CHAPTER II.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXI. September, 1842 No. 3.

Contents

Fiction and Literature

The Spanish Student

The Proposal

Harry Cavendish

An Appeal to American Authors and the American

Press

The Sisters

Ben Blower’s Story

De Pontis

Shakspeare

Waste Paper

Review of New Books

Editor’s Table

Poetry, Music and Fashion

The Song of Madoc

The Approach of Autumn

The Walk and the Pic-Nic

To Fanny H***

“You Call Us Inconstant.”

The Haunted Heart

The Lady Alice

The Sunset Storm

September Waltz

Latest Fashions

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

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXI. PHILADELPHIA: SEPTEMBER, 1842. No. 3.

* * * * *

THE SPANISH STUDENT.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

What’s done we partly may compute,

But know not what’s resisted.

Burns.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Victorian, Student of Alcalá.

Hypolito, Student of Alcalá.

Count of Lara, Gentleman of Madrid.

Don Carlos, Gentleman of Madrid.

The Arch-Bishop of Toledo.

A Cardinal.

Beltran Cruzado, Count of the Gipsies.

Padre, Cura of El Pardillo.

Pedro Crespo, Alcalde.

Pancho, Alguacil.

Francisco, Valet.

Chispa, Valet.

Preciosa, a Gipsy girl.

Angelica, a poor girl.

Martina, Padre Cura’s niece.

Dolores, Preciosa’s maid.

Gipsies and Musicians.

ACT THE FIRST.

Scene I.—_The Count of Lara’s chambers. Night. The Count in his

dressing-gown, smoking and conversing with Don Carlos._

_Lara._ You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos;

How happens it?

_Don Carlos._ I had engagements elsewhere:

Pray who was there?

_Lara._ Why, all the town and court.

The house was crowded; and the busy fans

Among the gaily dressed and perfumed ladies

Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers.

There was the Countess of Medina Celi;

The Goblin Lady with her Fantom Lover,

Her Lindo Don Diego; Doña Sal,

And Doña Serafina, and her cousins.

But o’er them all the lovely Violante

Shone like a star, nay, a whole heaven of stars.

_Don Carlos._ What was the play?

_Lara._ It was a dull affair.

One of those comedies in which you see,

As Lopè says, the history of the world

Brought down from Genesis to the day of judgment.

There were three duels in the first tornada,

Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds,

Laying their hands upon their hearts and saying

_O I am dead!_ A lover in a closet,

An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,

A Doña Inez with a black mantilla

Followed at twilight by an unknown lover,

Who looks intently where he knows she is not!

_Don Carlos._ Of course the Preciosa danced to-night?

_Lara._ And ne’er danced better. Every footstep fell

As lightly as a sunbeam on the water.

I think the girl extremely beautiful.

_Don Carlos._ Almost beyond the privilege of woman!

I saw her in the Prado yesterday.

Her step was royal—queen-like—and her face

As beauteous as a saint’s in Paradise.

_Lara._ May not a saint fall from her Paradise,

And be no more a saint?

_Don Carlos._ Why do you ask?

_Lara._ Because ’tis whispered that this angel fell;

And though she is a virgin outwardly,

Within she is a sinner; like those panels

Or doors and altar-pieces, the old monks

Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary

On the outside, and on the inside Venus!

_Don Carlos._ Nay, nay! you do her wrong.

_Lara._ Ah! say you so?

_Don Carlos._ She is as virtuous as she is fair;

A very modest girl, and still a maid.

_Lara._ You are too credulous. Would you persuade me

That a mere dancing girl, who shows herself

Nightly, half-naked, on the stage for money,

And with voluptuous motions fires the blood

Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held

A model for her virtue?

_Don Carlos._ You forget

That she’s a gipsy girl.

_Lara._ And therefore won

The easier.

_Don Carlos._ Nay, not to be won at all!

The only virtue that a gipsy prizes

Is chastity. That is her only virtue.

Dearer than life she holds it. I remember

A gipsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,

Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;

And yet this woman was above all bribes.

And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,

The wild and wizard beauty of her race,

Offered her gold to be what she made others,

She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,

And smote him in the face!

_Lara._ Most virtuous gipsy!

_Don Carlos._ Nay, do not mock me. I would fain believe

That woman, in her deepest degradation,

Holds something sacred, something undefiled,

Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,

And, like the diamond in the dark, retains

Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light!

_Lara._ Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold.

_Don Carlos._ (_rising._) You will not be persuaded!

_Lara._ Yes; persuade me.

_Don Carlos._ No one so deaf as he who will not hear!

_Lara._ No one so blind as he who will not see!

_Don Carlos._ And so good night. I wish you pleasant dreams,

And greater faith in woman.— [_Exit._

_Lara._ Greater faith!

Thou shallow-pated fool! Do I not know

Victorian is her lover?

_Enter Francisco with a casket._

Well, Francisco,

What speed with Preciosa?

_Fran._ None my lord.

She sends your jewels back, and bids me tell you

She is not to be purchased by your gold.

_Lara._ Then I will try some other way to win her.

Pray dost thou know Victorian?

_Fran._ Yes, my lord;

I saw him at the jeweller’s to-day.

_Lara._ What was he doing there?

_Fran._ I saw him buy

A golden ring, that had a ruby in it.

_Lara._ Was there another like it?

_Fran._ One so like it

I could not choose between them.

_Lara._ It is well.

To-morrow morning bring that ring to me.

Do not forget. Now light me to my bed. [_Exeunt._

Scene II.—_A street in Madrid. Night. Enter Chispa, followed by

musicians, with a bag-pipe, guitars, and other instruments._

_Chispa._ Abernuncio Satanas! and a plague on all lovers who ramble

about at night, drinking the elements instead of sleeping quietly in

their beds. Every dead man to his cemetery, say I; and every friar to

his monastery. Now, here’s my master, Victorian, yesterday a

cow-keeper and to-day a gentleman; yesterday a student and to-day a

lover; and I must be up later than the nightingale, for as the abbot

sings so must the sacristan respond. God grant he may soon be married,

for then shall all this serenading cease. Man is fire, and woman is

tow, and the devil comes and blows; and, therefore, I have heard my

grandmother say, that if your neighbor has a son, wipe his nose and

marry him to your daughter. Aye! marry! marry! marry! Mother, what

does marry mean? It means to spin, to bear children, and to weep, my

daughter! And of a truth there is something more in matrimony than

cake and kid gloves. (_To the musicians._) And now, gentlemen, Pax

vobiscum! as the ass said to the cabbages. Pray walk this way; and

don’t hang down your heads. It is no disgrace to have an old father

and a ragged shirt. Now, look you, you are gentlemen who lead the life

of crickets; you enjoy hunger by day and noise by night. Yet, I

beseech you, for this once be not loud, but pathetic; for it is a

serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to the man in the moon. Your

object is not to arouse and terrify, but to soothe and bring lulling

dreams. Therefore, each shall not play upon his instrument as if it

were the only one in the universe, but gently, and with a certain

modesty, according with the others. Pray, how may I call thy name,

friend?

_First Musician._ Geronimo Gil, at your service.

_Chispa._ Every tub smells of the wine that is in it. Pray, Geronimo,

is not Saturday an unpleasant day with thee?

_First M._ Why so?

_Chispa._ Because I have heard it said that Saturday is an unpleasant

day for those who have but one shirt. Moreover, I have seen thee at

the tavern, and if thou canst run as fast as thou canst drink, I

should like to hunt hares with thee. What instrument is that?

_First M._ An Aragonese bag-pipe.

_Chispa._ Pray, art thou related to the bag-piper of Bujalance, who

asked a maravedi for playing and ten for leaving off?

_First M._ No, your honor.

_Chispa._ I am glad of it. What other instruments have we?

_Second and Third M._ We play the bandurria.

_Chispa._ A pleasing instrument. And thou?

_Fourth M._ The fife.

_Chispa._ I like it; it has a cheerful, soul-stirring sound, that

soars up to my lady’s window like the song of a swallow. And you

others?

_Other Musicians._ We are the singers, please your honor.

_Chispa._ You are too many. Do you think we are going to sing mass in

the Cathedral of Cordova? Four men can make but little use of one

shoe, and I see not how you can all sing in one song. But follow me

along the garden wall. That is the way my master climbs to the lady’s

window. It is by the vicar’s skirts that the devil climbs into the

belfry. Come, follow me and make no noise. [_Exeunt._

Scene III.—_Preciosa’s Chamber. She stands by the open window._

_Preciosa._ How slowly through the lilac-scented air

Descends the tranquil moon! Like thistle-down

The vapory clouds float in the peaceful sky:

And sweetly from yon hollow vaults of shade

The nightingales breathe out their souls in song,

Flattering the ear of night. And hark! what sounds

Answer them from below!

Serenade.

Stars of the summer night!

Far in yon azure deeps,

Hide, hide your golden light,

She sleeps!

My lady sleeps!

Sleeps!

Moon of the summer night!

Far down yon western steeps,

Sink, sink in silver light!

She sleeps!

My lady sleeps!

Sleeps!

Wind of the summer night!

Where yonder woodbine creeps,

Fold, fold your pinions light!

She sleeps!

My lady sleeps!

Sleeps!

Dreams of the summer night!

Tell her, her lover keeps

Watch! while in slumber light

She sleeps!

My lady sleeps!

Sleeps!

_Enter Victorian by the balcony._

_Victorian._ Poor little dove! Thou tremblest like a leaf!

_Pre._ I am so frightened!—’Tis for thee I tremble!

I hate to have thee climb that wall by night!

Did no one see thee?

_Vic._ None, my love, but thou.

_Pre._ ’Tis very dangerous; and when thou’rt gone

I chide myself for letting thee come here

Thus stealthily by night. Where hast thou been?

Since yesterday I have no news from thee.

_Vic._ Since yesterday I’ve been in Alcalá.

Ere long the time will come, sweet Preciosa,

When that dull distance shall no more divide us;

And I no more shall scale thy wall by night

To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now.

_Pre._ An honest thief, to steal but what thou givest.

_Vic._ And we shall sit together unmolested,

And words of true love pass from tongue to tongue,

As singing birds from one bough to another.

_Pre._ That were a life indeed to make time envious!

I knew that thou wouldst visit me to-night.

I saw thee at the play.

_Vic._ Sweet child of air!

Never did I behold thee so attired

And garmented in beauty, as to-night!

What hast thou done to make thee look so fair?

_Pre._ Am I not always fair?

_Vic._ Aye, and so fair,

That I am jealous of all eyes that see thee,

And wish that they were blind.

_Pre._ I heed them not;

When thou art present, I see none but thee!

_Vic._ There’s nothing fair nor beautiful, but takes

Something from thee, that makes it beautiful.

_Pre._ And yet thou leav’st me for those dusty books.

_Vic._ Thou com’st between me and those books too often!

I see thy face in every thing I see!

The paintings in the chapel wear thy looks,

The canticles are changed to sarabands,

And with the learned doctors of the schools

I see thee dance cachuchas.

_Pre._ In good sooth,

I dance with the learned doctors of the schools

To-morrow morning.

_Vic._ And with whom, I pray?

_Pre._ A grave and reverend Cardinal, and his Grace

The Archbishop of Toledo.

_Vic._ What mad jest

Is this?

_Pre._ It is no jest. Indeed it is not.

_Vic._ Pr’ythee, explain thyself.

_Pre._ Why simply thus.

Thou knowest the Pope has sent here into Spain

To put a stop to dances on the stage.

_Vic._ I’ve heard it whispered.

_Pre._ Now the Cardinal,

Who for this purpose comes, would fain behold

With his own eyes these dances: and the Archbishop

Has sent for me.

_Vic._ That thou may’st dance before them.

Now viva la cachucha! It will breathe

The fire of youth into these gray old men,

And make them half forget that they are old!

’Twill be thy proudest conquest!

_Pre._ Saving one.

And yet I fear the dances will be stopped,

And Preciosa be once more a beggar.

_Vic._ The sweetest beggar that e’er asked for alms;

With such beseeching eyes, that when I saw thee

I gave my heart away!

_Pre._ Dost thou remember

When first we met?

_Vic._ It was at Cordova,

In the Cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting

Under the orange-trees, beside a fountain.

_Pre._ ’Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees

Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

The priests were singing, and the organ sounded,

And then anon the great Cathedral bell.

It was the elevation of the Host.

We both of us fell down upon our knees,

Under the orange boughs, and prayed together.

I never had been happy, till that moment.

_Vic._ Thou blessed angel!

_Pre._ And when thou wast gone

I felt an aching here. I did not speak

To any one that day.

_Vic._ Sweet Preciosa!

I lov’d thee even then, though I was silent!

_Pre._ I thought I ne’er should see thy face again.

Thy farewell had to me a sound of sorrow.

_Vic._ That was the first sound in the song of love!

Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.

Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings

Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,

And play the prelude of our fate. We hear

The voice prophetic, and are not alone.

_Pre._ That is my faith. Dost thou believe these warnings?

_Vic._ So far as this. Our feelings and our thoughts

Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present.

As drops of rain fall into some dark well,

And from below comes a scarce audible sound—

So fall our thoughts into the dark Hereafter,

And their mysterious echo reaches us.

_Pre._ I’ve felt it so, but found no words to say it!

I cannot reason—I can only feel!

But thou hast language for all thoughts and feelings.

Thou art a scholar: and sometimes I think

We cannot walk together in this world!

The distance that divides us is too great!

Henceforth thy pathway lies among the stars;

I must not hold thee back.

_Vic._ Thou little skeptic!

Dost thou still doubt?—What I most prize in woman

Is her affection, not her intellect!

Compare me with the great men of the earth—

What am I? Why, a pigmy among giants!

But if thou lovest—mark me! I say lovest—

The greatest of thy sex excels thee not!

The world of the affections is thy world—

Not that of man’s ambition. In that stillness

Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy,

Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart,

Feeding its flame. The element of fire

Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its nature,

But burns as brightly in a gipsy camp

As in a palace hall. Art thou convinced?

_Pre._ Aye, that I love thee, as the good love heaven,

But that I am not worthy of that heaven.

How shall I more deserve it?

_Vic._ Loving more.

_Pre._ I cannot love thee more; my heart is full.

_Vic._ Then let it overflow, and I will drink it,

As in the summer-time the thirsty sands

Drink the swift waters of a mountain torrent,

And still do thirst for more. (_Kisses her._)

_A Watchman in the street._ Ave Maria

Purissima! ’Tis midnight and serene!

_Vic._ Hear’st thou that cry?

_Pre._ It is a hateful sound,

To scare thee from me!

_Vic._ As the hunter’s horn

Doth scare the timid stag, or bark of hounds

The moor-fowl from his mate.

_Pre._ Pray do not go!

_Vic._ I must away to Alcalá to-night.

Think of me when I am away.

_Pre._ Fear not!

I have no thoughts that do not think of thee.

_Vic._ (_giving her a ring._) And to remind thee of my love, take

this.

A serpent emblem of Eternity,

A ruby,—say, a drop of my heart’s blood.

_Pre._ It is an ancient saying, that the ruby

Brings gladness to the wearer, and preserves

The heart pure, and, if laid beneath the pillow,

Drives away evil dreams. But then, alas!

It was a serpent tempted Eve to sin.

_Vic._ What convent of barefooted Carmelites

Taught thee so much theology?

_Pre._ (_laying her hand upon his mouth._) Hush! hush!

Good night! and may all holy angels guard thee!

_Vic._ Good night! good night! Thou art my guardian angel!

I have no other saint than thee to pray to!

(_He descends by the balcony._)

_Pre._ Take care, and do not hurt thee. Art thou safe?

_Vic._ (_from the garden._) Safe as my love for thee! But art thou

safe?

Others can climb a balcony by moonlight

As well as I. Pray, shut thy window close;

I’m jealous of the perfumed air of night

That from this garden climbs to kiss thy lips.

_Pre._ (_throwing down her handkerchief._) Thou silly child!

Take this to blind thine eyes.

It is my benison!

_Vic._ And brings to me

Sweet fragrance from thy lips, as the soft wind

Wafts to the out-bound mariner the breath

Of the beloved land he leaves behind.

_Pre._ Make not thy voyage long.

_Vic._ To-morrow night

Shall see me safe returned. Thou art the star

To guide me to an anchorage. Good night!

My beauteous star! My star of love, good night!

_Pre._ Good night!

_Watchman._ (_at a distance._) Ave Maria Purissima!

Scene IV.—_Victorian’s rooms at Alcalá. Hypolito asleep in an

arm-chair. A clock strikes three. He awakes slowly._

_Hyp._ I must have been asleep! aye, sound asleep!

And it was all a dream. O sleep, sweet sleep!

Whatever form thou takest, thou art fair,

Holding unto our lips thy goblet filled

Out of Oblivion’s well, a healing draught!

The candles have burned low; it must be late.

Where can Victorian be? Like Fray Carillo,

The only place in which one cannot find him

Is his own cell. Here’s his guitar, that seldom

Feels the caresses of its master’s hand.

Open thy silent lips, sweet instrument!

And make dull midnight merry with a song.

(_He plays and sings._)

Padre Francisco!

Padre Francisco!

What do you want of Padre Francisco?

Here is a pretty young maiden

Who wants to confess her sins!

Open the door and let her come in,

I will shrive her from every sin.

_Enter Victorian._

_Vic._ Padre Hypolito! Padre Hypolito!

_Hyp._ What do you want of Padre Hypolito?

_Vic._ Come, shrive me straight; for if love be a sin

I am the greatest sinner that doth live.

I will confess the sweetest of all crimes,

A maiden wooed and won.

_Hyp._ The same old tale

Of the old woman in the chimney corner,

Who, while her pot boils, says—_Come here my child_;

_I’ll tell thee a story of my wedding-day!_

_Vic._ Nay, listen, for my heart is full; so full

That I must speak.

_Hyp._ Alas! that heart of thine

Is like a scene in the old play—the curtain

Rises to solemn music, and, lo! enter

The eleven thousand Virgins of Cologne!

_Vic._ Nay, like the Sibyl’s volumes, thou shouldst say;

Those that remained, after the six were burned,

Being held as precious as the nine together.

But listen to my tale. Dost thou remember

The gipsy girl we saw at Cordova

Dance the Romalis in the market-place?

_Hyp._ Thou meanest Preciosa.

_Vic._ Aye, the same.

Thou knowest how her image haunted me

Long after we returned to Alcalá.

_Hyp._ Thou even thought’st thyself in love with her.

_Vic._ I was; and, to be frank with thee, I am!

She’s in Madrid. O pardon me, my friend,

If I so long have kept this secret from thee;

But silence is the charm that guards such treasures,

And if a word be spoken ere the time,

They sink again, they were not meant for us.

_Hyp._ Alas! alas! I see thou art in love.

How speeds thy wooing? Is the maiden coy?

Write her a song, beginning with an Ave;

Sing as the monk sang to the Virgin Mary,

_Ave! cujus calcem clarè_

_Nec centenni commendare_

_Sciret Seraph studio!_

_Vic._ Pray do not jest! This is no time to jest!

I am in earnest!

_Hyp._ Seriously enamor’d?

What, ho! The Primus of great Alcalá

Enamor’d of a gipsy? Tell me frankly,

How meanest thou?

_Vic._ I mean it honestly.

The angels sang in heaven when she was born!

She is a precious jewel I have found

Among the filth and rubbish of the world.

I’ll stoop for it; but when I wear it here,

Set on my forehead like the morning star,

The world may wonder, but it will not laugh.

_Hyp._ If thou wear’st nothing else upon thy forehead

’Twill be indeed a wonder.

_Vic._ Out upon thee,

With thy unseasonable jests! Pray, tell me,

Is there no virtue in the world?

_Hyp._ Not much.

What, think’st thou, is she doing at this moment—

Now, while we speak of her?

_Vic._ She lies asleep,

And, from her parted lips, her gentle breath

Comes like the fragrance from the lips of flowers.

Her delicate limbs are still, and on her breast

The cross she pray’d to, e’er she fell asleep,

Rises and falls with the soft tide of dreams,

Like a light barge safe moor’d.

_Hyp._ Which means, in prose,

She’s sleeping with her mouth a little open!

_Vic._ O would I had the old magician’s glass

To see her as she lies in child-like sleep!

_Hyp._ And would’st thou venture?

_Vic._ Aye, indeed I would!

_Hyp._ Thou art courageous. Hast thou e’er reflected

How much lies hidden in that one word _now_?

_Vic._ Yes; all the awful mystery of Life!

I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito,

That could we, by some spell of magic, change

The world and its inhabitants to stone,

In the same attitudes they now are in,

What fearful glances downward might we cast

Into the hollow chasms of human life!

What groups should we behold about the death-bed,

Putting to shame the group of Niobe!

What joyful welcomes, and what sad farewells!

What stony tears in those congealed eyes!

What visible joy or anguish in those cheeks!

What bridal pomps, and what funereal shows!

What foes, like gladiators, fierce and struggling!

What lovers with their marble lips together!

_Hyp._ Aye, there it is! and if I were in love

That is the very point I most should dread.

This magic glass, these magic spells of thine

Might tell a tale ’twere better leave untold.

For instance, they might show us thy fair cousin,

The Lady Violante, bathed in tears

Of love and anger, like the maid of Colchis,

Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut,

Having won that golden fleece, a woman’s love,

Desertest for this Glaucè.

_Vic._ Hold thy peace!

She cares not for me. She may wed another,

Or go into a convent, and thus dying,

Marry Achilles in the Elysian Fields.

_Hyp._ (_rising._) And so, good night! Good morning, I should say.

It is no longer night, nor is it day.

But in the east the paramour of Morn,

Infirm and old, lifts up his hoary head,

And hears the crickets chirp to mimic him.

And so, once more, good night! We’ll speak more largely

Of Preciosa when we meet again.

Get thee to bed, and the magician, Sleep,

Shall show her to thee, in his magic glass,

In all her loveliness. Good night! [_Exit._

_Vic._ Good night!

But not to bed; for I must read awhile.

(_Throws himself into the arm-chair which Hypolito has left, and lays a

large book open upon his knees._)

Must read, or sit in reverie and watch

The changing color of the waves that break

Upon the idle seashore of the mind!

Visions of Fame! that once did visit me,

Making night glorious with your smile, where are ye?

O, who shall give me, now that ye are gone,

Juices of those immortal plants that blow

Upon Olympus, making us immortal!

Or teach me where that wondrous mandrake grows

Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans,

At midnight hour, can scare the fiends away,

And make the mind prolific in its fancies?

I have the wish, but want the will to act!

Souls of great men departed! Ye whose words

Have come to light from the swift river of Time,

Like Roman swords found in the Tagus’ bed,

Where is the strength to wield the arms ye bore?

From the barred visor of antiquity

Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth

As from a mirror! All the means of action—

The shapeless masses—the materials—

Lie every where about us. What we need

Is the celestial fire to change the flint

Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.

That fire is Genius! The rude peasant sits

At evening in his smoky cot, and draws

With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.

The man of genius comes, foot-sore with travel,

And begs a shelter from the inclement night.

He takes the charcoal from the peasant’s hand,

And by the magic of his touch at once

Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine,

And in the eyes of the astonish’d clown

It gleams a diamond! Even thus transform’d,

Rude popular traditions and old tales

Shine as immortal poems, at the touch

Of some poor houseless, homeless, wandering bard,

Who had but a night’s lodging for his pains.

O there are brighter dreams than those of Fame,

Which are the dreams of Love! Out of the heart

Rises the bright ideal of these dreams,

As from some woodland fount a spirit rises

And sinks again into its silent deeps,

Ere the enamor’d knight can touch her robe!

’Tis this ideal that the soul of man,

Like the enamor’d knight beside the fountain,

Waits for upon the margin of Life’s stream;

Waits to behold her rise from the dark waters,

Clad in a mortal shape! Alas! how many

Must wait in vain. The stream flows evermore,

But from its silent deeps no spirit rises!

Yet I, born under a propitious star,

Have found the bright ideal of my dreams.

Yes! she is ever with me. I can feel,

Here, as I sit at midnight and alone,

Her gentle breathing! on my breast can feel

The pressure of her head! God’s benison

Rest ever on it! Close those beauteous eyes,

Sweet Sleep! and all the flowers that bloom at night

With balmy lips breathe in her ears my name.

(_Gradually sinks asleep._)

END OF THE FIRST ACT.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Drawn by E. Corbould., Engraved by Alfred Jones.

_The Proposal_,

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]

* * * * *

THE PROPOSAL.

BY J. H. DANA.

CHAPTER I.

In one of those stately old gardens which were attached to every lordly

mansion of the reign of Charles the First, sat a cavalier and lady. The

seat they occupied was a rude garden sofa, overshadowed by trees, and in

close proximity to a colossal urn on which was represented in bold

relief, according to the classic predilection of the age, Diana and her

nymphs engaged in the chase. The lady was one of rare beauty. Indeed few

creatures more lovely than Isabel Mordaunt ever graced a festive hall,

or brushed the dew from the morning grass. She was gay, witty, eighteen,

and an heiress. Her mother died when Isabel was an infant, and thus left

chiefly to her own control she had grown up as wilful as a mountain

chamois. Exulting in the consciousness of talent, there were few who had

not experienced her wit. Yet she had a kind heart, and, if she was at

times too apt to give offence, no one was more ready to atone for a

fault. Her beauty and expectations had already drawn around her crowds

of suitors; but though she laughed and chatted with all, she suffered

none to aspire to an interest in her heart. Indeed she professed to be a

skeptic to the reality of love. But, as is ever the case, her gay

raillery and careless indifference seemed only to increase the number of

her suitors.

The cavalier by her side was in the first flush of manhood, and one

whose personal appearance rendered him a prize which any fair girl might

be proud to win. Grahame Vaux had been the ward of Isabel’s father, and

was but four years her senior. In childhood they had played together,

and though subsequently separated by the departure of Vaux to the

university, they had been again thrown into each other’s society at that

critical period of life when the heart is most keenly alive to the

influences of love. To Grahame this daily companionship was peculiarly

dangerous. Isabel was just the being to dazzle a romantic character like

his; for he regarded the sex with all the high, chivalrous feelings

which actuated the Paladins of old, whom indeed he resembled in other

respects. A second Sir Philip Sidney, he excelled in every graceful

accomplishment. At Oxford he had won the first prize. In every manly

sport he was pre-eminent. We will not trace the progress of his

passion—how it sprung from a single word, fed on smiles, and finally

devoured, as it were, his very being. Suffice it to say, he soon came to

love Isabel with all the ardor of a first affection, worshiping her as

an idolator adores his divinity, and evincing his passion in every look,

word and gesture.

Perhaps this was not the surest road to the affections of a wilful

creature like Isabel—perhaps the alternation of doubt and fear, of

admiration and indifference, would more effectually have enlisted her

feelings; but be this as it may, her new lover met at her hands the same

capricious treatment which her other suitors received. In Grahame’s case

this wilfulness was more than usually apparent, though there were not

wanting those who said that this demeanor was only a veil worn to hide a

growing preference for her noble-hearted lover. At any rate her conduct

toward him was caprice itself. Now she would smile on him so sweetly

that he could not help but hope, and now a word or gesture would plunge

him into the deepest despair.

“I can endure it no longer,” at length he said, “I love Isabel!—Oh! how

deeply and fervently God only knows. I will terminate my suspense. I

will learn my fate. Better know the worst than live on in this agony.”

He rose and sought out the lady. She was at her favorite seat in the

garden; and as she perceived him approaching, her color deepened, as if

she divined, in Grahame’s excited air, the purpose of his visit. With

that instinctive desire, so natural to the sex, to avoid the subject,

she herself opened the conversation in a gay and trifling tone. Grahame,

who could have stood the shock of battle undaunted, felt his heart fail

him when he saw her sportive mood, but, firm in his resolve, he said, at

length, at a suitable pause,

“Do you believe in love, Isabel?”

“Love! _I_ believe in love!” laughingly replied the capricious girl.

“What! give up my maiden liberty for a pretty gallant,—oh! no, Sir

Romance, madcap as I am, it has not come to that. Believe in love,

forsooth! why I should sooner believe that men were wise or women

fickle. Love may sound very well in a play, but I’ll have none of it.

Pale cheeks, sighs, and the gilded fetters of a wife are not for a free

maiden who, like the untamed hawk, would soar whither she lists. Love,

indeed!” and she laughed merrily.

Poor Grahame! how his sensitive heart throbbed at these words. He would

have given worlds to be miles away. But the light, half-mocking laugh,

all silvery though it was, with which she concluded, wrung even from him

a reproach.

“Oh! Isabel,” he said, and his low voice trembled with emotion, “_can_

you believe all this? Ah! little indeed then do you know of love.”

“And who would presume to think that I _did_ know ought of it?” said

Isabel, with a heightened color, and a flashing eye,—“I have no taste

for jealous lovers or domineering lords; and I never saw one of your

sex—I pray your pardon, fair sir—” and there was a slight scorn in her

words, “who could tempt maiden to think twice of matrimony. Love indeed,

forsooth! I pray Heaven to open men’s eyes to their vanity.”

The moment she had ceased speaking, Isabel would have given any thing to

recall her words. Hurried away by her love of raillery, and a little

piqued at the tone of reproach in which Grahame ventured, she had given

free license to her speech, and said things which she well knew she did

not believe. Her lover turned deadly pale at her words. Believing now

that she had all along been trifling with his feelings, he started to

his feet, and looking at her a moment sadly, exclaimed bitterly,

“Isabel! Isabel! May God forgive you for this; I leave you and forever;”

and ere she could reply, or Grahame see the tears that gushed into her

eye, he darted through the neighboring shrubbery and was lost to sight.

Isabel looked after, and called faintly to him to return, but if he

heard her, which was scarcely possible, he heeded it not. Pride

prevented her from repeating the summons; she saw him no more.

CHAPTER II.

More than an hour elapsed before Isabel returned to the mansion, and

when she did the traces of tears were on her cheeks. She instantly

sought her chamber.

“He said we parted forever—oh! surely he cannot have meant it,” she

exclaimed, “he will be here to-morrow. And then—” and she paused, while

a blush mantled over her cheeks, and invaded even her pearly bosom.

But to-morrow came without Grahame. All through the long day Isabel

watched for his arrival, and even ventured half way to the park-gates,

but when she heard footsteps in the avenue ahead, she hurried trembling

behind the shrubbery until she saw that the stranger was not her lover.

And when night came, and still he did not appear, her heart was agitated

by contending emotions; and while one moment pride would obtain the

mastery, love would in turn subdue her bosom. Until this hour Isabel had

never known how deeply she loved Grahame; for her passion, growing with

her growth and increasing with her years, had obtained the mastery of

her heart with such subtle and gradual power, that the rude shock of

Grahame’s departure first woke her to a consciousness of her affection.

And now she felt that she had wronged a true and noble heart. Had her

lover then returned he would have won a ready confession of her passion;

but day after day passed without his arrival, and finally intelligence

was received that he had joined the army of King Charles, then first

rallying around that ill-fated monarch, preparatory to the fatal civil

war in which so many gallant cavaliers lost life and fortune. The news

filled Isabel’s heart with the keenest anguish. “Alas! Grahame,” she

said, as if in adjuration, “I love only you, and your noble heart deems

I despise the offering. Could you but know the truth! But surely,” she

continued, “he might have sought some explanation. Oh! if he had

returned only for a moment, and given me the opportunity to ask

forgiveness, he would not have had to complain of a cold and ungrateful

heart in Isabel Mordaunt. He is unjust,” and thus resolving, she

determined to demean herself with becoming pride.

However much, therefore, Isabel might suffer in secret, no curious eye

was allowed to penetrate the recesses of her heart. To the world she

appeared gay and witty as ever, and if sometimes the name of Grahame was

mentioned, or his gallant deeds commended, she heard the announcement

without betraying aught more than would have been natural in a common

friend. She was often put to this trial, for, from the moment when

Grahame joined the royal standard, his career had witnessed a succession

of the most brilliant exploits. Seeming to be utterly regardless of

life, he ventured deeds from which even the bravest had shrunk back.

Wherever the storm of battle was thickest, wherever a post of extreme

peril was to be maintained, there was Grahame, pressing forward in the

front rank, like another Rinaldo. He did not shun the companionship of

the gayer gallants of the camp, but he ever wore, amid their mirth, an

expression of settled sadness. But this peculiarity was forgotten in the

brilliancy of his exploits, and his name came at length to be so famous

that when any new and daring deed was done, men asked at once whether

Sir Grahame Vaux had not been there.

Isabel heard all this with a beating heart, but an unmoved cheek. She

had schooled herself to disguise her heart, and she succeeded so that no

one suspected the truth. Only her father, when he saw her refuse one

after another of her many suitors, divined that some unrevealed secret

lay hidden in her bosom, and remembering the sudden departure of

Grahame, was at no loss to refer her conduct to the right cause.

Meantime a change had gradually come over Isabel. She was less

light-hearted than of old—her laugh, though musical, was scarcely as

gay as it once had been—and her sportive wit no longer flashed

incessantly like the lightning in the summer cloud.

The tide of war had long rolled steadfastly against the cavaliers, and

finally the battle of Marston Moor closed the tragedy. The day after the

news of the defeat arrived, a travel-soiled retainer of Grahame reached

Mordaunt Hall and recounted in detail the events of that bloody field,

from which he was a fugitive. He said that his master, when the day was

lost, flung a discharged pistol into the thickest ranks of the enemy and

died, like a knight of old, fighting to regain it. At these words her

father turned to Isabel, in whose presence the retainer had related his

story, and saw a deathly paleness overspread her cheek. The next instant

she sank to the floor in a swoon.

“My child, my darling Isabel, speak,” said the aged father, raising her

in his trembling arms. “Oh! I have long suspected this, and the blow has

killed her! Why did I suffer her to hear this tale!”

With difficulty they revived her; but she only woke to a spell of

sickness; and for weeks her fate hung in a balance between life and

death.

CHAPTER III.

But Grahame had not fallen. True, as his retainer asserted, he had

maintained the unequal combat long after every one else had left the

field, and true also he had finally been overwhelmed by numbers and left

for dead, covered with wounds, upon the battle plain; but when the

pursuing squadrons had swept by, leaving the field comparatively

deserted, and the chill night wind breathed with reviving coolness over

his brow, he awoke to consciousness, and was enabled, by the assistance

of one of his followers who yet prowled about the scene of carnage in

the hope of finding his master, to gain a secure retreat where he might

be cured of his wounds. Here, on the rude couch of a humble cottage, he

lay for weeks, and the third month had set in after the battle, before

he was enabled to leave his lowly shelter. During all this time his

faithful retainer watched over him, tending him one while with the

assiduity of a nurse, and another while, on any alarm, preparing to

defend him to the last extremity.

“I am now a houseless, persecuted outlaw,” said Grahame when he mounted

his steed to leave the humble cottage where he had found shelter. “The

crop-eared puritanic knaves have shed the best blood in the country and

they will not spare mine. The land is overrun with their troops, and

there is no safety, in this portion of it at least. I will go once more

to the halls of my fathers, take a last farewell of them, and then carry

my life and sword to some foreign market, for, God help me, there is

nothing else left to do.”

It was a bright sunny afternoon when Grahame reached his ancestral

halls, now deserted and melancholy. Already had the minions of the

parliament sequestrated and shut up the mansion, and it was only through

the fidelity of an old servant, who yet lingered around the place, that

its former master was enabled to enter its portals. The aged retainer

wept with joy on his lord’s hand, and said,

“Oh! dark was the day when news came of your honor’s death.”

“And was it then reported that I was no more? Yet how can I wonder at

it, considering my long seclusion.”

“Oh! yes—and sad times too they had of it over at Mordaunt Hall. The

young mistress fainted away, and was near dying, though since she has

heard that you yet lived—as we all did, you know, by your

messenger,—she has wonderfully revived. But what ails you, my dear

master?—are you sick?”

“No—no—but I must to horse at once,” said Grahame, whose face had

turned deadly pale at his servant’s joyful intelligence. “I may be back

to sleep here—think you I can have safe hiding for one night in my

father’s house?”

“That may you, God bless your honor,” said the old man as Grahame rode

away.

“She loves me, then! Life is no more all a blank,” said the young knight

almost gaily, as he dashed through the arcades of his park, his steed

seeming to partake in his master’s exhilaration.

Isabel sat in the great parlor of Mordaunt Hall, looking down the broad

avenue that led to the park gates. A partial bloom had been restored to

her cheek, for hope whispered to her that Grahame might yet be hers.

Suddenly a figure emerged to sight far down the avenue, and though years

had elapsed since she had seen that form, and though she imagined her

lover to be far away, and perhaps in exile, her heart told her at once

that the approaching figure was Grahame’s. For a moment her agitation

was so excessive that she thought she would have fainted, but though

there were many painful recollections, her sensations on the whole were

of a happy kind. Quick as lightning, the thought flashed across her mind

that Grahame had heard of her agitation when the false report of his

death had reached Mordaunt Hall, and, for the moment, maidenly shame

overcame every other feeling in her bosom. Conscious that she dare not

meet her lover without preparation, she took to instant flight, and

sought, as if instinctively, her favorite seat in the garden. Here,

resting her head on her hands, she strove to collect her thoughts. It

was not long before she heard a tread on the graveled walk, and her

whole frame trembled with the consciousness that the intruder was

Grahame. Nervous, abashed, unable to look up, her heart fluttered wildly

against her boddice. How different was she from the gay, capricious

creature who had occupied that same seat, two short years before. She

heard the footstep at hand, and her agitation increased. She knew that

her lover had taken his seat beside her, and yet she dared not let her

eye meet his, but blushing and confused she offered no resistance when

he took her trembling hand in his.

“Isabel—dear Isabel!” said a manly voice, and though the tones were

full of emotion, the accents were clear and firm, for it was not Grahame

now who trembled, “let us forget the past,” and he stole his arm around

her waist. “We love each other—do we not, dear Isabel?”

Isabel raised her eyes, now beaming with subdued tenderness, to her

lover’s face, and then bursting into tears was drawn to his bosom, as

tenderly as a mother may press her new-born infant to her heart.

The interest of Isabel’s father, who had taken no part in the civil war,

procured for Grahame an immunity from proscription; and when his estates

were brought to the hammer, under the order of the parliament, they were

purchased by Mr. Mordaunt, and restored to their rightful owner. Long

and happily together lived Sir Grahame Vaux and his beautiful wife, and

when Charles the Second was restored to his kingdom, none welcomed him

back with more joy than the now blooming matron, and her still noble

looking lord.

* * * * *

HARRY CAVENDISH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” THE “REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.

THE LAST SHOT.

The ten minutes that elapsed before I reached the door of the Hall

seemed to be protracted to an age, and were spent in an agony of mind no

pen can describe. Oh! to be thus deceived—to part from Annette as we

had parted—to think of her by day and dream of her by night—to look

forward to our meeting with a thrill of hope, and strive to win renown

that I might shed a lustre around my bride—and then, after all my

toils, and hopes, and struggles, to come back and find her wedded—God

of heaven! it was too much. But, notwithstanding my agony, my pride

revolted at the display of any outward emotion. I would not for worlds

that Annette should know the torture her faithlessness had inflicted on

my bosom. No! I would smooth my brow, subdue my tongue, and control my

every look. I would jest, smile, and be the gayest of the gay. I would

wish Annette and her husband a long and happy life, and no one should

suspect that, under my assumed composure, I wore a heart rankling with a

wound that no time nor circumstance could cure. I resolved to see

Annette, to play my part to the end, and then, returning to my post, to

find an honorable death on the first deck we should surmount. My

reflections, however, were cut short by the stoppage of the vehicle

before the door of the mansion. A servant hastened to undo the coach

steps, and, nerving myself for the interview that was at hand, I stepped

out. The man’s face was strange to me, and I saw that it displayed some

embarrassment.

“Will you announce me to Mr. St. Clair,” I said, “as Lieutenant

Cavendish?”

“Mr. St. Clair, I regret to say,” replied the man politely, “is not at

the Hall. The carriages have just driven off, and if they had not taken

the back road through the park, would have met you in the avenue. Mr.

St. Clair accompanies the bride and groom on a two weeks’ tour.”

My course was at once taken; and, as the criminal feels a lightening of

the heart when reprieved, so I experienced a relief in escaping the

trying experiment of mingling with the bridal party. Hastily

re-ascending the carriage steps, I left my name with the servant, and

ordering the coachman to drive off, left Pomfret Hall, with the

resolution never again to return. At the village I paused a few minutes

to indite a letter to Mr. St. Clair, in which I regretted my inopportune

arrival, and wished a long life of happiness to him and to Annette.

Then, re-entering the coach, I threw myself back on the seat, and, while

I was being whirled away from Pomfret Hall, gave myself up to the most

bitter reflections. As I now and then looked out of the window and

recognized familiar objects along the road, I contrasted my present

despondency with the hope that had thrilled my heart when I passed them

a few hours before. Then, every pulse beat faster with delicious

anticipations: now, I scarcely wished for more than an honorable death.

At length my thoughts took a turn, and I reviewed the past, calling to

mind every little word and act of Annette, from which I could draw

either hope or despair.

“Fool that I was,” I exclaimed, “to think that the wealthy heiress could

stoop to love a penniless officer. And yet,” I continued, “my fathers

were as noble as hers, aye! and enjoyed wealth and honors to which the

St. Clairs never aspired.” But again a revulsion came across my

feelings, and I said, “Oh! Annette, Annette, could you but know my

misery, you might have paused. But God grant you may find a heart as

true to you as mine.” Thus harassed by contending emotions, now giving

way to my love, and now yielding to indignation and pride, I spent the

day, and when at night, preparatory to retiring, I happened to cast a

look into the mirror, I started back at my haggard appearance. But there

are moments of agony which do the work of years.

My messmates, one and all, were astonished at my speedy return, but

luckily it had been determined to put to sea at once, so that if I had

remained at Pomfret Hall until the expiration of my leave of absence I

should have lost the cruise. One or two of my companions, who prided

themselves on their superior intelligence, gave me the credit of having,

by some unknown means, heard of the change in our day of sailing, and so

hastened my return to my post. They little dreamed of the true cause,

for to them, as to all others, I wore the same mask of assumed gaiety.

We sailed in company with The Arrow, but, ere we had been out a week,

were separated from our consort. Our orders were, in such an emergency,

to make the best of our way southward, and rendezvous at St. Domingo.

I had turned in one night, after having kept watch on deck until

midnight, when, in the midst of a refreshing sleep, I was suddenly awoke

by a hand laid on my shoulder, at the same time that a voice said—

“Hist! Cavendish; don’t talk in your sleep.”

I started to my feet, but, for a moment, my faculties were in such a

whirl that the dream in which I had been reveling, mingling with the

scene before my waking senses, confused and bewildered me so that I knew

not what I uttered.

“St. Clair! Pomfret Hall! why your wits are wool gathering, my dear

fellow,” said the doctor—for I now recognised my old friend—“of what

have you been dreaming? You look as if you thought me a spectre sent to

call you from Paradise.”

I had indeed been dreaming. I fancied I was far away, wandering amid the

leafy shades of Pomfret Hall with Annette leaning on my arm, and ever

and anon gazing up into my face with looks of unutterable love. I heard

the rustle of the leaves, the jocund song of the birds, and the soothing

sound of the woodland waterfall, but sweeter, aye! a thousand times

sweeter than all these, came to my ears the low whisper of my affianced

bride. Was I not happy? And we sat down on a verdant bank, and, with her

hand clasped in mine, and her fair head resting on my bosom, we talked

of the happiness which was in store for us, and projected a thousand

plans for the future. From visions like this I awoke to the

consciousness that Annette was lost to me forever, and that even now the

smiles and caresses of which I had dreamed were being bestowed upon

another. A pang of keenest agony, a sharp, sudden pang, as if an icebolt

had shot through my heart, almost deprived me for a moment of utterance,

and I was fain to lean against a timber for support. But this weakness

was only momentary, for, rallying every energy, I conquered my feelings,

though not so soon but that the doctor saw my emotion.

“Are you sick, my dear fellow?” he said anxiously. “No! well, you do

look better now. But I came to inform you that as rake-helly a looking

craft as ever you saw is dogging us to windward, and the Lord only knows

whether we wont all be prisoners, and mayhap dead men, before night.”

I hurried on my clothes, and, following him to the deck, saw, at the

first glance, that the good doctor’s fears respecting the strange sail

were not without foundation. She was a sharp, low brig, with masts

raking far aft, and a spread of canvass towering from her decks

sufficient to have driven a sloop of war. The haze of the morning had

concealed her from sight until within the last five minutes; but now the

broad disc of the sun, rising majestically behind her, brought out her

masts, tracery and hull in bold and distinct relief. When first

discovered, she was within long cannon shot, but standing off to

windward. She altered her course immediately, however, on perceiving us,

and was already closing. She carried no ensign, but there was that in

her crowded decks and jaunty air which did not permit me to doubt a

moment as to her character.

“A rover, by ——,” said the skipper, who had been scrutinizing the

strange sail through a glass; “and she is treble our force,” he

continued, in a whisper to me. “We have no choice, either, but to

fight.”

I shook my head, for it was evident that escape was impossible.

“She sails like a witch, too,” I replied, in the same low tone, “and

would overhaul us, no matter what her position might be.”

“I wish we were a dozen leagues away,” said the captain, shrugging his

shoulders, “there is little honor and no profit in fighting these

cut-throats, and if we are whipt, as we shall be, they will slit our

windpipes as if we were so many sheep in a slaughter-house. Bah!”

“Not so,” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “we will die sword in hand.

Since these murderers have crossed our path we must, if every thing else

fail, suffer them to board us, and then blow the schooner out of water.

I myself will fire the train.”

“Now, by the God above us, you speak as a brave man should, and shame my

momentary disgust, for fear I will not call it. No, Jack Merrivale never

wanted courage, however prudence might have been lacking. But little did

I think that you, Cavendish, would ever show less prudence than myself,

as you have to-day. You seem a changed man.”

“I am one,” I exclaimed; “but that is neither here nor there. When once

yon freebooter gets alongside, Harry Cavendish will not be behindhand in

doing his duty.”

My superior, at any other time, could not have failed to notice the

excitement under which I spoke, but now his mind was too fully occupied

to give my demeanor a second thought, and our conversation was cut short

by a ball from the pirate, which, whistling over our heads, plumped into

the sea some fathoms distant. At the same instant a mass of dark bunting

shot up to the gaff of the brig, and, slowly unrolling, blew out

steadily in the breeze, disclosing a black flag, unrelieved by a single

emblem. But we well knew the meaning of that ominous ensign.

“He taunts us with his accursed flag,” said the skipper energetically;

“by the Lord that liveth, he shall feel that freemen know how to defend

their lives and honor. Call aft the men, and then to quarters. We will

blow yon scoundrels out of water, or die on the last plank.”

Never did I listen to more vehement, more soul-stirring eloquence than

that which rolled, like a tide of fire, from the captain’s lips when the

men had gathered aft. Every eye flashed with indignation, every bosom

heaved with high and noble daring, as he pointed impetuously to the foe

and asked if there was one who heard him that wished to shrink from the

contest. To his impassioned appeal they answered with a loud huzza,

brandishing their cutlasses above their heads and swearing to stand by

him to the last.

“I know it, my brave boys—I remember how you fought the privateer’s

men,” for most of his old crew had re-entered, “but yonder cut-throats

are still more deceitful and blood-thirsty. We have nothing to hope for

from them but a short shrift and the yard-arm. We fight, not for our

country and property alone, but for our lives also. The little Falcon

has struck down too many prizes already, to show the coward’s feather

now. Let us make these decks slippery with our best blood rather than

surrender. Stand by me, if they board us, and—my word on it—the

survivors will long talk of this glorious day. And now, my brave lads,

splice the main-brace, and then to quarters.”

Another cheer followed the close of this harangue, when the men gathered

at their quarters, each one as he passed to his station receiving a

glass of grog. As I ran my eye along the decks, and saw the stalwart

frames and flashing eyes of the crew, I felt assured that the day was

destined to be desperately contested; and when I thought of the vast

odds against which we had to contend, and the glorious deeds which this

superiority would make room for, I experienced an exultation which I

cannot describe. The time for which, in the bitterness of my heart, I

had prayed, was come; and I resolved to dare things this day which, if

they ever reached the ears of Annette, should prove to her that I died

the death of a gallant soldier. The thought that, perhaps, she might

regret me when I was gone, was sweeter to me than the song of many

waters.

Little time, however, was left for such emotions, for scarcely had the

men taken their stations when the pirate, who had hitherto been

manœuvering for a favorable position and only occasionally firing a

shot, opened his batteries on us, discharging his guns in such quick

succession that his sides seemed one continuous blaze, and his tall

masts were to be seen reeling backwards from the shock of his broadside.

Instantaneously the iron tempest came hurtling across us, and for a

space I was bewildered by the rending of timbers, the falling of spars,

and the agonizing shrieks of the wounded. The main-top-mast came

rattling to the deck with all its hamper at the very moment that a

messmate fell dead beside me. For a few minutes all was consternation

and confusion. So rapid had been the discharges, and so well aimed had

been each shot, that, in the twinkling of an eye, we saw ourselves

almost a wreck on the water, and comparatively at the mercy of our foe.

“Clear away this hamper,” shouted the skipper, “stand to your guns

forward there, and give it to the pirate.”

With the word the two light pieces and the gun amidships opened on the

now rapidly closing foe; but the metal of all except the swivel was so

light that it did no perceptible damage on the thick-ribbed hull of our

antagonist. The ball from the long eighteen, however, swept the decks of

the foe, and appeared to have carried no little havoc in its course. But

the broadside did not check the approach of the rover. His object was

manifestly to run us afoul and board us. Steadily, therefore, he

maintained his course, swerving scarcely a hair’s breadth at our

discharge, but keeping right on as if scorning our futile efforts to

check his progress. We did not, however, intermit our exertions.

Although crippled we were not disheartened—despairing, we entertained

no thought of submission, but rallying around our guns, we fought them

like lions at bay, firing with such rapidity that our decks, and the

ocean around, soon came to be almost obscured in the thick fleecy veil

of smoke that settled slowly on the water. Every few minutes a ball from

the pirate whizzed by in our immediate vicinity, or crashed among our

spars; but the increasing clouds of vapor, clinging about the pathway of

our foe as well as of ourselves, made his fire naturally less deadly

than at first. For a short space we even lost sight of our antagonist,

and the gunners paused, uncertain where to fire; but suddenly the lofty

spars of the pirate were seen riding above the white fog, scarcely a

pistol shot from us, and in another minute, with a deafening crash, the

rover ran us aboard, his bowsprit jamming in our fore-rigging as he

approached us head on. Almost before we could recover from our surprise

we heard a stern voice crying out in the Spanish tongue for boarders,

and immediately a dark mass of ruffians gathered, like a cluster of

bees, on the bowsprit of the foe, with cutlasses brandished aloft,

preparatory to a descent on our decks.

“Rally to repel boarders!” thundered the skipper, springing forward,

“ho! beat back the bloodhounds from your decks,” and with the word, he

made a blow at a desperado who, at that moment, sprang into the

fore-rigging; when my superior drew back his sword it was red with the

heart’s blood of the assailant, who, falling heavily backwards with a

dull plash, squatted a second on the water, like a wounded water-fowl,

and then sank forever. For a single breath his companions stood

appalled, and then, with a savage yell, leaping on our decks, fiercely

attacked our little band. In vain our gallant tars disputed every inch

of ground—in vain one after another of the assailants dyed the deck

with his blood—in vain by word and deed the skipper incited the crew to

almost gigantic exertions; nothing could resist the overpowering tide of

assailants which poured on in an unremitting stream from the brig,

bearing down every thing before it as an avalanche from the hills. Step

by step our brave lads were steadily forced backwards, until at length

the whole forecastle was in possession of the foe, and a solid mass of

freebooters was advancing on the starboard side of the open main-hatch,

in eager pursuit of the retreating crew. I had foreseen this result to

the conflict, and instead, therefore, of aiding to repel the boarders,

had been engaged in loading one of the lighter guns with grape, and

dragging it around, so as to command this very path;—a duty which I had

been enabled to perform unnoticed by either party in the fierce

excitement of the _mêlée_. I had hardly masked my little battery, and

not three minutes had elapsed from the first onset of the boarders, when

my messmates came driving towards me, as I have described, beaten in by

the solid masses of the enemy. Already the fugitives had passed the

hatchway, and the foremost desperados of the assailing column were even

now within three feet of the muzzle of my gun, when I signed to my

confederate to jerk off the tarpaulin which had masked our piece. The

pirates started back in horror when they saw their peril, but I gave

them no time to escape. Quick as lightning I applied the match, and the

whole fiery cataract was belched upon them. Language cannot depict the

fearful havoc of that discharge. The hurricane of fire and shot mowed

its way lengthwise, through the narrow and crowded column, scattering

the dying and the dead beneath its track, as a whirlwind uproots the

forest trees; while groans, and imprecations, and shrieks of anguish

rent the air, drowning the sounds of the explosion, and the crashing of

the grape, amongst its victims.

“Now charge!” I shouted, as if seized with a sudden frenzy, springing

into the very midst of the foe, “charge them, my gallant braves, and

sweep the murderers from the deck. No quarter to the knaves! Hew them to

the brisket,” and following every word with a blow, and seconded by our

men who seemed to catch my fury, we made such havoc among those of the

pirates whom the grape had spared, that, astonished, paralized,

disconcerted, and finally struck with mortal fear, they fled wildly from

the schooner, some regaining their craft by the bowsprit, some plunging

overboard and swimming to her, and some leaping headlong into the deep

never to rise again. Seizing an axe, and springing forward, I hastily

cut our hamper loose from the foe, and with the next swell the two

vessels slowly parted.

“Now to your guns, my men,” shouted the skipper, unconscious of a

dangerous wound, in the excitement of the moment, “give it to them

before they can rally to their quarters. Fire!”

We poured in our broadsides like hail, riddling even the solid sides of

our foe, and making his decks slippery with blood, and all this before

the discomfited freebooters could rally to their guns and return our

shots. Our men, fired with an enthusiasm which approached to madness,

loaded with a speed that seems to me now incredible, and the third

broadside was shaking every timber of our little craft, before a

solitary gun was discharged in reply from the pirate.

“Ah! he has woke up at last,” said my old friend, the captain of our

long Tom, “and she may yet regain the day if we don’t fight like devils.

Bring me that shot from the galley.”

“In God’s name, what do you mean?” said I, as he coolly sat down by his

piece. “In with the ball and let the rover have it—not a moment is to

be lost.”

“Aye! I knows that, leftenant; and here comes the settler for which I

waited,” he exclaimed, as the cook brought a red-hot shot from the

galley, “I thought I’d venture on a little experiment of my own, and

I’ve seen ’em do wonders with these fiery comets afore now. There—there

she has it,” he exclaimed, as the shot was sent home, “now God have

mercy on them varmint’s souls.”

From some strange, unaccountable presentiment, I stepped mechanically

backward and cast an eye at the brig, which had now floated to some

distance. As I did so, a trail of fire glanced before my sight, and I

saw the simmering shot enter her side. Thought was not quicker than the

explosion which followed, shaking the sea beneath and the sky above, and

almost deafening the ear with its unearthly concussion, while

instantaneously a gush of flame shot far up into the sky; the masts of

the vessel were lifted perpendicularly upwards, and the whole air was

filled with shattered timbers and mangled human bodies that fell the

next minute pattering around us into the deep. Oh God! the fearful

sight! The shrieks of the wounded and drowning—the awful struggles of

the poor wretches in the water—the sullen cloud that settled over the

scene of death, will they ever pass away from my memory? But I drop a

veil over a sight too horrible to recount. Suffice it to say, of all the

rover’s crew, not one survived to see that sun go down. A few we picked

up with our boats, but they died ere night. The cause of the explosion

is soon told. The brig’s magazine had been struck and fired by our LAST

SHOT.

* * * * *

THE SONG OF MADOC.

BY G. FORRESTER BARSTOW.

Away! away! the bright blue waves are dashing

With sparkling crests like spotless mountain snow,

As in the fight our mighty falchion’s flashing

Above the foe.

Away! away! old ocean spreads before us

Its broad domain, where sunk the sun’s last ray,

While in the deep blue sky that arches o’er us

Stars shine to light our way.

Away! away! from home’s entrancing pleasures

The festal board, the bower of lady fair,

The roof that holds our hearts’ most valued treasures,

The loved ones there,

We go: and while the burning tear is starting

From eyes that gaze upon a shoreless main,

Fill! fill to those from whom we now are parting,

And ne’er may see again.

Fill to the loved ones whose bright eyes are beaming

As yonder stars in their pure heaven of blue,

Bright as the stars those brilliant eyes are gleaming

With heaven’s own hue.

Fill to the loved ones whose bright cheeks are glowing

As eastern heaven in morning’s virgin ray,

Whose necks, down which their auburn locks are flowing,

Would shame the dashing spray.

Away! away! above the waves careering,

Our ship speeds lightly on an unknown way,

Far to the west our course we now are steering

With spirits gay.

Far to the west, where brilliant gems are shining,

And mighty rivers roll o’er golden sands,

Where sweetest flowers and richest grapes are twining,

Wooing the stranger’s hands.

* * * * *

AN APPEAL

TO AMERICAN AUTHORS AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

IN BEHALF OF AN INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

Gentlemen:—You have the credit, at this moment, of ruling the world—at

least your part of it; and cannot yet enact a single statute by which

your share of worldly right and profit shall be secured to you. Walking,

in the world’s eye, as strong and beautiful as angels, you cannot

perform the day’s work, counted either in money or in bill-making

influence, of a rude Missourian or a lean Atlantic citizen.

Aiding, as you do, by your inventive genius in all the great enterprises

of the day—pushing forward every great and good undertaking to an issue

of success—you lack the will or the skill to create a simple

mill-contrivance by which your grain may be ground and bread furnished

to your board.

You project, but do not realize. You sow, but do not reap. You sail to

and fro—merchantmen and carriers to all the world of thought—the whole

ocean over, but find no harbor and acquire no return. How much longer

you will consent to keep the wheels of opinion in motion: to do the

better part of the thinking and writing of these twenty-six States,

without hire or fee, it rests with you to say. I merely put the case to

you to see how it strikes you.

I address you in the mass, writers of books and framers of paragraphs

together, because, at bottom, all who wield the pen have interests in

common; and because I am anxious (I confess it) to have the whole force

of the Press, whatever shape it takes, combined and consolidated against

an injustice which could not live an hour if the Press knew its rights

and its strength. The rights and the respectability of the one are, in

the end, the rights and the respectability of the other; based in both

cases on the worth and dignity of literary property.

No community is secure, it seems to me, where any law or fundamental

right is systematically violated.

Either by instant vindication, through blood, and pillage, and massacre;

or by the more silent and deadlier agency of the opposite wrong and a

whole brood of fierce allies sprung from its loins, is this truth, at

all times, asserted and made good. From the original wrong, lying in

many cases close to the heart of society, there spreads a secret and

invisible atmosphere of pestilence, in which all kindred rights moulder

and decay, until their life at last goes out at a moment when no man had

guessed at such a result. Neither statesmen nor people are, therefore,

wise in tampering with a single principle: or in yielding a jot of the

immutable truth to plausible emergency or the fair-seeming visage of an

immediate good.

The law of property, in all its relations and aspects, is one of these

primary anchors and fastenings of the social frame. And what evils, I am

asked, have grown from the alleged neglect of literary property? I will

mention one by way of illustration.

You are all of you aware, by this time, that the extensive printing and

publishing establishment of Harper & Brothers, Cliff street, New York,

was burned in the early part of June; and that a heavy loss accrued to

them from the burning.

The fire was attributed, immediately after it occured, by the public

prints to the hand of design. “_It is supposed that one object of the

incendiaries was to obtain copies of a new novel, by James, of which the

Messrs. Harper had the exclusive possession._” Another paper enlarges

this statement—“we see suspicions expressed that the object was to get

possession of a new novel, ‘Morley Ernstein,’ which was in sheets, _for

cheap publication_.” Here is a natural, logical sequence, and just such

a one as might have been expected. If the conjecture should not prove a

fact, it ought to be one, because this is just the period and the very

order in which we might expect an incident of this kind to occur;

perhaps not on quite so large a scale, nor with the necessary

melo-dramatic admixture of fire. It might have been a plain burglary,

prying a ware-house door open with a bar, for a copy; or, knocking a man

over, at the edge of evening, and plucking the sheets from under his

arm.

Piracy and burning are, perhaps, so nearly akin that, after all, they

have wrought out the sequence more naturally than if it had been left to

the friends of copyright to suggest to them in what order they should

occur. In Elia’s legend, a building is burned that a famishing Chinaman

may have roast pig; in the reality of the present fire a publisher’s

warehouse was put in flames, not only to prevent a famishing author from

having roast pig in _presenti_, but also, by a decisive blow, to further

the good principle, that there should be no roast pig (nor even salt and

a radish) for famishing authors in all future time. Let it not be said I

press this point, a mere surmise, too far. Surmise as it is, it receives

countenance and consistency from a previous fact, namely, that one of

the large republishing newspapers was charged, not long since, by the

other—and this was made a matter for the Sessions—with the felony of

abstracting the sheets of an English work from the office of its rival.

This—an invasion of property—is only one of the external evils growing

out of a false and lawless state of things. Of others which strike

deeper; which create confusion and error of opinion; which tend to

unsettle the lines that divide nation from nation; to obliterate the

traits and features which give us a characteristic individuality as a

nation—there will be another and more becoming opportunity to speak.

As it is, by fair means or foul, the weekly newspaper press, with its

broad sheet spread to the breeze, is making great head against the

slow-sailing progress of such as trust to the more regular trade-winds

for their speed. And this, fortunately (as error cannot long abide in

itself,) is creating changes of opinion of infinite advantage to the

great cause of international copyright.

A little while ago, we had the publishers petitioning and declaiming

against an international copyright, (I forget what arguments they

employed;) and, lo! their breath is scarcely spent when the ground

slides from under them, and the whole publishing business—at least a

considerable section of it—which they meant to uphold by false and

hollow props, has tumbled into chaos, and an organic change has passed

through the world of publication. Now they begin—and we are glad to

have so powerful and so respectable a body convert to our side, on

whatever terms—to see the matter in a new light; the affection for the

people, and the cheap enlightenment of the people, and the people’s

wives and children, which they made bold (out of an exceeding

philanthropy) to proclaim in market-places and the lobbies of Congress,

is wonderfully dwindled.

It isn’t a pleasant thing, after all, to have one’s printing-house and

bindery burned to the ground, even for so laudable an object. Suppose we

have the law: a little civilized recognition of the rights of authors

(merely by way of clincher, however, to the absolute, primary and

indefeasible rights of publishers) might be an agreeable change from

this barbarous system of non-protection. The old plan, it must be

admitted, has its disadvantages. Let’s have the law! And here you may

suppose the hats of certain old, respected and enterprising publishers

to rise into the air, in a sort of fervor or ecstasy, which it is

entirely out of their power to control.

Is there or is there not a property in a book: a primitive, real,

fundamental right in its ownership as in any estate or property? Often

and clearly as this question has been determined, the opponents of a

law, by stress of argument, are driven upon denying it over and over

again, and making use of every sort of ridiculous and irrelevant

illustration to crowd the right out of the way. They fly into all

corners of creation in pursuit of an analogy, and come back without as

much as a sparrow in their bag.

One of them, for example, says, “We buy a new foreign book; it is ours;

we multiply copies and diffuse its advantages. We also buy a bushel of

foreign wheat, before unknown to us; we cultivate, increase it, and

spread its use over the country. Where is the difference? If one is

stealing, the other is so. Nonsense! neither is stealing. They are both

praiseworthy acts, beneficial to mankind, injurious to nobody, right and

just in themselves, and commendable in the sight of God.” This reasoner,

of a pious inclination and most excellent moral tendencies, has made but

a single error—he thinks the type, stitching and paper are THE BOOK! He

forgets that when you buy a book you do not buy the whole body of its

thoughts in their entire breadth and construction, to be yours in fee

simple for all uses, (if you did, the vender would be guilty of a fraud

in selling more than a single copy of any one work;) but simply the

usufruct of the book as a reader. Any processes of your own mind exerted

upon that work, or parts of it, make the result, so far, your legitimate

property, and is one of the incidents of your purchase. To reprint the

work in any shape, as a complete, symmetrical composition, is a

violation of the original contract between the vender and yourself;

whether it be in folio or duodecimo, in the form of newspaper or

pamphlet—there lies THE BOOK, unchanged by any action of your own mind.

The wheat, of which you have purchased the bushel, in the mean time has

been sown in your field, (there’s a difference to begin;) which has been

prepared by your plough and plough-horse for its reception; the kindly

dews and rains of heaven—which would answer to the genial inspirations

and movements of the mind, in the other case—descend upon it; it is

guarded by walls and hedges from inroad; the weeds and tares which would

fain choke it are plucked out by a careful hand; at last it is reaped

and gathered in by the harvestman to his garners. The one bushel has

become a thousand; but it has passed through a thousand appropriating

and fructifying processes to swell it to that extent. It has not been

merely poured out of one bushel measure into another bushel measure.

Though the one plough the earth, and the other plough the sea, the world

will recognize a distinction, a delicate line of demarcation between

farmer (man’s first occupation) and pirate (his last.) The

republishers—the proprietors of the mammoth press—groan under the

aspersion of piracy and pillage laid at their door: they complain of the

harshness of epithet which denounces them as Kyds and MacGregors. They

must bear in mind that authors and republishers are likely to regard

this question from very different points of view: that the poor writer,

regarding himself as plundered, defrauded of a positive right, and of a

property as real and substantial as guineas, or dollars, or doubloons,

may feel a soreness of which the other party, living as he does on the

denial of that right, and the seizure of that property, without charge

or cost, may not be quite as susceptible. Let us make an effort to bring

this point home to these gentlemen in an obvious and intelligible

illustration.

How would the worthy proprietors of “The Brother Jonathan” like it, if,

when their editions of Barnaby Rudge or Zanoni had been carefully worked

off, at some expense of composition, paper and press-work, and lay ready

folded in their office for delivery: How would they be pleased if, just

at that moment, when the newsboys were gathered at the office door,

pitching their throats for the new cry, a gang of stout-handed fellows

should descend upon their premises, and without as much as “by your

leave,” or, “gentlemen an you will!” sweep the entire edition off, bear

it into the next street, and there proceed to issue and vend it with the

utmost imaginable steadiness of aspect, with an equanimity of demeanor

quite edifying and perfect? Why, gentlemen, to speak the truth plainly,

you would have a hue-and-cry around the corner in an instant! _Your_

ejaculations of thief, robber and burglar would know no pause till you

were compelled to give over for very lack of breath; and the whole

community would be startled, at its breakfast the next morning, by an

appeal to its moral sensibilities so loud and lightning-like, that the

coffee would be unpalatable, and the very toast turn to a cinder in the

mouth.

Now, it should be borne in mind that the large weekly press, whose

influence we are anxious to counteract, and whose interest is rapidly

becoming the leading one in opposition to the proposed law, has arisen

since the agitation of this question; has embarked its capital, and has

grown to its present power and influence in the very teeth of a solemn

protest of the authors whose labors they appropriate. It should also, in

fairness, be added that some members of this huge fraternity only avail

themselves of this law as it now stands, as they think they have a

right, and hold themselves ready to abandon the field or adapt

themselves to the change whenever a new law requires it; in the mean

time, meeting the question fairly, and reasoning it through in good

temper. The very paper which I have employed in illustration is

chargeable with no offence against literature, society, or good morals,

save the single taint of appropriating the labors of authors without

pay, and defending the appropriation as matter of strict right and

propriety. Only in a community where a contempt for literary rights has

been engendered by long mal-practice, could such sentiments have

obtained lodgment in minds of general fairness and honesty.

If the hostility to a law of reciprocal copyright be as deep rooted as

is alleged, why has there not been some able argument (raised above

sordid considerations, and looking wide and far upon the question in all

its vast bearings) expounding to us the grounds on which this professed

antagonism is based? When we ask them for a syllogism they give us an

assertion. “My dear sir, how can you waste time, perplexing yourself and

the public with this barren question! We supply readers with a novel, a

good three-volume novel, for a shilling; and as long as we do that they

will remain deaf to all your appeals. The _argumentum ad crumenam_, the

syllogism of the pocket has, in all ages, carried the sway!” This is the

head and front of their declamation, of their invective and their facts.

This is _the_ Fact! This boulder (offered in lieu of bread) they beg us

of the author-tribe to digest: this is their bulwark, their

fortress—no, their burrow rather—into which they skulk at the approach

of a poor author, quill in hand, prepared to drive off the game—_feræ

naturæ_—that lay waste his preserves and make free in his clover-field.

Now of all arguments this of cheapness is most questionable and unsafe.

It has a comely and alluring visage, is smooth-spoken and full of

promise, but we must have a caution where it may lead us, for it is as

full of trick and foul play as a canting quaker; as precarious a

foothold as the trap of the scaffold the minute before the check is

slipped. Cheap and good are a pleasant partnership: but it does not

happen that they always do business together. Taking cheapness as our

guide and conductor, we can readily make our way, in imagination, to a

publishing shop where the principle is expanded into a pleasing

practical illustration. The shop is of course in a cellar, (rent twelve

shillings a quarter;) the attendant is a second-hand man cast off from

the current population of the upper world into this depository (wages

seven shillings a week;) his hat, being still on the cheap tendency, has

followed him out of Chatham street in company with a coat rejected of

seven owners, the last of whom was a dustman, trowsers to match and

boots borrowed of a pauper (cost of the entire outfit five shillings and

a penny;) behind a counter that totters to the earth at an expense of

five pence or more for repairs, he dispenses the frugal Literature of

which he is the genius—the paper being of such an exquisite delicacy

and cheapness that a good eye, by glancing through, can read both sides

at once; the purchaser plunges down with a sixpence (most economical of

small coin) in his pocket, and bears off, in a triumphant apotheosis,

four and twenty columns to be read by the light of a tallow twopenny

that sputters cheapness as it burns. This is the glory of the age; the

crowning honor and triumph of America. Who would have the heart or the

hardihood to blur that fair picture of popular knowledge and cheap

enjoyment? Why, sirs—to speak a serious word or two in your ear—this

plea of cheapness—a miserable escape at best, where a question of right

and wrong is concerned—pushed to its extreme (and as cheapness is urged

as the sole criterion and measure of advantage, we are warranted in so

doing,) would drive literature to the almanac, which can be afforded at

a penny; and the age of the brown ballad would return upon us with all

its primitive graces of an unclean sheet, a cloudy typography, and a

style of thought and expression quite as pure and lucid.

Pass a copyright bill and we are told, “we should soon learn the

difference between £1 10, the London price of Bulwer’s Zanoni, and the

American price of twenty-five cents.” How long—it is triumphantly

asked—would our “reading public, almost commensurate with the entire

population, continue at such a rate?”—what if it did not last a minute?

Truth and honesty are of a little more worth than a reading public even

as wide as the borders of the land. Of the elevation of the people—the

instruction of the people, I hold myself a friend—no man more: but I do

not propose to begin their enlightenment with a new version of the

decalogue; so amended as to admit all the opposites against which it is

directed, as virtues which we are enjoined to cultivate.

Suppose these gentlemen do furnish your literature at a low price by

dint of paying the author nothing, they should bear in mind that there

is a place where it is paid for, or it would most assuredly prove as

miserable as it is cheap. The literature is valuable, not because they

spread it before the world in large sheets, every Saturday morning, at

sixpence a copy; but because there happened to be in another country

certain enterprising publishers, of a somewhat different stamp, who

thought it worth their while to cheer the writer in his labors by paying

him a good round sum for his copyright. I repeat it, an unpaid

literature cannot contend with a paid one; nor can it—while money is a

representative of value and a motive of exertion—be as good. Do I

imagine then that an international law will create great writers? Not at

all. Under any law—oppressed by whatever bondage or tyranny custom

chooses to lay upon them—men of great genius will struggle into light

and cast before the world the thoughts with which their own souls have

been moved. They will speak though mountains pressed upon them. But

there is a wide class—comprising the body of a national literature—who

can claim no such power; essayists, philosophers, whose impulses are not

great, periodical writers—all are silent when the law and the trade

fail to befriend them. It is these that need the constant stimulus—the

genial inspiration (denied to them in any great measure by Nature) of

pay. It is the shining gold—decry it as we may—that breeds the shining

thought.

It may be asked, how does this question affect the Press? The Press,

forming a part of the great body of writers, is affected by whatever

affects the writers of books; for the bond by which the entire

brotherhood is held together, is so close that it cannot be struck in

any part without feeling the shock in its whole length. The same

injustice by which the author falls in station and place, drags down the

journalist. The rights of all who use the pen are rights in common;

varying only in degree, and, as they may be affected from time to time,

by circumstances of the hour or day. Beyond this the actual and

immediate pressure of a vast amount of reading from abroad, poured upon

us without limit or regulation, begins to be felt by the daily and

weekly Press. They find attention drawn off from the article or

political speculation in their own columns, prepared with care and

judgment, to the cheap reprint; and are driven upon abandoning the field

or joining in a pernicious system of unpaid appropriation against which

their better judgment revolts.

I now close this Appeal, and in doing so I would venture to urge upon

you the importance of concert and a steady action in behalf of this law,

at all times and in all places where you are called on to employ that

sacred instrument of thought, whose immunities are so grossly outraged.

The popular mind has, in this country, made wonderful advances in the

appreciation of political truths and principles. There is no reason why

it should not make an equal—though perhaps a later—progress in truths

that relate to literature and art. The popular mind, as all our

institutions require, is essentially just and true; and, once

enlightened by a sufficient array of facts, and with time to arrange and

digest them, will act with energy and wisdom—on this as on all other

questions of which it is the arbiter. Depend upon it this bill, although

adversely regarded by your Senate and Representatives at this time, will

ultimately triumph. It will go up to the Senate-chamber, year after

year, with new facts, pleading for it with an urgency which considerate

legislators cannot resist. In the mean time it is your duty, as I trust

it is your desire, to enlighten the general mind as to the truths on

which I have ventured to insist. Seize the instant. In town, in

homestead and city, let these principles be spread as wide as the

writings they would protect; and search, with a fearless eye, the

national heart to find whether there be not some kindly corner where it

is willing the seeds of a national literature should be lodged. Speaking

in the accents of persuasion with which God and Nature have endowed you;

and through the organs of opinion which every one of you may, more or

less, command—you cannot be long resisted. Together, in a phalanx,

before which kings and princes grow pale, enter upon the mighty task.

Hand in hand, voice answering to voice, in tones of mutual trust and

cheerful hope press forward in the noble labor to which you are

summoned. That Union which, in politics and war, is Strength, will prove

in Literature, as well, your champion and deliverer.

CORNELIUS MATHEWS.

_New York, June, 1842._

* * * * *

THE APPROACH OF AUTUMN.

But late the song of reaper

Was heard amid the corn,

But now an anthem deeper

Unto my ear is borne,

Of winds among the mountains,

In their unruly play,

With voice of swollen fountains,

That bear the leaves away.

The golden garb of summer,

Like earth, my soul has lost,

The breath of the dark comer

Its rosy mirth has crost;

For my spirit changeth

With the varying sky,

As a cloud estrangeth

The wood-bird’s melody.

W. F.

* * * * *

THE SISTERS.

A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

BY H. W. HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” “THE BROTHERS,”

“CROMWELL,” ETC. ETC.

(Concluded from page 78.)

When next she opened her eyes, she lay on her own bed, in her own well

known chamber, and her old nurse, with the good vicar’s wife, was

watching over her—as her lids rose and she looked about her, all her

intelligence returned upon the moment, and she was perfectly aware of

all that had already passed, of all that she had still to undergo.

“Well—” she replied to the eager and repeated inquiries after her state

of body and sensations which were poured out from the lips of her

assiduous watchers—“Oh! I feel quite well, I do assure you—I was not

hurt at all—not in the least—only I was so foolish as to faint from

terror—but Marian, how is Marian?”

“Not injured in the least, but very anxious about you, sweet Annabel,”

replied good mistress Summers—“so much so that I was obliged to force

her from the chamber, so terrible was her grief, so violent her terror

and excitement—Lord De Vaux snatched her from the horse and saved her,

before he even saw your danger—he too is in a fearful state of mind, he

has been at the door twenty times, I believe, within the hour—hark,

that is his foot now—will you see him, dearest?”

A quick and chilly shudder ran through the whole frame of the lovely

girl, and a faint hue glowed once again in her pale cheek, but mastering

her feelings, she made answer in her own notes of sweet calm music—“Not

yet, dear mistress Summers—not yet—but tell him, I beseech you, that I

am better—well indeed! and will receive his visit by and by—and in the

mean time, my good friend, I must see Marian—must see her directly and

alone—No! no!” she added, seeing that the old lady was about to

remonstrate—“No! no! you must not hinder me of my desire—you know—”

she went on, with a faint, very melancholy smile—“you know, of old, I

am a wilful stubborn girl when I make up my mind—and it is quite made

up now, my good friend—so, pray you, let me see her—I am quite strong

enough I do assure you—so do you, I beseech you, go and console my

lord; and let nurse bring me Marian!—” So firmly did she speak, and so

resolved was the expression of her soft gentle features, that they no

longer hesitated to comply with her request, and both retired with soft

steps from the chamber. Then Annabel half uprose from the pillows which

had propped her, and clasped her hands in attitude of prayer, and turned

her beautiful eyes upward—her lips moved visibly, not in irregular

impulsive starts, but with a smooth and ordered motion, as she prayed

fervently indeed but tranquilly, for strength to do, and patience to

endure, and grace to do and to endure alike with Christian love and

Christian fortitude. While she was thus engaged, a quick uncertain

footstep, now light and almost tripping, now heavy and half faltering,

approached the threshold—a gentle hand raised the latch once, and again

let it fall, as if the comer was fluctuating between the wish to enter

and some vague apprehension which for the moment conquered the desire.

“Is it you, Marian?—” asked the lovely sufferer—“oh! come in, come in,

sister!—” and she did come in, that bright lovely creature, her

naturally high complexion almost unnaturally brilliant now from the

intensity of her hot blushes, her eyes were downcast, and she could not

so much as look up into the sad sweet face of Annabel; her whole frame

trembled visibly as she approached the bed, and her foot faltered very

much, yet she drew near, and sitting down beside the pillow, took

Annabel’s hand tenderly between her own, and raised it to her warm lips

and kissed it eagerly and often. Never for a moment’s space did the eyes

of Annabel swerve from her sister’s features, from the moment she

entered the door until she sat down by her side, but rested on them

steadily as if through them they would peruse the secret soul with a

soft gentle scrutiny, that savored not at all of sternness or

reproach—at last, as if she was now fully satisfied, she dropped her

eyelids and for a little space kept them close shut, while again her

lips moved silently—and then pressing her sister’s hand fondly, she

said in a quiet soothing voice, as if she were alluding to an admitted

fact rather than asking a question, “So you have met him before,

Marian?—” a violent convulsion shook every limb of her whom she

addressed, and the blood rushed in torrents to her brow—she bowed her

head upon her sister’s hand, and burst into a paroxysm of hysterical

tears and sobbing, but answered not a word. “Nay! nay! dear sister,”

exclaimed Annabel, bending down over her and kissing her neck which like

her brow and cheeks was absolutely crimson—“Nay! nay! sweet Marian,

weep not thus, I beseech you, there is no wrong done—none at all—there

was no wrong in your seeing him, when you did so—it was at York, I must

believe—nor in your _loving_ him either, when you did so—for I had not

then seen him, and of course could not love him. But it was _not_ right,

sweetest Marian, to let me be in ignorance—only think, dearest; only

think, what would have been my agony, when I had come to know after I

was a wife, that in myself becoming happy I had brought misery on my

second _self_—my own sweet sister!—nay!—do not answer me yet, Marian,

for I can understand it all—almost all, that is—and I quite appreciate

your motives—I am sure that you did not know that _he loved you_—for

he does love you, Marian—but fancied that he loved me only, and so

resolved to control yourself, and crush your young affections, and

sacrifice yourself for me—thank God! oh! thank God, dearest, that your

strength was not equal to the task—for had it been so we had been most

wretched—oh! most wretched. But you must tell me all about it, for

there is much I cannot comprehend—when did you see him first, and

where?—why did he never so much as hint to me that he had known

you?—why, when I wrote you word that he was here, and after that I

liked—loved—was about to marry him—why did you never write back that

you knew him?—and why, above all, when you came and found him

here—here in your mother’s house—why did you meet him as a

stranger?—I know it will be painful to you, dear one; but you must bear

the pain, for it is necessary now that there shall be no more

mistakes—be sure of one thing, dearest Marian, that I will never wed

him—oh! not for worlds!—I could not sleep one night!—no not one hour

in the thought that my bliss was your bane—but if he love you, as he

ought, and as you love him, sister, for I can read your soul, he shall

be yours at once, and I shall be more happy so—more happy tenfold—than

pillowing my head upon a heart which beats for any other—but he must

explain—he must explain all this—for I much fear me he has dealt very

basely by us both—I fear me much, he is a bold false man—”

“No! no!” cried Marian eagerly, raising her clear eyes to her sister’s,

full of ingenuous truth and zealous fire—“No! no! he is all good, and

true, and noble!—I—it is I only who have, for once, been false and

wicked—not altogether wicked, Annabel—perhaps more foolish than to

blame, at least in my intentions—but you shall hear all—you shall hear

all, Annabel, and then judge for yourself—” and then still looking her

sister quite steadily and truthfully in the face, she told her how, at a

ball in York, she had met the young nobleman, who had seemed pleased

with her, danced with her many times, and visited her, but never once

named love, nor led her in the least to fancy he esteemed her beyond a

chance acquaintance—“But I loved him—oh! _how_ I loved him,

Annabel—almost from the first time I saw him—and I feared ever—ever

and only—that by my bold frank rashness, he might discover his power,

and believe me forward and unmaidenly—weeks passed, and our intimacy

ripened, and I became each hour more fondly, more devotedly, more

madly,—for it was madness all!—enamored of him. He met me ever as a

friend; no more! The time came when he was to leave York, and as he took

leave of me he told me that he had just received despatches from _his_

father directing him to visit _mine_; and I, shocked by the coolness of

his parting tone, and seeing that indeed he had no love for me, scarcely

noting what he said, told him not that I had _no father_—but I did tell

him that I had one sweet sister, and suddenly extorted from him,

unawares, a promise that he would never tell you he had known me—my

manner, I am sure, was strange and wild, and I have no doubt that my

words were so likewise—for his demeanor altered on the instant—his

air, which had been that of quiet friendship, became cool, chilling, and

almost disdainful, and within a few minutes he took his leave, and we

never met again till yester even. You will, I doubt not, ask me

wherefore I did all this—I cannot tell you—I was mad, mad with love

and disappointment, and the very instant he said that he was coming

hither, I knew as certainly that he would love you, and you him,

Annabel, as though it had been palpably revealed to me. I could not

write of him to you—I _could_ not!—and when your letters came and we

learned that he was here, I confessed all this to our aunt, and though

she blamed me much for wild and thoughtless folly, she thought it best

to keep the matter secret. This is the whole truth, Annabel—the whole

truth! I fancied that the absence, the knowledge that I should see him

next my sister’s husband, the stern resolve with which I bound my soul,

had made me strong to bear his presence—I tried it, and I found myself,

how weak—this is all, Annabel; can you forgive me, sister?”

“Sweet, innocent Marian,” exclaimed the elder sister through her tears,

for she had wept constantly through the whole sad narration, “there is

not any thing for me to forgive—you have wronged yourself only, my poor

sister!—But yet—but yet!—I cannot understand it—he must have

seen—no _man_ could fail to see that one so frank and artless, as you

are, Marian, was in love with him—he must, if not before, have known it

certainly when you extorted from him, as you call it, that strange

promise—besides he loves _you_, Marian; he loves you—then

wherefore—wherefore, in God’s name, did he woo me—for woo he did, and

fervently and long before he won me to confession?—oh! he is

base!—base, base, and bad at heart, my sister!—answer me nothing, dear

one, for I will prove him very shortly—send Margaret hither to array

me, I will go speak with him forthwith—if he be honest, Marian, he is

yours—and think not that I sacrifice myself, when I say this; for all

the love I ever felt for him has vanished utterly away—if he is honest,

he is yours—but be not over confident, dear child, for I believe he is

not—and if not—why then, sweet Marian, can we not comfort one another,

and live together as we used, dear, innocent, united happy sisters? Do

not reply now, Marian—your heart is too full—haste and do as I tell

you; before supper time to-night all shall be ended, whether for good or

evil, HE only knows to whom the secrets of the heart are visible, e’en

as the features of the face. Farewell—be of good cheer, and yet not

over cheerful!”

Within an hour after that most momentous conversation Annabel sat beside

the window in that fair summer parlor, looking out on the fair prospect

of mead and dale and river, with its back ground of purple

mountains—the very window from which she had first looked upon De Vaux.

Perhaps a secret instinct had taught her to select that spot now that

she was about to renounce him forever—but if it were so, it was one of

those indefinable impulsive instincts of which we are unconscious, even

while they prompt our actions. De Vaux was summoned to her presence, and

Annabel awaited him—arbiter of her own, her sister’s destinies!

“Ernest—” she said, as he entered, cutting across his eager and

impetuous inquiries, “Ernest De Vaux, I have learned to-day a secret—”

she spoke with perfect ease, and without a symptom of irritation, or

anxiety, or sorrow, either in her voice, or in her manner—nor was she

cold or dignified, or haughty. Her demeanor was not indeed that of a

fond maid to her accepted suitor; nor had it the flutter which marks the

consciousness of unacknowledged love—a sister’s to a dear brother’s

would have resembled it more nearly than perhaps anything to which it

could be compared, yet was not this altogether similar. He looked up in

her face with a smile, and asked at once,

“What secret, dearest Annabel?”

“A secret, Ernest,” she replied, “which I cannot but fancy you must have

learned _before_, but which _you_ certainly _have_ learned, as well as

I, to-day. My sister loves you, Ernest!” The young man’s face was

crimson on the instant, and he would have made some reply, but his voice

failed him, and after a moment of confused stuttering, he stood before

her in embarrassed silence, but she went on at once, not noticing

apparently his consternation. “If you did know this, as I fear must be

the case, long long ago! most basely have you acted, and most cruelly,

to both of us—for never! never! even if it had been a rash and

unsought, and unjustifiable passion on her part, would I have wedded,

knowingly, the man who held my sister’s heart strings!”

“It was,” he answered instantly, “it was a rash and unsought, and

unjustifiable passion on her part—believe me, oh! believe me, Annabel!

that is—that is—” he continued, reddening again, at feeling himself

self-convicted—“that is—if she felt any passion!”

“Then you _did_ know it—then you _did_ know it—” she interrupted him,

without paying any regard to his attempt at self-correction, “then you

did know it from the very first—oh! man! man! oh! false heart of

man—oh! falser tongue that can speak thus of a woman whom he _loves!_

yes! _loves!_” she added in a clear high voice, thrilling as the alarm

blast of a silver trumpet—“yes! loves—Ernest De Vaux—with his whole

heart and spirit—never think to deny it—did I not see you, when you

rushed to save her from a lesser peril, when you left me, as you must

have thought, to perish—did I not see love, written as clearly as words

in a book, on every feature of _your_ face—even as I heard love crying

out aloud in every accent of _her_ voice?”

“What! jealous, Annabel? the calm and self-controlling Annabel! can she

be jealous—of her own sister, too?”

“Not jealous! sir—” she answered, now most contemptuously, “not jealous

in the least, I do assure you—for though most surely love _can_ exist

without one touch of jealousy, as surely cannot jealousy exist where

there is neither love, nor admiration, nor esteem, nor so much as

respect existing.”

“How—do I hear you—” he asked somewhat sharply—“do I understand you

aright? what have become, then, of your vows and protestations—your

promises of yester even?”

“You do hear me—you do understand me—” she replied, “entirely

aright—entirely! In my heart, for I have searched it very deeply—in my

heart there is not now one feeling of love, or admiration, or

esteem—much less respect for you, alas! that I should say so—alas! for

me and you—alas! for one, more to be pitied twenty-fold than either!”

“Annabel Hawkwood, you have never loved me!”

“Ernest De Vaux, you never have known—never will know—because you are

incapable of knowing the depth, the singleness, the honesty of a true

woman’s love. So deeply did I love you, that I have come down hither,

seeing that long before you knew _me_, you had won Marian’s

heart—seeing that you loved her, as she loves you, most ardently—and

hoping that you had not discovered her affections, nor suspected your

own feelings until to-day—I came down hither with that knowledge, in

that hope—and had I found that you had erred no further than in trivial

fickleness, loving you all the while beyond all things on earth, I

purposed to resign your hand to her, thus making both of you happy, and

trusting for my own contentment to consciousness of rights and to the

love of THEM, who, all praise be to Him therefore, has constituted so

the spirit of Annabel Hawkwood, that when she cannot honor, she cannot,

afterward forever, feel either love or friendship—you are weighed,

Ernest De Vaux, weighed in the balance and found wanting—I leave you

now, sir, to prepare my sister to bear the blow your baseness has

inflicted—our marriage is broken off at once, now and forever—lay all

the blame on me!—on me!—if it so please you—but not one word against

my own or Marian’s honor—my aunt I shall inform instantly, that for

sufficient reasons our promised union will not take place at all—the

reasons I shall lock in my own bosom. You will remain here—you _must_

do so—this one night, to-morrow morning we will bid you adieu forever!”

“Be it so”—he replied—“Be it so, lady—the fickleness I can

forgive—but not the scorn! I will go now and order that the regiment

march hence forthwith, what more recruits there be can follow at their

leisure—and I will overtake the troops before noon, on the march,

to-morrow,” and with the words he left the room apparently as

unconcerned as if he had gone thence but for a walk of pleasure, as if

he had not left a breaking heart behind him.

And was it true, that Annabel no longer loved him? True!—oh believe it

not—where woman once has fixed her soul’s affections there they will

dwell forever—principle may compel her to suppress it—prudence may

force her to conceal it—the fiery sense of instantaneous wrongs may

seem to quench it for a moment—the bitterness of jealousy may turn it

into gall, but like that Turkish perfume, where love has once existed it

must exist forever, so long as one fragment of the earthly vessel which

contained it survives the wreck of time and ruin. She believed that she

loved him not—but she knew not herself—what woman ever did?—what

man?—when the spring-tide of passion was upon them. And she too left

the parlor, and within a few minutes Marian had heard her fate, and

after many a tear, and many a passionate exclamation, she too apparently

was satisfied of Ernest’s worthlessness—oh! misapplied and heartless

term! She satisfied?—satisfied by the knowledge that her heart’s idol

was an unclean thing—an evil spirit—a false God!—she satisfied?—oh

Heaven!

Around the hospitable board once more—once more they were

assembled—but oh! how sadly altered—the fiat had been distinctly,

audibly pronounced—and all assembled there had heard—though none

except the sisters and De Vaux knew it—none probably, but they

suspected—well was it that there were no young men—no brothers with

high hearts and strong hands to maintain, or question—well was it that

the only relatives of those much injured maidens, the only friends, were

superannuated men of peace; the ministers of pardon, not of

vengeance—and weak old helpless women—there had been bloodshed

else—and as it was, among the serving men there were dark brows and

writhing lips, and hands alert to grasp the hilt at a word spoken—had

they been of rank one grade higher—had they _dared_ even as they

were——there had been bloodshed! Cold, cold and cheerless was the

conversation, forward and dignified civilities in place of gay familiar

mirth, forced smiles for hearty laughter, pale looks and dim eyes for

the glad blushes of the promised bride—for the bright sparkles of her

eye! The evening passed—the hour of parting came, and it was colder yet

and sadder—Ernest De Vaux, calm and inscrutable, and seemingly unmoved,

kissed the hands of his lovely hostesses, and uttered his adieu, and

thanks for all their kindness, and hopes for their prosperity and

welfare, while the old clergyman looked on with dark and angry brows,

and the help-mate with difficulty could refrain from loud and passionate

invective. His lip had a curl upon it, a painful curl, half smile, half

sneer, as he bowed to the rest and left the parlor, but none observed

that as he did so he spoke three or four words in a low whisper, so low

that it reached Marian’s ear alone of all that stood around him, yet of

such import that her color came and went ten times within the minute,

and that she shook from head to foot, and quivered like an aspen. For

two hours longer the sisters sat together in Annabel’s bedchamber, and

wept in one another’s arms, and comforted each other’s sorrows, and

little dreamed that they should meet no more for years—perchance

forever! The morning broke like that which had preceded it, serene and

bright, and lovely—the great sun rushed up the blue vault in triumphant

splendor, all nature laughed out his glory—but at a later hour, far

later than usual, no smoke was seen curling from the chimneys of the

hall, no sign of man or beast was visible about its precincts. The

passionate scenes—the wild excitement of the preceding day, had brought

about, as usual, a dull reaction; and sleep sat heavy on the eyelids, on

the souls of the inmates. The first who woke up was Annabel—Annabel,

the bereaved, the almost widowed bride. Dressing herself in haste, she

sought, as usual, her mother’s chamber, found her—oh happy! how happy

in her benighted state, since she knew not, nor understood at all, the

sorrows of those whom she once had loved so tenderly—found her in deep

calm slumber—kissed her brow silently, and breathed a fond prayer over

her, then hurried thence to Marian’s chamber—the door stood open; it

was vacant! Down the stairs to the garden—the door that led to that

sweet spot was barred and bolted—the front door stood upon the latch,

and by that Annabel passed out into the fresh young morning—how fair,

how peaceable, how calm was all around her—how utterly unlike the

strife, the toils, the cares, the sorrows, the hot hatreds of the

animated world—how utterly unlike the anxious pains which were then

gnawing at that fair creature’s heartstrings! She stood awhile, and

gazed around and listened; but no sound met her ears, except the

oft-heard music of the wind and water—except the well-known points of

that familiar scene—she walked—she ran—a fresh fear struck her, a

fear of she knew not what—she flew to the garden—“Marian!

Marian!”—but no Marian came! no voice made answer to her shrill

outcries—back! back! she hurried to the house, but in her way she

crossed the road conducting to the stables—there were fresh horse

tracks—several fresh horse tracks—one which looked like the print of

Marian’s palfrey—without a moment’s hesitation she rushed into the

stable court, no groom was there, nor stable boy, nor helper—and yet

the door stood open, and a loud tremulous neighing, Annabel knew it

instantly to be the call of her own jennet, was wakening unanswered

echoes. She stood a moment like a statue before she could command

herself to cross the threshold—she crossed, and the stall where

Marian’s palfrey should have stood next her own, was vacant. The

chargers of De Vaux were gone; the horses of his followers—she shrieked

aloud—she shrieked till every pinnacle and turret of the old hall, till

every dell and headland of the hills, sent back a yelling echo. It

scarcely seemed a moment before the court yard, which, a moment since so

silent and deserted, was full of hurrying men and frightened women—the

news was instantly abroad that mistress Marian had been spirited away by

the false lord. Horses were saddled instantly, and broadswords girded

on, and men were mounting in hot haste ere Annabel had in so much

recovered from the shock, as to know what to order, or advise—evil and

hasty counsels had been taken, but the good vicar and the prebendary

came down in time to hinder them. A hurried consultation was held in the

house, and it was speedily determined that the two clergymen should set

forth on the instant, with a sufficient escort, to pursue, and, if it

should be possible, bring back the fugitive—and although Annabel at the

first was in despair, fancying that there could be no hope of her being

overtaken, yet was she somewhat reassured on learning that De Vaux could

not quit his regiment, and that the slow route of a regiment on a long

march could easily be caught up with, even by aged travellers. The sun

was scarce three hours high, when the pursuers started—all that day

long it lagged across the sky—it set, and was succeeded by night,

longer still, and still more dreary—another day! and yet another! Oh

the slow agony of waiting! the torture of enumerating minutes—each

minute seemingly an age—the dull, heart-sickening suspense of awaiting

tidings—tidings which the heart tells us—the heart, too faithful

prophet of the future—cannot by possibility be good; while reason

interposes her vain veto to the heart’s decision, and hope uplifts her

false and siren song. The third night came, and Annabel was sitting at

the same window—how often it occurs that one spot witnesses _the_ dozen

scenes most interesting, most eventful to the same individual. Is it

that consciousness of what has passed leads man to the spot marked by

one event when he expects another? or can it be indeed a destiny? The

third night came, and Annabel was sitting at that same window, when, on

the distant highway, she beheld her friends returning, but they rode

heavily and sadly onwards, nor was there any flutter of female garbs

among them—Marian was not among them! They came—the story was soon

told—they had succeeded in overtaking the regiment, they had seen

Ernest, and Marian was _his wife_! The register of her marriage, duly

attested, had been shown to her uncle in the church at Rippon, and

though she had refused to see them, she had sent word that she was well

and happy, with many messages of love and cordiality to Annabel, and

promises that she would write at short and frequent intervals. No more

was to be done—nothing was said at all. Men marvelled at De Vaux, and

envied him! Women blamed Marian Hawkwood, and they too envied! But

Annabel said nothing, but went about her daily duties, tending her

helpless mother and answering her endless queries concerning Marian’s

absence, and visiting her pensioners among the village poor, seemingly

cheerful and contented. But her cheek constantly grew paler, and her

form thinner and less round. The sword was hourly wearing out the

scabbard! The spirit was too mighty for the vessel that contained it.

Five years had passed—five wearisome, long years—years of domestic

strife and civil war, of bloodshed, conflagration and despair throughout

all England. The party of the king, superior at the first, was waxing

daily weaker, and all was almost lost. For the first years Marian _did_

write, and that, too, frequently and fondly to her sister; never

alluding to the past, and seldom to De Vaux, except to say that he was

all she wished him, and she herself more happy than she hoped or

deserved to be. But gradually did the letters become less frequent and

more formal; communications were obstructed, and posts were intercepted,

and scarce, at last, did Annabel hear twice in twelve months of her

sister’s welfare. And when she did hear, the correspondence had become

cold and lifeless; the tone of Marian, too, was altered, the buoyancy

was gone—the mirth—the soul—and though she complained not, nor hinted

that she was unhappy, yet Annabel saw plainly that it was so. Saw it,

and sorrowed, and said nothing! Thus time passed on, with all its tides

and chances, and the old paralytic invalid was gathered to her fathers,

and slept beside her husband in the yard of the same humble church which

had beheld their union, and Annabel was more alone than ever. Thus

things went on until some months after the deadly fight and desperate

defeat at Marston. Autumn had come again—brown autumn—and Annabel was

in her garden tending her flowers, and listening to her birds, and

thinking of the past, not with the anguish of a present sorrow, but with

the mellowed recollection of regret. She stood beside the stream—the

stream that, all unchanged itself, had witnessed such sad changes in all

that was around it—close to the spot where she had talked so long to

Marian on that eventful morning, when a quick, soft step came behind

her—she turned and Marian clasped her! Forced, after years of

sufferance, to fly from the outrageous cruelty of him for whom she had

thrown up all but honor, she had come home—home, like the hunted hare

to her form, like the wounded bird to her own nest—she had come home to

die. What boots it to repeat the old and oft-told tale, how eager

passion made way for uncertain and oft interrupted gleams of

fondness—how a love, based on no esteem or real principle, melted like

wax before the fire—how inattention paved the way for neglect—and

infidelity came close behind—and open profligacy and insult, and cool,

maddening outrage followed. How the ardent lover became the careless

husband, the cold master, the unfeeling tyrant, and, at last, the brutal

despot. Marian came home to die—the seeds of that invincible disease

were sown deep in her bosom—her exquisitely rounded shape was angular

and thin, emaciated by disease, and suffering, and sorrow. A burning

hectic spot on either cheek were now the only remnants of that once

all-radiant complexion; her step so slow and faltering, her breath drawn

sob by sob with actual agony, her quick, short cough, all told too

certainly the truth! Her faults were punished bitterly on earth, and

happily that punishment had worked its fitting end—these faults were

all repented, were all amended now. Perhaps at no time of her youthful

bloom had Marian been so sweet, so truly lovely, as now when her young

days were numbered. All the asperity and harshnesses, the angles as it

were of her character, mellowed down into a calm and unrepining

cheerfulness. And oh! with what delicious tenderness did Annabel

console, and pray with, and caress—oh! they were indeed happy! indeed

happy for those last months, those lovely sisters. For Annabel’s delight

at seeing the dear Marian of happier and better days once more beside

her in their old chamber, beside her in the quiet garden, beside her in

the pew of the old village church, had, for the time, completely

overpowered her fears for her sister’s health, and, as is almost

invariably the case in that most fatal, most insidious of disorders, she

constantly was flattered with vain hopes that her Marian was amending,

that the next spring would see her again well and happy. Vain hopes!

indeed vain hopes—but which of mortal hopes is other?

The cold mists of November were on the hills and in the glens of

Wharfdale, the trees were stripped of their last leaves, the grass was

sere and withered, the earth cheerless, the skies comfortless, when, at

the same predestined window, the sisters sat watching the last gleam of

the wintry sun fade on the distant hill tops. What was that flash far up

the road? That sound and ringing report? Another! and another! the

evident reports of musketry. And lo! a horseman flying—a wild, fierce

troop pursuing—the foremost rides bareheaded, but the blue scarf that

flutters in the air shows him a loyal cavalier; the steel caps and jack

boots of the pursuers point them out evidently puritans; there are but

twenty of them; and lo! the fugitive gains on them—heaven! he turns

from the highroad, crosses the steep bridge at a gallop, he takes the

park-gate at a leap, he cuts across the turf, and lo! the dalesmen and

the tenants have mustered to resist; a short, fierce struggle—the

roundheads are beat back—the fugitive, now at the very hall doors, is

preserved. The door flew open, he staggered into the well-known

vestibule, opened the parlor door with an accustomed hand, and reeled

into the presence of the sisters, exhausted with fatigue, pale from the

loss of blood, faint with his mortal wounds; yet he spoke out in a clear

voice—“In time, in time, thank God, in time to make some reparation, to

ask for pardon ere I die!” and with these words De Vaux, for he it was,

staggered up to his injured wife, and, dropping on his knees, cast his

arms round her waist, and burying his head in her lap, exclaimed in

faltering tones—“Pardon me, Marian, pardon before I die—pardon me as

you loved me once!”

“Oh! as I love you now, dear Ernest, fully, completely, gladly, do I

pardon you, and take you to my heart, never again to part, my own dear

husband.”

Groaning she clasped him close, and in that act,

And agony, her happy spirit fled.

Annabel saw her head fall on his neck, and, fancying that she had

fainted, ran to relieve her, but ere she did so both were far away

beyond the reach of any mortal sorrow—nor did the survivor long survive

them—she faded like a fair flower, and lies beside them in the still

bosom of one common tomb. The Hall was tenanted no more, and soon fell

into ruin, but the wild hills of Wharfdale must themselves pass away

before the children of the dalesmen shall forget the sad tale of The

Sisters.

* * * * *

THE WALK AND THE PIC-NIC.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

The sky is a sapphire, the clouds pearly white,

The wind from the west winnows blandly and light,

Deep and rich is the gloss of the sunshine below—

The grass, leaves, and flowers all rejoice in the glow;

The shadows, cast down by the air-skimming sails,

Are rippling o’er hill-tops and glancing o’er vales;

’Tis the day for our pic-nic; let’s haste, or the sun

Will be dipping below e’er our long path is won.

At length, from all ports of the village, we throng—

O’er the maple-lin’d sidewalk we scatter along,

With baskets well stor’d; and so loud our delight,

That we start Taggett’s team from Nate’s store in affright:

We pass by the office—“Alf, why do you wait?”

To a laggard shouts Cady—“you’re always too late!”

We turn the stone store—up the Pleasant Pond road:

Green richer the fields on each side never show’d;

We pass the flat rock, where we often found rest,

When, on our return-walk, gleam’d golden the west;

On the hill-brow we turn, the white village to view,

Its three modest steeples trac’d clear on the blue;

To the right Brownson’s pond—now we enter the wood:

Its echoes leap out to our frolicsome mood;

The sweet ringing laugh of gay Martha is heard,

And Kate trips along with the grace of a bird;

To the wind’s downy kisses bares Sarah her brow,

And Mary’s black eyes were ne’er brighter than now,

While one, grave and thoughtful, to each proffers aid,—

My friend! sleeping now in the valley of shade,

As the cloud over sunshine, remembrance of thee,

My boyhood’s companion! draws sadness o’er me.

“Alf, faster!” cries Cady, “and think where you are;

Bring your thoughts from the clouds, or we’ll never be there!”

We all move on speedily; down the descent,

With song, talk and laughter, our journey is bent:

“Alf, carry this basket!” says Wright, in a huff

At the speed of our way, “I’ve had trouble enough!”

“See that rose!” cries Louisa, and instant the stem

Is mourning the loss of its beautiful gem.

Our party has reach’d now the foot of the hill,

And we rest for a space on the trunk by the rill;

One twists from the hopple a chalice of green,

And stoops, for the lymph, the dense thicket between;

One whirls a thick branch, as a fine twanging sound

On the ear tells the hungry musketoe is round,

Whilst Wright, never loath, takes immediate seat,

Complaining in bass of the dust and the heat.

We leave the green spot, our swift journey resume—

The forest twines closer its cool verdant gloom;

Above, like an arbor, the green branches meet,

And the moss springs elastic, yet soft, to our feet.

The shade is so dense, the gray rabbit scarce fears

To show, o’er the fern clump, his long peering ears,

And the saucy red-squirrel, erect on his spray,

Were unseen, if his chatter-tongue did not betray;

A scatter of viands, with plunge in the brake,

As one stumbles o’er a coil’d root like a snake,

There’s a laugh from the group, and a lofty perch’d crow

Lifts his foot, with a croak, and looks wisely below;

But onward we journey—we catch, as we pass

Through the vistas, quick glimpses of rock, stream and grass,

Then fitful we loiter by mounds plump with moss,

With sunbeams, like fluid gold, streaking across,

We peel the sweet birch bark, we pluck from the ground

The rich, pungent wintergreen growing around,

We taste the sour sorrel, in handfulls we pick

The bright partridge-berry sown crimson and thick,

We hear the near quail, from the rye stubble, call,

And we watch the black beetle on rolling his ball;

Then forward again, with new strength, on our way,

Our footsteps as light as our bosoms are gay,

A whirr—and, so sudden, the heart gives a bound,

The partridge bursts up from his basin of ground;

Three clear, fife-like notes—first, a low, liquid strain,

Then high, and then shrill—all repeated again,

’Tis the brown-thresher, perch’d on yon pine grim and dark,

Our sweetest of minstrels—our own native lark.

We pass the low sawmill—the bridge o’er the brook,

Where it glides, slow and deep, by each alder-cloth’d nook,

We toil up the hill—o’er the fields are the frames

Of hemlocks, scath’d black by the fierce fallow-flames,

Or girdled, with half naked trunks smooth and gray,

To catch the red lightning, or sink in decay.

Again the wood closes—still wend we along,

The robin is cheering our hearts with his song,

The black snake, warm basking, his sunlight forsakes,

As, at the loud beat of our steps, he awakes,

The trees shrink away—one more hill to our feet,

And our eyes, Pleasant Pond, in its beauty will greet;

There glitters the outlet—still, upward, we pass,

And there, spreads its smooth polish’d bosom of glass.

On the East, lifts a hill, low and rounded, its crown

With a slope, like a robe, on each side falling down,

All verdant with meadow, and bristling with grain,

From its top, to the edge of the bright liquid plain,

Thence the banks, sweeping round to the North and the West,

With clearing and field interspersed on their breast,

Are lost in the black frowning gloom of the wood

That hides, with its shadows, the Southernmost flood.

How quiet, how peaceful, how lovely, the scene!

The glossy black shades, from yon headlands of green,

That sheet of bright crystal, which spreads from the shore,

Now dark’ning, as lightly the breeze tramples o’er,

Those shafts of quick splendor—these dazzles of light—

So painful, so blinding, eyes shrink from the sight;

And still, to our fix’d gaze, new colors reveal,

Here, gleaming like silver—there, flashing like steel.

We hear, in the stillness, the low of the herd,

The sound of the sheep-bell, the chirp of the bird,

All borne from the opposite border—and hark!

How the echoes long mimic the dog’s rapid bark!

See that white gleaming streak—’tis the wake of the loon

As she oars her swift passage—her dive will be soon;

She’s vanish’d—but upward again to the sight,

Her dappled back lit by a pencil of light,

But the bark has arous’d her—she’s seeking to fly;

She stretches her neck, with shrill, tremulous cry,

She flounders in low heavy circles just o’er,

Till nerv’d by the loud hostile sounds from the shore

Uprising, she shoots, like a dart, to her brood

Close hid in the water-plants edging the wood.

On this lap of green grass, the white cloth is display’d,

A maple sheds over its golden streak’d shade,

We place cup and trencher—the viands are spread,

Whilst a pile of pine-knots flame a pillar of red,

We slice the rich lemon—the gifts of the spring

Bubbling up in its gray sandy basin, we bring

The white glistening sugar—the butter, like gold,

And the fruits of the garden, our baskets unfold,

The raspberry bowl-shap’d—the jet tiny cone

Or the blackberry, pluck’d from the thickets are strown,

All grace the grass-table—our cups mantle free

With the dark purple coffee, and light amber tea,

Wood, water, and bank tongue the laugh, and the jest,

And the goddess or mirth reigns supreme in each breast.

The sunset is slanting—a pyramid bright

Is traced on the waters, in spangles of light;

A grey blending glimmer then steals like a pall;

Gold, leaves hill and tree-top—brown, deepens o’er all;

The bat wheels around—sends the nighthawk his cry,

And the cross-bill commences her sweet lullaby;

In the grass chirps the cricket—the tree-toad crows shrill,

And the bark of the watch-dog sounds faint from the hill.

We smile at the hoarse heav’d-up roar of the frog,

And his half smother’d gulp as he dives from his log,

And then hasten homeward, fatigu’d, but still gay,

With the moon’s lustrous silver to brighten our way.

* * * * *

TO FANNY H***.

BY MRS. SEBA SMITH.

Careless maiden, careless smiling,

Tossing back thy raven hair,

Guileless thou, though all beguiling,

Scarcely conscious thou art fair.

Playful words with music ringing

Lightly falling from thy tongue—

Snatches of old minstrels singing,

Telling that thy heart is young—

Flashing now thy radiant eyes

Liquid with the light of youth,

Stealing gladness from the skies

Only known to souls of truth—

Maiden, on thy heart hereafter

Will a holier spell be wrought,

That shall mellow down thy laughter,

Deepen every inmost thought.

Then thine eye shall droop in sadness,

Shielding thus the fount within—

Hope, now speaking in its gladness,

Then shall be to rear akin.

And a spell shall be around thee—

Love thy spirit shall control—

Yet rejoice when it hath bound thee—

Love creates for thee a Soul.

* * * * *

BEN BLOWER’S STORY;

OR HOW TO RELISH A JULEP.

BY C. F. HOFFMAN.

“Are you sure that’s The Flame over by the shore?”

“Cer_ting_, manny! I could tell her pipes acrost the Mazoura.”[1]

“And you will overhaul her?”

“Won’t we though! I tell ye, Stranger, so sure as my name’s Ben Blower,

that that last tar bar’l I hove in the furnace has put jist the smart

chance of go-ahead into us to cut off The Flame from yonder pint, or

send our boat to kingdom come.”

“The devil!” exclaimed a bystander who, intensely interested in the

race, was leaning the while against the partitions of the boiler-room,

“I’ve chosen a nice place to see the fun near this infernal powder

barrel!”

“Not so bad as if you were in it!” coolly observed Ben, as the other

walked rapidly away.

“As if he were in it! in what? in the boiler?”

“Cer_ting_! Don’t folks sometimes go into bilers, manny?”

“I should think there’d be other parts of the boat more comfortable.”

“That’s right; poking fun at me at once’t; but wait till we get through

this brush with the old Flame and I’ll tell ye of a regular fixin scrape

that a man may get into. It’s true, too, every word of it—as sure as my

name’s Ben Blower.”

• • • • • •

“You have seen the Flame then afore, Stranger? Six year ago, when new

upon the river, she was a real out and outer, I tell ye. I was at that

time a hand aboard of her. Yes, I belonged to her at the time of her

great race with the ‘G_o_-liar.’ You’ve heern, mayhap, of the blow-up by

which we lost it? They made a great fuss about it; but it was nothing

but a mere fiz of hot water after all. Only the springing of a few

rivets, which loosened a biler plate or two, and let out a thin spirting

upon some niggers that hadn’t sense enough to get out of the way. Well,

the ‘G_o_-liar’ took off our passengers, and we ran into Smasher’s

Landing to repair damages, and bury the poor fools that were killed.

Here we laid for a matter of thirty hours or so, and got things to

rights on board for a bran new start. There was some carpenter’s work

yet to be done, but the captain said that that might be fixed off jist

as well when we were under way—we had worked hard—the weather was

sour, and we needn’t do any thing more jist now—we might take that

afternoon to ourselves, but the next morning he’d get up steam bright

and airly, and we’d all come out _new_. There was no temperance society

at Smasher’s Landing, and I went ashore upon a lark with some of the

hands.”

I omit the worthy Benjamin’s adventures upon land, and, despairing of

fully conveying his language in its original Doric force, will not

hesitate to give the rest of his singular narrative in my own words,

save where, in a few instances, I can recall his precise phraseology,

which the reader will easily recognize.

“The night was raw and sleety when I regained the deck of our boat. The

officers, instead of leaving a watch above, had closed up every thing,

and shut themselves in the cabin. The fire-room only was open. The

boards dashed from the outside by the explosion had not yet been

replaced. The floor of the room was wet and there was scarcely a corner

which afforded a shelter from the driving storm. I was about leaving the

room, resigned to sleep in the open air, and now bent only upon getting

under the lee of some bulkhead that would protect me against the wind.

In passing out I kept my arms stretched forward to feel my way in the

dark, but my feet came in contact with a heavy iron lid; I stumbled,

and, as I fell, struck one of my hands into the ‘manhole,’ (I think this

was the name he gave to the oval-shaped opening in the head of the

boiler,) through which the smith had entered to make his repairs. I fell

with my arm thrust so far into the aperture that I received a pretty

smart blow in the face as it came in contact with the head of the

boiler, and I did not hesitate to drag my body after it, the moment I

recovered from this stunning effect and ascertained my whereabouts. In a

word, I crept into the boiler resolved to pass the rest of the night

there. The place was dry and sheltered. Had my bed been softer, I would

have had all that man could desire; as it was, I slept and slept

soundly.

“I should mention though, that, before closing my eyes, I several times

shifted my position. I had gone first to the farther end of the boiler,

then again I had crawled back to the manhole, to put my hand out and

feel that it was really still open. The warmest place was at the farther

end, where I finally established myself, and that I knew from the first.

It was foolish in me to think that the opening through which I had just

entered could be closed without my hearing it, and that, too, when no

one was astir but myself; but the blow on the side of my face made me a

little nervous perhaps; besides, I never could bear to be shut up in any

place—it always gives a wild-like feeling about the head. You may

laugh, Stranger, but I believe I should suffocate in an empty church, if

I once felt that I was so shut up in it that I could not get out. I have

met men afore now just like me, or worse rather—much worse. Men that it

made sort of furious to be tied down to anything, yet so soft-like and

contradictory in their natures that you might lead them anywhere so long

as they didn’t feel the string. Stranger, it takes all sorts of people

to make a world! and we may have a good many of the worst kind of

white-men here out west. But I have seen folks upon this river—quiet

looking chaps, too, as ever you see—who were so teetotally

_carankterakterous_ that they’d shoot the doctor who’d tell them they

couldn’t live when ailing, and make a die of it, just out of spite, when

told they _must_ get well. Yes, fellows as fond of the good things of

earth as you or I, yet who’d rush like mad right over the gang-plank of

life, if once brought to believe that they had to stay in this world

whether they wanted to leave it or not. Thunder and bees! if such a

fellow as that had heard the cocks crow as I did—awakened to find

darkness about him—darkness so thick you might cut it with a

knife—heard other sounds, too, to tell that it was morning, and

scrambling to fumble for that manhole, found it, too,

black—closed—black and even as the rest of the iron coffin around him,

closed, with not a rivet-hole to let God’s light and air

in—why—why—he’d ’a _swounded_ right down on the spot, as I did, and I

ain’t ashamed to own it to no white-man.”

The big drops actually stood upon the poor fellow’s brow, as he now

paused for a moment in the recital of his terrible story. He passed his

hand over his rough features, and resumed it with less agitation of

manner.

“How long I may have remained there senseless I don’t know. The doctors

have since told me it must have been a sort of fit—more like an

apoplexy than a swoon, for the attack finally passed off in sleep—Yes I

slept, I know _that_, for I dreamed—dreamed a heap o’ things afore I

awoke—there is but one dream, however, that I have ever been able to

recall distinctly, and that must have come on shortly before I recovered

my consciousness. My resting place through the night had been, as I have

told you, at the far end of the boiler. Well, I now dreamed that the

manhole was still open—and, what seems curious, rather than laughable,

if you take it in connection with other things, I fancied that my legs

had been so stretched in the long walk I had taken the evening before,

that they now reached the whole length of the boiler and extended

through the opening.

“At first, (in my dreaming reflections) it was a comfortable thought

that no one could now shut up the manhole without awakening me. But soon

it seemed as if my feet, which were on the outside, were becoming

drenched in the storm which had originally driven me to seek this

shelter. I felt the chilling rain upon my extremities. They grew colder

and colder, and their numbness gradually extended upward to other parts

of my body. It seemed, however, that it was only the under side of my

person that was thus strangely visited. I laid upon my back, and it must

have been a species of nightmare that afflicted me, for I knew at last

that I was dreaming, yet felt it impossible to rouse myself. A violent

fit of coughing restored, at last, my powers of volition. The water,

which had been slowly rising around me, had rushed into my mouth; I

awoke to hear the rapid strokes of the pump which was driving it into

the boiler!

“My whole condition—no—not all of it—not yet—my _present_ condition

flashed with new horror upon me. But I did not again swoon. The choking

sensation which had made me faint, when I first discovered how I was

entombed, gave way to a livelier, though less overpowering, emotion. I

shrieked even as I started from my slumber. The previous discovery of

the closed aperture, with the instant oblivion that followed, seemed

only a part of my dream, and I threw my arms about and looked eagerly

for the opening by which I had entered the horrid place—yes, looked for

it, and felt for it, though it was the terrible conviction that it was

closed—a second time brought home to me—which prompted my frenzied

cry. Every sense seemed to have tenfold acuteness, yet not one to act in

unison with another. I shrieked again and

again—imploringly—desperately—savagely. I filled the hollow chamber

with my cries till its iron walls seemed to tingle around me. The dull

strokes of the accursed pump seemed only to mock at while they deadened

my screams.

“At last I gave myself up. It is the struggle against our fate which

frenzies the mind. We cease to fear when we cease to hope. I gave myself

up and then I grew calm!

“I was resigned to die—resigned even to my mode of death. It was not, I

thought, so very new after all as to awaken unwonted horror in a man.

Thousands have been sunk to the bottom of the ocean shut up in the holds

of vessels—beating themselves against the battened hatches—dragged

down from the upper world shrieking, not for life but for death only

beneath the eye and amid the breath of heaven. Thousands have endured

that appalling kind of suffocation. I would die only as many a better

man had died before me. I _could_ meet such a death. I said so—I

thought so—I felt so—felt so, I mean, for a minute—or more; ten

minutes it may have been—or but an instant of time. I know not—nor

does it matter if I could compute it. There _was_ a time then when I was

resigned to my fate. But, good God! was I resigned to it in the shape in

which next it came to appal? Stranger, I felt that water growing hot

about my limbs, though it was yet mid-leg deep. I felt it, and, in the

same moment, heard the roar of the furnace that was to turn it into

steam before it could get deep enough to drown one!

“You shudder—It _was_ hideous. But did I shrink and shrivel, and

crumble down upon that iron floor, and lose my senses in that horrid

agony of fear?—No!—though my brain swam and the life-blood that

curdled at my heart seemed about to stagnate there forever, still _I

knew!_ I was too hoarse—too hopeless, from my previous efforts, to cry

out more. But I struck—feebly at first, and then strongly—frantically

with my clenched fist against the sides of the boiler. There were people

moving near who _must_ hear my blows! Could not I hear the grating of

chains, the shuffling of feet, the very rustle of a rope, hear them all,

within a few inches of me? I did—but the gurgling water that was

growing hotter and hotter around my extremities, made more noise within

the steaming caldron than did my frenzied blows against its sides.

“Latterly I had hardly changed my position, but now the growing heat of

the water made me plash to and fro; lifting myself wholly out of it was

impossible, but I could not remain quiet. I stumbled upon something—it

was a mallet!—a chance tool the smith had led there by accident. With

what wild joy did I seize it—with what eager confidence did I now deal

my first blows with it against the walls of my prison! But scarce had I

intermitted them for a moment when I heard the clang of the iron door as

the fireman flung it wide to feed the flames that were to torture me. My

knocking was unheard, though I could hear him toss the sticks into the

furnace beneath me, and drive to the door when his infernal oven was

fully crammed.

“Had I yet a hope? I had, but it rose in my mind side by side with the

fear that I might now become the agent of preparing myself a more

frightful death—Yes! when I thought of that furnace with its fresh-fed

flames curling beneath the iron upon which I stood—a more frightful

death even than that of being boiled alive! Had I discovered that mallet

but a short time sooner—but no matter, I would by its aid resort to the

only expedient now left.

“It was this—I remembered having a marline-spike in my pocket, and in

less time than I have taken in hinting at the consequences of thus using

it, I had made an impression upon the sides of the boiler, and soon

succeeded in driving it through. The water gushed through the

aperture—would they see it?—No, the jet could only play against a

wooden partition which must hide the stream from view—it must trickle

down upon the decks before the leakage would be discovered. Should I

drive another hole to make that leakage greater? Why, the water within

seemed already to be sensibly diminished—so hot had become that which

remained—should more escape, would I not hear it bubble and hiss upon

the fiery plates of iron that were already scorching the soles of my

feet?

• • • • • •

“Ah! there is a movement—voices—I hear them calling for a crowbar—The

bulkhead cracks as they pry off the planking. They have seen the

leak—they are trying to get at it!—Good God! why do they not first

dampen the fire?—Why do they call for the—the—

“Stranger, look at that finger! it can never regain its natural

size—but it has already done all the service that man could expect from

so humble a member—_Sir, that hole would have been plugged up on the

instant_, unless _I had jammed my finger through_!

“I heard the cry of horror as they saw it without—the shout to drown

the fire—the first stroke of the cold water pump. They say, too, that I

was conscious when they took me out—but I—I remember nothing more till

they brought a julep to my bed-side arterwards, And _that julep!_—”

“Cooling! was it?”

“Strannger!!!”

Ben turned away his head and wept—He could no more.

-----

[1] The name “Missouri” is thus generally pronounced upon the western

waters.

* * * * *

“YOU CALL US INCONSTANT.”

BY H. T. TUCKERMAN.

You call us inconstant—you say that we cease

Our homage to pay, at the voice of caprice;

That we dally with hearts till their treasures are ours,

As bees drink the sweets from a cluster of flowers;

For a moment’s refreshment at love’s fountain stay,

Then turn, with a thankless impatience, away.

And think you, indeed, we so cheerfully part

With hopes that give wings to the o’erwearied heart,

And throw round the future a promise so bright

That life seems a glory, and time a delight?

From our pathway forlorn can we banish the dove,

And yield, without pain, the enchantments of love?

You know not how chill and relentless a wave

Reflection will cast o’er the soul of the brave—

How keenly the clear rays of duty will beam,

And startle the heart from its passionate dream,

To tear the fresh rose from the garland of youth,

And lay it, with tears, on the altar of truth!

We pass from the presence of beauty, to think—

As the hunter will pause on the precipice brink—

“For _me_ shall the bloom of the gladsome and fair

Be wasted away by the fetters of care?

Shall the old, peaceful nest, for my sake, be forgot,

And the gentle and free know a wearisome lot?

“By the tender appeal of that beauty, beware

How you woo her thy desolate fortunes to share.

O pluck not a lily so sheltered and sweet,

And bear it not off from its genial retreat.

Enriched with the boon thy existence would be,

But hapless the fate that unites her to thee!”

Thus, dearest, the spell that thy graces entwined,

No fickle heart breaks, but a resolute mind;

The pilgrim may turn from the shrine with a smile,

Yet, believe me, his bosom is wrung all the while,

And one thought alone lends a charm to the past—

That his love conquered selfishness nobly at last.

* * * * *

DE PONTIS.

A TALE OF RICHELIEU.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “HENRI QUATRE; OR THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE.”

(Continued from page 68.)

CHAPTER II.

De Pontis was now despairing—it was evident Richelieu was in the

highest displeasure at the disposal of the _droit d’aubaine_ without his

knowledge—the cardinal’s seal was affixed to the ware-rooms, from which

there had been removed only the royal present, and a few articles of

minor value; and the king had at best but a negative power in protecting

his old servant.

The minister returned to Paris, and the veteran made two ineffectual

attempts to gain another audience. “Ah! my old friend the Sieur De

Pontis!” or the ominous “_serviteur très-humble!_” was all he gained by

placing himself in the path of a man before whom the bravest quailed.

An old campaigner, he would not abandon the contest; the royal word had

been pledged that it would stand by the royal act; so Monsieur merely

changed his tactics, acting on the defensive, and awaiting the issue

with calmness; whilst Marguerite trembled and wept the day long,

expecting each hour to see her father dragged to the Bastille.

By chance rather than prudential dictates, he had removed several of the

account-books of the deceased Spaniard, ere the cardinal’s seal was

affixed. This trifling act—at least so deemed by the soldier—was, in

the sequel, of much import.

After a delay of several days, in which De Pontis could learn no tidings

of the minister’s intentions—and a visit to the Tuileries, he was well

aware, would compromise his majesty without forwarding the object in

view—he received a citation from the _Cour Royale_ to accompany its

officers in an inspection of the ware-rooms. Obeying the summons, an

inventory of the goods was taken, and which was found to tally with the

stock-book, with the exception of the rich bed and hangings sent to the

Tuileries, and the articles taken to his own use.

Next day came a legal document from another of the parliamentary courts

of justice, by which it appeared that a suit had been commenced against

De Pontis, by one Pedro Olivera, claiming to be the creditor of the

deceased to a very large amount—indeed, to such an extent that, by

appraisement of the inventory, including the debts owing the deceased at

the time of his death, and deducting what amounts were due to creditors

of the estate, so far from being a wealthy man he died insolvent.

In consternation, De Pontis carried his papers as well as the Spaniard’s

books to an advocate, a distant kinsman. The advocate shook his head

ominously at the recital.

“Having possessed himself of the effects,” said the lawyer, “Monsieur

has made himself responsible for the debts of the deceased. And that

portion of the estate which has travelled to the _Palais_ cannot of

course be recovered—so that he cannot even put affairs in the posture

in which they stood at the time of the Spaniard’s death.”

Looking cautiously round the office, opening the door, to make certain

there were no eaves-droppers, he shut it again, and approaching the ear

of his kinsman, said in a low tone—

“I know not how to trust even the very walls with my voice! Without

doubt, Monsieur De Pontis, the claim is a fabrication—at least I cannot

believe the deceased could owe such an amount, nor that this Olivera was

in a condition to trust him. I will examine these books carefully, and,

meantime, respond to the suit in the usual course. I will not desert a

kinsman, even though he be in the toils of the tyrant. Farewell!”

The same day, De Pontis was arrested on the plea of having fraudulently

appropriated the property before ascertaining the amount of the

deceased’s debts, and providing for the same. There had, of course, been

no time for the court to grant any decree in Olivera’s suit. The arrest

was dated from the _Cour Royale_, a distinct court from that in which

Pedro’s suit originated—he being charged by the

_procureur-général_—the attorney-general of France—with having made

away with effects which of right belonged to the estate. He was thus, at

the same time, charged by an officer of the crown in the _Cour Royale_

with a penal offence, and sued in a civil court for restitution by a

private creditor.

Lodged in the _Conciergerie du Palais_, it was intimated that the only

chance of release was by finding surety to the amount of property

abstracted. And how could he do that? The bed and hangings alone were

estimated at the value of two hundred thousand livres, and had been made

for the kinswoman of Louis, now the wife of Charles the First of

England, who was obliged to countermand the luxurious article, on

account of the troubles which had broken out in that kingdom.

And thus our poor veteran was indeed, as the advocate Giraud truly

affirmed, in the toils of Richelieu, who held all the strings of

government and justice in his own hands, and could guide them as he

wished. Deprived of the opportunity of self-exertion, restricted in

intercourse with the advocate, his affairs might have fallen into

irretrievable ruin but for the courage and energy of the fair

Marguerite. In the first paroxysm of despair, she had solicited the boon

of sharing the confinement of De Pontis—this was refused. Her next

application was made to the king, throwing herself at his feet as he was

about proceeding to mass, and asking permission to attend her father

daily, as she was not permitted to make the _Conciergerie_ her home.

Louis said aloud, that the request ought to be made through the proper

channel, at the bureau of the Cardinal Richelieu, and recommended her to

make the appeal—and that it would be time enough for the royal clemency

to interfere when ordinary means had failed. Such was the sole answer it

was supposed she departed with—but under pretence of raising the

maiden, for she had thrown herself on her knees, he whispered a few

words of comfort—that he would not abandon her father.

The terror in which the cardinal was held was so great, his power

exercised so arbitrarily, that in this extremity Marguerite was almost

friendless. They looked on the father as a doomed man, and condemned his

rashness—the daughter they pitied, but shrank from offering her aid.

There was one exception.

Returning to the lodging in the _Rue St. Denis_, she found Monsieur

Giraud waiting her arrival. He had heard from the lips of their old

domestic, of the maiden’s intention to throw herself at the king’s feet,

and anxiously awaited the issue. Gently chiding Mademoiselle for not

putting confidence in her father’s friend, he offered to accompany her

on the morrow to the abode of his eminence.

The application was successful, and as they returned from the _Palais

Cardinal_, the magnificent abode of the prelate, with an order

permitting Mademoiselle ingress and egress, from morn till eve, to and

from the _Conciergerie_, the advocate expressed a conviction that the

king had kept his word, for it was an unusual privilege.

Little of importance transpired in the affairs of De Pontis till the day

previous to that in which we introduced to the reader our heroine,

waiting admission at the portal of the _Conciergerie_.

In the morn there was a consultation in the prisoner’s chamber, between

the advocate, who had obtained an order from the bureau for that

purpose, and father and daughter. The worthy Giraud was desponding—the

civil suit, he said, thanks to the dilatoriness of the courts! was

creeping slowly enough, though much faster than the ordinary routine of

practice; but the _procureur-général_ had hastened the penal suit,

driving it through the court at such a race-horse speed, that there was

great danger of his obtaining a decree of sequestration—utterly ruinous

to De Pontis—unless an appeal to cardinal or king, praying for

sufficient delay to prepare a defence, were resorted to. It was useless

applying to the presidents of the court—they were too much under the

lash of Richelieu to do justice to the respondent in the suit.

So far as the Spaniard’s books and accounts, which De Pontis had

preserved, testified, there was no appearance of such a debt, nothing

tending to confirm directly or indirectly Pedro Olivera’s assumption,

but much negative evidence to prove the falsity of his claim.

It was certain, continued the advocate, that a favorite of the cardinal

was laying strong claim to the _droit d’aubaine_, and urging his patron

to recover it. He had himself been informed that the party now applying

such a pressure on his eminence to effect this unjustifiable, unworthy

purpose, had long had an eye on the alien, and marked the property as

his own. But the name of the individual intimated in this whisper of

scandal, which floated about the precincts of the courts, was unknown to

Giraud, nor had he the necessary influence to procure it.

“What matters the name of the minion if they are bent on ruining me?”

exclaimed De Pontis.

“Much!” replied his friend, “but listen.”

The advocate then proceeded to relate that among the papers of the

deceased he found much correspondence of a peculiar character, some

portion of which might even implicate individuals in a charge of

treason—other portions related to financial matters, and showing that

the Spaniard had been a lender rather than a borrower, and had supplied

parties connected with the court with money. Much curious matter there

was, even relating to this Pedro Olivera, who, however, figured in a

subordinate capacity, certainly very different from what might be

expected of one who could lend such a vast sum of money.

“I have my suspicions,” answered Monsieur Giraud, “and if we could but

discover the party whom the _droit_ is intended for, I think I could

find a shaft in the Spaniard’s budget which would pierce him.”

“And if I could find the party whom the _droit_ is intended for,”

exclaimed the veteran, “and had him before me at rapier’s length in the

_pré aux clercs_, he would soon have to enter his cause in another

court.”

“I have no doubt if steel would do the business my agency would be

useless,” rejoined the lawyer, “but the Sieur De Pontis must remember he

is now on the brink of total ruin, perhaps even of personal

disgrace—that the net is spread on every side—if he retain the _droit

d’aubaine_, this Pedro may recover a decree against him for more than

the _droit_ is worth—if Pedro by any chance is defeated, the

_procureur_ catches my friend on the penal suit, and sequesters _droit_,

land and everything he has—and adds to it, most likely, imprisonment.

All this may be effected without causing our generous king to violate

his word.”

“_Mort de ma vie!_” exclaimed De Pontis, starting up in a rage, “and is

not all this done, Monsieur Giraud, to make an old soldier surrender the

king’s bounty? If I thrust this morsel of paper,” displaying the

sovereign’s sign-manual, “in the fire to boil our coffee, would not the

gates open at once—aye! and Pedro’s debt vanish like smoke?”

“They would be glad to make such terms, undoubtedly,” replied the

advocate.

“Then, by St. Louis and all the saints!” exclaimed the _militaire_,

raising his arm and letting the clenched fist drop on the board with a

bound which did much damage to the breakfast service, “so long as his

gracious majesty promises not to abandon his old servant, so long will I

resist all the priests and cardinals in France.”

“And will end your days in the Bastille,” uttered Giraud.

“No! no!” cried Marguerite, bursting into tears, “Father! Monsieur

Giraud! I will go to the cardinal this morning, and implore him to stay

the _procureur’s_ proceedings till we can prepare our defence.”

The idea pleased the advocate much. There was but little refinement or

delicacy of feeling in his nature—but he possessed warmth and

generosity, and overlooking the trials, and perhaps insults, which a

female may undergo in seeking such an audience, he thought good might

accrue to the family from the attempt. It was of pressing moment that

the _procureur_ should not yet obtain the decree, and no scheme be

abandoned which promised to obtain such a result.

“And if Mademoiselle could but obtain an audience of the king, his

majesty might know the party whom the cardinal is fighting so hard for,”

added the lawyer, “and then I may perhaps spring a mine which will make

some people tremble.”

“Why, what do you take my daughter for?” cried the old soldier; “Can she

change her sex? You will next wish her to plead in court!”

“She may drag you from ruin, which you would never have saved yourself

from,” replied the advocate.

“Well, Monsieur Giraud,” said Marguerite, in a livelier tone than she

had for a length of time assumed, “as you have spoken so flatteringly of

me, allow me to compliment you on your sagacity. I think there is much

truth in what you hint about the unfortunate Spaniard’s papers. Since my

father has been in prison, our lodging has been searched and every thing

in the shape of written paper examined. It strikes me that the documents

which you possess have been missed.”

“And this is the first word I have heard of it!” cried De Pontis,

darting an angry glance at Marguerite. “What, another search? They

ransacked our lodging when they took me—and I could not have believed

they would trouble my house again.”

“I did not wish to distress you, father,” said the maiden, deprecating

the resentment expressed in his looks.

“Mademoiselle was quite right,” said the advocate, “but she ought to

have acquainted me with the fact.”

“I thought it an ordinary proceeding, and was prepared for such visits,”

remarked the damsel.

“You alarm me,” said Giraud, “they will visit me next. I must go home

and make all secure. I will then escort Mademoiselle to the _Palais

Cardinal_.”

After some further remarks, the advocate, accompanied by Marguerite,

left the apartment of the prisoner, who muttered to himself as they

closed the door—

“Well, Giraud is a stanch, bold man and a true friend, but he has not as

much delicacy and regard for a lady’s feelings as my hack _Millefleurs_

could boast of. I taught the brute to kneel when my poor wife touched

his bridle, and he was quiet as a lamb when he carried her. Hang all

scoundrels, and may purgatory have the scarlet ones! They fastened on me

when I was young, and they are now sucking the blood of my old age. Not

so old, though—not so old, but I could pin that scarlet-robed priest to

a tree!”

We have now brought the history of De Pontis to that period when

Marguerite, having left the prison with the intention of seeking an

interview with Richelieu, to stay the proceedings of the _procureur_, so

indecently hurried through the courts, did not repair till the following

morn to the _Conciergerie_ to report her want of success.

There was, indeed, no hope yet, as she had remarked so despondingly to

her father. Nearly the whole day had she spent in a waiting-room of the

_Palais Cardinal_, flattered with the expectation held out by the

secretaries, that the cardinal would be visible when the important

affairs of state were despatched; but, to her infinite grief, there came

at length an official to say there would be no audience that day, for

his eminence was sent for in a hurry to repair to the Tuileries. Giraud

was distracted with the intelligence—he plainly foresaw the

predetermined ruin of the veteran, and advised the damsel to throw

herself once more at the feet of Louis—it was her only resource.

Marguerite, in her lone chamber that night, prayed to the Holy Virgin

for help—for strength to undergo the trials which awaited her—for

fortitude to bear up against the contumely and rebuffs to which she was

exposed. She prayed not to be relieved of the task, but for energy to

meet it. From whatever source came the confidence, there was a secret

prompting of the heart, urging her to persevere. Her father had been

ever unlucky so long as his affairs were under his own management. Why

should there not be a change when he was bereft of the power either to

mend or mar his fortunes? His destiny in other hands, perhaps that would

be vouchsafed to the daughter which was denied the parent. These might

be fancies, but they lulled her to a quiet repose.

“And what must be done,” said De Pontis, “with the _procureur_? It is

hard that a king’s servant, in the name of his master, should be

employed to oppress a king’s servant, against the royal inclination.

What does Giraud mean to do now?”

“Leave all to me,” replied Marguerite, with a smile. “I am making great

proficiency in my new profession—and though I am very wretched and

heart-broken at times—yet I feel a strange courage. But you must not

expect to see me before to-morrow morning, for there is much to be done

to-day.”

Affairs were in that state, that the veteran himself was a cipher—he

felt it, and made no reply. His daughter soon after left the prison, and

De Pontis had to struggle with the terrible _ennui_ of the solitary

chamber, and the deprivation of the usual means of passing the hours.

CHAPTER III.

The advocate’s opinion was in favor of Marguerite once more approaching

the monarch; further application to Richelieu he deemed useless—not so

the maiden. She resolved to make another appeal to the cardinal—it

might be as was affirmed, that he had intended to hear her suit, and

been summoned unexpectedly to the Tuileries; and if so, would it not be

an exhibition of contempt to the minister, to fly to the king, before

she could possibly know whether her prayer would be refused or granted

at the _Palais Cardinal_? Thus reasoned Marguerite De Pontis, and we

think not unwisely. The zealous advocate looked only at conclusions; he

judged unfavorably of the minister’s clemency, and his hopes instantly

pointed to another quarter.

Behold her once more on the way to the cardinal’s palace, in the _Rue

St. Honoré_! It was the earliest hour at which his eminence gave

audience, yet were the ante-chambers of the minister filling rapidly.

Ascending the grand staircase, herself, “the observed of many

observers,” yet shrinking from the gaze her beauty attracted, the door

above was opened by an usher, and she entered a chamber, the first of a

long suite which terminated with the cardinal’s reception-room and

closet of audience.

The modes of approaching the minister were various, according to the

rank and mission of the visiter. Strangers of humble quality, and others

who, either through timidity or other cause, judged that they would not

be permitted the _entrée_ of the reception-room, or who dare not venture

so far, loitered in the more distant saloons till the illustrious man,

issuing forth to pay respects to majesty, gave opportunity for a

moment’s audience or parley, or presentation of petition. The

individuals of the privileged class who rejoiced in free access to the

reception-chamber, watched narrowly each opening of the closet-door,

that they might catch the eye of the prelate on his entry; whilst deeper

anxiety was visible in the countenances of those who had requested

audience through the agency of the gentleman-usher stationed at the

door. The private interviews terminated, Monseigneur stepped forth, and

tarried awhile in the reception-room, bestowing a bow on one, a nod to

another, and making a third happy—and the envied of the chamber—by six

or more significant words.

As all the executive power centred in Richelieu, it could not happen

otherwise, but that suppliants and petitioners were numerous, and from

all parts of the kingdom, and that among the number should be many of

the fair sex. The _politesse_ of the court permitted not such guests to

be kept waiting exposed to the observation of the frequenters of the

levee. The ladies were ushered into the secretary’s apartment, and that

functionary having taken note of their object or petition, carried the

same to Monseigneur to receive his commands thereon. If, as too often

happened with one whose shoulders bore the burthen of the state, and who

was appealed to at the same time by an envoy from Turkey claiming

alliance, and by some poor widow or orphan from the Pyrenees with a tale

of wrong—there was any delay in granting an interview, or giving a

decision on the merits of the case, the fair suppliant was delegated to

a waiting-room to attend the minister’s leisure.

Here sat, for many tedious hours on the former occasion, our heroine

Marguerite—and as she now stated her name and object to the usher whose

duty it was to conduct her to the secretary, she vainly endeavored to

decipher a chance of better fortune in the impassive countenance of the

official, as though it were possible his face would reflect a ray or

emanation of the master’s will.

The waiting-room was again her sad lot—the cardinal was busily engaged

with a German plenipotentiary—but the audience, as the secretary

assured her, with a smile, could not last forever. It was but to ask for

delay in the prosecution of the penal suit in the _Cour Royale_, that

her father might prepare his defence, and prove the innocence of his

intentions. It was not even necessary that she should see his

eminence—one word to the _procureur_ would oblige him to this act of

justice—he was the servant of the king, and must obey the commands of

the kingly authority in the person of Monseigneur.

So spoke the maiden hesitatingly, but with precision and clearness, yet

the secretary—it was De Lionne, not the most heartless man of that

age—could only do, as secretaries are wont on such occasions, smile,

bow, and, as marking his sense of the justness of her claims to

attention, conduct her himself to the door of the drear chamber.

Marguerite at length began to despair, and regret she had not taken the

advice of Giraud. The sensation of utter weariness, of which De Pontis

so often complained to his daughter in the narrow prison-abode, was now

experienced by herself. Solitude was only broken by the occasional sound

of footsteps—delusive hope!—they paused not at her door.

The shout of merry voices was heard from the court-yard in the interior

of the palace. The gay, richly dressed pages of his eminence, whose turn

of duty had terminated or not arrived, were amusing themselves in the

youthful sports practised in the household of princes. Personal

rencontres and duelling were such frequent occurrences, that proficiency

in the use of the rapier was an indispensable accomplishment.

Marguerite, venturing to the window, became sensibly amused and

interested by the adroitness of a youth, who, challenging all his

compeers successively with the foil, remained victor. Cap and mantle

thrown aside, his attitude of defence displayed to advantage a tall

symmetrical form—the long curling hair falling on the shoulders bespoke

a very youthful age, but the compressed lip, and stern, fiery eye bent

on the adversary, belonged to manhood.

Without an equal, he retired from the arena to become a spectator of the

skill of companions more equally matched. Marguerite continued at the

window, till of a sudden, being aware that she was herself the object of

the youth’s regard, she withdrew in confusion.

There was not much to interest within the chamber. A map of France, and

several battle-pieces, sadly out of perspective, helped to while away

the time. Looking closely over Limousin, endeavoring to find the barren

waste denominated De Pontis—without hearing footstep, or other notice

of a stranger’s approach, an arm encircled her waist, and the dark eye

of the page was close to her own.

“Is there nothing”—said the intruder—“more amusing to a lady in the

_Palais-Cardinal_ than poring over a mouldy map? Well! if such be the

taste of Mademoiselle, may I not be her preceptor? I am accounted an

excellent mathematician!”

Marguerite had been surprised so suddenly as to be for the moment bereft

of speech. Springing from his grasp, her eyes flashing indignation, she

flew to the door.

The page perceiving the intention, had barely time to place his hand on

the latch, and the foiled maiden dreading close contact with the

insolent intruder, retreated a few paces, threatening an appeal to the

Cardinal Richelieu.

“Mademoiselle has more power over me than his eminence,” said the page,

half smiling.

“Then prove it by allowing me to quit the apartment without suffering

further insolence,” exclaimed the damsel firmly.

“It is a hard command—and insolence is a harsh term,” said the youth,

thoughtfully, “but I deserve it! Believe me, Mademoiselle, when I say

how much I was deceived in the quality of her whom I approached so

foolishly—we are apt to abuse the license of—”

“License!” exclaimed Marguerite, still trembling with vexation and

anger, “meet behavior for a cardinal’s palace—but make way, sir, and

you shall hear no further of it.”

The page, who evidently by his manner as well as declaration, had

committed the very grave error of acting towards a lady of quality, with

a freedom which the gay youth of Paris affected in their chance meeting

with females of humbler rank, had, since his first address, appeared

deeply struck with the beauty and grace of Marguerite. Even sense of the

offence seemed lost and absorbed in his admiration.

Leaving her free to depart, he again expressed sorrow for the

rudeness—and in a tone, and with language, courteous yet grave and

sustained, more than could have been expected from one of his years, and

of the thoughtless class to which he belonged—reminded her that he was

one of the pages of the Cardinal De Richelieu; that if her visit to the

palace had reference to any of the household, he would go immediately in

quest of the party, or if she sought higher audience, his services were

at command, though they would not, perhaps, avail much.

The frankness of this declaration rather won upon the maiden, and tended

much to subdue her anger. Might she not be carrying indignation too far

against one who expressed such contrition for his offence? Thoughts of

her father, of the _Conciergerie_, of Giraud and the implacable

_procureur général_, rushed through the mind. Perhaps the youth was

thrown in her path even providentially? Ruin hung suspended by a slight

thread over the family, and could only be averted by extraordinary and

unusual aid.

It was with these feelings, that she declared herself Marguerite De

Pontis, waiting audience of the cardinal—if he could pleasure her so

far as to ascertain what chance there remained of seeing the prelate

that day, she would accept his services as atonement for his rudeness.

“De Pontis!” exclaimed the youth, with an abstracted air.

“The same,” exclaimed the maiden, rather impatiently, seeing that he

made no effort to depart, “have I imposed a task too heavy?”

“De Pontis!—he is in the _Conciergerie du Palais_,” said the page.

“Alas! I know it too well,” cried the maiden, “but why remind me of it?

I fear that I have been wrong myself, in putting trust in a stranger.”

“No! no! Mademoiselle,” said the page, “not in putting trust in me,

though perhaps I am too humble to be of service. You appear impatient

because I do not fly, like knight of old, on fair lady’s service—but

truly, I have been weighing between duty and inclination, and duty,

after a hard battle, has been vanquished. I know the cardinal will hold

himself invisible to Mademoiselle till the decree of sequestration is

obtained. There! it is out now!—and I have earned my passport to the

Bastille!”

“I trust not,” replied Marguerite, mournfully, “it is enough our family

is obnoxious to misery in their own persons, without bringing it on

others.”

These words seemed lost on the page—he paced the chamber like one

irresolute of action—his dark eye flashing brightly, and then sunk in

gloom. Suddenly approaching the lady with a vehemence and hastiness

which startled her, he exclaimed abruptly, though in a low tone—

“Chance, and the employment which falls to my lot, have made me

acquainted with the proceedings against Monsieur De Pontis, even more

than is suspected by the cardinal. I owe you atonement, and you must

confess that I risk life, or liberty, or both, in making the reparation

I offer—but I deem no task too heavy or too perilous, which will assist

the hopes of Mademoiselle De Pontis.”

There was a warmth in this declaration, an earnestness of gaze and

speech which caused Marguerite’s eyes to seek the ground.

“I cannot accept services bestowed at such risk,” said the maiden

faltering.

“Then my safety has interest in your eyes—or do I flatter myself too

much?” asked the page.

The roses blushed deeply in the cheek of Marguerite—there was a flutter

at the heart—a confusion which took away the power of reply. With much

to offend delicacy, could she take offence at an offer which bore the

impress of sincerity? Could she sacrifice the proffered aid to her

parent? Might he not be in possession of the information so coveted by

Monsieur Giraud, information so much more valuable since she had learned

the intention of the cardinal to avoid granting an audience? But was she

justified in receiving intelligence conveyed at such peril by the rash

youth?

These thoughts chasing each other, produced a state of mind favorable to

the ardent wishes of the page. He saw her irresolution, and in the

recklessness of the sudden passion he had conceived for the damsel, was

resolved to risk fortune, character and liberty in her service. Higher

aims and loftier destinies than a page’s state, have been flung away for

the favoring smile of woman’s eye! He had the art to avoid all allusion

to his passion, and dilating only on the pity felt for the unfortunate

veteran, and the distress his imprisonment must have caused the

daughter—his own indignation at the artifices used and still in store

to deprive the warrior of the well-earned bounty of royalty—he thus

removed the obstacles which the maidenly delicacy of Marguerite would

have interposed in the acceptation of a stranger’s services—and whose

first introduction afforded little promise of gentle feelings and regard

for her own sex.

François De Romainville, in devoting himself to the service of

Marguerite with such total disregard of the dreaded Richelieu, gave one

more proof of a headlong career. He had been twice imprisoned in the

_Palais_ for disobedience of the cardinal’s orders, and retained his

post only through superior activity and intelligence, qualities of which

the potential minister had much need. The indignity he suffered, or

believed that he suffered, by the confinement, had created a bitter

animosity against his master.

The scandalous injustice exercised towards De Pontis, to which he was

privy, tended to paint the tyrant—as he secretly called him—in blacker

colors. Could he serve the veteran, he revenged his own wrong on the

oppressor—and might win the love of a maiden for whom he had conceived

a passion whose intensity resembled what he had never experienced, but

oft read of in the pages of romance.

There was much danger in every step—even in the present interview, he

ran the risk of being either surprised by his companions from whom he

had unperceived stolen away, on beholding a pretty face at the window

above; or incurring the suspicion of De Lionne, should he send for or

seek Mademoiselle, and find who was in her company. As it was, he had

already rendered himself obnoxious to a severe reprimand, by intruding

into a chamber to which he had not the privilege of access, unless under

command of his eminence, and though this prohibition would probably

prevent search in such a quarter by his more prudent compeers, yet the

momentary peril of a visit from usher or functionary attached to the

secretary’s bureau, was great. The best chance of escape arose from the

fact—so distressing to Marguerite—that the cardinal had no intention

of seeing the maiden, till the intercession she craved would be of no

avail.

With this consolation, and the last resource in store of flight

unperceived by the back staircase which had led him so quietly to the

chamber, he gradually induced Marguerite to make him a confidant in the

affairs of her father.

“It is the Count De Fontrailles,” remarked the page, “for whom the

_droit d’aubaine_ is intended, and he lays close siege to it. The count

has made himself necessary to his eminence—he has, what is called in

the language of the bureau, a talent for affairs. He must have money, is

his constant cry—he spends so much—he had often borrowed of the

Spaniard, and had an eye to the estate on his death—perhaps he poisoned

him—”

“Merciful Heaven! I hope not!” exclaimed the maiden in great terror,

shocked at the idea of the crime, and more so at the careless manner in

which it was surmised.

“What more likely? He might have had to wait many years otherwise,”

replied the page smiling at her fears, “but I beg pardon of

Mademoiselle—she must teach me to speak in a way better suited to a

lady’s ears. I am the most rude and abrupt of men.”

It was now the maiden’s turn to smile.

“Mademoiselle will find that I have a man’s heart though not his beard,”

cried François, with a slight curl of the upper lip; “there are few,

calling themselves men, would dare oppose the cardinal as I have done.

M. De Pontis and myself are well matched, and I sympathize with his

spirit.”

He then proceeded to relate that the cardinal and Fontrailles were much

annoyed at the obstinacy of the old soldier; the necessities of the

latter were outraged by the _droit_ being jeoparded and withheld from

his clutch; the former, displeased at what he called the impertinence of

an old _moustache_, in taking such sudden advantage of the king’s

good-nature. It had been the occupation of François to carry messages

and commands to the creature named Pedro Olivera, a Spaniard by birth,

long resident in France, and a tool or subordinate emissary of the

courtly Fontrailles.

There was much inquiry about certain papers, as the page affirmed to

Marguerite. Pedro had been also a borrower from the deceased Spaniard,

and had placed with him, as security for repayment, a statement of

claims on his master, Fontrailles, for obscure and perhaps disreputable

services. This was missing, also a portion of the books and accounts,

and it occasioned, as François happened to know, a domiciliary search in

the lodging of Monsieur De Pontis.

“If these papers and documents were in existence—and I suspect by her

looks,” said the page, concluding his narrative, “that she knows

something about them—they could be brought to bear against Fontrailles

and Olivera by a skilful advocate. But let Mademoiselle De Pontis

remember, that I have placed my life in her hands—a life of value to

the owner if he be permitted to continue in her service.”

The color flew to the face of Marguerite—she looked confused, but not

displeased—he took her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“But the decree, Monsieur François,” said the damsel timidly, “the

advocate fears the _procureur_ will obtain it to-morrow if he is not

restrained.”

“True! too true!” exclaimed the page.

He considered a few moments, and then told her that the only remedy was

to gain audience of Richelieu by stratagem. It was useless her waiting

in the chamber, he was aware, nor would the cardinal be met with on his

departure from the _Palais_, in the public suite of saloons. He knew the

hour of his going abroad, and it would be necessary that Mademoiselle

should repair to the palace garden, wait in a particular avenue which he

indicated, and lie in ambush for his eminence.

“He will not, he cannot resist your appeal for delay,” exclaimed

François, in a passionate tone, “Monseigneur proves his want of courage

by flying the field! I wish his eminence had my heart, for Mademoiselle

I find irresistible.”

Again pressing the fair hand to his lips, he escaped by the entrance

which conducted to the back-stairs, but presently returning, said—

“If François, the _houblieur_, travels the _Rue St. Denis_ this evening,

he will not fail to ring his bell for customers to attend!” and so

saying, again disappeared.

The _houblieurs_, or dealers in wafers, a sort of cake, were accustomed

to ring a hand-bell to give notice of approach in their passage through

the streets; and Marguerite could only construe the page’s enigma, that

he intended visiting her abode so disguised.

Obeying the directions, she resorted without delay to the palace

gardens, and with fear and trembling took up the station pointed out. A

few minutes after the hour mentioned, chimed by the clock, two ushers

passed the bench where the maiden was seated—she arose instantly, and

the cardinal duke was close at hand, almost surrounded by a group of

gaily dressed gentlemen.

Her courage forsook her—but it was too late to retreat—she stood

conspicuous in the avenue, and the great man’s train, accustomed perhaps

to similar rencontres, falling back a few paces, though within hearing,

she confronted the lion in his path. A slight, almost imperceptible

shade crossed his features, but he stopped, and with princely serenity

listened to the faltering pleading.

“And if the wheels of justice of a mighty kingdom are arrested for one

week, will it content such a faithful servant of the king?” asked the

cardinal.

“I hope it will afford time to prove my father’s innocence,

Monseigneur,” replied the maiden.

“Then Mademoiselle’s wishes shall be the law of France,” rejoined the

minister. Bowing with dignity to the maiden, he passed onward with his

suite, and she was again alone in the avenue.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

THE HAUNTED HEART.

BY MISS MARY L. LAWSON.

’Tis true he ever lingers at her side,

But mark the wandering glances of his eye:

A lover near a fond and plighted bride,

With less of love than sorrow in his sigh!

And well it is for her, that gentle maid,

Who loves too well, too fervently, for fears,

She deems not her devotion is repaid

With deep repinings o’er life’s early years.

For oft another’s image fills his breast,

E’en when he breathes to her love’s tender vow;

While her soft hand within his own is prest,

And timid blushes mantle her young brow,

Fond memory whispers of the dreamy past,

Its hopes and joys, its agony and tears;

In vain from out his soul he strives to cast

One shadowy form—the love of early years.

Ne’er from his heart the vision fades away;

Amid the crowd, in silence, and alone,

The stars by night, the clear blue sky by day,

Bring to his mind the happiness that’s flown;

A tone of song, the warbling of the birds,

The simplest thing that memory endears,

Can still recall the form, the voice, the words

Of her, the best beloved of early years.

He dares not seek the spot where first they met,

Too dangerous for his only hope of rest,

His strong, but fruitless effort to forget

Those scenes that wake deep sorrow in his breast;

And yet the quiet beauty of the grove

All plainly to his restless mind appears,

Where, as the sun declined, he lov’d to rove

With her, the first fond dream of early years.

He sees the stream, beside whose brink they strayed,

Engross’d in converse sweet of coming hours,

And watch’d the rippling currents as they played,

In ebb and flow, upon the banks of flowers:

And the old willow, ’neath whose spreading shade

She own’d her love—again her voice he hears,

He starts—alas! the vision only fades

To leave regretful pangs for early years.

It was his idle vanity that changed

The pure, deep feelings of her trusting heart,

Whose faithful love, not even in thought had ranged,

But worship’d him, from all the world apart;

Now cold and altered is her beaming eye,

And no fond hope his aching bosom cheers

That she will shed one tear or breathe one sigh

For him she lov’d so well in early years.

He feels she scorns him with a bitter scorn,

He questions not the justice of his fate,

For long had she his selfish caprice borne,

And wounded pride first taught her how to hate.

Oh! ye who cast away a heart’s deep love,

Remember, ere affection disappears,

That keen reproachful throbs your soul may move

Like his who lives to mourn life’s early years.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE.

BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.

NO. VII.—MACBETH.

A few more words on Macbeth as a work of art. There is a scene so

trifling that, to such as are not prepared to look for meaning in our

poet’s lightest word, it might seem almost superfluous. The “noble

Macbeth” has returned from the battle where his victorious arm has saved

his king and country. His heart is opened by the dangerous influence of

prosperity, amid the high-beating joys of which the enemy of mankind has

insinuated hopes of a deeper, more audacious, and guilty nature; but as

yet they are but as hidden serpents beneath the flowers. The two scenes

of the witches have been thrown in—like sublime strains of music from

which an opera is to take its character, chilling the mind with vague

and startling apprehensions. All this is done with a few strokes from

the terrible master-hand.

A part of the effect produced by the commencement of this immense

tragedy is owing to the contrast of the two mighty antagonist principles

of human life—earthly good, on the one side, smiling in the sunshine,

and allowing all who trust it to a full and fatal confidence, and, on

the other, _evil_ which an omnipotent and inscrutable Deity has placed

in a mysterious juxtaposition, like a huge Maelstrom, and from which

arises the necessity of ceaseless watchfulness and the energetic

exercise of the moral faculties. We have all that, to an earthly mind,

is noble, great, exciting and beautiful. Military glory is the idol

which mankind has the most blindly worshiped. It has no good effect on

the moral nature, but, on the contrary, has a tendency to inflate the

soul with vain confidence and to give the man that most paltry and

foolish of all weaknesses—a pompous idea of his own greatness. Military

glory, then, at its height, appears to us at the outset of Macbeth. The

brave, patriotic warrior has crushed the rebel and hurled back the

invader from his country’s shore. The acclamations of the multitude hail

the victor as he returns. He is for the moment invested with the moral

glory of a Washington or a Cincinnatus. Not only does the nation he has

saved regard him with delight and affection, but the king himself has no

words to express his gratitude, and heaps him at once with thanks,

honors and promises.

What a noble picture! The storm of war broken and passed away, leaving

the political sky clearer than before—the good and venerable old king,

whose great age does not permit him to share the dangers and glory of

the actual combat, protected by the generous and brave hand of a

faithful subject! The people’s apprehensions subside—the soldier

returning to his field, the father embracing once more his wife and

children—the hills and plains about to wave again with a plentiful

harvest—the king left in safety and peace to form new benevolent plans

for the security and happiness of his affectionate people—and Macbeth

himself—at the pinnacle of a subject’s happiness—accompanied to his

beautiful castle by his royal and grateful master—promoted in

rank—improved in fortune—the favorite of his king—the savior of his

country—what could Providence bestow more to make the world an Eden?

At this moment (Oh Earth! how true a shadowing forth it is of thy

delusive and fatal snares!) the audience hear the tones of another

world—the finger of another destiny, as unlike that which has charmed

the minds of the multitudes whom we may suppose to have welcomed the

conquering Macbeth, as was the hand which traced the _writing on the

wall_ at the feast of Belshazzar. At this moment, hovering in the air,

the shadow gathers, and the destructive, the corrupting principle,

inherent in human things—and which man was sent on earth to watch for

and to cope with—falls across the path of the hero; dark and obvious

enough to have betrayed to him his danger, had he been a pure and a

pious man, but, through its withered and hideous disguise, appealing to

his weakness—to his worst passions—with a fascinating power and a

bewildering and intoxicating promise.

The colossal dimensions of this tragedy are one of its awful features.

In it, Inverness is the world, the witches are sin, and Macbeth is the

proud, aspiring representative of weak mortality, when unsupported by

religion. The scene to which I have alluded above, and to which I call

the reader’s attention, comes in amidst massive interests with such a

minuteness of finish, and playfulness and sweetness of fancy, that one

is struck with it as with some of those accidents accompanying great

events in real life, and from their very insignificance contrasting with

a tremendous power—a bird warbling—a violet blowing—or a limpid brook

singing on its happy journey where a great battle is about to be fought;

or an infant unconsciously smiling on the bosom of a dying father.

Macbeth has seen the weird sisters, has listened to their prophecy, has

found one of their predictions verified. He _is_ Thane of Cawdor! He has

caught the dazzling dream of royalty with an eager and a determined

hand. He has begun to weave in his ambitious brain the web of his vast

designs. He has not only conceived—he has _yielded_ to the dire

suggestion whose horrid image unfixed his hair and made his “seated

heart knock at his ribs,” against the use of nature. He has invoked the

stars to hide their fires, that “light” may not see his “black and deep

desires.” He has met his sinful and earthly wife, and in the interchange

of a few portentous words, understood even before spoken, (for there is

a freemasonry of guilt as well as of innocence and honor) he has

resolved upon deep hypocrisy, prompt action, and the most tremendous

guilt. That very night is to become memorable in the history of their

lives and of the world, by a deed of eternal wo. The sun, now rolling

calmly and brightly to his golden rest, is never to behold again the

forth-going of the silver-haired old monarch, who, with his happy and

triumphant suite, approaches the sweet castle of Inverness; and the

raven has been, (by the deep conjuration of the blackest of human

hearts,) supposed _hoarse_ with ominous croakings at the sight of the

happy and confiding king entering beneath those battlements.

With what consummate skill these innumerable ideas are presented to our

imagination, and then (and here is the passage) what a transition from

the gloomy and horrid depths of the corrupt human heart, to the perfume,

radiance, tranquility, picturesqueness, and ever-soothing routine of

external nature.

SCENE VI. _Before the castle._

_Hautboys, servants of Macbeth attending. Enter Duncan, Malcolm,

Donalbain, Banquo, Lenox, Macduff, Rosse, Angus, and

attendants._

_Duncan._ This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

_Banquo._ This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,

By his lov’d mansionry, that the heaven’s breath

Smells wooingly here: no jutty frieze,

Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle;

Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ’d,

The air is delicate.

_Enter Lady Macbeth._

_Duncan._ See, see! our honor’d hostess!

The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble,

Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you,

How you shall bid God yield us for your pains,

And thank us for your trouble.

_Lady._ All our service,

In every point twice done, and then done double,

Were poor and single business, to contend,

Against those honors, deep and broad, wherewith

Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,

And the late dignities heap’d up to them,

We rest your hermits.

_Dun._ Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?

We cours’d him at the heels, and had a purpose

To be his purveyor: _but he rides well_;

And his _great love_, sharp as his spur, hath holp him

To his home before us: _fair and noble hostess_,

We are your guest to night.

_Lady._ Your servants ever

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,

To make their audit at your highness’ pleasure,

Still to return your own.

_Dun._ Give me your hand:

Conduct me to mine host; _we love him highly_,

And shall continue our graces towards him.

By your leave, hostess.

When I read the sleep-walking scene of Lady Macbeth, I think that the

most perfect piece of writing ever seen in profane literature. When I

fall upon the above, it appears to me that is the most delicate and

exquisite in the whole range of our author’s works. Is it possible that

the same tremendous hand which painted the royal tigress, at length

cowed by the aspect of another world, has drawn, with a pencil of air,

this lovely and inexpressibly soft scene, where the perfume of a balmy

atmosphere is fresh and soothing on your forehead, and in your nostril,

and where the eye as well as the smell and ear (for I can hear the

breeze murmur among the green branches, and the screams of joy uttered

by those temple-haunting birds as they chase each other down the air,)

is filled with delight. What a warm and living picture it is, with the

fewest possible words! An old castle pleasantly situated—its massive

turrets look down over a peaceful, rural scene, the pure-scented air

recommending itself sweetly and nimbly to our gentle senses! Who that

has spent six or eight hours of the early morning at a sedentary

occupation, in a room, till the senses were wearied and the limbs ached

with sitting—and the lungs played languishingly and the blood moved

sluggishly—and the pulse beat feebly with exhaustion—who has not, on

going forth, felt this soothing sensation, as some pleasant landscape

spread its tranquil and soft-colored beauties before his eye, some

picturesque building broke the sameness of the picture by its bold

outlines in the foreground, the ever happy birds darting about the house

eaves—and the life-breathing, cool, odorous air filling his veins with

sweet impulses, stirring all that is agreeable in his heart, cooling the

fever of the heated brain, and sending off, with its benign blessing, a

world of sad feelings or melancholy forebodings.

In three lines we have this effect; and further, who expresses this

pleasing, living thought—_Duncan!_ the doomed victim of the assassin’s

dagger. Yes, he feels the sweetness of nature, and he feels it for _the

last time_. Look around thee, old man; those swells of verdant ground,

those murmuring and soft waving trees, those shadows thickening and

blackening as the eye pierces into the wood, this blue and bending sky

with a few sleeping, fleecy clouds, thou shalt never see them more.

Nature, always so tender and exquisite, has new and unutterable charms

when we are never to behold it again.

Then _Banquo_ acknowledges the softening influence of the scene.

_Banquo._ This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,

By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath

Smells wooingly here: no jutty frieze,

Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:

Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ’d,

The air is delicate.

Here is a picture which the reader sees as if by mere accident, and the

imagination follows out each hint and goes from one salient point to

another till the life-like scene rises before it. The luxuriancy and

blandness of summer, the beautiful martlets filling the air as we have

watched them with boyish delight a thousand times, with their noisy joy.

They never appear so pretty as when coming in and out of their nests

under the eaves of a house or barn, and still more in the buttresses and

angles of an old castle. “Their loved mansionry” gives an additional

impression of the beauty their “pendent beds and procreant cradles” add

to the rough old castle which itself is brought finely out from the

canvass by the light reflecting from each jutty frieze, buttress and

coigne of vantage.

Banquo continues the remark with a thought expressive of an observing,

nature-loving mind returning, with new pleasure, to the repose of peace

and the thoughts and the occupations which there have room to unfold

themselves, after the bloody tumult of brutal war.

I do not know, but I suppose it must be a truth in natural history, that

the birds spoken of generally build their nests where the air is purest.

See, also, the superior charm which the little observation possesses,

from the lips of this noble soldier, dropped in a peaceful, sunshiny

moment, skilfully thrown in after the furious storms of war, and before

the yet more frightful tempest of guilt which is speedily to fall like a

thunderbolt upon this group of human beings, apparently so far removed

from danger, and about to commence a new era of contentment.

Remark here the people collected in a circle beneath the dark frowning

battlements of the war-like castle now bathed in summer light, and in

the natural ease and gentle satisfaction of their hearts discussing such

beautiful trifles as, however graceful and soothing, the busy warriors

of those rude times had but small time to occupy themselves with. Who

are they? what are their fates? Alas they are but too striking types of

their fellow creatures who in the midst of life are in death. Duncan’s

hours are numbered. Beneath the walls of the castle which his aged eyes

survey with such admiration—whose strong turrets and picturesque

buttresses are now painted with the golden light of a calm summer

afternoon—which he expects to enter to a banquet, and from which he

intends to go forth in the morning with renewed hope and

happiness—beneath those dire walls in a few hours is to take place a

scene, the farthest possible removed from his suspicions, and he is to

be called, like Hamlet, without any reckoning, into the presence of his

God. Thus under the crushing and unpausing hand of Destiny the good and

the bad go down alike in a world through which _he_ will pass most

easily who builds his hopes elsewhere.

Banquo too is a good man. You even perceive, in those few words, that he

has a delicacy of nature which has perhaps preserved him pure from

contaminating influences and illusive temptations. He too is marked,

without demerit of his own, to go down beneath the wheels of the

dreadful impending event.

He too, in a few brief days, is doomed to be cut off—thrust headlong

into eternity, while guilt remains unhurt and triumphs in the successful

execution of all its plans.

For Macduff—the pious—lion-hearted—affectionate Macduff, is prepared

a fate, if possible, yet more awful. His castle—the scene of many a

happy hour, many a fond and merry family sport, is about to be

surprised. His wife, his babes “savagely slaughtered,”

“wife, children, servants,”

all that could be found, fiercely drawn down into the general ruin which

the sinful heart of one man spreads around him. How truly is mortality

painted in these events! How plainly we see what stuff life is made of!

and how sternly are we taught the folly of supposing the end of man to

be “here, on this bank and shoal of time.”

Malcolm, Donalbain, Rosse, and Angus, driven from their country by

terror of the bloody tyrant—(now the beloved and trusted of all)—and

lastly Lenox, whom we find at a later period in attendance on Macbeth,

and the witness of his bursts of guilty and ferocious desperation, but

at length joined with the advancing enemy.

Into the midst of this circle, on the brink of ruin when they think

themselves most secure, _enters Lady Macbeth_. Her mere appearance

touches a chord of terror in the soul of the reader, although they whom

she addresses view her with very different feelings. The unsuspecting

king greets in her his “honored hostess,” and pours out upon her a heart

full of gratitude and love. The cruel hypocrite—so firm in the

anticipation of guilt, so haughtily superior to all the prejudices of

superstition—all _the idle dreams of religion and a Providence_—yet so

ignorant of their real nature and destined to be so thoroughly wrecked

in the tempest her rash hand is so eager to raise—replies with shameful

effrontery and mature wickedness:

“all our service,

In every point twice done, and then done double,

Were poor and single business, to contend

Against those honors deep and broad, wherewith

Your majesty loads our house.”

In the concluding part of the scene remark how admirably are drawn the

profound hypocrisy of Lady Macbeth and the entire confidence and deeply

deceived friendship of the unsuspecting king.

“Where’s the Thane of Cawdor!

We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose

To be his purveyor: but he rides well;

And his _great love_, sharp as his spur, hath holp him

To his home before us: _fair and noble hostess_,

We are your guest to night.

_Lady._ Your servants ever

Have theirs, _themselves_, and _what is theirs_, in compt

To make their audit at your highness’ pleasure,

_Still to return your own_.

_King._ Give me your hand:

Conduct me to mine host; _we love him highly_,

And shall _continue our graces towards him_.”

Thus it is with man. All around us is deceit. We know not how to

distinguish the false from the true. Duncan must have had more than

human sagacity to suspect wile in the chivalric soldier who had just

risked his life in his defence, or in the “fair and noble hostess” who

received him beneath her roof with such apparent love, gratitude and

veneration.

* * * * *

[Illustration: J. J. Jenkins., A. L. Dick.

_The Lady Alice_,

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]

THE LADY ALICE.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

In the early morning hour,

When the dew was on the flower,

From her fragrant couch arose

Lady Alice, bright and fair!

Free around her as the air,

Spotless as the mountain snows,

Garments in the night-time worn,

Floated in the light of morn.

Music, soft as angels hear,

O’er the quiet waters came,

And the voice, that met her ear,

Warbled one beloved name.

By her lattice, hushed she stood

In a leaning attitude.

Nothing lovelier to behold

Ever greeted mortal eyes—

Saintly pictures, famed of old,

Gems of genius, set in gold,

Matchless forms in shape and size!

Nearer now the strain is heard—

Starts she, like a frightened bird;

’Tis for her the song is sung,

And for her, across the sea,

Waves the signal merrily,

From her lover’s pinnace flung!

’Tis the hour, the promised hour,

She should leave her maiden bower.

. . . . . . . .

She has donned her rich attire,

She has left her father’s palace—

Has love so quenched her spirit’s fire?

Is this the haughty Lady Alice?

She, whose looks of high disdain

Banished nobles from her train?

See, adown the marble stairs,

To the wave, the lady steal;

Nothing now for pride she cares—

Love has taught her heart to feel.

Idly rocks the slender mast

O’er the silver billows now,

But anon the foam will cast

Jewels from the speeding prow;

Soon, from vain pursuit afar,

Softly will that pinnace glide,

And the evening’s golden star

Smile upon a happy bride.

* * * * *

THE SUNSET STORM.

BY RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

The summer sun has sunk to rest

Below the green-clad hills,

And through the skies, careering fast,

The storm-cloud rides upon the blast,

And now the rain distills!

The flash we see, the peal we hear,

With winds blent in their wild career,

Till pains the ear.

It is the voice of the Storm King

Riding upon the Lightning’s wing,

Leading his bannered hosts across the darkened sky,

And drenching with his floods the sterile lands and dry.

The wild beasts to their covers fly,

The night birds flee from heaven,

The dense black clouds that veil the sky,

Darkening the vast expanse on high,

By streaming fires are riven.

Again the tempest’s thunder tone,

The sounds from forests overthrown,

Like trumpets blown

Deep in the bosom of the storm,

Proclaim His presence, in its form,

Who doth the sceptre of the concave hold,

Who freed the winds, and the vast clouds unrolled.

The storms no more the skies invest,

The winds are heard no more;

Low in the chambers of the west,

Whence they arose, they’ve sunk to rest;

The sunset storm is o’er.

The clouds that were so wildly driven

Across the darkened brow of heaven

Are gone, and Even

Comes in her mild and sober guise,

Her perfumed air, her trembling skies,

And Luna, with her star-gemmed, glorious crown,

From her high throne in heaven, upon the world looks down.

* * * * *

WASTE PAPER;

OR “TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR.”

BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

“Good bye, Vivian, don’t fall in love till you see Miss Walton. God

bless you, my dear boy!” And Vivian Russell shook his kind uncle warmly

by the hand and sprung into the stage coach, which was waiting for him

at the gate. “All right!” said the guard—the bluff coachman smacked his

whip, and away they sped along the road to London.

They will not fly so fast, but that you and I, sweet reader, can

overtake them when we list, though the swift steeds of Fancy must be

harnessed for the purpose. To please you, then, we will follow them

anon. In the mean time, sit you down by my side on this sunny bank,

opposite the gate, where Vivian’s uncle still stands and gazes after the

fast receding vehicle, and I will tell you all I know about him. You had

time to see, ere he took his seat in the coach, that he was a tall,

nobly formed youth, possessing, in an eminent degree, what the French

call, “_Un air distingué_.” You could not but notice the thin silky

intellectual looking curls, which waved on his classical head, (don’t

laugh at the word “intellectual!”) Think a moment! Is there not

expression even in hair? Does not thick, bushy, _stubby_ hair,

especially if it curl, give you an idea of dullness, sensuality and want

of refinement? If it doesn’t, my precious reader, take my word for it,

you don’t see with your “mind’s eye,” or at any rate, with _my_ mind’s

eye. Did you observe _his_ eyes? They are black, brilliant and

expressive, full of that great rarity, in this whig and tory world,

soul. His complexion is glowing and slightly brown by exposure. There is

a dimple in his chin, his nose is just like that of the Apollo

Belvidere, and his forehead, how shall I describe its beauty? broad,

white, spiritual, beaming with thought, I cannot do it justice. There is

the least perceptible curl on his beautiful lip; but you cannot see it

when he smiles; for his smile is tenderness itself. In his manly bearing

too, there is, perhaps, a dash of aristocratic haughtiness, at first,

but it soon wears away upon acquaintance. The difficulty is to _become_

acquainted with him; I defy a dull or a vulgar person to do it.

The cheerful, healthy looking old gentleman, who is just turning from

the gate towards that white house among the trees, is, as I told you,

his uncle. Vivian’s parents died during his childhood, and left him to

this uncle’s care. He has just returned from abroad, come of age,—taken

possession of his paternal estates,—left the old gentleman to look

after it, in his absence, and gone for the first time to pass a month or

two amid the gaieties of the metropolis. And now let us after him with

what speed we may.

See! there is my friend, Fancy; just in time! descending in her opal

chariot, drawn by a score of peacocks, which fly or creep, as the

wayward goddess wills. Her rainbow scarf flutters in the air, her wild

blue eyes sparkle with excitement, as she beckons us towards her. Give

me your hand, sweet reader! so, one bound, and we are safe by her side;

and now we too are on our road to London, and our vehicle glances like a

meteor through the air. Since then we are so comfortably _en route_, let

me just explain my motive for having been, as some will think,

unnecessarily minute in my description of our hero. It was because I

wished my young lady readers,—for whom this story is especially

intended, to be interested in him, and I thought the surest way of

making them so, was to let them trace, in his person as well as mind, a

remarkable resemblance to some favored acquaintance of their own. Have I

succeeded? Mary, Caroline, Julia, Isabel! Is he not the “perfect

_image_” of—you know who? There—don’t blush, dear! I won’t tell.

“_Revenons à nos moutons._” Hey day! what have we here? A traveling

chariot broken down in the road! Our friend Vivian bearing a lady in his

arms towards the neighboring inn, which the stage coach has already

reached! An old gentleman, probably her father, staring and hurrying

after them as fast as the gout will let him, and the servants,

postilions &c., busy in untackling the horses and righting the injured

vehicle. We won’t stop to inquire the cause of the accident. Fancy will

tell us that at her leisure. Let us enter the inn.

CHAPTER II.

“My dear Margaret, are you well enough to proceed?” said the old

gentleman to his daughter.

“Oh! yes—papa!—quite well—” and she rose to tie on her bonnet. “But,

papa!”—Margaret hesitated and blushed—

“Well, child! what now?”

“Don’t you think before we go, we should thank the young man, who so

politely assisted me?”

“Fudge! we shall have time enough to thank him,—we must go in the same

coach. I can’t stay here all night to have the chariot repaired. Come,

child!”

They took their seats in the coach; Vivian entered after them and found

himself opposite the dark-eyed girl, who had been thrown from the

chariot, fortunately without injury, and whom he had carried half

fainting to the inn. By her side was her father, and by Vivian’s side, a

spruce and fidgetty youth, a would-be exquisite, daintily arrayed as

that peculiar race are wont to be.

The refreshed horses galloped steadily forward; the first mile-stone was

passed; and poor Margaret’s graceful neck really began to ache,—she had

looked so long out of the opposite window, to avoid Vivian’s earnest,

though half furtive gaze. So she calmly drew from her pocket a

suspicious looking twist of a billet, and, drooping her dark lashes,

began gravely and assiduously to tear it into small bits, placing them

carefully in a bag which hung upon her arm.

And now Vivian could indulge his passionate fondness for the beautiful

to his heart’s content; for the old gentleman was fast asleep, and

Margaret only once raised her eyes, and, meeting his, dropped them again

to her work, while a swift, bright blush stole up for a moment to her

cheek, and left it pale as before. Her countenance was singularly

beautiful. It was not dark, but there was a soft, mellow, sunny tone all

over it, which, with her glossy, raven braids, rosy mouth, and long

black lashes, produced a strangely rich effect. She wore a dark and very

elegant traveling habit fitting closely to her beautiful bust; while a

bonnet of ruby velvet formed a striking contrast with her deep, bright

eyes and almost colorless cheek.

As she continued her employment, drawing from her pocket and disposing

of note after note, Vivian could not but watch and admire the wonderful

play of expression on the lip, brow and cheek before him.

It seemed to him, that he could trace, on that ever changing and ever

eloquent countenance, the shadow of each succeeding thought, as it

passed from her mind. Its prevailing expression was that of endearing

tenderness and sweetness; but ever and anon,—a sudden arching of the

lovely lip, a starry gleam of dimples on the cheek, and a momentary

flash of irrepressible merriment through the fringing lashes of the half

raised hazel eyes, betrayed that mirth was making holiday in her heart.

But why? And to whom was that sportive glance directed? Not to Vivian,

alas! but to the stranger at his side; and though he had never seen the

lady before—had not been introduced, and was ignorant even of her name,

a pang of jealousy shot like an icicle through his heart, at the

thought. But when he turned to look upon the object of the fair girl’s

evident enjoyment—he too smiled involuntarily. Nearly all the scraps of

paper, that escaped from the slight fingers of Margaret, had alighted on

the precious habiliments of the beau, who, when Vivian turned, was

busily employed in brushing them off, with a look of solemn distress,

that was irresistibly ludicrous. Alas for the dandy! His was an endless

task. He had no sooner succeeded in disengaging the intruders from one

part of his dress, than they flew to another, and at last dared to

settle even in those shining and scented locks, which he had taken off

his hat to display. This was too much. He put up both his hands. He

shook himself. He tried to look up to his own hair! As a last resource,

he contrived to raise his enormous mouth and blow upwards into his

curls! Imagine, reader, that long and stupid face, in the awkward

position I have described! The head bent, the almost white eyebrows

elevated, the chin depressed, the under lip protruded and the lugubrious

looking youth pulling with all his might! It was all in vain, and

growing desperate, the hapless dandy meekly leaned towards Vivian, and

said—“May I trouble _you_, sir?”

Our hero returned his imploring look with one of petrifying

hauteur.——“Did you address yourself to me, sir?”

“Yes, sir!—I—I—would you be so good, sir, as to—to—”

“Well, sir?”

“In short, sir, will you have the goodness to release my hair from the

white favors, with which the young lady opposite has been so kind as to

honor me?” Vivian bowed low and replied with equal solemnity, “Sir, I

beg to inform you, that I have never been so thoroughly initiated into

the mysteries of a barber’s vocation, as to do justice to your

hyacinthine ringlets.” So saying, the haughty youth turned once more to

gaze at his lovely _vis-à-vis_.

She was looking very demure, pursing her pretty mouth, and quietly

bending her dark eyes upon the paper, which, she took care, should no

longer annoy her fellow traveler. Vivian gazed at her with mingled

surprise and admiration. What could be the meaning of her strange

occupation? He would not condescend to feel inquisitive; yet he could

not help fancying it was some clandestine correspondence, which she was

ashamed to have known, but with which she could not bear to part

altogether. When once this idea had taken possession of his mind, he

could not dismiss it, and he was just working himself up into a most

unreasonable fit of anger with his unconscious and unoffending

companion, when, to his dismay, the coach stopped at the Saracen’s Head

in London, and he was obliged to bid the lady a reluctant good-morning,

without a hope of ever seeing her again.

The truth is, he was desperately in love for the first time in his life,

and a thousand times did he lament his carelessness, in not having

endeavored to discover her name and residence in town. All the

information he could gather from her conversation with her father was,

that they were hurrying home from the country in expectation of a visit

from a friend.

The first fortnight after his arrival was spent in vain inquiries among

his friends about the fair engrosser of his thoughts. As he was ignorant

of her name, he could of course obtain no information with regard to

her.

One morning, at breakfast, he received a letter from his uncle; but

before I apprise my reader of its contents, I must state a fact which

has hitherto been forgotten, namely, that one object of our hero’s

journey had been to fulfill an engagement, which his uncle had made for

him, to pass a few weeks in the neighborhood of London, at Walton Hall,

the residence of an old friend of his father’s, whom he had never seen.

He had half promised his uncle that he would give but three days to the

novelties of the metropolis, previous to the promised visit. The

following is an extract from the old gentleman’s letter.

“My dear boy, I have just received a letter from my old friend Walton,

in which he expresses his surprise that you have not yet made your

appearance at Walton Hall. I am anxious and disappointed at this, for I

have been fancying you already deeply in love with my pet Maggie, and

indeed I dreamed last night that I saw you together,” etc., etc.

One of Vivian’s virtues was decision, and another was energy. Without

the latter, the first would be almost valueless. Ere two hours had

elapsed, he was seated in the drawing-room at Walton Hall, awaiting the

appearance of its owner. He recalled, with some misgivings, the contents

of his uncle’s letter. “He has set his heart upon my marriage with Miss

Walton, and I have set mine upon this bewitching unknown. My poor, kind

uncle! I regret his disappointment. I dare say Miss Margaret is a very

nice, well-behaved young person, but my affections are irrevocably

devoted to another, and it can never be!” Just as he came to this

sublime conclusion, he heard a far off voice, the very first tone of

which he could not help loving, it was so sweet, so rich, and seemed so

fresh from the heart. It was warbling snatches of a simple ballad, one

only sentence of which he could distinctly hear; but that sentence he

never forgot—

One only she loved, and forever!

She wore an invisible chain

That Pride wildly struggled to sever;

And daily more deep grew the pain!

“Ah, vain,” she would sigh, “each endeavor!”

And Echo still answered “in vain!”

And as the voice sang, it came nearer and nearer, and did not cease till

the singer, a beautiful girl, tripping gaily into the room, beheld and,

blushing deeply, curtsied to our hero. Could he believe his eyes? “It

is—it is—”

“Miss Walton,” said the lady, finishing the sentence for him, and

recovering instantly her self-possession. “You wish to see my father? I

will send him to you immediately;” and she glided from the room, leaving

poor Vivian in doubt whether he were dreaming or awake. If awake, then

were the half-dreaded Miss Walton and the lovely unknown of the

stage-coach one and the same person! And he had wasted a whole precious

fortnight, that he might have passed in her society! Well, he would make

the most of his _present_ visit at any rate; and so thinking, he made

his best bow to Mr. Walton, who now entered, and who, most cordially

shaking hands with him, welcomed him to Walton Hall, as the son of his

oldest and dearest friend.

“When you sent up your card,” continued he, “I little thought that I

should find in Vivian Russell the youth who so kindly assisted my

daughter when our chariot was overturned. I regret that we did not know

you then; but we must make up for lost time. Your uncle promised me a

long visit from you, and I trust you have come to fulfill the promise.”

After a short conversation, Vivian agreed to return in time for

breakfast the next day, and remain for several weeks.