But still not a word broke

the silence in the parsonage parlor. The gaunt arms of the trees waved

drearily without. A streak of white moonshine crept across the carpet

like a silver snake. Still he gazed fixedly on the bright pagoda 'mid

the flame: it totters, but before it falls we will track his wandering

musings for a moment. All men, he thinks, have as children gazed on the

burning coals, and fashioned castles, figures, mountains in them, but

though the elements are all the same, no two men ever have presented to

them exactly the same position or difficulty in life, and so only

general rules of conduct can be laid down; but yet--the minaret crumbles

to nothing, and changes to a strange fantastic face, then into something

like a funeral plume; his dreams are all dispersed; the pensive damsel

looks up hurriedly, for high above the muttering wind, fierce as the

summons at the gates of Cawdor, he hears a knocking loud and long.

It was a farmer's boy from the village. His message was soon told. A

poor man had been seized with sudden illness at the wayside

public-house, and the clergyman's presence was required immediately. He

lingered to tell Faith not to wait up for him, then rose without a

murmur, and prepared for his long dreary walk. A moment after he was

crossing the neatly-kept garden, where the hydrangeas showed like piles

of skulls in the pale moonshine, and the chestnut leaves were falling

thick and fast. Then out into the deep-rutted road, through miry lanes,

across stark scraps of common, and paths covered with fern and

marsh-mallow, till at last the glimmering candle in the hostelry window

came in sight, and he stood under the creaking signboard of the White

Horse. The inn was of the humblest description, and the room into which

he was shown very wretched indeed. The plaster had peeled off the walls

in great odd shapes, like the countries on a map; the shutters had as

many cracks as an ill-fitting dissecting puzzle; the flooring was damp

and broken, there was a tracery of spiders' webs about the

bed-furniture, and the only sounds were the groans of the occupant of

the bed, and the drowsy ticking of the death-watch. Thinking he was

asleep, the curate prepared to sit down and wait for him to wake of

himself, but the noise of a drinking-song, shouted by some laborers in

the bar, startled him from his uneasy slumber, and when Mr. F. next

looked up, the ghastly face of the sick man confronted his own--an eery

nightmare face, such as meets one in the outlines of Retzsch, or peering

out of the goblin scenes and witches' caves of Peter Breughel. But if

the face was terrible, the voice that asked him "Why he came!" and bade

him take away the light that glared and hurt his eyes, was more

unearthly still. But when he recognized him as the clergyman, his manner

altered. In a comparatively tranquil state he listened to the minister's

earnest warnings and blessed consolations; then suddenly the pain seized

him; he screamed and groaned awhile in wild delirium; a deep calm

followed. Raising himself in the bed, he drew a roll of torn and

discolored papers from under the pillow, and put it into the curate's

hand. His senses never returned. A few more throbbings and struggles--a

wandering of the eyes about the room, first to the ceiling, where the

death-watch ticked on drearily, then to the Arcadian scene on the

tattered patchwork counterpane--a clutching at the bed-clothes--a

shuddering--a film--and then--death!

The curate did not sleep that night until he had read the stranger's

diary to an end. It began thus:

"_August 3d._--Brian Marcliffe came to me again; the same odd,

mysterious air that I have noticed so long. What can it mean? He can not

have found--But no, it's worse than useless having dark forebodings. I

shall soon be able to put the sea between me and this cursed golden

inferno, Brazil, and with my darling Bertha forget all these fears in

the paradise of full purses--England.

"_August 4th._--I met him by chance again, coming from the overseer's.

Confound it, how demon-like he looked! I will speak to him myself,

rather than be in suspense much longer. I should then know the worst, at

least.

"_August 5th._--Ruin! The worst has come. He does know all about my

being behindhand in my accounts, and hints--I can't write down what.

Bertha will never marry him but _as the only chance of saving me from

exposure_. Can he be devil enough to propose it?

"_August 20th._--Am I the same man I was a month ago! Farewell forever,

land of diamonds, slaves, and late summers. Farewell lust of gold and

dread of disgrace. It is over, I hope, forever. My Bertha--my own

now--is sleeping like a lily near me, and the only sound is the

splashing of the sea that is bearing me every moment further from my

fear. But stay; what have I left behind me! What is there in that glen

of mimosas? A rotting corpse. What in men's mouths? The name of

murderer. Pray God it be not. Let me think.

"On the Monday when I was leaving the office, Brian came again, and

asked me to go as far as old Olivenza's coffee plantation. I said I

would come, and we set out an hour past sunset. It was a beautiful

evening; the skies as pure as the robe of seraphim; the clouds like

curls of incense, now hiding, now revealing the dazzling glory of the

rising moon--all, save one black streak right across her face, like a

spread eagle. Well, we had nearly got to the plantation before Brian

spoke; but I saw he was preparing something by the villainous look of

his eyes. He began:

"'So, Reuben Darke, you have considered my proposition, and agree, of

course?'

"I believe I professed ignorance of it; for, indeed, he had never said

any thing definite.

"'The consequences of opposition are as terrible as they are

inevitable,' said he, threateningly.

"'You can not stoop to such vileness--to such wrong. You know that I am

striving for a great end--that I will make restitution full and ample if

I live to reach England.'

"This was the sense of what I said, but his answer was clearly prepared

long before he knew what I should urge. It came gnashing through his

closed teeth like the hiss of an adder.

"'I must do my duty. It is my place to overlook the accounts of all the

clerks. You will show me your books to-morrow.'

"He turned away. I prayed he might not speak again, for his voice

stirred up a feeling I had never known before; but my bad angel, I

suppose, brought him back. I scarcely recollect what he said. I have a

vague notion of hearing him mention Bertha's name with some cursed plan

that was to give her up to him forever, and then he would, 'for the sake

of old friendship, deal as gently as he possibly could with me.' Those

words I remember well, and those were the last he ever spoke to me. I

dread to think they were his last on earth. The feeling I had wrestled

against mastered me now. I could restrain myself no longer, and struck

at him with a knife. He clutched my left hand in his teeth like a

tiger-cat. For a second we were grappling together for life or death,

but he had no chance against me; and when I had breath to look at him

next, he was lying on his back, the hands that he had tried to parry my

blows with cut and bleeding, and red stains on the broad mimosa leaves

around. Oh, God! what a reproach there was in all the calm and silence

of the night! How the deep quiet of the sky spoke to my heart, so

troubled, dark, and guilty! As on the first dread day by sin polluted,

the voice of God in Eden drove Adam forth abashed, so spoke the still

small voice of holy Nature with more than earthquake tones to me, and

straight I fled away.

"My Bertha does not know the whole. She only knows that Brian had me in

his power, owing to some money transactions. If she did know it, my

conscience tells me she would not now be sleeping here. There--all will

be well in England. Pray Heaven we get there safe. I will go up on deck

a few minutes. Writing it down has brought the whole affair so fresh

before me, that it is useless trying to sleep in this fever. But yet I

am glad it is written.

"_October 15th._--We entered the Channel this afternoon. It is my wife's

birthday; she took it as a happy omen, and seemed so pleased with the

glitter and joyance of the busy river, that for a whole hour--the first

since I left Rio--the dreadful secret hidden 'mid those leaves was

absent from my mind.

"_October 16th._--The first news that meets me on entering London is,

that my uncle has died suddenly, and left all his affairs frightfully

embarrassed. My chief dependence was on him. This is a sad beginning;

indeed, I feel that 'all these things are against me.'"

Several pages were here torn from the unfortunate Darke's manuscript;

and in the succeeding ones the entries were scanty, and with long

intervals between each other. They detailed the sufferings of the writer

and his wife on their arrival in London; his repeated efforts to obtain

employment, and the difficulties he met with, owing to his uncle's

death, and his own inability to refer any one to the directors of the

mine at Rio. For more than a year (judging from the dates, by no means

regularly affixed) he appeared to have struggled on thus, until, when

his hopes were fast sinking, and his health rapidly giving way under

this succession of disappointments, he obtained a situation on a

recently-opened line of railway in the north, through the interest of an

old schoolfellow, whom he accidentally met, and who retained in manhood

schoolboy heart enough to show gratitude for many kindnesses in olden

days. The language was strangely impassioned and earnest in which he

expressed his joy at this change of fortune; and the full-hearted

thankfulness with which he described telling his wife the good news,

seemed to prove that affliction had exerted a calming and blessed

influence on his passion-tossed mind. But the clergyman could not help

noticing that the spirit pervading the latter part of the diary was

strangely different from that which animated the commencement, it being

written apparently with the firm conviction of an inevitable destiny

hanging over the writer; and this, like the shadow of an unseen cloud in

a fair picture, gave a sombre meaning to his self-communings.

After briefly mentioning the fact of his taking up his abode with Bertha

and one little child at the cottage provided by the company, and that he

had heard by chance that his enemy was still alive, he proceeded:

"I like this new home much. It is a tiny, sheltered cottage, with

beehives in the garden, and honeysuckles peeping in at the lattice,

nestling innocently among the pine-trees, like a fairy islet. The

railway runs for about a mile parallel with the canal, and the two modes

of traveling contrast curiously. The former with all its brightness,

freshness, and precision; the latter a very sluggard. I often have long

talks with Huntly, my assistant here, and try to make him see the change

it will work; but he is not over shrewd; or, rather, fate did not give

him a bookworm uncle like it did me, and so reasoning is hard work to

him; it always is to the untaught. The canal is picturesque certainly.

Let me try a description. The surface of the water is overlaid with

weeds rank and luxuriant, save where the passage of a boat has preserved

a trench, stagnant, and cold, and deep. There is not a human habitation

near except ours. Scarcely any paths, the thickets are so tangled. This

does not read an inviting account, I know, but there is a charm to me in

the leaves of myriad shapes, in fern, and moss, and rush, in every

silvan nook and glittering hedgerow--above all, in the dark slumberous

pines, those giant sentinels round our dear home. Bertha smiled quite

like her old self when she saw it. Oh, how, in all the wreck of this

last year, has her love upheld me! always lightening, never adding to

our weight of grief. She has, indeed, been faithful, true, and

beautiful--like the Indian tree, that has its flower and fragrance best

by night. I can not explain why it is that my love seems to grow each

hour, but with a kind of tremble in its intensity, as though there were

a separation coming. Perhaps it is only the result of the change in my

fortunes.

"_March 10th._--Two years ago I should have laughed had any one told me

that a dream would give me a second thought, much less that I should sit

down to write what I remember of one; but I must write down last

night's, nevertheless. I thought that it was a clear moonlight night,

and that I rose as usual to signal to the latest luggage train. I had

got to the accustomed place, and stood waiting a long time. For days,

for months; I knew this, because the trees were budding when I began my

watch--were bare as winter when, with a roar and quaking all around, the

night train came. At first I held a lantern in my hand, to signal all

was well. Strange as it may appear, I felt no weariness, for I was fixed

as by a wizard's rod. It passed at length; but not, thank God! as it has

ever passed before; for from the carriage window, like a mask, glared

Marcliffe's vengeful face. I said I held a light; but, as the smoke and

iron hurtled by, the lamp was dashed to atoms, and in my outstretched

hand I grasped a knife! There was a yell of demons in my ear, with

Brian's jeering laugh above it all. I moaned awhile in horror, and woke

to find my Bertha's eyes on mine. She has been soothing and kind as

mercy to me all the day, and I, alas! wayward, almost cruel. I saw it

pained her, but I could not help it. Oh, would that this world had no

concealments, no divisions, no estrangement of hearts! I dread the

night; there is something tells me it will come again, for when I took

the Bible down to read, it opened at the words:

"'I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak

unto him in a dream.'

"A thrill went through me as I read. It sounded like a death-knell.

"_The next day._--As I foresaw it came again last night; the same in

every terrible particular, and with the same consolation on awaking. But

what I have seen to-day gives it a meaning that I tremble at. Huntly

returned from D----. He brought a birthday present for little Harry; it

happened to be wrapped in an old newspaper. As it was opened, I saw

_his_ name, and a moment after read this:

"'NEXT OF KIN.--If any child or children of the late Ehud

Marcliffe, Gentleman, of Cranholm Manse, who died September 5,

18--, be yet surviving, it is desired that he or they will

forthwith put themselves in communication with Messrs. Faulk and

Lockerby, Solicitors, D----.'

"This leaves me no hope; and knowing, as I do, the unfaltering

steadfastness of his hate I feel the days of this security and peace are

numbered....

"A whole month has gone since I opened this last. There is no fear now.

He is dead. But how? The eye that reads this record alone will know.

That fatal Thursday went by, a phantasm of dark thoughts; and then I lay

down, as usual, for a couple of hours before going to watch. I did this,

for there was a kind of instinct in me (the feeling deserves no higher

name) which made me go about my avocations in the accustomed way, and

seem as little disturbed as possible. I lay down, and in my dream, as

distinct as ever it passed by day, for the third time that awful freight

swept like a whirlwind by. I awoke. It wanted only three minutes to the

hour when the night-train usually passed. I staggered to the door, but,

instead of coming out into the light, an inky shadow lay across the

road. It was a car left by Huntly's carelessness on the up-rail. I stood

like one of stone, thinking of the tranquil happiness of the last

months, of Bertha's smile, and Harry's baby laugh--of all the sun and

pleasure of our home, and how this precious fabric, wove by love, was to

be rent and torn; and how one word from him would ruin all, and send my

wife and child to poverty again. And that man's life was in my hand.

Well may we daily pray against temptation.

"A white cloud curled up above the pines.

"There was no delay. I caught up the lantern, and ran down the line. A

throbbing, like the workings of a giant's pulse, smote my ear. I reached

the signal-post, and laid my hand upon the bell. But there was no time

for thought.

"The murmur deepened to a roar. The clouds of steam rose high above the

pines, and, girt about with wreathing vapor, the iron outline, with its

blood-red lamps and Hecla glow beneath, came on.

"My eyes were strangely keen, for at that distance I could discern a man

leaning out of the nearest window. I knew who it must be, and almost

expecting to see the last dreadful particular fulfilled, held out my

hand--_the sign that all was safe_. The driver signaled that he

understood, and quickened pace. I shut my eyes when it drew near, but,

as it passed, distinctly heard my name called thrice.

"There was a moment that seemed never-ending. Then a clatter as of a

hundred anvil strokes, a rush of snow-white steam, a shower of red-hot

ashes scattered far, the hum of voices, and the clanging of the bell.

Then, and not till then, I ventured to look up and hurry to the spot.

The train, a series of shapeless wrecks, luggage-vans, trucks, carriages

in wild confusion, lay across the road; live coals from the engine-fire

were hissing in the black canal stream; the guard was bleeding and

crushed beneath a wheel; twining wreaths of white steam, like spirits,

melted into air above. Huntly was stooping over a begrimed corpse. The

glare of the lantern, as it flashed upon the face, showed every omen

true. It was Marcliffe.

"I can bear to chronicle my own temptations, yielding, guilt, but not to

write down the separation that I dreaded most, and tried to avert, alas!

so fatally. It is indeed a lesson of the nothingness of man's subtlest

plans to avoid the penalty his crimes call down. How vain have all my

efforts been to preserve our hearth inviolate, to keep our home in

blessed security. Indeed, that night God's peace and favor 'departed

from the threshold of the house' forever."

The misfortune alluded to was thus briefly mentioned at the end of the

newspaper report of the accident, inclosed with the other papers of the

dead man:

"We are sorry to say that the wife of the station-keeper, Darke, whose

dangerous state we noticed a week ago, expired last night, after giving

birth to a child, still-born."

With the sentence given above Darke's diary closed. Here and there the

curate read a verse of a psalm, or a heart-broken ejaculation, but no

continued narrative of his after-sufferings. From what he could glean,

it appeared that he was put on his trial on the charge of manslaughter,

and acquitted, but that he had lost his situation in consequence of the

want of presence of mind he had evinced; after, it seemed, that he had

led a miserable vagrant life, earning just enough by chance-work to

support himself and his little Harry, the constant attendant of his

wanderings. The boy was at the inn on the night of the father's wretched

death, though the landlady's kindness removed him from the sight of the

troublous parting. An asylum was soon found for him by my friend's

kindness, and when I was at the parsonage last Christmas, as I read the

history of his father's fitful life, the unconscious son sat by with

little Faith, gazing with his large melancholy eyes at the strange faces

in the fire.

STORY OF A BEAR.

Thirty leagues from Carlstad, and not far from the borders of the Klar,

upon the shores of the lake Rada, rises a little hamlet named St. John,

the most smiling village of Scandinavia. Its wooden houses, mirrored in

the translucent waters, stand in bold relief against a background of

extensive forests. For a space of twenty leagues round, Nature has

blessed the generous soil with abundant harvests, filled the lake with

fish, and the woods with game. The inhabitants of St. John are rich,

without exception; each year they make a profit of their harvests, and

bury beneath their hearthstones an addition to their little fortunes.

In 1816, there lived at St. John a young man of twenty years of age,

named Daniel Tissjoebergist. A fortunate youth he thought himself, for

he possessed two farms; and was affianced to a pretty young girl, named

Raghilda, celebrated through all the province of Wermeland for her

shapely figure, her little feet, her blue eyes, and fair skin, besides a

certain caprice of character that her beauty rendered excusable.

The daughter of a forester, and completely spoiled by her father, who

yielded to all her whims, Raghilda was at the same time the torment and

the happiness of her affianced lover. If he climbed the heights, and

gathered the most beautiful mountain flowers as a tribute to her charms,

that very day the fantastic beauty would be seized with a severe

headache, and have quite a horror of perfumes. Did he bring her game

from the forest, she "could not comprehend," she would say, "how any man

could leave a pretty young girl to go and kill the poor hares." One day

he procured, at great expense, an assortment of necklaces and gold rings

from Europe. He expected this time, at any rate, to be recompensed for

his pains; but Raghilda merely declared that she much preferred to these

rich presents the heavy silver ornaments that decorate Norwegian

females. But she, nevertheless, took care to adorn herself with the

despised gifts, to the intense envy of the other young girls her

companions.

According to universal Wermeland usage, Raghilda kept bees. From morning

to evening she tended her hives, and the insects knew her so well, that

her presence did not scare them in the least, but they hummed and buzzed

around her without testifying either fright or anger.

Daniel, as our readers may imagine, never visited his mistress without

busying himself among her bees. One day he took it into his head that a

high wall, standing just before the hives, deprived them in part of the

heat of the sun, and compelled the insects to fly too high to gain the

plain, and collect their store of perfumed honey. He proposed to

Raghilda to diminish the height of the offending wall by some feet. At

first the young girl would not entertain the idea, merely because it

came from her lover; but she at length ceded to his reasonings, and the

wall was diminished in height.

For several weeks Daniel and Raghilda congratulated themselves on the

steps they had taken. The full heat of the sun marvelously quickened the

eggs of the queen-bee, without reckoning that the journey of the little

workers was shortened by one-half. But, alas! one fatal morning, when

the young girl placed herself at her window to say good-day to her dear

hives, she beheld them overturned, crushed, deserted. The honeycombs

were broken all to pieces, and the ground was strewed with the bodies of

the unfortunate insects. Upon Daniel's arrival, he found his lovely

Raghilda weeping despairingly in the midst of the melancholy ruins.

The latter had thought of nothing beyond the loss of her bees, her own

sorrow, and, above all, of her discontent with Daniel, and his

pernicious advice concerning the wall. Her lover, on the contrary, vowed

vengeance against the spoiler.

"I am," said he, "the involuntary cause of your unhappiness, Raghilda,

and to me it belongs to avenge you. These traces of steps are no human

footmarks, but the impressions of a bear's paw. I shall take my gun,

fasten on my _skidars_, and never return until I have killed the

brigand."

Raghilda was too sorrowful for the loss of her bees, and too furious

against Daniel for his imprudent advice about taking down the wall, to

make any reply, or even turn her head for a parting glance. Her lover

left her thus, and hastened, his heart full of rage, to take his wooden

skates, called skidars in Norway, and set forth in quest of the bear.

Tissjoebergist could not have proceeded far without this singular

_chaussure_. These skidars are of unequal size; that which is fastened

by the leathern straps to the left leg is from nine to twelve feet long,

while to the right they do not give more than six or seven. This

inequality procures ease to the hunter when he wishes to turn round on

broken ground; permitting him to lean with all his weight upon the

shorter skate, fabricated of solid materials. The skidars are about two

inches in width, weigh from ten to fifteen pounds, and terminate in

highly raised points, in order to avoid the obstacles that they might

encounter. The wearer slides with one, and sustains himself with the

other. The sole is covered with a sea-calf's skin, with the hair

outside; this precaution hinders retrograde movements. When the hunter

is compelled to surmount difficult heights, he does not lift his foot,

but proceeds nearly as we do upon the skates of our country. He holds a

stick in each hand, to expedite or retard his course, and carries his

weapons in a shoulder-belt. Upon even ground, it is easy to progress

with the skidars, and a man can accomplish forty leagues in twelve

hours. But, in the midst of a country like Wermeland, alternately

wooded, flat, mountainous, and marshy, strewed with rocks and fallen

trees, the use of these skates requires much courage, address, and,

above all, presence of mind. Daniel, habituated to their use from

infancy, skated with prodigious hardihood and celerity. Quick as

thought, he would now descend the almost perpendicular face of a

mountain, then surmount a precipice, or clamber the steep sides of a

ravine. A slight movement of his body sufficed to avoid the branches of

trees, and a zigzag to steer clear of the rocks strewn upon his path.

His ardent eye sought in the distance for the enemy he pursued, or

searched the soil for traces of the brute's paws. But all his researches

were fruitless.

After three fatiguing days, passed without repose or slumber, and almost

without food, he returned to St. John, in a state more easy to

comprehend than describe. Raghilda, during these three days, had caused

the wall to be built up again, and was now occupied in arranging the new

hives with which Aulic-Finn, Daniel's rival, had presented her, after

having filled them with bees by a process equally hardy and ingenious.

There was, in consequence of this, so violent a quarrel between the

engaged lovers, that Tissjoebergist returned to Raghilda the ring which

she had given him one evening during a solitary promenade on the

umbrageous banks of the lake Rada. The young girl took the ring, and

threw it with a gesture of contempt among the bee-hives.

"There!" said she, "the bear may have it. He will not fail to come, for

he knows that he may ravage my hives with impunity."

Tissjoebergist assembled his friends, and informed them of the affront

that he had received. Though a few were secretly pleased with the

humiliation of one whose manly beauty, address, courage, and good

fortune had often been the subject of envy, they all declared that they

would, the very next day, undertake a general _skali_, that is to say, a

_grande battue_.

Eight days from the time of this declaration, more than a thousand

hunters formed themselves into an immense semicircle, inclosing a space

of from five to six leagues. The other half-circle was represented by a

wide and deep pond, over which it was impossible for their prey to

escape by swimming. Daniel directed the skali with remarkable

intelligence. By his orders, signals, repeated from mouth to mouth,

caused the hunters to close up little by little, while a select band

beat the bushes.

They continued to advance in this way for several hours, without

discovering any thing save troops of hares and other small game, that

escaped between the legs of the hunters. These they did not attempt to

molest, for they looked only for the animal whose death Daniel had

sworn to compass. Suddenly they heard a low cry, and a gigantic bear,

that had been hidden behind a rock, abruptly rose, and stalked toward

Tissjoebergist. The youth took aim at the terrible beast, and pulled the

trigger of his musket. It missed fire. The bear seized his weapon with

his powerful paws, twisted it like a wand, broke it, and overturned

Daniel in the mud. All this passed with the rapidity of lightning. The

monster then took to flight, being hit in the shoulder by a ball from

Aulic-Finn; and the hunters saw him climb the hill, after which he

disappeared in the forest. Daniel, foaming with rage, pursued him

thither at the head of his friends, but in vain. Again the young man

returned to St. John without the vengeance he desired; well-nigh

heartbroken with shame and disappointment.

Raghilda welcomed Aulic-Finn most cordially, and there was a report

current in the village, that she had picked up the discarded ring from

among the hives, to place it on the finger of Tissjoebergist's rival.

This the young girls whispered among each other so loud, that Daniel

could not avoid overhearing them, though he did not comprehend the full

purport of their words. Nor were the young men behind-hand in their

comments. There are never wanting unkind hands to strike deeper the

thorns that rankle in our hearts.

In place of consoling himself by drinking and feasting among his

companions, as is the custom in those parts after a hunt, successful or

otherwise, the unfortunate lover now resolved to have recourse to the

_gall_. This is a stratagem which will be best explained by an account

of Daniel's preparations on the occasion.

He took a cow from his stables, tied a rope to her horns, and dragged

her along with so much violence, that her lowings resounded through the

forest. Toward nightfall he arrived with the poor beast near a sort of

scaffolding constructed in the thickest part of the wood, between three

or four trees, and about thirty feet from the ground. Having tied the

cow firmly by the rope to the roots of an old and strong stump, he

mounted the scaffolding and awaited the issue.

The first night the lowings of the cow were the only sounds that broke

the melancholy silence of the forest. It was the same the next day, and

the next. The fourth night, after a long struggle with the drowsiness

occasioned by the intense cold, for the young hunter's provision of

eau-de-vie had long been exhausted, nature overcame him, and he slept.

Then a huge bear raised his head from behind the scaffolding, and having

cautiously peered around him, crept toward the cow, seized her between

his paws, and broke the rope that held her. He turned his big pointed

face toward the slumbering hunter, and giving him an ironical glance,

disappeared with his shuddering prey into the depths of the forest.

An hour afterward, Daniel awoke. The sun had risen, and even in that

shady place there was light enough to distinguish the objects around. He

looked over the edge of the scaffolding, and beheld the rope severed,

and the cow gone. Sliding down, he marked the humid earth covered with

the impressions of the bear's claws. At this sight he thought he should

have gone mad.

He waited until nightfall before he re-entered the village, and then,

creeping to his house without detection, he took a large knife, which he

placed in his belt, unfastened a dog that was chained in the yard, and

retook the road to the forest. The season was the beginning of November,

the snow had fallen in abundance, and it froze hard. Tissjoebergist

skated along on the sparkling ice, preceded by his dog, who, from time

to time halted, and smelt around him. But these investigations led to no

result, and the animal continued his way. Cold tears fell down Daniel's

cheeks, and were quickly congealed into icicles. For one moment he

paused, took his musket from the shoulder-belt in which he carried it,

pressed the cold barrel against his forehead, and asked himself, whether

it would not be better to put an end to his disappointment and his shame

together. As he cast a last despairing glance behind him, he perceived

that his dog had stopped, and was gazing immovably at a small opening in

some underwood, which was discovered to him by the lurid rays of the

aurora borealis. A feeble hope dawned in Daniel's sick heart; he

advanced, and plainly saw a slight hollow in the snow, undisturbed every

where else.

The young man's heart beat violently. There, doubtless, lay his enemy,

gorged with the abundant meal furnished by the cow. The hunter strode

on. The hole was not more than two feet in diameter, and the bear might

be distinctly perceived squatting in the niche at about five feet of

depth. The noise of the hunter's approach disturbed the animal. He

stirred, opened his heavy eyelids, and saw Daniel. He was about to rush

out, but a blow with the butt-end of the musket drove him back to his

hole with a large wound in his eye, that streamed with blood. Another

bound, and the bear was free. He stood erect, face to face with the

young hunter, looked upon him for a few seconds with the horrible smile

peculiar to these animals when in anger, and precipitated himself upon

his enemy. The dog did not allow his master to be attacked with

impunity, and a _mélée_ ensued that covered the snow with blood. Daniel,

seized by the shoulders, and retained in the monster's clutches, had the

presence of mind to throw away his musket and have recourse to his

knife, with which he made three large wounds in his adversary's side.

Then he seized him by the ears, and, ably seconded by his dog, forced

him to let go his hold. The bear, enfeebled by loss of blood, yielded

the victory, and flew with so much swiftness, that the dog, who

immediately put himself upon his track, was obliged to renounce the hope

of overtaking him. The faithful animal returned to his master, whom he

found insensible, his face torn to ribbons, his breast lacerated, and

his shoulders covered with large wounds. Some peasants happening to pass

that way raised the unhappy young man in their arms, and brought him to

St. John, where he long lay between life and death. He would rather have

been left to die, for life was become insupportable. Bears could not be

mentioned before him without his detecting lurking smiles in the faces

of his associates. To crown all, the approaching marriage of Raghilda

and Aulic-Finn was no longer a mystery. Daniel had partly lost the use

of his right arm, and a bite inflicted by the bear upon his nose had

ruined the noble and regular features of the poor youth, and given him a

countenance nearly as frightful as that of his adversary. He fell into a

profound melancholy, sold his two farms and all his land, quitted

Wermeland, sojourned about two months at Carlstad, and finally

disappeared altogether from Scandinavia.

During this period, some hunters who were exploring the banks of the

Klar, found, near the parish of Tima, a one-eyed bear, pierced with

three strokes of a poniard, and in a dying condition. They took him

without resistance, dressed his wounds, and carried him to a neighboring

village. There they hired a light cart, placed him upon it, and took him

along with them.

The recovery of their patient was more rapid than they had dared to

hope. When the convalescent animal began to gain his strength, he was

inclosed in a large cage, conveniently furnished with iron bars. As he

was of gigantic stature, and possessed a magnificent coat, he proved a

very lucrative acquisition as a show to the gaping multitude, and soon

made the fortune of the _cornac_ who bought him.

It was thus that the wild inhabitant of the forests of Wermeland became

a cosmopolitan, and traversed Norway, Sweden, Germany and Prussia. In

course of time he arrived in France, where his enormous proportions,

savage mien, and thick fur, procured him the honor of being bought, for

360 francs, by M. Frederic Cuvier. He was brought in his cage to the

habitation prepared for him in the Jardin des Plantes. There he was

released from his narrow prison, and respired once more the fresh

breeze.

This first sensation exhausted, he slowly explored his new abode. It was

a species of cellar open to the air, twenty-five feet by thirty, and

twenty feet in depth. Its walls were of smooth stone, that left no hold

for the claws of its Scandinavian tenant. At one end was a kind of den,

furnished with iron bars, that vividly recalled his first cage, and at

the other a supply of water that fell into a trough of blue stone. In

the middle stood a tree despoiled of its leaves and bark, upon which the

little boys that had crowded round were continually throwing morsels of

bread and apple-cores tied to long strings, crying, at the same time,

"Martin! Martin!"

The bear disdainfully eyed the bread and the apple-cores, uttered a

furious bellow, and embracing the trunk of the tree endeavored to

overthrow it; but it stood the shock well, and did not even stagger. The

cries were repeated, accompanied by insolent roars of laughter.

For the first few days the new-comer remained disdainfully squatted in

his den. They might throw him cakes as they pleased, he did not even

look at them. If some blackguard occasionally resorted to stones, it

merely excited a jerking movement of the animal's paws, and a display of

his white teeth. But, at the end of a week, he began, not without some

false shame, to glance out of the corner of his eye at the tempting

morsels of cake or tartlets that lay around him.

At length he furtively laid his paw upon one of the nice-looking bits,

drew it toward him, slily dispatched it, and acknowledged that the

Parisian pastry-cooks understood their business. The next day the stoic

became an epicure, and collected the morsels that were thrown to him. A

little time afterward, he remarked a dog sitting upon his hind legs, and

agitating his fore-paws, to the great delight of the children, who

lavished cakes upon the clever beast. A venal thought entered the mind

of the bear. He imitated the cur, and begged.

The degraded savage now hesitated at nothing. He climbed the tree as the

last bear had done, danced, saluted, imitated death, and performed, for

the least bribe of bread or fruit, the most ridiculous grimaces. The

fame of his gentleness spread through all Paris. Nothing was talked of

but Martin, his intelligence and docility. His reputation circulated

through the departments, and foreign journals quoted anecdotes of his

sagacity.

For about ten years Martin feasted in peace, and enjoyed all the

advantages of his servile submission. One beautiful summer afternoon, he

was lying in the shade, nonchalantly digesting his food, when he

happened to glance at the crowd that surrounded the pit. Suddenly he

rose with a terrible bound, and rushed toward a shabbily-dressed man,

whose visage was horribly cicatrized, and who leaned upon a knotty stick

as he gazed down at the bear. The animal growled, writhed, opened his

muzzle, and exhibited the most frightful evidences of anger. The man was

not more placable; he brandished his stick with curses and menaces.

"I recognize thee," he cried in a strange tongue; "thou art the cause of

my shame, my wounds, and my misery. It is thou that hast robbed me of

happiness, and made me a wretched crippled-mendicant. It shall not be

said that I died without revenge."

The bear, by his cries of rage, testified equally that he had recognized

his enemy, and held himself in a posture of defiance.

The stranger drew from his pocket a large sharp-pointed knife,

calculated, with a frightful _sang froid_, the leap that he would have

to take, and jumped into the pit, brandishing his weapon. Unfortunately,

on reaching the ground, he sprained his foot against one of the stones

that paved the pit, and which had got displaced. The crowd beheld him

fall, and then saw the bear rush upon him, avoid the knife, and, keeping

his victim down, play with his head as if it had been a ball, knocking

it backward and forward between his paws. Lastly, the incensed animal

placed himself upon the breast of the stranger, and stifled him, with

every sign of hideous and ferocious triumph. All this passed in less

time than we have taken to describe it. The keepers ran to the rescue,

and obliged the bear to retire into his iron-grated den. The animal

peaceably obeyed, with the visible satisfaction of a satiated vengeance.

When they came to raise the man, they found that he was dead.

With the Parisians, every stranger is an Englishman. The report soon

spread, confirmed by the journals, that Martin's victim was what they

then called an _insulaire_. Few persons knew that Martin had killed his

ancient adversary, the unfortunate Daniel Tissjoebergist.

The following day the bear mounted the tree, excelled himself, picked up

the morsels of _galette_ that were thrown down by his admirers, basked

in the sun's rays, and regarded with his one small ferocious eye the

spot where, the evening before, he had accomplished his long meditated

revenge.

THE SICILIAN VESPERS.

Half a mile from the southern wall of the city, on the brink of the

ravine of Oreto, stands a church dedicated to the Holy Ghost, concerning

which the Latin fathers have not failed to record, that on the day on

which the first stone of it was laid, in the twelfth century, the sun

was darkened by an eclipse. On one side of it are the precipice and the

river, on the other the plain extending to the city, which in the

present day is in great part encumbered with walls and gardens; while a

square inclosure of moderate size, shaded by dusky cypresses,

honey-combed with tombs, and adorned with urns and sepulchral monuments,

surrounds the church.

This is now a public cemetery, laid out toward the end of the eighteenth

century, and fearfully filled in three weeks by the dire pestilence

which devastated Sicily in 1837. On the Tuesday, at the hour of vespers,

religion and custom crowded this then cheerful plain, carpeted with the

flowers of spring, with citizens wending their way toward the church.

Divided into numerous groups, they walked, sat in clusters, spread the

tables, or danced upon the grass; and, whether it were a defect or a

merit of the Sicilian character, threw off for the moment, the

recollection of their sufferings, when the followers of the justiciary

suddenly appeared among them, and every bosom was thrilled with a

shudder of disgust. The strangers came, with their usual insolent

demeanor, as they said, to maintain tranquillity; and for this purpose

they mingled in the groups, joined in the dances, and familiarly

accosted the women, pressing the hand of one, taking unwarranted

liberties with others; addressing indecent words and gestures to those

more distant, until some temperately admonished them to depart, in

God's-name, without insulting the women, and others murmured angrily;

but the hot-blooded youths raised their voices so fiercely that the

soldiers said one to another, "These insolent paterini must be armed

that they dare thus to answer," and replied to them with the most

offensive insults, insisting, with great insolence, on searching them

for arms, and even here and there striking them with sticks or thongs.

Every heart already throbbed fiercely on either side, when a young woman

of singular beauty and of modest and dignified deportment, appeared with

her husband and relations, bending their steps toward the church.

Drouet, a Frenchman, impelled either by insolence or license, approached

her as if to examine her for concealed weapons; seized her and searched

her bosom. She fell fainting into her husband's arms, who, in a voice

almost choked with rage, exclaimed, "Death, death to the French!" At

that moment a youth burst from the crowd which had gathered round them,

sprang upon Drouet, disarmed and slew him; and probably at the same

moment paid the penalty of his own life, leaving his name unknown, and

the mystery forever unsolved, whether it were love for the injured

woman, the impulse of a generous heart, or the more exalted flame of

patriotism, that prompted him thus to give the signal of deliverance.

Noble examples have a power far beyond that of argument or eloquence to

rouse the people--and the abject slaves awoke at length from their long

bondage. "Death, death to the French!" they cried; and the cry, say the

historians of the time, re-echoed like the voice of God through the

whole country, and found an answer in every heart. Above the corpse of

Drouet were heaped those of victims slain on either side; the crowd

expanded itself, closed in, and swayed hither and thither in wild

confusion; the Sicilians, with sticks, stones, and knives, rushed with

desperate ferocity upon their fully-armed opponents; they sought for

them and hunted them down; fearful tragedies were enacted amid the

preparations for festivity, and the overthrown tables were drenched in

blood. The people displayed their strength, and conquered. The struggle

was brief, and great the slaughter of the Sicilians; but of the French

there were two hundred--and two hundred fell.

Breathless, covered with blood, brandishing the plundered weapons, and

proclaiming the insult and its vengeance, the insurgents rushed toward

the tranquil city. "Death to the French!" they shouted, and as many as

they found were put to the sword. The example, the words, the contagion

of passion, in an instant aroused the whole people. In the heat of the

tumult, Roger Mastrangelo, a nobleman, was chosen, or constituted

himself their leader. The multitude continued to increase; dividing into

troops they scoured the streets, burst open doors, searched every nook,

every hiding-place, and shouting "Death to the French!" smote them and

slew them, while those too distant to strike added to the tumult by

their applause. On the outbreak of this sudden uproar the justiciary had

taken refuge in his strong palace; the next moment it was surrounded by

an enraged multitude, crying aloud for his death; they demolished the

defenses, and rushed furiously in, but the justiciary escaped them;

favored by the confusion and the closing darkness, he succeeded, though

wounded in the face, in mounting his horse unobserved, with only two

attendants, and fled with all speed. Meanwhile the slaughter continued

with increased ferocity, even the darkness of night failed to arrest it,

and it was resumed on the morrow more furiously than ever; nor did it

cease at length because the thirst for vengeance was slaked, but because

victims were wanting to appease it. Two thousand French perished in this

first outbreak. Even Christian burial was denied them, but pits were

afterward dug to receive their despised remains; and tradition still

points out a column surmounted by an iron cross, raised by compassionate

piety on one of those spots, probably long after the perpetration of the

deed of vengeance. Tradition, moreover, relates that the sound of a

word, like the Shibboleth of the Hebrews, was the cruel test by which

the French were distinguished in the massacre; and that, if there were

found a suspicious or unknown person, he was compelled, with a sword to

his throat, to pronounce the word _ciciri_, and the slightest foreign

accent was the signal of his death. Forgetful of their own character,

and as if stricken by fate, the gallant warriors of France neither fled,

nor united, nor defended themselves; they unsheathed their swords, and

presented them to their assailants, imploring, as if in emulation of

each other, to be the first to die; of one common soldier only is it

recorded, that having concealed himself behind a wainscot, and being

dislodged at the sword's point, he resolved not to die unavenged, and

springing with a wild cry upon the ranks of his enemies, slew three of

them before he himself perished. The insurgents broke into the convents

of the Minorites and Preaching Friars, and slaughtered all the monks

whom they recognized as French. Even the altars afforded no protection;

tears and prayers were alike unheeded; neither old men, women, nor

infants, were spared; the ruthless avengers of the ruthless massacre of

Agosta swore to root out the seed of the French oppressors throughout

the whole of Sicily; and this vow they cruelly fulfilled, slaughtering

infants at their mothers' breast, and after them the mothers themselves,

nor sparing even pregnant women, but, with a horrible refinement of

cruelty, ripping up the bodies of Sicilian women who were with child by

French husbands, and dashing against the stones the fruit of the mingled

blood of the oppressors and the oppressed. This general massacre of all

who spoke the same language, and these heinous acts of cruelty, have

caused the Sicilian Vespers to be classed among the most infamous of

national crimes. But these fill a vast volume, and in it all nations

have inscribed horrors of a similar, and sometimes of a blacker dye;

nations often more civilized, and in times less rude, and not only in

the assertion of their liberty or against foreign tyrants, but in the

delirium of civil or religious partisanship, against fellow-citizens,

against brothers, against innocent and helpless beings, whom they

destroyed by thousands, sweeping away whole populations. Therefore I do

not blush for my country at the remembrance of the vespers, but bewail

the dire necessity which drove Sicily to such extremities.

A SHORT CHAPTER ON FROGS.

In one of Steele's papers in the "Guardian" is the following passage: "I

observe the sole reason alleged for the destruction of frogs, is because

they are like toads. Yet amidst all the misfortunes of these unfriended

creatures, it is some happiness that we have not yet taken a fancy to

eat them; for should our countrymen refine upon the French never so

little, it is not to be conceived to what unheard-of torments owls,

cats, and frogs may be yet reserved."

That frogs constituted the chief diet of Frenchmen was, a few years ago,

as popular and beloved an article of belief among British lads, as that

one Englishman was equal to three of the said frog-consumers. More

extended intercourse has, however, shown us that frogs do not constitute

the entire food of our Gallic neighbors, and taught them that _we_ do

not all wear top-boots, and subsist solely on beef-steaks. As, however,

frogs _do_ form a dainty dish, I will give what the Yankees term a "few

notions consarning them and their fixings."

Happening to be in Germany in 1846, I was desirous of getting some

insight into the manners and customs of these inhabitants of the ponds,

and, after much observation, arrived at the same conclusion concerning

them as the master of one of Her Majesty's ships did respecting the

subjects of the Imaun of Muscat. Being compelled to record categorically

a reply to the inquiry, "What are the manners and customs of the

inhabitants?" he wrote, "Manners they have none, and their customs, are

very beastly." So of these frogs, say I.

My knowledge of their vicinity was based upon auricular confession.

Night after night the most infernal din of croaking bore testimony to

the fact that they were unburdening their consciences, and I determined

to try if I could not unburden their bodies of their batrachian souls

altogether. However, before I detail my proceedings, I have a word to

say with reference to their croaking.

Horace bears expressive testimony to the disgust _he_ felt at it, when,

after a heavy supper to help him on his way to Brundusium, he exclaimed

----"Mali culices, ranæque palustres Avertunt somnos."

So loud and continuous is their song, especially in the breeding season,

that in the former good old times of France, when nobles _were_ nobles,

and lived in their magnificent chateaus scattered throughout the

country, the peasants were employed during the whole night in beating

the ponds within ear-shot of the chateaus, with boughs of trees, to

prevent the slumbers of the lords and ladies being broken by their

paludine neighbors. This croaking is produced by the air being driven

from the lungs into the puffed-out cavity of the mouth, or into certain

guttural sacculi, which are developed very largely in the males. They

can produce this noise under water as well as on land.

In the male frog there are fissures at the corners of the mouth for

admitting the external protrusion of the vocal sacculi. These sacculi

they invariably protrude in their struggles to escape when held by the

hind legs. Under these circumstances they are also capable of uttering a

peculiar shrill cry of distress, differing completely from their

ordinary croak.

Having obtained a land net, I cautiously approached the pond, which I

knew must abound with them, from the concerts nightly held there, and

without allowing the shadow to fall on the water, or making the

slightest noise; yet the moment I showed myself, every individual who

happened to be above water jumped off his perch, and was out of sight in

an instant. I tried every means to catch them, but in vain. At last I

borrowed from some boys a long tube of wood, with a small hole smoothly

and equally bored through the centre, which they used to shoot small

birds about the hedges. Armed with some arrows made of sharp tin nails,

tipped with cotton wool, I ensconced myself in a bush, and waited

quietly for my prey. In a few moments, the frogs, one by one, began to

poke their noses out of the water. I selected the finest, and by dint of

a good shot, I succeeded in fixing an arrow in his head. In the course

of the afternoon I bagged several of the patriarchs of the pond, some of

them as large as the largest English toad. Upon being struck with the

arrow, they nearly all protruded their sacculi from each side of the

mouth, in the manner above narrated.

These frogs are not often used for the table in Germany, but in France

they are considered a luxury, as any _bon vivant_ ordering a dish of

them at the "Trois Frères" at Paris may, by the long price, speedily

ascertain. Not wishing to try such an expensive experiment in

gastronomy, I went to the large market in the Faubourg St. Germain, and

inquired for frogs. I was referred to a stately-looking dame at a

fish-stall, who produced a box nearly full of them, huddling and

crawling about, and occasionally croaking as though aware of the fate to

which they were destined. The price fixed was two a penny, and having

ordered a dish to be prepared, the Dame de la Halle dived her hand in

among them, and having secured her victim by the hind legs, she severed

him in twain with a sharp knife, the legs, minus skin, still struggling,

were placed on a dish; and the head, with the fore-legs affixed,

retained life and motion, and performed such motions that the operation

became painful to look at. These legs were afterward cooked at the

restaurateur's, being served up fried in bread crumbs, as larks are in

England: and most excellent eating they were, tasting more like the

delicate flesh of the rabbit than any thing else I can think of.

I afterward tried a dish of the common English frog, but their flesh is

not so white nor so tender as that of their French brothers.

The old fish-wife of whom I bought these frogs, informed me that she had

a man regularly in her employ to catch them. He went out every evening

at dusk to the ponds, in the neighborhood of Paris, with a lantern and a

long stick, to the end of which was attached a piece of red cloth. The

frogs were attracted by the light to the place where the fisherman

stood. He then lightly dropped his cloth on the surface of the water;

the frogs imagining that some dainty morsel was placed before them,

eagerly snapped at it, and their teeth becoming entangled, they became

an easy prey, destined for to-morrow's market, and the tender mercies of

the fish-woman.

I subsequently brought over several dozen of these frogs alive to

England, some of them are still, I believe, living in the Ward's

botanical cases of those to whom I presented them, the rest were turned

out in a pond, where I fear they have been devoured by the gourmand

English ducks, the rightful occupants of the pond.

The edible frog (_rana esculenta_) is brought from the country, in

quantities of from thirty to forty thousand at a time, to Vienna, and

sold to great dealers, who have conservatories for them, which are large

holes four or five feet deep, dug in the ground, the mouth covered with

a board, and in severe weather with straw. In these conservatories, even

during a hard frost, the frogs never become quite torpid, they get

together in heaps one upon another instinctively, and thereby prevent

the evaporation of their humidity, for no water is ever put to them.

In Vienna, in 1793, there were only three dealers, who supplied the

market with frogs ready skinned and prepared for the cook.

There is another species of frog common on the Continent, which is

turned to a useful account as a barometer. It is the _rana arborea_, of

which many specimens are to be seen in the Zoological Gardens. It has

the property, like the chameleon, of adapting its color to the substance

on which it may be placed: it especially inhabits trees, and when among

the foliage, is of a brilliant green; when on the ground, or on the

branches of trees, the color is brown. They are thus used as

prognosticators. Two or three are placed in a tall glass jar, with three

or four inches of water at the bottom, and a small ladder reaching to

the top of the jar. On the approach of dry weather the frogs mount the

ladder to the very top, but when rain may be expected, they not only

make a peculiar singing noise, but descend into the water. Small frogs

are a trilling bait for pike and perch, and this reminds me of an

incident which I saw. A fine perch was found floating dead, on the top

of the water in a pond, in one of the gardens at Oxford; upon

examination, it was found to be very thin, and apparently starved to

death, some devotee to the gentle art had been the unconscious cause of

the sad fate of this poor fish, for a hook was found firmly fixed in his

upper jaw, the shock of which projected so far beyond his mouth, that

his efforts to obtain food must have been useless, the hook always

projecting forward, kept him at a tantalizing distance from the desired

morsel. The fish has been dried, and is now preserved with the hook

fixed in his mouth.

But fishes, which, like perch, are provided with sharp prickles,

occasionally cause the death of those creatures that feed upon them. A

king-fisher was brought to me in the summer of 1848, by a boy who had

found it dead on the banks of the river Cherwell, near Oxford, no shot,

or other marks of injury were found on it, the feathers being perfectly

smooth, dry, and unstained; what then was the cause of death?--upon a

careful examination, I found the end of a small fish's tail protruding

from one of the corners of its mouth, I endeavored to drag it out, but

in vain, it was firmly fixed. By dissection, I found, that the fish in

question was one of the tribe of small fish which abound in shallow

water, and are called in Oxford, the bull's head, or miller's thumb. It

has a strong prickle, nearly a quarter of an inch long, with very sharp

and firm end, projecting on each side of its gills. The fish had, in its

struggles, protruded its prickles, which, sticking in his enemy's

oesophagus, had effectually stopped up the entrance, pressing on the

wind-pipe, and thus caused its death.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[6]

[Footnote 6: Continued from the April Number.]