curiosity? But you are right; look at me well, for you shall never more
behold me. I shall not return from the place to which they are going to
take me—not that I fear a dungeon, for I have been too long accustomed
to have no other bed than the cold ground. No, I shall return hither no
more; and I should have done well had I not returned this time. But I
could not help it. I was born here, though I never told any body so; and
I love the spot where I first drew breath. ’Tis natural enough; yet why
should I love it? I never knew either home or parents—the latter left
me, when an infant, upon the steps of the church of St. Louis.”
Here the sun-burnt countenance of the old mendicant assumed an
expression of bitterness.
“Who knows,” he continued, “but I may have among you some uncles or
cousins—perhaps even nearer relatives.”
The crowd gathered round the scaffold, listening to the words of the
mendicant.
“And my excellent father,” said the latter, “what a pity he is not here
to own me! Perhaps he would be delighted at the _elevation_ to which I
have attained. For my own part, I never had a son; but if I had, I could
not have deserted him. He should never have been able to reproach me
with being the author of his misery. The other day I was hungry—I asked
for a morsel of bread—everybody refused to give it me; and that is the
reason why I am here.”
As the old man uttered the last sentence, his head fell upon his chest,
and he wept.
At length the executioner returned, accompanied by his assistant, who
carried upon his shoulders a furnace, in which was an iron instrument,
with a long wooden handle. Both ascended the scaffold, and placed
themselves behind the mendicant. The crowd drew nearer. The
executioner’s man laid the mendicant’s shoulder bare, whilst the
executioner himself stooped and took up the instrument. The poor convict
shuddered, uttered a plaintive cry, a light smoke arose, and the
ignominious letter was imprinted for ever.
The poor man, scarcely able to stand, was helped from the scaffold, and
conveyed back to his prison through the crowd, who pressed upon his
passage to glut upon his sufferings.
Old Philippe—such was the mendicant’s name, was well known in the
department of Seine and Oise; but nobody could tell who he was, whence
he came, or who his parents were. About fifteen years previous, just
after the restoration, he had appeared in the country for the first
time. He then asked questions, and seemed in pursuit of information on
secret matters, of which nobody could penetrate the motive. After some
time, he appeared to suffer much, as if from disappointment, and then
disappeared. About two years before the period of our narrative, he
again made his appearance at Versailles, very much altered, and looking
much older. Fortune had not smiled upon him during his absence, for he
went away a poor man, and returned a mendicant.
No one knew where he had been, or how he had lived during this interval.
It was supposed, that, previous to his first appearance at Versailles,
he had travelled a great deal, and even borne arms; for of late years,
whenever he obtained the favor of a night’s lodging in a barn, he would
repay this hospitality by descriptions of foreign countries, and
accounts of bloody conflicts.
On the day after his exposure in the pillory, as above related, the
following particulars concerning him were made known:—
One evening, faint with hunger and fatigue, after having begged through
the environs of Versailles, without once obtaining alms, and his wallet
having been empty for the two preceding days, he had stopped at the door
of one of those elegant habitations which overlook the heights of
Rocquencourt.
He begged a shelter for the night, and a morsel of bread, but both were
refused him, and he was rudely driven from the door. Leaning upon his
stick, he slowly quitted the inhospitable mansion, and with difficulty
gained a part of the demesne laid out in the English style of landscape
gardening. Taking shelter under a thick clump of trees, he laid himself
upon the grass, to die with the least possible pain.
The autumn had already begun. The grass was wet—the wind whistled
through the trees, already in part stripped of their leaves—all around
was pitchy dark, and every thing seemed to announce an inclement night.
Cramped with cold, he felt the most unconquerable gnawings of hunger.
Could he but sleep, he thought, perhaps the next day might prove less
unfavorable than the two preceding ones. But sleep refused the call, and
the poor mendicant suffered the most cruel pangs. Unable to bear them
any longer, he rose, took his stick, and returned to the mansion.
He had observed an angle of the wall which could be easily escaladed,
and a window badly closed. It was late, the night was dark, and he might
perhaps find a bit of bread. At least, he determined to try.
The house was inhabited by an old man of more than eighty—a rich miser,
who lived alone, like many of those who go to spend their last days at
Versailles. He had perceived the mendicant, and had seen him take refuge
under the clump of trees. He ordered his servants to watch him, and
scarcely had poor Philippe opened the window, when he was seized,
handcuffed, and taken to Versailles, where he was thrown into prison.
There, at least, he found shelter, and a bit of bread to eat, which the
turnkey gave him from humanity.
At the expiration of six months, the mendicant was convicted at the
assizes of the department of Seine et Oise. His sentence was the gallies
for fifteen years, and to be previously exposed and branded. He had
entered a house at night for the purpose of theft, and with deadly
weapons—the possession of the knife, which he usually carried in his
pocket, and was found there, being thus interpreted.
A month had already elapsed since he had been publicly branded, and poor
Philippe seemed patiently waiting for the time when he was to be sent to
his destination at Toulon. He always said that he would not go, and the
turnkey did not contradict him.
One evening a small iron lamp upon a shelf, suspended from the wall by a
cord on each side, threw a weak and vacillating light upon the gloom of
a cell in the prison of Versailles.
Upon a straw matress, half covered with an old patched blanket, lay a
man apparently overcome with weakness and despair. His face was turned
towards the wall. An earthen jug without a spout was near him, and close
to it a wooden bowl filled with soup.
“Poor Philippe will never get over it,” said the turnkey in the
corridor, speaking to some one to whom he was showing the way. “But it
is his own fault; he would not remain in the infirmary. The fact is,
Monsieur le Curé, ever since he exhibited upon the _little stage_, about
a month ago—curse this lock, it would sprain the wrist of the devil
himself—”
“Peace my friend,” replied a mild voice, “do not swear—it is an offence
against God.”
The door of the prison was at length opened, and the turnkey ushered in
a venerable priest, the chaplain of the prison.
“Hollo, old one!” cried the jailor, “take heart, man, here is a visitor.
Here is Monsieur le Curé come to see you.”
The mendicant made no reply.
“My friend,” said the minister of the Gospel, “I am one of your brethren
in Christ, and I bring you words of peace and consolation. Hear me, in
the name of our Lord Jesus, who died on the cross to atone for our
sins—He suffered more than you; and it depends upon yourself to be one
day happy, and to dwell with him in eternal life.”
Still the prisoner spoke not.
“He sleeps,” said the kind-hearted turnkey. “If your reverence will but
wait a moment I will awake him.” And he shook the mendicant, but in
vain—the latter stirred not. “Oh! oh!” said the jailor, leaning over
him; “but it is all over with him; he has slipped his wind—the poor
fellow’s as dead as a door post.”
And, in fact, the unfortunate Philippe had ceased to live a few moments
after he had been removed, that very morning, at his own request, from
the infirmary to his old cell.
“Is the poor man really dead?” inquired the priest.
“Dead as a pickled herring, your reverence.”
“And without confession!—unhappy man!”
And the good priest knelt upon the cold flag stones and prayed with
fervour for the soul of the deceased mendicant.
Next day the wealthy owner of the mansion was reclining in an easy
chair, his tortured limbs writhing with agony on the cushions of down by
which they were supported. His physician in attendance was seated near
him.
“I find myself worse to-day, doctor: I am weaker than I have yet been,
and I feel something which I cannot well define.”
“At your age, my dear sir, and in your state of health,” the physician
replied, “you must seek amusement for your mind. I have always told you
that solitude is baneful to you. You should send for some members of
your own family, or get some devoted friend to come and live with you.”
“Family! devoted friend! Why, you well know, doctor, that collaterals
are mere heirs; you are in their way whilst you live: they only wait to
prey upon your soil after your death.”
“But had you never any children?” the doctor asked.
“Never,” replied his patient, after some hesitation. “And I have no
relations.”
Here the unhappy old man sighed, his brow became clouded, and he seemed
to writhe in mental agony. Suddenly, by an apparent effort, changing the
conversation, and assuming a tone of unconcern—
“Well, doctor,” he said, “and so this scoundrel of a mendicant, who, you
may be assured, wanted to murder, and afterwards rob me, died yesterday
in the prison hospital.”
“No, not in the hospital,” replied the physician. “I did all I could to
induce him to remain in the infirmary; but he refused, and even
solicited, as a favour, to be taken back to the cell he occupied before
his trial.”
“You see then, doctor, what a villain he was. I suppose he felt remorse
for the crime he intended to commit in this house. Did he make any
avowal? Is any thing known of his family?”
“Nothing, except that he was an illegitimate child, and was found,
shortly after his birth, under the peristyle of St. Louis’ church.”
“St. Louis’ church?”
“Yes: and he was taken to the Foundling Hospital in the Rue du Plessis.”
“The Rue du Plessis?”
“Yes: he told me the whole story the day before yesterday, at my evening
visit to the prison infirmary. He had carefully preserved an old card,
upon which were traced some strange characters, and an engraved stone
belonging to a seal. He requested me to take charge of them. I believe
they are still in my pocket-book. Yes, here they are. This stone must
have belonged to a valuable trinket—he probably sold the setting. Here
is the card.”
The old invalid, whose increasing agitation had not been observed by the
doctor, threw a rapid glance over these objects,—then, with a shriek of
horror, sunk back upon his chair.
“Great God,” he exclaimed, “the mendicant was my son!”
A few minutes after, this unnatural parent had ceased to breathe.
* * * * *
THE BAPTISM OF POCAHONTAS.
ON THE PICTURE IN THE ROTUNDA AT WASHINGTON.
Sweet, gentle girl! in holy meekness bending,
Though of a wilder race and darker hue;
Etherial light is on thy soul descending,
Loveliest of wild flowers! like thy native dew.
Seen in the struggling of that heaving breast,
The quivering lip—the downward, fawn-like eye,
The strange, deep penitence that will not rest,
That gushes tears, and vents the swelling sigh.
From thy dark shades of superstitious lore,
Thou com’st arrayed in purest vestal white,
That he, the man of God, might on thee pour
Jordan’s still wave, to give thy blindness sight;
And to that heart, where hath been deeply stealing,
The fading bloom of earth’s bright flowery way,
A brighter—far enduring bliss revealing,
In the pure path of Truth’s eternal ray.
Bound in the rapture that thy beauty lendeth,
Thy pale-face lover at thy lonely side,
Holdeth with silent joy the book that blendeth
Life and life’s hope—its comfort and its guide.
Breathing in his warm look the bliss that springing—
The pure, bright thoughts that thrill his yearning breast,
The golden visions that around are flinging,
Their airy spells of future love and rest.
But there is one upon the ground reposing,
With curious gaze, yet wild, irreverent air,
Whose fallen deer-skin her full charms disclosing,
With beaded arms, and crimson braided hair,
Declares her kindred to thy own wild race,
The swift-foot wanderer of thy early day;
When by Powhatan’s stream thy footstep’s trace
Told, where like fawns ye frolick’d in your play.
And one, in beauty of majestic form,
Who stands erect, with scorn like lightning’s gleam
Darting from eyes as black as ebon-storm,
When midnight revels with its vivid beam—
Who will not brook a sister’s sacred vow,
The solemn faith, the strange baptismal rite—
Who will not bend in holy praise, or bow,
When in deep prayer the list’ning throng unite.
Oh! in this hour, while angels’ harps are swelling,
The rich rejoicing of the upper skies,
While the sweet anthem of the earth is telling
That one crush’d wild flower ’neath the altar lies.
Would that a ray, from that pure shrine descending,
Might pierce the darkness of thy forest kind—
Lighting a pathway that to thee is lending
Thy surest hope the spirit-home to find.
A. F. H.
* * * * *
THE REEFER OF ’76.
BY THE “AUTHOR OF CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR.”
BON HOMME RICHARD.
The time sped merrily away in _la belle France_, and months passed,
leaving us still in port. In fact, when our craft came to be surveyed,
it was found that her hull was so rotten, as to make it dangerous for us
to put to sea in her, until she had been thoroughly overhauled. This
occasioned some delay. Having but little to do, and finding society
thrown freely open to them, the officers spent most of their time in the
interchange of courtesies with their affable entertainers. There was
beside a good number of French naval officers in the place, and many a
wild meeting took place betwixt our mess and them. At length, however, I
tired of this, and hearing that Paul Jones was in Paris, I set off for
the capital.
That singular individual was, at this time, engaged in fitting out the
Bon Homme Richard and her accompanying squadron, preparatory to a cruise
off the English coasts. He was all enthusiasm as to the success of the
expedition, but found great difficulty in procuring a fitting crew. He
received me warmly, recognizing me at once, and flatteringly calling to
mind several of the affairs in which I had been engaged, and my conduct
in which he thought proper to commend. I was gratified by his notice,
and spoke in reply something, I know not what, respecting his own
career. His eye kindled as he answered—
“Aye! but that is not all—we will make our name a terror to the whole
English coast. Had it not been for some knavish foes of ours here, who
throw every impediment they can in our way, we should have done deeds
before this at which the cheeks of his majesty of England would have
blanched. But our time has come. We have the ‘Good-man Richard,’ a
sturdy old Indiaman, for our own craft, beside the Pallas, a smart ship,
the Vengeance brig, and the Cerf, a cutter of metal. They tell me the
Alliance is to go with me, under the command of that fellow Landais. So
at least Franklin has said—God help his knowledge of naval warfare!
However,” he continued, with a shrug of his shoulders, “there is no help
for it, and the frigate would be quite a God-send if it were not for the
commander.”
“I understand you have some difficulty in getting a crew—is it so?”
“Yes! And, by the bye, why can’t you join me? Come, you are the very man
I want.”
Flattered as I was by this offer, I could not persuade myself to leave
the Fire-Fly; beside, as the officers in the squadron were to take
precedence according to the dates of their commission in the American
service, and as I had always served under the commonwealth of New York,
I foresaw that my acceptance of this offer would either place me under
those who were really my juniors in service, or else occasion jealousies
among the parties I should supplant. Moreover, I knew not what might be
the eventual determination respecting my craft, and I felt unwilling, in
case she should again go to sea, to desert her. I stated my objections
frankly to the commodore. He hesitated a moment, and then replied,
“I believe you are right. Yet I am sorry I cannot have you. We sail in a
week from L’Orient. Come, at least, and see us off.”
I accepted his invitation, and it was with a heavy heart I saw them put
to sea. By the end of the month, however, I heard at Paris that the
squadron had returned to the roads at Groix, and that difficulties had
already occurred between the commodore and Landais. I hurried down at
once to L’Orient, and found both the Richard and Alliance undergoing
repairs. The commodore gladly received me, and renewed again his offer,
telling me that he had heard that my craft was to be dismantled; and,
sure enough, that afternoon I received a letter from my captain,
informing me that the schooner had been found unworthy of repair, and
been condemned. There was now nothing to detain me, except the
difficulty respecting my rank in the squadron. This I soon removed by
going as a volunteer. I accordingly wrote to my captain, obtained leave
of absence, and on the 14th of August, 1779, went with my traps on board
the Bon Homme Richard. The same day we put to sea.
The events of that extraordinary cruise are matter of history, and I
need not dwell on them at length in this hurried autobiography. We soon
parted company with our consorts, and were forced to seek them at the
rendezvous; but, during the whole voyage, our plans were continually
frustrated by occurrences of this character, sometimes accidental, and
sometimes, I believe, designed, especially on the part of Captain
Landais. After taking three or four prizes, we bore up for the north of
Scotland, when having been at sea about a month, we made the Cheviot
Hills, vast blue landmarks, lying, like a thunder-cloud, along the
western horizon.
Learning that two or three armed cutters, together with a twenty gun
ship, were lying off Leith, the commodore planned a descent on that
place; but in consequence of the absence of the Alliance, was forced to
delay his project for several days. At length we beat into the Frith of
Forth; and when just out of gun-shot of the town, the boats were ordered
out and manned. But at this critical moment a squall struck our
squadron, and we soon had enough on our hands, for the puff settling
down into a regular North Sea gale, we had to fill away, and bear up
under a press of canvass for an offing. The storm lasted so long that we
were forced to give over our attempt, as the country had now become
alarmed, and beacon lights, to rouse the yeomanry, were burning on every
headland. We bore away, therefore, for the south.
We had kept on this course for several days, until one calm evening, off
Flamborough head, when, the sea being nearly as smooth as a lake, and a
light southwardly wind dallying playfully with our sails, we discerned
the headmost vessels of a fleet of merchant ships, stretching out on a
bowline from behind the promontory. Every man of us was instantly on the
_qui vive_. The commodore’s eye kindled, and he shouted,
“Signal the squadron for a general chase.”
“Aye! aye!” answered the signal officer, and the next moment the order
was passed through our fleet. It had scarcely been done, however, before
the merchant ships hurriedly tacked, fired alarm-guns, let fly their
top-gallant sheets, and, huddling together like a flock of frightened
partridges, went off to leeward.
“There’s a frigate in yonder, convoying, with a smaller man-of-war,”
hailed the look-out, as the hostile ships shewed their head-sails around
the promontory. “They haul up, sir, and are coming out.”
“Let them come,” said the commodore enthusiastically, “and we’ll have
them for our own before midnight. Shew the signal to form a line—cross
royal-yards—keep boldly on.”
“There goes the Alliance,” said the first lieutenant, at my side, “see
how gallantly she passes the Pallas—but in God’s name what does she
mean? Surely she is not flying.”
“Curses on the craven Landais,” muttered Paul Jones betwixt his teeth,
as he saw his consort haul suddenly off from the enemy, and then turning
to the helmsman, he thundered, “keep her on her course—steady, steady.”
Meanwhile the crew had been ordered to quarters, and the tap of the drum
brought every man to his station at once. Unmoved by the cowardice of
our consort, the men appeared to long for the unequal conflict as
eagerly as their daring commander. Silently they stood at the guns,
awaiting the order to open their fire, and endeavouring to pierce
through the fast gathering gloom, in order to detect the manœuvres of
the foe. Paul Jones stood on the quarter deck watching the enemy with a
night-glass. As we drew nearer, we detected, in our antagonists, a
frigate of fifty guns, attended by a twenty gun ship a little to
leeward. The sight would have appalled any hearts but those on board our
daring craft,—for our armament, all told, did not exceed forty-two
guns, only six of which were eighteens; while, from the lower gun deck
of the frigate alone, might be seen frowning through her lighted ports,
a battery of ten eighteens to a side. Yet not an eye quailed, not a
cheek blanched, as we drew up towards the foe; but each man stood calmly
at his post, confident in his leader and in the righteousness of his
cause. My own station was near the commodore. We were now near enough to
hail.
“What ship is that?” came slowly sailing on the night wind, from a dark
form on the quarter of the frigate.
“You shall soon know,” answered Paul Jones, and on the instant the word
was given simultaneously by both commanders to fire, and the two ships
poured in their batteries with scarcely the delay of an instant betwixt
the broadsides. I had no time to observe the effect of our discharge,
for scarcely had the commodore spoken, when I heard a tremendous
explosion in the direction of our gun-room; the deck above it was blown
bodily up, and as the smoke swept away from the spot, I beheld two of
the eighteens shattered and dismounted, and surrounded by a crowd of
wretches, maimed and dying from the accident. I rushed to the place, and
a more awful sight never before or since have I beheld. There lay our
poor fellows, dismembered and bleeding, groaning in agony such as no pen
can picture, and crying aloud, with their dying breath, for
“water—water—water.” Here one, horribly mangled, hung over a gun that
had burst—there another was stretched on the deck, with no marks on him
except a black spot by the eye, from which the blood was trickling
slowly. I shuddered and turned away. It would have been madness to have
attempted to work the other eighteens, so the men were called away, and
we began anew the action, with our chances one-third lessened by this
horrible calamity. But the death of their messmates fired the rest of
the crew with a thirst for revenge, which soon told in the murderous
fire we poured in upon the enemy. For nearly an hour we kept up the
conflict, working our lighter guns with the utmost vigor, and attempting
to manœuvre so as to rake the enemy, but at every new endeavor we were
foiled by the superior working qualities of our opponent. Meantime the
moon had risen, and we could see that the Pallas had got alongside of
the enemy’s consort, and was gallantly engaged yard-arm to yard-arm with
her—the Alliance hovering out of range in the distance, and
occasionally discharging a random broadside which did no execution. How
our brave fellows cursed the cowardice of her captain!
“Ay! there she is,” said one, “afraid to come within range even of a
twenty gun ship, lest the lace of her coxcomb captain’s uniform might be
ruffled. But never mind—we’ll win the battle without her—bowse away,
my hearties, and give it to the Englisher with a will.”