The universal anthology : a collection of the best literature, ancient, mediaeval and modern, with biographical and explanatory notes

presented to

Gbe Xibran?

of tbe

TUniversitp of Toronto

THE UNIVERSAL ANTHOLOGY

WITH BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS
BY

RICHARD GARNETT
(EDITOR-IN-CHIEF)

LEON VALLEE

(FRENCH LITERATURE)

ALOIS BRANDL

(GERMAN LITERATURE)

AND

PAUL BOURGET

(French Critical Essays)

EMILE ZOLA

(French Naturalistic Literature)

EDWARD DOWDEN

(Elizabethan Literature)

DEAN FARRAR

(Literature of Religious Criticism)

E. MELCHIOR DE VOGUE

(Russian Literature)

DONALD G. MITCHELL

(Collected Literature)

F. BRUNETIERE

(Modern French Poetry)

HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS

(Scientific Literature)

AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD

(American Literature)

ANDREW LANG

(Nineteenth Century Literature)

HENRY JAMES

(The Novel)

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

(The Modern Drama)

PASQUALE VILLARI

(The Italian Renaissance)

BRET HARTE

(Short Stories)

ARMANDO PALACIO VALDES

(Decadent Literature)

EDMUND GOSSE

(Poetry)

J. P. MAHAFFY

(Historical Literature)

WALTER BESANT

(Historical Novels)

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Fairy Tales

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GARNETT MEMORIAL EDITION

THE

UNIVERSAL ANTHOLOGY

in

A COLLECTION OF THE BEST LITERATURE, ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN,
WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

EDITED BY

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Copyright 1899

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V-13

TABLE OP CONTENTS.

VOLUME XXIII.

The Decadence of Modern Literature : Introduction, translated from the
Spanish of ARMANDO PALACIO - VALDES . . . . .

The Essence of Sin

Vain Virtues . . . .

Lost Days . . .

The Red Fisherman . . .

Lust . . . . . .

A Vision of Purgatory . .
The Olive Boughs ....

Van Artevelde and his Companions .
Two Women

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Poems of Alfred de Musset :

From " Ode to Malibran "

On a Slab of Rose Marble .

ToPSpa ....

Alfred de Musset . . ' .

The Sea

Nell Cook

The Jackdaw of Rheims . . .
Roaring Ralph and the Jibbenainosay
Rory O'More's Present to the Priest
Rory O'More .....
Mr. Pickwick's Adventure with the Middle-

Aged Lady in Yellow Curl Papers
The Bells of Shandon . , .
Sam Slick and the Nova Scotians
Dotheboys Hall ....
Murder Will Out .
Life ...
The Procession of Life
In the Garden at Swainston
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
A Brutal Captain ....
American Democracy and Women .
Compensation ....

Hartley Coleridge
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Winthrop M. Praed
Shakespeare .
William Maginn
Sarah Flower Adams
Sir Henry Taylor .
2V. P. Willis .
Arthur Helps .

C. A. Sainte-Beuve .
Bryan Watter Procter
Richard Harris Barham
Richard Harris Barham
Robert M. Bird
Samuel Lover .
Samuel Lover .

Charles Dickens
Francis Mahony
Thomas C. Haliburton
Charles Dickens
W. G. Simms
Philip James Bailey
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Alfred Tennyson
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Richard Henry Dana
Alexis de Tocqueville
Ralph Waldo Emerson

PAGE

xiii
39
39
40
40
46
47
59
59
66
68

80

81

81

82

91

92

97

101

115

120

121

138
140
155
175
195
198
210
211
220
229
224

x TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

The Conqueror Worm .... Edgar Allan Poe . . 261

The Gold Bug Edgar Allan Poe . . 262

The King of the Golden River . . John Ruskin . . . 296

Maidenhood H . W. Longfellow . . 318

The Golden Milestone . . . . H. W. Longfellow . . 319

The Skeleton in Armor . . . . H. W. Longfellow . . 321

Death of Ready and Rescue of the Seagraves Frederick Marryat . . 329

Friendship ...... Ralph Waldo Emerson . 342

The Courtin' ..... James Riissell Lowell . 355

Ten Thousand a Year .... Samuel Warren . . 357

The Afghan War Justin McCarthy . . 373

The Spider and the Fly .... Mary Howitt . . . 385

The Masque of the Red Death . . . Edgar Allan Poe . . 388

Tales from the Fjeld . . . .P.O. Asbjornsen . . 393

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOLUME XXIH.
FAIRY TALES . . . ... . . . Frontispiece

PAGE

THE INTERCESSOR FOR THE FALLEN .' .... 66

OLD SONGS . . . . . 80

THE PROCESSION OF DEATH ... ... ". . 190

"WAITING," "WATCHING" . . 320

THE DECADENCE OF MODEEN LITEEATUEE

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH OF ARMANDO PALACIO-VALDES BY
Miss RACHEL CHALLICE

I WRITE for the reader who has a taste for discussing the theory
and technics of art. But he who simply seeks inspiration from
art need not linger, certain that he loses nothing by doing so;
and my own sympathy and that of all artists will always be for
him. For it is only a fresh imagination, free from rhetorical pre-
conceptions that can truly enjoy works of art and breathe freely
in the world of fancy. Besides, say it who will, no master of
marionettes likes to show the construction of his figures, with their
cords and springs, and if he does sometimes do so it is because he
is either impelled to defend himself from the faults attributed to
him, or has to warn the public against the errors of an unfair or
precipitate judgment.

However, it is not this which leads me to write the present
essay, nor did it inspire that which years ago I put at the begin-
ning of my novel, La Hermana San Sulpicio. Unfortunately
criticism hardly exists in Spain, and the author of novels rejoices
in a delightful peace like that enjoyed by Valmiky and Homer in
the early ages of the world when they wrote their immortal poems.
The only reason I have in mind — apart from a certain love of
didactics retained from my youth, when my unerring finger pointed
out to authors the way they should go — is the antagonism I feel
against the tastes and tendencies which prevail in the plastic as
well as in the poetic arts. This antagonism distressed me very
much, because it made me doubt myself. I cast my eye over
Europe, and I see nothing in poetry and painting but lugubrious

ziii

xiv THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

and prosaic scenes, and in music I hear nothing but sounds of
death.

From the steppes of Eussia come delirious mystics, who work
up the country of Moliere, Eabelais, and Voltaire. From thence
surge unwholesome analyses and scandalous improprieties, that
corrupt the sons of Cervantes. Finally, the glacial wind of Nor-
way sends, in dramatic form, symbolistic fancies which delight
Italy (the Italy which gave birth to Virgil, Petrarch, Eaphael, and
Titian!) naturalists, mystics, decadents, Ibsenists, and symbolists
in imaginative writing, and the luminous, cerulean, metallic schools
of painting. Art seems to me like an acute attack of nerves, the
artists sometimes like madmen, sometimes like charlatans, who
hide their want of power under monstrous affectations, and cleverly
profit by the general perversion of taste, whilst the public, depraved
by them and the prevailing utilitarianism, is without a criterion
to distinguish between the beautiful and wholesome, the ugly and
absurd. Seeing my mind so radically opposed to the spirit of the
age, I am seized with fear of mental aberration, there are moments
in which I fancy I am one of those unhappy degenerate beings,
incapable of "adapting himself to his surroundings/' so well
described by the modern philosophers of the Positive School, and it
distresses and upsets me, until at last I think of putting myself
under complete therapeutic treatment. It is possible that the
douches, the kola nut, and iron wine, will make me think that
the Norwegian dramas are as interesting as those of Shakespeare,
Calderon, or Schiller, the Eussian mystics as profound as Plato and
Spinoza, the novels of the Naturalistic School as beautiful as those
of Longus, Cervantes, and Goethe, and the pictures of the French
decadents better than those of Eubens and Velasquez. But until
this happy hour of my regeneration comes, or is possible, I crave
permission to make some critical remarks on the art of writing
novels, and I will lay down certain hypotheses that constitute the
ground of my own inspiration, which until now has sustained and
consoled me in the great amount of work I have done. Absurd or
true, I love them, and I only beg my reader to give them a
moment's consideration before condemning them.

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xv
II

Let us give a glance to the history of Art. There is one fact
that has long demanded weighty consideration, and that is the
fertility of some epochs, and the sterility of others. In the period
of little more than a century between Phidias and Praxiteles, the
fallen country of Greece gave birth to hundreds of sculptors, the
majority unknown to us, but whose works, albeit broken and
mutilated, fill us with admiration and delight, as they issue from
the ruins. In a period of fifty or sixty years of the fifteenth
century, there appears in the country of Flanders a powerful legion
of great painters, whose pictures, if they have been equalled, have
never been excelled. The inspiration of the Flemish artists
suddenly passes away in the sixteenth century, and goes over to
Italy, where some dozens of portentous geniuses live and work
simultaneously, each one of whom would have sufficed to glorify a
century. In the seventeenth century the magic power turns to
the Netherlands, and produces that marvellous outburst when
the painters not only numbered hundreds, but thousands. Our
country, feeling elevated by Italy and Flanders to the realm of
beauty, gives birth to the famous Spanish School, with Zurbaran,
Ribera, Velasquez, and Murillo. Does it not seem like an epi-
demic? There is soon an eclipse of the splendid sun, and we
are left in darkness and obscurity for two centuries, with only a
medium artist approximating, but never equalling the other
geniuses, occasionally shining like a melancholy, solitary star.

The explanation of this fact given by historians of Art has
never satisfied me. The appearance of Art as a natural conse-
quence of the aggrandisement of countries, as the flower of civilisa-
tion, which is the present prevailing theory, only adds one fact to
another, without explaining either of the two. We can certainly
assume that Art is a necessary outcome of a certain degree of
prosperity attained by countries, when man, having overcome the
obstacles which nature opposed to his subsistence, recovered from
his fatigue and enjoyed life quietly. But the difficulty is still
there. Why do many and great artists appear in certain periods

xvi THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

of prosperity, and none at other times of equal or more prosperity ?
Nobody can doubt that there actually exist in the world rich and
prosperous countries, where civilisation has risen to a height un-
known in history, where life is easy, safe and comfortable. France,
England, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland and the United
States of America, are undeniable testimonies of this statement.
Besides, in no known epoch of history have artists been able to
work with greater security, nor have they had such a large public
solicitous to reward them as now. Compare what any painter, of
however small a reputation, gets to-day with what Velasquez or
Eembrandt had for their works. Compare the consideration and
respect that artists enjoy nowadays, to the point of forming an
aristocracy as high and proud as that of blood, with the scornful
patronage accorded them by persons of distinction in other cen-
turies, and the wretched pittance occasionally granted them by
kings. What more favourable moment could present itself for the
flower of poetry to open its petals to the light, and display its most
brilliant colours? Fame, money, security are all in the hands of
the artist who can distinguish himself, and yet our painters and
sculptors cannot compare with those of other epochs! Music, the
most modern of arts, has for some years been quite decadent, and
literature, as I will soon show, equally so.

" There are," say naturalistic philosophers, " physiological rea-
sons which explain and determine this phenomenon of life." I do
not doubt it. Man is completely subject to the forces working in
the heart of nature, which generate, as much as they hinder, the
development of individuals and races. But the action of such
forces is so mysterious, it works by ways so strange to us that we
can only vaguely attribute to them what happens in the world.
Our mind demands more approximate reasons. I will now, in all
humility, suggest a rational solution of the problem, in the hope
that if it do not satisfy the reader, it will at least help him to
think it out, and solve it for himself.

As there is no reason why the first fifty years of a century
should give birth to a hundred artists of great merit, and the
following fifty give none, I venture to maintain that, given the

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xvii

same conditions of race, environment, culture, security and
stimulus, men are born the same, or equal, in the second half of
a century : when there has been no material change in the environ-
ment, so there should be as many artists as in the first half. The
sole difference is, that whereas in the first half, men born with
capacities to feel beauty, and to represent it, were able to bring
them to light by a natural and logical development, those in the
second half, for causes I will npw point out, have not been able
to reveal their mental treasures.

I attribute the decadence of the leaux arts, where there is no
external reason to explain it, to the perversion of taste, and
consequent want of a healthy and adequate purpose in artists. I
believe it is the taste which determines the height to which the
painter, sculptor, or poet can rise in his works. The artists of the
epochs of decadence were born as well endowed by nature as
those of the most flourishing periods. Let us glance at our own
epoch. Let us examine the pictures painted at the present day,
the statues sculptured, or let us read attentively the works of
imagination published, and nobody can justly deny that they show
intellect, invention and study. If not in the majority, for the
production is excessive, I see in many of them the hand and
intelligence of a superior man perfectly endowed by nature to
produce beautiful and lasting works. Why are they not pro-
duced? Simply through misdirected intelligence, and a wrong
turn given to the artist's inspiration from the environment in
which he is born — in short, from a want of taste. This absence of
taste, above all in the cultivation of the arts, is the prevailing
feature of the day. " To be honest as this world goes, is to be one
man pick'd out of ten thousand," says Hamlet. And parodying
these words, we can say that in the fine arts nowadays a man of
good taste is one, not only among ten thousand, but among a
hundred thousand. The cause of this perversion of taste is not
due to passing circumstances, nor to defects of training, transmitted
from some individuals to others, nor to fortuitous aberrations.
The cause is deeper in my opinion ; it arises from the same cause
that induced the vast artistic superiority of Western over Asiatic art,

xviii THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

in the great development of individual energy. It is equally true
that there is no principle so true and effective but what, when
exaggerated, becomes an error and a source of ruin, and that the
" no extreme " of the Greek oracle is the greatest truth uttered in
the world up till now. Superior individual energy, assertion of
independence in face of nature, producing such variety of
characters, is what has elevated the Greek over the Indian,
Western Art over the Asiatic. In the Eastern world are only
types, hence the monotony, often not void of beauty and sublimity
in its poetic monuments. But that principle, fruitful for civilisa-
tion, and particularly for the arts, which engendered the Iliad, the
Prometheus Bound, the Niobe and the Parthenon, and which later
gave rise to the portentous works of the Eenaissance, when
exaggerated in Modern Europe, and drawn out of its just limits,
has resulted in want of equilibrium, and consequent decadence.
Exaggerated individual energy and independence have become
conceit. This is the canker-worm which corrodes and paralyses
contemporary artists. Note the method of the ancients, and those
who imitated them in the time of the Eenaissance. An artist
who by his excellent works attains to the merited position of
Master, collects around him a more or less numerous company of
youths, to whom he reveals the secrets of his art, and whom he
imbues with his own spirit, and, under a slow apprenticeship, raises
them from assistants to collaborators in his works. The pupil,
finally becoming a master, ends by leaving, but he continues
working in the same line and with the same methods, and with-
out being conscious of it, and without thinking of " breaking any
mould," by the mere force of his own artistic personality, he
produces distinctive works as beautiful, or more beautiful than
those of his master, but without breaking the bond uniting them.
The same thing happens in literature : Homer is the great master
of the Hellenic world. All dramatic, epic or lyric poets come to
him as the source of inspiration. ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Pindar,
and Euripides modestly confessed that they lived on the crumbs
from his table. Later, when Eome becomes the centre of literature,
her most notable poets were not above calling themselves disciples

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xix

of the Greeks, studying them with veneration, and imitating them
with complacency, which has not lowered them in the eyes of
posterity. The ^Eneid is an imitation of the Odyssey, and yet it
has gratified the world for twenty centuries. Sophocles said in
the last years of his life that if he had succeeded in writing any-
thing beautiful in his life, it was through renouncing ^schylus'
pompous style, and all those refinements of art to which he was
too much inclined. These words ought to make any artist think,
because they involve the profoundest teaching. When the
legendary cycles of Greece had been unravelled, and presented in a
marvellous way by the genius of ^schylus in the form of dramatic
trilogies, they seemed unsurpassable; Sophocles, nevertheless, did
succeed in improving on them. And he would not have achieved
this if, led by self-esteem, he had tried to improve upon him by
seeking better and brighter effects, and enforcing a style 01
language. But led solely by the love of the beautiful, and
remaining true to its nature, he only tried to produce beautiful
and perfect works, without caring to compete with the genius of
his glorious predecessor ; and through this modesty and moderation,
he arrived at being one of the greatest dramatists the world has
ever produced.

How different to the present system ! Hardly does a young
man know how to hold a paint-brush, pen, or chisel than he feels
impelled to create something original, if not strange and unheard
of ; he would think himself humiliated in following the methods 01
another artist, be he ever so great. The chief business with him
is not to work well, but to work in a different mode to others ;
originality is more to him than beauty. This idea which nowa-
days has such a strong hold on all heads, even the most empty,
reminds us of that graceful epigram of Goethe's on originals. A
certain person says, " I do not belong to any School, there exists no
living master from whom I would take lessons, and as to the dead,
I have never learnt anything from them," which, if I am not
mistaken, means, " I am a fool on my own account." What else is
this extravagant desire for originality, but, as we have said, an
exaggeration of individual energy, a want of equilibrium, the sin,

XX THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

in fact, of pride ? It is sad to confess it, but in the distorted ideal
followed by the arts nowadays, the whole censure should not fall
on those who cultivate them. The public also incurs a great share
of the blame ; the public, which instead of asking of them beautiful
works, well thought out, and skilfully executed, only demands
that they should be unlike others, and in this way it foments
the eccentricity and bad taste which have given rise in these
latter years to this crowd of extravagant and ridiculous works in
which impotence goes arm in arm with vanity. The novel, being
the predominant form of present literature, is the chief scene 01
this prevailing vice.

Ill

The novel is of a comprehensive genus, involving the nature of
the epic, the drama, and sometimes also entering the realms of
lyric poetry. Such scope gives the writer a delightful freedom,
not accorded to those who cultivate other more strictly defined
branches of art. Not only is it exempt from rhythmic language,
but from those fetters which dogmatic rhetoric imposes on epic and
lyric poets. The novel in its essence rejects every definition, it is
what the novelist wants it to be. But the logical result of such
independence is greater responsibility, for however much may be
forgiven a novelist, his power of invention must never flag, esprit
is the indispensable. The novelist is under the imperious necessity
never to fatigue the reader, to keep his attention alert, and his
spirit led along by invisible forces into the world of imagination.
How little do we, who write novels, bear this first requisite of all
romantic composition in mind. It seems most often that instead
of interesting the reader, and recreating his mind, we try to exhaust
his patience. Composition is the reef on which the majority of
writers of novels are stranded. There are plenty capable of repre-
senting the beauty and interest offered by life and its contrasts,
and they are gifted with great imagination, penetration and style.
But in my opinion there are very few who really know how to
compose a book. This is not because the talent for composing is

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxi

loftier or rarer than the others, but because authors do not give it
the attention it requires. Newton was once asked, " How did you
arrive at the discovery of the law of gravitation?" to which
question he modestly replied, " By thinking about it." If novelists
strove more to attain perfection in their works, and less to exhibit,
at all costs, the gifts they think they possess, or to create a
sensation, I believe they would be more beautiful and more en-
during. The first thing they should recollect is that a novel is a
work of art, therefore a work, in which harmony is essential This
harmony is naturally arrived at by the artist, who knows how to
put bounds to his conceptions, and to concentrate the treasures of
his imagination, exhibiting those required, and no more. Does
such limitation detract from the richness of its substance, the
bright portrayal of details, the feeling for colour, the delicate
appreciation of the most subtle relations of life ? I am far from
thinking so. All this can perfectly subsist within definite out-
lines. Suffice it that the novelist feels the necessity of clearness
and proportion.

Man is a limited being, and by the token, all that emanates
from him must also be limited. Because the ground of the work
of art, which is Ideal beauty, has no limits, it must not be thought
that its plastic or conceptive expression can dispense with them.
Beauty expresses itself eternally in nature, in a definite, clear,
concrete form ; in art it ought to be the same. There are many
artists who ignore this great truth, they imagine that in leaving
the outlines of their work uncertain, they emancipate themselves
from the limitations, constituted by their Being, and approximate
more to the sublimity and grandeur of the Ideal. It is an optical
delusion with which they deceive themselves and deceive others.
So when there appears one of these ostentatious, enormous, weari-
some works, enveloped in vagueness and mystery, full of symbolical
and mystical aspirations, like many of the Eomantic School of the
past, and nearly all of the modern naturalists, symbolists and
decadents, the public is delighted, it thinks that there is an
ineffable mystery behind those clouds, that it will finally discover
and contemplate the eternal secret, and so it runs eagerly to see

xxii -THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

^he miracle, but it soon turns away sad and disillusioned, because
behind so much show there is absolutely nothing. The portentous
work soon lapses into obscurity, whilst a well-defined, clear and
harmonious one, like the Odyssey, The Syracusans by Theocritus,
Hermann und Dorothea by Goethe, continue from century to
century, each fresh as a rose, reflecting the immortal beauty of the
universe. I sometimes think that this necessary harmony in the
composition of the novel is equivalent to simplicity. The novel
participates, as I have said, in the nature of the drama, and in
that of the epic, but more, in my opinion, in that of the latter.
It is not then essential for the action to advance rapidly until the
end without any lapse, like that of the drama, but it can go
slowly, stopping every minute to relate episodes, or to describe
countries and customs, like epic poems, because, as Schiller remarks
so wisely, the action with the dramatic poet is the true ami, whereas
with the epic writer (let us say novelist in this case) it is only a
medium to bring forward an absolute and aesthetic object. Now
what is this absolute aesthetic object which the epic poet and the
novelist pursue ? Schiller again describes it with admirable
clearness in another of his letters. The mission of the epic poet
is to reveal entirely the innermost truth of the event ; he only
describes the existence of things, and the effect that they naturally
produce; that is why, instead of hastening to the end of the
narration, we are pleased to be arrested at every moment in its
course. The novelist is therefore permitted to stop where he
thinks fit, like the epic poet. If he like clearness and moderation,
his work will be clear and harmonious, although it may frequently
be discursive. Nobody will dare deny these qualities to the
Odyssey, the jEneid, or Don Quixote, and Gil Bias de Santillana,
in spite of their numerous episodes. We must guard against
confounding harmony either with simplicity of plot or with
regularity of design. It is something profounder and more
spiritual, arising spontaneously from the beauty of the subject and
the equilibrium of the artist's faculties.

There is no need to remind the novelist that this liberty must
be subordinated to the inevitable exigency of every work of art to

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxiii

interest. So the episodes of the novel must have, like those of an
epic poem, an absolute and independent value, or, what comes to
the same thing, they must exercise on the mind the fascination
which beauty produces. If they give no pleasure, they should be
suppressed. The empirical rule of composition (and as it seems
impertinent of me to dogmatise on this point, I will add, in my
opinion) is that the episodes ought to be as little detached as
possible from the principal plot, and even if not apparent a secret
relation should be maintained between them and it. The most
plausible episodes are those which give a relative value to the
beauty of the main plot, throwing into relief the principal
character of the work, or giving what is now called local colouring ;
this is the revelation of the mysterious bond which unites man
with the nature, characters, and situations in which his mental
activity is exercised. Almost all those of Don Quixote conform
admirably with this requirement. But those of other Spanish
novelists, like Mateo Aleman, Vicente Espinel, Vilez de Guevara,
Cespedes, etc., weary us with their prolixity, if not by their
insipidity. And, in spite of their excellence, it is the same thing
with some foreign writers, like Kichardson, Fielding, Dickens, Jean
Paul Eichter, etc.

I will remark that this tendency to diverge has much decreased
at the present tune. Actual novelists have more pleasure in
seizing a plot and pursuing it without any divagations or break,
than in taking up secondary narrations, more or less removed from
the chief, as did those of the last century, and of the first half of
this. Nevertheless, in this point the writers of the Latin race are
more distinguished for their love of unity than are the Germans
and Slavs always inclined to a predilection for variety. The
works of these latter are characterised by a great richness of ideas
and sentiments ; in those of some of them there is much delicacy of
perception in seizing the most subtle relations of the Ideal world
which evades us ; but they are not generally so well composed as
those of the Latins. I will illustrate my meaning from two
modern writers who have passed away — Dostoievsky, a Eussian
writer, and Silvio Pellico, an Italian, who both narrated the

xxiv THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

history of their martyrdom in prison, where they were in-
carcerated for similar reasons. The book of the former, entitled
Recollections of the House of Death, is more original than that of
the latter, its sentiment perhaps more profound, its power of
observation indisputably more delicate, but on the other side, the
author is visibly deficient in the power of composition, and in
spite of its brilliant qualities, the book cannot be read without
fatigue. On the contrary, the work of the Italian writer, called
My Prison, albeit less powerful, is so much clearer, fresher, and
better equilibriated, and so admirably composed, that it has become
a classic, read in every country with real delight.

The length of the novel is also intimately connected with its
composition, because it is next to impossible to write a good one of
exaggerated dimensions. It seems at first sight stupid to indicate
material limits to a poetic work, and to clip the wings of the
artist. But it is more stupid to write works out of proportion,
which lead to the author being accused of presumption or, what is
worse, of fatuity. The immoderate desire to write a great deal is
often significant of a puerile wish to make a show of strength and
power, without understanding that the true way to exhibit
strength is to take a firm hold of the plot and rule it, whilst
keeping oneself completely in hand and under control In like
manner the exaltation, which gives rise sometimes to acts of
valour and heroism, and to inspired work in the spiritual line, is
not, according to doctors, an indication of a vigorous nervous
system, but of a feeble and weak one. The author who writes
voluminously should understand that all that his work gains in
extension loses in intensity, and that there is no plot which can-
not, and should not be developed in moderation. The Bamayana,
the Iliad, and the Odyssey, epics that reflect entire civilisations,
and which convey a world of ideas and customs, of events, of
scientific and historic remarks, do not contain as many pages as
certain modern novels. Moreover, an author who wishes to be
read not only in his life, but after his death (and the author who
does not wish this, should lay aside his pen), cannot shut his eyes,
when unblinded by vanity, to the fact that not only is it neces-

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxv

sary to produce a fine work to save himself from oblivion, but it
must not be a very long one. The world contains so many great
and beautiful works that it requires a long life to read them all
To ask the public, always anxious for novelty, to read a production
of inordinate length, when so many others are demanding his
attention, seems to me useless and ridiculous. I do not lay this
down as an absolute principle, because there may be a work of
such superior merit that, long or short, it will be read from century
to century ; I am only speaking of ordinary compositions. The
most noteworthy instance of what I say is seen in the celebrated
English novelist Eichardson, the author of Clarissa Harlowe
and Pamela, who, in spite of his admirable genius and exquisite
sensibility and perspicacity, added to the fact of his being the
father of the modern novel, is scarcely read nowadays, at least in
Latin countries. Given the indisputable beauty of his works, this
can only be due to their extreme length. And the proof of this is,
that in France and Spain, to encourage the taste for them, the
most interesting parts have been extracted and published in
epitomes and compendiums. Such a proceeding seems utter
profanation to me, but this is what writers are exposed to who
are incapable of concentrating the great faculties with which
nature has endowed them. And now I have said sufficient about
the structure, or skeleton, of the novel

IV

It is truly said that everything is a legitimate subject for a
novel ; every part of reality, every fraction of life, reproduced by an
inspired writer, can engender a novel. This statement, which I
consider true to a certain extent, when taken beyond its just
limitations, and proclaimed as an absolute principle, has given rise
to the trivial and prosaic literature which floods us at the present
day. It is true that the human mind can be embellished by
contact with every reality when it observes it contemplatively.
But it is not less true, that added to this element, purely sub-
jective, there is also in the production of beauty the objective

xxvi THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

element which determines its value and force. The pleasure of
Velasquez painting his " Drunkards," or that of Rembrandt, when
writing his celebrated lecture on anatomy, must have been great ;
it is always a pleasure to contemplate nature in a disinterested
fashion, and more so still to have the faculty of reproducing it with
the marvellous exactness of these masters. But the joy of Titian,
Correggio, and Eaphael must have been infinitely greater, because
these fine artists not only became engrossed in nature like the others,
not only did they reproduce it with admirable truth, but they
lived in intimate relation with its purest and most elevated forms,
forms in which nature has been freest to express itself. And when
this nature was checked in its development by some obstacle
which disfigured it, these painters, guided by their instinct,
interpreted it, revealed its secret aim, and helped it to express
clearly what it had only stammered confusedly.

The subject, or theme, on which a writer exercises his pen, is
not then immaterial Everything has its value, like the different
departments in which man fulfills the law of labour, but some are
low and some are high. Perhaps this statement sounds old-
fashioned to modern aesthetes, but I find it true. After all, with
regard to most of these subjects, the old truth is enough for me.
He who paints still life well, will never be such a great artist as
he who paints reed life well ; he who only reproduces the grosser
forms of life and the rudimentary movements of the mind, will
not rise to the glory of knowing how to evoke, and place in
pathetic conflict, the great passions of the human soul I consider
the stress laid nowadays on the good arrangement of accessories,
both in the plastic and poetic arts, absurd. To paint the back-
ground of a picture well, the furniture and details, is not to be a
painter in the highest acceptance, given by our imagination, to
the word. To make a rough rustic speak appropriately, to describe
accurately the customs of a country, is not sufficient to merit the
title of a great novelist. The Greeks laughed at painters of
eating-houses.

I believe so much in the value of the theme chosen for the
work, that a worthy and beautiful subject is the best thing that

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxvii

an artist can possess in his life, it is a real gift from the gods.
How many great writers have passed into oblivion through not
having had this good fortune !

Where would Cervantes be now if his tiresome sojourn in
Argamasilla, which brought him in contact with some original
types, had not suggested the characters of Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza? On the other hand, there have existed writers
who, without possessing a great talent, or rising to the exalted
stage of poetic inspiration, called genius, have been immortalised,
thanks to a fortunate discovery of subject. The most notable
instance I know of this, in modern times, is that of the Abbe
PreVost, whose creative faculties, judging from the numerous
works that he wrote, and which fell to the ground, did not surpass
mediocrity, when an interesting episode, perhaps of his own life,
perhaps that of a friend, raised him to the height of the finest
stars of art. Manon Lescaut is one of the most beautiful and
best conceived works that the human mind has ever produced.
Another writer, who affords an equally or more striking instance
of this fact, has just died. The plays of Alexandre Dumas fils
are considered by men of taste as false, full of mannerisms,
abstract, certain to die when the public taste goes in other
directions. Nevertheless, in his celebrated Dame aux Camtlias,
he surpassed himself and rose to the extreme heights of poetry.
This drama is so beautiful, so original, so pathetic, exhales such
a perfume of poetry mingled with such a profound Christian
sentiment, that I much doubt that any other dramatic production
of this century can compete with it for the admiration of posterity.
Such a gulf between the works of the same author can only be
explained by the felicity of the subject.

I do not deny, however, that there have existed writers, like
Shakespeare and Moliere, capable of attaining not only in one, but
in many, of their works, to a high degree of perfection ; but let us
remember that Shakespeare and Moliere did not invent their plots,
they took them from whence they chose. Their powerful instinct
made them understand what they ended in stating, that beautiful
themes are rare in poetry, and that sometimes a mediocre writer,

xxviii THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

and even a fool, may light upon them, and then, for the good of
humanity, it is legitimate to take them.

The method of contemporaneous writers is quite different.
Equipped with the theory that all life is a worthy subject for a
novel, we accept the most insignificant and insipid acts of ordinary
existence, and on that we write a story.

Consequently the majority of novels and dramatic works are
wanting in power and interest, however vigorously drawn the
characters may be. I have often been sorry to se« writers exercising
their great talent on worthless subjects, and I have deplored their
want of Shakespeare and Moliere's method of taking the good
where they could find it. This wretched fear of using subjects
already usod ™as unknown to the ancients ; ^Eschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides had no hesitation in writing on the same subject
as we see in the " Philoctetes." But our sensitive amour propre, the
overweening desire for originality, to which we are a prey, makes
us feel we are dishonoured if we take a plot from another writer,
although we know we should do better by doing so. To hide this
dearth of imagination, which is patent, and yet to produce a deep
impression, the best known authors actually have recourse to
devices which, when I have depicted, will give a succinct idea
of the vices to which I feel the modern novel has fallen a prey
— vices, nearly all of which could easily disappear if, instead ol
making it a business to show the public the brightness of our
intellect and the force of our imagination, we undertook to write
solid and good works. Like the English writer, Thomas Carlyle,
I think sincerity is the essence of a superior man (or hero, as he
calls him), and that the absence of sincerity, not that of intellect, is
vhati has caused a decadence of modern Art.

One of the most common resources of contemporaneous novelists
ic vhat I will term accumulation. As ordinary life seldom offers
interesting themes for imaginative works, and its simple representa-
tion frequently borders on triviality (as we see in a great number
of English and German novelists), instead of waiting patiently for
life to offer a suitable subject, they prefer to take a long period,
and condensing it into a representation of a short space of time,

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxix

they succeed in making it interesting. It is not, then, a general
rule to narrate with truth and art a beautiful episode of the
history of a man, or the entire history of this man, when
it is interesting, such as that of a soldier, workman, or miner,
and with this end in view, paint as a secondary thing the
environment, or the places in which this life unfolds itself.
The primary consideration of authors of the present day is
to describe the life of soldiers, workmen, or miners, making that of
some individual of the class a mere accessory and pretext for the
picture. This abstract proceeding is not, in my opinion, conform-
able to the nature of art. And it is no good quoting the example
of epic poets, who sometimes resume an entire civilisation in one
poem, because, besides the smallness of the number meriting such
a name, an epic poet has not followed such a course in a general
way, but in a limited and individual one. Homer, or the rhapsodic
Homeric poets, do not try to describe in the Iliad the Hellenic
world before the irruption of the Dorians, but only the anger of
Achilles, nor in the Odyssey is the Western civilisation depicted,
but only the Labours of Ulysses.

However, assuming the legitimacy of these intentions, the
present manner of realisation is still censurable. Instead of
representing the life of such, or such a country, or class of society
quietly, and as it really appears, the novelist, overwhelmed with
the desire to make a great impression, exaggerates, falsifies, and
accumulates all the data which reality offers them in a dispersed
form.

You have only to cast an impartial glance at some of the recent
and famous French productions, describing the life of the country
and its mines, to be convinced that the writer has not observed or
painted them with sincerity, but that he has accumulated in an
obviously artificial manner, all the crimes, wickednesses, and horrors
that he has read for years in the press, as having happened in
different departments in France, into one point. On the other hand,
in German, English, and Spanish novels, describing the life of country
folk, honour, purity and happiness are the order of the day. This
is still more false, as naturalists chiefly take their stand on a

xxx THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

certain fact, to wit, that the self-interest and egoism, which
dominate the majority of men, is seen in the most brutal and
repugnant form among the uncultured classes. Russian novelists
generally follow in the steps of the French, and even surpass them
in this respect. I have read a dramatic work entitled The Power
of Darkness, which in its concentrated horror far exceeds the
French. The famous Kreutzer Sonata, by the same author,
purposes nothing less than to prove that the conjugal relation,
sometimes so holy and sweet, involves nothing but sadness, passion,
and immorality. With all due respect to those whose talent I do
not deny, I go on believing that all is not gloom in life, and that
to describe it as it really is, we must rid our heart of all rancour,
free it from all disquietude and lust of the flesh, and contemplate
it without prejudice. Not only as a convenience, for it absolves
the poet from the strict law of inspiration, but as a novelty, the
French method is followed by a great number of writers in Europe.
Novelty is one of the most imperious necessities insisted on by the
public, as well as the artists in the last decade of the nineteenth
century. Few tendencies have seemed to me more absurd and
inimical to art. Stupid as it may be to live in constant antagonism
with one's epoch, it is still more so to enthusiastically conform to
its every vagary, and not to wish tolenjoy, or value the works which
have preceded us. The present moment is a stage of the large
and varied evolution of human reason, and although of great
importance to us compared with the whole history of this evolution
it is of small import. The artist, then, should not depreciate the
epoch which gave him birth, but love it, so as to extract from it the
divine spirit of poetry which exists in all times and in all places.
But he who is incapable of loving the treasures of beauty
bequeathed us by our ancestors, will never reach the sacred heights
of Olympus. " The best songs," says Telemachus in the Odyssey,
" are always the newest." With a little thought, one can under-
stand that human passions, the first material on which the poet
works, never change in their essential nature with the course of
centuries; and even in the social life, if time and space cause
changes, they are not so great as they appear at first sight. In

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxxi

reading Longus, Theocritus and Apuleius, we are astonished to see
that life in their times was very similar to ours. Let us take an
Indian novel or drama, and it is the same thing. A glance at
Celestina, the first important monument of our romantic literature,
will show us that the vices so admirably shown in it are almost
identical with those of the present time, and that its characters
think, talk, and act like those we meet every day in the street.
On the other hand, other more recent Spanish works, like Diana
by Montemayor, El Espanol Gerardo by Cespedes, the novels by
Lopez and Montalban, and most of our romantic comedies, make us
think we are contemplating a different world, and that there is a
gulf between our way of living, thinking and feeling, and that of
those people. What does that mean ? To me nothing, but that
the former reflect their epoch faithfully, whilst the latter, not
knowing how to extract anything interesting from it, preferred to
represent it imaginatively.

This last remark involves a subject of supreme interest in the
composition of a novel — that of verisimilitude. Modern novelists
are much concerned, and with reason, in giving verisimilitude to
their conceptions. I nevertheless opine that this course may be
carried to excess, and that we have passed irrationally from one
extreme to another, from the stupendous incr^ ble adventures
with which old writers seasoned their creations, to the prosaic
insipidity of the present day. Life is beautiful, and facts have an
absolute value. These are the truths to which I bow down both
in theory and in practice; but we must recollect that facts are
only of aesthetic value when they are revealers, when they make
our spirit vibrate with emotion for the beautiful. Phenomena
have no value in themselves in art. But I shall be asked, " What
is the difference between significative facts, or facts which are
revelations, and those which are not so ? " I confess I can give no
answer to that question, it is a mystery to me. The majority of
the incidents composing Balzac's novel entitled Uugenie Grandet are
commonplace, very vulgar and prosaic, and yet this novel causes
profound emotion, and may be regarded as one of the most wonder-
ful productions of the genius of this century. Analogous incidents

xxxii THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

in other novels leave us cold, if they do not bore us. Artists
themselves cannot explain such a mystery ; they feel it, they divine
it, and therefore their works are beautiful — that is enough. It is
stupid then to give them rules for particular cases ; they will take
the incidents they require, and in their hands they will always be
significant. But one must protest against the absurd supposition
that only commonplace and ordinary events ought to be in a novel.
On the contrary, on rare occasions, characters and phenomena arise of
such aesthetic value that their reproduction in art is not only con-
venient, but necessary. On this point it is curious what has
happened to me, and what I presume happens to all novelists. I
have often had scenes and events which I have taken from life
called unlikely, whilst those I have invented have never been
considered strange. It is because when I have been present at, or
heard any strange thing, I have had no scruple in using it, being
sure of its truth, but when I am obliged to invent facts I try
to keep clear from all that may seem strange or untrue.

The public and critics are equally on the alert against inveri-
eimilitude, and a poor author hardly steps off the beaten track
before the word, false is hurled at him from all sides. But these
shots are generally only fired against material inverisimilitude.
Moral inverisimilitude generally escapes them, and yet for the man
of good feeling, who knows life, it is surely not less censurable.
The novels of certain French writers, written to amuse the upper
classes, do not often have grave faults of material inverisimili-
tude, but they constantly sin against moral verisimilitude. The
naturalists themselves are much more severe against the former
than the latter. Even Balzac, conversant with life as he was, and
representing it with such art, sometimes runs counter to moral
logic. I shall never forget the sad effect caused on me in a work
so beautiful as Eugenie Grandet, by the passage in which the Abbe
Cruchet, soon after his cousin's arrival in Paris, warmly suggests to
Madame de Gramins that she should let herself be courted by him,
with the idea of casting him aside. Such an atrocious treachery
was more repugnant to me than the exploits of Artagnan in the
Three Musketeers, by Alexandra Dumas, pere.

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxxm

To live in an ideal world is the best thing for an artist to do.
Imagination is the magic wand that transforms the world and
embellishes it. But at the same time one ought to steep oneself
occasionally in reality, touch the earth every now and then, for with
each touch one will gather fresh strength, as did the giant Antaeua
Fact has an inestimable value, which is vainly sought for in the
flights of the spirit. All abstractions disappear before it ; it is the
true revealer of the essence of things, not the conceptions which
our mind extracts from them, and in the last resource one has to
resort to it for the basis of all judgment, and for the enjoyment of
any beauty. I give unqualified approbation, then, to this respect
felt by good novelists for truth, and the care with which they try to
avoid its falsification, even to the most insignificant details. But,
at the same time, I think that an exaggerated importance is given
to the accuracy of what we may call, in the language of painters,
accessories. It must be borne in mind that moral truth, i.e. that
of sentiment and character, is that which is fully found in the
dominions of the poet, and his responsibility consists chiefly in the
use he makes of it.

In olden times, novelists had licence to give vent to all kinds
of scientific or historic absurdities. Now it is rightly exacted that
they be in conformity with true discoveries. But we have come to
the opposite extreme, and we are violently attacked, as if we had
committed a crime, at the slightest error, not only in a physical,
historical, or mathematical point, but in one of costume or
archaeology. We are required to be walking encyclopaedias. There-
fore many writers who know the mania for criticism, and try not
to run counter to it, not only guard against these errors, but every
time they touch upon points of politics, administration, art, customs,
or fashions, they give really learned discourses on these subjects.
The reader is bored, but what does that matter as long as the
critic is delighted, and he pleases the common herd, which do not
know what to like ? Nevertheless, these gentlemen can think what
they like, but accuracy is not what is most required of the artist,
but rather the inducing a sense of the beautiful. Homer did not
cease to be the greatest poet because he thought that the river

xxxiv THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

Ocean encompassed the earth. This craving for accuracy, which I
like in principle, has given rise to the necessity of seeking a model
for everything which is represented. Painters will not touch a
brush, nor sculptors the clay, without a model before them. Follow-
ing their example, modern novelists carry a notebook in their
pocket, to put down what they hear. They all think it ridiculous
to work from memory, and yet this was the method among great
artists of past centuries. Rubens could not have had models for
the thousands of figures he painted. The proof of this is that he
painted even landscapes from memory, and there exists one of his,
in which the light comes from two opposite sides, which is absurd.
And yet the picture is very beautiful. Neither Shakespeare,
Moliere, nor Balzac witnessed the scenes they describe, nor knew
the characters they represent. Schiller confessed that his retired
and hard-working life gave him very few opportunities of observing
men. The model may then be necessary, but we must confess it
shows a want of power.

The painter, be it Rubens, Vinci, or Titian, has nature impressed
on his brain ; it suffices him to have seen an object to be able to
draw it with a sure hand, even when hidden by time and distance.
The poet has no need to see what he writes. He bears in himself
the entire soul of humanity, and a slight sign suffices for him to
recognise it in any man. It is in him and in the saint that we see
most clearly the essential identity of human beings, for both know
intuitively, directly and without the necessity of experience, the
heart of man. " I should disguise from myself a grave fact," said
Saint Juan de la Cruz to his hearers, " did I ignore that your souls
form part of mine. You and I are distinct beings in the world, in
God is our common origin, thus we are one being and live one
life."

For those novelists, whose imagination has not risen to that
supreme height of strength to permit them to write without care-
ful daily observation, real data is of absolute necessity, but as a
powerful aid to the imagination, I venture to counsel the con-
templative, not practical, study of the plastic arts. The novelist
ought to frequent museums of painting and sculpture, to accustom

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxxv

himself to describe by means of clear and precise images. More-
over, it is a means of counteracting the fatal mania for psychological
analysis, as artificial as it is false, which now prevails. Neither
Cervantes, Shakespeare, nor Moliere required such full voluminous
pages to make us see a character, to make it live for us, to engrave
it profoundly on our memory.

It is only just, however, to show, that if the modern novel has
erred in these fanciful analyses which spoil it, it has avoided
one rock on which old masters were frequently stranded, and that
is, reflections. There is nothing more prejudicial to the beauty of a
novel than this philosophising, vulgar when it is not puerile, with
which many novelists season their productions. Interpreting at
every step the hidden meaning of the incidents narrated, and
explaining their significance, is insupportable, and militates against
the fundamental principles of art. In the novel it is not the
author who should speak, but the incidents and characters, and if
the work involve any philosophy the reader should find it out for
himself. Not to trust to his perspicacity and give it him hot and
strong, as Balzac does, for instance, is to spoil the novel and expose
it at once to the critic's just remark, that his philosophy is that of
a commercial traveller.

Another important merit of the modern naturalistic school is, in
my opinion, the importance given to the description of nature, thus
uniting the tie, so long ruptured in literature, between man and
the exterior world. Since the Indian and Greek poems, objective
beauty has not been so exalted, nor has landscape been word
painted in such a perfect manner as the French naturalists do it at
present. They have acquired such perfection in this line, their
clear and flexible idiom gives them such a large vocabulary, that it
seems impossible to present a brighter and more perfect picture of
the world about us. The novels of Flaubert, especially, cannot be
read without feeling oneself subjugated by that pure and picturesque
diction which brings before our eyes so many gracious forms and
so many brilliant pictures. Nevertheless, this fortunate quality
has been abused. The disciples of that master have brought their
love of description to such a pitch that the characters and

xxxvi THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

situations are hardly visible through such thick foliage. Every art
has limits drawn by its own nature. When these limits are
attempted to be modified or widened, the result is ruin. The abuse
of description in literary works marks an intrusion of painting
into the realms of poetry. Every one knows the inimical effects of
this intrusion of one art upon another.

The violation of sculpture in the attempt to make it express
the same as painting is what has denaturalised it in modern times.
Making music express concrete ideas, only fit for poetry, is the
cause of its deplorable decadence. It is to be feared that the
attention given to the mise en scene will finally produce the same
feebleness and mannerism in literature as it has in painting. In
the latter we see details, clothes, furniture, etc., represented in a
marvellous way, whilst there is no good painter of the person.
Great masters like Eembrandt, Frans Hals, Velasquez, and Titian,
on the contrary, did not excel in clothes and other accessories, but
concentrated then- powers and attention on the other points.
Moreover, in poetry the excess of physical descriptions points to the
predominance of the physiological over the psychological element,
the same as the abuse of harmony in music. The brilliant de-
scriptions of the naturalistic school court the imagination, and help
on the work, but such novels rarely leave a deep impression on the
mind. In like manner the exquisite harmonies of "Wagner and his
school delight the ear, but they do not move the soul like the
eloquent voice of Beethoven, neither do they make one pass alter-
nately from sadness to joy, like the charming music of Haydn.

To attain a perfect harmony between the background and the
figures, and generally between all the elements of the composition,
one must imitate the Greeks. They alone have possessed the
secret of producing beauty in every point without injury to any
one of them, exhibiting the greatest richness united to the greatest
sobriety of representing in art the profound harmonies that exist
in the real world. The little that remains to us in the Greek
romantic line is of as much solid value as its architecture, its
sculpture, and its tragedy and comedy. Nothing can equal
Daphne and Chloe, the celebrated novel by Longus. In it are

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE xxxvii

united all the perfections of its kind. A simple, interesting story,
characters observed with nicety, and presented unaffectedly,
exquisite pictures of nature, bright descriptions of customs, a noble
and transparent style, all unite to form an enchanting harmony in
this beautiful creation. Every word is a pencil stroke, every
speech an image, every page a brilliant picture, which is stamped
for ever on the imagination. What a vein of facile inspiration
runs through it all ! What freshness and sobriety in the descrip-
tions ! What naturalness in the diction ! How far removed from
the modern emphasis ! I aspire to no greater glory in my art than
that of calling myself an humble disciple of this immortal work.

This aspiration may perhaps seem ridiculous to modern
criticism, or it may be called extravagant. Possibly the preceding
remarks will be considered as the expression of a mind incapable of
appreciating or understanding either the beauty and the splendour
or the profound and powerful thought of the contemporaneous
novel I know that my modest remarks will in no wise influence
the prevailing taste. This does not mortify me : firstly, because I
have never aspired to exercise the least influence on my times ; and
secondly, because to change my opinions it would be necessary to
change my nature, which is impossible. But nobody should
wonder that in my dreamy hours I imagine that, after some years,
Europe, fatigued with so much excess, want of proportion, and so
much false originality, will once more drink at the crystal fount of
Hellenic art. Then our present spurts of strength will be regarded
as spasmodic ebullition of a weakened nervous system : they will
say that we delighted in representations of physical and moral in-
firmities, because we were ourselves infirm in body and mind ; that
we felt ourselves attracted by the deformed and monstrous, because
our own evolution was deformed; and that we loved paradox,
because our being was paradoxical And quiting the tortuous
paths we trod, and leaving the altars of the Furies, on which we
sacrificed, artists of the future will at last walk along the path of
moderation, which is the sign of strength, and will deposit the
fruits of their intellect at the feet of the Graces. Happy shall I
be if I be granted life, long enough to see, albeit from afar, the

xxxviii THE DECADENCE OF MODERN LITERATURE

promised land ! If this be impossible, I am still consoled by the
idea that someone reading these lines will approve the spirit of
them and accord me his sympathy ; and after according a cordial
welcome to this kind reader, I will say to him, as the sage Yajna-
valkya said to Artabhaga in " el JJrahmana de los den sender os "
(The Brahmana of the Hundred Paths) : " Give me your hand,
friend, this knowledge was only made for you and me."

THE ESSENCE OF SIN.

BY HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

[Son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge : born 1796 ; studied at Merton and Oriel
Colleges, Oxford, but forfeited the Oriel fellowship by dissipation ; wrote beau-
tiful sonnets for the London Magazine ; took pupils at Ambleside for a while,
and lived there till his death in 1849.]

IF I have sinned in act, I may repent ;

If I have erred in thought, I may disclaim

My silent error, and yet feel no shame :
But if my soul, big with an ill intent,
Guilty in will, by fate be innocent,

Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse

And incapacity of being worse,
That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent

In keen expectance of a Carnival,
Where in all worlds that round the sun revolve,

And shed their influence on this passive ball,
Lives there a power that can my soul absolve ?
Could any sin survive and be forgiven,
One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.

VAIN VIRTUES.

BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
[1828-1882 ; for biographical sketch, see Vol. 10, page 282.]

WHAT is the sorriest thing that enters Hell ?
None of the sins, — but this and that fair deed
Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.
These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell
Might once have sainted ; whom the fiends compel
39

40 THE RED FISHERMAN.

Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves
Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves
Their refuse maidenhood abominable.
Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit,
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,

Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair
And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit
To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife,
The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

LOST DAYS.

BT DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

THE lost days of my life until to-day,

What were they, could I see them on the street

Lie as they fell ? Would they be ears of wheat
Sown once for food but trodden into clay ?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay ?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet ?

Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway ?
I do not see them here ; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see,
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.

" I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me ? "
"And I — and I — thyself," (lo ! each one saith,)

"And thou thyself to all eternity ! "

THE RED FISHERMAN; OR THE DEVIL'S DECOY.

BY WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.

[WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAKD, English writer of " vers de socie'te'," was
born July 26, 1802, in London. A boy of great early brilliancy, he was promi-
nent in school journalism at Eton, and had a wonderful career at Trinity College,
Cambridge. He won a fellowship, contributed much to Knight's Quarterly,
became a private tutor, entered the law, took to politics, and was member of
Parliament for most of the time from 1830 till his death in 1839. His collected
"Poems" contain several pieces of permanent popularity.]

" O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified 1 " — Romeo and Juliet.

THE Abbot arose, and closed his book,

And donned his sandal shoon,
And wandered forth, alone, to look

Upon the summer moon :

THE RED FISHERMAN. 41

A starlight sky was o'er his head,

A quiet breeze around ;
And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed,

And the waves a soothing sound :
It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught

But love and calm delight ;
Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought

On his wrinkled brow that night.
He gazed on the river that gurgled by,

But he thought not of the reeds ;
He clasped his gilded rosary,

But he did not tell the beads ;
If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke

The Spirit that dwelleth there ;
If he opened his lips, the words they spoke

Had never the tone of prayer.
A pious priest might the Abbot seem,

He had swayed the crosier well ;
But what was the theme of the Abbot's dream,

The Abbot were loath to tell.

Companionless, for a mile or more,

He traced the windings of the shore.

Oh, beauteous is that river still,

As it winds by many a sloping hill,

And many a dim o'erarching grove,

And many a flat and sunny cove,

And terraced lawns, whose bright arcades

The honeysuckle sweetly shades,

And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers,

So gay they are with grass and flowers !

But the Abbot was thinking of scenery

About as much, in sooth,
As a lover thinks of constancy,

Or an advocate of truth.
He did not mark how the skies in wrath

Grew dark above his head ;
He did not mark how the mossy path

Grew damp beneath his tread ;
And nearer he came, and still more near,

To a pool, in whose recess
The water had slept for many a year,

Unchanged and motionless ;
From the river stream it spread away

The space of half a rood ;

42 THE RED FISHERMAN.

The surface had the hue of clay

And the scent of human blood ;
The trees and the herbs that round it grew

Were venomous and foul,
And the birds that through the bushes flew

Were the vulture and the owl ;
The water was as dark and rank

As ever a company pumped,
And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank,

Grew rotten while it jumped ;
And bold was the man who thither came

At midnight, man or boy,
For the place was cursed with an evil name,

And that name was " The Devil's Decoy " I

The Abbot was weary as abbot could be,
And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree .
When suddenly rose a dismal tone —
Was it a song, or was it a moan ?
« Oho ! Oho !
Above — below —

Lightly and brightly they glide and go !
The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,
The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping ;
Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy,
Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy."
In a monstrous fright, by the murky light,
He looked to the left and he looked to the right.
And what was the vision close before him,
That flung such a sudden stupor o'er him ?
Tuns a sight to make the hair uprise,

And the lifeblood colder run :
The startled priest struck both his thighs,

And the abbey clock struck one !
All alone, by the side of the pool,
A tall man sat on a three-legged stool,
Kicking his heels on the dewy sod,
And putting in order his reel and rod ;
Red were the rags his shoulders wore,
And a high red cap on his head he bore ;
His arms and his legs were long and bare;
And two or three locks of long red hair
Were tossing about his scraggy neck,
Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck.
It might be time, or it might be trouble,
Had bent that stout back nearly double,

THE RED FISHERMAN. 43

Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets

That blazing couple of Congreve rockets,

And shrunk and shriveled that tawny skin,

Till it hardly covered the bones within.

The line the Abbot saw him throw

Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago,

And the hands that worked his foreign vest

Long ages ago had gone to their rest :

You would have sworn, as you looked on them,

He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem I

There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,

As he took forth a bait from his iron box.

Minnow or gentle, worm or fly —

It seemed not such to the Abbot's eye ;

Gayly it glittered with jewel and gem,

And its shape was the shape of a diadem.

It was fastened a gleaming hook about

By a chain within and a chain without ;

The fisherman gave it a kick and a spin,

And the water fizzed as it tumbled in !

From the bowels of the earth

Strange and varied sounds had birth;

Now the battle's bursting peal,

Neigh of steed and clang of steel ;

Now an old man's hollow groan

Echoed from the dungeon stone ;

Now the weak and wailing cry

Of a stripling's agony !

Cold by this was the midnight air;

But the Abbot's blood ran colder,
When he saw a gasping knight lie there,
With a gash beneath his clotted hair,

And a hump upon his shoulder.
And the loyal churchman strove in vain

To mutter a Paternoster ;
For he who writhed in mortal pain
Was camped that night on Bosworth plain —

The cruel Duke of Glo'ster !

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box.
It was a haunch of princely size,
Filling with fragrance earth and skies.

44 THE RED FISHERMAN.

The corpulent Abbot knew full well

The swelling form and the steaming smell ;

Never a monk that wore a hood

Could better have guessed the very wood

Where the noble hart had stood at bay,

Weary and wounded, at close of day.

Sounded then the noisy glee
Of a reveling company —
Sprightly story, wicked jest,
Rated servant, greeted guest,
Flow of wine and flight of cork,
Stroke of knife and thrust of fork :
But, where'er the board was spread,
Grace, I ween, was never said !
Pulling and tugging the Fisherman sat ;

And the Priest was ready to vomit,
When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat,
With a belly as big as a brimming vat,

And a nose as red as a comet.
" A capital stew," the Fisherman said,

" With cinnamon and sherry ! "
And the Abbot turned away his head,
For his brother was lying before him dead —

The Mayor of St. Edmund's Bury !

There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,

As he took forth a bait from his iron box.

It was a bundle of beautiful things —

A peacock's tail, and a butterfly's wings,

A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,

A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl,

And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold

Such a stream of delicate odors rolled,

That the Abbot fell on his face, and fainted,

And deemed his spirit was halfway sainted.

Sounds seemed dropping from the skies,
Stifled whispers, smothered sighs,
And the breath of vernal gales,
And the voice of nightingales :
But the nightingales were mute,
Envious, when an unseen lute
Shaped the music of its chords
Into passion's thrilling words :

THE RED FISHERMAN. 45

" Smile, Lady, smile ! I will not set
Upon my brow the coronet,
Till thou wilt gather roses white
To wear around its gems of light.
Smile, Lady, smile ! — I will not see
Rivers and Hastings bend the knee,
Till those bewitching lips of thine
Will bid me rise in bliss from mine.
Smile, Lady, smile ! — for who would win
A loveless throne through guilt and sin ?
Or who would reign o'er vale and hill,
If woman's heart were rebel still ? "

One jerk, and there a lady lay,

A lady wondrous fair ;
But the rose of her lip had faded away,
And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay,

And torn was her raven hair.
"Aha!" said the Fisher, in merry guise,

"Her gallant was hooked before; "
And the Abbot heaved some piteous sighs,
For oft he had blessed those deep blue eyes,

The eyes of Mistress Shore !

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,

As he took forth a bait from his iron box.

Many the cunning sportsman tried,

Many he flung with a frown aside ;

A minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest,

A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest,

Jewels of luster, robes of price,

Tomes of heresy, loaded dice,

And golden cups of the brightest wine

That ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine.

There was a perfume of sulphur and niter,

As he came at last to a bishop's miter !

From top to toe the Abbot shook,

As the Fisherman armed his golden hook,

And awfully were his features wrought

By some dark dream or wakened thought.

Look how the fearful felon gazes

On the scaffold his country's vengeance raises,

When the lips are cracked and the jaws are dry

With the thirst which only in death shall die :

46 LUST.

Mark the mariner's frenzied frown,

As the swirling wherry settles down,

When peril has numbed the sense and will,

Though the hand and the foot may struggle still :

Wilder far was the Abbot's glance,

Deeper far was the Abbot's trance:

Fixed as a monument, still as air,

He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer ;

But he signed — he knew not why or how —

The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow.

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,
As he stalked away with his iron box.

" Oho ! Oho !

The cock doth crow ;
It is time for the Fisher to rise and go.
Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine !
He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line ;
Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south,
The Abbot will carry my hook in his mouth ! "

The Abbot had preached for many years

With as clear articulation
As ever was heard in the House of Peers

Against Emancipation ;
His words had made battalions quake,

Had roused the zeal of martyrs,
Had kept the Court an hour awake,

And the King himself three quarters :
But ever since that hour, 'tis said,

He stammered and he stuttered,
As if an ax went through his head

With every word he uttered.
He stuttered o'er blessing, he stuttered o'er ban,

He stuttered, drunk or dry ;
And none but he and the Fisherman

Could tell the reason why !

LUST.

BY SHAKESPEARE.

THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action ; and till action, lust

A VISION OF PURGATORY. 47

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust ;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight ;

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad ;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so ;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ;
A bliss in proof — and proved, a very woe ;

Before, a joy proposed, behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows ; yet none know well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

A VISION OF PURGATORY.

BY WILLIAM MAGINN.

[WILLIAM MAGINN, Irish man of letters and typical bohemian, was born in
Dublin, July 10, 1793. The son of an eminent schoolmaster, he carried on the
echool himself after graduation from Trinity College, Dublin ; meanwhile becom-
ing a voluminous contributor to Blackwood's and other periodicals under various
pseudonyms (finally fixing on "Morgan O'Doherty"), suggesting the "Noctes
Ambrosianse " and writing some of it, and in 1823 settling in London for a liter-
ary life. He was Murray's chief man on the Representative ; its foreign corret
spondent in Paris ; returning, was joint editor of the Standard, then on the
scurrilous Age. He founded Eraser's Magazine in 1830, and made it the most
brilliant in Great Britain ; contributed to Blackwood's and Bentley's later ; and
in 1838 he wrote the "Homeric Ballads" for Fraser's. His literary feuds were
endless and savage. After running down for years and once being in a debtor's
prison (Thackeray portrays him as "Captain Shandon" in "Pendennis"),he
died August 21, 1842.]

THE churchyard of Inistubber is as lonely a one as you
would wish to see on a summer's day or avoid on a winter's
night. It is situated in a narrow valley, at the bottom of
three low, barren, miserable hills, on which there is nothing
green to meet the eye — tree or shrub, grass or weed. The
country beyond these hills is pleasant and smiling : rich fields
of corn, fair clumps of oaks, sparkling streams of water, houses
beautifully dotting the scenery, which gently undulates round
and round as far as the eye can reach ; but once across the
north side of Inistubber Hill, and you look upon desolation.
There is nothing to see but, down in the hollow, the solitary

48 A VISION OF PURGATORY.

churchyard with its broken wall, and the long lank grass grow-
ing over the gravestones, mocking with its melancholy verdure
the barrenness of the rest of the landscape. It is a sad thing
to reflect that the only green spot in the prospect springs from
the grave !

Under the east window is a moldering vault of the De
Lacys, a branch of a family descended from one of the con-
querors of Ireland ; and there they are buried when the allotted
time calls them to the tomb. On these occasions a numerous
cavalcade, formed from the adjoining districts in all the pomp
and circumstance of woe, is wont to fill the deserted church-
yard, and the slumbering echoes are awakened to the voice of
prayer and wailing, and charged with the sigh that marks the
heart bursting with grief, or the laugh escaping from the bosom
mirth-making under the cloak of mourning. Which of these
feelings was predominant when Sir Theodore de Lacy died is
not written in history ; nor is it necessary to inquire. He had
lived a jolly, thoughtless life, rising early for the hunt, and
retiring late from the bottle ; a good-humored bachelor who
took no care about the management of his household, provided
that the hounds were in order for his going out, and the table
ready on his coming in ; as for the rest, an easy landlord, a
quiet master, a lenient magistrate (except to poachers), and a
very excellent foreman of a grand jury. He died one evening
while laughing at a story which he had heard regularly thrice
a week for the last fifteen years of his life ; and his spirit min-
gled with the claret.

In former times, when the De Lacys were buried, there was
a grand breakfast, and all the party rode over to the church to
see the last rites paid. The keeners lamented ; the country
people had a wake before the funeral and a dinner after it —
and there was an end. But with the march of mind came
trouble and vexation. A man has nowadays no certainty of
quietness in his coffin — unless it be a patent one. He is laid
down in the grave and, the next morning, finds himself called
upon to demonstrate an interesting fact! No one, I believe,
admires this ceremony ; and it is not to be wondered at that
Sir Theodore de Lacy held it in especial horror. " I'd like,"
he said one evening, " to catch one of the thieves coming after
me when I'm dead. By the God of War, I'd break every bone
in his body ! But," he added with a sigh, " as I suppose I'll
not be able to take my own part then, upon you I leave it,

A VISION OF PURGATORY. 49

Larry Sweeney, to watch me three days and three nights after
they plant me under the sod. There's Dr. Dickenson there

— I see the fellow looking at me. Fill your glass, Doctor:
here's your health ! And shoot him, Larry (do you hear?),
shoot the doctor like a cock if he ever comes stirring up my
poor old bones from their roost of Inistubber."

" Why, then," Larry answered, accepting the glass which
followed this command, " long life to both your honors ; and
it's I that would like to be putting a bullet into Dr. Dickenson

— Heaven between him and harm ! — for wanting your honor
away, as if you was a horse's head, to a bonfire. There's noth-
ing, I 'shure you, gintlemin, poor as I am, that would give me
greater pleasure."

" We feel obliged, Larry," said Sir Theodore, " for your
good wishes."

"Is it I pull you out of the grave, indeed?" continued the
whipper-in (for such he was) ; " I'd let nobody pull your honor
out of any place, saving 'twas Purgatory ; and out of that I'd
pull you myself, if I saw you going there."

" I am of opinion, Larry," said Dr. Dickenson, " you'd turn
tail if you saw Sir Theodore on that road. You might go
farther and fair worse, you know."

"Turn tail!" replied Larry. "It's I that wouldn't — I
appale to St. Patrick himself over beyond" — pointing to a
picture of the Prime Saint of Ireland which hung in gilt daub-
ery behind his master's chair, right opposite to him.

To Larry's horror and astonishment the picture, fixing its
eyes upon him, winked with the most knowing air, as if acknowl-
•dging the appeal.

" What makes you turn so white, then, at the very thought? "
said the doctor, interpreting the visible consternation of our
hero in his own way.

" Nothing particular," answered Larry ; " but a wakeness
has come strong over me, gintlemin ; and, if you have no objec-
tion, I'd like to go into the air for a bit."

Leave was of course granted, and Larry retired amid the
laughter of the guests : but, as he retreated, he could not avoid
casting a glance on the awful picture ; and again the Saint
winked, with a most malicious smile. It was impossible to
endure the repeated infliction, and Larry rushed down the stairs
in an agony of fright and amazement.

"Maybe," thought he, "it might be my own eyes that

VOL. XXIII. 4

50 A VISION OF PURGATORY.

wasn't quite steady — or the flame of the candle. But no !
He winked at me as plain as ever I winked at Judy Donaghue
of a May morning. What he manes by it I can't say ; but
there's no use of thinking about it ; no, nor of talking neither,
for who'd believe me if I tould them of it? "

The next evening Sir Theodore died, as has been mentioned,
and in due time thereafter was buried, according to the custom
of the family, by torchlight in the churchyard of Inistubber.
All was fitly performed ; and although Dickenson had no design
upon the jovial knight — and, if he had not, there was nobody
within fifteen miles that could be suspected of such an outrage
— yet Larry Sweeney was determined to make good his promise
of watching his master. " I'd think little of telling a lie to
him, by the way of no harm, when he was alive," said he, wip-
ing his eyes as soon as the last of the train had departed, leav-
ing him with a single companion in the lonely cemetery ; " but
now that he's dead — God rest his soul ! — I'd scorn it. So Jack
Kinaley, as behooves my first cousin's son, stay you with me
here this blessed night, for betune you and I it ain't lucky to
stay by one's self in this ruinated old rookery, where ghosts
(God help us !) is as thick as bottles in Sir Theodore's cellar."

" Never you mind that, Larry," said Kinaley, a discharged
soldier who had been through all the campaigns of the Pen-
insula : " never mind, I say, such botherations. Hain't I lain
in bivouac on the field at Salamanca, and Tallawora, and the
Pyrumnees, and many another place beside, when there was
dead corpses lying about in piles, and there was no more ghosts
than kneebuckles in a ridgemint of Highlanders. Here I Let
me prime them pieces, and hand us over the bottle. We'll
stay snug under this east window, for the wind's coming down
the hill, and I defy "

" None of that bould talk, Jack," said his cousin. " As for
what ye saw in foreign parts, of dead men killed a-fighting,
sure that's nothing to the dead — God rest 'em ! — that's here.
There, you see, they had company, one with the other, and,
being killed f reshlike that morning, had no heart to stir ; but
here, faith ! 'tis a horse of another color."

" Maybe it is," said Jack ; " but the night's coming on ; so
I'll turn in. Wake me if you see anything ; and, after I've
got my two hours' rest, I'll relieve you."

With these words the soldier turned on his side under shelter
of a grave, and, as his libations had been rather copious during

A VISION OF PURGATORY. 51

the day, it was not long before he gave audible testimony that
the dread of supernatural visitants had had no effect in disturb-
ing the even current of his fancy.

Although Larry had not opposed the proposition of his kins-
man, yet he felt by no means at ease. He put in practice all
the usually recommended nostrums for keeping away unpleas-
ant thoughts. He whistled ; but the echo sounded so sad and
dismal that he did not venture to repeat the experiment. He
sang ; but, when no more than five notes had passed his lips, he
found it impossible to get out a sixth, for the chorus reverberated
from the ruinous walls was destruction to all earthly harmony.
He cleared his throat ; he hummed ; he stamped ; he endeav-
ored to walk. All would not do. He wished sincerely that Sir
Theodore had gone to Heaven — he dared not suggest even to
himself, just then, the existence of any other region — without
leaving on him the perilous task of guarding his mortal remains
in so desperate a place. Flesh and blood could hardly resist it !
Even the preternatural snoring of Jack Kinaley added to the
horrors of his position ; and, if his application to the spirituous
soother of grief beside him was frequent, it is more to be de-
plored on the score of morality than wondered at on the score
of metaphysics. He who censures our hero too severely has
never watched the body of a dead baronet in the churchyard of
Inistubber at midnight. " If it was a common, dacent, quite,
well-behaved churchyard a'self," thought Larry, half aloud ;
" but when 'tis a place like this forsaken ould berrin' ground,
which is noted for villainy "

" For what, Larry ? " inquired a gentleman stepping out of
a niche which contained the only statue time had spared. It
was the figure of St. Colman, to whom the church was dedi-
cated. Larry had been looking at the figure as it shone forth
in ebon and ivory in the light and shadow of the now high-
careering moon.

" For what, Larry ? " said the gentleman ; " for what do you
say the churchyard is noted ? "

"For nothing at all, please your honor," replied Larry, "ex-
cept the height of gentility."

The stranger was about four feet high, dressed in what might
be called glowing garments if, in spite of their form, their rigid-
ity did not deprive them of all claim to such an appellation.
He wore an antique miter upon his head ; his hands were folded
upon his breast ; and over his right shoulder rested a pastoral

52 A VISION OF PURGATORY.

crook. There was a solemn expression in his countenance, and
his eye might truly be called stony. His beard could not well
be said to wave upon his bosom ; but it lay upon it in ample
profusion, stiffer than that of a Jew on a frosty morning after
mist. In short, as Larry soon discovered to his horror on look-
ing up at the niche, it was no other than St. Colman himself,
who had stepped forth indignant, in all probability, at the stigma
cast by the watcher of the dead on the churchyard of which
his Saintship was patron.

He smiled with a grisly solemnity — just such a smile as you
might imagine would play round the lips of a milestone (if it
had any) — at the recantation so quickly volunteered by Larry.
" Well," said he, " Lawrence Sweeney "

"How well the old rogue," thought Larry, "knows my
name ! "

" Since you profess yourself such an admirer of the merits
of the churchyard of Inistubber, get up and follow me, till I
show you the civilities of the place, for I'm master here, and
must do the honors."

"Willingly would I go with your worship," replied our
friend ; " but you see here I am engaged to Sir Theodore, who,
though a good master, was a mighty passionate man when every-
thing was not done as he ordered it ; and I am feared to stir."

"Sir Theodore," said the saint, "will not blame you for
following me. I assure you he will not."

" But then " said Larry.

" Follow me ! " cried the saint in a hollow voice ; and, cast-
ing upon him his stony eye, drew poor Larry after him, as the
bridal guest was drawn by the lapidary glance of the Ancient
Mariner, or, as Larry himself afterwards expressed it, "as a
jaw tooth is wrinched out of an ould woman with a pair of
pinchers."

The saint strode before him in silence, not in the least in-
commoded by the stones and rubbish which at every step sadly
contributed to the discomfiture of Larry's shins, who followed
his marble conductor into a low vault situated at the west end
of the church. In accomplishing this, poor Larry contrived to
bestow upon his head an additional organ, the utility of which
he was not craniologist enough to discover.

The path lay through coffins piled up on each side of the
way in various degrees of decomposition ; and excepting that
the solid footsteps of the saintly guide, as they smote heavily

A VISION OF PURGATORY. 53

on the floor of stone, broke the deadly silence, all was still.
Stumbling and staggering along, directed only by the casual
glimpses of light afforded by the moon where it broke through
the dilapidated roof of the vault and served to discover only
sights of woe, Larry followed. He soon felt that he was de-
scending, and could not help wondering at the length of the
journey. He began to entertain the most unpleasant suspicions
as to the character of his conductor ; but what could he do ?
Flight was out of the question, and to think of resistance was
absurd. " Needs must, they say," thought he to himself, " when
the Devil drives. I see it's much the same when a Saint leads."

At last the dolorous march had an end ; and, not a little to
Larry's amazement, he found that his guide had brought him
to the gate of a lofty hall before which a silver lamp, filled
with naphtha, " yielded light as from a sky." From within loud
sounds of merriment were ringing ; and it was evident, from
the jocular harmony and the tinkling of glasses, that some sub-
terranean catch club were not idly employed over the bottle.

" Who's there ? " said a porter, roughly responding to the
knock of St. Colman.

" Be so good," said the saint, mildly, " my very good fellow,
as to open the door without further questions, or I'll break your
head. I'm bringing a gentleman here on a visit, whose busi-
ness is pressing."

" Maybe so," thought Larry ; " but what that business may
be is more than I can tell."

The porter sulkily complied with the order, after having
apparently communicated the intelligence that a stranger was
at hand ; for a deep silence immediately followed the tipsy
clamor, and Larry, sticking close to his guide, whom he now
looked upon almost as a friend when compared with these un-
derground revelers to whom he was about to be introduced, fol-
lowed him through a spacious vestibule, which gradually sloped
into a low arched room where the company was assembled.

And a strange-looking company it was. Seated round a long
table were three and twenty grave and venerable personages,
bearded, mitered, stoled, and crosiered, — all living statues of
stone, like the saint who had walked out of his niche. On the
drapery before them were figured the images of the sun, moon,
and stars — the inexplicable bear — the mystic temple built by
the hand of Hiram — and other symbols of which the un-
initiated know nothing. The square, the line, the trowel were

54 A VISION OF PURGATORY.

not wanting, and the hammer was lying in front of the chair.
Labor, however, was over, and, the time for refreshment having
arrived, each of the stony brotherhood had a flagon before him ;
and when we mention that the saints were Irish, and that St.
Patrick in person was in the chair, it is not to be wondered at
that the miters, in some instances, hung rather loosely on the
side of the heads of some of the canonized compotators. Among
the company were found St. Senanus of Limerick, St. Declan of
Ardmore, St. Canice of Kilkenny, St. Finbar of Cork, St. Michan
of Dublin, St. Brandon of Kerry, St. Fachnan of Ross, and others
of that holy brotherhood. A vacant place, which completed
the four and twentieth, was kept for St. Colman, who, as every-
body knows, is of Cloyne ; and he, having taken his seat, ad-
dressed the President to inform him that he had brought the
man.

The man ( Larry himself ) was awestruck with the company
in which he so unexpectedly found himself, and trembled all
over when, on the notice of his guide, the eight and forty eyes
of stone were turned directly upon himself.

"You have just nicked the night to a shaving, Larry,"
said St. Patrick. " This is our chapter night, and myself and
brethren are here assembled on merry occasion ! — You know
who I am ? "

" God bless your Riverince ! " said Larry, " it's I that do
well. Often did I see your picture hanging over the door of
places where it is " — lowering his voice — " pleasanter to be
than here, buried under an ould church."

"You may as well say it out, Larry," said St. Patrick.
" And don't think I'm going to be angry with you about it, for
I was once flesh and blood myself. But you remember the
other night saying that you would think nothing of pulling
your master out of Purgatory if you could get at him there, and
appealing to me to stand by your words."

" Y-e-e-s," said Larry, most mournfully, for he recollected
the significant look he had received from the picture.

" And," continued St. Patrick, " you remember also that I
gave you a wink, which, you know, is as good any day as a nod
— at least, to a blind horse."

" I'm sure your Riverince," said Larry, with a beating heart,
" is too much of a gintleman to hold a poor man hard to every
word he may say of an evening ; and therefore "

"I was thinking so," said the saint. "I guessed you'd

A VISION OF PURGATORY. 55

prove a poltroon when put to the push. What do you think,
my brethren, I should do to this fellow ? "

A hollow sound burst from the bosoms of the unanimous
assembly. The verdict was short but decisive : —

" Knock out his brains ! "

And, in order to suit the action to the word, the whole four
and twenty rose at once, and, with their immovable eyes fixed
firmly on the face of our hero, — who, horror-struck with the
sight as he was, could not close his, — they began to glide
slowly but regularly towards him, bending their line into the
form of a crescent so as to environ him on all sides. In vain he
fled to the door ; its massive folds resisted mortal might. In
vain he cast his eyes around in quest of a loophole of retreat

— there was none. Closer and closer pressed on the slowly-
moving phalanx, and the uplifted crosiers threatened soon to
put their sentence into execution. Supplication was all that
remained — and Larry sank upon his knees.

" Ah then ! " said he ; " gintlemin and ancient ould saints as
you are, don't kill the father of a large small family who never
did hurt to you or yours. Sure, if 'tis your will that I should
go to — no matter who, for there's no use in naming his name

— might I not as well make up my mind to go there alive and
well, stout and hearty, and able to face him, as with my head
knocked into bits, as if I had been after a fair or a pat-
thren ? "

" You say right," said St. Patrick, checking with a motion
of his crosier the advancing assailants, who thereupon returned
to their seats. " I'm glad to see you coming to reason. Pre-
pare for your journey."

" And how, please your Saintship, am I to go ? " asked
Larry.

" Why," said St. Patrick, " as Colman here has guided you
so fa,r, he may guide you further. But as the journey is into
foreign parts, where you aren't likely to be known, you had
better take this letter of introduction, which may be of use to
you."

"And here, also, Lawrence," said a Dublin saint (perhaps
Michan), " take you this box also, and make use of it as he to
whom you speak shall suggest."

" Take a hold, and a firm one," said St. Colman, " Law-
rence, of my cassock, and we'll start."

" All right behind ? " cried St. Patrick.

56 A VISION OF PURGATORY.

" All right ! " was the reply.

In an instant vault, table, saints, bell, church faded into
air ; a rustling hiss of wings was all that was heard, and Larry
felt his cheek swept by a current, as if a covey of birds of
enormous size were passing him. [It was in all probability
the flight of the saints returning to Heaven ; but on that point
nothing certain has reached us up to the present time of writ-
ing.] He had not a long time to wonder at the phenomenon,
for he himself soon began to soar, dangling in mid-sky to the
skirt of the cassock of his sainted guide. Earth, and all that
appertains thereto, speedily passed from his eyes, and they
were alone in the midst of circumfused ether, glowing with a
sunless light. Above, in immense distance, was fixed the
firmament, fastened up with bright stars, fencing around the
world with its azure wall. They fled far before any distin-
guishable object met their eyes. At length a long white
streak, shining like silver in the moonbeam, was visible to
their sight.

" That," said St. Colman, " is the Limbo which adjoins the
earth, and is the highway for ghosts departing the world. It
is called in Milton, a book which I suppose, Larry, you never
have read "

"And how could I, please your worship," said Larry,
" seein' I don't know a B from a bull's foot ? "

" Well, it is called in Milton the Paradise of Fools ; and, if
it were indeed peopled by all of that tribe who leave the
world, it would contain the best company that ever figured on
the earth. To the north you see a bright speck ? "

"I do."

" That marks the upward path — narrow and hard to find.
To the south you may see a darksome road — broad, smooth,
and easy of descent. That is the lower way. It is thronged
with the great ones of the world ; you may see their figures in
the gloom. Those who are soaring upwards are wrapt in the
flood of light flowing perpetually from that single spot, and
you cannot see them. The silver path on which we enter is
the Limbo. Here I part with you. You are to give your
letter to the first person you meet. Do your best ; be coura-
geous, but observe particularly that you profane no holy name,
or I will not answer for the consequences."

His guide had scarcely vanished when Larry heard the
tinkling of a bell in the distance ; and, turning his eyes in the

A VISION OF PURGATORY. 57

quarter whence it proceeded, he saw a grave-looking man in
black, with eyes of fire, driving before him a host of ghosts
with a switch, as you see turkeys driven on the western road
at the approach of Christmas. They were on the highway to
Purgatory. The ghosts were shivering in the thin air, which
pinched them severely now that they had lost the covering of
their bodies. Among the group Larry recognized his old
master, by the same means that Ulysses, ^Eneas, and others
recognized the bodiless forms of their friends in the regions of
Acheron.

" What brings a living person," said the man in black, " on
this pathway ? I shall make legal capture of you, Larry
Sweeney, for trespassing. You have no business here."

" I have come," said Larry, plucking up courage, " to bring
your honor's glory a letter from a company of gintlemin with
whom I had the pleasure of spending the evening underneath
the ould church of Inistubber."

" A letter ? " said the man in black. " Where is it ? "

" Here, my lord," said Larry.

" Ho ! " cried the black gentleman on opening it ; "I know
the handwriting. It won't do, however, my lad ; — I see they
want to throw dust in my eyes."

" Whew ! " thought Larry. " That's the very thing. 'Tis
for that the ould Dublin boy gave me the box. I'd lay a ten-
penny to a brass farthing that it's filled with Lundyfoot."

Opening the box, therefore, he flung its contents right
into the fiery eyes of the man in black, while he was still
occupied in reading the letter ; — and the experiment was
successful.

" Curses ! Tche — tche — tche — curses on it ! " exclaimed
he, clapping his hands before his eyes, and sneezing most
lustily.

" Run, you villains, run," cried Larry to the ghosts ; " run,
you villains, now that his eyes are off you. O master, master !
Sir Theodore, jewel ! Run to the right-hand side, make for
the bright speck, and God give you luck ! "

He had forgotten his injunction. The moment the word
was uttered he felt the silvery ground sliding from under him ;
and with the swiftness of thought he found himself on the flat
of his back, under the very niche of the old church wall whence
he had started, dizzy and confused with the measureless tumble.
The emancipated ghosts floated in all directions, emitting their

58 A VISION OF PURGATORY.

shrill and stridulous cries in the gleaming expanse. Some were
again gathered by their old conductor ; some, scudding about
at random, took the right-hand path, others the left. Into
which of them Sir Theodore struck is not recorded ; but, as he
had heard the direction, let us hope that he made the proper
choice.

Larry had not much time given him to recover from his fall,
for almost in an instant he heard an angry snorting rapidly
approaching; and, looking up, whom should he see but the
gentleman in black, with eyes gleaming more furiously than
ever, and his horns (for in his haste he had let his hat fall)
relieved in strong shadow against the moon? Up started
Larry ; — away ran his pursuer after him. The safest refuge
was, of course, the church. Thither ran our hero,

As darts the dolphin from the shark,
Or the deer before the hounds ;

and after him — fiercer than the shark, swifter than the hounds
— fled the black gentleman. The church is cleared, the chancel
entered ; and the hot breath of his pursuer glows upon the out-
stretched neck of Larry. Escape is impossible ; the extended
talons of the fiend have clutched him by the hair.

" You are mine ! " cried the demon. " If I have lost any of
my flock, I have at least got you ! "

" O St. Patrick I " exclaimed our hero in horror. " O St.
Patrick, have mercy upon me, and save me ! "

"I tell you what, Cousin Larry," said Kinaley, chucking
him up from behind a gravestone where he had fallen ; " all the
St. Patricks that ever were born would not have saved you
from ould Tom Picton if he caught you sleeping on your post
as I've caught you now. By the word of an ould soldier he'd
have had the provost marshal upon you, and I'd not give two-
pence for the loan of your life. And then, too, I see you
have drunk every drop in the bottle. What can you say for
yourself ? "

" Nothing at all," said Larry, scratching his head ; " but it
was an unlucky dream, and I'm glad it's over."

VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS. 59

THE OLIVE BOUGHS.

BY SARAH FLOWER ADAMS.
[1806-1848; author of "Nearer, My God, to Thee."]

THEY bear the hero from the fight, dying ;

But the foe is flying :
They lay him down beneath the shade
By the olive branches made :

The olive boughs are sighing.

He hears the wind among the leaves, dying ;

But the foe is flying :
He hears the voice that used to be
When he sat beneath the tree :

The olive boughs are sighing.

Comes the mist around his brow, dying;

But the foe is flying :
Comes that form of peace so fair, —
Stretch his hands unto the air :

The olive boughs are sighing.

Fadeth life as f adeth day, dying ;

But the foe is flying :
There's an urn beneath the shade
By the olive branches made :

The olive boughs are sighing.

VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS.

BY Sm HENRY TAYLOR.

[SiR HENRY TAYLOR was born in Durham, 1800. He became editor of the
London Magazine, and was in the colonial office. He wrote dramatic pieces :
"Isaac Comnenus" (1827), "Philip van Artevelde" (1834), his masterpiece,
"Edwin the Fair" (1842), "The Virgin Widow" (1850), and "St. Clement's
Eve" (1862); volumes of essays: "The Statesman" (1836), "Notes from
Life" (1847), "Notes from Books" (1849) ; and "The Eve of the Conquest,
and other Poems " (1847). He died March 28, 1886.]

Platform before the Stadt House, Ghent: SIR GUISEBEBT GRUTT,
aldermen of sundry guilds, deans of the crafts of butchers, fisher-
men, glaziers, and cordwainers; VAN ARTEVELDE and others of his
party. GRUTT, descending, meets SIR SIMON BETTE coming up.

Sir Guisebert Grutt [aside to SIR SIMON BETTE] —
God's life, Sir ! where is Occo ?

60 VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS.

Sir Simon Bette — Sick, sick, sick.

He has sent word he's sick, and cannot come.
Sir Guisebert Grutt —

Pray God his sickness be the death of him !
Sir Simon Bette —

Nay, his lieutenant's here, and has his orders.
Van den Bosch [aside to ARTEVELDE] —

I see there's something that hath staggered them.

Now push them to the point. [Aloud] Make way

there, ho !
Artevelde [coming forward] —

Some citizen hath brought this concourse here.

Who is the man, and what hath he to say ?
Sir Guisebert Grutt —

The noble Earl of Flanders of his grace

Commissions me to speak.
[/Some White Hoods interrupt him with cries of "Ghent," on

which there is a great tumult, and they are instantly

drowned in the cry of " Flanders."
Artevelde — What, silence ! peace !

Silence, and hear this noble Earl's behests,

Delivered by this thrice puissant knight.
Sir Guisebert Grutt —

First will I speak — not what I'm bid to say,

But what it most imports yourselves to hear.

For though ye cannot choose but know it well,

Yet by these cries I deem that some of you

Would, much like madmen, cast your knowledge off,

And both of that and of your reason reft

Run naked on the sword — which to f oref end,

Let me remind you of the things ye know.

Sirs, when this month began ye had four chiefs

Of great renown and valor, — Jan de Bol,

Arnoul le Clerc, and Launoy and Van Ranst.

Where are they now ? and what be ye without them f

Sirs, when the month began ye had good aid

From Brabant, Liege, St. Tron, and Huy and Dinant.

How shall they serve you now ? The Earl sits fast

Upon the Quatre-inetiers and the Bridge.

What aid of theirs can reach you ? What supplies ?

I tell you, Sirs, that thirty thousand men

Could barely bring a bullock to your gates.

If thus without, how stand you then within ?

Ask of your chatelain, the Lord of Occo ;

Which worthy knight will tell you

Artevelde [aside to VAN DEN BOSCH] — Mark you that ?

VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS. 61

[Then aloud to SIR GUISEBERT GRUTT] —

Where is this chatelain, your speech's sponsor?

Sir Guisebert Grutt —

He's sick in bed ; but were he here, he'd tell you
There's not provision in the public stores
To keep you for a day. Such is your plight.
Now hear the offer of your natural liege,
Moved to compassion by our prayers and tears,
Well aided as they were by good Duke Aubert,
My Lady of Brabant, and Lord Compelant —
To whom our thanks are due, — the Earl says thus :
He will have peace, and take you to his love,
And be your good lord as in former days ;
And all the injuries, hatreds, and ill will
He had against you he will now forget,
And he will pardon you your past offenses,
And he will keep you in your ancient rights ;
And for his love and graces thus vouchsafed
He doth demand of you three hundred men,
Such citizens of Ghent as he shall name,
To be delivered up to his good pleasure.

Van den Bosch —

Three hundred citizens !

Artevelde — Peace, Van den Bosch.

Hear we this other knight. Well, worthy Sir,
Hast aught to say, or hast not got thy priming,
That thus thou gaspest like a droughty pump ?

Van den Bosch —

Nay, 'tis black bile that chokes him. Come, up with it !
Be't but a gallon it shall ease thy stomach.

Several Citizens —

Silence ! Sir Simon Bette's about to speak.

Sir Simon Bette —

Right worthy burgesses, good men and rich !
Much trouble ye may guess, and strife had we
To win his Highness to this loving humor :
For if ye rightly think, Sirs, and remember,
You've done him much offense — not of yourselves,
But through ill guidance of ungracious men.
For first ye slew his bail i if at the cross,
And with the Earl's own banner in his hand,
Which falling down was trampled underfoot
Through heedlessness of them that stood about.
Also ye burned the castle he loved best,
And ravaged all his parks at Andrehen,

62 VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS.

All those delightful gardens on the plain.
And ye beat down two gates at Oudenarde,
And in the dike ye cast them upside down.
Also ye slew five knights of his, and brake
The silver font wherein he was baptized.
Wherefore it must be owned, Sirs, that much cause
He had of quarrel with the town of Ghent.
For how, Sirs, had the Earl afflicted you
That ye should thus dishonor him ? 'tis true
That once a burgess was detained at Erclo
Through misbehavior of the bailiff ; still
He hath delivered many a time and oft
Out of his prisons burgesses of yours
Only to do you pleasure ; and when late
By kinsmen of the bailiff whom ye slew,
Some mariners of yours were sorely maimed
(Which was an inconvenience to this town),
What did the Earl ? To prove it not his act,
He banished out of Flanders them that did it.
Moreover, Sirs, the taxes of the Earl
Were not so heavy but that, being rich,
Ye might have borne them ; they were not the half
Of what ye since have paid to wage this war ;
And yet had these been double that were half,
The double would have grieved you less in peace
Than but the half in war. Bethink ye, Sirs,
What were the fowage and the subsidies
When bread was but four mites that's now a groat ?
All which considered, Sirs, I counsel you
That ye accept this honorable peace,
For mercifully is the Earl inclined,
And ye may surely deem of them he takes
A large and liberal number will be spared,
And many here, who least expect his love,
May find him free and gracious. Sirs, what say ye ?
Artevelde —

First, if it be your pleasure, hear me speak.

[Great tumult and cries of " Flanders ! "
What, Sirs ! not hear me ? was it then for this
Ye made me your chief captain yesternight,
To snare me in a trust whereof I bear
The name and danger only, not the power ?

[The tumult increases.

Sirs, if we needs must come to blows, so be it ;
For I have friends amongst you who can deal them.

VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS. 63

Sir Simon Bette, [aside to SIR GUISEBERT GBUTT] —

Had Occo now been here ! but lacking him

It must not come to that.
Sir Guisebert Chrutt — My loving friends,

Let us behave like brethren as we are,

And not like listed combatants. Ho, peace !

Hear this young bachelor of high renown,

Who writes himself your captain since last night,

When a few score of varlets, being drunk,

In mirth and sport so dubbed him. Peace, Sirs ! hear him.
Artevelde —

Peace let it be, if so ye will ; if not,

We are as ready as yourselves for blows.
One of the Citizens —

Speak, Master Philip, speak and you'll be heard.
Artevelde —

I thank you, Sirs ; I knew it could not be

But men like you must listen to the truth.

Sirs, ye have heard these knights discourse to you

Of your ill fortunes, telling on their fingers

The worthy leaders ye have lately lost.

True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs ;

And ill it would become us to make light

Of the great loss we suffer by their fall.

They died like heroes ; for no recreant step

Had e'er dishonored them, no stain of fear,

No base despair, no cowardly recoil.

They had the hearts of freemen to the last,

And the free blood that bounded in their veins

Was shed for freedom with a liberal joy.

But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed

The great examples which they died to show

Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here,

That men should say " For liberty these died,

Wherefore let us be slaves," — had they thought this,

Oh, then, with what an agony of shame,

Their blushing faces buried in the dust,

Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven !

What ! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth

To write that in five bodies were contained

The sole brave hearts of Ghent ! which five defunct,

The heartless town, by brainless counsel led,

Delivered up her keys, stripped off her robes,

And so with all humility besought

Her haughty lord that he would scourge her lightly !

64 VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS.

It shall not be — no, verily ! for now,

Thus looking on you as ye stand before me,

Mine eye can single out full many a man

Who lacks but opportunity to shine

As great and glorious as the chiefs that fell. —

But lo ! the Earl is mercifully minded !

And surely if we, rather than revenge

The slaughter of our bravest, cry them shame,

And fall upon our knees, and say we've sinned,

Then will my lord the Earl have mercy on us,

And pardon us our letch for liberty !

What pardon it shall be, if we know not,

Yet Ypres, Courtray, Grammont, Bruges, they know j

For never can those towns forget the day

When by the hangman's hands five hundred men,

The bravest of each guild, were done to death

In those base butcheries that he called pardons.

And did it seal their pardons, all this blood ?

Had they the Earl's good love from that time forth ?

Oh, Sirs ! look round you lest ye be deceived ;

Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue,

Forgiveness may be written with the pen,

But think not that the parchment and mouth pardon

Will e'er eject old hatreds from the heart.

There's that betwixt you been which men remember

Till they forget themselves, till all's forgot,

Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed

From which no morrow's mischief knocks them up.

There's that betwixt you been which you yourselves,

Should ye forget, would then not be yourselves ;

For must it not be thought some base men's souls

Have ta'en the seats of yours and turned you out,

If in the coldness of a craven heart

Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man

For all his black and murderous monstrous crimes ?

Think of your mariners, three hundred men,

After long absence in the Indian seas

Upon their peaceful homeward voyage bound,

And now all dangers conquered, as they thought,

Warping the vessels up their native stream,

Their wives and children waiting them at home

In joy, with festal preparation made, —

Think of these mariners, their eyes torn out,

Their hands chopped off, turned staggering into Ghent,

To meet the blasted eyesight of their friends !

VAN ARTEVELDE AND HIS COMPANIONS. 65

And was not this the Earl ? 'Twas none but he,

No Hauterive of them all had dared to do it,

Save at the express instance of the Earl.

And now what asks he ? Pardon me, Sir knights ;

[To GRUTT and BETTB.

I had forgotten, looking back and back

From felony to felony foregoing,

This present civil message which ye bring;

Three hundred citizens to be surrendered

Up to that mercy which I tell you of —

That mercy which your mariners proved — which steeped

Courtray and Ypres, Grammont, Bruges, in blood !

Three hundred citizens, — a secret list,

No man knows who — not one can say he's safe —

Not one of you so humble but that still

The malice of some secret enemy

May whisper him to death — and hark — look to it !

Have some of you seemed braver than your fellows,

Their courage is their surest condemnation ;

They are marked men — and not a man stands here

But may be so. — Your pardon, Sirs, again ;

[To GRUTT and BETTE.

You are the pickers and the choosers here,

And doubtless you're all safe, ye think — ha! ha!

But we have picked and chosen, too, Sir knights.

What was the law for I made yesterday —

What ! is it you that would deliver up

Three hundred citizens to certain death ?

Ho ! Van den Bosch ! have at these traitors — hah

[Stabbs GRUTT, who falls.
Van den Bosch — Die, treasonable dog — is that enough?

Down, felon, and plot treacheries in hell. [Stabbs BETTE.
The White Hoods draw their swords, with loud cries of" Treason,"

" Artevelde," « Ghent," and " The Chaperons Blancs." A

citizen of the other party, who in the former part of the scene

had unfurled the Earl's banner, now throws it down and

flies ; several others are following him, and the aldermen and

deans, some of whom had been dropping off towards the end of

ARTEVELDE'S speech, now quit the platform with precipita-
tion. VAN AESWYN is crossed by VAN DEN BOSCH.
Van den Bosch [aiming a blow at him] —

Die thou, too, traitor.
Artevelde [warding it off'] — Van den Bosch, forbear;

Up with your weapons, White Hoods ; no more blood.

Those only are the guilty who lie here.

VOL. XXIII. 6

66 TWO WOMEN.

Let no more blood be spilt on pain of death.

Sirs, ye have naught to fear ; I say, stand fast ;

No man shall harm you ; if he does, he dies.

Stand fast, or if ye go, take this word with you,

Philip van Artevelde is friend with all ;

There's no man lives within the walls of Ghent

But Artevelde will look to him and his,

And suffer none to plunder or molest him.

Haste, Van den Bosch ! by Heaven they run like lizards I

Take they not heart the sooner, by St. Paul

They'll fly the city, and that cripples us.

Haste with thy company to the west wards,

And see thou that no violence be done

Amongst the weavers and the fullers — stay —

And any that betake themselves to pillage

Hang without stint — and hark — begone — yet stay ;

Shut the west gate, postern, and wicket too,

And catch my Lord of Occo where you can.

Stay — on thy life let no man's house be plundered.
Van den Bosch —

That is not to my mind ; but what of that ?

Thou'st played the game right boldly, and for me,

My oath of homage binds me to thee.
Artevelde — Well,

Thou to thy errand then, and I myself

Will go from street to street through all the town,

To reassure the citizens ; that done

I'll meet thee here again. Form, White Hoods, form ;

Kange ten abreast ; I'm coming down amongst you.

You Floris, Leefdale, Sphanghen, mount ye here,

And bear me down these bodies. Now, set forth.
The white hoods, by whose shouts of "Artevelde for Ghent" the

latter part of the scene has been frequently interrupted, now

join in a cry of triumph^ and carry him off on their shoulders.

TWO WOMEN.

BY NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

[NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, an American editor and author, was born at
Portland, Me., January 20, 1806. He founded and conducted the American
Monthly Magazine until it merged in the New York Mirror, of which he
became associate editor in 1831. He traveled extensively in Europe and the

The Intercessor for the Fallen

TWO WOMEN. 67

East, and as attache" of the American legation had favorable opportunities for
observing European society. During the latter part of his life he was editor of
the Home Journal in conjunction with George P. Morris, and after the latter's
death assumed entire charge of the paper. Willis was a brilliant and popular
magazinist, and the author of numerous stories, sketches of travel, miscellaneous
papers of social observation, and verses. His publications include : " Pencilings
by the Way," "Inklings of Adventure," "Letters from Under a Bridge," "Peo-
ple I Have Met," "Hurry-graphs," "Famous Persons and Places." He died
at his beautiful estate, " Idlewild," Newburg, N.Y., in 1867.]

THE shadows lay along Broadway,

'Twas near the twilight tide,
And slowly there a Lady fair

Was walking in her pride :
Alone walked she ; but viewlessly

Walked spirits at her side.

Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,

And Honor charmed the air ;
And all astir looked kind on her,

And called her good as fair :
For all God ever gave to her

She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare

From lovers warm and true,
For her heart was cold to all but gold,

And the rich came not to woo :
But honored well are charms to sell,

If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was One more fairy

A slight Girl, lily pale ;
And she had unseen company

To make the spirit quail :
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,

And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow

For this world's peace to pray :
For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,

Her woman's heart gave way :
But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven

By man is cursed alway.

68 THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.
THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.

BY ARTHUR HELPS.

[SiR ARTHUR HELPS, English man of letters, was born at Streatham, July
10, 1813 ; graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was private secretary
to the chancellor of the exchequer, and to the Irish secretary ; in later life, clerk
to the Privy Council. He published: 4i Thoughts in the Cloister and the
Crowd" (1886); "The Claims of Labor" (1844); "Friends in Council"
(1847-1859); "The Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen"
(1848-1862); "The Spanish Conquest in America" (1855-1801); biographies
of Las Casas, Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortes ; " Thoughts upon Government "
(1872); "Realmah" (1860); "Talks about Animals and their Masters"
(1873) ; " Social Pressure" (1875). He died March 7, 1876.]

THE world will find out that part of your character which
concerns it: that which especially concerns yourself, it will
leave for you to discover.

The step from the sublime to the ridiculous is not so short
as the step from the confused to the sublime in the minds of
most people, for the want of a proper standard of comparison.
We always believe the clouds to be much higher than they
really are, until we see them resting on the shoulders of the
mountains.

It is difficult to discover the estimation in which one man
holds another's powers of mind by seeing them together. The
soundest intellect and the keenest wit will sometimes shrink at
the vivacity, and pay an apparent deference to the energy, of
mere cleverness ; as Faust, when overcome by loud sophistry,
exclaims, " He who is determined to be right, and has but a
tongue, will be right undoubtedly."

There is no occasion to regard with continual dislike one
who had formerly a mean opinion of your merits ; for you are
never so sure of permanent esteem as from the man who once
esteemed you lightly, and has corrected his mistake — if it be
a mistake.

A friend is one who does not laugh when you are in a
ridiculous position. Some may deny such a test, saying that
if a man have a keen sense of the ridiculous, he cannot help
being amused, even though his friend be the subject of ridi-
cule. No, — your friend is one who ought to sympathize with
you, and not with the multitude.

You cannot expect that a friend should be like the atmos-

THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD. 69

phere, which confers all manner of benefits upon you, and with-
out which indeed it would be impossible to live, but at the same
time is never in your way.

It would often be as well to condemn a man unheard as to
condemn him upon the reasons which he openly avows for any
course of action.

The apparent foolishness of others is but too frequently our
own ignorance, or, what is much worse, it is the direct measure
of our own tyranny.

When the subtle man fails in deceiving those around him,
they are loud in their reproaches ; when he succeeds in deceiv-
ing his own conscience, it is silent. The last is not the least
misfortune, for it were better to make many enemies than to
silence one such friend.

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a per-
son from one action, however striking that action may be.

The youngest mathematician knows that one point is insuf-
ficient to determine a straight line, much less anything so
curvelike as the character even of the most simple and upright
of mankind.

If you are obliged to judge from a single action, let it not
be a striking one.

Men rattle their chains — to manifest their freedom.

The failure of many of our greatest men in their early
career — a fact on which the ignorant and weak are fond of
vainly leaning for support — is a very interesting subject for
consideration.

The rebelliousness of great natures is a good phrase, but I
fear it will not entirely satisfy all our questionings. It has
been said that if we could, with our limited capacities and
muffled souls, compare this life and the future, and retain
the impression, that our daily duties here would be neglected,
and that all below would become " weary, flat, stale, and un-
profitable." Now may not the pursuit of any particular study
or worldly aim become to the far-seeing genius disgusting in
the same way ? May he not be like one on a lofty rock, who
can behold and comprehend all the objects in the distance, can
thence discover the true path that leadeth to the glad city, but,
from his very position, cannot without great pain and danger
scrutinize the ground immediately under him ? Many fail

70 THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.

from the extent of their views. "Nevertheless," as Bacon
says, "I shall yield, that he that cannot contract the sight of
his mind, as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great
faculty."

There is another cause of failure that has not often been
contemplated. The object may be too eagerly desired ever to
be obtained. Its importance, even if it be important, may too
often be presented to the mind. The end may always appear
so clearly defined that the aspirant, forgetting the means that
are necessary, forgetting the distance that must intervene, is
forever stretching out his hand to grasp that which is not yet
within his power. The calm exercise of his faculties is pre-
vented, the habit of concentrating his attention is destroyed,
and one form under a thousand aspects disturbs his diseased
imagination. The unhappy sailor thinks upon his home, and
the smiling fields, and the village church, until he sees them
forever pictured in the deep, and with folded arms he continues
to gaze, incapable alike of thought or action. This disease is
called the calenture. There is an intellectual calenture.

Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed
for forgetfulness.

Perhaps it is the secret thought of many, that an ardent
love of power and wealth, however culpable in itself, is never-
theless a proof of superior sagacity. But in answer to this, it
has been well remarked that even a child can clench its little
hand the moment it is born ; and if they imagine that the suc-
cessful at any rate must be sagacious, let them remember the
saying of a philosopher, that the meanest reptiles are found at
the summit of the loftiest pillars.

The Pyramids I What a lesson to those who desire a name
in the world does the fate of these restless, brick-piling mon-
archs afford ! Their names are not known, and the only hope
for them is that by the labors of some cruelly industrious
antiquarian they may at last become more definite objects of
contempt.

We talk of early prejudices, or the prejudices of religion, of
position, of education ; but in truth we only mean the preju-
dices of others. It is by the observation of trivial matters that
the wise learn the influence of prejudice over their own minds
at all times, and the wonderfully molding power which those

THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD. 71

minds possess in making all things around conform to the idea
of the moment. Let a man but note how often he has seen
likenesses where no resemblance exists ; admired ordinary
pictures, because he thought they were from the hands of cele-
brated masters ; delighted in the commonplace observations of
those who had gained a reputation for wisdom ; laughed where
no wit was ; and he will learn with humility to make allowance
for the effect of prejudice in others.

In a quarrel between two friends, if one of them, even the
injured one, were, in the retirement of his chamber, to consider
himself as the hired advocate of the other at the court of
wronged friendship ; and were to omit all the facts which told
in his own favor, to exaggerate all that could possibly be said
against himself, and to conjure up from his imagination a few
circumstances of the same tendency ; he might with little effort
make a good case for his former friend. Let him be assured
that whatever the most skillful advocate could say, his poor
friend really believes and feels ; and then, instead of wonder-
ing at the insolence of such a traitor walking about in open
day, he will pity his friend's delusion, have some gentle mis-
givings as to the exact propriety of his own conduct, and per-
haps sue for an immediate reconciliation.

There are often two characters of a man — that which is be-
lieved in by people in general, and that which he enjoys among
his associates. It is supposed, but vainly, that the latter is
always a more accurate approximation to the truth, whereas in
reality it is often a part which he performs to admiration ; while
the former is the result of certain minute traits, certain inflec-
tions of voice and countenance, which cannot be discussed, but
are felt as it were instinctively by his domestics and by the
outer world. The impressions arising from these slight cir-
cumstances he is able to efface from the minds of his constant
companions, or from habit they have ceased to observe them.

We are pleased with one who instantly assents to our opin-
ions ; but we love a proselyte.

The accomplished hypocrite does not exercise his skill upon
every possible occasion for the sake of acquiring facility in the
use of his instruments. In all unimportant matters, who is more
just, more upright, more candid, more honorable ?

Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men should

72 THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.

have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known
individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome
on any occasion ; but then they betrayed their own interests by
unwisely omitting the consideration that such feelings might
exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and gov-
ern : for they themselves cannot even remember the time when
in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the hap-
piness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a state to the
advancement of a party.

The ear is an organ of finer sensibility than the eye, accord-
ing to the measurement of philosophers.

Remember this, ye diplomatists : there are some imperturb-
able countenances, but a skillful ear will almost infallibly de-
tect guile.

It is a shallow mind that suspects or rejects an offered kind-
ness because it is unable to discover the motive. It would have
been as wise for the Egyptians to have scorned the pure waters
of the Nile, because they were not quite certain about the source
of that mighty river.

Misery appears to improve the intellect, but this is only be-
cause it dismisses fear.

Intellectual powers may dignify, but cannot diminish, our
sorrows ; and when the feelings are wounded, and the soul is
disquieted within you, to seek comfort from purely intellectual
employments is but to rest upon a staff which pierces rather
than supports.

When your friend is suffering under great affliction, either
be entirely silent, or offer none but the most common topics of
consolation. For in the first place they are the best ; and also
from their commonness they are easily understood. Extreme
grief will not pay attention to any new thing.

When we consider the incidents of former days, and per-
ceive, while reviewing the long line of causes, how the most
important events of our lives originated in the most trifling
circumstances ; how the beginning of our greatest happiness or
greatest misery is to be attributed to a delay, to an accident, to
a mistake ; we learn a lesson of profound humility. This is the
irony of life.

THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD. 73

The irony of a little child and its questions, at times how
bitter !

Eccentric people are never loved for their eccentricities.

What is called firmness, is often nothing more than con-
firmed self-love.

Many know how to please, but know not when they have
ceased to give pleasure. The same in arguing : they never lead
people to a conclusion and permit them to draw it for them-
selves ; being unaware that most persons, if they had but placed
one brick in a building, are interested in the progress, and boast
of the success of a work in which they have been so materially
engaged.

There is an honesty which is but decided selfishness in dis-
guise. The man who will not refrain from expressing his sen-
timents and manifesting his feelings, however unfit the time,
however inappropriate the place, however painful to others
this expression may be, lays claim forsooth to our approbation
as an honest man, and sneers at those of finer sensibility as
hypocrites.

Do not mistake energy for enthusiasm ; the softest
speakers are often the most enthusiastic of men.

The best commentary upon any work of literature is a
faithful life of the author. And one reason, among many,
why it must always be so advantageous to read the works of
the illustrious dead is that their lives are more fairly written,
and their characters better understood.

It may appear to an unthinking person that the life, per-
haps an unobtrusive one, of the man who has devoted himself
to abstract and speculative subjects can be of no very consid-
erable importance. But it is far otherwise. For instance, if
Locke had never been engaged in the affairs of this world,
would his biography have been of no importance if it had
only informed us that for many years he devoted himself to
the study of medicine ? Are there no passages in his " Essay
concerning Human Understanding," which such a fact tends
to elucidate ? Or is it not, in reality, the clew to a right
understanding of all his metaphysical writings ?

How often does a single anecdote reveal the real motive

74 THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.

which prompted an author to write a particular work, and the
influence of which is visible in every page ! " When I returned
from Spain by Paris (says Lord Clarendon), Mr. Hobbes fre-
quently came to me and told me his book — which he would
call ' Leviathan ' - — was then printing in England, and that he
received every week a sheet to correct, of which he showed
me one or two sheets, and thought it would be finished within
little more than a month ; and showed me the epistle to Mr.
Godolphin, which he meant to set before it, and read it to me,
and concluded that he knew, when I read his book, I would
not like it, and thereupon mentioned some of his conclusions.
Upon which I asked him why he would publish such doctrine ;
to which, after a discourse between jest and earnest upon the
subject, he said, * The truth t«, / have a mind to go home. ' '
Perhaps this anecdote may explain many hard sayings in the
"Leviathan."

It is worthy of remark that " The Prince " is now supposed
to have been written solely from a wish to please the ruling
powers, as appears in a private letter from Macchiavelli to his
friend the Florentine ambassador at the Papal court, which
was discovered at Rome, and first published to the world in
1810, by Ridolfi. In this letter Macchiavelli says that his
work ought to be agreeable to a prince, and especially to a
prince lately raised to power ; and that he himself cannot
continue to live as he was then living, without becoming con-
temptible through poverty. And also, in his dedication to
Lorenzo de' Medici, after having said that subjects under-
stand the disposition of princes best, as it is necessary to de-
scend into the plains to consider the nature of the mountains,
he thus concludes — " And if your Magnificence from the very
point of your highness will sometimes cast your eyes upon
those inferior places, you will see how undeservedly I undergo
an extreme and continual despite of fortune."

After this we are not so much astonished at finding the fol-
lowing gentle admonition : " Let a prince therefore take the
surest courses he can to maintain his life and state ; the means
will always be thought honorable, and be commended by every
one."

Some of our law maxims are admirable rules of conduct.
If, in spite of the censorious calumny of the world, we con-
sidered "a man innocent until he were proved guilty," or if,

THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD. 75

in our daily thoughts, words, and actions, we did but "give
the prisoner the benefit of the doubt," what much better
Christians we should become.

It is an error to suppose that no man understands his own
character. Most persons know even their failings very well,
only they persist in giving them names different from those
usually assigned by the rest of the world ; and they compen-
sate for this mistake by naming, at first sight, with singular
accuracy, these very same failings in others.

Men love to contradict their general character. Thus a
man is of a gloomy and suspicious temperament, is deemed by
all morose, and erelong finds out the general opinion. He then
suddenly deviates into some occasional acts of courtesy. Why ?
Not because he ought, not because his nature is changed ; but
because he dislikes being thoroughly understood. He will not
be the thing whose behavior on any occasion the most careless
prophet can with certainty foretell.

When we see the rapid motions of insects at evening, we
exclaim, how happy they must be ! — so inseparably are ac-
tivity and happiness connected in our minds.

The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as
the leader.

We have some respect for one who, if he tramples on the
feelings of others, tramples on his own with equal apparent
indifference.

It is frequently more safe to ridicule a man personally than
to decry the order to which he belongs. Every man has made
up his mind about his own merits ; but, like the unconvinced
believers in religion, he will not listen with patience to any
doubts upon a subject which he himself would be most unwill-
ing to investigate.

The opinion which a person gives of any book is frequently
not so much a test of his intellect or his taste, as it is of the
extent of his reading. An indifferent work may be joyfully
welcomed by one who has neither had time nor opportunity to
form a literary taste. It is from comparisons between different
parts of the same book that you must discover the depth and
judgment of an uncultivated mind.

" It is my opinion," says Herodotus, " that the Nile over

76 THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.

flows in the summer season, because in the winter the sun,
driven by the storms from his usual course, ascends into the
higher regions of the air above Libya." Many a man will
smile at the delightful simplicity of the historian, and still
persevere in dogmatizing about subjects upon which he does
not even possess information enough to support him in hazard-
ing a conjecture.

It is not in the solar spectrum only that the least warmth
is combined with the deepest color.

How often we should stop in the pursuit of folly, if it were
not for the difficulties that continually beckon us onwards.

Simple Ignorance has in its time been complimented by the
names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.

No man ever praised two persons equally — and pleased
them both.

A keen observer of mankind has said that " to aspire is to
be alone " : he might have extended his aphorism — to think
deeply upon any subject is indeed to be alone.

In the world of mind, as in that of matter, we always occupy
a position. He who is continually changing his point of view
will see more, and that too more clearly, than one who, statue-
like, forever stands upon the same pedestal, however lofty and
well placed that pedestal may be.

Some people are too foolish to commit follies.

The knowledge of others which experience gives us is of
slight value when compared with that which we obtain from
having proved the inconstancy of our own desires.

The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminu-
tives.

It is a weak thing to tell half your story, and then ask your
friend's advice — a still weaker thing to take it.

How to gain the advantages of society, without at the same
time losing ourselves, is a question of no slight difficulty. The
wise man often follows the crowd at a little distance, in order
that he may not come suddenly upon it, nor become entangled
with it, and that he may with some means of amusement main-
tain a clear and quiet pathway.

THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD. 77

Not a few are willing to shelter their folly behind the re-
spectability of downright vice.

We are frequently understood the least by those who have
known us the longest.

The reasons which any man offers to you for his own con-
duct betray his opinion of your character.

If you are very often deceived by those around you, you
may be sure that you deserve to be deceived ; and that instead
of railing at the general falseness of mankind, you have first to
pronounce judgment on your own jealous tyranny, or on your
own weak credulity. Those only who can bear the truth will
hear it.

The wisest maxims are not those which fortify us against
the deceit of others.

Very subtle-minded persons often complain that their friends
fall from them ; and these complaints are not altogether unjust.
One reason of this is that they display so much dialectic astute-
ness on every occasion, that their friends feel certain that such
men, however unjustifiably they may behave, will always be
able to justify themselves to themselves. Now we mortals are
strangely averse to loving those who are never in the wrong,
and much more those who are always ready to prove themselves
in the right.

You cannot insure the gratitude of others for a favor con-
ferred upon them in the way which is most agreeable to
yourself.

How singularly mournful it is to observe in the conversa-
tion or writings of a very superior man and original thinker,
homely, if not commonplace, expressions about the vanity of
human wishes, the mutability of this world, the weariness of
life. It seems as if he felt that his own bitter experience had
taken away the triteness from that which is nevertheless so
trite ; as if he thought it were needless to seek fine phrases,
and as idle a mockery as it would be to gild an instrument of
torture.

It must be a very weary day to the youth, when he first dis-
covers that after all he will only become a man.

It is unwise for a great man to reason as if others were like

78 THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD.

him : it is much more unwise to treat them as if they were
very different.

Men are ruined by the exceptions to their general rules of
action. This may seem a mockery, but it is nevertheless a fact
to be observed in the records of history, as well as in the trivial
occurrences of daily life. One who is habitually dark and
deceptive commits a single act of confidence, and his subtle
schemes are destroyed forever. His first act of extravagance
ruins the cautious man. The coward is brave for a moment,
and dies ; the hero wavers for the first — and the last time.

Some persons are insensible to flattering words ; but who
can resist the flattery of modest imitation ?

An inferior demon is not a great man, as some writers would
fain persuade us.

The world would be in a more wretched state than it is at
present, if riches and honors were distributed according to
merit alone. It is the complaint of the wisest of men, that he
" returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to
men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."
But if it were otherwise, if bread were indeed the portion of
the wise, then the hungry would have something to lament over
more severe even than the pangs of hunger. The belief that
merit is generally neglected forms the secret consolation of
almost every human being, from the mightiest prince to the
meanest peasant. Divines have contended that the world
would cease to be a place of trial if a system of impartial dis-
tribution according to merit were adopted. This is true, for it
would then be a place of punishment.

There is no power in the wisdom of the insincere.
Conviction never abides without a welcome from the heart.

It is necessary to be decisive ; not because deliberate coun-
sel would never improve your designs, but because the foolish
and the unthinking will certainly act if there be but a moment's
pause.

The practical man — an especial favorite in this age — often
takes the field with his single fact against a great principle, in

THOUGHTS IN THE CLOISTER AND THE CROWD. 79

the reckless spirit of one who would not hesitate to sever the
thread on which he is unable to string his own individual pearl
— perhaps a false one — even though he should scatter many
jewels worthy of a prince's diadem.

Even the meanest are mighty to do evil.

If there is any one quality of the mind in which the really
great have conspired, as it were, to surpass other men, it is
moral courage. He who possesses this quality may sometimes
be made a useful tool or a ready sacrifice in the hands of crafty
statesmen ; but let him be the chief, and not the subordinate,
give him the field, grant him the opportunity, and his name
will not deserve to be unwritten in the records of his country.
When such a man perceives that if he fail, every one will be
able to understand the risk that has been incurred ; but that
if he succeed, no one will estimate the danger that has silently
been overcome ; he bows, nevertheless, to the supreme dictates
of his own judgment, regardless alike of the honors of his own
age, and the praises of posterity.

It requires some moral courage to disobey, and yet there
have been occasions when obedience would have been defeat.

But it is not only in the council, in the senate, in the field,
that its merits are so preeminent. In private life, what daily
deceit would be avoided, what evils would be remedied, if men
did but possess more moral courage ! — not that false image of
it which proceeds from a blind and inconsiderate rashness, from
an absence both of forethought and imagination ; but that
calm reliance on the decisions of reason, that carelessness of
the undeserved applause of our neighbor, which will induce the
great man to act according to his own informed judgment, and
not according to the opinions of those who will not know, and
who could never appreciate his motives.

Feeble applause may arise from a keen and fastidious sense
of the slightest imperfection ; but it is more frequently to be
attributed to an inadequate notion of the dangers which have
been avoided, and the difficulties which have been overcome.

The trifling of a great man is never trivial.

80 POEMS OF ALFRED DE MUSSET.

POEMS OF ALFRED DE MUSSET.

[Louis CHARLES ALFRED DE MDSSET, French poet and dramatist, was born
in Paris, November 11, 1810. Hesitating in the choice of a profession, he suc-
cessively tried and abandoned law, medicine, and painting, and ultimately, under
the influence of the so-called romantic movement, applied himself to literature,
making his debut as an author with " Contes d'Espague et d' Italic " (1830). In
1833 he went to Italy with George Sand ; but, after an extended trip, fell out with
her at Venice, and returned to France alone. He was librarian to the Depart-
ment of the Interior under Louis Philippe, and in 1852 was received at the
French Academy. Irregular and dissolute living undermined his health, and
he died at Paris, May 1, 1857. Among his noteworthy works are : the poem
"Namouna"; "The Confession of a Child of the Century"; and the plays
"Fantasio," " Barberine," " Lorenzaccio," " On ne badine pas avecl' Amour"
(•' One does not play with Love "), etc.]

FROM THE "OoE TO MALIBRAN."
(Translated by Fanny Kemble Butler.)

0 MARIA FELICIA ! the painter and bard

Behind them, in dying, leave undying heirs.

The night of oblivion their memory spares ;
And their great, eager souls, other action debarred,
Against death, against time, having valiantly warred,

Though struck down in the strife, claim its trophies as theirs.

In the iron engraved, one his name leaves enshrined;
With a golden-sweet cadence another's entwined

Makes forever all those who shall hear it his friends.
Though he died, on the canvas lives Raphael's mind ;

And from death's darkest doom, till this world of ours ends

The mother-clasped infant his glory defends.

As the lamp guards the flame, so the bare marble halls
Of the Parthenon hold, in their desolate space,

The memory of Phidias enshrined in their walls.

And Praxiteles' child, the young Venus, yet calls

From the altar, where smiling she still holds her place,
The centuries conquered, to worship her grace.

Thus, from age after age while new light we receive,

To rest at God's feet the old glories are gone ;
And the accents of genius their echoes still weave

With the great human voice, till their thoughts are but one,
And of thee, dead but yesterday, all thy fame leaves

But a cross in the dim chapel's darkness — alone.

Old Songs

From the painting by R. Potzelberger

POEMS OF ALFRED DE MUSSET. 81

A cross, and oblivion, silence, and death !

Hark ! the wind's softest sob ; hark ! the ocean's deep breath ;

Hark ! the fisher-boy singing his way o'er the plains :
Of thy glory, thy hope, thy young beauty's bright wreath,

Not a trace, not a sigh, not an echo remains.

ON A SLAB OF EOSE MARBLE.

There should have come forth of thee
Some new-born divinity.
When the marble-cutters hewed

Through thy noble block their way,
They broke in with footsteps rude

Where a Venus sleeping lay,
And the Goddess' wounded veins
Colored thee with roseate stains.
Alas ! and must we hold it truth

That every rare and precious thing,
Flung forth at random without ruth,

Trodden under foot may lie ?
The crag where, in sublime repose,

The eagle stoops to rest his wing,
No less than any wayside rose

Dropped in the common dust to die ?
Can the mother of us all

Leave her work, to fullness brought,
Lost in the gulf of chance to fall,

As oblivion swallows thought ?
Does the briny tempest whirl

To the workman's feet the pearl?
Shall the vulgar, idle crowd
For all ages be allowed
To degrade earth's choicest treasure
At the arbitrary pleasure

Of a mason or a churl ?

To PEPA.

(Translated by Toru Dutt.)

PEPA ! when the night has come,
And Mamma has bid Good Night,

By thy light, half clad and dumb,
As thou kneelest out of sight, —

Laid by cap and sweeping vest
Ere thou sinkest to repose,

TOL. XXIII. — 6

82 ALFRED DE MUSSET.

At the hour when half at rest
Folds thy soul as folds a rose, —

When sweet Sleep, the sovereign mild,
Peace to all the house has brought,

Pe'pita ! my charming child !

What, 0 what is then thy thought ?

Who knows ? Haply dreamest thou
Of some lady doomed to sigh,

All that Hope a truth deems now,
All that Truth shall prove a lie.

Haply of those mountains grand
That produce — alas ! but mice ;

Castles in Spain, a Prince's hand,
Bonbons, lovers, or cream ice.

.Haply of soft whispers breathed
'Mid the mazes of a ball ;

Robes, or flowers, or hair enwreathed ;
Me ; — or nothing, Dear ! at all.

ALFRED DE MUSSET.

BY C. A. 8AINTE-BEUVE.
(From "Portrait* of Men": translated by Forayth Edeveain.)

[CHARLES AUGUSTIN SAINTB-BEUVE, one of the greatest literary critics of
modern times, was born at Boulogne-sur-Mer, December 23, 1804. Having com-
pleted his studies in Paris at the colleges Charlemagne and Bourbon, he entered
upon his literary career as a book reviewer, and became a contributor to tha
Globe, the Revue de Paris, the Revue, des Deux Monde*, the National, and the
Constitutionnel, in which last appeared, in 1840, the first series of his famous
" Causeries du Lundi " (" Monday Talks "). They mark an epoch in the intel-
lectual history of Europe, and revolutionized criticism. Sainte-Beuve was
elected to the Academy in 1846, and was nominated senator in 1865. He died
at Paris, October 13, 1869. Besides the "Causeries" he wrote: " History of
Port-Royal," "Contemporary Portraits," "Chateaubriand," etc.]

As WITH an army so with a nation : it is the bounden duty
of every generation to bury their dead, and to confer the last
honors on the departed. It were not right that the charming

ALFRED DE MUSSET. 83

poet who has recently been taken from our midst should be
laid under the sod before receiving a few words of good-by
from an old friend and witness of his first literary efforts.
Alfred de Musset's poetry was so well known, so dear to us
from the very first ; it touched our hearts so deeply in its fresh-
ness and delicate bloom ; he so belonged to our generation
(though with a greater touch of youth) — a generation then
essentially poetical, and devoted to feeling and its expression !
I see him as he looked twenty-nine years ago, at the time of
his dSbut in the world of literature, entering first into Victor
Hugo's circle, then proceeding to that of Alfred de Vigny and
the brothers Deschamps. With what an easy grace he made
his first entrance ! What surprise and delight he aroused in the
hearts of his listeners at the recital of his poems, " L'Anda-
louse," "Don Paez," and "Juana." It was Spring itself, a
Spring of youth and poetry, that blossomed forth before our
ravished gaze. He was scarcely eighteen years of age ; his
brow betokened all the pride of manhood ; the bloom was on his
cheek, for the roses of childhood still lingered there. Full of
the pride of life, he advanced with haughty gait and head erect,
as if assured of his conquest. Nobody at first sight could have
suggested a better idea of youthful genius. There seemed
promise of a French Byron in these brilliant verses of poetic
fervor, the very success of which has since made them common-
place, but which were then so new in the poetry of France : —

Love, plague of the world, and unutterable madness, etc.

How lovely she is in the evening, under the beams of the moon,
etc.

Oh ! decrepit old age, and heads bald and bare, etc.
Perchance the threshold of the ancient Palace Luigi, etc.

These lines, bearing a truly Shakespearian impress ; these
wild flights of fancy, 'mid flashes of audacious wit ; these
gleams of warmth and precocious passion, — all suggested the
genius of England's fiery bard.

The light and elegant verses that proceeded every morning
from his own lips, lingering soon afterwards on those of many
others, were in accordance with his years. But passion he
divined, and wished to outstrip. He would ask the secret of it

84 ALFRED DE MUSSET.

from his friends, richer in experience, and still suffering from
some wound, as we can see in the lines addressed to Ulric
Guttinguer —

Ulric, no eye has ever measured the abyss of the seas, . . .
that end with this verse —

I, so young, envying thy wounds and thy pain !

When coming face to face with pleasure at some ball or
festive gathering, De Musset was not captivated by the smiling
surface ; in his inward deep reflection he would seek the sadness
and bitterness underlying it all; apparently abandoning him-
self to the joys of the moment, he would murmur inwardly, so
as to enhance the very flavor of his enjoyment, that it was only
a fleeting second that could never be recalled. In everything
he sought a stronger and more acute sensation, in harmony
with the tone of his own mind. He found that the roses of a
day failed to succeed each other with sufficient rapidity ; he
would have liked to cull them one and all, so as better to inhale
their sweetness and more fully express their essence.

At the time of his first success there was a new school of
literature already greatly in vogue, and developing daily. It
was in its bosom that De Musset produced his first works, and
it might have seemed that he had been nourished on the prin-
ciples of this school. He made a point of demonstrating that
it was not so, or, at least, need not have been so ; that he wrote
on the lines of no previous author ; that, even in the new ranks,
he was entirely original. Here he undoubtedly displayed too
much impatience. What had he to fear ? The mere growth
of his daring talent would in itself have sufficed to evince his
originality. But he was not the man to await his fruit in due
season.

The new school of poetry had been, up till then, of a some-
what solemn, dreamy, sentimental, and withal religious tone ;
it prided itself on its accuracy, I may even say strictness, of
form. De Musset threw over this fastidious solemnity, exhibit-
ing an excess of familiarity and raillery. He scorned both
rhyme and rhythm ; his poetry was in perfect dSshabillg, and
he wrote " Mardoche," followed shortly after by "Namouna."
" Oh ! the profane man, the libertine ! " exclaimed the world ;
and yet, every one knew them by heart. Dozens of verses from
" Mardoche " would be taken for recitation, though hardly any

ALFRED DE MUSSET. 85

one knew the reason why, unless it were that the poem was easy,
and replete with fancy, marked here and there, even in its
insolence, with a grain of unexpected good sense, and that the
verses were "friends to the memory." Even the most senti-
mental dreamers would murmur to themselves, with an air of
triumph, the verse, " Happy a lover," etc. As to the Don Juan
in " Namouna," this new kind of rou£, who appeared to be the
author's favorite child — the ideal, alas ! of his vice and grief
— he was so fascinating, so boldly sketched ; he occasioned
the creation of such fine lines (two hundred of the most daring
verses ever seen in French poetry), that one coincided with
the poet himself in saying, " What do I say I Such as he is,
the world loves him still."

In his drama, " The Cup and the Lips," Alfred de Musset
expressed admirably in his creations of Frank and Belcolore the
struggle between a noble and proud heart and the genius of
the senses, to which that heart has once yielded. In this piece
we catch glimpses — in fact , more than glimpses — of hideous
truths, of monsters dragged into the light of day from out this
cavern of the heart, as Bacon calls it ; but this work is invested
with a glamour, an incomparable power, and even though the
monster is not vanquished, we can hear the golden arrows of
Apollo falling and resounding on his scales.

Alfred de Musset, similar to more than one of the char-
acters he has depicted, said that to be an artist such as he
wished, he must see and know all, and dive into the very
depths of everything. A most perilous and fatal theory !
And by what a powerful and expressive image he rendered
this idea in his comedy, " Lorenzaccio." Who, indeed, is this
Lorenzo, whose youth has been as pure as gold, whose heart
and hands were peaceful, who in the simple rising and setting
of the sun seemed to see every human hope blossoming around
him, who was goodness itself, and who brought his own de-
struction by wishing to be great ? Lorenzo is not an artist, he
wishes to be a man of action, a great citizen ; he has deter-
mined upon a heroic plan ; he has decided to deliver Florence,
his native town, from the vile and debauched tyrant, Alexander
de' Medici, his own cousin. In order to succeed in his enter-
prise, what does be propose undertaking? To play the part of
Brutus, but of a Brutus adapted to the circumstances of the
case ; and to this end, to lend himself to all the frivolities and
vices dear to the tyrant whose orgies dishonor Florence. He

86 ALFRED DE MUSSET.

creeps into Alexander's confidence, and becomes his accomplice
and instrument, abiding his time and watching for the right
moment. But, in the mean while, he has lived too dissipated a
life ; day by day he has plunged too deeply into the mire of
uncleanliness ; he has seen too much of the dregs of human-
ity. He awakes from his dream. Nevertheless, he perseveres,
resolved to attain his object, knowing, though, that it will be
all in vain. He will destroy the monster who fills the city with
disgust, but he knows full well that the day she is delivered
from his tyranny, Florence will take unto herself another
master, and that he, Lorenzo, will only incur disgrace. Thus
Lorenzo, by dint of simulating vice, and putting on evil like
a borrowed garment, is at last impregnated with the evil he at
first only assumes.

The tunic steeped in the blood of Nessus has penetrated his
skin and bones. The dialogue between Lorenzo and Philip
Strozzi — a virtuous and honorable citizen, who merely sees
things in their right and honest light — is one of startling truth.
Lorenzo is conscious of having seen and experienced too much,
of having ventured too far into the depths of life ever to return.
He realizes that he has introduced into his heart that implacable
intruder ennui, which forces him without pleasure to do from
habit and necessity what he at first essayed through affectation
and pretense. The whole of this deplorable moral attitude is
portrayed in moving words : " Poor child ! you rend my heart,"
says Philip ; and in answer to all the profound and contradic-
tory revelations of the young man, he can only repeat : " All
this astonishes me, and in what you relate there are things that
pain, others that please me."

I am merely touching lightly on the subject. But in thus
re-glancing, now that Alfred de Musset is no more, over a good
number of his characters and pieces, we discover in this child of
genius the antithesis of Goethe. The German writer severed
himself from his most intimate productions. He cut the link
between them and himself, casting his imaginary characters from
him, while invading fresh fields, wherein he could capture new
creations. For him poetry signified deliverance. Unlike De
Musset, Goethe, from the time he wrote "Werther " — that is,
from his youth upwards — to the end of his eighty years of life,
was doing his best to husband his mental and physical resources.
For Alfred de Musset poetry was all in all, it was himself ; it
was his own youthful soul, his own flesh and blood, that he

ALFRED DE MUSSET. 87

transmuted into verse. When he had thrown to others the
dazzling limbs of his poetic being— limbs that at times appeared
like unto those of Phaeton or a youthful god (take, for instance,
the splendid invocations in " Rolla ") — he still retained his own
heart, bleeding, burning, and wearied. Why was he not more
patient ? Everything would have come in due course. But he
hastened to anticipate and devour the seasons.

After the mimicry of passion — passion that as a child he so
well divined — passion at last came of itself — real undeniable
passion. We all know how, after it had for a time enhanced
the glamour of his genius, it laid waste his whole existence. An
allusion to this story of passion may be permitted, considering
how well it is known.

The poets of our day, the children of this generation, are
not deserving of reticence on our part — considering how little
reticence they have exercised themselves. Above all, in this
particular episode, confessions have proceeded from two sides,
and we might remark with Bossuet, were we ourselves exceptions
to the rule, that there are individuals who spend their life in
filling the world with the "follies of their misspent youth."

The world, or rather France, has in this case, it must be
allowed, submitted with all good grace ; she has listened with
keen interest to what appeared to her at least eloquent and sin-
cere. Alfred de Musset was indebted to these hours of storm and
anguish for the creation, in his " Immortal Nights," of lines which
have vibrated through every heart, and that will forever stand
the test of time. As long as France and French poetry exist,
the flames of De Musset will live, like those of Sappho ! Let us
not forget to add a "Souvenir" to these celebrated "Nights" —
a " Souvenir " closely associated with these poems. The " Souve-
nir " describes a return to the Forest of Fontainebleau, and is of a
beauty pure and touching ; and, what is rare in him, this work
is imbued with infinite tenderness. In his rapid existence there
was one moment of wondrous promise during the interval of
his hours of intense excitement. It was at this period that De
Musset's poems acquired a new subtlety of thought, a touch of
irony, a mocking lightness, withal exhaling the pristine fresh-
ness which his weariness of the world had not yet destroyed.
Such an elegant and essentially French treatment had not been
since the days of Hamilton and Voltaire. This moment, though,
was of short duration, for De Musset drove everything at a
rapid pace ; but it was a precious moment, appearing to his

88 ALFRED DE MUSSET.

friends as precursory to a greater maturity of thought. He
then wrote proverbs of an exquisite delicacy, and verses always
beautiful, but light, and invested with a superior ease — verses
withal pregnant of wit and reflection allied to an elegant care-
lessness. He would burst into accents of profound melody,
that recalled the harmonious sounds of other times : —

Star of love, descend not from the skies !

All this seemed to promise a more temperate season, and
the lasting reign of a talent that was sought after in the most
critical circles, as well as by the most fervent of youth. Whether
it were a question of singing the first triumphs of Rachel, or
the d£but of Pauline Garcia, or railing at the coarsely emphatic
effusions of patriotism from the free " German Rhine," or writ-
ing a witty tale, De Musset would rise to the occasion, appro-
priately blending enthusiasm with satire. He verified more
and more the device of the poet : " I am a light thing, flying
to every subject."

He was the fashion. His books, as I have already remarked
in another article, became acceptable as bridal presents, and I
have noticed young husbands giving them to their wives to
read from the very first month of their marriage, so as to de-
velop in them a poetical taste. It was then, also, that men of
wit and reputed discernment, the dilettanti that are so numer-
ous in our country, presumed to say they preferred De Musset's
prose to his poetry, as if his prose were not essentially that of a
poet : only a poet could have written such fine prose. There
are people who, if they could, would sever a bee in two. How-
ever, De Musset gained theatrical triumphs as well as the favor
of society. It had been discovered for some time that more
than one of the comedies composing " The Performance in an
Armchair," could, if understood and well rendered by amateur
actors and actresses, procure an hour of very agreeable recrea-
tion. These little pieces were represented in the country
houses, where there was always plenty of leisure time. To
Madame Allan, the actress, is due the honor of having discov-
ered that De Musset's stage works were equally suitable for
representation on the public boards. It was wittily said of
her, that she brought his " Caprice " from Russia in her muff.

The success that was gained at the Comedie Franchise by
this pretty poetical gem proved that the public still possessed

ALFRED DE MUSSET. 89

a latent refinement in literary taste, that merely required arous-
ing. What, then, did the poet wish to render him happy?
Why did he, who was still so young, not wish to live and en-
joy life? Why did he not return the smiles that greeted his
presence? Why did his genius, now influenced by a greater
calm, not reawaken the old inspiration, which would have been
purified by his later finer shades of taste ?

De Musset was essentially a poet ; he wished to feel. He
belonged to a generation whose password, whose first vow, in-
scribed in the depths of the heart, was, " Poetry, poetry itself,
poetry before anything." "During my youth," remarked one
of the poets of this period, " I desired and worshiped nothing
beyond passion," that is to say, the living part of poetry.

De Musset disdained adopting what is called wisdom, but
which seemed to him merely the gradual decay of life. It was
impossible for him to transform himself. Having attained and
gone beyond the summit of the mountain, it seemed to him
that he had come to the end of every desire ; life had become
a burden to him. He was not one of those to whom the pleas-
ure of criticism could supply the place of artistic production ;
of those who can find interest in literary work, and who are
capable of studying arduously, in order to avoid passions that
are still in search of prey, without having any really serious
object. He could but hate life from the moment (using his
own language) that it was no longer sacred youth. He con-
sidered life not worth living unless mingled with a slight
delirium.

His verses are steeped in these sentiments. He must often
have experienced a feeling of anguish and defeat in reflecting
on the existence of a superior truth, of a severer poetical
beauty, of which he formed a perfect conception, but that he
had no longer the power of attaining.

On a certain occasion, one of De Musset's most devoted
friends, and whose recent death must have been a grievous
omen to him — Alfred Tattet, whom I happened to encounter
on the Boulevards — showed me a scrap of paper, containing
some penciled lines, that he had found that very morning on
the table at De Musset's bedside. The poet was at that time
staying with him in his country house, in the Valley of
Montmorency.

Here are the verses stolen from him by his friend, and since
published, but they only possess their full meaning when one

90 ALFRED DE MUSSET.

knows they were written during a night of utter exhaustion
and bitter regret : —

I have lost my strength and life,
My friends and my joyous mood;
I have even lost the pride
That made me trust my genius.

When I discovered truth,
Methought she was a friend ;
When I understood and felt her,
She had already wearied me.

And yet she is immortal ;

And those who have lived without her

Have ignored everything.

God speaks, and I must answer.
The only thing that remains to me
Is sometimes to have wept.

Let us remember his first songs of the Page or Amorous
Knight —

To the hunt, the happy hunt !

— a matutinal sound of the horn, — and in placing it at the
side of his final sorrowing lines, we seem to perceive the whole
of De Musset's poetical career illustrated in the two poems
representing glory and pardon. In the beginning, what a
glorious train of light I Then, what gloom, what shadow !
The poet who has been but the startling type of many un-
known souls of his day, — he who has but expressed their
attempts, their failures, their grandeur, their miseries, — his
name, I say, will never die. Let us, in particular, engrave this
name on our hearts. He has bequeathed to us the task of get-
ting old, — to us, who could exclaim the other day, in all truth,
on returning from his funeral : " For many years our youth
has been dead, but we have only just buried it with him I "
Let us admire, continue to love and to honor in its best and
most beautiful expression, the profound and light spirit that he
has breathed forth in his poems ; but withal it behooves us not
to forget the infirmity inherent in our being, and never to
boast of the gifts that human nature has received.

THE SEA. 91

THE SEA.

BY BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (" Barry Cornwall ").

[1787-1874.]

THE Sea ! the Sea ! the open Sea !

The blue, the fresh, the ever free !

Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round ;

It plays with the clouds ; it mocks the skies ;

Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the Sea ! I'm on the Sea !

I am where I would ever be ;

With the blue above, and the blue below,

And silence wheresoe'er I go ;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,

What matter ? / shall ride and sleep.

I love (oh ! how I love) to ride
On the fierce foaming bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore,
But I loved the great Sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest ;
And a mother she was, and is to me ;
For I was born on the open Sea !

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born ;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold ;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the Ocean-child !

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought, nor sighed for change ;
And Death, whenever he come to me,
Shall come on the wide unbounded Sea !

92 NELL COOK-

NELL COOK.

A. LEGEND OF THE " DARK ENTRY."
BY RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM.
(From the " Ingoldsby Legends.")

[RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM, English humorist and antiquary, was born
December 6, 1788, at Canterbury ; died June 17, 1845, at London. Of a good
old family, with a jolly and literary father, he had a first-rate private education,
finished at St. Paul's in London, and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Entering
the church, he held livings in the district near Romney Marsh, with smuggling
its chief trade, and desperadoes its most noted denizens ; he made rich literary
capital out of it later. Finally he obtained livings in London, and became a
member of a famous circle of wits, including Sydney Smith and Theodore Hook.
In 1834 he began in Bentley's Miscellany the series of "Ingoldsby Legends,"
chiefly in verse, which still remain in unabated popularity, another series appear-
ing in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine in 1843 ; they are largely burlesque
developments of mediaeval church legends or other stories, or local traditions.]

" HARK ! listen, Mrs. Ingoldsby, — the clock is striking nine !
Give Master Tom another cake, and half a glass of wine,
And ring the bell for Jenny Smith, and bid her bring his coat,
And a warm bandanna handkerchief to tie about his throat.

" And bid them go the nearest way, for Mr. Birch has said
That nine o'clock's the hour he'll have his boarders all in bed ;
And well we know when little boys their coming home delay,
They often seem to walk and sit uneasily next day ! " —

" Now, nay, dear Uncle Ingoldsby, now send me not, I pray,
Back by that Entry dark, for that you know's the nearest way ;
I dread that Entry dark with Jane alone at such an hour,
It fears me quite — it's Friday night ! — and then Nell Cook hath
power ! " —

" And who's Nell Cook, thou silly child ? — and what's Nell Cook to

thee?
That thou should'st dread at night to tread with Jane that dark

entree ? " —
" Nay, list and hear, mine Uncle dear ! such fearsome things they

tell
Of Nelly Cook, that few may brook at night to meet with Nell !

" It was in bluff King Harry's days, — and Monks and Friars were

then,

You know, dear Uncle Ingoldsby, a sort of Clergymen.
They'd coarse stuff gowns, and shaven crowns — no shirts — and no

cravats,
And a cord was placed about their waist — they had no shovel hats !

NELL COOK. 93

" It was in bluff King Harry's days, while yet he went to shrift,
And long before he stamped and swore, and cut the Pope adrift ;
There lived a portly Canon then, a sage and learned clerk ;
He had, I trow, a goodly house, fast by that Entry dark !

" The Canon was a portly man — of Latin and of Greek,
And learned lore, he had good store — yet health was on his cheek.
The Priory fare was scant and spare, the bread was made of rye,
The beer was weak, yet he was sleek — he had a merry eye.

" For though within the Priory the fare was scant and thin,
The Canon's house it stood without ; — he kept good cheer within j
Unto the best he prest each guest with free and jovial look,
And Ellen Bean ruled his cuisine. — He called her ' Nelly Cook.'

" For soups, and stews, and choice ragouts, Nell Cook was famous

still !

She'd make them even of old shoes, she had such wondrous skill :
Her manchets fine were quite divine, her cakes were nicely browned,
Her boiled and roast, they were the boast of all the 'Precinct' round;

" And Nelly was a comely lass, but calm and staid her air,
And earthward bent her modest look — yet was she passing fair;
And though her gown was russet brown, their heads grave people

shook ; —
They all agreed no Clerk had need of such a pretty Cook.

" One day, 'twas on a Whitsun Eve — there came a coach and

four ; —
It passed the ' Green-court ' gate, and stopped before the Canon's

door;

The travel-stain on wheel and rein bespoke a weary way, —
Each panting steed relaxed its speed — out stept a Lady gay.

41 ' Now welcome ! welcome ! dearest Niece,' the Canon then did cry,

And to his breast the Lady prest — he had a merry eye —

*Now welcome! welcome! dearest Niece! in sooth, thou'rt welcome

1 here :

'Tis many a day since we have met — how fares my Brother
dear ? ' —

" ' Now thanks, my loving Uncle,' that Lady gay replied :
' Gramercy for thy benison ! ' — then ' Out, alas ! ' she sighed :
* My father dear he is not near ; he seeks the Spanish Main ;
He prays thee give me shelter here till he return again ! ' —

•" ' Now welcome ! welcome ! dearest Niece ; come lay thy mantle

by!'
'The Canon kissed her ruby lip — he had a merry eye —

94 NELL COOK.

But Nelly Cook askew did look : it came into her mind

They were a little less than ' kin,' and rather more than ' kind.' — 1

" Three weeks are gone and over — full three weeks and a day,
Yet still within the Canon's house doth dwell that Lady gay ;
On capons fine they daily dine, rich cates and sauces rare,
And they quaff good store of Bordeaux wine, — so dainty is their fare.

" And fine upon the virginals is that gay Lady's touch,

And sweet her voice unto the lute, you'll scarce hear any such ;

But is it ' 0 Sanctissima I ' she sings in dulcet tone ?

Or 'Angels ever bright and fair' 9 — Ah, no ! — it's 'Bobbing Joan!1

" The Canon's house is lofty and spacious to the view ;
The Canon's cell is ordered well — yet Nelly looks askew ;
The Lady's bower is in the tower, — yet Nelly shakes her head —
She hides the poker and the tongs in that gay Lady's bed !

" Six weeks were gone and over — full six weeks and a day,
Yet in that bed the poker and the tongs unheeded lay !
From which, I fear, it's pretty clear that Lady rest had none ;
Or, if she slept in any bed — it was not in her own.

" But where that Lady passed her night, I may not well divine :
Perhaps in pious orisons at good St. Thomas' Shrine,
And for her father far away breathed tender vows and true —
It may be so — I cannot say — but Nelly looked askew.

" And still at night, by fair moonlight, when all were locked in sleep,
She'd listen at the Canon's door, — she'd through the keyhole peep —
I know not what she heard or saw, but fury filled her eye —
She bought some nasty Doctor's stuff, and she put it in a pie !

" It was a glorious summer's eve — with beams of rosy red
The Sun went down — all Nature smiled — but Nelly shook her head.
Full softly to the balmy breeze rang out the Vesper bell —
Upon the Canon's startled ear it sounded like a knell !

" ' Now here's to thee, mine Uncle ! a health I drink to thee !
Now pledge me back in Sherris sack, or a cup of Malvoisie ! ' —
The Canon sighed — but, rousing, cried, ' I answer to thy call,
And a Warden-pie's a dainty dish to mortify withal ! '

" 'Tis early dawn — the matin chime lings out for morning prayer—
And Prior and Friar is in his stall — the Canon is not there !
Nor in the small Refectory hall, nor cloistered walk is he —
All wonder — and the Sacristan says, ' Lauk-a-daisy-me ! '

1 " A little more than kin, and less than kind." — Hamlet.

NELL COOK. 95

"They've searched the aisles and Baptistery — they've searched

above — around —

The ' Sermon House' — the ' Audit Room ' — the Canon is not found.
They only find that pretty Cook concocting a ragout,
They ask her where her master is — but Nelly looks askew.

"They call for crowbars — 'jemmies' is the modern name they
bear — [there! —

They burst through lock, and bolt, and bar — but what a sight is
The Canon's head lies on the bed — his Niece lies on the floor! —
They are as dead as any nail that is in any door !

" The livid spot is on his breast, the spot is on his back !

His portly form, no longer warm with life, is swoln and black ! —

The livid spot is on her cheek, — it's on her neck of snow,

And the Prior sighs, and sadly cries, ' Well — here's a pretty Go ! '

" All at the silent hour of night a bell is heard to toll,

A knell is rung, a requiem 's sung as for a sinful soul,

And there's a grave within the Nave ; it's dark, and deep, and wide,

And they bury there a Lady fair, and a Canon by her side !

" An Uncle — so 'tis whispered now throughout the sacred fane, —
And a Niece — whose father's far away upon the Spanish Main.
The Sacristan, he says no word that indicates a doubt,
But he puts his thumb unto his nose, and spreads his fingers out !

" And where doth tarry Nelly Cook, that staid and comely lass ?
Ay, where ? — for ne'er from forth that door was Nelly known to pass.
Her coif and gown of russet brown were lost unto the view,
And if you mentioned Nelly's name — the monks all looked askew I

" There is a heavy paving-stone fast by the Canon's door,
Of granite gray, and it may weigh some half a ton or more,
And it is laid deep in the shade within that Entry dark,
Where sun or moonbeam never played, or e'en one starry spark.

" That heavy granite stone was moved that night, 'twas darkly said,
And the mortar round its sides next morn seemed fresh and newly

laid,

But what within the narrow vault beneath that stone doth lie,
Or if that there be vault or no — I cannot tell — not I !

" But I've been told that moan and groan, and fearful wail and shriek,
Came from beneath that paving-stone for nearly half a week —
For three long days and three long nights came forth those sounds

of fear ;
Then all was o'er — they nevermore fell on the listening ear.

96 NELL COOK.

" A hundred years have gone and past since last Nell Cook was seen,
When worn by use, that stone got loose, and they went and told the

Dean. —
Says the Dean, says he, ' My Masons three ! now haste and fix it

tight;'
And the Masons three peeped down to see, and they saw a fearsome

sight.

" Beneath that heavy paving-stone a shocking hole they found —
It was not more than twelve feet deep, and barely twelve feet round ; —
A fleshless, sapless skeleton lay in that horrid well !
But who the deuce 'twas put it there those Masons could not tell.

" And near this fleshless skeleton a pitcher small did lie,
And a mouldy piece of ' kissing-crust,' as from a Warden-pie !
And Dr. Jones declared the bones were female bones and, ' Zooks !
I should not be surprised,' said he, ' if these were Nelly Cook's ! '

" It was in good Dean Bargrave's days, if I remember right,

Those fleshless bones beneath the stones these Masons brought to light ;

And you may well in the ' Dean's Chapelle ' Dean Bargrave's portrait

view,
1 Who died one night,' says old Tom Wright, ' in sixteen forty-two ! '

"And so two hundred years have passed since that these Masons

three,

With curious looks, did set Nell Cook's unquiet spirit free ;
That granite stone had kept her down till then — so some suppose ; —
Some spread their fingers out, and put their thumbs unto their nose.

" But one thing's clear — that all the year, on every Friday night
Throughout that Entry dark doth roam Nell Cook's unquiet Sprite :
On Friday was that Warden-pie all by that Canon tried ;
On Friday died he, and that tidy Lady by his side !

" And though two hundred years have flown, Nell Cook doth still

pursue

Her weary walk, and they who cross her path the deed may rue ;
Her fatal breath is fell as death ! the Simoom's blast is not
More dire — (a wind in Africa that blows uncommon hot).

" But all unlike the Simoom's blast, her breath is deadly cold,
Delivering quivering, shivering shocks unto both young and old;
And whoso in that Entry dark doth feel that fatal breath,
He ever dies within the year some dire untimely death !

"No matter who — no matter what condition, age, or sex,
But some ' get shot,' and some ' get drowned,' and some ' get ' broken
necks ;

THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS. 97

Some ' get run over ' by a coach ; — and one beyond the seas
< Got ' scraped to death with oyster-shells among the Caribbees I

" Those Masons three, who set her free, fell first ! — it is averred
That two were hanged on Tyburn tree for murdering of the third :
Charles Storey, too, his friend who slew, had ne'er, if truth they tell,
Been gibbeted on Chatham Down, had they not met with Nell !

" Then send me not, mine Uncle dear, oh ! send me not, I pray,
Back through that Entry dark to-night, but round some other way !
I will not be a truant boy, but good, and mind my book,
For Heaven forfend that ever I foregather with Nell Cook ! "

The class was called at morning tide, and Master Tom was there ;
He looked askew, and did eschew both stool, and bench, and chair.
He did not talk, he did not walk, the tear was in his eye, —
He had not e'en that sad resource, to sit him down and cry.

Hence little boys may learn, when they from school go out to dine,
They should not deal in rigmarole, but still be back by nine ;
For if, when they've their greatcoat on, they pause before they part,
To tell a long and prosy tale, — perchance their own may smart.

MORAL.

A few remarks to learned Clerks in country and in town : —
Don't keep a pretty serving-maid, though clad in russet brown ! —
Don't let your Niece sing " Bobbing Joan ! " — don't, with a merry-
eye,
Hob-nob in Sack and Malvoisie, — and don't eat too much pie ! !

And oh ! beware that Entry dark, — especially at night, —

And don't go there with Jenny Smith all by the pale moonlight ! —

So bless the Queen and her Royal Weans, — and the Prince whose

hand she took, —
And bless us all, both great and small, — and keep us from Nell

Cook!

THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS.

BY RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM.

(From the " Ingoldsby Legends.")

The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!

Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there ;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,

VOL. XXIII. — 7

98 THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS.

With a great many more of lesser degree —

In sooth a goodly company ;

And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.

Never, I ween, Was a prouder seen,
Read of in books, or dreamed of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims !

In and out Through the motley rout
That little Jackdaw kept hopping about ;

Here and there Like a dog in a fair

Over comfits and cakes, And dishes and plates,
Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,
Miter and crosier ! he hopped upon all !

With saucy air, He perched on the chair
, Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat

In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat ;

And he peered in the face Of his Lordship's Grace,
With a satisfied look, as if he would say,
" We two are the greatest folks here to-day ! "

And the priests, with awe, As such freaks they saw,
Said, " The devil must be in that little Jackdaw ! "

The feast was over, the board was cleared,
The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,
And six little Singing Boys, — dear little souls !
In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles,

Came, in order due, Two by two
Marching that grand refectory through.

A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed and filled with water, as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Carried lavender water and eau de Cologne ;
And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope.

One little boy more A napkin bore,
Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink,
And a Cardinal's Hat marked in " permanent ink."

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
Of these nice little boys dressed all in white :

From his finger he draws His costly turquoise ;

THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS. 99

And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,

Deposits it straight By the side of his plate,
While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait ;
Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing,
That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring.

There's a cry and a shout, And a deuce of a rout,
And nobody seems to know what they're about,
But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out ;

The friars are kneeling, And hunting, and feeling
The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.

The Cardinal drew Off each plum-colored shoe,
And left his red stockings exposed to the view ;

He peeps, and he feels In the toes and the heels ;
They turn up the dishes, — they turn up the plates, —
They take up the poker and poke out the grates, —

They turn up the rugs, — They examine the mugs : —

But no ! — no such thing ; — They can't find the RING !
And the Abbot declared that, " when nobody twigged it,
Some rascal or other had popped in and prigged it ! "

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,

He called for his candle, his bell, and his book !

In holy anger, and pious grief,

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief !

He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed ;

From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head ;

He cursed him in sleeping, that every night

He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright ;

He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking,

He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking}

He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying ;

He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying ;

He cursed him in living, he cursed him dying ! —
Never was heard such a terrible curse !

But what gave rise To no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse !

The day was gone, The night came on,
The Monks and the Friars they searched till dawn ;

When the Sacristan saw, On crumpled claw,
Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw;

No longer gay, As on yesterday ;
His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way j —
His pinions drooped — he could hardly stand —

100 THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS.

His head was as bald as the palm of your hand ;

His eye so dim, So wasted each limb,
That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM! —
That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing !
That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's Eing ! "

The poor little Jackdaw, When the monks he saw,
Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw ;
And turned his bald head, as much as to say,
" Pray, be so good as to walk this way ! "

Slower and Slower He limped on before,
Till they came to the back of the belfry door,

Where the first thing they saw, Midst the sticks and the straw
Was the RING in the nest of that little Jackdaw !

Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book,
And off that terrible curse he took ;

The mute expression Served in lieu of confession,
And, being thus coupled with full restitution,
The Jackdaw got plenary absolution ! —

When those words were heard, That poor little bird
Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd,
He grew sleek, and fat ; In addition to that,
A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat I

His tail waggled more Even than before ;
But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,
No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair.

He hopped now about With a gait devout j
At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out ;
And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads.
If any one lied, — or if any one swore, —
Or slumbered in prayer time and happened to snore,

That good Jackdaw Would give a great " Caw ! n
As much as to say, " Don't do so any more ! "
While many remarked, as his manners they saw,
That they " never had known such a pious Jackdaw ! "

He long lived the pride Of that country side,
And at last in the odor of sanctity died ;

When, as words were too faint, His merits to paint,
The Conclave determined to make him a Saint ;
And on newly made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It's the custom, at Borne, new names to bestow,
So they canonized him by the name of Jim Crow !

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. 101
ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

BY ROBERT M. BIRD.
(From " Nick of the Woods.")

[ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD, novelist and playwright, was born at New-
castle, Del., 1803 or 1805; studied medicine and practiced a year in
Philadelphia, but gave his time chiefly to letters, and wrote three very popu-
lar plays, — "The Gladiator" (a favorite part of Forrest), "Oraloosa," and
" The Broker of Bogota." His novels were " Calavar " (1834), " The Infidel "
(1835), both on the Spanish conquest of Mexico; "The Hawks of Hawk Hol-
low"; "Sheppard Lee"; "Nick of the Woods" (1837), still remembered
and effectively dramatized ; "Peter Pilgrim" (1839), tales and sketches; and
"Robin Day" (1839). Dr. Bird in his later years became joint owner and
editor of the Philadelphia North American Gazette, and died there in 1854.]

" WHAT'S the matter, Tom Bruce ? " said the father, eying
him with surprise.

" Matter enough," responded the young giant, with a grin
of mingled awe and delight ; "the Jibbenainosay is up again !"

" Whar? " cried the senior, eagerly ; "not in our limits? "

" No, by Jehoshaphat ! " replied Tom ; " but nigh enough
to be neighborly — on the north bank of Kentuck, whar he has
left his mark right in the middle of the road, as fresh as though
it war but the work of the morning ! "

" And a clear mark, Tom ? no mistake in it ? "

" Right to an iota ! " said the young man ; " a reggelar
cross on the breast, and a good tomahawk dig right through
the skull ; and a long-legg'd fellow, too, that looked as though
he might have fou't old Sattan himself ! "

" It's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough, and so good luck to
him ! " cried the commander ; " thar's a harricane coming ! "

" Who is the Jibbenainosay ? " demanded Forrester.

"Who?" cried Tom Bruce. "Why, Nick, Nick of the
Woods."

" And who, if you please, is Nick of the Woods ? "

"Thar," replied the junior, with another grin, "thar,
strannger, you're too hard for me. Some think one thing,
and some another ; but thar's many reckon he's the devil."

" And his mark that you were talking of in such mysterious
terms, what is that ? "

" Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's mark on him,
— a knife-cut, or a brace of 'em, over the ribs in the shape of a

102 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

cross. That's the way the Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of
his killing. It has been a whole year now since we h'ard of him."

" Captain," said the elder Bruce, " you don't seem to under-
stand the affa'r altogether, but if you were to ask Tom about
the Jibbenainosay till doomsday, he could tell you no more
than he has told already. You must know thar's a creatur'
of some sort or other that ranges the woods round about our
station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard over us like, and killing
all the brute Injuns that ar' onlucky enough to come in his
way, besides scalping them and marking them with his mark.
The Injuns call him Jibbenainosay, or a word of that natur',
which them that know more about the Injun gabble than I do
say means the Spirit-that-walks ; and if we can believe any such
lying devils as Injuns (which I am loath to do, for the truth
ar'nt in 'em), he is neither man nor beast, but a great ghost or
devil that knife cannot harm nor bullet touch : and they have
always had an idea that our fort h'yar in partickelar, and the
country round about, war under his friendly protection — many
thanks to him, whether he be a devil or not ; for that war the
reason the savages so soon left off a worrying of us."

"Is it possible," said Roland, "that any one can believe
such an absurd story?"

"Why not?" said Bruce, stoutly. "Thar's the Injuns
themselves, — Shawnees, Hurons, Dela wares, and all, but par-
tickelarly the Shawnees, for he beats all creation a-killing
of Shawnees, — that believe in him, and hold him in such
etarnal dread that thar's scarce a brute of 'em has come
within ten miles of the station h'yar this three y'ar : because
as how he haunts about our woods h'yar in partickelar, and
kills 'em wheresomever he catches 'em, especially the Shaw-
nees, as I said afore, against which the creatur' has a most
butchering spite ; and there's them among the other tribes
that call him Shawneewannaween, or the Howl of the Shaw-
nees, because of his keeping them ever a howling. And
thar's his marks, captain, what do you make of that? When
you find an Injun lying scalped and tomahawked, it stands
to reason thar war something to kill him."

" Ay, truly," said Forrester ; " but I think you have human
beings enough to give the credit to without referring it to a
supernatural one."

" Strannger," said Big Tom Bruce, the younger, with a
sagacious nod, " when you kill an Injun yourself, I reckon — •

V

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. 103

meaning no offense — you will be willing to take all the honor
that can oome of it without leaving it to be scrambled after by
others. Thar's no man 'arns a scalp in Kentucky without taking
great pains to show it to his neighbors."

" And besides, captain," said the father, very gravely, " thar
are men among us who have seen the creatur' I "

" That" said Roland, who perceived his new friends were
not well pleased with his incredulity, " is an argument I can
resist no longer."

" Thar war Ben Jones, and Samuel Sharp, and Peter Small-
eye, and a dozen more, who all had a glimpse of him stalking
through the woods at different times ; and, they agree, he looks
more like a devil nor a mortal man, — a great tall fellow with
horns and a hairy head like a buffalo bull, and a little devil, that
looks like a black b'ar, that walks before him to point out the
way. He war always found in the deepest forests, and that's
the reason we call him Nick of the Woods, wharby we mean
Old Nick of the Woods ; for we hold him to be the devil,
though a friendly one to all but Injuns. Now, captain, I war
never superstitious in my life, but I go my death on the Jib-
benainosay ! I never seed the creatur' himself, but I have
seen, in my time, two different savages of his killing. It's a
sure sign if you see him in the woods, that thar's Injuns at
hand : and it's a good sign when you find his mark without
seeing him yourself, for then you may be sure the brutes are
off, — for they can't stand old Nick of the Woods no how!
At first he war never h'ard of afar from our station, but he
has begun to widen his range. Last year he left his marks
down Salt River in Jefferson ; and now, you see, he is striking
game north of the Kentucky ; and I've h'ard of them that say
he kills Shawnees even in their own country, though consarn-
ing that I'll not be so partickelar. No, no, captain, thar's no
mistake in Nick of the Woods ; and if you are so minded, we
will go and h'ar the whole news of him. But, I say, Tom,"
continued the Kentuckian, as the three left the porch together,
" who brought the news ? "

" Captain Ralph, — Roaring Ralph Stackpole," replied Tom
Bruce, with a knowing and humorous look.

" What ! " cried the father, in sudden alarm. " Look to the
horses, Tom ! "

" I will," said the youth, laughing : " it war no sooner known
that Captain Ralph war among us than it was resolved to have

104 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. '

six Regulators in the range all night ! Thar's some of these
new colts, (not to speak of our own creatur's,) and especially
that blooded brown beast of the captain's, which the niggar
calls Brown Briery, or some such name, would set a better man
than Roaring Ralph Stackpole's mouth watering."

"And who," said Roland, "is Roaring Ralph Stackpole?
and what has he to do with Brown Briareus ? "

" A proper fellow as ever you saw ! " replied Tom, approv-
ingly ; " killed two Injuns once, single-handed, on Bear-Grass,
and has stolen more horses from them than ar another man in
Kentucky. A prime creatur' ! but he has his fault, poor fel-
low, and sometimes mistakes a Christian's horse for an Injun's,
thar's the truth of it ! "

" And such scoundrels you make officers of ? " demanded
the soldier, indignantly.

" Oh," said the elder Bruce, " thar's no reggelar commission
in the case. But whar thar's a knot of our poor folks out of
horses, and inclined to steal a lot from the Shawnees, (which is
all fa'r plundering, you see, for thar's not a horse among them,
the brutes, that they did not steal from Kentucky,) they send
for Roaring Ralph and make him their captain ; and a capital
one he is, too, being all fight from top to bottom ; and as for
the stealing part, thar's no one can equal him. But, as Tom
says, he sometimes does make mistakes, having stolen horses so
often from the Injuns, he can scarce keep his hands off a Chris-
tian's, and that makes us wrathy."

By this time the speakers had reached the gate of the fort,
and passed among the cabins outside, where they found a
throng of the villagers, surrounding the captain of horse-thieves,
and listening with great edification to, and deriving no little
amusement from, his account of the last achievement of the Jib-
benainosay. Of this, as it related no more than young Bruce
had already repeated, — namely, that, while riding that morn-
ing from the north side, he had stumbled upon the corse of an
Indian, which bore all the marks of having been a late victim to
the wandering demon of the woods, — we shall say nothing :
— but the appearance and conduct of the narrator, one of the
first, and perhaps the parent, of the race of men who have made
Salt River so renowned in story, were such as to demand a less
summary notice. He was a stout, bandy-legged, broad-shoul-
dered, and bull-headed tatterdemalion, ugly, mean, and vil-
lainous of look ; yet with an impudent, swaggering, joyous

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. 105

self-esteem traced in every feature and expressed in every action
of body, that rather disposed the beholder to laugh than to be
displeased at his appearance. An old blanket-coat, or wrap-
rascal, once white, but now of the same muddy brown hue that
stained his visage — and once also of sufficient length to defend
his legs, though the skirts had long since been transferred to the
cuffs and elbows, where they appeared in huge patches — cov-
ered the upper part of his body ; while the lower boasted a pair
of buckskin breeches and leather wrappers, somewhat its junior
in age, but its rival in mud and maculation. An old round fur
hat, intended originally for a boy, and only made to fit his head
by being slit in sundry places at the bottom, thus leaving a
dozen yawning gaps, through which, as through the chinks of a
lattice, stole out as many stiff bunches of black hair, gave to the
capital excrescence an air as ridiculous as it was truly uncouth ;
which was not a little increased by the absence on one side of
the brim, and by a loose fragment of it hanging down on the
other. To give something martial to an appearance in other
respects so outlandish and ludicrous, he had his rifle, and other
usual equipments of a woodsman, including the knife and toma-
hawk, the first of which he carried in his hand, swinging it about
at every moment, with a vigor and apparent carelessness well
fit to discompose a nervous person, had any such happened
among his auditors. As if there was not enough in his figure,
visage, and attire to move the mirth of beholders, he added to
his other attractions a variety of gestures and antics of the most
extravagant kinds, dancing, leaping and dodging about, clapping
his hands and cracking his heels together, with the activity, rest-
lessness, and, we may add, the grace of a jumping- jack. Such
was the worthy, or unworthy, son of Salt River, a man wholly
unknown to history, though not to local and traditionary fame,
and much less to the then inhabitants of Bruce's Station, to
whom he related his news of the Jibbenainosay with that empha-
sis and importance of tone and manner which are most signifi-
cantly expressed in the phrase of "laying down the law."

As soon as he saw the commander of the Station approach-
ing, he cleared the throng around him by a skip and a hop,
seized the colonel by the hand, and doing the same with the sol-
dier, before Roland could repel him, as he would have done,
exclaimed, " Glad to see you, cunnel ; — same to you, strannger
— What's the news from Virginnie ? Strannger, my name's
Ralph Stackpole, and I'm a ring-tailed squealer I "

106 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

" Then, Mr. Ralph Stackpole, the ring-tailed squealer," said
Roland, disengaging his hand, " be so good as to pursue your
business, without regarding or taking any notice of me."

" 'Tarnal death to me ! " cried the captain of horse-thieves,
indignant at the rebuff, "I'm a gentleman, and my name's
Fight! Foot and hand, tooth and nail, claw and mud-scraper,
knife, gun, and tomahawk, or any other way you choose to take
me, I'm your man ! Cock-a-doodle-doo I " And with that
the gentleman jumped into the air, and flapped his wings, as
much to the amusement of the provoker of his wrath as of any
other person present.

" Come, Ralph," said the commander of the Station, "whar'd
you steal that brown mar' thar ? " — a question whose abrupt-
ness somewhat quelled the ferment of the man's fury, while it
drew a roar of laughter from the lookers-on.

" Thar it is 1 " said he, striking an attitude and clapping a
hand on his breast, like a man who felt his honor unjustly as-
sailed. "Steal I I steal any horse but an Injun's ! Whar's the
man dar's insinivate that ? Blood and massacree-ation ! whar's
the man ? "

" H'yar," said Bruce, very composedly. " I know that old
mar' belongs to Peter Harper, on the north side."

"You're right, by Hookey ! " cried Roaring Ralph ; at which
seeming admission of his knavery the merriment of the spectators
was greatly increased ; nor was it much lessened when the fel-
low proceeded to aver that he had borrowed it, and that with
the express stipulation that it should be left at Bruce's Station,
subject to the orders of its owner. " Thar, cunnel," said he,
" thar's the beast ; take it ; and just tell me whar's the one you
mean to lend me, — for I must be off afore sunset."

" And whar are you going ? " demanded Bruce.

" To St. Asaphs," — which was a station some twenty or
thirty miles off, — replied Captain Stackpole.

" Too far for the Regulators to follow, Ralph," said Colonel
Bruce ; at which the young men present laughed louder than
ever, and eyed the visitor in a way that seemed both to dis-
concert and offend him.

"Cunnel," said he, "you're a man in authority, and my
superior officer ; wharfo' thar' can be no scalping between us.
But my name's Tom Dowdle, the rag-man ! " he screamed,
suddenly skipping into the thickest of the throng, and sound-
ing a note of defiance ; " my name's Tom Dowdle, the rag-man,

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. 107

and I'm for any man that insults me ! log-leg or leather-
breeches, green-shirt or blanket-coat, land-trotter or river-
roller, — I'm the man for a massacree ! " Then, giving himself
a twirl upon his foot that would have done credit to a dancing-
master, he proceeded to other antic demonstrations of hostility,
which when performed in after years on the banks of the
Lower Mississippi, by himself and his worthy imitators, were,
we suspect, the cause of their receiving the name of the mighty
alligator. It is said, by naturalists, of this monstrous reptile,
that he delights, when the returning warmth of spring has
brought his fellows from their holes, and placed them basking
along the banks of a swampy lagoon, to dart into the center
of the expanse, and challenge the whole field to combat. He
roars, he blows the water from his nostrils, he lashes it with
his tail, he whirls round and round, churning the water into
foam ; until, having worked himself into a proper fury, he
darts back again to the shore, to seek an antagonist. Had the
gallant captain of horse-thieves boasted the blood, as he after-
wards did the name, of an "alligator half-breed," he could
have scarce conducted himself in a way more worthy of his
parentage. He leaped into the center of the throng, where
having found elbow-room for his purpose, he performed the
gyration mentioned before, following it up by other feats expres-
sive of his hostile humor. He flapped his wings and crowed,
until every chanticleer in the settlement replied to the note
of battle ; he snorted and neighed like a horse ; he bellowed
like a bull ; he barked like a dog ; he yelled like an Indian ;
he whined like a panther ; he howled like a wolf ; until one
would have thought he was a living menagerie, comprising
within his single body the spirit of every animal noted for its
love of conflict. Then, not content with such a display of
readiness to fight the field, he darted from the center of the
area allowed him for his exercise, and invited the lookers-on
individually to battle. " Whar's your buffalo-bull," he cried,
" to cross horns with the roarer of Salt River ? Whar's your
full -blood colt that can shake a saddle off ? h'yar's an old nag
can kick off the top of a buck-eye ! Whar's your cat of the
Knobs, your wolf of the Rolling Prairies ? h'yar's the old brown
b'ar can claw the bark off a gum-tree ! H'yar's a man for you,
Tom Bruce ! Same to you, Sim Roberts ! to you, Jim Big-
nose ! to you, and to you and to you ! Ar'n't I a ring-tailed
squealer ? Can go down Salt on my back and swim up the

108 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

Ohio ! Whar's the man to fight Roaring Ralph Stack-
pole ? "

Now, whether it happened that there were none present in-
clined to a contest with such a champion, or whether it was
that the young men looked upon the exhibition as mere bra-
vado meant rather to amuse them than to irritate, it so occurred
that not one of them accepted the challenge ; though each,
when personally called on, did his best to add to the roarer's
fury, if fury it really were, by letting off sundry jests in rela-
tion to borrowed horses and Regulators. That the fellow's
rage was in great part assumed, Roland, who was at first
somewhat amused at his extravagance, became soon convinced;
and growing at last weary of it, he was about to signify to
his host his inclination to return into the fort, when the ap-
pearance of another individual on the ground suddenly gave
promise of new entertainment.

" If you're rarely ripe for a fight, Roaring Ralph," cried
Tom Bruce the younger, who had shown, like the others, a
greater disposition to jest than to do battle with the champion,
" here comes the very man for you. " Look, boys, thar comes
Bloody Nathan I " At which formidable name there was a
loud shout set up, with an infinite deal of laughing and clap-
ping of hands.

" Whar's the feller ? " cried Captain Stackpole, springing
six feet into the air, and uttering a whoop of anticipated tri-
umph. " I've heerd of the brute, and 'tarnal death to me, but
I'm his super-superior ! Show me the critter, and let me fly !
Cock-a-doodle-doo ! "

" Hurrah for Roaring Ralph Stackpole I " cried the young
men, some of whom proceeded to pat him on the back in com-
pliment to his courage, while others ran forward to hasten the
approach of the expected antagonist.

The appearance of the comer, at a distance, promised an
equal match to the captain of horse-thieves ; but Roland per-
ceived, from the increase of merriment among the Kentuckians,
and especially from his host joining heartily in it, that there
was more in Bloody Nathan than met the eye. And yet there
was enough in his appearance to attract attention, and to con-
vince the soldier that if Kentucky had shown him, in Captain
Stackpole, one extraordinary specimen of her inhabitants, she
had others to exhibit not a whit less remarkable. It is on the
frontiers, indeed, where adventurers from every corner of the

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. 109

world, and from every circle of society, are thrown together,
that we behold the strongest contrasts, and the strangest varie-
ties, of human character.

Casting his eyes down the road or street, (for it was flanked
by the outer cabins of the settlement, and perhaps deserved
the latter name,) which led, among stumps and gullies, from
the gate of the stockade to the bottom of the hill, Forrester
beheld a tall man approaching, leading an old lame white horse,
at the heels of which followed a little silky black or brown
dog, dragging its tail betwixt its legs, in compliment to the
curs of the Station, which seemed as hospitably inclined to
spread a field of battle for the submissive brute, as their owners
were to make ready another for its master. The first thing
that surprised the soldier in the appearance of the person bear-
ing so formidable a name, was an incongruity which struck
others as well as himself, even the colonel of militia exclaiming,
as he pointed it out with his finger, " It's old Nathan Slaughter,
to the backbone ! Thar he comes, the brute, leading a horse
in his hand, and carrying his pack on his own back ! But he's
a marciful man, old Nathan, and the horse thar, old White
Dobbin, war foundered and good for nothing ever since the
boys made a race with him against Sammy Parker's jackass."

As he approached yet nigher, Roland perceived that his
tall, gaunt figure was arrayed in garments of leather from top
to toe, even his cap, or hat, (for such it seemed, having several
broad flaps suspended by strings, so as to serve the purpose of
a brim,) being composed of fragments of tanned skins rudely
sewed together. His upper garment differed from a hunting
shirt only in wanting the fringes usually appended to it, and
in being fashioned without any regard to the body it encom-
passed, so that in looseness and shapelessness it looked more
like a sack than a human vestment ; and, like his breeches and
leggings, it bore the marks of the most reverend antiquity,
being covered with patches and stains of all ages, sizes, and
colors.

Thus far Bloody Nathan's appearance was not inconsistent
with his name, being uncommonly wild and savage ; and to
assist in maintaining his claims to the title, he had a long rifle
on his shoulder, and a knife in his belt, both of which were in
a state of dilapidation worthy of his other equipments ; the
knife, from long use and age, being worn so thin that it seemed
scarce worthy the carrying, while the rifle boasted a

110 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

so rude, shapeless, and, as one would have judged from its
magnitude and weight, so unserviceable, that it was easy to
believe it had been constructed by the unskillful hands of Nathan
himself. Such, then, was the appearance of the man who
seemed so properly called the Bloody ; but when Roland came to
survey him a little more closely, he could not avoid suspecting
that the sobriquet, instead of being given to indicate warlike
and dangerous traits of character, had been bestowed out of
pure wantonness and derision. His visage, seeming to belong
to a man of at least forty-five or fifty years of age, was hollow,
and almost as weather-worn as his apparel, with a long hooked
nose, prominent chin, a wide mouth exceedingly straight and
pinched, with a melancholy or contemplative twist at the
corners, and a pair of black staring eyes, that beamed a good-
natured, humble, and perhaps submissive, simplicity of disposi-
tion. His gait, too, as he stumbled along up the hill, with a
shuffling, awkward, hesitating step, was more like that of a man
who apprehended injury and insult, than of one who possessed
the spirit to resist them. The fact, moreover, of his sustaining
on his own shoulders a heavy pack of deer and other skins, to
relieve the miserable horse which he led, betokened a merciful
temper, scarce compatible with qualities of a man of war and
contention. Another test and criterion by which Roland
judged his claims to the character of a roarer, he found in the
little black dog ; for the Virginian was a devout believer, as
we are ourselves, in that maxim of practical philosophy, namely,
that by the dog you shall know the master, the one being fierce,
magnanimous, or cowardly, just as his master is a bully, a
gentleman, or a dastard. The little dog of Bloody Nathan was
evidently a coward, creeping along at White Dobbin's heels, and
seeming to supplicate with his tail, which now draggled in the
mud, and now attempted a timid wag, that his fellow-curs of
the Station should not be rude and inhospitable to a peaceable
stranger.

On the whole the appearance of the man was anything in
the world but that of the gory and ferocious ruffian whom the
nickname had led Roland to anticipate ; and he scarce knew
whether to pity him, or to join in the laugh with which the
young men of the settlement greeted his approach. Perhaps
his sense of the ridiculous would have disposed the young
soldier to merriment ; but the wistful look, with which, while
advancing, Nathan seemed to deprecate the insults he evidently

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. Ill

expected, spoke volumes of reproach to his spirit, and the half-
formed smile faded from his countenance.

" Thar ! " exclaimed Tom Bruce, slapping Stackpole on the
shoulder, with great glee, "thar's the man that calls himself
Dannger ! At him, for the honor of Salt River ; but take
care of his forelegs, for, I tell you, he's the Pennsylvany war-
horse ! "

"And arn't I the ramping tiger of the Rolling Fork?" cried
Captain Ralph ; " and can't I eat him, hoss, dog, dirty jacket,
and all ? Hold me by the tail while I devour him ! "

With that, he executed two or three escapades, demivoltes,
curvets, and other antics of a truly equine character, and,
galloping up to the amazed Nathan, saluted him with a neigh so
shrill and hostile that even White Dobbin pricked up his ears,
and betrayed other symptoms of alarm.

"Surely, Colonel," said Roland, "you will not allow that
mad ruffian to assail the poor man ? "

"Oh," said Bruce, "Ralph won't hurt him; he's never
ambitious, except among Injuns and horses. He's only for
skearing the old feller."

" And who," said Forrester, " may the old fellow be ? and
why do you call him Bloody Nathan ? "

" We call him Bloody Nathan," replied the commander, "be-
cause he's the only man in all Kentucky that won't fight I and
thar's the way he beats us all hollow. Lord, Captain, you'd
hardly believe it, but he's nothing more than a poor Pennsyl-
vany Quaker ; and what brought him out to Kentucky, whar
thar's nar another creatur' of his tribe, thar's no knowing.
Some say he war dishonest, and so had to cut loose from Penn-
sylvany ; but I never heerd of his stealing anything in Ken-
tucky ; I reckon thar's too much of the chicken about him for
that. Some say he is hunting rich lands ; which war like
enough for anybody that war not so poor and lazy. And some
say his wits are unsettled, and I hold that that's the truth of
the creatur' ; for he does nothing but go wandering up and
down the country, now h'yar and now thar, hunting for meat
and skins ; and that's pretty much the way he makes a living :
and once I see'd the creatur' have a fit — a right up-and-down
touch of the falling sickness, with his mouth all of a foam,
Thar's them that's good-natur'd that calls him Wandering
Nathan, because of his being h'yar and thar, and every whar.
He don't seem much afear'd of the Injuns ; but, they say, the

112 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

red brutes never disturbs the Pennsylvany Quakers. How-
somever, he makes himself useful ; for sometimes he finds
Injun signs whar thar's no Injuns thought of, and so he gives
information ; but he always does it, as he says, to save blood-
shed, not to bring on a fight. He comes to me once, thar's
more than three years ago, and instead of saying, 'Gunnel,
thar's twenty Injuns lying on the road at the lower ford of
Salt, whar ycu may nab them ; ' he says, says he, ' Friend
Thomas, thee must keep the people from going nigh- the ford,
for thar's Injuns thar that will hurt them ; ' and then he takes
himself off ; whilst I rides down thar with twenty-five men and
exterminates them, killing six, and driving others the Lord
knows whar. He has had but a hard time of it among us, poor
creatur' ; for it used to make us wrathy to find thar war so
little fight in him that he wouldn't so much as kill a murdering
Injun. I took his gun from him once ; for why, he wouldn't
attend muster when I had enrolled him. But I pitied the
brute for he war poor, and thar war but little corn in his
cabin and nothing to shoot meat with ; and so I gave it back,
and told him to take his own ways for an old fool."

While Colonel Bruce was thus delineating the character of
Nathan Slaughter, the latter found himself surrounded by the
men of the Station, the butt of a thousand jests, and the victim
of the insolence of the captain of horse-thieves. . . .

" Bloody Nathan ! " said he, as soon as he had concluded his
neighing and curveting, " if you ever said your prayers, now's
the time. Down with your pack — for I can't stand deer's
ha'r sticking in my swallow, no how ! "

" Friend," said Bloody Nathan, meekly, " I beg thee will not
disturb me. I am a man of peace and quiet."

And so saying, he endeavored to pass onwards, but was
prevented by Ralph, who, seizing his heavy bundle with one
hand, applied his right foot to it with a dexterity that not only
removed it from the poor man's back, but sent the dried skins
scattering over the road. This feat was rewarded by the
spectators with loud shouts, all which, as well as the insult
itself, Nathan bore with exemplary patience.

" Friend," he said, " what does thee seek of me, that thee
treats me thus ? "

" A fight ! " replied Captain Stackpole, uttering a war-
whoop ; " a fight, strannger, for the love of heaven ! "

" Thee seeks it of the wrong person," said Nathan ; " and I
beg thee will get thee away."

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY. 113

" What ! " said Stackpole, " arn't thee the Pennsylvany war-
horse, the screamer of the meeting-house, the bloody -mouthed
ba'r of Yea-Nay -and- Verily ? "

" I am a man of peace," said the submissive Slaughter.

" Yea verily, verily and yea ! " cried Ralph, snuffling through
the nostrils, but assuming an air of extreme indignation.
" Strannger, I've heerd of you ! You're the man that holds it
agin duty and conscience to kill Injuns, the redskin screamers —
that refuses to defend the women, the splendiferous creatur's !
and the little children, the squall-a-baby d'ars ! And wharfo' ?
Because as how you're a man of peace and no fight, you super-
iferous, long-legged, no-souled crittur! But I'm the gentle-
man to make a man of you. So down with your gun, and
'tarnal death to me, I'll whip the cowardly devil out of you."

" Friend," said Nathan, his humility yielding to a feeling of
contempt, " thee is theeself a cowardly person, or thee wouldn't
seek a quarrel with one thee knows can't fight thee. Thee
would not be so ready with thee match."

With that, he stooped to gather up his skins, a proceeding
that Stackpole, against whom the laugh was turned by this
sally of Nathan's, resisted him by catching him by the nape of
the neck, twirling him round, and making as if he really would
have beaten him.

Even this the peaceful Nathan bore without anger or mur-
muring ; but his patience fled, when Stackpole, turning to the
little dog, which by bristling its back and growling, expressed
a half inclination to take up its master's quarrel, applied his
foot to its ribs with a violence that sent it rolling some five or
six yards down the hill, where it lay for a time yelping and
whining with pain.

" Friend ! " said Nathan, sternly, " thee is but a dog thee-
self, to harm the creature ! What will thee have with me ? "

" A fight ! a fight, I tell thee ! " replied Captain Ralph,
" till I teach thy leatherified conscience the new doctrines of
Kentucky."

" Fight thee I cannot and dare not," said Nathan ; and then
added, much to the surprise of Forrester, who, sharing his indig-
nation at the brutality of his tormentor, had approached to drive
the fellow off, — " But if thee must have thee deserts, thee
shall have them. Thee prides theeself upon thee courage and
strength — will thee adventure with me a friendly fall ? "

" Hurrah for Bloody Nathan ! " cried the young men, vastly

VOL. XXIII. — 8

114 ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

delighted at his unwonted spirit, while Captain Ralph himseli
expressed his pleasure, by leaping into the air, crowing, and
dashing off his hat, which he kicked down the hill with as much
good will as he had previously bestowed upon the little dog.

" Off with your leather nightcap, and down with your rifle,"
he cried, giving his own weapon into the hands of a looker-on,
" and scrape some of the grease off your jacket ; for, 'tarnal
death to me, I shall give you the Virginny lock, fling you head-
fo'most, and you'll find yourself, in a twinkling, sticking fast
right in the centre of the 'arth ! "

" Thee may find theeself mistaken," said Nathan, giving up
his gun to one of the young men, but instead of rejecting his
hat, pulling it down tight over his brows. " There is locks
taught among the mountains of Bedford, that may be as good
as them learned on the hills of Virginia — I am ready for
thee."

" Cock-a-doodle-doo I " cried Ralph Stackpole, springing
towards his man, and clapping his hands, one on Nathan's left
shoulder, the other on his right hip : " Are you ready ? "

" I am," replied Nathan.

" Down then, you go, war you a buffalo ! " And with that
the captain of the horse-thieves put forth his strength, which
was very great, in an effort that appeared to Roland quite irre-
sistible ; though, as it happened, it scarce moved Nathan from
his position.

" Thee is mistaken, friend ! " he cried, exerting his strength
in return, and with an effort that no one had anticipated. By
magic, as it seemed, the heels of the captain of the horse-thieves
were suddenly seen flying in the air, his head aiming at the earth,
upon which it as suddenly descended with the violence of a
bombshell ; and there it would doubtless have burrowed, like
the aforesaid implement of destruction, had the soil been soft
enough for the purpose, or exploded into a thousand fragments,
had not the shell been double the thickness of an ordinary
skull.

" Huzza I Bloody Nathan for ever ! " shouted the delighted
villagers.

" He has killed the man," said Forrester ; " but bear witness,
all, the fellow provoked his fate."

" Thanks to you, strannger ! but not so dead as you reckon,"
said Ralph, rising to his feet, and scratching his poll with a
stare of comical confusion. " I say, strannger, here's my

RORY. O'MORE'S PRESENT TO THE PRIEST. 115

shoulders, — but whar's my head ? — Do you reckon I had the
worst of it ? "

" Huzza for Bloody Nathan Slaughter : He has whipped the
ramping tiger of Salt River ! " cried the young men of the
station.

" Well, I reckon he has," said the magnanimous Captain
Ralph, picking up his hat : then, walking up to Nathan, who
had taken his dog into his arms, to examine into the little
animal's hurts, he cried, with much good-humored energy, —
"Thar's my fo'paw, in token I've had enough of you, and
want no mo'."

[Of course Nathan is himself the Jibbenainosay.]

RORY O'MORE'S PRESENT TO THE PRIEST.

BY SAMUEL LOVER.

[SAMUEL LOVER, Irish artist, songster, and story-teller, was horn in Dublin
in 1797. He began as an artist, acquiring repute as a miniature painter and
becoming secretary of the Royal Hibernian Society of Arts. His "Legends
and Stories of Ireland" (1831; gave him reputation as an author. About 1835
he went to London, and became very popular as an entertainer, singing his own
songs in companies, to his own music (collected 1839). In 1837 he published
the novel " Kory O'More," which was a great success and was dramatized ; hi
1842 " Handy Andy " appeared. In 1844 he began giving public entertainments
with his own songs and recitations, which had great vogue in England and
America. He died July 6, 1868.]

"WHY, thin, I'll tell you," said Rory. "I promised my
mother to bring a present to the priest from Dublin, and I
could not make up my mind rightly what to get all the time
I was there. I thought of a pair o' top-boots ; for, indeed, his
reverence's is none of the best, and only you know them to be
top-boots, you would not take them to be top-boots, bekase the
bottoms has been put in so often that the tops is wore out in-
tirely, and is no more like top-boots than my brogues. So I
wint to a shop in Dublin, and picked out the purtiest pair o'
top-boots I could see ; — whin I say purty, I don't mane a
flourishin' taarin' pair, but sich as was fit for a priest, a re-
spectable pair o' boots ; — and with that, I pulled out my good
money to pay for thim, whin jist at that minit, remembering
the thricks o' the town, I bethought o' myself, and says I, ' I
suppose these are the right thing ? ' says I to the man. — * You

116 RORY O'MORE'S PRESENT TO THE PRIEST.

can thry them,' says he. — ' How can I thry them ? ' says I. —
' Pull them on you,' says he. — ' Throth, an' I'd be sorry,' says
I, ' to take sich a liberty with them,' says I. — ' Why, aren't
you goin' to ware thim ? ' says he. — 'Is it me ? ' says I, * me
ware top-boots ? Do you think it's takin' lave of my sinsis I
am ? ' says I. — ' Then what do you want to buy them for ? '
says he. — ' For his reverence, Father Kinshela,' says I. ' Are
they the right sort for him ? ' — ' How should I know ? ' says
he. — ' You're a purty bootmaker,' says I, 4 not to know how to
make a priest's boot! ' — 'How do I know his size?' says he.
— 'Oh, don't be comin' off that away,' says I. 'There's no
sich great differ betune priests and other min ! ' "

" I think you were very right there," said the pale traveler.

" To be sure, sir," said Rory ; " and it was only jist a come
off for his own ignorance. — ' Tell me his size,' says the fellow,
'and I'll fit him.' — 'He's betune five and six fut,' says I. —
' Most men are,' says he, laughin' at me. He was an impidint
fellow. ' It's not the five, nor six, but his two feet I want to
know the size of,' says he. So I persaived he was jeerin' me,
and says I, ' Why, thin, you respectful vagabone o' the world,
you Dublin jackeen ! do you mane to insinivate that Father
Kinshela ever wint barefutted in his life, that I could know
the size of his fut,' says I ; and with that I threw the boots
in his face. ' Take that,' says I, ' you dirty thief o' the world !
you impidint vagabone o' the world ! you ignorant citizen o' the
world ! ' And with that I left the place."

"It is their usual practice," said the traveler, "to take
measure of their customers."

"Is it, thin?"

"It really is."

" See that, now I " said Rory, with an air of triumph. " You
would think that they wor cleverer in the town than in the
counthry ; and they ought to be so, by all accounts ; — but in
the regard of what I towld you, you see, we're before them
intirely."

" How so ? " said the traveler.

" Arrah ! bekase they never throuble people in the counthry
at all with takin' their measure ; but you jist go to a fair, and
bring your fut along with you, and somebody else dhrives a
cartful o' brogues into the place, and there you sarve yourself ;
and so the man gets his money and you get your shoes, and
every one's plazed.

RORY O'MORE'S PRESENT TO THE PRIEST. 117

"But what I mane is — where did I lave off tellin' you
about the present for the priest ? — wasn't it at the bootmaker's
shop ? — yes, that was it. Well, sir, on laving the shop, as soon
as I kem to myself afther the fellow's impidince, I begun to
think what was the next best thing I could get for his rever-
ence ; and with that, while T was thinkin' about it, I seen a
very respectable owld gintleman goin' by, with the most beau-
tiful stick in his hand I ever set my eyes on, and a goolden
head to it that was worth its weight in goold ; and it gev him
such an iligant look altogether, that says I to myself, ' It's the
very thing for Father Kinshela, if I could get sich another.'
And so I wint lookin' about me every shop I seen as I wint by,
and at last, in a sthreet they call Dame Sthreet — and, by the
same token, I didn't know why they called it Dame Sthreet till
I ax'd ; and I was towld they called it Dame Sthreet bekase
the ladies were so fond o' walkin' there ; — and lovely cray-
thurs they wor ! and I can't b'lieve that the town is such an
onwholesome place to live in, for most o' the ladies I seen there
had the most beautiful rosy cheeks I ever clapt my eyes upon
— and the beautiful rowlin' eyes o' them ! Well, it was in
Dame Sthreet, as I was sayin', that I kem to a shop where there
was a power o' sticks, and so I wint in and looked at thim ;
and a man in the place kem to me and ax'd me if I wanted a
cane ? ' No,' says I, ' 1 don't want a cane ; it's a stick I want,'
says I. 'A cane, you mane,' says he. 'No,' says I, 'it's a
stick, — for I was determined to have no cane, but to stick to
the stick. 'Here's a nate one,' says he. ' I don't want a note
one,' says I, ' but a responsible one,' says I. ' Faith ! ' says he,
* if an Irishman's stick was responsible, it would have a great
dale to answer for ' — and he laughed a power. I didn't know
myself what he meant, but that's what he said."

" It was because you asked for a responsible stick," said the
traveler.

" And why wouldn't I," said Rory, " when it was for his
reverence I wanted it ? Why wouldn't he have a nice-lookin',
respectable, responsible stick ? "

" Certainly," said the traveler.

" Well, I picked out one that looked to my likin' — a good
substantial stick, with an ivory top to it — for I seen that the
goold-headed ones was so dear I couldn't come up to them ; and
so says I, ' Give me a howld o' that,' says I — and I tuk a grip
iv it. I never was so surprised in my life. I thought to get a

118 RORY O'MORE'S PRESENT TO THE PRIEST.

good, brave handful of a solid stick, but, my dear, it was well
it didn't fly out o' my hand a'most, it was so light. ' Phew ! '
says I, * what sort of a stick is this ? ' 'I tell you it's not a
stick, but a cane,' says he. ' Faith ! I b'lieve you,' says I.
' You see how good and light it is,' says he. Think o' that,
sir ! — to call a stick good and light — as if there could be any
good in life in a stick that wasn't heavy, and could sthreck a
good blow ! ' Is it jokin' you are ? ' says I. ' Don't you feel
it yourself ? ' says he. * Throth, I can hardly feel it at all,'
says I. ' Sure that's the beauty of it,' says he. Think o' the
ignorant vagabone ! — to call a stick a beauty that was as light
a'most as a bulrush ! * And so you can hardly feel it ! ' says
he, grinnin'. ' Yis, indeed,' says I ; * and what's worse, I don't
think I could make any one else feel it either.' ' Oh ! you want
a stick to bate people with ! ' says he. ' To be sure,' says I ;
'sure that's the use of a stick.' 'To knock the sinsis out o'
people ! ' says he, grinnin' again. ' Sartinly,' says I, ' if they're
saucy' — lookin' hard at him at the same time. 'Well, these
is only walkin' sticks,' says he. ' Throth, you may say runnin1
sticks,' says I, ' for you daren't stand before any one with sich
a thraneen as that in your fist.' ' Well, pick out the heaviest o'
them you plaze,' says he ; ' take your choice.' So I wint pokin'
and rummagin' among thim, and, if you believe me, there wasn't a
stick in their whole shop worth a kick in the shins — divil a one ! "

" But why did you require such a heavy stick for the priest ? "

" Bekase there is not a man in the parish wants it more,"
said Rory.

" Is he so quarrelsome, then ? " said the traveler.

" No, but the greatest o' pacemakers," said Rory.

" Then what does he want the heavy stick for ? "

" For wallopin' his flock, to be sure," said Rory.

" Walloping ! " said the traveler, choking with laughter.

" Oh ! you may laugh," said Rory, " but 'pon my sowl ! you
wouldn't laugh if you wor undher his hand, for he has a brave
heavy one, God bless him and spare him to us I "

" And what is all this walloping for ? "

" Why, sir, whin we have a bit of a fight, for fun, or the
regular faction one, at the fair, his reverence sometimes hears
of it, and comes av coorse."

" Good God ! " said the traveler, in real astonishment, " does
the priest join the battle? "

"No, no, no, sir I I see you're quite a sthranger in the

RORY O'MORE'S PRESENT TO THE PRIEST. 119

counthry. The priest join it ! — Oh ! by no manes. But he
comes and stops it ; and, av coorse, the only way he can stop it
is to ride into thim, and wallop thim all round before him, and
disparse thim — scatther thim like chaff before the wind ; and
it's the best o' sticks he requires for that same."

" But might he not have his heavy stick on purpose for that
purpose, and make use of a lighter one on other occasions ? "

" As for that matther, sir," said Rory, " there's no knowin'
the minit he might want it, for he is often necessitated to have
recoorse to it. It might be, going through the village, the
public house is too full, and in he goes and dhrives thim out.
Oh ! it would delight your heart to see the style he clears a
public house in, in no time ! "

" But wouldn't his speaking to them answer the purpose as
well?"

" Oh, no ! he doesn't like to throw away his discoorse on
thim : and why should he? — he keeps that for the blessed althar
on Sunday, which is a fitter place for it : besides, he does not
like to be sevare on us."

" Severe ! " said the traveler, in surprise, " why, haven't you
said that he thrashes you round on all occasions? "

" Yis, sir ; but what o' that ? — sure that's nothin' to his
tongue — his words is like swoords or razhors, I may say : we're
used to a lick of a stick every day, but not to sich language as
his reverence sometimes murthers us with whin we displaze
him. Oh ! it's terrible, so it is, to have the weight of his
tongue on you ! Throth ! I'd rather let him bate me from this
till to-morrow, than have one angry word with him."

" I see, then, he must have a heavy stick," said the traveler.

" To be sure he must, sir, at all times ; and that was the
raison I was so particular in the shop ; and afther spendin' over
an hour — would you b'lieve it ? — divil a stick I could get in the
place fit for a child, much less a man."

" But about the gridiron ? "

" Sure I'm tellin' you about it," said Rory ; " only I'm not
come to it yet. You see," continued he, " I was so disgusted
with them shopkeepers in Dublin, that my heart was fairly
broke with their ignorance, and I seen they knew nothin' at all
about what I wanted, and so I came away without anything for
his reverence, though it was on my mind all this day on the
road ; and comin' through the last town in the middle o' the
rain, I thought of a gridiron."

120 RORY O'MORE.

" A very natural thing to think of in a shower of rain," said
the traveler.

" No, 'twasn't the rain made me think of it — I think it was
God put a gridiron in my heart, seein' that it was a present for
the priest I intended ; and when I thought of it, it came into
my head, afther, that it would be a fine thing to sit on, for to
keep one out of the rain, that was ruinatin' my cordheroys on
the top o' the coach ; so I kept my eye out as we dhrove along
up the sthreet, and sure enough what should I see at a shop
halfway down the town but a gridiron hanging up at the door I
and so I wint back to get it."

" But isn't a gridiron an odd present ? — hasn't his reverence
one already ? "

"He had, sir, before it was bruk — but that's what I re-
membered, for I happened to be up at his place one day, sittin'
in the kitchen, when Molly was brilin' some mate an it for his
reverence ; and while she jist turned about to get a pinch o'
salt to shake over it, the dog that was in the place made a dart
at the gridiron on the fire, and threwn it down, and up he whips
the mate, before one of us could stop him. With that Molly
whips up the gridiron, and says she, ' Bad luck to you, you
disrespectful baste ! would nothin' sarve you but the priest's
dinner ? ' and she made a crack o' the gridiron at him. ' As
you have the mate, you shall have the gridiron too,' says she ;
and with that she gave him such a rap on the head with it, that
the bars flew out of it, and his head went through it, and away
he pulled it out of her hands, and ran off with the gridiron
hangin' round his neck like a necklace ; and he went mad
a'most with it ; for though a kettle to a dog's tail is nath'rel, a
gridiron round his neck is very surprisin' to him ; and away
he tatthered over the counthry, till there wasn't a taste o' the
gridiron left together."

RORY O'MORE.

BY SAMUEL LOVER.

YOUNG Rory O'More courted Kathleen bawn ;
He was bold as a hawk, and she soft as the dawn ;
He wished in his heart pretty Kathleen to please,
And he thought the best way to do that was to tease.
" Now, Rory, be aisy," sweet Kathleen would cry,
Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye ;

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 121

" With your tricks, I don't know, in troth, what I'm about ;
Faith you've teased till I've put on my cloak inside out."
"Och! jewel," says Rory, "that same is the way
You've thrated my heart for this many a day ;
And 'tis plazed that I am, and why not, to be sure ?
For 'tis all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More.

" Indeed, then," says Kathleen, " don't think of the like,

For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike ;

The ground that I walk on he loves, I'll be bound " —

" Faith ! " says Rory, " I'd rather love you than the ground."

" Now, Rory, I'll cry if you don't let me go :

Sure I dream ev'ry night that I'm hating you so ! "

" Och ! " says Rory, " that same I'm delighted to hear,

For dhrames always go by conthraries, my dear.

Och ! jewel, keep dhraming that same till you die,

And bright morning will give dirty night the black lie !

And 'tis plazed that I am, and why not, to be sure ?

Since 'tis all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More.

" Arrah, Kathleen, my darlint, you've teased me enough ;
Sure, I've thrashed, for your sake, Dinny Grimes and Jim Duff ;
And I've made myself, drinking your health, quite a baste,
So I think, after that, I may talk to the priest."
Then Rory, the rogue, stole his arm round her neck,
So soft and so white, without freckle or speck ;
And he looked in her eyes, that were beaming with light,
And he kissed her sweet lips — Don't you think he was right ?
" Now, Rory, leave off, sir — you'll hug me no more, —
That's eight times to-day you have kissed me before."
" Then here goes another," says he, " to make sure,
For there's luck in odd numbers," says Rory O'More.

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE WITH THE MIDDLE-
AGED LADY IN YELLOW CURL PAPERS.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

[CHAKLES DICKENS, one of the greatest novelists and humorists of the world,
was born February 7, 1812, at Portsea, Eng. His father being unprosperous, he
had no regular education and much hardship ; at fourteen became an attorney's
clerk, and at seventeen a reporter. His first short story appeared in December,
1833 ; the collected " Sketches by Boz " in 1836, which also saw the first number of
"The Pickwick Papers," finished in November, 1837. There followed "Oliver

122 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

Twist," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Master Humphrey's Clock" (finally dissolved
into the "Old Curiosity Shop" and " Barnaby Rudge"), the "American
Notes," " Martin Chuzzlewit," the " Christmas Carol " (other Christmas stories
followed later), "Notes from Italy," "Doinbey and Son," "David Copper-
field," "Bleak House," "Hard Times," "Little Dorrit," "Great Expecta-
tions," "A Tale of Two Cities," "Our Mutual Friend," and the unfinished
" Edwin Drood." Several of these, and his " Uncommercial Traveller" papers,
appeared in All the Year Round, which he edited. He died June 9, 1870.]

" THAT 'ere your governor's luggage, Sammy ? " inquired
Mr. Weller senior, of his affectionate son, as he entered the
yard of the Bull Inn, Whitechapel, with a traveling bag and a
small portmanteau.

" You might ha' made a worser guess than that, old feller,"
replied Mr. Weller the younger, setting down his burden in the
yard, and sitting himself down upon it afterwards. "The
Governor hisself 11 be down here presently."

" He's a cabbin' it, I suppose ? " said the father.

" Yes, he's a havin' two mile o' danger at eight-pence," re-
sponded the son. " How's mother-in-law this mornin' ? "

" Queer, Sammy, queer," replied the elder Mr. Weller, with
impressive gravity. " She's been gettin' rayther in the Metho-
distical order lately, Sammy ; and she is uncommon pious, to
be sure. She's too good a creetur for me, Sammy — I feel I
don't deserve her."

" Ah," said Mr. Samuel, " that's wery self-denyin' o' you."

" Wery," replied his parent, with a sigh. " She's got hold
o' some inwention for grown-up people being born again,
Sammy — the new birth, I thinks they calls it. I should wery
much like to see that system in haction, Sammy. I should wery
much like to see your mother-in-law born again. Wouldn't I
put her out to nurse !

" What do you think them women does t'other day ? " con-
tinued Mr. Weller, after a short pause, during which he had
significantly struck the side of his nose with his forefinger,
some half-dozen times. " What do you think they does, t'other
day, Sammy ? "

" Don't know," replied Sam, " what ? "

" Goes and gets up a grand tea drinkin' for a feller they
calls their shepherd," said Mr. Weller. " I was a standing
starin' in, at the pictur shop down at our place, when I sees a
little bill about it ; ' Tickets half a crown. All applications to
be made to the committee. Secretary, Mrs. Weller ; ' and when
I got home, there was the committee a sittin' in our back parlor

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 123

— fourteen women ; I wish you could ha' heard 'em, Sammy.
There they was, a passin' resolutions, and wotin' supplies, and
all sorts o' games. Well, what with your mother-in-law a wor-
rying me to go, and what with my looking f or'ard to seein' some
queer starts if I did, I put my name down for a ticket ; at six
o'clock on the Friday evenin' I dresses myself out, wery smart,
and off I goes vith the old 'ooman, and up we walks into a fust
floor where there was tea things for thirty, and a whole lot o'
women as begins whisperin' to one another, and lookin' at me,
as if they'd never seen a rayther stout gen'lm'n of eight and
fifty afore. By and by, there comes a great bustle downstairs,
and a lanky chap with a red nose and white neckcloth rushes
up, and sings out, ' Here's the shepherd a coming to wisit his
faithful flock ; ' and in comes a fat chap in black, vith a great
white face, a smilin' avay like clockwork. Such goin's on,
Sammy. ' The kiss of peace,' says the shepherd ; and then he
kissed the women all round, and ven he'd done, the man vith the
red nose began. I was just a thinkin' whether I hadn't better
begin too — 'specially as there was a wery nice lady a sittin' next
me — ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had
been makin' the kettle boil, downstairs. At it they went, tooth
and nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was
a brewing ; such a grace, such eatin' and drinkin'. I wish you
could ha' seen the shepherd walkin' into the ham and muffins.
I never see such a chap to eat and drink — never. The red-
nosed man warn't by no means the sort of person you'd like to
grub by contract, but he was nothin' to the shepherd. Well,
arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn, and then the
shepherd began to preach : and wery well he did it, considerin'
how heavy them muffins must have lied on his chest. Pres-
ently he pulls up, all of a sudden, and hollers out, 'Where is
the sinner ; where is the mis'rable sinner ? ' upon which, all the
women looked at me, and begun to groan as if they was dying.
I thought it was rather sing'ler, but hows'ever, I says nothing.
Presently he pulls up again, and lookin' wery hard at me, says,
' Where is the sinner ; where is the mis'rable sinner ! ' and all
the women groans again, ten times louder than afore. I got
rather savage at this, so I takes a step or two for'ard and says,
4 My friend,' says I, ' did you apply that 'ere obserwation to
me ? ' — 'Stead of beggin' my pardon as any gen'lm'n would
ha' done, he got more abusive than ever : called me a wessel,
Sammy — a wessel of wrath — and all sorts o' names. So my

124 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

blood being reg'larly up, I first gave him two or three for him-
self, and then two or three more to hand over to the man with
the red nose, and walked off. I wish you could ha' heard how
the women screamed, Sammy, ven they picked up the shepherd
from under the table. — Hallo ! here's the governor, the size
of life."

As Mr. Weller spoke, Mr. Pickwick dismounted from a cab,
and entered the yard.

" Fine mornin', sir," — said Mr. Weller senior.

" Beautiful indeed " — replied Mr. Pickwick.

" Beautiful indeed," echoed a red-haired man with an inquis-
itive nose and blue spectacles, who had unpacked himself from
a cab at the same moment as Mr. Pickwick. " Going to Ipswich,
sir?"

" I am," replied Mr. Pickwick.

" Extraordinary coincidence. So am I."

Mr. Pickwick bowed.

" Going outside ? " said the red-haired man.

Mr. Pickwick bowed again.

" Bless my soul, how remarkable — I am going outside, too,"
said the red-haired man : " we are positively going together."
And the red-haired man, who was an important-looking, sharp-
nosed, mysterious-spoken personage, with a birdlike habit of
giving his head a jerk every time he said anything, smiled as if
he had made one of the strangest discoveries that ever fell to
the lot of human wisdom.

" I am happy in the prospect of your company, sir," said
Mr. Pickwick.

" Ah," said the newcomer, " it's a good thing for both of us,
isn't it ? Company, you see — company is — is — it's a very
different thing from solitude — a'n't it ? "

" There's no denyin' that 'ere," said Mr. Weller, joining in
the conversation, with an affable smile. " That's what I call a
self-evident proposition, as the dog's-meat man said, when the
housemaid told him he warn't a gentleman."

"Ah," said the red-haired man, surveying Mr. Weller
from head to foot, with a supercilious look. "Friend of
yours, sir ? "

" Not exactly a friend," replied Mr. Pickwick, in a low tone.
" The fact is, he is my servant, but I allow him to take a good
many liberties ; for, between ourselves, I flatter myself he is
an original, and I am rather proud of him."

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 125

" Ah," said the red-haired man, " that, you see, is a matter
of taste. I am not fond of anything original ; I don't like it ;
don't see the necessity for it. What's your name, sir ? "

" Here is my card, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, much amused
by the abruptness of the question, and the singular manner of
the stranger.

44 Ah," said the red-haired man, placing the card in his pock-
etbook, " Pickwick ; very good. I like to know a man's name,
it saves so much trouble. That's my card, sir. Magnus, you
will perceive, sir — Magnus is my name. It's rather a good
name, I think, sir ? "

" A very good name indeed," said Mr. Pickwick, wholly un-
able to repress a smile.

44 Yes, I think it is," resumed Mr. Magnus. " There's a
good name before it, too, you will observe. Permit me, sir —
if you hold the card a little slanting, this way, you catch the
light upon the up stroke. There — Peter Magnus — sounds
well, I think, sir."

44 Very," said Mr. Pickwick.

44 Curious circumstance about those initials, sir," said Mr.
Magnus. "You will observe — P. M. — post meridian. In
hasty notes to intimate acquaintance, I sometimes sign my-
self 4 Afternoon.' It amuses my friends very much, Mr.
Pickwick."

44 It is calculated to afford them the highest gratification, I
should conceive," said Mr. Pickwick, rather envying the ease
with which Mr. Magnus's friends were entertained.

44 Now, gen'lm'n," said the hostler, 44 coach is ready, if you
please."

44 Is all my luggage in ? " inquired Mr. Magnus.

44 All right, sir."

44 Is the red bag in ? "

"All right, sir."

44 And the striped bag ? "

"Fore boot, sir."

" And the brown-paper parcel ? "

44 Under the seat, sir."

44 And the leather hatbox ? "

"They're all in, sir."

44 Now, will you get up ? " said Mr. Pickwick.

44 Excuse me," replied Magnus, standing on the wheel.
" Excuse me, Mr. Pickwick. I cannot consent to get up, in

126 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

this state of uncertainty. I am quite satisfied from that man's
manner, that that leather hatbox is not in."

The solemn protestations of the hostler being wholly un-
availing, the leather hatbox was obliged to be raked up from
the lowest depth of the boot, to satisfy him that it had been
safely packed; and after he had been assured on this head,
he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was
mislaid, and next that the striped bag had been stolen, and
then that the brown-paper parcel had "come untied." At
length, when he had received ocular demonstrations of the
groundless nature of each and every of these suspicions, he
consented to climb up to the roof of the coach, observing
that now he had taken everything off his mind, he felt quite
comfortable and happy.

"You're given to nervousness, a'n't you, sir?" inquired
Mr. Weller senior, eying the stranger askance, as he mounted
to his place.

"Yes; I always am rather, about these little matters,"
said the stranger, "but I am all right now — quite right."

" Well, that's a blessin'," said Mr. Weller. " Sammy, help
your master up to the box : t'other leg, sir, that's it ; give us
your hand, sir. Up with you. You was a lighter weight
when you was a boy, sir."

" True enough, that, Mr. Weller," said the breathless Mr.
Pickwick, good-humoredly, as he took his seat on the box
beside him.

"Jump up in front, Sammy," said Mr. Weller. "Now,
Villam, run 'em out. Take care o' the archvay, gen'lm'n.
'Heads,' as the pieman says. That'll do, Villam. Let 'em
alone." And away went the coach up Whitechapel, to the
admiration of the whole population of that pretty densely
populated quarter.

"Not a wery nice neighborhood this, sir," said Sam, with
the touch of the hat which always preceded his entering into
conversation with his master.

"It is not indeed, Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick, surveying
the crowded and filthy street through which they were passing.

"It's a wery remarkable circumstance, sir," said Sam,
"that poverty and oysters always seem to go together."

" I don't understand you, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick.

" What I mean, sir," said Sam, " is, that the poorer a place
is, the greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here,

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 127

sir ; here's a oyster stall to every half-dozen houses — the
street's lined vith 'em. Blessed if I don't think that ven a
man's wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats
oysters in reg'lar desperation."

"To be sure he does," said Mr. Weller senior, "and it's
just the same vith pickled salmon! "

"Those are two very remarkable facts, which never oc-
curred to me before," said Mr. Pickwick. " The very first
place we stop at, I'll make a note of them."

By this time they had reached the turnpike at Mile End ;
a profound silence prevailed, until they had got two or three
miles further on, when Mr. Weller senior, turning suddenly
to Mr. Pickwick, said : —

" Wery queer life is a pike keeper's, sir."

" A what ? " said Mr. Pickwick.

"A pike keeper."

" What do you mean by a pike keeper ? " inquired Mr.
Peter Magnus.

" The old 'un means a turnpike keeper, gen'lm'n," observed
Mr. Weller, in explanation.

" Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, " I see. Yes ; very curious life.
Very uncomfortable."

" They're all on 'ein men as has met vith some disappoint-
ment in life," said Mr. Weller senior.

" Ay, ay ? " said Mr. Pickwick.

" Yes. Consequence of vich, they retires from the world,
and shuts themselves up in pikes ; partly vith the view of
being solitary, and partly to rewenge themselves on mankind,
by takin' tolls."

" Dear me," said Mr. Pickwick, " I never knew that
before."

"Fact, sir," said Mr. Weller; "if they was gen'lm'n you'd
call 'em misanthropes, but as it is they only takes to pike
keepin'."

With such conversation, possessing the inestimable charm
of blending amusement with instruction, did Mr. Weller be-
guile the tediousness of the journey, during the greater part
of the day. Topics of conversation were never wanting, for
even when any pause occurred in Mr. Weller's loquacity, it
was abundantly supplied by the desire evinced by Mr. Magnus
to make himself acquainted with the whole of the personal his-
tory of his fellow-travelers, and his loudly expressed anxiety at

128 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

every stage, respecting the safety and well-being of the two
bags, the leather hatbox, and the brown-paper parcel.

In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the
way, a short distance after you have passed through the open
space fronting the Townhall, stands an inn known far and
wide by the appellation of " The Great White Horse," rendered
the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rampacious ani-
mal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane
cart horse, which is elevated above the principal door. The
Great White Horse is famous in the neighborhood, in the same
degree as a prize ox, or county paper-chronicled turnip, or
unwieldy pig — for its enormous size. Never were such laby-
rinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of moldy, badly
lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or
sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together be-
tween the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich.

It was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the Lon-
don coach stopped at the same hour every evening ; and it
was from this same London coach that Mr. Pickwick, Sam
Weller, and Mr. Peter Magnus dismounted, on the particular
evening to which this chapter of our history bears reference.

" Do you stop here, sir ? " inquired Mr. Peter Magnus,
when the striped bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper
parcel, and the leather hatbox had all been deposited in the
passage. " Do you stop here, sir ? "

" I do," said Mr. Pickwick.

"Dear me," said Mr. Magnus, "I never knew anything
like these extraordinary coincidences. Why, I stop here, too.
I hope we dine together ? "

" With pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick. " I am not quite
certain whether I have any friends here or not, though. Is
there any gentleman of the name of Tupman here, waiter ? "

A corpulent man, with a fortnight's napkin under his arm,
and coeval stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occu-
pation of staring down the street, on this question being put
to him by Mr. Pickwick ; and, after minutely inspecting that
gentleman's appearance, from the crown of his hat to the low-
est button of his gaiters, replied emphatically : —

"No."

" Nor any gentleman of the name of Suodgrass ? " inquired
Mr. Pickwick.

"No."

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 129

"Nor Winkle?"

"No."

" My friends have not arrived to-day, sir," said Mr. Pick-
wick. " We will dine alone, then. Show us a private room,
waiter."

On this request being preferred, the corpulent man conde-
scended to order the boots to bring in the gentlemen's luggage,
and preceding them down a long dark passage, ushered them
into a large, badly furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in
which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheer-
ful, but was fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence of
the place. After the lapse of an hour, a bit of fish and a
steak were served up to the travelers, and when the dinner
was cleared away, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Peter Magnus drew
their chairs up to the fire, and having ordered a bottle of the
worst possible port wine, at the highest possible price, for the
good of the house, drank brandy and water for their own.

Mr. Peter Magnus was naturally of a very communicative
disposition, and the brandy and water operated with wonder-
ful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his
bosom. After sundry accounts of himself, his family, his con-
nections, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers
(most talkative men have a great deal to say about their
brothers), Mr. Peter Magnus took a blue view of Mr. Pick-
wick through his colored spectacles for several minutes, and
then said, with an air of modesty : —

" And what do you think — what do you think, Mr. Pick-
wick — I have come down here for ? "

" Upon my word," said Mr. Pickwick, " it is wholly impos-
sible for me to guess ; on business, perhaps."

" Partly right, sir," replied Mr. Peter Magnus, " but partly
wrong, at the same time : try again, Mr. Pickwick."

" Really," said Mr. Pickwick, " I must throw myself on
your mercy, to tell me or not, as you may think best ; for I
should never guess, if I were to try all night."

" Why, then, he — he — he ! " said Mr. Peter Magnus, with
a bashful titter, " what should you think, Mr. Pickwick, if I had
come down here to make a proposal, sir, eh? He — he — he ! "

" Think ! that you are very likely to succeed," replied Mr.
Pickwick, with one of his most beaming smiles.

" Ah ! " said Mr. Magnus, " but do you really think so, Mr.
Pickwick ? Do you, though ? "
VOL. xxiii. — 9

130 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

" Certainly," said Mr. Pickwick.

" No ; but you're joking, though."

" I am not, indeed."

" Why, then," said Mr. Magnus, " to let you into a little
secret, / think so too. I don't mind telling you, Mr. Pickwick,
although I'm dreadful jealous by nature — horrid — that the
lady is in this house." Here Mr. Magnus took off his specta-
cles, on purpose to wink, and then put them on again.

" That's what you were running out of the room for, before
dinner, then, so often," said Mr. Pickwick, archly.

" Hush — yes, you're right, that was it ; not such a fool as
to see her, though."

"No!"

" No ; wouldn't do, you know, after having just come off a
journey. Wait till to-morrow, sir ; double the chance then.
Mr. Pickwick, sir, there is a suit of clothes in that bag, and a
hat in that box, which I expect, in the effect they will produce,
will be invaluable to me, sir."

" Indeed ! " said Mr. Pickwick.

" Yes ; you must have observed my anxiety about them
to-day. I do not believe that such another suit of clothes, and
such a hat, could be bought for money, Mr. Pickwick."

Mr. Pickwick congratulated the fortunate owner of the irre-
sistible garments, on their acquisition ; and Mr. Peter Magnus
remained for a few moments, apparently absorbed in contem-
plation.

" She's a fine creature," said Mr. Magnus.

"Is she? " said Mr. Pickwick.

" Very," said Mr. Magnus, " very. She lives about twenty
miles from here, Mr. Pickwick. I heard she would be here
to-night and all to-morrow forenoon, and came down to seize
the opportunity. I think an inn is a good sort of place to pro-
pose to a single woman in, Mr. Pickwick. She is more likely
to feel the loneliness of her situation in traveling, perhaps, than
she would be at home. What do you think, Mr. Pickwick ? "

" I think it very probable," replied that gentleman.

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick," said Mr. Peter Magnus,
" but I am naturally rather curious ; what may you have come
down here for ? "

" On a far less pleasant errand, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick,
the color mounting to his face at the recollection — "I have
come down here, sir, to expose the treachery and falsehood of

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 131

an individual, upon whose truth and honor I placed implicit
reliance."

" Dear me," said Mr. Peter Magnus, " that's very unpleas-
ant. It is a lady, I presume ? Eh ? ah I Sly, Mr. Pickwick,
sly. Well, Mr. Pickwick, sir, I wouldn't probe your feel-
ings for the world. Painful subjects, these, sir, very painful.
Don't mind me, Mr. Pickwick, if you wish to give vent to
your feelings. I know what it is to be jilted, sir ; I have endured
that sort of thing three or four times."

" I am much obliged to you, for your condolence on what
you presume to be my melancholy case," said Mr. Pickwick,
winding up his watch, and laying it on the table, " but "

" No, no," said Mr. Peter Magnus, " not a word more : it's
a painful subject, I see, I see. What's the time, Mr. Pick-
wick?"

" Past twelve."

" Dear me, it's time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting
here. I shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick."

At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus
rang the bell for the chambermaid; and the striped bag, the
red bag, the leather hatbox, and the brown-paper parcel hav-
ing been conveyed to his bedroom, he retired in company with
a japanned candlestick, to one side of the house, while Mr.
Pickwick, and another japanned candlestick, were conducted
through a multitude of tortuous windings, to another.

" This is your room, sir," said the chambermaid.

"Very well," replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him.
It was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire ; upon
the whole, a more comfortable-looking apartment than Mr.
Pickwick's short experience of the accommodations of the
Great White Horse had led him to expect.

" Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course," said Mr.
Pickwick.

" Oh no, sir."

"Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot
water at half-past eight in the morning, and that I shall not
want him any more to-night."

"Yes, sir." And bidding Mr. Pickwick good night, the
chambermaid retired, and left him alone.

Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire,
and fell into a train of rambling meditations. First he thought
of his friends, and wondered when they would join him ; then

132 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha Bardell ; and from that lady
it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy countinghouse
of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and Fogg's it flew off at
a tangent, to the very center of the history of the queer client ;
and then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich,
with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was
falling asleep : so he roused himself, and began to undress,
when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down-
stairs.

Now this watch was a special favorite with Mr. Pickwick,
having been carried about, beneath the shadow of his waist-
coat for a greater number of years than we feel called upon to
state, at present. The possibility of going to sleep, unless it
were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in the watch pocket
over his head, had never entered Mr. Pickwick's brain. So as
it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at
that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had
just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in
his hand, walked quietly downstairs.

The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there
seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pick-
wick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate
himself on having gained the ground floor, did another flight
of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. At last he
reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when
he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore ;
room after room did he peep into ; at length, just as he was on
the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door
of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and
beheld his missing property on the table.

Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded
to retrace his steps to his bedchamber. If his progress down-
wards had been attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his
journey back was infinitely more perplexing. Rows of doors,
garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched
off in every possible direction. A dozen times did he softly
turn the handle of some bedroom door which resembled his
own, when a gruff cry from within of " Who the devil's that ? "
or " What do you want here ? " caused him to steal away, on
tiptoe, with a perfectly marvelous celerity. He was reduced
to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his atten-
tion. He peeped in — right at last. There were the two beds,

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 133

whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still
burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it,
had flickered away in the draughts of air through which he had
passed, and sank into the socket, just as he closed the door
after him. " No matter," said Mr. Pickwick, " I can undress
myself just as well, by the light of the fire."

The bedsteads stood one on each side of the door ; and on
the inner side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-
bottom chair, just wide enough to admit of a person's getting
into, or out of, bed, on that side, if he or she thought proper.
Having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside,
Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely
divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then took off,
and folded up, his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and slowly
drawing on his tasseled nightcap, secured it firmly on his head,
by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had
attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that
the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind ;
and throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr.
Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have
been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to
have watched the smiles which expanded his amiable features
as they shone forth from beneath the nightcap.

" It is the best idea," said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling
till he almost cracked the nightcap strings — "It is the best
idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those
staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll, droll, very droll."
Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before,
and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the
best possible humor, when he was suddenly stopped by a
most unexpected interruption ; to wit, the entrance into the
room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the
door, advanced to the dressing table, and set down the light
upon it.

The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick's features was
instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-
stricken surprise. The person, whoever it was, had come in so
suddenly and with so little noise, that Mr. Pickwick had had no
time to call out, or oppose their entrance. Who could it be ?
A robber? Some evil-minded person who had seen him come
upstairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. What
was he to do ?

134 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse
of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen
himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from
between the curtains on the opposite side. To this maneuver
he accordingly resorted. Keeping the curtains carefully closed
with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than
his face and nightcap, and putting on his spectacles, he mus-
tered up courage, and looked out.

Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay.
Standing before the dressing glass was a middle-aged lady
in yellow curl papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies
call their "back hair." However the unconscious middle-aged
lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contem-
plated remaining there for the night ; for she had brought a
rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy pre-
caution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor,
where it was glimmering away, like a gigantic lighthouse, in a
particularly small piece of water.

" Bless my soul," thought Mr. Pickwick, " what a dreadful
thing!"

" Hem ! " said the lady ; and in went Mr. Pickwick's head
with automatonlike rapidity.

" I never met with anything so awful as this," — thought
poor Mr. Pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon
his nightcap. "Never. This is fearful."

It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see
what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick's head
again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-
aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully
enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border,
and was gazing pensively on the fire.

" This matter is growing alarming " — reasoned Mr. Pick-
wick with himself. " I can't allow things to go on in this way.
By the self-possession of that lady, it's clear to me that I must
have come into the wrong room. If I call out, she'll alarm the
house, but if I remain here the consequences will be still more
frightful."

Mr. Pickwick, it is quite unnecessary to say, was one of
the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals. The very
idea of exhibiting his nightcap to a lady overpowered him,
but he had tied those confounded strings in a knot, and do
what he would, he couldn't get it off. The disclosure must be

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 135

made. There was only one other way of doing it. He shrank
behind the curtains, and called out very loudly : —

"Ha — hum."

That the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident,
by her falling up against the rushlight shade ; that she per-
suaded herself it must have been the effect of imagination
was equally clear, for when Mr. Pickwick, under the impres-
sion that she had fainted away, stone-dead from fright, ven-
tured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire
as before.

"Most extraordinary female this," thought Mr. Pickwick,
popping in again. "Ha — hum."

These last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform
us, the ferocious giant Blunderbore was in the habit of express-
ing his opinion that it was time to lay the cloth, were too
distinctly audible to be again mistaken for the workings of
fancy.

" Gracious Heaven ! " said the middle-aged lady, " what's
that ! "

" It's — it's only a gentleman, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick
from behind the curtains.

" A gentleman ! " said the lady, with a terrific scream.

" It's all over," thought Mr. Pickwick.

" A strange man ! " shrieked the lady. Another instant,
and the house would be alarmed. Her garments rustled as she
rushed towards the door.

" Ma'am " — said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head, in
the extremity of his desperation, "ma'am."

Now although Mr. Pickwick was not actuated by any defi-
nite object in putting out his head, it was instantaneously produc-
tive of a good effect. The lady, as we have already stated, was
near the door. She must pass it, to reach the staircase, and she
would most undoubtedly have done so, by this time, had not the
sudden apparition of Mr. Pickwick's nightcap driven her back,
into the remotest corner of the apartment, where she stood,
staring wildly at Mr. Pickwick, while Mr. Pickwick, in his
turn, stared wildly at her.

" Wretch," — said the lady, covering her eyes with her
hands, " what do you want here ? "

"Nothing, ma'am — nothing whatever, ma'am," said Mr.
Pickwick, earnestly.

" Nothing I " said the lady, looking up.

136 MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE.

"Nothing, ma'am, upon my honor," said Mr. Pickwick,
nodding his head so energetically that the tassel of his nightcap
danced again. " I am almost ready to sink, ma'am, beneath the
confusion of addressing a lady in my nightcap [ here the lady
hastily snatched off hers], but I can't get it off, ma'am — here
Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug, in proof of the state-
ment. It is evident to me, ma'am, now, that I have mistaken
this bedroom for my own. I had not been here five minutes,
ma'am, when you suddenly entered it."

"If this improbable story be really true, sir" — said the
lady, sobbing violently, "you will leave it instantly."

"I will, ma'am, with the greatest pleasure" — replied Mr.
Pickwick.

" Instantly, sir," said the lady.

" Certainly, ma'am," interposed Mr. Pickwick, very quickly.
" Certainly, ma'am. I — I — am very sorry, ma'am," said Mr.
Pickwick, making his appearance at the bottom of the bed, " to
have been the innocent occasion of this alarm and emotion ;
deeply sorry, ma'am."

The lady pointed to the door. One excellent quality of Mr.
Pickwick's character was beautifully displayed at this moment,
under the most trying circumstances. Although he had hastily
put on his hat over his nightcap, after the manner of the old
patrol ; although he carried his shoes and gaiters in his hand,
and his coat and waistcoat over his arm, nothing could subdue
his native politeness.

" I am exceedingly sorry, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, bow-
ing very low.

" If you are, sir, you will at once leave the room," said the
lady.

" Immediately, ma'am ; this instant, ma'am," said Mr. Pick-
wick, opening the door, and dropping both his shoes with a loud
crash in so doing.

" I trust, ma'am," resumed Mr. Pickwick, gathering up his
shoes, and turning round to bow again, " I trust, ma'am, that
my unblemished character, and the devoted respect I entertain

for your sex, will plead as some slight excuse for this "

But before Mr. Pickwick could conclude the sentence, the lady
had thrust him into the passage and locked and bolted the door
behind him.

Whatever grounds of self-congratulation Mr. Pickwick
might have, for having escaped so quietly from his late awk-

MR. PICKWICK'S ADVENTURE. 137

ward situation, his present position was by no means enviable.
He was alone, in an open passage, in a strange house, in the
middle of the night, half-dressed ; it was not to be supposed
that he could find his way in perfect darkness to a room he had
been wholly unable to discover with a light, and if he made the
slightest noise in his fruitless attempts to do so, he stood every
chance of being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful
traveler. He had no resource but to remain where he was,
until daylight appeared. So, after groping his way a few paces
down the passage, and to his infinite alarm stumbling over
several pairs of boots in so doing, Mr. Pickwick crouched into
a little recess in the wall, to wait for morning as philosophi-
cally as he might.

He was not destined, however, to undergo this additional
trial of patience : for he had not been long ensconced in his
present concealment when, to his unspeakable horror, a man,
bearing a light, appeared at the end of the passage. His horror
was suddenly converted into joy, however, when he recognized
the form of his faithful attendant. It was indeed Mr. Samuel
Weller, who after sitting up thus late, in conversation with the
boots, who was sitting up for the mail, was now about to retire
to rest.

" Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly appearing before him,
" where's my bedroom ? "

Mr. Weller stared at his master with the most emphatic sur-
prise ; and it was not until the question had been repeated three
several times, that he turned round, and led the way to the
long-sought apartment.

"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, as he got into bed, "I have
made one of the most extraordinary mistakes to-night, that
ever were heard of."

" Wery likely, sir," replied Mr. Weller, dryly.

"But of this I am determined, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick,
" that if I were to stop in this house for six months, I would
never trust myself about it, alone, again."

" That's the wery prudentest resolution as you could come to,
sir," replied Mr. Weller. " You rayther want somebody to look
arter you, sir, ven your judgment goes out a wisitin'."

" What do you mean by that, Sam ? " said Mr. Pickwick.
He raised himself in bed, and extended his hand, as if he were
about to say something more ; but suddenly checking himself,
turned round, and bade his valet " Good night. "

138 THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

"Good night, sir," replied Mr. Weller. He paused when
he got outside the door — shook his head — walked on —
stopped — snuffed the candle — shook his head again — and
finally proceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently buried in
the profoundest meditation.

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

BY FRANCIS MAHONY.

[FKANCIS MAHONY, better known as "Father Prout," was born in Cork,
Ireland, 1804. He was educated by the Jesuits at Amiens, studied theology at
Paris, and became a priest. In London he formed one of the famous group about
Maginn who wrote for Fraser'a Magazine, and about 1834 began to contribute
to it under the name of u Father Prout,11 mainly translations of English songs
into foreign languages and foreign ones into English, which remain bis literary
monument. Later he was correspondent of English papers from Rome and
Paris. Though much more wit, diner-out, bohemian, and scholarly litterateur
than priest, he remained faithful to the beliefs and loyal to the pride of his
church. He died in May, 1866.]

WITH deep affection
And recollection,
I often think of

Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round ray cradle

Their magic spells.

On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,

Sweet Cork, of thee,
With thy bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine,
While at a glib rate
Brass tongues would vibrate;

THE BELLS OF SHANDON. 139

But all their music

Spoke naught like thine.

For memory dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling

Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells tolling
Old Adrian's mole in,
Their thunder rolling

From the Vatican ;
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets

Of Notre Dame.

But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter .
Flings o'er the Tiber,

Pealing solemnly:
Oh, the bells of Shandon
SoTind far more grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

There's a bell in Moscow,
While on tower and kiosk, oh,
In Saint Sophia

The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer,
From the tapering summits

Of tall minarets.

Such empty phantom
I freely grant them ;
But there's an anthem

More dear to me :
'Tis the bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

140 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

BY THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON.

[THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON, Canadian judge and humorist, was born
in Windsor, Nova Scotia, December, 1796 ; called to the bar in 1820 ; chief
justice of the Court of Common Pleas and judge of the Supreme Court from 1828
to 1856, when he resigned and removed to England, where he remained till his
death, August 27, 1865. He wrote very many works, including a history of
Nova Scotia; but one of them has sunk deep into popular memory, — "The
Clockmaker ; or, Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville " (1837-1840).
It was the first work in which "dialect" American was used ; Artemus Ward
says it founded the American school of humor. It is a bitter satire on the
sluggishness and inefficiency of the Nova Scotians, contrasted with the alert
wits of the New Englanders.]

THE CLOCKMAKER.

I HAD heard of Yankee clock peddlers, tin peddlers, and Bible
peddlers, especially of him who sold Polyglot Bibles {all in
English) to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds. The house
of every substantial farmer had three substantial ornaments, —
a wooden clock, a tin reflector, and a Polyglot Bible. How is
it that an American can sell his wares, at whatever price he
pleases, where a bluenose would fail to make a sale at all ? I
will inquire of the Clockmaker the secret of his success.

" What a pity it is, Mr. Slick " (for such was his name),
"what a pity it is," said I, "that you, who are so successful
in teaching these people the value of clocks^ could not also teach
them the value of time." "I guess," said he, "they have got
that ring to grow on their horns yet, which every four-year-old
has in our country. We reckon hours and minutes to be dollars
and cents. They do nothing in these parts, but eat, drink,
smoke, sleep, ride about, lounge at taverns, make speeches at
temperance meetings, and talk about ' House of Assembly. ' If
a man don't hoe his corn, and he don't hoe a crop, he says it is
all owing to the Bank ; and if he runs -into debt and is sued,
why he says the lawyers are a curse to the country. They are
a most idle set of folks, I tell you."

"But how is it," said I, "that you manage to sell such an
immense number of clocks (which certainly cannot be called
necessary articles) among a people with whom there seems to
be so great a scarcity of money?"

Mr. Slick paused, as if considering the propriety of answer-

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 141

ing the question, and looking me in the face said, in a confi-
dential tone, " Why, I don't care if I do tell you, for the market
is glutted, and I shall quit this circuit. It is done by a knowl-
edge of soft sawder and human natur. But here is Deacon
Flint's," said he; "I have but one clock left, and I guess I
will sell it to him."

At the gate of a most comfortable-looking farmhouse stood
Deacon Flint, a respectable old man, who had understood the
value of time better than most of his neighbors, if one might
judge from the appearance of everything about him. After the
usual salutation, an invitation to " alight " was accepted by Mr.
Slick, who said he wished to take leave of Mrs. Flint before he
left Colchester.

We had hardly entered the house, before the Clockmaker
pointed to the view from the window, and, addressing himself
to me, said, "If I was to tell them in Connecticut, there was
such a farm as this away down east here in Nova Scotia, they
wouldn't believe me — why there ain't such a location in all

New England. The Deacon has a hundred acres of dike "

" Seventy, " said the Deacon, " only seventy. " " Well, seventy ;
but then there is your fine deep bottom, why I could run a ramrod

into it " " Interval, we call it,"said the Deacon, who, though

evidently pleased at this eulogium, seemed to wish the experi-
ment of the ramrod to be tried in the right place. "Well,
interval, if you please (though Professor Eleazar Cumstick, in
his work on Ohio, calls them bottoms), is just as good as dike.
Then there is that water privilege, worth 3000 or 4000 dollars,
twice as good as what Governor Cass paid 15,000 dollars for.
I wonder, Deacon, you don't put up a carding mill on it : the
same works would carry a turning lathe, a shingle machine, a

circular saw, grind bark, and " " Too old, " said the Deacon,

"too old for all those speculations." — "Old," repeated the Clock-
maker, " not you ; why you are worth half a dozen of the young

men we see nowadays ; you are young enough to have " here

he said something in a lower tone of voice, which I did not dis-
tinctly hear; but whatever it was, the Deacon was pleased; he
smiled and said he did not think of such things now.

" But your beasts, dear me, your beasts must be put in and
have a feed," saying which, he went out to order them to be
taken to the stable.

As the old gentleman closed the door after him, Mr. Slick
drew near to me, and said in an undertone, " That is what I call

142 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

'soft sawder. ' An Englishman would pass that man as a sheep
passes a hog in a pasture, without looking at him ; or, " said he,
looking rather archly, "if he was mounted on a pretty smart

horse, I guess he'd trot away, if he could. Now I find " here

his lecture on "soft sawder" was cut short by the entrance of
Mrs. Flint. " Jist come to say good-by, Mrs. Flint." "What,
have you sold all your clocks ? " " Yes, and very low, too, for
money is scarce, and I wished to close the consarn ; no, I am
wrong in saying all, for I have just one left. Neighbor Steel's
wife asked to have the refusal of it, but I guess I won't sell it;
I had but two of them, this one and the feller of it, that I sold
Governor Lincoln. General Green, the Secretary of State for
Maine, said he'd give me 50 dollars for this here one — it has
composition wheels and patent axles, it is a beautiful article
— a real first chop — no mistake, genuine superfine, but I guess
I'll take it back; and beside, Squire Hawk might think kinder
harder, that I did not give him the offer." " Dear me," said Mrs.
Flint, " I should like to see it ; where is it ? " " It is in a chest of
mine over the way, at Tom Tape's store. I guess he can ship
it on to Eastport." "That's a good man," said Mrs. Flint, " jist
let's look at it."

Mr. Slick, willing to oblige, yielded to these entreaties,
and soon produced the clock, a gaudy, highly varnished, trump-
ery-looking affair. He placed it on the chimney-piece, where
its beauties were pointed out and duly appreciated by Mrs.
Flint, whose admiration was about ending in a proposal, when
Mr. Flint returned from giving his directions about the care of
the horses. The Deacon praised the clock, he too thought it
a handsome one ; but the Deacon was a prudent man, he had a
watch — he was sorry, but he had no occasion for a clock. "I
guess you're in the wrong furrow this time, Deacon, it ain't
for sale, "said Mr. Slick; "and if it was, I reckon neighbor Steel's
wife would have it, for she gives me no peace about it." Mrs.
Flint said that Mr. Steel had enough to do, poor man, to pay
his interest, without buying clocks for his wife. " It's no con-
sarn of mine," said Mr. Slick, "as long as he pays me, what he
has to dq, but I guess I don't want to sell it, and besides it
comes too high; that clock can't be made at Rhode Island under
40 dollars. Why, it ain't possible," said the Clockmaker, in
apparent surprise, looking at his watch, "why, as I'm alive it is
4 o'clock, and if I haven't been two hours here — how on airth
shall I reach River Philip to-night? I'll tell you what, Mrs.

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 143

Flint, I'll leave the clock in your care till I return on my way
to the States — I'll set it a going and put it to the right time."

As soon as this operation was performed, he delivered the
key to the Deacon with a sort of serio-comic injunction to wind
up the clock every Saturday night, which Mrs. Flint said she
would take care should be done, and promised to remind her
husband of it, in case he should chance to forget it.

"That," said the Clockmaker, as soon as we were mounted,
"that I call ' human natur! ' Now that clock is sold for 40 dol-
lars — it cost me just 6 dollars and 50 cents. Mrs. Flint will
never let Mrs. Steel have the refusal — nor will the Deacon learn
until I call for the clock, that having once indulged in the use
of a superfluity, how difficult it is to give it up. We can do
without any article of luxury we have never had, but when
once obtained, it is not ''in human natur ' to surrender it volun-
tarily. Of fifteen thousand sold by myself and partners in this
Province, twelve thousand were left in this manner, and only
ten clocks were ever returned — when we called for them, they
invariably bought them. We trust to 'soft sawder ' to get them
into the house, and to 'human natur ' that they never come out
of it."

THE ROAD TO A WOMAN'S HEAKT — THE BROKEN HEART.

As we approached the Inn at Amherst, the Clockmaker grew
uneasy. " It's pretty well on in the evening, I guess," said he,
"and Marm Pugwash is as onsartin in her temper as a mornin
in April; it's all sunshine or all clouds with her, and if she's
in one of her tantrums, she'll stretch out her neck and hiss,
like a goose with a flock of goslins. I wonder what on airth
Pugwash was a thinkin on, when he signed articles of partner-
ship with that are woman; she's not a bad-lookin piece of fur-
niture neither, and it's a proper pity sich a clever woman
should carry such a stiff upper lip — she reminds me of our old
minister Joshua Hopewell's apple trees.

" The old minister had an orchard of most particular good
fruit, for he was a great hand at buddin, graftin, and what not,
and the orchard (it was on the south side of the house) stretched
right up to the road. Well, there were some trees hung over
the fence ; I never seed such bearers, the apples hung in ropes,
for all the world like strings of onions, and the fruit was beau-
tiful. Nobody touched the minister's apples, and when other

144 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

folks lost their'n from the boys, his'n always hung there like
bait to a hook, but there never was so much as a nibble at 'em.
So I said to him one day, 'Minister,' said I, 'how on airth do
you manage to keep your fruit that's so exposed, when no one
else can't do it nohow?' 'Why,' says he, 'they are dreadful
pretty fruit, ain't they ? ' ' I guess, ' said I, ' there ain't the like
on 'em in all Connecticut.' 'Well,' says he, 'I'll tell you the
secret, but you needn't let on to no one about it. That are
row next the fence, I grafted it myself, I took great pains to
get the right kind, I sent clean up to Roxberry and away down
to Squawneck Creek. ' I was afeared he was a goin to give me
day and date for every graft, being a terrible long-winded man
in his stories ; so says I, ' I know that, Minister, but how do
you preserve them ? ' ' Why, I was a goin to tell you, ' said
he, ' when you stopped me. That are outward row I grafted
myself with the choicest kind I could find, and I succeeded.
They are beautiful, but so etarnal sour, no human soul can eat
them. Well, the boys think the old minister's graftin has all
succeeded about as well as that row, and they sarch no farther.
They snicker at my graftin, and I laugh in my sleeve, I guess,
at their penetration. '

"Now, Marm Pugwash is like the minister's apples, very
temptin fruit to look at, but desperate sour. If Pugwash had
a watery mouth when he married, I guess it's pretty puckery
by this time. However, if she goes to act ugly, I'll give her
a dose of 'soft sawder,' that will take the frown out of her
frontispiece, and make her dial plate as smooth as a lick of
copal varnish. It's a pity she's such a kickin devil, too, for
she has good points — good eye — good foot — neat pastern —

fine chest — a clean set of limbs, and carries a good But

here we are; now you'll see what 'soft sawder ' will do."

When we entered the house, the travelers' room was all in
darkness, and on opening the opposite door into the sitting
room, we found the female part of the family extinguishing the
fire for the night. Mrs. Pugwash had a broom in her hand,
and was in the act (the last act of female housewifery) of sweep-
ing the hearth. The strong flickering light of the fire, as it
fell upon her tall fine figure and beautiful face, revealed a
creature worthy of the Clockmaker's comments.

"Good evening, Marm," said Mr. Slick, "how do you do
and how's Mr. Pugwash?" "He," said she, "why he's been
abed this hour, you don't expect to disturb him this time of

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 145

night, I hope." "Oh no," said Mr. Slick, "certainly not, and
I am sorry to have disturbed you, but we got detained longer

than we expected; I am sorry that " "So am I," said she,

" but if Mr. Pugwash will keep an Inn when he has no occasion
to, his family can't expect no rest."

Here the Clockmaker, seeing the storm gathering, stooped
down suddenly, and staring intently,, held out his hand and
exclaimed, "Well, if that ain't a beautiful child — come here,
my little man, and shake hands along with me — well, I declare,
if that are little feller ain't the finest child I ever seed — what,
not abed yet? Ah, you rogue, where did you get them are
pretty rosy cheeks ; stole them from mamma, eh ? Well, I wish
my old mother could see that child, it is such a treat. In our
country," said he, turning to me, "the children are all as pale as
chalk, or as yaller as an orange. Lord, that are little feller
would be a show in our country — come to me, my man. " Here
the "soft sawder" began to operate. Mrs. Pugwash said in a
milder tone than we had yet heard, " Go, my dear, to the gen-
tleman— go, dear." Mr. Slick kissed him, asked him if he
would go to the States along with him, told him all the little
girls there would fall in love with him, for they didn't see such
a beautiful face once in a month of Sundays. " Black eyes — let
me see — ah, mamma's eyes too, and black hair also ; as I am
alive, why you are mamma's own boy, the very image of mamma."
"Do be seated, gentlemen," said Mrs. Pugwash — " Sally, make
a fire in the next room. " " She ought to be proud of you, " he con-
tinued. " Well, if I live to return here, I must paint your face,
and have it put on my clocks, and our folks will buy the clocks
for the sake of the face. " Did you ever see," said he, again ad-
dressing me, "such a likeness between one human and another,
as between this beautiful little boy arid his mother? " " I am sure
you have had no supper," said Mrs. Pugwash to me ; "you must
be hungry and weary, too — I will get you a cup of tea." "I
am sorry to give you so much trouble," said I. "Not the least
trouble in the world, " she replied ; " on the contrary, a pleasure. "

We were then shown into the next room, where the fire was
now blazing up, but Mr. Slick protested he could not proceed
without the little boy, and lingered behind to ascertain his age,
and concluded by asking the child if he had any aunts that
looked like mamma.

As the door closed, Mr. Slick said, "It's a pity she don't go
well in gear. The difficulty with those critters is to git them

VOL. XXIII. 10

146 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

to start ; arter that there is no trouble with them if you don't
check 'em too short. If you do they'll stop again, run back
and kick like mad, and then Old Nick himself wouldn't start
'em. Pugwash, I guess, don't understand the natur of the
critter ; she'll never go kind in harness for him. When I see a
child" said the Clockmaker, " I always feel safe with these women
folk ; for I have always found that the road to a woman's heart
lies through her child."

" You seem," said I, " to understand the female heart so
well, I make no doubt you are a general favorite among the
fair sex."

"Any man," he replied, "that understands horses, has a
pretty considerable fair knowledge of women, for they are jist
alike in temper, and require the very identical same treatment.
Incourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious,
but lather the sulky ones like blazes.

" People talk an everlastin sight of nonsense about wine,
women, and horses. I've bought and sold 'em all, I've traded
in all of them, and I tell you, there ain't one in a thousand that
knows a grain about either on 'em. You hear folks say, * Oh,
such a man is an ugly-grained critter, he'll break his wife's
heart ; ' jist as if a woman's heart was as brittle as a pipe stalk.
The female heart, as far as my experience goes, is jist like a
new india-rubber shoe : you may pull and pull at it till it
stretches out a yard long, and then let go, and it will fly right
back to its old shape. Their hearts are made of stout leather,
I tell you ; there's a plaguy sight of wear in 'em.

" I never knowed but one case of a broken heart, and that
was in t'other sex, one Washington Banks. He was a sneezer.
He was tall enough to spit down on the heads of your grena-
diers, and near about high enough to wade across Charlestown
River, and as strong as a towboat. I guess he was somewhat
less than a foot longer than the moral law and catechism too.
He was a perfect pictur of a man ; you couldn't fault him in no
particular, he was so just a made critter ; folks used to run to
the winder when he passed, and say, * There goes Washington
Banks, bean't he lovely? '

" I do believe there wasn't a gall in the Lowell factories
that warn't in love with him. Sometimes, at intermission, on
Sabbath days, when they all came out together (an amazin
hansom sight too, near about a whole congregation of young

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 147

galls), Banks used to say, 'I vow, young ladies, I wish I had
five hundred arms to reciprocate one with each of you ; but I
reckon I have a heart big enough for you all ; it's a whopper,
you may depend, and every mite and morsel of it at your
service.' ' Well, how you do act, Mr. Banks,' half a thousand
little clipper-clapper tongues would say, all at the same time,
and their dear little eyes sparklin, like so many stars twinklin
of a frosty night.

" Well, when I last seed him, he was all skin and bone, like
a horse turned out to die. He was teetotally defleshed, a mere
walkin skeleton. ' I am dreadful sorry,' says I, ' to see you,
Banks, lookin so peeked ; why, you look like a sick turkey
hen, all legs ; what on airth ails you ? ' 'I am dyin,' says he,
' of a broken heart.' ' What,' says I, ' have the galls been jiltin
you? ' * No, no,' says he, ' I bean't such a fool as that neither.'
4 Well,' says I, ' have you made a bad speculation ? ' ' No,' says
he, shakin his head, ' I hope I have too much clear grit in me
to take on so bad for that.' ' What under the sun is it, then? '
said I. ' Why,' says he, ' I made a bet the fore part of summer
with Leftenant Oby Knowles, that I could shoulder the best
bower of the Constitution frigate. I won my bet, but the Anchor
was so etarnal heavy it broke my heart. ' Sure enough he did die
that very fall, and he was the only instance I ever heerd tell of
a broken heart"

A TALE OF BUNKER'S HILL.

Mr. Slick, like all his countrymen whom I have seen, felt
that his own existence was involved in that of the Constitution
of the United States, and that it was his duty to uphold it upon
all occasions. He affected to consider its government and its
institutions as perfect, and if any doubt was suggested as to
the stability or character of either, would make the common
reply of all Americans, " I guess you don't understand us," or
else enter into a labored defense. When left, however, to the
free expression of his own thoughts, he would often give utter-
ance to those apprehensions which most men feel in the event
of an experiment not yet fairly tried, and which has in many
parts evidently disappointed the sanguine hopes of its friends.
But, even on these occasions, when his vigilance seemed to

148 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

slumber, he would generally cover them, by giving them as the
remarks of others, or concealing them in a tale. It was this
habit that gave his discourse rather the appearance of thinking
aloud than a connected conversation.

" We are a great nation, Squire, " he said, " that's sartin ; but
I'm afear'd we didn't altogether start right. It's in politics
as in racin, everything depends upon a fair start. If you are
off too quick, you have to pull up and turn back agin, and your
beast gets out of wind and is baffled, and if you lose in the start
you hain't got a fair chance arterwards, and are plaguy apt to be
jockied in the course. When we set up housekeepin, as it were,
for ourselves, we hated our stepmother, Old England, so dread-
ful bad, we wouldn't foller any of her ways of managin at all,
but made new receipts for ourselves. Well, we missed it in many
things most consumedly, somehow or another. Did you ever
see, "said he, "a congregation split right in two by a quarrel,
and one part go off and set up for themselves ? " "I am sorry to
say, "said I, "that I have seen some melancholy instances of the
kind." " Well, they shoot ahead, or drop astern, as the case may
be, but they soon get on another tack, and leave the old ship
clean out of sight. When folks once take to emigratin in reli-
gion in this way, they never know where to bide. First they
try one location, and then they try another ; some settle here
and some improve there, but they don't hitch their horses to-
gether long. Sometimes they complain they have too little water,
at other times that they have too much ; they are never satisfied,
and, wherever these separatists go, they onsettle others as bad
as themselves. / never look on a desarter as any great shakes.

"My poor father used to say, 'Sam, mind what I tell you, if
a man don't agree in all particulars with his church, and can't
go the whole hog with 'em, he ain't justified on that account,
nohow, to separate from them, for Sam " Schism is a sin in the
eye of Q-od." The whole Christian world,' he would say, 'is
divided into two great families, the Catholic and Protestant.
Well, the Catholic is a united family, a happy family, and a
strong family, all governed by one head; and, Sam, as sure as
eggs is eggs, that are family will grub out t'other one, stalk,
branch, and root, it won't so much as leave the seed of it in the
ground, to grow by chance as a nateral curiosity. Now the
Protestant family is like a bundle of refuse shingles, when
withered up together (which it never was and never will be to
all etarnity), no great of a bundle arter all; you might take it

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 149

up under one arm, and walk off with it without winkin. But,
when all lyin loose, as it always is, jist look at it, and see what
a sight it is, all blowin about by every wind of doctrine, some
away up een a'most out of sight, others rollin over and over in
the dirt, some split to pieces, and others so warped by the
weather and cracked by the sun — no two of 'em will lie so as
to make a close jint. They are all divided into sects, railin,
quarrelin, separatin, and agreein in nothin, but hatin each
other. It is awful to think on. T'other family will some day
or other gather them all up, put them into a bundle and bind
them up tight, and condemn 'em as fit for nothin under the sun,
but the fire. Now he who splits one of these here sects by
schism, or he who preaches schism, commits a grievous sin;
and, Sam, if you valy your own peace of mind, have nothin to
do with such folks.

"'It's pretty much the same in Politics. I ain't quite clear
in my conscience, Sam, about our glorious revolution. If that
are blood was shed justly in the rebellion, then it was the Lord's
doin, but if unlawfully, how am I to answer for my share in it?
I was at Bunker Hill (the most splendid battle it's generally
allowed that ever was fought); what effect my shots had, I can't
tell, and I am glad I can't, all except one, Sam, and that shot '

Here the old gentleman became dreadful agitated, he shook

like an ague fit, and he walked up and down the room, and
wrung his hands, and groaned bitterly. 'I have wrastled with
the Lord, Sam, and have prayed to him to enlighten me on that
pint, and to wash out the stain of that are blood from my hands.
I never told you that are story, nor your mother neither, for
she could not stand it, poor critter, she's kinder narvous.

"'Well, Doctor Warren (the first soldier of his age, though
he never fought afore) commanded us all to resarve our fire till
the British came within pint-blank shot, and we could cleverly
see the whites of their eyes, and we did so — and we mowed
them down like grass, and we repeated our fire with awful
effect. I was among the last that remained behind the breast-
work, for most on 'em, arter the second shot, cut and run full
split. The British were close to us ; and an officer, with his
sword drawn, was leading on his men and encouragin them to
the charge. I could see his features, he was a rael handsome
man; I can see him now with his white breeches and black
gaiters, and red coat, and three-cornered cocked hat, as plain
as if it was yesterday instead of the year '75. Well, I took a

150 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

steady aim at him and fired. He didn't move for a space, and
I thought I had missed him, when all of a sudden, he sprung
right straight up on eend, his sword slipt through his hands up
to the pint, and then he fell flat on his face atop of the blade,
and it came straight out through his back. He was fairly
skivered. I never seed anything so awful since I was raised,
I actilly screamed out with horror — and I threw away my gun
and joined them that were retreatin over the neck to Charles-
town. Sam, that are British officer, if our rebellion was on just
or onlawful, was murdered, that's a fact ; and the idee, now I
am growin old, haunts me day and night. Sometimes I begin
with the Stamp Act, and I go over all our grievances, one by
one, and say, ain't they a sufficient justification. Well, it
makes a long list, and I get kinder satisfied, and it appears as
clear as anything. But sometimes there come doubts in my
mind jist like a guest that's not invited or not expected, and
takes you at a short like, and I say, warn't the Stamp Act
repealed, and concessions made, and warn't offers sent to settle
all fairly? — and I get troubled and oneasy agin. And then I
say to myself, says I, oh yes, but them offers came too late. I
do nothin now, when I am alone, but argue it over and over
agin. I actilly dream on that man in my sleep sometimes, and
then I see him as plain as if he was afore me, and I go over it
all agin till I come to that are shot, and then I leap right up
in bed and scream like all vengeance, and your mother, poor old
critter, says, Sam, says she, " What on airth ails you to make
you act so like old Scratch in your sleep — I do believe there's
somethin or another on your conscience." And I say, "Polly
dear, I guess we're a goin to have rain, for that plaguy cute
rheumatis has seized my foot and it does antagonize me so I
have no peace. It always does so when it's like for a change."
"Dear heart, "she says (the poor simple critter), "then I guess
I had better rub it, hadn't I, Sam ? " and she crawls out of bed
and gets her red flannel petticoat, and rubs away at my foot
ever so long. Oh, Sam, if she could rub it out of my heart as
easy as she thinks she rubs it out of my foot, I should be in
peace, that's a fact.

"'What's done, Sam, can't be helped, there is no use in cryin
over spilt milk, but still one can't help a thinkin on it. But
I don't love schisms, and I don't love rebellion.

"'Our revolution has made us grow faster and grow richer,
but, Sam, when we were younger and poorer, we were more

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 151

pious and more happy. We have nothin fixed either in religion
or politics. What connection there ought to be atween Church
and State, I am not availed, but some there ought to be as sure
as the Lord made Moses. Religion, when left to itself, as with
us, grows too rank and luxuriant. Suckers and sprouts, and
intersecting shoots, and superfluous wood make a nice shady
tree to look at, but where 's the fruit, Sam? that's the question
— where's the fruit? No; the pride of human wisdom, and the
presumption it breeds, will ruinate us. Jefferson was an infidel,
and avowed it, and gloried in it, and called it the enlighten-
ment of the age. Cambridge College is Unitarian, 'cause it
looks wise to doubt, and every drumstick of a boy ridicules the
belief of his forefathers. If our country is to be darkened by
infidelity, our Government defied by every State, and every
State ruled by mobs — then, Sam, the blood we shed in our
revolution will be atoned for in the blood and suffering of our
fellow-citizens. The murders of that civil war will be expiated
by a political suicide of the State. '

"I am somewhat of father's opinion, "said the Clockmaker,
"though I don't go the whole figur with him; but he needn't
have made such an everlastin touss about fix in that are British
officer's flint for him, for he'd a died himself by this time, I do
suppose, if he had a missed his shot at him. P'r'aps we might
have done a little better, and p'r'aps we mightn't, by stickin a
little closer to the old constitution. But one thing I will say,
I think, arter all, your Colony Government is about as happy
and as good a one as I know on. A man's life and property
are well protected here at little cost, and he can go where he
likes, provided he don't trespass on his neighbor.

"I guess that's enough for any on us, now, ain't it?"

WINDSOR AND THE FAB WEST.

The next morning the Clockmaker proposed to take a drive
round the neighborhood " You hadn't out, " says he, " to be in a
hurry; you should see the vicinity of this location; there ain't
the beat of it to be found anywhere."

While the servants were harnessing old Clay, we went to
see a new bridge, which had recently been erected over the
Avon River. "That," said he, "is a splendid thing. A New
Yorker built it, and the folks in St. John paid for it." "You
mean of Halifax, " said I; "St. John is in the other province."

152 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

" I mean what I say, " he replied, " and it is a credit to New Bruns-
wick. No, sir, the Halifax folks neither know nor keer much
about the country — they wouldn't take hold on it, and if they
had a waited for them, it would have been one while afore they
got a bridge, I tell you. They've no spirit, and plaguy little
sympathy with the country, and I'll tell you the reason on it.
There are a great many people there from other parts, and
always have been, who come to make money and nothin else,
who don't call it home, and don't feel to home, and who intend
to up killoch and off, as soon as they have made their ned out
of the bluenoses. They have got about as much regard for the
country as a peddler has, who trudges along with a pack on his
back. He walks, 'cause he intends to ride at last; trusts, 'cause
he intends to sue at last; smiles, 'cause he intends to cheat at
last ; saves all, 'cause he intends to move all at last. It's actilly
overrun with transient paupers, and transient speculators, and
these last grumble and growl like a bear with a sore head, the
whole blessed time, at everything, and can hardly keep a civil
tongue in their head, while they're fobbin your money hand
over hand. These critters feel no interest in anything but cent
per cent; they deaden public spirit; they hain't got none them-
selves, and they larf at it in others ; and when you add their
numbers to the timid ones, the stingy ones, the ignorant ones,
and the poor ones, that are to be found in every place, why the
few smart-spirited ones that's left are too few to do anything,
and so nothin is done. It appears to me if I was a bluenose

I'd But thank fortin I ain't, so I says nothin — but there

is something that ain't altogether jist right in this country,
that's a fact.

" But what a country this Bay country is, isn't it? Look at
that medder, bean't it lovely? The Prayer Eyes of the Illanoy
are the top of the ladder with us, but these dikes take the shine
off them by a long chalk, that's sartin. The land in our far
west, it is generally allowed, can't be no better; what you plant
is sure to grow and yield well, and food is so cheap, you can
live there for half nothin. But it don't agree with us New
England folks; we don't enjoy good health there; and what in
the world is the use of food, if you have such an etarnal dyspepsy
you can't digest it. A man can hardly live there till next
grass, afore he is in the yaller leaf. Just like one of our bran-
new vessels built down in Maine, of the best hackmatack, or
what's better still, of our real American live oak (and that's

SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 153

allowed to be about the best in the world), send her off to the
West Indies, and let her lie there awhile, and the worms will
riddle her bottom all full of holes like a tin cullender, or a board
with a grist of duck shot through it, you wouldn't believe what
a bore they be. Well, that's jist the case with the western cli-
mate. The heat takes the solder out of the knees, and elbows,
weakens the joints, and makes the frame rickety.

" Besides, we like the smell of the salt water, it seems kinder
nateral to us New Englanders. We can make more a plowin
of the seas, than plowin of a prayer eye. It would take a bottom
near about as long as Connecticut River, to raise wheat enough
to buy the cargo of a Nantucket whaler, or a Salem tea ship.
And then to leave one's folks, and native place, where one was
raised, halter-broke, and trained to go in gear, and exchange
all the comforts of the Old States for them are new ones, don't
seem to go down well at all. Why, the very sight of the Yankee
galls is good for sore eyes, the dear little critters, they do look
so scrumptious, I tell you, with their cheeks bloomin like a red
rose budded on a white one, and their eyes like Mrs. Adams's
diamonds (that folks say shine as well in the dark as in the
light), neck like a swan, lips chock full of kisses — lick! it
fairly makes one's mouth water to think on 'em. But it's no
use talkin, they are just made critters, that's a fact, full of
health and life and beauty, — now, to change them are splendid
white water lilies of Connecticut and Rhode Island for the
yaller crocuses of Illanoy, is what we don't like. It goes most
confoundedly agin the grain, I tell you. Poor critters, when
they get away back there, they grow as thin as a sawed lath,
their little peepers are as dull as a boiled codfish, their skin
looks like yaller fever, and they seem all mouth like a crocodile.
And that's not the worst of it neither, for when a woman begins
to grow sailer it's all over with her; she's up a tree then you
may depend, there's no mistake. You can no more bring back
her bloom, than you can the color to a leaf the frost has touched
in the fall. It's gone goose with her, that's a fact. And
that's not all, for the temper is plaguy apt to change with the
cheek, too. When the freshness of youth is on the move, the
sweetness of temper is amazin apt to start along with it. A
bilious cheek and a sour temper are like the Siamese twins,
there's a nateral cord of union atween them. The one is a sign-
board, with the name of the firm written on it in big letters.
He that don't know this, can't read, I guess. It's no use to

154 SAM SLICK AND THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

cry over spilt milk, we all know, but it's easier said than done,
that. Womenkind, and especially single folks, will take on
dreadful at the fadin of their roses, and their frettin only seems
to make the thorns look sharper. Our minister used to say to
sister Sail (and when she was young she was a rael witch, a
most everlastin sweet girl), 'Sally,' he used to say, 'now's the
time to larn, when you are young; store your mind well, dear,
and the fragrance will remain long arter the rose has shed its
leaves. The ottar of roses is stronger than the rose, and a plaguy
sight more valuable. ' Sail wrote it down, she said it warn't a
bad idee that ; but father larfed, he said he guessed Minister's
courtin days warn't over, when he made such pretty speeches
as that are to the galls. Now, who would go to expose his
wife or his darters, or himself, to the dangers of such a climate,
for the sake of 30 bushels of wheat to the acre, instead of 15.
There seems a kinder somethin in us that rises in our throat
when we think on it, and won't let us. We don't like it.
Give me the shore, and let them that like the Far West go
there, I say.

" This place is as fertile as Illanoy or Ohio, as healthy as any
part of the globe, and right alongside of the salt water; but the
folks want three things — Industry, Enterprise, Economy ; these
bluenoses don't know how to valy this location — only look at
it, and see what a place for bisness it is — the center of the
Province — the nateral capital of the Basin of Minas, and part
of the Bay of Fundy — the great thoroughfare to St. John,
Canada, and the United States — the exports of lime, gypsum,
freestone and grindstone — the dikes — but it's no use talkin ;
I wish we had it, that's all. Our folks are like a rock-maple
tree — stick 'em in anywhere, butt eend up and top down, and
they will take root and grow ; but put 'em in a rael good soil
like this, and give 'em a fair chance, and they will go ahead
and thrive right off, most amazin fast, that's a fact. Yes, if
we had it we would make another guess place of it from what
it is. In one year we would have a railroad to Halifax, which,
unlike the stone that killed two birds, would be the makin of both
places. I often tell the folks this, but all they can say is, 'Oh,
we are too poor and too young.' Says I, 'You put me in mind
of a great long-legged, long-tail colt father had. He never
changed his name of colt as long as he lived, and he was as old
as the hills ; and though he had the best of feed, was as thin as
a whippin post. He was colt all his days — always young —

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 155

always poor ; and young and poor you'll be, I guess, to the end
of the chapter."

On our return to the Inn, the weather, which had been
threatening for some time past, became very tempestuous. It
rained for three successive days, and the roads were almost
impassable. To continue my journey was wholly out of the
question. I determined, therefore, to take a seat in the coach
for Halifax.

DOTHEBOYS HALL.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

(From "Nicholas Nickleby.")

[For biographical sketch, see page 121.]

MB. SQUEERS, being safely landed, left Nicholas and the
boys standing with the luggage in the road, to amuse them-
selves by looking at the coach as it changed horses, while he
ran into the tavern and went through the leg-stretching process
at the bar. After some minutes, he returned, with his legs
thoroughly stretched, if the hue of his nose and a short hiccup
afforded any criterion ; and at the same time there came out of
the yard a rusty pony chaise, and a cart, driven by two laboring
men.

" Put the boys and the boxes into the cart," said Squeers,
rubbing his hands ; " and this young man and me will go on in
the chaise. Get in, Nickleby."

Nicholas obeyed. Mr. Squeers with some difficulty inducing
the pony to obey also, they started off, leaving the cart load of
infant misery to follow at leisure.

" Are you cold, Nickleby ? " inquired Squeers, after they
had traveled some distance in silence.

"Rather, sir, I must say."

" Well, I don't find fault with that," said Squeers ; " it's a
long journey this weather."

" Is it much farther to Dotheboys Hall, sir ? " asked
Nicholas.

" About three mile from here," replied Squeers. " But you
needn't call it a Hall down here."

156 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

Nicholas coughed, as if he would like to know why.

" The fact is, it ain't a Hall," observed Squeers, dryly.

" Oh, indeed ! " said Nicholas, whom this piece of intelli-
gence much astonished.

" No," replied Squeers. " We call it a Hall up in London,
because it sounds better, but they don't know it by that name
in these parts. A man may call his house an island if he
likes ; there's no act of Parliament against that, I believe ? "

" I believe not, sir," rejoined Nicholas.

Squeers eyed his companion slyly, at the conclusion of this
little dialogue, and finding that he had grown thoughtful and
appeared in no wise disposed to volunteer any observations,
contented himself with lashing the pony until they reached
their journey's end.

" Jump out," said Squeers. " Hallo there ! come and put
this horse up. Be quick, will you ! "

While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impa-
tient cries, Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a
long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling
outbuildings behind, and a barn and stable adjoining. After
the lapse of a minute or two, the noise of somebody unlocking
the yard gate was heard, and presently a tall lean boy, with a
lantern in his hand, issued forth.

" Is that you, Smike ? " cried Squeers.

" Yes, sir," replied the boy.

" Then why the devil didn't you come before ? "

"Please, sir, I fell asleep over the fire," answered Smike,
with humility.

" Fire ! what fire ? Where's there a fire ? " demanded the
schoolmaster, sharply.

" Only in the kitchen, sir," replied the boy. " Missus said
as I was sitting up, I might go in there for a warm."

"Your Missus is a fool," retorted Squeers. "You'd have
been a deuced deal more wakeful in the cold, I'll engage."

By this time Mr. Squeers had dismounted ; and after order-
ing the boy to see to the pony, and to take care that he hadn't
any more corn that night, he told Nicholas to wait at the front
door a minute while he went round and let him in.

A host of unpleasant misgivings, which had been crowding
upon Nicholas during the whole journey, thronged into his
mind with redoubled force when he was left alone. His great
distance from home and the impossibility of reaching it, except

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 157

on foot, should he feel ever so anxious to return, presented
itself to him in most alarming colors ; and as he looked up at
the dreary house and dark windows, and upon the wild country
round, covered with snow, he felt a depression of heart and
spirit which he never had experienced before.

" Now then ! " cried Squeers, poking his head out at the
front door. " Where are you, Nickleby ? "

" Here, sir," replied Nicholas.

" Come in, then," said Squeers, " the wind blows in, at this
door, fit to knock a man off his legs."

Nicholas sighed, and hurried in. Mr. Squeers, having
bolted the door to keep it shut, ushered him into a small parlor
scantily furnished with a few chairs, a yellow map hung against
the wall, and a couple of tables ; one of which bore some prep-
arations for supper, while, on the other, a tutor's assistant, a
Murray's grammar, half a dozen cards of terms, and a worn
letter directed to Wackford Squeers, Esquire, were arranged
in picturesque confusion.

They had not been in this apartment a couple of minutes,
when a female bounced into the room, and, seizing Mr. Squeers
by the throat, gave him two loud kisses : one close after the
other, like a postman's knock. The lady, who was of a large
raw-boned figure, was about half a head taller than Mr. Squeers,
and was dressed in a dimity night jacket, with her hair in
papers ; she had also a dirty nightcap on, relieved by a yellow
cotton handkerchief which tied it under the chin.

" How is my Squeery ? " said this lady in a playful manner,
and a very hoarse voice.

" Quite well, my love," replied Squeers. " How's the cows? "

" All right, every one of 'em," answered the lady.

" And the pigs ? " said Squeers.

" As well as they were when you went away."

" Come ; that's a blessing," said Squeers, pulling off his
greatcoat. " The boys are all as they were, I suppose ? "

" Oh, yes, they're well enough," replied Mrs. Squeers, snap-
pishly. "That young Pitcher's had a fever."

" No ! " exclaimed Squeers. " Damn that boy, he's always
at something of that sort."

" Never was such a boy, I do believe," said Mrs. Squeers ;
" whatever he has is always catching too. I say it's obstinacy,
and nothing shall ever convince me that it isn't. I'd beat it
out of him ; and I told you that, six months ago."

158 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

" So you did, my love," rejoined Squeers. " We'll try what
can be done."

Pending these little endearments, Nicholas had stood, awk-
wardly enough, in the middle of the room, not very well know-
ing whether he was expected to retire into the passage or to
remain where he was. He was now relieved from his perplexity
by Mr. Squeers.

" This is the new young man, my dear," said that gentle-
man.

"Oh," replied Mrs. Squeers, nodding her head at Nicholas,
and eying him coldly from top to toe.

" He'll take a meal with us to-night," said Squeers, " and
go among the boys to-morrow morning. You can give him a
shakedown here, to-night, can't you ? "

" We must manage it somehow," replied the lady. " You
don't much mind how you sleep, I suppose, sir ? "

"No, indeed," replied Nicholas, "I am not particular."

"That's lucky," said Mrs. Squeers. And as the lady's
humor was considered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr. Squeers
laughed heartily, and seemed to expect that Nicholas should
do the same.

After some further conversation between the master and
mistress relative to the success of Mr. Squeers's trip, and the
people who had paid, and the people who had made default in
payment, a young servant girl brought in a Yorkshire pie and
some cold beef, which being set upon the table, the boy Smike
appeared with a jug of ale.

Mr. Squeers was emptying his greatcoat pockets of letters
to different boys, and other small documents, which he had
brought down in them. The boy glanced, with an anxious
and timid expression, at the papers, as if with a sickly hope
that one among them might relate to him. The look was a
very painful one, and went to Nicholas's heart at once ; for it
told a long and very sad history.

It induced him to consider the boy more attentively, and he
was surprised to observe the extraordinary mixture of garments
which formed his dress. Although he could not have been less
than eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he
wore a skeleton suit, such as is usually put upon very little
boys, and which, though most absurdly short in the arms and
legs, was quite wide enough for his attenuated frame. In
order that the lower part of his legs might be in perfect keep-

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 159

ing with this singular dress, he had a very large pair of boots,
originally made for tops, which might have been once worn by
some stout farmer, but were now too patched and tattered for
a beggar. Heaven knows how long he had been there, but he
still wore the same linen which he had first taken down ; for,
round his neck was a tattered child's frill, only half concealed
by a coarse, man's neckerchief. He was lame ; and as he
feigned to be busy in arranging the table, glanced at the letters
with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and hopeless, that
Nicholas could hardly bear to watch him.

" What are you bothering about there, Smike ? " cried Mrs.
Squeers ; "let the things alone, can't you."

" Eh ! " said Squeers, looking up. " Oh ! it's you, is it ? "

" Yes, sir," replied the youth, pressing his hands together,
as though to control, by force, the nervous wandering of his
fingers ; " is there "

" Well ! " said Squeers.

" Have you — did anybody — has nothing been heard —
about me ? "

" Devil a bit," replied Squeers, testily.

The lad withdrew his eyes, and, putting his hand to his face,
moved towards the door.

" Not a word," resumed Squeers, " and never will be. Now,
this is a pretty sort of thing, isn't it, that you should have
been left here, all these years, and no money paid after the first
six — nor no notice taken, nor no clew to be got who you
belong to? It's a pretty sort. of thing that I should have to
feed a great fellow like you, and never hope to get one penny
for it, isn't it ? "

The boy put his hand to his head as if he were making an
effort to recollect something, and then, looking vacantly at his
questioner, gradually broke into a smile, and limped away.

" I'll tell you what, Squeers," remarked his wife as the door
closed, " I think that young chap's turning silly."

" I hope not," said the schoolmaster ; " for he's a handy
fellow out of doors, and worth his meat and drink, anyway. I
should think he'd have wit enough for us though, if he was.
But come ; let us have supper, for I am hungry and tired, and
want to get to bed."

This reminder brought in an exclusive steak for Mr. Squeers,
who speedily proceeded to do it ample justice. Nicholas drew
up his chair, but his appetite was effectually taken away.

160 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

" How's the steak, Squeers ? " said Mrs. S.

" Tender as a lamb," replied Squeers. " Have a bit."

" I couldn't eat a morsel," replied his wife. " What'll the
young man take, my dear ? "

" Whatever he likes that's present," rejoined Squeers, in a
most unusual burst of generosity.

"What do you say, Mr. Knuckleboy?" inquired Mrs.
Squeers.

" I'll take a little of the pie, if you please," replied Nicholas.
"A very little, for I'm not hungry."

" Well, it's a pity to cut the pie if you're not hungry, isn't
it ? " said Mrs. Squeers. " Will you try a bit of the beef ? "

" Whatever you please," replied Nicholas, abstractedly :
"it's all the same to me."

Mrs. Squeers looked vastly gracious on receiving this reply ;
and nodding to Squeers, as much as to say that she was glad
to find the young man knew his station, assisted Nicholas to a
slice of meat with her own fair hands.

" Ale, Squeery ? " inquired the lady, winking and frowning
to give him to understand that the question propounded was,
whether Nicholas should have ale, and not whether he (Squeers)
would take any.

" Certainly," said Squeers, re-telegraphing in the same
manner. "A glassful."

So Nicholas had a glassful, and, being occupied with his
own reflections, drank it, in happy innocence of all the fore-
gone proceedings.

" Uncommon juicy steak that," said Squeers, as he laid down
his knife and fork, after plying it, in silence, for some time.

"It's prime meat," rejoined his lady. "I bought a good
large piece of it myself on purpose for

" For what ! " exclaimed Squeers, hastily. " Not for the

"No, no; not for them," rejoined Mrs. Squeers; "on pur-
pose for you against you came home. Lor I you didn't think I
could have made such a mistake as that ! "

" Upon my word, my dear, I didn't know what you were
going to say," said Squeers, who had turned pale.

" You needn't make yourself uncomfortable," remarked his
wife, laughing heartily. " To think that I should be such a
noddy! Well!"

This part of the conversation was rather unintelligible ; but
popular rumor in the neighborhood asserted that Mr. Squeers,

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 161

being amiably opposed to cruelty to animals, not unfrequently
purchased for boy consumption the bodies of horned cattle who
had died a natural death ; possibly he was apprehensive of hav-
ing unintentionally devoured some choice morsel intended for
the young gentlemen.

Supper being over, and removed by a small servant girl with,
a hungry eye, Mrs. Squeers retired to lock it up, and also to
take into safe custody the clothes of the five boys who had just
arrived, and who were halfway up the troublesome flight of
steps which leads to death's door, in consequence of exposure to
the cold. They were then regaled with a light supper of por-
ridge, and stowed away, side by side, in a small bedstead, to
warm each other, and dream of a substantial meal with some-
thing hot after it, if their fancies set that way : which it is not
at all improbable they did.

Mr. Squeers treated himself to a stiff tumbler of brandy and
water, made on the liberal half-and-half principle, allowing for
the dissolution of the sugar ; and his amiable helpmate mixed
Nicholas the ghost of a small glassful of the same compound.
This done, Mr. and Mrs. Squeers drew close up to the fire, and
sitting with their feet on the fender, talked confidentially in
whispers ; while Nicholas, taking up the tutor's assistant, read
the interesting legends in the miscellaneous questions, and all
the figures into the bargain, with as much thought or con-
sciousness of what he was doing, as if he had been in a magnetic
slumber.

At length, Mr. Squeers yawned fearfully, and opined that
it was high time to go to bed ; upon which signal, Mrs. Squeers
and the girl dragged in a small straw mattress and a couple of
blankets, and arranged them into a couch for Nicholas.

" We'll put you into your regular bedroom to-morrow,
Nickleby," said Squeers. " Let me see ! Who sleeps in
Brooks's bed, my dear?"

"In Brooks's," said Mrs. Squeers, pondering. "There's
Jennings, little Bolder, Graymarsh, and what's his name."

"So there is," rejoined Squeers. "Yes! Brooks is full."

" Full ! " thought Nicholas. "I should think he was."

" There's a place somewhere, I know," said Squeers ; " but
I can't at this moment call to mind where it is. However, we'll
have that all settled to-morrow. Good night, Nickleby. Seven
o'clock in the morning, mind."

"I shall be ready, sir," replied Nicholas. " Good night."

VOL. XXIII. 11

162 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

" I'll come in myself and show you where the well is," said
Squeers. " You'll always find a little bit of soap in the kitchen
window ; that belongs to you."

Nicholas opened his eyes but not his mouth ; and Squeers
was again going away, when he once more turned back.

" I don't know, I am sure," he said, " whose towel to put
you on ; but if you'll make shift with something to-morrow
morning, Mrs. Squeers will arrange that, in the course of the
day. My dear, don't forget."

" I'll take care," replied Mrs. Squeers ; " and mind you take
care, young man, and get first wash. The teacher ought
always to have it ; but they get the better of him if they can."

Mr. Squeers then nudged Mrs. Squeers to bring away the
brandy bottle, lest Nicholas should help himself in the night ;
and the lady having seized it with great precipitation, they
retired together.

Nicholas, being left alone, took half a dozen turns up and
down the room in a condition of much agitation and excite-
ment ; but, growing gradually calmer, sat himself down in a
chair, and mentally resolved that, come what might, he would
endeavor, for a time, to bear whatever wretchedness might be
in store for him, and that remembering the helplessness of his
mother and sister, he would give his uncle no plea for desert-
ing them in their need. Good resolutions seldom fail of pro-
ducing some good effect in the mind from which they spring.
He grew less desponding, and — so sanguine and buoyant is
youth — even hoped that affairs at Dotheboys Hall might yet
prove better than they promised.

He was preparing for bed, with something like renewed
cheerfulness, when a sealed letter fell from his coat pocket. In
the hurry of leaving London, it had escaped his attention, and
had not occurred to him since, but it at once brought back to
him the recollection of the mysterious behavior of Newman
Noggs.

" Dear me ! " said Nicholas ; " what an extraordinary hand ! "

It was directed to himself, was written upon very dirty
paper, and in such cramped and crippled writing as to be
almost illegible. After great difficulty and much puzzling, he
contrived to read as follows : —

MY DEAR YOUNG MAN, — I know the world. Your father did
not, or he would not have done me a kindness when there was no

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 163

hope of return. You do not, or you would not be bound on such a
journey.

If ever you want a shelter in London (don't be angry at this, /
once thought I never should), they know where I live, at the sign of
the Crown, in Silver Street, Golden Square. It is at the corner of
Silver Street and James Street, with a bar door both ways. You can
coine at night. Once, nobody was ashamed — never mind that. It's
all over.

Excuse errors. I should forget how to wear a whole coat now.
I have forgotten all my old ways. My spelling may have gone with
them. NEWMAN NOGGS.

P.S. If you should go near Barnard Castle, there is good ale at
the King's Head. Say you know me, and I am sure they will not
charge you for it. You may say Mr. Noggs there, for I was a gen-
tleman then. I was indeed.

It may be a very undignified circumstance to record, but
after he had folded this letter and placed it in his pocketbook,
Nicholas Nickleby's eyes were dimmed with a moisture that
might have been taken for tears.

OF THE INTERNAL ECONOMY OF DOTHEBOYS HALL.

A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather is
one of the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity can
devise. Perhaps it is even a sweetener of dreams, for those
which hovered over the rough couch of Nicholas, and whispered
their airy nothings in his ear, were of an agreeable and happy
kind. He was making his fortune very fast indeed, when the
faint glimmer of an expiring candle shone before his eyes, and
a voice he had no difficulty in recognizing as part and parcel of
Mr. Squeers, admonished him that it was time to rise.

" Past seven, Nickleby," said Mr. Squeers.

" Has morning come already ? " asked Nicholas, sitting up
in bed.

" Ah ! that has it," replied Squeers, " and ready iced too.
Now, Nickleby, come ; tumble up, will you ? "

Nicholas needed no further admonition, but " tumbled up "
at once, and proceeded to dress himself by the light of the taper
which Mr. Squeers carried in his hand.

"Here's a pretty go," said that gentleman; "the pump's
froze."

164 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

" Indeed ! " said Nicholas, not much interested in the intel-
ligence.

. " Yes," replied Squeers. " You can't wash yourself this
morning."

" Not wash myself ! " exclaimed Nicholas.

" No, not a bit of it," rejoined Squeers, tartly. " So you
must be content with giving yourself a dry polish till we break
the ice in the well, and can get a bucketful out for the boys.
Don't stand staring at me, but do look sharp, will you ? "

Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on his
clothes. Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew
the candle out, when the voice of his amiable consort was
heard in the passage demanding admittance.

" Come in, my love," said Squeers.

Mrs. Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night
jacket which had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the
previous night, and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet
of some antiquity, which she wore with much ease and light-
ness, on the top of the nightcap before mentioned.

" Drat the things," said the lady, opening the cupboard ;
" I can't find the school spoon anywhere."

" Never mind it, my dear," observed Squeers, in a soothing
manner; "it's of no consequence."

" No consequence, why how you talk ! " retorted Mrs.
Squeers, sharply ; " isn't it brimstone morning ? "

" I forgot, my dear," rejoined Squeers ; " yes, it certainly
is. We purify the boys' bloods now and then, Nickleby."

" Purify fiddlesticks' ends," said his lady. " Don't think,
young man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone
and molasses, just to purify them ; because if you think we
carry on the business in that way, you'll find yourself mistaken,
and so I tell you plainly."

" My dear," said Squeers, frowning. " Hem ! "

" Oh ! nonsense," rejoined Mrs. Squeers. " If the young
man comes to be a teacher here, let him understand, at once,
that we don't want any foolery about the boys. They have
the brimstone and treacle, partly because if they hadn't some--
thing or other in the way of medicine they'd be always ailing
and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their
appetites and comes cheaper than breakfast and dinner. So,
it does them good and us good at the same time, and that's fair
enough, I'm sure."

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 165

Having given this explanation, Mrs. Squeers put her hand
into the closet and instituted a stricter search after the spoon,
in which Mr. Squeers assisted. A few words passed between
them while they were thus engaged, but as their voices were
partially stifled by the cupboard, all that Nicholas could dis-
tinguish was, that Mr. Squeers said what Mrs. Squeers had
said, was injudicious, and that Mrs. Squeers said what Mr.
Squeers said, was " stuff."

A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it
proving fruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs.
Squeers and boxed by Mr. Squeers ; which course of treatment
brightening his intellects, enabled him to suggest that possibly
Mrs. Squeers might have the spoon in her pocket, as indeed
turned out to be the case. As Mrs. Squeers had previously
protested, however, that she was quite certain she had not got
it, Smike received another box on the ear for presuming to
contradict his mistress, together with a promise of a sound
thrashing if he were not more respectful in future ; so that
he took nothing very advantageous by his motion.

" A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby," said Squeers
when his consort had hurried away, pushing the drudge before
her.

" Indeed, sir ! " observed Nicholas.

" I don't know her equal," said Squeers ; " I do not know
her equal. That woman, Nickleby, is always the same —
always the same bustling, lively, active, saving creetur that
you see her now."

Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agree-
able domestic prospect thus opened to him ; but Squeers was,
fortunately, too much occupied with his own reflections to per-
ceive it.

" It's my way to say, when I am up in London," continued
Squeers, " that to them boys she is a mother. But she is more
than a mother to them ; ten times more. She does things for
them boys, Nickleby, that I don't believe half the mothers
going would do for their own sons."

" I should think they would not, sir," answered Nicholas.

Now the fact was that both Mr. and Mrs. Squeers viewed
the boys in the light of their proper and natural enemies ; or,
in other words, they held and considered that their business
and profession was to get as much from every boy as could by
possibility be screwed out of him. On this point they were

166 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

both agreed, and behaved in unison accordingly. The only
difference between them was, that Mrs. Squeers waged war
against the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers
covered his rascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual
deceit ; as if he really had a notion of some day or other being
able to take himself in, and persuade his own mind that he was
a very good fellow.

"But come," said Squeers, interrupting the progress of
some thoughts to this effect in the mind of his usher, "let's
go to the schoolroom ; and lend me a hand with my school
coat, will you ? "

Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shoot-
ing jacket, which he took down from a peg in the passage;
and Squeers, arming himself with his cane, led the way across
a yard to a door in the rear of the house.

"There," said the schoolmaster as they stepped in together ;
" this is our shop, Nickleby ! "

It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many
objects to attract attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about
him, really without seeing anything at all. By degrees, how-
ever, the place resolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with
a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass,
the remainder being stopped up with old copybooks and paper.
There were a couple of long old rickety desks, cut and notched,
and inked, and damaged, in every possible way ; two or three
frames ; a detached desk for Squeers ; and another for his
assistant. The ceiling was supported, like that of a barn, by
cross beams and rafters ; and the walls were so stained and
discolored, that it was impossible to tell whether they had ever
been touched with paint or whitewash.

But the pupils — the young noblemen ! How the last
faint traces of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to
be derived from his efforts in this den, faded from the mind
of Nicholas as he looked in dismay around ! Pale and haggard
faces, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances
of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of
stunted growth, and others whose long meager legs would
hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view
together ; there were the bleared eye, the harelip, the crooked
foot, and every ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural
aversion conceived by parents for their offspring, or of young
lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 167

horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. There were little
faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the
scowl of sullen, dogged suffering ; there was childhood with
the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helpless-
ness alone remaining ; there were vicious-faced boys, glooming
with leaden eyes, like malefactors in a jail ; and there were
young creatures on whom the sins of their frail parents had
descended, weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had
known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. With every
kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every
young and healthy feeling flogged and starved down, with
every revengeful passion that can fester in swollen hearts,
eating its evil way to their core in silence, what an incipient
Hell was breeding here !

And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque
features, which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas,
might have provoked a smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one
of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone
and treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a
large installment to each boy in succession, using for the pur-
pose a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally
manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every
young gentleman's mouth considerably : they being all obliged,
under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl
at a gasp. In another corner, huddled together for companion-
ship, were the little boys who had arrived on the preceding
night, three of them in very large leather breeches, and two
in old trousers, a something tighter fit than drawers are
usually worn ; at no great distance from these was seated the
juvenile son and heir of Mr. Squeers — a striking likeness
of his father — kicking, with great vigor, under the hands of
Smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of new boots that bore
a most suspicious resemblance to those which the least of the
little boys had worn on the journey down — as the little boy
himself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriation
with a look of most rueful amazement. Besides these, there
was a long row of boys waiting, with countenances of no
pleasant anticipation, to be treacled ; and another file, who had
just escaped from the infliction, making a variety of wry
mouths indicative of anything but satisfaction. The whole
were attired in such motley, ill-sorted, extraordinary gar-
ments, as would have been irresistibly ridiculous but for the

168 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

foul appearance of dirt, disorder, and disease with which they
were associated.

"Now," said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with
his cane, which made half the little boys nearly jump out of
their boots, " is that physicking over ? "

" Just over," said Mrs. Squeers, choking the last boy in her
hurry, and tapping the crown of his head with the wooden
spoon to restore him. " Here, you Smike ; take away now.
Look sharp ! "

Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs. Squeers having
called up a little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands
upon it, hurried out after him into a species of washhouse,
where there was a small fire and a large kettle, together with
a number of little wooden bowls which were arranged upon a
board.

Into these bowls, Mrs. Squeers, assisted by the hungry
servant, poured a brown composition, which looked like diluted
pincushions without the covers, and was called porridge. A
minute wedge of brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and
when they had eaten their porridge by means of the bread, the
boys ate the bread itself, and had finished their breakfast ;
whereupon Mr. Squeers said, in a solemn voice, " For what we
have received, may the Lord make us truly thankful I " — and
went away to his own.

Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge,
for much the same reason which induces some savages to swal-
low earth — lest they should be inconveniently hungry when
there is nothing to eat. Having further disposed of a slice of
bread and butter, allotted to him in virtue of his office, he sat
himself down to wait for school time.

He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all
seemed to be. There was none of the noise and clamor of a
schoolroom ; none of its boisterous play, or hearty mirth.
The children sat crouching and shivering together, and seemed
to lack, the spirit to move about. The only pupil who evinced
the slightest tendency towards locomotion or playfulness was
Master Squeers, and as his chief amusement was to tread upon
the other boys' toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits was
rather disagreeable than otherwise.

After some half-hour's delay, Mr. Squeers reappeared, and
the boys took their places and their books, of which latter com-
modity the average might be about one to eight learners. A

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 169

few minutes having elapsed, during which Mr. Squeers looked
very profound, as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was
inside all the books, and could say every word of their con-
tents by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that gentle-
man called up the first class.

Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front
of the schoolmaster's desk half a dozen scarecrows, out at knees
and elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath
his learned eye.

" This is the class in English spelling and philosophy,
Nickleby," said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside
him. " We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you.
Now, then, where's the first boy ? "

"Please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlor window," said
the temporary head of the philosophical class.

" So he is, to be sure," rejoined Squeers. " We go upon the
practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education
system. C-1-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour.
W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy
knows this out of book, he goes and does it. It's just the
same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the second
boy!"

"Please, sir, he's weeding the garden," replied a small
voice.

"To be sure," said Squeers, by no means disconcerted.
" So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney,
noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned
that bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows
'em. That's our system, Nickleby ; what do you think of it? "

" It's a very useful one, at any rate," answered Nicholas.

"I believe you," rejoined Squeers, not remarking the em-
phasis of his usher. " Third boy, what's a horse ? "

" A beast, sir," replied the boy.

" So it is," said Squeers. " Ain't it, Nickleby ? "

" I believe there is no doubt of that, sir," answered Nicholas.

" Of course there isn't," said Squeers. " A horse is a quad-
ruped, and quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's
gone through the grammar knows, or else where's the use of
having grammars at all?"

" Where, indeed ! " said Nicholas, abstractedly.

"As you're perfect in that," resumed Squeers, turning to
the boy, " go and look after my horse, and rub him down well,

170 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

or I'll rub you down. The rest of the class go and draw water
up, till somebody tells you to leave off, for it's washing day
to-morrow, and they want the coppers filled."

So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments
in practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half
cunning and half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain
what he might think of him by this time.

" That's the way we do it, Nickleby," he said, after a pause.

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was
scarcely perceptible, and said he saw it was.

" And a very good way it is, too," said Squeers. " Now
just take them fourteen little boys and hear them some reading,
because, you know, you must begin to be useful. Idling about
here won't do."

Mr. Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly occurred to
him, either that he must not say too much to his assistant, or
that his assistant did not say enough to him in praise of the
establishment. The children were arranged in a semicircle
round the new master, and he was soon listening to their
dull, drawling, hesitating recital of those stories of engrossing
interest which are to be found in the more antiquated spelling
books.

In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on.
At one o'clock, the boys, having previously had their appetites
thoroughly taken away by stirabout and potatoes, sat down
in the kitchen to some hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was
graciously permitted to take his portion to his own solitary
desk, to eat it there in peace. After this, there was another
hour of crouching in the schoolroom and shivering with cold,
and then school began again.

It was Mr. Squeers's custom to call the boys together, and
make a sort of report, after every half-yearly visit to the
metropolis, regarding the relations and friends he had seen,
the news he had heard, the letters he had brought down, the
bills which had been paid, the accounts which had been left
unpaid, and so forth. This solemn proceeding always took
place in the afternoon of the day succeeding his return ; per-
haps, because the boys acquired strength of mind from the
suspense of the morning, or possibly, because Mr. Squeers
himself acquired greater sternness and inflexibility from cer-
tain warm potations in which he was wont to indulge after his
early dinner. Be this as it may, the boys were recalled from

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 171

house window, garden, stable, and cow yard, and the school
were assembled in full conclave, when Mr. Squeers, with a
small bundle of papers in his hand, and Mrs. S. following with
a pair of canes, entered the room and proclaimed silence.

" Let any boy speak a word without leave," said Mr. Squeers,
mildly, " and I'll take the skin off his back."

This special proclamation had the desired effect, and a
deathlike silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which
Mr. Squeers went on to say : —

" Boys, I've been to London, and have returned to my family
and you, as strong and well as ever."

According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble
cheers at this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers ! Sighs of
extra strength with the chill on.

" I have seen the parents of some boys," continued Squeers,
turning over his papers, " and they're so glad to hear how their
sons are getting on, that there's no prospect at all of their
going away, which of course is a very pleasant thing to reflect
upon, for all parties."

Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeers
said this, but the greater part of the young gentlemen having
no particular parents to speak of, were wholly uninterested in
the thing one way or other.

"I have had disappointments to contend against," said
Squeers, looking very grim ; " Holder's father was two pound
ten short. Where is Bolder ? "

" Here he is, please, sir," rejoined twenty officious voices.
Boys are very like men, to be sure.

" Come here, Bolder," said Squeers.

An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands,
stepped from his place to the master's desk, and raised his eyes
imploringly to Squeers's face, — his own quite white from the
rapid beating of his heart.

"Bolder," said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was
considering, as the saying goes, where to have him. " Bolder,
if your father thinks that because — why, what's this, sir ? "

As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy's hand by the cuff
of his jacket, and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror
and disgust.

" What do you call this, sir ? " demanded the schoolmaster,
administering a cut with the cane to expedite the reply.

"I can't help it, indeed, sir," rejoined the boy, crying.

172 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

" They will come ; it's the dirty work I think, sir — at least
I don't know what it is, sir, but it's not my fault."

"Bolder," said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and
moistening the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of
the cane, " you are an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the
last thrashing did you no good, we must see what another will
do towards beating it out of you."

With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy,
Mr. Squeers fell upon the boy and caned him soundly : not
leaving off indeed, until his arm was tired out.

" There," said Squeers, when he had quite done ; " rub away
as hard as you like, you won't rub that off in a hurry. Oh !
you won't hold that noise, won't you? Put him out, Smike."

The drudge knew better from long experience than to hesi-
tate about obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a side door ;
and Mr. Squeers perched himself again on his own stool, sup-
ported by Mrs. Squeers, who occupied another at his side.

" Now let us see," said Squeers. " A letter for Cobbey.
Stand up, Cobbey."

Another boy stood up, and eyed the letter very hard, while
Squeers made a mental abstract of the same.

" Oh I " said Squeers : " Cobbey's grandmother is dead, and
his uncle John has took to drinking, which is all the news his
sister sends, except eighteenpence, which will just pay for that
broken square of glass. Mrs. Squeers, my dear, will you take
the money ? "

The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most
businesslike air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as
coolly as possible.

"Graymarsh," said Squeers, "he's the next. Stand up,
Graymarsh."

Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over
the letter as before.

" Graymarsh's maternal aunt," said Squeers, when he had
possessed himself of the contents, " is very glad to hear he's so
well and happy, and sends her respectful compliments to Mrs.
Squeers, and thinks she must be an angel. She likewise thinks
Mr. Squeers is too good for this world ; but hopes he may long
be spared to carry on the business. Would have sent the two
pair of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards
a tract instead, and hopes Graymarsh will put his trust in Provi-
dence. Hopes, above all, that he will study in everything to

DOTHEBOYS HALL. 173

please Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, and look upon them as his only
friends ; and that he will love Master Squeers ; and not object
to sleeping five in a bed, which no Christian should. Ah ! "
said Squeers, folding it up, " a delightful letter. Very affecting
indeed."

It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh's maternal aunt
was strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no
other than his maternal parent ; Squeers, however, without
alluding to this part of the story (which would have sounded
immoral before boys), proceeded with the business by calling
out " Mobbs," whereupon another boy rose, and Graymarsh
resumed his seat.

" Mobbs's mother-in-law," said Squeers, " took to her bed on
hearing that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever
since. She wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects
to go to, if he quarrels with his vittles ; and with what feelings
he could turn up his nose at the cow's liver broth, after his good
master had asked a blessing on it. This was told her in the
London newspapers — not by Mr. Squeers, for he is too kind
and too good to set anybody against anybody — and it has
vexed her so much, Mobbs can't think. She is sorry to find
he is discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr.
Squeers will flog him into a happier state of mind ; with this
view, she has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket money,
and given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the
Missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him.

"A sulky state of feeling," said Squeers, after a terrible
pause, during which he had moistened the palm of his right
hand again, "won't do. Cheerfulness and contentment must
be kept up. Mobbs, come to me ! "

Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in
anticipation of good cause for doing so ; and he soon afterwards
retired by the side door, with as good a cause as a boy need
have.

Mr. Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collec-
tion of letters ; some inclosing money, which Mrs. Squeers
" took care of " ; and others referring to small articles of ap-
parel, as caps and so forth, all of which the same lady stated to
be too large, or too small, and calculated for nobody but young
Squeers, who would appear indeed to have had most accommo-
dating limbs, since everything that came into the school fitted
him to a nicety. His head, in particular, must have been

174 DOTHEBOYS HALL.

singularly elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions were
alike to him.

This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were per-
formed, and Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to
take care of the boys in the schoolroom, which was very cold,
and where a meal of bread and cheese was served out shortly
after dark.

There was a small stove at that corner of the room which
was nearest to the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down,
so depressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his posi-
tion, that if death could have come upon him at that time, he
would have been almost happy to meet it. The cruelty of
which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse and ruf-
fianly behavior of Squeers even in his best moods, the filthy
place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this
state of feeling ; but when he recollected that, being there as
an assistant, he actually seemed — no matter what unhappy
train of circumstances had brought him to that pass — to be
the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest
disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the
moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present situa-
tion must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his
head again.

But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolu-
tion he had formed on the preceding night remained undis-
turbed. He had written to his mother and sister, announcing
the safe conclusion of his journey, and saying as little about
Dotheboys Hall, and saying that little as cheerfully as he pos-
sibly could. He hoped that by remaining where he was, he
might do some good, even there ; at all events, others depended
too much on his uncle's favor, to admit of his awakening his
wrath just then.

One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish con-
siderations arising out of his own position. This was the prob-
able destination of his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived
him, and might he not consign her to some miserable place
where her youth and beauty would prove a far greater curse
than ugliness and decrepitude ? To a caged man, bound hand
and foot, this was a terrible idea ; — but no, he thought his
mother was by ; there was the portrait painter, too — simple
enough, but still living in the world, and of it.

"MURDER WILL OUT." 175

"MURDER WILL OUT."

BY W. Q. SIMMS.

[WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS : An American author ; born at Charleston, S.C.,
April 17, 1806 ; died there June 11, 1870. He was admitted to the bar, but chose
to devote himself to literary work, and in 1827 published his first book, "Lyrical
and Other Poems." He edited the City Gazette, 1828-1833, and wrote : "The
Vision of Cortes" (1829); "The Tricolor" (1830); "Atalantis, a Story of the
Sea" (1832); " Southern Passages and Pictures " (1839); "TheYemassee," "The
Partisan," and "Beauchampe," novels; and many works of history, biography,
and fiction. His life was written by Cable in 1888. ]

THE revolutionary war had but a little while been concluded.
The British had left the country; but peace did not imply re-
pose. The community was still in that state of ferment which
was natural enough to passions, not yet at rest, which had been
brought into exercise and action during the protracted seven
years' struggle through which the nation had just passed. The
state was overrun by idlers, adventurers, profligates, and crimi-
nals. Disbanded soldiers, half -starved and reckless, occupied
the highways, — outlaws, emerging from their hiding places,
skulked about the settlements with an equal sentiment of hate
and fear in their hearts ; — patriots were clamoring for justice
upon the Tories, and sometimes anticipating its course by judg-
ments of their own ; while the Tories, those against whom the
proofs were too strong for denial or evasion, buckled on their
armor for a renewal of the struggle. Such being the condition
of the country, it may easily be supposed that life and property
lacked many of their necessary securities. Men generally trav-
eled with weapons, which were displayed on the smallest provo-
cation; and few who could provide themselves with an escort
ventured to travel any distance without one.

There was, about this time, and while such was the condi-
tion of the country, a family of the name of Grayling, that lived
somewhere upon the skirts of " Ninety-six " district. Old
Grayling, the head of the family, was dead. He was killed in
Buford's massacre. His wife was a fine woman, not so very
old, who had an only son named James, and a little girl, only
five years of age, named Lucy. James was but fourteen when
his father was killed, and that event made a man of him. He
went out with his rifle in company with Joel Sparkman, who
was his mother's brother, and joined himself to Pickens*
Brigade.

176 "MURDER WILL OUT."

Well, when the war was over, Joel Sparkman, who lived
with his sister Grayling, persuaded her that it would be better
to move down into the low country, and so, one sunny morning
in April, their wagon started ior the city. It was driven by
a negro fellow named Clytus, and carried Mrs. Grayling and
Lucy. James and his uncle loved the saddle too well to shut
themselves up in such a vehicle ; and both of them were mounted
on fine horses which they had won from the enemy. The roads
at that season were excessively bad, for the rains of March had
been frequent and heavy, the track was very much cut up, and
the red-clay gullies of the hills of " Ninety-six " were so washed
that it required all shoulders, twenty times a day, to get the
wagon wheels out of the bog. This made them travel very
slowly, — perhaps not more than fifteen miles a day. Another
cause for slow traveling was the necessity of great caution,
and a constant lookout for enemies both up and down the road.
James and his uncle took it by turns to ride ahead, precisely as
they did when scouting in war, but one of them always kept
along with the wagon. They had gone on this way for two
days, and saw nothing to trouble and alarm them. But just as
they were about to camp the evening of the second day, while
they were splitting light wood, and getting out the kettles and
the frying pan, a person rode up and joined them without much
ceremony. He was a short, thick-set man, somewhere between
forty and fifty; had on very coarse and common garments,
though he rode a fine black horse of remarkable strength and
vigor. He was very civil of speech, though he had but little
to say, and that little showed him to be a person without much
education and with no refinement. He begged permission to
make one of the encampment, and his manner was very respect-
ful and even humble ; but there was something dark and sullen
in his face. Mrs. Grayling did not like this man's looks, and
whispered her dislike to her son ; but James, who felt himself
equal to any man, said promptly : —

"What of that, mother? We can't turn the stranger off and
say 'No ' i and if he means any mischief, there's two of us, you
know."

The man had no weapons — none, at least, which were then
visible, and deported himself in so humble a manner that the
prejudice which the party had formed against him when he first
appeared, if it was not dissipated while he remained, at least
failed to gain any increase. He was very quiet, did not men-

"MURDER WILL OUT." 177

tion an unnecessary word, and seldom permitted his eyes to
rest upon those of any of the party, the females not excepted.
This, perhaps, was the only circumstance that, in the mind of
Mrs. Grayling, tended to confirm the hostile impression which
his coming had originally occasioned. In a little while the
temporary encampment was put in a state equally social and
warlike. The wagon was wheeled a little way into the woods,
and off the road ; the horses fastened behind it in such a manner
that any attempt to steal them would be difficult of success,
even were the watch neglectful, which was yet to be maintained
upon them. Extra guns, concealed in the straw at the bottom
of the wagon, were kept well loaded. In the foreground, and
between the wagon and the highway, a fire was soon blazing
with a wild but cheerful gleam; and the worthy dame, Mrs.
Grayling, assisted by the little girl Lucy, lost no time in set-
ting on the frying pan, and cutting into slices the haunch of
bacon which they had provided at leaving home. James Gray-
ling patrolled the woods meanwhile for a mile or two round the
encampment, while his uncle, Joel Sparkman, foot to foot with
the stranger, seemed — if the absence of all care constitutes the
supreme of human felicity — to realize the most perfect concep-
tion of mortal happiness. But Joel was very far from being the
careless person that he seemed. Like an old soldier, he simply
hung out false colors, and concealed his real timidity by an
extra show of confidence and courage. He did not relish the
stranger from the first, any more than his sister; and having
subjected him to a searching examination, such as was con-
sidered, in those days of peril and suspicion, by no means
inconsistent with becoming courtesy, he came rapidly to the
conclusion that he was no better than he should be.

"You are a Scotchman, stranger?" said Joel. The answer
was given with evident hesitation, but it was affirmative.

"Well, now, 'tis mighty strange that you should ha' fou't
with us and not agin us," responded Joel Sparkman. "There
was a precious few of the Scotch — and none that I knows on,
saving yourself, perhaps — that didn't go dead agin us, and
for the Tories, through thick and thin. That 'Cross Creek
settlement ' was a mighty ugly thorn in the sides of us Whigs.
It turned out a real bad stock of varmints. I hope — I reckon,
stranger — you ain't from that part?"

"No," said the other; "oh no! I'm from over the other
quarter. I'm from the Duncan settlement above."

VOL. XXIII. — 12

178 "MURDER WILL OUT."

"I've hearn tell of that other settlement, but I never know'd
as any of the men fou't with us. What gineral did you fight
under? What Carolina gineral?"

"I was at Gum Swamp when General Gates was defeated,"
was the still hesitating reply of the other.

" Well, I thank God / warn't there, though I reckon things
wouldn't ha' turned out quite so bad if there had been a leetle
sprinkling of Sumter's, or Pickens', or Marion's men among
them two-legged critters that run that day. They did tell that
some of the regiments went off without ever once emptying
their rifles. Now, stranger, I hope you warn't among them
fellows?"

"I was not," said the other, with something more of prompt-
ness.

"I don't blame a chap for dodging a bullet if he can, or
being too quick for a bagnet, because, I'm thinking, a live man
is always a better man than a dead one, or he can become so ;
but to run without taking a single crack at the inimy is down-
right cowardice. There's no two ways about it, stranger.

" But you ain't said," he continued, " who was your Carolina
gineral. Gates was from Virginny, and he stayed a mighty
short time when he come. You didn't run far at Camden, I
reckon, and you joined the army agin, and come in with Greene ?
Was that the how?"

To this the stranger assented, though with evident disin-
clination.

"Then, mou't be, we sometimes went into the same scratch
together? I was at Cowpens and ' Ninety-six, ' and seen sarvice
at other odds and eends, where there was more fighting than
fun. I reckon you must have been at 'Ninety-six ' — perhaps
at Cowpens, too, if you went with Morgan?"

The unwillingness of the stranger to respond to these ques-
tions appeared to increase. He admitted, however, that he had
been at "Ninety-six," though, as Sparkman afterwards remem-
bered, in this case, as in that of the defeat of Gates at Gum
Swamp, he had not said on which side he had fought.

"And what mou't be your name, stranger?"

"Macnab," was the ready response — "Sandy Macnab."

" Well, Mr. Macnab, I see that my sister's got supper ready
for us; so we mou't as well fall to upon the hoecake and
bacon."

Sparkman rose while speaking, and led the way to the spot,

"MURDER WILL OUT." 179

near the wagon, where Mrs. Grayling had spread the feast.
"We're pretty nigh on to the main road here, but I reckon
there's no great danger now. Besides, Jim Grayling keeps
watch for us, and he's got two as good eyes in his head as any
scout in the country, and a rifle that, after you once know how
it shoots, 'twould do your heart good to hear its crack, if so be
that twa'n't your heart that he drawed sight on. He's a per-
digious fine shot, and as ready to shoot and fight as if he had a
nateral calling that way."

"Shall we wait for him before we eat?" demanded Macnab,
anxiously.

"By no sort o' reason, stranger," answered Sparkman.
"He'll watch for us while we're eating, and after that I'll
change shoes with him. So fall to, and don't mind what's
a coming."

Sparkman had just broken the hoecake when a distant
whistle was heard.

" Ha ! That's the lad now ! " he exclaimed, rising to his
feet. "He's on trail. He's got sight of an inimy's fire, I
reckon. 'Twon't be onreasonable, friend Macnab, to get our
we'pons in readiness;" and, so speaking, Sparkman bade his
sister get into the wagon, where the little Lucy had already
placed herself, while he threw open the pan of his rifle, and
turned the priming over with his finger. Macnab, meanwhile,
had taken from his holsters, which he had before been sitting
upon, a pair of horseman's pistols, richly mounted with figures
in silver. These were large and long, and had evidently seen
service. Unlike his companion, his proceedings occasioned no
comment. What he did seemed a matter of habit, of which he
himself was scarcely conscious. Having looked at his priming,
he laid the instruments beside him without a word, and resumed
the bit of hoecake which he had just before received from
Sparkman. Meanwhile, the signal whistle, supposed to come
from James Grayling, was repeated. Silence ensued then for
a brief space, which Sparkman employed in perambulating the
grounds immediately contiguous. At length, just as he had
returned to the fire, the sound of a horse's feet was heard, and
a sharp, quick halloo from Grayling informed his uncle that all
was right. The youth made his appearance a moment after,
accompanied by a stranger on horseback — a tall, fine-looking
young man, with a keen flashing eye, and a voice whose lively
clear tones, as he was heard approaching, sounded cheerily like

180 "MURDER WILL OUT."

those of a trumpet after victory. James Grayling kept along
on foot beside the newcomer, and his hearty laugh and free,
glib, garrulous tones betrayed to his uncle, long ere he drew
nigh enough to declare the fact, that he had met unexpectedly
with a friend, or, at least, an old acquaintance.

" Why, who have you got there, James ? " was the demand
of Sparkman, as he dropped the butt of his rifle upon the
ground.

" Why, who do you think, uncle ? Who but Major Spencer
— our own major. "

"You don't say so! — what! — well! Li'nel Spencer, for
sartin! Lord bless you, major, who'd ha' thought to see you
in these parts ; and jest mounted, too, for all natur, as if the
war was to be fou't over agin. Well, I'm raal glad to see you.
I am, that's sartin I "

"And I'm very glad to see you, Sparkman," said the other,
as he alighted from his steed, and yielded his hand to the cor-
dial grasp of the other.

" Well, I knows that, major, without you saying it. But
you've jest come in the right time. The bacon's frying, and
here's the bread; — let's down upon our haunches, in right
good airnest, camp fashion, and make the most of what God
gives us in the way of blessings. I reckon you don't mean to
ride any farther to-night, major?"

"No," said the person addressed, "not if you'll let me lay
my heels at your fire. But who's in your wagon? My old
friend, Mrs. Grayling, I suppose ? "

"That's a true word, major," said the lady herself, making
her way out of the vehicle with good-humored agility, and
coming forward with extended hand.

"Really, Mrs. Grayling, I'm very glad to see you." Their
greetings once over, Major Spencer readily joined the group
about the fire, while James Grayling — though with some re-
luctance — disappeared to resume his toils of the scout while
the supper proceeded.

" And who have you here ? " demanded Spencer, as his eye
rested on the dark, hard features of the Scotchman. Sparkman
told him all that he himself had learned of the name and char-
acter of the stranger, in a brief whisper, and, in a moment
after, formally introduced the parties.

Major Spencer scrutinized the Scotchman keenly. He put
a few questions to him on the subject of the war, and some of

"MURDER WILL OUT." 181

the actions in which he allowed himself to have been concerned;
but his evident reluctance to unfold himself — a reluctance so
unnatural to the brave soldier who has gone through his toils
honorably — had the natural effect of discouraging the young
officer, whose sense of delicacy had not been materially impaired
amid the rude jostlings of military life. But, though he for-
bore to propose any other questions to Macnab, his eyes con-
tinued to survey the features of his sullen countenance with
curiosity and a strangely increasing interest. This he subse-
quently explained to Sparkman, when, at the close of supper,
James Grayling came in, and the former assumed the duties of
the scout.

"I have seen that Scotchman's face somewhere, Sparkman,
and I'm convinced at some interesting moment; but where,
when, or how, I cannot call to mind. The sight of it is even
associated in my mind with something painful and unpleasant;
where could I have seen him ? "

"I don't somehow like his looks myself," said Sparkman,
"and I mislists he's been rether more of a Tory than a Whig;
but that's nothing to the purpose now; and he's at our fire,
and we've broken hoecake together; so we cannot rake up the
old ashes to make a dust with."

" No, surely not," was the reply of Spencer. " Even though
we knew him to be a Tory, that cause of former quarrel should
occasion none now. But it should produce watchfulness and
caution. I'm glad to see that you have not forgot your old
business of scouting in the swamp."

"Kin I forget it, major?" demanded Sparkman, in tones
which, though whispered, were full of emphasis, as he laid his
ear to the earth to listen.

" James has finished supper, major, — that's his whistle to
tell me so; and I'll jest step back to make it cl'ar to him how
we're to keep up the watch to-night."

"Count me in your arrangements, Sparkman, as I am one
of you for the night," said the major.

" By no sort of means," was the reply. " The night must be
shared between James and myself. Ef so be you wants to keep
company with one or t'other of us, why, that's another thing,
and, of course, you can do as you please."

The arrangements of the party were soon made. Spencer
renewed his offer at the fire to take his part in the watch ; and
the Scotchman, Macnab, volunteered his services also ; but the

182 "MURDER WILL OUT."

offer of the latter was another reason why that of the former
should be declined. Sparkman was resolute to have everything
his own way; and while James Grayling went out upon his
lonely rounds, he busied himself in cutting bushes and making
a sort of tent for the use of his late commander. Mrs. Grayling
and Lucy slept in a wagon. The Scotchman stretched himself
with little effort before the fire; while Joel Sparkman, wrap-
ping himself up in his cloak, crouched under the wagon body,
with his back resting partly against one of the wheels. From
time to time he rose and thrust additional brands into the fire,
looked up at the night, and round upon the little encampment,
then sank back to his perch and stole a few moments, at inter-
vals, of uneasy sleep. The first two hours of the watch were
over, and James Grayling was relieved. The youth, however,
felt in no mood for sleep, and taking his seat by the fire he
drew from his pocket a little volume of Easy Reading Lessons,
and by the fitful flame of the resinous light wood he prepared,
in this rude manner, to make up for the precious time which
his youth had lost of its legitimate employment, in the stirring
events of the preceding seven years consumed in war. He was
surprised at this employment by his late commander, who,
himself sleepless, now emerged from the bushes and joined
Grayling at the fire. They sat by the fire and talked of old
times and told old stories with the hearty glee and good nature
of the young. Their mutual inquiries led to the revelation of
their several objects in pursuing the present journey. Those
of James Grayling were scarcely, indeed, to be considered his
own. They were plans and purposes of his uncle, and it does
not concern this narrative that we should know more of their
nature than has already been revealed. But, whatever they
were, they were as freely unfolded to his hearer as if the parties
had been brothers, and Spencer was quite as frank in his reve-
lations as his companion. He, too, was on his way to Charles-
ton, from whence he was to take passage for England.

"I am rather in a hurry to reach town, "he said, "as I learn
that the Falmouth packet is preparing to sail for England in a
few days, and I must go in her."

" For England, major I " exclaimed the youth with unaffected
astonishment.

"Yes, James, for England. But why — what astonishes
you?"

" Why, Lord I " exclaimed the simple youth, " if they only

"MURDER WILL OUT." 183

knew there, as I do, what a cutting and slashing you did use to
make among their redcoats, I reckon they'd hang you to the
first hickory."

"Oh, no! scarcely," said the other, with a smile.

" But I reckon you'll change your name, major? " continued
the youth.

"No," responded Spencer; "if I did that, I should lose the
object of my voyage. You must know, James, that an old
relative has left me a good deal of money in England, and I
can only get it by proving that I am Lionel Spencer; so you
see I must carry my own name, whatever may be the risk."

"Well, major, you know best. But I don't see what occa-
sion you have to be going cl'ar away to England for money,
when you've got a sight of your own already."

"Not so much as you think for," replied the major, giving
an involuntary and uneasy glance at the Scotchman, who was
seemingly sound asleep on the opposite side of the fire. " There
is, you know, but little money in the country at any time, and
I must get what I want for my expenses when I reach Charles-
ton. I have just enough to carry me there."

" Well, now, major, that's mighty strange. I always thought
that you was about the best off of any man in our parts ; but if
you're strained so close, I'm thinking, major, — if so be you
wouldn't think me too presumptuous, — you'd better let me
lend you a guinea or so that I've got to spare, and you can pay
me back when you get the English money."

And the youth fumbled in his bosom for a little cotton
wallet, which, with its limited contents, was displayed in
another instant to the eyes of the officer.

"No, no, James," said the other, putting back the generous
tribute ; " I have quite enough to carry me to Charleston, and
when there I can easily get a supply from the merchants. But
I thank you, my good fellow, for your offer. You are a good
fellow, James, and I will remember you."

The night passed away without any alarms, and at dawn of
the next day the whole party was engaged in making prepara-
tion for a start. Mrs. Grayling was soon busy in getting break-
fast in readiness. Major Spencer consented to remain with
them until it was over; but the Scotchman, after returning
thanks very civilly for his accommodation of the night, at once
resumed his journey. His course seemed, like their own, to
lie below; but he neither declared his route nor betrayed the

184 "MURDER WILL OUT."

least desire to know that of Spencer. When he was fairly out
of sight, Spencer said to Sparkman : —

" Had I liked that fellow's looks, nay, had I not positively
disliked them, I should have gone with him. As it is, I will
remain and share your breakfast."

The repast being over, all parties set forward; but Spencer,
after keeping along with them for a mile, took his leave also.
The slow wagon pace at which the family traveled did not suit
the high-spirited cavalier; and it was necessary, as he assured
them, that he should reach the city in two nights more. James
Grayling never felt the tedium of wagon traveling to be so severe
as throughout the whole of that day when he separated from his
favorite captain. But he was too stout-hearted a lad to make
any complaint ; and his satisfaction only showed itself in his
unwonted silence and an overanxiety, which his steed seemed to
feel in common with himself, to go rapidly ahead. Thus the
day passed, and the wayfarers at its close had made a progress
of some twenty miles from sun to sun. The same precautions
marked their encampment this night as the last, and they rose
in better spirits with the next morning, the dawn of which was
very bright and pleasant and encouraging. A similar journey
of twenty miles brought them to the place of bivouac as the sun
went down ; and they prepared as usual for their security and
supper. Their wagon was wheeled into an area on a gently
rising ground in front. Here the horses were taken out, and
James Grayling prepared to kindle up a fire ; but, looking for
his ax, it was unaccountably missing, and after a fruitless
search of half an hour the party came to the conclusion that it
had been left on the spot where they had slept last night.
This was a disaster, and while they meditated in what manner
to repair it, a negro boy appeared in sight, passing along the
road at their feet, and driving before him a small herd of cattle.
From him they learned that they were only a mile or two from
a farmstead, where an ax might be borrowed; and James,
leaping on his horse, rode forward in the hope to obtain one.
He found no difficulty in his quest; and, having obtained it
from the farmer, who was also a tavern keeper, he casually asked
if Major Spencer had not stayed with him the night before.
He was somewhat surprised when told that he had not.

"There was one man stayed with me last night," said the
farmer, "but he didn't call himself a major, and didn't much
look like one."

"MURDER WILL OUT." 185

"He rode a fine sorrel horse, — tall, bright color, with white
forefoot, didn't he?" asked James.

"No, that he didn't I He rode a powerful black, coal black,
and not a bit of white about him."

" That was the Scotchman ! But I wonder the major didn't
stop with you. He must have rode on. Isn't there another
house near you, below?"

"Not one. There's ne'er a house either above or below for
a matter of fifteen miles. I'm the only man in all that distance
that's living on this road; and I don't think your friend could
have gone below, as I should have seen him pass."

Somewhat wondering that the major should have turned
aside from the track, though without attaching to it any impor-
tance at that particular moment, James Grayling took up the
borrowed ax and hurried back to the encampment, where the
toil of cutting an extra supply of light wood to meet the exi-
gencies of the ensuing night sufficiently exercised his mind
as well as his body to prevent him from meditating upon the
seeming strangeness of the circumstance. But when he sat
down to his supper over the fire that he had kindled, his fancies
crowded thickly upon him, and he felt a confused doubt and
suspicion that something was to happen, he knew not what.
His conjectures and apprehensions were without form, though
not altogether void ; and he felt a strange sickness and a sink-
ing at the heart which was very unusual with him. Joel Spark-
man was in the best of humors, and his mother was so cheery
and happy that, when the thoughtful boy went off into the
woods to watch, he could hear her at every moment breaking
out into little catches of a country ditty, which the gloomy
events of the late war had not yet obliterated from her memory.

" It's very strange ! " soliloquized the youth, as he wandered
along the edges of the dense bay or swamp bottom, which we
have passingly referred to, — "it's very strange what troubles
me so! I feel almost frightened, and yet I know I'm not to
be frightened easily, and I don't see anything in the woods to
frighten me. It's strange the major didn't come along this
road ! Maybe he took another higher up that leads by a differ-
ent settlement. I wish I had asked the man at the house if
there's such another road. I reckon there must be, however,
for where could the major have gone ? "

He proceeded to traverse the margin of the bay, until he
came to its junction with, and termination at, the highroad.

186 "MURDER WILL OUT."

The youth turned into this, and, involuntarily departing from
it a moment after, soon found himself on the opposite side of
the bay thicket. He wandered on and on, as he himself de-
scribed it, without any power to restrain himself. He knew
not how far he went; but, instead of maintaining his watch for
two hours only, he was gone more than four; and, at length, a
sense of weariness, which overpowered him all of sudden, caused
him to seat himself at the foot of a tree, and snatch a few
moments of rest. He denied that he slept in this time. He
insisted to the last moment of his life that sleep never visited
his eyelids that night, — that he was conscious of fatigue and
exhaustion, but not drowsiness, — and that this fatigue was so
numbing as to be painful, and effectually kept him from any
sleep. While he sat thus beneath the tree, with a body weak
and nerveless, but a mind excited, he knew not how or why, to
the most acute degree of expectation and attention, he heard
his name called by the well-known voice of his friend, Major
Spencer. The voice called him three times, — "James Gray-
ling!— James I — James Grayling!" before he could muster
strength enough to answer. It was not courage he wanted, —
of that he was positive, for he felt sure, as he said, that some-
thing had gone wrong, and he was never more ready to fight
in his life than at that moment, could he have commanded the
physical capacity; but his throat seemed dry to suffocation, —
his lips effectually sealed up as if with wax, and when he did
answer, the sounds seemed as fine and soft as the whisper of
some child just born.

"Oh, major! is it you?"

Such, he thinks, were the very words he made use of in
reply; and the answer that he received was instantaneous,
though the voice came from some little distance in the bay,
and his own voice he did not hear. He only knows what he
meant to say. The answer was to this effect.

" It is, James ! It is your own friend, Lionel Spencer, that
speaks to you ; do not be alarmed when you see me ! I have
been shockingly murdered! "

James asserts that he tried to tell him that he would not be
frightened, but his own voice was still a whisper which he
himself could scarcely hear. A moment after he had spoken,
he heard something like a sudden breeze that rustled through
the bay bushes at his feet, and his eyes were closed without his
effort, and indeed in spite of himself. When he opened them,

"MURDER WILL OUT." 187

he saw Major Spencer standing at the edge of the bay about
twenty steps from him. Though he stood in the shade of a
thicket, and there was no light in the heavens save that of the
stars, he was yet enabled to distinguish perfectly, and with
great ease, every lineament of his friend's face.

He looked very pale, and his garments were covered with
blood ; and James said that he strove very much to rise from
the place where he sat and approach him; — "for, in truth,"
said the lad, " so far from feeling any fear, I felt nothing but
fury in my heart ; but I could not move a limb. My feet were
fastened to the ground; my hands to my sides; and I could
only bend forward and gasp. I felt as if I should have died
with vexation that I could not rise ; but a power which I could
not resist made me motionless and almost speechless. I could
only say, 'Murdered!' — and that one word I believe I must
have repeated a dozen times.

'"Yes, murdered! — murdered by the Scotchman who slept
with us at your fire the night before last. James, I look to
you to have the murderer brought to justice ! James ! — do you
hear me, James ? '

"These, "said James, "I think were the very words, or near
about the very words, that I heard ; and I tried to ask the major
to tell me how it was, and how I could do what he required;
but I didn't hear myself speak, though it would appear that he
did, for almost immediately after I had tried to speak what I
wished to say, he answered me just as if I had said it. He
told me that the Scotchman had waylaid, killed, and hidden
him in that very bay ; that his murderer had gone to Charleston ;
and that if I made haste to town, I would find him in the Fal-
mouth packet, which was then lying in the harbor and ready to
sail for England. He further said that everything depended on
my making haste, — that I must reach town by to-morrow night
if I wanted to be in season, and go right on board the vessel and
charge the criminal with the deed. 'Do not be afraid,' said
he, when he had finished; 'be afraid of nothing, James, for
God will help and strengthen you to the end. ' When I heard
all I burst into a flood of tears, and then I felt strong. I felt
that I could talk, or fight, or do almost anything ; and I jumped
up to my feet, and was just about to run down to where the
major stood, but, with the first step which I made forward, he
was gone. I stopped and looked all around me, but I could
see nothing; and the bay was just as black as midnight. But

188 "MURDER WILL OUT."

I went down to it, and tried to press in where I thought the
major had been standing; but I couldn't get far, the brush and
bay bushes were so close and thick. I was now bold and strong
enough, and I called out, loud enough to be heard half a mile.
I didn't exactly know what I called for, or what I wanted to
learn, or I have forgotten. But I heard nothing more. Then
I remembered the camp, and began to fear that something might
have happened to mother and uncle, for I now felt, what I had
not thought of before, that I had gone too far round the bay to
be of much assistance, or, indeed, to be in time for any, had
they been suddenly attacked. Besides, I could not think how
long I had been gone ; but it now seemed very late. Well, I
bethought me of my course, — for I was a little bewildered and
doubtful where I was; but, after a little thinking, I took the
back track, and soon got a glimpse of the camp fire, which was
nearly burnt down ; and by this I reckoned I was gone consider-
ably longer than my two hours. When I got back into the
camp, I looked under the wagon, and found uncle in a sweet
sleep, and though my heart was full almost to bursting with
what I had heard, and the cruel sight I had seen, yet I wouldn't
waken him ; and I beat about and mended the fire, and watched,
and waited, until near daylight, when mother called to me out
of the wagon, and asked who it was. This wakened my uncle,
and then I up and told all that had happened ; for if it had been
to save my life, I couldn't have kept it in much longer. But
though mother said it was very strange, Uncle Sparkman con-
sidered that I had been only dreaming; but he couldn't per-
suade me of it; and when I told him I intended to be off at
daylight, just as the major had told me to do, and ride my best
all the way to Charleston, he laughed, and said I was a fool.
But I felt that I was no fool, and I was solemn certain that I
hadn't been dreaming; and though both mother and he tried
their hardest to make me put off going, yet I made up my mind
to it, and they had to give up. Soon as the peep of day, I was
on horseback. I rode as briskly as I could get on without hurt-
ing my nag. I had a smart ride of more than forty miles before
me, and the road was very heavy. But it was a good two hours
from sunset when I got into town, and the first question I asked
of the people I met was, to show me where the ships were kept.
When I got to the wharf, they showed me the Falmouth packet,
where she lay in the stream, ready to sail as soon as the wind
should favor. "

"MURDER WILL OUT." 189

James Grayling, with the same eager impatience which he
has been suffered to describe in his own language, had already
hired a boat to go on board the British packet, when he remem-
bered that he had neglected all those means, legal and other-
wise, by which alone his purpose might be properly effected.
He did not know much about legal process, but he had common
sense enough to know that some such process was necessary.
This conviction produced another difficulty: he knew not in
which quarter to turn for counsel and assistance ; but here the
boatman, who saw his bewilderment, came to his relief, and
from him he got directions where to find the merchants with
whom his uncle, Sparkman, had done business in former years.
To them he went, and, without circumlocution, told the whole
story of his ghostly visitation. Even as a dream, which these
gentlemen at once conjectured it to be, the story of James Gray-
ling was equally clear and curious; and his intense warmth
and the entire absorption, which the subject had effected, of his
mind and soul, was such that they judged it not improper, at
least, to carry out the search of the vessel which he contem-
plated. It would certainly, they thought, be a curious coin-
cidence— believing James to be a veracious youth — if the
Scotchman should be found on board.

"At least," remarked the gentlemen, "it can do no harm to
look into the business. We can procure a warrant for search-
ing the vessel after this man Macnab; and should he be found
on board the packet, it will be a sufficient circumstance to
justify the magistrates in detaining him until we can ascertain
where Major Spencer really is."

The measure was accordingly adopted, and it was nearly
sunset before the warrant was procured, and the proper officer
in readiness. The impatience of a spirit so eager and so de-
voted as James Grayling, under these delays, may be imagined;
and when in the boat, and on his way to the packet where the
criminal was to be sought, his blood became so excited that it
was with much ado he could be kept in his seat. His quick,
eager action continually disturbed the trim of the boat, and
one of his mercantile friends, who had accompanied him, with
that interest in the affair which curiosity alone inspired, was
under constant apprehension lest he would plunge overboard
in his impatient desire to shorten the space which lay between
them. The same impatience enabled the youth, though never
on shipboard before, to grasp the rope which had been flung, at

190 "MURDER WILL OUT."

their approach, and to mount her sides with catlike agility.
Without waiting to declare himself or his purpose, he ran from
one side of the deck to the other, greedily staring, to the sur-
prise of officers, passengers, and seamen, in the faces of all of
them, and surveying them with an almost offensive scrutiny.
He turned away from the search with disappointment. There
was no face like that of the suspected man among them. By
this time his friend, the merchant, with the sheriff's officer,
had entered the vessel, and were in conference with the cap-
tain. Grayling drew nigh in time to hear the latter affirm that
there was no man of the name of Macnab, as stated in the war-
rant, among his passengers or crew.

"He is — he must be!" exclaimed the impetuous youth.
"The major never lied in his life, and couldn't lie after he was
dead. Macnab is here — he is a Scotchman "

The captain interrupted him.

" We have, young gentleman, several Scotchmen on board,
and one of them is named Macleod "

" Let me see him — which is he ? " demanded the youth.

"Where is Mr. Macleod?"

" He is gone below — he's sick I " replied one of the passengers.

" That's he 1 That must be the man ! " exclaimed the
youth. "I'll lay my life that's no other than Macnab. He's
only taken a false name."

It was now remembered by one of the passengers, and re-
marked, that Macleod had expressed himself as unwell but
a few moments before, and had gone below even while the
boat was rapidly approaching the vessel. At this statement
the captain led the way into the cabin, closely followed by
James Grayling and the rest.

"Mr. Macleod," he said, with a voice somewhat elevated,
as he approached the berth of that person, "you are wanted on
deck for a few moments."

"I am really too unwell, captain," replied a feeble voice
from behind the curtain of the berth.

"It will be necessary," was the reply of the captain.
"There is a warrant from the authorities of the town to look
after a fugitive from justice."

Macleod had already begun a second speech declaring his
feebleness, when the fearless youth, Gra3rling, bounded before
the captain and tore away, with a single grasp of his hand, the
curtain which concealed the suspected man from their sight.

The Pi ;i ol

"MURDER WILL OUT." 191

" It is he ! " was the instant exclamation of the youth as he
beheld him. " It is he, — Macnab, the Scotchman, — the man
that murdered Major Spencer! "

Macnab — for it was he — was deadly pale. He trembled
like an aspen. His eyes were dilated with more than mortal
apprehension, and his lips were perfectly livid. Still, he found
strength to speak and to deny the accusation. He knew noth-
ing of the youth before him, — nothing of Major Spencer, — his
name was Macleod, and he had never called himself by any
other. He denied, but with great incoherence, everything
which was urged against him.

"You must get up, Mr. Macleod," said the captain; "the
circumstances are very much against you. You must go with
the officer!"

" Will you give me up to my enemies ? " demanded the cul-
prit. " You are a countryman — a Briton. I have fought for
the king, our master, against these rebels, and for this they
seek my life. Do not deliver me into their bloody hands! "

"Liar!" exclaimed James Grayling. "Didn't you tell us
at our own camp fire that you were with us ? that you were at
Gates' defeat and * Ninety-six ' ? "

"But I didn't tell you," said the Scotchman, with a grin,
" which side I was on ! "

"Ha! remember that I " said the sheriff's officer. "He de-
nied, just a moment ago, that he knew this young man at all;
now he confesses that he did see and camp with him."

The Scotchman was aghast at the strong point which, in his
inadvertence, he had made against himself ; and his efforts to
excuse himself, stammering and contradictory, served only to
involve him more deeply in the meshes of his difficulty. Still
he continued his urgent appeals to the captain of the vessel.
One or two of the passengers, indeed, joined with him in
entreating the captain to set the accusers adrift and make sail
at once; but the stout Englishman who was in command re-
jected instantly the unworthy counsel. Besides, he was better
aware of the dangers which would follow any such rash pro-
ceeding. Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, had been already
refitted and prepared for an enemy; and he was lying at that
moment under the formidable range of grinning teeth, which
would have opened upon him, at the first movement, from the
jaws of Castle Pinckney.

" No, gentlemen, " said he, " you mistake your man, God

192 "MURDER WILL OUT."

forbid that I should give shelter to a murderer, though he were
from my own parish."

"But I am no murderer," said the Scotchman.

"You look cursedly like one, however," was the reply of the
captain. "Sheriff, take your prisoner. Steward," he cried,
"bring up this man's luggage."

He was obeyed. The luggage was brought up from the
cabin and delivered to the sheriff's officer, by whom it was
examined in the presence of all, and an inventory made of its
contents. It consisted of a small new trunk, which, it after-
wards appeared, he had bought in Charleston, soon after his
arrival. This contained a few changes of raiment, twenty-six
guineas in money, a gold watch, not in repair, and the two
pistols which he had shown while at Joel Sparkman's camp
fire ; but, with this difference, that the stock of one was broken
off short just above the grasp, and the butt was entirely gone.
It was not found among his chattels. A careful examination
of the articles in his trunk did not result in anything calcu-
lated to strengthen the charge of his criminality; but there was
not a single person present who did not feel as morally certain
of his guilt as if the jury had already declared the fact. That
night he slept — if he slept at all — in the common jail of the
city.

His accuser, the warm-hearted and resolute James Grayling,
did not sleep, and with the dawn he was again up and stirring,
with his mind still full of the awful business in which he had
been engaged. We do not care to pursue his course in the
ordinary walks of the city, nor account for his employments
during the few days which ensued. Macnab or Macleod, —
and it is possible that both names were fictitious, — as soon as
he recovered from his first terrors, sought the aid of an attorney
— one of those acute, small, chopping lawyers to be found in
almost every community, who are willing to serve with equal
zeal the sinner and the saint, provided that they can pay with
equal liberality. The prisoner was brought before the court
under habeas corpus, and several grounds submitted by his
counsel with the view to obtaining his discharge. It became
necessary to ascertain, among the first duties of the state,
whether Major Spencer, the alleged victim, was really dead.
Until it could be established that a man should be imprisoned,
tried, and punished for a crime, it was first necessary to show
that a crime had been committed; and the attorney made him-

"MURDER WILL OUT." 193

self exceedingly merry with the ghost story of young Grayling.
In those days, however, the ancient Superstition was not so
feeble as she has subsequently become.

The judge — who it must be understood was a real exist-
ence, and who had no small reputation in his day in the south
— proceeded to establish the correctness of his opinions by
authorities and argument, with all of which, doubtlessly, the
bar were exceedingly delighted ; but to provide them in this
place would only be to interfere with our own progress. James
Grayling, however, was not satisfied to wait the slow processes
which were suggested for coming at the truth. Even the wis-
dom of the judge was lost upon him, possibly for the simple
reason that he did not comprehend it. But the ridicule of the
culprit's lawyer stung him to the quick, and he muttered to
himself, more than once, a determination "to lick the life out
of that impudent chap's leather." But this was not his only
resolve. There was one which he proceeded to put into instant
execution, and that was to seek the body of his murdered friend
in the spot where he fancied it might be found — namely, the
dark and dismal bay where the specter had made its appearance
to his eyes.

The suggestion was approved — though he did not need this
to prompt his resolution — by his mother and uncle, Sparkman.
The latter determined to be his companion, and he was further
accompanied by the sheriff's officer who had arrested the sus-
pected felon. Before daylight, on the morning after the ex-
amination before the judge had taken place, and when Macleod
had been remanded to prison, James Grayling started on his
journey. His fiery zeal received additional force at every added
moment of delay, and his eager spurring brought him at an
early hour after noon to the neighborhood of the spot through
which his search was to be made. He led them round it, taking
the very course which he had pursued the night when the reve-
lation was made him ; he showed them the very tree at whose
foot he had sunk when the supernatural torpor — as he himself
esteemed it — began to fall upon him ; he then pointed out the
spot, some twenty steps distant, at which the specter made its
appearance. To this spot they then proceeded in a body, and
essayed an entrance, but were so discouraged by the difficulties
at the outset that all, James not excepted, concluded that
neither the murderer nor his victim could possibly have found
entrance there.

VOL. XXIII. 13

194 "MURDER WILL OUT."

But lo, a marvel I Such it seemed, at the first blush, to all
the party. While they stood confounded and indecisive, unde-
termined in which way to move, a sudden flight of wings was
heard, even from the center of the bay, at a little distance above
the spot where they had striven for entrance. They looked up,
and beheld about fifty buzzards — those notorious domestic vul-
tures of the south — ascending from the interior of the bay, and
perching along upon the branches of the loftier trees by which
it was overhung. Even were the character of these birds less
known, the particular business in which they had just then
been engaged was betrayed by huge gobbets of flesh which some
of them had borne aloft in their flight, and still continued to
rend with beak and bill, as they tottered upon the branches
where they stood. A piercing scream issued from the lips of
James Grayling as he beheld this sight, and strove to scare the
offensive birds from their repast.

"The poor major! the poor major!" was the involuntary
and agonized exclamation of the youth. " Did I ever think he
would come to this ! "

The search, thus guided and encouraged, was pressed with
renewed diligence and spirit; and, at length, an opening was
found through which it was evident that a body of considerable
size had but recently gone. They followed this path, and, as
is the case commonly with waste tracts of this description, the
density of the growth diminished sensibly at every step they
took, till they reached a little pond, which, though circum-
scribed in area, and full of cypresses, yet proved to be singu-
larly deep. Here, on the edge of the pond, they discovered
the object which had drawn the keen-sighted vultures to their
feast, in the body of a horse, which James Grayling at once
identified as that of Major Spencer's. The carcass of the ani-
mal was already very much torn and lacerated. The eyes were
plucked out, and the animal completely disemboweled. Yet,
on examination; it was not difficult to discover the manner of
his death. Two bullets had passed through his skull, just
above the eyes, either of which must have been fatal. The
murderer had led the horse to the spot, and committed the cruel
deed where his body was found. The search was now con-
tinued for that of the owner, but for some time it proved
ineffectual. At length the keen eyes of James Grayling de-
tected, amidst a heap of moss and green sedge that rested beside
an overthrown tree, whose branches jutted into the pond, a

LIFE. 195

•whitish, but discolored, object that did not seem native to the
place. Bestriding the fallen tree, he was enabled to reach this
object, which, with a burst of grief, he announced to the dis-
tant party was the hand and arm of his unfortunate friend, the
wristband of the shirt being the conspicuous object which had
first caught his eye. Grasping this, he drew the corse, which
had been thrust beneath the branches of the tree, to the surface;
and, with the assistance of his uncle, it was finally brought to
the dryland. The head was very much disfigured; the skull
was fractured in several places by repeated blows of some hard
instrument, inflicted chiefly from behind. A closer inspection
revealed a bullet hole in the abdomen, the first wound, in all
probability, which the unfortunate gentleman received, and by
which he was, perhaps, tumbled from his horse. The blows
on the head would seem to have been unnecessary, unless the
murderer — whose proceedings appeared to have been singu-
larly deliberate — was resolved upon making " assurance doubly
sure." But, as if the watchful Providence had meant that noth-
ing should be left doubtful which might tend to the complete
conviction of the criminal, the constable stumbled upon the
butt of the broken pistol which had been found in Macleod's
trunk. This he picked up on the edge of the pond in which
the corse had been discovered, and while James Grayling and
his uncle, Sparkman, were engaged in drawing it from the
water. The place where the fragment was discovered at once
denoted the pistol as the instrument by which the final blows
were inflicted. . . .

The jury, it may be scarcely necessary to add, brought in a
verdict of "Guilty," without leaving the panel; and Macnab,
alias Macleod, was hanged at White Point, Charleston, some-
where about the year 178-.

LIFE.

BY PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.
(From "Festus.")

[PHILIP JAMBS BAILEY, the author of " Festus," was born in Nottingham,
England, April 22, 1816. His first and best-known work, "Festus" (1839, llth
ed. 1887), was phenomenally successful, and its author was hailed as one of the

196 LIFE.

greatest poets of all time. It treats of philosophy and religion, and though
extravagant and in some respects defective, contains much beauty and origi-
nality. His other poems include : " The Angel World " (1850), " The Mystic "
(1855), " The Age," a satire (1858), and "The Universal Hymn" (1867).]

Festus —

Man hath a knowledge of a time to come ;
His most important knowledge ; the weight lies
Nearest the short end, this life ; and the world
Depends on what's to be. I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh ! there is
A life to come, or all's a dream.

Lucifer — And all

May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,

Clear, moving, full of speech and order. Why

May not, then, all this world be but a dream

Of God's ? Fear not. Some morning God may waken.

Festus —

I would it were so. This life's a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told ;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men's. And yet men love to live,
As if mere life were worth the living for,,

Lucifer —

What but perdition will it be to most ?

Festus —

Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood ;

It is a great spirit and a busy heart.

The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.

One generous feeling, one great thought, one deed

Of good, ere night would make life longer seem

Than if each year might number a thousand days,

Spent as is this by nations of mankind.

We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Life's but a means unto an end ; that end,

To those who dwell in Him, He most in them,

Beginning, mean, and end to all things, God.

The dead have all the glory of the world.

Why will we live, and not be glorious ?

We never can be deathless till we die.

It is the dead win battles ; and the breath

Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,

Tearing earth's empires up, nears death so close,

LIFE. 197

It dims his well-worn scythe. But no ! the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country's arms, for more, their country's heart.
Give then the dead their due ; it is they who saved us ;
Saved us from woe and want and servitude.
The rapid and the deep ; the fall, the gulf,
Have likenesses in feeling and in life ;
And life so varied hath more loveliness
In one day, than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change,
Till the soul sighs for sameness ; which at last
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lamps upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that's left be dark and dry ;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock ; shattered
Their system, as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth, or heaven had rained its stars ;
Till they become, like scrolls, unreadable,
Through dust and mold. Can they be cleaned and read ?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons ?
Imcifer —

The eye dims and the heart gets old and slow ;
The lithe limbs stiffen, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither ; still,
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably minute ; from orb to orb,
Bising in radiance ever like the sun
Shining upon the thousand lands of earth.
Look at the medley, motley throng we meet ;
Some smiling, frowning some ; their cares and joys
Alike not worth a thought ; some sauntering slowly,
As if destruction never could overtake them ;
Some hurrying on, as fearing judgment swift
Should trip the heels of death, and seize them living.

198 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

[NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: American story-writer; born at Salem, Mass.,
July 4, 1804 ; died at Plymouth, N.H., May 19, 1864. His official positions, in
the customhouse at Salem and as United States consul at Liverpool, furnished
him with many opportunities for the study of human nature. His literary
popularity was of slow growth, but was founded on sure permanencies. His
most famous novels are "The Scarlet Letter" (1850), "The House of the Seven
Gables " (1851) ," The Blithedale Romance " (1852) ," The Marble Faun " (1860) ,
" Septimius Felton," posthumous. He wrote a great number of short stories,
inimitable in style and full of weird imagination. "Twice-told Tales," first
series, appeared in 1837 ; "The Snow Image and Other Twice-told Tales," in
1862; "Tanglewood Tales," in 1853.]

LIFE figures itself to me as a festal or funeral procession.
All of us have our places and are to move onward under the
direction of the chief marshal. The grand difficulty results
from the invariably mistaken principles on which the deputy
marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse of people, so
much more numerous than those that train their interminable
length through streets and highways in times of political
excitement. Their scheme is ancient far beyond the memory
of man, or even the record of history, and has hitherto been
very little modified by the innate sense of something wrong
and the dim perception of better methods that have disquieted
all the ages through which the procession has taken its march.
Its members are classified by the merest external circumstances,
and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their true posi-
tions than if no principle of arrangement were attempted. In
one part of the procession we see men of landed estate or
moneyed capital gravely keeping each other company for the
preposterous reason that they chance to have a similar standing
in the tax-gatherer's book. Trades and professions march
together with scarcely a more real bond of union. In this
manner, it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the
mass and separated into various classes according to certain
apparent relations; all have some artificial badge which the
world, and themselves among the first, learn to consider as a
genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such outside
shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities
by which Nature, Fortune, Fate or Providence has constituted
for every man a brotherhood wherein it is one great office of

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 199

human wisdom to classify him. When the mind has once
accustomed itself to a proper arrangement of the procession of
life or a true classification of society, even though merely spec-
ulative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which pretty well
suffices for itself, without the aid of any actual re-formation in
the order of march.

For instance, assuming to myself the power of marshaling
the aforesaid procession, I direct a trumpeter to send forth a
blast loud enough to be heard from hence to China, and a her-
ald with world-pervading voice to make proclamation for a
certain class of mortals to take their places. What shall be
their principle of union ? After all, an external one, in com-
parison with many that might be found, yet far more real than
those which the world has selected for a similar purpose. Let
all who are afflicted with like physical diseases form themselves
into ranks.

Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It
may gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease more
than any other circumstance of human life pays due observance
to the distinctions which rank and wealth and poverty and
lowliness have established among mankind. Some maladies
are rich and precious, and only to be acquired by the right of
inheritance or purchased with gold. Of this kind is the gout,
which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the purple-visaged
gentry who obey the herald's voice and painfully hobble from
all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in the grand
procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the march
may not be long. The dyspeptics, too, are people of good
standing in the world. For them the earliest salmon is caught
in our Eastern rivers, and the shy woodcock stains the dry
leaves with his blood in his remotest haunts, and the turtle
comes from the far Pacific islands to be gobbled up in soup.
They can afford to flavor all their dishes with indolence, which,
in spite of the general opinion, is a sauce more exquisitely
piquant than appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is another
highly respectable disease. We will rank together all who
have the symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any
drop by the way supply their places with new members of the
board of aldermen.

On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose
physical lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, and them-
selves a meaner species of mankind, so sad an effect has been

200 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

wrought by the tainted breath of cities, scanty and unwhole-
some food, destructive modes of labor and the lack of those
moral supports that might partially have counteracted such bad
influences. Behold here a train of house-painters all afflicted
with a peculiar sort of colic. Next in place we will marshal
those workmen in cutlery who have breathed a fatal disorder
into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors and
shoemakers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate in
one part of the procession and march under similar banners of
disease, but among them we may observe here and there a sickly
student who has left his health between the leaves of classic
volumes, and clerks, likewise, who have caught their deaths on
high official stools, and men of genius, too, who have written
sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their heart's blood. These
are a wretched, quaking, short-breathed set. But what is this
crowd of pale-cheeked, slender girls who disturb the ear with
the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs ? They are seam-
stresses who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the
service of master-tailors and close-fisted contractors until now it
is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud.
Consumption points their place in the procession. With their
sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens who have
sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science has
unavailingly searched its volumes and whom breathless love
has watched. In our ranks the rich maiden and the poor seam-
stress may walk arm in arm. We might find innumerable
other instances where the bond of mutual disease — not to speak
of nation-sweeping pestilence — embraces high and low and
makes the king a brother of the clown. But it is not hard
to own that Disease is the natural aristocrat. Let him keep
his state and have his established orders of rank and wear his
royal mantle of the color of a fever-flush, and let the noble and
wealthy boast their own physical infirmities and display their
symptoms as the badges of high station. All things considered,
these are as proper subjects of human pride as any relations of
human rank that men can fix upon.

Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter ! — and, herald,
with thy voice of might, shout forth another summons that
shall reach the old baronial castles of Europe and the rudest
cabin of our Western wilderness ! What class is next to take
its place in the procession of mortal life ? Let it be those whom
the gifts of intellect have united in a noble brotherhood.

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 201

Ay, this is a reality before which the conventional distinc-
tions of society melt away like a vapor when we would grasp it
with the hand. Were Byron now alive, and Burns, the first
would come from his ancestral abbey flinging aside, although
unwillingly, the inherited honors of a thousand years to take
the arm of the mighty peasant who grew immortal while he
stooped behind his plow. These are gone, but the hall, the
farmer's fireside, the hut — perhaps the palace — the counting-
room, the workshop, the village, the city, life's high places and
low ones, may all produce their poets whom a common tempera-
ment pervades like an electric sympathy. Peer or plowman
will muster them pair by pair and shoulder to shoulder. Even
society in its most artificial state consents to this arrangement.
These factory-girls from Lowell shall mate themselves with the
pride of drawing-rooms and literary circles — the bluebells in
fashion's nosegay, the Sapphos and Montagues and Nortons of
the age.

Other modes of intellect bring together as strange companies.
— Silk-gowned professor of languages, give your arm to this
sturdy blacksmith and deem yourself honored by the conjunc-
tion, though you behold him grimy from the anvil. — All varie-
ties of human speech are like his mother-tongue to this rare
man. Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever
rank they come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or
to sway a people — Nature's generals, her lawgivers, her kings,
and with them, also the deep philosophers who think the thought
in one generation that is to revolutionize society in the next.
With the hereditary legislator in whom eloquence is a far-
descended attainment — a rich echo repeated by powerful voices,
from Cicero downward — we will match some wondrous back-
woodsman who has caught a wild power of language from the
breeze among his native forest boughs. But we may safely
leave brethren and sisterhood to settle their own congenialities.
Our ordinary distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so
ridiculously visionary, in comparison with a classification founded
on truth, that all talk about the matter is immediately a com-
monplace.

Yet, the longer I reflect, the less am I satisfied with the idea
of forming a separate class of mankind on the basis of high
intellectual power. At best, it is but a higher development
of innate gifts common to all. Perhaps, moreover, he whose
genius appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing

202 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

save the knack of expression ; he throws out, occasionally, a
lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is profoundly,
though unutterably, conscious. Therefore, though we suffer
the brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it may
be doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to
vanish as soon as the procession shall have passed beyond the
circle of this present world. But we do not classify for eternity.

And next let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail and the
herald's voice give breath in one vast cry to all the groans and
grievous utterances that are audible throughout the earth. We
appeal now to the sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the great
multitude who labor under similar afflictions to take their places
in the march. How many a heart that would have been insensi-
ble to any other call has responded to the doleful accents of that
voice ! It has gone far and wide and high and low, and left
scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. Indeed, the principle is only
too universal for our purpose, and unless we limit it will quite
break up our classification of mankind and convert the whole
procession into a funeral train. We will, therefore, be at some
pains to discriminate.

Here comes a lonely rich man ; he has built a noble fabric
for his dwelling-house, with a front of stately architecture, and
marble floors, and doors of precious woods. The whole struc-
ture is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as the native
rock, but the visionary shapes of a long posterity for whose
home this mansion was intended have faded into nothingness
since the death of the founder's only son. The rich man gives
a glance at his sable garb in one of the splendid mirrors of his
drawing-room, and, descending a flight of lofty steps, instinc-
tively offers his arm to yonder poverty-stricken widow in the
rusty black bonnet and with a check apron over her patched
gown. The sailor-boy who was her sole earthly stay was washed
overboard in a late tempest. This couple from the palace and
the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who represent
the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the upper parts.
Grief is such a leveler with its own dignity and its own humil-
ity that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch,
will waive their pretensions to external rank without the offi-
ciousness of interference on our part. If pride — the influence
of the world's false distinctions — remain in the heart, then
sorrow lacks the earnestness which makes it holy and reverend.
It loses its reality and becomes a miserable shadow. On this

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 203

ground we have an opportunity to assign over multitudes who
would willingly claim places here to other parts of the pro-
cession. If the mourner have anything dearer than his grief,
he must seek his true position elsewhere. There are so many
unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state
begets on idleness that an observer, casting aside sentiment, is
sometimes led to question whether there be any real woe except
absolute physical suffering and the loss of closest friends. A
crowd who exhibit what they deem to be broken hearts — and
among them many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of
disappointed ambition in arts or politics, and the poor who
were once rich or who have sought to be rich in vain — the
great majority of these may ask admittance into some other
fraternity. There is no room here. Perhaps we may institute
a separate class where such unfortunates will naturally fall into
the procession. Meanwhile, let them stand aside and patiently
await their time.

If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday
trumpet-blast, let him sound it now. The dread alarm should
make the earth quake to its center, for the herald is about to
address mankind with a summons to which even the purest
mortal may be sensible of some faint responding echo in his
breast. In many bosoms it will awaken a still small voice
more terrible than its own reverberating uproar.

The hideous appeal has swept around the globe. — Come,
all ye guilty ones, and rank yourselves in accordance with the
brotherhood of crime. — This, indeed, is an awful summons.
I almost tremble to look at the strange partnerships that begin
to be formed — reluctantly, but by the invincible necessity of
like to like — in this part of the procession. A forger from
the state prison seizes the arm of a distinguished financier.
How indignantly does the latter plead his fair reputation upon
'Change, and insist that his operations by their magnificence of
scope were removed into quite another sphere of morality than
those of his pitiful companion ! But let him cut the connec-
tion if he can. Here comes a murderer with his clanking
chains, and pairs himself — horrible to tell — with as pure and
upright a man in all observable respects as ever partook of the
consecrated bread and wine. He is one of those — perchance
the most hopeless of all sinners — who practice such an exem-
plary system of outward duties that even a deadly crime may
be hidden from their own sight and remembrance under this

204 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

unreal frost-work. Yet he now finds his place. Why do that
pair of flaunting girls with the pert, affected laugh and the sly
leer at the bystanders intrude themselves into the same rank
with yonder decorous matron and that some what prudish maiden !
Surely these poor creatures born to vice as their sole and natu-
ral inheritance can be no fit associates for women who have been
guarded round about by all the proprieties of domestic life, and
who could not err unless they first created the opportunity !
Oh no ! It must be merely the impertinence of those unblush-
ing hussies, and we can only wonder how such respectable
ladies should have responded to a summons that was not meant
for them.

We shall make short work of this miserable class, each
member of which is entitled to grasp any other member's hand
by that vile degradation wherein guilty error has buried all
alike. The foul fiend to whom it properly belongs must relieve
us of our loathsome task. Let the bondservants of sin pass
on. But neither man nor woman in whom good predominates
will smile or sneer, nor bid the Rogue's March be played, in
derision of their array. Feeling within their breasts a shud-
dering sympathy which at least gives token of the sin that
might have been, they will thank God for any place in the
grand procession of human existence save among those most
wretched ones. Many, however, will be astonished at the fatal
impulse that drags them thitherward. Nothing is more re-
markable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals
itself from the perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest, perhaps,
by the splendor of its garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals,
and all men who act over an extensive sphere, are most liable
to be deluded in this way ; they commit wrong, devastation
and murder on so grand a scale that it impresses them as specu-
lative rather than actual, but in our procession we find them
linked in detestable conjunction with the meanest criminals
whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty details. Here the
effect of circumstance and accident is done away, and a man
finds his rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever
shape it may have been developed.

We have called the evil ; now let us call the good. The
trumpet's brazen throat should pour heavenly music over the
earth and the herald's voice go forth with the sweetness of an
angel's accents, as if to summon each upright man to his re-
ward. But how is this ? Does none answer to the call ? Not

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 205

one ; for the just, the pure, the true and all who might most
worthily obey it shrink sadly back as most conscious of error
and imperfection. Then let the summons be to those whose
pervading principle is love. This classification will embrace
all the truly good, and none in whose souls there exists not
something that may expand itself into a heaven both of well-
doing and felicity.

The first that presents himself is a man of wealth who has
bequeathed the bulk of his property to an hospital ; his ghost,
methinks, would have a better right here than his living body.
But here they come, the genuine benefactors of their race.
Some have wandered about the earth with pictures of bliss in
their imagination and with hearts that shrank sensitively from
the idea of pain and woe, yet have studied all varieties of misery
that human nature can endure. The prison, the insane asylum,
the squalid chamber of the almshouse, the manufactory where
the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul and the
cotton-field where God's image becomes a beast of burden, — to
these, and every other scene where man wrongs or neglects his
brother, the apostles of humanity have penetrated. This mis-
sionary black with India's burning sunshine shall give his arm
to a pale-faced brother who has made himself familiar with the
infected alleys and loathsome haunts of vice in one of our
own cities. The generous founder of a college shall be the
partner of a maiden lady of narrow substance, one of whose
good deeds it has been to gather a little school of orphan chil-
dren. If the mighty merchant whose benefactions are reckoned
by thousands of dollars deem himself worthy, let him join the
procession with her whose love has proved itself by watchings
at the sick-bed, and all those lowly offices which bring her into
actual contact with disease and wretchedness. And with those
whose impulses have guided them to benevolent actions we will
rank others to whom Providence has assigned a different tend-
ency and different powers. Men who have spent their lives
in generous and holy contemplation for the human race, those
who by a certain heavenliness of spirit have purified the atmos-
phere around them, and thus supplied a medium in which good
and high things may be projected and performed, — give to
these a lofty place among the benefactors of mankind, although
no deed such as the world calls deeds may be recorded of them.
There are some individuals of whom we cannot conceive it
proper that they should apply their hands to any earthly instru-

206 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

ment or work out any definite act, and others — perhaps not
less high — to whom it is an essential attribute to labor in
body as well as spirit for the welfare of their brethren. Thus,
if we find a spiritual sage whose unseen and inestimable
influence has exalted the moral standard of mankind, we
will choose for his companion some poor laborer who has
wrought for love in the potato-field of a neighbor poorer than
himself.

We have summoned this various multitude — and, to the
credit of our nature, it is a large one — on the principle of
Love. It is singular, nevertheless, to remark the shyness that
exists among many members of the present class, all of whom
we might expect to recognize one another by the freemasonry
of mutual goodness, and to embrace like brethren, giving God
thanks for such various specimens of human excellence. But
it is far otherwise. Each sect surrounds its own righteousness
with a hedge of thorns. It is difficult for the good Christian to
acknowledge the good pagan, almost impossible for the good
orthodox to grasp the hand of the good Unitarian, leaving to
their Creator to settle the matters in dispute and giving their
mutual efforts strongly and trustingly to whatever right thing
is too evident to be mistaken. Then, again, though the heart
be large, yet the mind is often of such moderate dimensions as to
be exclusively filled up with one idea. When a good man has
long devoted himself to a particular kind of beneficence, to one
species of reform, he is apt to become narrowed into the limits
of the path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there is no
other good to be done on earth but that selfsame good to which
he has put his hand and in the very mode that best suits his
own conceptions. All else is worthless : his scheme must be
wrought out by the united strength of the whole world's stock
of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a position in the
universe. Moreover, powerful truth, being the rich grape-juice
expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an intoxicating
quality when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, and
often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his cups. For
such reasons, strange to say, it is harder to contrive a friendly
arrangement of these brethren of love and righteousness in the
procession of life than to unite even the wicked, who, indeed, are
chained together by their crimes. The fact is too preposterous
for tears, too lugubrious for laughter.

But, let good men push and elbow one another as they may

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 207

during their earthly march, all will be peace among them when
the honorable array of their procession shall tread on heavenly
ground. There they will doubtless find that they have been
working each for the other's cause, and that every well-deliv-
ered stroke which with an honest purpose any mortal struck,
even for a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the universal
cause of good. Their own view may be bounded by country,
creed, profession, the diversities of individual character, but
above them all is the breadth of Providence. How many who
have deemed themselves antagonists will smile hereafter when
they look back upon the world's wide harvest-field and perceive
that in unconscious brotherhood they were helping to bind the
selfsame sheaf !

But come ! The sun is hastening westward while the march
of human life, that never paused before, is delayed by our
attempt to rearrange its order. It is desirable to find some
comprehensive principle that shall render our task easier by
bringing thousands into the ranks where hitherto we have
brought one. Therefore let the trumpet, if possible, split its
brazen throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald
summon all mortals who, from whatever cause, have lost, or
never found, their proper places in the world.

Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most
of them with a listless gait betokening weariness of soul, yet
with a gleam of satisfaction in their faces at a prospect of at
length reaching those positions which hitherto they have vainly
sought. But here will be another disappointment, for we can
attempt no more than merely to associate in one fraternity all
who are afflicted with the same vague trouble. Some great mis-
take in life is the chief condition of admittance into this class.
Here are members of the learned professions whom Providence
endowed with special gifts for the plow, the forge and the
wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual business. We
will assign them as partners in the march those lowly laborers
and handicraftsmen who have pined as with a dying thirst after
the unattainable fountains of knowledge. The latter have lost
less than their companions, yet more, because they deem it
infinite. Perchance the two species of unfortunates may com-
fort one another. Here are Quakers with the instinct of
battle in them, and men of war who should have worn the
broad brim. Authors shall be ranked here whom some freak of
Nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued with

208 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE.

the confidence of genius and strong desire of fame, but has
favored with no corresponding power, and others whose lofty
gifts were unaccompanied with the faculty of expression, or any
of that earthly machinery by which ethereal endowments must
be manifested to mankind. All these, therefore, are melan-
choly laughing-stocks. Next, here are honest and well-inten-
tioned persons who by a want of tact, by inaccurate perceptions,
by a distorting imagination, have been kept continually at
cross-purposes with the world and bewildered upon the path of
life. Let us see if they can confine themselves within the line
of our procession. In this class, likewise, we must assign
places to those who have encountered that worst of ill-success,
a higher fortune than their abilities could vindicate — writers,
actors, painters, the pets of a day, but whose laurels wither
unrenewed amid their hoary hair, politicians whom some mali-
cious contingency of affairs has thrust into conspicuous station
where, while the world stands gazing at them, the dreary con-
sciousness of imbecility makes them curse their birth-hour.
To such men we give for a companion him whose rare talents,
which perhaps require a revolution for their exercise, are buried
in the tomb of sluggish circumstances.

Not far from these we must find room for one whose success
has been of the wrong kind — the man who should have lin-
gered in the cloisters of a university digging new treasures out
of the Herculaneum of antique lore, diffusing depth and accu-
racy of literature throughout his country, and thus making for
himself a great and quiet fame. But the outward tendencies
around him have proved too powerful for his inward nature,
and have drawn him into the arena of political tumult, there to
contend at disadvantage, whether front to front or side by side,
with the brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it may be,
a name for brawling parties to bandy to and fro, a legislator of
the Union, a governor of his native State, an ambassador to the
courts of kings or queens, and the world may deem him a man
of happy stars. But not so the wise, and not so himself when
he looks through his experience and sighs to miss that fitness,
the one invaluable touch which makes all things true and real.
So much achieved, yet how abortive is his life ! Whom shall
we choose for his companion ? Some weak-framed blacksmith,
perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited a tailor's
shopboard better than the anvil.

Shall we bid the trumpet sound again ? It is hardly worth

THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 209

the while. There remain a few idle men of fortune, tavern and
grogshop loungers, lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens
and people of crooked intellect or temper, all of whom may find
their like, or some tolerable approach to it, in the plentiful
diversity of our latter class. There, too, as his ultimate des-
tiny, must we rank the dreamer who all his life long has cher-
ished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for something, but
never could determine what it was, and there the most unfortu-
nate of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life's pleas-
ures, but to avoid a manful struggle with its toil and sorrow.
The remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever
rank of the procession they shall find best adapted to their
tastes and consciences. The worst possible fate would be to
remain behind shivering in the solitude of time while all the
world is on the move toward eternity.

Our attempt to classify society is now complete. The
result may be anything but perfect, yet better — to give it the
very lowest phrase — than the antique rule of the herald's office
or the modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby the accidents
and superficial attributes with which the real nature of individ-
uals has least to do are acted upon as the cheapest characteristics
of mankind. Our task is done ! Now let the grand procession
move !

Yet pause a while : we had forgotten the chief marshal.

Hark ! That worldwide swell of solemn music with the
clang of a mighty bell breaking forth through its regulated
uproar announces his approach. He comes, a severe, sedate,
immovable, dark rider, waving his truncheon of universal sway
as he passes along the lengthened line on the pale horse of the
Revelations. It is Death. Who else could assume the guid-
ance of a procession that comprehends all humanity ? And if
some among these many millions should deem themselves
classed amiss, yet let them take to their hearts the comfortable
truth that Death levels us all into one great brotherhood, and
that another state of being will surely rectify the wrong of this.
Then breathe thy wail upon the earth's wailing wind, thou
band of melancholy music made up of every sigh that the
human heart unsatisfied has uttered ! There is yet triumph
in thy tones.

And now we move, beggars in their rags and kings trailing
the regal purple in the dust, the warrior's gleaming helmet, the
priest in his sable robe, the hoary grandsire who has run life's

TOI,. xxin. — 14

210 IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON.

circle and come back to childhood, the ruddy schoolboy with
his golden curls frisking along the march, the artisan's stuff
jacket, the noble's star-decorated coat, the whole presenting a
motley spectacle, yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over it.
Onward, onward, into that dimness where the lights of time
which have blazed along the procession are flickering in their
sockets ! And whither ? We know not, and Death, hitherto
our leader, deserts us by the wayside as the tramp of our innu-
merable footsteps passes beyond his sphere. He knows not
more than we our destined goal, but God, who made us, knows,
and will not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful march,
either to wander in infinite uncertainty or perish by the way.

IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.
[1809-1892.]

NIGHTINGALES warbled without,
Within was weeping for thee :

Shadows of three dead men
Walked in the walks with me,
Shadows of three dead men, and
thou wast one of the three.

Nightingales sang in his woods :

The Master was far away :
Nightingales warbled and sang

Of a passion that lasts but a day ;

Still in the house in his coffin the
Prince of courtesy lay.

Two dead men have I known
In courtesy like to thee :

Two dead men have I loved
With a love that ever will be :
Three dead men have I loved, and
thou art last of the three.

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT. 211

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

THAT very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited
four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were
three white-bearded gentlemen — Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killi-
grew, and Mr. Gascoigne — and a withered gentlewoman whose
name was the widow Wycherly. They were all melancholy
old creatures who had been unfortunate in life, and whose
greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their
graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a
prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic specula-
tion, and was now little better than a mendicant. Colonel
Killigrew had wasted his best years and his health and sub-
stance in the pursuit of sinful pleasures which had given birth
to a brood of pains, such as the gout and divers other torments
of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a
man of evil fame — or, at least, had been so till time had buried
him from the knowledge of the present generation and made
him obscure instead of infamous. As for the widow Wycherly,
tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day, but
for a long while past she had lived in deep seclusion on account
of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry
of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mention-
ing that each of these three old gentlemen — Mr. Medbourne,
Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne — were early lovers of
the widow Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cut-
ting each other's throats for her sake. And before proceeding
farther I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his four
guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves,
as is not infrequently the case with old people when worried
either by present troubles or woeful recollections.

" My dear old friends," said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them
to be seated, " I am desirous of your assistance in one of those
little experiments with which I amuse myself here in my
study."

If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger's study must have
been a very curious place. It was a dim, old-fashioned cham-
ber festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with antique
dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the

212 DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.

lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios
and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-
covered duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze
bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities,
Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all
difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the
room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet with its door ajar,
within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of
the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and
dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many won-
derful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the
spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients dwelt within its
verge and would stare him in the face whenever he looked
thitherward. The opposite side of the chamber was orna-
mented with the full-length portrait of a young lady arrayed in
the faded magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a vis-
age as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago Dr. Heideg-
ger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady,
but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed
one of her lover's prescriptions and died on the bridal evening.
The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned :
it was a ponderous folio volume bound in black leather, with
massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and
nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well
known to be a book of magic, and once, when a chambermaid
had lifted it merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had
rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped
one foot upon the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped
forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of Hippocrates
frowned and said, " Forbear ! "

Such was Dr. Heidegger's study. On the summer after-
noon of our tale a small round table as black as ebony stood in
the center of the room, sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful
form and elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came through
the window between the heavy festoons of two faded damask
curtains and fell directly across this vase ; so that a mild splen-
dor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old
people who sat around. Four champagne glasses were also on
the table.

" My dear old friends," repeated Dr. Heidegger, " may I
reckon on your aid in performing an exceedingly curious ex-
periment ? "

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT. 213

Now, Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman
whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand
fantastic stories- Some of these fables — to my shame be it
spoken — might possibly be traced back to mine own veracious
self ; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the
reader's faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction
monger.

When the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his pro-
posed experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful
than the murder of a mouse in an air pump or the examination
of a cobweb by the microscope, or some similar nonsense with
which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his inmates.
But without waiting for a reply Dr. Heidegger hobbled across
the chamber, and returned with the same ponderous folio bound
in black leather which common report affirmed to be a book of
magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume and
took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once
a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had
assumed one brownish hue and the ancient flower seemed ready
to crumble to dust in the doctor's hands.

" This rose," said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh — " this same
withered and crumbling flower — blossomed five and fifty years
ago. It was given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs
yonder, and I meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding.
Five and fifty years it has been treasured between the leaves
of this old volume. Now would you deem it possible that this
rose of half a century could ever bloom again ? "

" Nonsense ! " said the widow Wycherly, with a peevish
toss of her head. "You might as well ask whether an old
woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again."

" See ! " answered Dr. Heidegger. He uncovered the vase
and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained.
At first it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid, appearing to
imbibe none of its moisture. Soon, however, a singular change
began to be visible. The crushed and dried petals stirred and
assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower were
reviving from a deathlike slumber, the slender stalk and twigs
of foliage became green, and there was the rose of half a cen-
tury, looking as fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it
to her lover. It was scarcely full blown, for some of its deli-
cate red leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, within
which two or three dewdrops were sparkling.

214 DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.

" That is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doc-
tor's friends — carelessly, however, for they had witnessed
greater miracles at a conjurer's show. " Pray, how was it
effected ? "

" Did you never hear of the Fountain of Youth ? " asked
Dr. Heidegger, " which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer,
went in search of two or three centuries ago ? "

"But did Ponce de Leon ever find it?" said the widow
Wycherly.

" No," answered Dr. Heidegger, " for he never sought it in
the right place. The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am
rightly informed, is situated in the southern part of the Flo-
ridian peninsula, not far from Lake Macaco. Its source is
overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias, which, though
numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets by
the virtues of this wonderful water. An acquaintance of mine,
knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you
see in the vase."

" Ahem ! " said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word
of the doctor's story ; " and what may be the effect of this
fluid on the human frame ? "

"You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel," replied
Dr. Heidegger. — " And all of you, my respected friends, are
welcome to so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to
you the bloom of youth. For my own part, having had much
trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again.
With your permission, therefore, I will merely watch the prog-
ress of the experiment."

While he spoke, Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four
champagne glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth.
It was apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for
little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of
the glasses and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. As
the liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted
not that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties, and,
though utter skeptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were
inclined to swallow it at once. But Dr. Heidegger besought
them to stay a moment.

"Before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he,
"it would be well that, with the experience of a metime to
direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your
guidance in passing a second time through the perils of youth.

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT. 215

Think what a sin and shame it would be if, with your peculiar
advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wis-
dom to all the young people of the age ! "

The doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer
except by a feeble and tremulous laugh, so very ridiculous was
the idea that, knowing how closely Repentance treads behind
the steps of Error, they should ever go astray again.

" Drink, then," said the doctor, bowing ; " I rejoice that I
have so well selected the subjects of my experiment."

With palsied hands they raised the glasses to their lips.
The liquor, if it really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger
imputed to it, could not have been bestowed on four human
beings who needed it more woefully. They looked as if they
had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been
the offspring of Nature's dotage, and always the gray, decrepit,
sapless, miserable creatures who now sat stooping round the
doctor's table without life enough in their souls or bodies to be
animated even by the prospect of growing young again. They
drank off the water and replaced their glasses on the table.

Assuredly, there was an almost immediate improvement in
the aspect of the party — not unlike what might have been
produced by a glass of generous wine — together with a sud-
den glow of cheerful sunshine, brightening over all their visages
at once. There was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks in-
stead of the ashen hue that had made them look so corpselike.
They gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic power
had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions
which Father Time had been so long engraving on their brows.
The widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like
a woman again.

" Give us more of this wondrous water," cried they, eagerly.
14 We are younger, but we are still too old. Quick ! give us
more ! "

44 Patience, patience ! " quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat watch-
ing the experiment with philosophic coolness. " You have been
a long time growing old ; surely you might be content to grow
young in half an hour. But the water is at your service."
Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough
of which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people
in the city to the age of their own grandchildren.

While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim, the
doctor's four guests snatched their glasses from the table and

216 DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.

swallowed the contents at a single gulp. Was it delusion?
Even while the draught was passing down their throats it
seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems.
Their eyes grew clear and bright ; a dark shade deepened
among their silvery locks : they sat around the table three
gentlemen of middle age and a woman hardly beyond her
buxom prime.

" My dear widow, you are charming ! " cried Colonel Killi-
grew, whose eyes had been fixed upon her face while the
shadows of age were flitting from it like darkness from the
crimson daybreak.

The fair widow knew of old that Colonel Killigrew's com-
pliments were not always measured by sober truth ; so she
started up and ran to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly
visage of an old woman would meet her gaze.

Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner
as proved that the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed
some intoxicating qualities — unless, indeed, their exhilaration
of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sud-
den removal of the weight of years. Mr. Gascoigne's mind
seemed to run on political topics, but whether relating to the
past, present, or future could not easily be determined, since
the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these fifty years.
Now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about patriotism,
national glory, and the people's right ; now he muttered some
perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cau-
tiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the
secret ; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents and a
deeply deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his
well-turned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this time had been
trolling forth a jolly bottle song and ringing his glass in sym-
phony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the
buxom figure of the widow Wycherly. On the other side of
the table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of
dollars and cents with which was strangely intermingled a
project for supplying the East Indies with ice by harnessing
a team of whales to the polar icebergs. As for the widow
Wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simper-
ing to her own image and greeting it as the friend whom she
loved better than all the world besides. She thrust her face
close to the glass to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle
or crow's foot had indeed vanished ; she examined whether the

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT. 217

snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the venerable
cap could be safely thrown aside. At last, turning briskly
away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the table.

"My dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with
another glass."

44 Certainly, my dear madam — certainly," replied the com-
plaisant doctor. " See ! I have already filled the glasses."

There, in fact, stood the four glasses brimful of this won-
derful water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from
the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds.

It was now so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown
duskier than ever, but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed
from within the vase and rested alike on the four guests and
on the doctor's venerable figure. He sat in a high-backed,
elaborately carved oaken armchair, with a gray dignity of as-
pect that might have well befitted that very Father Time whose
power had never been disputed save by this fortunate com-
pany. Even while quaffing the third draught of the Fountain
of Youth, they were almost awed by the expression of his mys-
terious visage. But the next moment the exhilarating gush of
young life shot through their veins. They were now in the
happy prime of youth. Age, with its miserable train of cares
and sorrows and diseases, was remembered only as the trouble
of a dream from which they had joyously awoke. The fresh
gloss of the soul, so early lost and without which the world's
successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded pictures,
again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. They
felt like new-created beings in a new-created universe.

44 We are young ! We are young ! " they cried, exultingly.

Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly
marked characteristics of middle life and mutually assimilated
them all. They were a group of merry youngsters almost mad-
dened with the exuberant frolicsomeness of their years. The
most singular effect of their gayety was an impulse to mock
the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had so lately been
the victims. They laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire
— the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young
men and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One
limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather ; one set a pair
of spectacles astride of his nose and pretended to pore over the
black-letter pages of the book of magic ; a third seated himself
in an armchair and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of

218 DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT.

Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully and leaped about
the room.

The widow Wycherly — if so fresh a damsel could be called
a widow — tripped up to the doctor's chair with a mischievous
merriment in her rosy face.

" Doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, " get up and dance
with me ; " and then the four young people laughed louder
than ever to think what a queer figure the poor old doctor
would cut.

" Pray excuse me," answered the doctor, quietly. " I am
old and rheumatic, and my dancing days were over long ago.
But either of these gay young gentlemen will be glad of so
pretty a partner."

" Dance with me, Clara," cried Colonel Killigrew.

" No, no ! I will be her partner," shouted Mr. Gascoigne.

" She promised me her hand fifty years ago," exclaimed Mr.
Medbourne.

They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands
in his passionate grasp, another threw his arm about her waist,
the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered
beneath the widow's cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chid-
ing, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by
turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their
triple embrace. Never was there a livelier picture of youth-
ful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. Yet, by a
strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber and
the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said
to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered
grandsires ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a
shriveled grandma. But they were young : their burning pas-
sions proved them so.

Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl widow, who
neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals
began to interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold
of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another's throats.
As they struggled to and fro the table was overturned and the
vase dashed into a thousand fragments. The precious Water
of Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening
the wings of a butterfly which, grown old in the decline of
summer, had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightly
through the chamber and settled on the snowy head of Dr.
Heidegger.

DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT. 219

" Come, come, gentlemen I Come, Madam Wycherly ! " ex.
claimed the doctor. "I really must protest against this riot."

They stood still and shivered, for it seemed as if gray Time
were calling them back from their sunny youth far down into
the chill and darksome vale of years. They looked at old Dr.
Heidegger, who sat in his carved armchair holding the rose of
half a century, which he had rescued from among the fragments
of the shattered vase. At the motion of his hand the four
rioters resumed their seats — the more readily because their
violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they were.

" My poor Sylvia's rose ! " ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, hold-
ing it in the light of the sunset clouds. " It appears to be fad-
ing again."

And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it
the flower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and
fragile as when the doctor had first thrown it into the vase.
He shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its
petals.

" I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness," observed
he, pressing the withered rose to his withered lips.

"While he spoke the butterfly fluttered down from the doc-
tor's snowy head and fell upon the floor. His guests shivered
again. A strange chillness — whether of the body or spirit they
could not tell — was creeping gradually over them all. They
gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment
snatched away a charm and left a deepening furrow where none
had been before. Was it an illusion ? Had the changes of a
lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and were they now
four aged people sitting with their old friend Dr. Heidegger ?

" Are we grown old again so soon ? " cried they, dolefully.

In truth, they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely
a virtue more transient than that of "wine ; the delirium which
it created had effervesced away. Yes, they were old again.
With a shuddering impulse that showed her a woman still, the
widow clasped her skinny hands before her face and wished that
the coffin lid were over it, since it could be no longer beautiful.

" Yes, friends, ye are old again," said Dr. Heidegger, " and,
lo ! the Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well,
I bemoan it not ; for if the fountain gushed at my very door-
step, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it — no, though its
delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson
ye have taught me."

220 A BRUTAL CAPTAIN.

A BRUTAL CAPTAIN.

BY R. H. DANA.
(From "Two Years Before the Mast.")

[RICHARD HENRY DANA, JR. : An American author, son of the poet ; born in
Cambridge, Mass., August 1, 1815. He studied for a while at Harvard College,
and in 1834 shipped as a common sailor for a voyage to California, in order to
restore his health. His experiences are vividly narrated in the popular " Two
Years Before the Mast" (1840). He subsequently became a prominent lawyer,
still a valued authority on international law, and was one of the founders of the
Free-soil Party (1848). His other publications include : "The Seaman's Friend "
(1841) ; " To Cuba and Back" (1859). He died in Rome, January 7, 1882.]

FOR several days the captain seemed very much out of
humor. Nothing went right, or fast enough for him. He
quarreled with the cook, and threatened to flog him for throw-
ing wood on deck ; and he had a dispute with the mate about
reeving a Spanish burton, — the mate saying that he was right,
and had been taught how to do it by a man who was a sailor I
This, the captain took in dudgeon, and they were at sword's
points at once.

But his displeasure was chiefly turned against a large,
heavy-molded fellow from the Middle States, who was called
Sam. This man hesitated in his speech, and was rather slow
in his motions, but was a pretty good sailor, and always seemed
to do his best ; but the captain took a dislike to him, thought
he was surly and lazy ; and " if you once give a dog a bad
name" — as the sailor phrase is — "he may as well jump
overboard." The captain found fault with everything this
man did, and hazed him for dropping a marline spike from
the main yard, where he was at work. This, of course, was an
accident, but it was set down against him.

The captain was on board all day Friday, and everything
went on hard and disagreeably. " The more you drive a man,
the less he will do" was as true with us as with any other
people. We worked late Friday night and were turned-to
early Saturday morning. About ten o'clock the captain ordered
our new officer, Russell, who by this time had become thoroughly
disliked by all the crew, to get the gig ready to take him ashore.

John, the Swede, was sitting in the boat alongside, and Rus.
sell and myself were standing by the main hatchway, waiting

A BRUTAL CAPTAIN. 221

for the captain, who was down in the hold, where the crew were
at work, when we heard his voice raised in violent dispute with
somebody, whether it was with the mate, or one of the crew, I
could not tell ; and then came blows and scuffling. I ran to
the side and beckoned to John, who came up, and we leaned
down the hatchway ; and though we could see no one, yet we
knew that the captain had the advantage, for his voice was loud
and clear : —

" You see your condition I You see your condition ! Will
you ever give me any more of your jaw ? " No answer, and
then came wrestling and heaving, as though the man was trying
to turn him.

" You may as well keep still, for I have got you," said the
captain. Then came the question, " Will you ever give me any
more of your jaw ? "

" I never gave you any, sir," said Sam ; for it was his voice
that we heard, though low and half choked.

" That's not what I ask you. Will you ever be impudent
to me again ? "

" I never have been," said Sam.

" Answer my question, or I'll make a spread eagle of you I
111 flog you, by G— d."

" I'm no negro slave," said Sam.

" Then I'll make you one," said the captain ; and he came to
the hatchway, and sprung on deck, threw off his coat, and roll-
ing up his sleeves, called out to the mate — " Seize that man

up, Mr. A ! Seize him up I Make a spread eagle of him I

I'll teach you all who is master aboard ! "

The crew and officers followed the captain up the hatch-
way, and after repeated orders the mate laid hold of Sam, who
made no resistance, and carried him to the gangway.

" What are you going to flog that man for, sir ? " said John,
the Swede, to the captain.

Upon hearing this, the captain turned upon him, but know-
ing him to be quick and resolute, he ordered the steward to
bring the irons, and calling upon Russell to help him, went up
to John.

" Let me alone," said John. " I'm willing to be put in irons.
You need not use any force ; " and putting out his hands, the
captain slipped the irons on, and sent him aft to the quarter-
deck. Sam by this time was seized up, as it is called, that is,
placed against the shrouds, with his wrists made fast to the

222 A BRUTAL CAPTAIN.

shrouds, his jacket off, and his back exposed. The captain
stood on the break of the deck, a few feet from him, and a little
raised, so as to have a good swing at him, and held in his hand
the bight of a thick, strong rope. The officers stood round,
and the crew grouped together in the waist.

All these preparations made me feel sick and almost faint,
angry and excited as I was. A man — a human being, made
in God's likeness — fastened up and flogged like a beast ! A
man, too, whom I had lived with and eaten with for months,
and knew almost as well as a brother.

The first and almost uncontrollable impulse was resistance.
But what was to be done ? The time for it had gone by. The
two best men were fast, and there were only two besides myself,
and a small boy of ten or twelve years of age. And then there
were (besides the captain) three officers, steward, agent, and
clerk. But besides the numbers, what is there for sailors to
do ? If they resist, it is mutiny ; and if they succeed, arid take
the vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, their punish-
ment must come ; and if they do not yield, they are pirates for
life. If a sailor resist his commander, he resists the law, and
piracy or submission are his only alternatives. Bad as it was,
it must be borne. It is what a sailor ships for.

Swinging the rope over his head, and bending his body so
as to give it full force, the captain brought it down upon the
poor fellow's back. Once, twice — six times. " Will you ever
give me any more of your jaw ? " The man writhed with pain,
but said not a word. Three times more. This was too much,
and he muttered something which I could not hear ; this
brought as many more as the man could stand, when the cap-
tain ordered him to be cut down, and go forward.

" Now for you," said the captain, making up to John and
taking his irons off. As soon as he was loose, he ran forward
to the forecastle. " Bring that man aft," shouted the captain.
The second mate, who had been a shipmate of John's, stood
still in the waist, and the mate walked slowly forward ; but our
third officer, anxious to show his zeal, sprung forward over the
windlass, and laid hold of John ; but he soon threw him from
him.

At this moment I would have given worlds for the power to
help the poor fellow ; but it was all in vain. The captain stood
on the quarter-deck, bareheaded, his eyes flashing with rage,
and his face as red as blood, swinging the rope, and calling out

A BRUTAL CAPTAIN. 223

to his officers, " Drag him aft ! — Lay hold of him I I'll sweeten
him ! " etc., etc.

The mate now went forward and told John quietly to go
aft, and he, seeing resistance in vain, threw the blackguard
third mate from him ; said he would go aft of himself ; that
they should not drag him ; and went up to the gangway and
held out his hands ; but as soon as the captain began to make
him fast, the indignity was too much, and he began to resist ;
but the mate and Russell holding him, he was soon seized up.

When he was made fast, he turned to the captain, who stood
turning up his sleeves and getting ready for the blow, and asked
him what he was to be flogged for. " Have I ever refused my
duty, sir ? Have you ever known me to hang back, or to be
insolent, or not to know my work ? "

"No," said the captain, "it is not that I flog you for ; I flog
you for your interference — for asking questions."

" Can't a man ask a question here without being flogged ? "

" No," shouted the captain ; " nobody shall open his mouth
aboard this vessel, but myself ; " and began laying the blows
upon his back, swinging half round between each blow, to give
it full effect. As he went on his passion increased and he danced
about the deck calling out as he swung the rope, — " If you want
to know what I flog you for, I'll tell you. It's because I like to
do it ! — because I like to do it ! It suits me ! That's what I
do it for ! "

The man writhed under the pain, until he could endure it
no longer, when he called out, with an exclamation more com-
mon among foreigners than with us — " Oh, Jesus Christ, oh,
Jesus Christ ! "

" Don't call on Jesus Christ," shouted the captain ; " He

can't help you. Call on Captain T . He's the man ! He

can help you ! Jesus Christ can't help you now ! "

At these words, which I never shall forget, my blood ran
cold. I could look on no longer. Disgusted, sick, and horror-
struck, I turned away and leaned over the rail, and looked
down into the water. A few rapid thoughts of my own situa-
tion, and of the prospect of future revenge, crossed my mind ;
but the falling of the blows and the cries of the man called me
back at once.

At length they ceased, and turning round, I found that the
mate, at a signal from the captain, had cut him down. Almost
doubled up with pain, the man walked forward, and went down

224 A BRUTAL CAPTAIN.

into the forecastle. Every one else stood still at his post, while
the captain, swelling with rage and with the importance of his
achievement, walked the quarter-deck, at each turn, as he came
forward, calling out to us : —

" You see your condition ! You see where I've got you all,
and you know what to expect ! You've been mistaken in me
— you didn't know what I was ! Now you know what I am I "
— " I'll make you toe the mark, every soul of you, or I'll flog
you all, fore and aft, from the boy up ! " — " You've got a
driver over you ! Yes, a slave driver, a negro driver! I'll see
who'll tell me he isn't a negro slave ! "

With this and the like matter, equally calculated to quiet
us, and to allay any apprehensions of future trouble, he enter-
tained us for about ten minutes, when he went below. Soon
after, John came aft, with his bare back covered with stripes
and wales in every direction, and dreadfully swollen, and asked
the steward to ask the captain to let him have some salve, or
balsam, to put upon it.

" No," said the captain, who heard him from below ; " tell
him to put his shirt on ; that's the best thing for him ; and
pull me ashore in the boat. Nobody is going to lay up on
board this vessel."

He then called to Mr. Russell to take those two men and two
others in the boat, and pull him ashore. I went for one. The
two men could hardly bend their backs, and the captain called
to them to "give way," "give way ! " but finding they did
their best, he let them alone. The agent was in the stern sheet,
but during the whole pull — a league or more — not a word
was spoken.

We landed ; the captain, agent, and officer went up to the
house, and left us with the boat. I, and the man with me,
stayed near the boat, while John and Sam walked slowly
away, and sat down on the rocks. They talked some time
together, but at length separated, each sitting alone.

I had some fears of John. He was a foreigner, and
violently tempered, and under suffering ; and he had his knife
with him, and the captain was to come down alone to the boat.
The captain was probably armed, and if either of them had
lifted a hand against him, they would have had nothing before
them but flight, and starvation in the woods of California, or
capture by the soldiers and Indian bloodhounds, whom the
offer of twenty dollars would have set upon them.

A BRUTAL CAPTAIN. 225

After the day's work was done, we went down into the
forecastle, and ate our plain supper ; but not a word was
spoken. It was Saturday night ; but there was no song — no
"sweethearts and wives." A gloom was over everything.

The two men lay in their berths, groaning with pain, and
we all turned in, but, for myself, not to sleep. A sound coming
now and then from the berths of the two men showed that they
were awake, as awake they must have been, for they could
hardly lie in one posture a moment ; the dim, swinging lamp
of the forecastle shed its light over the dark hole in which
we lived ; and many and various reflections and purposes
coursed through my mind.

I thought of our situation, living under a tyranny; of the
character of the country we were in ; of the length of the voy-
age, and of the uncertainty attending our return to America ;
and then if we should return, of the prospect of obtaining
justice and satisfaction for these poor men ; and vowed that if
God should ever give me the means, I would do something to
redress the grievances and relieve the sufferings of that poor
class of beings, of whom I then was one. . . .

On board the " Pilgrim " everything went on regularly, each
one trying to get along as smoothly as possible ; but the com-
fort of the voyage was evidently at an end. " That is a long
lane which has no turning " — " Every dog must have his day,
and mine will come by and by " — and the like proverbs, were
occasionally quoted ; but no one spoke of any probable end to
the voyage, or of Boston, or anything of the kind ; or if he did,
it was only to draw out the perpetual, surly reply from his
shipmate — " Boston, is it ? You may thank your stars if you
ever see that place. You had better have your back sheathed
and your head coppered and your feet shod, and make out your
log for California for life ! " or else something of this kind —
" Before you get to Boston the hides will wear all the hair off
your head, and you'll take up all your wages in clothes, and
won't have enough left to buy a wig with ! "

The flogging was seldom if ever alluded to by us, in the fore-
castle. If any one was inclined to talk about it, the others,
with a delicacy which I hardly expected to find among them,
always stopped him, or turned the subject. But the behavior
of the two men who were flogged toward one another showed a
delicacy and a sense of honor, which would have been worthy
of admiration in the highest walks of life.

VOL. XXIII. 16

226 A BRUTAL CAPTAIN.

Sam knew that the other had suffered solely on his account,
and in all his complaints, he said that if he alone had been
flogged, it would have been nothing ; but that he never could
see that man without thinking what had been the means of
bringing that disgrace upon him ; and John never, by word or
deed, let anything escape^ him to remind the other that it was
by interfering to save his shipmate, that he had suffered.

Having got all our spare room filled with hides, we hove up
our anchor and made sail for San Diego. In no operation can
the disposition of a crew be discovered better than in getting
under way.

Where things are done " with a will," every one is like a
cat aloft ; sails are loosed in an instant ; each one lays out his
strength on his handspike, and the windlass goes briskly round
with the loud cry of " Yo heave ho ! Heave and pawl I Heave
hearty ho ! " But with us, at this time, it was all dragging
work. No one went aloft beyond his ordinary gait, and the
chain came slowly in over the windlass.

The mate, between the knightheads, exhausted all his official
rhetoric in calls of " Heave with a will ! " — " Heave hearty,
men ! — heave hearty I " — " Heave and raise the dead ! " —
" Heave, and away 1 " etc., etc. ; but it would not do. Nobody
broke his back or his handspike by his efforts.

And when the cat tackle fall was strung along, and all
hands — cook, steward, and all — laid hold, to cat the anchor,
instead of the lively song of " Cheerily, men ! " in which all
hands join in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy, silent pull,
and — as sailors say a song is as good as ten men — the anchor
came to the cathead pretty slowly. " Give us ' Cheerily I '
said the mate ; but there was no " cheerily " for us, and we did
without it.

The captain walked the quarter-deck, and said not a word.
He must have seen the change, but there was nothing which
he could notice officially.

We sailed leisurely down the coast before a light, fair wind,
keeping the land well aboard, and saw two other missions,
looking like blocks of white plaster, shining in the distance, one
of which, situated on the top of a high hill, was San Juan
Campestrano, under which vessels sometimes come to anchor,
in the summer season, and take off hides. The most distant
one was St. Louis Rey, which the third mate said was only
fifteen miles from San Diego. At sunset on the second day,

A BRUTAL CAPTAIN. 227

we had a large and well- wooded headland directly before us,
behind which lay the little harbor of San Diego. We were
becalmed off this point all night, but the next morning, which
was Saturday, the 14th of March, having a good breeze, we
stood round the point, and hauling our wind brought the
little harbor which is rather the outlet of a small river, right
before us.

Every one was anxious to get a view of the new place. A
chain of high hills, beginning at the point (which was on our
larboard hand, coming in), protected the harbor on the north
and west, and ran off into the interior, as far as the eye could
reach. On the other sides, the land was low, and green, but
without trees. The entrance is so narrow as to admit but one
vessel at a time, the current swift, and the channel runs so near
to a low stony point that the ship's sides appeared almost to
touch it.

There was no town in sight, but on the smooth sand beach,
abreast, and within a cable's length of which three vessels lay
moored, were four large houses, built of rough boards, and look-
ing like the great barns in which ice is stored on the borders
of the large ponds near Boston ; with piles of hides standing
round them, and men in red shirts and large straw hats walk-
ing in and out of the doors. These were the hide houses.

Of the vessels : one, a short, clumsy, little hermaphrodite
brig, we recognized as our old acquaintance the " Loriotte " ;
another, with sharp bows and raking masts, newly painted and
tarred, and glittering in the morning's sun, with the blood-red
banner and cross of St. George at her peak, was the handsome
"Ayacucho." The third was a large ship, with topgallant
masts housed, and sails unbent, and looking as rusty and worn
as two years' " hide droghing " could make her. This was the
"Lagoda."

As we drew near, carried rapidly along by the current, we
overhauled our chain, and clewed up the topsails. " Let go
the anchor ! " said the captain ; but either there was not chain
enough forward of the windlass, or the anchor went down foul,
or we had too much headway on, for it did not bring us up.
" Pay out chain I " shouted the captain ; and we gave it to her ;
but it would not do.

Before the other anchor could be let go, we drifted down,
broadside on, and went smash into the " Lagoda." Her crew
were at breakfast in the forecastle, and the cook, seeing us com-

228 A BRUTAL CAPTAIN.

ing, rushed out of his galley and called up the officers and
men.

Fortunately, no great harm was done. Her jib boom ran
between our fore and main masts, carrying away some of our
rigging, and breaking down the rail. She lost her martingale.
This brought us up, and as they paid out chain, we swung clear
of them, and let go the other anchor ; but this had as bad luck
as the first, for before any one perceived it, we were drifting on
to the "Loriotte."

The captain now gave out his orders rapidly and fiercely,
sheeting home the topsails, and backing and filling the sails,
in hope of starting or clearing the anchors ; but it was all in
vain, and he sat down on the rail, taking it very leisurely, and
calling out to Captain Nye, that he was coming to pay him a
visit.

We drifted fairly into the " Loriottc," her larboard bow into
our starboard quarter, carrying away a part of our starboard
quarter railing, and breaking off her larboard bumpkin, and
one or two stanchions above the deck. We saw our handsome
sailor, Jackson, on the forecastle, with the Sandwich Islanders,
working away to get us clear. After paying out chain, we
swung clear, but our anchors were no doubt afoul of hers. We
manned the windlass, and hove and hove away, but to no pur-
pose. Sometimes we got a little upon the cable, but a good
surge would take it all back again.

We now began to drift down toward the "Ayacucho,"
when her boat put off and brought her commander, Captain
Wilson, on board. He was a short, active, well-built man,
between fifty and sixty years of age ; being nearly thirty years
older than our captain, and a thorough seaman, he did not hesi-
tate to give his advice, and from giving advice, he gradually
came to taking the command ; ordering us when to heave and
when to haul, and backing and filling the topsails, setting and
taking in jib and trysail, whenever he thought best.

Our captain gave a few orders, but as Wilson generally
countermanded them, saying in an easy, fatherly kind of way,

" Oh no ! Captain T , you don't want the jib on her," or,

" It isn't time yet to heave ! " he soon gave it up. We had no
objections to this state of things, for Wilson was a kind old
man, and had an encouraging and pleasant way of speaking to
us, which made everything go easily. After two or three hours
of constant labor at the windlass, heaving and " Yo ho ! "-ing

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 229

with all our might, we brought up an anchor, with the " Lori-
otte's " small bower fast to it. Having cleared this and let it
go, and cleared our hawse, we soon got our other anchor, which
had dragged half over the harbor.

" Now," said Wilson, " I'll find you a good berth ; " and
setting both the topsails, he carried us down, and brought us
to anchor in handsome style, directly abreast of the hide house
which we were to use. Having done this, he took his leave,
while we furled the sails, and got our breakfast, which was
welcome to us, for we had worked hard, and it was nearly
twelve o'clock. After breakfast, and until night, we were
employed in getting out the boats, and mooring ship.

After supper, two of us took the captain on board the
"Lagoda." As he came alongside, he gave his name, and
the mate, in the gangway, called out to the captain down

the companionway — " Captain T has come aboard, sir ! "

" Has he brought his brig with him ? " said the rough old
fellow, in a tone which made itself heard fore and aft. This
mortified our captain a little, and it became a standing joke
among us for the rest of the voyage.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

BY ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[ALEXIS CHARLES HENRI CLEREL DE TOCQUEVILLE, French philosopher and
man of affairs, was born at Verneuil in Normandy, of an old patrician family,
July 29, 1806 ; graduated at the College de Metz ; became a lawyer, and in 1827
a magistrate at Versailles ; in 1831 resigned to visit the United States and study
its penitentiary system, which he wrote a report on, and the fruit of which was
" Democracy in America" (1835-1840). In 1839 he entered political life, advo-
cated the abolition of slavery, and prison reform, and in 1847 became minister of
foreign affairs. Imprisoned after the coup d'etat, he retired to his estate, and
wrote " The Old Regime and the Revolution." He died April 16, 1859.]

EDUCATION OF YOUNG WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES.

No FREE communities ever existed without morals ; and, as
I observed in the former part of this work, morals are the work
of woman. Consequently, whatever affects the condition of
women, their habits and their opinions, has great political im-
portance in my eyes. Amongst almost all Protestant nations
young women are far more the mistresses of their own actions

230 DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

than they are in Catholic countries. This independence is still
greater in Protestant countries like England, which have re-
tained or acquired the right of self-government ; the spirit of
freedom is then infused into the domestic circle by political
habits and by religious opinions. In the United States the doc-
trines of Protestantism are combined with great political free-
dom and a most democratic state of society ; and nowhere are
young women surrendered so early or so completely to their
own guidance. Long before an American girl arrives at the
age of marriage, her emancipation from maternal control begins :
she has scarcely ceased to be a child when she already thinks
for herself, speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse.
The great scene of the world is constantly open to her view :
far from seeking concealment, it is every day disclosed to her
more completely, and she is taught to survey it with a firm and
calm gaze. Thus the vices and dangers of society are early re-
vealed to her ; as she sees them clearly, she views them without
illusions, and braves them without fear ; for she is full of re-
liance on her own strength, and her reliance seems to be shared
by all who are about her. An American girl scarcely ever dis-
plays that virginal bloom in the midst of young desires, or that
innocent and ingenuous grace, which usually attend the European
woman in the transition from girlhood to youth. It is rarely
that an American woman at any age displays childish timidity
or ignorance. Like the young women of Europe, she seeks to
please, but she knows precisely the cost of pleasing. If she does
not abandon herself to evil, at least she knows that it exists ;
and she is remarkable rather for purity of manners than for
chastity of mind. I have been frequently surprised, and almost
frightened, at the singular address and happy boldness with
which young women in America contrive to manage their
thoughts and their language amidst all the difficulties of stim-
ulating conversation ; a philosopher would have stumbled at
every step along the narrow path which they trod without acci-
dents and without effort. It is easy indeed to perceive that,
even amidst the independence of early youth, an American
woman is always mistress of herself : she indulges in all per-
mitted pleasures, without yielding herself up to any of them ;
and her reason never allows the reins of self -guidance to drop,
though it often seems to hold them loosely.

In France, where remnants of every age are still so strangely
mingled in the opinions and tastes of the people, women com-

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 231

raonly receive a reserved, retired, and almost conventual educa-
tion, as they did in aristocratic times ; and then they are suddenly
abandoned, without a guide and without assistance, in the midst
of all the irregularities inseparable from democratic society.
The Americans are more consistent. They have found out that
in a democracy the independence of individuals cannot fail to
be very great, youth premature, tastes ill-restrained, customs
fleeting, public opinion often unsettled and powerless, paternal
authority weak, and marital authority contested. Under these
circumstances, believing that they had little chance of repress-
ing in woman the most vehement passions of the human heart,
they held that the surer way was to teach her the art of combat-
ing those passions for herself. As they could not prevent her
virtue from being exposed to frequent danger, they determined
that she should know how best to defend it ; and more reliance
was placed on the free vigor of her will than on safeguards
which have been shaken or overthrown. Instead then of in-
culcating mistrust of herself, they constantly seek to enhance
their confidence in her own strength of character. As it is
neither possible nor desirable to keep a young woman in per-
petual or complete ignorance, they hasten to give her a
precocious knowledge on all subjects. Far from hiding the
corruptions of the world from her, they prefer that she should
see them at once and train herself to shun them ; and they
hold it of more importance to protect her conduct than to be
overscrupulous of her innocence.

Although the Americans are a very religious people, they
do not rely on religion alone to defend the virtue of woman ;
they seek to arm her reason also. In this they have followed
the same method as in several other respects ; they first make
the most vigorous efforts to bring individual independence to
exercise a proper control over itself, and they do not call in the
aid of religion until they have reached the utmost limits of
human strength. I am aware that an education of this kind is
not without danger ; I am sensible that it tends to invigorate
the judgment at the expense of the imagination, and to make
cold and virtuous women instead of affectionate wives and
agreeable companions to man. Society may be more tranquil
and better regulated, but domestic life has often fewer charms.
These, however, are secondary evils, which may be braved for
the sake of higher interests. At the stage at which we are
now arrived the time for choosing is no longer within our con-

232 DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

trol ; a democratic education is indispensable to protect women
from the dangers with which democratic institutions and man-
ners surround them.

THE YOUNG WOMAN IN THE CHARACTER OF A WIFE.

In America the independence of woman is irrecoverably lost
in the bonds of matrimony : if an unmarried woman is less con-
strained there than elsewhere, a wife is subjected to stricter
obligations. The former makes her father's house an abode of
freedom and of pleasure ; the latter lives in the home of her
husband as if it were a cloister. Yet these two different condi-
tions of life are perhaps not so contrary as may be supposed, and
it is natural that the American women should pass through the
one to arrive at the other.

Religious peoples and trading nations entertain peculiarly
serious notions of marriage : the former consider the regularity
of woman's life as the best pledge and most certain sign of the
purity of her morals ; the latter regard it as the highest security
for the order and prosperity of the household. The Americans
are at the same time a puritanical people and a commercial
nation : their religious opinions, as well as their trading habits,
consequently lead them to require much abnegation on the part
of woman, and a constant sacrifice of her pleasures to her
duties which is seldom demanded of her in Europe. Thus in
the United States the inexorable opinion of the public carefully
circumscribes woman within the narrow circle of domestic
interests and duties, and forbids her to step beyond it.

Upon her entrance into the world a young American woman
finds these notions firmly established ; she sees the rules which
are derived from them ; she is not slow to perceive that she
cannot depart for an instant from the established usages of her
contemporaries, without putting in jeopardy her peace of mind,
her honor, nay even her social existence ; and she finds the
energy required for such an act of submission in the firmness
of her understanding and in the virile habits which her educa-
tion has given her. It may be said that she has learned by the
use of her independence to surrender it without a struggle and
without a murmur when the time comes for making the sacrifice.
But no American woman falls into the toils of matrimony as
into a snare held out to her simplicity and ignorance. She has
been taught beforehand what is expected of her, and volun-

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 233

tarily and freely does she enter upon this engagement. She
supports her new condition with courage, because she chose it.
As in America paternal discipline is very relaxed and the con-
jugal tie very strict, a young woman does not contract the
latter without considerable circumspection and apprehension.
Precocious marriages are rare. Thus American women do not
marry until their understandings are exercised and ripened ;
whereas in other countries most women generally only begin to
exercise and to ripen their understandings after marriage.

I by no means suppose, however, that the great change
which takes place in all the habits of women in the United
States, as soon as they are married, ought solely to be attrib-
uted to the constraint of public opinion : it is frequently im-
posed upon themselves by the sole effort of their own will.
When the time for choosing a husband is arrived, that cold
and stern reasoning power which has been educated and invig-
orated by the free observation of the world teaches an Ameri-
can woman that a spirit of levity and independence in the
bonds of marriage is a constant subject of annoyance, not of
pleasure ; it tells her that the amusements of the girl cannot
become the recreations of the wife, and that the sources of a
married woman's happiness are in the home of her husband.
As she clearly discerns beforehand the only road which can
lead to domestic happiness, she enters upon it at once, and
follows it to the end without seeking to turn back.

The same strength of purpose which the young wives of
America display, in bending themselves at once and without
repining to the austere duties of their new condition, is no less
manifest in all the great trials of their lives. In no country in
the world are private fortunes more precarious than in the
United States. It is not uncommon for the same man, in the
course of his life, to rise and sink again through all the grades
which lead from opulence to poverty. American women
support these vicissitudes with calm and unquenchable energy:
it would seem that their desires contract, as easily as they
expand, with their fortunes.

The greater part of the adventurers who migrate every
year to people the western wilds belong, as I observed in the
former part of this work, to the old Anglo-American race of
the Northern States. Many of these men, who rush so boldly
onwards in pursuit of wealth, were already in the enjoyment of
a competency in their own part of the country. They take

234 DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

their wives along with them, and make them share the count-
less perils and privations which always attend the commence-
ment of these expeditions. I have often met, even on the
verge of the wilderness, with young women who, after having
been brought up amidst all the comforts of the large towns of
New England, had passed, almost without any intermediate
stage, from the wealthy abode of their parents to a comfortless
hovel in a forest. Fever, solitude, and a tedious life had not
broken the springs of their courage. Their features were im-
paired and faded, but their looks were firm : they appeared to
be at once sad and resolute. I do not doubt that these young
American women had amassed, in the education of their early
years, that inward strength which they displayed under these
circumstances. The early culture of the girl may still there-
fore be traced, in the United States, under the aspect of mar-
riage : her part is changed, her habits are different, but her
character is the same.

THAT THE EQUALITY OF CONDITIONS CONTEIBUTES TO THE
MAINTENANCE OP GOOD MORALS IN AMERICA.

Some philosophers and historians have said, or have hinted,
that the strictness of female morality was increased or dimin-
ished simply by the distance of a country from the equator.
This solution of the difficulty was an easy one ; and nothing
was required but a globe and a pair of compasses to settle in
an instant one of the most difficult problems in the condition
of mankind. But I am not aware that this principle of the
materialists is supported by facts. The same nations have
been chaste or dissolute at different periods of the.ir history;
the strictness or the laxity of their morals depended therefore
on some variable cause, not only on the natural qualities of
their country, which were invariable. I do not deny that in
certain climates the passions which are occasioned by the
mutual attraction of the sexes are peculiarly intense ; but I
am of opinion that this natural intensity may always be excited
or restrained by the condition of society and by political insti-
tutions.

Although the travelers who have visited North America
differ on a great number of points, they all agree in remarking
that morals are far more strict there than elsewhere. It is
evident that on this point the Americans are very superior to

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 235

their progenitors the English. A superficial glance at the two
nations will establish the fact. In England, as in all other
countries of Europe, public malice is constantly attacking the
frailties of women. Philosophers and statesmen are heard to
deplore that morals are not sufficiently strict, and the literary
productions of the country constantly lead one to suppose so.
In America all books, novels not excepted, suppose women to
be chaste, and no one thinks of relating affairs of gallantry.
No doubt this great regularity of American morals originates
partly in the country, in the race of the people, and in their
religion : but all these causes, which operate elsewhere, do not
suffice to account for it ; recourse must be had to some special
reason. This reason appears to me to be the principle of
equality and the institutions derived from it. Equality of con-
ditions does not of itself engender regularity of morals, but it
unquestionably facilitates and increases it.

Amongst aristocratic nations birth and fortune frequently
make two such different beings of man and woman that they
can never be united to each other. Their passions draw them
together, but the condition of society, and the notions sug-
gested by it, prevent them from contracting a permanent and
ostensible tie. The necessary consequence is a great number
of transient and clandestine connections. Nature secretly
avenges herself for the constraint imposed upon her by the
laws of man. This is not so much the case when the equality
of conditions has swept away all the imaginary, or the real,
barriers which separated man from woman. No girl then be-
lieves that she cannot become the wife of the man who loves
her ; and this renders all breaches of morality before marriage
very uncommon : for, whatever be the credulity of the pas-
sions, a woman will hardly be able to persuade herself that she
is beloved, when her lover is perfectly free to marry her and
does not.

The same cause operates, though more indirectly, on mar-
ried life. Nothing better serves to justify an illicit passion,
either to the minds of those who have conceived it or to the
world which looks on, than compulsory or accidental mar-
riages. In a country in which a woman is always free to
exercise her power of choosing, and in which education has
prepared her to choose rightly, public opinion is inexorable to
her faults. The rigor of the Americans arises in part from
this cause. They consider marriages as a covenant which is

236 DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

often onerous, but every condition of which the parties are
strictly bound to fulfill, because they knew all those conditions
beforehand and were perfectly free not to have contracted them.

The very circumstances which render matrimonial fidelity
more obligatory also render it more easy. In aristocratic
countries the object of marriage is rather to unite property
than persons; hence the husband is sometimes at school and
the wife at nurse when they are betrothed. It cannot be won-
dered at if the conjugal tie which holds the fortunes of the
pair united allows their hearts to rove ; this is the natural re-
sult of the nature of the contract. When, on the contrary, a
man always chooses a wife for himself, without any external
coercion or even guidance, it is generally a conformity of tastes
and opinions which brings a man and a woman together, and
this same conformity keeps and fixes them in close habits of
intimacy.

Our forefathers had conceived a very strange notion on the
subject of marriage : as they had remarked that the small num-
ber of love matches which occurred in their time almost always
turned out ill, they resolutely inferred that it was exceedingly
dangerous to listen to the dictates of the heart on the subject.
Accident appeared to them to be a better guide than choice.
Yet it was not very difficult to perceive that the examples
which they witnessed did in fact prove nothing at all. For in
the first place, if democratic nations leave a woman at liberty
to choose her husband, they take care to give her mind suffi-
cient knowledge, and her will sufficient strength, to make so
important a choice : whereas the young women who, amongst
aristocratic nations, furtively elope from the authority of their
parents to throw themselves of their own accord into the arms
of men whom they have had neither time to know, nor ability
to judge of, are totally without those securities. It is not sur-
prising that they make a bad use of their freedom of action
the first time they avail themselves of it ; nor that they fall into
such cruel mistakes, when, not having received a democratic
education, they choose to marry in conformity to democratic
customs. But this is not all. When a man and woman are
bent upon marriage in spite of the differences of an aristocratic
state of society, the difficulties to be overcome are enormous.
Having broken or relaxed the bonds of filial obedience, they
have then to emancipate themselves by a final effort from the
sway of custom and the tyranny of opinion ; and when at

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 23T

length they have succeeded in this arduous task, they stand
estranged from their natural friends and kinsmen : the preju-
dice they have crossed separates them from all, and places
them in a situation which soon breaks their courage and sours
their hearts. If, then, a couple married in this manner are
first unhappy and afterwards criminal, it ought not to be at-
tributed to the freedom of their choice, but rather to their liv-
ing in a community in which this freedom of choice is not
admitted.

Moreover it should not be forgotten that the same effort
which makes a man violently shake off a prevailing error
commonly impels him beyond the bounds of reason ; that, to
dare to declare war, in however just a cause, against the opin-
ion of one's age and country, a violent and adventurous spirit
is required, and that men of this character seldom arrive at
happiness or virtue, whatever be the path they follow. And
this, it may be observed by the way, is the reason why, in the
most necessary and righteous revolutions, it is so rare to meet
with virtuous or moderate revolutionary characters. There is
then no just ground for surprise if a man, who in an age of
aristocracy chooses to consult nothing but his own opinion and
his own taste in the choice of a wife, soon finds that infractions
of morality and domestic wretchedness invade his household :
but when this same line of action is in the natural and ordi-
nary course of things, when it is sanctioned by parental au-
thority and backed by public opinion, it cannot be doubted
that the internal peace of families will be increased by it, and
conjugal fidelity more rigidly observed.

Almost all men in democracies are engaged in public or
professional life ; and on the other hand the limited extent
of common incomes obliges a wife to confine herself to the
house, in order to watch in person and very closely over the
details of domestic economy. All these distinct and compul-
sory occupations are so many natural barriers, which, by keep-
ing the two sexes asunder, render the solicitations of the one
less frequent and less ardent — the resistance of the other
more easy.

Not indeed that the equality of conditions can ever succeed
in making men chaste, but it may impart a less dangerous char-
acter to their breaches of morality. As no one has then either
sufficient time or opportunity to assail a virtue armed in self-
defense, there will be at the same time a great number of

238 DEMOCKACY AND WOMEN.

courtesans and a great number of virtuous women. This
state of things causes lamentable cases of individual hardship,
but it does not prevent the body of society from being strong
and alert : it does not destroy family ties, or enervate the
morals of the nation. Society is endangered not by the great
profligacy of a few, but by laxity of morals amongst all. In
the eyes of a legislator, prostitution is less to be dreaded than
intrigue.

The tumultuous and constantly harassed life which equality
makes men lead, not only distracts them from the passion of
love, by denying them time to indulge in it, but it diverts them
from it by another more secret but more certain road. All
men who live in democratic ages more or less contract the
ways of thinking of the manufacturing and trading classes ;
their minds take a serious, deliberate, and positive turn ; they
are apt to relinquish the ideal, in order to pursue some visi-
ble and proximate object, which appears to be the natural and
necessary aim of their desires. Thus the principle of equality
does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the
level of the earth. No men are less addicted to reverie than
the citizens of a democracy ; and few of them are ever known
to give way to those idle and solitary meditations which com-
monly precede and produce the great emotions of the heart.
It is true they attach great importance to procuring for them-
selves that sort of deep, regular, and quiet affection which
constitutes the charm and safeguard of life, but they are not
apt to run after those violent and capricious sources of excite-
ment which disturb and abridge it.

I am aware that all this is only applicable in its full extent
to America, and cannot at present be extended to Europe. In
the course of the last half-century, whilst laws and customs
have impelled several European nations with unexampled force
towards democracy, we have not had occasion to observe that
the relations of man and woman have become more orderly
or more chaste. In some places the very reverse may be de-
tected : some classes are more strict — the general morality of
the people appears to be more lax. I do not hesitate to make
the remark, for I am as little disposed to flatter my contempo-
raries as to malign them. This fact must distress, but it ought
not to surprise us. The propitious influence which a demo-
cratic state of society may exercise upon orderly habits is one
of those tendencies which can only be discovered after a time.

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 239

If the equality of conditions is favorable to purity of morals,
the social commotion by which conditions are rendered equal
is adverse to it. In the last fifty years, during which France
has been undergoing this transformation, that country has
rarely had freedom, always disturbance. Amidst this uni-
versal confusion of notions and this general stir of opinions
— amidst this incoherent mixture of the just and the unjust,
of truth and falsehood, of right and might — public virtue has
become doubtful, and private morality wavering. But all revo-
lutions, whatever may have been their object or their agents,
have at first produced similar consequences ; even those which
have in the end drawn the bonds of morality more tightly
began by loosening them. The violations of morality which
the French frequently witness do not appear to me to have
a permanent character ; and this is already betokened by some
curious signs of the times.

Nothing is more wretchedly corrupt than an aristocracy
which retains its wealth when it has lost its power, and which
still enjoys a vast deal of leisure after it is reduced to mere
vulgar pastimes. The energetic passions and great conceptions
which animated it heretofore leave it then ; and nothing re-
mains to it but a host of petty consuming vices, which cling
about it like worms upon a carcass. No one denies that the
French aristocracy of the last century was extremely dissolute ;
whereas established habits and ancient belief still preserved
some respect for morality amongst the other classes of society.
Nor will it be contested that at the present day the remnants of
that same aristocracy exhibit a certain severity of morals ; whilst
laxity of morals appears to have spread amongst the middle and
lower ranks. So that the same families which were most prof-
ligate fifty years ago are nowadays the most exemplary, and
democracy seems only to have strengthened the morality of
the aristocratic classes. The French Revolution, by dividing
the fortunes of the nobility, by forcing them to attend assidu-
ously to their affairs and to their families, by making them
live under the same roof with their children, and in short by
giving a more rational and serious turn to their minds, has
imparted to them, almost without their being aware of it, a
reverence for religious belief, a love of order, of tranquil pleas-
ures, of domestic endearments, and of comfort; whereas the
rest of the nation, which had naturally these same tastes, was
carried away into excesses by the effort which was required to

240 DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

overthrow the laws and political habits of the country. The
old French aristocracy has undergone the consequences of the
revolution, but it neither felt the revolutionary passions, nor
shared in the anarchical excitement which produced that crisis ;
it may easily be conceived that this aristocracy feels the salu-
tary influence of the revolution in its manners, before those who
achieve it. It may therefore be said, though at first it seems
paradoxical, that, at the present day, the most anti-democratic
classes of the nation principally exhibit the kind of morality
which may reasonably be anticipated from democracy. I can-
not but think that when we shall have obtained all the effects
of this democratic revolution, after having got rid of the tumult
it has caused, the observations which are now only applicable
to the few will gradually become true of the whole community.

How THE AMERICANS UNDERSTAND THE EQUALITY OP THE

SEXES.

I have shown how democracy destroys or modifies the dif-
ferent inequalities which originate in society ; but is this all ?
or does it not ultimately affect that great inequality of man and
woman which has seemed, up to the present day, to be eternally
based in human nature ? I believe that the social changes
which bring nearer to the same level the father and son, the
master and servant, and superiors and inferiors generally speak-
ing, will raise woman and make her more and more the equal
of man. But here, more than ever, I feel the necessity of mak-
ing myself clearly understood ; for there is no subject on which
the coarse and lawless fancies of our age have taken a freer
range.

There are people in Europe who, confounding together the
different characteristics of the sexes, would make of man and
woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to
both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and
grant to both the same rights ; they would mix them in all
things — their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It
may readily be conceived that, by thus attempting to make one
sex equal to the other, both are degraded ; and from so prepos-
terous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever
result but weak men and disorderly women.

It is not thus that the Americans understand that species of
democratic equality which may be established between the sexes.

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 241

They admit that, as nature has appointed such wide differences
between the physical and moral constitution of man and woman,
her manifest design was to give a distinct employment to their
various faculties; and they hold that improvement does not
consist in making beings so dissimilar do pretty nearly the
same things, but in getting each of them to fulfill their respec-
tive tasks in the best possible manner. The Americans have
applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy
which governs the manufactures of our age, by carefully divid-
ing the duties of man from those of woman, in order that the
great work of society may be the better carried on.

In no country has such constant care been taken as in
America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the
two sexes, and to make them keep pace one with the other, but
in two pathways which are always different. American women
never manage the outward concerns of the family, or conduct
a business, or take a part in political life ; nor are they, on
the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of
the fields, or to make any of those laborious exertions which
demand the exertion of physical strength. No families are so
poor as to form an exception to this rule. If on the one hand
an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of
domestic employments, on the other hand she is never forced
to go beyond it. Hence it is that the women of America,
who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and
a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal
appearance and always retain the manners of women, although
they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of
men.

Nor have the Americans ever supposed that one consequence
of democratic principles is the subversion of marital power, or
the confusion of the natural authorities in families. They hold
that every association must have a head in order to accomplish
its object, and that the natural head of the conjugal association
is man. They do not therefore deny him the right of directing
his partner ; and they maintain that in the smaller association
of husband and wife, as well as in the great social community,
the object of democracy is to regulate and legalize the powers
which are necessary, not to subvert all power. This opinion
is not peculiar to one sex, and contested by the other : I
never observed that the women of America consider conjugal
authority as a fortunate usurpation of their rights, nor that

VOL. XXIII. — 16

242 DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN.

they thought themselves degraded by submitting to it. It
appeared to me, on the contrary, that they attach a sort of
pride to the voluntary surrender of their own will, and make it
their boast to bend themselves to the yoke, not to shake it off.
Such at least is the feeling expressed by the most virtuous of
their sex ; the others are silent ; and in the United States it is
not the practice for a guilty wife to clamor for the rights of
women, whilst she is trampling on her holiest duties.

It has often been remarked that in Europe a certain degree
of contempt lurks even in the flattery which men lavish upon
women : although a European frequently affects to be the slave
of woman, it may be seen that he never sincerely thinks her his
equal. In the United States men seldom compliment women,
but they daily show how much they esteem them. They con-
stantly display an entire confidence in the understanding of a
wife, and a profound respect for her freedom ; they have de-
cided that her mind is just as fitted as that of a man to discover
the plain truth, and her heart as firm to embrace it ; and they
have never sought to place her virtue, any more than his, under
the shelter of prejudice, ignorance, and fear. It would seem
that in Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic
sway of women, they are nevertheless curtailed of some of the
greatest qualities of the human species, and considered as seduc-
tive but imperfect beings ; and (what may well provoke aston-
ishment) women ultimately look upon themselves in the same
light, and almost consider it as a privilege that they are en-
titled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women
of America claim no such privileges.

Again, it may be said that in our morals we have reserved
strange immunities to man ; so that there is, as it were, one
virtue for his use, and another for the guidance of his partner ;
and that, according to the opinion of the public, the very same
act may be punished alternately as a crime or only as a fault.
The Americans know not this iniquitous division of duties
and rights ; amongst them the seducer is as much dishonored
as his victim. It is true that the Americans rarely lavish upon
women those eager attentions which are commonly paid them
in Europe ; but their conduct to women always implies that
they suppose them to be virtuous and refined ; and such is the
respect entertained for the moral freedom of the sex that in
the presence of a woman the most guarded language is used,
lest her ear should be offended by an expression. In America

DEMOCRACY AND WOMEN. 243

a young unmarried woman may, alone and without fear, under-
take a long journey.

The legislators of the United States, who have mitigated
almost all the penalties of criminal law, still make rape a
capital offense, and no crime is visited with more inexorable
severity by public opinion. This may be accounted for ; as the
Americans can conceive nothing more precious than a woman's
honor, and nothing which ought so much to be respected as
her independence, they hold that no punishment is too severe
for the man who deprives her of them against her will. In
France, where the same offense is visited with far milder pen-
alties, it is frequently difficult to get a verdict from a jury
against the prisoner. Is this a consequence of contempt of
decency or contempt of women ? I cannot but believe that it
is a contempt of one and of the other.

Thus the Americans do not think that man and woman
have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices,
but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts ;
and though their lot is different, they consider both of them
as beings of equal value. They do not give to the courage of
woman the same form or the same direction as to that of man ;
but they never doubt her courage : and if they hold that man
and his partner ought not always to exercise their intellect and
understanding in the same manner, they at least believe the
understanding of the one to be as sound as that of the other,
and her intellect to be as clear. Thus, then, whilst they have
allowed the social inferiority of woman to subsist, they have
done all they could to raise her morally and intellectually to
the level of man ; and in this respect they appear to me to
have excellently understood the true principle of democratic
improvement. As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that,
although the women of the United States are confined within
the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some
respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman
occupying a loftier position ; and if I were asked, now that I
am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken
of so many important things done by the Americans, to what
the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people
ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply, — to the superi-
ority of their women.

244 COMPENSATION.

COMPENSATION.

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

[RALPH WALDO EMERSON, the eminent American poet, essayist, and lec-
turer, was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He came of a long line of ministers ;
and after graduating from Harvard, taught for a few years, and in 1829 was
ordained pastor of the Second Unitarian Church. This office, however, he
resigned in 1832, on account of the gradually increasing differences between his
own modes of thought and those of his hearers. He then made a brief trip to
Europe, during which he became acquainted with Carlyle, and on his return
commenced his career as lecturer, meeting with continued success in the United
States and England. In 1840, on the establishment of the Dial, the organ of the
Transcendentalists, he became a contributor, and from 1842 to 1844 its editor.
He died at his home in Concord, Mass., April 27, 1882. His collected works
include : " Nature," " Essays " (two series), " Representative Men," " English
Traits," " Society and Solitude," "Letters and Social Aims," " Poems."]

EVER since I was a boy I have wished to write a discourse
on Compensation ; for it seemed to me when very young that
on this subject Life was ahead of theology and the people knew
more than the preachers taught. The documents too from
which the doctrine is to be drawn charmed my fancy by their
endless variety, and lay always before me, even in sleep ; for
they are the tools in our hands, the bread in our basket, the
transactions of the street, the farm, and the dwelling house ; the
greetings, the relations, the debts and credits, the influence of
character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to
me also that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the
present action of the Soul of this world, clean from all vestige
of tradition ; and so the heart of man might be bathed by an
inundation of eternal love, conversing with that which he knows
was always and always must be, because it really is now. It
appeared moreover that if this doctrine could be stated in terms
with any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this
truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would be a star in many
dark hours and crooked passages in our journey, that would not
suffer us to lose our way.

I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon
at church. The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy,
unfolded in the ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judg-
ment. He assumed that judgment is not executed in this
world ; that the wicked are successful ; that the good are miser-
able ; and then urged from reason and from Scripture a com-

COMPENSATION. 245

pensation to be made to both parties in the next life. No
offense appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doc-
trine. As far as I could observe when the meeting broke up
they separated without remark on the sermon.

Yet what was the import of this teaching ? What did the
preacher mean by saying that the good are miserable in the
present life? Was it that houses and lands, offices, wine, horses,
dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men, whilst the saints
are poor and despised ; and that a compensation is to be made
to these last hereafter, by giving them the like gratifications
another day, — bank stock and doubloons, venison and cham-
pagne? This must be the compensation intended; for what
else ? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise ? to
love and serve men ? Why, that they can do now. The legiti-
mate inference the disciple would draw was, " We are to have
such a good time as the sinners have now " ; — or, to push it to
its extreme import, — " You sin now, we shall sin by and by ;
we would sin now, if we could ; not being successful we expect
our revenge to-morrow."

The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are
successful ; that justice is not done now. The blindness of the
preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of the mar-
ket of what constitutes a manly success, instead of confront-
ing and convicting the world from the truth ; announcing the
Presence of the Soul ; the omnipotence of the Will ; and so
establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and false-
hood, and summoning the dead to its present tribunal.

I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of
the day and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men
when occasionally they treat the related topics. I think that
our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in prin-
ciple, over the superstitions it has displaced. But men are
better than this theology. Their daily life gives it the lie.
Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the doctrine behind
him in his own experience, and all men feel sometimes the false-
hood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than
they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits with-
out afterthought, if said in conversation would probably be
questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company
on Providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence
which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of
the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own statement.

246 COMPENSATION.

I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record
some facts that indicate the path of the law of Compensation ;
happy beyond my expectation if I shall truly draw the smallest
arc of this circle.

POLARITY, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of
nature ; in darkness and light ; in heat and cold ; in the ebb
and flow of waters ; in male and female : in the inspiration and
expiration of plants and animals ; in the systole and diastole of
the heart ; in the undulations of fluids and of sound ; in the
centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism,
and chemical affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of a
needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end.
If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you
must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so
that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it
whole ; as, spirit, matter ; man, woman ; subjective, objective ;
in, out ; upper, under ; motion, rest ; yea, nay.

Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts.
The entire system of things gets represented in every particle.
There is somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea,
day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the pine,
in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe.
The reaction, so grand in the elements, is repeated within these
small boundaries. For example, in the animal kingdom the
physiologist has observed that no creatures are favorites, but a
certain compensation balances every gift and every defect. A
surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from
another part of the same creature. If the head and neck are
enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short.

The theory of the mechanic forces is another example.
What we gain in power is lost in time, and the converse.
The periodic or compensating errors of the planets is another
instance. The influences of climate and soil in political his-
tory are another. The cold climate invigorates. The barren
soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, tigers, or scorpions.

The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of
man. Every excess causes a defect ; every defect an excess.
Every sweet hath its sour ; every evil its good. Every fac-
ulty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put
on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life.
For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every-

COMPENSATION. 247

thing you have missed, you have gained something else ; and
for everything you gain, you lose something. If riches in-
crease, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer
gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts
into his chest ; swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature
hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not
more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing than the
varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is
always some leveling circumstance that puts down the over-
bearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on
the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong and
fierce for society and by temper and position a bad citizen, —
a morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him ? — nature
sends him a troop of pretty sons and daughters who are get-
ting along in the dame's classes at the village school, and
love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to courtesy.
Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and feldspar, takes
the boar out and puts the lamb in and keeps her balance true.

The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But
the President has paid dear for his White House. It has
commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attri-
butes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appear-
ance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real
masters who stand erect behind the throne. Or do men de-
sire the more substantial and permanent grandeur of genius?
Neither has this an immunity. He who by force of will or of
thought is great and overlooks thousands, has the responsibility
of overlooking. With every influx of light comes new danger.
Has he light ? he must bear witness to the light, and always
outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction,
by his fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He
must hate father and mother, wife and child. Has he all that
the world loves and admires and covets? — he must cast behind
him their admiration and afflict them by faithfulness to his truth
and become a byword and a hissing.

This Law writes the laws of cities and nations. It will not
be balked of its end in the smallest iota. It is in vain to
build or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mis-
managed long. Res nolunt diu male administrari. Though no
checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear.
If the government is cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If
you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make

248 COMPENSATION.

the criminal code sanguinary, juries will not convict. Nothing
arbitrary, nothing artificial can endure. The true life and sat-
isfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or felicities
of condition and to establish themselves with great indifferency
under all varieties of circumstance. Under all governments
the influence of character remains the same, — in Turkey and
New England about alike. Under the primeval despots of
Egypt, history honestly confesses that man must have been as
free as culture could make him.

These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is
represented in every one of its particles. Everything in
nature contains all the powers of nature. Everything is made
of one hidden stuff ; as the naturalist sees one type under every
metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a running man, a fish as
a swimming man, a bird as a flying man, a tree as a rooted man.
Each new form repeats not only the main character of the type,
but part for part all the details, all the aims, furtherances, hin-
drances, energies and whole system of every other. Every occu-
pation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the world and a
correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem of
human life ; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course
and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the
whole man and recite all his destiny.

The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope
cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little.
Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs
of reproduction that take hold on eternity, — all find room to
consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every
act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears
with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the
universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good
is there, so is the evil ; if the affinity, so the repulsion ; if the
force, so the limitation.

Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That
soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law.
We feel its inspirations ; out there in history we can see its
fatal strength. It is almighty. All nature feels its grasp.
" It is in the world, and the world was made by it." It is
eternal but it enacts itself in time and space. Justice is not
postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts
of life. Ot Kvfioi Ato? ael evTriTrrovtri. The dice of God are
always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication table,

COMPENSATION. 249

or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, bal-
ances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor
more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every
crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed,
in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the uni-
versal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part
appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If you see
a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs
is there behind.

Every act rewards itself, or in other words integrates itself,
in a twofold manner : first in the thing, or in real nature ; and
secondly in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call
the circumstance the retribution. The causal retribution is in
the thing and is seen by the soul. The retribution in the cir-
cumstance is seen by the understanding ; it is inseparable from
the thing, but is often spread over a long time and so does not
become distinct until after many years. The specific stripes
may follow late after the offense, but they follow because they
accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one stem.
Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower
of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means
and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed ; for the effect al-
ready blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the
fruit in the seed.

Whilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be dis-
parted, we seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate ; for
example, — to gratify the senses we sever the pleasure of the
senses from the needs of the character. The ingenuity of man
has been dedicated to the solution of one problem, — how to
detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright,
etc., from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair ; that
is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin
as to leave it bottomless ; to get a one end, without an other end.
The soul says, Eat ; the body would feast. The soul says, The
man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul ; the body would
join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion over all
things to the ends of virtue ; the body would have the power
over things to its own ends.

The soul strives amain to live and work through all things.
It would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it, — •
power, pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims
to be somebody j to set up for himself ; to truck and higgle for

250 COMPENSATION.

a private good ; and, in particulars, to ride that he may ride ;
to dress that he may be dressed ; to eat that he may eat ; and
to govern, that he may be seen. Men seek to be great ; they
would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that
to be great is to get only one side of nature, — the sweet, with-
out the other side, — the bitter.

Steadily is this dividing and detaching counteracted. Up
to this day it must be owned no projector has had the smallest
success. The parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleas-
ure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of profitable
things, power out of strong things, the moment we seek to
separate them from the whole. We can no more halve things
and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get an inside
that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. " Drive
out nature with a fork, she comes running back."

Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the un-
wise seek to dodge, which one and another brags that he does
not know, brags that they do not touch him ; — but the brag is on
his lips, the conditions are in his soul. If he escapes them in
one part they attack him in another more vital part. If he has
escaped them in form and in the appearance, it is because he has
resisted his life and fled from himself, and the retribution is so
much death. So signal is the failure of all attempts to make
this separation of the good from the tax, that the experiment
would not be tried, — since to try it is to be mad, — but for the
circumstance that when the disease began in the will, of rebel-
lion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, so that the
man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to see
the sensual allurement of an object and not see the sensual
hurt ; he sees the mermaid's head but not the dragon's tail, and
thinks he can cut off that which he would have from that
which he would not have. " How secret art thou who dwellest
in the highest heavens in silence, O thou only great God, sprin-
kling with an unwearied providence certain penal blindnesses
upon such as have unbridled desires ! "

The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of
fable, of history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds
a tongue in literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupi-
ter, Supreme Mind ; but having traditionally ascribed to him
man} base actions, they involuntarily made amends to Reason
by tying up the hands of so bad a god. He is made as helpless
as a king of England. Prometheus knows one secret which

COMPENSATION. 251

Jove must bargain for ; Minerva, another. He cannot get his
own thunders ; Minerva keeps the key of them : —

Of all the gods, I only know the keys

That ope the solid doors within whose vaults

His thunders sleep.

A plain confession of the inworking of the All and of its moral
aim. The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics ; and in-
deed it would seem impossible for any fable to be invented and
get any currency which was not moral. Aurora forgot to ask
youth for her lover, and so though Tithonus is immortal, he is
old. Achilles is not quite invulnerable ; for Thetis held him
by the heel when she dipped him in the Styx and the sacred
waters did not wash that part. Siegfried, in the Nibelungen,
is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was
bathing in the Dragon's blood, and that spot which it covered is
mortal. And so it always is. There is a crack in everything
God has made. Always it would seem there is this vindictive
circumstance stealing in at unawares even into the wild poesy
in which the human fancy attempted to make bold holiday and
to shake itself free of the old laws, — this back stroke, this kick
of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal; that in nature
nothing can be given, all things are sold.

This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch
in the Universe and lets no offense go unchastised. The Furies
they said are attendants on Justice, and if the sun in heaven
should transgress his path they would punish him. The poets
related that stone walls and iron swords and leathern thongs
had an occult sympathy with the wrongs of their owners ; that
the belt which Ajax gave Hector dragged the Trojan hero over
the field at the wheels of the car of Achilles, and the sword
which Hector gave Ajax was that on whose point Ajax fell.
They recorded that when the Thasians erected a statue to
Theogenes, a victor in the games, one of his rivals went to it
by night and endeavored to throw it down by repeated blows,
until at last he moved it from its pedestal and was crushed to
death beneath its fall.

This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came
from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best
part of each writer which has nothing private in it ; that is the
best part of each which he does not know ; that which flowed

252 COMPENSATION.

out of his constitution and not from his too active invention -,
that which in the study of a single artist you might not easily
find, but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit
of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that
early Hellenic world that I would know. The name and cir-
cumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, embar-
rasses when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see
that which man was tending to do in a given period, and was
hindered, or, if you will, modified in doing, by the interfering
volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of Shakespeare, the organ whereby
man at the moment wrought.

Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the prov-
erbs of all nations, which are always the literature of Reason,
or the statements of an absolute truth without qualification.
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctu-
ary of the Intuitions. That which the droning world, chained
to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own
words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradic-
tion. And this law of laws, which the pulpit, the senate, and
the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets and all
languages by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and
as omnipresent as that of birds and flies.

All things are double, one against another. — Tit for tat ;
an eye for an eye ; a tooth for a tooth ; blood for blood ; meas-
ure for measure ; love for love. — Give, and it shall be given
you. — He that watereth shall be watered himself. — What
will you have ? quoth God ; pay for it and take it. — Nothing
venture, nothing have. — Thou shalt be paid exactly for what
thou hast done, no more, no less. — Who doth not work shall
not eat. — Harm watch, harm catch. — Curses always recoil on
the head of him who imprecates them. — If you put a chain
around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around
your own. — Bad counsel confounds the adviser. — The devil
is an ass.

It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is
overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of
nature. We aim at a petty end quite aside from the public
good, but our act arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a
line with the poles of the world.

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will
or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his com-
panions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who

COMPENSATION. 253

utters it. It is a thread ball thrown at a mark, but the other
end remains in the thrower's bag. Or, rather, it is a harpoon
thrown at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a coil of cord in the
boat, and, if the harpoon is not good, or not well thrown, it
will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain or to sink the
boat.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. " No man
had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him," said
Burke. The exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he
excludes himself from enjoyment, in the attempt to appropriate
it. The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the
door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out others.
Treat men as pawns and ninepins and you shall suffer as well
as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own.
The senses would make things of all persons; of women, of
children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, " I will get it from
his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy.

All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are
speedily punished. They are punished by Fear. Whilst I
stand in simple relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeas-
ure in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, or as two
currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpenetration
of nature. But as soon as there is any departure from sim-
plicity and attempt at half ness, or good for me that is not good
for him, my neighbor feels the wrong ; he shrinks from me as
far as I have shrunk from him ; his eyes no longer seek mine ;
there is war between us ; there is hate in him and fear in me.

All the old abuses in society, the great and universal and
the petty and particular, all unjust accumulations of property
and power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an in-
structor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions.
One thing he always teaches, that there is rottenness where he
appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well
what he hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property
is timid, our laws are timid, our cultivated classes are timid.
Fear for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over govern-
ment and property. That obscene bird is not there for nothing.
He indicates great wrongs which must be revised.

Of the like nature is that expectation of change which in-
stantly follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The
terror of cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates, the awe of
prosperity, the instinct which leads every generous soul to

254 COMPENSATION.

impose on itself tasks of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue,
are the tremblings of the balance of justice through the heart
and mind of man.

Experienced men of the world know very well that it is
best to pay scot and lot as they go along, and that a man often
pays dear for a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own
debt. Has a man gained anything who has received a hundred
favors and rendered none? Has he gained by borrowing,
through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's wares, or horses,
or money ? There arises on the deed the instant acknowledg-
ment of benefit on the one part and of debt on the other ; that
is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in
the memory of himself and his neighbor ; and every new trans-
action alters according to its nature their relation to each other.
He may soon come to see that he had better have broken his
own bones than to have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that
" the highest price he can pay for a thing is to ask for it."

A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and
know that it is always the part of prudence to face every claim-
ant and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or
your heart. Always pay ; for first or last you must pay your
entire debt. Persons and events may stand for a time between
you and justice, but it is only a postponement. You must pay
at last your own debt. If you are wise you will dread a pros-
perity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the end of
nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is
levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base,
— and that is the one base thing in the universe, — to receive
favors and render none. In the order of nature we cannot ren-
der benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom.
But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line,
deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Beware of too much
good staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm
worms. Pay it away quickly in some sort.

Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest,
say the prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom,
a mat, a wagon, a knife, is some application of good sense to a
common want. It is best to pay in your land a skillful gardener,
or to buy good sense applied to gardening ; in your sailor, good
sense applied to navigation ; in the house, good sense applied to
cooking, sewing, serving ; in your agent, good sense applied to
accounts and affairs. So do you multiply your presence, or

COMPENSATION. 255

spread yourself throughout your estate. But because of the
dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be
no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The swindler
swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge and
virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like
paper money may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which
they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be coun-
terfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered
but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure
motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort
the benefit, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral
nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative.
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the
power ; but they who do not the thing have not the power.

Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of
a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense
illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe. Every-
where and always this law is sublime. The absolute balance of
Give and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price, and
if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is
obtained, and that it is impossible to get anything without its
price, is not less sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the
budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the
action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high
laws which each man sees ever implicated in those processes
with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on
his chisel edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot
rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop bill as
in the history of a state, — do recommend to him his trade, and
though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination.

The league between virtue and nature engages all things to
assume a hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and sub-
stances of the world persecute and whip the traitor. He finds
that things are arranged for truth and benefit, but there is
no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime,
and the earth is made of glass. There is no such thing as con-
cealment. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow
fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of
every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot
recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the foot track, you
cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew.
Always some damning circumstance transpires. The laws and

256 COMPENSATION.

substances of nature, water, snow, wind, gravitation, become
penalties to the thief.

On the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all
right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is math-
ematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equa-
tion. The good man has absolute good, which like fire turns
everything to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any
harm ; but as the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he
approached cast down their colors and from enemies became
friends, so do disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, poverty,
prove benefactors.

Winds blow and waters roll
Strength to the brave and power and deity,
Yet in themselves are nothing.

The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As
no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him,
so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made use-
ful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and
blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him,
and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him.
Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As no
man thoroughly understands a truth until first he has contended
against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the
hindrances or talents of men until he has suffered from the one
and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the
same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in
society ? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone and
acquire habits of self-help ; and thus, like the wounded oyster,
he mends his shell with pearl.

Our strength grows out of our weakness. Not until we are
pricked and stung and sorely shot at, awakens the indignation
which arms itself with secret forces. A great man is always
willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages,
he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he
has a chance to learn something ; he has been put on his wits,
on his manhood ; he has gained facts ; learns his ignorance ; is
cured of the insanity of conceit ; has got moderation and real
skill. The wise man always throws himself on the side of his
assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his
weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him

COMPENSATION. 257

like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo I he has
passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to
be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said
against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon
as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one that
lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to
which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich
Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he
kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the tempta-
tion we resist.

The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and
enmity, defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts
and bars are not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness
in trade a mark of wisdom. Men suffer all their life long
under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But
it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but him-
self, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. There
is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul
of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every
contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you
serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in
your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the pay-
ment is withholden, the better for you ; for compound interest
on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat
nature, to make water run uphill, to twist a rope of sand. It
makes no difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant
or a mob. A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving
themselves of reason and traversing its work. The mob is man
voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour
of activity is night. Its actions are insane, like its whole con-
stitution. It persecutes a principle ; it would whip a right ;
it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage
upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It
resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put
out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate
spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr
cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of
fame ; every prison a more illustrious abode ; every burned
book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or
expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to
side. The minds of men are at last aroused ; reason looks out

VOL. XXIII. 17

258 COMPENSATION.

and justifies her own and malice finds all her work in vain. It
is the whipper who is whipped and the tyrant who is undone.

Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances.
The man is all. Everything has two sides, a good and an evil.
Every advantage has its tax. I learn to be content. But the
doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency.
The thoughtless say, on hearing these representations, — What
boots it to do well ? there is one event to good and evil ; if I
gain any good I must pay for it ; if I lose any good I gain
some other ; all actions are indifferent.

There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to
wit, its own nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a
life. The soul is. Under all this running sea of circumstance,
whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies the aborigi-
nal abyss of real Being. Existence, or God, is not a relation
or a part, but the whole. Being is the vast affirmative, exclud-
ing negation, self-balanced, and swallowing up all relations,
parts, and times within itself. Nature, truth, virtue, are the
influx from thence. Vice is the absence or departure of the
same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the great
Night or shade on which as a background the living universe
paints itself forth; but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot
work, for it is not. It cannot work any good ; it cannot work
any harm. It is harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than
to be.

We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts,
because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy and
does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible
nature. There is no stunning confutation of his nonsense
before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law ?
Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him he
so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a
demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also ; but,
should we not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the
eternal account.

Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of
rectitude must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to
virtue ; no penalty to wisdom ; they are proper additions of
being. In a virtuous action I properly am; in a virtuous act
I add to the world ; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos
and Nothing and see the darkness receding on the limits of the

COMPENSATION. 259

horizon. There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge,
none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the
purest sense. The soul refuses all limits. It affirms in man
always an Optimism, never a Pessimism.

His life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is
trust. Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to
man, always of the presence of the soul, and not of its absence ;
the brave man is greater than the coward ; the true, the be-
nevolent, the wise, is more a man and not less, than the fool
and knave. There is therefore no tax on the good of virtue,
for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence,
without any comparative. All external good has its tax, and
if it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the
next wind will blow it away. But all the good of nature is
the soul's, and may be had if paid for in nature's lawful coin,
that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow. I no
longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example, to find
a pot of buried gold, knowing that it brings with it new re-
sponsibility. I do not wish more external goods, — neither
possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The gain is
apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the
knowledge that the compensation exists and that it is not
desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene
eternal peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief.
I learn the wisdom of St. Bernard, " Nothing can work me
damage except myself ; the harm that I sustain I carry about
with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault."

In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequal-
ities of condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be
the distinction of More and Less. How can Less not feel the
pain ; how not feel indignation or malevolence towards More ?
Look at those who have less faculty, and one feels sad and
knows not well what to make of it. Almost he shuns their
eye ; he fears they will upbraid God. What should they do ?
It seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly and these
mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them as the
sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all
men being one, this bitterness of His and Mine ceases. His is
mine. I am my brother and my brother is me. If I feel over-
shadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love ; I
can still receive ; and he that loveth maketh his own the
grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the discovery that my

260 COMPENSATION.

brother is my guardian, acting for me with the friendliest
designs, and the estate I so admired and envied is my own. It
is the eternal nature of the soul to appropriate and make all
things its own. Jesus and Shakespeare are fragments of the
soul, and by love I conquer and incorporate them in my own
conscious domain. His virtue, — is not that mine ? His wit,
— if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit.

Such also is the natural history of calamity. The changes
which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are
advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. Evermore it
is the order of nature to grow, and every soul is by this in-
trinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends
and home and laws and faith, as the shellfish crawls out of its
beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its
growth, and slowly forms a new house. In proportion to the
vigor of the individual these revolutions are frequent, until in
some happier mind they are incessant and all worldly relations
hang very loosely about him, becoming as it were a transparent
fluid membrane through which the living form is always seen,
and not, as in most men, an indurated heterogeneous fabric of
many dates and of no settled character, in which the man is im-
prisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the man of
to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such
should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off
of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment
day by day. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not ad-
vancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion,
this growth comes by shocks.

We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our
angels go. We do not see that they only go out that arch-
angels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not
believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omni-
presence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to
rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the
ruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter and
organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us
again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so grace-
ful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty
saith, " Up and onward for evermore ! " We cannot stay amid
the ruins. Neither will we rely on the New ; and so we walk
ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look back-
wards.

THE CONQUEROR WORM. 261

And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent
to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A
fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a
loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpay-
able. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that
underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother,
lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later
assumes the aspect of a guide or genius ; for it commonly
operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of
infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up
a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and
allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth
of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new
acquaintances and the reception of new influences that prove
of the first importance to the next years; and the man or
woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with
no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by
the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made
the banyan of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neigh-
borhoods of men.

THE CONQUEROR WORM.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.

[EDGAR ALLAN POE : An American poet and author ; born at Boston,
Mass., 1809. Orphaned in his third year, he was adopted by John Allan, a
wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va., by whom he was sent to school at Stoke-
Newington, near London. He spent a year at the University of Virginia (1826) ;
enlisted as a private in the United States army under an assumed name, becom-
ing sergeant major (1829) ; and was admitted to West Point (1830), receiving
his dismissal the next year. Thrown upon his own resources, he began writing
for the papers. Subsequently he became editor of the Southern Literary Mes-
senger, in Richmond ; was on the staff of The Gentleman's Magazine and Gra-
ham's Magazine, in Philadelphia, and the Broadway Journal in New York. He
died in a Baltimore hospital, October 7, 1849. " The Raven " and " The Bells "
are his most popular poems. His fame as a prose writer rests on his tales of
terror and mystery.]

Lo ! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years !
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theater to see

A play of hopes and fears,

262 THE GOLD BUG.

While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly ;

Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast, formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings

Invisible woe !

That motley drama ! — oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot !
With its Phantom chased for evermore

By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the selfsame spot ;
And much of madness, and more of sin

And horror, the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

A crawling shape intrude !
A blood-red Thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude !
It writhes ! it writhes ! with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,
And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbrued.

Out — out are the lights — out all !

And over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm ;
And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy " Man,"

And its hero, the conqueror Worm.

THE GOLD BUG.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.

MANY years ago I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William
Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once

THE GOLD BUG. 263

been wealthy ; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to
want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters,
he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his
residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Caro-
lina.

This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else
than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth
at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from
the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way
through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of
the marsh hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant,
or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen.
Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and
where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during
summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may
be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto ; but the whole island,
with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard,
white beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense under-
growth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticul-
turists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of
fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice,
burthening the air with its fragrance.

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the
eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built
himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere
accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into
friendship — for there was much in the recluse to excite inter-
est and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual
powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to
perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He
had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His
chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering
along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or
entomological specimens ; — his collection of the latter might
have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions
he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter,
who had been manumitted before the reverses of the family,
but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises,
to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the
footsteps of his young " Massa Will. " It is not improbable
that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat
unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instill this obstinacy

264 THE GOLD BUG.

into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship
of the wanderer.

The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom
very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed
when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of
October, 18 — there occurred, however, a day of remarkable
chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the
evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for
several weeks — my residence being at that time in Charleston,
a distance of nine miles from the island, while the facilities of
passage and repassage were very far behind those of the present
day. Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and
getting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was
secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine fire was blaz-
ing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an
ungrateful one. I threw off my overcoat, took an armchair by
the crackling logs, and awaited patiently the arrival of my hosts.

Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial
welcome. Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to
prepare some marsh hens for supper. Legrand was in one of
his fits — how else shall I term them ? — of enthusiasm. He had
found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than
this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter's assist-
ance, a scarabceus which he believed to be totally new, but in
respect to which he wished to have my opinion on the morrow.

" And why not to-night ? " I asked, rubbing my hands over
the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarabcei at the devil.

" Ah, if I had only known you were here ! " said Legrand,
" but it's so long since I saw you ; and how could I foresee that
you would pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I

was coming home I met Lieutenant G , from the fort, and,

very foolishly, I lent him the bug ; so it will be impossible for
you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I
will send Jup down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing
in creation ! "

"What! — sunrise?"

" Nonsense ! no ! — the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color
— about the size of a large hickory nut — with two jet black
spots near one extremity of the back, and another, somewhat
longer, at the other. The antennae are "

" Dey ain't no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin' on
you," here interrupted Jupiter ; " de bug is a goole bug, solid,

THE GOLD BUG. 265

ebery bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing — neber feel half
so hebby a bug in my life."

" Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more
earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, " is that
any reason for your letting the birds burn? The color" —
here he turned to me — " is really almost enough to warrant
Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic luster
than the scales emit — but of this you cannot judge till to-
morrow. In the mean time I can give you some idea of the
shape." Saying this, he seated himself at a small table, on
which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some
in a drawer, but found none.

" Never mind," said he at length, " this will answer " ; and
he drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be
very dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with
the pen. While he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for
I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed
it to me without rising. As I received it, a loud growl was
heard, succeeded by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened
it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in,
leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with caresses ; for I
had shown him much attention during previous visits. When
his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the
truth, found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had
depicted.

" Well ! " I said, after contemplating it for some minutes,
" this is a strange scarabceus, I must confess : new to me : never
saw anything like it before — unless it was a skull, or a death's
head — which it more nearly resembles than anything else that
has come under my observation."

" A death's head ! " echoed Legrand. " Oh — yes — well,
it has something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt.
The two upper black spots look like eyes, eh ? and the longer
one at the bottom like a mouth — and then the shape of the
whole is oval."

" Perhaps so," said I ; " but, Legrand, I fear you are no
artist. I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form
any idea of its personal appearance."

" Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, " I draw
tolerably — should do it at least — have had good masters, and
flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead."

" But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I ; " this

266 THE GOLD BUG.

is a very passable skull — indeed, I may say that it is a very
excellent skull, according to the vulgar notions about such
specimens of physiology — and your scarabceus must be the
queerest scarabceus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we
may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint.
I presume you will call the bug scarabceus caput hominis, or
something of that kind — there are many similar titles in the
Natural Histories. But where are the antennas you spoke of?"

" The antennae ! " said Legrand, who seemed to be getting
unaccountably warm upon the subject ; " I am sure you must
see the antennae. I made them as distinct as they are in the
original insect, and I presume that is sufficient."

" Well, well," I said, " perhaps you have — still I don't see
them " ; and I handed him the paper without additional remark,
not wishing to ruffle his temper ; but I was much surprised at
the turn affairs had taken ; his ill-humor puzzled me — and, as
for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antennae
visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the
ordinary cuts of a death's head.

He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to
crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual
glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention.
In an instant his face grew violently red — in another as
excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinize
the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took
a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a
sea chest in the farthest corner of the room. Here again he
made an anxious examination of the paper ; turning it in all
directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly
astonished me ; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the
growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently
he took from his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully
in it, and deposited both in a writing desk, which he locked.
He now grew more composed in his demeanor ; but his origi-
nal air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he seemed
not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening wore away
he became more and more absorbed in reverie, from which no
sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention to
pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently done before, but,
seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper to take leave.
He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he shook my
hand with even more than his usual cordiality.

THE GOLD BUG. 267

It was about a month after this (and during the interval
I had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at
Charleston, from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good
old negro look so dispirited, and I feared that some serious
disaster had befallen my friend.

" Well, Jup," said I, " what is the matter now ? — how is
your master ? "

" Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as
mought be."

" Not well ! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he
complain of ? "

" Dar ! dat's it I — him nebber plain of notin — but him
berry sick for all dat."

" Very sick, Jupiter I — why didn't you say so at once ? Is
he confined to bed ? "

" No, dat he ain't ! — he ain't find nowhar — dat's just whar
de shoe pinch — my mind is got to be berry hebby bout poor
Massa Will."

"Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are
talking about. You say your master is sick. Hasn't he told
you what ails him ? "

"Why, massa, tain't worf while for to git mad about de
matter — Massa Will say noflin at all ain't de matter wid him
— but den what make him go bout looking dis here way, wid
he head down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose ? And
den he keep a syphon all de time "

" Keeps a what, Jupiter ? "

" Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate — de queerest
figgurs I ebber did see. Ise gittin to be skeered, I tell you.
Hab for to keep mighty tight eye pon him noovers. Todder
day he gib me slip fore de sun up, and was gone de whole ob de
blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him deuced
good beating when he did come — but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't
de heart arter all — he look so berry poorly."

" Eh ? — what ? — ah yes ! — upon the whole I think you
had better not be too severe with the poor fellow — don't flog
him, Jupiter — he can't very well stand it — but can you form
no idea of what has occasioned this illness, or rather this change
of conduct? Has anything unpleasant happened since I saw
you ? "

"No, massa, dey ain't bin noffin onpleasant since den —
'twas fore den I'm feared — 'twas de berry day you was dare."

268 THE GOLD BUG.

" How ? what do you mean ? "

"Why, massa, I mean de bug — dare now."

" The what ? "

" De bug — I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit some-
where bout de head by dat goole bug."

" And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition ? "

" C]aws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich
a deuced bug — he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near
him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go gin
mighty quick, I tell you — den was de time he must ha got de
bite. I didn't like de look of de bug mouff, myself, nohow, so
I wouldn't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid
a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and
stuff piece ob it in he mouff — dat was de way."

" And you think, then, that your master was really bitten
by the beetle, and that the bite made him sick ? "

" I don't tink noffin about it — I nose it. What make him
dream bout de goole so much, if tain't cause he bit by de goole
bug ? Ise heerd bout dem goole bugs fore dis."

" But how do you know he dreams about gold ? "

" How I know ? why, cause he talk about it in he sleep —
dat's how I nose."

" Well, Jup, perhaps you are right ; but to what fortunate
circumstances am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you
to-day?"

" What de matter, massa ? "

" Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand ? "

"No, massa, I bring dis here pissel;" and here Jupiter
handed me a note which ran thus : —

MY DEAR, —

Why have I not seen you for so long a time ? I hope you have
not been so foolish as to take offense at any little brusquerie of mine ;
but no, that is improbable.

Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have
something to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I
should tell it at all.

I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup
annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions.
Would you believe it? — he had prepared a huge stick, the other
day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending
the day, solus, among the hills on the mainland. I verily believe
that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging.

THE GOLD BUG. 269

I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met.
If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with
Jupiter. Do come. I wish to see you to-night, upon business of
importance. I assure you that it is of the highest importance. —

Ever yours,

WILLIAM LEOBAND.

There was something in the tone of this note which gave me
great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that
of Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new
crotchet possessed his excitable brain ? What " business of
the highest importance " could he possibly have to transact ?
Jupiter's account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the
continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled
the reason of my friend. Without a moment's hesitation,
therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro.

Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades,
all apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we
were to embark.

" What is the meaning of all this, Jup ? " I inquired.

"Him syfe, massa, and spade."

" Very true ; but what are they doing here ? "

" Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my
buying for him in de town, and de debbil's own lot of money I
had to gib for em."

" But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your
4 Massa Will ' going to do with scythes and spades ? "

"Dat's more dan I know, and debbil take me if I don't
blieve 'tis more dan he know too. But it's all cum ob de bug."

Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter,
whose whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by " de bug," I
now stepped into the boat and made sail. With a fair and
strong breeze we soon ran into the little cove to the northward
of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of some two miles brought us to
the hut. It was about three in the afternoon when we arrived.
Legrand had been awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped
my hand with a nervous empressement which alarmed me and
strengthened the suspicions already entertained. His counte-
nance was pale even to ghastliness, and his deep-set eyes glared
with unnatural luster. After some inquiries respecting his
health, I asked him, not knowing what better to say, if he had
yet obtained the scarabceus from Lieutenant G .

" Oh, yes," he replied, coloring violently, " I got it from

270 THE GOLD BUG.

him the next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part
with that scarabceus. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right
about it ! "

" In what way ? " I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.

"In supposing it to be a bug of real gold." He said this
with an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly
shocked.

"This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with a
triumphant smile, "to reinstate me in my family possessions.
Is it any wonder, then, that I prize it ? Since Fortune has
thought fit to bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly
and I shall arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter,
bring me that scarabceus ! "

" What ! de bug, massa? I'd rudder not go fer trouble dat
bug — you mus git him for your own self." Hereupon Legrand
arose, with a grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle
from a glass case in which it was inclosed. It was a beautiful
scarabceus, and, at that time, unknown to naturalists — of course
a great prize in a scientific point of view. There were two
round black spots near one extremity of the back, and a long
one near the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and
glossy, with all the appearance of burnished gold. The weight
of the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all things into
consideration, I could hardly blame Jupiter for his opinion
respecting it ; but what to make of Legrand's concordance
with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell.

" I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I
had completed my examination of the beetle, " I sent for you,
that I might have your counsel and assistance in furthering the
views of Fate and of the bug "

" My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, " you are
certainly unwell, and had better use some little precautions.
You shall go to bed, and I will remain with you a few days,
until you get over this. You are feverish and "

" Feel my pulse," said he.

I felt it, and found not the slightest indication of fever.

" But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this
once to prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In
the next "

" You are mistaken," he interposed ; " I am as well as I can
expect to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really
wish me well, you will relieve this excitement."

THE GOLD BUG. 271

" And how is this to be done ? "

" Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expe-
dition into the hills, upon the mainland, and, in this expedi-
tion, we shall need the aid of some person in whom we can
confide. You are the only one we can trust. Whether we
succeed or fail, the excitement which you now perceive in me
will be equally allayed."

" I am anxious to oblige you in any way," I replied ; " but
do you mean to say that this infernal beetle has any connection
with your expedition into the hills ? "

"It has."

" Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd
proceeding."

" I am sorry — very sorry — for we shall have to try it by
ourselves."

" Try it by yourselves ! The man is surely mad ! — but
stay ! — how long do you propose to be absent ? "

" Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be
back, at all events, by sunrise."

" And will you promise me upon your honor, that when this
freak of yours is over, and the bug business (good God !) set-
tled to your satisfaction, you will then return home and follow
my advice implicitly, as that of your physician ? "

" Yes ; I promise ; and now let us be off, for we have no
time to lose."

With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started
about four o'clock — Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself.
Jupiter had with him the scythe and spades — the whole of
which he insisted upon carrying — more through fear, it seemed
to me, of trusting either of the implements within reach of his
master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His
demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and " dat deuced bug "
were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey.
For my own part I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns,
while Legrand contented himself with the scarabceus, which he
carried attached to the end of a bit of whipcord, twirling it to
and fro, with the air of a conjurer, as he went. When I observed
this last plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind I
could scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however,
to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could
adopt some more energetic measures with a chance of success.
In the mean time I endeavored, but all in vain, to sound him in

272 THE GOLD BUG.

regard to the object of the expedition. Having succeeded in
inducing me to accompany him, he seemed unwilling to hold
conversation upon any topic of minor importance, and to all
my questions vouchsafed no other reply than " We shall see ! "

We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of
a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the
mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a
tract of country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace
of a human footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way with
decision, pausing only for an instant, here and there, to consult
what appeared to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance
upon a former occasion.

In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the
sun was just setting when we entered a region infinitely more
dreary than any yet seen. It was a species of table-land, near
the summit of an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from
base to pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags that appeared
to lie loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented
from precipitating themselves into the valleys below, merely by
the support of the trees against which they reclined. Deep
ravines, in various directions, gave an air of still sterner solem-
nity to the scene.

The natural platform to which we had clambered was thickly
overgrown with brambles, through which we soon discovered
that it would have been impossible to force our way but for the
scythe ; and Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to
clear for us a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip tree,
which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and
far surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had then
ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide
spread of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appear-
ance. When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to Jupiter,
and asked him if he thought he could climb it. The old man
seemed a little staggered by the question, and for some mo-
ments made no reply. At length he approached the huge
trunk, walked slowly around it, and examined it with minute
attention. When he had completed his scrutiny, he merely
said,

" Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life."

" Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be
too dark to see what we are about."

" How far mus go up, massa ? " inquired Jupiter.

THE GOLD BUG. 273

" Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which
way to go — and here — stop I take this beetle with you."

" De bug, Massa Will ! — de goole bug ! " cried the negro,
drawing back in dismay — " what for mus tote de bug way up
de tree? — d n if I do I "

" If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take
hold of a harmless little dead beetle, why, you can carry it
up by this string — but if you do not take it up with you in
some way, I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head
with this shovel."

" What de matter now, massa ? " said Jup, evidently shamed
into compliance ; " always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger.
Was only funnin anyhow. Me feered de bug ! what I keer for
de bug?" Here he took cautiously hold of the extreme end of
the string, and, maintaining the insect as far from his person
as circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend the tree.

In youth, the tulip tree, or Liriodendron Tulipiferum, the
most magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly
smooth, and often rises to a great height without lateral
branches ; but, in its riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and
uneven, while many short limbs make their appearance on the
stem. Thus the difficulty of ascension, in the present case,
lay more in semblance than in reality. Embracing the huge
cylinder, as closely as possible, with his arms and knees, seiz-
ing with his hands some projections, and resting his naked
toes upon others, Jupiter, after one or two narrow escapes
from falling, at length wriggled himself into the first great
fork, and seemed to consider the whole business as virtually
accomplished. The risk of the achievement was, in fact, now
over, although the climber was some sixty or seventy feet from
the ground.

" Which way mus go now, Massa Will? " he asked.

" Keep up the largest branch — the one on this side," said
Legrand. The negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently
with but little trouble, ascending higher and higher, until no
glimpse of his squat figure could be obtained through the dense
foliage which enveloped it. Presently his voice was heard in
a sort of halloo.

" How much fudder is got for go ? "

" How high up are you ? " asked Legrand.

" Ebber so fur," replied the negro ; " can see de sky fru de
top ob de tree."

VOL. XXIII. — 18

274 THE GOLD BUG.

"Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look
down the trunk and count the limbs below you on this side.
How many limbs have you passed ? "

" One, two, three, four, fi be — I done pass fibe big limb,
massa, pon dis side."

"Then go one limb higher."

In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing
that the seventh limb was attained.

" Now, Jup," cried Legrand, evidently much excited, " I
want you to work your way out upon that limb as far as you
can. If you see anything strange, let me know."

By this time what little doubt I might have entertained of
my poor friend's insanity was put finally at rest. I had no
alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy, and I
became seriously anxious about getting him home. While I
was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's voice
was again heard.

" Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb berry far — 'tis dead
limb putty much all de way."

" Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter ? " cried Legrand
in a quavering voice.

" Yes, massa, him dead as de door nail — done up for sartain
— done departed dis here life."

" What in the name of heaven shall I do?" asked Legrand,
seemingly in the greatest distress.

" Do ! " said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word,
" why, come home and go to bed. Come now ! — that's a fine
fellow. It's getting late, and, besides, you remember your
promise."

" Jupiter," cried he, without heeding me in the least, " do
you hear me ? "

"Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain."

" Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see if you
think it very rotten."

" Him rotten, massa, sure nuff," replied the negro in a few
moments, " but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought
ventur out leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat's true."

" By yourself I — What do you mean ? "

" Why, I mean de bug. 'Tis berry hebby bug. Spose I
drop him down fuss, and den de limb won't break wid just de
weight ob one nigger."

"You infernal scoundrel ! " cried Legrand, apparently much

THE GOLD BUG. 275

relieved, " what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as
that? As sure as you drop that beetle I'll break your neck.
Look here, Jupiter, do you hear me ? "

"Yes, massa, needn't hollo at poor nigger dat style."

" Well 1 now listen I — if you will venture out on the limb
as far as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll make
you a present of a silver dollar as soon as you get down."

"I'm gwine, Massa Will — deed I is," replied the negro,
very promptly — "mos out to de eend now."

" Out to the end ! " here fairly screamed Legrand ; " do you
say you are out to the end of that limb ? "

" Soon be to de eend, massa, — o-o-o-o-oh ! Lor-gol-a-marcy I
what is dis here pon de tree ? "

" Well," cried Legrand, highly delighted, " what is it ? "

" Why, tain't noffin but a skull — somebody bin lef him
head up de tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de
meat off."

" A skull, you say ! — very well ! — how is it fastened to
the limb ? — what holds it on ? "

" Sure nuff, massa ; mus look. Why, dis berry curous sar-
cumstance, pon my word — dare's a great big nail in de skull,
what fastens ob it on to de tree."

"Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you — do you
hear?"

"Yes, massa."

" Pay attention, then ! — find the left eye of the skull."

" Hum ! hoo ! dat's good I why dare ain't no eye lef at all."

" Curse your stupidity ! do you know your right hand from
your left ? "

"Yes, I nose dat — nose all about dat — 'tis my lef hand
what I chops de wood wid."

" To be sure I you are left-handed ; and your left eye is on
the same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose you can find
the left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has
been. Have you found it ? "

Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked,

" Is de lef eye ob de skull pon de same side as de lef hand
of de skull, too ? — cause de skull ain't got not a bit ob a hand
at all — nebber mind ! I got de lef eye now — here de lef eye !
What mus do wid it ? "

" Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will
reach — but be careful and not let go your hold of the string."

276 THE GOLD BUG.

" All dat done, Massa Will ; mighty easy ting for to put de
bug f ru de hole — look out for him dare below ! "

During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's person could
be seen ; but the beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was
now visible at the end of the string, and glistened, like a globe
of burnished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some of
which still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood.
The scarabceus hung quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed
to fall, would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately
took the scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or
four yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having
accomplished this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string and
come down from the tree.

Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the
precise spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced
from his pocket a tape measure. Fastening one end of this at
that point of the trunk of the tree which was nearest the peg,
he unrolled it till it reached the peg, and thence farther un-
rolled it, in the direction already established by the two points
of the tree and the peg, for the distance of fifty feet — Jupiter
clearing away the brambles with the scythe. At the spot thus
attained a second peg was driven, and about this, as a center,
a rude circle, about four feet in diameter, described. Taking
now a spade himself, and giving one to Jupiter and one to me,
Legrand begged us to set about digging as quickly as possible.

To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amuse-
ment at any time, and, at that particular moment, would most
willingly have declined it ; for the night was coming on, and I
felt much fatigued with the exercise already taken ; but I saw
no mode of escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor
friend's equanimity by a refusal. Could I have depended, in-
deed, upon Jupiter's aid, I would have had no hesitation in
attempting to get the lunatic home by force ; but I was too
well assured of the old negro's disposition, to hope that he
would assist me, under any circumstances, in a personal contest
with his master. I made no doubt that the latter had been
infected with some of the innumerable Southern superstitions
about money buried, and that his fantasy had received con-
firmation by the finding of the scarabceus, or, perhaps, by
Jupiter's obstinacy in maintaining it to be " a bug of real gold."
A mind disposed to lunacy would readily be led away by such
suggestions — especially if chiming in with favorite precon-

THE GOLD BUG. 277

ceived ideas — and then I called to mind the poor fellow's
speech about the beetle's being rtthe index of his fortune."
Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at length,
I concluded to make a virtue of necessity — to dig with a good
will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular
demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he entertained.

The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a
zeal worthy a more rational cause ; and, as the glare fell upon
our persons and implements, I could not help thinking how
picturesque a group we composed, and how strange and suspi-
cious our labors must have appeared to any interloper who, by
chance, might have stumbled upon our whereabouts.

We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said ; and
our chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who
took exceeding interest in our proceedings. He at length
became so obstreperous, that we grew fearful of his giving the
alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity ; or, rather, this was
the apprehension of Legrand ; — for myself, I should have
rejoiced at any interruption which might have enabled me to
get the wanderer home. The noise was, at length, very
effectually silenced by Jupiter, who, getting out of the hole,
with a dogged air of deliberation, tied the brute's mouth up
with one of his suspenders, and then returned, with a grave
chuckle, to his task.

When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a
depth of five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became
manifest. A general pause ensued, and I began to hope that
the farce was at an end. Legrand, however, although evidently
much disconcerted, wiped his brow thoughtfully and recom-
menced. We had excavated the entire circle of four feet
diameter, and now we slightly enlarged the limit, and went to
the farther depth of two feet. Still nothing appeared. The
gold seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at length clambered from
the pit, with the bitterest disappointment imprinted upon every
feature, and proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, to put on his
coat, which he had thrown off at the beginning of his labor.
In the mean time I made no remark. Jupiter, at a signal from
his master, began to gather up his tools. This done, and the
dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in profound silence
towards home.

We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction,
when, with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and

278 THE GOLD BUG.

seized him by the collar. The astonished negro opened his
eyes and mouth to the fullest extent, let fall the spades, and
fell upon his knees.

" You scoundrel," said Legrand, hissing out the syllables
from between his clenched teeth — "you infernal black villain!
— speak, I tell you! — answer me this instant, without prevari-
cation ! — which — which is your left eye ? "

" Oh, my golly, Massa Will ! ain't dis here my lef eye for
sartain ? " roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon
his right organ of vision, and holding it there with a desperate
pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his master's attempt at
a gouge.

"I thought so ! — I knew it! hurrah! " vociferated Legrand,
letting the negro go, and executing a series of curvets and cara-
coles, much to the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from
his knees, looked, mutely, from his master to myself, and then
from myself to his master.

" Come ! we must go back," said the latter ; " the game's
not up yet ; " and he again led the way to the tulip tree.

" Jupiter," said he, when he reached the foot, " come here !
Was the skull nailed to the limb with the face outwards, or with
the face to the limb ? "

" De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de
eyes good, widout any trouble."

"Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you
dropped the beetle ? " — here Legrand touched each of Jupi-
ter's eyes.

" 'Twas dis eye, massa — de lef eye — jis as you tell me,"
and here it was his right eye that the negro indicated.

" That will do — we must try it again."

Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied
that I saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg
which marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about
three inches to the westward of its former position. Taking,
now, the tape measure from the nearest point of the trunk to
the peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight
line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed
by several yards from the point at which we had been digging.

Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in
the former instance, was now described, and we again set to
work with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but scarcely
understanding what had occasioned the change in my thoughts,

THE GOLD BUG. 279

I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I
had become most unaccountably interested — nay, even excited.
Perhaps there was something, amid all the extravagant demeanor
of Legrand — some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which
impressed me. I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself
actually looking, with something that very much resembled
expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had
demented my unfortunate companion. At a period when such
vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had
been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again inter-
rupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in
the first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of play-
fulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter and serious
tone. Upon Jupiter again attempting to muzzle him, he made
furious resistance, and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mold
frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered
a mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, inter-
mingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared to
be the dust of decayed woolen. One or two strokes of a spade
upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, as we dug
farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came
to light.

At the sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be
restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an air of
extreme disappointment. He urged us, however, to continue
our exertions, and the words were hardly uttered when I stum-
bled and fell forward, having caught the toe of ray boot in a
large ring of iron that lay half buried in the loose earth.

We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten min-
utes of more intense excitement. During this interval we had
fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which from its per-
fect preservation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been
subjected to some mineralizing process — perhaps that of the
bichloride of mercury. This box was three feet and a half
long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was
firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming
a kind of open trellis work over the whole. On each side of
the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron — six in all —
by means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons.
Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer
very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of
removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of

280 THE GOLD BUG.

the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back —
trembling and panting with anxiety. In an instant, a treasure
of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the rays of
the lanterns fell within the pit, there flashed upwards a glow
and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and of jewels, that
absolutely dazzled our eyes.

I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I
gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand ap-
peared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words.
Jupiter's countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor
as it is possible, in the nature of things, for any negro's visage
to assume. He seemed stupefied — thunderstricken. Presently
he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked arms
up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoy-
ing the luxury of a bath. At length, with a deep sigh, he
exclaimed, as if in a soliloquy : —

"And dis all cum ob de goole bug ! de putty goole bug ! de
poor little goole bug, what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob style !
Ain't you shamed ob yourself, nigger ? — answer me dat ! "

It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both
master and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure.
It was growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that
we might get everything housed before daylight. It was diffi-
cult to say what should be done, and much time was spent in
deliberation — so confused were the ideas of all. We, finally,
lightened the box by removing two thirds of its contents, when
we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole.
The articles taken out were deposited among the brambles, and
the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter
neither, upon any pretense, to stir from the spot, nor to open
his mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for home
with the chest, reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive
toil, at one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it
was not in human nature to do more immediately. We rested
until two, and had supper, starting for the hills immediately
afterwards, armed with three stout sacks, which, by good luck,
were upon the premises. A little before four we arrived at the
pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as equally as might be,
among us, and, leaving the holes unfilled, again set out for the
hut, at which, for the second time, we deposited our golden
burdens, just as the first faint streaks of the dawn gleamed
from over the tree tops in the East.

THE GOLD BUG. 281

We were now thoroughly broken down ; but the intense
excitement of the time denied us repose. After an unquiet
slumber of some three or four hours' duration, we arose, as if
by preconcert, to make examination of our treasure.

The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole
day, and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its
contents. There had been nothing like order or arrangement.
Everything had been heaped in promiscuously. Having as-
sorted all with care, we found ourselves possessed of even vaster
wealth than we had at first supposed. In coin there was rather
more than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars — estimating
the value of the pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables
of the period. There was not a particle of silver. All was
gold of antique date and of great variety — French, Spanish,
and German money, with a few English guineas, and some
counters, of which we had never seen specimens before. There
were several very large and heavy coins, so worn that we could
make nothing of their inscriptions. There was no American
money. The value of the jewels we found more difficulty in
estimating. There were diamonds — some of them exceedingly
large and fine — a hundred and ten in all, and not one of them
small ; eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy ; — three hun-
dred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful ; and twenty-one
sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken
from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings
themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold,
appeared to have been beaten up with hammers, as if to prevent
identification. Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of
solid gold ornaments ; — nearly two hundred massive finger
and ear rings ; — rich chains — thirty of these, if I remember ; —
eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes ; — five gold censers
of great value ; — a prodigious golden punch bowl, ornamented
with richly chased vine leaves and Bacchanalian figures ; with
two sword handles exquisitely embossed, and many other
smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of these
valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdu-
pois ; and in this estimate I have not included one hundred
and ninety-seven superb gold watches, three of the number
being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them
were very old, and as timekeepers valueless, the works having
suffered, more or less, from corrosion — but all were richly
jeweled and in cases of great worth. We estimated the en-

282 THE GOLD BUG.

tire contents of the chest, that night, at a million and a half of
dollars ; and, upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets arid
jewels (a few being retained for our own use), it was found
that we had greatly undervalued the treasure.

When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and
the intense excitement of the time had in some measure sub-
sided, Legrand, who saw that I was dying with impatience for
a solution of this most extraordinary riddle, entered into a full
detail of all the circumstances connected with it.

" You remember," said he, " the night when I handed you
the rough sketch I had made of the scarabceus. You recollect
also, that I became quite vexed at you for insisting that my
drawing resembled a death's head. When you first made this
assertion I thought you were jesting ; but afterwards I called to
mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted
to myself that your remark had some little foundation in fact.
Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me — for I am
considered a good artist — and, therefore, when you handed me
the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it up and throw
it angrily into the fire."

" The scrap of paper, you mean," said I.

" No ; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first
I supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I
discovered it at once to be a piece of very thin parchment. It
was quite dirty, you remember. Well, as I was in the very act
of crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you
had been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment when
I perceived, in fact, the figure of a death's head just where, it
seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle. For a
moment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I
knew that my design was very different in detail from this —
although there was a certain similarity in general outline.
Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other
end of the room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more
closely. Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon the
reverse, just as I had made it. My first idea, now, was mere
surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline — at the
singular coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me,
there should have been a skull upon the other side of the parch-
ment, immediately beneath my figure of the scarabceus, and that
this skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely re-
semble my drawing. I say the singularity of this coincidence

THE GOLD BUG. 283

absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of
such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a connec-
tion— a sequence of cause and effect — and, being unable to do
so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But when I re-
covered from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually a
conviction which startled me even far more than the coinci-
dence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there
had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my
sketch of the scarabceus. I became perfectly certain of this ;
for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other,
in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there,
of course, I could not have failed to notice it. Here was in-
deed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain ; but, even
at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within
the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-
wormlike conception of that truth which last night's adventure
brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose at once,
and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all farther
reflection until I should be alone.

" When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I
betook myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair.
In the first place I considered the manner in which the parch-
ment had come into my possession. The spot where we dis-
covered the scarabceus was on the coast of the mainland, about
a mile eastward of the island, and but a short distance above
high-water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a
sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his
accustomed caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown
towards him, looked about him for a leaf, or something of that
nature, by which to take hold of it. It was at this moment
that his eyes, and mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment,
which I then supposed to be paper. It was lying half buried
in the sand, a corner sticking up. Near the spot where we
found it, I observed the remnants of the hull of what appeared
to have been a ship's longboat. The wreck seemed to have
been there for a very great while ; for the resemblance to boat
timbers could scarcely be traced.

" Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle
in it, and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go

home, and on the way met Lieutenant G . I showed him

the insect, and he begged me to let him take it to the fort.
Upon my consenting, he thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat

284 THE GOLD BUG.

pocket, without the parchment in which it had been wrapped,
and which I had continued to hold in my hand during his
inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my changing my mind, and
thought it best to make sure of the prize at once — you know
how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with Natural
History. At the same time, without being conscious of it, I
must have deposited the parchment in my own pocket.

" You remember that when I went to the table, for the pur-
pose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where
it was usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none
there. I searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter,
when my hand fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the
precise mode in which it came into my possession, for the
circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.

"No doubt you will think me fanciful — but I had already
established a kind of connection. I had put together two links
of a great chain. There was a boat lying upon a seacoast, and
not far from the boat was a parchment — not a paper — with a
skull depicted upon it. You will, of course, ask ' Where is the
connection ? ' I reply that the skull, or death's head, is the
well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death's head
is hoisted in all engagements.

" I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper.
Parchment is durable — almost imperishable. Matters of little
moment are rarely consigned to parchment ; since, for the mere
ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well
adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some meaning —
some relevancy — in the death's head. I did not fail to observe,
also, the form of the parchment. Although one of its corners
had been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that
the original form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed,
as might have been chosen for a memorandum — for a record of
something to be long remembered and carefully preserved."

" But," I interposed, " you say that the skull was not upon
the parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How
then do you trace any connection between the boat and the skull
— since this latter, according to your own admission, must have
been designed (God only knows how or by whom) at some
period subsequent to your sketching the scarabceus ? "

" Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery, although the secret,
at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving.
My steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I

THE GOLD BUG. 285

reasoned, for example, thus : When I drew the scarabceut, there
was no skull apparent upon the parchment. When I had com-
pleted the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly
until you returned it. You, therefore, did not design the skull,
and no one else was present to do it. Then it was not done by
human agency. And nevertheless it was done.

" At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember,
and did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident
which occurred about the period in question. The weather
was chilly (oh rare and happy accident !), and a fire was blaz-
ing upon the hearth. I was heated with exercise, and sat near
the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chim-
ney. Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you
were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered,
and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you
caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the
parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between your knees,
and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought
the blaze had caught it, and was about to caution you, but,
before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were engaged
in its examination. When I considered all these particulars, I
doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent in
bringing to light, upon the parchment, the skull which I saw
designed upon it. You are well aware that chemical prepara-
tions exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of
which it is possible to write upon either paper or vellum, so
that the characters shall become visible only when subjected to
the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and diluted
with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed ; a
green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of
niter, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter
intervals after the material written upon cools, but again become
apparent upon the reapplication of heat.

" I now scrutinized the death's head with care. Its outer
edges — the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vel-
lum — were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that
the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I
immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the
parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the
strengthening of the faint lines in the skull ; but, upon per-
severing in the experiment, there became visible, at the corner
of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the death's

286 THE GOLD BUG.

head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to
be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was
intended for a kid."

" Ha ! ha ! " said I, " to be sure I have no right to laugh at
you — a million and a half of money is too serious a matter for
mirth — but you are not about to establish a third link in your
chain — you will not find any especial connection between your
pirates and a goat — pirates, you know, have nothing to do
with goats ; they appertain to the farming interest. "

"But I have said that the figure was not that of a goat."

"Well, a kid, then — pretty much the same thing."

" Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. " You
may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon
the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical
signature. I say signature, because its position upon the vel-
lum suggested this idea. The death's head at the corner
diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the air of a
stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all
else — of the body to my imagined instrument — of the text for
my context."

" I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp
and the signature."

"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly
impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune
impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it
was rather a desire than an actual belief ; but do you know that
Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a
remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the series of
accidents and coincidences — these were so very extraordinary.
Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these events
should have occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which
it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that with-
out the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the pre-
cise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become
aware of the death's head, and so never the possessor of the
treasure ? "

"But proceed — I am all impatience."

" Well, you have heard, of course, the many stories current
— the thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, some-
where upon the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates.
These rumors must have had some foundation in fact. And
that the rumors have existed so long and so continuous, could

THE GOLD BUG. 287

have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of
the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd con-
cealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the
rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvary-
ing form. You will observe that the stories told are all about
money seekers, not about money finders. Had the pirate re-
covered his money, there the affair would have dropped. It
seemed to me that some accident — say the loss of a memoran-
dum indicating its locality — had deprived him of the means of
recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his
followers, who otherwise might never have heard that treasure
had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves in
vain, because of unguided attempts, to regain it, had given
first birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which
are now so common. Have you ever heard of any important
treasure being unearthed along the coast ? "

"Never."

"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense is well
known. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still
held them ; and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you
that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the
parchment so strangely found involved a lost record of the
place of deposit."

" But how did you proceed ? "

"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the
heat; but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that
the coating of dirt might have something to do with the fail-
ure ; so I carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm
water over it, and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan,
with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of
lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become
thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to my inexpressible
joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to
be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan,
and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off,
the whole was just as you see it now."

Here Legrand, having reheated the parchment, submitted
it to my inspection. The following characters were rudely
traced, in a red tint, between the death's head and the goat : —

53$tt305))6*;4826)4t.)4t);806*;48t81[60))85;lt(;:t*8t83(88)5*t;
46(; 88*96*?;8)*tG485); 5*t2:*t(;4956*2(5*— 4)81 8*; 4069285); )6f8)4

288 THE GOLD BUG.

; 48081;8:8tl; 48t85; 4)485t528806*81(J9; 48;(88; 4(t?34;48)4t;

" But," said I, returning him the slip, " I am as much in
the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting
me upon my solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I
should be unable to earn them."

" And yet," said Legrand, " the solution is by no means so
difficult as you might be led to imagine from the first hasty
inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one
might readily guess, form a cipher — that is to say, they con-
vey a meaning: but then, from what is known of Kidd, I
could not suppose him capable of constructing any of the more
abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind, at once, that this
was of a simple species — such, however, as would appear, to
the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without
the key."

" And you really solved it ? "

"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten
thousand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of
mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may
well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an
enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper
application, resolve. In fact, having once established con-
nected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the
mere difficulty of developing their import.

" In the present case — indeed in all cases of secret writing
— the first question regards the language of the cipher; for
the principles of solution, so far, especially as the more simple
ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the
genius of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alter-
native but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every
tongue known to him who attempts the solution, until the true
one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all diffi-
culty was removed by the signature. The pun upon the word
' Kidd ' is appreciable in no other language than the English.
But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts
with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret
of this kind would most naturally have been written by a
pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the crypto-
graph to be English.

" You observe there are no divisions between the words.

THE GOLD BUG. 289

Had there been divisions, the task would have been compara-
tively easy. In such case I should have commenced with a
collation and analysis of the shorter words ; and had a word
of a single letter occurred, as is most likely (a or /, for exam-
ple), I should have considered the solution as assured. But,
there being no division, my first step was to ascertain the pre-
dominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Counting all,
I constructed a table thus : —

Of the characters 8 there are 33.
; " 26.

4 « 19.
t) " 16.

* " 13.

5 « 12.

6 " 11.

n « s.

0 " 6.

92 « 5.

:3 « 4.

? " 3.

IT " 2.

— « 1.

" Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs
is e. Afterwards, the succession runs thus : aoidhnrstu
ycffflmwbkpqxz. E predominates so remarkably that an
individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is
not the prevailing character.

" Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the ground-
work for something more than a mere guess. The general use
which may be made of the table is obvious — but in this particu-
lar cipher we shall only very partially require its aid. As our
predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it
as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let
us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples — for e is doubled
with great frequency in English — in such words, for example,
as * meet,' ' fleet,' * speed,' * seen,' ' been,' * agree,' etc. In the
present instance we see it doubled no less than five times,
although the cryptograph is brief.

" Let as assume 8 then, as e. Now, of all words in the lan-
guage, * the ' is most usual ; let us see, therefore, whether there
are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of

VOL. XXIII. 19

290 THE GOLD BUG.

collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repeti-
tions of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably rep-
resent the word 'the.' Upon inspection, we find no less than
seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may,
therefore, assume that ; represents £, 4 represents A, and 8 rep-
resents e — the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great
step has been taken.

"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to
establish a vastly important point ; that is to say, several com-
mencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer,
for example, to the last instance but one, in which the combi-
nation ;48 occurs — not far from the end of the cipher. We
know that the ; immediately ensuing is the commencement of
a word, and, of the six characters succeeding this ' the,' we are
cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters
down, thus, by the letters we know them to represent, leaving
a space for the unknown —

t eeth.

" Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the ' ihj as form-
ing no portion of the word commencing with the first t ; since,
by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the
vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which this
ih can be a part. We are thus narrowed into

t ee,

and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we
arrive at the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We
thus gain another letter r, represented by (, with the words
* the tree ' in juxtaposition.

" Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again
see the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to
what immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement :

the tree ;4(j?34 the,

or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus :
the tree thrj?3h the.

" Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave
blank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus : —

the tree thr...h the,

THE GOLD BUG. 291

when the word 4 through ' makes itself evident at once. But
this discovery gives us three new letters, 0, w, and ^, represented
by $, ?, and 3.

" Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combina-
tions of known characters, we find, not very far from the begin-
ning, this arrangement,

83(88, or egree,

which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word ' degree,' and gives
us another letter, d, represented by f .

"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the
combination,

;48(;88.

"Translating the known characters, and representing the
unknown by dots, as before, we read thus : —

th rtee,

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word, ' thirteen,'
and again furnishing us with two new characters, i and w, rep-
resented by 6 and *.

" Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we
find the combination,

" Translating, as before, we obtain

. good,

which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first two
words are ' A good.'

"It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as dis-
covered, in a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand

thus : —

5 represents a

t

" d

8

" e

3

" g

4

« h

6

it 1

*

" n

*

" 0

(

u T

i

" t

" We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important
letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with

292 THE GOLD BUG.

the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince
you that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give
you some insight into the rationale of their development. But
be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very
simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give
you the full translation of the characters upon the parchment,
as unriddled. Here it is : —

" ' A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat forty-
one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main
branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's
head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.' '

" But," said I, " the enigma seems still in as bad a condition
as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this
jargon about 'devil's seats,' 'death's heads,' and 'bishop's
hotels'?"

" I confess," replied Legrand, " that the matter still wears a
serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first
endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division
intended by the cryptographist. "

" You mean to punctuate it ? "

"Something of that kind."

" But how was it possible to effect this ? "

" I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run
his words together without division, so as to increase the diffi-
culty of solution. Now, a not overacute man, in pursuing
such an object, would be nearly certain to overdo the matter.
When, in the course of his composition, he arrived at a break
in his subject which would naturally require a pause, or a point,
he would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this place,
more than usually close together. If you will observe the MS.
in the present instance you will easily detect five such cases of
unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the division
thus : —

" ' A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat — forty-
one degrees and thirteen minutes — northeast and by north — main
branch seventh limb east side — shoot from the left eye of the
death's head — a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet
out: '

"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the
dark."

" It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, " for a few
days, during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighbor-

THE GOLD BUG. 293

hood of Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the
name of the 'Bishop's Hotel'; for, of course, I dropped the
obsolete word 'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject,
I was on the point of extending my sphere of search, and pro-
ceeding in a more systematic manner, when, one morning,
it entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this ' Bishop's
Hostel' might have some reference to an old family, of the
name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held possession
of an ancient manor house, about four miles to the northward
of the Island. I accordingly went over to the plantation, and
reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place.
At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had
heard of such a place as Bessop^s Castle, and thought that she
could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern,
but a high rock.

" I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some
demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found
it without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded
to examine the place. The ' castle ' consisted of an irregular
assemblage of cliffs and rocks — one of the latter being quite
remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and artifi-
cial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt much
at a loss as to what should be next done.

"While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a
narrow ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard
below the summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected
about eighteen inches, and was not more than a foot wide,
while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resem-
blance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors.
I made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to
in the MS., and now I seemed to grasp the full secret of the
riddle.

" The ' good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing
but a telescope ; for the word ' glass ' is rarely employed in
any other sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a
telescope to be used, and a definite point of view, admitting no
variation, from which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe
that the phrases, 'forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,'
and ' northeast and by north,' were intended as directions for
the leveling of the glass. Greatly excited by these discov-
eries, I hurried home, procured a telescope, and returned to the
rock.

294 THE GOLD BUG.

" I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was im-
possible to retain a seat upon it except in one particular posi-
tion. This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded
to use the glass. Of course, the ' forty-one degrees and thirteen
minutes ' could allude to nothing but elevation above the visi-
ble horizon, since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated
by the words, ' northeast and by north.' This latter direction
I at once established by means of a pocket compass; then,
pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of forty-one degrees
of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up
or down, until my attention was arrested by a circular rift or
opening in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows
in the distance. In the center of this rift I perceived a white
spot, but could not, at first, distinguish what it was. Adjust-
ing the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it
out to be a human skull.

" Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the
enigma solved ; for the phrase ' main branch, seventh limb, east
side,' could refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree,
while ' shoot from the left eye of the death's head ' admitted
also of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried
treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet
from the left eye of the skull, and that a bee line, or, in other
words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point of the
trunk through * the shot ' (or the spot where the bullet fell),
and thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate
a definite point — and beneath this point I thought it at least
possible that a deposit of value lay concealed."

" All this," I said, " is exceedingly clear, and, although
ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the ' Bish-
op's Hotel,' what then?"

"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I
turned homewards. The instant that I left the ' devil's seat,'
however, the circular rift vanished ; nor could I get a glimpse
of it afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief
ingenuity in this whole business is the fact (for repeated experi-
ment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening
in question is visible from no other attainable point of view
than that afforded by the narrow ledge upon the face of the
rock.

"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been
attended by Jupiter, who had no doubt observed for some

THE GOLD BUG. 295

weeks past the abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial
care not to leave me alone. But, on the next day, getting up
very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and went into the
hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found it. When
I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flogging.
With the rest of the adventure I believe you are as well ac-
quainted as myself."

"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first
attempt at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the
bug fall through the right instead of through the left eye of the
skull."

" Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two
inches and a half in the ' shot ' — that is to say, in the position
of the peg nearest the tree ; and had the treasure been beneath
the * shot,' the error would have been of little moment ; but the
' shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely
two points for the establishment of a line of direction ; of course
the error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as we
proceeded with the line, and by the time we had gone fifty
feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated
impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually buried,
we might have had all our labor in vain."

" But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging
the beetle — how excessively odd I I was sure you were mad.
And why did you insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a
bullet, from the skull ? "

" Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evi-
dent suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish
you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystifica-
tion. For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I
let it fall from the tree. An observation of yours about its
great weight suggested the latter idea."

" Yes, I perceive ; and now there is only one point which
puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in
the hole?"

"That is a question I am no more able to answer than
yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way of
accounting for them — and yet it is dreadful to believe in such
atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd —
if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt not — it is
clear that he must have had assistance in the labor. But this
labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient to remove

296 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with
a mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the
pit; perhaps it required a dozen — who shall tell?"

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER; OR THE
BLACK BROTHERS.

BY JOHN RUSKIN.

[JOHN RUSKIN : English critic and essayist ; born at London, February 8,1819.
In 1839 he took the Newdigate prize for a poem. During his Oxford days he
published many verses over the signature " J. R." In 1850 his poems were col-
lected and privately printed. A reprint was made of them in New York in 1882.
He studied art, but rather for the purposes of criticism. In 1843 appeared the
first part of " Modern Painters," which was a vehement eulogy of J. M. W.
Turner; the last volume in 1856. "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," 1849,
and " The Stones of Venice," 1851-1853, are his best-known works. Among his
popular lectures have been " Munera Pulveris," 1862-1863 ; "Sesame and Lilies,"
1865 ; " Crown of Wild Olive," 1866 ; and "The Queen of the Air," 1869. His
works include dozens of other titles on artistic, social, and economic subjects.
His Praeterita," 1885, is autobiographical. He died in 1900.]

How THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS

WAS INTERFERED WITH BY SOUTHWEST WlND, ESQUIRE.

IN A secluded and mountainous part of Stiria there was, in
old time, a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility.
It was surrounded, on all sides, by steep and rocky mountains,
rising into peaks, which were always covered with snow, and
from which a number of torrents descended in constant cata-
racts. One of these fell westward, over the face of a crag so
high, that, when the sun had set to everything else, and all
below was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this water-
fall, so that it looked like a shower of gold. It was, there-
fore, called by the people of the neighborhood, the Golden
River. It was strange that none of these streams fell into the
valley itself. They all descended on the other side of the
mountains, and wound away through broad plains and by popu-
lous cities. But the clouds were drawn so constantly to the
snowy hills, and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that in
time of drought and heat, when all the country round was
burnt up, there was still rain in the little valley ; and its crops

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 297

were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its apples so red, and
its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and its honey so sweet,
that it was a marvel to every one who beheld it, and was com-
monly called the Treasure Valley.

The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers,
called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two
elder brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eye-
brows and small dull eyes, which were always half shut, so
that you couldn't see into them, and always fancied they saw
very far into you. They lived by farming the Treasure Valley,
and very good farmers they were. They killed everything that
did not pay for its eating. They shot the blackbirds, because
they pecked the fruit ; and killed the hedgehogs, lest they
should suck the cows ; they poisoned the crickets for eating
the crumbs in the kitchen ; and smothered the cicadas, which
used to sing all summer in the lime trees. They worked their
servants without any wages, till they would not work any more,
and then quarreled with them, and turned them out of doors
without paying them. It would have been very odd, if with
such a farm, and such a system of farming, they hadn't got
very rich ; and very rich they did get. They generally con-
trived to keep their corn by them till it was very dear, and then
sell it for twice its value ; they had heaps of gold lying about
on their floors, yet it was never known that they had given so
much as a penny or a crust in charity ; they never went to
mass ; grumbled perpetually at paying tithes ; and were, in a
word, of so cruel and grinding a temper, as to receive from all
those with whom they had any dealings, the nickname of the
"Black Brothers."

The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in
both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly
be imagined or desired. He was not above twelve years old,
fair, blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing. He
did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or
rather, they did not agree with him. He was usually appointed
to the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to
roast, which was not often ; for, to do the brothers justice, they
were hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other peo-
ple. At other times he used to clean the shoes, floors, and
sometimes the plates, occasionally getting what was left on
them, by way of encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of
dry blows, by way of education.

298 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

Things went on in this manner for a long time. At last
came a very wet summer, and everything went wrong in the
country around. The hay had hardly been got in, when the
haystacks were floated bodily down to the sea by an inunda-
tion ; the vines were cut to pieces with the hail ; the corn was
all killed by a black blight ; only in the Treasure Valley, as
usual, all was safe. As it had rain when there was rain no-
where else, so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else.
Everybody came to buy corn at the farm, and went away pour-
ing maledictions on the Black Brothers. They asked what
they liked, and got it, except from the poor people, who could
only beg, and several of whom were starved at their very door,
without the slightest regard or notice.

It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when
one day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual
warning to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he
was to let nobody in, and give nothing out. Gluck sat down
quite close to the fire, for it was raining very hard, and the
kitchen walls were by no means dry or comfortable looking.
He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and brown.
" What a pity," thought Gluck, " my brothers never ask any-
body to dinner. I'm sure, when they've got such a nice piece
of mutton as this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece
of dry bread, it would do their hearts good to have somebody
to eat it with them."

Just as he spoke, there came a double knock at the house
door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied
up — more like a puff than a knock.

" It must be the wind," said Gluck ; " nobody else would
venture to knock double knocks at our door."

No ; it wasn't the wind : there it came again very hard, and
what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in
a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences.
Gluck went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to
see who it was.

It was the most extraordinary-looking little gentleman he
had ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly
brass-colored ; his cheeks were very round, and very red, and
might have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing
a refractory fire for the last eight and forty hours; his eyes
twinkled merrily through long silky eyelashes, his mustaches
curled twice round like a corkscrew on each side of his mouth,

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 299

and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt color, descended
far over his shoulders. He was about four feet six in height,
and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude, deco-
rated with a black feather some three feet long. His doublet
was prolonged behind into something resembling a violent ex-
aggeration of what is now termed a "swallow tail," but was
much obscured by the swelling folds of an enormous black,
glossy-looking cloak, which must have been very much too
long in calm weather, as the wind, whistling round the old
house, carried it clear out from the wearer's shoulders to about
four times his own length.

Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by the singular appearance
of his visitor, that he remained fixed without uttering a word,
until the old gentleman, having performed another, and a more
energetic concerto on the knocker, turned round to look after
his fly-away cloak. In so doing he caught sight of Gluck's little
yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth and eyes
very wide open indeed.

" Hollo ! " said the little gentleman, " that's not the way to
answer the door : I'm wet, let me in."

To do the little gentleman justice, he was wet. His feather
hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping
like an umbrella; and from the ends of his mustaches the
water was running into his waistcoat pockets, and out again
like a mill stream.

"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, "I'm very sorry, but I
really can't."

" Can't what ! " said the old gentleman.

"I can't let you in, sir — I can't, indeed ; my brothers would
beat me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do
you want, sir ? "

"Want ? " said the old gentleman, petulantly. " I want fire,
and shelter ; and there's your great fire there blazing, crackling,
and dancing on the walls, with nobody to feel it. Let me in, I
say; I only want to warm myself."

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the
window, that he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold,
and when he turned, and saw the beautiful fire rustling and
roaring, and throwing long bright tongues up the chimney, as
if it were licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of
mutton, his heart melted within him that it should be burning
away for nothing. " He does look very wet," said little Gluck ;

300 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

"I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round he went
to the door, and opened it, and as the little gentleman walked
in, there came a gust of wind through the house, that made the
old chimneys totter.

" That's a good boy," said the little gentleman. " Never
mind your brothers. I'll talk to them."

" Pray, sir, don't do any such thing," said Gluck. " I can't
let you stay till they come ; they'd be the death of me."

" Dear me," said the old gentleman, " I'm very sorry to hear
that. How long may I stay ? "

" Only till the mutton's done, sir," replied Gluck, " and it's
very brown."

Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen, and sat
himself down on the hob, with the top of his cap accommodated
up the chimney, for it was a great deal too high for the roof.

" You'll soon dry there, sir," said Gluck, and sat down again
to turn the mutton. But the old gentleman did not dry there,
but went on drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, and the
fire fizzed, and sputtered, and began to look very black and
uncomfortable : never was such a cloak ; every fold in it ran
like a gutter.

" I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck at length, after watching
the water spreading in long quicksilver-like streams over the
floor for a quarter of an hour ; " mayn't I take your cloak ? "

" No, thank you," said the old gentleman.

" Your cap, sir ? "

" I am all right, thank you," said the old gentleman, rather
gruffly.

"But, — sir, — I'm very sorry," said Gluck, hesitatingly;
" but — really, sir, — you're — putting the fire out."

"It'll take longer to do the mutton, then," replied his
visitor, dryly.

Gluck was very much puzzled by the behavior of his
guest ; it was such a strange mixture of coolness and humility.
He turned away at the string meditatively for another five
minutes.

" That mutton looks very nice," said the old gentleman at
length. " Can't you give me a little bit? "

" Impossible, sir," said Gluck.

" I'm very hungry," continued the old gentleman : " I've
had nothing to eat yesterday, nor to-day. They surely couldn't
miss a bit from the knuckle ! "

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 301

He spoke in so very melancholy a tone, that it quite melted
Gluck's heart. " They promised me one slice to-day, air," said
he ; "I can give you that, but not a bit more."

" That's a good boy," said the old gentleman again.

Then Gluck warmed a plate, and sharpened a knife. "I
don't care if I do get beaten for it," thought he. Just as he
had cut a large slice out of the mutton, there came a tremen-
dous rap at the door. The old gentleman jumped off the hob,
as if it had suddenly become inconveniently warm. Gluck
fitted the slice into the mutton again, with desperate efforts at
exactitude, and ran to open the door.

"What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?" said
Schwartz, as he walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck's
face. " Ay ! what for, indeed, you little vagabond? " said Hans,
administering an educational box on the ear, as he followed his
brother into the kitchen.

" Bless my soul ! " said Schwartz when he opened the door.

" Amen," said the little gentleman, who had taken his cap
off, and was standing in the middle of the kitchen, bowing with
the utmost possible velocity.

" Who's that? " said Schwartz, catching up a rolling-pin, and
turning to Gluck with a fierce frown.

" I don't know, indeed, brother," said Gluck, in great terror.

" How did he get in ? " roared Schwartz.

" My dear brother," said Gluck, deprecatingly, " he was so
very wet I "

The rolling-pin was descending on Gluck's head ; but, at
the instant, the old gentleman interposed his conical cap, on
which it crashed with a shock that shook the water out of it all
over the room. What was very odd, the rolling-pin no sooner
touched the cap, than it flew out of Schwartz's hand, spinning
like a straw in a high wind, and fell into the corner at the
further end of the room.

" Who are you, sir? " demanded Schwartz, turning upon him.

" What's your business ? " snarled Hans.

" I'm a poor old man, sir," the little gentleman began very
modestly, " and I saw your fire through the window, and begged
shelter for a quarter of an hour."

" Have the goodness to walk out again, then," said Schwartz.
" We've quite enough water in our kitchen, without making it
a drying house."

" It is a cold day to turn an old man out in, sir ; look at my

302 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

gray hairs." They hung down to his shoulders, as I told you
before.

" Ay ! " said Hans, " there are enough of them to keep yoij
warm. Walk ! "

" I'm very, very hungry, sir ; couldn't you spare me a bit of
bread before I go ? "

" Bread, indeed ! " said Schwartz ; " do you suppose we've
nothing to do with our bread, but to give it to such red-nosed
fellows as you ? "

" Why don't you sell your feather ? " said Hans, sneeringly.
" Out with you."

" A little bit," said the old gentleman.

" Be off ! "

"Pray, gentlemen."

" Off, and be hanged ! " cried Hans, seizing him by the col-
lar. But he had no sooner touched the old gentleman's collar,
then away he went after the rolling-pin, spinning round and
round, till he fell into the corner on the top of it. Then
Schwartz was very angry, and ran at the old gentleman to turn
him out ; but he also had hardly touched him, when away he
went after Hans and the rolling-pin, and hit his head against
the wall as he tumbled into the corner. And so there they lay,
all three.

Then the old gentleman spun himself round with velocity in
the opposite direction ; continued to spin until his long cloak
was all wound neatly about him ; clapped his cap on his head,
very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without
going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his cork-
screw mustaches, and replied with perfect coolness : " Gentle-
men, I wish you a very good morning. At twelve o'clock,
to-night I'll call again ; after such a refusal of hospitality as I
have just experienced, you will not be surprised if that visit is
the last I ever pay you."

" If ever I catch you here again," muttered Schwartz, com-
ing, half frightened, out of the corner — but, before he could
finish his sentence, the old gentleman had shut the house door
behind him with a great bang : and there drove past the win-
dow, at the same instant, a wreath of ragged cloud, that whirled
and rolled away down the valley in all manner of shapes ; turn-
ing over and over in the air ; and melting away at last in a
gush of rain.

" A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck ! " said Schwartz.

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 303

" Dish the mutton, sir. If ever I catch you at such a trick
again — bless me, why the mutton's been cut I "

"You promised me one slice, brother, you know," said
Gluck.

" Oh ! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to
catch all the gravy. It'll be long before I promise you such a
thing again. Leave the room, sir ; and have the kindness to
wait in the coal cellar till I call you."

Gluck left the room melancholy enough. The brothers ate
as much mutton as they could, locked the rest in the cupboard,
and proceeded to get very drunk after dinner.

Such a night as it was I Howling wind, and rushing rain,
without intermission. The brothers had just sense enough
left to put up all the shutters, and double bar the door, before
they went to bed. They usually slept in the same room. As
the clock struck twelve, they were both awakened by a tre-
mendous crash. Their door burst open with a violence that
shook the house from top to bottom.

" What's that ? " cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed.

" Only I," said the little gentleman.

The two brothers sat up on their bolster, and stared into
the darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty
moonbeam, which found its way through a hole in the shutter,
they could see in the midst of it, an enormous foam globe,
spinning round, and bobbing up and down like a cork, on
which, as on a most luxurious cushion, reclined the little old
gentleman, cap and all. There was plenty of room for it now,
for the roof was off.

"Sorry to incommode you," said their visitor, ironically.
•* I'm afraid your beds are dampish ; perhaps you had better
go to your brother's room : I've left the ceiling on, there."

They required no second admonition, but rushed into
Gluck's room, wet through, and in an agony of terror.

"You'll find my card on the kitchen table," the old gen-
tleman called after them. "Remember, the last visit."

" Pray Heaven it may ! " said Schwartz, shuddering. And
the foam globe disappeared.

Dawn came at last, and the two brothers looked out of
Gluck's little window in the morning. The Treasure Valley
was one mass of ruin and desolation. The inundation had
swept away trees, crops, and cattle, and left, in their stead,
a waste of red sand and gray mud. The two brothers crept

304 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

shivering and horror-struck into the kitchen. The water had
gutted the whole first floor ; corn, money, almost every mov-
able thing had been swept away, and there was left only a
small white card on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy,
long-legged letters, were engraved the words : —

seaTHwesr WIND, ES@HIRE.

OF THE PROCEEDINGS OP THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER
THE VISIT OF SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE ; AND HOW
LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF
THE GOLDEN RIVER.

Southwest Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word.
After the momentous visit above related, he entered the
Treasure Valley no more ; and, what was worse, he had so
much influence with his relations, the West Winds in general,
and used it so effectually, that they all adopted a similar line
of conduct. So no rain fell in the valley from one year's end
to another. Though everything remained green and flourish-
ing in the plains below, the inheritance of the Three Brothers
was a desert. What had once been the richest soil in the
kingdom, became a shifting heap of red sand ; and the brothers,
unable longer to contend with the adverse skies, abandoned
their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek some means of
gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the plains.
All their money was gone, and they had nothing left but some
curious old-fashioned pieces of gold plate, the last remnants
of their ill-gotten wealth.

" Suppose we turn goldsmiths," said Schwartz to Hans, as
they entered the large city. " It is a good knave's trade ; we
can put a great deal of copper into the gold, without any one's
finding it out."

The thought was agreed to be a very good one ; they hired
a furnace, and turned goldsmiths. But two slight circum-
stances affected their trade : the first, that people did not
approve of the coppered gold ; the second, that the two elder

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 805

brothers, whenever they had sold anything, used to leave little
Gluck to mind the furnace, and go and drink out the money in
the alehouse next door. So they melted all their gold, without
making money enough to buy more, and were at last reduced to
one large drinking mug, which an uncle of his had given to
little Gluck, and which he was very fond of, and would not
have parted with for the world ; though he never drank any-
thing out of it but milk and water. The mug was a very odd
mug to look at. The handle was formed of two wreaths of
flowing golden hair, so finely spun that it looked more like silk
than metal, and these wreaths descended into, and mixed with,
a beard and whiskers of the same exquisite workmanship, which
surrounded and decorated a very fierce little face, of the red-
dest gold imaginable, right in the front of the mug, with a pair
of eyes in it which seemed to command its whole circumference.
It was impossible to drink out of the mug without being sub-
jected to an intense gaze out of the side of these eyes; and
Schwartz positively averred that once, after emptying it, full of
Rhenish, seventeen times, he had seen them wink I When it
came to the mug's turn to be made into spoons, it half broke
poor little Gluck's heart ; but the brothers only laughed at him,
tossed the mug into the melting pot, and staggered out to the
alehouse, — leaving him, as usual, to pour the gold into bars,
when it was all ready. .

When they were gone, Gluck took a farewell look at his old
friend in the melting pot. The flowing hair was all gone ;
nothing remained but the red nose, and the sparkling eyes,
which looked more malicious than ever. " And no wonder,"
thought Gluck, " after being treated in that way." He saun-
tered disconsolately to the window, and sat himself down to
catch the fresh evening air, and escape the hot breath of the
furnace. Now this window commanded a direct view of the
range of mountains, which, as I told you before, overhung
the Treasure Valley, and more especially of the peak from
which fell the Golden River. It was just at the close of the
day, and, when Gluck sat down at the window, he saw the rocks
of the mountain tops, all crimson and purple with the sunset ;
and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and quiv-
ering about them ; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in a
waving column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with
the double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it,
flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths of spray.

VOL. XXIII. 20

306 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

"Ah! " said Gluck aloud, after he had looked at it for a
while, " if that river were really all gold, what a nice thing it
would be."

"No, it wouldn't, Gluck," said a clear metallic voice, close
at his ear.

" Bless me, what's that ? " exclaimed Gluck, jumping up.
There was nobody there. He looked round the room, and
under the table, and a great many times behind him, but there
was certainly nobody there, and he sat down again at the win-
dow. This time he didn't speak, but he couldn't help thinking
again that it would be very convenient if the river were really
all gold.

" Not at all, my boy," said the same voice, louder than before.

" Bless me ! " said Gluck again, " what is that ? " He
looked again into all the corners, and cupboards, and then
began turning round, and round, as fast as he could in the mid-
dle of the room, thinking there was somebody behind him, when
the same voice struck again on his ear. It was singing now
very merrily, " Lala-lira-la " ; no words, only a soft running
effervescent melody, something like that of a kettle on the boil.
Gluck looked out of the window. No, it was certainly in the
house. Upstairs, and downstairs. No, it was certainly in that
very room, coming in quicker time, and clearer notes, every
moment. "Lala-lira-la." All at once it struck Gluck, that it
sounded louder near the furnace. He ran to the opening, and
looked in : yes, he saw right, it seemed to be coming, not only
out of the furnace, but out of the pot. He uncovered it, and
ran back in a great fright, for the pot was certainly singing !
He stood in the farthest corner of the room, with his hands up,
and his mouth open, for a minute or two, when the singing
stopped, and the voice became clear and pronunciative.

" Hollo ! " said the voice.

Gluck made no answer.

" Hollo ! Gluck, my boy," said the pot again.

Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the
crucible, drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold
was all melted, and its surface as smooth and polished as a
river ; but instead of reflecting little Gluck's head, as he looked
in, he saw meeting his glance from beneath the gold, the red
nose and sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand
times redder and sharper than ever he had seen them in
his life.

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 307

" Come, Gluck, my boy," said the voice out of the pot again,
" I'm all right ; pour me out."

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the
kind.

" Pour me out, I say," said the voice, rather gruffly.

Still Gluck couldn't move.

" Will you pour me out ? " said the voice, passionately, " I'm
too hot."

By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs,
took hold of the crucible, and sloped it, so as to pour out the
gold. But instead of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a
pair of pretty little yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair
of arms stuck akimbo, and, finally, the well-known head of his
friend the mug ; all which articles, uniting as they rolled out,
stood up energetically on the floor, in the shape of a little
golden dwarf, about a foot and a half high.

" That's right I " said the dwarf, stretching out first his
legs, and then his arms, and then shaking his head up and
down, and as far round as it would go, for five minutes, without
stopping ; apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were
quite correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating
him in speechless amazement. He was dressed in a slashed
doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture, that the prismatic
colors gleamed over it, as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl ;
and, over this brilliant doublet, his hair and beard fell full half-
way to the ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate, that
Gluck could hardly tell where they ended ; they seemed to melt
into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means
finished with the same delicacy ; they were rather coarse,
slightly inclining to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in
expression, of a very pertinacious and intractable disposition
in their small proprietor. When the dwarf had finished his
self-examination, he turned his small sharp eyes full on Gluck,
and stared at him deliberately for a minute or two. " No, it
wouldn't, Gluck, my boy," said the little man.

This was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode
of commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to
refer to the course of Gluck's thoughts, which had first produced
the dwarf's observations out of the pot ; but whatever it referred
to, Gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum.

"Wouldn't it, sir?" said Gluck, very mildly and submissively
indeed.

308 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

"No," said the dwarf, conclusively. "No, it wouldn't."
And with that the dwarf pulled his cap hard over his brows,
and took two turns, of three feet long, up and down the room,
lifting his legs up very high, and setting them down very hard.
This pause gave time for Gluck to collect his thoughts a little,
and, seeing no great reason to view his diminutive visitor with
dread, and feeling his curiosity overcome his amazement, he
ventured on a question of peculiar delicacy.

" Pray, sir," said Gluck, rather hesitatingly, " were you my
mug?" "

On which the little man turned sharp round, walked straight
up to Gluck, and drew himself up to his full height. " I," said
the little man, "am the King of the Golden River." Where-
upon he turned about again, and took two more turns, some six
feet long, in order to allow time for the consternation which
this announcement produced in his auditor to evaporate. After
which, he again walked up to Gluck and stood still, as if expect-
ing some comment on his communication.

Gluck determined to say something at all events. " I hope
your Majesty is very well," said Gluck.

" Listen ! " said the little man, deigning no reply to this
polite inquiry, " I am the King of what you mortals call the
Golden River. The shape you saw me in was owing to the
malice of a stronger king, from whose enchantments you have
this instant freed me. What I have seen of you, and your con-
duct to your wicked brothers, renders me willing to serve you ;
therefore, attend to what I tell you. Whoever shall climb to
the top of that mountain from which you see the Golden River
issue, and shall cast into the stream at its source, three drops of
holy water, for him, and for him only, the river shall turn to
gold. But no one failing in his first, can succeed in his second
attempt ; and if any one shall cast unholy water into the river,
it will overwhelm him, and he will become a black stone." So
saying, the King of the Golden River turned away and deliber-
ately walked into the center of the hottest flame of the furnace.
His figure became red, white, transparent, dazzling — a blaze of
intense light — rose, trembled, and disappeared. The King of
the Golden River had evaporated.

" Oh ! " cried poor Gluck, running to look up the chimney
after him ; " Oh, dear, dear, dear me I My mug ! my mug ! my
mug I "

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

How MB. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE
GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN.

The King of the Golden River had hardly made the extraor-
dinary exit related in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz
came roaring into the house, very savagely drunk. The discov-
ery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect of
sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over Gluck,
beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour, at the expi-
ration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs, and
requested to know what he had got to say for himself. Gluck
told them his story, of which, of course, they did not believe
a word. They beat him again, till their arms were tired, and
staggered to bed. In the morning, however, the steadiness
with which he adhered to his story obtained him some degree of
credence ; the immediate consequence of which was, that the
two brothers, after wrangling a long time on the knotty ques-
tion, which of them should try his fortune first, drew their
swords and began fighting. The noise of the fray alarmed the
neighbors, who, finding they could not pacify the combatants,
sent for the constable.

Hans, on hearing this, contrived to escape, and hid himself ;
but Schwartz was taken before the magistrate, fined for break-
ing the peace, and, having drunk out his last penny the evening
before, was thrown into prison till he should pay.

When Hans heard this, he was much delighted, and deter-
mined to set out immediately for the Golden River. How to
get the holy water, was the question. He went to the priest,
but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned a
character. So Hans went to vespers in the evening for the first
time in his life, and, under pretense of crossing himself, stole a
cupful, and returned home in triumph.

Next morning he got up before the sun rose, put the holy
water into a strong flask, and two bottles of wine and some
meat in a basket, slung them over his back, took his alpine staff
in his hand, and set off for the mountains.

On his way out of town he had to pass the prison, and as he
looked in at the windows, whom should he see but Schwartz
himself peeping out of the bars, and looking very disconsolate.

" Good morning, brother," said Hans , " have you any mes-
sage for the King of the Golden River ? "

310 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

Schwartz gnashed his teeth with rage, and shook the bars
with all his strength ; but Hans only laughed at him, and
advising him to make himself comfortable till he came back
again, shouldered his basket, shook the bottle of holy water in
Schwartz's face till it frothed again, and marched off in the
highest spirits in the world.

It was, indeed, a morning that might have made any one
happy, even with no Golden River to seek for. Level lines of
dewy mist lay stretched along the valley, out of which rose the
massy mountains — their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly
distinguishable from the floating vapor, but gradually ascend-
ing till they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharp touches of
ruddy color along the angular crags, and pierced, in long level
rays, through their fringes of spearlike pine. Far above, shot
up red splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered
into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of
sunlit snow, traced down their chasms like a line of forked
lightning ; and, far beyond, and far above all these, fainter
than the morning cloud, but purer and changeless, slept, in the
blue sky, the utmost peaks of the eternal snow.

The Golden River, which sprang from one of the lower and
snowless elevations, was now nearly in shadow ; all but the
uppermost jets of spray, which rose like slow smoke above the
undulating line of the cataract, and floated away in feeble
wreaths upon the morning wind.

On this object, and on this alone, Hans' eyes and thoughts
were fixed ; forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set
off at an imprudent rate of walking, which greatly exhausted
him before he had scaled the first range of the green and low
hills. He was, moreover, surprised, on surmounting them, to
find that a large glacier, of whose existence, notwithstanding
his previous knowledge of the mountains, he had been absolutely
ignorant, lay between him and the source of the Golden River.
He entered on it with the boldness of a practiced mountaineer ;
yet he thought he had never traversed so strange or so danger-
ous a glacier in his life. The ice was excessively slippery, and
out of all its chasms came wild sounds of gushing water ; not
monotonous or low, but changeful and loud, rising occasionally
into drifting passages of wild melody, then breaking off into
short melancholy tones, or sudden shrieks, resembling those of
human voices in distress or pain. The ice was broken into
thousands of confused shapes, but none, Hans thought, like the

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 811

ordinary forms of splintered ice. There seemed a curious ex-
pression about all their outlines — a perpetual resemblance to
living features, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful
shadows and lurid lights played and floated about and through
the pale blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the
traveler ; while his ears grew dull and his head giddy with the
constant gush and roar of the concealed waters. These pain-
ful circumstances increased upon him as he advanced ; the ice
crashed and yawned into fresh chasms at his feet, tottering
spires nodded around him, and fell thundering across his path ;
and though he had repeatedly faced these dangers on the most
terrific glaciers, and in the wildest weather, it was with a new
and oppressive feeling of panic terror that he leaped the last
chasm, and flung himself, exhausted and shuddering, on the firm
turf of the mountain.

He had been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which
became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no
means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating
some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst ;
an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and with the indom-
itable spirit of avarice, he resumed his laborious journey.

His way now lay straight up a ridge of bare red rocks,
without a blade of grass to ease the foot, or a projecting angle
to afford an inch of shade from the south sun. It was past
noon, and the rays beat intensely upon the steep path, while
the whole atmosphere was motionless, and penetrated with
heat. Intense thirst was soon added to the bodily fatigue
with which Hans was now afflicted ; glance after glance he cast
on the flask of water which hung at his belt. " Three drops
are enough," at last thought he ; "I may, at least, cool my lips
with it."

He opened the flask, and was raising it to his lips, when his
eye fell on an object lying on the rock beside him ; he thought
it moved. It was a small dog, apparently in the last agony of
death from thirst. Its tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs
extended lifelessly, and a swarm of black ants were crawling
about its lips and throat. Its eye moved to the bottle which
Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank, spurned the ani-
mal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not know how
it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly
come across the blue sky.

The path became steeper and more rugged every moment ;

312 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to
throw his blood into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts
sounded like mockery in his ears ; they were all distant, and
his thirst increased every moment. Another hour passed, and
he again looked down to the flask at his side; it was half
empty ; but there was much more than three drops in it. He
stopped to open it, and again, as he did so, something moved in
the path above him. It was a fair child, stretched nearly life-
less on the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed,
and its lips parched and burning. Hans eyed it deliberately,
drank, and passed on. And a dark gray cloud came over the
sun, and long, snakelike shadows crept up along the mountain
sides. Hans struggled on. The sun was sinking, but its
descent seemed to bring no coolness ; the leaden weight of the
dead air pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal was near.
He saw the cataract of the Golden River springing from the
hillside, scarcely five hundred feet above him. He paused for
a moment to breathe, and sprang on to complete his task.

At this instant a faint cry fell on his ear. He turned, and
saw a gray-haired old man extended on the rocks. His eyes
were sunk, his features deadly pale and gathered into an ex-
pression of despair. " Water ! " he stretched his arms to Hans,
and cried feebly, "Water ! I am dying."

" I have none," replied Hans ; " thou hast had thy share
of life." He strode over the prostrate body, and darted on.
And a flash of blue lightning rose out of the East, shaped
like a sword ; it shook thrice over the whole heaven, and left
it dark with one heavy, impenetrable shade. The sun was
setting ; it plunged toward the horizon like a red-hot ball.

The roar of the Golden River rose on Hans' ear. He stood
at the brink of the chasm through which it ran. Its waves
were filled with the red glory of the sunset : they shook their
crests like tongues of fire, and flashes of bloody light gleamed
along their foam. Their sound came mightier and mightier on
his senses ; his brain grew giddy with the prolonged thunder.
Shuddering he drew the flask from his girdle, and hurled it
into the center of the torrent. As he did so, an icy chill shot
through his limbs : he staggered, shrieked, and fell. The
waters closed over his cry. And the moaning of the river
rose wildly into the night, as it gushed over

THE BLACK STONE.

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 813

How MR. SCHWARTZ SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE
GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN.

Poor little Gluck waited very anxiously alone in the house,
for Hans' return. Finding he did not come back, he was ter-
ribly frightened, and went and told Schwartz in the prison all
that had happened. Then Schwartz was very much pleased,
and said that Hans must certainly have been turned into a
black stone, and he should have all the gold to himself. But
Gluck was very sorry, and cried all night. When he got up
in the morning, there was no bread in the house, nor any
money, so Gluck went, and hired himself to another gold-
smith, and he worked so hard, and so neatly, and so long
every day, that he soon got money enough together to pay
his brother's fine, and he went, and gave it all to Schwartz,
and Schwartz got out of prison. Then Schwartz was quite
pleased, and said he should have some of the gold of the
river. But Gluck only begged he would go and see what
had become of Hans.

Now when Schwartz had heard that Hans had stolen the
holy water, he thought to himself that such a proceeding
might not be considered altogether correct by the King of
the Golden River, and determined to manage matters better.
So he took some more of Gluck's money, and went to a bad
priest, who gave him some holy water very readily for it.
Then Schwartz was sure it was all quite right. So Schwartz
got up early in the morning before the sun rose, and took
some bread and wine, in a basket, and put his holy water in
a flask, and set off for the mountains. Like his brother, he
was much surprised at the sight of the glacier, and had great
difficulty in crossing it, even after leaving his basket behind
him. The day was cloudless, but not bright : there was a
heavy purple haze hanging over the sky, and the hills looked
lowering and gloomy. And as Schwartz climbed the steep
rock path, the thirst came upon him, as it had upon his brother,
until he lifted his flask to his lips to drink. Then he saw the
fair child lying near him on the rocks, and it cried to him,
and moaned for water.

" Water, indeed," said Schwartz ; " I haven't half enough
for myself," and passed on. And as he went he thought the
sunbeams grew more dim, and he saw a low bank of black

314 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

cloud rising out of the West ; and when he had climbed f 01
another hour the thirst overcame him again, and he would
have drunk. Then he saw the old man lying before him on
the path, and heard him cry out for water. " Water, indeed,"
said Schwartz, " I haven't half enough for myself," and on he
went.

Then again the light seemed to fade from before his eyes,
and he looked up, and, behold, a mist, of the color of blood,
had come over the sun ; and the bank of black cloud had risen
very high, and its edges were tossing and tumbling like the
waves of the angry sea. And they cast long shadows, which
flickered over Schwartz's path.

Then Schwartz climbed for another hour, and again his
thirst returned ; and as he lifted his flask to his lips, he
thought he saw his brother Hans lying exhausted on the path
before him, and, as he gazed, the figure stretched its arms to
him, and cried for water. " Ha, ha," laughed Schwartz, " are
you there ? remember the prison bars, my boy. Water, indeed !
do you suppose I carried it all the way up here for you? " And
he strode over the figure ; yet, as he passed, he thought he saw
a strange expression of mockery about its lips. And, when he
had gone a few yards farther, he looked back ; but the figure
was not there.

And a sudden horror came over Schwartz, he knew not
why ; but the thirst for gold prevailed over his fear, and he
rushed on. And the bank of black cloud rose to the zenith,
and out of it came bursts of spiry lightning, and waves of dark-
ness seemed to heave and float between their flashes, over the
whole heavens. And the sky where the sun was setting was
all level, and like a lake of blood ; and a strong wind came out
of that sky, tearing its crimson clouds into fragments, and scat-
tering them far into the darkness. And when Schwartz stood
by the brink of the Golden River, its waves were black, like
thunderclouds, but their foam was like fire ; and the roar of
the waters below, and the thunder above, met, as he cast the
flask into the stream. And, as he did so, the lightning glared
in his eyes, and the earth gave way beneath him, and the waters
closed over his cry. And the moaning of the river rose wildly
into the night, as it gushed over the

Two BLACK STONES.

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 815

How LITTLE GLUCK BET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THB
GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEBEIN;
WITH OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST.

When Gluck found that Schwartz did not come back, he
was very sorry, and did not know what to do. He had no
money, and was obliged to go and hire himself again to the
goldsmith, who worked him very hard, and gave him very little
money. So, after a month or two, Gluck grew tired, and made
up his mind to go and try his fortune with the Golden River.
"The little king looked very kind," thought he. "I don't
think he will turn me into a black stone." So he went to the
priest, and the priest gave him some holy water as soon as he
asked for it. Then Gluck took some bread in his basket, and
the bottle of water, and set off very early for the mountains.

If the glacier had occasioned a great deal of fatigue to his
brothers, it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither
so strong nor so practiced on the mountains. He had several
very bad falls, lost his basket and bread, and was very much
frightened at the strange noises under the ice. He lay a long
time to rest on the grass, after he had got over, and began to
climb the hill just in the hottest part of the day. When he
had climbed for an hour, he got dreadfully thirsty, and was going
to drink like his brothers, when he saw an old man coming
down the path above him, looking very feeble, and leaning on a
staff. " My son," said the old man, " I am faint with thirst ;
give me some of that water." Then Gluck looked at him, and
when he saw that he was pale and weary, he gave him the
water ; " Only pray don't drink it all," said Gluck. But the
old man drank a great deal, and gave him back the bottle two
thirds empty. Then he bade him good speed, and Gluck went
on again merrily. And the path became easier to his feet,
and two or three blades of grass appeared upon it, and some
grasshoppers began singing on the bank beside it ; and Gluck
thought he had never heard such merry singing.

Then he went on for another hour, and the thirst increased
on him so that he thought he should be forced to drink. But,
as he raised the flask, he saw a little child lying panting by the
roadside, and it cried out piteously for water. Then Gluck
struggled with himself, and determined to bear the thirst a little
longer ; and he put the bottle to the child's lips, and it drank

316 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER.

it all but a few drops. Then it smiled on him, and got up, and
ran down the hill ; and Gluck looked after it, till it became as
small as a little star, and then turned and began climbing again.
And then there were all kinds of sweet flowers growing on the
rocks, bright green moss, with pale pink starry flowers, and
soft belled gentians, more blue than the sky at its deepest, and
pure white transparent lilies. And crimson and purple butter-
flies darted hither and thither, and the sky sent down such
pure light, that Gluck had never felt so happy in his life.

Yet, when he had climbed for another hour, his thirst be-
came intolerable again ; and, when he looked at his bottle, he
saw that there were only five or six drops left in it, and he
could not venture to drink. And, as he was hanging the flask
to his belt again, he saw a little dog lying on the rocks, gasp-
ing for breath — just as Hans had seen it on the day of his
ascent. And Gluck stopped and looked at it, and then at the
Golden River, not five hundred yards above him ; and he
thought of the dwarf's words, " that no one could succeed, ex-
cept in his first attempt ; " and he tried to pass the dog, but it
whined piteously, and Gluck stopped again. " Poor beastie,"
said Gluck, " it'll be dead when I come down again, if I don't
help it." Then he looked closer and closer at it, and its eye
turned on him so mournfully, that he could not stand it.
" Confound the King and his gold too," said Gluck ; and he
opened the flask, and poured all the water into the dog's
mouth.

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail dis-
appeared, its ears became long, longer, silky, golden ; its nose
became very red, its eyes became very twinkling ; in three
seconds the dog was gone, and before Gluck stood his old
acquaintance, the King of the Golden River.

" Thank you," said the monarch ; " but don't be frightened,
it's all right ; " for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of con-
sternation at this unlooked-for reply to his last observation.
" Why didn't you come before," continued the dwarf, " instead
of sending me those rascally brothers of yours, for me to have
the trouble of turning into stones? Very hard stones they
make too."

" Oh dear me ! " said Gluck, " have you really been so
cruel?"

" Cruel ! " said the dwarf, " they poured unholy water into
my stream : do you suppose I'm going to allow that ? "

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. 817

" Why," said Gluck, " I am sure, sir, — your Majesty, I mean,
— they got the water out of the church font."

" Very probably," replied the dwarf ; " but," and his coun-
tenance grew stern as he spoke, "the water which has been
refused to the cry of the weary and dying, is unholy, though
it had been blessed by every saint in heaven ; and the water
which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had
been defiled with corpses."

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew
at his feet. On its white leaves there hung three drops of
clear dew. And the dwarf shook them into the flask which
Gluck held in his hand. " Cast these into the river," he said,
"and descend on the other side of the mountains into the
Treasure Valley. And so good speed."

As he spoke, the figure of the dwarf became indistinct.
The playing colors of his robe formed themselves into a pris-
matic mist of dewy light : he stood for an instant veiled with
them as with the belt of a broad rainbow. The colors grew
faint, the mist rose into the air ; the monarch had evaporated.

And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and
its waves were as clear as crystal, and as brilliant as the sun.
And, when he cast the three drops of dew into the stream,
there opened where they fell, a small circular whirlpool, into
which the waters descended with a musical noise.

Gluck stood watching it for some time, very much disap-
pointed, because not only the river was not turned into gold,
but its waters seemed much diminished in quantity. Yet he
obeyed his friend the dwarf, and descended the other side of
the mountains, towards the Treasure Valley ; and, as he went,
he thought he heard the noise of water working its way under
the ground. And, when he came in sight of the Treasure Val-
ley, behold, a river, like the Golden River, was springing from
a new cleft of the rocks above it, and was flowing in innu-
merable streams among the dry heaps of red sand.

And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new
streams, and creeping plants grew, and climbed among the
moistening soil. Young flowers opened suddenly along the
riversides, as stars leap out when twilight is deepening, and
thickets of myrtle, and tendrils of vine, cast lengthening
shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the Treasure
Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance, which had
been lost by cruelty, was regained by love.

318 MAIDENHOOD.

And Gluck went, and dwelt in the valley, and the poor
were never driven from his door : so that his barns became
full of corn, and his house of treasure. And, for him, the river
had, according to the dwarf's promise, become a River of Gold.

And, to this day, the inhabitants of the valley point out
the place where the three drops of holy dew were cast into the
stream, and trace the course of the Golden River under the
ground, until it emerges in the Treasure Valley. And at
the top of the cataract of the Golden River, are still to be seen
two BLACK STONES, round which the waters howl mournfully
every day at sunset ; and these stones are still called by the
people of the valley

THE BLACK BROTHERS.

MAIDENHOOD.

BY LONGFELLOW.
(For biographical sketch, see page 321.)

MAIDEN ! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies !

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run !

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet !

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance
On the river's broad expanse !

Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysiau ?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Seest the falcon's shadow fly ?

THE GOLDEN MILESTONE, 819

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar ?

0, thou child of many prayers !

Life hath quicksands, — Life hath snares !

Care and age come unawares !

Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered
Birds and blossom many-numbered ; —
Age, that bough with snows encumbered.

Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.

Bear a lily in thy hand ;

Gates of brass cannot withstand

One touch of that magic wand.

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.

0, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds, that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal ;

And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.

THE GOLDEN MILESTONE.

BY LONGFELLOW.

LEAFLESS are the trees ; their purple branches
Spread themselves abroad like reefs of coral,

Rising silent
In the Ked Sea of the winter sunset.

From the hundred chimneys of the village,
Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,

320 THE GOLDEN MILESTONE.

Smoky columns
Tower aloft into the air of amber.

At the window winks the flickering firelight ;
Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,

Social watch-fires
Answering one another through the darkness.

On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,
And like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree,

For its freedom
Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.

By the fireside there are old men seated,
Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,

Asking sadly
Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them.

By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,
Building castles fair, with stately stairways,

Asking blindly
Of the future what it cannot give them.

By the fireside tragedies are acted,

In whose scenes appear two actors only, —

Wife and husband, —
And above them God the sole spectator.

By the fireside there are peace and comfort, —
Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,

Waiting, watching
For a well-known footstep in the passage.

Each man's chimney is his Golden Milestone ;
Is the central point, from which he measures

Every distance
Through the gateways of the world around him.

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it ;

Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,

As he heard them
When he sat with those who were, but are not.

Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,
Nor the march of the encroaching city,

Drives an exile
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.

" Waiting, Watching "

From the painting by G. Becker

L

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. 821

We may build more splendid habitations,

Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,

But we cannot
Buy with gold the old associations !

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

[HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW : An American poet ; born at Portland,
Me., February 27, 1807. He graduated from Bowdoin College at eighteen, hav-
ing Nathaniel Hawthorne and Franklin Pierce as classmates. Appointed shortly
after to the professorship of modern languages there, he spent two years in
European travel to fit himself before assuming it. In 1836 he became professor
of modern languages and literature at Harvard, and held the chair for eighteen
years. He died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., March 24, 1882. His chief
volumes of poetry are: "Voices of the Night" (1839), "Ballads," "Spanish
Student," " Evangeline," "The Golden Legend," "The Song of Hiawatha,"
" The Courtship of Miles Standish," " Tales of a Wayside Inn." He also wrote
in prose : " Outre-Mer," and the novels " Hyperion " and " Kavanagh."]

" SPEAK ! speak ! thou fearful guest
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,

Comest to daunt me !
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,

Why dost thou haunt me ? "

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies

Gleam in December ;
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe

From the heart's chamber.

" I was a Viking old !
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee !
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,

TOL. XXIII. 21

322 THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.

Else dread a dead man's curse I
For this I sought thee.

" Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,

Tamed the gyrf alcon ;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound

Trembled to walk on.

" Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare

Fled like a shadow ;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the werewolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark

Sang from the meadow.

" But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew

With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led ;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,

By our stern orders.

" Many a wassail bout
Wore the long Winter out,
Often our midnight shout

Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,

Filled to o'erflowing.

" Once as I told ia glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender ;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. 323

On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendor.

" I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade

Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest

By the hawk frighted.

"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,

Chaunting his glory ;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand

To hear my story.

" While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind gusts waft

The sea foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking horn

Blew the foam lightly.

" She was a Prince's child,

I but a Viking wild,

And though she blushed and smiled,

I was discarded !
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night

Her nest unguarded ?

" Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me, —
Fairest of all was she

Among the Norsemen ! —
When on the white sea strand,
Waving his armed hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,

With twenty horsemen.

324 THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.

" Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,

When the wind failed us :
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw

Laugh as he hailed us.

"And as to catch the gale
Bound veered the flapping sail,
Death ! was the helmsman's hail,

Death without quarter !
Midships with iron keel
Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel

Through the black water 1

" As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,

With his prey laden,
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,

Bore I the maiden.

" Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloudlike we saw the shore

Stretching to leeward ;
There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,

Stands looking seaward.

" There lived we many years ;
Time dried the maiden's tears ;
She had forgot her fears,

She was a mother ;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies ;
Ne'er shall the sun arise

On such another !

" Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen !

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 325

Hateful to me were men,

The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,

0, death was grateful !

"Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars

My soul ascended !
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal ! to the Northland! Skoal!"

— Thus the tale ended.

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEA-
GRAVES.

BY FREDERICK MARRY AT.
(From "Masterman Heady.")

[FREDERICK MARRTAT : An English novelist ; born at London, July 10,
1792 ; the son of a member of Parliament. He entered the navy as a midship-
man (1806), and rose to the rank of commander (1815). He participated in
engagements off the French coast ; served in the Mediterranean, the East and
West Indies, and off the coast of North America, taking part during the War
of 1812 in a gunboat fight on Lake Pontchartrain. He was a man of great per-
sonal daring, and often risked his life to save drowning men. Resigning from
the navy in 1830, he devoted himself to writing nautical romances and stories
of adventure. Among his most popular works are : " Frank Mildmay " (1829),
"The King's Own," "Peter Simple," "Jacob Faithful," "Mr. Midshipman
Easy," " Japhet in Search of a Father," " Snarleyyow," "The Phantom Ship,"
"Masterman Ready," "The Children of the New Forest." He died at Lang-
ham, August 9, 1848.]

THE loud yells of the savages struck terror into the heart
of Mrs. Seagrave ; it was well that she had not seen their
painted bodies and fierce appearance, or she would have been
much more alarmed. Little Albert and Caroline clung round
her neck with terror in their faces ; they did not cry, but looked
round and round to see from whence the horrid noise proceeded,
and then clung faster to their mother. Master Tommy was

326 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

very busy finishing all the breakfast which had been left, for
there was no one to check him as usual ; Juno was busy out-
side, and was very active and courageous. Mr. Seagrave had
been employed making the holes between the palisades large
enough to admit the barrels of the muskets, so that they could
fire at the savages without being exposed ; while William and
Ready, with their muskets loaded, were on the lookout for their
approach.

" They are busy with the old house just now, sir," observed
Ready, "but that won't detain them long."

" Here they come," replied William ; " and look, Ready, is
not that one of the women who escaped from us in the canoe,
who is walking along with the first two men ? Yes, it is, I am
sure."

" You are right, Master William ; it is one of them. Ah I
they have stopped ; they did not expect the stockade, that is
clear, and it has puzzled them ; see how they are all crowding
together and talking ; they are holding a council of war how
to proceed ; that tall man must be one of their chiefs. Now,
Master William, although I intend to fight as hard as I can,
yet I always feel a dislike to begin first ; I shall therefore show
myself over the palisades, and if they attack me, I shall then
fire with a quiet conscience."

"But take care they don't hit you, .Ready."

" No great fear of that, Master William. Here they come I "

Ready now stood upon the plank within, so as to show him-
self to the savages, who gave a tremendous yell ; and, as they
advanced, a dozen spears were thrown at him with so true an
aim that, had he not instantly dodged behind the stockade, he
must have been killed. Three or four spears remained quiver-
ing in the palisades, just below the top ; the others went over
it, and fell down inside of the stockade, at the further end.

" Now, Master William* take good aim ; " but before Wil-
liam could fire, Mr. Seagrave, who had agreed to be stationed
at the corner, so that he might see if the savages went round
to the other side, fired his musket, and the tall chief fell to the
ground.

Ready and William also fired, and two more of the savages
were seen to drop, amid the yells of their companions. Juno
handed up the other muskets which were ready loaded, and
took those discharged, and Mrs. Seagrave, having desired Caro-
line to take care of her little brother, and Tommy to be very

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 327

quiet and good, came out, turned the key of the door upon
them, and hastened to assist Juno in reloading the muskets.

The spears now rushed through the air, and it was well that
they could fire from the stockade without exposing their per-
sons, or they would have had but little chance. The yells in-
creased, and the savages now began to attack on every quarter ;
the most active, who climbed like cats, actually succeeded in
gaining the top of the palisades, but, as soon as their heads ap-
peared above, they were fired at with so true an aim that they
dropped down dead outside. This combat lasted for more than
an hour, when the savages, having lost a great many men, drew
off from the assault, and the parties within the stockade had
time to breathe.

" They have not gained much in this bout, at all events,"
said Ready ; " it was well fought on our side, and, Master Wil-
liam, you certainly behaved as if you had been brought up to
it ; I don't think you ever missed your man once."

" Do you think they will go away now ? " said Mrs. Sea-
grave.

" Oh, no, madame, not yet ; they will try us every way be-
fore they leave us. You see these are very brave men, and it
is clear that they know what gunpowder is, or they would have
been more astonished."

" I should think so too," replied Mr. Seagrave ; " the first
time that savages hear the report of firearms, they are usually
thrown into great consternation."

" Yes, sir ; but such has not been the case with these peo-
ple, and therefore I reckon it is not the first time that they
have fought with Europeans."

" Are they all gone, Ready ? " said William, who had come
down from the plank to his mother.

" No, sir ; I see them between the trees now ; they are sit-
ting round in a circle, and, I suppose, making speeches ; it's
the custom of these people."

"Well, I'm very thirsty, at all events," said William.
"Juno, bring me a little water."

Juno went to the water tub, to comply with William's re-
quest, and in a few minutes afterward came back in great con-
sternation.

" Oh, massa I oh, missy ! no water ; water all gone ! "

" Water all gone I " cried Ready, and all of them, in a
breath.

328 DEATH OF BEADY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

" Yes ; not one little drop in the cask."

" I filled it up to the top ! " exclaimed Ready, very gravely ;
" the tub did not leak, that I am sure of ; how can this have
happened ? "

" Missy, I tink I know now," said Juno ; " you remember
you send Massa Tommy, the two or three days we wash, to
fetch water from well in little bucket. You know how soon
he come back, and how you say what good boy he was, and
how you tell Massa Seagrave when he come to dinner. Now,
missy, I quite certain Massa Tommy no take trouble go to well,
but fetch water from tub all the while, and so he empty it."

" I'm afraid you're right, Juno," replied Mrs. Seagrave.
"What shall we do?"

"I go speak Massa Tommy," said Juno, running to the
house.

" This is a very awkward thing, Mr. Seagrave," observed
Ready, gravely.

Mr. Seagrave shook his head.

The fact was, that they all perceived the danger of their
position ; if the savages did not leave the island, they would
perish of thirst or have to surrender ; and in the latter case all
their lives would most certainly be sacrificed.

Juno now returned ; her suspicions were but too true.
Tommy, pleased with the praise of being so quick in bringing
the water, had taken out the spigot of the cask, and drawn it
all off. He was now crying, and promising not to take the
water again.

" His promises come too late," observed Mr. Seagrave ;
"well, it is the will of Heaven that all our careful arrange-
ments and preparations against this attack should be defeated
by the idleness of a child, and we must submit."

" Very true, sir," replied Ready ; " all our hopes now are
that the savages may be tired out, and leave the island."

" If I had but a little for the children, I should not care,"
observed Mrs. Seagrave ; " but to see these poor things suffer
— is there not a drop left, Juno, anywhere ? "

Juno shook her head. "All gone, missy; none nowhere."

Mrs. Seagrave said she would go and examine, and went
away into the house, accompanied by Juno.

" This is a very bad business, Ready," observed Mr. Sea-
grave. " What would we give for a shower of rain now, that
we might catch the falling drops ? "

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 329

" There are no signs of it, sir," replied Ready ; " we must,
however, put our confidence in One who will not forsake us."

" I wish the savages would come on again," observed Wil-
liam ; " for the sooner they come, the sooner the affair will be
decided."

" I doubt if they will to-day, sir ; at nighttime I think it
very probable, and I fear the night attack more than the day.
We must make preparations for it."

" Why, what can we do, Ready ? "

"In the first place, sir, by nailing planks from cocoanut
tree to cocoanut tree above the present stockade, we may make
a great portion of it much higher, and more difficult to climb
over. Some of them were nearly in this time. If we do that,
we shall not have so large a space to watch over and defend ;
and then we must contrive to have a large fire ready for light-
ing, that we may not have to fight altogether in the dark. It
will give them some advantage in looking through the pali-
sades, and seeing where we are, but they cannot well drive
their spears through, so it is no great matter. We must make
the fire in the center of the stockade, and have plenty of tar
in it, to make it burn bright ; and we must not, of course,
light it until after we are attacked. We shall then see where
they are trying for an entrance, and where to aim with our
muskets."

" The idea is very good, Ready," said Mr. Seagrave ; " if it
had not been for this unfortunate want of water, I really should
be sanguine of beating them off."

" We may suffer very much, Mr. Seagrave, I have no doubt ;
but who knows what the morrow may bring forth ? "

" True, Ready. Do you see the savages now ? "

" No, sir ; they have left the spot where they were in con-
sultation, and I do not even hear them ; I suppose they are
busy with their wounded and their dead."

As Ready had supposed, no further attack was made by the
savages on that day, and he, William, and Mr. Seagrave were
very busy making their arrangements ; they nailed the planks
on the trunks of the trees above the stockade so as to
make three sides of the stockade at least five feet higher
and almost impossible to climb up ; and they prepared a
large fire in a tar barrel full of cocoanut leaves mixed with
wood and tar, so as to burn fiercely. Dinner or supper they
had none, for there was nothing but salt pork and beef and

330 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

live turtle, and, by Ready's advice, they did not eat, as it would
only increase their desire to drink.

The poor children suffered much ; little Albert wailed and
cried for " water, water " ; Caroline knew that there was none,
and was quiet, poor little girl, although she suffered much ; as
for Tommy, the author of all this misery, he was the most im-
patient, and roared for some time, till William, quite angry at
his behavior, gave him a smart box on the ear, and he reduced
his roar to a whimper, from fear of receiving another. Ready
remained on the lookout ; indeed, everything was so miserable
inside of the house, that they were all glad to go out of it ;
they could do no good, and poor Mrs. Seagrave had a difficult
and most painful task to keep the children quiet under such
severe privation, for the weather was still very warm and
sultry.

But the moaning of the children was very soon after dusk
drowned by the yells of the savages, who, as Ready had prog-
nosticated, now advanced to the night attack.

Every part of the stockade was at once assailed, and their
attempts now made were to climb into it ; a few spears were
occasionally thrown, but it was evident that the object was to
obtain an entrance by dint of numbers. It was well that
Ready had taken the precaution of nailing the deal planks
above the original stockade, or there is little doubt but that
the savages would have gained their object ; as it was, before
the flames of the fire, which Juno had lighted by Ready's
order, gave them sufficient light, three or four savages had
climbed up and had been shot by William and Mr. Seagrave,
as they were on the top of the stockade.

When the fire burned brightly, the savages outside were
easily aimed at, and a great many fell in their attempts to get
over. The attack continued more than an hour, when at last,
satisfied that they could not succeed, the savages once more
withdrew, carrying with them, as before, their dead and
wounded.

"I trust that they will now reembark, and leave the
island," said Mr. Seagrave to Ready.

" I only wish they may, sir ; it is not at all impossible ; but
there is no saying. I have been thinking, Mr. Seagrave, that
we might be able to ascertain their movements by making a
lookout. You see, sir, that cocoanut tree," continued Ready,
pointing to one of those to which the palisades were fastened,

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 331

" is much taller than any of the others ; now, by driving
spike nails into the trunk at about a foot apart, we might
ascend it with ease, and it would command a view of the
whole bay ; we then could know what the enemy were
about."

"Yes, that is very true; but will not any one be very much
exposed if he climbs up ? "

" No, sir, for you see the cocoanut trees are cut down clear
of the palisades to such a distance, that no savage could come
at all near without being seen by any one on the lookout, and
giving us sufficient time to get down again before he could use
his spear."

" I believe that you are right there, Ready, but at all
events, I would not attempt to do it before daylight, as there
may be some of them still lurking underneath the stockade."

" Certainly, there may be, sir, and therefore, until daylight,
we will not begin. Fortunately, we have plenty of spike nails
left."

Mr. Seagrave then went into the house ; Ready desired
William to lie down and sleep for two or three hours, as he
would watch. In the morning, when Mr. Seagrave came out,
he would have a little sleep himself.

" I can't sleep, Ready. I'm mad with thirst," replied
William.

" Yes, sir ; it's very painful — I feel it myself very much,
but what must those poor children feel ? I pity them most."

" I pity my mother most, Ready," replied William ; " it
must be agony to her to witness their sufferings, and not be
able to relieve them."

" Yes, indeed, it must be terrible, Master William, to a
mother's feelings ; but, perhaps, these savages will be off to-
morrow, and then we shall forget all our privations."

" I trust in God that they may, Ready; but they seem very
determined."

" Yes, sir ; iron is gold to them ; and what will civilized
men not do for gold ? Come, Master William, lie down at all
events, even if you cannot sleep."

In the mean time, Mr. Seagrave had gone into the house.
He found the children still crying for water, notwithstanding
the coaxing and soothing of Mrs. Seagrave, who was shedding
tears as she hung over poor little Albert. Juno had gone out
and had dug with a spade as deep as she could, with a faint

332 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

hope that some might be found, but in vain, and she had just
returned mournful and disconsolate. There was no help for
it but patience ; and patience could not be expected in children
so young. Little Caroline only drooped, and said nothing.
Mr. Seagrave remained for two or three hours with his wife,
assisting her in pacifying the children, and soothing her to the
utmost of his power ; at last he went out and found old Ready
on the watch.

" Ready, I had rather a hundred times be attacked by these
savages, and have to defend this place, than be in that house
for even five minutes and witness the sufferings of my wife
and children."

"I do not doubt it, sir," replied Ready; "but cheer up,
and let us hope for the best ; I think it very probable that the
savages after this second defeat will leave the island."

" I wish I could think so, Ready ; it would make me very
happy ; but I have come out to take the watch, Ready. Will
you not sleep for a while ? "

" I will, sir, if you please, take a little sleep. Call me in
two hours ; it will then be daylight, and I can go to work, and
you can get some repose yourself."

" I am too anxious to sleep ; I think so, at least."

" Master William said he was too thirsty to sleep, sir ; but,
poor fellow, he is now fast enough."

" I trust that boy will be spared, Ready."

" I hope so, too, for he is a noble fellow ; but we are all in
the hands of the Almighty. Good night, sir."

" Good night, Ready."

Mr. Seagrave took his station on the plank, and was left to
his own reflections ; that they were not of the most pleasant
kind may easily be imagined. He had, however, been well
schooled by adversity, and had lately brought himself to such
a frame of mind as to bow in submission to the will of Heaven,
whatever it might be. He prayed earnestly and fervently that
they might be delivered from the danger and sufferings which
threatened them, and became calm and tranquil, prepared for
the worst, if the worst was to happen, and confidently placing
himself and his family under the care of Him who orders all
as He thinks best.

At daylight Ready woke up and relieved Mr. Seagrave, who
did not return to the house, but lay down on the cocoanut
boughs, where Ready had been lying by the side of William.

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 333

As soon as Ready had got out the spike nails and hammer, he
summoned William to his assistance, and they commenced
driving them into the cocoanut tree, one looking out in case of
the savages approaching, while the other was at work. In
less than an hour they had gained the top of the tree close to
the boughs, and had a very commanding view of the bay, as
well as inland. William, who was driving the last dozen
spikes, took a survey, and then came down to Ready.

" I can see everything, Ready ; they have pulled down the
old house altogether, and are most of them lying down out-
side, covered up with their war cloaks ; some women are walk-
ing to and fro from the canoes, which are lying on the beach
where they first landed."

" They have pulled down the house to obtain the iron nails,
I have no doubt," replied Ready. " Did you see any of their
dead?"

" No ; I did not look about very much, but I will go up
again directly. I came down because my hands were jarred
with hammering, and the hammer was so heavy to carry. In
a minute or two I shall go up light enough. My lips are
burning, Ready, and swelled ; the skin is peeling off. I had
no idea that want of water would have been so dreadful. I
think poor Tommy is more than punished already."

" A child does not reflect upon consequences, Master Wil-
liam, nor could we possibly foresee that his using up the water
could have created such misery. It was an idle trick of his,
and whatever may be the consequences, it still can be con-
sidered as such, and nothing more."

" I was in the hopes of finding a cocoanut or two on the tree,
but there was not one."

" And if you had found one, it would not have had any milk
in it at this season of the year. However, Master William, if
the savages do not go away to-day something must be done. I
wish now that you would go up again, and see if they are not
stirring."

William again mounted to the top of the tree, and remained
up for some minutes ; when he came down, he said, " They are
all up now, and swarming like bees. I counted two hundred
and sixty of the men, in their war cloaks and feather head-
dresses ; the women are passing to and fro from the well with
water ; there is nobody at the canoes except eight or ten
women, who are beating their heads, I think, or doing some-

334 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

thing of the kind. I could not make it out vrell, but they seem
all doing the same thing."

" I know what they are about, Master William ; they are
cutting themselves with knives or other sharp instruments. It
is the custom of these people. The dead are all put into the
canoes, and these women are lamenting over them ; perhaps
they are going away, since the dead are in the canoes ; but
there is no saying."

The second day was passed in keeping a lookout upon the
savages, and awaiting a fresh attack. They could perceive
from the top of the cocoanut tree that the savages held a coun-
cil of war in the forenoon, sitting round in a large circle, while
one got up in the center, and made a speech, flourishing his
club and spear while he spoke. In the afternoon the council
broke up, and the savages were observed to be very busy in all
directions, cutting down the cocoanut trees, and collecting all
the brushwood.

Ready watched them for a long while, and at last came down
a little before sunset. " Mr. Seagrave," said he, " we shall have,
in my opinion, no attack this night, but to-morrow we must
expect something very serious ; the savages are cutting down
the trees, and making large fagots ; they do not get on very
fast, because their hatchets are made of stone and don't cut
very well ; but perseverance and numbers will effect every-
thing, and I dare say that they will work all night till they
have obtained as many fagots as they want."

" But what do you imagine to be their object, Ready, in cut-
ting down trees, and making the fagots ? "

" Either, sir, to pile them up outside the palisades, so large
as to be able to walk up upon them, or else to pile them up to
set tire to them, and burn us out."

" Do you think they will succeed ? "

" Not without very heavy loss ; perhaps we may beat them
off, but it will be a hard tight, harder than any we have had
yet. We must have the women to load the muskets, so that
we may fire as fast as we can. I should not think much of
their attempts to burn us, if it were not for the smoke. Cocoa-
nut wood, especially with the bark on, as our palisades have,
will char a long while, but not burn easily when standing up-
right ; and the fire, when the fagots are kindled, although it
will be fierce, will not last long."

" But suffering as we are now, Ready, for want of water,

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 335

how can we possibly keep up our strength to meet them in a suf-
focating smoke and flame ? we must drop with sheer exhaustion."

" We must hope for the best, and do our best, Mr. Seagrave,"
replied Ready ; " and recollect that, should anything happen to
me during the conflict, if there is any chance of your being over-
powered, you must take advantage of the smoke, to escape into
the woods, and find your way to the tents. I have no doubt
that you will be able to do that ; of course the attack will be to
windward, if they use fire, and you must try and escape to lee-
ward ; I have shown William how to force a palisade if neces-
sary. The savages, if they get possession, will not think of
looking for you at first, and, perhaps, when they have obtained
all that the house contains, not even afterward."

" Why do you say if any accident happens to you, Ready ? "
said William.

" Because, Master William, if they place the fagots so as to
be able to walk to the top of the palisades, I may be wounded
or killed, and so may you."

"Of course," replied William; "but they are not in yet,
and they shall have a hard fight for it."

Ready then told Mr. Seagrave that he would keep the watch,
and call him at twelve o'clock. During these two days they
had eaten very little ; a turtle had been killed, and pieces fried;
but eating only added to their thirst, and even the children
refused the meat. The sufferings were now really dreadful,
and poor Mrs. Seagrave was almost frantic.

As soon as Mr. Seagrave had gone into the house, Ready
called William, and said : " Master William, water we must
have. I cannot bear to see the agony of the poor children, and
the state of mind which your poor mother is in ; and more,
without water we never shall be able to beat off the savages
to-morrow. We shall literally die of choking in the smoke,
if they use fire. Now, William, I intend to take one of the
seven-gallon barricos, and go down to the well for water. I
may succeed, and I may not, but attempt it I must ; and if I
fall, it cannot be helped."

" Why not let me go, Ready ? " replied William.

" For many reasons, William," said Ready ; " and the chief
one is, that I do not think you would succeed so well as I shall.
I shall put on the war cloak and feathers of the savage who
fell dead inside of the stockade, and that will be a disguise ;
but I shall take no arms except this spear, as they would only

336 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

be in my way, and increase the weight I have to carry. Now,
observe, you must let me out of the door, and when I am out,
in case of accident, put one of the poles across it inside ; that
will keep the door fast, if they attack it, until you can secure
it with the others. Watch my return, and be all ready to let
me in. Do you understand me ? "

" Yes, perfectly, Ready ; but I am now, I must confess,
really frightened ; if anything was to happen to you, what a
misery it would be."

" There is no help for it, William. Water must, if possible,
be procured, and now is a better time to make the attempt
than later, when they may be more on the watch ; they have
left off their work, and are busy eating ; if I meet any one, it
will only be a woman."

Ready went for the barrico, a little cask, which held six or
seven gallons of water. He put on the headdress and war
cloak of the savage ; and, taking the barrico on his shoulder,
and the spear in his hand, the poles which barred the door
were softly removed by William, and after ascertaining that
no one was concealed beneath the palisades, Ready pressed
William's hand, and set off across the cleared space outside of
the stockade, and gained the cocoanut trees. William, as
directed, closed the door, passed one pole through the inner
doorposts for security, and remained on the watch. He was
in an awful state of suspense, listening to the slightest noise,
— even the slight rustling by the wind of the cocoanut boughs
above him made him start ; there he continued for some min-
utes, his gun ready cocked by his side.

" It is time that he returned," thought William ; " the dis-
tance is not a hundred yards, and yet I have heard no noise."
At last he thought he heard footsteps coming very softly. Yes,
it was so. Ready was returning and without any accident.
William had his hand upon the pole, to slip it on one side, and
open the door, when he heard a scuffle and a fall close to the
door. He immediately threw down the pole and opened it,
just as Ready called him by name. William seized his musket,
and sprung out ; he found Ready struggling with a savage,
who was uppermost, and with his spear at Ready's breast. In
a second William leveled and fired, and the savage fell dead by
the side of Ready.

" Take the water in quick, William," said Ready, in a faint
voice ; " I will contrive to crawl in if I can."

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 337

William caught up the barrico of water, and took it in ; he
then hastened to Ready, who was on his knees. Mr. Seagrave,
hearing the musket fired, had run out, and finding the stock-
ade door open, followed William, and seeing him endeavoring
to support Ready, caught hold of his other arm, and they led
him tottering into the stockade ; the door was then immedi-
ately secured, and they went to his assistance.

"Are you hurt, Ready?" said William.

" Yes, dear boy, yes ; hurt to death, I fear ; his spear went
through my breast. Water, quick, water I "

" Alas, that we had some ! " said Mr. Seagrave.

" We have, papa," replied William ; " but it has cost us dear."

William ran for a pannikin, and taking out the bung,
poured some water out of the barrico, and gave it to Ready,
who drank it with eagerness.

" Now, William, lay me down on these cocoanut boughs ;
go and give some water to the others, and when you have all
drunk, then come to me again. Don't tell Mrs. Seagrave that
I'm hurt. Do as I beg of you."

" Papa, take the water — do, pray," replied William ; " I
cannot leave Ready."

" I will, my boy," replied Mr. Seagrave ; " but first drink
yourself."

William, who was very faint, drank off the pannikin of
water, which immediately revived him, and then, while Mr.
Seagrave hastened with some water to the children and women,
occupied himself with old Ready, who breathed heavily, but
did not speak.

After returning twice for water, to satisfy those in the
house, Mr. Seagrave came to the assistance of William, who
had been removing Ready's clothes to ascertain the nature and
extent of the wound which he had received.

"We had better move him to where the other cocoanut
boughs lie ; he will be more comfortable there," said William.

Ready whispered, "More water." William gave him some
more, and then, with the assistance of his father, Ready was
removed to a more comfortable place. As soon as they had
laid him there, Ready turned on his side and threw up a quan-
tity of blood.

" I am better now," said he, in a low voice ; " bind up the
wound, William; an old man like me has not much blood to
spare."

VOL. xxin. — 22

338 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

Mr. Seagrave and William then opened his shirt, and ex-
amined the wound ; the spear had gone deep into the lungs.
William threw off his own shirt, tore it up into strips, and
then bound up the wound so as to stop the effusion of blood.

Ready, who at first appeared much exhausted with being
moved about, gradually recovered so as to be able to speak
in a low voice, when Mrs. Seagrave came out of the house.

" Where is that brave, kind man," cried she, " that I may
bless him and thank him ? "

Mr. Seagrave went to her, and caught her by the arm.

" He is hurt, my dear ; I am afraid very much hurt. I
did not tell you at the time."

Mr. Seagrave first briefly related what had occurred, and
then led her to where old Ready was lying. Mrs. Seagrave
knelt by his side, took his hand, and burst into tears.

" Don't weep for me, dear madame," said Ready ; " my
days have been numbered ; I'm only sorry that I cannot any
more be useful to you."

"Dear, good old man," said Mrs. Seagrave, after a pause,
*' whatever may be our fates, and that is for the Almighty to
decide for us, as long as I have life, what you have done for
me and mine shall never be forgotten."

Mrs. Seagrave then bent over him, and, kissing his fore-
head, rose from her knees, and retired weeping into the house.

"William," said Ready, "I can't talk now; raise my head
a little, and then leave me; I shall be better if I'm quiet.
You have not looked round lately. Come again in about half
an hour. Leave me now, Mr. Seagrave ; I shall be better if
I doze a little."

William and Mr. Seagrave complied with Ready's request ;
they went up to the planks, and examined all round the stock-
ade, cautiously and carefully ; at last they stopped.

" This is a sad business, William," said Mr. Seagrave.

William shook his head. "He would not let me go,"
replied he ; "I wish he had. I fear that he is much hurt ;
do you think so, papa ? "

" I should say that he cannot recover, William. We shall
miss him to-morrow, if they attack us ; I fear much for the
result."

" I hardly know what to say, papa ; but this I feel, that
since we have been relieved I am able to do twice as much as
I could have done before."

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVE8. 339

" I feel the same, my dear boy ; but still, with such a force
against us, two people cannot do much."

" If my mother and Juno load the muskets for us," replied
William, " we shall at all events do as much now as we should
have been able to do if there were three, so exhausted as we
should have been."

" Perhaps so, my dear William ; at all events we will do
our best, for we fight for our lives and the lives of those most
dear to us."

William went softly up to Ready, and found that the old
man was dozing, if not asleep; he did not therefore disturb
him, but returned to his father ; they carried the barrico of
water into the house, and put it in Mrs. Seagrave's charge,
that it might not be wasted; and now that their thirst had
been appeased, they all felt the calls of hunger. Juno and
William went and cut off steaks from the turtle, and fried
them ; they all made a hearty meal, and perhaps never had
they taken one with so much relish in their lives.

It was nearly daylight, when William, who had several
times been softly up to Ready to ascertain whether he slept
or not, found him with his eyes open.

" How do you find yourself, Ready ? " said William.

" I am quiet and easy, William, and without much pain ;
but I think I am sinking, and shall not last long. Recollect
that if you are obliged to escape from the stockade, William,
you take no heed of me, but leave me where I am. I cannot
live, and were you to move me, I should only die the sooner."

" I had rather die with you than leave you, Ready."

" No, sir ; that is wrong and foolish ; you must save your
mother and your brothers and sisters; promise me that you
will do as I wish."

William hesitated.

" I point out to you your duty, Master William ; I know
what your feelings are, but you must not give way to them ;
promise me this, or you will make me very miserable."

William squeezed Ready's hand ; his heart was too full to
speak.

" They will come at daylight, William — I think so at least ;
you have not much time to spare ; climb to the lookout, and
wait there till day dawns ; watch them as long as you can in
safety, and then come down to tell me what you have
seen."

340 DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES.

Ready's voice became faint after this exertion of speaking
so much.

He motioned to William, who immediately climbed up the
cocoanut tree, and waited there till daylight.

At dawn of day, he perceived that the savages were at
work, that they had collected all the fagots together opposite
to where the old house stood, and were very busy in making
arrangements for the attack. At last he perceived that they
every one shouldered a fagot, and commenced their advance
toward the stockade ; William immediately descended from
the tree, and called his father, who was talking with Mrs. Sea-
grave. The muskets were all loaded, and Mrs. Seagrave and
Juno took their posts below the planking, to reload them as
fast as they were fired.

"We must fire upon them as soon as we are sure of not
missing them, William," said Mr. Seagrave, " for the more we
check their advance the better."

When the first savages were within fifty yards, they both
fired, and two of the men dropped ; and they continued to fire
as their assailants came up, with great success for the first ten
minutes ; after which the savages advanced in a larger body,
and took the precaution to hold the fagots in front of them,
for some protection as they approached. By these means they
gained the stockade in safety, and commenced laying their
fagots. Mr. Seagrave and William still kept up an incessant
fire upon them, but not with so much success as before.

Although many fell, the fagots were gradually heaped up,
till they almost reached to the holes between the palisades,
through which they pointed their muskets ; and as the savages
contrived to slope them down from the stockade to the ground,
it was evident that they meant to mount up and take them by
escalade. At last, it appeared as if all the fagots had been
placed, and the savages retired further back, to where the
cocoanut trees were still standing.

" They have gone away, father," said William ; " but they
will come again, and I fear it is all over with us."

" I fear so too, my noble boy," replied Mr. Seagrave ; " they
are only retreating to arrange for a general assault, and they
now will be able to gain an entrance. I almost wish they had
fired the fagots ; we might have escaped as Ready pointed out
to us, but now I fear we have no chance."

"Don't say a word to my mother," said William; "let us

DEATH OF READY AND RESCUE OF THE SEAGRAVES. 341

defend ourselves to the last, and if we are overpowered, it is
the will of God ! "

"I should like to take a farewell embrace of your dear
mother," said Mr. Seagrave; "but no; it will be weakness
just now ; I had better not. Here they come, William, in a
swarm. Well, God bless you, my boy; we shall all, I trust,
meet in Heaven."

The whole body of savages were now advancing from the
cocoanut wood in a solid mass ; they raised a yell, which struck
terror into the hearts of Mrs. Seagrave and Juno, yet they
flinched not. The savages were again within fifty yards of
them, when the fire was opened upon them ; this was answered
by loud yells, and the savages had already reached to the
bottom of the sloping pile of fagots, when the yells and the
reports of the muskets were drowned by a much louder report,
followed by the crackling and breaking of the cocoanut trees,
which made both parties start with surprise ; another and an-
other followed, the ground was plowed up, and the savages fell
in numbers.

" It must be the cannon of a ship, father ! " said William ;
" we are saved — we are saved ! "

"It can be nothing else ; we are saved, and by a miracle,"
replied Mr. Seagrave in utter astonishment.

The savages paused in the advance, quite stupefied ; again,
again, again, the report of the loud guns boomed through the
air, and the round shot and grape came whizzing and tearing
through the cocoanut grove ; at this last broadside, the savages
turned and fled toward their canoes ; not one was left to be seen.

" We are saved ! " cried Mr. Seagrave, leaping off the plank
and embracing his wife, who sunk down on her knees, and held
up her clasped hands in thankfulness to Heaven.

William had hastened up to the lookout on the cocoanut
tree, and now cried out to them below, as the guns were again
discharged : —

" A large schooner, father ; she is firing at the savages, who
are at the canoes ; they are falling in every direction ; some
have plunged into the water ; there is a boatful of armed men
coming on shore ; they are close to the beach, by the garden
point. Three of the canoes have got off full of men ; there
go the guns again ; two of the canoes are sunk, father ; the
boat has landed, and the people are coming up this way."
William then descended from the lookout as fast as he could.

342 FRIENDSHIP.

As soon as he was down, he commenced unbarring the door
of the stockade. He pulled out the last pole just as he heard
the feet of their deliverers outside. He threw open the door,
and a second after found himself in the arms of Captain Osborn.

FRIENDSHIP.

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

WE HAVE a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.
Mauger all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world,
the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like
a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we
scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us !
How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom,
though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with ! Read the lan-
guage of these wandering eyebeams. The heart knoweth.

The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a
certain cordial exhilaration. In poetry and in common speech
the emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt
towards others are likened to the material effects of fire ; so
swift, or much more swift, more active, more cheering, are
these fine inward irradiations. From the highest degree of
passionate love to the lowest degree of good will, they make
the sweetness of life.

Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affec-
tion. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of
meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy
expression ; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, —
and forthwith troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on
every hand, with chosen words. See, in any house where vir-
tue and self-respect abide, the palpitation which the approach
of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is expected and
announced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain in-
vades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost
brings fear to the good hearts that would welcome him. The
house is dusted, all things fly into their places, the old coat
is exchanged for the new, and they must get up a dinner if
they can. Of a commended stranger, only the good report is
told by others, only the good and new is heard by us. He
stands to us for humanity. He is what we wish. Having
imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand re-
lated in conversation and action with such a man, and are

FRIENDSHIP. 343

uneasy with fear. The same idea exalts conversation with
him. We talk better than we are wont. We have the nim-
blest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil has taken
leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series of
sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest,
secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kins-
folk and acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual
powers. But as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his
partialities, his definitions, his defects into the conversation,
it is all over. He has heard the first, the last, and best he
will ever hear from us. He is no stranger now. Vulgarity,
ignorance, misapprehension, are old acquaintances. Now, when
he comes, he may get the order, the dress, and the dinner, —
but the throbbing of the heart and the communications of the
soul, no more.

Pleasant are these jets of affection which make a young
world for me again. Delicious is a just and firm encounter of
two, in a thought, in a feeling. How beautiful, on their ap-
proach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted
and the true ! The moment we indulge our affections, the
earth is metamorphosed : there is no winter and no night : all
tragedies, all ennuis vanish, — all duties even; nothing fills
the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved
persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the uni-
verse it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and
cheerful alone for a thousand years.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my
friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beauti-
ful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts ? I chide
society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as
not to see the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded, as from
time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who under-
stands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is
nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus
we weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations ;
and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves,
we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation,
and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe.
My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave
them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue
with itself, I find them, or rather not I but the Deity in me and
in them both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual

344 FRIENDSHIP.

character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually
connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you,
excellent lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and
noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts.
These are not stark and stiffened persons, but the newborn
poetry of God, — poetry without stop, — hymn, ode, and epic,
poetry still flowing and not yet caked in dead books with anno-
tation and grammar, but Apollo and the Muses chanting still.
Will these two separate themselves from me again, or some of
them ? I know not, but I fear it not ; for my relation to them
is so pure that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius
of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its
energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women,
wherever I may be.

I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point.
It is almost dangerous to me to " crush the sweet poison of
misused wine" of the affections. A new person is to me
always a great event and hinders me from sleep. I have had
such fine fancies lately about two or three persons which have
given me delicious hours ; but the joy ends in the day ; it
yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my action is very
little modified. I must feel pride in my friend's accomplish-
ments as if they were mine, — wild, delicate, throbbing prop-
erty in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he is praised, as
the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden. We
overestimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems
better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less.
Everything that is his, his name, his form, his dress, books, and
instruments, fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new
and larger from his mouth.

Yet the systole and diastole of the heart are not without
their analogy in the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like
the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. The
lover, beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily
that which he worships ; and in the golden hour of friendship
we are surprised with shades of suspicion and unbelief. We
doubt that we bestow on our hero the virtues in which he
shines, and afterwards worship the form to which we have
ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the soul does
not respect man as it respects itself. In strict science all per-
sons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness.
Shall we fear to cool our love by lacing the fact, by mining

FRIENDSHIP. 345

for the metaphysical foundation of this Elysian temple ? Shall
I not be as real as the things I see ? If I am, I shall not fear
to know them for what they are. Their essence is not less
beautiful than their appearance, though it needs finer organs
for its apprehension. The root of the plant is not unsightly
to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut the stem
short. And I must hazard the production of the bald fact
amidst these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an Egyp-
tian skull at our banquet. A man who stands united with his
thought conceives magnificently of himself. He is conscious
of a universal success, even though bought by uniform partic-
ular failures. No advantages, no powers, no gold or force, can
be any match for him. I cannot choose but rely on my own
poverty more than on your wealth. I cannot make your con-
sciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles ; the
planet has a faint, moonlike ray. I hear what you say of the
admirable parts and tried temper of the party you praise, but
I see well that, for all his purple cloaks, I shall not like him,
unless he is at last a poor Greek like me. I cannot deny it,
O friend, that the vast shadow of the Phenomenal includes
thee also in its pied and painted immensity, — thee also, com-
pared with whom all else is shadow. Thou art not Being, as
Truth is, as Justice is, — thou art not my soul, but a picture
and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already
thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. Is it not that the soul
puts forth friends as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently,
by the germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf ? The
law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical
state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with
friends that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or
solitude ; and it goes alone for a season that it may exalt its
conversation or society. This method betrays itself along the
whole history of our personal relations, the instinct of affection
revives the hope of union with our mates, and the returning
sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus every man
passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he should
record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this to
each new candidate for his love.

DEAR FRIEND, — If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity,
sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of
trifles in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise :

346 FRIENDSHIP.

my moods are quite attainable : and I respect thy genius : it is to
me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect
intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Thine
ever, or never.

Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity
and not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to
weave cobweb, and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short
and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture
of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fiber of the human
heart. The laws of friendship are great, austere, and eternal,
of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we
have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden
sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole gar-
den of God, which many summers and many winters must
ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adul-
terate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves. In
vain. We are armed all over with subtle antagonisms, which,
as soon as we meet, begin to play, and translate all poetry into
stale prose. Almost all people descend to meet. All associa-
tion must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower
and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures dis-
appears as they approach each other. What a perpetual disap-
pointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted !
After interviews have been compassed with long foresight we
must be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, un-
seasonable apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits,
in the heyday of friendship and thought. Our faculties do not
play us true, and both parties are relieved by solitude.

I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no differ-
ence how many friends I have and what content I can find in
conversing with each, if there be one to whom I am not equal.
If I have shrunk unequal from one contest, instantly the joy
I find in all the rest becomes mean and cowardly. I should
hate myself, if then I made my other friends my asylum.

The valiant warrior famoused for fight,
After a hundred victories, once foiled,
Is from the book of honor razed quite
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.

Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and
apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organization is pro-

FRIENDSHIP. 347

tected from premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew
itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to know
and own it. Respect the naturlangsamkeit which hardens the
ruby in a million years, and works in duration in which Alps
and Andes come and go as rainbows. The good spirit of our
life has no heaven which is the price of rashness. Love, which
is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth
of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in our regards ;
but the austerest worth ; let us approach our friend with an
audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impos-
sible to be overturned, of his foundations.

The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I
leave, for the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to
speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of abso-
lute, and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and
common, so much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine.

I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with
roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass
threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know. For
now, after so many ages of experience, what do we know of
nature or of ourselves ? Not one step has man taken toward
the solution of the problem of his destiny. In one condemna-
tion of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the sweet
sincerity of joy and peace which I draw from this alliance with
my brother's soul is the nut itself whereof all nature and all
thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that
shelters a friend ! It might well be built, like a festal bower
or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know
the solemnity of that relation and honor its law ! It is no idle
bond, no holiday engagement. He who offers himself a candi-
date for that covenant comes up, like an Olympian, to the
great games where the firstborn of the world are the competi-
tors. He proposes himself for contests where Time, Want,
Danger, are in the lists, and he alone is victor who has truth
enough in his constitution to preserve the delicacy of his
beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The gifts of for-
tune may be present or absent, but all the hap in that contest
depends on intrinsic nobleness and the contempt of trifles.
There are two elements that go to the composition of friend-
ship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in
either, no reason why either should be first named. One is
Truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.

348 FRIENDSHIP.

Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the
presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those
most undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second
thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with
the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom
meets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems
and authority, only to the highest rank, that being permitted
to speak truth, as having none above it to court or conform
unto. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a
second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the ap-
proach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amuse-
ments, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under
a hundred folds. I knew a man who under a certain religious
frenzy cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliment and
commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he en-
countered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he
was resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting,
as indeed he could not help doing, for some time in this course,
he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his ac-
quaintance into true relations with him. No man would think
of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off with any
chat of markets or reading rooms. But every man was con-
strained by so much sincerity to face him, and what love of
nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he did cer-
tainly show him. But to most of us society shows not its face
and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations
with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not ?
We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires
some civility, requires to be humored ; — he has some fame,
some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head
that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversa-
tion with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not
my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment
without requiring me to stoop, or to lisp, or to mask myself.
A friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox in nature. I who
alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can
affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the sem-
blance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity,
reiterated in a foreign form ; so that a friend may well be
reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The other element of friendship is Tenderness. We are
holden to men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear,

FRIENDSHIP. 349

by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every
circumstance and badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe
that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by
love. Can another be so blessed and we so pure that we can
offer him tenderness ? When a man becomes dear to me I have
touched the goal of fortune. I find very little written directly
to the heart of this matter in books. And yet I have one text
which I cannot choose but remember. My author says, " I
offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am,
and tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted."
I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and
eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it walks
over the moon. I wish it to be a little of a citizen, before it
is quite a cherub. We chide the citizen because he makes love
a commodity. It is an exchange of gifts, of useful loans ; it is
good neighborhood ; it watches with the sick ; it holds the
pall at the funeral ; and quite loses sight of the delicacies and
nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find the god
under this disguise of a sutler, yet on the other hand we can-
not forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine and does not
substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice,
punctuality, fidelity, and pity. I hate the prostitution of the
name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.
I much prefer the company of plowboys and tin peddlers, to
the silken and perfumed amity which only celebrates its days
of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle, and
dinners at the best taverns. The end of friendship is a com-
merce the most strict and homely that can be joined ; more
strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and
comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death.
It is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles,
but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and
persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and
the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the
daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage,
wisdom, and unity. It should never fall into something usual
and settled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme
and reason to what was drudgery.

For perfect friendship may be said to require natures so
rare and costly, so well tempered each and so happily adapted,
and withal so circumstanced (for even in that particular, a poet
says, love demands that the parties be altogether paired), that

350 FRIENDSHIP.

very seldom can its satisfaction be realized. It cannot subsist
in its perfection, say some of those who are learned in this
warm lore of the heart, betwixt more than two. I am not quite
so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have never known so
high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination more
with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to
each other and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence.
But I find this law of one to one peremptory for conversation,
which is the practice and consummation of friendship. Do
not mix waters too much. The best mix as ill as good and
bad. You shall have very useful and cheering discourse at
several times with two several men, but let all three of you
come together and you shall not have one new and hearty
word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take
part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort.
In good company there is never such discourse between two,
across the table, as takes place when you leave them alone.
In good company the individuals at once merge their egotism
into a social soul exactly coextensive with the several conscious-
nesses there present. No partialities of friend to friend, no fond-
nesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are there perti-
nent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can
sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited
to his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands,
destroys the high freedom of great conversation, which requires
an absolute running of two souls into one.

No two men but being left alone with each other enter into
simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines which two
shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other ;
will never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk some-
times of a great talent for conversation, as if it were a per-
manent property in some individuals. Conversation is an
evanescent relation, — no more. A man is reputed to have
thought and eloquence ; he cannot, for all that, say a word to
his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much
reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the
shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who
enjoy his thought he will regain his tongue.

Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and
unlikeness that piques each with the presence of power and of
consent in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the
world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word

FRIENDSHIP. 351

or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antag-
onism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be
himself. The only joy I have in his being mine is that the
not mine is mine. It turns the stomach, it blots the daylight ;
where I looked for a manly furtherance or at least a manly
resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in
the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which
high friendship demands is ability to do without it. To be
capable that high office requires great and sublime parts.
There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let
it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually
beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep
identity which, beneath these disparities, unites them.

He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous. He
must be so to know its law. He must be one who is sure that
greatness and goodness are always economy. He must be one
who is not swift to intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him
not dare to intermeddle with this. Leave to the diamond its
ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal.
Friendship demands a religious treatment. We must not be
willful, we must not provide. We talk of choosing our friends,
but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it.
Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course if he be a man
he has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor
if you must needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside.
Give those merits room. Let them mount and expand. Be
not so much his friend that you can never know his peculiar
energies, like fond mammas who shut up their boy in the house
until he is almost grown a girl. Are you the friend of your
friend's buttons, or of his thought ? To a great heart he will
still be a stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come
near in the holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to
regard a friend as property, and to suck a short and all-con-
founding pleasure, instead of the pure nectar of God.

Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation.
Why should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding
on them? Why insist on rash personal relations with your
friend ? Why go to his house, or know his mother and brother
and sisters ? Why be visited by him at your own ? Are these
things material to our covenant ? Leave this touching and claw-
ing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sin-
cerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I

352 FRIENDSHIP.

can get politics and chat and neighborly conveniences from
cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be
to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself ? Ought
I to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar
of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving
grass that divides the brook ? Let us not vilify, but raise it to
that standard. That great defying eye, that scornful beauty of
his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but
rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities. Wish
him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard
him as thy great counterpart ; have a princedom to thy friend.
Let him be to thee forever a sort of beautiful enemy, untamable,
devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to be soon out-
grown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of the
diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near. To my friend
I write a letter and from him I receive a letter. That seems to
you a little. Me it suffices. It is a spiritual gift, worthy of him
to give and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm
lines the heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and
pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals
of heroism have yet made good.

Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to
prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening.
We must be our own before we can be another's. There is at
least this satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb :
you can speak to your accomplice on even terms. Orimen quos
inquinat, cequat. To those whom we admire and love, at first we
cannot. Yet the least defect of self-possession vitiates, in my
judgment, the entire relation. There can never be deep peace
between two spirits, never mutual respect, until in their dialogue
each stands for the whole world.

What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what gran-
deur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the
whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to
cast about what you should say to the select souls, or to say any-
thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how grace-
ful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wis-
dom, and for you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and
thy soul shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting
overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your
lips. The only money of God is God. He pays never with
anything less, or anything else. The only reward of virtue is

FRIENDSHIP. 853

virtue : the only way to have a friend is to be one. You shall
not come nearer a man by getting into his house. If unlike,
his soul only flees the faster from you, and you shall catch never
a true glance of his eye. We see the noble afar off and they
repel us ; why should we intrude ? Late, — very late, — we per-
ceive that no arrangements, no introductions, no consuetudes or
habits of society would be of any avail to establish us in such
relations with them as we desire, — but solely the uprise of na-
ture in us to the same degree it is in them : then shall we meet
as water with water : and if we should not meet them then, we
shall not want them, for we are already they. In the last
analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness
from other men. Men have sometimes exchanged names with
their friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each
loved his own soul.

The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the
less easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone
in the world. Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables.
But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that else-
where, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now
acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us and which we
can love. We may congratulate ourselves that the period of
nonage, of follies, of blunders, and of shame is passed in soli-
tude, and when we are finished men we shall grasp heroic hands
in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already see,
not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no
friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and
foolish alliances which no God attends. By persisting in your
path, though you forfeit the little you gain the great. You
become pronounced. You demonstrate yourself, so as to put
yourself out of the reach of false relations, and you draw to you
the firstborn of the world, — those rare pilgrims whereof only
one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the vul-
gar great show as specters and shadows merely.

It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as
if so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of
our popular views we make from insight, nature will be sure
to bear us out in, and though it seem to rob us of some joy,
will repay us with a greater. Let us feel if we will the abso-
lute insulation of man. We are sure that we have all in us.
We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we read books,
in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal

VOL. xxin. — 23

354 FRIENDSHIP.

us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we ;
the Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons ; the books,
their ghosts. Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this
mendicancy. Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell,
and defy them, saying, " Who are you ? Unhand me : I will be
dependent no more." Ah ! seest thou not, O brother, that thus
we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be
more each other's because we are more our own ? A friend is
Janus-faced : he looks to the past and the future. He is the
child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come.
He is the harbinger of a greater friend. It is the property
of the divine to be reproductive.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would
have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We
must have society on our own terms, and admit or exclude it
on the slightest cause. I cannot afford to speak much with
my friend. If he is great he makes me so great that I cannot
descend to converse. In the great days, presentiments hover
before me, far before me, in the firmament. I ought then to
dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go
out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them
receding into the sky in which now they are only a patch of
brighter light. Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot
afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose
my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to
quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy or search of
stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you ; but then
I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty
gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid times, when
I can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects ; then I
shall regret the lost literature of your mind, and wish you were
by my side again. But if you come, perhaps you will fill my
mind only with new visions ; not with yourself but with your
lusters, and I shall not be able any more than now to converse
with you. So I will owe to my friends this evanescent inter-
course. I will receive from them not what they have but what
they are. They shall give me that which properly they cannot
give me, but which emanates from them. But they shall not
hold me by any relations less subtle and pure. We will meet
as though we met not, and part as though we parted not.

It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to
carry a friendship greatly on one side, without due corre-

THE COURTIN'. 355

spondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with
the poor fact that the receiver is not capacious? It never
troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into
ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet.
Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If
he is unequal he will presently pass away; but thou art en-
larged by thy own shining, and, no longer a mate for frogs and
worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. It
is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will
see that true love cannot be unrequited. True love transcends
instantly the unworthy object and dwells and broods on the
eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not
sad, but feels rid of so much earth and feels its independency
the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort
of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entire-
ness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or
provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it
may deify both.

THE COURTIN'.

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

[1819-1891.]

ZEKLE crep' up, quite unbeknown,

An' peeked in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'ith no one nigh to hender.

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung,

An' in amongst 'em rusted
The old queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young

Fetched back frum Concord busted.

The wtinnut logs shot sparkles out

Towards the pootiest, bless her !
An' leetle fires danced all about

The chiny on the dresser.

The very room, coz she was in,

Looked warm frum floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'.

356 THE COURTIN'.

She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu,
A raspin' on the scraper, —

All ways to once her feelins flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the seekle ;

His heart kep' goin' pitypat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yet she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him f urder,

An' on her apples kep' to work
Ez ef a wager spurred her.

" You want to see my Pa, I tpose ? n
" Wai, no ; I come designin' — "

"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrow's i'nin'."

He stood a spell on one foot fust
Then stood a spell on t'other,

An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye, nuther.

Sez he, " I'd better call agin ; "
Sez she, "Think likely, Mister;"

The last word pricked him like a pin,
An' — wal, he up and kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,

Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kind o' smily round the lips

An' teary round the lashes.

Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,

An' all I know is they wuz cried
In meetin', come nex' Sunday.

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 867

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

BY SAMUEL WARREN.

[SAMUEL WARREN : An English novelist ; born in Denbighshire, Wales,
May 23, 1807. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, but abandoned it for law.
Ultimately he became queen's counsel, recorder at Hull, and a member of
Parliament. He is chiefly remembered for his "Passages from the Diary of a
Late Physician1' (1832) and "Ten Thousand a Year" (1841), both of which
appeared originally in BlackwomV s Magazine. He died in 1877, in London.]

THE HERO APPEARS ON THE SCENE.

ABOUT ten o'clock one Sunday morning, in the month of
July, 1839, the dazzling sunbeams, which had for several hours
irradiated a little dismal back attic in one of the closest courts
adjoining Oxford Street, in London, and stimulated with their
intensity the closed eyelids of a young man — one TITTLEBAT
TITMOUSE — lying in bed, at length woke him. He rubbed
his eyes for some time, to relieve himself from the irritation
occasioned by the sudden glare they encountered ; and yawned
and stretched his limbs with a heavy sense of weariness, as
though his sleep had not refreshed him. He presently cast
his eyes towards the heap of clothes lying huddled together
on the backless chair by the bedside, where he had hastily
flung them about an hour after midnight ; at which time he
had returned from a great draper's shop in Oxford Street,
where he served as a shopman, and where he had nearly
dropped asleep, after a long day's work, in the act of putting
up the shutters. He could hardly keep his eyes open while he
undressed, short as was the time required to do so ; and on
dropping exhausted into bed, there he had continued, in deep
unbroken slumber, till the moment of his being presented to
the reader.

He lay for several minutes, stretching, yawning, and sigh-
ing, occasionally casting an irresolute glance towards the tiny
fireplace, where lay a modicum of wood and coal, with a tinder
box and a match or two placed upon the hob, so that he could
easily light his fire for the purposes of shaving and breakfasting.
He stepped at length lazily out of bed, and when he felt his
feet, again yawned and stretched himself. Then he lit his fire,
placed his bit of a kettle on the top of it, and returned to bed,
where he lay with his eye fixed on the fire, watching the crac-

358 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

kling blaze insinuate itself through the wood and coal. Once,
however, it began to fail, so he had to get up and assist it, by
blowing, and bits of paper; and it seemed in so precarious a
state that he determined not again to lie down, but sit on the
bedside : as he did, with his arms folded, ready to resume
operations if necessary. In this posture he remained for some
time, watching his little fire, and listlessly listening to the dis-
cordant jangling of innumerable church bells, clamorously call-
ing the citizens to their devotions. The current of thoughts
passing through his mind, was something like the following : —
" Heigho ! — Lud, Lud ! — Dull as ditch water ! — This is
my only holiday, yet I don't seem to enjoy it ! — for I feel
knocked up with my week's work ! (A yawn.) What a life
mine is, to be sure ! Here I am, in my eight-and-twentieth
year, and for four long years have been one of the shopmen at
Tag-rag & Co.'s, slaving from half -past seven o'clock in the
morning till nine at night, and all for a salary of thirty-five
pounds a year, and my board I And Mr. Tag-rag — eugh !
what a beast ! — is always telling me how high he's raised my
salary ! ! Thirty-five pounds a year is all I have for lodging,
and turning out like a gentleman ! 'Pon my soul I it can't
last ; for sometimes I feel getting desperate — such strange
thoughts come into my mind ! — Seven shillings a week do I
pay for this cursed hole — (he uttered these words with a
bitter emphasis, accompanied by a disgustful look round the
little room) — that one couldn't swing a cat in without touch-
ing the four sides ! — Last winter three of our gents (i.e. his
fellow-shopmen) came to tea with me one Sunday night ; and
bitter cold as it was, we four made this cussed doghole so hot,
we were obliged to open the window ! — And as for accommo-
dation — I recollect I had to borrow two nasty chairs from the
people below, who on the next Sunday borrowed my only
decanter, in return, and, hang them, cracked it ! — Curse me,
say I, if this life is worth having ! It's all the very vanity of
vanities — as it's said somewhere in the Bible — and no mis-
take ! Fag, fag, fag, all one's days, and — what for ? Thirty-
five pounds a year, and ' no advance ! ' (Here occurred a pause
and reverie, from which he was roused by the clangor of the
church bells.) Bah, bells ! ring away till you're all cracked !
— Now do you think Tm going to be mewed up in church on
this the only day out of the seven I've got to sweeten myself
in, and sniff fresh air ? A precious joke that would be ! (A

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 359

yawn.) Whew! — after all, I'd almost as lieve sit here ; for
what's the use of my going out ? Everybody I see out is
happy, excepting me, and the poor chaps that are like me I —
Everybody laughs when they see me, and know that I'm only
a tallow-faced couuterjumper — I know that's the odious name
we gents go by ! — for whom it's no use to go out — for one
day in seven can't give one a bloom ! Oh, Lord ! what's the
use of being good-looking, as some chaps say I am ? " — Here
he instinctively passed his left hand through a profusion of
sandy-colored hair, and cast an eye towards the bit of fractured
looking-glass which hung against the wall, and had, by faith-
fully representing to him a by no means ugly set of features
(despite the dismal hue of his hair) whenever he chose to
appeal to it, afforded him more enjoyment than any other
object in the world, for years. " Ah, by Jove ! many and
many's the fine gal I've done my best to attract the notice of,
while I was serving her in the shop — that is, when I've seen
her get out of a carriage ! There has been luck to many
a chap like me, in the same line of speculation : look at Tom
Tarnish — how did he get Miss Twang, the rich pianoforte
maker's daughter ? — and now he's cut the shop, and lives at
Hackney, like a regular gentleman ! Ah ! that was a stroke !
But somehow it hasn't answered with me yet ; the gals don't
take ! How I have set my eyes to be sure, and ogled them !
— All of them don't seem to dislike the thing — and sometimes
they'll smile, in a sort of way that says I'm safe — but it's
been no use yet, not a bit of it ! — My eyes ! catch me, by the
way, ever nodding again to a lady on the Sunday, that had
smiled when I stared at her while serving her in the shop —
after what happened to me a month or two ago in the Park !
Didn't I feel like damaged goods, just then? But it's no
matter, women are so different at different times ! — Very
likely I mismanaged the thing. By the way, what a precious
puppy of a chap the fellow was that came up to her at the time
she stepped out of her carriage to walk a bit ! As for good
looks — cut me to ribbons (another glance at the glass) — no ;
I a'n't afraid there, neither — but — heigho ! — I suppose he
was, as they say, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, and
had never so many a thousand a year, to make up to him for
never so few brains ! He was uncommon well-dressed, though,
I must own. What trousers ! — they stuck so natural to him,
he might have been born in them. And his waistcoat, and

360 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

satin stock — what an air ! And yet, his figure was nothing
very out of the way ! His gloves, as white as snow ; I've no
doubt he wears a pair of them a day — my stars ! that's three
and sixpence a day; for don't I know what they cost?-
Whew I if I had but the cash to carry on that sort of thing !

And when he'd seen her into her carriage — the horse he

got on ! — and what a tiptop groom — that chap's wages, I'll
answer for it, were equal to my salary I (Here was another
pause.) Now, just for the fun of the thing, only suppose luck
was to befall me ! Say that somebody was to leave me lots of
cash — many thousands a year, or something in that line ! My
stars ! wouldn't I go it with the best of them ! (Another long
pause.) Gad, I really should hardly know how to begin to
spend it ! — I think, by the way, I'd buy a title to set off with
— for what won't money buy ? The thing's often done ; there
was a great pawnbroker in the city, the other day, made a
baronet of, all for his money — and why shouldn't I ? " He
grew a little heated with the progress of his reflections, clasp-
ing his hands with involuntary energy, as he stretched them
out to their fullest extent, to give effect to a very hearty yawn.
" Lord, only think how it would sound : —

" SIB TITTLEBAT TITMOUSE, BARONET ; (OB) LORD TIT-
MOUSE 1 1

" The very first place I'd go to, after I'd got my title, and
was rigged out in Tight-fit's tiptop, should be — our cursed
shop I to buy a dozen or two pair of white kid. Ah, ha !
What a flutter there would be among the poor pale devils as
were standing, just as ever, behind the counters, at Tag-rag
& Co.'s when my carriage drew up, and I stepped, a tiptop
swell, into the shop. Tag-rag would come and attend to me
himself! No, he wouldn't — pride wouldn't let him. I don't
know, though : what wouldn't he do to turn a penny, and make
two and ninepence into three and a penny ? I shouldn't quite
come Captain Stiff over him, I think, just at first ; but I should
treat him with a kind of an air, too, as if — hem ! 'Pon my
life! how delightful! (A sigh and a pause.) Yes, I should
often come to the shop. Gad, it would be half the fun of my
fortune ! How they would envy me, to be sure ! How one
should enjoy it ! I wouldn't think of marrying till — and yet
I won't say either ; if I got among some of them out-and-outers

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 361

— those first-rate articles — that lady, for instance, the other
day in the Park — I should like to see her cut me as she did,
with ten thousand a year in my pocket I Why, she'd be run-
ning after me ! — or there's no truth in novels, which I'm sure
there's often a great deal in. Oh, of course, I might marry
whom I pleased I Who couldn't be got with ten thousand
a year? (Another pause.) I think I should go abroad to
Russia directly ; for they tell me there's a man lives there who
could dye this cussed hair of mine any color I liked — and —
egad ! I'd come home as black as a crow, and hold up my head
as high as any of them I While I was about it, I'd have a
touch at my eyebrows " Crash here went all his castle-
building, at the sound of his teakettle, hissing, whizzing, sput-
tering, in the agonies of boiling over. . . .

He was really not bad-looking, in spite of his sandy-colored
hair. His forehead, to be sure, was contracted, and his eyes
were of a very light color, and a trifle too protuberant ; but his
mouth was rather well formed, and being seldom closed, ex-
hibited very beautiful teeth ; and his nose was of that descrip-
tion which generally passes for a Roman nose. His countenance
wore generally a smile, and was expressive of — self-satisfac-
tion : and surely any expression is better than none at all. As
for there being the slightest trace of intellect in it, I should be
misleading the reader if I were to say anything of the sort. . . .

His condition was, indeed, forlorn in the extreme. To say
nothing of his prospects in life — what was his present condi-
tion? A shopman with thirty-five pounds a year, out of which
he had to find his clothing, washing, lodging, and all other
incidental expenses — the chief item of his board — such as it
was — being found him by his employers I He was five weeks
in arrear to his landlady — a corpulent old termagant, whom
nothing could have induced him to risk offending, but his
overmastering love of finery; for I grieve to say, that this
deficiency had been occasioned by his purchase of the ring he
then wore with so much pride ! How he had contrived to
pacify her — lie upon lie he must have had recourse to — I
know not. He was indebted also to his poor washerwoman in
five or six shillings for at least a quarter's washing, and owed
five times that amount to a little old tailor, who, with huge
spectacles on his nose, turned up to him, out of a little cupboard
which he occupied in Closet Court, and which Titmouse had to
pass whenever he went to or from his lodgings, a lean, sallow,

362 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

wrinkled face, imploring him to "settle his small account."
All the cash in hand which he had to meet contingencies
between that day and quarter-day, which was six weeks off,
was about twenty-six shillings, of which he had taken one for
the present day's expenses I

Revolving these somewhat disheartening matters in his
mind, he passed easily and leisurely along the whole length of
Oxford Street. No one could have judged from his dressy
appearance, the constant smirk on his face, and his confident
air, how very miserable that poor little dandy was ; but three
fourths of his misery were really occasioned by the impossibility
he felt of his ever being able to indulge in his propensities for
finery and display. Nothing better had he to occupy his few
thoughts. He had had only a plain mercantile education, as
it is called, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic ; beyond an
exceedingly moderate acquaintance with these, he knew nothing
whatever ; not having read anything except a few inferior
novels, and plays, and sporting newspapers. Deplorable, how-
ever, as were his circumstances —

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

And probably, in common with most who are miserable from
straitened circumstances, he often conceived, and secretly relied
upon, the possibility of some unexpected and accidental change
for the better. He had heard and read of extraordinary cases
of LUCK. Why might he not be one of the LUCKY ? A rich
girl might fall in love with him — that was, poor fellow ! in his
consideration, one of the least unlikely ways of luck's advent ;
or some one might leave him money ; or he might win a prize
in the lottery ; — all these, and other accidental modes of get-
ting rich, frequently occurred to the well-regulated mind of
Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse ; but he never once thought of one
thing, viz. of determined, unwearying industry, perseverance,
and integrity in the way of his business, conducing to such a
result !

Is his case a solitary one ? — Dear reader, you may be unlike
poor Tittlebat Titmouse in every respect except one !

[He comes into this amount of £10,000 a year by the barratry of Quirk,
Gammon, & Snap, attorneys, who discover that he is an illegitimate
cadet of a great house, suppress the fact of illegitimacy, dispossess the
actual heirs, and extort £2000 a year hush money from him.]

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 363

ENDEAVORS TO IMPROVE His PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

[He goes to the shop of a fashionable perfumer and perruquier in Bond
Street.]

A well-dressed gentleman was sitting behind the counter
reading. He was handsome ; and his elaborately curled hair
was of a heavenly black (so at least Titmouse considered it),
which was better than a thousand printed advertisements of the
celebrated fluid which formed the chief commodity there vended.
Titmouse, with a little hesitation, asked this gentleman what
was the price of their article " for turning light hair black " —
and was answered — "only seven and sixpence for the smaller-
sized bottle."

One was placed upon the counter in a twinkling, where it
lay like a miniature mummy, swathed, as it were, in manifold
advertisements. " You'll find the fullest directions within, and
testimonials from the highest nobility to the wonderful efficacy
of the ' CYANOCHAITANTHROPOPOION. ' "

" Sure it will do, sir ? " inquired Titmouse, anxiously.

" Is my hair dark enough to your taste, sir ? " said the gen-
tleman, with a calm and bland manner — "because I owe it
entirely to this invaluable specific."

" Do you, indeed, sir ? " inquired Titmouse : adding with a
sigh, " but, between ourselves, look at mine ! " — and, lifting
off his hat for a moment, he exhibited a great crop of bushy,
carroty hair.

" Whew ! rather ugly that, sir ! " exclaimed the gentleman,
looking very serious. — " What a curse it is to be born with
such hair, isn't it ? "

" 'Pon my life I think so, sir ! " answered Titmouse, mourn-
fully ; " and do you really say, sir, that this what's-its-name
turned yours of that beautiful black ? "

" Think ? 'Pon my honor, sir, — certain ; no mistake, I
assure you ! I was fretting myself into my grave about the
color of my hair ! Why, sir, there was a nobleman in here
(I don't like to mention names) the other day, with a head
that seemed as if it had been dipped into water and then pow-
dered with brick dust ; but — I assure you, the Cyanochaitan-
thropopoion was too much for it — it turned black in a very
short time. You should have seen his lordship's ecstasy —
[the speaker saw that Titmouse would swallow anything ; so
he went on with a confident air] — and in a month's time

364 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

he had married a beautiful woman whom he had loved from a
child, but who had vowed she could never bring herself to
marry a man with such a head of hair."

" How long does it take to do all this, sir?" interrupted
Titmouse, eagerly, with a beating heart.

" Sometimes two — sometimes three days. In four days'
time, I'll answer for it, your most intimate friend would not
know you. My wife did not know me for a long while, and
wouldn't let me salute her — ha, ha ! " Here another customer
entered ; and Titmouse, laying down the five-pound note he
had squeezed out of Tag-rag, put the wonder-working bottle
into his pocket, and on receiving his change, departed, burst-
ing with eagerness to try the effects of the Cyanochaitan-
thropopoion. Within half an hour's time he might have been
seen driving a hard bargain with a pawnbroker for a massive-
looking eyeglass, upon which, as it hung suspended in the
window, he had for months cast a longing eye ; and he eventu-
ally purchased it (his eyesight, 1 need hardly say, was perfect)
for only fifteen shillings. After taking a hearty dinner in a
little dusky eating house in Rupert Street, frequented by
fashionable-looking foreigners, with splendid heads of curling
hair and mustaches, he hastened home, eager to commence tha
grand experiment. Fortunately, he was undisturbed that even-
ing. Having lit his candle, and locked his door, with tremu-
lous fingers he opened the papers enveloping the little bottle ;
and glancing over their contents, got so inflamed with the
numberless instances of its efficacy, detailed in brief but glow-
ing terms — as — the "Duke of , the Countess of ,

the Earl of , etc., etc., the lovely Miss , the celebrated

Sir Little Bull's-eye (who was so gratified that he allowed his
name to be used) — all of whom, from having hair of the
reddest possible description, were now possessed of raven-hued
locks" — that he threw down the paper, and hurriedly got the
cork out of the bottle. Having turned up his coat-cuffs, he
commenced the application of the Cyanochaitanthropopoion,
rubbing it into his hair, eyebrows, and whiskers, with all the
energy he was capable of, for upwards of half an hour. Then
he read over again every syllable on the papers in which the
bottle had been wrapped; and about eleven o'clock, having
given sundry curious glances at the glass, got into bed, full
of exciting hopes and delightful anxieties concerning the success
of the great experiment he was trying. He could not sleep

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 365

for several hours. He dreamed a rapturous dream — that he
bowed to a gentleman with coal-black hair, whom he fancied
he had seen before — and suddenly discovered that he was
only looking at himself in a glass ! ! — This awoke him. Up
he jumped — sprang to his little glass breathlessly — but ah!
merciful Heavens ! he almost dropped down dead ! His hair
was perfectly green — there could be no mistake about it. He
stood staring in the glass in speechless horror, his eyes and
mouth distended to their utmost, for several minutes. Then
he threw himself on the bed, and felt fainting. Out he pres-
ently jumped again, in a kind of ecstasy — rubbed his hair
desperately and wildly about — again looked into the glass —
there it was, rougher than before ; but eyebrows, whiskers,
and head — all were, if anything, of a more vivid and brilliant
green. Despair came over him. What had all his past
troubles been to this ? — what was to become of him ? He
got into bed again, and burst into a perspiration. Two or
three times he got into and out of bed, to look at himself —
on each occasion deriving only more terrible confirmation than
before, of the disaster which had befallen him. After lying
still for some minutes, he got out of bed, and kneeling down,
tried to say his prayers ; but it was in vain — and he rose half
choked. It was plain he must have his head shaved, and wear
a wig, which would be making an old man of him at once.
Getting more and more disturbed in his mind, he dressed him-
self, half determined on starting off to Bond Street, and break-
ing every pane of glass in the shop window of the infernal
impostor who had sold him the liquid which had so frightfully
disfigured him. As he stood thus irresolute, he heard the step
of Mrs. Squallop approaching his door, and recollected that he
had ordered her to bring up his teakettle about that time.
Having no time to take his clothes off, he thought the best
thing he could do would be to pop into bad again, draw his
nightcap down to his ears and eyebrows, pretend to be asleep,
and, turning his back towards the door, have a chance of
escaping the observation of his landlady. No sooner thought of
than done. Into bed he jumped, and drew the clothes over
him — not aware, however, that in his hurry he had left his
legs, with boots and trousers on, exposed to view — an unusual
spectacle to his landlady, who had, in fact, scarcely ever known
him in bed at so late an hour before. He lay as still as a
mouse. Mrs. Squallop, after glancing with surprise at his

366 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

legs, happening to direct her eyes towards the window, beheld
a small bottle standing there — only half of whose dark con-
tents were remaining. Oh gracious ! — of course it must be
POISON, and Mr. Titmouse must be dead ! — In a sudden fright
she dropped the kettle, plucked the clothes off the trembling
Titmouse, and cried out — " Oh, Mr. Titmouse ! Mr. Titmouse !
what have you been "

"Well, ma'am, what the devil do you mean? How dare

you " commenced Titmouse, suddenly sitting up, and look-

ing furiously at Mrs. Squallop. An inconceivably strange and
horrid figure he looked. He had all his day clothes on ; a
white cotton nightcap was drawn down to his very eyes, like
a man going to be hanged ; his face was very pale, and his
whiskers were of a bright green color.

" Lard a-mighty ! " exclaimed Mrs. Squallop, faintly, the
moment that this strange apparition had presented itself ; and
sinking on the chair, she pointed with a dismayed air to the
ominous-looking object standing on the window shelf. Tit-
mouse thence inferred that she had found out the true state of
the case. " Well — isn't it an infernal shame, Mrs. Squallop ? "
said he, getting off the bed; and, plucking off his nightcap,
he exhibited the full extent of his misfortune. " What d'ye
think of that!" he exclaimed, staring wildly at her. Mrs.
Squallop gave a faint shriek, turned her head aside, and mo-
tioned him away.

" I shall go mad — I SHALL ! " cried Titmouse, tearing his
green hair.

" Oh Lord ! — oh Lord ! " groaned Mrs. Squallop, evidently
expecting him to leap upon her. Presently, however, she a
little recovered her presence of mind ; and Titmouse, stutter-
ing with fury, explained to her what had taken place. As he
went on, Mrs. Squallop became less and less able to control
herself, and at length burst into a fit of convulsive laughter,
and sat holding her hands to her fat shaking sides, and appear-
ing likely to tumble off her chair. Titmouse was almost on
the point of striking her ! At length, however, the fit went off ;
and wiping her eyes, she expressed the greatest commisera-
tion for him, and proposed to go down and fetch up some soft
soap and flannel, and try what " a good hearty wash would do."
Scarce sooner said than done — but, alas, in vain ! Scrub, scrub
— lather, lather, did they both ; but, the instant that the soap
suds had been washed off, there was the head as green as ever !

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 367

" Oh, murder, murder ! what am I to do, Mrs. Squallop ? "
groaned Titmouse, having taken another look at himself in the
glass.

" Why — really I'd be off to a police office, and have 'em all
taken up, if as how I was you ! " quoth Mrs. Squallop.

44 No — see if I don't take that bottle, and make the fellow
that sold it me swallow what's left — and I'll smash in his shop
front besides ! "

" Oh, you won't — you mustn't — not on no account I Stop
at home a bit, and be quiet ; it may go off with all this washing,
in the course of the day. Soft soap is an uncommon strong
thing for getting colors out — but — a — a — excuse me now,
Mr. Titmouse " — said Mrs. Squallop, seriously — " why wasn't
you satisfied with the hair God Almighty had given you?
D'ye think He didn't know a deal better than you what was
best for you ? I'm blest if I don't think this is a judgment on
you, when one comes to consider ! "

44 What's the use of your standing preaching to me in this
way, Mrs. Squallop ? " said Titmouse, first with amazement, and
then with fury in his manner. — " A 'n't I half mad without it ?
Judgment or no judgment — where's the harm of my wanting
black hair any more than black trousers ? That a'n't your own
hair, Mrs. Squallop — you're as gray as a badger underneath —
'pon my soul ! I've often remarked it — I have, 'pon my soul ! "

44 I'll tell you what, Mr. Himperance ! " furiously exclaimed
Mrs. Squallop, " you're a liar I And you deserve what you've
got ! It is a judgment, and I hope it will stick by you — so
take that for your sauce, you vulgar fellow ! " (snapping her
fingers at him). " Get rid of your green hair if you can ! It's
only carrot tops instead of carrot roots — and some likes one,
some the other — ha ! ha I ha ! "

44 I'll tell you what, Mrs. Squ " he commenced, but she

had gone, having slammed to the door behind her with all her
force. . . .

44 Look, sir ! look ! Only look here what your cussed stuff
has done to my hair 1 " said Titmouse, on presenting himself
soon after to the gentleman who had sold him the infernal
liquid ; and, taking off his hat, exposed his green hair. The
gentleman, however, did not appear at all surprised, or dis-
composed.

44 Ah — yes ! I see — I see. You're in the intermediate
stage. It differs in different people "

368 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

" Differs, sir I I'm going mad ! I look like a green monkey
— cuss me if I don't ! "

"In me, now," replied the gentleman, with a matter-of-fact
air, "the color was a strong yellow. But have you read the
explanations that are given in the wrapper ? "

" Read 'em ? " echoed Titmouse, furiously — "I should think
so ? Much good they do me ! Sir, you're a humbug ! — an im-
postor ! I'm a sight to be seen for the rest of my life I Look
at me, sir ! Eyebrows, whiskers, and all ! "

" Rather a singular appearance, just at present, I must own,"
said the gentleman, his face turning suddenly red all over with
the violent effort he was making to prevent an explosion of
laughter. He soon, however, recovered himself, and added
coolly — " If you'll only persevere

" Persevere be d d ! " interrupted Titmouse, violently

clapping his hat on his head. " I'll teach you to persevere in
taking in the public 1 I'll have a warrant out against you in
no time ! "

" Oh, my dear sir, I'm accustomed to all this I " said the
gentleman, coolly.

" The — devil — you — are ! " gasped Titmouse, quite aghast.

" Oh, often — often, while the liquid is performing the first
stage of the change ; but, in a day or two afterwards, the par-
ties generally come back smiling into my shop, with heads as
black as crows ! "

" No ! But really — do they, sir ? " interrupted Titmouse,
drawing a long breath.

" Hundreds, I may say thousands, my dear sir ! And one
lady gave me a picture of herself, in her black hair, to make
up for her abuse of me when it was in a puce color — fact,
honor ! "

" But do you recollect any one's hair turning green, and
then getting black?" inquired Titmouse, with trembling
anxiety.

" Recollect any ? Fifty at least. For instance, there was
Lord Albert Addlehead — but why should I mention names?
I know hundreds ! But everything is honor and confidential
here!"

" And did Lord what's-his-name's hair grow green, and
then black ; and was it at first as light as mine ? "

" His hair was redder, and in consequence it became greener,
and now is blacker than ever yours will be."

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR 869

"Well, if I and my landlady have this morning used an
ounce, we've used a quarter of a pound of soft soap in "

" Soft soap I — soft soap ! " cried out the gentleman, with
an air of sudden alarm — "that explains all" (he forgot how
well it had been already explained by him). "By Heavens,
sir ! — soft soap I You may have ruined your hair forever ! "
Titmouse opened his eyes and mouth with a start of terror, it
not occurring to his astute mind that the intolerable green
had preceded, not followed, the use of the soft soap. " Go
home, my dear sir! God bless you — go home, as you value
your hair ; take this small bottle of DAMASCUS CKEAM, and
rub it in before it's too late ; and then use the remainder of
the "

"Then you don't think it's already too late?" inquired
Titmouse, faintly ; and, having been assured to the contrary —
having asked the price of the Damascus cream, which was " only
three and sixpence " (stamp included) — he purchased and paid
for it with a rueful air, and took his departure. He sneaked home-
ward along the streets with the air of a pickpocket, fearful that
every one he met was an officer who had his eye on him. He
was not, in fact, very far off the mark ; for many a person smiled,
and stared, and turned round to look at him as he went along.

Titmouse slunk upstairs to his room in a sad state of de-
pression, and spent the next hour in rubbing into his hair the
Damascus cream. He rubbed till he could hardly hold his arms
up any longer, from sheer fatigue. Having risen at length to
mark, from the glass, the progress he had made, he found that
the only result of his persevering exertions had been to give a
greasy shining appearance to the hair, which remained green
as ever. With a half-uttered groan he sank down upon a
chair, and fell into a sort of abstraction, which was interrupted
by a sharp knock at his door. Titmouse started up, trembled,
and stood for a moment or two irresolute, glancing fearfully at
the glass ; and then, opening the door, let in — Mr. Gammon,
who started back a pace or two, as if he had been shot, on catch-
ing sight of the strange figure of Titmouse. It was useless for
Gammon to try to check his laughter ; so, leaning against the
doorpost, he yielded to the impulse, and laughed without
intermission for nearly a couple of minutes. Titmouse felt
desperately angry, but feared to show it ; and the timid, rueful,
lackadaisical air with which he regarded the dreaded Mr. Gam-
VOL. xxni. — 24

370 TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

mon only prolonged and aggravated the agonies of that gentle,
man. When at length he had a little recovered himself, holding
his left hand to his side, with an exhausted air, he entered the
little apartment, and asked Titmouse what in the name of
heaven he had been doing to himself : " Without this " (in the
absurd slang of the lawyers) that he suspected most vehe-
mently, all the while, what Titmouse had been about ; but he
wished to hear Titmouse's own account of the matter ! — Tit-
mouse, not daring to hesitate, complied — Gammon listening in
an agony of suppressed laughter. He looked as little at Tit-
mouse as he could, and was growing a trifle more sedate, when
Titmouse, in a truly lamentable tone inquired, "What's the
good, Mr. Gammon, of ten thousand a year with such a horrid
head of hair as this ? "

His POLITICAL SPEECH.

" Now, Mr. Titmouse I " said the returning officer, address-
ing that gentleman : who on hearing the words, turned as
white as a sheet, and felt very much disposed to be sick. He
pulled out of his coat pocket a well-worn little roll of paper, on
which was the speech which Mr. Gammon had prepared for
him, as I have already intimated ; and with a shaking hand he
unrolled it, casting at its contents a glance, momentary and
despairing. What then would that little fool have given for
memory, voice, and manner enough to " speak the speech that
had been set down for him I " He cast a dismal look over
his shoulder at Mr. Gammon, and took off his hat — Sir Harka-
way clapping him on the back, exclaiming, " Now f or't, lad —
have at 'em, and away — never fear 1 " The moment that he
stood bareheaded, and prepared to address the writhing mass
of faces before him, he was greeted with a prodigious shout,
while hats were some of them waved, and others flung into the
air. It was, indeed, several minutes before the uproar abated
in the least. With fearful rapidity, however, every species of
noise and interruption ceased — and a deadly silence prevailed.
The sea of eager, excited faces — all turned towards him —
was a spectacle which might for a moment have shaken the
nerves of even a man — had he been "unaccustomed to public
speaking." The speech, which — brief and simple though it
was — he had never been able to make his own, even after
copying it out half a dozen times, and trying to learn it off for

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. 371

an hour or two daily during the preceding fortnight, he had
now utterly forgotten ; and he would have given a hundred
pounds to retire at once from the contest, or sink unperceived
under the floor of the hustings.

" Begin I begin ! " whispered Gammon, earnestly.

"Ya — a — s — but — what shall I say?" stammered Tit-
mouse.

" Your speech," answered Gammon, impatiently.

"I — I — 'pon my — soul — I've — forgot every word of
it!"

" Then read it," said Gammon, in a furious whisper. —
" Good God, you'll be hissed off the hustings ! — Read from
the paper, do you hear I " he added, almost gnashing his
teeth.

Matters having come to this fearful issue, " Gentlemen,"
commenced Mr. Titmouse, faintly

" Hear him 1 Hear, hear ! — Hush ! — Sh ! sh ! " cried the
impatient and expectant crowd.

Now, I happen to have a shorthand writer's notes of every
word uttered by Mr. Titmouse, together with an account of
the reception it met with : and I shall here give the reader,
first, Mr. Titmouse's real, and secondly, Mr. Titmouse's sup-
posed speech, as it appeared two days afterwards in the columns
of the Yorkshire Stingo.

Look on this picture and on THIS !

Mr. Titmouse's ACTUAL Mr. Titmouse's REPORTED

Speech. Speech.

GENTLEMEN, — Most uncom- Silence having been restored,

mon, unaccustomed as I am Mr. Titmouse said, that he feared

(cheers) — happy — memorable, it was but too evident that he was

— proudest — high honor — un- unaccustomed to scenes so excit-
worthy (cheering) — day of my ing as the present one — that was
life — important crisis (cheers') one source of his embarrassment ;

— day gone by, and arrived — but the greatest was, the enthusi-
too late (cheering) — civil and astic reception with which he had
religious liberty all over the been honored, and of which he
world (immense cheering, led off owned himself quite unworthy
by Mr. Mudflint). Yes, gentle- (cheers). He agreed with the
men, — I would observe — it is gentleman who had proposed him
unnecessary to say — passing of in so very able and powerful a
that truly glorious Bill — char- speech (cheers), that we had ar-
ter — no mistake — Britons never rived at a crisis in our national

372

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR.

shall be slaves (enthusiastic
cheers'). — Gentlemen, unaccus-
tomed as I am to address an as-
sembly of this — a-hem ! (" hear !
hear ! hear ! " and cheers) — civil
and religious liberty all over the
•world (cheers) — yet the tongue
can feel where the heart cannot
express the (cheers) — so help me

! universal suffrage and

cheap and enlightened equality
(cries of" that's it, lad ! ") — which
can never fear to see established
in this country (cheers') — if only
true to — industrious classes and
corn laws — yes, gentlemen, I say
corn laws — for I am of op —
(hush I cries of " ay, lad, what dost
say about THEM ? ") working out
the principles which conduce to
the establishment a — a — a —
civil and religious liberty of the
press! (cheers) and the working
classes (hush!) — Gentlemen,
unaccustomed as I am — well

— at any rate — will you — I say

— will you? (vehement cries of
" no! no! never ! ") unless you are
true to yourselves! Gentlemen,
without going into — vote by Bal-
lot (cheers') and quarterly Parlia-
ments (loud cheering) — three
polar stars of my public conduct

— (here the great central banner
was waved to and fro, amid
enthusiastic cheering) — and
reducing the overgrown Church
Establishment to a — difference
between me and my honorable
opponent (loud cheers and
groans) — I live among you
(cheers) — spend my money in the
borough (cheers') — no business
to come here (no, no /) — right
about, close borough (hisses /) —

history (cheering) — a point at
which it would be ruin to go back,
while to stand still was impossi-
ble (cheers) ; and, therefore, there
was nothing for it but to go for-
ward (great cheering). He looked
upon the passing of the Bill for
giving Everybody Everything, as
establishing an entirely new order
of things (cheers), in which the
people had been roused to a
sense of their being the only
legitimate source of power (cheer-
ing). They had, like Samson,
though weakened by the cruelty
and torture of his tyrants, bowed
down and broken into pieces the
gloomy fabric of aristocracy.
The words " Civil and Religious
Liberty" were now no longer a
byword and a reproach (cheers) ;
but, as had been finely observed
by the gentleman who had so elo-
quently proposed him to their
notice, the glorious truth had gone
forth to the ends of the earth,
that no man was under any re-
sponsibility for his opinions or
his belief, any more than for the
shape of his nose (universal cheer-
ing). A spirit of tolerance, amel-
ioration, and renovation was now
abroad, actively engaged in re-
pairing our defective and dilapi-
dated constitution, the relic of a
barbarous age — with some traces
of modern duty, but more of an-
cient ignorance and unsightliness
(cheers). The great Bill he al-
luded to had roused the masses
into political being (immense
cheering), and made them sensible
of the necessity of keeping down
a rapacious and domineering oli-
garchy (groans). Was not the

THE AFGHAN WAR.

373

patient attention, which I will
not further trespass upon (" liear !
/tear / " and loud cheering) — full
explanation — rush early to the

— base, bloody, and brutal
(cheers) — poll triumphant —
extinguish forever (cheers). —
Gentlemen, these are my senti-
ments— wish you many happy

— re — hem ! a-hem — and by
early displaying a determination
to — (cries of " we will ! we will I ")

— eyes of the whole country
upon you — crisis of our national
representation — patient atten-
tion — latest day of my life. —
Gentlemen, yours truly.

liberty of the press placed now
upon an intelligible and imperish-
able basis? — Already were its
purifying and invigorating influ-
ences perceptible (cheering) —
and he trusted that it would
never cease to directs its powerful
energies to the demolition of the
many remaining barriers to the im-
provement of mankind (cheers).
The corn laws must be repealed,
the taxes must be lowered, the
army and navy reduced ; vote by
ballot and universal suffrage con-
ceded, the quarterly meeting of
Parliament secured, and the rev-
enues of the church be made
applicable to civil purposes.
Marriage must be no longer
fenced about by religious cere-
monials (cheers). He found that
there were three words on his ban-
ner, which were worth a thousand
speeches, — Peace, Retrenchment,
Reform, — which, as had been
happily observed by the gentle-
man who had so ably proposed
him

THE AFGHAN WAR

AND CATASTROPHE OF THE KHYBER PASS.

BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY.

(From "A History of Our Own Times.")

[JUSTIN MCCARTHY ; an Irish writer ; born at Cork, November 22, 1830.
In 1863 he engaged in journalism, becoming editor in chief of the Liverpool
Morning Star in 1894. From 1879 to 1900 he represented Longford in Parliament
as a Home Ruler. Among his books, which include novels, histories, and biog-
raphies, are : " A History of Our Own Times," his most important work (4 vols.,
1879-1880) ; "History of the Four Georges" (4 vols., 1886) ; "Lady Judith"

374 THE AFGHAN WAR.

(1871) ; " A Fair Saxon " (1873) ; " Dear Lady Disdain " (1875) ; " The Comet
of a Season" (1881) ; "Roland Oliver" (1889) ; "Charing Cross to St. Paul's"
(1891) ; " Sir Robert Peel " (1891) ; " The Dictator " (1893) ; " Pope Leo XIII."
(1896); "The Riddle Ring" (1896); and "The Story of Gladstone's Life"
(1897).]

THE withdrawal of Dost Mahomed from the scene did noth-
ing to secure the reign of the unfortunate Shah Sujah. The
Shah was hated on his own account. He was regarded as a
traitor who had sold his country to the foreigners. Insurrec-
tions began to be chronic. They were going on in the very
midst of Cabul itself. Sir W. Macnaghten was warned of
danger, but seemed to take no heed. Some fatal blindness
appears to have suddenly fallen on the eyes of our people in
Cabul.

On November 2d, 1841, an insurrection broke out. Sir
Alexander Burnes lived in the city itself ; Sir W. Macnaghten
and the military commander, Major General Elphinstone, were
in cantonments at some little distance. The insurrection might
have been put down in the first instance with hardly the need
even of Napoleon's famous " whiff of grapeshot." But it was
allowed to grow up without attempt at control. Sir Alex-
ander Burnes could not be got to believe that it was anything
serious, even when a fanatical and furious mob were besieging his
own house. The fanatics were especially bitter against Burnes,
because they believed that he had been guilty of treachery.
They accused him of having pretended to be the friend of
Dost Mahomed, deceived him, and brought the English into
the country. How entirely innocent of this charge Burnes
was we all now know ; but it would be idle to deny that
there was much in the external aspect of events to excuse
such a suspicion in the mind of an infuriated Afghan. To
the last Burnes refused to believe that he was in danger. He
had always been a friend to the Afghans, he said, and he could
have nothing to fear. It was true. He had always been the
sincere friend of the Afghans. It was his misfortune, and the
heavy fault of his superiors, that he had been made to appear
as an enemy of the Afghans. He had now to pay a heavy
penalty for the errors and the wrongdoing of others. He
harangued the raging mob, and endeavored to bring them to
reason. He does not seem to have understood, up to the very
last moment, that by reminding them that he was Alexander
Burnes, their old friend, he was only giving them a new reason

THE AFGHAN WAR. 375

for demanding his life. He was murdered in the tumult. He
and his brother and all those with them were hacked to pieces
with Afghan knives. He was only in his thirty-seventh year
when he was murdered. He was the first victim of the policy
which had resolved to intervene in the affairs of Afghanistan.
Fate seldom showed with more strange and bitter malice her
proverbial irony than when she made him the first victim of the
policy adopted in despite of his best advice and his strongest
warnings.

The murder of Burnes was not a climax ; it was only a
beginning. The English troops were quartered in canton-
ments outside the city, and at some little distance from it.
These cantonments were, in any case of real difficulty, prac-
tically indefensible. The popular monarch, the darling of his
people, whom we had restored to his throne, was in the Balla
Hissar, or citadel of Cabul. From the moment when the
insurrection broke out he may be regarded as a prisoner or a
besieged man there. He was as utterly unable to help our
people as they were to help him. The whole country threw
itself into insurrection against him and us. The Afghans at-
tacked the cantonments, and actually compelled the English
to abandon the forts in which all our commissariat was stored.
We were thus threatened with famine, even if we could resist
the enemy in arms. We were strangely unfortunate in our
civil and military leaders. Sir W. Macnaghten was a man of
high character and good purpose, but he was weak and credu-
lous. The commander, General Elphinstone, was old, infirm,
tortured by disease, broken down both in mind and body,
incapable of forming a purpose of his own, or of holding to one
suggested by anybody else. His second in command was a far
stronger and abler man, but unhappily the two could never agree.

" They were both of them," says Sir J. W. Kaye, " brave
men. In any other situation, though the physical infirmities
of the one and the cankered vanity, the dogmatical perverse-
ness, of the other, might have in some measure detracted from
their efficiency as military commanders, I believe they would
have exhibited sufficient courage and constancy to rescue an
army from utter destruction, and the British name from indel-
ible reproach. But in the Cabul cantonments they were miser-
ably out of place. They seem to have been sent there, by
superhuman intervention, to work out the utter ruin and pros-
tration of an unholy policy by ordinary human means."

376 THE AFGHAN WAK.

One fact must be mentioned by an English historian — one
which an English historian has happily not often to record. It
is certain that an officer in our service entered into negotiations
for the murder of the insurgent chiefs, who were our worst
enemies. It is more than probable that he believed in doing
so he was acting as Sir W. Macnaghten would have had him
do. Sir W. Macnaghten was innocent of any complicity in such
a plot, and was incapable of it. But the negotiations were
opened and carried on in his name.

A new figure appeared on the scene, a dark and a fierce
apparition. This was Akbar Khan, the favorite son of Dost
Mahomed. He was a daring, a clever, an unscrupulous young
man. From the moment when he entered Cabul he became
the real leader of the insurrection against Shah Sujah and us.
Macnaghten, persuaded by the military commander that the
position of things was hopeless, consented to enter into nego-
tiations with Akbar Khan. Before the arrival of the latter the
chiefs of the insurrection had offered us terms which made
the ears of our envoy tingle. Such terms had not often been
even suggested to British soldiers before. They were simply
unconditional surrender. Macnaghten indignantly rejected
them. Everything went wrong with him, however. We were
beaten again and again by the Afghans. Our officers never
faltered in their duty ; but the melancholy truth has to be told
that the men, most of whom were Asiatics, at last began to lose
heart and would not fight the enemy. So the envoy was com-
pelled to enter into terms with Akbar Khan and the other
chiefs. Akbar Khan received him at first with contemptuous
insolence — as a haughty conqueror receives some ignoble and
humiliated adversary. It was agreed that the British troops
should quit Afghanistan at once ; that Dost Mahomed and
family should be sent back to Afghanistan ; that on his return
the unfortunate Shah Sujah should be allowed to take himself
off to India or where he would ; and that some British officers
should be left at Cabul as hostages for the fulfillment of the
conditions.

The evacuation did not take place at once, although the
fierce winter was setting in, and the snow was falling heavily,
ominously. Macnaghten seems to have had still some linger-
ing hopes that something would turn up to relieve him from
the shame of quitting the country ; and it must be owned that
he does not seem to have had any intention of carrying out the

THE AFGHAN WAK. 877

terms of the agreement if by any chance he could escape from
them. On both sides there were dallyings and delays. At
last Akbar Khan made a new and startling proposition to our
envoy. It was that they two should enter into a secret treaty,
should unite their arms against the other chiefs, and should
keep Shah Sujah on the throne as nominal king, with Akbar
Khan as his vizier. Macnaghten caught at the proposals. He
had entered into terms of negotiation with the Afghan chiefs
together ; he now consented to enter into a secret treaty with
one of the chiefs to turn their joint arms against the others.
It would be idle and shameful to attempt to defend such a
policy. We can only excuse it by considering the terrible cir-
cumstances of Macnaghten's position, the manner in which his
nerves and moral fiber had been shaken and shattered by
calamities, and his doubts whether he could place any reliance
on the promises of the chiefs. He had apparently sunk into
that condition of mind which Macaulay tells us that Clive
adopted so readily in his dealings with Asiatics, and under the
influence of which men naturally honorable and high-minded
come to believe that it is right to act treacherously with those
whom we believe to be treacherous. All this is but excuse,
and rather poor excuse. When it has all been said and thought
of, we must still be glad to believe that there are not many
Englishmen who would, under any circumstances, have con-
sented even to give a hearing to the proposals of Akbar Khan.
Whatever Macnaghten's error, it was dearly expiated. He
went out at noon next day to confer with Akbar Khan on the
banks of the neighboring river. Three of his officers were
with him. Akbar Khan was ominously surrounded by friends
and retainers. These kept pressing round the unfortunate
envoy. Some remonstrance was made by one of the English
officers, but Akbar Khan said it was of no consequence, as they
were all in the secret. Not many words were spoken; the
expected conference had hardly begun when a signal was
given or an order issued by Akbar Khan, and the envoy and
the officers were suddenly seized from behind. A scene of
wild confusion followed, in which hardly anything is clear and
certain but the one most horrible incident. The envoy strug-
gled with Akbar Khan, who had himself seized Macnaghten ;
Akbar Khan drew from his belt one of a pair of pistols which
Macnaghten had presented to him a short time before, and
shot him through the body. The fanatics who were crowding

378 THE AFGHAN WAR.

round hacked the body to pieces with their knives. Of the
three officers one was killed on the spot ; the other two were
forced to mount Afghan horses and carried away as pris-
oners.

At first this horrid deed of treachery and blood shows like
that to which Clearchus and his companions, the chiefs of the
famous ten thousand Greeks, fell victims at the hands of Tissa-
phernes, the Persian satrap. But it seems certain that the
treachery of Akbar, base as it was, did not contemplate more
than the seizure of the envoy and his officers. There were
jealousies and disputes among the chiefs of the insurrection.
One of them, in especial, had got his mind filled with the con-
viction, inspired, no doubt, by the unfortunate and unparalleled
negotiation already mentioned, that the envoy had offered a
price for his head. Akbar Khan was accused by him of being a
secret friend of the envoy and the English. Akbar Khan's
father was a captive in the hands of the English, and it may
have been thought that on his account and for personal pur-
poses Akbar was favoring the envoy, and even intriguing with
him. Akbar offered to prove his sincerity by making the
envoy a captive and handing him over to the chiefs. This was
the treacherous plot which he strove to carry out by entering
into the secret negotiations with the easily deluded envoy. On
the fatal day the latter resisted and struggled ; Akbar Khan
heard a cry of alarm that the English soldiers were coming
out of the cantonments to rescue the envoy ; and, wild with
passion, he suddenly drew his pistol and fired. This was the
statement made again and again by Akbar Khan himself. It
does not seem an improbable explanation for what otherwise
looks a murder as stupid and purposeless as it was brutal.
The explanation does not much relieve the darkness of Akbar
Khan's character. It is given here as history, not as exculpa-
tion. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that Akbar
Khan would have shrunk from any treachery or any cruelty
which served his purpose. His own explanation of his purpose
in this instance shows a degree of treachery which could hardly
be surpassed even in the East. But it is well to bear in mind
that the suspicion of perfidy under which the English envoy
labored, and which was the main impulse of Akbar Khan's
movement, had evidence enough to support it in the eyes of
suspicious enemies, and that poor Macnaghten would not have
been murdered had he not consented to meet Akbar Khan and

THE AFGHAN WAR. 379

treat with him on a proposition to which an English official
should never have listened.

A terrible agony of suspense followed among the little
English force in the cantonments. The military chiefs after-
ward stated that they did not know until the following day
that any calamity had befallen the envoy. But a keen sus-
picion ran through the cantonments that some fearful deed
had been done. No step was taken to avenge the death of
Macnaghten, even when it became known that his hacked and
mangled body had been exhibited in triumph all through the
streets and bazaars of Cabul. A paralysis seemed to have fallen
over the councils of our military chiefs. On December 24th,
1841, came a letter from one of the officers seized by Akbar
Khan, accompanying proposals for a treaty from the Afghan
chiefs. It is hard now to understand how any English officers
could have consented to enter into terms with the murderers
of Macnaghten before his mangled body could well have ceased
to bleed. It is strange that it did not occur to most of them
that there was an alternative ; that they were not ordered by
fate to accept whatever the conquerors chose to offer. We can
all see the difficulty of their position. General Elphinstone and
his second in command, Brigadier Shelton, were convinced that
it would be equally impossible to stay where they were or to
cut their way through the Afghans. But it might have occurred
to many that they were nevertheless not bound to treat with the
Afghans. They might have remembered the famous answer of
the father in Corneille's immortal drama, who is asked what
his son could have done but yield in the face of such odds, and
exclaims in generous passion that he could have died. One
English officer of mark did counsel his superiors in this spirit.
This was Major Eldred Pottinger, whose skill and courage in
the defense of Herat we have already mentioned. Pottinger
was for cutting their way through all enemies and difficulties
as far as they could, and then occupying the ground with their
dead bodies. But his advice was hardly taken into con-
sideration.

It was determined to treat with the Afghans ; and treating
with the Afghans now meant accepting any terms the Afghans
chose to impose on their fallen enemies. In the negotiations
that went on, some written documents were exchanged. One
of these, drawn up by the English negotiators, contains a short
sentence which we believe to be absolutely unique in the

380 THE AFGHAN WAR.

history of British dealings with armed enemies. It is an
appeal to the Afghan conquerors not to be too hard upon the
vanquished, not to break the bruised reed. "In friendship,
kindness and consideration are necessary, not overpowering
the weak with sufferings ! "

In friendship ! — we appealed to the friendship of Mac-
naghten's murderers ; to the friendship, in any case, of the
man whose father we had dethroned and driven into exile.
Not overpowering the weak with sufferings ! The weak were
the English ! One might fancy he was reading the plaintive
and piteous appeal of some forlorn and feeble tribe of helpless
half-breeds for the mercy of arrogant and mastering rulers.
" Suffolk's imperious tongue is stern and rough," says one in
Shakespeare's pages, when he is bidden to ask for consideration
at the hands of captors whom he is no longer able to resist.
The tongue with which the English force at Cabul addressed
the Afghans was not imperious or stern or rough. It was
bated, mild, and plaintive. Only the other day, it would seem,
these men had blown up the gates of Ghuznee, and rushed
through the dense smoke and the falling ruins to attack the
enemy hand to hand. Only the other day our envoy had re-
ceived in surrender the bright sword of Dost Mahomed. Now
the same men who had seen these things could only plead for a
little gentleness of consideration, and had no thought of resist-
ance, and did not any longer seem to know how to die.

We accepted the terms of treaty offered to us. Nothing
else could be done by men who were not prepared to adopt the
advice of the heroic father in Corneille. The English were at
once to take themselves off out of Afghanistan, giving up all
their guns except six, which they were allowed to retain for
their necessary defense in their mournful journey home ; they
were to leave behind all the treasure, and to guarantee the pay-
ment of something additional for the safe-conduct of the poor
little army to Peshawur or to Jellalabad ; and they were to
hand over six officers as hostages for the due fulfillment of the
conditions. It is of course understood that the conditions in-
cluded the immediate release of Dost Mahomed and his family
and their return to Afghanistan. When these should return,
the six hostages were to be released. Only one concession had
been obtained from the conquerors. It was at first demanded
that some of the married ladies should be left as hostages ; but
on the urgent representations of the English officers this con-

THE AFGHAN WAR. 381

dition was waived — at least for the moment. When the treaty
was signed, the officers who had been seized when Macnaghten
was murdered were released.

It is worth mentioning that these officers were not badly
treated by Akbar Khan while they were in his power. On the
contrary, he had to make strenuous efforts, and did make them
in good faith, to save them from being murdered by bands of
his fanatical followers. One of the officers has himself de-
scribed the almost desperate efforts which Akbar Khan had to
make to save him from the fury of the mob, who thronged
thirsting for the blood of the Englishman up to the very
stirrup of their young chief. " Akbar Khan," says this officer,
" at length drew his sword and laid about him right manfully "
in defense of his prisoner. When, however, he had got the
latter into a place of safety, the impetuous young Afghan chief
could not restrain a sneer at his captive and the cause his cap-
tive represented. Turning to the English officer, he said more
than once, "in a tone of triumphant derision," some words
such as these : " So you are the man who came here to seize my
country ? "

It must be owned that the condition of things gave bitter
meaning to the taunt, if it did not actually excuse it. At a
later period of this melancholy story it is told by Lady Sale
that crowds of the fanatical Ghilzyes were endeavoring to per-
suade Akbar Khan to slaughter all the English, and that when
he tried to pacify them they said that when Burnes came into
the country they entreated Akbar Khan's father to have Burnes
killed, or he would go back to Hindostan, and on some future
day return and bring an army with him, " to take our country
from us " ; and all the calamities had come upon them because
Dost Mahomed would not take their advice. Akbar Khan
either was or pretended to be moderate. He might, indeed,
safely put on an air of magnanimity. His enemies were
doomed. It needed no command from him to decree their
destruction.

The withdrawal from Cabul began. It was the heart of a
cruel winter. The English had to make their way through
the awful pass of Kurd Cabul. This stupendous gorge runs
for some five miles between mountain ranges so narrow, lofty,
and grim that in the winter season the rays of the sun can
hardly pierce its darkness even at the noontide. Down the
center dashed a precipitous mountain torrent so fiercely that

382 THE AFGHAN WAR.

the stern frost of that terrible time could not stay its course.
The snow lay in masses on the ground ; the rocks and stones
that raised their heads above the snow in the way of the unfor-
tunate travelers were slippery with frost. Soon the white
snow began to be stained and splashed with blood. Fearful as
this Kurd Cabul Pass was, it was only a degree worse than the
road which for two whole days the English had to traverse to
reach it. The army which set out from Cabul numbered more
than four thousand fighting men — of whom Europeans, it
should be said, formed but a small proportion — and some
twelve thousand camp followers of all kinds. There were also
many women and children : Lady Macnaghten, widow of the
murdered envoy ; Lady Sale, whose gallant husband was hold-
ing Jellalabad, at the near end of the Khyber Pass, toward the
Indian frontier ; Mrs. Stuart, her daughter, soon to be widowed
by the death of her young husband ; Mrs. Trevor and her
seven children, and many other pitiable fugitives.

The winter journey would have been cruel and dangerous
enough in time of peace ; but this journey had to be accom-
plished in the midst of something far worse than common war.
At every step of the road, every opening of the rocks, the
unhappy crowd of confused and heterogeneous fugitives were
beset by bands of savage fanatics, who with their long guns and
long knives were murdering all they could reach. It was all
the way a confused constant battle against a guerrilla enemy of
the most furious and merciless temper, who were perfectly
familiar with the ground, and could rush forward and retire
exactly as suited their tactics. The English soldiers, weary,
weak, and crippled by frost, could make but a poor fight against
the savage Afghans. " It was no longer," says Sir J. W.
Kaye, "a retreating army; it was a rabble in chaotic flight."
Men, women, and children, horses, ponies, camels, the wounded,
the dying, the dead, all crowded together in almost inextrica-
ble confusion among the snow and amidst the relentless ene-
mies. " The massacre " — to quote again from Sir J. W.
Kaye, " was fearful in this Kurd Cabul Pass. Three thousand
men are said to have fallen under the fire of the enemy, or to
have dropped down paralyzed and exhausted, to be slaughtered
by the Afghan knives. And amidst these fearful scenes of
carnage, through a shower of matchlock balls, rode English
ladies on horseback or in camel panniers, sometimes vainly
endeavoring to keep their children beneath their eyes, and los-

THE AFGHAN WAR. 383

ing them in the confusion and bewilderment of the desolating
march."

Was it for this, then, that our troops had been induced to
capitulate ? Was this the safe-conduct which the Afghan chiefs
had promised in return for their accepting the ignominious con-
ditions imposed on them ? Some of the chiefs did exert them-
selves to their utmost to protect the unfortunate English. It
is not certain what the real wish of Akbar Khan may have
been. He protested that he had no power to restrain the hordes
of fanatical Ghilzyes whose own immediate chiefs had not
authority enough to keep them from murdering the English
whenever they got a chance. The force of some few hundred
horsemen whom Akbar Khan had with him were utterly inca-
pable, he declared, of maintaining order among such a mass of
infuriated and lawless savages. Akbar Khan constantly ap-
peared on the scene during this journey of terror. At every
opening or break of the long straggling flight he and his little
band of followers showed themselves on the horizon : trying
still to protect the English from utter ruin, as he declared ;
come to gloat over their misery, and to see that it was surely
accomplished, some of the unhappy English were ready to
believe. Yet his presence was something that seemed to give
a hope of protection. Akbar Khan at length startled the Eng-
lish by a proposal that the women and children who were with
the army should be handed over to his custody to be conveyed
by him in safety to Peshawur. There was nothing better to
be done. The only modification of his request, or command,
that could be obtained was that the husbands of the married
ladies should accompany their wives. With this agreement
the women and children were handed over to the care of this
dreaded enemy, and Lady Macnaghten had to undergo the
agony of a personal interview with the man whose own hand
had killed her husband. Few scenes in poetry or romance can
surely be more thrilling with emotion than such a meeting as
this must have been. Akbar Khan was kindly in his language,
and declared to the unhappy widow that he would give his
right arm to undo, if it were possible, the deed that he had
done.

The women and children and the married men whose wives
were among this party wers taken from the unfortunate army
and placed under the care of Akbar Khan. As events turned
out, this proved a fortunate thing for them. But in any case

384 THE AFGHAN WAR.

it was the best thing that could be done. Not one of these
women and children could have lived through the horrors of
the journey which lay before the remnant of what had once
been a British force. The march was resumed; new horrors
set in ; new heaps of corpses stained the snow ; and then Akbar
Khan presented himself with a fresh proposition. In the treaty
made at Cabul between the English authorities and the Af-
ghan chiefs, there was an article which stipulated that "the
English force at Jellalabad shall march for Peshawur before
the Cabul army arrives, and shall not delay on the road."
Akbar Khan was especially anxious to get rid of the little army
at Jellalabad, at the near end of the Khyber Pass. He desired
above all things that it should be on the march home to India ;
either that it might be out of his way, or that he might have a
chance of destroying it on its way. It was in great measure
as a security for its moving that he desired to have the women
and children under his care. It is not likely that he meant any
harm to the women and children ; it must be remembered that
his father and many of the women of his family were under the
control of the British Government as prisoners in Hindostan.
But he fancied that if he had the English women in his hands
the army at Jellalabad could not refuse to obey the condition
set down in the article of the treaty. Now that he had the
women in his power, however, he demanded other guarantees
with openly acknowledged purpose of keeping these latter
until Jellalabad should have been evacuated. He demanded
that General Elphinstone, the commander, with his second in
command, and also one other officer, should hand themselves
over to him as hostages. He promised, if this were done, to
exert himself more than before to restrain the fanatical tribes,
and also to provide the army in the Kurd Cabul Pass with pro-
visions. There was nothing for it but to submit ; and the
English general himself became, with the women and children,
a captive in the hands of the inexorable enemy.

Then the march of the army, without a general, went on
again. Soon it became the story of a general without an army ;
before very long there was neither general nor army. It is
idle to lengthen a tale of mere horrors. The straggling rem-
nant of an army entered the Jugdulluk Pass — a dark, steep,
narrow, ascending path between crags. The miserable toilers
found that the fanatical, implacable tribes had barricaded the
pass. All was over. The army of Cabul was finally extin-

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY. 385

guished in that barricaded pass. It was a trap ; the British
were taken in. A few mere fugitives escaped from the scene of
actual slaughter, and were on the road to Jellalabad, where Sale
and his little army were holding their own. When they were
within sixteen miles of Jellalabad the number was reduced to
six. Of these six, five were killed by straggling marauders on
the way. One man alone reached Jellalabad to tell the tale.
Literally one man, Dr. Brydon, came to Jellalabad out of a
moving host which had numbered in all sixteen thousand
when it set out on its march. The curious eye will search
through history or fiction in vain for any picture more thrilling
with the suggestions of an awful catastrophe than that of this
solitary survivor, faint and reeling on his jaded horse, as he
appeared under the walls of Jellalabad, to bear the tidings of
our Thermopylae of pain and shame.

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.

BY MARY HOWITT.
[1799-1888.]

" WILL you walk into my parlor ? "
Said the Spider to the Fly ;

" 'Tis the prettiest little parlor
That ever you did spy.

" The way into my parlor

Is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things

To show when you are there."

« Oh no, no," said the little Fly,

" To ask me is in vain ;
For who goes up your winding stair

Can ne'er come down again."

" I'm sure yoii must be weary, dear,

With soaring up so high ;
Will you rest upon my little bed ? "

Said the Spider to the Fly.

" There are pretty curtains drawn around ;

The sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile,

I'll snugly tuck you in ! "

VOL. XXIII. — 25

386 THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.

"Oh no, no," said the little Fly,
" For I've often heard it said,

They never, never wake again,
Who sleep upon your bed."

Said the cunning Spider to the Fly :
" Dear friend, what can I do

To prove the warm affection
I've always felt for you ?

" I have within my pantry
Good store of all that's nice :

I'm sure you're very welcome —
Will you please to take a slice ? n

"Oh no, no," said the little Fly,
" Kind sir, that cannot be ;

I've heard what's in your pantry,
And I do not wish to see."

u Sweet creature ! " said the Spider,
u You're witty and you're wise;

How handsome are your gauzy wings t
How brilliant are your eyes !

"I have a little looking-glass
Upon my parlor shelf ;

If you'll step in one moment, dear,
You shall behold yourself."

" I thank you, gentle sir," she said,
" For what you're pleased to say,

And, bidding you good morning now,
I'll call another day."

The Spider turned him round about,
And went into his den,

For well he knew the silly Fly
Would soon come back again :

So he wove a subtle web

In a little corner sly,
And set his table ready

To dine upon the Fly.

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY. 387

Then came out to his door again,

And merrily did sing : —
" Come hither, hither, pretty Fly,

With the pearl and silver wing;

" Your robes are green and purple —

There's a crest upon your head ;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright,

But mine are dull as lead ! "

Alas, alas ! how very soon

This silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words,

Came slowly flitting by ;

With buzzing wings she hung aloft,

Then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes,

And green and purple hue —

Thinking only of her crested head—

Poor, foolish thing ! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider,

And fiercely held her fast.

He dragged her up his winding stair,

Into his dismal den,
Within his little parlor —

But she ne'er came out again.

And now, dear little children,

Who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words,

I pray you ne'er give heed.

Unto an evil counselor

Close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale

Of the Spider and the Fly.

388 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.
("For biographical sketch, see page 261.]

THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No
pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its
Avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood.
There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse
bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains
upon the body, and especially upon the face, of the victim were
the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sym-
pathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and
termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and
sagacious. When his dominions were half-depopulated, he
summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted
friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and
with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated
abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the
creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A
strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates
of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces
and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to
leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden im-
pulses of despair, or of frenzy from within. The abbey was
amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might
bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take
care of itself. In the mean time it was folly to grieve, or to
think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure.
There were buffoons, there were improvisator!, there were
ballet dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there
was wine. All these and security were within. Without was
the " Red Death."

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his
seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad,
that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a
masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me
tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven — an
imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 389

long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly
to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole ex-
tent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different ; as
might have been expected from the prince's love of the bizarre.
The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision
embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a
sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn
a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each
wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed
corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These win-
dows were of stained glass, whose color varied in accordance
with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into
which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung,
for example, in blue ; and vividly blue were its windows. The
second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and
here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout,
and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and
lighted with orange ; the fifth with white ; the sixth with violet.
The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet
tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls,
falling in heavy folds upon the carpet of the same material and
hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed
to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
scarlet — a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven
apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the pro-
fusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or
depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind
emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers.
But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood opposite
to each window a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that
projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly
illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of
gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black
chamber, the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark
hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the
extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances
of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold
enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment also that there stood, against the
western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung
to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang ; and when the
minute hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to

390 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a
sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly
musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that at each
lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were con-
strained to pause momentarily in their performance, to hearken
to the sound ; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evo-
lutions ; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay
company : and while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was
observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and
sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused
reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a
light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians
looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness
and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the
next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar
emotion : and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which em-
brace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that
flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then
were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as
before.

But in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent
revel. The tastes of the prince were peculiar. He had a fine
eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere
fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions
glowed with barbaric luster. There are some who would have
thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was
necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he
was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments
of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete ; and it
was his own guiding taste which had given character to the
masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were
much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm — much of
what has been since seen in " Hernani." There were arabesque
figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were
delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were
much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre,
something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might
have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there
stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these — the
dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms,
and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 391

of their steps. And anon, there strikes the ebony clock which
stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is
still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams
are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die
away — they have endured but an instant — and a light, half-
subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now
again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted
windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But
to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there
are now none of the maskers who venture ; for the night is
waning away ; and there flows a ruddier light through the
blood-colored panes ; and the blackness of the sable drapery
appalls ; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet,
there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal, more
solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who in-
dulge in the more remote gayeties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in
them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went
whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding
of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I
have told ; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted ;
and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But
now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the
clock ; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought
crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thought-
ful among those who reveled. And thus too it happened, per-
haps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly
sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd
who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a
masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single
individual before. And the rumor of this new presence hav-
ing spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length
from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of dis-
approbation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror,
and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may
well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have ex-
cited such sensation. In truth, the masquerade license of the
night was nearly unlimited ; but the figure in question had
out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the
prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of

392 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion.
Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally
jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The
whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the
costume and bearing of the stranger, neither wit nor propriety
existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from
head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which
concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the counte-
nance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have
had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might
have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers
around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the
type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood —
and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was
besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral
image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more
fully to sustain its rdle, stalked to and fro among the waltzers),
he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong
shudder either of terror or distaste ; but in the next, his brow
reddened with rage.

" Who dares " — he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who
stood near him — " who dares insult us with this blasphemous
mockery ? Seize him and unmask him — that we may know
whom we have to hang at sunrise from the battlements I "

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the
Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang through-
out the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for the prince was a
bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the
waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group
of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a
slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the
intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now,
with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the
speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the
mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party,
there were found none who put forth hand to seize him : so
that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person ;
and while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank
from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way
uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step

TALES FROM THE FJELD. 393

which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue
chamber to the purple — through the purple to the green —
through the green to the orange — through this again to the
white — and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement
had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the
Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his
own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through th^ six
chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly
terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger,
and had approached in rapid impetuosity to within three or
four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having
attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned sud-
denly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry —
and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon
which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince
Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a
throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black
apartment, and seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood
erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock —
gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements
and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a
rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.
He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped
the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died
each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the
ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the
flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness, and Decay, and
the Red Death, held illimitable dominion over all.

TALES FROM THE FJELD.

BY P. CH. ASBJORNSEN.
(Translated by Sir George Dasent.)

[PETER CHRISTEN ASBJORNSEN, born at Christiania, Norway, January 15,
1812 ; died January 6, 1885. He studied at the university in his native place,
paying especial attention to zoology and botany, and later gave much attention
to the study of folklore. He taught and traveled ; was head forester in a district
in the north of Norway, and was subsequently sent by the government to investi-
gate the turf industry in other countries. Meanwhile he wrote voluminously
on the subject of natural history and folklore, winning his reputation chiefly

394 TALES FROM THE FJELD.

through the latter. His greatest works are : " Norske Folke-eventyr " (Norwe-
gian Folk Tales), in collaboration with Moe, 1842-1844 ; and "Norske Huldre-
eventyr og Folkesagn" (Norwegian Fairy Tales and Folk Legends), 1845.]

FRIENDS IN LIFE AND DEATH.

ONCE on a time there were two young men who were such
great friends that they swore to one another they would never
part, either in life or death. One of them died before he was
at all old, and a little while after the other wooed a farmer's
daughter, and was to be married to her. So when they were
bidding guests to the wedding, the bridegroom went himself to
the churchyard where his friend lay, and knocked at his grave
and called him by name. No ! he neither answered nor came.
He knocked again, and he called again, but no one came. A
third time he knocked louder and called louder to him, to come
that he might talk to him. So, after a long, long time, he
heard a rustling, and at last the dead man came up out of the
grave.

" It was well you came at last," said the bridegroom, " for
I have been standing here ever so long, knocking and calling
for you."

" I was a long way off," said the dead man, " so that I did
not quite hear you till the last time you called."

" All right I " said the bridegroom ; " but I am going to
stand bridegroom to-day, and you mind well, I dare say, what
we used to talk about, and how we were to stand by each
other at our weddings as best man."

" I mind it well," said the dead man, " but you must wait a
bit till I have made myself a little smart ; and, after all, no one
can say I have on a wedding garment."

The lad was hard put to it for time, for he was overdue at
home to meet the guests, and it was all but time to go to
church ; but still he had to wait awhile and let the dead man
go into a room by himself, as he begged, so that he might brush
himself up a bit, and come smart to church like the rest ; for,
of course, he was to go with the bridal train to church.

Yes ! the dead man went with him both to church and from
church, but when they had got so far on with the wedding that
they had taken off the bride's crown, he said he must go. So,
for old friendship's sake, the bridegroom said he would go with
him to the grave again. And as they walked to the church-

TALES FROM THE FJELD. 395

yard the bridegroom asked his friend if he had seen much that
was wonderful, or heard anything that was pleasant to know.

" Yes ! that I have," said the dead man. " I have seen much,
and heard many strange things."

" That must be fine to see," said the bridegroom. " Do you
know, I have a mind to go along with you, and see all that
with my own eyes."

" You are quite welcome," said the dead man ; " but it may
chance that you may be away some time."

" So it might," said the bridegroom ; but for all that he
would go down into the grave.

But before they went down the dead man took and cut a
turf out of the graveyard and put it on the young man's head.
Down and down they went, far and far away, through dark,
silent wastes, across wood, and moor, and bog, till they came
to a great, heavy gate, which opened to them as soon as the
dead man touched it. Inside it began to grow lighter, first
as though it were moonshine, and the farther they went the
lighter it got. At last they got to a spot where there were
such green hills, knee-deep in grass, and on them fed a large
herd of kine, who grazed as they went ; but for all they ate
those kine looked poor, and thin, and wretched.

" What's all this ? " said the lad who had been bridegroom ;
" why are they so thin and in such bad case, though they eat,
every one of them, as though they were well paid to eat ? "

" This is a likeness of those who never can have enough,
though they rake and scrape it together ever so much," said the
dead man.

So they journeyed on far and farther than far, till they came
to some hill pastures, where there was naught but bare rocks
and stones, with here and there a blade of grass. Here was
grazing another herd of kine, which were so sleek, and fat, and
smooth that their coats shone again.

"What are these," asked the bridegroom, "who have so
little to live on, and yet are in such good plight ? I wonder
what they can be."

" This," said the dead man, " is a likeness of those who are
content with the little they have, however poor it be."

So they went farther and farther on till they came to a
great lake, and it and all about it was so bright and shining
that the bridegroom could scarce bear to look at it — it was so
dazzling.

396 TALES FROM THE FJELD.

" Now, you must sit down here," said the dead man, " till I
come back. I shall be away a little while."

With that he set off, and the bridegroom sat down, and as
he sat sleep fell on him, and he forgot everything in sweet, deep
slumber. After a while the dead man came back.

" It was good of you to sit still here, so that I could find
you again."

But when the bridegroom tried to get up, he was all over-
grown with moss and bushes, so that he found himself sitting
in a thicket of thorns and brambles.

So when he had made his way out of it, they journeyed back
again, and the dead man led him by the same way to the brink
of the grave. There they parted and said farewell, and as soon
as the bridegroom got out of the grave he went straight home
to the house where the wedding was.

But when he got where he thought the house stood, he
could not find his way. Then he looked about on all sides, and
asked every one he met, but he could neither hear nor learn
anything of the bride, or the wedding, or his kindred, or his
father and mother ; nay, he could not so much as find any one
whom he knew. And all he met wondered at the strange shape,
who went about and looked for all the world like a scarecrow.

Well ! as he could find no one he knew, he made his way to
the priest, and told him of his kinsmen and all that had happened
up to the time he stood bridegroom, and how he had gone away
in the midst of his wedding. But the priest knew nothing at all
about it at first ; but when he had hunted in his old registers, he
found out that the marriage he spoke of had happened a long,
long time ago, and that all the folk he talked of had lived four
hundred years before.

In that time there had grown up a great stout oak in the
priest's yard, and when he saw it he clambered up into it, that
he might look about him. But the graybeard who had sat in
heaven and slumbered for four hundred years, and had now at
last come back, did not come down from the oak as well as he
went up. He was stiff and gouty, as was likely enough ; and
so when he was coming down he made a false step, fell down,
broke his neck, and that was the end of him.

TALES FROM THE FJELD. 397

THE .FATHER OF THE FAMILY.

Once on a time there was a man who was out on a journey ;
so at last he came to a big and a fine farm, and there was a
house so grand that it might well have been a little palace.

" Here it would be good to get leave to spend the night,"
said the man to himself, as he went inside the gate. Hard by
stood an old man with gray hair and beard, who was hewing
wood.

" Good evening, father," said the wayfarer. " Can I have
houseroom here to-night ? "

" I'm not father in the house," said the graybeard. " Go
into the kitchen, and talk to my father."

The wayfarer went into the kitchen, and there he met a
man who was still older, and he lay on his knees before the
hearth, and was blowing up the fire.

44 Good evening, father," said the wayfarer. " Can I get
houseroom here to-night ? "

44 I'm not father in the house," said the old man ; " but go
in and talk to my father. You'll find him sitting at the table
in the parlor."

So the wayfarer went into the parlor, and talked to him who
sat at the table. He was much older than either of the other
two, and there he sat, with his teeth chattering, and shivered
and shook, and read out of a big book, almost like a little child.

44 Good evening, father," said the man. 44 Will you let me
have houseroom here to-night?"

44 I'm not father in the house," said the man who sat at the
table, whose teeth chattered, and who shivered and shook ; 44 but
speak to my father yonder — he who sits on the bench."

So the wayfarer went to him who sat on the bench, and he
was trying to fill himself a pipe of tobacco ; but he was so
withered up and his hands shook so with the palsy that he
could scarce hold the pipe.

44 Good evening, father," said the wayfarer again. 44 Can I
get houseroom here to-night ? "

44 I'm not father in the house," said the old withered fellow ;
"but speak to my father who lies in bed yonder."

So the wayfarer went to the bed, and there lay an old, old
man, who but for his pair of big staring eyes scarcely looked
alive.

398 TALES FROM THE FJELD.

"Good evening, father," said the wayfarer. "Can I get
houseroom here to-night ? "

" I'm not father in the house," said the old carl with the
big eyes ; " but go and speak to my father, who lies yonder in
the cradle."

Yes, the wayfarer went to the cradle, and there lay a carl
as old as the hills, so withered and shriveled he was no bigger
than a baby, and it was hard to tell that there was any life in
him, except that there was a sound of breathing every now and
then in his throat.

" Good evening, father," said the wayfarer. " May I have
houseroom here to-night ? "

It was long before he got an answer, and still longer before
the carl brought it out; but the end was he said, as all the
rest, that he was not father in the house. " But go," said he,
"and speak to my father; you'll find him hanging up in the
horn yonder against the wall."

So the wayfarer stared about round the walls, and at last
he caught sight of the horn ; but when he looked for him who
hung in it, he looked more like a film of ashes that had the
likeness of a man's face. Then he was so frightened that he
screamed out, —

" Good evening, father ! will you let me have houseroom
here to-night ? "

Then a chirping came out of the horn like a little tomtit,
and it was all he could do to make out that the chirping meant,
" YES, MY CHILD."

And now a table came in which was covered with the cost-
liest dishes, and with ale and brandy ; and when he had eaten
and drank, there came in a good bed with reindeer skins ; and
the wayfarer was so very glad because he had at last found the
right father in the house.

DEATH AND THE DOCTOR.

Once on a time there was a lad who had lived as a servant
a long time with a man of the North Country. This man was
a master at ale brewing ; it was so out-of-the-way good the like
of it was not to be found. So, when the lad was to leave his
place and the man was to pay him the wages he had earned, he
would take no other pay than a keg of Yule ale. Well, he got
it and set off with it, and he carried it both far and long, but

TALES FROM THE FJELD. 399

the longer he carried the keg the heavier it got, and so he
began to look about to see if any one were coming with whom
he might have a drink, that the ale might lessen and the keg
lighten. And after a long, long time, he met an old man with
a big beard.

" Good day," said the man.

" Good day to you," said the lad.

" Whither away ? " asked the man.

" I'm looking after some one to drink with, and get my keg
lightened," said the lad.

" Can't you drink as well with me as with any one else ? "
said the man. " I have fared both far and wide, and I am both
tired and thirsty."

" Well ! why shouldn't I ? " said the lad ; " but tell me,
whence do you come, and what sort of man are you ? "

" I am ' Our Lord,' and come from Heaven," said the man.

" Thee will I not drink with," said the lad ; " for thou mak-
est such distinction between persons here in the world, and
sharest rights so unevenly that some get so rich and some so
poor. No ! with thee I will not drink," and as he said this he
trotted off with his keg again.

So when he had gone a bit farther the keg grew too heavy
again ; he thought he never could carry it any longer unless
some one came with whom he might drink, and so lessen the
ale in the keg. Yes ! he met an ugly, scrawny man who came
along fast and furious.

" Good day," said the man.

" Good day to you," said the lad.

" Whither away ? " asked the man.

*4 Oh, I'm looking for some one to drink with, and get my
keg lightened," said the lad.

" Can't you drink with me as well as with any one else ? "
said the man ; " I have fared both far and wide, and I am tired
and thirsty."

" Well, why not ? " said the lad ; " but who are you, and
whence do you come ? "

" Who am I ? I am the De'il, and I come from Hell ; that's
where I come from," said the man.

" No ! " said the lad ; " thou only pinest and plaguest poor
folk, and if there is any unhappiness astir, they always say it is
thy fault. Thee I will not drink with."

So he went far and farther than far again with his ale keg

400 TALES FROM THE FJELD.

on his back, till he thought it grew so heavy there was no carry-
ing it any farther. He began to look round again if any one
were coming with whom he could drink and lighten his keg.
So after a long, long time, another man came, and he was so
dry and lean 'twas a wonder his bones hung together.

" Good day," said the man.

" Good day to you," said the lad.

" Whither away ? " asked the man.

" Oh, I was only looking about to see if I could find some
one to drink with, that my keg might be lightened a little, it is
so heavy to carry."

" Can't you drink as well with me as with any one else ? "
said the man.

" Yes ; why not ? " said the lad. " But what sort of man
are you ? "

" They call me Death," said the man.

" The very man for my money," said the lad. " Thee I am
glad to drink with," and as he said this he put down his keg,
and began to tap the ale into a bowl. " Thou art an honest,
trustworthy man, for thou treatest all alike, both rich and
poor."

So he drank his health, and Death drank his health, and
Death said he had never tasted such drink, and as the lad was
fond of him, they drank bowl and bowl about, till the ale was
lessened, and the keg grew light.

At last Death said, " I have never known drink which
smacked better, or did me so much good as this ale that you
have given me, and I scarce know what to give you in return."
But, after he had thought awhile, he said the keg should never
get empty, however much they drank out of it, and the ale that
was in it should become a healing drink, by which the lad could
make the sick whole again better than any doctor. And he
also said that when the lad came into the sick man's room,
Death would always be there, and show himself to him, and it
should be to him for a sure token if he saw Death at the foot
of the bed that he could cure the sick with a draught from
the keg ; but if he sat by the pillow, there was no healing nor
medicine, for then the sick belonged to Death.

Well, the lad soon grew famous, and was called in far and
near, and he helped many to health again who had been given
over. When he came in and saw how Death sat by the sick
man's bed, he foretold either life or death, and his foretelling

TALES FROM THE FJELD. 401

was never wrong. He got both a rich and powerful man, and
at last he was called in to a king's daughter far, far away in
the world. She was so dangerously ill no doctor thought he
could do her any good, and so they promised him all that he
cared either to ask or have if he would only save her life.

Now, when he came into the princess' room, there sat Death
at her pillow; but as he sat he dozed and nodded, and while
he did this she felt herself better.

" Now, life or death is at stake," said the doctor ; " and I
fear, from what I see, there is no hope."

But they said he must save her, if it cost land and realm.
So he looked at Death, and while he sat there and dozed again,
he made a sign to the servants to turn the bed round so quickly
that Death was left sitting at the foot, and at the very moment
they turned the bed the doctor gave her the draught, and her
life was saved.

" Now you have cheated me," said Death, " and we are
quits."

" I was forced to do it," said the doctor, " unless I wished
to lose land and realm."

" That shan't help you much," said Death ; " your time is
up, for now you belong to me."

" Well," said the lad, " what must be must be ; but you'll
let me have time to read the Lord's Prayer first ? "

Yes, he might have leave to do that ; but he took very good
care not to read the Lord's Prayer; everything else he read,
but the Lord's Prayer never crossed his lips, and at last he
thought he had cheated Death for good and all. But when
Death thought he had really waited too long, he went to the
lad's house one night, and hung up a great tablet with the
Lord's Prayer painted on it over against his bed. So when
the lad woke in the morning he began to read the tablet, and
did not quite see what he was about till he came to Amen ; but
then it was just too late, and Death had him.

THE WAY OF THE WOELD.

Once on a time there was a man who went into the wood to
cut hop poles, but he could find no trees so long and straight
and slender as he wanted, till he came high up under a great
heap of stones. There he heard groans and moans as though
some one were at Death's door. So he went up to see who it

TOL. XXIII. — 26.

402 TALES FROM THE FJELD.

was that needed help, and then he heard that the noise came
from under a great flat stone which lay upon the heap. It was
so heavy it would have taken many a man to lift it. But the
man went down again into the wood and cut down a tree,
which he turned into a lever, and with that he tilted up the
stone, and lo ! out from under it crawled a Dragon, and made
at the man to swallow him up. But the man said he had saved
the Dragon's life, and it was shameful thanklessness in him to
want to eat him up.

" Maybe," said the Dragon, " but you might very well
know I must be starved when I have been here hundreds of
years and never tasted meat. Besides, it's the way of the
world — that's how it pays its debts."

The man pleaded his cause stoutly, and begged prettily for
his life; and at last they agreed to take the first living thing
that came for a daysman, and if his doom went the other way
the man should not lose his life, but if he said the same as the
Dragon, the Dragon should eat the man.

The first thing that came was an old hound, who ran along
the road down below under the hillside. Him they spoke to,
and begged him to be judge.

" God knows," said the hound, l' I have served my master
truly ever since I was a little whelp. I have watched and
watched many and many a night through while he lay warm
asleep on his ear, and I have saved house and home from fire
and thieves more than once ; but now I can neither see nor
hear any more, and he wants to shoot me. And so I must run
away, and slink from house to house, and beg for my living till
I die of hunger. No! it's the way of the world," said the
hound ; " that's how it pays its debts."

" Now I am coming to eat you up," said the Dragon, and
tried to swallow the man again. But the man begged and
prayed hard for his life, till they agreed to take the next comer
for a judge; and if he said the same as the Dragon and the
hound, the Dragon was to eat him, and get a meal of man's
meat ; but if he did not say so, the man was to get off with his
life.

So there caine an old horse limping down along the road
which ran under the hill. Him they called out to come and
settle the dispute. Yes ; he was quite ready to do that.

" Now, I have served my master," said the horse, " as long
as I could draw or carry. I have slaved and striven for him

TALES FROM THE FJELD. 403

till the sweat trickled from every hair, and I have worked till
I have grown lame, and halt, and worn out with toil and age ;
now I am fit for nothing. I am not worth my food, and so I
am to have a bullet through me, he says. Nay ! nay ! It's the
way of the world. That's how the world pays its debts."

"Well, now I'm coming to eat you," said the Dragon, who
gaped wide, and wanted to swallow the man. But he begged
again hard for his life.

But the Dragon said he must have a mouthful of man's
meat; he was so hungry, he couldn't bear it any longer.

" See, yonder comes one who looks as if he was sent to be a
judge between us," said the man, as he pointed to Reynard the
fox, who came stealing between the stones of the heap.

" All good things are three," said the man ; " let me ask
him, too, and if he gives doom like the others, eat me up on the
spot."

" Very well," said the Dragon. He, too, had heard that all
good things were three, and so it should be a bargain. So the
man talked to the fox as he had talked to the others.

" Yes, yes," said Eeynard, " I see how it all is " ; but as he
said this he took the man a little on one side.

" What will you give me if I free you from the Dragon ? "
he whispered into the man's ear.

" You shall be free to come to my house, and to be lord and
master over my hens and geese every Thursday night," said
the man.

" Well, my dear Dragon," said Reynard, " this is a very
hard nut to crack. I can't get it into my head how you, who
are so big and mighty a beast, could find room to lie under yon
stone."

" Can't you ? " said the Dragon ; " well, I lay under the
hillside, and sunned myself, and down came a landslip, and
hurled the stone over me."

" All very likely, I dare say," said Reynard ; " but still I
can't understand it, and what's more I won't believe it till I
see it."

So the man said they had better prove it, and the Dragon
crawled down into his hole again ; but in the twinkling of an
eye they whipped out the lever, and down the stone crashed
again on the Dragon.

" Lie now there till doomsday," said the fox. " You would
eat the man, would you, who saved your life ? "

404 TALES FROM THE FJELD.

The Dragon groaned, and moaned, and begged hard to
come out; but the two went their way and left him alone.

The very first Thursday night Reynard came to be lord
and master over the hen-roost, and hid himself behind a great
pile of wood hard by. When the maid went to feed the fowls,
in stole Reynard. She neither saw nor heard anything of him ;
but her back was scarce turned before he had sucked blood
enough for a week, and stuffed himself so that he couldn't stir.
So when she came again in the morning, there Reynard lay
and snored, and slept in the morning sun, with all four legs
stretched straight; and he was as sleek and round as a German
sausage.

Away ran the lassie for the goody, and she came, and all
the lassies with her, with sticks and brooms to beat Reynard;
and, to tell the truth, they nearly banged the life out of him ;
but, just as it was almost all over with him, and he thought his
last hour was come, he found a hole in the floor, and so he
crept out, and limped and hobbled off to the wood.

" Oh, oh," said Reynard ; " how true it is. 'Tis the way of
the world ; and this is how it pays its debts."

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1899B

V.23

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