Something wonderful and admirable it was to see how these dukes and

duchesses, marshals and marquises, chevaliers and bishops, bore up under

their unparalleled reverses! How they laughed and talked, and squabbled,

and flirted, constant to their high heels, their rouge, and their

furbelows, to their old liaisons, their polished sarcasms, their cherished

rivalries! They clung even to their _marriages de convenance_, and the

very habits which would most have offended our English notions, if we had

seen them in their splendid hôtels of the Faubourg St. Germain, won

tolerance and pardon when mixed up with such unaffected constancy, and

such cheerful resignation.

For the most part these noble exiles had a trifling pecuniary dependency;

some had brought with them jewels enough to sustain them in their simple

lodgings in Knightsbridge or Pentonville, to some a faithful steward

contrived to forward the produce of some estate too small to have been

seized by the early plunderers; to others a rich English friend would

claim the privilege of returning the kindness and hospitality of by-gone

years. But very many lived literally on the produce of their own industry,

the gentlemen teaching languages, music, fencing, dancing, while their

wives and daughters went out as teachers or governesses, or supplied the

shops with those objects of taste in millinery or artificial flowers for

which their country is unrivaled. No one was ashamed of these exertions;

no one was proud of them. So perfect and so honest was the simplicity with

which they entered upon this new course of life, that they did not even

seem conscious of its merit. The hope of better days carried them gayly

along, and the present evil was lost in the sunshiny future.

Here and there, however, the distress was too real, too pressing to be

forgotten; in such cases our good schoolmaster used to contrive all

possible measures to assist and to relieve. One venerable couple I

remember well. They bore one of the highest names of Brittany, and had

possessed large estates, had lost their two sons, and were now in their

old age, their sickness, and their helplessness, almost entirely dependent

upon the labor of Mdlle. Rose, their grand-daughter. Rose—what a name for

that pallid, drooping creature, whose dark eyes looked too large for her

face, whose bones seemed starting through her skin, and whose black hair

contrasted even fearfully with the wan complexion from which every tinge

of healthful color had long flown!

For some time these interesting persons regularly attended our worthy

governess’s supper-parties, the objects of universal affection and

respect. Each seemed to come for the sake of the other; Mademoiselle,

always bringing with her some ingenious straw-plaiting to make into the

fancy bonnets which were then in vogue, rarely raised her head from her

work, or allowed herself time to make a hasty meal. It was sad to think

how ceaseless must be the industry by which that fair and fragile creature

could support the helpless couple who were cast upon her duty and her

affection! At last they ceased to appear at the Wednesday parties, and

very soon after (Oh! it is the poor that help the poor!) we heard that the

good Abbé Calonne (brother to the well-known minister) had undertaken for

a moderate stipend the charge of the venerable count and countess, while

Mdlle. Rose, with her straw-plaiting, took up her abode in our

school-room, working as indefatigably through our verbs and over our

exercises as she had before done through the rattle of the tric-trac table

and the ceaseless clatter of French talk.

Now this school of ours was no worse than other schools; indeed it was

reckoned among the best conducted, but some way or other the foul weed

called exclusiveness had sprung up among the half dozen great girls who,

fifty years ago, “gave our little senate laws,” to a point that threatened

to choke and destroy every plant of a more wholesome influence. Doubtless,

long, long ago the world and the world’s trials, prosperity with the

weariness and the bitterness it brings, adversity with the joys it takes

away, have tamed those proud hearts! But, at the time of which I speak, no

committee of countesses deciding upon petitions for vouchers for a

subscription ball; no chapter of noble canonesses examining into the

sixteen quarters required for their candidate; could by possibility

inquire more seriously into the nice questions of station, position, and

alliance than the unfledged younglings who constituted our first class.

They were merely gentlemen’s daughters, and had no earthly right to give

themselves airs; but I suspect that we may sometimes see in elder

gentlewomen the same disproportion, and that those who might, from birth,

fortune, and position assume such a right, will be the very last to exert

their privilege. Luckily for me I was a little girl, protected by my youth

and insignificance from the danger of a contagion which it requires a good

deal of moral courage to resist. I remember wondering how Mdlle. Rose,

with her incessant industry, her open desire to sell her bonnets, and her

shabby cotton gown, would escape from our censors. Happily she was spared,

avowedly because her birth was noble—perhaps because, with all their

vulgar denunciations of vulgarity, their fineries, and their vanities, the

young girls were better than they knew, and respected in their hearts the

very humility which they denounced.

If, however, there was something about the fair Frenchwoman that held in

awe the spirit of girlish impertinence, chance soon bestowed upon them, in

the shape of a new pupil, an object which called forth all their worst

qualities, without stint and without impediment.

The poor child who was destined to become their victim, was a short, squat

figure, somewhere about nine or ten years of age; awkward in her carriage,

plain in her features, ill-dressed and over-dressed. She happened to

arrive at the same time with the French dancing-master, a marquis of the

_ancien régime_, of whom I am sorry to say, that he seemed so at home in

his Terpsichorean vocation, that no one could hardly fancy him fit for any

other. (Were not _les marquis_ of the old French comedy very much like

dancing-masters? I am sure Molière thought so.) At the same time with the

French dancing-master did our new fellow-pupil arrive, led into the room

by her father; he did not stay five minutes, but that time was long enough

to strike Monsieur with a horror evinced by a series of shrugs which soon

rendered the dislike reciprocal. I never saw such a contrast between two

men. The Frenchman was slim, and long, and pale; and allowing always for

the dancing-master air, which in my secret soul I thought never could be

allowed for, he might be called elegant. The Englishman was the beau ideal

of a John Bull, portentous in size, broad, and red of visage; loud of

tongue, and heavy in step; he shook the room as he strode, and made the

walls echo when he spoke. I rather liked the man, there was so much

character about him, and in spite of the coarseness, so much that was bold

and hearty. Monsieur shrugged to be sure, but he seemed likely to run

away, especially when the stranger’s first words conveyed an injunction to

the lady of the house “to take care that no grinning Frenchman had the

ordering of his Betsy’s feet. If she must learn to dance, let her be

taught by an honest Englishman.” After which declaration, kissing the

little girl very tenderly, the astounding papa took his departure.

Poor Betsy! there she sat, the tears trickling down her cheeks, little

comforted by the kind notice of the governess and the English teacher, and

apparently insensible to the silent scorn of her new companions. For my

own part, I entertained toward her much of that pity which results from

recent experience of the same sort of distress—

“A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.”

I was a little girl myself, abundantly shy and awkward, and I had not

forgotten the heart-tug of leaving home, and the terrible loneliness of

the first day at school. Moreover, I suspected that in one respect, she

was much more an object of compassion than myself; I believed her to be

motherless; so when I thought nobody was looking or listening, I made some

girlish advances toward acquaintanceship, which she was still too shy or

too miserable to return, so that, easily repelled myself, as a bashful

child is, our intercourse came to nothing. With my elders and betters, the

_cancan_, who ruled the school, Betsy stood if possible lower than ever.

They had had the satisfaction to discover not only that he lived in the

Borough, but that her father (horror of horrors!) was an eminent

cheese-factor!—a seller of Stilton! That he was very rich, and had a

brother an alderman, rather made matters worse. Poor Betsy only escaped

being sent to Coventry by the lucky circumstance of her going that

metaphorical journey of her own accord, and never under any temptation

speaking to any body one unnecessary word.

As far as her lessons went she was, from the false indulgence with which

she had been treated, very backward for her age. Our school was, however,

really excellent as a place of instruction: so no studies were forced upon

her, and she was left to get acquainted with the house and its ways, and

to fall into the ranks as she could.

For the present she seemed to have attached herself to Mdlle. Rose,

attracted probably by the sweetness of her countenance, her sadness, and

her silence. Her speech could not have attracted Betsy, for in common with

many of her exiled country-folk, she had not in nearly ten years’

residence in England learned to speak five English words. But something

had won her affection. She had on first being called by the governess,

from the dark corner in which she had ensconced herself, crept to the side

of the young Frenchwoman, had watched her as she wove her straw plaits,

had attempted the simple art with some discarded straws that lay scattered

upon the floor; and when Mademoiselle so far roused herself as to show her

the proper way, and to furnish her with the material, she soon became a

most efficient assistant in this branch of industry.

No intercourse took place between them. Indeed, as I have said, none was

possible, since neither knew a word of the other’s language. Betsy was

silence personified; and poor Mdlle. Rose, always pensive and reserved,

was now more than ever dejected and oppressed. An opportunity of returning

to France had opened to her, and was passing away. She herself was too

young to be included in the list of emigrants, and interest had been made

with the French Consul for the re-admission of her venerable parents, and

perhaps for the ultimate recovery of some property still unsold. But her

grandfather was so aged, and her grandmother so sickly, that the expenses

of a voyage and a journey, then very formidable to the old and the infirm,

were beyond her means, beyond even her hopes. So she sighed over her

straw-plaiting, and submitted.

In the mean time the second Saturday arrived, and with it a summons home

to Betsy, who, for the first time gathering courage to address our good

governess, asked “if she might be trusted with the bonnet Mdlle. Rose had

just finished, to show her aunt—she knew she would like to buy that

bonnet, because Mademoiselle had been so good as to let her assist in

plaiting it.” How she came to know that they were for sale nobody could

tell; but our kind governess ordered the bonnet to be put into the

carriage, told her the price—(no extravagant one!)—called her a good

child, and took leave of her till Monday.

Two hours after Betsy and her father re-appeared in the school-room.

“Ma’amselle,” said he, bawling as loud as he could, with the view, as we

afterward conjectured, of making her understand him. “Ma’amselle, I’ve no

great love for the French, whom I take to be our natural enemies. But

you’re a good young woman; you’ve been kind to my Betsy, and have taught

her how to make your fallals; and moreover you’re a good daughter: and

so’s my Betsy. She says that she thinks you’re fretting, because you can’t

manage to take your grandfather and grandmother back to France again;—so

as you let her help you in that other handy-work, why you must let her

help you in this.” Then throwing a heavy purse into her lap, catching his

little daughter up in his arms, and hugging her to the honest breast where

she hid her tears and her blushes, he departed, leaving poor Mdlle. Rose

too much bewildered to speak or to comprehend the happiness that had

fallen upon her, and the whole school the better for the lesson.

THE DREAM OF THE WEARY HEART.

The Weary Heart lay restlessly on his bed, distracted with the strife of

the day. Wearied indeed was he in heart, and wavering in the simple faith

which had blessed his childhood. The world was no more beautiful to him,

his fellow-man was no more trustworthy, and heaven was no longer regarded

as his distant, though native home. One thing only seemed, to his changed

heart, the same; it was the ever-varying, ever-constant moon, which shed

her broad, fair light as serenely on his aching brow as when he nestled, a

happy child, upon his mother’s breast.

Soothed by this pure light, the Weary Heart slept at length; and in his

sleep, his troubled and toil-worn mind went back—back to the early hours

of life—back to the lone old house, so loved in childhood, so seldom

thought of now. In this old home all seemed yet unchanged, and he would

fain have busied himself in tracing out memories of the past; but a low

sweet voice bade him gaze steadfastly on the lozenge panes of the long

lattice window, where the sun of the early spring-tide was shining gayly

through the mazy branches of the old elm-tree, and bordering its traceries

with glimpses of purple and golden light. But gradually, and even as he

looked, the sun became brighter and hotter, and as his heat momentarily

strengthened, Weary Heart saw the green leaves creep out, one by one, and

place themselves daily between the window and the sun, so as to intercept

his fiercest rays; until at length, when the sun had attained his greatest

power, these leaves were all arranged so as to shade the window, as a bird

overshadows her young; and the room was as much refreshed by the cool

green light, as it had formerly been gladdened by the spring-tide beams.

Then Weary Heart was softened; yet he feared to breathe, lest the dread

winter-time should come, when the cool leaves which brought balm to his

heart, should fall away from him and die.

Gradually, however, the sun became lower in the heavens, and his heat was

less fervid upon the earth. Then the leaves went noiselessly away, in the

same order in which they had come. One by one, they crept silently out of

sight, like earnest hearts whose mission is fulfilled; and yet so glad

were they for the consciousness of the good which they had been given

power to do, that when the Weary Heart observed them more closely, he

could see how bright a glow of joy decked even their dying moments, and in

how frolicsome a dance many of them delighted ere they lay down on the

cold earth to die.

The dark winter had now come on, and anxiously poor Weary Heart watched

the lozenged panes. He saw the branches stand up bare and desolate against

the gray and chilly sky; but soon he saw beautiful things come and sport

upon them. The snow piled itself in fairy ridgeways along the boughs, and

even on the slenderest twigs; then the sun would shine brightly out for an

hour at mid-day, and melt the quiet snow, and the laughing drops would

chase each other along the branches, sometimes losing all identity, each

in the bosom of its fellow—sometimes falling in glittering showers to the

ground. [And he saw that it was from these glittering showers that the

snowdrops sprang]. Then, when the sun was gone down, the frost would come;

and in the morning the silver drops would be found, spell-bound in their

mirth; some hanging in long, clear pendants, full of bright lights and

beautiful thoughts, far above the rest—and others, shorter and less

brilliant, with one part transparent, and another part looking more like

the snow of which they were born. But these last always hung hand-in-hand.

And when the sun came out again by day, these were always the last to

disappear; for they also were like faithful and kindly hearts. They were

partly raised far above their original nature, and yet they still bore

many traces of the source from whence they sprang. And when the beautiful

crystals faded away like the brilliant yet chilly mind, which has no

sympathy or trust for its fellows, the others would still remain,

hand-in-hand, to cheer and deck the naked tree.

Sometimes, too, in the early days of February, the sun would shine

fiercely out ere the green leaves had come to shade the room at noon-day;

but then came a winged messenger to sit on the dry branches, and to tell

the Weary Heart, in a sweet song, that the real spring was not _yet_ upon

the earth; but that at the right time the leaves would most surely

reappear, and “fail not.” And when he had repeated his message, he would

add another stanza, and tell how _he_ needed the shady foliage even more

than man himself, but that he pined not for it, because _he knew_ that to

all things there was an appointed season; and that when his nesting-time

came, so would the green leaves come also to shelter and encircle the

frail home of his young ones.

The pale moon went down, and the day broke upon the earth, and Weary Heart

went forth to his daily toil. But he bore not with him the fevered mind

and the throbbing pulse which had been his companions for long and dreary

months. His vision had faded, but the green leaves were ever before his

eyes. The song of his dream-bird rang not in his ears, but his faith and

trust were restored to him; and he once more took his place in creation as

an elevated, yet dependent child of Heaven—one in the mighty brotherhood

of human hearts—one in the band of willing students of the teachings of

the glorious sun and stars, of the opening flowers and the sparkling

streams, of the singing birds and the ever-varying clouds, of every form

of beauty in which God has written his message of love, and of mercy, and

of truth, for man’s behoof.

NEW DISCOVERIES IN GHOSTS.

Eclipses have been ascribed sometimes to the hunger of a great dragon, who

eats the sun, and leaves us in the dark until the blazing orb has been

mended. Numerous instances are ready to the memory of any one of us, in

illustration of the tendency existing among men to ascribe to

supernatural, fantastic causes, events wonderful only by their rarity. All

that we daily see differs from these things no more than inasmuch as it is

at the same time marvelous and common. We know very well that the moon,

seen once by all, would be regarded as an awful spectre: open only to the

occasional vision of a few men, no doubt she would be scouted by a large

party as a creation of their fancy altogether.

The list of facts that have been scouted in this way, corresponds pretty

exactly to the list of human discoveries, down to the recent improvements

in street-lighting and steam locomotion. The knowledge of the best of us

is but a little light which shines in a great deal of darkness. We are all

of us more ignorant than wise. The proportion of knowledge yet lying

beyond the confines of our explorations, is as a continent against a

cabbage garden. Yet many thousands are contented to believe, that in this

little bit of garden lies our all, and to laugh at every report made to

the world by people who have ventured just to peep over the paling. It is

urged against inquiries into matters yet mysterious—mysterious as all

things look under the light of the first dawn of knowledge—Why should we

pry into them, until we know that we shall be benefited by the information

we desire? All information is a benefit. All knowledge is good. Is it for

man to say, “What is the use of seeing?”

We are in the present day upon the trace of a great many important facts

relating to the imponderable agencies employed in nature. Light, heat, and

electricity are no longer the simple matters, or effects of matter, that

they have aforetime seemed to be. New wonders point to more beyond. In

magnetism, the researches of Faraday and others, are beginning to open in

our own day, the Book of Nature, at a page of the very first importance to

the naturalist; but the contents of which until this time have been wholly

unsuspected. Behind a cloudy mass of fraud and folly, while the clouds

shift, we perceive a few dim stars, to guide us toward the discovery of

wondrous truths. There are such truths which will hereafter illustrate the

connection, in many ways still mysterious, between the body of man and the

surrounding world. Wonderful things have yet to be revealed, on subjects

of a delicate and subtle texture. It behooves us in the present day,

therefore, to learn how we may keep our tempers free from prejudice, and

not discredit statements simply because they are new and strange, nor, on

the other hand, accept them hastily without sufficient proof.

On questionable points, which are decided by research and weight of

evidence, it would be well if it were widely understood that it is by no

means requisite for every man to form an Ay or Nay opinion. Let those who

have no leisure for a fair inquiry play a neutral part. There are hundreds

of subjects which we have never examined, nor ever could or can examine,

upon which we are all, nevertheless, expressing every day stubborn

opinions. We all have to acquire some measure of the philosophic mind, and

be content to retain a large army of thoughts, equipped each thought with

its crooked bayonet, a note of interrogation. In reasoning, also, when we

do reason, we have to remember fairly that “not proven” does not always

mean untrue. And in accepting matters on testimony, we must rigidly

preserve in view the fact, that, except upon gross objects of sense, very

few of us are qualified by training as observers. In drawing delicate

conclusions from the complex and most dimly comprehended operations of the

human frame observed in men and women, the sources of fallacy are very

numerous. To detect and acknowledge these, to get rid of them

experimentally, is very difficult, even to the most candid and enlightened

mind.

I have no faith in ghosts, according to the old sense of the word, and I

could grope with comfort through any amount of dark old rooms, or midnight

aisles, or over church-yards, between sunset and cock-crow. I can face a

spectre. Being at one time troubled with illusions, I have myself crushed

a hobgoblin by sitting on its lap. Nevertheless, I do believe that the

great mass of “ghost stories,” of which the world is full, has not been

built entirely upon the inventions of the ignorant and superstitious. In

plain words, while I, of course, throw aside a million of idle fictions,

or exaggerated facts, I do believe in ghosts—or, rather, spectres—only I

do not believe them to be supernatural.

That, in certain states of the body, many of us in our waking hours

picture as vividly as we habitually do in dreams, and seem to see or hear

in fair reality that which is in our minds, is an old fact, and requires

no confirmation. An ignorant or superstitious man fallen into this state,

may find good reason to tell ghost stories to his neighbors. Disease, and

the debility preceding death, make people on their death-beds very liable

to plays of this kind on their failing faculties; and one solemnity, or

cause of dread, thus being added to another, seems to give the strength of

reason to a superstitious feeling.

Concerning my own experience, which comes under the class of natural

ghost-seeing, above mentioned, I may mention in good faith that, if such

phantoms were worth recalling, I could fill up an hour with the narration

of those spectral sights and sounds which were most prominent among the

illusions of my childhood. Sights and sounds were equally distinct and

life-like. I have run up-stairs obedient to a spectral call. Every

successive night for a fortnight, my childish breath was stilled by the

proceedings of a spectral rat, audible, never visible. It nightly, at the

same hour, burst open a cupboard door, scampered across the floor, and

shook the chair by my bedside. Wide awake and alone in the broad daylight,

I have heard the voices of two nobodies gravely conversing, after the

absurd dream fashion, in my room. Then as for spectral sights: During the

cholera of 1832, I, then a boy, walking in Holborn, saw in the sky, the

veritable flaming sword which I had learned by heart out of a picture in

an old folio of “Paradise Lost.” And round the fiery sword there was a

regular oval of blue sky to be seen through parted clouds. It was a fact

not unimportant, that this phantom sword did not move with my eye, but

remained for some time, apparently, only in one part of the heavens. I

looked aside and lost it. When I looked back there was the image still.

There are hallucinations which arise from a disordered condition of the

nervous system; they are the seeing or the hearing of what is not, and

they are not by any means uncommon. Out of these there must, undoubtedly,

arise a large number of well-attested stories of ghosts, seen by one

person only. Such ghosts ought to excite no more terror than a twinge of

rheumatism, or a nervous headache.

There can be no doubt, however, that, in our minds or bodies, there are

powers latent, or nearly latent, in the ordinary healthy man, which, in

some peculiar constitutions, or under the influence of certain agents, or

certain classes of disease, become active, and develop themselves in an

extraordinary way. It is not very uncommon to find people who have

acquired intuitive perception of each other’s current thoughts, beyond

what can be ascribed to community of interests, or comprehension of

character.

Zschokke, the German writer and teacher, is a peculiarly honorable and

unimpeachable witness. What he affirms, as of his own knowledge, we have

no right to disbelieve. Many of us have read the marvelous account given

by him of his sudden discovery, that he possessed the power in regard to a

few people—by no means in regard to all—of knowing, when he came near to

them, not only their present thoughts, but much of what was in their

memories. The details will be found in his Autobiography, which, being

translated, has become a common book among us. When, for the first time,

while conversing with some person, he acquired a sense of power over the

secrets of that person’s past life, he gave, of course, little heed to his

sensation. Afterward, as from time to time the sense recurred, he tested

the accuracy of his impressions, and was alarmed to find that, at certain

times, and in regard to certain persons, the mysterious knowledge was

undoubtedly acquired. Once when a young man at the table with him was

dismissing very flippantly all manner of unexplained phenomena as the

gross food of ignorance and credulity, Zschokke requested to know what he

would say if he, a stranger, by aid of an unexplained power, should be

able to tell him secrets out of his past life. Zschokke was defied to do

that; but he did it. Among other things he described a certain upper room,

in which there was a certain strong box, and from which certain moneys,

the property of his master, had been abstracted by that young man; who,

overwhelmed with astonishment, confessed the theft.

Many glimmerings of intuition, which at certain times occur in the

experience of all of us, and seem to be something more than shrewd or

lucky guesses, may be referred to the same power which we find, in the

case just quoted, more perfectly developed. Nothing supernatural, but a

natural gift, imperceptible to us in its familiar, moderate, and healthy

exercise, brought first under our notice when some deranged adjustment of

the mind has suffered it to grow into excess—to be, if we may call it so,

a mental tumor.

We may now come to a new class of mysteries—which are receiving, for the

first time in our own day, a rational solution.

The blind poet, Pfeffel, had engaged, as amanuensis, a young Protestant

clergyman, named Billing. When the blind poet walked abroad, Billing also

acted as his guide. One day, as they were walking in the garden, which was

situated at a distance from the town, Pfeffel observed a trembling of his

guide’s arm whenever they passed over a certain spot. He asked the cause

of this, and extracted from his companion the unwilling confession, that

over that spot he was attacked by certain uncontrollable sensations, which

he always felt where human bodies had been buried. At night, he added,

over such spots, he saw uncanny things. “This is great folly,” Pfeffel

thought, “and I will cure him of it.” The poet went, therefore, that very

night into the garden. When they approached the place of dread, Billing

perceived a feeble light, which hovered over it. When they came nearer, he

saw the delicate appearance of a fiery, ghost-like form. He described it

as the figure of a female with one arm across her body, and the other

hanging down, hovering upright and motionless over the spot, her feet

being a few hand-breadths above the soil. The young man would not approach

the vision, but the poet beat about it with his stick, walked through it,

and seemed to the eyes of Billing like a man who beats about a light

flame, which always returns to its old shape. For months, experiments were

continued, company was brought to the spot, the spectre remained visible

always in the dark, but to the young man only, who adhered firmly to his

statement, and to his conviction that a body lay beneath. Pfeffel at last

had the place dug up, and, at a considerable depth, covered with lime,

there was a skeleton discovered. The bones and the lime were dispersed,

the hole was filled up, Billing was again brought to the spot by night,

but never again saw the spectre.

This ghost story, being well attested, created a great sensation. In the

curious book, by Baron Reichenbach, translated by Dr. Gregory, it is

quoted as an example of a large class of ghost stories which admit of

explanation upon principles developed by his own experiments.

The experiments of Baron Reichenbach do not, indeed, establish a new

science, though it is quite certain that they go far to point out a new

line of investigation, which promises to yield valuable results. So much

of them as concerns our subject may be very briefly stated. It would

appear that certain persons, with disordered nervous systems, liable to

catalepsy, or to such affections, and also some healthy persons who are of

a peculiar nervous temperament, are more sensitive to magnetism than their

neighbors. They are peculiarly acted upon by the magnet, and are,

moreover, very much under the influence of the great magnetic currents of

the earth. Such people sleep tranquilly when they are reposing with their

bodies in the earth’s magnetic line, and are restless, in some cases

seriously affected, if they lie across that line, on beds with the head

and foot turned east and west, matters of complete indifference to the

healthy animal. These “sensitives” are not only affected by the magnet,

but they are able to detect, by their sharpened sense, what we may

reasonably suppose to exist, a faint magnetic light: they see it streaming

from the poles of a magnet shown to them, in a room absolutely dark; and

if the sensibility be great, and the darkness perfect, they see it

streaming also from the points of fingers, and bathing in a faint halo the

whole magnet or the whole hand. Furthermore, it would appear that the

affection by the magnet of these sensitives does not depend upon that

quality by which iron filings are attracted; that, perfectly independent

of the attractive force, there streams from magnets, from the poles of

crystals, from the sun and moon, another influence to which the discoverer

assigns the name of Odyle. The manifestation of Odyle is accompanied by a

light too faint for healthy vision, but perceptible at night by

“sensitives.” Odyle is generated among other things by heat, and by

chemical action. It is generated, therefore, in the decomposition of the

human body. I may now quote from Reichenbach, who, having given a

scientific explanation upon his own principles, of the phenomena perceived

by Billing, thus continues:

“The desire to inflict a mortal wound on the monster, Superstition, which,

from a similar origin, a few centuries ago, inflicted on European society

so vast an amount of misery, and by whose influence not hundreds, but

thousands of innocent persons died in tortures, on the rack and at the

stake; this desire made me wish to make the experiment, if possible, of

bringing a highly sensitive person, by night, to a churchyard. I thought

it possible that they might see, over graves where mouldering bodies lay,

something like that which Billing had seen. Mademoiselle Reichal had the

courage, unusual in her sex, to agree to my request. She allowed me, on

two very dark nights, to take her from the Castle of Reisenberg, where she

was residing with my family, to the cemetery of the neighboring village of

Grünzing.

“The result justified my expectations in the fullest measure. She saw,

very soon, a light, and perceived, on one of the grave mounds, along its

whole extent, a delicate, fiery, as it were a breathing flame. The same

thing was seen on another grave, in a less degree. But she met neither

witches nor ghosts. She described the flame as playing over the graves in

the form of a luminous vapor, from one to two spans in height.

“Some time afterward I took her to two great cemeteries, near Vienna,

where several interments occur daily, and the grave mounds lie all about

in thousands. Here she saw numerous graves, which exhibited the lights

above described. Wherever she looked, she saw masses of fire lying about;

but it was chiefly seen over all new graves, while there was no appearance

of it over very old ones. She described it less as a clear flame than as a

dense, vaporous mass of fire, holding a middle place between mist and

flame. On many graves this light was about four feet high, so that when

she stood on the grave, it reached to her neck. When she thrust her hand

into it, it was as if putting it into a dense fiery cloud. She betrayed

not the slightest uneasiness, as she was, from her childhood, accustomed

to such emanations, and had seen, in my experiments, similar lights

produced by natural means, and made to assume endless varieties of form. I

am convinced that all who are, to a certain degree, sensitive, will see

the same phenomena in cemeteries, and very abundantly in the crowded

cemeteries of large cities; and that my observations may be easily

repeated and confirmed.” These experiments were tried in 1844. A

postscript was added in 1847. Reichenbach had taken five other sensitive

persons, in the dark, to cemeteries. Of these, two were sickly, three

quite healthy. All of them confirmed the statements of Mademoiselle

Reichel, and saw the lights over all new graves more or less distinctly;

“so that,” says the philosopher, “the fact can no longer admit of the

slightest doubt, and may be every where controlled.”

“Thousands of ghost stories,” he continues, “will now receive a natural

explanation, and will thus cease to be marvelous. We shall even see that

it was not so erroneous or absurd as has been supposed, when our old women

asserted, as every one knows they did, that not every one was privileged

to see the spirits of the departed wandering over their graves. In fact,

it was at all times only the sensitive who could see the imponderable

emanations from the chemical change going on in corpses, luminous in the

dark. And thus I have, I trust, succeeded in tearing down one of the

densest vails of darkened ignorance and human error.”

So far speaks Reichenbach; and for myself, reverting to the few comments

with which we set out, I would suggest, that Reichenbach’s book, though it

is very likely to push things too far—to fancy the tree by looking at the

seed—is yet not such a book as men of sense are justified in scouting. The

repetition of his experiments is very easy if they be correct. There are

plenty of “sensitives” to be found in our London hospitals and streets and

lanes. Unluckily, however, though we live in an age which produces, every

day, new marvels, the old spirit of bigotry, which used to make inquiry

dangerous in science and religion, still prevails in the minds of too many

scientific men. To be incredulous of what is new and strange, until it has

been rigidly examined and proved true, is one essential element of a mind

seeking enlightenment. But, to test and try new things is equally

essential. Because of doubting, to refuse inquiry, is because of hunger to

refuse our food. For my own part, I put these matters into the livery of

that large body of thoughts already mentioned, which walk about the human

mind, armed each with a note of interrogation. This only I see, that, in

addition to the well-known explanations of phenomena which produce some

among the many stories of ghosts and of mysterious forebodings, new

explanations are at hand which will reduce into a natural and credible

position many other tales by which we have till recently been puzzled.

KEEP HIM OUT!

“What noise is that?” said a judge disturbed in the hearing of a case.

“It’s a man, my lord,” was the answer of the doorkeeper. “What does he

want?” “He wants to get in, my lord.” “Well, keep him out!”

The audience is comfortably seated; the case is going forward; to make

room for the newcomer, some must shift their seats, and perhaps be jostled

about a little; so they are all perfectly satisfied with the judge’s

dictum of “Keep him out.”

You have yourself been in an omnibus when a stout passenger has presented

himself to the conductor, and petitioned for a place. You are all snugly

seated—why should you be disturbed? “The seats are full!” “Keep him out!”

But the intruder is in, he presses forward to the inner corner, perhaps

treading on some testy gentleman’s toes. How you hate that new-comer,

until you get fairly “shook down” and settled again in your places! The

door opens again—another passenger! “Keep him out!” cry the company, and

strange to say, the loudest vociferator of the whole, is the very

passenger who last came in. He in his turn becomes conservative, after

having fairly got a place inside.

It is the same through life. There is a knocking from time to time at the

door of the constitution. “What’s that noise?” ask the men in power. “It’s

a lot of men, my lords and gentlemen.” “What do they want?” “They want to

come in.” “Well, keep them out!” And those who are comfortably seated

within the pale, re-echo the cry of “Keep them out.” Why should they be

disturbed in their seats, and made uncomfortable?

But somehow, by dint of loud knocking, the men, or a rush of them, at

length do contrive to get in; and after sundry shovings and jostlings,

they get seated, and begin to feel comfortable, when there is another

knocking louder than before. Would you believe it? the last accommodated

are now the most eager of all to keep the door closed against the

new-comers; and “Keep them out!” is their vociferous cry.

Here is a batch of learned men debating the good of their order. They are

considering how their profession may be advanced. What is the gist of

their decisions?—the enactment of laws against all intruders upon their

comfort and quiet. They make their calling a snug monopoly, and contrive

matters so that as few as possible are admitted to share the good things

of their class. “Keep them out!” is the cry of all the learned

professions.

“Keep them out!” cry the barristers, when the attorneys claim to be

admitted to plead before certain courts. “Keep them out!” cry the

attorneys, when ordinary illegal men claim to argue a case before the

county court. “Keep her out!” cry both barristers and attorneys, when Mrs.

Cobbett claims to be heard in her imprisoned husband’s cause. “What! a

woman plead in the courts? If such a thing be allowed, who knows where

such license is to end?” And she is kept out accordingly.

“Keep them out!” cry the apothecaries, when a surgeon from beyond the

Tweed or the Irish Channel claims to prescribe and dispense medicine to

English subjects. “Keep them out!” cry the doctors, when the Homœopathists

offer the public their millionth-grain doses. “Keep them out!” cry

physicians and surgeons and apothecaries of all ranks, when it is proposed

to throw open the profession to the female sex.

But you find the same cry among the working classes of every grade.

Mechanics and tradesmen insist on all applicants for admission to their

calling serving long apprenticeships. If the apprenticeships are not

served, then “Keep them out!” is the word. Shoulder to shoulder they

exclude the applicants for leave to toil. “Knobsticks” are pelted. They

must join the union—must be free of the craft—must conform to the

rules—subscribe to the funds—pay the footings, and so on; otherwise they

are kept out with a vengeance.

In the circles of fashion the same cry is frequent. A new man appears in

society. “Who is he?” “Only So-and-so!” He is a retired grocer, or as

Cobbett called Sadler, “a linen-draper;” and the exclusive class

immediately club together for the purpose of “Keeping him out.” He is

“cut.” Even the new man of high-sounding title is accounted as nothing

among the old families who boast of their “blue blood.” Wealth goes a

great way, but still that does not compensate for the accident of birth

and connections among these classes.

Every class has its own standard. The money classes have theirs too. Even

tradesmen and their wives go in sets, and there is always some class

outside their own set, which they contrive to “keep out.” The aristocratic

contagion thus extends from the highest to the verge of the lowest class

of society in England. Is not monopoly the rule among us, whenever we can

find an opportunity of establishing it? Monopoly or exclusivism in art, in

theology, in trade, in literature, in sociology. Look at the forty Royal

Academicians setting their backs up against every new-comer in art, and

combining with one accord to “Keep him out.” That is the monopoly of art;

and people at large call it a humbug; but they are not more tolerant or

wise when their own craft comes to be dealt with. Each in his turn is

found ready to combine with somebody else, to “keep out” all intruders on

their special preserves. The “Flaming Tinman,” in Lavengro, pummels and

puts to flight the poor tinker who intrudes upon his beat; the costers

combine to keep out freshmen from theirs; English navvies band together to

drive Irish navvies off their contracts; and Irish tenants pick off, from

behind a hedge, the intruders upon their holdings. Even the searchers of

the sewers maintain a kind of monopoly of their unholy calling, and will

recognize no man as a brother who has not been duly initiated in the

mysteries of the search. The sewer-searcher is as exclusive in his way as

the leader of fashion at Almacks. “Keep him out!” is, in short, the

watchword of all classes, of all ranks, of all callings, of all crafts, of

all interests. We used to “keep out” the foreign corn-grower, but though

he may now come in, there is exclusiveness and monopoly in ten thousand

other forms, which no legislation can ever touch.

STORY OF REMBRANDT.

At a short distance from Leyden may still be seen a flour-mill with a

quaint old dwelling-house attached, which bears, on a brick in a corner of

the wide chimney, the date of 1550. Here, in 1606, was born Paul

Rembrandt. At an early age, he manifested a stubborn, independent will,

which his father tried in vain to subdue. He caused his son to work in the

mill, intending that he should succeed him in its management; but the boy

showed so decided a distaste for the employment, that his father resolved

to make him a priest, and sent him to study at Leyden. Every one knows,

however, that few lads of fifteen, endowed with great muscular vigor and

abundance of animal spirits, will take naturally and without compulsion to

the study of Latin grammar. Rembrandt certainly did not; and his obstinacy

proving an overmatch for his teacher’s patience, he was sent back to the

mill, when his father beat him so severely, that next morning he ran off

to Leyden, without in the least knowing how he should live there.

Fortunately he sought refuge in the house of an honest artist, Van

Zwaanenberg, who was acquainted with his father.

“Tell me, Paul,” asked his friend, “what do you mean to do with yourself,

if you will not be either a priest or a miller? They are both honorable

professions: one gives food to the soul, the other prepares it for the

body.”

“Very likely,” replied the boy; “but I don’t fancy either; for in order to

be a priest, one must learn Latin; and to be a miller, one must bear to be

beaten. How do _you_ earn your bread?”

“You know very well I am a painter.”

“Then I will be one, too, Herr Zwaanenberg; and if you will go to-morrow

and tell my father so, you will do me a great service.”

The good-natured artist willingly undertook the mission, and acquainted

the old miller with his son’s resolution.

“I want to know one thing,” said Master Rembrandt, “will he be able to

gain a livelihood by painting?”

“Certainly, and perhaps make a fortune.”

“Then if you will teach him, I consent.”

Thus Paul became the pupil of Van Zwaanenberg, and made rapid progress in

the elementary parts of his profession. Impatient to produce some finished

work, he did not give himself time to acquire purity of style, but

astonished his master by his precocious skill in grouping figures, and

producing marvelous effects of light and shade. The first lessons which he

took in perspective having wearied him, he thought of a shorter method,

and _invented_ perspective for himself.

One of his first rude sketches happened to fall into the hands of a

citizen of Leyden who understood painting. Despite of its evident defects,

the germs of rare talent which it evinced struck the burgomaster; and

sending for the young artist, he offered to give him a recommendation to a

celebrated painter living at Amsterdam, under whom he would have far more

opportunity of improvement than with his present instructor.

Rembrandt accepted the offer, and during the following year toiled

incessantly. Meantime his finances were dreadfully straitened; for his

father, finding that the expected profits were very tardy, refused to give

money to support his son, as he said, in idleness. Paul, however, was not

discouraged. Although far from possessing an amiable or estimable

disposition, he held a firm and just opinion of his own powers, and

resolved to make these subservient first to fortune and then to fame. Thus

while some of his companions, having finished their preliminary studies,

repaired to Florence, to Bologna, or to Rome, Paul, determined, as he

said, not to lose his own style by becoming an imitator of even the

mightiest masters, betook himself to his paternal mill. At first his

return resembled that of the Prodigal Son. His father believed that he had

come to resume his miller’s work; and bitter was his disappointment at

finding his son resolved not to renounce painting.

With a very bad grace he allowed Paul to displace the flour-sacks in an

upper loft, in order to make a sort of studio, lighted by only one narrow

window in the roof. There Paul painted his first finished picture. It was

a _portrait_ of the mill. There, on the canvas, was seen the old miller,

lighted by a lantern which he carried in his hand, giving directions to

his men, occupied in ranging sacks in the dark recesses of the granary.

One ray falls on the fresh, comely countenance of his mother, who has her

foot on the last step of a wooden staircase.(3) Rembrandt took this

painting to the Hague, and sold it for 100 florins. In order to return

with more speed, he took his place in the public coach. When the

passengers stopped to dine, Rembrandt, fearing to lose his treasure,

remained in the carriage. The careless stable-boy who brought the horses

their corn forgot to unharness them, and as soon as they had finished

eating, excited probably by Rembrandt, who cared not for his

fellow-passengers, the animals started off for Leyden, and quietly halted

at their accustomed inn. Our painter then got out and repaired with his

money to the mill.

Great was his father’s joy. At length these silly daubs, which had so

often excited his angry contempt, seemed likely to be transmuted into

gold, and the old man’s imagination took a rapturous flight. “Neither he

nor his old horse,” he said, “need now work any longer; they might both

enjoy quiet during the remainder of their lives. Paul would paint

pictures, and support the whole household in affluence.”

Such was the old man’s castle in the air; his clever, selfish son soon

demolished it. “This sum of money,” he said, “is only a lucky windfall. If

you indeed wish it to become the foundation of my fortune, give me one

hundred florins besides, and let me return to Amsterdam: there I must work

and study hard.”

It would be difficult to describe old Rembrandt’s disappointment. Slowly,

reluctantly, and one by one, he drew forth the 100 florins from his

strong-box. Paul took them, and with small show of gratitude, returned to

Amsterdam. In a short time his fame became established as the greatest and

most original of living artists. He had a host of imitators, but all

failed miserably in their attempts at reproducing his marvelous effects of

light and shade. Yet Rembrandt prized the gold which flowed in to him far

more than the glory. While mingling the colors which were to flash out on

his canvas in real living light, he thought but of his dingy coffers.

When in possession of a yearly income equal to £2000 sterling, he would

not permit the agent who collected his rents to bring them in from the

country to Amsterdam, lest he should be obliged to invite him to dinner.

He preferred setting out on a fine day, and going himself to the agent’s

house. In this way he saved two dinners—the one which he got, and the one

he avoided giving. “So that’s well managed!” he used to say.

This sordid disposition often exposed him to practical jokes from his

pupils; but he possessed a quiet temper, and was not easily annoyed. One

day a rich citizen came in, and asked him the price of a certain picture.

“Two hundred florins,” said Rembrandt.

“Agreed,” said his visitor. “I will pay you to-morrow, when I send for the

picture.”

About an hour afterward a letter was handed to the painter. Its contents

were as follows:

“MASTER REMBRANDT—During your absence a few days since, I saw in your

studio a picture representing an old woman churning butter. I was

enchanted with it; and if you will let me purchase it for 300 florins, I

pray you to bring it to my house, and be my guest for the day.”

The letter was signed with some fictitious name, and bore the address of a

village several leagues distant from Amsterdam.

Tempted by the additional 100 florins, and caring little for breaking his

engagement, Rembrandt set out early next morning with his picture. He

walked for four hours without finding his obliging correspondent, and at

length, worn out with fatigue, he returned home. He found the citizen in

his studio, waiting for the picture. As Rembrandt, however, did not

despair of finding the man of the 300 florins, and as a falsehood troubled

but little his blunted conscience, he said, “Alas! an accident has

happened to the picture; the canvas was injured, and I felt so vexed that

I threw it into the fire. Two hundred florins gone! However, it will be my

loss, not yours, for I will paint another precisely similar, and it shall

be ready for you by this time to-morrow.”

“I am sorry,” replied the amateur, “but it was the picture you have burned

which I wished to have; and as that is gone, I shall not trouble you to

paint another.”

So he departed, and Rembrandt shortly afterward received a second letter

to the following effect: “MASTER REMBRANDT—You have broken your

engagement, told a falsehood, wearied yourself to death, and lost the sale

of your picture—all by listening to the dictates of avarice. Let this

lesson be a warning to you in future.”

“So,” said the painter, looking round at his pupils, “one of you must have

played me this pretty trick. Well, well, I forgive it. You young varlets

do not know the value of a florin as I know it.”

Sometimes the students nailed small copper coins on the floor, for the

mischievous pleasure of seeing their master, who suffered much from

rheumatism in the back, stoop with pain and difficulty, and try in vain to

pick them up.

Rembrandt married an ignorant peasant who had served him as cook, thinking

this a more economical alliance than one with a person of refined mind and

habits. He and his wife usually dined on brown-bread, salt herrings, and

small-beer. He occasionally took portraits at a high price, and in this

way became acquainted with the Burgomaster Six, a man of enlarged mind and

unblemished character, who yet continued faithfully attached to the

avaricious painter. His friendship was sometimes put to a severe test by

such occurrences as the following:

Rembrandt remarked one day that the price of his engravings had fallen.

“You are insatiable,” said the burgomaster.

“Perhaps so. I can not help thirsting for gold.”

“You are a miser.”

“True; and I shall be one all my life.”

“’Tis really a pity,” remarked his friend, “that you will not be able

after death to act as your own treasurer, for whenever that event occurs,

all your works will rise to treble their present value.”

A bright idea struck Rembrandt. He returned home, went to bed, desired his

wife and his son Titus to scatter straw before the door, and give out,

first, that he was dangerously ill, and then dead—while the simulated

fever was to be of so dreadfully infectious a nature that none of the

neighbors were to be admitted near the sick-room. These instructions were

followed to the letter; and the disconsolate widow proclaimed that, in

order to procure money for her husband’s interment, she must sell all his

works, any property that he left not being available on so short a notice.

The unworthy trick succeeded. The sale, including every trivial scrap of

painting or engraving, realized an enormous sum, and Rembrandt was in

ecstasy. The honest burgomaster, however, was nearly frightened into a fit

of apoplexy at seeing the man whose death he had sincerely mourned

standing alive and well at the door of his studio. Meinherr Six obliged

him to promise that he would in future abstain from such abominable

deceptions. One day he was employed in painting in a group the likenesses

of the whole family of a rich citizen. He had nearly finished it, when

intelligence was brought him of the death of a tame ape which he greatly

loved. The creature had fallen off the roof of the house into the street.

Without interrupting his work, Rembrandt burst into loud lamentations, and

after some time announced that the piece was finished. The whole family

advanced to look at it, and what was their horror to see introduced

between the heads of the eldest son and daughter an exact likeness of the

dear departed ape. With one voice they all exclaimed against this singular

relative which it had pleased the painter to introduce among them, and

insisted on his effacing it.

“What!” exclaimed Rembrandt, “efface the finest figure in the picture? No,

indeed; I prefer keeping the piece for myself.” Which he did, and carried

off the painting.

Of Rembrandt’s style it may be said that he painted with light, for

frequently an object was indicated merely by the projection of a shadow on

a wall. Often a luminous spot suggested, rather than defined, a hand or a

head. Yet there is nothing vague in his paintings: the mind seizes the

design immediately. His studio was a circular room, lighted by several

narrow slits, so contrived that rays of sunshine entered through only one

at a time, and thus produced strange effects of light and shade. The room

was filled with old-world furniture, which made it resemble an antiquary’s

museum. There were heaped up in the most picturesque confusion curious old

furniture, antique armor, gorgeously-tinted stuffs; and these Rembrandt

arranged in different forms and positions, so as to vary the effects of

light and color. This he called “making his models sit to him.” And in

this close adherence to reality consisted the great secret of his art. It

is strange that his favorite among all his pupils was the one whose style

least resembled his own—Gerard Douw—he who aimed at the most excessive

minuteness of delineation, who stopped keyholes lest a particle of dust

should fall on his pallet, who gloried in representing the effects of

fresh scouring on the side of a kettle.

Rembrandt died in 1674, at the age of sixty-eight. He passed all his life

at Amsterdam. Some of his biographers have told erroneously that he once

visited Italy: they were deceived by the word _Venetiis_ placed at the

bottom of several of his engravings. He wrote it there with the intention

of deluding his countrymen into the belief that he was absent, and about

to settle in Italy—an impression which would materially raise the price of

his productions. Strange and sad it is to see so much genius united with

so much meanness—the head of fine gold with the feet of clay.

THE VIPER.

At a recent monthly meeting of the Kendal Natural History Society, a

letter was read from Mr. W. Pearson, on the natural history of

Crossthwaite, from which we give the following extract:—“On the afternoon

of 23d July last,” says Mr. Pearson, “the servant girl called me into the

pantry in a great flurry. She said a hagworm was trying to get in at the

window. And there it was, sure enough, raising itself straight up from the

window-sill; first trying one pane, and then another; strangely puzzled,

no doubt, that what seemed so clear an opening should offer any

obstruction. The glass manufacture was evidently a mystery to it. The

window being low, it had crawled over a heap of sand lying before it. It

had probably smelt something tempting in the pantry, with which it wished

to make nearer acquaintance. It was a beautiful creature. Its small head,

prominent dark eyes, and pretty mottled skin, might have pleaded strongly

for mercy; but, notwithstanding my general habit of sparing these reptiles

when I meet with them in my walks, it was approaching too much in the

guise of a housebreaker to be pardoned, so I gave orders for its instant

execution. Moreover, there is little doubt that it was the same individual

who had, in times past, come rather too near us to be pleasant. The year

before, I had noticed a viper within a yard or two of our kitchen-door,

with his head and about half a foot of his body thrust out from a hole in

the wall right behind the kitchen grate. The genial climate had most

likely attracted him. Be this as it may, before I could procure a switch

to chastise him for his impudence, he very prudently withdrew into his

hole, only protruding a part of his head and eyes, with which to make

observations. For some days after this, I never entered the house by the

back-door without thinking of our new neighbor; and once or twice I had a

glimpse of him in his old quarters, but he very warily never exposed more

of his precious person than his head and eyes, so that, if it had not been

for his unfortunate expedition to the pantry, he might still have been a

living hagworm. You are aware that this species of snake has at least

three names in England—the viper, adder, and hagworm. The last is our own

local term. Some authors class it with the amphibia. An extraordinary

narrative appeared lately in the ‘Kendal Mercury,’ of a snake crossing

Connistone Lake, which is at least half a mile wide. It was not the

sea-serpent, but our poor little hagworm, that was engaged in this bold

navigation. It was, however, unfortunately fallen in with by a piratical

boatman, and put to death. Without disputing the truth of the narration,

or settling the question how far the viper is amphibious, the remark is

obvious, that the poor snake was taken at a disadvantage; for, if it had

been equally at home on the water as on land, why did it not save itself

by diving as an eel or a frog would have done under like circumstances?

Again, why is not the name of the boatman given? Why should he be

defrauded of his fair fame? It is to be wished that newspaper editors, in

general, were more careful to authenticate their many marvelous tales in

natural history. It would be a great satisfaction to the skeptical

naturalist. One may easily credit that a viper will occasionally take the

water, without going the length of a full belief in the Connistone voyage.

“One day last spring, when angling, I met with one of these snakes, coiled

up, within a few feet of the Winster stream, and when disturbed he fled

toward the water, though I did not see him enter it. It is curious the

variety of situations in which they are to be met with; in the lowest

parts of the valleys, and on the tops of our highest hills; sometimes

close to our houses, as I have mentioned; in the plain field, and in the

roughest wood—hence their name, hagworm; on the roadside, or on the ling

moor, where they sometimes bite the sportsman’s dog, though I never heard

of any fatal consequences. In crossing a turnpike road on a sunny day,

they are often tempted to linger, such is their love of warmth, and bask

on the heated stones and dust, where they are sure to be killed by the

first passenger. They are never spared. Their sinuous tracks across the

dusty roads in dry weather may be often observed. On riding out one day

this summer, a hagworm crossed the road just before me. It exhibited a

beautiful specimen of serpentine motion, and wriggled along with

surprising celerity. It was a warm day; and the movements of all these

reptiles are wonderfully quickened by a genial atmosphere.

“The ringed, or harmless common snake, if found at all in our district,

is, I think, very scarce, for I have never seen one. It is said by

Latreille and other naturalists to be fond of milk, and that it will

sometimes enter farmers’ dairies to enjoy its favorite beverage. Does our

viper, or hagworm, also possess this refined propensity? It seems probable

enough, if one may judge from our pantry adventure. I am here reminded of

a pretty little story which I heard in my youth, and which is well known

to our rural population.

“A cottage child had been in the habit for some time of taking its

porridge every morning into the orchard, to eat there, instead of in the

house. Its mother was curious to know why it did this. At length it was

watched, and found seated under an apple-tree in company with a huge

serpent, its head dipt in the porringer sharing the child’s breakfast. But

taking up a greater part of the dish than was consistent with fair play,

or quite agreeable to good manners, the child was beating its head with

the spoon, saying—‘Take at thy own side, Grayface; take at thy own side,

Grayface’—the snake submitting to this rather uncourteous treatment with

the most praiseworthy patience. Indeed, this reverence for innocence, felt

by savage beast or venomous reptile, is a beautiful feature of many of

those old romantic tales, from the most simple to be found in rustic life,

to the grand allegorical fiction of Spenser’s ‘Fairy Queen,’ of

“Heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb,

And the brave Lion slain in her defense.”

“But may there not be some truth, after all, in this tale of the serpent

and child? Remember the fact—that serpents have a strange propensity to

come near our houses, and are not unfrequently found there, as was

exemplified this last summer in our own locality by two instances: the

one, that of the pantry burglar; the other, by a large hagworm being

caught lying in wait, and killed close to the farm-house below. Then their

acknowledged predilection for a milk diet: it is said that, when tamed,

they eat it greedily. Giving due weight, therefore, to these two

circumstances, is it not probable enough that there is a substratum of

truth in this story, and that it is not a mere invention trumped up to

please the nursery?”

ESTHER HAMMOND’S WEDDING-DAY.

A few years ago, having made known to those whom it might concern that I

wanted a footman, there came, among others, to offer himself for the

situation, a young man, named George Hammond. He had a slight figure, and

a pale, thin, handsome face, but a remarkably sad expression. Although he

inspired me with interest, I felt, before I began to question him, that I

should hardly like to have that melancholy countenance always under my

eye.

“Where have you lived?” I asked.

“I have never been exactly in a situation,” he answered.

“Then,” said I, interrupting him, “I fear you will not suit me.”

“I meant to say,” he continued, turning paler than before, as if pained by

my ready denial—“I meant to say that although I have never been in a

situation, yet I know the duties of a servant, for I have been for several

months under Lord Gorton’s house-steward, Mr. Grindlay, and he has taught

me every thing.”

“Did Lord Gorton pay you wages?”

“No; but he allowed me to wait at table, and I acted just as if I had been

paid wages.”

“Mr. Grindlay is a friend of yours, then?”

“Yes; he has been very kind, and has taken a great deal of pains with me.”

“And you think you are fit to undertake such a place as mine?”

“I think I am, and I should try to give satisfaction; for I am very

anxious indeed to earn my own living.”

“And who is to give you a character?”

“Mr. Grindlay will; he has known me all my life.”

During the conversation of which the above is an abridgement, I found that

my feelings were veering round to a more favorable quarter for the

candidate. Young as he was, I thought I could discern that he had

suffered, and that he was anxious to diminish, or repair, his ill fortunes

by industry and good conduct. There was a moment, too, in which I fancied

I saw the clew to his sorrows. It was when I said, “You are not married, I

presume?”

“No,” said he.

“Because,” I added, “my house is not large, and visitors below are

inconvenient.”

“I have nobody in the world belonging to me but one sister. And the only

friend I have is Mr. Grindlay,” he replied, with some eagerness, as if to

put a period to further inquiries in that direction, while he visibly

changed color. Feeling sure there was some painful family history behind,

I said no more, but that I would see Mr. Grindlay, if he would call on the

following day.

“By-the-by,” I rejoined, as the young man was leaving, the room, “we said

nothing about wages; what do you expect?”

“Whatever you are accustomed to give,” he answered.

“Very well; I’ll speak to Mr. Grindlay about it.”

It was the situation he was anxious about, clearly; not wages.

On the following morning Mr. Grindlay came.

“You are well acquainted with this young man?” I said.

“I have known him since he was that high,” he answered, placing his hand

on the table; “and you can’t have a better lad; that I’ll engage.”

“He is honest and sober?”

“You may trust him with untold gold; and as for wine or spirits, such a

thing never passes his lips.”

“But he has been under your guidance, Mr. Grindlay,” I answered; “he is

young; do you think he will be able to stand alone?”

“I’ve no fear of him; none whatever,” he replied. “To say the truth, he

had an awful lesson before his eyes in regard to excessive drinking. Such

a lesson as he’ll never forget.”

“Indeed!” said I; “his father?”

Mr. Grindlay shook his head. I made no further inquiry then; but agreed to

engage George Hammond.

At first, he was so anxious to please, and so nervous lest he should not

please, that he tumbled up-stairs in his hurry to answer the bell, and

very nearly broke my best decanters. His hand so shook with agitation when

I had friends to dinner, lest he should be found deficient, that I

momentarily expected to see him drop the plates and glasses on the floor.

However, he got through this ordeal without any serious accident; and by

degrees I discovered that I had found a treasure of fidelity and good

service. He lived with me for six years, and then, to my regret, we

parted; my only consolation being that our separation was consequent on a

plan formed for his advantage.

During the first years, I knew nothing more of George’s history than I had

gathered from Mr. Grindlay’s significant hint at our only interview. I

concluded that in that hint the whole mystery was revealed. George’s

father had been a drunkard, and his vice had probably ruined a decent

family. The appearance of George’s only visitor, his sister, Esther,

confirmed this view; she looked so respectable and so dejected! She never

came but on Sunday, and then I was always glad if I could spare George to

take a walk with her. After I had learnt his value, I gave him leave to

invite her to dine, and to remain the evening with him, whenever he

pleased. He told me she worked with a milliner in Pall Mall; and I

observed that she always wore black, which I concluded she did from an

economical motive. She seemed very shy; and I never troubled her with

questions.

George had been with us upward of five years, when we were visited by an

old friend whose home was on the opposite side of the earth. He had

returned to England, partly to see his relatives, and partly to transact

some business respecting a small property he had lately inherited. During

his sojourn he frequently dined with us; and, while at table, we did not

fail to ply him with questions regarding his experiences in the colony he

inhabited. “The great difficulty of _getting along_, as we call it,” he

answered, one day, “lies in the impossibility of gathering people about

us, upon whom we can rely. I have made money,” he said, “and have no right

to complain; but I should have made twice as much if I had employed honest

and intelligent men.”

“You should take some abroad with you,” I replied.

“I purpose to do something of the kind,” he answered; “and, by-the-by, if

you should hear of any honest, intelligent young man, who can write good

plain English in a legible hand, and who would not object to seek his

fortune across the water, let me know.”

George was in the room when this was said, and I involuntarily raised my

eyes to his face. When I read its expression, a twinge of selfishness

brought the color to my cheeks. “Now we shall lose him,” I said; and we

did lose him. A few days afterward, Mr. Jameson, our colonial friend, told

us that he was afraid his conversation had been the means of seducing our

melancholy footman. He had found an extremely well-written letter on his

table, signed “George Hammond,” expressing a wish to accompany him abroad,

and dated from our house, which he had at first imagined was a jest of

mine. “But I find it is from your servant,” he continued, “and I have told

him that I can say nothing until I have consulted you on the subject.”

“I am afraid I can allege nothing against it,”

I answered, “if he suits you, and wishes to go. A more trustworthy,

excellent person you never can meet with.”

“And what are his connections?” inquired Mr. Jameson; “for I would not be

accessory to taking any young man out of the country without being sure

that he was not doing wrong in leaving it.”

For this information I referred him to Mr. Grindlay; with whom an

interview was arranged. Mr. Grindlay entered so warmly into the plan, that

he declared himself willing to make some pecuniary advances to promote it.

“It is not necessary,” said Mr. Jameson. “I shall be very willing to

undertake all the expenses of outfit and voyage.”

“You are very good, indeed, sir. But,” added Mr. Grindlay, “George has a

sister, who would break her heart if he left her. She is a good, clever

girl, and understands dress-making and millinery well. She works for

Madame Roland. I suppose she would easily make a living in the parts you

are going to?”

Mr. Jameson was quite agreeable that Esther should be of the party; and

Mr. Grindlay under took the charge of her outfit. “But,” said our friend,

“before we proceed farther, I must know who these young people are; and

that their friends have no reasonable objection to our plan.”

“They have no friends!” answered Mr. Grindlay, shaking his gray head;

“nobody to make any objection, reasonable or otherwise; but, as you are

willing to undertake the charge of them, sir, I think it would be only

right that you should know the exact truth.”

This was the train of circumstances which led to my acquaintance with the

present story.

The parents of George and Esther Hammond kept a small but respectable inn,

in one of the southern counties of England. The house was not situated in

a town, nor yet very far from one, but it was a pretty rural spot, with a

bowling green and garden; and it was a common thing for the inhabitants of

the neighboring city to make parties there on Sundays and holidays, to

dine and drink cider, for which the house was famous. It was, indeed, an

extremely well-kept, clean, comfortable, little inn, the merit of which

good keeping was chiefly referred by the public voice to Mrs. Hammond: an

industrious, hard-working, thrifty woman. She was generally reputed to be

more than thrifty. It was often remarked that when Hammond himself was

absent from home, the tables were less liberally served, and the charge

higher, than when he was there to moderate her besetting sin—the love of

gain. Still, she was an excellent wife, and a good hostess; and she was

devoted to her husband and her two children, George and Esther. In short,

she was a woman who took every thing in earnest, and she loved her family,

as she worked for them, with all her energies. She loved her children

wisely, too: for she was extremely anxious to give them the best education

she could afford; and, although, as was consistent with her character, she

kept them somewhat rigidly, she was essentially a kind mother.

Hammond’s character was different. He was by nature an easy, liberal,

good-natured fellow, with a considerable dash of cleverness and a very

well-looking person. In youth he had gone by the name of “Handsome

George;” and was still a universal favorite with his friends and

customers. The only disputes that ever occurred between Hammond and his

wife, arose out of those agreeable qualities. The guests were apt to

invite the host into the parlor to drink with them; and when Handsome

George once had his legs under his own or any body else’s mahogany, he was

not disposed to draw them out for some time. If this happened on a

Sunday—when there were more parties than one to attend—his wife would get

angry, and accuse him of neglecting his business. The husband’s

imperturbable good-humor, however, soon allayed the irritation.

At length the time arrived when the two children were to leave this

pleasant home, to learn something beyond reading and writing, to which

their acquirements had yet been limited. They were accordingly sent away

to school.

As the business of Hammond’s Inn was not sufficient to keep it always

lively, the absence of the children was very much felt. The mother was

perhaps not less sensible of the privation than the father; as many an

involuntary sigh testified. He lamented loudly; and, when there was no

business to engage his attention, went listlessly about with his hands in

his pockets, or sat gloomily at the door, puffing at his pipe, and

spreading the fumes of his tobacco over the jessamine and wild roses that

overran the porch. When company came, however, he was merrier; and, when

he was invited to “make one,” he was apt to drink more freely than

formerly.

In process of time, however, a circumstance occurred that diverted

Hammond’s attention into another channel. A few convivial fellows residing

at Tutton, proposed to get up a club, to meet every Saturday night; the

winter meetings to be held at an inn called the King’s Arms, in the town,

and the summer meetings at Hammond’s Inn; the members to be elected by

ballot. To this last rule, however, there was one exception, and that was

in favor of Hammond himself.

“It was no use balloting _him_” they said; “nobody would give him a black

ball.” He was pleased with this testimony to his popularity; and, in spite

of some misgivings on the part of his wife, he addressed his mind heartily

to the new project, and fitted up a room, to be held sacred every Saturday

night for six months in the year to these convivial meetings.

The chief originator of this scheme was the host of the King’s Arms, whose

name was Jackson. He was what is called a jolly fellow; extremely fond of

company, and able to sing a good song. The other members consisted of

tradesmen residing in the town, and some of the upper servants of the

neighboring nobility and gentry. Among these last was Mr. Grindlay.

Every body concerned was delighted with the new club; except, perhaps, the

wives of the clubbists, who did not look forward to the Saturday nights

with the same affection as their husbands. More than one of them was heard

to say that it was a good thing Saturday came but once a week, and that if

it came oftener, she, for one, wouldn’t bear it. Hannah Hammond, although

not a woman to express her feelings publicly, did not like this club, in

spite of the profits derived from it. She saw that Hammond began to feel

that the dull evenings at home contrasted very unpleasantly with the jolly

nights at the club. As he and the host of the King’s Arms grew more

intimate, they were apt to console themselves with a few extra meetings.

Sometimes Hammond made an excuse to go into the town, and sometimes

Jackson came to him; but in the latter case Hannah gave her husband’s

visitor an indifferent welcome. Jackson seems to have kept _his_ wife in

better order; she had already discovered that drink is stronger than love.

At first, Hammond yielded occasionally, either to frowns or persuasion;

but as one ascendency grew, the other declined; and when he was not strong

enough to brave his wife’s wrath or entreaties, he eluded them, by

slipping out when she was off her guard. Once away, he seldom reappeared

until the next morning; and, as time advanced, two or three days would

elapse before his return. Then, when he came, she scolded, and wept; but

men get used to women’s tears; and, like petrifying waters, they only

harden their hearts as they fall.

So passed a few years; and the girl and boy were no longer children.

Esther was a fine young woman of seventeen, and her brother eighteen

months older. They had been some time away from the school, and George had

been taken home to be instructed to follow his father’s business, which

had been the parents’ original intention, when Hannah’s mind was altered.

She thought it was a calling that exposed a weak will to temptation, and

she dreaded lest her son should get too familiar with his father’s habits

and associates; so, with Hammond’s consent, she procured him a situation

in a merchant’s counting house; where, being steady and intelligent, he

had every prospect of doing well.

She kept Esther at home to be her own assistant and consolation; for she

needed both. She attributed all her troubles to Jackson, who had first

enticed her husband to drink, and had never since allowed him time to be

acted on by better influences. In proportion, therefore, as she loved her

husband, she hated Jackson; and, in spite of all, she did love George

dearly still. It was true, he was no longer Handsome George: his features

were bloated, his figure swollen, his hair thin and grizzled, and his

dress neglected and dirty; but he was the chosen husband of her youth;

and, with Hannah, to love once was to love always.

Jackson had a son, an excellent lad, possessing all his father’s good

qualities, and none of his bad ones. He and young George had been at

school together, and a friendship had arisen between them that promised to

be enduring; the more so, that Esther Hammond and Henry Jackson were

lovers—a secret, the discovery of which was at first very ill received by

Hannah. That her Esther should marry the son of Jackson whom she hated,

was not to be thought of.

“There’s little reason to fear that Harry will take after his father,

mother,” George would say. “Besides, you’d think it hard if any body made

me suffer for father; and, for my part, I think it’s enough to cure any

body of a love of liquor, to see how it disguises people who would be so

different if they could leave it alone.”

It was some time before this kind of argument prevailed with Hannah; but

it had its effect at length, sustained as it was by the genuine merits of

the candidate, by his evident abhorrence of his father’s vice, and by his

dutiful attentions to his mother. So, by-and-by, he became a welcome

visitor to Mrs. Hammond and her daughter; and, all things concurring, it

was tacitly understood among them, that some day or other, when they were

both old enough, and when Henry should be in a situation to maintain a

family, Esther was to be his wife.

This arrangement—now that she was satisfied of Harry Jackson’s good

character—shed a gleam of comfort on Hannah’s dark path; for her path lay

dark before her now. The host of the King’s Arms was never happy out of

Hammond’s company; the truth being, that the unfortunate man had grown

really fond of George. Hannah’s frowns and coldness could not keep him

away; and if she, by persuasion or stratagem, contrived to detain her

husband at home, Jackson invariably came in search of him. Then, besides

all the other griefs and discomforts attending such a state of things, the

business of the house began to decline. The respectable townspeople did

not like to frequent an inn where the host was always intoxicated; and, to

many who had known them in happier days, George Hammond’s bloated face,

and Hannah’s pinched features were not pleasant to behold. If matters went

on at this rate, pecuniary embarrassments were not unlikely to be added to

her other afflictions; and her dread of this was materially increased by

finding that Hammond was beginning to tamper with a small sum of money

they had placed in the Tutton Bank, under a mutual agreement that it

should remain there, untouched, until Esther’s marriage. All this misery

she owed to Jackson, even to the last item in her troubles; for she

discovered that the money had been drawn out to lend to him.

Matters went on in this way from bad to worse. Mrs. Hammond was miserable,

and Mrs. Jackson was breaking her heart, and the business of both houses

was going to the dogs, when Hannah resolved on a last effort to avert the

impending ruin.

Had she thought her husband utterly corrupted, her scheme would have been

vain; but he had moments of remorse still, in which his good heart got the

ascendant: and, persuaded by her unshaken love, she believed that if she

could but wean him from Jackson’s company, he might, by her attachment and

vigilance, be reclaimed. It so happened that she had a cousin married to a

farmer in a distant part of England; and, one day, taking George in a

moment of sobriety and repentance, she made a strong appeal to his

feelings and affections. “I know,” she said, “that it is Jackson who

tempts you to drink, when of yourself you might resist; and I do believe

that if the habit were once broken, and your acquaintance with him ceased,

we might all be saved yet. Go to my cousin’s; she has often invited us,

and I’ll write to her and say you are ordered change of air for your

health. You’ll see no drinking there; her husband’s a very sober man. You

like farming—go into the fields and the gardens, and work with the spade

and plough. It will make another man of you, George. When you return,

we’ll break with Jackson entirely.”

The appeal prevailed. George sobbed, threw his arms round his wife’s neck,

and vowed that he would never touch liquor again. Eventually, with his

wardrobe brushed up, he was dispatched on this hopeful expedition.

Such a course of life as this, however, could not be carried on without

some evil consequences to himself as well as others; and in spite of the

efforts of his miserable wife to keep things together, the house was

ill-conducted; custom forsook it; and although, unknown to Hannah, Jackson

had by degrees extracted from Hammond every penny of the savings deposited

in the bank, he was distressed for money, and could not keep his creditors

quiet. Added to this, he fell ill with a severe attack of delirium

tremens, and, when matters were at the worst with him, and they thought he

would die, Hannah’s energetic mind began to form plans for the future.

Henry and Esther should be married; the money in the Bank should pay off

the most pressing liabilities; the care and industry of the young people

should restore the house to its former flourishing condition; Mrs.

Jackson, the mother, could live with her son, and they should all be once

more happy—for, the tempter gone, George would be sober. Was he not sober

now at the pleasant farm-house, where he was living with her friends? Did

not every letter of her cousin’s praise him, and assure her that he never

expressed a desire to drink; and that even although they had been to a

christening in the neighborhood, where there was a vast deal of

conviviality, George had been so abstemious and cautious, as to delight

them all?

But, alas! Jackson recovered, and with his recovery Hannah’s plans were

frustrated; but she had a fertile brain; and, where the welfare of those

she loved was concerned, her energies never slept. She learnt from Harry,

that Jackson’s creditors were more pressing than ever, and that he did not

know which way to turn for money. It was quite certain that if nothing

were done, his property would be seized, and his wife turned into the

street. Might she not take advantage of these embarrassments, and execute

her original plan on condition of his abandoning the neighborhood

altogether? Next to his death, his removal would be the best thing. Harry

and Esther would keep the House; the creditors would be indulgent; and,

among the family, they would make an allowance for the support of Mr. and

Mrs. Jackson in some distant spot; any sacrifice being preferable to the

certain ruin that impended. Mrs. Jackson was afraid that her husband would

not consent to the scheme; but she was mistaken; people who are the

victims of intemperance are easily won to acquiesce in any measures that

are proposed for their advantage; their adherence to them is another

affair. But Hannah set to work; and as there was a general sympathy with

her laudable endeavor, she met with full success. Such portions of the

debt as they could not pay, Harry and Hammond were to become answerable

for; and as the business of the King’s Arms had once been a profitable

one, there was every reason to hope that the young man might lure back the

customers, in process of time release his father-in-law from his bond, and

find himself a free and prosperous man.

Thus much done, there was no time to be lost. Jackson, well and drunk,

might refuse to do what Jackson, sick and sober, had consented to do; so a

place was found for himself and his wife, in a part of the country

inhabited by her relations, in order that, as she said, if Jackson kept on

drinking, she might not be quite alone in the world. Arrangements were

then made for the marriage of the young people.

And what said Hammond to all this? He wrote home that he would consent to

any thing his wife proposed, and he hoped it might answer as well as she

expected. Hannah was sure it would; but, in order to avoid the possibility

of mischief, she arranged that her husband should not return until the eve

of the wedding; while she had made it a condition that Jackson should

depart immediately after it; thus excluding all possibility of a renewal

of intercourse.

On a fine evening in June, the mother and daughter sat under the porch,

hand-in-hand, watching for the coach that was to drop George at the door.

How happy they were! Harry had just left them, in order to spend the last

evening with his poor mother, and, as he said, to have an eye to his

father’s proceedings. Young George was still at his country house; but he

was to have a holiday the next day, and to be present at the wedding.

At length there was a sound of wheels, and “Here’s the coach!” cried both

the women, as the well-loaded vehicle turned round a corner of the road,

and appeared in sight. But, to their disappointment, instead of pulling

up, the driver only flung down the old portmanteau, and pointed with his

thumb toward the town, intimating that he had dropt the owner of it,

there, as he passed.

Hannah turned pale. Why had he not come on with the coach? Had he fallen

in with Jackson? Her heart sunk within her.

Esther hoped better things; she doubted not that her father had business

in the town; but he must know how anxious they would be to see him, and he

would surely come soon. Yet, hour after hour slipped by, and he came not.

One went to the door, then the other, then the first again, and so on; but

no George Hammond appeared. At length, when it was getting quite dusk,

they did discern somebody coming toward them with an unsteady step—they

saw the figure reel as it approached, before they could distinguish the

features, and they turned sick at heart. Hannah groaned, and Esther,

grasping her arm, said, “Oh mother! mother!”

But when the person drew near, they perceived that it was not Hammond, but

Jackson; and, for a moment, the sight of him, unwelcome object as he was,

almost gave them pleasure; it was a relief to find it was not George. But

he would come, no doubt, and presently; was probably not far off; and

there was the tempter waiting for him.

Angry and disgusted, the two women went into the house, and shut the door.

After an irrepressible burst of tears, Hannah bethought herself of sending

a lad they kept as hostler, along the road, to try and meet Hammond, and

to smuggle him into the house by the back way. The boy went; but, after

walking until he was tired, returned, saying he had been to the town, but

could see nothing of master. He had, however, met Mr. Harry, who had

promised to go in search of him, and bring him home. Finding Jackson sound

asleep, and not likely to move, Hannah sent her daughter, and the maid,

and the boy to bed, resolving to sit up herself, that she might be ready

to admit George when he came. Alas! in what state would he arrive?

To-morrow was his daughter’s wedding-day, and as Hannah thought of all

they had suffered, the love—that had been flooding from her woman’s heart

toward her husband returning to her, as she had fondly hoped, to live

purely and virtuously the rest of their days—was turned into bitterness

and wrath.

It was a weary night as she sat listening to the ticking of the clock, and

the slow hours as they struck, until the dawn broke, and then she peeped

out to see if Jackson were still at the door. Yes, there he was fast

asleep. A pretty condition he would be in to go to church with his son!

However, he would be sober when he awoke; and sick at heart, and sad, she

went upstairs and stretched herself on the bed beside her daughter.

But she could not sleep; her mind was anxious, and her ears were on the

stretch for her profligate; and by-and-by the sparrows on the house-top

began to chirp, and the market-carts rolled by on their way to the town,

and the laborers’ heavy shoes tramped along to the fields where their work

lay; and still there was no George! No George! and so, at length, she fell

asleep.

She had slept about a couple of hours when she was awakened by Esther’s

voice. “Mother!” cried the girl, “there’s father at the door. You’d better

go yourself and let him in!” “I will!” said Hannah, hastily getting out of

bed and throwing on some clothes—“I will;” and she folded her lips with an

expression of bitterness.

“Don’t be too hard upon him, mother,” said Esther—“it’s the last time, for

Jackson will be gone to-morrow;” and while her mother descended the

stairs, the young girl arose, with her heart full of love and

happiness—for how could she be sad when that very day was to make her

Harry’s wife? Her wedding finery was all laid out ready to put on, and she

was inspecting it with the innocent vanity of eighteen, when she was

startled by a scream—another and another—and it was her mother’s voice!

Pale and transfixed with terror, she stood with her hands pressed upon her

bosom, to still her heart’s beating. What could have happened? Then she

heard other voices below—men’s voices; and with trembling hands, she tried

to dress herself, that she might go down and inquire. Suddenly, one cried

out, “Where’s Esther? Where’s my sister?” There was a hasty foot upon the

stairs, and George, her brother, pale as death, haggard, disheveled,

rushed into the room.

Then there was the tramp of many feet below, and Esther rushed to the

door; but George caught her in his arms.

“Wait!” he said, “and I’ll tell you all. Jackson got hold of my father

last night and made him drink—”

“We know it; but Harry! Oh, where’s Harry?”

“Harry heard of it, and told me; and we went to seek him, he one way, I

another. It was not till about two hours ago, I heard that father had not

long left the Plough, in James-street, and that Harry had been there

directly afterward, and gone in pursuit of him; so, being very anxious, I

thought I would come on here to see if he was arrived.” And here the poor

boy’s sobs choked his utterance.

“And has any thing happened to my father!” said Esther.

“When I got near the Mill-dam,” continued George, “I saw two or three of

the millers looking into the water—”

“My poor father! He’s drowned!” said Esther, clasping her hands.

“Yes,” said George, hesitating; “whether he was seized with delirium, or

whether remorse got the better of him, and he was ashamed to come home,

there’s no telling—”

“But where’s Harry?” cried the girl; for George hesitated again.

“He must have overtaken my father, and seen the accident—or must have been

trying to prevent his throwing himself in the water—for poor Harry—!” And

then there was the tramp of more feet below, and another weight was

carried through the passage. “I had him brought here, Esther. I knew you’d

wish it—and he would have wished it too!”

This was Esther Hammond’s wedding-day! Was not this sorrow enough for one

poor house?

Violent in her feelings and affections, Hannah never recovered. Her reason

became impaired, and she was released from her sufferings by a death that

none could venture to lament. Jackson’s creditors having laid claim to the

whole of the property, in consequence of Hammond’s bond, the young people,

eager to fly the scene of so much woe, took the advice of their friend,

Mr. Grindlay, and came to seek a maintenance in London.

So ends my tragic little story. I have only to add, that the proposed plan

of emigration was carried out, to the infinite advantage of the two young

people, and very much to the satisfaction of Mr. Jameson.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.(4)

Book IV.—CONTINUED.—Chapter IX.

With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L’Estrange bent his way

toward Egerton’s house, after his eventful interview with Helen. He had

just entered one of the streets leading into Grosvenor-square, when a

young man, walking quickly from the opposite direction, came full against

him, and drawing back with a brief apology, recognized him, and exclaimed,

“What! you in England, Lord L’Estrange! Accept my congratulations on your

return. But you seem scarcely to remember me.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie. I remember you now by your smile; but you

are of an age in which it is permitted me to say that you look older than

when I saw you last.”

“And yet, Lord L’Estrange, it seems to me that you look younger.”

Indeed, this reply was so far true that there appeared less difference of

years than before between Leslie and L’Estrange; for the wrinkles in the

schemer’s mind were visible in his visage, while Harley’s dreamy worship

of Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved to the votary the enduring

youth of the divinities.

Harley received the compliment with a supreme indifference, which might

have been suitable to a Stoic, but which seemed scarcely natural to a

gentleman who had just proposed to a lady many years younger than himself.

Leslie resumed—“Perhaps you are on your way to Mr. Egerton’s. If so, you

will not find him at home; he is at his office.”

“Thank you. Then to his office I must redirect my steps.”

“I am going to him myself,” said Randal, hesitatingly.

L’Estrange had no prepossessions in favor of Leslie, from the little he

had seen of that young gentleman; but Randal’s remark was an appeal to his

habitual urbanity, and he replied with well-bred readiness, “Let us be

companions so far.”

Randal accepted the arm proffered to him; and Lord L’Estrange, as is usual

with one long absent from his native land, bore part as a questioner in

the dialogue that ensued.

“Egerton is always the same man, I suppose—too busy for illness, and too

firm for sorrow?”

“If he ever feel either he will never stoop to complain. But indeed, my

dear Lord, I should like much to know what you think of his health.”

“How? You alarm me!”

“Nay, I did not mean to do that; and, pray, do not let him know that I

went so far. But I have fancied that he looks a little worn and

suffering.”

“Poor Audley!” said L’Estrange, in a tone of deep affection. “I will sound

him, and, be assured, without naming you; for I know well how little he

likes to be supposed capable of human infirmity. I am obliged to you for

your hint—obliged to you for your interest in one so dear to me.”

And Harley’s voice was more cordial to Randal than it had ever been

before. He then began to inquire what Randal thought of the rumors that

had reached himself as to the probable defeat of the government, and how

far Audley’s spirits were affected by such risks. But Randal here, seeing

that Harley could communicate nothing, was reserved and guarded.

“Loss of office could not, I think, affect a man like Audley,” observed

Lord L’Estrange. “He would be as great in opposition—perhaps greater; and

as to emoluments—”

“The emoluments are good,” interposed Randal, with, a half sigh.

“Good enough, I suppose, to pay him back about a tenth of what his place

costs our magnificent friend—no, I will say one thing for English

statesmen, no man among them ever yet was the richer for place.”

“And Mr. Egerton’s private fortune must be large, I take for granted,”

said Randal, carelessly.

“It ought to be, if he has time look to it.”

Here they passed by the hotel in which lodged the Count di Peschiera.

Randal stopped. “Will you excuse me for an instant? As we are passing this

hotel, I will just leave my card here.” So saying, he gave his card to a

waiter lounging by the door. “For the Count di Peschiera,” said he, aloud.

L’Estrange started; and as Randal again took his arm, said,

“So that Italian lodges here? and you know him?”

“I know him but slightly, as one knows any foreigner who makes a

sensation.”

“He makes a sensation?”

“Naturally; for he is handsome, witty, and said to be very rich—that is,

as long as he receives the revenues of his exiled kinsman.”

“I see you are well informed, Mr. Leslie. And what is supposed to bring

hither the Count di Peschiera?”

“I did hear something, which I did not quite understand, about a bet of

his that he would marry his kinsman’s daughter; and so, I conclude, secure

to himself all the inheritance; and that he is therefore here to discover

the kinsman and win the heiress. But probably you know the rights of the

story, and can tell me what credit to give to such gossip.”

“I know this, at least, that if he did lay such a wager, I would advise

you to take any odds against him that his backers may give,” said

L’Estrange, drily; and while his lip quivered with anger, his eye gleamed

with arch, ironical humor.

“You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need such an alliance in

order to regain his estates?”

“Yes; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I would not bet against, when he

backed his own luck as a rogue against Justice and Providence.”

Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his heart; but he soon

recovered.

“And, indeed, there is another vague rumor that the young lady in question

is married already—to some Englishman.”

This time it was Harley who winced. “Good Heavens! that can not be

true—that would undo all! An Englishman just at this moment! But some

Englishman of correspondent rank, I trust, or, at least, one known for

opinions opposed to what an Austrian would call revolutionary doctrines?”

“I know nothing. But it was supposed, merely a private gentleman of good

family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Court dictate a marriage

to the daughter as a condition for grace to the father?”

“No—not that!” said Harley, greatly disturbed. “But put yourself in the

position of any minister to one of the great European monarchies. Suppose

a political insurgent, formidable for station and wealth, had been

proscribed, much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party striving

against it, and just when the minister is disposed to relent, he hears

that the heiress to this wealth and this station is married to the native

of a country in which sentiments friendly to the very opinions for which

the insurgent was proscribed are popularly entertained, and thus that the

fortune to be restored may be so employed as to disturb the national

security—the existing order of things; this, too, at the very time when a

popular revolution has just occurred in France,(5) and its effects are

felt most in the very land of the exile:—suppose all this, and then say if

any thing could be more untoward for the hopes of the banished man, or

furnish his adversaries with stronger arguments against the restoration of

his fortune? But, pshaw—this must be a chimera! If true, I should have

known of it.”

“I quite agree with your lordship—there can be no truth in such a rumor.

Some Englishman hearing, perhaps, of the probable pardon of the exile, may

have counted on an heiress, and spread the report in order to keep off

other candidates. By your account, if successful in his suit, he might

fail to find an heiress in the bride?”

“No doubt of that. Whatever might be arranged, I can’t conceive that he

would be allowed to get at the fortune, though it might be held in

suspense for his children. But, indeed, it so rarely happens that an

Italian girl of high name marries a foreigner, that we must dismiss this

notion with a smile at the long face of the hypothetical fortune-hunter.

Heaven help him, if he exist!”

“Amen!” echoed Randal, devoutly.

“I hear that Peschiera’s sister is returned to England. Do you know her

too?”

“A little.”

“My dear Mr. Leslie, pardon me if I take a liberty not warranted by our

acquaintance. Against the lady I say nothing. Indeed, I have heard some

things which appear to entitle her to compassion and respect. But as to

Peschiera, all who prize honor, suspect him to be a knave—I know him to be

one. Now, I think that the longer we preserve that abhorrence for knavery

which is the generous instinct of youth, why, the fairer will be our

manhood, and the more reverend our age. You agree with me?” And Harley

suddenly turning, his eyes fell like a flood of light upon Randal’s pale

and secret countenance.

“To be sure,” murmured the schemer.

Harley surveying him, mechanically recoiled, and withdrew his arm.

Fortunately for Randal, who somehow or other felt himself slipped into a

false position, he scarce knew how or why, he was here seized by the arm;

and a clear, open, manly voice cried, “My dear fellow, how are you? I see

you are engaged now; but look into my rooms when you can, in the course of

the day.”

And with a bow of excuse for his interruption, to Lord L’Estrange, the

speaker was then turning away, when Harley said:

“No, don’t let me take you from your friend, Mr. Leslie. And you need not

be in a hurry to see Egerton; for I shall claim the privilege of older

friendship for the first interview.”

“It is Mr. Egerton’s nephew, Frank Hazeldean.”

“Pray, call him back, and present me to him. He has a face that would have

gone far to reconcile Timon to Athens.”

Randal obeyed; and after a few kindly words to Frank, Harley insisted on

leaving the two young men together, and walked on to Downing-street with a

brisker step.