The family consisted of a master and mistress, three children (all young),

and four servants. My business, I heard, was the care of the second

drawing-room, to help the nurse till two o’clock, and after that time to

help the cook. I wished that it had fallen to my chance to have had a

place more decidedly a _one_ place than this seemed to be; but I did not

dare to say a word. I was very much tired, and cook told me that I might

go to bed; for mistress (who was out) would not return till too late to

speak to me that night. Very glad I was to go. I was to sleep in the room

with the cook and housemaid; but had a small bed to myself. Tired as I

was, I could not sleep. When they came into the room, they believed me to

be asleep, and they went on talking for a long time. I wished not to hear

what they said; for though I could not understand half of it, I was sure

that what they talked about was very wrong. With such companions I felt

that I could never be happy. I longed for morning, that I might write at

once to the matron of my school and tell her so.

But what would the matron say? I knew well that she would chide me; for in

the very last advice she gave me, she said that I must expect, when I went

into the world, to meet with evil-speakers and with evil-doers, and that

it must be my constant care to keep myself unspotted from bad example. I

thought of this over and over again, and determined that, whatever might

happen, I would try to do right. Besides, I had not seen the nurse yet;

she might be a person that I could like; and in this hope I went to sleep.

When I awoke, the bright sunlight was shining in through the window; I was

alone in the room, and I was sure that it was very late. I was dressing

hurriedly when the door softly opened. It was Maria Wild. “How soundly you

have slept!” she said; “I had not the heart to awake you; but you must

make haste now, for mistress is down, and has asked for you, and we have

finished breakfast.” I was not long in following her. The cook had kept

some tea warm for me; her manner seemed kinder, and I wished that I could

forget what had passed. By-and-by the parlor bell rang. It was for me;

and, with a beating heart, I prepared to go into the presence of my first

mistress.

What a pretty, sweet, gentle lady! and so very young that I could scarcely

believe she could be my mistress. She spoke to me most gently, hoped I

should prove a good girl; and, without entering into the nature of my

duties, merely said that the cook and the nurse would put me in the right

way. Dear lady! she was like many other ladies who marry as soon as they

leave school; and who, without knowing any thing at all about the

management of a house, rush into housekeeping.

I wish I could have had all my instructions from my mistress. As it was, I

had three distinct mistresses; my real one knowing less about what I did,

than either of the others. I was often very much tempted to peep into the

beautiful books which were lying about the drawing-room I had the care of.

As I dusted them with my brush, once or twice I could not resist; and, one

morning I opened the prettiest, in which there were such beautiful

engravings, that I turned them all over till I came to the end. One

engraving seemed so very interesting that I could not resist reading a

little of the story which told about it. I was standing with the book in

one hand, the dusting brush in the other, forgetting every thing else,

when I was startled by the sound of my own name. I turned round and saw my

mistress. “Fanny!” repeated my mistress, “this is very wrong; I do not

allow this.” I could not speak, but I felt myself turn very red; and I put

the book hastily on the table. I did not try to make any excuse for what I

had done. I was touched by the gentleness with which my mistress had

reproved me.

Several weeks passed. I was very miserable, but I struggled hard to bear

all as well as I could. I was sure that both the nurse and the cook gave

me a great many things to do that they ought to have done themselves; so

that I had very little rest, and was very tired when night came. I was

certain that I was a restraint on what they had to say to each other: they

were by no means sure of me; and, when I entered the kitchen unexpectedly,

I knew by their altered tone and manners that they spoke of something

different to what they had been speaking about before. I saw many signs

pass between them, which they did not think I saw. Sometimes I knew they

were trying to see how far they might trust me, and I had a strong wish

that they would find out they _never_ would be able to trust me.

One day I was cleaning the children’s shoes in a little out-house near the

kitchen, when my mistress came down to give orders for dinner. The cook

did not know I was there. Most of what was said I could hear very

distinctly; for the kitchen-door was open. “Oh! indeed, ma’am,” said the

cook, “these young girls eat a great deal; you’d be astonished to see how

she makes away with the puddings.”—“Change of air has given her an

appetite, I suppose,” said my mistress.—“Yes, indeed, ma’am; but if it was

an appetite in moderation, I should say nothing about it; but to see her

eat in the way she does—why, ma’am, yesterday, besides the pudding left

from the nursery, I had made another for our dinner, and though Mary and I

took only the least morsel, there was not a bit left.”—“Indeed!” said my

mistress, and left the kitchen.

It was hard work for me to keep quiet. Twice I went toward the

kitchen-door. I felt myself burn all over with anger; but I was struck

dumb by the falsehoods I had heard. There had been no pudding for dinner

the day before, and having had a headache, I had eaten no meat; nor could

I have been tempted even by the savory-looking veal cutlets that the cook

had prepared for herself and Mary. For some time after my mistress had

left the kitchen I remained quite still; indeed, I was scarcely able to

move; then I made a rush toward the kitchen-door, intending to up-braid

the cook with her wickedness; but again I checked myself. I waited till I

could leave the out-house and pass up the back stairs without being seen;

then I went into the room where I slept, threw myself upon my little bed,

and cried bitterly.

I was roused by the nurse, who had been seeking the children’s shoes to

take the children out to walk. I washed my eyes, and went out with them.

The baby was a nice chubby little thing, about seven months old, but he

was what the nurse called “lumpish, and had no spring,” so that he was

very heavy to carry. When we went out to walk, the nurse always carried

baby till we got out of sight of the house; then she gave him to me; and

when we returned she always took him again at the same place. After taking

one turn on the heath “promenade,” we went down by the sand-pits, and

walking on till we came to a retired place, the nurse seated herself near

a heather bush, and took a book. My arms ached so very much that I should

have been glad to sit down too; but she told me to go on, the other

children following me. After I had walked some distance, baby awoke, and

began to cry. I could not comfort him. The more I tried, the louder he

screamed, and the two little children, frightened at his screams, began to

cry too. I turned to go back, but we had gone further than I thought; and

the road being irregular, we had picked our way round many tall bushes of

heather, all looking so much alike—that I did not know which way to take.

In great trouble what to do, and scarcely being able to hold the baby any

longer, I shouted “Nurse! nurse!” as loud as I could shout; but so great

was the noise made by the screaming of the children, that my voice could

not be heard. Presently, however, to my great relief, the nurse suddenly

appeared from behind the bush, near which we were sitting.

What a face of rage she had! “How dare you,” she said, “how dare you go so

far?” Then snatching the child from my arms, she would not hear a word;

but as soon as she had made him and the rest of the children quiet, she

went on abusing me very much indeed.

We were still some way from home when the church clock chimed a quarter to

two. Suddenly the nurse stopped, put her hand into her pocket, and looked

very much frightened. “I’ve left the book,” she said, “left it on the

bank; run—run directly—make haste—don’t lose a moment, or it may be gone.”

I stood still; for I felt angry at having been scolded so undeservedly.

“Go! go this instant!” I was too late; the book was gone! I scarcely dared

to go back. “Not find it!” said the nurse, when I came up to her; “it must

be there; you’ve done this on purpose.” When we had reached home, she

flung the baby hurriedly into my arms. “I’ll go myself,” she said.

The book I had seen her take out of her pocket looked very much like one

placed on a side-table in the room of which I had charge, and so great was

my curiosity to know if it really were the same, that I could not resist

going down to see; so putting the baby (who had begun to cry again) upon

the bed, and telling the little ones to sit still for a minute, down I

went. The book was not on the table. I was sure that I had dusted and

placed it there that very morning, and I now felt certain that _that_ book

was the lost one. The nurse returned, but without the book. She seemed

very much hurried, and was very cross. She could not have been more so if

the book had been lost by any fault of mine. She asked me if I knew the

name of it. I told her that I did not; taking care not to mention my

suspicion—nay, my certainty—that it was the very book I had dusted and

placed on the table that morning. The next day a great change seemed to

have come over both the nurse and the cook; their manner was much kinder

than ever it had been before. Neither of them said a cross word; yet I was

almost certain that the nurse had been telling the cook that I had

overheard what she had said to my mistress. The cause of this change

puzzled me at first, but I soon suspected that they each wanted to coax

me; the one to say nothing about “the large appetite,” the other about the

lost book.

Since the loss of the book, every time the bell had rung, my heart leaped

as though it would burst through my body, and I looked anxiously at Mary

Wild when she came into the kitchen again; but nothing came of all this.

One day, Mary, having a bad fit of toothache, I had to wait at table. That

very afternoon mistress sent to speak to me; she was sitting in the inner

drawing-room. Strange to say, that much as I had thought about the book,

at that very moment I had forgotten all about it, and almost started when

mistress said, “Fanny, I want to know if you have misplaced a book that

was on that table: it is nearly a week since I missed it, but not chancing

to want it till now, I forgot to make inquiry about it.” I turned very

red. I could not speak. My mistress looked questioningly into my face. “Do

you know where it is, Fanny?” “No—yes—no, indeed, ma’am, no.” “Fanny,

Fanny! I am sure you are not speaking the truth; there is something

wrong—you _do_ know something about it.” And she looked fixedly on my

face. I became redder still, but did not answer. “Where is it? what is

become of it?” “Indeed, I have had nothing to do with the loss of that

book.” “To do with the _loss?_ Then you allow that you do know that it is

lost? How can you know this without having something to do with it?” “Oh!

pray, ma’am, pray, pray ask the nurse.” “The nurse! what can she possibly

have to do with the loss of that book?” Again I was silent. The bell was

rung, and the nurse ordered to come down. A glance at her face told me

that she knew what was going on. “Nurse,” said my mistress, “Fanny asks me

to go to you to account for the loss of a book which has been missing for

some days out of this room. Do you know any thing about it?” “I, ma’am!”

said the nurse, pretending to be very much surprised. “Yet I can’t say

that I know nothing about a book that _was_ in this room.” Then turning to

me—“Did you not put it back again? you know very well that I threatened to

tell mistress about it; and I’m very sorry, now, that I did not tell her.”

The only word I could say was, “Nurse!”

“I am sure, ma’am,” said the nurse, “I should have been very sorry to say

any thing against her—and if you had not found her out, I should not have

told about her. She is but young, ma’am, and may improve—but, indeed,

ma’am, never in my life did I see a young girl tell a lie with such a face

of innocence.” I was bursting with shame and vexation. “May I speak,

ma’am? Oh! pray hear me—it was not I: it was _she_ who lost the book. Do

let me speak, ma’am; pray let me tell you—” “No, you shall have no

inducement to tell more falsehoods. I fear I shall be obliged to send you

home again; I can not have any one with my children who tells untruths.”

And she pointed to the nurse to open the door for me. As she was doing so,

nurse said, “She told me, ma’am, how you had caught her reading one

morning, when—” Here she shut me out and herself in.

If I had had money enough to take me to Birmingham, I believe I should not

have staid in the house an hour longer; but how often have I been thankful

that I had not; for, if I had gone away then, nothing could ever have

cleared me in the eyes of my mistress, and I should have been disgraced

forever.

Though I had been five months in my place, I had written but two letters;

one to my aunt, the other to the matron. I was never allowed a light to

take up-stairs, so that I had no opportunity of writing there. It was late

when the servants came to bed that night; and, after having cried a great

deal, I was just dropping to sleep when they came into the room. I did not

sleep long. When I awoke, there was darkness in the room again, and the

servants were snoring. Then all at once the thought came into my head that

I would get up and write a letter to my aunt. I slipped on a few things.

It was too dark for me to be able to see any thing in the room, and I did

not know where the candle had been put. Very much disappointed, I was

preparing to get into bed again, when I remembered the lamp standing on

the centre-table in the inner drawing-room; that room of which I had the

charge. I opened the door softly, and found my way into the drawing-room.

I flamed up a match, which gave light long enough for me to find the lamp;

then I flamed up another, and lighted it. The lamp gave but a dull light;

all in the house was so quiet, and every thing looked so dusky, that I was

frightened, and went on trembling more than before. There was paper in the

case before me, and there were pens in the inkstand, but I never thought

of using _those_. My own paper and pens were under the tray of my

work-box, and that was in the kitchen. The lamp was not too large to be

easily carried; so, taking it up with care, I went into the kitchen. The

two cats on the hearth roused up when I opened the door. One rushed out

and began to mew loudly. How frightened I was! I waited, hoping the cats

might settle again; but they began mewing louder than ever, looking up to

my face, and then rubbing themselves against the meat-screen. I was sure

that they smelt something that they wanted me to give them; so I went

toward the meat-screen to see what it was. There I saw a hand-basket, and

something wrapped up in a cloth. Pushing the meat-screen cautiously aside,

I lifted the basket out. Within I found a medley of things that would have

puzzled wiser heads than mine to know how they could come together. There

was a thick slice of uncooked veal, two sausages, a slice of raw salmon,

some green pease, and seven new potatoes, half a pot of raspberry jam, a

nutmeg, and half a cucumber. I did not dare to untie the bundle—which was

folded up very carefully—but I could feel bits of candles, and a basin

among the oddments it seemed to contain. I put the basket quickly down

again. The cats had been mewing about me all this time. At length I did

contrive to escape. I had reached the drawing-room, placed the lamp on the

table, when I saw the two bits of burnt matches which I had forgotten to

pick up, and which might have left traces of my wanderings. There was

another bit somewhere. In my gladness to have remembered this, I moved the

lamp quickly, and in carrying it toward the floor, I knocked the glass

against the edge of the table; it fell to shivers, and the light was

extinguished. What was to be done? Nothing: there was nothing to be done

but to leave things just as they were, and to creep into bed again.

In the morning I hurried down, fearful lest any of the servants should

chance to go into the drawing-room before I had picked up the broken

glass. I opened the shutters, and soon found that the shattered glass was

not all the injury that had been done. There was lamp-oil on the beautiful

carpet! There seemed no end to my troubles.

“Broken the lamp-glass!” said the cook, as I passed through the kitchen

with the broken bits of glass; “what ever will you do?”—“I can do nothing

but tell mistress.”—“Then I’ll tell you what to do; take my advice, and

deny it.” “Deny what?”—“Why, that you’ve broken the lamp-glass.”—“What!

tell my mistress a lie? how can you give me such wicked advice?”—“Well;

it’s no business of mine,” said the cook; “if you won’t tell her a lie,

I’ll tell her the truth.” I determined, however, to speak first. I could

not go about my usual work till I had spoken to my mistress; and yet, when

I heard the dining-room door open, and knew that she would be coming up, I

ran out of the room, and went up-stairs; my courage failed me, and I

hardly dared to go down again. From the top of the stairs I saw her go

into the room, and I saw the cook following her. I expected every moment

to be called. Soon the door opened, and the cook came out. I heard her

say, distinctly, “Indeed, ma’am, I’m afraid she’ll turn out badly; but

I’ve done what I can to make her confess.” At the sound of the opening of

the door, with a sudden determination, I had rushed down stairs, and was

within a few steps of the room as the cook came out. On seeing me, she

shut the door quickly, and turned quite red; then, speaking in a voice on

purpose for my mistress to hear, she said, “What! have you been

listening?” I made no answer; but went into the room.

There was an expression of displeasure on the face of my mistress as she

looked at me. She asked, “How did you break the lamp-glass? Tell me the

truth—for though I may pardon the accident, I will not pardon any

falsehood about it.”

I begged that I might tell her everything, and that I might begin from the

day when I came to my place. I did so. I told her all, and very much in

the same way that I have just been writing it now. She listened to me with

great attention, and at parts of what I told her, I could see her

countenance change very much indeed. When I had done, she said, “Fanny,

you have told me that which has shocked me very much. I can say nothing

further to you till I have spoken to Mr. Morgan; meantime you must be

silent, and go on as usual.”

Mr. Morgan was at that time from home, and not expected for some days.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Morgan had missed several bottles of wine from the cellar.

She had a distinct knowledge of three bottles that were not in their

places.

The morning after his arrival he did not go to London as usual. He and my

mistress were talking together in the study for a long time. I knew well

what they were talking about, and so flurried did I feel, that I could

hardly get on with my work. At length I met mistress as she was going

up-stairs. She said she was coming to bid me go into the study; and her

manner was so kind that I obeyed her without fear. My master, too, spoke

very kindly to me. I found that my mistress had written to tell him what

had been passing at home in his absence, and that he, chancing to be at

Dudley, which is only a short distance from Birmingham, had gone there to

make further inquiry about me; that he had been at the school, had seen

the matron, and had also seen my aunt. All that he had heard about me had

satisfied him, and convinced him that what I had told my mistress was

nothing but the truth. “Is this your handkerchief, Fanny?” said my master,

taking up one from a side table. “Yes, sir, it is,” I said, unfolding it,

“and here is my name marked; it was given to me by a favorite little

schoolfellow, and I feared I had lost it.”—“Where do you think I found

this handkerchief, Fanny?”—“Indeed, sir, I can’t tell; but, thank you,

sir, for I am so glad it is found.” “I found it in the wine-cellar.” I

must have looked very much alarmed, for my mistress said kindly, “Don’t

look so frightened, Fanny.” My master rang the bell: it was answered by

Mary Wild. “Stay here,” he said; “and, Fanny, go and tell the nurse to

come down.” When the nurse entered, he rang the bell again. No one came.

Indeed, there was no one to come but the cook; and that not being _her_

bell, she did not think of answering it. “Shall I tell her, sir?” said

Mary Wild, who, as well as the nurse, now beginning to suspect something

was wrong, turned very pale. “No!” said my master, angrily, “no one shall

leave the room.” Just then the door opened, and the cook entered. The

plausible smooth face she had put on was gone in an instant, on seeing

what was the state of things. After a moment’s silence, he began “This

handkerchief,” he said, “though marked with Fanny’s name, was not put in

the wine-cellar by her.” He looked sternly at the cook—“Silence!” he said,

to the cook, when she tried to speak. He then went on: “If the three

bottles of wine stolen out of the cellar are still in the house, they

_shall_ be found—here is a search warrant, and at the door is a policeman,

ready to enforce its execution. There is no escape, and in confession is

the best chance of mercy.” Mary Wild looked at the cook. I shall never

forget that woman’s face at that moment. She seemed choking with feelings

that she tried to hide, and uncertain what it would be the best for her to

do; she went at last toward the door, and suddenly opening it, was rushing

out of the room and up-stairs. “Stop!” cried my master, following her.—“I

must go,” she said, “I am ill. This sudden shock—to think that I—that it

should come to this—to be suspected.”—And then she screamed, and tried to

throw herself into a fit; but the fit would not come. Mr. Morgan said,

“You had better be quiet, and submit quietly to what you can not escape

from.”—“I will,” she screamed out; “I have nothing to fear—I am innocent;

only let me go up-stairs; only let me have a few minutes to—” “Not an

instant,” said my master. He then opened the window, and called to the

policeman, who had been waiting in the garden. The boxes of each of the

servants were examined. In the cook’s box were found two of the bottles,

besides many things belonging to my mistress—cambric pocket-handkerchiefs,

chamber-towels, silk-stockings, and many other articles, marked with the

names of visitors who had been staying in the house. Folded up in some

crumpled bits of paper, and put into the sleeve of an old gown, was a

silver fork, that had been lost more than a year ago, and that mistress

had supposed to have been stolen by the housemaid who had lived there

before Mary Wild came. In the nurse’s box were several things that looked

very unlikely to be her own, but they did not belong to mistress. In a

corner of the nursery cupboard was the third bottle of wine; that also had

been opened. In Mary Wild’s box there was nothing to excite suspicion.

When the examination was over, master gave the cook in charge to the

policeman. The nurse was told to leave the house within an hour. She would

have had much to say, but master would not hear her.

A month’s notice was given to Mary Wild. I was glad of it; for though I

knew that she had entered into many of the wicked cook’s deceptions, there

was a something about her that made me think she would have been good, if

she had not been under such evil influence. All had been so sudden, that I

almost fancied it had been a dream. For a few days we went on without

other servants, and I thought things had never been so comfortable as they

were during this time; but Mary Wild was taken so very ill, that a doctor

was sent for. She became worse and worse, and I scarcely ever left her. In

her delirium she would talk about things that had passed between the cook

and herself; and though she did not know what she was saying, I felt sure

that what she said _had been_. A very long time she was ill; then a sudden

change took place: and she was out of danger. Poor thing! how quiet, and

patient, and sorrowful she was: and how grateful for every thing that was

done for her! Mistress was so much touched by the many signs of sorrow

Mary had shown, that she allowed her to remain in her place. Though I was

so young, only just seventeen, my mistress, knowing that I was fond of the

children, trusted them to my care. She engaged another nurse for three

months to “put me in the way.” At the end of that time she sent to the

school for another girl to fill the place which had been mine. Very great

was my delight to find that she was the one who had been my most favorite

schoolfellow; the very girl who had given me the handkerchief.

The cook was committed for trial; her sentence was six months’

imprisonment. What became of the nurse I never knew.

THE POINT OF HONOR.

One evening in the autumn of the year 1842. seven persons, including

myself, were sitting and chatting in a state of hilarious gayety in front

of Señor Arguellas’ country-house, a mile or so out of Santiago de Cuba,

in the Eastern Intendencia of the Queen of the Antilles, and once its

chief capital, when an incident occurred that as effectually put an

extinguisher upon the noisy mirth as if a bomb-shell had suddenly exploded

at our feet. But first a brief account of those seven persons, and the

cause of their being so assembled, will be necessary.

Three were American merchants—Southerners and smart traders, extensively

connected with the commerce of the Colombian archipelago, and designing to

sail on the morrow—wind and weather permitting, in the bark _Neptune_,

Starkey master and part owner—for Morant Bay, Jamaica; one was a

lieutenant in the Spanish artillery, and nephew of our host; another was a

M. Dupont, a young and rich creole, of mingled French and Spanish

parentage, and the reputed suitor for the hand of Donna Antonia—the

daughter and sole heiress of Señor Arguellas, and withal a graceful and

charming maiden of eighteen—a ripe age in that precocious clime; the sixth

guest was Captain Starkey, of the _Neptune_, a gentlemanly, fine-looking

English seaman of about thirty years of age; the seventh and last was

myself, at that time a mere youngster, and but just recovered from a

severe fit of sickness which a twelvemonth previously had necessitated my

removal from Jamaica to the much more temperate and equable climate of

Cuba, albeit the two islands are only distant about five degrees from each

other. I was also one of Captain Starkey’s passengers, and so was Señor

Arguellas, who had business to wind up in Kingston. He was to be

accompanied by Señora Arguellas, Antonia, the young lieutenant, and M.

Dupont. The _Neptune_ had brought a cargo of sundries, consisting of

hardware, cottons, _et cetera_, to Cuba, and was returning about

half-laden with goods. Among these, belonging to the American merchants,

were a number of barrels of gunpowder, that had proved unsalable in Cuba,

and which, it was thought, might find a satisfactory market in Jamaica.

There was excellent cabin-accommodation on board Captain Starkey’s vessel,

and as the weather was fine, and the passage promised to be a brief as

well as pleasant one—the wind having shifted to the northwest, with the

intention, it seemed, of remaining there for some time—we were all, as I

have stated, in exceedingly good-humor, and discussing the intended trip,

Cuban, American, and European politics, the comparative merits of French

and Spanish wines, and Havanna and Alabama cigars, with infinite glee and

gusto.

The evening, too, was deliciously bright and clear. The breeze, pronounced

by Capt. Starkey to be rising to a five or six knot one at sea, only

sufficiently stirred the rich and odorous vegetation of the valleys,

stretching far away beneath us, gently to fan the heated faces of the

party with its grateful perfume, and slightly ripple the winding rivers,

rivulets rather, which every where intersect and irrigate the island, and

which were now glittering with the myriad splendors of the

intensely-lustrous stars that diadem a Cuban night. Nearly all the guests

had drunk very freely of wine, too much so, indeed; but the talk, in

French, which all could speak tolerably, did not profane the calm glory of

the scene, till some time after Señora Arguellas and her daughter had left

us. The señor, I should state, was still detained in town by business

which it was necessary he should dispose of previous to embarking for

Jamaica.

“Do not go away,” said Señora Arguellas, addressing Captain Starkey, as

she rose from her seat, “till I see you again. When you are at leisure,

ring the _sonnette_ on the table and a servant will inform me. I wish to

speak further with you relative to the cabin arrangements.”

Captain Starkey bowed. I had never, I thought, seen Antonia smile so

sweetly; and the two ladies left us. I do not precisely remember how it

came about, or what first led to it, but it was not very long before we

were all conscious that the conversation had assumed a disagreeable tone.

It struck me that possibly M. Dupont did not like the expression of

Antonia’s face as she courtesied to Captain Starkey. This, however, would,

I think, have passed off harmlessly, had it not been that the captain

happened to mention, very imprudently, that he had once served as a

midshipman on board the English slave-squadron. This fanned M. Dupont’s

smouldering ill-humor into a flame, and I gathered from his confused

maledictions that he had suffered in property from the exertions of that

force. The storm of angry words raged fiercely. The motives of the English

for interfering with the slave-traffic were denounced with contemptuous

bitterness on the one side, and as warmly and angrily defended on the

other. Finally—the fact is, they were both flustered with wine and

passion, and scarcely knew what they said or did—M. Dupont applied an

epithet to the Queen of England, which instantly brought a glass of wine

full in his face from the hand of Captain Starkey. They were all in an

instant on their feet, and apparently sobered, or nearly so, by the

unfortunate issue of the wordy tumult.

Captain Starkey was the first to speak. His flushed and angry features

paled suddenly to an almost deathly white, and he stammered out, “I beg

your pardon, M. Dupont. It was wrong—very wrong in me to do so, though not

inexcusable.”

“Pardon? _Mille tonnerres!_” shouted Dupont, who was capering about in an

ecstasy of rage, and wiping his face with his handkerchief. “Yes, a bullet

through your head shall pardon you—nothing less!”

Indeed, according to the then notions of Cuban society, no other

alternative save the duello appeared possible. Lieutenant Arguellas

hurried at once into the house, and speedily returned with a case of

pistols. “Let us proceed,” he said, in a quick whisper, “to the grove

yonder; we shall be there free from interruption.” He took Dupont’s arm,

and both turned to move off. As they did so, Mr. Desmond, the elder of the

American gentlemen, stepped toward Captain Starkey, who with recovered

calmness, and with his arms folded, was standing by the table, and said,

“I am not entirely, my good sir, a stranger to these affairs, and if I can

be of service I shall—”

“Thank you, Mr. Desmond,” replied the English captain; “but I shall not

require your assistance. Lieutenant Arguellas, you may as well remain. I

am no duelist, and shall not fight M. Dupont.”

“What does he say?” exclaimed the lieutenant, gazing with stupid

bewilderment round the circle. “Not fight!”

The Anglo-Saxon blood, I saw, flushed as hotly in the veins of the

Americans as it did in mine at this exhibition of the white feather by one

of our race. “Not fight, Captain Starkey!” said Mr. Desmond, with grave

earnestness, after a painful pause: “you, whose name is in the list of the

British royal navy, say this! You must be jesting!”

“I am perfectly serious—I am opposed to dueling upon principle.”

“A coward upon principle!” fairly screamed Dupont, with mocking fury, and

at the same time shaking his clenched fist at the Englishman.

The degrading epithet stung like a serpent. A gleam of fierce passion

broke out of Captain Starkey’s dark eyes, and he made a step toward

Dupont, but resolutely checked himself.

“Well, it must be borne! I was wrong to offer you personal violence,

although your impertinence certainly deserved rebuke. Still, I repeat I

will not fight with you.”

“But you _shall_ give my friend satisfaction!” exclaimed Lieutenant

Arguellas, who was as much excited as Dupont; “or, by Heaven, I will post

you as a dastard not only throughout this island but Jamaica!”

Captain Starkey for all answer to this menace coolly rang the _sonnette_,

and desired the slave who answered it to inform Señora Arguellas that he

was about to leave, and wished to see her.

“The brave Englishman is about to place himself under the protection of

your aunt’s petticoats, Alphonso!” shouted Dupont, with triumphant

mockery.

“I almost doubt whether Mr. Starkey is an Englishman,” exclaimed Mr.

Desmond, who, as well as his two friends, was getting pretty much

incensed; “but, at all events, as my father and mother were born and

raised in the old country, if you presume to insinuate that—”

Señora Arguellas at this moment approached, and the irate American with

some difficulty restrained himself. The lady appeared surprised at the

strange aspect of the company she had so lately left. She, however, at the

request of the captain, instantly led the way into the house, leaving the

rest of her visitors, as the French say, _plantés là_.

Ten minutes afterward we were informed that Captain Starkey had left the

house, after impressing upon Señora Arguellas that the _Neptune_ would

sail the next morning precisely at nine o’clock. A renewed torrent of

rage, contempt, and scorn broke forth at this announcement, and a duel at

one time seemed inevitable between Lieutenant Arguellas and Mr. Desmond,

the last-named gentleman manifesting great anxiety to shoot somebody or

other in vindication of his Anglo-Saxon lineage. This, however, was

overruled, and the party broke up in angry disorder.

We were all on board by the appointed time on the following morning.

Captain Starkey received us with civil indifference, and I noticed that

the elaborate sneers which sat upon the countenances of Dupont and the

lieutenant did not appear in the slightest degree to ruffle or affect him;

but the averted eye and scornful air of Donna Antonia as she passed with

Señora Arguellas toward the cabin, drawing her mantilla tightly round her

as she swept by, as if—so I perhaps wrongfully interpreted the action—it

would be soiled by contact with a poltroon, visibly touched him—only,

however, for a few brief moments. The expression of pain quickly vanished,

and his countenance was as cold and stern as before. There was, albeit, it

was soon found, a limit to this, it seemed, contemptuous forbearance.

Dupont, approaching him, gave his thought audible expression, exclaiming,

loud enough for several of the crew to hear, and looking steadily in the

captain’s face: “_Lâche!_” He would have turned away, but was arrested by

a gripe of steel. “_Ecoutez_, monsieur,” said Captain Starkey:

“individually, I hold for nothing whatever you may say; but I am captain

and king in this ship, and I will permit no one to beard me before the

crew, and thereby lessen my authority over them. Do you presume again to

do so, and I will put you in solitary confinement, perhaps in irons, till

we arrive at Jamaica.” He then threw off his startled auditor, and walked

forward. The passengers, colored as well as white, were all on board; the

anchor, already apeak, was brought home; the bows of the ship fell slowly

off, and we were in a few moments running before the wind, though but a

faint one, for Point Morant.

No one could be many hours on board the _Neptune_ without being fully

satisfied that, however deficient in dueling courage her captain might be,

he was a thorough seaman, and that his crew—about a dozen of as fine

fellows as I have ever seen—were under the most perfect discipline and

command. The service of the vessel was carried on as noiselessly and

regularly as on board a ship of war; and a sense of confidence, that

should a tempest or other sea-peril overtake us, every reliance might be

placed in the professional skill and energy of Captain Starkey, was soon

openly or tacitly acknowledged by all on board. The weather throughout

happily continued fine, but the wind was light and variable, so that for

several days after we had sighted the blue mountains of Jamaica, we

scarcely appeared sensibly to diminish the distance between them and us.

At last the breeze again blew steadily from the northwest, and we

gradually neared Point Morant. We passed it, and opened up the bay at

about two o’clock in the morning, when the voyage might be said to be

over. This was a great relief to the cabin-passengers—far beyond the

ordinary pleasure to land-folk of escaping from the tedium of confinement

on shipboard. There was a constraint in the behavior of every body that

was exceedingly unpleasant. The captain presided at table with freezing

civility; the conversation, if such it could be called, was usually

restricted to monosyllables; and we were all very heartily glad that we

had eaten our last dinner in the _Neptune_. When we doubled Point Morant,

all the passengers except myself were in bed, and a quarter of an hour

afterward Captain Starkey went below, and was soon busy, I understood,

with papers in his cabin. For my part I was too excited for sleep, and I

continued to pace the deck fore and aft with Hawkins, the first-mate,

whose watch it was, eagerly observant of the lights on the well-known

shore, that I had left so many months before with but faint hopes of ever

seeing it again. As I thus gazed landward, a bright gleam, as of crimson

moonlight, shot across the dark sea, and turning quickly round, I saw that

it was caused by a tall jet of flame shooting up from the main hatchway,

which two seamen, for some purpose or other, had at the moment partially

opened. In my still weak state, the terror of the sight—for the

recollection of the barrels of powder on board flashed instantly across my

mind—for several moments completely stunned me, and but that I caught

instinctively, at the rattlings, I should have fallen prostrate on the

deck. A wild outcry of “Fire! fire!”—the most fearful cry that can be

heard at sea—mingled with and heightened the dizzy ringing in my brain,

and I was barely sufficiently conscious to discern, amid the runnings to

and fro, and the incoherent exclamations of the crew, the sinewy, athletic

figure of the captain leap up, as it were, from the companion-ladder to

the deck, and with his trumpet-voice command immediate silence, instantly

followed by the order again to batten down the blazing hatchway. This,

with his own assistance, was promptly effected, and then he disappeared

down the forecastle. The two or three minutes he was gone—it could

scarcely have been more than that—seemed interminable; and so completely

did it appear to be recognized that our fate must depend upon his judgment

and vigor, that not a word was spoken, nor a finger, I think, moved, till

he reappeared, already scorched and blackened with the fire, and dragging

up what seemed a dead body in his arms. He threw his burden on the deck,

and passing swiftly to where Hawkins stood, said in a low, hurried

whisper, but audible to me; “Run down and rouse the passengers, and bring

my pistols from the cabin-locker. Quick! Eternity hangs on the loss of a

moment.” Then turning to the startled but attentive seamen, he said in a

rapid but firm voice: “You well know, men, that I would not on any

occasion or for any motive deceive you. Listen, then, attentively. Yon

drunken brute—he is Lieutenant Arguellas’ servant—has fired with his

candle the spirits he was stealing, and the hold is a mass of fire which

it is useless to waste one precious moment in attempting to extinguish.”

A cry of rage and terror burst from the crew, and they sprang impulsively

toward the boats, but the captain’s authoritative voice at once arrested

their steps. “Hear me out, will you? Hurry and confusion will destroy us

all, but with courage and steadiness every soul on board may be saved

before the flames can reach the powder. And remember,” he added, as he

took his pistols from Hawkins and cocked one of them, “that I will send a

bullet after any man who disobeys me, and I seldom miss my aim. Now, then,

to your work—steadily, and with a will!”

It was marvelous to observe the influence his bold, confident, and

commanding bearing and words had upon the men. The panic-terror that had

seized them gave place to energetic resolution, and in an incredibly short

space of time the boats were in the water. “Well done, my fine fellows!

There is plenty of time, I again repeat. Four of you”—and he named

them—“remain with me. Three others jump into each of the large boats, two

into the small one, and bring them round to the landward side of the ship.

A rush would swamp the boats, and we shall be able to keep only one

gangway clear.”

The passengers were by this time rushing upon deck half-clad, and in a

state of the wildest terror, for they all knew there was a large quantity

of gunpowder on board. The instant the boats touched the starboard side of

the bark, the men, white as well as colored, forced their way with

frenzied eagerness before the women and children—careless, apparently,

whom they sacrificed so that they might themselves leap to the shelter of

the boats from the fiery volcano raging beneath their feet. Captain

Starkey, aided by the four athletic seamen he had selected for the duty,

hurled them fiercely back. “Back, back!” he shouted. “We must have funeral

order here—first the women and children, next the old men. Hand Señora

Arguellas along; next the young lady her daughter: quick!”

As Donna Antonia, more dead than alive, was about to be lifted into the

boat, a gush of flame burst up through the main hatchway with the roar of

an explosion; a tumultuous cry burst from the frenzied passengers, and

they jostled each other with frightful violence in their efforts to reach

the gangway. Dupont forced his way through the lane of seamen with the

energy of a madman, and pressed so suddenly upon Antonia that, but for the

utmost exertion of the captain’s Herculean strength, she must have been

precipitated into the water.

“Back, unmanly dastard! back, dog!” roared Captain Starkey, terribly

excited by the lady’s danger; and a moment after, seizing Dupont fiercely

by the collar, he added: “or if you will, look there but for a moment,”

and he pointed with his pistol-hand to the fins of several sharks plainly

visible in the glaring light at but a few yards’ distance from the ship.

“Men,” he added, “let whoever presses forward out of his turn fall into

the water.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” was the prompt mechanical response.

This terrible menace instantly restored order; the colored women and

children were next embarked, and the boat appeared full.

“Pull off,” was the order: “you are deep enough for safety.”

A cry, faint as the wail of a child, arose in the boat. It was heard and

understood.

“Stay one moment; pass along Señor Arguellas. Now, then, off with you, and

be smart!”

The next boat was quickly loaded; the colored lads and men, all but one,

and the three Americans, went in her.

“You are a noble fellow,” said Mr. Desmond, pausing an instant, and

catching at the captain’s hand; “and I was but a fool to—”

“Pass on,” was the reply: “there is no time to bandy compliments.”

The order to shove off had passed the captain’s lips when his glance

chanced to light upon me, as I leaned, dumb with terror, just behind him

against the vessel’s bulwarks.

“Hold on a moment!” he cried. “Here is a youngster whose weight will not

hurt you;” and he fairly lifted me over, and dropped me gently into the

boat, whispering as he did so: “Remember me, Ned, to thy father and mother

should I not see them again.”

There was now only the small boat, capable of safely containing but eight

persons, and how, it was whispered among us—how, in addition to the two

seamen already in her, can she take off Lieutenant Arguellas, M. Dupont,

the remaining colored man, the four seamen, and Captain Starkey? They

were, however, all speedily embarked except the captain.

“Can she bear another?” he asked, and although his voice was firm as ever,

his countenance, I noticed, was ashy pale, yet full as ever of unswerving

resolution.

“We must, and will, sir, since it’s you; but we are dangerously

overcrowded now, especially with yon ugly customers swimming round us.”

“Stay one moment; I can not quit the ship while there’s a living soul on

board.” He stepped hastily forward, and presently reappeared at the

gangway with the still senseless body of the lieutenant’s servant in his

arms, and dropped it over the side into the boat. There was a cry of

indignation, but it was of no avail. The boat’s rope the next instant was

cast into the water. “Now pull for your lives!” The oars, from the

instinct of self-preservation, instantly fell into the water, and the boat

sprang off. Captain Starkey, now that all except himself were clear of the

burning ship, gazed eagerly with eyes shaded with his hand in the

direction of the shore. Presently he hailed the headmost boat. “We must

have been seen from the shore long ago, and pilot-boats ought to be coming

out, though I don’t see any. If you meet one, bid him be smart: there may

be a chance yet.” All this scene, this long agony, which has taken me so

many words to depict very imperfectly from my own recollection, and those

of others, only lasted, I was afterward assured by Mr. Desmond, eight

minutes from the embarkation of Señora Arguellas till the last boat left

the ill-fated _Neptune_.

Never shall I forget the frightful sublimity of the spectacle presented by

that flaming ship, the sole object, save ourselves, discernible amidst the

vast and heaving darkness, if I may use the term, of the night and ocean,

coupled as it was with the dreadful thought that the heroic man to whose

firmness and presence of mind we all owed our safety was inevitably doomed

to perish. We had not rowed more than a couple of hundred yards when the

flames, leaping up every where through the deck, reached the rigging and

the few sails set, presenting a complete outline of the bark and her

tracery of masts and yards drawn in lines of fire! Captain Starkey, not to

throw away the chance he spoke of, had gone out to the end of the

bowsprit, having first let the jib and foresail go by the run, and was for

a brief space safe from the flames; but what was this but a prolongation

of the bitterness of death?

The boats continued to increase the distance between them and the blazing

ship, amidst a dead silence broken only by the measured dip of the oars;

and many an eye was turned with intense anxiety shoreward with the hope of

descrying the expected pilot. At length a distinct hail—and I felt my

heart stop heating at the sound—was heard ahead, lustily responded to by

the seamen’s throats, and presently afterward a swiftly-propelled

pilot-boat shot out of the thick darkness ahead, almost immediately

followed by another.

“What ship is that?” cried a man standing in the bows of the first boat.

“The _Neptune_, and that is Captain Starkey on the bowsprit!”

I sprang eagerly to my feet, and with all the force I could exert,

shouted: “A hundred pounds for the first boat that reaches the ship!”

“That’s young Mr. Mainwaring’s face and voice!” exclaimed the foremost

pilot. “Hurra, then, for the prize!” and away both sped with eager vigor,

but unaware certainly of the peril of the task. In a minute or so another

shore-boat came up, but after asking a few questions, and seeing how

matters stood, remained, and lightened us of a portion of our living

cargoes. We were all three too deep in the water, the small boat

perilously so.

Great God! the terrible suspense we all felt while this was going forward.

I can scarcely bear, even now, to think about it. I shut my eyes, and

listened with breathless, palpitating excitement for the explosion that

should end all. It came!—at least I thought it did, and I sprang

convulsively to my feet. So sensitive was my brain, partly no doubt from

recent sickness as well as fright, that I had mistaken the sudden shout of

the boats’ crews, for the dreaded catastrophe. The bowsprit, from the end

of which a rope was dangling, was empty! and both pilots, made aware

doubtless of the danger, were pulling with the eagerness of fear from the

ship. The cheering among us was renewed again and again, during which I

continued to gaze with arrested breath and fascinated stare at the flaming

vessel and fleeing pilot-boats. Suddenly a pyramid of flame shot up from

the hold of the ship, followed by a deafening roar. I fell, or was knocked

down, I know not which; the boat rocked as if caught in a fierce eddy;

next came the hiss and splash of numerous heavy bodies falling from a

great height into the water; and then the blinding glare and stunning

uproar were succeeded by a soundless silence and a thick darkness, in

which no man could discern his neighbor. The stillness was broken by a

loud, cheerful hail from one of the pilot-boats: we recognized the voice,

and the simultaneous and ringing shout which burst from us assured the

gallant seaman of our own safety, and how exultingly we all rejoiced in

his. Half an hour afterward we were safely landed; and as the ship and

cargo had been specially insured, the only ultimate evil result of this

fearful passage in the lives of the passengers and crew of the _Neptune_

was a heavy loss to the underwriters.

A piece of plate, at the suggestion of Mr. Desmond and his friends, was

subscribed for and presented to Captain Starkey at a public dinner given

at Kingston in his honor—a circumstance that many there will remember. In

his speech on returning thanks for the compliment paid him, he explained

his motive for resolutely declining to fight a duel with M. Dupont,

half-a-dozen versions of which had got into the newspapers. “I was very

early left an orphan,” he said, “and was very tenderly reared by a

maternal aunt, Mrs. ——.” (He mentioned a name with which hundreds of

newspaper readers in England must be still familiar). “Her husband—as many

here may be aware—fell in a duel in the second month of wedlock. My aunt

continued to live dejectedly on till I had passed my nineteenth year; and

so vivid an impression did the patient sorrow of her life make on me—so

thoroughly did I learn to loathe and detest the barbarous practice that

consigned her to a premature grave, that it scarcely required the solemn

promise she obtained from me, as the last sigh trembled on her lips, to

make me resolve never, under any circumstances, to fight a duel. As to my

behavior during the unfortunate conflagration of the _Neptune,_ which my

friend Mr. Desmond has spoken of so flatteringly, I can only say that I

did no more than my simple duty in the matter. Both he and I belong to a

maritime race, one of whose most peremptory maxims it is that the captain

must be the last man to quit or give up his ship. Besides, I must have

been the veriest dastard alive to have quailed in the presence of—of—that

is, in the presence of—circumstances which—in point of fact—that is—” Here

Captain Starkey blushed and boggled sadly: he was evidently no orator; but

whether it was the sly significance of Señor Arguellas’ countenance, which

just then happened to be turned toward him, or the glance he threw at the

gallery where Señora Arguellas’ grave placidity and Donna Antonia’s bright

eyes and blushing cheeks encountered him, that so completely put him out,

I can not say; but he continued to stammer painfully, although the company

cheered and laughed with great vehemence and uncommon good-humor, in order

to give him time. He could not recover himself; and after floundering

about through a few more unintelligible sentences sat down, evidently very

hot and uncomfortable, though amidst a little hurricane of hearty cheers

and hilarious laughter.

I have but a few more words to say. Captain Starkey has been long settled

at the Havanna; and Donna Antonia has been just as long Mrs. Starkey.

Three little Starkeys have to my knowledge already come to town, and the

captain is altogether a rich and prosperous man; but though apparently

permanently domiciled in a foreign country, he is, I am quite satisfied,

as true an Englishman, and as loyal a subject of Queen Victoria, as when

he threw the glass of wine in the Cuban Creole’s face. I don’t know what

has become of Dupont; and, to tell the truth, I don’t much care.

Lieutenant Arguellas has attained the rank of major: at least I suppose he

must be the Major Arguellas officially reported to be slightly wounded in

the late Lopez buccaneering affair. And I also am pretty well now, thank

you!

CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY.

Christmas-day came—presents were to be exchanged. My friend Albert B—— and

I were deputed to go to Bremen to make purchases, the choice thereof being

left to our discretion. This, be it understood, was for the behoof of some

of our gentlemen friends; the ladies had long been prepared with their

offerings, which almost, in every case, were the work of their own hands.

We started on foot; it was genial frosty weather. At Oslebshausen, which

is half-way, we rested, and took a glass of wine. Then we continued our

march, and at last caught sight of the windmill, which marks the entrance

to the town. Breakfast was the first thing to be thought of, so we went

and breakfasted in a house situated in a street called the “Bishop’s

Needle.” Then we hunted about in various shops, and finally arrived, not a

little laden, at the office of the Lesmona omnibus. Here we deposited our

goods, and secured our places; after which, as we had a couple of hours

before us, we repaired to Stehely and Jansen’s, the chief café of Bremen,

to pass the time and read the papers.

Toward dusk we reached Lesmona, and our constituents immediately selected,

each according to his taste, the articles we had brought them. For my

part, as I was that evening a guest at the house of my friend the pastor,

I betook myself thither with the trifling gifts I had bought for his

children. I was destined to receive in return presents from them and other

members of his family. How they were exchanged, I shall presently relate.

I begin at the beginning of the ceremony; for the celebration of

Christmas-day is, indeed, a ceremony in most parts of Germany.

The pastor’s house is, when you look at it in front, a long, low building,

with a prodigiously high thatched roof. If you go to the gable, however,

you will find that there are actually three stories in it, two being in

the said roof. The middle of the ground floor is occupied by a large hall,

which gives access to all the chambers, and has a branch leading to one

end of the edifice. At this end there is a door, on passing by which, you

find yourself in the place where the cows, pigs, and other animals are

kept. When I speak of the other animals, I should except the storks, who,

on their arrival in spring, from Egypt or elsewhere, find their usual

basket-work habitations about the chimneys all ready to receive them. One

would imagine, by the way, that they brought from their winter quarters

something like the superstition of the old inhabitants of the Nile valley,

so great is the worship of the Germans for these birds, and so

enthusiastically is their arrival hailed. No one would ever dare to murder

a stork. A similar protection is extended to nightingales. The consequense

is, that, being unmolested, the “solemn bird of night” becomes very tame.

In the suburbs of Hamburg are numerous villas, and there, in a friend’s

garden, I have passed and repassed under the bough where, within the reach

of my arm, a nightingale was singing. He not only showed no fear, but,

being of a vain character, as nightingales naturally are, he strained his

little throat the more that he saw I listened to him.

But to return to the pastor’s house. In the corner of the hall of which I

have spoken, was the “Christmas Tree.” Some of those who read these

sketches may have seen an engraving of Luther on a Christmas evening, his

wife and children beside him. The tree represented in that engraving was

the exact prototype of the one I now saw. It was of a species of fir, and

on all its branches were fixed small wax-tapers. These, at the given hour,

were lighted. Immediately, a procession of the village-school children

entered, and placed themselves in order. Then the pastor appeared, and

after a short prayer gave out a psalm. He conducted the music himself,

and, as he had for some time been teaching the young people a little

singing, it was much better than usual, more especially as there were no

braying men to spoil it. The air was that brave old composition of the

great reformer, _Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_ (“A strong tower is our

God”). Nothing nobler in psalmody exists.

After another short prayer, and a few words by way of speech, sundry

rewards and prizes were distributed. The greater part of these were the

handiwork of the pastor’s family. I refer, of course, to the useful

articles of dress and other things, which domestic female hands know how

to sew, and knit, and embroider. Many tracts were distributed. A blessing

was pronounced, and the children withdrew.

It was now our turn. The family assembled in the saloon—a fine apartment,

about thirty feet in length. A long table, covered with a white cloth,

extended down the centre. At this every one had his place—I among the

rest. But it was not for a repast. Each had previously entered and

deposited his or her Christmas boxes at the part of the table assigned to

those to whom they were offered. We all had thus a little heap. As the

greatest secresy is preserved up to the moment of the general entry, we

had all the pleasure of a surprise. The curiosity of the children, and

also of those who were not children, as they examined their gifts was most

amusing. I, for my part, received among other things the following:—Sundry

articles got up by the family fingers; a little box, covered with beads,

for holding lucifer-matches; a German toy, meant to be instructive; a long

chain in beads, intended for the decoration of a pipe. This pipe was in

sugar, and was accompanied by a note in verse. The note I still have, but

the pipe melted away in the damp of winter. I never could ascertain to

whom I was indebted for this gift.

A little later, evening worship was celebrated, and then we supped. Long

that night, after I had laid my head on my pillow, was I kept awake by the

thoughts raised by the kind, hearty, and genial character of those with

whom I had passed the evening, and of the good, old-fashioned, hearty

ceremony in which I had participated.

Many a merry Christmas to these my friends!

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE.

Of all Miracles, the most wonderful is that of Life—the common, daily life

which we carry about with us, and which every where surrounds us. The sun

and stars, the blue firmament, day and night, the tides and seasons, are

as nothing compared with it. Life—the soul of the world, but for which

creation were not!

It is our daily familiarity with Life, which obscures its wonders from us.

We live, yet remember it not. Other wonders attract our attention, and

excite our surprise; but this, the great wonder of the world, which

includes all others, is little regarded. We have grown up alongside of

Life, with Life within us and about us; and there is never any point in

our existence, at which its phenomena arrest our curiosity and attention.

The miracle is hid from us by familiarity, and we see it not.

Fancy the earth without Life!—its skeleton ribs of rock and mountain

unclothed by verdure, without soil, without flesh! What a naked, desolate

spectacle,—and how unlike the beautiful aspect of external nature in all

lands! Nature, ever-varied and ever-changing—coming with the spring, and

going to sleep with the winter—in constant rotation. The flower springs

up, blooms, withers, and falls, returning to the earth from whence it

sprung, leaving behind it the germs of future being; for nothing dies; not

even Life, which only gives up one form to assume another. Organization is

traveling in an unending circle.

The trees in summer put on their verdure; they blossom; their fruit

ripens—falls; what the roots gathered up out of the earth returns to earth

again; the leaves drop one by one, and decay, resolving themselves into

new forms, to enter into other organizations; the sap flows back to the

trunk; and the forest, wood, field, and brake compose themselves to their

annual winter’s sleep. In spring and summer the birds sang in the boughs,

and tended their young brood; the whole animal kingdom rejoiced in their

full bounding life; the sun shone warm, and nature rejoiced in greenness.

Winter lays its cold chill upon this scene; but the same scene comes round

again, and another spring recommences the same “never-ending, still

beginning” succession of vital changes. We learn to expect all this, and

become so familiar with it, that it seldom occurs to us to reflect how

much harmony and adaptation there is in the arrangement—how much of beauty

and glory there is every where, above, around, and beneath us.

But were it possible to conceive an intelligent being, abstracted from our

humanity, endowed with the full possession of mind and reason, all at once

set down on the earth’s surface—how many objects of surpassing interest

and wonder would at once force themselves on his attention. The verdant

earth, covered with its endless profusion of forms of vegetable life, from

the delicate moss to the oak which survives the revolutions of centuries;

the insect and animal kingdom, from the gnat which dances in the summer’s

sunbeams, up to the higher forms of sentient being; birds, beasts of

endless diversity of form, instinct, and color; and, above all, Man—“Lord

of the lion heart and eagle eye;”—these would, to such an intelligence, be

a source of almost endless interest.

It is life which is the grand glory of the world it was the consummation

of creative power, at which the morning stars sang together for joy. Is

not the sun glorious because there are living eyes to be gladdened by his

beams? is not the fresh air delicious because there are living creatures

to inhale and enjoy it? are not odors fragrant, and sounds sweet, and

colors gorgeous, because there is the living sensation to appreciate them?

Without Life, what were they all? What were a Creator himself, without

life, intelligence, understanding, to know and adore Him, and to trace His

finger in the works that He hath made?

Boundless variety and perpetual change are exhibited in the living beings

around us. Take the class of insects alone: of these, not fewer than

100,000 distinct species are already known and described; and every day is

adding to the catalogue. Wherever you penetrate, that life can be

sustained, you find living beings to exist; in the depths of ocean, in the

arid desert, or at the icy polar regions. The air teems with life. The

soil which clothes the earth all round, is swarming with life, vegetable

and animal. Take a drop of water, and examine it with a microscope: lo! it

is swarming with living creatures. Within Life, exists other life, until

it recedes before the powers of human vision. The parasitic animalcule,

which preys upon or within the body of a larger animal, is itself preyed

upon by parasites peculiar to itself. So minute are living animalcules,

that Ehrenberg has computed that not fewer than five hundred millions can

subsist in a single drop of water, and each of these monads is endowed

with its appropriate organs, possesses spontaneous power of motion, and

enjoys an independent vitality.

In the very ocean deeps, insects, by the labor of ages, are enabled to

construct islands, and lay the foundations of future continents. The coral

insect is the great architect of the southern ocean. First a reef is

formed; seeds are wafted to it, vegetation springs up, a verdant island

exists; then man takes possession, and a colony is formed.

Dig down into the earth, and from a hundred yards deep, throw up a portion

of soil—cover it so that no communication can take place between that

earth and the surrounding air. Soon you will observe vegetation springing

up—perhaps new plants, altogether unlike any thing heretofore grown in

that neighborhood. During how many thousands of years has the vitality of

these seeds been preserved deep in the earth’s bosom! Not less wonderful

is the fact stated by Lord Lindsay, who took from the hand of an Egyptian

mummy a tuber, which must have been wrapped up there more than 2000 years

before. It was planted, was rained and dewed upon, the sun shone on it

again, and the root grew, bursting forth and blooming into a beauteous

Dahlia!

At the North Pole, where you would expect life to become extinct, the snow

is sometimes found of a bright red color. Examine it by the microscope,

and, lo! it is covered with mushrooms, growing on the surface of the snow

as their natural abode.

A philosopher distills a portion of pure water, secludes it from the air,

and then places it under the influence of a powerful electric current.

Living beings are stimulated into existence, the _acari Crossii_ appear in

numbers! Here we touch on the borders of a great mystery; but it is not at

all more mysterious than the fact of Life itself. Philosophers know

nothing about it, further than it _is_. The attempt to discover its cause,

inevitably throws them back upon the Great First Cause. Philosophy takes

refuge in religion.

Yet man is never at rest in his speculations as to causes; and he

contrives all manner of theories to satisfy his demands for them. A

favorite theory nowadays is what is called the Development theory, which

proceeds on the assumption, that one germ of being was originally planted

on the earth, and that from this germ, by the wondrous power of Life, all

forms of vegetable and animal life have progressively been developed.

Unquestionably, all living beings are organized on one grand plan, and the

higher forms of living beings, in the process of their growth,

successively pass through the lower organized forms. Thus, the human being

is successively a monad, an a-vertebrated animal, an osseous fish, a

turtle, a bird, a ruminant, a mammal, and lastly an infant Man. Through

all these types of organization, Tiedemann has shown that the brain of man

passes.

This theory, however, does nothing to explain the causes of life, or the

strikingly diversified, and yet determinate characters of living beings;

why some so far transcend others in the stages of development to which

they ascend, and how it is that they stop there—how it is that animals

succeed each other in right lines, the offspring inheriting the physical

structure and the moral disposition of their parents, and never, by any

chance, stopping short at any other stage of being—man, for instance,

never issuing in a lion, a fish, or a polypus. We can scarcely conceive it

possible that, had merely the Germ of Being been planted on the earth, and

“set a-going,” any thing like the beautiful harmony and extra ordinary

adaptation which is every where observable throughout the animated

kingdoms of Nature, would have been secured. That there has been a grand

plan of organization, on which all living beings have been formed, seems

obvious enough; but to account for the diversity of being, by the theory

that plants and animals have gradually advanced from lower to higher

stages of being by an inherent power of self-development, is at variance

with known facts, and is only an attempt to get rid of one difficulty by

creating another far greater.

Chemists are equally at fault, in endeavoring to unvail the mysterious

processes of Life. Before its power they stand abashed. For Life controls

matter, and to a great extent overrules its combinations. An organized

being is not held together by ordinary chemical affinity; nor can

chemistry do any thing toward compounding organized tissues. The

principles which enter into the composition of the organized being are

few, the chief being charcoal and water, but into what wondrous forms does

Life mould these common elements! The chemist can tell you what these

elements are, and how they are combined, when dead; but when living, they

resist all his power of analysis. Rudolphi confesses that chemistry is

able to investigate only the lifeless remains of organized beings.

There are some remarkable facts connected with Animal Chemistry—if we may

employ the term—which show how superior is the principle of Life to all

known methods of synthesis and analysis. For example, much more carbon or

charcoal is regularly voided from the respiratory organs alone, of all

living beings—not to speak of its ejection in many other ways—than can be

accounted for, as having in any way entered the system. They also produce

and eject much more nitrogen than they inhale. The mushroom and mustard

plant, though nourished by pure water containing no nitrogen, give it off

abundantly; the same is the case with zoophytes attached to rocks at the

bottom of the sea; and reptiles and fishes contain it in abundance, though

living and growing in pure water only. Again, plants which grow on sand

containing not a particle of lime, are found to contain as much of this

mineral as those which grow in a calcareous soil; and the bones of animals

in New South Wales, and other districts where not an atom of lime is to be

found in the soil, or in the plants from which they gather their food,

contain the usual proportion of lime, though it remains an entire mystery

to the chemist where they can have obtained it. The same fact is

observable in the egg-shells of hens, where lime is produced in quantities

for which the kind of food taken is altogether inadequate to account: as

well as in the enormous deposits of coral-rock, consisting of almost pure

lime, without any manifest supply of that ingredient. Chemistry fails to

unravel these mysterious facts; nor can it account for the abundant

production of soda, by plants growing on a soil containing not an atom of

soda in any form: nor of gold in bezoards; nor of copper in some

descriptions of shell-fish. These extraordinary facts seem to point to

this—that many, if not most, of the elements which chemists have set down

as simple, because they have failed to reduce them further, are in reality

compound; and that what we regard as Elements, do not signify matters that

are undecompoundable, but which are merely undecompounded by chemical

processes. Life, however, which is superior to human powers of analysis,

resolves and composes the ultimate atoms of things after methods of its

own, but which to chemists will probably ever remain involved in mystery.

The last mystery of Life is Death. Such is the economy of living beings,

that the very actions which are subservient to their preservation, tend to

exhaust and destroy them. Each being has its definite term of life, and on

attaining its acme of perfection, it begins to decay, and at length ceases

to exist. This is alike true of the insect which perishes within the hour,

and of the octogenarian who falls in a ripe old age. Love provides for the

perpetuation of the species. “We love,” says Virey, “because we do not

live forever: we purchase love at the expense of our life.” To die, is as

characteristic of organized beings as to live. The one condition is

necessary to the other. Death is the last of life’s functions. And no

sooner has the mysterious principle of vitality departed, than the laws of

matter assert their power over the organized frame.

“Universal experience teaches us,” says Liebig, “that all organized

beings, after death, suffer a change, in consequence of which their bodies

gradually vanish from the surface of the earth. The mightiest tree, after

it is cut down, disappears, with the exception, perhaps of the bark, when

exposed to the action of the air for thirty or forty years. Leaves, young

twigs, the straw which is added to the soil as manure, juicy fruits, &c.,

disappear much more quickly. In a still shorter time, animal matters lose

their cohesion; they are dissipated into the air, leaving only the mineral

elements which they had derived from the soil.

“This grand natural process of the dissolution of all compounds formed in

living organizations, begins immediately after death, when the manifold

causes no longer act under the influence of which they were produced. The

compounds formed in the bodies of animals and of plants, undergo, in the

air, and with the aid of moisture, a series of changes, the last of which

are, the conversion of their carbon into carbonic acid, of their hydrogen

into water, of their nitrogen into ammonia, of their sulphur into

sulphuric acid. Thus their elements resume the forms in which they can

again serve as food to a new generation of plants and animals. Those

elements which had been derived from the atmosphere take the gaseous form

and return to the air; those which the earth had yielded, return to the

soil. Death, followed by the dissolution of the dead generation, is the

source of life for a new one. The same atom of carbon which, as a

constituent of a muscular fibre in the heart of a man, assists to propel

the blood through his frame, was perhaps a constituent of the heart of one

of his ancestors; and any atom of nitrogen in our brain has perhaps been a

part of the brain of an Egyptian or of a negro. As the intellect of the

men of this generation draws the food required for its development and

cultivation from the products of the intellectual activity of former

times, so may the constituents or elements of the bodies of a former

generation pass into, and become parts of our own frames.”

The greatest mystery of all remains. What of the Spirit—the Soul? The

vital principle which bound the frame together has been dissolved; what of

the Man, the being of high aspirations, “looking before and after,” and

whose “thoughts wandered through eternity?” The material elements have not

died, but merely assumed new forms. Does not the spirit of man, which is

ever at enmity with nothingness and dissolution, live too? Religion in all

ages has dealt with this great mystery, and here we leave it with

confidence in the solution which it offers.

PERSONAL SKETCHES AND REMINISCENCES. BY MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.(2)

Recollections Of Childhood.

Most undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. When I recollect certain passages

of my thrice happy early life, I can not have the slightest doubt about

the matter, although it contradicts all foregone conclusions, all nursery

and school-room morality, to say so. But facts are stubborn things. Spoilt

I was. Every body spoilt me, most of all the person whose power in that

way was greatest, the dear papa himself. Not content with spoiling me

in-doors, he spoilt me out. How well I remember his carrying me round the

orchard on his shoulder, holding fast my little three-year-old feet, while

the little hands hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle (those

were days of pig-tails), hung so fast, and tugged so heartily, that

sometimes the ribbon would come off between my fingers, and send his hair

floating, and the powder flying down his back. That climax of mischief was

the crowning joy of all. I can hear our shouts of laughter now.

Nor were these my only rides. This dear papa of mine, whose gay and

careless temper all the professional _etiquette_ of the world could never

tame into the staid gravity proper to a doctor of medicine, happened to be

a capital horseman; and abandoning the close carriage, which, at that

time, was the regulation conveyance of a physician, almost wholly to my

mother, used to pay his country visits on a favorite blood-mare, whose

extreme docility and gentleness tempted him, after certain short trials

round our old course, the orchard, into having a pad constructed, perched

upon which I might occasionally accompany him, when the weather was

favorable, and the distance not too great. A groom, who had been bred up

in my grandfather’s family, always attended us; and I do think that both

Brown Bess and George liked to have me with them almost as well as my

father did. The old servant proud, as grooms always are, of a fleet and

beautiful horse, was almost as proud of my horsemanship; for I, cowardly

enough, Heaven knows, in after-years, was then too young and too ignorant

for fear—if it could have been possible to have had any sense of danger

when strapped so tightly to my father’s saddle, and inclosed so fondly by

his strong and loving arm. Very delightful were those rides across the

breezy Hampshire downs on a sunny summer morning; and grieved was I when a

change of residence from a small town to a large one, and going among

strange people who did not know our ways, put an end to this perfectly

harmless, if somewhat unusual pleasure.

But the dear papa was not my only spoiler. His example was followed, as

bad examples are pretty sure to be, by the rest of the household. My maid

Nancy, for instance, before we left Hampshire, married a young farmer; and

nothing would serve her but I must be bridesmaid. And so it was settled.

She was married from her own home, about four miles from our house, and

was to go to her husband’s after the ceremony. I remember the whole scene

as if it were yesterday! How my father took me himself to the church-yard

gate, where the procession was formed, and how I walked next to the young

couple hand-in-hand with the bridegroom’s man, no other than the village

blacksmith, a giant of six-feet-three, who might have served as a model

for Hercules. Much trouble had he to stoop low enough to reach down to my

hand; and many were the rustic jokes passed upon the disproportioned pair,

who might fitly have represented Brobdignag and Liliput. My tall colleague

proved, however, as well-natured as giants commonly are every where but in

fairy tales, and took as good care of his little partner as if she had

been a proper match for him in age and size.

In this order, followed by the parents on both sides, and a due number of

uncles, aunts, and cousins, we entered the church, where I held the glove

with all the gravity and importance proper to my office; and so contagious

is emotion, and so accustomed was I to sympathize with Nancy, that when

the bride cried, I could not help crying for company. But it was a

love-match, and between smiles and blushes Nancy’s tears soon disappeared,

and so by the same contagion did mine. The happy husband helped his pretty

wife into her own chaise-cart, my friend the blacksmith lifted me in after

her, and we drove gayly to the large, comfortable farm-house where her

future life was to be spent.

It was a bright morning in May, and I still remember when we drove up to

the low wall which parted the front garden from the winding village road,

the mixture of affection and honest pride which lighted up the face of the

owner. The square, substantial brick house, covered with a vine, the brick

porch garlanded with honey-suckles and sweet-brier, the espalier

apple-trees on either side the path in full flower, the double row of

thrift with its dull pink bloom, the stocks and wall-flowers under the

window, the huge barns full of corn, the stacks of all shapes and sizes in

the rick-yard, cows and sheep and pigs and poultry told a pleasant tale of

rural comfort and rural affluence.

The bride was taken to survey her new dominions by her proud bridegroom,

and the blacksmith finding me, I suppose, easier to carry than lead,

followed close upon their steps with me in his arms.

Nothing could exceed the good-nature of my country beau; he pointed out

bantams and peafowls, and took me to see a tame lamb, and a tall,

staggering calf, born that morning; but for all that, I do not think I

should have submitted so quietly to the indignity of being carried, I, who

had ridden thither on Brown Bess, and was at that instant filling the

ostensible place of bridesmaid, if it had not been for the chastening

influence of a little touch of fear. Entering the poultry-yard I had

caught sight of a certain turkey-cock, who erected that circular tail of

his, and swelled out his deep-red comb and gills after a fashion familiar

to that truculent bird, but which up to the present hour I am far from

admiring. A turkey at Christmas well roasted with bread sauce, may have

his merits; but if I meet him alive in his feathers, especially when he

swells them out and sticks up his tail, I commonly get out of his way even

now, much more sixty years ago. So I let the blacksmith carry me.

Then we went to the dairy, so fresh and cool and clean—glittering with

cleanliness! overflowing with creamy riches! and there I had the greatest

enjoyment of my whole day, the printing with my own hands a pat of butter,

and putting it up in a little basket covered with a vine leaf, to take

home for the dear mamma’s tea. Then we should have gone to the kitchen,

the back kitchen, the brew-house, the wash-house, and the rest of the

bride’s new territories, but this part of the domicil was literally too

hot to hold us; the cooking of the great wedding dinner was in full

activity, and the bridegroom himself was forced to retreat before his

notable mother, who had come to superintend all things for the day.

So back we drew to the hall, a large square brick apartment, with a beam

across the ceiling, a wide yawning chimney, and wooden settles with backs

to them; where many young people being assembled, and one of them

producing a fiddle, it was agreed to have a country dance until dinner

should be ready, the bride and bridegroom leading off, and I following

with the bridegroom’s man.

Oh, the blunders, the confusion, the merriment of that country dance! No

two people attempted the same figure; few aimed at any figure at all; each

went his own way; many stumbled; some fell, and every body capered,

laughed, and shouted at once. My partner prudently caught me up in his

arms again, for fear of my being knocked down and danced over, which,

considering some of the exploits of some of the performers, seemed by no

means impossible, and would have been a worse catastrophe than an

onslaught of the turkey-cock.

A summons to dinner put an end to the glee. Such a dinner! The plenty of

Camacho’s wedding was but a type of my Nancy’s. Fish from the great pond,

roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, boiled fowls and a gammon of bacon, a

green goose and a sucking pig, plum puddings, apple pies, cheese-cakes and

custards, formed a part of the bill of fare, followed by home-brewed beer

and home-made wine, by syllabub, and by wedding cake. Every body ate

enough for four, and there was four times more than could by any

possibility be eaten. I have always thought it one of the strongest proofs

of sense and kindness in my pretty maid, that she rescued me from the

terrible hospitality of her mother-in-law, and gave me back unscathed into

my father’s hands, when, about three o’clock, he arrived to reclaim me.

The affluence and abundance of that gala day—the great gala of a

life-time—in that Hampshire farm-house, I have never seen surpassed.

This was my first appearance as a bridesmaid. My next, which took place

about a twelvemonth after, was of a very different description.

A first cousin of my father, the daughter of his uncle and guardian, had,

by the death of her mother’s brother, become a wealthy heiress; and

leaving her picturesque old mansion in Northumberland, Little Harle Tower,

a true border keep overhanging the Warsbeck, for a journey to what the

Northumbrians of that day emphatically call “the South,” came after a

season in London to pass some months with us. At our house she became

acquainted with the brother of a Scotch duke, an Oxford student, who,

passing the long vacation with his mother, had nothing better to do than

to fall in love. Each had what the other wanted—the lady money, the

gentleman rank; and as his family were charmed with the match, and hers

had neither the power nor the wish to oppose it, every thing was arranged

with as little delay as lawyers, jewelers, coach-makers, and mantua-makers

would permit.

How the first step in the business, the inevitable and awful ceremonial of

a declaration of love and a proposal of marriage, was ever brought about,

has always been to me one of the most unsolvable of mysteries—an enigma

without the word.

Lord Charles, as fine a young man as one should see in a summer’s day,

tall, well-made, with handsome features, fair capacity, excellent

education, and charming temper, had an infirmity which went nigh to render

all these good gifts of no avail: a shyness, a bashfulness, a timidity

most painful to himself, and distressing to all about him. It is not

uncommon to hear a quiet, silent man of rank unjustly suspected of pride

and haughtiness; but there could be no such mistake here—his

shamefacedness was patent to all men. I myself, a child not five years

old, one day threw him into an agony of blushing, by running up to his

chair in mistake for my papa. Now I was a shy child, a very shy child, and

as soon as I arrived in front of his lordship, and found that I had been

misled by a resemblance of dress, by the blue coat and buff waistcoat, I

first of all crept under the table, and then flew to hide my face in my

mother’s lap; my poor fellow-sufferer, too big for one place of refuge,

too old for the other, had nothing for it but to run away, which, the door

being luckily open, he happily accomplished.

That a man with such a temperament, who could hardly summon courage enough

to say, “How d’ye do?” should ever have wrought himself up to the point of

putting the great question, was wonderful enough; that he should have

submitted himself to undergo the ordeal of what was called in those days a

public wedding, was more wonderful still.

Perhaps the very different temper of the lady may offer some solution to

the last of these riddles; perhaps (I say it in all honor, for there is no

shame in offering some encouragement to a bashful suitor) it may assist us

in expounding them both.

Of a certainty, my fair cousin was pre-eminently gifted with those very

qualities in which her lover was deficient. Every thing about her was

prompt and bright, cheerful and self-possessed. Nearly as tall as himself,

and quite as handsome, it was of the beauty that is called showy—a showy

face, a showy figure, a showy complexion. We felt at a glance that those

radiant, well-opened, hazel eyes, had never quailed before mortal glance,

and that that clear, round cheek, red and white like a daisy, had never

been guilty of a blush in its whole life. Handsome as she was, it was a

figure that looked best in a riding-habit, and a face that of all

head-dresses, best became a beaver hat; just a face and figure for a

procession; she would not have minded a coronation: on the contrary, she

would have been enchanted to have been a queen-regent; but, as a

coronation was out of the question, she had no objection, taking the

publicity as a part of the happiness, to a wedding as grand as the

resources of a country town could make it.

So a wedding procession was organized, after the fashion of Sir Charles

Grandison, comprising the chief members of each family, especially of the

ducal one; an infinite number of brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces,

cousins and clansfolk, friends and acquaintances, all arranged in

different carriages, according to their rank; ladies, gentlemen, servants,

and horses, decorated with white and silver favors, in so long a line,

that it extended from Coley Avenue to St. Mary’s Church. The first

carriage, a low phaeton, drawn by ponies led by grooms, containing three

children, two of five and six years old, niece and nephew of the

bridegroom, who, with myself (already a lady of experience in that line),

were to officiate as bride-maidens and bridegroom’s man; the last, also an

open carriage, with only the bride and my dear papa, who gave her away.

How well I recollect the crowd of the street, the crowd of the

church-yard, the crowd of the church! There was no crying at this wedding

though; no crying, and far fewer smiles.

The young couple proceeded to Bath and Clifton from the church door; and

the rest of the procession returned to our house to eat bridecake, drink

to the health of the new-married pair, and be merry at their leisure;

after which many dispersed, but the members of the two families and the

more intimate friends remained to dinner; and in the confusion of

preparing to entertain so large a party, the servants, even those

belonging to the nursery, were engaged in different ways, and we children,

left to our own devices, and finding nearly the whole house free to our

incursions, betook ourselves to a game at hide-and-seek.

Now in honor of the day, and of the grand part we had filled in the grand

ceremony of the morning, we small people had been arrayed in white from

top to toe, Master Martin in a new suit of jean, richly braided, his

sister and myself in clear muslin frocks, edged with lace, and long

Persian sashes, the whole width of the silk, fringed with silver, while

all parties, little boy and little girls, had white beaver hats and heavy

ostrich plumes. We young ladies had, as matter of course, that instinctive

respect for our own finery which seems an innate principle in womankind;

moreover, we were very good children, quiet, orderly, and obedient. Master

Martin, on the other hand, our elder by a year, had some way or other

imbibed the contempt at once for fine clothes and for the authorities of

the nursery, which is not uncommon among his rebellious sex: so the first

time it fell to his lot to hide, he ensconced himself in the very

innermost recesses of the coal-hole, from which delightful retirement he

was dragged, after a long search, by his own maid, who had at last

awakened from the joys of gossiping and making believe to help in the

housekeeper’s room, to the recollection that Lady Mary might possibly

inquire after her children. The state of his apparel and of her temper may

be more easily imagined than described. He, duke’s grandson though he

were, looked like nothing better or worse than a chimney-sweeper. She

stormed like a fury. But as all the storming in the world would not

restore the young gentleman or his bridal suit to their pristine state of

cleanliness, she took wit in her anger and put him to bed, as a measure

partly of punishment, partly of concealment; the result of which was, that

he, the culprit, thoroughly tired with excitement and exercise, with play

and display, and well stuffed with dainties to keep him quiet, was

consigned to his comfortable bed, while we, pattern little girls, had to

undergo the penalty of making our appearance and our courtesies in the

drawing-room, among all the fine folks of _our_ Camacho’s wedding, and to

stay there, weariest of the many weary, two or three hours beyond our

accustomed time. With so little justice are the rewards and punishments of

this world distributed—even in the nursery!

Married Poets.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Robert Browning.

Married poets! Charming words are these, significant of congenial gifts,

congenial labor, congenial tastes;—quick and sweet resources of mind and

of heart, a long future of happiness, live in those two words. And the

reality is as rare as it is charming. Married authors we have had of all

ages and of all countries; from the Daciers, standing stiff and stately

under their learning, as if it were a load, down to the Guizots, whose

story is so pretty, that it would sound like a romance to all who did not

know how often romance looks pale beside reality; from the ducal pair of

Newcastle, walking stately and stiff under their strawberry-leafed

coronets, to William and Mary Howitt, ornaments of a sect to whom coronets

are an abomination. Married authors have been plentiful as blackberries,

but married poets have been rare indeed! The last instance, too, was

rather a warning than an example. When Caroline Bowles changed her own

loved and honored name to become the wife of the great and good man Robert

Southey, all seemed to promise fairly, but a slow and fatal disease had

seized him even before the wedding-day, and darkened around him to the

hour of his death. In the pair of whom I am now to speak, the very reverse

of this sad destiny has happily befallen, and the health of the bride,

which seemed gone forever, has revived under the influence of the climate

of Italy, of new scenes, new duties, a new and untried felicity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is too dear to me as a friend to be spoken of

merely as a poetess. Indeed such is the influence of her manners, her

conversation, her temper, her thousand sweet and attaching qualities, that

they who know her best are apt to lose sight altogether of her learning

and of her genius, and to think of her only as the most charming person

that they have ever met. But she is known to so few, and the peculiar

characteristics of her writings, their purity, their tenderness, their

piety, and their intense feeling of humanity and of womanhood, have won

for her the love of so many, that it will gratify them without, I trust,

infringing on the sacredness of private intercourse to speak of her not

wholly as a poetess, but a little as a woman. When in listening to the

nightingale, we try to catch a glimpse of the shy songster, we are moved

by a deeper feeling than curiosity.

My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years

ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons that I had ever

seen. Every body who then saw her said the same; so that it is not merely

the impression of my partiality, or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate

figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most

expressive face, large tender eyes richly fringed by dark eye-lashes, a

smile like a sun-beam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some

difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to

Chiswick, that the translatress of the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, the

authoress of the “Essay on Mind,” was old enough to be introduced into

company, in technical language, was _out_. Through the kindness of another

invaluable friend, to whom I owe many obligations, but none so great as

this, I saw much of her during my stay in town. We met so constantly and

so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of age, intimacy ripened

into friendship, and after my return into the country, we corresponded

freely and frequently, her letters being just what letters ought to be—her

own talk put upon paper.

The next year was a painful one to herself and to all who loved her. She

broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, which did not heal. If there had been

consumption in the family that disease would have intervened. There were

no seeds of the fatal English malady in her constitution, and she escaped.

Still, however, the vessel did not heal, and after attending her for above

a twelvemonth at her father’s house in Wimpole-street, Dr. Chambers, on

the approach of winter, ordered her to a milder climate. Her eldest

brother, a brother in heart and in talent worthy of such a sister,

together with other devoted relatives, accompanied her to Torquay, and

_there_ occurred the fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, and

gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially of devotional

feeling, to her poetry. I have so often been asked what could be the

shadow that had passed over that young heart, that now that time has

softened the first agony it seems to me right that the world should hear

the story of an accident in which there was much sorrow, but no blame.

Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the invalid, still attended by her

affectionate companions, had derived much benefit from the mild sea

breezes of Devonshire. One fine summer morning her favorite brother,

together with two other fine young men, his friends, embarked on board a

small sailing-vessel, for a trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors all,

and familiar with the coast, they sent back the boatmen, and undertook

themselves the management of the little craft. Danger was not dreamt of by

any one; after the catastrophe, no one could divine the cause, but in a

few minutes after their embarkation, and in sight of their very windows,

just as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and all who were

in her perished. Even the bodies were never found. I was told by a party

who was traveling that year in Devonshire and Cornwall, that it was most

affecting to see on the corner houses of every village street, on every

church-door, and almost on every cliff for miles and miles along the

coast, handbills, offering large rewards for linens cast ashore marked

with the initials of the beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the

three were of the dearest and the best; one, I believe, an only son, the

other the son of a widow.

This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. She was utterly prostrated

by the horror and the grief, and by a natural but a most unjust feeling,

that she had been in some sort the cause of this great misery. It was not

until the following year that she could be removed in an invalid carriage,

and by journeys of twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family and her

London home. The house that she occupied at Torquay had been chosen as one

of the most sheltered in the place. It stood at the bottom of the cliffs,

almost close to the sea; and she told me herself, that during that whole

winter the sound of the waves rang in her ears like the moans of one

dying. Still she clung to literature and to Greek; in all probability she

would have died without that wholesome diversion to her thoughts. Her

medical attendant did not always understand this. To prevent the

remonstrances of her friendly physician, Dr. Barry, she caused a small

edition of Plato to be so bound as to resemble a novel. He did not know,

skillful and kind though he were, that to her such books were not an

arduous and painful study, but a consolation and a delight.

Returned to London, she began the life which she continued for so many

years, confined to one large and commodious but darkened chamber admitting

only her own affectionate family and a few devoted friends (I, myself,

have often joyfully traveled five-and-forty miles to see her, and returned

the same evening, without entering another house); reading almost every

book worth reading in almost every language, and giving herself, heart and

soul, to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess.

Gradually her health improved. About four years ago she married Mr.

Browning, and immediately accompanied him to Pisa. They then settled at

Florence; and this summer I have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her

once more in London, with a lovely boy at her knee, almost as well as

ever, and telling tales of Italian rambles, of losing herself in chestnut

forests, and scrambling on mule-back up the sources of extinct volcanoes.

May Heaven continue to her such health and such happiness!

The same visit to London that brought me acquainted with my beloved

friend, Elizabeth Barrett, first gave me a sight of Mr. Browning. It was

at a period that forms an epoch in the annals of the modern drama—the

first representation of “Ion.”

I had the honor and pleasure of being the inmate of Mr. and Mrs. Serjeant

Talfourd (my accomplished friend has since worthily changed his

professional title—but his higher title of poet is indelible), having

been, I believe, among the first who had seen that fine play in

manuscript. The dinner party consisted merely of Mr. Wordsworth, Mr.

Landor, and I think Mr. Forster. By a singular coincidence it was our

host’s birthday, and no one present can forget the triumph of the

evening—a triumph of no common order as regarded the number, the quality,

or the enthusiasm of the audience; the boxes being crammed to the ceiling,

and the pit filled, as in an elder day, with critics and gentlemen.

A large party followed the poet home to supper, a party comprising

distinguished persons of almost every class; lawyers, authors, actors,

artists, all were mingled around that splendid board; healths were drunk

and speeches spoken, and it fell to the lot of the young author of

“Paracelsus” to respond to the toast of “The Poets of England.” That he

performed this task with grace and modesty, and that he looked still

younger than he was, I well remember; but we were not introduced, and I

knew him only by those successive works which redeemed the pledge that

“Paracelsus” had given, until this very summer, when going to London

purposely to meet my beloved friend, I was by her presented to her

husband. Ah! I hope it will not be fifteen years before we look each other

in the face again!

Incidents Of A Visit At The House Of William Cobbett.

The name of Blamire has always a certain interest for me, in consequence

of a circumstance, which, as it took place somewhere about five-and-forty

years ago, and has reference to a flirtation of twenty years previous,

there can not now be much harm in relating.

Being with my father and mother on a visit about six miles from

Southampton, we were invited by a gentleman of the neighborhood to meet

the wife and daughters of a certain Dr. Blamire. “An old friend of yours

and mine,” quoth our inviter to my father. “Don’t you remember how you

used to flirt with the fair lady when you and Babington were at Haslar?

Faith, if Blamire had not taken pity on her, it would have gone hard with

the poor damsel! However, he made up to the disconsolate maiden, and she

got over it. Nothing like a new love for chasing away an old one. You must

dine with us to-morrow. I shall like to see the meeting.”

My father did not attempt to deny the matter. Men never do. He laughed, as

all that wicked sex do laugh at such sins twenty years after, and

professed that he should be very glad to shake hands with his old

acquaintance. So the next day we met.

I was a little curious to see how my own dear mother, my mamma that was,

and the stranger lady, my mamma that might have been, would bear

themselves on the occasion. At first, my dear mother, an exceedingly

ladylike, quiet person, had considerably the advantage, being prepared for

the _recontre_ and perfectly calm and composed; while Mrs. Blamire, taken,

I suspect, by surprise, was a good deal startled and flustered. This state

of things, however, did not last. Mrs. Blamire having got over the first

shock, comported herself like what she evidently was, a practiced woman of

the world—would talk to no one but ourselves—and seemed resolved not only

to make friends with her successful rival, but to strike up an intimacy.

This by no means entered into my mother’s calculations. As the one

advanced the other receded, and, keeping always within the limits of

civility, I never heard so much easy chat put aside with so many cool and

stately monosyllables in my life.

The most diverting part of this scene, very amusing to a stander-by, was,

that my father, the only real culprit, was the only person who throughout

maintained the appearance and demeanor of the most unconscious innocence.

He complimented Mrs. Blamire on her daughters (two very fine

girls)—inquired after his old friend, the Doctor, who was attending his

patients in a distant town—and laughed and talked over bygone stories with

the one lady, just as if he had not jilted her—and played the kind and

attentive husband to the other, just as if he had never made love to any

body except his own dear wife.

It was one of the strange domestic comedies which are happening around us

every day, if we were but aware of them, and might probably have ended in

a renewal of acquaintance between the two families but for a dispute that

occurred toward the end of the evening between Mrs. Blamire and the friend

in whose house we were staying, which made the lady resolve against

accepting his hospitable invitations, and I half suspect hurried her off a

day or two before her time.

This host of ours was a very celebrated person—no other than William

Cobbett. Sporting, not politics, had brought about our present visit and

subsequent intimacy. We had become acquainted with Mr. Cobbett two or

three years before, at this very house, where we were now dining to meet

Mrs. Blamire. Then my father, a great sportsman, had met him while on a

coursing expedition near Alton—had given him a grayhound that he had

fallen in love with—had invited him to attend another coursing meeting

near our own house in Berkshire—and finally, we were now, in the early

autumn, with all manner of pointers, and setters, and grayhounds, and

spaniels, shooting ponies, and gun-cases, paying the return visit to him.

He had at that time a large house at Botley, with a lawn and gardens

sweeping down to the Bursledon River, which divided his (Mr. Cobbett’s)

territories from the beautiful grounds of the old friend where we had been

originally staying, the great squire of the place. His own house—large,

high, massive, red, and square, and perched on a considerable

eminence—always struck me as not being unlike its proprietor. It was

filled at that time almost to overflowing. Lord Cochrane was there, then

in the very height of his warlike fame, and as unlike the common notion of

a warrior as could be. A gentle, quiet, mild young man, was this burner of

French fleets and cutter-out of Spanish vessels, as one should see in a

summer day. He lay about under the trees reading Selden on the Dominion of

the Seas, and letting the children (and children always know with whom

they may take liberties) play all sorts of tricks with him at their

pleasure. His ship’s surgeon was also a visitor, and a young midshipman,

and sometimes an elderly lieutenant, and a Newfoundland dog; fine

sailor-like creatures all. Then there was a very learned clergyman, a

great friend of Mr. Gifford, of the “Quarterly,” with his wife and

daughter—exceedingly clever persons. Two literary gentlemen from London

and ourselves completed the actual party; but there was a large

fluctuating series of guests for the hour, or guests for the day, of

almost all ranks and descriptions, from the earl and his countess to the

farmer and his dame. The house had room for all, and the hearts of the

owners would have had room for three times the number

I never saw hospitality more genuine, more simple, or more thoroughly

successful in the great end of hospitality, the putting every body

completely at ease. There was not the slightest attempt at finery, or

display, or gentility. They called it a farm-house, and every thing was in

accordance with the largest idea of a great English yeoman of the old

time. Every thing was excellent—every thing abundant—all served with the

greatest nicety by trim waiting damsels; and every thing went on with such

quiet regularity that of the large circle of guests not one could find

himself in the way. I need not say a word more in praise of the good wife,

very lately dead, to whom this admirable order was mainly due. She was a

sweet, motherly woman, realizing our notion of one of Scott’s most

charming characters, _Ailie Dinmont_, in her simplicity, her kindness, and

her devotion to her husband and her children.

At this time William Cobbett was at the height of his political

reputation; but of politics we heard little, and should, I think, have

heard nothing, but for an occasional red-hot patriot, who would introduce

the subject, which our host would fain put aside, and get rid of as

speedily as possible. There was something of _Dandie Dinmont_ about him,

with his unfailing good-humor and good spirits—his heartiness—his love of

field sports, and his liking for a foray. He was a tall, stout man, fair,

and sun-burnt, with a bright smile, and an air compounded of the soldier

and the farmer, to which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat

contributed not a little. He was, I think, the most athletic and vigorous

person that I have ever known. Nothing could tire him. At home in the

morning he would begin his active day by mowing his own lawn, beating his

gardener, Robinson, the best mower, except himself, in the parish, at that

fatiguing work.

For early rising, indeed, he had an absolute passion, and some of the

poetry that we trace in his writings, whenever he speaks of scenery or of

rural objects, broke out in his method of training his children into his

own matutinal habits. The boy who was first down stairs was called the

lark for the day, and had, among other indulgences, the pretty privilege

of making his mother’s nosegay, and that of any lady visitors. Nor was

this the only trace of poetical feeling that he displayed. Whenever he

described a place, were it only to say where such a covey lay, or such a

hare was found sitting, you could see it, so graphic—so vivid—so true was

the picture. He showed the same taste in the purchase of his beautiful

farm at Botley, Fairthorn; even in the pretty name. To be sure, he did not

give the name, but I always thought that it unconsciously influenced his

choice in the purchase. The beauty of the situation certainly did. The

fields lay along the Bursledon River, and might have been shown to a

foreigner as a specimen of the richest and loveliest English scenery. In

the cultivation of his garden, too, he displayed the same taste. Few

persons excelled him in the management of vegetables, fruit, and flowers.

His green Indian corn—his Carolina beans—his water-melons, could hardly

have been exceeded at New York. His wall-fruit was equally splendid, and

much as flowers have been studied since that day, I never saw a more

glowing or a more fragrant autumn garden than that at Botley, with its

pyramids of hollyhocks, and its masses of china-asters, of cloves, of

mignonnette, and of variegated geranium. The chances of life soon parted

us, as, without grave faults on either side, people do lose sight of one

another; but I shall always look back with pleasure and regret to that

visit.

While we were there, a grand display of English games, especially of

single-stick and wrestling, took place under Mr. Cobbett’s auspices.

Players came from all parts of the country—the south, the west, and the

north—to contend for fame and glory, and also, I believe, for a

well-filled purse; and this exhibition which—quite forgetting the

precedent set by a certain princess, _de jure_, called Rosalind, and

another princess, _de facto_, called Celia—she termed barbarous, was the

cause of his quarrel with my mamma that might have been, Mrs. Blamire.

In my life I never saw two people in a greater passion. Each was

thoroughly persuaded of being in the right, either would have gone to the

stake upon it, and of course the longer they argued the more determined

became their conviction. They said all manner of uncivil things; they

called each other very unpretty names; she got very near to saying, “Sir,

you’re a savage;” he did say, “Ma’am, you’re a fine lady;” they talked,

both at once, until they could talk no longer, and I have always

considered it as one of the greatest pieces of Christian forgiveness that

I ever met with, when Mr. Cobbett, after they had both rather cooled down

a little, invited Mrs. Blamire to dine at his house the next day. She,

less charitable, declined the invitation, and we parted.

As I have said, my father and he had too much of the hearty English

character in common not to be great friends; I myself was somewhat of a

favorite (I think because of my love for poetry, though he always said

not), and I shall never forget the earnestness with which he congratulated

us both on our escape from such a wife and such a mother. “She’d have been

the death of you!” quoth he, and he believed it. Doubtless, she, when we

were gone, spoke quite as ill of him, and believed it also. Nevertheless,

excellent persons were they both; only they had quarreled about the

propriety or the impropriety of a bout at single-stick! Such a thing is

anger!

A Reminiscence Of The French Emigration.

In my childhood I knew many of the numerous colony which took refuge in

London from the horrors of the First French Revolution. The lady at whose

school I was educated, and he was so much the more efficient partner that

it was his school rather than hers, had married a Frenchman, who had been

secretary to the Comte de Moustiers, one of the last embassadors, if not

the very last, from Louis Seize to the Court of St. James’s. Of course he

knew many emigrants of the highest rank, and indeed of all ranks; and

being a lively, kind-hearted man, with a liberal hand, and a social

temper, it was his delight to assemble as many as he could of his poor

countrymen and countrywomen around his hospitable supper-table.