cherished in the aprons and bosoms of the maid-servants, and the
little ladies of the family. I was pleased with this touch of nature;
this feminine sympathy in the sufferings of the offspring, and the
maternal anxiety of the parent birds.
It was interesting, too, to witness the general agitation and distress
that seemed to prevail throughout the feathered community; the common
cause that was made of it; and the incessant hovering, and fluttering,
and lamenting, that took place in the whole rookery. There is a cord
of sympathy, that runs through the whole feathered race, as to any
misfortunes of the young; and the cries of a wounded bird in the
breeding season will throw a whole grove in a flutter and an alarm.
Indeed, why should I confine it to the feathered tribe? Nature seems
to me to have implanted an exquisite sympathy on this subject, which
extends through all her works. It is an invariable attribute of the
female heart, to melt at the cry of early helplessness, and to take an
instinctive interest in the distresses of the parent and its young. On
the present occasion, the ladies of the family were full of pity and
commiseration; and I shall never forget the look that Lady Lillycraft
gave the general; on his observing that the young birds would make an
excellent curry, or an especial good rook-pie.
LOVERS' TROUBLES.
The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
--_Old Song_.
The fair Julia having nearly recovered from the effects of her hawking
disaster, it begins to be thought high time to appoint a day for the
wedding. As every domestic event in a venerable and aristocratic
family connexion like this is a matter of moment, the fixing upon this
important day has of course given rise to much conference and debate.
Some slight difficulties and demurs have lately sprung up, originating
in the peculiar humours that are prevalent at the Hall. Thus, I have
overheard a very solemn consultation between Lady Lillycraft, the
parson, and Master Simon, as to whether the marriage ought not to be
postponed until the coming month.
With all the charms of the flowery month of May, there is, I find, an
ancient prejudice against it as a marrying month. An old proverb says,
"To wed in May is to wed poverty." Now, as Lady Lillycraft is very
much given to believe in lucky and unlucky times and seasons, and
indeed is very superstitious on all points relating to the tender
passion, this old proverb seems to have taken great hold upon her
mind. She recollects two or three instances, in her own knowledge, of
matches that took place in this month, and proved very unfortunate.
Indeed, an own cousin of hers, who married on a May-day, lost her
husband by a fall from his horse, after they had lived happily
together for twenty years.
The parson appeared to give great weight to her ladyship's objections,
and acknowledged the existence of a prejudice of the kind, not merely
confined to modern times, but prevalent likewise among the ancients.
In confirmation of this, he quoted a passage from Ovid, which had a
great effect on Lady Lillycraft, being given in a language which she
did not understand. Even Master Simon was staggered by it; for he
listened with a puzzled air; and then, shaking his head, sagaciously
observed, that Ovid was certainly a very wise man.
From this sage conference I likewise gathered several other important
pieces of information, relative to weddings; such as that, if two were
celebrated in the same church, on the same day, the first would be
happy, the second unfortunate. If, on going to church, the bridal
party should meet the funeral of a female, it was an omen that the
bride would die first; if of a male, the bridegroom. If the
newly-married couple were to dance together on their wedding-day, the
wife would thenceforth rule the roast; with many other curious and
unquestionable facts of the same nature, all which made me ponder more
than ever upon the perils which surround this happy state, and the
thoughtless ignorance of mortals as to the awful risks they run in
venturing upon it. I abstain, however, from enlarging upon this topic,
having no inclination to promote the increase of bachelors.
Notwithstanding the due weight which the Squire gives to traditional
saws and ancient opinions, yet I am happy to find that he makes a firm
stand for the credit of this loving month, and brings to his aid a
whole legion of poetical authorities; all which, I presume, have been
conclusive with the young couple, as I understand they are perfectly
willing to marry in May, and abide the consequences. In a few days,
therefore, the wedding is to take place, and the Hall is in a buzz of
anticipation. The housekeeper is bustling about from morning till
night, with a look full of business and importance, having a thousand
arrangements to make, the Squire intending to keep open house on the
occasion; and as to the house-maids, you cannot look one of them in
the face, but the rogue begins to colour up and simper.
While, however, this leading love affair is going on with a
tranquillity quite inconsistent with the rules of romance, I cannot
say that the under-plots are equally propitious. The "opening bud of
love" between the general and Lady Lillycraft seems to have
experienced some blight in the course of this genial season. I do not
think the general has ever been able to retrieve the ground he lost,
when he fell asleep during the captain's story. Indeed, Master Simon
thinks his case is completely desperate, her ladyship having
determined that he is quite destitute of sentiment.
The season has been equally unpropitious to the lovelorn Phoebe
Wilkins. I fear the reader will be impatient at having this humble
amour so often alluded to; but I confess I am apt to take a great
interest in the love troubles of simple girls of this class. Few
people have an idea of the world of care and perplexity that these
poor damsels have, in managing the affairs of the heart.
We talk and write about the tender passion; we give it all the
colourings of sentiment and romance, and lay the scene of its
influence in high life; but, after all, I doubt whether its sway is
not more absolute among females of an humbler sphere. How often, could
we but look into the heart, should we find the sentiment throbbing in
all its violence in the bosom of the poor lady's-maid, rather than in
that of the brilliant beauty she is decking out for conquest; whose
brain is probably bewildered with beaux, ball-rooms, and wax-light
chandeliers.
With these humble beings, love is an honest, engrossing concern. They
have no ideas of settlements, establishments, equipages, and
pin-money. The heart--the heart, is all-in-all with them, poor things!
There is seldom one of them but has her love cares, and love secrets;
her doubts, and hopes, and fears, equal to those of any heroine of
romance, and ten times as sincere. And then, too, there is her secret
hoard of love documents;--the broken sixpence, the gilded brooch, the
lock of hair, the unintelligible love scrawl, all treasured up in her
box of Sunday finery, for private contemplation.
How many crosses and trials is she exposed to from some lynx-eyed
dame, or staid old vestal of a mistress, who keeps a dragon watch over
her virtue, and scouts the lover from the door! But then, how sweet
are the little love scenes, snatched at distant intervals of holiday,
and fondly dwelt on through many a long day of household labour and
confinement! If in the country, it is the dance at the fair or wake,
the interview in the church-yard after service, or the evening stroll
in the green lane. If in town, it is perhaps merely a stolen moment of
delicious talk between the bars of the area, fearful every instant of
being seen; and then, how lightly will the simple creature carol all
day afterwards at her labour!
Poor baggage! after all her crosses and difficulties, when she
marries, what is it but to exchange a life of comparative ease and
comfort, for one of toil and uncertainty? Perhaps, too, the lover for
whom in the fondness of her nature she has committed herself to
fortune's freaks, turns out a worthless churl, the dissolute,
hard-hearted husband of low life; who, taking to the ale-house, leaves
her to a cheerless home, to labour, penury, and child-bearing.
When I see poor Phoebe going about with drooping eye, and her head
hanging "all o' one side," I cannot help calling to mind the pathetic
little picture drawn by Desdemona:--
My mother had a maid, called Barbara;
She was in love; and he she loved proved mad,
And did forsake her; she had a song of willow,
An old thing 'twas; but it express'd her fortune,
And she died singing it.
I hope, however, that a better lot is in reserve for Phoebe Wilkins,
and that she may yet "rule the roast," in the ancient empire of the
Tibbets! She is not fit to battle with hard hearts or hard times. She
was, I am told, the pet of her poor mother, who was proud of the
beauty of her child, and brought her up more tenderly than a village
girl ought to be; and ever since she has been left an orphan, the good
ladies at the Hall have completed the softening and spoiling of her.
I have recently observed her holding long conferences in the
church-yard, and up and down one of the lanes near the village, with
Slingsby, the schoolmaster. I at first thought the pedagogue might be
touched with the tender malady so prevalent in these parts of late;
but I did him injustice. Honest Slingsby, it seems, was a friend and
crony of her late father, the parish clerk; and is on intimate terms
with the Tibbets family. Prompted, therefore, by his good-will towards
all parties, and secretly instigated, perhaps, by the managing dame
Tibbets, he has undertaken to talk with Phoebe upon the subject. He
gives her, however, but little encouragement. Slingsby has a
formidable opinion of the aristocratical feeling of old Ready-Money,
and thinks, if Phoebe were even to make the matter up with the son,
she would find the father totally hostile to the match. The poor
damsel, therefore, is reduced almost to despair; and Slingsby, who is
too good-natured not to sympathize in her distress, has advised her to
give up all thoughts of young Jack, and has proposed as a substitute
his learned coadjutor, the prodigal son. He has even, in the fullness
of his heart, offered to give up the school-house to them; though it
would leave him once more adrift in the wide world.
THE HISTORIAN.
_Hermione_. Pray you sit by us,
And tell's a tale.
_Mamilius_. Merry or sad shall't be?
_Hermione_. As merry as you will.
_Mamilius_. A sad tale's best for winter.
I have one of sprites and goblins.
_Hermione_. Let's have that, sir.
--_Winter's Tale_.
As this is a story-telling age, I have been tempted occasionally to
give the reader one of the many tales that are served up with supper
at the Hall. I might, indeed, have furnished a series almost equal in
number to the Arabian Nights; but some were rather hackneyed and
tedious; others I did not feel warranted in betraying into print; and
many more were of the old general's relating, and turned principally
upon tiger-hunting, elephant-riding, and Seringapatam; enlivened by
the wonderful deeds of Tippoo Saib, and the excellent jokes of Major
Pendergast.
I had all along maintained a quiet post at a corner of the table,
where I had been able to indulge my humour undisturbed: listening
attentively when the story was very good, and dozing a little when it
was rather dull, which I consider the perfection of auditorship.
I was roused the other evening from a slight trance into which I had
fallen during one of the general's histories, by a sudden call from
the Squire to furnish some entertainment of the kind in my turn.
Having been so profound a listener to others, I could not in
conscience refuse; but neither my memory nor invention being ready to
answer so unexpected a demand, I begged leave to read a manuscript
tale from the pen of my fellow-countryman, the late Mr. Diedrich
Knickerbocker, the historian of New-York. As this ancient chronicler
may not be better known to my readers than he was to the company at
the Hall, a word or two concerning him may not be amiss, before
proceeding to his manuscript.
Diedrich Knickerbocker was a native of New-York, a descendant from one
of the ancient Dutch families which originally settled that province,
and remained there after it was taken possession of by the English in
1664. The descendants of these Dutch families still remain in villages
and neighbourhoods in various parts of the country, retaining with
singular obstinacy, the dresses, manners, and even language of their
ancestors, and forming a very distinct and curious feature in the
motley population of the State. In a hamlet whose spire may be seen
from New-York, rising from above the brow of a hill on the opposite
side of the Hudson, many of the old folks, even at the present day,
speak English with an accent, and the Dominie preaches in Dutch; and
so completely is the hereditary love of quiet and silence maintained,
that in one of these drowsy villages, in the middle of a warm summer's
day, the buzzing of a stout bluebottle fly will resound from one end
of the place to the other.
With the laudable hereditary feeling thus kept up among these worthy
people, did Mr. Knickerbocker undertake to write a history of his
native city, comprising the reign of its three Dutch governors during
the time that it was yet under the domination of the Hogenmogens of
Holland. In the execution of this design, the little Dutchman has
displayed great historical research, and a wonderful consciousness of
the dignity of his subject. His work, however, has been so little
understood, as to be pronounced a mere work of humour, satirizing the
follies of the times, both in politics and morals, and giving
whimsical views of human nature.
Be this as it may:--among the papers left behind him were several
tales of a lighter nature, apparently thrown together from materials
which he had gathered during his profound researches for his history,
and which he seems to have cast by with neglect, as unworthy of
publication. Some of these have fallen into my hands, by an accident
which it is needless at present to mention; and one of these very
stories, with its prelude in the words of Mr. Knickerbocker, I
undertook to read, by way of acquitting myself of the debt which I
owed to the other story-tellers at the Hall. I subjoin it, for such of
my readers as are fond of stories.[12]
[Footnote 12: I find that the tale of Rip Van Winkle, given in the
Sketch-Book, has been discovered by divers writers in magazines to
have been founded on a little German tradition, and the matter has
been revealed to the world as if it were a foul instance of plagiarism
marvellously brought to light. In a note which follows that tale, I
had alluded to the superstition on which it was founded, and I thought
a mere allusion was sufficient, as the tradition was so notorious as
to be inserted in almost every collection of German legends. I had
seen it myself in three. I could hardly have hoped, therefore, in the
present age, when every source of ghost and goblin story is ransacked,
that the origin of the tale would escape discovery. In fact, I had
considered popular traditions of the kind as fair foundations for
authors of fiction to build upon, and made use of the one in question
accordingly, I am not disposed to contest the matter, however, and
indeed consider myself so completely overpaid by the public for my
trivial performances, that I am content to submit to any deduction,
which, in their after-thoughts, they may think proper to make.]
THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
FROM THE MSS. OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.
Formerly, almost every place had a house of this kind. If a house
was seated on some melancholy place, or built in some old romantic
manner, or if any particular accident had happened in it, such as
murder, sudden death, or the like, to be sure that house had a mark
set upon it, and was afterwards esteemed the habitation of a
ghost.
--BOURNE'S _Antiquities_.
In the neighbourhood of the ancient city of the Manhattoes, there
stood, not very many years since, an old mansion, which, when I was a
boy, went by the name of the Haunted House. It was one of the very few
remains of the architecture of the early Dutch settlers, and must have
been a house of some consequence at the time when it was built. It
consisted of a centre and two wings, the gable-ends of which were
shaped like stairs. It was built partly of wood, and partly of small
Dutch bricks, such as the worthy colonists brought with them from
Holland, before they discovered that bricks could be manufactured
elsewhere. The house stood remote from the road, in the centre of a
large field, with an avenue of old locust[13] trees leading up to it,
several of which had been shivered by lightning, and two or three
blown down. A few apple-trees grow straggling about the field; there
were traces also of what had been a kitchen-garden; but the fences
were broken down, the vegetables had disappeared, or had grown wild,
and turned to little better than weeds, with here and there a ragged
rosebush, or a tall sunflower shooting up from among brambles, and
hanging its head sorrowfully, as if contemplating the surrounding
desolation. Part of the roof of the old house had fallen in, the
windows were shattered, the panels of the doors broken, and mended
with rough boards; and there were two rusty weathercocks at the ends
of the house, which made a great jingling and whistling as they
whirled about, but always pointed wrong. The appearance of the whole
place was forlorn and desolate, at the best of times; but, in unruly
weather, the howling of the wind about the crazy old mansion, the
screeching of the weathercocks, the slamming and banging of a few
loose window-shutters, had altogether so wild and dreary an effect,
that the neighbourhood stood perfectly in awe of the place, and
pronounced it the rendezvous of hobgoblins. I recollect the old
building well; for I remember how many times, when an idle, unlucky
urchin, I have prowled round its precincts, with some of my graceless
companions, on holiday afternoons, when out on a freebooting cruise
among the orchards. There was a tree standing near the house, that
bore the most beautiful and tempting fruit; but then it was on
enchanted ground, for the place was so charmed by frightful stories
that we dreaded to approach it. Sometimes we would venture in a body,
and get near the Hesperian tree, keeping an eye upon the old mansion,
and darting fearful glances into its shattered window; when, just as
we were about to seize upon our prize, an exclamation from some one of
the gang, or an accidental noise, would throw us all into a panic, and
we would scamper headlong from the place, nor stop until we had got
quite into the road. Then there were sure to be a host of fearful
anecdotes told of strange cries and groans, or of some hideous face
suddenly seen staring out of one of the windows. By degrees we ceased
to venture into these lonely grounds, but would stand at a distance
and throw stones at the building; and there was something fearfully
pleasing in the sound, as they rattled along the roof, or sometimes
struck some jingling fragments of glass out of the windows.
[Footnote 13: Acacias.]
The origin of this house was lost in the obscurity that covers the
early period of the province, while under the government of their high
mightinesses the states-general. Some reported it to have been a
country residence of Wilhelmus Kieft, commonly called the Testy, one
of the Dutch governors of New-Amsterdam; others said that it had been
built by a naval commander who served under Van Tromp, and who, on
being disappointed of preferment, retired from the service in disgust,
became a philosopher through sheer spite, and brought over all his
wealth to the province, that he might live according to his humour,
and despise the world. The reason of its having fallen to decay, was
likewise a matter of dispute; some said that it was in chancery, and
had already cost more than its worth in legal expenses; but the most
current, and, of course, the most probable account, was that it was
haunted, and that nobody could live quietly in it. There can, in fact,
be very little doubt that this last was the case, there were so many
corroborating stories to prove it,--not an old woman in the
neighbourhood but could furnish at least a score. There was a
gray-headed curmudgeon of a negro that lived hard by, who had a whole
budget of them to tell, many of which had happened to himself. I
recollect many a time stopping with my schoolmates, and getting him to
relate some. The old crone lived in a hovel, in the midst of a small
patch of potatoes and Indian corn, which his master had given him on
setting him free. He would come to us, with his hoe in his hand, and
as we sat perched, like a row of swallows, on the rail of the fence,
in the mellow twilight of a summer evening, he would tell us such
fearful stories, accompanied by such awful rollings of his white eyes,
that we were almost afraid of our own footsteps as we returned home
afterwards in the dark.
Poor old Pompey! many years are past since he died, and went to keep
company with the ghosts he was so fond of talking about. He was buried
in a comer of his own little potato-patch; the plough soon passed over
his grave, and levelled it with the rest of the field, and nobody
thought any more of the gray-headed negro. By a singular chance, I was
strolling in that neighbourhood several years afterwards, when I had
grown up to be a young man, and I found a knot of gossips speculating
on a skull which had just been turned up by a ploughshare. They of
course determined it to be the remains of some one that had been
murdered, and they had raked up with it some of the traditionary tales
of the haunted house. I knew it at once to be the relic of poor
Pompey, but I held my tongue; for I am too considerate of other
people's enjoyment, ever to mar a story of a ghost or a murder. I took
care, however, to see the bones of my old friend once more buried in a
place where they were not likely to be disturbed. As I sat on the turf
and watched the interment, I fell into a long conversation with an old
gentleman of the neighbourhood, John Josse Vandermoere, a pleasant
gossiping man, whose whole life was spent in hearing and telling the
news of the province. He recollected old Pompey, and his stories about
the Haunted House; but he assured me he could give me one still more
strange than any that Pompey had related: and on my expressing a great
curiosity to hear it, he sat down beside me on the turf, and told the
following tale. I have endeavoured to give it as nearly as possible in
his words; but it is now many years since, and I am grown old, and my
memory is not over-good, I cannot therefore vouch for the language,
but I am always scrupulous as to facts.
DOLPH HEYLIGER.
"I take the town of Concord, where I dwell,
All Kilborn be my witness, if I were not
Begot in bashfulness, brought up in shamefacedness.
Let 'un bring a dog but to my vace that can
Zay I have beat 'un, and without a vault;
Or but a cat will swear upon a book,
I have as much as zet a vire her tail,
And I'll give him or her a crown for 'mends."
--_Tale of a Tub_.