despise are more to be relied on as allies than twice the number of men
I bring.”
“Doubtless,” the veteran rejoined, stroking his grizzled beard.
“I understand your double meaning, Senhor de Chaste,” Torrevedros said,
slightly disconcerted. “But had you been present at a former descent of
the Spaniards, when we routed five hundred infantry by driving half the
number of wild cows upon them, you would not scoff at my design.”
“What! prove ourselves boors, and go to battle behind a herd of cattle
with goads for lances!” here broke in the commandant with great
indignation. “By St. Dennis and the devil, sir count, sir viceroy, you
make my old blood boil to hear you talk. And I tell you once for all
before these gentlemen here present, whose scornful laughter, as you may
see, is only restrained by their good-breeding, that your offer in no
respect suits the style of warfare practiced by knights and Frenchmen,
although it may serve the purpose of cowards and Portuguese.”
“Take care! sir commandant,” cried the governor threateningly, stung to
anger; “take care what you say in the hearing of a knight of that
nation.”
“I have said my say,” the sturdy soldier answered shortly, turning his
back on the speaker and stalking into his tent, where the other followed
him after some consideration.
There the two commanders conversed at length, and with rather more
harmony than the beginning promised; for De Chaste was not apt to bear a
grudge long, and the smooth Portuguese would have kissed the other’s
shoes if no other way offered for saving his precious life and limbs.
The former, apart from his chivalric prejudices, and weighing the
proposal simply as an expediency, refused to permit the employment of
the horned reinforcement.
“They might as readily be turned against our battalions,” he justly
remarked, “as Philip of Macedon’s elephants were, in some battle I’ve
forgotten the name of.”
The commandant probably meant Pyrrhus, but his vocation being arms, not
letters, he need not be undervalued by recent graduates who know better.
One thing was now clear, the French had only themselves to look to,
since the long expected recruits of the viceroy turned out to be a herd
of cows, and a night attack was secretly ordered, which recalled the
captain and Hilo to camp, but which the return of the count and his
expostulations caused to be abandoned.
“You can learn nothing of the force and real position of the enemy, what
obstacles lie between, nor who can guide you,” urged the alarmed
governor plausibly; “and as for my men, I know not one who will be
bribed or forced into a position so perilous.” Which appeared so
truthful that the fiery Frenchman, with as bad a grace as any of his
subordinates, betook himself to bed again after personally making the
round of the Portuguese camp. All these swore by all the saints to stand
to their posts. They were terrible fellows, fire-eaters and the like, at
their own showing; but the commander was scarce asleep when Torrevedros
reappeared with a confused air and the information that the entire
division had stolen off and dispersed. Where the French general
consigned his allies need not be repeated to polite ears, and I think
his confessor, if he had one, should by no means have ordered a severe
penance for what he said under provocation so grievous. A council of the
chief cavaliers was immediately called. Alas! the most chivalric of them
all lay at the foot of the hill without a word to offer.
The count spoke first, and strongly advised retreat to a higher
mountain, by which the approaches to the interior might be readily
defended, and an abundance of ammunition and provisions could be carried
there, with cannon enough to maintain the position.
“Rather let us throw ourselves into the fortress of Angra,” cried
Duvick, “Where, with our handful of Frenchmen, we can defy the whole
Spanish army, backed by every Portuguese in the Azores.”
This speech drew a murmur of assent from the council, but the viceroy
answered with his usual treacherous suavity.
“There is nothing to fear from my countrymen on that score, Messires.”
“No, by the Mass!” cried half a dozen voices, with some sardonic
laughter; and the count turned to the commandant again, biting his lip
with suppressed rage.
“Do as you please, Senhor de Chaste,” he said, with as much calmness as
he could assume. “You are all masters here, I perceive, but I warn you
fairly beforehand, that the walls of Angra are no better than a
nut-shell, and the cannon of the marquis will bring them down upon your
hot heads in less than twelve hours. Moreover, the place can contain not
more than two hundred soldiers, as Heaven is my witness.”
Which was as great a fib as ever knight told, but quite as excusable as
many, you ladies, are in the habit of telling by proxy at all hours of
the day and at your front doors. I cannot see, for my part, how the
Count de Torrevedros could possibly have acted otherwise under the
circumstances, which approached as nearly as any military predicament
may a civil, the not at home of mesdames out of toilette. In short, the
count had that same night sent the keys of Angra by a trusty messenger
to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, with his complimentary offer of services;
an errand which the astute ambassador acquitted himself of to
admiration, by leaving out the count and assuming the credit: and at the
same moment the viceroy was giving his disinterested advice, no less a
personage than Don Augustino Inique was marching in with five hundred
men through the wide-open gates of the fortress.
This the commandant learned by daybreak the next morning, at which early
hour he was pushing for the mountains in accordance with the advice of
Torrevedros, who had gone ahead, as people say taking French leave. At
the village of Nostre Dame Dager de Loup, they heard further that the
governor had put off in a boat from the coast; and the French army,
debarred from the sea on one side and Angra on the other, and now openly
deserted by the Portuguese, occupied the little town and began
immediately to throw up intrenchments before the arrival of the
Spaniards.
“We must not think longer how best to live, but most honorably to die,”
De Chaste answered a few of his young officers who grumbled at the want
of necessary stores. A fine, heroic answer, which stopped the mouths of
those high-spirited gentlemen, but was less efficient in the case of the
soldiery. It must be confessed the estimable pair Hilo and the serjeant
were not a little responsible for this discontent; hard work agreed with
neither of their constitutions, and before nightfall they had found
opportunity to exchange their views on the subject.
“I’d as lief be a galley-slave and be done with it,” the serjeant
muttered to Hilo, who was helping him lift a load of sand out of the
ditch.
“Captain,” returned the other, “you speak my mind; and things are
getting in such a state here the sooner we draw our necks out of the
noose the better.”
“Good,” replied Carlo, “but how is that to be done, look you? The
marquis will hang us up for spies if we go over to them, and the count
they say has gone off in the last boat on this coast.”
“But what if most of these Frenchmen went out with us?”
“That alters the case,” cried the captain with his old grin.
And somewhere about midnight the commandant was roused by an uproar
round the officers’ quarters, which shewed what willing soil the
ringleaders had found to sow sedition in.
“Kill your captains! I’ll begin with mine,” the serjeant was roaring
with a volley of oaths, and menacing Captain Curzon with his halbert.
The fellow had found drink somewhere, and was raging like a worried
bull, his prominent bloodshot eyes sustaining the resemblance.
Curzon parried the thrust and would have cut him down, when the voice of
the commandant overtopped the clamor.
“What!” he exclaimed, “do you plot to follow our Portuguese allies! Go,
every man of you who chooses; we want none but brave men here, and will
bear with no others.”
“That may do for you to prate about, general mine,” answered Señor de
Ladron scoffingly, the seditious talents of that young gentleman causing
him to be chosen captain of the insurgents, “but it wont deceive men
with their eyes open, hark ye! We all know you’re only waiting a chance
to escape with your brave officers, and leave us to pull an oar apiece
in the Spanish galleys. Ha, ha! M. de Chaste! Begone while you’re
allowed, for you see you’re outwitted.”
“Insolent dog, to your quarters!” the knight cried, advancing upon the
speaker and striking him with his sheathed sword.
But Hilo, instead of falling back, foaming with rage, seized a halbert
with both hands, and was as promptly fastened on by a dozen embracing
arms.
“No, by St. Dennis! the general shan’t be harmed!” as many more voices
exclaimed. “Only we’ll be ahead of him and go first.”
“Friends,” answered De Chaste, with some indignation in his voice, “you
hurt me more by your suspicions than if you ran a sword through my body;
and I take Heaven to witness, I will be the last man to quit this
island, and will die rather than abandon any of you to the mercy of the
marquis, whose countrymen gave such instance of their treatment of the
French last year in the Floridas. Let fifty or a hundred of you surround
my house yonder, and insure my stay: it will be time enough to dishonor
yourselves and nation when I set the example.”
Which the mutineers did for the present, despite the taunts of their
leader-elect, who, struggling furiously with his captors, had all the
while been calling to the others to fall upon the officers, or loose him
and he would give them example. The commandant was a favorite with the
troops.
“We will wait until to-morrow,” they agreed among themselves, “and
general or no general, he is a dead man if he lifts a finger to betray
us.”
Señor Hilo de Ladron, for his part, came to the conclusion, after this
failure, that the French camp was no place for him, and communicated his
views to his faithful Damon.
“I’d like to have split his head open, he hadn’t so much as a cap on to
save it,” he said to Wolfang, “and then we might have done as we pleased
with the rest. But, hang it, you’re such a liar, the men only half
believed the story from the first, and letting him talk upset their
resolution altogether. It’s his turn now, and we must get out of this
hornet’s nest before daylight.”
“Where to go?” the captain asked.
“If you are born to be drowned, you can stay behind, you wont be safe
otherwise,” Hilo answered indifferently. “I’m for the mountains at
first, and who knows but I may find it to my interest in the end to
visit the marquis with the count for sponsor.”
“Oh, if you keep such good company,” the captain returned, with a
grotesque bow and grin showing his comprehension of Hilo’s plans, “I’m
your excellency’s humble servant!” And in an hour’s time these fast
friends had slipped through the line of sentries, scaled the
breast-work, and sat down to wait for light a mile or two from camp.
The impossibility of hearing ordinary discourse at that distance will
cause the finale of this story to be very different from what it might
have been under more favorable circumstances. For a herald, or courier,
or valet, had just then arrived from the camp of the marquis, at the
intrenchments, bringing a letter to the Commandant de Chaste, who
presently sent through the village to find Don Hilo, as we all know now,
without success.
[_To be continued._
* * * * *
CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
BY MRS. ELIZABETH J. EAMES.
“Among the victims put to death by Marat was a young man of
noble and imposing mien, renowned for virtue and bravery, and
said to be the betrothed of the martyred Charlotte Corday.”
This clearly chiseled face—
So full of tender beauty and meek thought—
This head of classic grace,
These delicate limbs, in sculptured pureness wrought,
These fingers, fairy small, could _these_ belong to thee—
Once merriest girl in France, the proud, the fond, the free?
Methinks thy slender form
Seems with a proud, commanding air to rise;
And wondrous power to charm
Dwells in the midnight of those thoughtful eyes:
While on thy curved lip, and lofty marble brow
Sitteth the high resolve, that suits thy purpose now!
Did not thy woman’s heart
Thrill with emotions never felt before?
Didst thou not shrink, and start
To stain thy fair hand with the purple gore?
Hadst thou no chilling fear, O, self-devoted maid!
Of the dark doom that soon must fall upon thy head?
Yes! for _one_ moment thou
Didst struggle with youth’s natural dread of death!
One moment didst thou bow
Thy woman’s heart—then, with firm step, free breath,
Didst thou approach the bath of the terrific man
With whom the fearful “Reign of Terror” first began!
How deep the avenging steel,
With fatal aim, pierced through his guilty breast!
While ’mid the mortal chill
His starting eye the demon-soul expressed!—
Until it closed forever, and the blood
Made dark the waters where the ruthless monster stood!
So, ’neath this fragile form
Dwelt the _resolve_ that made thy country free—
And this fair, feeble arm
Performed a deed of immortality!
But, oh! _thy_ strength, _true love_! for _him_ ’twas done—
Well didst thou avenge the death of thy heart’s cherished one!
* * * * *
SONNET.
TO ARABELLA, SLEEPING.
BY R. T. CONRAD.
When the world wearieth, then the sun doth set,
And the dew kisseth sweet _good-night_ to earth;
When the soul fainteth, and would fain forget,
Then sleep, the shadow of God’s smile, comes forth,
Gently, with downy darkness, and the dew
Of thoughts from Heaven, and with the quickening rest
That lightly slumbers—star thoughts beaming through
The dreamy dimness on the rippling breast.
Soft be that dew upon thy breast to-night!
Gentle thy dreams as zephyr to the flower!
Pure as the prayer that riseth as I write,
To hover round thee through the midnight hour!
Till Morning wake—as if for thee alone—
And meet a brow as bright—’tis lovelier than his own!
* * * * *
NETTLES ON THE GRAVE.
BY R. PENN SMITH.
Strolling through a cemetery, I beheld within one of the enclosures a
widow who had buried her only child there, some two years before. I
accosted her, and tendered my assistance. “Thank you,” she replied, “my
task is done. I have been pulling up the nettles and thistles that have
overgrown little Willie’s grave, and have planted mnemonies, heart’s
ease, and early spring flowers in their place, as more fitting emblems
of my child; and though they may fail to delight him, they will remind
me that there is a spring time even in the grave, and that Willie will
not be neglected by _Him_ who bids these simple flowers revive. But is
it not strange how rank nettles and all offensive weeds grow over the
human grave—even a child’s grave?”
“I remember you mourned grievously at losing him, but trust time has
assuaged affliction.”
“Its poignancy is blunted, but memory is constantly hovering around my
child. Duty and reason have taught me resignation; still I seldom behold
a boy of his age, but fancy pictures to me how he would have appeared in
the various stages of his progress toward manhood. And then again I see
him like his father—and myself a proud and happy mother in old age.
True, you may call it an idle, baseless dream; and so it is, but I
cannot help indulging in it.”
“Dream on! the best of life is a dream.”
We walked a few steps, and paused before an inclosure where reposed the
remains of a worthy man, with nothing more than his unobtrusive name
inscribed upon a marble slab to designate his resting-place. He was
respected for his integrity and energy; beloved for his utility and
benevolence. Here was no lying inscription, making the grave gorgeous,
as if monumental mendacity might deceive Divinity. His record was
elsewhere, traced by unseen fingers.
“There are no nettles on that good man’s grave,” said the widow. “I knew
him well; weeds would wither there; nothing but flowers should cover his
ashes.”
A few young men at the time were idly passing. They paused, when one
tearing a weed from the pathway, hurled it among the flowers,
exclaiming, “Let him rot there with weeds for his covering.” The
slumbering dust thus spurned had long sustained the ingrate who now
voided his venom upon the benefactor who had fed him until there was no
longer faith in hope. The widow sighed; “And this is on the grave of the
good and just!”
“Had Willie lived, he might have been such a man, and such would have
been his harvest.”
In the next tomb a brave soldier mingled his ashes with the red earth of
Adam. In his early career he was placed in a position where daring
energies alone could command success. He succeeded, and was rewarded by
a nation’s approbation. No subsequent opportunity occurred to acquire
peculiar distinction; and when he died, a shaft was erected
commemorating the most remarkable action of his life. His tomb attracted
the attention of some visiters who read his epitaph. “Characteristic of
the age!” exclaimed one, throwing a pebble at the inscription, “to swell
a corporal to the dimensions of a Cæsar. It was the only action of a
protracted life, worthy of record, and here it is emblazoned for the
pride of posterity.” Had the thoughtless scoffer of the unconscious dead
occupied his position, which gained renown, history possibly might have
perpetuated disgrace, instead of a tombstone record of gallant
services—the patriot’s sole reward.
“You knew the soldier?”
“For years, and well. A brave and worthy man. The current of his useful
life flowed smoothly on, without being ruffled by the breath of
calumny.”
“And yet nettles cover his grave already!”
“Such might have been your child’s destiny—but that matters little;
praise or scorn are now alike to the old soldier.”
We passed to a spot where a gay party was leaning on a railing. A young
woman had plucked some of the gayest flowers from the enclosure, and was
laughing with her merry companions. As we approached, she threw the
bouquet already soiled and torn, on the grave; and they went their way
with some idle jest upon their lips. The widow paused, and struggled to
suppress her emotion.
“Did you know the tenant of this grave?”
“From his childhood. He loved that woman, and struggled to acquire
wealth to make her happy. He succeeded, and when she discovered that he
was completely within her toils, she deceived and left him hopeless.
There are men whose hearts retain the simplicity of childhood through
life; and such was his. Without reproaching her, or breathing her name
to any one, he suddenly shrunk as a blighted plant, and withered day by
day, until he died. Like the fabled statuary, he was enamored of the
creature his own mind had fashioned, and in the credulity of his nature,
he made her wealthy, trusting that time would infuse truth and vitality
into the unreal vision of his youthful imagination. The world of love is
a paradise of shadows! The man beside her is now her husband; the wealth
they revel in, this grave bequeathed them.”
“The fool! to die heart-broken—for a dream. But great men have at times
died broken-hearted. I should not call him fool. It is a common death
among good men.”
“Great men! But women, sir, have pined away to death.”
“In poetry, the bill of mortality is a long one; in real life the
patients seldom die, unless they chance to be both vain and poor. Did a
rich widow ever grieve to death for the loss of the noblest husband?
Wealth is a potent antidote to the malady, and teaches resignation;
while poverty, with the first blow of his iron sledge, will make his
cold anvil smoke with the heart’s blood, for he is buried who for years
had withstood the blow.”
“That woman did not cast nettles on his grave.”
“No nettles, but faded roses which she tore from it—blooming when she
came there. Better cast stones and nettles than those withered flowers.
Your boy has escaped this poor man’s destiny—the worst of deaths! His
was the happiest! he died—smiling—on his fond mother’s bosom! But
there is a grave around which weeds grow more luxuriantly, than about
the sepulchre where mortal dust reposes. Daily watchfulness is required
to prevent the bright creations therein buried, from being so over-run
until nothing is seen to designate the beautiful tomb, where we had
carefully embalmed them, as if in amber.”
“What grave, sir, do you refer to?”
“The human mind. A mighty grave wherein we daily bury crushed hopes and
brilliant ephemerons, too fragile to survive the chill atmosphere of a
solitary day. Keep the weeds from growing there and smothering their
memories. They are the progeny of the soul, and should not be allowed to
perish. Shall the joyous and beautiful creations of childhood be
forgotten in age; must the noble aspirations of the vigor of manhood
pass away without even an epitaph, because crushed in their vigor!
Rather contemplate them hourly; plant flowers beside them, though they
bloom but briefly and fade, they will send forth perfume even in decay,
and inevitably revive in due season, bearing refreshing fruit; and old
age, with palsied hand, will readily gather up the long account of his
stewardship, and as he glances over the lengthened scroll that must
become a record in the archives of eternity, may rejoice that he hath
not been an ingrate and idler in the heat of the harvest-field, but hath
diligently labored to make the entrusted talent yield the expected
usage. Tear up the weeds that are incessantly growing there, ere he who
was placed little lower than the angels, becomes an empty cenotaph—a
stranger’s grave—mouldering and mingling with his mother earth unheeded
and unknown.”
* * * * *
FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS FROM UNFAMILIAR SOURCES.
BY A STUDENT.
Many of our readers have undoubtedly been asked during the past month
for information touching the whereabouts of some trite quotation, the
locality of which the whole neighborhood has not been able accurately to
decide. We have often thought it would be a commendable service if some
industrious student would make a complete collection of the every day
sayings, and print them side by side with the author’s names. As no one,
however, has seen fit to pioneer in the attempt, we here make a
beginning, confident that the plan is worthy to be carried out more
fully. At some future period, if no one else seems willing to continue
the undertaking, we hope to find leisure and opportunity for other
specimens in “Graham.” Meantime, here are a few of the more common
_lines_ in “everybody’s _mouth_.”
No line which dying he could wish to blot.
It stands thus in the original:
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which dying he could wish to blot.
LORD LYTTLETON. _Prologue to Thomson’s Coriolanus._
To err is human, to forgive divine.
POPE. _Essay on Criticism._
The perilous edge of battle.
MILTON. _Paradise Lost, Book First._
God made the country and man made the town.
COWPER. _The Task._
No pent up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.
J. M. SEWALL. _Epilogue to Cato, 1778._
And thereby hangs a tale.
SHAKSPEARE. _As You Like It._
And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled.
CAMPBELL. _Pleasures of Hope._
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
POPE. _Essay on Criticism._
He whistled as he went for want of thought.
DRYDEN. _Cymon and Iphigenia._
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
POPE. _Satires. To Mr. Fortescue._
Woman, last at the cross and earliest at the grave.
E. S. BARRETT. _Woman: A Poem._
When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war.
NAT LEE. _Play of Alexander the Great._
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.
CONGREVE. _The Mourning Bride._
The old man eloquent.
MILTON. _Tenth Sonnet._
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
SHAKSPEARE. _Troilus and Cressida._
Great wits to madness surely are allied,
DRYDEN. _Absalom and Achitophel._
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
GRAY. _The Elegy._
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
STERNE. _Sentimental Journey._
The devil may cite scripture for his purpose.
SHAKSPEARE. _The Merchant of Venice._
She walks the waters like a thing of life.
BYRON. _The Island._
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
GRAY. _The Progress of Poesy._
On the light fantastic toe.
MILTON. _l’Allegro._
Give ample room and verge enough.
GRAY. _The Bard._