He went after him to London,--he penetrated to him, and would not be

denied. He braved his assumed anger and forced violence; he had the

courage of twenty lions, this Visionary, in battling with the devils

that had entered into the spirit of his friend. The struggle was fierce

and lengthened. Love conquered at last, as it always does, could we so

believe. And during the time of utter depression into which the

mercurial nature then relapsed, Everett cheered and sustained him,--till

the young man's soul seemed melted within him, and the surrender to the

good influence was as absolute as the resistance had been passionate.

"What have I done, what am I," he would oftentimes say, "that I should

be saved and sustained and _loved_ by you, Everett?" For, truly, he

looked on him as no less than an angel, whom God had sent to succor him.

It was one of those problems the mystery of which is most sacred and

most sweet. In proportion as the erring man needed it, Everett's love

grew and deepened and widened, and his influence strengthened with it

almost unconsciously to himself. He was too humble to recognize all that

he was to his friend.

Meanwhile, imagine the turmoil at home, in respect of Everett's absence,

and the errand which detained him. No disguise was sought. The son wrote

to his mother frankly, stating where he was, and under what

circumstances. He received a missive from his father of furious

remonstrance; he replied by one so firm, yet so loving withal, that old

Mr. Gray could not choose but change his tone to one of angry

compassion. "The boy believes he's doing right. Heaven send him a little

sense!" was all he could say.

But there came a yet more overwhelming evidence of Everett's utter

destitution of that commodity. A mercantile appointment was offered to

Charles Barclay in one of the colonies, and Everett advanced the large

sum necessary to enable his friend to accept it. To do this, he

sacrificed the whole of what he possessed independently of his father,

namely, a legacy left to him by his uncle, over which he had full

control. It must be years before he could be repaid, of course,--it

might be never! But, rash as was the act, he could not be hindered from

doing it. His father raged and stormed, and again subsided into gloomy

resignation. Henceforth he would wonder at nothing, for his son was mad,

unfit to take part in the world. "A mere visionary, and no man," the

hapless parent said, whenever he alluded to him.

When Everett returned, Charles Barclay was on his way to Canada,

vigorously intent on the new life before him. Agnes drew strength and

comfort from the steadfast look of her brother's eyes, as he whispered

to her, "Don't fear. Trust God, and be patient." The blight fell away

from her, after that. If she was never a light-hearted girl again, she

became something even sweeter and nobler. They never talked together

about him, for the father had forbidden it; and, indeed, they needed

not. Openly, and before them all, Everett would say when he heard from

his friend. And so the months passed on.

Then came the era in our Visionary's life,--an era, indeed, to such as

he!--the first love. First love,--and last,--to him it was nothing less

than fateful. It was his nature to be steadfast and thorough. He could

no more have _transferred_ the love that rose straightly and purely from

the very innermost fire of his soul than he could have changed the soul

itself. Not many natures are thus created with the inevitable necessity

to be constant. Few among women, fewer yet among men, love as Everett

Gray loved Rosa Beauchamp.

When they became aware of this love, at his home, there ensued much

marvelling. Mr. Gray cordially congratulated himself, with wonder and

pleasure, to think that actually his mad boy should have chosen so

reasonably. Captain Gray, home on leave, observed that Old Everett

wasn't such a flat as he seemed, by Jove! to select the daughter of an

ancient house, and a wealthy house, like the Beauchamps of Hollingsley.

The alliance was in every way honorable and advantageous. The family was

one of the most influential in the county; and a lady's being at the

head of it--for Sir Ralph Beauchamp had died many years before, when his

eldest son was but a child, and Lady Beauchamp had been sole regent over

the property ever since--made it all the pleasanter. Everett, if he

chose, might be virtual master of Beauchamp; for the young baronet was

but a weak, good-natured boy, whom any one might lead. Everett had

displayed first-rate generalship. "These simple-seeming fellows are

often deeper than most people," argued the soldier, wise in his

knowledge of the world; "you may trust them to take care of themselves,

when it comes to the point. Everett's a shrewd fellow."

The father rubbed his hands, and was delighted to take this view of the

case. He should make something of his son and heir in time. Often as he

had regretted that Richard was not the elder, on whom it would rest to

keep up the distinction and honor of the family, he began to see an

admirable fitness in things as they were. Everett was, after all, better

suited for the career that lay before him, in which he trusted he would

not need that knowledge of mankind and judgment on worldly matters that

were indispensable to those who had to carve their own way in life. "It

is better as it is," thought the father, unconscious that he was echoing

such an unsubstantial philosophy as a poet's.

And so the first days of Everett's love were as cloudless and divinely

radiant as a summer dawn. But events were gathering, like storm-clouds,

about the house of Gray. Disaster, most unforeseen, was impending over

this family. For Mr. Gray, though, as we have said, a practical and

matter-of-fact man, and having neither sympathy nor patience with

"visionary schemes or ideas," had yet, as practical men will do,

indulged in divers speculations during his life, in one of which he had

at last been induced to embark to the utmost extent. Of course, it

seemed safe and reasonable enough, even to the banker's shrewd eyes;

but, nevertheless, it proved as delusive and destructive as any that

ever led a less worldly man astray. The fair-seeming bubble burst, and

the rich man of one day found himself on the morrow virtually reduced to

beggary. All he had had it in his power to risk was gone, and

liabilities remained to the extent of twice as much. The crash came, the

bank stopped payment, and the unhappy man was stricken to the dust. He

never lifted up his head again. The shrewd man of the world utterly

succumbed beneath this blow of fate; it killed him. Old Mr. Gray died of

that supposed disease, a broken heart,--leaving a legacy of ruin, or

the alternative of disgrace, to his heir.

The reins of government thus fell into Everett's hands. "The poor Grays!

it's all over with them!" said the pitying world. And, indeed, the way

in which the young man proceeded to arrange his father's affairs savored

no less of the Visionary than had every action of his life theretofore.

Captain Gray, who hastened home from his gay quarters in Dublin, on the

disastrous news reaching him, found his brother already deeply engaged

with lawyers, bills, and deeds.

"You know, Richard, there is but one thing to be done," he said, in his

usual simple, earnest way; "we must cut off the entail, and sell the

property to pay my father's debts. It is a hard thing to do,--to part

with the old place; but it would be worse, bitterer pain and crueler

shame, to hold it, with the money that, whatever the worldly code of

morality may say, is not _ours_. There must be no widows and orphans

reduced to poverty through us. Thank God, there will be enough produced

by the sale of the estate to clear off every liability,--to the last

shilling. You feel with me in this matter?" he went on, confidently

appealing to his brother; yet with a certain inflection of anxiety in

his voice. It would have wounded Everett cruelly, had he been

misunderstood or rebuffed in this. "You have your commission, and Uncle

Everett's legacy, and the reversion of my mother's fortune, which will

not be touched. This act of justice, therefore, can injure no one."

"Except yourself,--yourself, old fellow," said Richard, moved, in spite

of his light nature. He grasped his brother's hand. "It's a noble thing

to do; but have you considered how it will affect your future? You, with

neither fortune nor profession,--how do you propose to live? And your

marriage,--the Beauchamps will never consent to Rosa becoming the wife

of a--a"----

"Not a beggar, Richard," Everett said, smiling, "if that was the word

you hesitated about; no, I shall be no beggar. I have plans for my own

future;--you shall know of them. Our marriage will, of course, be

delayed. I must work, to win a home and position for my wife." He

paused,--looked up bravely,--"It is no harder fate than falls to most

men. And for Rosa,--true love, true woman as she is, she helps me, she

encourages me in all I do and purpose."

Captain Gray shrugged his shoulders. "Two mad young people!" he thought

to himself. "They never think of consequences, and it's of no use

warning them, I suppose."

No. It would have been useless to "warn" or advise Everett against doing

this thing, which he held to be simply his duty. And it was the

characteristic of our Visionary, that, when he saw a Duty so placed

before him, he knew no other course than straightly to pursue it,

looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, unprevented by

obstacles, and fearless of consequences.

So in this case. His brother advised a temporizing course,--to mortgage

the estate, for instance, and pay a moiety of the debts. It was surely

all that could be expected from a man who had not actually incurred

them. And then he might still be the nominal owner of Hazlewood,--he

might still marry Rosa.

"While, if you do as you propose," argued the Captain, "(and you know,

of course, old fellow, I fully appreciate your noble and honorable

feeling in the matter,) you ruin your own hopes; and I can't see that a

fellow is called upon to do _that_, as a point of filial duty. What are

you to do? that's the thing. It isn't as though you had anything to fall

back upon, by Jove! It's a case of beggaring yourself"----

"Instead of beggaring other people," Everett said. "No, Richard,--I

cannot see either the justice or the wisdom of what you propose. I will

not cast the burden on other shoulders. As my father's representative, I

must abide the penalty of his mistake,--and I only. I cannot rest while

our name is as the catchword of ruin and misery to thousands around us,

less able to bear both, perhaps, than I, who am young and strong,--able

to work both with head and hands."

"But think of Rosa!" said his brother. "How do you get over _that_?

Isn't her happiness worth some consideration?"

"It has been my thought, night and day, ever since," Everett said, in a

low voice. "It has come between me and what I felt to be the Right, more

than once. You don't know what that thought has been, or you would not

challenge it against me now."

"Well, well,--I only want you to look on all sides of what you are about

to do, and to count the cost beforehand."

Everett smiled quietly. As if "the cost" were not already counted, felt,

and suffered in that deep heart of his! But he said nothing.

"In the next place, what do you propose to do?" pursued his brother.

"Will you enter a profession? Can't say you're much adapted for a

lawyer; and perhaps you're too tender-hearted for a doctor, either. But

I remember, as a boy, you always said you should like to be a clergyman.

And, by Jove! when one comes to think of it, you've a good deal of the

cut of the village priest about you. What do you say to that?"

"Nothing. I have other plans." And Everett proceeded briefly to tell him

these. He had heard from Charles Barclay, now high in the confidence of

one of the leading mercantile firms of Montreal; and through him, he had

obtained the offer of an appointment in the same house.

Richard Gray listened to all this, with ill-concealed amusement

twitching the corners of his mouth. He thought the idea of his brother's

turning man-of-business one of the "richest" he had ever heard.

"With your hard head and shrewd notions, I should say you were likely to

make a sensation in the mercantile world," he observed. "It's a hopeful

scheme, altogether. Oh, hang it!" proceeding from sarcasm to

remonstrance, "that'll never do, Everett! You'll be getting into some

precious scrape or other. You're not the fellow for a merchant's office,

trust me. Now something in the way of a government appointment is much

more like it. A pleasant, poetical sort of sinecure,--there are lots of

them to be had. You just trundle down for an hour or two every day,

write letters, or poems, or whatever you like, with the official

stationery, and receive your salary quarterly. You _can't_ do any

mischief in a place like that. Now that's the sort of thing for you,--if

one could get hold of some of those fellows in power. Why!" brightening

with the sudden dash of an idea, "there are the Beauchamps themselves!

They've a legion of influential relatives. Couldn't they get you into a

snug berth? Oh, the Devil!"--for Everett's look was not to be

mistaken,--"if you bring your high-flown ideas of dignity and

independence into this plain, practical question of subsistence, it's

all up with you. Do you mean to tell me that you seriously think of this

Canada scheme?"

Everett assented.

"Have you informed Lady Beauchamp of your intention of becoming a

merchant's clerk? I should like to see her face when you tell her; she's

such a shrewd old soul; and when a woman _does_ take to the sharp and

worldly style of thing, it's the very deuse! Expect no indulgence in

that quarter."

"I don't ask it. Rosa, of course, cannot become my wife till I am able

to give her a worthy home. Her mother will not wish to cancel our

engagement in the mean time."

"The deuse she won't! Trust her!" the consolatory brother rejoined.

"Why, it will be her first natural step. The idea of her daughter

betrothed to a merchant's clerk is preposterous on the face of it. You

yourself must see _that_."

"No, I don't," Everett said, smiling.

"Oh, I suppose you intend to make a large fortune in a twelvemonth, and

then return and marry?"

"No,--but in ten years,--less than that, God helping me,--if I live, I

will return and marry Rosa."

"You don't say so? And poor little Rosa is to wait patiently for you all

that time! By Jove! a modest expectation of yours! It's a likely notion

that Miss Beauchamp will remain unmarried for ten years, because you

choose to go to Canada."

"She will never marry, if she does not marry me," Everett said, with

simple gravity. "It is not alone the outward sacrament of marriage that

sanctifies a union. The diviner and more vital consecration that binds

us together, it is too late, now, to seek to undo."

"Oh, hang it! It's of no use talking poetry to _me_. I don't understand

that sort of thing," Captain Gray frankly said. "I'll tell you

what,--it'll never do to take those transcendental ideas with you into

the world. All very well to poetize and maunder about in quiet

Hazlewood; but, by Jove! you'll find it won't do in practical life. Take

my word for it, if you go to Canada, long before the ten years are out,

Rosa Beauchamp will be wooed and won over again. 'Tisn't in nature that

it should be otherwise. In books, very likely, those sort of things

happen often enough,--but not in real life, my dear fellow, I assure

you. When you return, it will be to find her a thriving matron, doing

the honors of one of the neighboring mansions. Make up your mind to

_that_. Foresee your future, before you decide."

Everett smiled, sadly, but trustfully. His brother's arguments neither

persuaded nor disturbed him. He stood very quiet and thoughtful.

Visionary-like, he saw pictures of the future, indeed,--but very

different from the one just drawn. He was not afraid.

And Captain Gray left him unconvinced and unmoved. It was not probable

the two brothers would see this matter in the same light. They stood on

different levels. They must be content to differ.

The next conference on the subject was between Everett and Lady

Beauchamp; and the mother of Rosa was, it must be admitted, a rather

formidable person to encounter in such wise. She was a busy, clever,

worldly woman,--kind-hearted, too, and with both a strong will and

strong affections. She was one of those people in whom even an astute

observer might often be deceived, by failing to give her credit for

certain good qualities which are commonly coexistent with

worldliness,--especially in a woman. There was a spice of something

better latent amid her shrewdness and hard-headed sagacity; the echo of

more generous aspirations lingered through all the noise of this earth's

Babel in her heart. And so, when she heard of Everett's resolve to pay

his father's debts by parting with the property, her better and higher

nature warmed to the young man; and though she protested against his

Quixotism, and frowned, and talked of prudence, and so forth, her busy

brain was, in fact, all the while setting itself to work for his

benefit. She was, in a way, fond of the young man. No woman is quite

insensible to that chivalrous deference which a Visionary like Everett

always manifests to womanhood, collective and individual. And though she

certainly held him to be rash, foolish, unfit to deal with the world,

"poetical," (a capital crime in her eyes,) and dreamy, she yet liked

him, and was glad to discover a plan whereby the objections to his

marriage with her daughter, under the present adverse circumstances,

might be smoothed away.

She was sitting at her big desk, strewn with accounts, in the

sober-looking library where she always spent her mornings, and she rose

to receive her prospective son-in-law, with an aspect serious and

business-like, yet not stern.

"Well, my dear Everett, what is all this that I hear about you? A very,

very sad affair, of course; but you must come and tell me how you intend

to act. Yes, yes,--I've heard something about it; but I don't quite

understand the state of the case. I want to have a talk with you."

And she leaned her comely face upon her plump, white hand, while gravely

listening to Everett's brief statement of what he had already done, and

what were his plans for the future.

"You will sell Hazlewood, pay your father's debts, and begin life on

your own account, by going to Canada and becoming a merchant's clerk!"

She then recapitulated his plans in a sharp, pitiless tone. "Very well!

and we have only to bid you good-bye and wish you success. Is it so? For

it appears to me that my daughter is left entirely out of your

calculations, and very properly so. You cannot, as a merchant's clerk on

a hundred a year, marry Rosa Beauchamp, I presume."

"No," Everett said, steadily, and holding her, as it were, with his

earnest eyes, "I cannot have Rosa for my wife till I am able to give her

a home worthy of her; but you will not refuse to sanction our engagement

during the years in which I shall work for that home?"

Lady Beauchamp tapped the table with her fingers in an ominous manner.

"Long engagements are most unsatisfactory, silly, not to say dangerous

things. They never end well. No man ought to wish so to bind a young

girl, unless he has a reasonable chance of soon being in a position to

marry her. Now I ask you, have _you_ such a chance? If you go to Canada,

it may be years before you return. Just look at the thing in a

common-sense light, and tell me, can you expect my daughter to wait an

indefinite time, while you go to seek and make your fortune?"

She looked at him with an air of bland candor, while thus appealing to

his "common sense." Everett's aspect remained unchanged, however, in its

calm steadfastness.

"I would not bind her," he said, "unless she herself felt it would be a

comfort and a help, in some sort, during the weary years of separation,

so to be bound. And that she does feel it, you know, Lady Beauchamp."

"My dear Sir, you are not talking reasonably," she rejoined,

impatiently. "A young girl like Rosa, in love for the first time, of

course wishes to be bound, as you say, to the object of her first love.

But it would be doing her a cruel injustice to take her at her word.

Surely you feel that? It is very true, she might not forget you for six

months, or more, perhaps. But, in the course of time, as she enters on

life and sees more of the world and of people, it is simply impossible

that she should remain constant to a dreamy attachment to some one

thousands of miles away. She would inevitably wish to form other ties;

and then the engagement that she desires to-day would be the blight and

burden of her life. No. I say it is a cruel injustice to let young

people decide for themselves on such a point. Half the misery in the

world springs from these mistakes. Think over the matter coolly, and you

will see it as I do."

"It is you who do Rosa injustice," Everett answered, and paused. "Were

it to be as you wish," he added, "and we to separate utterly, with no

outwardly acknowledged tie to link us, no letters to pass between us, no

word or sign from one to the other during all the coming years,--suppose

it so,--you would shadow our lives with much unnecessary misery; but you

are mistaken, if you think you would really part us. You do not

understand."

"Nonsense! You talk like a young man in love. You _must_ be reasonable."

Lady Beauchamp, by this time, had worked herself into the usual warmth

with which she argued all questions, great and small, and forgot that

her original intention in speaking to Everett had only been to set

before him the disadvantages of his plans, in order that her own might

come to the rescue with still greater brilliancy and effect.

"You _must_ be reasonable," she repeated. "You don't suppose I have not

my child's happiness at heart in all I plan and purpose? Trust me, I

have had more experience of life than either of you, and it is for me to

interpose between you and the dangers you would blindly rush upon. Some

day you will both thank me for having done so, hard and cruel as you may

think me now."

"No, I do not think you either hard or cruel. You are _mistaken_,

simply. I believe you desire our happiness. I do not reproach or blame

you, Lady Beauchamp," Everett said, sadly.

"Come, come," she cried, touched by his look and manner to an immediate

unfolding of her scheme, "let us look at things again. Perhaps we shall

not find them so hopeless as they look. If I am prudent, Everett, I am

not mercenary. I only want to see Rosa happy. I don't care whether it is

on hundreds a year, or thousands. And the fact is, I have not condemned

your plans without having a more satisfactory one to offer to your

choice. Listen to me."

And she proceeded, with a cleared brow, and the complacency of one who

feels she is performing the part of a good genius, setting everything to

rights, and making everybody comfortable, to unfold the plan _she_ had

devised, by which Everett's future was to be secured, and his marriage

with Rosa looked to as something better than a misty uncertainty at the

end of a vista of years.

Everett must go into the Church. That was, in fact, the profession most

suited to him, and which most naturally offered itself for his

acceptance. His education, his tastes, his habits, all suited him for

such a career. By a happy coincidence, too, it was one in which Lady

Beauchamp could most importantly assist him through her connections. Her

eldest son, the young baronet, had preferment in his own gift, which was

to say, in hers; and not only this, but her sister's husband, the uncle

of Rosa, was a bishop, and one over whom she, Lady Beauchamp, had some

influence. Once in orders, Everett's prosperity was assured. The present

incumbent of Hollingsley was aged; by the time Everett was eligible, he

might, in all probability, be inducted into that living, and Rosa might

then become his wife. Five hundred a year, beside Miss Beauchamp's

dowry, with such shining prospects of preferment to look forward to, was

not an unwise commencement; for Rosa was no mere fine lady, the proud

mother said,--she was sensible and prudent; she would adapt herself to

circumstances. And though, of course, it was not such an establishment

as she well might expect for her daughter, still, since the young people

loved one another, and thought they could be happy under these reduced

circumstances, she would not be too exacting. And Lady Beauchamp at last

paused, and looked in Everett's face for some manifestation of his joy.

Well,--of his gratitude there could be no question. The tears stood in

his earnest eyes, as he took Lady Beauchamp's hand and thanked

her,--thanked her again and again.

"There, there, you foolish boy! I don't want thanks," cried she,

coloring with pleasure though, as she spoke. "My only wish is to see you

two children happy. I _am_ fond of you, Everett; I shall like to see you

my son," she said. "I have tried to smooth the way for you, as far as I

can, over the many difficulties that obstruct it; and I fancy I have

succeeded. What do you say to my plan? When can you be ordained?"

Everett sighed, as he released her hand, and looked at her face, now

flushed with generous, kindly warmth. Well he knew the bitter change

that would come over that face,--the passion of disappointment and

displeasure which would follow his answer to that question.

He could never enter the Church. Sorrowfully, but firmly, he said

it,--with that calm, steady voice and look, of which all who knew him

knew the significance. He could not take orders.

Lady Beauchamp, at first utterly overwhelmed and dumfounded, stood

staring at him in blank silence. Then she icily uttered a few words. His

reasons,--might she ask?

They were many, Everett said. Even if no other hindrance existed, in his

own mind and opinions, his reverence for so sacred an office would not

permit him to embrace it as a mere matter of worldly advantage to

himself.

"Grant me patience, young man! Do you mean to tell me you would decline

this career because it promises to put an end to your difficulties? Are

you _quite_ a fool?" the lady burst out, astonishment and anger quite

startling her from all control.

"Bear with what may at first seem to you only folly," Everett answered

her, gently. "I don't think your calmer judgment can call it so. Would

you have me take upon myself obligations that I feel to be most solemn

and most vital, feeling myself unfitted, nay, unable, rightly to fulfil

them? Would you have me commit the treachery to God and man of swearing

that I felt called to that special service, when my heart protested

against my profession?"

"Romantic nonsense! A mere matter of modest scruples! You underrate

yourself, Everett. You are the very man for a clergyman, trust me."

But Everett went on to explain, that it was no question of

under-estimation of himself.

"You do not know, perhaps," he proceeded, while Lady Beauchamp, sorely

tried, tapped her fingers on the table, and her foot upon the

floor,--"you do not know, that, when I was a boy, and until two or three

years ago, my desire and ambition were to be a minister of the Church of

England."

"Well, Sir,--what has made you so much better, or so much worse, since

then, as to alter your opinion of the calling?"

"The reasons which made me abandon the idea three years since, and which

render it impossible for me to consider it now, have nothing to do with

my mental and moral worthiness or unworthiness. The fact is simply, I

cannot become a minister of a Church with many of whose doctrines I

cannot agree, and to which, indeed, I can no longer say I belong. In

your sense of the word, I am far from being a Churchman."

"Do you mean to say you have become a Dissenter?" cried Lady Beauchamp;

and, as if arrived at the climax of endurance, she stood transfixed,

regarding the young man with a species of sublime horror.

"Again, not in your sense of the term," Everett said, smiling; "for I

have joined no sect, attached myself to no recognized body of

believers."

"You belong to nothing, then? You believe in nothing, I suppose?" she

said, with the instinctive logic of her class. "Oh, Everett!" real

distress for the moment overpowering her indignation, "it is those

visionary notions of yours that have brought you to this. It was to be

expected. You poets and dreamers go on refining your ideas, forsooth,

till even the religion of the ordinary world isn't good enough for you."

Everett waited patiently till this first gust had passed by. Then, with

that steady, calm lucidity which, strange to say, was characteristic of

this Visionary's mind and intellect, he explained, so far as he could,

his views and his reasons. It could not be expected that his listener

should comprehend or enter into what he said. At first, indeed, she

appeared to derive some small consolation from the fact that at least

Everett had not "turned Dissenter." She hated Methodists, she

declared,--intending thus to include with sweeping liberality all

denominations in the ban of her disapproval. She would have deemed it an

unpardonable crime, had the young man deserted the Church of his fathers

in order to join the Congregation, some ranting conventicle. But if her

respectability was shocked at the idea of his becoming a Methodist, her

better feelings were outraged when she found, as she said, that he

"belonged to nothing." She viewed with dislike and distrust all forms of

religion that differed from her own; but she could not believe in the

possibility of a religion that had no external form at all. She was

dismayed and perplexed, poor lady! and even paused midway in her

wrathful remonstrance to the misguided young man, to lament anew over

his fatal errors. She could not understand, she said, truly enough,

what in the world he meant. His notions were perfectly extraordinary and

incomprehensible. She was deeply, deeply shocked, and grieved for him,

and for every one connected with him.

In fact, the very earnestness and sincerity in their own opinions of a

certain calibre of minds make them incapable of understanding such a

state of things. That a man should believe differently from all they

have been taught to believe appears to them as simply preposterous as

that he should breathe differently. And so it is that only the highest

order of belief can afford to be tolerant; and, as extremes meet, it

requires a very perfect Faith to be able to sympathize and bear

patiently with Doubt.

There was no chance of Lady Beauchamp's "comprehending" Everett in this

matter. There was something almost pathetic in her mingled anger,

perplexity, and disappointment. She could only look on him as a

headstrong young man, suicidally bent on his own ruin,--turning

obstinately from every offered aid, and putting the last climax of

wretchedness to his isolated and fallen position by "turning from the

faith of his fathers," as she rather imaginatively described his

secession from Orthodoxy.

And, as may be concluded, the mother of Rosa was inexorable, as regarded

the engagement between the young people. It must at once be cancelled.

She could not for one moment suffer the idea of her daughter's remaining

betrothed to the mere adventurer she considered Everett Gray had now

become. If, poor as he was, he had thought fit to embrace a profession

worthy of a gentleman, the case would have been different. But if his

romantic notions led him to pursue such an out-of-the-way course as he

had laid out for himself, he must excuse her, if she forbade her child

from sharing it. Under present circumstances, his alliance could but be

declined by the Beauchamp family, she said, with her stateliest air. And

the next minute, as Everett held her hand, and said good-bye, she melted

again from that frigid dignity, and, looking into the frank, manly, yet

gentle face of the young man, cried,--

"Are you _quite_ decided, Everett? Will you take time to consider? Will

you talk to Rosa about it, first?"

"No, dear Lady Beauchamp. I know already what she would say. I have

quite decided. Thank you for all your purposed kindness. Believe that I

am not ungrateful, even if I seem so."

"Oh, Everett,--Everett Gray! I am very sorry for you, and for your

mother, and for all connected with you. It is a most unhappy business.

It gives me great pain thus to part with you," said Lady Beauchamp, with

real feeling.

And so the interview ended, and so ended the engagement.

Nothing else could have been expected, every one said who heard the

state of the case, and knew what Lady Beauchamp had wished and Everett

had declined. There were no words to describe how foolishly and weakly

he had acted. "Everybody" quite gave him up now. With his romantic,

transcendental notions, what _would_ become of him, when he had his own

way to make in the world?

But Everett had consolation and help through it all; for Rosa, the woman

he loved, his mother, and his sister believed in him, and gloried in

what other people called his want of common sense. Ay, though the

horrible wrench of parting was suffered by Rosa every minute of every

day, and the shadow of that dreadful, unnatural separation began to

blacken her life even before it actually fell upon her,--through it all,

she never wavered. When he first told her that he must go, that it was

the one thing he held it wise and right to do, she shrunk back

affrighted, trembling at the coming blankness of a life without him. But

after a while, seeing the misery that came into _his_ face reflected

from hers, she rose bravely above the terrible woe, and then, with her

arms round him and her eyes looking steadfastly into his, she said, "I

love you better than the life you are to me. So I can bear that you

should go."

And he said, "There can be no real severance between those who love as

we do. God, in His mercy and tenderness, will help us to feel that

truth, every hour and every day."

For they believed thus,--these two young Visionaries,--and lived upon

that belief, perhaps, when the time of parting came. And it may be that

the thought of each was very constantly, very intimately present to the

other, during the many years that followed. It may be that this species

of mental atmosphere, so surrounding and commingling with all other

things more visibly and palpably about them, _did_ cause these dreamers

to be happier in their love than many externally united ones, whose lot

appears to us most fair and smooth and blissful. Time and distance,

leagues of ocean and years of suspense, are not the most terrible things

that can come between two people who love one another.

* * * * *

And so Everett Gray, his mother, and his sister, went to Canada. A year

after, Agnes was married to Charles Barclay, then a thriving merchant in

Montreal. When the people at home heard of this, they very wisely

acknowledged "how much good there had been in that young man, in spite

of his rashness and folly in early days. No fear about such a man's

getting on in life, when once he gave his mind to it," and so forth.

Meanwhile, our Visionary----But what need is there to trace him, step by

step, in the new life he doubtless found fully as arduous as he had

anticipated? That it was a very struggling, difficult, and uncongenial

life to him can be well understood. These reminiscences of Everett Gray

relate to a long past time. We can look on his life now as almost

complete and finished, and regard his past as those in the valley look

up to the hill that has nothing between it and heaven.

Many years he remained in Canada, working hard. Tidings occasionally

reached England of his progress. Rosa, perhaps, heard such at rare

intervals,--though somewhat distorted, it may be, from their original

tenor, before they reached her. But it appeared certain that he was

"getting on." In defiance and utter contradiction of all the sapient

predictions there anent, it seemed that this dreamy, poetizing Everett

Gray was absolutely successful in his new vocation of man-of-business.

The news that he had become a partner in the firm he had entered as a

clerk was communicated in a letter from himself to Lady Beauchamp. In it

he, for the first time since his departure, spoke of Rosa; but he spoke

of her as if they had parted but yesterday; and, in asking her mother's

sanction to their betrothal _now_, urged, as from them both, their claim

to have that boon granted at last.

Lady Beauchamp hastily questioned her daughter.

"You must have been corresponding with the young man all this time?" she

said.

But Rosa's denial was not to be mistaken.

"He has heard of you, then, through some one," the practical lady went

on; "or, for anything he knows, you may be married, or going to be

married, instead of waiting for him, as he seems to take it for granted

you have been all this time."

"He was right, mother," Rosa only said.

"Right, you foolish girl? You haven't half the spirit I had at your age.

I would have scorned that it should have been said of _me_ that I

'waited' for any man."

"But if you loved him?"

"Well, if he loved _you_, he should have taken more care than to leave

you on such a Quixotic search for independence as his."

"He thought it right to go, and he trusted me; we had faith in one

another," Rosa said; and she wound her arms round her mother, and looked

into her face with eyes lustrous with happy tears. For, from that lady's

tone and manner, despite her harsh words, she knew that the opposition

was withdrawn, and that Everett's petition was granted.

They were married. It is years ago, now, since their wedding-bells rung

out from the church-tower of Hazlewood, blending with the sweet

spring-air and sunshine of a joyous May-day. The first few years of

their married life were spent in Canada. Then they returned to England,

and Everett Gray put the climax to the astonishment of all who knew him

by purchasing back a great part of Hazlewood with the fruits of his

commercial labors in the other country.

At Hazlewood they settled, therefore. And there, when he grew to be an

old man, Everett Gray lived, at last, the peaceful, happy life most

natural and most dear to him. No one would venture to call the

successful merchant a Visionary; and even his brother owns that "the old

fellow has got more brains, after all, by Jove! than he ever gave him

credit for." Yet, as the same critic, and others of his calibre, often

say of him, "He has some remarkably queer notions. There's no making him

out,--he is so different from other people."

Which he is. There is no denying this fact, which is equally evident in

his daily life, his education of his children, his conduct to his

servants and dependants, his employment of time, his favorite aims in

life, and in everything he does or says, in brief. And of course there

are plenty who cavil at his peculiar views, and who cannot at all

understand his unconventional ways, and his apparent want of all worldly

wisdom in the general conduct of his affairs. And yet, somehow, these

affairs prosper. Although he declined a valuable appointment for his

son, and preferred that he should make his own way in the profession he

had chosen, bound by no obligation, and unfettered by the trammels of

any party,--although he did this, to the astonishment of all who did

_not_ know him, yet is it not a fact that the young barrister's career

has been, and is, as brilliant and successful as though he had had a

dozen influential personages to advance him? And though he permitted his

daughter to marry, not the rich squire's son, nor the baronet, who each

sought her hand, but a man comparatively poor and unknown, who loved

her, and whom she loved, did it not turn out to be one of those

marriages that we can recognize to have been "made in heaven," and even

the worldly-wise see to be happy and prosperous?

But our Everett is growing old. His hair is silver-white, and his tall

figure has learned to droop somewhat as he walks. Under the great

beech-trees at Hazlewood you may have seen him sitting summer evenings,

or sauntering in spring and autumn days, sometimes with his

grandchildren playing about him, but always with _one_ figure near him,

bent and bowed yet more than his own, with a still sweet and lovely face

looking placidly forth from between its bands of soft, white hair.

How they have loved, and do love one another, even to this their old

age! All the best and truest light of that which we call Romance shines

steadily about them yet. No sight so dear to Everett's eyes as that

quiet figure,--no sound so welcome to his ears as her voice. She is all

to him that she ever was,--the sweetest, dearest, best portion of that

which we call his life.

Yes, I speak advisedly, and say he _is_, they _are_. It is strange that

this Visionary, who was wont to be reproached with the unpracticality of

all he did or purposed, the unreality of whose life was a byword, should

yet impress himself and his existence so vividly on those about him that

even now we cannot speak of him as one that is _no more_. He seems still

to be of us, though we do not see him, and his place is empty in the

world.

His wife went first. She died in her sleep, while he was watching her,

holding her hand fast in his. He laid the last kisses on her eyes, her

mouth, and those cold hands.

After that, he seemed _to wait_. They who saw him sitting _alone_ under

the beech-trees, day by day, found something very strangely moving in

the patient serenity of his look. He never seemed sad or lonely through

all that time,--only patiently hopeful, placidly expectant. So the

autumn twilights often came to him as he stood, his face towards the

west, looking out from their old favorite spot.

One evening, when his daughter and her husband came out to him, he did

not linger, as was usual with him, but turned and went forward to meet

them, with a bright smile, brighter than the sunset glow behind him, on

his face. He leaned rather heavily on their supporting arms, as they

went in. At the door, the little ones came running about him, as they

loved to do. Perhaps the very lustre of his face awed them, or the sight

of their mother's tears; for a sort of hush came over them, even to the

youngest, as he kissed and blessed them all.

And then, when they had left the room, he laid his head upon his

daughter's breast, and uttered a few low words. He had been so happy, he

said, and he thanked God for all,--even to this, the end. It had been so

good to live!--it was so happy to die! Then he paused awhile, and closed

his eyes.

"In the silence, I can hear your mother's voice," he murmured, and he

clasped his hands. "O thou most merciful Father, who givest this last,

great blessing, of the new Home, where she waits for me!--and God's love

is over all His worlds!"

He looked up once again, with the same bright, assured smile. That smile

never faded from the dead face; it was the last look which they who

loved him bore forever in their memory.

And so passed our Visionary from that which we call Life.

THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.

1675.

Raze these long blocks of brick and stone,

These huge mill-monsters overgrown;

Blot out the humbler piles as well,

Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell

The weaving genii of the bell;

Tear from the wild Cocheco's track

The dams that hold its torrents back;

And let the loud-rejoicing fall

Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall;

And let the Indian's paddle play

On the unbridged Piscataqua!

Wide over hill and valley spread

Once more the forest, dusk and dread,

With here and there a clearing cut

From the walled shadows round it shut;

Each with its farm-house builded rude,

By English yeoman squared and hewed,

And the grim, flankered blockhouse, bound

With bristling palisades around.

So, haply, shall before thine eyes

The dusty veil of centuries rise,

The old, strange scenery overlay

The tamer pictures of to-day,

While, like the actors in a play,

Pass in their ancient guise along

The figures of my border song:

What time beside Cocheco's flood

The white man and the red man stood,

With words of peace and brotherhood;

When passed the sacred calumet

From lip to lip with fire-draught wet,

And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke

Through the gray beard of Waldron broke,

And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea

For mercy, struck the haughty key

Of one who held in any fate

His native pride inviolate!

* * * * *

"Let your ears be opened wide!

He who speaks has never lied.

Waldron of Piscataqua,

Hear what Squando has to say!

"Squando shuts his eyes and sees,

Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees.

In his wigwam, still as stone,

Sits a woman all alone,

"Wampum beads and birchen strands

Dropping from her careless hands,

Listening ever for the fleet

Patter of a dead child's feet!

"When the moon a year ago

Told the flowers the time to blow,

In that lonely wigwam smiled

Menewee, our little child.

"Ere that moon grew thin and old,

He was lying still and cold;

Sent before us, weak and small,

When the Master did not call!

"On his little grave I lay;

Three times went and came the day;

Thrice above me blazed the noon,

Thrice upon me wept the moon.

"In the third night-watch I heard,

Far and low, a spirit-bird;

Very mournful, very wild,

Sang the totem of my child.

"'Menewee, poor Menewee,

Walks a path he cannot see:

Let the white man's wigwam light

With its blaze his steps aright.

"'All-uncalled, he dares not show

Empty hands to Manito:

Better gifts he cannot bear

Than the scalps his slayers wear.'

"All the while the totem sang,

Lightning blazed and thunder rang;

And a black cloud, reaching high,

Pulled the white moon from the sky.

"I, the medicine-man, whose ear

All that spirits hear can hear,--

I, whose eyes are wide to see

All the things that are to be,--

"Well I knew the dreadful signs

In the whispers of the pines,

In the river roaring loud,

In the mutter of the cloud.

"At the breaking of the day,

From the grave I passed away;

Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad,

But my heart was hot and mad.

"There is rust on Squando's knife

From the warm red springs of life;

On the funeral hemlock-trees

Many a scalp the totem sees.

"Blood for blood! But evermore

Squando's heart is sad and sore;

And his poor squaw waits at home

For the feet that never come!

"Waldron of Cocheco, hear!

Squando speaks, who laughs at fear:

Take the captives he has ta'en;

Let the land have peace again!"

As the words died on his tongue,

Wide apart his warriors swung;

Parted, at the sign he gave,

Right and left, like Egypt's wave.

And, like Israel passing free

Through the prophet-charmèd sea,

Captive mother, wife, and child

Through the dusky terror filed.

One alone, a little maid,

Middleway her steps delayed,

Glancing, with quick, troubled sight,

Round about from red to white.

Then his hand the Indian laid

On the little maiden's head,

Lightly from her forehead fair

Smoothing back her yellow hair.

"Gift or favor ask I none;

What I have is all my own:

Never yet the birds have sung,

'Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'

"Yet, for her who waits at home

For the dead who cannot come,

Let the little Gold-hair be

In the place of Menewee!

"Mishanock, my little star!

Come to Saco's pines afar!

Where the sad one waits at home,

Wequashim, my moonlight, come!"

"What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child

Christian-born to heathens wild?

As God lives, from Satan's hand

I will pluck her as a brand!"

"Hear me, white man!" Squando cried,

"Let the little one decide.

Wequashim, my moonlight, say,

Wilt thou go with me, or stay?"

Slowly, sadly, half-afraid,

Half-regretfully, the maid

Owned the ties of blood and race,

Turned from Squando's pleading face.

Not a word the Indian spoke,

But his wampum chain he broke,

And the beaded wonder hung

On that neck so fair and young.

Silence-shod, as phantoms seem

In the marches of a dream,

Single-filed, the grim array

Through the pine-trees wound away.

Doubting, trembling, sore amazed,

Through her tears the young child gazed.

"God preserve her!" Waldron said;

"Satan hath bewitched the maid!"

* * * * *

Years went and came. At close of day

Singing came a child from play,

Tossing from her loose-locked head

Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.

Pride was in the mother's look,

But her head she gravely shook,

And with lips that fondly smiled

Feigned to chide her truant child.

Unabashed the maid began:

"Up and down the brook I ran,

Where, beneath the bank so steep,

Lie the spotted trout asleep.

"'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall,

After me I heard him call,

And the cat-bird on the tree

Tried his best to mimic me.

"Where the hemlocks grew so dark,

That I stopped to look and hark,

On a log, with feather-hat,

By the path, an Indian sat.

"Then I cried, and ran away;

But he called and bade me stay;

And his voice was good and mild

As my mother's to her child.

"And he took my wampum chain,

Looked and looked it o'er again;

Gave me berries, and, beside,

On my neck a plaything tied."

Straight the mother stooped to see

What the Indian's gift might be.

On the braid of wampum hung,

Lo! a cross of silver swung.

Well she knew its graven sign,

Squando's bird and totem pine;

And, a mirage of the brain,

Flowed her childhood back again.

Flashed the roof the sunshine through,

Into space the walls outgrew,

On the Indian's wigwam mat

Blossom-crowned again she sat.

Cool she felt the west wind blow,

In her ear the pines sang low,

And, like links from out a chain,

Dropped the years of care and pain.

From the outward toil and din,

From the griefs that gnaw within,

To the freedom of the woods

Called the birds and winds and floods.

Well, O painful minister,

Watch thy flock, but blame not her,

If her ear grew sharp to hear

All their voices whispering near.

Blame her not, as to her soul

All the desert's glamour stole,

That a tear for childhood's loss

Dropped upon the Indian's cross.

When, that night, the Book was read,

And she bowed her widowed head,

And a prayer for each loved name

Rose like incense from a flame,

To the listening ear of Heaven,

Lo! another name was given:

"Father! give the Indian rest!

Bless him! for his love has blest!"

THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA.

The Maroons! it was a word of peril once; and terror spread along the

skirts of the blue mountains of Jamaica, when some fresh foray of those

unconquered guerrillas swept down upon the outlying plantations,

startled the Assembly from its order, General Williamson from his

billiards, and Lord Balcarres from his diplomatic ease,--endangering,

according to the official statement, "public credit," "civil rights,"

and "the prosperity, if not the very existence of the country," until

they were "persuaded to make peace" at last. They were the Circassians

of the New World; but they were black, instead of white; and as the

Circassians refused to be transferred from the Sultan to the Czar, so

the Maroons refused to be transferred from Spanish dominion to English,

and thus their revolt began. The difference is, that, while the white

mountaineers numbered four hundred thousand, and only defied Nicholas,

the black mountaineers numbered less than two thousand, and defied

Cromwell; and while the Circassians, after thirty years of revolt, seem

now at last subdued, the Maroons, on the other hand, who rebelled in

1655, were never conquered, but only made a compromise of allegiance,

and exist as a separate race to-day.

When Admirals Penn and Venables landed in Jamaica, in 1655, there was

not a remnant left of the sixty thousand natives whom the Spaniards had

found there a century and a half before. Their pitiful tale is told only

by those caves, still known among the mountains, where thousands of

human skeletons strew the ground. In their place dwelt two foreign

races,--an effeminate, ignorant, indolent white community of fifteen

hundred, with a black slave population quite as large and infinitely

more hardy and energetic. The Spaniards were readily subdued by the

English,--the negroes remained unsubdued; the slaveholders were banished

from the island,--the slaves only banished themselves to the mountains:

thence the English could not dislodge them, nor the buccaneers, whom the

English employed. And when Jamaica subsided into a British colony, and

peace was made with Spain, and the children of Cromwell's Puritan

soldiers were beginning to grow rich by importing slaves for Roman

Catholic Spaniards, the Maroons still held their own wild empire in the

mountains, and, being sturdy heathens every one, practised Obeah rites

in approved pagan fashion.

The word Maroon is derived, according to one etymology, from the

Spanish word _Marrano_, a wild-boar,--these fugitives being all

boar-hunters,--according to another, from _Marony_, a river separating

French and Dutch Guiana, where a colony of them dwelt and still dwells;

and by another still, from _Cimarron_, a word meaning untamable, and

used alike for apes and runaway slaves. But whether these

rebel-marauders were regarded as monkeys or men, they made themselves

equally formidable. As early as 1663, the Governor and Council of

Jamaica offered to each Maroon, who should surrender, his freedom and

twenty acres of land; but not one accepted the terms. During forty

years, forty-four acts of Assembly were passed in respect to them, and

at least a quarter of a million pounds sterling were expended in the

warfare against them. In 1733, the force employed against them consisted

of two regiments of regular troops and the whole militia of the island,

and the Assembly said that "the Maroons had within a few years greatly

increased, notwithstanding all the measures that had been concerted for

their suppression," "to the great terror of his Majesty's subjects," and

"to the manifest weakening and preventing the further increase of the

strength and inhabitants of the island."

The special affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was

called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and

blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn

Dallas's History; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as Marion. Under

his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were consolidated into

one force and thoroughly organized. Cudjoe, like Schamyl, was religious

as well as military head of his people; by Obeah influence he

established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and insurgents; no

party could be sent forth by the government but he knew it in time to

lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region left

unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition; and

as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot and never risked a

battle, his forces naturally increased while those of his opponents were

decimated. His men were never captured, and never took a prisoner; it

was impossible to tell when they were defeated; in dealing with them, as

Pelissier said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchased by victory"; and

the only men who could obtain the slightest advantage against them were

the imported Mosquito Indians, or the "Black Shot," a company of

government negroes. For nine full years this particular war continued

unchecked, General Williamson ruling Jamaica by day and Cudjoe by night.

The rebels had every topographical advantage, for they held possession

of the "Cockpits." Those highlands are furrowed through and through, as

by an earthquake, with a series of gaps or ravines, resembling the

California cañons, or those similar fissures in various parts of the

Atlantic States, known to local fame either poetically as ice-glens, or

symbolically as purgatories. These chasms vary from two hundred yards to

a mile in length; the rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet high, and

often absolutely inaccessible, while the passes at each end admit but

one man at a time. They are thickly wooded, wherever trees can grow;

water flows within them; and they often communicate with one another,

forming a series of traps for an invading force. Tired and thirsty with

climbing, the weary soldiers toil on, in single file, without seeing or

hearing an enemy; up the steep and winding path they traverse one

"cockpit," then enter another. Suddenly a shot is fired from the dense

and sloping forest on the right, then another and another, each dropping

its man; the startled troops face hastily in that direction, when a more

murderous volley is poured from the other side; the heights above flash

with musketry, while the precipitous path by which they came seems to

close in fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in some

attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and their

agile and noiseless foes have settled themselves into ambush again,

farther up the defile, ready for a second attack, if needed. But one is

usually sufficient;--disordered, exhausted, bearing their wounded with

them, the soldiers retreat in panic, if permitted to escape at all, and

carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the plantations, and the Government

House.

It is not strange, then, that high military authorities, at that period,

should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more

difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover,

these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of

warfare could be unjustifiable; and the description given by Lafayette

of the American Revolution was true of this one,--"the grandest of

causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost hope of a

British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a

provision-ground or cut them off from water. But there was little

satisfaction in this; the wild pine-leaves and the grapevine-withes

supplied the rebels with water, and their plantation-grounds were the

wild pine-apple and the plantain groves, and the forests, where the

wild-boars harbored and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they

were militia-men. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have

brought about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high

contracting parties, Cudjoe and General Williamson.

But how to execute a treaty between these wild Children of the Mist and

respectable diplomatic Englishmen? To establish any official relations

without the medium of a preliminary bullet required some ingenuity of

manoeuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but inconveniently cautious; he would

not come half-way to meet any one; nothing would content him but an

interview in his own chosen cockpit. So he selected one of the most

difficult passes, posting in the forests a series of outlying parties,

to signal with their horns, one by one, the approach of the

plenipotentiaries, and then to retire on the main body. Through this

line of perilous signals, therefore, Colonel Guthrie and his handful of

men bravely advanced; horn after horn they heard sounded, but there was

no other human noise in the woods, and they had advanced till they saw

the smoke of the Maroon huts before they caught a glimpse of a human

form.

A conversation was at last opened with the invisible rebels. On their

promise of safety, Dr. Russell advanced alone to treat with them, then

several Maroons appeared, and finally Cudjoe himself. The formidable

chief was not highly military in appearance, being short, fat,

humpbacked, dressed in a tattered blue coat without skirts or sleeves,

and an old felt hat without a rim. But if he had blazed with regimental

scarlet, he could not have been treated with more distinguished

consideration; indeed, in that case, "the exchange of hats" with which

Dr. Russell finally volunteered, in Maroon fashion, to ratify

negotiations, would have been a less severe test of good fellowship.

This fine stroke of diplomacy had its effect, therefore; the rebel

captains agreed to a formal interview with Colonel Guthrie and Captain

Sadler, and a treaty was at last executed with all due solemnity, under

a large cotton-tree at the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. This treaty

recognized the military rank of Captain Cudjoe, Captain Accompong, and

the rest; gave assurance that the Maroons should be "forever hereafter

in a perfect state of freedom and liberty"; ceded to them fifteen

hundred acres of land; and stipulated only that they should keep the

peace, should harbor no fugitive from justice or from slavery, and

should allow two white commissioners to remain among them, simply to

represent the British government.

During the following year a separate treaty was made with another large

body of insurgents, called the Windward Maroons. This was not effected,

however, until after an unsuccessful military attempt, in which the

mountaineers gained a signal triumph. By artful devices,--a few fires

left burning, with old women to watch them,--a few provision-grounds

exposed by clearing away the bushes,--they lured the troops far up among

the mountains, and then surprised them by an ambush. The militia all

fled, and the regulars took refuge under a large cliff in a stream,

where they remained four hours up to their waists in water, until

finally they forded the river, under full fire, with terrible loss.

Three months after this, however, the Maroons consented to an amicable

interview, exchanging hostages first. The position of the white hostage,

at least, was not the most agreeable; he complained that he was beset by

the women and children, with indignant cries of "Buckra, Buckra," while

the little boys pointed their fingers at him as if stabbing him, and

that with evident relish. However, Captain Quao, like Captain Cudjoe,

made a treaty at last, and hats were interchanged instead of hostages.

Independence being thus won and acknowledged, there was a suspension of

hostilities for some years. Among the wild mountains of Jamaica, the

Maroons dwelt in a savage freedom. So healthful and beautiful was the

situation of their chief town, that the English government has erected

barracks there of late years, as being the most salubrious situation on

the island. They breathed an air ten degrees cooler than that inhaled by

the white population below, and they lived on a daintier diet, so that

the English epicures used to go up among them for good living. The

mountaineers caught the strange land-crabs, plodding in companies of

millions their sidelong path from mountain to ocean, and from ocean to

mountain again. They hunted the wild-boars, and prepared the flesh by

salting and smoking it in layers of aromatic leaves, the delicious

"jerked hog" of Buccaneer annals. They reared cattle and poultry,

cultivated corn and yams, plantains and cocoas, guavas and papaws and

mameys and avocados and all luxurious West Indian fruits; the very weeds

of their orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in

their names; and from the doors of their little thatched huts they

looked across these gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland

forests, and over those again to the faint line of far-off beach, the

fainter ocean-horizon, and the illimitable sky.

They had senses like those of our Indians, tracked each other by the

smell of the smoke of fires in the air, and called to each other by

horns, using a special note to designate each of their comrades, and

distinguishing it beyond the range of ordinary hearing. They spoke

English diluted with Spanish and African words, and practised Obeah

rites quite undiluted with Christianity. Of course they associated

largely with the slaves, without any very precise regard to treaty

stipulations; sometimes brought in fugitives, and sometimes concealed

them; left their towns and settled on the planters' lands, when they

preferred them, but were quite orderly and luxuriously happy. During the

formidable insurrection of the Koromantyn slaves, in 1760, they played a

dubious part: when left to go on their own way, they did something

towards suppressing it,--but when placed under the guns of the troops

and ordered to fire on those of their own color, they threw themselves

on the ground without discharging a shot. Nevertheless, they gradually

came up into rather reputable standing; they grew more and more

industrious and steady; and after they had joined very heartily in

resisting D'Estaing's threatened invasion of the island in 1779, it

became the fashion to speak of "our faithful and affectionate Maroons."

In 1795, their position was as follows:--Their numbers had not

materially increased, for many had strayed off and settled on the

outskirts of plantations,--nor materially diminished, for many runaway

slaves had joined them,--while there were also separate settlements of

fugitives, who had maintained their freedom for twenty years. The white

superintendents had lived with the Maroons in perfect harmony, without

the slightest official authority, but with a great deal of actual

influence. But there was an "irrepressible conflict" behind all this

apparent peace, and the slightest occasion might at any moment revive

all the Old terror. That occasion was close at hand.

Captain Cudjoe and Captain Accompong and the other founders of Maroon

independence had passed away, and "Old Montagu" reigned in their stead,

in Trelawney Town. Old Montagu had all the pomp and circumstance of

Maroon majesty; he wore a laced red coat, and a hat superb with

gold-lace and plumes; none but captains could sit in his presence; he

was helped first at meals, and no woman could eat beside him; he

presided at councils as magnificently as at table, though with less

appetite;--and possessed, meanwhile, not an atom of the love or

reverence of any human being. The real power lay entirely with Major

James, the white superintendent, who had been brought up among the

Maroons by his father (and predecessor), and who was the idol of this

wild race. In an evil hour, the government removed him, and put a

certain unpopular Captain Craskell in his place; and as there happened

to be, about the same time, a great excitement concerning a hopeful pair

of young Maroons who had been seized and publicly whipped, on a charge

of hog-stealing, their kindred refused to allow the new superintendent

to remain in the town. A few attempts at negotiation only brought them

to a higher pitch of wrath, which ended in their despatching the

following remarkable diplomatic note to the Earl of Balcarres:--"The

Maroons wishes nothing else from the country but battle, and they

desires not to see Mr. Craskell up here at all. So they are waiting

every moment for the above on Monday. Mr. David Schaw will see you on

Sunday morning for an answer. They will wait till Monday, nine o'clock,

and if they don't come up, they will come down themselves." Signed,

"Colonel Montagu and all the rest."

It turned out, at last, that only two or three of the Maroons were

concerned in this remarkable defiance; but meanwhile it had its effect.

Several ambassadors were sent among the insurgents, and were so

favorably impressed by their reception as to make up a subscription of

money for their hosts, on departing; only the "gallant Colonel

Gallimore," a Jamaica Camillus, gave iron instead of gold, by throwing

some bullets into the contribution-box. And it was probably in

accordance with his view of the subject, that, when the Maroons sent

ambassadors in return, they were at once imprisoned, most injudiciously

and unjustly; and when Old Montagu himself and thirty-seven others,

following, were seized and imprisoned also, it is not strange that the

Maroons, joined by many slaves, were soon in open insurrection.

Martial law was instantly proclaimed throughout the island. The

fighting-men among the insurgents were not, perhaps, more than five

hundred; against whom the government could bring nearly fifteen hundred

regular troops and several thousand militia-men. Lord Balcarres himself

took the command, and, eager to crush the affair, promptly marched a

large force up to Trelawney Town, and was glad to march back again as

expeditiously as possible. In his very first attack, he was miserably

defeated, and had to fly for his life, amid a perfect panic of the

troops, in which some forty or fifty were killed,--including Colonel

Sandford, commanding the regulars, and the bullet-loving Colonel

Gallimore, in command of the militia,--while not a single Maroon was

even wounded, so far as could be ascertained.

After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually

got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had

been burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season, and,

between fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous.

Meanwhile the Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all

their orders, picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their

lines at night, burned houses and destroyed plantations, far below. The

only man who could cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the

superintendent just removed by government,--and his services were not

employed, as he was not trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a

volunteer party farther into the mountains than any of the assailants

had yet penetrated, guided by tracks known to himself only, and by the

smell of the smoke of Maroon fires. After a very exhausting march,

including a climb of a hundred and fifty feet up the face of a

precipice, he brought them just within the entrance of Guthrie's Defile.

"So far," said he, pointing to the entrance, "you may pursue, but no

farther; no force can enter here; no white man except myself, or some

soldier of the Maroon establishment, has ever gone beyond this. With the

greatest difficulty I have penetrated four miles farther, and not ten

Maroons have gone so far as that. There are two other ways of getting

into the defile, practicable for the Maroons, but not for any one of

you. In neither of them can I ascend or descend with my arms, which must

be handed to me, step by step, as practised by the Maroons themselves.

One of the ways lies to the eastward, and the other to the westward; and

they will take care to have both guarded, if they suspect that I am with

you; which, from the route you have come to-day, they will. They now see

you, and if you advance fifty paces more, they will convince you of it."

At this moment a Maroon horn sounded the notes indicating his name, and,

as he made no answer, a voice was heard, inquiring if he were among

them. "If he is," said the voice, "let him go back, we do not wish to

hurt him; but as for the rest of you, come on and try battle, if you

choose." But the gentlemen did not choose.

In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and

worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the

whole force of the island; and they were defending their liberty by

precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it.

Half a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides

the enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men

from their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an

eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at

large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a

country of agriculture and commerce, of civil judicature, industry, and

prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers

had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen,

while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them

was known to have been killed. Captain Craskell, the banished

superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole

slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and

would soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of

French emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained

away, the vague terror remained. Indeed, the Lieutenant-Governor

announced in his message that he had satisfactory evidence that the

French Convention was concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner named

Murenson had testified that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet)

had secretly sent a hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and

threatened to land fifteen hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it

all back at last, yet the Assembly was moved to make a new offer of

three hundred dollars for killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a

hundred and fifty dollars for killing or taking any fugitive slave who

had joined them. They also voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to

the Accompong tribe of Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the

insurrection; and various prizes and gratuities were also offered by the

different parishes, with the same object of self-protection.

The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Colonel Walpole was

promoted in his stead, and brevetted as General, by way of incentive. He

found a people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a

treasury, not empty, but useless. But the new general had not served

against the Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to

his opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed all

his efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water; and, most

effectual move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging

up a howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a

visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint

compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little

buckra!" they said; "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new

fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top,

de damn sunting (something) fire arter you again." With which Parthian

arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.

But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the

way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was

deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the

purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as

yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was

thought best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain

Colonel Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was,

since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against

Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The

proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility.

England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and

dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with

hounds,--and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the

other side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of

zoölogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants

in war, and no doubt would gladly use lions and tigers, also, but for

their extreme carnivorousness, and their painful indifference to the

distinction between friend and foe;--why not, then, use these dogs,

comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate, "something

must be done"; the final argument always used, when a bad or desperate

project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send to

Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying

chasseurs, and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till

the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Colonel Quarrell

finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples

of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus

of popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice were

they armed who knew their Quarrell just.

But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the

commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He

sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who

insisted on fighting everything that came in their way,--first a Spanish

schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the

mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy

Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and

chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas,

who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court

against admitting foreigners within his government,--"the only

accustomed exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in

favor of foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the

commissioner had not brought any of these commodities, but then he had

come to obtain the means of capturing some, and so might pass for an

irregular practitioner of the privileged profession.

Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no

difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs

as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of

taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,--this being,

after all, the essential part of his expedition,--Don Luis de las Casas

put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of the

entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English

service. Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six

chasseurs. Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in

enlisting forty; he got them safe to Batabano, but at the last moment,

learning the state of affairs, they refused to embark on such very

irregular authority. When he had persuaded them, at length, the officer

of the fort interposed objections. This was not to be borne, so Don

Guillermo bribed him and silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to

report to the governor; Don Guillermo sent a messenger after him and

bribed him, too; and thus, at length, after myriad rebuffs, and after

being obliged to spend the last evening at a puppet-show, in which the

principal figure was a burlesque on his own personal peculiarities, the

weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of renegadoes, and his forty

chasseurs and their one hundred and four muzzled dogs, set sail for

Jamaica.

These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust

the pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a

tall, meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt

and drawers, with broad straw-hat and moccasins of raw hide; his belt

sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or _machete_, like an iron bar

sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton leashes

for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a

fierce breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for

attack, and accompanied by smaller dogs called _finders_. It is no

wonder, when these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego

Bay, that terror ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed and

windows crowded, not a negro dared to stir, and the muzzled dogs,

infuriated by confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with

their noisy barking and the rattling of their chains.

How much would have come of all this in actual conflict does not appear.

The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain

conditions and guaranties,--a decision probably accelerated by the

terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was

the declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of General

Walpole, that "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off

the island, the rebels could not have been induced to surrender."

Nevertheless a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention

of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to

treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets

interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed

Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part

of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the

suspicious Maroons. General Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself

that no such unfair advantage should be taken of them as had occurred

with the hostages previously surrendered, who were placed in irons, nor

should any attempt be made to remove them from the island. It is painful

to add, that this promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial

government, to the lasting grief of General Walpole, on the ground that

the Maroons had violated the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in

complying with its terms, and by remissness in restoring the fugitive

slaves who had taken refuge among them. As many of the tribe as

surrendered, therefore, were at once placed in confinement, and

ultimately shipped from Port Royal to Halifax, to the number of six

hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the credit of English honor, we

rejoice to know that General Walpole not merely protested against this

utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined the sword of honor which

the Assembly voted him in its gratitude, and retired from military

service forever.

The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They

were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax; then welcomed, when

seen; and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of

reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,--their only

visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the

redoubtable Colonel Quarrell, and twenty-five thousand pounds were

appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not

prosper; pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into

habits of industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of

Jamaica, it seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren

soil,--for theirs was such that two previous colonies had deserted

it,--and in a climate where winter lasts seven months in the year. They

had a schoolmaster, and he was also a preacher; but they did not seem to

appreciate that luxury of civilization,--utterly refusing, on grounds of

conscience, to forsake polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to

listen to the doctrinal discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent

Sandemanian. They smoked their pipes during service-time, and left Old

Montagu, who still survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the

sermon. One discourse he briefly reported as follows, very much to the

point:--"Massa parson say no mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife,

no mus quarrel, mus set down softly." So they sat down very softly, and

showed an extreme unwillingness to get up again. But, not being

naturally an idle race, (at least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather

on the other side,) they soon grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful

of those about them, suspicious of all attempts to scatter them among

the community at large, frozen by the climate, and constantly

petitioning for removal to a milder one, they finally wearied out all

patience. A long dispute ensued between the authorities of Nova Scotia

and Jamaica, as to which was properly responsible for their support; and

thus the heroic race, that for a century and a half had sustained

themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were reduced to the position of

troublesome and impracticable paupers, shuttlecocks between two selfish

parishes. So passed their unfortunate lives, until, in 1800, their

reduced population was transported to Sierra Leone, at a cost of six

thousand pounds, since which they disappear from history.

It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which

had kept aloof from the late outbreak, as the Accompong settlement, and

others. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and retain

it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in

Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at

Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten

families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two

hundred and seventy families in all,--each station being, as of old,

under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt,

that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling

with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.

The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in

its time; the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by

Sheridan and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds

against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the

Colonial government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards.

This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce,

in Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be

cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova

Scotia, they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did

not venture to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his

injustice to the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the

indignation of the more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards,

the public indignation ran quite high, in England, against the

bloodhounds and their employers, so that the home ministry found it

necessary to send a severe reproof to the Colonial government. For a few

years the tales of the Maroons thus emerged from mere colonial annals,

and found their way into Annual Registers and Parliamentary

Debates,--but they have vanished from popular memory now. Their record

still retains its interest, however, as that of one of the heroic races

of the world; and all the more, because it is with their kindred that

this nation has to deal, in solving the tremendous problem of

incorporating their liberties with our own. We must remember the story

of the Maroons, because we cannot afford to ignore a single historic

fact which bears upon a question so momentous.

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.