CHAPTER XIII.

_Supposed to be a Letter from Mrs. Hazeldean to ---- Riccabocca,

Esq., The Casino; but edited, and indeed composed, by Miss Jemima

Hazeldean._

"DEAR SIR--To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain to

another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the

_greatest_ pain to poor Mr. Hazeldean and myself, indeed to _all_ our

little circle, in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better

acquainted with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear sir,

make us the _amende honorable_, and give us the _pleasure_ of your

company for a few days at the Hall! May we expect you Saturday

next?--our dinner-hour is six o'clock.

"With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima Hazeldean.

"Believe me, my dear sir, yours truly,

"H.H.

"_Hazeldean Hall._"

Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which Mrs. Hazeldean had

very willingly deputed her to write, took it herself into the

stable-yard, in order to give the groom proper instructions to wait for

an answer. But while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for

riding with more than his usual dandyism, came also into the yard,

calling for his pony in a loud voice, and singling out the very groom

whom Miss Jemima was addressing--for, indeed, he was the smartest of all

in the Squire's stables--told him to saddle the gray pad, and accompany

the pony.

"No, Frank," said Miss Jemima, "you can't have George; your father wants

him to go on a message--you can take Mat."

"Mat, indeed!" said Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a

surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always

contrived to have a great patch in his boots; besides, he called Frank

"Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill; "Mat, indeed!--let

Mat take the message, and George go with me."

But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. Mat's foible was

not servility, and he always showed true English independence in all

houses where he was not invited to take his ale in the servants' hall.

Mat might offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated

altercation ensued, in the midst of which the Squire and his wife

entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the conjugal gig to

the market town. The matter was referred to the natural umpire by both

the contending parties.

The Squire looked with great contempt on his son. "And what do you want

a groom at all for? Are you afraid of tumbling off the pony?"

FRANK.--"No, sir; but I like to go as a gentleman, when I pay a visit to

a gentleman!"

SQUIRE, in high wrath.--"You precious puppy! I think I'm as good a

gentleman as you, any day, and I should like to know when you ever saw

me ride to call on a neighbor, with a fellow jingling at my heels, like

that upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton-mill. First time I

ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery-coat was necessary to prove

his gentility!"

MRS. HAZELDEAN, observing Frank coloring, and about to reply.--"Hush,

Frank, never answer your father--and you are going to call on Mr.

Leslie?"

"Yes, ma'am, and I am very much obliged to my father for letting me,"

said Frank, taking the Squire's hand.

"Well, but, Frank," continued Mrs. Hazeldean, "I think you heard that

the Leslies were very poor."

FRANK.--"Eh, mother?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"And would you run the chance of wounding the pride of

a gentleman, as well born as yourself, by affecting any show of being

richer than he is?"

SQUIRE, with great admiration.--"Harry, I'd give £10 to have said that!"

FRANK, leaving the Squire's hand to take his mother's.--"You're quite

right, mother--nothing could be more _snobbish_!"

SQUIRE.--"Give us your fist too, sir; you'll be a chip of the old block,

after all."

Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony.

MRS. HAZELDEAN to Miss Jemima.--"Is that the note you were to write for

me?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Yes, I supposed you did not care about seeing it, so I

have sealed it and given it to George."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"But Frank will pass close by the Casino on his way to

the Leslies'. It may be more civil if he leaves the note himself."

MISS JEMIMA, hesitatingly.--"Do you think so?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Yes, certainly. Frank--Frank--as you pass by the

Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give this note, and say we shall be

heartily glad if he will come."

Frank nods.

"Stop a bit," cried the Squire. "If Rickeybockey's at home, 'tis ten to

one if he don't ask you to take a glass of wine! If he does, mind, 'tis

worse than asking you to take a turn on the rack. Faugh! you remember,

Harry?--I thought it was all up with me."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Hazeldean, "for Heaven's sake, not a drop! Wine

indeed!"

"Don't talk of it," cried the Squire, making a wry face.

"I'll take care, sir!" said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the

stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now coaxingly makes it up with him,

and does not leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the

poor foreign gentleman, till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup; and

the pony, who knows who he has got to deal with, gives a preparatory

plunge or two and then darts out of the yard.

_To be continued._

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

THE EVERY-DAY MARRIED LADY.

It might be supposed that the every-day married lady was formerly the

every-day young lady, and has now merely changed her condition. But this

is not the case, for nothing is more common than to see the most holiday

spinsters settle down into the most working-day matrons. The married

lady, in fact, of the species we would describe, has no descent in

particular. If you can imagine a pupa coming into the world of itself

without any connection with the larva, or an imago unconscious of the

pupa, that is the every-day married lady. She is born at the altar,

conjured into life by the ceremonial, and having utterly lost her

individual existence, becomes from that moment a noun of multitude.

People may say, "Oh, this is our old acquaintance, Miss Smith!" but that

is only calling names, for the identity is gone. If she is any thing at

all but what appertains to the present, she is the late Miss Smith, who

has survived herself, and changed into a family.

We would insist upon this peculiarity of the every-day married

lady--that her existence is collective. Her very language is in the

plural number--such as we, ours, and us. She respects the rights of

paternity so much, as never to permit herself to talk of her children as

peculiarly her own. Her individuality being merged in her husband and

their actual or possible offspring, she has no private thoughts, no

wishes, no hopes, no fears but for the concern. And this is all the

better for her tranquillity: for although a part of her husband, she

does not quite fancy that he is a part of her. She leaves at least the

business to his management, and if she does advise and suggest on

occasions, she thinks that somehow things will come out very well. She

feels that she is only a passenger; and although, as such, she may

recommend the skipper to shorten sail when weathering a critical point,

or, for the sake of safety, to come to anchor in the middle of the sea,

she has still a certain faith in his skill or luck, and sleeps quietly

in the storm. For this reason the every day married lady is comfortable

in the figure, and has usually good round features of her own. The Miss

Smith she has survived had a slender waist and small delicate hands; but

this lady is a very tolerable armful, and the wedding-ring makes such a

hollow on her finger, that one might think it would be difficult to get

off.

The every-day married lady is commonly reported to be selfish; but this

is a mistake. At least her selfishness embraces the whole family circle:

it has no personality. When the wife of a poor man, she will sit up half

the night sewing and darning, but not a stitch for herself: that can be

done at any time; but the boys must go comfortably to school, and the

girls look genteel on the street, and the husband--to think of Mr. Brown

wanting a button on his shirt! She looks selfish, because her eye is

always on her own, and because she talks of what she is always thinking

about; but how can one be selfish who is perpetually postponing herself,

who dresses the plainest, eats the coarsest, and sleeps the least of the

family? She never puts herself forward in company unless her young

ladies want backing; but yet she never feels herself overlooked, for

every word, every glance bestowed upon them, is communicated

electrically to her. She is, indeed, in such perfect _rapport_ with the

concern, that it is no uncommon thing for her to go home chuckling with

amusement, overpowered with delight, from a party at which she had not

once opened her lips. This is the party which she pronounces to have

"gone off" well. Half-observant people fancy that the calculation is

made on the score of the jellies and ice, and singing and dancing, and

so on, and influenced by a secret comparison with her own achievements;

but she has more depth than they imagine, and finer sympathies--they

don't understand her.

Not that the every-day married lady is unsocial--not at all: all

comfortable people are social; but she is partial to her own class, and

does not care to carry her confidences out of it. She has several

intimate friends whom she is fond of meeting; but besides that, she is a

sort of freemason in her way, and finds out every-day people by the word

and sign. Rank has very little to do with this society, as you will find

if you observed her sitting at a cottage door, where, in purchasing a

draught of milk, she has recognized a sister. If these two every-day

married women had been rocked in the same cradle, they could not talk

more intimately; and, indeed, they have heavy matters to talk about, for

of all the babies that ever came into this breathing world, theirs were

the most extraordinary babies. The miracle is, that any of them are

extant after such outrageous measles, and scarlet fevers, and

chicken-poxes--prophesied of, so to speak, even before their birth, by

memorabilia that might have alarmed Dr. Simson. The interlocutors part

very well pleased with each other: the cottager proud to find that she

has so much in common with a real lady, and the lady pronouncing the

reflection of herself she had met with to be a most sensible individual.

Although careless in this instance of the circumstance of rank, the

every-day married lady has but little sympathy with the class of

domestic servants. She looks upon her servants, in fact, as in some sort

her natural enemies, and her life may therefore be said to be passed at

the best in a state of armed neutrality. She commonly proceeds on the

allowance system; and this is the best way, as it prevents so many

sickening apprehensions touching that leg of mutton. Indeed the appetite

of servants is a constant puzzle to her: she can not make it out. She

has a sharp eye, too, upon the policeman, and wonders what on earth he

always looks down her area for. As for followers, that is quite out of

the question. Servants stay long enough upon their errands to talk to

all the men and women in the parish; and the idea of having an

acquaintance now and then besides--more especially of the male

sex--tramping into the kitchen to see them, is wildly unnatural. She

tells of a sailor whom she once detected sitting in the coolest possible

manner by the fireside. When she appeared, the man rose up and

bowed--and then sat down again. Think of that! The artful girl said he

was her brother!--and here all the every-day married ladies in the

company laugh bitterly. Since that time she has been haunted by a

sailor, and smells tar in all sorts of places.

If she ever has a passable servant, whom she is able to keep for a

reasonable number of years, she gets gradually attached to her, and pets

and coddles her. Betty is a standing testimony to her nice

discrimination, and a perpetual premium on her successful rearing of

servants. But alas! the end of it all is, that the respectable creature

gets married to the green grocer, and leaves her indulgent mistress: a

striking proof of the heartlessness and ingratitude of the whole tribe!

If it is not marriage, however, that calls her away, but bad health; if

she goes home unwell, or is carried to the infirmary--what then? Why,

then, we are sorry to say, she passes utterly away from the observation

and memory of the every-day married lady. This may be reckoned a bad

trait in her character; and yet it is in some degree allied to the great

virtue of her life. Servants are the evil principle in her household,

which it is her business to combat and hold in obedience. A very large

proportion of her time is spent in this virtuous warfare; and success on

her part ought to be considered deserving of the gratitude of the

vanquished, without imposing burdens upon the victor.

The every-day married lady is the inventor of a thing which few foreign

nations have as yet adopted either in their houses or languages. This

thing is Comfort. The word can not well be defined, the items that enter

into its composition being so numerous, that a description would read

like a catalogue. We all understand, however, what it means, although

few of us are sensible of the source of the enjoyment. A widower has

very little comfort, and a bachelor none at all; while a married

man--provided his wife be an every-day married lady--enjoys it in

perfection. But he enjoys it unconsciously, and therefore ungratefully:

it is a thing of course--a necessary, a right, of the want of which he

complains without being distinctly sensible of its presence. Even when

it acquires sufficient intensity to arrest his attention, when his

features and his heart soften, and he looks round with a half smile on

his face, and says, "This is comfort!" it never occurs to him to inquire

where it all comes from. His every-day wife is sitting quietly in the

corner: it was not she who lighted the fire, or dressed the dinner, or

drew the curtains, and it never occurs to him to think that all these,

and a hundred other circumstances of the moment, owe their virtue to her

spiriting, and that the comfort which enriches the atmosphere, which

sparkles in the embers, which broods in the shadowy parts of the room,

which glows in his own full heart, emanates from her, and encircles her

like an aureola. We have suggested, on a former occasion, that our

conventional notions of the sex, in its gentle, modest, and retiring

characteristics, are derived from the every-day young lady; and in like

manner we venture to opine that the every-day married lady is _the_

English wife of foreigners and moralists. Thus she is a national

character, and a personage of history; and yet there she sits all the

while in that corner, knitting something or other, and thinking to

herself that she had surely smelt a puff of tar as she was passing the

pantry.

The curious thing is, that the dispenser of comfort can do with a very

small share of it herself. When her husband does not dine at home, it is

surprising what odds and ends are sufficient to make up the dinner.

Perhaps the best part of it is a large slice of bread-and-butter; for it

is wasting the servants' time to make them cook when there is _nobody_

to be at the table. But she makes up for this at tea: that _is_ a

comfortable meal for the every-day married lady. The husband, a

matter-of-fact, impassive fellow, swallows down his two or three cups in

utter unconsciousness of the poetry of the occasion; while the wife

pauses on every sip, drinks in the aroma as well as the infusion, fills

slowly and lingeringly out, and creams and sugars as if her hands

dallied over a labor of love. With her daughters, in the mean time,

grown up, or even half-grown up, she exchanges words and looks of

motherly and masonic intelligence: she is moulding them to comfort,

initiating them in every-dayism; and as their heads bend companionably

toward each other, you see at a glance that the girls will do honor to

their breeding. The husband calls this "dawdling," and already begins to

fret. Let him: he knows nothing about it.

It is surprising the affection of the daughters for their every-day

mother. Not that the sentiment is steady and uniform in its expression,

for sometimes one might suppose mamma to be forgotten, or at least

considered only as a daily necessary not requiring any special notice.

But wait till a grief comes, and mark to what bosom the panting girl

flies for refuge and comfort; see with what _abandon_ she flings her

arms round that maternal neck, and with what a passionate burst the

hitherto repressed tears gush forth. This is something more than habit,

something more than filial trust. There are more senses than five in

human nature--or seven either: there is a fine and subtle link between

these two beings--a common atmosphere of thought and feeling, impalpable

and imperceptible, yet necessary to the souls of both. If you doubt

it--if you doubt that there is a moral attraction in the every-day

married lady, irrespective of blood-affinity, carry your view forward to

another generation, and interrogate those witnesses who are never

mistaken in character, and who never give false testimony--little

children. They dote on their every-day grandmamma. Their natures, not

yet seared and hardened by the world, understand hers; and with

something of the fresh perfume of Eden about them still, they recognize

instinctively those blessed souls to whom God has given to love little

children.

This is farther shown when the every-day married lady dies. What is

there in the character we have drawn to account for the shock the whole

family receives? The husband feels as if a thunder-cloud had fallen, and

gathered, and blackened upon his heart, through which he could never

again see the sun. The grown-up children, especially the females, are

distracted; "their purposes are broken off;" they desire to have nothing

more to do with the world: they lament as those who will not be

comforted. Even common acquaintances look round them, when they enter

the house, with uneasiness and anxiety--

"We miss her when the morning calls,

As one that mingled in our mirth:

We miss her when the evening falls--

A trifle wanted on the earth!

"Some fancy small, or subtle thought,

Is checked ere to its blossom grown;

Some chain is broken that we wrought,

Now--she hath flown!"

And so she passes away--this every-day married lady--leaving memorials

of her commonplace existence every where throughout the circle in which

she lived, moved, and had her being, and after having stamped herself

permanently upon the constitution, both moral and physical, of her

descendants.

ANECDOTE OF A SINGER.

Signora Grassini, the great Italian singer, died a few months since at

Milan. She was distinguished not only for her musical talents, but also

for her beauty and powers of theatrical expression. One evening in 1810,

she and Signor Crescentini performed together at the Tuileries, and sang

in "Romeo and Juliet." At the admirable scene in the third act, the

Emperor Napoleon applauded vociferously, and Talma, the great tragedian,

who was among the audience, wept with emotion. After the performance was

ended, the Emperor conferred the decoration of a high order on

Crescentini, and sent Grassini a scrap of paper, on which was written,

"Good for 20,000 livres.--NAPOLEON."

"Twenty thousand francs!" said one of her friends--"the sum is a large

one."

"It will serve as a dowry for one of my little nieces," replied Grassini

quietly.

Indeed few persons were ever more generous, tender, and considerate

toward their family than this great singer.

Many years afterward, when the Empire had crumbled into dust, carrying

with it in its fall, among other things, the rich pension of Signora

Grassini, she happened to be at Bologna. There another of her nieces was

for the first time presented to her, with a request that she would do

something for her young relative. The little girl was extremely pretty,

but not, her friends thought, fitted for the stage, as her voice was a

feeble contralto. Her aunt asked her to sing; and when the timid voice

had sounded a few notes, "Dear child," said Grassini, embracing her,

"you will not want _me_ to assist you. Those who called your voice a

contralto were ignorant of music. You have one of the finest sopranos in

the world, and will far excel me as a singer. Take courage, and work

hard, my love: your throat will win a shower of gold." The young girl

did not disappoint her aunt's prediction. She still lives, and her name

is Giulia Grisi.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

WHEN THE SUMMER COMES.

I once knew a little boy, a little child of three years old; one of

those bright creatures whose fair loveliness seems more of heaven than

of earth--even at a passing glimpse stirring our hearts, and filling

them with purer and holier thought. But this, the little Francie, was

more of a cherub than an angel,--as we picture them--with his gladsome

hazel eyes, his dazzling fairness, his clustering golden hair, and his

almost winged step. Such he was, at least, until sickness laid its heavy

hand on him; then, indeed, when, after days of burning, wasting

fever--hours of weary restlessness--the little hand at last lay

motionless outside the scarcely whiter coverlet of his tiny bed, the

fair, still head, pressed down upon the pillow, and the pale face gazing

with the silent wonder of returning consciousness on the anxious ones

around it; then, indeed, a bright yet pitying look would flit across it,

or dwell in the earnest eyes--a look such as we assign to angels in our

dreams, when some fond fancy seems to bring them near us, weeping for

mortal griefs beyond their remedy.

It was a strange sickness for one so young--the struggle of typhus fever

with a baby frame; but life and youth obtained the victory; and quicker

even than hope could venture to expect, the pulses rallied, the cheeks

grew round and rosy, and the little wasted limbs filled up again. Health

was restored--health, but not strength: we thought this for a while. We

did not wonder that the weakened limbs refused their office, and still

we waited on in hope, until days, and even weeks, passed by: then it was

found that the complaint had left its bitter sting, and little Francie

could not walk a step, or even stand.

Many and tedious and painful were the remedies resorted to; yet the

brave little heart bore stoutly up, with that wonderful fortitude,

almost heroism, which all who have watched by suffering childhood, when

the tractable spirit bends to its early discipline, must at some time or

other have remarked. Francie's fortitude might have afforded an example

to many; but a dearer lesson was given in the hopeful spirit with which

the little fellow himself noted the effect of each distressing remedy,

marking each stage of progress, and showing off with eager gladness

every step attained, from the first creeping on the hands and knees, to

the tiptoe journey round the room, holding on by chairs and tables; then

to the clinging to some loving hand; and then, at last, the graceful

balancing of his light body, until he stood quite erect alone, and so

moved slowly on.

It was in autumn this illness seized on the little one, just when the

leaves were turning, and the orchard fruits becoming ripe. His nurse

attributed it all to his sitting on a grassy bank at play on one of

those uncertain autumn days; but he, in his childish way, always

maintained "It was Francie himself--eating red berries in the holly

bower." However this may have been, the season and the time seemed

indelibly impressed upon his mind. In all his long confinement to the

house, his thoughts continually turned to outward objects, to the

external face of nature and the season's change, and evermore his little

word of hope was this, "When the _summer_ comes!"

He kept it up throughout the long winter, and the bleak cold spring. A

fairy little carriage had been provided for him, in which, well wrapped

up from the cold, and resting on soft cushions, he was lightly drawn

along by a servant, to his own great delight, and the admiration of many

a young beholder. But when any one--attempting to reconcile him the

better to his position--expatiated on the beauty or comfort of his new

acquisition, his eager look and word would show how far he went beyond

it, as, quickly interrupting, he would exclaim, "Wait till the summer

comes--then Francie will walk again!"

During the winter there was a fearful storm, it shook the windows,

moaned in the old trees, and howled down the chimneys with a most

menacing voice. Older hearts than Francie's quailed that night, and he,

unable to sleep, lay listening to it all--quiet, but asking many a

question, as his excited fancy formed similitudes to the sounds. One

time it was poor little children cruelly turned out, and wailing; then

something trilling, with its last hoarse cry; then wolves and bears,

from far-off other lands. But all the while Francie knew he was snug and

safe himself: no fears disturbed him, whatever the noise may have done.

Throughout the whole of it he carried his one steadfast hope, and, in

the morning telling of it all, with all his marvelous thoughts, he

finished his relation with the never-failing word of comfort, "Ah! there

shall be no loud wind, no waking nights, when once the summer comes!"

The summer came with its glad birds and flowers, its balmy air; and who

can paint the exquisite delight of the suffering child that had waited

for it so long? Living almost continually in the open air he seemed to

expect fresh health and strength from each reviving breath he drew, and

every day would deem himself capable of some greater effort, as if to

prove that his expectation had not been in vain.

One lovely day he and his little playfellows were in a group amusing

themselves in part of the garden, when some friends passed through.

Francie, longing to show how much he could do, entreated hard to be

taken with them "along the walk, just to the holly bower." His request

was granted, and on he did walk; quick at first, then slowly slower: but

still upheld by his strong faith in the summer's genial influence, he

would not rest in any of the offered arms, though the fitful color went

and came, and the pauses grew more and more frequent. No, with a heavy

sigh he admitted, "'Tis a very, very long walk _now_; but Francie must

not be tired: sure the summer is come." And so, determined not to admit

fatigue in the face of the season's bright proofs around him, he

succeeded in accomplishing his little task at last.

Thus the summer passed away, and again came the changing autumn, acting

on poor little Francie to a degree he had never reckoned on, and with

its chill, damp airs, nearly throwing him back again. With a greater

effort even than before, he had again tried the walk to the holly bower,

the scene of his self-accusing misdemeanor as the cause of all his

sufferings. He sat down to rest; above his head, as the autumnal breeze

swept through them, "the polished leaves and berries red did rustling

play;" and as little Francie looked upward toward them, a memory of the

former year, and of all the time that had passed since then, seemed for

the first time mournfully to steal over his heart. He nestled in closer

to his mother's side; and still looking up, but with more thoughtful

eyes, he said, "Mamma, is the summer _quite_ gone?"

"Yes, my darling. Don't you see the scarlet berries, the food of winter

for the little birds?"

"Quite gone, mamma, and Francie not quite well?"

His mother looked away; she could not bear her child to see the

tell-tale tears his mournful little words called up, or know the sad

echo returned by her own desponding thoughts. There was a moment's

silence, only broken by the blackbird's song; and then she felt a soft,

a little kiss, upon her hand, and looking down, she saw her darling's

face--yes, surely now it was as an angel's--gazing upward to her,

brightly beaming, brighter than ever; and his rosy lips just parted with

their own sweet smile again, as he exclaimed in joyous tones, "Mamma,

the summer will come again!"

Precious was that heaven-born word of childish faith to the careworn

mother, to cheer her then, and, with its memory of hope, still to

sustain her through many an after-experiment and anxious watch, until,

at last, she reaped her rich reward in the complete realization of her

bright one's hope. Precious to more than her such words may be, if

bravely stemming our present trouble, whatsoe'er it be--bravely

enduring, persevering, encouraging others and ourselves, even as that

little child--we hold the thought, that as the revolving year brings

round its different seasons, as day succeeds to night--and even as

surely as we look for this, and know it--so to the trusting heart there

comes a time--it may be soon or late, it may be now, or it may be

_then_--when this grief or grievance will have passed away; and so

'twill all seem nothing--when the summer comes!

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

VILLAINY OUTWITTED--FROM THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A POLICE OFFICER.

The respectable agent of a rather eminent French house arrived one

morning in great apparent distress at Scotland Yard, and informed the

superintendent that he had just sustained a great, almost ruinous loss,

in notes of the Bank of England, and commercial bills of exchange,

besides a considerable sum in gold. He had, it appeared, been absent in

Paris about ten days, and on his return but a few hours previously,

discovered that his iron chest had been completely rifled during his

absence. False keys must have been used, as the empty chest was found

locked, and no sign of violence could be observed. He handed in full

written details of the property carried off, the numbers of the notes,

and every other essential particular. The first step taken was to

ascertain if any of the notes had been tendered at the bank. Not one had

been presented; payment was of course stopped, and advertisements

descriptive of the bills of exchange, as well as of the notes, were

inserted in the evening and following morning papers. A day or two

afterward, a considerable reward was offered for such information as

might lead to the apprehension of the offenders. No result followed; and

in spite of the active exertions of the officers employed, not the

slightest clew could be obtained to the perpetrators of the robbery. The

junior partner in the firm, M. Bellebon, in the mean time arrived in

England, to assist in the investigation, and was naturally extremely

urgent in his inquiries; but the mystery which enveloped the affair

remained impenetrable. At last a letter, bearing the St. Martin-le-Grand

post-mark, was received by the agent, M. Alexandre le Breton, which

contained an offer to surrender the whole of the plunder, with the

exception of the gold, for the sum of one thousand pounds. The property

which had been abstracted was more than ten times that sum, and had been

destined by the French house to meet some heavy liabilities falling due

in London very shortly. Le Breton had been ordered to pay the whole

amount into Hoare's to the account of the firm, and had indeed been

severely blamed for not having done so as he received the different

notes and bills; and it was on going to the chest immediately on his

return from Paris, for the purpose of fulfilling the peremptory

instructions he had received, that M. le Breton discovered the robbery.

The letter went on to state that should the offer be acceded to, a

mystically-worded advertisement--of which a copy was inclosed--was to be

inserted in the "Times," and then a mode would be suggested for

safely--in the interest of the thieves of course--carrying the agreement

into effect. M. Bellebon was half-inclined to close with this proposal,

in order to save the credit of the house, which would be destroyed

unless its acceptances, now due in about fourteen days, could be met;

and without the stolen moneys and bills of exchange, this was, he

feared, impossible. The superintendent, to whom M. Bellebon showed the

letter, would not hear of compliance with such a demand, and threatened

a prosecution for composition of felony if M. Bellebon persisted in

doing so. The advertisement was, however, inserted, and an immediate

reply directed that Le Breton, the agent, should present himself at the

Old Manor-House, Green Lanes, Newington, unattended, at four o'clock on

the following afternoon, bringing with him of course the stipulated sum

_in gold_. It was added, that to prevent any possible treason

(_trahison_, the letter was written in French), Le Breton would find a

note for him at the tavern, informing him of the spot--a solitary one,

and far away from any place where an ambush could be concealed--where

the business would be concluded, and to which he must proceed

unaccompanied, and on foot! This proposal was certainly quite as

ingenious as it was cool, and the chance of out-witting such cunning

rascals seemed exceedingly doubtful. A very tolerable scheme was,

however, hit upon, and M. le Breton proceeded at the appointed hour to

the Old Manor-House. No letter or message had been left for him, and

nobody obnoxious to the slightest suspicion could be seen near or about

the tavern. On the following day another missive arrived, which stated

that the writer was quite aware of the trick which the police had

intended playing him, and he assured M. Bellebon that such a line of

conduct was as unwise as it would be fruitless, inasmuch as if "good

faith" was not observed, the securities and notes would be inexorably

destroyed or otherwise disposed of, and the house of Bellebon and

Company be consequently exposed to the shame and ruin of bankruptcy.

Just at this crisis of the affair I arrived in town from an unsuccessful

hunt after some fugitives who had slipped through my fingers at

Plymouth. The superintendent laughed heartily, not so much at the trick

by which I had been duped, as at the angry mortification I did not

affect to conceal. He presently added, "I have been wishing for your

return, in order to intrust you with a tangled affair, in which success

will amply compensate for such a disappointment. You know French too,

which is fortunate; for the gentleman who has been plundered understands

little or no English." He then related the foregoing particulars, with

other apparently slight circumstances; and after a long conversation

with him, I retired to think the matter over, and decide upon the

likeliest mode of action. After much cogitation, I determined to see M.

Bellebon _alone_; and for this purpose I dispatched the waiter of a

tavern adjacent to his lodgings, with a note expressive of my wish to

see him instantly on pressing business. He was at home, and immediately

acceded to my request. I easily introduced myself; and after about a

quarter of an hour's conference, said carelessly--for I saw he was too

heedless of speech, too quick and frank, to be intrusted with the dim

suspicions which certain trifling indices had suggested to me--"Is

Monsieur le Breton at the office where the robbery was committed?"

"No: he is gone to Greenwich on business, and will not return till late

in the evening. But if you wish to re-examine the place, I can of

course enable you to do so."

"It will, I think, be advisable; and you will, if you please," I added,

as we emerged into the street, "permit me to take you by the arm, in

order that the _official_ character of my visit may not be suspected by

any one there."

He laughingly complied, and we arrived at the house arm-in-arm. We were

admitted by an elderly woman; and there was a young man--a mustached

clerk--seated at a desk in an inner room writing. He eyed me for a

moment, somewhat askance, I thought, but I gave him no opportunity for a

distinct view of my features; and I presently handed M. Bellebon a card,

on which I had contrived to write, unobserved, "send away the clerk."

This was more naturally done than I anticipated; and in answer to M.

Bellebon's glance of inquiry, I merely said, "that as I did not wish to

be known there as a police-officer, it was essential that the minute

search I was about to make should be without witnesses." He agreed; and

the woman was also sent away upon a distant errand. Every conceivable

place did I ransack; every scrap of paper that had writing on it I

eagerly perused. At length the search was over, apparently without

result.

"You are quite sure, Monsieur Bellebon, as you informed the

superintendent, that Monsieur le Breton has no female relations or

acquaintances in this country?"

"Positive," he replied. "I have made the most explicit inquiries on the

subject both of the clerk Dubarle, and of the woman-servant."

Just then the clerk returned, out of breath with haste, I noticed, and I

took my leave without even now affording the young gentleman so clear a

view of my face as he was evidently anxious to obtain.

"No female acquaintance!" thought I, as I re-entered the private room of

the tavern I had left an hour before. "From whom came, then, these

scraps of perfumed note-paper I have found in his desk, I wonder?" I sat

down and endeavored to piece them out, but after considerable trouble,

satisfied myself that they were parts of different notes, and so small,

unfortunately, as to contain nothing which separately afforded any

information except that they were all written by one hand, and that a

female one.

About two hours after this I was sauntering along in the direction of

Stoke-Newington, where I was desirous of making some inquiries as to

another matter, and had passed the Kingslaw Gate a few hundred yards,

when a small discolored printed handbill, lying in a haberdasher's shop

window, arrested my attention. It ran thus: "Two guineas reward.--Lost,

an Italian gray-hound. The tip of its tail has been chopped off, and it

answers to the name of Fidèle." Underneath, the reader was told in

writing to "inquire within."

"Fidèle!" I mentally exclaimed. "Any relation to M. le Breton's fair

correspondent Fidèle, I wonder?" In a twinkling my pocket-book was out,

and I reperused by the gas-light on one of the perfumed scraps of paper

the following portion of a sentence, "_ma pauvre Fidèle est per_--" The

bill, I observed, was dated nearly three weeks previously. I forthwith

entered the shop, and pointing to the bill, said I knew a person who had

found such a dog as was there advertised for. The woman at the counter

said she was glad to hear it, as the lady, formerly a customer of

theirs, was much grieved at the animal's loss.

"What is the lady's name?" I asked.

"I can't rightly pronounce the name," was the reply. "It is French, I

believe; but here it is, with the address, in the day-book, written by

herself."

I eagerly read--"Madame Levasseur, Oak Cottage; about one mile on the

road from Edmonton to Southgate." The handwriting greatly resembled that

on the scraps I had taken from M. le Breton's desk; and the writer was

French too! Here were indications of a trail which might lead to

unhoped-for success, and I determined to follow it up vigorously. After

one or two other questions, I left the shop, promising to send the dog

to the lady the next day. My business at Stoke-Newington was soon

accomplished. I then hastened westward to the establishment of a

well-known dog-fancier, and procured the loan, at a reasonable price, of

an ugly Italian hound: the requisite loss of the tip of its tail was

very speedily accomplished, and so quickly healed, that the newness of

the excision could not be suspected. I arrived at the lady's residence

about twelve o'clock on the following day, so thoroughly disguised as a

vagabond Cockney dog-stealer, that my own wife, when I entered the

breakfast parlor just previous to starting, screamed with alarm and

surprise. The mistress of Oak Cottage was at home, but indisposed, and

the servant said she would take the dog to her, though, if I would take

it out of the basket, she herself could tell me if it was Fidèle or not.

I replied that I would only show the dog to the lady, and would not

trust it out of my hands. This message was carried up-stairs, and after

waiting some time outside--for the woman, with natural precaution,

considering my appearance, for the safety of the portable articles lying

about, had closed the street-door in my face--I was re-admitted, desired

to wipe my shoes carefully, and walk up. Madame Levasseur, a

showy-looking woman, though not over-refined in speech or manners, was

seated on a sofa, in vehement expectation of embracing her dear Fidèle;

but my vagabond appearance so startled her, that she screamed loudly for

her husband, M. Levasseur. This gentleman, a fine, tall, whiskered,

mustached person, hastened into the apartment half-shaved, and with his

razor in his hand.

"Qu'est ce qu'il y a donc?" he demanded.

"Mais voyez cette horreur là," replied the lady, meaning me, not the

dog, which I was slowly emancipating from the basket-kennel. The

gentleman laughed; and reassured by the presence of her husband, Madame

Levasseur's anxieties concentrated themselves upon the expected Fidèle.

"Mais, mon Dieu!" she exclaimed again as I displayed the aged beauty I

had brought for her inspection, "why, that is not Fidèle!"

"Not, marm?" I answered, with quite innocent surprise. "Vy, ere is her

wery tail;" and I held up the mutilated extremity for her closer

inspection. The lady was not, however, to be convinced even by that

evidence; and as the gentleman soon became impatient of my persistence,

and hinted very intelligibly that he had a mind to hasten my passage

down stairs with the toe of his boot, I, having made the best possible

use of my eyes during the short interview, scrambled up the dog and

basket, and departed.

"No female relative or acquaintance hasn't he?" was my exulting thought

as I gained the road. "And yet if that is not M. le Breton's picture

between those of the husband and wife, I am a booby, and a blind one." I

no longer in the least doubted that I had struck a brilliant trail; and

I could have shouted with exultation, so eager was I not only to

retrieve my, as I fancied, somewhat tarnished reputation for activity

and skill, but to extricate the plundered firm from their terrible

difficulties; the more especially as young M. Bellebon, with the

frankness of his age and nation, had hinted to me--and the

suddenly-tremulous light of his fine expressive eyes testified to the

acuteness of his apprehensions--that his marriage with a long-loved and

amiable girl depended upon his success in saving the credit of his

house.

That same evening, about nine o'clock, M. Levasseur, expensively, but

withal snobbishly attired, left Oak Cottage, walked to Edmonton, hailed

a cab, and drove off rapidly toward town, followed by an English swell

as stylishly and snobbishly dressed, wigged, whiskered, and mustached as

himself: this English swell being no other than myself, as prettily

metamorphosed and made up for the part I intended playing as heart could

wish.

M. Levasseur descended at the end of the Quadrant, Regent-street, and

took his way to Vine-street, leading out of that celebrated

thoroughfare. I followed; and observing him enter a public-house,

unhesitatingly did the same. It was a house of call and general

rendezvous for foreign servants out of place. Valets, couriers, cooks,

of many varieties of shade, nation, and respectability, were assembled

there, smoking, drinking, and playing at an insufferably noisy game,

unknown, I believe, to Englishmen, and which must, I think, have been

invented in sheer despair of cards, dice, or other implements of

gambling. The sole instruments of play were the gamesters' fingers, of

which the two persons playing suddenly and simultaneously uplifted as

many, or as few as they pleased, each player alternately calling a

number; and if he named precisely how many fingers were held up by

himself and opponent, he marked a point. The hubbub of cries--"cinq,"

"neuf," "dix," &c.--was deafening. The players--almost every body in the

large room--were too much occupied to notice our entrance; and M.

Levasseur and myself seated ourselves, and called for something to

drink, without, I was glad to see, exciting the slightest observation.

M. Levasseur, I soon perceived, was an intimate acquaintance of many

there; and somewhat to my surprise, for he spoke French very well, I

found that he was a Swiss. His name was, I therefore concluded, assumed.

Nothing positive rewarded my watchfulness that evening; but I felt quite

sure Levasseur had come there with the expectation of meeting some one,

as he did not play, and went away about half-past eleven o'clock with an

obviously discontented air. The following night it was the same; but the

next, who should peer into the room about half-past ten, and look

cautiously round, but M. Alexandre le Breton! The instant the eyes of

the friends met, Levasseur rose and went out. I hesitated to follow,

lest such a movement might excite suspicion; and it was well I did not,

as they both presently returned, and seated themselves close by my side.

The anxious, haggard countenance of Le Breton--who had, I should have

before stated, been privately pointed out to me by one of the force

early on the morning I visited Oak Cottage--struck me forcibly,

especially in contrast with that of Levasseur, which wore only an

expression of malignant and ferocious triumph, slightly dashed by

temporary disappointment. Le Breton staid but a short time; and the only

whispered words I caught were--"He has, I fear, some suspicion."

The anxiety and impatience of M. Bellebon while this was going on became

extreme, and he sent me note after note--the only mode of communication

I would permit--expressive of his consternation at the near approach of

the time when the engagements of his house would arrive at maturity,

without any thing having in the meantime been accomplished. I pitied him

greatly, and after some thought and hesitation, resolved upon a new and

bolder game. By affecting to drink a great deal, occasionally playing,

and in other ways exhibiting a reckless, devil-may-care demeanor, I had

striven to insinuate myself into the confidence and companionship of

Levasseur, but hitherto without much effect; and although once I could

see, startled by a casual hint I dropped to another person--one of

ours--just sufficiently loud for him to hear--that I knew a sure and

safe market for stopped Bank of England notes, the cautious scoundrel

quickly subsided into his usual guarded reserve. He evidently doubted

me, and it was imperatively necessary to remove those doubts. This was

at last effectually, and, as I am vain enough to think, cleverly done.

One evening a rakish-looking man, who ostentatiously and repeatedly

declared himself to be Mr. Trelawney, of Conduit-street, and who was

evidently three parts intoxicated, seated himself directly in front of

us, and with much braggart impudence boasted of his money, at the same

time displaying a pocket-book, which seemed pretty full of Bank of

England notes. There were only a few persons present in the room besides

us, and they were at the other end of the room. Levasseur I saw noticed

with considerable interest the look of greed and covetousness which I

fixed on that same pocket-book. At length the stranger rose to depart. I

also hurried up and slipped after him, and was quietly and slyly

followed by Levasseur. After proceeding about a dozen paces, I looked

furtively about, but _not_ behind; robbed Mr. Trelawney of his

pocket-book, which he had placed in one of the tails of his coat;

crossed over the street, and walked hurriedly away, still, I could hear,

followed by Levasseur. I entered another public-house, strode into an

empty back-room, and was just in the act of examining my prize, when in

stepped Levasseur. He looked triumphant as Lucifer, as he clapped me on

the shoulder, and said in a low exulting voice, "I saw that pretty

trick, Williams, and can, if I like, transport you!"

My consternation was naturally extreme, and Levasseur laughed immensely

at the terror he excited. "_Soyez tranquille_," he said at last, at the

same time ringing the bell, "I shall not hurt you." He ordered some

wine, and after the waiter had fulfilled the order, and left the room,

said, "Those notes of Mr. Trelawney's will of course be stopped in the

morning, but I think I once heard you say you knew of a market for such

articles?"

I hesitated, coyly unwilling to further commit myself. "Come, come,"

resumed Levasseur, in a still low but menacing tone, "no nonsense. I

have you now; you are, in fact, entirely in my power: but be candid, and

you are safe. Who is your friend?"

"He is not in town now," I stammered.

"Stuff--humbug! I have myself some notes to change. There, now we

understand each other. What does he give, and how does he dispose of

them?"

"He gives about a third generally, and gets rid of them abroad. They

reach the Bank through _bonâ-fide_ and innocent holders, and in that

case the Bank is of course bound to pay."

"Is that the law also with respect to bills of exchange?"

"Yes, to be sure it is."

"And is _amount_ of any consequence to your friend?"

"None, I believe, whatever."

"Well, then, you must introduce me to him."

"No, that I can't," I hurriedly answered. "He won't deal with

strangers."

"You _must_, I tell you, or I will call an officer." Terrified by this

threat, I muttered that his name was Levi Samuel.

"And where does Levi Samuel live?"

"That," I replied, "I _can not_ tell; but I know how to communicate with

him."

Finally, it was settled by Levasseur that I should dine at Oak Cottage

the next day but one, and that I should arrange with Samuel to meet us

there immediately afterward. The notes and bills he had to dispose of, I

was to inform Samuel, amounted to nearly twelve thousand pounds, and I

was promised £500 for effecting the bargain.

"Five hundred pounds, remember, Williams," said Levasseur, as we parted;

"or, if you deceive me, transportation. You can prove nothing regarding

_me_, whereas, I could settle _you_ offhand."

The superintendent and I had a long and rather anxious conference the

next day. We agreed that, situated as Oak Cottage was, in an open space

away from any other building, it would not be advisable that any officer

except myself and the pretended Samuel should approach the place. We

also agreed as to the probability of such clever rogues having so placed

the notes and bills that they could be consumed or otherwise destroyed

on the slightest alarm, and that the open arrest of Levasseur, and a

search of Oak Cottage, would in all likelihood prove fruitless. "There

will be only two of them," I said, in reply to a remark of the

superintendent as to the somewhat dangerous game I was risking with

powerful and desperate men, "even should Le Breton be there; and surely

Jackson and I, aided by the surprise and our pistols, will be too many

for them." Little more was said, the superintendent wished us luck, and

I sought out and instructed Jackson.

I will confess that, on setting out the next day to keep my appointment,

I felt considerable anxiety. Levasseur _might_ have discovered my

vocation, and set this trap for my destruction. Yet that was hardly

possible. At all events, whatever the danger, it was necessary to face

it; and having cleaned and loaded my pistols with unusual care, and bade

my wife a more than usually earnest farewell, which, by the way, rather

startled her, I set off, determined, as we used to say in Yorkshire, "to

win the horse or lose the saddle."

I arrived in good time at Oak Cottage, and found my host in the highest

possible spirits. Dinner was ready, he said, but it would be necessary

to wait a few minutes for the two friends he expected.

"_Two_ friends!" I exclaimed, really startled. "You told me last evening

there was to be only one, a Monsieur le Breton."

"True," rejoined Levasseur carelessly; "but I had forgotten that another

party as much interested as ourselves would like to be present, and

invite himself if I did not. But there will be enough for us all, never

fear," he added, with a coarse laugh, "especially as Madame Levasseur

does not dine with us."

At this moment a loud knock was heard. "Here they are!" exclaimed

Levasseur, and hastened out to meet them. I peeped through the blind,

and to my great alarm saw that Le Breton was accompanied by the clerk

Dubarle! My first impulse was to seize my pistols and rush out of the

house; but calmer thoughts soon succeeded, and the improbability that a

plan had been laid to entrap me recurred forcibly. Still, should the

clerk recognize me? The situation was undoubtedly a critical one; but I

was in for it, and must therefore brave the matter out in the best way I

could.

Presently a conversation, carried on in a loud, menacing tone in the

next room between Levasseur and the new-comers, arrested my attention,

and I softly approached the door to listen. Le Breton, I soon found was

but half a villain, and was extremely anxious that the property should

not be disposed of till at least another effort had been made at

negotiation. The others, now that a market for the notes and securities

had been obtained, were determined to avail themselves of it, and

immediately leave the country. The almost agonizing entreaties of Le

Breton that they would not utterly ruin the house he had betrayed, were

treated with scornful contempt, and he was at length silenced by their

brutal menaces. Le Breton, I further learned, was a cousin of Madame

Levasseur, whose husband had first pillaged him at play, and then

suggested the crime which had been committed as the sole means of

concealing the defalcations of which he, Levasseur, had been the

occasion and promoter.

After a brief delay, all three entered the dining-room, and a slight but

significant start which the clerk Dubarle gave, as Levasseur, with mock

ceremony, introduced me, made my heart, as folk say, leap into my mouth.

His half-formed suspicions seemed, however, to be dissipated for the

moment by the humorous account Levasseur gave him of the robbery of Mr.

Trelawney, and we sat down to a very handsome dinner.

A more uncomfortable one, albeit, I never assisted at. The furtive looks

of Dubarle, who had been only partially reassured, grew more and more

inquisitive and earnest. Fortunately Levasseur was in rollicking spirits

and humor, and did not heed the unquiet glances of the young man; and as

for Le Breton, he took little notice of any body. At last this terrible

dinner was over, and the wine was pushed briskly round. I drank much

more freely than usual, partly with a view to calm my nerves, and partly

to avoid remark. It was nearly the time for the Jew's appearance, when

Dubarle, after a scrutinizing and somewhat imperious look at my face,

said abruptly, "I think, Monsieur Williams, I have seen you somewhere

before?"

"Very likely," I replied, with as much indifference as I could assume.

"Many persons have seen me before--some of them once or twice too

often."

"True!" exclaimed Levasseur, with a shout; "Trelawney, for instance!"

"I should like to see monsieur with his wig off!" said the clerk, with

increasing insolence.

"Nonsense, Dubarle; you are a fool," exclaimed Levasseur; "and I will

not have my good friend Williams insulted."

Dubarle did not persist, but it was plain enough that some dim

remembrance of my features continued to haunt and perplex him.

At length, and the relief was unspeakable, a knock at the outer door

announced Jackson--Levi Samuel I mean. We all jumped up and ran to the

window. It was the Jew sure enough, and admirably he had dressed and now

looked the part. Levasseur went out, and in a minute or two returned,

introducing him. Jackson could not suppress a start as he caught sight

of the tall, mustached addition to the expected company; and, although

he turned it off very well, it drove the Jewish dialect in which he had

been practicing, completely out of his thoughts and speech, as he said,

"You have more company than my friend Williams led me to expect?"

"A friend--one friend extra, Mr. Samuel," said Levasseur; "that is all.

Come, sit down, let me help you to a glass of wine. You are an English

Jew I perceive?"

"Yes."

A silence of a minute or two succeeded, and then Levasseur said, "You

are, of course, prepared for business?"

"Yes--that is, if you are reasonable."

"Reasonable! the most reasonable men in the world," rejoined Levasseur,

with a loud laugh. "But pray, where is the gold you mean to pay us

with?"

"If we agree, I will fetch it in half an hour. I do not carry bags of

sovereigns about with me into _all_ companies," replied Jackson, with

much readiness.

"Well, that's right enough: and how much discount do you charge?"

"I will tell you when I see the securities."

Levasseur arose without another word, and left the apartment. He was

gone about ten minutes, and on his return, deliberately counted out the

stolen Bank-of-England notes, and bills of exchange. Jackson got up from

his chair, peered close to them, and began noting down the amounts in

his pocket-book. I also rose, and pretended to be looking at a picture

by the fire-place. The moment was a nervous one, as the signal had been

agreed upon, and could not now be changed or deferred. The clerk Dubarle

also hastily rose, and eyed Jackson with flaming but indecisive looks.

The examination of the securities was at length terminated,

and Jackson began counting the Bank-of-England notes aloud,

"One--two--three--four--FIVE!" As the signal word passed his lips, he

threw himself upon Le Breton, who sat next to him; and at the same

moment I passed one of my feet between Dubarle's, and, with a dexterous

twist hurled him violently on the floor; another instant and my grasp

was on the throat of Levasseur, and my pistol at his ear. "Hurra!" we

both shouted, with eager excitement; and, before either of the villains

could recover from his surprise, or indeed perfectly comprehend what had

happened, Levasseur and Le Breton were handcuffed, and resistance was

out of the question. Young Dubarle was next easily secured.

Levasseur, the instant he recovered the use of his faculties, which the

completeness and suddenness of the surprise and attack had paralyzed,

yelled like a madman with rage and anger, and but for us, would, I

verily believe, have dashed his brains out against the walls of the

room. The other two were calmer, and having at last thoroughly pinioned

and secured them, and carefully gathered up the recovered plunder, we

left Oak Cottage in triumph, letting ourselves out, for the

woman-servant had gone off, doubtless to acquaint her mistress with the

disastrous turn affairs had taken. No inquiry was made after either of

them.

An hour afterward the prisoners were securely locked up, and I hurried

to acquaint M. Bellebon with the fortunate issue of our enterprise. His

exultation, it will be readily believed, was unbounded; and I left him

busy with letters to the firm, and doubtless one to "cette chère et

aimable Louise," announcing the joyful news.

The prisoners, after a brief trial, were convicted of felonious

conspiracy, and were all sentenced to ten years' transportation. Le

Breton's sentence, the judge told him, would have been for life, but for

the contrition he had exhibited shortly before his apprehension.

As Levasseur passed me on leaving the dock, he exclaimed in French, and

in a desperately savage tone, "I will repay you for this when I return,

and that infernal Trelawney too." I am too much accustomed to threats of

this kind to be in any way moved by them, and I therefore contented

myself by smiling, and a civil "Au revoir--allons!"

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

ATLANTIC WAVES.

One brisk March morning, in the year 1848, the brave Steam-Ship Hibernia

rolled about in the most intoxicated fashion on the broad Atlantic, in

north latitude fifty-one, and west longitude thirty-eight, fifty--the

wind blowing a hard gale from the west-southwest. To most of the

passengers the grandeur of the waters was a mockery, the fine bearing of

the ship only a delusion and a snare. Every thing was made tight on

deck; if any passenger had left a toothpick on one of the seats, he

would assuredly have found it lashed to a near railing. Rope was coiled

about every imaginable item; and water dripped from every spar of the

gallant vessel. Now it seemed as though she were traveling along through

a brilliant gallery, flanked on either side by glittering walls of

water; now she climbed one of the crested walls, and an abyss dark and

terrible as the famous Maelstrom, which can't be found any where, yawned

to receive her. The snorts of the engine seemed to defy the angry

waters; and occasionally when a monster wave coiled about the ship, and

thundered against her, she staggered for a moment, only to renew the

battle with fresh energy.

The cooks and stewards went placidly through their several daily

avocations on board this rolling, fighting, shaking craft. If they had

been Belgravian servants, or club-house waiters, they could not have

performed their duties with more profound unconcern. Their coolness

appeared nothing less than heroic to the poor tumbled heaps of clothes

with human beings inside, who were scattered about the cabins below. An

unhappy wight, who had never before been five miles from Boston, was

anxiously inquiring of the chief steward the precise time in the course

of that evening that the vessel might be expected to founder; while

another steward, with provoking pertinacity, was asking how many would

dine in the saloon at six, with the same business-like unconcern, as if

the ship were gliding along on glass. So tremendous was the tossing, so

extreme the apparent uncertainty of any event except a watery terminus

to all expectation, that this sort of coolness appeared almost wicked.

Then there was a monster in British form actually on deck--not braving,

it was said, but tempting the storm to sweep him into eternity. He

astonished even the ship's officers. The cook did not hesitate to

venture a strong opinion against the sanity of a man who might, if he

chose, be snugly ensconced in the cabin out of harm's way, but who

_would_ remain upon deck, in momentary danger of being blown overboard.

The cook's theory was not ill supported by the subject of it; for he was

continually placing himself in all manner of odd places and grotesque

postures. Sometimes he scrambled up on the cuddy-roof; then he rolled

down again on the saloon deck; now he got himself blown up on the

paddle-box; _that_ was not high enough for him, for when the vessel sunk

into a trough of the sea, he stood on tip-toe, trying to look over the

nearest wave. A consultation was held in the cuddy, and a resolution was

unanimously passed that the amateur of wind and water (which burst over

him every minute) was either an escaped lunatic or--a College Professor.

It was resolved _nem. con._ that he was the latter; and from that moment

nobody was surprised at any thing he might choose to do, even while the

Hibernia was laboring in what the mate was pleased to call the most

"lively" manner. The Professor, however, to the disgust of the sufferers

below, who thought it was enough to _feel_ the height of the waves,

without going to the trouble of measuring them, pursued his observations

in the face of the contempt of the official conclave above mentioned. He

took up his position on the cuddy roof, which was exactly twenty-three

feet three inches above the ship's line of flotation, and there watched

the mighty mountains that sported with the brave vessel. He was anxious

to ascertain the height of these majestic waves, but he found that the

crests rose so far above the horizon from the point where he was

standing, that it was utterly impossible, without gaining a greater

height for observation, that he could arrive at any just estimate on the

subject. His observations from the cuddy-roof proved, however, beyond a

doubt, that the majority of these rolling masses of water attained a

height of considerably more than twenty-four feet, measuring from the

trough of the sea to the crests of the waves. But the Professor was not

satisfied with this negative proof; and in the pursuit of his

interesting inquiry, did not feel inclined to be baffled. It is

impossible to know what the secret thoughts of the men at the wheel

were, when the valiant observer announced his intention of making the

best of his way from the cuddy-roof to the larboard paddle-box. Now he

was to be seen tumbling about with the motion of the ship; at one moment

clinging to a chain-box; at the next, throwing himself into the arms of

the second mate. Now he is buried in spray, and a few minutes afterward

his spare form is seen clinging to the rails which connect the

paddle-boxes.

Despite the storm without, a calm mathematical process is going on

within the mind of that ardent observer. The Professor knew he was

standing at a height of twenty-four feet nine inches above the flotation

mark of the ship: and allowing five feet six inches as the height of his

eye, he found the elevation he had obtained to be altogether thirty feet

three inches. He now waited till the vessel subsided fairly for a few

minutes into the trough of the sea in an even and upright position,

while the nearest approaching wave had its maximum altitude. Here he

found also, that at least one-half part of the wave intercepted by a

considerable elevation his view of the horizon. He declared that he

frequently observed long ranges extending one hundred yards on one or

both sides of the ship--the sea then coming right aft--which rose so

high above the visible horizon, as to form an angle estimated at two to

three degrees when the distance of the wave's crest, was about a hundred

yards off. This distance would add about thirteen feet to the level of

the eye. This immense elevation occurred about every sixth wave. Now and

then, when the course of a gigantic wave was impertinently interfered

with by another liquid giant, and they thundered together, their

breaking crests would shoot upward at least ten or fifteen feet

higher--about half the height of the monument--and then pour down a

mighty flood upon the poor Professor in revenge for his attempt to

measure their majesties. No quantity of salt water, however, could wash

him from his post, till he had satisfactorily proved, by accurate

observation, that the average wave which passed the vessel was fully

equal to the height of his eye--or thirty feet three inches--and that

the mean highest waves, not including the fighting or broken waves, were

about forty-three feet above the level of the hollow occupied at the

moment by the ship.

Satisfied at length of the truth of his observations, the Professor,

half-pickled by the salt water, and looking, it must be confessed, very

cold and miserable, descended to the cabin. Throughout dinner-time a

conversation was kept up between the Professor and the captain--the

latter appearing to be about the only individual on board who took any

interest whatever in these scientific proceedings. The ladies, one and

all, vowed that the Professor was a monster, only doing "all this stuff"

in mockery of their sufferings. Toward night the wind increased to a

hurricane; the ship trembled like a frightened child before the terrible

combat of the elements. Night, with her pall, closed in the scene: it

was a wild and solemn time. Toward morning the wind abated. For thirty

hours a violent northwest gale had swept over the heaving bosom of the

broad Atlantic.

This reflection hastened the dressing and breakfasting operations of the

Professor, who tumbled up on deck at about ten o'clock in the morning.

The storm had been subdued for several hours, and there was a visible

decrease in the height of the waves. He took up his old position on the

cuddy-roof, and soon observed, that, even then, when the sea was

comparatively quiet, ten waves overtook the vessel in succession, which

all rose above the apparent horizon; consequently they must have been

more than twenty-three feet--probably about twenty-six feet--from ridge

to hollow. From the larboard paddle-box, to which the Professor once

more scrambled, he observed that occasionally four or five waves in

succession rose above the visible horizon--hence they must have been

more than thirty feet waves. He also observed that the waves no longer

ran in long ridges, but presented more the form of cones of moderate

elongation.

Having so far satisfied himself as to the height of Atlantic waves in a

gale of wind (the Professor's estimate must not be taken as the

measurement of the highest known waves, but simply as that of a rough

Atlantic sea), he directed his attention to minuter and more difficult

observations. He determined to measure the period of time occupied by

the regular waves in overtaking the ship, their width from crest to

crest, and the rate of their traveling. The first point to be known was

the speed of the ship; this he ascertained to be nine knots. His next

object was to note her course in reference to the direction of the

waves. He found that the true course of the vessel was east, and that

the waves came from the west-northwest, so that they passed under the

vessel at a considerable angle. The length of the ship was stated to be

two hundred and twenty feet. Provided with this information the

Professor renewed his observations. He proceeded to count the seconds

the crest of a wave took to travel from stern to stem of the vessel;

these he ascertained to be six. He then counted the time which

intervened between the moment when one crest touched the stern of the

vessel, and the next touched it, and he found the average interval to

be sixteen seconds and a fraction. These results gave him at once the

width between crest and crest. As the crest traveled two hundred and

twenty feet (or the length of the vessel) in six seconds, and sixteen

seconds elapsed before the next crest touched the stern, it was clear

that the wave was nearly three times the length of the vessel; to write

accurately, there was a distance of six hundred and five feet from crest

to crest.

The Professor did not forget that the oblique course of the ship

elongated her line over the waves; this elongation he estimated at

forty-five feet, reducing the probable average distance between crest

and crest to five hundred and fifty-nine feet.

Being quite satisfied with the result of this experiment, the hardy

Professor, still balancing himself on his giddy height, to the wonder

and amusement of the sailors, found that the calculations he had already

made did not give him the actual velocity of the waves. A wave-crest

certainly passed from stern to stem in six seconds, but then the ship

was traveling in the same direction, at the rate of nine geographical

miles per hour, or 15.2 feet per second; this rate the Professor added

to the former measure, which gave 790.5 feet for the actual distance

traversed by the wave in 16.5 seconds, being at the rate of 32.67

English miles per hour. This computation was afterward compared with

calculations made from totally different data by Mr. Scott Russell, and

found to be quite correct.

With these facts the Professor scrambled from the larboard paddle-box of

the Hibernia. He had also made some observations on the forms of waves.

When the wind blows steadily from one point, they are generally regular;

but when it is high and gusty, and shifts from point to point, the sea

is broken up, and the waves take a more conical shape, and assume

fantastical crests. While the sea ran high, the Professor observed now

and then a ridge of waves extending from about a quarter to a third of a

mile in length, forming, as it were, a rampart of water. This ridge was

sometimes straight, and sometimes bent as of a crescent form, with the

central mass of water higher than the rest, and not unfrequently with

two or three semi-elliptical mounds in diminishing series on either side

of the highest peak.

When the wind had subsided, a few of the bolder passengers crawled upon

deck in the oddest imaginable costumes. They had not much to encounter,

for about a third part of the greater undulations averaged only

twenty-four feet, from crest to hollow, in height. These higher waves

could be seen and selected from the pigmy waves about them, at the

distance of a quarter of a mile from the ship.

The Professor had been very unpopular on board while the stormy weather

lasted, and the ladies had vowed that he was a sarcastic creature, who

_would_ have his little joke on the gravest calamities of life, but as

the waves decreased in bulk, and the wind lulled, and the sun shone,

and the men took off their oil-skin coats, and the cabin-windows were

opened, the frowns of the fair voyagers wore off. Perfect good-will was

general before the ship sighted Liverpool; and even the cook, as he

prepared the last dinner for the passengers, was heard to declare (in

confidence to one of the stokers) that, after all, there might be

something worth knowing in the Professor's observations.

When the Professor landed at Liverpool, he would, on no account, suffer

the carpet-bag, containing his calculations, to be taken out of his

sight. Several inquisitive persons, however, made the best use of their

own eyes, to ascertain the name of the extraordinary observer, and found

it to be legibly inscribed with the well-known name of Scoresby.

That his investigations may be the more readily impressed on the

reader's mind, we conclude with a summary of them. It would seem from

Dr. Scoresby's intrepid investigations, that the highest waves of the

Atlantic average in

Altitude 43 feet

Mean Distance between each Wave 559 "

Width from Crest to Crest 600 "

Interval of Time between each wave 16 seconds

Velocity of each Wave per hour 32-1/2 miles.

HOW TO KILL CLEVER CHILDREN.[24]

At any time in life, excessive and continued mental exertion is hurtful;

but in infancy and early youth, when the structure of the brain is still

immature and delicate, permanent injury is more easily produced by

injudicious treatment than at any subsequent period. In this respect,

the analogy is complete between the brain and the other parts of the

body, as is exemplified in the injurious effects of premature exercise

of the bones and muscles. Scrofulous and rickety children are the most

usual sufferers in this way. They are generally remarkable for large

heads, great precocity of understanding, and small, delicate bodies. But

in such instances, the great size of the brain, and the acuteness of the

mind, are the results of morbid growth, and even with the best

management, the child passes the first years of its life constantly on

the brink of active disease. Instead, however, of trying to repress its

mental activity, as they should, the fond parents, misled by the promise

of genius, too often excite it still further by unceasing cultivation

and the never-failing stimulus of praise; and finding its progress, for

a time, equal to their warmest wishes, they look forward with ecstasy to

the day when its talents will break forth and shed a lustre on their

name. But in exact proportion as the picture becomes brighter to their

fancy, the probability of its becoming realized becomes less; for the

brain, worn out by premature exertion, either becomes diseased or loses

its tone, leaving the mental powers feeble and depressed for the

remainder of life. The expected prodigy is thus, in the end, easily

outstripped in the social race by many whose dull outset promised him an

easy victory.

To him who takes for his guide the necessities of the constitution, it

will be obvious that the modes of treatment commonly resorted to should

in such cases be reversed; and that, instead of straining to the utmost

the already irritable powers of the precocious child, leaving his dull

competitors to ripen at leisure, a systematic attempt ought to be made,

from early infancy, to rouse to action the languid faculties of the

latter, while no pains should be spared to moderate and give tone to the

activity of the former. But instead of this, the prematurely intelligent

child is generally sent to school, and tasked with lessons at an

unusually early age, while the healthy but more backward boy, who

requires to be stimulated, is kept at home in idleness merely on account

of his backwardness. A double error is here committed, and the

consequences to the active-minded boy are not unfrequently the permanent

loss both of health and of his envied superiority of intellect.

In speaking of children of this description, Dr. Brigham, in an

excellent little work on the influence of mental excitement on health,

remarks as follows: "Dangerous forms of scrofulous disease among

children have repeatedly fallen under my observation, for which I could

not account in any other way than by supposing that the brain had been

excited at the expense of the other parts of the system, and at a time

in life when nature is endeavoring to perfect all the organs of the

body; and after the disease commenced, I have seen, with grief, the

influence of the same cause in retarding or preventing recovery. I have

seen several affecting and melancholy instances of children, five or six

years of age, lingering a while with diseases from which those less

gifted readily recover, and at last dying, notwithstanding the utmost

efforts to restore them. During their sickness they constantly

manifested a passion for books and mental excitement, and were admired

for the maturity of their minds. The chance for the recovery of such

precocious children is, in my opinion, small when attacked by disease;

and several medical men have informed me that their own observations had

led them to form the same opinion, and have remarked that, in two cases

of sickness, if one of the patients was a child of superior and

highly-cultivated mental powers, and the other one equally sick, but

whose mind had not been excited by study, they should feel less

confident of the recovery of the former than of the latter. This mental

precocity results from an unnatural development of one organ of the body

at the expense of the constitution."

There can be little doubt but that ignorance on the part of parents and

teachers, is the principal cause that leads to the too early and

excessive cultivation of the minds of children, and especially of such

as are precocious and delicate. Hence the necessity of imparting

instruction on this subject to both parents and teachers, and to all

persons who are in any way charged with the care and education of the

young. This necessity becomes the more imperative from the fact that the

cupidity of authors and publishers has led to the preparation of

"children's books," many of which are announced as purposely prepared

"for children from _two_ to _three_ years old!" I might instance

advertisements of "Infant Manuals" of botany, geometry, and astronomy!

In not a few isolated families, but in many neighborhoods, villages, and

cities, in various parts of the country, children _under three years of

age_ are not only required to commit to memory many verses, texts of

Scripture, and stories, but are frequently sent to school for six hours

a day. Few children are kept back later than the age of _four_, unless

they reside a great distance from school, and some not even then. At

home, too, they are induced by all sorts of excitements to learn

additional tasks, or peruse juvenile books and magazines, till the

nervous system becomes enfeebled, and the health broken. "I have

myself," says Dr. Brigham, "seen many children who are supposed to

possess almost miraculous mental powers, experiencing these effects and

sinking under them. Some of them died early, when but six or eight years

of age, but manifested to the last a maturity of understanding, which

only increased the agony of separation. Their minds, like some of the

fairest flowers were 'no sooner blown than blasted;' others have grown

up to manhood, but with feeble bodies and disordered nervous system,

which subjected them to hypochondriasis, dyspepsy, and all the Protean

forms of nervous disease; others of the class of early prodigies exhibit

in manhood but small mental powers, and are the mere passive instruments

of those who in early life were accounted far their inferiors."

This hot-bed system of education is not confined to the United States,

but is practiced less or more in all civilized countries. Dr. Combe, of

Scotland, gives an account of one of these early prodigies, whose fate

he witnessed. The circumstances were exactly such as those above

described. The prematurely developed intellect was admired, and

constantly stimulated by injudicious praise, and by daily exhibition to

every visitor who chanced to call. Entertaining books were thrown in its

way, reading by the fireside encouraged, play and exercise neglected,

the diet allowed to be full and heating, and the appetite pampered by

every delicacy. The results were the speedy deterioration of a weak

constitution, a high degree of nervous sensibility, deranged digestion,

disordered bowels, defective nutrition, and, lastly, _death_, at the

very time when the interest excited by the mental precocity was at its

height.

Such, however, is the ignorance of the majority of parents and teachers

on all physiological subjects, that when one of these infant prodigies

dies from erroneous treatment, it is not unusual to publish a memoir of

his life, that other parents and teachers may see by what means such

transcendent qualities were called forth. Dr. Brigham refers to a memoir

of this kind, in which the history of a child, aged four years and

eleven months, is narrated as approved by "several judicious persons,

ministers and others, all of whom united in the request that it might be

published, and all agreed in the opinion that a knowledge of the manner

in which the child was treated, together with the results, would be

profitable to both parents and children, and a benefit to the cause of

education." This infant philosopher was "taught hymns before he could

speak plainly;" "reasoned with," and constantly instructed until his

last illness, which, "_without any assignable cause_," put on a violent

and unexpected form, and carried him off!

As a _warning to others_ not to force education too soon or too fast,

this case may be truly profitable to both parents and children, and a

benefit to the cause of education; but _as an example to be followed_,

it assuredly can not be too strongly or too loudly condemned.

FOOTNOTE:

[24] From MAYHEW's Treatise on "Popular Education," soon to be

issued from the press of Messrs. Harper and Brothers.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

(_Continued from Page 639._)