1 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^rooNv-sov^ 
 
 ,\MEUNIVER% 
 
 +- ^v ^^> 
 
 1 1 
 
 8 5
 
 %* ^s> 
 %fflAINH3VS^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ^ ^OFCALIFO/?^ ^\\EUNiVER% 
 
 s 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 5i p 


 
 
 ^ .;>/,
 
 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 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed.
 
 A 000023669 5 
 |L23xg |(C^i 
 ^^ 
 
 g a 
 
 i s 
 
 
 ^ ^OF-CAllFOft 
 
 O OC 
 
 ! 2 > 
 
 3 I 
 
 % | 
 
 I I 
 
 I0$lfj> 
 cp ^ >-v &