CHAPTER I.

Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed

Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net from

page images generously made available by the Internet

Archive (https://archive.org)

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXX. January, 1847. No. 1.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Tribulation Trepid. A Man Without Hope

Glimpses of a Soul

The Oath of Marion. A Story of the Revolution

The Executioner

The Young Painter

Game-Birds of America.—No. IV.

The Islets of the Gulf

Starting Wrong

The Present Romantic School of French Literature.

Alexandre Dumas’ Hamlet

Review of New Books

Poetry, Music and Fashion

The Maid of Linden Lane

Ægeus

Lady Jane Grey

Sonnets. On Receiving a Crown of Ivy From John

Keats—by Leigh Hunt

“Oh! That a Little Cot Were Mine!”

Midnight Masses. No. I.

I’ve Been Upon the Briny Deep

The Gleaner

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Ch. Bodmer pinx. ad. Nat. Eng^d by Rawdon, Wright &

Hatch

Herds of Bisons and Elks

ON THE UPPER MISSOURI.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:

LE FOLLET

Boulevart S^{t.} Martin, 61.

_Robes et blousons de M^{me}._ Thiery, _boul. Montmartre, 65—Chapeaux de

M^{me}._ Baudry, _r. Richlieu 87;_

_Bonnet et lingeries de M^{lle}._ Malteste, _r. de la Paix, 20—Mouchoirs

de_ L. Chapron & Dubois, _r. de la Paix, 7;_

_Essences et parfums de_ Guerlain, _r. de la Paix, 11—Chaussures de_

Bobin, _r. Richlieu, 29_.

Graham’s Magazine.]

* * * * *

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXX. PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY, 1847. NO. 2.

* * * * *

TRIBULATION TREPID.

A MAN WITHOUT A HOPE.

(A PHRENOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATION.)

BY JOSEPH C. NEAL.

It is inconvenient to have to bear with personal

deficiencies—troublesome and disheartening not to possess all the

senses and the faculties which are demanded to enable man to compete

with his fellows upon equal terms; and it requires philosophy that we do

not repine when we find ourselves in any respect, either physical or

mental, compelled to stand aside in the unpleasant attitude of being an

exception to the general rule. It is true that the march of science is

able, to a considerable extent, to obviate corporeal default. Eyes are

constructed so well as to deceive the eye, although the constructed eye

is not yet so perfect that we shall hope to see with it far into the

opacity of mill-stones. Legs are manufactured more symmetrically

beautiful than the majority of real legs; and the skillful artist will,

if you are only tall enough, modulate you into a figure which might put

an Apollo to the blush. But the steam leg, in its swiftness of

locomotion, is as yet no more than a dream of the visionary; and we may

pad ourselves into muscularity as much as we please, without gaining a

particle of power.

We are aware that by the aid of spectacles he who would otherwise be

always stumbling over the dog, and tripping in contact with other

people’s feet, periling his precious countenance by rude collisions with

every species of obstacle, may contrive to see his way through the world

in comparative clearness. But science has not perhaps succeeded to the

same extent in the work of metaphysical regeneration; nor do we know

that any man’s geese have as yet been fully converted into swans, though

he may think them progressive creatures in the scale of ornithology, and

likely to reach a higher position than has been attained by former

members of the race. It is theoretical, we learn, with the

phrenologists, and probably practical also, to a greater extent than the

world is willing to admit, that there are processes whereby the neglects

of dame nature may at least be partially counteracted and repaired, so

that “bumps” shall be raised, where depressions exist, and some degree

of potency be secured in those “organs” which were originally faint and

feeble; just as the muscular fibre is strengthened by exercise, and as

our agile capabilities are increased by a judicious practice of the

thews and sinews on which activity depends.

Now, while we hope for the sake of humanity in general, that these

assumptions will fully bear the test of experiment, it must yet be

conceded that education fails somewhat in this regard; and that in

thinking, as in dancing, much depends upon the configuration of mind and

of body with which we were endowed from the outset. The phrenologists

are right in the belief that training has its advantages; but there must

be a basis on which that training is to proceed, or the result will be

such as cannot fail to lead to serious disappointment.

For example, and in the way of parenthesis, it would be a parlous

difficulty to teach the innate craven to plunge valiantly onward at the

desperate head of a forlorn hope, or to hurl himself recklessly upon the

sharp and bristling array of a forest of hostile bayonets. You may

debate the question if you are so inclined, insisting on it vehemently

that, in honor’s view, there is no essential difference in a case like

this, between a glorious death and the triumph of a victory, and that

the most disastrous of the two is infinitely preferable to an age

without a name, yet, our life on it, it will prove that your friend of

the weak nerve, and of the nonchivalrous temperament, is not to be

talked, by the most persuasive, into any relish for cold steel, or into

any decided fancy for the reception into himself of certain intrusive

pellets of hot lead. Nay, Ciceronian eloquence would be wasted in the

endeavor to induce him to come to the conclusion that it is much better

for him to be extended face upward on the ensanguined plain, after the

fashion of the “grinning honor” of Sir Walter Blount, than to find

himself sound in body, but without a single sprig of laurel to his name,

snugly enfolded in the blankets awaiting a call to breakfast. Nature,

you will observe, has denied to him the perception of the romantic and

the poetical. He has no desire to be posthumous to his own reputation.

To such a one, the hard knock is simply a hard knock, unmitigated by

transcendental embellishment; and renown has no part in the plain

arithmetic of his calculations. He values life by its

admeasurements—according to the number and length of its days. So give

it up at once—there is no sun—of Austerlitz or of any other

place—that can ripen this man into a warrior, or tempt him to enter

into fierce competition for the wreath of glory.

And thus—musically—we find that people “without an ear,” do not often

take the lead in operatic performances; or, if they do participate, that

the operatic performances are not particularly benefitted by their

interference. The querulous and fretful—do they acquire the resources

of patient fortitude? Not often, so far as our experience extends; and

we do not know that the simpleton, school him ever so much, is likely to

obtain distinction for himself as a philosopher—nay, he is often

furthest from it at the very moment when he imagines himself a great

deal wiser than his neighbors.

Such as these, as well as others who might be mentioned, have no

foundation on which the deficient “bump” is to be elevated; and, as a

general rule, it is just as well to abandon as a “bad job” all effort to

render them distinguished in the display of those faculties which form

no part of their primary constitution. The superstructure that may be

raised on an insecure soil, must of necessity be weak and “shackling;”

and all the military education that can be bestowed on the poltroon,

will not avail to prevent an ill-timed manifestation of that species of

plumage which obtains ignoble renown under the epithet of the “white

feather.” It has been in him probably from his birth, that he must

locomote in a direction contrary to that in which “the nettle danger”

uprears its ugly front; and, under these circumstances, the impulse to

retrograde travel will burst all the artificial and conventional bonds

which have been devised to drive it into the teeth of the battery. It

was the design of nature that our friend should run; and who will

venture to stand antagonistical to nature?

It is a mere flight of fancy, no doubt, into the illimitable regions of

hypothesis, but we should very much like to see the day when a

Bumpological art shall be matured, and a practical science of Organology

be brought into operation. Then there will be some use in the knocks

about the sconce, which are now so wofully wasted; and when we shall be

driven into frenzies, the manifestations of our wrath will become really

beneficial to those on whom they may chance to be bestowed. Then we

should find the rationale of corporal punishment—a thing not to be

whirled about in random kicks and cuffings; but to be so applied as to

develop that very bump, a deficiency of which, in the offending party,

has so raised our vengeful ire. Such, perchance, is the latent reason

why we are so anxious to maltreat those who are not disposed to obey our

behests, as well as the true motive why it is an impulse of our nature

to chastise the enemy. Education would thus be revolutionized, and the

Art of War would be brought within the range of the directly useful

sciences.

But to descend at once to the facts that are before us, it is a blessed

thought to believe that by a wise system of tuition, the small uncertain

spark of a virtue may be breathed into a steady flame; and if, infirm of

purpose as so many are, they could be strengthened into a surer aim by

due attention to the feebler parts of character, none, we are sure,

could be found to regret it; and so we are, and we intend to be, full of

respect to this phrenological idea, which might, we think, be somewhat

more carefully engrafted upon systems of educational improvement, so

that the mere appeal to the memory might leave room for the analysis and

development of the moral being.

We should go to school upon a different principle then; and probably it

may not be a useless waste of imagination to reflect a little upon the

novel scenes that would then be presented in the halls of the academy.

“My son Bob, Mr. Professor—this is Bob, sir, trying to hide himself

behind the door—stand up, Bob, and behave like a man—Bob, Mr.

Professor, hasn’t got any pride, and has the smallest quantity of

dignity. He’s always letting himself down, and never tries to hyst

himself up—likes the raggedest boys the best, Mr. Professor, and

prefers the company of the sweeps to going to the nicest of tea-parties.

Bob always feels flat in genteel society, does Bob.”

“Ah—I comprehend—a very common case, indeed; but curable—take Bob,

Mr. Simpkins, and touch him up in the region of self-esteem. Don’t be

afraid—we’ll make Bob—you’ll have to call him Master Robert then—as

proud as Lucifer, in a week or two. When we send him home, he will

hardly speak to his own father, and he wont own any of his relations.”

“And here is Peter, sir, and Sam—nice boys as ever was, only they don’t

care nothing for nobody, and will have it all their own way, which is

apt to be the wrong way, if not a bad way.”

“Ho! ho! knock up a bump in the region of approbativeness, so that they

may quit thinking for themselves, and always want somebody to think for

them.”

“Please, Mr. Professor, our Tom appropriates and conveys—sugar, sir, or

pennies convertible to sugar—he bones, sir, and he filches, sir,

whatever he can lay his blessed little hands upon, the darling; every

thing is fish that comes to Tom’s net.”

“Just so—Tom has not yet got beyond the first principle of human

nature, which impels us to help ourselves to whatever we want—the

application must be made to Tom, sharply, just where his conscience

ought to be. Bump up a conscience for Tommy.”

The disrespectful, who, in some way or other, are disposed to make faces

at their superiors, would require to be rapped rather soundly in and

about “veneration;” and we are not now to be told that a smart blow on

the eye is sure to awaken vociferous displays of the faculty of

“language.” For him who comes too late, which is bad—or stays too late,

which is worse—what could be better than a forcible appeal to “time?”

And if a boy—your boy, or any other body’s boy—cannot be easily made

to see the essential difference between his own selfish will and your

authoritative behest, you have only to perform for him a tune upon his

slumbering organ of “comparison,” and you shall have music, you may

depend upon it. If the same rebellious individual is slow to discern why

he should obey, lend him a smart fillip upon his “casualty,” educive of

the why, and provocative of the wherefore; and if you yourself cannot

discover the point of a joke, taking the fact for granted that it is a

joke which comes to a point—some jokes, like some people, come to

nothings—depend upon it that your “wit” is beginning to lose its edge,

and is getting to be somewhat rusty in the method of its operation.

No one, we presume, will venture to deny that “cautiousness,” well

rubbed and roused, has a tendency to keep our fingers out of the fire;

or that an inflammation of our “combativeness” will give us joy in the

facing of our foe. But what, let us ask, what is to be done, if, like

the peculiar one who now comes under our special notice—what is to be

done, if in all the qualities which go to make up our mentality, we have

not one scintilla of self reliance and expectation, and are like

TRIBULATION TREPID,

A MAN WITHOUT A HOPE!

You see, the case is in every way a hopeless one—for Tribulation Trepid

never had a hope. He has no more idea of what you mean by a hope than a

blind man can understand what you are talking about when you speak of

colors. Hope!—how do you go about it—how do you begin when you want to

hope? The first principle of hopefulness is not resident within the

confines of the craniology of Tribulation Trepid; and, therefore, from

the very moment of his birth, up and down—but more down than up—poor

Tribulation Trepid has been lost in despond and in despair. Who ever

called him “Young Hopeful?” It would have been the very heartlessness of

cold derision.

If in the adventurousness of youth—for the earlier stages of existence

form a perpetual exploring expedition, and an unceasing voyage of

discovery into all sorts of holes and corners, to the constant annoyance

of those who do not appreciate the march of mind in its primary

manifestations—if then, at this interesting period, Tribulation Trepid

undertook to exercise his limbs, and to gratify his curiosity by

climbing up the chair, or ascending the table, that in this way his

knowledge of the laws of gravitation might be increased, and his power

of self-reliance extended, and if, thwartingly, at such perilous moment,

as too often happens to be the case, the usual maternal caution fell

upon his ear,

“Tribby, Tribby, what are you at? That child will fall and break its

good-for-nothing neck!”

Tribby, of course, did fall—he was sure to do it—only suggest the

worst of the alternatives to his mind, and, lacking hope to sustain his

trembling limbs, he dropped at once into the fell catastrophe. He took

it for granted that it must be so; and so it was. The great secret of

successful adventure is confidence—a fixed faith in the potency of your

star; and he who is deficient in this belief, will find it much better

to remain at home, or to “go ashore,” than to tempt the chances of the

storm. He, in truth, seeketh a shipwreck, who is not assured of his own

buoyancy; and that man marches to an overthrow, whose mind is always

dwelling on the probabilities of being beaten. He alone triumphs, who

disdains to entertain a doubt of his own invincibility, and thus compels

fortune to perch, whether she will or no, upon his daring banner. But

such was not our Tribulation.

“Here, Tribby, take this pitcher down to Susan, and be sure you don’t

fall, or I’ll box your ears, you Tribby.”

Under the doctrine of pains and penalties, which until lately formed the

basis of all education—sound whipping and sound teaching having

heretofore been identical—one would have thought that, with such a

threatening over his head, Tribulation Trepid would not have dared to

treat himself to a luxury so expensive as the species of tumble now

referred to. To slip down stairs by himself is wicked enough in any

child, when we reflect upon the uproar which every child is apt to

create under these circumstances. But to slip down stairs, including a

best pitcher in the gymnastic operation, to the exceeding detriment of

the crockery, is an offence not to be excused at the judgment-seat of

the good housekeeper. It is a sin which cannot be pardoned or

overlooked.

“Now mind—don’t you fall and break that pitcher, Tribby, as you always

do,” was the pursuing admonition to our child of wo, as he entered upon

the labyrinthine convolutions of the dark stairway—but just then—did

you not expect it?—cr-a-a-sh!—bimble—bumble—rub-dub!—Tribby has

achieved his descent by a short hand process, and lies vociferously

prone upon his back at the landing-place, environed by the fragments of

the ware. We are not satisfied that it mended the matter at all, and we

are quite sure it did not mend the pitcher; but we presume it was a

satisfaction, if not to both, at least to one of the parties involved;

and a satisfaction is something in this unsatisfactory state of

existence; and so Tribulation Trepid received his promised reward—“I’ll

teach you,” and so forth—causing his auricular appendages to

reverberate for an hour or two, and likewise to be comfortably warm for

at least the same space of time, affording him both his music and his

caloric at the lowest possible rate; though it can scarcely be said that

his hope underwent any considerable degree of augmentation by the

process.

* * * * *

“Tribby Trepid doesn’t know his lesson, I am tolerably well assured of

that,” said the teacher, glancing significantly at his rattan—for

Tribulation Trepid underwent his share of schooling when rattan was lord

paramount in the academic groves, and served, as it made the schoolboy

“smart” in more senses than one, to counteract, on the part of

preceptors, the baneful influences of sedentary life, by affording

wholesome exercise in the “dusting of jackets.”

Now Tribby’s hope not being strong in the faith that he would prove

thoroughly conversant with his lesson, when brought up to the test of

actual experiment, though he was acquainted with it passing well when he

left home, the announcement of this foregone conclusion in the teacher’s

mind, coupled with certain tingling remembrances connected with rattan,

drove all other lessons from his desponding brain; and he was executed

accordingly, to the infinite relief of Mr. Switchem’s dyspeptic

symptoms, and to the marvelous increase of the aforesaid Switchem’s

appetite for dinner. And so, reproof, condemnation and rattan being

inevitable, why should Tribulation Trepid annoy himself by the previous

pain of toilsome study? He did so no more.

“I shan’t know ’em if I do; and I shall be whipped whether I do or not,”

said Tribby, and he forthwith bowed himself down to that which appeared

to be the inevitable, allowing hope to be crushed beneath the lumbering

wheels of a Juggernaut of fear.

* * * * *

Hope on—hope ever. There is nothing in this world so valuable as hope.

The thing hoped for, precious though it be, is perhaps less of a

blessing in itself than the state of mind which convinces us that by the

proper effort we are able to obtain it. Better is it to be full of hope

than to have triumphed in the pursuit of all that man regards as most

desirable. Hope is richer than a diadem. Hopefulness is a perpetual

banquet—a feast that never cloys; and he who has around him the glowing

atmosphere which hope alone can bring, has no need to envy the successes

that others have achieved. His dreams surpass reality.

But Tribulation Trepid has no hope. If there were a germ of it at the

outset of his career, it was, as it were, trampled down and buried by a

conviction steadfastly impressed, that, if others could succeed he was

sure to fail; and therefore, he did fail.

Did he mount a horse—oh! Tribulation Trepid will be thrown from the

saddle, as a matter of course—and he was thrown. Did he undertake to

leap the brook—the discouraging idea seemed to arrest him midway that

he could not do it; and Trepid emerged dripping from the wave. And so it

was, and so it has been, throughout the life of Tribulation—such, it

may be, is the secret why the lives of so many of our kind present an

unbroken series of disastrous failure. They lack the inspiring voice of

hope. They knew it would be so; and so it is.

* * * * *

It is a melancholy thing, moreover, to have to do with the family of the

Trepids. In the endeavor to encourage them, your own hopefulness seems

to fade away; and the more you labor to elevate them and to push them

forward, the more heavily, and inertly, and listlessly do they fall back

upon your hands. They are convinced that it is of “no use doing

nothing,” and they tamely suffer every competitor to pass them in the

race.

Just so it is with the lugubrious individual now before us, who

invariably puts the worst possible face upon every matter, for the

simple reason that, as in the reflection of a mirror, every matter wears

the worst possible face to him; and as he looks at matters sadly,

despondingly, just so do matters return the glance. He sighs over

matters, and groans over matters. He walks through the streets with a

longitude of visage and a mournful down-drawing of the corners of the

mouth that would be neat and appropriate at the funeral of his best

friend, but which are sadly out of time and place at every other moment;

and he feels assured always that it is going to rain—if not to-day,

certainly to-morrow—that is, in case a shower is not wanted. Otherwise,

it will never rain again—it has forgotten how.

Beware, then, how your sympathizing nature induces you to accost

Tribulation Trepid in the highway, unless you are proof against the

contagious influences of sorrow, and are firmly fixed in the confidence

of your own hope; for it seems to afford a mournful satisfaction to all

the Trepids to bring others down to their own melancholy level.

“You may try,” say they—“no objection to any body’s trying—but it’s

not often that trying comes to any thing. Whatever it may be, it will

never answer—we never knew things to answer. Things never answer

nowadays,” with various other assurances of a like enlivening nature.

Beware, then, of the effect of contact with the Trepids, unless your

nature is of that sanguine sort which bids defiance to the chill, and

has hardihood to sport itself safely in December’s snow.

“How are you Trepid? How do you feel to-day, Mr. Trepid?”

[Illustration]

“A great deal worse than I was, thank’ee—’most dead, I am obliged to

you—I’m always worse than I was, and I don’t think I was ever any

better. I’m very sure, any how, that I’m not going to be any better;

and, for the future, you may always know I’m worse without asking any

questions; for the questions make me worse, if nothing else does.”

“Why, Trepid, what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, I tell you, in particular; but a great deal is the matter with

me in general; and that’s the danger, because we don’t know what it is.

That’s what kills people—when they can’t tell what it is—that’s what’s

killing me. My great grandfather died of it, he did, and so will I. The

doctor’s don’t know—they can’t tell—they say I’m well enough, when I’m

bad enough; and so there’s no help. I’m going off some of these days,

right after my great grandfather, dying of nothing in particular, but of

every thing in general. That’s what finishes our folks.”

But as Tribulation Trepid has now got under way in reference to his

bodily health, it may be as well to suffer him to explain himself in the

matter of his pecuniary relations, which are in quite as bad a

condition.

“Well, but, Trepid, how do you come on otherwise? Why don’t you go into

some sort of business and keep a shop.”

“Keep a shop!—what’s the use of my keeping a shop? If I keep a shop,

nobody would ever come into it; and if they did come in, they wouldn’t

buy any thing. Didn’t I try once, and nobody came, because they said I

hadn’t enough of an assortment? Ketch me! Why did they not buy what I

had, instead of trying to coax me to get things, which they would not

have bought after all? Me keep a shop! Yes, to be sold out by the

sheriff—I’m always sold out—don’t I know it beforehand?”

“Apply for a situation did you say? Nonsense! Aint they always very

sorry—if I had only come sooner, or if they had only know’d of it

before—isn’t that always the answer? Could I ever get anywhere soon

enough, or before somebody else had been there, and had gathered up all

the good things that were agoing? Don’t talk to me about applying for a

situation. It’s almost as bad as trotting about to get an office. ‘Bring

your recommendations,’ say they; and by the time you’ve got your

recommendations, oh, how sorry they are, for such a nice man as you,

only the place is filled already.

“I’ve a great mind never to try to go anywhere any more, after

situations—somebody must sleep there all night; for, however bright and

early I get up of a morning, there he is; and I might have had the place

if I had been in time, as if that was any comfort.

“And as for trying to borry money of people, which is a nice easy way of

getting a living as a gentleman could desire, if you’ve a pretty good

run of business in that line, I never could do much at it, somehow or

other. I never could take the moneyed people by surprise. They seemed to

know what I wanted as soon as I looked at them, and they were always

very sorry, too—everybody is very sorry to me—but they had no cash to

spare just now, and just now is all the time when people don’t want to

lend. No—nothing is to be done in that line unless you can take them by

surprise, like a steel trap; and I’m not quick enough for that

operation. There’s never any money when I’m coming.

“I’ll give up—yes, if nobody will leave me a fortune, and no rich widow

will marry me, I’ve a great mind to give up, and see what will become of

me then. I suppose something must become of me: though I hardly believe

it will, for nothing ever become of me yet. But of this I’m sure,

there’s no use of my trying to get along by myself; and I’ll just sit

down by the side of life’s turnpike and wait till something goes

traveling by to get me along. But I guess I’ll have to wait a good

while; for the place will be occupied—they’ll be very sorry, to be

sure, and they’ll wish they had know’d it in time; but there’s no room

left.”

* * * * *

It will thus be seen that Tribulation Trepid adopts the expectant method

of treatment, as the course of practice best adapted to the

peculiarities of his case. He waits for something to “turn up” in his

favor, because he lacks force, faith and hope to urge him onward to

energetic effort—for, in the collapsed recesses of his trembling heart,

he does not really believe that any thing favorable will “turn up” for

him. Such turnings up never have occurred for his special benefit. All

his turnings have been turnings down; as the turnings of this world

generally prove to be, unless our own shoulder is so applied to the

turning as to induce it to turn in the proper direction. And this brings

us to the great query of all queries—the unsolved problem in our social

theory—what is to be done to help him who, by nature or by education,

proves to be unable to help himself—what measure of relief is to be

passed for the benefit of the sinking family of the Trepids, as they

stumble down the depths of disaster?—Gentle reader, and most sagacious

friend, if you should think of any, pray announce it betimes; and in

return receive a position among the most distinguished of the

benefactors of the human race. Cheer, if thou canst,

THE MAN WITHOUT A HOPE.

* * * * *

GLIMPSES OF A SOUL.

BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

KATE CAROL TO MARY H——.

“I miss you, Mary mine, more than I can tell, with this cold pen and

sluggish ink. I own I love Right Angledom. After the bustle and

_randomness_ of life in New York—its straight ways, its quiet and its

monotony, are refreshing. I love the Quakers too, with their delicious

repose of manner—their low, lulling, musical voices, and their simple

truthfulness of character and conversation. Their ‘ways are ways of

pleasantness, and all their paths are peace.’ But I must confess to, now

and then, a feeling, I cannot say of home-sickness—for I, wanderer that

I am, have no home, unless it be in your heart, and in some few others,

a _precious_ few, indeed—but a feeling of regret, a pining for the

past; for the few true and pure spirits to whom I have dared reveal

myself, who _know_ me thoroughly, faults and all, and who love me the

more for those faults; because love and pity come _together_ on their

divine mission from the gate of heaven, and walk hand-in-hand, twin

children of God, ever tender, and beautiful, and sad, through this

clouded vale of tears.

“‘Thee knows,’ Mary, as a lovely Quaker maiden said to me in a low

lute-tone the other night, ‘Thee knows the gravel and the gold run

together in _all_ characters.’ Sweet Lizzie L——, thee does _not_ know

how much that simple Orphic saying consoled me. Well, there is _some_

gold in _my_ character, but it requires the sunbeams of love and

sympathy to light it up, and so reveal it; and _they_ might change even

the gravel to gold in a heart so docile as mine, if they only knew it,

and would only take the trouble.

“Thee knows, Mary dear, my invincible aversion to strangers. Gay,

careless, confiding, frank, indeed to a fault, among those who seem to

love me, I am shy, cold, dull—nay, worse, I am _wretched_, where I am

not sure of pleasing. This is a most unfortunate weakness of mine, and

has been the cause of many troubles to me. I recollect once in New York

going to a party, which I afterwards heard was made _for me_—made

expressly to introduce me to some distinguished authors—and just see,

Mary, how badly I behaved; see what a wayward, naughty lion I was. Had I

only _known_ then, as I afterward did, the kind interest that my host

took in me, I should have been so happy, so social, so delightful; but

as it was, with my usual want of self-confidence, finding myself among

strangers, I felt my heart, like the pimpernel on the approach of rain,

coldly shrinking and shutting up, leaf by leaf, until I became a statue

of _lead_; and on my introduction to those writers, whom I had all my

life been eager to see, and whom, if I had only been sure that they

would let me, I could have loved at once. I replied in monosyllables, so

coldly, so drily, that they left me, surprised and repelled; and my

dear, kind, disappointed host, afterward said, in reply to some

encomiums by a friend—‘Yes, I suppose she is all that, but you must

allow that she is very eccentric.’ _Am_ I eccentric, Mary? Am I any

thing but foolish and timid, and sensitive to a ridiculous degree?

“Now it was this shrinking of the heart that I felt, when I first took

possession of a large, and at first, somewhat dreary room in a

Philadelphia boarding-house. The sister of a dear friend, then in

Washington, called upon me, and with a single magical sentence, like a

gleam from the lamp of Aladdin, warmed, and furnished, and lighted up

the chamber, till it seemed a home even to my lonely and sorrowing

heart. She simply said, ‘Oh! this is the room that Sophy had!’ The

following impromptu will show you how fervently I felt the change.

THE ROOM THAT SOPHY HAD.

Though strange and chill at first the room,

How soon it seemed with comfort clad,

When some one said—and blessed the gloom—

“It is the chamber Sophy had.”

With that sweet word the sunshine stole,

Around a spirit lone and sad,

A lingering ray from her true soul,

Still warmed “the room that Sophy had.”

And here has beat her happy heart;

And here have rung her accents glad;

And here the darling mused apart,—

Oh, precious “room that Sophy had.”

And here, perhaps, my image stole,

When care unwonted made her sad,

And whispered love through all her soul,

And cheered “the room that Sophy had.”

No palace-hall a queen may pace,

With splendor lit—with beauty clad,

Would seem so filled with light and grace,

As this dear “room that Sophy had.”

“You bid me send you all the verses I write. You little dream of the

shower that would overwhelm you, were I to comply literally with your

request ‘_Nulla die sine linea_,’ is my motto as well as that of the

painter of old, and while I sew, or walk, or ride, or lounge, I am

forever singing to myself impromptu love-songs, from imaginary damsels

to imaginary youths, set to music by a score written in the air, and

invisible to all eyes but mine, while a band of aerial musicians play

the accompaniment, with my heart, for the leader, beating time. You

shall have one of them, dear, and that, I think, will content you for

the present—

Should all who throng, with gift and song,

And for my favor bend the knee,

Forsake the shrine, they deem divine,

I would not stoop my soul to _thee_!

The lips, that breathe the burning vow,

By falsehood base unstained must be;

The heart, to which mine own shall bow,

Must worship Honor more than me!

The monarch of a world wert thou,

And I a slave on bended knee,

Though tyrant chains my form might bow,

My _soul_ should never stoop to thee!

Until its _hour shall come_, my heart

I will possess, serene and free;

Though snared to ruin by thine art,

’Twould sooner _break_ than bend to thee!

“Ah, Mary! if only my dream-opera could play on through life,

uninterrupted by the coarser or commoner cares of every-day

existence—if the charm of that music, inaudible to others, to which,

when I am let alone, my spirit moves, gliding or dancing as the measure

chances to be swift or slow, might not be broken by the discord of

reality, how light would float the fairy hours, led by that weird and

wondrous melody, from ‘night to morn, from morn till dewy eve.’ But

often, just in the midst of my heroine’s most impassioned reply to my

hero—the bell rings for dinner—or our little Lily-belle wants her robe

arranged—or rosy, roguish Mary insists upon playing that she is my

mamma and that I am her youngest and naughtiest responsibility; and,

after all, the glee that our three loving hearts play and sing together,

with now and then a coo from the cradle from our little dove, our

precious ‘Picciola,’ as an accompaniment—if less ethereal—less

artistic—is quite as sweet and more spirited than the dream-music that

Fancy plays in the air for me. To be sure, I have to be punished and put

in the corner by my little tyrant, rather oftener than is convenient or

agreeable, and to spell hard words, that I eschewed in my vagrant

school-days some—forty years ago!—if we count time by ‘heart-throbs,’

as Festus bids us, I have lived longer than that—

“I broke that chain of thought, attracted by the peculiar grace of a

compliment paid by a gentleman to a very lovely woman, who is sitting

near me, bending a pair of superb Spanish eyes and a graceful

Psyche-head over a suspender, on which, beneath her fairy hands a wreath

of exquisitely delicate flowers is growing and glowing; all too daintily

for the heart it is meant to chain—since that heart is man’s—

For still the fairest, frailest flowers

He soonest casts aside!

But the compliment. Some one remarked, that her head would be perfect,

were it not that the organ of reverence was entirely wanting in it. ‘It

has never been brought into play,’ was the reply, ‘for she has found _no

superior_ on earth.’

“Last night, as I watched her pensive look, I found myself chanting to

myself a song to her lost child—the most divinely beautiful being that

I ever beheld. I loved her as my own, and the tears still spring to my

eyes whenever I think of her. Will you hear the song, Mary?

TO LITTLE ANNIE C——.

Thy dark eyes danced in light,

And on thy cheek the while,

Life’s morning, rosy bright, Annie,

Did softly glow and smile.

A rare and radiant grace,

A beauty not of earth,

Had ‘o’erinformed’ thy face, Annie!

God’s darling! from thy birth.

When last I pressed thy brow,

There dawned thy soul divine;

But Heaven has won thee now, Annie!

A lovelier morn is thine!

While paled life’s early rose,

Thy spirit plumed her wings,

And now—how soft they close, Annie!

While God’s new angel sings!

“Some time before her death, the dear little child had frequently looked

up in her mother’s face, and exclaimed, without any apparent or

immediate cause—‘Happy Annie!’ and ‘Happy Annie!’ was the only epitaph

they traced upon the simple slab of white marble that marked her little

grave.

“But I shall sing you to sleep, my own Marie, if I give you any more of

my verses: so take a spirit-kiss, and believe me still

“Your fondly attached,

“KATE CAROL.”

* * * * *

THE OATH OF MARION.

A STORY OF THE REVOLUTION.

BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.

(_Continued from page 8._)

CHAPTER IV.

Here’s a good world!

——Knew ye of this fair work?—KING LEAR.

The news of so important an event as the capture of Mr. Mowbray was not

long in traveling to Mrs. Blakeley’s. One morning, as she and her niece

sat at work together, the butler rushed into the room, betraying

considerable agitation. We have already alluded to his pomposity and

affectation of high-sounding phrases; another foible, the desire to play

an important part, sometimes got the better of his discretion, as in the

present instance.

“I’ve just heard such news, Missus Blakeley,” he exclaimed,

breathlessly, wiping the perspiration from his face. “It’s completely

admonished me. I’se run all de way from de head of de abenue, where I

heard it from Jim Benson, who listed wid de British, and is now going

home on a furbelow; a berry respectable person he is for a Tory and a

common white man. In his new uniform he looks almost like an officer, I

insure you!”

Here the old man paused, overcome by the rapidity of his utterance. Both

Mrs. Blakeley and her niece understood his peculiarities too well to

interrupt him, but they looked up smiling.

“Such news!” he began again. “I hope young missus won’t faint. Be sure,

such things must recur; but to think it should happen to Mr.

Mowbray—Lor’ save us.”

Kate, at the mention of her father’s name, turned pale, and could no

longer endure the speaker’s prolixity.

“What is the matter with my father?” she gasped, “Is he dead?”

“Oh, no, missus—only taken by de Tories. But dey say he is to be hung.”

The sight of Kate’s ghastly face stopped the officious announcement—but

it was too late; with a shriek she fell to the floor. At this spectacle,

the old slave, struck with sudden remorse, cried, wringing his hands,

“I have killed her. Oh, Lor’!—oh, Lor’!—will she ever survive again?”

“You have only made her swoon by your hasty announcement of this

terrible news,” said Mrs. Blakeley, sternly. “Run and send her maid.”

It was long before Kate was restored to consciousness. Meantime, Mrs.

Blakeley learned from old Jacob all he had to impart. Of her brother’s

ultimate fate she could scarcely entertain a doubt. She well knew the

character of that bitter warfare. The orders of Lord Rawdon, the then

superior officer of the royal army in South Carolina, had just been

repeated, that all who had once signed the protection, yet subsequently

been captured in arms against the king, should be summarily executed.

The sentence of Mr. Mowbray, according to old Jacob’s report, was

already issued. Mrs. Blakeley was scarcely less shocked than her niece,

but her fortitude was required to sustain Kate, and she struggled to

appear composed.

“Let us go to Col. Watson at once,” were almost the first words of Kate,

on recovering her senses. “Surely he will not refuse us. He was but

lately your guest—how can he then deny your prayer.”

“Alas! my child,” replied her aunt, with tears in her eyes, “war

converts men into fiends, and dries up all the kindlier feelings of the

soul; but especially in a civil war like this, no such thing as

friendship is acknowledged. Have you forgotten the fate of Gabriel

Marion, the neighbour of the general—youthful, beautiful, unoffending,

the pride of that old man’s heart? He was taken in a skirmish, and, as

soon as recognized, told to make ready for death. His prayers for a

respite—for paper to write to his uncle—for time to make his peace

with God, were alike denied him.” She shuddered as she continued. “They

made him kneel on the highway, and then basely murdered him.”

“But they will not, they cannot murder my father thus. The men who did

that foul deed were Tory outcasts. Col. Watson has a kind heart; he

_will_ spare my father’s life.” And Kate, clasping her hands, addressed

her aunt supplicatingly, as if on the words she might speak hung her

parent’s existence.

Mrs. Blakeley could not reply for some time for weeping. Twice she

essayed to speak: twice tears choaked her utterance. At last she shook

her head mournfully.

“Say not so—you do not mean it,” cried Kate, eagerly.

“Alas! alas! my darling,” sobbed Mrs. Blakeley, clasping Kate in her

arms, “I would as willingly hope as you; but there is no hope. Was not

solicitation, influence, promises, every thing exerted to save Col.

Hayne; but to no purpose? They are inexorable. Did not the general say,

in refusing a pardon, that if it were his own brother, he could do no

more?”

At these words the full truth of her father’s situation seemed for the

first time to break on Kate, who hitherto had hoped that aid from some

quarter, her own prayers, or other influence, might save his life.

During the time Mrs. Blakeley was speaking, the unfortunate girl gazed

with stony eyes upon her, every feature rigid, her arms motionless and

set, hanging by her side, and her head slightly advanced, with half

parted lips, listening eagerly. Even when the speaker ceased, only a

vague sense of what she said seemed to rest on Kate, and she murmured

vacantly,

“No hope!—none, did you say?”

Mrs. Blakeley shook her head, mournfully. Her own heart was swelled to

bursting; that stony look, those rigid lips, made her tremble for the

reason of her niece.

“No hope!” whispered Kate, in those thrillingly low tones that are more

eloquent than all the accents of despair. “Oh, just Heaven!” she

exclaimed, suddenly elevating her voice; and she raised her outstretched

hands on high, “wilt thou see this foul injustice done?”

But here the pitch of horror to which the unfortunate girl had been

wound up, proved too much for a frame already weakened by preceding

agitation, and she suddenly fell back, rigid and paralyzed, in another

fainting fit.

All that day, and part of the night, Mrs. Blakeley watched over her

niece. Toward midnight the sufferer sank into a slumber. On awaking in

the morning, wan and haggard, she seemed only the shadow of her former

self; but she had gained composure; though in the quivering lip, and the

eye that filled unconsciously with tears, might have been read the agony

of a breaking heart.

But though Mrs. Blakeley did not allow herself to hope, and thought it

her duty to bid her niece discard all expectation of the prisoner’s

pardon, she nevertheless resolved to do every thing that could be done

to induce Col. Watson to save Mr. Mowbray’s life, or at least to grant a

respite until head-quarters could be heard from. Accordingly, she spent

the hours of the night, after Kate, stupefied alike by exhaustion and by

narcotics, had sunk into slumber, in writing to Col. Watson. She also

penned a hasty epistle to Major Lindsay, beseeching his interposition;

for though Mrs. Blakeley was well aware of his pretensions to the hand

of her niece, she thought this no time for morbid delicacy. These

epistles being indited, and confided to the hand of a trusty servant,

with orders to spare neither whip nor spur until he reached Col.

Watson’s quarters, Mrs. Blakeley, toward morning, sought her couch,

almost as much exhausted, both physically and mentally, as her

unfortunate niece.

The morning broke in that once happy mansion as on a house of death. The

shutters were half closed, as if to exclude the light, and the servants

stole noiselessly to and fro, speaking in whispers scarcely above their

breath. The morning meal remained almost untouched. Kate could eat

nothing; and often set down her teacup, while her eyes filled with

tears. Mrs. Blakeley, spite of all her self-control, was nervous and

trembling. The old butler, who remained in the room, often turned his

back, and brushed the honest tears from his eyes; for though unwilling

to betray his emotion, he was unable to prevent it. Even Mrs. Blakeley’s

pet grey-hound seemed to know and participate in the grief; for, instead

of rushing up to his mistress boisterously, when she came down stairs,

as had been his wont, he walked slowly and sadly toward her, looking up

appealingly into her face, as if assuring her of his sympathy. The same

dull pantomime was gone through with when Kate entered, and made her lip

quiver.

Mrs. Blakeley had informed her niece of what she had done, and said that

nothing now remained but to wait an answer to her letters. Kate,

however, begged that she might be allowed to go to Col. Watson’s

head-quarters to see her father; and though Mrs. Blakeley strove to

dissuade her from this purpose, believing that the interview would only

harrow up unnecessarily the feelings of both, filial love prevailed, and

Kate extorted a lingering consent that they should set forth as soon as

the heavy, lumbering carriage could be prepared.

It was during this delay that the galloping of a horse arrested her ear,

and Major Lindsay was seen to alight on the lawn. During the moment that

elapsed before his announcement, Kate had time to indulge in a thousand

wild speculations. Hope whispered to her that Major Lindsay had procured

the pardon of her father, or else come to announce a reprieve.

Breathless and trembling, she did not wait for his entrance, but hurried

to the door of the parlor. Mrs. Blakeley was almost equally agitated.

Her first supposition was that Major Lindsay had received her note, and

hurried at once to their aid; but a moment’s reflection satisfied her

that time enough for this had not elapsed. She concluded then that he

had hastened, on his own suggestion, to comfort them; and she advanced

to meet him as eagerly as Kate.

Major Lindsay met them at the door. He started back at the sight of

Kate’s wan face, for never could he have believed it possible that human

agony could be so forcibly depicted on the countenance; but, recovering

himself he advanced eagerly, and clasping the hand of each lady in his

own, looked from one to the other with a smile, not gay yet encouraging.

“You bring us good news, I know,” said Kate, turning deadly pale, and

then flushing to the forehead.

“I hope so,” said he, with marked emphasis. “God grant it!”

“God grant it, indeed,” faltered Mrs. Blakeley, in reply, the blood

going back coldly on her heart at these equivocal words.

Kate, however, did not notice this: hope blinded her eyes, willingly;

and she eagerly answered,

“I knew you would bring us words of cheer. He is free—he is on his way

hither; he will be here soon. Is it not so?” and she looked so

beautifully earnest, as she lifted her eyes eagerly to Major Lindsay’s

face, that he vowed inwardly no obstacle should prevent him from winning

so charming a bride.

“Not exactly that,” he replied, with some hesitation. “Mr. Mowbray is

not free yet—but I hope, nay, I may promise that he is in no

danger—that is, provided,” he stopped, embarrassed.

Mrs. Blakeley looked searchingly at the speaker, yet her heart would not

allow her to entertain the suspicion that had flashed across her, and

she discarded it indignantly. Kate, hurled suddenly from her pinnacle of

hope, trembled, and clung speechlessly to her aunt’s arm.

Major Lindsay’s embarrassment continued. He looked imploringly at Mrs.

Blakeley, as if he half expected her to come to his aid. But Mrs.

Blakeley was as agitated as Kate. She struggled to subdue her emotion,

saying, eagerly,

“Do not torture us by suspense, I implore you, Major Lindsay. If any

thing is expected of us, fear not to tell us at once; we will strip

ourselves to the uttermost farthing, if a heavy fine can save my

brother’s life.”

Major Lindsay, thus thrown on his own resources, hesitated and

stammered, but found words at length to say,

“Do not be alarmed, ladies. I repeat it, there is nothing to fear. But I

come rather as an ambassador than as the herald of joy. In other words,

I have certain matters to mention, which are preliminary, I regret, to

the pardon of Mr. Mowbray. My message, too, is exclusively to Miss

Mowbray, and I fear can be delivered to her alone. But understand me,

there is no doubt of all yet going well.”

“I will leave you with this dear girl at once,” said Mrs. Blakeley,

imprinting a kiss on Kate’s brow. “I need scarcely say how deeply she

has been agitated, and beg you to spare her as much as possible.”

“I will do it,” said Major Lindsay earnestly, his eyes compassionately

bent on Kate; and Mrs. Blakeley, notwithstanding her suspicions, could

not doubt his sincerity.

Kate trembled with a strange foreboding feeling, as she saw the door

close on her aunt; and yet what was there of alarm in this approaching

interview? Were not the words and looks of Major Lindsay kind and

encouraging? Yet still Kate trembled to find herself alone with him.

CHAPTER V.

“Where the greater malady is fixed,

The lesser is scarce felt.”—KING LEAR.

The apartment in which Major Lindsay found himself, was one with which

he had been familiar on his preceding visit to the mansion; but, for a

minute after Mrs. Blakeley’s exit, he gazed around him as if examining

for the first time the architecture and furniture of the room. It was an

apartment, too, well worth his scrutiny. Few even of the gentry of that

proud state could boast a dwelling like that of Mrs. Blakeley. The walls

of the parlor were wainscoted to the ceiling with richly carved

cornices; and over the mantelpiece, encircled by a wreath of roses

carved in the wood, were the arms of the family. The furniture was of

mahogany, consisting of massive tables and chairs, with elaborately

carved feet. A couple of fine portraits adorned the walls—one a picture

of the deceased Mr. Blakeley, the other a likeness of Mr. Mowbray.

Major Lindsay cast his eyes from the cornice to the floor, and from the

mantelpiece to the portraits, and at length stealthily turned them in

the direction of Kate, who sat on the sofa, her color rapidly changing,

equally constrained and embarrassed. That a young and almost

inexperienced girl should want perfect self-possession was less

singular, however, than that a practiced man of the world like Major

Lindsay should be without it. But the truth was that he scarcely knew

how to introduce his errand to Kate.

When his eyes, however, met those of the fair girl, there was an

expression of surprise and inquiry at his silence, not to be

misunderstood; and he thought it best to refer at once to the purpose of

the interview.

“It pains me exceedingly—you cannot imagine how much—my dear Miss

Mowbray,” he began, “to come here without the unconditional pardon of

your father. But there are two circumstances which prevented me from

succeeding to the extent of my wishes, and thus having the honor and

pleasure of bringing you such welcome news. In the first place, Mr.

Mowbray is not, as you suppose, a prisoner to Col. Watson, that officer

being on his march to join Lord Rawdon at Camden; but, on the contrary,

is in the hands of Lieut. Col. Campbell, who now holds the post of

Georgetown, and who, besides being a gentleman of a more inexorable

nature, is personally unacquainted with your father. Now, had it been

Col. Watson to whom Mr. Mowbray had been surrendered, I indulge the hope

that, difficult as the task would have been, his intimacy with yourself

and Mrs. Blakeley, to say nothing of my own solicitations, would have

procured the release of your parent. But with Col. Campbell the case is

different. He is not only a stranger to you all, but he is nearly an

entire stranger to myself. There does not exist between us those terms

of intimacy that, in the case of Col. Watson, would have justified me in

asking for the release of your father as a personal favor.”

Here Major Lindsay stopped, as if expecting Kate to answer; but she only

bowed. It was evident also from her look of continued surprise that she

could not yet make out the speaker’s purpose.

“In the second place,” continued Major Lindsay slowly, “there is nothing

in this case to distinguish it from others—nothing, I mean, to justify

Colonel Campbell in his own eyes for pardoning your parent, when so many

others, also taken with arms in their hands, are executed. Lord Rawdon’s

orders are explicit. Every man who, having once signed the protection,

is afterward captured fighting against the king, is to be punished with

death. This command hitherto has been rigidly enforced. Nor is there in

Mr. Mowbray’s case, as I before said, any thing to take him out of the

general rule. On the contrary, as Col. Campbell assured me, there is

every reason why he should be proceeded against even more rigidly than

others. Your father is rich and has great personal influence; and his

pardon would lead the gentry generally to suppose that they could revolt

with impunity. To suffer the leaders to escape—these were the words of

my superior—yet punish their deluded followers, is neither justice nor

good policy. These considerations induced Col. Campbell, to whom I

hastened at once as an intercessor, being fortunately in Georgetown, to

refuse my suit, though he kindly condescended to explain the reasons, as

I have recapitulated to you.”

Kate clasped her hands at these words, and became pale as a corpse.

“Then he is to die!” she gasped. “It is thus you would break the news to

me.”

“Nay, not so, as I hope in heaven!” cried Major Lindsay, earnestly,

springing forward to support the fainting girl. “Your father’s life may

yet be spared—Col. Campbell himself assured me how.”

Kate’s eyes were eagerly turned to the speaker at these words, though by

a motion of her hand she waved off his assistance.

“The colonel said,” continued Major Lindsay, seeing she waited for him

to speak, “that it was only necessary to give a proper pledge to the

royal government for his future neutrality, and Mr. Mowbray might yet be

saved. He himself hinted at the character of that pledge, or else I

should have remained in doubt. ‘Go to Miss Mowbray,’ he said, ‘and tell

her that with her it rests to preserve her father’s life. I have heard

of your suit in that quarter; obtain her consent to a speedy marriage;

and then to the father-in-law of one of his majesty’s most faithful

subjects I can grant that life which I must deny to a rebel in arms.’

These were his words. And now, dear Miss Mowbray, think not I come to

take advantage of you,” said Major Lindsay, speaking rapidly and

eagerly, as he saw her avert her face, “God knows nothing is further

from my thoughts. But it is the weakness of love to be selfish, and when

the way by which I might win my suit was thus pointed out to me, I had

not the strength to resist. Besides, I knew I should never forgive

myself if I refused to come, and your father lost his life in

consequence. My very love for you, by making me anxious for his life,

would have forced me hither, even if I knew beforehand that you would

spurn me.”

Surprise and indignation chased each other through Kate’s mind at

hearing these words. The embarrassment of Major Lindsay was now

explained, for well might he hesitate to avow his baseness in making her

father’s life the price of her hand. Kate was firmly persuaded that he

might have saved her parent if he would; and her bosom heaved with

indignant feelings. But had she known all: had she known that Major

Lindsay himself had planned her father’s capture, and instigated his

superior to dictate the only terms of pardon—how would she have turned

from him with horror and loathing inexpressible!

Kate’s first impulse was to rise and leave the room. But she remembered

how completely she was in her auditor’s power, and her feelings suffered

a revulsion. She burst into tears.

“I see I pain you,” said the major, in affected sorrow. “Nay! then I

will leave your presence. Heaven bless you!” and he rose sadly and

prepared to go.

Kate was staggered by these words. Could one who thus spoke have really

acted as basely as she but now supposed? She could not believe it. Yet

she still turned with repugnance from the idea of a union with Major

Lindsay. Meantime that individual had advanced several steps toward the

door, while Kate continued sobbing violently on the sofa. Her heart was

torn with conflicting emotions. If she suffered her visiter to depart,

her father’s blood would be on her hands. The major had already turned

the lock: there was no longer room for delay. Springing wildly from her

seat, she rushed forward and laid her hand on his arm.

“Stay!” she gasped. “Do with me as you will.”

A gleam of triumph shot across Major Lindsay’s face.

“You know not how you transport me,” he said rapidly. “If the devotion

of a life can repay you for this promise, here I swear to bestow it in

requital,” and taking those fair but listless fingers in his hand, he

would have raised them to his lips.

But Kate instinctively drew them back, and with an almost haughty

gesture. The next moment, however, she again burst into tears.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “is there no other way? Be generous, Major

Lindsay.”

She stood like an imploring Niobe, her eyes raised in supplication, her

whole face beaming.

The countenance of her auditor, on that sudden withdrawal of her hand,

had flushed with sudden anger; but he had now once more controlled his

features to a look of pity, and he replied—

“Would I could do as you wish; would there was some other way.”

“There is—there is,” said Kate, eagerly. “You yourself will go again to

Col. Campbell and intercede for us.”

“Alas! I have done that already.”

“To Lord Rawdon, then,” breathlessly interposed Kate.

“It would be useless. Nay, if he hears of this matter prematurely,

before you are mine, neither Col. Campbell nor I can save your father.”

There was a tone of decision in him as he pronounced these words, that

shut out all farther entreaty. Kate felt, moreover, that what he said

was true; from Lord Rawdon no hope could be entertained. With a groan

she buried her face against the sofa.

Major Lindsay stood at a respectful distance. During the interview he

had more than once been smote to the heart by Kate’s agony. He was not a

villain in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Impelled by his

necessities, and stung by Kate’s persevering refusal, he had planned her

father’s capture, intending to purchase her hand by his pardon, and

little doubting that, in time, she would learn to love him. He had found

little difficulty in persuading Col. Campbell to further his scheme,

representing to that officer that Kate was not indifferent to him in

secret, but was unwilling, on her father’s account, to marry a royal

officer. But Major Lindsay, though engaged in this black plot, really

loved Kate; and had he not gone too far to retreat, perhaps would have

been moved from his purpose by the sight of her suffering. His

commiseration was not, therefore, all affected; and even now, as he

stood awaiting her final decision, which he no longer doubted would be

in his favor, a pang of remorse shot through his heart on raising his

eyes and beholding Mr. Mowbray’s picture—for the mute canvas seemed to

rebuke him with its sad, earnest gaze.

Perhaps five minutes thus passed—the major leaned on his sword—Kate,

her face buried from sight, continued to sob. At length she looked up,

and holding out her hand with averted head, she said,

“My father shall be saved.” And then, as if almost choked by the words,

she added, “Leave me now.”

“Thank you for those blessed words,” said Major Lindsay; and bowing over

her hand, which he just touched with his lips, he left the room.

Kate waited till the door closed after him, then, with a cry of anguish,

she gave way to fresh tears.

“Oh, miserable, unhappy me!” she groaned, “would nothing but this save

my father!”

All at once she started up, and a wild gleam of joy irradiated her face.

She dashed the tears from her eyes; for the first time it had occurred

to her that Preston could avert her horrible destiny—in what way she

knew not; but in childhood he had always been her protection, and she

still felt the habit of looking up to him in peril.

But in an instant came the reflection of the terms on which they now

stood to each other. They had parted in anger; and he either despised or

hated her. Under such circumstances her womanly modesty revolted from

appealing to him for aid. “No,” she mentally ejaculated, “I will die

sooner.” And as she came to this resolution, she fell back again in

hopeless misery on her seat.

Major Lindsay, meanwhile, had sought out Mrs. Blakeley, to whom he

related the result of his interview with Kate. To her aunt, who knew

little of our heroine’s feelings, the sacrifice appeared an

inconsiderable one; and Mrs. Blakeley had always regarded Major Lindsay

with favor. She informed her guest that they were soon to set forth for

Georgetown, and invited him to accompany them. He declined, alledging

the necessity of his returning as speedily as possible; but offered to

leave a portion of his dragoons to escort the ladies.

“I shall be the first to meet you in Georgetown,” he said, as he bid

Mrs. Blakeley farewell on the steps of her mansion; and plunging spurs

into his steed, he was soon out of sight with his train.

CHAPTER VI.

“Who thundering comes on blackest steed.”—BYRON.

While Major Lindsay was galloping from Blakeley Hall, Captain Preston,

by the same road, was advancing toward it. He had been out on a scouting

expedition, and hearing that Kate was still with her aunt, determined,

in a moment of relenting, to visit her. He had not yet heard of her

father’s capture—of course he was ignorant of her own peril; and Kate

determined that he should still remain so.

The rapidity of Major Lindsay’s pace was in unison with the tumult of

his thoughts. Now that all was settled, conscience was stilled; and he

felt only the wild exultation of success. Exposure was the only thing he

had to dread; but of that he felt no alarm, the unsettled state of the

country affording secrecy as well as impunity.

He had no doubt Kate would soon love him. With other women he had

generally been successful; he attributed his failure in her case to her

remembrance of Preston as her old playmate. But once finding herself the

husband of another, duty would soon teach her to forget the past.

Occupied with these reflections, Major Lindsay’s spirits rose.

Triumphant guilt is rarely given to remorse.

“But one thing only is wanting,” he said. “If I could meet this

Preston—this braggadocia—I would at once have my revenge, and get rid

of all possibility of future rivalry.”

As if in answer to this half expressed wish, there was at that moment

seen, on the crest of a slight elevation in front, a single horseman,

who, even at that distance, was recognized as wearing the uniform of

Marion’s brigade.

“Wheel to the right,” said Major Lindsay sharply and suddenly to his

dragoons, “into this old wood-road. Halt! We will lie in ambush here

until we know something of the strength of the enemy. They do not yet

see us.”

His orders were immediately executed. The troopers dashed into the pine

barren, where they were easily concealed behind some high brush. Major

Lindsay alighted and stealthily advanced to reconnoitre.

First he saw a trooper idly descending the hill; then another

immediately cut the clear acclivity with his figure; and soon a third,

fourth, and fifth appeared in rapid succession. The last comer was at a

gallop, and dashed by the others until he reached their head. Even at

that distance Major Lindsay thought there was something familiar in this

person. He could not believe, however, that he had seen the whole of the

enemy’s force, until the five horsemen had nearly descended the hill,

when he concluded that they were merely a scouting party of the foe. He

beckoned to him his orderly.

“Do you know those fellows?” he said.

The approaching horsemen were still at a considerable distance, so the

man, shading his eyes with one hand, while with the other he held back

the brushwood to get an opening for his face, peered long and eagerly.

Then he drew back, nodding his head.

“I know ’em,” he said, “least ways one o’ ’em, who is that Capt. Preston

that used to plague us so, up at the hall, yonder,” and he jerked his

finger over his shoulder in the direction of Mrs. Blakeley’s, which they

had left about an hour before.

“Are you sure?” said Major Lindsay, eagerly. “I would rather lose a

dozen guineas than that you should be mistaken.”

“Then you’ll keep your guineas, sir,” said the orderly, “that’s Capt.

Preston, and nobody else.”

“Is that fellow, Macdonald, with him? He is worth two men, and it would

be a lucky hit to get both.”

“No, sir, I know his cut well—but he’s not along. And that’s odd too,

for he and Capt. Preston always go together like dogs hunting in

couples.”

“Then we have him!” said Major Lindsay, exultingly. “He cannot escape

us.”

“Shall we blow trumpet and charge at once then?” said the orderly. “Our

men will go at ’em like hungry wolves. They’ve a long score to settle.”

“Not yet,” said Major Lindsay, “we will wait till those fellows come up;

then, boot and saddle, and upon them. I would not have them escape us

for my life.”

The dragoons, informed who the enemy was, chafed impatiently to begin

the attack—for they had a hundred insults to avenge on the bold

partisan before them. Meanwhile, our hero, for the orderly had been

right in saying Capt. Preston led the troop, approached on a trot,

completely unconscious of the presence of his hidden enemy. He was

engaged in a scouting expedition of some extent, and had no idea an

armed royalist was within twenty miles. Suddenly, however, he drew in

his rein, for he thought he heard a horse stamping in the forest; but it

was too late; Major Lindsay saw they were discovered, and immediately

gave the long wished for word.

“Charge!” he said, plunging his rowels into the sides of his horse, and

clearing at one bound the space between him and the road.

With a loud huzza, the dragoons shouting, “no quarter,” followed his

example, horse and man suddenly filling the road like apparitions.

Preston saw he was surrounded. Their cries told him, moreover, that it

was to be a life and death struggle. Five against fifteen was fearful

odds, yet he cried,

“Marion for ever!” and drawing his sabre, he dashed at Lindsay, whom he

recognized. “Ha! have we met!” he cried.

“Yes! and I have you,” was the reply hissed between his adversary’s

teeth.

As Major Lindsay thus spoke, he raised himself in his stirrups, and

throwing all his strength into one gigantic blow, he brought his heavy

sabre down, right on the almost unprotected head of Preston. For a

moment it seemed as if the trenchant blade would cut through cap and

skull, even to the shoulder—and had it struck fair it would; but with a

dexterous movement, our hero evaded the stroke, and in return dealt a

side cut that, if Major Lindsay’s horse had not fortunately swerved,

would have ended his life at once.

But though foiled in this first attempt, each was eager to return to the

charge, and wheeling their horses, they rushed again upon each other. It

was Preston’s turn now to deal the first blow. He rode with very short

stirrups, of which he took advantage to throw himself backward, and

then, projecting himself forward, and casting all his strength into the

blow, he brought his sabre down on the helmet of Major Lindsay with a

force that was irresistible. Cutting clean though the crest as if it had

been a smoke wreath, the well-proved blade descended with full violence

on the steel cap, through which it crashed like an egg-shell; but here

it stopped, broken into fragments by the tremendous stroke and the

resistance of the iron casque combined. Nothing but that well-tempered

steel head-piece could have saved Major Lindsay’s life. As it was,

stunned and bewildered, he reeled in his saddle.

“Hew him down!—Use the cold lead!—Have at him there, one and all!”

Such were the exclamations that met our hero’s ear, as he recovered

himself from that blow, and found only the hilt and a fragment of his

broken blade left in his hand. He looked around hastily. His four

followers had already been put _hors de combat_, and the dragoons were

now, like dogs around a wild boar, waiting a chance to rush in on him,

encouraging each other by shouts; for such was the terror of Preston’s

name, and so terrific was the blow they had just seen dealt their

leader, that each man hung back an instant, preferring that his neighbor

should go in first. Preston saw this advantage, and hastened to avail

himself of it, for, as pistols were already drawn, he knew his chance

would last scarcely a moment.

“Ho, Thunderer!” he said, addressing his steed—a powerful animal, jet

black all over—and turning his head toward that part of the circle of

his foes which seemed the thinnest, he added, “stand by me now, and we

escape them yet.”

As he spoke, he dashed his spurs into the animal’s sides till the blood

spurted beneath the sharp steel, and with a pistol in his right hand,

sprang fiercely forward. Right and left the dragoons, panic-struck, gave

way, as when a flock of sheep fly before the onset of an angry

wolf—only one man attempting to stop his progress. But, without so much

as being wounded, the trooper went down headlong, overthrown by the

shock of Preston’s powerful charger; and our hero, yielding to an

uncontrollable impulse, as he saw the way thus cleared before him, rose

in his stirrups, and waving his arm on high, looked back, and gave

utterance to a shout that long after he had vanished, like a bolt shot

from some huge catapult, echoed and re-echoed in the startled woods.

“He is off, by God,” said the orderly. “Saw you ever the like?”

For a second the dragoons stood stupidly looking at each other; then,

all at once, a dozen pistols were snapped at the fugitive, and a dozen

steeds put to the pursuit. Moreover, Major Lindsay, though his head

still swam from that tremendous blow, had recovered sufficiently to

understand what was passing, and he now lent his voice to encourage the

chase, and himself pressed forward among the first.

All this had occupied less time than it has taken us to relate it. The

attack, the fight, the escape succeeded each other like flashes of

summer lightning; and when Preston, adroitly turning his horse into the

narrow and winding road where his foes had lain in ambush, passed

momently out of sight, unharmed by the shots that whistled past, it

seemed to him almost as if he were in a dream. But the shouts of

pursuers, and the rapid tread of hoofs, speedily convinced him of the

reality, and plying voice and spur, he went onward at a slashing pace,

now and then looking behind to see if the dragoons gained on him.

There is something inexpressibly still and refreshing in an old,

deserted road, winding through a cool pine-forest. The tall trees

lapping overhead, the thick carpet of splintering leaves below, and the

delicious fragrance all around, have always had a charm for us; and

Preston felt it so, especially after the fierce excitement of that life

and death struggle; so that when he came to a little dark stream,

gliding softly across the road, he longed to stop and bathe his

throbbing temples, and take one long, sweet draught, as he had often

done upon a hot day in the forest when a boy. But the red foe was behind

him, and he shot on like an arrow.

Presently he came to an old clearing, which had been long abandoned.

Here, for about a quarter of a mile, was an open space, where ploughed

fields had once been, but the furrows of which now were overgrown with a

dry, stunted grass. He would have preferred the winding forest road, but

there was no alternative, and on he dashed. He had nearly regained the

shelter of the forest on the other side, when he heard a wild burst of

cheering, and looking back, he saw the dragoons, with Major Lindsay and

one other in advance, entering on the open space. They had caught sight

of him for the first time since he entered the old road, and their

shouts betokened renewed hope and determination on their part.

Breathlessly Preston kept on, but with less assurance than before, for

his horse was already hard worked, and he soon saw with dismay that

blood was flowing from his fore-shoulder freely from a wound. A half

mile further on the poor animal began to flag sensibly; yet, cruel as it

seemed, and much as it pained his own generous nature, Preston was

forced to urge on the dying steed. He knew that at the distance of a

mile and a half ahead was a swamp, into the recesses of which, if he

could once plunge, he would be safe. But now he heard behind him a rapid

hoof. It came nearer and nearer, though still out of sight. One, if not

more, of his pursuers was gaining upon him. Again he spurred his steed,

and encouraged him with words. The noble animal answered with a feeble

cry, and staggered on. Scarcely half a mile now remained to gain the

swamp. If he could only reach it, Preston knew all danger would be past.

But this was impossible.

That rapid gallop came nearer and nearer, like the clock that ticks the

hour of the criminal’s fate. He heard a shout behind him, and looking

over his shoulder saw the trooper, whom he had last noticed side by side

with Major Lindsay, come thundering on. He cheered his dying steed to a

last effort—but it was in vain; the dragoon made two strides to his

one. A few paces only now separated them; the swamp lay thrice the

distance before. Already the trooper had risen in his stirrups,

broadsword in hand. Preston had no such weapon. Suddenly he recollected

the pistol in his other holster, and drawing it with the velocity of

thought, he turned half around in his saddle and fired. With unerring

aim the ball entered the brain of the dragoon, who fell dead to the

earth.

It was the work of a moment to leap to the ground and catch the fallen

soldier’s horse, on which Preston sprang. Poor Thunderer was already

dead; he had sunk to the earth as his master fired the last shot.

Thus fate interposed to prevent an interview between Preston and our

heroine, at a time when it would have been of incalculable advantage to

both, and have circumvented a plot as base and cruel as it was now

certain of success. At the very hour when Preston, after having ridden

over thirty miles from the spot where he was attacked, threw himself

wearied from his horse, in one of the most secret recesses of the

forest, Kate and her aunt were setting forth for Georgetown, where they

arrived on the succeeding day.

Never was human creature in a more isolated and mournful situation than

Kate now found herself. Indulging in what she thought a hopeless

passion, every motive of delicacy forbade her revealing it to those who

alone could befriend her. She well knew that if her father became aware

how much her marriage with Major Lindsay was against her inclinations,

he would interpose even at the very altar, and ascend the scaffold to

save her. Neither would it do to let her aunt guess her abhorrence at

this union. Both her father and Mrs. Blakeley had, indeed, at one time

hoped that a matrimonial connection would be formed between her and

Preston, but the mutual coldness of the parties had long since

dissipated this expectation. It was no time now to reveal her secret

preference; such a confession would only have sealed her father’s fate

without rendering her happy. Kate was forced therefore to wear a smiling

face, when her heart was lacerated.

As Major Lindsay was compelled to be at Camden in six days, his leave of

absence closing at that period, the marriage was fixed for the evening

before his departure. This was an earlier day than Kate had looked for,

but she could not object without exposing her secret. She submitted

therefore in silence.

But who can tell the agony of her spirit, when in company with her aunt

and parent she was forced to wear a smiling aspect! yet when alone she

gave free vent to her sorrow. The image of Preston often intruded on

those bitter moments. Alas! that one so young should be so miserable.

She could have prayed for death but that it would have been impious.

Oh, the heart, the heart! what a mystery it is. There are blows worse

than those on the wheel; it is when a gay heart is broken with anguish.

[_Conclusion in our next._

* * * * *

THE MAID OF LINDEN LANE.

WHAT THE OLD WOMAN SAID TO THE SCHOOL-GIRL.

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

Little maiden, you may laugh

That you see me wear a staff!

For your laughter’s but the chaff

From the melancholy grain!

Through the shadows long and cool

You are tripping down to school,

But your teacher’s cloudy rule

Only dulls the shining pool

With its loud and stormy rain!

There’s a higher lore to learn

Than his knowledge can discern;

There’s a valley deep and dern

In a desolate domain!

But for this he has no chart!

Shallow science—shallow art!

Thither—oh be still my heart—

One too many did depart

From the halls of Linden Lane!

I can teach you better things;

For I know the secret springs

Where the spirit wells and sings

Till it overflows the brain!

Come when eve is closing in,

When the spiders all begin,

Like philosophers, to spin

Gilded tissues vain and thin

Through the shades of Linden Lane.

While you sit as in a trance,

Where the moon-made shadows dance,

From the distaff of Romance

I will spin a silken skein!

Down the misty years gone by

I will turn your azure eye;

You shall see the changeful sky

Falling dark or hanging high

O’er the halls of Linden Lane!

Come, and sitting by the trees,

O’er the long and level leas,

Stretched between us and the seas,

I can point the battle-plain:

If the air comes from the shore

We may hear the billows roar;

But oh! never, nevermore

Shall the wind come as of yore

To the halls of Linden Lane!

Those were weary days of wo,

Ah! yes, many years ago,

When a cruel foreign foe

Sent his fleets across the main!

Though all this is in your books,

There are countless words and looks,

Which, like flowers in hidden nooks,

Or the melody of brooks,

There’s no volume can retain!

Come, and if the night be fair,

And the moon be in the air,

I can tell you when and where

Walked a tender loving twain:

Though it cannot be, alas!

Yet, as in a magic glass,

We will sit and see them pass

Through the long and rustling grass

At the foot of Linden Lane!

Yonder did they turn and go,

Through the level lawn below,

With a stately step and slow,

And long shadows in their train:

Weaving dreams no thoughts could mar

Down they wandered long and far,

Gazing toward the horizon’s bar

On their love’s appointed star,

Rising in the Lion’s Mane.

As across a summer sea,

Love passed o’er the quiet lea,

Light as only love may be,

Freighted with no care or pain.

Such the night; but with the morn

Brayed the distant bugle horn!

Louder! louder! still ’twas borne!

Then were anxious faces worn

In the halls of Linden Lane!

With the trumpet’s nearer bray,

Saw we arms and banners gay

Flashing but a league away,

Stretching far along the plain!

Neighing answer to the call

Burst our chargers from the stall;

Mounted, here they leaped the wall,

There the stream! While in the hall

Eyes were dashed with sudden rain!

Belted for the fiercest fight,

And with swimming plume of white,

Passed the lover out of sight

With the hurrying host amain!

Then the thunders of the gun

On the shuddering breezes run;

And the clouds o’erswept the sun

Till the heavens hung dark and dun

O’er the halls of Linden Lane!

Few that joined the fiery fray

Lived to tell how went the day;

But that few could proudly say

How the foe had fled the plain!

Long the maiden’s eyes did yearn

For her cavalier’s return;

But she watched alone to learn

That the valley deep and dern

Was her desolate domain!

Leave your books awhile apart;

For they cannot teach the heart!

Come, and I will show the chart

Which shall make the mystery plain!

I can tell you hidden things

Which your knowledge never brings;

For I know the secret springs

Where the spirit wells and sings

Till it overflows the brain.

Ah, yes, lightly sing and laugh,

Half a child and woman half;

For your laughter’s but the chaff

From the melancholy grain!

And, ere many years shall fly,

Age will dim your laughing eye,

And like me you’ll totter by;

For, remember, love, that I

Was the Maid of Linden Lane!

* * * * *

ÆGEUS.

BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.

Theseus set sail for Athens in the same mournful ship in which he came

to Crete, but forgot to change his sails, according to the instructions

of his father; so that when his father beheld from a watch-tower the

ship returning with _black_ sails, he imagined that his son was dead,

and cast himself headlong into the sea, which was afterward called Ægean

sea, from his name and destiny.—ANDREW TOOKE.

“A mast above the waters

Is rising tall and fair,

And hither bound, with glory crowned,

Welcome my princely heir!”

A king these glad words uttered,

His white locks streaming free,

Beneath a golden circlet,

In his watch-tower by the sea.

When nearer drew to Athens

The bark that bore his son,

The monarch, with an altered look,

This loud lament begun.

“Those sails are sails of mourning,

They flap above the dead;

And winds, that fill them, murmur

Low lies the laureled head!

“Vain, vain the hope long cherished,

That this old hand of mine

To Theseus, in dying hour,

Would royal robe resign.

“Though black the sails and rigging

Of yon ill-omened bark,

In my despairing bosom

There is a night _more_ dark.”

High, high the broken billow

Its wreath of foam did fling,

When, headlong from the dizzy tower

Plunged, in his wo, the king.

Thenceforth, august Athena!

Thy sea, for beauty famed,

The bards of classic story

“Ægeum Mare” named.

A waste of troubled waters

Is, aye, the poet’s dower,

And royal thought keeps vigil

Within a lonely tower.

Rich fancies have been trusted

To Fortune’s varying gale,

And eagerly the watcher marks

Yon home-returning sail.

Perchance on board are riches,

To cheer the minstrel’s lot,

And glory’s crown of amaranth,

Whose purple fadeth not.

Winds drive the vessel nearer,

And well their wrath she braves—

“Ho, watchman! swells her canvas

A white cloud o’er the waves?

“Thy visions, bard, are perished,

Thy golden hopes have fled—

Those sails are sails of mourning,

They flap above the dead.”

* * * * *

THE EXECUTIONER.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

Those who, day by day, glance carelessly over a newspaper, as they puff

a cigar, or give relish to a lazy breakfast, by running the eye over the

brief sketches of crime which appear in the morning journals, with so

much regularity, and in such equal proportions, that we are almost led

to conjecture that each day receives by lot its due share of such

matter, seldom, if ever, think of the actual romance of the events which

come to them in such a barren shape. How many broken hearts and peculiar

agonies are involved in the intimate details of that arrest, the

narrative of which appears among twenty others, and is so told, that,

perhaps, the only impression which it makes upon the mind is one of

wonder at the feats of the police. What a fearful stage in the history

of some human spirit is following the publication of that hasty but

remorseless paragraph, which may scarcely arrest the attention as we

trace the columns down for more stimulating news, and yet, first,

perhaps, publicly connects an honorable name with low vice, and removes

the last motive to reform with the last hope of concealment. It is well

for those of gentle sensibilities that fancy is not more discursive at

such moments, and that, by a kind law of our natures, the door of

sympathy seldom opens but to intrusive griefs.

In spite, however, of the callousness which the monotony of crime

induces, and which ranges, increasingly, down from those who read of it

with indifference to those who commit with composure, it is sometimes

brought so near to us in all its bleak reality of depravity and

affliction, that we cannot well avoid communion with its voices. There

are those who consider emotional culture a duty of self-education, and

who would have us, upon systematic principle, subject ourselves to

frequent contact with guilt and its results. This doctrine may be

carried to excess; and yet but few can say that experience has not

proved that the impressions of an occasional intimacy with life’s deep

tragedies around us are salutary and instructive.

I had stopped for the night, on a journey westward, at the little town

of ——. I was to leave it again in half an hour, and in this short

interval that remained before the coach would arrive which was to carry

me on my way, I was comfortably seated by a table in my own private

apartment, alternately sipping from a cup of coffee and searching for

some item of interest in the columns of a dull weekly, still damp from

the village press. My eye passed hastily over the stereotype remarks of

the country editor, the absurd extravagance of its political articles,

and the unmeaning gossip of the neighborhood, and rested, at last, with

somewhat more interest, upon a paragraph which, under conspicuous

capitals and innumerable marks of exclamation, had been thrust into the

paper at the last moment. It contained the announcement of a robbery of

the United States mail, from the confusion and empty verbiage of which I

extracted these brief facts. The mail had been attacked, just before

dawn, by two ill-looking men, who deliberately dragged the driver from

his seat, tied him to a tree, and then, without further violence to his

person, proceeded to rifle the bags. This done, they had fled, leaving

the open letters scattered in the road, and the driver still bound.

There was nothing, to be sure, very extraordinary in all this, except

that it had occurred but a few hours before, and within two or three

miles of where I sat. But when, soon after, the servant came in, and,

eager to convey such unusual news, informed me that the men had been

hotly pursued and taken, and were then in close custody in one of the

rooms of that very house, on their way to the county prison, my

curiosity, I confess, was fairly roused.

Intensity of character is always interesting, whatever may be its

tendency. Profound intellectuality and abandoned villainy are, perhaps,

equally attractive, when viewed in the light of mere food for

speculation. Our deepest feelings discover themselves in our intercourse

with the eccentric traits of those of our own species. It is seldom the

fear of the elements, or of wild beasts, with which we frighten children

and distress ourselves. It is the terror of strong men, of mad men, or

of dead men, that is, at all times, most natural and most urgent. There

is subject for deep reason and earnest philosophy in these leadings of a

wayward nature.

Some, it is true, are so conversant with such scenes that they lose the

fresh effect which this occurrence had upon me. It was a new thing to

have crime at my very door. It was no ordinary event for me to mingle my

breath with that of outlaw men; of my own shape, indeed, but of wild

passions and strange excitements, who gambled with such desperate

stakes. I dropped the paper, pushed myself back from the table, and bade

the servant go for the landlord.

He soon appeared, and I requested that he would get me a sight of the

prisoners. My curiosity was certainly not unusual, or unnatural, and I

flattered myself that my appearance gave weight to the wish. He

disappeared, but soon returned with a favorable answer. With some

caution, adopted to satisfy my host, lest I should be observed by those

who might wish to indulge a similar desire, and might lead him to regret

his effort in my behalf, I approached the room in which they were

confined, and at a signal agreed upon was admitted.

It was a small apartment. The men were standing at separate windows,

looking out upon that open world from whose highways and endless fields

they had been taken so suddenly. They were heavily manacled at wrist and

ankle. Deep suffering is not sensitive, or easily startled, or perhaps

their apathy in this instance arose from sullenness, but neither of them

turned or moved as I entered. I nodded to an officer watching at the

door, thanked him in low words for his courtesy in indulging my

curiosity, and then leaned back against the wall by his side, and

silently scrutinized the prisoners.

They stood, as I have mentioned, unmoved as statues. Though their faces

were concealed from my view as they looked out, and their backs only

were presented, I could see that in age and general appearance they were

very different. They were both dressed with tolerable decency, except

that their clothes were soiled and torn in the hurry of their flight,

and the struggle of their capture. One of them was evidently very young,

probably not more than twenty, and the long, neglected hair which fell

upon his coat was light and soft. His feet were small, his hands white

and delicate, his person slender and somewhat emaciated. They showed

gentle training.

His companion was older, and his figure shorter and more sturdy. He had

an awkward stoop, and his whole appearance was slouching and ungainly. A

profusion of coarse black hair fell straight over his shoulders, without

curl or gloss, and a thick beard seemed to cover his face. He bore marks

of great strength in his short, thick neck and heavy limbs. This was all

that I could see, and I waited patiently for a change in their

positions.

“They’re both of ’em,” whispered the officer, “strangers in the

neighborhood. I guess it’s a new trade with ’em, for they’re not very

keen. They got nothing for their risk and then didn’t know how to take

themselves off. They’re bad looking chaps though, and I wouldn’t wonder

if they’d seen the inside of a jail before to-day.”

“One of them is very young,” said I, “and looks like a gentleman’s son.

Do you see his hands and feet?”

“You wouldn’t think that of him,” said he, “if you were to see his face

once. It’s the worst face that I ever saw in a young man. They’re both

game, too, and fought like the devil before we got the irons on ’em.

That black, Spanish-looking rascal is as strong as a wild beast. He came

mighty near getting off.”

“Where did you catch them?” said I, “you seem to have been prompt.”

“We found ’em by accident, in the end,” said the officer. “And it was

their own foolishness, too, that brought it about. We had given ’em up,

and were coming home, when we came across this letter. The fellows had

dropped it two or three hundred yards from the house where we nabbed ’m.

They thought they were safe, and were just trying to get something to

eat. We wouldn’t have touched ’em, it’s likely, seeing ’em in a decent

house, but they started, like fools, and looked scared, and all that,

and we knew what to do.”

I took the letter from him as he spoke. The seal had been broken when it

was found. The address immediately arrested my attention. It was really

a very singular coincidence, and I could hardly believe my eyes when I

opened it. The letter was from my most intimate college friend to his

father. I had not seen him for full two years, but in that interval I

had corresponded with him freely, and I knew his present situation and

something of his family history. His father resided in the far west. The

son was at the east. He had remained at college when we parted, where he

was still preparing himself for the bar, and the post-mark showed that

it had been written at that place.

My first impulse, on seeing the signature, was one of honorable

delicacy, and I had half folded the letter to return it to the officer,

when it occurred to me that it had, no doubt, been already read and

re-read; that it would necessarily form part of the chain of the

testimony against the accused; that it would be exposed to inspection by

bench, bar, and jury, and might at length find its way even to the

public papers.

These thoughts decided me, and I opened it and read it. It surprised me

somewhat; and though it may be made a question whether I was right or

wrong in my mode of settling the point of delicacy, there is nothing

which should prevent me now from placing it before the reader as

accurately as my memory will allow after so long a lapse of time. It

will not interest him as it did me, but its contents bear upon other

parts of my story.

It was as follows:

“MY DEAR FATHER,—I received your letter of the — instant in

regular course of mail. I was sincerely glad to hear that you

had so far recovered from an indisposition which at first

threatened to be serious.

“I am sorry that my reply will convey news which must distress

you. George has returned from sea. I met him in the street a few

days ago with an ill-looking companion. He came upon me

suddenly. I am never very self-possessed, and I was extremely

doubtful how to treat him. He saw me, however—knew me at

once—seized me by the hand and drew me into a public room which

opened upon the place where we stood. I could not break away

from him without attracting attention. He affected a pleasure

which I suppose was assumed, in order to overcome a

repulsiveness of manner that he could not fail to notice, and

which I could not help. He asked about you and Mary, and told me

he was utterly destitute, and needed money for his necessary

wants. I gave him a small sum to keep him from starving, and

tried to shake him off. This, however, I could not easily do. He

went on to say that he had determined to see you again, and

throw himself on your charity, and was then actually on his way

to the west. I told him that your feelings had not changed, and

that his appearance would only make trouble and give you pain.

His resolution, notwithstanding what I said, seemed unaltered,

and I am afraid his presence will soon annoy you.

“His appearance shocked me excessively. He looks bloated and

depraved beyond description, and I fear from the expression of

his face, and the air of his companion, that he has gone far in

vice since he left you.

“I wish Mary could have seen him as I saw him. She has been so

unreasonable already, however, that it might be well to send her

from home in anticipation of the threatened visit. Unless she is

kept in ignorance of it in this, or some other way, she may yet

give us much trouble and anxiety. “Give my love to her, and

believe me

“Your affectionate son,

“HENRY EAGLETON, JR.”

I have said that I was somewhat surprised. My friend had occasionally

mentioned the name of George Ellis, his father’s ward, and had more than

once spoken of his own sister Mary. But though I had deemed our intimacy

sufficient for almost any confidence, he had never touched upon

circumstances bearing in the remotest degree upon those which had thus

accidentally met my eye. Indeed I recollected, or thought I recollected,

that there had always been a certain reserve in his conversation about

Ellis, which had at times excited a casual curiosity. Now the mystery

was in a measure explained. From the letter in my hand I could gather at

a glance the main features of this family trouble. I afterwards learned

that its most important events had happened after I parted with my

friend.

“What names have they given?” said I to the officer, handing back the

letter.

“None at all,” he replied. “The short one can’t or won’t talk English,

and the other is stubborn and says nothing. They’ve jabbered together a

little in some foreign gibberish, but we can’t get any thing out of ’em,

do our best. If they knew what they were about they’d just give in their

names at once as John Smith, or John Jones, and have done with it.

That’s the way the knowing ones do.”

At this instant some one tapped at the door, opened it slightly, and

informed me that the coach was waiting for me. Attracted by the sound

the younger of the prisoners turned fully round. I had been looking for

such a movement, and whispering to the servant that I would be there

presently, and that in the meantime he could take down my trunk, I stood

for a moment longer by the side of the officer, and with as little that

was offensive in my glance as possible, returned steadily the gaze of

the culprit.

The officer was right. In so young a man I had never seen so bad a face.

Marks of brutal passion and dissipation mingled with an expression of

sullen fear upon a countenance which might once have been handsome, but

was now far otherwise. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot, and his skin

red and bloated. But he could not bear my scrutiny, and cut it short by

turning again to the window. I had already delayed longer than I should

have done, and bidding the officer a hasty good-bye, I left the room.

In ten minutes more I was driving rapidly away. On my return, I again

passed through the town, and found upon inquiry the result of the

arrest. The elder of the prisoners had been convicted upon the testimony

of the younger; the former was in prison, the latter at large.

In the pressure of business, however, and of life’s pursuits, the

connected impressions of that scene soon went from me. Matters of deeper

interest occupied my mind and enlisted my attention. My correspondence

with Eagleton, in which of course I never hinted at my singular

adventure, became less and less frequent, and at last ceased entirely;

and before the time over which I now pass so hastily had gone by, I had

well nigh forgotten my early friendship.

* * * * *

It was some five years after the occurrence of the scene which I have

described, that on a visit to the city in whose college I had received a

part of my education, I had occasion to employ counsel to advise me in

the conduct of perplexed and unpleasant business. Seven years’ absence

from the place had nearly obliterated my slight knowledge of its

society, and I was obliged to make some inquiry in reference to the

character and comparative ability of different members of the bar. Among

other names mentioned to me with commendation was that of Henry

Eagleton, my chum and classmate.

I sought no further, but determined without loss of time to see him,

revive our acquaintance, and obtain his services. With the name, too,

came back my recollection of the scene at ——, and I felt a deep desire

to discover, if I could do so with delicacy, the sequel to the brief

narrative of that stolen letter. I obtained his address, and soon stood

at the door of his office. I knocked, and in obedience to a call from

within, entered.

By a large table on which lay open books and scattered papers, in the

confusion and disorder of hasty use, sat my friend writing. He rose as I

entered, and though time had made some change in my appearance and much

more in his, we knew each other at once.

He was thinner and paler than when I had last seen him, and all the

buoyancy of his disposition had gone. Then he was the soul of fun and

innocent mirth, now he was grave, reserved, and business-like, and his

features wore a deep tinge of melancholy. He was chatty and

companionable, however, to me; and as passing from one lively topic to

another we talked of old times and college freaks, his reserve wore

away, and his face lighted up with smiles which probably had not played

upon it for years before, and which made him look much more like my old

friend Harry Eagleton. Maturity and old age are marvelously indulgent to

the faults and follies of their youth, and while we recalled one scene

after another of high frolic or absurd amusement, we almost felt ready

for their mischief again.

As we warmed in a conversation of such a character, old sympathies

revived, and our remarks became closer and more personal. I freely went

over the general course of my life since we had parted, and with

apparently equal openness he spoke of his own career. He had partly

prepared himself for the bar in the proper department of the institution

in which he had been graduated, had completed his training in a private

office in the same city, had determined to settle there permanently in

his profession, had come to the bar under favorable auspices, and with a

delay much less than he had feared, and was now in the full tide of

successful practice, reaping the fruits of an honorable and a lucrative

business.

I asked him, after some time, after his father and sister. In a moment

all sprightliness passed from his countenance, and he answered me with

the deepest gravity.

His father had been dead for several years; his sister was living with

him, a confirmed and hopeless invalid.

I did not mention Ellis’s name, or push my inquiries further, but after

a short and awkward silence touched abruptly on my own matters, and

produced the papers which bore upon the business that had led me to his

office. It was soon arranged. His clear comprehension of facts which I

deemed complicated, and his better information as to their bearing and

effect soon simplified a case of much importance, put it in a light more

favorable to my own interest than I had anticipated, and directed my

future course toward those concerned with me in the result.

This over, our social chat re-commenced; and though I feared to intrude

upon his time, he pressed me to remain seated, with an urgency which I

could not resist. We were soon wandering away again with the memories

which had already proved so pleasant, and which seemed to freshen and

increase as we went on. After a prudent hesitation as to the propriety

of doing so, which perhaps yielded in the end rather to inclination than

to judgment, I availed myself of some accidental turn in our

conversation, and related the adventure of my journey to the west.

I began the story without hinting to him that his name was involved. As

I went on step by step, his eye became fixed on mine with increasing

interest. I mentioned the letter and its address, and was about to tell

its contents, when Eagleton rose suddenly, took me by the hand and led

me into an inner room. As I left the office I saw what I had not noticed

until then. In the shadow of a large, high case, in a remote part of the

apartment, with his hands folded listlessly before him, and his head

drooping heavily over his lap, sat a young man apparently about

twenty-five years of age. In all our lively and even noisy conversation,

not a breath or motion had apprised me of his presence. Without seeming

to observe him, however, I followed my friend. I felt satisfied that I

was now about to be gratified by some disclosure connected with a

history in regard to which all my former curiosity had returned.

He closed the door between the rooms, handed me a chair, drew another

opposite to it, and as we sat down facing each other, he begged me to

resume my narrative. He eyed me steadily as I proceeded, and at times

expressions passed over his features whose meaning, with all my skill, I

could not fathom—expressions of changing but controlled emotion.

I told the story to its end. With an accuracy of memory which surprised

me, and seemed strangely supplied for the call of the occasion, I

repeated this letter as I have given it already. When I mentioned the

arrival of the servant to hurry me away, a shade of disappointment was

evidently perceptible. When I spoke of the sudden movement of the

younger of the prisoners, the hasty opportunity I had obtained, by his

change of position, of examining his face, and then described his

forbidding and depraved appearance, all his eager interest returned, and

he bent forward as he sat, intent upon every word that passed my lips.

I paused at length, for my narrative was at an end; yet though I had

ceased, so absorbed was he in that rapid description, that he still

leaned toward me as though he hoped that I would give one touch more to

the picture. Then he fell back in his chair absorbed in deep thought,

which overlooks all apology for its silence, and peremptorily forbids

interruption—sat thus for some minutes—rose and paced the room with

rapid and unequal strides, and stood in the end abruptly before me.

“Did you pass through —— on your return?” said he with the tone and

manner of one who rather thought the question aloud than uttered it.

I replied that I had, and mentioned in a few words what I had heard in

reference to the prisoners, and the result of the proceedings against

them.

Again Eagleton paced the room. I watched him with earnest curiosity, but

did not by motion or remark interfere with his mood. It was one which

must shortly explain itself. His step became gradually calmer and more

steady, and at length he quietly sank into his chair. His countenance

was grave, but without any manifest traces of agitation or excitement,

and he looked steadily at me as he spoke.

“You saw, no doubt,” said he, “in the room we just left, a young man

seated by a case. I am about to call him in for a moment. Will you be

kind enough to observe him narrowly, and tell me when he is gone whether

you have ever seen him before?”

He rose once more, and with an appearance of composure, which was

evidently assumed, opened the door through which we had just passed,

called to the person who was sitting there, and then quietly resumed his

seat. I heard a slow, shuffling step across the floor within, and

presently the person called, whoever he was, appeared. I looked at him

eagerly.

He was an idiot. I could see that clearly and at a glance. His vacant

face gave undoubted evidence of the visitation of that peculiar judgment

under whose influence the light within goes out; yet his features were

not bad, and if one particle of intelligence had shown in his sunken

eye, he might, perhaps, have passed without notice or remark in spite of

his wan and unhealthy complexion, his unmeaning expression, and his

listless gait and carriage. It was that dull, preternatural stare that

made him so melancholy a spectacle.

I recollected well the face of the younger prisoner. It had made a fast

and painful impression on my mind. Many a time it had been present with

me; seldom as part of the scene in which it first appeared, but coming

suddenly and unattended, looking at me as I mused. In my fancies my

character had assumed it wholly or in fragments. If I slept I had fitted

it to the creatures of my dream. A face alone—nothing else; but a face

clearly chiseled, and with every point and line distinct.

If the man before me and he were the same, a fearful change had passed

over him. But Eagleton had evidently connected the idiot with my story,

and after the eagerness of his manner as I told the result of that last

accidental scrutiny of the features of the man at ——, and his

subsequent singular request, I should have been dull indeed if I had not

seen the drift of his thoughts, though I was in utter ignorance of the

precise course they had pursued, and of the remote reasons of his

conduct. The robber had an eye full of meaning and evil purpose—the

face before me wore no shade of depravity; and yet as I looked

resemblances occurred, became gradually more striking and more

convincing, fastened themselves upon me with a tenacity that I could not

shake off, and at last blended the two faces into one. I became

satisfied of their identity as fully as if the awkward figure before me,

guarded and manacled, were gazing yet from the window at which years

before it had met my eye. It was not mere fancy, or an opinion forced

upon me by the circumstances.

And yet I feared that it was, and to dispel any cloud that might rest

upon my mental vision, or any nervous delusion which interfered with the

correctness of the result at which I aimed, I rose and looked out for a

few moments upon some climbing vines and clustered roses that grew by an

open door, and then resumed my seat.

My friend, rather to aid my observation than to give a reason for his

call, had been speaking slowly to the object of my attention, until

becoming satisfied from my manner that I was prepared to answer his

question, he quietly dismissed him, and turned toward me again with the

same affected composure in his movements, but with an eye full of eager

inquiry.

“Eagleton,” said I, “if I am right, a greater change has passed over

that face in five years than death itself could have produced. But you

have made a request, and I comply with it. I believe, before God, that

the person I have just seen is the same to whose description you have

just been listening. That description does not now apply, and yet it is

a true one. I have doubted my conclusion, and distrusted memory, but I

cannot relieve myself of the conviction I have expressed.”

He was evidently prepared for the answer, and did not seem shocked or

surprised, though the shade of gloom increased upon his countenance. He

rose again, and paced the floor so long that I became impatient.

“I need not tell you,” said he, at last resuming his seat once more,

“that what you have seen, and what you are about to hear, are in the

deepest confidence. I do not ask your pledge to keep it, but I leave it

to your honor till I am dead. You have not only become acquainted, by

accident, with family troubles which I hoped until to-day would die with

those connected with them, but by that same accident have been enabled

to tell me that of which I did not know before, but which, now that I

have heard it, solves many doubts, and explains facts before

inexplicable. I am composed, but the answer to my question, for the

candor of which I thank you, has pained me excessively; and yet, when

you have listened to what I have to say, you will doubtless wonder at my

sensibility upon such a subject as much as you now wonder at my

indifference to your announcement.

“The young man you have just seen is George Ellis. My sister is his

wife. Until your visit to-day, however much I may have suspected, no

words brought to my ear had ever certainly fastened crime upon, or

tainted his name with any thing but vice and dissipation, in which I

know he has been deeply steeped. To-day you have added that stain to his

character. But why should I fret over what cannot be recalled. I have

one real consolation. My sister has never known this new degradation,

and will die in ignorance of your disclosures. As to Ellis, he is past

feeling. You have seen his situation. But I must proceed with my

narrative.”

I do not tell the tale in Eagleton’s words. In spite of all his efforts

to control his feelings, they occasionally broke out in exclamations of

deep pathos and bitter invective, and led him wandering off from the

direct thread of his story. Besides, I subsequently learned many facts

which neither of us knew at that time, but which were closely interwoven

with the scenes through which I am about to carry the reader.

The father of George Ellis and the father of my friend were once

partners in mercantile business, in a thriving town of the West. The

firm was Ellis & Eagleton. It did a large business, was widely known and

much respected. Mr. Ellis was a man of information and integrity, but a

free liver and a man of the world. He never married. He had, however,

this son, whom he seemed to love more warmly because there was a stigma

upon his birth, or, perhaps, because its history was connected with

associations that were painful. But whatever was the reason for his

father’s blind attachment, George was humored and indulged, until, even

while a child, he became the pest and terror of the neighborhood.

It is said that the offspring of illicit passion are generally marked by

insanity of character. Be that as it may, it matters not here. There was

enough to account for the worst traits of his disposition, in the

unbridled license of his early training, and the foolish devotion of a

worldly father. If ever there was an evil spirit in human shape, that

spirit was George Ellis. From the very cradle the fiend showed itself.

Boys of his own age fled from him as if he had been a wild beast.

Eagleton, though older, was afraid of him. No one could govern him,

least of all his own parent; and his reputation for mad freaks and

reckless mischief soon spread far and wide, and rapidly increased as he

became older. And yet with all this, with that dark, bad eye and bold

air, he was as handsome a fellow as ever grew to be a man.

His father died when he was about eighteen. He died utterly bankrupt.

With scrupulous honor, however, even in the excesses which had led to

such a result, he had not involved his firm. On his deathbed he sent for

Mr. Eagleton, told him that he died without a dollar to leave behind

him, and with an earnestness which, perhaps, at such a moment, could not

have been refused, committed his son to his partner’s care.

It was a terrible legacy from a ruined man. My friend’s father might

have known that Mr. Ellis’s wish could not be complied with, and that it

would be absolutely impossible for him to assume such a trust. It would

have been happy for him if he could have felt so. It would have saved

him much affliction, and have given to his life happy years that sorrow

soon cut off. But the destiny was otherwise.

I never saw Mary Eagleton. I know, however, that, at the time of which I

speak, she was the belle of her village, the pet and pride of her father

and brother. At the date of my interview with Henry in a distant city,

she was a mere shadow of what she had once been—a wreck in mind and

body—oppressed with pain and increasing infirmities. These were all

portions of that same fearful legacy.

Before the death of Mr. Ellis she had often seen his son. She was about

his age, and had been attracted by his appearance. This was all. He was

deemed a dangerous acquaintance, and a close and watchful care prevented

intimacy. Now, by the last prayer of a dying parent, the profligate was

brought to her very door, and sat at her very table and fireside. Her

father might have prevented this, and yet have fulfilled his duty to the

dead. He was blind.

They soon understood each other. But their conduct was cautious and

baffled a watchfulness that was keenly awake. I need not clog my

narrative with details. Her brother was away; her father could not be

always near her. George was depraved and heartless, she was young and

foolish. A private marriage terminated their intercourse, for the heart

broken father cast the bridegroom off, at once, sternly, and forever.

His wife never saw him again until, years after, in a distant city, he

was brought to her bedside—an idiot. The bequest was not yet exhausted.

But it might have been worse.

Ellis soon after went to sea in a merchant vessel bound for a foreign

port. He was too abandoned even for such a society. On the first arrival

of the ship at her destination he was set on shore. Without money, or

character, yet with enough shrewdness to keep him from starving, he

plunged desperately into all the temptations of a depraved city. Vice

and poverty soon led to crime. It was not many months before he

concealed himself, a fugitive from justice, on board of a vessel bound

for his own country, and with a companion in his guilt, a Spaniard,

arrived in the United States but a few days before the meeting mentioned

in my friend’s letter.

A few hours after that meeting he and his companion were on their way

westward. Ellis hoped to be received again. The Spaniard had nothing to

lose, and some adventure in a new country might turn to his advantage.

But hard want pressed them sorely. Begging was a slow and servile

support. Labor was not so much as thought of. To such minds an answer to

the fearful questionings of hunger was not doubtful, or long delayed.

Their first adventure was the crime at ——. As Ellis turned over the

letters which they had scattered in the road his eye was attracted by

the address of one of them. He opened it, read it, and quietly put it in

his pocket. It proved, as we have seen, the means of their arrest.

The Spaniard’s name was Antonio. I never heard any other. He was more

mature than Ellis in years and in depravity. But the most striking trait

of his character was one that will appear hereafter. From the moment of

their arrest the prisoners preserved a dogged silence. Antonio could not

speak a word of English. Ellis had his own reason for the course he

pursued. The driver of the mail, whose person they had treated so

unceremoniously, and who, upon their first capture, had been loud in his

confidence of their identity with those who had bound him, a few days

after declared that his first impressions were hasty, and declined

backing his assertion by an oath. The mail which they had robbed had

afforded them nothing worth having, and, at the time of their seizure,

they had about them no evidence of guilt. The only grounds of suspicion

against them were the fact that they were strangers; the letter found

near them; their seeming alarm upon seeing the officers; their dogged

and persevering silence, and their reckless and abandoned appearance.

The prisoners were confined in separate cells. The officers, who have

always motives for industry appealing to them in such cases, saw, at a

glance, which was the oldest and most hardened offender, and from which

of them they were most likely to gain their object. Ellis was wary and

knew their game, but he was without honor, and intensely selfish. His

sullenness at last relaxed. He gave them, cautiously, to understand that

he would convict Antonio to secure his own escape, and it was determined

to use him as a witness against his accomplice.

I need not give the details of the trial. Ellis appeared in the box and

gave evidence, coolly, against the accused. The Spaniard was too much a

stranger to the form of the proceeding to understand the scheme at once.

But light at last broke in upon him and revealed the treachery. From

that moment one burning dream, overcoming all fear of punishment, and

strangely composing the bitterness of solitude rested upon him. It was a

delirious prayer for revenge, in a heart as malignant as was ever shut

from human eye. The witness would have trembled if he could have looked

within it.

The evidence was effectual. Antonio was convicted, and received the

severest sentence that the law allowed—ten years imprisonment. He was

taken to his cell. Ellis went at large.

A copy of Eagleton’s letter to his father had been re-mailed, several

weeks after the arrest, by some person to whose hand it had come, more

considerate than those who had first held it. At the foot a brief

explanation was given of the circumstances which rendered it necessary

to retain the original, and an apology for the delay in communicating

its contents. When it reached its destination Mr. Eagleton was laboring

under a second and more serious attack of the same illness which the

letter mentioned. It had been brought about by mental suffering, and, so

alarming were the symptoms, that his daughter had just despatched a

letter to hasten her brother home.

It was at this juncture that the copy was received. As she had

frequently done before since her father’s sickness, Mary opened the

letter to read it aloud. It surprised her. It began as only her

brother’s letters began, and yet the handwriting was not his. As she

read she grew pale, her lips trembled, and at length bursting into

tears, she left the room. The invalid took it from the bed, on which she

had dropped it, sat up, and, much moved, read it through. The news was

such as he did not wish to believe. The whole matter was singular, and

with a flushed face and increased fever he dropped again upon his

pillow. If it were really from his son, all reserve or secrecy toward

his daughter was at an end, and all that could be done was to await her

husband’s arrival.

The excitement was injurious, Mr. Eagleton became so much feebler from

day to day that Mary’s greatest fear now was that her brother might not

come until too late. It was as she had apprehended. Death came rapidly

on, and she was alone at its crisis. In a few days she sat beside the

dead body of her father, and in a few more, the only mourner, followed

him to his grave.

And yet her brother did not come. Again and again she wrote to him, with

an urgency which showed how lonely and unprotected she felt. There was a

trial which she anticipated, and which she feared to meet without his

aid. She felt assured that her first letter had not reached him, and the

journey was one of many days.

A traveler arrived at last, but it was not Henry. In the hall of the

mansion from which he had been thrust out with bitter curses, tattered

and wretched and bleached with prison gloom, stood the outcast, the

fugitive, the robber, the dishonored witness—George Ellis. His wife had

pledged her word to her dying father that she would not see him again,

and here he stood in her very house, her rightful husband. Her heart

throbbed fearfully between returning love and religious duty. But she

kept her word to the dead, refused to see him, and shutting herself in

her own room, awaited the coming of her brother.

Mr. Eagleton had left a will, but it bore date before the marriage, and

did not provide for the state of things which that event produced. Ellis

was aware that as her husband he had legal rights, and that her father’s

death had given them effect; but he was ignorant of their actual nature,

and caution taught him to refrain from violence. He did not intrude upon

his wife’s privacy, but, with all the coolness of villainy, he made

himself at home in the house from which the dead had just been borne,

and trusted to her woman’s weakness, and a love, the strength of which

he knew too well, to cure her of her solitary mood.

But my friend appeared, and the face of affairs soon changed. He met

Ellis on his arrival, and, surprised at his presence, soon gathered from

the servants a history of what had occurred. His first impulse was to

eject him forcibly, but better suggestions made him change his purpose.

Without allowing them to inform his sister of his arrival, he hastened

to the office of his father’s attorney and apprised himself of the

precise nature of the intruder’s rights. He knew his want of money, and

with a paper carefully drawn, releasing all claim to the estate of Mr.

Eagleton, he returned home. He soon had an interview with Ellis, and

offered him a certain sum, to be paid upon the spot, if he would sign

the instrument. He refused at first, peremptorily, then asked an advance

in the offer, and, at last, finding that he could do no better, put his

name to the paper, coolly pocketed the money and left the house.

The estate was soon settled. Their native place was connected with

associations so painful that they were glad to leave it, and in a few

weeks they were quietly domiciled in the city where I found them.

It was a year, at least, after the death of Mr. Eagleton, when early one

morning on the high-road leading to the village in which he had lived,

the dead body of a wealthy farmer was found by some one passing by. It

bore marks of violence which none could doubt. A murder had been

committed.

Excitement burned in the town and in the neighborhood. Within the memory

of the oldest inhabitant no similar act of violence had been committed.

Suspicion first ran riot, then settled, as if by common agreement, upon

George Ellis. It was not strange that conjecture should have taken that

course.

Ellis did not leave the town when he last turned from the door which had

twice cast him off. He remained, for the simple reason that he knew not

where else to go. He lurked about its vilest places and made low friends

by his ill-gotten money. But he soon lost both, and yet he stayed. No

one knew how he lived. He crossed the paths of citizens in strange

places and unusual hours. He went in and came out like no one else. His

worst companions had shaken him off. He was the very one upon whom any

crime would have been first cast.

He felt the suspicion and tried to live it down. His efforts gave it a

new stimulus. He braved public opinion, sought public places, became

noisy and obtrusive. Many thought this sudden change of manner justified

his arrest, and so strong became at last the feeling against him that

the suggestion was followed. He was seized without oath, examined

without effect, and committed in the end to await his trial upon

evidence that would have convicted half of the community. Public opinion

is hard law.

New facts came out. The prisoner had been seen abroad much later than

usual on the night before the murder. He had mentioned it to some one

early on the morning after it had been committed. His manner, it was

said, had been more hurried and excited for a day or two before it

occurred. What a silly thing suspicion is. How easy to feed it. And yet

these and a dozen other like stories were passed about by grave men in

eager gossip. The net was cast and brought in of every kind.

An indictment was found; who dare have said nay. The trial drew near—it

came too slowly. Yet all this while nothing serious or substantial had

come to light in any way connecting Ellis with the deed.

He protested his innocence firmly and without contradiction. His counsel

encouraged him. Public opinion was not to try him. The flimsy rumors

that had ruled the market-house and the tavern door would be winnowed

and sifted. No conviction could be had upon such testimony.

The day came, and in a court-room thronged as it had never been before,

a jury was sworn with much difficulty—for few had not formed or

expressed an opinion. This done, the trial proceeded.

The testimony began after a short opening. First in order, in grave

detail of examination and cross-examination, came that which bore upon

the finding of the body—its appearance—the wounds it showed—the

opinion of medical men that such wounds caused the death, and the nature

of the weapon used. It was in evidence that a small and peculiar pistol

had been found not far off from the place where the murdered man lay. It

had no doubt been fired close to his head, for the upper part of it was

entirely blown away. The pockets had been rifled, and all that was

valuable about his person had been removed.

Then followed the proof connecting the prisoner with the crime. It

consisted entirely of such facts as those we have given, and even these

presented with doubt and contradiction. The last witness had retired

from the box, and the counsel for the state was about to close his case,

when a bustle was heard in the crowd, and a pedlar with his pack upon

his back, forced on by the crowd, made his way toward the bar. A bailiff

stopped him, when a citizen well known in the town, and who had from the

first been earnest in his voice against the accused, stepped forward and

spoke to the officer. The pack was removed, and the pedlar was admitted

within the enclosure in which the prosecuting attorney sat. An earnest

conversation followed. Ellis and his counsel were anxious, but not more

so than their professional opponent, who was a gentleman of high

principle, and a humanity unusual in such a station. The latter now rose

and asked permission to be absent for a short time, and taking the

pistol from the table, he beckoned the new comer to follow him, and left

the court-room. They were absent some twenty minutes, and when they

returned the stranger was put at once into the witness box.

His story was simple, and no severity of cross-examination could baffle

its force or procure a contradiction. He had sold that very pistol to

the prisoner, whom he had met in the public road two days before the

murder. Ellis he could not mistake—the weapon he could swear to on his

deathbed. He was in the village now by accident, had come to the trial

from curiosity, had made an unguarded explanation when he first saw the

accused, and in spite of his unwillingness to give testimony in a case

of life and death, he had been forced up by those around. This was

simple, but direct and damning.

The witness had one of those heavy faces which are the most difficult to

decipher. Ellis scrutinized him closely. He was confident he had never

seen him before. Sick at heart, and bewildered by what he deemed a

gratuitous and wanton effort to swear away his life, yet powerless in

the grasp of villainy, he turned from him, and as he did so his eye fell

on another face, whose glance drove the blood throbbing to his heart. It

was the face of Antonio. With a fevered brow and a dry tongue he leaned

toward his counsel, and hastily whispered his fears. It was too late now

to ferret out a conspiracy, and when he turned again the Spaniard was

gone, and that impenetrable witness stood coolly in the box awaiting his

dismissal. God of compassion! he was taken in the snare.

An agony to be loose when no hand was on him; a frenzy to be free when

no bars were round him. Was he going mad? Then a film came over his mind

thicker—thicker. He buried his face in his hands, and the veins upon

his forehead were swollen and knotted. Memories went over him like the

rushing of a host.

The evidence on the part of the state now closed. None was offered on

behalf of the prisoner. The counsel summed up the evidence;—the charge

of the court followed;—the jury retired, soon returned, and their

foreman gave in a verdict. Guilty!

Ellis had undermined his constitution by excesses. But from the instant

when that word fell upon his ear a decay, far less gradual, began in

mind and body. He did not faint or weep; he did not reason, resist, or

complain. The withering blight of years came upon him in a few short

days, but no eye saw the change.

It was some weeks after the trial that as Eagleton glanced over one of

the morning papers, a paragraph met his eye which riveted his attention.

It was an announcement of the execution of George Ellis, to take place

in a month from that time.

He was deeply shocked. Feelings struggled in his breast that were never

there before. He asked himself questions until then never suggested.

Might not this result have been averted? Had his conscience no one weak

point in all the history of his course toward one over whom a parent had

thrown the sacred protection of a dying trust? Had they done the outcast

a justice that could bear the light of humanity as well as of reason?

Was there no shadow of selfishness in the motives that had twice cast

him upon the world?

One duty, however, was clear. He could not let the wretched man die

alone. He must see him if it were only to stand by him on the scaffold.

That over, a dying parent’s prayer would no longer appeal to him, except

perhaps to bury the dead out of sight.

He plead business to his sister, and started on his way. Night and day

he traveled, those solemn questions still communing with his spirit. He

was a deep-hearted man, and sorrow had made his sensibilities sore.

Night and day—night and day. If he dreamed, George Ellis was there,

straight and handsome, his dark eye softened into sympathy, and Mary on

his arm—a lovely bride; and suddenly the scene changed, and a creature

bloated and miserable stood upon a scaffold, with a sea of heads heaving

before it, and its bloodshot gaze upon him, not in anger, but in

mournful rebuke;—and again it was George Ellis.

He reached the town, and was admitted to his cell. The prisoner was pale

and emaciated, and a sluggish apathy was in his air, which seemed

indifference to life. He recognized Eagleton, but greeted him coldly,

and declined all his proffered visits. And yet there was no resentment

in his manner. The misery of life had burnt away the wished for rest and

quiet sleep. Before Henry left him, however,—abruptly, and without

question, but with an energy that appeared to wake up for the purpose,

and a call upon God to attest his truth—he swore that he was innocent

of the crime he was to expiate.

Eagleton left him in deep emotion. He busied himself at once in

collecting information as to the murder, the trial, and the ground of

conviction. He made diligent search for the strange witness, and strove

for a pardon or reprieve. It was in vain. A sentence was a sterner thing

then than now, and the verdict of twelve men more inviolable.

The day fixed for the execution arrived. It was near noon when a gloomy

procession left the prison gate and wound through the opening crowd to

the foot of the gallows. The scaffold bore at last the prisoner, the

sheriff, a deputy, found at the last moment to relieve him from the

hateful duty of taking life, a clergyman, and Eagleton. The first was

still, stupid, and indifferent. No sound escaped him as his irons were

removed, and his hands bound; no voice passed his lips as time was given

him to bid those around farewell. The man of God knelt in prayer, then

rose and fell back. The executioner approached.

My friend watched him with intense interest. He was masked. His manner

was singular, and a deep excitement pervaded his movements. A strange

and unaccountable suspicion of the man crept over Eagleton, he knew not

why.

He raised the cap which was to shut out the world forever from the

wretched being by his side. But before it rested on the head for which

it was intended, he who held it seemed to have a purpose to fulfil. He

leaned quickly forward, whispered in that passive ear, and for a single

instant raised his mask. Eyes of fire glared from under it. It was

Antonio once more. What he said no mortal knows; but if ages of burning

malignity and pent passion can be distilled into one word, that word, no

doubt, was in the prisoner’s ear. He started and looked up, and a

shudder passed over his frame. Then, in one instant, all his apathy was

gone, and he struggled like a madman to free his hands. The Spaniard saw

his error, and strove to retrieve it. But the frantic exertions of the

prisoner foiled him.

Eagleton himself could be passive no longer. He had seen it all, and

felt that the sudden change that had passed upon Ellis was not the mere

change of fear grown riotous at the last. He seized the stranger, tore

off his mask, and called for aid. Quicker than thought the executioner

drew a pistol from his breast and fired it. The prisoner fell upon the

scaffold. He then quietly surrendered himself. As the sheriff, until now

transfixed by the scene, approached and drew from the hand of his

strange deputy the weapon just used, he started at its resemblance to

the one which had been produced at the trial, the peculiar marks of

which were strongly impressed upon his memory.

The intervention of those who could act with authority was procured.

There was clearly a plot against the prisoner’s life, in which the

strange witness was the first actor, and the executioner the second.

Humanity rode down the sharp points of legal form. The scaffold was soon

cleared. The multitude retired. The gallows fell beneath axe and hammer;

and the only evidence of that stirring scene was the grass trampled by

the eager crowd.

My friend next day visited Antonio in his cell. He asked after his

victim, and being told that the wound was mortal, and that he was dying,

made a full confession. He had escaped from his prison;—_he_ had been

the murderer;—the witness was his tool;—he had gone upon the scaffold

to finish his revenge, and to glut his passion with the agonies of a

frightful death. It was singular, but for some reason best known to

himself, he left Eagleton in ignorance of the cause of his malice, and

of the crime at ——.

Ellis did not die. His wound was thought to be mortal—it was only

severe. He recovered, but his mind was dead, and Eagleton took him to

his own home, harmless and passive as a new-born child.

They are all gone now—the brother, the sister, and her idiot husband.

The green sod has grown for years over their graves, and I tell their

story in the full conviction that no heart will be wounded, and no

delicacy hurt by a recital of facts which to me are full of interest.

* * * * *

LADY JANE GREY.

BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.

“So early wise?”

Lady fair! why linger’st thou?

Hearest not? they call thee now:—

Thy father’s park is filled to-day

With noble lords and ladies gay—

A princely band, with horn and spear,

Are out to hunt the fallow deer;

Put on thy graceful green array

And hie thee to the chase away,

Lord Guilford Dudley waits below,

Lady, close the book and go!

What! bending still above the page?

Doth _it_ thy woman-thoughts engage?

Is it ancient Plato’s classic lore

Thine eager eye is poring o’er?

Well may old Roger Ascham smile

To see thee sit amid that pile

Of musty tomes, and gravely ask

Which study next must be thy task.

Methinks he pierced futurity

When he bade thee scorn earth’s vanity!

Lady fair! go forth to-night—

The royal halls are glittering bright,

Quick—don this gorgeous robe of state—

Northumberland will on thee wait.

Wreathe the crown jewels on thy brow,

And gem with these thy neck of snow:

Now fasten down this diamond zone—

So—there thou’rt ready, trembling one!

The festival is made for thee—

Come—join the queenly pageantry!

Oh, loveliest lady! turn not pale—

Why should thy lofty courage fail?

See England’s proudest chivalrie

Wait at thy feet to bend the knee—

To raise thee to the Tudor’s throne

Their duty, and their hearts thine own!

Even haughty Mary boweth low

And offereth thee her loyal vow—

Noble and prince thy claim have owned—

Lo! there thou standest crowned and throned.

The Tower!—a cell in yon gray tower

Is the price of Edward’s fatal dower!

A bloody doom is on thee cast—

The sentence for thy death hath passed!

Yea, death for one so young and fair—

Yet wearest thou no look of care:

Still on thy book thine eye is bent,

Bespeaking wisdom and content—

Wo! that on cold Ambition’s shrine

Is sacrificed a mind like thine.

Come, lady, come! the muffled bell

Is tolling now thy husband’s knell!

Another hour, and there will be

No earthly care for him or thee!

Go—all undimmed in thy beauty go—

With holy truth upon thy brow:

A lot of glittering wretchedness

Is well exchanged for Heaven’s own bliss;

Thou’st won the martyr’s crown and wreath—

Joy to thee, peerless bride of Death!

* * * * *

THE YOUNG PAINTER.

A TALE.

BY MRS. JANE L. SWIFT.

Among the vast number of individuals continually visiting the regions of

the old world, how few are prepared by an enlightened education and a

cultivated taste, to appreciate its strong claims upon the admiration of

the traveler. A love of the beautiful in nature, and a veneration for

the ancient in art, may combine to give a glowing interest to each step

that is taken upon the soil of older climes; but to minds that feel how

much we owe to the early annals of those climes—how the accumulated

treasures of historic lore have pointed out the quicksands of

legislation—how experience has sounded its alarm from the rocks upon

which nation after nation has struck and gone down; to minds that feel

how time has traced upon the chart of the world’s destiny a warning

record for those that come after—the government and institutions, the

splendor and the decay, the rise and the downfall of the countries over

which they wander, cannot fail to awaken the deepest interest, and to

imbue with the holiness of truth the associations that must continually

arise. It is one thing to have read the history of a country—to have a

knowledge of its successive kings, emperors, or rulers; to know the

results of its convulsions and its battles; to be able to date the

events that have crowned with glory or branded with ignominy its

name—and it is another thing to have digested the information thus

obtained; to have acquired a succinct view of the bearing of social and

political institutions upon the genius of the people existing under

them; and to have become acquainted with the predominant influences

which conducted that country to its ascent, or hastened it to its

decline. A noble structure is left for us to gaze upon; a relic of

by-gone ages, full of rents and fissures, and bearing upon its time-worn

towers the ivy of decay. It speaks to us of the course of empire, of the

march of intellect, of the sway of mind, of the abuse of power, of the

horrors of war, of the extinction of nations. It stands as a beacon to

enlighten the world’s rulers; to teach them that what has been shall be;

and to display its warning torch for the Future in the history of the

Past.

History is to the mental what Revelation is to the spiritual vision. The

former clears away the darkness which rests upon our perceptions with

regard to the well-being and destiny of nations; the latter dispels the

cloud which hangs over the unevangelized world with regard to the

well-being and destiny of man. It does not require a moment’s thought to

be convinced, that he who visits classic ground with a mind conversant

with and delighting in the glowing pages of ancient lore, will

experience an enjoyment tenfold to that of him who finds all things new,

and who, content with the attraction of novelty, neither knows nor cares

to know of the mighty deeds that have cursed or consecrated its soil.

True, there are sunny landscapes smiling for him, and works of art

beautiful in their decay around him; but they cannot be to him as

familiar things, for he had perchance never heard of their existence

until he gazed upon them. The charm of association can beautify and

hallow the most barren spot. What may it not do, then, when its golden

hue is cast upon the monuments of former greatness—monuments crumbling

to their fall, but speaking of a people, and of a grandeur, which

centuries ago had passed away.

Thoughts like these were floating through the mind of a young traveler,

as he gazed out of the window of the post chaise that was rapidly

approaching the place of his destination. He was the eldest son of a

wealthy English commoner, who, having traced in the early years of his

child the bright promise of a noble intellect, had assiduously applied

himself to its cultivation and improvement. A man of no inconsiderable

literary attainment himself he could fully appreciate the advantages of

a highly finished education, and as the mind of his son daily developed

its natural endowments, it became his delight and pride to direct that

young mind in its pursuit of knowledge. As Arthur Melburn advanced

toward manhood, the energies of his nature seemed concentrated upon the

all-absorbing love of study; and in the classic writers of Greece and

Rome, he found a never failing source of interest and of pleasure. A

sojourn in those regions of former splendor had been from boyhood the

brightest day-dream of his young spirit; and often had that spirit taken

its airy flight among the scenes described by the matchless pens of

Grecian and Roman historians. In the noble, heart-stirring legends of

ancient Rome, he learned to feel a veneration for the clime and for the

people which had been marked out for such exalted destinies; while in

the shade of the academic grove he bent with profound admiration before

the master-minds of philosophers and sages. Upon his return from the

University of Cambridge, at the age of three-and-twenty, he set out upon

his long anticipated tour, well prepared to enjoy and to appreciate the

beautiful in nature, the wonderful in art, and the mighty in mind.

Unlike the generality of earth’s gifted ones, Arthur Melburn possessed a

well balanced, well regulated judgment, with a discretion beyond his

years. Yet, as every character must have its own tinge of imperfection,

he possessed that chilling reserve of disposition which characterizes

his nation, and was too prone to seek his enjoyment in himself, without

due regard to the claims of those around him. This feeling, so apt to

degenerate into confirmed selfishness, had frequently been the subject

of earnest expostulation between the father and son; but not until

Arthur Melburn had visited the gay _salons_ of Paris, and the still

gayer coteries of Vienna, was he aware how unpopular and repulsive such

an _abord_ must be. The conviction thus forced upon him, soon wrought a

change in the young Englishman’s address; and although the “so far shalt

thou come and no further” of old England still clung to him, yet he was

in every respect the accomplished scholar, the courteous and polished

man.

It was a bright and lovely day in October, such an one as gives

elasticity to the frame, and tinges the cheek with a ruddier glow. The

sun was declining in the heavens, and streaks of golden light fell upon

the landscape, which met the traveler’s eye as he reached the heights

near Boccano, and looked for the first time upon the domes and towers of

Rome. It is not easy to describe the varied associations that poured

their tide of hallowed memories into his mind. He was not an enthusiast.

He was one who felt deeply, although he felt calmly; yet an attentive

observer might have marked a faint flush pass over his brow, while the

veins of his temples swelled, and his eye dilated as he gazed.

A young Italian had been his companion on the route from Florence, and

our traveler had become singularly interested in his new acquaintance.

He was a native of Rome, possessing all the fire and passionate ardor of

that clime, combined with a melancholy that seemed ill-suited to his

years. He was slight, and of small stature, but with a countenance of

intellectual beauty that could not be surpassed. The rich, glossy curls

fell upon a brow as white as ivory; and the dark eye gleamed from

beneath that brow as if it would pierce into your soul. But his cheek

was very, very pale, and the chiselled lips had lost their ruby hue. He

was evidently in declining health, and Arthur Melburn felt his heart

warm toward the unknown but interesting companion of his journey.

“The air is chilly, too chilly I fear for you,” said Melburn kindly;

“let me draw up the window, or else change seats with me.”

“Thank you,” replied the young Italian, “the air does me good—it

strengthens me; and see,” he added, “we are nearly at our journey’s

end.”

“I trust,” returned Melburn with a smile, “that the acquaintance so

agreeably commenced between us may not be discontinued upon our arrival

in Rome. I anticipate making a stay of many weeks there, and it will

give me unfeigned satisfaction to renew our intercourse.”

A crimson flush passed over the pallid cheek of the Italian as he warmly

grasped Melburn’s hand and said, “Yes, yes, I have felt my spirit yearn

toward you with an unaccountable sympathy. I have loved but few, and

fewer still have cared for me. Yours is a brighter and a happier destiny

than mine. What have you to gain by knowing me? Yet I would gladly look

upon you as a friend—indeed, indeed I would.”

Melburn cordially pressed the feverish hand within his own; and giving

his address to the Italian, asked for his in return.

“My name is Giovanni Rosa, and—”

The Englishman uttered an exclamation of surprise, and said, “You are

not, then, entirely unknown to me. I have heard of you as the most

promising of the young painters of Italy.”

“Ah!” sighed the Italian, “to win immortality for the name of Giovanni

Rosa would reconcile me to life, barren and blasted as it is.”

“You are too young to speak thus despondingly of life, Signor Rosa;

believe me, all have their peculiar trials, and with an honorable career

before you, these trials should be met and overcome. We will talk of

this hereafter.”

The carriage stopped; Melburn alighted at the door of his hotel, and,

after arranging an interview for the morrow, the two newly made friends

separated.

It was a great disappointment to our young traveler to find, upon his

arrival at Rome, that his uncle’s family, which he had expected to meet

there, had left but a week or two before. He was to have joined their

party; but, owing to the miscarriage of his letters, they had proceeded

on their journey, leaving information for him that they should soon

retrace their steps, and probably pass the winter in Rome. After some

deliberation, Melburn concluded that it was as well for him to remain

and wait their return, although his heart beat more quickly as he

thought of his long anticipated meeting with his beautiful cousin, Alice

Templeton, whom he had not seen for more than a year. He had cherished a

preference for her from early boyhood; but as they had met rarely, and

then at long intervals, that preference had not yet acquired the

strength of love. Yet there were pure, sweet memories connected with

her; for in childhood he had often smoothed her golden curls as her

little head lay upon his bosom, and in later years he had seen the

mantling blush overspread her countenance, as he pressed the kiss of

meeting or of parting upon her brow. But he was in Rome—this reconciled

him to the delay; and as his mind wandered back again to its treasured

lore, he felt that he trod the courts of a temple consecrated to dead

empires, and that the very dust beneath his feet was hallowed.

Accompanied by the enthusiastic Italian, with what exquisite

satisfaction did he visit the ruined monuments of the ancient mistress

of the world, the queen of nations! How time flew by, as from spot to

spot he traced the steps of desolation and decay; and when memory

reverted to the three hundred triumphs that had been celebrated within

the walls of the seven-hilled city, he felt how hollow and frail a thing

was the pageantry of earth. The empty sepulchres, the ruined temples,

the mouldering arches, the tottering piles—these were but the scattered

fragments of Rome’s glory; the broken and tarnished jewels of her

matchless crown.

It was on a mild, beautiful afternoon, about a month after his arrival,

that Arthur Melburn sat alone in the studio of the young painter. They

had made an engagement to visit the Coliseum together by moonlight; and

Melburn, not finding him at home, concluded to wait for his return. As

he looked upon the pictures which the glowing pencil of Rosa had traced

upon the canvas, he saw how each bore the stamp of the wild beauty that

characterized the mind of the painter. In his designs there was a dreamy

mystery and gloom that seemed to cast a shadow upon the sunny tints; and

made you feel as if storm and calm, hope and despair, were struggling

for the mastery. One picture, a mere sketch, soon attracted the

attention of Melburn. There was a wild torrent rushing over dark and

pointed rocks. Upon one side of the stream was a towering oak whose

leaves were still green and luxuriant, although it had been riven to its

very centre by the thunderbolt; while its scorched and blackened trunk

stood in strong contrast with the fresh verdure that surrounded it. Upon

the stream, where all was calm, there floated a little bark, moored

safely in its glassy haven, with a female figure reclining listlessly at

its prow; while, driving on among the rocks and whirlpools, and hurrying

to destruction, was another boat, in which knelt the figure of a man.

His face was turned toward the serene and quiet haven, but he was not

aware of the perils that surrounded him; for his gaze was riveted upon

that vision of beauty, and the oar, fallen from his hand, had already

been carried over the edge of the fearful torrent. Melburn was so intent

contemplating the powerful effect produced by the lights and shades of

the painter’s pencil, that he did not notice his entrance until he stood

with folded arms beside him.

“It is thus with life, is it not, Melburn?” murmured the soft, low tones

of Giovanni. “A few sunny hours upon the glassy bosom of its stream, and

then the threatening waves and foaming surges bear us wildly on. In the

distance is some bright vision—the Egeria of our hearts—embodying all

that youth, and hope, and love can sigh for. Alas! the unattained; how

it woos and mocks, but to woo and mock again. We are but the sport of

destiny; and as that destiny grows dim and dark, fate looks on with a

smile, and we are hurried into the still waters of oblivion.”

Melburn turned his calm eye upon the excited countenance of the speaker.

“Giovanni, life is indeed a troubled stream, and man is launched in a

frail bark upon its waves; but the means to stem those waves, and to

guide that bark, are given him, and if those means be cast aside, why

call it destiny that hurries him to destruction? Your matchless picture

has called up stern and solemn thoughts. Look at it, Giovanni; the oars

are fallen overboard, the rudder is useless at the helm, the compass

vibrates, but meets not the eye it was given to guide. Is the

recklessness that suffers the vessel with its priceless freight to near

the torrent’s brink—is that recklessness destiny?”

“Are we not what we are, Melburn, by an inevitable necessity? Can I

change the course of events, which in themselves are fixed and

unalterable? As soon may you gather up the burning fluid of the

thunderbolt in your hand, as arrest or turn aside the decrees of fate.”

“Look, Giovanni; since you have entered, the heavens are darkened by an

approaching tempest. Yonder spire out-tops the surrounding buildings,

and presents a mark for the lightning’s unerring aim. But see! upon its

point there is an iron rod, and that rod can preserve the magnificent

structure from desolation. Would it be well to leave it unprotected, and

call it destiny that would at some future day make it a heap of

smouldering ruins?”

“No,” replied the Italian despondingly; “but man, man is ever fulfilling

_his_ unalterable destiny.”

“You are only a superficial disciple of the fatalists,” answered

Melburn, smiling; “for you have failed to cultivate the equanimity and

indifference to fate which they teach. Believe me, dear Giovanni, man is

not a puppet in the hands of fate. He is a rational, accountable being,

destined for immortality; dependent, I admit, upon a wise over-ruling

Providence for the allotment of good or evil in this life; but he may of

his own free will abuse the good to his destruction, or make the evil

profitable to his improvement. As the warm breeze of the south enervates

the frame it blows upon, so would a life without trial rob manhood of

the discipline that braces and nerves the soul to godlike strength. As

each difficulty or disappointment comes upon us, we should strive to

hear the voice that spoke to Constantine in his memorable vision, ‘In

this, overcome.’”

The Italian grasped the hand of Melburn; “Speak on,” he murmured, “for

your words fall in gentle tones upon my heart, and the slumbering

memories of other years, when a mother’s voice lulled me to repose, are

crowding upon my soul. Speak on, for holier thoughts come at your

bidding—thoughts of a being who was not always shrouded in blackness

and tempest—thoughts long buried in the ashes of a consuming ambition

and a hopeless love. Yet there are moments, Melburn, when a ‘still small

voice’ is heard above the storm of earthly passions, and the weary

spirit yearns to catch the blessed accents as they fall; but the blast

sweeps on, and the voice is drowned in the contending din.”

“It is your misfortune, Giovanni, to possess the keen sensibilities, and

the finely strung nerves of genius. You worship the beautiful, and you

feel the slightest discord in the harmony of your emotions with an

intensity unknown to mankind in general. You perceive quickly, you

appreciate vividly, you love passionately. But the pearls of existence

are strung upon a slender thread, and the anxious grasp that would

secure, too often scatters them in the dust. You are a child of impulse,

and the same fire that kindles the flame of ambition within your soul,

is searing your spirit with its fervid glow. If the dew of heaven water

the parched flower, it will bloom again; and the dew of a better, purer

hope will revive the blossom of happiness in your heart, Giovanni.”

“Never! never! the wilted flower may revive, but when the worm has been

busy at the root, what then?”

“The broken spirit may lean upon Omnipotence, Giovanni. He who holds in

his hands the destinies of worlds, and whose infinite mind originated

the eternal mysteries of the universe, he supports the sparrow on the

wing, and it falls not to the ground without his knowledge. Shall man,

the most glorious of his works, the image of himself, the denizen of

immortality, shall man pine under the weight of his earthly fetters, and

find no ark of refuge? Forbid it, Heaven!”

A silence of some minutes ensued, and a burning drop fell upon Melburn’s

hand, which was clasped in that of the Italian.

The rain, which had been falling in torrents, ceased, the clouds cleared

away, and the last rays of the setting sun streamed in bright effulgence

as it sank to its repose. Slowly faded the gorgeous tints that had robed

the sky in glory, and as the drapery of heaven darkened in its hue, here

and there a faint star peeped out, and then the full-orbed moon shed her

pure and mystic light upon the scene. At this moment, beneath the window

where they sat, appeared a young Italian girl, who, after gazing for an

instant upon the face of Giovanni, struck with a master-touch the guitar

which she held, and poured forth, in a voice of exquisite melody, the

following wild strain:—

Weep, weep for the cheek that has paled ’neath the kiss

Given by thee;

Weep, weep for the past, with its moments of bliss,

Once shared by me.

Weep, weep for the sinless, who cast her heart’s pearl

On love’s purest shrine;

Thine, thine was the altar upon which it lay—

The offering was mine.

Smile, smile for the transplanted flower that blooms—

It blooms not for thee;

There’s death in the poisonous incense it breathes—

To thee and to me.

Weep, weep that the shroud, with its lily-white hue,

Must ere long be mine;

Aye, weep for the destiny, blighting and drear,

That made my heart thine.

The next moment she had disappeared, and Melburn turned to look at

Giovanni. His head was bowed upon his hand, and he breathed quickly, as

if overpowered by suppressed emotion. There was a long and heavy pause.

“Melburn,” said he at last, “have you ever loved?”

A stern, cold expression passed over the countenance of the young

Englishman, which did not escape the quick eye of Rosa, and he resumed;

“A portion of the veil has been lifted which hides from you the secret

of my unhappiness. Despise me not, Melburn, when I tell you that I have

ceased to love _her_. Why, why was I born to bring blight upon others as

well as upon myself? Left an orphan at an early age, penniless and

friendless, I have struggled thus far through life, just earning the

bread that supports me. Burning with an ambition to excel in the godlike

art I worship, I have drained but one or two scanty drops of fame for

years of intense study. I have seen influence and patronage draw out of

obscurity talent less deserving than mine, while I have been left to

grovel in the dust of neglect and poverty. With bitterness of spirit I

have tasted the injustice of the world, and its bought smiles have

withered almost to the root the hopes that I dared to cherish. In the

midst of my loneliness and sorrow there beamed a vision of comfort upon

my soul; and the impassioned being, whose song just met your ear,

wreathed a charm around my heart which I mistook for love. You of a

colder clime know not the fearful fire that gives intensity to every

emotion, and makes the life-blood rush with the impetuosity of a

torrent. Conventional prejudices would make you judge harshly of the

love that overpowers reason, propriety, and prudence; but Bianca was a

child of nature, and in loving me, she cast all her heart’s treasure

into my arms. We were both poor—we could not marry; but she was to have

been my wife. Fate threw in my way another from your own cold clime. Ah,

the beautiful! how I worshiped it in her. We met at the Vatican, where

she was copying a sketch by Rubens. A celebrated painter introduced me

to her. She visited my pictures, and the meed of approval that fell from

her lips sank into my soul. She was gentle, with all the winning

gentleness of woman; but the chaste snow was not more cold. I gazed upon

her beauty as we gaze upon a pure and distant star; and as each speaking

lineament told of elevated desires, and proud aspirations, I bent in

adoration at her shrine, and laid my offering there. We had met

frequently; and although I feared that my love was hopeless, still I

could not tear myself from the fascination of her presence. She saw,

with a woman’s quick perception, that I loved her deeply; and she strove

to destroy by coldness the illusion that might be fatal to my peace. I

could not bear it; it was better to know the worst. We were left alone

one evening, and with trembling lips and incoherent words, I strove to

tell her of my love. She did not suffer me to proceed, but kindly took

my hand in hers and said, ‘Signor Rosa, from childhood my heart has been

another’s.’ Darkness came over me, and the sable pall will never be

drawn aside.”

He paused for a moment, and then continued; “I would not, could not see

Bianca. The romance of life was at an end. I shut myself up among the

creations of my pencil, but they failed to awaken my spirit from its

lethargy; and I find the energies of my soul withering daily, and my

frame consuming with the fire that will not be quenched.”

Tears glistened in the eyes of the sensitive Italian, and he hurried on.

“I love you, Melburn; you would save me from myself, and you have made

me feel that there is disinterested kindness in humanity. There have

been times, my friend, when a whispering demon seemed urging me to rid

myself of the load that oppressed me—‘it is but a drop of opiate—it is

but the keen point of the dark blue steel—it is but the flash of a

moment, and all will be over.’ Then there came thoughts of the dread

loneliness and degradation of the grave—perhaps the judgment! and—”

“Giovanni,” said Melburn solemnly, interrupting him, “brave not the Most

High. Life is a precious deposit, and it is not for man to interfere

with the will of Omnipotence. Suicide is the crime of a coward,

perpetrated in moral darkness; it is a crime which leaves not a moment

for repentance or for pardon, but ushers the blood-stained soul

unshriven into the presence of its God.”

A shudder passed over the frame of the Italian as he drew from his bosom

a small poignard of exquisite workmanship; “Take it—take it, Melburn,”

he exclaimed, “you have saved me.”

A lingering pressure of the hand was Melburn’s only answer.

It was now too late for them to think of visiting the Coliseum—besides,

their minds were not in a state to do so; and after making an

appointment for the morrow, they separated.

When Melburn reached his room at the hotel, he was delighted to find

letters from his relatives, who had just arrived in Naples from Sicily,

announcing their intention of remaining there for some weeks, and

begging him to join their party immediately. Nothing could have happened

more opportunely; for, for some days past, he had been thinking

seriously of setting out to overtake them wherever they might be. And

then the image of Alice—how often did it mingle in his dreams, and

haunt his waking hours.

The next day he spent with Giovanni Rosa in wandering among the ruins of

Rome; and it was with sincere regret that the enthusiastic Italian heard

of the contemplated journey to Naples. “You will forget me, Melburn,” he

said sorrowfully; “the remembrance of me will be but as a passing

shadow, while you will live within my heart. But you will return, will

you not?”

“Yes, Giovanni—perhaps soon. At all events, I shall spend some time

again in Rome before I bid adieu to beautiful Italy forever.”

“I hope so,” exclaimed Rosa, as he grasped Melburn’s hand at parting; “I

will remember your counsel—I will strive ‘in this to overcome.’”

“Ay, Rosa, for my sake, and for your future fame, struggle on, it will

not be in vain.”

The Italian gazed at the receding form of the young Englishman until it

disappeared; and then hurrying home, he rushed to his room and burst

into tears.

It was on the evening of the second day after his departure from Rome

that Arthur Melburn arrived in Naples. Travel-worn and covered with dust

as he was, he sought instantly the _salon_ where he expected to meet his

relatives. No one was there but Alice; and as she rose hastily to meet

him, he could scarcely believe that the beautiful being before him was

the gay, romping cousin of earlier days. What the countenance had lost

of ruddiness and glow, it had gained in the intellectual, I may almost

say the spiritual expression that now characterized it. Eloquent thought

had stamped a serene loveliness upon her brow, and feeling had robbed

the cheek of its roses to impart a softer lustre to her eye. Arthur

clasped her hands in his, gazed at her, hesitated, and then raised one

fair hand to his lips. “Dear Alice,” he said, and as those tones fell

upon her ear, a crimson blush passed over her face, and then left it

paler than before. And what were the feelings of Melburn? Ah, at such

moments how memories throng upon the overpowered heart, concentrating in

one glowing point the beautiful rays that have illumined life, and

fastening as with a diamond rivet the slender links of love’s frail

chain. Frail? Ay, frail; unless the hallowed influences of years have

given to it enduring strength, and then it must be a power almost

super-human that can sever it.

How much there was to hear, how much to tell; and as each member of the

family welcomed the new comer, how pleasant it was to feel almost at

home again, though in a land of strangers. In the society of Alice,

whose mind was capable of appreciating his superior attainments, Melburn

visited all the places worthy of notice in and around Naples; and each

day, as it verged to its decline, added some memorial of happiness to be

garnered in their hearts. Theirs was not a love blinded by passion,

exaggerated in its impulses, and consuming to ashes while it burned; but

it was the genial ray lent by Heaven to gladden with its pure light the

darker pathways of this world. It was love such as an angel might have

looked upon, without feeling that the spirit had been tinged by aught of

earthly stain.

Week after week rolled on with a rapidity almost incredible, for time to

the happy is winged with swifter pinions, and the winter had nearly

passed away before they returned to Rome.

Melburn’s first visit was to the studio of the young painter. His cheek

was paler, and his frame more attenuated, but the expression of his

countenance was less wild and haggard. In the endearing epithets of his

sweet language he welcomed the traveler, and gazed upon him with a

melancholy tenderness.

“Ah, Melburn,” he said, after their first congratulations had been

exchanged, “ah, Melburn, I began to fear that I should never look upon

your face again. It would have grieved me to descend into the cold, dark

grave without having once more heard the tones of sympathy and kindness.

I have struggled to smother the contending passions within my breast; I

have suffered; but I have been calm.”

“You apply yourself too closely to your art, Giovanni; why not abandon

it for a time, and seek renovated health in change of air, and change of

scene?”

“I shall carry the same heart with me, Melburn; it is too late. I feel

that I am dying—the withering blight of years has struck home. But let

us not dwell upon that now. It does me good to see you once more; and to

feel that I have one friend in the wide world.”

“Yes, Giovanni,” answered the young Englishman, “the bond of friendship

has become strong between us, although but a few months ago we met as

strangers. I know not what mysterious sympathy attracted us to each

other, but I felt from the moment I saw you, as if there was a

connecting link in our destinies. An impulse which I cannot define

induced me to offer you the seat in my traveling carriage, as I was

leaving Florence; and when we reached Rome, I could not think of parting

from you as a stranger. I see with pain that your health is failing;

dear Rosa, let me persuade you to accompany me next month to England.

Circumscribed means need be no obstacle, for I have wealth enough to

spare; nay, interrupt me not—he is not my friend who would refuse to

receive so small an obligation at my hands. The journey might restore

your waning strength, and after a residence of a few months there, you

might return to your country with a renovated frame and a happier mind.

Since I left you, Giovanni, I have become affianced to one whom I have

long loved; and she will unite with me, I am sure, in striving to make

you happy.”

“I wish you joy, Melburn,” exclaimed the Italian with much feeling; “God

grant that she may be worthy of you. But, my friend, I cannot accept

your kind offer. I would die here—here in the beautiful land that gave

me birth; surrounded by the objects I have worshiped, and on the spot

where I first met her. Here must be my grave; and perhaps at some future

day she may revisit this sunny clime, and remember the heart that beat

and broke for her.”

Melburn saw that it was useless to contend for the present against the

morbid melancholy which seemed to have settled upon the spirit of the

painter, and he began to converse upon lighter themes. All proved

powerless to win him from his gloomy abstraction; at length rousing

himself as if from a dreamy reverie, he said, “Happiness is attained by

some; you are happy, Melburn.”

“Yes, Giovanni, I am happy; but I do not look for an unchequered path in

this world. I know that cares, anxieties, and afflictions fall sooner or

later to the lot of all; and I would be prepared to lose the blessings I

enjoy by not loving them too well. A just balance in which to weigh the

objects of fluctuating desire is necessary to our forming just views of

their value; and will prevent our giving undue preponderance to those

which are secondary or trivial in themselves. We are so apt to surround

some wished for boon, while unattained, with vague anticipations of

delight, which the possession too often fails to realize.”

“That is true, Melburn; but many a heart lives on hope that never enjoys

fruition.”

Melburn smiled as he answered, “In gazing upon the forbidden garden that

crowns some lofty hill inaccessible to us, we may forget the fruits and

flowers that are lying in profusion at our feet, untasted,

unappreciated. Is it not so, Giovanni?”

“I mean the hopes that stand out in bold relief wearing the hues of

immortality; I mean the undying yearnings of the loving heart, the

glorious aspirations of the godlike mind. Nothing short of fruition in

these can satisfy a nature such as mine.”

“Then, Giovanni, your hope must cast its anchor in the ‘deep profound’

of another world—it must seek its fruition in the Eternal. You may as

well search for coral in the bowels of the earth, or for gold in the

bosom of the sea, as to seek a resting-place for the immortal spirit in

the regions of mortality. I am not a religionist—I am not the bigoted

follower of any creed; but in the exalted aspirations of our nature, I

recognize the immaterial principle that will hereafter assimilate us to

God. It instills a perception of the beautiful, a yearning for the good,

an appreciation of the true, that cannot be realized in this imperfect

state of existence. Looking abroad upon the stupendous universe, I see

every thing fulfilling its destined end. Surely, these heaven-born

aspirations will not be quenched in the forgetfulness of the grave, but,

disencumbered of their material elements, will find their completeness

and felicity in the source from which they sprung. Would to God, my

friend, that you could feel as deeply as I do, how infinitely the

interests of our future destiny transcend those of our present state of

being.”

“I have reflected, Melburn, upon our frequent conversations, and I feel,

that had my mind been trained as yours has been, I should not be the

creature of wayward impulse that I am. My temperament is an unhappy

one—a temperament that might induce insanity, should my life be spared.

But that life is fast ebbing to its close, and I am content to die. I

have prayed that God may be merciful.”

He paused, and threw back from his brow the rich, dark locks that had

fallen over it; and assuming a tone of cheerfulness, he said, “Tell me

of your bride, Melburn; you had not spoken to me of her.”

Melburn smiled as he answered, “She is not an angel, Giovanni, but I

think that there are few who can be compared to my sweet Alice.”

“Alice! did you say?”

“Yes, Alice Templeton.”

A change, a fearful change came over the face of the Italian. The

crimson blood rushed to his brow, while his eyes glared with the furious

passion of a demon. Rage, hate, despair, were all concentrated in the

wild glance which he threw upon Melburn, as he advanced toward him; then

the blood retreated to his heart, and left his cheek as white as marble.

His breath came short and heavy; and he stood rooted to the spot like a

thing of stone.

“For God’s sake, Giovanni,” exclaimed Melburn, “what is the matter? You

appal—you terrify me.”

The painter grasped his hand, and dragging him to an adjoining

apartment, tore aside the snow-white veil that hung over a picture.

Melburn looked upon the face of Alice—his Alice—the idolized love of

the Italian. But it was Alice as an angel—for her beauty was so

spiritualized, that the earthly seemed lost in the heavenly. Melburn hid

his face in his hands for a moment; then stretching out his arms, the

stricken child of destiny rushed into them, and sank insensible upon his

bosom.

Hour after hour passed on, and still consciousness did not revive in

that feeble frame. There was a glimmering of life, nothing more; and as

Melburn watched beside his couch, tears, more burning than any he had

ever shed, fell upon the inanimate form on which he gazed. “Poor Rosa,”

he murmured, “thou hast indeed been the sport of adverse circumstances.

This, then, is the link of the mysterious chain that bound me to thee;

our hearts drank at the same fountain, and became united in the same

stream. Peace, peace to thy parting spirit. God receive thy weary soul.”

The light of life never gleamed again. He lingered through another day.

As the veil of night descended upon the world, the spirit of the

unfortunate Italian took its flight to the shadowy far-off land.

It was midnight. Tapers were burning upon the coffin in which lay all

that remained of Giovanni Rosa. Melburn, with two friends of the

deceased, kept a sorrowful vigil beside the clay-cold form; and as the

tedious hours crept on, the death-like silence became almost

insupportable. At length a soft step was heard, and a female form in

white glided noiselessly to the coffin’s side. She lifted the crape that

shrouded the face beneath, and gazed fearlessly upon the lineaments so

beautiful in their repose; then kissing the cold brow, she replaced the

snowy covering, and silently departed as she came.

The next morning they heard that Bianca was dead. She had taken poison.

In the Chiesa di Santa Maria is a costly monument of marble, erected

over the remains of the young painter by his English friend. Before they

returned to England, Melburn and his betrothed visited the spot

together, fulfilling the wish of the departed, “that she might stand

beside his grave, and remember the heart that beat and broke for her.”

* * * * *

SONNETS

ON RECEIVING A CROWN OF IVY FROM JOHN KEATS—BY LEIGH HUNT.

The sonnets below are on a blank leaf, in an edition of the

early poems of John Keats “printed for C. & J. Ollier, 3 Welbeck

street, London, 1817.” The book was presented to me by my

friend, the late George Keats, (brother of the poet,) who

resided for many years prior to his death in this city. They are

in the handwriting of Hunt, and are not contained in any edition

of his poems which I have seen. You can readily ascertain

whether they have appeared in print—if they have not, I think

they may be acceptable to many of your readers, and therefore

send them.

G. R. GRAHAM, Esq.

F. COSBY, Jr., Louisville, Ky.

I.

A crown of ivy! I submit my head

To the young hand that gives it—young, ’tis true,

But with a right, for ’tis a poet’s too.

How pleasant the leaves feel! and how they spread

With their broad angles, like a nodding shed

Over both eyes! and how complete and new,

As on my hand I lean, to feel them strew

My sense with freshness—Fancy’s rustling bed!

Tress-tossing girls, with smell of flowers and grapes,

Come dancing by, and piping cheeks intent,

And thrown up cymbals, and Silvanus old

Lumpishly borne, and many trampling shapes,

And lastly, with his bright eyes on her bent,

Bacchus—whose bride has of his hand fast hold.

II.

It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind,

Thus to be topped with leaves—to have a sense

Of honor—shaded thought—an influence

As from great Nature’s fingers—and be twined

With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind,

As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence

A head that bows to her benevolence,

Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind.

’Tis what’s within us, crowned. And kind and great

Are all the conquering wishes it inspires,

Love of things lasting, love of the tall woods,

Love of love’s self, and ardor for a state

Of natural good befitting such desires,

Towns without gain, and haunted solitudes.

* * * * *

GAME-BIRDS OF AMERICA.—NO. IV.

[Illustration]

THE GADWALL. (_Anas Strepera._ WILSON.)

This beautiful duck is valuable on account of the excellence of its

flesh, though its expertness as a diver renders it difficult to be shot.

Its flight is very rapid, its note like that of the Mallard, but louder;

it is fond of salines and ponds overgrown with reeds and rushes; feeds

chiefly in the morning and evening. The Gadwall is still smaller than

the Shoveller. The male bird is in length about nineteen inches, in

breadth about thirty-three; the bill two inches long, flat, and of a

black color; markings of the plumage exceedingly minute, giving it a

sort of appearance as if it were marked with delicate stripe and

enclosed in a net work. The crown is dusky brown, rest of the upper half

of the neck brownish white, both thickly speckled with black; lower part

of the neck and breast dusky black, elegantly ornamented with large,

concentric semi-circles of white scapulars, waved with lines of white on

a dusky ground; primaries ash; greater wing coverts black, and several

of the lesser coverts, immediately above, chestnut red; speculum white,

bordered below with black, forming three broad bands on the wing, of

chestnut, black and white; belly dull white; rump and tail coverts

black, glossed with green; tail tapering, pointed, of a pale brown ash,

edged with white; flanks dull white, elegantly waved; tertials long, and

of a pale brown; legs orange red.

[Illustration]

THE LONG-TAILED DUCK. (_Harelda Glacialis._)

The sub-genus Harelda is in many respects analogous to the Pochard or

Scaup duck; it is a diving duck, and makes its appearance at the same

season, and, like the latter, it is common to the colder regions of the

whole northern hemisphere. Unlike many others of the family of ducks, it

does not entirely quit its northern haunts in winter, but resides

permanently in considerable numbers in the polar regions. Numerous

flocks, however, spread themselves southward in the winter, from

Greenland and Hudson’s Bay as far as the coast of Carolina, and from

Iceland and Spitsbergen over Lapland, the Russian dominions, Sweden,

Norway, and the northern parts of the British Isles in Europe. The bands

which visit the Orkneys appear in October, and continue there till

April. About sunset they are seen in large companies going to and

returning from the bays in which they frequently pass the night, making

a noise which, in frosty weather, may be heard at the distance of

several miles. They are rather scarce in England, to which they resort

only in very hard winters, and then in small straggling parties. They

fly swiftly, but seldom to a very great distance, making a loud and

singular cry. They are extremely expert divers, feeding almost

exclusively on shell-fish. The female places her nest among the grass

near the water, and, like the Eider duck, lines it with down from her

own body. This lining is considered by Latham equally valuable with

Eider down, but cannot be had in so great quantity. This duck is known

along the shores of the Chesapeake and the coast of the Carolinas by the

name of South-Southerly, from its singular cry somewhat resembling the

sound of those words. On the coast of New Jersey it bears the

appellation of Old Squaws or Old Wives. The northern Indians call it the

Hah-hah-way, and it has elsewhere received the name of the Caccawee. We

cannot devote the space necessary to a full description of the plumage

of both sexes of this beautiful variety of ducks, though to the

scientific sportsman it might be far from uninteresting. We will

therefore merely glance at the plumage of the male, as given by Wilson,

and pass on to notice another of the duck family, which like the one

before us prefers the dangerous but productive ocean to the less

turbulent inland waters. The mate of the long-tailed duck is

distinguished from her partner by wanting the lengthened tertials, and

the two long pointed feathers of the tail, and also by her size and the

rest of her plumage. The length of the male is twenty-two inches; extent

thirty inches; bill black, crossed near the extremity by a band of

orange; tongue downy; iris dark red; cheeks and frontlet dull

dusky-drab, passing over the eye and joining a large patch of black on

the side of the neck, which ends in dark brown; throat and rest of the

neck white; crown tufted, and of a pale cream-color; lower part of the

neck, breast, back and wings black; scapulars and tertials pale

blueish-white, long and pointed, and falling gracefully over the wings;

the white of the lower part of the neck spreads over the back an inch or

two; the white of the belly spreads over the sides, and nearly meets at

the rump; secondaries chestnut, forming a bar across the wing;

primaries, rump and tail coverts, black; the tail consists of fourteen

feathers, all remarkably pointed, the two middle ones nearly four inches

longer than the others; these with the two adjoining ones are black, the

rest white; legs and feet dusky slate.

The windpipe is very curiously formed; besides the labyrinth, which is

nearly as large as the end of the thumb, it has an expansion,

immediately above that, of double its usual diameter, which continues

for an inch and a half; this is flattened on the side next the breast,

with an oblong, window-like vacancy in it, crossed with five narrow

bars, and covered with a thin transparent skin, like the panes of a

window; another thin skin of the same kind is spread over the external

side of the labyrinth, which is partly of a circular form.

[Illustration]

AMERICAN WIDGEON. (_Anas Americana._ WILSON.)

Like many of the human race, the bird now before us contrives to make

for himself an easy subsistence, by appropriating to himself the product

of the exertions of others. He is a constant attendant upon the

Canvas-Back, and is extremely fond of the tender roots of the

sea-cabbage on which the latter feeds. He does not dive for it himself,

however, but watches the moment of the other’s rising to seize and carry

off the favorite morsel before the Canvas Back has recovered from his

immersion. The two species of birds, therefore, live in a state of

perpetual war, in which the Widgeon usually comes off best; for though

beaten in a fair battle, he more than atones for his discomfiture by his

ingenuity and opportune approaches. The Widgeons are said to be very

plenty at St. Domingo, sometimes perch on trees, feed in company, and

have a sentinel on the look-out. They feed little during the day, but

come forth from their hiding places in the evening, when they may be

traced by their cry. They are very frequently sold in the market of

Baltimore, and their flesh is so excellent as to command a good price.

The Dusky Duck, (_Anas Obscura_, WILSON.) is generally known along the

sea coast of New Jersey and the neighboring country by the name of the

Black Duck, being the most common and numerous of those of its tribe

which inhabit the salt marshes. They are extremely shy during the day,

and rise in great numbers on the most distant report of a gun,

dispersing in every direction. In calm weather they fly so high as to be

beyond the reach of shot but they may be brought down, by a concealed

gunner in great numbers, when the wind blows hard. They are large

heavy-bodied ducks, and generally esteemed.

Another of the family of the ducks much esteemed as game, is the

Blue-Winged Teal, (_Anas Discors_, WILSON), a bird which ranges over the

greater part of the American continent, breeding in the vicinity of the

lakes of the St. Lawrence, and thence as far north as the Canadian fur

countries, and migrating for food toward Massachusetts, in September,

thence south to the muddy shores of the Delaware, and in the winter to

the inundated rice-fields of the southern states. There great numbers

are taken in traps, ingeniously contrived for the purpose. They feed

chiefly on wild rice, in the north western lakes, and other aquatic

plants. It is a shy and cautious bird. Along the shores of the Delaware,

they sit on the mud, close to the edge of the water, so crowded together

that the gunners often kill great numbers at a single discharge. When a

flock is discovered in this situation, the practiced sportsman runs his

boat ashore at some distance from them, and getting out, pushes her

before him over the slippery mud, concealing himself all the while

behind her; by this method he can sometimes approach within twenty yards

of a flock, among which he generally makes great slaughter. They fly

rapidly, and when they alight, drop down suddenly like the Snipe or

Woodcock, among the reeds or on the mud.

Nuttall describes the plumage of the Blue-Winged Teal with his usual

accuracy, as follows: The length of the Blue-Winged Teal is about

eighteen inches; the folded wing seven inches three lines; the bill

above one inch seven and a half lines; the tarsus one inch two lines. In

the male, the upper surface of the head and under tail coverts are

brownish-black; a broad white crescent from the forehead to the chin,

bordered all round with black; sides of the head and adjoining half of

the neck bright lavender-purple; base of the neck above, back,

tertiaries, and tail coverts, brownish and blackish-green. The fore

parts, including the shorter scapulars, margined and marked with

semi-ovate pale-brown bars; longer scapulars longitudinally striped with

blackish-green, Berlin-blue, and pale brown. Lesser wing coverts pure

pale blue; greater coverts white, their bases brown; speculum

dark-green; primaries, their coverts and the tail, liver-brown; sides of

the rump, longer under wing coverts, and axillary feathers pure white.

The under plumage pale reddish-orange, glossed with chestnut on the

breast, and thickly marked throughout with round blackish spots, which,

on the breast and tips of the long flank feathers, change to bars; bill

bluish-black; feet yellow.

* * * * *

“OH! THAT A LITTLE COT WERE MINE!”

BY ROBERT F. GREELY.

Oh! that a little cot were mine,

Far down some gentle vale,

Where golden sunbeams ever shine,

And softly blows the gale.

No idle strife should break the spell

About its precincts thrown—

But peace and love should ever dwell

Within its shades, alone!

A streamlet should meander by

My humble cottage door,

Whose snow-white walls with many a vine

And shrub should be run o’er;

And there should be a little grot,

Half hidden from the view

By clust’ring leaves, and fragrant shrubs,

And flowers of every hue!

And, when the sun too brightly shone,

I’d seek its quiet shade,

To listen to the birds’ lithe song—

The music of the glade.

Or when, at eve, the crystal moon

Streamed down o’er bed and bower,

I’d take my lute, and with a song

Beguile the passing hour.

With one beloved and cherished form

To share my heart’s deep bliss,

I’d dwell contentedly, nor long

For greater happiness;

And when “Old Father Death” should come

To summon us away,

Together we would droop, and die—

Like flowers at close of day!

* * * * *

THE ISLETS OF THE GULF;

OR, ROSE BUDD.

Ay, now I am in Arden; the more fool

I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but

Travelers must be content. AS YOU LIKE IT.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PILOT,” “RED ROVER,” “TWO ADMIRALS,” “WING-AND-WING,”

“MILES WALLINGFORD,” &c.

[Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by

J. Fenimore Cooper, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court

of the United States, for the Northern District of New York.]

(_Continued from page 81._)

PART IV.

Leander dived for love. Leucadia’s cliff

The Lesbian Sappho leaped from in a miff,

To punish Phaon; Icarus went dead,

Because the wax did not continue stiff;

And, had he minded what his father said,

He had not given a name unto his watery bed.

SANDS.

We must now advance the time several days, and change the scene to a

distant part of the ocean; within the tropics, indeed. The females had

suffered slight attacks of sea-sickness, and recovered from them, and

the brig was safe from all her pursuers. The manner of Spike’s escape

was simple enough, and without any necromancy. While the steamer, on the

one hand, was standing away to the northward and eastward, in order to

head him off, and the schooner was edging in with the island, in order

to prevent his beating up to windward of it, within its shadows, the

brig had run close round the northern margin of the land, and hauled up

to leeward of the island, passing between it and the steamer. All this

time, her movements were concealed from the schooner by the island

itself and from the steamer, by its shadow and dark back-ground, aided

by the distance. By making short tacks, this expedient answered

perfectly well, and, at the very moment when the two revenue vessels

met, at midnight, about three leagues to leeward of Blok Island, the

brigantine, Molly Swash, was just clearing its most weatherly point, on

the larboard tack, and coming out exactly at the spot where the steamer

was when first seen that afternoon. Spike stood to the westward, until

he was certain of having the island fairly between him and his pursuers,

when he went about, and filled away on his course; running out to sea

again on an easy bowline. At sunrise the next day he was fifty miles to

the southward and eastward of Montauk; the schooner was going into New

London, her officers and people quite chop-fallen, and the steamer was

paddling up Sound, her captain being fully persuaded the runaways had

returned in the direction from which they had come, and might yet be

picked up in that quarter.

The weather was light, just a week after the events related in the close

of the last chapter. By this time the brig had got within the influence

of the trades, and, it being the intention of Spike to pass to the

southward of Cuba, he had so far profited by the westerly winds, as to

get well to the eastward of the Mona Passage, the strait through which

he intended to shape his course on making the islands. Early on that

morning Mrs. Budd had taken her seat on the trunk of the cabin, with a

complacent air, and arranged her netting, some slight passages of

gallantry, on the part of the captain, having induced her to propose

netting him a purse. Biddy was going to and fro, in quest of silks and

needles, her mistress having become slightly capricious in her tastes of

late, and giving her, on all such occasions, at least a double allowance

of occupation. As for Rose, she sat reading beneath the shade of the

coach-house deck, while the handsome young mate was within three feet of

her, working up his logarithms, but within the sanctuary of his own

state-room; the open door and window of which, however, gave him every

facility he could desire to relieve his mathematics, by gazing at the

sweet countenance of his charming neighbor. Jack Tier and Josh were both

passing to and fro, as is the wont of stewards, between the camboose and

the cabin, the breakfast table being just then in the course of

preparation. In all other respects, always excepting the man at the

wheel, who stood within a fathom of Rose, Spike had the quarter-deck to

himself and did not fail to pace its weather side with an air that

denoted the master and owner. After exhibiting his sturdy, but short,

person in this manner, to the admiring eyes of all beholders, for some

time, the captain suddenly took a seat at the side of the relict, and

dropped into the following discourse.

“The weather is moderate, Madam Budd; quite moderate,” observed Spike, a

sentimental turn coming over him at the moment. “What I call moderate

and agreeable.”

“So much the better for us; the ladies are fond of moderation, sir.”

“Not in admiration, Madam Budd—ha! ha! ha! no, not in admiration.

_Immoderation_ is what they like when it comes to _that_. I’m a single

man, but I know that the ladies like admiration—mind where you’re

sheering to,” the captain said, interrupting himself a little fiercely,

considering the nature of the subject, in consequence of Jack Tier’s

having trodden on his toe in passing—“or I’ll teach you the navigation

of the quarter-deck, Mr. Burgoo!”

“Moderation—moderation, my good captain,” said the simpering relict.

“As to admiration, I confess that it is agreeable to us ladies; more

especially when it comes from gentlemen of sense, and intelligence, and

experience.”

Rose fidgetted, having heard every word that was said, and her face

flushed; for she doubted not that Harry’s ears were as good as her own.

As for the man at the wheel, he turned the tobacco over in his mouth,

hitched up his trousers, and appeared interested, though somewhat

mystified—the conversation was what he would have termed “talking

dictionary,” and he had some curiosity to learn how the captain would

work his way out of it. It is probable that Spike himself had some

similar gleamings of the difficulties of his position, for he looked a

little troubled, though still resolute. It was the first time he had

ever lain yard-arm and yard-arm with a widow, and he had long

entertained a fancy that such a situation was trying to the best of men.

“Yes, Madam Budd, yes,” he said, “exper’ence and sense carry weight with

’em, wherever they go. I’m glad to find that you entertain these just

notions of us gentlemen, and make a difference between boys and them

that’s seen and known exper’ence. For my part, I count youngsters under

forty as so much lumber about decks, as to any comfort and calculations

in keepin’ a family, as a family _ought_ to be kept.”

Mrs. Budd looked interested, but she remained silent on hearing this

remark, as became her sex.

“Every man ought to settle in life, some time or other, Madam Budd,

accordin’ to my notion, though no man ought to be in a boyish haste

about it,” continued the captain. “Now, in my own case, I’ve been so

busy all my youth—not that I’m very old now, but I’m no boy—but all my

younger days have been passed in trying to make things meet, in a way to

put any lady who might take a fancy to me—”

“Oh! captain—that is _too_ strong! The ladies do not take fancies for

gentlemen, but the gentlemen take fancies for ladies!”

“Well, well, you know what I mean, Madam Budd, and so long as the

parties understand each other, a word dropped, or a word put into a

charter-party makes it neither stronger nor weaker. There’s a time,

howsomever, in every man’s life, when he begins to think of settling

down, and of considerin’ himself as a sort of mooring-chain, for

children and the likes of them to make fast to. Such is my natur’, I

will own; and ever since I’ve got to be intimate in your family, Madam

Budd, that sentiment has grown stronger and stronger in me, till it has

got to be uppermost in all my idees. Bone of my bone, and flesh of my

flesh, as a body might say.”

Mrs. Budd now looked more than interested, for she looked a little

confused, and Rose began to tremble for her aunt. It was evident that

the parties most conspicuous in this scene were not at all conscious

that they were overheard, the intensity of their attention being too

much concentrated on what was passing to allow of any observation

without their own narrow circle. What may be thought still more

extraordinary, but what in truth was the most natural of all, each of

the parties was so intently bent on his, or her, own train of thought,

that neither in the least suspected any mistake.

“Grown with your growth, and strengthened with your strength,” rejoined

the relict, smiling kindly enough on the captain to have encouraged a

much more modest man than he happened to be.

“Yes, Madam Budd—very just that remark; grown with my strength, and

strengthened with my growth, as one might say; though I’ve not done much

at growing for a good many years. Your late husband, Capt. Budd, often

remarked how very early I got my growth, and rated me as an ‘able

bodied’ hand, when most lads think it an honor to be placed among the

‘or’naries.’”

The relict looked grave, and she wondered at any man’s being so singular

as to allude to a first husband, at the very moment he was thinking of

offering himself for a second. As for herself, she had not uttered as

many words in the last four years, as she had uttered in that very

conversation, without making some allusion to her “poor dear Mr. Budd.”

The reader is not to do injustice to the captain’s widow, however, by

supposing for a moment that she was actually so weak as to feel any

tenderness for a man like Spike, which would be doing a great wrong to

both her taste and her judgment, as Rose well knew, even while most

annoyed by the conversation she could not but overhear. All that

influenced the good relict was that besetting weakness of her sex, which

renders admiration so universally acceptable, and predisposes a female,

as it might be, to listen to a suitor with indulgence and some little

show of kindness, even when resolute to reject him. As for Rose, to own

the truth, her aunt did not give her a thought, as yet, notwithstanding

Spike was getting to be so sentimental.

“Yes, your late excellent and honorable consort, always said that I got

my growth sooner than any youngster he ever fell in with,” resumed the

captain after a short pause; exciting fresh wonder in his companion that

he _would_ persist in lugging in the “dear departed” so very

unseasonably. “I am a great admirer of all the Budd family, my good

lady, and only wish my connection with it had never tarminated; if

tarminated it can be called.”

“It need not be terminated, Capt. Spike, so long as friendship exists in

the human heart.”

“Ay, so it is always with you ladies; when a man is bent on suthin’

closer and more interestin’ like, you’re for putting it off on

friendship. Now friendship is good enough in its way, Madam Budd, but

friendship isn’t _love_.”

“_Love!_” echoed the widow, fairly starting, though she looked down at

her netting, and looked as confused as she knew how. “That is a very

decided word, Capt. Spike, and should never be mentioned to a woman’s

ear lightly.”

So the captain now appeared to think, too, for no sooner had he

delivered himself of the important monosyllable, than he left the

widow’s side and began to pace the deck, as it might be to moderate his

own ardor. As for Rose, she blushed, if her more practiced aunt did not,

while Harry Mulford laughed heartily, taking good care, however, not to

be heard. The man at the wheel turned the tobacco again, gave his

trousers another hitch, and wondered anew whither the skipper was bound.

But the drollest manifestation of surprise came from Josh, the steward,

who was passing along the lee-side of the quarter-deck, with a teapot in

his hand, when the energetic manner of the captain sent the words

“friendship isn’t _love_” to his ears. This induced him to stop for a

single instant, and to cast a wondering glance behind him; after which

he moved on toward the galley, mumbling as he went—“Lub! what _he_ want

of lub, or what lub want of _him_! Well, I do t’ink Capt. Spike bowse

his jib out pretty ’arly dis mornin’.”

Capt. Spike soon got over the effects of his effort, and the confusion

of the relict did not last any material length of time. As the former

had gone so far, however, he thought the present an occasion as good as

another to bring matters to a crisis.

“Our sentiments sometimes get to be so strong, Madam Budd,” resumed the

lover, as he took his seat again on the trunk, “that they run away with

us. Men is liable to be run away with as well as ladies. I once had a

ship run away with me, and a pretty time we had of it. Did you ever hear

of a ship’s running away with her people, Madam Budd, just as your horse

ran away with your buggy?”

“I suppose I must have heard of such things, sir, my education having

been so maritime, though just at this moment I cannot recall an

instance. When my horse ran away, the buggy was cap-asided. Did your

vessel cap-aside on the occasion you mention?”

“No, Madam Budd, no. The ship was off the wind at the time I mean, and

vessels do not capsize when off the wind. I’ll tell you how it happened.

We was a scuddin’ under a goose-wing foresail—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted the relict eagerly. “I’ve often heard of that

sail, which is small and used only in tempests.”

“Heavy weather, Madam Budd—only in heavy weather.”

“It is amazing to me, captain, how you seamen manage to weigh the

weather. I have often heard of light weather and heavy weather, but

never fairly understood the manner of weighing it.”

“Why we _do_ make out to ascertain the difference,” replied the captain,

a little puzzled for an answer, “and I suppose it must be by means of

the barometer, which goes up and down like a pair of scales. But the

time I mean we was a scuddin’ under a goose-wing foresail—”

“A sail made of goose’s wings, and a beautiful object it must be; like

some of the caps and cloaks that come from the islands, which are all of

feathers, and charming objects are they. I beg pardon—you had your

goose’s wings spread—”

“Yes, Madam Budd, yes; we was steering for a Mediterranean port,

intending to clear a mole-head, when a sea took us under the larboard

quarter, gave us such a sheer to-port as sent our cat-head ag’in a

spile, and raked away the chain-plates of the top-mast back-stays,

bringing down all the forrard hamper about our ears.”

This description produced such a confusion in the mind of the widow that

she was glad when it came to an end. As for the captain, fearful that

the “goose’s wings” might be touched upon again, he thought it wisest to

attempt another flight on those of Cupid.

“As I was sayin’, Madam Budd, friendship isn’t _love_; no, not a bit of

it! Friendship is a common sort of feelin’, but love, as you must know

by exper’ence, Madam Budd, is an uncommon sort of feelin’.”

“Fie, Capt. Spike, gentlemen should never allude to ladies knowing any

thing about love. Ladies _respect_, and _admire_, and _esteem_, and have

a _regard_ for gentlemen; but it is almost too strong to talk about

their love.”

“Yes, Madam Budd, yes; I dare say it _is_ so, and _ought_ to be so; and

I ask pardon for having said as much as I did. But my love for your

niece is of so animated and lastin’ a natur’, that I scarce know what I

did say.”

“Capt. Spike, you amaze me! I declare I can hardly breathe for

astonishment. My niece! Surely you do not mean Rosy!”

“Who else should I mean? My love for Miss Rose is so very decided and

animated, I tell you, Madam Budd, that I will not answer for the

consequences should you not consent to her marryin’ me.”

“I can scarce believe my ears! You, Stephen Spike, and an old friend of

her uncle’s, wishing to marry his niece.”

“Just so, Madam Budd; that’s it to a shavin’. The regard I have for the

whole family is so great, that nothin’ less than the hand of Miss Rose

in marriage can what I call mitigate my feelin’s.”

Now the relict had not one spark of tenderness herself in behalf of

Spike, while she did love Rose better than any human being, her own self

excepted. But she had viewed all the sentiment of that morning, and all

the fine speeches of the captain, very differently from what the present

state of things told her she ought to have viewed them; and she felt the

mortification natural to her situation. The captain was so much bent on

the attainment of his own object, that he saw nothing else, and was even

unconscious that his extraordinary and somewhat loud discourse had been

overheard. Least of all did he suspect that his admiration had been

mistaken, and that in what he called “courtin’” the niece, he had been

all the while “courtin’” the aunt. But little apt as she was to discover

any thing, Mrs. Budd had enough of her sex’s discernment in a matter of

this sort, to perceive that she had fallen into an awkward mistake, and

enough of her sex’s pride to resent it. Taking her work in her hand, she

left her seat and descended to the cabin with quite as much dignity in

her manner as it was in the power of one of her height and “build” to

express. What is the most extraordinary, neither she nor Spike ever

ascertained that their whole dialogue had been overheard. Spike

continued to pace the quarter-deck for several minutes, scarce knowing

what to think of the relict’s manner, when his attention was suddenly

drawn to other matters by the familiar cry of “sail-ho!”

This was positively the first vessel with which the Molly Swash had

fallen in since she lost sight of two or three craft that had passed her

in the distance, as she left the American coast. As usual, this cry

brought all hands on deck, and Mulford out of his state-room.

It has been stated already that the brig was just beginning to feel the

trades, and it might have been added, to see the mountains of San

Domingo. The winds had been variable for the last day or two, and they

still continued light, and disposed to be unsteady, ranging from

north-east to southeast, with a preponderance in favor of the first

point. At the cry of “sail-ho!” every body looked in the indicated

direction, which was west, a little northerly, but for a long time

without success. The cry had come from aloft, and Mulford went up as

high as the fore-top before he got any glimpse of the stranger at all.

He had slung a glass, and Spike was unusually anxious to know the result

of his examination.

“Well, Mr. Mulford, what do you make of her?” he called out as soon as

the mate announced that he saw the strange vessel.

“Wait a moment, sir, till I get a look—she’s a long way off, and hardly

visible.”

“Well, sir, well?”

“I can only see the heads of her topgallant-sails. She seems a ship

steering to the southward, with as many kites flying as an Indiaman in

the trades. She looks as if she were carrying royal stun’-sails, sir.”

“The devil she does! Such a chap must not only be in a hurry, but he

must be strong handed to give himself all this trouble in such light and

var’able winds. Are his yards square?—Is he man-of-war-ish?”

“There’s no telling, sir, at this distance; though I rather think its

stun’sails that I see. Go down and get your breakfast, and in half an

hour I’ll give a better account of him.”

This was done, Mrs. Budd appearing at the table with great dignity in

her manner. Although she had so naturally supposed that Spike’s

attentions had been intended for herself, she was rather mortified than

hurt on discovering her mistake. Her appetite, consequently, was not

impaired, though her stomach might have been said to be very full. The

meal passed off without any scene, notwithstanding, and Spike soon

re-appeared on deck, still masticating the last mouthful like a man in a

hurry, and a good deal _à l’Américaine_. Mulford saw his arrival, and

immediately leveled his glass again.

“Well, what news now, sir?” called out the captain. “You must have a

better chance at him by this time, for I can see the chap from off the

coach-house here.”

“Ay, ay, sir; he’s a bit nearer, certainly. I should say that craft is a

ship under stun’sails, looking to the eastward of south, and that there

are caps with gold bands on her quarter-deck.”

“How low down can you see her?” demanded Spike in a voice of thunder.

So emphatic and remarkable was the captain’s manner in putting this

question, that the mate cast a look of surprise beneath him ere he

answered it. A look with the glass succeeded, when the reply was given.

“Ay, ay, sir; there can be no mistake—it’s a cruiser you may depend on

it I can see the heads of her topsails now, and they are so square and

symmetrical, that gold bands are below beyond all doubt.”

“Perhaps he’s a Frenchman—Johnny Crapaud keeps cruisers in these seas

as well as the rest on ’em.”

“Johnny Crapaud’s craft don’t spread such arms, sir. The ship is either

English or American; and he’s heading for the Mona Passage as well as

ourselves.”

“Come down, sir, come down—there’s work to be done as soon as you have

breakfasted.”

Mulford did come down, and he was soon seated at the table with both

Josh and Jack Tier for attendants. The aunt and the niece were in their

own cabin, a few yards distant, with the door open.

“What a fuss ’e cap’in make ’bout dat sail,” grumbled Josh, who had been

in the brig so long that he sometimes took liberties with even Spike

himself. “What good he t’ink t’will do to measure him inch by inch?

Bye’m by he get alongside, and den ’e ladies even can tell all about

him.”

“He nat’rally wishes to know who gets alongside,” put in Tier, somewhat

apologetically.

“What matter dat. All sort of folk get alongside of Molly Swash; and

what good it do ’em. Yoh! yoh! yoh! I _do_ remem’er sich times vid ’e

ole hussy!”

“What old hussy do you mean?” demanded Jack Tier a little fiercely, and

in a way to draw Mulford’s eyes from the profile of Rose’s face to the

visages of his two attendants.

“Come, come, gentlemen, if you please; recollect where you are,”

interrupted the mate authoritatively. “You are not now squabbling in

your galley, but are in the cabin. What is it to you, Tier, if Josh does

call the brig an old hussy; she is old, as we all know, and years are

respectable; and as for her being a “hussy,” that is a term of

endearment sometimes. I’ve heard the captain himself call the Molly a

“hussy” fifty times, and he loves her as he does the apple of his eye.”

This interference put an end to the gathering storm as a matter of

course, and the two disputants shortly after passed on deck. No sooner

was the coast clear than Rose stood in the door of her own cabin.

“Do you think the strange vessel is an American?” she asked eagerly.

“It is impossible to say—English or American I make no doubt. But why

do you inquire?”

“Both my aunt and myself desire to quit the brig, and if the stranger

should prove to be an American vessel of war, might not the occasion be

favorable?”

“And what reason can you give for desiring to do so?”

“What signifies a reason,” answered Rose with spirit “Spike is not our

master, and we can come and go as we may see fit.”

“But a reason must be given to satisfy the commander of the vessel of

war. Craft of that character are very particular about the passengers

they receive; nor would it be altogether wise in two unprotected females

to go on board a cruiser, unless in a case of the most obvious

necessity.”

“Will not what has passed this morning be thought a sufficient reason?”

added Rose, drawing nearer to the mate, and dropping her voice so as not

to be heard by her aunt.

Mulford smiled as he gazed at the earnest but attractive countenance of

his charming companion.

“And who could tell it, or _how_ could it be told? Would the commander

of a vessel of war incur the risk of receiving such a person as yourself

on board his vessel, for the reason that the master of the craft she was

in when he fell in with her desired to marry her?”

Rose appeared vexed, but she was at once made sensible that it was not

quite as easy to change her vessel at sea, as to step into a strange

door in a town. She drew slowly back into her own cabin silent and

thoughtful; her aunt pursuing her netting the whole time with an air of

dignified industry.

“Well, Mr. Mulford, well,” called out Spike at the head of the cabin

stairs, “what news from the coffee?”

“All ready, sir,” answered the mate, exchanging significant glances with

Rose. “I shall be up in a moment.”

That moment soon came, and Mulford was ready for duty. While below,

Spike had caused certain purchases to be got aloft, and the main-hatch

was open and the men collected around it, in readiness to proceed with

the work. Harry asked no questions, for the preparations told him what

was about to be done, but passing below, he took charge of the duty

there, while the captain superintended the part that was conducted on

deck. In the course of the next hour eight twelve-pound carronades were

sent up out of the hold, and mounted in as many of the ports which lined

the bulwarks of the brigantine. The men seemed to be accustomed to the

sort of work in which they were now engaged, and soon had their light

batteries in order, and ready for service. In the meantime the two

vessels kept on their respective courses, and by the time the guns were

mounted, there was a sensible difference in their relative positions.

The stranger had drawn so near the brigantine as to be very obvious from

the latter’s deck, while the brigantine had drawn so much nearer to the

islands of San Domingo and Porto Rico, as to render the opening between

them, the well known Mona Passage, distinctly visible.

Of all this Spike appeared to be fully aware, for he quitted the work

several times before it was finished, in order to take a look at the

stranger, and at the land. When the batteries were arranged, he and

Mulford, each provided with a glass, gave a few minutes to a more

deliberate examination of the first.

“That’s the Mona ahead of us,” said the captain; “of that there can be

no question, and a very pretty land-fall you’ve made of it, Harry. I’ll

allow you to be as good a navigator as floats.”

“Nevertheless, sir, you have not seen fit to let me know whither the

brig is really bound this voyage.”

“No matter for that, young man—no matter, as yet. All in good time.

When I tell you to lay your course for the Mona, you can lay your course

for the Mona; and, as soon as we are through the passage, I’ll let you

know what is wanted next—if that bloody chap, who is nearing us, will

let me.”

“And why should any vessel wish to molest us on our passage, Capt.

Spike?”

“Why, sure enough! It’s war-times, you know, and war-times always bring

trouble to the trader—though it sometimes brings profit, too.”

As Spike concluded, he gave his mate a knowing wink, which the other

understood to mean that he expected himself some of the unusual profit

to which he alluded. Mulford did not relish this secret communication,

for the past had induced him to suspect the character of the trade in

which his commander was accustomed to engage. Without making any sort of

reply, or encouraging the confidence by even a smile, he leveled his

glass at the stranger, as did Spike, the instant he ceased to grin.

“That’s one of Uncle Sam’s fellows!” exclaimed the captain, dropping the

glass. “I’d swear to the chap in any admiralty court on ’arth.”

“’Tis a vessel of war, out of all doubt,” returned the mate, “and under

a cloud of canvas. I can make out the heads of her courses now, and see

that she is carrying hard, for a craft that is almost close-hauled.”

“Ay, ay; no merchantman keeps his light stun’-sails set, as near the

wind as that fellow’s going. He’s a big chap, too—a frigate, at least,

by his canvas.”

“I do not know, sir—they build such heavy corvettes nowadays, that I

should rather take her for one of them. They tell me ships are now sent

to sea which mount only two-and-twenty guns, but which measure quite a

thousand tons.”

“With thunderin’ batteries, of course.”

“With short thirty-twos and a few rapping sixty-eight Paixhans—or

Columbiads, as they ought in justice to be called.”

“And you think this chap likely to be a craft of that sort?”

“Nothing is more probable, sir. Government has several, and, since this

war has commenced, it has been sending off cruiser after cruiser into

the Gulf. The Mexicans dare not send a vessel of war to sea, which would

be sending them to Norfolk, or New York, at once; but no one can say

when they may begin to make a prey of our commerce.”

“They have taken nothing as yet, Mr. Mulford, and, to tell you the

truth, I’d much rather fall in with one of Don Montezuma’s craft than

one of Uncle Sam’s.”

“That is a singular taste, for an American, Capt. Spike, unless you

think, now our guns are mounted, we can handle a Mexican,” returned

Mulford coldly. “At all events, it is some answer to those who ask ‘What

is the navy about?’ that months of war have gone by, and not an American

has been captured. Take away that navy, and the insurance offices in

Wall street would tumble like a New York party-wall in a fire.”

“Nevertheless, I’d rather take my chance, just now, with Don Montezuma

than with Uncle Sam.”

Mulford did not reply, though the earnest manner in which Spike

expressed himself helped to increase his distrust touching the nature of

the voyage. With _him_ the captain had no further conference, but it was

different as respects the boatswain. That worthy was called aft, and for

half an hour he and Spike were conversing apart, keeping their eyes

fastened on the strange vessel most of the time.

It was noon before all uncertainty touching the character of the

stranger ceased. By that time, however, both vessels were entering the

Mona Passage; the brig well to windward, on the Porto Rico side; while

the ship was so far to leeward as to be compelled to keep every thing

close-hauled, in order to weather the island. The hull of the last could

now be seen, and no doubt was entertained about her being a cruiser, and

one of some size, too. Spike thought she was a frigate; but Mulford

still inclined to the opinion that she was one of the new ships; perhaps

a real corvette, or with a light spar-deck over her batteries. Two or

three of the new vessels were known to be thus fitted, and this might be

one. At length all doubt on the subject ceased, the stranger setting an

American ensign, and getting so near as to make it apparent that she had

but a single line of guns. Still she was a large ship, and the manner

that she ploughed through the brine, close-hauled as she was, extorted

admiration even from Spike.

“We had better begin to shorten sail, Mr. Mulford,” the captain at

length most reluctantly remarked. “We might give the chap the slip,

perhaps, by keeping close in under Porto Rico, but he would give us a

long chase, and might drive us away to windward, when I wish to keep off

between Cuba and Jamaica. He’s a traveler; look, how he stands up to it

under that cloud of canvas!”

Mulford was slow to commence on the studding-sails, and the cruiser was

getting nearer and nearer. At length a gun was fired, and a heavy shot

fell about two hundred yards short of the brig, and a little out of line

with her. On this hint, Spike turned the hands up, and began to shorten

sail. In ten minutes the Swash was under her topsail, mainsail and jib,

with her light sails hanging in the gear, and all the steering canvas

in. In ten minutes more the cruiser was so near as to admit of the faces

of the three or four men whose heads were above the hammock-cloths being

visible, when she too began to fold her wings. In went _her_ royals,

topgallant-sails, and various kites, as it might be by some common

muscular agency; and up went her courses. Every thing was done at once.

By this time she was crossing the brig’s wake, looking exceedingly

beautiful, with her topsails lifting, her light sails blowing out, and

even her heavy courses fluttering in the breeze. There flew the glorious

stars and stripes also; of brief existence, but full of recollections!

The moment she had room her helm went up, her bows fell off, and down

she came, on the weather quarter of the Swash, so near as to render a

trumpet nearly useless.

On board the brig everybody was on deck; even the relict having

forgotten her mortification in curiosity. On board the cruiser no one

was visible, with the exception of a few men in each top, and a group of

gold-banded caps on the poop. Among these officers stood the captain, a

red-faced, middle-aged man, with the usual signs of his rank about him;

and at his side was his lynx-eyed first lieutenant. The surgeon and

purser were also there, though they stood a little apart from the more

nautical dignitaries. The hail that followed came out of a trumpet that

was thrust through the mizzen-rigging; the officer who used it taking

his cue from the poop.

“What brig is that?” commenced the discourse.

“The Molly Swash, of New York, Stephen Spike, master.”

“Where from, and whither bound?”

“From New York, and bound to Key West and a market.”

A pause succeeded this answer, during which the officers on the poop of

the cruiser held some discourse with him of the trumpet. During the

interval the cruiser ranged fairly up abeam.

“You are well to windward of your port, sir,” observed he of the trumpet

significantly.

“I know it; but it’s war-times, and I didn’t know but there might be

piccaroons hovering about the Havanna.”

“The coast is clear, and our cruisers will keep it so. I see you have a

battery, sir!”

“Ay, ay; some old guns that I’ve had aboard these ten years; they’re

useful, sometimes, in these seas.”

“Very true. I’ll range ahead of you, and as soon as you’ve room, I’ll

thank you to heave-to. I wish to send a boat on board you.”

Spike was sullen enough on receiving this order, but there was no help

for it. He was now in the jaws of the lion, and his wisest course was to

submit to the penalties of his position with the best grace he could.

The necessary orders were consequently given, and the brig no sooner got

room than she came by the wind and backed her topsail. The cruiser went

about, and, passing to windward, backed her main-topsail just forward of

the Swash’s beam. Then the latter lowered a boat, and sent it, with a

lieutenant and a midshipman in its stern-sheets, on board the

brigantine. As the cutter approached, Spike went to the gangway to

receive the strangers.

Although there will be frequent occasion to mention this cruiser, the

circumstances are of so recent occurrence, that we do not choose to give

either her name, or that of any one belonging to her. We shall,

consequently, tell the curious, who may be disposed to turn to their

navy-lists and blue-books, that the search will be of no use, as all the

names we shall use, in reference to this cruiser, will be fictitious. As

much of the rest of our story as the reader please may be taken for

gospel; but we tell him frankly, that we have thought it most expedient

to adopt assumed names, in connection with this vessel and all her

officers. There are good reasons for so doing; and, among others, is

that of abstaining from arming a _clique_ to calumniate her commander,

(who, by the way, like another commander in the Gulf that might be

named, and who has actually been exposed to the sort of _tracasserie_ to

which there is allusion, is one of the very ablest men in the service,)

in order to put another in his place.

The officer who now came over the side of the Swash we shall call

Wallace; he was the second lieutenant of the vessel of war. He was about

thirty, and the midshipman who followed him was a well grown lad of

nineteen. Both had a decided man-of-war look, and both looked a little

curiously at the vessel that they had boarded.

“Your servant, sir,” said Wallace, touching his cap in reply to Spike’s

somewhat awkward bow. “Your brig is the Molly Swash, Stephen Spike,

bound from New York to Key West and a market.”

“You’ve got it all as straight, lieutenant, as if you was a readin’ it

from the log.”

“The next thing, sir, is to know of what your cargo is composed?”

“Flour; eight hundred barrels of flour.”

“Flour! Would you not do better to carry that to Liverpool? The

Mississippi must be almost turned into paste by the quantity of flour it

floats to market.”

“Notwithstanding that, lieutenant, I know Uncle Sam’s economy so well,

as to believe I shall part with every barrel of my flour to his

contractors, at a handsome profit.”

“You read whig newspapers principally, I rather think, Mr. Spike,”

answered Wallace, in his cool, deliberate way, smiling, however, as he

spoke.

We may just as well say here, that nature intended this gentleman for a

second lieutenant, the very place he filled. He was a capital second

lieutenant, while he would not have earned his rations as first. So well

was he assured of this peculiarity in his moral composition, that he did

not wish to be the first lieutenant of any thing in which he sailed. A

respectable seaman, a well-read and intelligent man, a capital deck

officer, or watch officer, he was too indolent to desire to be any thing

more, and was as happy as the day was long, in the easy berth he filled.

The first lieutenant had been his messmate as a midshipman, and ranked

him but two on the list, in his present commission; but he did not envy

him in the least. On the contrary, one of his greatest pleasures was to

get “Working Willy,” as he called his senior, over a glass of wine, or a

tumbler of “hot stuff,” and make him recount the labors of the day. On

such occasions, Wallace never failed to compare the situation of

“Working Willy” with his own gentlemanlike ease and independence. As

second lieutenant, his rank raised him above most of the unpleasant duty

of the ship, while it did not raise him high enough to plunge him into

the never-ending labors of his senior. He delighted to call himself the

“ship’s gentleman,” a _sobriquet_ he well deserved, on more accounts

than one.

“You read Whig newspapers principally, I rather think, Mr. Spike,”

answered the lieutenant, as has been just mentioned, “while we on board

the Poughkeepsie indulge in looking over the columns of the Union, as

well as over those of the Intelligencer, when by good luck we can lay

our hands on a stray number.”

“That ship, then, is called the Poughkeepsie, is she, sir?” inquired

Spike.

“Such is her name, thanks to a most benificent and sage provision of

Congress, which has extended its parental care over the navy so far as

to imagine that a man chosen by the people to exercise so many of the

functions of a sovereign, is not fit to name a ship. All our two and

three deckers are to be called after states; the frigates after rivers;

and the sloops after towns. Thus it is that our craft has the honor to

be called the United States ship the ”Poughkeepsie,“ instead of the

“Arrow,” or the “Wasp,” or the “Curlew,” or the “Petrel,” as might

otherwise have been the case. But the wisdom of Congress is manifest,

for the plan teaches us sailors geography.”

“Yes, sir, yes, one can pick up a bit of l’arnin’ in that way cheap. The

Poughkeepsie, Capt.—?”

“The United States’ ship Poughkeepsie, 20, Capt. Adam Mull, at your

service. But, Mr. Spike, you will allow me to look at your papers. It is

a duty I like, for it can be performed quietly, and without any fuss.”

Spike looked distrustfully at his new acquaintance, but went for his

vessel’s papers without any very apparent hesitation. Every thing was

_en règle_, and Wallace soon got through with the clearance, manifest,

&c. Indeed the cargo, on paper at least, was of the simplest and least

complicated character, being composed of nothing but eight hundred

barrels of flour.

“It all looks very well on paper, Mr. Spike,” added the boarding

officer. “With your permission, we will next see how it looks in sober

reality. I perceive your main hatch is open, and I suppose it will be no

difficult matter just to take a glance at your hold.”

“Here is a ladder, sir, that will take us at once to the half-deck, for

I have no proper ’twixt decks in this craft; she’s too small for that

sort of out-fit.”

“No matter, she has a hold, I suppose, and that can contain cargo. Take

me to it by the shortest road, Mr. Spike, for I am no great admirer of

trouble.”

Spike now led the way below, Wallace following, leaving the midshipman

on deck, who had fallen into conversation with the relict and her pretty

niece. The half deck of the brigantine contained spare sails,

provisions, and water, as usual, while quantities of old canvas lay

scattered over the cargo; more especially in the wake of the hatches, of

which there were two besides that which led from the quarter-deck.

“Flour to the number of eight hundred barrels,” said Wallace, striking

his foot against a barrel that lay within his reach. “The cargo is

somewhat singular to come from New York, going to Key West, my dear

Spike?”

“I suppose you know what sort of a place Key West is, sir; a bit of an

island in which there is scarce so much as a potatoe grows.”

“Ay, ay, sir; I know Key West very well, having been in and out a dozen

times. All eatables are imported, turtle excepted. But flour can be

brought down the Mississippi so much cheaper than it can be brought from

New York.”

“Have you any idee, lieutenant, what Uncle Sam’s men are paying for it

at _New Orleens_, just to keep soul and bodies together among the

so’gers?”

“That may be true, sir—quite true, I dare say, Mr. Spike. Haven’t you a

bit of a chair that a fellow can sit down on—this half-deck of yours is

none of the most comfortable places to stand in. Thank you, sir—thank

you with all my heart. What lots of old sails you have scattered about

the hold, especially in the wake of the hatches.”

“Why the craft being little more than in good ballast trim, I keep the

hatches off to air her; and the spray might spit down upon the flour at

odd times but for them ’ere sails.”

“Ay, a prudent caution. So you think Uncle Sam’s people will be after

this flour as soon as they learn you have got it snug in at Key West?”

“What more likely, sir? You know how it is with our government—always

wrong, whatever it does! and I can show you paragraphs in letters

written from _New Orleens_, which tell us that Uncle Sam is paying 75

and 80 per cent. more for flour than any body else.”

“He must be a flush old chap to be able to do that, Spike.”

“Flush! I rather think he is. Do you know that he is spendin’, accordin’

to approved accounts, at this blessed moment, as much as half a million

a day. I own a wish to be pickin’ up some of the coppers while they are

scattered about so plentifully.”

“Half a million a day! why that is only at the rate of $187,000,000 per

annum; a mere trifle, Spike, that is scarce worth mentioning among us

mariners.”

“It’s so in the newspapers, I can swear, lieutenant.”

“Ay, ay, and the newspapers will swear to it, too, and they that gave

the newspapers their cue. But no matter, our business is with this

flour. Will you sell us a barrel or two for our mess? I heard the

caterer say we should want flour in the course of a week or so.”

Spike seemed embarrassed, though not to a degree to awaken suspicion in

his companion.

“I never sold cargo at sea, long as I’ve sailed and owned a craft,” he

answered as if uncertain what to do. “If you’ll pay the price I expect

to get in the Gulf, and will take _ten_ barrels, I don’t know but we may

make a trade on’t. I shall only ask expected prices.”

“Which will be?”

“Ten dollars a barrel. For one hundred silver dollars I will put into

your boat ten barrels of the very best brand known in the western

country.”

“This is dealing rather more extensively than I anticipated, but we will

reflect on it.”

Wallace now indolently arose and ascended to the quarter-deck followed

by Spike, who continued to press the flour on him, as if anxious to make

money. But the lieutenant hesitated about paying a price as high as ten

dollars, or to take a quantity as large as ten barrels.

“Our mess is no great matter after all,” he said carelessly. “Four

lieutenants, the purser, two doctors, the master, and a marine officer,

and you get us all. Nine men could never eat ten barrels of flour, my

dear Spike, you will see for yourself, with the quantity of excellent

bread we carry. You forget the bread.”

“Not a bit of it, Mr. Wallace, since that is your name. But such flour

as this of mine has not been seen in the Gulf this many a day. I ought

in reason to ask twelve dollars for it, and insist on such a ship as

your’n’s taking twenty instead of the ten barrels.”

“I thank you, sir, the ten will more than suffice; unless, indeed, the

captain wants some for the cabin. How is it with your steerage messes,

Mr. Archer—do _you_ want any flour?”

“We draw a little from the ship, according to rule, sir, but we can’t go

as many puddings latterly as we could before we touched last at the

Havanna,” answered the laughing midshipman. “There isn’t a fellow among

us, sir, that could pay a shore-boat for landing him, should we go in

again before the end of another month. I never knew such a place as

Havanna. They say midshipmen’s money melts there twice as soon as

lieutenants’ money.”

“It’s clear, then, _you’ll_ not take any of the ten. I am afraid after

all, Mr. Spike, we cannot trade, unless you will consent to let me have

two barrels. I’ll venture on two at ten dollars, high as the price is.”

“I shouldn’t forgive myself in six months for making so bad a bargain,

lieutenant, so we’ll say no more about it if you please.”

“Here is a lady that wishes to say a word to you, Mr. Wallace, before we

go back to the ship, if you are at leisure to hear her, or _them_ for

there are two of them,” put in Archer.

At this moment Mrs. Budd was approaching with a dignified step, while

Rose followed timidly a little in the rear. Wallace was a good deal

surprised at this application, and Spike was quite as much provoked. As

for Mulford, he watched the interview from a distance, a great deal more

interested in its result than he cared to have known, more especially to

his commanding officer. Its object was to get a passage in the vessel of

war.

“You are an officer of that Uncle Sam vessel,” commenced Mrs. Budd, who

thought that she would so much the more command the respect and

attention of her listener, by showing him early how familiar she was

with even the slang dialect of the seas.

“I have the honor, ma’am, to belong to that Uncle Sam craft,” answered

Wallace gravely, though he bowed politely at the same time, looking

intently at the beautiful girl in the back-ground as he so did.

“So I’ve been told, sir. She’s a beautiful vessel, lieutenant, and is

full jiggered I perceive.”

For the first time in his life, or at least for the first time since his

first cruise, Wallace wore a mystified look, being absolutely at a loss

to imagine what “full jiggered” could mean. He only looked therefore,

for he did not answer.

“Mrs. Budd means that you’ve a full _rigged_ craft,” put in Spike,

anxious to have a voice in the conference, “this vessel being only a

_half_-rigged brig.”

“Oh! ay; yes, yes—the lady is quite right. We are full jiggered from

our dead-eyes to our eye-bolts.”

“I thought as much, sir, from your ground hamper and top-tackles,” added

the relict smiling. “For my part there is nothing in nature that I so

much admire as a full jiggered ship, with her canvas out of the

bolt-ropes, and her clew-lines and clew-garnets braced sharp, and her

yards all abroad.”

“Yes, ma’am, it is just as you say, a very charming spectacle. Our baby

was born full grown, and with all her hamper aloft just as you see her.

Some persons refer vessels to art, but I think you are quite right in

referring them to nature.”

“Nothing _can_ be more natural to me, lieutenant, than a fine ship

standing on her canvas. It’s an object to improve the heart and to

soften the understanding.”

“So I should think, ma’am,” returned Wallace, a little quizzically,

“judging from the effect on yourself.”

This speech, unfortunately timed as it was, wrought a complete change in

Rose’s feelings, and she no longer wished to exchange the Swash for the

Poughkeepsie. She saw that her aunt was laughed at in secret, and that

was a circumstance that never failed to grate on every nerve in her

system. She had been prepared to second and sustain the intended

application—she was now determined to oppose it.

“Yes, sir,” resumed the unconscious relict, “and to soften the

understanding. Lieutenant, did you ever cross the Capricorn?”

“No less than six times; three going and three returning, you know.”

“And did Neptune come on board you, and were you shaved?”

“Every thing was done _secundum artem_, ma’am. The razor was quite an

example of what are called in poetry ‘thoughts too deep for tears.’”

“That must have been delightful. As for me, I’m quite a devotee of

Neptune’s; but I’m losing time, for no doubt your ship is all ready to

pull away and carry on sail—”

“Aunt, may I say a word to you before you go any further,” put in Rose

in her quiet but very controlling way.

The aunt complied, and Wallace, as soon as left alone, felt like a man

who was released from a quick-sand, into which every effort to extricate

himself only plunged him so much the deeper. At this moment the ship

hailed, and the lieutenant took a hasty leave of Spike, motioned to the

midshipman to precede him, and followed the latter into his boat. Spike

saw his visiter off in person, tending the side and offering the

man-ropes with his own hands. For this civility Wallace thanked him,

calling out as his boat pulled from the brig’s side—“If we ‘_pull_

away,’” accenting the “pull” in secret derision of the relict’s mistake,

“_you_ can _pull_ away; our filling the topsail being a sign for you to

do the same.”

“There you go, and joy go with you,” muttered Spike, as he descended

from the gangway. “A pretty kettle of fish would there have been cooked

had I let him have his two barrels of flour.”

The man-of-war’s cutter was soon under the lee of the ship, where it

discharged its freight, when it was immediately run up. During the whole

time Wallace had been absent, Capt. Mull and his officers remained on

the poop, principally occupied in examining and discussing the merits of

the Swash. No sooner had their officer returned, however, than an order

was given to fill away, it being supposed that the Poughkeepsie had no

further concern with the brigantine. As for Wallace, he ascended to the

poop and made the customary report.

“It’s a queer cargo to be carrying to Key West from the Atlantic coast,”

observed the captain in a deliberating sort of manner, as if the

circumstance excited suspicion; “Yet the Mexicans can hardly be in want

of any such supplies.”

“Did you _see_ the flour, Wallace?” inquired the first lieutenant, who

was well aware of his messmate’s indolence.

“Yes, sir, and _felt it_ too. The lower hold of the brig is full of

flour, and of nothing else.”

“Ware round, sir—ware round and pass athwart the brig’s wake,”

interrupted the captain. “There’s plenty of room now, and I wish to pass

as near that craft as we can.”

This manœuvre was executed. The sloop-of-war no sooner filled her

maintop-sail than she drew ahead, leaving plenty of room for the

brigantine to make sail on her course. Spike did not profit by this

opening, however, but he sent several men aloft forward, where they

appeared to be getting ready to send down the upper yards and the

topgallant-mast. No sooner was the sloop-of-war’s helm put up than that

vessel passed close along the brigantine’s weather side, and kept off

across her stern on her course. As she did this the canvas was

fluttering aboard her, in the process of making sail, and Mull held a

short discourse with Spike.

“Is any thing the matter aloft?” demanded the man-of-war’s man.

“Ay, ay; I’ve sprung my topgallant-mast, and think this a good occasion

to get another up in its place.”

“Shall I lend you a carpenter or two, Mr. Spike.”

“Thank’ee, sir, thank’ee with all my heart; but we can do without them.

It’s an old stick, and it’s high time a better stood where it does. Who

knows but I may be chased and feel the want of reliable spars.”

Captain Mull smiled and raised his cap in the way of an adieu, when the

conversation ended, the Poughkeepsie sliding off rapidly with a free

wind, leaving the Swash nearly stationary. In ten minutes the two

vessels were more than a mile apart; in twenty beyond the reach of shot.

Notwithstanding the natural and common-place manner in which this

separation took place, there was much distrust on board each vessel, and

a good deal of consummate management on the part of Spike. The latter

knew that every foot the sloop-of-war went on her course, carried her

just so far to leeward, placing his own brig, in-so-much, dead to

windward of her. As the Swash’s best point of sailing, relatively

considered, was close hauled, this was giving to Spike a great security

against any change of purpose on the part of the vessel of war. Although

his people were aloft and actually sent down the topgallant-mast, it was

only to send it up again, the spar being of admirable toughness, and as

sound as the day it was cut.

“I don’t think, Mr. Mulford,” said the captain sarcastically, “that

Uncle Sam’s glasses are good enough to tell the difference in wood at

two league’s distance, so we’ll trust to the old stick a little longer.

Ay, ay, let ’em run off before it, we’ll find another road by which to

reach our port.”

“The sloop-of-war is going round the south side of Cuba, Capt. Spike,”

answered the mate, “and I have understood you to say that you intended

to go by the same passage.”

“A body may change his mind, and no murder. Only consider, Harry, how

common it is for folks to change their minds. I _did_ intend to pass

between Cuba and Jamaica, but I intend it no longer. Our run from

Montauk has been oncommon short, and I’ve time enough to spare to go to

the southward of Jamaica too, if the notion takes me.”

“That would greatly prolong the passage, Capt. Spike—a week at least.”

“What if it does—I’ve a week to spare; we’re nine days afore our time.”

“Our time for what, sir? Is there any particular time set for a vessel’s

going into Key West?”

“Don’t be womanish and over cur’ous, Mulford. I sail with sealed orders,

and when we get well to windward of Jamaica, ’twill be time enough to

open them.”

Spike was as good as his word. As soon as he thought the sloop-of war

was far enough to leeward, or when she was hull down, he filled away and

made sail on the wind to get nearer to Porto Rico. Long ere it was dark

he had lost sight of the sloop-of-war, when he altered his course to

south, westerly, which was carrying him in the direction he named, or to

windward of Jamaica.

While this artifice was being practiced on board the Molly Swash, the

officers of the Poughkeepsie were not quite satisfied with their own

mode of proceeding with the brigantine. The more they reasoned on the

matter the more unlikely it seemed to them that Spike could be really

carrying a cargo of flour from New York to Key West, in the expectation

of disposing of it to the United States’ contractors, and the more out

of the way did he seem to be in running through the Mona Passage.

“His true course should have been by the Hole in the Wall, and so down

along the north side of Cuba, before the wind,” observed the first

lieutenant. “I wonder that never struck you, Wallace; you who so little

like trouble.”

“Certainly I knew it, but we lazy people like running off before the

wind, and I did not know but such were Mr. Spike’s tastes,” answered the

“ship’s gentleman.” “In my judgment, the reluctance he showed to letting

us have any of his flour, is much the most suspicious circumstance in

the whole affair.”

These two speeches were made on the poop, in the presence of the

captain, but in a sort of an aside that admitted of some of the wardroom

familiarity exhibited. Capt. Mull was not supposed to hear what passed,

though hear it he in fact did, as was seen by his own remarks, which

immediately succeeded.

“I understood you to say, Mr. Wallace,” observed the captain, a little

drily, “that you _saw_ the flour yourself?”

“I saw the flour-_barrels_, sir; and as regularly built were they as any

barrels that ever were branded. But a flour-barrel _may_ have contained

something beside _flour_.”

“Flour usually makes itself visible in the handling; were these barrels

quite clean?”

“Far from it, sir. They showed flour on their staves, like any other

cargo. After all, the man may have more sense than we give him credit

for, and find a high market for his cargo.”

Capt. Mull seemed to muse, which was a hint for his juniors not to

continue the conversation, but rather to seem to muse, too. After a

short pause, the captain quietly remarked—“Well, gentlemen, he will be

coming down after us, I suppose, as soon as he gets his new

topgallant-mast on-end, and then we can keep a bright look out for him.

We shall cruise off Cape St. Antonio, for a day or two, and no doubt

shall get another look at him. I should like to have one baking from his

flour.”

But Spike had no intention to give the Poughkeepsie the desired

opportunity. As has been stated, he stood off to the southward on a

wind, and completely doubled the eastern end of Jamaica, when he put his

helm up, and went, with favoring wind and current, toward the northward

and westward. The consequence was, that he did not fall in with the

Poughkeepsie at all, which vessel was keeping a sharp look out for him

in the neighborhood of Cape St. Antonio and the Isle of Pines, at the

very moment he was running down the coast of Yucatan. Of all the large

maritime countries of the world, Mexico, on the Atlantic, is that which

is the most easily blockaded, by a superior naval power. By maintaining

a proper force between Key West and the Havanna, and another squadron

between Cape St. Antonio and Loggerhead Key, the whole country, the Bay

of Honduras excepted, is shut up, as it might be in a band-box. It is

true the Gulf would be left open to the Mexicans, were not squadrons

kept nearer in; but, as for any thing getting out into the broad

Atlantic, it would be next to hopeless. The distance to be watched

between the Havanna and Key West is only about sixty miles, while that

in the other direction is not much greater.

While the Swash was making the circuit of Jamaica, as described, her

captain had little communication with his passengers. The

misunderstanding with the relict embarrassed him as much as it

embarrassed her; and he was quite willing to let time mitigate her

resentment. Rose would be just as much in his power a fortnight hence as

she was to-day. This cessation in the captain’s attentions gave the

females greater liberty, and they improved it, singularly enough as it

seemed to Mulford, by cultivating a strange sort of intimacy with Jack

Tier. The very day that succeeded the delicate conversation with Mrs.

Budd, to a part of which Jack had been an auditor, the uncouth-looking

steward’s assistant was seen in close conference with the pretty Rose;

the subject of their conversation being, apparently, of a most

engrossing nature. From that hour, Jack got to be not only a confidant,

but a favorite, to Mulford’s great surprise. A less inviting subject for

_tête-à-tête_ and confidential dialogues, thought the young man, could

not well exist; but so it was; woman’s caprices are inexplicable; and

not only Rose and her aunt, but even the captious and somewhat

distrustful Biddy, manifested on all occasions not only friendship, but

kindness and consideration, for Jack.

“You quite put my nose out o’ joint, you Jack Tier, with ’e lady,”

grumbled Josh, the steward _de jure_, if not now _de facto_, of the

craft, “and I never see nuttin’ like it! I s’pose you expect ten dollar,

at least, from dem passenger, when we gets in. But I’d have you to know,

Misser Jack, if you please, dat a steward be a steward, and he don’t

like to hab trick played wid him, afore he own face.”

“Poh! poh! Joshua,” answered Jack good naturedly, “don’t distress

yourself on a consait. In the first place, you’ve got no nose to be put

out of joint; or, if you have really a nose, it has no joint. It’s

nat’ral for folks to like their own color, and the ladies prefer me,

because I’m white.”

“No so werry white as all dat, nudder,” grumbled Josh. “I see great many

whiter dan you. But, if dem lady like you so much as to gib you ten

dollar, as I expects, when we gets in, I presumes you’ll hand over half,

or six dollar, of dat money to your superior officer, as is law in de

case.”

“Do you call six the half of ten, Joshua, my scholar, eh?”

“Well, den, seven, if you like dat better. I wants just half and just

half I means to get.”

“And half you shall have, maty. I only wish you would just tell me where

we shall be, when we gets in.”

“How I know, white man? Dat belong to skipper, and better ask him. If he

don’t gib you lick in de chop, p’rhaps he tell you.”

As Jack Tier had no taste for “licks in the chops,” he did not follow

Josh’s advice. But his agreeing to give half of the ten dollars to the

steward kept peace in the cabins. He was even so scrupulous of his word,

as to hand to Josh a half eagle that very day; money he had received

from Rose; saying he would trust to Providence for his own half of the

expected _douceur_. This concession placed Jack Tier on high grounds

with his “superior officer,” and from that time the former was left to

do the whole of the customary service of the ladies’ cabin.

As respects the vessel, nothing worthy of notice occurred until she had

passed Loggerhead Key, and was fairly launched in the Gulf of Mexico.

Then, indeed, Spike took a step that greatly surprised his mate. The

latter was directed to bring all his instruments, charts, &c., and place

them in the captain’s state-room, where it was understood they were to

remain until the brig got into port. Spike was but an indifferent

navigator, while Mulford was one of a higher order than common. So much

had the former been accustomed to rely on the latter, indeed, as they

approached a strange coast, that he could not possibly have taken any

step, that was not positively criminal, which would have given his mate

more uneasiness than this.

At first, Mulford naturally enough suspected that Spike intended to push

for some Mexican port, by thus blinding his eyes as to the position of

the vessel. The direction steered, however, soon relieved the mate from

this apprehension. From the eastern extremity of Yucatan, the Mexican

coast trends to the westward, and even to the south of west, for a long

distance, whereas the course steered by Spike was north, easterly. This

was diverging from the enemy’s coast instead of approaching it, and the

circumstance greatly relieved the apprehensions of Mulford.

Nor was the sequestration of the mate’s instruments the only suspicious

act of Spike. He caused the brig’s paint to be entirely altered, and

even went so far toward disguising her, as to make some changes aloft.

All this was done as the vessel passed swiftly on her course, and every

thing had been effected, apparently to the captain’s satisfaction, when

the cry of “land-ho!” was once more heard. The land proved to be a

cluster of low, small islands, part coral, part sand, that might have

been eight or ten in number, and the largest of which did not possess a

surface of more than a very few acres. Many were the merest islets

imaginable, and on one of the largest of the cluster rose a tall, gaunt

light-house, having the customary dwelling of its keeper at its base.

Nothing else was visible; the broad expanse of the blue waters of the

Gulf excepted. All the land in sight would not probably have made one

field of twenty acres in extent, and that seemed cut off from the rest

of the world, by a broad barrier of water. It was a spot of such

singular situation and accessories, that Mulford gazed at it with a

burning desire to know where he was, as the brig steered through a

channel between two of the islets, into a capacious and perfectly safe

basin, formed by the group, and dropped her anchor in its centre.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

MIDNIGHT MASSES. NO. I.

Ho, watchman on the housetop!

Ho, minister of night!

From thine enclouded turret

Canst tell us of the light?

O! heavy is the darkness—

In heaven there is no star;

Canst see the wings of morning

Rise fluttering afar?

“I see four winged angels

Far in the Orient;

They bear a golden curtain

Across the firmament;

A blue and golden curtain,

Of richest tapestry;

And the world grows bright beneath it—

Morn cometh from the sea.”

“I see four other angels

Rise softly after them;

They bear a sable curtain,

Enwrought with many a gem;

With gems of gold and silver,

Of azure and of white;

And among them burneth Hesper—

Morn cometh and the night.”

Ho, poet, from thy tower!

How goes the tide of life;

The battle is it ended,

Has ceased the olden strife?

Thick mists are in the valley;

They cloud my narrow sight;

Canst tell us of the gloaming,

The making up of night?

The battle rages fiercely,

More fiercely it shall rage;

The world is clouded darkly,

Then comes a darker age;

I see four angels rising,

A sable shroud they bear;

Which rolling gathers darkness—

Night cometh from his lair.

But I see a knight advancing

With bright mail on his breast;

His lance is long and shining,

And he bows each sable crest;

And in the hands of angels

White flags of peace are borne;

I see the glad Aurora—

Night cometh and the morn.

ARTHUR ALLYN.

* * * * *

STARTING WRONG.

By F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE,” ETC.

CHAPTER I.

“Oh, Lucy, is that you? I was just wishing for you,” exclaimed Emily

Sutherland to her sister, Mrs. Coolidge. “We are busy discussing our

dresses for the Fancy Ball. What character do you mean to take? Have you

decided on your dress?”

“No, I have not, Emily.”

“Well, it’s high time to begin to think about it. Every milliner and

mantua-maker in town will be full of work soon. I told Madame Dudevant

yesterday she must consider herself engaged to make my dress by the 22d.

You had better bespeak her, too, or you will find yourself too late if

you put it off.”

“I shall wear something so simple it’s not worth while having it made by

her,” replied Mrs. Coolidge. “I shall go as the ‘White Lady,’ or—”

“Not the ‘White Lady;’ for Heaven’s sake,” interrupted Emily, “that’s so

hackneyed. Every body who can muster an old book-muslin, and a few yards

of tulle, goes as the ‘White Lady.’”

“Well, a novice, or a Druid priestess,” continued Mrs. Coolidge.

“That’s just as bad,” pursued her sister impatiently. “No, no, you and

Tom must go in character together; you as Titania, and he as Bully

Bottom. You are so light, and slight, and fair, you will look Titania

very well; and Tom will make a grand Bully—so full of fun and humor.

You would contrast beautifully. You must hang upon his arm, and ‘stick

musk roses in his sleek smooth head, and _pinch_ his large, fair ears,’

for it’ll hardly do to ‘kiss’ them, and call him ‘your gentle joy.’ I am

sure you could do that to the life.”

Mrs. Coolidge smiled, for the idea caught her fancy; but then she looked

graver as she said,

“But those would be expensive dresses, Emily. I merely meant to wear

something that would entitle me to an entrance. If the invitations did

not say ‘_costume de rigueur_,’ I should not think of a fancy dress at

all.”

“Oh, what nonsense,” said Emily. “The expense is not much; I am sure Tom

would not mind it. I’ll speak to him about it,” she continued; for she

had been so accustomed to hear her father scold at expense, that she

concluded, of course, her sister’s objections must now have reference to

her husband, and that consequently if she spoke first to him, she was

doing Lucy a great service.

“No, pray don’t put it in his head,” said the young wife eagerly, “for I

fear he would be so taken by the idea, he would not stop to count the

cost.”

“Well, then,” said Emily, opening her eyes very wide, “why need you?”

“Because, Emily, as we are young people just beginning, I think we ought

to—”

“To be patterns,” said Emily. “Well and good, my dear, only don’t begin

until after this ball, if you please.”

“I don’t want to set up as a pattern,” said Lucy, “but still I would not

wish to do any thing extravagant.”

“There’s no great extravagance in these dresses, I am sure,” replied

Emily. “That’s one reason I selected them for you and Tom; and then I

thought you would like to go in character together. I really flattered

myself I had hit sentiment and economy with one stone beautifully. But

you make as long a face about it as if I had proposed King Solomon and

the Queen of Sheba to you.”

“What should Titania’s dress be?” inquired Mrs. Coolidge thoughtfully.

“Oh, something very light. Tulle, trimmed with a little silver—nothing

is cheaper than that, you know,” answered Emily.

“As it is only for one night,” pursued Lucy, “I would not feel

authorized to go to much expense. If it were a dress that could ever be

worn again—”

“You never can, or never ought at least, wear any tulle dress over

twice; and therefore it does not make much difference about its being

made in costume,” said Emily carelessly. “Tom’s dress, you know, is the

simplest thing in the world. It’s only a weaver’s apron, &c. The ass’s

head he can easily have made; he’ll get it for a trifle at any

toy-store, I should think. Ah, there’s Tom,” cried Emily, as she saw her

brother-in-law entering the hall. “Here, Mr. Coolidge, come here,” she

called. “Come in and persuade this perverse wife of yours into being

reasonable. Here I’ve been ransacking my head for suitable characters

for her and you for the Fancy Ball; and just as I had hit upon the very

thing for both of you, and expecting your joint vote of thanks, and

compliments for the brilliancy of my idea, she puts on a grave face, and

makes all sorts of objections. Don’t you think she would make a pretty

Titania, and you a beautiful, broad-shouldered Bully Bottom? I’ll tell

you what, you shall not be lost to the world as Bully; if _she_ wont be

your Titania, _I_ will, though I don’t think I will look the character

very well, and beside—”

“Why Lucy,” said her husband, “I don’t think you could possibly find any

thing prettier; and really, Emily, I will give you my vote of thanks at

once for my share of it. Bully always was a favorite of mine. You see I

am more grateful than Lucy. However,” continued he, turning to his wife,

“If you don’t like it, ‘I am agreeable,’ as country people say, to any

thing you prefer.”

“There’s nothing else that I prefer,” she replied, “only I thought the

_Dame Blanche_ would be more economical.”

“I veto the _Dame Blanche_,” cried Emily before Coolidge had time to

speak. “It’s just one of those things that are very pretty the first

time; but it’s as old and common now as possible. Besides, as you are a

bride, Lucy, people will expect something from you; you always have

dressed well as Lucy Sutherland—”

“I should be sorry if Lucy Coolidge appeared to less advantage now,”

said Coolidge, taking Emily’s hint, and a little piqued by the

insinuation. “I think, my dear, that would not be paying me much of a

compliment,” he added good-naturedly, for he was the best tempered

person in the world. “Come, if you like the dress, make up your mind at

once. And, Emily, as you are it seems grand costumer-general on the

occasion, perhaps you will be so kind as to lend me your aid afterward.

Will you go with me when I look for some _artiste_ capable of executing

Bully’s head and ears?”

“With pleasure, as soon as I finish with your lady wife here. Now for

Titania, Lucy.”

“I have a white satin dress, Emily, that I think would do for the under

petticoat,” said Lucy.

“White satin,” said Emily musingly. “No, that wont do—it should be

silk. Besides you’ve worn your satin, and the first thing in these

dresses, and indeed in every other, is that they should be fresh and

clean.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Coolidge. “I don’t understand much of lady’s

dress, but that much I do. Nothing I hate so much as to see a woman in

dirty finery; and pure fresh white is the prettiest thing she can wear.

If you ladies dressed to please us gentlemen, you would never appear in

any thing else. However, I don’t mean to interfere in what you’ll say,

Emily, I don’t understand; only, Lucy, whatever you do decide on, let it

be fresh and clean.”

“There Lucy, now I have your husband on my side, you have nothing to

say,” cried Emily. “And to be fresh and clean, things must be new. You

men understand effect,” she continued, turning to her brother-in-law,

“though you are not much at details. And now let us be off to Madame

Dudevant’s; I want to see some costumes she was to have in this

morning—and you can speak to her about your dress at the same time.”

“And you think I must have Madame Dudevant,” said Lucy inquiringly. “She

is such an extortionate creature; I could get Henrietta in the house for

a couple of days—”

“For pity’s sake don’t think of Henrietta, Lucy,” said Emily; “there’s

no use in getting new materials if she is to spoil them. And what

signifies a few dollars more or less in the making; for after all it’s

the fit and air of a dress that gives it all its effect. Dudevant asks

rather more, perhaps, than others—but really she is worth it. She is

the only person in town who knows how to do any thing.”

“That’s true,” said Lucy plaintively.

“What makes you sigh so, Lucy,” said her husband smiling, “over Madame

Dudevant’s superiority?”

“Oh, that’s just Lucy,” said Emily laughing. “She always was so. She

thinks any thing will do for her until it comes to the point, and then

nothing but the best satisfies her. With all her scruples, she always

ends where I begin. But then she has such a plaintive way of going to

work, that she always thinks, and what is worse, you all agree with her,

that she is so much more economical than I—”

“Now Emily,” said Lucy expostulatingly, “I am sure I would be glad to go

as the ‘White Lady,’ if you and Tom would let me.”

“So you think, my dear—but I know how it would be; you would keep

Henrietta for a week in the house botching up a dress, which, of course,

would be a fright; and then, just at the last minute, you would come to

the conclusion it would never do, and go off in a hurry to Dudevant’s to

order something decent—and so, besides your dress, you would have your

failure to pay for.”

Coolidge laughed outright at this picture of his wife’s economy, and

said,

“Well, Lucy, as we can’t afford double expenses, I think you’ll have to

give up what Emily calls your ‘failure.’”

“These ‘failures’ are mighty expensive things, let me tell you,” said

Emily seriously; “and I’ll just give you this warning, Tom, your wife is

very fond of them.”

“Now, Emily, say no more,” said Lucy entreatingly, “and I’ll do any

thing you want.”

“Well, the carriage has been waiting this half hour,” said her sister.

“Do you come back to dinner,” said she to her brother-in-law, “for I

mean to keep Lucy to-day, and then we will settle this evening about

Bully’s head and ears, &c.”

So they drove to Madame Dudevant’s. Emily gave a rapid sketch of the

character her sister was to take, which the Frenchwoman caught with a

tact and quickness that would have been enough to make a slow, sober

Englishwoman think she had been a reader of Shakspeare from her youth.

“Ah, I understand—something very light and pretty; two, tree tunics—a

light broderie on each.”

“Would not a little silver lace,” said Mrs. Coolidge, looking anxious,

“do, madame?”

“Silver lace?” said the Frenchwoman interrogatively. “What you call

silver lace, madame? You like tinsel?” with a shrug of such ineffable

contempt, that Lucy colored spite of herself.

“A light embroidery would be much handsomer, Lucy,” said Emily. “I don’t

like silver lace myself, it has a sort of livery look.”

“Just so,” said the queen of mantua-makers, now directing her remarks to

Emily, “what you call vulgar. If madame will have tree tunics with a

delicat broderie, de sleeve de same, I have a young woman who work

beautiful—”

Lucy looked distressed, and said, “I don’t want to go to much expense,

madame.”

“Expense! oh no, madame, it so light it cost noting at all.”

“You had better leave it to madame, Lucy,” said Emily; “I see she

understands what you want. She will make it pretty, and not too

expensive. Madame,” turning to the Frenchwoman, “Mrs. Coolidge is

married, you know,” she added smiling, “and has a husband to consult.”

“Oh,” said the graceful _artiste_ smiling, “when you husband see you

look pretty, he tink noting of the cost.”

“I don’t know that, madame,” said Lucy laughing, unconsciously pleased

at the flattery. “But you’ll make it as reasonable as possible.”

“Certain, madame; I make it as cheap as I can afford. You shall like

your dress. And you, mademoiselle, will come to-morrow; I have some new

costume.”

The Fancy Ball, which had been the talk of the town for a month, went

off brilliantly. Emily’s dress was Madame Dudevant’s _chef d’œuvre_, and

the delicate Titania looked the creation of a poet. But Tom, as Bully

Bottom, was glorious. The young husband and wife were conspicuous amid

even that distinguished throng; and Lucy, proud of her husband’s wit,

entered with delight into the spirit of the whole; and he, as Madame

Dudevant truly prophecied, when “he saw her look so pretty, thought

nothing of the cost.”