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A
THE MAGNOLIA.
DITBD BY
HENRY W. HERBERT.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT P. BIXBY & CO.,
3, Park Row, opposite Astor Liu use.
Annex
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE MAGNOLIA is, at this time, offer
ed to the public by its proprietor, not, it is true, without
anxiety, but at the same time with full confidence,
that, as nothing has been spared, on his part, to render
it deserving of public favor, it will not be found
altogether unworthy or unacceptable.
The plan, which he has adopted in the present
volume, and which it is his intention to carry out
hereafter, is perfect originality both of the literary and
ornamental departments.
The engravings are, and will continue to be, exe-
cuted entirely from American paintings, and by
domestic artists while no compositions, however
excellent, will be admitted, which are not produced by
writers, natives or residents of the United States.
With this brief introduction, the MAGNOLIA is com-
mitted to that atmosphere, which may doom it to be
blighted by the frost of the first winter ; but which
will, it is hoped, permit it to bloom again, and with a
beauty more mature, than it presumes to boast in this
its infant blossoming.
2031274
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAOH
THE MAGNOLIA 9
IMPROMPTU 10
BOYS ON THE ICE 11
THE DEATH OF SOTO. By THE AUTHOR OF " TBS BROTHERS" . . . 14
THE CONQUEROR a Dream 24
TO AN OSTRICH FEATHER 28
MUSIC 30
ODE TO JAMESTOWN. BY J. K. PAUUHNQ, Es*. 31
LOGOOCHIE. BY THB AUTHOR OP " GUY RIVBRS," " ATALAMTIS,"
and " THE YEMASSEE" 36
SONG 71
THE YOUNG MOTHER. BY GRENVILLK MBLLBN, Esa. 72
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL. BY THB AUTHOR OF "A YEAR IN
SPAIN" 77
THE RESCUE 95
THE PRAYER OF THE LYRE. BY THB AUTHOR OF " ATAIAMTIB,"
"THB YEMASSEB," &c 93
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. BY THB AUTHOR OP "ALLEN PRBBOOT". 105
STANZAS 135
LAKE GEORGE. BY E. F. E 136
DEATH OF GALEAZZO 8FORZA 138
AMY CRANSTOUN. BY THB AUTHOR OF " REDWOOD," and " HOPS
145
r
r CONTENTS.
PAOB
A SEA PICTURE. BY GRENVH.LB MBLLKN, Esa. 177
THE HARMONY OF NATURE 184
THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR 187
DICK MOON. BY WM. L. STONE, Esti. 183
GREEN'S POND 214
PRESENTIMENT. BY A. D. PATBRSON, Esft. 217
KAATSKILL 249
WASHINGTON 251
ISOLATED AFFECTION 258
A LIVING POET 257
INNOCENZA 259
A NIGHT ON THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. BY THB Ao-
THOR OF "A WINTER IN THE WEST" 261
THE STARS 277
THE FATE OF POMPEY. BY THE AUTHOR of "THE BROTHERS" . 279
VIRGINIA 297
THE DOOM OF THE EYES 298
THE CONDOR. BrE.F.B.... .. 299
THE MAGNOLIA.
NOT in the autumn pale and cold,
When flowers of frailer beauty fade,
When sombre hues the woods unfold,
And violets droop beneath their shade
Sweet flower ! thou bloom' st in lonely grace
But when at radiant summer's call
Her bright ones woo the wind's embrace,
Thou shinest, the loveliest of them all.
The wild rose rears its glowing head
Beside thee, emulous, but in vain ;
Soft leaves and buds their odors shed
But thou art sweetest of the train !
No rival 'neath the summer heaven,
Majestic flower ! thine empire shares j
And thus the bard to thee hath given
A deeper meaning far than theirs.
THE MAGNOLIA.
This volume, too, amid the throng
That shine with evanescent grace,
In the gay garb of smile and song
Would claim, like thee, the brightest place.
Yet wouid not droop like thee away,
When days of light grow dark and chill ;
But, like the truth thy leaves display,
Be fragrant and unfading still.
IMPROMPTU.
TO , IN
For the sweet flower thou giv'st me,
So beautiful and rare,
Thou hast, fond maid, my friendly thought,
Thou hast my fondest prayer.
Thou giv'st me, with thy pleasant flower,
Sweet words, that gently thrill |
I pray, 'tis all that I can do,
That thou may'st keep them still
BOYS ON THE ICE.
MOTHER, where art thou now fond mother, where?
Busied perchance about the cottage hearth;
Or tending, with soft hand and woman care,
The grandsire's pillow; or with innocent mirth
Carolling old sweet melodies of home;
Shaping the while with love's unwearied skill
That waits not, wanes not, though the truants roam,
Some homespun garb, to fence frore winter's chill
From those loved little ones those sireless boys
In whom is fixed thine all, of fears affections joys !
Mother, where art thou now sad mother, where?
Noontide hath chimed on every village bell
A damper breath is on the evening air,
Windingthrough woodlands hoar itsmournful shell ;
The short-lived sun hath neared the western hill
Yet hath no sound appeased thine anxious ear,
Of frolic shout or childish laughter shrill
Or prattling tongues, unfathomably dear!
No joyous yelping, by his playmates' side,
Of him, at night their guard their friend by day
and guide !
12 BOYS ON THE ICE.
Mother, where art thou now dear mother, where?
There is a voice beside the frozen shore
A voice, would bid thy widow-heart despair
A voice which heard thou would'st hear never
more
NOT see, nor hope, nor pray! No not for
heaven !
A cry for succor "Succor, or we perish
O'er the blind waters to destruction driven! "
Blest that thou see'st them not that so dost
cherish
The frail ice drifting to the ocean wide,
Their frail, yet sole support, upon the wheeling tide!
Mother, where art thou hapless mother, where?
Thy babes are pleading to the earless deep
For mercy! mercy from the waves, that ne'er,
Save once, heard voice of man, and sank to sleep !
And there is no help! none I and they must
fall
So bright, so innocent, and oh so brief.
And thou thou must survive thy last thine all;
Survive in solitary hopeless grief.
Better it were oh better far to share
Their fate thou so dost love for whom thou so
didst bear!
Hope mother yet unconscious mother, hope!
HE, who bade hush the roar on Galilee,
And walked the waters, that their crests did slope
Tame at his word and powerless may not HE,
BOYS ON THE ICE. 13
Or doth he lack the will again to save?
Pure vows are soaring to the throne of might
High hearts, strong hands, are battling with the
wave
And the bark rushes, swifter than the flight
Of Indian arrow, gurgling through the spray,
That chides, but may not check, her fleet and fearless
way.
Bliss, mother, now grateful mother, bliss I
Thy babes are sheltered in thy wild embrace
Earth has no moment that may vie with this
The eye, devouring each familiar face,
The straining arms the fierce and hurried kiss
The brief pure blessing the reproachful zeal
The penitence for mother's care remiss
The rapturous anguish none but mothers feel !
Oh who shall say that life has aught below
Of tears unmixed with smiles, or joy undimmed by wol
THE DEATH OF SOTO,
BT THE AUTHOR OP " THB BROTHERS/
But wind me in a banner bright
A banner of Castile
And let the war-drums round me roll,
The trumpets o'er me peal !
And bury me at noon of night,
When gone is the sultry gleam
At noon of night by torches' light
In the Mississippi stream.
Old Ballad.
IT was the evening of a sultry day, sultry almost
beyond endurance, although the season had not
advanced beyond the early spring-time; the sun,
though shrouded from human eyes by a dense veil of
moist and clammy vapor, was pouring down a flood
of intolerable heat upon the pathless cane-brakes, the
deep bayous, haunts of the voracious and unseemly
alligator, and the forests, steaming with excess of
vegetation, through which the endless river rolled
its dark current. On a steep bluff^ projecting into
the bosom of the waters, at the confluence of some
nameless tributary and the vast Mississippi, stood the
dwelling of the first white man that ever trod those
boundless solitudes. It was a rude and shapeless
THE DEATH OP SOTO. 15
edifice of logs, hewn from the cypresses and cedars
of the swamp, which lay outstretched for a thousand
miles around, by hands unused to aught of base or
menial labor ; yet were there certain marks of
comfort, and even of luxury, to be traced in the
decorations and appliances of that log-cabin ; a veil
of sea-green silk was drawn across the aperture,
which perforated the massy timbers of the wall ; a
heavy drapery of crimson velvet, decked with a fringe
and embroidery of gold, was looped up to the low
lintels, as if to admit whatever breath of air might
sweep alonsj the channel of the river. Nor were
these all a lofty staff was pitched before the door,
from which drooped, in gorgeous folds, the yellow
banner, rich with the castled blazonry of Spain ; and
beside it a tall warrior sheathed from head to heel
in burnished armor, with gilded spur, and belted
brand stalked to and fro, as though he were on
duty upon some tented plain, in his own land of
chivalry and song. At a short distance in the. rear
might be observed a camp, if by that name might be
designated a confused assemblage of huts, suited for
the accommodation of five hundred men; horses were
picqueted around ; spears, decked with pennon and
pennoncel and all the bravery of knightly warfare,
were planted before the dwellings of their owners ;
sentinels in gleaming mail paced their accustomed
rounds. But in that strange encampment, there was
no mirth, no bustle not even the low hum of con-
verse, or the note of preparation. The soldiers glided
to and fro, with humbled gait and sad demeanor ; the
16 THE DEATH OF SOTO.
very chargers drooped their proud heads to the
ground, and appeared to lack sufficient animation to
dash aside the swarms of venomous flies, that battened,
as it seemed, upon their very life-blood ; the huge blood-
hounds, those dread auxiliaries of Spanish warfare,
of which a score or two were visible among the
cabins, lay slumbering in listless indolence, or drag-
ged themselves along, after the heels of their masters,
with slouching crests, and in attitudes widely different
from the fierce activity of their usual motions. Pesti-
lence and famine were around them on the thick
and breezeless air on the dark wafers in the
deep morass, and in the vaults of the pine forest,
the seeds of death were floating avengers of the
luckless tribes, already scattered or enslaved by the
iron arm of European war. Oh how did they
pine for the clear streams of Guadalquivir, or the
viny banks of Xeres for the breezy slopes of the
Alpuxarras, or the snow-clad summits of their native
Sierras those fated followers of the DEMON GOLD
How did their recollections doat upon the waving
palms, and orange-groves, the huertas and the meads
of fair Granada ! In vain in vain ! Of all those
gallant hundreds, who had leaped in confidence and
hope from their proud brigantines upon the glowing
shores of Florida, glittering in polished steel, and
"very gallant with silk upon silk,"* who had travers-
ed the wild country of the Appalachians, who had
seen the gleam of Spanish arms reflected from the
* Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. p. 48.
THE DEATH OP SOTO. 17
black streams of Alabama, who had made the bound-
less prairies of Missouri ring with the unechoed
notes of the Castilian trumpet, who had spread the
terrors of the Spanish name, with all its barbarous
accompaniments of havoc and slaughter, through
wilds untrod before by feet of civilized man. Of all
those gallants hundreds, but a weak and wasted
moiety was destined to reach the shores of their far
fatherland j and that not, as they had fondly deem-
ed, in the pride, the exultation, and the wealth of
conquest, but in want, and weariness, and wo.
The arrows of the savage, and the yet fiercer
arrows of the plague, dearly repaid the injuries that
they had wreaked already on the wretched natives
dearly repaid too, as it were by anticipation, the
wrongs that their children, and their children's chil-
dren, should wreak in long prospective on the forest-
dwellers of the west.
There, in that lonely hut there lay the proudest
spirit the bravest heart the mightiest intellect
the favorite comrade of Pizarro the joint-conqueror
of Perul There lay Hernan de Soto his fiery
energies, even more than the hot fever, wearing away
his mortal frame; his massive brow clogged with the
black sweat of death ; his eye that had flashed the
more brilliantly the deadlier was the peril dim and
filmy; his high heart sick sick and fearful, not for
himself, but for his followers ; his hopes of conquest,
fame, dominion, gone like the leaves of autumn!
There he lay, miserably perishing by inches, the
THE DEATH OF SOT.O.
discoverer of a world a world, never destined to
bless or him or his posterity with its redundant riches.
Beside his pallet-bed was assembled a group of
men, the least renowned of whom might well have
led a royal army to do battle for a crown but their
frames were gaunt and emaciated ; their cheeks fur-
rowed with the lines of care and agony, both of the
mind and body; their eyes wet with the tears of
bitterness. The dark-cowled priests had ministered
the last rites ~of religion to the dying warrior, and
now watched in breathless silence the parting of his
spirit; an Indian maiden, of rare symmetry, and
loveliness that would have been deemed exquisite in
the brightest halls of Old Castile, leaned over his
pillow, wiping the cold dew from the conqueror's
brow with her long jetty locks, and fanning off the
myriads of voracious insects, that thronged the tainted
air ! There was not a sound in the crowded cham-
ber, save the heavy sob-like breathings of the dying
man, and the occasional winnings of a tall hound, the
noblest of his race, which sat erect, gazing with
almost human intelligence upon the pallid features of
his lord.
Suddenly a light draught of air was perceptible
the silken veil fluttered inwards, and a heavy rustling
sound was audible from without, as the huge folds of
the banner swayed in the rising breeze. A sensible
coolness pervaded the heated chamber, and reached
the languid brow of De Soto, who had lain for the last
half hour in seeming lethargy. Wearily, and with
THE DEATII OF SOTO. 19
a painful expression, he raised himself upon his
elbow.
"Moscoso" he said, " Moscoso, art thou near
me my eyes wax dim, and it will soon be over?
Art there, for I would speak with thee?"
" Noble de Soto, I am beside thee" he replied
" Say on I hear and mark thee 1"
"Give me thy hand!" then, as he received it,
he raised it slowly on high, and continued in clear
and unfaltering tones, though evidently with an
effort " True friend and follower, by this right
hand, that has so often fought beside my own by
this right hand, I do adjure thee, to observe and to
obey these my last mandates !"
"Shall I swear it?" cried the stern warrior,
whom he addressed, in a tone and voice rendered thick
and husky by the violence of his excitement " shall
I swear it ?"
" Swear not, Moscoso ! leave oaths to paltry
burghers and to cringing vassals but pledge me
the unblemished honor of a Castilian noble so
shall I die in peace !"
"By the unblemished honor of a Castilian noble
as I am a born hidalgo, and a belted knight, I pro-
mise thee, in spirit and in truth in deed, and word,
and thought, to do thy bidding I"
" Then, by this token," and he drew a massive
ring from his own wasted hand, and placed it on the
finger of Moscoso " then, by this token, do I name
thee my successor thee, the leader of the host, and
captain-general of Spain ! Sound trumpets heralds
20 THE DEATH OF SOTO.
make proclamation!" A moment or two elapsed,
and the wild flourish of the trumpets was heard with-
out, and the sonorous voice of the heralds making
proclamation they ceased but there was no shout
of triumph or applause.
" Ha, by St. Jago !" cried the dying chief "Ha!
by St. Jago but this must not be 'tis ominous and
evil! Go forth, thou, Vasco and bid them sound
again, and let my people shout for this their loyal
leader."
It was done, and a gleam of triumphant satisfaction
shot across his hollow features. He spoke again, but
it was with a feebler voice
" I am going" he said " I am going, whence
there is no return! Now, mark me by your
plighted word I do command you battle no farther
strive with the fates no farther for the fates are
adverse i Conquer not thou this region for I
have conquered it and it is mine! Mine, mine
though dying ! Mine it shall be though dead !
March to the coast as best ye may build ye such
vessels as may bear ye from the main, and save
this remnant of my people ! Wilt thou do this
as thou hast pledged thyself to do it, noble Moscoso ?"
** By all my hopes, I will !"
" Me, then, me shall ye bury thus ! Not with
lamentations not with womanish tears not with
vile sorrow but with the rejoicing anthem with
the blare of the trumpet, and the stormy music of the
drum ! Ye shall sheath me in my mail with my
helmet on my head and my spur on my heel !
THE DEATH OP SOTO. 21
with my sword in my hand shall ye bury me and
with a banner of Castile for my shroud ! In the
depths of the river of my river shall ye bury me !
with lighted torch and volleyed musketry at the mid
hour of night ! For am I not a conqueror a con-
queror of a world a conqueror with none to brave
my arm, or to gainsay my bidding? Where
where is the man, savage or civilized Christian or
heathen Indian or Spaniard who hath defied
Hernan de Soto, and not perished from the earth ?
Death is upon me death from the Lord of earth
and heaven ! To him I do submit me but to mor-
tal never !"
Even as he spoke, a warder entered the low door-
way, and whispered a brief message to Moscoso.
Slight as were the sounds, and dim as waxed the
senses of De Soto, he marked the entrance of the
soldier, and eagerly inquired the purport of the news!
"A messenger" was the reply "an Indian
runner from the Natchez!"
"Admit him he bears submission admit him,
so shall I die with triumph in my heart!"
The Indian entered a man of stern features, and
of well-nigh giant stature. His head, shaven to the
chivalrous scalp-lock, was decked with the plumes of
the war-eagle, mingled with the feathers of a gayer
hue his throat was circled by a necklace, strung
from the claws of the grizzly bear and cougar, fearfully
mixed with tufts of human hair his lineaments
were covered with the black war-paint in one
hand he bore the crimson war-pipe, and in the other
22 THE DEATH OF SOTO.
the well-known emblem of Indian hostility, a bundle
of shafts bound in the skin of the rattlesnake! With
a noiseless step he crossed the chamber, he flung the
deadly gift upon the death-bed of De Soto he raised
the red pipe to his lips he puffed the smoke and
then, in wild accents of his native tongue, bore to
the Spaniards the defiance of his tribe, concluding his
speech with the oft heard and unforgotten cadences
of the war-whoop !
As the dying leader caught the raised tone of the
Indian's words his eye had lightened, and his brow
contracted into a writhing frown ! He knew the
import of his speech, by the modulations of his voice
his lip quivered his chest heaved his hands
clutched the thin coverlid, as though they were grap-
pling to the lance or rapier. The wild notes of the
war-whoop rang through his ears and in death
in death itself, the ruling passion was prevalent
manifestly, terribly prevalent !
He sprang to his feet his form dilating, and his
features flashing with all the energy of life "St.
Jago" he shouted " for Spain ! for Spain ! .
Soto and victory!" and with an impotent effort to
strike, he fell flat upon his face at the feet of the
Indian, who had provoked his dying indignation !
They raised him but a flood of gore had gushed
from eyes, mouth, ears he had burst some one of
the larger vessels and was already lifeless, ere he
struck the ground !
The sun had even now sunk below the horizon
and, ere the preparations for his funeral had been
THE DEATH OF SOTO. 23
completed, it was already midnight. Five hundred
torches of the resinous pine tree flashed with their
crimson reflections on the turbid water, as the barks
glided over its surface, bearing the warrior to his last
home.
A train of cowled priests, with pix and crucifix
and steaming censer, floated in the van, making the
vaulted woods to echo the high notes of the Te Deum,
chanted in lieu of the mournful Miserere over the
mortal part of that ill-fated warrior.
But as the canoe came onward in which the corpse
was placed seated erect, as he had ordered it, with
the good sword in the dead hand, the polished helmet
glancing above the sunken features, and the gay ban-
ner of Castile floating like a mantle from the shoulders
the pealing notes of the trumpet, and the roll of the
battle-drum, and the Spanish war-cry " St. Jago for
De Soto and for Spain" and the crash of the volley-
ing arquebuses might be heard, startling the wild
beasts, and the wilder Indians, of the forest, for leagues
around.
There was a pause a deep, deep pause a sullen
splash and every torch was instantly extinguished.
" The discoverer of the Mississippi slept beneath
its waters. He had crossed a large part of the conti-
nent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarka-
ble as his burial place." *
* Bancroft's History. Portuguese Region.
THE CONQUEROR.
A DREAM.
I saw a vision in my sleep,
That gave my spirit power to sweep
Adown the gulf of time.
CAMPBELL.
METHOUGHT I stood near to the gates of Paradise.
Above my head towered those amethystine ramparts,
which had laughed to scorn, ages before the birth of
time, the menaces of Lucifer and his rebellious crew!
Before me, within the open portals, was a flood of
glory a sea of brilliant, everlasting, spirit-dazzling
lustre, and amid the empyrean were angelic shapes,
winged and beautiful, yH magnificent withal, and
fearful. And I heard a voice, as of ten thousand
silver trumpets, cry " Place for the Conqueror!"
And there was a stir among the multitudes, that
crowded the vast area before the gates for myriads
of shadowy forms stood there, waiting the fiat of their
destiny, men old, and in the prime of power, and
in the golden flush of youth, matrons, and maids,
and infants, some pale and conscience-stricken,
cringing like hounds beneath the lash, others
serenely joyous, calm in the chastened ecstasy of
hope, that doubteth not nor feareth.
THE CONQUEROR. 25
And a shape stood forward at the summons;
a shape, proud, and majestic, and most rich in all
those attributes, that bow men down before their
fellow mortals. On his brow there was the likeness
of an imperial crown, woven with leaves of the green
bay tree his eye, bold as the eagle's, seemed to
gaze around in the vain hope to find a rival his lip
was wreathed with an exulting smile. But on the
brow, beneath the crown, were furrows deep blight-
ed furrows, dug by the burning ploughshare of the
passions ; and on the green leaflets were broad gouts
of blood ; and in the eagle eye there was a glance of
restlessness and of distrust, of aspirations never to be
realized, of ambition unquenched, unquenchable ; and
on the smiling lip, there was a curl of melancholy
scorn, and at times a quiver, as of inward agony.
And he answered, with tones deep as the lion's
roar when the deserts are hushed in terror " Lo, I
am here!"
And the voice cried again, from within the gates
"Truly thou art a conqueror thou man of blood,
thou reaper of the harvest of death, thou scourge of
thine ill-fated race, truly thou art a conqueror, and
for thee is there a place made ready but not here!'
And the shape vanished, but I saw not how, noi
whither and there was silence. And again the
voice cried " Place for the Conqueror!"
And a shape stood forward at the summons; but
most unlike the former. The countenance, though
high and noble, was emaciate, and pale, and mourn-
ful; and the locks, although unmixed with gray,
26 THE CONQUEROR.
were thin and scattered ; and the frame was bent, and
the limbs feeble. Yet on those mournful features
there played a smile of more than earthly sweetness ;
and in the eye, the full dark eye, was a wild glance,
now melting into the liquid depths of tenderness, now
flashing with ineffable fire and the gaze of that dark
eye was upward still upward! For the laurel
crown btneath his feet was withered, and the sweet
strings of the lyre in his hand were "jangled, out of
tune, and harsh," and the jeer and the scoff and the
envy of the cold world were in his ears, and in his
soul' And with a high yet melancholy smile, as
though he knew of his own worth, yet doubted its
reception, he said likewise "Lo, I am here!"
And again the voice was heard, crying " Truly,
thou also art a conqueror! The conqueror of time
and place the ruler of the young fresh heart the
soother of want and weariness and wo the lord of
language and of love the conqueror of the soul,
even as he was conqueror of the body ! Truly, thou
art a conqueror, and for thee also there "is a place
made ready a place here among, though not
itself, the highest!"
And the shape vanished, but I saw not how, or
whither and there was silence. And again the voice
cried " Place for the Conqueror !"
And a shape stood forward at the summons ; a
shape, not beautiful with the beauty of men, nor
gorgeous with the trappings of rank, nor rich with
the endowments of genius. But over the homely
form, and over the humble features, there was a glow
THE CONQUEROR. 27
of pure and pious radiance and beneath the feet of
the shape lay wealth immeasurable crowns of dig-
nity, and scrolls of fame rejected, though not
disdained and the homage of men, and the love of
women doubted, but not despised! and around
him, there were slaves with their fetters broken, now
slaves no longer, with uplifted arms, and voices
and widows calling on him to behold the orphans he
had rescued and men won from the vainness, and
the wilfulness of their own imaginations and nations
blessing the benefactor of the poor, the enemy of the
oppressor, and the friend of the most High !
And the humble shape stood forward confident,
as it seemed, and fearless and the lips moved
perchance in prayer, for no words went forth, nor any
answer to the summons.
And again, from within the portals, the voice
cried "Truly thou art the conqueror thou holy
one! The conqueror of fear and falsehood of sin
and despair! The conqueror of the passions of
the world and of thyself! Stand forth! Stand
forth, thou conqueror ! For thee is the place made
ready highest and nearest to mine own enter,
thou conqueror."
And amidst the greetings of the angelic hosts,
sweeping from immeasurable distance, a cataract oi
living harmony and amid the mingled melody of
harps and halleluiahs, that shape passed through the
everlasting portals. And as he passed, I woke, and
lo, it was a dream! H.
TO AN OSTRICH FEATHER,
IN A LADY'S HEAD DRESS.'
FRAILEST and fairest of the things of earth,
Moved by each breezy wing that fans the depth
Of the blue vault yea! sullied by a touch,
That had not soiled the pure and virgin snow
What or whence art thou so to be advanced
Pre-eminently so to kiss the cheek,
Bask in the smile, and revel on the lip,
Of one, to whose least pleasure kings might bow,
Casting their coronals, and palmiest state,
Before her feet, most happy so to win
One favoring glance of those immortal eyes,
Fraught with the hue, the light, the love of heaven?
Child of the lone and solitary wastes
Of red Sahara, by the desert ship
Cast as a tribute to the hot simoom,
That fills her surgy vans, what time elate
She lifts herself on high, and scorns the might
Of steed and rider ! The one living thing,
That loveth not her young, nor folds them close
Beneath her wing, nor guards them with her life!
* See Frontispiece The White Plume.
TO AN OSTRICH FEATHER. 29
The giant bird to which God gave nor sense,
Nor natural instinct, to preserve her race !
Oh ! hadst thou speech what scenes 'twere thine
to tell,
Of steeds Arabian, and of scorching sands
Watered with innocent gore, when thou perchance
Didst deck the swarthy robber's turbaned brow,
Waving from far, the signal of despair,
To the worn pilgrim, fainting in the sun !
And thence of argosy, or caravel,
And ocean marvels, which thou didst survey
Beyond the straits Herculean, and the isles
Once titled of the blest stemming the surge
Of mightier seas than lave thy parent shore ;
Where erst broad Atalantis, with her crown
Of palmy forests, and savannahs green,
And mountains bathing their snow-circled heads
In the mid azure, courted the rent sail
Of storm-tossed mariner submerged now,
And lost in gulphing waves, that thence did win
Its name Atlantic for the western main !
Thrice happy thou, to fall on latter days.
And shores Columbian thou that mightst have
shone,
In the dark centuries of the middle time,
A thing of slaughter, on the steely crest
Of Prince or Paladin a standard-plume,
And rallying point, above the dust and din,
The hellish uproar, and the trumpet's yell !
More glorious now, and happier far, to float
In the rich atmosphere of beauty's breath
A thing of love a cynosure of hearts
A fleecy cloud, veiling, but shadowing not,
A starry constellation of twin eyes,
Brightest and best of all the lights in heaven !
MUSIC
TENDER, and soft, and slow,
The solemn numbers flow,
Like the low cadence of the tranquil sea ;
My spirit feels her own
Each simple moving tone,
More dear than aught of strange sublimity !
Oh ! if, in yonder sky,
The breast's glad melody
Finds utterance in music such as ours,
May not the once loved strain
There breathe, at times, again,
Bringing sweet memories of vanish' d hours?
SlGNORINA.
ODE TO JAMESTOWN.
BY 3. K. PAUL DING.
OLD cradle of an infant world,
In which a nestling empire lay,
Struggling awhile, 'ere she unfurl' d,
Her gallant wing and soar'd away,
All hail ! thou birthplace of the glowing west,
Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest!
What solemn recollections throng,
What touching visions rise,
As wand' ring these old stones among,
t backward turn mine eyes,
And see the shadows of the dead flit round,
Like spirits, when the last dread trump shall sound.
The wonders of an age combin'd
In one short moment memory supplies,
They throng upon my waken' d mind,
As time's dark curtains rise.
The volume of a hundred buried years,
Co^.dens'd in one bright sheet, appears.
82 ODE TO JAMESTOWN.
I hear the angry ocean rave,
I see the lonely little barque
Scudding along the crested wave,
Freighted like old Noah's ark,
As o'er the drowned earth it whirl' d,
With the forefathers of another world.
I see a train of exiles stand.
Amid the desert, desolate,
The fathers of my native land,
The daring pioneers of fate,
Who brav'd the perils of the sea and earth,
And gave a boundless empire birth.
I see the gloomy Indian range
His woodland empire, free as air ;
I see the gloomy forest change,
The shadowy earth laid bare,
And, where the red man chas'd the bounding deer,
The smiling labours of the white appear.
I see the haughty warrior gaze
In wonder or in scorn,
As the pale faces sweat to raise
Their scanty fields of corn,
While he, the monarch of the boundless wood,
By sport, or hairbrain'd rapine, wins his food.
A moment, and the pageant's gone ;
The red men are no more ;
The pale fac'd strangers stand alone
Upon the river's shore ;
And the proud wood king, who their arts disdain' d,
Finds but a bloody grave, where once he reign' d.
ODE TO JAMESTOWN.
The forest reels beneath the stroke
Of sturdy woodman's axe;
Ths earth receives the white man's yoke,
And pays her willing tax
Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields,
And all that nature to blithe labour yields.
Then growing hamlets rear their heads,
And gathering crowds expand,
Far as my fancy's vision spreads,
O'er many a boundless land,
Till what was once a world of savage strife,
Teems with the richest gifts of social life.
Empire to empire swift succeeds,
Each happy, great, and free ;
One empire still another breeds,
A giant progeny,
To war upon the pigmy gods of earth,
The tyrants, to whom ignorance gave birth.
Then, as I turn my thoughts to trace
The fount whence these rich waters sprung,
I glance towards this lonely place,
And find it, these rude stones among.
Here rest the sires of millions, sleeping sound,
The Argonauts, the golden fleece that found.
Their names have been forgotten long ;
The stone, but not a word, remains ;
They cannot live in deathless song,
Nor breathe in pious strains.
Yet this sublime obscurity, to me
More touching is, than poet's rhapsody.
34 ODE TO JAMES TOWN.
They live in millions that now breathe ;
They live in millions yet unborn,
And pious gratitude shall wreathe
As bright a crown as e'er was worn,
And hang it on the green leav'd bough,
That whispers to the nameless dead below.
No one that inspiration drinks ;
No one that loves his native land ;
No one that reasons, feels, or thinks,
Can 'mid these lonely ruins stand,
Without a moisten'd eye, a grateful tear,
Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here.
The mighty shade now hovers round
Of HIM whose strange, yet bright career,
Is written on this sacred ground,
In letters that no time shall sere;
Who in the old world smote the turban'd crew,
And founded Christian Empires in the new.
And SHE ! the glorious Indian maid,
The tutelary of this land,
The angel of the woodland shade,
The miracle of God's own hand,
Who join'd man's heart, to woman's softest grace,
And thrice redeem'd the scourgers of her race.
Sister of charity and love,
Whose life blood was soft Pity's tide,
Dear Goddess of the Sylvan grove.
Flower of the Forest, nature's pride,
He is no man who does not bend the knee,
And she no woman who is not like thee !
ODE TO JAMESTOWN. 3
Jamestown, and Plymouth's hallow'd rock,
To me shall ever sacred be
1 care not who my themes may mock,
Or sneer at them and me.
I envy not the brute who here can stand,
Without a prayer for his own native land.
And if the recreant crawl her eartii,
Or breathe Virginia's air,
Or, in New England claim nis birth,
From the old Pilgrim's there,
He is a bastard, if he dare to mock,
Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock.
LOGOOCHIE;
OB,
THE BRANCH OP SWEET WATER.
A. LEGEND OF GEORGLV.
BY THB AUTHOR OP OH1 RIVERS^ ATALANTIl', AND THB YBMAPBBB
These woods have all been haunted, and the i>ower
Of spirits still abides in tree and flower ;
They have their tiny elves that dance by night,
When the leaves sparkle in the moonbeam's liglu;
And the wild Indian often, as he flew
Along their water in his birch canoe,
Beheld, in the soft light of summer eves,
Strange eyes and faces peering through the leaves ;
Nor, are they vanish'd yet. The woodman sees.
Even now, wild forms that lurk behind the trees;
And the pine forests have a chanted song,
The Indians say, must linger in them long.
WITH the approach of the white settlers along the
wild but pleasant banks of the St. Mary's river, in
the state of Georgia, the startled deities of Indian
mythology began to meditate their departure to
forests more secure. Tribe after tribe of the abori-
gines had already gone, and the uncouth gods of
their idolatry, presided, in numberless instances, only
over their deserted habitations. The savages had car-
ried with them no guardian divinities no hallowed
LOGOOCUIE. 37
household altars cheering them, in their new places
of abode, by the acceptance of their sacrifice, and
with the promise of a moderate winter, or a successful
hunt. In depriving them of the lands descended to
them in trust from their fathers, the whites seemed
also to have exiled them from the sweet and mystic
influences, so aptly associated with the vague loveli-
ness of forest life, of their many twilight superstitions.
Their new groves, as yet, had no spells for the hunts-
man ; and the Manneyto of their ancient sires failed to
appreciate their tribute offerings, intended to propitiate
his regards, or to disarm his anger. They were
indeed outcasts; and, with a due feeling for their exiled
worshippers, the forest-gods themselves determined also
to depart from those long-hallowed sheltering places
in the thick swamps of the Okephanokee, whence,
from immemorial time, they had gone forth, to cheer
or to chide the tawny hunter in his progress through
life. They had served the fathers faithfully, nor were
they satisfied that the sons should go forth unattended.
They had consecrated his dwellings, they had stimu-
lated his courage, they had thrown the pleasant waters
along his path, when his legs failed him in the chase,
and his lips were parched with the wanderings of the
long day in summer; and though themselves overcome
in the advent of superior gods, they had, nevertheless,
prompted him to the last, in the protracted struggle
which he had maintained, for so many years, and
with such various successes, against his pale invaders.
All that could be done for the feather-crowned and
wolf-mantled warrior, had been done, by the divinities
38 LOGOOCHIE.
he worshipped. He was overcome, driven away from
his ancient haunts, but he still bowed in spirit to the
altars, holy still to him, though, haplessly, without
adequate power to secure him in his possessions.
They determined not to leave him unprotected in his
new abodes, and gathering, at the bidding of Satilla,
the Mercury of the southern Indians, the thousand
gods of their worship the wood-gods and the water-
gods crowded to the flower-island of Okephanokee,
to hear the commands of the Great Manneyto.
II.
All came but Logoochie, and where was he? he,
the Indian mischief-maker the Puck, the tricksiest
spirit of them all, he, whose mind, like his body,
a creature of distortion, was yet gentle in its wildness,
and never suffered the smallest malice to mingle in
with its mischief. The assembly was dull without
him the season cheerless the feast wanting in
provocative. The Great Manneyto himself, with
whom Logoochie was a favourite, looked impatiently
on the approach of every new comer. In vain were
all his inquiries where is Logoochie? who has
seen Logoochie? The question remained unan-
swered the Great Manneyto unsatisfied. Anxious
search was instituted in every direction for the
discovery of the truant. They could hear nothing of
him, and all scrutiny proved fruitless. They knew
his vagrant spirit, and felt confident he was gone upon
some mission of mischief; but they also knew how
far beyond any capacity of their' s to detect, was his
LOGOOCIIIE. 39
to conceal himself, and so, after the first attempt at
search, the labour was given up in despair. They
could get no tidings of Logoochie.
III.
The conference went on without him, much to the
dissatisfaction of all parties. He was the spice of
the entertainment, the spirit of all frolic; and though
sometimes exceedingly annoying, even to the Great
Manneyto, and scarcely less so to the rival power of
evil, the Opitchi-Manneyto, yet, as the recognized
joker on all hands, no one found it wise to take offence
at his tricks. In council, he relieved the dull discourse
of some drowsy god, by the sly sarcasm, which,
falling innocuously upon the ears of the victim, was
yet readily comprehended and applied by all the rest.
On the journey, he kept all around him from any
sense of weariness, and, by the perpetual practical
application of his humour, always furnished his
companions, whether above or inferior to him in
dignity, with something prime, upon which to make
merry. In short, there was no god like Logoochie,
and he was as much beloved by the deities, as he
was honoured by the Indian, who implored him not
to turn aside the arrow which he " sent after the
bounding buck, nor to spill the water out of his
scooped leaf as he carried it from the running rivulet
up to his mouth. All these were tricks of the playful
Logoochie, and by a thousand, such as these, was he
known to the Indians.
40 LOGOOCHIE.
IV.
Where, then, was the absentee when his hrother
divinities started after the outlawed tribes? Had he
not loved the Indians had he no sympathy with his
associate gods and wherefore went he not upon the
sad journey through the many swamps and the long
stretches of sand and forest, that lay between the
Okephanokee, and the rapidly-rushing waters of the
Chatahoochie, where both the aborigines and their
rude deities had now taken up their abode. Alas !
for Logoochie! He loved the wild people, it is true,
and much he delighted in the association of those
having kindred offices with himself; but, though a
mimic and a jester, fond of sportive tricks, and
perpetually practising them on all around him, he
was not unlike the memorable buffoon of Paris, who,
while ministering to the amusement of thousands,
possessing them with an infinity of fun and frolic,
was yet, at the very time, craving a precious mineral
from the man of science to cure him of his confirmed
hypochondria. Such was the condition of Logoochie.
The idea of leaving the old woods and the waters to
which he had been so long accustomed, and which
were associated in his memory with a thousand
instances of merriment, was too much for his most
elastic spirits to sustain ; and the summons to depart
filled him with a nameless, and, to him, a hitherto
unknown form of terror. His organ of inhabitive-
ness had undergone prodigious increase, in the many
exercises which his mind and mood had practised
upon the banks of the beautiful Branch of Sweet
LOGOOCHIE. 41
Water, where his favourite home had been chosen by
a felicitous fancy. It was indeed a spot to be loved
and dwelt upon, and he, who surveyed its clear and
quiet waters, sweeping pleasantly onward, with a
gentle murmur, under the high and bending pine
trees that arched over and fenced it in, would have
no wonder at its effect upon a spirit so susceptible,
amidst all his frolic, as that of Logoochie. The order
to depart made him miserable; he could not think of
doing so ; and, trembling all the while, he yet made
the solemn determination not to obey the command;
but rather to subject himself, by his refusal, to a loss
of caste, and, perhaps, even severer punishment, should
he be taken, from the other powers having guardian-
ship with himself over the wandering red men.
With the determination came the execution of his
will. He secreted himself from those who sought
him, and in the hollow of a log lay secure, even
while the hunters uttered their conjectures and
surmises under the very copse in which he was
hidden. His arts to escape were manifold, and, unless
the parties in search of him knew intimately his
practices, he could easily elude their scrutiny by the
simplest contrivances. Such, too, was the suscepti-
bility of his figure for distortion, that even Satilla, the
three-eyed, the messenger of the Indian divinities,
the most acute and cunning among them, was not
unfrequently overreached and evaded by the truant
Logoochie. He too had searched for him in vain,
though having a shrewd suspicion, as he stepped over
a pine knot lying across a branch, just about dusk,
42 LOGOOCHIE.
that it was something more than it seemed to be, yet
passing on without examining it, and leaving the
breathless Logoochie, for it was he, to gather himself
up, the moment his pursuer was out of sight, and take
himself off in a more secluded direction. The back
of Logoochie was, of itself, little better than a stripe
of the tree-bark, to those who remarked it casually.
From his heel to his head, inclusive, it looked like so
many articulated folds or scales of the pine tree, here
and there bulging out into excrescences. The back
of his head was a solid knot, for all the world like
that of the scorched pine knot, hard and resinous.
This knot ran across in front, so as to arch above and
overhang his forehead, and was crowned with hair
that, though soft, was thick and woody to the eye,
and looked not unlike the plates of the pine-bur when
green in season. It rose into a ridge or comb directly
across the head from front to rear, like the war tuft
of a Seminole warrior. His eyes, small and red,
seemed, occasionally, to run into one another, and
twinkled so, that you could not avoid laughing but to
look upon them. His nose was flat, and the mouth
was simply an incision across his face, reaching nigh
to both his ears, which lapped and hung over like
those of a hound. He was short in person, thick,
and strangely bow-legged ; and, to complete the
uncouth figure, his arms, shooting out from under a
high knot, that gathered like an epaulette upon each
shoulder, possessed but a single though rather long
bone, and terminated in a thick, squab, bur-like hand,
having fingers, themselves inflexible and but of single
LOGOOCH1E. 43
joints, and tipped, not with nails, but with claws,
somewhat like those of the panther, and equally
fearful in strife. Such was the vague general out-
line which, now and then, the Indian hunter, and,
after him, the Georgia squatter, caught, towards
evening, of the wandering Logoochie, as he stole
suddenly from sight into the sheltering Copse, that
ran along the edges of some wide savannah.
The brother divinities of the Creek warriors had
gone after their tribes, and Logoochie alone remained
upon the banks of the Sweet Water Branch. He
remained in spite of many reasons for departure.
The white borderer came nigher and nigher, with
every succeeding day. The stout log-house started
up in the centre of his favourite groves, and many
families, clustering within a few miles of his favourite
stream, formed the nucleus of the flourishing little
town of St. Mary's. Still he lingered, though with
a sadness of spirit, hourly increasing, as every hour
tended more and more to circumscribe the haunts of
his playful wandering. Every day called upon him
to deplore the overthrow, by the woodman's axe, of
some well-remembered tree in his neighbourhood ;
and though he strove, by an industrious repetition of
his old tricks, to prevent much of this desolation,
yet the divinities which the white man brought with
him were too potent for Logoochie. In vain did he
gnaw by night the sharp edge of the biting steel,
with which the squatter wrought so much desolation.
Alas ! the white man had an art given him by his
God, by which he smoothed out the repeated gaps,
44 LOGOOCHIE.
and sharpened it readily again, or found a new one,
for the destruction of the forest. Over and over
again did Logoochie think to take the trail of his
people, and leave a spot in which a petty strife of
this nature had become, though a familiar, a painful
practice ; but then, as he thought of the humiliating
acknowledgment which, by so doing, he must offer
to his brother gods, his pride came to his aid, and
he determined to remain where he was. Then again
as" he rambled along the sweet waters of the branch,
and talked pleasantly with the trees, his old acquaint-
ance, and looked down upon little groups of Indians
that occasionally came to visit this or that tumulus
of the buried nations, he felt a sweet pleasure in
the thought, that though all had gone of the old
possessors, and a new people and new gods had come
to sway the lands of his outlawed race, he still
should linger and watch over, with a sacred regard,
the few relics, and the speechless trophies, which the
forgotten time had left them. He determined to
remain still, as he long had been, the presiding
genius of the place.
VI.
From habit, at length, it came to Logoochie to
serve, with kind offices, the white settlers, just as he
had served the red men before him. He soon saw
that in many respects the people dwelling in the
woods, however different their colour and origen,
must necessarily resemble one another. They were
in some particulars equally wild and equally simple.
LOGOOCHIE. 46
He soon discovered too, that, however much they
might profess indifference to the superstitions of the
barbarous race they had superseded, they were not a
whit more secure from the occasional tremors which
followed his own practices or presence. More than
once had he marked the fright of the young wood-
man, as, looking towards nightfall over his left
shoulder, he had beheld the funny twinkling eyes,
and the long slit mouth, receding suddenly into the
bush behind him. This assured Logoochie of the
possession still, even with a new people, of some of
that power which he had exercised upon the old;
and when he saw, too, that the character of the white
man was plain, gentle, and unobtrusive, he came,
after a brief study, to like him also ; though, certainly,
in less degree, than his Indian predecessors. From
one step of his acquaintance with the new comers, to
another, Logoochie at length began to visit, at stolen
periods, and to prowl around the little cottage, of the
squatter ; sometimes playing tricks upon his house-
hold, but more frequently employing himself in the
analysis of pursuits, and of a character, as new almost
to him as to the people whose places they had
assumed. Nor will this seeming ignorance, on the
part of Logoochie, subtract a single jot from his high
pretension as an Indian god; since true philosophy
and a deliberate reason, must long since have been
aware, that the mythological rule of every people,
has been adapted, by the superior of all, to their
mental and physical condition ; and the Great Man-
neyto of the savage, in his primitive state, was,
46 I.OGOOCHIE.
doubtless, as wise a provision for him then, as, in
our time, has been the faith, which we proudly
assume to be the close correlative of the highest point
of moral liberty and social refinement.
VII.
In this way, making new discoveries daily, and
gradually becoming known himself, though vaguely,
to the simple cottagers around him, he continued to
pass the time with something more of satisfaction
than before; though still suffering pain at every
stroke of the sharp and smiting axe, as it called up
the deploring echoes of the rapidly yielding forest.
Day and night he was busy, and he resumed, in
extenso, many of the playful humours, which used to
annoy the savages, and compel their homage. It is
true, the acknowledgment of the white man was
essentially different from that commonly made by the
Indians. When their camp-pots were broken, their
hatchets blunted, their bows and arrows warped, or
they had suffered any other such mischief at his
hands, they solemnly deprecated his wrath, and
offered him tribute to disarm his hostility. All that
Logoochie could extort from the borderer, was a
sullen oath, in which the tricksy spirit was identified
with no less a person than the devil, the Opitchi-
Manneyto of the southern tribes. This as Logoo-
chie well knew the superior rank of that personage
with his people he esteemed a compliment; and its
utterance was at all times sufficiently grateful in his
ears to neutralize his spleen at the moment. In
LOGOOCHIE. 47
addition to this, the habit of smoking more frequently
and freely than the Indians, so common to the white
man, contributed wonderfully to commend him to the
favour of Logoochie. The odor in his nostrils was
savory in the extreme, and he consequently regarded
the smoker as tendering in this way, the deprecatory
sacrifice, precisely as the savages had done before
him. So grateful, indeed, was the oblation to his
taste, that often, of the long summer evening, would
he gather himself into a bunch, in the thick branches
of the high tree overhanging the log-house, to inhale
the reeking fumes that were sent up by the half
oblivious woodman, as he lay reposing under its
grateful shadow.
VIII.
There was one of these little cottages, which, for
this very reason, Logoochie found great delight in
visiting. It was tenanted by a sturdy old farmer,
named Jones, and situated on the skirts of St. Mary's
village, about three miles from the Branch of Sweet
Water, the favorite haunt of Logoochie. Jones had
a small family consisting, besides himself, of his
wife, his sister a lady of certain age, and monstrous
demure and a daughter, Mary Jones, as sweet a
May-flower, as the eye of a good taste would ever
wish to dwell upon. She was young only sixteen,
and had not yet learned a single one of the thousand
arts, which, in making a fine coquette, spoil usually
a fine woman. She thought purely, and freely said
all that she thought. Hor old father loved her her
48 LOGOOCHIE.
mother loved her, and her aunt, she loved her too,
and proved it, by doing her own, and the scolding
of all the rest, whenever the light-hearted Mary said
more in her eyes, or speech, than her aunt's conven-
tional sense of propriety deemed absolutely necessary
to be said. This family, Logoochie rather loved,
whether it was because farmer Jones did more smok-
ing than any of the neighbours, or his sister more
scolding, or his wife more sleeping, or his daughter
more loving, we say not, but such certainly was the
fact. Mary Jones had learned this latter art, if none
other. A tall and graceful lad in the settlement,
named Johnson, had found favour in her sight, and
she in his ; and it was not long before they made the
mutual discovery. He was a fine youth, and quite
worthy of the maiden ; but then he was of an inquir-
ing, roving temper, and though not yet arrived at
manhood, frequently indulged in rambles, rather
startling, even to a people whose habit in that respect
is somewhat proverbial. He had gone in his wander-
ings even into the heart of the Okephanokee Swamp,
and strange were the wonders, and wild the stories,
which he gave of that region of Indian fable a
region, about which they have as many and as beau-
tiful traditions, as any people can furnish from the
store house of its primitive romance. This disposi-
tion on the part of Ned Johnson, though productive of
much disquiet to his friends and family, they hoped
to overcome or restrain, by the proposed union with
Mary Jones a connexion seemingly acceptable to
all parties. Mary, like most other good young ladies.
LOGOOCHIE. 49
had no doubt, indeed, of her power to control her
lover in his wanderings, when once they were man
and wife ; and he, like most good young gentlemen
in like cases, did not scruple to swear a thousand
times, that her love would be as a chain about his
feet, too potent to suffer him the slightest indulgence
of his rambling desires.
IX.
So things stood, when, one day, what should ap-
pear in the Port of St. Mary's the Pioneer of the
Line but a vessel a schooner a brightly painted,
sharp, cunning looking craft, all the way from the
eastern waters, and commanded by one of that dar-
ing tribe of Yankees, which will one day control the
commercial world. Never had such a craft shown
its face in those waters, and great was the excitement
in consequence. The people turned out, en masse,
men, women, and children, all gathered upon the
sands at the point to which she was approaching, and
while many stood dumb with mixed feelings of won-
der and consternation, others, more bold and elastic,
shouted with delight. Ned Johnson led this latter
class, and almost rushed into the waters to meet the
new comer, clapping his hands and screaming like
mad. Logoochie himself, from the close hugging
branches of a neighbouring tree, looked down, and
wondered and trembled as he beheld the fast rushing
progress toward him of what might be a new and
more potent God. Then, when her little cannon,
^ostentatiously large for the necessity, belched forth its
50 LOGOOCHIE.
thunders from, her side, the joy and the terrror was
universal. The rude divinity of the red men leaped
down headlong from his place of eminence, and
bounded on without stopping, until removed from the
sight and the shouting, in the thick recesses of the
neighbouring wood ; while the children of the squat-
ters taking to their heels, went bawling and squalling
back to the village, never thinking for a moment to
reach it alive. The schooner cast her anchor, and
her captain came to land. Columbus looked not
more imposing, leaping first to the virgin soil of the
New World, than our worthy down-easter, commencing,
for the first time, a successful trade in onions, potatoes,
codfish, and crab-cider, with the delighted Georgians
of our little village. All parties were overjoyed, and
none more so than our young lover, Master Edward
Johnson. He drank in with willing ears and a still
thirsting appetite, the narrative which the Yankee
captain gave the villagers of his voyage. His long
yarn, be sure, was stuffed with wonders. The new
comer soon saw from Johnson's looks how greatly he
had won the respect and consideration of the youthful
wanderer, and, accordingly, addressed some of his more
spirited and romantic adventures purposely to him.
Poor Mary Jones beheld, with dreadful anticipations,
the voracious delight which sparkled in the eyes of
Ned as he listened to the marvellous narrative, and
had the thing been at all possible or proper, she
would have insisted, for the better control of the
erratic boy, that old Parson Collins should at once do
his duty, and give her legal authority to say to her _
LOGOOCHIE
lover " obey, my dear, stay at home, or," etc. She
went back to the village in great tribulation, and Ned
he stayed behind with Captain Nicodemus Doo-
little, of the "Smashing Nancy."
Now Nicodemus, or, as they familiarly called him,
" Old Nick," was a wonderfully 'cute personage ; and
as he was rather slack of hands was not much of a
penman or grammarian, and felt that in his new trade
he should need greatly the assistance of one to whom
the awful school mystery of fractions and the rule of
three had, by a kind fortune, been developed duly he
regarded the impression which he had obviously
made upon the mind of Ned Johnson, as promising to
neutralize, if he could secure him, some few of his
own deficiencies. He addressed himself, therefore,
particularly to this end, and was successful. The
head of the youth was now filled with the wonders of
the sea ; and after a day or two of talk, in which the
captain sold off his notions, he came point blank to
the subject in the little cabin of the schooner. The
captain sat over against him, with many papers
before him; some were grievous mysteries; one in
particular, which called for the summing up, consecu-
tively, of numerous items of sale, in which the cross
currency of the different states worked no small
increase of difficulty in his already bewildered brain.
To reconcile the York shilling, the Pennsylvania
levy, the Georgia thrip, the Carolina fourpence, the
Louisiana bit and pickaiune, was a task rather beyond
52 LOGOOCHIE.
the ordinary powers of Captain Doolittle. He, cross-
ed his right leg over his left, but still he failed to
prove his sum. He reversed the movement, and the
left leg now lay problematically over the right. The
product was very hard to find. He took a sup of
cider, and then he thought things began to look a
little clearer ; but a moment after all was cloud again,
and at length the figures absolutely seemed to run
into one another. He could stand it no longer, and
slapped his hand down, at length, with such empha-
sis, upon the table, as to startle the poor youth, who,
all the while, had been dreaming of plunging and
wriggling dolphins, seen in all their gold and glitter,
three feet or less in the waters below the advancing
prow of the ship. The start which Johnson made, at
once showed the best mode to the captain of extrica-
tion from his difficulty.
" There there, my dear boy, take some cider
only a little do you good best thing in the world
There, and now do run up these figures, and see
how we agree."
Ned was a clever lad, and used to staijd head of his
class. He unravelled the mystery in little time
reconciled the cross-currency of the several sovereign
states, and was rewarded by his patron with a hearty
slap upon the shoulder, and another cup of cider.
It was not difficult after this to agree, and half fear-
ing that all the while he was not doing right by
Mary Jones, he dashed his signature, in a much worse
hand than he was accustomed to write, upon a printed
paper which Doolittle thrust to him across the table,
LOGOOUH1E. 53
" And now, my dear boy," said the captain, " you
are my secretary, and shall have best berth, and
place along with myself, in the ' Smashing Nancy.' "
XL
The bargain had scarcely been struck, and the
terms well adjusted with the Yankee captain, before
Ned Johnson began to question the propriety of what
he had done. He was not so sure that he had not
been hasty, and felt that the pain his departure would
inflict upon Mary Jones, would certainly be as great
in degree, as the pleasure which his future adventures
must bring to himself. Still, when he looked forward
to those adventures, and remembered the thousand
fine stories of Captain Doolittle, his dreams came
back, and with them came a due forgetfulness of the
hum-drum happiness of domestic life. The life in
the woods, indeed as if there was life, strictly speak-
ing, in the eternal monotony of the pine forests, and
the drowsy hum they keep up so ceaselessly. Wood-
chopping, too, was his aversion, and when he reflected
upon the acknowledged superiority of his own over
all the minds about him, he felt that his destiny called
upon him for better things, and a more elevated
employment. He gradually began to think of Mary
Jones, as of one of those influences which had sub-
tracted somewhat from the nature and legitimate
exercises of his own genius; and whose claims,
therefore, if acknowledged by him, as she required,
must only be acknowledged at the expense and
sacrifice of the higher pursuits and purposes for
M LOGOOCHIE.
which the discriminating Providence had designed
him. The youth's head was fairly turned by his
ambitious yearnings, and it was strange how sub-
timely metaphysical his musings now made him.
He began to analyze closely the question, since made
a standing one among the phrenologists, as to how
far particular heads were" intended for particular
pursuits. General- principles were soon applied to
special developments in his own case, and he came,
to the conclusion, just as he placed his feet upon the
threshold of Father Jones's cottage, that he should
be contending with the aim of fate, and the original
design of the Deity in his own creation, if he did not
go with Captain Nicodemus Doolittle, of the
"Smashing Nancy."
XII.
"Ahem! Mary " said Ned, finding the little girl
conveniently alone, half sorrowful, and turning the
whizzing spinning wheel.
"Ahem, Mary ahem " and as he brought forth
the not very intelligible introduction, his eye had in
it a vague indeterminateness that looked like confu-
sion, though, truth to speak, his head was high and
confident enough.
"Well, Ned"
" Ahem ! ah, Mary, what did you think of the
beautiful vessel. Was n't she fine, eh?"
"Very very fine, Ned, though she was so large,
and, when the great gun' was fired, my heart beat so
I was frightened, Ned that I was."
LOGOOCHIE. 55
"Frightened why what frightened you, Mary,"
exclaimed Ned proudly "that was grand, and as
soon as we get to sea, I shall shoot it off myself."
"Get to sea why Ned get to sea. Oh, dear,
why what do you mean ?" and the bewildered girl,
half conscious only, yet doubting her senses, now left
the wheel, and came toward the contracted secretary
of Captain Doolittle.
" Yes, get to sea, Mary. What ! don't you know
I'm going with the captain clear away to New-
York?"
Now, how should she know, poor girl ? He knew
that she was ignorant, but as he did not feel satisfied
of the propriety of what he had done, his phraseology
had aesumed a somewhat indirect and distorted
complexion.
" You going with the Yankee, Ned you don't
say."
" Yes, but I do and what if he is a Yankee, and
sells notions I'm sure, there's no harm in that;
he's a main smart fellow, Mary, and such wonderful
things as he has seen, it would make your hair stand
on end to hear him. I'll see them too, Mary, and
then tell you."
"Oh, Ned, you're only joking now you don't
mean it, Ned you only say so to tease me Is'nt it
so, Ned say it is say yes, dear Ned, only say
yes."
And the poor girl caught his arm, with all the
confiding warmth of an innocent heart, and as the
tears gathered slowly, into big drops, in her eyes, and
56 LOGOOCHIE.
they were turned appealingly up to his, the heart of
the wanderer smote him for the pain it had inflicted
upon one so gentle. In that moment, he felt that he
would have given the world to get off from his
bargain with the captain ; but this mood lasted not
long. His active imagination provoking a curious
thirst after the unknown ; and his pride, which sug-
gested the weakness of a vacillating purpose, all
turned and stimulated him to resist and refuse the
prayer of the conciliating affection, then beginning
to act within him in rebuke. Speaking through
his teeth, as if he dreaded that he should want firm-
ness, he resolutely reiterated what he had said ; and,
while the sad girl listened, silently, as one thunder
struck, he went on to give a glowing description of
the wonderful discoveries in store for him during the
proposed voyage. Mary sunk back upon her stool,
and the spinning wheel went faster than ever ; "but
never in her life had she broken so many tissues. He
did his best at consolation, but the true hearted girl,
though she did not the less suffer as he pleaded, at least
forbore all complaint. The thing seemed irrevocable,
and so she resigned herself, like a true woman, to the
imperious necessity. Ned, after a while, adjusted
his plaited straw to his cranium, and sallied forth with
a due importance in his strut, but with a swelling
something at his heart, which he tried in vain to
quiet.
LOOOOCHIE. 57
XIII.
And what of poor Mary the disconsolate, the
deserted and denied of love. She said nothing, ate
her dinner in silence, and then putting on her bonnet,
prepared to sally forth in a solitary ramble.
" What ails it, child," said old Jones, with a rough
tenderness of manner.
"Where going, baby?" asked her mother, half*
asleep.
" Out again, Mary Jones out again," vociferously
shouted the antique aunt, who did all the family
scolding.
The little girl answered them all meekly, with-
out the slightest show of impatience, and proceeded
on her walk.
The " Branch of Sweet Water," now known by
this name to all the villagers of St. Mary's, was then,
as it was supposed to be his favourite place of abode,
commonly styled, " The Branch of Logoochie."
The Indians such stragglers as either lingered
behind their tribes, or occasionally visited the old
scenes of their home, had made the white settlers
somewhat acquainted with the character and the
supposed presence of that playful God, in the region
thus assigned him ; and though not altogether assur-
ed of the idleness of the superstition, the young and
innocent Mary Jones had no apprehensions of his
power. She, indeed, had no reason for fear, for Lo-
goochie had set her down, long before, as one of his
favorites. He had done her many little services, of
which she was unaware, nor was she the only mem-
68 LOGOOCHIE.
ber of her family indebted to his ministering good
will. He loved them all all but the scold, and many
of the annoyances to which the old maid was subject,
arose from this antipathy of Logoochie. But to
return.
It was in great tribulation that Mary set out for her
usual ramble along the banks of the " Sweet Water."
Heretofore most of her walks in that quarter had
been made in company with her lover. Here,
perched in some sheltering oak, or safely doubled up
behind some swollen pine, the playful Logoochie,
himself unseen, a thousand times looked upon the
two lovers, as, with linked arms, and spirits maintain-
ing, as it appeared, a perfect unison, they walked in
the shade during the summer afternoon. Though
sportive and mischievous, such sights were pleasant
to one who dwelt alone ; and there were many
occasions, when, their love first ripening into expres-
sion, he would divert from their path, by some little
adroit art or management of his own, the obtrusive
and unsympathising woodman, who might otherwise
have spoiled the sport which he could not be per-
mitted to share. Under his unknown sanction and ser-
vice, therefore, the youthful pair had found love a rap-
ture, until, at length, poor Mary had learned to regard
it as a necessary too. She knew the necessity from
the privation, as she now rambled alone ; her wan-
dering lover meanwhile improving his knowledge by
some additional chit-chat, on matters and things in
general, with the captain, with whom he had that day
dined heartily on codfish and potatoes, a new dish to
LOGOOCHIE. 59
young Johnson, which gave him an additional idea of
the vast resources of the sea.
XIV.
Mary Jones at length trod the banks of the Sweet
Water, and footing it along the old pathway to where
the rivulet narrowed, she stood under the gigantic
tree which threw its sheltering and concealing arms
completely across the stream. With an old hahit,
rather than a desire for its refreshment, she took the
gourd from the limb whence it depended, pro bono
publico, over the water, and scooping up a draught of
the innocent beverage, she proceeded to drink, when,
just as she carried the vessel to her lips, a deep
moan assailed her ears, as from one in pain, and at a
little distance. She looked up, and the moan was
repeated, and with increased fervency. She saw
nothing, however, and somewhat startled, was about
to turn quickly on her way homeward, when a third
and more distinct repetition of the moan, appealed so
strongly to her natural sense of duty, that she could
stand it no longer ; and with the noblest of all kinds
of courage, for such is the courage of humanity, she
hastily tripped over the log which ran across the
stream, and proceeded in the direction from whence
the sounds had issued. A few paces brought her in
sight of the sufferer, who was no other than our soli-
tary acquaintance, Logoochie. He lay upon the
grass, doubled now into a knot, and now stretching
and writhing himself about in agony. His whole ap-
pearance indicated suffering, and there was nothing
60 LOGOOCH1E.
equivocal in the expression of his meanings. The
astonishment, not to say fright, of the little cottage
maiden, may readily be conjectured. She saw, for
the first time, the hideous and uncouth outline of
his person the ludicrous combination of feature in
his face. She had heard of Logoochie, vaguely;
and without giving much, if any, credence to the
mysterious tales related by the credulous woodman,
returning home at evening, of his encounter in the
forest with its pine-bodied divinity; and now, as
she herself looked down upon the suffering and
moaning monster, it would be difficult to say, whether
curiosity or fear was the most active principle in her
bosom. He saw her approach, and he half moved
to rise and fly; but a sudden pang, as it seemed,
brought him back to a due sense of the evil from
which he was suffering, and, looking towards the
maiden with a mingled expression of good humor
and pain in his countenance, he seemed to implore
her assistance. The poor girl did not exactly know
what to do, or what to conjecture. What sort of
monster was it before her. What queer, distorted,
uncouth limbs what eyes, that twinkled and danced
into one another and what a mouth. She was stu-
pified for a moment, until he spoke, and, stranger still,
in a language that she understood. And what a
musical voice, how sweetly did the words roll
forth, and how soothingly, yet earnestly, did they
strike upon her ear. Language is indeed a God,
and powerful before all the rest. His words told her
all his misfortunes, and the tones were all-sufficient
LOGOOCUIE. 61
to inspire confidence in one even more suspicious
than our innocent cottager. Besides, humanity was
a principle in her heart, while fear was only an emo-
tion, and she did not scruple, where the two conflict-
ed, after the pause for reflection of a moment, to
determine in favour of the former. She approached
Logoochie she approached him, firmly determined
in her purpose, but trembling all the while. As she
drew nigh, the gentle monster stretched himself out
at length, patiently extending one foot towards her,
and raising it in such a manner as to indicate the
place which afflicted him. She could scarce forbear
laughing, when she looked closely upon the strange
feet. They seemed covered with bark, like that of
the small leafed pine tree ; but as she stooped, to her
great surprise, the coating of his sole, flew wide as if
upon a hinge, showing below it a skin as soft, and
white, and tender, seemingly, as her own. There, in
the centre of the hollow, lay the cause of his suffer-
ing. A poisonous thorn had penetrated, almost to
the head, as he had suddenly leaped from the tree,
the day before, upon the gun being fired from the
"Smashing Nancy." The spot around it was greatly
inflamed, and Logoochie, since the accident, had
vainly striven, in every possible way, to rid himself
of the intruder. His short, inflexible arms, had failed
so to reach it as to make his fingers available ; and
then, having claws rather than nails, he could
scarce have done any thing for his own relief, even
could they have reached it. He now felt the evil of
his isolation, and the danger of his seclusion from
62 LOGOOCHIE.
his brother divinities. His case was one, indeed, of
severe bachelorism ; and, doubtless, had his condition
been less than that of a deity, the approach of Mary
Jones to his aid, at such a moment, would have pro-
duced a dreaded revolution in his domestic economy.
Still trembling, the maiden bent herself down to the
task, and with a fine courage, that did not allow his
uncouth limbs to scare, or his wild and monstrous
features to deter, she applied her own small fingers to
the foot, and carefully grappling the head of the wound-
ing thorn with her nails, with a successful effort, she
drew it forth and rid him of his encumbrance. The
wood-god leaped to his feet, threw a dozen antics in
the air, to the great terror of Mary, then running a
little way into the forest, soon returned with a hand-
ful of fresh leaves, which he bruised between his
fingers, and applied to the irritated and wounded foot.
He was well in a moment after, and pointing the
astonished Mary to the bush from which he had taken
the anointing leaves, thus made her acquainted with
one item in the history of Indian pharmacy.
XV.
" The daughter of the white clay she has come
to Logoochie, to Logoochie when he was suffering.
" She is a good daughter to Logoochie, and the
green spirits who dwell in the forests, they love, and
will honor her.
" They will throw down the leaves before her, they
will spread the branches above her, they will hum a
LOGOOCHIE. 63
sweet song in the tree top, when she walks under-
neath it.
" They will watch beside her, as she sleeps in the
shade, in the warm sun of the noon-day, they will
keep the flat viper, and the war rattle, away from her
ear.
" They will do this to honor Logoochie, for they
know Logoochie, and he loves the pale daughter.
She came to him in his suffering.
" She drew the poison thorn from his foot she
fled not away when she saw him.
" Speak, let Logoochie hear there is sorrow
in the face of the pale daughter. Logoochie would
know it and serve her, for she is sweet in the eye of
Logoochie."
XVI.
Thus said, or rather sung, the uncouth god, to
Mary, as, after the first emotions of his own joy were
over, he beheld the expression of melancholy in her
countenance. Somehow, there was something so
fatherly, so gentle, and withal, so melodious, in his
language, that she soon unbosomed herself to him,
telling him freely and in the utmost confidence, though
without any hope of relief at his hands, the history
of her lover, and the new project for departure which
he had now got in his head. She was surprised, and
pleased, when she saw that Logoochie smiled at the
narrative. She was not certain, yet she had a vague
hope, that he could do something for her relief; and
her conjecture was not in vain. He spoke " Why
64 LOGOOCHIE.
should the grief be in the heart and the cloud on the
face of the maiden ? Is not Logoochie to help her ?
He stands beside her to help. Look, daughter of the
pale clay look ! There is a power in the leaf that
shall serve thee at the bidding of Logoochie; the
bough and the branch have a power for thy good,
when Logoochie commands ; and the little red-berry
which I now pluck from the vine hanging over thee,
it is strong with a spirit which is good in thy work,
when Logoochie has said in thy service. Lo, I speak
to the leaf, and to the bough, and to the berry. They
shall speak to the water, and one draught from the
branch of Logoochie, shall put chains on the heart
of the youth who would go forth with the stranger."
As he spoke, he gathered the leaf, broke a bough
from an overhanging tree, and, with a red berry,
pulled from a neighboring vine, approached the
Branch of Sweet Water, and turning to the west,
muttered a wild spell of Indian power, then threw
the tributes into the rivulet. The smooth surface of
the stream was in an instant ruffled the offerings
were whirled suddenly around the waters broke,
boiled, bubbled and parted, and, in another moment,
the bough, the berry, and the leaf, had disappeared
from their sight.
XVII.
Mary Jones was not a little frightened by these
exhibitions, but she was a girl of courage, and having
once got over the dread and the novelty of contact
with a form so monstrous as that of Logoochie, the
LOOOOCUIE. 66
after effort was not so great. She witnessed the
incantations of the demon without a word, and when
they were over, she simply listened to his farther
directions, half stupified with what she had seen, and
not knowing how much of it to believe. He bade
her bring her lover, as had been the custom with
them hitherto, to the branch, and persuade him to
drink of its waters. When she inquired into its
effect, which, at length, with much effort she ventured
to do, he bade her be satisfied, and all would go right.
Then, with a word, which was like so much music
a word she did not understand, but which sounded like
a parting acknowledgment, he bounded away into
the woods, and, a moment after, was completely
hidden from her sight.
XVIIL
Poor Mary, not yet relieved from her surprise, was
still sufficiently aroused and excited to believe there
was something in it ; and as she moved off on her
way home, how full of anticipation was her thoughts
pleasant anticipation in which her heart took active
interest, and warmed, at length, into a strong and
earnest hope. She scarcely gave herself time to get
home, and never did the distance between Sweet
Water Branch and the cottage of her father appear
so extravagantly great. She reached it, however, at
last; and there, to her great joy, sat her lover, along-
side the old man, and giving him a glowing account,
such as he had received from the Yankee Captain, of
the wonders to be met with in his coming voyage.
66 LOGOOCHIE.
Old Jones listened patiently, puffing his pipe all the
while, and saying little, but now and then, by way of
commentary, uttering an ejaculatory grunt, most
commonly, of sneering disapproval.
" Better stay at home, a d d sight, Ned Johnson,
and follow the plough."
Ned Johnson, however, thought differently, and it
was no^t the farmer's grunts or growlings that was
now to change his mind. Fortunately for the course
of true love, there were other influences at work, and
the impatience of Mary Jones to try them was evident,
in the clumsiness which she exhibited while passing
the knife under the thin crust of the corn hoe-cake
that night for supper, and laying the thick masses of
fresh butter, between the smoking and savory -smell-
ing sides, as she turned them apart. The evening wore,
at length, and, according to an old familiar habit, the
lovers walked forth to the haunted and fairy-like
branch of Logoochie, or the Sweet Water. It was
the last night in which they were to be together, prior
to his departure in the Smashing Nancy. That
bouncing vessel and her dexterous Captain were to
depart with early morning; and it was as little as
Ned Johnson could do, to spend that night with his
sweetheart. They were both melancholy enough,
depend upon it. She, poor girl, hoping much, yet
still fearing for when was true love without fear
she took his arm, hung fondly upon it, and, without
a word between them for a long while, inclined him,
as it were naturally, in the required direction. Ned
really loved her, and was sorry enough when the
LOGOOCHIE. C7
thought came to him, that this might be the last night
of their association; but he plucked up courage, with
the momentary weakness, and though he spoke
kindly, yet he spoke fearlessly, and with a sanguine
temper, upon the prospect of the sea-adventure before
him. Mary said little her heart was too full for
speech, but she looked up now and then into his eyes,
and he saw, by the moonlight, that her own glistened
as with tears. He turned away his glance as he saw
it, for his heart smote him with the reproach of her
desertion.
XIX.
They came at length to the charmed streamlet, the
Branch of the Sweet Water, to this day known for
its fascinations. The moon rose sweetly above it, the
trees coming out in her soft light, and the scatterings
of her thousand beams glancing from the green polish
of their crowding leaves. The breeze that rose along
with her was soft and wooing as herself; while the
besprinkling fleece of the small white clouds, cluster-
ing along the sky, and flying from her splendors,
made the scene, if possible, far more fairy-like and
imposing. It was a scene for love, and the heart of
Ned Johnson grew more softened than ever. His
desire for adventure grew modified ; and when Mary
bent to the brooklet and scooped up the water for him
to drink, with the water-gourd that hung from the
bough, wantoning in the breeze that loved to play
over the pleasant, stream, Ned could not help thinking
she never looked more beautiful. The water trickled
68 LOGOOCHIE.
I
from the gourd as she handed it to him, falling like
droppings of the moonshine again into its parent
stream. You should have seen her eye so full of
hope so full of doubt so beautiful so earnest,
as he took the vessel from her hands. For a moment
he hesitated, and then how her heart beat and her
limbs trembled. But he drank off the contents at a
draught, and gave no sign of emotion. Yet his
emotions were strange and novel. It seemed as if so
much ice had gone through his veins in that moment.
He said nothing', however, and dipping up a gourd
full for Mary, he hung the vessel again upon the
pendant bough, and the two moved away from the
water not, however, before the maiden caught a
glimpse, through the intervening foliage, of those
two queer, bright, little eyes of Logoochie, with a
more delightful activity than ever, dancing gayly into
XX.
But the spell had been effectual, and a new nature
filled the heart of him, who had heretofore sighed
vaguely for the unknown. The roving mood had
entirely departed ; he was no longer a wanderer in
spirit, vexed to be denied. A soft languor overspread
his form a weakness gathered and grew about his
heart, and he now sighed unconsciously. How soft,
yet how full of emphasis, was the pressure of Marv's
hand upon his arm as she heard that sigh; and how
forcibly did it remind the youth that she who walked
beside him was his own his own forever. With the
LOOOOCHIE. 69
thought came a sweet perspective a long vista rose
up before his eyes, crowded with images of repose and
plenty, such as the domestic nature likes to dream of.
"Oh, Mary, I will not go with this Captain I
will not. I will stay at home with you, and we shall
he married."
Thus he spoke, as the crowding thoughts, such as
we have described, came up before his fancy.
"Will you shall we? Oh, dear Edward, I am
so happy."
And the maiden blessed Logoochie, as she uttered
her response of happy feeling.
" I will, dear but I must hide from Doolittle. I
have signed papers to go with him, and he will be so
disappointed I must hide from him."
" Why must you hide, Edward he cannot compel
you to go, unless you please; and you just to be
married."
Edward thought she insisted somewhat unnecessa-
rily upon the latter point, but he replied to the first.
"I am afraid he can. I signed papers I don't
know what they were, for I was rash and foolish
but they bound me to go with him, and unless I keep
out of the way, I shall have to go."
" Oh, dear why, Ned, where will you go you
must hide close, I would not have him find you for
the world."
" I reckon not. As to the hiding, I can go where
all St. Mary's can't find me; and that's in Okepha-
nokee."
70 LOGOOCHIE.
' Oh, don't go so far it is so dangerous, for some
of the Seminoles are there !"
" And what if they are ? I don't care that for the
Seminoles. They never did me any harm, and never
\vill. But, I shan't go quite so far. Bull swamp is
close enough for me, and there I can watch the
"Smashing Nancy" 'till she gets out to sea."
XXI.
Having thus determined, it was not long before
Ned Johnson made himself secure in his place of
retreat, while Captain Doolittle, of the " Smashing
Nancy," in great tribulation, ransacked the village of
St. Mary's in every direction for his articled seaman,
for such Ned Johnson had indeed become. Doolittle
deserved to lose him for the trick which, in this
respect, he had played upon the boy. His search
proved fruitless, and he was compelled to sail at last.
Ned, from the top of a high tree on the edge of Bull
swamp, watched his departure, until the last gleam of
the white sail flitted away from the horizon; then
descending, he made his way back to St. Mary's, and
it was not long before he claimed and received the
hand of his pretty cottager in marriage. Logoochie
was never seen in the neighbourhood after this event.
His accident had shown him the necessity of keeping
with his brethren, for, reasoning from all analogy,
gods must be social animals not less than men. But,
in departing, he forgot to take the spell away which
he had put upon the SAveet Water Branch; and to
this day, the stranger, visiting St. Mary's, is warned
LOGOOCIIIE.
not to drink from the stream, unless he proposes to
remain; for still, as in the case of Ned Johnson, it
binds the feet and enfeebles the enterprise of him who
partakes of its pleasant waters.
SONG.
O ! why do they say that affection is vain,
Brings wo while it lasts, and soon closes in pain ;
That changes and death on our friendships will steal,
That, 'tis folly to love, and but sorrow to feel?
'Tis true that our friendships may change and decay;
But do we for that cast the flowers away ?
And will not the falsehood of many a loved name,
Make dearer the few who are ever the same?
For death, which they say puts an end to our love,
Sets it safe from all change, in its own home above'
Then cherish affections, for happiness given,
For changeless, and endless, they flourish in heaven !
SlGNORINA.
THE YOUNG MOTHER,
BY ORKNVILLE MELLEN.
Heaven Ues about us in our infancy.
WORDSWORTH.
I.
A YOUNG and gentle mother,
She bows above her boy,
And a tear is in her downcast eye,
But 'tis the tear of joy
Of one whose few fair summers
On golden wings have sped,
Like childhood's dreams of Paradise,
Above her sainted head.
Loved, ere her life's flush morning
Had kindled into day,
And worshipped, as she wooed the flowers
That bloomed around her way,
By one whose warm affections
On her wondrous beauty hung.
And their first taintless tribute gave
To the shrine to which they clung !
THE YOUNG MOTHER.
II.
A young and gentle mother
Still beautiful, but pale
With sleepless but unwearied watch,
Alike through joy and wail.
A mother ! yet believing
Life's duties scarce begun
Whose childhood seemed of yesterday.
In its unclouded sun ;
So early had the story
Of idol Love been told
So early had her virgin heart
Been gathered to its fold !
III.
And he who won her where is he,
In this her day of pride,
When every hope she claimed before.
By this grew dim and died 1
So priceless was the treasure
Her throbbing bosom bore,
So centered was her spirit now
On one she could adore !
Where is he ! Ah ! her vision
Is of shadowy ships and seas
And for him the unuttered prayer
Is poured on bended knees.
Each day in thought she follows
His stormy ocean track,
And every dreamy midnight still
Her pillow brings him back.
THE YOUNG MOTHER.
For he for distant regions
Torn early from her side,
Had parted, with his heart in tears,
From that outsobbing bride.
IV.
Long time afar he lingered,
And oft the message came
Of fadeless love and of cruel fate
The tale was still the same.
Years fled and still he wandered
In one long dream of home,
And prattling voices round its hearth
An exile, doomed to roam
V.
At length her leaping spirit
Its promised bliss had found,
And she heard its pulses quick and loud
Beat to the welcome sound.
He on the bounding waters
Had cast himself once more,
To greet that home, and hearth, and bride.
That rose above their roar
Like lights amid a tempest
Bright beacons of the land,
Where all we love shall hail us soon,
A joy-inspiring band !
THE YOUNG MOTHER
VI.
'Twas then I saw that mother,
And babe with silken hair,
And all a mother's pride and hope,
Just dashed with fear, was there.
Her head upon his temple
Was stooped in pensive rest,
Mingling its light, uncumbered locks
With those that veiled her breast,
Her eye, just dropped in shadow,
Looked melancholy down,
And the tear that glittered from its depths
Was not of grief alone
But the still look of thankfulness
That o'er her features fell,
Lent even to the tears a beam
That told you all was well !
One arm around her idol
Protectingly was flung,
The other, as of one in dreams,
Beside her aimless hung.
VIL
O Innocence and Beauty!
And Youth, with all its flowers,
When they together round us come,
What a heritage is ours !
Who ever dreams a sepulchre
O'er such can darkly close,
THE YOUNG MOTHER.
Or the heart's sun e'er set in clouds,
That robed in lustre rose !
VIII.
Alas ! that gentle mother
I saw her not again,
Till, in my village wanderings,
I joined the burial train.
They told me, as we silent wheeled
Among the verdant graves,
That he, her first last hope on earth,
"Was snatched into the waves !
And, ever after, that her cheek,
Like her infant's eye, grew dim,
And her waning life was but a prayer.
Or quiet, lonely hymn.
And thus her passing spirit
Beheld her infant's go,
'Till all that lit her pilgrimage
Was shattered at a blow.
Then, pointing to the tomb, her fate
Began their faltering way
Through earth's last farewell faded bloom,
To Immortality!
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
BY THB AUTHOR OP A YEAR IN SPAIN.
IT was my fortune to be in Madrid during the
whole month of February, 1834. For years the
hard hand of despotism had borne heavily on the peo-
ple of that brilliant capital, dooming 1 them to a
state of quiescent dulness unsuited to their character.
The theatre and the bull-fignt were the only pastimes
permitted by a jealous government uncertain of its
stability, and suspicious of any reunions that might
minister to the designs of conspirators against the
Altar and the Throne. The theatre, of course, under
a searching censorship, might easily be prevented
from becoming a school of insubordination. There
was little danger of the audience extracting from the
entertainment, which was there provided for them,
any such lessons of disloyalty as might have been
drawn from the representations of tragedies like the
Philip of Alfieri. Their religious feelings were kept
alive, on the contrary, by the spectacle of Pelayo,
78 HUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
struggling in defence of the faith; or of the Catholic
kings administering the death blow to Paganism in
the vega of Granada ; their loyalty was nourished by
the contemplation of how that truly Spanish virtue
was honored in the achievements of the Cid, of Guz-
man, and of Garci Perez de Vargas ; whilst in order
not wholly to weary with the tame spectacle of good-
ness creatures born with all the evil propensities that
man is heir to, and to cultivate a sentiment natural to
the soil, which might be turned advantageously against
all liberals, free-masons, and enemies to the ancient
customs of Spain that of which a Spaniard thinks
when he exclaims with such a proud energy
nuestros antiguos cosluvibres ! The sentiment of stern
hatred was kept alive in their bosoms, by the frequent
exhibition of such scenes as abound in the ' Secret
Revenge to a Secret Injury,' or, ' Vengeance to the
Death; 1 the merciless imaginations of that Calderon,
who had a double claim to be vindictive, in being both
a soldier and a priest. The bull-fight, the never failing
spectacle of death to man or beast, and not unfre-
quently to both ; the tragedy, in which all the blows
are real, and the blood, the warm current in which
life pours itself forth, was well suited, by brutalizing
the minds of the common people, to accommodate
them to the despotism under which they lived.
In those days, each carnival came and went unat-
tended with rejoicings, beyond the discharge of sugar-
plums at a passing acquaintance, from a fair hand
behind a balcony or verandah. There were no public
balls, and even persons of distinction, wishing to
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL. 79
honor the season, by a festive reunion, within the
domestic citadel, and sanctuary of their own homes,
could with difficulty obtain permission to do so from the
Prefect of Police. Now, however, all was changed.
The government had passed into the hands of the
liberals ; unrestrained license had succeeded to watch-
ful oppression j balls and maskings became the busi-
ness of life ; and a whole population, abandoning itself
to a mad spirit of gayety, sought to concentrate, into
one month of revelry, the amusements which should
have been spread over the past years, during which
despotism had suppressed them. Theatres, cafes, and
taverns, were extemporized into ball-rooms. There
were diversions for the high and for the low; for
those who had great means, and those who had little.
Maskers paraded the streets in the most grotesque
costumes, music broke from each house, and the
tinkling guitar of the serenader was heard under
every balcony.
It was not easy to be in the midst of such scenes
without being drawn into the universal whirl.
Though there was nothing in all this round of dissi-
pation congenial to my habits, or in harmony with
my tastes, I yet found myself almost nightly going,
in company with my associates, to one or more of
these scenes of festivity. Fond of early hours and of
a quiet life, each morning saw me retracing my steps
to my lodgings, serenaded by the first crowing of the
cock, and the howl of the lazaroni dogs, which forage
disowned in the streets of the capital.
I had been one night at the most brilliant ball that
80 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
I had ever seen in Madrid. It was at the palace of
an illustrious ambassador, and brought together an
elegant assemblage of ministers of state, diplomats,
the choice of the nobility, and whatever was most
distinguished in the capital. The collection of beauty
was most dazzling ; the eyes, the forms, the feet, the
ankles, such as could only be seen in Spain ; the
dresses were imitated from all that is most graceful
in the costumes of the world, and the supper such as
to do no discredit to a host who was there with a
salary, which, done into Spanish reals, would have
made somewhat more than a million. With such
temptations, and with people to talk to, whom I had
known and valued years before, it was easy to find
the time slipping away, and to discover, as I retraced
my steps homeward, that the hour was an unusually
late one.
I made as I went, for the thousandth time, the
reflection, that after all, the most agreeable part of the
most agreeable ball, is the moment when one escapes
from observation, constraint, and suffocation, to
solitude and the open air, to communion with the
serene heavens, and with himself. I longed for the
day when the carnival should at length be over, and
Catholic Spain return from masquerades to masses ;
when sermons, listened to in the dim and darkened
naves of Gothic temples, should supplant the flippant
discourse of jaded intriguers ; the solemnly resound-
ing thunder of the organ, the soft and sober tones of
bassoons and viols, the mellow harmony of human
voices, proceeding in angelic hallelujahs from the
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL. 81
unseen recesses of the chantry, should replace the smirk-
ing gallope and the mazurka; when the gaudy mirrors,
reflecting the already offensive glare of so many lus-
tres, should be replaced hy a sober twilight, revealing
and mellowing a crucifixion of Espanoleto, or a Santa
Madre of Murillo ; when the dark daughters of Spain
should give over their parti-colored tinsel, their mere-
tricious smiles, and heartless gayety, to resume the
sober mantilla and basquinia in which they first won
upon my boyish heart, and which so harmonize with
the habitual expression of their pale, thoughtful, and
melancholy countenances, and full languid eyes.
The next morning I rose weary, feverish, unrefresh-
ed, and melancholy. I went to my balcony as I was
wont, to breathe the fresh air, take the sun instead oi
the less agreeable heat which a brasero afforded, look
down upon the ever gay and animating spectacle pre-
sented by the Puerta del Sol, which lay before me,
and exchange my morning's salutation with an old
and well-beloved acquaintance, whose balcony was
beside mine. By common consent, growing out of a
sympathy of tastes, we were both in the habit of com-
ing forth at the sound of the music of one of the regi-
ments of the grenadiers of the royal guard, on its way
to relieve the detachment performing duty at the
palace. After the platoon had turned the angle of the
gate of the Sun, and the music ceased to delight us
with its animating strains, we were wont to exchange
the usual courtesies of the land, to inquire for each
other's health, how each had rested, and to recount all
the adventures that had been crowded into the interval
82 MUER.TE EN GARROTE VIL.
since the last meeting, or, in default of other subjects,
to criticise whatever might be curious in the groups
below.
On this occasion, my attention was called to the
tinkling bell of a member of the Paz y Caridad, who,
in a solemn voice, was inviting all charitable souls to
join in interposing with such humble alms as they
were pleased to contribute, to smooth the parting
hour, and redeem from purgatory, by means of
masses, the soul of the unhappy brother whose life
was that day to be required of him. He had before
him a square box, having a hole to receive the alms
of the charitable, surmounted by a figure of the cruci-
fied Savior, calculated at once to awaken a devotional
feeling in the bosom of the Christian, and to call to
mind the recollection that He, like ^he unhappy cri-
minal who was that day to expiate his offences, had
died though innocently and for our propitiation
the death of a felon.
There was, then, to be an execution. It was sure
to be a spectacle full of horror, and painful excite-
ment ; yet I determined to witness it. I felt sad and
melancholy, and yet, by a strange perversion, I was
willing to feel more so. With the customary cho-
colate and omelette, the good dame, Dona Lucretia,
my landlady, brought me the Diario. I turned at
once to see what was said about the execution.
Among the orders of the day, was the following
" Having to suffer this day, at eleven in the morning,
in the square of Cebada, the pain of death on the
vile garrote, to which he was sentenced by the
MDERTE EN GARROTE VIL. 83
military commission of this province, Juan Lopez
Solorzano, alias the Birdcatcher, a native of Las Altas
Torres, in La Mancha, thirty-eight years of age,
a bachelor, late a grenadier of the disbanded royalist
volunteers of this capital, accused of having been
one of the first aggressors in the rebellion of October
last, on the occasion of disarming that corps ; to aid
in this execution, a detachment of the Provincial
Regiment of Granada, and another of the Cuirassiers
of the Royal Guard, will repair to the place of
execution at half past ten, whilst at the same hour,
another detachment of the aforesaid regiment of
Granada, and of the Light Horse of Madrid, will
report to the Corregidor, at the prison, in readiness
to guard the prisoner to the scaffold, leaving a cor
poral's guard ^o protect the body after justice is
consummated, until the Paz y Caridad shall come to
withdraw it."
Such was the succinct and sententious information
given me by the EHario. I learned, in addition,
from Dofia Lucretia, that the Pajarero, or Bird-
catcher, was so called, because he had for some
years lived by selling doves and singing birds in the
square of the Holy Cross. He had been a turbulent,
quarrelsome fellow, had killed a number of persons
at various times, for all which misdeeds he had
found protection in being a royalist volunteer, and
a regular attendant at mass and the confessional.
In the late disbanding of the royalist volunteers,
those janizaries of the Spanish hierarchy, he had
taken an active part in the revolt, killing with his
64 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
own hand one of the partizans of the queen, in the
square of the Angel. During fifty-three days he had
been concealed by persons friendly to the old order of
things ; but had at last been sold by some mercenary
Judas, and betrayed into the hands of justice.
It had chanced that I had attended the court-
martial on the day of his trial, and I was not a little
struck with the peculiar vein of eloquence, in which
the fiscal devoted him to damnation ere yet he had
been produced before the court. "Soon will this
vile assassin present himself before you. The tribu-
nal will then see his detestable soul painted in his
countenance, and will need no other evidence to
discover the atrocious image of a regicide." Such,
alike under despotism and in the hands of liberals,
is the vindictive character of Spanish retribution.
Perhaps, however, it may be just to add, that of
seventy-three royalists condemned to death for a revolt,
with the alleged intention of murdering the queen,
the Birdcatcher was alone selected, as the most
infamous, for execution. The rest were taken from
prison in the dead of the succeeding night, and
being manacled, were marched off under a strong
escort for Ceuta. One of them, in an excess of
despair, dashed his brains out against the postern of
the prison. The scene in the neighborhood was
represented to me as having been most deplorable on
the following morning. The news of the departure
of these prisoners had spread to the obscure barriers
of the capital, and their families had gathered round
in an agony of bereavement. Mothers, wives, and
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL. 86
lovers, tore their hair, and rent the air with shrieks,
and exclamations "of wo; whilst the children, thus
suddenly left fatherless, looked on with a dumb
amazement an indistinct sense of some great cala-
mity scarcely less painful and heart-rending.
There were fifty wives who found themselves thus
suddenly reduced to hopeless widowhood, whilst
more than twice that number of children looked
round, and saw that they were fatherless.
Divesting the mind of all fanaticism, whether in
favor of liberty or despotism, the offences of these
men will not seem so equal to their fate as to close
the heart against every sentiment of pity. They were
victims of tneir fidelity to an order of things which
but a few months before received the adhesion of
the king, the court, the army, was acquiesced in
by the whole nation, and still had the sympathy
of a vast majority of the Spanish people. Oh !
Americans! whilst you pity the land in which
liberty is unknown, and unappreciated, learn to value
the blessings which you enjoy, and cultivate an ever
increasing admiration and love for that birthright of
freedom which has been bequeathed to you.
I took my way through the gate of the Sun to the
noble front of the prison of the court. I had been
permitted to visit it a few days before, by means of
a royal order furnished me by Burgos, the then
minister of Fomento. On that occasion the Pajarero
had been pointed out to me as the greatest curiosity
of the place. My readers may not be aware that
among the common people of Spain, villanous
86 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
distinction of any sort, as that of a_ foot-pad, or mur
derer, always entitles the possessor to a species of
war-name; thus, El Gato, or Cat, was the formidable
and dreaded appellation of a Valencian robber, who
flourished a few years since, enacting a fearful
tragedy in my presence, and who was noted for the
tiger-like and ferocious certainty with which he was
wont to pounce upon his prey; El Cacaruco was
the droll cognomen of a scarcely less distinguished
worthy, by whom I had once been most courteously
plundered in the plains of La Mancha ; whilst the
famous Jose Maria, was graced with the more compli-
mentary title a tribute, at once, to his power and
his magnanimity of el Seflor del Campo.
The Pajarero was a name of inferior note. When
his crimes were recounted to me, I felt little inclina-
tion to pity him. Whatever sympathy I had at my
command, had already been bestowed upon the more
pitiable objects which met my sight in that mansion
of despair. There seemed, moreover, to be a sort
of poetical justice in the shutting up of an individual,
who, whilst he had been a monster to his fellow-men,
had passed his life in making war against the liberties
of those winged inhabitants of the air those happy
pensioners of nature whose capacities barely fit
them to enjoy liberty, and to languish and pine away
when deprived of it. He was, besides, a most ill-
favored and ferocious looking man, and the fiscal
would doubtless have been borne out by Lavater in
his assertion, that it was easy to see " his detestable
soul painted in his countenance."
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL 87
The prison \vap already surrounded by a dense
crowd. The escort, which was to conduct the
prisoner to the place of execution, was at its post,
and squadrons of cavalry patrolled the streets leading
to it, keeping the way open, and beating back the
crowd with their sabres, and trampling upon them
with the armed hoofs of their horses, much in the
same manner as if the government had still been that
of the Absolute King, and the felon a false-hearted
liberal. It was expected, and earnestly reported,
that there was to be a popular tumult among the
serviles, and an attempt by the disbanded volunteers
to rescue their heroic comrade. The government,
unwilling to betray any weakness, did not however
increase the detachment of troops on immediate duty
beyond what was usual. Yet preparations were
secretly made to pour forth an overwhelming military
force. The troops of the garrison Avere ready to
march at a moment's warning, and individual cava-
lirrs of the body guard, in their gay uniforms and
antique casques, were seen at each instant spurring
away on their fleet barbs, of the caste of Aranjuez,
to carry to the palace the anxiously received intima-
tion that all was still well.
T. did not look with any particular complacency
upon these military youths, notwithstanding their
gay uniforms and handsome persons. To be sure,
I had once claimed as an intimate and valued friend,
a noble young Andalusian noble not less in the
real than in the accepted sense who belonged to
this corps. In general, however, they are held i/
38 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
little estimation, and never in less than at that
moment ; for, but a few days before, one of them was
detected, by the waiter of a restaurant, in the act
of concealing two silver forks in the capacious
receptacle of his trooper's boots, which, however
constructed with other motives, were not iL-adapted
to the purpose of quiet and unobserved abstraction.
After all, there was nothing so strange in this, when
one looked at the short distance from the top of the
yawning boot to the tempting cover, a fow inches
distant on the edge of the table; reflecting, at the
same time, that the youth had to support all the
dignity of a nobility, unsullied on four sides by any
mingling of base blood, upon the paltry stipend of
twenty dollars a month. " Viven los chocolateros!"
cried the crowd, as they spurred along, that being
the vulgar cognomen applied to them, because choco-
late is the only refreshment served to them from the
royal kitchen, when on duty at the palace.
At length the prisoner was brought forth. He
was dressed in a penitential robe of yellow ; on his
head was a cap of the same color, faced by a white-
cross. His face was pale, less apparently from fear
than long confinement, for his frame was not con-
vulsed, and his hands trembled not as he grasped
before him a paper from which he chanted a prayer,
uttered with an earnestness proportioned to the little
time that remained to him to make his peace with
heaven, and the conviction that he was about to enter
on an eternity of bliss or misery, the common belief
of a land in which, though there may be much crime,
MUERTE EN OARROTE VIL. 89
there is as yet but little infidelity. A dark beard,
which was of many days' growth, augmented the
ghastliness of his expression.
At his side was a friar of the order of Mercy, in
a white habit^and a shaven crown, who held before
the unhappy man a crucifix, bearing an image of
the Savior, through whose intercession he might
yet, by repentance, be saved. With one arm the
holy man embraced the prisoner, whispering in his
ear words of consolation and comfort, and accompa-
nying him as he faltered in his prayers. He was
seated on a white ass, his legs bound below ; and the
patient unconsciousness of the docile animal of the
errand on which it was going, contrasted singularly
with the interest and irresistible sympathy, which all
there felt in the fate of a fellow man, about to enter
on the unknown regions of eternity.
The brotherhood of Peace and Charity, each mem-
ber bearing a torch, gathered closely around the
victim, whom, from a sentiment of humanity, and in
fulfilment of their solemn vow, they had comforted
with their society and aided with their prayers ; for
his sake they had become mendicants through the
public streets, collecting sufficient alms from the
charitable to supply with comfort and decency the
last wants of nature ; and, when justice should have
wreaked its necessary vengeance upon his body,
they were to withdraw it from its place of ignomi-
nious exposure, consign it with careful decency
to the tomb, and offer prayers and masses for the
soul which had taken its flight.
90 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
So soon as all had reached the street, the soldiers ga-
thered round, their serried bayonets seeming to shut
out all hope of rescue, and the muffled drum beating a
monotonous and mournful measure, the procession set
forward to the scene of death. The singular combina-
tion of this group the criminal, the ass, the cowled
friar in his white robe, the torch-bearing brothers of the
Paz y Caridad, the stern and mustachioed warriors who
guarded the law's victim, offered to the eye a singular
spectacle, whilst the chanting of the criminal and of
the compassionating spirits who joined in his prayers,
mingling strangely with the hoarse drum, and the
measured tramp of the soldiers, bringing nearer at
every footfall the moment of the catastrophe all tended
to impress the beholder with a gloomy and terrible
interest.
It was expected, that if there were any riot or
attempt at rescue, it would take place in the street of
Toledo, before the portal of the Jesuits' s Church of
San Isidro. Not many weeks later, indeed, an insur-
rection did occur there. The population of the
adjoining quarter broke forth into mutiny and rebel-
lion ; liberals and royalists joined in deadly conflict,
churchmen and friars were immolated in the streets,
and the pavement was strewed with corpses, and
crimsoned with Spanish blood, shed by the hands of
Spaniards. But the spirit of rebellion so lately
repressed, was not yet ripe for a new explosion. San
Isidro was passed without commotion of any sort,
and the procession at length reached the Plaza. The
ordinary avocations, of which it is the daily scene,
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL. 91
had ceased. It was filled with a crowd of curious
spectators. Cloaked men, and women in mantillas,
as if arrayed for mass, occupied the whole square,
whilst the sheds and the gratings of the surrounding
windows were covered with clambering and ambi-
tious urchins, each anxious to contemplate, from the
highest elevation, the scene which so great a crowd
had collected to behold. The balconies were filled
with well-dressed people, and from not a few, beauty,
hardened to painful spectacles by the tortures of the
arena, was seen to gaze with curious earnestness.
At one of the balconies I noticed the towering and
military figure of the brave colonel of the Madrid
Light Horse, to whom I had the honor of being
known. I entered the house, and, presenting myself
at the door of the no less doughty countryman of the
doughty Dugald Dalgetty, was received most cor-
dially, and welcomed to a station in his balcony.
I was at once absorbed by the painful interest which
attracted my attention to the person of the culprit.
The colonel, on the contrary, Avas filled with delight,
at the spirited manner in which his horsemen kept
the way open ; beating back the more pressing intru-
ders, by frequent and forceful blows with the flat of
their long Toledo sabres, and reining their steeds
most unceremoniously backward upon them. The
colonel was a fierce liberal. He was delighted with
the way in which his brave fellows routed the rabble
mob, and, being armed from cap to rowel, would
doubtless have been delighted to have an opportunity,
as indeed he soon afterwards had, ot heading his
92 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
squadron, who were drawn up in readiness in the
neighboring barrack, and riding down all opposition.
The instrument of execution was different from
what I had been accustomed to see in Spain. It was
the garrote, which the liberals, actuated by the spirit
of improvement, exercising itself first as in revolu-
tionary France, in a more ingenious method of putting
people to death, had substituted for the gallows.
The form of it was very simple. A single upright
post was planted in the ground, having attached to it
an iron collar, large enough to receive the neck of
the culprit, but capable of being suddenly tightened
to much smaller dimensions, by means of a screw
which played against the back of the post, and had
a very open spiral thread. A short elbow projected
at right angles from the upright post, for the criminal
to sit on, the screw being attached to the post at a
distance above, suited to the height of his body.
When the procession had arrived at the foot of the
gallows, the Birdcatcher was unbound and removed
from the ass, and seated upon the projecting elbow of
the garrote, which looked towards the east. His
legs were again bound securely to the post on which
he was seated, and his arms and body to the upright
timber at his back. Here he made his last confession
at the foot of the scaffold. The friar chanted the
prayers which the Church has set apart for the
closing scene of life's latest hour. The criminal
repeated his responses fervently and audibly. He
was now convinced that there was to be no reprieve
and no rescue. Each moment was more precious
MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL. 93
to the salvation of his soul than worlds of treasure.
He remembered that the penitent thief had been
forgiven at his latest hour. Why might he not hope,
being also penitent, to claim that precious promise
" To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise ?"
The friar whispered words of consolation. He
pronounced the promise of absolution, and covering
the unhappy man with the folds of his ample robe,
thereby signified that he was a pardoned because a
repentant sinner, and as such admitted into the bosom
of the Church. The scene at this moment was one of
awful interest. The eyes of that vast crowd, filling
the square, and clustering on gratings, balconies, and
house-tops, were fixed with intensely excited gaze on
the one object of attention. The battalion of infantry
formed an impenetrable phalanx around the scaffold.
Behind it, mounted on powerful coal black horses, a
squadron of cuirassiers, with drawn sabres, and clad
in panoply of steel, were drawn up ready for instant
action, yet as motionless as death. The glorious sun
of a Castilian heaven, shining through an atmosphere
yet more brilliant and unclouded than our own, was
sent back in bright reflection from cuirasses embla-
zoned with its own gorgeous image, glancing from
antique casques, and flickering round the points of
sabres and bayonets.
Still for a moment the man of God covered, with
his garb of sanctity, the figure of the criminal. And
now it is withdrawn, and the executioner with dex-
trous art quickly and stealthily adjusts the iron collar
to the neck of his victim. A hand is on either end of
91 MUERTE EN GARROTE VIL.
the powerful lever which works the tightening screw.
Life has reached its extremest limit, time is dropping
his last sand ; ere yet it is quite fallen, one prayer of
supplication is uttered for mercy in that eternity
which begins. Quick as lightning the motion is
given to the fatal lever; a momentary convulsion
agitates his frame, and horribly distorts his counte-
nance, and the sinner is with his God. The bell of
the neighboring church tolls a mournful requiem
from the top of its tower ; lips are seen to move in
muttered prayer to speed the parting soul, and ten
thousand breasts are signed together with the cross of
reconciliation. A fleet horseman darts away at a
gallop to announce to the alarmed inmates of the
palace, that justice has not been robbed of its victim,
and that its consummation is complete.
Thus ignominously died Solorzano, surnamed El
Pajarero. His sins to his fellow men upon earth
were expiated ; let us hope that he may find mercy in
heaven. Peace to his soul !
THE RESCUE.
Fortune, or rather the good foresight of Anne Burras, at length brought
them to a little basin, sunk a few feet into the ground, at the bottom of
which bubbled a clear spring, almost the only one in that sandy region.
Here, Fenton, who led the van, approaching with the silent caution of a
cat, discovered his little lost sheep. The Indians had kindled a fire to
cook a piece of veniaon, and sat quietly smoking their long pipes.
Just as they were taking aim, the boy passed suddenly between them
and the Indians. Foster shuddered, and dropped the muzzle of his piece.
Again he raised his deadly rifle, and again, just at the actual moment, the
boy glided between the savages and death. Old Times in the new World.
J. K. PAULDING.
THERE was a fountain in the wilderness,
A small lone basin, undefiled and bright,
Beneath the shadow of the forest king-,
The immemorial oak whose giant form,
With gnarled trunk, and tortuous branches old,
And wreathed canopy of moss and vines,
Filled the transparent mirror. From its depth
Of limpid blackness leaped the living spring,
A gush of silvery gems, that rose and burst,
Studding, but ruffling not, its glassy sheen.
It was the height and hush of summer noon
There was no warbling in the air, nor hum
Of bird or bee, the very breeze was dead,
That evermore amid the vocal leaves
Is blithe and musical, the brooklet's flow
Through the dank herbs was voiceless, and the spolJ
96 THE RESCUE
Of silence brooded, like a spirit's wing,
O'er the pure fountain and the giant tree.
Worn with the heat, the burthen, and the toil,
They rested them beside the lucent marge,
The maiden and her captors. Stern and still
The tawny hunters sate, the thin blue smoke
Upcurling from the tube, that steeped their souls
In opiate dreams of apathy, the glare
Of the red firelight flashing broad and high
On their impassive features, shaven brows,
And scalp-locks decked with the war-eagle's plume.
Beside them, yet aloof, their delicate prize,
The forest damsel lay the forest flower,
Untimely severed from its parent stem,
Blighted yet beautiful. Her fair young head
Bowed to the earth, her pale cheek wet with wo,
And those sweet limbs, that wont to fix all eyes,
Wounded and weary ! Yet her heart was strong
In glorious confidence ; her calm clear eye
Soared upward ; and, although the lips were mute
Heart-orisons arose, more fragrant far
Than vapory perfumes, sweeter than the peal
Of choral voices, when some cloistered pile
Thrills to the organ's diapason deep
In pomp sublime of regal gratitude.
And he, the seedling gem, that nestled there
In that pure bosom never more, perchance,
Oh ! never more to glad a parent's soul
With beaming smiles and sportive innocence.
No! they were not deserted ! Hagar found
THE RESCUE. 97
In the salt wilderness a living well I
And Hezekiah saw, at dawn of day,
The shouting myriads of Sennacherib
Stretched horse and rider on the bloodless plain
By angel-swords of pestilence divine !
Yea ! on the cursed tree the perishing thief,
At the tenth hour, received the word of grace.
When hope itself was hopeless I Who believes
Shall never be forsaken never fall !
She heard them rustling in the tufted brake
The snapping boughs beneath their cat-like tread
The leaves that shivered, though the clouds aloft
Hung motionless, betrayed them ! They were
nigh
Her friends her rescuers I She did not spring
In frantic joy to meet them ! Eye hand tongue,
With more than Roman hardihood of heart.
Were still and silent. Yet she marked the range
Of the bright rifles, and she dragged him down,
Down to her bosom in the living chain
Of her white arms, that trembled not, spell-bound
By agonizing hope more keen than fear.
Rang the report ! The stream of vivid fire
Swept o'er her, and the bullets hurtled near,
Fearfully near, yet harmless. She is free
Clasped in a father's, in a lover's, arms !
And they, their brief career of conquest run,
The red men sleep, no more the yell to raise
Of fiendish war, or light the pipe of peace. H.
THE PRAYER OF THE LYRE.
BT THB AUTHOR OP " ATAULNTIS," " THE YBMA8SBB," &O.
"Sweet accord,
The stars, and whispers of the air, that swells
Along the waters. 'Tis a spirit time,
And harmony its language. Hear its strain,
As of old voices, when the crowding hills
Leaned forward, with beguiled ear, to catch
The fitful murmur, and, with pliant mood,
Requited it in echoes, softer far,
And, to the ear, as sweet"
I.
CALM, beautiful, the night
Sweetly the silvery light
Strews its gay gleams along the slumbering sea;
While roving far and near,
On fitful wing, the air
Brings to the sense a wild strange melody.
II.
And silent is the crowd,
The voices, vexed and loud,
THE PRAYER OF THE LYRE. 99
That had been death to these sweet spells around
Oh, let us seek yon beach,
Where, full of solemn speech,
The billows wake our thoughts to themes profound.
HI.
Night is Thought's minister,
And we, who rove with her,
Err not to seek her now in scene so bright
Scene that too soon departs,
Yet meet for gentle hearts,
And, like the truth they pledged, lovely in Heaven's
own sight.
IV.
'Twas in such hour as this,
That roused to heaven-wrought bliss,
The ancient bard's quick spirit moved the lyre;
And, harmonizing earth,
Then Music sprang to birth,
And claimed, so sweet her form, a God to be her sire
V.
Then the wild man grew tame,
And from the hill-tops came
The shaggy-mantled shepherd with his flocks,
And, as the minstrel sung,
Old Fable found his tongue,
And raised a glittering form on all hia rocks.
100 THE PRAYER OP THE LYRE.
VI.
Is there no hope again,
For that high-chanted strain,
That streamed in beauty then o'er mount and valley
wide;
When from each hill and dell,
Down brought by Minstrel spell,
Bounding, the Muses came, in joy from every side.
VII.
When, taught by spirit's choice,
Each forest-thronging voice
Made music of its own for thousand listening ears j
When every flower and leaf
Had its own joy and grief,
And wings descending came from the less-gifted
spheres.
VIII.
Shall the time never more
The old sweet song restore,
That made the stern heart gentle ; and to all,
The vicious as the good,
The kind of heart or rude,
Brought spells that swayed each soul in sweetest thrall.
IX.
The sacred groves that then
Showed spirit forms to men,
THE PRAYER OF THE LYRB. 101
And crowned high hopes, and led to each most lofty
shrine,
The oracles that wore
Rich robes of mystic lore,
And taught, if not a faith, at least a song, divine,
X.
Still silent will they keep
In a cold deathlike sleep,
Nor minister to man, nor soothe him, as of old,
Winning him from his stye,
To immortality,
Making each feeling true, making each virtue bold,
XL
Oh, will they not descend,
Sweet spirits, to befriend,
Bring back the ancient Muse, bring back the olden
Lyre,
Teach us the holier good,
Of that more pliant mood,
When Self untutored came to light affection's fire,
XII.
When yet untaught to build,
In some more favored field,
His cheerless cabin far from where the rest abode,
He had no thought so free,
But his heart yearned to be
Bowed down, with all his tribe, to each domestic God?
108 THE PRAYER OF THE LYRE.
XIII.
Still keeps the sky as fair,
The pleasant Moon still there,
And the winds whisper still, as if upon them borne
Spirits came still to earth,
Happy, as at its birth,
To rove its shadowy walks, now crowded and forlorn.
XIV.
'Tis man alone is changed
The shepherd he that ranged
O'er the wild hills, a giant in the sun
His soul and eye aloft,
His bosom strong, but soft,
With spirit, that fresh joy from each new season won.
XV.
Look on him now, the slave !
Since that sad knowledge gave
The restless thirst that mocks at happy quietude ;
The innocent joy no more,
That the old forests wore,
Nor yet the charm of song, may soothe his sleepless
mood.
XVI.
Power's proud consciousness,
How should it ever bless,
THE PRAYER OP THE LYRE. 103
When still it prompts a dark and sleepless strife,
A sleepless strife to sway,
And bear that spoil away,
Had been the common stock in his old shepherd life.
XVII.
Ah, me ! would time restore
The ancient thirst, the lore,
That taught sweet dreams, kind charities and love,
Soothing the spirit's pride,
Bidding the heart confide,
Lifting the hope until its eye grew fixed above.
XVIII.
Once, once again, the song,
That stayed the arm of wrong,
Once more the sacred strain that charmed the shep-
herds rude ;
Send it, sweet spirits ye,
Who lift man's destiny,
Once more, oh, let it bless our solitude.
XIX.
Teach us that strife is wo,
The love of lucre low,
And but high hopes and thoughts are worthy in our
aim;
Teach us that love alone,
Pure love, long heavenward flown,
Can bring us that sweet happiness we claim.
101 THE PRAYER OF THE LYRE.
XX.
And with that sacred lore,
The shepherd loved, once more
Arouse the frolic beat of the hope-licensed heart,
When gathering in the grove,
Young maidens sung of love,
And no cold bigot came to chide the minstrel's art.
XXL
Then were these teachers still
This moon, yon quiet hill,
The sea, and more than all, the swelling breeze that
brings
With every hour like this
A dream of life and bliss,
With healing to the sad heart on its wings.
XXII.
Then would the chaunted strain,
Of the old Bard again,
Bring cheerful thoughts once more around the even-
ing fire ;
Then would the pure and young,
Such as the minstrel sung,
Once more rejoice to hear, the young earth's holy
lyre.
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
BY THE AUTHOR OP ALLEN PRBSOT.
AGNES CALLENDER returned from her evening
walk with a glow upon her cheek, not the effect of
exercise, for her step was languid but of some
emotion, proofs of which were still visible in the
tears that she wiped from her eyes, as she entered
her father's door. She had been to visit the grave
of her mother, who died two months before. When
that event happened, she felt herself suddenly reduced
to an appalling emergency, for which the previous
circumstances of her life, and, as she thought, her
peculiar character, entirely unfitted her. The young
vine, torn from its prop, is not more helpless ; nor the
shoot, severed from the parent stem, more effectually
deprived of the source and nutriment of its young
life. To live without my mother ! she would exclaim
in bitterness of spirit O that I should have been
brought to this !
Being naturally timid, sensitive, and reserved, she
was of course distrustful of herself and her mother
was the only friend to whom she ever poured out a
full heart the only one on whose protection and
encouragement she constantly relied, or with whom
she shared her secret soul.
106 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
Mr. Callender, although what is commonly called
a good-hearted man, was severe in his judgments of
others even of those who, being nearly allied to him,
might suppose themselves, on that account, entitled to
a peculiar degree of indulgence. Having no tolera-
tion, even of slight imperfections, he was, of course,
more apt to blame, than to praise, even the praise-
worthy. He was, in other respects, an eccentric
man, a term which, when predicated upon the master
of a family, implies such a deviation from the customs
and habits that ordinarily make part of the domestic
economy, as seriously to interfere with the conve-
nience and comfort of all its members.
Agnes had a strong sentiment of filial duty, in
which she had been carefully trained by her mother
but with that, there mingled another, which should
be forever excluded from the relation of parent and
child it was fear. Her father loved and respected
her but he little knew what treasures of love,
locked up in her heart, might have been at his
disposal, had not his manners kept her at such a
distance from him.
At the time I have spoken of, she passed hastily
by him, as he stood in the door, and was going up
stairs.
" Here, Agnes," said he, " stay a moment. I am
surprised at this habit you have fallen into of late
walks, which are very improper for a young lady.
Besides, do you know, I have taken my tea alone,
and that stupid Phebe gave me green tea for which
I shall pass a sleepless night a favor I must thank
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 107
you for. It is strange that young people will be
always about something else, rather than their own
proper duties at home."
" I am very sorry, Papa," replied Agnes ; " I gave
Phebe charge, before I went out, to go and see
whether Mr. Stoddard had opened a new chest of
black tea and if not, to get some more of the
same that you had before. I did not think, when I
went away, of being out so late."
"Then the bread is poor again Miss Agnes
too close. It is just as easy to have fine bread as
any other, and it is a pity to have such a blessing as
good bread converted into a curse by mere want of
attention. That's all, now that's the whole of it
just a little attention would save all this trouble."
Agnes ventured modestly to suggest, that Sally,
the cook, was much more practised than herself in
the art of bread-making, and seldom failed of entire)
success.
" But it is a house-keeper's business to see that
every thing is done well there is no difficulty about
it none at all."
" Papa, shall I read to you now," said Agnes,
wishing to change the subject.
" Yes, child, my eyes are unusually weak to-nighl,
and there is an article upon the tariff in that news-
paper, which I should like to hear very much."
This duty poor Agnes performed with exemplary
patience. Her manner of reading was one thing
with which he seldom found fault.
When she had finished he thanked her, saying
108 THE VOUNG DEVOTEE.
that, in his opinion, there were very few young
women of her age, who would have sense enough to
read, upon such subjects, and attend to them with the
interest which she manifested. She could not dis-
claim the unmerited praise; because, by so doing j
she must necessarily have revealed to her father, a
fact which she preferred carefully to conceal viz.,
that she had no share in the pleasure, which she thus
afforded him.
Agnes was one of those persons who do every
thing well from principle. She devoted herself to
the difficult and responsible duties, which devolved
upon her in consequence of her mother's death, with
untiring zeal and assiduity and to have satisfied her
father would have been to her a sufficient reward.
But since the most trifling deficiency, omission,
irregularity, or imperfection, in the details of her
domestic arrangements, escaped neither his observa-
tion nor his censure and he rarely bestowed any
commendation it Avas impossible for her to suspect,
what was nevertheless true that, in his secret heart,
he regarded her as one of the best daughters, and
most accomplished house-keepers, that a widowed
father was ever blessed with. Many a time has she
thought within herself "Oh, if I could hear again
my mother's sweet approving tone!" and wept, that
it was for ever silenced.
A sweet solace always awaited Agnes at the close
of the day, which refreshed her after it's wearying
cares, and imparted to her slumber a tranquillity of
which it was rarely deprived. She had a little sister,
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 109
Lucy, only four years of age, who was her bedfellow,
and who, without giving any other symptom ot
consciousness, would always kiss Agnes, seeking her
lips as she laid down by her side, and place her
hand too on Agnes' cheek, pressed closely to hers.
Agnes assumed the entire charge of this child from
the moment of her mother's death this was the one
indulgence the chief pleasure of her life.
Mr. Callender had a degree of sensitiveness upon
the subject of order and neatness, which Doctor Rush
would probably have denominated a species of
insanity. It was not uncommon for him to throw
out upon the floor, and consign anew to the wash-tub,
a whole drawer-full of shirts and cravats, on account
of a wrinkle in one, a spot upon another, a slight
shade of yellow on a third, or the wrong folding of
a fourth. An accidental soil upon the table-cloth
would deprive all others at the table, if not himself,
of the accustomed meal; and pet as she was, even
with him, little Lucy was occasionally banished from
the parlor for a day, because her frock slipped off at
the shoulder.
One morning he took from a bureau, to which he
had access, some articles of dress that had belonged
to his wife, which he intended to distribute among
her friends. After arranging them upon the bed,
he called in Agnes to assist him in their appropria-
tion. Not being at all aware of the reason of the
summons, she obeyed it with her usual alacrity. Her
uniform " Yes, Papa," was heard in response, and
directly she was in his room.
110 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
Her light step was suddenly arrested as her eye
fell upon the garments spread before her and, then,
by an irresistible impulse, she threw herself at full
length upon the bed, as if to embrace the sacred
relics, and burst into tears.
"Why, my daughter," exclaimed Mr. Callender, in
manifest horror "do you not see what mischief you
are doing ? Get up, directly."
She arose instantly but her agitation increased,
her lips trembled, her sobbing became convulsive,
and as she sank into a chair, her knees smote
together. Mr. Callender had never witnessed any
thing of the kind in her before he became alarmed,
and rang violently for assistance. He then took her
up and laid her gently on the same bed from which
he had so rudely ejected her loosened her clothes
administered restoratives and when he found her,
by degrees, regaining her composure, he sat down
by her side, and soothingly stroked back the hair
which had fallen over her face. *
When Agnes looked up in grateful recognition of
this kindness, and perceived that tears were stream-
ing down his cheeks she drew him down to her
and kissed him. From that moment much of the re-
serve, which she had hitherto felt to wards him, melted
away, and there was a softening of his manners to-
wards her a careful abstaining from what might
wound or grieve her, for which she lifted up her heart
to God in fervent gratitude.
Little Lucy was the pet lamb the darling of the
whole family and notwithstanding the occasional
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. Ill
rebuffs which she received from her father she was
so much indulged and caressed by him as to regard
him without any of the fear that he usually inspired.
She was more free than any one else in her inter-
course with him, and this very circumstance, without
his being aware of it, increased his fondness for her
and her influence over him an influence often ex-
ercised in softening Agnes' grievances.
Mr. Callender was fond of society, and practised
unbounded hospitality. The death of his wife check-
ed, for a time, his habits in this respect and Agnes
was not called upon for any extraordinary exercise of
her household skill, until she had had the experience
of some months in perfecting it. Then, when some
public occasion was expected to draw a large con-
course of strangers to the town her father signified
to her that on a certain day she must provide a dinner
for some ten or twelve gentlemen. This was an
event in her life which filled her with solicitude for
besides the responsibility which she felt in regard to
the dinner the idea of presiding over it at table, was
very formidable.
The efforts to please her father, however, proved
successful. The servants were all exceedingly at-
tached to her, and for her sake, rather than his, did
their best on the occasion. Nothing was too much or
too little done there were no oily gravies every
dish was very nicely served up not a knife or fork
was dropped or rattled by the waiters not a particle
of any thing spilled. The pastry was exquisitely
white and flaky the sweetmeats and jellies admira-
112 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE
ble the apples beautifully polished the nuts crack-
ed in the most approved manner the order of the
entertainment, too, was perfect; in short, every thing
was right, and Mr. Callender felt proud and gratified.
Agnes began to breathe more freely in saying to
herself, "It's almost over" when a toast was pro-
posed, which her father said must be pledged in his
last remaining bottle of a peculiar kind of wine, which
he valued particularly.
As he raised the glass to his lips, Agnes, whose
eye met his, saw that something was wrong. " How's
this, my daughter?" said he somewhat impatiently
"the wine is not pure here's some mistake."
The poor girl felt her cheeks crimson all over, at
an appeal which drew upon her the attention of every
one present. She frankly owned, however, that the
bottle not being quite full, she had supplied the defi-
ciency from another, whose contents were exactly si-
milar in color and appearance.
"I did not know that you were such a novice,
child" he replied.
Mr. Callender was particularly sensitive upon the
subject of his wines, and Agnes knew that this single
mistake was sufficient to mar, in his eyes, the whole
entertainment.
One of the gentlemen present, wishing to relieve
her evident embarrassment, politely remarked, that
some accident of the kind was almost necessary to
convince them that there had not been magic in the
preparation of such an entertainment by so young a
housekeeper.
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 119
Lucy had been introduced just as this unlucky
mistake was detected. She went up to her father, and
in the eagerness to get his attention, and beg him not to
make "sister blush," she jostled his arm, and caused
him to upset his glass "O never mind, Father,"
said she, " you will have less to drink, now, of that
bad wine. But let me taste, and see if it really is
spoiled."
She put the glass to her lips, and smacked them.
"Why, it is very good, 1 am sure, Father; I don't
believe sister could spoil any thing if she should try."
" Unless it be you, perhaps, Lucy."
Her vivacity and fondness for her sister, excited a
general smile, whose contagion infected Mr. Callender
himself. Her voice was to him what the harp of
David was to the monarch of Israel.
As Lucy passed to the other side of the table to join
Agnes, she was arrested by a young gentleman who
sat next her, and who, Agnes told her, was Mr.
Linwood. He took her into his lap and kissed her.
"Has not my sister given you a nice dinner?"
said she " I helped some I helped rub the apples."
" And who rubbed and polished your cheeks ?"
"O, sister does that and this morning, when I
held some of the red apples to my cheeks to see which
were the prettiest, she said she liked my cheeks the
best, a great deal. Isn't that queer ? I guess it is
because she can kiss them."
"Kiss them can't she kiss an apple's cheeks,
too?"
114 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
" Kiss an apple's cheeks ! apples were not made to
kiss."
" Why not? they are very pretty."
" But they don't know any thing they don't love
you."
" But you love them."
"Oh, poh! that's not her kind of love the way
1 love an apple, is not the way I love sister."
Agnes' desire to stop Lucy's loquacity, determined
her no longer to deky what she had been for some
time trying to make up her mind to the formidable
retreat from table. She took Lucy by the hand and
rose to depart. Mr. Linwood, seeing her extreme
embarrassment, thought to relieve it by offering his
arm to conduct her to the door. He half rose then
hesitated as if doubtful whether he might not
increase rather than relieve it but at length escorted
her.
It was then that she perceived the cause of his
hesitation in the mal-formation of one of his feet; but
this discovery did not destroy the agreeable impres-
sion she had previously received from his fine coun-
tenance, pleasing manners, and evident intelligence ;
for, in spite of the pre-occupation of her mind, he had,
during dinner, drawn her into conversation.
Mr. Linwood was a young man who had recently
brought letters of introduction to Mr. Callender for
although the son of an old friend and class-mate his
father's death, which occurred when he was quite
young, had suspended all intercourse between the
families.
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 116
Nature, in bestowing upon him the richest enaow-
ments of mind, and a good degree of personal beauty,
had denied him a perfect physical conformation.
When such a misfortune is inflicted upon a person
whose nature is sensitive it modifies, in some way,
his character. It probably made Lord Byron a
misanthrope. Henry Linwood, on the contrary, felt
for all his race a warm and kindly sympathy, which
he believed could never be fully extended towards
him. This idea made him neither sour nor melan-
choly, but it led him to regard himself as, in some
respects, an isolated being and produced a subdued
tone of feeling incompatible with any elation of spirits
though he had too much of true Christian philo-
sophy ever to repine. It was a perpetual trial,
attended, in his case, with those purifying effects
which rare and occasional afflictions are sometimes
observed to produce upon those who are capable of
deriving " sweet uses from adversity."
Having inherited a patrimony sufficient to place
him above the necessity of consulting his pecuniary
interests rather than his tastes, he determined, after
completing the course and term of study necessary to
invest him with the prerogatives of a professional
man, to establish himself in the country. He was a
passionate lover of nature, and had a more intimate
communion with her, perhaps, from regarding him-
self as, in some degree, severed from man's fellowship.
It is, too, in the circumscribed society of a country
village, that exists the simplest state of manners
consistent with refinement and there are no artifi-
U6 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
cial observances to repress the full glow of the heart,
that he fancied he should bring himself into nearer
relation with those among whom he dwelt.
He became, of course, a frequent visiter at Mr. Cal-
lender's, who cultivated his acquaintance, not only for
his father's sake, but because he found him a most
delightful acquisition to his somewhat limited circle.
Agnes, instead of being less disposed to make herself
agreeable to him on account of his personal blemish,
was stimulated by a feeling of compassion, to do all in
her power towards his entertainment, whenever he
was with them. She was thus induced, when perhaps
every other motive would have failed, to throw aside
her usual reserve, and be, what some of her friends
would have pronounced impossible, under any cir-
cumstances, positively sociable. Virtuous effort in
another's behalf, always brings a reward and so it
proved in her case. Her improvement in that most
desirable art, the art of conversation, was rapid and
striking.
Time rolled on, and Agnes' character gained daily
fresh strength. There is nothing like the effect of
circumstances which impose upon young persons high
and responsible duties, in developing and elevating
the character. She gradually acquired confidence in
herself, which relieved her of much of the suffering
and embarrassment to which she had previously been
subjected. By degrees, she obtained an ascendency
over her father's mind ; she was not unfrequently his
counsellor, and he felt a respect for her which often
checked his impatience. She even sometimes ventured
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 117
gently to suggest that he was not quite reasonable, and
found him docile to reproof. On one occasion, when
he left home, quite suddenly, for a journey which
required considerable preparation, and she was oblig-
ed to pack his trunk in the least possible time, she
accidentally left out a single article of no great import-
ance. He did not fail, upon his return, to mention
this omission. "Why, Papa," said she, "if that was
the only thing you missed, I wonder you do not
rather commend me, considering how you hurried
me."
" True, my daughter, you are right."
There was much speculation among Agnes' ac-
quaintance upon the wisdom of her course. If she
were not half as devoted to her father, was the general
sentiment, he would not be half as exacting. Mr.
Linwood, who being a constant visiter at Mr. Cal-
lender's, and now well known in the village, was
often appealed to on the subject, was accustomed to
reply that in his opinion the best rule, and one
which he believed governed Miss Callender in all
things, was to perform in the most thorough and
devoted manner whatever duties arose out of one's
peculiar station.
There are few topics of conversation in a village
and of course Mr. Linwood was frequently discussed.
The young ladies thought him agreeable and gentle-
manly, and admitted that but for his deformity he
would be a great favorite.
"But for his deformity," Agnes would sometimes
repeat to herself "how can that have any other
118 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
effect, than to heighten the interest excited by his fine
character, and gifted mind ?"
Yet Agnes was not in love, nor did she belong to
the class of young ladies most apt to fall in love. Life
to her had important duties noble aims. Devoted
to her father and to Lucy and pursuing, diligently,
the course of literary culture and self-improvement
commenced under the auspices of her mother, she had
not the need, which girls of seventeen sometimes feel,
of love, as a pastime, to relieve her from the ennui of
a vacant mind.
Had such a sentiment inspired her in the com-
mencement of her acquaintance with Mr. Linwood,
she never would have so far overcome her natural
reserve in her intercourse with him nor would he
have penetrated the veil sufficiently to discover what
it concealed.
He was a great admirer of the sex, but considered
himself as doomed to celibacy and this he thought
the severest privation connected with his peculiar
misfortune. When he perceived that Agnes appeared
more animated and agreeable in his society than in
any other, when he found her, as often happened,
refusing to dance in their little village parties that she
might be at liberty to chat with him, while all the rest
were engaged in the favorite amusement of youth
he did not think of referring her kindness to any other
than the true cause, and gratitude and admiration Avere
the feelings which it inspired.
" I declare," said Mr. Callender, as he came in
one day to dinner, " a few such fine fellows as that
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 119
Linwood, would create a new state of things in a
country village like this. I met him this morning,
with a whole troop of boys at his heels, going in search
of stones, insects, flowers, any thing they can find for
his cabinets, or his herbarium. There is not one ot
them who would not rather spend a holiday in his
service than in any other manner. By way of reward,
he calls them all into his office every now and then
and entertains them with experiments, or in familiar
lectures. They will become quite a set of philosophers.
In two years time they will know the name and
history of every specimen belonging to three depart-
ments of natural history that can be found in this
vicinity. Nature did well to disqualify such a man
for marriage, that he might devote himself to his race."
" But how is it, that his profession does not absorb
him ! I have heard the law termed a mistress who
would tolerate no rival."
" I don't know he must have uncommon industry.
When I found that his new office was to be divided
into two apartments one properly his office, and the
other fitted up as a mineralogical and entomological
cabinet, and furnished too, with some chemical appa-
ratus, I thought it was quite out of the question that
he should ever become distinguished in his profes-
sion and yet he is rising very fast.
" Sister," said Lucy, as she finished her afternoon
lessons, " there is one reason why I should rather go
to the district school than to yours, because, then, you
know, Mr. Linwood might perhaps take me, with the
other children, to get specimens for his cabinets. 1
120 THE YOUNG DLVOTEK.
will just go out in the garden, and see if I can't find
a pretty bug for him now."
Just as she was returning with that familiar and
favorite acquaintance of all children, a lady-bird, in
her hand, Mr. Linwood came in. " O I am glad to
see you," she exclaimed "I have just found some-
thing for your cabinet here it is my favorite little
lady-bird. I should think you would like to have
something there that you could call lady."
" Thank you, Lucy, your lady shall be installed
there with becoming honors."
" My lady no, not my lady for my lady is sister
she is my mother, and my nurse, and my sister,
and my teacher, and my governess, and besides all
these, she's my lady she's my every thing."
" But I was talking about the lady-bird," said Lin-
wood, not appearing to perceive Agnes' embarrass-
ment. " I never expect to have any other lady in my
cabinet," and he sighed.
"And why not? Don't you like ladies? would
not you like to have a wife ?"
" O yes, I should like very well to have a wife, but
no lady would like a limping husband, you know."
This was the first time that Agnes had ever heard
him allude to himself in this way, and she felt
distressed to a degree that made her almost gasp for
breath. She was relieved, however, by the entrance
of her father, bringing a book which Linwood had
called to borrow, and, upon receiving which, he
immediately took his leave.
His remark awakened a new train of reflection in
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 121
Agnes' mind. She had never before suspected the
existence of such a feeling in his.
That same evening they met again in a little party.
Among other amusements, proposed in the evening,
was that of impromptu mottoes. There were one or
two married ladies present, known to be gifted with
rhyming powers. The mottoes were rolled up, and
thrown as fast as they were produced into a box. A
person was appointed to read them, and they were
appropriated by vote. Among others, there appeared
the following:
"For her, who, as a miser's chest,
With jealous care, locks up her breast ;
Find but the key, the sterling gold
Is inexhaustible untold."
This was given by acclamation to Agnes, who,
blushing, slipped it inside of her glove.
It is not to be supposed that she had so little of
girlish nature, as not to examine and read it over
after she returned home. At the first glance she
recognized the hand-writing of Linwood, and a disin-
terested observer would have understood, better than
she did, the feeling that led her carefully to lock it
up in her work-box.
" What is that little bit of paper you keep so care-
fully, and will never let me touch?" said Lucy one
day, to whom it was something new to have her
rummaging privilege curtailed.
" Nothing but a motto which I brought home from
Mrs. Elmwood's party."
" But what makes you so choice of it ?"
KB THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
"Because it is a very pretty motto," and Lucy's
curiosity was allayed.
O the fatality which almost inevitably attends a
secret! A few days after, when Lin wood was
showing to Lucy, who sat on his lap, an exquisite
little print, which he would not suffer her to touch
with her fingers ; she exclaimed, " Why, you are as
choice of this picture as sister is of the motto which
she got at Mrs. Elmwood's party."
A flush of pleasure suffused the face of Linwood.
Had he ventured to look at poor Agnes, he would
have pitied her notwithstanding. Lucy was now
suffered to handle the print as she pleased ; nor was
her pricking all round it, to make what she called a
pretty border for it, observed by either of her com-
panions.
Henceforth life was a new existence to Henry
Linwood. It was possible that, in spite of all, Agnes
Callender might regard him with a sentiment capable
of being cultivated into a permanent attachment.
Her now altered and embarrassed manner tended to
confirm his hopes ; yet it was a long time before he
ventured to presume upon them, and just as he had
determined to cast his all of hope and happiness upon
a single die, something occurred which induced him
to delay the important step.
Since her mother's death, Agnes received repeated
invitations from a friend of hers, Mrs. Scott, who
resided in Boston, to pass some months with her,
accompanied by Lucy ; but notwithstanding that lady's
arguments, in regard to the importance of an occasional
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 123
residence in town to a country girl, and the various
attractions of such a visit, which she failed not to set
forth in the most glowing colors, Agnes preferred
remaining at home. Now, however, Mr. Callender,
who had been for some time subject to a severe
asthma, having determined to pass the winter in a
milder climate, it was arranged that Mrs. Scott's
invitation to his children should be accepted.
Linwood did not hasten, as others perhaps would
have done in like circumstances, to secure his prize,
if possible, from the threatened danger of rival com-
petitors. He attributed the interest with which he
believed, or rather hoped, to have inspired Agnes, in
part to compassion ; and with his love there mingled
a sentiment of gratitude, which led him magnani-
mously to resolve that he would not take selfish
advantage of any power which he might thus have
acquired over her affections. She had seen but few
young men, and she had been almost exclusively
limited to the circumscribed society of a country
village. In a more enlarged intercourse with the
world, she might discover that she had bestowed her
preference prematurely, and, introduced into a state
of society where greater importance is attached to
circumstances, merely adventitious, she might find
that she had too much disregarded the obstacle, for
such it would commonly b*e considered, to a union
with him.
We have never spoken of our heroine's personal
appearance, nor did the omission occur to us, until,
about to introduce her into town life, we were remind-
124 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
ed that it is regarded as an item of great importance,
when a young lady, in technical language, makes her
debut. Though educated almost exclusively in the
country, she had a natural grace and propriety about
her an essentially lady-like air, which stamps the
true gentlewoman. She was tall and well-formed ;
her eye, hair and complexion, were beautiful ; and
the sweetness and intelligence of her face made you
forget that her features were not perfectly regular.
She had, besides, a very nice taste in dress, as unerr-
ing as instinct itself, which led her to array herself
always becomingly. Her style of dress was suited
to her character a style of simple elegance.
The incidents of a young lady's first visit to town,
are usually of a monotonous character, that is, they
belong to a single class. Mrs. Scott was a woman
of fashion, very much in society; and, persuaded
that this was the most important winter of her young
friend's life, determined that she should improve it
to the utmost, in a continual round of gay amuse-
ments. Occasionally, and for a limited period, such
a mode of life has charms for most young persons,
whatever may be their peculiar tastes or genera!
habits. Agnes felt herself excited by it, but still
preserved her old habit of a systematic distribution
of her time, and kept up, in some degree, her devo-
tion to Lucy. She had a fine talent for music, which
she had already cultivated successfully, with very
little instruction ; and in the absence of more serious
occupations, she determined to make the most of her
present opportunity for acquiring that accomplishment
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. .86
more perfectly how far lanwood's fondness for
sweet sound stimulated her to persevere, in spite of
obstacles neither few nor small, in devoting two
hours every day to the piano, we cannot say then
one hour of each day was given to Lucy, in examin-
ing the progress she had made at her school during
the day, and assisting her in the next day's lessons.
Mrs. Scott was quite satisfied with the success of her
young friend. She received a degree of admiration
sufficient to have invested her with the rank and
distinction of a helle, had it not been that there was
something in her general air and manner, which
seemed decidedly to disclaim and reject all such
pretensions. The sweet Lily of the Valley could
as soon be suspected of aspiring to reach the height,
and emulate the showy coloring of the tulip, in
whose neighborhood it chanced to grow.
Among other admirers of Agnes, was Frank
Frazier, a nephew of Mr. Scott, a young man of
fortune and accomplishment, and particularly distin-
guished for his personal attractions. Being on a
footing of intimacy at his uncle's, he had an opportu-
nity of seeing Agnes in points of view, divested
of that enchantment which distance lends, and found
that her charms increased just in proportion as he
approached her more nearly. In short, he fell in
love, and was the most devoted of her train.
Mrs. Scott was delighted, for she had no doubt of
the result of his suit; and flattered herself that, in
technical phrase, she had made the match; a merit
which many of her sex, in like circumstances, have
11-
125 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
been eager to claim, without considering what fear-
ful responsibility such an interference must ere*
involve.
Meanwhile, Linwood, who had been elected to
represent the village of in the state legis-
lature, arrived in Boston. Having called when
Agnes was out, he missed seeing her until they met
at a brilliant party given by Mrs. Frazier. Though
he had been in town but a single day, the report,
already current, of Agnes' engagement, did not fail
to reach his ears through a young lady of his
acquaintance who often met her in society; and
though he did not implicitly believe it, he felt that it
was but too probable.
He was impatient to see her, and judge for himself;
and when his eye first fell upon her, she was stand-
ing up in a dance with her reputed lover by
her side.
Struck with his elegant appearance, and mistaking
the flush and the glow, which in Agnes were merely
the effect of the exhilarating exercise, for the anima-
tion of joy and hope, he believed that he saw with
his own eyes, a confirmation of the report which had
BO much agitated him.
" How deadly pale you are, Linwood," exclaimed
a young man of his acquaintance, who observed his
sudden change of countenance. " It must be the
fume of these vile lamps that affects you so disagree-
ably."
At that moment the dance broke up, and it chanced
that Agnes' partner conducted her to a seat near
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 127
which Linwood stood. Glowing as her cheek already
was, a deeper hue suffused it as they exchanged a
joyful recognition.
The diamond is the common illustration of a bright
eye. That of Agnes always reminded me of the
unrivalled gem, whenever any thing occurred that
gave her peculiar pleasure. Then it flashed, and
shot a brilliant gleam, such as the diamond emits
when a bright ray of light kindles its magic blaze.
And thus it flashed as it encountered that of Lin-
wood ; but he thought it was only natural that she
should be excited by seeing, after such an unwonted
absence from home, one who was associated with all
its cherished remembrances. Her animated conver-
sation connected with those remembrances, occupied
them until supper was announced, when Frank
offered her his arm, and escorted her to the table.
44 Who is that unfortunate piece of deformity," he
asked, 4< upon whom your smiles are so readily
bestowed?" and looking down with complacency
upon his own finely turned leg, he added, "they
should be reserved for those to whom nature has not
denied a claim to them."
14 He is a young man," replied Agnes, " from whom
nature, in lavishly bestowing upon him her richest
gifts, was obliged to withhold one which, though
desirable, is certainly of far inferior value to the rest,
lest she might be suspected of departing from that
system of compensation, by which she has the credit
of being guided in all her operations."
It was the first time in her life that Agnes hod
4*
198 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
spoken so boldly, or with so much implied seve-
rity. She had but lately begun to believe, notwith-
standing Mrs. Scott's hints and insinuations, that
Frazier was really enacting the suitor. Being tired
of him, she was desirous that he should discover her
indifference as soon as possible : and her indignation
at the coarse and unfeeling manner in which he
spoke of Linwood, roused her to say that in behalf
of the latter, which would have touched him in his
weakest point had he been more sensitive. He had,
however, sufficient conceit to save him from any
personal application of this speech; nor did the
possibility that he might find, "in that piece of
deformity," a rival, occur to him.
It is impossible to say, whether Agnes would have
been more sorry or glad had she known that her
words reached Lin wood's ear, as, in passing to the
other end of the table, his progress was interrupted
for two or three moments just by her chair. He was
at no loss to apply them, although he had not heard
the observation that called them forth. " Noble
girl," he inwardly exclaimed, and yet he doubted
whether she felt for him any thing more than a senti-
ment of high esteem.
Two weeks passed away, after these incidents
occurred, during which delicacy compelled Agnes to
play an equal part between her lovers. She scrupu-
lously avoided receiving from Frank any attentions
which might be supposed to proceed from other
motives than politeness ; and, as Liinwood had never
declared himself, she felt not at all sure that there
4
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 10
existed, on his part, a tender sentiment towards her.
She therefore carefully guarded, almost from herself,
and still more from him, the secret of a latent prepos-
session in his favor which under favorable circum-
stances might be fully elicited.
Her intercourse with both, however, was completely
suspended for some weeks, by the illness of Lucy,
suffering under a severe attack of scarlet fever. The
physician did not hesitate to pronounce that her life
depended upon the most careful nursing ; and by no
argument or intreaty could Agnes be induced to leave
her a moment, except to take some slight refreshment
in an adjoining apartment. Even after the child was
pronounced convalescent, the fear of a relapse retained
Agnes at her post.
Finding that she still refused to leave Lucy, Frank
became impatient, and determined no longer to delay
a formal declaration of his sentiments. A less confi-
dent lover might have thought that such an exposure to
open rejection had been already rendered unnecessary.
Having selected an exquisite little sheet of note
paper, with an embossed edge, and inscribed with
a specimen of his most elegant penmanship he
carefully folded it sealed it with a cameo seal, and
slipping it inside of a letter which he had just brought
for her from the post-office, sent it up to her room.
The letter was from her father, from whom she
had not heard for several weeks, and by the time she
had read it through, the note, which had accidentally
fallen on the floor, was entirely forgotten, until Lucy
directed her attention to it.
130 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
Its import was to this effect that he had never
before experienced so severe a privation as the loss,
for so long a time, of her society ; that such a trial
was not necessary to convince him of what he had
previously discovered, that she was indispensable to
his happiness and that nothing but an acknow-
ledgment, on her part, that these sentiments were
reciprocated, could reconcile him to a longer separa-
tion.
Agnes replied, thanking him for his professions of
regard, and added, that in responding to them, she
must limit herself to terms of common friendship.
A few days after this, Linwood, who, besides
longing to see Agnes once more, really began to
entertain serious fears for the effect, upon her health,
of such prolonged confinement, called to inquire
about her and Lucy. He requested that Mrs. Scott
would do him the favor to carry a message to Miss
Callender, entreating that she would consent to walk
out and take the air.
Lucy, who had never before been willing that
Agnes should leave her a moment, joined in the
request; but bade Mrs. Scott tell Mr. Linwood, that
she would not have spared her sister to any one but
him.
They had proceeded but a few steps, when they
met Frank Frazier, who passed them with a slight
touch of the hat. Linwood knew instantly from his
manner, that an explanation, unfavorable to his suit,
must have taken place between him and Agnes ; and
the joy excited by this discovery, was visible in the
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 131
uncommon vivacity of his spirits during the whole
walk.
Just as they were returning, " Tell me, Agnes,"
said he, " for I will not longer bear this uncertainty,
shall I, in formally declaring what must have been
apparent to you, doom myself to the fate which I see
you have inflicted upon our friend ?"
" I could not find it in my heart to inflict upon you,
a fate that you would regard as evil," replied Agnes,
in some confusion.
At that moment the door was opened. " Au
revoir" said Linwood, as, pressing her hand, he bade
her good morning, and she passed up to her room.
A long communication which she that day received,
to which a text had been furnished by the above
conversation, met a different reception from that
which had been given to Mr. Frazier's note.
" What does make you read that letter over, and
over, and over, sister ?" asked Lucy.
As Mr. Callender was supposed to be about this
time on the point of returning home, Linwood thought
it useless to apply to him, by letter, for his sanction to
these important measures. He had received so many
and such unquestionable proofs of Mr. Callender's
entire confidence and respect, not to say personal
attachment too, that the possibility of any objection on
his part, to bestowing upon him his daughter, had
never occurred to him.
He left Boston a week or two after the eventful
138 THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
explanation had taken place, and was soon followed
by Mr. Callender and his children.
As the engagement had not become known to
Agnes' friends, and she was too modest to speak of
it to her father, he remained in utter ignorance of
the whole affair, until it was announced to him by
Linwood himself, when, contrary to all expectation,
he expressed the most positive and entire disapproba-
tion of it, giving as a reason that which Linwood had
feared might constitute an obstacle with the daughter,
without suspecting that it could affect the mind of the
father.
This was a blow from which it was not easy to
recover, and many days passed before he emerged
again from the seclusion of his own solitary apart-
ment.
Meanwhile her father did not fail to inform Agnes
of the result of Linwood's application, and to give
her his whole mind upon the subject. She was like
the lamb led to the slaughter, which opens not its
mouth, until he had exhausted all he had to say;
when she simply replied, " Then, henceforth, sir, I
devote my life to you."
"I don't know about that, child; these young
hearts are amazingly susceptible impressions are
easily made and easily effaced."
Mr. Callender had not derived the benefit to his
health, from his voyage and winter residence, which he
expected. He had mistaken the nature of the climate
lie had sought, in supposing it suited to his complaint,
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 133
which it rather aggravated than allayed. He had
many severe attacks in the course of the summer, and
Agnes devoted herself to him with untiring assiduity.
When so ill that he was obliged to sit up all night,
as not unfrequently happened, she would not leave
his room ; but threw herself upon a sofa, whence she
often rose to see if he did not require some attention.
She even gave up, very much, the care of Lucy,
and sent her to a school in the neighborhood.
She hardly saw Linwood, for Mr. Callender's ill
health, being of a kind particularly to unfit him for
conversation, served him as a pretext for staying
away ; and he felt that to meet often would be painful
both to himself and Agnes. Occasionally, however,
when admitted by particular request of the invalid to
his sick room, he gazed at Agnes' altered appearance
with a look of the most tender solicitude.
"'Tis true, Linwood," said Mr. Callender, replying
one day to his companion's looks, not his words
" 'tis true, the poor girl is suffering much from this
unremitting attendance upon me. But what is to be
done? she will not leave me, and I I am very
dependent upon her." As he finished speaking his
eyes filled with tears.
Three or four months passed away, and Mr.
Callender began to experience a sensible mitigation
of his complaint. As he became again capable of
enjoying society, he was eager as ever for that of
Linwood ; who, in spite of the estrangement of feeling
produced by what he considered unjust and unreason-
able conduct on his part, retained too sensible a
(M THE YOUNG DEVOTEE.
remembrance of former obligations, and felt too
conscientiously the duties which persons in health
owe to the sick, to withhold what seemed to give him
so much pleasure.
At first it was Agnes' custom to escape from the
room soon after he entered ; but, by degrees, she
found herself quietly retaining her accustomed seat,
and listening to his conversation with more pleasure,
than any thing else, saving always Lucy's fond
caresses, could now afford her.
And why was not Mr. Callender afraid of this
continued intercourse? How could he hope that
Agnes' affections would be weaned from Lin wood
when they were thus continually supplied Avith fresh
food? He did not analyze his feelings upon the
subject, and, had he done so, he would have been at
a loss, perhaps, to answer these inquiries. Agnes'
great devotion to him had made him doubt the reason-
ableness of his conduct towards her, and he was
perhaps willing to follow, as chance might lead, to a
retrieval of his error.
One evening, as she was performing some little
service for him, when Linwood was present, he said
to her, " My child, you have long been doing all in
your power for me ; 'tis time that I should do some-
thing for you. I am going to my room to write a
letter, and will leave you to consult with Mr. Linwood
on the choice of your reward." He advanced as far
as the door, then returned "My dear friend," said
he, addressing himself to Linwood, and taking him
by the hand "I am deeply indebted to you both.
THE YOUNG DEVOTEE. 136
Assume each my debt to the other, and pay it as you
best may. My long sickness has rid me I hope of
some follies, and among others, that of thinking that
there is any reasonable bar to the union which you
both desire."
He then retreated, leaving the lovers to quaff
together the delicious cup thus unexpectedly present-
ed to their lips.
STANZAS.
STILL haunted, wheresoe'er I fly,
Yet doomed for aye to fly alone
I cannot live, yet may not die,
Still seeking what is still unknown.
Hear thou, who wilt not leave me free,
Hear but the prayer I now prefer
The dream of love thou'st taught to me,
Unteach me quite, or teach to her.
LAKE GEORGE.
NOT in the bannered castle
Beside the gilded throne
On fields where knightly ranks have strode -
In feudal halls alone
The spirit of the stately mien,
Whose presence flings a spell
Fadeless, on all around her,
In empire loves to dwell !
Gray piles, and moss-grown cloisters
Call up the shadows vast,
That linger in their dim domain
Dreams of the visioned past !
As sweep the gorgeous pageants by,
We watch the pictured train,
And sigh that aught so glorious
Should be so brief and vain.
But here a spell yet deeper,
Breathes from the woods, the sky ;
Proudlier these rocks and waters speak
Of hoar antiquity.
LAKE OEORGE. 13;
Here nature built her ancient realm,
While yet the world was young ;
Her monuments of grandeur
Unshaken stand, and strong.
Here shines the sun of Freedom
Forever, o'er the deep
Where Freedom's heroes, by the shore,
In peaceful glory sleep.
And deeds of high and proud emprize
In every breeze are told
The everlasting tribute
To hearts that now are cold !
Farewell, then, scenes so lovely!
If sunset gild your rest,
Or the pale starlight gleam upon
The water's silvery breast
Or morning on these glad green isles
In trembling splendor glows,
A holier spell than beauty
Hallows your pure repose !
12-
DEATH OF GALEAZZO SFORZA.
GALEAZZO, Duke of Milan, was assassinated A. D. 1476, on St. Stephen's
day, while entering the church, by three young men, Lampognano,
Visconti, and Olgiato ; who, in addition to their hatred of his public career,
were irritated against him by private injuries. The first two were im-
mediately killed by the guards, but Olgiato made his escape. Being refused
shelter and sustenance by all his friends, except his mother, he was
afterwards taken and executed on the scaffold. His last words were,
' Mora ncerba, Jama perpetua ; stabit vclus memoria facti."
'TWAS morn; the sun upon a throne of light,
Poured forth his golden smile, unclouded, bright
From Alpine hills the moon was seen to rise,
Shaping from earth a pathway to the skies.
The song of streams was heard in joyous sweep,
And nearer still, the murmurs low and deep
Of human tones. A mighty city lay
In the warm light where shone the awakened day
On burnished roof, and towers, and glittering spires,
Whose kindling peaks shone all with answering fires.
It was a holy day and many a bell
Pealed out its summoning tones in solemn swell ;
And all obeyed. The priest in robes of white,
Which seemed to enfold the consecrated light,
Passed slowly on and meekly in his train
The crowd that sought his words of life to gain.
The peasant, there, his labours ceased awhile,
DEATH OF GALEAZZO SFORZA. 139
And passed with brow composed and thoughtful smile;
The noble, too, forgetful of his pride,
With his unemulous serf walked side by side ;
The stately knight dreamed not of victories won,
And waved no glittering falchion in the sun ;
But passed with humble port to worship Him,
In whose high sight the deeds of earth grow dim.
Yet passed a few amid the silent throng,
Whose bosoms burned with passions cherished long;
With high resolves, matured and hid in night,
Yet in the hours of darkness gathering might,
Like the pent torrent, struggling with its chain,
With deadlier rage to desolate the plain.
They, too, passed on with step subdued, and mien
Humblest of all that in the crowd were seen ;
Yet oft the lip comprest the glancing eye,
Whose quick keen look would scan each visage nigh,
Marked them as strange, perchance for men oi
crime
Stained with remorse, unsoothed by changing time ;
And one by one, the multitude, in fear,
Shrank from their side. Oh ! long the moment near,
By those stern spirits, had been wished and sought !
Where'er their steps had been, a single thought
Had fired each breast stern, restless, mastering still
Each weaker passion, and each selfish will.
They saw their place of birth, their fathers' land
Sunk 'neath the pressure of an iron hand.
They heard the sighs, a mighty nation poured -
The deep curse, breathed upon its tyrant lord
And, pledged to vengeance, swore that from her chain,
110 DEATH OF GALEAZZO SFORZA.
Their country should arise to life again,
Though the stern blow for which the sword they drew
To free their land, should crush her champions too !
The hour was come; they reached the lofty gate;
The archway frowned in proud and sculptured state,
Fit entrance to such temple ! " 'Tis the spot
Appointed and the hour why comes he not?"
Within, a solemn strain of music rose,
Breaking the silent temple's rich repose:
And as the anthem swelled upon the ear,
Without, the tramp of hastening feet they hear ;
And dark eyes flashed as proudly to their sight,
tn gorgeous robes, with many a chosen knight
Ranged at his side, the haughty sovereign came,
Fresh blessings from insulted Heaven to claim !
Nor deemed that righteous vengeance, long delayed,
Watched for her prey beneath the sacred shade.
He strode yet on he stood beside the door
His step that threshold shall profane no more !
" God and St. Ambrose!" Starting at the cry,
Their consecrated weapons gleamed on high I
" God and St. Ambrose !" answering to the sound,
Their swift blows felled the tyrant to the ground !
A moment and 'twas o'er prostrate he lay,
A hundred death-wounds gaping to the day
While darkly on his brow, of life bereft,
Her seal of pride the parting spirit left.
In wild amazement stood his menial train;
And could no tongue awake the shout again?
Burst there no voice of rapture, to proclaim
Their country free, to hail her champions' name ?
DEATH OF GALEAZZO SFORZA. 141
Were there no hearts whose burning wrongs called
loud
For such revenge, in all that wondering crowd 1
There were ! but panic chilled each throbbing breast,
Where thoughts of daring had no longer rest !
They dared not strive for freedom ! And they saw,
Panting to aid, but quelled by slavish awe,
Those fated men, whose crime had been to biave
Untimely death, their bleeding land to save,
Hewn down by numerous swords ; they heard the
groan,
They saw the desperate struggle, as alone,
Unsuccored, two already sunk to die
The third then flung his reeking blade on high,
And sought escape by flight. On every side
The multitude in silent fear divide,
And as he vanished from their baffled sight,
Half uttered benisons pursued his flight.
The scene was changed : the slow and solemn tread
Of mingled crowds, and anthems for the dead,
Were heard, low swelling to the cloudless sky;
And near, the frowning scaffold rose on high ;
While he who was to pour his life-blood there,
Came forth with haggard brow, and bosom bare,
Led by the ministers of royal hate,
Who scowled exulting o'er their victim's fate.
Yet in his dauntless mien, and bearing high,
And the proud anger of his scornful eye,
He bore what quelled his foes, and from his name
Back on their conscious bosoms turned the shame f
142 DEATH OF GALEAZZO 8FORZA.
Bound, and with step that faltered but with pain,
He stood upon the scaffold! Through the train
Which thronged the space around, a murmur
Low, deep, and universal, like the blast
That scuds through forest boughs, a stirring thrill,
Bowing their tops and all again was still.
Was it expiring freedom's latest cry?
He knew not cared not hither brought to die,
What recked it that his undeserved fate
Should rouse their pity ? It was now too late !
Who when from tyrant vengeance he had fled,
The price of princely murder on his head,
And sought in vain, throughout his native land,
A spot for refuge who, in all that band
Which stood to watch his death, had dared to give
A sheltering home, and bid the wanderer live ?
None none ! all shrunk in terror from his touch ;
Priest soldier father brethren ! 'Twas too much.
The sufferer from patrician wrath to hide
And all the boon of sustenance denied !
How oft, in shelter of some Alpine wood,
The brute his comrade, and wild herbs his food,
Lone had he roamed, when stars were in the sky,
Or the wild storm careered through clouds on high,
To snatch a look at scenes beloved in vain, i ,* r
Which his sad step might never tread again !
How often had he cursed, with bitter heart,
The coward souls which shunned to bear their part
In the high deed that might have made all free,
Had such been formed to cherish liberty !
Fet was there one yes one who would have given
DEATH OF GALEAZZO SFO11ZA. 143
Her heart's last drop to save him, would have
striven
Singly 'gainst earth and heaven ! She alone
Received him, to all love besides unknown !
She, only, watched, with daily, hourly care,
And poured for him the agonizing prayer !
His mother ! Now, when all the timid throng
Retreated, to the scaffold's foot she clung,
And wept alone. Oh ! proudly he had borne
The rabble's pity, and patrician scorn.
But this the bitterness of death was here!
He turned away, and checked the gushing tear;
While coldly on his sickened sense, a knell
To hope and life, the deadly summons fell,
They took his chains away and free once more,
The life-warm tide, so checked and chilled before,
Burst in bewildering vigour on his brain,
And nerved him to forgotten joy again.
He saw afar beneath the smiling skies,
His native hills in pencilled beauty rise
He saw, through vallies bright with summer glee,
The Po sweep on to join the distant sea;
The lines of sunset in their bland repose,
He saw recline on gleaming Alpine snows ;
While o'er the humbler woodland's sloping swell,
Calm, mild, and rich, the golden glory fell ;
And near, the stately city stood in pride
Alas ! fair land ! 'twere rapture to have died
For thee, if in thy breast the martyr's doom
Could light one spark, to banish slavery's gloom!
Wildly toward Heaven his arms unchained he threw
144 DEATH OF GALEAZZO SFORZA.
"'Tis not" he proudly cried "'tis not for you,
" Degraded race, who meekly trembling, tread
" Your fathers' land, and shame the glorious dead,
"My sentence to record! Yon hills, which stand
"The everlasting guardians of this land
" Yon river's ancient tide the eternal sky
" These are my witnesses ! here must I die
" But these which saw my treason, and behold
"The guerdon ye bestow on hearts too bold
" When no dark art of malice can prevail,
41 To future years shall tell the impartial tale !
" My death is bitter, but from no true heart
" The memory of my wrong shall e'er depart !
" The deed is fixed, and ages yet unborn
" Shall know on whom to hurl the shaft of scorn."
He said, and glanced one brief and farewell look;
Then bowed his neck, that knew no yoke to brook,
One moment high the unshadowed weapon gleamed
The next in crimson tide life's current streamed !
A cry was heard 'twas not from him who bled,
But full of startling anguish, wild and dread.
Woman's heart-broken shriek such as could pour
One breast alone, when its last hope was o'er !
E.
AMY CRANSTOUN.
BY THE AUTHOR OF REDWOOD, HOPE LESLIE, ETC.
THE famous Indian war, which ended in the
destruction of the chieftain of Mount Hope and his
adherents, broke out just a hundred years before our
revolutionary war; a circumstance which we leave
for the speculation of those who believe that certain
periods of time have a mysterious relation and depen-
dance, while we use it merely to fix the date of a
domestic story, some important portions of which have
been omitted on the page of history, rather we should
hope from its fitness for a cabinet picture, than from
its insignificance.
Madam Cranstoun, at that period, resided at Provi-
dence, and was, we believe, the wife of the governor
of Providence Plantations. If we are mistaken in
his official dignity, we are not in the fact, that he is
set down in history as a "notable gentleman." There
was living with Mrs. Cranstoun, a dependant on her
bounty, an orphan niece of her husband, Amy Crans-
toun. Amy had the figure of a nymph, and a face
that expressed a freedom and happiness of spirit that
even dependance, that most restricting and acidifying
of all states, could never subdue nor sour ; and an
146 AMY CRANSTOt'X.
innocence and open-heartedness, without fear, and
without reproach.
It cannot be denied that the elderly persons of the
strict community in which she lived, looked upon her
as a very unapproveable and unedifying damsel ; still
she had the miraculous art to open a fountain of love
in their hard bound bosoms. She had the irrepressi-
ble gayety of a child. Her elastic step seemed to
keep time with the harmonious springs of youth and
joy. At all times and seasons, and, it must be
confessed, without any very reasonable relation to
persons or circumstances, her musical voice would
break forth in song, or bursts of laughter
" That without any control,
But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul."
Poor Amy often offended against the rigid observances
of her contemporaries. She would gape, and even
smile in the midst of the protracted Sabbath-service,
and that in spite of the bend of her uncle's awful
brow, her aunt's admonitory winks, and the plummet
and rule example of her cousins maiden ladies,
some fifteen years older than Amy, who were so
perpendicular and immoveable, that our gay little
friend sometimes suspected that the process of petri-
faction had begun about the vital region of their
hearts. Amy had a wonderful facility in committing
to memory "ungodly ballads and soul-enslaving
songs," but a sort of intellectual dyspepsia when she
attempted to digest sacred literature. She never
repeated an answer accurately in the assembly's
AMY CRANSTOUN IO
catechism ; and though she did not, as is reported
of those " afflicted by the Salem witches," faint at
the reading of that precious little treatise entitled,
" Cotton's Milk for Babes," she was sure to fall
asleep over it, the very opposite effect to that intended
by the author of this spiritual food. She reached the
age of eighteen without acquiring the current virtues
of her day ; but her beauty, spirit, or sweet temper,
or all of them united, attracted more suitors than her
exemplary and well-proportioned cousins could boast
through their long career. Among the rest came
one Uriah Smith, the son of Deacon Smith, a precious
light in Boston. Uriah was a fair, sleek, softly
looking youth, grave and deliberate, and addicted to
none of the " fooleries and braveries" of the coxcombs
of the day. So said Madam Cranstoun to Amy, for
Uriah had not, like young Edwin, "only bowed," but
had told his love not to the niece, but most discreetly
to the aunt. Madam Cranstoun, amazed at the
wonder-working Providence, as she was pleased to
term it, that had set before her niece the prospect of
such a "companion," communicated, to Amy, Uriah's
proposition, with all the circumlocution and emphasis
a prime minister might have employed to announce a
royal bounty ; but most ungraciously did Amy receive
it. She sat the while calmly drawing with her
pencil on the blank leaf of a book, her face unmoved,
except that now and then a slight but ominous smile
drew up the corners of her mouth. " Cousin Amy !
cousin Amy !" exclaimed her aunt, " give me that
book, and let me hear you testify your thankfulness
143 AMY CRANSTOUN.
for a favor of which, sooth to say, you are abundantly
unworthy."
" Well, there is the book, aunt Cranstoun, and let it
speak for your ' unworthy' niece."
One glance at the pencilled page sufficed. Amy
had delineated there a striking resemblance of the
overgrown angular Rosinante, on which Uriah had
rid to his wooing, and for the rider she had portrayed
the form of Uriah, and the face of a monkey!
" Shame ! shame to you, Amy !" exclaimed her aunt,
" dare you thus to trifle with so serious a subject ?"
" The subject is too serious, I confess, aunt, to be
trifled with, and therefore, being an incorrigible
trifler, I must decline it altogether." Madam Cran-
stoun stared in dumb astonishment. " I am in
earnest, aunt," continued Amy, "Master Uriah must
seek a more suitable helpmeet than your foolish
niece."
" Foolish ! both foolish and wicked, Amy." Ma-
dam Cranstoun lost her self-command. " Yea, wicked,
without leave, counsel, and consultation, from and
with those who have given you shelter, food, and
raiment from your cradle, blindly and scoffingly to
reject this little-to-be expected, and most unmerited
provision for your protection and maintenance
through life."
Amy's frivolity, if it must be called by so harsh a
name, vanished, while half indignant and halt
subdued, her cheeks burning, and tears gushing
from her eyes, she said "For food, raiment, and
shelter, and for every kindly-spoken word, aunl
AMY CRAN3TOUN. 149
Cranstoun, the only child of your husband's sainted
sister thanks you, and will, please God, testify her
gratitude for your past bounty by every act of duty
and devotion to you and yours. But I implore
you, in the name of the God of the fatherless,
not to drive me from the house of dependance to
a house of bondage the vilest bondage, service
without love, fetters on my affection joyous would
they be in a voluntary service, but rebellious and
unprofitable in a compelled one."
Madam Cranstoun' s heart was touched. She
perceived there was reason as well as feeling in
Amy's appeal. " Well well, child," she said, " you
know I do not wish to put a force upon you. I do not,
nor ever did, feel you to be a heavy burden on us ;
I only ask you to take the proposition of Master Uriah
into consideration, and try to love him, as it becometh
a virtuous maiden to love a worthy suitor."
" Oh, aunt, ask me to do any thing else, but indeed
there is no use in trying to love. I did try, and for
one of whom, I confess, I was not in any sort worthy ;
and whom, beforehand, I should have deemed it right
easy to love, but the more I tried the more impossible
I found it."
" And for whom, I pray you, did you make this
marvellous trial?" Amy was silent. "Not, I am
sure, for Master James Chilton? nor Nathaniel
Goodeno?" Amy shook her head. "And you
wouM not, Amy," continued her aunt with a more
scrutinizing glance, " you would not try to love that
lawless young spark I will not mention his name,
13'
160 AMY CRANBTOUN.
since your uncle has forbidden it to be spoken within
his doors."
Amy felt her face and neck flushing and burning,
and to avert the right inference from her treacherous
blushes, she did what may be most pithily expressed
by a vulgar proverb, 'jumped out of the frying-pan
into the fire.' " No, no, aunt," she said, " he to whom
I allude is far far away, and has I trust forgotten
me."
" Surely surely, Amy, you do not mean Wick-
liffe Wilson?"
" I do, aunt," replied Amy, with an irrepressible
smile that abated the virtue of her humble tone of
voice.
" Oh, Amy !" exclaimed her aunt, in a voice of
sorrow and rebuke, " you amaze and distress me. I
knew you to be giddy and trifling to a degree, but
I never before thought you senseless and hard-
hearted." She paused, and then added, as if a sudden
light had broken upon her, " Ah, I see it all now !
Little did I think when WicklifFe was spending his
precious time, day after day, in teaching you the
tongues, that Satan was spreading a snare for him.
How could the learned and pious youth suffer his
affections to be wasted upon such a piece of laughing
idlesse! Wickliffe Wilson, the honored son of an
honored sire ! the gifted youth ! the hope of the
plantation! Amy, Amy, was it for that his eye
lacked its lustre, his cheek became sunken and pale,
and his heart waxed faint ! love of you, Amy,
that has sent him forth from his father's house,
AMY CRAN8TOUN. 151
and from his native land, and without one accusing
word or look ?"
Amy burst into tears. " He was most generous,"
she said, " I would have done any thing to manifest
my gratitude to him, and as I truly told you, aunt, I
did try in earnest to love him."
" O pshaw, child ! I see through it all. You
could not choose but have loved him, had not your
unbridled affections strayed another way. The sooner
you recall them the better, for never never shall
you wed with Lovell Reeve a foil, a contrast truly
to the worthy youth Wickliffe !"
Thus pursued, Amy turned and stood at bay.
" Aunt Cranstoun," she said, " worthy and noble as
Wickliffe may be, and I grant him so, Lovell Reeve,
in all gentlemanly points, in all high sentiment and
right feeling, is his equal his equal in every thing
but yours and my uncle's esteem ; and I have long
believed, without the courage to tell you so, that some
one has traduced him to you."
" Nay, Amy, his own ill deeds dispraise him.
Did he not join the galliards of Boston, in their
assemblings for dancing and other forbidden frolics 1
Did he not aid and abet nay, was he not the sole
instigator and agent in conveying dame Hyslop
beyond the Massachusetts, after it was well nigh
proven that she was the confederate and vowed
servant of Satan, in bewitching Levi Norton's
children? and was not Ijovell Reeve foremost, and
ringleader of those ungodly youths, who discredited
the right of the assistants, and openly opposed the
152 AMY CRANSTOtN.
driving forth of the Quakers, and the extirpation of
their blasphemous heresy?"
" I believe, aunt, he has done all this."
" And still you dare to even him with one, who is in
full communion and fair standing with the church,
and whose walk has been, like pious Samuel's, even
from his youth, in all godliness."
" Oh, aunt, the Scripture says there be divers gifts ;
Wickliffe's are not Lovell's, neither, under favor I
say it, are Lovell's, Wickliffe's. And now," she
continued, throwing herself on her knees before her
aunt, and clasping her hands, " Now, my dear aunt,
that I have boldly foregone maidenly modesty, and
spoken, in some measure as I feel, of my true-love, let
me plead with you, by all your care for my well-
being by all your gentle, womanly thoughts and
memories by that pure and interchanged affection
which Lovell and I have plighted before God, I
beseech ye let me follow the biddings of my heart,
and profess before the world what I have revealed to
you, instead of hiding it like a guilty passion in the
depths of my heart you do feel for us ! you
cannot help it Oh speak to my uncle."
Amy had skilfully touched a powerful spring.
Her aunt was affected by her half voluntary confi-
dence ; but though the long congealed sources of
sympathy were softened, they were not melted, and
when Amy mentioned her uncle, the subject, in
Madam Cranstoun, reverted to its old light. " Rise,
my child," she said, "it ill becomes you to put
yourself in the posture of a silly damsel of romance.
AMY CRANSTOUN. 163
Your uncle and I cannot recede from a decision
made after due and prayerful deliberation. I now
perceive that you are apprised of the youth Lovell
having applied to us not as lie should have done
before communing with you, for leave to make suit
to you, to which we answered with a full negative,
and stated our reasons therefor, which, were he of a
right temper, would have been satisfactory. We
have fully warned him not to urge you to an act of
disobedience, and secured his compliance by inform-
ing him that any marriage bounty, which your uncle
might purpose, would be withheld in case of your
failure in duty due."
" You mistake his spirit he spurned the threat,
and urged me to forfeit my uncle's gift ; and by my
troth, aunt, it was not in the wealth of the Indies to
hold me back, but I did fear to violate my duty
to you, and I hoped you would grant my prayer
svhen I dared to make it to you."
" Never, Amy, never. I commend you in as far
is you have acted wisely in the past ; and for the
future I command you to dismiss Lovell Reeve from
your mind."
" I cannot. I may control the outward act, but
how eradicate the image blended with every thought
and affection ?"
" This is girlish talk, Amy. Be humble and
teachable, child. Remember that youth ever errs in
judgment. Be guided by those, who are both wise
and experienced ; and then, Amy, if you should still
be privileged with the favor of worthy Master Wick-
I6i AMY CRANSTOUN.
liffe's love, you may yet be mated to our acceptance
and your own profit."
" Heaven forbid," thought Amy. Her aunt proceed-
ed, " I see that thou art self-willed, but take heed
the judgment of Heaven may light upon thee
consider duly go to thy apartment, and commune
with thy heart."
Amy obeyed with alacrity ; for in these commun
ings she found the only indulgence of an affection,
which neither her conscience nor her judgment
forbad. Amy's conscience, though it did not act in
obedience to the laws Madam Cranstoun would have
prescribed, was a faithful monitor, and Amy was
obedient to its monitions. Clandestine proceedings
were abhorrent to the integrity of her character.
Every delicate woman instinctively revolts from an
elopement and a secret marriage. Amy had maintain-
ed a firm negative to Lo veil's entreaties. With the
confidence of her most happy temper she believed
that some favorable circumstance would occur, some
influence come, she knew not whence, to shift the
wind in her favor. But when she had put aside her
pride and her maidenly reserve, and freely confessed
her love to her aunt, and found her unrelenting, and
resolved to maintain her pOAver in its utmost rigor
Amy felt a spirit of insurrection rising in her heart,
that probably, but for the strange events that followed,
would soon have broken out into open rebellion.
There were throbbings at her heart at the thought of
escape from thraldom; when, at this treacherous
moment, a servant tapped at the door to announce
AMY CRAN8TODN. 166
"that Wimple, the Boston Pedlar, was in the hall
with his box full of nick-nacks, that he was sure
wou'.d pleasure Miss Amy's eye."
" Tell him," said Amy, in a tone that indicated
nothing could pleasure her at that moment, " tell him
I want nothing."
" Pray do not send him that word, Miss Amy !
Madam has huffed him already ; and Miss Prudence
and Miss Tempy have bought nothing but knives and
whalebones. They were sharp and stiff enough
already ! and besides, Wimple bade me tell you he
has a violet ribbon, just the color of your eyes."
Perhaps curious to ascertain the color of her eyes,
or it may be, like most frail mortals, not deaf to
flattery, Amy descended to the hall. She found her
aunt and cousins, attracted by the pretty assortment
of merchandise, still hovering about the pedlar's box,
inquiring prices, cheapening the articles they meant
to buy, and vouchsafing a few grains of praise to
such as they did not want.
" Ah, my service to you, Mistress Amy," said
Wimple, " it would be ill luck to my box to leave the
plantations without seeing you."
" And ill fortune to me, Wimple. But where is
the ribbon Judith told me of!"
"The ribbon! what ribbon, my young lady?
ah, I remember," added Wimple, as the luring
message he had transmitted recurred to him, "k
should be here or here it was of the violet dye,
young lady the flower and something else I've
seen looks as if a drop from the blue sky had
156 AMY CRAN8TOUN.
fallen into it the ribbon is clean gone, but here is a
pair of gloves, a nice fit for you."
" They are just the color I have been looking for,
for a full half hour to no purpose," said Miss
Prudence, " so it is but fair I should have the first
trial."
Wimple looked disconcerted " Indeed, my young
lady," he said, with a discreet emphasis on young, not
enough to imply sarcasm, and just enough to seem
earnest, " indeed, my young lady, they are a though!
too small for you," and suiting the action to the word,
he adroitly measured the glove against the back ol
Miss Prudence's broad, sinewy hand ; she turned
away satisfied, or piqued. Wimple, too politic to
leave a shadow on the rnind of a customer, added,
" I will suit you, Miss Prudy, next time, for one of my
brethren in the walking line, is expected from Acadie
with French nackeries, and he'll be sure to bring
gloves; such as these with pretty devices are much
sought after, by the Boston gallants, for love-tokens.'
" Let me look at the gloves before you purchase,'
interposed Madam Cranstoun, whose ear was offendeb
by Wimple's professional vaunt ; " I do not approve*
these braveries that feed vanity, and draw truant eyes
at meeting."
Wimple adroitly exchanged the gloves designed
for Amy, for a pair embroidered with a monumental
device, saying, "Madam Cranstoun will certainly
approve the wholesome lesson wisely wrought here."
Madam Cranstoun returned the gloves with a cold
remark, that she believed they would do no harm;
AMY CRANSTOUN. 1ST
and Wimple unsuspected slipped the right pair into
Amy's hand, contriving as he did so to let her see the
corner of a note within the glove. " Never mind the
pay this time, Mistress Amy," he said. Amy under-
stood him, dropped a silver penny in his hand, and
quickly disappeared. She then returned to her room,
bolted her door, and kissing the gloves, those fated
gloves she read the following note: " My beloved
Amy; and yet how mine, since your own cruel
sentence makes those barriers impassable which
tyranny has erected ? Still you are mine by your
own most precious confession ; by vows registered in
Heaven, and which not all the power of all the
uncles and aunts in Christendom can make void. I
have something to communicate that I cannot trust to
paper meet me, I beseech you, on Tuesday the 5th,
at 7 o'clock, P. M., under the elm tree, just beyond
the cove. If you refuse me this boon, I shall fear the
freezing atmosphere in which you live has chilled
the warm precincts of your heart. At seven, dear
Amy, remember, 7 P. M. of Tuesday the 5th
farewell till then."
" Tuesday the 5th" had come, and " 7 P. M."
drew nigh, when Amy put on the memorable
gloves, which were wrought with a bunch of forget-
me-nots, tied with a true-love knot ; and shelter-
ing herself in a <krk silk cloak and hood, she
eluded all the argus eyes about the mansion, and
reached the place of rendezvous. "He is not here !"
fche exclaimed, as her foot touched the spot ; " there is
yet one minute to spare," she added, looking at her
166 AMY CRANhfOUN.
watch ; " yet it should have been Lovell, not I, who
came the minute too soon next time," she. concluded,
drawing off one of her gloves, " Lovell shall wear
the forget-me-not."
Poor Lovell 1 he would not have broken the
thousandth part of a minute in his appointment ; but
the most faithful are not exempted from the cross
accidents of life. His horse, in passing a treacherous
causeway, had broken his leg. Lovell did not hesi-
tate to abandon him, and hurried on with all the
speed that vigorous and agile limbs, and a most
impatient spirit, could supply ; but even love cannot
travel like a sound horse, and when Lovell reached
the cove it was a quarter past seven. There was
still enough of twilight left, for him to discern the
print of Amy's little foot on the white sand. He bent
and kissed it, then sprang up the bank and onward
to the elm-tree she was not there! He thought
that in the spirit of a sportive retaliation for his
delay, she might have hidden in some shaded
recess. He explored every recess, penetrated every
possible hiding-place, he pronounced, and imploringly
repeated, her name, but all in vain. " She must have
been here!" he exclaimed, " I could not mistake the
print of any other foot for her's Oh Amy, could
you not wait one quarter of an hour for me ! Can
any thing have happened to her? She may have
been followed hither by some evil-minded person!"
Apprehensions accumulate most rapidly where the
safety of a defenceless object, and the dearest one in
life, is at stake. Lovell reiterated Amy's name in a
AMY CRAN8TOUN. 109
voice of agony ; he looked over, again and again, the
places he had already thoroughly searched ; he then
returned to the cove, there was no mark there of a
returning footstep; she could not then have gone
back that way. He remounted the bank, intending
to extend his search farther up the river. After
passing some willows, the shore was rocky, and just
beyond the rocks was a thicket of saplings, and
tangled bushes that led to the water's edge. " She
could not have passed here," he said. Something
caught his eye at the bottom of the rock. He descend-
ed, and just on the margin of the river he found one
of Amy's gloves, one of the pair which he had sent
by Wimple, and on the sand was imprinted the mark
of a small foot, that must have been recently there.
His head became giddy with terrific apprehensions,
and now, as he looked up the rock, he saw the fibrous
plants that grew from their fissures had been freshly
uprooted, and appeared as if their insufficient aid had
been resorted to. The mind will not at once surren-
der itself to despair. It was barely possible that some
acquaintance had been sailing on the river, and that,
to avoid surmises, Amy had returned to town in the
boat. But there was the glove! Amy would not
have carelessly dropped his love-token and the
uprooted plants ! Still there was a ray of hope, and
in one half hour Lovell burst into Governor Cran-
stoun's parlor, and darting his eye around the formal
circle, he explained its glance by asking in one
breath, "Is Amy here? has she returned ?- has
no one seen her ?" The family all rose, startled at
160 AMY CRANSTOUN.
his wild appearance. " Is the youth crazy ?" asked
Madam Cranstoun. *
" This intrusion is unlocked for, and manifestly
indecorous !" said the governor.
" Will no one answer me?" exclaimed Lovell, and
snatching a hand-bell from the table, he returned to
the hall and rang it furiously. The servants, alarmed,
obeyed the summons. " Have any of you seen
Mistress Amy?" he adced, "and when? and
where?" All looked amazed, none answered. "For
the love of Heaven speak, go to her room search
every where."
" Hold, young man !" said Governor Cranstoun,
" you are mad."
" Mad? I shall be mad ! she is lost ! it may
be, murdered."
The last word, articulated as it was in a broken
and suppressed voice, penetrated to every heart, and
instantly every mouth was opened, every room was
searched, and every corner of the mansion in an
uproar and confusion.
" I saw her before tea," said one. " I saw her go
out the side gate!" said another.
" Yes," said Miss Prudence, " and I saw her from
my window, and thought then she was going on a
wild goose chase."
The alarm soon spread from the governor's family
to the town ; alarm-bells were rung, and the men in
separate and small bands went out on a scout in
every direction. The search was continued for days,
and not relinquished till neither reason nor hope held
AMY CRAN8TOUN. J
out the slightest probability of success. But after the
people had returned to their usual occupations, and
Amy's disappearance had become an old story, it
continued to be as acutely felt by Lovell Reeve, as at
the first terrible moment of conviction that she was
gone. He abandoned his ordinary pursuits, forsook
his accustomed haunts ; and worn and wasted wander-
ed over the country, seeking and inquiring, but
finding nothing to feed his hopes, which were only
kept alive by the undying fires of love. Amy's
disappearance was just about the period of the death
of the heroic Indian, king Philip. A few of his old
comrades still maintained a feeble resistance to the
English. Lovell sometimes encountered their parties
in the fastnesses of the savage forests. They answer-
ed his questions patiently, and treated him kindly;
probably his wild and haggard aspect impressed them
with the belief that he was suffering from one of
those visitations of Heaven, which elicit far more
tenderness and respect from the sMrage than the
civilized man. On one occasion, at late twilight, he
had thrown himself down in a little nook made by
the turning of a brook that ran rambling past it, and
wearied and exhausted he had opened his wallet,
when he heard some one striding down the rocky
hill above him. From the dimensions of the figure
he mistook it for that of a man, but as it approached
nearer, he perceived it to be a young Indian woman.
Her head was thrown back, her brow painfully
contracted, and her eye fixed, and indicating a mind
abstracted from all outward things. She threw
162 AMY CRANSTOUN.
herself on the ground, almost at the feet of Loveli,
without seeing him. Her cheek was hollow, ana
her limbs tremulous ; but she seemed as if some
passionate grief obscured the sense of corporeal
wants. Loveli spoke to her ; asked her whither she
came? where she was going? to which she replied,
in such imperfect English, that she conveyed no mean-
ing to Loveli. One word alone he understood, and
that was the name of the famous Annowon, the Indian
chieftain, who had been the companion of Philip's
father, the tried and trusted associate of Philip himself,
and who, still unsubdued, though hunted like a beast
of prey, maintained his national independance in the
gloomy depth of a forest all that was left of the
wide domain inherited from his fathers.
Loveli offered the woman a portion of his evening
meal; she took it eagerly, devouring it ravenously,
and then drawing her blanket over her head, she
pillowed it on the rock, and was soon lost in deep
sleep. Poor Loveli envied her short oblivion, and
continued, hour after hour, watching the stars on
their courses, till at last nature overcoming his sense
of misery, he too fell asleep. When he awoke in the
morning, the Indian woman had disappeared. On
the crushed grass where she had lain there was
something that quickened Lo veil's pulses. He sprang
forward, seized, and examined it it was Amy's
glove. The mate he had worn in his bosom, from
the fatal hour of her disappearance. But alas ! the
woman who had possessed this clew had gone.
He shouted, he ran hither and yon, calling in the
AMY CRANSTOUN. 1
most supplicating voice, but he was only answered by
the forest echoes. He had, however, obtained some
light ; and vague, and feeble as it was, it might prove
a guiding beam over the weary waste that had
encompassed him. Annowon either did possess the
secret of Amy's fate, or could command it. This
conclusion made, Lovell instantly conceived a project,
and set forward to execute it.
We return to where we left our little friend Amy.
She was startled from her mental reproaches of her
lover by the plash of oars, and, turning, she saw a
canoe rowing through the cove, and stealthily close
into the shore. There were two Indians in the canoe,
but as there were many friendly natives in the
vicinity of Providence, she was not alarmed till the
canoe, having turned the ledge of rocks and disap-
peared, she saw the Indians coming up the bank
towards her. Escape was impossible. The one was
an old man, the other a youth. The young man
asked her to come with them. The elder, without
ceremony, seized her arm and dragged her forward.
She resisted with all her might, shrieking the name
of Lovell, and vainly hoping he might be near
enough to hear her voice, but that hope soon vanish-
ed. She was thrust into the canoe, and it was rapidly
rowed down the stream to a swampy landing-place,
where the Indians disembarked, drew their canoe up
into the thicket, and began their scramble through
164 AMY CRANSTOUN.
the morass. In the short time that had passed since
Amy had relinquished the hope of a rescue, she had,
with her strong native good sense, surveyed her
position, and made up her mind as to her mode of
conduct. In carrying her resolve into execution she
was sustained by an unconquerable, a Heaven-
inspired cheerfulness of spirit, that like a clear
meridian sun brightened even the darkest objects.
Poor girl ! she needed all its power. The Indians
were amazed to see her, instead of lagging, press
forward without a word or sigh of complaint. The
elder of her captors she soon ascertained to be the
far-famed Annowon, now verging to old age, but still
retaining many of the attributes of vigorous manhood,
a fiery eye, an upright person, and a firm step ; the
younger was Mantunno, a young man of two and
twenty, an exception to, rather than a specimen of his
race. His aspect was that of a man of peace and
gentleness. His voice was sympathetic, as he ever
and anon cheered on his captive, and where the
passes were most difficult he carried her, sinking to
his knees in the bogs, till he reached a firm foot-hold.
Thus they proceeded till they approached a place,
which still, after the passage of more than a century
and a half, retains the name of " Annowon' s rock."
This rock, or rather ledge of rocks, for if extends
from 70 to 80 feet, was then inaccessible except from
one point, being nearly surrounded by a morass,
which, before the land was drained, was covered with
water. Near its base the rocks have deep recesses
and shelving places, and being well hedged in with
AMY CIIANSTOUN. 165
felled trees and dried bushes, they afforded a sort of
sheltering nest for these wild denizens of the woods.
A beacon-light had penetrated through the tangled
wood, guiding Amy's step over the slippery rocks
and trembling mosses, but the way suddenly became
more difficult; the poor girl's heart of grace failed,
and exhausted she sunk down and burst into tears.
The old Indian muttered, " Telula cry ? never."
" Telula no woman," replied the young man, and
taking our poor little friend in his arms, he strided on
through bush and through brake, till emerging
suddenly, they came upon the access to their wild
resting-place, and as the now unimpeded light stream-
ed cheerfully up from it and shone on Amy's face,
Mantunno saw there a tolerably successful effort at a
smile of gratitude, which went very near to his heart.
Refreshed by her rest in the Indian's arms, and
encouraged by his kindness, and perhaps too, stimu-
lated by the wildness and novelty of the scene, for
Amy's was a somewhat romantic and most buoyant
spirit, she descended the ledge of rocks, sometimes
upheld by Mantunno, sometimes sustaining herself on
a foothold that seemed scarcely qualified to afford sup-
port for a bird, and sometimes holding fast by branches
of the trees that here and there had forced themselves
through the crevices of the rocks. Thus she reached
safely the broad base of the ledge, and looking around
her at various distances, and imperfectly, as the fire-
light glanced athwart them, she saw small groups
of Indians. Near her a bright fire was burning
under a caldron, from which issued fumes so savory,
166 AMY CRANSTOUN.
that considering the gross appetites of which common
souls are compounded, they would have been much
more like, than those strains the poet magnifies, to
"create a soul under the ribs of death." Tending
this caldron was a tall, bony Indian girl ; her features
were large, and expressive of turbulent passions, but
without a particle of the feminine softness that is
common to young women of all hues.
She looked like a vulture, eager to grasp a dove in
its talons, as she fixed her eyes on poor little Amy.
Some broken sentences she spoke to the youth, in her
native tongue, complaining of his protracted absence
and her wearisome solitude, and then turned her eye
again on Amy, as if she longed to know, but would
not ask, why that little garden-blossom had been
brought to their wild home.
Mantunno neither heeded her words nor her looks.
He was busied in making a bed of dry mosses and
leaves for his captive, and forming a bower for her,
by interweaving branches of the hemlocks and cedars
that were growing in abundance around them.
Annowon called loudly for supper, and Telula
served it, but without eating herself or offering a
portion to Amy till bidden by Annowon, when she
filled a wooden trencher and set it before her, and
Amy, in pursuance of her resolution to sustain her
strength and spirits by all human means, and we
suspect befriended by an honest appetite; ate as
heartily as if she had been at her uncle's table the
best in 'Providence Plantations.' After she had
finished her singular meal, she thanked Mantunno
AMY CRANSTOCN. 107
for the bed he had spread for her, bade him " good
night," in the sweetest tone of her sweet voice, and
crept into her little bower, where, after commending
herself to God, she fell asleep, pondering over the
chances of reunion to Lovell Reeve. Oh, what
lessons may be learned from those who act according
to the dictates of wise nature !
Mantunno laid himself down at a little distance
from Amy's bower, and long into the watches of the
night Telula observed his wakeful eye fixed on it, as a
miser watches the casket that contains his treasure.
But when at last his senses were locked in sleep,
Telula drew near the old man, who, as he sat leaning
against the rock, looked like a portion of it, so rigid
were his features, so sharp and immoveable the
outline of his bony figure. " Father," asked Telula,
in her own language, " is this Yengee girl yours, 01
Mantunno's captive?"
" Mine."
" My father is wise ! " said Telula, in that tone
which converts an affirmation into a negative.
" And why am I not wise, Telula."
" Was I not wretched enough yesterday ?"
" And why more wretched now ?"
" Did he ever pile the mosses for my head to rest
upon? Did he ever weave a curtain around my
bed? Did he ever watch my sleep as the eagle
watches its nestling? Mantunno's soul is as the
pale-faces ! He would fain mate with them,"
" What mean you, Telula?"
168 AMY CRANSTOUN.
" This girl ! this girl ! why did ye bring her
hither?"
The vehement tones of Telula's voice, and the
flood of tears she poured out, seemed, rather than her
words, to have conveyed her meaning to the old man.
He fixed his eye on her and said, " Ye would not
surely wed your mother's sister's son ?"
" I would."
" This is worse than all ! I charge ye, Telula, as
you love your life, never to speak never to think of
this again."
" I cannot obey you." Both reverted to silence ;
but the subject was for ever fixed in the minds of
both. The marriage of cousins was regarded as an
abomination by some, if not by all the Indian tribes,
and their strict adherence to the Hebrew law in this
particular is urged by some of our antiquaries as
among the proofs of their descent from the ten lost
tribes. Annowon had met with losses and miseries
in every shape. His wives were dead his children
had gone like flowers from the hill-side his people
had vanished his brother Philip had been slain in
battle, and his body hacked in pieces by the sacrile-
gious knives of the Yengees and some fifty followers,
and this barren rock on which the sun shone, and
the showers fell in vain, was all that was left of
his tribe and their wide domain; and now this
unlawful passion of the last of his race seemed to
him to fill up the measure of his sorrows.
He had seized Amy from an impulse of hostility
to her race ; he had learned from her her high con-
AMY CRANSTOUN. 169
nexions, and he now purposed either to make her a
victim of his vengeance, or an instrument in obtaining
his own terms in the treaty that, in his moments of
despair, he contemplated making with the English.
In the mean time, if Amy could be made to subserve
the purpose of extinguishing Telula's hopes and
affection, so much the better ; her hopes, she might ;
her affection, as it proved, could outlive hope.
When Amy awoke, she felt, as every one does in
coming out of the kind oblivion of sleep, the full
weight of her calamity. She seemed translated to a
new world. Every object around her was savage,
and the Indians themselves seemed, not creatures of
her kind, but meet offspring of the rocks and tangled
forest. But as the morning advanced her courage
returned. As she felt the cheering influence of the
sun, and heard the notes of familiar birds the voices
of old friends her spirit revived, and she came forth
from her bower so serene, bright, and beautiful, that
Mantunno exclaimed, in his own language, " The
morning star !" Telula's jealous ear caught the
words, and she darted a glance first at Amy, and then
at him, that made her recoil, and filled him with
alarm. He was aware of Telula's strong passions,
he was aware of her love for him, and that one look
had revealed to him what she might feel towards a
rival.
Day after day passed on, and he never left the rock
save when he was sure that his grandfather's presence
secured Amy's safety. Telula saw his distrust,
and it sunk deep into her soul. When he was
170 AMY CRANSTOUX.
present, his eye continually rested on Amy ; when he
was absent, it was plain his heart still lingered with
her. The brilliant feathers of birds, their curious
eggs, wild flowers, and every pretty treasure of the
forest, were laid at her feet, and Mantunno was
sufficiently rewarded with a kindly beam of Amy's
blue eye, or a faint smile from her bright lip, when
Telula felt that she would have given life for one
such proof of his love. The miserable girl's jealousy
was inflamed in every way. The old man permitted
and encouraged Mantunno's devotion, and Amy,
believing, from her own experience, love to be the
most generous of all sentiments, cherished it by
smiles and kindness. Telula neither ate nor slept.
Her form wasted, and her face became so haggard,
that Amy shrunk from her as from some blighting
demon.
One evening, just at twilight, Mantunno and Amy
were alone together. It was a rare chance, and Amy
eagerly seized it to urge a suit she had long medi-
tated. She entreated the young Indian, by all his
love of his own people and kindred by all his
friendship for her, to guide her back to her home.
" But," he tenderly remonstrated, " you have
neither father nor mother, sister nor brother they
make home." Amy wept bitterly. " Oh!" he con-
tinued, in the universal language of loving nature,
" let my home be thy home, and my people thy
people!"
Amy was rather stunned by this proposition.
She soon recovered her self-possession, and replied
AMY CRANSTOUN. 171
courageously, " Mantunno, I have not, it is true,
father nor mother, sister nor brother, but there is one
dearer to me than all these, and I am his promised
bride." The Indian threw himself on the ground,
and wished he were dead.
At this moment Telula, returning from a half
frenzied wandering, had let herself down the rocks,
her eyes fixed on them, but unseen and unheard by
them. She heard Amy say, as she approached near
them, " Oh rise, my good friend, I shall always love
you for your kindness"
Telula did not wait to hear her out. One word
only, love, of which she felt the full import, penetrated
to her brain. She instantly resolved on a project, to
which, though most abhorrent to her national feel-
ings, she was stimulated by her resentment towards
Annowon, and by the maddening passions of love
and jealousy. She sprang towards Amy, tore apart
a ribbon, by which was suspended the glove, LovelPs
precious gift, and thrusting it into her own bosom,
mounted the rock like a wild-cat, and went forth
brooding on her purpose, in her better mind dismiss-
ing it, and then again goaded on by her insane
passion, seeking the means of its execution.
Old Annowon was afflicted and soured by Telula's
protracted absence. He became sullen and crabbed,
and wreaked his bitter feelings on poor Amy. He
imposed domestic offices on her, compelled her to
bring water, and feed the fire. Mantunno saw her
fragile form bending under burdens; he felt, like the
lover in the play, that " such baseness ne'er had like
172 AMY CRAN8TOUN.
executor," and fain would he have given the strongest
proof of love a savage could give, by performing
these ignoble, womanly offices himself; but the old
man harshly forbade him, and asked him " when it
was he served Telula?"
Poor Amy's heart sunk as her hopes abated. She
was yet far from despairing, but each day seemed an
age to her. Mantunno's kindness was undiminished,
but now her soul revolted from it ; even the crabbed-
ness of the old man was more tolerable to her. Still,
save in the tears that would unbidden now and then
steal from her eyes, she did not betray the sadness of
her heart.
Two weeks had elapsed, and nothing was yet
heard of Telula, though Annowon had sought her in
all the forest haunts of his dispersed and hunted tribe.
He returned one night, wearied, and more sad than
sullen, threw himself on his mat.- Amy heard him
groaning, and at intervals repeating the same words,
" What says he ?" she asked of Mantunno.
He repeats, " my people ! my children ! Telula !
all gone !" With the instinct of her sex, Amy tried
to comfort him. She offered him his favorite drink,
unbidden prepared his evening meal, and, with
earnest words, prayed him to take it. He declined
her kindness, but he seemed touched by it, and
drawing her towards him, he said, "Ah, child, bright
days are written on thy smooth brow, and the promise
of friends and lovers stamped on thy beautiful face."
" Oh, then," said Amy, eagerly availing herself of
the first auspicious moment, "restore me to my
AMY CRANSTOUN. 173
friends do not make me wear out my life in
bondage and doing strange tasks. I shall soon die
if I hear not the voices of my kindred ! Oh, think
how hard it must be not to hear the language of your
own people ! not to sit to eat with those of your own
color ! to live on without a smile, and die without one
to mourn you."
" Amy ! Amy !" exclaimed Mantunno involuntarily.
The exclamation seemed to dry the fountain of
pity that Amy had opened in the old man's bosom.
" Ye are the child of my enemies," he said, " and
like all the pale-faces, ye have misery and ruin in
your track go to your bed, child go to your bed."
Amy crept into her little bower, and in the anguish
of her heart she mentally reproached her lover.
"Ah!" she thought, "had I been Lovell, and he
been me, I would not have rested till every white
man in the colonies was on foot, till every den in the
forest was searched ; but, alas ! alas ! men do not
love as we love !" Far into the night she revolved
these bitter thoughts, but finally, true to herself and
true to Lovell, she fell asleep, alleging very good
reasons why Lovell could not have found her.
While all around him slept, Annowon was awake,
gloomily pondering the past, more gloomily the
future. The evening fire had gone out. The moon
looked down smilingly, just as she had looked in his
happiest days, on the stern home of the old warrior.
Her silvery beams fell on the branches as they waved
in the light breeze; shone on the flowers that, project-
ing from the crevices, hung over the rocks ; penetrated
16*
174 AMY CRANSTOUN.
even to the recess where Annowon's trusty followers
were sleeping; defined Mantunno's graceful figure as
he lay near Amy's bower, dreaming of the lovely
form within it ; fell on that form modestly wrapped in
a cloak, and played over her fair cheek and bright
hair the fairest and brightest that ever rested on a
leafy pillow in the wild world.
Annowon was suddenly startled from his abstraction,
and looking up, he saw Telula creeping slowly and
cautiously down the rocks. Annowon, as soon as he
had recovered from his first joyful sensation of
surprise, perceived the shadow of some person follow-
ing her cast back upon the rock, and then another,
and another, but these shadows were so confounded
with that of a large basket that Telula carried, and
constantly shifted from arm to arm, that they convey-
ed no definite information to Annowon ; and he, as
little expecting treachery from Telula as from his
own soul, was not alarmed, till an Indian, instantly
followed by others, grasped the branch of a tree,
swung down the last descent, and round an angle
of the rock, and darting into the recess where Anno-
won's followers were sleeping, butchered them. At
the same moment the old chief himself was seized.
Telula rushed past him, rent open the bower as if it
were but a spider's web, drew a hatchet from beneath
her blanket, and raised her arm over Amy ; Mantun-
no sprang forward and interposed his person in time
to save Amy by the sacrifice of his own life !
As his body fell at her feet, Telula recoiled, then
again raising her arm and flourishing the hatchet in
AMY CRAN8TOUN. 17
the air, she purposed surer aim at the " Yengee girl,"
but Amy was already far up the rock, in the arms of
Lovell Reeve! Telula gazed after her, she felt
Mantunno's warm blood dripping from her hatchet on
her arm, and sunk senseless beside his body.
It had all passed like a flash of lightning, that
uproots and tears asunder that which was fast rooted
and bound together. Annowon turned his eye from
the bloody tragedy, and saw himself in the hands of
Captain Church, the famous vanquisher of King
Philip. He then, as history records, took from his
bosom two most curious bits of wampum, and some
other consecrated trifles, that had been a portion of
Philip's royal insignia, and kneeling, surrendered
them to Church, with the ceremony and feeling with
which a faithful follower yields the banner of his chief-
tain. He then sunk down, and covered his face with
his hands, saying, " I have done I am the last of
my people !"
We have not space to relate Annowon's fate. It
fills one of those pages that we could wish expunged
from the history of christians.
It is not necessary to detail the particulars that led
to the catastrophe we have described. We have
faintly intimated them. The curious reader will find
them at large in the contemporaneous histories. We
have added some circumstances not there recorded,
and we have learned from that veracious source, " the
best authority," that Telula was afterwards seen on
the shores of the blue Ontario, where, among the wild
176 AMY CRAN8TOBN.
people who confound inspiration with insanity, she
was reverenced and cherished.
Lovell Reeve, with his rescued betrothed, proceed-
ed forthwith to Governor Cranstoun's, and no one
thenceforth opposing his right to her, it was soon
confirmed hy the solemn ceremonial of marriage.
The only exception to the general kindness lavished
on Amy, was a remark from one of her discreet
cousins, on whom a wedding seems not to have had
its usual benign influence, "that young ladies must
expect to pay dearly for evening assignations with
clandestine lovers."
A SEA-PICTURE,
BY ORENVILLE MELLEN.
COME sit with me, here by these dark old rocks,
Where, as they heave in, you may dip your feet
Into the gurgling waters. This white shaft
'Gainst which we lean the beacon to these seas
Whose sleepless eye looks ever through the storm
And beauty of the night, undimmed the same
I've seen lashed, to its lantern, by the surf
Of this mad ocean, when the winds were up
In their loud revel.
I remember me,
While yet a boy, I gloried in the scenes
Of these sea-tempests and I oft-times sought
These gray rocks, to look out upon the sky,
When the waves mounted to it, as to meet
The stooping clouds.
Once, when the year was dim,
And the heavens curtained with the coming storm,
So deep, and so like night, that men had pass'd
178 A SEA- PICTURE.
Into their homes, and barred their very doors,
As against something fearful I had crept,
Full of that young but terrible delight
That mastered me in those days, to these cliffs,
And in a shelter' d nook, far over us, sat down
To watch the mustering spirits of the gale.
Far out on the horizon I beheld
One lone ship on its darkening arch relieved,
As some huge white-winged bird, just quivering
Its pinions o'er the billow it had spurned
In its uprising. As I looked, it grew
Upon my vision, till a stately bark,
With its unmastered canvass, through the foam,
Right on the stormy pathway of my eye,
Came plunging on. The tempest now was loud
And its far voice, from crest to crest of waves,
Was calling through the deep in that stern sound,
The everlasting anthem of the sea,
When storm stirs all its music and here here
Upon these iron rocks it threw itself,
Like leaping thunder, till I felt my seat
Quake under me, as though the frighted earth
Moved on its great foundations !
She came, on
Helmless and masterless yet I could see
From my far aerie there where I was held,
As by some wand that spelled me into stone,
Stirless and tongueless 'mid the wild uproar
The dim deck crowded and could trace faint forms
A SEA-PICTURE. 179
And some in white robes, flashing through the dull
And dizzy air the thundering waves threw up,
Till the mist bathed my brow.
I heard no sound
From the upheaving vessel though I saw
Forms multitudinous, with arms upflung,
And faces lifted to the pouring sky
For such was the hoarse bellowing of the tide,
And the commingled roaring of the wind,
That the scared sea-bird, as his dripping wing
Flapped in my face upon his circling flight,
Passed with his shriek unheard.
I saw her now,
Tumbling beneath me. But no hope was there !
Already half a wreck, the noble bark
Had struggled with the storm, through drifting cloud
And measureless abyss ; till, tired and torn,
She bent despairingly, before the gale,
Seeking a quick destruction. I could see
Perched on that roaring pinnacle, how blind
And aimless she swooped through the tossing foam,
With rudder racked rent mast and shattered sail.
But one mast staggering stood and at its peak
A black flag, through the thin and hurrying clouds,
Stream' d to the troubled air; beneath it clung
To the mad, rocking spire, with naked arm,
A lone, drenched sea-boy, with his reeking hair,
Now in the rain-cloud dashed, and now in foam !
Oft on the giddy yard, where yet the sail
180 A SEA-PICTURE.
Flared with its lashing remnant to the sky,
I saw the crouching sailor
In impotent essay at some wild grasp,
His thought had whispered in those intervals
Of light, that flash on life's extremities
For hope is ever handmaid to despair I
Yet nearer ! and I saw the straggling ropes
Flung on the rattling gust and a rent flag
Was shivering from the shrouds but nothing there
To tell the story of its land. Then as she rose
Upon some mountain billow, I could see
A quick smoke darting through the scattering foam,
Belched from some signal gun, that a mad hand
Had touched, in desperation but no sound
Boomed through the waters, and the roaring wind.
At length she struck and I could see the crew
Leap at the quick revulsion and uplifting
Their arms, as if in gladness, that an end
Had come upon their agony as if
They shouted o'er the yawning sepulchres
That they had dreamt of, with a wildering hope
Of some last strange salvation as though now
They hailed their very graves, with the quick eye
And babbling madness of despairing hearts,
When the dark leap must come.
Upon the side
Of the lurched ship stood one, whose convulsed arm
Strained to her bosom something, that it held
A SEA-PICTURE. 181
With an unearthly energy that grasp
Which Nature owns its strongest! her lank hair
Part to the tempest streamed, and part her breast
Received to veil her offspring, and to dull
Its faint cries for lost sustenance. One glance
Told me the tale. The mother and the child
Passing, unparted, to a common grave !
I look'd and they were gone and in their place
Stood two gazing the last time into eyes
That were the only language of their hearts,
In that last hour of agony. I saw
Them, hand in hand, approach the reeking side
Of the rent bark and looking the last time
Into each other's faces, and then down
Into the gulphing waters, they did leap,
With fingers yet entangled to the waves!
And hearts unseparate defying there,
In love's undying unison, the pall
That death would cast round their fidelity !
Again upon the parting deck stood one
An old man with white hair and terror-struck.
He was a miser and each palsied hand
Clutched the just bursting bag, as though he felt
That he might bribe death with such glittering coin,
To pass such meagre prey or, if he died,
The pang would be less bitter with his gold !
But ah ! no purchase from that sentence came
I saw the sweltering sea leap over him,
And snatch his treasures to its sunless cavea.
16
182 A SEA-PICTURE.
The throng had passed, as it seem'd, under me,
Into one grave. Some laid them down and died,
In their own fear's intensity and some,
Folding rude cloaks around them, bowed their heads,
And turned their cringing backs upon the sea,
That smote them to their death as though, thus
cowled,
And bending, to escape the billow's wrath.
And now upon the desolated deck
But two remained one was a dark-brown man,
A son of Solitude, like those that roamed
Once through these sounding woods. He stood alone,
His red arms folded on his stalwart breast,
And his bronzed face bent down, with moveless gaze,
Upon the hurrying waters. At his side,
Went to and fro a madman, with his hands
Flung out in supplication, and, anon,
Tearing with frenzy at his knotted hair,
To give it to the winds ! With leaping step
He traversed the last timbers and at times
Waved round his head, exulting," the remains
Of the last tattered flag.
The Indian's gaze,
Unchanging, as himself, upon the gulph
Still rested as of a charmed statue's eye!
He saw no terror in the passage. 'Twasto him
But a wild journey to the spirit land,
Where he should meet his fathers.
A. SEA. PICTURE.
But enough
My vision, as enchanted, still glared down
Upon these ringing and insatiate rocks.
The storm still howled and as the rattling rain
Beat in my face, my sight, yet more intense
Grew to the groaning ship till she went down,
And the wide sea poured in, in victory,
Shouting and trampling o'er her sepulchre !
THE HARMONY OF NATURE,
AND
SOVEREIGNTY OF MAN.
THERE is joy among the icebergs, when ends the
polar night,
And their mighty crystals flash in the newly waken-
ed light ;
There is joy in shouting Egypt, when through its
valleys wide,
Pours the fountain of her harvests its renovated tide ;
Through each zone that belts the earth, Nature sings
a gladsome song,
In numbers sweetly simple or magnificently strong ;
By the well-spring in the desert, beneath the spread-
ing palm,
Her voice rings sweet and holy through an atmos-
phere of balm ;
Where Niagara the burthen of his congregated
springs
Hurls down the yawning chasm, how gloriously she
sings,
THE HARMONY OF NATURE. 185
Afar in leafy forests, where the axe hath never
swung,
Where the Indian roams sole monarch, and the
panther rears her young ;
In meadows of the wilderness, where proudly in the
air,
The elk his antlers tosseth, and the bison makes his
lair;
From heights, where the strong eagle sways his
pinions on the cloud,
And valleys, where the vine's bright leaves the blush-
ing clusters shroud ;
From the teeming lap of Ocean, where rest the sunny
isles,
And white winged barks are laden with their rich
and mellow spoils ;
With trumpet-tongued sublimity, or low and silver
voice,
Nature swells the mighty anthem, whose burthen is,
Rejoice!
Oh! life sustaining Air, bounding Ocean, verdant
Earth,
The universe is ringing with the music of your mirth;
Yet wide as is your empire, and vast as is your plan,
Ye are but vassal servitors, that minister to Man ;
'Tis true, in fierce rebellion, there are moments when
ye rise,
And crush the weak defences he hath labored to
devise ;
Yet, past your burst of anger, again ye own his sway,
Ye come to him with tribute, ye hear him and obey,
186 THE HARMONY OF NATURE.
He heweth down and rendeth the patriarchs of the
woods,
He fashions them to palaces, that bear him on the
floods ;
Next the boundless realms of air must be subject to
his pride,
And lo ! the startled eagle beholds him at his side.
On earth a mighty agent propels him with a speed,
That mocks the fleetest gallop of the desert-nurtured
steed;
Intelligence his sceptre, his weapon, and his shield,
Who shall limit the results, that his enterprise may
yield.
How glorious is his heritage, how loud should be his
praise,
When even things inanimate, a song of gladness raise |
The bounteous gifts of Providence for ever round
him shower,
For him the wild birds carol, and for him the burst-
ing flower,
From the jewelled arch of heaven, to the daisy-check-
ered sod,
Is one continued banquet for the master-piece of God.
J. B.
THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR.
HARDLY had Miss Ashton dropped the pen, when
the door of the apartment flew open, and the Master
of Ravenswood entered.
* * * * *
He planted himself full in the middle of the apart-
ment, opposite to the table at which Lucy was seated,
on whom, as if she had been alone in the cham-
ber, he bent his eyes with a mingled expression
of deep grief and indignation. His dark-colored
riding cloak, displaced from one shoulder, hung
around one side of his person in the ample folds of
the Spanish mantle. The rest of his rich dress was
travel-soiled and deranged by hard riding. He had
a sword by his side and pistols in his belt.
* *
The matted and dishevelled locks of hair, which
escaped from under his hat, together with his fixed
and unmoved posture, made his head more resemble
a marble bust than that of a living man. He said not
a single word, and there was a deep silence in the
company for more than two minutes.
It was broken by Lady Ashton, who in that space
partly recovered her natural audacity. She demand-
ed to know the cause of this unauthorized intrusion.
Sir Walter Scott. Bride of Lammermooi , ch. xxiii.
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR;
OB,
THE YANKEE TRICK.
BY WILLIAM L. STONE.
He hath ribands of all colors i" the rainbow; points, more than all tha
lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle ; though they came to him by
the gross ; inkles, caddices, cambrics, lawns : Why, he sings them over,
as they were gods and goddesses ; he so chants to the sleeve-band, and
the work about the square on't Sftakspeare.
Well; if I be served another such trick, I'll have my brains ta'en and
buttered, and given to a dog for a new-year's gift. Idem.
" SOME are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon them," is a proposi-
tion of Master Shakspeare's, which may or not be
illustrated in the course of the present narrative.
Richard Moon or rather Dick Moon for he was
always called Dick in Connecticut was the fourth
of the seven sons of Ezra Moon, Esq., of Pettypaug,
a parish in the town of Saybrook, memorable for the
gallant defence made by its inhabitants against the
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 189
British forces, during the late war. I am thus parti-
cular in the outset, and have introduced my hero to
the reader thus early, in compliance with the recom-
mendation of Doctor Watts, that in writing biography,
every thing should be placed in the precise order in
which it occurred. Dick Moon, then, as it has just
been remarked, was the son of Ezra Moon, a very
worthy and estimable man, a stanch supporter of
Jefferson, and of course a warm and efficient friend of
General Hart, of Saybrook, for whom he annually
voted for governor, until the decease of that faithful,
but always unsuccessful, candidate for the executive
honors of Connecticut. Too wise, however, to meddle
with politics to the detriment of his fortune, 'Squire
Moon so well managed his temporal affairs, as not
only to provide comfortably for his large family, but
to add somewhat every year to the small patrimony
inherited from his father. His sons, moreover, gave
early evidence of activity, industry, and intelligence.
But of all the number, Dick was the shrewdest in
getting money, the most successful in its keeping, and
the most fortunate in providing for its steady accu-
mulation.
The craniological theories of Gall and Spurzheim
had only been heard of from afar, when Dick Moon
was in his childhood, and the bumps upon the heads
of young and old, were in those days left unexamined,
save when arising from an accident, or a quarrel j
but had the Avorld then been blessed with those
scientific itinerants, who read character in the os fron-
tis or the occiput, instead of the eyes, and judge of
190 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
propensities by feeling the head, instead of studying
the heart, our hero's organ of acquisitiveness would
doubtless have been declared very strongly developed.
The acquisition of money was indeed a passion with
him, and from the moment he began to understand its
value, his principal study was how to obtain it at
first by solicitation, but as soon as he had been induct-
ed into the mysteries of exchange, by traffic and
barter. Indeed, had Richard Moon grown up with
as little principle as Hugh Audley, so well did he
understand the art of making money multiply itself,
that he might have equalled that great Shylock of
England, who flourished through the reigns of the
first two of the Stuarts.
An anecdote will here at once illustrate his pen-
chant for money even in his childhood, and his
ingenuity in the pursuit of his object. At a very
early age he had contracted the habit of asking every
visiter at his father's house to give him a cent. The
request being so moderate, was of course never
denied when copper change was at hand, and Dick
was careful to stow away every penny.^ His parents,
being, as we have already seen, thrifty farmers, and
" well to do in the world," as the practice continued,
began to feel no small degree of mortification upon
the subject often remonstrating with their little son
against his conduct, but to no purpose. Although he
might promise reformation, yet on the appearance of
the next visiter, he would be sure to watch for an
opportunity to ask for another cent. His parents at
length determined upon a decisive course of conduct
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 191
in the premises, and Dick was solemnly admonished,
and threatened with positive and severe chastisement
in the event of his repeating the offence. The
appearance of the next visiter was a severe trial to the
urchin. He was observed to be unusually exercised
in his mind, and fidgetted about with great uneasiness.
Once or twice he seemed almost upon the point of
speaking out his accustomed request, when a stern
glance from his father checked the words ere they
had quite dropped from his tongue. But Yankee
ingenuity is often an overmatch for any thing, and
Dick at length triumphed. Edging up towards the
stranger, cunningly attracting his attention by a
significant leer, and at the same time casting a min-
gled look of archness and terror upon his father, in
the legitimate dialect of " down east," he said, " 1
guess you don't know nobody who would be willing
to lend me a cent, do you !" His victory was com-
plete, for instead of a rebuke, a burst of laughter
followed alike from the 'Squire, and those who had
observed the workings of the mind of little Dick, and
his evasion of the letter of the command.
Still, although so thoroughly intent upon money-
gathering, it must be observed in justice to Dick,
that he was not prompted thereunto by avarice, for
there was nothing of meanness in his composition.
It was never known, either in the days of his juve-
nility, or of his manhood, that he resorted to unfair
or dishonorable means to gratify his favorite passion
of " putting money in his purse ;" but in the way of
trade and barter, where both parties were supposed to
192 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
have their eyes open, he thought it not wrong to
practice upon the maxim, that
A thing
Is worth as much as it will bring :
And never was son of Adam, young or old, more
prolific in expedients to turn a penny with success.
He was full of good humor, adroit in his little
schemes of traffic and gain, and persuasive with his
tongue and hence a general favorite, not only
among his own brothers and sisters, but in the neigh-
borhood, and among his school-fellows, for 'Squire
Moon was careful to give his family the advantage of
the best schools in Pettypaug. These characteristics,
it may be thought, were not altogether in keeping
with Dick's ardent pursuit of the root of evil ; but it
must be remarked, that at no period of his life did he
ever exhibit a solitary token of the miser's disposition.
On the contrary, he displayed a thousand generous
traits and amiable qualities. Possessing always a
fine flow of spirits, ready in repartee, and quick in
his perceptions of the ludicrous abounding in
humorous anecdote, as he approached the age of
manhood, he was always, boy and man, the life of
the circle in which he chanced to mingle. But in all
matters of trade, he was wide awake keen as a
briar. No sooner did he find that one of his brothers,
or other comrades, had become possessed of a " nine-
pence lawful," or, perchance, a pistareen, but he set
his wits at work to gain it; and he generally
succeeded by offering some tempting article in barter,
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 193
and persuading them of the advantages they would
derive from the purchase. The consequence was,
that on the semi-annual returns of election holy-days,
a " general training," and thanksgiving, when money
was wanted by his brothers and others for the pur-
chase of election-cake or ginger-bread, and to defray
the expense of turkey-shootings, Dick, who was sure
to hold " the deposites," was called upon to furnish
the loans necessary for each occasion. This he was
ever ready and prompt to do, but always exacting
some sufficient pledge for security, and never failing
to regain his own " with usury." Foremost in the
amusements and jollifications incident to those festive
days, moreover, it was nevertheless rare indeed
that they were indulged at the expense of his own
cash. Not that he escaped his share of the reckoning
by stinginess not he; but he had great readiness in
devising tricks of legerdemain, and in acquiring
hints for the performance of the simpler experiments
of strolling jugglers. Trifling wagers upon his
successful feats of dexterity, therefore, were always
sufficient to pay his proportion; his associates were
more than compensated by the exhibition of his
powers, while the elderly buxom lasses were delighted
with his skill, and the matrons of the parish pro-
nounced him " eena-most a witch."
It would be useless to recount the almost countless
devices to which Dick resorted for driving a profitable
internal commerce among his playmates during his
boyhood. Suffice it to say, that he was always ready
for a trade even to the swopping of his hat, or
17
194 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
exchanging pocket knives " unsight unseen," which
was formerly a frequent mode of " dickering" among
the lads at the country schools of Connecticut.
Lucky dog that he was, he was ever sure to have the
best of the bargain.
The invasion of Pettypaug by the British forces
landed from the ships of Commodore Hardy, then
lying off the estuary of the Connecticut river, during
the last war, has been adverted to in rather a back-
handed way in the opening of our story. It is
needless to recapitulate the history of that memorable
exploit. Suffice it to say, the people of that rather
sequestered parish could hardly have anticipated a
visit from the enemy, at least not until after the more
attractive parish of Saybrook should have received
the honor. But it so fell out that the rich booty of
General Hart's large mercantile establishment was
passed by unheeded ; and early one morning, as the
good people of Pettypaug were brushing the poppies
from their eyes, and ere the sun-beams had chased
away the saffron hues of Aurora, to their infinite
surprise they discovered that a column of red-coats
were enjoying their morning parade in the midst of
their principal street ! Of course the old ladies, with
and without petticoats, Avere suitably frightened,
while those who would willingly have made fight if
they could, were precluded therefrom by the peculiar
circumstances of the case, having been taken com-
pletely unawares, alike unarmed and undressed !
For Dick Moon, however, ready and quickwitted
in any emergency, it was a golden morning. As
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 196
if by instinct, and before the other villagers had
recovered from their surprise, he struck up a trade
with the strangers, and by exchanging whatever of
butter and eggs, vegetables and poultry, he could lay
his hands upon, for the king's money for so that the
metal was good, he cared not for the stamp Dick
amassed enough to supply a snug little exchequer.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good ; and while
the fleet of merchantmen which had been moored
thus far up the river for safety, were blazing away as
though Copenhagen Jackson were there himself,
Dick Moon was laying the foundation of his future
fortunes.
Money grew every day scarcer during the con-
tinuance of the war, and Dick was consequently
enabled to make his own terms in occasional and not
unfrequent loans of small sums to those in want
always receiving a pledge of more than ample value,
as security for the repayment on a certain day. Most
commonly the pledge was a watch, as being at once
the most convenient, and the most readily converted
into cash. It was amusing at times to see the number
of silver chronometers hanging in his bedroom ; and
with him there was no " three days' grace." If the
money did not come at the time stipulated, a rigid for-
feiture of the pledge was exacted. But as he dealt ex-
plicitly and honorably with every one, and was withal
remarkable for his conciliating manner, notwithstand-
ing his exactness in claiming and receiving his own,
he made no enemies by his scrupulous adherence to
the exact rules of his bank ; and having taken tho
196 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
tide of fortune at its flood, he was drifted successfully
onward.
The consequence was, that the close of the war
found Dick Moon just one-and-twenty, with ready
money sufficient wherewith to purchase a fine horse,
and a substantial and capacious pedlar's cart, with tin
ware, and other " notions," enough to fill it. Thus
furnished and provided, without owing a cent in the
world, our hero sallied forth, as thousands of this
itinerant race of merchants had done before him.
But it may readily be supposed, from the character
we have sketched of him, that he was not of the
common order of pedlars. Although possessing a
full share of the characteristic shrewdness and humor
of the tribe, he was, nevertheless, above practising
the tricks which have won an unenviable fame for
the order ; and he dealt not in wooden clocks that
became tired of ticking before sundown, or in tortoise
shell combs made of glue and molasses, or in horn-
gun-flints and artificial indigo. Setting his face
toward the far south, he traversed the " ancient
dominion," and the Carolinas, year after year, bring-
ing back golden returns, and every where leaving a
good character. To be sure, he sold at a profit, and
was certain never to exchange commodities to a
disadvantage. It was his business to do so ; but he
was guilty of none of the peculiar cunning and
trickery imputed so universally to those of his
calling ; and was never afraid to traverse the same
route a second time a fact which could not be
predicated of most pedlars. Indeed, wherever known,
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. W7
the presence of Dick Moon was always welcome,
since he was not only a man of intelligence, but of
agreeable address, and "most excellent fancy" full
of good humor and native drollery, without the too
frequent accompaniments of coarseness and vulgarity.
The hospitality of our southern fellow-citizens is
proverbial. Good inns, in that country, are few and
far between ; and even indifferent ones are not very
numerous. The broad domains of the opulent plan-
ters, moreover, necessarily throw their mansions a
goodly distance asunder. Of society, beyond their
own immediate family circles, they see but compara-
tively little, save when they go abroad in quest of it.
The consequence is, that they are frequently as much
favored by the company of an intelligent stranger-
guest, as the latter is by an unexpected invitation, and
a cordial reception. This explanation prepares the
way for the relation of another important incident in
the life of our hero. It happened on one occasion,
that Dick found himself chaffering in the way of trade
with the mistress of a large but isolated mansion, in the
lower part of Virginia, at a rather late hour in the even-
ing. The lady disputed his prices, and examined so
many of his wares and other notions, as ladies are wont
to do, that the shades of night were drawing on before
he was r.eady to resume his journey. Added to which,
a massy pile of dark clouds in the west threatened a
tempest. Under these circumstances, and in consider-
ation, moreover, of the pedlar's intelligence and agree-
able address, he was invited to remain for the night.
When the lord of the mansion came in, on being
. 17-
198 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
made acquainted with the circumstance, he was
evidently not altogether pleased with the arrangement
He was a republican who at the hustings could talk
eloquently of liberty and equality, while at home
more than a hundred slaves trembled at his presence.
He was proud of his caste, and thought that nothing
was equal to old Virginia, because, at that time, he
had never travelled beyond it. The Yankees, of all
men, he had been taught to despise as a miserly race,
who never wept but when weeding their onions, nor
blushed, but when plating their tin and the Yankee
pedlars were the objects of his particular abhorrence.
And yet there were many excellent points in the
character of Major Dinwiddie. Among his equals
there were few possessing greater intelligence, or
more amiable and generous qualities than he, unless his
judgment had been warped, or his feelings wrought
upon by prejudice. But, on the whole, it needed
not half the penetration possessed by the pedlar, to
discern that he was not altogether as welcome a guest
as probably would have been one of the Gholsons or
the Randolphs. Not many words had been inter-
changed, before the planter indicated still more
intelligibly his half-dissatisfied humor, by asking
abruptly
" Well, brother Jonathan, I reckon you've brought
along a power of notions to please the Virginians,
eh! What have you?"
" Pretty much every thing, I guess ; tin-ware, pins and
pepper, drums, needles and shuttle-cocks, fiddles, dolls,
warming-pans, mouse-traps, and other sweet-meats "
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 189
" Together with a heap of wooden nutmegs,
I reckon how do they sell?"
" Why, sax-a-fax* sell pretty lively yet, but white
oak don't go very well of late."
The planter was by no means insensible to the
ludicrous ; and the promptness of the pedlar's replies,
the peculiar cast of gravity with which they were
uttered, and their oddity withal, soon dissipated the
prejudice which had chilled his welcome, and placed
Dick Moon at once upon a different footing for the
evening. Major Dinwiddie discovered that he was
entertaining a very clever fellow, albeit a pedlar;
and after sipping a cheerful julep together, the
Virginian sunk the aristocrat, and conversed as freely
of his tobacco crop, his negroes, his horses, and his
hounds, as though talking with one of the Drom-
gooles or Merriwethers of his own county. He made
many inquiries of the pedlar respecting matters and
things in Yankee land, and in the course of the
evening was very inquisitive on the subject of the
" Yankee tricks," of which he had heard so much.
The pedlar, on his part, sustained the conversation very
creditably, for himself, his country, and his calling.
In regard to the peculiar "tricks," for the practice
of which his countrymen were enjoying such unenvia-
ble notoriety at the South, he disclaimed, and truly, any
practical knowledge of them himself, while engaged
in his itinerating commercial intercourse with the
plantation states, nor did he acknowledge them to be
exclusively characteristic of the Yankees. There
* The provincial pronunc.ation of Sassafras.
200 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
were tricks in all trades and occupations, and tricky
men in all countries. The adroitness with which
they were practised, would of course depend upon the
shrewdness of the artist not upon his parentage, or
the place of his birth ; and he was greatly mistaken
if Virginia horse jockeys could not be found equalling
any wooden clock vender that ever came from
Connecticut. But the planter was incredulous. He
had heard so much of the tricks of the Yankee
pedlars, that he could not divest himself of the idea
that the study of the art was a part of their profession.
Hence he supposed them to be a sort of roving
brotherhood bound by a mystic tie like the freema-
sons with the art of working tricks by a process
known only to their own hopeful fraternity, and
so curious was he to behold a legitimate Yankee
trick, that he begged of his guest to work one for his
own special gratification. Our hero had no desire to
gain notoriety in that way, and he repeatedly begged
to be excused, modestly alleging his inability to
perform any such exploit, either of dexterity, or of
wit. Importunity, however, at length prevailed over
resolution ; and as the family separated for the night,
Dick promised to show the Major a trick before he
took his departure in the morning.
An ebony damsel, lustrous from very blackness,
lighted Dick to his chamber, and pointed him to a
high bed, into which, when he threw himself, he sunk
as into a sea of down, so light and lively were the
feathers. The sheets were sweet and clean, and over
all was spread a superb Marseilles counterpane,
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 201
beautifully wrought in delicate figures, as if the
needle-work of some fairy fingers, and rivalling the
driven snow in whiteness.
The pedlar awoke with the lark from a glorious
slumber, and was dressed before a single inmate of
the mansion was on the move. Having completed his
toilet, in regard to which he was always somewhat
more attentive than is usual with his profession, he took
the counterpane from the bed, folded it carefully as
though just taken from a bale of merchandise, attach-
ed a commercial mark to the fringe, and carried it
out in the gray of the morning, before any of the
family had risen, and placed it in his cart. The
wants of his faithful horse were next consulted, and
after measuring to him an ample supply of provender,
he regained his apartment, yet unperceived, and in
due season presented himself below with the family,
In the country, where time is employed according
to the design of the Creator where the night is taken
for repose, as the day was ordained for labor and
where it is thought no mark of disrespect to rise before
the sun, breakfast is truly a morning meal. Accord-
ingly, it was found smoking upon the table, as the
pedlar descended into the parlor, where, in a moment
afterward, he was joined by the hospitable major and
his lady. Of course the morning repast, inviting and
bountiful to an excess, according to southern cus-
tom, was not to be declined, and Dick gave practical
testimony that he was not afflicted by the dyspepsia.
In due season, and without unnecessary delay, the
pedlar's horse was in harness, and he was just
208 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
preparing to ascend his box to depart, when, as though
suddenly recollecting himself, he called to the lady,
and informed her that he had in his box one article,
and only one, which he was exceedingly desirous
she should possess. It was a splendid Marseilles
counterpane, Avrought exactly after a pattern which
had been drawn for the Duchess of Berri, and in
consideration of the kindness with which he had been
entertained, she must have it. He thereupon brought it
forth from his cart, and opened it to the admiration of
the whole family. It was so fine, so beautiful, so
much handsomer than any thing of the kind they had
ever seen, that the vote was unanimous that it must be
purchased. And then, it was so cheap only forty
dollars ! " My dear," said Mrs. Dinwiddie to the
Major "How lucky! It is just the thing that I was
wanting for the blue chamber, against Mr. Calhoun
comes along on his way to congress !" And so the
counterpane was purchased. The pedlar pocketted
the money, bade them good morning, and mounted
his cart.
" But stay a moment, Mr. Moon," called the Major,
as the pedlar began to raise his whip for a flourish :
" Where is the Yankee trick you promised to show
me before your departure?"
" Never mind," replied Dick, "you will find it out
soon enough!" and with a crack of his whip, he
drove off at a rapid gait more after the pattern of
Jehu, than he had ever driven before.
The denouement followed in due season, as a matter
of course ; but the pedlar was far away, and there
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 903
was no remedy. And besides, to a man of Major
Dinwiddie's pretensions and pride, having been
caught in a trap of his own setting, the less said about
it in public the better. The story was too good,
however, long to be kept ; and it may well be suppos-
ed that the merriment created at his expense, was not
calculated to increase his affection for the venders of
tin- ware from Connecticut.
Years rolled on, and the wheels of Dick Moon's
cart meantime rolled over almost every state in the
Union each revolution adding to his temporal
stores, and of course increasing his investments ; for
our hero was not the man to leave either, at loose
ends, or idle. And here, though not without great
reluctance, his biographer must take leave of him for
the present.
It was just at night-fall, one day, in the autumn of
1832 the fatal year in which the scourge of India,
the cholera, made its appearance, and swept with
fearful mortality through the land, from the Gulf of
the St. Lawrence to the Delta of the Mississippi
that a well mounted gentleman, somewhat fatigued,
however, and having the appearance of one upon
a long journey, rode up to an indifferent looking inn,
about midway between the parishes of East and West
Feliciana, in the neighborhood of Baton Rouge, on
the Mississippi. This is by far the pleasantest district
of Louisiana. Having traversed alone, and on horse-
back, from New-Orleans, a distance of nearly two
2M DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
hundred miles, over a dead level, diversified only
between the plantations by pine woods and swamps,
alluvions and quaking prairies, it was an agreeable
change for the traveller, to find himself in a country
breaking into hills and valleys, the former covered
with laurel, and the latter with rich plantations. The
foliage of the trees was assuming those rich and varied
hues, which impart so much beauty to the autumnal
drapery of the American forests, and the stranger had
moreover refreshed himself repeatedly in the course
of the afternoon, by plucking and eating of the rich
fox and muscadine grapes, that hung in ripe and
luscious clusters, descending, at times, almost over
his head and too inviting in appearance and taste to
be resisted.
The landlord, with rubicund visage, more strongly
illuminated, probably, by the beams now glancing
horizontally upon his shining nose from the setting
sun, stood in the portal of his somewhat dilapidated
tenement a chateau, as it had been called in its
better days, when owned and occupied by a relation
of the Marquis Maison Rouge.
" Stranrger" said the traveller to the publican,
" can I get to stay with you to-night ?"
" Well, I reckon," was the affirmative reply, in the
Red River dialect. Whereupon the horseman dis-
mounted, and the proper directions were given to the
sable ostler.
" Caesar, hang the Stran-ger's horse finent the
spring, and when he gets cool, wash him and rub
him down, and give him a smart chance of roughness.
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 205
Hack, now, and draw a bee-line quick : and, here, Jube,
tote in the sircm-gei's plunder : Come, patter along."
While these arrangements were making, some little
conversation ensued between the publican and guest.
"From the up-country, I reckon?" inquired the
former.
" From Old Virginia." '
" Smart sprinkle of niggers there yet ? though a
power of them has been brought to Orleans, and up
to Bayou-Sarah, within a few years past. This sugar-
making does the business for a heap of 'em every
year. The cholera cuts 'em off this fall most ban-
daciously. Mr. L'Amoreaux, at the last plantation
back, which you passed, has had a touch, and is
powerful weak yet."
The traveller, who was rather less sociable than
the publican, and who was, in fact, making an over-
land journey homeward from New-Orleans, whither
he had been to dispose of forty or fifty of his slaves,
uttered some indifferent reply, and was turning to
enter the house, when he discovered the cart of a
New England pedlar, standing under a shed a short
distance from the door.
" This universal Yankee nation !" he exclaimed,
" you find them every where. I reckon they would go
to Tophet to sell a pistareen's worth of mammoth
pumpkin seeds, if they could clear four-pence by it.
I say, landlord, I think you should keep a quick eye
upon the sharpers who ride upon carts like that. No
honest man is safe against their tricks, and for a keen
shave I reckon old Brimstone himself could'nt beat
206 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
them. Indeed, I believe he's in partnership with
most of 'em."
" Never mind me for that," replied the landlord.
" I never seed a Yankee yet, from Mike Fink, the
boatman and he was a rip-roarer, you know,
down to the slickest pedlar that ever found his way
to Baton Rouge, who was up to Bill Mackintosh
and that's my name, Stran-ger, to your sarvice."
" So I should think : But what sort of a man has
carted himself hither upon that box?"
" I don't mind that I ever seed him afore ; but he
is a likely looking chap, and his horse swings a fine
tail. He's gone over the hill to find an old neighbor
of his, by the name of Dudley, .who toted himself into
these parts about fifteen years ago, and has made
himself richer without any niggers, than any of the
rest of us who have fifty on 'em. I don't reckon that
Dudley will now let on that he ever know'd the
pedlar."
" Well, I advise you to keep a look out for him,
that's all. These Yankee tricks "
" Oh, never fear : Should he play any of his tricks
upon Bill Mackintosh you see that are rifle? he'd
soon find himself obsquattulated, and a streak of day-
light shining through him."
The stranger had entered the house before the last
words were spoken, and Boniface turned to swear at
his negroes for not stirring more briskly in closing up
their chores.
In the course of the night, the proprietor of the
New England vehicle which had occasioned a portion
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 207
of the preceding colloquy, was aroused from his bed
by a terrible commotion in the chateau. The land-
lord was swearing at the poor servants, whose negro
gibberish fell upon the pedlar's ear, mingled with
groans, as of a person in a situation of severe suffer-
ing.
"Out, out with him!" gruffly exclaimed the land-
lord. " I keep a tavern, and not a cholera hospital." !
" But oh, Massa, de gemman so sick ! He can't
move 'um he die for sartin ! Me nebber see white
man look so brack and brue."
" Take him out to the shed, you cantankerous black
rascals !" roared Boniface.
"I wish-ee Massa den be sick heself turn out
poor ting in sich-ee debble of a passhun. Poor
nigger more compasshuns den dat," soliloquized the
humane African, in an under tone; whereupon the
trembling bevy of slaves sat about executing the
brutal order.
The pedlar had been an auditor, though not a
spectator, of the scene, and being a humane man, he
threw on his clothes as quickly as possible, and
hastened to the relief of the sick gentleman, whose
case, from the language he had heard, and the circum-
stance that the cholera was at that time raging in the
Valley of the Mississippi, he already understood. To
see a fellow being thus inhumanly cast out of the
house, a stranger, perhaps, far from home and
kindred, to die with the brutes, was shocking to his
feelings, and it was his purpose, at all hazards, to
prevent the execution of the savage mandate he had
208 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
heard. But ere he was able to join the sable group
who had the sick man in charge, they had crossed
the street, and were already entering the shed, an
apartment of which was in truth almost as comforta-
ble as the ruinous chateau.
" And is this the fashion after which you treat
Christian men in these parts ?" exclaimed the pedlar.
" Where's the landlord ?" he demanded. " By the
hokey 1" he continued " If I could get hold of him
just at this moment, I'd knock him into a cock'd hat
in a jifley."
" Oh, Massa awful man," replied one of the snow-
balls. " He mak'ee smell brim-stone he hear'ee !"
" He may be an airthquake," replied the pedlar,
" for what I care, but he'll never shake me, I guess."
Boniface, however, fearful of the pestilence, had
slunk away, and was already mixing camphor with
his nocturnal julep, a* a preventive to the disease he
was inviting by the potation.
The pedlar had amply provided himself for any
emergency of the kind, by purchasing and studying
Reese's Treatise upon Cholera, and laying in a small
store of suitable medicines, under the direction of a
physician in Philadelphia, before he commenced his
present journey. He therefore ordered lights, and
proceeded to examine the sick man whom, by the
way, he recognized as having seen somewhere before.
There was no mistake, however, as to the character
of the disease. The stranger had probably contract-
ed the oriental malady several days previous, and the
wild grapes which he had been so plentifully eating
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 209
the day before, had brought it upon him with tremend-
ous severity. Indeed, its progress had been so rapid,
that his countenance was already assuming that livid
mahogany color, which indicates the near approach of
the blue stage. His tongue was becoming cold, and his
skin began to corrugate. No time was to be lost.
Following the direction of the author already men-
tioned, he breathed a vein with his pen-knife, and after
a copious bleeding, gave him a full dose of calomel,
of which he had several provided. The negroes
were all activity and attention. Mustard poultices
were applied to his body, and as he continually
begged for water, one of the negroes was dispatched
to the ice-house of Mr. Dudley, whence he was
speedily forth-coming with a good supply. Before it
was time for the calomel to take effect, the patient had
sunk into that perfect state of composure which indi-
cates an approaching collapse. The pedlar, however,
who had witnessed the treatment of several cases in
the New- York hospitals, did not despair, although he
watched him for some hours with trembling appre-
hension not leaving the bed of straw on which he
had been placed for a moment. Feeding him plenti-
fully with ice, and renewing the mustard applications
as occasion required, before noon of the following
day, the pedlar had the satisfaction to find all things
working well. A few hours more, and the change
was so manifest as to afford strong confidence of a
recovery. It is one of the peculiarities of this dread-
ful scourge, that restoration is frequently as rapid as
the progress of the disease. On the second day,
210 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
therefore, the pedlar saw his patient so far restored to
health, as to feel safe in leaving him. With a
thousand thanks for his kindness and humanity, and
the offer of a liberal compensation in money, which
he rejected, the pedlar took his departure slipping
into the hands of one of the negroes a note, to be
delivered to the sick gentleman, after he was gone, of
which the following is a copy :
"Regions of Inhumanity, Nov. 25, 1832.
" DEAR SIR,
" As I calculate you are now safe to do, I
have concluded to start this afternoon, and get quit of
this pesky place as soon as possible especially as I
am obleeged to be in Orleans next week, before the
brig Snap- Dragon sails for Vera Cruz. You have
had a pretty tight squeeze on't, or I'm mistaken.
Your face was about as thin as a hatchet when old
Hardscrabble turned you out-of-doors, and if it hadn't
been for the Yankee pedlar, I think you'd have
twisted yourself into a corkscrew in an hour more.
I make no merit of what I have done, and I only
hope that hereafter you'll believe that all Yankees
are not so unfeeling that they cannot weep except
when they are cutting up onions; and as I have
scorned to receive your money, I guess you may also
admit that it's not every pedlar who is so greedy for
gain, as to skin flints and shad-scales to get it. The
niggers have all done what they could for you, and if
you can give them a few notions, without letting the
old alligator in the house know it, I calculate it won't
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 211
come amiss. Enclosed I leave you a dose or two of
marcury, and Doctor Reese's receipt, which, if you
have a relapse, you can swallow for yourself not
the receipt, I don't mean, but the calomel. But
mind you don't eat any more grapes, or drink any
juleps, until the cholera's gone. Enclosed I also send
you a forty dollar note of 'Squire Biddle's bank
which, for your use, I guess is pretty considerably
better than specie being the amount which you paid
me fifteen years ago for Mrs. Dinwiddie's counter-
pane. If you'll look close, I guess you'll find the
bill is an old acquaintance. It's the same I took
on you, whether or no. Howsomever you have
forgotten me, though I expect you don't forget to
remember the " Yankee trick." I had tho'ts of
putting in the interest ; but as it was a trick of your
own axing, I conclude you may lose that much, for
knowing more than you did before. But I must be
stirring.
" Your obedient,
" RICHARD MOON.
u To Maj. Dinwiddie, of Virginia.
" P. S. I hope you'll not forget to remember to
present my best compliments to Mrs. Dinwiddie
and tell her she must not lay that matter up agin me
I expect I saw your son on parade at West Pint in
September his mother all over. His eyes are as
bright as a button, and he walks as trim and straight
as a corn-stalk."
212 DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR.
From the date of this letter, until a few weeks
since, the biographer has had no direct intelligence
from Dick Moon, excepting a vague rumor that soon
after reaching New-Orleans, he had drawn for all his
spare funds in the hands of Prime, Ward & King,
and had invested them in a mining company in
Mexico. His friends in Saybrook and Pettypaug,
and even the knowing ones in Wall-street, shook
their heads upon this intelligence, as much as to say,
" it's a long road that never turns, and Dick has doubt-
less missed a figure at last." But taking up a Mexi-
can paper in August last, what was the delight of the
biographer as he glanced his eye upon the following
paragraph :
De la Catarata de la Libertad Mejicana,
Junio 30, 1835.
Tenemos el placer de anunciar que el Conducta
que dejo esta Capital para Vera Cruz, el 26 de Mayo,
llego sin novedad a Xalapa el 16 del corriente. Se
acordaran que entre la propriedad encargada a este
conducta fue un cantidad grande de Carras de plata
perteneciente al Senor Don RICARDO DE LA LUNA,
de una de las mas ricas minas de Guanajuato, de las
cuales dos afios hace vino a ser proprietario principal
aquel caballero. Ha inventado una maquina asom-
brosa para trabajar la mina, que promete de por
cierto ser de mucho valor para toda clase de minas
de esta republica renaciente. Cuando estuvo en esta
capital el Sefior R. LUNA estaba tan contento con la
hermosura de su situacion, la salud del clima, y las
DICK MOON, THE PEDLAR. 213
encantadoras vistas, en medio de las cuales se encuen
tra la ciudad de Montezuma, que compro la deliciosa
mansion antiguamente la propiedad del alcalde
real como nuestros lectores saben, de porfiro y de
amygdaloide, situada en la parte occidental de la alame-
da directamente fronteriza a la fuente.
FREE TRANSLATION.
" From the Cataract of Mexican Liberty, June 30, 1835.
"We have the pleasure of announcing that the
conducta which left this capital for Vera Cruz, on
the 26th of May, arrived at Xalapa without accident,
on the 16th of the present month. It will be remem-
bered that among the merchandise entrusted to this
conducta, was a large quantity of silver bullion,
belonging to RICHARD MOON, Esq., from one of the
richest mines of Guanajuato, of which two years ago
that gentleman became the principal proprietor. He
has invented an ingenious machine for working the
mine, which promises to be of great value in the
mining operations of this rising republic. When Mr.
Moon was in this capital, he was so much pleased
with the beauty of its situation, the healthiness of the
climate, and the glorious scenery, in the midst of
which stands the city of Montezuma, that he pur-
chased the delightful mansion, formerly the property
of the royal Alcalde, constructed, as our readers may
well know, of porphyry and amygdaloid, situated
on the western side of the Alameda, directly fronting
the fountain."
GREEN'S POND.
I BLESS thee, native shore !
Thy woodlands gay, and waters sparkling clear !
'Tis like a dream once more
The music of thy thousand waves to hear,
As murmuring up the sand
With kisses hright they lave the sloping land.
The gorgeous sun looks down,
Bathing thee gladly in his noontide ray,
And o'er thy headlands brown
With loving light the tints of morning play.
The whispering breezes fear
To break the calm so softly hallowed here.
Here, in her green domain,
The stamp of Nature's sovereignty is found ;
With scarce disputed reign
She dwells in all the solitude around.
And here she loves to wear
The regal garb that suits a queen so fair.
N,
GREEN'S POND. 215
Oh, oft my heart hath yearned
For thy sweet shades, and vales of sunny rest !
Even as the swan returned,
Stoops to repose upon thine azure breast,
I greet each welcome spot,
Forsaken long but ne'er, ah! ne'er forgot
T\vas here that memory grew
'Twas here that childhood's hopes and cares were.
Its early freshness too
Ere droops the soul, of its best joys bereft.
Where are they? o'er the track
Of cold years, I would call the wanderers back !
They must be with thee still !
Thou art unchanged as bright the sunbeams play;
From not a tree or hill
Hath time one hue of beauty snatched away:
Unchanged alike should be
The blessed things so late resigned to thee !
Give back oh smiling deep!
The heart's fair sunshine, and the dreams of youth,
That in thy bosom sleep
Life's April innocence, and trustful truth !
The tones that breathed of yore
In thy lone murmurs, once again restore !
Where have they vanished all ?
Only the heedless winds in answer sigh
216 GREEN'S POND.
Still rushing at thy call.
With reckless sweep the streamlet flashes by!
And idle as the air,
Or fleeting stream, my pining spirit's prayer I
Home of sweet thoughts farewell!
Where'er through changeful life my lot may be,
A deep and hallowed spell
Is on thy waters and thy woods for me !
Though vainly fancy craves
Its childhood with the music of thy waves !
PRESENTIMENT.
A TALE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.
BY A. D. PATERSON, ESft.
1 I feel the touch of a brother's hand near my heart, and it does me
good." Joanna Baillie.
WHOEVER would see the great vivifier of nature
appear, under his most gorgeous circumstances, and
surrounded by the most splendid expanse, should be
sailing on the Mediterranean ; and should rise betimes,
if he would indeed behold the whole magnificent
scene. The young morning peeps forth, modestly
clad in sober gray, but as he advances he rapidly
changes his hues, each being richer and brighter than
that which preceded it, and seeming, as he increases in
importance, to be the harbinger of the glorious orb
which is to shed so wondrous and universal an influ-
ence over the face of creation. Gradually the rapt
beholder becomes entranced with the view of still
accumulating beauties, until at length the sun himself
emerges from his ocean-bed, in one unclouded flood of
light and splendor while in his train come smiles and
19
as PRESENTIMENT.
beauty, sweetness and plenty. The soul of the
beholder seems exalted above itself, and he rises from
admiration of the scene to adoration of its great
Creator. The shores of the Mediterranean have an
aspect peculiar to themselves, produced in a great
measure by the quality of the atmosphere in that
region ; the eminences there have a finer gray, the
valleys a deeper purple, in their tinge ; while the
light and elegant vessels, propelled by sails adapted
to those waters, seem to glide fairy-like from point to
point, or make excursions over the broad and smooth
sea, as if they were natives of the element and "instinct
with life."
It is admirable to perceive with what sagacity as
well as readiness man accommodates circumstances
to his necessity or convenience ; in marine inventions
this is perhaps more remarkable than in most others.
The peculiarities of the climate, of the sea, and even
the indentations of the shores, render it proper to
adapt certain modes of propelling, as well as of keep-
ing securely, vessels under sail, which would suit no
other region. Hence the seaman, who has always his
full share of national vanity at his heart, can look
with complacency and delight upon the building and
rigging so different from those of his own country,
for his practised eye informs him that there is no
comparison to be instituted. The American mariner
in particular, feels no diminution of pleasure in
remembering the beautiful cutters which skim along
the waters in the bay of New- York, or in the vicinity
of Sandy Hook, no humiliating sensation as he casts
PRESENTIMENT. 219
back the glance of his mind, upon some Baltimore
clipper, which on the broad Atlantic could
" Walk the waters like a thing of life ;"
but sees, in the light felucca which swiftly glides
across the bays, being urged by skilful oarsmen,
in the lateensa.il of the market-coaster, which elegantly
bends to the breeze and rises in rebound in the
xebec and polacre with rigging so constructed as to
catch the lofty airs, yet so manageable as to be taken
in with the swiftness of thought all being adapta-
tions to light airs and sudden squalls, to which the
Mediterranean is peculiarly obnoxious.
The scenery and the objects which we have
described, derive additional beauty from the opening
hues of a summer morning, from about an hour
before sunrise till an hour after it. Visions of glad-
ness and of splendor are before us, and holy thoughts
are awakened within us ; we seem to rejoice in our
existence, and are ready to bless the Almighty hand
which has created so much of beauty, and given so
much of good.
It was on such a morning, and at such an hour,
that an American vessel was seen with her head to
the westward, nearly midway between the Algerine
and Spanish coasts, but inclining rather to the shores
of Africa. She was homeward bound from Genoa to
New- York, her name the Clinton, so called from that
of a public-spirited and able governor of that state ;
her burthen about 350 tons, her condition and appear-
ance of a very superior order, and her force sufficiently
230 PRESENTIMENT.
effective to protect her against the ordinary marauders
from the Barbary shores. The commander of the
Clinton was a powerful looking man, of the middle
age, with a complexion which appeared to be the
result of much hardship, and an intimate acquaintance
with climate in all its varieties. Like the generality
of the American commanders, he possessed a degree
of intelligence and refinement superior to those of his
rank and profession in the old world. This, which
was the result of a plain but solid education, had kept
his mind clear of many an absurdity in opinion, and
many a credulity for which the sons of the ocean
have, time out of mind, been remarkable. One pecu-
liarity of -feeling was however his; but how it had
found place in his bosom it would be difficult to trace.
This was a belief in presentiment. It had developed
itself in him while a child, and years had only served
to strengthen his faith. Strange to say the belief
had never been confirmed by practical effects, but on
the contrary he adhered to it against all experience ;
sometimes receiving from it the consolations of hope,
at others experiencing the bitter pangs of disappoint-
ment. Still, however, he clung to it; and at the
moment in which our story opens, this powerful feel-
ing was exerting an influence over him greater than
usual.
It was a little before four o'clock that Captain
Thayer ascended the companion ladder, and having
looked first aloft and then in the binnacle, he put his
glass to his eye, and rapidly but carefully swept the
horizon to the southward. After he had repeated
PRESENTIMENT. 221
this examination two or three times, he threw the glass
across his arm, and continued leaning, as in thought,
against the larboard gangway. From this reverie he
was shortly disturbed by the deep voice of the first
mate, whose watch it was upon deck, calling out to
the helmsman " Port, sir, port, do you want to run
the African coast aboard?"
Captain Thayer immediately stepped back to the
binnacle again, and looked at the compass; then,
turning to the mate, he said, " I should like just to
make the land on the south shore ; let them square
away the yards a little, and keep her head about
S. S. W."
" I guess we are not far from the land now, sir,"
replied the mate, " and if we should let the wind die
away upon us, the current may drive us farther in
than you would wish ; and those cut-throat Algerines
would make a fine haul of us, if it came to boarding."
The captain was leaning upon the carriage of a
gun, as the mate made his remark, and as he patted
the breech with his hand he smiled and replied,
" No fear, Simson, we are no prize for a corsair ; but
to confess a truth, I am anxious to get in with the
land ; I have continually a presentiment concerning
it, which weighs upon me beyond endurance."
" Of that," replied the mate " I am not ignorant
This you may remember is my third year with yov
up the Straits ; and I recollect that in all the forme)
voyages you hauled in for the south side hereabouts
I was not then in a condition to ask your reasons foi
keeping a course which is not generally considered
222 PRESENTIMENT.
safest; but now that I am placed in my presen*
situation, perhaps you may feel inclined to inform me."
" It is, perhaps, too ridiculous to be confessed," said
the former, " yet I cannot shake it off; nor would I
wish to be without the hope to which it gives birth.
It is true, as you say, that I am following a naviga-
tion neither usual nor approved in this part of our
voyage; what is more, I have steadily done the
same thing during eight voyages before the present
one ; still more, I have confined myself to this trade,
notwithstanding my capilal, my connexions, and my
experience, would enable me to come to permanent
moorings ashore, much sooner than the line we are
in could possibly do. But it is all in vain," he add-
ed after a pause, "here I return again and again ; my
hopes constantly defeated, but never discouraged. I
dwell on the cause of my anxiety continually. I
satisfy myself that my pursuit is like chasing the
Flying Dutchman, yet still with dogged perseverance
I return, in the forlorn hope that my constancy may
be at length successful."
Simson was a plain honest seaman, who did not
understand the secret workings in his commander's
heart. He could perceive the more obvious results of
any particular kind of conduct, and could judge with
tolerable accuracy of the probabilities in the train of
human events ; but his presentiments went no farther,
and he could not help considering this feeling in
Captain Thayer as one of the weaknesses to which
human nature is prone, and from which no man is
entirely free. He was, however, strongly attached to
PRESENTIMENT. 223
Thayer, under whom he had sailed during the last
three years, and who had gradually brought him
forward, from before the mast to the station of first
mate of the Clinton. When, therefore, he heard the
order repeated, he obeyed with alacrity.
" Forward there ! round in the larboard after
braces, and then come aft and square the head yards.
Cooper, starboard your helm ; let her fall off to S. S.
W., and keep her there."
This was done, the watch was changed, but Captain
Thayer remained walking the deck with apparent
inquietude, frequently applying the glass to his eye,
and always directing it to the southern shores.
The mate could not avoid perceiving that his com-
mander was, that morning, more than usually moved;
he therefore resolved not to retire to rest. So slip-
ping below to perform his ablutions, and making
some change in his dress after the night watch, he
began to move about the ship, regulating various
little matters, and giving sundry orders. It was some
time ere Captain Thayer perceived him to be still on
deck, so much was he absorbed in his own contem-
plations; but at length he cried, "how now, Simson,
don't you turn in this watch?"
" No, sir," replied the mate, " I don't feel inclined
to sleep, and would rather be on deck to catch the
land-fall."
" Ah, you are groaning in spirit like the timbers of
an old ship in a head sea. You are thinking of
corsairs, and underwriters, and home and proba-
bly love, Simson. Well, you need not look so like a
S3i PRESENTIMENT.
lubber, man ; there is nothing in those things that a
brave man need be ashamed to own."
" Captain Thayer," replied the other, " I care as
little about .self as any man that ever trod a plank ;
but I do care much for you; (' thank' ee, Simson, I
am well aware of that ;' ) and you will excuse me if I
remind you that in the event of loss or damage, you
will have to account for running out of your course,
and towards manifest difficulties. Underwriters are
hard men in these cases, and if "
"Pooh, man," said Thayer, with an air of con-
scious security and triumph, " the Clinton is no game
for the corsair; and if she were, she is half my
own, and the other half I could pay. And I see,"
he added eagerly, " there is the land, yonder is Cape
Tenis on the larboard bow." His glass was elevated,
and again he carefully swept the southern horizon
with attentive eye.
The mate touched his elbow as he stood absorbed
in his investigation, and said, " excuse me, Captain
Thayer, you have settled the affair of the ship and
cargo, but you have not calculated the loss of liberty
to the people, nor the difficulty of procuring your own
liberty, if we should be taken. Nay, sir," he added,
seeing the flush of anger rising, and observing the
hasty sparkle in the captain's eye, " be not offended,
but it is well known that ships as well provided
against attack as this is, have fallen into the hands of
superior numbers ere now, and once under the power
of the infidels, our fate may remain for years unknown;
so that "
PRESENTIMENT. 225
"True, true," exclaimed Thayer hastily, as if
stung by a sudden recollection ; " brace up the yards,
men; luff, luff, bring her to the wind." He paused
a moment, and then added, " and yet I have at this
moment a presentiment too strong to be resisted, that
it will come to pass this morning. I must try it a
little longer. Simson, put her about, and lay her to
on the other tack, she will thus forge ahead, off shore,
and I will keep her so but one hour longer.
Again his watch upon the African shore became
intensely fixed. In the mean time the sun had risen,
and the warmth of his beams was already beginning
to diffuse a languor over the frames of the mariners,
when suddenly the captain called out "mast-head
there ! Do you see any thing on the starboard quar-
ter ?"
The man who was stationed there replied, after a
pause, that a small boat was apparently pulling out
from the land. The captain waited to hear no more,
but gave the command " ready about." The manoeu-
vre was quickly performed, once more the ship was
going large on the other tack, and was standing in
the direction of the distant object.
" Get the boats out," said Captain Thayer, " and
tow them astern ; we may want them by and bye.
"What all, sir?" returned the mate. "Yes, long
boat and all. Get the tackles up, and hoist her out
as quickly as possible. Boy, bring the small arms
from below, and lay them beside the companion."
" I'll have all ready, at least," said he. " Oh, if it should
indeed be true !" The hope seemed to produce an
220 PRESENTIMENT.
ecstasy of feeling over him, and he passed from side to
side, urging dispatch, and every moment taking a
glance at the object of his pursuit.
As Captain Thayer hastily pased the deck, he
muttered in agitated tones, " will it indeed come to
pass at length? Are my hopes to be realized after
the long suspense which I have endured? But I am
a fool !" he cried in the next moment, "the chances
are a million to one against me. Why am I so
continually tormented with hopes which have no
foundation in probability? If I should be disappoint-
ed this time," said he, with an air of resolution, " I
will abandon such fallacious expectations for ever,
and strive to make up my mind to the loss. But if
it should turn out to my wish !" he exclaimed, and
his eyes sparkled with delight, while his weather-
beaten countenance displayed a rapture almost incom-
patible with its ordinary rugged expression; he said
no more, but with his glass he steadily searched the
distant boat.
" A large row-galley is in the wake of the small
boat," exclaimed the look-out at the mast-head ; " he
seems to gain on the chase."
The Captain went aloft himself; he soon assured
himself that the first boat contained one or more
fugitives, and that the latter was in pursuit. It was
also probable that the galley would be up with the
chase before the ship could interfere. He hastily
descended to the deck ; all equanimity seemed to have
forsaken him ; with a hoarse and agitated voice he
gave orders to get out studding-sails and make all sail
PRESENTIMENT. 227
in the direction of the strange objects. " I'll run him
down, the heathen dog," he exclaimed bitterly, and
unconscious of hearers, " if a hundred men were in
his charge."
Some of the seaman were startled at his vehemence,
but obedience at sea is almost an instinct ; the mate,
however, again advanced and remonstrated. " Capt.
Thayer," said he, " let me beg of you to beware what
you do ; a hasty and fatal proceeding may make this a
national affair, depriving you at once of honor, happi-
ness, and property."
"My brother my brother!" exclaimed Thayer,
with uncontrollable emotion, " my very soul informs
me that my brother is endeavoring to escape in the
small boat. Oh God," said he, in deep and heart-
searching tones, " if my expectations are defeated
now, I shall never live to see my native shore. Ply
the men, Simson, my good fellow, for I have neither
sense nor observation but for the chase."
Accordingly, every stitch of canvass was put upon
the vessel, but the airs were light, and in the mean-
time the sweeps of the galley were bringing her
rapidly up with the small boat. It was evident that
the latter could not escape them.'
" Load the larboard forecastle gun with canister,
and run her out of the bow port," said the captain.
It was done. The two boats neared. The captain
ran forward, trained the gun under his own eye,
seized the match, and just as the two boats were on
the verge of touching, he lodged the contents of the*
228 PRESENTIMENT
charge into the larger. The galley contained at
least forty men, and the spread of the canister shot did
great execution among them. In the next instant the
captain's glass was again applied to his eye, and
hardly had he levelled it, ere he shouted with a voice
of thunder, " it is he, it is he! Put arms in the boats
and man them. My brother, my own brother ! I
knew it, I was sure of it ! in, men, in ; I will go in
the cutter myself."
The men seemed to enter at once into his feelings,
and the boats were manned with an incredible alacrity.
As he was getting over the side, he turned to the mate
and said, " Simson, keep your eye on that heathen dog,
but do not fire unless you are sure our own men are
secure from the spread. If he attempt to escape,
with my brother on board, pour it into him. God
will protect his own. If he offers resistance after we
have rescued his prey, run him down, sir."
I The most discordant passions seemed to have
possession of his breast as he uttered these words ;
the most unbounded fraternal affection, and the exces-
sive desire of revenge, swayed his soul. He went
into the boat, and the force rowed with all speed
towards the Algerine.
It may be necessary here to inquire as to the cause
of this uncommon emotion on the part of the worthy
commander, and explain the nature of that brotherly
affection which was now manifested in so exquisite a
degree. To do this properly, some account of the
brothers, in the earlier period of their lives, will
PRESENTIMENT. 229
furnish the elucidation, and the account may with
most convenience- be given here, while the expedition
is advancing upon its purpose.
Robert Thayer was the son of a respectable agri
culturist, who cultivated a large farm of his own
clearing, in the vicinity of Pine Plains, near the
borders of the mighty Hudson. The father was an
honest and well-meaning man, but weak of purpose,
and subject to the prejudices and opinions of his
contemporaries in general, who were at that period
but very imperfectly educated ; the mother, however,
made large amends for the infirmities and insuffi-
ciency of her husband's domestic management. She
was a strong-minded prudent woman, of genuine
piety, rigid morality, and great firmness. It was the
anxious care of this good parent to extract the weeds
of error from the soil of her son's understanding,
before it should take too deep root, yet so prudently
was this performed, as to leave no trace of disrespect
for her husband's peculiarities in the eyes of her
offspring. There was one weakness, nevertheless,
which the credulous but kind father indelibly fixed
upon the mind of young Robert. It was a principle
in which he himself had implicit belief, and to confirm
which, he was in the habit of twisting and distorting
every circumstance that crossed the line of his creed.
It was presentiment ; and occasions on which that feel-
ing was presented to his mind, being sometimes the
harbingers of subsequent facts, were the never-
ceasing themes of the father's discourse. It fastened!
upon the sanguine heart of the boy, and no lessons of
230 PRESENTIMENT.
his mother, not even the frequent failures in expecta-
tion, could remove the impression. We nd it opera-
ting in full vigor, both in manhood, and in advancing
age.
What might have been the results of perseverance
in that exemplary mother can be only conjectured.
Robert had the misfortune to lose her when he was
only nine years of age. Not indeed before a good
foundation was laid, and good seed was sown, but
before it could spring up, or entirely resist the weeds
which too readily choke it. The boy was sent to
school, where the influence of early habits, and a
tender remembrance of his mother's lessons, did more
for him, than could the preceptor with all his lore j
yet that was much, for
" 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too,
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And s'en the story ran that he could gauge;
And still folks gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head should carry all he knew."
Hitherto, with the exception of the loss of his
mother, which he had been too young fully to appre-
ciate, the days of young Thayer had been of a halcyon
kind. But the clouds began to lower. The elder
Thayer, in the death of his amiable wife, discovered
that he had lost not only an invaluable partner, but a
manager of his household, and a contributor to his
domestic comforts, for which nothing could atone.
He tried manfully to bear up under it, but no resources
from within, nor varieties from without, could satisfy
him. At length, he was heard to close a jeremiad of
PRESENTIMENT. 231
complaint with the following expression : " I have a
strong presentiment that I shall shortly follow my
poor Rachel, or else marry again." The latter
branch of his foresight was correct enough, for the
week after it was uttered, he brought home from
New- York a buxom girl, some years younger than
himself, the daughter of a Dutch provision-merchant
in Water-street, whom he had taken " for better, for
worse." It was, however, more worse than better,
both for her husband and her son-in-law. With
regard to the former, she was continually upsetting
his schemes, and ridiculing his presentiments, both of
which were his weak or rather his strong points ; for
the more he was opposed the better he liked them,
the more she endeavored to lower them the higher
they were raised in his esteem. But like all men
without internal strength, he gradually succumbed to
a noisy shrew, who soon exercised unlimited sway
in the family.
Of course, Robert soon fell in for a full share of the
good dame's dislike ; for, besides the hereditary
cause, that, namely, of his being a step-son, he was
fond of his father, to whom he behaved always with
affectionate regard and duty, and he deeply revered
the memory of his mother, of whom he spoke more
highly and more frequently than was agreeable to the
ears of her successor. She therefore resolved most
piously to mar a happiness in which she had no
share, and even to rid the house of an "expensive boy,
who was none of hers."
In this she was, of course, successful. Under
238 PRESENTIMENT.
pretence that lie was old enough to assist on the farm,
she caused him to be taken from school ; and then,
by finding fault with every thing he did, she made
him feel his home to be any thing but what the word
implies. His father saw it all with regret, but the
shackles were upon his own energies, and all that he
could do for their mutual relief, was to take his son with
him, from time to time, to New- York, when he went
with a sloop-load of butter, cheese, or flour, for the
market there.
The boy had a double reason to hail the periods of
these excursions. They brought him into the busy
haunts of men, where he saw commerce with her
anxious face, pleasure with her witching smile, and
variety in all her charms ; he felt, besides, that he was
for the present beyond the sphere of a tyrannical step-
mother, and needed not to guard his words or hide
his delight. But his attention was chiefly engaged
by the shipping ; and he often longed to make a
voyage, to see foreign parts, and to be " lord of him-
self." These desires became stronger at each visit,
and were always the highest when he was about to
return home.
At length Mrs. Thayer found herself " as ladies
wish to be who love their lords ;" and Robert, now
fifteen years of age, was more than ever disagreeable
in her sight. His father's house was no longer an
endurable home, and upon the next journey to New-
York, he declared his anxious wish to go to sea.
"Father," said he, "I have long wished to make a
trial, and / have a presentiment that you will see me
PRESENTIMENT. 233
a rich and fortunate man, able, and I am sure you
believe, willing, to make your old days happy "
The father was loth to part with his son, but the
presentiment was unanswerable. Arrangements were
made, clothes and necessaries were bought, and all
things were concluded, except the ceremony of asking
Mrs. Thayer's consent, in which neither of them
dreamed of a refusal ; and here, without a presenti-
ment, they were right. After a feigned anger and
appearance of sorrow, but real delight, at the boy's
apparent wilfulness, she consented to let him " feel
the difference between a safe and comfortable home,
and a life of hardship among strangers in distant
lands." He was therefore equipped, and in due time
set sail upon a long voyage to the western shores of
America.
From this time his lot in life was fixed. He
became a seaman ; he loved his profession and soon
excelled in it; he was quickly discovered to be a
youth of superior parts and manners, and it required
no presentiment to see that if he escaped the ordinary
dangers of human life, and those peculiar to his own
department in it, he would rise to eminence and
wealth. On his return to New- York after any
voyage, his father always came down to visit him, as
his duties prevented him from going up to Pine Plains.
He learned that his mother-in-law had miscarried, and
had with difficulty recovered ; but with sorrow he also
learned that this catastrophe, instead of softening her
into affection towards the young sailor, had only
raised a feeling of envy in her soul, and she was
so*
231 PRESENTIMENT.
continually prognosticating evil in her husband's ear,
against the heartless young ingrate, " who could
ramble the world over rather than stay to comfort the
declining years of his parents." All this, however,
fell harmless, for the meek husband had it all to
himself, and he had taken on the yoke so easily, that
he hardly felt its weight. But the presentiment of
his boy was ever before him ; it became his stay and
comfort.
Upon Robert's return from another voyage round
Cape Horn, he again found his father waiting to
receive him, but wearing the badge of a mourner.
" Robert, my son," said he, " poor Sally is gone, and
has left the child of her wishes as soon as he saw the
light. Come home with me, and embrace your
brother." Robert's heart leaped within him at the
sound. The tie was a new one, and his affectionate
disposition led him to cherish it with even a woman's
ardor. " Father," said he, " / have a presentiment,
that this boy will be a comfort and a blessing to us
both." Poor lad ! his divinations were erroneous,
and their futility was quickly demonstrated.
Robert's heart clung to his infant brother. It was
a new feeling, and was rather like that of a parent
for his offspring than that of fraternal affection. Too
soon he had indeed to become a second parent to the
child, for his own sickened and died within a few
days after his son's return to the paternal mansion.
Robert was now alone in the world, save this tie.
which had been mysteriously conjured up to receive
the full tide of kindness, and to bind him to social
PRESENTIMENT. 236
life. He determined to watch over the boy's life and
happiness, and to derive his own greatest comfort
from contributing to that of his orphan brother. At
this time he was about eighteen, and was on the eve
of a voyage to the Mauritius, as mate of a ship. He
therefore carefully but speedily put the infant Henry
into the hands of a kind nurse, and left his own
affairs, including the paternal inheritance, in the
charge of an honest but distant relative.
Things continued thus during several voyages, in
the course of which Robert Thayer attained to the
command of a vessel. At each return his first care
was to visit the child of his adoption, the brother of his
affection, and all his resources were bent to the desire
of contributing to the boy's happiness and welfare.
On the part of Henry, as he grew up, his love for his
brother seemed more and more to respond to that
which was bestowed upon him, and in short it might
be said that there was but one sentiment between
them, save that it was pure fraternal love on the part
of Robert, and love increased by gratitude on the
side of Henry.
Henry Thayer had attained his fifteenth year, when
the first personal misfortune in the professional career
of his brother befel him. Captain Thayer had taken
a cargo for London ; from thence he had taken in a
valuable freight for Malaga, and brought back returns
in wine and fruits for his native port. At London,
the crew had deserted him; some from that restless
disposition so peculiar to the generality of sea-faring
men, and others from the hope of advantages, such as
236 PRESENTIMENT.
the American seaman, above all others, can obtain in
the maritime world. In short, he had to ship an
almost entirely fresh crew, and they turned out to be
of a very inferior description. Nothing particular
happened in the voyage to Malaga; but on the return
across the Atlantic, in the month of January, they
encountered bad weather, and many of his lubberly
crew betook themselves to their hammocks. With
the few men who continued at their duty, he continued
to work the ship, but, unfortunately, just as they were
entering the gulf-stream, a sudden squall carried away
two of his topmasts.
It was night when this disaster took place, and,
together with the reduced force under his command,
he ran imminent risk of damage in two ways ; first,
in his upper works, by the dashing about of broken
yards and masts as they hung by the rigging, and
secondly, in his hull, after the wreck was cut over-
board. Poor Thayer was unfortunate in both cases.
While using his utmost endeavors with his remnant
of a crew to get the wreck cut overboard, the maintop
gallant yard-arm struck him on the head with such
violence, as to cause a severe contusion. He was
borne insensible to his cabin, and a most important
assistance was thus cut off The rigging and wreck,
in falling afterward overboard, fell over to leeward,
and, before it could be cut entirely away, had damaged
the vessel under the bows so greatly, that it became
necessary to keep the hands to the pumps.
It was now no longer necessary to urge the skulk-
ers to their duty. Self-preservation will furnish an
PRESENTIMENT. 237
argument which indolence herself cannot resist. The
misfortune which faithfulness and alacrity might pro-
bably have prevented, necessity enabled them in some
degree to remedy ; though at the expense of greatly
increased labor, and unlooked-for danger. Of the latter,
however, there was more in store. In the crippled
state of the upper works, and the all but water-logged
condition of the vessel, she sailed heavily and was
steered with difficulty. At length, however, the
welcome lands of Neversink were presented to their
view, and they began ah, too prematurely to
congratulate each other, that their toils were at a
close. Heavily they neared Sandy-Hook, and hove
to for a pilot ; hours passed, and no pilot appeared,
while the experienced head and eye of her commander,
which could have directed her through the intricacies
of the small remaining navigation, were unhappily
withdrawn through the severity of his wounds and
bruises.
Evening arrived, and no pilot. The mate, there-
fore, reluctantly resolved to stand out to sea-ward
during the night, and hoped for better success on the
morrow. That evil, most to be dreaded on our coasts,
a snow-storm, came on ; the wind gradually shifted
until the ship's head was lying northwest, and bearing
directly towards the Long-Island shores. It became
necessary to wear round, but by this time the running
rigging was as stiff as icicles; the few men able to
work could neither stand, by reason of the slipperi-
ness of the deck, nor exert themselves from the exces-
sive severity of the cold, and constant fall of sleet,
?38 PRESENTIMENT.
which benumbed all their limbs. The ropes would
not render through the blocks, and to crown all, the
ship would not answer her helm. What was to be
done? Human strength and human wisdom could
no more. It was in vain that inward sentiments of
remorse struck some of the lately indolent crew. The
energies produced by despair were too late for action.
On she drove, until at length a harsh grating was
perceived under her bows, a jumping, beating sensa-
tion followed as the vessel was forced upon the sand,
one sudden shock, a heel to one side, and she
was a wreck upon the shore.
Happily, no lives were lost. In the morning
intelligence was transmitted to New- York of the
calamity which had befallen the ship, and Captain
Thayer, half dead with shame and weakness, was
carried to the city. A long series of good fortune
and success furnishes but an indifferent school of
fortitude under subsequent misfortune. As inferior
officer, and as commander, Thayer had hitherto
brought his voyages to a prosperous issue ; now, a
sense of so fatal a reverse preyed upon his thoughts,
and tended greatly to retard his recovery. His
affectionate brother was however by his bedside,
watching every look, preventing every wish, and
striving, by a thousand assiduities, to smooth the
sick bed, and to restore his mind to composure.
It is only when the soul is under the influence of
remorse that such endeavors fail, and accordingly the
genial effects of brotherly kindness, and of his own
wiser thoughts, now began to appear. He recovered,
PRESENTIMENT. 239
but his regards had so fastened upon the boy, that,
when the latter proposed to accompany his brother in
his next voyage, although Captain Thayer had des-
tined him for another and more brilliant lot in life, he
had not the resolution to deny him. He had his
reward, for his profession, to which he was always
attached, now became doubly delightful. Every
occasion was laid hold of to instruct his brother in
the duties of a seaman, and pains and expense were
lavished, during the brief intervals of their being in
port, to make him an able navigator and scientific
man.
Five years had thus passed over, when one morn-
ing at breakfast, in London, the 'younger Thayer,
w T ith some hesitation, addressed the elder to the follow-
ing effect. " Brother Robert, I have somewhat to
propose to you, and yet I know not how to begin
it, such has been your uniform kindness to me, that
no parent could have gone beyond you ; but I feel
it due to us both, to lay my wishes before you ; and I
think I hope that is, I think you will accord
with me, that the step should be taken."
"Well, Harry, what is it? Speak out, man,
never stammer thus, but, if it is fit to be heard, tell
your story boldly. Am I not your brother?"
" Oh, yes, Robert, more than that ! brother and
father in one; but, I fear that even your affection
will thwart the proposal I wish to make."
" It must be very unreasonable then, Harry but,
once more, out with it."
Henry, after a slight and agitated indecision,
ajO PRESENTIMENT.
proceeded. " You know, my dear Robert, that the
sea is now decidedly my profession, and it behoves
me to know it well in all its bearings. I ought to be
acquainted with the best and with the worst of it,
with the practice of foreign nations, as well as with
that of our own, and above all, I ought to know how
to be left to my own resources. Now, hitherto, your
tenderness has warded off from me many a difficulty
and hardship, to which the life of a seaman is ob-
noxious. It has been all calms and sunshine with me,
and I know not how I should act in a sudden emergen-
cy. I would propose therefore not that we should
separate long," he added, speaking rapidly, " but
that I should make a voyage or two in British or
other foreign bottoms, and then I will return, and
either sail with you or for you ; for it will be fit that
you should begin to take some repose after your
labors."
Captain Thayer was utterly confounded. He had
never for a moment contemplated the possibility of a
separation ; but happy in the present posture of affairs,
he had gone on from voyage to voyage, from year to
year, seeing his young and sprightly brother accumu-
late knowledge, and strength, acquiring the love of
the various crews, by whom he was from time to
time surrounded; and in the continued feeling of each
succeeding hour had never dreamed of change. It was
put to him now however,- with plain good sense, to
which his own responded ; but he would fain have
combated his own judgment in favor of private regard.
The younger Thayer per-severed, and finally carried
PRESENTIMENT. 341
the day. With a heavy heart, and with a presenti-
ment of ill-fortune, Captain Thayer accompanied his
brother among the merchants and shipmasters, in
order to procure for him the offiee of second mate of
a West-Indiaman ; for, though fully capable to taking
the superior charge of first mate, in which capacity
he hud sailed two voyages, yet in pursuance of his
purpose he determined for the lower grade. He
obtained it without difficulty; and with strong feelings
of regret, but with unalterable regard, the brothers
parted, after arranging a steady and punctual corres-
pondence.
For many a day they were doomed to be separated.
Many an anxious, many a painiiil hour was the result
of this separation. That which in the pride of human
foresight had been considered laudable and wise, was
the prolific source of misfortune and anxiety, and
should teach mankind, in the midst of ambitious
projects, to
" Walk humbly then with trembling pinions soar."
The vessel in which Henry Thayer was embark-
ed, was returning from Barbadoes, at the time that
the expedition under Lord Exmouth was fitted out for
Algiers. They were boarded by one of the ships of
the squadron, and young Thayer was impressed.
In vain he urged that he was an American citizen,
and not liable to such a forcible seizure. In vain,
also, the captain of the merchantman protested against
the violence. In both cases it was believed, as was
sometimes the case, that the reasons were assumed to
21
ti'2 PRESENTIMENT.
save the man, particularly as young Thayer had not
his credentials to produce. Moreover there was
probably an additional reason in secret, that if he
were really American, they might be able to retain
him from the difficulty of conveying information, or
of any one stirring in his behalf. Be that as it might,
he was impressed, and his first sensations were those
of the most unqualified indignation. He soon found,
however, that in the arbitrary proceedings of a man
of war, the only refuge is a present submission, and
he resolved to do the duties which were imposed upon
him cheerfully. This was a wise resolution; he
acquired by it the regard of his officers, and if he
eould have determined to pursue his profession in
that line, he would probably have met the fullest
encouragement. But this was not to be.
The squadron reached its destination, the bombard-
ment took place, and the Algerines were for the
moment humbled. Young Thayer, who had been
made coxswain of one of the boats, was coming off
from the shore with his officer. It was evening, and
somewhat later than usual. They were carrying a
press of canvas, in order to reach the vessel before
dark, when suddenly they were upset by a squall.
The people were presently in the boat again, and it
was righted ; but the coxswain was missing. He
had been thrown clear of the sails, and was picked
up oy a small boat, in which were three fishermen.
They immediately pulled away with him, in a direc-
tion to the westward of the city, and landed him in an
obscure creek, where there were other boats of a
PRESENTIMENT. 913
similar description to their own. Deeply resenting
the humiliation to which their city had been subject-
ed by the British commander, and their revenge
being farther whetted by the consideration that it was
" Christian dogs" who had inflicted the injury, their
first impulse was to put him to death. Cupidity,
however, triumphed even over revenge ; or rather,
they thought of enjoying a double revenge, by selling
their victim into captivity. They departed with him,
therefore, several miles into the interior, and found
no difficulty in disposing of him j where he was kept
to hard labor, for which his compensation was starva-
tion, insult, and stripes.
It was now that the young man regretted his
fancied sagacity, and wished that he had listened to
his brother's remonstrances. But it was too late to
repine, and his elastic spirits were sustained by the
hope of escape. To this object he bent all his ener-
gies, and this end he never ceased to have in view ;
but the state of a Christian slave in Algiers is one of
such unmitigated rigor, and the poor wretches are
under such a perpetual surveillance, that month after
month, and year after year, passed away without
offering him an effectual opportunity. He had,
indeed, made some progress in an acquaintance with
an English renegado, who acted in the capacity of
superintendent; but Thayer was slow to make a
confidant of one who had renounced his faith. By
degrees, however, he was induced to think better of
the man, who protested that he had never swerved in
heart from the religion of Christ, but imagined that
2M PRESENTIMENT
he might dissemble for the sake of relaxation, and
the hope of ultimate liberty. Thayer admitted the
plea in extenuation, as coming from one whose prin-
ciples had not been perfectly fortified, but failed not
to urge upon him the insult he had offered, and the
want of confidence he had shown to the God in whom
he professed to trust. They gradually became assured
in each other, arid a plan was concocted of making
their way to the sea-side, seizing a boat, pulling off*
into the wide Mediterranean, and then trust to Provi-
dence to be taken up by some friendly vessel. They
did so, but were missed from the mansion of their
patron sooner than they had expected. A large boat
was launched in pursuit of them; whilst they, know-
ing that liberty or death were before them, strained
every nerve to escape.
In the meantime, Captain Thayer became acquaint-
ed with the impressment of his brother, and imme-
diately a process was instituted for his restitution.
An order was sent out for the prompt discharge of
Henry Thayer ; but, by the earliest returns, a report
was brought that the young man had perished by the
upsetting of a boat in the bay. The detail of the
circumstances left an impression on the mind of
Thayer, that his brother had not perished, but was
among the Algerines. He would not give way to a
contrary belief, but rather fortified himself in his
opinion, by all kinds of delusive reasoning. His
presentiment grew stronger and stronger, the farther
it was removed from probability ; and he immediately
changed his line of trading to a permanent Mediterra-
PRESENTIMENT. 215
nean voyage, in the forlorn hope that his brother
would break from his restraint, and that he should
have the satisfaction to bear him away. Constantly,
in going up or coming down that sea, he edged
towards the southern shore, and always kept the flag
of his country displayed. But hitherto without
success.
At length, how extravagant soever they might be,
the visions of his hope seemed on the eve of realiza-
tion. He saw the boats, he prepared himself for the
interesting result, and they were now coming to the
issue.
The scattering shot from the ship, as has been
already observed, wounded two or three persons in
the large boat, and caused a momentary confusion.
This was succeeded by rage and fury, and presently
fresh way was given towards the devoted fugitives.
They approached, they nearly touched, when the
long-boat of the American shot in between, and in
the same instant Captain Thayer, standing up in the
stern-sheets, knocked overboard the moor in the bow
of the adversary. In the same instant two shots
were heard from the infidel vessel, one of which
grazed Thayer's left shoulder, and the other caused a
piercing shriek from the flying boat. He hastily
turned, and beheld his half rescued brother covered
with gore that was streaming from his forehead.
Maddened at the sight, he sprung into the boat
which contained him, exclaiming to his men, " kill,
kill the dogs; no quarter my brother my poor
murdered Harry." The word operated like magic
316 PRESENTIMENT.
on his people they fought like desperadoes, and to
say truth, so did the Algerines; but the vessel was
nearing them, and though foaming with rage, impo-
tent rage, at the loss of their captives, and the destruc-
tion among their own people, they were obliged to
retreat.
In the mean while Captain Thayer was holding his
bleeding brother to his breast, calling him by all the
endearing names that fervent affection and agitated
spirits could suggest. " Harry," he cried, " my own
boy, my brother Harry ; live, live, oh live, and bless
your poor Robert's old days as you promised. You
are rescued, you are free, my Harry. Here, men,"
he cried to his people who had now ceased fighting,
" let the dogs go, lay hold of the painter, and tow us
alongside as quickly as possible. Harry, look at
me show me, only by your eyes, that you know me,
and I shall be satisfied."
The poor young man slowly lifted up his languid
eyes, and a faint smile indicated that he was sensible
as to who held him.
" That will do, that will do, my boy, my own boy
don't speak now, don't speak. Pull away, boys, for
dear life. Give way, my hearties. I'll make the
fortune of every man of ye." He again hung over
the sufferer, with mingled anguish and delight,
stanching the blood with his handkerchief, and con-
tinually forbidding him to stir or speak.
They arrived at the ship. The careful mate, who
had seen all that passed, had got a whip and a chair
rigged, and in one minute more he was on board and
PRESENTIMENT. 247
in the cabin. Vain cares, vain hopes ! A few heavy
groans were uttered by the sufferer, each of which
went to his brother's heart; presently afterwards,
he articulated faintly, " Robert my dear Robert."
"Here, Harry, here here is Robert be quiet,
and take rest, my dear lad."
" Dear Robert " whispered the dying man
"so happy to see you once again." After a
pause, he again faltered "dying Robert Lord,
be merciful God bless you my brother." He
was no more.
It was a few moments ere Captain Thayer could
believe the reality of his loss. When convinced that
he was gone, he remained a short time as in a stupor
of grief; but by degrees his brows knit, his face was
suffused with blood N the veins of his temples swelled.
He rushed on deck, where he found the breeze fresh-
ening towards a gale.
" Set the foresail, haul aft the lee clew of the main-
sail." It was done. " Away aloft, and let out every
reef. Clap on all sail. Go you, sir," added he, with
a dark and mysterious expression, to the helmsman,
" lend a hand, I'll take the helm meanwhile."
The seamen were aloft; the keen eye of Thayer
marked the track of the retreating boat; he steered
right into her wake, and regardless of the cries of the
wretched Moors, and of his own crew, he went clear
over them, destroying every man. Looking over the
taffrail, he viewed with his own eyes the destruction
he had committed, he gloated over it, as a most
acceptable sacrifice, and uttering a laugh of the most
948 PRESENTIMENT.
horrific sound, he sank exhausted on the deck. He
was taken below, where after some time he recovered
to life, but not to reason.
His employment from henceforth was to talk of, or
to his deceased brother, and so much was he wrap-
ped up in the corse, that it was found difficult to inter
the latter in the deep waters. But the health of the
crew required it, and opportunity was taken, whilst
the poor maniac slept, to consign the unfortunate
young man to his watery tomb. But their precau-
tions were fruitless. At the very moment, the awful
moment, when the body was launched over the gang-
way, a sudden rush was heard, a splash followed, and
it was found that, even in death, poor Thayer would
not be divided from the child of his hopes and
affections.
V
KAATSKILL.
"Like the bird, just 'scaped
From the close caging of some gentle dame,
Showing its freedom's consciousness in song
Not less than flight."
WHEN to the city's crowded streets
The fiercer spells of summer come,
Then, for thy calm and cool retreats,
Sweet Kaatskill ! may the wanderer roam.
Then may he seek thy guardian haunts,
Thy quiet stream, thy shady tree,
And, while the world around him pants,
From all oppression find him free.
Above him towers thy giant form,
Rock-heaved, and rising like a king ;
Around him rides thy summer storm,
With cooling freshness on its wing 1
KAATSKILL.
Below him what a scene is there!
The hallowed, sweet repose of home ;
The sheltered green, the waters clear,
And, snugly small, the cottage dome
Gathering above, the thickening clouds
The sun's intenser beams would chide,
In quiet, but commingling crowds,
Down-bending to the unbroken tide.
See, where the boatman speeds his barque
As'sped the Indian chief of old,
Bound on some errand, wild and dark,
Whose story is as yet untold.
Proof of the sacred, sweet repose,
The farmer's cattle seek the place,
And, as the waters round them close,
Give to the scene an added grace
The grace of home, the charming cot,
Domestic peace, unbroken joy,
Known only to the humble lot
Dreamed only by the enthusiast boy.
Yet, not alone his dream, since here
Nature has nobly done her part ;
And, in her colors, prompt and clear,
A kindred triumph comes from art.
KAAT8KILU 261
Thus, to the city, well transferred,
The painter's pencil bears the scene
And there the streamlet, there the bird,
The forest, and the summer's green.
There glides the barque, there lies the tree
The quiet cottage heaves in sight,
Until each form, again, I see,
That once could give my heart delight.
CLAUDE.
WASHINGTON.
AND the Genius of Death, with his brow bound
about with the gloomy hemlock, and bearing in his
hands a living, but a leafless, cypress, stood beside
the couch where Washington lay :
" I will quench this light," said the Genius " I
will overcome this lofty spirit, which, forgetting me,
mankind delights to honor."
"Thou quench this light, thou overcome this
spirit!" replied the Genius of Eternal Fame, stand-
ing also beside the couch of the sleeping Father;
" Oh, fool, that thou art ! he hath given thee immor-
tality in dying at thy hands."
ISOLATED AFFECTION.
" True love, still born of heaven, is bless'd with wings,
And, tired of earth, it plumes them back again,
And so we lose it."
I.
DEEP in the bosom of a southern forest, there grew
a beautiful flower, the sweetest flower in that lonely
region. Its leaves were of the purest white, for the first
time unfolding to the world around them, and reveal-
ing, as they did so, the fine and delicate droppings of
violet and purple, which before, like so much hidden
wealth, had lain in its bosom. Its odor was fresh
and exquisite, and no flower in all that forest, could
come near it for sweetness or for beauty. In excel-
lence as in condition, it was equally alone.
II.
But it was not destined to be alone always. There
came to it one morning in May, a golden butterfly
a rover among the flowers -an ancient robber of
their sweets. Gayly he plied his flight throughout
the forest, now here and now there, sporting about in
a sort of errant unconsciousness. It was not long
before he inhaled the odor it was not long before
ISOLATED AFFECTION. 253
he saw the pure white leaves, and looked down, with
a yearning eye, upon the rich droppings of purple
and violet which nestled in the bosom of the flower.
IIL
Flying around in mazy but still contracting circles,
he gazed upon the loveliness of the flower, and grew
more and more enamoured at each moment of his
survey. " Surely," he thought, " this is a flower by
itself love's own flower dwelling in secret
blooming only, and budding, for his eyes, and denied
to all beside. It is my good fortune to have found it
I will drink its sweets I will nestle in its bosom
I will enjoy its charms as I have enjoyed a thousand
others."
IV.
Even with the thought, came the quick resolution,
and another moment found him lying lying close
and pressed upon the bosom of the flower. There
was a slight effort to escape from the embraces of the
intruder the flower murmured its dissent, but the
murmur died away into a sigh, and the sigh was
inhaled, as so much honey, by the pressing lips of the
butterfly. He sung to the flower of his love he,
the acknowledged rover the unlicensed drinker of
sweets the economical winner of affections, with
which he did not share his own he sung to the
flower a story of his love ; and, oh ! saddest of all,
the young flower believed him.
25* ISOLATED AFFECTION.
V.
And day after day he came to the stolen embrace,
and day after day, more fondly than ever, the lovely
flower looked forth to receive him. She surrendered
her very soul to his keeping, and her pure white
leaves grew tinged with his golden winglets, while his
kisses stained with yellow the otherwise delicate
loveliness of her lips. But she heeded not this, so
long as the embrace was still fervent the kiss stili
warm the return of the butterfly still certain.
VI.
But when was love ever certain? not often where
the lover is a butterfly. There came a change over
the fortunes of the flower, for there came a change
over the habits of the butterfly. He gradually fell off
in his attentions. His passion grew cool, and the
ease of nis conquest led him to undervalue its acqui-
sition. Each day he came later and later, and his
stay with the flower grew more and more shortened
at every return. Her feelings perceived the estrange-
ment long before her reason had taught her to think
upon or understand it.
VII.
At length she murmured her reproaches and the
grievance must be great when love will venture so
far. "Wherefore," she said, "Oh, wherefore hast
thou lingered away so long. Why dost thou not
now, as before, vie with the sunlight in thy advances?
I have looked for thee from the dawning, yet I have
ISOLATED AFFECTION. 255
looked for thee in vain. The yellow beetle has been
all the morning buzzing about me, but I frowned
upon his approaches. The green grasshopper had a
song under my bush, and told me a dull story of the
love which he had for me in his bosom; and, more
than once, the glittering humming bird has sought
my embraces, but I shut my leaves against him.
Thou only hast been slow to seek me thou whom,
only, I have looked to see."
VIII.
Gayly then the butterfly replied to these reproaches,
nor, as he spoke, heeded the increasing paleness of
the flower: " Over a thousand forests I've been flying,
each as beautiful as this on a thousand flowers I've
been 'tending, none less lovely to the sight than thou.
How could'st thou dream that with a golden winglet,
broad, and free, and beautiful, like mine, in a single
spot I still should linger, of the world around unknow-
ing aught 1 No, no mine is an excursive spirit ; for a
thousand free affections made; wouldst thou have
me, like a groping spider, working still to girdle in
myself?"
IX.
It was a murmuring and a sad reply of the now
isolated flower, and she lived not long after she had
made it : " Ah, now I know mine error my sad
error having no wings myself, to mate with the
lover who had. Alas ! that I have loved so fondly and
foolishly, for while thou hast gone over a thousand
266 ISOLATED AFFECTION.
forests, seeing a thousand flowers, I have only known,
only looked, only lived for, a single butterfly."
X.
The false one was soon away, after this, to another
forest; for his ear loved not reproaches, and he had
sense, if not feeling enough, to know that they were
uttered justly. The flower noted his departure, and
its last sigh was an audible warning to the young bud
which it left behind it. The wood-spirit heard the
sigh and the warning ; and when the bud began to
expand in the pleasant sunshine, he persuaded the
black-browed spider to spin his web, and frame his
nest, in the thick bushes that hung around it; and
many were the wanton butterflies, after this, who,
coming to prey upon the innocent affection, became
entangled, and justly perished in the guardian net-
work thus raised up to protect it.
A LIVING POET.
OH ! gaze not, with sarcastic smile,
Upon his foppish gait and air ;
Nor deem poetic feeling all
Mere fancied mockery, false as fair !
He was not always what he is !
His boyish years, his early youth,
Saw him an ardent worshipper
Of beauty, purity, and truth.
His heart was like an echoing dell ;
The moaning brook, the mother's voice,
Each wild unwritten melody,
Could make it murmur, or rejoice.
He searched for April violets ;
He lingered in the moonlit air,
To gaze upon the sky of June,
To praise and bless the dweller there.
Then the full tide of visions high,
Of holy love, of swelling bliss,
Burst forth in fresh and heartfelt song ;
Oh 1 then he was not what he is.
28*
A LIVING POET.
Alas ! that beauty e'er should cause
Her fond idolater to fall !
Why did he leave her peaceful haunts
To seek her in the crowded hall !
In that cold, uncongenial clime,
His better nature drooped and died ;
His fancy stooped, his purpose failed,
His heart was chilled, his faith denied 1 .
Oft, when the winds have sunk to sleep,
The sea still rolls its billows blue ;
Thus, still he sings ; but sings past thoughts,
And feelings such as once he knew.
And the affected verses show
The pallid hues, the sick perfume,
Of buds, which, gathered in the grove,
Have opened in a heated room.
SlGNOEINA.
INNOCENZA.
THOU art not a being of upper air
Though thy form be as slender, thy beauty as rare !
Nor a daughter of the bounding sea
Though thy smile be as sunny, thy bosom as free !
Thou art not the Dryad's woodland child
Though the glance of thine eye be as timidly wild !
Nor nymph on the margin of haunted rill
Nor fairy that circles the moonlit hill.
Spirits are these but of humbler birth,
Than the heavenly soul of a child of earth.
Spirits are these that must fade and die
But a spirit art thou of eternity.
For a Christian mother o'er thee did raise
A prayer of hope, and a hymn of praise
That thou mightst pass, when life be spent,
Pure to thy maker, and innocent.
Sadly she soothed thy plaintive wail,
Till the rosy hues of her cheek grew pale,
Wearily watching thine infant bed,
While sleep from her heavy eyelids fled.
260 INNOCENZA.
And fondly she looked, that a brighter day
Those sorrowful hours should well repay
A day of long and brilliant years,
Full of promise, and free from tears.
And she trembles now with a fearful delight,
As she gazes on thee, thou blossom bright
Oh ! may no breath of sin or slight
Steal o'er thy flowerets, to banish their light !
The ills that must be to all our race
Mayest thou bear with patience, and humble grace j
Brighter, and better, and happier still,
Till thy years shall have passed the brow of the hill !
Then when thy path shall be downward turned,
And heaven desired, yet earth not spurned
To tny long home pass, in calm content,
Pure as thou now art, and innocent !
A NIGHT
'THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS."
BY THB AUTHOR OP A WINTER IN THE WEST.'
THERE are few parts of our broad country, which,
for beauty of scenery, amenity of climate, and, I
might add, for the primitive and interesting character
of the inhabitants, can compare with the mountainous
region of eastern Tennessee.
It is a wild and romantic district, composed of
rocks and broken hills, where the primeval forests
overhang valleys watered by limpid streams whose
meadowy banks are grazed by innumerable herds of
cattle. The various mountain ridges, which at one
point traverse the country almost in parallel lines,
while at another they sweep off in vast curves, and
describe a majestic amphitheatre, are all, more or less,
connected with the Appalachian chain, and share the
peculiarities which elsewhere characterize the Alle-
ganies. In some places, the transition from valley
to highland is so gradual, that you are hardly aware
of the undulations of the surface when passing over
it. In others, the frowning heights rise in precipitous
2C2 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
Walls from the plains ; while again their wooded and
dome-like summits will heave upward from the
broad meadows like enormous tumuli heaped upon
their bosom.
The hills, also, are frequently seamed with deep
and dark ravines, whose sheer sides, and dimly
descried hottom, will make the eye swim as it tries to
fathom them, while often they are pierced with
cavernous galleries which lead miles under ground,
and branch off into grottoes so spacious that an army
might be marshalled within their yawning chambers.*
Here, too, those remarkable conical cavities which
are generally known by the name of " sink holes",
in the western country, are thickly scattered over the
surface, and so perfect in shape are many of them,
that it is difficult to persuade the ruder residents that
they are not the work of art, nor fashioned out as
drinking bowls for the extinct monsters whose fossil
remains are so abundant in this region. Indeed, the
singular formation of the earth's surface, with the
entire seclusion in which they live amid their pastoral
valleys, must account for, and excuse many a less
reasonable belief and superstition prevailing among
those hospitable mountaineers. " The Enchanted
Mountains," as one of the ranges we have been
attempting to describe is called, are especially distin-
guished by the number of incredible traditions and
wild superstitions connected with them. Those
* The great limestone cavern of Kentucky, which has been
explored twelve miles in one direction, is said in the current
phrase of the country, to extend under a whole county.
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 263
uncouth paintings along their cliffs, and the foot-prints
of men and horses stamped in the solid rock upon
the highest summits, as mentioned by Mr. Flint in
his Geography of the Western Country, constitute
but a small part of the materiel which they offer to
an uneducated and imaginative people for the creation
of strange fantasies. The singular echoes that
tremble at times through these lonely glens, and the
shifting forms, which, as the morning mist rises from
the upland, may be seen stealing over the tops of the
crags, and hiding themselves within their crevices,
are alike accounted for by superaatural causes.
Having always been imbued with a certain love ot
the marvellous, and being one of the pious few, who,
in this enlightened age of reality, nurse up a lingering
superstition or two, I found myself, while loitering
through this romantic district, and associating upon
the most easy terms with its rural population, irresis-
tibly imbibing a portion of the feeling and spirit
which prevailed around me. The cavernous ravines
and sounding aisles of the tall forests, had " airy
tongues" for me, as well as for those who were more
familiar with their whisperings. But as for the
freakish beings, who were supposed to give them
utterance as they pranked it away in the dim retreats
around, I somehow or other could never obtain a fair
sight of one of them. The forms that sometimes
rose between my eyes and the mist-breathing cascade,
or flitted across the shadowy glade at some sudden
turn of my forest path, always managed to disappear
behind some jutting rock, or make good their escape
2t)4 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
into some convenient thicket, before I could make out
their lineaments, or even swear to their existence at
all. My repeated disappointment in this way had
begun to put me quite out of conceit of my quickness
and accuracy of vision, when a new opportunity was
given of testing them in the manner I am about to
relate.
I happened one day to dine at a little inn situated at
the mouth of a wooded gorge, where it lay tucked
away so closely beneath the ponderous limbs of a
huge tulip tree, that the blue smoke from the kitchen
fire alone betrayed its locality. My host proved to
be one of those talkative worthies, who, being sup-
plied with but little information to exercise his tongue
upon, make amends for the defects of education and
circumstance by dwelling with exaggeration upon
every trivial incident around him. Such people, in
polished society, become the scandal mongers of the
circle in which they move, while in more simple
communities they are only the chroniclers of every
thing marvellous that has ever occurred in the neigh-
borhood " within the memory of the oldest inhabitant."
I had hardly placed myself at the dinner table, before
my garrulous entertainer began to display his reten-
tive faculties by giving me the exact year and day
upon which every chicken with two heads, or calf
with five legs, had been born throughout the whole
country around. Then followed the most minute
particulars about a murder or two which had been
perpetrated within the last twenty years; and after
this I was drilled into the exact situation and bearings
'/HE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 265
of a haunted house which I should probably see the
next day by pursuing the road I was then traveling;
finally, I was inducted into all the arcana of a
remarkable cavern in the vicinity where a moon-elf
or water-sprite had taken up her residence, to the
great annoyance of every one except my landlord's
buxom daughter, who was said to be upon the most
enviable terms with the freakish lady of the grotto.
The animated and really eloquent description which
mine host gave of this cavern, made me readily
overlook the puerile credulity with which he wound
up his account of its peculiarities. It interested me,
indeed, so much, that I determined to stable my horse
for the night, and proceed at once to explore the place.
A fresh and blooming girl, with the laughing eye
and free step of a mountaineer, volunteered te be my
guide on the occasion, hinting, at the same time,
while she gave a mischievous look at her father, that
I would find it difficult to procure a cicerone other
than herself in the neighborhood. She then directed
me how to find the principal entrance to the cave,
where she promised to join me soon after.
A rough scramble in the hills soon brought me to
the place of meeting, and entering the first chamber
of the cavern, which was large, and well lighted from
without, I stretched myself upon a rocky ledge
which leaned over a brook that meandered through
the place, and, lulled by the dash of a distant
waterfall, surrendered myself to a thousand musing
fancies. Fatigue, or possibly too liberal a devotion
to the good things which had been placed before
2C6 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
me at table, caused me soon to be overtaken by
sleep. My slumbers, however, were broken and
uneasy, and after repeatedly opening my eyes to look
with some impatience at my watch, as I tossed upon
my stony couch, I abandoned the idea of a nap
entirely, while momentarily expecting that my guide
would make her appearance, and contented myself
with gazing listlessly upon the streamlet which
rippled over its pebbled bed beneath me. I must
have remained for some time in this vacant mood,
when my idle musings were interrupted by a new
source of interest presenting itself.
A slight rustling near disturbed me, and turning
round as I opened my eyes, a female figure in a
drapery of snowy whiteness appeared to flit before
them, and retire behind a tall cascade immediately in
front of me. The uncertain light of the place, with
the spray of the waterfall, which partially impeded
my view of the farther part of the cavern, made me
at first doubt the evidence of my senses ; but gradually
a distinct form was perceptible amid the mist, appa-
rently moving slowly from me, and beckoning the
while to follow. The height of the figure struck
me immediately as being about the same as that of
the frank daughter of my landlord ; and, though the
proportions seemed more slender, I had no doubt,
upon recalling her arch expression of countenance
while her father was relating to me the wild super-
stitions of the cavern, that a ready solution of one
of its mysteries at least was at hand. Some
woman's whim, I had no doubt, prompted the girl to
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 267
get up a little diversion at my expense, and sent her
thither to put the freak in execution. I had been
told that there were a dozen outlets to the cavern, and
presumed that I was now to be involved in its laby-
rinths for the purpose of seeing in what part of the
mountain I might subsequently make my exit. He
is no true lover of a pair of bright eyes who will
mar the jest of a pretty woman. The lady beckoned,
and I followed.
I had some difficulty in scaling the precipice, over
which tumbled the waterfall, but after slipping once
or twice upon the wet ledges of rock which supplied
a treacherous foot-hold, I at last gained the summit,
and stood within a few yards of my whimsical
conductor. She had paused upon the farthest side of
the chamber into which the cavern here expanded.
It was a vast and noble apartment. The lofty ceiling 1
swelling almost into a perfect dome, save where a
ragged aperture at the top admitted the noon-day sun,
whose rays, as they fell through the vines and wild
flowers that embowered the orifice, were glinted back
from a thousand sparry points and pillars around.
The walls, indeed, were completely fretted with
stalactites. In some places, small, and apparently
freshly formed, they hung in fringed rows from the
ceiling to the ground. In others they drooped so
heavily as to knit the glistening roof to the marble
floor beneath it, or rose in slender pyramids from the
floor itself, until they appeared to sustain the vault
above.
The motion of the air created by the cascade gave
268 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
a delightful coolness to this apartment, while the
murmur of the falling water was echoed back from
the vibrating columns with tones as rich and melodious
as those which sweep from an ^Eolian harp. Never,
methought, had I seen a spot so alluring. And yet,
when I surveyed each charm of the grotto, I knew
not whether I could be contented in any one part of
it. Nothing, indeed, could be more inviting to tran-
quil enjoyment than the place where I then stood ;
but the clustering columns, with their interlacing
screen work of woven spar, allured my eye into a
hundred romantic aisles which I longed to explore ;
while the pendant wild flowers which luxuriated in
the sun-light around the opening above, prompted me
to scale the dangerous height, and try what pinnacle
of the mountain I might gain by emerging from the
cavern through the lofty aperture.
These reflections were abruptly terminated by an
impatient gesture from my guide, and for the first
time I caught a glimpse of her countenance as she
glided by a deep pool in which it was reflected.
That glance had a singular, almost a preternatural
effect upon me the features were different, very
different, from those I had expected to behold. They
were not those of the new acquaintance whom I
thought I was following, but the expression they
wore was one so familiar to me in by-gone years, that
I started as if I had seen an apparition.
It was the look of one who had been long since
dead of one around whose name, when life was
new, the whole tissue of my hopes and fears was
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 269
woven for whom all my aspirations after worldly
honors had been breathed in whom all my dreams
of heaven had been wound up. She had mingled in
purer hours with all the fond and home-loving fancies
of boyhood she had been the queen of each
romantic vision of my youth ; and, amid the worldly
cares and selfish struggles of maturer life, the thought
of her had lived separate and apart in my bosom,
with no companion in its hallowed chamber save the
religion I had learned at my mother's knee save
that hope of better things, which, once implanted by
a mother's love, survives amid the storms and conflicts
of the world a beacon to warn us more often,
alas ! how far we have wandered from her teachings,
than to guide us to the haven whither they were
meant to lead. I had loved her, and I had lost her.
How, it matters not. Perchance disease had reft her
from me by some sudden blow, at the moment when
possession made her dearest. Perchance I saw her
fade in the arms of another, while I was banned and
barred from ministering to a spirit that stole away to
the grave with all I prized on earth. It boots not how
I lost her. But he who has centered every thought
and feeling in one only object whose morning
hopes have for years gone forth to the same goal
whose evening reflections have for years come back
to the same bourne whose waking visions, and
whose midnight dreams, have for years been haunted
by the same image whose schemes of toil and
advancement have all tended to the same end He
knows what it is to have the pivot upon which every
270 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
wheel of his heart hath turned, wrenched from its
centre to have the sun round which revolved every
joy that lighted his bosom, plucked from its system.
Well, it was her face as I live it was the soul-
breathing features of Linda that now beamed before
me fresh as when in dawning womanhood they
first caught my youthful fancy resistless as when
in their noon-tide blaze of beauty I poured out my
whole adoring soul before them. Theie was that
same appealing look of the large lustrous eyes the
same sunny and soul-melting smile, which, playing
over a countenance thoughtful even to sadness,
touched it with a beauty so radiant that the charm
seemed borrowed from heaven itself. I could not but
think it strange that such an image should be pre-
sented to my view in such a place ; and yet, if I now
rightly recollect my emotions, surprise was the least
active among them. I cared not why or whence
the apparition came I thought not whether it were
reality or a mocking resemblance the phantasy of
my own brain, or the shadowy creation of some
supernatural power around me. I knew only that it
was there I knew only that the eyes in whose
perilous light my soul had bathed herself to madness,
beamed anew before me that the lips whose lightest
smile had often rapt me in elysium that the brow
whose holy light But why should I thus
attempt to paint what pencil never yet hath reached
why essay a portrait whose colors I have no where
found, save in the heart where they are laid so deeply
that death alone can dim them. Enough that the
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 271
only human being to which my spirit ever bowed in
inferiority enough that the idol to which it had
knelt in adoration, now stood palpably before it. An
hour agone, and I would have crossed the threshold
of the grave itself to stand one moment in that
presence to gaze, if but for an instant, upon those
features. What recked I now, then, how or whence
they were conjured up? Had the Fiend himself stood
nigh, I should have pressed nearer, and gazed, and
followed as I did. The figure beckoned, and I
went on.
The vaulted pathway was at first smooth and
easily followed, but after passing through several of
the cavernous chambers into which it ever and anon
expanded, the route became more and more difficult ;
loose masses of rock encumbering the floor, or
drooping in pendant crags from the roof, rendered
the defiles between them both toilsome and hazardous.
The light which fell through the opening behind us
soon disappeared entirely, and it gave me a singular
sinking of the spirits as we passed into deeper and
deeper gloom, to hear the musical sounds which I
have already noted in the grotto from which we first
passed, dying away in the distance, and leaving the
place at last to total silence. Long, indeed, after they
had ceased to reach my ear with any distinctness,
they would seem at times to swell along the winding
vault, and break anew upon me at some turn in
our devious route. So strangely, too, do the innume-
rable subtle echoes metamorphose each sound in such
a place, that continually did I find myself mistaking
272 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
the muttered reverberations for the sounds of a human
voice. At one moment it seemed in gay tones to be
calling me back to the sparry grotto and bright
sunshine behind me, while the very next it appeared
with sudden and harsh intonation to warn me against
proceeding further anon then it would die away
with a mournful cadence, a melancholy wailing,
like the requiem of one who was beyond the reach of
all earthly counsel or assistance. Again and again
did I pause in my career to listen to this wild
chanting, while my feelings would, for the moment,
take their hue and complexion from the sources
which thus bewildered my senses. I thought of my
early dreams of fame and honor of the singing
hopes that lured me on my path, when one fatal
image stepped between my soul and all its high
endeavor I thought of that buoyancy of spirit, once
so irrepressible in its elasticity, that it seemed proof
alike against time and sorrow, now sapped, wasted,
and destroyed, by the frenzied pursuit of one object
I thought of the home which had so much to embel-
lish and endear it, and which yet, with all its heart-
cheering joys, had been neglected and left, like the
sunlit grotto, to follow a shifting phantom through a
heartless world I thought of the reproachful voices
around me, and the ceaseless upbraider in my own
bosom, which told of time and talents wasted of
opportunities thrown away of mental energies
squandered of heart, brain, and soul, consumed in a
devotion deeper and more absorbing than Heaven
itself exacts from its votaries I thought and I
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 273
looked at the object for which I had lavished them
all I thought that my life must have been some
hideous dream some damned vision in which my
fated soul was bound by imaginary ties to a being
doomed to be its bane upon earth, and shut it out at
last from heaven. And I laughed in scornful glee as
I twisted my bodily frame in the hope that at length I
might wake from that long-enduring sleep. I caught
a smile from the lips I saw a beckon from the hand
of the phantom, and I wished again to dream and to
follow for ever I plunged into the abyss of darkness
to which it pointed, and reckless of every thing I
might leave behind, followed wheresoever it might
marshal me.
A damp and chilling atmosphere now pervaded the
place, and the clammy moisture stood thick upon my
brow as I groped my way through a labyrinth of
winding galleries which intersected each other so
often, both obliquely and transversely, that the whole
mountain seemed honey-combed. At one moment
the steep and broken pathway led up acclivities
almost impossible to scale; at another, the black edge
of a precipice indicated our hazardous route along
the brink of some unfathomed gulf; while again a
savage torrent, roaring through the sinuous vault,
left scarcely room enough for a foothold between the
base of the wall and its furious tide. And still my
guide kept on, and still I followed. Returning,
indeed, had the thought occurred to me, were now
impossible ; for the pale light which seemed to hang
around her person, emanating, as it were, from her
274 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
white raiment, was all that guided me through these
shadowy realms. But not for a moment now did I
think of retracing my steps, or pausing in that wild
pursuit onward and still onward it led, while my
spirit, once set upon its purpose, seemed to gather
sterner determination from every difficulty it encoun-
tered, and kindle once more with that indomitable
buoyancy which was once the chief attribute of my
nature.
At length the chase seemed ended, as we approached
one of those abrupt and startling turns common in
these caverns, where the passage, suddenly veering
to the right or left, leads you, as if by design, to the
sheer edge of some gulph that is impassible. My
strange companion seemed pausing for a moment
upon the brink of the abyss. It was a moment to me
of delirious joy, mingled with more than mortal
agony ; the object of my wild pursuit seemed at
length within my grasp a single bound, and my
outstretched arms would have encircled her person
a single bound, nay, the least movement toward her,
might only have precipitated the destruction upon
whose brink she hovered. Her form seemed to
flutter upon the very edge of that horrid precipice,
as, gazing like one fascinated, over it, she stretched
her hand backward toward me. It was like inviting
me to perdition and yet, forgive me, Heaven to
perish with her was my proudest hope, as I sprang
to grasp it. But oh! God, what held I in that
withering clasp ? The ice of death seemed curdling
in my veins as I touched those clammy and pulseless
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS. 275
fingers a strange and unhallowed light shot upward
from the black abyss, and the features from which I
could not take my eyes away were changed to those
of a demon in that hideous glare. And now the hand
that I had so longed to clasp, closed with remorseless
pressure round my own, and drew me toward the
yawning gulf it tightened in its grasp, and I
hovered still nearer to my horrid doom it clenched
yet more closely, and the frenzied shriek I gave
AWOKE me.
A soft palm was gently pressed against my
own a pair of laughing blue eyes were bent
archly upon me, and the fair locks which floated
over her blooming cheeks revealed the joyous and
romping damsel who had promised to act as my
guide through the cavern. She had been prevented
by some household cares from keeping her appoint-
ment until the approach of evening made it too late,
and had taken it for granted that I had then returned
to my lodgings at the inn. My absence from the
breakfast table in the morning, however, had awakened
some concern in the family, and induced her to seek
me where we then met. The pressure of her hand in
trying to awaken me, will partially account for the
latter part of my hideous dream. The general tenor
of it is easily traceable to the impression made upon
my mind by the prevalent superstition connected with
the cavern ; but no metaphysical ingenuity of which
I am master, can explain how one whose life has,
with the exception of one dark shadow, been passed
under such uniform sunny influences as mine, could,
276 THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAINS.
even in a dream, have conjured up such a train of
wild and bitter fancies ; much less how the fearful
tissue could have been interwoven with the recollec-
tion of one whose gentle spirit, when on earth, could
never have wounded the bosom that loved her, and
whose memory, through the long, long years, that
have elapsed since we parted, has ever been associated
in my mind with all that was true and tender,
generous, noble, and confiding.
If half be true, however, that is told concerning
them, still more extravagant sallies of the imagination
overtake persons of quite as easy and careless a
disposition as myself, when venturing to pass a
Night upon the Enchanted Mountains.
THE STARS.
YE stars of beauty everlasting bright !
Gems of creation jewels of the night !
Ye smile in glory with unclouded power,
As first ye smiled in nature's primal hour ;
No chance or change hath ever touched your sphere;
Deathless ye stand, while all things perish here.
Ye orbs immortal, how I pant to see
The happy ones, that ever dwelt with ye
Could I companion them ! But ah ! how vain
The thought, which burns my ever-aching brain 1
This is my dwelling place ! From this I see
Your sheen, that silvers earth, and sky, and sea !
And, as I see, in sadness I adore
Ye stars of beauty shine for evermore.
As you to us, so we may be
To you an ever-twinkling gem
To those 'yond your infinity
You may but seem the like to them !
Oh ! who can say where this shall end
Who may the mystery comprehend ?
That which to HIM is but a span
Outreaches every thought of man !
Man but an atom ! yea the earth
On which he stands with haughty crest
M
278 THE STARS.
A wandering speck of pigmy birth,
Compared with all the endless rest !
The million millions who have been,
Since time's unreckoned race began
The trophies of their pride or spleen
The mortals and the works of man
Where are they ? Let their relics say
Their shattered stones their charnel clay !
The times, perchance, to us which seem
A fable, or fantastic dream,
Outflourished ours in art in mind
In all that dignifies our kind ;
And looked to a forgotten past
As we on them conjecture cast
Upon the Egyptian's burning sand
The pyramids still proudly stand
So stood they in their glory. When ?
The tombs of oxen or of men ?
The jests of fame the " fiend's arch-mock " -
Conjecture's beacon, and her rock !
The thought-defiers ! since whose date
All else hath shared the builder's fate ;
While they, in might of monumental stone
Records of others are themselves unknown ;
And stand alone, to shadow forth our lot
To be to perish and to be forgot!
But ye, bright beacons of a better shore,
Shall live in light, till time shall lose his power,
While mortals, as they feel their spirits soar,
Shall bend and bless ye " Shine for evermore ! "-
L.
THE FATE OF POMPEY,
BY THJS AUTHOR OF " THE BROTHERS.'
The desolator desolate,
The victor overthrown,
The arbiter of others' fate,
A suppliant for his own.
BYRON.
Magnus mirandusque clicns sedet ad praeloria regis,
Donee Bithyno libeat vigilare tyranno.
JUVENAL, xth Sat
FOR the first time had the plains of Thessaly rung
to the war cries of two Roman armies, mingled in
civil strife; for the first time, had they reeked to
heaven with the unnatural evidence of kindred
slaughter destined as they were again to witness
similar abominations, again to minister unto the fall
of liberty. Carnage, unexampled since the days of
the one-eyed Carthaginian, since the ambuscades of
Thrasymene, or the pitched field of Cannae, had
fallen on the masters of the world. From this day
forth, the annals of the eagle-queen were to be stamped
with different records ; from this day forth, were the
nations to be let loose against her; and deadlier
yet, the hands, which had subdued the universe, were
280 THE FATE OF POMPEY.
to be turned against her vitals ; from this day forth was
the thirsty earth, at short and oft repeated intervals,
to drink the blood of Rome in fearful retribution.
The bodies of fifteen thousand citizens the
veterans of twenty battles, the sons of war nursed
in the very lap of victory, cumbered the marshes of
Pharsalia; while twice the number bowed in despe-
rate submission before the footstool of a native
conqueror. Nor was it on mercenaries alone, on
Gaulish horsemen or the infantry of Spain, or even
on the private legionaries, that the havoc had fallen
with the most unsparing hand. Two hundred
senators lay there, praetorians, consulars, stiff in their
curdled blood, men, who had braved the chilling
cold of the transalpine winter unsubdued and fearless,
who had marched undaunted through the scorching
desarts of Numidia, who had breathed unenervated
the luxurious atmosphere of Syria men, who had
rendered the name of Rome supreme to the farthest
limits of the habitable world lay there unnaturally
stricken down and in a private quarrel. And He, the
conqueror of Mithridates, the spoiler of the east, the
destroyer of the pirates, the desolater of Jerusalem
He who, while yet a boy, had been surnamed the
GREAT, by one yet loftier than himself in that vain
eminence which men call greatness He who for
thirty years had striven, now in the field, now in the
forum, at one time with his country, at another
with his country's foes, but still in one unvarying
career of victory, in one eternal tide of fortune
Pompey had fallen.
THE FATE OF POMPEY. 2B1
While there was yet a hope, he had battled like a
soldier like a man. Till he heard the fatal man-
date "Faciem feri, miles" thundered from the
lips of the great captain, and saw it fearfully backed
by the headlong 1 valor of his legionaries till he saw
his chosen cavalry, the pride of the equestrian order,
the flower of Rome's young chivalry, swept away
like chaff before the onset of the Gallic veterans
till then he had striven, he had hoped.
Night fell, and he was hopeless. Alone he had
mounted his horse, and gallopped, from the theatre of
his disgrace, he scarce knew whither. The moon
rose brightly as he quitted the postern gate of his
encampment ; the deep shout of the legions, and the din
of arms, as they scaled the feebly guarded rampart,
ringing in his ears, and goading his soul to madness.
A score of horsemen joined him on his route, weary,
like himself, and many wounded ; ere midnight, he
had reached Larissa, but he knew too well the course
of Roman clemency to loiter, even without the gates.
The moon set as he entered the wildest defiles of the
range of Ossa, yet he tarried not ; the morning found
him painfully journeying down the windings of the
silver Peneus, through the laurel thickets, and beneath
the limestone crags of Tempe ; night the second
since he was a leader, already in his confidence
victorious saw him outstretched upon the wretched
pallet of a fisher's hut, tossing in his fevered slumbers,
while his few attendants fitted with hasty zeal the
fragile shallop that was to bear him on the morrow
beyond the mercies of the conqueror.
282 THE FATE OF POMPEY.
The sun went up from the waters, but no human
eye beheld him, for the northwest wind had driven
the vapors far to seaward, and the heavens were
shrouded to the zenith with dark and threatening
clouds ; the waves of the Thermaic gulf were already
capped with white, and the distant sails, that might be
seen on the horizon, were skimming their broken
ridges with unusual velocity ; the very sea fowl, con-
scious of the coming storm, were beating up against
the wind, with hoarse and plaintive clamors, as they
sought the security of the shore. But to Pompey
and his fugitive companions the wildest tempest, that
was ever brewed in the stormy west, would have been
preferred to the wonted calms, the glassy surface, and
the slight breezes of the Mediterranean. The wind
though boisterous was fair the sea, though to lands-
men it might have seemed perilous, had no terrors to
the exile who " blest its roughness for the speed it
gave." The boat was hauled down to the beach, a
moment saw it launched into the boiling surf; the
mast was shipped ; the long yard hoisted ; and, ere
the canvas was fairly spread to the influence of the gale,
she was already dancing over the billows at a rate
that barely seemed sufficient to the fears or wishes of
her crew.
A week had not elapsed from his departure, ere he
had collected a few scattered galleys of his yet powerful
fleet, had armed a petty force of scarce two thousand
men, all that now adhered to the fortunes of him,
who had so lately boasted, that by the mere stamping
of his foot upon the earth he could create an army,
THE PATE OP POMPBY. 283
above all he had taken on board, at Mitylene, his
heroic wife Cornelia, with Sextus, the youngest of
those brave boys, who were, in after days, destined to
perish, like their sire, in the vain hope of victory and
vengeance.
The mind of the bold Roman had been shaken, it
is true, by his late disasters, but it was unsubdued.
No thought of base submission, no thought of with-
drawal from the contest, or relinquishment of his
ambitious views, had crossed his daring spirit. His
army was, indeed, broken his party scattered to the
four winds of heaven, while the power of his rival
was not only increased by victory, and by the confi-
dence arising thence, but was actually reinforced by
the desertion of his own dispirited and faithless
legions. Still there was hope for Pompey. While
Rome should stand, and Cato breathe while twenty
patriots, who preferred a patriotic death for liberty
to the base trappings of a delegated sway, should
tread the earth, he knew that Caesar could not be
firmly seated on the throne, which was evidently the
ulterior object of his undoubted though covert policy.
For a few days, for a few bitter days, he had been
plunged in deep abstraction the abstraction not of
doubt nor of despondency, but of anxious debate, and
high consideration. But that debate was ended
consideration had yielded to resolve and the war-
rior's front was calm, and his eye brilliant, as though
he had never known defeat or sorrow.
On the tenth morning after his disastrous conflict,
while the stars were yet winking in the gray sky, the
231 THE FATE OF POMPEY.
galley of the fated chieftain dropped its anchor in the
deep bight formed by the Pelusiac, or eastern, estuary
of the Nile. The low and swampy shores were
veiled from sight by a thick bank of fog, above which
a few solitary palm trees reared their lofty stems and
feathery foliage against the transparent atmosphere of
the upper regions. Three other triremes, the whole
of Pompey's armament, might be seen to wind-
ward, looming up one by one from the horizon,
till they too stood into the little bay, and came to their
moorings a little way to seaward of the leader's vessel.
On the deck of that low vessel, a war-galley of the
commonest construction, bearing no marks of its
commander's dignity, save in the gilded coronals
circling its elevated prow, and the vexillum, or square
banner, that fluttered from the turret on the stern
on the deck of that low vessel was collected a small
group, anxiously gazing forth upon the shores, eager
to pierce the misty wreaths that obscured their view
of those shores, whereon they hoped to reinstate
themselves in all their former glory.
The principal personage of that group was a figure
that well might realize the noblest conception, that can
be formed, of perhaps the noblest specimen of the
human race an ancient Roman. Tall and superbly
formed, with a natural dignity of motion and of
manner that would have seemed the result of study,
had it not been that study must have failed in the
production of any thing so perfect firm yet courteous,
graceful yet unbending, possessing all the grandeur
of the Stoic with all the gentleness of the Epicurean,
THE FATE OF POMPEY. 295
Pompey the Great, in action or repose was still the
" man perfect, and chaste, and grave," of his renowned
admirer, the immortal Cicero. Splendidly clad in the
rich armor of a Roman officer the brilliant corslet
glancing from beneath the fringed and studded cassoc,
which he bore above it, and the triple-crested casque
of polished brass, rich with the sculptures of the
Grecian chisel, setting off his intellectual head, and
features stern almost to severity the conqueror of
Mithridates stood on the prow now his sole space
of empire pointing, with one extended arm, to the
camp and royal ensigns that were by degrees becom-
ing visible on the Egyptian beach ; while with the
other he encircled the waist of her, who clung not to
him in the frail dependency of modern females, but
bore herself erect, though pale and tearful, as became
a Roman matron, a daughter of the proudest race in
that proud clime the hundred-heroed clan of the
Cornelii.
" Cneius" she said, in tones that faltered not,
though they were low, and mournful in their sweet-
ness "Yours is it to command, mine to obey and
to complain or murmur becomes not the daughter of
the Scipio. Yet hear me, ere you go hear me, my
Cneius, ere you go never I know it never to
return"
" Now, may the Gods avert it" cried the youthful
Scxtus, who listened to their words at a respectful
distance "avert it, and grant better things!"
"Away" she burst forth into high and spirited
eloquence "away with deprecation, and with omens,
286 THE PATE OP POMPEY.
and with all the senseless mummery of augurs
' whom the Gods purpose to destroy, they first deprive
of reason!' Pyrrhus believed in augury, and
fell Philip made use of it, and conquered!
Away with augury and omens they are the terror
and the ruin of the fool the mockery and the
weapons of the wise !
"But I I read no omen save of the human heart
I use no prophecy save that of human foresight
and I say to thee, trust not to the Egyptian trust
not or thou shalt perish! The -noble Cato, and
my own brave boy, Afranius, Labienus, are in arms
in arms for Borne and Pompey ! Cicero, too, is with
them Cicero who has smiled serenely upon storms of
the republic, to which this slight reverse is but a
passing breeze Cicero himself a host. And will
you leave all these the brave the eloquent the
true will you desert your friends, your followers,
your own blood, Cneius, will you desert the arms
of Rome to herd among barbarians !"
"Not so, Cornelia" he replied, with a calm and
chastened smile " Not so ! thy fears deceive thee,
and thou knowest not what thou sayest. I leave not
any least of all the dear and gallant ones of whom
thou speakest I desert not any nor herd I with
barbarians. The sun, which set last night amid the
blackness of the storm-cloud, is rising now in glory.
Virtue Roman virtue may be hidden for a while
by calumny, or spite of fortune but it must rise the
brighter and the higher from its brief concealment.
I go not, noble woman, I go not to lie in coward
THE FATE OF POMPEY. 287
indolence, but to strive in noble action. With an
Egyptian army will I reinforce the patriot bands of
Cato, with an Egyptian army will I see Rome in
liberty and glory!"
" Be it so" was the melancholy answer of the
wife and mother, silenced, but not convinced " be it
so ! and Jove, the greatest and the best, preserve
thee !"
As she spoke, a clang of martial music was wafted
to them on the light land wind which was rising with
the sun the barbarous horn, the clashing cymbal,
the deep roll of the beaten tympanum, and the jingle
of the wild Egyptian systrum. The morning mists
rolled peacefully away before the enlivening influence
of the breeze, and, scattering as they rose, flecked the
blue canopy with a thousand fleecy islets of snow-
white vapor. The bosom of the levantine sea was
scarcely ruffled by the balmy wind, not breaking, but
sparkling with its cones of diamond spray. The
sea-gulls were abroad in hundreds, now fanning their
broad wings aloft as they poised themselves for their
meditated swoop, now darting from their height with
a rapidity that mocked the eye, plunging with a lead-
like dash into the tiny waves, and bearing their finny
prey far, far aloof, into the blue distance, ere the
circling ripples on the surface, disturbed by their
invasion, had vanished from the waters.
On the silvery sands at scarcely a mile's distance
from the galley the host of Ptolemy was seen
moving downward to the verge in a huge semicircle,
flashing with gilded arms, and scarlet turbans, and
288 THE FATE OF POMPEY.
embroidered garments, and all the blazoned gorgeous-
ness of oriental warfare. Banners in multitudes, that
almost equalled the number of the glittering spear-
points marshalled beneath them, waved in the wind,
surmounted by the uncouth Gods of that benighted
people serpents of gold and azure the ibis, and the
loathsome crocodile, the ape, the scarab, and the mute
and senseless fish, had all their jewelled images,
all their devoted worshippers. A cloud of Numidian
cavalry thronged the spacious plains around the
marshalled host now on the flanks, now on the
rear, and now in front, wheeling their literally
unbridled horses, in mad evolutions, by voice and
gesture only, tossing their spears aloft, or shooting
their arrows, and gathering them again from earth in
full career.
The eye of the warrior flashed with an expression
it had not worn, since the flower of Rome fled before
the veterans of Caesar.
" It is a host" he almost shouted "a host with
which a Roman might subdue an universe!"
"Aye" murmured Cornelia, at his elbow
" aye ! were it but a host of Romans /"
" Tush," he replied, smiling again more joyously
than before " Thou silly trembler ! To that barba-
rous body will we affix a Latin head ; with Cato's
good ten thousand, and these dark-visaged myriads of
the Ptolemies, we will right speedily efface the black
spot of Pharsalia." But, as he spoke, the memory of
that dark day, and of the brave there festering in
THE FATE OF POMPEY. 280
their blood, overcame him ; he broke off abruptly,
and was silent !
" See ! see" cried the boy Sextus, springing
forward in youthful vivacity, "see, they send forth a
skiff"
And in good truth a barge was seen skimming the
waters, under the united exertions of six brawny
rowers, but it was scarcely such an one, or manned by
such a crew, as one high potentate would send to bear
his greetings to an equal. A long low skiff of rough
unpolished planks, well modelled enough, and built
for speed, but neither carved nor painted, much less
adorned with the rich mouldings of gold and ivory,
which, in those sumptuous days, were deemed appro-
priate and almost indispensable appendages to the
pleasure boats of even private citizens!
"A common fisher's skiff!" Cornelia returned
with a deep expression of scorn, but without farther
comment.
"And there" cried Sextus, perceiving that it
was an intentional indignity "and there upon the
beach stand the royal yachts, with their gay tackle,
motionless ! Receive them not, my father let me
call Fabius and Marullus hither, with their pikes, to
drive down the barbarians from our channels. Would
that I had my Parthian quiver here, and that good bow,
the gift of Crassus ! By Hercules, yon swart-faced
ape, that sits there in the stern, should rue his inso-
lence!"
" Peace Sextus ! 'tis the brave Achillas, the
290 THE FATE OF POMPEV.
leader of the army ; and there beside him, with the
emerald tiara, sits Photinus, the curator of the royal
treasury ; and there, Theodotus of Samos, the youth-
ful king's preceptor but in strange trim they come,
by Hercules !"
"All Hail Pompeius" cried the dark Copt,
who had been called Achillas " All Hail THB
GREAT !"
"Health to Achillas" was the dignified reply
"and to thee, too, Photinus welcome Theodotus 1"
" Thy slaves, Great Pompey, bear thee the greet-
ings of their king Ptolemy is most eager to behold
his friend and benefactor ! If it seem good to Pom-
pey, we will conduct him to the king's encamp-
ment !"
" Go not, my noble husband ! Go not, oh go not,
if thou hast any love for thy Cornelia ! If thou
wouldst live, go not ! If thou wouldst see the Capitol
again, and enter it in glory go not with these men,
Cneius Pompey."
For a moment, the philosopher was moved, the
hero bent. He turned his eyes admiringly, with a
tender and somewhat melancholy gaze, upon the noble
features of the Roman matron ; caressingly he laid
his hands upon her jetty locks, braided in simple
plaits around the magnificent contour of her brow,
then drawing her close to his broad bosom, he printed
a calm and passionless kiss upon her forehead.
" Thou wert ever a most sweet suppliant, my own
Cornelia" he said " and it much irketh Pompey
in aught to say thee nay ! But before love stands
THE FATE OF POMPEY. 291
glory, and before glory, ROME. Rome calls me, and
shall I for thirty years her soldier for thirty years
her minister of greatness shall I neglect her sum-
mons !"
" Oh, say not so" she again pleaded, and a
tear-drop, worth the richest empire of the east, stood
in her dark Italian eye " oh say not so, my
husband, my lord, my life ! All tells of treachery
around us all here can see, can hear, can feel it in
their very souls. Marullus, Fabius, speak say
out the thoughts which ye may not deny it lurk in
your secret bosoms. Had Pompey in his glory sent
an embassy to Ptolemy, would it have been an
eunuch, a mercenary, and a wily Greek, and in a
squalid cock-boat?" she raised her voice as she
spoke, and the notes, high and clear as the wailing of
a distant bugle, shot with an ominous chill, that for
many a year was unforgotten by its hearers, into
every breast around her.
" Cornelia" replied Achillas, who had heard her
last words " Cornelia doubts the faith of Ptolemy !
Be it so ! - we can return to him who sent us yet
by the triple-formed Osiris, had he meant ill to
Pompey, force had been more easy of accomplish-
ment than fraud. Nor could three Roman galleys,
though manned by Romans, and led on by glorious
Pompey, have beat off five hundred of our Egyptian
brigantines !"
11 Boastful and insolent" cried the excited wife,
losing all command of her feelings, all thoughts even
of common prudence, in her unselfish fears "Boast-
292 THE FATE OF POMPEY.
fill and insolent darest thou, a swart barbarian,
defy the might and majesty of Rome !"
" Peace, and farewell, Cornelia" interrupted
Pompey, breaking away from her embrace "thy
terrors have impaired thy reason, else wouldst thou
better know to welcome our friends. Farewell,
beloved one, ere sunset I return."
" In glory" continued the dark Achillas, a smile
gleaming unnaturally over his Ethiopian features
" In glory shalt though return, and in pomp far better
suited to thy greatness. Not thus had we come even
now, but that the waters are full shallow, and the
channels intricate for larger vessels ! And speed
so thought our king would savor more of friend-
ship, than cold pomp or heartless ceremony."
Again he embraced his noble wife, kissed the large
tears from her full black eyes "Farewell my
heart, the Gods watch over thee. Sextus, remember
in evil fortune or in good remember thou art
the son of Pompey whom Sylla styled, THE
GREAT! Increase in virtue .and in fortune
]ove and support thy mother, honor and imitate the
noble Cato, hate Caesar, and above all things, be a
Roman!"
He stepped from the channels of the galley into the
boat, and with a countenance as serene as though he
were departing on a pleasure voyage, seated himseli
amidships, between the rowers and the group of guards
who filled the stern of the long narrow skiff The
man in the bow, a jet-black Mauritanian, with a white
turban and close vest of linen, pushed off the boat
THE FATE OF POMPEY. 293
with a vigorous thrust of his pole, and sinking into
his seat, plied his oar with a vigor in which he was
well seconded by all his comrades a dozen strokes
sufficed to wheel the skiff round, and a dozen more
had given her an impetus which whirled her away
from the galley like a swallow skimming the surf.
While the side of the boat was turned toward his
vessel, the ill-fated warrior gazed steadily upon the
features of his wife, and of the few so nobly faithful ;
as she fell off, he waved one mute farewell, then folding
his arms calmly over his bosom, he collected all his
energies, prepared for either fortune.
Not a word was spoken for the breast of the
fugitive was full full of high sorrows and high
purposes while the hearts of those about him beat
anxiously and fearfully with the wild fear of medi-
tated guilt. Suddenly, in obedience to a gesture of
Achillas, the foremost rower, as it were accidentally,
deranged the motion of the boat by an awkward use
of his oar she rocked violently; but, contrary to the
wishes of the traitor, the proud Roman sat unmoved,
and apparently unconscious the villain bit his lip
with all the bitterness of disappointed malice, and
uttered a subdued imprecation. The sound fell upon
Pompey's ear, though not its purport, and raising his
eyes he gazed eagerly around him. An eye caught
his a well-known face for Pompey possessed that
rarest faculty of memory, by which the great alone
are oft distinguished. He turned half round
11 Ha ! comrade" he said smilingly, and rejoicing
at the sight "Ha! fellow-soldier, we have met
25'
2M THE FATE OF POMPEY.
before thou didst serve with me in Pontus Thy
hand, veteran !" and he stooped forward with extend-
ed arm to greet him. At this instant Photinus waved
his arm aloft, and the oarsman, who sat immediately
behind the hero, unsheathed his long two-edged
acinaces.
" Strike, in the name of Isis" shouted Achillas,
and the blow flashed in the sunlight.
At the word the noble Roman had sprung to his
feet, and grasped the handle of his Spanish blade
but it was too late, the home-driven thrust found the
joint between the corslet and his studded belt, and
entered deep into his unguarded side ! He felt that
he was slain, and, withdrawing his hand from the
hilt of his useless weapon, again folded his arms
across his heart glared from face to face in stern
and fearless indignation, while those before him
shrank from the terrible expression of his bright eye,
as though it were fraught with blighting fire. Again
and again the murderers struck, but still their blows
were from behind. Slowly he was falling forward,
when, with a desperate and dying effort, he drew
himself up, and hurled himself backward the
assassins leaped aside, and the tall body fell heavily
on its back across the benches slippery with its life-
blood the last glance of the glazing eyes was
upward to the free heavens the last thought of the
parting spirit was one of self-restraining dignity.
For a moment's space there was a pause, and then
a cry went up, a fearful cry of mingled agony and
indignation! In it were blent the vengeful shouts of
THE FATE OP POMPEY. 286
the fierce legionaries, the boyish notes of Sextus, and
wilder, shriller, and more terrible than all, the ravings
of the desperate Cornelia. It ceased and silence
fell, as with a palpable and heavy weight, over the
brilliant scene for hope was at an end rescue
too late vengeance impossible. The fatal skifl
shot onward, and now she reached the strand the
murderers leaped forth and lo, a pike was reared
in the glad sunshine, fearfully burthened with a human
hand another with a gory head ! A naked muti-
lated corpse was cast upon the glittering sands and
with a shout of barbarous applause, and a yet wilder
burst of music, the hosts of Egypt celebrated their
accursed triumph.
In terror and despair the Roman galleys slipped
their cables with every sail set, every sheet strained
to the utmost, they rushed, before the gale, from that
inhospitable coast, bearing away, she knew not and
she cared not whither, her to whom the universe had
now become one cheerless sepulchre.
Noon glowed upon the level beach and breezeless
waters, and not a vessel was to be seen on the deep,
not a human being on the shores. The Roman fleet
had long since sunk into the blue haze of distance,
and the hosts of Ptolemy, their aim accomplish-
ed, had marched in slavish exultation to the walls
of Alexandria. For miles along the margin of the
surf not an object was to be seen, save one of horror!
The senseless mangled clay, that but a few brief
hours before had been a hero! the form which
men deemed it an honor to obey, and women to
296 THE FATE OF POMPEY.
adore ! A headless soulless nameless mass
a thing viler than the foul vultures, that flapped their
wings above it.
The sun sank slowly one half of his great disc
was buried, as it seemed, in the sands of the far
desert the other peered, an arc of living flame,
above the desolate horizon. In the remotest distance
the three great pyramids might be seen faintly, their
blunt cones scarcely distinguished by a deeper shade
from the blue sky, and their eastern faces glimmering
with the last beams of the departing day-god.
In the foreground of the picture was a figure a
worn, emaciated, and half naked figure bending in
speechless veneration over an humble pyre. Sea-
weeds, and sun-dried rushes, with a few planks and
spars the wreck perchance of some war-galley
that once rode the waves in fearless glory scantily
furnished forth a funeral pile for the world's con-
queror j and he who heaped the fuel, and composed
the miserable limbs he, who alone did homage to
the ashes of the Great was one, o'er whom the eye
of Pompey, while yet it saw, would have glanced
heedlessly, if not in scorn.
Hear it, O Earth the demigod, beneath whose feet
thy thousand nations trembled, perished an exile at the
bidding of an eunuch, and found a tomb happy to
find one thus at the precarious mercy of a slave!
VIRGINIA.
So arch a smile as Ariadne wore,
To greet her wine-god on the desart shore,
So sly a sparkle in that liquid eye,
As Dian cast to rapt Endymion's sigh.
Wild as the wood-nymph of a minstrel's dream,
Shy as the Naiad hy her crystal stream,
Pure as the priestess in Apollo's grove
Yet waitoi as Danae half won by Jove.
Fair form young loveliness and noble race-
All woman gentleness and woman grace
Heaven hath no treasured benefit in store,
For those it favors most, thy love before !
Unsunned by passion, innocently bland,
Fresh as the forests of thy virgin land,
Tender, and delicate, and warm, and free
Oh 1 may my lot be cast with such as thee I
THE DOOM OF THE EYES.
THE youth sorrowed by the brooklet's side, and
his tears mingled with its waters.
" Why weepest thou, my son," said the hermit of
the valley, " wherefore is thy sorrow?"
" Alas ! alas !" said the youth, " have I not been
wounded by the eyes of the maiden which have looked
upon me?"
" Did they look upon thee to scorn thee ?" inquired
the hermit kindly. " Alas ! father, but they did."
"Then will I revenge thee with a doom upon
them, if thou wilt but say to me the color which they
wore."
But the youth knew not the color of the eyes which
had wounded him, for his own had been dazzled.
" They must all suffer for the scorn," said the
hermit, " though the doom shall be various among
them.
" To endless" fires the black shall be the prey to
endless tears the blue, to endless motion the gray,
*and to endless sleeping all others," and the doom was
recorded.
TO THE CONDOR.
The region which may be considered as the habitual abode of the
Cvftdoi, begins at a height equal to that of JEtna, and comprehends strata
of air at an elevation of from 9,600 to 18,000 feet above the level of the
sea. Of all living beings, it is without doubt the one that can rise at will
to the greatest distance from the earth's surface.
Humboldt Tableaux de la Nature.
WONDROUS, majestic bird ! whose mighty wing
Dwells not with puny warblers of the spring ;
Nor on earth's silent breast
Powerful to soar in strength and pride on high,
And sweep the azure bosom of the sky,
Chooses its pkce of rest
Proud nursling of the tempest, where repose
Thy pinions at the daylight's fading close?
In what far clime of night
Dost thou in silence, breathless and alone
While round thee swells of life no kindred tone
Suspend thy tireless flight ?
300 TO THE CONDOR.
The mountain's frozen peak is lone and bare,
No foot of man hath ever rested there ;
Yet 'tis thy sport to soar
'Far o'er its frowning summit and the plain
Would seek to win thy downward wing in vain,
Or the green sea-beat shore.
The limits of thy course no daring eye
Has marked ; thy glorious path of light on high
Is trackless and unknown ;
The gorgeous sun thy quenchless gaze may share ;
Sole tenant of his boundless realm of air,
Thou art, with him, alone.
Imperial wanderer ! the storms that shake
Earth's towers, and bid her rooted mountains quake,
Are never felt by thee !
Beyond the bolt beyond the lightning's gleam,
Basking forever in the unclouded beam
Thy home immensity !
And thus the soul, with upward flight like thine,
May track the realms where heaven's own glories
And scorn the tempest's power ; [shine,
Yet meaner cares oppress its drooping wings ;
Still to earth's joys the sky-born wanderer clings
Those pageants of an hour!
E. F. E.
University of California
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388
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