He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white _Stories of Exile

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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Little Classics

Edited by

ROSSITER JOHNSON

STORIES OF EXILE

[Illustration]

Boston and New York

Houghton Mifflin Company

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1914

and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Bret Harte

[Illustration]

LITTLE CLASSICS.

It is not more difficult for the mineralogist to define a metal, than

for the critic to define a classic. No attribute or property of metal

can be mentioned,--hardness, brittleness, malleability, magnetism,

lustre,--but some acknowledged metal can be found which lacks it. So

when we come to define what is classic in literature, we find not a

single quality that may not be dispensed with, or that is not lacking in

some universally accepted and canonized piece of composition. Is age a

requisite? Consider Mr. Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, which was

recognized as classic and immortal the hour it was flashed from the

wires and printed or misprinted in the five thousand journals of the

land. Is perfection of plot or unity of design necessary? "David

Copperfield" can hardly be said to have a plot, and the "Merchant of

Venice" is notably lacking in unity. Is detailed grammatical and

idiomatic correctness indispensable? Then how few are the absolute

masters of English prose! It is with some feeling of embarrassment at

this lack of any perfect test, that I have gathered the contents of

these volumes and ventured to call them Little Classics. And yet the

genuine lovers of literature, setting aside all attempt at conscious

definition, and following only their artistic instincts, will not

seriously differ in their opinion as to what deserves the name of

classic and bears the warrant of immortality.

The performance of this task has suggested the idea that, in romantic

fiction, ours is the day of small things,--small as the diamond and the

violet are small. Going freely through English literature to gather

little classics, I have been surprised at finding so few that antedate

the present century. Hawthorne, De Quincey, Poe, and Dr. Brown have put

within the compass of a few pages as much plot and character, as much

pathos, humor, human nature, metaphysical speculation, and dramatic

effect, as commonly suffice for a full-length romance. The ponderous

novel cannot be said to have had its day; but the indications are that

it must soon cease to have more than its day. The work of art which,

embodying a sacred principle or a living idea, condenses its plot, its

moral, and its effective climax into the limits of a single sitting

must, in an age of crowding books and rushing readers, possess a

decisive advantage over the unwieldy conventional novel, with its

caravan of characters and its long bewilderment of detail. The Ark of

the Deluge may crumble on the mountain, but the Ark of the Covenant is

borne by the people through all their wanderings, and enshrined in the

temple when they rest.

If the prevailing cast of these tales is sombre and tragic, it is not

from any design on the part of the compiler; it is because, being true

to nature and to human experience, they follow the inevitable course of

human destiny. In the broad light of our daily life lie the superficial,

the ephemeral, and the inessential; in its shadow lie God's solemn

mysteries and man's profoundest studies. That in us which humor appeals

to is selfish, and finds its limit within the narrow boundary of one's

own being. That which pathos awakens is sacrificial in its tendency, and

stretches a protecting arm, or offers a sympathetic heart, to all the

world.

NEW YORK, February, 1874.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS.

PAGE

ETHAN BRAND _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 7

THE SWANS OF LIR _Gerald Griffin_ 30

A NIGHT IN A WORKHOUSE _James Greenwood_ 56

THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT _Bret Harte_ 85

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY _Edward Everett Hale_ 101

FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE _Thomas De Quincey_ 137

[Illustration]

NOTE.

Thanks are due to the several American authors represented in this

collection, and to their publishers, for the permission kindly given to

use selections from their copyrighted works.

[Illustration]

ETHAN BRAND.

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with

charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son

played at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when,

on the hillside below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful,

but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest.

"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and

pressing betwixt his father's knees.

"O, some drunken man, I suppose!" answered the lime-burner; "some merry

fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough

within doors, lest he should blow the roof of the house off. So here he

is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylock."

"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse,

middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the

noise frightens me!"

"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never

make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I

have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the

merry fellow, now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."

Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching

the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and

meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable Sin.

Many years had elapsed since the portentous night when the IDEA was

first developed. The kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood

unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark

thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it

were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. It was a

rude, round, tower-like structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built

of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger

part of its circumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble

might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. There was an

opening at the bottom of the tower like an oven-mouth, but large enough

to admit a man in a stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron

door. With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and

crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the

hillside, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the

infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were

accustomed to show to pilgrims.

There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpose

of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the substance

of the hills. Some of them, built years ago and long deserted, with

weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the

sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting themselves into the chinks of

the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be

overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the

lime-burner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford points of

interest to the wanderer among the hills who seats himself on a log of

wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. It

is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an

intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan

Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the

fire in this very kiln was burning.

The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled

himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his

business. At frequent intervals he flung back the clashing weight of the

iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in

huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole. Within

the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning

marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without the

reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding

forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture

of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed

figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into

the protection of his father's shadow. And when again the iron door was

closed, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon, which

vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring

mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of

clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far down

into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago.

The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were

heard ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes

that clustered beneath the trees.

"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity,

yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show yourself, like a man,

or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!"

"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man

drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own

fireside."

To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the

kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light that smote full

upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appeared

nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a

coarse, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the

staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed his

eyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of the

furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of

note within it.

"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so

late in the day?"

"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is

finished."

"Drunk!--or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have trouble

with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away the better."

The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged

him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much

light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was

afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the

lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an

indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with

the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken eyes,

which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious cavern.

But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke

in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if he were a sane

and sensible man, after all.

"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already

been burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone to

lime."

"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as well

acquainted with my business as I am myself."

"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft

many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a

new-comer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"

"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram,

with a laugh.

"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and

therefore he comes back again."

"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in

amazement. "I am a new-comer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen

years since you left the foot of Graylock. But I can tell you, the good

folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and what a

strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln. Well, and so you have

found the Unpardonable Sin?"

"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.

"If the question is a fair one," proceeded Bartram, "where might it be?"

Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.

"Here!" replied he.

And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an

involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughout

the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking

into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast,

he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the same slow, heavy laugh, that

had almost appalled the lime-burner when it heralded the wayfarer's

approach.

The solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of

place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling,

may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter of

one asleep, even if it be a little child,--the madman's laugh,--the

wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,--are sounds that we sometimes

tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets have imagined

no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a

laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this

strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter

that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among

the hills.

"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the

village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has come

back, and that he has found the Unpardonable Sin!"

The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no

objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. He sat on a log of wood,

looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child was out

of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading

first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain-path, the

lime-burner began to regret his departure. He felt that the little

fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guest and himself, and

that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on his own

confession, had committed the one only crime for which Heaven could

afford no mercy. That crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed to

overshadow him. The lime-burner's own sins rose up within him, and made

his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that asserted their

kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, which it was within

the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish. They were

all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast and Ethan

Brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other.

Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in

reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of

the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so

long absence that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have

had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. Ethan

Brand, it was said, had conversed with Satan himself in the lurid blaze

of this very kiln. The legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but

looked grisly now. According to this tale, before Ethan Brand departed

on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot

furnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in order to confer with him

about the Unpardonable Sin; the man and the fiend each laboring to frame

the image of some mode of guilt which could neither be atoned for nor

forgiven. And, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the

fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensest element of

fire, until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful task of

extending man's possible guilt beyond the scope of Heaven's else

infinite mercy.

While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts,

Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The

action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that he

almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot from the raging

furnace.

"Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was

ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, for

mercy's sake, bring out your devil now!"

"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the devil? I

have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such half-way sinners

as you that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I do

but act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a

lime-burner, as I was once."

He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze

into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow

that reddened upon his face. The lime-burner sat watching him, and half

suspected his strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at

least to plunge bodily into the flames, and thus vanish from the sight

of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of

the kiln.

"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times

hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. But I

found not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"

"What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then he

shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be

answered.

"It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied Ethan Brand,

standing erect, with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his

stamp. "A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that

triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God,

and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! The only sin that

deserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again,

would I incur the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribution!"

"The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "He may

be a sinner, like the rest of us,--nothing more, likely,--but, I'll be

sworn, he is a madman too."

Nevertheless he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with Ethan

Brand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough

murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous

party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush.

Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the

village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk

flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked their

pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since Ethan Brand's

departure. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together

in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow

streaks of firelight that illuminated the open space before the

lime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with

light, that the whole company might get a fair view of Ethan Brand, and

he of them.

There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous man, now

almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the

hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was the

stage-agent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and

smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown,

bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown,

had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what

seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. He

had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any

intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and

tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well

as his person. Another well-remembered though strangely altered face was

that of Lawyer Giles, as people still called him in courtesy; an elderly

ragamuffin, in his soiled shirt-sleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This

poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a

sharp practitioner, and in great vogue among the village litigants; but

flip and sling and toddy and cocktails, imbibed at all hours, morning,

noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to various

kinds and degrees of bodily labor, till at last, to adopt his own

phrase, he slid into a soap-vat. In other words, Giles was now a

soap-boiler, in a small way. He had come to be but the fragment of a

human being, a part of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and

an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine. Yet,

though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for,

stretching forth the stump, Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an

invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real

ones were amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one,

nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to

scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, since he

had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in

charity, and with his one hand--and that the left one--fought a stern

battle against want and hostile circumstances.

Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain points

of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of difference. It was the

village doctor, a man of some fifty years, a purple-visaged, rude, and

brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and

desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and

manners. Brandy possessed this man like an evil spirit, and made him as

surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but

there was supposed to be in him such wonderful skill, such native gifts

of healing, beyond any which medical science could impart, that society

caught hold of him, and would not let him sink out of its reach. So,

swaying to and fro upon his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the

bed-side, he visited all the sick-chambers for miles about among the

mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man, as it were, by

miracle, or quite as often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that

was dug many a year too soon. The doctor had an everlasting pipe in his

mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it

was always alight with hell-fire.

These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted Ethan Brand each after

his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of the contents of a

certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find something

far better worth seeking for than the Unpardonable Sin. No mind, which

has wrought itself by intense and solitary meditation into a high state

of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes

of thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was now subjected. It made

him doubt,--and, strange to say, it was a painful doubt,--whether he had

indeed found the Unpardonable Sin, and found it within himself. The

whole question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life,

looked like a delusion.

"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made

yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! I have done

with you. Years and years ago I groped into your hearts, and found

nothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!"

"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way

you respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell you

the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boy

Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow,--I told you so twenty years

ago,--neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fit

companion of old Humphrey, here!"

He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin

visage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person had been

wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he met

for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of

circus-performers; and occasionally tidings of her came to the village,

and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance as she rode on

horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on the tight-rope.

The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed unsteadily

into his face.

"They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his

hands with earnestness. "You must have seen my daughter, for she makes a

grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she send

any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?"

Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. That daughter, with a

cold and remorseless purpose, Ethan Brand had made the subject of a

psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated

her soul, in the process.

"Yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary wanderer; "it is no

delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!"

While these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in the

area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of the

hut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had

hurried up the hillside, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand, the

hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. Finding nothing,

however, very remarkable in his aspect, nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer,

in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire, as if he

fancied pictures among the coals,--these young people speedily grew

tired of observing him. As it happened, there was other amusement at

hand. An old German Jew, travelling with a diorama on his back, was

passing down the mountain-road toward the village just as the party

turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of the day,

the showman had kept them company to the lime-kiln.

"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your

pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!"

"O yes, Captain," answered the Jew,--whether as a matter of courtesy or

craft, he styled everybody Captain,--"I shall show you, indeed, some

very superb pictures!"

So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and

girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded

to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as

specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face

to impose upon his circle of spectators. The pictures were worn

out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with

tobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Some

purported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in Europe;

others represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea-fights; and in

the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,--which

might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, it

was only the showman's,--pointing its forefinger to various scenes of

the conflict, whilst its owner gave historical illustrations. When, with

much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was

concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the box. Viewed

through the magnifying-glasses, the boy's round, rosy visage assumed the

strangest imaginable aspect of an immense Titanic child, the mouth

grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature overflowing with

fun at the joke. Suddenly, however, that merry face turned pale, and its

expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and excitable

child had become sensible that the eye of Ethan Brand was fixed upon him

through the glass.

"You make the little man to be afraid, Captain," said the German Jew,

turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage, from his stooping

posture. "But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to see

somewhat that is very fine, upon my word!"

Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back,

looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently; for

a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld

only a vacant space of canvas.

"I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman.

"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremberg, with a dark smile, "I

find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,--this Unpardonable Sin! By

my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry

it over the mountain."

"Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace

yonder!"

The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly

dog--that seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid

claim to him--saw fit to render himself the object of public notice.

Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog,

going round from one to another, and, by way of being sociable, offering

his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would take so much

trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped,

of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestion from

anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, to heighten the

absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should

have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of an

object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a

tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,--as if

one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most

unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went

the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of

his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity;

until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish

old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next

moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his

deportment, as when he first scraped acquaintance with the company.

As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter,

clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performer

responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared

totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the

spectators.

Meanwhile Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, it

might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his own case

and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh,

which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inward

being. From that moment the merriment of the party was at an end;

they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be

reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to

mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. Then,

whispering one to another that it was late,--that the moon was almost

down,--that the August night was growing chill,--they hurried

homewards, leaving the lime-burner and little Joe to deal as they might

with their unwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings, the open

space on the hillside was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest.

Beyond that darksome verge the firelight glimmered on the stately trunks

and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure

of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay the

gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. And it

seemed to little Joe--a timorous and imaginative child--that the silent

forest was holding its breath, until some fearful thing should happen.

Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the

kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he

bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest.

"For myself, I cannot sleep," said he. "I have matters that it concerns

me to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do in the old

time."

"And call the devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I suppose,"

muttered Bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with the

black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as many

devils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the better for a snooze.

Come, Joe!"

As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the

wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes; for his tender spirit had an

intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had

enveloped himself.

When they had gone Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of the

kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that issued

through the chinks of the door. These trifles, however, once so

familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention, while deep within

his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change that had

been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted himself. He

remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,--how the dark forest

had whispered to him,--how the stars had gleamed upon him,--a simple and

loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as

it burned. He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and

sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had

first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the

inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the

heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, however

desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with what awful fear

he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the

Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued that vast

intellectual development, which in its progress disturbed the

counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that possessed his

life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating

his powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had

raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a

star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the

lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. So much

for the intellect! But where was the heart? That, indeed, had

withered,--had contracted,--had hardened,--had perished! It had ceased

to partake of the universal throb. He had lost his hold of the magnetic

chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers

or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which

gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold

observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment, and at

length converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires

that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study.

Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment that

his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with

his intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable

development,--as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious

fruit of his life's labor,--he had produced the Unpardonable Sin!

"What more have I to seek? What more to achieve?" said Ethan Brand to

himself. "My task is done, and well done!"

Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait, and ascending

the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circumference of

the lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. It was a space

of perhaps ten feet across from edge to edge, presenting a view of the

upper surface of the immense mass of broken marble with which the kiln

was heaped. All these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were

red-hot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame,

which quivered aloft and danced madly as within a magic circle, and sank

and rose again with continual and multitudinous activity. As the lonely

man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat

smote up against his person with a breath that, it might be supposed,

would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment.

Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames

played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which

alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the

verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.

"O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into

whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose

brotherhood I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my

feet! O stars of heaven that shone on me of old, as if to light me

onward and upward!--farewell all, and forever! Come, deadly element

of Fire,--henceforth my familiar friend! Embrace me, as I do thee!"

That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily

through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of

horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the

rude hovel when they opened their eyes to the daylight.

"Up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "Thank Heaven,

the night is gone at last; and rather than pass such another, I would

watch my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand,

with his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no such mighty favor

in taking my place!"

He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold of

his father's hand. The early sunshine was already pouring its gold upon

the mountain-tops; and though the valleys were still in shadow, they

smiled cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hastening

onward. The village, completely shut in by hills which swelled away

gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of

the great hand of Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; the

little spires of the two churches pointed upwards, and caught a

fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded

weathercocks. The tavern was astir, and the figure of the old

smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the stoop. Old

Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. Scattered

likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains, there were heaps

of hoary mist in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into the

valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the

same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper

atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on

the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it

seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly

regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look

at it.

To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily

adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the

mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the

notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate

harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little

share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each

contributing a strain of airy sweetness.

Little Joe's face brightened at once.

"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange man

is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!"

"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire

go down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not

spoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like

tossing him into the furnace!"

With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln.

After a moment's pause, he called to his son.

"Come up here, Joe!" said he.

So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The

marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its surface,

in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly converted

into lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after

long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the ribs--strange to

say--was the shape of a human heart.

"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in some

perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into what looks

like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is

half a bushel the richer for him."

So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall

upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled into

fragments.

[Illustration]

THE SWANS OF LIR.

BY GERALD GRIFFIN.

After the battle of Tailltean, the Tuatha Danaans assembled together

from the remotest corners of the five provinces of Ireland, in order to

make arrangements for the future government of the isle. All agreed that

it was better the whole country should be united under one monarch,

chosen by common consent, than to continue subject to the interminable

dissensions and oppressive imposts, arising from the rivalry of a number

of petty sovereigns. Six candidates aspired to this supreme power,

namely, Bogh Dearg, or Red Bow, of the tribe of the Deasies; Ibbreac, or

the Many Colored, from the Red Stream; Lir; Fiuvar the Royal; Mioyar of

the Great Burthen, so surnamed from his prodigious strength; and Aongusa

Og, or young Oneas. All the rest of the Tuatha Danaans, except the six

candidates, then went into council, and the determination was, to give

the kingdom to Bogh Dearg, for three reasons. The first reason was, that

his father had been a good man in his time; the second, that he was a

good man himself; and the third, that he came of the best blood in the

nation.

When Lir heard that the crown was to be given to Bogh Dearg, indignant

at the choice, he returned to his own home, without waiting to see the

new king inaugurated, or letting any of the assembly know that he was

going, for he was convinced that the choice of the people would have

fallen upon himself. Bogh Dearg, however, was proclaimed in due form, by

the unanimous consent of the assembly, none of the five rejected

candidates opposing his election, except Lir alone.

The ceremonies being concluded, the assembled tribes called on the new

monarch to lead them in pursuit of Lir.

"Let us burn and spoil his territory," said they. "Why dares he, who

never had a king in his family, presume to slight the sovereign we have

chosen?"

"We will follow no such counsel," replied Bogh Dearg. "His ancestors and

himself have always kept the province in which he lives in peace, and it

will take nothing from my sovereignty over the Tuatha Danaans, to allow

him still to hold his own possessions there."

The assembly, not fully satisfied with this reply, debated much on the

course they had best take; but after much discussion, the question was

allowed to rest for a time. Meanwhile an incident occurred which pressed

heavily on the mind of Lir. His wife, whom he tenderly loved, fell ill

and died in three nights. The report of her death, which was looked upon

as a grievous loss in her own country, soon spread all over Ireland. It

reached at length the ears of Bogh Dearg, and of the princes and nobles

who were at his palace.

"Now," said the monarch, "if Lir were willing to accede to it, I could

propose a mode of redoubling the present friendship which I entertain

for Lir. You all know that I have three daughters, the fairest in the

kingdom, and I would praise them further, but that I am their father. I

mean Aov, Aoife, and Alve, of whom Lir might choose which he pleased, to

supply the place of his dead wife."

The speech of the king circulated amongst the Tuatha Danaans, and all

agreed that a messenger ought to be sent to Lir in order to propose the

connection, with a suitable dowry for the bride. When the ambassador

arrived at the palace of Lir, he found the latter willing to accept the

proposal, and, accordingly, both returned together to the royal

residence of Bogh Dearg, on the shores of Lough Derg, where they were

received on the part of the Tuatha Danaans with all the acclamations

that even a more popular prince could expect. All parties seemed to take

an interest in promoting the union.

The three daughters were sitting on chairs richly ornamented, in a hall

of their father's palace. Near them sat the queen, wife of Bogh Dearg.

When Lir and the monarch entered, the latter directed his attention to

the three princesses, and bade him choose which he would.

"I do not know which of the three to choose," said Lir, "but the eldest

is the most royal, and besides it is just that she should have

precedence of the rest."

"Then," said the monarch, "that is Aov."

"Aov, then, I choose," replied Lir.

The marriage was celebrated with the magnificence becoming the rank of

the parties. They remained a fortnight in the palace of the monarch,

after which they went to the residence of Lir, who gave a splendid

banquet on his arrival. In the progress of time Aov had twins, a son and

a daughter, who were named, the one Fingula, and the other Aodh, or

Eugene. In her next confinement, she gave birth to two sons, to whom

were given the names of Fiacra and Cornu, but died herself, in a few

days after. Lir was exceedingly grieved at her death, and, only for the

love he bore his children, would almost have wished to die along with

her. The tidings reached the monarch, who, together with all his

household, made great lamentations for his eldest daughter, grieving

more especially for the affliction which it caused to Lir.

"Nevertheless," said the monarch, "what has occurred need not dissolve

the connection between Lir and us, for he can, if he please, take my

second daughter, Aoife, to supply her place."

This speech, as was intended, soon found its way to Lir, who set out

immediately for the palace of Bogh Dearg. The marriage was celebrated

with the same splendor as on the former occasion, and Lir, after

spending some time at the monarch's palace, returned to his house with

Aoife, where he received her with all the love and honor which she could

expect. For some time Aoife returned the same to him and to his

children; and indeed any person who once saw those children could not

avoid giving them all the love which any creature could receive.

Frequently the old monarch came to see them to Lir's house, and often

took them to his own, where he would gladly keep them, but that their

father could not bear to have them out of his sight. It was the custom

of the Tuatha Danaans to entertain each other in succession. When they

assembled at the house of Lir, the four children were the whole subject

of discourse, and the chief ornament of the day, they were so fair and

so winning both in their appearances and their dispositions; and even as

they dispersed to their several homes, the guests were heard to speak of

nothing else. Lir himself would rise every morning at daybreak, and

going to the apartment in which his children lay, would lie down among

them for a while. The black poison of jealousy began at length to

insinuate itself into the mind of Aoife. As if the love of Lir were not

wide enough to comprehend them and herself, she conceived a mortal

hatred against her sister's children. She feigned illness, and remained

nearly a year in that condition, totally occupied in devising in her

mind some means of ruining the children.

One morning she ordered her chariot, to the great surprise of Lir, who,

however, was well pleased at this sign of returning health. Aoife next

desired that the four children of Lir should be placed in the chariot

with her, and drove away in the direction of Bogh Dearg's house. It was

much against her will that Fingula, the daughter, went into the

carriage, for she had long observed the increasing coolness in the mind

of her step-mother, and guessed that she had no kindly purpose in her

thoughts at present. She could not, however, avoid the destiny that was

prepared for her, nor escape the suffering which she was doomed to

undergo.

Aoife continued her journey until she arrived at Fiondach, where dwelt

some of her father's people whom she knew to be deeply skilled in the

art of the Druids. Having arrived at their residence, she went into the

place where they were, and endeavored to prevail on them to kill the

children, telling them that their father through his affection for them

had slighted her, and promising to bestow on them all the riches which

they could require.