THE GIFT OF 
 
 FLORENCE V. V. DICKEY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE DONALD R. DICKEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY

 
 Uniform with this Volume, 
 
 W E N S L E Y 
 
 &HQ tfycc Stories. 
 
 BY EDMUND QUINCY. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON, EDMUND QUINCY. 
 One vol. 13mo. $1.50. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers ; or sent postpaid, upon 
 receipt of price, by the publishers, 
 
 TICKNOR AND COMPANY. 
 BOSTON.

 
 THE 
 
 HAUNTED ADJUTANT 
 
 >t!)er 
 
 BY EDMUND QUINCY 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON, EDMUND QUINCY 
 
 BOSTON 
 TICKNOR AND COMPANY 
 
 1885
 
 Copyright, 1885, 
 BY EDMUND QUINCY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FACE 
 
 AN OCTOGENARY 3 
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT 143 
 
 LEWIS HERBERT 247 
 
 Two NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO 273 
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY 301 
 
 OLD HOUSES 327 
 
 DINAH ROLLINS 353 
 
 550754
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE.
 
 AN OCTOGENAHY 
 
 FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 "A gentleman he was of the old time, 
 One of those relics of the golden past 
 That stand among the things of modern times 
 Like column-shafts taken from ruins hoar, 
 Yet perfect in themselves, to grace the halls 
 Of our secluded mansions." 
 
 VICTORINE, A MS. DRAMA; 
 
 TT is now something more than fifty years ago that 
 *- I was an undergraduate at Harvard College. My 
 home was in a remote part of New England, which 
 in those days before railroads were imagined, and 
 before even stage-coaches were introduced, was prac 
 tically as far distant as the most remote of the last 
 batch of new States is at the present day. My in 
 tercourse with my family was necessarily confined to 
 two or three short visits during the course of my 
 college life, one of which I accomplished on foot, 
 and to a straggling letter, which now and then came 
 lagging along in the saddle-bags of the mail-carrier, 
 and which by a wonderful coincidence, scarcely less
 
 4 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 remarkable than the consentaneous decease of Adams 
 and Jefferson, sometimes fell into the hands of its 
 lawful proprietor. Whatever may be the sins of the 
 gentleman who now presides as tutelary genius over 
 the mail-bags of the nation at Washington, I believe 
 that no one who remembers the way in which the 
 epistolary intercourse of the country was managed 
 half a century ago, would care to exchange the sys 
 tem of which he is the head for the good old plan 
 which encumbered the days of the Confederation. I 
 truly believe that the ingenuous youth who are rel 
 egated by their anxious sires to the universities of 
 the petty princes of Germany to learn how to act the 
 part of Republican citizens, and who often return, 
 spectacles for men and angels, wiser than their mas 
 ters, with beard and hair streaming more meteor-like 
 than theirs, and transcending even the transcenden 
 talism of the newest school of philosophy, in short, 
 as Tacitus says, Germanis ipsis Germanior, I say I 
 truly believe that these rising hopes of our country 
 are more liable to be regularly and easily interrupted 
 in their more important pursuits by the arrival of 
 long-drawn-out epistles, full of the exploded doctrines 
 of the New England school of philosophy and reli 
 gion, though three thousand miles removed, than I 
 was at a distance of little more than a hundred and 
 fifty. 
 
 Be these things as they may, whenever one of these 
 loitering missives did arrive, it was sure to contain, 
 among much excellent advice and sound instruction,
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 5 
 
 an injunction to take the earliest opportunity of visit 
 ing old Colonel Wyborne, a distant relative of the 
 family, and one to whom my father was under seri 
 ous obligations for good services done him before 
 the Revolutionary war compelled him to retire from 
 Boston. Like a foolish boy as I was, I postponed 
 complying with this repeated injunction from year to 
 year. I felt a natural awkwardness about going near 
 twenty miles to see an old gentleman, of whom I knew 
 nothing with certainty, except that he lived in the 
 most complete seclusion, and whose reputation for ec 
 centricity, much exaggerated by common report, made 
 me rather nervous about my reception. I much pre 
 ferred spending my holidays in the congenial society 
 of my dear old aunt Champion, and begrudged the 
 monstrous piece that a visit twenty miles off would 
 cut out of the longest of my available vacations. 
 But at last my continued negligence drew down upon 
 me a severer rebuke than I had yet received, when I 
 was on my summer's visit during my junior year, and 
 I was laid under the parental command (in those days 
 the highest earthly authority) to devote the ensuing 
 Thanksgiving holidays to a visit to this venerated 
 relative. Upon my return to college I made it my 
 earliest business to write an apologetic letter, excus 
 ing my long delays, and asking his permission to pay 
 my respects to him during the Thanksgiving week. 
 In due course of time I received a cordial affirmative, 
 couched in the most courteous and condescending 
 language, disclaiming any right on his part to expect
 
 6 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 such a sacrifice of time and pleasure on mine, but at 
 the same time giving me full credit for my readiness 
 to make it, and expressing the warmest pleasure at 
 the idea of seeing once more in his solitude the son 
 of his old and valued friends. The elegance and 
 urbanity of his letter, as well as its spirit and fire, 
 prepossessed me strongly in favor of the venerable 
 writer ; and though I could not but be conscious that 
 I did not deserve all the commendations that he 
 bestowed upon me, yet I resolved that my conduct 
 should be such in future, that he should have no rea 
 son to think them misplaced. My curiosity was now 
 awakened with regard to his character and history, 
 and I lost no time in endeavoring to learn what I 
 could respecting them from the kind oracle to whom 
 I have before alluded. 
 
 On the very next Saturday I found myself sitting 
 opposite my excellent aunt Champion, separated 
 from her, as she sat in her high-backed arm-chair, 
 only by the small mahogany table from which the 
 cloth was just withdrawn by the faithful Dinah, re 
 vealing its polished surface and carved edges ; and 
 which reflected in its rosy depths the images of the 
 aspiring decanter, rising with a graceful swell from 
 its firm base to its tapering neck, filled with the rich 
 vintage of the most fortunate of " the islands, of the 
 blest;" and decorated, as were the wineglasses, per 
 fect cones, resting securely on their apices upon the 
 tall stems, with a galaxy of stars, and festoons of 
 ribbons with fluttering bows. The beams of the
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 7 
 
 afternoon's sun, struggling through the leaves of the 
 garden trees, shone aslant, with a pleasant autumnal 
 glow, upon the carpet just behind her chair. My 
 good aunt, when she filled her glass, and half in jest 
 and half in earnest, gave her invariable toast, " THE 
 KING" (a political heresy which the sterling excel 
 lence of her wine went far to palliate), looked like 
 some dame of a former age, who had burst her cere 
 ments, and returned to upper air to reveal some an 
 cestral secret to her youthful descendant. Having 
 duly drained my glass in honor of his Britannic 
 Majesty (for my excellent relative, orthodox in all 
 points, abhorred heel-taps), and incontinently replen 
 ished it, I held up the brimming beaker to the light, 
 and admiring the rich hue of the liquid ruby, glow 
 ing with a richness and depth of tint which might 
 have put to shame any cathedral-window in the 
 world, I sighed, and, betwixt game and earnest, said, 
 *' Ah, my dear aunt, we must make the most of this 
 good wine, for it is now hard to find. The con 
 founded Eevolution has demolished half the cellars 
 in the country." 
 
 " It is so indeed ! " the good lady responded. " It 
 was but last week that I dined with Governor Han 
 cock, and I assure you the wine was scarcely drinka 
 ble. Indeed, his Excellency apologized for it by 
 saying that his cellar had gone to the Devil during 
 the war, and that he was but just getting it to rights 
 again. As for his wine having gone to the Devil, I 
 could easily account for that, for the biggest part of
 
 8 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 it had gone down the gullets of the Sons of Liberty. 
 But that he should have been so besotted with party 
 madness as to have neglected to keep up the well- 
 earned fame of his cellar, is amazing he who was 
 acknowledged to have the best in the Province ! I 
 could almost pardon his treason sooner than this 
 abominable folly," she said, and consoled herself 
 with an emphatic pinch of snuff. 
 
 "It is, indeed," replied I, "a sad defect in his 
 character. It was not so in the good old times of 
 the royal governors." 
 
 " Bless you, my dear boy ! no, indeed ! that it was 
 not," rejoined my good aunt. " Why, the cellars of 
 the old Province House were a perfect history of the 
 Colony : they were the very archives of good-fellow 
 ship. The old gray-headed negro butler who was 
 transmitted from one governor to another for many 
 years, had a history for every pipe and bin ; and 
 many a good story could he tell of the merry times 
 of Burnet and PownaL Ah ! they were sad fellows, 
 and had a set of roystering blades about them. All 
 this, you understand, however, was under the rose ; 
 and their revels were so managed as to give as little 
 offence as possible to their righteous subjects. It 
 was pretty well understood, however, that, like old 
 Noll, they were more given to seeking the corkscrew 
 than the Lord." 
 
 " Our gentlemen, too," said I, " have lost much of 
 the spirit which honorably distinguished their fathers, 
 who would have submitted to a reproach on the fair
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 9 
 
 fame of their ancestors as on that of their cellars. 
 These confounded politics have distracted their atten 
 tion from matters of real importance." 
 
 " True enough, true enough ! " rejoined Mrs. Cham 
 pion. " And there you have another blessed conse 
 quence of this glorious Revolution ! What can you 
 expect of men who make a boast of despising their 
 claim to an honorable descent ? They deserve to 
 drink bad wine for the rest of their days. Cellar 
 pride cannot long outlive family pride." She ceased 
 and sighed. 
 
 A short pause ensued, which I profitably filled up 
 by sipping the genial juice with the reverence which 
 the thought that it was the last of a generous stock 
 was fitted to inspire. My dear aunt sat silent, tap 
 ping her snuff-box with her fruit-knife, and evidently 
 absorbed in sad meditation on the degeneracy of the 
 times, and on the change which had stolen over the 
 Jittle world in which she lived, and tinged with a 
 more sombre hue the evening of her days. 
 
 Willing to divert her mind from this melancholy 
 abstraction, I reverted to the subject immediately 
 before us, and, throwing an air of sympathy and 
 interest into my manner, I inquired, 
 
 " Pray, my dear aunt, what may be the history of 
 this good wine ? " 
 
 "This wine," she replied, starting from her rev- 
 ery, " this wine is the Quebec wine, so called from 
 the circumstance of its having arrived in harbor on 
 the same day on which the news of Wolfe's victory
 
 10 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 was received. My husband immediately christened 
 it with the name of that glorious battle, and always, 
 as long as he lived, nursed the infant liquor with 
 peculiar care. One pipe of it, I remember, he forth 
 with, on the very day, despatched to John Wyborne 
 at Sanfield." 
 
 " What ! " interrupted I, " old Colonel Wyborne ? 
 He is the very person I wanted to ask you. about ; 
 and this is certainly a pleasant introduction to my 
 inquiries. Pray, aunt, what manner of man was he ? 
 For I am going to spend the next Thanksgiving 
 holidays with him." 
 
 " John Wyborne ! He is a nobleman of God's 
 dwn creation, a man of ten thousand. I have known 
 him from his boyhood, and have never known a 
 man on whose mind and body Nature had more 
 plainly stamped GENTLEMAN. However, I have not 
 seen him for these twenty years ; for, since I laid 
 down my carriage on your uncle's death, I have 
 never been to see him, and it is more than twice 
 that number of years since he was in Boston ; so 
 that it is not unlikely that time may have made 
 some inroads on his outer man. But I will answer 
 for the freshness of his mind and his heart." 
 
 " I think you may safely do that, my dear aunt," 
 I replied, " for I have proof of it under his own hand 
 and seal ; " saying which, I produced his letter to me, 
 and by my aunt's request read it to her, she having 
 mislaid her spectacles. Her eyes glistened as I pro 
 ceeded; for the characteristic animation and point
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 11 
 
 and high-breeding of the letter, evidently awoke rec 
 ollections and feelings which had long slept, and 
 carried her back to the days when they were both 
 young and hopeful and happy. When I had done, 
 and restored the epistle to my pocketbook, after a 
 moment's musing she said, 
 
 "Ah! that is like him: that is like John Wy- 
 borne. What a man was lost to the world when he 
 forsook it ! That was the only mistake he ever 
 made except, indeed, his taking the wrong side in 
 the late Rebellion." 
 
 " I have heard," said I, " that he is the least in the 
 world of a humorist, though no one seems to know 
 much about him. Do you know what induced him 
 to give up the world and retire to Saufield in the 
 prime of his life ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " she replied. " I know all about his 
 history. But as to his being a humorist in the usual 
 acceptation of the word, I do not believe a word of it. 
 I have sometimes thoiight that a distinction should 
 be made in that order of nature between the bad 
 humorists (by far the larger division) and the good 
 humorists. The first are a set of selfish, peevish 
 wretches, the torment of their wives and servants, 
 and the annoyance of their neighbors; who think 
 that the reputation of oddity which they have culti 
 vated will cover and excuse the multitude of their 
 vexatious though petty iniquities. The second class 
 is composed of men of the finest natures and gen 
 tlest dispositions, whom some unlucky crook in their
 
 12 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 lot has put a little out of conceit with the world 
 and its ways, and who, withdrawing from the beaten 
 paths of life, pursue by themselves what seems to 
 them the chief good of existence, indifferent to the 
 wonder and contempt of those who are in hot chase 
 of the more generally recognized objects of human 
 pursuit, and in whose heart it is not easy to conceive 
 of any other motives of human action. This sort of 
 men, however, are most fastidiously careful never to 
 permit their oddities to chill the kindliness of their 
 hearts, and to interfere with the comforts of others : 
 they ride their hobbies with so careful a rein, that 
 they never run against or unhorse any of their neigh 
 bors whom they meet prancing on theirs on the 
 King's Highway. A humorist in this sense it can 
 not be denied John Wyborne is." 
 
 " But what was the disturbing cause," I inquired, 
 " which made him shoot from his sphere ? Was he 
 crossed in love, or ambition, or business ? Or what 
 might it have been ? " 
 
 "Why, he can hardly be properly said to have 
 been crossed in either," replied my aunt ; " and yet 
 it was certainly disappointment that drove him into 
 seclusion. But it is a long story too long to be 
 told now : we will reserve it for some of our winter 
 evenings." 
 
 "But pray, my dear aunt," I remonstrated, "give 
 me a skeleton of his history and character, if you 
 have not time to dissect them scientifically " (I was 
 at this time dipping into medical and anatomical
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 13 
 
 books), " for I may not see you again before I pay 
 my visit ; and I should be sorry to venture into such 
 a curious country without some sort of a map for my 
 direction." 
 
 " Well, well," good-naturedly rejoined my aunt, 
 " you were always a spoiled child, and, never having 
 been refused anything you thought proper to ask for, 
 I suppose that is a good reason for your not being 
 denied anything now. So fill your glass and mine, 
 and we will drink the good Colonel's health." Which 
 having been duly performed, my aunt proceeded : 
 " John Wyborne's father was a merchant in the 
 golden days of the town (commercially speaking, I 
 mean), when it had a free trade to all parts of the 
 world, and no man asked of any New England ship 
 whence it came or whither it went. In that world, 
 before colonial policy or custom-house officers, old 
 Mr. Wyborne flourished, and made a princely fortune, 
 for those days, or, indeed, subsequent times ; for he 
 left at his death no less a sum than fifty thousand 
 pounds sterling. When the Colonies had grown into 
 importance enough to attract the attention of the 
 ministry at home, and restrictions were laid upon 
 the trade of the Province, Mr. Wyborne withdrew 
 from business ; and obtaining admission into the 
 General Court, and afterwards into the Council, spent 
 the remainder of his days agreeably enough in annoy 
 ing the Governor, and doing his best to thwart all 
 his favorite measures, and cut down his salary. In 
 the intervals, however, of these useful and pleasant
 
 14 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 avocations, he found time hang rather heavily on his 
 hands, and bethought himself of taking a wife to help 
 him bear the burden. In those days, as now, it 
 generally happened, by some chance or other, that 
 a man with fifty thousand pounds in his pocket was 
 not long to seek for a wife. Mr. Wyborne was no 
 exception to the rule, and before many months he 
 was the husband of Miss Armytage, a daughter of 
 one of the oldest families in New England or in 
 Old England either, for that matter. I have heard 
 my mother tell of the splendid style in which they 
 lived in their fine house in King Street : there was 
 no family in the Province who approached them in 
 their manner of living. They had no children till 
 the birth of Colonel Wyborne, in the year 1701. 
 
 " Mr. Wyborne died in the full prime of his life, in 
 the year 1711, when his son was but ten years old; 
 but his widow survived him for many years. Colo 
 nel Wyborne was reared in the usual style of that 
 day; was flogged by Master Cheever at the Latin 
 School into a competent knowledge of Latin; and, 
 after the usual transmigrations from the fagging 
 freshman to the dictatorial senior, he took his degree 
 in the year 1720. He remained at Cambridge for 
 three years, till he proceeded Master of Arts, 
 which was then a usual thing for those who could 
 afford the expense. Having thus finished his aca 
 demical course, he resolved to visit Europe, an 
 undertaking of no common occurrence in those days, 
 when it was thought little less than a tempting of
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 15 
 
 Providence for a man to cross the ocean, unless it 
 were to bespeak a cargo of English goods, or to look 
 out for a grateful recipient of salt fish and lumber ; 
 which, of course, altered the moral bearings of the 
 transaction altogether. Mrs. Wyborne most stren 
 uously opposed her son's plan, and urged against it 
 all the arguments which she could draw from the 
 perils of the sea and the temptations of the shore, 
 a species of logic which I have remarked to make 
 but little impression upon the understandings of 
 young gentlemen who have been infected with a 
 propensity to do as they liked, and had the power 
 in their own hands of doing it. Dr. Cotton Mather, 
 too, employed a whole afternoon and evening in 
 attempting to defeat a project which would remove 
 from his congregation one of its wealthiest members 
 for an indefinite period, at the very time of life when 
 his own influence might be most certainly fastened 
 upon him, and who might not, improbably, return 
 with a yearning after the more liberal atmosphere 
 of the Manifesto Church. Maternal entreaties and 
 ecclesiastical warnings were, however, in vain, and to 
 London he went by the next ship that sailed for 
 home. Not long after his departure, his mother 
 consoled herself for his loss by marrying the Eev. 
 Mr. Selleck, minister of the town of Sanfield, where 
 Colonel Wyborne now lives. For a year or two after 
 his departure, his young contemporaries and friends 
 received frequent letters from him, giving full and 
 glowing accounts of his success, beyond his hopes, in
 
 16 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 accomplishing the great objects of travel. A variety 
 of circumstances, which I cannot now recapitulate, 
 aided by his ample means, prepossessing appearance 
 and address, and also by the novelty of his character 
 as an accomplished transatlantic, introduced him 
 into the brilliant circles of wit and fashion which 
 distinguished the reigns of George I. and George II. 
 He was well received by ' the wicked wasp of 
 Twickenham,' was domesticated at Lydiard a few 
 years later, and when in Dublin was admitted to a 
 share in the somewhat unclerical frolics of the Dean 
 of St. Patrick's. His success, however, was not con 
 fined to that disappointed though brilliant coterie ; 
 for he was admitted to the dressing-room of Lady 
 Mary Wortley, had bowed at Sir Kobert's levee, ad 
 was well received at court. His good fortune accom 
 panied him to France, where he had an opportunity 
 of witnessing, and, I fear, of partaking, the profligate 
 revels of the Regent Duke of Orleans, and was well 
 acquainted with Voltaire in his prime. The blandish 
 ments of Paris, however, did not detain him long 
 from Italy, where he lingered for two years, seduced 
 by its delicious climate and immortal ruins. At the 
 end of two years he returned to England ; but before 
 this time his correspondence with his Boston friends 
 had flagged, as correspondences are apt to do, and 
 soon after breathed its last. His intercourse with 
 his mother was kept up till her death ; but, from 
 the distance at which she lived, we in town gleaned 
 but scanty accounts of his adventures. In fact, from
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 17 
 
 about the year 1726 or 1727, we almost entirely lost 
 sight of him ; and, as years rolled away, his image 
 grew less and less distinct in the mind's eye of his 
 best lovers ; and it was pretty well understood that 
 he had lived so long in the sunshine of courts and the 
 fellowship of wits, that he was unfitted to return to 
 the austere and somewhat pedantic society of New 
 England. The gentlemen who now and then went 
 home on business could only learn that he lived in 
 the north of England, for the most part, and but 
 seldom visited London. Fifteen years from the time 
 of his departure passed away, and all expectation of 
 ever seeing him again was abandoned, when one day 
 the ship ' Speedwell ' was said to be below, from Lon 
 don. This was much more of an event in those days 
 than now, and the talk of the town for some time 
 before and after it occurred. My husband imme 
 diately took a boat, and visited the ship in the roads, 
 and soon returned with the strange news that John 
 Wyborne was on board ; and that was not all, 
 that he had brought his wife with him. Here was a 
 surprise. His wife ! Why, we had never heard 
 that he was married, or even thought of such a 
 thing ! Who was she ? How did she look ? Was 
 he much changed ? My husband, however, broke off 
 my exclamations and inquiries by the intelligence 
 that the returned prodigal and his English spouse 
 were to be our guests until they could take posses 
 sion of their own house. This information threw 
 me into a little of a nutter, for I was but a young 
 2
 
 18 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 housekeeper then ; and though pleased with the idea 
 of seeing my old playfellow again, and gratified at 
 his choosing niy house as his temporary home from 
 amongst the many hospitable roofs of friends and 
 relatives proffered to his acceptance, still, I could 
 not but feel a little anxious, lest the difference should 
 be too marked between the appliances of luxury to 
 which he had been accustomed at home, and the 
 more humble though substantial comforts which I 
 could provide. And then his wife an English 
 woman, too ! However, there was luckily not much 
 time for self-tormenting, for it was now one o'clock, 
 and our guests were expected before dark. You may 
 imagine how poor old Dinah, then a strapping wench, 
 and Celia, who died before your memory, bustled 
 about, not unassisted by me, to put the blue chamber 
 overhead in due order, and to get all things in readi 
 ness for the due welcome of the coming guests. 
 When all things were ready, or in train, and I had 
 duly arranged my dress, I descended to the opposite 
 parlor to await their arrival. Having now nothing 
 more to do, I began making myself work by dis 
 placing and then re-arranging all the furniture in the 
 room, and now and then giving an uncalled-for poke 
 to the blazing fire, which Csesar had just lighted on 
 the hearth ; for it was one of those delightful clear, 
 cool days in autumn, when a good fire of an evening 
 is relished as a luxury, and not regarded as a mere 
 necessary of life, as in winter. At last, about six 
 o'clock, they drove up, accompanied by your uncle,
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 19 
 
 in the chariot, and, as soon as they appeared, I felt 
 that all my previous twitter had been unnecessary : 
 the first glance I had of them told me that. 
 
 "The fifteen years which had elapsed since I 
 last saw John Wy borne had transformed the slight 
 though graceful youth into an elegant man of mature 
 age; but the hurried warmth with which he ap 
 proached and saluted me, and the evident emotion 
 which he felt at the sight of the familiar faces and 
 scenes of his youth, assured me that he had passed 
 through the ordeal of a European life without injury 
 to the better feelings of his nature. He was now 
 thirty-seven or thirty-eight years of age, but did not 
 look a day more than thirty. He was more than six 
 feet tall, and of a noble presence. His face beamed 
 with manly intelligence ; and his dark eye, which 
 was at that moment queiiched with emotion, at calm 
 times sparkled with animation, or glowed with enthu 
 siasm. His mouth was rather large than otherwise, 
 but susceptible of the most varied expression, and 
 his teeth were of the most glittering whiteness. 
 But," continued my aunt after a short pause, shaking 
 her head with a pensive air, "it is hardly worth 
 while to describe so particularly what the ruins you 
 are going to see once were ; but all who ever knew 
 John Wy borne in his best estate will tell you that 
 they have never forgotten the fascination of his 
 smile and eye." 
 
 " I assure you, my dear aunt," I answered, my 
 curiosity being now fully awakened, " that you can-
 
 20 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 not be too minute for me ; but, as time presses, pray 
 give me some account of bis wife. Was sbe as fine a 
 creature as bis wife sbould have been ? " 
 
 " Indeed she was," replied my aunt : " at least, as 
 far as one could judge from appearance and manner, 
 she was well worthy of her husband. But there was 
 some mystery about her which we never could fathom, 
 and, where there is mystery, there must always be a 
 degree of doubt as to the worthiness of the person, 
 especially of the woman, to whom it attaches. But, 
 poor thing, she did not live long to be the theme of 
 the gossiping small-talk of the herd of society, or 
 of the anxious and legitimate curiosity of her near 
 relatives." 
 
 " Did she indeed die so early ? " exclaimed I. " But 
 pray go on with your story, for I am impatient to 
 hear the end of it." 
 
 "That you will soon hear," my aunt resumed; 
 " for there is but little more to tell. John Wy borne 
 and his wife remained our guests for about six weeks, 
 while the old family mansion in King Street was get 
 ting in readiness for them. This, time was filled up 
 by a succession of gayeties in honor of their arrival. 
 Governor Belcher entertained them at a grand dinner 
 at the Province House, at which were assembled the 
 most distinguished of the gentlemen and ladies of the 
 town. All the principal inhabitants vied with each 
 other in -welcoming the new-comers with splendid 
 'hospitalities. The fine autumnal days which were 
 free from engagements in town we employed in
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 21 
 
 scouring the country round, sometimes in the char 
 iot, and sometimes on horseback, to display the 
 charming scenery of New England, glowing with the 
 tints of a New England autumn. On these excur 
 sions we always stopped at some of the gentlemen's 
 seats, which were sprinkled over the country in every 
 direction, and the gates of which always stood wide 
 open to invite the passing friend. Alas ! too many 
 of those hospitable portals have been closed by the 
 cruel Eevolution, or passed into niggard hands. 
 
 " Well, the six weeks soon passed away, and our 
 guests left us, and took possession of their own housa 
 And a fine establishment it was, being the result of 
 taste combined with wealth ; and yet there was no 
 attempt to outshine their neighbors : everything was 
 in the very best style of the town, and nothing more. 
 When they were fairly fixed in their new abode, 
 they gathered around them a circle of the choicest 
 society; and that winter was a memorable one in 
 the annals of anyone who was admitted within that 
 charmed circle. Mr. Wyborne gave a weekly dinner 
 on Wednesdays, which he managed to make a very 
 different affair from the somewhat stiff festivities of 
 set dinners at that time, or any other time either, for 
 that matter. 
 
 " It was observable, however, after the first ex 
 citement of a new country and the first bustle of 
 hospitalities were over, and they were quietly settled 
 down by their own fireside, that Mrs. Wyborne was 
 but ill at ease. Her form by degrees lost something
 
 22 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 of its symmetrical roundness, her brilliant complex 
 ion was exchanged for an alabaster chilliness, and 
 her eyes gradually lost much of their peculiar beauty. 
 Her husband seemed but to live for her, and there was 
 no circumstance of watchful love and sedulous atten 
 tion in which he was wanting. She, however, drooped 
 from month to month so palpably as to excite the 
 anxiety of her best friends and the lively curiosity 
 of her common acquaintance. 
 
 " One thing was remarkable enough, and that was 
 that neither she nor her husband ever made the 
 faintest allusion to her parentage or history previous 
 to their marriage. Mr. Wyborne so promptly and 
 dexterously parried all attempts to extract any in 
 formation on these points from him, and his wife 
 met them with such a mournful embarrassment, that 
 it was soon understood that they were forbidden 
 topics in their presence ; though you may well ima 
 gine that they were discussed in all their bearings, 
 known and imagined, when they were absent. The 
 circumstance, too, that she was plunged in double 
 gloom upon the arrival of every fresh packet of letters 
 from Europe, did not tend to damp the curiosity, or 
 to extinguish the conjectures, of those kind inquirers 
 who are more solicitous about the affairs of others 
 than about their own." 
 
 " That certainly did look rather suspicious," inter 
 rupted I. "Did it not excite some doubts in the 
 minds of the lovers of scandal as to whether they 
 were married at all ? "
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 23 
 
 "That scandalous construction," Mrs. Champion 
 replied, " would no doubt have been put upon their 
 unaccountable behavior, if Mr. Wy borne had not, 
 probably with a foreboding of such a rumor, taken 
 good care to exhibit as an interesting autograph his 
 marriage-certificate, signed by the famous Dr. Young, 
 who performed the ceremony in London by special 
 license. Matters went on thus for some months, 
 their house being the centre of our limited sphere, 
 and almost always thronged with company, which 
 John Wy borne anxiously gathered round him in hopes 
 of dissipating the growing melancholy of his wife. 
 
 "The winter wore on pleasantly enough to all 
 except the fated mistress of the mansion. John Wy- 
 borne had received his library, the finest private one 
 in the country, which he had collected abroad, and 
 had arranged it entirely to his mind. Many valuable 
 pictures, a few statues (rather shocking to the primi 
 tive taste of those days), and what was to us a rich 
 collection of articles of virtu arrived, and added to 
 the attractions of his house. A superficial observer 
 would have pronounced John Wyborne a happy man. 
 He had health, riches, taste, a well-cultivated mind, 
 a splendid library, warm friends of congenial tastes, 
 and a charming wife. What could man desire more? 
 Surely he had clutched the rare boon of unmixed fe 
 licity. Alas, my dear boy ! he was no exception to 
 the general doom which condemns man to trouble. 
 All the appliances of luxury, all the qualifications of 
 taste, even all the leisure and ample means for gratify-
 
 24 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 ing a passion for elegant letters, bring no balm to the 
 wounds of a gentle nature, inflicted by the sight of a 
 beloved object consuming away before the sight of 
 a mental malady beyond the leech's arts. Religion 
 only, my son, religion only, has consolations adequate 
 to support the soul under such a burden." She 
 paused, for the memories of her own sorrows were 
 painfully rising to her brain, and a phantom train of 
 unburied griefs stretched in long perspective before 
 her mind's eye. She, however, never long yielded to 
 the painful influences of the past, and soon resumed 
 the thread of her narration. 
 
 " Matters went on thus till the middle of February, 
 when Mr. and Mrs. Wyborne, having their establish 
 ment now complete, issued cards of invitation to all 
 their acquaintance to an entertainment given in 
 return for the multitudinous attentions which had 
 welcomed them on their arrival. 
 
 "It was bitterly cold, a glittering, clear winter's 
 night, which well set off the genial and brilliant scene 
 within. Your uncle and I dined there, and helped 
 them to oversee the last preparations. By six o'clock 
 all the company were assembled, comprising all the 
 town which had any claim to admittance, from old 
 Dr. Coleman down to the freshest and prettiest young 
 girls just escaped from the nursery. 
 
 " The recollection of that scene is indelibly im 
 pressed upon my memory by the sudden change 
 which soon was brought over it ; though there is not 
 half a dozen of the gay crowd which filled the rooms
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 25 
 
 that night that now survive. What a strange thing 
 is memory ! that I at eighty-three should at this 
 moment be, as it were, in the midst of a brilliant and 
 happy crowd of half a century ago, almost every one 
 of which is now in the grave, except a few withered, 
 weak old men and women just tottering on its brink. 
 I could describe to you, if I had time, and you cared 
 to hear it, every dress in the room, from the splendid 
 brocade and diamonds of the mistress of the house, 
 whose chief ornament, however, was her beautiful 
 hair, falling in natural ringlets over her neck (for 
 powder was not then in fashion), and from Governor 
 Belcher's black velvet coat and breeches, richly 
 embroidered waistcoat, point-lace ruffles, diamond 
 buckles, and dress sword, down to the beautiful Mary 
 Osborne, now old Mrs. Estridge, in her white watered 
 silk, and glistening high-heeled shoes, which Cinde 
 rella might have envied, seated on the window-seat, 
 half hid by the heavy damask curtain, listening to 
 Ralph Estridge (whom she not long afterwards mar 
 ried), who had just returned from home, the image 
 of a London petitmaitre, in a peach-bloom silk coat 
 lined with white, pink satin waistcoat embroidered 
 with gold, white satin breeches and white silk stock 
 ings, and a rapier with a steel handle, glittering like 
 diamonds. Books, flowers, paintings, beautiful women, 
 and elegant men, made it a picture to be recalled with 
 pleasure, if it were not for the dark cloud which soon 
 gathered over it. 
 
 " Well, everything went on well enough. All were
 
 26 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 animated, and most were happy. The mistress of the 
 house looked like herself again; the young people 
 made love ; their elders talked of the prospect of 
 a war with Spain ; some of the more austere of the 
 elder school of New England manners privily shook 
 their heads at the frightful havoc which luxury was 
 making in the good old simplicity of the fathers. 
 The most rigid of the reverend divines and honorable 
 judges, however, smoothed their stern features on 
 this occasion, and looked on with complacent smiles. 
 At about half-past eight supper was announced, and 
 we ascended to the supper-room, led by the Governor 
 and the mistress of the house. It was a beautiful 
 spectacle. The tables lavishly adorned with flowers, 
 the luxurious banquet served almost entirely on plate, 
 the lovely and graceful figures which were grouped 
 around the board in the full flow of youthful spirits, 
 and the venerable forms and beneficent countenances 
 of the elder guests contrasting with them, made up 
 a scene of enchantment which I have never seen 
 approached since. The master of the feast seemed to 
 be doubly inspired by the spirit of the scene, and 
 never shone more brilliantly, both in his own proper 
 powers of entertainment and his tact iu drawing 
 out the resources of others. My good old friend 
 Dr. Byles, then a young and brisk divine, was in his 
 element, and often set the table in a roar with his 
 lively sallies ; and many a sharp encounter of wits 
 took place between him and his host. Suppers, how 
 ever, like all other terrestrial things, must come to an
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 27 
 
 end ; and after about an hour and a half had been 
 delightfully spent over the table, we returned to the 
 parlor. Soon afterwards his Excellency, the clergy, 
 and the more dignified portion of the company, took 
 their leave, which was the signal for the appearance 
 of the violins and the commencement of what was 
 then a most unusual event a ball. Mrs. Wyborne 
 opened the ball with a minuet with Mr. Hutchinson 
 (our late governor) ; and, that prologue being happily 
 over, the country-dances began in good earnest, and 
 were kept up with untiring devotion till nearly four 
 o'clock, when the assembly gradually melted away. 
 My husband and I, as we had been the first on the 
 ground, w r ere the last to leave it. As we walked 
 through the deserted rooms with our charming host 
 ess, and observed with pleasure how the excitement 
 and success of the evening had recalled her vanished 
 bloom, and rekindled her faded eyes, we little thought 
 that the next occasion which would summon us to 
 those apartments would be her funeral." 
 
 "Her funeral !" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Even so," she mournfully rejoined, " and so soon. 
 She was taken violently ill the very next day, prob 
 ably from undue excitement, and unusual fatigue act 
 ing upon a frame already debilitated, and in less than 
 a week she was dead." She paused, and, as I looked 
 at her, I saw that her aged eyes were wet at thought 
 of the sad images which her story had recalled. 
 
 "And how did her husband bear the dreadful blow ? " 
 I inquired.
 
 28 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 " His despair was frightful for the first few days," 
 she replied. "He refused admission to his best friends, 
 and would not be comforted. He shut himself up 
 for hours with the beloved remains, and the anxious 
 and affectionate servants listened with dismay to the 
 tempest of grief which they could hear raging within. 
 Such violence of sorrow, however, could not last long ; 
 but, when the first fierce paroxysms were over, the 
 preternatural calmness which succeeded was scarcely 
 less shocking than they. I can never forget, should I 
 live a century longer, the dreadful change which that 
 short week had wrought in his face : death had not 
 thrown a more gloomy change over the features of 
 the beloved dead, his cheeks as hollow as a ghost's, 
 his eyes of a stony vacancy, his pale lips quivering, 
 and his whole energies apparently bent upon a mighty 
 effort at calmness. 
 
 "That funeral was worth a thousand homilies. 
 There she lay at length in her coffin, who, but a little 
 week before, was the charm of all who saw or heard 
 her ; in the very room, too, in which she had led the 
 dance, and surrounded by most of the very revellers 
 who had basked in her radiant presence. It was 
 a chastening though grievous vicissitude, from the 
 house of feasting to the house of mourning, and from 
 the garments of joy to the weeds of heaviness. The 
 contrast of those darkened rooms, filled with mourn 
 ful countenances and suits of woe, to the glittering 
 lights, splendid dresses, flashing eyes, and merry hearts 
 of the time of their last meeting there, must have in-
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 29 
 
 scribed an ineffaceable lesson on the most thoughtless 
 hearts. Nothing broke the sepulchral stillness but an 
 occasional sob, which would find its way from some 
 woman's heart, or a half-suppressed sigh from some 
 manly bosom, till at length Dr. Sevvall rose, and 
 raised all our souls upon his eloquent prayers to 
 heaven. When this impressive service was over, the 
 last sad procession was marshalled to the tomb. 
 
 " It was one of those dark, gloomy winter's days, 
 when the sky looks like a vault of stone almost rest 
 ing upon the roofs of the houses. The ground was 
 covered with snow, and a few flakes now and then 
 fell heavily down through the still cold air. The pall 
 was held by the lieutenant-governor and five other 
 of the principal gentlemen of the time. Then fol 
 lowed the bereaved husband, supported by my hus 
 band and Dr. Sewall. Then came the governor and 
 magistrates, succeeded by along train of relatives and 
 friends in the deepest mourning. Behind followed 
 the family coach, the carriage, as well as the servants, 
 in mourning, then the governor's coach, and next the 
 carriages of almost all the gentry of the town and 
 country round. As the black train swept through 
 the streets, the common people, who thronged them 
 to witness the spectacle, all uncovered as we passed, 
 and showed none of the levity which I have some 
 times seen to accompany great funerals. 
 
 "At last, after making a large circuit, in conse 
 quence of the numerous attendance, we arrived at the 
 King's Chapel churchyard, and all passed round by the
 
 30 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 family tomb of the Wybornes, and took a last look at 
 its latest and fairest tenant before its ponderous jaws 
 closed upon her forever. Poor John Wyborne could 
 bear up under his heavy grief no longer, but was sup 
 ported by his anxious friends, almost insensible, to his 
 coach. The rest of the melancholy attendants stood 
 reverently by as the mourner was borne along, and 
 then dispersed, and, entering the coaches which were 
 in waiting, were slowly rolled to their various homes. 
 " The gloom of this event hung over the town for 
 all the remainder of the season and for months after 
 wards. It seemed as if every family was mourning 
 over some household death. The difference which it 
 made to me, you may easily imagine. It was almost 
 the first severe loss of the kind that I had ever en 
 countered : Heaven knows it was not the last ! " After 
 a short pause, she resumed, " John Wyborne contin 
 ued throughout the spring in a most pitiable state: 
 the violence of his first grief was succeeded by an 
 apathetic listlessness from which nothing could 
 arouse him. He formed a plan for returning again to 
 Europe, which was encouraged by his friends as the 
 medicine most likely to be effectual ; but he did not 
 seem to retain enough of the energy with which he 
 used to overflow to make the necessary preparations. 
 At last, when May was well advanced, my husband 
 proposed to him to visit Sanfield, the town in the Old 
 Colony where his mother had spent the last years of 
 her life after her marriage with the Rev. Mr. Selleck 
 and where a considerable estate was going to decay
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 31 
 
 for want of the eye of the master. As this excursion 
 did not involve much expenditure of resolution or 
 trouble, Mr. Wyborne consented to accompany Mr. 
 Champion to the scene of his mother's later years. 
 It was a most exquisite spring day when they went 
 down, when the country was clad in its softest and 
 freshest green, and the fields were white with apple- 
 blossoms, and the delicious air seemed as if it might 
 have been a balm even for a broken heart. 
 
 "Mr. Wyborne seemed to feel the benefit of the 
 change of place almost immediately; and the appear 
 ance of his house and grounds, and of the village in 
 its vicinity, seemed to strike his fancy. The house, 
 which I will not describe, as you will soon see it, was 
 somewhat the worse for want of inhabitants for a 
 number of years, since the decease of 'his reverend 
 step- father ; but the avenue of fine elms and grove, 
 which sheltered it from the sea, had grown up pros 
 perously, though untrimmed and neglected. The 
 garden was something like that of the sluggard, to be 
 sure ; and the sun-dial in its centre was almost hid by 
 nettles and weeds, and the wall was in many places 
 broken down, and the fish-pond was almost choked up 
 with rubbish. I should have told you that the new 
 part of the house was built, the trees planted, and the 
 grounds laid out, by an English Church clergyman 
 of fortune, who emigrated to this country about the 
 beginning of the century, and who, finding small 
 encouragement in his clerical capacity, had employed 
 himself in the business and pleasures of a country
 
 32 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 life, and of whose heirs Mrs. Wyborne had purchased 
 it on her second marriage. 
 
 "There was enough of native luxuriant beauty 
 about the place to captivate the good taste of its 
 owner ; while there was an air of neglect and desola 
 tion about it which seemed to suit the present melan 
 choly mood of his mind. My husband was well 
 pleased to hear him avow his intention of putting the 
 place to rights, and making it his residence for a part 
 of the year. He encouraged him in his plan, and 
 recommended that no time should be lost in putting 
 it into execution. Accordingly they hunted up a 
 farmhouse in the neighborhood, whose owners were 
 willing to take him and his servant in until the old 
 house could be made habitable. Rejoiced to have 
 been the means of providing a healthful occupation 
 for his friend's sick mind, my husband returned to 
 town, expecting that he would follow in about a fort 
 night. A fortnight elapsed, and a month, and a year, 
 and yet he tarried. 
 
 "He left his house in town for a couple of days, 
 perhaps a week ; and now almost half a century has 
 passed away since then, and he has never once re- 
 crossed its threshold, or revisited his native town. 
 He had found the first comfort which his wounded 
 spirit had known among the old trees and green 
 meadows of his new home and by the side of the 
 ocean which washed his estate less than half a mile 
 from the house ; and he felt for them the love of a 
 mourner for the tried friends of his affliction. Noth-
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SIN'CE. 33 
 
 ing, however, was further from his intention than mak 
 ing that sequestered place his permanent abode. But 
 the first summer and autumn were insensibly wasted 
 away in the pleasant tasks of bringing order out of the 
 chaos of his grounds, and of restoring to the old man 
 sion the comfort and elegance of which time and ne 
 glect had stripped it. Then, just as winter set in, his 
 house was ready for his occupation, and he could not 
 bear to leave this new home, which was invested only 
 with happy associations, for that roof which was over 
 shadowed by the gloom of his mighty sorrow, and 
 under which he would be haunted at every turn by the 
 ghosts of his buried joys. So the winter passed away 
 and when spring returned he had made up his mind 
 to make this his chief residence, and sent for his 
 library. "When winter again arrived, his attachment 
 to the place had strengthened, and he determined to 
 spend it as he did the last. In this way his habits 
 of life became gradually fixed ; his love for his new 
 home, and his disinclination to return to his old one, 
 increased with every year ; and so his prime of man 
 hood and his green old age have worn away in that 
 retirement." 
 
 " Had he any society in his solitude ? " I inquired. 
 
 " But little in his immediate neighborhood," my 
 aunt replied, "except the clergyman and one or two 
 country gentlemen. But for many years, during the 
 summers and autumns, he had no lack of company 
 from Boston : his house was scarcely ever empty, at 
 those times, of his old friends and companions. Your 
 3
 
 34 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 uncle and I always paid him at least one visit a year, 
 as I told you before, until I gave up the coach upon 
 his death. By degrees, however, as his old friends 
 died off, his younger ones grew less frequent in their 
 visits. And then the Revolution came in to confound 
 all old friendships ; so that for a good many years he 
 lias been thrown almost entirely on his own resources. 
 I am told, however, by some old friends who are still 
 constant to him, that he has acquired no cynicism 
 from neglect, and gathered no rust from solitude, but 
 is still, in his manners, dress, and way of living, a fine 
 relic of the thoroughbred gentleman of the middle of 
 this century." 
 
 The good old lady here ceased. I warmly thanked 
 her for her story, and assured her that it had increased 
 my curiosity to make the personal acquaintance of 
 its hero a hundred-fold. 
 
 "I am glad you are going to see him," she resumed; 
 " for you may never chance to meet with exactly such 
 another specimen of the old school again : at least I 
 do not know where his fellow is to be found." 
 
 At this point we were interrupted by the entrance 
 of Dinah with the tea-things, which brought us down 
 from our high converse about other days to a sense of 
 present realities. After my good aunt had dispensed 
 the fragrant infusion in china's earth, the sun began 
 to remind rue, by the peculiar mellowness of his light 
 among the leaves of the trees, that it was time for me 
 to set forth on my return to my rooms. My horse 
 being accordingly brought round by Ccesar, I affec-
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 35 
 
 tionately saluted my dear old friend, and, receiving 
 from her a needless injunction not to fail to make my 
 visit to Sanfield, I mounted my nag, and rode briskly 
 back to my home among classic shades.
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 MY aunt's history had made so strong an impres 
 sion upon my fancy, that I became as impa 
 tient for the time of my visit to arrive as I had 
 formerly been ingenious to invent excuses for put 
 ting it off. My strong curiosity to see the subject of 
 her narration, actually sometimes inspired a kind of 
 nervous apprehension that something would happen 
 to prevent my visit, that I might be summoned in 
 some other direction, or that the good old gentleman 
 might in the interval exchange his quiet home for 
 the vault of his ancestors. No such impediment, 
 however, occurred. The autumn months melted 
 gradually away, and at last brought round the an 
 nual festival of the Pilgrim Fathers. I obtained 
 permission to leave Cambridge a day sooner than the 
 regular holidays began in order that I might have a 
 good three-days' visit, which I thought little enough 
 for my purpose ; the reverend president giving a 
 ready assent to my application when he understood 
 its object, for Colonel Wyborne was his old and 
 valued friend. He intrusted to me a packet con 
 taining some sermons of his which had been recently 
 printed, as well as a verbal message of friendly com 
 pliments ; and having instructed me to call upon
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 37 
 
 him on my return, with an account of his excellent 
 friend, "he shook his ambrosial curls (of his wig), 
 and gave the nod," which was the signal for my 
 departure. 
 
 I louted low, and withdrew, inly pleased at the suc 
 cessful issue of an interview which was then consid 
 ered as the most appalling of human ordeals. 
 
 On Tuesday morning of the last week in Novem 
 ber, I bestrode the very indifferent beast which en 
 joyed the somewhat unenviable distinction of being 
 the best livery horse in Cambridge, and set forth, 
 like Yorick, with (not quite) a half-dozen shirts and 
 a black pair of silk breeches in my portmanteau, 
 on my long-looked-for excursion. Contrary to estab 
 lished usage in such cases, the day was fine and the 
 roads excellent. It was one of those delicious, mild, 
 soft days which sometimes occur at the very close of 
 autumn, and seem to breathe a second spring in the 
 very presence of winter himself ; and to desire 
 
 " Upon old Hyem's chin and icy beard 
 To hang a chaplet of young summer buds." 
 
 As I rode over Brighton bridge upon a steed which 
 had not yet got over the stimulus of his double allow 
 ance of oats, with my back turned upon my nursing 
 mother, whose cares are but too often felt to be only 
 vexatious till it is too late to profit by them, and a 
 week before me urihaunted by the apparitions of 
 dead authors and living tutors, I respired the bland 
 air with a joyous feeling of young life, and felt as if
 
 38 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 there were no such thing as pain or trouble in the 
 world. I trotted along the pleasant winding roads 
 through Roxbury, Brookline, and Dorchester, with a 
 heart ready and willing to receive pleasure from 
 every object which struck the senses. The trees 
 were almost bare, and the earth was sear and brown ; 
 yet the yellow light of the rejoicing sun seemed 
 almost as beautiful as the leafy glories of their sum 
 mer's estate. The farmhouses, with their roofs slop 
 ing to the ground ; the sheds laden with the golden 
 pumpkins, prophetic of pies to come ; the corn-barns 
 with the yellow ears peeping out from between the 
 interstices of the sides ; the wood-pile, suggestive 
 of images of comfort and merry winter nights; the 
 picturesque well-pole, not yet supplanted by the 
 prosaic pump of these utilitarian days, all were 
 fruitful of happy thoughts and pleasant day-dreams. 
 As I ascended Milton Hill, I saw for the, first time 
 the magnificent prospect it displays, and checked my 
 horse on its summit to admire the wide sweep of 
 country, the tufted hills, the winding river, and the 
 glorious burst of ocean, with here and there a white 
 sail gliding akmg its blue surface, which it com 
 mands. On the other side of the road I saw the 
 charming villa of Governor Hutchinson, with the fine 
 plantations he had made, and the trees under which 
 he had hoped his latter days would have declined 
 in peace ; and I felt that his exile from this beloved 
 and lovely spot was punishment enough for his politi 
 cal offences as a public man. It is said, and I can
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YKAI1S SINCE. 39 
 
 well believe it to be true, that he died of Milton Hill. 
 It must have been a bitter thing to have revisited its 
 beloved shades, and gazed on its gorgeous view in 
 the visions of the night, and then to have awoke a 
 neglected, impoverished, despised exile, forever sepa 
 rated from the spot of earth which was dearer to him 
 than all the world beside. 
 
 As I wound farther into the country, I often met, 
 jogging cheerfully along, hale ruddy countrymen ; 
 some young, some gray-haired, presiding over wagons 
 groaning under the weight of the victims which had 
 been sacrificed against the coming festival. Heca 
 tombs of beeves, ghostlike forms of turkeys, partridges 
 never again to rise on whirring wing, ducks fated to 
 swim no more save in their own gravy, passed in 
 long procession, like the shadowy train of Banquo's 
 descendants. As I passed through the villages in 
 my way, they had all a sort of pleasant holiday look. 
 The labors of the year seemed to be over, and the 
 inhabitants to be assisting one another to do nothing 
 in the most neighborly manner possible. The boys, 
 let loose from school, were playing football with all 
 the energy which that manly game demands, but 
 stopping in their sport to look at the passing stranger, 
 and salute him, according to the good old custom, 
 with uncouth demonstrations of respect. 
 
 At noon, I bated from my journey, though bent on 
 speed, and drew the rein at the door of what was to 
 me a most promising hostelry, being a farmhouse of 
 the oldest description which New England affords,
 
 40 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 with its jutting second story as a " coigne of vantage " 
 against the Indians, its diamond panes of glass set in 
 lead, and its window- frames opening inwards like 
 folding-doors ; and which was proclaimed to be a 
 place of entertainment for man and beast by a most 
 truculent portrait of General Washington, which 
 hung in chains from a superb old elm before the 
 door. I soon learnt that the hospitable proprietor 
 was no less a person than Captain Crake, who had 
 seen hard service both in the old French war and in 
 the recent struggle for independence. The gallant 
 captain did me the honor to invite himself to dine 
 with me, and I found him an entertaining specimen 
 of a large class of our revolutionary officers, who had 
 superinduced the military frankness and ease of one 
 conversant with camps upon the sturdy independent 
 yeoman of the Old Colony. While I patiently exer 
 cised my molars and incisors in an almost hopeless 
 attempt to subdue a beefsteak, which seemed as if it 
 might have been ravished from the yet living flank 
 of the sire of Abyssinian herds, I quite won the heart 
 of my worthy landlord by the interest which I took 
 in his descriptions of his campaigns and of the well- 
 fought fields which he had seen. He exhibited with 
 much satisfaction the honorable scar in his arm 
 which he had received at the storming of Stony 
 Point, and the sword which the Marquis de Lafayette 
 had presented to him, and his insignia of the Cin 
 cinnati. He also displayed a richly chased gold 
 watch, which had been given to him by a French
 
 AN OCTOGENAKY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 41 
 
 nobleman whom he had made the captive of his bow 
 and of his spear in Canada, I think at the taking of 
 Fort Niagara, as a token of his sense of the humanity 
 and courteous treatment which he had received at 
 the hands of his captor. During his long term of 
 service he had associated on terms of equality with 
 gentlemen of much higher rank in society than he 
 had been accustomed to know, except at a humble 
 distance ; and he felt the loss of the company of his 
 old companions-in-arms most severely after the army 
 was disbanded. He had, as a resource against ennui, 
 rather than any expectation of gain, hoisted the head 
 of his beloved chief before his paternal door to invite 
 the passing guest ; and the neighboring gentry always 
 made it a point to stop at the captain's door as they 
 passed, and gratify the veteran by treating him as 
 one who had bravely fought his way to an equality 
 with themselves at a time when the distinctions of 
 rank were still strongly marked. I subsequently 
 cultivated the acquaintance of the erect old man, and 
 extracted from him many a curious fragment of pub 
 lic and private history. But my horse is again at 
 the door, and I must return the military salute of 
 mine host with what grace I may, and hasten onward, 
 for I have no time to lose. 
 
 My horse, who, during the course of his long and 
 active life, had done little else than tread and retread 
 the weary round of what were in those days entitled 
 the great and the little squares, which were certain 
 roads encompassing Boston at a greater and less dis-
 
 42 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 tance, began to show unequivocal symptoms of weari 
 ness and disgust at my eccentric orbit. No logic, 
 either of whip or spur, could convince him of the 
 propriety of advancing at a more rapid rate than a 
 sort of shamble between a walk and a pace. To 
 crown all, he managed to cast a shoe at the most 
 inconvenient place possible, so that I had to lead 
 him for a matter of four miles before I could find 
 a blacksmith. All these untoward circumstances 
 combined to make my approach to the end of my 
 journey as gradual as might well be. Accordingly, 
 when the sun set, as sober suns will do, at a little 
 after five o'clock, he left me about five miles from 
 Sanfield. Now this distance I could have soon anni 
 hilated if I had been unincumbered with my imprac 
 ticable companion ; but, as it was, I was obliged to 
 do as wiser men have been obliged in like cases to 
 do before me, 
 
 " And will again, pretend they ne'er so wise," 
 
 even to succumb to the wayward humor of my ill- 
 conditioned helpmate, and to console myself with 
 cursing the evil hour in which I formed the ill-starred 
 union. 
 
 The day, which had been cloudless as a midsum 
 mer's noon, began, before the sun went down, to be 
 overcast with black clouds, portentous of showers. 
 A piercing north-east wind reigned in the stead of 
 the vernal breeze of the morning, and whirled the 
 brown leaves in rustling eddies like a miniature
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 43 
 
 tornado. As I stumHed onwards upon my journey, 
 the twilight faded away, and was followed by a 
 moonless night. I could scarcely distinguish my 
 road, which seemed to grow longer and longer, under 
 my feet. In something more than two hours, how 
 ever, I was cheered by the ruddy blaze of a black 
 smith's forge, which gave me assurance of being near 
 a village. Upon reaching the smithy, I inquired of 
 the son of St. Dominic as to my whereabouts, and 
 was informed' that I was on the confines of the village 
 of Sanfield, and had ingeniously managed to take 
 a wrong turning a few miles back, which had brought 
 me more than a mile beyond my destination by a 
 wrong route. Xothing remained for me now but to 
 take the instructions of the worthy smith, and turn 
 my horse's reluctant head in the opposite direction, 
 and, having been put in the right way, to pursue it 
 till I should come to the high trees, which were the 
 mark of my journey's end. 
 
 My nag, contrary to my expectation, seemed to 
 snuff afar off the comfortable provender which 
 awaited him, and laid his feet to the ground with a 
 speed he had not put forth since the morning. As 
 I advanced, I earnestly bent my eyes into the thick 
 darkness on my right hand, in hopes of distinguish 
 ing the friendly branches which were to point me 
 to the termination of my weary way. I looked 
 with the more earnestness as a few drops of a cold 
 November rain began to fall, and to threaten no 
 inconsiderable addition to the discomfort of my
 
 44 AN OCTOGENAEY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 benighted estate. At last, however, as I descended a 
 considerable hill, I heard the sough of the blast stir 
 ring the boughs of many lofty trees on my right 
 hand, and could perceive lights glimmering through 
 the darkness at a considerable distance. These I at 
 once knew must be the indications of the hospitable 
 habitation I sought. The pitchy blackness of the 
 night compelled me to dismount, and grope my way 
 to the fence, and along it, in search of the approach to 
 the house. This I felt to be prudent as I heard the 
 hoarse murmur of what seemed to be a considerable 
 stream near me. I groped in vain, however, for the 
 carriage-road; and could find but a small gate, in 
 tended only for human ingress, about opposite where 
 the little candle threw its beams into the night, like 
 " a good deed in a naughty world." 
 
 In this distress I had nothing left for it but to tie 
 my horse to the fence, and follow the adventure on 
 foot. Entering the gate, I proceeded onwards, with 
 the withered leaves crackling under rny feet, and the 
 wind sighing among the bare branches over my head. 
 The rain now began to patter in more frequent drops 
 upon the dead leaves over which I walked, with the 
 peculiar clattering noise which is delightful to listen 
 to before a comfortable fire, but less musical to the 
 ear of an amateur of Nature's harmonies, when he is 
 behind the scenes and in the midst of the performers. 
 As I neared my hoped-for haven of rest, I was 
 saluted by the fierce barking of a dog, who, if his 
 size were answerable to his voice, might be a match
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 45 
 
 for the shaggy "Dog of Darkness" himself. Now> 
 however sweet it may be 
 
 " To hear the watch-dog's honest bark 
 Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home" 
 
 I put it to anyone who has tried the experiment, 
 whether it be an equally delightful sound as we 
 approach a strange house of a dark night. I venture 
 to say that the stoutest hearted despiser of dogs and 
 devils would feel some misgivings under such cir 
 cumstances, lest his fate might be at least as hard as 
 that of the noble bard just quoted, who was welcomed 
 on his return to Newstead by having 
 
 " His Argus bite him by the breeches." 
 
 It would not do, however, to be daunted by this new 
 lion in my path, which I afterward found was 
 chained, like the one in Pilgrim's Progress: so on 
 I fared, like any errant knight, resolved at all haz 
 ards to achieve my adventure. The house seemed 
 to recede as I advanced, and I thought that I had 
 measured a good mile before I reached it : it was, in 
 fact, about a quarter of a mile. As, however, there 
 is an end to the disagreeables as well as to the agree- 
 ables of life, I at last stood in the porch, wet, hungry, 
 and tired, and made the brazen knocker give clam 
 orous notice of my presence. The door was soon 
 opened by an elderly woman of respectable appear 
 ance, of whom I inquired if this was Colonel Wy- 
 borne's house, and whether he were at home ; to both 
 which interrogatories I received the expected affirma-
 
 46 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 tive, together with an invitation to walk in. The 
 ^ood woman, eying me attentively, then said, in the 
 negative-affirmative form in which inquiries are gen 
 erally put in New England, 
 
 " Sure you are not the Mr. Dalzell whom the 
 Colonel expects from college, are you ? " 
 
 I assured her of my confident belief in my identity 
 with the individual in question; upon which she 
 replied, 
 
 " Well, the Colonel will be right glad to see you, 
 sir, though he did not expect you till to-morrow, or 
 he would have sent the chariot to meet you at 
 Captain Crake's. But how did you get here, sir? 
 You surely haven't walked all the way ? " 
 
 I gave the information desired; upon which she 
 promised to send the coachman for my horse, and re 
 quested me to walk into the parlor, where the Colonel 
 was sitting. She accordingly threw open the door on 
 the right as I entered the hall, and ushered me into 
 an apartment, the lightsome cheerfulness of which 
 was enhanced by the chilly, wet, famished condition 
 in which I entered it. The master of the house, 
 however, was not there ; though the chair drawn to 
 the fire, the small mahogany table, covered with a 
 green cloth, and sustaining a massive silver candle 
 stick and wax candle, and the second volume of 
 Sir William Temple's works in folio, showed that he 
 had not been long absent. The housekeeper then 
 left the room by the door by which we had entered, 
 for the purpose of finding him, and announcing my
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 47 
 
 arrival. The first object which attracted my atten 
 tion was the noble fire which roared up the chimney, 
 to which I incontinently rushed, and bathed my 
 shivering frame in the genial warmth. When I had 
 imbibed as much caloric as my forward man re 
 quired, I turned what Lord Castlereagh used to call 
 " a back-front " to the generous blaze, and took a 
 survey of the apartment. The walls were panelled 
 in oak, with a gilt moulding, now a little tarnished. 
 Between the two windows opposite was a large mir 
 ror, framed in mahogany, with gilt sconces for lights. 
 Under it was a table covered with a rich Turkey 
 rug, which was well piled with books and papers, 
 and beneath which appeared a couple of small globes. 
 The closed window-shutters were well-nigh concealed, 
 as well as the high window-seats of oak, by the 
 depending folds of the crimson damask curtains. 
 Between the two windows on my right hand was a 
 card-table of mahogany, black with time, clasping 
 heavy balls in its clawed feet. On the side of the 
 room opposite to the card-table was a most luxurious 
 easy-chair a fit cradle for declining age and a 
 footstool, both covered with chintz protecting the 
 crimson damask, which on occasions of importance 
 was revealed, to match the curtains. In the nook on 
 the side of the fireplace answering to the door by 
 which I entered was a secretary, its looking-glass 
 doors opening over what seemed to be a chest of 
 dra were, but which, when drawn out, formed a writ 
 ing-desk with pigeon-holes innumerable. Above the
 
 48 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 looking-glass doors were three smaller drawers; 
 the inner one with fluted rays diverging from the 
 middle of its lowest side to its edges; the whole 
 crowned by a sort of pyramidal pediment, the pol 
 ished wood reflecting the surrounding objects like 
 marble, and the brass handles glistering like gold. 
 A thick Turkey carpet covered the floor, and a suffi 
 cient number of inviting chairs, with carved frames 
 and well-stuffed seats, expanded their arms to wel 
 come the weary guest. It may be readily conceived 
 that I took in this inventory in less than a tithe of 
 the time it has taken to recount it, and had again 
 turned to the blazing hearth. The chimney was 
 one of those which men built when the forests grew 
 up to their very doors, and it was their ambition to 
 consume them as rapidly as possible. The fireplace 
 was encircled with my favorite Dutch tiles, and sur 
 mounted by a capacious mantel-piece, which, as well 
 as the panels over it, were covered with particular 
 care. 
 
 While I was thus engaged in surveying these 
 images of comfort, and basking in the blessed warmth, 
 I heard a slight noise behind me, and, turning sud 
 denly round, I saw before me my venerable host, 
 who had just entered by a door which I have not 
 mentioned, opening from the side on the left of the 
 fireplace as I stood with my back to it. The appari 
 tion was one which might have startled one who 
 might be taken by surprise. His face was furrowed 
 with wrinkles, his teeth gone, his eyebrows bushy,
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 49 
 
 but of a snowy whiteness, under which his eyes 
 looked out with a keenness and brilliancy which 
 seemed almost preternatural. His head was covered 
 with a crimson velvet cap with a silk tassel in the 
 centre, under which he wore a linen cap, turned up 
 in front and at the sides over the velvet one, of the 
 purest white. He had on a branched-damask dress 
 ing gown, pearl-colored silk breeches, a large flapped 
 waistcoat of the same, embroidered with silk, white 
 silk stockings, and black velvet slippers; his neck 
 encircled by a white stock clasped behind with a 
 large paste buckle. In his hand he bore the fellow 
 of the silver candlestick upon the stand before men 
 tioned ; and under his other arm he carried the mate 
 to the volume of Temple's works which I have said 
 lay open upon it. 
 
 It was plain that my arrival had not been an 
 nounced to him, as, indeed, it hardly could have 
 been in the minute or two which had elapsed since 
 my entrance ; and he stood for a moment gazing at 
 me from beneath his shaggy eyebrows with an ear 
 nestness which had the expression of sternness and 
 almost of austerity. I immediately advanced, and, 
 relieving him of his folio and candlestick, introduced 
 myself as his dilatory cousin, who had at last re 
 deemed the promise which his parents had made for 
 him, of a visit to their much-honored relative. By 
 the time I had delivered myself to this effect, and 
 had deposited his honorable load upon the stand, he 
 had fully recovered himself, and, with a countenance 
 4
 
 50 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 beaming with affectionate pleasure and hospitable 
 joy, he took both my hands, and warmly pressing 
 them, he bade me a most cordial welcome to his 
 house, adding, 
 
 ".I am the more glad to see you, my dear boy, be 
 cause your being better than your word in coming a 
 day sooner than you promised shows that you were 
 really in earnest to give an old man pleasure, and not 
 merely induced by your dear parents' request. How 
 ever, I am afraid that your ride hither has been a 
 more fatiguing one than I had hoped to have made 
 it, for I should have sent John and the carriage to 
 meet you at Crake's. But however, here you are, and 
 you cannot come too soon, or stay too long." Saying 
 which, he again shook me by the hand, and wheeling 
 his arm-chair, with my assistance, to -the fireside, he 
 motioned me to take a chair by his side, and we sat 
 down and talked 
 
 " Affectionate and true, 
 A pair of friends, though I was young," 
 
 and though my revered friend had the advantage of 
 the Matthew of the poet by a dozen years. The 
 punctilious politeness of the old school, informed with 
 the soul of real kindliness of heart and the evident 
 gratification which my visit to his solitude gave him, 
 made me feel as much at my ease with him as if a 
 draught from the Fountain of Youth had washed away 
 threescore and ten of his years. We talked first and 
 foremost of my parents, of whose well-being I gave
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 51 
 
 him what information I possessed, and in every 
 particular of whose way of life in their new home he 
 displayed the warmest interest. He then inquired 
 after the welfare of his old friend, my aunt Cham 
 pion, and received with marks of hearty satisfaction 
 my accounts of her abounding in all that should 
 accompany old age, as well as the affectionate salu 
 tations of which I was the bearer. He then talked 
 about the college, in which he felt all that warm 
 interest which has in all times done honor to her 
 sous, with but few melancholy exceptions. I duly 
 presented the greetings of the president, and an 
 nounced the advent of the sermons which graced rny 
 portmanteau. Having suitably acknowledged these 
 favors, my venerable friend suddenly looked up in 
 my face, and said, 
 
 " By the way, I am very selfish to be catechising 
 you in this way without remembering that you must 
 be almost starved. How long is it since you dined ? " 
 
 I replied that I dined at Captain Crake's at about 
 one o'clock. " Bless me ! " he replied : " that is seven 
 hours ago and better. Do me the favor to pull the 
 bell, and this matter shall be put to rights. Are you 
 not ravenously hungry ? " 
 
 I should have done injustice to the sentiments of 
 my heart if I had replied in the negative, and accor 
 dingly assented to his proposition in its fullest extent, 
 and, having pulled the bell as he desired, heard with 
 unmitigated satisfaction his directions to Mrs. Wal- 
 dron, his housekeeper, to have supper anticipated, and
 
 52 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 furnished forth with all despatch. Many minutes did 
 not elapse before that excellent person made her 
 appearance, and with the assistance of a gray-headed 
 negro brought in a small dining-table from the hall, 
 which was soon covered with a tablecloth of the 
 finest damask, and spread with a pair of nicely roasted 
 cold chickens, and a ham worthy of Westphalia itself, 
 a loaf of .the purest of wheat bread, and some smoking 
 roasted potatoes, flanked with a decanter of old 
 Madeira, and a flagon of home-brewed beer. After 
 due justice had been done to these viands, they were 
 replaced by a pumpkin-pie of wonderful dimensions 
 and admirable composition, escorted by a cranberry- 
 tart, the white flaky paste of which was beautifully 
 contrasted with the celestial rosy red of the fruit, and 
 by a noble Stilton cheese. My hospitable enter 
 tainer surveyed my feats, as I rapidly made the good 
 things before me invisible with the appetite of a 
 hungry boy, with an air of complacent good-humor, 
 and as I approached the end of my labors, suggested 
 the medicinal virtues of a bowl of hot punch to my 
 consideration. I could not dissent from a proposition 
 emanating from such a source, and the motion was 
 carried by general consent. Peter, the gray-headed 
 negro just mentioned, was accordingly despatched for 
 the materials, and soon returned with the lemons, 
 sugar, shrub, and old Jamaica, and a small kettle of 
 hot water; which being deposited, he retired again, 
 and brought back with him the punch-bowl, of the most 
 precious porcelain of the Celestial Empire, and a fit
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 53 
 
 receptacle for the nectarous compound it was to receive. 
 Peter, under the special eye of his master, concocted 
 the mixture, and, having launched the last lemon- 
 paring upon its bosom, consigned the precious bur 
 den to his master's hands. He, having touched it to 
 his lips, passed the bowl to one who took a more 
 liberal draught. Peter having removed the remains 
 of the supper, and moved the table nearer the hearth, 
 Colonel Wyborne and I drew our chairs closer to the 
 fire and to each other, with the genial bowl between 
 us (for the heresy of ladies had not crept in within 
 the pale of good-fellowship), and we wore away the 
 evening hours in most delightful talk. 
 
 The conversational powers of my host were unim 
 paired by years, and had just enougli of a smack of 
 what was then called the old school to give a racy 
 flavor to his abundant small-talk. His remarks were 
 rich and varied to a degree which I have never heard 
 surpassed, though I have listened in my time to most 
 of the famous conversationists of the age. His expe 
 rience of life, which, though it had been completed a 
 half a century before, was of the most extensive de 
 scription, seemed to be as fresh in his recollection as 
 if he had left the bustling scene but yesterday. The 
 images of his early years and his European sojourn 
 were as distinct and sharp in their outlines as if they 
 were but just impressed; for the events of his retire 
 ment were not numerous or striking enough to have 
 effaced or impaired them. His society, both on this 
 occasion and all following ones, had a charm from
 
 54 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 this very circumstance, which that of no other man 
 even one who had enjoyed the same early opportu 
 nities, but had continued to mingle with the base 
 crowd could possess. He seemed to transport you 
 by the magic of his words to an age that was past, 
 and to a circle which had become historical, and 
 many members of which had taken their niches in 
 the temple 
 
 " Where the dead are honored by the nations." 
 
 The insignificant particulars which he now and 
 then incidentally dropped of the habits and way of 
 life of the illustrious acquaintances of his youth, gave 
 a vitality to the cold ideas I had formed of them from 
 books and their works, and almost seemed to evoke 
 them from the shades to our presence. He delighted, 
 too, as most old men do, to go back to his schoolboy 
 aud college days, and describe the boyish troubles and 
 frolics of those hours when that flame burnt high and 
 strong, which was now flickering in its socket. 
 
 Thus, in various converse, the hours flew imper 
 ceptibly away. Blazing logs had been reduced to a 
 glowing mass of coals ; the candles had nearly meas 
 ured out their little span of life ; and the great clock 
 in the hall had tolled the knell of another day. The 
 good housekeeper, who had several times made for 
 herself errands into the room to see what was going 
 on, at last entered, unbidden, with the chamber can 
 dlesticks, and, wishing us a good-night, withdrew. 
 The Colonel then made a move to retire, declaring
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 55 
 
 that he had not so egregiously violated the regularity 
 of his life for many a year. He first desired me to 
 ascertain whether the bowl was empty, and having 
 been assured by me, in return, that " the tankard was 
 no more," invited me to light the candles, and be 
 shown to my sleeping-apartment. He accordingly, 
 assuming one of the tapers, marshalled me the way 
 that I should go, through the hall, up a pair of stairs 
 properly so called, ascending in two flights with a 
 spacious landing between, and as unlike as well as 
 may be the corkscrew abominations which put in 
 jeopardy the lives and limbs of the present genera 
 tion. My chamber was in the front of the house/ 
 over the winter parlor in which I had spent the even 
 ing. My host, giving a general survey to the apart 
 ment, to see that all was in due order, shook me 
 affectionately by the hand, and, enjoining it upon 
 me to lie as long as I chose in the morning, bade me 
 a good-night, and left me. 
 
 The appearance of my dormitory was quite in 
 keeping with the specimen of the house I had seen, 
 as far as I could judge by the light of my candle, 
 assisted by the expiring rays of a few brands, which 
 were all that were left of a cordial fire which had been 
 lighted on my arrival. The bed was of ample capa 
 city, swelling up with a downy buoyancy, and covered 
 with a gorgeous quilt, evidently the handiwork of fair 
 hands of other days ; the pillows were ruffled, and 
 the sheets of a most inviting whiteness. Over the 
 bedstead the tester was suspended from the ceiling,
 
 56 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 from which flowed on all sides thick curtains of green 
 damask. An India cabinet occupied the space be 
 tween the windows opposite the bed, yet redolent of 
 the perfumes which it imbibed in Far Cathay, and 
 displayed on its pictured surface the rich costumes 
 and quaint customs of her inhabitants. Between the 
 windows opposite the fireplace was a massive chest 
 of drawers, upon which stood an old-fashioned oval 
 dressing-glass, turning upon pivots on what had once 
 been a white and gilded frame. The chairs were of 
 richly-carved mahogany, without arms, the backs hav 
 ing a lotus-like expansion outwards at the tops, and 
 the seats apparently the fruit of the same gentle labors 
 which had produced the quilt. By the bedside was 
 an elbow-chair, the brother of the one below, only this 
 was covered with white dimity. Upon a table in the 
 middle of the room I found my portmanteau, while 
 the open door of a closet on the right of the fireplace 
 displayed drawers already expanded for the hospita 
 ble reception of my integuments. On the other side 
 of the fireplace was another closet, with a window 
 opening into it, with water and the appliances of the 
 toilet, and a shelf of books. The floor was covered 
 with a comfortable English carpet, and green damask 
 curtains hung heavily before the windows. 
 
 The gardens of Alcina would not have smiled more 
 invitingly upon me at that moment than did that 
 snug apartment. The extinguisher was soon on, and 
 I was luxuriously buried in a soft valley between two 
 mountains of down. I lay awake for a moment to
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 57 
 
 enjoy the sound of the winter's wind howling around 
 the house, and every now and then dashing the rain 
 against the windows with a fitful violence, and some 
 times roaring down the chimney, as if the fiend that 
 rode the blast were in vain clamoring for his prey. 
 These sounds, however, fell fainter and fainter upon 
 my weary ear, and I was soon fast asleep.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I SLEPT soundly through a dreamless night, and 
 awoke about eight o'clock the next morning. I 
 was at a loss, for a minute or two, to define where on 
 earth I might be : soon, however, the scattered images 
 of the day and night before began to group themselves 
 palpably and distinctly in my recollection; and I 
 began to realize that I was actually beneath the roof 
 I had so strongly desired to visit. I sprang out of 
 bed, and, having learned the hour from my watch, I 
 despatched my toilet in all convenient haste. The 
 cheerful light of the sun, peeping through the oval 
 perforations in the tops of the window-shutters, in 
 formed me before I left my couch, that the complexion 
 of the weather had changed since I had left the pelt 
 ing, pitiless storm roaring about the eaves, and gone 
 to the Land of Dreams. Upon opening the window- 
 shutters in the front of the house, I saw the scene 
 through which I had passed the night before in the 
 blackness of darkness, all bathed in the living light 
 of the blessed sun. The black, bare branches of the 
 superb elm-trees, which rose high above the roof, and 
 extended in two rows, one from each side of the house, 
 to the roadside, were dripping with raindrops glitter-
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 59 
 
 ing in the morning ray. The brook, which I could 
 now perceive brawling along just beyond the house 
 on the right as I stood, was hurrying away to the sea, 
 its dancing waters crowning its brink, but not over 
 flowing it, black as ink in the shade, but of a trans 
 lucent amber-color where they were kissed 
 
 " With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod." 
 
 On the left of the house I plainly discerned the car 
 riage-road, which I had vainly sought the night before, 
 the trees extending a canopy of boughs over it. It 
 was separated from the lawn in front of the house by 
 an ancient hedge of boxwood cut into the fantastic 
 forms which were the delight of the English gardeners 
 of the old school, and which Pope has immortalized 
 by his satire, but which, nevertheless, my revered 
 friend scrupulously preserved as a memorial of former 
 times. The lawn was skirted on the other side by a 
 double row of the verdant fence which guarded it on 
 this. The lawn itself fell in a gentle slope, scarcely 
 perceptible, to the roadside, and was now buried be 
 neath the dishevelled tresses of the overarching trees, 
 ravished from them by the winds of autumn. A low 
 wooden fence, shielded on the outer side by a thick 
 hedge of English hawthorn, divided the lawn from 
 the high road. 
 
 These observations were soon made while my 
 toilet was making ; and, as soon as it was finished, I 
 hastened down to the parlor below, which had wit 
 nessed my hospitable reception. On entering the
 
 60 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 room I saw that my venerable host was beforehand 
 with me, and that the break fast- table was awaiting 
 my appearance. Colonel Wyborne was sitting by 
 the fireside in his elbow-chair, dressed as the evening 
 before, with the exception that a well-powdered bag- 
 wiT had succeeded to the crown of his head in the 
 
 O 
 
 stead of the velvet cap of yesterday. He was busily 
 engaged in reading a large quarto, which I subse 
 quently discovered to be the Greek Testament, and 
 did not immediately perceive my entrance. I cheer 
 fully bade him good-rnorning, and desired him to 
 observe how punctiliously I had observed his parting 
 injunction to lie abed as long as I liked. He imme 
 diately rose from his chair, and, having laid aside his 
 book, shook my hand cordially, and, bidding me good- 
 morning, thanked me for having made myself at 
 home ; and all in a manner as if I were an honored 
 contemporary rather than a college lad, and with 
 that sterling courtesy of address which is the expo 
 nent of true benevolence and kindliness of heart ; a 
 very different thing from the base metal which too 
 often passes current in the world as the sterling coin, 
 but wanting the stamp of the heart. Compliments 
 being over, I drew a chair alongside of his, and an 
 swered the careful inquiries which he made as to my 
 comfortable lodging the preceding night. His hos 
 pitable anxiety on this subject being relieved, a touch 
 upon the bell-pull evoked our ministering spirits, 
 Peter and the housekeeper, from the culinary realms, 
 bearing in their hands the substantial and the more
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 61 
 
 ethereal components of that repast, which, when 
 well administered, deserves the precedence which is 
 conceded to it in the due order of the important 
 events of every day. The breakfast which these 
 worthy functionaries imposed upon the board bore 
 no resemblance to the tea-and-toast abominations 
 which usurp in these days that honored name, and 
 to the prevalence of which I attribute much of the 
 degeneracy which is allowed to have dwarfed the 
 present generation. Peter marshalled the way, bear 
 ing upon a tray the massive silver coffee-pot, fuming 
 like a courser, and diffusing a fragrance worthy of 
 Araby the Blest. This monarch of the breakfast- 
 table was surrounded by a cortege of dishes tempt 
 ingly concealed from view by silver covers ; which 
 when duly set in order, and revealed to sight, dis 
 played the luscious rounds of toast saturated with 
 the most delicious of butter, the broiled chickens, 
 the piquant sausages, the beefsteak, worthy of the 
 famous Club devoted to its service. Then there was 
 the egg-boiler full of the freshest of eggs, the honey, 
 the smoked salmon, the wheaten loaf and the rye- 
 Indian bread, the cream of the richest, and sugar of 
 the whitest. All these, and other cates which I do 
 not recollect, were all, too, for my especial eating ; 
 for at the heels of Peter followed the housekeeper, 
 with a large silver salver, adorned with rich antique 
 chasing, upon which she bore an ample bowl of the 
 finest China, filled with a frothing sea of chocolate 
 arid a certain number of slices of delicately toasted
 
 62 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 wheaten bread, which was the long-established morn 
 ing meal of the master of the house. 
 
 When all preliminaries had been adjusted, we 
 commenced a well-directed and vigorously sustained 
 attack upon the several divisions to which we were 
 opposed, and soon effected a notable breach in the 
 opposite ranks. My host hospitably encouraged me 
 in my endeavors to do the amplest justice to his 
 good cheer, and enlivened the meal with a descrip 
 tion of the Scotch breakfasts which had cheered his 
 journey through the Laud o' Cakes, which had not 
 then been transformed into a fairy-land of romance 
 and poetry by the magic wands of Burns and Scott, 
 but was regarded with the kind of belittling preju 
 dice which afterwards stamped the pages of Smollett, 
 and colored the mental vision of Johnson. He con 
 trasted those justly famed repasts, which have dis 
 armed even calumny and prejudice by their sterling 
 virtues, and have surprised even the bitterest enemies 
 into applause, with the dejeuners a la fourchette of 
 France and the Continent, and gave the palm to the 
 substantial elements of the northern breakfasts over the 
 pates, grapes, figs, and sparkling wines of the south. 
 He had evidently given the subject the attention which 
 its importance deserved ; and I have seldom had oc 
 casion in my experience of life to doubt the sound 
 ness of his opinions on this subject or any other. 
 
 After breakfast was over, and we had chatted 
 on various subjects for half an hour or so, Colonel 
 Wyborne proposed a walk over his farm, to which I
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE, 63 
 
 readily assented. Peter, being again summoned to 
 his master's assistance, helped him to substitute a 
 pearl-colored broadcloth coat, embroidered about the 
 cuffs and skirts with silk, for his morning-gown ; and 
 having invested his feet with a stout pair of square- 
 toed, high-quartered shoes with heavy heels, he 
 brought from the hall his gold-laced cocked hat and 
 gold-headed cane. Thus equipped, my venerable 
 friend took my arm, and we sallied forth from the 
 side door opening upon the carriage-way, and first 
 took a survey of the exterior of the house. It was 
 composed, in fact, of two houses of two different 
 periods : the newer, as it were, growing out of and 
 overshadowing the more ancient. The English cler 
 gyman, of whose heirs I have before said the estate 
 was purchased by Colonel Wy home's mother, had 
 found a farmhouse of almost the earliest description 
 of New England rural architecture ; its roof declin 
 ing from two stories in front till it almost touched 
 the ground behind, and a close porch projecting be 
 fore, with windows on either side, and compacted 
 of massy timbers of oak, on which the mark of the 
 axe was in many places to be seen, knit together 
 with a firmness and strength which showed that 
 our forefathers built for their posterity as well as for 
 themselves. The wooden walls of our ancestors 
 would, if unmolested, survive, I doubt not, in many 
 cases, the boasted strength of the granite structures 
 of the present day. The original purchaser liking 
 the situation of the house, but not thinking it
 
 64 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 worthy of his pretensions, built a new edifice, two 
 stories high, with attics ; its rear joining upon the 
 side of the older structure, so that the original house 
 was degraded into the servile condition of the habi 
 tation and offices of the servants. He in this way 
 secured to himself an abode of capacious dimensions 
 and convenient distribution, but somewhat of a 
 heterogeneous appearance. The carriage-road, in 
 which we were walking, turned abruptly away from 
 the house before it had reached the end of it, and 
 swept round a circle of trees and towering plants to 
 the stables, which were, in the leafy time, effectually 
 planted out of sight by the verdant screen. Immedi 
 ately behind the house was a broad terrace of green 
 sod, from which you descended, by a flight of stone 
 steps with iron balustrades, to the garden. The 
 transitory glories of this spot were of course van 
 ished for this year; but the plan of the whole was 
 plainly enough discernible. In the centre of the 
 garden was a small fish-pond, with a neat stone 
 curbing, which was filled with gold and silver fish. 
 Immediately in front of the fish-pond was an ancient 
 sun-dial standing upon a pedestal of stone, and 
 preaching a lesson, by its silent shadow, of the 
 irrevocable flight of the gliding hours, a thousand 
 times more impressive than any told by 
 
 " The iron tongue of Time." 
 
 From the fish-pond as the common centre, radiated 
 eight well-gravelled walks, extending from the centre
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 65 
 
 to the boundaries, and intersecting a circular gravel 
 walk which was described with mathematical exact 
 ness, halfway from the central point to the extremi 
 ties of the garden. The sixteen portions thus marked 
 out were of exactly the same size ; and in summer, 
 when they were filled with flowers or vegetables 
 corresponding to each other, must have answered 
 Pope's description of an old-fashioned garden, where 
 
 " Each alley has a brother, 
 And half the platform just reflects the other." 
 
 The garden was surrounded by a thick English haw 
 thorn hedge, which by age and constant trimming 
 had become almost impervious to sight, even when 
 stripped of its leaves. At the bottom of the garden 
 a small gate admitted us into the orchard, which 
 was of several acres in extent, and filled with apple 
 and pear trees of every variety of sweetness and 
 spicy flavor which distinguishes those gentle races. 
 Of his fruit Colonel Wyborne was proud, with good 
 reason ; for he had done much to introduce new 
 varieties, and a better mode of cultivation than used 
 to prevail. The orchard, a"nd the whole domain 
 indeed, was sheltered from the ocean blasts by a 
 gently swelling hill, " feathering to the top " with a 
 thick grove of various trees, which had now reached 
 their full growth, having been planted by the first 
 purchaser, with the exception of one magnificent 
 aboriginal oak, which stood in the midst of the 
 younger trees an acknowledged monarch, and which 
 6
 
 66 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 had not yet disrobed itself of the gorgeous scarlet 
 mantle with which autumn had invested it. Under 
 this regal canopy there was a rustic seat, which 
 allured us to its embraces. My aged companion 
 seated himself upon it, while I took my place beside 
 him, and we surveyed together in silence the brown 
 meadows, and the trees with every bough and every 
 twig standing sharply out, with all their fantastic 
 ramifications, in the yellow sunshine of one of the 
 last days of the Indian summer. 
 
 "There is something exceedingly captivating to 
 my imagination," my venerable friend began, after a 
 silence of some duration, " in the analogies between 
 nature and the experience of human life. These 
 you will apprehend and appreciate more and more as 
 you grow older. They are among the many benevo 
 lent contrivances of the great Author of nature and 
 life to make the never-dying soul contented and 
 cheerful during its brief imprisonment in these frail 
 bodies and this visible diurnal sphere. When I was 
 of your age, I loved the spring with its budding 
 promise and tender green ; for it was in unison with 
 the consciousness of new life and springing existence 
 which bounded in every vein. During my residence 
 in England, and for the first years of my life here, I 
 left my first love for the mature beauties of summer 
 and of opening autumn ; and I delighted to watch 
 the untiring, never-resting activity and life which 
 informed all the grand and all the minute processes 
 of the great system of nature, W 7 hich goes on forever
 
 AN OCTOGENAEY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 67 
 
 r 
 
 in sublime silence, working out the beneficent pur 
 poses for which its Creator framed it. But now the 
 close of autumn and the snows of winter awake 
 the solemn echo in my heart more readily than all 
 the glories of spring or summer. Nature, though she 
 never rests, now seems to suspend her toils. The 
 business of the year is over. And the audible still 
 ness of the fields and the sight of the trees, which, 
 after their task is done, have thrown down the beau 
 tiful livery of their toil, while they swell the heart 
 of man with gratitude, also seem to invite it to rest. 
 
 " On such a day as this, with this scene before my 
 eyes, I can almost hear a blessed voice whispering 
 me that my long, long year is almost over, and that I 
 shall soon be with them that rest. Like this old tree 
 under which we sit, I have outlived almost all my 
 contemporaries, and am surrounded by a new genera 
 tion, which knows me not ; and, though I will grate 
 fully sustain the burden of old age which the great 
 Taskmaker has imposed upon me, still I shall bow 
 with joyful acquiescence whenever he shall direct 
 the axe to be laid at my root." 
 
 "You think, then, sir," I observed when he paused 
 in his observations, or rather his soliloquy, for he 
 seemed to address himself rather than me, " you 
 think, then, sir, that the retirement of a country life 
 is a more fitting scene for the last act of a long life 
 than the exciting bustle of a great city and the pleas 
 ures of a various society ? " 
 
 " To a well-constituted mind," he replied, " I think
 
 68 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 it is ; that is," he continued with a smile, " to a mind 
 constituted like mine. There are natures which 
 would show anything but wisdom in exchanging the 
 busy throng and a tumultuous life for a solitude for 
 the pleasures of which they have no tastes, and against 
 the perils of which they have made no preparation. 
 For my own part, I have never long regretted at any 
 one time my withdrawing from the world. I have 
 spent my many days pleasantly to myself, and not 
 been wholly useless to others. At the beginning of 
 the Eevolution, indeed, I felt some visitings of re 
 morse that I had reduced myself to the condition of 
 a spectator, at a distance only, of that mighty drama ; 
 w 7 hile so many of my contemporaries, and friends of 
 a later generation, were shaking the scene, which was 
 extended over a continent, before the admiring eye 
 of the whole civilized world. These regrets, however, 
 soon gave way to more wholesome suggestions. The 
 brilliant part of the action was in the hands of the 
 great men whose names are forever identified with it; 
 but there was a subordinate but equally important 
 portion of the business of the drama which I was in 
 a favorable position to discharge. My relations with 
 this part of the country enabled me to do something 
 towards kindling and keeping alive the flame of pa 
 triotism ; and I have the satisfaction to think that I 
 was enabled to send many of the best soldiers and 
 officers, too, to the battle, besides keeping the country 
 side in a state of self-defence. I could contribute, 
 too, to one of the sinews of war. So I soon consoled
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 69 
 
 myself by being useful for not being illustrious ; for 
 ambition was but an idle dream at the time of life to 
 which I had then attained, if it be ever anything 
 more than a will-o'-the-wisp. On the whole, then, 
 I think that I chose wisely for myself in retiring 
 from the world ; but I would never advise any person 
 whose heart has not been weaned from it to imitate 
 my example." 
 
 " But can it be possible, sir," I said, " that you 
 have never felt the want of the society to which you 
 were admitted on such friendly terms in Europe ? I 
 should have thought, sir, that the choicest spirits you 
 could have collected around you in the capital of your 
 native province would have seemed tame and insipid 
 after the circles you had left, let alone this seclusion 
 in a remote country-seat." 
 
 " In the first place," he replied, " you must remem 
 ber that I had had my fill of the society you mention : 
 I had lived on intimate and friendly terms with the 
 men about whom posterity will be the most curious 
 of any of our age ; so that the feverish thirst which 
 at one time I felt to know face to face those illustri 
 ous men was entirely slaked. And in the second 
 place, which perhaps you will scarcely believe, the 
 familiar society of eminent men is in most cases not 
 so very different from that of other well-bred and 
 well-educated men of the same rank in life, and their 
 intimacy is perhaps a pleasanter thing in recollection 
 than in possession. For many years, too, I was in no 
 luck of companions, and now in my old age I ought
 
 70 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 not to expect to be exempted from the doom of out 
 living my best friends, which is inseparably annexed 
 to an unusual extension of life. Still I am by no 
 means left alone in the world. My excellent friend 
 Mr. Armsby is an invaluable friend : although he is 
 speculatively one of the most rigid disciples of labor, 
 yet in his life and conversation he is one of the 
 mildest as well as one of the merriest of men. But 
 come," he continued, rising from his seat, " let us con 
 tinue our walk to the seashore." 
 
 We accordingly skirted along the hill, and soon, 
 doubling its side, the wide ocean lay stretched before 
 us, broken by only one or two little islands in the far 
 distance. The waters were of the deepest and darkest 
 blue, with here and there a white sail stealing along 
 their surface. The beach was hard as marble ; and 
 the surf, which yet felt the sway of the storm of the 
 night before, rolled slowly and heavily in upon it in 
 long and broken ridges. To our left, at about a quar 
 ter of a mile's distance, the brook which watered the 
 grounds about the house found its way to the ocean 
 after many meanderings: to the right, at a considera 
 ble distance, a wooded bluff came abruptly down to 
 the shore, and terminated the prospect in that direc 
 tion. As we slowly paced along the sands, listening 
 to the voice of many waters, and watching the sea 
 gulls as they hovered on dipping wings over the 
 waves, or rode lightly over their crests, Colonel 
 Wyborne said with a smile, 
 
 " I hope that I have made a more rational as well
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 71 
 
 as a more happy use of these rolling waters since I 
 have lived by their side than did the pining and 
 discontented spirit of Tully during his exile, who, 
 you remember, spent his repining hours in counting 
 the waves as they danced to the shore, and sighing 
 for the Senate, the forum, and the shouts of the peo 
 ple 
 
 ' Bidding the father of his country hail.' 
 
 The voice of the ocean has never sounded in my ears 
 like an invitation to return to the world I have left, 
 but more as a friendly counselling that there are pur 
 suits and pleasures higher and better than any that 
 world can give." 
 
 " Do you think, sir," I inquired, " that you could 
 be contented to live in an inland town, unless you 
 could occasionally visit the seashore ? " 
 
 " I should be sorry," he replied, " to be compelled 
 by duty or by poverty to try the experiment. There 
 is something about the grand features of Nature, 
 such as the ocean or mountains, which seems to 
 make an unfading impression on the hearts of those 
 who have lived from childhood in their neighborhood, 
 and which always excites the sensation of home-sick 
 ness in their breasts when separated from them. I 
 have a good deal of the passion for the ocean which 
 the Swiss have for the Alps ; and, if I should be com 
 pelled to retire inland, I fear that the roar of the wind 
 among the forest-trees would be a Ranz dcs Vdclies to. 
 my heart. I would not have you construe, however, 
 my young friend, my complacent review of my own
 
 72 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 retirement into a recommendation to you to try the 
 same plan of life. Fit yourself for the action of life, 
 but do not set your heart upon success in it ; for such 
 are the chances and changes of this sublunary state, 
 that the best accomplished for achieving a brilliant 
 lot often fail in compassing the fulfilment of their 
 ambitious hopes, unless they can woo fortune to be 
 the handmaid of enterprise." 
 
 "Are not, however," I observed, " the chances of a 
 man who is absorbed in great purposes and plans, 
 embracing, perhaps, a continent in their scope, and 
 reaching forward to distant posterity, better for true 
 and exalted happiness than those of one who leads a 
 useful and innocent life within a narrow circle ? " 
 
 " I think his chances for permanent happiness less," 
 replied Colonel Wyborne. " His moments of success 
 may be more exquisite than any of the tranquil hours 
 of the private man ; but then the vexations and ob 
 stacles which he encounters, the calumny and detrac 
 tion which assail him, and the too frequent failure 
 of his best laid and most benevolently formed plans, 
 which perhaps embrace the whole race, make up a 
 mighty balance against the intense delight of those 
 rare minutes. I grant you that there may be instances, 
 as there have been a few in history, of minds so con 
 structed, blest with such clear views of the true ends 
 of human existence, and moved by such pure and 
 sublime yet simple springs, that they make a happi 
 ness for themselves, even of disappointment and de 
 feat, and regard nothing as worthy of regret but
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 73 
 
 the being unfaithful to the powers and the purposes 
 which Providence has committed to them." 
 
 " You do not believe, then, sir," said I, " that every 
 man may be the 'architect of his own fortunes,' as 
 has been stoutly maintained ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do not," he replied. " That is a fallacy 
 which lures on many an aspiring youth, who mistakes 
 ambition for ability, to miserable disappointment, and 
 sometimes to ruin. We see men standing triumphantly 
 at the goal with the wreath of victory on their brows, 
 and remember, that, even at the starting-post, their 
 prophetic souls had grasped the prize ; forgetting how 
 many competitors, full at the outset of as confident 
 hopes, have been outstripped in the course, and have 
 turned broken hearted away. Every man may be and 
 must be the architect of his own happiness, and every 
 man may learn the alchemy which will teach him to 
 extract happiness out of the bitterest fruits which 
 overhang his path ; but let him not attempt to wrest 
 the sceptre from the hand of the Disposer of events, 
 and presume to dictate to him the precedence which 
 he is to have in the ranks of his human servants." 
 
 " Surely, sir," I interrupted, "you are not a fatalist ! 
 You would not take away the accountability of man 
 by making him a mere blind, helpless tool in the 
 hand of a higher Power ? " 
 
 "Nothing can be farther from my views or my 
 wishes," he replied. " Man is accountable to the ut 
 termost farthing for the use he makes of the talents 
 bestowed upon him; but the number of the talents
 
 74 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 and the sphere in which they are to be employed 
 are fortunately appointed for him by Infinite Wisdom. 
 We find ourselves in this world, in this country, in 
 this age, without any agency or volition of our own ; 
 we find within us certain powers and passions, differ 
 ing in every man from his neighbor, and differing, 
 too, in the opportunities for their improvement and 
 the occasions for their right or wrong employment; 
 and all this seems to be the work of accident. But no 
 rightly judging mind can believe it to be so. The feel 
 ing of this truth gave rise to belief in, the dark and 
 inevitable fate, which, according to the Greeks, gov 
 erned the destinies of gods and men. They attempted 
 by this melancholy abstraction to solve the enigma of 
 existence. They found themselves, they knew not how, 
 in a various and inexplicable scene. Some found 
 crowns on their brows ; some, the philosophic gown 
 upon their shoulders ; some wielded the truncheon of 
 victorious armies ; and some swayed the fickle popu 
 lace with their breath and all these various fortunes 
 growing from a combination of circumstances and 
 events over which they had exercised little or no 
 control. Surrounded by these impenetrable shadows, 
 men in a later age attempted to derive some light 
 from the stars to illuminate the darkness which was 
 about them ; and so astrology arose. They made the 
 blessed constellations an alphabet by which they 
 endeavored to spell out the decrees of fate. And this 
 was natural enough before the invention of the tele 
 scope had revealed the immensity of the universe ;
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 75 
 
 for men could not believe that the glorious apparitions 
 which looked down upon them from the heavens 
 every night were made only to delight the eye ; and 
 there was something soothing to the bewildered mind 
 of man in thus connecting his unaccountable destiny 
 with those beautiful and fadeless orbs of light. It was 
 a sort of antepast of immortality." 
 
 " You would then, sir," I observed, " had you lived 
 two thousand years ago, have stood under the shadow 
 of the Portico, and maintained the non-existence of 
 evil and the sufficiency of man for himself ? " 
 
 " I believe I might have asserted the sufficiency of 
 man for the creation of his own happiness," he smil 
 ingly replied ; " but I think I should have maintained 
 ray doctrines beneath the living shades of the Garden 
 rather than under the cold shadow of the Porch. 
 There is nothing," he continued more seriously, " that 
 fills my whole mind with such a certainty of the 
 divine origin of our religion as the contemplation of 
 its perfect system in comparison with those of the 
 wisest of the ancients. The son of a carpenter in a 
 remote and despised province founding a school of the 
 divinest philosophy, which explains all the mysteries 
 of our being, fathoms the depths of the human soul, 
 directs the aspirations of the loftiest minds, and pro 
 vides for the wants of the humblest, is to my mind a 
 standing miracle. All the concentrated wisdom of all 
 the wisest of the heathens collected around the intel 
 lect of Socrates as a nucleus, faded into nothing, like 
 the morning star before the sun, when the divine
 
 76 AN OCTOGENAKY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 mind of Jesus of Nazareth dawned upon the benighted 
 world. Not all the sublime procession of prophets by 
 which he was heralded, not all the stupendous appa 
 ratus of miracles which encompassed him, not all the 
 noble army of martyrs which have borne witness with 
 their blood to the truths he brought to light, bring 
 such irresistible conviction to my mind as the simple 
 contemplation of the teachings of the Master, limned 
 out in his own life while on earth. The peasant of 
 Galilee resolves the doubts which had perplexed the 
 wisest of antiquity, explains the questions which the 
 subtlest minds had raised, and establishes a system 
 suitable to the wants of all the nations of the earth 
 and to all the individuals which compose them, a 
 system to which the wisest of his disciples in the 
 course of eighteen hundred years have been able to 
 add nothing, and in which his craftiest enemies have 
 been able to discover no fault. You, my dear young 
 friend," he continued, turning his face towards me, 
 and laying an affectionate hand upon my arm, " you are 
 just launching away on the voyage of life which I 
 have nearly finished. Do not refuse to listen to the 
 counsel of one who has sounded all its depths and 
 shallows : take with you the teachings of Jesus as 
 your compass, and his life as your chart, and, fixing 
 your eyes steadfastly on these unchanging guides, 
 seize the helm with a firm hand, and steer right on 
 ward, fearing nothing that can befall you ; and then, 
 whether your course be over a summer's sea or amidst 
 threatening waves, whether you ride conspicuous in
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 77 
 
 the eyes of your fellow-voyagers, or glide unobserved 
 along, you will be sure at last of entering in triumph 
 the haven of everlasting rest. 
 
 "And now come," he added after a short pause, 
 " let us turn homeward, and I will show you my 
 farmhouse and farm; for so far you have only seen 
 my pleasure-grounds." 
 
 With these words he turned towards the farm-road 
 into which we had entered after leaving the grove ; 
 and, following it along, it led us through wide fields, 
 some of which showed as stubble-fields are apt to do 
 at harvest-home : others bore evident marks of the 
 recent disinterment of potatoes and other esculent 
 roots. At some distance was a burly white man, guid 
 ing a plough drawn by a noble yoke of oxen under the 
 influences of a tall black man in a white frock, pre 
 paring a place for the early wheat, which would spring 
 up at the due time, unchilled by the snows of winter 
 which had rested upon it for months. Five or six 
 other men, some black and some white, were employed 
 in various ways ; some repairing fences, some spread 
 ing the compost of the barnyard, and one conducting 
 a load of seaweed to that most necessary repository. 
 
 As we walked along, I inquired of Colonel Wy borne 
 as to the economics of his mode of life, and how far 
 he was dependent on the metropolis for his necessaries 
 and luxuries. In reply, he told me that he procured 
 nothing from town but his wines, liquors, tea and 
 coffee, and such products as our own country does not 
 afford. His own farm supplied him with bread, vege-
 
 78 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEAP k S SINCE. 
 
 tables, the riches of the dairy, and in a great measure 
 with butchers' meat and poultry. Wild fowl and fish 
 were to be had for the trouble of shooting or catching 
 them. His cider was the boast of the country round. 
 His farm-people and servants were almost wholly 
 clothed from the flax and wool which grew on his 
 estate. His wood was procured from a range of well- 
 timbered hills, which he pointed out to me in the 
 distance. The finest of venison was brought to his 
 door at the proper season, in any quantities, from the 
 Sandwich woods. His life, as he described it to me, 
 seemed to be one of the most relishing and enviable 
 of lots, and put me in mind of Gil Bias' account of 
 his life at Lirias ; and I thought that I should be 
 perfectly contented if I might look forward at the 
 close of life to such a retreat, where I might inscribe 
 upon my doors, with him of Santillane, 
 
 " Invent portum, Spes et Fortuna, valete ! 
 Sat me lusistis, ludite nunc alios ! " 
 
 But, alas ! no such white days were in reserve for me. 
 The farm-road brought us, after some windings 
 among the fields, to his farmhouse, which was situ 
 ated about a third of a mile from his mansion. The 
 house was old, but in perfect repair, and stood in 
 almost too immediate neighborhood of two modern 
 barns and an old-fashioned corn-barn. The barnyard 
 was alive with fowls of all kinds chickens, turkeys, 
 ducks, guinea-fowl, and a gorgeous peacock. Beneatli 
 the barn farthest from the farmhouse was the piggery,
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 79 
 
 which might have served for the courtiers of Circe 
 herself. The barns themselves were filled to the 
 utmost of their ample capacities with the gifts of 
 summer and autumn. About a dozen cows were rumi 
 nating in a large enclosure opening from the nearer 
 barn, in which were their stalls and those of the 
 farm-horses. A flock of about thirty sheep were shel 
 tered in a fold about a stone's throw from the barn, 
 towards the shore. Under a shed open towards the 
 house was a cider-press, full of rural and festive asso 
 ciations ; the dense mass of pomace yet remaining 
 beneath the relaxed pressure of the spiral screw speak 
 ing of a recent vintage. As we approached the farm 
 house door, it opened, and the farmer's wife advanced, 
 with a child in her arms and a couple more clinging 
 to her homespun gown, peeping at the Colonel with a 
 mixture of bashfulness and of joy at the sight of their 
 old friend glowing in their ruddy faces. The good 
 woman invited us to come in and rest ourselves, 
 which proposition we declined, as it grew late. We 
 just entered the kitchen, and stood for a minute 
 within the enormous jambs of the chimney, on each 
 side of which was a comfortable seat of brick, built 
 for the accommodation of the more ardent worshippers 
 of the Penates. A settle of truly uneasy straightness 
 of back and narrowness of seat made an obtuse angle 
 with the fireplace, covered with towels of various de 
 grees of whiteness and dryness. A sufficient supply 
 of rush- bottomed, red-painted chairs, in different 
 degrees of preservation, stood about the apartment.
 
 80 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 A brilliant display of pewter graced a number of 
 shelves on one side of the room. As I gave a glance 
 up the yawning chimney, I discerned a black array of 
 hams and flitches of bacon receiving the incense 
 of the smoking fires below. The good woman made 
 many apologies for her kitchen being in a litter, 
 resting her main defence, however, upon its being the 
 day before Thanksgiving, and the weight of duties 
 which devolved upon her. Colonel Wyborne was 
 occupied, while I was making my survey, and listen 
 ing to the very unnecessary excuses of the good wife, 
 in taking the youngest child in his arms, and patting 
 the heads of the others, and distributing some of the 
 little bribes which cheaply buy the affection of chil 
 dren, and which the kind-hearted old man was seldom 
 without. I was struck with the sort of affectionate 
 veneration with which the good woman regarded Colo 
 nel Wyborne, and with her self-respect, too, which 
 she thought in no manner impaired by the most rev 
 erential observance of her kind landlord. 
 
 Freeing himself at last from his little friends, Colo 
 nel Wyborne bade Mrs. Davis a good-morning, and 
 we set forth on our return to his house. The farm- 
 road led us on to the stables, where we stopped a 
 moment to inspect its arrangements. The black 
 coachman was busy cleaning the chariot; the hind 
 wheel, slightly raised from the ground, whirling mer 
 rily round under a shower from a watering-pot in the 
 hands of the African Jehu. This worthy functionaiy 
 had all the happy contentment beaming from his
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 81 
 
 polished face, and grinning from his ivory teeth, 
 which usually marks a well-fed and well-used negro. 
 His master told me that he had been born on the place, 
 and, together with all the other blacks which he had 
 owned before the abolition of slavery in the State, 
 had voluntarily remained in his service. He left his 
 work to exhibit to my admiring gaze the horses over 
 which he reigned ; and as he displayed the glossy 
 hides of the stout coach-horses, and the little nag for 
 " massa's " own riding, and the old white pony which 
 had retired on half-pay for the remainder of his life, 
 he seemed to be filled with as honest a pride as ever 
 swelled the bosom of a master of the horse. Having 
 bestowed all due commendations upon this branch of 
 the service, I accompanied my host along the sweep 
 of the road to the house. 
 
 Upon gaining the door, we were met upon the 
 threshold by the excellent housekeeper, who an 
 nounced, with an air of no small importance, that 
 Mr. Armsby, the clergyman of the parish, was in the 
 parlor. Colonel Wyborne immediately hastened to 
 open the door of the apartment indicated, and we 
 perceived, standing with his back to the fire, waiting 
 for us, the reverend gentleman in question. He was 
 a tall man of about fifty-five, " or, by'r Lady, inclin 
 ing to threescore," broad-shouldered, with the least 
 in the world of a stoop, of a dark complexion, with 
 thick black eyebrows beetling over a pair of sharp, 
 austere gray eyes. He was suitably attired in a 
 black cloth coat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a 
 6
 
 82 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 pair of thick boots coming nearly up to the knee 
 upon his legs, and a white bushy wig upon the ex 
 crescence formed by nature for that use. Colonel 
 "YVyborne received him with all the respectful cour 
 tesy which was due from a gentleman to an honored 
 equal, and which the pastor returned with much 
 formal politeness ; through which, however, might be 
 discerned by an accurate observer a priestly conse- 
 quentiality, now, alas ! but seldom seen, which told 
 how much superior, in his own opinion and that of 
 society generally, was the director of the spiritual 
 affairs over the most honorable and honored of the 
 laity. When the two gentlemen had concluded their 
 salutations, Colonel Wyborne, turning to me, pre 
 sented me in due form to his reverend friend as a 
 young gentleman just from the arms of their common 
 mother. Mr. Arrnsby, turning upon me an austere 
 regard, without even the ghost of a smile upon his 
 lips, and with the slightest imaginable inclination of 
 his head, coldly extended his large hard hand to me in 
 acknowledgment of my reverend observance and pro 
 found obeisance. Having surveyed me from head to 
 foot with an annihilating scrutiny which nearly sunk 
 me to the centre, he took a chair, in compliance with 
 Colonel Wyborne's invitation, and, entering into con 
 versation with him, apparently lost all memory of so 
 insignificant an object as myself. They talked of 
 the weather, the crops, the Thursday lecture the week 
 before in Boston (which Air. Armsby had attended), 
 and of the fearful prospects of the times and of the
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 83 
 
 country ; both uniting in predictions of utter misrule, 
 subversion of ranks, and destruction of property, 
 which were shortly to ensue. 
 
 "Before this young man's career is over," said 
 Colonel Wyborne, " these States will be split into 
 rival monarchies, or else into anarchies inviting the 
 foot of the foreign conqueror." 
 
 " Yes," asserted his reverend adviser, turning his 
 severe eyes upon me, "yes, young man, you will 
 have a worse fight to maintain than we have had 
 with England. You will have to contend with intes 
 tine factious, to strive for the protection of property, 
 for the preservation of religion, for the maintenance 
 of all that is worth having in this world. The old 
 scenes of which you read at college in Grecian and 
 Roman history will be acted over again in these new 
 commonwealths before your head is gray." 
 
 " For my part," added Colonel Wyborne, " I rather 
 incline to the opinion that our unhappy country is 
 destined to be one of the dependencies of France. 
 In the present humiliated condition of England, 
 bleeding from the disruption of her Colonies, and" 
 tottering under the weight of an overwhelming debt, 
 it is hardly to be supposed that Louis XVI. will not 
 be encouraged to revive the old scheme of universal 
 dominion which his ancestor, Louis le Grand, at one 
 time seemed likely to bring about. England once 
 subdued, the subjugation of the rest of the continent 
 would soon follow, and then poor we would be but 
 a mouthful to the ambition of the Grand Monarque."
 
 84 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 " True enough," replied Mr. Armsby. " No human 
 wisdom can foretell what such a nation as the French, 
 consolidated under a single absolute king, may accom 
 plish. I confess I tremble for the cause of Protes 
 tantism in the world. Who knows but we may see 
 a cardinal legate holding his court in Boston ! " And 
 the worthy divine shuddered at the bare imagination. 
 Colonel Wyborne continued, 
 
 " I think that the American Provinces, States, I 
 mean, have yet strength and courage enough to resist 
 a crusade under banners blessed by the Pope; unless, 
 indeed, it should not be preached until our little jeal 
 ousies and quarrels have ripened into serious hatred, 
 and the lines of division have become too deeply 
 marked to be filled up even by such a danger. The 
 sooner such an attack should be made, the better 
 I think it would be withstood ; for every day seems 
 to weaken the green withes which bind together the 
 strong but jarring giants of the Confederacy. In a 
 few years England herself might conquer us in detail, 
 for all prospect of any permanent connection seems 
 "desperate." 
 
 " It is too true," replied the clergyman ; " and, bad 
 as that would be, it would scarcely be worse than the 
 utter dissolution of all the elements of society, which 
 seems to hang over our heads. The industry of the 
 country palsied, the land filled with sturdy vaga 
 bonds, law and justice mocked and defied, subordina 
 tion a laughing-stock, religion and her ministers 
 neglected, property uncertain, magistrates unrevered
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 85 
 
 and disobeyed, with all these things staring us in 
 the face, what can we expect but sudden destruction 
 or gradual rain ? " 
 
 In this manner were these two excellent gentlemen 
 pleased to make themselves unhappy, and to scare 
 unhappy me with these hobgoblins which they con 
 jured up. I was not then as used as I have become 
 since to the croakings of such boding fowl, which I 
 have happily lived to see many times disappointed 
 of the ruin they predicted, and I felt serious alarm 
 as to the instant safety of my purse, and ultimate in 
 tegrity of my throat. The conversation, however, at 
 leogth changed to books ; and, some allusion requiring 
 a reference to some work which was not at hand, 
 Mr. Armsby proposed going" to the library in search 
 of it. Colonel Wyborne, assenting, turned to me and 
 said, 
 
 " I believe that you have not yet penetrated to my 
 adytum : so perhaps we will all go together." 
 
 We all accordingly left the parlor, and, following 
 Colonel Wyborne across the hall, entered after him a 
 door on the opposite side. Upon passing the thresh 
 old, I was surprised and delighted by a display of 
 books which I had never seen equalled except in the 
 college library. The library consisted of a room 
 extending the whole breadth of the house ; the two 
 rooms having been thrown into one for the accommo 
 dation of Colonel Wyborne's numerous collections. 
 The walls were covered with well- filled shelves, taper 
 ing up from the massive folios beneath to the pygmy
 
 86 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 twelves at the top. Busts in marble of Homer, Socra 
 tes, Cicero, and Horace, stood on pedestals in the four 
 corners of the room ; and one of Lord Bacon and of 
 Newton kept guard in the middle, where a portion 
 of the old partition- wall yet projected from the sides 
 of the rooms, carried into an arch in the centre of 
 the ceiling. A study-table, covered with green baize, 
 occupied the middle of one of these divisions. An 
 abundance of well-stuffed chairs were distributed 
 about in excusable confusion, and a set of library- 
 steps stood against one of the bookcases. A fire 
 place filled up either end of the apartment; the 
 panel over the one nearest to the door by which we 
 had entered being occupied by a full-length portrait 
 of a gentleman of about five and thirty, in whose 
 form and features I could with difficulty trace any 
 resemblance to the venerable wreck which I beheld 
 before me. Fifty years had swept away almost every 
 trace of the manly figure and handsome face which 
 looked as if it might defy age and misfortune, and 
 left a " withered, weak, and gray " old man standing 
 and waiting on the shores of eternity ; and yet here 
 the cunning hand of the artist had bade the sun as it 
 were stand still, and had bestowed a sort of immor 
 tality upon one hour long since vanished of the 
 summer of his days. He was dressed in a hunting- 
 suit, apparently the uniform of a hunter ; and a fine 
 hound was crouched at his feet. Behind him on the 
 left of the picture were two pillars, with a crimson 
 curtain depending from their capitals; while to the
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 87 
 
 right you saw a landscape representing a level coun 
 try, well planted, with a river winding through it, 
 and terminated by misty hills in the distance. The 
 corresponding panel over the opposite fireplace was 
 filled by a picture answering in size and frame to 
 this, but concealed from, view by a green velvet cur 
 tain which was drawn across it. My imagination 
 readily filled it up with the portrait of his beloved 
 and long-lost wife of whom my aunt Champion had 
 told me. Why it should be thus mysteriously veiled, 
 I could not conjecture; but the circumstance cer 
 tainly had the effect of increasing my curiosity to see 
 it to the most intense degree. 
 
 While I was thus engaged, the two elders had 
 found what they wanted, and were returning to the 
 parlor. I was strongly tempted to frame some excuse 
 for remaining behind ; but a secret awe of the cleri 
 cal dignitary, and a fear lest my curiosity might be 
 obvious to Colonel Wyborne and give him pain, 
 deterred me; but I fully resolved to uncover the fea 
 tures concealed by that veil at the first opportunity I 
 could find or make. We accordingly returned to the 
 parlor ; and, after a short sitting, Mr. Armsby rose and 
 took his leave, being accompanied to the hall-door 
 by Colonel Wyborue and myself, and reminded by 
 the former of his standing engagement to dine with 
 him on the following day. This was the first intima 
 tion I had had of the existence of such a prescrip 
 tion ; and, lover as I even then was of old customs, 
 I confess that in this instance I should have been
 
 88 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 better pleased with its breach than its observance. 
 I did not at all relish the idea of having this uncom 
 fortable third, with his stony step and hard eye, 
 coming to the table, and displacing our mirth with 
 his unseasonable severity. Colonel Wyborne, how 
 ever, assured me that I should find him another man 
 when we were a little better acquainted, saying that 
 his excellent friend was one of that old school, which 
 held that religion and virtue were most effectually 
 recommended to the young by a harsh and forbidding 
 exterior and deportment in their votaries. 
 
 " To-day," he added, " you have had a touch of his 
 theory : to-morrow, I doubt not, you will see a speci 
 men of his practice."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TH\ INNER soon followed the departure of the pas- 
 *"*' tor, and was sauced with discourse which I 
 would that my limits would permit me to record. 
 The afternoon and evening passed swiftly away, sped 
 by "old wine, old books, old wood," and an "old 
 friend." At an earlier hour than the preceding 
 night, the chamber candles lighted us to bed, and 
 my hospitable host shook me by the hand with a 
 cordial good-night. After he had retired, I felt but 
 little inclination for repose, and, as a good fire was 
 blazing on the hearth, I procured a volume of Swift 
 from the closet of my room, and sat down by the 
 fireside to read. My thoughts, however, soon wan 
 dered from the page on which my eyes were fixed, 
 and began to brood over the strangeness of the place 
 in which I found myself and the singular history of 
 my kind old host. I figured to myself the stripling 
 parting from his mother's roof, and seeking the land 
 of his ancestors. Then I saw him in the midst of 
 the stir and bustle of London, and imagined his first 
 palpitating interviews with Pope and Young and 
 Gay. Then I would see him mixing in the hollow 
 crowd of courtiers in the great man's antechamber, 
 or joining in the fluttering throng which passed
 
 90 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 in review before the old monarch on a birthday, 
 that throng whose follies and vices are portrayed 
 in fadeless colors upon the pages of Lady Mary 
 Wortley. 
 
 The scene changed, and he was sitting between a 
 couple of haycocks with Bolingbroke at Lydiard, 
 or was listening to a chapter of pointed corn plain- 
 ings at Pope's breakfast-table, or was chased up and 
 down stairs by the Dean of St. Patrick. Another 
 wave of the wand transported him to Paris, and 
 plunged him in the recesses of the Palais Eoyal ; 
 and yet another, and he stood among the ruins of 
 Rome. Again he was in England, and then came 
 a mist over the mirror, and objects were but faintly 
 and uncertainly seen in it. Among them, however, 
 was a beautiful woman moving about, and busy with 
 his destiny. She was now sitting alone in an old 
 manor-house, gazing listlessly at the trees of the park 
 as they spread their green canopies over the herds 
 of deer, and at a single swan floating majestically in 
 the stream which flowed beneath them. A sound is 
 heard: she raises her head from her pensive hand, 
 and shakes back her clustering locks, and eagerly 
 listens. It is the tread of a horse galloping up the 
 approach. She hastily rises, and with faltering steps 
 advances towards the door. It opens, and Wyborne 
 enters. Her gestures seem to entreat him to hasten 
 away, for there is danger in his stay. He re-assures 
 her with looks of joyful love. And now he seats 
 himself by her side; her head droops upon his
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 91 
 
 shoulder, and her passive hand rests in one of his, 
 while the other, half-encircling her waist, plays with 
 the tangles of her hair. Can there be any doubt as 
 to the theme of their glowing discourse ? But hark ! 
 What noise is that in the courtyard ? Is it possible 
 that the chase can be over? They both start up. 
 She entreats him to fly : he moodily shakes his head. 
 It is too late. The door flies open. A gray-haired 
 man, but hale arid ruddy, and of Herculean propor 
 tions, enters. He starts turns pale with rage : 
 his lips move with dire imprecations. His sword is 
 out, and he advances furiously upon Wyborne, who 
 puts his blade aside with his sheathed rapier. The 
 old man stamps with passion, and seems to call for 
 help. A train of liveried menials enter, and at 
 their master's beck approach the intruder. Wyborne 
 gently disengages himself from the clinging girl, and 
 tenderly places her fainting form upon a couch. 
 His steel glitters in the air. He describes around 
 him a magic circle, which the baffled crew dare not 
 pass. The door closes behind him, and, before the 
 dependents can ask the further pleasure of their lord, 
 the clang of his horse's hoofs is heard lessening in the 
 distance. 
 
 Then again I saw them riding over the waves of 
 the Atlantic, and I beheld her gentle form pining 
 away on a distant shore, perhaps under the fatal ban 
 of a father's curse and then her funeral. 
 
 " I must see her picture before I sleep ! " I ex 
 claimed, starting up, strongly excited by my waking
 
 92 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 dream. "I must gaze upon her lovely features as 
 they are feebly shadowed forth on the canvas below, 
 or the phantom I have conjured up will haunt me 
 till dawn." I opened the door softly, and listened : 
 all was silent as the grave. I took off my shoes, and, 
 snuffing my candle, prepared to descend. I have to 
 confess that I was not at that time of my life free 
 from the fumes of the superstitious lore which in my 
 boyish days formed the chosen aliment of childhood, 
 and which was employed by the ignorant nurses of 
 those days both as a reward and a punishment. I 
 own my curiosity more than half gave way when the 
 hall-clock struck TWELVE as I was groping my way 
 down stairs. I reached the library-door ; my hand 
 was upon the lock: I hesitated for a moment, and 
 looked hastily over my shoulder. The lock turned, 
 and, as the door slowly opened, I felt as if I should 
 encounter some spectral form in the deserted apart 
 ment. All was still, however, and nothing was to 
 be seen as I advanced into the room, but the white, 
 ghastly busts in the middle of it, casting long black 
 sepulchral shadows into the void beyond. I ad 
 vanced stealthily along, shading my flickering candle 
 with my hand, when I was suddenly startled with a 
 shock and a noise. I had stumbled over a chair. 
 Apprehensive lest the noise should alarm the house, 
 I returned hastily to the door, and listened. But 
 no sound broke the dead silence of the night, and I 
 returned with more cautious steps to pursue my 
 way. At last I stood before the mysterious curtain
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 93 
 
 which concealed the features of the long-buried fair. 
 I felt strangely excited ; I felt as if some appearance, 
 natural or supernatural, would yet baffle iny curi 
 osity. The mantel-piece was so high, that I was 
 unable to reach the curtain from the ground, and, 
 putting down my light, I went in search of the 
 library-steps, which I carefully arranged before the 
 fireplace. Taking up the candlestick, I mounted 
 the steps, and laid my hand upon the fringe of the 
 curtain, and was in the act of withdrawing it, when 
 I heard a rustling sound behind me. Turning sud 
 denly around, I saw before me an apparition, which 
 in such a place and at such an hour might well have 
 daunted a stouter heart than mine. A figure in white 
 drapery falling to its feet, a white covering upon its 
 head, and its pale and withered features lighted 
 up by a taper held in its long bony fingers, was 
 looking sadly yet sternly upon me. My candle 
 dropped from my hand, and I was near falling to the 
 ground. 
 
 " Young man, what do you here ? " inquired a 
 well-known voice. It was Colonel Wyborne, who 
 had been disturbed by the falling of the chair at 
 my first entrance, and who had descended as he was, 
 in search of the cause. My confusion may be ima 
 gined : I would almost have exchanged his presence 
 for that of one of the beings of another world, which 
 for a moment I had imagined him to be. He stood 
 looking at me with a kind of bewildered curiosity, 
 and again said, before I had recovered from my con-
 
 94 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 fusion, " Young man, how came you here at this time 
 of night ? " 
 
 By this time I had descended from my elevation, 
 and had in some degree collected my spirits, and, 
 thinking that the truth was the best excuse I could 
 make, I apologized for having disturbed his repose, 
 and accounted for my strange conduct by the strong 
 curiosity which my aunt Champion's description of 
 Mrs. Wyborne had excited in my mind to see her 
 portrait. I added, that, as the picture was veiled, I 
 had concluded that the subject was one upon which 
 I Was not to touch in his presence ; but that my 
 curiosity was certainly not diminished by that air 
 of mystery, and it had perhaps got the better of my 
 sense of what was due to my host ; which certainly 
 should have prevented me from prying into what he 
 saw fit to conceal. I concluded by heartily begging 
 his pardon for my unauthorized intrusion upon such 
 sacred ground, and promising to offend no more in 
 future. 
 
 I had gathered up my candlestick and broken 
 candle, and was passing by him, feeling sufficiently 
 foolish, when the kind old man laid his hand upon 
 my arm, and gently detained me. 
 
 " Stop," said he, " there is no great harm in what 
 you have done : your chief fault has been in not hav 
 ing told me of your desire to see all that remains to 
 me of my beloved wife. I did not know that you 
 had even heard of her ; and she is a subject to which 
 I never lead, unless I am sure of an interested audi-
 
 AN OCTOGENABY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 95 
 
 tor. Ascend the steps again, if you please, and draw 
 the curtain." 
 
 Much relieved, I obeyed with alacrity, and the 
 portrait was soon unveiled. The light of the two 
 faint candles gave but a tantalizing view of a form of 
 the softest grace, and features of the most bewitch 
 ing beauty. There she sat in the bloom of early 
 womanhood 
 
 " In freshest flower of youtbly years." 
 
 The side of her figure was presented to you ; but her 
 face was turned as it were suddenly to yours, as if 
 upon some happy surprise ; life and joy breathing 
 from her half-smiling lips, and flashing from her dark 
 hazel eyes. The graceful proportions of her bust, 
 too, were brought skilfully into view by the attitude 
 the painter had chosen. Her light brown hair, form 
 ing a singular but beautiful contrast with her dark 
 eyes, fell in natural ringlets upon her shoulders, and 
 shaded her pure brow. Her right hand rested upon 
 the smallest of lapdogs, which (evidently a portrait, 
 too) was apparently roused by the same cause which 
 had excited his mistress, and was half standing upon 
 her lap, and regarding you with a serious earnestness 
 of expression. She was seated under a tree, as was 
 usual in portraits of women of that day ; and a laud- 
 scape, which I could scarcely discern, formed the 
 rest of the scenery of the picture. 
 
 I stood for many minutes gazing upon this lovely 
 vision, this being long since vanished from the earth,
 
 96 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 and yet here before me in all the rosy light of youth 
 and joy. Colonel Wy borne did not interrupt my 
 abstracted gaze till I drew a long breath, as if after 
 a long draught of beauty. He at length broke the 
 silence. 
 
 "It is like her," said he, "too like her, I sometimes 
 think; and at other times I look at it till the re 
 semblance seems to vanish in the stronger ligbt of 
 memory. It is for this reason that I have hung the 
 curtain before it; for I find that the reality of the 
 portraiture impresses me more vividly if it be pre 
 sented only occasionally to my view." 
 
 " She must have indeed been a creature," I ex 
 claimed, "to be remembered to the end of the longest 
 life ! I am sure that her image will never fade from 
 my remembrance, should my days be protracted to 
 the utmost verge of existence." 
 
 " You are right, my son," returned my aged friend : 
 "you are right. She was one of those beings who 
 bore the stamp of immortality upon her brow while 
 she was on earth ; and she breathed an undying re 
 membrance into the hearts of all who knew her. We 
 have been long parted ; but she has never been absent 
 from me. And now this fleshly veil must soon be 
 withdrawn, and we shall again see one another face 
 to face." 
 
 As he was speaking, I turned my eyes from the 
 lively portraiture before me to the living countenance 
 at my side. His eyes were raised ; the tears rolled 
 down his wrinkled but unmoved cheek; his mind
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 97 
 
 had, as it were, for a moment escaped from its prison- 
 house, and rejoined the companion-spirit, the long- 
 lost, but the unforgotten. 
 
 " The tears of bearded men," it has been said, and 
 often quoted, " stir up the soul of him who beholds 
 them with a far deeper, because stranger sympathy, 
 than is called forth by the ready tears of woman." 
 But what are they to the tears of extreme old age ? 
 
 I was deeply moved, and, descending from my ele 
 vation, I advanced to my venerable friend, and, taking 
 his hand, reproached myself for having thus agitated 
 his aged bosom by my ill-timed curiosity. He looked 
 at me, and seeing in my wet eye and quivering lip 
 the sympathy which annihilated the years that sepa 
 rated us, he looked benignantly upon me, and said, 
 
 " Nay, my dear boy, it is I who should apologize 
 for having thus given vent to emotions which are far 
 better confined in the breast. But you have taken 
 me at unawares, and the strangeness of the hour 
 and the unexpectedness of this interview quite dis 
 armed me. But come," he continued, taking me by 
 the arm, " we will live over together those long-gone 
 years at some more seasonable time. And now let us 
 betake ourselves to our chambers again." 
 
 With these words we slowly retired from the li 
 brary, and ascended the stairs in silence. When we 
 reached the door of my apartment, Colonel Wyborne 
 expressively pressed my hand without a word, and 
 left me 
 
 " To chew the food of sweet and bitter fancy." 
 7
 
 98 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 It was now near one o'clock. My fire was almost 
 out, and my candle was flickering in its socket : so I 
 speedily disposed myself for rest. It was long, how 
 ever, before sleep consented to be wooed to my pil 
 low. The figures of my aged host and of the bride 
 of his youth for a long time flitted around my couch, 
 and drove sleep away. At last, however, the twin- 
 brother of Death waved his poppies over my head, 
 and my senses were lapped in forgetful ness. 
 
 When I awoke in the morning, the midnight events, 
 which were the first which occurred to my remem 
 brance, seemed, like the visions of the night, to be 
 " such stuff as dreams are made of." But the rays of 
 the sun soon chased away the shadows which had 
 lingered after sleep had fled, and I realized that I 
 had actually had the singular interview with Colonel 
 Wyborne in the library, which dwelt on my memory. 
 I felt at first as if our morning meeting might be a 
 little awkward after our midnight parting, and I 
 resolved to make no allusion to the matter, unless 
 my host led to the subject ; but upon second thoughts 
 I determined not to treat it as a circumstance of 
 which I was ashamed, but as one which had excited 
 a strong interest in my mind, of which I could not 
 forbear to speak. 
 
 Upon my reaching the parlor, I found Peter busily 
 employed in laying the breakfast-table, with an air 
 of even greater importance than usual ; which I ac 
 counted for by the fact of its being Thanksgiving 
 Bay. His master had not yet appeared. But a few
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 99 
 
 minutes, however, elapsed, before the door opened, 
 and he came in. He bade me good-morning in his 
 usual manner, and I could perceive no trace of the 
 agitation of a few bom's before. When Peter had 
 marshalled the last division of the multitudinous 
 array of comestibles which were provided for my 
 refreshment, and the housekeeper had duly furnished 
 forth the simpler components of Colonel Wyborne's 
 repast, and they had both withdrawn, I begged to 
 know if my kind entertainer had experienced any ill 
 consequences from his unusual exposure, of which I 
 was the unintentional cause. He set my fears at rest 
 upon that point, and showing no disinclination to 
 the subject, I reverted to it, assuring him that it was 
 an hour the remembrance of which would abide with 
 me to my dying-day. He seemed pleased with my 
 enthusiasm, and gratified to think that the memory 
 of his wife, which he had supposed would have been 
 buried with himself, would take root in a younger 
 breast, and flourish for another generation. He in 
 quired how much of his history I had learned from 
 Mrs. Champion, and then added many particulars 
 which she had omitted, from her having figured fa 
 vorably in them, of his short residence in Boston. 
 He also added, beginning at the break fast- table, and 
 continuing his narrative in a short walk in the gar 
 den, a succinct history of his first acquaintance with 
 Maria Somers, the difficulties he surmounted, his 
 clandestine marriage, and the reasons which made it 
 expedient to transfer his residence from England to
 
 100 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 America. His history, strange and eventful as it was, 
 I must reserve for some opportunity which affords an 
 ampler verge than is left by this too protracted though 
 " ower true " tale. We continued sauntering up and 
 down the gravel walks, and bathing in the delicious 
 soft air and hazy light of a day better worthy of a 
 place among the bright ring that circle in joyous dance 
 around the merry month of May than to be of the 
 train of the gloomy month which ushers in the winter, 
 till the sound of the first bell reminded us that it 
 was time to make our preparations for divine service. 
 
 My toilet was soon completed, and I occupied my 
 self until it was time to go to church in a daylight 
 visit to the library. The lovely features of Maria 
 Wy borne were still unveiled, and smiled upon me 
 even more sweetly than they had done the night be 
 fore, as the rays of the sun seemed to penetrate the 
 darkest recesses of the picture, and to bring boldly 
 out all that was dimly seen at midnight. When I 
 heard Colonel Wyborne leave his chamber overhead, 
 I drew the curtain, and, having removed the steps 
 from the fireplace to their appropriate nook, I issued 
 out to meet him. 
 
 The second bell was just beginning to ring, and the 
 carriage was already at the door; the sable coach 
 man sitting complacently enthroned upon the dicky, 
 while Peter, hat in hand, stood by the expanded 
 door and unfolded steps of the old-fashioned chariot. 
 Colonel Wyborne stood before me as he reached the 
 lowest stair, the very image of a gentleman of the
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 101 
 
 generation which was then just leaving the stage. 
 His wig was elaborately powdered, and terminated 
 behind in a black silk bag, which swung pendulously 
 from shoulder to shoulder as he walked. His coat 
 was of a deep claret-color, with gold buttons, and 
 embroidered about the button-holes, skirts, and cuffs. 
 His waistcoat, of the same material, richly laced about 
 the ample pocket-flaps, opening in front, displayed a 
 world of the finest lace waving in the breeze. Ruffles 
 of the same gossamer fabric shaded his hands. His 
 breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his 
 shoes were graced with ample buckles of the purest 
 gold. His gold-headed cane full half as tall as 
 himself, now only seen on the stage and his cocked 
 hat were brought by the vigilant Peter, who left 
 his post by the carriage-door upon his master's ap 
 proach. Having invested him with these ensigns of 
 dignity, Peter took the cloak from the hands of the 
 attendant housekeeper, and with fitting reverence en 
 veloped his master's form in its ample folds. Alas for 
 the scarlet cloaks of our fathers ! They have van 
 ished, with many of the other habits of our ancestors, 
 and have carried with them to their last home much 
 of the graceful reverence for age and rank of which 
 they were the emblems. Peace to their shreds ! 
 
 Colonel Wyborne, being at length invested with all 
 his habiliments, leaned upon my arm, and somewhat 
 painfully ascended the uncertain footing of the car 
 riage-steps. I followed him, and the door was closed 
 upon us by Peter, who duly took his stand behind the
 
 102 AX OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 carriage. The heavy vehicle moved slowly forward, 
 and, as we turned into the high-road, it might have 
 been thought that one of the frontispieces to the old 
 editions of Sir Charles Grandison was suddenly in 
 spired with life, and had turned out the family coach 
 of Uncle Selby, or the more elegant equipage of Sir 
 Hargrave Pollexfen, or the mercurial Lady G., upon 
 the king's highway. Turning to the left as we came 
 into the public road, we ascended a considerable hill, 
 from the top of which we saw before us the village 
 meeting-house, forming, as it were, the centre of the 
 little rural system. As we drove along the road we 
 saw the inhabitants of the village issuing from their 
 comfortable houses, and wending their way to church. 
 They were mostly dressed in the productions of their 
 own farms and looms, and had an air of substantial 
 plenty about them, without any attempts on the part 
 of man or woman to ape the manners and costume of 
 the town. The road was also covered with the farm 
 ers who lived beyond walking- distance, mounted on 
 stout farm-horses, with their wives or daughters seated 
 on pillions behind them ; and now and then a heavy 
 square-topped gig, or chaise as it was then called, 
 looking like a sedan-chair cut in two and placed on 
 wheels, came lumbering along, filled with an amount 
 of humanity which proved to a demonstration the 
 infinite compressibility, if not perfectibility, of human 
 nature. The meeting-house was of the earliest style 
 of construction ; the belfry in the centre of the roof, 
 which sloped up on four sides to it : the principal
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 103 
 
 door, which was opposite to the pulpit, was on one of 
 the longer sides of the parallelogram, while the shorter 
 sides were adorned and accommodated with porticos. 
 As we passed by the cheerful groups of walkers or 
 riders, for, it not being the sabbath, they did not 
 think it incumbent upon them, though going to meet 
 ing, to put on their Sunday faces, they all made due 
 reverence to Colonel Wyborne, who was universall} 7 
 beloved for his bountiful and courteous spirit. When 
 we drew up at the church-door, many a brawny arm 
 was proffered to assist him in his descent, which he 
 acknowledged with the most perfect grace of good- 
 breeding, and said something to each of his humble 
 friends, which made them better contented with 
 themselves, and of course with him. 
 
 I followed Colonel Wyborne up the broad aisle to 
 his pew, which was the fourth from the door on your 
 right hand and the nearest of the pews to the pulpit, 
 the space between the pews and the pulpit being filled 
 up with benches, upon which were arranged the aged 
 parishioners who were not owners of pews, in order 
 of seniority ; the post of honor being the one nearest 
 the minister. The pulpit was of oak, unpainted, and 
 surmounted by an enormous sounding-board, looking 
 like a gigantic extinguisher just on the point of put 
 ting out the luminary beneath. Beneath the pulpit, 
 the deacons' seat embraced within its ample enclos 
 ure the dignified officials for whom it was designed, 
 one bald-headed, with an unquestionable squint, and 
 the other with his thin gray locks falling almost to
 
 104 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 his shoulders, and with a sharp face and meagre per 
 son ; both seated with their backs to the pulpit, and 
 their faces to the congregation. Two galleries ran 
 round the walls ; one filled with women, and the other 
 with men. Near the ceiling, on the left hand as we 
 sat, a phenomenon was presented to the inquiring eye 
 in the shape of an oblong hole in the wall, surrounded 
 by a sort of wooden frame in which was set a human 
 face, which glared upon the meeting-house door with 
 an earnestness almost supernatural. About every 
 ten seconds the face of the apparition underwent a 
 sort of downward twitch, which was succeeded with a 
 sharp toll of the bell ; but the eyes were ever riveted 
 upon the door. At length a twitch of more convul 
 sive energy than usual was followed by an emphatic 
 clang of the bell, which said as plainly as the tongue 
 of bell could speak, " There, my work 's done for to 
 day ! " And, while its undulating sound was vibrating 
 on the ear, the Eev. Mr. Armsby walked majestically 
 along the aisle, and ascended the stairs; his well- 
 powdered wig diffusing a miniature snow-storm upon 
 the small precise cape of his black cloak. After a 
 short pause, the services proceeded. The prayers of 
 the revered -pastor were admirable, eloquent, devout, 
 fervid, mostly clothed in the language of Scripture, or 
 at least in language which gushed from a mind deeply 
 imbued with the spirit of the Hebrew prophets. As 
 the rich, deep tones of his voice uttered forth the reci 
 tal of the blessings and bounties which this people 
 had received at the hand of Heaven, of freedom, of
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 105 
 
 peace, of plenty, and, above all, of the knowledge of 
 the true God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent, 
 and then described their unworthiness and ingrati 
 tude and sinfulness, and deprecated the impending 
 wrath of Heaven and the awful judgments which 
 were reserved for an ungrateful, godless nation, all 
 wrapt in the dark and terrible imagery of the prophe 
 cies, I could almost imagine that I heard one of the 
 seers of old telling in thunder-tones his message of 
 warning and denunciation to the chosen but erring 
 race. 
 
 The innovation of a choir had displaced the good 
 old custom of singing the hymns " line by line " by 
 the whole congregation. Of this part of the service I 
 will say nothing, except that it bore no resemblance 
 which could shock the most rigid Puritan, to the 
 choral symphonies of the Sistine Chapel, or even to 
 the heathenish melody of that legitimate daughter of 
 the old Scarlet Lady, the Church of England. A bass- 
 viol grated its share of harsh discords in addition to 
 those of the human instruments, all of which together, 
 if the science of music does not lie, must have 
 amounted to harmony. Colonel Wyborne, in the 
 goodness of his heart and the abundance of his good 
 will to any persons who earnestly did what they could 
 to assist at the service of the sanctuary, though him 
 self an excellent judge of music, stood up alone during 
 the performance, and encouraged the choristers by 
 strict attention, and beating time, and, when they 
 finished, by an emphatic, " Very well, very well in-
 
 106 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 deed ! " audible over the whole house. My gravity, 
 I confess, received a severe shock, and I fully expected 
 to hear a general titter run round the assembly ; but 
 a hurried glance around satisfied me that it was a 
 usual act of my admirable old friend, and was re 
 garded with pride and pleasure by the singers and 
 the rest of the congregation, and by no means looked 
 upon as anything out of the common way. This cir 
 cumstance brought Sir Eoger de Coverley at once to 
 my mind ; and, the idea being suggested, I recalled 
 a good many points of resemblance between the warm 
 hearted old baronet and Colonel Wyborne ; though 
 the latter was entirely free from any hallucination 
 like that which sometimes sent Sir Roger's wits a 
 wool-gathering. 
 
 The introductory services being over, the minister 
 rose and took a prefatory look around at his flock. 
 Before giving out his text, however, he desired the 
 audience, in a tone of authority and decision which 
 would have well become Dr. Johnson himself when 
 he scolded Boswell for having a headache, not to 
 interrupt the discourse by coughing or sneezing ; 
 which ebullitions he assured them were entirely un 
 necessary. It may be well to add that his commands 
 were strictly obeyed ; thus affording a new fact in 
 support of Kant's theory of the power of the will over 
 bodily ailments. This preliminary being adjusted, he 
 announced his text, and proceeded with his sermon. 
 It was a truly masterly production, and displayed 
 those remarkable powers which not long afterwards
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 107 
 
 procured his translation to the more congenial atmos 
 phere of the metropolis. It was a work like one of 
 the Pyramids ; its foundations, broad and deep, rest 
 ing on eternal and universal truth, and the superstruc 
 ture tapering in sublime simplicity up to the blessed 
 duty of gratitude, massive blocks of sense and rea 
 soning piled regularly in lessening rows upon one an 
 other, and clamped together by cogent quotations from 
 the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures ; all ascending up 
 wards to a single truth, and making upon the mind, 
 undistracted by meretricious ornament, an impression 
 of oneness, the feeling of a grand whole. The music of 
 his intonations and the harmony of his gesture are still 
 present to my mind, as if it were but yesterday that he 
 spoke. He was listened to with the most profound 
 attention ; and, when he ended, his auditory all seemed 
 to take a long breath, and each man looked upon his 
 neighbor with a flushed cheek and a dilated eye. 
 
 But one circumstance interrupted the solemnity of 
 the discourse, and that was too characteristic a one to 
 be passed over in silence. In the midst of the sermon 
 an unlucky child in the women's gallery began to 
 cry. The pastor stopped short, turned his severe eye 
 upon the dismayed mother, and sternly said, " Take 
 that child away ! " In unutterable confusion the poor 
 woman gathered up her descendant ; and the urchin, 
 kicking and screaming with an energy worthy of a 
 better cause, quickly vanished from our sight. This 
 little episode, however, attracted but little attention 
 on the part of the rest of the audience, and, the mo-
 
 108 AX OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 merit it was over, they were as deeply absorbed as 
 ever in the march of the discourse. 
 
 After the blessing had been pronounced, the whole 
 congregation remained standing in their places, as was 
 their invariable custom, until Mr. Armsby and Colo 
 nel Wyborne had left the house. While the clergy 
 man was making his preparations for his departure, 
 Colonel Wyborue left his pew, and kindly advanced 
 to the venerable band of old men, and made friendly 
 inquiries as to their well-being ; and I could catch 
 the sounds of their grateful voices thanking him for 
 the bountiful gifts which he had bestowed upon them 
 at this joyful season. "When Mr. Aruisby descended 
 from the pulpit, Colonel Wyborne took his arm, and, 
 giving me a signal to follow, slowly left the house, 
 courteously inclining his head to the right and left 
 in acknowledgment of the respectful salutations 
 which he received from the sturdy farmers on either 
 side. We all three entered the coach, which we found 
 ready at the door, and were soon conveyed to the 
 scene of the solemnities which yet remained to be 
 performed appropriate to the great New England fes 
 tival On the way, the conversation was engrossed 
 by the two gentlemen, and I confess that I regarded 
 my reverend companion as a sort of a Mordecai at 
 my gate, and looked forward with a kind of dismay 
 to the cloud which he would bring over the joyous 
 festivity which I had anticipated at the Thanksgiving 
 table of my genial host. 
 
 Upon our arrival we were shown into the library,
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 109 
 
 at either end of which a blazing fire worthy of an Eng 
 lish Christmas diffused a generous warmth through 
 the apartment. The cheerful heat had an evident 
 effect on the ice of the reverend gentleman's man 
 ners ; for, there being no provision made in those 
 days for warming churches, we were all glad enough 
 to greet the cordial welcome of the blaze. As we 
 walked from one fireplace to the other, and stopped 
 before each to imbibe a portion of its warmth, Mr. 
 Armsby, for almost the first time, turned to me and 
 said, " Well, young gentleman, how do you like being 
 between two fires?" a jocular abortion which I 
 received with a laugh worthy of a better jest, with 
 an explosion which would not have discredited a 
 Schcepen in the eyes of a jovial burgomaster. The 
 worthy gentleman evidently took my laugh in good 
 part, and by being put on better terms with himself, 
 was disposed to regard me with more consideration 
 than he had yet done. He made some more rather 
 cumbrous attempts at jocularity, which being met 
 more than halfway by myself, we soon rapidly neared 
 one another, and before long, not unassisted by the 
 good-nature of our host, we were fairly engaged yard- 
 arrn to yard-arm. My awe of him gradually melted 
 away, and, before Peter made his appearance with the 
 tankard of punch, I began to wonder that I could ever 
 have felt any. 
 
 As I have hinted in the preceding sentence, in due 
 time the door opened, and the excellent functionary 
 there alluded to was ushered in, bearing with fitting
 
 110 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 solemnity upon a salver the silver tankard, which in 
 those days ever heralded the serious business of the 
 day. A grateful perfume arose from its brimming 
 mouth, and filled the apartment. Colonel Wyborne 
 received the fragrant offering at the hands of the 
 sable Ganymede, and, having raised it to his lips, 
 passed it to his most honored guest, who paid it the 
 homage of a deeper libation, and then consigned it to 
 my ingenuous hands. This harbinger of better things 
 to come (now, I admit, better far removed) performed 
 its orbit round our little circle with a rapidity and 
 regularity which would have given a temperance 
 society a fit of deliriuin-tremeus, until the last drop 
 was drained. Admirer as I ani of old customs, I must 
 allow that this was one which I am glad to have sur 
 vived. The punch-drinking of a morning, which our 
 ancestors looked upon in the light of an innocent 
 amusement, not to say of a positive duty, is extinct, 
 and with it have vanished in a great measure the gout, 
 and a train of " immedicable ills" of which it was the 
 fruitful parent. Since its disappearance, too, drunk 
 enness is a vice almost unknown to the educated 
 classes ; which was far from being the case in my 
 time. On the present occasion, however, the bewitch 
 ing draught seemed to unlock the secret source of a 
 thousand sympathies till then unsuspected, and to 
 bring to light a multitude of affinities, unfelt before, 
 between the morning, the meridian, and the even 
 ing of life. Under its deceitful though delicious 
 enchantment, the barriers which time and custom
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. Ill 
 
 had raised between us, and which but a short time 
 before seemed to be impassable, were levelled with 
 the ground, and we stood side by side as friend by 
 friend. 
 
 Precisely as the hall-clock struck two, Peter, re- 
 entering, announced dinner, and, marshalled by that 
 dark seneschal, we proceeded in due order to the 
 dining-room. Mr. Armsby blessed the meal with a 
 grace which seemed at least sufficiently long to a hun 
 gry boy, in which he did not omit, in the enumera 
 tion of blessings, the Governor, Council, the churches, 
 the college, and the old Congress. When he had 
 concluded, and we had taken our seats, the covers 
 were removed, and displayed an array of dishes which 
 would have seemed preposterous for the supply of 
 three persons, did we not know that a multitude of 
 retainers were assembled in the kitchen, eagerly 
 awaiting whatever might fall from our table. A noble 
 tautaug, 1 with his tail in his mouth, lay grimly before 
 me, like the Egyptian emblem of eternity. At the 
 foot of the table, Colonel Wyborne was intrenched 
 behind a formidable round of beef d-la-mode. A 
 roast turkey was stretched, victim-like, upon his back 
 before the sacerdotal knife of the pastor ; while on 
 the other side of the table a pair of boiled chickens 
 lay patiently awaiting their immersion in the oyster- 
 sauce which stood ready for the deed. Vegetables of 
 every description filled up all the interstices of the 
 well -spread board ; and decanters of white wine (for 
 I Vulgarly called black-fish by the many.
 
 112 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 as yet red wine was not) kept watch and ward, like 
 tall sentinels, over the whole scene of action. Soon 
 the remains of the fish before me were decently re 
 moved, and replaced by an admirable haunch of veni 
 son, attended by all that should accompany that prince 
 of meats, the sacrificial fires; the jelly, "sweet as 
 the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their 
 parting tear ; " the thin parallelograms of toast, brown 
 as the Arabian berry. All our energies were soon 
 wholly engrossed in this new career of duty, which 
 we pursued with an untiring zeal and indomitable 
 perseverance, which should have entitled us to a high 
 place among the benefactors of mankind. 
 
 But, alas ! even venison may cease to please. At 
 least a foreboding of future good yet to be revealed 
 from the dark recesses of the kitchen prompted for 
 bearance ere it was too late. At length the viands 
 which I have feebly attempted to describe were trans 
 ported from our eyes, and a new generation occupied 
 their vacant places. The beef a-la-mode suddenly 
 gave place to the much-injured bird which saved the 
 capitol ; the venison, with a sigh, yielded its throne 
 to a triple alliance of wild ducks ; a pair of partridges 
 dislodged the reluctant turkey ; while the boiled 
 chickens with the attendant oyster-sauce fled amain 
 before the incursion of a horde of lesser " fowl of 
 game." The transitory nature of all human things 
 is well illustrated by the sentiment of one of the hero 
 ines of " The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement," 
 in the Anti-Jacobin, where she says (I quote from
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 113 
 
 memory), " The beef of to-morrow will succeed to the 
 veal of to-day, as the veal of to-day has succeeded to 
 the mutton of yesterday." But the flying courses of 
 a single repast bring home even more forcibly to the 
 reflecting mind the instability of our most substan 
 tial joys, and afford a lively picture of the fleeting 
 generations of mankind, hurrying, like them, over the 
 bountifully spread and richly adorned banquetiug- 
 table on which Boon Nature feasts her children. 
 The change which had just come over the scene before 
 us was not destined to endure any more than the one 
 which had preceded it. The shining face of Peter is 
 again seen, full of busy importance, bustling about the 
 board. And now the table is cleared ; and anxious 
 expectation sits impatient on every brow. A pause 
 ensues. The door opens, and, lo ! he comes, the Pad 
 ding of the Plum, Thanksgiving Day's acknowledged 
 chief. He comes, attended, conqueror-like, by the 
 dethroned monarch of Christmas Day, Mince-pie, who 
 follows, crestfallen, in his triumphal train. Apple- 
 pie, too, rears his " honest soncy face " in sturdy yeo 
 man pride. Custard, no longer " blasphemed through 
 the nose," receives the respectful deference due to 
 fallen greatness. And thou, Pumpkin-pie, my coun 
 try's boast, when I forget thee, may my right hand 
 forget its cunning ! And Squash-pie, too, when I 
 refuse to celebrate thy praise, may my tongue cleave 
 to the roof of my mouth ! 
 
 Then 'came the dessert, chiefly composed, from the 
 necessity of the season, of dried fruits ; but then such
 
 114 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 apples and such pears ! apples for which Atalanta 
 might well have lost her race, or which might well 
 have been thrown by Discord among the gods. The 
 pears, too ! St. Michael's spicy fruit, St. Catherine's 
 immutable glow, " the side that 's next the sun," 
 worthy the cheek of a cherub ; St. Germain's celes 
 tial gust; and other gentle races which confer by 
 their virtues higher honors on their patron saints 
 than any they derive from their canonization. 
 
 Then, too, came from the subterraneous crypts, 
 where they had been confined for many years, the im 
 prisoned spirits whom Wit obeys ; not those fierce 
 demons which are called into being amidst the 
 fierce combustion of the still, and which soon tear 
 in pieces the victims whom they have singled out 
 for their prey, but "delicate spirits," like the gentle 
 Ariel, bursting into life in the year-long summer's 
 day of the Fortunate Islands, and summoned across 
 the Atlantic waves to impart their native summer 
 to Northern hearts. Alas that any magicians should 
 now be found who would fain exorcise them, and 
 condemn them to the fate of vulgar devils ! But 
 then it must be admitted that the degeneracy of 
 modern times has reached even these ethereal powers. 
 The grapes of the present day do not express the same 
 juice which gushed from the veins of their progeni 
 tors. Their thin potations have debauched this 
 washy generation. Did the French philosophy take 
 root amongst us before our clay had been soaked in 
 claret and champagne ? Were we overrun with the
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 115 
 
 weeds of German metaphysics before the Rhine had 
 poured an acid deluge over the land ? Talk of the 
 schoolmaster being abroad ! The heresies which in 
 fest this age were unknown until the wine-merchant 
 went abroad. 
 
 I wish that I could find it in my heart to detain 
 the gentle reader from the perusal of things better 
 worth his reading, and recount the talk of that genial 
 day. But the milkiness of my nature forbids. Be 
 sides, a separate essay will not be too much to devote 
 to the oddities, genius, and virtues of Richard Arms- 
 by. He was a choice specimen of that racy class of 
 originals, the elder New England clergy ; men who 
 were in a great measure raised above the control of 
 public opinion, and the sharpnesses of whose charac 
 ters were not smoothed down by the friction of soci 
 ety, and the excursions of whose eccentricities were 
 checked neither by the inquisition of squeamish co 
 teries nor by the censure of a fastidious age. I have 
 never looked upon his like since he entered into his 
 rest. He united the playfulness of Yorick and the 
 simplicity of Parson Adams with the logical acute- 
 ness of Butler, the strong sense of Barrow, and the 
 redundant imagination of Taylor ; and all these shin 
 ing and solid materials which went to make up the 
 web of his remarkable mind were strongly relieved 
 by the dark groundwork of thr sternest Calvinism 
 upon which they were woven. And yet this man 
 is forgotten. His sermons, which should have con 
 stituted an integral portion of our literature, have
 
 116 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 been fated to "clothe spice, line trunks," or to fall 
 into the sacrilegious hands of the "oblivious cook." 
 Surely this was a man of whom the world in which 
 he lived was not worthy. 
 
 That day is an epoch in my life, for it was the first 
 time that I had ever listened to the table-talk of the 
 highest description. I might have searched the world 
 through, and yet not have met with two such men, 
 so different and yet so admirable, as the two whom, 
 the chances of life had thrown together in the remote 
 village of Sanfield. I have since listened to most of 
 the celebrated men of conversation of our times, and 
 the chimes of midnight have often fallen unheeded 
 upon my ear as I yielded myself to the enchantment 
 of their eloquence and wit ; but the remembrance of 
 that brilliant day still holds the first place among my 
 convivial memories. 
 
 We remained at table till about six o'clock, when 
 we returned to the library, where tea and coffee were 
 served. After this ceremony was over, Mr. Armsby's 
 pipe was brought, " his custom always of an after 
 noon," and taking, as it were, a new departure from 
 this event, he swept gallantly on through a sea of 
 talk, growing more and more brilliant as he went. 
 At last, however, ten o'clock came. He knocked out 
 the last ashes of his pipe, and, taking a glass more of 
 wine as a stirrup-cup, lie prepared for his departure. 
 The carriage was soon at the door ; and our charming 
 friend, for such I could not but regard him in spite 
 of his ministerial dignity, bade us a cordial good-
 
 AN OCTOGENAEY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 117 
 
 night. As I attended him to the carriage, he warmly 
 pressed me, nothing loath, to visit him at his bache 
 lor's house. 
 
 When I returned to the library, Colonel Wyborne 
 begged to know whether I did not think that his 
 prophecy the day before, of the change which a day 
 would bring forth in Mr. Armsby, had not been ful 
 filled. I replied with expressions of the warmest 
 admiration of the qualities of his reverend friend. 
 " And pray, sir," I added, " why did not you tell me 
 how extraordinary a man he is ? " 
 
 " Simply," he replied with a benignant smile, "sim 
 ply because I wished to give you the pleasure of 
 finding it out for yourself." 
 
 We soon separated for the night ; but it was long 
 after I had sought my couch that the clear tones of 
 the pastor's voice died upon my ear. The strange 
 groups of thought, in which ideas that never before 
 dreamt of meeting each other found themselves side 
 by side; the freshness and beauty of his classic allus 
 ions, and the grotesque narrations of scenes and 
 characters such as are only known in a simple and 
 primitive state of society, delivered with a spirit and 
 life which Matthews never surpassed, all together 
 produced a degree of pleasurable excitement which 
 drove sleep far from my eyes. The walls of my 
 solitary chamber rung with the echoes of a foregone 
 merriment; and, if my pillow were that night wet 
 with tears, they were the tears 
 
 " Of one worn out with mirth and lauerhter."
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 '"T^HE next morning, after breakfast, Colonel Wy- 
 *- borne proposed to me a drive to the parsonage 
 to pay a visit to Mr. Armsby. I gladly closed with 
 this proposition, as my experiences of the day before 
 had excited a strong curiosity on my part to know 
 more of that true original in the best sense of the 
 word. The coach having been ordered, my excellent 
 host, at my request, commenced a short account of 
 his reverend friend, which he concluded as we drove 
 towards his local habitation. His history was not 
 very different from that of hosts of other ornaments 
 of the New England Church and State. His father 
 was a painstaking farmer, who extracted by the 
 alchemy of intelligent labor, from the rocky and un- 
 genial soil of one of the least propitious portions of 
 Massachusetts Bay, a plentiful and comfortable sub 
 sistence for a family of some twelve children. The 
 early education of his son Richard had been in the 
 school of agricultural labor. The plough and the 
 spade were the earliest teachers his rugged intellect 
 had known. During the leisure hours of " workless 
 winter," indeed, he had picked up the rudiments of 
 knowledge, and secured those branches of learning, 
 which, according to high authority, " come by nature."
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 119 
 
 Having acquired the key to knowledge, he soon em 
 ployed it to unlock all the stores which were within 
 his reach. His father's literary collections were not 
 of a very extensive or a very various description. A 
 few books of Puritan divinity, and many printed ser 
 mons of New England divines, in loose pamphlets, 
 formed the staple of his library. These works, how 
 ever, for want of matter more attractive, were eagerly 
 devoured. Among his father's books, however, was 
 Cotton Mather's " Magnalia," which soon became his 
 favorite author. His admiration was excited by the 
 display of learning which so liberally garnishes those 
 curious pages ; and his wonder was none the less 
 because he could not detect the pedantry and bad 
 taste of the load of quotations with which the au 
 thor's original matter is overlaid, and of the conceits 
 in which he delights to indulge. To a boy in an in 
 land town, brought up in Puritan habits, this book 
 was truly fascinating. The histories of the worthies 
 who had founded or embellished the infant empire ; 
 the descriptions of the persecutions which they en 
 dured in England, and of the hardships which they 
 encountered when they snatched their civil and re 
 ligious rights to these bleak and inhospitable shores ; 
 the stirring descriptions of the Indian wars, which so 
 often threatened destruction to the whole province, 
 and of which there were many survivors in his 
 neighborhood, full of traditionary lore ; and especially 
 the solemn recital of the mysterious phenomena of 
 witchcraft, of the wiles of Satan for the extirpation
 
 120 AX OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 of God's people, some of which, it must be confessed, 
 did but little credit to the sagacity of the arch-enemy 
 all these topics formed fertile themes for winter 
 evening study and for summer noontide dreams. 
 
 I do not wonder that the belief in witchcraft took 
 such strong hold of our ancestors' imaginations, living 
 as they did in a country but half explored, overshad 
 owed with primeval forests filled with heathen foes 
 and with savage beasts from the depths of which 
 strange sounds came at midnight upon their ear, and 
 whose varying shadows and lights assumed to the 
 superstitious eye of the wayfarer the grotesque or 
 ghastly forms of demons or spectres. There was an 
 infinite deal more romance in the primitive days of 
 our ancestors, planted as they were on a narrow 
 belt between the ocean and the wilderness, than we 
 can dream of in these prosaic days of steam and 
 railroads. 
 
 Richard Armsby's love of books early aroused in 
 his father's breast the ambition, which in those days 
 lingered in every parent's heart, of seeing his sou one 
 of the clergy, one of the religious aristocracy of the 
 land. His narrow circumstances, however, made 
 the prospect almost a hopeless one, until one day the 
 pastor of the parish, in one of his parochial rounds, 
 discovered the young enthusiast busily employed 
 with his favorite volume. It so happened that " the 
 fantastic old great man" was a favorite with the good 
 man ; and his heart warmed towards the lad when 
 he found how thoroughly he was acquainted with all
 
 AN OCTOGEXARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 121 
 
 that he could learn from that not too authentic source 
 of the history of his country. His father's wishes 
 and his own tastes were soon made known to their 
 several advisers, and he undertook the task of pre 
 paring the young man for college. This was speedily 
 accomplished by the vigorous intellect, and earnest 
 ness of purpose, of young Arinsby. The work of 
 preparation being finished, he was despatched to 
 Cambridge, with but a small stock of money, but 
 with an ample supply of faith and hope. His strug 
 gles in the cause of good learning were severe, and 
 his heart at times almost died within him, and he 
 was more than once on the point of abandoning his 
 studies. In a happy hour, however, he went, one 
 winter's vacation, to keep the village school of San- 
 field, where he soon attracted the kind notice of* 
 Colonel Wyborne. The sagacity and knowledge of 
 character which were almost instinctive with that 
 excellent gentleman, soon discerned that the rough 
 diamond he had lighted upon was a gem of the first 
 water. From that moment, all his difficulties were 
 at an end. His kind patron's liberality removed all 
 obstacles from his way, and made the remainder of 
 his literary path one of pleasantness. Soon after his 
 college career was finished, the minister of Sanfield 
 died ; and Mr. Armsby was very soon inducted into 
 his place, chiefly through Colonel Wyborne's influ 
 ence. For the many years that had elapsed since 
 that day, they had lived on terms of the most cordial 
 intimacy; their esteem for each other increasing
 
 122 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 with their years. Mr. Armsby having never been 
 married, their friendly intercourse had never encoun 
 tered the interruption which the intervention of 
 Hymen but too often works in the best-grounded 
 friendships ; and I doubt not that the minister's 
 congenial society greatly contributed to cheer and 
 prolong his aged friend's existence. 
 
 The substance of this narrative was just imparted 
 as the carriage drove up to the parsonage-door. It 
 was a very old building, unpainted, situated just on 
 the edge of the village. It stood on a high bank, at 
 some distance from the road, with two or three trees 
 of aboriginal growth waving their twisted arms above 
 its roof. The master of the house received us at the 
 door with much formal politeness. On entering the 
 front-door, we descended one step, which had nearly 
 been a step too much for me, having never before 
 been greeted with such a reception at any threshold 
 I had ever passed. In front of us was a wooden seat, 
 which opened on hinges, and displayed a sort of chest. 
 The stairs ascended abruptly, almost from the very 
 door. Turning to our left, we were ushered into the 
 study, which was almost the only apartment which 
 the solitary minister used of his whole house. It 
 was a room of good size, but with a low ceiling, and 
 a bare beam, rough-shaped with the axe, passing 
 through its length. The walls were well covered 
 with dingy-looking books, most of them formida 
 ble folios of controversial divinity, but relieved by 
 excellent editions of the Greek and Latin classics
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 123 
 
 (for Mr. Armsby was a ripe scholar and a good one), 
 and by some of the sterling English authors. There 
 was the folio edition of Shakspeare, and the little 
 shabby quarto first edition of " Paradise Lost," in ten 
 books, and there was the first edition of Burton's 
 " Anatomy," which I had ever seen. A wooden arm 
 chair with a leaf to it was the throne of the sover 
 eign of the domain. A few wooden chairs of 
 various shapes, and apparently of different epochs in 
 the colonial history, but none of which would have 
 excited the envy of a Sybarite were scattered about 
 the room in a somewhat dusty confusion. A deal 
 table or so, and a woodbox, completed the furniture 
 of the apartment. The floor was unconscious of a 
 carpet, and to all appearance had been long innocent 
 of the knowledge of the virtues of soap and fair 
 water. The hearth was of red brick, on which was 
 built a wood fire of exemplary brightness. The 
 bricks of the chimney-back, to be sure, had yielded 
 to the hand of time (" What will not Time subdue ! ") 
 but then one of them afforded a timely aid to one of 
 the andirons, which, in the course of many years' 
 service, had lost a leg. The neatness of the whole 
 establishment did not certainly afford much room for 
 commendation ; but then, as no commendations were 
 expected or desired, it was of the less consequence. 
 
 Our reverend host having resigned his chair of 
 state to his honored guest, and provided himself and 
 me with humbler stools, we all drew up cheerfully 
 to the fire, and talked merrily over the day before.
 
 124 AX OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 Though the manner of Mr. Armsby towards ine was 
 not distinguished by the convivial freedom of the day 
 before, still it was entirely free from the austerity 
 and coldness which marked it at our first acquaint 
 ance. It was now just what the demeanor of a gen 
 tleman of his time of life, and standing in society, 
 should be towards a lad of eighteen, kind, affable, 
 without being familiar or free ; which made me feel 
 perfectly at my ease in his company, and yet which 
 made it perfectly impossible for me to forget the 
 distance which separated us. 
 
 After we had discussed a variety of topics, which 
 he treated in a manner to show that wine and was 
 sail had nothing to do with his powers of entertain 
 ment, he inquired about my plans for returning to 
 Cambridge. I informed him that I must set forth 
 early the next morning in order to reach the arms of 
 my Alma Mater before night. As, in the course of 
 the conversation which ensued on the subject, I 
 expressed no great satisfaction in the prospect be 
 fore me, of a twenty-miles' ride upon a sorry hack, 
 Colonel Wyborue seemed to be suddenly struck with 
 a new idea, which he uttered to this effect : " It never 
 occurred to me before ; but I think that I can save 
 you that tedious ride, if you have no objection to an 
 expedition in a row-boat." 
 
 I assured him that boating was one of my choicest 
 amusements, and awaited with some curiosity to 
 know the nature of his proposition. 
 
 " If that be the case," said he, " I think, that, as
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 125 
 
 the weather is so fine, we can manage it in this way. 
 I will take my boat, and accompany you to my farm 
 on Vincents Island this afternoon, where we will 
 spend the night ; and to-morrow you shall continue 
 your row up to Boston, while I await the return of 
 my boat." 
 
 " But my horse ? " 
 
 " Oh, John can take him home on Monday, on his 
 way to town : it will be but a few miles out of his 
 way." 
 
 The only difficulty in the way being thus obviated, 
 I most heartily concurred in the plan, which prom 
 ised to substitute a cheerful ride over the waves for 
 a dreary one over the high-road, and, besides, to give 
 me nearly a whole day to myself in Boston. These 
 preliminaries being adjusted, Mr. Armsby was invited 
 to make one of our water- party, with which proposi 
 tion he readily closed, to our general satisfaction. 
 
 The conversation turning upon the early colonial 
 times, Mr. Armsby displayed in that most curious 
 portion of history a minuteness of erudition which 
 I had never before seen exhibited. It was evidently 
 his hobby, and he caracoled and curvetted upon it 
 in a manner which excited my wonder and delight. 
 He displayed many curious manuscripts of the fath 
 ers, illustrative of their history, and several of the old 
 Indian deeds and treaties. In his library, too, were 
 many books which the Pilgrims had made the chosen 
 companions of their wanderings and exile, rendered 
 more precious by copious marginal notes, which it
 
 126 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 would have puzzled the younger Champollion him 
 self to decipher. lu a walk which we took together 
 round his house, he pointed out the scene of a bloody 
 fight with the Indians, and showed many perforations 
 in the walls of his house, made by the bullets of the 
 savage foe. Then there was the pear-tree which 
 Elder Brewster planted with his own hands, and the 
 very oak under which Captain Miles Standish and 
 his little company bivouacked on the night of their 
 return from the discomfiture of Morton and his 
 rabble rout at Merry Mount. The interest which 
 I took in these relics of the last age, and the atten 
 tion which I gave to his commentaries upon them, 
 evidently raised me many degrees in his estimation, 
 and laid the foundation of a friendship which only 
 ended with his life. 
 
 After a visit of nearly two hours, we took our 
 leave, having first arranged that Mr. Armsby should 
 join me at dinner, so as to be ready for our excursion. 
 We then returned home, and were duly joined at an 
 early hour by our reverend friend. The airy prologue 
 of the punch, the grave drama of the dinner, and 
 the cheerful epilogue of the madeira, being over, it 
 was announced that the tide served, and the boat was 
 in readiness. We accordingly proceeded on foot to 
 the shore, John and Peter following us with our 
 cloaks and luggage. We took a little different route 
 from the one which Colonel Wyborne and I had fol 
 lowed on the first day of our visit, and bent our steps 
 towards the mouth of the little stream which washed
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 127 
 
 his estate, on the banks of which the boat-house was 
 built. On arriving at the place of embarkation, we 
 found the boat launched, and the four boatmen two 
 black and two white resting on their oars, awaiting 
 our arrival. Our places were soon taken : Peter, with 
 our luggage and a stupendous hamper of provisions 
 and wine for the voyage, was seated in a grinning 
 delight; and the "trim-built wherry" was speedily 
 dancing over the crests of the wave. 
 
 The afternoon was more like one in May than one 
 on the very brink of winter. The sun shone brightly ; 
 the sea was placid as a land-locked bay or inland 
 lake ; the sea-fowl hovered above or about us, or 
 dived beneath the billows ; while in the distance the 
 white sails glided like happy spirits among the islands 
 of the blessed. The scene was one full of quiet and 
 of tranquillizing beauty, which rather provoked revery 
 than conversation. A favorable breeze soon springing 
 up, the mast was fixed in its place ; and the sail, given 
 to the gale, soon made us leap forward on our course 
 with a new alacrity. Our voyage was pursued in 
 silence, only broken by occasional exclamations at 
 the beautiful effects of light and shade caused by the 
 floating clouds, and at the varying hues of the dis 
 tant ocean. The sun set before we had reached our 
 port, and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we sat 
 watching the stars emerging from their ocean-bed, 
 and beginning the solemn procession which nightly 
 moves in sublime order around " this dim spot called 
 earth."
 
 128 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 Colonel Wyborne seemed to be buried in deepest 
 revery, sad yet not melancholy, as if the magic of 
 the scene had conjured up to his half-dreaming eye 
 
 " The spectres which no exorcism can bind, 
 The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, tcryiew 
 The mourned, the loved, the lost too many, yet how few ! 
 
 We respected the meditative mood of our venerable 
 friend, and sat in silence till the boat reached her 
 destined haven; when the oarsmen unshipped the 
 mast, and pulled stoutly for the little mole which 
 was projected into the sea. 
 
 We were soon disembarked, and on our way to the 
 farmhouse of Colonel Wyborne, which was occupied 
 by an excellent man and his wife, now just beginning 
 to feel the hand of time, who had lived in the sea- 
 girdled home for the chief of their days. They 
 received us with many demonstrations of kindness 
 and respect, and seemed in nowise disconcerted by 
 our unexpected arrival. Indeed, the ample supplies 
 of provisions which our commissary Peter brought 
 along with him removed all hospitable apprehensions 
 as to our due alimentation. We were received in the 
 ample kitchen of the farmhouse, which was illumi 
 nated by a blazing pile of logs, roaring up a volcano 
 of a chimney, and diffusing a ruddy light and cheer 
 ful warmth throughout the apartment. We were 
 soon comfortably established by the genial fireside, 
 while the goodwife was busily employed in prepar 
 ing our evening meal. When our repast was ready,
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 129 
 
 and we had taken our places at the table, Colonel 
 Wyborne still seemed absorbed in his dreaming mood, 
 and was evidently in spirit far away from the wave- 
 washed islet where he was present in the body. His 
 silence imposed an unavoidable restraint upon Mr. 
 Armsby and myself. At last, however, he seemed to 
 ronse from his revery, and, looking up at us, said, 
 
 " I know that you will think dotage has come 
 rapidly upon me, when I tell you of the resolution 
 which I have been forming. But my mind is made 
 up : I go to Boston to-night." 
 
 " To Boston to-night ! " exclaimed in one breath 
 both his companions ; both, no doubt, a little sus 
 picious that something was out of joint in the good 
 old gentleman's intellectuals. 
 
 " Even so," replied he in his blandest but most 
 determined manner. " It is now fifty years since I 
 saw my native city, and I once thought that nothing 
 could induce me to visit it again ; but a strange im 
 pulse, which I have often felt before, urges me with 
 an almost irresistible force to see once more, before I 
 die, the scene of my early days and of the short 
 lived happiness of my prime of manhood." 
 
 " But why to-night ? " inquired Mr. Armsby. 
 
 " Because," he replied, " it may be my last night. 
 This strange possession often comes over me, some 
 times in my solitary walks, or lonely musings in my 
 library, but most frequently in those wakeful hours 
 of nights which form a heavy share of the burden of 
 old age. I feel that to-night the craving may be 
 9
 
 130 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 satisfied, and that, if I neglect to use this night, 
 another opportunity may never come to me." 
 
 " But I do not exactly comprehend your plan, my 
 dear sir," observed his reverend companion. 
 
 " It is this," he replied. " The moon will rise in 
 an hour : in three hours \ve may reach the town. 
 I propose to land after all the inhabitants have de 
 serted the streets, and to revisit my old familiar 
 haunts by moonlight, and then return before the 
 earliest stirrer is abroad." 
 
 Mr. Armsby in vain represented to him the fatigue, 
 the sleepless night, the night-air, the mental excite 
 ment, which the execution of his scheme would 
 bring upon himself. His heart seemed to be set 
 upon the plan ; and he expressed his determination 
 to accomplish the adventure by himself, if we de 
 clined accompanying him. This, of course, was not 
 to be thought of ; and, his resolution being taken, we 
 prepared to accompany him on his singular expedi 
 tion. Mr. Armsby very evidently did not much 
 relish the idea of exchanging his snug corner of the 
 chimney in possession, and his comfortable bed in 
 prospect, for a damp, chilly row of three or four 
 hours by moonlight. I, on the other hand, was just 
 of an age to enjoy anything which had the appear 
 ance of novelty and the air of romance. 
 
 Our trusty boatmen were speedily roused from 
 their lair, and ordered upon this new and unexpected 
 service. They were soon in readiness; and we all 
 re-embarked, as well protected against the night-air
 
 AN OCTOGENAEY FIFTY YEARS SINCE 131 
 
 as broadcloth could make us. As soon as we had 
 pushed off, and cleared the shadow of the island, 
 we saw the moon, " rising in clouded majesty" just 
 above the waves, and shedding a long and tremulous 
 line of light upon the dancing waters. The scene 
 was truly enchanting. The slight murmur of the 
 waves, the measured dip of the flashing oars, and the 
 distant bark of the watchdog of the island we were 
 leaving behind us, were all the sounds which broke 
 the stillness of the midnight sea. The light, fleecy 
 clouds which accompanied the appearance of heaven's 
 " apparent Queen " were soon dispersed, and she 
 shone forth in matchless lustre. The magic air 
 which her silver light gave to the whole world of 
 waters was the more charming to us who had just 
 seen the orb of day sink in a sea of molten gold. 
 The stars stood out from the firmament with all 
 the sharpness and distinctness of a winter's night; 
 while the glimmering lights twinkled at unequal 
 intervals from the line of coast along which we 
 skirted, and the numerous islands amidst which we 
 threaded our devious way. 
 
 Thus we sped along, for the chief of the way in 
 silence, till at length we shot under the guns of the 
 Castle, and the town lay before us, seen dimly in 
 the uncertain moonlight. As we glided along to the 
 measured music of the oars, Colonel Wyborne's eyes 
 were fixed, with an earnestness almost painful, upon 
 the shadowy mass of buildings in the distance. His 
 thoughts were, doubtless, transported to the day, half
 
 132 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 a century before, when he last approached his native 
 town by sea. How different the circumstances under 
 which he approached it then and now ! Then, in the 
 pride of manhood, he walked over the waters in a 
 gallant ship, in the clear light of an autumnal day. 
 The wife of his love was by his side ; troops of wel 
 coming friends stretched out their arms from the 
 shore to hail the wanderer's return. Though he had 
 spent many years amidst the superb cities and mag 
 nificent ruins of Europe, and had dwelt as a familiar 
 friend in the bosom of the most gorgeous scenery and 
 time-hallowed relics of a classic world, still it seemed 
 to his true heart as if he had never gazed upon a 
 scene so lovely or so beloved as was present to his 
 filial eyes as he drew near his native land. Now, in 
 the spectral light of the moon, he glided like a ghost 
 to haunt the scenes of his former happiness. The 
 wife of his bosom, whose gentle hand was clasped in 
 'his when he last moved over those waves, had been 
 for fifty years the latest tenant of his ancestral vault. 
 The numerous friends whose cordial grasp welcomed 
 him home were, with scarcely an exception, long 
 since gone from earth ; and the few survivors were, 
 like him, transformed from men of the prime to faint 
 old men just tottering on the brink of the grave. A 
 thousand recollections of buried love, of vanished 
 youth, of half-forgotten friends, of well-remembered 
 griefs, of blighted hopes, of transitory joys, crowded 
 upon his musing soul. 
 
 At last the prow of our boat struck the stairs of
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 133 
 
 the Long "Wharf, and our voyage was ended. Just 
 at that moment, the clock of the Old South Church 
 struck twelve, and was answered from the towers of 
 all the other churches in long-drawn-out, but sweet 
 and solemn tones. Mr. Armsby and I assisted Colo 
 nel Wyborne to disembark, who then, leaning upon 
 our arms on either side, commenced his strange and 
 melancholy pilgrimage. The fifty years which had 
 elapsed since his departure from Boston had wrought 
 none of those changes in the appearance of the town 
 which the spells of modern speculation have in these 
 latter days often worked in a single lustrum. The 
 aspect of the place was almost unchanged. The popu 
 lation had scarcely increased during that period, and 
 the small addition had been contented to fix their 
 habitations upon the large extent of unoccupied 
 ground within the peninsula, without laying their 
 parricidal hands upon the roofs which had sheltered 
 their fathers. As we slowly proceeded up King 
 (now State) Street, there were to be seen on either 
 side the same dwellings which our aged friend had 
 left when he took his last leave of the metropolis. 
 How different was that scene from the one which the 
 same ground now presents ! Now it is metamor 
 phosed into one great granite temple to Mammon, 
 whose pavements are worn by the frequent feet of his 
 busy worshippers. The household gods have fled 
 from its precincts ; the fire is quenched on the domes 
 tic altar ; the voice of woman and the laugh of child 
 hood are there heard no more. But on that nig] it,
 
 134 AN OCTOGENABY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 more than half a century since, the moon which 
 looked down upon the sleeping city bathed in her 
 silver beams a multitude of happy homes. The 
 houses, substantial yet elegant, stood betwixt ample 
 courtyards in front, and trim gardens behind. Old 
 trees overshadowed them ; shrubs and flowers in their 
 season adorned them. Hospitality and religion sanc 
 tified them. Now how changed ! 
 
 As we gained the end of the wharf, and entered the 
 inhabited street, Colonel Wyborne seemed scarcely to 
 notice the familiar habitations of his friends on either 
 side, but with a hurried step pressed forward toward 
 the house in which he was born, and which was his 
 home during his brief abode in Boston. It was 
 situated on the right-hand side of the street. It 
 stood on the highest of three terraces of moderate 
 height, and was approached by as many flights of 
 stone steps, guarded on either side by iron balus 
 trades, of the fashion of the beginning of the century. 
 The grounds on either side were planted with ever 
 greens, and numerous trees of ornament and shade. 
 A heavy iron gate admitted you within the court 
 yard. The house itself was of brick, painted of a 
 cream-color, Corinthian pilasters reaching from the 
 ground to the eaves, and with grotesque faces looking 
 from the tops of the windows. 
 
 When we had reached the house, our venerable 
 companion paused in manifest emotion. For a mo 
 ment he laid hold of the iron bars of the gate for 
 support ; but his spirits soon rallied, and he regarded
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 135 
 
 the happy home of his childhood and of his married 
 life with sad composure. Strangers now inhabited 
 those apartments which were associated with his 
 earliest memories. Other children played in the 
 grounds which were his childish empire. Other 
 hearts which he knew not, and which knew not him, 
 were happy in the charities of domestic life within 
 those walls that had witnessed his happiest days. 
 Long he stood gazing upon that beloved home. He 
 seemed to forget our presence, and to be in the midst 
 of another age and a former generation. I have 
 witnessed many strange scenes in the course of my 
 pilgrimage ; but none that I have seen returns upon 
 my memory so often, or seems so extraordinary, as 
 that moonlight walk. The attenuated form and 
 pallid features of our friend might well have befitted 
 an inhabitant of another world, returned to revisit 
 by the glimpses of the moon the spot on earth he 
 loved the best. The superstition which believes that 
 the spirits of the departed hover over those places 
 loved while on earth is one which even enlightened 
 natures have loved to indulge ; but it is a chimera 
 born of ignorance and fear. The blessed spirit 
 which has put off " the vesture of decay," and bro 
 ken the fleshy chain that linked it to earth, yearns 
 not for the little point of space around which its 
 mortal affections clustered. If it ever returns to this 
 visible sphere, it is the chambers of the human heart 
 that it haunts ; it is the beloved souls yet in 
 prison that it visits, and strengthens for the strug-
 
 136 AN OCTOGENAEY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 gles of earth, which are to fit them for the crowns 
 of heaven. 
 
 As we stood gazing at the old mansion, a female 
 form with a light in her hand passed across one of 
 the windows, thus giving us assurance that the house 
 was yet tenanted by more material forms than those 
 of memory and fancy. The circumstance seemed to 
 strike palpably upon Colonel Wyborne's heart, and 
 to give vitality, as it were, to his dream of the past. 
 It seemed for a moment as if he had only to open the 
 door, and to walk into the midst of his long-buried 
 household joys. But the mood soon passed away, and 
 he slowly turned his fixed regard from his former 
 home, and, resuming his hold upon his companions, 
 proceeded up the street. He now observed on either 
 hand the former residences of his early friends, every 
 one of which had passed into other hands, through the 
 lapse of time, or the chances and changes of the Eev- 
 olution. He paused to contemplate the old Town 
 House (then the State House), which was and is 
 full of the memory of old colonial quarrels between 
 the royal Governors and their Legislatures, and of 
 the machinery which set the ball of the Revolution in 
 motion. This historic edifice still stands, as little 
 changed as could be expected when we know that it 
 is at the mercy of a civic board. 
 
 We then stopped for a moment before the Old 
 Brick Church, almost opposite the Town House, and 
 surveyed with reverence the oldest building erected 
 by our fathers for the worship of God. We then
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 137 
 
 passed along Cornhill to the Province House, then 
 degraded from being the residence of the representa 
 tives of royalty to some plebeian use, but still stand 
 ing, unshorn of any of its externals of rank. The 
 trees still waved in the courtyard ; and the iron fence 
 which had surrounded it for more than a century still 
 seemed to tell the vulgar to keep their distance. 
 Many a festive image was called up before the mind's 
 eye of our companion by the sight of this scene of 
 provincial grandeur. 
 
 We then continued our walk until we came to the 
 house of my good aunt Champion, which had received 
 him and his bride under its hospitable roof on his first 
 arrival from Europe. This was almost the only one 
 of all the habitations of his many kindred and friends 
 which had not passed into strange hands. The sight 
 of its well-remembered walls seemed for a moment to 
 shake his resolution of returning to his retirement 
 without revealing his presence to any of his friends. 
 But the settled habit of seclusion was stronger than 
 his wish to see his dear old friend. The thought, too, 
 of the twenty years which had elapsed since they had 
 met, perhaps brought to his mind the changes which 
 years had worked in both of them, which would 
 make their last interview on the shore of time one of 
 melancholy emotions as well as of sad recollections. 
 We then proceeded across the Common to the foot 
 of Beacon Hill, a natural monument, which in an 
 evil hour was torn from its firm base, and buried in 
 the sea, to glut the insane cravings of the monster
 
 138 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 speculation, which threatens to swallow up our 
 land. 
 
 At this distance of time I cannot recall all the 
 particulars of our midnight ramble. I remember 
 pausing to see the princely mansions of the Bowdoins, 
 Faneuils, the Vassals, sleeping in the moonlight. 
 Opposite the Faneuil House was the King's Chapel 
 churchyard, in a distant corner of which slumbered 
 whatever remained of Maria Wyborne. The gate 
 was locked, so that we could not enter the gloomy 
 precinct ; but Colonel Wyborne pointed out to us the 
 spot with an almost cheerful air, as he added, 
 
 " But a few days, and the gates of the resting-place 
 of my fathers will close forever on the last of their 
 race." 
 
 We visited, too, the North End, then as now the 
 most populous portion of the town ; and as we 
 threaded its narrow streets, many well-known thresh 
 olds greeted the eyes of the time-worn pilgrim, 
 which he had often passed in gay or in serious mood. 
 Passing hastily by them, however, and stopping but 
 a moment before the former residence of Cotton 
 Mather, his early pastor, we hastened back to the 
 wharf through some of the devious lanes which Colo 
 nel Wyborne seemed to remember as distinctly as if 
 he had passed through them but yesterday. He 
 seemed exhausted by the fatigue of the unusual walk 
 and by the conflicting emotions which agitated his 
 soul We emerged into King Street from an alley 
 about opposite his house. He stood earnestly look-
 
 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 139 
 
 ing his last at the place he loved so well, and then 
 turned sadly away to return to the home of his de 
 clining years. His heart seemed too full for words ; 
 but, as he slowly walked down the wharf, he pressed 
 my arm, and said almost inarticulately, 
 
 " Tell my dear friend, Mrs. Champion, what I have 
 done and seen to-night, and tell her that I shall spend 
 the remainder of my few days in more content and 
 satisfaction for this night's ramble. The earnest 
 longing of my heart to see once more these beloved 
 scenes is satisfied, and I shall die content." 
 
 When we had reached the spot where our boat was 
 in waiting, my revered friend tenderly embraced me 
 in his aged arms, and, giving me a tremulous " God 
 bless you ! " sunk into his place, and supported him 
 self on the shoulder of his faithful servant. Mr. 
 Armsby took his leave with a cordial grasp of the 
 hand, and hastened to assume his seat. The oars fell 
 with a sudden plash into the water, and the boat was 
 soon gliding over the waves far from the shore. I 
 stood and watched its departing course as long as the 
 flashing of the oars in the moonbeams indicated its 
 pathway. At length nothing was to be seen but the 
 gleaming of the moonlight on the waves, and I turned 
 away in an inexplicable frame of mind, in which it 
 seemed to me as if I \vere but just awaking from a 
 strange mysterious dream. 
 
 I returned up the street, with my portmanteau in 
 my hand, and after some difficulty procured admission 
 at the Bunch of Grapes, a hostelry of no mean fame
 
 140 AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE. 
 
 in its day. The next day I spent with my good aunt 
 Champion, whose faith was hardly sufficient to make 
 her credit my story of her old friend having actually, 
 but a few hours before, been looking up at her win 
 dows. Before night, I returned to my chambers at 
 Cambridge, with a fund of cheerful and of sadder 
 images over which to brood at leisure, and which, at 
 the end of half a century, still return in clearest 
 vision upon my memory whenever I call to mind 
 my visit to AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT; 
 
 A TRADITION OF THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " "D Y Jove, the ghost has a good taste in quarters ! " 
 -* ' exclaimed the young Captain Hazlehurst, as 
 he stood with his back to a rousing fire (in " a gentle 
 manly attitude," like Mrs. Todgers), and complacently 
 surveyed the comfortable apartment of which he had 
 just taken possession. And indeed there were few 
 gentlemen of his rank in his Majesty's army that 
 were better lodged than he. It was a spacious room, 
 on what Americans call the second, and Englishmen 
 the first, floor of a large old-fashioned house, situated 
 in a narrow street leading out of Hanover Street, far 
 down in the depths of the " North End " of Boston. 
 The house had been the residence of a patriotic gen 
 tleman, who had found it convenient to take his 
 departure in such speed from the town, as the siege 
 was fast enclosing it in its iron embrace, that he had 
 left all his furniture and appliances of luxurious life 
 behind him as they stood. Several officers of higher 
 rank than its present occupant had successively in-
 
 144 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 habited it, but, on one pretence or another, they had 
 all of them in succession exchanged it for other quar 
 ters. They gave no credit, not they, to the foolish 
 stories which were rife among the common people 
 and the soldiery, to the discredit of the character of 
 the house. They begged it might be understood that 
 it was no superstitious folly that caused the shifting 
 of their quarters ; but then, it was too far from parade, 
 or it was in too confined a situation, or the kitchen 
 chimney smoked, or there was some other very suffi 
 cient reason for the removal. 
 
 And let no one think the worse of those gallant 
 gentlemen, if their actual motives did not exactly 
 correspond with these plausible pretences. Many a 
 hero has been afraid to go to bed in the dark, and 
 many a fire- eater, who would storm a battery of 
 cannon without flinching, might be frightened out of 
 his wits by a white sheet and a drag-chain. At least 
 it was so in the good old times, before ghosts were 
 snubbed, and sent to Coventry ; when they were 
 welcomed with a fearful joy to the drawing-room fire 
 side, and before they were injuriously driven thence, 
 first to the nursery, and thence again to the servants' 
 hall, and at last reduced to scour out kettles, on their 
 knees, with the fat, foolish scullion in the kitchen. 
 Dear souls, you are a much abused generation ! It 
 is no wonder that you are cowed, and are ashamed to 
 show your faces in good company. Confound this 
 inarch of mind ! It has hardly left us a good com 
 fortable superstition to our backs J
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 145 
 
 Be this as it may, there stood the gallant Captain 
 Hazlehurst, looking round upon his new domain. 
 And a comfortable-looking domain it was, as I said 
 before. The walls were panelled in longitudinal com 
 partments, each bordered with the " egg-aud-anchor " 
 carvings in which the souls of our forefathers de 
 lighted. Two portraits adorned the side of the room 
 opposite the fireplace : one, of a beautiful girl of eigh 
 teen, of that peculiar style which combines dark 
 flashing eyes with blond hair, the exquisite glow 
 of whose skin, and the inimitable finish of whose 
 point-lace ruffles could have owned no other hand 
 than Copley's ; and the other, an elderly gentleman, 
 in a full-bottomed wig, and formal cataract of cravat 
 pouring down over his laced waistcoat, plainly the 
 work of an earlier and an inferior artist. Between 
 the windows on your left, as you turned what Lord 
 Castlereagh used to call " a back front " to the fire, 
 was a tall mirror, in a frame of tarnished gold, sur 
 mounted by a bird of nondescript characteristics, 
 which a naturalist might class with eagles, with peli 
 cans, or with herons, at his pleasure. Beneath the 
 glass, stood a low, curiously carved chest of drawers, 
 the handles and key-holes flashing back the fire from 
 their glittering brasses. Upon this stood a Japan, or 
 rather a Chinese dressing-case, with curious drawers 
 in the centre, and comical little doors at the sides, 
 and gold mandarins, " with women's faces," and man- 
 darinesses, " with yet more womanish expressions," 
 taking tea all over it with much contentment, upon 
 10
 
 146 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 a glossy background. Opposite the glass stood the 
 bedstead, none of your modern French abominations 
 stuck upon the side of the wall like a hornet's nest, 
 but a substantial, solid, imposing four-poster, with 
 chintz draperies above, and draperies below, which 
 I am not upholsterer enough to describe. The bed 
 itself puffed up in all the elasticity of feathers, as 
 beds of any character were wont to do, before pail 
 lasses and mattresses came in from France, with 
 Jacobinism and thin potations. The table in the 
 centre of the room was round, of shining mahogany, 
 its edges scalloped, its legs clasping large balls in 
 their claws, as if about to engage in a game of bowls. 
 The chairs were heavy and hair-seated, the backs 
 presenting a sort of mahogany lace-work, of a strange 
 pattern, and unfolding themselves outward at the top 
 in a bell-like expansion. 
 
 And then, if you turn and examine the mantel 
 piece, it will reward your trouble. The curious carv 
 ings of grotesque heads on either side, and the delicate 
 sculpture of fruits and flowers in the centre were the 
 work of no mean artificer. And then the Dutch tiles 
 guarding the orifice of the fireplace ! Heavens ! it is 
 strange that so much piety should have been left to 
 our ancestors, when their earliest ideas of saints and 
 patriarchs were derived from those earthen tablets ! 
 What bandy-legged kings, and dumpy queens ! What 
 squat prophets, and squab apostles ! I see now, in 
 my mind's eye, King David ogling a Bathsheba, from 
 the roof of his house, whose portraiture excited my
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 147 
 
 youthful horror at the taste, rather than at the crime, 
 of his Hebrew majesty. But there they were in blue 
 and white, grim, grisly, and grotesque ; the blazing 
 logs below lighting up their square faces and repair 
 ing their halos with a light not their own. The 
 andirons, too, and the shovel and tongs were well 
 worthy a description ; especially as they are likely 
 soon to become an extinct generation, whose very 
 name will be a puzzle to future antiquaries. 
 
 But my story is waiting for me, and will soon get 
 impatient. Still, you must take a glance at the roar 
 ing wood fire, which goes crackling up the chimney, 
 and acknowledge its superiority over the pitiful grates 
 and subterranean furnaces, which are drying up the 
 present generation to mummies. If flesh be indeed 
 grass, anthracite will soon desiccate the American 
 public into a very creditable hortus siccus. Was there 
 anything else in the room demanding notice ? Oh 
 yes, there was the carpet, a heavy Turkey one, half 
 worn, and evidently promoted, "like a crab, back 
 ward," from the parlor to the best chamber. On 
 either side of the fireplace was a closet, each with a 
 window and a window-seat, the one on the right-hand 
 side large enough to contain a bed for the Captain's 
 servant, who had stipulated for this arrangement 
 before consenting to accompany his master to a house 
 of so dubious a reputation. 
 
 " By Jove, the ghost has a good taste in quarters ! " 
 exclaimed Captain Hazlehurst, rubbing his hands, and 
 then giving them one gentle pat together, expressive
 
 148 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 of infinite content. "It is certainly much to his 
 credit to prefer such snug lodgings as these to 
 a mouldy church-yard or a damp, dilapidated old 
 ruin." 
 
 Then drawing up the easiest of the chairs to the 
 front of the fire (it is a strange instinct which always 
 tells a man which chair is the easiest !) he established 
 one foot on either andiron, and resigned himself to 
 the comforts of his situation in an attitude rather 
 redolent of ease than grace. But a handsome young 
 fellow of two-and-twenty may twist his limbs into 
 any posture without much danger of criticism. 
 
 And it was a night fitted for the intensest comfort. 
 The wind roared down the chimney ; the snow was 
 dashed against the windows in fitful gusts ; the old 
 elm which overshadowed the house groaned and 
 creaked as it tossed its huge arms about in the storm. 
 Tibullus himself could not have wished for one more 
 congenial to his notions of enjoyment, as he has re 
 corded them in his immortal couplet. Having thus 
 taken a survey of his new dominion, and imbibed as 
 much caloric as his sitting man was fitted to take in, 
 he naturally began to think about his supper. 
 
 " I wonder where that rascal John can be," said he, 
 a little testily ; " he has had time enough to go to the 
 Green Dragon and back again fifty times since he 
 went out. But there he comes," he continued, in a 
 milder tone, as he heard a man's step ascending the 
 stairs ; " but how happened it that I did not hear him 
 open the hall door ? "
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 149 
 
 The steps ascended the stairs slowly and heavily, 
 and then came " tramp, tramp " along the entry, till 
 they appeared to stop at the door of the room. 
 
 " Corne in, can't you ! " called out the impatient 
 Adjutant (for he was adjutant, as well as captain, as 
 you shall presently hear). " What the devil are you 
 stopping for ? " 
 
 Then recollecting that John might by possibility 
 come with both hands full (though fortune never 
 does), he jumped up, and incontinently flung the door 
 open to its utmost capacity of swing. And was not 
 John obliged to him for this timely assistance ? Why, 
 bless you, he was n't there ! No ! Who was there, 
 then ? If anybody, it was that personage well known 
 in the best regulated families by the name of Mr. 
 Nobody. In short, there was nobody there. 
 
 " Whew ! " softly whistled the Captain, " if this is 
 the ghost, he is a heavy-heeled lubber, and it 's hard 
 if I can't catch him, and lay him, if not in the Eed 
 Sea, at least in some of his own claret." 
 
 With these words he took a candle from the table, 
 and a stout regimental cane, such as ofncerswore in 
 those days at drills and off duty, from behind the door, 
 and proceeded coolly to search the hall and the cham 
 bers opening out of it. But it was all to no purpose. 
 The ghost, if it were one, had vanished, and not left 
 so much as a " melodious twang " behind it. 
 
 " It 's very strange," he soliloquized. " Could it be 
 that villain John, making game of me ? If it be 
 but no, it 's impossible ! "
 
 150 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 And the impossibility was soon put beyond a 
 doubt, by a multitudinous stamping and kicking in 
 the porch, such as indicates a return from a walk 
 through a deep snow-storm, and then by a sudden 
 opening of the hall door, which admitted John, and 
 a furious draught of wind and snow by way of accom 
 paniments. The doors above banged to, the Captain's 
 light blew out, and a fresh stamping, kicking, and 
 shaking bore noisy evidence that the new comer was 
 none other than John himself in the flesh. Captain 
 Hazlehurst stole back into his room, not caring to 
 acknowledge the extreme civility of his disembodied 
 visitor, in making him a call so very early after his 
 arrival ; though, in his secret heart, he could not but 
 think him " most infernally polite." He had scarcely 
 resumed his chair and relighted his candle, when 
 the veritable John made his appearance, his shaggy 
 great-coat white with snow, and making altogether a 
 spectral appearance in very good keeping with his 
 whereabouts. 
 
 " Why, John," said his master, " I thought the 
 ghost must have got you, and my supper into the 
 bargain." 
 
 " Oh dear, your honor," cried John, setting down 
 his basket, and taking off his great-coat, " please don't 
 talk in that sort of way. The ghosts are made quite 
 mad-like when they hear themselves made fun of. 
 I was almost afraid to come up those creaking stairs. 
 My grandmother once " 
 
 " Never mind your grandmother just now, John,"
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 151 
 
 interrupted his master, "but let me see what you 
 have got in your basket ; for I am hungry enough to 
 eat a ghost myself, if it should appear in the shape 
 of a boiled scrag of mutton, like the one at Oxford, 
 which was laid by eating him with mashed turnips 
 and melted butter." 
 
 John groaned in spirit at this blasphemy against 
 the powers of the air, as a Methodist may do when 
 some unlucky scapegrace raps out an oath in a stage 
 coach. However, he proceeded to lay a snowy nap 
 kin over the table, and then to produce from his 
 basket a cold chicken, some slices of ham, and bread 
 and butter and cheese, which he duly disposed upon 
 the board. From a yet lower deep he evoked a string 
 of sausages and a dozen potatoes in the prime of their 
 age. With a precision, which showed him to be an 
 old campaigner, he next deposited the potatoes in 
 the ashes upon the hearth, and taking down a small 
 saucepan from the closet, began to fry the sausages, 
 which soon sent up an aromatic perfume, that might 
 well simimon to the presence any spirit yet in the 
 body, whatever its effect might be on one that had 
 shuffled off his mortal coil. When these conjurations 
 were over, he deposited the result w r ith the other 
 comestibles upon the table, and then intimated to his 
 master that there was nothing to wait for. 
 
 While the young soldier was carrying the war 
 with spirit into the enemy's country, his faithful 
 squire was not idle in his yet unfinished vocation. 
 He took down a silver tankard, with a heavy lid
 
 152 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 falling back on its hinges upon the solid handle, and 
 slicing the lemons, and heating the water, and mixing 
 the sugar, and pouring (I grieve to say) the rum, he 
 compounded that insidious concoction with which 
 our sires welcomed the noon, bade farewell to the 
 departing sun, and chased the shades of night. When 
 the ingredients were duly mixed, and the whole made 
 " slab and good," he set it down upon the glowing 
 coals, to acquire a new fire from without to reinforce 
 that within. 
 
 His supper ended, and his libation poured, Hazle- 
 hurst prepared for bed. He could not help revolving 
 the sounds he had heard over in his mind, and he was 
 fully of the opinion that there was some trick designed 
 him by his comrades or some waggish rebels. He 
 thought it was entirely contrary to the etiquette of 
 the spirit-land for its accredited envoys to go creaking 
 about in clouted, hob-nailed shoes, like a live plough 
 man. " Gliding," " skimming," " floating," " sailing," 
 he well knew to be the appropriate mode of ghostly 
 locomotion, but as to stamping and dumping, he 
 believed them to be unworthy of any goblin of good 
 breeding and a Liberal education. So he was resolved 
 to be upon his guard. John lingered about his mas 
 ter's toilet as long as he could, and seemed loath to 
 depart. 
 
 " And so your honor does n't believe there is any 
 ghost at all ? " he suggested. 
 
 " Ghost ! " his master responded, as he untied his 
 right garter, "I believe there's no ghost but has a
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 153 
 
 head to be broken, and a hinder man to be kicked ; 
 and so I advise all such gentry to keep out of my 
 reach !" 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! I wish your honor would n't talk in 
 that sort of way. My grandmother " 
 
 "Plague take your grandmother," cried the Cap 
 tain peevishly, slipping his left leg out of his scarlet 
 unmentionables (they called them breeches in those 
 days), " you are half a granny yourself. I tell you 
 no ghost will dare to come within the reach of these 
 magic circles" pointing as he spoke to the muzzles 
 of his pistols ; " if they do, they '11 find that there is 
 a spell in them that will soon send them packing to 
 the Eed Sea." 
 
 He spoke thus in a raised tone of voice, and then 
 cocked and uncocked his pistols, that his words and 
 their " strange quick jar " might fall upon the ears of 
 the walls, if, peradveuture, as often happens, they 
 were provided with them. 
 
 " But, Lord bless you ! what good will they do, 
 sir ? " persisted John. " I heard of a ghost once that 
 caught a brace of bullets in his hand, and flung them 
 back in the gentleman's face that fired them at 
 him." 
 
 " Then, I shall save my lead, at any rate," rejoined 
 the Captain, laughing ; " but to bed with you, for I 
 am tired and sleepy." With these words he turned 
 into bed, and the unlucky John, after replenishing the 
 fire, and clearing away the things, was fain to do 
 likewise.
 
 154 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 But though Captain Hazlehurst pretended to be 
 asleep, he was never more broad awake in his life. 
 He lay for a good while watching the flickering phan 
 toms which danced in the light of the wood fire upon 
 the panels of his chamber. And then he thought a 
 multitude of thoughts, for there are no such promoters 
 of thought as night and watchfulness. The steps 
 which he had heard in the evening certainly sug 
 gested some of his meditations ; but he was not su 
 perstitious, and believed they appertained to some 
 being of flesh and blood, whom it was his business 
 not to be afraid of. As he had seen the door carefully 
 bolted, and had, beside, double-locked it and put the 
 key under his pillow, he felt tolerably secure from 
 any visitants, other than such as might make their 
 entrance through the keyhole, without some sufficient 
 warning of their approach. These thoughts, then, 
 soon vanished from his mind, and his imagination 
 was soon a thousand leagues away, disporting itself 
 in the glades of the park of his ancestors, watching 
 the deer in the fern, the swans on the stream, or the 
 whirring coveys as they rose from the cover. There 
 he saw himself, and perhaps a fairer form or two, 
 wandering through its paths, or sitting at the foot of 
 its old trees, in the light of that farewell sun which 
 ever sheds a Claude-like glow around our last day at 
 home, when we live it over again in other days and 
 distant climes. 
 
 And, perhaps, the scene changed to his ancestral 
 hall, and it was evening, and the lights shone bright
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 155 
 
 upon his father's erect form and thoughtful face, upon 
 his mother's placid brow and calm smile, upon the 
 manly figures of his brothers, and the graceful shapes 
 of his sisters, as lie saw them all on the night before 
 his departure for America. And there were those 
 other forms, too,' that had been with him in the park 
 (who were not exactly sisters, but who would have 
 been almost as much missed from the dream-circle as 
 they) ; they were there, too, and he was leading down 
 with them the contra-dance (for, alas ! the waltz, and 
 even the quadrille, then were not), with interludes in 
 the intervals of the dance, which are very well to 
 dream about, but which it would be a breach of the 
 confidence reposed in me to reveal. And then he 
 thought, too, of the charming, the perplexing Clara 
 Forrester, his latest flame (for I grieve to say that my 
 hero was un pcu volage'), who had made more of an 
 impression upon him than he cared to admit, even to 
 himself, was within the power of a provincial beauty. 
 His visions, however, grew more and more indistinct, 
 and, like many a sleepless lover before him, he was 
 soon sound asleep. 
 
 He had not been long asleep when he was aroused 
 by a hurried shake, and a gasping entreaty to awake. 
 He instinctively seized his pistols, and was near 
 putting them to their natural uses without fur 
 ther inquiry, when he was stopped by the voice of 
 John. 
 
 " Don't fire, Captain don't fire, your honor. It 's 
 the ghost the ghost ! "
 
 156 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 "D-n the ghost!" exclaimed the Captain, pro 
 voked, as gentlemen are apt to be, at being waked out 
 of their first sleep, " I 've a great mind to make a 
 ghost of you, you blockhead." 
 
 " But don't you hear him, your honor ? " cried John, 
 in an agony of terror, " don't you hear him walking 
 about over our heads, as if " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, can't you, and let me listen," 
 said his master, whose attention was thoroughly 
 aroused by this intimation of the character of the 
 ghostly visitation. He listened, and heard the same 
 heavy tread, stepping backward and forward, with 
 slow and measured step, in the chamber directly over 
 his head. 
 
 " Give me my cloak, you villain," exclaimed Hazle- 
 hurst, as he leaped out of bed and ensconced his feet 
 in his slippers, " and light the candle and come along 
 with me." 
 
 " And where are you going, sir ? " inquired John, 
 with woe-begoue face and chattering jaws. 
 
 " Going ? " was the reply. " Why to see who it is 
 that is making that infernal noise upstairs, and make 
 him choose some other place for his promenade." 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! your honor, pray don't pray don't ! 
 perhaps he '11 fly away with the side of the house if 
 we provoke him." 
 
 "Never mind," replied the Captain coolly, "the 
 house don't belong to me. But make haste, and 
 come along." 
 
 " Oh ! but I am afraid to go, indeed I am ! Pray,
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 157 
 
 don't go, sir, for God's sake ! I shall die if I go, in 
 deed I shall." 
 
 "Then stay, and be" blessed, the Captain would 
 probably have said, as he snatched the caudle which 
 John had just lighted out of his hand, had he not in 
 terrupted him to say that if he were resolved to go, 
 he would go with him, as he was a good deal more 
 afraid to be left alone. 
 
 " Come along, then," said the Captain, as he led the 
 way, a pistol in one hand and his sword in the other, 
 followed by John with the candle up the creaking 
 staircase. 
 
 Beader, was it ever thy hap to be awakened in the 
 dead of the night by a mysterious noise in the kitchen ? 
 and, urged by the instances of thy wife or sister, hast 
 thou descended, poker-armed, to the eerie spot ? I 
 doubt not thou art a valiant man, a proper fellow of 
 thy hand, but tell me true (for doth not an author 
 stand to his reader in the relation of a father confes 
 sor ? Fear not that I shall betray the secrets of the 
 confessional !), did not thy manly heart go pit-a-pat as 
 thou approachedst the fatal door and puttedst thy 
 hand upon the lock, the turning of which might reveal 
 to thy sight a ferocious band of robbers, whiskered to 
 the eyes and armed to the teeth ? And didst thou 
 not wish in thy secret soul that thy desire to appear 
 a man of prowess in the eyes of thy womankind had 
 suffered thee to lie quietly, with thy head covered in 
 the bed-clothes, saying unto thyself, " Lo ! is it not the 
 wind ? " And when, on opening the door with a des-
 
 158 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 perate thrust, thou hast discovered a whiskered robber, 
 indeed, and one well-armed, but of the feline, not 
 felon, race, with her head stuck in the cream-jug, its 
 milky whiteness on her sable fur testifying to her 
 crime, and a heap of upturned trays bearing evidence 
 to her desperation, didst thou not feel thy bosom's 
 lord sit lightly on his throne, and didst thou not re 
 ceive the gratulations of thy fair instigators, and sip 
 thy creamless coffee the next morning, with more 
 contentment than if thou hadst sacrificed to thy in 
 sulted household gods a hecatomb of burglarious var- 
 lets ? If such has ever been a part of thy experience, 
 thou canst appreciate the sensations of master and 
 man as they ascended with noiseless step the stairs 
 which led to the next floor. 
 
 Pardon this digression, dear reader. Your confes 
 sions in the premises shall be sacredly kept secret. 
 But it was necessary for the due preservation of the 
 unities (for which I am an Aristotelian stickler), that 
 my characters should have time to get upstairs. As 
 they approached the door the steps ceased suddenly, 
 as if the owner of them had paused to listen. Who 
 could he be ? It clearly could not be the cat. For, 
 first, they had no cat; and, secondly, no cat could 
 have made such a fearful tramping, unless, indeed, it 
 had been the prime minister of the Marquis of Cara- 
 bas, the redoubtable Puss in Boots himself. 
 
 I have the greatest tenderness for my hero's repu 
 tation, but my duty as a faithful historian obliges me 
 to say that there was the slightest possible nervous
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 159 
 
 contraction of his left arm as he seized the lock of the 
 door, to throw it open, having slipped his sword under 
 his arm to enable him to do it. He had led his com 
 pany up Bunker's Hill without flinching, to be sure, 
 but this was an entirely different case. There is a 
 wide range allowable to tastes in the matter of throat- 
 cutting, as well as in the rest of the fine arts. A man 
 may be ready enough to submit to this elegant deple 
 tion on a field of battle, with all the enlivening con 
 comitants of such a scene, who might reasonably 
 object to the operation at the top of an old house, in 
 the middle of the night. 
 
 However this might be, he flung open the door to 
 its utmost extent, at the same moment recovering his 
 sword and presenting his pistol. He was prepared 
 for the worst, and resolved to encounter the enemy in 
 whatever shape he might appear. He presented a 
 figure at once civil and military ; his night-cap, and 
 night-gown fluttering under his cloak, fairly repre 
 senting the toga, while the " sword and pistol, which 
 did come at his command," as at that of the celebrated 
 Billy Taylor, might well stand for the arma, for 
 making which last yield to the first, Tully was so 
 well quizzed by the Edinburgh Reviewers of his day. 
 There he stood, ready to kill, slay, and destroy any 
 and every antagonist, however formidable. And for 
 whom was all this energy so well got up ? Who was 
 the object upon whom this well-cooked wrath was to 
 be bestowed ? Bless you, nothing at all ! The very 
 identical Mr. Nobody who had walked up stairs early
 
 160 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 in the evening, and stopped at the door below on his 
 way up ! There was no sign of any mortal creature 
 near! 
 
 " The devil ! " exclaimed the Captain, as he lowered 
 the point of his sword and the muzzle of his pistol, 
 and drew a long breath. 
 
 " Lord ! sir, don't mention him, or perhaps he '11 
 come back again," ejaculated the trembling John, 
 who was peeping, with a foolish face of fear, over 
 his master's shoulder. 
 
 " It is very strange ! " monologized that gentleman. 
 " What can be the meaning of it ? " And stepping 
 gently into the room he examined it and its closets 
 with all care, but without any clue to the mystery. 
 
 But just as he had completed his search, probing 
 the darker recesses with his sword, " and wounding 
 several shutters and some boards," without any satis 
 factory result, his attention was arrested by a tre 
 mendous crash in the room below. One leap brought 
 him to the door of the room, two more to the head of 
 the stairs, and a hop, skip, and jump in addition, to the 
 door of his own chamber. And there he saw a scene 
 of confusion which might well have roused the ire 
 of Moses, the meekest, or of Job, the most patient, of 
 men. The bed-clothes were stripped off the bed, 
 and coiled up on the floor like a spectral boa con 
 strictor. The andirons lay lovingly together on the 
 top of the deserted bed. The tongs bestrode, like a 
 Colossus, the dressing-case on the chest of drawers 
 under the glass, while the shovel seemed to regard
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 161 
 
 its old companion's exploit with a chuckling laugh of 
 satisfaction, from the easy-chair in the corner of the 
 room. And to complete the scene, the table in the 
 centre of the room was overturned, and, with all its 
 miscellaneous contents of books, glasses and etceteras, 
 lay in one wide heap of ruin upon the floor. 
 
 All this was not at first visible, as the fire was 
 almost out, and panting John toiled after his master, 
 if not in vain, at least so slowly as to put him entirely 
 out of patience. But when the candle came, and the 
 chaos was revealed, who shall paint the rage of the 
 master or the dismay of the man ? " The devil ! " 
 exclaimed the choleric Captain, with added emphasis, 
 and I am afraid I must allow that he made use of 
 other expletives of more significance and weight, as 
 he danced about the apartment in a most heroic pas 
 sion. For it is a melancholy fact that the British 
 armies did " swear terribly " in America in Captain 
 Hazlehurst's day, even as they did " in Flanders " in 
 that of Captain Shandy. If the recording angel 
 undertook to write down all the oaths the gallant 
 Captain uttered, he must have gone nigh to have 
 written up his wings ; and if, in consideration of the 
 provocation, he should have attempted to drop a tear 
 upon every one of them, to blot it out forever, he 
 must have infallibly cried his eyes out. Whatever 
 may have been the proceedings in Heaven's chancery, 
 I am afraid that just where he was, Captain Hazle- 
 hurst would have maintained that he felt the better 
 for the effort. 
 
 11
 
 162 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 But, be that as it may, as soon as his first trans 
 ports of anger and amazement were over, the Captain 
 made a minute examination of the chamber and the 
 house, but without finding any trace of the perpe 
 trator of these deeds. He was all the more convinced 
 that he was made the victim of a practical joke, as 
 he could not believe such pranks worthy the gravity 
 of disembodied, or the dignity of "evil spirits ; but he 
 could not refuse to allow that the joke, if it were 
 one, was well done. Poor John, on the other hand, 
 whose notions of the moral or the social proprieties 
 of the inhabitants of a world he knew very little 
 about, were much less exalted than his master's, laid 
 the whole blame upon their airy shoulders. It was 
 as much as he could do to command himself suffi 
 ciently, after the Captain had finished his researches, 
 to put the room to rights again, fearing lest some 
 spectral hand should resent his interference with the 
 admired disorder it had created. But no such dis 
 pleasure was manifested, and after the bed had been 
 readjusted, the Captain retired to it again, marvelling 
 much at the events of the night. He lay long awake 
 pondering upon them, and neither he nor his man 
 fell asleep till the neighboring clock had told that the 
 small hours were fast growing into the larger ones. 
 It is no wonder, then, that they overslept themselves, 
 and that, when he awoke, his curiosity as to his 
 adventures of the night should be merged for the 
 moment in his fears of being late at the morning 
 parade. His hurry would allow no time for remark
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 163 
 
 from his attendant, whose mind was full of nothing 
 else, while the business of the toilet was proceeding. 
 Captain Hazlehurst, however, found time to enjoin it 
 upon John, as he was giving the last sprinkle of 
 powder to his plastered and pigtailed head, to say 
 nothing about the night's adventures, as he valued 
 his favor, till he had his permission. His determina 
 tion was, he said, to sift the matter thoroughly, and, 
 in the mean time, he wished no reports to be spread 
 of what had happened, as it might interfere with his 
 investigation. With these injunctions he left the 
 mortified John in great vexation, as he had been 
 reckoning on the pleasures of telling the ghost story 
 as his only compensation for his fright, and hurried 
 with all the speed he could command to the parade- 
 ground on the Common.
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 " "\/"C)U were late at parade this morning, Captain 
 
 -* Hazlehurst," said Lord Percy to his young 
 adjutant, as he called for the orders of the day, im 
 mediately after breakfast. 
 
 "I have no excuse to offer, my lord," was the 
 deferential reply, "excepting my removal to new 
 quarters at the other extremity of the town ; for I am 
 afraid that my having overslept myself would be re 
 garded by your lordship as rather an, aggravation 
 than a palliation of my dilatoriuess." 
 
 "To be sure, to be sure," answered his lordship, 
 who was somewhat of a martinet, "but be more 
 careful in future ; that 's all. But where are your 
 new quarters, Hazlehurst?" he continued, his dis 
 ciplinarian gravity relaxing into a friendly smile, for 
 Hazlehurst stood high in his good graces. 
 
 " At Mr. Vaughan's house, at the North End, my 
 lord," responded the Captain. 
 
 " What, the haunted house ! " exclaimed Lord 
 Percy, laughing, " why, you are a bolder fellow than 
 I took you for, my lad. I hope the ghost did the 
 honors of his mansion like a gentleman, and treated 
 you with becoming hospitality."
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 165 
 
 " I had no reason to complain, my lord," was the 
 guarded response. 
 
 " I trust that your oversleeping yourself this morn 
 ing had nothing to do with any nocturnal merry 
 making with any honest fellow of the last generation, 
 or flirtation with any of the rebel grandmothers, who 
 look so temptingly down upon us from some of these 
 old picture-frames," pointing, as he spoke, to some 
 lovely forms with which the pencil of Blackburn 
 had decorated the walls of his parlor. 
 
 " Nothing of the sort, I assure you, my lord," re 
 plied Hazlehurst, " no boon companions and no ladye 
 love, whether in the body or out of the body, had any 
 thing to do with my tardiness this morning, which I 
 shall take care shall not occur again." 
 
 " Eight, right," said the son of " Duke Smithson 
 of Northumberland." "I have every reason to be 
 satisfied with you in every respect. But, by the way, 
 how is Miss Forrester ? " he proceeded, for his lord 
 ship had a discursiveness of discourse, and a talent 
 for knowing all the details of the garrison gossip, 
 which vindicated his hereditary claim to cousinship 
 with royalty. 
 
 "She was well, my lord," answered Hazlehurst, 
 " when I had the honor of seeing her last. But that 
 was not yesterday, nor the day before." 
 
 " Lovers' quarrels lovers' quarrels," said his lord 
 ship, laughingly ; then added, more seriously, " but, 
 my dear Hazlehurst, pardon me if I ask whether you 
 have considered what may be Sir Ealph and Lady
 
 166 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 Hazlehurst's opinion of a New England daughter-in- 
 law, should you be disposed to present them with 
 one ? " 
 
 " I have not given the subject any consideration 
 at all, my lord," replied Hazlehurst quickly, "be 
 cause I have no intention of subjecting them to any 
 such trial at present. I beg that your lordship will 
 give no credit to the talk of the mess-table or of the 
 assembly-room on such subjects, at least where I am 
 concerned. My sword is my bride till this war is 
 over, and I shall suffer no rivals in my affections, of 
 flesh and blood." 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! Hazlehurst," answered Lord Percy ; 
 " these be brave words. Only I hope that you will 
 not have to serve for your bride of steel as long as 
 Jacob did for Laban's daughter. Excuse my caution, 
 which I am glad to know is not wanted. But I ad 
 vise you to do as I used to do when I was addicted 
 to falling in love." 
 
 " How was that, my lord ? " 
 
 "Always to take care to be in love with two or 
 three at the same time. You will find it an excellent 
 rule, I assure you." 
 
 Hazlehurst joined cordially in the laugh with which 
 the stout earl uttered this apothegm, and assured his 
 noble commander that he would not neglect his advice. 
 
 " Here is your orderly book," added his lordship, 
 handing it to him ; "I take it for granted we shall 
 meet at the assembly to-night, where I trust I shall 
 see you reduce my instructions to practice."
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 167 
 
 " Never fear, my lord, but you will find me an apt 
 scholar in love as well as in war. I only wish I 
 could hope to rival your lordship in either service." 
 
 To this his lordship replied only by a good-natured 
 nod, which the adjutant understood to be his signal 
 to take his leave, which he accordingly made haste 
 to do. 
 
 " Confound that Clara Forrester," soliloquized Cap 
 tain Hazlehurst, as he walked slowly along Hanover 
 Street, after he had discharged his regimental duties, 
 " what is there about her that plays the devil with 
 me, in a way that no other woman ever did before ? 
 It can't be her beauty or her accomplishments, for I 
 have seen her superiors in both. I don't know though, 
 on the whole, as to her beauty," he said to himself, in 
 atone of more deliberation. "It's a peculiar style, 
 to be sure, but she 's devilish handsome, there is no 
 doubt about that. And as to her accomplishments, 
 what have they to do with the matter, I should like 
 to know ? It must be this cursed siege, which shuts 
 us all up so close together. Well, I have not been 
 to see her for these three days, and I sha'n't be in a 
 hurry to call on her, after her flirtation with that 
 puppy Bellassis, I can tell her. She shall see that I 
 am not dependent upon her, that I 'm resolved upon." 
 
 As the gallant Captain had just made this valiant 
 resolution, he found himself opposite the house of the 
 Hon. James Forrester, one of his Majesty's council, 
 &c., &c. This house was situated in Hanover Street, 
 just before you come to the turning into Duke Street,
 
 168 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 in which were Hazlehurst's quarters. For in those 
 days you must know that the North End was (par 
 don the Hibernianism, my maternal grandfather was 
 an Irishman) the West End of the town. There did 
 the great body of the colonial court and aristocracy 
 reside. Far be it from me to insinuate that this cir 
 cumstance of juxtaposition was any element in the 
 determination of the Captain to take up his new quar 
 ters. But so it was. And as he accidentally raised 
 his eyes to the window of Mr. Forrester's house, just 
 as he was internally ejaculating the doughty resolution 
 just recited, he caught a glimpse of a pair of sunny 
 eyes smiling upon him from between two flowering 
 shrubs, which stood upon the window seat, and the 
 next minute he was standing in the porch thundering 
 away at the knocker. 
 
 People may say what they please about dreary- 
 dilapidated houses, haunted by old dead men, but if 
 I had a young son, or nephew, or ward (which, God 
 be praised, I have not), I should warn them to avoid 
 the bright and cheerful homes haunted by young live 
 women. These are the haunted houses to be afraid 
 of. And, no doubt, they would take my advice. At 
 least, I am sure I did whenever my grandfather, or 
 uncle, or aunt gave me any such admonitions, "in 
 my hot youth, when George the Fourth was King." 
 " Never mind the old witches," a gentleman celebrated 
 in civil and military life, of the last generation, used 
 to say, when speaking of the witches of his native 
 town of Salem, " never mind the old witches, it is
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 169 
 
 the young witches that do all the mischief ! " And 
 I incline to think that he was more than half 
 right. 
 
 I have a great mind to seize upon the opportunity, 
 while my hero is waiting for the knocker to be 
 answered, to give my friendly readers some account 
 of him. I have been waiting for a chance to put in 
 a word on the subject ever since I began. But the 
 tide of events has swept me on with such resistless 
 force that I have not had a moment to take breath. 
 Indeed, my plan is epic. I have plunged in medias 
 res, and it is about time for the hero, sitting over his 
 wine with his mistress, or some Phoenician Amphi 
 tryon, to relate his birth and parentage, "his breed, 
 seed, and generation," and all the surprising adven 
 tures that had preceded his appearance in their 
 domains. But lest I should find no passage recorded 
 iu this true history to that effect, I think I will fill up 
 this pause in the march of the story with the little I 
 know of his previous history. And little enough it 
 is. If any reader asks me for his story, I can only 
 answer in the words of the knife-grinder 
 
 " Story ! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir ! " 
 
 My hero then, in short, bore the baptismal and 
 patronymic appellations of Charles Hazlehurst. He 
 was the eldest son of a Somersetshire baronet. He 
 was six feet high, with broad shoulders, a deep chest, 
 and a clean leg. I can't tell you the color of his hair, 
 for I never saw it without that powder which has
 
 170 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 passed away with so many of the virtues and graces 
 of the last age. 
 
 " God bless their pigtails, though they 're now cut off! " 
 
 When to this I add that he had a round, ruddy face, 
 clear blue eyes, and the most perfect of teeth, I trust 
 my readers will take my word for it that he was as 
 dangerous a Cupidon dechaine as ever disguised him 
 self in a red coat and breeches, wore epaulets in 
 stead of wings, and used a regimental sword for a 
 bow and arrows. In addition to this you will please 
 to remember that he was but two-and-twenty, which 
 is an essential item in the inventory of his perfec 
 tions. I am well aware that objection will be made 
 to his claims as a lady-killer, on the score of his rosy 
 cheeks and blue eyes. But you should recollect, my 
 dear madam, that your thin, black-eyed, sinister- 
 looking, " sublime, sallow, Werter-faced men " had 
 not then come into fashion. And so you must excuse 
 the taste of your grandmothers, who thought health 
 and good humor main ingredients in manly beauty. 
 As to the number of times he had been in love, I am 
 unable to say with anything like accuracy, as I have 
 not as yet received returns from all the towns where 
 he went on the recruiting service, or was stationed 
 in garrison, before his regiment was ordered to 
 America. Should they arrive in time, I shall add 
 them in an appendix, reduced to a tabular form for 
 convenience of reference. If there is anything on 
 which I do pride myself, it is the business-like man 
 ner in which I do up my work.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 171 
 
 So much for love; and now for war. He had 
 " fleshed his maiden-sword," figuratively, for he 
 did n't kill anybody, at the modern Chevy Chase of 
 
 Lexington, 
 
 " Made by the Earl Percy." 
 
 He attracted attention by his good conduct on that 
 unlucky occasion, but he chiefly distinguished him 
 self at the battle of Bunker's Hill. On that famous 
 day he led his company up the hill, under the mur 
 derous fire of the rebels, twice, his captain having 
 been killed in the first attempt to dislodge the enemy 
 from their entrenchments. As a reward for his gal 
 lantry on that occasion, he obtained his captaincy ; 
 and, the adjutant of his regiment being killed at the 
 same time, and the number of officers being sadly 
 reduced by the fatal aim of the American marksmen, 
 he was appointed to fill that station also, until other 
 arrangements could be made. 
 
 But it would be cruel to keep him waiting on the 
 steps any longer, in one of the coldest days of that 
 bitter winter. However, he felt warm enough, nor 
 did he feel in any violent hurry to have the door 
 opened. Have you no recollection, my reader, of 
 the queer sensation, after you had rung the bell at 
 the door of your particular princess, and when you 
 had a feeling as if you might be left to do something 
 desperate, if you got in, with which you awaited the 
 servant's approach, hardly knowing whether to be 
 glad or sorry to hear that she was not at home ? 
 There is nothing like it, unless it be the odd feeling
 
 172 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 when you have rung the bell at the door of your par 
 ticular friend, for the purpose of asking him to accom 
 pany you to the " tribunal of twelve paces," at day 
 break the next morning. But I postpone any further 
 reflections until my chapter on bell-pulls. 
 
 After a rather longer interval than was usual in that 
 well regulated household (I once knew a famous man 
 who used to say that he judged of the domestic man 
 agement of a house by the space which intervened 
 between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the 
 door), the portal was expanded by a particularly ugly 
 negro, whom Hazlehurst did not recollect to have 
 ever seen before about the premises. Upon asking 
 whether Miss Clara were at home, the new porter 
 made an inarticulate sort of sound, which the visitor 
 chose to consider as an affirmative, and walked in 
 without further ceremony. He was left to open the 
 parlor door himself, for the attendant spirit took no 
 further notice of him. He accordingly ushered him 
 self into the comfortable apartment where Miss For 
 rester sat, diffusing an air of cheerfulness throughout 
 it, even beyond that (at least our adjutant thought so) 
 dispensed by the good logs that blazed upon the 
 hearth. The scarlet curtains, the pleasant window- 
 seats, with their velvet cushions, the plants that 
 were placed upon them to catch a glimpse of the 
 wintry sun, the thick Turkey carpet, and all the 
 appointments of the parlor (for in those days draw 
 ing-rooms were not), spoke to the heart that comfort 
 was a word understood in New England at least, if
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 173 
 
 nowhere else beyond the precincts of the fast-anchored 
 isle. 
 
 The front windows looked into the street, as my 
 readers may have partly gathered, and those on 
 either side of the fireplace opened upon a thin slice 
 of garden which extended down to the street, and 
 stretched and expanded itself far behind the house, 
 the shrubs and fruit trees all glittering, to the finest 
 ramifications of their smallest twigs, with the snow 
 which had fallen the night before. On one side of 
 the door, opposite the fireplace, was a large ma 
 hogany book-case, with glass doors and resplendent 
 brasses, containing the library of Miss Forrester, 
 the books bound uniformly and stamped with her 
 name. There was the pabulum upon which our 
 grandmothers nourished their intellectual natures. 
 Good, hearty food, i ' faith ! None of your modern 
 kickshaws which the pastry-cooks of the circulating 
 libraries supply to tickle the palate withal, but solid 
 substantial viands, such as good master cook fur 
 nishes forth to replenish the heart with its best blood. 
 
 There the Spectator sat with his club, in his short 
 face, long wig, rolled stockings and high-cut shoes, 
 over a squat bottle of wine, in the frontispiece of his 
 closely printed twelves. The Tattler, too, was to be 
 seen in his original fine- paper quarto. History, also, 
 there was good store, arid biography, such as those 
 days afforded. And was not Shakspeare there, and 
 Ben Jonson, and Spenser, and Milton ? Sir Charles 
 Grandison, too, looked ready to step down and bow
 
 174 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 over the hand of his fair mistress, so like was the 
 scene to the dear cedar parlor of " the venerable 
 circle." I don't know whether it will do to say it, 
 but so it was, there stood Tom Jones and Joseph 
 Andrews and Eoderick Random and Peregrine 
 Pickle, as bold as lions, alongside of Tristram 
 Shandy, who did not look the least bit ashamed of 
 himself. My fair readers must excuse my heroine 
 for keeping such rollicking company, for they must 
 remember that she had not the privilege they enjoy 
 of the pious conversation of Sir Lytton Bulwer (or 
 Sir Edward Lytton, or whatever title please his ear), 
 or of Monsieur Victor Hugo, or of the epicene 
 George Sand. She had no choice, poor thing; and, 
 upon my word, I never could perceive that she was a 
 jot the worse for their society. In the other corner of 
 the room, answering to that filled up by the book-case, 
 was what was in those days termed a buffet, a closet 
 without doors, with its shelves loaded with the curious 
 old plate, and rare glass and China, which had been 
 accumulating for generations in the family. 
 
 Miss Forrester sat upon a curiously carved settee, 
 with devices of flowers and birds in choice mahog 
 any on the back, which looked like one uncommonly 
 broad-bottomed arm-chair, or, by 'r lady.Jike two sin 
 gle chairs rolled into one, cushioned with green dam 
 ask, and drawn up to the table in the centre of the 
 room, and inclining in an angle of lam not mathema 
 tician enough to tell the exact number of degrees, say 
 forty-five to the fire. Her work-basket was by her
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 175 
 
 side, which she graciously removed to the table, and 
 made room on the settee for Captain Hazlehurst, when 
 he had made his advancing bow, a very different 
 thing, let me tell you, from the shrug and jerk, 
 performed chiefly by the antipodes of the head, with 
 which your modern exquisite " shakes his ambrosial 
 curls and gives the nod," when he enters a room. 
 And when they were sitting there side by side, I 
 protest, I don't believe that there was a handsomer 
 couple in all his Majesty's dominions. Clara Forrester 
 was but I won't describe her. I never could de 
 scribe a pretty woman. And, for that matter, who 
 ever could ? Suffice it to say, she was a blonde, with 
 a profusion of fair hair, I doubt not, but its color was 
 concealed by that plaguy powder ; and yet I can't 
 say the effect was unbecoming to her pure brow, her 
 blooming, downy cheeks, and sweet mouth. And that 
 morning cap had a most coquettish and killing air. 
 
 " And then her teeth, and then, oh Heaven ! her eye ! " 
 
 It was as wicked and roguish an eye as you would 
 wish to see on a winter's day looking into yours by 
 the side of a good fire. And then her hand, and her 
 foot, and her shape ! But I won't go on. If you can't 
 see her, just as she was sitting there, it 's of no use 
 for me to be trying to fit your mind's eye with a pair 
 of spectacles. It 's your fault, and not mine, reader, 
 if you don't see her sitting in that old-fashioned 
 room, in the glittering light of that clear winter morn 
 ing of seventy years ago.
 
 176 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 I don't know how it was, but Hazlehurst had not 
 sat by her side a minute, when he felt all the wrath 
 he had been nursing for three days, to keep it warm, 
 oozing out of the palms of his hands, like Acres's 
 courage, and no more recollected Major Bellassis 
 (whom he had just before, in violation of the articles 
 of war, and of the respect due to his superior officer, 
 irreverently styled a puppy) than if there had been 
 no such dashing sprig of nobility in existence. 
 
 I might give the details of their conversation ; but 
 I don't know that it would be quite fair, as it was 
 communicated to me in confidence. But there was 
 nothing particular, that is, very particular, upon 
 my honor. They talked of the news of the siege, of 
 the advances of the rebels, of the probabilities of re 
 pulsing them. And then they diverged to the small 
 talk of the garrison, the rise and fall of the flirtation 
 stocks, and the variations of the match market. Then 
 they talked of the last review, and of the comical 
 figure that Colonel Cobb, the ci-devant jeune Jwmme, 
 cut when he was thrown from his new horse, and 
 could not get up again, not because he was hurt, but 
 because he was too tightly girt. And the assemblies, 
 too, and the private theatricals, afforded endless topics 
 of mirthful discourse. Though there was not much 
 that was enlivening in the siege itself to those who 
 were shut up in the narrow limits of the beleaguered 
 town, still youth and good spirits would make their 
 way, and find a thousand divertisements for speeding 
 the weary hours. God bless them ! what would this
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 177 
 
 working-day world be without youth and good 
 spirits ? 
 
 " And so I hear," said the fair Clara, at last, when 
 they had pretty well exhausted all the topics which a 
 three days' absence had accumulated, " and so I hear 
 that you have come into our neighborhood. And, 
 pray, how do you like your landlord ?" 
 
 " My landlord ! " exclaimed Hazlehurst in some 
 surprise. " I am as well satisfied with him as a man 
 usually is with himself ; for I am the only landlord 
 that I have to my knowledge, unless indeed it be the 
 quartermaster-general." 
 
 "Ah, you put it off very well!" persisted Miss 
 Forrester; "but be honest now, has not Captain 
 Honeywood paid his respects to you yet ? He is 
 much too fine a gentleman, I am sure, to have 
 neglected it." 
 
 "I have not the honor to understand you, Miss 
 Forrester," replied the Captain. " It was never my 
 chance to hear the gallant Captain's name before. 
 Pray, in what service might he be ?" 
 
 " Oh, in the sea service, you may be sure," 
 answered the lady ; " but did you never hear of the 
 noble Captain, who makes continual claim, as papa 
 says " (papa was a lawyer), " to the Vaughan 
 house ? " 
 
 " Never, upon my honor," protested Hazlehurst. 
 "And I shall feel myself especially obliged if you 
 will introduce me to his acquaintance." 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Clara, laughing, "but 
 12
 
 178 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 I have no objection to talking a little about him 
 behind his back." 
 
 " That is better yet," said Hazlehurst. " It is to 
 be hoped then that his character is bad enough to 
 be well talked over." 
 
 "Bad enough to gratify your warmest wishes, I 
 assure you. I believe he was as wicked an old 
 villain as you could possibly desire to see," replied 
 Clara. 
 
 "Many thanks for the compliment to my taste," 
 answered the Captain, bowing, " but did you ever 
 happen to know this amiable individual ? " 
 
 " Know him ? " cried Clara. " Good Heavens ! why, 
 he 's been dead these sixty-five years ! " 
 
 " Bless me ! " exclaimed Hazlehurst, " dead sixty- 
 five years, and yet lay claim to a good piece of real 
 estate ! What an unconscionable old dog ! I only 
 hope his example will not be very extensively fol 
 lowed." 
 
 " It is to be hoped not," responded the lady, " but 
 if you really do not know about the claimant to 
 your premises, I will tell you all I know about him, 
 which is little enough." 
 
 " You will lay me under everlasting obligations,*' 
 bowed the Captain, as he inclined his ear to her in 
 mock seriousness. 
 
 "Well, then, all I know about him is," resumed 
 Miss Forrester, " that he was a master of a vessel 
 out of this port, some hundred years since, who 
 went to sea, and was gone five or six years with-
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 179 
 
 out any tidings being heard of him. At last, how 
 ever, he returned in a ship from Europe, telling that 
 his vessel was lost in the East Indies, and no soul 
 was saved but himself, who was taken up by a 
 Dutch vessel, and, after various adventures, found 
 his way home again. This story would have done 
 very well, had he not soon made a great display of 
 wealth, among other things building the house in 
 which you (and people do say lie) now reside. This 
 went on for a few years, and by dint of giving good 
 dinners, going regularly to meeting and Thursday 
 lectures, and being eminently liberal to one or two 
 of the most influential ministers, he was getting to 
 be in very good odor with the Boston public. There 
 were those, to be sure, who still marvelled whence 
 he got his wealth. Some thought it must be witch 
 craft, but the majority, more charitable, believed it 
 to be only piracy and murder. Their suspicions 
 were confirmed by the occasional moody and de 
 pressed turns to which Captain Honeywood was 
 subject. People thought that there was something 
 weighing upon his mind. This, however, did not 
 prevent a young lady of one of the chief families 
 from being willing to marry him, and the ceremony 
 was about to be celebrated with all the pomp which 
 the times permitted, when they were prevented by 
 an untoward occurrence. It so happened that the 
 very night before the marriage was to take place, a! 
 sloop of war came into the harbor, with orders to 
 arrest our amiable friend, and carry him to England
 
 180 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 for trial, on a charge of murder and piracy. It 
 seems that a sailor had been arrested for a recent 
 impropriety of this sort, who had purchased his own 
 pardon by revelations touching our valuable towns 
 man. The Captain of the sloop-of-war came up to 
 the Province House, and communicated his orders 
 to Governor Phipps, who, with the sheriff and other 
 officials, proceeded to effect the arrest. But on ar 
 riving at the scene where it was to be completed, 
 they found themselves too late. The bird was 
 flown. They searched the house and the neighbor 
 hood, and offered large rewards, but all was in vain. 
 The Captain was never heard of again. The dis 
 affected in the colony hinted that notice was given 
 to Honeywood, by persons in authority, of the de 
 sign to take him, in time to favor his escape. 
 Others, and this was the opinion of no small num 
 ber, believed that the devil had for once helped a 
 friend upon a pinch, and spirited him away. Some 
 supposed that he had concealed himself in some 
 secret place designed for this emergency in his 
 house, and had there starved to death. At any rate, 
 he was heard of no more. In due time sentence 
 of outlawry was passed upon him, and his house, 
 with his other property, declared forfeited to the 
 crown. When it was sold, and the purchaser took 
 possession of his estate, it was found to be more than 
 the crown of England could do to give him a quiet 
 possession. The pranks that were played, the noises 
 that were heard, the sights that were seen, among
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 181 
 
 them the apparition of the very Captain himself, 
 are not to be told. The intruder was soon forced 
 to quit the premises. All who subsequently ven 
 tured to occupy the house were ejected in a like 
 summary manner. For years it stood untenanted. 
 Property in the street fell in value, and people were 
 afraid to pass through it after nightfall. After many 
 years had elapsed, an elderly man arrived from Eng 
 land, with the avowed intention of spending the rest 
 of his days here. He could not be suited to a house 
 to his mind, and at length pitched upon this deserted 
 one. He bought it at a low price, and, in spite of its 
 ill name, fitted it up for his residence, and there spent 
 the remainder of his days. He shook his head when 
 questioned as to the claims of its former possessor, 
 and gave people to understand that he could tell 
 much if he chose. So the ill-repute of the mansion 
 continued unimpaired. It was a singular fact that he 
 found the lady of the love of the former inhabitant 
 still unmarried, and by some strange coincidence they 
 married each other, and lived together in as much 
 comfort as the ghost of his predecessor would allow. 
 That is his portrait that you may have seen in the 
 chamber over the right-hand parlor" 
 
 "And who,"- interrupted Hazlehurst, "is the young 
 lady in the same room ? " 
 
 " That," replied Clara, " is the portrait of his 
 granddaughter, the only child of his only daughter, 
 the child of his old age, my dear friend Fanny 
 Vaughan. For you must know that after his death
 
 182 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 his heiress married Colonel Vaughan, and this is the 
 way in which the house came into the Vaughan 
 family." 
 
 " And, pray," inquired the Captain, " did this in 
 exorable claimant continue to keep up his claim to 
 his property under the Vaughan dynasty ? " 
 
 " It is so asserted and believed by the common 
 people," said Clara, laughing ; " it would be a pity to 
 spoil so good a story, and any disclaimers on the 
 part of the reigning family have been always re 
 ceived with a proper degree of incredulity. But 
 here ends my story, and I must say that I think it a 
 passably good one." 
 
 As she ceased speaking, she stretched out her hand 
 to the bell-pull and gave it a gentle pressure. Hazle- 
 hurst thanked her gayly for her narrative, which he 
 protested was one of the best authenticated ghost 
 stories he had ever heard. As he was speaking, the 
 same negro who had opened the door for him entered 
 with a salver of wine and cake. 
 
 " Where is James ? " inquired Miss Forrester, with 
 an air of the slightest possible vexation. The serv 
 ant replied by a succession of grotesque gestures, 
 and some sounds which seemed to be unintelligible 
 gibberish to Hazlehurst. 
 
 " Very well," said the young mistress, and dis 
 missed the uncouth attendant. 
 
 "You seem to have a new page of honor," said 
 Hazlehurst, smiling. "I do not think I have ever 
 seen this groom of the chambers before."
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 183 
 
 " No," replied Clara, a little confused at the ex 
 posure of this unseemly appendage to her well-ap 
 pointed household, " I dare say you have not. He 
 never before made his appearance in the parlor when 
 any one was here. I suppose James was sent out by 
 my father. He was a servant of a family that we 
 knew well, and that left the town at the latest allow 
 able instant, in such haste as to leave this faithful 
 follower behind, who happened to be out of the way 
 at the moment. He was the most devoted creature, 
 but is a little unsettled in his intellects, in conse 
 quence of a blow upon the head received in defend 
 ing his master from an attack from some street 
 ruffians late at night. My father found poor Peter 
 in great distress, and took him home out of human 
 ity to himself and friendship to his master. He has 
 been even stranger than usual since he has been 
 with us, in consequence of missing his old friends, 
 but we make him as comfortable as we can." 
 
 " I am sure that it is highly to your honor and 
 that of your father," said Hazlehurst, with feeling ; 
 " but I see that it is about time for me to repair to 
 the mess-room, if I have any regard for my dinner. 
 But before I go," he continued, rising as he spoke, 
 " will you permit me to ask the honor of Miss For 
 rester's hand at the assembly this evening ?" 
 
 The lady smiled an assent, and the young officer 
 took his leave cheerily, and walked up the street 
 towards the Green Dragon with a much better 
 opinion of human nature in general, and of female
 
 184 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 nature in particular, than he had entertained when 
 he walked down it. 
 
 On arriving at the mess-room, he found himself 
 very closely examined as to his experiences of the 
 night before, especially by those officers who had 
 been his predecessors in his quarters. He parried 
 their importunities, however, as adroitly as he could, 
 and kept his own counsel most religiously. He 
 slipped away as soon as he could after the cloth 
 was removed, and hastened home to dream over his 
 morning with the gentle Clara. He found every 
 thing in proper order, and John awaiting his com 
 mands. On interrogation, that worthy asseverated 
 that he had stoutly denied that anything unusual 
 had happened. "He hoped he had not been an 
 officer's servant so long without knowing how to 
 tell a lie upon occasion." 
 
 " Very well, John," said the Captain, " I don't be 
 lieve the truth will suffer in your hands. So you 
 may now go where you please, only be here at six 
 o'clock to dress my hair." 
 
 John departed, and his master sat down to think 
 over the doings and sayings of the morning. He 
 could not but examine the portrait of the former 
 inhabitant of the apartment, and think of the strange 
 thoughts that must have haunted him while he sat 
 in that place; and at the picture of his lovely grand 
 child, and compare her charms with those of her 
 lovely friend, I need scarcely say to whose advan 
 tage. The adventures of the preceding night troubled
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 185 
 
 him not; he was haunted by another and more dan 
 gerous phantom in that solitary chamber. 
 
 At length he was aroused from his revery by a 
 knock at the door, which, when opened, revealed his 
 orderly-sergeant, whom he had directed to come to 
 him at that hour, with the best padlock he could find 
 in Boston, and all its appliances. The man had been 
 a blacksmith, and he soon affixed it with its staple to 
 the door of the room and departed. 
 
 " If the ghost come to-night, while I am gone," 
 said Hazlehurst to himself, " he shall not come in at 
 the door if I can help it ! " 
 
 When John had returned, and the toilet was 
 finished, Captain Hazlehurst proceeded to set forth 
 for Concert Hall, the yet surviving scene of many 
 a pre-revolutionary festivity. He dismissed John 
 with instructions to meet him at the Hall at twelve 
 o'clock. As he was leaving the room, his pocket 
 struck against the side of the door. 
 
 "There's no occasion for carrying my orderly- book 
 with me, that I know of," said he, carelessly, to him 
 self, and, as he spoke, threw it on the table in the 
 centre of the room. He then locked and double- 
 locked the door, and to make assurance doubly sure, 
 applied the padlock, and, with both keys in his 
 pocket, walked cheerily up the street to the scene 
 of action. 
 
 I wish I could indulge my dear readers with a 
 description of that brilliant assembly, but the inexo 
 rable limits of my chapter (which I have already
 
 186 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 overstepped) forbid. You would not have supposed 
 that the scene of that bright and gay festival was in 
 a besieged and straitened town. One of the finest 
 bands in the British service discoursed its sweetest 
 music to inspire the dance. The Hall was admirably 
 lighted, and decorated with flags and other loyal in 
 signia. The Governor, the General commanding the 
 troops, with their brilliant staffs, the officers of the 
 various regiments, comprising many of the younger 
 branches of the best families of England, the prin 
 cipal civil functionaries, and the loyal gentlemen of 
 the town, all in the rich costume of the days when a 
 gentleman was known by his dress, were present. 
 And there, too, were the dashing wives of the mar 
 ried officers, and the flower of the provincial beauty 
 that still remained loyal to its king. The appoint 
 ments of the supper, the plate-chests of the several 
 regimental messes being laid under contribution for 
 the purpose, were of the completest description, and 
 the table was covered with viands and wines which 
 showed that the sea was yet open to the beleaguered 
 army. All was joy and mirth. Every one seemed 
 determined to shake off whatever of despondency 
 the darkening prospects of the siege might urge upon 
 their hearts, and to be happy for at least one night. 
 Ah ! What a glancing of scarlet coats and of gold 
 lace ! What a rustling of damasks and brocades was 
 there ! But of all the brilliant assemblage, I will 
 .maintain it a Voutrance, there was none that sur 
 passed in beauty or in grace my Clara Forrester and
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 187 
 
 her Charles Hazlehurst. It was a blessing to see 
 them glide down the dance, and to look upon their 
 beaming eyes. Lord Percy shook his head, when 
 he saw how his young favorite had taken his advice, 
 and smiled inwardly as he watched them without 
 looking at them. But then it was no concern of his. 
 He had discharged his duty in putting Hazlehurst on 
 his guard. He must now take his own course, on his 
 own responsibility. 
 
 But such evenings (alas! that it should be so!) can 
 not last forever. At a late hour the signal for break 
 ing up was given, and the party dispersed, "shut up 
 in, measureless content." Hazlehurst handed Clara 
 into her carriage, and, I am afraid, found it necessary, 
 as it was a slippery night, to hold her hand rather 
 closely as he performed this duty. I recollect / used 
 sometimes to find it unavoidable. However, she drove 
 off, and Hazlehurst, followed by John, walked down 
 Hanover Street to his quarters. So absorbed was he 
 in his meditations upon the hours just fled, that he 
 thought of neither ghost nor goblin till he found him 
 self at the door of his room. Reminded by the sight 
 of his padlock of the reason of its employment, he 
 said, laughingly, u I flatter myself that I have been 
 rather more than a match for his ghostship to-night ! 
 But we shall see." 
 
 With these words he unlocked his various fasten 
 ings, and, followed by John, made his way into the 
 apartment. A few embers yet glimmered upon the 
 hearth, and John soon lighted the candles. Hazle-
 
 188 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 hurst cast his eyes around the room. Everything 
 was in its proper place and order. He chuckled 
 inwardly at the success of his plan, and rubbed his 
 hands with internal satisfaction. Everything was 
 right, no intruder had been there. He glanced at 
 the table in the centre of the room. He started 
 forward, and gazed upon it yet more earnestly. He 
 stood silent, and motionless with astonishment. BY 
 HEAVEN, THE ORDERLY-BOOK WAS GONE !
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 r I "HE orderly-book was gone ! Death and furies ! 
 -^ What was to be done now ? The pranks of 
 the night before, though, like most practical jokes, 
 more amusing to their perpetrators than to their 
 victims, seemed to have been but the prologue to a 
 more serious jest, one of those jests which are para 
 doxically but truly called " no joke." As long as the 
 ghost was content to confine the overflowings of his 
 animal spirits to new combinations of the tables and 
 chairs, to a novel arrangement of the bed-clothes, or 
 to a summary divorce of the shovel and tongs, his 
 effervescences, if not absolutely agreeable, were at 
 least not positively mischievous. But to meddle 
 with what was none of his business, but, on the con 
 trary, with what was emphatically the business of 
 his Majesty's th regiment, was an entirely differ 
 ent affair. The ghost could not be a loyal ghost, that 
 was plainly to be seen. Old Honeywood, to be sure, 
 had no particular reason to love a government that 
 intended promoting him to the yard-arm, if it could 
 have laid hold of him ; but it was not handsome in 
 him to resort to such a pitiful revenge as this, partic 
 ularly in his own house. It was hardly fair to visit 
 the sins of Queen Anne's Lords of the Admiralty upon
 
 190 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 an unoffending captain and adjutant in the army of 
 King George. 
 
 It is plain that he was a rebel at his heart, and, 
 had he been in the flesh, would have waged war in 
 the name of the Colonies against his liege sovereign, 
 with as much gusto as he did against mankind in 
 general on his own account, especially if there hap 
 pened to be any rich London or Bristol ships within 
 range of his guns. He had a natural taste for such 
 pursuits : his only mistake lay in interfering as an 
 amateur in what was strictly a professional monopoly. 
 There is great virtue in a commission or letter-of- 
 marque. A piece of sheepskin and a pair of epau 
 lets make all the difference in the world in the 
 moral qualities of actions. In many cases it makes 
 all the difference between a hempen cord and a red 
 ribbon round a man's neck. Many a hero has gone 
 out of the world in the embrace of a halter, his achieve 
 ments only recorded in the Newgate Calendar, who, 
 had his noun substantive been only qualified by an 
 adjective or two, would have received " the Senate's 
 thanks," have glittered with medals and orders, and 
 been commemorated by world-famous historians and 
 poets. Such is luck ! But it is none of my business 
 to moralize in this way. All I have to do is to relate 
 this true passage of history with the most absolute 
 accuracy of detail Revenons a nos moutons. Let us 
 to our muttons again. 
 
 While we have been indulging in these profitable 
 reflections, our hero has been through a variety of
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 191 
 
 evolutions. First he stood aghast, as if, instead of 
 gazing upon nothing at all, his sight had been blasted 
 by some particularly ill-favored apparition. This 
 was the only idea that his look and gesture commu 
 nicated to his trusty squire, who turned his eyes with 
 difficulty in the direction of his master's in the con 
 fident expectation of being rewarded by the vision of 
 a raw-head and bloody-bones at the very least. Dis 
 appointed, however, of any such pleasing spectacle, 
 he was by no means so ill informed in the very rudi 
 ments of demonology, as not to know that it did not 
 necessarily follow, because he could discern nothing 
 beyond the common, that his master was equally 
 unfortunate. 
 
 " What is it, sir ? Where is it, sir ? " inquired John, 
 in a voice of hollow emotion. 
 
 " The orderly-book, you scoundrel ! the orderly- 
 book ! " responded the Captain, in a low, concentrated 
 tone. 
 
 " The orderly-book, your Honor ! " returned John. 
 " Well, sir, I never heard of the ghost of a book 
 walking before ! What does it look like, sir ? " 
 
 It is evident that John was not a reading man (the 
 march of mind had not then been taken up, nor had 
 the schoolmaster gone abroad), or he would have 
 known that nothing is more common than for the 
 ghost of a book to walk. Indeed, what is a book but 
 the ghost of the man that writes it ? Oh, blessed 
 necromancy of reading, mightier than that of the 
 Governor of Glubdubdrib, or the Island of Enchant-
 
 192 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 ers, once visited by that only truthful traveller, 
 Lemuel Gulliver! For whereas his could only 
 command the departed for the space of twenty-four 
 hours, thine can summon them to the presence at all 
 seasons and for any time. But John did not know 
 this, and so he asked what the ghost of the orderly- 
 book looked like. 
 
 " Look like, you villain ! " somewhat testily 
 answered Hazlehurst. " It looks like nothing at all. 
 It 's gone, you dog ! " 
 
 " Gone already, sir ! " exclaimed the astonished 
 John. " And where was it, sir ? " 
 
 " Exactly in the middle of the table there, with its 
 right cover leaning against the candlestick, its hinder 
 end cocked up upon the inkstand." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " shuddered John at this pictur 
 esque description. " And how long ago is it since 
 your Honor saw it last ? " 
 
 " Just as I was going to the assembly this evening," 
 replied his master. 
 
 " Lord ! is that all ? " exclaimed the man, much 
 relieved. " I thought your Honor had just seen it, 
 when I could see nothing at all." 
 
 " Confound your nonsense ! " returned the Captain 
 sharply. " I wish to God that I had seen it ! What 
 under Heaven I am to say about it to Lord Percy 
 to-morrow, God knows ! But light all the candles in 
 the room, and let us have a thorough search for it, 
 though it is not likely that it is here." 
 
 This foreboding was but too true. His prophetic
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 193 
 
 heart had told him an ower true tale. They looked 
 above, around, and underneath. They crawled over the 
 floor on their hands and knees, and, like the serpent 
 of old, "upon their belly did they go" under the 
 bed. They looked into every drawer, and inspected 
 the most impossible places. But it was all in vain. 
 The mystic volume was not to be found in the wood- 
 box, nor did it drop from the inverted jack-boots. The 
 window-seats were ignorant of its whereabout, and 
 the window-curtains wotted not of its presence. The 
 cooking utensils knew not of it, and their basket and 
 their store was not blessed with its possession. 
 Where the devil could it be ? It seemed as if the 
 devil only could tell. 
 
 There was no sign of any other disturbance in their 
 premises. This made the matter look the more mys 
 terious. It was a much more awful affair than if the 
 disappearance of the book had been accompanied by 
 any of the gambols and funniments of the night 
 before. That looked like fun : this looked like earnest. 
 The orderly-book contained information relating to 
 the strength and state of the royal forces, which it 
 was of the last importance should not fall into the 
 hands of the rebels. And beside this there were 
 loose papers, given to our hero by Lord Percy to be 
 copied, as he acted in some sort as his private secre 
 tary as well as adjutant, which were of a still more 
 secret nature ; such, for example, as his lordship's 
 reply to the requisition of the commander-in-chief for 
 
 the opinions of his principal officers as to the state 
 13
 
 194 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 of affairs in the town, and the best course to be 
 pursued. This, and other documents, involved an 
 amount of intelligence as to facts and opinions, 
 which might be of infinite mischief if they fell into 
 the enemy's hands. Hazlehurst knew too well what 
 a mass of disaffection existed in the town, not to feel 
 that the worst was but too probable. 
 
 After every place, probable and improbable, had 
 been ransacked, and to no purpose, the search was 
 abandoned for the night. The room was secured as 
 far as locks and bolts were concerned, though they 
 seemed to be of but little moment in this chamber of 
 bedevilment, and Captain Hazlehurst retired moodily 
 to bed to seek for such rest as he could find. It was 
 an uncomfortable night, to be sure ; not from any 
 renewal of the disturbances of the night before, for 
 all was quiet, but from his harassing thoughts and 
 internal vexation. His sleep was broken by visions 
 of his interview with his commander, in which he 
 should communicate this provoking occurrence. 
 Words of censure and reprimand rung in his ears. 
 He even saw himself, in the phantasmagoria of his 
 waking dreams, standing without his sword before a 
 court-martial detailed to try him for neglect of duty. 
 In the confusion of his thoughts he could not very 
 accurately determine what would be considered the 
 exact measure of his military offence ; but he could 
 not help feeling that it would be no advantage to him 
 in his professional career, even in the most favorable 
 event. He cursed the evil hour in which he sought
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 195 
 
 these unlucky quarters, and heartily wished them, 
 and everything connected with them, at the devil. 
 He perplexed his thoughts in vain with conjectures 
 as to the motives and the method of the trick that 
 had been played him ; and though he resolved not to 
 rest until he had plucked out the heart of the mystery, 
 still he feared that the injury to the service and to 
 his own prospects would be completed before he could 
 accomplish his purpose. It was a miserable business 
 altogether. If he escaped with a reprimand from 
 headquarters, and with the dread laugh of the 
 mess-table, he would be a lucky fellow. 
 
 I have often wondered how much the beaming 
 eyes and laughing mouth of Clara Forrester mingled 
 in these visions of the night. I am afraid that all 
 the little loves by whom he had been escorted down 
 Hanover Street, after he had put Miss Forrester into 
 the carriage, were sent to the right about by the first 
 tempest of his astonishment and vexation. But they 
 are volatile creatures, and, though easily brushed 
 aside for a moment, soon return again to the charge. 
 Like flies, it is easy enough to drive them away ; but, 
 before you can congratulate yourself on being rid of 
 them, back they are again. There is one villain, for 
 example, that has been buzzing about me all the 
 time I have been writing, and evidently takes an in 
 telligent pleasure in tormenting me. " Get out, you 
 scoundrel!" There he stands on my paper, rubbing 
 his hands, and shaking his head, in perfect diabolic 
 glee at his success. Ben Jonson and the old drama-
 
 196 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 tists knew what they said when they called a famil 
 iar spirit a young devil, saving your presences 
 " a fly." Just $o the little loves come fluttering back 
 again after you think you have effectually scared 
 them away. But there the analogy ends ; for although 
 they do mischief enough sometimes, still, like my 
 Lord Byron, " I cannot call them devils." They 
 played the devil with me, to be sure, a good many 
 times in my hot young days, but I don't believe they 
 meant any harm. At any rate, I should then have 
 been devilish sorry and still should be (but that is 
 between ourselves) to miss their gentle ministrations 
 altogether. 
 
 Be this as it may, I have the best reasons for 
 believing that they returned before daybreak, and 
 buzzed merrily about the pillow of Hazlehurst. The 
 mosquito-net is not yet invented that can keep them 
 out. I cannot depone positively to the exact pro 
 portion of his waking or of his sleeping dreams that 
 was of their weaving ; for I am scrupulous never to 
 state any fact in an historical document like the 
 present, which I am not prepared at any moment to 
 authenticate by affidavit before any -magistrate or 
 justice of the peace. But I am quite certain that 
 those soft eyes and that bewitching smile floated 
 before his mind's eye, mixed up even with his least 
 pleasant anticipations. In case of the worst, youth 
 and nature would suggest that there might be some 
 comfort yet left him. Though his cup might be a 
 bitter one, still there was at least one cordial drop at
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 197 
 
 the bottom of it. Though censure or derision might 
 visit his misfortune, still there was one whose soft 
 bosom would feel with him, and who would view it 
 with the eyes of love, and not of discipline. 
 
 Perhaps the events of the day and evening had 
 encouraged this state of feeling; for, to be candid, 
 she had been tolerably encouraging. He felt more 
 sure that she loved him than he had ever done be 
 fore ; and, although he could not exactly define his 
 own views and intentions in the premises, still he 
 yielded (and who can blame him ?) to the delicious 
 dream of love. If any of my readers can recall to 
 recollection the time when he first truly believed that 
 he was beloved by a beautiful young woman, and 
 yet can find it in his heart to wonder that Hazle- 
 hurst should have gilded the gloomy hours of that 
 unlucky night with dreams of Clara Forrester, I 
 wish he would just do me the favor to lay this true 
 history aside. He is not worthy to be my reader. 
 But then it is impossible that there should be such 
 a man. 
 
 The hours of the night wore on, and at last the 
 morning came. It was a black morning to poor 
 Hazlehurst ; but he resolved to meet the unpleasant 
 consequences of his mishap with the best face he 
 could. As his candle-light toilet was proceeding, the 
 orderly-sergeant called for the book. 
 
 " I shall call myself upon Lord Percy, "Williams, 
 immediately after parade : so you need not wait." 
 
 The veteran stared a little at this deviation from
 
 198 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 routine ; but it was bis business to obey: so be bowed 
 and retired. 
 
 It was a bitter cold morning, and tbe keen wind 
 was improved in sbarpness by the broad expanse of 
 frozen water which then separated the Common from 
 the country beyond ; but Hazlehurst felt warm enough 
 in the prospect of what was before him. There is 
 no external or internal application of a more calorific 
 tendency than the inevitable necessity of doing a 
 particularly disagreeable piece of work at a certain 
 specified hour near at hand. It makes the heart 
 seethe like a caldron, and the boiling blood is sent 
 bubbling through the veins. 
 
 The parade was over : the troops were dismissed. 
 Hazlehurst was moving slowly towards the mess- 
 breakfast, thinking of the duty that must follow it, 
 when he was aroused from his reveiy by hearing a 
 horse reined up suddenly by his side. It was Lord 
 Percy himself. 
 
 " So Williams tells me, Hazlehurst, that you have 
 something to say to me. Come and breakfast with 
 me, my boy, and you will have the best of opportu 
 nities to say it. I shall be quite alone." 
 
 " It will give me infinite pleasure, my lord," re 
 plied Hazlehurst, "and I will be with you immedi 
 ately." 
 
 " Eight, right," said his lordship : "punctuality at 
 drills and at mess is a great military virtue. I shall 
 expect you in a quarter of an hour." 
 
 With these words he cantered along the frozen road
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 199 
 
 (for it could hardly be called a street then) that led 
 to his excellent quarters. 
 
 I am afraid that my hero lied the least in the 
 world, when he said that it would give him infi 
 nite pleasure to breakfast with his noble friend and 
 commander. Not that he had any fears as to the 
 quality of his breakfast or of his society ; but the 
 thoughts of the sauce which he brought to both 
 plagued him in advance, and he wished that a longer 
 time and a wider space could have elapsed before it 
 was necessary to administer it. But delay was use 
 less and impossible : so he strode toward the quarters 
 of his host with a firm tread, and ascended the long 
 flight of steps that led to the house, and gazed upon 
 the trees and shrubs in the courtyard, all glittering 
 with ice, with as easy and careless an air as he could 
 assume. 
 
 The breakfast-room, into which he was shown, was 
 a spacious wainscoted apartment, with a low ceiling, 
 but an air of great comfort. A blazing fire of logs 
 roared up the chimney ; and the breakfast-table, with 
 all its appliances of luxury, was drawn into a com 
 fortable proximity to it. The winter's sun looked 
 brilliantly through two windows of the room. Fresh 
 plants stood in the windows, and old pictures looked 
 down from the walls. It was not Alnwick Castle, 
 nor Sion House, to be sure; but it was a very inhab 
 itable place, for all that. An older campaigner than 
 his lordship might have thought himself well off in 
 worse quarters.
 
 200 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 In a few minutes Lord Percy appeared, having 
 exchanged his uniform coat for a brocaded dressing- 
 gown, and his military boots for Turkish slippers, 
 and, after a cordial welcome to his young friend, rang 
 the bell for breakfast. The tray was brought; the 
 coffee was poured ; the eggs were cracked ; the toast 
 was crunched. The breakfast was despatched with the 
 appetites of young men sharpened by a daybreak 
 parade with the thermometer at zero. Their dis 
 cussions were confined to the good things before them 
 and the things to which they were naturally allied, 
 until the table was cleared and the servants with 
 drawn. Then Lord Percy, drawing his chair up to 
 the fire, and comfortably nursing his left leg placed 
 over his right knee, turned to Hazlehurst with an air 
 .of comic gravity. 
 
 " Well, my lad," thus his lordship opened the pala 
 ver, " so you have somewhat to say to me ? Faith I 
 thought as much last night ! " 
 
 "Last night, my lord!" exclaimed the adjutant. "I 
 don't know that I rightly apprehend your meaning." 
 
 " Oh, of course not," replied the Earl. "But you can 
 hardly suppose that I failed to observe how carefully 
 you followed my advice last evening. You must 
 not suppose that Cupid has bandaged all our eyes as 
 effectually as he seems to have done yours." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! " replied our hero, " your lordship al 
 ludes to my little flirtation with Miss Forrester. I 
 was only following your own advice, to fall in love 
 with two or three at the same time. But you know
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 201 
 
 my lord, that it is necessary to begin with one. Now 
 I beinn with Miss Forrester." 
 
 o 
 
 " Bravo, bravo, Hazlehurst ! " said Lord Percy, laugh 
 ing. " A ready answer is a good thing, in love or in 
 war. Well, well, you understand your own affairs 
 best, and are old enough to manage them for your 
 self. Upon my honor, I can hardly blame you, young 
 man. I was half inclined to fall in love with her 
 myself last night. She is a fine creature." 
 
 " One does not often see a finer, indeed, my lord," 
 answered the lover ; " but you are quite at liberty to 
 enter the lists with me, if you choose," he doughtily 
 continued : " I have no pretensions to any monopoly 
 in that quarter." 
 
 I believe the fellow knew he lied when he said 
 that ; but these, I believe, are the sort of lover's per 
 juries at which Jove laughs. You will see this idea 
 illustrated and enforced in my folio on the subject, 
 now in the press. Whether Jove laughed at this or 
 not, Lord Percy did, as he replied, 
 
 " Very likely, very likely. Thank you, thank you ! 
 I do not know that I should like to run the risk, 
 were I not armed in proof on that side. Then I sup 
 pose your business of this morning does not relate 
 to this matter, as I thought at first it might." 
 
 " No, my lord," answered Hazlehurst, plucking up 
 his courage, and determined to have it over at once 
 " no, my lord. I am sorry to say that my errand 
 is of a much less pleasant character; and it relates 
 rather to war than to love, and to me than to Miss
 
 202 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 Forrester. It is not the loss of my heart, but of your 
 orderly-book, that is in the question." 
 
 " The orderly-book lost, Hazlehurst ! " exclaimed 
 Lord Percy. " What the devil do you mean ? " in a 
 tone of the utmost surprise a little mixed with in 
 credulity. 
 
 " Exactly what I say, my lord," replied the adju 
 tant, waxing cooler as he went on. " The orderly-book 
 and all its contents is gone ; and what is worse I see 
 no sort of prospect of ever recovering it again." 
 
 " What do you mean ? what do you mean ? " repeat 
 ed the Earl in great astonishment. " You know very 
 well that this is a serious matter, and can hardly be 
 jesting." 
 
 " I was never more serious in my life, I assure you, 
 my lord/' asseverated the young officer. " I wish it 
 may turn out to be a jest in the end. Sorry as I 
 should be to be guilty of any disrespect to your lord 
 ship, I would willingly encounter your displeasure 
 for an untimely jest, so that the service were in no 
 danger of mischief from this unlucky business." 
 
 "But how could it be lost, Captain Hazlehurst?" 
 his lordship replied a little sternly. " How could it 
 be lost, when it was in your custody, and you could 
 not but know the vital importance of keeping it safe ? 
 How came it lost, sir ? " 
 
 " I am well aware, my lord," replied poor Hazle 
 hurst, "of the importance of this matter to his 
 Majesty's service, as well as to my own honor and 
 prospects if I may mention them in the same breath.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 203 
 
 I beg your lordship to listen patiently to the story I 
 have to tell you ; and I beg that you will pardon the 
 apparent nonsense of the first part of my narration, 
 as you- will see that it leads to a serious termination. 
 I presume I need bring no other evidence of the 
 truth of my statements before your lordship's tribunal 
 than my own assertion. The evidence of my servant 
 will be ready to corroborate them before less friendly 
 judges, should the matter end as seriously as I fear it 
 may." 
 
 He then proceeded to relate to his commander the 
 whole history of his two last nights, from the myste 
 rious footsteps to the vanishing of the orderly-book. 
 His lordship looked grave as the story proceeded, and, 
 rising, walked thoughtfully about the room after it 
 was finished. At length he thus addressed his young 
 friend, who sat in anxious expectation, 
 
 " This is a strange business, Hazlehurst, a very 
 strange business. I am afraid there is mischief in it. 
 At first I thought it might be a mystification of some 
 of your messmates : but they would hardly have ven 
 tured upon such a denouement" 
 
 " That is my own opinion, my lord. The pranks 
 of the night before were all fair, though a little rough 
 play. But I do not think that the ennui of a garrison 
 life, however much it may sharpen the wits of its 
 victims, would lead them to commit an action which 
 might injure the service, to say nothing of the char 
 acter of a brother-officer." 
 
 "That is true enough, Hazlehurst," resumed his
 
 204 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 lordship. " I think it must be a contrivance of some 
 of the disguised rebels in this cursed town to assist 
 their rascally friends on the other side of the river. 
 My God ! I would have sooner lost the best horse in 
 my stables than have had those papers fall into the 
 rebels' hands." 
 
 " I hope that your lordship does not look upon my 
 part in this unfortunate business as amounting to 
 culpable negligence, or neglect of duty," Hazlehurst 
 humbly ventured to suggest, seeing that his com 
 manding officer was in a milder mood than he had 
 apprehended he would be. 
 
 " Why, as to that matter, my friend," replied his 
 lordship, "you can hardly think, that sitting here with 
 you as my fellow-officer and companion, when off 
 duty, I can attribute any moral blame to you for 
 this accident. Whether you may not be regarded 
 as responsible in a military sense for the loss of this 
 valuable book, is a question I can express no opinion 
 about here and at this time, as I may have to form 
 one officially on the subject before long. The book 
 was properly in your custody: if it be not forth 
 coming when regularly demanded, the question will 
 arise, Why ? And it is not for me to decide now 
 whether the facts you have stated will be considered 
 sufficient to discharge your responsibility." 
 
 " Will your lordship have the goodness to advise 
 me what course to pursue under these circumstances 
 as a friend, as one gentleman advising another in 
 a case of difficulty, and not as my superior officer ?"
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 205 
 
 "Why, my dear fellow," returned the stout Earl, 
 sincerely feeling for his young favorite in his awk 
 ward predicament, " the best advice I can give you is 
 to ferret out these rascals, and find the orderly-book 
 again before it is missed. When that fails, we will 
 see what can be done next." 
 
 "But how much grace have I to make search, even 
 if I could get a clew to the villauy, before it must be 
 reported at headquarters ? " 
 
 " I can give you only till next Saturday, when I 
 must make up my full weekly report to General Howe. 
 There is no need of saying anything about it before 
 then ; and it gives you four whole days to work in, 
 as it is now only Tuesday morning. Leave no stone 
 unturned, my good fellow, to get at the bottom of this 
 affair. Much may be done in four days." 
 
 " I am heartily obliged to you, my lord," said Hazle- 
 hurst gratefully, for he felt much relieved and com 
 forted by the kindness of Lord Percy's words and 
 manner, " and you may be sure that I will lose no 
 time in sifting this matter to the best of my abili 
 ties. And you may be sure, also, that your lordship's 
 goodness and consideration for me will be gratefully 
 remembered by me as long as I live, whatever may 
 be the event of this affair." 
 
 " Keep up a good heart, my lad," returned the Earl 
 kindly, "and hope bravely for the best. You may 
 rely upon my doing all I can for you consistently 
 with my duty. And now you had better set about 
 your inquiries, as there is no time to be lost. And
 
 206 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 when Williams comes to you, send him to me, and I 
 will have a new orderly-book ready for you before 
 evening parade." 
 
 With these words the heir of " the Percy's high 
 born race " bowed his visitor out of the room. Hazle- 
 hurst descended the steps with a lighter heart than 
 when he had ascended them, and he felt, what we 
 have all felt in our time, how much more unpleasant 
 the discharge of a disagreeable duty is in the antici 
 pation than in the actual performance. His actual 
 position was in no wise changed, and yet he felt as 
 if it were bettered. Such is the relief of the commu 
 nication of a secret sorrow, and such the magic of a 
 kind thought fitly clothed with words of kindness. 
 
 There is a great deal of one very excellent thing in 
 this world. There is at least one article which every 
 body is ready to give away, though there are compara 
 tively few who are ready to accept it. I mean there 
 is a great deal of very good ADVICE floating about. 
 James Smith, I think it was, once suggested the for 
 mation of " A Society for the Suppression of rf-Yice." 
 But I am sure I should not encourage such an insti 
 tution. Why, bless you ! I don't know what my 
 neighbors would do if my issues of advice were 
 stopped or curtailed. The interest I take in their 
 affaire is worth much more to me than the ten per 
 cent I get for my money. I really don't think the 
 neighborhood could get along at all without my 
 advice. "It's unknown" what good I do, as were 
 the tears Mrs. Malaprop shed at the death of her poor
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 207 
 
 dear Mr. Malaprop. I consider the benevolent How 
 ard as a hard-hearted villain in comparison with me. 
 No, no ! it will never do to suppress advice. The 
 difficulty in this branch of benevolence lies in finding 
 out how to apply the advice to practice. But that 
 is the concern of the party benefited. If he do not 
 know how to avail himself of your good advice, that 
 is no affair of yours. Dr. Johnson settled it long ago, 
 that no man should be expected to furnish ideas and 
 understanding at the same time. 
 
 Now, here was a case in point. Lord Percy had 
 given Captain Hazlehurst some very excellent advice : 
 the perplexity was to know what to do with it, now 
 he had got it. It was very easy for his lordship 
 to say, "Hazlehurst, ferret out these rascals, find 
 the orderly-book again ; " but it was quite another 
 affair for the gallant Captain to reduce his instructions 
 to practice. However, he resolved to do his best ; 
 and, as safety is said to be found in a multitude of 
 counsellors, he thought he might as well take some 
 more advice on the homoeopathic principle adopted 
 by the philosopher of Islington for the recovery of 
 his eyes after they had been scratched out in his 
 celebrated leap into the quickset hedge. So he 
 thought he would take into his counsels some of his 
 trustiest comrades and especial cronies. 
 
 Calling at Captain Lyndsay's quarters, he was so 
 fortunate as to find him at home, and his Pylades, 
 Major Ferguson, with him. Dr. Holcombe was speed 
 ily summoned to the council ; and Hazlehurst soon
 
 208 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 laid the matter, under strict injunctions of secrecy, 
 before them. It was a grave matter, requiring all 
 the aids that reflection or art could afford. Accord 
 ingly, they lighted the calumet of consideration, and 
 sought for illumination in the circling clouds of smoke 
 that curled around their heads. In those days, dear 
 reader, cigars were not ; but pipes daily reminded frail 
 mortals that they, too, were made of clay, and that 
 their lives were but as a vapor of smoke, that soon 
 vanisheth away. 
 
 But as suffumigation, though a powerful agent, did 
 not seem to be alone sufficient to summon the powers 
 most needed, the worthy surgeon, as one well skilled 
 in potent mixtures, brewed a smoking caldron, in 
 which he mingled many opposite ingredients, of 
 various kingdoms of nature [to make the mixture 
 " slab and good "]. When his incantations were 
 ended, the magic bowl was placed in the centre of 
 the circle, and was solemnly passed round from 
 mouth to mouth of those who sought from it wis 
 dom and inspiration. In those primitive days, the 
 heresy of ladles had not yet entered the pale of 
 orthodox good-fellowship. The genial mother-bowl 
 was not then split up into as many sects as there 
 were disciples. I beg to be distinctly understood 
 that I by no means sanction this concoction of the 
 " medicine-man," nor do I wish to imply that the 
 spirits thus summoned to their aid were the best 
 assistants in council or in action. I merely relate 
 the fact, and leave it for others to form their own
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 209 
 
 opinions about it. It is not my fault if they drank 
 punch, and smoked pipes, in the morning. But what 
 would posterity say to me, if I suppressed so impor 
 tant a feature of this important consultation, from a 
 wish to whitewash their characters in the eyes of 
 this water-drinking generation ? 
 
 "By Jove, Hazlehurst!" said Major Ferguson, 
 knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "this is the most 
 extraordinary ghost I ever heard of, and one that will 
 take a bishop, at least, to lay him." 
 
 " In default of a bishop," suggested Lyndsay, " here 
 is the Doctor, who as a university man, and one of a 
 learned profession renowned for making ghosts, must 
 serve us for want of a better man." 
 
 " This is the first time," said the Doctor, setting 
 down the bowl, from which he had been, in a most 
 unprofessional manner, engaged in swallowing his 
 own prescription "this is the first time in my life 
 that I was ever taken for a conjurer. But, as Fergu 
 son justly remarks, as this is a case calling for the 
 piety of a bishop, I am certainly the only man in 
 company fit for the adventure." 
 
 " I wish to Heaven you would undertake it, then," 
 said Hazlehurst, who thought his friends rather in 
 clined to make light of a serious matter. " It may 
 be sport to you, but it is " 
 
 "Not death to you, my dear fellow," interposed 
 the Doctor : " you are not so easily killed, as the d d 
 Yankees knew, when they saw you running up Bun 
 ker's Hill faster than they ran down it. Besides, you 
 14
 
 210 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 should never mention death in the presence of a doc 
 tor. You might as well talk of cabbage to a tailor. 
 It 's professional, my dear fellow, it 's professional." 
 
 " I wish, then," resumed Hazlehurst, " that you 
 would bring your professional artillery to bear upon 
 the villain who has stolen the orderly-book ; and you 
 may call in the aid of your natural ally, too, if you 
 please." 
 
 " I should like to have the treatment of his case," 
 said the Doctor thoughtfully. " I think that I could 
 manage it." 
 
 " And I should like to have the qualifying him for 
 your treatment, Doctor," said Lyndsay. " I am quite 
 sure that I could manage that." 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt," replied Holcombe. " Any 
 fool can break a head. It takes a wise man to mend 
 it again." 
 
 "And what," retorted Lyndsay, alluding to an 
 operation he would persist in considering as unne 
 cessary, in consequence of a knock over the head 
 at Lexington, "and what if, in mending the hole, 
 he makes two ? " 
 
 " He puts at rest forever," replied the Doctor 
 gravely, " the disputed question, whether or not the 
 party had any brains. There were not much, to be 
 sure; but it can never be denied again that there 
 were some." 
 
 " Truce to banter," said the graver Major Ferguson, 
 " and let us see what can be done to help poor Hazle 
 hurst out of this scrape."
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 211 
 
 " With all my heart," resumed the Doctor. " It seems 
 to me that the thing to be done is to set a trap for 
 the thief. But what the deuce shall we do for bait ? 
 unless, indeed, the commander-in-chief would lend 
 us his private papers for the purpose." 
 
 " He cannot be a vulgar thief," said Ferguson, " or 
 he certainly would not have left your tankard and 
 spoons behind him, Hazlehurst." 
 
 " Not only the plate," said Hazlehurst, " but my 
 watch and purse, lay full in his sight. So plunder 
 could not have been his object." 
 
 "He is an extraordinary fellow, certainly," said 
 the Doctor, "and we must as certainly contrive to 
 catch him, if it be only for the curiosity of the 
 thing. What is your plan, Ferguson ? " 
 
 " I can suggest nothing better," said the Major, 
 " than to keep a strict watch for a few nights, both 
 within and without the building ; for it seems to ine 
 our only chance is to find him at his old tricks, or 
 prowling about the premises, as we have no idea of 
 where else to look for him." 
 
 " I can see no other plan that we can follow," said 
 Hazlehurst. 
 
 " Nor I," said Lyndsay. " Can you, Doctor ? " 
 
 "We can try it, at any rate," returned the leech. 
 " We shall probably have plenty of time, in the 
 intervals of his visitations, to devise other schemes. 
 I am ready for my share of the watch ; that is, if 
 Hazlehurst's punch and tobacco are what they should 
 be."
 
 212 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 " You need have no fears on that point," answered 
 Hazlehurst ; " for John will brew you an Atlantic of 
 punch, and pile you up a Chimborazo of tobacco, when 
 he knows that you have entered into an alliance, 
 offensive and defensive, against the ghost." 
 
 " I am your man, then," cried the Doctor, finishing 
 the punch, " and I will bet you a supper at the Green 
 Dragon that I am the first man to see the ghost." 
 
 " Done ! " 
 
 " Done ! ! " 
 
 "Done!]!" 
 
 And the session was adjourned.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 \ FTER the conference at the quarters of Captain 
 ** Lyndsay was broken up, our hero walked delib 
 erately down Hanover Street toward his own abode. 
 He was busily planning operations in accordance 
 with the result of the council as he walked along. 
 But he was not so much absorbed by his own affairs 
 or his own meditations, as to be unconscious of his 
 approach to the habitation of his ladye-love. In 
 those days it was an essential part of good breeding 
 for a gentleman to call upon his partner on the morn 
 ing after a ball, " and humbly hope she caught no 
 cold," though he had to canter over half a county in 
 the service. It was not likely, therefore, that Hazle- 
 hurst would pretermit the performance of this duty 
 when his path took him past her very door. So 
 he knocked boldly, and was speedily admitted, and 
 ushered into the presence of the fair Clara, who, 
 of course, was expecting his visit. She wore her 
 apple-green silk that morning, a color I would not 
 recommend to my lady-readers, unless they are very 
 sure that their complexions can bear it, and, by 
 Heaven! she did look divinely. It is provoking to 
 see how the most unbecoming colors will set off a 
 complexion and eyes that need take no thought for
 
 214 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 themselves. But I am not going to rave. I only 
 state the simple truth in saying that she looked 
 divinely: at least, I never saw anything prettier 
 than the sweet glow of consciousness that mantled 
 over her cheeks and neck, and the smile that kin 
 dled in her eyes, as she met the ardent gaze of her 
 advancing lover. At any rate, I am quite sure that 
 he agreed with me in this opinion ; for he hardly 
 seemed to know whether he was in the body or out 
 of the body, as he walked up the room. Lovers 
 are foolish creatures at least, so I have heard, for 
 I was never one myself. But for the life of me I 
 can't conceive why that silly Hazlehurst should have 
 gone and seated himself in the arm-chair on the 
 other side of the fireplace, when the gentle Clara 
 had taken pains to leave plenty of room for him 
 on the sofa by her side. I am sure I never should 
 have done that. However, he did, and it is my 
 business to relate, not to account for, the fact. 
 
 They were soon seated vis a vis, with nothing but 
 the little work-table between them, and there seemed 
 to be no reason why they should not make themselves 
 agreeable to one another. And I am by no means 
 sure that they did not, although they had very little 
 to say for themselves apparently. What Hazlehurst 
 might have whispered to Clara the night before, at 
 Concert Hall, as they stood apart, sheltered by a bat 
 talion of card-playing dowagers, and covered by the 
 full burst of a regimental band, I am unable to say, 
 for I was at that time engaged in overhearing what
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 215 
 
 General Howe was saying to Governor Gage at the 
 other end of the room. But I think it must have been 
 something that altered their relations to each other 
 in some way, for they were not half as chatty and 
 conversable as they were the day before. And yet it 
 could not have amounted to a full understanding, or 
 that stupid Hazlehurst would not have been sitting 
 two yards away, looking at her pretty foot (not but 
 what it was well worth looking at) as it rested on 
 the edge of the footstool ; nor would she have kept 
 her eyes fixed upon her embroidery all the time with 
 the prettiest confusion you ever saw. And I don't 
 believe that they would have talked over the night 
 before in a sort of way that made it perfectly plain 
 that they knew nothing at all of what they were 
 talking about, if they had felt quite at ease in their 
 own minds. It was clear that they were thinking of 
 something else than their words. Poor Hazlehurst 
 was evidently in the state of mind of an unlucky 
 moth that has been well advised by its wisers and 
 betters, that candles are dangerous things in general, 
 and especially that specific candle in particular, and 
 who yet cannot keep itself away from the shining 
 mischief. The attraction of the brilliant object be 
 fore him was quite too much for any dimly remem 
 bered warnings of his distant family against American 
 beauties, or for the fresher hints of his friendly com 
 mander, to keep him from flying at last into the flame. 
 I can't tell you how it was, my dear reader, but 
 somehow or other, in less time than I have been
 
 216 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 writing these lines, Hazlehurst was by the side of 
 Clara, his left arm encircling her slender waist, their 
 right hands clinging together, and her sweet head 
 gently drooped upon his shoulder. It was a charm 
 ing group, I do assure you. There are many more 
 disagreeable situations in the world than that of 
 young Hazlehurst at that moment. It was a grand 
 pantomime of action. No words could have ex 
 pressed their meaning more eloquently. It was not 
 a time for words : they would have been imperti 
 nent and superfluous. Accordingly, their lips gave 
 utterance to no sound. Whether their lips did any 
 thing else to the purpose, it is not my intention to 
 disclose. I am "trusty Mr. Tattle" as to all mat 
 ters which should be kept private. Nothing of 
 that sort was ever wormed out of me. The ladies 
 need have no hesitation in placing the most entire 
 confidence in my discretion. 
 
 But this silence, though deep and delicious, could 
 not last forever. Alas that it could not ! Murmur 
 ing words soon displaced it, and the faith of two 
 true young hearts was plighted to each other forever. 
 Ah, holy troth plight ! Thine is the true marriage, 
 the era of the mystic union of souls, of which the 
 blessing of the priest is but the statement and proc 
 lamation. Woe to those who profane its mysteries 
 by levity, by covetousness, or by falsehood ! 
 
 As soon as their young joy had subsided into a 
 sort of tumultuous calmness, how they sat, with their 
 hands locked together, talking over their love and
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 217 
 
 their hopes ! They traced with fond curiosity the 
 course of their true love "Great Nature's Nile" 
 up to its small beginnings and unsuspected springs. 
 Bruce himself could hardly have surpassed them in 
 zealous or minute investigation. And then the more 
 dubious future how were its uncertainties turned 
 into realities, and its doubts transmuted into sanguine 
 hopes, by the potent magic of youth and love ! 
 
 " Ah, love, young love ! bound in thy rosy band, 
 Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, 
 These hours, and only these, redeem life's years of ill." 
 
 Clara's doubts as to her reception into the family 
 of her lover were eagerly driven away by his earnest 
 assurances of a cordial welcome. Sir Ralph and his 
 mother were the best of human beings, and had no 
 earthly wish beyond his happiness ; and was not his 
 happiness wrapped up in her ? Such is the logic 
 of youth and love, and it easily prevailed over one 
 willing enough to be convinced. The best of human 
 beings sometimes take very different views of the 
 component elements of earthly happiness from their 
 children : at least, so it is said. They were too happy 
 to fear. The future would take care of itself. The 
 present was enough for them. 
 
 But such interviews, though they live forever, 
 must come to an end in time and space. The time 
 came when the plighted lovers were to part for the 
 first time since they had exchanged their sacred 
 vows. Dinner-time will come round on the day of 
 rejoicing and on the day of mourning, and interpose
 
 218 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 its material demands between our souls and soft 
 emotions of tenderness and grief. The necessities 
 of the body often afford a healthful distraction to 
 thoughts too highly strung to sensations of joy or 
 of sorrow. The body is a "homely nurse;" but it is 
 a faithful one, if it be not maltreated, and does its 
 best to guard and help the immortal child that is 
 intrusted to it to be carried in its arms during its 
 days of infancy. So the time of parting came, and 
 they parted ; not for any interminable space of time, 
 to be sure, but it was their first parting. It was 
 not, as I just said, an eternal separation, for there 
 was to be a great sleighing-party that evening, and 
 Hazlehurst had already engaged Clara to be his 
 companion. With as many last words as if they 
 were to part for years, he at length departed, with 
 quite unnecessary entreaties to her not to forget the 
 evening's engagement. 
 
 It was all over. The irreparable step was taken. 
 The Eubicon of life was passed. The hour that was 
 just expired would tinge with its hues every future 
 moment of his life. He felt that it was no light thing 
 that he had just done, and, though he was conscious 
 of a deep happiness, it was no boisterous joy, and 
 it was not only with ease, but with satisfaction, 
 restrained within the limits of his own breast, until 
 the due time of disclosure. It was a pleasure to feel 
 that he had a secret hoard of happiness, known only 
 to himself, which he might count over with a miser's 
 joy, but with none of a miser's guilt or folly.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 219 
 
 One thing, however, was remarkable. The idea 
 of the orderly-book, or of the ghost, had never once 
 crossed his mind after he had found himself hurried 
 on to the catastrophe of the interview. He was sorry 
 that he had not made Clara the confidante of his 
 troubles, and resolved to repair the omission at the 
 first opportunity. Confidence should not be kept 
 back first on his side. He rather rejoiced that he 
 had a misfortune which she might share with him. 
 Perhaps his philosophy would not have stood him 
 in such good stead, had his misfortune been a little 
 greater than it was. But everything helps to feed 
 a healthy love. It is your feeble, rickety brats, 
 that expire of the first unsavory mess of earthly 
 pottage. 
 
 The mess-dinner was over. There had been some 
 quizzing on the subject of Miss Forrester and of the 
 ghost ; but it was all evidently at random, and they 
 had no idea how very near the wind they were going 
 on either tack. Hazlehurst and his friends kept their 
 own counsel, and after dinner met by appointment 
 at Dr. Holcombe's quarters to finish the plan of their 
 campaign against the midnight forager of orderly- 
 books. They had, as they had agreed upon, selected 
 a number of picked men, on whose secrecy and fidel 
 ity they could rely, who were to keep watch and 
 ward, duly relieved, by night and day, without mak 
 ing any noise about it; so that if the ghost should 
 return, clothed in his " vesture of decay," to the 
 scene of his former operations, he would be pretty
 
 220 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 sure to be laid by the heels. The officers themselves 
 also agreed to mount guard, by turns, in the Captain's 
 chamber, so that it should never be without a sleep 
 less eye on the lookout. Arrangements were made 
 that the sentinels and their officers should rendezvous 
 quietly in the neighborhood, at a small inn, as if by 
 accident, and the men be shown their posts of observa 
 tion without any bustle to attract notice ; John and 
 Orderly Williams being left in garrison of the haunted 
 building until it was properly invested. Everything 
 happened at the time and in the order that it should, 
 and the arrangements were carried into effect with 
 military precision. One man walked up and down 
 the street, with injunctions never to lose sight of the 
 front of the house. The three other sides were in 
 charge of three other trusty men, so placed that no 
 approach could be made to the house on either side 
 without instant detection. A guard was also placed 
 on each floor of the house on the inside, although 
 it had been most thoroughly searched, in advance} 
 in every corner. It seemed as if the Prince of the 
 Power of the Air alone, approaching through his own 
 peculiar principality, could obtain entrance unob 
 served. And so they rested on their arms. 
 
 In the mean time, the winter's sun made haste to 
 put an end to the short day, and the time arrived for 
 the great sleigh ing-party to rendezvous in the North 
 Square. Captain Hazlehurst's graceful little sleigh, 
 contrasting curiously with his stout cob, was at the 
 door, and he was speedily drawn up in front of Mr.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 221 
 
 Forrester's mansion, awaiting the pleasure of its fair 
 mistress. She soon appeared, breathing a fresh sum 
 mer upon the cheek of winter, and yet looking like 
 his youngest daughter, so befurred and betippeted, 
 and becloaked was she. Still, through all, you could 
 see the graceful outline of her shape, while her happy 
 face glowed through her world of habiliments, like 
 the sun through evening clouds. The moon would 
 perhaps be a more appropriate, but the sun is a more 
 splendid, simile : so let it stand. She was soon by the 
 side of Hazlehurst, and they were rapidly careering 
 away toward the North Square. A very few min 
 utes brought them to the rendezvous, where they found 
 a large company of the 6lite of the garrison and the 
 townspeople, preparing for a merry scamper round 
 the town. There were large sleighs drawn by two, 
 and some by four, horses, containing parties, which 
 like the family party of the Vicar of Wakefield, if 
 they did not have a great deal of wit, they had a great 
 deal of laughing, which answered the purpose just as 
 well. There were not wanting modest single sleighs, 
 like that conveying our hero and heroine, which, if 
 not as well adapted for frolic as their larger com 
 panions, were better calculated for sentiment and for 
 flirtation. After the usual time had been wasted in 
 waiting for loiterers, and adjusting where everyone 
 should go, the procession set forward in due order; 
 the quadrigce taking the lead, and the more unpre 
 tending vehicles following in due succession. 
 
 Aha ! what a merry jingling of bells, and ringing of
 
 222 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 laughter, resounded through the streets of Boston as 
 the horses dashed through them, making the frozen 
 earth resound with their tread ! It was a sound of 
 merriment that jarred gratingly upon the ears of 
 many an unwilling listener, separated by the siege 
 from beloved hearts, and suffering, perhaps, from cold 
 in the depth of that dreadful winter, or with hunger, 
 within the sound of the revelry of their oppressors. 
 To many an ear the sweet bells seemed "jangled, out 
 of tune, and harsh." But what was that to the revel 
 lers ? "What cared they for the pining of rebel hearts ? 
 Away, away ! Up Hanover Street, down Queen 
 Street, through the succession of streets now all amal 
 gamated into Washington Street, up to the lines on the 
 Neck ! How the crackling snow glitters in the light 
 of the full moon ! What a volcanic effect do the rebel 
 watchfires give to the lovely hills in the distance ! 
 You can hear the very hum of the camp, so near are 
 you to it ; and you have the pleasing uncertainty as 
 to how soon a battery of cannon may open upon you, 
 or a shell be sent to convey to you the compliments 
 of those who are knocking at your gates. But what 
 of that ? Away, away ! Back again to the Com 
 mon, round it, and then dash down to the line of 
 wharves that enclose the harbor, look out over the 
 frozen sea, and then round again across those desolate 
 fields which are now all populous streets or crowded 
 marts. Oh, it was a merry drive ! What though 
 the hardships of a seven-years' war, ghastly wounds, 
 and grizzly death, awaited some of the revellers, and
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 223 
 
 the bitterness of disappointed hope and of intermi 
 nable exile was the appointed lot of others ? They 
 knew it not. That glittering night was theirs and 
 who has more ? 
 
 There are worse places for a flirtation or a tete-a- 
 tete, let me tell you, than a sleighing-party, especially 
 where you have a sleigh to yourselves, the noise and 
 the bustle isolates you so completely. And then 
 the bear-skins roll you up together so comically, 
 that positively you sometimes mistake your neigh 
 bor's hand for your own. It 's very odd, but so it is. 
 Poets may talk as much as they please about summer 
 moons; but I have known quite as much mischief 
 done under winter moons. And, if I had a daughter, 
 I would quite as soon trust her with a "detrimental" 
 in a summer grove, beside a murmuring stream, with 
 the very best moon that was ever manufactured hang 
 ing over their heads, as I would in a snug sleigh, 
 behind a good horse, making good time over a ring 
 ing road, in a cold, clear, sparkling night. 
 
 "Now, ponder well, ye parents dear," 
 and lay these, my words of wisdom, to heart. 
 
 Clara and Hazlehurst, you may be sure, did not fail 
 to improve their opportunities ; and the evening's 
 drive furnished a very satisfactory epilogue to the 
 morning's drama. After a brief interval of silence, as 
 they rushed up King Street, Clara turned to Hazle 
 hurst, and said laughingly to him, 
 
 "But, Charles, you have not told me yet what 
 Captain Honeywood had to say to you ; for, of course,
 
 224 . THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 he must have been to call on his tenant by this 
 time." 
 
 "Ah, my dear Clara, I am satisfied that he was 
 a piratical old dog. I have but too good reason to 
 think ill of him." 
 
 " Indeed ! And how so, pray ? Has he laid you 
 under contribution already ? Perhaps he intends col 
 lecting his rent in advance." 
 
 " If that were all," answered Charles, " I should 
 care little about it. But I am afraid that the old vil 
 lain is more of a rebel than a pirate. I fear he bears 
 more of a grudge against the King than against me." 
 
 "That is natural enough, you know," replied Clara, 
 "for it was his Majesty's predecessor who put him 
 to so much inconvenience for his little mistakes in 
 the matter of ownership. But you mean something, 
 Charles now tell me all about it." 
 
 " The all is soon told," said he. " The crafty old 
 sea-dog has helped himself to the very thing that it is 
 most important, for the sake of the service and for 
 my own sake, should have been kept out of his hands 
 and I suppose I may have to pay for his villany." 
 
 " Good God, Charles ! " exclaimed Clara, turning 
 pale with affright. " What do you mean ? What has 
 happened ? " 
 
 " Nothing, my love," he responded, " excepting that 
 he has carried off the orderly-book of the regiment, 
 which may convey intelligence to the rebels that will 
 bring them buzzing about our ears, if they have the 
 sense to make use of it."
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 225 
 
 "But you how will it affect you?" inquired 
 Clara, evidently thinking more of her lover than of 
 her liege lord. " You said that it was bad for your 
 own sake that this book had fallen into his hands." 
 
 " Indeed I hardly know myself exactly," he an 
 swered ; " but I am quite certain that it can do me 
 no good. And what a court-martial may think of it, 
 they only can tell." 
 
 " A court-martial ! " exclaimed Clara in consterna 
 tion. " Dear Charles, what have you done for which 
 you can be court-martialed ? Pray tell me that you 
 are only in jest." 
 
 " I wish I were in jest, my dearest Clara," said he 
 in reply ; " but it is no joke, I assure you. The order 
 ly-book was in my custody, as the adjutant of the 
 regiment. I left it on my table when I went to the 
 assembly last night, and when I came back it was 
 gone." 
 
 " Gone ! " repeated Clara, echoing his words. 
 
 " Gone, my dear," he repeated. " And how or 
 whither, the thief, and the devil that helped him, 
 only knows. And when the loss is reported at head 
 quarters, I have reason to fear that I shall be held 
 responsible for it, and it may prove a serious busi 
 ness." 
 
 " But what can they do to you, dearest Charles ? " 
 almost gasped poor Clara. " It certainly was not 
 your fault that it was taken." 
 
 " I cannot think it was," he answered, " after all 
 the precautions I had taken. But one cannot tell 
 15
 
 228 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 the Royal Tavern. The scene was not a very magni 
 ficent one, to be sure ; but the company was as gay 
 as if it had been a royal palace. The mulled wine 
 was beyond praise. The floor of the large parlor was 
 swept, and a noble fire diffused light and heat through 
 the room. They had not a regimental band, as they 
 had the night before ; but the fiddle of a musical negro 
 belonging to the house was sufficient to set them all 
 dancing and flirting. And what could his Majesty's 
 own band itself do more ? At a proper time an 
 excellent supper was served in the dining-room, 
 none of your perpendicular abominations, but a good, 
 regular, sit-down supper, all hot from the spit, and 
 served, if not with metropolitan magnificence, yet at 
 least with provincial plenty. Ample justice was done 
 to the viands ; and the port wine and the everlasting 
 punch were not neglected. After the sacred rage of 
 hunger was appeased, the company returned to the 
 great parlor, and resumed their gayeties, which were 
 protracted until a late hour. Such were some of the 
 schemes to which the beleaguered inhabitants of the 
 town resorted to speed away some of their weary 
 hours. And very good schemes, they were, in my 
 opinion. 
 
 I do not know how it was, but the garrison gossips, 
 of whom Hazlehurst had warned Clara, remarked that 
 he was not as devoted to her as usual. From this 
 they augured, with the sagacity of their tribe, that 
 lie was inclined to be off from the flirtation. Now 
 / formed a directly opposite opinion from the circum-
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 229 
 
 stance. I am too old a bird to be chaffed in that way. 
 I know, however, that the young lovers compared 
 notes of what they heard and overheard on the sub 
 ject, as they drove home, and that they were entirely 
 satisfied with the success of the evening. What 
 could have made them dissatisfied with it? 
 
 On arriving at his quarters, Hazlelmrst found every 
 thing ready, but no ghost as yet. Dr. Holcombe, 
 who much preferred a comfortable arm-chair, a pipe, 
 and a tankard of punch, over against a rousing fire, 
 to all the sleighing-parties that ever manufactured 
 pleasure out of cold and discomfort, had volunteered 
 to mount guard for the first evening in Hazlehurst's 
 room. He protested, however, that all had been 
 quiet, and not so much of a ghost stirring as would 
 make the candles burn blue. He and Hazlelmrst sat 
 up till near morning, and then lay down alternately 
 for an hour or two but all was- still. "Not a mouse 
 stirring." They had their labor for their pains that 
 night. Still they were not discouraged in their cam 
 paign against the powers of darkness by this with 
 drawal of the enemy. They still believed that they 
 would have a brush with him yet. In this faith they 
 renewed their arrangements for the next day, care 
 fully managing them so cautiously that there should 
 be no ground of suspicion given to the world around 
 that there was anything extraordinary going on. 
 
 The allies met after breakfast to talk over the 
 matter, and to decide whose turn should be the next 
 to face the enemy. Major Ferguson, in right of sen-
 
 230 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 iority of rank, received the privilege. The men who 
 were on guard during the night were examined ; but 
 they maintained that there was nothing that could be 
 construed into a suspicious circumstance that had 
 fallen under their observation. Renewed charges of 
 secrecy were given and exchanged, not only for fear 
 of the ghost's getting wind of the conspiracy against 
 him, but lest the laugh at the mess-table might be 
 turned against them. Lord Percy was curious to 
 hear the result of the night's campaign, when the 
 adjutant waited upon him for orders, and gave his 
 approval of the steps taken, and encouraged them to 
 proceed. 
 
 Another day, and yet another, passed away. Fer 
 guson and Lyndsay had successively taken the field 
 against the ghost ; but none would come when they 
 did call for him. Old Jamaica was the only spirit 
 that was raised, and tobacco-smoke was the only in 
 tangible essence that infested them. What was to be 
 done now ? It was plain that the ghost was more 
 than a match for them. They believed that they 
 might be his masters in the field ; but he certainly 
 had the advantage of them in the strategy which 
 avoids the presence of a superior enemy. They felt, 
 in the slightest degree in the world, like fools, that 
 they should have lost their natural rest for three 
 nights, and expended a degree of skill and energy 
 sufficient to have raised the siege, and all for nothing. 
 Friday night was come. The morrow was the fatal 
 Saturday, when the orderly-book must be found, or
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 231 
 
 the loss reported at headquarters. The confederates 
 sat rather gloomily over their wine at Ferguson's 
 lodgings, for Ferguson was a married man, and did 
 not live at mess, and considered with themselves 
 what was to be done next. 
 
 "You have not won your supper at the Dragon 
 yet, Doctor," said Ferguson. " The ghost does not 
 seem to regard you with any more favor than the rest 
 of us." 
 
 " The Ides of March are not past yet, my friend," 
 observed the Doctor. " I shall have a double chance, 
 as I shall keep watch the last night of the siege, as 
 well as the first. You cannot tell what this night 
 may bring forth." 
 
 " So you are not discouraged, I am glad to find," 
 said Hazlehurst, " and still hold to your intention for 
 the night. But don't you intend to go to Miss For 
 rester's this evening ? I know you are invited, and 
 your watch can begin after the party ends." 
 
 "Not I, indeed," responded the son of Galen, 
 " not I, indeed ! I am not quite boy enough for that. 
 It is all well enough for you youngsters, who have 
 no turn for rational pursuits ; but a pipe and a tank 
 ard for me, against all the gatherings together of flirt 
 ing boys and girls, and gambling papas and mammas, 
 that were ever held. I shall repair to my post early 
 in the evening, and maintain it unseduced and un- 
 terriiied." 
 
 " And faith ! I believe that I will bear you com 
 pany, Doctor," said Ferguson. "My wife has not
 
 230 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 iority of rank, received the privilege. The men who 
 were on guard during the night were examined ; but 
 they maintained that there was nothing that could be 
 construed into a suspicious circumstance that had 
 fallen under their observation. Renewed charges of 
 secrecy were given and exchanged, not only for fear 
 of the ghost's getting wind of the conspiracy against 
 him, but lest the laugh at the mess-table might be 
 turned against them. Lord Percy was curious to 
 hear the result of the night's campaign, when the 
 adjutant waited upon him for orders, and gave his 
 approval of the steps taken, and encouraged them to 
 proceed. 
 
 Another day, and yet another, passed away. Fer 
 guson and Lyndsay had successively taken the field 
 against the ghost ; but none would come when they 
 did call for him. Old Jamaica W 7 as the only spirit 
 that was raised, and tobacco-smoke was the only in 
 tangible essence that infested them. "What was to be 
 done now ? It was plain that the ghost was more 
 than a match for them. They believed that they 
 might be his masters in the field ; but he certainly 
 had the advantage of them in the strategy which 
 avoids the presence of a superior enemy. They felt, 
 in the slightest degree in the world, like fools, that 
 they should have lost their natural rest for three 
 nights, and expended a degree of skill and energy 
 sufficient to have raised the siege, and all for nothing. 
 Friday night was come. The morrow was the fatal 
 Saturday, when the orderly-book must be found, or
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 231 
 
 the loss reported at headquarters. The confederates 
 sat rather gloomily over their wine at Ferguson's 
 lodgings, for Ferguson was a married man, and did 
 not live at mess, and considered with themselves 
 what was to be done next. 
 
 "You have not won your supper at the Dragon 
 yet, Doctor," said Ferguson. " The ghost does not 
 seem to regard you with any more favor than the rest 
 of us." 
 
 " The Ides of March are not past yet, my friend," 
 observed the Doctor. " I shall have a double chance, 
 as T shall keep watch the last night of the siege, as 
 well as the first. You cannot tell what this night 
 may bring forth." 
 
 " So you are not discouraged, I am glad to find," 
 said Hazlehurst, " and still hold to your intention for 
 the night. But don't you intend to go to Miss For 
 rester's this evening ? I know you are invited, and 
 your watch can begin after the party ends." 
 
 " Not I, indeed," responded the son of Galen, 
 " not I, indeed ! I am not quite boy enough for that. 
 It is all well enough for you youngsters, who have 
 no turn for rational pursuits ; but a pipe and a tank 
 ard for me, against all the gatherings together of flirt 
 ing boys and girls, and gambling papas and mammas, 
 that were ever held. I shall repair to my post early 
 in the evening, and maintain it unseduced and un- 
 terrified." 
 
 " And faith ! I believe that I will bear you com 
 pany, Doctor," said Ferguson. "My wife has not
 
 232 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 got over the cold she got at that cursed sleighing- 
 party, and intends going to bed, instead of the party." 
 
 " Do so, by all means," replied Holcombe, " and I 
 dare say, that, besides having a rational time together, 
 we shall have a good account to give of the ghost 
 by the time these boys are ready to come home. 
 Only, I suppose, if we see the ghost both at the same 
 time, you will expect to go snacks in the supper ? " 
 
 "To be sure, I shall," said the Major, laughing. 
 "We will be partners in the battle and in the 
 spoils." 
 
 The party soon after dispersed, and went their 
 several ways; and it will not surprise my readers 
 to learn that Hazlehurst's way led him to Clara For 
 rester's. He just looked in to see if he could be of 
 any service. He found the fair Clara in some little 
 perturbation. 
 
 " What goes wrong, my love ? " he inquired. 
 "Has the Governor sent an excuse, or has la belle 
 Wilton turned sulky, and refused to come ? " 
 
 " Worse than either, I assure you, Charles," she 
 replied. " I could spare a dozen governors and beau 
 ties better than black Domingo, who has selected 
 this particular occasion to fall sick, and to throw me 
 back on the mercies of .James, who is hardly equal, 
 as you know, to such an emergency." 
 
 " That is unlucky, indeed," said Hazlehurst. " But 
 my John is quite at your service, such as he is ; and 
 he is certainly competent to the ministerial, if not to 
 the legislative, duties of such an occasion."
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 233 
 
 " Thank you ! " she answered. " He will be of great 
 use, and I gladly accept your offer. But what will 
 the Doctor and Major Ferguson do, without him to 
 attend them, since you say that they are determined 
 not to smile upon me ? " 
 
 " Oh, never fear for them ! " replied Hazlehurst. 
 "John shall brew them a double supply of punch, 
 and leave their supper ready laid for them, and they 
 can wait upon themselves fast enough : they are too 
 old campaigners to be disconcerted by a trifle." 
 
 " They shall be better treated than they deserve, 
 then, for not coining to me," said she ; " for I will 
 send poor old Peter over to them with their supper, 
 and with a bowl of the punch I have been super 
 intending myself for the evening. So you will be 
 good enough to let me have John as soon as you can 
 spare him." 
 
 "He shall be at your command directly," he re 
 plied, " as soon as he can put himself in proper trim. 
 Peter will answer all the purpose for the Doctor and 
 Ferguson." 
 
 After a few more passages between the lovers, 
 which I do not think particularly concern my read 
 ers, Hazlehurst took his leave of his ladye-love, and 
 proceeded to his quarters. I beg that no unkind 
 imputations may be laid upon my Clara in conse 
 quence of her holding this festivity on the eve of the 
 important Saturday; for the arrangements had been 
 made for it before she knew anything of Hazlehurst's 
 troubles. And as they were still a secret, and as she
 
 234 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 had as yet no acknowledged interest in them, if they 
 were public, there was obviously nothing to be done 
 but to go on. But the dear girl had suffered great 
 distress and anxiety about it, especially as the week 
 drew to an end without any tidings of the missing 
 volume. But she had to put a good face upon the 
 matter, and go through her hospitable duties with the 
 best grace she could. 
 
 In those days the hour for the assembling of com 
 pany was a very different one from that which now 
 brings a party together. Before seven o'clock the 
 rooms were filled. I cannot stop now to describe 
 (though description is my forte) the beauty and 
 splendor of the scene. We have nothing in these 
 days, excepting the awkward imitation of a fancy 
 ball, that approaches the glories of the days of bro 
 cades and scarlet coats, of gold lace and gold buttons, 
 of diamond buckles, and steel-hilted rapiers that 
 looked like diamonds, of powder, and high-heeled 
 shoes. Ah! those were the good times, when you 
 knew a gentleman by his coat, and were not obliged 
 to cipher him out by his conduct or his conversation. 
 
 The company were received by Mr. and Miss 
 Forrester, with all the ceremony of the old time. 
 I have not introduced Mr. Forrester to the reader 
 as yet, simply for the want of time. As he made no 
 objection to Hazlehurst's proposals, when they were 
 laid before him, only declining to ratify the engage 
 ment formally until the consent of Sir Ralph had 
 been received, and as I, therefore, could make no use
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 235 
 
 of him in the only way fathers can be successfully 
 managed, as cruel tyrants trampling on the young 
 affections of their daughters, I have had no occas 
 ion to mention him. He would have been well 
 worth your knowledge, however, as a favorable speci 
 men of the old pre-revolutionary New England gen 
 tleman. But I have no time left for you to cultivate 
 his acquaintance. The fact is I want three volumes 
 to make use of my materials. Maga is very good ; 
 but, like Chanticleer in the fable, " she is not 
 enough." All that was eminent in rank or station 
 (civil or military), all that was brilliant in beauty, and 
 attractive in manners, that the besieged town could 
 command, was gathered together on that gay evening. 
 Youth and folly, old age and cards, were in happy 
 proximity. And whatever there might be of love 
 about the former conjunction, there was certainly 
 nothing of it in the latter. Mrs. Battle herself never 
 despised playing cards for love more heartily than the 
 former generation of Boston dowagers. Gaming was 
 in those days almost as much a necessity of life as 
 drinking. At the proper time, when supper was 
 announced, his Excellency led the procession, bearing 
 aloft the fair hand of his lovely hostess, and not tuck 
 ing it under his arm like a walking-stick or a wet 
 umbrella. The tables were loaded with the choicest 
 viands and the rarest wines, " and all went merry as 
 a marriage-bell." 
 
 While these festive proceedings were going on in 
 the next house, Dr. Holcornbe and Major Ferguson
 
 236 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 were whiling away the hours as best they might, 
 in such talk as the garrison and the iness afforded. 
 The punch-tankard stood between them upon a little 
 table, and filled up many pauses in their conversa 
 tion. As they lazily puffed out the smoke from their 
 mouths, they thought with satisfaction of the wisdom 
 of their choice. The distant hum of the party, and 
 the music, only enhanced their solitary satisfaction. 
 At length, a tap was heard at the door, which, open 
 ing, admitted the sable form of poor Peter, to whom 
 we introduced our reader in the second chapter. He 
 entered the room with a dogged and almost an un 
 conscious air of stupidity, bearing a basket in either 
 hand, from one of which he produced some elegant 
 extracts from the great supper, and from the other a 
 fresh flagon of the most delicious punch that they 
 had ever dreamed of, and, besides, two bottles of the 
 celebrated old Forrester Madeira, which had " put a 
 girdle round the earth " in its travels, and knew more 
 years than I dare mention. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say, that as soon as Peter 
 had disposed of these edibles and potables upon the 
 table, and retired, the friends drew up to it, and 
 commenced an assault upon its contents which did 
 infinite honor to their military education. The flagon 
 was in constant requisition, and was pronounced nec 
 tar worthy of the Hebe who had dispensed it. Then, 
 after their supper was finished, they uncorked the 
 wine, and, drawing up to the fire, set in for serious 
 drinking. They were seasoned vessels; but I am
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 237 
 
 sorry to say, that in due time the liquor began to 
 make inroads upon their brains, and to set their 
 tongues in perpetual motion. They told excellent 
 stories, only forgetting the point ; but this, as they 
 both talked at once, was of the less consequence. 
 The Doctor grew professional, and the Major musical. 
 The one described operations, and the other broke 
 down in the midst of songs, all of which he sung to 
 the tune of " Water parted from the Sea." Their eyes 
 began to glaze, and their tongues to trip. They were 
 not at all surprised at seeing duplicates of all the 
 objects in the room, nor at finding themselves stopping 
 short in the midst of stammering sentences. In short, 
 I grieve to relate it, they were getting very drunk. 
 
 " I say, Doctor," stammered the Major, " won't you 
 take another glass of ghost ? " 
 
 " D n the ghost ! " hiccoughed the Doctor. " I 
 do be-believe, Ferguson, you 're dr-drunk ! I should 
 like to see the gh-ghost that would face me n-now." 
 
 " Suppose you see, Doctor whether the 
 door 's drunk ! " said the Major. " It looks d d 
 tottering to me." 
 
 The Doctor laid his course for the door, and, after a 
 few judicious tacks, succeeded in making it. It was 
 slightly ajar : so he shut and locked it, apostrophiz 
 ing the ghost as he meandered back to his chair. 
 
 " D n you ! You '11 have to c-come through the 
 k-keyhole, to-night, m-my friend if you c-come at 
 all." 
 
 Having with great generalship recovered his seat,
 
 238 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 they attempted to resume their " rational enjoyment " 
 and improving conversation. But nature was too 
 strong for them, and it was not many minutes before 
 they were both fast asleep in their chairs. I am sorry 
 to say that such scenes were not so rare, or so dis 
 creditable, in those three-bottle days, as they have 
 happily since become ; and the sight of two middle- 
 aged gentlemen drunk on either side of a fireplace 
 would have been no astonishing sight seventy years 
 ago. 
 
 How long it was after this point of their adven 
 tures, I cannot exactly tell, but it was not long, 
 before the men who were keeping guard were alarmed 
 by a loud and most startling noise in the haunted 
 chamber. They all incontinently rushed to the door, 
 and heard within the sounds of a clamorous struggle. 
 The ghost was evidently caught at last. But it was 
 also plain that he was fighting for his life. He was 
 game to the last, clearly. He was apparently almost 
 a match for his two adversaries ; for loud cries re 
 sounded through the house. 
 
 " Here he is, d n him ! " "I 've got him !" " By 
 
 , he 's choking me ! " " Murder, murder ! " 
 
 "Help, help!" "Where are you, you scoundrels?" 
 All attended by a running accompaniment of furni 
 ture-breaking and chairs tumbling into chaotic heaps. 
 The men tried in vain to open the door, when 
 Hazlehurst rushed up stairs in hot haste, having 
 been summoned, by his own direction, at the first 
 alarm.
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 239 
 
 "Where are your muskets, men?" he cried in 
 strong excitement. " The bloody rebels are murdering 
 them ! Dash open the door with the butt-ends ! " 
 
 Seizing a musket, he suited the action to the word, 
 and the door was soon broken down, though not 
 without difficulty, as doors were then. The scene 
 was frightful. The furniture was overturned ; the 
 lights were out ; and lying on the floor, either mor 
 tally wounded, or exhausted by a fruitless struggle, 
 lay the watchmen of the night. 
 
 " Where is the villain ? " cried Hazlehurst, rushing 
 into the room. 
 
 " Here 's the d d scoundrel ! " cried the Doctor, 
 laying hold of the Major. 
 
 "This is the infernal rascal !" bellowed the Major, 
 seizing the unhappy Holcombe by the throat. 
 
 And, as they shook each other, they vainly endeav 
 ored to rise from among the wreck of things that 
 surrounded them. 
 
 It needed no conjuror to tell how the matter stood. 
 Hazlehurst sunk into a chair, which, fortunately, had 
 survived the fray, and made the whole house ring 
 with interminable peals of laughter. His followers 
 could not resist the contagion, which was made the 
 more irresistible by the drunken gravity of the two 
 heroes, who sat like so many tipsy Mariuses amid 
 the ruins of another Carthage. You would have 
 thought that a legion of laughing imps had taken 
 possession of the mansion, and were consecrating it 
 to their service.
 
 240 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 As soon as Hazlehurst could command his voice, 
 he gave directions to the men to separate the unlucky 
 ghost-seers, and to carry them carefully to bed. Then, 
 taking a candle, he surveyed the prospect before him. 
 The emptied flagons and broken bottles sufficiently 
 accounted for the scene he had just witnessed. He 
 glanced his eye upon the table. His color changed. 
 He started forward. By Heaven ! THERE LAY THE 
 
 ORDERLY-BOOK ! 
 
 Two or three years had passed away, and a happy 
 family party were assembled around a Christmas fire 
 at Hazlewood, the seat of the Hazlehursts. Vigorous 
 age and blooming infancy clustered around the hearth : 
 in the centre of the circle were Charles Hazlehurst 
 and his lovely Clara. He had consented, reluctantly, 
 to retire from the army, that he might sustain the 
 declining years of his parents. He had brought his 
 wife with him, and there they sat, as happy and 
 beloved a pair as ever lived and loved. 
 
 The evening had been sped away with games and 
 gambols. At last the sports were over, and the 
 party, closing round the firebrands, yielded to the 
 inspiration of the hour, and vied with each other in 
 tales of diablerie. At last, Charles is asked to narrate 
 his adventure. He told it well, and was rewarded 
 by alternating deep-drawn breaths of interest and by 
 peals of laughter. But the mystery still remained 
 unsolved. While they were all offering their several 
 explanations, Hazlehurst exclaimed,
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 241 
 
 " I would pay down a handsome reward to any 
 one who would tell me where that book was during 
 those four days ! " 
 
 " And would you grant an amnesty," asked Clara, 
 " to all concerned, if you could know it ? " 
 
 " That I would, with all my heart ; for the excel 
 lence of the joke, now that no mischief came of it, 
 redeems its roguishness." 
 
 " Then I can easily satisfy you, my dear," resumed 
 his wife. " It was all the time in my dressing-table 
 drawer." 
 
 There was a moment of silent astonishment, and 
 then Hazlehurst exclaimed, 
 
 "In your drawer? Why, were you the ghost, 
 Clara ? " 
 
 " Not exactly," she replied. " But I had an Afrite 
 that did my will quite as well as any ghost could do." 
 
 " What do you mean, my love ? " inquired her hus 
 band. " You are surely jesting. What Afrite do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " You remember poor Peter ? " 
 
 He nodded assent. 
 
 " Well, he was the ghost, and none but he. I never 
 meant to tell the story ; but it is too good a joke to be 
 kept to one's self." 
 
 " But how ? What had you to do with it ? " 
 
 " Remember your proclamation of amnesty, and I 
 will tell you. You know that he was the servant of 
 the Vaughans " 
 
 " No," interrupted Charles, " I knew no such thing 
 16
 
 242 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 only that he belonged to a family that had left 
 the town." 
 
 " True," she resumed. " I remember that I kept 
 back that particular, for fear of exciting your suspi 
 cion. But their servant he was, and treated with 
 merited kindness for the service done his master ; 
 which resulted in disordering his poor brain. After 
 he came to live at my father's, he never seemed to 
 feel at home, but would often wander away at night. 
 I suspected that his resort was to his old master's 
 house, and that it was his prowling about it that 
 gave it its bad name. But, as the officers who first 
 occupied it were not especially pleasant neighbors, I 
 did not interfere with his amusements. But when 
 you came, my dear " 
 
 " You took me under your protection, and I thank 
 you," said Charles, laughing. 
 
 " Certainly I did," she continued ; " but I thought 
 he might just try your courage for one night. I had 
 him watched out of the house by my maid, and, from 
 the glee in which he returned, I had no doubt of his 
 entire success. That was the first night." 
 
 " But pray tell me," asked her husband, " how he 
 performed the feat, if you happen to know. He must 
 have had wings, though I never saw them." 
 
 " That I can," she replied. " Poor Peter was a 
 native African, and was as lithe and agile as a mon 
 key, though you would not think so to look at him. 
 He could go up the side of a house by the spout, 
 or the slightest inequalities, like a cat. When you
 
 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 243 
 
 heard him walking over your head, and went up to 
 look for him, he swung himself out of the window, 
 shutting it cunningly after him, and, sliding down the 
 spout, was in a second at the window of your closet. 
 It was but the work of a moment to do what you 
 found done, and of another moment to escape as he 
 entered. It was a sort of spite he felt against in 
 truders in that house." 
 
 " But how came he by my orderly-book ? " in 
 quired Charles. 
 
 "That I must claim as my unwilling glory," an 
 swered Clara. " I cross-examined Peter privately on 
 the subject of his night's adventures, and strictly for 
 bade his repeating his visits without my knowledge. 
 I must confess, however, to a strong desire to mys 
 tify you a little further, especially as I had learned 
 from my maid, who was a flame of your orderly, of 
 your precautions. I accordingly told Peter that he 
 might visit your room once more, disturbing nothing, 
 and only bringing away a single book from the 
 table. When I found what it was, I was frightened 
 enough, and, when I learned how much mischief I was 
 near doing, you know I was half distracted." 
 
 " I remember it well, and put it all down to my 
 own account." 
 
 " And so you should, to be sure, Charles. It was 
 all on your account. I was. relieved by finding that 
 the mischief could be repaired if the book were re 
 turned in time. So I devised several ways of getting 
 it back to you, which I abandoned, for fear of detec-
 
 244 THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT. 
 
 tion. My party, however, on Friday night, gave me 
 the opportunity, you recollect, of spiriting away your 
 servant, and getting poor Peter within your lines 
 of intrenchment. By watching his opportunity, he 
 climbed unperceived to your closet, where he ensconced 
 himself, biding his time. I had told him to restore 
 it as nearly as he could to the place whence he took 
 it, for fear of mistakes. In due time, the snoring of 
 your watchful friends told him that the season of 
 action was come. He stole into the room, deposited 
 the book on the table, blew out the lightsj knocked 
 the two sleepers' heads together, and retired, covered 
 with glory. The rest you know as well as I. This," 
 continued Clara, " is the revelation of the only secret 
 I ever kept from you. It was the first : it shall be 
 the last." 
 
 " Well," said Hazlehurst, as the party rose to re 
 tire for the night, " there is an end of my only ghost- 
 story. But this is not the first time that THE DEVIL 
 has had the credit of a piece of mischief which was, 
 in truth, only due to A WOMAN."
 
 LEWIS HERBERT.
 
 LEWIS HERBERT; 
 
 AN INCIDENT OF NEW ENGLAND SLAVERY. 
 
 " \\ 70RDS are things," said Mirabeau, and very 
 ^* troublesome things men have sometimes 
 found them. Abstract propositions are now and 
 then as dangerous as edged tools. The "rhetorical 
 flourish" of the Declaration of Independence has 
 produced effects of which the honest men who 
 uttered it never dreamed. It produced an explosion 
 in France, which shook all the thrones of Europe, 
 and unsettled the deepest foundations of old estab 
 lishments. It has overthrown the domestic institu 
 tions of the British West Indies, and is even now 
 threatening our own with destruction. There is no 
 telling where its ravages will be stayed. Indeed, a 
 new idea is at any time a very dangerous thing to 
 be allowed to go at large in a quiet community. If 
 a man has hold of one, he must take care how he lets 
 it go. If he cannot knock it on the head, let him 
 make a cage for it in his own breast, where it may 
 serve to divert himself and his particular friends 
 occasionally; but let him beware how he turns it
 
 248 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 loose upon society. It will be almost sure to worry 
 himself first of all, and then to play the very deuce 
 in the neighborhood. And the mischief is, that, when 
 a new idea is once on foot, it is next to impossible to 
 catch it or destroy it. And this, notwithstanding the 
 respectable part of society has an instinctive anti 
 pathy to the anomalous monster, and does all it can 
 to prevent its mischiefs and to despatch it, and that, 
 generally, without much regard to the punctilios of 
 the chase. The world is sadly infested at this 
 moment with these vermin. A man cannot be at 
 peace in his study, his pulpit, his business, his sect, 
 his party, or his possessions, for them. They respect 
 not the old philosophies and theologies ; they dabble 
 in physic and in law ; they buzz about in churches 
 and capitols ; they interfere between men and their 
 spiritual and temporal masters; like harpies, they 
 carry away the very meat and wine from our tables ; 
 they demand a reconstruction of society ; they even 
 come betwixt us and our very bank-stock and money 
 bags. I wonder that the well-disposed part of man 
 kind do not make a grand battue for the extermination 
 of these pests of the species. We shall never have a 
 quiet world again until they do. 
 
 Our ancestors of the times that tried men's souls 
 had their own experience of the impracticable nature 
 of new ideas. The discussions which ushered in the 
 great " rhetorical flourish " of the Fourth of July, 
 "that all men were created free and equal," were 
 not held in a corner, and would not always be limited
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 249 
 
 to a fit audience. The slaves, as they stood behind 
 their masters' chairs (for be it known to our South 
 ern brethren, that their favorite system, though ever 
 a patriarchal, was not always a peculiar one), or 
 mingled in the excited crowds in the streets, could 
 not help hearing statements of general principles, 
 which, though notoriously a stupid generation, they 
 contrived to generalize sufficiently to make them 
 include themselves. A practical consequence of 
 these new ideas of human rights was, that many 
 slaves made free with so much of their masters' prop 
 erty as was comprised within the circumference of 
 their own skins, and, dispensing with the parental 
 care under which they had grown up, rashly under 
 took the charge of themselves. Among this thought 
 less and ungrateful class was Lewis, the slave of a 
 wealthy and distinguished New England gentleman, 
 whose real name I shall disguise under that of Her 
 bert. Lewis was born in the house of Mr. Herbert, 
 and had grown to manhood in his service. He had 
 no reason to complain of harsh treatment, or of in 
 attention to his bodily necessities. He had passed 
 the middle period of life, and was not many years 
 younger than his master, who ever treated him with 
 much consideration and indulgence. In the realms 
 of the kitchen he ruled with absolute sway, one of 
 those despots of whom most families whose traditions 
 reach so far back have heard the fame and the deeds. 
 Mr. Herbert scarcely dared to bring a friend home to 
 dine with him, without consulting the convenience of
 
 250 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 Lewis ; and as to a dinner-party, the master of the 
 house knew himself to be but second in command 
 on such a field-day. Over the larder, the kitchen, 
 the wine-cellar, the plate-chest, and the china-closet, 
 he reigned undisputed sovereign. 
 
 Notwithstanding his ample rule and high preroga 
 tives (and Lewis magnified his office), he was never 
 quite satisfied that he had his due. He heard the 
 word " slave " used as the most ignominious epithet 
 that could be applied to human infamy, and he learned 
 to hate it. He heard the blessings of liberty extolled 
 as the birthright of all mankind, and he wished to 
 know what they were. He did not see (poor slave 
 that he was) why he should endure a condition 
 which so many great men seemed to regard with 
 such abhorrence, or why he had not as good a right 
 to that freedom of which they discoursed so elo 
 quently, as they had. I must do Mr. Herbert, how 
 ever, the justice to say, that it was not from his lips, 
 or in his house, that Lewis imbibed these extravagant 
 ideas. He was (God bless him f) a stanch Tory, and 
 held all these levelling doctrines in utter abhorrence. 
 But the air was tainted with them, and it is not to 
 be wondered at that poor Lewis should have been 
 infected, especially as his temperament and condition 
 predisposed him to receive the contagion. He was 
 so severely afflicted, that he resolved to leave the 
 home where he had been born and bred up, and 
 where he enjoyed all the substantial goods of life, in 
 pursuit of that phantom, Liberty, that ignis fatuus
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 251 
 
 which has often led men such a dance, and at last 
 left them in the mire. Accordingly, one fine night, 
 he left his master's house, with a heavy heart and 
 many tears ; for the love of the African race for their 
 homes and old familiar haunts amounts to a passion. 
 With many a bitter regret at leaving his old master 
 and his young mistress, and with many a sigh at all 
 he left behind, he fared forth in search of what great 
 men have deemed but a name, of freedom and self- 
 mastery. Whether his experience confirmed or con 
 futed this philosophy, I am not able to say. All I 
 know is, that he never returned to his master's house, 
 though he well knew that he would receive a joyful 
 welcome, and full restitution to all his former digni 
 ties. Mr. Herbert, though grieved and hurt at the 
 departure of Lewis, took no measures to recover his 
 services, but suffered him to seek a better condition 
 if he could find it. 
 
 Several years had passed away since the flight of 
 Lewis, and no tidings had been heard of him. The 
 cloud which had been so long gathering, now brooded 
 in blackness over the land, ready to burst upon it in 
 a storm of desolation. Indeed, the first red drops, 
 the forerunners of the coming tempest, had already 
 fallen at Lexington, and men were awaiting the gen 
 eral crash with hearts of mingled hope and fear. The 
 siege of Boston was forming gradually ; and the timid 
 of either party were endeavoring to escape to it or 
 from it, according as their political principles led
 
 252 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 them to welcome or to abhor the protection of the 
 British crown. Mr. Herbert was a loyalist, the 
 most loyal of the loyal. His faith in the omni 
 potence of the British Parliament was worthy of 
 a crown lawyer. He believed that the struggle 
 would soon be over, and its only result would be 
 to establish King George III. more firmly than 
 ever upon his throne and in the hearts of his peo 
 ple. He had retired several years before to his 
 country-seat, about ten miles from Boston ; and his 
 advancing age and increasing infirmities indisposed 
 him to a hasty removal to a beleaguered capital. 
 Though he had held office under the crown, still he 
 was not especially obnoxious to the popular side, 
 and he hoped that he might be permitted to remain 
 a quiet spectator of the struggle, unmolested by 
 either party. He thought that an elderly man and 
 his young daughter could not be regarded as very 
 dangerous obstacles to the progress of a revolution. 
 He hoped that age and innocence might be safe from 
 popular violence. But, good easy man, he had been 
 brought up under the old ideas. Had he lived at 
 this time, he would have known better. 
 
 It was a blustering evening about the beginning 
 of May (not the May of the poets, but the May of 
 New England), in the year of grace 1775. Mr. 
 Herbert and his daughter, his only child, were seated 
 together in the parlor (for in those days drawing- 
 rooms were not) of his pleasant country-house. The 
 shutters were closed, and the heavy crimson curtains
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 253 
 
 drawn, concealing the deep recesses for the windows 
 and the inviting window-seats, now, alas ! seen no 
 more below. The light of the noble wood fire 
 (always a necessary attendant on a New England 
 May, and that season was what Horace Walpole 
 would have called a hard spring), roaring up the 
 ample chimney, its jambs adorned with Dutch tiles, 
 and its mantel-piece with carving in wood, of which 
 Grinling Gibbons need not have been ashamed, flashed 
 comfortably back from the panelled walls, pleasantly 
 overpowering the rays of the wax candles on the table. 
 Every panel of the wall supported a full-length por 
 trait of some of the ancestral Herberts, from the pen 
 cil of the Smiberts and the Blackburns of the early 
 provincial days ; while upon two of them the magic 
 art of Copley had impressed an immortal moment of 
 the cheerful age and of the brilliant youth of the pair 
 before us. Change but the brocaded dressing-gown 
 and crimson velvet slippers of the old man for his 
 claret-colored dress -coat with gold buttons, and gold- 
 buckled shoes, and divest his head of the black vel 
 vet skull-cap turned up with white silk, and you 
 could scarcely tell which was the picture, and which 
 the original And under the green riding-habit, 
 heavily laced with gold, and the riding-cap, with its 
 black ostrich-plume, you could not fail to discern the 
 form and features of the beautiful Emily Herbert. 
 Curiously carved, high-backed arm-chairs; cabinets 
 that would have driven a modern collector mad ; 
 tables of every variety of shape, some grasping a
 
 254 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 huge "ball in a single clawed foot, while others sus 
 tained themselves upon an unaccountable confusion 
 of legs ; and other strange furnitures, whereof modem 
 upholstery knows not the names, were duly arranged 
 in their proper places about the ample apartment. 
 The survivors must blush at the confusion in which 
 they now awake and find themselves, after their half- 
 century of sleep, in modern drawing-rooms. Books 
 there were good store, and in the corner, by the door, 
 a globe, brought from the library for some special 
 consultation. The father and his fair child sat by 
 the fire, beside a small table, upon which stood the 
 supper-tray. The repast was slight ; but the display 
 of plate was such as would be thought unbefitting 
 the occasion in these days. But in that world, be 
 fore fancy stocks, when cities under water, and 
 railways to the Dismal Swamp, were unimagined 
 things, much capital, comparatively, was invested 
 in plate. And these marks of wealth, reported by 
 the British officers who were feasted in Boston on 
 their return from the conquest of Canada, are said 
 to have been a main temptation to the ministry to 
 seek to repair their necessities by the taxation of the 
 Colonies. Tall decanters blushed with the glowing 
 vintages of Madeira and Portugal, and beside them 
 an exquisitely delicate bowl of curious china sent 
 up the fumes of that punch which was our fathers' 
 " earliest visitation, and their last at even." 
 
 The old man sat looking wistfully into the fire, 
 while his daughter, leaning her cheek upon her
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 255 
 
 hand, gazed anxiously upon his face ; for those were 
 days that made fair young brows look sad and 
 thoughtful before- their time. The clock in the hall 
 had just struck ten when they were roused from 
 their contemplations by the sudden opening of the 
 door. They hastily looked round, and, to their sur 
 prise, the long-lost Lewis stood before them. Time 
 had somewhat altered him ; and his whole air and 
 bearing was changed from what it was of old : but he 
 it was. " So you have returned at last," began Mr. 
 Herbert ; but he was hastily interrupted by Lewis. 
 " Sir," he exclaimed in an earnest tone, " you must 
 instantly leave this house. You have not a moment 
 to lose." " Leave my house ! at this hour ! Why, 
 pray ? " " Because the mob is coming, vowing your 
 destruction arid that of all that belongs to you." 
 " The mob ! and for what ? " " They say that you 
 have been the cause of all their troubles ; that they 
 have discovered letters and what not but make 
 haste, sir. They are close at hand. If you will 
 listen, you can hear them even now." He hastily 
 opened the window, and a confused murmur of voices 
 was heard, approaching nearer and nearer. Mr. Her 
 bert, who had started to his feet at the first address 
 of his slave, now sunk despondingly back again in 
 his arm-chair. " I cannot go," said he. " Save my 
 child, and leave me to my fate." " For God's sake," 
 exclaimed Lewis, " rouse yourself. They will murder 
 you. They swear that you are worse than Hutchin- 
 son, and that they will have your heart's blood."
 
 256 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 The old man shook his head. " Leave me," said he 
 faintly, " and save her." " Dearest father, do you 
 think I will leave you?" cried Miss Herbert, pas 
 sionately embracing him. " If you will stay, I will stay 
 with you. But will you suffer your only child to see 
 you murdered before her eyes, and then to be exposed 
 to the fury of a rebel mob ? " This expostulation 
 seemed to revive him in some degree ; and the resolu 
 tion beaming from his daughter's eyes gave him new 
 strength and courage. There was indeed no time to 
 lose. The shouts and imprecations of the excited 
 populace were now too distinctly audible, as they 
 approached the rear of the house. Mr. Herbert was 
 almost carried out of the house, through the hall-door, 
 between his daughter and his slave. The house was 
 about a quarter of a mile distant from the high-road. 
 There were no artificial grounds around it. The 
 thick grass grew up to the door, and the natural 
 lawn was irregularly dotted with aboriginal elms and 
 oaks which the axe of the pioneer had spared. At 
 some distance on the left, the lawn was skirted by a 
 young growth of forest-trees. To this point Lewis 
 first directed the steps of his charge ; and under its 
 shelter they approached the road before the rnob had 
 reached the house. There he paused for a moment, 
 to allow his companions to take breath, and to 
 permit the stragglers who were coming in from the 
 country around to leave the road free. They looked 
 towards the house. Lights were seen flashing at 
 every window. The mob were in search of them.
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 257 
 
 They could hear distinctly their curses of disappoint 
 ment and rage. Presently the windows were dashed 
 through, and the furniture thrown furiously out upon 
 the lawn. The very quiet room, where, a quarter of 
 an hour before, all had been peace and stillness, was 
 stripped of all its treasures to heap high the bonfire 
 which was to crown the orgies of the night. The 
 mob had soon broken into the wine-cellar ; and this 
 circumstance, and the prospect of the " festal blaze," 
 it is probable, was the safety of the fugitives, by 
 delaying the pursuit. Presently the bonfire began 
 to crackle and blaze; and the shouts became more 
 and more ferocious under the combined influence of 
 liquor and mischief. 
 
 Foolish tourists in America complain that we have 
 no amusements in this country. I wish they could 
 have been at Walnut Hill that night. But they are 
 a perverse generation. Have they never heard of our 
 merry times of old, sacking Governor Hutchinson's 
 house, and tarring and feathering obnoxious officials, 
 and the grand old tea-party of '73 ? And then our 
 rare sport in burning convents, and halls dedicated 
 to freedom, and dragging insolent varlets about the 
 streets, who dared to say that the Declaration of 
 Independence meant anything, and shooting them 
 down at the doors of their printing-offices ! They 
 might at least have remembered the fun we have 
 had in hoaxing " the English epicures " into invest 
 ing their solid hoards in a very rotten commodity 
 of ours, called public faith, worth about as much 
 17
 
 258 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 as a dicer's oath, or the bought smile of a prostitute. 
 And our repudiation, too ! If that be not an excellent 
 jest, I should like to know what is. I say nothing 
 of the royal pastimes of burning men alive by a 
 slow fire, of hunting negroes with bloodhounds and 
 rifles, of whipping women to death, and selling one's 
 own children by the pound; for these are the recrea 
 tions of our betters, the guarded prerogative of the 
 privileged classes. This kind of game is strictly 
 preserved, and secured for the amusement of our 
 masters, as the chase was in old time confined to 
 the corresponding class in Europe. Like them, too, 
 our lords claim the privilege of pursuing their game 
 over the soil of their vassals. But, though shut out 
 from these diversions of our superiors, we can still 
 share with them the stirring excitement of the mob, 
 the delicate pleasantry of repudiation, and the 
 delicious irony of lynch law. Why, what would 
 these cavillers have ? No amusements, indeed ! 
 
 The blazing bonfire soon attracted all the loiterers 
 in the road, and Lewis seized the opportunity to cross 
 it, with his companions, into the fields beyond. He 
 knew that the main roads in every direction would 
 be soon thronged by yet greater numbers, attracted 
 by the blaze ; and he pushed across the fields towards 
 the seashore, about two miles off, as the most probable 
 way of concealment or escape. They hurried along, 
 as fast as the infirmities of Mr. Herbert would per 
 mit, over the uneven surface of the land ; and slow 
 enough it seemed to his companions. The night was
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 259 
 
 more like one in November than in May, and the 
 chilly wind drifted the clouds in black masses over 
 the waning moon. They accomplished in safety 
 about half the distance, and found themselves in 
 a lane leading to the coast. Here Mr. Herbert de 
 clared that it was impossible for him to proceed. It 
 was in vain that his daughter and Lewis endeavored 
 to re-assure him, and drag him forward. He sunk 
 despondingly upon the ground. At that moment a 
 single horseman rode up. He stopped to see what 
 was the matter. The cloud passed from the moon 
 for an instant, and he saw at a glance how it was. 
 "So the old rascal has got away," said he with an 
 oath ; " but I'll soon bring those that will settle his 
 business." He was just putting spurs to his horse, 
 when Lewis, seeing the emergency of the case, seized 
 his bridle fast. It was but the work of a moment. 
 The horseman was dragged from his seat, and thrown 
 upon the side of the lane, and Lewis had lifted Mr. 
 Herbert into the saddle. Leading the horse, and 
 entreating Miss Herbert to assist in steadying her 
 father upon his back, he hurried onward as fast as 
 he dared. This was the more necessary, as they 
 heard the dismounted cavalier, as soon as he could 
 recover his breath and his senses, making towards 
 the light, roaring for assistance. It seemed as 
 though they never would reach the end of the lane. 
 Mr. Herbert swayed upon the saddle like a drunken 
 man, and it was with difficulty that they kept him 
 from falling. Before they had gained the shore,
 
 260 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 they knew that their pursuers had been put upon 
 the right scent. They were nearing them fast, when 
 the fugitives at last came out upon the sands. The 
 hurried footsteps, shouts, execrations, and dancing 
 lights of the mob, seemed fearfully near. What 
 were they to do ? Fortunately, Lewis espied a 
 gentleman's boat-house, built over a little creek 
 hard by. " I must make free with Colonel Vernon's 
 boat," exclaimed he, and, suiting the action to the 
 word, he demolished the padlock on the door with a 
 huge stone. By an equally summary process he 
 freed the boat from its moorings, and pushed it out 
 of its covert. It seemed to be too late, for the rioters 
 were almost upon them. He dashed through the 
 waves, and, taking Mr. Herbert in his arms, deposited 
 him in the forward part of the boat, arid then, in like 
 manner placing Miss Herbert at the helm, with a 
 hurried instruction how to hold it, grasped the oars. 
 A second's delay or misadventure had been fatal ; for 
 the crowd were already upon the beach, exulting 
 over their prey. But a single stroke of the oars 
 placed them beyond their reach. Maddened with 
 drink and rage, the pursuers rushed into the sea 
 with yells and imprecations, in hopes to seize the 
 boat. A shower of stones rained upon the fugitives. 
 But, luckily, the rioters had no fire-arms, and a 
 sweep or two more of the oars placed them beyond 
 danger and annoyance. The bay upon which they 
 were launched was so completely land-locked, that 
 it was more like an inland lake than the wide Atlan-
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 261 
 
 tic. They were soon careering over the gentle bil 
 lows, leaving the confused noise of the baffled mob 
 far behind them, and they forgot for the moment, 
 in the sweet sense of present security, what they had 
 suffered and lost. 
 
 As soon as the first tumults of joy were over, Lewis 
 explained his agency in the matter. It seems, that, 
 after he left Mr. Herbert's house, he had gone to 
 Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, where he lived until 
 he happened to hear that his old master had removed 
 permanently into the country. He then returned to 
 Boston, not long before, and went into the service of 
 a distinguished patriot. He had left the town pre 
 viously to the siege, with this gentleman's family. 
 It was in this situation that he heard of the popu 
 lar excitement against his old master, as a traitor 
 to the country (whether just or not, we have not 
 time now to inquire), and of the determination of 
 the populace to wreak their vengeance upon him. 
 By pretending to join them, he had been able to get 
 enough in advance of them to defeat their plans, 
 as we have seen. While thus explaining, the boat 
 rounded the point of Long Island, and was instantly 
 challenged from his Majesty's frigate " Arethusa," 
 which lay at anchor in the channel. Explanations 
 were soon given. The fugitives were cordially wel 
 comed to the hospitalities of the ship for the night, 
 and the next morning they were safely landed in 
 Boston.
 
 262 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 Long years passed away. The struggle was over. 
 The seven years of apprenticeship were at an end ; 
 and the American Colonies, erected into the United 
 States, had set up the trade of government on their 
 own account. The expectations of the English 
 ministry were disappointed, and the hopes of the 
 loyalists crushed forever. The treaty of Paris had 
 crowned the work : and the rebellion was trans 
 muted, by the magic of success, into the Eevolution. 
 Many hearts rejoiced at the prosperous issue ; some, 
 because they glowed with patriotic fires ; some, 
 because they saw a new and untried career of ambi 
 tion opened before them ; some, because the final 
 seal was set upon the confiscations and forfeitures 
 of the troublous times, and confirmed their titles to 
 other people's estates. But there were, too, sorrowful 
 spirits and breaking hearts, wearing out sad years of 
 exile in a foreign land, upon whose ears the distant 
 rejoiQings sounded like the death-knell of their hopes. 
 To such we turn. 
 
 One of the gloomiest days of a London November 
 was drawing towards its close. The sun vainly 
 endeavored to pierce the thick fog that buried the 
 city in an untimely night. The street-lamps were 
 lighted, though it was not yet sunset : and the win 
 dows of the shops and houses shot forth uncertain 
 glimmerings into the darkness. A single candle 
 sufficed to light up a humble room on the fourth 
 floor of a dilapidated house in an obscure part of 
 the city. It had not much to reveal A ragged car-
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 263 
 
 pet strove to hide the middle of the floor; a few 
 common chairs (no two alike), a deal table, and a 
 rough bedstead, all bearing the tokens of poverty 
 and the pawnbroker's shop, filled up the disposable 
 space of the chamber. A handful of coals upon the 
 grate seemed to be endeavoring to excite themselves 
 into a blaze, sending out into the room an occasional 
 puff of smoke as an earnest of their good intentions. 
 The room was scrupulously clean, but in all other 
 respects bore the marks of extreme poverty. Upon 
 the bed reclined an old man, propped by pillows, 
 apparently in the last stage of life. By his side sat 
 a woman of perhaps thirty, but upon whose counte 
 nance care and sorrow had done the work of many 
 years. The unnatural brightness of her eye, the 
 hectic spot on her cheek, and the frequent though 
 stifled cough, showed that she was not much longer 
 for the world than her aged companion. "Emily, 
 my love," said Mr. Herbert, for he it was, " what 
 was that knocking that just awoke me ? " " It was 
 nothing, sir," replied his daughter, " but Mrs. Hobbs, 
 coming after her rent. You remember that the doc 
 tor's fee last week, when you were so ill, swallowed 
 up that week's rent, so that we are now a fortnight 
 in arrears. But I pacified her by promising she 
 should be paid as soon as Lewis arrives. You know 
 it is Saturday night." " Ah ! she awoke me from a, 
 most delicious dream. I thought I stood, as I often 
 do in dreams, upon the lawn at Walnut Hill. The 
 shadows of the old trees fell, sharply defined, on the
 
 264 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 grass; beyond, the Neponset reflected the trees on 
 his banks, as he used to do ; the Blue Hill was 
 on my right hand, the old woods on ray left, and the 
 ocean gleamed in the distance. As I stood there, it 
 seemed to me as if all that I have ever known during 
 my long life passed in friendly procession before me. 
 First my parents, and brothers and sisters, then my 
 school-fellows and college-companions, and so on, as 
 long as I had a friend left It seemed as if they were 
 gathered to some great festival, of which I was the 
 central attraction. How I rejoiced in the sight of 
 their beloved countenances ! " " You have at least 
 one friend left, sir," interposed his daughter. " True, 
 my dear, and one worth hundreds that have called 
 themselves so. What would my proud ancestors have 
 said, what should I have said in my pride of life, 
 had it been foretold that I and my child would one 
 day be dependent for our daily bread on the bounty 
 of a negro !" " Dear Lewis !" said Miss Herbert, " he 
 has saved our lives many times. What should we 
 have done without him ? " " What, indeed ! " rejoined 
 her father. " When the compensation allowed for my 
 losses by the government was absorbed by my old 
 English debts, and when, that not sufficing, my very 
 pension was sold, we must have starved, or come 
 upon the parish, but for him. God will reward 
 him." A light tap was heard at the door, which 
 was gently opened, and Lewis entered, his face 
 beaming with satisfaction, for it had been a pros 
 perous week with him. Years had grizzled his hair,
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 265 
 
 and slightly bent his frame ; but " his age was like a 
 lusty winter, frosty, but kindly." He wore the 
 dress of the waiter of a tavern, in which capacity 
 he had for many years supported himself and his 
 proteges. On his arm he bore a covered basket 
 containing provisions, which he had just been pur 
 chasing. He cheerfully advanced to Miss Herbert, 
 and gave her money for her clamorous landlady 
 and other expenses. He then busied himself in 
 putting the room to rights, and in performing various 
 services about the sick-bed. There was a cheerful 
 alacrity about him which showed that his labors 
 were indeed those of love. There was nothing of 
 servility about the marked respect which he paid 
 to Mr. and Miss Herbert. His good-breeding was 
 learnt in no coterie or court ; but it could not have 
 been surpassed by the most accomplished graduate 
 of either; for he bestowed the greatest of benefac 
 tions without seeming conscious that they were 
 such, and saved the pride of his beneficiaries while 
 he supplied their necessities. He was fully aware 
 of the obligations under which he had laid the help 
 less pair before him, and they knew it; but they 
 both felt as if his relation to them was that of a 
 father or a brother. Misery is a great leveller of the 
 distinctions men have made between themselves and 
 their fellow-men. But there was nothing in the de 
 portment of Lewis that ever reminded his former 
 master and mistress of their obligations to him. 
 At last, he said that it was time to go, as there
 
 266 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 was a great supper at the Angel that night. As he 
 turned to leave the room, Mr. Herbert detained him. 
 " Lewis," said he, " I feel as if my time was short, 
 and I have a word or two to say to you." Lewis 
 put down his hat, and approached the bedside. " My 
 friend," Mr. Herbert resumed, " my child and I owe 
 you many lives. You saved us from a mob in 
 America, and from starvation here." Lewis made a 
 deprecating gesture ; and his countenance indicated 
 so much distress, that Mr. Herbert proceeded, " I 
 am not going to thank you, my friend, for that I can 
 not do, God will thank you, but to ask you to 
 continue to be the friend of my child when I am 
 dead." Lewis looked half reproachfully at his old 
 master, as if hurt at the implication that such a 
 request was necessary, and then turned his eyes 
 upon Miss Herbert. They filled with tears as they 
 rested upon her ; for he saw, though her father did 
 not, how short a time she was destined to remain 
 behind him. He could not speak ; but he took Miss 
 Herbert's hand and kissed it. Lord Chesterfield could 
 not have done it more expressively. Mr. Herbert was 
 made easy on that point. " Now tell me," he resumed, 
 " whether you have made any inquiries as to my old 
 loyalist friends at the other end of the town : do 
 they suspect where lam?" "I have. good reason 
 to know," replied Lewis, " that they believe you 
 returned long since to America, and have no sus 
 picion of your being still in London." " That is 
 well," rejoined Mr. Herbert : " let the secret be still
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 267 
 
 kept, that the world " (his little loyalist world) "may 
 never know of the latter days of Philip Herbert." 
 He extended his hand to his benefactor, and, sinking 
 back upon his pillow, closed his eyes. Lewis, in 
 strong emotion, stole from the room. He returned 
 about midnight, and, as soon as he looked upon the 
 face of the sick man, he saw that he was dying. 
 Miss Herbert had suspected as much, and was 
 anxiously awaiting his arrival. They exchanged 
 looks : no words were needed. Lewis took his sta 
 tion on the other side of the bed, and they remained 
 all night watching the face of the dying man. 
 Towards morning, he opened his eyes, and turning 
 them first upon his friend, and then upon his child, 
 with that look which only a dying man can give, he 
 closed them again forever. 
 
 I need not prolong my tale. More than half a cen 
 tury has passed away since all its actors disappeared, 
 like drops of rain in the ocean. They sleep together 
 in one of the hideous churchyards of London, and 
 are forgotten. Of the colonial glories of the Herberts, 
 of the miseries of their exile, of the heroic self-devo 
 tion of Lewis, not a trace is left, except this imperfect 
 tradition. Heroic his conduct surely deserves to be 
 called ; for what is heroism but intelligent self-devo 
 tion to an unselfish end, self-sacrifice for the advan 
 tage of others ? And when those for whom the 
 sacrifices of years were made had inflicted upon him 
 who made them the greatest wrong man can do to
 
 268 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 man, when self-devotion was thus the companion 
 of godlike forgiveness, surely it was a height of 
 virtue to which the annals of the race can furnish 
 but few parallels. For Lewis was no besotted slave, 
 whom favors or blows had so imbruted that he could 
 not discern his own rights, so that he blindly fol 
 lowed his master, in the belief that he was entitled 
 to his lifelong service. He had shown his sense of 
 the degradation and injustice of his servile estate 
 by leaving the persons and the scenes he loved, for 
 freedom, though in a worse condition, and refusing 
 to return again until misfortune had overshadowed 
 them. That he did not grudge his services, he 
 showed by his cheerful gift of them to those he 
 loved, when they were his own to give. 
 
 Perhaps there may be some who will deem it 
 strange that the Herberts should have consented 
 to be thus the dependents of a negro once their 
 slave. Such should be very careful of their cen 
 sures, for they may reach farther than they think. 
 Was it more disgraceful to the Herberts to live in 
 London upon the earnings of a negro, freely offered 
 for the love he bore them, than it is to grave judges, 
 learned divines, and honorable women, to live upon 
 the earnings of negroes in Charleston or Baltimore, 
 extorted by the fear or the application of torture ? 
 Which is the meaner and more ignominious liveli 
 hood of the two ? The same practical results are 
 worked out on many a broad plantation and in 
 many a splendid city mansion, that we have seen
 
 LEWIS HERBERT. 269 
 
 produced in an obscure garret in London ; only the 
 motive-power that creates them is the scourge or 
 the branding-iron, instead of generous affection. 
 There are many men of eminent station, and who 
 boast loudly of the sensitiveness of their honor, 
 who eat dirtier bread every day of their lives than 
 did the Herberts during their last and evil days. 
 
 There may be others who cannot understand why 
 Lewis, when he was so ready to give his services for 
 nothing in the days of his master's distress, should 
 have deserted him in the days of his prosperity, 
 when his fidelity might have met with some reward. 
 If there be any who cannot perceive the difference 
 between the free gifts of love and the extorted tri 
 bute of involuntary servitude, I have no time left to 
 point it out. I can only say, that, if it were an error, 
 it was one which he shared with the noblest natures 
 and the most generous spirits. The divine instinct 
 of liberty, to which he yielded, and which is even 
 now urging hundreds of fugitives towards the polar 
 star, is that which has shed the purest glory upon 
 the page of history, and given to poetry its truest 
 inspiration. Its manifestations, however coarse or 
 barbarous they may have been, ever have appealed 
 with resistless power to the universal human heart. 
 It was this principle that wreathed with myrtle the 
 sword of Harmodius, and has invested with immortal 
 memories the steel of Brutus and the shaft of Tell. 
 It was this that sent Hampden reeling in his sad-
 
 270 LEWIS HERBERT. 
 
 die, a dying man, from Chalgrave field ; that taught 
 Milton 
 
 " To scorn delights, and live laborious days ; " 
 
 and that made Vane and Sidney lay down their 
 heads upon the block, as if it were some beloved 
 bosom wooing them to repose. To those who feel 
 that freedom is the only element in which the soul 
 can grow and expand, and who can appreciate the 
 virtues which are its genial growth, in however 
 humble a breast or obscure a lot, I cheerfully 
 commend the memory and the example of LEWIS 
 HERBERT.
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO.
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO; 
 
 "AN OWER TRUE TALE." 
 
 TT was a gay night at the Habitation du Plessis, 
 that of the 22d of August, 1791. The evening 
 breeze, fresh from the cool fields of the ocean, had 
 breathed a new elasticity into hearts that had been 
 all day fainting beneath the vertical sun of a tropical 
 midsummer. The first rustle of its wings, as it stirred 
 the trees that imbosomed the mansion, had summoned 
 the scattered guests from their various inventions for 
 speeding the weary day, and assembled them in the 
 great hall that occupied the whole depth and height 
 of the central building. The lofty doors were flung 
 open, and the tall windows on either side of them 
 expanded their slender valves from the floor to the 
 ceiling to welcome the healing gale. The small party, 
 consisting of some half-dozen besides the master and 
 mistress of the house, were dispersed over the spacious 
 apartment, in various attitudes and different employ 
 ments. A card-table engrossed the souls of the elder 
 and more sedate division of the company. A younger 
 group was clustered around the harp of the beautiful 
 18
 
 274 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Mirecourt, the sole heiress of this 
 noble estate and its thousand slaves. And, when her 
 song had ceased, the gay Abbe de Valnais showed by 
 the brilliancy of his sallies and the piquancy of his 
 bom mots, that he had left neither his wit nor his 
 good spirits behind him at Paris, when he fled from 
 it with the first emigration. 
 
 While the hall rung with the gay voices and merry 
 laughter of this mercurial circle, Mr. Vincent, a young 
 American newly arrived in the island, and but that 
 day at the Habitation, stood by himself beneath the 
 broad veranda, and looked out upon a scene of such 
 beauty as he had never before gazed upon. Beneath 
 him lay the plain of the Cape, sleeping in the mellow 
 light of a moon that might well put to shame most of 
 the suns of his colder skies, skirted by shadowy moun 
 tains, standing around it like guardian giants, and 
 terminated in the far distance by the ocean, that 
 gleamed in the moonlight like a sea of molten silver. 
 All around him was a wilderness of trees and shrubs, 
 new to his Northern eye. The multitudinous sounds 
 of a tropical night fell strangely, but not unharmo- 
 niously, on his ear ; while the air that played about 
 his temples came loaded with perfumes such as might 
 have breathed from " the spicy shores of Araby the 
 blest." 
 
 He turned his eyes to the scene within, and it was 
 scarcely less a scene of enchantment to one who had 
 sprung up to early manhood on the rocky shores of 
 New England. The lofty and beautifully proportioned
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 275 
 
 hall, filled with all the appliances and means of trop 
 ical luxury, somewhat too massive and gorgeous in 
 its furniture, perhaps, to please a severe eye, and bet 
 ter suited to the meridian of Paris than of St. Domingo, 
 but all splendid with gilding and carved work, in the 
 rich though somewhat questionable taste of the later 
 days of the French monarchy, seemed as if it might 
 be the palace of Arinida rising in the midst of her 
 enchanted gardens. Out of the hall opened a noble 
 library, rich with the spoils of all past time. Next 
 to it, the billiard-room invited the lovers of such pas-, 
 time. On the opposite sides, the saloons, or, as they 
 would now be called, the drawing-rooms, their walls 
 glittering with gilding, and flashing with mirrors, and 
 furnished as only French upholsterers then knew how, 
 seemed as if some magician had transported the sa 
 loons of Paris many a league across the ocean, from 
 the banks of the Seine to this distant isle. Adjoining 
 them was the dining-room, furnished with equal rich 
 ness, though in a more quiet style; the splendid side 
 board groaning beneatli the ancestral plate of many a 
 generation, and its walls hung with choice cabinet 
 pictures, chiefly of festive and joyous scenes, sugges 
 tive of wine and mirth. But at this torrid season 
 the hall, from its greater height and airiness, was the 
 chosen scene of the reunions of the household. As 
 the young American turned from the scene of beauty 
 without to that of splendor within, he thought only of 
 the happiness which must be the attendant of such 
 boundless wealth : his mind dwelt as little at that
 
 276 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 moment on the misery and wrong upon which all this 
 splendor was upreared, and on the ruin which the 
 upheaving of those foundations was about to work, 
 as it did upon the volcanic fires that lay beneath the 
 exhaustless soil and superb vegetation that surrounded 
 him, and which might in a moment make the whole 
 paradise a waste. 
 
 And the Marquis cle Mirecourt himself, as he laid 
 down his cards, and joined the rest of the party, when 
 supper was announced, for a moment forgot, as he 
 gave himself up to the enchantment of the scene, that 
 he was an exile from that Paris he so dearly loved. 
 Though surrounded with every luxury that the most 
 unbounded wealth could furnish, in the most delicious 
 of climates, and in the midst of the divinest of scen 
 ery, he still sighed in secret for the narrow streets, 
 formal gardens, and crowded saloons of the metropolis 
 of the senses. He had left France amid the very first 
 mutterings of the Eevolutionary storm, and, leaving 
 his paternal chateau in Dauphin e to the mercy of his 
 white slaves, whose hour had at last come, he betook 
 himself to the estate in St. Domingo, which he had 
 received by marriage with a young Creole heiress, 
 whom he espoused from the convent, whither she 
 had been sent for her education. 
 
 On this night, however, his heart was glad within 
 him ; for he was surrounded by kindred spirits, men 
 of high birth, of aristocratic habits, of refined tastes 
 such as had been the companions of his happier 
 days. The supper-table was laid in the centre of the
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 277 
 
 hall. In all its appointments it would have done 
 no discredit to the most historical of the houses of 
 the age of petits soupers. Candelabras of massive 
 silver poured down a flood of light upon the repast ; 
 tall shades of the clearest crystal guarding the wax 
 candles from the welcome gale. The most exquisite 
 of French dishes (for M. de Mirecourt had not been 
 so improvident as to leave his chef de cuisine behind 
 him), served upon solid plate, gave place at their due 
 time to the most delicious of the tropical fruits, 
 glowing in the beautiful porcelain of Sevres, a gift 
 of royalty when royalty was something more than 
 a name. The richest and rarest of wines, cooled to 
 a charm, were marshalled in that festive procession, 
 which the experience of successive generations of 
 gourmets had established as their due order of prece 
 dence. The delicate chablis ushered in the feast ; the 
 frolic champagne, and the freshness of the fragrant 
 Rhine-wine, enlivened its solemn march as it moved 
 onward ; while 
 
 "The gay, serene, good-natured Burgundy " 
 
 threw a sunset glow over its brilliant conclusion. 
 A slave in the rich livery of the De Mirecourts stood 
 behind every chair, in seeming, an automaton of 
 ebony, moved only by the will of him whom he was 
 appointed to serve. A white Major Domo, in plain 
 clothes, stood by the temporary sideboard to antici 
 pate the slightest wish, and to prevent the labor of 
 its utterance. Nothing that wealth could summon
 
 278 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 from the four quarters of the globe, to heighten or 
 add a poignancy to luxury, was absent from that 
 splendid banquet. 
 
 And the circle for which it was furnished forth 
 was not unworthy of the magic feast. Besides the 
 Marquis and his beautiful daughter, there was Ma 
 dame de Mirecourt, a beauty somewhat past her prime, 
 who had superinduced an affectation of French viva 
 city upon her native Creole apathy and indolence. 
 Here was the Abbe de Valnais, of whom honorable 
 mention has already been made, and the Chevalier 
 de Tillemont, who had served with distinction in 
 America under Eochambeau, and now commanded 
 one of the regiments at Cape Francois, with the Cross 
 of St. Louis suspended from his button-hole. A 
 cadet of a noble family in France, who was attached 
 to the general government of the island, at that 
 time swayed by M. de Blanchelande ; a wealthy 
 planter and his Parisian wife, who were on a short 
 visit at Plessis ; and the American Vincent, to whom 
 the knowledge of these particulars is due made up 
 the rest of the party. All were in the highest spirits. 
 The national festivity of spirits, relieved for the time 
 from the anxieties caused by the progress of the Rev 
 olution at home, and the sympathetic excitement 
 of the colonial extremities of the French monarchy, 
 which had checked its genial current, gushed forth with 
 the joyousness of a fountain leaping from its cavern. 
 Exile and impoverishment, and blighted prospects, 
 and disappointed hopes, and homesick yearnings,
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMIXGO. 279 
 
 were all forgotten. The magic of the present hour 
 triumphed over them all. The troubles in France 
 and in St. Domingo would soon be over, and the old 
 regime virtually restored. The fierce populace of 
 Paris, and their humble rivals in the Provinces and 
 Colonies, would soon be reduced to their natural po 
 sition, under the feet of the noblesse. It was as 
 absurd to suppose that the sans-culottes at home could 
 permanently lord it over their birthright masters, a 
 it would be to suppose the negro slaves capable of 
 maintaining an ascendency over their natural lords. 
 A sudden tempest had disturbed the elements of 
 society ; but, as soon as it was blown over, things 
 would find their natural level again. 
 
 Ah ! there were gay visions seen through that 
 convivial atmosphere that night. The Abbe* beheld 
 in the brilliant distance a mitre, perhaps a cardinal's 
 hat; and there were some dim images that looked 
 like Mazarin and Eichelieu. A marshal's baton 
 danced before the eyes of the chevalier. The Mar 
 quis saw himself restored to all his baronial rights 
 and enormous rents ; while the opera, the Comedie 
 Franchise, the masquerades and balls of dear Paris, 
 once more seemed within the reach of Madame de 
 Mirecourt and her daughter. As to the rich planter, 
 he saw armies of negroes, and mountains of sugar, 
 which were to help him to a speedy return to France, 
 and perhaps to a patent of nobility. The young 
 American, I fear, had no more gorgeous or chivalric 
 imaginings than of heavy commissions, great profits,
 
 280 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 cent per cent, the largest house in Boston, and the 
 neatest villa in its neighborhood. 
 
 It was a night, too, to be remembered for itself, 
 divested of the tragic interest with which a few hours 
 invested it. The absurdities and awkwardnesses of 
 the new men who had taken the place of the old 
 nobility in the direction of affairs, and the comic 
 situations into which their ignorance of the conven 
 tions of society betrayed them, afforded fertile themes 
 for the gay wit and playful raillery of the Abbe, and 
 for the bitter sarcasms of the Marquis. The politics 
 of the theatre and of the ballet were discussed with a 
 seriousness which those of the Revolution could not 
 command. Literature, and the quarrels and pri 
 vate history of the world of letters, were suggestive 
 themes to men who had sat at the tables of D'Hol- 
 bach and De Geoffrin and Du Deffand, and who 
 remembered Voltaire and Rousseau and D'Alem- 
 bert and Diderot. Scandal, too, lent its wings to 
 hasten on the hours, and the Queen of the Antilles 
 witnessed that night the death of many a Parisian 
 reputation. The crowning satisfaction, however, of 
 their Epicurean philosophy, to which they often re 
 curred with new glee, was their happy removal from 
 the disturbed heart of the kingdom to a spot whence 
 they could watch its mighty pulsations in safety and 
 peace. Here, at least, they might live without dan 
 ger from the slavish mass, which must, in all civ 
 ilized countries, form the groundwork of society. The 
 quarrels which had distracted the Colony had arisen
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 281 
 
 from the struggles of the superior classes alone for 
 the mastery. All classes looked with equal contempt 
 and certainty upon the submissive deportment of the 
 slaves, whose toil supplied them with their wealth. 
 Strong in this security, they enjoyed a " Lucretian 
 pleasure " in standing in safety upon the shore, and 
 seeing the barks of others buffeted about by the tem 
 pest, or sink foundering in the billows. M. de Mire- 
 court felt and said that he could not feel as if all 
 were lost, even if he never recovered his confiscated 
 estates in France, so long as a thousand negroes ex 
 torted from the soil of Plessis half a million of livres 
 every year, and emptied them into his coffers. With 
 such an income, life might be endured for a time, 
 even in that banishment. All were blest in the 
 consciousness of present security and the confident 
 expectation of future good. Gay wit, light laughter, 
 and rosy hopes, all helped to chase the hours of that 
 genial night. 
 
 But the most genial of nights must have an end 
 at last, and the most perfect of suppers cannot en 
 dure forever. At length the party separated, at an 
 hour when the Southern Cross, quenching its radiance 
 in the Atlantic waves, told that the morning was at 
 hand of a day ever memorable in the history of man 
 kind. They all dispersed " in measureless content," 
 weary with mirth, and tired with revelry, little dream 
 ing that sleep would be that night, for the last time, 
 a visitant to the princely Habitation du Plessis. All 
 retired, and all slept, except the American Vincent.
 
 282 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 The excitement of a scene so new to him drove sleep 
 from his eyes, and after attempting for an hour or 
 two to "banish from his mind the beaming faces, gay 
 voices, and ringing laughter of the last few hours, he 
 rose, and in his robe de chambre walked forth upon 
 the terrace on which the house was built. The moon 
 had set, and a world of new constellations glittered 
 gloriously above his head in a firmament of the 
 blackest blue. The thousand voices of a tropical 
 night still maintained their eternal concert. The 
 vast masses of vegetation which covered the moun 
 tain-sides, and which were to be dimly descried 
 through the night in the nearer distance, seemed to 
 be clothed with the very blackness of darkness, gilded, 
 indeed, by the flashing light of innumerable fireflies. 
 It was a scene of peace and coolness which soon 
 quieted Vincent's excited brain. 
 
 As he turned to seek his apartment again, he heard 
 the conch sound in the distance, summoning the 
 field slaves to their daily toil. He knew then that 
 sunrise was near, and he waited to look upon its 
 glories. He had not gazed into the night long, before 
 the sun vaulted, as it were, from the eastern waves, 
 " and that moment all was light." The darkness fled 
 away, like a fiend before the rebuke of an angel, and 
 all the landscape was bathed in the rejoicing beams. 
 From the height on which he stood, the vast planta 
 tions of the plain of the Cape seemed like fairy- 
 gardens. No portion of the soil was left neglected. 
 The soft green of the canefields and of the Guinea-
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 283 
 
 grass beautifully contrasted with the darker hues of 
 the coffee-plantations, and of the overarching trees 
 that sheltered them from the scorching heat, look 
 ing like graceful columns supporting a canopy of ver 
 dure. The mountains, feathering to the top with 
 their forests of enormous trees, reared themselves in 
 a thousand shapes of beauty, while endless varieties 
 of light aud shade played over their surface. In the 
 far distance might be discerned the smoke, curling 
 upwards from the city of the Cape ; and farther yet, 
 the amethyst and emerald sea, with here and there 
 a white sail gliding over its surface, like blessed 
 spirits floating over a lake in Paradise. And pres 
 ently the long lines of slaves were seen winding their 
 way to their appointed task, each division driven 
 by an overseer, a long-lashed whip under his arm, 
 with which he would ever and anon urge his lagging 
 herd to a brisker pace. The almost naked forms of 
 the negroes as they dispersed themselves over the 
 canefields, and the loose white linen dress and over 
 shadowing hat of the overseers, beheld from that dis 
 tance, and in the midst of that tropical landscape, 
 seemed to a stranger's eye like a scene from the 
 Arabian Nights. As Vincent gazed upon it, he felt 
 no forebodings of a coming woe. There were no 
 signs in the air of that lovely day, that told of the 
 dread Nemesis that brooded over the fated island to 
 avenge the hoarded wrongs of bloody centuries. No 
 earthquake heralded the downfall of the white race. 
 No tornado shadowed forth the approaching tempest.
 
 284 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 All was bright and fair and calm on that last morn 
 ing of slavery. 
 
 There was to be a state dinner-party at Plessis 
 on the 23d of August. Several of the neighboring 
 planters had been invited to meet the distinguished 
 guests who enjoyed its hospitality. This is a serious 
 matter anywhere and at any time, but especially 
 beneath an August sun, between the tropics. The 
 guests had retired to their apartments to endure the 
 tortures of a Parisian toilet within twenty degrees 
 of the equator. Madame de Mirecourt sat listlessly 
 in her dressing-room, bewailing in that sacred retreat 
 the ungenerous hostility of the climate to rouge, 
 while its inroads upon the complexion made such 
 foreign aid the more important, when the door 
 opened, and Stephanie, her own woman, hastily en 
 tered the apartment. Madame de Mirecourt won 
 dered, as much as her apathetic habits would admit 
 of such an emotion, at her unsummoned appear 
 ance ; but then Stephanie was her foster-sister, and 
 had lived with her in France, and in a humble 
 way shared her education, and might be permitted 
 liberties which could not pass unpunished in any 
 other slave. The surprise of the mistress was in 
 creased, when the slave cautiously opened all the 
 doors that led out of the room, as if to ascertain 
 that no one was listening, and then placed herself 
 before her. 
 
 " What does all this mean, Stephanie ? " drawled
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 285 
 
 out Madame de Mirecourt, " My indulgence has 
 bounds and Le Fronde has a whip ! " 
 
 "It means," replied Stephanie in a low voice, "that 
 the time has come when the accursed Le Fronde's 
 whip will be broken, and when he will taste some of 
 his own infernal cruelties himself, and know how 
 sweet they are." 
 
 " You forget yourself, Stephanie," replied her mis 
 tress. " You have been brought up too tenderly. You 
 have heard of the proverb that speaks of the insolence 
 of an unwhipped slave ? " 
 
 " It is to that tenderness of which you speak, ma- 
 dame," replied Stephanie, "that foolish tenderness, 
 that you will owe your life, if indeed it can yet be 
 saved. It is an unwhipped slave that would save 
 you and yours a faint taste of those horrors which 
 your race has so long heaped upon mine." 
 
 " Just Heaven ! " exclaimed the Marchioness, star 
 tled out of her apathy. " What is it you mean ? " 
 
 "I mean," solemnly answered Stephanie, "that 
 Heaven is just ; that the day of my people's deliv 
 erance is come ; that this night the whole plain 
 of the Cape will be filled with fire and blood, a 
 slight atonement for centuries of outrage ! The in 
 surrection, thank God ! is so well matured that fail 
 ure is impossible. And now it is my folly to wish 
 to save you for your selfish kindness to me. And 
 yet" 
 
 " God ! my daughter ! " exclaimed the agonized 
 mother ; for there was that in the tone and looks of
 
 286 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 Stephanie which forbade her to question the truth of 
 her words. " Oh, save her ! save her ! " 
 
 " Command yourself, madame," replied the slave, 
 " and you may both be saved ; but it will depend 
 entirely on your control of yourself." 
 
 " Stephanie, Stephanie ! " exclaimed the hum 
 bled mistress, throwing herself at the feet of her 
 slave, and embracing her knees in an agony of de 
 spair. " Eemember all you owe to me ! Eecollect my 
 kindness, my indulgence, from the day when we had 
 but one mother ! " 
 
 "Yes," answered Stephanie bitterly "yes, I re 
 member that you treated me like a petted lap-dog or 
 a tame paroquet And yet I do owe you more than 
 you imagine ; for, had it not been for the lessons 
 you permitted me to receive in the Convent of St. 
 Agnes, this holy insurrection could never have been 
 so secretly and yet so surely planned as to be cer 
 tainly triumphant. But rise, madame : that is a pos 
 ture never again to be assumed by one mortal to 
 another in St. Domingo." 
 
 "Not till you have promised me to defeat this 
 dreadful rebellion," cried Madame de Mirecourt, still 
 clinging to Stephanie. " You shall have your free 
 dom ; you shall have wealth such as none of your 
 caste ever dreamed of possessing; you shall be hon 
 ored forever as the savior of the white race, if you 
 will but delay it till troops can be brought hither 
 from the Cape." 
 
 " My freedom ! " replied Stephanie scornfully. " I
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 287 
 
 thank you, madame ; but I mean to take that myself 
 without the leave of any earthly being. As to delay 
 ing the sacrifice, it is not in my power to do it ; but, 
 if it were, not all the wealth of France would induce 
 me to defer it a moment when it is ready to be 
 offered." 
 
 "Then I will do it myself," exclaimed the Mar 
 chioness, starting to her feet, and making a move 
 ment towards the door. 
 
 "Stay, madame," said Stephanie calmly, and de 
 taining her mistress with a grasp not to be resisted. 
 " You will but hasten the catastrophe by such mad 
 ness. The first peal of the alarm-bell, the first 
 shriek that will tell that all is known, and in five 
 minutes twenty knives will be in the heart of every 
 white man on the estate, and in a quarter of an hour 
 the flames of Plessis will tell to the whole plain that 
 the hour is come. As to the women," she continued, 
 partly unsheathing a knife concealed in her bosom, 
 " I shall take care, in such case, to save you and 
 mademoiselle from the terrible vengeance which I 
 fear the husbands, fathers, and brothers of the out 
 raged slave-women will wreak on the wives, daugh 
 ters, and sisters of their tyrants." 
 
 " O God ! " exclaimed the distracted Marchioness, 
 sinking, half-fainting, upon a couch, "what is to be 
 done?" 
 
 " Leave that to me, inadarne," said Stephanie : "your 
 part is to appear below as if all were well. After you 
 are dressed, I shall see M. le Marquis, and concert my
 
 288 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 plan with him. Remember that all depends on your 
 playing your part well, so that no suspicion may be 
 awakened in the minds of the slaves behind your 
 chairs. For I need not say that suspicion would be 
 instant death. And now, madame, to your toilet." 
 
 And never since Stephanie had performed those 
 offices about the person of her mistress did she dis 
 charge them more accurately than on that last day 
 of her servitude. Madame de Mirecourt, half-stunned, 
 and feeling the power of a strong mind over a weaker 
 one, yielded herself implicitly to the hands of her 
 slave, and promised to obey her directions in all 
 points. She wore her diamonds, at the instance of 
 Stephanie, and concealed other valuable jewels about 
 her person. 
 
 " These would have been mine," said Stephanie. 
 " But no matter : you will need them more than I in 
 the strange land whither you must go." Madame de 
 Mirecourt shuddered at the idea of poverty and exile ; 
 but nearer and worse dangers soon drove it from her 
 mind. Heavens ! What a toilet was that ! 
 
 It was a princely banquet that graced the great 
 dining-room at Plessis that day, but as dreadful to 
 some of those that sat around the board as was the 
 Egyptian feast to the novice, when the falling rose- 
 wreath disclosed to him the grim features of his 
 skeleton companion. M. de Mirecourt had man 
 aged to inform all the gentlemen of his household 
 guests of their danger, and of his plan of escape.
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 289 
 
 The circumstances with which Stephanie had con 
 firmed her etory had put the matter beyond a doubt. 
 Nothing remained for them but to save their lives 
 by flight, according to the plan she pointed out. And 
 there they sat in full dress around the splendid 
 table, with this dreadful secret weighing upon their 
 hearts, playing the part of gay revellers ! Ah, it 
 was a ghastly feast! How changed their hearts 
 since the merry hours of last night's revel ! The 
 ancient story, of the sword suspended by a single 
 hair over the head of the parasite, as he reclined at 
 a regal banquet such as was spread for his tyrant, 
 did but shadow forth the horrors of that night ! Oh, 
 those interminable courses ! It seemed as if they 
 would never come to an end. How "palled the 
 tasteless meats and joyless wines ! " And then those 
 insufferable guests of the day, who knew nothing of 
 the fearful truth how they did prose ! They ate 
 and drank as if they knew that it was their last 
 dinner, and were resolved to make the most of it. 
 They discussed the viands and wines as if an accu 
 rate acquaintance with their virtues was the necessary 
 passport to paradise. And then they talked of their 
 crops and their slaves, the annual loss by overwork 
 ing and necessary correction, and all the economics 
 of whipping and starving and maiming and this 
 to men who knew that the slave behind every chair 
 had a cane-knife, sharpened on both sides, in his 
 bosom! Human nature, even French human na 
 ture, could not have endured it much longer. 
 19
 
 290 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 At last and it was an at last the guests made 
 a move to depart, murmuring something of the late 
 ness of the hour and the distance they had to go, 
 hoping to be pressed to stay with hospitable ur 
 gency. 
 
 " Must you go, indeed ! " exclaimed the Marquis, 
 assuming an air of half-tipsy jollity. "Then we will 
 all escort you a mile or two on your way, and drink 
 a parting bottle by the roadside, in the moonlight." 
 
 The proposition was hailed by all, in the secret 
 and out of it, as a most whimsical and admirable 
 frolic. The coaches were ordered round; and the 
 Chevalier de Tillemont directed his horse to be 
 saddled, as better fitting his knightly character. 
 When the carriages came round, that of the Marquis 
 took the lead, and was followed by two others of the 
 planter guests. As they were entering them, Vin 
 cent protested against being enclosed in any such 
 prison upon wheels, and declared his intention of 
 mounting the box, so that he might see the country 
 to the more advantage. As the moon had not yet 
 risen, and it was almost pitch dark, this was hailed 
 as an excellent jest ; and the Abbe" also, in the same 
 vein, insisted upon mounting the box of the carriage 
 that came next. M. de Tillemont rode alongside of 
 the third. 
 
 In this order they proceeded until they came near 
 the place where the two planters would turn off from 
 the road to Cape Francois. Here, at a signal from the 
 Chevalier, Vincent pointed a pistol at the head of
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 291 
 
 the coachman by whose side he sat, and threatened 
 him with instant death unless he suffered himself to 
 be pinioned peaceably. The Abbe, at the same mo 
 ment, threw his arms round those of his neighbor, 
 and confined them until he could be secured ; while 
 the Chevalier, mounted on a charger which obeyed 
 the least touch of the foot or slightest word, with a 
 pistol in either hand, took charge of the third coach 
 man and of all the footmen, and with the help of 
 the attache, and of the gentleman who had been a 
 visitor at Plessis, succeeded in binding them all on 
 the ground before they well knew what had hap 
 pened to them. He then briefly stated the exigency 
 of the case to the planters who were not in the 
 secret, and who were scarcely less astonished at the 
 treatment their slaves had received than- they were 
 themselves. They were not convinced, however, of 
 the danger. Their contempt of the blacks supplied 
 whatever might be wanting in personal or moral 
 courage, and they persisted in proceeding to their 
 own homes. There was no time for expostulation : 
 so, after their slaves had been disarmed, they were 
 set at liberty, and proceeded with their masters 
 across the plain. It is needless to say that those 
 masters never saw the light of another sun. 
 
 The rest of the party crowded into M. de Mire- 
 court's carriage, which Vincent undertook to drive, 
 with the exception of the Chevalier, who, with a 
 passing farewell, put spurs to his horse, and galloped 
 off at the top of his speed along the rough road as it
 
 292 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 wound around the side of the mountain ; the sparkles 
 from his horse's hoofs marking his course long after 
 he himself was lost in the darkness. Vincent was no 
 experienced whip, and was entirely unacquainted 
 with the road ; so that their progress seemed slow to 
 their excited fears. Thus they proceeded through 
 the dark night, when of a sudden a ruddy glow shot 
 through the air. They turned their heads, and far 
 away, where it was notched into the mountain's side, 
 they saw Plessis one sheet of flame. It was a beau 
 tiful though a fearful sight ; but it was one that told 
 the Marquis that he was a beggar. 
 
 They were now emerging from the mountain-side 
 upon the plain. They had been hitherto unmolested ; 
 but the number of estates they would have to pass 
 rendered the next two leagues of their journey full of 
 danger. This was soon made more clear to them ; for, 
 as if they had waited for the signal-fire to be kindled 
 on the height of Plessis, the whole plain, and the 
 sides of the skirting mountains, were lighted up with 
 a hundred conflagrations. In the glare of this fearful 
 illumination they drove on for a mile or two farther, 
 when they came to an estate the mansion of which 
 was but a bowshot from the road. It was just 
 wrapped in flames, the negroes could be seen 
 dancing in mad mirth around it, while fearful 
 shrieks, such as Vincent remembered to have heard 
 ushering in the day at le Cape, and even at Plessis, 
 though now issuing from other lips, were heard above 
 the roar of the fire and the shouts of the insurgent
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 293 
 
 slaves. It was soon plain that they were perceived, 
 and their errand suspected. They were loudly or 
 dered to stop ; and, when this command was disre 
 garded, a company of thirty or forty negroes set out 
 in full pursuit. It was a pastime that had the charm 
 of novelty to the pursuers. They had some of them 
 been the quarry of the slave-hunt ; but they had none 
 of them ever engaged before as the hunters in the 
 chase of the white man. Vincent had nothing left 
 for it but speed. He lashed the horses with all his 
 strength, and gave them the rein. They dashed on 
 ward with furious speed, and he hoped soon to leave 
 his pursuers far behind. But unluckily, when in full 
 career, sweeping away over the plain, one of the 
 horses fell, and, though he almost instantly recovered 
 himself, the accident gave a fearful advantage to the 
 pursuers. 
 
 Before Vincent could put up his steeds to their full 
 speed again, it was clear that the enemy were gaining 
 upon him. Their yells sound nearer and nearer ; the 
 light of their torches flashes brighter and brighter 
 from behind ; their footsteps fall more and more nu 
 merously upon his ear. The taste they have had of 
 the white man's blood that night has only maddened, 
 not satisfied, their thirst. They are even now upon 
 him. Some seize the spokes of the wheels to hold 
 them back. Others rush to the horses, and attempt 
 to hamstring them, and to cut the traces. Vincent 
 has no longer any control over them as they plunge 
 and rear in pain and terror. He gives up all for lost ;
 
 294 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 and well he may, for a more formidable band 
 never set about a work of death. Some bore in their 
 hands huge brands from the burning house, which 
 they waved over their heads ; some brandished their 
 cane-knives in their hands; and others had them 
 fastened to long poles. Some were armed with axes, 
 and some with huge iron bars. Some were almost 
 naked; and others were fantastically dressed in the 
 rich damasks and brocades of their masters and mis 
 tresses. Almost all had blood on their hands or on 
 their garments. They seemed like fiends who had 
 been for a long time subjected to the will of a magi 
 cian, but who had at length surmounted the charm, 
 and were enjoying the delight of torturing their 
 tormentor. 
 
 They gathered around the coach, and their cry was 
 for blood. Vincent exhorted the gentlemen within 
 the carriage to sell their lives as dearly as they might. 
 They were only armed with the short rapier, which at 
 that time formed an indispensable part of full dress : 
 he had, besides, a pair of pistols. With these, he at 
 tempted to keep the insurgents at bay, but with 
 brief success. Uttering a charm which they believed 
 a specific against gunshot wounds, they rush upon 
 him, clambering in crowds upon the coach-box. Oth 
 ers force open the doors of the carriage, and are about 
 to drag out the occupants. All seems to be over 
 when a rushing sound is heard in the distance. 
 
 What is it? The assailants pause for a moment 
 to listen. It is surely the tread of horses' feet. It
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 295 
 
 sweeps on nearer and nearer. Can it be possible ? 
 Yes, it is indeed the gallant De Tillemont, at the 
 head of a detachment of his regiment, coming to 
 their aid at their utmost need. They advance at 
 their fullest speed, their carbines are unslung, 
 they pour a sharp though scattering fire upon the 
 insurgents, and then charge upon them with the sabre. 
 The negroes had not then learnt that they were a 
 match for the regular troops of France, and they 
 slowly and reluctantly retired, and left their prey. 
 This was indeed a deliverance out of the very jaws 
 of death. But there was no time for congratulations 
 or compliments. They did not know but that a mul 
 titude to which their force might be unequal would 
 intercept their return. Troop horses hastily supplied 
 the place of those that the insurgents had wounded, 
 and in the shortest possible time they were on their 
 rapid way to the city. Years of sensation were 
 crowded into that hour. It was worth the experi 
 ence of many a long life to have shared that brief but 
 fearful journey from Plessis to the Cape. They met, 
 however, with no further opposition, and entered the 
 city just as the bell of the cathedral tolled twelve. 
 
 They were safe for the night; but Vincent was 
 sure that the insurrection would soon sweep over the 
 city. He had a vessel in the harbor, under his con 
 trol, and he determined to make use of her for his 
 escape. He offered a passage to all his late compan 
 ions in peril. None accepted it but M. and Madame
 
 296 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 de Mirecourt, and their daughter. The rest all felt 
 safe under the protecting arm of France. But many 
 months had not elapsed, before they had all of them 
 fatal reason to regret their confidence. The very 
 next day, Vincent and his late hosts set sail for 
 America ; and within a fortnight of the day when 
 M. de Mirecourt rejoiced in the possession of a thou 
 sand slaves and half a million of rent, he stood upon 
 the shores of New York without a resource save the 
 jewels which Stephanie the slave had secreted about 
 the person of her mistress. For a while after his 
 return to Boston, Vincent heard of them often as 
 favorites in the fashionable circles of New York ; but 
 at last they disappeared, and all his researches after 
 them were in vain. Whether they returned to France, 
 and there perished in the Days of Terror, or whether, 
 after their stock was exhausted, they carried their 
 poverty to some distant part of America, where, 
 under a different name, they could without shame 
 support themselves by manual labor, is yet uncertain ; 
 and it is not likely that it will now ever be known. 
 The latter fate was most probably theirs. It was a 
 common one in those days of change. Many of the 
 proudest of the historical names of France fled to 
 this country at the time of the emigration, and, after 
 shining a while in this new firmament, set forever, 
 and were seen no more below. Many an emigrant 
 sunk a marquis, a viscount, or a chevalier in one city, 
 and rose a cook, a confectioner, or a hair-dresser in 
 another. In that obscurity did many of the noblest
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO. 297 
 
 names of France go out, and leave no trace behind. 
 Had Sterne made a sentimental journey to this coun 
 try fifty years ago, he might have seen stranger 
 sights than a Chevalier de St. Louis selling pies in 
 the streets of Versailles. If such were the fate of 
 the Marquis de Mirecourt and his family, we may at 
 least hope that they were happier, as they were cer 
 tainly more innocent and useful, in their humble 
 occupations, than when they rioted in luxuries wrested 
 from the unwilling hands of a thousand slaves. 
 
 Such was the story which Mr. Vincent would 'tell 
 on a winter's evening to his children and his friends. 
 It has a moral, which is not limited by the scene nor 
 the actors of this little drama. It exemplifies the 
 operation of eternal and universal laws. It shows 
 that the day of account will surely come wherever 
 there is wrong or crime. Who knows what country 
 may afford the next example of this awful retribu 
 tion! Nemesis never sleeps. Though she is long- 
 suffering, she forgets nothing, and overlooks nothing. 
 When men have filled their cup with blood and 
 cruelties and unutterable abominations, to its brim, 
 it is that very cup that she commends to their own 
 lips. There is but one Power of might enough to 
 wrest it from her inexorable hand, and that Power 
 
 is PiEPENTANCE.
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY.
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY; THE LAST OF THE 
 SLAVES. 
 
 " But when returned the youth ? The youth no more 
 Returned exulting to his native shore ; 
 But forty years were past, and then there came 
 A worn-out man, with withered limbs and lame, 
 His mind oppressed with woes, and bent with age his frame." 
 
 CRABBE. 
 
 I WAS once a great pedestrian, and have performed 
 feats in my time which should entitle me to a 
 respectable standing, if not an exalted rank, in the 
 sporting world. I used to think little of forty miles 
 a day, and have "made" my six miles within the 
 hour. But all that is over. 
 
 " It is not now as it hath been of yore." 
 
 Walking for its own sake, like virtue on the same 
 terms, is but too apt to be an enthusiasm of youth. 
 I have not, indeed, entirely subsided into the opinion 
 which a gentleman, recently deceased, who succes 
 sively distinguished himself in the gay world, at the 
 bar, and in the pulpit, once pronounced ex cathedra, 
 in my hearing, that " legs are given to man only to
 
 302 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 enable him to hold on to a horse ; " but still a sober 
 ten miles satisfies me now. It will be well for me 
 if this be the only good habit of my youth from 
 which I have fallen away. 
 
 During my days of pedestrious grace I resided in 
 Boston, and my walks made me tolerably familiar 
 with the beautiful country that environs it for ten 
 miles on every side ; itself being ever the crowning 
 charm of the landscape. It is a great advantage 
 Boston possesses over most other cities, that one can 
 almost immediately exchange the bustle of the streets 
 for some of the most lovely and rural scenes in the 
 world. An hour's drive, or an afternoon's walk, trans 
 ports you, as it were, into the heart of the country. 
 The winding country-roads and green lanes, hedged 
 with barberry-bushes, might beguile you to believe 
 that you were a hundred miles from a great city, 
 were you not continually tempted to turn and see 
 how gracefully, at airy distance, she seems to sit 
 upon her three hills, and lord it over the prospect. 
 
 One fine autumn afternoon about ten years ago, 
 when I had been 
 
 " Wasting in woodpaths the luxurious day," 
 
 I found myself on the summit of one of a chain of 
 hills, looking towards the city. And what a prospect 
 lay before me ! On my right were hills covered with 
 woods clothed in the gorgeous hues of autumn, look 
 ing like troops of " shining ones " just alighted on 
 some mission of mercy; in the middle distance,
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 303 
 
 tufted groves, village spires, farmhouses, meadows 
 dotted with cattle, and a brimming river sparkling 
 in the slanting rays of the sun ; in the distance the 
 city, relieved against the Blue Hills ; and on the left 
 the noblest burst of ocean, Nahant breaking the 
 expanse, with Egg Eock beyond, and then stretching 
 leagues and leagues away, till it had put a girdle 
 round the earth. It was a noble prospect. 
 
 After I had feasted my eyes and heart on these 
 glorious apparitions, I was recalled to a sense of the 
 things of earth by the reflection which was forced 
 upon me, that I had had no dinner. I accordingly 
 marked from my hill-top, where all the country lay 
 mapped out at my feet, the course I would pursue on 
 my return home. Descending the precipitous face 
 of the hill, I plunged into 
 
 "An alley green, 
 With many a bosky bourne from side to side," 
 
 which led me, though somewhat deviously, in the 
 direction of the city. After I had followed its wind 
 ings for some miles, I began to wax thirsty, and, to 
 say sooth, a little weary to boot. So I looked about 
 me as I walked, for some hospitable door at which, 
 though no saint, I might ask for a cup of cold water. 
 
 I pique myself on my skill in the physiognomy of 
 houses, and it is not at every door, any more than 
 of every man, that I would ask a favor. Accordingly 
 I passed by several houses of some pretensions, but 
 which had to my eye an ill-favored and ill-condi-
 
 304 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 tioned expression, and passed onward till I came to 
 one that I thought might answer my purpose. It had 
 not much to recommend it in its exterior. It was a 
 cottage of the very humblest description, the walls 
 of bare boards, blackened with age; but yet there 
 was something about it that made my heart warm 
 towards it. It stood a little withdrawn from the 
 road, and the grass grew green up to the broad flag 
 stone, half sunk into the earth, which served for its 
 door-stone. There was no litter or dirt about the 
 door ; the windows were all whole ; and there was a 
 general air of neatness about it which showed that 
 the poverty of the inhabitant was at least not 
 sordid. 
 
 It had a promising look, and I knocked at the door. 
 It was opened, after a short interval, by an " old, old " 
 woman, as black as jet, slightly bent by age, and lean 
 ing upon a staff. Though not expecting to see a 
 person of color, I was pleased to find, that, as far as I 
 could judge from her appearance, I had not been de 
 ceived by the lineaments of her habitation. Her dress 
 was of the coarsest materials; but the snowy whiteness 
 of her cap and handkerchief, and the scrupulous clean 
 liness of her checked gown, proved the presence of that 
 virtue which is said, on high authority, to be akin to 
 godliness. She received me with the kindliness and 
 good-nature which mark her race, and, upon making 
 my necessities known, she cordially invited me to 
 walk in. This I did, nothing loath ; and, while my 
 hostess was selecting the best of her three mugs for
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 305 
 
 my service, I seated myself, at her pressing instance, 
 in one of her two flag-bottomed chairs, and took a 
 survey of the premises. 
 
 They were rough aud bare enough, God knows, 
 but still were not without that air of comfort which 
 thorough neatness and good order can give to the 
 humblest dwelling. Her house could boast of but 
 one apartment ; but that was sufficient for her pur 
 poses. A bed, two chairs, an invalided table, and a 
 pine chest made up the sum of her furniture. The 
 walls could boast of no decoration except a print, over 
 the head of the bed, of the capture of Andre, in which 
 the cow-boy militiamen were looking most truculently 
 virtuous as Andre tempted their Koman firmness with 
 a watch of the size of a small warming-pan. The floor 
 was well scrubbed and sanded ; and some peat embers 
 smouldered upon the hearth. After I had slaked my 
 thirst with some delicious water, of which she was 
 justly proud, all cold and sparkling from the open 
 well, ministered unto by the picturesque puritanic 
 well-pole, she resumed her chair and her knitting ; 
 and as I rested myself I entered into conversation 
 with her. 
 
 She seemed pleased with the interest I felt in her 
 affairs, and simply and frankly told me all she had to 
 tell about herself and her way of life. She had lived 
 on that spot for many years, and had mainly depended 
 upon her skill as a laundress for her subsistence. As 
 she had grown old, however, and the infirmities of age 
 began to press heavily upon her, she confined herself 
 20
 
 306 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 to the nicer branches of her profession ; for the exer 
 cise of which the ladies of the neighborhood supplied 
 her with ample materials. Whatever deficiency there 
 might be in her means of comfort, after she had done 
 her best to provide them, was cheerfully made up to 
 her by the kindness of her neighbors ; for, to do them 
 justice, neglect of the poor, black or white, at their 
 own doors, is not one of the vices of the people of 
 New England. She seemed to be very well satis 
 fied with her share of the good things of this life, and 
 evinced a degree of unaffected contentment which is 
 not always seen to accompany a much higher degree 
 of prosperity. I was greatly interested in her char 
 acter and history, and never walked in that direction 
 again without calling to see her. In the course of my 
 acquaintance with her, I learned at different times 
 the simple incidents of her story, which I am about 
 to relate. They seemed to me, when I heard them, 
 to be worth the telling ; but I am by no means sure 
 that anybody else will be of the same opinion. Such 
 as they are, however, you have them here. 
 
 Phoebe was born somewhere about the middle of 
 the last century, in the family of the Honorable James 
 Mallory, for many years one of his Majesty's Council 
 for the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He used to 
 live in that fine old house with the Corinthian pilas 
 ters, and the magnificent lime-trees in the courtyard, 
 which stood on your left hand as you went down 
 King Street towards Long Wharf. It vanished years
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 307 
 
 ago, and gave place to one of the granite temples of 
 Mammon which have long since thrust from their 
 neighborhood all human habitation. There was 
 Phoebe born. Her father and mother were both of 
 them native Africans, who had lived out all their 
 life of servitude under the roof of Mr. Mallory. They 
 were fortunate in falling into such good hands. The 
 few New England slaves were mostly owned by the 
 wealthy families, and were chiefly employed as house- 
 servants, and their treatment was at least as good as 
 that of the same class in any country. But, Phoebe 
 said, nothing could prevent her father from remem 
 bering the day, when, as he was hunting the hippo 
 potamus in the sacred river that flowed by his hut, 
 just as he leaped from his iron-wood canoe to draw 
 the monster ashore by the line fastened to his spear, 
 a party of a hostile tribe rushed from among the 
 reeds, and hurried him to the seacoast, fifty miles 
 away, and there sold him to a Bristol trader. To be 
 sure, he had obtained civilization and Christianity by 
 his involuntary emigration ; but as the one appeared 
 to his half-savage mind to consist in wearing clothes, 
 and cleaning another man's shoes ; and the other in 
 sleeping on his knees through family prayers, and in 
 being obliged to listen, from the gallery of the Old 
 South Church, for several hours every Sunday, to 
 sermons which he could never have comprehended, 
 delivered in a tongue he very imperfectly understood 
 he must not be blamed as ungrateful, if he thought 
 them but inadequate compensations for the exchange
 
 308 PHCEBE MALLOEY. 
 
 he had made of the sunny skies and golden sands of 
 Africa for the leaden firmament and rocky coast of 
 New England. 
 
 Phoebe was more fortunate than her parents in 
 being "native, and to the manner born;" so that 
 her lot was much more tolerable than theirs. She 
 was kindly treated, and taught to read and write. 
 She felt all the strong attachment of the African 
 race to the house in which she was born and to the 
 family which had brought her up. To the end of 
 her days she believed that there was never a house 
 that equalled in magnificence that of Mr. Mallory 
 in King Street. There was never anything half so 
 graceful and dignified as the manners of Mr. Mallory 
 himself, or half so beautiful and accomplished as the 
 daughters, or so handsome and good-natured as 
 the sons, of his house. Many were the Old- World 
 stories she told me of the loves and the feuds of 
 that generation, of their joys and their griefs, 
 of their festivities and their funerals. A petted 
 slave, brought up from infancy in one of the fore 
 most families of a small community such as Boston 
 was then, she became a perfect incarnation of all 
 the gossip and scandal of that little world. And 
 some very choice bits of both I extracted from her, 
 I assure you. She certainly had no artistic skill in 
 her narrations, and yet there was a life in the very 
 simplicity with which she related facts, which painted 
 them vividly to the mind's eye ; and I think I have 
 a clearer notion of the way in which people lived in
 
 PHOEBE MALLORY. 309 
 
 Boston eighty years since, from them than from more 
 generally recognized authorities. 
 
 Her admiration, however, was not entirely monopo 
 lized by the higher powers of the family. There was 
 a certain Ambrose, who had also been born in the 
 house a few years before Phrebe, and had been 
 brought up along with her, who claimed his share. 
 They had played together as children, and worked to 
 gether when they grew older, and it will not surprise 
 the experienced reader to hear that they fell in love 
 with each other as soon as they were old enough to 
 take the infection. Ambrose was a fine, well-made, 
 athletic young fellow, shrewd and capable, and of 
 the most imperturbable good-humor. His skill in 
 music was such that he was often summoned to the 
 parlor, with his violin, to excite the dance when his 
 young masters and mistresses had their friends with 
 them. Both Ambrose and Phrcbe were great favor 
 ites with the whole family, old and young, bond 
 and free, and their loves were looked upon by all 
 with complacent eyes. They formed a little under 
 plot in the domestic drama, which was not unainusing 
 or uninteresting to the actors or actresses in similar 
 scenes above stairs. Their true love flowed smoothly 
 on, and it seemed as if no obstacles could be inter 
 posed to disturb its course. It was a conceded thing 
 that at some convenient season Ambrose and Phoebe 
 were to be married. 
 
 While the affairs of the humble lovers were in this 
 prosperous train, great events were at the door. The
 
 310 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 signs which prognosticate a coming storm were fre 
 quent and menacing. Voices were heard in the air, 
 telling of disaster and woe to come. Portents were 
 seen in the political firmament, 
 
 " With fear of change 
 Perplexing monarchs. " 
 
 It was obvious to all discerning persons who were 
 willing to see, that great changes were at hand. Mr. 
 Mallory was a Tory, as might be expected from his 
 official station and position in society. Like many 
 others of his way of thinking, he exaggerated the 
 power of the British king to suppress disaffection, 
 and undervalued the powers of resistance of the 
 colonists. Though he had never permitted himself 
 to doubt that the fever-fit of the Province would 
 soon pass away, still his position was sufficiently 
 disagreeable while it lasted. He had made him 
 self obnoxious to the popular party, and his situa 
 tion was at times worse than disagreeable : it was 
 absolutely unsafe. Phoebe described to me the 
 night when the mob, flushed by the impunity which 
 had attended their previous excesses, came trooping 
 down King Street to execute summary justice on 
 the Tory Mallory. Their approach was so sudden, 
 that the family had barely time to escape as they 
 were, through the garden, leaving the candles burn 
 ing, and the work-boxes and books open on the table, 
 as they fled. 
 
 Mr. Mallory's house would probably have shared
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 311 
 
 the fate of Governor Hutchinson's, had it not been 
 for a singular and unexpected diversion. When the 
 inob was gathering in the street in front of the house, 
 and preparing for the assault, the hall-door opened 
 suddenly ; and Ambrose, like a new Orpheus, issued 
 from it with his violin in his hand. He immediately 
 struck up a lively air, and the effect was magical. 
 The many-headed monster was in a better humor than 
 usual that night. Whether it was that the edge of 
 its appetite was in some degree taken off by the sop 
 it had already had, or whether it was that the patri 
 otic punch (which has never yet had its due as one 
 of the main promoters of the Eevolution) had not 
 yet more than half done its work, still the mood of 
 the mob was changed at once from mischief to fun. 
 This unexpected apparition moved their mirth ; and 
 Ambrose, taking advantage of their humor, performed 
 such antic tricks in the moonlight as threw them into 
 inextinguishable fits of laughter. With all the ca 
 price of a mob, they themselves soon began to dance 
 to his music ; and not all the influence of their leaders 
 could bring them up again to the point of mischief 
 
 " So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes." 
 
 This danger over, the arrival of the British regi 
 ments prevented any apprehension of its renewal. 
 But the situation of the Mallorys was gloomy and 
 uncomfortable enough. The gayeties which the ar 
 rival of the forces produced in the loyal circles were 
 no compensation for the breaking-up of old friend-
 
 312 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 ships, and for the doubt and uncertainty that hung 
 over their future. At last the provincial resistance 
 began to assume a more threatening form. The siege 
 clasped the town around with its iron arms. The 
 beautiful hills which encompass the town were now 
 changed into mimic volcanoes, belching forth fire and 
 smoke and death against it. All who could and 
 dared fled from its borders. Mr. Mallory's political 
 offences were too flagrant to allow him any choice. 
 He was obliged to abide by the result of the conflict 
 where he was. To be sure, neither he nor his chil 
 dren would ever admit, even to themselves, the 
 probability of the rebels being ultimately successful ; 
 but then there could not but be painful misgivings 
 as to what might befall before the insurrection was 
 finally quelled. It was a dismal winter, indeed, as 
 Phoebe told its private history. Not all the balls and 
 assemblies and private theatricals that were devised 
 to while away the weary hours could dispel the 
 sense of pain and apprehension which their situation 
 excited in the breasts of the loyalists. 
 
 It was not long before the forebodings of their 
 prophetic hearts were fulfilled. The dreary winter 
 xrore away and the dreary spring began. The inten 
 tions of the Commander-in-chief were kept strictly 
 secret ; but there were plenty of surmises abroad as 
 to what they were. But that Boston, open as it was 
 to the sea, of which England was the mistress, would 
 be occupied by the British forces until the rebellion 
 was suppressed, was a thing that had settled down
 
 PHOEBE MALLORY. 313 
 
 into a recognized certainty. It could not enter into 
 a loyal heart to conceive that the royal troops could 
 be dislodged from the capital of New England by the 
 rabble rout that surrounded them. But at last the 
 fatal news fell upon their ears like a clap of thunder, 
 that the town was to be evacuated, and abandoned to 
 the besiegers. What distress and despair of those 
 who had placed themselves and all they had under 
 the protection of the British sceptre, and who found 
 it powerless in their utmost need ! All remonstrance 
 on their part was in vain. General Howe was in 
 flexible, for he knew that his post was no longer 
 tenable ; but he assured the distressed loyalists of 
 all possible assistance in removing their persons and 
 effects beyond the reach of the exasperated rebels. 
 
 Phcebe described to me with lifelike effect, for it 
 was what she had the most to do with, the confusion 
 of the few days that elapsed between the announce 
 ment of the intended evacuation and the embarka 
 tion. The grief of the Mallorys at leaving the home 
 of their childhood, perhaps forever, and the uncer 
 tainty which hung over their future fate, was dis 
 turbed by the necessity of deciding which of their 
 effects they should take with them. A limited 
 amount of freight was all that could be possibly 
 assigned to each refugee, and it was hard to decide, 
 among all the objects which habit had rendered ne 
 cessary, or association dear, which should be chosen, 
 and which abandoned. All was hurry and bustle 
 and distress. They were obliged to select such
 
 314 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 articles as contained the most value in the eompact- 
 est form, and to leave the rest behind. Their clothes, 
 plate, jewels, and such other valuables as they could 
 compress into the smallest possible space, were all 
 that they could take with them. But all the old 
 companion furniture, speaking to them of ancestry 
 and of happier days, the family pictures, the trifles 
 which affection magnified into things of moment, 
 because they were seen through the atmosphere of 
 love and friendship which surrounded them, all, all 
 had to be left behind them. 
 
 It was a dreadful night, that of the 17th of March, 
 1776 the last that they were to spend in the home 
 of their fathers. Early the next morning they were 
 to embark on board the transports, to go they knew 
 not whither. The young ladies, deprived of their 
 usual employments, and their recent mournful occu 
 pation being over, as the trunks and packing-cases 
 were already on board, wandered about the house, 
 from room to room, like ghosts haunting scenes once 
 loved, reluctant to look their last upon those beloved 
 walls. The gentlemen of the family were busy in 
 making what arrangements they could to secure the 
 wrecks of their property. It was long past mid 
 night before they retired to rest, if rest they could, 
 for the last time under that old-accustomed roof. 
 They had not been long retired, however, when they 
 were aroused again by a clamorous knocking at the 
 door, and the intelligence that they must repair at 
 once on board ship, if they would not be left behind.
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 315 
 
 The rebels had taken up a position on Nook's Hill, 
 which rendered it necessary to evacuate the town at 
 an earlier hour than the one first appointed. The con 
 fusion may be imagined. The carriage was at length 
 at the door, and performed its last service in convey 
 ing the family to the wharf, before it passed into the 
 hands of the patriotic gentlemen who had purchased 
 it at a fourth of its value. They found, with some 
 difficulty, the transport assigned to them, and, em 
 barking, awaited the signal of departure. 
 
 While they were thus expecting their sailing- 
 orders, one of the young ladies discovered, that, in her 
 hurry, she had left her watch behind her. It had a 
 value beyond its intrinsic worth, as having belonged 
 to her mother. Her distress was great, and the ques 
 tion arose whether there was time to send for it. 
 The captain of the transport gave it as his opinion 
 that there would be ample time. Then who was to 
 be the messenger? Ambrose could not be spared 
 from some essential service in the arrangement of the 
 luggage : so Phcebe alone remained to perform the 
 errand. She was accordingly despatched, with strict 
 injunctions to make a speedy return. It was a raw 
 blustering March morning, and, as Phcebe threaded 
 the narrow streets, the light snow was blown in fitful 
 gusts in her face. She made a somewhat wide circuit 
 to avoid the principal streets, which were now full of 
 soldiers ; the inhabitants being under orders to keep 
 within doors until a certain hour. She had some 
 difficulty, too, in procuring the house-key from the
 
 316 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 neighbor who had charge of it ; and when at last she 
 obtained entrance, it was still dark, and she had to 
 strike a light in order to commence her search. 
 Everything seemed to conspire to delay her return 
 to the ship. And, after she had procured a caudle, 
 the object of her search was not to be found. She 
 looked for it in every place where it should and 
 where it should not be, but without success. This 
 consumed many precious moments. At last she aban 
 doned the matter in despair, thinking that her young 
 mistress must have the watch about her after all, or 
 else it had been dropped on the way to the ship. 
 After securing the house again, she made what haste 
 she could to the wharf. But what was her amaze 
 ment and despair at seeing no sign remaining of the 
 good ship on board of which all her treasures were 
 embarked ! 
 
 She could not at first believe her eyes, and she 
 stood for some time in mute astonishment. But 
 before long her mind received a distinct impression 
 of the dreadful truth, and she made the air resound 
 with her shrieks and lamentations. She flew dis 
 tractedly up and down the wharf, imploring to be 
 taken on board some of the transports destined for 
 the same port ; but no one had any leisure to attend 
 to her. It was in the height of the hurry of the 
 embarkation, and ship after ship was dropping down 
 with the tide, and making what haste they might to 
 Nantasket Roads. Almost immediately after Phoebe 
 had left the ship, orders came down directing her to
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 317 
 
 get under way directly, and she was already out of 
 sight. She remained on the wharf in a state but lit 
 tle removed from distraction, renewing her entreaties 
 to all she met for assistance in regaining her master's 
 party. But all the reply she received was curses, and 
 orders to mind her own business and to get out of 
 the way. Exhausted at length by her exertions, and 
 finding there was no hope for her, she returned in 
 agony of mind to the deserted house in King Street. 
 There, in solitude and despair, flung upon her face on 
 the nearest sofa, she lay for hours, weeping as one 
 that refused to be comforted. The merry peals of the 
 bells, and the distant sound of military music, might 
 have told her that General Washington and his vic 
 torious army were making their triumphal entry into 
 the town; but she neither heard nor heeded them. 
 Her heart and her eyes were following the stout 
 ship which was bearing away from her, probably for 
 ever, the friends of her childhood and the lover of 
 her youth. 
 
 In this state she continued for four and twenty 
 successive hours. But, after the first paroxysm of 
 grief and despair had exhausted itself, Phcebe was 
 not of a nature to abandon herself to fruitless re- 
 pinings. It was fortunate for her that it was neces 
 sary to take some immediate measures for her own 
 support; for the poor girl was now in a singularly 
 unfortunate predicament. She absolutely belonged 
 to nobody. The imperfect legislation of those primi 
 tive days had not provided for such a case of destitu-
 
 318 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 tion. Had she had the hick to live in these times, 
 in the Southern States, such an anomaly could not 
 have occurred. There, the abeyance of the abandoned 
 property in herself would have been terminated in 
 favor of the fortunate finder; or at worst it would 
 have resulted to the State. But in those days, before 
 political economy, she was suffered to escheat to her 
 self. And so she had nobody to take care of her. 
 Thanks, however, to the thorough breeding she had 
 received in Mr. Mallory's house, she was able to com 
 mand at once her choice of the best services in the 
 town; and she was soon as comfortably situated as 
 she could be under her unhappy circumstances. 
 
 The long years of the war, of course, cut off all 
 definite intelligence of the Mallorys and of Ambrose. 
 And the longer years of the peace which followed it 
 brought little more satisfactory information about 
 them. All that was certain was, that Mr. Mallory 
 had been provided for by an appointment in Antigua, 
 and it was taken for granted that he had proceeded 
 thither with his family. The humble Ambrose, of 
 course, had no share in these imperfect advices, and 
 Phoebe was left to guess at his fate as best she 
 might. The Mallorys left no relatives behind them in 
 the Province, and all interest in them or their affairs 
 soon died away. There was but one humble heart in 
 which they occupied all the room that was not before 
 engrossed by Ambrose their slave. 
 
 Meanwhile more than thirty years rolled away 
 since the emigration. Phcebe was become a prosper-
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 319 
 
 ous woman. She had been for some years retired 
 from service, and had invested her earnings in a small 
 confectioner's shop, which was well frequented by 
 those who respected the excellence of her character 
 and of her pastry. She had never married, though 
 not unsought, but still remained constant to the mem 
 ory of Ambrose; though she had for many years 
 abandoned all hope of ever seeing or hearing of him 
 again. 
 
 One afternoon, as she was sitting sewing behind 
 her counter, a man entered her shop. His dress was 
 sordid and travel-stained, and he walked with diffi 
 culty, supported by a rough stick. He stood with 
 his back to the light, so that Phoebe could not see 
 his features distinctly. He stood, and gazed long 
 and earnestly in her face. She grew alarmed, and 
 asked his business. In the act of replying, he shifted 
 his position, so that the setting sun shone full upon 
 him. She started from her seat, shrieked, and fell 
 senseless upon the floor. 
 
 " I dropped," to use her own words, " as if I was 
 shot." It was Ambrose himself, come in the flesh 
 to claim her at last. Happily, joy is not a mortal 
 disease, or Phosbe might not have survived to tell 
 me her story. "Water was at hand, and she soon 
 opened her eyes upon the face of him whom she had 
 loved so long and well. It was changed indeed. 
 Years of slavery had not passed over his head with 
 out leaving furrows on the brow, and wrinkles on the 
 cheek But still it was his face, and that was all she
 
 320 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 asked. Time and ill usage had grizzled his hair, and 
 bent his broad shoulders ; but to her eyes he was 
 still young, for she saw him with the eyes of her 
 heart. 
 
 It would be hard to say whether pleasure or pain 
 predominated in that first interview. But it was not 
 long before they knew that they were happy. Phoebe 
 took Ambrose to her house, fed, clothed, and nursed 
 him, and finally married him. And though their 
 union was late, and did not continue long, it was as 
 happy a marriage as ever knit two hearts in one. 
 
 The story of Ambrose, when he was able to tell it, 
 was simple and common enough. He had followed 
 his master from Halifax to London, and from London 
 to Antigua. There Mr. Mallory died. The youug 
 ladies married, and returned to England ; and the sons 
 took to bad courses, and died not long after their 
 father. Ambrose was taken in execution for a debt 
 of the last of them, and sold to a Jamaica planter. 
 In Jamaica he suffered for many years the horrors of 
 sugar-making, aggravated by the contrast of the easy 
 service of his previous life. A few months before, 
 he was sent to Kingston with a load of sugar, and, 
 finding a vessel on the point of sailing for New York, 
 he concealed himself on board, and succeeded in ef 
 fecting his escape. Arrived in New York, he begged 
 his way to Boston, being detained on the road by a 
 fever, caused by the sudden change of climate, and 
 arrived footsore, weary, and sick at heart, little ex 
 pecting the happiness that awaited him.
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 321 
 
 Before long, Ambrose grew weary of the town, and, 
 as his health had never been good since his return 
 home, Phrebe sold her shop, and bought the cottage 
 in which I found her. Here they supported them 
 selves comfortably enough for the few years that 
 Ambrose lived. But the hard winters of New Eng 
 land were too much for the constitution of one so 
 long accustomed to the climate of the tropics. He 
 died of a consumption, lovingly watched over and 
 tenderly mourned by his faithful Phoebe. 
 
 Such is a plain narrative of the incidents of her 
 life, which I gathered from Phoebe Mallory in the 
 course of my acquaintance with her. I think that 
 they might have been invested with a good deal of 
 romantic interest, had they fallen into the right 
 hands. But such as I have I give unto you. 
 
 Phoebe always averred that she was the last sur 
 viving slave in the State ; and, as I could not contra 
 dict her, I was willing to believe that it was so. I 
 confess it increased my interest in her, and made 
 me look upon her in some sort as an historical char 
 acter. And I could not but think of the day when 
 the last American slave will excite a feeling in the 
 breast of some future inquirer somewhat analogous 
 to that created by the sight of the last mouldering 
 fragment of the Bastille. May that day soon arrive ! 
 
 Several years ago I removed from the city, and lost 
 sight of poor Phoebe. Not long since, having a lei 
 sure day in town, I felt strongly moved to go and see 
 21
 
 322 PHCEBE MALLORY. 
 
 if she were yet alive. Yielding to the impulse, I 
 took the well-remembered road that led by her hut. 
 But it had vanished away, and in its place stood a 
 fine Gothic cottage with an Egyptian entablature at 
 one end supported by four fluted Doric pillars. I 
 knew at the first glance that it would be of no avail 
 to inquire after my old friend at such a structure as 
 this. So I continued my stroll till I came to the 
 village, about two miles off. There I inquired of 
 the first man I happened to meet, whether he knew 
 anything of the fate of Phoebe Mallory. I was in 
 luck in my man; for he chanced to be none other 
 than good master Sexton himself. With the cheer 
 ful solemnity which marks his calling, he informed 
 me that she had died about three years before, and 
 was buried in the churchyard over against which we 
 stood. I asked him to show me her grave, which he 
 did with professional alacrity. It is the third grave 
 beyond the elm-tree, on your right hand as you enter 
 the gate, next the wall 
 
 I could not but feel a sense of satisfaction, mingled 
 with regret at the loss of my good old friend, to think 
 that the last relic of Massachusetts slavery lay buried 
 beneath my feet. I felt proud of my native State for 
 what she had done as a State to mark her aversion 
 to slavery ; and I hoped that the time was not far 
 distant when she would brush aside the cobweb ties 
 which prevent her from telling the hunter of men in 
 yet more emphatic tones that her fields are no hunt 
 ing-grounds for him.
 
 PHCEBE MALLORY. 323 
 
 I have no taste for monumental memorials, as a 
 general thing. At least, I see no fitness in attempt 
 ing to preserve the memory of mediocrity or obscu 
 rity by monuments whose very permanence is a 
 satire on the forgotten names they bear. But I have 
 no quarrel with the feeling which prompts men to 
 mark with marble the ground where the truly great 
 repose, or to record the resting-place of humbler 
 merit when it is fairly invested with some just his 
 toric interest. Of this latter class I esteem the grave 
 of Phcebe Mallory. And I shall think it neither 
 absurd nor extravagant, if, within a few months, a 
 plain white marble slab should be found marking the 
 spot where she lies, with an inscription somewhat to 
 this effect : 
 
 "HERB BESTS FROM HER LABORS, 
 BENEATH THE FREE SOIL OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 THE LAST SURVIVOR OF HER SLAVES.
 
 OLD HOUSES.
 
 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 I LOVE an old house. Even though its walls, 
 battered and decayed, speak of nothing but pov 
 erty and toil, still there is something touching in 
 the thought of the tide of human passions and human 
 affections which have flowed through it ; of the hap 
 py marriages, the joyous childhood, the cheerful age, 
 which it has sheltered ; of the many spirits which 
 it has beheld beginning the strife of being, which, 
 after enduring the labor and heat of the longest 
 of life's days, have gone to their eternal home, of 
 whose existence not a single trace remains in any 
 mind on earth. It is not necessary that the many 
 centuries which are required in older countries to 
 invest the habitations of man with the venerable 
 dignity of old age should have swept over its thresh 
 old and its hearthstone to sanctify to my heart one 
 of those quaint constructions which I love to people 
 anew with the beings of a vanished generation. All 
 I ask is, that it should speak to me of the past, of the 
 forgotten. 
 
 It is my delight to take my solitary walk through 
 those streets of our city which have suffered least
 
 328 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 from the levelling hand of modern improvement. 
 I eschew, as I would an infected district, that mush 
 room growth of human habitations which has climbed 
 the airy heights of West Boston, and filled up its 
 pleasant valleys, where in my boyhood I used to play, 
 with a profane load of brick and mortar. But where 
 Washington Street extends its tortuous length, and 
 where the North End displays her labyrinthine maze 
 of narrow lanes and alleys, now, alas ! with a piti 
 ful ambition, all erected into streets, as every petty 
 prince must nowadays, forsooth, be a king, there, 
 to the mind of a true lover of bygone days, the spirit 
 of the past broods as sensibly as over the most an 
 cient metropolis of Europe. What matters it to him, 
 that the din of busy life is in his ears, that he is jostled 
 at every turn by eager traffickers, and that his escape 
 with life from the thundering throng of drays and 
 stage-coaches is a standing miracle ? He hears not 
 the uproar ; the bustle disturbs not him ; his eyes are 
 with his heart, in the good old days when schoolboys 
 played unmolested in what are now the busiest thor 
 oughfares. Visions of fine old men, in a costume 
 worthy of the dignity of men, and gorgeous dames 
 worthy of the men they loved, float before his mental 
 sight. He walks in the midst of a generation which 
 now lives on earth only on the canvas of Copley, 
 where their brocades and satins still rustle, and their 
 faces still beam with the bloom of immortality. The 
 old w r alls around him are still vocal with the mirth 
 and gladness of households which many a sorrow has
 
 OLD HOUSES. 329 
 
 chastened, with the frolic laugh of children who have 
 long since reached faint pilgrims ! the utmost 
 boundary of human existence, and gladly laid down 
 the load of life in the still chambers of the tomb. 
 Friendly faces look kindly upon him from the case 
 ments; sweet though solemn voices tell him of the 
 days gone by, and remind him that the century 
 that will comprise the lives of all his contempora 
 ries is hastening on rapid wings to join the ages 
 before the flood, and that the hour will soon be here 
 when the memory of him and his will be swallowed 
 up in the advancing tide of coming ages, as a drop 
 of rain melts into the ocean. The roofs under which 
 our fathers lived and died are full of instruction : 
 they teach us a lesson, mournful, yet pleasant to the 
 soul, of the brevity of human life and the uncertainty 
 of human hopes. 
 
 This edifice before us is but of yesterday, as it 
 were ; and yet who laid the corner-stone ? Who 
 counted the cost, and thought he was undertaking 
 a work of mighty moment ? Where are the hands 
 that reared the pile, and brought daily bread to their 
 children from their daily toil ? Where is she who 
 first established within its boundaries the gentle 
 sway of domestic government ? Perhaps she passed 
 over its threshold a smiling, tearful bride, casting a 
 lingering look behind at the happy home she had 
 left, yet regarding the one before her with the hope 
 ful confidence of a woman's heart. Where are the 
 troops of friends which flocked to its portals with
 
 330 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 cheerful looks and hearty congratulations ? Where 
 are the children, in whose promise and success hearts 
 were garnered up ? They have all departed from the 
 earth. To us they are as if they had never been. 
 One after another their funeral processions have 
 blackened the streets. For each, in succession, have 
 human hearts refused to be comforted, and for a 
 season thought that the sun would never shine on 
 them again as it used to do, until time and care and 
 fresh griefs plucked from the bosom the sorrow which 
 seemed to be rooted there forever. One by one the 
 actors who played their parts on this little stage 
 have withdrawn from the scene, and the curtain long 
 since dropped, when the last lagging veteran retired, 
 and the drama was ended. 
 
 But although I love an old house in itself, for its 
 own sake, and independently of any specific associa 
 tions, yet in a special manner do I delight in the 
 dwellings of my old familiar friends, whose faces are 
 familiar to my eye, whose characters are dear to 
 my heart, whose various fates are as present to me 
 as my own personal history. Mistake me not. I 
 do not mean any of the round-hatted, frock-coated, 
 breeches-less generation which now encumber the 
 streets. I care but little for this stereotyped edi 
 tion of humanity, all bound alike, and not differing 
 much in the nature and value of their contents, like 
 the washy concoctions of some knowledge-diffusing 
 society. 
 
 No, no ! I refer to times when " Nature's copy "
 
 OLD HOUSES. 331 
 
 wore a dress which spoke to you of the meaning it 
 contained, as in some solemn library the tomes 
 
 "Which Aldus printed, or Du Sueil has bound," 
 
 tell you, even before you open them, of the classic 
 inind within. 
 
 Too few, alas ! of these abodes, consecrated by the 
 memory of departed worth, have escaped the ruthless 
 hands of the money-lovers of this age, who regard 
 one of my dear old houses as only so much improva 
 ble real estate, and who think of nothing, when they 
 gaze on its time-honored walls, but how much the old 
 materials will bring. The good old class of " garden- 
 houses," in which it is recorded that Milton always 
 chose to live, is now almost as entirely extinct here 
 as in London itself. 
 
 How well do I remember one of these, in which 
 some of my happiest days and merriest nights were 
 spent ! It stood with its end to the street, overshad 
 owed by a magnificent elm of aboriginal growth, 
 which made strange and solemn music in my boyish 
 ears when the autumn winds called forth its hidden 
 harmonies at midnight. Entering the gate, you pro 
 ceeded on a flagged walk, having the house close to 
 you on your left, and on your right the courtyard, 
 filled with " flowers of all hues," and fragrant shrubs, 
 each forming the mathematical centre of an exact 
 circle cut in the velvet greensward. When within 
 the front-door, you had on your left hand the best 
 parlor, opened only on high solemnities, and which
 
 332 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 used to excite in my young mind a mysterious feeling 
 of mingled curiosity and awe whenever I stole a 
 glance at its darkened interior, with its curiously 
 carved mahogany chairs black as ebony with age, 
 its blue damask curtains, the rare piece of tapestry 
 which served as a carpet all reflected in the tall 
 mirror, with its crown and sceptred top, between the 
 windows. I remember it used to put me in mind of 
 the fatal blue chamber in Bluebeard. I am not sure 
 now that there was not something supernatural about 
 it. 
 
 But it was the parlor opposite that was the very 
 quintessence of snugness and comfort, worth half a 
 hundred fantastic boudoirs and modern drawing-rooms 
 bedizened with French finery. On your right hand 
 as you entered were two windows opening upon the 
 courtyard above commemorated, with their conven 
 ient window-seats an accommodation which I sadly 
 miss with their appropriate green velvet cushions, a 
 little the worse for wear. On the opposite side of the 
 room to the windows was a glass door opening into 
 the garden, a pleasant sight to see, with its rectan 
 gular box-lined gravel walks, its abundant vegeta 
 bles, its luxuriant fruit-trees, its vine trained over the 
 stable-wall. As you returned to the house through 
 the garden-door, you had on your right the door of a 
 closet with a window looking into the garden, which 
 was entitled the study, having been appropriated to 
 that purpose by the deceased master of the house. 
 This recess possessed substantial charms to my infant
 
 OLD HOUSES. 333 
 
 imagination as the perennial fountain of cakes and 
 apples, which my good aunt of whom presently 
 conducted in a never-failing stream to the never- 
 satisfied mouth of an urchin of six years old. I 
 thought they grew there by some spontaneous process 
 of reproduction. 
 
 A little farther on, nearer to the study-door than 
 the one by which we entered, was the fireplace, fit 
 shrine for the Penates of such a household ; its ample 
 circumference adorned with Dutch tiles, where stout 
 shepherdesses in hoops and high-heeled shoes gave 
 sidelong looks of love to kneeling swains in cocked 
 hats and trunk-hose ; while their dogs and sheep had 
 grown so much alike from long intimacy as to be 
 scarcely distinguishable. How I loved those little 
 glimpses into pastoral life ! I have one of them now, 
 which I rescued from the wreck of matter when the 
 house came down. Within the ample jaws of the 
 chimney, which might have swallowed up at a mouth 
 ful a century of patent grates, crackled and roared the 
 merry wood fire, fed with massy logs which it would 
 take two men to lift, as men are now, -r casting 
 its cheerful light as evening drew in on the panelled 
 walls, bringing out the curious " egg-and-anchor " 
 carvings, which were my special pride and wonder, 
 and flashing back from the mirror globe which de 
 pended from the beam which divided the comfortable 
 low ceiling into two unequal parts. And let me not 
 forget the mantelpiece, adorned with grotesque heads 
 in wood, and clusters of fruit and flowers, of
 
 334 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 which Grinling Gibbons himself need not have been 
 ashamed. And then the Turkey carpet, covering the 
 breadth, but not the length, of the room ; and the 
 books, the " Spectator's " short face in his title- 
 page, the original " Tatler," the first editions of Pope. 
 But time would fail me were I to record all the well- 
 remembered contents of that dear old room, the 
 sofa or settee, of narrow capacity, looking as if three 
 single chairs had been rolled into one ; the card-table, 
 with its corners for caudles, and its pools for fish 
 scooped out of the verdant champain of green broad 
 cloth. But enough : let us now approach the divin 
 ity whose penetralia we have entered, and who well 
 befits such a shrine. 
 
 In an elbow-chair at the right of the fireplace, sat 
 my excellent aunt, Mrs. Margaret Champion, widow 
 of the Honorable John Champion, long one of his 
 Majesty's Council for this Province. When I first 
 remember her, she had passed her seventieth year, 
 and she lived in a green old age till near a hundred 
 winters had passed over her head. What a picture of 
 serene and beautiful old age ! Her placid countenance, 
 which a cheerful piety and constitutional philosophy 
 had kept almost un wrinkled ; her large black eyes, in 
 which the fires of youth were not yet wholly extin 
 guished ; the benevolent smile which was seldom 
 absent from her lips spoke of a frame on which 
 Time had laid a gentle hand, and of a mind at ease. 
 When I knew her, the profane importunities of the 
 fairer part of her relatives had obtained a reluctant
 
 OLD HOUSES. 335 
 
 consent to abandon the gently swelling hoop and low 
 ering crape cushion in which she once rejoiced. But 
 you could never have seen how she became her decent 
 white lace cap, her flowing black lace shade, her rich 
 silks for common wear, and her stiff brocades for 
 high solemnities, and not have known that she was a 
 gentlewoman born. 
 
 I attribute a good deal of my love of other days to 
 the short winter afternoons and long winter evenings 
 which I sometimes spent alone with her. I say some 
 times, for she was not one of the instances of ne 
 glected old age ; but her society was courted by 
 young as well as old. 
 
 " The general favorite as the general friend." 
 
 My aunt Champion was born not long after the 
 commencement of the last century, and remembered 
 Governor Dudley. The succeeding inhabitants of the 
 old Province House were familiar to her recollection, 
 from Colonel Shute down to Sir Francis Bernard. 
 She was a stanch Tory, God bless her! and loved 
 the king to her dying day, and thought that no 
 greater men ever lived, at least on this continent, 
 than his Majesty's representatives in the Province. 
 How well would she touch off the characters of the 
 successive Excellencies who in turn did penance in 
 the unthankful office of provincial governor ! With 
 what skill (though all unconscious of any) would she 
 individualize them, and bring them body and soul 
 before your eyes! Shute, with his military bluntness
 
 336 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 and frank sincerity, relieved by a little of the sub- 
 acidity of temper which distinguished Mr. Shandy, 
 and rather too much aptitude to go off at half-cock ; 
 Burnet, mild and gentlemanlike, fond of pleasure and 
 of elegant letters, and intended by nature and educa 
 tion for a wider and more brilliant sphere, and whose 
 gentle nature was not made of stubborn stuff enough 
 to bear up against the perpetual dropping of the 
 petty vexations which he encountered in his official 
 duties, and the dislike with which his genial propen 
 sities were regarded by the sterner religionists of the 
 day. I think that he was my aunt's favorite ; but 
 then his reign was contemporary with her own, and 
 she looked upon him and his court with the eyes of 
 eighteen. Then came Belcher, plain, serious, digni 
 fied, whose appearance and conversation indicated a 
 sound judgment and a cultivated mind, but whose 
 character, though acceptable to the colonists as one 
 of themselves, and of interests identical with their 
 own, did not find equal favor with his predecessor in 
 the eyes of a lively young woman who loved to hear 
 of the court of Anne and George, and of the brilliant 
 constellation of wits which shed its selectest influ 
 ences in that period of Burnet's life when he was the 
 chosen companion of Addison, Pope, Steele, and Con- 
 greve. Next appeared the elegant, versatile Shirley, 
 intelligent, graceful, full of nice tact, which stood 
 him in good stead in his public as well as private life. 
 He was the only one of the colonial governors who 
 so laid the course of the ship of state as to avail
 
 OLD HOUSES. 337 
 
 himself both of the tide of royal favor and of the 
 shifting gales of the popular breath, and to keep the 
 helm for nearly eighteen years. His was a glorious 
 reign too. 
 
 During his supremacy, Louisburg fell, an event 
 ever memorable in New England history. With 
 what interest would my good aunt describe the in 
 tense anxiety which filled every heart while the fate 
 of the expedition was uncertain ! and then the trans 
 ports of joy with which the news of its complete and 
 almost unhoped for success was received, the ser 
 mons, the illuminations, the oxen roasted whole, the 
 oceans of punch, the broached hogsheads of wine; 
 for in those days temperance societies were not. 
 Mrs. Champion looked upon this victory as totally 
 eclipsing all the military glories of the Revolution 
 ary War, and indeed it was not surpassed by any 
 single action of that great struggle : as for Sir Wil 
 liam Pepperell, why, General Washington was a fool 
 to him. 
 
 Then came Pownal, gay, hearty, jovial, whose bril 
 liant balls and gay dinners almost made my dear 
 aunt forgive his leaning to the popular side. His 
 festivity of temper and the gay coterie with which 
 he had surrounded himself made her sorry, I am 
 sure, though she would never admit it, when he was 
 removed to make way for the less accommodating 
 nature of Sir Francis Bernard, whose saturnine tem 
 perament and impracticable temper made him a suita 
 ble lever in the hands of an infatuated ministry to 
 22
 
 338 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 detach entirely and forever the American Continent 
 from the British Empire. 
 
 Then how many tales she had to tell of pre-revolu- 
 tionary festivities, of the old aristocratic families, 
 too many of which are now extinct, or scattered by 
 the Revolutionary storm over foreign lands ! And 
 again: there were sadder stories of later days, the 
 bitter scenes which preceded the flight of the Tories 
 from their native land, when they stood, a small 
 phalanx, surrounded by a host of the bitterest foes, 
 filled with a jealousy and hatred even surpassing 
 that of warring brothers ; and when, the cruelest of 
 all, the flame of discord raged in almost every family, 
 destroying all the charities of domestic life, and alien 
 ating fathers from sons, and daughters from mothers. 
 And then, when the confident hope which they had 
 entertained, of the power of the British Government 
 to protect them, at last failed them ; when the report 
 at first disbelieved, and more dreadful than the rebel 
 cannon was confirmed, that the town was to be 
 evacuated ; what consternation filled all their hearts ! 
 To stay would be to encounter the rage of the rebels 
 flushed with victory : to fly, perhaps forever, from 
 all the scenes they loved best, would be to leave their 
 estates to certain confiscation, and to reduce them 
 selves to a miserable dependence on the precarious 
 bounty of the British king. What agonies of indecis 
 ion, what years of suffering, were crowded into those 
 few hours ! what heart-breakings, when the most ob 
 noxious resolved on flight! what leave-takings of
 
 OLD HOUSES. 339 
 
 parents and children, of brothers and sisters, of hus 
 bands and wives ! what partings 
 
 "Such as press 
 The life from out young hearts." 
 
 of the beloved and the betrothed ! some, alas ! never 
 to meet again, and others not till years of sorrow and of 
 hope deferred had changed their countenances, and 
 perhaps chilled their hearts. 
 
 Then she would tell melancholy tales of how the 
 condition of the refugees was changed from that 
 palmy state which their better days had known, of 
 the neglect they encountered, of the poverty they 
 endured; some of them long lingering out a sordid 
 existence in obscure parts of London on the pittance 
 which their royal master allowed them, buried in the 
 utter solitude of a great city; some ending their 
 days in the King's Bench ; the most fortunate pass 
 ing the rest of their lives in an honorable exile, in 
 some petty official station in the pestilential climate 
 of a sugar island. 
 
 I do not know whether it is from the sympathy 
 which naturally springs from the contemplation of 
 great reverses in private life, when we are far enough 
 removed from the distorting passions of contempora 
 ries, or whether it is that I caught the infection of 
 my good aunt's enthusiasm, still, though I reverence 
 the fathers of our liberty, and am on principle of the 
 Revolutionary side, I must confess that I do love 
 the Tories. I am glad that I was not old enough at
 
 340 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 that time to take an active part on either side of the 
 divisions that then rent society asunder for I am 
 afraid that I should have been a Whig. 
 
 Mrs. Champion herself was bound to the soil by 
 too many ties of offspring and kindred to be able to 
 break away. And happy for her it was, or perhaps 
 she would have died of a broken, homesick heart, 
 like her sister, or perished beneath the sun of Jamaica, 
 like her two brothers, instead of attaining a happy 
 old age, attended with all that should accompany it, 
 honored even by those who abhorred her loyalty. 
 
 The mention of my dear old aunt has led me far 
 away from my theme ; but it is hard to check the 
 procession of images which her name conjures up to 
 my imagination. Let us return to the present day, 
 and contemplate one or two of the yet surviving 
 localities of her happier hours, and mourn over those 
 that have vanished. 
 
 The old Province House for about a century 
 the centre of that world which was comprehended 
 within the bounds of Massachusetts Bay still 
 stands ; but how shorn of its beams ! After passing 
 through a variety of evil fortunes, it is now an 
 eating-house ; and those apartments which a cen 
 tury ago beheld the assembled wisdom, wit, and 
 beauty of the Province, and witnessed the elegant 
 hospitality of the foremost man of all that little 
 world, now see nothing but greasy citizens, impa 
 tient for their dinner, or clamorous for their grog. 
 It still bears some traces of its better days in the
 
 OLD HOUSES. 341 
 
 iron railings, the freestone steps, and some of the 
 ornaments of its front. It has the air of some 
 ancient gentleman, who, after spending his youth 
 and manhood in a sphere suited to his rank, is re 
 duced in his old age to some unworthy, perhaps 
 menial, condition: whatever may be his employ 
 ment, and however dilapidated his dress, you feel 
 that he is not in his right place. The old Indian, 
 too, still bends his bow above its roof, and not with 
 out his legend, which used to tell my wondering 
 boyhood that at midnight, just as the clock struck 
 twelve, the bowstring twanged, and the shaft sped 
 away into unknown worlds, whither, I neither 
 asked nor cared. I troubled not my head with scep 
 tical inquiries into mysteries which are the province 
 of unseen powers. Its ample courtyard, which had 
 beheld many a military and many a civil pomp, has 
 been long since filled up with a staring row of 
 vulgar modern brick houses, presuming, like some 
 upstarts newly rich, to turn their backs upon their 
 betters. An envious screen ! And yet I do not 
 know but that it is now more pleasing to the genius 
 of the place to have its wreck of former greatness 
 thus shielded from the common gaze. I think it 
 may save the stout old walls some blushes. 
 
 Reader, be pleased to exercise at my bidding that 
 wonder-working power which we all possess, and 
 sweep away that mass of brick and mortar, replant 
 the noble trees, and restore the fine old pile to its 
 pristine splendor. Conjure up the men and boys of
 
 342 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 a hundred years ago, and, as you love me, forget 
 not the women. It is a lovely day in June. All 
 the world is abroad. The country seems to be super 
 induced upon the town. It must be some special 
 holiday. It is, indeed, the greatest of the year, 
 always saving and excepting Commencement. It is 
 the feast of the ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY 
 COMPANY, the most ancient military institution in 
 the United States, and which was regarded at its 
 creation with a jealous eye by our prudent ancestors, 
 forewarned by the example " of the Prretorian Band 
 among the Eomans and the Knights-Templars in 
 Europe." There they are, drawn up martially before 
 the gate, ready to take up the escort. Their presence 
 has just been intimated to the Governor. The door 
 opens, and, surrounded by a splendid cortege, his 
 Excellency appears. Observe his collarless scarlet 
 coat, richly laced with gold, his embroidered white 
 satin waistcoat, his scarlet breeches, white silk stock 
 ings, high quartered shoes and gold buckles, and 
 neglect not to remark the cut steel handle of his 
 dress-sword. Mark with what an old-school grace 
 he takes up his cocked hat, and advances bowingly 
 forwards in acknowledgment of the lowered pikes, 
 presented firelocks, and rolling drums of the citizen 
 soldiers, and the hearty shouts of the gazing crowd. 
 Would that time would serve us to follow the pro 
 cession to the Old Brick, and listen to a sermon 
 containing matter enough to furnish forth a century 
 of the delicate discourses of our times ! Thence we
 
 OLD HOUSES. 343 
 
 might repair to the well-spread board ; and, when 
 those rites have been duly solemnized, we might 
 accompany them to the Common, and witness, with 
 a generation long vanished, the ceremonies of the 
 pomp and circumstance of which we have now but 
 a type. And then the brilliant evening, when his 
 Excellency threw open his doors to a polished and 
 elegant circle unsurpassed at any subsequent period ! 
 But something too much of this. 
 
 It is about four years since I took a melancholy 
 walk to the North End, to take a last farewell of one 
 of the few historical houses which then survived. I 
 mean the mansion of Governor Hutchinson, a man 
 whose name will by degrees lose much of the odium 
 with which the unfortunate view which he took of the 
 interests of his country has invested it, and whose 
 faults will be thought, perhaps, by posterity, to have 
 been expiated by his misfortunes. When I arrived, 
 the hand of destruction was already there. The house 
 was disembowelled, the windows gone, and the whole 
 scene presented an air of desolation which would have 
 transported a less vivid imagination than mine to the 
 morning seventy years since which succeeded the 
 night, disgraceful in our annals, when a brutal and 
 inebriated mob made a ruin of the finest house in the 
 Province, and, what was worse, destroyed collections 
 for the loss of which our history must ever mourn. 
 The political magicians of that day, who foresaw the 
 tempest which was brewing, and thought that they 
 could so direct the storm as to produce only the good
 
 344 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 effects of a wholesome agitation of the political atmos 
 phere, found, too late, that in fostering the mob-spirit 
 they had evoked a devil which they could neither 
 control nor lay, and which, once raised, seems like to 
 become the master of their descendants. It will be 
 many years before we shall see another house at all 
 comparable to this one of the last age, either in its 
 architectural excellence, or the substantial elegance of 
 its internal economy. 
 
 From the ruins of this edifice and those of one 
 other adjoining house of one of the old Tory families 
 which well deserves a separate essay for its descrip 
 tion have sprung a crop of SIXTEEN fine new brick 
 houses, all stark alike, as if they had been run in the 
 same mould, meaningless, soulless masses of matter. 
 How heavily must their weight lie upon his soul who 
 effected the change ! I would not have such a load 
 on my conscience for the world. 
 
 Another venerable monument of a former genera 
 tion has since bowed its head in the dust, and given 
 place also to a crowd of upstart heirs, who perk their 
 commonplace, vulgar visages in your face as if they 
 were of better worth than the noble ancestral stock 
 from which they sprung. It was the residence of Sir 
 William Phipps. That " fair brick house in the Green 
 Lane of North Boston," which, before the tide of his 
 affairs had turned, he prophetically boasted to his un 
 believing spouse that he would one day possess, is for 
 ever gone ; and the fine old height, from which it once 
 proudly surveyed the country round, is the abode of a
 
 OLD HOUSES. 345 
 
 brick-aud-mortar monster, compared with which the 
 gerrymander was grace and proportion itself. This 
 stately house, to which the adventurous boy had 
 looked forward as the summit of human hopes when 
 he was keeping sheep at Casco Bay, or wielding the 
 adze and the hammer in one of the shipyards of Bos 
 ton, was completed after his extraordinary enterprise 
 had been crowned with remarkable success, when the 
 hand of majesty had laid the honor of knighthood on 
 his shoulder, and the poor journeyman mechanic had 
 returned to his native land invested with its highest 
 dignity. It is well that corporations have no souls, 
 or I fear that the one which delivered up this last 
 stronghold of the past into the hands of the Philis 
 tines would stand in fearful peril of utter perdition. 
 
 There is, however, still standing an abode of less 
 aristocratic pretensions, but of more illustrious associ 
 ations, than those just celebrated. It is the house in 
 which Benjamin Franklin spent his early years. It 
 makes the corner of Hanover and Union Streets on 
 your right hand as you go towards the North End 
 from Court Street, and may be distinguished by a ball 
 protruding as a sign, with the date 1698. I have 
 somewhere seen a letter from Doctor Franklin, in 
 which he says that he was born in this house ; but 
 accurate antiquarians who have carefully investigated 
 the subject are of opinion that his father did not re 
 move to this house till after the Doctor's birth ; which 
 they assert took place in a house (now, of course, 
 demolished) which stood on the site of Barker's fur-
 
 346 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 niture warehouse in Milk Street, a little lower down 
 than the Old South Church, on the other side. How 
 ever this may be, whether Milk Street or Hanover 
 Street may boast of having witnessed the entrance of 
 the great philosopher on the scene which he so long 
 adorned, still we may be sure that those unpretending 
 walls beheld the first dawning of his infant intellect, 
 and were associated with his earliest recollections. 
 It was from that door that the self-complacent urchin 
 issued with his pocket full of coppers on that famous 
 holiday morning when he exchanged all his treasure 
 for the ever-memorable whistle, and with it bought 
 the experience, which, comprised within the compass 
 of a proverb, he has added to the stock of the world's 
 wisdom. It was in that cellar, that, in his early 
 economy of time, he shocked his worthy progenitor 
 by proposing to have grace said in the lump over the 
 whole barrel of beef which he was putting down, 
 instead of over each piece in detail as it came to the 
 table. Here, too, it was, that his father, patriarch-like, 
 sat at his table surrounded by thirteen grown-up chil 
 dren ; of which numerous race I believe there is not 
 a single descendant extant, certainly not of the name. 
 It was to this home, too, that young Franklin returned, 
 after his successful elopement to Philadelphia, with a 
 fine coat upon his back, and money in his pocket 
 the admiration of his parents and the envy of his 
 brethren. If walls had tongues as well as ears, what 
 histories might not these unfold ! Eeader, if you are 
 worthy to look upon this hallowed scene, make haste,
 
 OLD HOUSES. 347 
 
 delay not your pilgrimage till to-morrow, nor even 
 till after dinner ; for, even while I write, its fate may 
 be sealed and its destruction begun. In other coun 
 tries the roofs which have sheltered less eminent men 
 than Benjamin Franklin are preserved with filial rev 
 erence, and visited with pilgrim devotion. It should 
 be so here. 
 
 Both time and patience would fail me if I were to 
 recount at large the other deeds of destruction which 
 have been worked out within a few years past. The 
 mansion-house of the Faneuils, with its princely 
 courtyard and old French palace-like front, with the 
 grotesque heads grinning from the tops of the win 
 dows ; the house of the Vassalls, the headquarters 
 of Lord Percy during the siege, and afterwards the 
 abode of Mrs. Hayley, the sister of John Wilkes, 
 with its hanging-gardens terraced to the summit of 
 one of the original peaks of old Trimountain ; the 
 hospitable home of the Bowdoins, eloquent of the 
 past they are all vanished. The very soil on 
 which they stood is removed, and cast into the sea. 
 
 I have lived long, and seen many changes. The 
 friends of my early years are mostly cold, either in 
 death or in estrangement. The grand-daughters of 
 my early loves now reign in their stead. The world 
 is governed by a generation yet unborn when my 
 career of active life began. I have seen heresies in 
 politics and in religion usurp the rightful supremacy 
 of the good old orthodox platform. I have witnessed 
 the decline of hoops, the desuetude of powder, the
 
 348 OLD HOUSES. 
 
 almost total extinction of breeches. The last of the 
 cocked hats, too, has set forever, and is, like the lost 
 Pleiad, " seen no more below." I have beheld divin- 
 est punch driven forth from the society of polite 
 man, and forced to take refuge in the grogshops. 
 Even Madeira's generous juice have I seen elbowed 
 aside by pretending coxcombs from the south of 
 France and the Khine. But stay ! I take back the 
 disparaging epithet. One is too apt to undervalue the 
 merits of newer friends when they interfere with the 
 modest claims of long-tried and well-known worth. 
 I will not be unjust to the newer excellence of 
 
 " The gay, serene, good-natured Burgundy, 
 And the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine ; " 
 
 but surely, surely for the solid, serious drinking that 
 man came into the world to do, Madeira is the only 
 satisfying good. 
 
 All these changes, however, have stolen so gradu 
 ally upon me, that my natural and acquired disin 
 clination to change has not been rudely shocked. 
 The times have changed, and I have changed with 
 them. But the violence that is done to my steadfast 
 nature by the sudden and total demolition of my old 
 companion walls, the very scenes of my youthful 
 pleasures, is mitigated by no gradual and stealthy 
 approach. The pickaxe enters into my soul. The 
 difficult tug which in the death-grapple can hardly 
 bring the sturdy old walls to the ground, too roughly 
 tears the web of remembered joys. I rejoice to think
 
 OLD HOUSES. 349 
 
 that I shall not remain long enough behind to behold 
 the utter extinction of all of my old familiar friends. 
 This roof, at least, under which I write, and which 
 has sheltered more than four generations of my an 
 cestors, will remain to be the abode of my age. It 
 cannot yield to Vandal force until I have exchanged 
 its friendly shelter for " the house appointed for all 
 living."
 
 DINAH ROLLINS.
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 ALL the world knows that the blessings of the 
 patriarchal system were not always monopo 
 lized by our Southern brethren. New England, also, 
 once rejoiced in its benign influences. Although the 
 fathers of New England did not exactly make 
 "slavery the corner-stone of their republican insti 
 tutions" (for the science of political ethics was then 
 in its infancy), still they were not so fanatical as 
 wholly to reject it from the fabric of their new State. 
 The scarcity of laborers in those early days reconciled 
 some of them to a system, which, when first pro 
 posed, they rejected with abhorrence ; and the obvi 
 ous convenience of having their work done without 
 having to pay for it might well help to silence any 
 fantastic scruples as to the justice of the arrange 
 ment. Others, again, in whom the religious principle 
 predominated over the economical, thought they 
 discerned the finger of Providence indicating the 
 spiritual things which were to be imparted to the 
 involuntary immigrants in exchange for their carnal 
 
 23
 
 354 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 things ; and they hailed every fresh importation of 
 African heathens as so much raw material to be 
 worked up into American Christians, and thus, before 
 the inception of the foreign or domestic missionary 
 enterprises, united the benefits of the former plan 
 with the conveniences of the latter. The privilege 
 of extending the advantages of modern civilization 
 and Christianity to these savage and Pagan strangers, 
 whose experience of both during the middle passage 
 would favorably prepare them for their reception, 
 reconciled these good men to any apparent hardship 
 in the mode of bringing their neophytes within the 
 sphere of their influences. The happy project of 
 reshipping them or their descendants to their na 
 tive country, after they had been fully saturated with 
 the blessings of that of their adoption, had not then 
 been developed, or the philanthropy of their bene 
 factors would have received a new impulse from the 
 beatific vision of these new apostles carrying back 
 the civilization and religion they had learned during 
 their sojourn in this favored land to that of their 
 birth ; which, if truly reported to their savage coun 
 trymen as preached and practised by the vast 
 majority of ministers and people of almost every 
 denomination, could not fail of awakening in their 
 breasts a holy emulation, and of inducing an in 
 stant renunciation of their favorite barbarisms of 
 fighting, killing, and enslaving one another. Not 
 withstanding this disadvantage, our good ancestors 
 satisfied their consciences as well as they were able,
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 355 
 
 in one way or another, and submitted to be served 
 without wages with the best grace they could. In 
 justice to their memories, however, it should be said 
 that New England slavery was the very mildest 
 form of involuntary servitude. The nature of the 
 agricultural and mechanical productions of that day, 
 the difficult communication and comparatively infre 
 quent intercourse between the different Colonies, and 
 the severe morality which marked the character of 
 that peculiar people, prevented the overworking of 
 the slaves, the separation of families and disruption 
 of natural ties, and that toleration, if not compulsion, 
 of the grossest vice and licentiousness which form 
 the most hideous features of the system as it exists 
 at the present day in this country. Tradition re 
 lates that the old slaves often ruled with almost 
 absolute sway over the farmhouses in which they 
 had passed their lives, while by the wealthier fami 
 lies they were frequently indulged more like spoiled 
 children than favorite domestics. Many circum 
 stances might be related to show that the value of 
 " this peculiar species of property " was very different 
 in those days and these ; or else that our fathers were 
 not the wise men in their generation that they are 
 reputed to have been. I will only mention the ad 
 vertisements which are not unfrequently found in 
 the curious little newspapers of the times, to this 
 effect : " To BE GIVEN AWAY, a likely negro child of 
 five years old ; apply to the printer." Now, among 
 the many modern slave advertisements which I have
 
 356 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 consulted, whether in the columns of Southern news 
 papers themselves, or when transferred to the collec 
 tions of the curious in such matters, as affording the 
 most indisputable, unimpeachable evidence of the 
 true character of the system (unless, indeed, it be 
 true, as was once suggested to me by an elderly 
 gentleman of respectable appearance in a stage 
 coach, that they are inserted in the Southern papers 
 by the abolitionists, for the purpose of making an 
 impression at the North), it never has been my for 
 tune to light upon an advertisement of this descrip 
 tion. Now, as generosity is well known to be the 
 inseparable companion of chivalry, it cannot be sup 
 posed that the absence of such advertisements is 
 owing to any lack of a giving spirit. It must be 
 accounted for either by modesty, which shrinks from 
 such a parade of liberal designs, or by a change in 
 the value of the gift, which makes such a proclama 
 tion unnecessary in order to find one willing to ac 
 cept it. The reader must settle this point for himself 
 while I proceed to my historiette. 
 
 It was in that world before wages, but towards 
 the close of those happy days of primitive simplicity, 
 that our heroine made her first appearance upon this 
 disjointed scene of things. She was " born," about 
 seventy years since, "in the house" of Judge Eollins 
 of Somersworth, N.H., a circumstance, which, we 
 learn from high authority, brought her as effect 
 ually within the protection of the scriptural sanc 
 tions of slavery as if she had been "bought with
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 357 
 
 his money." 1 If her master happened to be troubled 
 with any silly scruples about his relation to poor 
 Dinah and his other slaves, it is a thousand pities 
 that he lived too soon to enjoy the ghostly consola 
 tions just quoted, and others equally cogent and to 
 the point; as, for example, the positions recently 
 maintained by a reverend divine (Rev. E. Fuller of 
 Beaufort, S.C.), that "the domestic relations here 
 existing" are authorized by God, not condemned 
 by Jesus Christ, and " expressly authorized " by the 
 Holy Ghost; and that consequently their condem 
 nation by abolitionists is " a direct insult to the 
 Unchangeable and Holy One of heaven." 2 In de 
 fault of such comforters, however, Judge Eollius and 
 his family appear to have quieted their conscien 
 tious scruples, if they had any, by treating their 
 slaves in the kindest manner. As long as any of 
 the family survived, Dinah remained an affectionate 
 inmate of their household. At length, however, the 
 Eollins family became extinct, as was the case with 
 many others of the old New Hampshire families, 
 which helped to transmute the most aristocratic of the 
 Colonies into the most democratic of the States ; and 
 poor Dinah was left without anybody to take care of 
 her. The reader will perhaps conclude from this, 
 
 1 See the passage on this subject in the work on Moral Philoso 
 phy by the Rev. Jasper Adams, D.D., president of the college in 
 Charleston, S.C. 
 
 2 See his Letter to the Rev. Elon Galusha, in the Recorder and 
 Watchman.
 
 358 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 her unhappy predicament, that she either imme 
 diately took to begging, if not to stealing, or else 
 transported her poverty to another State, or at best 
 came upon the parish. No such consequences en 
 sued, although we are credibly assured that such 
 must be the inevitable effects of emancipation. She 
 migrated no farther than Portsmouth, where she ob 
 tained an honest livelihood by serving as hostler in 
 a livery-stable. 
 
 I apprehend that a less authentic historian than 
 myself, priding himself on the dignity, rather than 
 the truth of his narrative, might be tempted to soften 
 this circumstance, if not to suppress it entirely ; for 
 in the course of a pretty extensive and careful circle 
 of studies, including most of the Annuals and Souve 
 nirs of the last dozen years, and other kindred 
 branches of literature, I do not remember to have read 
 of a single heroine, whatever might have been the 
 extremity or the variety of her distress, who was 
 reduced to rub down horses, and sweep out stables, 
 for her support. I am apprehensive, too, lest my 
 Dinah should seem to some masters in our Israel to 
 have been "impatient of her proper sphere," and 
 to have " stepped forth to assume the duties of the 
 man " in her choice of a field of labor ; and that she 
 may even come within the range of the fulminations 
 of the Pastoral Letter of the Massachusetts General 
 Association of Congregational Ministers, and be ex 
 posed to be likened unto "a vine, whose strength 
 and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work, and half
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 359 
 
 conceal its clusters," but which "thinks to assume 
 the independence and overshadowing nature of the 
 elm." I am concerned, also, lest a distinguished 
 gentleman who stands in the first rank, if not in 
 the first place, of our Kepublic of Letters, and who 
 has lately discoursed eloquently to an elegant audi 
 ence on the sphere of woman, or some of his 
 admirers (should this little story fall under the ob 
 servation of any of them), may condemn her as 
 deficient in that perfect propriety and feminine deli 
 cacy, which form the chief ornaments of the sex. 
 My business, however, is to relate facts, and not to 
 extenuate them, and I must leave poor Dinah to 
 the mercy of all censors, whether clerical or laic, 
 who may choose to sit in judgment upon her. I 
 must, in justice, however, state, that, great as may 
 have been her deviation in this particular from the 
 gentle elegancies and graceful proprieties of perfect 
 womanhood, it was not owing to anything unfeminine 
 in her education. I am not sure that she is even 
 possessed of those elements of reading and writing, 
 which, according to Dogberry, " come by nature ; " 
 and I think that I can assure the fastidious reader 
 that she is perfectly innocent of the knowledge of 
 the classics, of metaphysics, of the higher mathe 
 matics, and, in general, of all the eminently masculine 
 branches of learning. 
 
 Whatever may be the opinion of the learned, or 
 of posterity, as to the abstract fitness of Dinah's posi 
 tion in the livery-stable, there she was when the
 
 360 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 circumstance occurred which I have thought worthy 
 of recital. While she was thus engaged in the 
 charge of steeds, an occupation for which I forgot in 
 the proper place to say she had the example of the 
 Homeric princesses and of the dames of chivalry, 
 she was one day accosted by a white woman who 
 had once lived at service with her, and who told a 
 piteous tale. She had spent a long life in menial 
 service, and after having drudged for many years, 
 and endured the caprices and exactions of many 
 masters, she was now in her old age, and when dis 
 abled from labor by infirmity, thrown destitute upon 
 the world. No resource seemed left her but the 
 alms-house, for which she entertained the dread 
 so common to honest poverty, and which seems to 
 argue some vice in the system, which cannot be en 
 tirely subdued, even when it is administered in the 
 most humane and enlightened manner. It was a 
 common tale, and of every-day distress, such as would 
 excite but little attention at the corners of the streets ; 
 but it went straight to the good heart of Dinah. 
 Here was an old friend in want, and what could she 
 do for her ? When the heart is opened to receive a 
 friend in distress, the door does not long remain 
 closed. If the heart is large enough, the house 
 is seldom found too small. Accordingly, Dinah 
 soon remembered that her habitation, though small 
 enough for one, was still large enough for two. And 
 as for the increased expenses of her establishment 
 why, she must work the harder to meet them,
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 361 
 
 that was all. Her plan was soon arranged in her 
 mind, and as speedily reduced to practice. She took 
 her old companion to her humble home, and has 
 ever since (it is now several years) shared it and 
 all that it contains with her. So little did she think 
 that she had done anything out of the common way, 
 that it was a long time before her remarkable action 
 became known. Since then she has been an object 
 of interest and of good offices to many benevolent 
 individuals. "What has seemed most extraordinary 
 to those who have observed her proceedings has 
 been the natural delicacy and good breeding which 
 has taught her so to dispense her bounty to her help 
 less charge as to take from it the appearance of an 
 obligation. This, no doubt, arises from the circum 
 stance, that she does not think of herself as confer 
 ring one; and having the things, benevolence and 
 forgetfulness of self, it is but natural that she should 
 possess the politeness which is but their visible sign. 
 If she had ever read Cicero (which, as I have already 
 observed, I do not think probable), she might cite in 
 support of her philosophy the wise saying of Soc 
 rates, which he quotes : " Whatever you would seem, 
 be." I will mention one instance of her delicacy in 
 her treatment of her guest, which will perhaps be 
 more highly appreciated by some of my readers than 
 by others. " Knowing," as she said, " that white folks 
 don't like to have colored folks live with them," and 
 having but one room for their joint accommodation, 
 she divided it into two parts by means of a line
 
 362 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 hung with old clothes, that she might give her guest 
 a separate apartment in deference to her supposed 
 prejudices. Her conduct in every respect towards 
 her unfortunate friend, I am assured by those who 
 are well acquainted with the facts, might serve as a 
 model of disinterested kindness to persons of much 
 higher pretensions and greater advantages. 
 
 I was told this story during a visit which I lately 
 made to the beautiful town of Portsmouth, and I 
 conceived a strong desire to see the scene and the 
 heroine of it. It was the annual Thanksgiving of 
 New Hampshire, and I was invited, though a stranger, 
 to join an affectionate and accomplished family circle 
 on that domestic festival. The rain poured in torrents ; 
 but we heeded it not, for " our sunshine was within." 
 Notwithstanding these inducements, both within 
 doors and without, to stay where I was, I stole away 
 after dinner, from the hospitable table, and proceeded 
 with an old college acquaintance, one of the clergy 
 men of the town, to the abode of Dinah Eollins. She 
 was not at home when we first arrived at her door, 
 but soon made her appearance from a neighboring 
 alley. And now shall I describe her ? A more pru 
 dent historian would leave his readers to imagine 
 how she looked; but I feel it due to them and to 
 Dinah to portray her appearance. She certainly was 
 a very different person from the heroines of the gen 
 erality of the " hot-pressed darlings," which are. 
 annually furnished forth by " the trade " to friend 
 ship and love, as gifts for Christmas and New Year.
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 363 
 
 She would find herself brought acquainted with 
 strange company in the "Book of Beauty" or the 
 "Flowers of Loveliness." Her face was of the in- 
 tensest black, and her features of the strongest 
 African cast; but still there was an expression of 
 goodness and benevolence pervading her counte 
 nance, which, if it did not amount to positive beauty, 
 at least made amends for the want of it. She was 
 between four and five feet high, very broadly and 
 strongly built. She wore a man's hat upon her 
 head; a cloth cape, like that of a man's great-coat, 
 coming down to her waist, over her shoulders. 
 
 She received us kindly, and invited us into her 
 house, or rather room, which presented a different 
 aspect, to be sure, from the scene of elegant hospi 
 tality I had just left. The room contained a few 
 rude articles of furniture and a stove. The plaster 
 ing had parted from the laths of the ceiling ; so that 
 the sawdust of the mechanic's shop overhead would 
 shower down at times upon the floor. Within the 
 enclosure of counterpanes and old clothes we found 
 " the old lady," as Dinah always calls her, who has 
 been bedridden for a long time, being eighty-four 
 years old, and so deaf as to be absolutely impervious 
 to sound. She seemed, however, sensible of the 
 kindness of our intention in coming to see her. The 
 devotion of Dinah to her, and her absolute uncon 
 sciousness that she was doing anything remarkable, 
 was perfectly beautiful. She did not seem to know 
 but that such a scene was acting in every house 
 in Portsmouth.
 
 364 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 In a sort of shed behind her room she showed us 
 a hog of huge proportions, which she was raising for 
 winter supply, and also her harvest of Indian corn, 
 which she had garnered there; for, the infirmities 
 of her old friend requiring more time than her office 
 of mistress of the horse could spare, she had resigned 
 it, and turned her attention to other more manageable 
 modes of getting a subsistence, among which was 
 farming on a small scale. She cultivated to good 
 purpose, as I should judge from her crop, a small 
 piece of land belonging to the town ; and to the honor 
 of the town be it told that it refuses to take any 
 rent of her, thus affording an exception to the gen 
 eral rule that corporations have no souls. She 
 showed us these stores with an honest pride, and 
 evinced none of the shame, or indeed of the con 
 sciousness, of poverty. 
 
 I do not know but some scrupulous persons may 
 be disposed to find fault with Dinah's protegd for 
 being willing to be a burden upon her scanty revenue. 
 Possibly some admirer of the Caucasian race may 
 think it especially unworthy of a daughter of that 
 superior family to receive her support from one of 
 African descent. I would entreat such a one to 
 desist from his speculations at once, lest he should 
 find himself tampering with " delicate subjects," or, 
 peradventure, meddling with what is none of his 
 business. I would, however, in justice to my old 
 friend at Portsmouth, say that she is kept in counte 
 nance by multitudes of reverend divines, learned
 
 DINAH ROLLINS. 365 
 
 judges, and honorable women in the Southern States 
 who are provided with board and lodging, and sup 
 plied with pocket-money, by negroes. Nay, more; 
 that not a few of the most eloquent advocates of the 
 rights of man, and the boldest opposers of monopo 
 lies, in both branches of the national Legislature, and 
 some, at least, of those who from the chair of state 
 have uttered forth the oracles of democracy, are or 
 have been dependent for their daily bread and neces 
 sary clothing upon the earnings of colored men and 
 women. So I conceive that Dinah's friend is borne 
 out by the example of these illustrious paupers, and 
 is not to be called in question by any one as to her 
 means of subsistence. Moreover, it should be remem 
 bered that her support is given her cheerfully and 
 voluntarily, which, it is said, is not always the case 
 in the other instances I have cited; so that it ap 
 pears the difference is in her favor in the particular 
 in which the cases are not parallel. I did not hear, 
 indeed, of any attempt on her part to flog, brand, or 
 even sell her benefactress, upon any temptation of 
 pique or profit. But we must make allowances for 
 the disadvantages of her former condition and for 
 the defects of her early education. 
 
 What I saw and heard at this visit seemed to 
 imply that slaves may be able to take care of them 
 selves, and to dispense with the providence of a 
 master, without danger of starvation or beggary. I 
 also gathered from it that they were competent, not 
 only to take care of themselves, but of white people
 
 366 DINAH ROLLINS. 
 
 too, even though they might not stand to them in 
 the relation of proprietor. Moreover, I perceived 
 that goodness of heart and refinement of feeling are 
 not limited by color, or conferred by education. I 
 discovered, too, that the truest riches may be pos 
 sessed by the poorest person, and that there are 
 nobler acts of munificence than those chronicled in 
 religious newspapers. Grateful for these lessons, I 
 took a kind farewell of her who had imparted them, 
 and heartily bade God bless her ; and if ever I am 
 tempted to take a gloomy view of life, or to despair 
 of the improvement of the race, I shall refresh my 
 spirit by reverting to my interview with DINAH 
 ROLLINS. 
 
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