CHAPTER XV.

The next morning Helen was very ill--so ill that, shortly after rising,

she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered--her eyes were

heavy--her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might

have caught cold on the bridge--perhaps her emotions had proved too much

for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called on the nearest

apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger. And

danger soon declared itself.--Helen became delirious. For several days

she lay in this state, between life and death. Leonard then felt that

all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing

what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying

rose.

Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she

recovered sense at last--immediate peril was over But she was very weak

and reduced--her ultimate recovery doubtful--convalescence, at best,

likely to be very slow.

But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked

anxiously at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth,

"Give me my work! I am strong enough for that now--it would amuse me."

Leonard burst into tears.

Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away; the

apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be paid

for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's

watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he

support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that

he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank

into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and

left the room. He turned into his own neighboring garret, and, leaning

his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts.

He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money--Mr.

Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged

of a stranger--it served to add a new dishonor to his mother's memory

for the child to beg of one who was acquainted with her shame. Had he

himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would have sunk inch

by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his

pride. But Helen, there on that bed--Helen needing, for weeks perhaps,

all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries!

Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud, bitter

soul he conquered, you would have said--"This which he thinks is

degradation--this is heroism. Oh strange human heart!--no epic ever

written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread

by human eye, in thy secret leaves." Of whom else should he beg? His

mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor, and the stately Violante, who

had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man!" he could not endure the

thought that she should pity him, and despise. The Avenels! No--thrice

No. He drew toward him hastily ink and paper, and wrote rapid lines that

were wrung from him as from the bleeding strings of life.

But the hour for the post had passed--the letter must wait till the next

day; and three days at least must elapse before he could receive an

answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went

forth. He crossed the bridge--he passed on mechanically--and was borne

along by a crowd pressing toward the doors of Parliament. A debate that

excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders

collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what

speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders

for the gallery.

He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common

with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly toward the tall

Funeral Abbey--Imperial Golgotha of Poets, and Chiefs, and Kings.

Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a

name--displeasingly known to him, "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming to

hear the debate?" said a member who was passing through the street.

"Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak

himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the

House, will you remind him?"

"I can't now, for he is speaking already--and well too. I hurried from

the Athenæum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard

that his speech was making a great effect."

"This is very unlucky," said Randal. "I had no idea he would speak so

early."

"M---- brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me;

perhaps I can get you into the House; and a man like you, Leslie, of

whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not miss

any such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field

night. Come on!"

The member hurried toward the door; and as Randal followed him, a

bystander cried--"That is the young man who wrote the famous

pamphlet--Egerton's relation."

"Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton--I am waiting for him."

"So am I."

"Why, you are not a constituent, as I am?"

"No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You

are a constituent--he is an honor to your town."

"So he is; enlightened man!"

"And so generous."

"Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician.

"And clever young men," said the uncle.

Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and

many anecdotes of his liberality were told.

Leonard listened at first listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention.

He had heard Burley, too, speak highly of this generous statesman, who,

without pretending to genius himself, appreciated it in others. He

suddenly remembered, too, that Egerton was half-brother to the Squire.

Vague notions of some appeal to this eminent person, not for charity,

but employ to his mind, gleamed across him--inexperienced boy that he

yet was! And while thus meditating, the door of the House opened, and

out came Audley Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a

general murmur, apprised Leonard of the presence of the popular

statesman. Egerton was caught hold of by some five or six persons in

succession; a shake of the hand, a nod, a brief whispered word or two,

sufficed the practiced member for graceful escape; and soon, free from

the crowd, his tall erect figure passed on, and turned toward the

bridge. He paused at the angle and took out his watch, looking at it by

the lamp-light.

"Harley will be here soon," he muttered "he is always punctual; and now

that I have spoken, I can give him an hour or so. That is well."

As he replaced his watch in his pocket, and re-buttoned his coat over

his firm, broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and saw a young man standing

before him.

"Do you want me?" asked the statesmen, with the direct brevity of his

practical character.

"Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that slightly trembled,

and yet was manly amidst emotion, "you have a great name, and great

power--I stand here in these streets of London without a friend, and

without employ. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler work

than that of bodily labor, had I but one friend--one opening for my

thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know how or why, but from

despair, and the sudden impulse which that despair took from the praise

that follows your success. I have nothing more to add."

Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the tone and address

of the stranger; but the consummate and wary man of the world,

accustomed to all manner of strange applications, and all varieties of

imposture, quickly recovered from a passing effect.

"Are you a native of ----?" (naming the town he represented as member.)

"No, sir."

"Well, young man, I am very sorry for you; but the good sense you must

possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently

received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage,

has it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to

be able to listen to strangers."

He paused a moment, and, as Leonard stood silent, added, with more

kindness than most public men so accosted would have showed--

"You say you are friendless--poor fellow, in early life that happens to

many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and

well-conducted; lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body

if you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can

give you, unless this trifle," and the minister held out a crown piece.

Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked

after him with a slight pang.

"Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same state

in the streets of London. I can not redress these necessities of

civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that

society will suffer--it is from over-educating the hungry thousands who,

thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will some

day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser

ministers than I am."

As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang

merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb

blood-horses, rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton

recognized his nephew--Frank Hazeldean.

The young Guardsman was returning, with a lively party of men, from

dining at Greenwich; and the careless laughter of these children of

pleasure floated far over the still river.

It vexed the ear of the careworn statesman--sad, perhaps, with all his

greatness, lonely amidst all his crowd of friends. It reminded him,

perhaps, of his own youth, when such parties and companionships were

familiar to him, though through them all he bore an ambitious, aspiring

soul--"_Le jeu, vaut-il la chandelle?_" said he, shrugging his

shoulders.

The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the

corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him from

the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more

discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy.

"Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast.

And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had stood several

nights before with Helen; and dizzy with want of food, and worn out for

want of sleep, he sank down into the dark corner; while the river that

rolled under the arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear; as under

the social key-stone wails and rolls on forever the mystery of Human

Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker, by the stream! 'Tis the river that

founded and gave pomp to the city; and without the discontent, where

were progress--what were Man? Take comfort, O THINKER! wherever the

stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sinkest, weary and

desolate, frets the arch that supports thee--never dream that, by

destroying the bridge, thou canst silence the moan of the wave.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE FORTUNES OF THE REVEREND CALEB ELLISON.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

The Reverend Caleb Ellison had an odd way of doing every thing; but he

was so good a man, and so adored a clergyman, that his being in love was

an interesting circumstance to a large proportion of the inhabitants of

the country town in which he lived. When he looked up at the

chimney-pots as he walked the streets, or went slowly skipping along the

foot-pavement to the Reading-room in the market-place, the elders of his

congregation might wish that he would walk more like other men, and the

children giggled at the sight; but the ladies, young and old, regarded

these things as a part of the "originality" which they admired in him;

and Joanna Carey would scarcely admit to herself that such freaks

required forbearance.

On Friday evening Mr. Carey returned before the rest of his party from a

strawberry feast, to tell his wife that their dear girl had shown him by

a look, that she must now decide on her lot for life. Ellison had

certainly spoken. Joanna must decide for herself. If she was satisfied

to have the greatest blessings that a woman could have--high moral and

spiritual excellence in a man who loved her--and could, for these, make

light of the daily drawbacks of his oddities, it was not for any one

else to object. Mr. Carey could not say that his own temper would bear

with so eccentric a companion; but perhaps he was narrow: perhaps his

wife's nice household ways for twenty-five years had spoiled him. Joanna

knew what she was undertaking. She knew that it was as much as the clerk

and the deacons could do, to get the pastor into the pulpit in proper

time every Sunday, and that this would be her business now. She knew

that he seldom remembered to shave, and how he had burned his marble

chimney-piece black; and--Well; perhaps these were trifles. Perhaps it

was a fault not to regard them as such. If a father was fortunate enough

to have a man of eminent single-mindedness for his son-in-law, and

genius to boot, he ought not, perhaps, to require common sense also; but

it had always been Mr. Carey's belief that good sense was the greatest

part of genius.

By Sunday evening Mr. Carey was little disposed to desire any thing more

in his intended son-in-law than had appeared that day. Joanna had

engaged herself to him on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning there was

something in the tone of his pathetic voice so unusual, in the very

first verses of the Psalm, that many hearers looked up; and then they

saw something very unusual in his countenance. He so preached, that a

stranger inquired earnestly who this Mr. Ellison was, and whence he

came; and his admirers in the congregation said he was inspired.

"Joanna behaved very well, did not she?" whispered Mrs. Carey to her

husband, as they were returning from chapel.

"Very well, indeed. And it was extremely fine, his preaching to-day.

Extremely fine!"

And this particular day, the father feared as little for Joanna as

Joanna for herself.

There was no reason for delay about the marriage. Mr. Ellison had three

hundred pounds a year from his office, and was never likely to have any

more. The interest of Joanna's portion--one thousand pounds--was hers

whenever she married. She was four-and-twenty, and Mr. Ellison was five

years older. They were no children; there was no reason for delay; so

every body knew of the engagement immediately, and the preparations went

on diligently.

A pastor's marriage is always a season of great interest and amusement.

In this case it was unusually diverting from the singular innocence of

the gentleman about all household affairs. He showed all the solicitude

of which he was capable to have every thing right and comfortable for

Joanna; but his ideas were so extraordinary, that his friends suspected

that he had been quizzed by certain youths of his congregation, who had

indeed made solemn suggestions to him about dredging-boxes and

rolling-pins, and spigots, and ball-irons, and other conveniences, the

names of which were strange to him. He had promised to leave the whole

concern of furnishing in the hands of a discreet lady and her daughters,

with a power of appeal to Mrs. Carey in doubtful cases; but when these

mysterious names had been lying on his mind for some days, he could not

help making inquiries and suggestions, which brought nothing but

laughter upon him. Mr. and Mrs. Carey thought the quizzing went rather

too far; but Joanna did not seem to mind it.

"His head should not be stuffed with nonsense," observed Mr. Carey to

his wife, "when business that he really ought to be attending to is left

undone."

"You mean the Life Insurance," replied she. "Why do you not remind him

of it?"

"I believe I must. But it is not a pleasant thing to do. No man in his

circumstances ought to need to be spoken to more than once. However, I

have to suggest to him to insure all this pretty furniture that his

friends are giving him; and while I am speaking about the Fire

Insurance, I can easily mention the more important one."

"I should feel no difficulty," observed Mrs. Carey. "He will be purely

thankful to you for telling him what he ought to do."

An opportunity soon occurred. The presents came in fast: the Careys were

consulted about how to stow them all. One evening at supper, the

conversation naturally turned--as it probably does in every house--on

what should be saved first in case of fire. Mr. Carey asked Mr. Ellison

whether his landlord had not insured the cottage, and whether he himself

was not thinking of insuring the furniture from fire.

Instant opposition arose from Mr. Carey's second daughter, Charlotte,

who declared that she could not bear to think of such a thing. She

begged that nobody would speak of such a thing. Indeed, she wondered

that any body could. When induced to explain the emotions with which

her mind was laboring, she declared her horror that any one belonging to

her could feel that any money could compensate for the loss of the

precious things, such as old letters, and fond memorials, which perish

in a fire.

"How old are you, my dear?" inquired her father.

"Sixteen, papa."

"Indeed! I should have taken you to be six years younger. I should

wonder at a child of ten talking so sillily as you are doing."

Mr. Ellison stared; for his sympathy with Charlotte's sentiment was so

strong, that he was looking at her with beaming eyes, and softly

ejaculating, "Dear Charlotte! dear child!"

It took some time to convince both (for young ladies of sixteen

sometimes see things less clearly than six years before and ten years

after that age) that, if precious papers and gifts are unhappily lost in

a fire, that is no reason why tables and chairs, and fish-kettles and

dredging-boxes, and carpets and house linen should not be paid for by an

Insurance Office; but at last both young lady and pastor saw this.

Still, Charlotte did not look satisfied; and her father invited her to

utter what was in her mind. After some fencing about whether her

thoughts were silly, and whether it would be silly to speak them, out

came the scruple. Was there not something worldly in thinking so much

about money and the future?

"Dear Charlotte! dear child!" again soliloquized Mr. Ellison.

Mr. Carey did not think the apprehension silly; but, in his opinion, the

danger of worldliness lay the other way. He thought the worldliness lay

in a man's spending all his income, leaving wife and children to be

maintained by their neighbors, in case of accidents which may happen any

day to any body, and which do happen to a certain proportion of people,

within an assigned time, as regularly as death happens to all. Charlotte

had nothing to say against life insurance, because every man knows that

he shall die; and there is no speculation in the case. But she was

extremely surprised to hear that there is an equal certainty, though of

a narrower extent, about fire, and other accidents; that it is a fact

that, out of so many householders, such and such a number will have

their houses burned down.

"Is it indeed so?" asked Joanna.

"It is indeed so. Moreover, out of so much property, such and such an

amount will perish by fire. Every householder being bound in with this

state of things for his share of the risk, he owes it equally to others

and to himself to secure the compensation, in case of accident. Does he

not?"

"How to others?"

"Because he should contribute his share to the subscription, if you like

to call it so, by which the sufferer from fire, whoever he be, is to be

compensated. Thus, you see, Charlotte, that which seems to you an act of

worldliness is a neighborly act, as well as a prudent one."

When reminded, Charlotte admitted that she had herself said so about

the Cow Club at B----. She had told many people how the cottagers at

B----, were now saved from all danger of ruin by the loss of a cow--a

loss fatal to so many cottagers elsewhere. The farmers at B----, who

could ill afford to lose from nine pounds to fifteen pounds at a stroke

by the death of a cow, had joined with the cottagers in setting up a Cow

Life-insurance. The club employed a skillful cow-doctor. The members

paid in a small portion of the weekly profits of their milk-selling; and

had the comfort of knowing that, whenever their cow died, they would be

supplied with another, or with a part of the value of one, according to

the length of time, or the yearly amount they had paid. Charlotte

admitted that she had been delighted with the scheme, but now asserted

that she was much more pleased about the Quakers and their ship.

"Ha! Quakers?" said Mr. Ellison.

Yes; those Quakers, now, were the sort of people whom Charlotte admired.

So unworldly! so trusting! There was a rich India ship, belonging to

some Quakers, lately wrecked in the Channel, very near her port. The

whole cargo was lost. It had been a total loss to the owners, because

their principles would not allow them to insure--to put themselves out

of the hands of Providence, and speculate in "the stormy winds

fulfilling his word." That had been their statement; and was there not

something very beautiful in it? Charlotte looked at her father for an

answer.

"Tell me, first, my dear," he replied, "whether you admire Tasker, the

shoemaker, for refusing to have his children vaccinated, saying that it

was taking them out of the hands of the Lord?"

Charlotte could not think of poor little Mary Tasker, disfigured and

half blind, and not wish that she had been vaccinated; and yet Tasker

had acted in a resigned spirit.

"Well: exactly as much as you admire Tasker, I admire your Quakers. I

honor their motive, but I am sorry for their mistake--sorry that they

refuse one safeguard against worldliness."

"Worldliness, papa!"

Mr. Carey explained how the moral dangers of commercial pursuits are in

proportion to their gambling character. Large gains and great hazards

must be more engrossing to the mind, and more stimulating to the

passions than small and secure profits. The great drawback upon commerce

with very remote countries is, or was, its gambling character, from the

variety and seriousness of the risks, and the largeness of the profits

laid on to cover them. By means of insurance against sea risks and other

dangers, the losses are spread over so large a number that they cease to

be losses, and become a mere tax, such as men may willingly pay for

security. When a man has so introduced moderation into his gains and his

losses, as to detach himself from "the cares of the world and the

deceitfulness of riches," he may listen with a quiet pulse (as far as

his own affairs are concerned) to the wind roaring over the sea, and

need not be "afraid of evil tidings." It was quite a new view to

Charlotte that her Quakers had been gambling, in fact, when they should

have been trading safely; but she could not deny that it was so. Nobody

wished her to give them up, in regard to their spirit of faith and

trust; but nobody could stand up for their prudence.

The most striking view to Charlotte was that there is nothing accidental

in storms and tempests; and that it is only our ignorance which makes us

call them so. The realm of Meteorology is, no doubt, governed by laws as

invariable as that of Astronomy. We know this fact, though we, as yet,

know little of these laws. Something more we know: and that is, the

average of shipwrecks and conflagrations, in a certain condition of

society; in the same way that we know the average of men that will die,

out of a certain number, in a certain time: and it is this knowledge of

the averages which justifies the resource of insurance in all the three

cases. When Mr. Ellison at length comprehended that there were thousands

of prudent men now paying their mite to compensate him for the loss of

his new furniture, in case of its being burned, on the simple condition

of his paying his mite also, he was so struck by their neighborly

conduct, that he could scarcely express his sense of it. The ladies

considered it impossible that he should feel so strongly, and be

heedless about the condition on his own part. Mr. Carey shook his head.

Mr. Carey was right. The wedding-day came, and the insurance was not

effected.--Joanna did not like to tease her betrothed about worldly

affairs. If the subject was mentioned, and the train of thought revived,

he went into an enthusiasm about the benevolent class of insurers: but

he did not become one himself.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

The wedding-day came and went. The young people were married and gone.

Mr. Ellison's flock were assembled, almost entire, in the parish church,

for the first and last time. In those days, dissenters could not marry

in their own chapels, or any where but in church; and the present was an

occasion when the clergyman of the parish appeared to great advantage,

with his kind courtesy toward his dissenting neighbors. The whole affair

was talked over from day to day, during the wedding-trip of the

Ellisons, in the intervals of Charlotte's business in preparing their

house for their return. Then began her sisterly relation toward the

pastor beloved by so many. Her reverence for him, and her pride on

Joanna's account, made her consider his dignity (in spite of himself) on

all occasions; from the receiving him at his own door, on the evening of

arrival, to the defending him in every trifle in which he vexed her

orderly father. When Mr. Carey complained of his being found at

breakfast unshaven, and wondered how he would like to see Joanna come

down with her hair in papers, Charlotte contended that these things

mattered less in a gentleman than a lady; and that it was from a

meditative turn that he forgot to shave, even as Newton forgot to dine.

If he fell over all his new furniture in turn, she declared it was

because the affection of his friends had over-crowded his cottage with

memorials of their love. If he was met half-way to the town without his

hat, she looked with reverence in his face for a foretaste of his next

Sunday's sermon. When it came out that Joanna had paid all the post boys

and bills on the journey; that Joanna had to go with him to the

tailor's, when he was to be measured for a new coat; that Joanna had to

carve, because he did not know the wing of a fowl from the leg--But we

will not dwell further on the foibles of a good man whose virtues were

as uncommon in their degree, as his weaknesses, it may be hoped, in

kind.

Full as the cottage was of pretty things, it was destined to be yet

fuller in another year. Never was there a prettier little wardrobe of

tiny caps and robes, and the like, than room must be found for, the next

autumn, in preparation for that prettiest of all things--a baby. Half

the ladies in the congregation brought their offerings of delicate work,

in cambric and the softest of flannel, and most fantastical of

pincushions and baskets. It was a delightful season to the whole family;

and Joanna was so well and bright! And when the great day was over,

there were such rallyings of Mr. and Mrs. Carey, on their being so early

a grand-papa and grand-mamma; and it was so droll to see Mr. Ellison,

who seemed never to have seen a baby, but in baptizing the little

creatures, whom he had always hitherto regarded as young Christians, and

never as little infants! Mr. Carey was rather ashamed of the extent of

his ignorance, shown on the first sight of his child in its sleep, by

its mother's side.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "a baby!" in as much surprise as if it had been the

last thing he expected to see.

"Yes; there is your baby. How do you like her?"

He gazed in silence, and at length said--"But can she walk?"

"My dear Ellison! at a day old!"

"But can she talk?"

"All in good time. You will have enough of that by-and by."

"Dear, dear! Ha!" said he, again and again, till he was sent off to

dinner, at a friend's house.

He dined at some friend's house every day. On the fourth day it was at a

distance of three miles. Mrs. Carey had gone home, in the twilight of a

November day. As soon as she was gone, the nurse stepped out, very

improperly, for something that she wanted, the child being asleep beside

Joanna. She desired the servant girl to carry up her mistress's gruel in

a quarter-of-an-hour, if she was not back. The girl did so; and

approached the bed, with the basin in one hand and a candle in the

other. She poked the candle directly against the dimity curtains, and

set the bed on fire. It was a large bed, in a small crowded room, close

to two walls and near the window-curtain. The flame caught the tester

instantly, and then the corner of the pillow, and the edge of the sheet.

Before that, the girl had thrown down the basin of hot gruel on the

baby, rushed to the window, thrown up the sash, and screamed; and she

next rushed out at the door, leaving it wide open, and then at the

house-door, leaving that wide open too. The air streamed up the

staircase, and the bed was on fire all round.

Poor Joanna crept off the bed, and took the child in one arm, while with

the other she tried to pull off a blanket. She was found weakly tugging

at it. He who so found her was a sailor, who had seen the light from the

road, and run up the stairs.

"I see how it is, madam," said he, in a cheerful voice. "Don't be

alarmed; you are very safe. Come in here." And he carried her into the

next room--the little drawing-room--and laid her, with her baby on her

arm, on the sofa. He summoned a comrade, who was in the road. They

pulled up the drugget from the floor, doubled it again, laid it over

her, and tucked it nicely in, as if there was no hurry.

"Now, madam," said he, "where shall we carry you?" She was carried

through damp and dusk to her father's house. Her mother was not there.

Such news spreads, nobody knows how. Her mother was then in the streets

without her bonnet, imploring every body she met to save her child. She

presently encountered one of the sailors, returning to the fire. He

assured her the lady and child were safe, and sent her home. Mr. Carey

was almost as much beside himself. His first idea was, that it was Mr.

Ellison who had, by some awkwardness, set his house on fire; and he said

so, very publicly; and very sorry he was for it afterward.

Mr. Ellison was called from the dinner-table, and told he was wanted at

home. He strode along, in a bewildered state, till he saw the flames

from a distance. As he stood before the cottage, which was now one

blaze, nobody could tell him where his wife was. He was trying to break

from many hands, and enter the house, when some one at last came up with

the news of the safety of his wife and babe. As for the servant, it was

some days before she was heard of; and there were serious apprehensions

about her, when her aunt came in from the country, to say that the poor

creature had fled to her, and would never come near the town, or see any

of the family again. Nobody wondered that she said she should never be

happy again.

Joanna seemed to be really no worse for the adventure; and for some days

it was confidently believed that the infant would do well, though it was

severely scalded. Every thing was lost--every article of clothing of all

three, all the pretty gifts, all the furniture, two precious portraits,

all Mr. Ellison's books and manuscripts. But he was so happy and

thankful that his chief treasures were saved, that he never preached

more nobly than on the next Sunday, without a scrap of notes;--he who

took such pains with his sermons, and never preached extempore! It was

from the abundance of his heart that he spoke.

"I have to beg your pardon, Ellison," said Mr. Carey, "for what I said

in the first moments of misery."

"It was natural--it was not doing me wrong; for my mother used to say

that I did awkward things sometimes; that I was not expert; and it

appears to me that I really have erred." And the good man went on to

blame himself for having no furniture and clothes to give Joanna, no

piano, no books! His landlord was no loser by the fire, while he was

destitute. In short, Mr. Ellison was full of remorse for not having

insured. All the ladies of his acquaintance were stitching away in his

and his wife's behalf; but this was rather an aggravation than a

comfort; and he fully intended to effect an insurance, both against fire

(when he should again be settled) and on his life. Still, Mr. Carey told

his wife, with a shake of the head, that his impression was that it

would never be done.

All such thoughts were presently banished. The baby did not get through.

After pining for ten days, she died. Then it was that the pastor's fine

qualities manifested themselves. He surrendered so patiently a happiness

and hope which had really become very dear to his heart; he supported

Joanna so tenderly; he considered the whole family so much more than

himself, that Mr. Carey vowed he would never more be vexed or ashamed at

the peculiarities of such a man.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

Nobody would hear of the pastor going into furnished lodgings. The

pastor and his wife would not hear of Mr. Carey's furnishing another

house for them. Joanna was allowed to draw half her little fortune to

buy furniture and clothes, and a few indispensable books for her

husband. Thus, their income was reduced by twenty-five pounds, and the

half of the principal was gone. If that twenty-five pounds of lost

income had been devoted to a life insurance, it would, at Mr. Ellison's

present age, have secured one thousand pounds at his death. Thus he had,

by neglect, in fact, thrown away one thousand five hundred pounds of

future provision for his family. The present was not the easiest moment

for contracting new obligations; but the duty was clear, even to the

unpractical mind of the pastor. He went to London to effect his

insurances, and his wife went with him partly for change of scene and

thoughts, and partly because she knew that her husband could never get

through the business by himself.

It was not got through, after all. One pious friend had affected them

with fears, that they would find it an ensnaring bondage to worldly

things to have to think of the payment of the annual premium; another

thought it was speculating in God's will; another assured them that they

could not spare the money, and should provide for their own household,

and hospitality to neighbors, to-day, instead of taking thought for the

morrow. They returned without having been near an insurance-office at

all. The Careys thought this a sad mistake, and pointed out to them the

peace of mind they would lose by the precariousness of their fortunes,

and the ease with which the business might be managed, by the trustees

of the chapel being authorized to deduct the necessary sum from the

pastor's salary, and the pastor's way of living being proportioned to an

income of three hundred pounds a year. It was certain that Mr. Ellison

would never lay by money in any other way than this; for he could never

see a beggar without giving him whatever he had in his pocket.

It may be observed, that insurance was a more onerous matter in those

days than in ours. Science has introduced much ease and many varieties

into the process of insurance. The rates of premium in Mr. Ellison's

younger days were higher; the methods were restricted; middle-class men

drank more, and taxed their brother insurers for their accelerated

mortality, though precautions were taken against obviously fatal

intemperance. The "bondage," that friends talked of, was greater, and

the advantages were less, than at present. If Mr. Ellison was wrong in

his delays and hesitation, much more are family men wrong who delay and

hesitate now.

Time went on, and Joanna was made happy by the birth of a son. During

the whole period of her confinement, her husband refused to leave the

house, except on Sundays; and he went about, many times in the day, from

the attics to the cellars, with his nose in the air, trying to smell

fire. There was none, however, to reward his anxious search. No accident

happened. The mother and child throve without drawback; and a finer

little fellow really was never seen.

For two years--two precious years--all went well. Then came one of those

seasons of unhealthiness which occur at intervals, as if to warn men of

their ignorance of the laws on which their life depends, and to rebuke

their carelessness about observing such conditions of health as they do

understand. No town was less prepared to encounter an onset of autumnal

fever than that in which the Ellisons lived. It had no right to expect

health at any time: the history of the place told of plague in old

times, and every epidemic which visited England became a pestilence amid

its ill-drained streets, its tidal expanse of mud, and its crowded

alleys. These were the times when the beloved pastor's fidelity shone

out. For weeks he was, night and day, in close attendance on the poor of

his flock; and any other poor who were needing help. He could not aid

them in the way that a more practical man would have done; but Joanna

supplied that kind of ability, while the voice of her husband carried

peace and support into many a household, prostrated in grief and dread.

He ran far greater risks all the while than he needed, if he could have

been taught common prudence. He forgot to eat, and went into

unwholesome chambers with an empty stomach and an exhausted frame. In

spite of his wife's watchfulness, he omitted to give himself the easy

advantages of freshened air, change of clothes, and a sufficiency of

wholesome food; and, for one week, he hardly came home to sleep. It was

no wonder that, at last, both were down in the fever. The best care

failed to save Joanna. She died without having bidden farewell to

husband and child. Her husband was in bed delirious, and her boy was in

the country, whither he had been taken for safety when the fever entered

the house.

Mr. Ellison recovered slowly, as might be expected, from the weight upon

his mind. There was something strange, it appeared to his physician, in

his anxiety to obtain strength to go to London. He was extremely

pertinacious about this. The Careys, glad to see that he could occupy

himself with any project, humored this, without understanding it. They

spoke as if he was going to London when he should be strong enough. They

did not dream of his not waiting for this. But, in the dark, damp

evening of the day when he dismissed his physician, after Mrs. Carey had

gone home, leaving him on the sofa, and promising that her husband

should call after tea, he was seen at the coach-office, in the

market-place; and he made a night-journey to London.

There were no railways in those days; and this journey of one hundred

miles required twelve hours by the "Expedition," the "Highflyer," the

"Express," or whatever the fastest coach might be called. As soon as he

arrived, Mr. Ellison swallowed a cup of coffee in the bar of the inn,

had a coach called, and proceeded to an insurance-office to insure his

life. As he presented himself, emaciated and feeble, unwashed, unshaven,

with a crimson handkerchief tied over his white lips, which quivered

when he uncovered them; as he told his errand, in a weak and husky

voice, the clerks of the office stared at him in pitying wonder; and the

directors dismissed him from their parlor, under the gentlest pretexts

they could devise.

He returned home immediately, and told his adventure to Mr. Carey.

"I could not rest till I had made the effort," he said. "When dear

Joanna was gone, and I believed that I should follow her, it occurred to

me that our child would be left destitute. I saw that I had neglected my

duty; and I resolved that, if I recovered, it should be so no longer. I

have made the effort; it has failed; and God's will be done!"

Mr. Carey would not allow that the matter must be given up. In fact,

there was no difficulty in effecting the insurance, in the next spring,

when Mr. Ellison was restored to his ordinary state of health, and Mr.

Carey was his guide and helper in the business. The interest of Joanna's

little portion was appropriated for the purpose, with a small addition,

rendered necessary by the lapse of three years. It is well known that

the most unworldly and unapt persons are the most proud of any act of

prudence or skill that they may have been able to achieve. So it was in

this case. When the pastor sat gazing at his child, it appeared to him a

marvelous thing that he, even he, should have endowed any human being

with a fortune. He was heard to say to himself, on such occasions, in a

tone of happy astonishment,

"A thousand pounds! Ha! a thousand pounds!"

We can not here follow out the curious process of that boy's rearing. We

have not space to tell how tenderly he was watched by grand-mamma, and

by Charlotte, till her marriage gave her cares of her own:--nor what a

stroke it was when Mr. Ellison moved to a distant city, being invited to

a higher post in the ministry of his sect; nor how curiously he and his

child lived in a lodging, where, notwithstanding all his efforts to fill

the place of both parents, his boy was too often seen in rags; nor how

the child played leap-frog and other games with little beggars and

ruffians in the streets, so cleverly, that his father might be seen

gazing at him from the foot-pavement, in a rapture of admiration; nor

how, on the great occasion of the little lad's first going to chapel, he

told every body within reach, that it was "Pa" in the pulpit; nor how,

when he was tired of the sermon, he was wont to scrape the sand from the

floor, and powder with it the wigs of the old men who sat in the long

pew before him; nor how, at length, the importunity of friends prevailed

to get him sent to school; nor how comfortably his father was boarded in

a private family when the lodging plan became too bad to be borne even

by him. All this we must leave undescribed; and also his satisfaction

when, in a later time--when his son was grown up, and prosperous, and

well married--the good pastor found himself at liberty to do, if he

should wish it, what he had always thought ministers had better do,

leave the pulpit before they were worn out--before any body had begun to

look for their wearing out. The "dear child," as he still calls the

father of his grand-children, early persuaded his father to take

advantage of that modern improvement by which his life insurance can be

commuted into an annuity at sixty years of age, if he should attain it,

or receivable in full, if that method should be preferred. A small

independence being thus secured, if he lives to leave the pulpit at

sixty, and a legacy to his son, if he dies before that time, Mr. Ellison

feels more free from worldly cares than is often the case with

dissenting ministers who begin the world without fortune, and with

thoughts far above the lucre of gain.

No one wonders that he never seemed to think of marrying again. Before

his removal, the name of his "dear Joanna" was often on his lips. After

his removal, it was never again heard, except on the rare occasions of

his meeting old friends. He did not speak of her to those who had never

known her; but not the less was her image understood to be ever in his

thoughts.

LAMARTINE ON THE RESTORATION.[8]

[8] "History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France," by Alphonse De

Lamartine. 12mo. Harper and Brothers.

An able critic in a recent English journal, remarks as follows, on the

last brilliant work of Lamartine on "The History of the Restoration:"

Whatever may be said of the author of this volume as a politician, and

however much his capabilities for legislation may be despised, he ranks

as a first class historian, and as the most brilliant foreign writer of

the present day, both of his country's annals, romance, and poetry. If

M. Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" excited immense interest, his

"History of the Restoration of the Monarchy" is calculated to produce a

much greater enthusiasm. The manner in which he details the thrilling

events which succeeded the conclusion of the Reign of Terror in the

former work, and the opening of the Consulate, has been spoken of by

critics of all shades of politics as unique, as perfect in style and

comprehensive in detail; but we doubt very much whether it will not be

universally acknowledged that in all these points the new effort

surpasses the older. The praise of such a work is best accorded by

extracts from its own pages. Such extracts speak for themselves, and

award far more valuable encomiums than any which those whose office it

is to sit in judgment upon their characteristics can do. We present the

following account of the arrest and murder of the young Duke d'Enghien,

a crime which Europe has very justly never forgiven, and by which the

character of Napoleon has been forever blasted. We had thought that a

more vivid picture of this act of treachery could not by any possibility

have been written than that which appears in the tale of Maurice

Tierney, the Soldier of Fortune; but every thing which has been there

said, or has been elsewhere written concerning that event, gives place

to this vivid picture drawn by Lamartine, while his opinion respecting

the dark deed itself, and the villainy by which it was accomplished,

will ever stamp him as a man of the most honorable mind, and as a truly

noble-hearted Frenchman.

ARREST AND MURDER OF THE DUKE D'ENGHIEN.

"Ordener set out on the same night, that of the 10th and 11th of March,

and arrived on the 12th at Strassburg. He held a council on his arrival

with General Leval, Charlot, the colonel of gendarmes, and the

commissary of police, and they resolved to precede and facilitate the

nocturnal expedition by a minute reconnoitring of the scene of action.

An agent of police named Stahl, and a non-commissioned officer of the

gendarmerie, named Pfersdoff, were dispatched on the instant, and

marching all night, arrived at eight o'clock in the morning at

Ettenheim. They strolled with an affectation of indifference about the

house of the Prince, in order to make themselves well acquainted with

the approaches to it. The Prince's valet-de-chambre, concealed behind a

window, observed these two strangers walking round the walls, and

intently noting the objects of their mission. He called another of the

servants, named Cannone, and communicated his anxieties to him. Cannone

was an old soldier and companion of the Prince from his earliest

infancy. He had fought with him in all his campaigns, and had saved his

life in Poland, by covering him with his sabre and his person. He

fancied that he remembered having somewhere seen the face of Pfersdoff,

and thought he recognized in him a gendarme in disguise. He hastened to

inform the Prince, who, with the thoughtlessness of his age, disdained

to pay any attention to these symptoms of espionage. Nevertheless, an

officer of his army, named Schmidt, went out and accosted Stahl and

Pfersdoff, and questioned them with an appearance of unconcern,

pretending that he was going their way, and accompanied them for more

than a league; but at last seeing them take a road which led into the

interior of Germany, instead of returning toward the Rhine, he felt

re-assured, and returned to tranquilize the servants and retainers at

Ettenheim. But the anxieties of love are not so easily set at rest as

those of friendship. The Princess Charlotte de Rohan was filled with a

presentiment of danger, and begged the Prince would absent himself for a

few days from a residence where he was so evidently watched, and

possibly with a criminal intention. Out of affection for her, rather

than from uneasiness on his own account, the duke consented to absent

himself for two or three days, and it was settled that he should set out

the third morning after, on a long hunting excursion in the forests of

the Grand Duke of Baden, during which the suspicions of his betrothed

would be either dissipated or verified; but it was fated that, the third

morning should not dawn on him in Germany.... On the evening of the

14th, General Ordener, accompanied by General Fririon, chief of General

Leval's staff, and by Charlot, colonel of gendarmes, set out in the dark

toward the ferry of Rheinau on the Rhine, and found there, at the

appointed hour, the 300 dragoons of the 26th, 15 ferrymen, the five

large boats, and, lastly, the 30 mounted gendarmes destined to be

employed in the violation of dwellings and seizure of persons, in an

expedition more worthy of lictors than of soldiers. The Rhine was

crossed in silence at midnight, and the column, unperceived during the

sleep of the German peasants on the right bank, and guided by different

roads, arrived, as the day was breaking, at Ettenheim. The spies, whom

Ordener and Charlot had brought with them, pointed out to the gendarmes

the houses which were to be invested.... The Duke d'Enghien, who had

spent the evening before at the house of the Prince Rohan-Rochefort,

with the Princess Charlotte, had promised her to absent himself for a

few days, to allow time for the plots against his safety, of which she

was apprehensive, either to evaporate or be unraveled. He was

accordingly about to start at sunrise, with Colonel Grunstein, one of

his friends, on his hunting excursion for several days. He had already

left his bed, and was dressing himself, and preparing his arms.

Grunstein, contrary to his usual custom, had slept under the same roof

with the Prince, that he might be the sooner ready to escort him. This

companion of his own, on the battle-field and in the chase, was also

half-dressed, when the tramp of horses and the sight of dragoons and

gendarmes made the rest of the household start from their sleep. Feron,

the most familiar servant of the Prince, flew to the chamber of his

young master, and announced to him that the court-yard and garden were

surrounded at every outlet by French soldiers, and that the officer

commanding them was loudly calling on the servants to open the doors,

declaring that in case of refusal, he would have them broken open with

hatchets. 'Well, then, we must defend ourselves,' exclaimed the

undaunted young man, and saying these words, he seized his

double-barreled fowling-piece, ready loaded with ball for the chase,

while Cannone, his other servant, animated with the same determination

as his master, possessed himself of another fowling-piece, and Grunstein

entering the chamber at that moment, armed in a like manner, the whole

then darted to the windows to fire. The Prince leveled at Colonel

Chariot, who threatened the door, and was about to stretch him dead on

the threshold, when Grunstein, perceiving on all sides a host of helmets

and sabres, and seeing another detachment of gendarmes already masters

of one of the wings of the chateau, seized the barrel of the Prince's

fowling-piece, and throwing the gun upward, showed the Duke d'Enghien,

by signs, the uselessness of resistance against such overwhelming

numbers, and prevented his firing. 'My lord,' he said, 'have you in any

way committed yourself?'--'No,' replied the duke. 'Well, then, that

being the case, do not attempt a hopeless struggle. We are hemmed in by

a complete wall of troops. See how their bayonets glisten on every

side.' The Prince was turning round to reply to these words when he

beheld Pfersdoff, whom he recognized as the spy of the day before,

accompanied by gendarmes with presented carbines, rush into his room. He

was followed by Col. Charlot, who, with his soldiers, seized and

disarmed the Prince, together with Grunstein, Feron, and Cannone. The

Duke, as we have seen, was ready to set out, and was thus lost by the

delay of only a few moments. He was dressed in the costume of a Tyrolean

hunter, wearing a handsome gold-laced cap, with long gaiters of chamois

skin buckled at the knees; and the manly beauty and dauntless expression

of his features, heightened by the excitement of the surprise, and

determination to resist, struck the soldiers with astonishment. In the

midst of such a scene, and the tramp of feet and clatter of arms in the

house, the sound of a disturbance without for a moment inspired the

Prince and his followers with a hope of deliverance. Loud cries of fire

issued from the village, and these cries were re-echoed from house to

house, like a tocsin of human voices. Windows were thrown open, and

doorways filled with the inhabitants aroused by the invasion of the

French. Half naked mechanics were seen running to the steeple to ring

the bells, and summon the peasants to vengeance. Colonel Charlot,

however, had them seized, and also arrested the master of the hounds of

the Duke of Baden, who, on hearing of the disturbance, was hastening to

the house of the Prince, and who was told by Charlot that what was

taking place had been mutually agreed upon by the First Consul and his

sovereign. On hearing this falsehood, the excitement of the inhabitants

subsided, and they submitted, with looks of sorrow and expressions of

grief, to the misfortune of a young man who had rendered himself an

object of the deepest regard.... The Prince was dragged away from his

residence, without being permitted to take a last farewell of her whom

he left swooning and in tears."

Bonaparte had determined on the duke's death, and his ministers and

judges received their instructions to that effect. The midnight trial,

the despicable meanness of the tribunal, the heroic attitude of the

young Condé, are vividly depicted in this volume: but we pass on to the

_dénouement_ of the plot.

"As soon as the judgment was pronounced, and even before it was drawn

up, Hullin sent to inform Savary and the Judge Advocate of the sentence

of death, in order that they might take their measures for its

execution. It seemed as if the time was equally pressing to the tribunal

as to those who awaited their decision, and as if an invisible genius

was hurrying along the acts, formalities, and hours, in order that the

morning's sun might not witness the deeds of the night. Hullin and his

colleagues remained in the hall of council, and drew up at random the

judgment they had just given; and this short and unskillfully prepared

document (summing up a whole examination in two questions and two

answers) terminated with the order to execute the sentence forthwith.

Savary had not waited for this order to be written before he prepared

for its execution, and had already marked out the spot. The court and

the esplanade being encumbered with troops, by the presence of the

brigade of infantry, and the legion of gendarmes d'élite, no safe place

could be found there in which the fire of a platoon did not run the risk

of striking a soldier or a spectator. No doubt it was also feared that

too great publicity would thus be given to the murder in the midst of an

army; that the scene of the execution was too distant from the place of

sepulture; and that feelings of pity and horror would pervade the ranks

at the sight of this young man's mangled corpse. The moat of the

chateau, however, offered the means of avoiding all these dangers, as it

would conceal the murder as well as the victim. This place was

accordingly chosen. Harel received orders to give up the keys of the

steps and iron gateways, which descended from the towers and opened on

the foundation of the chateau to point out the different outlets and

sites, and to procure a gravedigger to commence digging a grave while

the man for whom it was intended still breathed. A poor working gardener

of the chateau, named Bontemps, was awakened, and his work pointed out

to him. He was furnished with a lantern to guide him through the

labyrinth of the moat, and light him while he dug it up. Bontemps

descended with his shovel and pickax to the bottom of the moat, and

finding the ground all about dry and hard, he recollected that they had

begun to dig a trench the evening before, at the foot of the Queen's

Pavilion, in the angle formed by the tower and a little wall

breast-high, for the purpose, it was said, of depositing rubbish in it.

He accordingly went to the foot of the tower, marked out in paces the

measure of a man's body extended at length, and dug in the earth that

had been already moved a grave for the corpse they were preparing for

it. The Duke d'Enghien could have heard from his window, over the

humming noise of the troops below, the dull and regular sound of the

pickax which was digging his last couch. Savary, at the same time,

marched down and arranged slowly in the moat the detachments of troops

who were to witness this military death, and ordered the firing party to

load their muskets. The Prince was far from suspecting either so much

rigor or so much haste on the part of his judges. He did not doubt that

even a sentence of death, if awarded by the commission, would give

occasion for an exhibition of magnanimity on the part of the First

Consul. He had granted an amnesty to emigrants taken with arms in their

hands; how could it be doubted, then, that he who pardoned obscure and

culpable exiles, would not honor himself by an act of justice or

clemency toward an illustrious prince, beloved by all Europe, and

innocent of all crime? He had been taken back, after his interrogatories

and his appearance before the military commission, into the room where

he had slept. He entered it without exhibiting any of that fright which

prisoners experience in the anxiety and uncertainty of their sentence.

With a serene countenance and unoccupied mind, he conversed with his

gendarmes, and played with his dog. Lieutenant Noirot who was on guard

over him, had formerly served in a regiment of cavalry commanded by a

colonel who was a friend of the Prince of Condé. He had also seen the

Duke d'Enghien, when a child, sometimes accompany his father to reviews

and field days of the regiment; and he reminded the Prince of that

period and these circumstances of his youth. The duke smiled at these

reminiscences, and renewed them himself by other recollections of his

infancy, which mingled with those of Noirot. He inquired, with a

curiosity full of interest, about the career of this officer since that

epoch; of the campaigns he had made; of the battles in which he had been

engaged; of the promotion he had received; of his present rank, his

expectations, and his partiality for the service. He seemed to find a

lively pleasure in this conversation on the past with a brave officer,

who spoke to him with the accent and the heart of a man who would gladly

indulge in pity, were it not for the severity of duty. A noise of

footsteps, advancing slowly toward the chamber, interrupted this

agreeable and last indulgence of captivity. It was the commandant of

Vincennes, Harel, accompanied by the brigadier of the gendarmerie of the

village, Aufort. This friend of Harel's had been permitted to remain in

one of the commandant's rooms, after having ordered the Prince's supper,

and from thence he had heard or seen all the events of the night. Harel,

agitated and trembling at the mission he had to fulfill, had permitted

Aufort to follow and assist him in his message to the prisoner. They

saluted the Prince respectfully; but neither of them had the firmness to

acquaint him with the truth. The dejected attitude and trembling voice

of Harel alone revealed to the eye and to the heart of the Prince a

fatal presentiment of the rigor of his judges. He thought they now came

for him only to hear his sentence read. Harel desired him, on the part

of the tribunal, to follow him, and he went before with a lantern in his

hand, through the corridors, the passages, and the courts it was

necessary to cross, to arrive at the building called the 'Devil's

Tower.' The interior of this tower contained the only staircase and the

only door descending to, and opening into, the lowest moat. The Prince

appeared to hesitate two or three times on going into this suspicious

tower, like a victim which smells the blood, and which resists and turns

back its head on crossing the threshold of a slaughter-house. Harel and

Aufort preceded the duke in silence down the steps of the narrow winding

staircase, which descended to a postern through the massy walls of this

tower. The Prince, with an instinctive horror of the place, and of the

depth beneath the soil to which the steps were leading him, began to

think they were not conducting him before the judges, but into the hands

of murderers, or to the gloom of a prison. He trembled in all his limbs,

and convulsively drew back his foot as he addressed his guides in front:

'Where are you conducting me?' he demanded, with a stifled voice. 'If it

is to bury me alive in a dungeon, I would rather die this instant.'

'Sir,' replied Harel, turning round, 'follow me, and summon up all your

courage.' The Prince partly comprehended him, and followed. They at

length issued from the winding staircase, through a low postern which

opened on the bottom of the moat, and continued walking for some time in

the dark, along the foot of the lofty walls of the fortress, as far as

the basement of the Queen's Pavilion. When they had turned the angle of

this pavilion, which concealed another part of the moat behind its

walls, the Prince suddenly found himself in front of the detachment of

the troops drawn up to witness his death. The firing party selected for

the execution was separated from the rest; and the barrels of their

muskets, reflecting the dull light of some lanterns carried by a few of

the attendants, threw a sinister glare on the moat, the massy walls,

and the newly-dug grave. The Prince stopped at a sign from his guides,

within a few paces of the firing party. He saw his fate at a glance, but

he neither trembled nor turned pale. A slight and chilling rain was

falling from a gloomy sky, and a melancholy silence reigned throughout

the moat. Nothing disturbed the horror of the scene but the whispering

and shuffling feet of a few groups of officers and soldiers who had

collected upon the parapets above, and on the drawbridge which led into

the forest of Vincennes. Adjutant Pelle, who commanded the detachment,

advanced, with his eyes lowered, toward the Prince. He held in his hand

the sentence of the military commission, which he read in a low, dull

voice, but perfectly intelligible. The Prince, listened without making

an observation or losing his firmness. He seemed to have collected in an

instant all his courage, and all the military heroism of his race, to

show his enemies that he knew how to die. Two feelings alone seemed to

occupy him during the moment of intense silence which followed the

reading of his sentence; one was to invoke the aid of religion to soothe

his last struggle, and the other to communicate his dying thoughts to

her he was going to leave desolate on the earth. He accordingly asked if

he could have the assistance of a priest, but there was none in the

castle; and though a few minutes would suffice to call the curé of

Vincennes, they were too much pressed for time, and too anxious to avail

themselves of the night which was to cover every thing. The officers

nearest to him made a sign that he must renounce this consolation; and

one brutal fellow from the midst of a group called out in a tone of

irony, 'Do you wish, then, to die like a Capuchin?' The Prince raised

his head with an air of indignation, and turning toward the group of

officers and gendarmes who had accompanied him to the ground, he asked,

in a loud voice, if there was any one among them willing to do him one

last service. Lieutenant Noirot advanced from the group, and approached

him, thus sufficiently evincing his intention. The Prince said a few

words to him in a low voice, and Noirot, turning toward the side

occupied by the troops, said, 'Gendarmes, have any of you got a pair of

scissors about you?' The gendarmes searched their cartridge-boxes, and a

pair of scissors was passed from hand to hand to the Prince. He took off

his cap, cut off one of the locks of his hair, drew a letter from his

pocket, and a ring from his finger, then folding the hair, the letter,

and the ring in a sheet of paper, he gave the little packet, his sole

inheritance, to Lieutenant Noirot, charging him, in the name of pity for

his situation and his death, to send them to the young Princess

Charlotte de Rohan, at Ettenheim. This love message being thus confided,

he collected himself for a moment, with his hands joined, to offer up a

last prayer, and in a low voice commended his soul to God. He then made

five or six paces to place himself in front of the firing party, whose

loaded muskets he saw glimmering at a short distance. The light of a

large lantern containing several candles, placed upon the little wall

that stood over the open grave, gleamed full upon him, and lighted the

aim of the soldiers. The firing party retired a few paces to a proper

distance, the adjutant gave the word to fire, and the young Prince, as

if struck by a thunderbolt, fell upon the earth, without a cry and

without a struggle. At that moment the clock of the castle struck the

hour of three. Hullin and his colleagues were waiting in the vestibule

of Harel's quarters for their carriage to convey them back to Paris, and

were talking with some bitterness of Savary's refusal to transmit their

letter to his master, when an unexpected explosion, resounding from the

moat of the forest gate, made them start and tremble, and taught them

that judges should never reckon upon any thing but justice and their own

conscience. This still small voice pursued them through their lives. The

Duke d'Enghien was no more. His dog, which had followed him into the

moat, yelled when he saw him fall, and threw himself on the body of his

master. It was with difficulty the poor animal could be torn away from

the spot, and given to one of the Prince's servants, who took him to the

Princess Charlotte--the only messenger from that tomb where slept the

hapless victim whom she never ceased to deplore."

THE CAPTAIN'S SELF-DEVOTION.[9]

[9] Translated from a new volume of Tales by Fanny Lewald.

Some twenty years ago my father had a new ship launched from the stocks.

A large company had assembled at our house to witness the ceremony of

christening the vessel, and afterward to celebrate the marriage of the

captain who was to take command of her. He had been for a long time in

my father's service, had been uniformly successful in his voyages, and

was just the man to take charge of a new enterprise on the western coast

of Africa.

Captain Jan Evers, from the time when he first went to sea as cabin-boy,

had lived but little at home, with the exception of the time which he

subsequently passed with his parents, while he was attending his course

at the Navigation School of Hamburg, in order to prepare for his

examination as pilot. His parents owned a bit of ground in the village

of Neumühlen, the long rows of houses of which stretch along the mouth

of the Elbe, beyond Altona. After the death of the old people, the house

stood for a long while uninhabited; until, in the year of which I now

speak, the captain, who had returned from a voyage, concluded, at the

desire of my father, not to go to sea again, until his new ship should

be ready. This induced him to have the long-closed shutters of his house

opened, in order to take up his own residence there; for he had never

rented it.

You must be aware of the extraordinary cleanliness of the northern

sea-ports, and must have seen how the sailors love to have their houses

as neat as their ships; and how in Neumühlen, where many captains and

pilots have their little estates, the houses seem to shine with the

incessant care bestowed upon them, in order to comprehend how vexed Jan

Evers was when he found his long-deserted house to have suffered sadly

from neglect. The little garden-plot before the door, which is never

wanting, was full of weeds; the boughs of the fine linden had run wild

all about, and shaded the chambers, which had thereby grown mouldy, so

that the green paint on the walls had contracted ugly yellow stains. The

whole aspect of the house made a melancholy impression, and even the

Chinese mandarin which was still standing upon the walnut buffet, where

Jan used to see it when a child, seemed to nod its head gloomily when

Jan once more took possession of his paternal abode.

The captain, who was a fresh jolly fellow of some forty years old, was

no longer the same man after he had passed a couple of weeks there. He

grew moody, peevish, and barely civil; and my father often lamented the

impatience with which he awaited the completion of the ship, in order to

be off again.

One day Evers came to our house at an unusual hour, and desired to see

my father, who at that time of day was not usually in his counting-room,

but with his family. The captain was shown in, and after we children had

been sent away, at his desire, he said:

"I have something to say to you which it is best your good lady should

hear, too. I have just come from the dock-yard, where I have been

looking at the ship. It will be two months before she will be off the

stocks. Then it will be too late to go to sea, even if you should have

her rigged upon the stocks. I can't get off till spring; and I can't

hold out so long as that. If I only had my fellows of the Fortune

here"--(this was the name of the vessel he had last commanded)--"if I

only had them with me in Neumühlen, it would be all right: but I grow

down in the mouth there, it is so quiet. I'd rather be on a sand-island,

alone with the seals and the sea-mews, under the open heavens, than

among all those nicknacks of my little house, which must be used, and

which I can't use. And so, I thought I'd ask you--"

"If you couldn't be off!" interrupted my father. "Surely, Evers, you are

not thinking of that in earnest, are you?"

"No, I am not thinking of that. I have agreed to take command of the new

ship; and I am in the habit of keeping my word. But I thought I would

ask--" here he stopped, twirled his hat about in his hand, turned to my

mother, and continued--"what you think about it--whether I hadn't better

get married?"

It seemed as though a great load was taken from his mind, when he had

got out these words. He had his house, a pretty little property, and was

a good-looking, noble fellow, and bid fair to make an excellent husband;

and so my mother advised him earnestly to carry his design into

execution; asking him whether he had yet found a girl whom he could wish

to marry.

"Will you give me Marie?" asked he.

Marie was the daughter of a woman who had attended me and my sisters,

and who had long been dead. My parents had brought Marie up, and she

served my mother as chambermaid; but was looked upon as one of the

family, and was very dear to us all. She was about four-and-twenty years

old, and might be considered a very pretty girl. My mother said, that

she thought a marriage between Marie and the captain would be altogether

proper, notwithstanding he was considerably the older; and Evers begged

her to be his spokeswoman with Marie.

"Tell her," said he, "that I have liked her for many years; that always

when I have returned from a voyage, I have been glad to look upon her

again; that when I have been in foreign ports, and have seen other

captains buying presents for their wives and children, I have often

thought: Could you but do so, and make others happy--but for whom? I

have grieved that I was unmarried; and at sea in stormy weather, I have

fallen asleep imagining myself, some time or other, reposing with my

wife and children. But as soon as I came into port, I have always been

obliged to set sail again forthwith, and have forgotten all about

getting married, as I had to be off so soon again, and must see to

getting the cargo on board. But now I have time to think about it, and I

like Marie very much? I will try to make her happy. You can assure her

of that."

Marie was asked, and very gladly said Yes. The captain had his house set

in order; the rooms were newly painted, the garden attended to, the

linden pruned; while Marie arranged the stores of linen and plate left

by her deceased parents-in-law, with the pleasurable feeling of

ownership. And so came the day when the ship was to be launched, and the

pair were to be united.

We all went to the dock; my parents conveyed the young pair in a

carriage, and the guests followed. We went on board the ship, the young

couple preceding, then my parents, and the guests. The vessel was

christened by the name of "Young Couple." We all burst out into loud

huzzas, swung our glasses and our hats, and hurried from the stern,

where the ceremony took place, to the bows, to remain there during the

launch. The steps were removed; the ways in which the keel was to run

were slushed with soap and tallow; the sound of the ax was heard,

knocking away the last blocks; the line was cast off; one blow of an ax,

and amid the huzzas of the carpenters, sailors, and spectators, the

noble vessel shot into the water. Suddenly a shriek was heard; the

bow-line had parted, and the ship, freed from its check, shot across the

river, with such momentum that it struck against the opposite shore, and

stuck fast.

In itself this was no great matter; for it cost little trouble or

expense to tow the vessel back again. But the merriment of the occasion

was interrupted by the shriek, and disturbed by the superstitious belief

that any accident happening at a launch is a bad sign for the vessel. A

silence fell upon the guests; Marie wept, and the captain looked

anxious, for all sailors are more or less superstitious. However, after

the wedding, we grew cheerful again; the young pair went on to

Neumühlen, and the autumn and winter passed away quickly and happily.

Sorrowfully they watched the approach of spring, for the ship was

afloat, her cargo ready, and the anchor was to be weighed as soon as the

Elbe was free from ice.

This took place toward the end of March. For the first time in his life,

the captain left Hamburg with tears in his eyes, after having heartily

commended to my mother the care of his wife, who was expecting her first

child to be born during the course of the summer. If all went well,

tidings of his arrival on the coast of Africa might be looked for about

the time of her confinement; and he had promised to write as soon as

possible, as not only his wife, but our establishment were anxious to

receive letters from him.

But long after Marie had given birth to a boy, no tidings had come from

her husband. Autumn came and was gone; winter came and went, and yet no

intelligence reached us of the ship.

No other vessel had spoken her; she had put in at no other port; not a

trace of her could be discovered; and after a year and a day we were

forced to conclude that she had gone down with all on board. The grief

of the young wife was very deep, though the hope still remained that the

crew might have been saved, and that her husband would return. Thus

passed years, until finally when all imaginable inquiries had been made

in vain, Marie began to grow accustomed to the idea of his loss, and to

look upon herself as a widow.

About this time she became acquainted with man who carried on a small

business in Neumühlen, and who wished to make her his wife. As Evers had

been absent eight years, my parents advised her to consent, especially

as they perceived that such was her own inclination. But before a new

marriage could be contracted, Evers must be judicially pronounced to be

dead. In the present case, after the usual preliminaries, there was no

difficulty; and in the year 1828, Marie was married a second time; her

son by the first marriage being then in his ninth year.

This marriage also proved to be a very happy one; and she had two

children born in the first two years; both of whom survived.

One evening in the autumn of 1830, Marie was holding her youngest child

in her arms, while her husband sat by her upon the sofa, enjoying his

pipe. The elder boy, the son of Evers, was busy at another table, near

which his little sister was playing. A fierce storm was howling without;

the rain and hail rattled against the windows; the night was unusually

dark; and as some draught was felt, even in the well-secured apartment,

Marie told her eldest son to close the shutters. The lad went to the

window, but quickly returned, saying that a man was standing there.

"Let him stand," replied the father, and the boy went back to the window

to close the shutters, when he found that the man had gone. All was

quiet in the room. The boy went back to his occupation; the mother laid

her infant in the cradle, put the girl to bed, and had taken up her

work-basket, when an old woman burst into the room half out of her wits

with excitement, crying, "Madame! Madame! Jan Evers was out there!"

Marie, her husband, and the boy sprang up, and ran to the door. No one

was to be seen. Marie trembled in every limb; the boy stood near her in

utter bewilderment; the husband at last so far recovered himself as to

be able to inquire into the facts of the case.

The old woman who had lived for some years in Neumühlen, and was well

acquainted with all the inhabitants, was almost as much excited and

confounded as her neighbors. Gazing hastily about her all the time, as

though she expected every moment to see the apparition again, she said

that she "was going by for to buy some stuff, and then she saw a man in

a blue jacket, with a nor'wester on his head, a-staring in at your

window, and then it came into my head to come and look in too; and when

the stranger saw me he asked, 'Who lives in this house?' and then I told

him Christian Veltlin did. Then the man went up to the window again and

looked in again, and then he turned about and went away. And then I knew

him by his size, and ran after him, and called out as loud as ever I

could, 'Jan Evers! Jan Evers!' But he wouldn't turn his head round, but

ran on as fast as he could, but I caught him at last at the stairs that

lead from Neumühlen up to the _chaussée_. And then I took hold of him by

the sleeve, and asked him, 'Jan Evers, Jan Evers, where have you come

from?' And then he pushed me away, and growled, 'I don't know nothin'

about your Jan Everses. I'm the bo's'n of the Greenlander over there!'

and then he ran off and left me standing there. But 'twas him, and I ran

over here to tell you all about it."

You may imagine the terror, the agony, and the despair in that little

house. Veltlin, however, in order to soothe his wife, argued with her

how improbable was the return of Evers, and how easily the old woman

might have been deceived. Yet he was himself greatly troubled, and on

the following morning, as early as possible, he and his wife came to my

father to lay the matter before him, and to ask his advice.

My father advised them, first and foremost, to keep silent about the

whole affair; but it was too late for that, for the old woman had told

all Neumühlen what had happened. New inquiries were at once set on foot

after the reputedly dead Jan Evers. But they were just as fruitless as

the former ones had been; and after a while Marie and Veltlin began to

grow composed, convinced that the old woman must have been deceived by

some strange resemblance. Peace and joy returned to the little

household, and the marriage was never disturbed up to the time of

Marie's death, which took place last summer.

After that event a document was transmitted to me by the magistracy of

the capital, where, it seems, Jan had passed his last years, under an

assumed name. By this document, executed upon his death-bed, he

constituted all the children of Marie Veltlin heirs to his little

property; but with the express provision that the will should not be

made public till after the death of Marie. Then it was known, for the

first time, that the old woman was right. Jan Evers had most

magnanimously sacrificed himself for his wife, and had lived and died

alone and among strangers, although he was fully aware that a son had

been born to him, who had lived to grow up.

THE EAGLE AND THE SWAN.

(_From the German._)

THE SWAN.

My tranquil life is passed the waves among,

Light ripples tracing as I glide along,

And the scarce ruffled tide, as in a glass,

Reflects my form unaltered as I pass!

THE EAGLE.

In the clefts of the rocks my wild dwelling I form,

I sail through the air on the wings of the storm,

'Mid dangers and combats I dart on my prey,

And trust the bold pinion that bears me away!

THE SWAN.

Won by the charm of Ph[oe]bus, in the wave

Of heavenly harmony I dare to lave,

Couched at his feet, I listen to the lays,

In Tempè's vale, that echo to his praise!

THE EAGLE.

I perch at the right hand of Jove on his throne,

And the thunderbolt launch when his signal is shown,

And my heavy wings droop, when in slumber I lie,

O'er the sceptre that sways the wide earth from on high!

THE SWAN.

_Me_ charms the heaven's blue arch, serene and bland,

And odorous flowers attract me to the land

While basking in the sun's departing beams,

I stretch my white wings o'er the purpled streams!

THE EAGLE.

I exult in the tempest, triumphant and bold,

When the oaks of the forest it rends from their hold,

I demand of the thunder--the spheres when it shakes--

If, like me, a wild joy in destruction it takes!

THE SWAN.

Oft in the glassy tide the stars I view,

And that blue heav'n the waves give back anew.

And dim regret recalls me to the home

In higher spheres, reluctant whence I roam!

THE EAGLE.

With joy, from the hour that my young life begun,

I have soared to the skies--I have gazed on the sun.

I can not stoop down to the dust of the earth--

Allied to the gods, I exult in my birth!

THE SWAN.

When a calm death succeeds to tranquil life,

Its links detaching without pain or strife,

And to my voice restores its primal power,

Its dying tones shall hail the solemn hour!

THE EAGLE.

The soul, like the phoenix, springs forth from the pyre,

All free and unvailed, to the skies to aspire,

To hail the bright vision that bursts on its view,

And its youth at the dark torch of death to renew!

Monthly Record of Current Events.

UNITED STATES.

A new invasion of Cuba, somewhat more formidable, but less successful

even, than the former, has absorbed public attention during the past

month. Immediately after the return of Lopez from his first expedition,

rumors were rife that he was making preparations for another attempt.

These reports, however, attracted comparatively little attention, and no

effective measures were taken to put a stop to proceedings which were so

palpably in violation of our treaty engagements with Spain. The reported

rising of the inhabitants of Cuba at Puerto Principe, which was noticed

in our last Number, and which was grossly exaggerated in public prints

throughout the country, had evidently been regarded by the Cubans in the

United States as eminently favorable to the prosecution of their

purposes. A party of about 480 men, led by Lopez himself, and commanded

by subordinate officers, accordingly embarked on board the steamer

Pampero, at New Orleans, and set out for Cuba. They intended to land in

the central department of the island upon the southern coast, where the

disaffection had been represented as most rife, and where they were,

therefore, most sure of a favorable reception. But on touching at Key

West for supplies, they were informed that a revolt had taken place in

the Vuelta de Abajo, and Lopez accordingly resolved to land in that

district. By some mistake, the nature of which has not been clearly

explained, they missed their point of destination, and landed on the

northern coast of the western department of the Island on the night of

the 11th of August. The shore was deserted and they met no opposition.

General Lopez left Colonel Crittenden at this point with about 100 men

in charge of the stores and unnecessary arms, and advanced with the

remainder of his command to the town of Las Pozas: the inhabitants,

however, fled as he approached, neither joining his standard nor

furnishing him with provisions or encouragement of any sort. The day

after landing, Col. Crittenden was attacked by the Spanish troops--two

bodies of infantry and one company of horse. This force was too strong

for them. After struggling as long as possible, they withdrew from the

field, and finding that neither Lopez himself, who was only three miles

off, nor any of the inhabitants came to their aid, they resolved to

return to the United States. They procured small boats, and had just got

to sea when they were followed and captured on the 15th by the Spanish

steamer Habanero. They were taken to Havana, and, on the 17th, were

shot. It was at first reported that they had no trial, but were shot

immediately, and that their bodies were horribly mutilated and every

possible insult offered to their remains by the Cuban populace. These

statements were, however, afterward contradicted. It was stated that

they were properly tried, and condemned, and that after their execution

they were decently interred. Several of them, and Colonel Crittenden

among the number, wrote letters to their friends at home, all of which

agreed that they had been grossly deceived as to the state of public

feeling in Cuba, and that, so far as could be perceived, not the

slightest disposition prevailed among the inhabitants of the Island to

overthrow the Spanish government.