TWO WHO WOULD EXCHANGE PLACES.
The winds were baffling, and Edmonson and Lord Bulchester had a longer
voyage than they had counted upon. They found it tedious, and it was
with satisfaction that they at last set foot on land and drove through
the streets of Boston to the Royal Exchange. Edmonson's projects
inspired him rather than made him anxious. It was, of course, possible
that Elizabeth Royal might refuse him, but in his heart he had the
attitude of a Londoner toward provincials and was not burdened with
doubts as to the result of his wooing, and so the one necessary grain of
uncertainty only gave flavor to the whole affair.
A few hours after his arrival he left the house to try his fortune.
"I may not be home until late," he said to Bulchester. "I shall tackle
pater-familias first, then the young lady herself. It is possible they
will invite me to tea, you know. Don't wait for me if you find anything
to do or anywhere to go in this puritanical hole." And the young man, in
all the tasteful splendor of attire that the times allowed, closed the
door behind him and left Lord Bulchester looking at the oaken panels
which had suddenly taken the place in which his friend had been
standing, and seeing, not these, but Edmonson's fine figure and his bold
smile.
"No woman can resist his wooing," the nobleman said to himself with a
sigh at the thought of his own indifferent appearance. Therefore it was
with amazement that two hours later coming home from a stroll he learned
that the other had returned, and going to his room found him prone on
the sofa.
"Why! What is the--," he began, then checked himself, considering that
since only failure could be the matter, this was hardly a generous
question.
"Headache," growled Edmonson. "No," he cried with an oath, "that is a
lie," and springing up, turned blood-shot eyes upon his companion. "I am
mad, Bulchester," he cried, "raving mad. It is all over with me in that
quarter."
"She has refused you? Or the father has?"
"Hang it! they couldn't do anything else, either of them. I did not see
Mistress Royal, Mistress Archdale, rather. Yes, married!" as Bulchester
echoed the name. "There's been an interesting drama with one knave and
two fools. If I could only catch the knave! Perhaps it is as well to let
the fools go, since I can't help it." He was silent a moment. Then after
a moment he added. "Well! what is the use of cursing one's luck?" "There
are several others I know of doing the same thing at this moment, and I
like to be original. I declare, if he didn't stand in my way, I should
be tempted to pity young Archdale. He wishes himself in my shoes as
much, and I suspect a good deal more, than I do myself in his. I don't
wonder that the young lady keeps herself retired for a time. I did not
see her, as I told you. Mr. Royal made as light of the matter as
possible, merely saying that something which might prove to have been a
real marriage ceremony, though he thought not, had taken place in a joke
between his daughter and Stephen Archdale, that the matter was to be
thoroughly investigated at once, and if it turned out that Elizabeth was
not Mistress Archdale, I had his permission to receive her answer from
her own lips. He was guarded enough; but on the way home I met Clinton
who had been one of the guests at Mistress Katie's attempted wedding
last week. He gave me details. Here they are." And these details lost
nothing through Edmonson's racy recital of them. "No, Bulchester," he
finished, "out of six people that I could name mixed up in this affair,
on the whole, I am the best off."
"Six?"
"Yes; counting in the love-lorn Waldo; that knave Harwin, who ought to
swing for it; the poor little bride that lost her bridegroom; and the
bridegroom; the young lady that got him when she didn't want him, and
missed me, whom, perhaps (without too much vanity) she did want a
little; and last on the list of wounded spirits, your humble servant.
How wise that man was who said that one sinner destroyed much good. By
the way, Bulchester, who was he? It is an excellent thing to quote in
regard to this affair, and I should like to know where it comes from."
An anxious expression crossed the other's face as he cried:
"Good heavens! Edmonson, if you go to quoting the Bible and asking where
the quotation comes from, you will get into awful disgrace with this
strictest-sect-of-our-religion people, and then what will become of the
other scheme that is bound to pull through?"
"True, most sapient counsellor, and I will be on my guard. To show how I
profit by your sageness, let us drop all thought of this royal maiden
who is probably out of my reach, and attend to the other business. It is
good to have a sympathetic friend, Bul."
They talked for nearly an hour after this, but not about Edmonson's
wooing. When Bulchester left, the other sat looking after him a moment.
"Yes," he said to himself, "it is well to have a sympathetic creature
like that sometimes, but not if one tell him all his heart. I hid my
rage well, I passed it off for mere spleen. But we are not a race to get
over things in that way. It is hate, _hate_, I say," And he ground his
teeth, and again threw himself upon the sofa his face downward and
buried in his hands as if he were meditating deeply.
Edmonson told his friend of having met one of the guests at Katie
Archdale's wedding, but he did not say to him that coming out of Mr.
Royal's house and walking quickly down the street, he had met the
bridegroom himself, and had returned Archdale's bow with a politeness
equally cold, while anger had leaped up within him. Was Archdale going
to call upon his wife?
Stephen Archdale had come to Boston to collect whatever facts he could
about Harwin, and about the places and the people that the confession
referred to. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than any such visit.
It was his wish that Elizabeth and himself need never meet again, and he
knew that it was hers. Indeed, so far from thinking of the woman who was
perhaps his wife, he was living over again the glimpse he had had of the
one from whom he had been separated. Three days ago he had taken his gun
early in the morning and had gone out hunting, made more miserable than
before by something he had perceived in his father's mind. The Colonel
was not in sympathy with him; he was consoling himself that, after all,
Elizabeth Royal was a richer woman than Katie Archdale. At his light
insinuation of this to his son, the young man had flamed out into a heat
of passion and declared that one golden hair of Katie's head was worth
both Elizabeth and her fortune. He had rushed out of the house with the
wish for destroying something in his mind. As he stopped in the hall to
snatch his gun, the flintlock caught, and tore a hole in the tapestry
hanging. He saw it, pushed the great stag's antlers that the gun had
been swung on a little aside, and covered the torn place. Then he forgot
the accident almost as soon as this was done, left the house and went
striding over the fields, not so much to chase the foxes, as to be
alone. And when that point was gained he would have gone a step further
if he could and escaped from himself also. But he was only all the more
with his own thoughts as he wandered aimlessly through great stretches
of pine trees with the light snow of the night before still white on
their lower boughs, except when in some opening it had melted into
dewdrops in the December sun, and still clung to the trees, ready when
the sun had passed by them towards its setting to turn into filmy
icicles. The sky was brilliant; the long winter already upon the earth
smiled gently, as if to say that its reign would be mild. Stephen went
along so much preoccupied that only the baying of his hound made him
notice the light fox-prints by the roadside. Then the instinct of the
hunter stirred within him, and he followed on, listening now and then to
the distant bark while pursued and the pursuer were going farther away.
He waited, knowing fox nature well and that there were a hundred chances
to one that the creature would come back near the spot from which it was
started. As he waited close by the road which here led through the
woods, two men passed along it without seeing him. They were talking as
they went. Stephen knew them; one was an old man who used to be a
servant in the family when Colonel Archdale was a boy. He had married
long ago and was now living in a little house not far from his old home.
The young man with him was his son. Stephen was in no mood even for a
passing word, and he stood still, perceiving that a clump of bushes hid
him. A few sentences of the conversation reached him through the
stillness, but it meant nothing to him; he was not conscious even of
listening until Katie's name caught his ear. They were talking of this
marriage then, as every body was; he was the gossip of the very
servants. But his attention once caught was held until the speakers
passed out of hearing. Surely they knew nothing about the matter that he
did not.
"She is such a pretty young lady," said the elder man, "and any girl
would feel it to miss the handsome young master for a husband."
"Um!" assented the son. "Well, I suppose she will miss the sight of him
if her heart is set upon him, but there is many a young man nicer to my
thinking, and not so proud in his ways."
"Has he ever been unjust or overbearing to you, Nathan?" inquired the
old man severely.
"Oh, no, he has been uncommonly civil, he would think it beneath him to
be anything else. I know the cut of him; if he had any spite he would
take it out on a gentleman. He thinks we are made of different clay from
him." And the embryo republican threw back his shoulders impatiently.
"So we are," returned the other, with the Englishman's ingrained belief
in caste; "but, to be sure, you feel it with some more than with others,
with the young man more than with his father. But I like it better than
the softly way the Colonel has. Stephen is more like his grandfather."
"His grandfather!" echoed the son. "Why, he was a--."
"Hush!" cried the other so suddenly and sharply that if the word had
been, uttered at all Stephen lost it, though, now he was listening
eagerly enough. "Do you remember you swore that you would never speak
that word?"
"Well," returned the young man in a sullen tone, "if I did, what harm in
saying it here with not a soul but you around? And my feeling is," he
went on, "that this broken-off wedding is a judgment for his
grandfather's--." He hesitated.
"When you learned it by accident, Nathan," returned his father, "you
swore to satisfy me, that you would never speak the word in connection
with him. Who knows what person may be round?" And he glanced cautiously
about him. Stephen half resolved to confront him and force him to tell
this secret. But the very quality in himself which the men had been
discussing held him back until the opportunity had passed. "No, I don't
want you to name it at all, Nathan. That is what you swore," continued
the old man.
"You have said enough about it," retorted the younger. "I will keep my
word, of course; you know that." His tone was loud with anger.
"Yes, yes, I know," said his companion, "But, you see, I was fond of the
young master if he was a bit wild; he was a fine, free gentleman, though
he changed very much after this--this accident and his coming over to
the Colonies, which wasn't no ways suited to him like London, only he
found it a good place to get rich in. You see, Nathan, it all happened
this way; he told me about it his own self with tears in his eyes, as I
might say, for his family,--he--."
But it was in vain that Stephen strained his ears, the voices that had
not been drowned in the noise of footsteps had been growing fainter with
distance, and now were lost altogether.
So there had been something in the family, thought Stephen, that he knew
nothing about, something that his grandfather had done which this man,
the son of his grandfather's butler, considered had brought down
vengeance on Katie and himself as the grandchildren. The very suggestion
oppressed him in this land of the Puritans, although he told himself
that he believed neither in the vengeance nor even in the crime itself.
But he had not dreamed of anything, anything at all, which had even
shadowed the fair fame of the Archdales. Did his father know of it?
Nothing that Stephen had ever seen in him looked like such knowledge,
but that did not make the son quite sure, for the old butler's remark
about the Colonel's suavity was just; his elaborate manners made Stephen
almost brusque at times, and aroused a secret antagonism in both, so
that they sometimes met one another with armor on, and Stephen's keen
thrust would occasionally penetrate the shield which his father
skilfully interposed between that and some fact.
That morning Stephen sank down upon a rock near by while his mind ranged
over his recollections to find some clue to this mystery. But he found
none. He was sure that his grandfather had never been referred to as
being connected with anything secret, still less, disgraceful, or
perhaps criminal. It was impossible to imagine where the old butler's
idea came from, but it could not be founded upon truth. Yet, this snatch
of talk which Stephen had heard made him curious and uncomfortable. And
he knew that he must resign himself to feeling so; he could ask his
father, to be sure, but he would get no satisfaction out of that; either
the Colonel did not know, or, evidently he had resolved that there
should seem to be nothing to tell. After all, it did not matter very
much. His thoughts came back to his own position with almost wonder that
anything could have drawn them away from it. While he sat there the
baying of the hound drew nearer, and suddenly a rabbit started up from
a bush on his right. He raised his gun, but instantly lowered it again.
He had not moved, so it had not been he that had startled the rabbit,
but the larger game that was following it. The little creature scampered
away, and in another moment the fox which his dog had started ran past
him. Again he raised his gun and took aim with a hand accustomed to
bring down what he sighted. But to-day the gun dropped once more at his
side, for here was a creature that wanted its life, that was straining
for it. "Let him have the worthless gift if he values it," thought
Archdale, feeling that the gun had better have been turned the other way
in his hands. The fox disappeared after the rabbit, and in another
moment Stephen rose with a sneer at himself, and turned toward home.
Evidently, he could accomplish nothing that day, matters must have gone
hard with him to make him lose even the nerve of a hunter. He whistled
to his dog, but the hound had no intention of giving up the chase as his
master had done, and rushed past in full cry. The young man left him to
follow home at his pleasure, and walked along the road with a sombre
face. Soon the sound of distant bells reached him. A minute after a
sleigh appeared coming toward him from the vanishing point of the road
that here ran straight through the woods for some distance. It made no
difference to Stephen who was in the sleigh. As it came nearer and
nearer he never even glanced at it, until as it was passing, some
instinct, or perhaps eyes fixed upon him, made him look up. He started,
stopped, bowed low, took off his fur cap with deference, holding it in
his hand until the sleigh had gone slowly by. Then he turned and stood
looking after it, the flush that had come suddenly to his face fading
away as his eyes followed Katie Archdale's figure until it was lost to
sight. He could see her clinging to her father's arm; he seemed to see
her face before him for days, her face pale and sad, and so lovely.
Neither had spoken. Mr. Archdale had not waited; what had they to say?
Stephen had not really wished it; every thought was deeper than speech,
and probably Katie, too, had preferred to go on. And yet to pass in this
way--it was like their lives.
That afternoon he started for Boston. It was doing something. Edmonson
who met him just arrived, need not have feared that he was going to
Elizabeth. He was in the city only to prove that the frolic of that
summer evening had been frolic merely, and that he was still free to
follow that charming face that had passed him by, so reluctantly, he
knew, in the woods.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
* * * * *
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
While delivering an address in Faneuil Hall, in 1875, the late
distinguished Wendell Phillips declared that he had never cast a ballot
in his life.
Such a confession, coming from the liberty-loving champion of the rights
and freedom of all people, was not a little startling.
Months later he was requested to explain what seemed to be a serious
inconsistency, as bearing on the question--how can an American citizen
wilfully refrain from the high prerogative of exercising his right and
duty to vote?
The following is a copy of his letter stating the reason why he had not
voted.
The letter hitherto has never been made public. It is of historical
value.
7 Aug't '76.
DEAR SIR:
I am in receipt of your kind note. This is the explanation:
Premising that I entirely agree with you as to the transcendant
importance of the vote and the duty of every citizen to use it--to
let no slight obstacle prevent his voting.
The few years after I came of age I was moving about and it
happened, curiously enough, that I never lived in one town long
enough to get the vote there and never could be, at the proper
time, in the town where I had the right.
Then soon I became an abolitionist and conscientiously refused to
vote or accept citizenship under a constitution which ordered the
return of fugitive slaves.
The XVth. amendment was the first release from this bar, as I
judged. Since that, I have never voted but once. Absence from the
city &c prevented my doing so. _I should have taken special care_
to be at home if living in a ward where my vote would have availed
anything, or if candidates were such as I could trust.
Truly,
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
* * * * *
EASY CHAIR.
BY ELBRIDGE H. GOSS.
This is an age of magazines. Every guild, every issue, has its monthly
or quarterly. If a new athletic exercise should be evolved to-morrow, a
new magazine, in its interest, would follow; and there seems to be a
field for every new venture.
Among our older magazines, Harper's "New Monthly" still pursues its
popular course. In June, 1850, I bought the first number, and from that
day to this it has been one of my household treasures. A complete set,
sixty nine (69) volumes, forms a most excellent library in itself; a
fair compendium of the world's history for the last thirty odd years.
Story, essay, and event, has filled these sixty thousand pages. In
October, 1851, the department called the "Editor's Easy Chair," was
established by Donald G. Mitchell, the genial "Ik: Marvel." Here are his
first words:
"After our more severe Editorial work is done--the scissors laid in our
drawer, and the monthly record, made as full as our pages will bear, of
history--we have a way of throwing ourselves back into an old red-back
_Easy Chair_, that has long been an ornament of our dingy office, and
indulging in an easy, and careless overlook of the gossiping papers of
the day, and in such chit chat with chance visitors, as keeps us
informed of the drift of the towntalk, while it relieves greatly the
monotony of our office hours." Here is the well remembered flavor of the
"Reveries of a Bachelor" and "Dream-Life"!
A year or so afterward, George William Curtis became a co-writer of a
part of the articles for this department, and soon after he became the
sole occupant of the now famous "Easy Chair;" and each month, as
regularly as the appearance of the magazine itself, these very
interesting, most readable, and instructive notelets upon the current
topics of the time have appeared. Their pure style, graceful and
delicate humor, and the vast range of culture and observation, give them
a distinctively personal characteristic. He would have made one of our
first novelists; but he has chosen to give the strength of his powers to
journalism, and the study of political affairs.
It is safe to say that each number of the magazine has had an average of
at least five pages of "Easy Chair," making very nearly or quite two
thousand (2,000) pages in all; or a quantity more than sufficient to
fill two and a half volumes of the sixty nine (69) thus far issued, each
volume containing eight hundred and sixty four (864) pages. Before
beginning to write these delectable tid-bits, he had published "Nile
notes of a Howadji," "The Howadji in Syria," and "Lotus Eating;" soon
after appeared "Potiphar Papers," "Prue and I," and "Tramps." For twenty
years he was constantly on the lecture platform; and for twenty one
years he has been the political editor of "Harper's Weekly." Although
offered missions to the courts of England and Germany, and other
positions of trust and honor, he never accepted; his nearest approach to
the holding of any political office was the accepting of an appointment,
for a while, of the chairmanship of the "Civil Service Advisory Board."
As has been well said by George Parsons Lathrop, "The idea often occurs
to one that he, more than any one else, continues the example which
Washington Irving set: an example of kindliness and good nature blended
with indestructible dignity, and a delicately imaginative mind
consecrating much of its energy to public service."
As for the "Easy Chair," with me, its leaves are first cut in each fresh
number; and while enjoying the last one, I wondered why some deft hand
had not culled some of the choicest specimens, and that the Harpers had
not given them to the world in a volume by themselves. They are most
certainly worthy of it. A few passages taken here and there, from these
rich fields, will prove this assertion. The subjects treated in the
whole "Easy Chair" number nearly or quite twenty-five hundred
(2,500),--reminiscences of Emerson and Longfellow--first presentation of
a new Oratorios--a celebrated painting--the visit of a Lord Chief
Justice of England,--a vast range of topics. Consult the nine closely
printed octavo pages of their titles in the "Index to the first Sixty
Volumes"--from "Abbott, Commodore, xiii. 271," to "Zurich, University
of, xlviii. 443," and one will be amazed at the great number and variety
of themes upon which the "Easy Chair" has had its say. And it would seem
that its occupant has had some similar thoughts to these, for, in a
recent number there is a retrospective glance--a wondering as to what
future generations may have to say, and wish to know regarding matters
and things of this generation about which it has discoursed:
"The Easy Chair, mindful of posterity, and of that future loiterer in
the retired alcoves of coming libraries who will turn to the pages of an
old magazine to catch some glimpse of the daily aspect and the homely
fact of our day, which will be then a kind of quaint remembrance, like
the 'Augustan age' of Anne to Victorian epoch, puts here upon record for
his unborn reader--whom he salutes with hope and Godspeed--that the
winter of 1883-4 in the city of New York was a gray and gloomy season
almost beyond precedent, during which the persistent fogs and mists
appeared half to have obliterated the sun."
Here are a few excerpts which may be called "Gems for the Easy Chair;"
but those given are no better than thousands of others that are
scattered through these many volumes.
A Madonna. Once in Dresden the Easy Chair climbed into a little room
where an engraver was finishing a picture which is now famous. He had
worked long and faithfully upon it. It was truly a work of love, and it
had cost him his most precious and essential possession for his art--his
eyesight. The engraver was Steinla, and the picture was the Madonna di
Sisto.... It can be seen only by those who go to Dresden. Among pictures
there is none more justly famous, and the devoted engraver toiled long
and patiently, and at such enormous sacrifice to re-produce it, so far
as lines could do it, from the same love and instinct that produced the
picture.
* * * * *
PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT.
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY MANUAL. By CHARLES COWLEY. LL.D. Penhallow Printing
Company, Lowell, Mass.
In this handy volume, the "Historical Sketch of the County of
Middlesex," Judge Cowley has made a valuable contribution to the
recorded history of our Commonwealth. He has traced in a clear and
concise manner the important events of Middlesex County from 1643, the
year of its incorporation, down to Shay's Rebellion.
REMINISCENCES OF JAMES COOK AVER AND THE TOWN OF AVER. By CHARLES
COWLEY, LL.D.
This work is one of many for which the public are indebted to Judge
Cowley. It presents many facts of great historical value, and in the
usual pungent and agreeable style of their author.
SHOPPELL'S BUILDING PLANS FOR MODERN LOW COST HOUSES. The Co-operative
Building Plan Association, New York. Price, 50 cents.
This book contains a mass of information to builders and would-be _home
owners_. Its many and varied plans are for the construction of neat,
comfortable and very attractive buildings at very reasonable cost.
* * * * *
CORRECTION.
In the sketch of Saugus in the December number of the BAY STATE MONTHLY,
line 14, on page 149, should read "as early as 1828" instead of
1848.--E.P.R.