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RICHARD EDNEY <- 
 
 THE GOVEENOR'S FAMILY. 
 
 A KUS-URBAN TALE, 
 
 SIMPLE AND POPULAR, YET CULTURED AND NOBLE, 
 OF 
 
 MORALS, SENTIMENT, AND LIFE, 
 
 PRACTICALLY TREATED AND PLEASANTLY ILLUSTRATED 
 
 CONTAINING, ALSO, 
 
 HINTS ON BEING GOOD AND DOING GOOD. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "MARGARET," AND "PHILO." 
 
 "MARGARET, A TALE OP THE REAL AND THE IDEAL," AND " PHILO, AN 
 FVANGELIAD." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY 
 
 1850. 
 
^/i 
 
 y 
 
 > 
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1850, 
 
 By Phillips, Sampson &■ Co., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 • • • • Stefeotyped by 
 
 HOBART 4 ROEBINS; 
 
 New England Type and Stereoiype Foundery, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
NOTE, 
 
 Just as we have sent the last sheet of the manuscript to the 
 printer, our publishers write that an Introduction, a brief one, is 
 desirable. We might yield to their judgment what w^ should 
 be slow to extract from our own indifference. A Preface is 
 an author's observation on his own writings. It might be pre- 
 sumed that a reader would be better prepared to understand, and 
 more disposed to listen to what an author would say, at the end 
 of a book than at the beginning. Acting upon this consideration, 
 we have included in the last chapter certain paragraphs that may 
 seem to possess a prefatory character. To these all persons inter- 
 ested are respectfully referred. We have endeavored, moreover, 
 that, in the progress of the work, the curiosity of the reader should 
 be duly satisfied on any points that might engage it. A Tale is 
 not like a hoiise, except in its door-plate, the title-page. It does 
 not require an entry or a reception-room. It is rather like a rose, 
 the sura of the qualities of which are visible at a glance ; albeit it 
 will repay a minute attention, and affords material for prolonged 
 
 enjoyment. It is like a landscape, which appeals in like manner to 
 1* 
 
 414588 
 
a comprehensive eye, rather than to critical inquiry. We incline, 
 then, to the rose and the landscape, notwithstanding there may 
 be a defective leaf in the first, or a rude hut in the last. Not that 
 we object to Prefaces ; — we like them, we always read them, and 
 frequently find them the best part of a book. But this book is 
 written, and the author has put his best things into it ; he cannot 
 hope to improve it by anything he might here add, and he is 
 indisposed to peril its fortunes on any uncertainties of speech or 
 manner ; and therefore prefers to submit it as it is. 
 
CHAPTER I, 
 
 RICHARD COMES TO THE CITY. 
 
 It began to snow. What the almanac directed its readers 
 to look out for about this time — what his mother told Rich- 
 ard of, as she tied the muffler on his neck in the morning — 
 what the men in the bar-rooms, where he stopped to warm 
 himself, seemed to be rubbing out of their hands into the fire 
 
 — what the cattle, crouching on the windward side of barn- 
 yards, rapped to each other with their slim, white horns — 
 what sleigh-bells, rapidly passing and repassing, jingled to 
 the air — what the old snow, that lay crisp and hard on the 
 ground, and the hushed atmosphere, seemed to be expecting 
 
 — what a "snow-bank," a dense, bluish cloud in the south, 
 gradually creeping along the horizon, and looming mid- 
 heavens, unequivocally presaged, — a snow-storm, came 
 good at last. 
 
 Richard had watched that cloud, as it slowly unfurled 
 itself to the winds, and little by little let out its canvas, till 
 it seemed to be the mainsail of the huge earth, and would 
 bear everything movable and immovable along with it. He 
 saw the first flakes that skurry forwards so gingerly and 
 fool-happy through the valleys, as if they had nothing to do 
 but dance and be merry, and were not threatened by a 
 howling pack behind. He rejoiced in the feeling of these 
 herald drops on his cheeks, and caught at them with his 
 lips, refreshing himself in the dainty moisture ; for he had 
 walked a long distance, and, though it was mid winter, his 
 
8' • • ■ ' ' ■ rtlCHAkD 'E1>XEY AND 
 
 blood was warm, and Lis throat dry. The regular brush 
 commenced, — a right earnest one it was ; and he had 
 something else to do than dally with it ; — he must brave 
 the storm, and cleave his way through it. He had some 
 miles to go yet, and night was at hand. The pack he bore 
 grew heavier on his shoulders, his feet labored in the new- 
 fallen snow, and what with frequent slips on the concealed 
 ice, his endurance was sore taxed. But he was cheerful 
 without, and strove to be quiet within ; and made as if he 
 were independent of circumstance, and free from anxiety. 
 The storm had a good many plans and purposes of action. 
 It riddled the apple-trees ; it threw up its embankments 
 against the fences ; it fell soft and even upon shrubs and 
 flowers in the woods, as if it were tenderlj"- burjnng its dead; 
 it brought out the farmer, to defend his herds against it ; it 
 stirred the pluck of the school-boys, who insulted it with 
 their backs, and laughed at it with their faces ; and, as if 
 to spite this, it turned upon an unprotected female, a dress- 
 maker, going home from her .daily task, and twisted her 
 hood and snatched off her shawl; but, failing in the attempt 
 to rend her entire dress to pieces, it blinded her with its 
 gusts, and pitched her into the gutter. This was too much 
 for Richard. If his blood was hot before, it boiled now; and 
 flinging down his bundle, he sprang to the rescue. He raised 
 the woman, refitted her wardrobe, and sent her on her way 
 with many thanks. The storm, maddened and unchecked, 
 rallied, to stifle and subdue this new champion of woman's 
 rights. It smote Richard violently in the face, snatched 
 away his morsels of breath, and would have sunk him, by 
 sheer weight, in the White Sea that surrounded him. 
 When it could not do this, it flapped its enormous v.ings in 
 his face, so he could not see his way. Anon it raised its 
 sweep aloft, and left a little clear space, through which he 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 9 
 
 beheld houses with bright hearth-fires, and tables savor- 
 ily spread for the evening meal, and little children getting 
 into their mothers' laps, as if to plague him in this fashion. 
 The flakes, as if each one had an individual commission, 
 flew in under the vizor of his cap, settled upon his eye- 
 lashes, clung to his mufller; some penetrated into his neck; 
 others explored his nostrils. He tried to whistle ; but the 
 storm kept his lips so chilled he could not do that : he 
 attempted to laugh ; certain flakes that sat on his lips seized 
 the moment to melt and run down his throat. When the 
 storm could not arrest his course, it began to trick him for 
 everybody to laugh at : it whitened his black suit, till he 
 looked like a miller's apprentice ; the flakes piled them- 
 selves in antic figures on his pack and shoulders, and strewed 
 his buttons with flaunting wreaths; they danced up and 
 down on his cap. But he pressed on, with a whistling 
 heart, as if he thought it was mere facetiousness in the 
 elements to do so. He knew there was love and gladness 
 at the core of all things ; and the feathery crystals that 
 frolicked about him, and then laid themselves down so quietly 
 to sleep for the dreary months of winter, were full of beauty, 
 and there was a luminousness of Good Intent in all the haze 
 and hurly-burly of the storm. Richard was deeply religious ; 
 and he knew God said to the snow. Be thou on the earth ; 
 and he felt that the Divine Providence cared for the lilies 
 of the field as well in their decay as in their bloom ; and 
 that a ceaseless Benignity was covering the beds where they 
 lay with the lovely raiment of the season, and cherishing in 
 the cold ground the juices that should, after a brief interval, 
 spring forth again, and create a gladsome resurrection of 
 nature. 
 
 He had none but kindly feelings when there passed him 
 a sleigh, with its occupants neck deep in buffalo-robes and 
 
10 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 coats, and comfortably intrenched behind a breastwork of 
 muffs and tippets ; and the horse, he knew, was merry, by 
 the way he shook his bells. He even went one side, and 
 stood knee-deep in the drifts, for a slow ox-sled to pass. 
 " Ho ! my good fellow ! " he cried to the teamster, who sat 
 on a strip of board, with his back bowed and braced against 
 the storm, as if there was to his mind certainly something 
 in the case suggestive of the knout; " you must bide your 
 time." 
 
 " That is the first truth I have heard to-day," responded 
 a gloomy voice, which, with the coarse shape in which it 
 was wrapped, soon swept out of hearing. 
 
 " One truth to-day," said Eichard to himself, " is some- 
 thing, though it is towards night." 
 
 He relapsed into musing and philosophizing on the world 
 and life, the day and hour, and on himself and his objects, 
 and on the City in which truth was so scarce. Of a sudden, 
 the Factories burst upon him, or their windows did, — hun- 
 dreds of bright windows, illuminated every night in honor 
 of Toil, — and which neither the darkness of the night, nor 
 the wildness of the storm, could obscure, and which never 
 bent or blinked before the rage and violence around. The 
 Factories, and factory life, — how it glowed at that moment 
 to his eye ! and even his own ideal notions thereof were more 
 than transfigured before • him, and he envied the girls, some 
 of whom he knew, who, through that troubled winter night, 
 were tending their looms as in the Avarmth, beauty, and 
 quietness of a summer-day. The Factories appeared like an 
 abode of enchantment ; and the sight revived his heart, and 
 gave him a pleasant impression of the City, as much as a 
 splendid church, or a sunny park of trees, or fine gardens, 
 would have done. He was too much occupied to notice a 
 spread umbrella that approached him, moving slantwise 
 
THE GOVEKKOR's FAMILY, 11 
 
 abreast the storm, now criss-crossing, now plunging forward, 
 as it were intoxicated. It struck him, and in his insecure 
 footing, threw him. 
 
 " What is it ? " said the umbrella, peering about on every 
 side. 
 
 "It is nothing," replied Eichard, who could hardly be 
 distinguished from the snow in which he rolled. 
 
 The umbrella raised itself, as if it were one great eyelid, 
 in astonishment, muttering, at the same time, " That 's it ; 
 I knew I should do it, and now I have ! " 
 
 Beneath the umbrella was really a man, but apparently a 
 cloak, a long and slim cloak, with a shawl about its head 
 and ears ; and it looked, also, as if this cloak was hung by 
 some central loop to the handle of the umbrella, and as if 
 the umbrella was the only live thing in the whole concern ; 
 and it kept bobbing up and .down in the wind, wrenching 
 and prying, as if it would draw the vitals from the cloak. 
 The language of the thing favored the idea of evisceration. 
 " I am almost dead ! " it said. 
 
 " Let me help you," said Richard. 
 
 " I have only a little further to go," replied the other. 
 
 " How far have you come ? " asked Richard, sjinpatheti- 
 cally, thinking of the many miles he had fared that day. 
 
 " Across the River," was the reply. 
 
 "Is it so far ?" rejoined Richard, despairingly. 
 
 " A hundred rods or so. But one meets with so many 
 accidents here ; and nobody's ways are taken care of, and 
 life fs of no value whatever, in these times." 
 
 Richard, delighted at the near end of his journey, did not 
 conceal his pleasure. 
 
 " You will not laugh, when you have experienced what I 
 have," said the man. 
 
 " Is there nothing to do here ? " asked Richard. 
 
12 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 " Yes, everything," was the answer. 
 
 " Then I am secure," added Eichard. 
 
 " Move carefully ! " — such was the advice of the retreat- 
 ing shadow; " it is a slip, or a slump, all the way through. 
 You will be running into somebody else, or somebody will 
 run into you." 
 
 Richard grew thoughtful ; but he repelled the phantom of 
 discouragement, and clung closer to the good angel of com- 
 mon sense and rational hope, that ever attended him. 
 
 He was comhig to Woodylin to find employment. The 
 construction of mill-dams and railroads had sounded a gen- 
 eral summons, throughout the country, for capital and labor 
 to flow in thither. Business, which means the combined 
 and harmonious activity of capital and labor, was reported 
 to be good. The City was evidently growing, and there 
 were those who hesitated to say how large they thought 
 it would become, lest they should appear vain. Many 
 young men were attracted thither, and among these 
 was Richard Edney. He came from a farm, in a small 
 interior village, and brought with him considerable mechan- 
 ical expertness ; and now, just turned of age, on the even- 
 ing of the day in which he set out to seek his fortune, or, 
 more strictly, to find a snug operative's berth, he appears 
 before the reader. He had a married sister in town, whose 
 house he would make his home. 
 
 He came to the covered bridge, and entering by the nar- 
 row turn-stile, found a breathing-place from the storm in that 
 labyrinth of timbers. He stamped the snow from his feet, 
 and, unbuttoning his over-coat, seized the lappels with his 
 two hands, and shook them heartily, as if they were old 
 friends whom he had not seen for a long time, and then 
 folded them carefully to his breast. 
 
 One or two lamps suggested the idea of light, and that 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 13 
 
 was about all. Their chief effect was shadow ; they made 
 darkness visible, and very uncomfortably so. They worked 
 it into uncouth shapes, which were put skulking among the 
 arches, set astride of the braces, hung up like great spiders 
 on the rafters, and multitudes of them lay in ambuscade 
 under the feet of passengers. No ; — if there were kind 
 feelings in that Bridge, — if any pulse of philanthropy ran 
 through those huge beams and iron-riveted joints, — if there 
 were any heart of good-will in that long vault, well studded 
 at the. sides, close-peni above, and firmly braced under foot, 
 it was an unfortunate bridge ; unfortunate in its expression, 
 unfortunate in its efforts to show kindness. 
 
 The readers of this story would like to know how Rich- 
 ard felt. To speak more in detail, there are two popular 
 impressions anent the Bridge, one of which Richard avoided, 
 and into the other he fell. The first is, that the Bridge is 
 of no use, that it is a damage to the community ; in other 
 words, that it defeats the very object for which it was built, 
 the facilitation of travel and increase of intercourse. For 
 instance, you will hear men say they could afford to keep a 
 horse, if it were not for the Bridge ; some, that they should 
 ride a great deal more, if it were not for the Bridge ; one, 
 that while his business is on one side of the water, he 
 should like to live on the other, but cannot because of the 
 Bridge; ladies, visiting on the opposite side of the river, are 
 always in haste to return before sunset, on account of the 
 Bridge. So business and pleasure, in innumerable forms, 
 seem to be interrupted by this structure. This feeling, of 
 course, Richard had not been long enough in the neighbor- 
 hood to understand or to share. But the other popular im- 
 pression, which indeed is connected with the first, he did, 
 in some degree, though perhaps unconsciously, entertain; 
 this, — that the Bridge is useful as a shelter from storms, 
 S 
 
14 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 from cold, and from the intense heat of summer. It has this 
 credit with the people ; a passive credit, a credit bestowed 
 without the least idea of desert on its part; an accidental 
 good, wholly aside from the original design of the thing, 
 which it cannot help but bestow, and which it would not 
 bestow, if it could help. It is as if, in this vale of winds 
 and rain, the Bridge were a little arbor one side of the 
 way, to which the wearj' pilgrim can betake himself. So, 
 in summer, when the mercury is at ninetj^, or at any time 
 in a storm, or when the roads are muddy, you will see peo- 
 ple hastening to the Bridge ; w-agons are driven faster, and 
 foot-people increase their momentum. " We shall soon be 
 at the Bridge," they say ; or, " Here is the Bridge ; I do not 
 care, now." Umbrellas are furled, cloaks are loosened, feet 
 cleaned, and there is a smile of contentment and of home 
 in all faces, as soon as they reach that pavilion. 
 
 How fine a refuge it was from the hurtling snow, how 
 admirably it was adapted to protect one in this extremitj'of 
 the season, how dry and warm it was, what a convenient 
 place to take breath in ; — this Richard felt. He had this 
 feeling even deeper than most folk. Blinded as he was by 
 the storm, tired by his long journey, lonely in feeling, know- 
 ing no one, harrowed a little by the dark intimations that 
 had accosted him just as he got into the City, even the small 
 lamp that glimmered aloft had a friendly eye; and he over- 
 flowed with gratitude to the little twinkler that worked so 
 patiently and so hopefully in the deathlike, skeleton ribs of 
 the edifice ; and as he seated himself on a sill, since he did 
 not know anybody in particular, and had not participated in 
 those feelings to which w'e have referred, he thanked God 
 for the Bridge. The tramping of horse-feet, grating of 
 sleigh-runners, and buzz of lively voices, were heard in the 
 darkness ; and immediately there passed near him an empty 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 15 
 
 sleigh, driven by a man on foot, and four or five men and 
 women, likewise walking. 
 
 " Horrid ! " exclaimed one. "What a place for robbers ! " 
 cried another. " I had rather face it out there," added a 
 third, jerking his head towards the gate, " than have my 
 shins barked here." " I think the lecturer might have spent 
 a few evenings in a bridge like this," interposed a fourth ; 
 " it corresponds to his ideas of Gothic architecture. There 
 is the dimness, awe, and faint religious light; and there is 
 no place where one is so reverential, or walks so circum- 
 spectly, as here." These were young people, returning 
 from the Athenaeum, and among them were members of 
 the Governor's Family, — a name that appears on our title- 
 page ; and these observations fell from them while they 
 waited for the gate to be opened. " What is that by the 
 post ? " exclaimed one. " A drunken man ! " echoed another. 
 The ladies faintly screamed, and rushed towards the gate. 
 " You are mistaken," said Richard, calmly, but a grain 
 piqued. His tone and manner recalled the young folk to 
 their senses, and not the least to a sense of injustice toward 
 a stranger ; and they all stopped and looked towards him. 
 The light of the lamp revealed brotherly faces of young 
 men, and gentle faces of young women, and Richard spoke 
 freely. " I am very tired," he said ; " I have walked forty 
 miles since breakfast, and I was glad to sit here. But you 
 alarm me. Is this such a horrid place ? " " No, indeed," 
 replied one of the girls ; it was the Governor's daughter 
 Melicent, that spoke. "We are addicted to scandalizing 
 the Bridge, just as one finds fault with his best friends." 
 
 "I do not mean that," ansv/ered Richard, "but all through 
 here — what is about you here — this neighborhood ? " 
 
 " There are rum-shops hereabouts, and there is the foot 
 of Knuckle Lane," said a young man. 
 
16 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 "I did not see them," replied Richard. 
 
 " We live in St. Agnes-street," said one of the females, 
 laughing very hard, " and you may have passed our houses, 
 the minister's, the Governor's, and all. And we all belong 
 here. I hope you don't think evil of us." 
 
 " I was warned of evil hereabouts," responded Richard. 
 " But I am sure I have nothing to fear from you." 
 
 " Melicent ! Barbara ! " cried the laughing voice, " has he 
 anything to fear from you ? " 
 
 "I have been misunderstood," said Richard, laughing in 
 turn. " But really I have had as pure religious feeling, 
 while I have been resting myself on this bridge, as I ever 
 enjoyed, notwithstanding your slight and caricature of the 
 spot." 
 
 " Benjamin ! " cried the same bright voice, " defend your- 
 self ; it is your ribaldry the young man has overheard." 
 
 "We have come from a lecture on Architecture," said 
 Benjamin Bennington ; " and the rest is obvious. Fantastic 
 associations are awakened here." 
 
 " You will not say," answered Richard, " that religious 
 sentiment is fantastic ! " This was seriously said, and the 
 company became silent when he spoke. "I mean," he 
 added, " may not religious feeling be as pure in this place, 
 at this hour, as in any place at any hour ? " 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said Melicent. " But who are you 
 that says this ? " 
 
 " I am Richard Edney," said our friend. " I am seeking 
 employment ; can turn my hand to almost anything ; would 
 like a chance in a saw-mill. Can you tell me where Asa 
 Munk lives ? " 
 
 " I cannot," said Benjamin ; and none of them could. " I 
 am shivering with the cold," said the laughing one, " and I 
 would advise the young man to learn better manners than 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 17 
 
 to sit here and scare folks in the night." " I should think 
 he might find some place more suitable for his devotions," 
 added one of the girls. " Perhaps a mill-log would be as 
 agreeable for him to kneel upon as a hassock," continued 
 the laughing one. 
 
 " I fear this is a bad place," said Richard. " Farewell to 
 yoii all, gentle ladies," he added, and went on his way. 
 
 " May it fare well with you ! " rejoined Melicent Benning- 
 ton, sending her voice after him. 
 
 Richard crossed the Bridge, and by dint of information 
 plucked from the few people abroad at that time, he made 
 his way to a story-and-a-half white house, with doric pilas- 
 ters, that stood near the bank of the River, just above the 
 first dam. 
 
 He went in at the front door without ringing, traversed 
 with a quiet step the narrow, dark entry, and let himself 
 into the kitchen, where he knew he should find his friends. 
 He was evidently looked for, and warmly welcomed ; his 
 sister embraced him affectionately, and his brother-in-law 
 shook his hand very cordially. They were sitting in front 
 of the stove, near a large table drawn to the centre of the 
 room, on which burned two well-trimmed lamps. His sister 
 was mending a child's garment; his brother was smoking, 
 and reading a newspaper. These people were about thirty 
 years of age ; his sister had dark eyes and hair, and a face 
 that had once been handsome, but it now wore a sallow and 
 anxious expression ; she was neatly dressed in dark-sprigged 
 calico. The brother-in-law, or Munk, as everybody called 
 him, had a freer look, and more sprightly bearing. He had 
 a small, twinkling, blue eye, a long, good-humored chin, and 
 slender, sorel whiskers. He wore a stout teamster's frock, 
 girded at the waist. If a shadow of seriousness sometimes 
 2* 
 
18 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Stole over him, it was instantly dissipated, or illumined, by 
 a cheerful voice and a jocund laugh. 
 
 Kichard laid off his pack and over-coat. " Do not shake 
 off the snow here, brother," said his sister; "let Asa take 
 the things into the shed." 
 
 Richard took off his boots, and sank into the rocking- 
 chair his sister drew up for him, with his feet bolstered on 
 the clean and bright stove-hearth. As he has now got out 
 of the storm and his storm-gear, and looks like himself, our 
 readers would like to know how he looks. He, like his 
 sister, had dark eyes and hair; his features were comely, his 
 forehead was fairly proportioned, his eyebrows were distinct 
 and well placed, his mouth was small, and his teeth white. 
 His predominant expression was cheerfulness, frankness, 
 earnestness. He had what some would call an intellectual 
 look; and, judging from the contour of his head, one would 
 see that he possessed a modicum of moral qualities. His 
 cheeks were browned by the weather, but his forehead pre- 
 served a belt of skin of remarkable whiteness. He was of 
 medium height, and his body was strongly built, and in all 
 its members very regularly disposed. He wore a red shirt, 
 and a roundabout, sometimes called a monkey-jacket. His 
 coat, vest and pantaloons, were of a dark, stout cloth, which 
 his mother had evidently manufactured, as she possibly had 
 been the tailoress of her son. 
 
 His sister hastened supper for him ; she toasted the bread, 
 cut fresh slices of corned beef, and prepared a cup of fra- 
 grant, hot tea. They all sat round the table, and each had 
 many inquiries to make, and many to answer ; and many 
 details of home, and friends, and life, to dilate upon. The 
 supper was abundant, and freely eaten, but it was not satis- 
 fying; an uneasiness remained — so much so, that, although 
 Richard resumed his chair by the stove, he could not sit in 
 
THE GOVERNOk's FAMILY. 19 
 
 it. He looked from side to side of the kitchen, and at last 
 thrust his head into a partly-opened door, that led into the 
 bed-room. " Not to-night," whispered his sister, earnestly. 
 "I must," said Richard. "Let him, Roxy," said Munk. 
 "I must see them," said Richard. " You will wake them," 
 replied his sister. "I have made it a rule not to have 
 them waked after they have once been put to sleep. It will 
 get them into bad habits, and they have troubled me about 
 going to bed." "I will not wake them," added Richard, 
 pushing himself still further into the room. " Only let me 
 see them ; let me have a light, that I may look at them." 
 " Not on any account ! " exclaimed his sister. " I always 
 said, if ever I had a child, it should not be waked up after 
 it was put to sleep." But he seized a lamp, which his 
 brother, despite the remonstrances of Roxy, handed him, and 
 shading it with his fingei's, went into the room. Munk fol- 
 lowed, and leaned upon the door-post, with much fatherly 
 fondness, and perhaps some brotherly pride. His sister 
 went too, plainly with the expectation of beholding her pre- 
 diitions verified, and with the desire, also, of having dis- 
 played before the eyes of her husband the consequences 
 she had so often denounced. What appeared ? Two little 
 children, snugly asleep in their truckle-bed ; two girls they 
 were, — one about four years old, the other of a year and a 
 half. Two beautiful cherub heads were all that could be 
 seen, and if they were not truly alive, they might have been 
 taken for the best of sculpture. The hair of the oldest one 
 had been treated with a cap, which had fallen off; and that 
 of the youngest was free and loose, soft, silvery, and running 
 every way in little sliining curls, and half-formed natural ring- 
 lets. " I see," said the mother. " So do I," said the uncle, as, 
 holding the lamp over his head, he stooped towards the 
 sweet, tempting faces. " You mean to wake them ! " cried 
 
20 RICHARD EDXEY A>"D 
 
 the mother. " I mean to kiss them," responded Richard. 
 "Let him," whispered the father. "It is impossible," said 
 the mother ; " it is contrarj' to all the rules I have laid dowii 
 for the children, and what Mrs. Mellow said." " I will not 
 do that" added Richard ; and, making an effort, he did not ; 
 but hovered about the faces of the children, put his mouth 
 towards one, and then the other, and kissed the air between, 
 as if that was sweet enough ; experimented with the light 
 on this side and on that, to get ever)' possible view of them ; 
 with his thumb and finger took hold of the little velvety- 
 hands that lay over the quilt. " Did they not know I was 
 coming?" he asked. "They have talked about nothing 
 else all da}-," replied his brother; "Memmy asks about 
 Uncle Richard; Bebb)' can't articulate, but she mows and 
 winks, and knows all about it." " They have the promise 
 of seeing you in the morning," said his sister, " and went 
 quietly to sleep on that." The children slumbered on, 
 undisturbed alike by the storm above the roof, and the 
 deep anxieties and affections that were shaking beneath. 
 " Mother sent them some cakes and apples ; they are in my 
 luggage. I should love to give them to them to-night." 
 
 "How foolish you are, brother!" said Roxy. " I would 
 not have them eat such things, just before going to bed, for 
 the world." 
 
 But Richard got the apples, large and rosy, which he 
 held insinuatingly before the closed eyes of the children; 
 pleased himself with imagining how they would like to eat 
 them ; put them close to their cheeks, as it were comparing 
 colors ; and, when he had finished this pantomime, laid them 
 OH the coverlid in front of their mouths ; and they left the 
 room. 
 
 This slight ripple of discord having spent itself, their 
 hearts returned to their old and proper level of kindness and 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 21 
 
 brotherly feeling-. They resumed their seats by the fire, 
 which burned briskly and noisily. Roxy took her sewing; 
 Muuk leaned back against the wall, with his feet on a 
 round of. his wife's chair, and continued to smoke; and 
 Richard, by the warmth of his heart, as well as that of the 
 fire, tried to subdue the chills with which a long walk in 
 the open air had infused his system. 
 
 " I do not doubt," said Rox)^ " that Richard loves the 
 children, and that their father does ; but you are very inju- 
 dicious." 
 
 " Perhaps I was hasty," said Richard. 
 
 " I believe I shall go to California," said Munk. This 
 last remark was evidently thrown in, not to aid conversa- 
 tion, or even to decoy it, but to quench it altogether, when 
 it happened to take a disagreeable turn. 
 
 Richard went to bed. His chamber — such as a story- 
 and-a-half house affords — was small and low, with sloped 
 ceiling, but plastered, papered, and quite convenient. It 
 contained a looking-glass, side-table, and fireplace. The 
 single window of w^hich it could boast looked out upon the 
 River, and a beautiful landscape beyond. The bed was soft 
 and warm ; and, after offering his evening thanksgiving to 
 the Giver of all good, exhausted and weary, our young 
 friend sank into a sound sleep. 
 
 Early in the morning, he was aroused by the clamor of 
 voices at his bed-side ; there stood the disputed little ones, 
 in their night-gowns, each with an apple in its hands, with 
 which they were pummeling the face of their uncle, and at 
 the same time making very awkward attempts to clamber 
 into the bed. One of them, as the father said, could talk, 
 and the other could make a noise ; but neither lacked the 
 power of rendering itself intelligible. Their uncle lifted 
 them up, and had them on either side of him, where he 
 
22 EICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 kissed and embraced their tender bodies to his heart's con- 
 tent. But they were not for lying there. They mounted 
 his neck and shoulders ; they took all sorts of liberty with 
 his nose and eyes, and ended with an endeavor to drag 
 him from the bed. He yielded to the children what the 
 storm could not accomplish, and came almost headlong to 
 the floor. Presently, taking Bebby in his arms, and mount- 
 ing Memmy on his back, he went below. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. 
 
 Let us go back to the previous evening, and down St. 
 Agnes-street, into the Governor's house, soon after the young 
 people have returned from the lecture. 
 
 This house, of a fashion forty years old, was large, three- 
 story, brick, surrounded by a portico, and pleasantly em- 
 bayed in trees, some dozen or fourteen rods from the street. 
 
 On this boisterous winter night, the family are gathered 
 in a spacious apartment, calld'd the sitting-room. In the 
 centre of the room is a large mahogany table, carefully 
 covered with a damask counterpane, over which a solar 
 lamp sheds its strong light. Around the table are seated 
 the family, if we may except the Governor himself, who, in 
 front of a blazing wood fire, reclines in a rocking-chair, with 
 his feet on the jamb. The mother of the family, or, as she 
 is commonly known. Madam Dennington, controls one side 
 of the table, with her sewing spread before her. She has 
 also under her special control a spermaceti candle, and a 
 pair of silver snuffers, with which, in moments of excite- 
 ment, she makes energetic starts for the candle-wick. It 
 was not her wish to have the solar lamp. Her father. Judge 
 Weymouth, used candles, and she had used them for thirty 
 years ; and they answered their purpose, and she was indis- 
 posed to see their province invaded. She wore a turban, 
 out of regard to her mother. She was short, erect, and 
 retained that vigor of eye and dignity of manner for which 
 her family were celebrated. 
 
24 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 About the table were the children and relatives of the 
 family. The governor had tweh^e children, of whom eleven 
 survived. The name of the deceased one, Agnes, was pre- 
 served in the street on which they resided. Four were 
 married from home. The others, in order, were Roscoe, 
 Benjamin, Melicent, Barbara, Eunice, and two smaller ones, 
 who at this hour were abed. Roscoe was about twenty-six, 
 and the rest succeeded in due course of nature. 
 
 The relatives were Miss Rowena, a cousin of Madam's, 
 and Mrs. Melbourne, a lady reared in the family of the 
 Rev. Dr. Dennington, father of the Governor, and who, for 
 many years, had been a member of the household of the 
 latter. 
 
 Roscoe was addicted to bachelor habits, and bachelor 
 moods ; he had no fondness for society, and a good educa- 
 tion he found scope for in the management of his father "s 
 farm. Benjamin was a lawyer. 
 
 Madam was nervous, and, above all things, dreaded a 
 scene ; and when the wind howled at the house, and shook 
 the windows, she started, as if one was coming. She was 
 rehgious, and seasoned her word-s with verses of Scripture. 
 She was industrious, and plied the needle assiduously; yet 
 not for herself, but for others ; and not always for the work 
 to be done, but for the example to be set. 
 
 If she relished the old rt'gime, she was charitable to the 
 new ; and while she sought to preserve the times past, her 
 good sense and strong faith inspired her with interest in 
 those to come. She reverenced the clergy, and defended 
 the reformer. 
 
 Her daughters were passing from the flower of youth 
 into the beauty and richness of womanhood. Their dress 
 honored the simple taste of their mother ; it was plain, 
 becoming, and neat without ornament. The two relatives 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 25 
 
 were benevolent looking people, whose happiness seemed to 
 consist in making the family happy. 
 
 Miss Rowena had a lively and jocose turn ; while Mrs. 
 Melbourne was subject to depression of spirits, in which 
 moments her vision was hazy, and her feelings petulant. 
 
 We have said this was a large room; it had, also, an air 
 of great amenity and comfort. The lamp wrought a quiet 
 but deep illumination in all parts of it ; the open fire was 
 cheerful ; naj?-, it was inspiring, at such times as these, when 
 tliat well-meaning but stupid creature, with a cast-iron face, 
 has undertaken to perform for us the office of warmth and 
 sociability through the long months of winter, but which 
 the Governor, with a luxurious or an antiquated feeling, 
 summarily dismissed from his premises. Pictures garnished 
 the walls, a sofa invited to repose, a piano suggested music, 
 a stand in one corner was enriched with choice literature ; 
 under one of the windows was a table, stocked with flower- 
 pots, and bearing geraniums and roses in bloom, and many 
 plants whose living verdure was a shelter for the feelings 
 from the storm ; the mantel-piece constituted a general news 
 ofiice, and collected the papers, pamphlets, letters, for daily 
 distribution ; above it was suspended a shell card-rack, the 
 more select depository of the lace-edged and enameled 
 missives of fashion and polite society. A large mirror, on 
 one wall, reproduced, in attractive vista, this pleasant scene, 
 and prolonged the interest which the room afforded to con- 
 templation. 
 
 The Governor left his rocking-chair, and paced to and fro 
 on the back side of the room. He had always condemned 
 rocking-chairs, and now, in his advancing years, he would 
 not sit in one a great while at a time ; thus keeping on good 
 terms his age and his principles. His hands locked behind 
 him under his dressing-gown, his head bent forwards, he 
 3 
 
26 RICHARD EDNEY AJSID 
 
 seemed fo be in a brown study ; — it was a passive habit. 
 He stopped against the window, and looked askance at the 
 storm, as if he were suspicious of it, but said nothing. He 
 had practised, all his life, the school-boy direction of not 
 speaking until he was spoken to ; and, on the whole, not 
 without a certain advantage, since he acquired more than 
 he gave out, and not being over-communicative, he was 
 deemed very trustworthy ; and since every one has some 
 things to say which he does not wish to have said again, it 
 follows that a silent man in society must gather up a vast 
 deal of confidence, like a well-regulated institution, in which 
 people like to vest their spare capital, knowing that it will 
 not break ; — sometimes awfully like the sea, into which 
 malefactors hurl dead men's bodies, and even their frightful 
 bags of gold, knowing they will not rise again. 
 
 In the kitchen, if any of our readers are disposed to make 
 a further survey of the premises, is also what must now be 
 called an old-fashioned fire ; yet one, judging from the size 
 of the sticks, destined to do good service yet, and of a sort 
 of wood that, without fruit in its living state, when brought 
 to the hearth, bears the richest flame-blossoms, and expires 
 in a ruddy, glowing crop of coals, — rock-maple. Here 
 were also a man-servant and a maid-servant ; the one, in 
 one corner of the hearth, engaged, as probably fifty thou- 
 sand of our population are at this moment, reading a news- 
 paper, lamp in hand. The woman, modestly retired to the 
 other corner, at a small table, is turning an old silk dress 
 into a mantilla. 
 
 "A fresh gust of wind, like a wave of the sea, struck the 
 house, and moaned piteously in every crevice of door and 
 window. 
 
 " God remember the poor ! " said Madam, in an under but 
 earnest voice, without looking at anybody in particular ; at 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 87 
 
 the same time hurrying the snuffers into the candle, as if 
 she would extinguish all the poverty in creation, and 
 pressing the cloth she was sewing with her left hand tightly 
 on the table, as if she were, in her own mind, stanching the 
 sorrows of the race. 
 
 " They will need some additional help," added the Gov- 
 ernor, in a quiet way. 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " replied his wife ; and she recited that 
 passage of Scripture which intimates how vain it is to bid 
 the destitute be warmed, without giving them what is 
 needful. Then she asked, " Has that wood gone to the 
 O'Conners ? " 
 
 " I heard the crackling of it in their stove, this afternoon," 
 said Melicent, "and saw the joyous glow of it in the faces 
 of the family." 
 
 Once more the stonn thwacked the house, to keep stirring 
 and active in its inmates the remembrance of humanity ; 
 and, at this time, to give additional pathos to its proceed- 
 ings, it roared up and down the chimney, as it were mim- 
 icking, in condensed reverberations, the hollow, unheeded 
 moan of universal wretchedness. 
 
 Madam acknowledged the force of this appeal ; but she 
 was not to be thrown from her balance, and she snuffed the 
 candle with marked deliberation. Marked, in truth ; — 
 j\Iiss Rowena saw it, and nodded to Melicent across the 
 table ; Mrs. Melbourne saw it, and grew sombre in the 
 face. Now, j\Irs. Melbourne had a favorite horse, which 
 she was very tender of, all weathers. Moreover, this horse 
 had not once been mentioned in course of the evening; and 
 Mrs. Melbourne knew Madam was not thinking of it, and 
 this worried her. Not but that this lady had a regard for 
 the poor; she had, but she claimed an enlargement of sym- 
 pathy even to the bounds of the mute creation. 
 
28 KICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Madam kept to her own thoughts. Turning to her 
 grandchild, who sat in the comer, she said, " Alice Wey- 
 mouth ! Alice Weymouth ! " But the child was asleep. 
 
 " Asleep ! " exclaimed madam, " asleep, under such 
 preaching as this? Asleep, when terror is calling, so 
 hoarse and mournful ? Asleep, when love is summoning all 
 the elements to speak for it ? " She did not say this loud 
 and boisterously, but with that subordination of manner 
 which never deserted her. 
 
 " I don't wonder the child sleeps," said Mrs. Melbourne ; 
 " she went half a mile, with a bed-blanket, before tea ; and I 
 scruple if the horse in the stable has a shred to his back." 
 
 There was a mixture of causticity and kindness in this 
 observation ; she wished to reproach her cousin, and the 
 family in general, for their neglect of the brute, at the same 
 time seeking to shield the child from the apparent severity 
 of her grandmother. In all this, Mrs. Melbourne had the 
 habit of flattering herself she was peculiarly, nay, in a 
 double-fold, benevolent ; and she took the flatteiy more to 
 heart, because it was wholly a matter of her own contriv- 
 ance, and no one helped her in it. 
 
 " Yes, yes," continued Madam, " bed-blanket is warming 
 three, by this time ; turkey sent yesterday stayed a whole 
 table-full of stomachs." Here she raised her voice, as if she 
 were squaring accounts with the weather, and the weather 
 was a trifle deaf, and she meant her own side of the case 
 should be fairly put : " Milk is served regularly every morn- 
 ing ; have Peter's boys taken the cold meat ? " Hereupon 
 the wind lulled. This g-ave Madam an opportunity to 
 declare there never was such a storm. 
 
 "■ We have had just such .^torms, every winter, for forty 
 years," replied the Governor, quietly ; " and you have said 
 the same thing," he added, " this is now the fortieth time." 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. 
 
 There was no point, no sharpness, in this rejoinder ; it was 
 only uttered as a pleasant reminiscence. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," she replied, twisting a little in her chair, 
 but soon regaining her composure ; " there is nothing new 
 imder the sun. What has been, shall be." Nor did she 
 rejoin this out of servile deference to the Governor, or 
 because she deemed the Scripture absolute authority on 
 every topic that might be broached ; but a moment's reflec- 
 tion recalled to mind those liberal views and permanent con- 
 victions that lay deep in her nature, and which exciting 
 events, like the storm, seemed for the instant to obliterate. 
 
 These things passed with little or no notice. Miss Row- 
 ena laughed through her hand; a smile rose to the surface 
 of the lips of Melicent, like a dolphin at play, and disap- 
 peared. The room was bright, and all were tranquil. The 
 Governor went to bed; he went without a light, — he 
 always did so. He said it facilitated sleep, to go to the 
 place of recumbency through a long passage of darkness, 
 and not flash into slumber too suddenly. Benjamin had one 
 shoulder piled on the end of the table, and the paper as 
 near his eyes as possible, and his eyes as near the light ; 
 — he was near-sighted, and wore glasses ; — and his read- 
 ing was intense, and was evidently fighting its way into 
 something. Eunice had gone to the piano, and while 
 the storm was dashing at the keys of her mother's heart, 
 she was ofiering herself, eyes, ears, imagination, fingers, to 
 the service of a couple of bars of music, and seemed unmis- 
 takably wishing that something would fling her bodily on 
 to the keys of her instrument ; but there was reluctance, or 
 great short-coming, somewhere ; there were but few reason- 
 able tones to be heard. 
 
 Benjamin laid dowai his paper, and his gla.sses on top of 
 it, and rubbed his right eye very hard with the knuckle of 
 3* 
 
30 HICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 his forefinger. " There is something in it," said he, " if it 
 could only be got at." 
 
 " I have no doubt there is," answered Eunice, " but who 
 shall say what ? " 
 
 " I have been thinking there might be," said Barbara. 
 
 "What if there is?" interposed Mrs. Melbourne; "who 
 really cares ? " 
 
 " Indeed, there is ! " responded Madam ; " and there are 
 a good many that care." 
 
 " No doubt," echoed Roscoe. 
 
 What should happen, at this instant, but that all these 
 persons were thinking of different things ; Benjamin of 
 California gold, Eunice of her music, Barbara of Richard 
 Edney, Mrs. Melbourne of the horse. Madam of the poor, 
 and Roscoe of the effect of the cold on peach-trees. The 
 evening wore on, the lights dulled, the fire burnt low ; and 
 these folk were becoming languid, and relapsing into a half- 
 stupid, half-unconscious state, in which the mind speaks out 
 as it were in sleep, or in intoxication ; and each of them, by 
 a sort of hidden wire-pulling, exposed what had been on his 
 mind for the last fifteen minutes. They were in a jumble, 
 a laughable jumble; and when they began to explain, they 
 fell into a greater jumble, and laughed a good deal harder; 
 their thoughts twirled one another round, and tripped each 
 other's heels, — all in play. Their thoughts, secretly con- 
 trolled by the real harmony of their feelings, fell into 
 groups and circles, and a sort of wild polka gallopade ; 
 but Barbara's thought, being the newest and strongest, got 
 the upper hand, and led off, with all the others following it ; 
 and Barbara's thought was Richard Edney. 
 
 I dare say many of our readers have been having the 
 same thought ; and since Richard Edney's name is so near 
 the Governor's Family, on the title-page, they are glad to 
 
THK governor's FAMILY. 31 
 
 have it get in there at last, and perhaps wonder how it will 
 be treated. That is easily told; — it was laughed at. Miss 
 Rowena loved to laugh, and to be decorous too. To unite 
 these two things, she bit her lip. If we should sajj- now she 
 hither lip hard — the fact — it would only be saying she 
 laughed hard. 
 
 Eunice said she hoped he would find Asa Munk's ; Bar- 
 bara hoped he would find work ; Miss Eowena hoped so 
 too, and then he would not be out late evenings, frightening 
 people in strange places ; Melicent desired that his inno- 
 cence and simplicity might not suffer. 
 
 " There would be great danger of it," said Miss Rowena, 
 " if he had happened in St. Agnes-street." 
 
 "What! what!" ejaculated Madam, quickly and ner- 
 vously. She folded up her work, and unfolded it. She 
 rolled the edge of it in her fingers, and unrolled it. Just as 
 she was going to bed, and the storm was subsiding, she was 
 not prepared for the introduction of a stranger, or a strange 
 topic ; and while she commiserated any one in distress, she 
 was not quite prepared, at that late hour, to go in quest of 
 new objects. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, emphatically ; for all wit- 
 nessed her agitation, but none answered her directly. There 
 was a mixture of shame and suspense in their recollections 
 of what transpired ; and what they said was as confused as 
 it was lively. 
 
 Alice Weymouth, the granddaughter, who had been of 
 the party to the lecture, related that they had met a drunken 
 man, or a tired man, or an old man, she hardly knew which; 
 nor whether he was young or old had she any clear im- 
 pression ; and had left him to find his way, in an unknown 
 town. Mrs. Melbourne hinted they might have offered him 
 a bed. Madam, truly considerate as she was of the world 
 
32 RICHAUD EDNEY AND 
 
 at large, slirank from the idea of an utter stranger in the 
 house ; and in this very thing, Mrs. Melbourne, by pushing 
 her benevolence a little further than the rest, contrived to 
 keep up a little quarrel, and attain a brief triumph, on the 
 gentlest of topics, and with people whom, from the bottom 
 of her soul, she loved. It was her weakness. Miss Row- 
 ena intimated that he might sleep with the hired man, who 
 would take care of him if he was likely to do mischief. 
 
 The young ladies drew their chairs about the fire; 
 Madam turned down the solar lamps, sent Alice to bed, 
 and admonishing her daughters not to make free with 
 strangers, or light of miser)', went to her chamber. 
 
 The young ladies lifted the smooth folds of their hair over 
 their ears, undid their belts, and sat musing upon the 
 embers on the hearth. 
 
 " A liberal, hopeful, wise human voice, anywhere," said 
 Melicent, " anywhere, is something ; but there," she went 
 on, " there, in that darkness, that solitude, wath the storm 
 racketing and rending around it, and those weird shadows 
 behind it, and the bitter, sullen cold piercing it, — how very 
 strange it is ! " 
 
 She thrust her fingers further under her hair, and raised 
 it higher over her ears, as if she would hear more of that 
 voice. 
 
 " Voices ! " said Barbara. " Speech, a breath, a sigh, a 
 prolongation of feeling, a flight of wish, an impersonation ; 
 without properties or relations; without the weights of 
 flesh and blood ; without the temptations of accident or 
 position; without poverty, or ignorance, or vice; without 
 ill-nature or ill-breeding ; without folly or prejudii^e ; with- 
 out circumstance and without inevitability; — yes, voices 
 are well enough, and there is plenty of them." 
 
 " I have no doubt there are some in my piano," added 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 33 
 
 Eunice ; " and, like the woman and her goose, I should like 
 to break it open and get at them," 
 
 " Eunice ! " cried one from the chamber, "is it not time 
 you were abed ? Alice Weymouth would excuse you, but 
 it would be a trial to her feelings, which are a little tender 
 such a night as this." 
 
 " There is a voice for you," said Eunice, " right from the 
 pit of your mother's heart. The weather, that has chilled 
 every fibre of my fingers, has thawed out the great aorta of 
 her sensibilities. How do you like it ? How did you use 
 to like it, when you were of my age, — snatching you away 
 from pleasant company, breaking up your tete-a-tetes with 
 the low fire, spoiling the pleasant feeling of your own inde- 
 pendence and womanhood, blasting the enchantment of a 
 novel or a moonlight, chasing you up stairs, and giving you 
 no rest till you slipped away from it beneath three heavy 
 coverlids ? " 
 
 Eunice, as one of the younger children, still required, or 
 received, some motherly looking after. She was an obedient 
 child, and did what her mother wished her to do ; she shut 
 the piano, kissed her sisters, and retired. 
 
 The two sisters, by this time, were left alone ; one by one, 
 all had gone ; the last footsteps on the stairs were heard, 
 the last door was shut, the last muffled creaking in the dis- 
 tant chambers had died away. 
 
 But no gloom or sorrow remained, though but one candle 
 burned, and but a handful of coals were alive. The storm 
 was over ; the atmosphere fell into repose ; the moon 
 looked down upon the hills sleeping beneath their robes 
 whiter than Marseilles quilts, with a calm, gushing eye, 
 like a mother upon her little children in bed ; and the clouds, 
 soft as summer, looked lovingly upon the moon. The par- 
 lor could not be empty ; for the moonlight came in at the 
 
34 KICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 windows, and brought with it the shadows of the great 
 ehns that stood before the house, the branches of which 
 went to extemporizing pretty patterns of things right 
 over the figures of the carpet, getting up a smart trial 
 between nature and art, and half persuading us of the 
 superiority of the first. More than this, the spirit of love 
 and the sense of a divine presence remained ; parental and 
 brotherly kindnesses and attentions kept their place good ; 
 gladness and joy still sat about the table ; wisdom and rev- 
 erence held its seat in the great rocking-chair ; the words 
 of the dead and the memories of the absent brooded among 
 them ; and voices, — a thousand murmuring voices of beauty, 
 sweetness, ideality, ecstasy, — like a rivulet, flowed around 
 the piano. 
 
 These sisters were alike, and they were unlike. They 
 were about the same age, height and weight. Strangers 
 often mistook one for the other. They were fully and sym- 
 metrically developed. Their constitutions had been rein- 
 forced by exercise, and nurtured by work. With every 
 means of luxury, their habits were moderate. The features 
 of both had rather a Roman than a Grecian cast. They 
 were light complexioned, but Barbara retained throughout 
 an infusion of shadow deeper than Melicent ; her eyes were 
 darker, her skin, and her hair. White was a becoming 
 color <br both ; while pink was the favorite fancy dress of 
 Barbara, and blue of ]\lelicent. Melicent was the type of 
 perfect women ; Barbara was a perfect Avoman : the beauty 
 of the one softened into the roundness of the whole ; 
 that of the other was concentrated into the sharpness 
 of the individual. If you were acquainted with many 
 excellent women, you would fancy you had seen a dozen 
 Melicents to one Barbara. They had both been to the 
 same schools, they read the same books, and belonged 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 35 
 
 to the same church. In dietetics, Melicent drank coffee, 
 Barbara drank tea. In recreation, Barbara liked to wahz, 
 Melicent preferred the minuet. ' They were both Chris- 
 tians ; but Barbara sometimes speculated on the miracles, 
 — Melicent loved the SaTviour ; Barbara aspired after, and 
 sometimes stumbled in pursuit of, the infinities of the uni- 
 verse, — Melicent delighted to yield herself to the serene, 
 unconscious currents of the immortal life; Melicent bore her 
 cross with the patience of a martyr, — Barbara carried off hers 
 more with the ease of a strong man. Barbara had more 
 ideality, — Melicent more purity ; Barbara more impulse, — 
 Melicent more firmness. Melicent possessed force -of char- 
 acter, — Barbara power of manner. In filial devotion they 
 were equal ; but Melicent staid at home when her mother 
 wished her to stay, and Barbara went abroad when her 
 mother wished her to go. Barbara would make a sacrifice 
 if her parents insisted ; Melicent would make one after they 
 had ceased to insist. Barbara was more lively, — Melicent 
 more solid. Barbara could joke with the best of feelings ; 
 when Melicent had the best of feelings, she could not joke. 
 In respect of humanity, Barbara was an Abolitionist, — Mel- 
 icent gave herself to the cause of Peace. Barbara had great 
 hope for the race, — Melicent a strong faith in it. Both 
 excelled in music ; but Barbara preferred Beethoven, — Meli- 
 cent, Strauss. Barbara would create a deeper and stronger 
 impression, — Melicent a pleasanter and warmer sympathy. 
 Barbara would suggest a thousand thoughts to you, — Meli- 
 cent would transfuse you with a certain stillness and seren- 
 ity that would speedily fill with thoughts. 
 
 These sisters looked out on the moonlight ; but they did 
 not go to the same window, nor did they put their arms 
 around each other, in the common glow of beautiful entranced 
 feeling. One went to a window on one side of the chimney, 
 
36 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 — the other to the other. They spoke to each other, as it 
 were, through the chimney ; each heart feh, and uttered, 
 and reflected back, the glorious world without, not to itself, 
 but that the other heart might hear. Barbara said, " 
 Spirit of Eternal Beauty, keep me this night ! " Melicent 
 responded, " O beautiful love of God, I am thine to-night !" 
 
 They set in place the chairs, wheeled back the sofa, 
 removed the lamp and damask cloth from the table, that it 
 might be ready for the servants to lay the breakfast in the 
 morning ; exchanged the elegant, downy hearth-rag for an 
 obsolete, thread-bare one ; raked up the fire, bolted the 
 door ; and they too went to bed. 
 
 We offer this chapter to our readers, not because it con- 
 tains matter rare or striking ; — it does not; it is of common 
 and familiar things; — and because it is of common and 
 familiar things, we write it. It is a simple picture of a 
 worthy American family, that we would like to preserve, 
 but which we are more anxious to present to our distant 
 readers. 
 
 American family! Patagonian ? Esquimaux? Nay; 
 an United States of North American. Between a barbarism 
 on the one hand and a falsity on the other, we adopt the 
 ialsity. A little euphuistic conformity is to be preferred to 
 a broken pate. We are not puissant enough to throw the 
 glove to national pride in favor of a proper nomenclature. 
 The force of this observation will be felt when we drop 
 down to the next. 
 
 Our distant, readers. We mean the English, French, 
 German, Swedish. But more, much more. Philosophy 
 teaches that nothing is lost; and this tale must survive. 
 Morality urges the illimitableness of human influence; 
 wherefore we may calculate that some wave of kind appre- 
 ciation will cast these pages on the remotest shores. Now, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 37 
 
 if license can be had from the Imperial Commission of 
 Turkey, and our friend, Ees Hawk Effendi, of Constanti- 
 nople, amidst other engagements, shall be able to complete 
 the translation, we hope to publish the book in that cele- 
 brated metropolis. 
 
 But there are pirates in that region, who will undoubt- 
 edlj^ be on the alert, and use so favorable an occasion to 
 pounce upon the work, and translate it into the language of 
 contiguous nations, — say the Tartars, — where its circula- 
 tion, unimpeded by copy-right, must be immense. 
 
 Now, it is an established premise of history, that the Tar- 
 tars, or ancient Scythians, peopled Europe ; that the Anglo- 
 Saxons and Normans came primarily from the banks of the 
 Caspian. Whence it follows that we, soi-disant Americans, 
 deduce our genealogy from a spot renowned as the home of 
 Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. 
 
 Consider, then, the pleasure of introducing a work like 
 this among our almost forgotten ancestors ! With what 
 delight must they hail intelligence from their long-lost, but 
 still alive and well, trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific children ! 
 With what eagerness will the ladies, God bless them ! of 
 Samarcand, that famous city, order the numbers, as they 
 successively appear, done , in silk paper — no other is used 
 there — in the book-stalls of the great bazaar of the place ! 
 How exhilarating for the dear creatures, in loose, flowing 
 costume, with this volume in hand, to stroll into the valley 
 of the Sogd, where, says the old geographer, Ibn Haukal, 
 " we may travel for eight days, and not be out of one deli- 
 cious garden;" read to each other about their cousins, Rich- 
 ard and Melicent, and Memmy and Eebby, under the shade 
 of the glorious plane-trees, and cool their transports in an 
 atmosphere of musk, which is exhaled indigenously from 
 4 
 
38 KICHAKD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 the soil ! How it must relieve the tediumjjf the caravan, to 
 have something of this sort to peruse on the way ! 
 
 Then, to retrace our steps a few degrees, let us imagine 
 the ladies of Constantinople, in their frequent excursions on 
 the Bosphorus, in those cailis, the "neatest and prettiest 
 boats ever seen," reclined on soft and meditative cushions, 
 and alternating the magnificent scenery around them with 
 glances at these simple, domestic pages ; — would it not be a 
 fine idea ? 
 
 But there is a cloud in this bright anticipation, — and that 
 is the point we would impress, — a cloud arising from the 
 misnomer just alluded to. Our Usbek relatives and Otto- 
 man friends will ;iot understand the term, "American 
 Family." They would naturally associate the Governor, 
 his kindred and contemporaries, with the Russians of 
 Alaska. A great mistake. Why not call them a New 
 England family? For the reason that they are not; but 
 are an United States of North American one. 
 
 This note, addressed, indeed, to our cognates and fellow- 
 citizens, will nevertheless fulfil its design as regards these 
 distant literary circles, and explain what would otherwise 
 be a kind of ethnical and geographical myth. And cer- 
 tainly, if this volume is to go among the Tartars, we cannot 
 but be anxious that the introduction be as smooth and 
 unencumbered as possible. 
 
 It will not only shed light on the interesting topic of the 
 names of places, to which we may again refer ; — it will 
 likewise support the propriety of certain matters that may 
 appear in the progress of these chapters. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 KICHARD FIXDS EMPLOYMENT, 
 
 The next day Munk went with Richard to the Saw-mills, 
 There were many of these stretched along the canals lead- 
 ing from the River. They were large buildings; long, 
 broad and low, and one story high. Busy, busy ; so busy, 
 as Richard looked into one and another, his first thought 
 was, they must want assistance ; but he soon found they 
 all wanted work. In a great city, everybody seems to be 
 doing something, and it seems as if there was something 
 for everybody to do ; but try it, just try it ! They came 
 to one known from its color as the Green Mill. 
 
 " Here is Captain Creamer," said Munk, " a great friend 
 and patron of young operatives ; I will introduce you. He 
 rents two or three saws." 
 
 Captain Creamer was a man whom time dealt gently with, 
 while advancing years served to ripen his person and 
 graces; and with a few additions of art, — and art, we aie 
 told, is the interpreter of nature, as in this instance she 
 labored to give most certainly the spirit of nature, and na- 
 ture is kind, — additions of art, we say, as lunar caustic 
 for his gray hair, and porcelain for his empty gums, he 
 would pass for quite youthful. 
 
 " I hope," said the Captain, speaking politely, " you are 
 very well, ]\Ir. Munk, and that Mrs. Munk is well. Belle 
 Fanny I need not inquire after; a bargain, that, Mr. Munk ; 
 she is the neatest trotter the city can boast. That is my 
 judgment. Brother-in-law, you say ; I am glad to see Mr. 
 
40 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Edney. I think I have heard of you. A new one seekhig 
 employment. They come fast. I think I have condemned 
 ten applications within a week." 
 
 " Then you have no chance for him," concluded Mr. 
 Munk. 
 
 " No, no ; I did not say so. But it takes extraordinary, I 
 might say, mountaineous talents, to succeed. He has friends 
 who are interested for him, and his own heart is interested 
 for itself. As the poet has said, he has on the Avhole armor. 
 Let me see you measure and figure on that stock of 
 boards." 
 
 Richard took the rule and chalk, and in a few minutes 
 reported an accurate and very neat account. 
 
 " Proficiency," replied the Captain, " proficiency. Con- 
 siderable tact. Mr. Kilmarnok," — he addressed the 
 head-stock man, — "let this young man take your place 
 a moment." 
 
 The head-stock was the controlling and responsible end 
 of a stick of timber on the works, and the head-stock man 
 superintended the whole operation of sawing ; so tliat Rich- 
 ard was put to a critical task. 
 
 " He sights well," said the Captain. " He handles the 
 bar as if he had seen one before. He must have prac- 
 tised. Merit, merit, certainly. Talent in his bail-dog ; his 
 drop-down-feed, Mr. Munk, shines. It shines, as has been 
 justly observed, like a hole in a blanket." 
 
 Richard stood in perspiration and trepidation. The 
 severity of the eye that followed his movements was fright- 
 ful. 
 
 Trembling and confused, when the log was run through, 
 in attempting to stop the saw, he seized the " start," or 
 handle of the lever that belonged to a "cutting-ofF" saw, 
 near by, and set that going. The Captain was in an 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 41 
 
 uproar ; Mr. Kilmarnok stepped forward, and corrected the 
 mistake. 
 
 " Lame," ejaculated the Captain, " and most unfortunate. 
 What a pity ! A most shuperior piece of work spoilt hy 
 these blotches ! I am sorry for him. Let him attempt the 
 tail-stock. No, no ; he will only disgrace himself. I have 
 no interest in this matter, Mr. Munk. I am only anxious 
 that our young men should honor themselves and the cause. 
 But they should confine themselves to what they can do 
 well. Head-stock is nice business ; and if he perseveres, we 
 shall have the happiness of meeting him there, some time or 
 another. Let him show his butting. I have no doubt he 
 is a master there." 
 
 Richard took an axe, and very neatly proceeded to " butt" 
 a log ; that is, cut the end of it square off. 
 
 " A well-directed blow. A handsome calf. The swing 
 of his axe is pleasing, — it is positively luxuriating ; as Dr. 
 Broadwell observed, the little hills of feeling within us clap 
 their hands." So the Captain echoed -the strokes. 
 
 Richard took breath and courage. The men in the mill 
 were looking at him, and he did not know but he should be 
 degraded before them ; but these encouraging words of the 
 Captain revived him. The Captain's teeth glistened with 
 delight, and his arms shook applause. 
 
 " Do you think you shall be able to give me work ? " 
 asked Richard, quite hopefully. 
 
 " Give you work ? " responded the captain, very archly. 
 " We pay for our work. But it is necessary to begin small ; 
 you see that it is. In the little and common matter of 
 chopping, you do well. But, alas ! how many choppers 
 there are ! W^hy, everybody can chop." 
 
 " Then you do not want me," added Richard. 
 
 " I did not say that. I only wish you to know your own 
 4# 
 
42 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 powers. I wish you not to adventure too much. This is 
 a great field. You see Mr. Kihiiarnok ; you think you can 
 do as well as he does. It seems only a few steps there. 
 It is a great ways from the butt to the head-stock. How 
 would he do in the slip, Mr. Munk ? " 
 
 " You can try him," replied the latter. 
 
 Richard, armed with a picaroon, descended the slip, some 
 thirty feet, to the basin, where the logs lay in the Avater 
 ready to be drawn in, and by aid of the tooth of the mill- 
 chain dog, to be hauled to the bed of the mill. Richard, 
 standing on one log, and aiming a blow at another, lost his 
 balance and slipped into the water. Recovering himself, he 
 pushed still more energetically the experiment on which he 
 was sent. 
 
 " Tut, tut I " so the Captain expressed his disappointment 
 to Munk. " That it should have happened ! I feel for the 
 young man. You recollect, Mr. Munk, at the lecture before 
 the Mechanics' Association we had explained to us the 
 difference between genius and doing. Now, your brother- 
 in-law can do many things ; I acknowledge that, — no man 
 can deny that ; but has he genius ? I ask you. He can do, 
 and do well, if he will only keep to his sphere. He has 
 some axe-genius, perhaps ; but he fails on the picaroon, — 
 utterly fails. He fails on the head-stock. He may have 
 some slight picaroon doing. He lacks self-oblivimy, and 
 is too tiercy ; not enough of the barrel and the tub, Mr. 
 Munk. Ambition ! oh, what a foe ! I am sorry you spoke 
 to me." 
 
 "We applied at several saws," answered Munk, "and 
 they were full." 
 
 Meanwhile Richard was doing up his job very hand- 
 somely ; and his brother called the Captain's attention to the 
 fact. 
 
THE GOVEKNOR's FAMILY. 43 
 
 Captain Creamer smiled, — he loved to smile ; but with an 
 air of melancholy. 
 
 " He can improve ; I never questioned his capacity." The 
 Captain shook his head, as if, while affirming so much, there 
 w^ere still many things he must deny. 
 
 Richard reiippeared on the mill-bed, with a look of sus- 
 pense. 
 
 The conversation that ensued will be better understood by 
 a tabular word or two. The Saw-mills were the property 
 of companies, or corporations ; and the saws were let, and 
 sometimes under-let. To each saw belonged, ordinarily, a 
 " gang " of three men, both for the day and the night ; six 
 in all. These were the head-stock man, the tail-stock nian, 
 and a sort of servant of the whole, who tended the slip, and 
 did the butting, and helped wherever he was called. Five 
 men could manage two saws. Captain Creamer rented two; 
 and, of course, in his double gang, employed ten men. This 
 for the main work of the mill. There was a collateral busi- 
 ness, as making shingles, laths, clapboards, which used up 
 the slabs and refuse timber; and which also required a cut- 
 ting-ofF saw. These operations employed several hands. 
 If we reckon six principal saws to each mill, we shall have 
 an aggregate of one or two hundred men in each ; or^e half 
 of whom were in constant activity, day and night. The 
 subordinate branches were carried on below, under the 
 " bed," or main floor of the mill, near the wheel-pit. 
 
 " Has your brother worked at shingles ? " asked Captain 
 Creamer. 
 
 " He has," replied Munk ; " but I think he would not care 
 to go down there." 
 
 " Natural, natural," answered the Captain. " As has 
 justly been observed, we cannot die but once ; and, Mr. 
 Munk, allow me to say it, we do not like to. But, Mr. 
 
44 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Munlv, how can one succeed without humility ? without 
 beginning low, — as Dr. Broadwell observes, taking one's 
 place in the dust ? Not be a shingle-sticker ! Why, the 
 Kilmarnoks, the Gouches, were all shingle-stickers." 
 
 " I had better return home," said Richard. 
 
 " Do not deem me unkind," responded the Captain. 
 " Young men do not appreciate the necessity of industry, 
 and acquaintance with detail. I fear me, I really fear, you 
 are ambitious. Odious sin that, as the poet observes, winds 
 like a hejus snake about the extremities ! You see we are 
 tolerably full on the bed ; there is hardly room for a flea. 
 But, ]\Ir. Edney, it is not our interest, but the interest of our 
 young men, which moves me to speak." 
 
 " You have no opening here," said Richard, decisively. 
 
 " I would do anything for you ; I would, for your respected 
 brother's sake. I know how friends feel. Nights — let me 
 see. Mr. Kilmarnok, how is Clover?" 
 
 " No better, sir," answered the man. 
 
 " Clover is sick. Yes, there is Clover's night. He has 
 tended the slip ; he is a man of rare qualities, and can turn 
 his hand to most anything. What would you say to his 
 chance for a few days ?" 
 
 " I can do anything," replied Richard. 
 
 " Bless me — that is it. What a spirit ! " 
 
 "What M'ages can you afford?" 
 
 " We make no account of such things. We are only 
 happy to bring the boys forward — to be the instrument of 
 leading them to greatness. It is worth a world to us to see 
 a head-stock man, and say, we carried that man forwards. 
 Howd, the inventor of the patent wheel, was a shingle- 
 sticker. I suppose Howd is really the greatest man in the 
 world. Pierson, the improver of the shingle machine, has 
 claims, and many fine points, and is sometimes named ; but, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 45 
 
 to use the expression, he cannot hold a candle to Howd. To 
 be associated with Howd in any way, even in the meanest 
 capacity, might well fire the heart of a young man. He 
 mounted from the wheel-pit to the bed, and went through 
 the slip to glory ! " 
 
 " Would you name a sum?" inquired Richard. 
 
 " I will be frank with you," replied the Captain, " and 
 even lay bare our whole affairs. Laths feed themselves, but 
 we find them ; and so do shingles ; but, in times like these, 
 they are glad to pay us a premium for being — for the mere 
 chance of being. What would you say to that?" 
 
 Richard shook his head. 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed the Captain, " 't is Labor against Capital. 
 Labor is ravenous ; it scratches Capital, as the poets say, like 
 a fowl on a danghill. But we are generous ; Green Mill is 
 generous ; it finds, and repairs, and makes its own insur- 
 ance ; it does everything, and gives all the profits to labor. 
 We will offer you eighteen dollars a month, board yourself; 
 Green Mill does not board. Or, you may form a gang, and 
 take the saw. We allow two dollars a thousand, piled and 
 stuck; oil and light yourself, of course; you understand 
 that." 
 
 "I will go by the month," said Richard. 
 
 So he found employment for a few weeks, at least ; he 
 would work nine hours every night ; and have fifteen out 
 of the twenty-four, wherein to sleep, and do what else he 
 liked. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 KICHARD AT THE MILL. 
 
 It was an extreme night, and the mercury fell to a 
 great depth before morning. One man, who raised the 
 largest cucumbers, and had the most satisfactory children, 
 and drove the prettiest carryall, said his thermometer, at 
 thirty-eight minutes after seven, stood at five and three- 
 quarters below zero. At any rate, it was cold enough ; and 
 Richard felt it, when he left the house, after supper. Its 
 first onset was suffocating, like a simoom ; then it began to 
 cut, and sting, and flay, as if it would not only entrap but 
 torture its victim. A delicate, thin, violet vapor, coming 
 from we know not where, had clearly mistaken the time of 
 the year, like birds arriving too early from a sunnier clime ; 
 benumbed and bewildered by the cold, it lay on the western 
 hills, still, calm, hard, and dry. The sky was very clear, 
 as if the cold had driven out of it all those soft clouds, and 
 gentle zephyrs, and spiritual mists, on which our better feel- 
 ings float through the universe, and by which our souls are 
 indefinitely expanded, and our sjTnpathies connected with 
 unseen orders of beings, and left it the impersonation of 
 intellect, — sheer, naked intellect, — intellect without love, 
 without tenderness; awful, dismal intellect, in which the 
 stars were so many iron, piercing, excruciating eyes — eyes 
 which one did not wish to look at, but ducked his head, and 
 hurried on. Or, if one could stand it, — if his fancy would 
 have its way, in spite of the cold, — he would see the windows 
 of heaven covered with frost, and the stars so many little 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 47 
 
 cr)'stalline sparkling points; and if he looked closely at 
 Sirius, he would inevitably conclude it had been snowing 
 there all winter; and the icy, glittering radiance of that star 
 he would attribute to the reflection of interminable hollows, 
 and mountains of snow. 
 
 There were no loafers about the mill to-night ; and no boys 
 skating on the river, with their cheerful fires, and the bell- 
 like ringing of their merry voices. The great doors on the 
 sides of the mill, that open on horizontal hinges, and are 
 hoisted by ropes, were dropped. The wind drifted freely 
 through the building; and the large, cylindrical, red-hot 
 stoves, seemed to be an invitation to it to come in. Nor was 
 it ceremonious, or hardly civil ; it crowded about the stoves, 
 and seemed determined that nobody else should have a 
 place ; and with a selfishness which nothing human ever 
 paralleled, as soon as one windy troop got warm, it made 
 way for another, and so left no chance at all for the work- 
 men. Green Mill was a large one, — two hundred feet long, 
 and fifty wide ; and all the saws were running ; not that 
 they always ran in winter, but these Avere pressing times. 
 It was one immense hall, where the saws were, mounting to 
 the ridge-pole, and broken only by the tie-beams, and the 
 frames in which the saws moved ; and all the men might be 
 seen, and their varied operations inspected, at a glance. It 
 was a noisy, busy scene. Lamps hung on the fender-posts 
 — lamps shaped like a coflTee-pot, with a heavy coil of wick- 
 ing in the spout, and producing so large a flame the wind 
 could not blow it out ; and the more it was attempted to be 
 put down, the brighter it burned. But the lamp was pro- 
 voking ; it affected great nonchalance ; it made feints of 
 being beaten ; it fell over from side to side ; it treated the 
 wind as a rope-dancer might treat his worst enemy, by caper- 
 ing on a slack wire, and jingling a tambourine in his face ; 
 
48 EICHAUD EDXEY AND 
 
 it was as insulting as a runaway monkey, that makes 
 grimaces at his master from a chimney-top. 
 
 On one bed the men were butting ; on another, hauling 
 up the slip ; on a third, dividing the logs by cross-cut saws ; 
 the creak of files, and the clink of iron bars, could be heard. 
 The up-and-down saws sweltered, trembled, gnashed, hissed, 
 as they made their way through the huge trunks before 
 them. There was the piteous shriek of the cutting-ofT saw, 
 and the unearthly rumbling of the wheels in the pit below. 
 The rag-wheels patiently ticked, as it were time-keepers 
 of the whole concern. The entire building, ponderous as 
 were its beams and firm its foundation, seemed to throb and 
 reel. 
 
 Richard was in a strange place, and among strange men, 
 though he was at home in the business. There was not 
 much talking, nor a very good opportunity for making 
 acquaintance. The men were silent in the midst of the 
 powerful agencies of nature and art ; they were the silent 
 Mind that wrought through these agencies. 
 
 Of the persons with whom Richard was associated, one, 
 Mr. Gouch, the boss of the gang, was a middle-aged, middle- 
 sized man, with a heavy face and a dull eye. He wore a 
 white fur hat, of a very old fashion, — so old, indeed, it would 
 be difficult to say when it was in fashion, — and which looked 
 as if it had come down through all the fashions, and each 
 of them had had a kick at it. He had on an antique sur- 
 tout, with a very high waist, and an immense collar, riding 
 the waist, as if it were the porter of a woollen factory. 
 The lips of Mr. Gouch were large and rough, and kept up 
 a constant twitching, as if affected with the shaking palsy. 
 Not that he was a great talker; only his lips stirred, some- 
 what vacantly, somewhat timorously. Before he spoke, his 
 lips moved, as it were getting ready for that effort ; after he 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 49 
 
 had spoken, his lips moved, as if the momentum of the effort 
 did not immediately subside. Along with setting the gauge 
 and minding the carry-back, another thing occupied a deal 
 of his attention. This was the orders the mill had received, 
 and which were nailed to the fender-post. Why did he 
 dodge so around the corner of this post, and look at the 
 schedule so often ? Why did he point at it with his crow- 
 bar ? Why did his lips wag at such a rate, and all to himself? 
 WJiy did he, from running the crow-bar over the list, like 
 an overgrown lubber of a schoolboy, who uses his finger to 
 fescue his eye from line to line, — why did he then jerk it 
 towards his fellow-laborer, whose back was turned ? Rich- 
 ard saw this farce, and was curious about it. 
 
 This other man seemed wholly indifferent to what was 
 passing ; he looked, indeed, more like a beast, who could 
 not be affected by human interests, than anything else. He 
 was short, and thick, and dark. His small cap, matted to 
 his head, with its few filaments of fur, and its larger bare 
 spots, did not look like a cap, but made him look as if he 
 had a scrubby, stinted growth of hair. Running your eye 
 down his person, you would imagine that his hair, deserting 
 his scalp, had reappeared under his chin, and around his 
 neck ; for here it grew thick, bushy, luxuriant. He had no 
 neck, apparently, but only a bed of hair, in which his head 
 lay. He was not deformed, but he seemed to have grown, 
 or been socketed, into himself; his hair grew into his head, 
 his head into his neck, his neck into his shoulders, and his 
 shoulders into his trunk. He wore a short frock, the ends 
 of which were tied in a large knot on his back, as if it had 
 something to do in keeping in place this singular structure 
 that he was. His mouth, except in a strong light, was 
 invisible ; and then it opened and shut spasmodically, like a 
 toad's; and then no teeth were seen, but a slight vacuum, 
 5 
 
50 KICHAED EDNEY A^^D 
 
 filled with indistinguishable shapes ; as one gets a glimpse 
 through the fence at the charred stumps of new-burnt 
 ground. Smoking was not allowed in the mill ; but this 
 man had a pipe in his mouth, whether he smoked or not. 
 He would sometimes smoke of a winter night. This pipe, 
 like the rest of him, had grown in, till there was nothing 
 but the black bowl left. Ever in his mouth, it seemed to be 
 a part of his organism ; and he dipped his finger into the 
 bowl as frequently when it was empty as when it was full. 
 The name of this man was Silver. 
 
 Mr. Gouch, we have said, looked at Silver; but Silver did 
 not mind it. Then Mr. Gouch read again the orders : 
 " While, 4, hemlock 16, 7x9. Smith, 6, gray birch, 10, 
 3X12, Clover 9, plates, hemlock, 22, 6x8. Clover, joist, 
 Clover, sills, Clover, furring." These things, from silently 
 transcribing with his lips, he went on to articulating more 
 distinctly, and finally spoke out quite loud. As he did so, 
 he turned his face to Silver; and then, as it were, having 
 caught the words on the end of his bar, he held that out for 
 Silver to read ; but Silver neither heard nor read. 
 
 During an interi'al when Silver was taking away the 
 boards on one side of the carriage, and Mr. Gouch and 
 Richard were at work Avith a cross-cut saw on the other, 
 Mr. Gouch said, " He '11 get it ! he '11 sweat I — he 's gone !" 
 
 " Who '11 get it ? " asked Richard. 
 
 "He," replied Mr. Gouch, and thrust his head backwards 
 towards Silver. 
 
 "Get what?" 
 
 " I tell you, Clover '11 build I " As he said this, he pushed 
 the saw forwards, and leaned forwards himself, as if he 
 were earnest that the communication should reach Richard. 
 " Don't start so I " he said ; " you are not concerned ; you 
 have just come ; you need n't be frightened." Now, Richard 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 51 
 
 could not conveniently help starting, since he held one end 
 of the saw, and must needs retreat as the other advanced. 
 Still Mr. Gouch kept operating the instrument, and endeav- 
 oring to impress certain truths on Eichard. The first he 
 did mechanically and skilfully; as to the last, he was in 
 an absent state of mind, and continually blundered in the 
 attempt to reconcile the ideal with the actual. " Don't be 
 frightened," he said, as he again inclined towards Richard, 
 who was again obliged to fall back, " I tell you, Clover '11 
 build ; and he '11 get it," writhing towards Silver, " and we 
 shall all get it ! Plates, joist, sills and furring, — yes, 
 furring, — that settles it, that does the business. You are 
 not alarmed, I hope ? " 
 
 " Why should I be ? " replied Richard, laughing. " More 
 work, more to do." 
 
 " Yes, more work ; but how he Avill feel ! how he will 
 feel!" 
 
 " Capt. Creamer told me Clover was sick." 
 
 " Clover sick ! The Captain done for, too ! The Captain 
 slabbed off, thrown among the refiige, flung into the river, 
 like so much edging. And all through Clover. Clover 
 sick ! He is too strong to be sick. He would die before he 
 would be sick." 
 
 " He may be sick, and die too," observed Richard. 
 
 "He can't die," returned Mr. Gouch; "you can't kill 
 him. You might as well smite that saw with your fist ; 
 you might as well put a trig under the dam and stop it, 
 as to practise on him." 
 
 They went to the stove for their lunch ; and as they went, 
 Mr. Gouch still muttered, " The furring fixes it ; it will be a 
 house. He '11 get it; Clover '11 build." 
 
 Silver said nothing, and Mr. Gouch said more, as if he 
 would teaze Silver. In an instant, Silver seized the cant- 
 
52 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 doo-, and aimed at the head-stock man. Richard sprang 
 between them, and Mr. Gouch fell backward over a log. 
 Mr. Gouch laughed, and Silver snapped his lips together in 
 a way that was intended to imply humor ; and Richard, 
 seeing that the demonstration was only a naerry one, very 
 quietly went to wooding up the stove. Mr. Gouch touched 
 his fingers on the stove, to see how hot it was ; then he 
 applied them again, to see the hissing and crackling; 
 and he at last got up a little cannonade, which he let off 
 against Silver. Silver was not harmed, or cowarded. He 
 knocked the ashes from his pipe, sliced a new charge of 
 tobacco, ground it in the hollow of his hand, filled his pipe, 
 and stooped to light it at the mouth of the stove. Mr. Gouch 
 suffered quite a drop of water to explode close to Silver's 
 ear, saying, " Have n't you got it ? Won't Clover build ? " 
 Silver drew back, and groaned. He sat on the floor, and 
 groaned. He made a few empty passes at the coals with 
 his pipe, and thrust it, unlighted, into his lips, and groaned. 
 
 " He has got it ! " said Mr. Gouch. " Did 'nt I tell you 
 he would get it ? Such quantities of furring ! O, what a 
 nice little house, and what a nice little bed-room, and what 
 nice fLxings ! " 
 
 Silver took a pine stick and whittled it, sharpening and 
 smoothing it. He then tried the point of it on the palm of 
 his hand ; then he pricked his cheek with it ; then he made 
 as if he would stab the stove and the saw. 
 
 " There will be family ways and family doings," contin- 
 ued Mr. Gouch, addressing Richard, who was quietly con- 
 suming his midnight meal ; " and fires kindled where it is 
 now bleak cold, and tables set for people that never ate 
 together, and doors opening on new scenes and new opera- 
 tions. There will be another stopping-place along the street, 
 and another yard to set flowers in ; and by and by there 
 
THE GOVEKNOR's FAMILY. 53 
 
 will be children, and little ones will climb on their father's 
 knee, and that father will be Clover ; and little ones for the 
 mother to put to sleep, and that mother will be " 
 
 Silver shrieked not out, but inside, and only a smothered 
 explosion was heard. He thrust his stick wildly into the 
 air. 
 
 " Don't do that ! " said Mr. Gouch ; " don't hurt Clover; 
 don't attempt Clover ; don't do anything to him ! " 
 
 " It is not that," rejoined Silver ; " it 's myself." 
 
 He again tried to light his pipe, and now he was success- 
 ful ; and he sucked and whiffed, as if he would evaporate 
 his sorrows, thoughts, and whole being, in the smoke. 
 
 "Clover '11 build, and it is your treat," said the head- 
 stock man ; " and you need not take it so hardly ; a couple 
 of dimes will hardly be missed." 
 
 Sih'er blew the smoke from him, as much as to say, 
 " That is nothing; I do not care for that." He spi'ang up 
 with an air which seemed to add, " Bring on the boys ! I 
 am ready to treat." 
 
 The two men from the other saw came towards the stove. 
 One of them advanced in a jaunty, tambourine sort of way, 
 appearing to be playing on an invisible instrument of that 
 kind with his elbow and knuckles, and shuffling to the tune 
 with his feet. A red handkerchief was tied flauntingly on 
 his head, and his waist was buttoned with a leathern strap. 
 He was lively and talkative, and his name was Philemon 
 Sweetlj\ "Pleasantly cold, Mr. Gouch," said he; "just 
 enough to make a stove, ordinarily so dull, a very agreeable 
 companion." 
 
 "An Indian could n't stand it," replied Mr. Gouch, rather 
 solemnly; "a frog would freeze, a barn would be out of its 
 element." 
 
 " I hope," rejoined Philemon, " the cold will bear kind of 
 5# 
 
54 RICHARD EDNEY ANT> 
 
 Strong on the Captain ; just hold him down softly, freeze 
 him gently, so he will not feel it, and let Helskill out. It is 
 a precious night for Helskill ; he deserves such a night, now 
 and then." 
 
 " How is Clover, to-day ? " asked Ezra Bess, the fourth 
 man. 
 
 " Better," replied I\Ir. Gouch ; " and Silver will be gen- 
 erous, — all gold, perhaps." 
 
 " That for Clover," added Philemon, heaving the hand- 
 spike across the mill-bed ; " Helskill is wanted just now." 
 
 At this instant, a man was seen entering the mill, and 
 making his way stealthily through the shadows, as if he 
 were afraid he might tread on them. And when a roister- 
 ing lamp flared in his face, he started, like a very polite man 
 who had intruded too suddenly upon the light. He had on 
 his arm a basket, over which he exercised incessant watch- 
 fulness, like a mother bringing her daughter into company. 
 He had a broad, dark face, and eyebrows to match, aftd 
 black eyes ; but a timid look, — a remarkably timid, and 
 almost slippery look ; and a stooping gait, like one who has 
 the misfortune to be continually seeing obstacles in his path. 
 He signalized his progress, also, by a cough, — a small, hack- 
 ing cough, — as a modest token of admonition to any one 
 against whom he might come in the dark. 
 
 The approach of this man was regarded with interest by 
 the gang. 
 
 " The Friend of the People is assiduous and devoted as 
 ever," said Philemon, affecting a bow to the new-comer. 
 " Shall I have the honor of introducing to you, Richard, Mr. 
 Helskill, the Friend of the People ? " 
 
 " I am the Friend of the People," replied the other, evi- 
 dently brightening up and re-collecting his courage, in the 
 cordiality with which he was received ; " I look after the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 55 
 
 public good : I vote for it at the polls ; I canvass for it 
 before election; I harness my horse, and go in pursuit of it; 
 I bleed for it, — yes, I do, — my purse bleeds, and my heart 
 bleeds, to see how it is abused ; I attend to it, in my own 
 little way, at Quiet Arbor ; " — he was still timid, and cast 
 his eyes from side to side, but he waxed bolder as he went 
 on: — "I am an advocate of the people: I defend their 
 rights ; I teach them their independence ; I stand between 
 them and monopoly ; I take the brunt of oppression ; I be- 
 lieve that men are to be trusted, — that they ^ai^e discretion." 
 
 " Desput cold ! " said Philemon, who, using the liberty 
 v/hich the timid man scattered broadcast around him, lifted 
 the cover of the basket, and took from it a brace of bottles 
 and glasses ; — " but you are the chap for it. You must 
 have been born in a bog, and nussed on cucumber juice. 
 That was economical. When you was eight years old, your 
 father sent you out barefoot in winter to catch titmice for 
 poor people's breakfast. So you learned benevolence. A 
 thermometer would have no effect on you; the mercury 
 might plump down into the bottom andfreeze, — you would n't 
 mind it ; you would buzz around your little Arbor, as chirk 
 and bobbish as a fly in spring-time. And how, when it 
 grew late, and your friends became tired and sleepy, and 
 wanted to lie down, you would put them out of doors, using 
 a little force, just to teach them self-denial ! Why, you are 
 equal to Captain Creamer, — you are the Captain ! Has n't 
 your wife a receipt for cold weather ? You might send it 
 South, and they could get up a little ice for their juleps, and 
 kill off the yellow fever, now and then. You would n't do 
 for a Methodist church, just now. You might answer for 
 some other in town ; they could set you up cheap, and you 
 could do so much good ! You love to do good, don't you ? " 
 
 Men from all parts of the mill, having a respite from 
 
56 RICHARD F.DNEY AND 
 
 their work, collected around Mr. Helskill, who seemed to be 
 quite a centre of attraction. 
 
 " I knew he would come," said Mr. Merlew, head-stock 
 man of saw No. 5, a burly, hulchy looking man ; " he 
 sticks to his word like a bail-dog to a log. He does n't mind 
 the coldest night, any more than No. 5 does the knots of 
 white hemlock." 
 
 " No. 5, No. 5," said Philemon, who was head-stock man 
 of No. 2, " will want a little oiling ; will be very thankful to 
 the Friend of the People for a little help ; will rejoice in the 
 opportune kindness of that man, or I am mistaken." 
 
 The Friend of the People coughed, blushed, and looked 
 down. So embarrassed was he by these compliments, he 
 did not perceive that his glasses had escaped, and his bot- 
 tles were being emptied, while the men were secretly trying 
 the quality of his wares. 
 
 Mr. Gouch, meanwhile, with a medley of playfulness and 
 timorousness, simplicity and cunning, slid to the door of 
 the mill and looked out ; hopped over the lumbered floor 
 back again, and slapped the stove with his wet fingers, chat- 
 tering to himself, " The Captain won't come ; he can't come 
 to-night. Clover ivill build ; Silver '11 treat ; he won't be 
 happy, if he does n't," Silver muddled with his pipe among 
 the ashes. Richard leisurely hacked the end of a log. 
 
 " The honor is Silver's to-night," said Philemon to 
 Richard, holding a glass in his hand, " It is his to give 
 merit an opportunity to distinguish itself, and to open to the 
 Friend of the People a sphere of action. This ordinarily 
 falls to the new comer ; it should have been yours, as you 
 are in that capacity ; but it is Silver's to-night." 
 
 " I am truly obliged to you, Silver," said Mr. Helskill, 
 making an effort to show his teeth, as if there resided in 
 them a particularly pleasing and grateful expression, which 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 57 
 
 he was anxious to communicate ; " you must be a happy- 
 man." 
 
 Silver hurled a chip at the timid man's head, which he 
 dodged, but manifested no indignation thereat. "Don't 
 grin at me ! " Silver added, very groutily. 
 
 "I must have declined the honor," replied Richard to 
 Philemon ; " and I think Silver has no satisfaction in doing 
 it." 
 
 "But you will drink?" returned Philemon, tendering 
 him a glass. 
 
 " I think I will not," said Eichard. 
 
 " Drink ! " growled Silver, with a quick, deep intonation. 
 
 " The laws of the mill forbid drinking, and the law of 
 conscience forbids it," added Richard. 
 
 " Clover '11 build ! " Mr. Gouch's lips began muttering. 
 This was a magical word ; it worked Silver to a frenzy ; 
 though Mr. Gouch certainly had no ill intents on his brother 
 stock-man. 
 
 " You shall drink ! you shall all drink ! " screamed Silver, 
 starting up. 
 
 " I am not afraid of Clover, and Clover shall not hurt 
 you," said Richard. 
 
 Silver grew more quiet, and sat down to his pipe, saying, 
 " Drink, Richard, only drink ! " 
 
 " There is mischief here," said Richard, " and I do not 
 understand it. And there is more mischief here, and I do 
 understand it : and it is there ; it is that man," — pointing to 
 Mr. Helskill. 
 
 " I hope the young fellow don't accuse me of mischief," 
 replied Mr. Helskill, picking up his bottles. 
 
 "You needn't hope anything about it," said Richard. 
 " You may know ; you may be assured." 
 
 "Well, accuse me of mischief!" 
 
58 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 " I did n't accuse you of anything, and I do not. I said 
 you were mischief; and you are ! You are deviltry incar- 
 nate, and your stuff is the same incarnadined ! " 
 
 " Not so fast," interposed Philemon. 
 
 " There is no time to be slower," answered Eichard. 
 " Our lunch is out ; and we are here to work, not play." 
 
 " They would put on the screws," said Mr. Merlew ; 
 " they would make nigger-wheels of us, if they could, and 
 keep us always at it ; they would like to see us saw-dust 
 under their feet ! " 
 
 " There is no harm in fun," said Philemon. " Must 
 spree it, these tremendous nights." 
 
 " Not a drop, friends, not a drop," replied Richard. 
 • " He is no Friend of the People," observed Mr. Helskill ; 
 " he is a flinty and tyrannical character. I have seen such 
 before. I have repelled their malicious attempts ; I have 
 defeated their mean operations ; I have sacrificed a good 
 deal to put them down." 
 
 " You are a very direct and unequivocal scamp ! " said 
 Richard. 
 
 " Drink, for my sake ! " said Silver. 
 
 " I cannot drink," answered Richard. 
 
 " He is an unfeeling brute," observed Mr. Helskill. " I 
 left my warm Arbor ; I exposed myself to the weather. I 
 knew I had comfort for you ; I knew you needed it ; I knew 
 Silver wanted me to come. I defied the infamous statute ; I 
 ran the risk of falling into the hands of some skulking in- 
 former, and I have fallen into his hands, — I have fallen." 
 
 "I am no skulker," said Richard; "I am open-placed, 
 and open-tongued. I will not inform against you else- 
 where ; 1 will tell you to your face what you are, and what 
 you do. You bring in mischief here ; you bring in fightings, 
 ill-will, neglect of work ; you bring in sickness and disease ; 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 59 
 
 you come a good ways to do it ; you brave the coldest night 
 of the year to do it; you are desperate in the business ; you 
 would send these men drunk from the mill ; you would drive 
 them into a snow-bank. to die; you would pitch them, 
 reeling and staggering, into their own homes ! Oif with 
 you, — off!" 
 
 " Presently, presently," said Mr. Helsldll. " Alvin shall 
 have his glass. Alvin shall have the ague taken out of his 
 fingers." He inclined the bottle towards the person whose 
 name he called. 
 
 " Alvin shall not drink ! " replied Richard. " Alvin is a 
 boy. He is too young to like it, and too old to be spoilt." 
 
 Mr. Helskill persisted. Eichard, quite aroused, with a 
 handspike, dashed the bottle to atoms. Carried forward 
 by the impulse, he descended upon the other bottle, and 
 treated it to the same end ; and then, seizing the basket in 
 which these things had been borne, he hurled it towards the 
 door. 
 
 The confusion of this scene was heightened by what 
 immediately followed. The basket, in its rapid transit, 
 alighted in the face of a person entering the mill. It was 
 Captain Creamer. Already agitated by what he overheard 
 as he approached the building, he was exceedingly inflamed 
 by this latter piece of impertinence. He blustered amongst 
 the men in a way that boded no good to any of them. 
 
 " Don't say you did n't drink ! " whispered earnestly Silver 
 to Richard, as he saw the Captain approaching; "for my 
 sake, don't say you did n't ! " 
 
 The hands belonging to the other saws fled to their 
 respective posts. The Friend of the People, already dis- 
 heartened by the manner in which his intentions were 
 received, had made an early exit. The Captain's own 
 gang stood alone before him. 
 
60 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Captain Creamer could not find words to express his 
 astonishment, his grief, his anger; and he was silent. At 
 length, composing himself sufficiently to speak, he charged 
 the men with violating the rules of Green Mill — their own 
 promises, and duty. He enlarged upon the danger to 
 which they were exposing themselves, and particularly on 
 the risk to which the mill was subjected. " Mr. Gouch," 
 he said, " my head-stock man, my trusty servant, I had not 
 expected this." 
 
 " Clover '11 build — " began Mr. Gouch. 
 
 "Don't name Clover to me !" retorted the Captain. "I 
 am not afraid of Clover ; Clover does n't rule here. Who 
 threw that basket at me ? " 
 
 " I threw it," answered Richard ; " but I did not intend to 
 hit any one ; I did not see you." 
 
 " Drinking ! In liquor ! Did not know what you were 
 about ! Could not discern an object of my size ! I made no 
 impression on you ! " 
 
 " I cannot explain," said Eichard. " I can say nothing 
 about it." 
 
 " I presume you cannot," answered the Captain. 
 
 " Hoist the gate, Mr. Gouch ! You will work an hour 
 longer for this. In justice, I could demand more ; I shall 
 accept of that. I have suspected all was not right; I have 
 had intimations of your doings. The mill is jeopardized, 
 the whole corporation is jeopardized, by your conduct. 
 Frightful as is the cold, I left my bed to look after you." 
 
 The men resumed their duties; the Captain, readjusting 
 himself in his bear-skin coat, strutted to and fro across the 
 gangAvay. 
 
 Not many minutes after, approaching the door, he called 
 to Richard, and pointing to an angle of the road in front of 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 61 
 
 the mill, he said, " I see something stirring yonder. Be 
 spry and easy ; catch it, — do not let it escape ! " 
 
 Richard, approaching the mysterious object, found it to 
 be a man filling a basket with waste bits of wood. He trod 
 catlike, and seized the man firmly by the collar. The latter 
 dropped a stick he had in his hand, and fell back passively 
 on Richard's knees. The Captain leaped forvvard, saying, 
 " Hold on ! " and also fastened himself to the culprit, who in 
 a low voice replied, 
 
 " I did n't succeed, did I ? Don't hurt me ! " 
 
 " He is shamming," rejoined the Captain. " Let him not 
 give us the slip." 
 
 They dragged him to the mill. The light revealed the 
 face of an old man, thin and gray. He was shaking with 
 the cold. 
 
 "Shut down," said the Captain to Mr. Gouch; "there 
 are other matters to attend to. We have missed things 
 from the mill ; an entire pile of stuff has been carried off; — 
 odd ends, to be sure, but such as there is market for, and 
 without which the mill could not live, — nay, it could n't 
 stand a day. I think we have got the knave." 
 
 " It is an old man," said Mr. Gouch. 
 
 " Old, is he?" asked the Captain, who had not noticed 
 this feature of the case. " Too old to be stealing ; too old to 
 be in such bad business as this ; too old to set such an 
 example." 
 
 " Who would do it but me ? " answered the ancient ; " who 
 but Grandfather ? Who would get a pitch-knot in the cold, 
 and the dark, that they might see the blaze, — that the young 
 folks might be gladdened ? I am not old, and they will see 
 I am not." This was said with a sort of doting chuckle. 
 
 " What shall we do with him ? " inquired the Captain. 
 
 " I would let him go," said Richard. 
 
IBS RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 "Do you mean to insult me again, young- man?" asked 
 the Captain. " Has neither your own conduct nor my for- 
 bearance taught you decency?" 
 
 " I think the chips would do the man more good than he 
 can do us harm," observed Philemon ; " and I would not pro- 
 ceed against him." 
 
 " Who asked what you would do, Mr. Sweetly ?" respond- 
 ed the Captain. 
 
 " You did, sir," answered Philemon. 
 
 " I asked what we should do with this criminal. I did 
 not ask after your private sentiments. The world is full 
 of them; we have enough of them. I have not been at all 
 this pains to find them out." 
 
 " I replied to your question, sir, the best way I knew 
 how." 
 
 " Call you that doing with the man? — to let him go — to take 
 no notice of what he has done, — to set this villany at large ? " 
 
 " Svippose we duck him in the canal," said Ezra, " then 
 hang him on the jack-pole to dry." 
 
 "Don't do that," said the old man. "I couldn't live 
 through it. I have n't long to live ; but I want to see the 
 children in a better way before I die." 
 
 " If I could shake him, I would," said the Captain, and 
 endeavored to suit the action to the word, but the garment 
 on which he seized parted in his hand ; — " but I do not 
 like to take the law into my own hands ; I should prefer 
 bringing him before a justice. I shall enter a complaint, in 
 the morning." 
 
 " He may abscond, in the mean time," suggested Ezra. 
 
 " Some one must stay with him," observed the Captain, 
 directing an inquiring eye to his men. 
 
 " I will not," said Philemon. 
 
 " Nor I," added Ezra. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 63 
 
 Silver was brooding over the fire, muncliing his pipe, and 
 would not answer. 
 
 " It is no part of a head-stock man's duty," evasively 
 replied Mr. Gouch. 
 
 " You will do it, Richard," said the Captain, " and I may 
 think better of you." 
 
 " I will," replied Richard. 
 
 " Watch him close," enjoined the Captain, hooking Rich- 
 ard's arm in that of the old man. " He will be called for 
 about ten o'clock in the morning." 
 
 Having given a right direction to the affairs of justice, he 
 turned to the business of the mill. 
 
 The cold had increased. Midnight seemed to be gather- 
 ing itself up for a final plunge upon the morning. The old 
 man shook on Richard's arm. 
 
 " You are cold," said Richard. 
 
 " They are," replied the other. 
 
 " They need the wood ? " continued Richard. 
 
 " I thought they did," rejoined the old man. " They 
 seemed to. It may have been fancy; perhaps it was a 
 dream. I get confused in my head, I have so much to do ; 
 and it seems sometimes as if I was all a dream." 
 
 " They shall have it," said Richard, with emphasis. 
 
 " It is too late now. It is over. I never thought I 
 should do that. I never thought we should come to that ; 
 but a little blaze is so pretty. God's will be done ! " 
 
 " I will pay for it," said Richard, " There shall be no 
 trouble on that score." He went to the spot where the 
 basket lay, which he filled ; and giving the old man one 
 handle, and taking the other himself, he suffered his attend- 
 ant to lead the way whither he would go. This was in the 
 direction of the Factory Boarding Houses. Richard in- 
 quired after the necessity of the fuel he was so unseasonably 
 
64 RICHARD EDNEY AKD 
 
 supplying, as a clue to the crime over which he was so 
 strangely made sentry. He gathered from the old man 
 that two girls, his grandchildren, had come to work in the 
 Factories, and he had accompanied them ; that one of them 
 was sick, and the other lay exhausted at the bedside ; that 
 their means were short, and while the girls slept, he had 
 slipped away for the wood. 
 
 As they reached the steps of the house, the voice of Cap- 
 tain Creamer was heard close behind. 
 
 "What does this mean?" he asked, angrily. "Have I 
 set a thief to watch a thief? Through your means, young 
 man, is the very thing consummated which I have wasted a 
 whole night to prevent ? " 
 
 Richard explained; — the Captam was not propitiated. 
 Richard offered to deduct the value of the wood from his 
 wages. How little did he understand Captain Creamer ! 
 
 " The value of the wood ! A basket of chips ! " The 
 Captain spurned the thought. "It was the wrong that affect- 
 ed him," he said ; " the bad beginning of a young man." 
 However, he could not easily reverse the course of events, 
 and these accomplices in crime were permitted to enter the 
 house with their ill-boding freight. 
 
 Richard followed his guide up stairs to a chamber under 
 the roof, in the third story. A lamp in an angle of the 
 chimney cast a shadow over the room, and faintly revealed 
 the forms of the two girls on the bed. Weariness had folded 
 the well one, and an opiate the sick one, in deep slumber ; 
 and they were not aroused at the entrance of Richard and 
 his guide. 
 
 " We had better not try to make a fire," said Richard ; 
 " the room is not very cold, and the hearth is v\^arni." 
 
 "A few shavings," whispered the old man; "just a 
 little blaze. Junia loves to see a blaze. It is a comfort 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 65 
 
 to her. And when t' other is gone, and I am gone, — and 
 that will be soon, — there will only be a little blaze, and the 
 memory of it, in all this cold world, for her to look upon." 
 Richard drew some shavings from the basket, and soon had 
 them lighted. In the flickering glare which they cast over 
 the room, the old man looked and acted a little strangely 
 betraying a singular medley of imbecility, pathos and joy, 
 He leaned over the bed with a deep and passionate interest, 
 Then turning to Richard, with a playful, but sad infatua 
 tion, he pointed to the sleepers, and whispered, " That one 
 the sick one, the one with morning hair, — her child's hair, — 
 is Violet. The other, with the evening hair, — she was born 
 in the evening, and there are stars in her soul, — is Junia. 
 Who called her Violet ? I remember, her mother did, be- 
 cause she was born in spring, when violets blow. And 
 she will die in the spring ; it was then her mother died ; she 
 will die Avhen the birds begin to come, and the weather is 
 soft. If she could live then ! But she had better not die 
 noiv. God's will be done ! I know it was spring, for I was 
 sitting on the bank with the other when the nurse came. 
 We called the other Junia, because she was born in June; 
 and there is more summer in her ; she is riper, and stronger, 
 and can bear up better ; and she is full of warmth and pretty 
 life ; her hair is darker, — they said it was then, and it is 
 now, — and she was alwaj's amongst us like the smooth mead- 
 ow, and her eye came into your heart like noon under 
 the shady trees. I remember it ; I have a strong memory, 
 — a very strong memory. I remember a great many more 
 things than I used to when I was a young man. This one 
 was more tender, more frail, as the wind-flowers ; she never 
 seemed to get stronger, and we made a lamb of her. She 
 hung like dew upon all of us, and all our feelings, — so her 
 6* 
 
66- EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 mother said, — only we knew she must go soon ; and when 
 the buds begin to burst, she will die. God's will be done ! " 
 
 There was too much tenderness in the old man, too many- 
 cherished though bitter and confused reminiscences, too 
 much vague but corroding sorrow, for Richard not to be 
 touched. He was silent and reflective ; and his whole spirit 
 was concentrated on the beauty and the sadness that slum- 
 bered before him, and the unwearied, tottering affection that 
 stood by the side of it. 
 
 Junia awoke, and, somewhat startled, said, "What is it. 
 Grandfather ? Has the doctor come ? " 
 
 "Nothing has happened, dear," replied the Grandfather. 
 
 " I have no business here," said Richard. 
 
 "Yes, you have, — j'ou know you have," answered the old 
 man. " You cannot go." 
 
 " Let me make more fire," rejoined Richard. 
 
 " "Where did the wood come from ? " asked Junia, ap- 
 proaching the hearth. 
 
 " He brought it," replied her Grandfather, pointing to 
 Richard. 
 
 " We are obliged to you," Junia said ; " but so cold, — 
 so late in the night — " 
 
 There was a mystery about the wood, Avhich neither of 
 them was ready to explain. 
 
 " Have you suffered much ? " asked Ri-^hard. 
 
 " Yes," replied Junia, " we do, for Grandfather's sake." 
 
 " Have you suffered from cold ? " 
 
 " Not much, — not long. Violet feels it sometimes." 
 
 " What is" her sickness ? " 
 
 " She was always slender, and after our father and moth- 
 er died, she went to keeping school; but this was too much 
 for her, and she had an attack of bleeding. One of our 
 neighbors told us how strong her girls had become in the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 67 
 
 Factories; and we must earn something — and we came 
 liere. She was better for a v/hile ; but she is worse now, — 
 very bad, indeed. We are troubled that Grandfather should 
 exert hirnself so much." 
 
 " They do not know me," said the old man, a good deal 
 agitated ; " they do not know how able I am, — how much I 
 can endure. They do not mean I shall know how weak 
 they are; they would keep it from me; they think it worries 
 me. But they cannot hide it, and I know she will die when 
 the season changes ; — her mother did. I could have got 
 wood alone." 
 
 "Did you go out for the wood, Grandfather?" asked 
 Junia, with surprise. 
 
 " I helped him," said Richard, who wished to change that 
 sul)ject. " We will have a nice fire ; " and he put on more 
 chips and butts. He felt that his presence must be embar- 
 rassing ; he knew that the matter of the wood was so ; and 
 he said, rising from his chair, " If there is anything I can 
 do for you, I shall be glad to do it." " We are under 
 obligations to you," Junia replied ; " but we are not in need 
 of anything." Richard advanced towards the door ; but the 
 old man laid hands upon him, led him to his chair, adding 
 that he must stay. 
 
 "If Grandfather wishes it, — if it will make him hap- 
 pier, — we shall be glad to have you stay," said Junia. 
 
 Richard was bound to Capt. Creamer, and to the law, and 
 to his own promise, to stay; and since he could not explain 
 the real cause of his coming and staying, he said nothing. 
 
 " All for Grandfather ! " The old man leaned forward, 
 with both elbows on his spread knees, rubbing his hands 
 l.fore the fire, and repeated, with a dry laugh, "All for 
 Grandfather! They do not know it was all for them, and 
 that it has come to this all for them ; God's will be done | " 
 
68 KICIIARD EDXEY AST) 
 
 " Tell me what has happened," said Junia, with an anxious 
 tone. 
 
 " Nothing," said Richard, " nothing to speak of now. 
 Your Grandfather was afraid you might suffer ; and you will 
 suffer if you do not keep quiet. Your sister is waking." 
 
 " Will God take care of us ? " she asked. 
 
 " He will," answered Richard, solemnly; "and to God let 
 us trust all things." 
 
 Richard's manner was so kind, and his words so soothing, 
 that Junia, even if her heart had begun to work with some 
 inexplicable evil, regained her composure, and said "I will," 
 and went to the bedside. She raised her sister, and laid 
 pillows under her head. The golden hair of the invalid, 
 beneath her white cap, and above her pale, delicate face, was 
 like a glowing cloud in the clear sky, and her blue eye 
 beamed deep and far, like the sea, beneath. " That is 
 Grandfather's friend," said Junia to her. " Yes, my friend, 
 dear, my friend," echoed the old man. " His name is 
 Richard." 
 
 Violet nodded, and smiled a faint recognition to the 
 stranger. 
 
 " Have you none to help you ? " asked Richard. " Are 
 there none in the house to take turns with you nights ? " 
 
 " There is a number of girls," replied Junia, " but there 
 has been a good deal of sickness this winter, and they have 
 been called out often, and broken of their rest. Those that 
 have strength and leisure are devoting it to Miss Eyre, 
 getting her ready to be married. She is to be married to 
 Clover, — you may know him ; a Mr. Clover, who works at 
 the Saw-mills, — and they say Clover will build, and that he 
 expects to put up a fine house, and to live in style ; and the 
 girls are exerting themselves for Plumy Alicia. She is a 
 fascinating girl, and has many friends ; but I think she never 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. btf 
 
 liked us very well, and I suppose we get less attention, at 
 this time, on that account. But so long as I have any force 
 left, I can do without their assistance." 
 
 Richard felt another singular, strong twinge. The name 
 that haunted the Green Mill had got into this sick chamber ; 
 that man, whom he had never seen, and never until to-day 
 heard of, seemed to be chasing him like an evil or a mock- 
 ing genius. 
 
 " We have had wood until to-night," continued Junia. 
 
 The mention of the wood troubled Richard, as he knew it 
 did the Grandfather. He would have rushed out doors ; but 
 that would not help matters within. He struggled with 
 himself, arresting the natural train of association, and re- 
 pressing all sense of the strange complexity that surrounded 
 him, and became calm. 
 
 The invalid, wasting under a seated pulmonary attack, 
 coughed at intervals, breathed heavily, nor could she help 
 disclosing the pains that invaded her frame. 
 
 " When the weather changes," the old man maundered, 
 — "when the warm days come, when the violets sprout — " 
 
 Junia, tranquil as was her manner, lightly as she dis- 
 charged the offices of the sick room, inured as she had 
 become to the mournful chant of her Grandfather, and to 
 the still sadder presages of her own mind, could not resist 
 the perpetual sorrow that as a storm beat against her breast, 
 and she wept. 
 
 " Have you no friends in the city ? " asked Richard. 
 " None," she said. " Has no clergyman been to see you ? " 
 " Not any." " Have no prayers been made here ? " " Many, 
 many," she said. " We have all prayed." 
 
 " Do you ever pray ? " inquired the old man. 
 
 " Yes," replied Richard. 
 
 " Young men do not pray as they used to," rejoined the 
 
70 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 elder. "In my day, they prayed. God was all about us, 
 and our spirits were lively and growing; and the angels took 
 prayers from us, as the bees and humming-birds draw 
 honey from the flowers. The young men are getting old, 
 very old, and dry, and blasted. I am young, — ha, ha ! " 
 " I should like to have him pray," said the sick one, 
 Richard read the twenty-third Psalm, in its motion so 
 full of spiritual and halcyon-like wafture, in its feeling so 
 fervid, trustful and joyous; — and prayed. He collected 
 into one earnest, sympathetic utterance, before God, the 
 hopes and the fears, the anguish and the aspirations, of the 
 hour. 
 
 The night waned. The Mill bells rang early, sharp, and 
 clear; all parts of the house resounded with the clatter of 
 the rising and the departing, of Work resuming its san- 
 dals, and going forth to its pilgrim's progress for the day. 
 Some of the girls looked into the chamber, to inquire after 
 the patient, and hasted away. 
 
 1 The landlady entered with a tray, furnished with such 
 articles of food or nourishment as the invalid might require. 
 She wore glasses, and had a gingham handkerchief thrown 
 over her head, under which any quantity of grizzly hair 
 struggled into view. She cast her eyes over her glasses 
 twice at Richard, — once as she passed him towards the bed, 
 and next when she had reached the bed. Addressing Junia 
 and the old man, she said, " Breakfast is waiting." Did 
 she intend, thought Richard, they should take their meal 
 from the tray ? She did not mean that, and they did not 
 understand her to mean that. She meant that their break- 
 fast was ready below. " Strangers are to be reported," she 
 added; "that is the rule of the large boarding-houses, — 
 front stairs carpeted, and Ladies' Parlor, — as one might see 
 when they came up, and not act here as Charley Walter 
 
THE governor's family. 71 
 
 did. Perhaps he didn't know 'twas Whichcomb's, — see- 
 ing he come in the night, — and thought' it was Cain's, 
 where they don't keep any hours ; if they did, they would 
 stop, some time or other, boiling their knucks. Velzora Ann 
 Fclty would cry when I spoke about it, and the things no 
 more touched on her plate than if she had been at Cain's." 
 
 Both Junia and the old man said they did not wish for 
 breakfast ; and certainly that was the last thing Richard 
 thought of. Junia took charge of what had been brought 
 for Violet, and the landlady remained in the room only long 
 enough to reconnoitre the person and purpose of Eichard. 
 " A cousin, Miss Junia?" "No," replied Junia. "Came 
 in the night? — an old friend?" "A friend," answered 
 Richard. "Been here all night — but I shall not be hard 
 with you; the girls have their wills and ways, — I shall not 
 provoke them." She retreated through the door. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Whichcomb returned for the tray, and to 
 recover such portion of its contents as were not otherwise 
 disposed of. Richard, who wished to communicate with 
 the head of the house touching his rather equivocal and 
 very unexpected entry into it, followed as she left the room. 
 
 He found her descending the stairs, and combining with 
 each step a nod of the head, and an ejaculation of the 
 numerals, as if the three things timed each other. " One, 
 two, great plate, little plate ; three, four, five, six, knife, 
 fork, tea-spoon, and little jelly-spoon. Six, six! little jelly- 
 spoon; gone! " She stopped, and looked back up the stairs, 
 to see if she had miscounted a step. She beheld Richard 
 watching her from above. 
 
 " !" said she, "I was just thinking of you. No rela- 
 tion, — only a friend. Do you know your friends ? — do you 
 know them ? " Richard replied that he had never seen 
 them before that night. " I dare say," answered the woman. 
 
72 KICHARD EDNEY A:>fD 
 
 " It is SO in all the first-class houses, which Charley Walter 
 knew all about it, for he pigged a month at Cain's, where 
 they are all in a muss. And Velzora Ann Felty could n't 
 have known it, for she was sick. Sickness is a bad thing in 
 a house. I had rather have ten well persons than one sick, 
 at any time." Richard observed it was not strange she 
 should. " There is a great deal of viciousness in sickness ; 
 — vice brings it on." Richard said there was truth in that 
 remark. " The eating and drinking is nothing, — they are 
 welcome to the sugar, and jelly, and cream, — but when it 
 comes to the things themselves that one depends on to get 
 along at all, and purloining and putting out of the way, 
 which our extra time does not deserve, it is too much. 
 Many people are sick to gratify their wicked propensities. 
 You may not know it and would not say so." Richard was 
 silent. He did not know it, and he could not say so. 
 " They take to their beds for the sake of being waited on ; 
 they linger along, that they may have more opportunities 
 for imposing on the house; and they go to their graves with 
 silver spoons in their hands !" This climax was awful, and 
 the landlady felt it to be so ; she staggered under the load 
 of her conceptions, and would have fallen if the balustrade 
 had not been a strong one. 
 
 It would have helped Richard to be put in possession of 
 certain particulars relating to this woman. A catastrophe 
 once came off iia her house, from which she never entirely 
 recovered. It was known as the Charley Walter affair, or 
 the Velzora Ann Felty affair. This tinged her mind. She 
 referred to it when she was speaking of other things, — she 
 thought of it even when she was thinking of other things. 
 It was a rock in the current of her being, around which her 
 feelings perpetually eddied. In addition, she hated Cain's, 
 a contiguous boarding-house. And, what was most remote 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 73 
 
 from Eichard's thoughts at the moment, she was anxious 
 about her property. 
 
 But Richard, who was simply solicitous to be disencum- 
 bered of his confused feelings, and to unfold to the landlady 
 the nature of his position, and why he was in the house, 
 disgusted at her manner, returned to the chamber. 
 
 The officers would soon be there ; the secret would be 
 forthcoming, do what he might. The more he saw of 
 Junia, the more he was assured of her true womanliness, 
 and her capability of encountering evil ; he stifled his 
 repugnance to giving her pain, and resolved to acquaint her 
 with the simple state of the case. Taking her one side, he 
 related what had befallen in the night ; how her grand- 
 fatlier was detected in theft, and he was appointed to watch 
 hiin. He doubted if the old man would be convicted, 
 though he did not know what Captain Creamer might be 
 able to do. 
 
 In the mean time, he would take an instant and run to his 
 brother's, that they might not be alarmed at his long ab- 
 sence. Returning forthwith, he encountered on the stairs 
 the Captain, the City Constable, who was knocking at the 
 door of the sick room, the landlady, and several others, 
 women and girls, whom he did not know. " Out," said the 
 Captain to him; "but is the old manm.?" He said this 
 with a violent glance at Richard, which he meant to be 
 ungracious and stinging, and which should sever the young 
 man in twain. Richard made no reply. The door did not 
 op'^n, and the Constable rapped again. He wished to be 
 civil. He held his ear against it, to hear if it manifested 
 
 \ signs of relenting. He then looked hard at the door, 
 auch as to say, " I give you a minute ; and if you do not 
 open, I shall break in." 
 
 The lips of this functionary were tightly compressed, and 
 7 
 
74 EICHAKD EDNEY A^^D 
 
 his eye was vacant and dreamy ; he did not notice the 
 crowd that was about him ; he did not feel the boys that, in 
 their eagerness to be in with the foremost, trod on his heels. 
 Klumpp was a man of one idea, and exactly suited to a 
 painful or disagreeable duty. Nothing would prevent his 
 arriving at his main object; nothing extraneous could divert 
 his mind or mislead his steps. He had recently been elected 
 to office ; he felt his inexperience, but he wished to be faith- 
 ful ; he had often heard of the tap on the shoulder, and the 
 look in the eye, and the whispered " Come with me ; " he 
 had seen the thing done, when he was a boy, and he had 
 heard the old constable describe- how he treated desperate 
 offenders to it, and there was something magical in that tap, 
 and that look, and that whisper ; and he was now the ma- 
 gician himself, and he wished to conjure not only with suc- 
 cess, but with dignity. Hence the uneasy, abstract way he 
 had. The mercury, even now, stood nearly at zero, but he 
 did not notice it ; and when Mrs. Whichcomb spurted out 
 her innuendoes, he did not notice her. 
 
 The mistress of the house had exchanged the gingham 
 handkerchief for a black-bordered cap. She wiped her face 
 with her apron, and leered at Richard. Her long, scant 
 fore teeth, that looked like wheel-cogs, seconded the en- 
 deavor of her lips, and conveyed an expression of very vul- 
 gar satisfaction. Her manner betokened great intimacy 
 with Richard, great understanding of his humor, great 
 insight into what she knew would be his feelings on the 
 occasion. " The world always turns out just about as wf 
 calculate," she said; "the world cannot deceive us lon^ 
 He would not believe it, when I told him. But 't is wor^ 
 now. Was there any stealing, then ? — ha! ha!" SIj 
 laughed, — she giggled. " Miss Eyre, this is the young 
 man that can tell about it. Have you examined your trunks 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 75 
 
 and drawers, girls ? I have heard Plumy Alicia say, says 
 she, ' It was so,' says she. Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 A young lady in the crowd, whom this last obscrvatiou 
 seemed to. arouse, and to whom it was directed, raised her 
 hand, and shook her head, as if she would hush Mrs. 
 Whichcomb, at the same time suffusing her face with 
 blushes, that might have aroused the attention of anybody 
 else. 
 
 This must be Miss Plumy Alicia Eyre, thought Richard; 
 and he turned to look at her; and having looked once, he 
 looked again. She was worth looking at, and she seemed 
 even to exact an involuntary regard. She blushed, but in 
 such a way as to make you blush, and then to set you to 
 looking at her to see why she made you blush. So Richard 
 found himself looking at her. 
 
 She was of good proportions, and of a suggestive and 
 energetic countenance. Her hair was elaborated into stream- 
 ing ringlets and flowing plaits. There were showy hoops 
 in her ears, and glancing rings on her fingers. She had 
 what are termed speaking eyes, — eyes full of animation, 
 and brightness, and deliciousness, — and a pair of splendid 
 dimples. Plumy Alicia, — we call her by the only species 
 of titular abridgment she tolerated, — Plumy Alicia had no 
 previous designs on Richard ; but when he looked so ear- 
 nestly at her, when he seemed so deeply interested in her, 
 when she saw his handsome figure, and his intelligent face, 
 some design took root in her. We do her no injustice in 
 saying this, for it was evident to all who saw her ; and her 
 own conscience, if it were questioned, would have confessed 
 it. But she had no time to pursue her arts, for the atten- 
 tion and person of Richard were called to other things. 
 
 Klumpp got into the room ; but he did not see that it was 
 a sick room, nor that one lay emaciated on the bed and 
 
76 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 another sobbing near her ; nor that the old man sat bend- 
 ing over both of them, with their arms about his neck. He 
 only saw the old man, and the white arms — the arms lying 
 between him and the magical tap — interfering with Justice 
 and Crime. Klumpp undid the arms, and executed the tap, 
 and then drew back to see the effect. The old man did 
 not stir. Klumpp then approached, and whispered the 
 cabalistic words in his ear, " Come with me ! " Still the old 
 man moved not. He then raised him up, and looked in his 
 eye. The eye did it. The old man went ; and it was soon 
 rumored, in all taverns and stables, and all lairs of boys and 
 boyish men, what an eye Klumpp had ; and everj'body be- 
 gan to be afraid of Klumpp's eye. 
 
 The old man went to his trial. Richard, a leading wit- 
 ness, must of course go too. He fell in with the crowd 
 that dogged the steps of Justice. The seat of judgment was 
 the office of Benjamin Bennington, Esq., the Governor's 
 son, — or Squire Benjamin, as he was called, — before whom 
 the complaint was brought. 
 
 Captain Creamer testified to such facts as are in posses- 
 sion of the reader. It was a plain case, and the prisoner 
 might as well have confessed his guilt ; which in effect, 
 though not in words, he did do. But what coloring would 
 the facts bear ? This was the important question, and the 
 judge felt it to be so. Squire Benjamin reverenced justice, 
 and he loved mercy. Richard spoke of some things that 
 the Captain did not know. He alluded to the imbecility of 
 the old man, to his affection for his grandchildren, to the 
 straitened circumstances of the family, to the sick one, to 
 the devoted Junia. Squire Benjamin had sisters, and his 
 sympathies, — dangerous things in a judge ! — were stirred. 
 The Captain saw the danger to his cause, and exploded on 
 the necessity of justice, strict justice, and of quelling the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 77 
 
 dangerous temper of the times. Richard was again ques- 
 tioned. He not only answered what was put to him ; he 
 enlarged on the subject ; he glowed in depicting the exten- 
 uating circumstances ; he was even eloquent in his enumer- 
 ation of the several points of interest. The prisoner was 
 acquitted with a reprimand. 
 7* 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Richard Edney was born of worthy parents, in an inte- 
 rior town of the state. Three things — the Family, the 
 School, and the Church — contributed to the formation 
 of his mind and development of his character. To the 
 first, he owed his gentler feelings ; to the second, his ele- 
 mentary knowledge ; the last aroused his deeper thought, 
 and determined his spiritual direction. He boiTowed books 
 from the village library, and newspapers from the postmas- 
 ter, and had the reading of a weekly paper at his father's 
 table. A debating club, maintained by the young men of 
 the place, in which the topics of the times were discussed, 
 aroused his invention, enlivened his wit, and while it inured 
 him to habits of investigation, it directed him to some solid 
 acquisition. At the Academy, he studied the ordinary com- 
 pends of philosophy and history, and even made a slight 
 attempt on the Latin tongue. Nor should it be forgotten 
 that the reading-books in our common schools, comprising 
 select pieces from the best authors, exert a permanent effect 
 on the scholar, correcting the taste and enriching the imag- 
 ination, aflTording at the same time many admirable senti- 
 ments, and suggesting some profound thought. 
 
 Besides, Richard enjoyed the ministrations of an excel- 
 lent clergyman, a man of refined culture and earnest piety. 
 Settled in a rural district, the recreations of this gentleman 
 were gardening, fishing, hunting. In this way, he was 
 able to pursue more satisfactorily his parochial duties, since 
 in the fields most of his people found occupation, while in 
 
niCHAED EDNEY, ETC. 7tf 
 
 the woods some prosecuted their lumbering operations, and 
 on the streams lay their mills. In these rambles, the youth 
 of the parish sometimes joined their pastor; and no one was 
 more happy to be thus associated than the lad who forms 
 the leading character of this story. Eichard was thus 
 introduced to Nature. He conversed with the phenomena 
 of creation ; he learned the distinctions and varieties of the 
 animate and inanimate world ; his sense of the beautiful was 
 heightened, and his love of being in general, to quote a 
 phrase of the Schools, was developed. 
 
 Pastor Harold was not a Christian alone in doctrine and 
 discourse ; he aimed to be such in works. He believed that 
 Christianity was designed to redeem mankind, and that the 
 Church was a chosen instrument of this redemption. He 
 sou gilt to develop within the Church an Operative Philan- 
 thropy ; and this principle he applied wherever it could 
 subserve its great end. The evening religious meetings he 
 divided into several sorts. In addition to what the Gospel 
 could do for their souls, he urged it as a serious point upon 
 his people, what it would make them do for others. In fur- 
 therance of this plan, different evenings were assigned to 
 ditlerent subjects : one to Intemperance; one to War; another 
 to Slavery ; a fourth to Poverty : and the enumeration went 
 on till it comprised the entire routine of Practical Chris- 
 tianity. He called these meetings the Church Militant; and 
 any particular meeting was appointed as a Conference of the 
 Church. At these Conferences, tracts, newspapers, circulars, 
 that are apt to cumber a minister's study, were distributed, 
 and the specific charities of the Church more wisely and 
 easily apportioned. These meetings were of service to 
 Richard ; he gained thereby much valuable information, and 
 was led to a clearer understanding, and a more vital im- 
 pression, of his duties and responsibilities. He had access 
 
80 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 to his Pastor's library, and in some sense to his heart ; so 
 that in many forms he shared largely in that renovating, 
 spiritualizing, and exalting influence, which this good man, 
 from the pulpit, the fields, the evening meeting, and his 
 study, shed over the town. 
 
 In the Sunday-school he learned the rudiments of the 
 Gospel ; in the services of the sanctuary he was carried 
 through a still deeper religious experience ; and the ser- 
 mons to which he listened, and the prayers in which he 
 engaged, brought him into nearer communion with the 
 Father of spirits, and confirmed his progress in the Divine 
 life. 
 
 It became not only the motto on the wall of his chamber, 
 but the deeper aspiration of his heart, To be good, and to 
 
 DO GOOD. 
 
 Yet his forte was rather physical than intellectual. He 
 did not go to college, and adopt one of the learned pro- 
 fessions ; partly, indeed, by reason of pecuniary impediments. 
 He had no desire to enter a store, and embark his all on 
 the frail but exciting bottom of commercial avocation. His 
 ambition was to be a thorough and upright mechanic. 
 Manual labor pleased him ; and he was skilled in many 
 forms of it. His father, besides a farm, carried on a saw- 
 mill, to both of which he trained his son. A well-regulated 
 farm demands mechanical care, and is an ample field for the 
 employment of mechanical genius ; as, indeed, it furnishes 
 scope for the exercise of almost every faculty of the human 
 mind. Richard had spent one winter amongst the head- 
 waters of the River, lumbering. 
 
 Suretyship, or loss of crops, or whatever it might be, 
 excepting that it was no vice of his own, troubled his father 
 in lifting the mortgage that had lain many years on his 
 farm. One or two instalments were still due ; — they 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 81 
 
 were due the Governor, of whom the original purchase was 
 made; and Richard came to Woodylin partly for the purpose 
 of earning the requisite sum. He came, also, with the 
 desire, not uncommon in the youthful breast, of seeing 
 more of the world. 
 
 He came with good principles and good feelings ; he was 
 willing to meet the world on fair grounds ; he neither ex- 
 pected too much, nor did he bid too freely. He sought to 
 glorify God, and benefit man ; yet was he ignorant, practi- 
 cally ignorant, of the many arts by which selfishness, 
 vanity, and the false systems of society, disintegrate charac- 
 ter, and undermine virtue. 
 
 He made engagements with Capt. Creamer in good faith ; 
 he brake the bottles of the liquor-pedler with a righteous 
 zeal ; he was irresistibly concerned for the Old Man and his 
 unfortunate grandchildren; he did not know Clover or Miss 
 Eyre ; he loved the children of his sister, if the hyperbole 
 will not be misunderstood, with his whole soul. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MEMMY AND BEBBY, 
 
 Yes, Eichard loved these children ; and loved to be with 
 them, and to amuse them, and to be amused by them. 
 After his nap, — for he had had no sleep since the night 
 before, and many things had happened, in the mean time, to 
 excite and tire him, — after his nap, he came down into the 
 kitchen, and sat by the stove. The children began their 
 pranks, — they could not let them alone. Their mother was 
 preparing for baking, and she could neither bear their pranks 
 nor their presence ; so she sent them into the middle of the 
 room. They could not stop at that, but went clear over to 
 Uncle Richard's knee, and rebounding thence, they fetched 
 up with the other side of the room. They seemed to move 
 together as we imagine the Siamese twins to have done, 
 when they were children ; having one will and one centre 
 of gravitation, like boys in a boat, or leaves in a whirlwind. 
 Then, again, it was evident they had separate wills, and 
 sometimes a sharp individuality of will would show itself. 
 Memmy was the oldest, and the strongest, and we should 
 expect her to lead ofT. So she did; but not always. 
 Bebby's little individuality was mighty strong when it got 
 roused, and it made up in storming what it lacked in solid 
 weight. It was like a cat frightening a great dog by demon- 
 stration, — sheer demonstration. But Memmy generally 
 went ahead ; and Bebby wanted to do what Memmy did. 
 They climbed to the window, and entertained themselves 
 with the frost that glittered on the glass. Memmy printed 
 her hand in it ; holding it there till palm, thumb and fingers, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 83 
 
 melted their image into the glass ; and Bebhy did the same. 
 It was-cold work, and Bebby's fingers were red ; but she was 
 persevering; and when Memmy called to Uncle Richard to 
 look at what she had done, Bebby did so too. Not that 
 Bebby could speak a word ; but she had a finger that was 
 full of the energy of utterance ; and she had a scream, too, 
 that needed no interpretation, and her lips quivered elo- 
 quence. And then, — as if she possessed neither finger, nor 
 throat, nor lips, — there was her eye ; that told everything. 
 Poor piece of dumbness ! she had a superfluity of organs ; 
 and her eye alone would have made way for her through 
 the world, sans everything else. 
 
 Memmy laid down to it, as we say, and applied her face 
 to the window, and she produced chin, lips, nose, eye-brows 
 thereon ; and turning to Uncle Richard, to show him what 
 she had done, there glared, from the great ice-mountains 
 which the frost creates on windows, this hideous ice-mask; 
 and didn't Uncle pretend to be frightened? and didn't 
 Memmy laugh ? But Bebby got up something as good, and 
 more humorous ; for she laughed, herself, while she was 
 making it; and then her mouth was so pinched with the 
 cold, she could hardly laugh, and tears streamed down 
 through what she did laugh. 
 
 Memmy then took a slate-pencil, and Uncle had to fit 
 Bebby a sharp stick, and they set to work, scratching figures 
 in the frost. Memmy efl'ected rude houses, and ruder rings 
 for heads, and triangular skirts, and points for feet, and 
 called the whole boys and girls. Bebby scratched at random, 
 straight lines, and cross lines; but it was all the same to 
 her, and she meant it to be all the same to everybody else ; 
 and she, in her way, called it boys and girls and houses, 
 and her eyes sparkled, her lungs exploded, her frame 
 vibrated all over, when she told it. 
 
84 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 But we must come back of what we have written, a little ; 
 we are overstating the case. We say Bebby could not 
 talk ; people generally said so, and we incidentally fell into 
 the common error. But it would not do to say this before 
 Memmy; she would be instantly upon you. "Bebby can 
 talk ; she can say ' Ma, Ma,' and ' No, No,' and ' dum, 
 dum,' and ' bye, bye,' and * there ! ' She has got teeth, 
 now ! " It was an old idea of Memmy's that Bebby could 
 not talk because she had no teeth ; she said the gums cov- 
 ered her teeth all up, and the words, too. But the teeth 
 came, — at least, two or three of them got out of their 
 entanglement, — and then she could talk ; and she did talk. 
 So declared Memmy ; and when the Mother of the Child 
 and the Father spoke of its defect and backwardness in 
 this respect, Memmy always cam.e forward with a stout 
 demurrer. 
 
 We say this, that the children may have full justice ; 
 and we say it for Richard's sake, who took Memmy's side 
 in the controversy, and always defended the ground that 
 Bebby could talk. 
 
 Uncle Richard was reading a newspaper, but — the selfish 
 imps ! — they would not tolerate that ; they would have no 
 interference with their rights ; they were news enough for 
 him ; accident and incident ; hair-breadth escapes ; won- 
 derful discoveries; they were foreign news and domestic 
 news; they had their poet's corner, and their page of 
 romance. And they had some original thoughts on per- 
 petual motion and the quadrature of the circle, and were 
 crowded with pictorial advertisements of as many strange 
 things as Barnum has in his Museum. 
 
 Bebby was more blond, and soft, and supple, than Memmy, 
 or than Memmy ever had been. Memmy's hair was darker, 
 and lay smooth on her head ; but Bebby's was all in a toss, 
 
THE GO\''ERNOR's FAMILY, 85 
 
 and always in a toss ; it was not curly, but floccuknt, and 
 had a pearly lustre, and it hung on her like the fringe of 
 the smoke-tree, and looked like a ferment of snow, a httle 
 cloud of snow-dust flying about the room. 
 
 Memmy pulled off her shoes and stockings, — this was not 
 allowed, but mother's back was turned, and Uncle looked on 
 so smilingly, — and Bobby's were off in a trice ; and they 
 went pattering and tripping barefoot. Memmy got into the 
 bed-room, and hid, and cooped; and Bobby found her; and 
 there were great bursts of astonishment and pleasure. Then 
 Bebby undertook to do the same ; but she cooped before she 
 got to her hiding-place, and then she frisked round trying to 
 find herself, and this made them still more obstreperous. 
 
 Mother went out of the room a moment, leaving a bowl 
 of Indian meal on the table. No sooner did Memmy spy 
 this, and see the coast clear, than she pushed a chair along- 
 side the table, and fell to dabbling in the meal. Bebby 
 must follow suit ; she shoved a chair all the way across 
 the room, and they both stood on the margin of the meal- 
 bowl. This was rare sport ; it was something new for 
 Bebbj'-, — she never had got so far before, — she had never 
 thrust her hands into meal. Memmy had, — Memmy was 
 used to it. But Bebby, she was awed, and she was enrap- 
 tured ; she was on Pisgah's top, and Canaan lay fairly be- 
 fore her, — only she was a little afraid of Jordan. Why 
 should she crow so ? Why should she be so all in a trem- 
 ble ? What did she want of the meal ? But into it she 
 dove both arms, to the elbows ; she lifted it with her 
 hand, she crumpled it in her fist, she sifted it through her 
 fingers; she made piles of it, and scattered them. Then 
 she looked at her fingers, and on her dress, and on the 
 tabic ; and when she saw the meal spilled everywhere, she 
 seemed half frightened. Hadn't she a conscience, and 
 8 
 
86 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 was n't some fiery young Nemesis scourging her inside ? — 
 Did she love the feeling of the soft powder ? had she a pas- 
 sion for dust ? would she wallow in the mire, if she had a 
 chance ? Inexplicable little meal-stirrer ! Memray sprinkled 
 some on Bebby's head, and Bebby tried to reciprocate the 
 favor. Mother came back. " Eichard," she screamed, 
 " how could you let them do so ?" Richard had done noth- 
 ing about the matter, except to look on. "Wasn't that 
 enough ? " said she ; " could n't you see it ? did n't you see 
 it ? " Seizing Bebby by the shoulders, she held the child 
 square round, for Richard to look at. " Her tire," she con- 
 tinued, " was span-clean this morning ; her hair is full of it ! 
 O, I shall go off the handle ! Have you no heart, brother ? 
 Couldn't you feel, as well as see ?" " It is nothing very 
 bad, I hope," said Richard. " All covered with this dirty 
 meal ! " exclaimed Roxy. " Your meal is not dirty, is it, 
 sister?" "Don't joke, brother ! It is a serious case; the 
 children are forming very bad habits I " 
 
 " Habits of what?" asked Richard. 
 
 " Habits of getting into things," she replied. 
 
 " That is not a bad habit, — is it ? " 
 
 "Habits of getting dirty. And I always said, if ever I 
 had a child, it should be kept clean. If there is anything 
 in the world most disagreeable, it is a dirty child." 
 
 " The children are not disagreeable to me," said Richard. 
 
 " The)r are not to me," rejoined his sister; " but they are 
 to other people." 
 
 " It seems to me," added Richard, " I would not trouble 
 myself much about other people, if I was satisfied myself. 
 ' Other people ' are numerous ; and if the little ones are to be 
 adjusted to their caprice, I fear they will have a hard time 
 of it in life, and will wonder what they were born for. Be- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 87 
 
 sides, ' other people ' are a good ways off, and have really 
 small concern in Memmy and Bebby." 
 
 " We do not know how far off they are, any more than 
 we do death ; and we ought always to be prepared, as Elder 
 Jabson says. If Mrs. Mellow should call, — oh Eichard ! — 
 Wash your face, Memmy ! — I am expecting callers to-day. 
 I want you to kinHle a fire in the air-tight in the parlor." 
 
 Richard went on this errand, and the children followed 
 him. But their mother drew them back, saying, " You 
 shall not go into the parlor ! I have often told you not to go 
 into the parlor. I always said, if ever I had a child, it 
 should not go into the parlor. I will have one place in the 
 house fit to be in ! " 
 
 The room, into which Richard had not been before, 
 acquired all at once a singular consequence to his eye. He 
 looked carefully around it; he walked softly over it, as if 
 some rare mystery lurked in the midst of it. It was the 
 largest room in the house, and apparently the most open 
 and pleasant. It had windows enough, at least, to favor the 
 notion of light and freedom ; four of them, that must com- 
 mand fine views, — views, when the curtains were up, and 
 the ice and snow were gone. In the mean while, as a sub- 
 stitute for these out-of-door objects, the curtains afforded 
 certain attempts at scenery, — a yellow castle, a whittling of 
 a stream of water ; and on the west side, right in face of the 
 sunset, was a picture of the sun setting in a botch of green 
 paint. The room was well furnished with sofa, carpet, 
 looking-glass, cane-bottomed chairs ; a mahogany card-table 
 stood under the looking-glass, containing books, a card-bas- 
 ket, a small solar lamp, and several daguerreotypes. The 
 mantel-piece was decorated with plated candlesticks, a blue- 
 tinted cologne-bottle, a bouquet of wax flowers, and a stromb 
 shell. 
 
88 RICHARD EDNEY A^'D 
 
 Richard inspected the contents of the table. He found 
 the books were gifts, gilded and embossed, — most of them 
 old ones, and such as his sister received before her marriage. 
 There were also little books, Christmas presents of the 
 father to the children. On the sofa lay a cloak and shawl, 
 and a leghorn bonnet, trimmed wdth green, and lined with 
 flowers. 
 
 "Well," thought Richard, " nothing veiy terrible in this." 
 Now, our friend was naturally of a serious turn of mind ; 
 but somehow, at this time, lighter feelings came over him, 
 and he might have gone as far as a certain Methodist young 
 man did, who was obliged to confess to his class-leader the 
 sin of perpetrating a joke. At least, he went so far as to 
 pretend to joke — pretend to see the ludicrous side of things. 
 " What can there be in the parlor to render it so frightful ? 
 Will the chairs fall to pieces ? " He shook a couple of 
 them. "Are there trap-doors in the floor, to let the children 
 through ? " He tried two or three places, springing down 
 with his whole weight on his heels. " Perhaps the harem- 
 scarems will have the walls down on their heads ! " He 
 sounded different parts with his fist. "Would the curtain- 
 pictures terrify them ? That is possible, but it were easy 
 to roll up the curtains, and there would be a fine view from 
 the windows. Yes," he continued, " this must be very fine, 
 in summer. What a lake the dam makes ! it would hold 
 a thousand like father's. The houses and gardens, trees 
 and mountains, beyond, must be very fine." The world 
 without sobered him, and so occupied him he did net per- 
 ceive the entrance of the children. Somehow they had got 
 into the room, and Memmy was running to show her Christ- 
 mas present, and Bebby had climbed the sofa, and got her 
 mother's bonnet on backside before, and her gloves palm 
 side up, and was trying to -wrap herself in the cloak. 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. »y 
 
 •Richard's humor had not so far evaporated but he enjoyed 
 the sight of Bebby, and particularly when she thrust her 
 hands through the cloak, with the thumbs on the ofT-side, 
 and the fingers looking as if they would be glad to accom- 
 modate the little usurper, but had laughed themselves to 
 death in the attempt, and had no strength left. But this 
 was recreation at too great cost ; too great for the mother, 
 who bolted into the room, and soon had her ambitious child 
 deplumed, and restored to its proper simplicity. 
 
 " It troubles you, Roxy," said Richard. 
 
 "It does," she answered; "and I think you and Asa are 
 not considerate, — not considerate of what we women en- 
 dure. You act as if we had n't any feelings ! " 
 
 " You mean, the children act so." 
 
 " The children would not act so if they were only rightly 
 governed ; and there can be no government when the men 
 do not take hold and help the women. — Get down from the 
 sofa, Memmy ! I have given you positive orders never to 
 get on there." 
 
 " What is the sofa made for ? " asked Richard. 
 
 " Not for children to dirty and wear out with their feet. 
 We shall have nothing fit for company long, at this rate. 
 — Put up that book ! " 
 
 " It is my present," replied the child ; " papa gave it to 
 me." 
 
 "It is yours to keep, not to be torn up," answered the 
 mother. 
 
 Richard began to think there was some fact in what he 
 had regarded as fiction, and that there was danger to the 
 children in the parlor. They touched the card-table, and 
 their hands were snatched off; they climbed into the chairs, 
 and were hastily taken down ; they approached the walls, 
 and were warned away ; and presently, as if the floor itself 
 8^ 
 
90 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 might prove treacherous, and let them incontmently into the 
 cellar, they were driven from the room. 
 
 The street-bell rang, and Richard was desired to go to 
 the door. He found there two ladies, one of whom sur- 
 prised him a little in the person of Miss Plumy Alicia 
 Eyre. They were shown to the parlor, where his sister 
 introduced them. The one whom he had never seen was 
 Mrs. Cyphers. Miss Eyre had on a small white silk bon- 
 net, with pink linings, and richly ribboned in the same 
 color ; a swan's-down victorine floated on her neck ; her 
 hands were quietly hidden in an African lynx muff. Mrs. 
 Cyphers wore a straw bonnet, with plaid trimmings; a 
 drab-colored sack, heavily fringed; and she was further 
 insured against the weather by a genet muff and tippet. 
 
 What did these ladies want ? To make a call ; to dis- 
 charge a ceremony ; to demonstrate their friendly feelitig ; 
 to talk about the weather, and say how cold the morning 
 had been, but that it was growing warmer ? 
 
 Miss Eyre inquired for the children, observing, at the 
 same time, that ]\Irs. Munk had two of the handsomest 
 children in town. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Munk began to be in her element ; now she 
 would triumph ; now she would show Richard the advan- 
 tage of keeping children neat. Uncle went for the dar- 
 lings. Alas for the uncertainty of human expectations, 
 and the probability that one will not conquer just when he 
 thinks he is going to ! The children had been to the wet 
 sink, — then they had got the ash-hole door open, and poked 
 out the ashes, and nibbled at the coals. But Uncle Rich- 
 ard, — hard-hearted man! — brought them in just as they 
 were I What consternation ! His sister would have gone 
 into hysterics; but Miss Eyre and Mrs. Cyphers said the 
 children were beautiful, — would take them into their laps, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 91 
 
 and would kiss them, and all that ; and Uncle Richard 
 would not take them away ; nay, he seemed determined 
 that Memmy should go into Miss Eyre's lap, and Bebby 
 into Mrs. Cyphers'. 
 
 This scene was soon ended, and the children dismissed ; 
 and both Miss Eyre and Mrs. Cyphers seemed more lively 
 than ever, after it. Both were delighted with the children ; 
 and to such an extent did they carry their good feelings, 
 that even Mrs. Munk was willing to drop the subject from 
 her mind ; and she soon recovered from her humiliation. 
 
 " Little things," said Miss Eyre. 
 
 " Not worth minding," added Mrs. Cyphers. 
 
 " They are not little things," rejoined Richard ; " and I 
 do mind them." 
 
 " You are joking, Mr. Edney," said Plumy Alicia, who 
 sat next to Richard, on the sofa, and turned her face towards 
 him engagingly. 
 
 " He dotes on the children," observed his sister, who be- 
 gan to think they would account her brother a dunce ; " and 
 he has some strange notions about them." 
 
 " I thought our young men were not capable of serious 
 emotion," said Plumy Alicia, — " that they had no deep feel- 
 ing." The swan's-down victorine, falling from her shoul- 
 ders and touching his hand, was very soft. There was 
 tenderness in her Avords, that touched him too. Was he 
 prepared to meet those fascinations, of which he had ob- 
 scurely heard ? Why did he look so at her ? Would he 
 fathom the nature of that power which had, like some invis- 
 ible engine, shaken the Mill ? Was he so ignorant of him- 
 self as to suppose he could handle that fire and not be 
 burned ? But Miss Eyre was engaged to Clover, and he 
 would only look at her as a strange, singular being, who 
 was soon to be married to an equally mysterious man. 
 
92 KICIIARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Was she ignorant of the power she was capable of exert- 
 ing ? Was she insensible of the precise moment when it 
 took effect ? We should answer both these questions in the 
 negative. 
 
 Miss E}Te was one who in certain circles would be reputed 
 somewhat coarse, — somewhat unlettered. She certainly- 
 had not that refinement which a more thorough study, and 
 training in some other form of society, ordinarily impart. 
 Yet Richard was not in a state to discriminate on these 
 points ; or, rather, so far as he was curious at all, he attend- 
 ed not so much the manner as the hidden force and char- 
 acter of the lady. 
 
 It had been rumored that Captain Creamer was a rejected 
 suitor of Miss Eyre's; indeed, so much as this had been inti- 
 mated in Richard's hearing at the Mill, — a circumstance 
 that shed fresh interest on what sat near him. 
 
 But what were these things to Richard ? Nothing, 
 nothing at all ; and he would probably have never thought 
 of them except, — what we foreboded, — except for the 
 swan's-dov\Ti victorine, and that piercing, flattering ej^e. 
 
 " Did I not see you in the crowd at Whichcomb's, this 
 morning ? " she asked. Richard answered that he was there. 
 "They said you were there in the night," she continued; 
 "but I could not believe it." He replied that the Captain 
 obliged him to keep guard over the old man. " You had 
 pleasant prisoners," she said. " They are sadlj' in trouble," 
 replied Richard. " Sad to be arraigned as common thieves," 
 was the answer. 
 
 Richard dropped the victorine as if it had been a cold toad, 
 and walked towards the stove. " Would you bring that 
 against them ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not that alone, — not that, without other things," replied 
 Miss Eyre. " I know what poverty is ; I am not ashamed 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 93 
 
 to say I have been poor ; my only boast is, that I have risen 
 above difficulties." 
 
 Kichard was again touched, but he did not resume his 
 seat on the sofa. 
 
 " They are poor," he said. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, "but that is not all." 
 
 " Proud, perhaps you would add ?" 
 
 " I am proud ; I would not give much for a person that 
 has no pride." 
 
 " "What do you mean ? " pursued Richard. 
 
 " I mean," she answered, " that they have felt above their 
 work, — that they would rather do anything than work." 
 
 " You do not mean that they are vicious ? " 
 
 " I do not mean to say that. They came here poor, and 
 they have continued poor. But they could not find society 
 good enough in the Factories, nor in the weave-room, nor 
 in the superintendent's house ; and they were but spoolers. 
 Now, Mrs. Cyphers was the wife of a superintendent ; and 
 in alluding to a house of that name, Miss Eyre played off 
 the glossy end of her victorine on the person of that lady, 
 as much as to say, " You see what a woman they rejected. 
 It seemed," continued she, "as if nothing short of Dr. 
 Chassford's, or Judge Burp's, or the Governor's, would satisfy 
 them." 
 
 " I do not know these people," replied Richard, " nor do I 
 appreciate the distinctions to which you refer." 
 
 " You will know," replied Miss Eyre. " You have not 
 been in the city long. They attended Dr. Broadwell's 
 Church, as if they were as good as the people that go there." 
 
 " Is not the Church one ? " asked Richard. " Are not all 
 the Churches equal ? " 
 
 " Mr. Edney surely cannot be so ignorant," rejoined the 
 lady, with a smile. " The Church is not one ; it is far 
 
94 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 from being one. It is a good many. Some of the Churches 
 are aristocratic, while others keep on the level of common 
 people." 
 
 " Is not Dr. Broadwell a good man ?" 
 
 " He may be, for all that I know." 
 
 " Are not his people good people ? " 
 
 " That is nothing to the point. They are haughty, fash- 
 ionable, high-stomached." 
 
 " There may have been other reasons why these girls 
 liked to attend there." 
 
 " I dare say there are ; I dare say J unia could give you 
 fifty reasons. She has a tongue of her own ! " 
 
 " She did say no clergj^man had been to see them." 
 
 " Nothing more likely," interposed Mrs. Cj'phers. " They 
 boarded a while at Swindler's ; 'then they went to Cain's, 
 and finally they got up to Whichcomb's ; and no mortal 
 could tell where they would come out, they rose so fast." 
 
 " Whichcomb's is higher than Swindler's ? " observed 
 Richard. 
 
 " Half a dollar a week higher," replied Mrs. C}T)hers. 
 " Pies for breakfast higher, — an extra course of a Sunday 
 higher; to say nothing of Mrs. Whichcomb's jellies and 
 cream. / boarded at Whichcomb's, I would have you to 
 know, until our marriage." 
 
 " There would seem to be aristocracy among the board- 
 ing-houses," said Richard, 
 
 " Who would not try to keep above the mean, ignorant, 
 stupid Swindler's ? " asked Mrs. Cyphers. " And there is a 
 difference, Sir, there is a difference between the weave-room 
 and the warping-room, — between a dresser and a grinder; 
 and, though I say it that should n't say it, between a super- 
 intendent's wife and the watchman's wife." 
 
 "All have the liberty to rise that wish to? " said Richard. 
 
THE GOVERNOK'S FAMILY. 95 
 
 " All that deserve to ! " replied Miss Eyre, casting a 
 searching, but rather equivocal, glance at Richard. 
 
 But Richard did not notice it; he was thinking of the 
 Orphans. " Violet is very sick." The ladies assented. 
 " She needs attentions." 
 
 "If Junia does not engross them all," added ]\Iiss Eyre. 
 She added this in a way that sjie meant to be playful ; but 
 Richard took it quite seriously. 
 
 " You are unjust to them," said Richard ; — he said this 
 sternly. 
 
 " We would not be," replied Miss Eyre, deprecatingly. 
 Richard added nothing. 
 
 " We have other calls in hand," said Miss Eyre, " and 
 must bid you good-morning." 
 
 They left the house ; Miss Eyre went out with that 
 calmness which dignified sorrow can so well assume. But 
 Richard was not moved. 
 
 Having discovered where the Orphans were wont to wor- 
 ship, he would go and see the minister of the church. He 
 found the reverend gentleman at home. Doctor Broadwell 
 was of mature years, — indeed, a little past the meridian of 
 life. But time, that crowned him with virtues and honors, 
 had raised the summit so high, — if the little^iece of fancy 
 will be tolerated, — the top of it was covered with snow. 
 He was gray. The lines on his forehead were marks of 
 strength not less than of age ; they indicated rather the 
 vigor of thought than the corrosions of decay; like the 
 furrows of the sea, which are large and deep only because 
 the sea is large and deep. His face shone with benevolence, 
 that cheered and vivified whatever object it alighted upon, 
 and invited to its beams all sorrow, want and desolateness. 
 The Doctor replied to Richard that two girls, with an old 
 man, had been seen at his church, and partaken of his com- 
 
96 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 munion; that he had endeavored to see them, but could 
 not trace them, and would be glad to be conducted to their 
 room. 
 
 They went to Whichcomb's, where Richard parted with 
 the minister, and returned home. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 In popular phrase, the back of the winter was broken. 
 The weather became milder, the mornings grew a little 
 longer, and the evenings a little shorter, and the sun at noon 
 mounted a trifle higher. The vulgar distich runs thus — 
 
 " When the days begin to lengthen, 
 The cold begins to strengthen." 
 
 This is true of the few weeks immediately succeeding the 
 Solstice. But in the latter part of February, and towards 
 March, the change to which we have referred is so percep- 
 tible, that the popular voice changes, — "What mild 
 weather ! How warm it is ! " though it is winter still ; but 
 winter maimed — winter inefficient. 
 
 At these times Richard went out more during the day. 
 He had, indeed, turned night into day, and was obliged to 
 sleep partly by sunlight ; but he could secure what rest he 
 required, and still have some hours to spare. These were 
 his perquisites, and he employed them as he chose. 
 
 One day, as he entered the mill, he encountered Mr. 
 Gouch, Silver, and Philemon, his fellow night's men, and 
 he saw another person, whom he had not seen before, 
 striding a log. " That," whispered Mr. Gouch, " is Clover; 
 don't go near him ! " But Richard could not be easy 
 when he knew Clover was near ; at least, he could not keep 
 his eyes or his thoughts still. He looked at Clover; 
 looked quite intently at him. " Don't let him see you 
 looking at him ! " said Mr. Gouch. Well, Richard must 
 
RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 look at him all the more, — only he did it furtively, and by 
 snatches. What did he behold ? A man with a very care- 
 less, indifferent manner, bordering on malapertness and 
 doughtiness. His face was one that could be easily identi- 
 fied. His lower lip rowdyishly protruded; it was a pouch 
 containing a quid of tobacco as large as a pullet's egg. His 
 upper lip was deeply indented at each corner, making two 
 niches, where scorn and derision were seated. He held a 
 cant-dog, with which he amused himself, drawing frightful 
 figures in the saw-dust on the floor : then he teazed a butter 
 with it, making as if he would thrust it under his axe. He had 
 on a Shakspeare hat, with the rim turned up at the sides, and 
 a silver buckle in front ; and the hat was tilted so much on 
 his head, it seemed as if it would fall off. His dress con- 
 sisted of a blue-striped shirt with a large collar, a double- 
 breasted vest, and a mottled Guernsey jacket. But what, 
 perhaps, would chiefly arrest the notice of a stranger was 
 his hair; — his 'whole head seemed to have gone to hair; it 
 hung in long, coarse folds, like a mop ; it came out along 
 his cheeks, and under his nose and chin. It was bright 
 red; and his srtiall, gray eye gleamed in the midst of it, 
 like a pig's eye. Not only did he annoy the butter with 
 the cant-dog, but, intermitting this fancy, he would occasion- 
 ally double his fist at the poor man, straightening his chest, 
 drawing up and squaring at him, as if he would fight him. 
 He bent his fist inwards and upwards, thus tightening the 
 cords of his wrist, and stiffening the skin on his knuckles ; 
 and in this strained attitude he played it up and down, now 
 inclining it towards his victim, and then thvunping it 
 against the log on which he sat ; letting off", apparently, a 
 vast amount of force and dismay into the insensible wood. 
 The butter took all this patiently, either from indifference 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. »S# 
 
 to Clover, or out of terror of him — Richard could not tell 
 which. 
 
 Most of -the hands were, or affected to be, afraid of Clo- 
 ver. Richard was inquisitive as to the secret of the man's 
 power — whether it lay in his manner, or his character. 
 Nor was his interest cooled by observing that Clover flung 
 several significant glances at himself, and did some feats of 
 fist, which he evidently meant Richard should give a per- 
 sonal interpretation to. 
 
 He asked Mr. Gouch to introduce him ; but the timorous 
 head-stock man declined the service. When Richard per- 
 sisted, and said he would speak with Clover, Silver sprang 
 at his throat, as if he would choke him, and told him to keep 
 still. Philemon made as if Silver was in earnest, and said 
 he had Richard within an inch of his life, and it was his 
 dutj' to stop so dangerous an affray. 
 
 Clover himself started at this, and called out for fair play, 
 or something of the sort. " It is all play," said Richard ; 
 " do not be alarmed." " I am not alarmed," replied Clover, 
 resuming his seat on the log, and discharging the cavity of 
 his lower lip, which ever, like a boiling spring, was inclined 
 to run over. " I should like to see the man that tells me I 
 am alarmed ; new comer or old comer, — slip-tender or 
 head-stock man ! " 
 
 Richard, going towards Clover, replied, " Silver was in 
 sport." 
 
 " 0/ course," rejoined Clover; "he dare do nothing else 
 but be in sport, o/" course. You may make a mark there, .if 
 you will ! " 
 
 " I believe I have your place in the mill," said Richard; 
 " possibly you would like to take it again." 
 
 " I shall take it whenever I please," returned Clover. 
 
100 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 " As soon as you are able to take it, I will relinquish it 
 to you." 
 
 " Able ! " he retorted ; " I am able when I please to be 
 able. Check that ! " 
 
 " Have you entirely recovered ? " asked Richard. 
 
 "Recovered!" He echoed the word with a very sharp 
 sarcasm playing about his upper lip, which Richard did not 
 see any necessity for. 
 
 " You have been sick ? " Richard asked. 
 
 " Worse than that, — I have been indisposed." 
 
 " I thought you were sick." 
 
 " 0/ course, I meant you should think so, — I meant the 
 Captain should think so, — I meant the whole Mill should 
 think so. Trig that, and take breath ! " 
 
 " I am ready to go on again," replied Richard, waggishly. 
 
 " Do you mean to insult me, Edney ? " asked Clover, his 
 eyes flashing fire. 
 
 " Do you mean to insult me ?" replied Richard. 
 
 " How insult you ? " 
 
 " By making me believe you were sick, when j'ou were 
 not sick." 
 
 " I can give myself to you in one word, Edney ; I can 
 convey the whole in a single phrase ; I am a man of honor ; 
 I wish to be honorable. Tie a knot there ! " 
 
 " I will," rephed Richard ; " and then I must ask you 
 how you can call such conduct honorable." 
 
 " Enlargement, aggrandizement, glorj^, fame, are natural 
 to the human breast ; they are natural to my breast. Power, 
 might, are honorable ; and these I study to exercise. To 
 make you believe I am sick, when I am sick, is nothing, — a 
 child could do that ; but if I can make you believe I am sick, 
 when I am not sick, — if I can make the Captain believe it, 
 
THE governor's F'Amily. ; ],Q1 
 
 and the whole Mill believe it, — I do something; I exercise 
 power ; I am enlarged ! " 
 
 Clover had the habit of talking sometimes apparently in 
 Italics, sometimes in small caps, and occasionally mounting 
 as high as canon. We would do him typographical justice. 
 
 " You would not lie ? " observed Richard. 
 
 "Lie! lie!" replied Clover; "Z/e.' hem! hum! You 
 mistake. 'T is means, means ! " 
 
 " It is lying," remarked Richard. 
 
 " If you were in an enemy's country, Avould you stick at 
 what you call a lie, to secure your conquest ? Did not 
 our troops tell, utter, manufacture, publish, a hundred lies, 
 in Mexico ? Are they to be taunted with lying ? I am 
 in Mexico ; I am in an enemy's country, and I shall lie to 
 further my victories : but are you mean enough — have you 
 no nicer sense of honor than to asperse my acts with the 
 villanous epithets which a bilious stomach and morbid 
 imagination know so well how to supply ? Power is sweet ; 
 might is glorious ; — it gives a man reputation ; it affords him 
 security ; it protects him from assault. Look round you ; 
 there is not one in all this mill, from Tillington, of the Cor- 
 poration, down to Jim Grisp, the shingle-sticker, that dares 
 touch me. I have acquired this respect simply by the exer- 
 cise of my power, — by demonstrating to the world the deep 
 energies of my nature and character." In saying this, he 
 gored the air, with his tense, vice-like fist, hi the vicinity of 
 Richard, and even extended it almost to Richard's nose. 
 
 Richard shook his head, not violently, not disdainfully, 
 but rather abstractedly, as a man who is reading does when 
 a fly alights on his face. Clover had a trick of snapping 
 his fist, springing it suddenly in the joint of the wrist, as 
 boys do the blade of a pocket-knife. He snapped it at 
 Richard, who moved a little in his seat. " Perhaps you do 
 9* 
 
M/^\'' '■'■'.' , EFPA^D SDNEY AND 
 
 not like the smell of it ? " said Clover. " I cannot say that 
 I do," replied Richard. " Very likelj^" he added ; " and 
 the taste of it would be still more disagreeable. But I de- 
 sign you no harm. The air is free ; and what my arm can 
 compass is mine. I know I am on the borders of my land. 
 I do not wish to get up a fight with you, or any one ; but if 
 your nose happens to come within the radius of my fist, — 
 that is, if you are lying within the proper limit of my power, 
 — why, take care of yourself, Sir, take care of yourself ! 
 Forewarned, forearmed. I trust you will regard it an in- 
 stance of my honorable disposition, that I give you this 
 friendly precaution." 
 
 " I think you trespass on neighbors' rights a little," ob- 
 served Richard. " At least, you are on disputed territory." 
 
 " I know I am," he rejoined ; " I know I am ; and where 
 was Resaca de la Palma? Where was Palo Alto? 
 There is no great action except on disputed territory ; no 
 reputation is acquired anywhere else." 
 
 The fist continued to exhibit its feats, and to extend its 
 familiarities a little too near Richard's sense of dignity. He 
 laid his hand on the fist, — his open hand, — softly and 
 modestly. He found it a hard and horny fist ; and in other 
 respects it had a bovine suggestion ; for, like the horn of an 
 ox, no matter how softly and modestly you grasp it, it is 
 sure to toss, and wrench, and tear from your hand ; — so 
 this fist resisted the gentlest pressure ; it grew more stiff, 
 it hunched violently upwards, grazing Richard's nose, and 
 hitting the forepiece of his cap, knocked it off." 
 
 "I would rather you should not do that," said Richard; 
 " I should very much prefer that you would not repeat it. 
 I must respectfully request you to attempt it again in no 
 form whatever." 
 
 " I did not think of knocking up a fight," rejoined Clover. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 103 
 
 •' I am no brute, — I am a man of honor ; I am ready to 
 negotiate. Shall we adjourn to the Arbor ? Helskill's is 
 good ground for an amicaWe adjustment."- Richard would 
 not go to the Arbor. " Well," added Clover, " if you obsti- 
 nately reject the only method of conciliation that I can with 
 honor to myself tender, the consequences be on your own 
 head. But I am not rash ; I will not even take advantage 
 of methods of redress which all usage puts in my hands. I 
 can be lenient. Will you have a cigar ? " Richard declined. 
 
 "Don't be mulish," continued Clover. "Will you lift 
 with me?" " I will," said Richard. "There is a good- 
 sized hemlock stick ; if you will manage one end, we will 
 throw it on the stocks." " I am ready," replied Richard, 
 The saAvj^ers consented to the trial, and gauged the car- 
 riage to the log in question. " Take that end," said 
 Clover. " This is the butt," replied Richard. " I know 
 it is," returned Clover, " and I meant it should be." " All 
 right," said Richard, " if you will take hold as far in from 
 the other end as to make the balance good." "I will not 
 be dictated to, in this affair," retorted Clover, and applied 
 himself to the extremity of the smallest end. "You take 
 the butt," said Richard, " and I will lift where the trial 
 shall be a fair one." Clover refused. 
 
 By this time the mill-men had collected to see what was 
 going on. Richard stated the case to them, and then 
 repeated his offer to Clover. Clover disdained to concede, 
 or to parley. " 'T was an honorable proposal," said he, — 
 " nothing said about ends, — I will have none of this whin- 
 ing, — he cannot gammon me ! " 
 
 "Will you lift fairly, or will you not?" asked Richard. 
 
 " I shall lift it as I please," returned Clover. 
 
 " Then I brand you," said Richard, " for a cheat, a brute, 
 and a coward ; — put a pin in there ! I cannot blacken you. 
 
104 RICHARD EDXEY AST) 
 
 , — you are too black already ; I should only like to have you 
 ' see how black you ac^ ; — put a spike in there ! Your con- 
 duct is despicable as your principles are monstrous ; — I rec- 
 ommend to you to drive a slide-dog there, and go home ! " 
 
 The bystanders were a good deal excited. Mr. Gouch 
 hopped from log to log, as if they were in the water, and he 
 was. afraid of sinking. Silver, in a paroxysm of astonish- 
 ment and delight, let his pipe fall from his mouth. Some 
 were amused ; others manifested a disposition to rally for 
 the defence of Richard, if Clover should attack him. 
 
 But Clover had no such intentions. He had not made up 
 his mind to be offended. He seemed to recognize a rival in 
 the field ; and since he could not easily demolish him, he 
 accounted it wise to come to an understanding of his qual- 
 ity, and ascertain his intentions. 
 
 " I applaud your spirit, Edney," said he, " though j'ou 
 misjudge me. I shall think the better of you. I should like 
 to know more of you. Will you try a game of checkers ? " 
 
 Now, it was contrary to immemorial and sacred mill usage 
 to decline a game of this sort, when the men were at leisure. 
 Richard might have foregone further intimacy with the 
 man ; but the others, desirous that he should not carry mat- 
 ters too far, hoped he would play. Perhaps he wished to 
 know more of Clover, — for he had a good deal of humani- 
 tarian curiosity. He consented to the proposal. 
 
 They took a bench by the stove, with the draught- 
 board between them. Clover was an experienced player, 
 and so. was Richard ; but it soon appeared the minds of both 
 were too much occupied for that deliberation which is need- 
 ful either for the display of skill or the attainment of suc- 
 cess. Their moves w^ere made at random, and an acci- 
 dental jar of the board served to confuse the whole plan of 
 actign, without, at the same time, awakening the surprise 
 
THE GOVERNOE's FAMILY. 105 
 
 of either. In fact, they were thinking' more of each other 
 than of what was before them. " Where are we now ? " 
 said Richard. " I don't know," answered Clover ; " my 
 pieces are on the floor." 
 
 Richard nursed some questions that he wanted to put to 
 Clover. And, as the loungers had left the mill, and he was 
 sitting confidentially near him, he could not resist the oppor- 
 tunity of broaching what lay on his mind. 
 
 "What ails Silver?" he asked. 
 
 " He fell beneath my hands'. " replied Clover. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " asked Richard. 
 
 " His ambition fell, his affections fell, his excessive thirst 
 for acquisition fell," rejoined Clover, who had lighted a 
 cigar, cocked his hat, and made some eflfort towards getting 
 his fist into operation. 
 
 " How did it come about ? " 
 
 " I entered and took possession of a valuable prize he 
 coveted." 
 
 " What was it ? " 
 
 " Miss Plumy Alicia Eyre." 
 
 " Did he love her?" 
 
 " Of course he did; I should not care to meddle in the 
 thing, if he had not loved her, and if she had not been an 
 object to be loved." 
 
 " You cut him out ? " 
 
 " That is the cant phrase. The simple truth lies here : — 
 woman is given to man for possession on his part, and pro- 
 tection on hers. The man who can furnish the best guaran- 
 tees, in these two particulars, is the favored man ; and the 
 most desirable woman falls to the most favored man, — that 
 is, to the strongest man. I am such a man, and Silver is 
 not. Of course. Miss Eyre preferred to be allied to me, 
 rather than remain in Silver's hands. She knew that her 
 
106 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 true dignity and glory lay in this breast, within these 
 
 WHISKERS ! " 
 
 " Had Silver no feelings ? " 
 
 " What has he to do with feelings ? Why does he not 
 conquer his feelings ? Why does he not let the will of God 
 be done to his feelings ? " 
 
 " Was she consulted in the premises ? " 
 
 "Of course she was, — and she declared for me." 
 
 " Was there an engagement between them ? " 
 
 " There may have been something of that sort. She 
 came here a poor, defenceless girl, and was naturally inter- 
 ested in any one that would be interested in her. Silver 
 attached himself to her, made her presents, and won over 
 her ignorance and childishness. I took her under my pro- 
 tection." 
 
 " But Silver suffers." 
 
 " The weak always suffer ; it is their misfortune ; we can 
 pity them. I see you have a noble nature, Edney ; a na- 
 ture that is not insensible even to what Silver may endure. 
 It is honorable in you." 
 
 " He bleeds inwardly, I think." 
 
 " Bleeds ! what is that ? The Indians bleed when their 
 lands are torn from them, — the slaves bleed when their 
 children are sold. What hurt does a little bleeding do ? " 
 
 " But is there no right in the case ? " 
 
 " Most assuredly. Might makes right. Behold how that 
 saw cuts through the heart and surface of that monster 
 pine. Behold the majestic Scott cutting his way through 
 the heart of Mexico ; — veins, arteries, legs, arms, like saw- 
 dust, lie on either side of him ; he arrives at the Halls of the 
 Montezumas in a foam of blood ! that proud nation is 
 humiliated at our feet ! I have gone through Silver's heart. 
 When I was in it, I felt that I was there, — I felt the warm 
 
THE governor's FAMILV. 107 
 
 blood spouting about me, — I knew I severed the tenderest 
 part of his being ; but, Sir, I attained my end, — I got Miss 
 Eyre. They gave a dinner to Captain Bragg. I offer 
 ' Clover,' as your next toast. 
 
 " Do you intend to build ? " 
 
 " I may build, and I may not build." 
 
 "It is given out that you are going to." 
 
 " I know it is, — I meant it should be. The dimension* 
 are on the fender-post." 
 
 •' But would you deceive ? " 
 
 " If I could make it honorable, I would deceive ; if my 
 interest were advanced thereby, if my power was augment- 
 ed, I should deceive. Deceive! The Church deceives, 
 when it can make by it. Edney, you don't know the dear, 
 lovely, charming sense of power." 
 
 " How does the Church deceive ? " 
 
 " Does n't it declare that St. Athanasius' Creed can bs 
 proved by most certain warrants of Scripture, and ought to 
 be thoroughly received ? Who believes that ? " 
 
 " Possibly you would falsify your promises to Miss Eyre 
 herself?" 
 
 " Falsify ! I should certainlj'- retreat from my engage- 
 ments, if I found them difficult or disagreeable. I must be 
 sovereign within my own sphere ; and my sphere is what 
 my abilities naturally comprise, or what my endeavors can 
 conquer. I am fated to spread, — I am fated to spreao, 
 Edney ! I might include even another with Miss Plumy 
 Alicia." 
 
 "You are not so unprincipled. You would not pretend 
 fidelity to Miss Eyre, and at the same time be making over- 
 tures to another." 
 
 " What if I had tioo loomen in my train? I should ap- 
 pear to the world in a more formidable light, as a man dan- 
 
109 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 gerous to be trifled with, and yet a perfect refuge for 
 oppression." 
 
 "I believe you are a scoundrel, Clover, — utterly, and 
 beyond redemption." 
 
 " You do well to tell me so ; — it will not hurt you ; it may 
 relieve you. You do not know the deliciousness, the ma- 
 jesty of Power. See that saw, — behold yonder dam, — 
 think of six run of stone in the Grist-mill, — enumerate 
 all the engines in the Machine-shop, — contemplate nine 
 hundred thousand spindles in the Factories, and understand 
 Avhat Power is. Meditate on this fist of mine, — look into 
 my eye, — take the dimensions of my whiskers, — survey the 
 expansiveness of my chest, and learn what POWER is. Im- 
 agine what it would be to be possessed of the same. Imag- 
 ine yourself a Clover ! What a wonder is that Tom Hyer ! 
 I have sometimes fancied myself a Hyer, and should like to 
 find my Sullivan. I have toughened my hands, — I have 
 employed two Irishmen to rub my body, — I have smeared 
 my face with an indurating compound. I should like to have 
 a Sullivan chasing me from saw to saw, from Mill to Board- 
 ing-house, from Quiet Arbor to Victoria-square ! Under- 
 take Sullivan, and your Hyer will be on hand ! " 
 
 "I may prove a Sullivan," replied Richard; "I may 
 chase you." 
 
 "If, then, you provoke me to it; if we come fairly to 
 blows, — I must be plain with you, and use plain words, — 
 you will get all-firedly licked ; — take note, take note ! " 
 
 " That is my look-out," returned Richard. " I shall be 
 plain with you. You are committing an uncommon amount 
 of rascality with Silver ; you are equally perfidious in respect 
 of Miss Eyre. And I shall pursue you in that matter until, 
 most likely, we come to blows. Then, all I have to say to 
 you is, ' Hardest, fend off ! ' I shall attempt to disgorge you 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 109 
 
 of some of j'our ill-gotten possessions, and diminish the su- 
 perfluity of your power. I am a stranger in the place, — a 
 stranger to goings on here, — a stranger to all parties con- 
 cerned. But 5'ou have introduced me to a measure of 
 wickedness sufficient to move me, — sufficient to resolve 
 me." 
 
 " I sought you as a noble antagonist." 
 
 " I do not intend to be a disguised or a m.ean one." 
 
 " Will you go with me to Quiet Arbor ? " 
 
 "What' for f" 
 
 " To exchange tokens of friendly understanding, and hon- 
 orable emulation." 
 
 " Over a glass of sling ? " 
 
 " Yes, and a game of whist." 
 
 " You gamble ? " 
 
 " I recreate, recreate ! " 
 
 " Who is with you ? " 
 
 " A select company, of course ; Captain Creamer, Web- 
 ster Chassford, Glendar, — all worthy m.en, — all charm- 
 ing acquaintances, — the best families in the cit}'. We 
 meet in the Grotto, — a cool and pleasant retreat ; Helskdl is 
 polite, gentlemanly, noble ; yes, I would say of Helskill, 
 that he is most noble, — that in him cluster every attribute 
 and all the beauty of an honorable mind." 
 
 " I am obliged to you for this information," said Eichard, 
 " and I will make good use of it." 
 
 " That is well uttered, Edney. If I must meet you as an 
 enemy, let us be fair enemies. But I must caution you on 
 one point, — Let Miss Eyre alone ! " He said this in a hard- 
 breathed undertone. " Don't meddle with that, — don't 
 go near that, — death catch you if you do ! I will not 
 touch my thumb to my nose, as modem writers recommend, 
 10 
 
110 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 in tol<en that we understand one another; — I will rub my 
 fist on your nose, to signify that I " 
 
 Eichard brushed off the fist, and rising from his seat, said, 
 " No symbols are needed ; we do understand each other," 
 and left the mill. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A STROLL THROTTGH THE CITY. 
 
 Richard, we have said, had leisure during the day. This 
 leisure he would turn to account; he would look about the 
 city. Richard, we need not say, loved to read ; he had 
 read not a little for a simple, agricultural lad, and he was 
 always glad to get new books. Pity he should not have 
 them, when there is such an abundance. Richard had 
 been over the world at some length, in his geographies and 
 histories ; he had travelled with attention and with profit ; 
 yet with his own feet and walking-stick he had measured 
 but a few leagues of human affairs, — the merest crumb of 
 the great ball. He had never been in the business streets 
 of Woodylin, nor in its fashionable squares. So he sallied 
 forth, one sunny morning, to reconnoitre. 
 
 Woodylin consisted of two portions, — the Old and the 
 New Town, — divided by the River. The New Town com- 
 prised the Factories and Saw-mills, which lay in a graceful 
 and polite bend of the stream. Yet both sides lived in har- 
 mony, and strangers used to say but one pulse beat there, 
 whether in the head or feet. Nevertheless, fancy and caprice 
 must dash this pleasant cup of unity with a little variety. 
 As the New Town increased in size, and perhaps in conceit, 
 since it possessed many picturesque spots, and indulged in 
 much picturesque promise, its inhabitants called it the 
 Beauty of Woodylin. It became a standing quip (or one to 
 say he did not live in Woodylin, but in the Beauty of it. 
 If one side was the city proper, the other would seem 
 
112 HICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 to be the city improper. It would not stop at this ; it 
 meant to be the city more proper. It erected a School- 
 house unequalled in the municipality. It hoped to do 
 many more things ; but it is not so easy to work with hopes, 
 as with a well-earned fruition ; it had nothing equal to Victo- 
 ria-square. Elder Jabson's Church was on the Beauty side. 
 Here was one of the Printing-offices, to which we may 
 again refer. On this bank, also, was the Light-house, — 
 a circumstance that originated innumerable smart sayings. 
 The Custom-house divided its favors with both shores. 
 The Beauty people built an Athenaeum, founded a library, 
 and supported a course of lectures, to match the Lyceum 
 across the River. Here also a division of the Sons of Tem- 
 perance had sumptuous apartments. Yet as the sun and 
 rain, summer and winter, were alike on both sides of the 
 valley, so the greater interests, affections, and preferences 
 of the people, coalesced. 
 
 The Beauty side afforded less to engage the curiosity of 
 a country youth, like Richard, than the other. So he 
 crossed the stream. In a rambling way, he paused to look 
 into a precinct, known as Knuckle Lane ; — a dismal region, 
 the sewer of poverty, filth and wretchedness, — a sort of 
 Jews' quarter, where the cast-off clothes of the city — its 
 old houses, old garments, old furniture, old horses — were 
 collected, and if not exposed for sale, were certainly exposed 
 to everything else. 
 
 Now, Richard's teacher at the Village High School incul- 
 cated this doctrine among his scholars, — that they should 
 use in after life the knowledge they acquired at school ; and 
 to the Geography class he particularly addressed himself, and 
 told them that when they saw new objects, they should 
 associate them with the places whence they came ; that if at 
 any time they were abroad, they should recall, not only the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 113 
 
 origin, but the history and use, of what they saw. " For 
 instance," — and thus he illustrated his meaning, — "this 
 penknife is from England, — you know where England is; 
 this silk cravat is from France. The tea your mother uses 
 is from China ; vain and extravagant dressing is from a 
 wicked heart ; " — he would laugh when he said this ; — 
 " rum is from the Devil." So he instructed them on vari- 
 ous points, especially holding to the main one, that they 
 should keep their eyes open, — ever be seeing, ever be learn- 
 ers, and have their minds always alive and active. 
 
 Recollecting this principle, Richard had a great many 
 things to think of, as he looked up Knuckle Lane. Why 
 this poverty ? Why this meanness ? Why are poverty and 
 meanness so associated ? Is there no remedy for it ? Thus 
 he questioned within himself. There is nothing of this sort 
 in Green Meadow, — his native town. He might have 
 stood there a month, in obedience to the direction of hij- 
 teacher, Mr. Willwell, before he could get at the solution 
 of the matter. So he went on into the street where wood 
 v/as exposed for sale. 
 
 What quantities of it! How the loaded teams crowded 
 the way ! 
 
 Faithful to the principle just named, the first thought of 
 Richard, when he saw the wood, was his own home. The 
 oxen looked so like his own oxen, — the wood looked so like 
 wood he had handled, every stick of it ; — he knew the best 
 kinds, and all kinds. But the oxen; — there came with them, 
 to his mind, his own barn-yard, and stable, and hay-mow; 
 he could have shaken the cattle heartily by the hand, every 
 one of them. Then he knew their best signs, — the broad 
 breast, the bright color, — and he could tell that there was 
 a sprinkling of Durham in them, and he knew where I'ijIt 
 ham was. 
 
 10* 
 
114 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 And with the barn-yard was connected, in fact, and in his 
 mind, a little path, and then an apple-tree, and then a well- 
 sweep, a shed, and a kitchen ; and so he crept along, till 
 he came pat upon his old Father and Mother ; — but he 
 could stay there long. 
 
 The Surveyor manipulated with his scale on all sides of 
 the wood, — inspected the ends, peered in among the crev- 
 ices, rapped on the bark. "The sled is heavier than that," 
 said the owner, looking at the bill the official gave him. 
 " Short lengths," replied the latter. " We measure from 
 the inside to the tip of the scarf." " There is a round cord, 
 or my cattle may be ashamed of themselves, and never 
 expose their sweat and hot flanks in Woodylin again." " It 
 is not well packed." " It is well packed, — I '11 lea^'e it to 
 any one that knows. Here, Captain," he called to Richard ; 
 " you have seen cord-wood, I should say, from your looks ; 
 you can tell what a load is, and when it 's loaded. Is that 
 merchantable ? " "I should think it was," replied Richard. 
 " Is he a Surveyor ? " exclaimed that dignitary ; " has he 
 been sworn ? " "I have handled wood," added Richard, 
 "and I call that well stou'ed." "I shall not condescend to 
 dispute with you," returned the Surveyor. " Nor I with 
 you," echoed the driver, and he tore up the bill. " Your 
 wood is forfeited," said the Surveyor. "It sells for a cord, 
 or I will back about, and fling it into Knuckle Lane. I 
 guess they won't dispute about it there." 
 
 Richard was called to apply his education in a way his 
 school-master had not provided for; yet, after all, it was 
 only an amplification of the general rule. 
 
 " I advise you, young man," remarked the Surveyor to 
 our friend, with a sinister tone of voice, " to mind your own 
 business." 
 
 Richard took the hint, and went on. He turned, without 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 115 
 
 inothod in his route, into Lafayette-street, — a broad street, 
 with fine trees, fine houses, fine churches. This led into 
 Victoria-square. With all his philosophy, it would have 
 been difficult to pierce the mysterj' that layabout him now. 
 lie could, indeed, with his eye comprise the magnificence of 
 the place, — count the stories of the houses, enumerate the 
 successive blocks ; but even to his eye, there was an inex- 
 plicable richness. How splendid those great elms would be 
 in the summer! — that he knew. But the people, — the 
 parlors, — the wardrobes, — the feelings ; — he might as 
 well be looking at the Moon. 
 
 He entered St. Agnes-street, where the Governor resided, 
 and came to a halt in front of the Family mansion. There 
 were the ornamented fence, the arched gateway, the deep 
 yard planted with trees and shrubbery, the long piazza with 
 its Corinthian columns, the windows with rich caps, the 
 heavy cornice, and the high walls of the building itself, 
 that arrested his eye. Did he know what was inside ? He 
 did not — nor even who lived there. He saw what went in 
 there ; he saw two ladies, with stone-marten muffs, garnet 
 velvet sacks, and one with a blue satin hat and bird of 
 paradise feathers. These were Barbara and Melicent. 
 They turned as they mounted the steps, and cast a leisure 
 glance around, that alighted upon Eichard, and passed to 
 other objects. What account should he give of these to his 
 teacher ? What a distance between his home-spun and 
 their French velvets ! He drew back a little, as they looked 
 towards him, and interposing between him and them a fir- 
 tree, made good his escape. He came into a quarter of 
 uneven pavements ; he passed houses that had their base- 
 ments new-furbished, and new-windowed, and let for grocery 
 stores, while the upper stories remained dingy, brown, and 
 dark ; the improvement of the city being rapid and great, 
 
116 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 and flinging itself in haste into such parts of a building as 
 it could most conveniently reach. What life, what anima- 
 tion, began to spread itself before him, in the long -v-istas of 
 the business streets ! How the sun poured itself do«Ti, cheer- 
 ful and bright, on those syndromes of modern civilization ! 
 People complained of tight times, a dull season; — there 
 was no dulness, no tightness, to Richard's eye. Gayly var- 
 nished sleighs, puffed and pranked with silver-furred robes, 
 and streaming with a whole pack of tails behind, flashed 
 by. Pungs of butter, oats, mutton, defiled along. Four 
 elegant horses, attached to an elegant van, with seats for 
 twent)% and having a dasher as high as a barn-door, on 
 which danced an Hungarian girl, under an arch of gilded 
 flowers and vines, attracted his gaze. He saw men in 
 buffalo coats, and scarlet leggins, and very red faces, 
 moving to and fro rather heavily, with the chin sunk, as if 
 in deep thought. These were stage-drivers, executing their 
 orders. People from the country were continually arriving, 
 and hitching their horses at the stone posts by the walk ; — 
 the females crawling out of their fur beds, then squinting at 
 the signs over the doors, and darting forwards, as if their 
 health and salvation were staked on getting in at a particu- 
 lar door. 
 
 There were men with pale faces, and white cravats, and 
 gray hair, who walked a little stooping and leisurely; — 
 these were the ancient and venerable fathers of the City. 
 Young men, well dressed, with bits of paper and little 
 blank-books in their hands, passed him, walking fast and 
 straight forwards; — these were clerks. Others, in loose 
 paletots, with one arm folded round the breast, and cigars 
 in their mouth, were the gentlemen of leisure. 
 
 He came to a store that had an ancient goose hanging 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 117 
 
 one side of the door ; — he knew where geese came from. 
 A pair of denim over-hauls mated it on the other ; — he 
 knew where such things came from, but he looked more 
 closely at them, — not philosophically, but economically, — 
 for he wanted a pair. He saw in the shop barrels, — rows 
 of barrels, — piles of barrels ; and on the heads of the bar- 
 rels he read, N. E. Eum. Devil ! thought he, what a 
 Devil is here ! He remembered the words of his Teacher, 
 
 — " Rum comes from the Devil." There were men in the 
 store drinking, and other men serving drink. The Devil, 
 he thought, had set up business for himself there. He 
 turned hastily away. 
 
 He came into a street of new stores, with high brick 
 walls, and great windows ; and every window, — oh, it was 
 a realm of enchanted vision, — a gulf opening into Para- 
 dise, — a portal of Dream-land ! There were oranges and 
 lemons in the Fruiterer's windows, that brought to Richard's 
 memory what he had learned of Sicily, Cuba, and the 
 evergreen Tropics. There were golden watches and brace- 
 lets, diamond rings, pearl brooches, in the Jeweller's, spread 
 out in full view, on terraces of black velvet ; and Potosi 
 came to his mind, Golconda and the Arabian Nights. 
 At the Confectioner's, glass globes of candies and lozenges, 
 and all kinds of colored sugars, stood a-row, and there were 
 sugar dogs, and sugar houses, and sugar everything, — a 
 whole microcosm of pretty ideas in sugar ; and what should 
 he think of, — what did he think of, but Memmy and Bebby ? 
 
 Richard was a parvenu ; he was fresh from the country, 
 
 — this eve r)' body saw ; the way he stared at things 
 showed it, even if his red shirt, and snuff-colored monkey- 
 jacket, and striped mittens, did not. But Richard knew 
 where ever}-body came from, and he had no inquiries to 
 make about them. But he did not understand the mystery 
 
118 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 of all the things he saw in the windows, and he wished the 
 friend of his youth was there to tell him. This instructor 
 had a pin that he took from his coat-sleeve, on which he 
 used to dilate, and spent hours talking about it, and telling 
 how it was made ; then he illustrated all sorts of things by 
 it. A pin and a pencil were a whole armory of apparatus 
 for Mr. Willwell. At the Jeweller's, he longed to ask the 
 artist some questions ; but there the man sat, right behind 
 this beautiful display of work, brushing a bit of brass, and 
 never looking at what was before him, — never looking at 
 Richard, — but very vacantly laughing and joking with an 
 idle fellow that stood near by, with his thumbs in his 
 breeches pockets. Richard was almost bursting with philo- 
 sophical admiration and inquisitiveness, and the man was 
 so stupid ! How different from his Teacher ! 
 
 But when he faced the many-tinted and many-shaped 
 wonders of the Confectioner's, he wished, he only wished, 
 if the window should fall out, and those piles of fascination 
 be tumbled to the ground, Memmy and Bebby might be 
 there ! 
 
 As if his fancies were just turning into realities, he heard 
 a thundering over head, and a crash at his side. The snow, 
 sliding from the high roof, had fallen to the ground. It 
 struck among the horses, and frightened them. Richard 
 attempted to compose them. One beast, frantic and fiery, 
 broke his halter, and plunged backwards, dragging Richard 
 after him. Richard was thrown to the ground, but without 
 relinquishing his hold. The horse turned to run ; Richard, 
 by a strong jerk of the rein, and a dextrous application of 
 one foot to the flank of the animal, cast him, and had him 
 lying quietly on his side, before the people, who rushed to 
 his assistance, had time to be of much service. It was the 
 Governor's horse, and in the sleigh was the Governor's 
 
THE GOVERNOK'S FAIMILY. 119 
 
 daughter, and the Governor himself appeared in the crowd. 
 The daughter overflowed with thankfulness ; the Governor 
 took, with his thumb and finger, from his vest-pocket, it 
 might be a cent, or a dime, it was a gold piece, which he 
 quietly dropped into one of the flaring pockets of Richard's 
 jacket. 
 
 The crowd dispersed, and Richard resumed his studies. 
 He reached the Booksellers' quarter. An immense wooden 
 book, suspended at the corner of the street, over the walk, 
 caught his eye, and large pictorial advertisements on the 
 door-posts held it fast. He read the advertisements; he 
 went from door to door, reading what was emblazoned at 
 each, — reading the posts from top to bottom. There were 
 books by authors familiar to him, and more by those of 
 whom he had not heard ; there were titles of books that con- 
 veyed no meaning, and some that aroused all his curiosity 
 to know what they meant; and others still, so full of mean- 
 ing he could hardly keep from clutching the bills and run- 
 ning home. These doors of the Booksellers' Shops, with 
 their typographical enigmas, were mystic entrances to the 
 enchanted palace of youthful hope and intellectual idealism, 
 and to what he had wished to know, and to what he thought 
 some time he might know, and to those visions his Teacher 
 unconsciously kindled in his mind, and to things of which 
 his Pastor spoke. If he could not enter this palace, he 
 could look into it through the windows; so he ranged 
 along from window to window, up and down the street. 
 May no worse impediments to aspiration and desire ever 
 be offered than transparent glass ! Richard did not feel 
 that he was denied anything, though he stood outside, and 
 though it was cold weather ; he thought he had a feast. 
 He was thankful to the kind people that put these things in 
 the windows. It seemed to him that the panes of glass 
 
120 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 were very large, and very accommodating. He saw the 
 backs of many beautiful books, and the inside of one great 
 landscape book. He saw many more things, the nature of 
 some of which he understood, while others puzzled him. 
 On the broad shelf of one shop he saw porcelain gentlemen, 
 in antique costume, standing very erect ; — what they were 
 for he did not know, but he supposed they were toys, and 
 he knew toys came from Germany; so Germany was in his 
 mind. He saw pearl-handled penknives, and all that Teacher 
 and books had said about Sheffield was remembered. There 
 was a little marble dog, with a gold chain about its neck; — 
 he did not comprehend that. There were boxes of toilette 
 soap, hidden away in silvered paper; — here he was out, 
 too. There were quantities of Valentines, to which he 
 could get no clue whatever. A box of gold pencils revived 
 his confidence. There were patent inkstands, and patent 
 pickwicks, and patent table-bells ; — good a mechanician as 
 he might be, he was totally confused. In the broad alcove 
 of the bay window of another shop, in addition to all this 
 glitter and richness below, over head were a whole choir of 
 little white angels, and a bevy of cupids, venuses, and inno- 
 cent white children. O Memmy ! oh Bebby ! where are you 
 now 2 And more still ! there were beautiful pictures, Ma- 
 donna faces, tenderest looks of childhood, many a sweet human 
 expression, verdant landscapes, quiet pastorals, some of the 
 deepest affections of the heart. Germany, Sheffield, Art, 
 Mystery, — good-by ! They all vanish ; nothing tempts 
 his curiosity now; his spirit is ravished by a new enthusi- 
 asm ; — these simple pictures sink into his soul, an'd his 
 imagination swims in ideal feeling. 
 
 On the door of this store he read Nefon's. By this time, 
 also, he recollected that he wanted some paper and pens ;^ 
 and especially were his thoughts quickened, when, among 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 121 
 
 the many things that garnished the door-way, he saw the 
 words Circulating Library; for he remembered his Pastor 
 told him to seek one out, — " that is," he added, " if you can 
 find a good one, a good one." Did Nefon keep a good Cir- 
 culating Librar)^? What was this Nefon's? He looked 
 again at the inscription. Then he looked at the window; 
 he even stepped on the sill, and looked through the glass 
 door. Was Nefon's so small that one word sufficed to 
 cover it ? Was it so large that that same pair of syllables 
 was all the hint it needed to give? Of whatever size, it 
 was big enough for Richard. He had studied grammar, and 
 he knew the apostrophe indicated the possessive case ; he 
 saw at a glance that Nefon possessed what, to his eye, ap- 
 peared so grand and magnificent ; and Nefon must be a large 
 man. He was mistaken in this ; Nefon was a small man, 
 — small in stature, though he had a large heart, and a large 
 head. Why was not Nefon on the alert, and when there 
 stood on the walk a stranger who had such interest in his 
 wares, why did he not open the door and invite him in ? 
 That was not Nefon's way of doing business. Yet, if he 
 had known vvho stood there, and what the feelings of the 
 young man were, and how near that young man's feelings 
 were like his own, he would not only have invited him, but 
 even seized him by the collar and snatched him in, and 
 • saved him the trouble of getting in as he did ; for Richard's 
 heart beat smartly, — so smartly it might have answered 
 for a good knock, if there had been any but himself to hear 
 it, — and he tried the latch twice before it yielded. But he 
 entered. Did the inside of the shop fulfil its out-door 
 promise ? Was Nefon equal to Nefon's ? This is the 
 truth of the matter : if Nefon's face — that is, his show- 
 window — looked bright and attractive, his heart — that is, 
 the interior of the store — was less lustrous, but more solid ; 
 11 
 
122 KICHAKD EDNEY AMD 
 
 darker because it was deeper, and more quiet because it 
 was more substantial. This Kichard felt ; and il" lie won- 
 dered in the street, he was awed within the walls. ^Vhat 
 quantities of books! Now, within those books, that tilled 
 the shelves on either side, and were piled on the counters, 
 lay many of the purest and profoundest thoughts and feel- 
 ings that Kichard ever had, and many more which he 
 expected to have; and it is not strange that he gazed at tlie 
 books, and forgot Nefon. Nor did Neibn notice Kichard ; 
 there were other persons with whom he ^^•ns engaged. 
 
 Kichard had heard of great lihraries ; — of the AlexaniMiie 
 library, that was burned ; of the National Library, at Paris ; 
 — but if all the libraries in all the world had been flung into 
 one, and opened to liis view, his emotion could not be much 
 deeper than it was now. Not that Nefon had so many 
 books, but Kichard had never seen so many. 
 
 But before he could set his eye steadily to work, his 
 imagination must exercise itself a little; and there passed, 
 as in a trance, before his mind, many a rosy-colored youth- 
 ful vision of books, and, as it were, a sea of literary mist, in 
 which floated whole islands of flower-reading; and calm, 
 shady coves of solid intellectual progress opened in the 
 scene. These things over, he could observe more literally 
 the nature of what was about him. 
 
 It is an observation of Dr. Johnson, that no place atlbrds 
 a more striking instance of the vanity of human hopes than 
 a public library ; for who, he asks, can see the ^vall crowded 
 on ever)' side by mighty volumes, without considering the 
 oblivion that covers their authors ? Yet, had these authors 
 known what eye ^^•as upon them now, — how that heart 
 coveted them, — how this young man would have gloated 
 over their dullest lines, and carried to his closet their most 
 neglected tomes,— they would have smiled within their leaves, 
 
THE GO\'EBNOIl's FAMILY. 123 
 
 and, in their own joyous thrill, shaken off the dust that lay 
 on their lids. The meanest author on Nefon's shelves was 
 immortal in Richard's feelings ; Richard was fame, fortune, 
 posterity, to all of them. How much suffering, neglect, and 
 toil, was recompensed in that single moment ! 
 
 But as he gazed at these rows of books, reaching higher 
 than his head, and extending, in shadowy files, far into the 
 rear of the building, the pleasant sky of things became a 
 little overcast. He had this feeling, — that he knew noth- 
 ing, and never should know anything. 
 
 He had the feeling which a young and ardent author 
 may be supposed to have, who enters a book-shop with a 
 basket of books on his arm, to dispose of his wares, and try 
 his fortune in the general market. He sees such a multi- 
 tude of other authors, with their bright, glittering titles, 
 — some in prett}' blue muslin; some in prettier brown goat- 
 skin ; some arabesqued in gold ; others fragrant in Russia : 
 here one, urgent for a purchaser, in two volumes ; there one 
 in three : here one reposing in princely folio ; there one 
 gemmed in ISmo: one recommended by his engravings; 
 another by his tj'pe : some calling attention to the originality 
 of their sl\-le ; others to the importance of their matter : some 
 pushed forward bj^ backers ; others buoj-ant in their own 
 reputation. He feels that he has not written anj-thing, and 
 never shall write anything ; and contemplates the books in 
 his basket as a collection of apes, that he had unwittingly 
 sought to introduce among polite and respectable men, 
 whose chattering he had mistaken for speech ; and he 
 would fain set them adrift in the fi^rst piece of woods he caa 
 find. 
 
 So Richard, the admirer of all authors, — so many an 
 author, — is, in a sense, killed by those authors whom Dr. 
 
124 KICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Johnson summarily consigns to oblivion. This bibliothecal 
 dust, after all, has some power in it. 
 
 So, we say, Richard, with these treasures, endless gran- 
 aries, of wisdom, genius, art and science, before him, felt he 
 knew nothing, and never should know anything. He forgot 
 even the Circulating Library, and paper and pens ; and was 
 half resolved to leave the premises, and go home to Memmy 
 and Bebby, and the Green Mill. But ere he had time to 
 execute such a purpose, Nefon accosted him with a cool, 
 How do you do. Sir ? Richard could hardly tell how he 
 did. 
 
 Recollecting himself, however, he asked after a Circu- 
 lating Library. Nefon replied that he kept one, retailed the 
 terms, but added, it was an unprofitable part of his establish- 
 ment, and, moreover, that he had been obliged to adopt the 
 rule of not lending to strangers, — that was, to people out 
 
 of town, and to such as had no . He was at loss for a 
 
 word ; he said credentials, or something of that sort. He 
 meant, to irresponsible persons ; to those, in a word, who 
 looked as Richard did. 
 
 Ah, Nefon, how could you do so ? But Nefon was busy ; 
 he had many customers, and many cares, and he did not 
 regard Richard attentively. He had a glimpse at him, and, 
 not thinking but that he might be a prodigal, good-for- 
 nothing fellow, like many in the city, who wanted a novel 
 to read, he answered him as he did. Why did he not look 
 into Richard's gentle, truthful eye ? why did he not observe 
 his earnest, honest face ? What did he see in the glimpse 
 he had ? A red shirt, coarse coat, and rustic manner. The 
 truth must be told, though Nefon falls. The suit which 
 Richard's mother had spun and wove for him, which she 
 had bade him good-by in, and which she had thought, with 
 a strong motherly feeling, " None will be ashamed of my 
 
THK COVEKNOR's FAMILY. 125 
 
 son " in, — that suit well-nigh ruined hiin with Nefon. Nefon 
 will deny this; but we will put it to him thus: Suppose 
 Eichard wore a fine linen shirt, a Creinonia doeskin paletot, 
 and one of Bebee's castors, — would you have answered 
 him as you did ? 
 
 But Richard possessed a last resort. He took from his - 
 wallet a piece of paper, which, after some hesitation, he gave 
 to Nefon. That paper was a sort of cosmopolitan passport 
 for Richard, from the hands of his Pastor. It ran thus : — 
 
 " Green Meadow, Dec. 18 — , 
 
 " To whom it may concern. 
 
 "This may certify that the bearer, Richard Edney by 
 name, son of John and Mary Edney, of this town, whose 
 birth has been duly registered in the town records, and his 
 baptism in the records of the Church ; having arrived at 
 man's estate, and profited of such occasions as his native 
 village affords, being desirous to see other places, and visit 
 cities and towns more remote, is a member of the Church of 
 Christ in this town, and has maintained a good walk and 
 conversation ; that he is a lover of truth, and a friend of 
 humanity ; is a practical agricultv^rist ; ingenious in the 
 understanding of mechanics, and industrious in the fulfil- 
 ment of his tasks. He is believed to be a youth of honor 
 and trustworthiness. As such, he is recommended to the 
 fellowship and sympathy of the good, the true, the noble, 
 everywhere. 
 
 (Signed) " Timothy Harold, 
 
 " Pastor of the Church." 
 
 This was nuts to Nefon ; or it would have been, if he had 
 forthwith cracked them. But between interruptions on the 
 one hand and those first impressions on the other, he dal- 
 lied. He looked at Richard, — looked as if he had not seen 
 11# 
 
126 EICHARD EBNEY, ETC. 
 
 him before, though he had been in the shop twenty min- 
 utes. He looked again; and Richard, embarrassed and 
 aggrieved, took the note, and turned away. 
 
 Now, why all this ? Could not the three thick volumes 
 of Lavater outweigh the short jacket ? Why had not 
 Nefon been appointed Head Phrenological Custom-house 
 Inspector, — and he might have determined in a trice that 
 Richard contained no fraud in his composition. We have 
 said Nefon had a great head and a great heart, though he 
 was a small man ; but all his greatness would have melted 
 with kindness and run over, had he imagined how the case 
 stood. He will not do so again. 
 
 He did offer his library to Richard ; he asked him after 
 his business, and where he lived, and said he should be glad 
 to see him again. 
 
 Richard took a book, and left the shop ; but he could not 
 go home and face the children with empty hands. So he 
 got candy and toys, as a sort of ammunition with which to 
 encounter the onset of their affections. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUNDAY AND SUNDAY EVENING. 
 
 Saturday night the Mills did not run, and Richard 
 enjoyed a regular sleep. Sunday he went to Church ; he 
 went with his brother's family. He wore his strong sur- 
 tout, and his warm red shirt. He had cotton shirts, but at 
 this season of the year he did not like to risk a change, and 
 at home he always wore such a shirt to Church in winter. 
 
 In the afternoon he said he would like to go to another 
 Church ; he named Dr. Broadwell's. 
 
 " That is aristocratic," replied his sister, "and your shirt 
 will not be tolerated there." 
 
 " I might sit in a back pew," added Richard. 
 
 " I would be as good as anybody," rejoined his sister, 
 " or I would not go at all." 
 
 "We are as good as anybody, at your Church, Roxy ? " 
 
 " We stand with the first class, there, and have a centre 
 pew." 
 
 " They are better than we are, at Dr. Broadwell's ? " 
 
 "They think they are; that is their conceit, — that is 
 their silly pretension." 
 
 " The real difference between us is the shirt." 
 
 " I guess," said Munk, " that is about all. There maybe 
 a slight odds in the thickness of the hand, but not much. 
 At any rate, the advantage is on your side. Your shirt is 
 as clean as theirs, and it is certainly warmer, and it cost 
 more ; and there is quite as much human nature in your 
 hand, brother, as in theirs." 
 
128 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 " Well, Eichard," — so his sister appealed to him, — " if 
 you will drag the truth out of me, and excruciate me to tell 
 the whole, Mrs. Tunny, the grocer's wife, goes to Dr. Broad- 
 well's, and she has invited us to her house, and I should not 
 like to have her see you at Church in such trim." 
 
 " You did not use to talk and feel like this, w^hen you 
 were at home, Roxy." 
 
 "The city is not the country, Richard, and you cannot 
 do here as you do there. I have learned many things since 
 I came here ; I have learned more of the deceitfulness of 
 the human heart. Elder Jabson is a very different preacher 
 from Parson Harold. You cannot be so independent here, 
 with everybody looking at you, and commenting upon you, 
 and so many slanderous tongues about, and so much de- 
 pending on propriety and taste. I have changed in some 
 things, and I hope for the better." 
 
 " I will compromise matters," replied Richard ; " I will 
 not go to Elder Jabson's, for, in fact, I am not accustomed to 
 such a service, nor such discourse. Nor will I go to Dr. 
 Broadwell's, lest my shirt should give ijou offence. I will 
 find some other place." 
 
 Richard joined the currents of people that came from 
 every direction, and went in every direction, — as if nobody 
 wished to have it known where he was going, as if every- 
 body was in pursuit of something which he would hide 
 from everybody ; — up this street and dow^l it, plunging 
 into that lane and coming out of it, avoiding one another on 
 the crossings, plumping into one another round the corners, 
 disappearing in large doors where nobody else went ; — as if 
 heaven was a gold mine, of which each one had had a 
 dream, and snugging the dream in his own thought, he fol- 
 lowed its secret intimation ; or as if religion were a game 
 of hide and coop, which the whole city was out playing ; 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 129 
 
 and presently you would see these people, joyous and lov- 
 ing, rushing from their retreats to some central spot of 
 Christian feeling ! 
 
 Richard, with no intelligent bent of his own, except to 
 keep clear of Dr. Broadwell's and Elder Jabson's, adhered 
 to a bevy of people in which he happened to find himself, 
 and in their wake entered the first Church he came to. It 
 was a large Gothic door into which he went ; and in the 
 porch whom should he see but Nefon ! Now, Nefon had 
 evidently repented him of his sins. It was Sunday, and it 
 was sacrament day, and there was good reason for his doing 
 so. The glare of life was gone, and the encroachments of 
 traffic had abated; and his feelings were calmer, purer, 
 truer. He had found his heaven of enlarged, humane, all- 
 encircling sentiment ; and he was stirred with great kind- 
 ness and brotherliness towards Richard, and took him cor- 
 dially by the hand. " Show me a back seat, — the negro's 
 seat, if you have one," said Richard. " Come with me," 
 replied the Bookseller, in a quick but significant way he 
 had, meaning more than he said ; and most likely haunted 
 by the recollection of his former dereliction, he led Richard 
 to his own pew, which was as conspicuous as any in the 
 Church. Richard could not have appeared to better advan- 
 tage in Nefon's eye than he did, with his cap off, in meet- 
 ing, that afternoon. We speak not now of how he ap- 
 peared to the Omniscient eye, or to the eye of the simple 
 Spirit of Truth. But Nefon saw that his manner was devout 
 and earnest, his expression spiritual and intellectual, and 
 that in worship and instruction his heart was engaged. He 
 saw, moreover, that in the distribution of the sacred ele- 
 ments ; Richard was a recipient and he was touched, Nefon 
 was, and he loved Richard more than ever. There was 
 
130 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 little sectarianism in this, — little of mere wonder or admira- 
 tion. 
 
 The religious tie is perhaps as strong as can bind two 
 hearts together ; the tie that comprises time and eternity, 
 God and man; that has for its basis the most solemn 
 and liberal, the most simple and magnificent, exercises of 
 the soul : that sweeps the earth in quest of objects to pity 
 or to save, and still finds in the nearest and homeliest duties 
 the repose of contentment, the affluence of satisfaction, and 
 the lustre of fame ; that moves with Destiny, and reposes 
 on Providence ; that loves Love, exults in the Pure, and 
 swells in the Light as the new-starting bud of the spring 
 anemone. 
 
 Nefon saw no more of Richard's red shirt; it had disap- 
 peared utterly, — the flame of his virtues burned and con- 
 sumed it. We wiU not say Richard stood naked before 
 Nefon ; rather he appeared in the glory and the amiability 
 with which Christ clothes his disciples. Nefon remembered 
 Richard after this ; not that he had entirely forgotten him 
 since he saw him in his shop, but he had thought of him by 
 inch-meal and flittingly. Now he appealed to him more as 
 an incarnate, well-favored tangibility. 
 
 The after part of the Sabbath, and the twilight, and the 
 evening, are very pleasant. It is a free, tranquil, cheerful 
 time. It is an hour favorable to domestic reunions and 
 social communion. The laboring classes — and that, in 
 fact, means all classes except professed vagabonds — make 
 great and very reasonable account of it. The hurly-burly 
 and wish-wash of existence it visits with a genial humor 
 and purifying serenity. It is a zephyr that fans the fever- 
 ishness of the week, and soothes excitement and replenishes 
 exhaustion. In the most boisterous weather, when no one 
 goes to meeting, the whole Sabbath has a summery feeling, 
 
THE GOVERXOR's FAIMILY. 131 
 
 and many flowers and green leaves of piety, hope, repent- 
 ance, show their tender faces, which Monday morning is 
 too apt to nip as an untimely frost. There is a reconcilia- 
 tion with God and with one another, at these times, which 
 it is delightful to experience and painful to lose. Heaven 
 then lets down a golden chain, on which every one loves to 
 fasten a prayer, and see it drawn up. Even Memmy felt 
 something of this, for she said to her mother, " How it 
 seems, Sundays, don't it ? " 
 
 Asa Munk was of the firm of ]\Iuuk and St. John, and 
 their business was with horses. They kept a liverj^-stable, 
 did some teaming, owned hackney-coaches and an omnibus, 
 and were interested in a stage-route. Their stand was near 
 the Factories, and their business grew naturally out of the 
 rise and increase of the New City. 
 
 It will be supposed Munk enjoyed his Sabbaths. He 
 loved to be at home with his wife and children. He loved 
 the enfranchisement and the comfort of the Sabbath. Munk 
 took life easily, though he worked hard. He used to say, 
 " I am always happy, and Prince Albert can't say more." 
 " Bless God for Memmy and Bebby ! " he said, this after- 
 noon, as the children played round him. " Bless God for 
 Papa ! " echoed Memmy. 
 
 The heads of this family could not both be absent to 
 Church at the same time. One must stay with the chil- 
 dren, and it had been Munk's turn to do so this afternoon. . 
 
 " You should have heard the Elder," observed his wife ; 
 " he was solemn." " I have great peace of mind in my 
 children," replied Munk. " Children cannot save your 
 soul," said she. "They have been preaching to me all 
 day," said he. " We need something more powerful, more 
 searching," she added. " Children are eloquent, — so Pas- 
 tor Harold says," interposed Richard, "for the Scripture de- 
 
132 KICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 clares ' out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou 
 hast ordained praise.' Children, he says, are standards; for 
 Christ instructs that we must become like them, in order to 
 enter the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 " I hope you will not compare Memmy and Bebby with 
 Elder Jabson," returned Mrs. Munk, with a slight tartness 
 of manner, that betokened considerable internal roil. 
 
 " The Elder," answered her husband, in a patient, peace- 
 making way, " is meat, strong meat ; and the children are 
 nuts and raisins, after it." 
 
 There was a point in which Munk was lame, — at least, his 
 wife and Eichard both thought so. He let horses on the 
 Sabbath. He qualified this statement, indeed, and extenu- 
 ated it. Richard replied, quoting Pastor Harold, that the 
 use of horses on the Sabbath should be confined to occa- 
 sions of necessity and mercy. Munk said the factory- 
 girls and mill-men had no leisure except Sundays; and 
 hinted at their need of recreation. Mrs. Munk said scores 
 of them had been to dancing-schools that winter. Richard 
 observed there were ample woods, the margin of streams, 
 and pleasant roads, where they could walk. Munk said 
 they must visit their friends. Richard asked if they did not 
 go to taverns in the neighborhood, and squander the sa- 
 cred hours in dissipation. "Even," he continued, " has not 
 Clover had one of your horses to-day for such a purpose ? " 
 Munk had not reflected. Munk would not permit such a 
 thing again. 
 
 Mrs. Munk was getting tea. Memmy could toast the 
 bread, and so could Bebby ; at least she could play at it, — 
 she could hold the empty toast-iron to the fire, and her father 
 put a chip in, which he said she did brown. Memmy 
 could set up the chairs, and so could Bebby. There was a 
 dispute whether Bebby could carry a plate from the closet 
 
THE GOVERNOK's FAMILY. 133 
 
 to the table. " There is one thing we can all do," said 
 Munk ; " we can eat. Let us bless God for that ! " " Can't 
 everybody eat?" asked Memmy. "No," replied Munk; 
 " some folks can't eat." " I should think it was very fun- 
 ny," answered Wemmy. " If you could eat properly," 
 said her Mother, after they were seated at the table, " I 
 should be glad ! You have slobbered your bib, and spilt 
 milk on the table-cloth ! It was span clean this morning ! 
 I should like to keep a cloth clean, one day! I should like 
 to see such a thing, where there are children ! It should be 
 published in the newspapers ! I would send the cloth to 
 Barnum's ! " Memmy could feed herself, and Bebby could 
 want to ; and she got a spoon and held lustily to it, in spite 
 of her Mother's efforts to remove it. " Do you feed her, 
 Asa," enjoined the Mother; "I always said, if ever I had a 
 child, it should not feed itself." " You seem to have laid 
 out pretty largely beforehand, " added her husband. " I 
 have had experience enough to teach me, at any rate," she 
 rejoined. " Perhaps our children are precocious," suggested 
 Munk, in his pleasant way ; " who knows ? — and we can't 
 expect them to do as other children do." " You have got 
 them into the pulpit," returned his wife, with a demi-sar- 
 casm, "and of course they must be masters of themselves 
 at table. Elder Jabson says we can't be too strict with 
 children." "The Elder," said Munk, " has driven the chil- 
 dren from the pulpit, and possibly he would not let them 
 come to the table at all. He never touched a child but he 
 seemed to be taking up a caterpillar." 
 
 Munk took things by the smooth handle ; but sometimes 
 the handle was rough, and sometimes there was no handle 
 at all ; then he seized the vessel bodily. So now, after 
 tea, he put his arms about his wife, and drew her into his 
 lap, and kissed her. But the children — munificent little 
 12 
 
134 RICHARD EDNEY A^D 
 
 sly-boots I — thought this was not enough, — that his pitcher 
 might be a little more brimming; and JMemmy climbed up 
 after her Mother, and Eebby, betwixt lifting and scrambling, 
 got to the same spot, and Munk had his pitcher overflow- 
 ing; audit was so large he could hardly get his arms 
 around it. But it was all nectar to him, — a glass of joy and 
 hope, that hummed and chirped, — and he crushed it hand- 
 somely. " Let us be good, and happy," he said to his wife ; 
 " let us not borrow trouble ; don't keep your spirits spotted 
 as a painter's shop, but clean and bright as your own little 
 kitchen. God has given us many comforts ; let us be grate- 
 ful and enjoy them, as Pastor Harold used to say. Let us 
 be just to ourselves, by wisely improving what we have, and 
 not eat the crib when we have plenty of sweet fodder." 
 " O ! " sighed his wife, " it is such a responsibility I " " It 
 is heavier," he rejoined, "because you let it weigh on you. 
 Put it out of your heart a little ; it gets water-soaked in 
 your feelings, and sinks. We have house-room enough ; 
 let it play about now and then. We have chairs enough ; 
 see if it will not sit down and rest itself. Try and make it 
 stand on its own feet, dear, and you will be easier, and just 
 as good." His wife threw herself on his neck, and cried ; 
 he pressed his arm about her very softly and warmly, and 
 kissed her cheek, and the little ones kissed their Mother, and 
 then their Father kissed them. 
 
 Richard, meanwhile, went to visit tbe Orphans at Which- 
 comb's. Here he found a lady to whom he was introduced 
 as Miss Dennington, daughter of the Governor's. It was 
 Melicent. She was dressed in a blue satin bonnet with 
 bird-of-paradise feathers, and a purple velvet sack. Did he 
 recognize this dress ? He had seen it before. Did she 
 remember having seen him ? — That she was on an errand 
 of mercy, appeared in her sitting by the sick-bed, and laying 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 135 
 
 her hand on the head of Violet, to whom she spake in soft, 
 low tones ; and likewise in the fresh oranges and an 
 unbroken glass of jelly on the small table at the head of the 
 bed, which she must have brought. 
 
 Violet was no better, and she would never be in this 
 world ; but she was without pain, mental or bodily, and she 
 had that look of transparent, moon-light repose, which, if it 
 be ominous of death, is beautiful as life. Junia, pale with 
 M-aching and confinement, was still of patient, perennial, 
 sisterly love and devotion. The Old Man romanced with 
 the fire, making it seem how he could graduate it exactly to 
 the necessities of the room, and the state of the wood-box ; 
 showing his skill in using from the scant pile, and not 
 diminishing it. 
 
 " You achieved a great deed in the street, the other day," 
 said Junia to Richard. 
 
 " I owe my deliverance to you," added Melicent, " and I 
 know not but my life. Father said it was a narrow escape." 
 
 " I did not know who it was in the sleigh, " replied 
 Richard. " The horse showed good pluck. I never had 
 the handling of one before so set on making music out of 
 my bones." 
 
 " Were n't you hurt ? " asked Melicent. 
 
 "I should have been," he replied, " but that my mother, 
 probably anticipating some accident to her son, had encased 
 his flesh in stout wrappages." 
 
 They were interrupted by the entrance of the mistress of 
 the house with the tray. " How do you do, Miss Denning- 
 ton ? " she said. " How is the Governor ? We heard he was 
 unwell ; we could not aflford to lose him. Elder Jabson is 
 havinga Reformation; well, there is need enough of it, — we 
 are all bad enough. I do not expect to get to Heaven on 
 my own merits, according to Parson Smith's doctrine ; — 
 
136 RICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 1 hope I may have none of that sin to answer for. I am 
 ready to help the sick and the destitute, though they are 
 ungrateful. Madam has sent some jelly ; my own is most 
 gone, we have had so much sickness, and there is so much 
 call for chicken-soup, and nice steaks, and arrow-root, and 
 lemonade, and jellies, which we never mean to be out of for 
 a moment; for who knows when another will be taken down, 
 and all the things in the house called for ? " She took the 
 paper cover from a jelly-glass that looked as if Noah's wife, 
 in her haste to disembark, had put it away unwashed in a 
 closet of the ark, and it now made its appearance for the first 
 time in Mrs, Whichcomb's tray. But no — it was not its first 
 appearance ; three times a day, for as many months, that 
 identical glass, with its identical contents, had been brought 
 into the chamber on that tray. " I do feel for the unfortunate," 
 she added, as she offered the venerable cordial to the sick one. 
 " Would your sister, Miss Junia, relish a slice of ham, and 
 a few griddle-cakes, or a dish of stewed oysters, which are 
 so innocent ? or must we still keep her on the cracker-water 
 the Doctor recommended ? It is not easy. Miss Bennington, 
 to know what will agree with the sick, which I have had 
 some experience that way for thirty years." 
 
 Mrs, Whichcomb was complaisant and deferential in 
 presence of Miss Dennington, and she forebore her gibes 
 and quirks with Richard. And when she saw Melicent 
 and our friend freely conversing together, she even went so 
 far as to commend Richard to her ear. " The coldest night 
 that ever was," says she, " this young gentleman brought 
 wood to these poor folk ; and many is the time since, he has 
 taken their basket to the Saw-mill and filled it, which he 
 did not know that we had a plenty of it, and country boys 
 is apt to do. And he has sent his sister, JMrs Munk, to 
 watch ; and he has got other women to come and spell Miss 
 
THE GOVERNOK's FAMILY, 137 
 
 Junia ; and he is almost a stranger in the city, himself; 
 which shows goodness, if it does not lead to pride, which is 
 apt to be, as Charley Walter could not think." 
 
 ]Mrs. Whichcomb retired. Melicent, with an ill-sup- 
 pressed smile, said to Richard, " Is Asa Munk's related to 
 you ? " " ]\Ir. Munk is my brother-in-law," replied Rich- 
 ard. " Did you find it, that night ? " she asked. " I found 
 it," he answered, " the night I came to Woodjdin." " You 
 must be the person we encountered on the Bridge," she con- 
 tinued. " And you of the party that was frightened by a 
 drunken man," he rejoined. "We were in quite a gale. 
 The darkness of the Bridge is wont to create 'a giddy, rat- 
 tling reaction in the spirits of all who cross it." " You must 
 be Transcendentalists, if I understand Pastor Harold's ac- 
 count of that thing," said Richard. " Very likely we are," 
 she added. " Have you attended the Athenasum Lectures ? " 
 she asked. Richard said he had not; that he did not know 
 of them. " Have you ever worshipped at the Church of the 
 Redemption ? " she asked. " What is that ? " Richard 
 queried. "In which Parson Smith officiates," she replied. 
 Richard answered that he was there this afternoon. " This 
 must be the young man," she said, turning to Junia, " that 
 defended your Grandfather so ably at his trial." " I have 
 no doubt of it," replied Junia. " He has been as a brother 
 to us, and that when we were entire strangers to him." Rich- 
 ard replied tliat he had only done what he felt to be his duty. 
 Melicent commended his generosity, and hoped he would 
 persevere in the practice of usefulness, and ever maintain 
 those principles of virtue which he seemed to have adopted. 
 
 Richard left with a new impression in his heart, — that 
 light-spirited, lyrical impression, which the approbation of a 
 refined, high-bred, religious woman is fitted to produce. 
 
 At the foot of the stairs he met Miss Eyre, who drew 
 12* 
 
138 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 him into the parlor, and seated herself near him. She had 
 been weeping ; her face was flushed, and her eye swollen. 
 She was subdued by an apparent melancholy. She looked 
 at him tenderly and beseechingly. She said, " Mr. Edney, 
 you have shown the goodness of your nature by your atten- 
 tions to the sick; you will exhibit the greatness of your 
 spirit by commiserating the distressed. Some have disease, 
 some have sorrows. You know this, — I need not assure 
 you of it. Have I ever appeared harsh, or resentful, or 
 haughty, may God forgive me. I can be depressed, — I 
 am depressed. But why should I say it ? Yet how can a 
 woman help being weak at times ? I would dash away this 
 tear, but it is best you should see it. You do see it, 
 and none but you shall see it. Have you pity, — can 
 you pity ? " Richard replied that he could, though "clearly 
 he did not know as an answer was expected. " I have then 
 only to ask your friendship. I cannot relate my sorrows ; 
 't is no matter what they are. You will be my friend." 
 " Certainly," said Richard ; " I am your friend." " I can rely 
 on you, then." She rose as she said this, and stood like 
 one on the point of departing. " I shall appeal to you, — I 
 shall have confidence in you." With her face towards 
 him, she slowly retreated. " Remember," said she, raising 
 her jewelled finger, " that you are my friend." " Of 
 course," rejoined Richard, " I am your friend." 
 
 The pleasant impression which Melicent had left in his 
 soul was not effaced by this rencontre with Miss Eyre ; 
 albeit a slight confusion of thought was thereby engendered ; 
 but not sufficient to prevent the calm serenity of the setting 
 Sabbath sun exerting its full effect, or to darken the many- 
 tinted, lustrous dew-drops that glittered through the green 
 wood of his sensibilities. 
 
 That affair was like a high suspension-bridge over a dark 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 139 
 
 gulf; but he crossed it rapidly, and was soon on the safe 
 side of his home. And here he was very happy ; not hap- 
 pier, indeed, than when he went away ; but it seemed as if 
 the lamp of his feelings had been turned up a little, and he 
 gave a little stronger light; or this may have been the mere 
 reflection of the light and happiness that was about him ; 
 for his sister was more heartsome, the children more blithe, 
 and Munk was always sunshine. Moreover, they had 
 opened the parlor, and the little air-tight was busy as a bee 
 in summer, filling it with sweetness and pleasantness. The 
 neighbors, and others, were dropping in, including Tunny, the 
 Green Grocer, and his wife, Mr. Gouch, head-stock man, and 
 Mrs. Grint, an aunt of Munk's. There was a heavy stamp- 
 ing in the entry, and an audible wheezing; and Munk said 
 it was Winkle, and the children knew it was Winkle, and 
 Winkle it was. Now, there was not, probably, on all this 
 polyzonal orb, a pleasanter, we mean a more pleasure-giving 
 face, and coat, and hand, than Winkle's ; and whip too, 
 — for he brought his whip into the parlor, — and cap, and 
 muffler. He was one of Munk and St. John's drivers, and 
 was employed on a mail route that extended some fifty 
 miles into the country. He was inclined to corpulency, and 
 his face was full-blown, and so were his lips, and red as a 
 tomato ; and his skin was varnished with the cold and the 
 storms he every day encountered. He wore a blue, shaggy, 
 lion-skin overcoat, margined with black. But face, coat and 
 all, were radiant with delight, — we mean everybody felt 
 delighted where they came. The totality of the man 
 was a self-working decanter, perpetually discharging satis- 
 faction into the breasts of all whom he encountered. There 
 was this difference between Munk and Winkle, — the first 
 was a subjective, the other an objective, delight. Munk was 
 always happy in himself. Winkle made everybody else 
 
140 RICHARD EDNEV AND 
 
 happy. In other respects they had a good deal in common. 
 But we cannot say all we ought of Winkle here. What a 
 man he was, and how he communicated so much joy, and 
 how people liked him, are matters that \A-ould cram a dozen 
 pages ; and none that knew him would be satisfied with 
 what we have now said, and we must compound with these 
 friends of his by a promise of more hereafter. 
 
 But, sakes alive ! what are we doing ? We are in the 
 midst of Memmy-and-Bebby-dom ; and what have we to do 
 with Winkle, or anybody else ? Winkle has gone, disap- 
 peared, swallowed up in a teknocratical tempest. The chil- 
 dren control the parlor, and the hour. They are sovereigns, 
 — they are empire. Under the guns of their fort every 
 vessel that enters must lie to ; they are as big as Caesar 
 Augustus ; all the world pays tribute to them ; you can't 
 approach them without bovving as many times as you do to 
 the Chinese Emperor. Attractive as Winkle is, dry as Aunt 
 Grint is, proud as Mrs. Tunny is, strong as Mr. Gouch is, 
 and selfish, independent, consequential, vain, preoccupied, 
 as everybody is, all cotton to Memmy and Bebby. Even 
 Winkle's great whip, that four as smart horses as there were 
 in the county ran from, and all the cows were afraid of, and 
 dogs leaped stone-walls to get out of the way of, yielded 
 to them. Winkle himself, weather-seared, porpoise-limbed 
 as he was, went capering^and rigadooning about them, as if 
 they were tarantulas, and had bitten him, and kept him 
 dancing for their amusement. Aunt Grint, chromatic, 
 grum, hard-mouthed, who looked as if she had been kiln- 
 dried, and all her natural juices evaporated off, — how she 
 sweetened to the children, and tiddled them, and caroled to 
 them ! She was always believing something was going to 
 happen ; — she had seen a strange-looking, corpse-shaped 
 substance in the yolk of an egg ; and when a member of the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 141 
 
 family had died a while ago, they did not hang crape on 
 the bee-hive. But the children had happened, and there was 
 no help for it ; they were the event, and Aunt Grint was 
 confounded before it. Then she thought Munk was no 
 Christian, because he let his coach carry ladies to balls; but 
 good a Christian as she was herself, she could not help loving 
 him when she looked at his children. Then there was Mrs. 
 Tunny, a sleek, round, fubby piece of mortality, with 
 bunches of ribbons in her hair, and" bunches in her neck, 
 who owned a broad-aisle pew in Dr. Broadwell's Church, 
 — had been to a party at Judge Burp's, — hired a piano for 
 her daughters, — boasted of a cousin in New York, — who 
 exchanged bows with the Mayoress, whom she did not 
 know, and who would not bow to a great many people that 
 she did know ; — even she, all engulfed in a huge cotton- 
 velvet sack, paid her duty to the children, — stooped to 
 them, and toadied about them. 
 
 So we might go round the room, and tell how these dear 
 despots worked their cards, lording it everywhere ; and no- 
 body could look at anything else, or talk of anything else, 
 or do for anything else, but them. 
 
 Richard and Munk were of course in their glory, for their 
 countenances seemed to say, " See there ! Just what I told 
 you; the children are mighty little things; no matter what 
 Elder Jabson says, they have a masterly power on the hu- 
 man heart." 
 
 There was Tunny, a little man, diffident, white-faced, as 
 if he had grown up under the shadow of his wife, — how 
 richly he colored when he held Memmy in his arms, — how 
 his lank knees puffed and swelled when he trotted her ! 
 Mr. Gouch, who seemed never to have been properly knead- 
 ed, so loose he was in his joints, so tripping in utterance, 
 so quivering in the muscles of his face, as if he had done 
 
142 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 nothing all his days hut hop over logs, dodge Silver, and 
 peer after Clover, — ^ came completely into requisition, and 
 displayed the education of his life in leaping over the chil- 
 dren on the floor, bopeeping to them behind the sofa, and 
 mouthing with Bebby, 
 
 The children, of course, did their best ; and being in state, 
 it behoved them to magnify it. Memmy got on the floor, 
 on all fours, and Winkle trod on her, and tickled her with 
 his foot ; and Bebby got down too, like a frog, on the floor, 
 and, like the frog in the fable, she swelled up under his 
 feet ; and he repeated all he had done to Memmy ; and how 
 archly she looked up to him, and how she laughed, and 
 how they all laughed ! Memmy whispered something to 
 Uncle Richard, as if he was her Prime Minister; and 
 Bebby likewise sought his ear, and mummed at it ; then she 
 retreated, and came back again, and mummed some more; 
 and there were additional peals of laughter. Bebby could 
 not talk ; but she could dummy and warble and crool and 
 caw, and look with her eyes and point with her finger ; and 
 this was a sort of high-born language, which the common- 
 alty around her Avere not expected to understand; but it 
 puzzled them, and set them to surmising and gossiping, as 
 the actions of the great are wont to do. 
 
 Uncle Richard got the singing-books, and tliey sang 
 psalm-tunes ; and Memmy and Bebby sang too, — and 
 did n't their singing attract more attention than all the rest ? 
 Bebby, one would think, had learned to sing in that other 
 state of existence in which metempsychosis places us all ; 
 and she was not yet familiar enough with our modes of ut- 
 terance to make herself intelligible ; but all agreed that it 
 was very wonderful. While the others were singing, 
 Memmy got up little concerts of her own, and introduced, 
 with an originality peculiar to herself, a medley of stanzas, 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. 
 
 143 
 
 beginning, " My Bible leads to Glory," " Get out of the 
 way. Old Dan Tucker," " Mary had a little Lamb," " Wild 
 roved the Indian Girl, bright Alfarata." 
 
 " I fear we are too happy," said Aunt Grint ; " oh, I do! " 
 
 " You don't ? " answered Mrs. Munk, startled. 
 
 " Jabson preaches at the school-house to-night, and we 
 are not prepared for it," continued the Aunt. 
 
 " I know I love the children too well," replied Mrs. Munk. 
 
 " There 's it," rejoined the other. " You make idols of 
 them, and something will happen to them. Jabson looked 
 very solemn when he went by our house to-day, and I know 
 it 's a death. It must be a death. He looked so the night 
 John Creely was taken." 
 
 " Come, Aunt," interposed Munk, " let Roxy alone this 
 time. She has not digested all you have told her before ; 
 and it is n't best to overload, body or mind." 
 
 " I only want you to attend to what I tell you, Asa," she 
 rejoined, "before it is too late, and not let the children draw 
 off your affections so." 
 
 "I see through you, Aunt," returned Munk; "I under- 
 stand it all, and you know how 't is, only you are modest, 
 and won't say so. The more my affections are drawn off, 
 the more they keep pouring in ; and I have such a pile of 
 them here, I don't know, Aunt, but I should go crazy, if I 
 had n't you to love. Bring in Jabson ; I would, love him 
 to-night. Roxy has been so bad here, this afternoon, get- 
 ting into my lap, and kissing me, and looking so smiling, 
 and being so happy," — he pinched his wife's ear, — "oh, if 
 she had n't any children, how good she would be ! " 
 
 " Bad maa ! " replied Aunt Grint ; " bad Asa, you won't 
 believe anything till you see it ; and when it comes, you say 
 it is n't there." 
 
 " I could sec better if it were not so dark, Roxy," he said j 
 
144 KICHARD EDNEY A:«D 
 
 "you must light the solar, — then it will be all as plain as a 
 pipe-stem." 
 
 No sooner did Memmy hear the clinking of the glass 
 shade than she said, " I can light the taper," and was per- 
 mitted to demonstrate her ability. She thrust the taper 
 through the register of the air-tight; but when she attempted 
 to draw it out, the flame was sucked in and extinguished. 
 She burned her face, and almost her hand, in the under- 
 taking, and had to give it up. Memmy-and-Bebby-dom was 
 over ! Their reign was ended. It is the misfortune of 
 greatness that, like the Legalist, if it fail in one point, it is 
 guilty of all, and can indemnify its blunders only by retire- 
 ment. The children must go to bed. Papa unhooked and 
 untied Memmy, and Mamma undid Bebby ; but even now, 
 in disgrace, as it were to show the true imperiality of their 
 natures, before they could be rearranged for the bed, they 
 slipped away, and recommenced their tantrums about the 
 room. But (hey were pursued, seized, endued with the cos- 
 tume of obscuritj'', and thrust into the truckle-bed. 
 
 Aunt Grint exhaled a long sigh, and breathed easier; and 
 expressed her sense of relief in these words, " I am glad it 
 is over ! " 
 
 " What is over ? " asked Munk. 
 
 " The children," she replied. 
 
 "That is not over," rejoined Munk; " it has only begun. 
 I go at it to-morrow, and keep it up all the week." 
 
 "If you would only go to the meetings," said his aunt; 
 " the Reformation is commenced, and they are to be held 
 every day, as long as the Lord will." 
 
 " I am going to the meetings," added he ; " Roxy is 
 going, Winkle is going, — we are all going." 
 
 " Not Tunny and I," exclaimed Mrs. Tunny. 
 
 "Yes; Tunny and you," replied Munk. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 145 
 
 "Not Tunny and I," retorted the lady; "they are noisj-, 
 riffrafTy, and smell of cowheel and codfisli, — uncomfortable 
 to polite minds, disrelishable to respectable society, and dan- 
 gerous to genteel young ladies. Faustina shall not go, nor 
 Theodoric. Dr. Broadwell does not approve of them, nor 
 Parson Smith, and they are men of taste." 
 
 " Yes, all," continued Munk ; " we have begun to-night, 
 and we will go on, press on, pray on, sing on. Come, Uncle 
 Richard, help us to some more music." 
 
 "I can't let the chance pass," said Aunt Grint, " without 
 saying to Mrs. Tunny that what the Lord approves is good 
 enough for her to approve, and that the souls of the right- 
 eous will shine at the last day, when some other souls will 
 not look quite so well." 
 
 Mrs. Tunny nodded to Aunt Grint, and smiled. 
 
 "All," pursued Munk, as he turned the leaves of the 
 Psalm-book, " all go to meeting, all sing, all good, all hap- 
 py. Bless the Lord for what we have, and are, and can be, 
 and is always a being, and a happening ; bless him for Dr. 
 Broadwell, Parson Smith, and Elder Jabson, and Meminy 
 and Bcbby I " 
 
 They sang, and softened down ; and becoming very mu- 
 sical, they sang more. Aunt Grint thought they might have 
 some praying; and if nobody else would pray, she would. 
 Richard prayed, and they parted. 
 13 
 
CHAPTEK X. 
 
 A CHAPTER RESPECTING WHICH THERE IS A DOTTBT WHETHER 
 
 IT OUGHT TO BE INTRODUCED. N. B. NONE BUT THE 
 
 PRINTER OBLIGED TO READ IT. 
 
 There is one point which, as faithful historian of Rich- 
 ard, and his times and place, we shall be obliged to men- 
 tion. Yet, since it connects us with a controversy of a 
 nature equally intricate, obscure, and exciting, involving 
 such numbers of people, and one many of the parties to 
 which still survive, we would gladly omit it. Still, as the 
 narrative cannot proceed without allusions thereto, we ad- 
 dress ourselves to the task before us. 
 
 It was a question, in a word, of Cats and Dogs ; yet, insig- 
 nificant as this may appear, there are few things in the 
 course of human affairs that have attained so much conse- 
 quence, or threatened so serious results. The origin of the 
 dispute it is not easy to trace, but its principal elements are 
 more readily deduced. Many years anterior to this tale, a 
 respectable individual of Woodylin had his cat worried by a 
 dog. A dispute arose with the owner of the dog. Fami- 
 lies were inflamed, neighborhoods took sides, and at last 
 the virhole city was drawn into the controversy. One party 
 would have all the cats killed ; the other denounced the dogs. 
 
 There was no harmony of purpose. Those who sought 
 to destroy the dogs wished to preserve the cats ; on the 
 other hand, whoever was friendly to a dog became the 
 determined enemy of a cat. Two parties were formed, and 
 officered, and drilled, and propagated. The newspapers 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 147 
 
 espoused, one doctrine or the other ; and when Richard came 
 to the place, there were two dailies, discriminated according 
 to the sentiment of the times. One of these was called 
 The Catapult, a name borrowed from an ancient piece of 
 ordnance which was understood to have been employed 
 against cats. The other bore the name of Dogbane ; the 
 sense of which is obvious. The people were sometimes 
 called Dogs, or Cats, according to theirrespective preferences. 
 The subject-matter was ordinarily denominated " Phuni- 
 bics." The origin of this term cannot be discovered. 
 
 Phumbics, if I may so say, formed much of the spirit and 
 temper of the city, — became part of the popular feeling, 
 and entered into many public acts. It opened various and 
 lucrative offices. It determined the election of Mayor and 
 Aldermen ; and sometimes, even, it was whispered that a 
 Clergyman owed his living to his peculiar phumbical senti- 
 ments. Phumbical meetings were held ; processions insti- 
 tuted, and flags hoisted ; there were phumbical Reading- 
 ing-rooms and Hotels. 
 
 Whenever the Dogbanians came into power, you would 
 perceive a violent tremor in all the streets and thorough- 
 fares of the city. Men, armed with stout clubs pursued the 
 objects of their fury ; the yelping of dogs tormented the ear; 
 their blood glaired the sidewalks, and their carcasses filled 
 the docks. 
 
 These measures were of course retaliated, in the event of 
 a change of administration; the Dog-haters were hurled 
 from place, and the Cat-killers assumed the reins of affairs. 
 The hour of their operations was partly in the night, and 
 the scenes of their attack were chiefly the neighborhood of 
 houses. They scoured wood-sheds and barns ; they chased 
 their victims through yards and gardens. Wherever a 
 
148 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 mewing was heard, to that point scores of men were seen 
 staving and hallooing. 
 
 Of the merits of this controversy we shall not speak. 
 The leading arguments were these. The Dogbanians 
 asserted that dogs were dangerous ; that they frequently 
 bit people, and dispensed that terrible malady, canine mad- 
 ness ; and were at all times the terror of the women and chil- 
 dren. The other party declaimed on the great annoyance 
 of cats ; their terrific screams in the night, so detrimental 
 to the sick, and so hostile to the repose of every one. In 
 addition, their pilfering habits were portraj'^ed, and elaborate 
 fables published showing the quantities of meat, poultry, 
 pies, etc., they annually wasted. The number of their 
 incursions into the larder and the cellar was reckoned up. 
 They allowed, indeed, the usefulness of the cat as rat-catcher 
 and hearth-rug companion ; but their aversion chiefly vented 
 itself against so many foreign cats, and the endless multi- 
 plication of cats. Foreign cats, they said, injured the util- 
 ity of- our own cats ; spoiled their habits, and prevented the 
 proper end for which the cat Avas designed. 
 
 The other party, again, commended dogs for their watch- 
 fulness and sociability, and were willing that the race 
 should be preserved ; and only sought to impose proper 
 restrictions upon it, and lessen its liability to evil. 
 
 They might have discriminated, and discrimination was 
 a word ever on their tongue. Yet, practically, were they 
 always in extremes ; excited feeling, in this, as in most 
 human afTairs, sweeping off the deliberateness of judgment. 
 
 AVere there not some who perceived whatever advantages 
 and disadvantages pertained to both races, and who would 
 apply protection wherever it Avas deserved, and practise ex- 
 termination to the extent it was needed ? There were ; and 
 these were called fence-men, and had no repute. They 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 149 
 
 Avere accounted persons without decision and without judg-- 
 ment. WhitBers, temporizers, trimmers, were the softest 
 epithets allowed them. 
 
 Let it not be implied that Phumbics was the sole-absorb- 
 ing topic of Woo;lyliu. It was not ; and only at critical 
 intervals — just before an election, or something of that 
 sort — did it rage. 
 
 It was, also, tacitly understood among the people, that 
 there were many subjects, occasions, and places, where it 
 was not admissible. For instance, it was a part of the con- 
 stitution of the Lyceum, that the question of Cats and Dogs 
 should be touched by no lecturer. The Sons of Temper- 
 ance, by solemn vote, decreed that it should not be named 
 in their halls. From the Pulpit it was supposed to be ex- 
 cluded, and one Clergyman gave great offence, and was 
 charged with violating the comity of the times, by reading 
 a portion of Scripture, in which the exhortatioir occurs, 
 Beware of dogs. It was said he emphasized the words, and 
 uttered them with a peculiar snarl of the voice, whereby the 
 friends of that race were aggrieved. It was an interdicted 
 topic in schools ; social parties were not expected to be dis- 
 turbed by.it, and it was considered no ground of divorce 
 between man and wife. 
 
 It did determine the course of trade somewhat. Cata- 
 pulters transacted business with Catapulters, and Dogbani- 
 ans were expected to patronize Dogbanians. Yet a merchant 
 did not ordinarily ask after the Phumbics of his customer, 
 when a good bargain was on the threshold. 
 
 The even tenor of things, whether it be that of aversion 
 or amity, however, was interrupted by the rise of another 
 party, who called themselves Hydriatics, or Water-men. 
 They said the questions that had so long agitated the pub- 
 lic mind were trifling and useless, — that weightier issues 
 13# 
 
150 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 should be considered. Their doctrine was, that more water 
 should be used ; that men ought to be washed, — the city- 
 cleansed and purified. On these principles, they gained 
 many adherents; held public meetings, diverted men from the 
 old parties, and appeared with considerable force at the polls. 
 Their numbers were composed of simple and well-meaning 
 people. They established a paper, called The Einser. 
 
 Now commenced what was called a triangular fight, each 
 party having to shoot two ways. But the old parties did not 
 unite and expel the new sect, — a thing which might easily 
 have been accomplished ; rather they became more and more 
 embittered against each other. Still the Hydriatics were 
 the subjects of not a little abuse from both quarters. It was 
 said that it was not their real object to benefit the city, but 
 to arrive at its emoluments. " They would clean it, indeed, 
 by rifling its offices ! Spunge the inhabitants ! Undoubt- 
 edly." If a member of the old parties joined the new, he 
 was said to be a disappointed man, and reviled as a traitor. 
 
 The anti-dogs were, at one period, greatly excited. It 
 was mid-summer, and the Hydriatics were very active. It 
 got bruited that it was the object of these interlopers to 
 introduce water into the city, and set the dogs mad, and 
 fill the place with confusion and death ; and out of the 
 general distress and alarm extract personal benefit, by plun- 
 der or usurpation. 
 
 Diabolical plots and mischievous artifices were continu- 
 ally discovered. 
 
 If we dwell at all on matters that are familiar to any of 
 our readers, it is that our distant friends, the Turks and 
 Tartars, may have a more complete insight into Life in the 
 New World. 
 
 The Editor of the Dogbane, a keen-eyed man, earnestly 
 devoted to the interests of the city, but quite sensitive to 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 151 
 
 innovation, writes, one morning, as follows : " A new ruse 
 of the Catapults ! — The leaders of that party, who scruple 
 at nothing where their own interests are concerned, have 
 been known to be busy, for a long time, about the Hatters' 
 and Furriers' shops; and it is understood those trades have 
 consented to vote the opposition ticket. The secret is out. 
 These unprincipled demagogues, in case they come into 
 power, have bargained to make a free-gift of the skins of all 
 the cats that are killed to those artificers, who work them 
 into muffs and tippets." 
 
 The Editor of the Catapult, likewise keen-eyed, very 
 Woodylian, but perhaps too much concerned for party, 
 replied, the next morning, in this wise : " Our neighbor, 
 across the River, need not attempt to pull wool or fur over our 
 eyes. He discloses his own baseness. The Apothecaries 
 have been bribed to desert the only principles on which the 
 good of the community depends, by a promise of a monopoly 
 in the sale of strichnine. The city, which is already largely 
 in debt for that article, is to pay w^hatever price infamy and 
 treachery shall demand." 
 
 We clip the following from the papers of the time. 
 
 " Coalition ! — Another Plate of Abominations ! 
 
 " The Butchers have joined the Hydriatics, under a bar- 
 gain that if they carry the election the ordinance for the 
 throwing of the carcasses of cats and dogs into the River 
 shall be revoked ! A more abominable device to ruin the 
 credit of Woodylin with the eating public could not have 
 been got up in the conclave below ! " 
 
 " , who vociferated in the Catapultian caucus last 
 
 night, true to his instincts, is offended by the loss of a 
 favorite dog, which had bitten a horse and tw-o children, 
 
152 RICHARD EDNEV AND 
 
 before it could be destroyed. Such selfishness is worthy of 
 the Catapults, and may they make the most of it ! " 
 
 " , whom the Dogbanians have taken into favor, 
 
 is seeking reparation for injury done to his garden, in the 
 attempt to break up a nest of cats, whose hideous cries, under 
 the window of a sick neighbor, caused the patient to re- 
 lapse into fits. Pay the wretch ! " 
 
 The Tanners, having got a charter for a Dog-hide Tan- 
 ning establishment, applied to Congress for an increase of 
 duty on that species of merchandise. This measure pro- 
 voked a singular hash in the public feeling. A violent 
 debate arose as to whether it would diminish the number 
 of dogs. Some said, of course it would, — it will kill them 
 off; others said, Nay, it will be a premium for their produc- 
 tion. Some, who hated high tariffs and dogs with equal 
 acerbity, went almost frantic with doubt and uncertainty. 
 Certain Catapulters, who were alike attached to high tariffs 
 and to dogs, were on the point of committing suicide. The 
 parties criminated and recriminated. Again, Catapult- 
 ers were seen electioneering for Dogbanians. Then they 
 charged all the evil on the Hydriatics, who had introduced 
 the project, they said, for the purpose of weakening both 
 the old parties, and aiding themselves. What gave color 
 to this suspicion, was the fact that the Tanners had negoti- 
 ated with the Hydriatics, in case they succeeded in their 
 plan of bringing an aqueduct into the city, for a supply of 
 water from that source for their establishment. The Butch- 
 ers, who had already gone over to the new party, it was 
 reported, were combining for the purchase of the carcasses. 
 The Tanners had, also, won over the Shoe-makers, and the 
 Leather-dealers. It was rumored that the Farmers in the 
 neighboring towns were making extensive preparations 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 153 
 
 for the raising of dogs; and such as had bark to sell, 
 were all agog iii anticipation of a lively market. Then 
 it was suggested that Cat-skin tanning would come into 
 vogue, and works for that purpose be built, and new duties 
 demanded ; and this created fresh consternation. 
 
 Where the matter might have ended, we cannot say, if 
 the dogs had not betimes taken the decision into their own 
 hands, and in mortal dread of the fate that awaited them, 
 wasted away, so that the Butchers would not have their 
 flesh, and their hides became too dry and crisp for the Tan- 
 ners. 
 
 We repeat that Phumbics, except at brief periods, was" 
 not an absorbing theme, save with those who made it a pro- 
 fession and trade ; and at the time Richard came to the 
 city, the excitement had materially exhausted itself. The 
 great interests of life, the diversified occupations of human 
 beings, the Family, the School, and the Church ; trade and 
 manufactures; the farm, the factory, and the ship-yard; 
 wooing and marrj'ing, preserved their balance, and exerted 
 their supremacy. 
 
CHAPTER XI, 
 
 A PARTY AT TUNNY S. 
 
 This was to be a grand affair. The note of preparation 
 sounded long and loud : it rattled at the door of many- 
 houses ; it purled in the ears of Judges and Clergymen ; it 
 whirred about the Confectioner's, and rebounded to the 
 Fruiterer's, and darted away to the Milliner's and Fancy 
 Goods Dealer's. Munk and his wife and Richard went. 
 Richard fairly struck his high colors to the persuasions of 
 his sister, and ran up instead a white collar and bosom- 
 piece. 
 
 The note of preparation, like the wind to which we 
 thoughtlessly likened it, passed by many persons unheeded. 
 But there were enough there. The two parlors, connected 
 by folding-doors, swam with guests. The Milliner's and 
 Fancy Goods Dealer's had evidently come. Clover was 
 there, and Plumy Alicia ; Mr. and Mrs. Xyphers, Captain 
 Creamer, and Judge Burp; and there were many other per- 
 sons from the Factories and the Mills, and all the region 
 about. And Mrs. Tunny was there, — indeed she was, and 
 it seemed as if half the Milliner's and Fancy Goods Dealer's 
 clustered in her single person ; and what she could spare 
 had gone to her daughter Faustina. Mrs. Tunny curtsied 
 to Richard so stiffly, so amazingly, it embarrassed the bow 
 he was executing, and converted it into a horrid bungle. 
 Richard himself blushed ; and his sister, who was truly 
 proud of him, — proud of his fine figure, and fine face, and 
 proud too, I must say, in justice to her, of his noble heart, - — 
 
KICHARD EDXEY, ETC. 155 
 
 blushed also. And by the time he had finished Tunny, 
 and got through with Faustina, he was in a truly shocking 
 state. He lost his rudder, his feet, foundered on his hands ; 
 and made for a blank place on the wall, as a haven, like a 
 vessel in distress. But here was Plumy Alicia, glittering 
 with jewelrj^ and beaming with sensibility. Ah, wicked, 
 wicked Plumy Alicia ! how could you exert your art 
 to re"»ssure Kichard so? How could you take advantage 
 of that moment to show him that you did not mind his 
 awkwardness, but only regarded himself, so? And when 
 you got him to face the room, right in the midst of the 
 lights, right in the midst of the Milliner's and Fancy Goods 
 Dealer's, there stood Clover, with the fingers of one hand 
 thrust in his vest, and dispensing perfume with a bouquet 
 of flowers in the other, — so cool, so steady, so strut, and 
 with a snake-like eye, looking down on Richard so triumph- 
 antly ; — and you knew it all, — how could you do so ? You 
 are a medley of elements. And so Richard thought; at 
 least, you laid the seeds of that thought in his memory, 
 which was to spring up by-and-by. There was also Captain 
 Creamer, who looked resentful and surly, even when he did 
 his best to salute you in a polite way. And there was 
 Mrs. Xyphers, with whom Clover was talking ; and when 
 Richard would have exchanged with her the compliments 
 of the evening, you even drew him back; you pouted, in a 
 quiet, but stealing, very stealing manner, your pretty lips, 
 and Richard only half did what he set out to do. Then 
 you had him all to yourself; and you were so amiable, 
 so round-cornered, so genteel, — what did you mean? 
 Would you make Richard love you ? Let me tell you, 
 Plumy Alicia, Richard could not love you; — I mean, the 
 depths, the teeming crN'pts, the abej^ant longings of his 
 nature, you could not thrill; — and I believe you knew it. 
 
156 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Yet, you could exert a magical power ; and that you did 
 know. 
 
 There sat on the sofa, quite unobtrusively and unseduc- 
 tively ensconced behind the jam of people, a woman plainly 
 dressed, with dark eyes, and bands of rich black hair. Her 
 face was comely, but not handsome ; her eye was small and 
 retreating, but expressive of great earnestness, thought and 
 animation ; so much so that Richard looked at her twice. 
 Miss Eyre, kindly attentive to the motions of our friend, said 
 it was Miss Freeling, a dressmaker. At Richard's request, 
 she presented him, and he took his seat by the stranger. 
 If Richard had been flurried by Miss Tunn}% and ravished 
 by Miss Eyre, he was quite restored by Miss Freeling. They 
 talked about the weather, as everybody else on first meeting 
 must do ; and spoke to the mooted question, whether after 
 so severe a winter we should have an early spring. The 
 thought of spring, when it did come, gave to Miss Freeling 
 the same sort of halcyon, saltatory, juvenescent feeling that 
 Richard had, and this made them seem like old friends. 
 Moreover, Miss Fneeling expressed the hope that she should 
 be attacked by no more snow-storms, since, she said, it pain- 
 fully suggested her inferiority to nature ; and she related 
 how, a little while before, she had been worsted in such en- 
 counter, and was rescued by some angel-man, she would be 
 glad to know who. Now, this angel-man was Richard, and 
 this, of course, transformed them into the very best of 
 friends. 
 
 Then Miss Freeling knew a great many people ; and she 
 knew Asa and Roxy, and Aunt Grint, and ]\Iemmy and 
 Bebby; that was enough. But if she had known a deal 
 more, — if she had known whether Pope was a poet, or 
 where Captain Kidd hid his money, or who the man in the 
 Iron Mask was, — she would have been obliged to stop ; for 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 157 
 
 every one in the room stopped, and Richard turned his 
 head, and she turned her head, to see Mrs. Tunny advance 
 to receive Dr. Broadwell. Yes, that lady advanced several 
 steps, when that venerable form was seen entering the door, 
 having- on his arm one of his daughters. 
 
 "Mrs. Tunny mistakes her part," observed Miss Freeling ; 
 " she should keep her standing, and wait for the guest to 
 approach," 
 
 " I am not expert in the rules of good societj^," replied 
 Eichard. 
 
 " Mrs. Tunny should be," said Miss Freeling ; " she tries 
 hard enough to be." 
 
 " The disdain of the woman is more reprehensible than 
 her want of manners," added Richard, 
 
 " She was a dressmaker, and I was apprenticed to her ; 
 and I know her sufficiently well." 
 
 " She must have some good feelings, as Pastor Harold 
 says." 
 
 " She has, but they are buried beneath a mountain of 
 worldliness and ribbons." 
 
 " Elder Jabson is no favorite of hers." 
 
 "He was once, until she discovered that Dr. Broadwell's 
 Church was richer and more fashionable." 
 
 " She visits at Mr. Munk's, and his family go to the 
 Elder's meeting." 
 
 " She would forget them speedily, but for her interest. 
 Munk and St. John are customers of her husband's, and 
 help to keep her plumes a nodding. For the same reason 
 her entertainment to-night comprises many from the Facto- 
 ries and the Mills, whom she draws not in the train of her 
 feelings, but her necessities. Her dress is not in taste, — 
 indeed, she never had any taste ; her cap is a mile too small, 
 14 
 
168 RICHAKD EDNEY AND 
 
 her tunic is unsuited to her figure, and her white skirt ter- 
 minates in yellow slippers." 
 
 " At home, we had but one Church, one people, one 
 rank, one intimacy." 
 
 " Here there are many ; and I know something of them 
 all. I have worked in every family, from the summit to the 
 base of the social frame. I have made brocade dresses for 
 Governor Bennington's daughters, and muslin ones for 
 Tunny's ; Dr. Broad well's daughter was under my fingers 
 before she came here, and so was j\Irs. Xj'^phers." 
 
 "What is the difference ?" 
 
 " All women look pretty much alike to a dressmaker. 
 There is but little odds in waists, upper ten or lower ten. 
 What we study is forms, and what we aim at is a fit." 
 
 " Are they alike ? " 
 
 " They are not; but the difference is not perhaps what 
 you would think. It is good se?ise, more than anything 
 else. Lacking this, some aspire to what they cannot reach, 
 — others tread on what they cannot depress. With it 
 Munk and the Mayor are equally princely. Differences ! 
 There are the Gum-chewers, — all backlotters, and vulgar. 
 But why, my good Sir, is gum more base in woman than 
 tobacco in a man ? There are the Rocker-footed and the 
 Square-footed; the vulgar, in stepping, go over from the 
 heel to the toe, like the rocker of a cradle ; the genteel tread 
 square. These are some of the wonderful differences ! " 
 
 "The other night, at our house, Mrs. Tunny berated 
 Elder Jabson's people and meetings ; lessening their char- 
 acters and deprecating their influence." 
 
 " They were vulgar, she said ; and added, I suppose, that 
 Dr. Broadwell did not approve of them. The Doctor is her 
 cue ; and she alights about him, and follows his track, as 
 birds do a ploughman, for the worms that are turned up in 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 159 
 
 the furrow. But the forms of religion, or the modes in 
 which it is applied, do work characteristic and deep- 
 seated changes. Into whatever family I go, I can very soon 
 perceive what Church they attend, and what is the turn of 
 their religious views. Elder Jabson seems to me like a silly 
 dressmaker, — and I am sometimes that one myself, — who 
 instead of studying becomingness, aims at effect ; he pro 
 duces nothing beautiful, — his labors result in jauntiness 
 incongruity and distortion. He does not clothe the soul 
 but finifies it. His flounces are enormous, and he com 
 presses the chest so that it is almost impossible to breathe 
 He does not enlighten the mind, or refine the feelings, or re 
 strain the prejudices, or enlarge the humanity, of his people 
 He addresses the darker passions, — not the tenderness, or the 
 love, or the aspirations, of our being." 
 
 " Yet," replied Richard, " I should prefer Aunt Grint to 
 Mrs. Tunny." 
 
 " Dr. Broadwell," continued Miss Freeling, " is a most 
 excellent man ; he has good sense, and, so to say, good 
 taste; he understands the soul, and how Christianity applies 
 to it, and endeavors that the robe of righteousness shall be 
 a seemly one. But he has one fault ; he makes his people 
 think too much of their dresses ; and he has a freak which 
 I cannot bear, — that there shall be just five rows of quilling 
 on the border. Parson Smith has the most perfect theory 
 of soul-costume, but he does not always succeed in working 
 it ; or, rather, some of his people are so wild that, like sav- 
 ages, they will not wear their clothes when he puts them on." 
 
 " Is there not good sense," asked Eichard, " among the 
 lower orders as in the higher ? " 
 
 " It is good sense," replied Miss Freeling, " that creates 
 the higher orders. Joined to this, — sometimes leading it, 
 sometimes enforcing it, — are education, opportunity, indus- 
 
160 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 try, self-denial. It is his good sense in law, politics, busi- 
 ness, life, that gives to Gov. Dennington his distinction. If 
 Mrs. Tunny had more of it, she would be a respectable 
 and worthy woman. She does not make her own daugh- 
 ter's dresses, as the busy-bodies report, lest the prick of the 
 needle should appear on her fingers. Faustina is a sensible 
 girl ; — she is pursued by a young man, a Sailmaker, whose 
 attentions she discards, as his friends say, because of her 
 aristocratic feelings ; as her mother unequivocally declares, 
 because he is a mechanic ; but as I certainly know, simply 
 and solely by reason of his habits." 
 
 Dr. Broadwell, who was exchanging a word wuth those 
 he knew, recognizing Richard, took hhn cordially by the 
 hand, presented his daughter, and inquired after the Or- 
 phans. Ada deeply commiserated those unfortunate ones, 
 and was pleased to know that Richard had so kindly 
 befriended them. These attentions of the Doctor were the 
 signal for attack from other quarters, and several persons 
 shot at Richard. Mrs. Tunny bestowed herself upon him, 
 and thrust Faustina into his face and eyes, adding Tunny 
 gratis. Captain Creamer, though having some scores 
 against Richard, was more complaisant than usual, and 
 rejoiced Richard could have a taste of good society. It was 
 a fine thing, he said, for our young men to imbibe a little pol- 
 ish as they were coming on to the public stage. Mrs. Tunny 
 attempted a blush, and with her feather-edged fan tapped the 
 Captain on the cheek, and called him roguish. A pair of 
 stern eyes, under a beetling brow, capped by a short tuft of 
 thick hair, were seen working their way up over the shoul- 
 ders of Captain Creamer, and scowling at Richard. These 
 belonged to Measle, the wood-surveyor. " I think," said he, 
 " that our young men, and all other young men, had better 
 attend to their own business." "An undoubted truth," 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 161 
 
 replied the Captain, " and I am glad you have mentioned 
 it ; but we must allow them moments of relaxation." " I 
 shall make no reply," rejoined the Surveyor ; " I have said 
 something, and let those take it to whom it belongs." 
 
 Now it happened that the Surveyor was joint-suitor of 
 Miss Faustina with the Sailmaker ; and of course disagree- 
 able to the latter, who conceived that this something aimed 
 at himself, since he was the younger of the two. He 
 instantly retorted, " I take it, and will hold on to it, and 
 remember it; and it may be you will see its picture again ! " 
 Richard, perceiving the misunderstanding, said, " The gen- 
 tleman does not refer to you. Sir. He recalls a little mat- 
 ter between himself and me. But I hope it will not prove 
 serious." "No," interjected Munk, who stood by, "not 
 serious, — jocose, livelj^ playful as a kitten." The Surveyor 
 was a Catapulter, and a violent partizan; Munk was a 
 Hydriatic. This feline allusion of the latter was more than 
 the other could bear. His back seemed instantly to crook, 
 and the hair on his head to rise ; and he glared on Munk, 
 and a faint hissing could be heard. The Sailmaker, a Dog- 
 bane, instantly contracted his neck, grated his teeth, and 
 emitted a distinct growl. In this way they stood gnashing 
 alternately at each other and at Munk, who laughed at them 
 both. " Now is your time. Tunny," said Mrs. Tunny to 
 her husband ; " show your patriotism ; snarl, bark, or I shall 
 do it for you ! " 
 
 Scenes of this description were of too common occurrence 
 either to engage curiosity or excite alarm, and Richard was 
 glad to make his escape. Threading his way through a 
 daedalian intricacy of cords and starch, where his breathing 
 was impeded by a dense vapor of cologne, he encountered 
 Miss Eyre. She put her arm into his, and drew him 
 towards the hall. " I should not have left you so long," she 
 14^ 
 
162 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 said, " but I knew you would relish your own reflections in 
 a place like this ; and I have had my reflections, — too 
 sedate, too grave, for such an hour. You have said you 
 were my friend. You will be glad of an occasion to prove 
 that you are my friend, though I am afliicted that it should 
 be such an occasion. It is but a trifle I ask of you, and 
 that I know you will do. Come with me up stairs." 
 
 He went with her to the upper entry, and she conducted, 
 him to a sort of recess that overhung the stairs leading to 
 the rear of the house, and motioned him to listen. Voices 
 were heard on these stairs, which were clearly distinguisha- 
 ble as Clover's and Mrs. Xyphers'. 
 
 " Edney is out of the way," so Clover was heard to say. 
 " I vanquished him to-night ; he knows he is a fool, and he 
 cannot recover." 
 
 "But Plumy Alicia — "Mrs. Xyphers replied. 
 
 " Is disposed of," answered Clover. Miss Eyre clasped 
 both hands on Richard's arm. 
 
 " Xyphers," rejoined Mrs. Xyphers, " I do not value, — I 
 cannot value. His name is his nature ; he is nought, and 
 the additional s only doubles his emptiness." 
 
 " Xyphers is something," replied Clover ; " his nothing- 
 ness is something, or he would not be game. Then he was 
 interested in you, and that shows that you are an interest- 
 ing woman, and that you deserve protection ; and I should 
 be false to my own honor, if I did not rescue you from such 
 imbecility. You can rely on my honor." 
 
 " I think I can," answered Mrs. Xyphers, with some hesi- 
 tation, as if a new thought had struck her ; " you said you 
 had money of Plumy Alicia ? " Clover, flustering, said, " I 
 wish not to talk of irrelevant matters." But Mrs. Xyphers 
 insisted, and said, "I must talk about it." Miss Eyre took 
 one of Richard's hands in both of hers. Clover replied, 
 
THE GOYEKNOR's FAMILY. 163 
 
 •' Plumy Alicia was lavish ; she would have conciliated me 
 any way. She knew the value of my friendship; she 
 deposited with me two hundred dollars ; — a mere tribute — 
 a sort of hostage." 
 
 " How can you repay it?" asked Mrs. Xyphers. 
 
 " Repay it ! " sneered Clover. " She feared my anger, she 
 appreciated my ability, she knew what my alliance was 
 worth; she feed my discretion." Miss Eyre throbbed on the 
 breast of Richard. 
 
 " Xyphers' money is his own," rejoined that lady, with 
 emotion ; " it is his own earnings ; he has worked for it ; he 
 never denied me that ; but he had not hearty and could not 
 give it. Nay, I will not touch his money." 
 
 Dancing being called for below. Dr. Broadwell and daugh- 
 ter would retire. Mrs. Tunny followed them to the dress- 
 ing-room up stairs, and servants were summoned to assist 
 them off. Clover and Mrs. Xyphers fled from their retreat. 
 Miss Eyre, releasing herself from Richard, said, " Do not 
 remain here ; go to the drawing-room. I will digest my 
 sorrow alone." Richard went down. 
 
 The dancing lasted till supper, the announcement of 
 which silenced music and dissolved partnerships. While 
 the mass crowded up stairs to the eating-room, some stayed 
 below, and felt of the muslin curtains, looked at the pictures 
 on the wall, and turned over the burnished books with 
 which Mrs. Tunny freely loaded her tables. Among the 
 loiterers were Richard and Miss Freeling. 
 
 Now Richard longed to ■ ask Miss Freeling, " Do you 
 know Miss Eyre? — what sort of a girl is she ?" — but he 
 knew more about her than Miss Freeling did, and he had 
 come by his knowledge in so confidential and secret a way, 
 and it was so sacred a matter withal, he did not dare to put 
 the question. 
 
164 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 But Miss Eyre herself appeared, roaming pensively 
 across the room, like a mourning shade ; traces of sorrow 
 descended down her face and dress ; a band of hair lay 
 pathetically loose on her forehead, and her look was tender 
 and irresistible, — full of that sort of beauty with which mis^- 
 fortune, when it has taken everything else away, seems 
 sometimes to renovate its victim. 
 
 Miss Freeling, taking up the subject very nearly where 
 it lay in Richard's mind, said, " Miss Eyre seems to have 
 been born out of her place. She has powers, but no sphere. 
 She is certainly unfortunate ; I should not dare to call her 
 wicked, until I knew more of the human heart than I do 
 now. She has some education, but no discipline ; she ob- 
 serves, but never reflects ; she hides defect of character 
 with a certain brilliancy of temper. She insinuates herself 
 by tact and talent, where most people would commend 
 themselves by prudence and discretion. The attentions of 
 the coarse and illiterate she cannot reciprocate. The flat- 
 tery of what I should call super-sensualism inflames her 
 vanity, while at the same time she can discern its mo- 
 tive. She creates a sensation wherever she goes, and 
 contrives to be essential to a good many persons. Yet 
 modesty condemns her, and rank will not tolerate her. 
 She might have drudged in Silver's kitchen; — her des- 
 tiny, I fear, will be to expatiate in larger and more ques- 
 tionable fields. She might have married Capt. Creamer ; 
 but he lacks sincerity, which, after all, she loves. Clover 
 has more art, more power, and more audacity, than she 
 has, and he may outdo her in her own line. She had a 
 portion of her bringing up in the Governor's family ; but she 
 imbibed not the principles, but only the consequence, of the 
 family. Mrs. Melbourne had her in charge ; and the notions 
 of that lady, to my thinking, are very — singular — bad. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 165 
 
 She has the gift of fascination, but cherishes no ideas of 
 usefulness ; nor is she fitted by culture for stations which 
 she might otherwise adorn. Where is the home that shall 
 offer her happiness, contentment, and repose? A man 
 under these circumstances, if he does not relapse into 
 drunkenness, will keep his virtue, vindicate his capacity, 
 and find his place. What shall a Factory-girl do ? " 
 
 Richard was oppressed ; he knew too much, and he knew 
 too little, to say anything, and he kept silence. Besides, 
 Plumy Alicia turned to him so smiling, sad indeed, but so 
 grateful and azure a face, that what he would like to have 
 said was snatched from his tongue's end. 
 
 Miss Freeling, without observing these pantomimic pas- 
 sages, continued. " Yonder," said she, pointing to a man 
 on the opposite side of the room, " is Mr. Cosgrove, a car- 
 penter, and a member of Parson Smith's Church, which 
 you have heard is aristocratic. He came to the city a poor 
 boy. He possessed intelligence, energy, and ambition. He 
 pursues a useful trade, and strives to perfect himself in it. 
 He has good sense, withal. The defects of his early educa- 
 tion he has repaired by later application. He is a large 
 contractor for houses, and advances to opulence. He visits 
 among our nobility, and is welcome in the most polished 
 circles. His powers have been not only developed, but 
 employed. Would you like to know him ? " 
 
 She introduced Richard to Mr. Cosgrove, and he liked 
 his new acquaintance very well. 
 
 Those who had gone first to the supper beginning to 
 withdraw, opening was made for the others. Mr. Cosgrove 
 squired Miss Freeling; Richard, seeing Miss Eyre standing 
 alone and aloof, offered his arm. But she declined, and 
 said she would not eat. So Richard proceeded alone to the 
 rendezvous of attraction. If the Confectioner and the 
 
166 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Fruiterer had been there, so had the Eater, and there only 
 remained the fragments of a sumptuous fare. 
 
 Mr. Cosgrove handed Richard a glass of water, which he 
 drank. The Surveyor and the Sailmaker, whose frenzy a 
 liberal drench of wine had not reduced, were at once 
 aroused. " Mr. Cosgrove dare not offer it ! " said the one. 
 " The young man dare not drink it ! " said the other. Hav- 
 ing uttered this, they both underwent the beastly metamor- 
 phosis, one growling and the other mewing. Clover, a 
 violent Phumbician, approached ; he had one arm devoted 
 to Mrs. Xyphers, the other he presented to the attention of 
 Eichard, giving it the fisticuff form and the snapping mo- 
 tion in which the expert delighted to display itself. He 
 said, " The barbarian will do it ; he is mean enough to chip 
 off an insult into the eyes of the City's honor ; but here is 
 the power that shall chastise his insolence ! " Richard laid 
 hold of the arm, and lowered it, and held it down ; and 
 Clover could not raise it. It was Clover's left arm, and 
 Richard used his right. It was a strong arm, indeed ; it 
 labored like the piston of a steam-engine, but it could not 
 be disengaged. " There is its place," said Richard ; "and 
 this is mine." 
 
 " Tunny ! " cried the female head of the house, " Tunny, 
 speak ! " " Water," said the little male, answering the call 
 of his spouse, in a thin, child-like voice, — "water is whole- 
 some, it is respectable; I am for water, myself, [a hiss,] 
 but I would not make it an absorbing topic ; we are in dan- 
 ger of getting one idea on the subject ; I should say half 
 an idea was better! Shall w^e break up the city with 
 water ? What danger of falling into the ditches, and losing 
 our lives ! I am for reasonable water, and will never counte- 
 nance these sanguinary measures ! But, gentlemen, allow 
 me to say, our troubles are not water ; but — shall I say 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 167 
 
 it? I must say it — Rats! I do not allude to Cats and 
 Dogs, [mewling and growling,] I do not, — I will not, — I 
 dare not ! But I must speak the truth. The tightness of 
 the times, — the numerous failures we mourn, — the unset- 
 tled state of the market; — I might name cabbages and 
 turnips ; — oh, fellow-citizens, it is owing to Rats ! " 
 
 " You know I had the honor to be appointed chairman of a 
 Committee to investigate. We are prepared to report. I 
 have the schedule in my pocket. There are three thousand 
 tenements, inclusive of stores, manufactories, barns, wharves, 
 vessels, &c. ; we estimate ten rats and mice to each tene- 
 ment, making the enormous aggregate of thirty thousand 
 of these mischievous non-producers ! [Hear, hear.] Can 
 the expense of supporting them be less than fifty cents per 
 head, annually ? Fifteen thousand dollars, then, is our 
 yearly rat-tax ! Consider some of the items : — 
 
 Perforations of meal-bags, doors, drawers, f 50.00 
 
 Attacks on cheeses, loaves of bread, joints of meat, .... 200.00 
 
 -Eggs sucked, 40.00 
 
 Corn and grain pillaged, 300.00 
 
 Fruit-trees annually girdled, 80.00 
 
 Turnips and apples munched, 35.00 
 
 Nuts carried off, 10.00 
 
 The cost of preventives : — 
 
 Rat-proof cases, tubs, jars, 250.00 
 
 Cementing cellars, and pointing walls, 400.00 
 
 Sinks in drains, 90.00 
 
 Damage to cellars by water coming in at the holes they make, 50.00 
 
 Ratsbane and potash, 5.25 
 
 Traps of all sorts, 18.00 
 
 Annual bill of joiners for repairs, 325.00 
 
 Board of 1000 Cats, 2000.00 
 
 At this point, there was an outcry, soon hushed, however, 
 
168 filCHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 by the overwhelming interest of the topic. The little man 
 continued, wiping his brow. " I need not go on. You see 
 the astounding disclosures, and I see your alarm. But we 
 approach the great question : Is there no remedy ? These 
 thirty thousand rats, it is estimated, would support sixty 
 missionaries to foreign lands." "Cats is the remedy! " cried 
 a Dog-hater. "A plot, a plot I " shouted an enemy of Cats. 
 There was a scuffle about the table. 
 
 " Gentlemen, fellow-citizens, brothers and sisters ! " Tunny 
 began, again. " Let me be heard ! bear with me one mo- 
 ment ! I am magnanimous, — I hate incendiarism, and will 
 spit on a traitor ! There is hope ! I have allowed myself 
 to receive a consignment of rat-traps; — a new article, 
 cheap and safe. They will hold every rat that gets into 
 them, and there is a large size, the A. A., that will hold 
 more. A child can manage them. Could not a Rat-trap 
 Stock Company be fornied ? Shall not the Common Council 
 be petitioned to purchase the patent ? I propose this as a 
 measure of conciliation." 
 
 " I did not agree to the report," rejoined DrafT, a rival 
 Grocer, " and I should oppose the plan of Tunny's. The 
 fact, which all overlook, is here, just here, and nowhere 
 else. The more there is eaten, the more there is sold ; 
 this is the law of trade — and it matters not who eats, the 
 merchant makes by it." 
 
 There was a storm of suppressed sputtering. But Munk 
 cried, " Yes, all eat, all sell; I buy a trap, you buy a trap; 
 catch them if you can. Domestic turkeys, foreign grapes, 
 some of Mrs. Tunny's nice custards ; nobody can beat Mrs. 
 Tunny in custards. Catapulter, Dogbane, all like good 
 things, — all love to be happy." At the same time, he dis- 
 tributed the viands, and coaxed the belligerents to a softer 
 mood. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 169 
 
 The party broke up. Miss Eyre contrived, as young 
 ladies always will contrive when they undertake it, that 
 Eichard should beau her home. But she was considerate ; 
 she did not distress him. She said, " You are my friend ; 
 I retain you by the strongest tie, — that of confidence ; I 
 have shown my estimate of your character, by imparting to 
 you the profoundest affairs of my existence. Good-night." 
 15 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RICHARD AND CLOVER VNITE. 
 
 An Anti-Slavery meeting was gathered at the City Hall. 
 It comprised men and women from Victoria Square and 
 Knuckle Lane ; from the Factories and Saw-mills ; from 
 Taverns and Alehouses. 
 
 The lecturer had perhaps more of truth than love in his 
 composition ; he was one who would not receive a cotton 
 shirt from a slaveholder, lest, like Edward the Confessor, 
 when a tax he had imposed was brought before him, he 
 should see a little devil jumping about it. He seemed to 
 feel, in regard to Slavery, as is related some of the Puri- 
 tans felt about Popery, that a thwack at it was the best cure 
 for the heart-burn. Possibly, acting on an old notion that 
 enchantment cannot subsist in running water, he thought 
 that the spell whereby that direful evil infatuates the pop- 
 ular mind might be broken by setting in motion the currents 
 of popular feeling. 
 
 He was earnest and vehement ; quite Pauline, quite 
 Savonarolian. His words did not exemplify so much the 
 rain on the new-mown grass, as the fire and the stubble. It 
 seemed as if he would burn the grass, rather than be at the 
 trouble of mowing it. 
 
 The audience listened patiently a while ; many with a 
 deep conviction of the justice of his cause, — others over- 
 powered by the terror of his language. But uneasiness 
 manifested itself, either from fright or from offence. The 
 speaker no whit faltered. He seemed like one who was 
 
BICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 171 
 
 used, as the Prophet says, to threshing the mountains, and 
 making them small as the dust. And though these moun- 
 tains were, like Olympus, covered with gods, it made no 
 difference; the gods must come down. Presently there 
 was hissing, and scraping, and groaning. Diana teas great, 
 but old, and gouty withal, and she could not be ousted 
 suddenly. 
 
 He spoke of the recent "War, and its connection with his 
 subject, and with national affairs generally. And now the 
 gods rallied, and particularly Clover, and his confreres, 
 young Chassford, Glendar, and others. 
 
 " That war," he said, " is the disgrace of the nation, and 
 the triumph of Slavery. Both are a curse, cleaving like 
 leprosy to the comeliness of the Republic ; both are a wicked- 
 ness of such magnitude that perdition is not deep enough 
 to hold them ! " 
 
 " Repeat those words !" cried Clover, springing from his 
 seat. The speaker repeated them in such a way there 
 could be no possibility of misapprehending them. 
 
 "Drag him from the desk!" "Pitch him from the 
 window I " rang from different parts. Timorousness took 
 the alarm, and some would have left the house. Dr. 
 Broadwell arose and said, " Be quiet, friends ; if the lectur- 
 er's truth does not hurt us, his rhetoric surely will not. 
 There is no danger." 
 
 Clover, with two or three others, leaped forward to the 
 platform on which the lecturer stood. "I wish to speak, " 
 he said. " Certainly," replied the other. " This fellow," 
 so Clover harangued, "assaults the nation — he assaults the 
 people ! He mocks at our institutions — he scofTs at our gov- 
 ernment ! He would wrench the flag from the mizzen-peak 
 of our glory ! he would break the band-chain of our destiny ! 
 Might is right; Might rules; Might gives law; Might 
 
J 7>i i;i>'U\U»' Kl>MV ANP 
 
 UKnv up \\\o Tovt of Moullm* ; M\}^\\{ thrn^lx'tl th^ Chinono; 
 ,Mi>jl\t bumovl l.it(li> IUmvIhv ; Mi><l»( n\|>(ur.nl (Wrolu; 
 Might puuisho^l Svillivan ! («i\>a( is MiKl>( ' Who will |oii\ 
 \i\ (hut .xhvmt f Who will ohoov Mij>ht ^ " 
 
 Tho iV!<po»»iO ^v^^^ vooil'oivuft, hut s|>iU'm\ Thriv oovtM 
 \»ot lu\\t> hoou ntoiv thun t\ doaou iudivulurtis, o\it of thivo 
 luuvvhvvl, ougixjjvil in it. Vot it so\unUnl hw^v, «n*l .MMMurd 
 (v> till tho houso; luwl hs with ^toutor hin^s tho NoutimtMit 
 \v!\N »v|Vi\(vHl. *'l}»v«t isMijiht!" (hoiv woiv thoKO who 
 thought it p»vv!\iU^l. Soiuo wotvU and norvovts onos yioKhvl 
 {o it, juul loll in with it ; vMMUo wh\> wvt^' op|H»soil t«» it, n»l- 
 jvulging it to Iv tho sovoivign voiv^o, woi\' dispvisod to t\c^\\\'\- 
 Ov«vH^ in it; t\nvl it' rt voto \uu\ Uvn taUon on tho instant, it 
 wouKl jm»lv\My hiwv oaniovl tho hi>uso. 
 
 "I question t)u» »vsiH>nso : I ivpiulu<(t> tho s(-ntin)ont I " 
 kViOil tlvo Uvtvuvv. 
 
 " \V\>o l>o unto you I " tvs\H>niloil Clovov. " Might risos ; 
 Might blots vmt its ouomios; Might cvushos you ! " Ho 
 laid his arm lunwily on tho shouUlor of tho spoaKor, as if 
 ho oxiHVtxnl to soo hin\ vanish thn»ugh tho \\oo\\ 
 
 Instantly thtnv wus a IvUowitig (ixmu all sidos, " Do l\in\, 
 I'lovor!" " IVvour hin\ ! " •> Tako hin\ up with a jvur of 
 (v>ugTS ! " 
 
 Mt\u\\vlulo. Ku'hai\l, Ivu'kod by son\o frionds, juovnitod 
 tho dais, attd wUilo CK>\vr W5\s adjusting hin\solf to tho 
 undortaViug of dt^jvttohing tho Kvtuivr at a single swixllow, 
 ho swung his cap, and shoutod, "Utxnit is Truth ! " and his 
 vxMumdv^s vibmtwl tho ory : and by doop, p\ihnonary thnn- 
 dors. it mlUnl thrvnigh tho Hall ; and tho Might-u>ioos, Ih>- 
 luannl by tho 'IVuth-vv^iot^, tU\l svMwohing away. 
 
 Uut CKwvr. not a littlo inoousvHl, darting his skinny oyo 
 .\t Kicharvl, said, " Who arv you, that dar\^s orwss tho jvitli 
 of Mig^\t ? Who art^ y\ni that prx^umos to lilt your pvun 
 
m 
 
 ^Hm 
 
 *T'W.aBe*i»a6«r'«-wi«3^!' proewfed CS»9«t; *y««»aK 
 
 ki/i'Tr ~-^.' -hiK M zimadr, yvi tost 
 
 
 sna. swiiena: -as 
 
174 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 liim from his feet, and swinging him lightly, very lightly, in 
 his arms, laid him backwards on the floor, and bade the 
 lecturer proceed. Clover did not wince nor stir. The 
 audience, who had risen in expectation and alarm, resumed 
 their seats. Without further disturbance, the lecture was 
 finished, and the people dismissed. 
 
 Richard and Clover left the Hall together. Eichard 
 drew Clover's arm into his, and they went towards their 
 homes, both of which lay in the Beauty of Woodylin. Few 
 words were interchanged. Only we can affirm that Clover 
 went to bed that night soberly, — quite soberly. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RICHARD EXHORTS AT A RELIGIOUS MEETING. 
 
 One Sunday evening, Richard went, with Aunt Grint 
 and his sister, to Elder Jabson's meeting, in a neighboring 
 School-house. 
 
 A hymn was given out, the first stanza of which is as 
 follows : 
 
 " Am I a soldier of the Cross, 
 A follower of the Lamb, 
 And shall I fear to own his cause, 
 Or blush to speak his name ? " 
 
 The chorister was gone, but Richard, knowing the tune, 
 and loving the words, led off; and he threw such life and 
 unction into the singing as never was seen before. It was as 
 if tutti had been written on his understanding and his spirit, 
 his lips and his eyes; and his throat was equal to any tuba 
 mirabilis that was ever invented. 
 
 A brother spoke in this wise : 
 
 " I feel to bless God that I am here. I think I have known 
 the Saviour; I was brought to see my wretched and lost 
 condition, it is now twelve years gone ; it was in just such a 
 meeting as this I closed with the offers of mercy, and light 
 fell on my mind. But I have backslidden since ; gay com- 
 panions and vain amusements drew off my attention ; I know 
 I have not borne the cross as I should do ; I ask your prayers. 
 At the last Reformation, I was enabled to come out froni 
 the world, and set my face toward Zion anew. You know, 
 brethren, how it has gone with me since ; the business of 
 this world got the upper hands, and speretual realities were 
 
176 ^ RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 shoved one side. I feel to be thankful that my life is spared ; 
 and I think I can say I rejoice in this evening." 
 
 Richard, thereupon, spoke, and said : — 
 
 " We will pray for our brother ; we will help him to a 
 confirmation of his wishes, and a renewal of his assurance. 
 But, my friends, is there not a radical defect here ? Are 
 we building on the Rock of Ages? Is it possible that the 
 ordinary winds and floods of life could so easily subvert our 
 foundations ? Our temptations and besetments, our hin- 
 drances and cares, are as nothing compared with those to 
 which the primitive disciples were subject; yet they endured 
 unto the end. If one has pure and deep love to God and 
 to man in his heart, I should urge that he cannot lose 
 it. What is the world but a grand theatre for Christian 
 usefulness; and how can contact with the world deteriorate 
 our virtue, or diminish our zeal ? If Christ be truly in us, 
 he is a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life ; a 
 source of spiritual vitality, that can neither intermit nor 
 be exhausted. Are we not depending too much on mere 
 impulse and gladness, without grappling with the cardinal 
 principles- of Christianity, and planting them low iri our 
 natures, and working them into the franie-work of our 
 characters ? Are the laws of the religious life more variable 
 than those which regulate every other human concern ? A 
 peace-man does not lose his interest in peace, nor does an 
 anti-slavery-man backslide from abolition ; a lawyer perse- 
 veres in attachment to his profession ; and what mother 
 present grows lukewarm towards her children ? 
 
 " Are we careful of our bodies, even ? Do we make them 
 fitting t&mples for so glorious a guest as the Holy Ghost ? 
 When we approach the throne, do we come not only with 
 hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, but also, as the 
 Apostle directs, ivith bodies icashed ivith pure ivater ? 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 177 
 
 " Our brother has spoken of amusements. Eecreation, in 
 the present state of being, is needful as food and clothing. 
 If we enter upon sportive scenes with right feelings, — if we 
 pursue what is innocent and joyous in the spirit of inno- 
 ccncy and joyousness, — if we derive what advantage is 
 afibrded by a free and unreserved intercourse with our fel- 
 lows, we shall be better prepared for the graver duties and 
 severer events of life." 
 
 The Elder here reminded Eichard that this was a relig- 
 ious meeting, and that he should not digress into other 
 topics. 
 
 Richard replied, that it was only of what had a supreme 
 religious bearing that he wished to speak, and continued : — 
 
 " The trouble seems to be that we get religious feeling 
 without acquiring evangelical principle. We amass the 
 hay, wood and stubble, of momentary enthusiasm, and have 
 not the true life of God in the soul. We look for sudden 
 changes, and have no maturity of growth. The dew of an 
 evening meeting is speedily exhaled, — the sun of gospel 
 love mounts to the perfection of the day. We cry, lo here ! 
 and lo there ! lo this meeting ! and lo that church ! while the 
 infinite gifts of Providence and of the ages, of nature and of 
 grace, are ever offered to our hands, ever pouring into our 
 hearts ! 
 
 " Our religion is like a saw I have seen, which was respect- 
 able on bass-wood, but birch or a knotty hemlock discovered 
 its weak points, and condemned its brittleness. It is a glow- 
 worm religion, that fails by day-light, and disappears in 
 the glare of occupation. It is a parlor religion, that shifts 
 its dress and loses its temper when it goes into the kitchen. 
 The pursuit of salvation in the midst of excitement is like 
 gunning in a strong wind ; you cannot distinguish your 
 game, nor steady your sight. Why hurry your converts 
 
178 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 into the water, plunging them through the ice in mid- 
 AA'inter ? — true spirituality, like the witch-hazel, having blos- 
 somed in the fall, will bear its fruit the next summer. We 
 need a piety like the plantain, which will flourish even 
 under the feet of mankind ; and like the sandal-wood, that 
 bestows its sweetness on those who bruise it most hardl)?-. 
 Trees flourish where corn dwindles ; — you ought not to ex- 
 pect the same description of holiness under all circumstances, 
 nor refuse a fruit of the spirit because it does not happen to 
 be your favorite crop. 
 
 " I am very frank with you, my brethren and sisters ; I 
 love you all, — I desire that we may each attain to the 
 stature of perfect ones in Jesus. You invited me to speak; 
 I thank you for the opportunity. May God bless us all ! " 
 
 After the meeting, several of the people spoke with Rich- 
 ard. One said he had hit the nail on the head; another, 
 that he had driven it home ; a third thought he had clenched 
 it ; a fourth hoped he would bring some more nails. 
 
 Returning, Aunt Grint said, " Well, I do believe some- 
 thing is going to happen." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Roxy. 
 
 "Our Richard," replied Aunt Grint, "has really got 
 waked up." 
 
 " I am usually awake at proper times," observed Richard ; 
 "and I sleep my eight hours every day. But my soul 
 never sleeps." 
 
 " You do not know, for all the world," rejoined the Aunt, 
 " what feeble and uncertain creeturs we are ; you have no 
 experience of the dreadful natur of man. I wish I could 
 feel as you do, but I can't. Nothing but sovreign grace 
 will ever save 7?2e. Why, a salt-cellar will upset me; and 
 there is spots on the finger-nails that make a body so dis- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY, 179 
 
 mal ; and when a dog howls in the night, I have n't the least 
 mite of faith that ever was." 
 
 " Your Bible," answered Richard, " would correct these 
 superstitious fears, and lead you to a constant, unfaltering, 
 filial faith in God." 
 
 "Ah's me! " added the Aunt; "I sometimes am afraid to 
 open my Bible, for who knows on what verse I may pitch ? " 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RICHARD CALLED TO NURSE A SICK JLAN. 
 
 This was Bill Stonners, a man belonging to one of the 
 other saws. He was a person of rude manners, intemper- 
 ate habits, and solitary life. He practised log-booming in 
 summer, and sawing in winter. Richard knew but little of 
 huTi. His disease was malignant erysipelas, a fearful form 
 of St. Anthony's fire. Sj-mptoms of this malady had ap- 
 peared in different parts of the cit)', and an impression pre- 
 vailed that it was infectious. Moreover, this case of Bill 
 Stonners' was represented as the most shocking imaginable ; 
 and many who would not hesitate at a common instance 
 were intimidated by this. Bill had no family, and what was 
 worse, he had no friends ; none were moved by affection or 
 love to look after him, and so deplorable was his condition, 
 that even the sense of duty in the strongest minds was 
 overborne. His home was a miserable hut on the bank of 
 the stream, within the woods, about half a mile above the 
 Dam. It had no comforts ; none for the sick man, nonefor 
 his attendants, none even which the most indulgent benev- 
 olence could find any satisfaction in applying in such an 
 emergenc}'-. 
 
 It maj' be that corporations have no souls ; but the city 
 tindertook what individual charity shrank from. It provided 
 a physician, medicine, emollients, and went in pursuit of 
 a nurse. The Overseer of the Poor came to the Mill on 
 this errand. He encountered great reluctance ; — some had 
 watched with Bill, and were rightly excused. He addressed 
 
KICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 181 
 
 Richard. But Captain Creamer interfered ; he thought it 
 was flinging away a valuable life on a worthless one. Mr. 
 Gouch opposed even his tears to the idea, and said, with 
 extreme emotion, that he should never see Richard again. 
 Silver, who had become strongly attached to Richard, 
 planted a picaroon in his collar, and declared he should 
 not go. 
 
 But somebody must go; and the city would remunerate 
 Captain Creamer for the loss of Richard's time, and also 
 give Richard such compensation as was just. 
 
 So Richard went. " O God," he said, " spare my life, 
 if it pleases thee; but if thou takest it, let it be in the 
 service of my fellow-men ! " 
 
 He reached what, under the circumstances, was a dreary 
 place, and one sufficiently revolting. The house, a rude 
 shantee, was perched on a rock, overlooking the frozen 
 stream below. It might have been deemed a picturesque 
 spot, but only so to life and health. It was dismal to soli- 
 tude, and sickness, and death. The roof covered two 
 apartments, in one of which lay the sick man ; the other 
 was the repository of his stuff and tools, comprising spike- 
 poles, raft-pins, raft-rigging, augers, a draw-shave, etc. But 
 the sick man, — we shall not describe him. He was past 
 consciousness when Richard arrived ; his head was swollen 
 to a preternatural size ; his features had all disappeared, and 
 were submerged in a chaos of whatever is most shocking in 
 the ravages or the deformities of disease. Bill was intem- 
 perate, — he had been irregular every way ; and his blood 
 was corrupt, and vicious humors in incredible quantity, and 
 with frightful swiftness, determined to his head. 
 
 Nor need we describe the room where such a man, with- 
 out culture, without piety, without a friend, had lived. We 
 have said he lived alone ; — this is not quite true. There 
 16 
 
182 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 was frequently with him one who was called Bill's Boy; 
 the soubriquet of this creature was Chuk. Eichard found 
 this fellow sitting on a block before the fire, nursing his ears 
 with his fists. He did not rise when Eichard entered, — he did 
 not speak ; he only gave a sort of hunch with his head. 
 His dark visage — dark with hair, and beard, and grime 
 — was freaked by that dull redness which intemperance and 
 exposure impart; and intermixed with this were traces of 
 a huffy despair, — a state to which we might suppose a hu- 
 man heart, uninfluenced by refined affection, unenlightened 
 by religious truth, would arrive. One might fancy that 
 Chuk had tended upon Bill, — that he had set up with 
 him all night, and had ministered to him there in the day ; 
 that he had done this all alone ; that he had continued to 
 do it till hope had fled, and his strength was gone, — and 
 out of sorts with himself and with all things, now surlily 
 grinning at and daring the issue, had gone to brooding over 
 the fire ; and such a fancy would not be far out of the way. 
 
 Did he not speak ? He did not employ much of what is 
 understood to be human speech ; — he swore. His every 
 word seemed to be an oath ; his sentences began and ended 
 and were sealed with oaths. He could only converse in 
 oaths. And he swore at Eichard in the first reply he made 
 to him, when he asked what he should do ; and he damned 
 Bill, soul and body, to hell ; yet, if we shall be permitted 
 to say so, he loved Bill. 
 
 What should Eichard do ? There was little else to be 
 done, except to foment the blasted, bloated face of the pa- 
 tient with alcohol. Eichard thought cold water would be a 
 better lotion, and said as much to Chuk ; who, having first 
 sent Eichard to eternal perdition for intimating anything of 
 the sort, took a pail, and descending to a hole in the ice, 
 filled it, and brought it to Eichard. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 1S3 
 
 The Physician, Dr. Chassford, called. He was a quiet 
 man, of few words, but gifted with pleasant manners, 
 great professional fidelitj', and much flavor of gentle feel- 
 ings. His replies extinguished expectation, and provided for 
 a speedy termination of the sickness ; Bill could not live 
 twenty-four hours longer. Chuk did not swear at the Doc- 
 tor ,' he bit at him, he touseled him, he burnt him alive with 
 oaths. 
 
 The Overseer brought candles, food, and such things as 
 the living might require, but which could have no pertinence 
 to the dying. 
 
 Chuk laid a large heap of drift-wood on the hearth, and 
 then bestowed his wonted blessing on what he had done. 
 Richard ventured to expostulate with him ; but it was like 
 spitting against the wind, — rather like raising sail in a 
 hurricane. 
 
 Having drained a flask of liquor, the Boy doubled himself 
 into a coarse blanket on the floor, and went to sleep. 
 
 Richard was left alone with that sick man, and that Boy, 
 in that room, for the night. He needed no candle, for the 
 resinous stuff that Chuk provided emitted an illumination 
 quite sufficient. The sick man breathed hard and hoarsely; 
 but he made no motion as if he were in pain. He could 
 not speak, nor hear, nor understand. Richard's employ- 
 ment was wringing out the rags afresh in the water, when- 
 ever they became hot ; and this was very often. He could 
 hardly pray for mercy on the soul before him, — he could 
 commend that soul to the Infinite Mercy. 
 
 If there was anything to qualify the gloom of the hours, 
 it was the roaring of the Dam. All the winds played on it, 
 and it took advantage of all the winds to exhibit its peculiar 
 powers. The sound rose and fell, — it was plaintive and it 
 was harsh ; it died away in the distance, and directly it 
 
184 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 reappeared under the windorvs of the house, and filled the 
 adjacent high-ernbanked stream with its tempestuous clamor. 
 Anon, as it were breaking away from its proper source, the 
 fall of the water, it leaped into the woods, — it fled through 
 the forest like a detached volume of smoke; it whispered; 
 miniardly to the hills, — it howled, goblin-like, in the gul- 
 lies ; it trapsed out of hearing, to strike up some new and 
 strange vagar}', in an unexpected quarter of the heavens. 
 
 It was now the beginning of spring, and the crows^ 
 attempted the poetic office of heralding the dawn ; and 
 from many a tall pine, and many a bleak rock — and occa- 
 sionally facilitating the matter by a short bout on the wingi 
 — they shrieked the pleasant news. 
 
 Their noise awakened Chuk, who, with such utensils and 
 in such way as he was accustomed to, went about getting 
 hreakfast. 
 
 The eastern sky was bland, prismatic, reviving; and the 
 sun came into the rooni with warmth and peace, if not 
 healing, in its beams, and Richard was tempted to the 
 window, 
 
 " Don't look out there ! " said Chuk ; " that is Bill's win- 
 dow; eat, if you want to, and go to the dogs, but don't sil 
 there! The city gives the vittles, — it didn't give that! 
 Don't you see Bill's boom, just Ixilow, norward of the Pint ! 
 No, — he can't see it, and you shan't! " 
 
 Richard drew up to the rude table, Chuk poured out 
 the coffee, and handed him the sugar and milk; and while 
 Richard was eating, the boy tended his master, and chow* 
 tcred about the room, 
 
 " There is not a boom on the river like that," he said 
 " and there '11 never be another ; for Bill will be dead, anc 
 in the lake, where no tirnlxir grows. In three weeks the ic< 
 will be out, and the logs will run ; and they will all curst 
 
THE GOVERNOU'S FAMILY. 185 
 
 Bill, as they go by, for not catching them. He knew the 
 marks as far as he could see them ; and he never beckoned 
 with his picaroon at a stick, though it was big as thunder, 
 that it did not mind him and come in. None could manage 
 a rip as he could ; and the logs were proud of him, — wan't 
 they, though? and they would n't quit him, though every 
 infernal rock in the River was tearing at their bellies ! He 
 ought not to die ; he is an old fool to die, after such a win- 
 ter as this, when there has been such a cramming of the 
 Lake, and such jobs are laid out for us ! " 
 
 All at once the Boy seemed to soften ; he changed his 
 tone, and leaning over the bed, he said, " Did you speak, 
 Bill? It'sChuk, — Chuk is here. For God's sake, don't 
 die, Bill ! Shan't I caulk the boat? Shan't 1 overhaul the 
 Tigging? Swear at me. Bill ! knock me down ! once, only 
 once, before you can't ! " 
 
 Richard had been to the Lakes; he had hauled limber to 
 the head-waters of the stream ; he had once, in a stress, 
 helped " drive the River," as the idioni is, atid knew about 
 the catching of logs in booms ; and he understood a little 
 of the Boy's feelings, and truly commiserated him, and tried 
 to cheer his heart. But Chuk would listen to nothing, — 
 he would be persuaded by nothing. 
 
 A low tapping was hoard at the door. " That 's Mysie," 
 said Chuk. " Plagues light on her old pate I why does 
 she come asking after Bill ? She knows he aa't any better ; 
 she knows he never will be ! " 
 
 Mysie entered the room ; and as Chuk did not tell Richard 
 about her, and as Richard, when he afterwards knew her, 
 was interested in her, we will venture a word or two for her. 
 
 She was called Mysie ; but Mysie what, or what Mysie, 
 nobody knew. She was quite old ; she might have been 
 near the allotted period of human life. She was wrinkled, 
 16* 
 
186 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 even beyond the extremest age ; yet her face had a fresh 
 and vigorous look, and her wrinkles did not seem to be so 
 much a symptom of natural waste as a part of her constitu- 
 tion. She was tall, straight, and bony, yet she had nothing 
 of the Meg Merrilies stamp, nor of any other but her own. 
 Her costume was shabby and neglected. She wore an old 
 and dirty straw bonnet, with an immense rim, and a green 
 plaid cloak, of a kind that was common twenty years before ; 
 and she towed herself through the mud and splosh in a huge 
 flaring pair of India-rubbers, like a small boat. She was 
 not stern, or sharp, or prying, or malevolent ; her reigning 
 expression was that of quiet good-nature, and innocent self- 
 complacency. 
 
 Mysie, too, like those upon whom she called, lived alone. 
 She occupied the spare end of a tumble-down house, not far 
 from the Point. Nor was she wholly alone ; she kept cows 
 and cats; having five or six of the former, and a dozen of 
 the latter. In the summer it was her vocation to wait on 
 the^e cows ; and having no regular pasture-ground, she 
 drove them into the woods, and led them by the road-side, 
 •wherever she could find grass. The cats constituted her 
 immediate domestic circle. 
 
 Mysie was never at church. She never entered a house, 
 she was never known to change her dress ; she claimed 
 no relatives. She sometimes went into the city to sell 
 butter. 
 
 She was never sick, and though always exposed, she was 
 never injured. She would be out all day in the rain, tend- 
 ing her cows, but she took no cold ; she frequented the 
 loneliest woods, and sauntered in the most out-of-the-way 
 fields and lanes ; — she was not afraid. 
 
 She had led such a life forty years, as she was wont to 
 say, and was never hurt yet. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 187 
 
 The children saw her as a grotesque, bug-bearish, sprawl- 
 ing-looking woman ; a kind of ogress, emerging from the 
 depths of the forest, or traversing, with an idle, vacant step, 
 the sludgy swales and courses of the brooks, and were 
 afraid of her; yet, when they came near enough for her to 
 speak to them, so pleasant was her smile, so soft her voice, 
 she easily composed them, and sometimes made them love 
 her. 
 
 She had a fondness for trees and wild-flowers, and some 
 taste for natural beauty ; and she did all her worship beneath 
 the sun and the open sky, which she used to say was as 
 good as a Meeting-house. 
 
 In a cold and dry winter, springs of water fail, and the 
 domestic supply of that essential aliment of life is cut ofF; 
 aqueducts freeze, and brooks and wells give out. This mis- 
 fortune befell Mysie, and she was obliged to take her cows 
 to the Eiver to drink. 
 
 For such a purpose had she come down this morning, and 
 for such a purpose had she come a good many mornings, by 
 Bill's. 
 
 We have said she had no relatives. Nobody knew that 
 she had any ; there were not five persons, out of eighteen 
 thousand in the city, to whom she appeared otherwise than 
 of Melchisidechian origin, without father or mother. She 
 seemed like a rural anchorite, a social fungus, a tame 
 female Orson. Yet it was sometimes said, — not that there 
 was any reason for saying it, or any malice in saying it, but 
 merely because something must be said — a sort of buzzing 
 conjecture, that a man must lift his hand and brush away, 
 — that Bill was her son, and that Chuk was Bill's son; but 
 of this nobody knew, and nobodywill know. 
 
 Chuk swore at JMysie when she entered, and branded 
 her with many abominable names ; but she did not mind it, 
 
188 RICHARD EDNEV AND 
 
 and it neither quickened nor slackened her wonted heavy, 
 slow-forward gait, nor did it disturb the placid folds of her 
 wrinkles. 
 
 She brought a mug of milk, which Chuk, of course, 
 damned when he took and emptied; and she poured from 
 her apron a quantity of poppy-seeds, which, she said, were 
 for poultices. She turned from the bedside, and, as if it 
 were a foregone conclusion, said, "He is past being better; 
 he is gone too far for that ! He would like to have seen the 
 red heifer when she changed her coat; but he '11 not care ; 
 and there are not many to care. Everything is best when 
 it is ended. This going on so without stopping is the only 
 thing to care about." 
 
 Mysie took her mug, and was going, when Chuk caught 
 at her cloak, as if he would rend it from her shoulders. 
 " Don't pull so," she said, very gently. " Mother ! " he 
 cried ; he did not cry it at once, or as if he was used to cry- 
 ing it. He strangled with it ; he wharled it out ; he yelped 
 it, as we might suppose a wolf to do in some attempt at 
 filial ogganition. "I wouldn't call for mothers," replied 
 Mysie ; " there an't any mothers now, and no children. 
 We are alone. There is Line-back, that had as pretty calf 
 as ever you see — " 
 
 " Give me something ! " replied the Boy. " He is gone, 
 and the business is gone, and all is gone. Who was a 
 child? Who got into somebody's lap ? Who kissed him ? 
 Did n't she die ? Did n't they put her in a grave ? Where 
 is that ? who is that ? Don't tell me nobody cares ! don't 
 call me Chuk! Hadn't he another name? Did she 
 swear ? " 
 
 " I would n't speak so, if I was you," replied Mysie. " It 
 is a big world we live in, and God Almighty hasn't made 
 us for nothing, I guess." 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 189 
 
 Hadn't the creature any emotion ? She didn't express 
 any. She was inflexibly bland. Had she no hopes, no 
 regrets, no memories, no sympathies? She called after 
 her cows, - — each of whom had a name, and knew her 
 name, — who, having come up from the w'ater, were nuz- 
 zling amid the seared herbage that appeared about the door- 
 way. 
 
 Three ladies approached the house, who addressed Mysie 
 with a friendly freedom., as if she were an old acquaintance. 
 These ladies were Ada Broadwell, Barbara Dennington, 
 and Mrs. Judge Burp. When the Boy saw them, he 
 retreated from the door, blaspheming like the screech of a 
 steam -whistle. "More to kill Bill," he said ; " more to tell 
 me he can't live ; more stufT to help him die ! " 
 
 Richard went to the door to answer the inquiries of the 
 ladies. He thought Barbara was Melicent, and spoke to 
 her as a friend, and extended his hand to her ; but she did 
 not know him, and her manner showed that she did not. 
 But Ada knew them both, and set them to rights with each 
 other. Barbara said she had heard of Mr. Edney, and was 
 glad to see him ; and Mrs. Judge Burp, or the Lady 
 Caroline, as she was generally called, said the same. The 
 Lady Caroline was very glad he had come to Bill Stonners'. 
 " Poor wretch ! " she said ; " he is rejected by all ; and, what 
 is W'Orse, he rejected himself. He has no friends abroad, 
 and none in his own soul. But it is a Christian duty to 
 minister to him, and make his situation as comfortable as 
 may be." 
 
 They had brought cordials, and fruit, and rolls of linen ; 
 but, except as to the last, they were too late, Richard re- 
 plied. 
 
 They would go in. The Boy had flung himself into the 
 chunney-corner. The Lady Caroline did not hesitate to 
 
190 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 apply the fomentation to the sick man's face with her own 
 hands. Richard feared she was exposing herself; but she 
 would do it. Richard beheld her, shall we say, with aston- 
 ishment. She had thrown off her bonnet, and seemed to 
 act as if she were the chosen nurse of the hour. 
 
 And there were other reasons why Richard should regard 
 her with interest : the Lady Caroline was a noble woman 
 to look to; she completed the idea of what is called an ele- 
 gant woman ; and she exceeded it, in that she added thereto 
 great beauty of spirit, and the charms of religious self-denial. 
 She was tall and proportionate, with hazel eyes and hair, 
 arched brows, and a very perfect mouth ; and in the excite- 
 ment of action, her face kindled with the hues of spiritual 
 and deep sensibility. 
 
 Barbara turned to the Boy, whose distress startled her 
 tenderness. She spoke kindly to him, — he did not look up ; 
 she laid her hand on his head, — he hunched it off; she 
 offered him an orange, — he hunched at that. 
 
 Ada talked with Richard ; she ventured to say the room 
 seemed lacking in comforts and care. Chuk let fly at her 
 a salvo of oaths. " Bill could n't live anywhere else," he 
 said; "and you want to bring in your handyjingledoms 
 here, and kill him before his time ! If you touch a thing, 
 ^ he '11 die ! That block is where he used to set ; that coat is 
 just where he threw it off, when he took to his bed ; there is 
 where he spit his tobacco, — he could spit against any man 
 living; them shavings he whittled from a new paddle: but 
 he '11 never want it, — he '11 never ask where it is ; and its 
 there, — there, in the corner, right before his eyes, and, 
 curse him, he can't see it I " He swore himself into a sort of 
 blubbering yex, and brayed his eyes with his fingers, as if 
 he was angry with them for their ability to see, and would 
 grind them to powder. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 191 
 
 It was easier to minister to the dying than the living. 
 The ladies did all they could do, and left. Richard was 
 not detained in that place a great while. The disease ran 
 its course that night ; and Bill Stonners died, and was 
 buried. 
 
 The Boy clung with fang-like tenacity to the old spot. 
 Bill had no other heirs, and Chuk became sole proprietor 
 of the estate and the business. Every day, Mysie carried 
 him a mug of milk. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 RICHARD VISITS QUIET ARBOR. 
 
 Clover had been fairly beaten at the Anti-Slavery Meet- 
 ing, but he knew his antagonist was an honorable one ; nay, 
 he thought that Richard, like one having got a large advan- 
 tage, might be disposed to make some deduction ; and he 
 was sure he was rich enough in spoils to offer a handsome 
 present. " You can't refuse the favor of going with me to 
 Quiet Arbor." Of course, Richard could not ; it would give 
 him compunction to refuse Clover even a larger favor. 
 
 Quiet Arbor was in the basement of an extensive block 
 of buildings, lying on the margin of a small stream, called 
 the Pebbles, a tributary of the River. Red curtains shaded 
 the windows and the glass door, just to show to the world 
 how quiet it was ; nothing glary, nothing dazzling, nothing 
 that should disturb the serenity of the passer-by, or seem 
 ostentatious to anybody. 
 
 And Clover and Richard entered it ver}^ quietly; and the 
 Friend of the People — the man of the timid eye and a 
 small hacking cough — was very quiet behind the bar; 
 very quiet in pouring out liquors, very quiet in stirring the 
 glasses. Only when a new customer called, or v;hen Hels- 
 kill dropped the silver in his till, he vented this small, hack- 
 ing cough. There were men in the room who had drank, 
 and men who were going to drink ; men in different stages 
 of drink, and men in all stages of drink ; but they were 
 quiet ; — perhaps because it was early in the evening, and 
 like other gatherings of the human species, they were 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 193 
 
 not yet waked up, — the fervor of the occasion was slow in 
 mounting. There were young men, and some gray-headed 
 men, and, as well as the dim light and clouds of tobacco- 
 smoke would allow him to ascertain, there were some whom 
 Richard knew. But Richard, participating in the spirit of 
 the place, was quiet also, and said nothing. 
 
 Helskill's whole soul seemed to start out from under his 
 heavy eyebrows, and to shrink into a most fearful glance at 
 Richard, and finally to be cracked off in a quick short cough, 
 as he saw him advance. But this was soon over, and the 
 people in the room, who had been aroused by that sudden 
 cough, relapsed into repose. 
 
 Clover led Richard through this room, towards another, 
 which he gave him to understand was the Grotto. When 
 Helskill saw Richard approaching that door, he hacked three 
 or four times in rapid succession, but Clover winked him 
 into silence. The apartment into which they now entered 
 was quite subterranean, and hence the pertinence of the 
 name. Ventilation must have been supported by mysteri- 
 ously arranged conduits, the course and outlets of which 
 were invisible. It was well lighted by a brace of solar 
 lamps suspended over two tables. At these tables sat men 
 playing cards. There were stakes of money, watches, and 
 jewelrJ^ Decanters of high-colored beverage adorned the 
 retreat. 
 
 Capt. Creamer was there ; he did not hack when he saw 
 Richard, — he put his hand to his eye, as if he would cor- 
 rect his vision, — as if he was not right at first. But he was 
 right; it was Richard, his slip-tender. And how it pleased 
 the Captain to know who it was I Dropping his finger to 
 his lips, he kissed it to Richard ; and jumping up, he seized 
 him both by the hand and the shoulder, and leading him 
 forward with a double gripe of honor, introduced him to 
 17 
 
194 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 young Chassford, son of Dr. Chassford, and Glendar, nephew 
 of Mrs. Melbourne. 
 
 " Play ? " said the Captain, snapping a card in a very con- 
 fidential sort of way. " I do not play," replied Eichard, 
 affecting a pun ; " I take it more seriously." The Captain, 
 pretending to understand him, laughed very hard, while 
 Kichard quietly ensconced himself in a seat by the wall. 
 
 Tunny was there, and so was the Sailmaker ; and these 
 were playing against each other, and so thoughtful of their 
 sport, they did not notice Richard. 
 
 Yes, Tunny was there, and he knew he was there ; even 
 if Mrs. Tunny did n't know it, and Dr. Broadwell did n't 
 know it, he knew it, and felt it. He felt it in his forelock, 
 and was trying to hetchel it out with his fingers ; he felt it 
 in his chair, that seemed to burn under him ; and he felt it 
 in his conscience, where the facts in the case were at work 
 like a miserere met with an hundred hands, wringing, grind- 
 ing, taughtening, till he seemed paler, and thinner, and 
 smaller than ever. 
 
 And the Sailmaker knew Tunny was there, and meant 
 he should be there, and would not have him elsewhere for 
 the world. 
 
 Richard saw another man there, whom he had also seen 
 about the Saw-mill, and who he knew had a young wife and 
 small children to support, and who, he was well assured, 
 had better be anywhere else. It was Cornelius Wheelan, 
 a River-man, who owned a flat-boat, and conveyed lumber 
 from the Mills to the ships that anchor in the Harbor. 
 
 " You were at Tunny's the other night," said the Captain 
 to Richard. " A pleasant party ; it takes some of our young 
 men from the country a good while to get the hay-seed out 
 of their hair ; but no one would imagine, Edney, you had 
 ever seen a barn. Why did you not dance ? Ah, you are 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 195 
 
 afraid of Dr. Broadwell, I see. I cannot blame you for 
 that. Yet, between you and me, I think the Doctor carries 
 matters a little too far. Our young men need recreation ; 
 perhaps we are too fond of it. Chassford drags me into it. 
 But one has now and then a spare evening on hand, which 
 he must, so to say, bolt down, and get rid of. I never will 
 back out when a noble-hearted fellow wants company. 
 Cards are perhaps too fascinating for you. We 've a new 
 kind, — the Merry Andrews, — most comical objects." 
 
 Richard replied that they were all alike to him. 
 
 " I presume so," rejoined the Captain, affectedly laughing; 
 " I presume so." 
 
 In fact, Richard was not only ignorant of cards, but so 
 unconscious of the pleasure of gaming, that he quite abruptly 
 rose to leave the room. On his way out, he looked at 
 ■^ Tunny, and tapped him on the shoulder. O that he had 
 Klumpp's eye ! — but he had n't. Yet he had an eye, that 
 operated on Tunny worse than his internal gripes ; and as if 
 he'was as thin as some of our newspapers, that look seemed 
 to annihilate what there was left of him. The Sailmaker 
 resented this interference, but Richard had no controversy 
 with the Sailmaker. Tunny revived sufficiently to whisper 
 in Richard's ear, " Don't tell Mrs. Tunny." Richard passed 
 on to Cornelius Wheelan, and did not tap him, for he was a 
 stronger man, but thumped him on the back. Now, Corne- 
 lius was partly in liquor, and did not take the sense of the 
 blow. He drew upon Richard ; but Richard whispered 
 something in his ear, — something of his wife and children, 
 we guess, — and he was still. Interlocking with him, Richard 
 led him from the room. When he reached the other apart- 
 xnent, he found the calmness somewhat broken ; and the 
 Friend of the People, when he saw Richard, and knowing 
 how he loved quietness, and fearing that the pleasure of his 
 
196 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 visit might be marred, said, " Let us be quiet, friends." 
 These were the very words he said. 
 
 But Richard manifested no uneasiness; only, clinging to 
 Cornelius, and followed by Clover, he left the Arbor. 
 
 Clover followed him, we say, and asked him to go back. 
 He said there was a private entrance to the Grotto, and they 
 could reach it unobserved. But Richard went on, arm in 
 arm with Cornelius ; and Clover himself returned. 
 
 Was Clover disappointed in Richard ? Did he not under- 
 stand him ? Did he suppose he would game, or that he was 
 game ? If he did, he was very stupid. 
 
 Richard went with Cornelius to his own home. It was 
 now near midnight ; but there sat his wife waiting for him — 
 there were his children in bed sleeping for him. Cornelius 
 fell at the feet of his wife ; he rolled on the bed where the 
 children lay, stinging with remorse and shame, and over- 
 whelmed by a tumult of recollections. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT. 
 
 That which Chuk looked forward to with so sad a 
 heart ; which thousands of people up and down the valley- 
 anticipated as the opening in the midst of their towns and 
 villages of a new, radiant, beautiful realm of existence ; 
 what the travelling public were on tip-toe for, and mer- 
 chants and customers, and mill-owners and log-drivers, 
 were so interested in ; what many a coaster from sunnier 
 climes was spreading all sail for, and hundreds of fond 
 souls, awaiting union with other fond souls, in distant 
 places, had almost despaired of, was at hand, — the ice be- 
 gan to start. The warm weather, the dissolving snows, the 
 powerful rains, generously combined for this end. 
 
 All who had occasion to use the " Free Bridge," as the 
 ice was called, hastened to do so. The wood-mongers got 
 their loads over; those who had bulky articles of any sort 
 to transport fidgeted lest they should be too late. One of 
 the last incidents was what befell a gentleman in his ardor 
 to avoid the odious wooden structure to which we have re- 
 ferred, — he drove a valuable horse through the ice, and 
 drowned him. Of course, everybody said the ice must be 
 very rotten. 
 
 Large rocks, that had been hauled on the ice for the con- 
 struction or repairing of booms, were seen to sink. Mer- 
 chandise that had been deposited in store-houses on the 
 wharves was removed, against the possibility of an inun- 
 dation. 
 
198 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 The Bridge too, the reviled Bridge, with its great wood- 
 en eyes, reposing on its immense stone piers, looked on 
 very quietly, — it was quiet as Helskill himself; it did not 
 resent the "Free Bridge," — it did not laugh when the 
 horse went down, — it did not shake its head when sleighs 
 galloped by on the ice, and frumped at its slow walk ; it 
 seemed to fold its arms and say, "I can bide my time. 
 You will perhaps sing another tune, by and by." 
 
 These things were done, and with unacknowledged im- 
 patience all waited for the issue. 
 
 First is the cracking of the ice. This is generally instan- 
 taneous and universal. The rise of the water, the conflu- 
 ence of the stream above with a high tide from below, pro- 
 duce the effect. The entire field is on the instant traversed 
 with innumerable irregular lines, and divided by a rude 
 polyhedral fracture, and the whole mass is gently agitated. 
 
 There were many who heard the cracking, and some 
 who saw it, and would asseverate stoutly what time it was, 
 and where they stood ; and knots of men and boys who 
 hang about the docks would get into a vociferous scuffle 
 because they had seen so much. 
 
 But the ice is not discharged in a minute. That lying 
 between the Bridge and the Dam, where the water runs 
 very swiftly, is first set adrift. This sails with moderation 
 and dignity, and stops on the piers of the Bridge, awaiting 
 events. It sometimes lies there three or four days. Below 
 the Bridge the stream expands in a broad basin, interspersed 
 with islands, and constitutes the Harbor. Beyond this, and 
 about a mile from the city, are what are called the Narrows. 
 These are not yet free, and the loosened ice of the Harbor, 
 like a fleet of boats ready to put to sea, rocks leisurely on 
 the current ; the abraded fragments are thrown into heaps, 
 — the cakes careen and expose their bright edges, — the 
 
THE GOVEENOr's FAMILY. 199 
 
 water bubbles up in many dark fissures ; boys go out and 
 stand on the large cakes, with their hands in their breeches 
 pockets, — a cool way they have of taunting the ice ; some 
 creep to the edge of the cakes and look into the water, so 
 rejoiced are they to see it ; some find the smallest possible 
 lump that will bear them, as much as to say to the ice its 
 reign is over ; one or two get dumped into the stream, but 
 this only shows how near at hand is the long wished-for 
 crisis ; some set off with billets of wood and thump on it, to 
 wake it up, and set it stirring. 
 
 Presently the Narrows were pronounced clear ; and there, 
 between the dark, pine-clad hills, on a shining mirror, the 
 light of the sun was reflected, silvery and exultant ; and an 
 opening of light and joy glistened in the heart of Woodylin. 
 Then the loosened pieces next above drifted ofT; they went 
 in shoals, platoon-like. In the afternoon another division 
 followed. The next morning beheld the Harbor without a 
 vestige of its winter bands. 
 
 At the Saw-mills these things created their wonted inter- 
 est. The water lay in a broad, level plain behind the Mills, 
 now turbid indeed, and beginning to seethe and surge, by 
 reason of the increased volume pouring over the Dam. The 
 hollows in the bed of the stream were filled, and the " rips" 
 concealed from sight. The icicles that form on the fall of 
 the Dam, — glacial stalactites, a columnar A^eil extending 
 nearly the whole length of the structure, — these Richard 
 saw give way and tumble into the stream. 
 
 But the end was not yet, — hardly the beginning. The 
 ice above the Dam, where the waters form a vast pond, had 
 not started. At the head of the pond was probably also a 
 jam of ice. And likewise up the River, like the locks of a 
 canal, rising one above another, and each having its own 
 level, were other dams, and ponds, and jams. On num- 
 
200 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 berless tributaries, the ice, swathed by narrow, winding 
 shores, stagnated in marshes and on flats, arrested also by- 
 frequent petty dams, had made little progress. Then, quite 
 likely, as you approached the sources of the stream, in a 
 higher latitude, the waters still slumbered in their wintry 
 solitudes, and gave no vernal intimations whatever. So 
 that there were hundreds of miles of substance, solid as the 
 earth itself, and seeming to be a part of its rocky crust, yet 
 to slide off, yet to mount the crest of the Dam, to be com- 
 pressed within the piers of the Bridge, and pass through 
 the city. 
 
 But such a finale would require another rain, or more 
 heat. 
 
 Then what might happen ? This : that the ice would be 
 choked in the Narrows, a dam extemporized, and a jam 
 created, having at its back these hundred miles of fluent 
 blocks ; and that the water, indignant at this detention, 
 recoiling, striking on the right and left at the shores, w^hich 
 it supposes to be accomplices in this attempt at subjugation, 
 shall engulf the lower parts of the city, deluging stores, 
 and barricading streets; overflow the Pebbles, and dis- 
 turb the repose of Quiet Arbor; and lifting the ponderous 
 Bridge from its abutments, and the strong mills from their 
 beds, toss them both into the torrent. Such things were 
 dreamed of. 
 
 But the rain, impatient at the dilatoriness of the heat, — 
 black in the face, swollen in its veins, — just tightened its 
 girdle, and began its task. For two days and two nights it 
 labored like a steam-pump, without once losing its wind. 
 It created a flood on its ov\ti behalf, independently of the 
 River, in barn-yards and wood-yards, in cellars and drains ; 
 the streets were a freshet of mud. 
 
 But the eviction of the ice and freedom of the River 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 201 
 
 was its great object ; and this the rain did by a gradual pro- 
 cess of undermining, beginning at the Bridge, and carried 
 on to the tips of the fingers of the tributaries, and to the 
 hairs of the head of the stream ; insinuating itself beneath 
 the superincumbent mass by millions of sluices dispersed 
 over millions of acres of soil. 
 
 The Mills, to be technically precise, hung up ; the gates 
 were shut ; the hands scattered, — some busy on repairs, 
 others idly observing the course of the flood. 
 
 Richard saw the first ice flake over the Dam ; then an 
 immense sheet, many rods square, parting in regular sec- 
 tions, like snow sliding from the roof of a house, came on. 
 Then acres of the crystal, so long in suspense, plunged for- 
 ward, and the broad expanse of water was full of ice, — 
 like all the blocks of granite Quincy ever produced or ever 
 will produce, set suddenly afloat. Intermingled with the 
 seething shoal were peeled logs ; trees that had been ravished 
 by their roots from the banks ; small buildings, which the 
 flood picked off* in passing, and the wash of all the woods 
 and fields. It would take twenty-four hours for the whole 
 to run by. 
 
 Night came on apace, and the people of Woodylin went to 
 bed with some degree of uncertainty as to what the morning 
 triight disclose, inasmuch as so sudden a rise was not often 
 chronicled. In the middle of the night the Church-bells 
 rang, and the people hurried to the River. Some said it 
 was flowing back, and, of course, a jam was formed at the 
 Narrows. Lanterns gleamed ; anxious voices and hurried 
 steps could be distinguished. The riparians must strip 
 their houses ; destructibles must be hoisted from the base- 
 ment of the stores ; the Timid Man fled to the rescue of his 
 bottles. The Bridge was thronged : beneath it crunched 
 and rumbled the burdened current ; upright beams, which 
 
202 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 the flood bore on its surface, were hurled against it, making 
 its own beams creak and tremble. 
 
 Where vvas Richard ? Where he ought to be, — helping 
 Mr, Gouch, who lived on the shore, save his furniture. 
 Where was Tunny ? Sweating over the hatchway of his 
 cellar, hoisting up potatoes and a rat-trap. Where were 
 Memmy and Bebby? Fast asleep in their trundle-bed. 
 Where was Chuk ? He and Mysie were out together and 
 alone, in that horrible time, trying to secure his boom. 
 Where vvas the Governor's Family ? Down on the Bridge. 
 Let us not particularize. 
 
 Up the waters came, — up with a rush, — up like a race 
 horse, up the landing-places, and the passages between the 
 stores and the end of the streets leading to the River, and 
 the Pebbles. There was a frightful hiss in the stream, as it 
 swept under the Bridge, and a melancholy roar in its fast 
 accumulating waters above, and the dark-ness of the night 
 was awful. People's hearts swelled as the waters did, and 
 were as dark as the night was. Now the ice was so high 
 that it struck the bottom of the Bridge, and every man's 
 heart seemed to be thwacked and going. Some ran as if 
 the Bridge was falling; others clenched themselves into 
 silence. 
 
 The Governor, with his hands in his side-pockets, at- 
 tended by his two oldest sons, walked leisurelj^ across the 
 Bridge. 
 
 " Do you think she will stand ?" said one to him. " I do 
 not know," he replied ; " if it goes it goes, and there is no 
 help for it." The same question he was asked forty times, 
 and he made nearly the same answer. Did he not care ? 
 He was a share-holder in the concern. O, it was a way he 
 had. But the people did care. " It rises slower," said one. 
 ' But it is still rising," rejoined another. " Two inches 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 203 
 
 more, and we are gone." It was as if their hearts would go, 
 in two inches more. " Horrible to think of! " they exclaimed. 
 " The worst thing that could happen." " The loss of the 
 Bridge would ruin a whole season's business ! " " What 
 could we do without it ? " 
 
 All at once a voice might have been heard, as of the 
 Bridge speaking, — a voice that sounded gruffand sepulchral, 
 from end to end of the dark, timber-teeming vault. " Ye are 
 scared, ye are troubled," it said, " sinners that ye are ! How 
 often have ye taunted and scandalized me ! How often have 
 ye scolded at your tolls, and abused the gate-keeper ! What 
 conspiracies have ye hatched against me ! What mutterings 
 have filled your streets about me ! Year after year have I 
 listened to your complaints, and borne with your revilings. 
 Year after year have I aided your passage across the stream, 
 and received in return your ingratitude and scorn. Every 
 beam and rafter is witness to your maledictions ; every plank 
 in my floor is worn with the foot of your contempt. What 
 will ye now, ye poltroons ? Too dark, am I, for your ladies ? 
 Too exorbitant for your poor ones ? What means your con- 
 sternation ? " 
 
 The people were aghast. 
 
 " Ye have wished me out of the way," the Bridge con- 
 tinued ; " ye have denounced me as a nuisance. Shall I 
 leap into the water ? " 
 
 " JVIercy ! mercy ! " cried the people. 
 
 A voice was heard from the Kiver. " I know those fel- 
 lows," it said. " They thought they had me under their 
 feet, when the ice was on, and they could cross for nothing. 
 They thought I was of no consequence, and grudged the 
 pennies they paid for getting over me. Every curse on 
 you, my good friend, I have felt as a slight on me. I have 
 not said much about it, but I have felt it. I am glad you 
 
204 EICHAKD EDNEY AND 
 
 have spoken ; I am glad the ice is broke. It was you, Mr. 
 Bridge, that gave me a sense of my dignity and importance. 
 When I saw your piers going up, and your sills laying, and 
 the heavy couplings entering into your superstructure, I felt 
 that I was something. I am getting ready a jam of ice. I 
 will help you off, and punish these impudent bipeds." 
 
 "Oh! oh! " screamed the people. 
 
 " Down upon your knees, every man of you ! down into 
 the dust ye have hated, and ask our forgiveness," rejoined 
 the Bridge ; " and we will see what shall be done with 
 you." 
 
 While the Bridge is dealing with the malcontents, let us 
 follow the Governor into the streets. When he saw how 
 the water was rising, he bethought him of a widow that 
 occupied one of his houses on the margin of the Pebbles. 
 He hastened thither, with his sons. He found the woman 
 and her family up and alarmed ; but the water never before, 
 so far as the Governor could recollect, had covered that spot. 
 The River had lost its recollection too, and on it came, 
 rushing, like a mill-tail, over the sills of the house. Roscoe 
 seized one child, Benjamin another, and the mother followed 
 with a third. The Governor set off with a bed. But the 
 River, though it was the Governor, and everybody rever- 
 enced him for his wisdom, thought he might still be taught 
 a few things, and poured upon him breast high, and threw 
 in, to increase the weight of its impressions, a boulder of ice. 
 The Governor, never easily thrown from his balance, never 
 yet prostrated by adversity, clung to the branch of a tree, 
 and defended himself with the bed, against the ice. 
 
 Now, quicker than this pen can move, Richard was there, 
 and Munk, and Silver, and the gang that had been relieving 
 distress elsewhere, and they dashed into the water and 
 rescued the Governor. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 205 
 
 Now, also, the River, having concluded terms with the 
 backbiters, fell off as suddenly as it had risen. Down it 
 went, in the twinkling of an eye ; the jam had broken, and 
 the peril was over. 
 
 Now, also, since the suspense is ended, and we can speak 
 of it, it will be expected we should say that Richard was 
 the first to leap in after the Governor ; that in his young 
 and athletic arms he grasped the bruised and exhausted 
 magnate, and bore him to dry land. Poetical justice to 
 Richard, and to the Governor's Family, and to the whole 
 scope of this book, and to the hearts of its million, polyglot- 
 tal, deeply interested readers, requires this. Well, it is so : 
 fact coincides with fancy, and Richard, who, by the way, 
 was a very accommodating youth, did just what poetic justice 
 and all our readers would wish him to do. 
 
 The Governor was not much hurt, — he never was ; he 
 went home, and to bed, and all the city did the same. 
 
 The next morning the people turned out to see what had 
 happened, and to mangonize on what might have happened. 
 The ice still flowed, and the river luxuriated in the calm 
 magnificence of inundation. The Dam supplied the princi- 
 pal attraction, and hither many came. 
 
 The water passed the crest at a height of fifteen feet 
 greater than its common level, and the whole structure 
 seemed to have suddenly mounted so many degrees. The 
 entire volume of water had swelled in proportion, and the 
 River seemed like a vast lake that had broke out within the 
 precincts of the city. The Dam, a thousand feet long, 
 poured like a Niagara in its teens. At its foot was the 
 rabid " boil " and terrific undertow ; caverns were hollowed 
 out in the liquid rage ; smooth arches sported over the ex- 
 acerbated surface ; the spray rose soft and beautiful ; jets of 
 sparkling crystals spurted from the dark depths beneath; 
 18 
 
206 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 an occasional ice-plateau, like the deck of a man-of-war, -was 
 precipitated down the fall, and borne, a shivering, scattered 
 wreck, across the field of view. 
 
 To Richard this scene was new, and he sat at the back- 
 door of the Mill looking at it. Many gentlemen and ladies 
 came to the same spot, among whom were jMelicent and 
 Barbara Dennington, their little brother, Sebastian Rasle, 
 and niece, Alice Weymouth. With them were Webster 
 Chassford and Glendar. 
 
 Now Chassford and Glendar had seen Richard a few 
 nights before, but they did not remember him. The Den- 
 ningtons remembered him well, and talked with him. The 
 River repeated its wonders every year, but the beauty and 
 the grandeur of the scene were continually revealing a new 
 shape to the minds of these ladies, and awakening fresh trans- 
 ports of delight; and while the whole was comparatively 
 novel to Richard, they could meet him quite half way in 
 the enthusiasm of the hour. Water is always quickening 
 to the spirit of the beholder, and such water was very 
 quickening. They had much to say and to feel about it, 
 and, as it happened, their three sayings and feelings, like 
 the subject thereof, ran in the same channel. Glendar 
 dipped in his oar, and rowed with the ladies a while ; finally, 
 so to speak, he got them into his own boat, and rowed in 
 another direction. Richard, with his pocket-knife, was 
 carving toys, out of a piece of pine, for Memmy and Bebbj-. 
 So he kept at his work, and ht his boat run whither it list. 
 He tried to talk with Alice Weymouth, but she blushed 
 deeply, and said little. She was a black-eyed girl, about 
 twelve years old, with a quick, sensitive face ; and every 
 time Richard looked at her, she half laughed and wholly 
 blushed; and, clinging to Aunt Barbara's hand, she seemed 
 quite unable to support conversation. Melicent did ask 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 207 
 
 what Richard was malv-ing-, and he told her ; and she even 
 dropped a question or two about the children, and he could 
 have answered a folio volume. But she was polite, and he 
 was polite ; and she had other friends to listen to, and he had 
 no wish to inflict the children upon her. 
 
 Barbara asked Richard if he had seen the Boy, Chuk, 
 since Bill Stonners' death. He had not. She would like 
 to go and see him. So would Richard andMelicent; and 
 so would Chassford and Glendar. And they all started for 
 Bill Stonners' Point. 
 
 Rasle ran everywhere ; but little Alice Weymouth kept 
 in the rear, and little though she was, she seemed to be 
 laboring with a mighty large arrision all the way up ; and 
 every time she looked at Richard, she laughed the more ; 
 but all to herself, all within her ovvn thoughts. If the oth- 
 ers happened to look back, she coughed and blushed, and 
 seemed to be trying to cover up her laughter with her blushes. 
 What was there in Richard so provoking, or so titillating ? 
 He wore his red shirt, and snuff-colored monkey-jacket, and 
 had mounted a new Rough and Ready glazed hat ; but 
 these she ought not to laugh at. They had to cross a small 
 brook ; and while Chassford and Glendar were attending to 
 the ladies, Richard would have helped her over ; but she 
 shrank from him, — she seemed to feel as bad to have him 
 touch her as Tunny did to have him look at him. 
 
 They found Chuk in trouble; his guys had parted, and 
 his boom-sticks were broken. Richard promised to help 
 repair the disaster when the water fell. The Boy flung his 
 pole into the stream, and himself on a rock, and acted quite 
 desperately. " You an't Bill," said he, " and you need n't 
 try to he ! You can't swear as he could ; and the ice never 
 crowded so when he was alive, and could swear ! " 
 
 Melicent told hun not to feel so bad. But he would feel 
 
208 BICHARD EDNEV AND 
 
 SO bad ; that was his prerogative, — it was his duty. Mysie 
 brought back the pole, which she went along the shore and 
 rescued, and gave it to him. She said, " Bill would not do 
 so ; and I would not do so, if I was you. You can mend the 
 boom, and there '11 be a plenty of logs by and bye. We did 
 the best we could." Mysie alone seemed to have power 
 over the Boy ; but her power did not always prevail. Chass- 
 ford put a silver dollar into Chuk's hand ; he heaved it from 
 him, — he flung it with sarcastic swiftness into the water. 
 "We did n't want money," said he ; " we wanted life ; and 
 your father would n't give that, and he shan't give t' other. 
 Let the River have it ! See if you can't buy up its good-will I " 
 The road to the Point went by Munk's ; and when the 
 party returned, the children, who had probably already 
 espied them from the kitchen window, stood on the front 
 door-step, jiggling, and hooting, and clapping their hands ; 
 and before Richard could get to them, Bebby had backed 
 half way down the steps. Their uncle took them both in 
 his arms, and turned towards the ladies. These were 
 Memmy and Bebby ! these were the lords paramount of that 
 mighty dom ! He did not say so, but the fact was so. Mel- 
 icent dotted one, with her smooth kid-gloved finger, on 
 the cheek; Barbara chucked the other under its chin. 
 Alice Weymouth — the tyke ! — laughed outright. It was 
 all day with her ; she began to splurt, and had to let it go. 
 And the children laughed too ; this was a god-send for 
 Alice, since it put her own laughter into countenance, and 
 she could go ahead without restraint ; and she laughed 
 herself high and dry. Indeed, they all seemed to have a 
 merry minute, till Mrs. Munk appeared in the door, calling 
 after the children, and reproving them for being out, and 
 saying they would certainly catch their death of a cold to 
 be there without their hoods on. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 209 
 
 Alice Weymouth laughed no more till she reached home. 
 But when the Family were sitting at dinner, she began 
 again, or rather the imp inside of her began again ; she 
 herself bliished, — she tried to drown the imp with a glass of 
 water. But it was n't to be drowned ; it dashed back the 
 water, — it scattered it over the table. "Why, Alice Wey- 
 mouth ! " said Madam. " The child is choking ! " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Melbourne. Cousin Rowena had already begun to 
 bite her lip, a sign of suppressed emotion ; not that she knew 
 of anything to laugh at, but only out of an unconscious sym- 
 pathy of joyous feeling. " It is nothing," said Alice Wey- 
 mouth, rather in reply to Mrs. Melbourne than anybody 
 else. " You should not drink so fast," said Madam, qui- 
 etly. The more attention was drawn to the child, the worse 
 she acted ; if she had been alone, she would have got through 
 with it well enough. " Why don't you speak, if you have 
 anything to say ? " asked Roscoe. " It is nothing," she 
 said, " only I saw Richard Edney." " So did I," sang out 
 Rasle. Miss Rowena laughed outright, now ; in fact, they 
 all laughed. " He did n't hurt you, did he ? " inquired 
 Cousin. "I was only thinking," replied the child, "it was 
 he that scared us so on the Bridge, that he was the one that 
 stopped the horse when Aunt Melicent like to have been run 
 away with, and that he dragged Grandpa out of the water 
 last night. I did n't mean to laugh, but I could n't help it." 
 It was out now, and the child was easier. " Nothing to 
 laugh at, I am sure," said Mrs. Melbourne. " You are at 
 leisure to attend to other matters," added Madam; "will 
 you have some cranberry ? " " How did he look ? " asked 
 Miss Rowena. " He is real good-looking," replied the child. 
 " He has an intelligent look, and a noble bearing," observed 
 Barbara. " He looks the same as anybody looks, out of his 
 eyes," added Rasle, who had the reputation of being a 
 18^ 
 
210 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 smart boy. "I do not know how he looks," said the Gov- 
 ernor, " but he carries a pair of stout arms. — Let me give 
 you a thin slice of beef, Mrs. Melbourne." 
 
 " It was so funny," pursued Alice Weymouth, "to see him 
 talking with Aunt Melicent and Aunt Barbara, and to see him 
 try to help them over the brook, with his queer hat on, and 
 his red shirt ! " " Where have you been ? what has been 
 doing ? " asked Madam, rather quick, rather nervously. 
 "We went up to Bill Stonners'," responded the child, " to 
 see what had become of his Boy." " This Richard Edney," 
 said Madam, " must be a good youth," — here she laid down 
 her knife, unconsciously, — " a very good youth," — her fork 
 dropped, — " and you should not laugh at goodness, Alice 
 Weymouth; nor you, Rasle." "I didn't, Mother," replied 
 the boy, " and I shan't be likely to laugh at anything again 
 very soon, with this pickled pepper in my mouth. I wish 
 peppers was sweet." Madam stirred her tea, and looked at 
 her spoon, — she had tea at dinner. " Goodness," she con- 
 tinued, " is too rare in this world to be treated disrespect- 
 fully when it does come." " I will try not to laugh, next 
 time," replied Alice Weymouth. 
 
 So fared Richard in the Governor's Family, to-day. 
 
 He, in the mean time, had displayed his toys to Memmy 
 and Bebby, and I guess they laughed as hard as Alice Wey- 
 mouth did. He had made them a little wagon, and a little 
 old man that he called Uncle Squib, and a very little chub 
 of a baby that he called Tuckey, to sit in it; and the way 
 Uncle Squib and Tuckey were whisked across the room was 
 a caution to rail-roads, to say nothing of Winlde, and the 
 four best horses in his team. 
 
 If we wish to run a further parallel between the heroic 
 elements of our book, we should say, that at the precise 
 instant Melicent and Barbara were setting back the table in 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 211 
 
 their dining-room, Richard was helping his sister, Roxy, 
 with the same office in her kitchen, and that the two tables 
 struck the wall together. 
 
 As Richard returned from the Mill at night, Clover 
 walked on with him. " Fine girls, those Governor's daugh- 
 ters," said the latter. " Chassford is engaged to one of 
 them, and Glendar expects the other." Richard made no 
 reply. 
 
 Richard was more thoughtful than usual after tea that 
 night. The children were rampant as ever, but he did 
 not seem to notice them. He had been in the habit of 
 rocking Bebby to sleep in his arms. She climbed into his 
 lap, — she lay on one shoulder, then tried the other; nothing 
 suited her. She pointed to his pocket for his handkerchief, 
 with which he sometimes cushioned her head ; then she 
 pointed to the mantel-piece for the match-box, which she 
 was wont to go to sleep upon, holding it in her hands; but 
 he did not attend to her ; — she pulled his lips for him to 
 tell her a story ; he did not answer ; then she cried. 
 " She wants you to tell her a story," said Memmy. Her 
 mother took the child away. " You are getting her into 
 very bad habits," she said. " They are always wanting 
 things, and you get them." She pacified the child, and put 
 it to bed. 
 
 But Richard kept on thinking. Munk was smoking and 
 reading, his sister was sewing, and he thought. His 
 thoughts went down into the neighborhood of his feelings, 
 and his feelings, like fishes about a ship, kept edging about 
 his thoughts. He feared Chassford and Glendar were bad 
 men. He believed the Governor's daughters were the best 
 of human beings. At least, if he never imagined so much 
 before, it seemed to him so now. Set off against bad men, 
 they appeared to him good, very good indeed. The contrast 
 
212 RICHARD EDNET, ETC. 
 
 broucrht them into strong relief, — their goodness took a 
 most palpable, glorious form to his eye. And this got down 
 into his heart as a sort of divine impression, — a some- 
 thing that stirred his deepest reverence, — and he could 
 almost worship it. 
 
 At the same hour, while Richard sat by the stove at 
 Munk's in a sort of brown study, Chassford and Glendar 
 were making a call at the Governor's. " That fellow," said 
 Glendar, alluding to Richard, " has an off-hand way, rather 
 uncommon among his class." " He has true courtesy," re- 
 plied MeUcent ; " the transparency of a gentle heart through 
 a gentle demeanor." " He is a strong man," observed Ros- 
 coe, " a very strong man." " Melicent and your father can 
 judge best about that," added Madam, looking verj- sharply 
 at a needle she was trying to thread in the light of the 
 candle. " I mean," added her son, " he is very strong every 
 w^ay." " His demonstration at the Abolition meeting was 
 rather weak, — rather a failure," answered Chassford. " It 
 was superb, — perfectly ecstatic ! " exclaimed Barbara. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THOUBLE IN QUIET ARBOR. 
 
 Not many days afterwards, Richard might have been 
 seen, at mid-evening-, in close conference with Nefon at the 
 store of the latter. They seemed to have some private 
 scheme in hand. What it was will better appear in the 
 history of its execution. Only this we are prepared to say, 
 — that Nefon was a great friend of Temperance^ and so 
 was Richard ; and they had often spoken together of the 
 increase of drunkenness, and the means of quenching that 
 evil. 
 
 They left the store, and proceeded to a building in which 
 was a Hall of the Sons of Temperance, where this frater- 
 nity were then in session. While Richard waited on the 
 walk, Nefon ascended to the Hall, and in a few minutes 
 returned with a half-dozen sturdy Brothers, in their wbite 
 collars, including also a W. P., with his scarlet ensigns. 
 
 Richard led them forthwith to the Pebbles, on the shore 
 of which Quiet Arbor was snugly located. Leaving 
 his accomplices at the door, he entered this sanctuary alone. 
 Waving ceremony, he abruptly accosted the obliging but 
 modest head of the establishment in these words : — " You 
 are the Friend of the People ? " said he, interrogatively. 
 " I am," responded the Timid Man, hacking. " You are 
 willing they should be befriended, and that their best friends 
 should exert themselves for them, and that their liberties 
 should be achieved ? " "I am," he hacked. 
 
 Richard opened the door, and the six Brothers approached. 
 
214 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 " These are the Friends of the People," he said. If 
 another flood had made a sudden onslaught on his bot- 
 tles, Helskill could not have been more alarmed ; but he 
 was more than alarmed, — he was incensed; he set his 
 teeth, and he set his eyes, so that they did not play up and 
 down, but looked straight forwards. But there the white- 
 robed phalanx was, and he had to see them, and receive 
 them, and behave as mannerly as he could under them ; 
 and when he tried to hack, he could n't ; and when he had 
 got a little hack half way up, it slipped back, in spite of him. 
 
 There were the customary tarriers in this abode of 
 leisure ; in a sort of mirage of smoke and dim lamp-light, 
 loomed up a motley group of shabby beards, slouched hats, 
 blub-cheeks and blistered noses; men, who looked like an 
 old sheet-iron stove that has been burnt out and dented in ; 
 men, who lay coiled up in their repose, as a grub lies in the 
 earth ; men, some of whom retained the power of capering 
 about in that soothing atmosphere, like a hog in a snow-drift. 
 
 Richard proceeded with his plot. He addressed those 
 men : " Ye are slaves," said he ; " slaves to your appetites 
 and habits, — slaves to this spot and this hour, — slaves to 
 sin and shame ! You have no liberty of thought or of feel- 
 ing, — none of money or of time. You know not the freedom 
 of health or of strength, — you have no independency of 
 hope or of happiness. You propagate the evils you 
 suffer. You, Weasand, have enslaved your wife ; you, 
 Fuzzle, have broken the spirit of your mother ; you, Horn, 
 have sent your family to the Alms-house. We come 
 to-night to give you liberty. We proclaim your freedom. 
 We have brought the Temperance Pledge. Sign this ; 
 it is the covenant of your Redemption, — it is the Con- 
 stitution of your Independence." " Make out the papers," 
 cried one. " Mr. Nefon," said Richard, " pass the pen and 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 215 
 
 ink." " One more bouse, and I '11 sign," exclaimed an- 
 other ; " a stiff one, Helskill ; I must wet both eyes, for 
 I want to see sharp into what I am about," The Tapster 
 could not. so far overcome his friendly feelings as not to 
 favor the man in this his last request. Emptying the glass 
 to the dregs, and sweeping his lips with his hand, this man 
 advanced to the table and wrote his name. 
 
 " Worthy Patriarch," said Nefon, addressing the scarlet- 
 robed Brother, " witness the signatures." 
 
 "I am so infernally drunk, I can't sign," swore a third. 
 " Drunk or sober, it makes no difference," replied Richard. 
 " All sign that will sign." 
 
 " If I could get up there, I would sign," jargled one from 
 the floor. " Brothers Bisbee and Sloan," said the Patriarch, 
 " lift up Mr. Fuzzle, while he signs." 
 
 " I can't wTite," said a fourth. "The Worthy Patriarch 
 will witness his mark," responded Nefon. 
 
 In this way they canvassed the entire room. " Here is 
 one too stiff to stir," some one said. " Four Brothers cany 
 him to the Division Room," enjoined the Chief, "and 
 thither let us all proceed." These Liberators, with their 
 captives to freedom, departed, and Richard and Nefon were 
 left alone with the Keeper of the Arbor. If this man was 
 surprised, he was also stunned. That his guests had taken 
 their well-being into their own hands, or even committed it 
 in trust to the Sons of Temperance, was a fact which he 
 could not gainsay, and a virtue that he dare not revile ; 
 and he stood behind the bar, looking like one who had just 
 seen his grandmother's ghost. 
 
 Now Nefon was tart — tarter than Richard ; and he longed 
 to rub the dram-monger's ears a bit, just in an easy way; 
 and he could not forbear a little pleasantry, even if there 
 was a needle at the point of it. So he said, " Your Arbor 
 
216 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 will be very quiet now, — still as a nether mill-stone ; and 
 you will have nothing to do but whirl round on it, and grind 
 out your meditations at your leisure." 
 
 He had better not have said this, for it made Helskill 
 rflad, veiy mad ; and it did no good. Besides, it came 
 near frustrating part of their plan, which embraced the 
 Grotto. Richard tried the door that led to that apartment, 
 but Helskill sprang forward and locked it ; and Chuk-like, 
 he would see them, and himself, and the whole premises, in 
 the ashes of perdition, before they should go in. 
 
 They retreated to the street. " There is a private en- 
 trance," said Richard, " and we will find it." They did 
 find it, and went in, and were hazed in a labyrinth of pas- 
 sages and darkness. The little Bookseller might have been 
 frightened, but he was not. " We are in for a job," said he, 
 " and for a broken head, for all I know. I could not have 
 done this yesterday. I am warm, very warm; and we 
 must strike while the iron is hot." 
 
 They felt their way onwards, and at length came to the 
 door of the wizard-room. They entered quite abruptly; 
 and their arrival seemed to betoken unusual pertinence. 
 The occupants of the room, — Captain Creamer, Chassford, 
 Glendar, Tunny and the Sailmaker, — felt this. The Cap- 
 tain glavered, the Sailmaker blustered; Glendar, leaning 
 over the table, shuffled cards very vacantly. Tunny, — 
 what did he do, what could he do, when there was so little 
 left of him the night before ? If he could have vanished, he 
 would ; but he had to be there, or let his shadow be there, and 
 take what might befall. 
 
 "I am indebted to you, Sir," Richard said, addressing 
 the Captain; "you gave me occupation when I was a 
 stranger in the place. As your servant, I might hesitate 
 in what I am now upon. But there is a higher relation 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 217 
 
 between us than that of employer and employed, — the 
 relation of humanity, of Christian fidelity. And this obliges 
 me to say that you are in a bad way. These practices are 
 destructive of all that you value in life, or that you would 
 have me value. I shall not take advantage of what has 
 come to my knowledge ; but I must affectionately, and very 
 positively, admonish you." 
 
 The Captain, for once in his life, lost his self-posses- 
 sion, his gay ease, his oily grace ; and he seemed in an in- 
 stant to sink into his proper age, and reiippear in the furrows 
 and the palsy of an old man. He stammered, and tripped ; 
 and, with Glendar and Chassford, hastily left the room. 
 
 The Sailmaker was not to be interrupted ; he had got 
 too valuable a prey in his clutches to admit a rival. He 
 declaimed against interference, — he snuffed at this med- 
 dling with other folks' business, — he fanfaronaded on sen- 
 timental benevolence. " I do not mind that," replied Eich- 
 ard ; " but you must give up Tunny." 
 
 " Any man that comes between me and Tunny is a dead 
 man ! " 
 
 " I am between you and Tunny ; and I am alive, and tol- 
 erably well, " rejoined Richard. " Tunny," he added, " go 
 home." There was so slender a remnant of the Grocer on 
 hand that it did not seem to hear, — it lay passively in the 
 chair. The Sailmaker stooped to seize it. Richard elbowed 
 him off. " Go home. Tunny," he repeated, in a still louder 
 voice. Nefon took the relic by the arm, and led it to the 
 door. •' I will have it out of you, body and soul, for this ! " 
 added the Sailmaker. Richard and Nefon supported Tunny 
 to his house. 
 
 The Sailmaker sought to be as good as his word. He 
 came to the Mill and detained Richard one noon after the 
 bell had rung the others to dinner. 
 19 
 
218 RICHARD EDNEY AJfD 
 
 " I demand satisfaction for what you have done ! " he said. 
 "I will give it," replied Eichard; "what shall it be?" 
 " One of us must die! " he answered, with an emphasis of 
 pathos and frenzy. " Not so bad as that, I hope," rejoined 
 Richard. "Just as bad," said the other. "Choose your 
 weapons, and your own way." " Very well," answered 
 Richard, " and prepare yourself to meet an antagonism that 
 comes with weapons not carnal, but spiritual." " You cant- 
 ing hypocrite, you ! " sneered the Sailmaker ; " sliverly cow- 
 ard ! you mean to avoid me, — you mean to hush away ! 
 You won't do it, — you are too late for it ! " He drew a dirk, 
 which he might have done mischief with ; but Richard took 
 it from him, and breaking the blade, threw the fragments 
 into the wheel-pit. 
 
 The Sailmaker, slackening in physical rage, calmed down 
 to argument. " You do not know," said he, "what I have 
 endured. It is not Tunny's money I want; it is revenge. 
 I scorn him and his dust. But his family have insulted 
 me, — his wife has planted her flat-footed pride on me, 
 his son has lost all recollection of me, because I am a Sail- 
 maker, — because I am what my father was before me. 
 Who are they but mangy skip-jacks, half-baked upper 
 crusts ? Did n't Tunny drive a fish-cart ? Has n't he toot- 
 ed his carrion by our own door ? " 
 
 Richard replied, " My friend, I think I understand you, — 
 I believe I know to what you refer, and I may be deeper in 
 the secret of your affairs than you are yourself." 
 
 " How is that ? " eagerly asked the other. 
 
 " You allude to a disruption of intimacy between your- 
 self and their daughter, Faustina." " I do," answered the 
 other. " Well, let me tell you," continued Richard, " that 
 was not owing to your birth or vocation, but to your habits." 
 
 " 'T is false ! " answered the Sailmaker. " Mrs. Tunny 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 219 
 
 forbade my visiting her daughter. She said my hands 
 soiled the door when I entered. I heard her say so." 
 
 "That may be," responded Ricliard; "but Faustina 
 never said so, did she ? " 
 
 " Is there any hope for me with her ? If there be, I do 
 not mind a farthing that soap-bubble of a mother." 
 
 "There may be," said Richard, "for all that I know. 
 But, in my opinion, all depends on one thing." 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " That you repent of your sins, — that you reform your 
 manner of life, and by God's grace renovate your spirit. 
 Avoid the haunts of vice ; consort with what is good and 
 pure, and come to appear, and to be, a new man." 
 
 "I will think of what you say," replied the young man. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE JUNE FRESHET. 
 
 So it was denominated, because it commonly happened 
 in that month ; but it sometimes anticipated its period. In 
 this instance, it was announced about the middle of May. 
 
 This flood was both spring-time and harvest for log-driv- 
 ers, boom-gatherers, and lumber-men generally. The gates 
 of the Lake were opened, and vast deposits of logs that 
 had been accumulating on that invvooded realm of ice 
 during the winter were turned into the River. Gangs of 
 men were despatched to break up the jams that formed 
 on shoals and rips. Others scoured the banks of tributa- 
 ries, and launched whatever logs they could find into the 
 current. 
 
 A portion of these logs, unlike their predecessor, the ice, 
 were retained above the Dam ; yet many thousands must 
 attempt that pass, and be hurried across the Harbor, and 
 through the Narrows. 
 
 Now little boats are seen darting out from the shore, syl- 
 van buccaneers, in chase of their prey; each manned by two 
 men — one to row, the other to strike the picaroon. Where 
 was Chuk ? What should poor Chuk do, all alone ? The 
 water was very smooth and still where he operated, and his 
 boom was sheltered in as quiet a little nook as the whole 
 stream afforded ; indeed, it was generally conceded by those 
 whose habits would render them competent to form an opin- 
 ion in the premises, that Bill Stonners' privilege was one of 
 the best in the County. 
 
 The Boy made his picaroon fast to his boat with a rope, 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 221 
 
 and then put into the stream, with the double office of row- 
 ing and striking. He cried when he did so, — cried like a 
 spoiled child. He had nobody to swear at, and nobody to 
 swear at him, — and he cried. There, under the shadow of 
 the rock that formed the shoulder of the Point, and of the 
 great trees that overhang it, and under the blue sky, and 
 over the clear sky-and-rock-and-tree-embosoming deep, he 
 wept while he worked; and there Mysie, whose broad, 
 gaunt form stood folded and calm on the high shore, saw 
 him weep as he paddled in and out, and never looked up ; 
 striking and trailing all alone, without Bill, and with nothing 
 in the wide world to comfort him. 
 
 The logs swept over the Dam just as the ice had done, 
 and people came to the Saw-mills, and stood on the shores 
 to see the feat, just as they did before. The logs, with the 
 bark bruised off and the ends " broomed " up, by reason of the 
 roughness of their passage, — some of them discolored and 
 black, from long exposure in the shallows, — many of them 
 large, now and then one six feet in diameter, — were the 
 monsters of this deep. They slid tranquilly and gracefully 
 down the swift, limpid fall. But now their danger com- 
 menced. They must seethe in the " boil," and be absorbed 
 by the undertow. Descending to the bed of the stream, 
 they rebounded, and leaped into the air. Some, forty feet 
 long, and weighing four or five tons, were tossed like can- 
 dles ; the water played with them on the ends of its fingers, 
 as a juggler manoeuvres with a broom-stick. They thrashed 
 about as if they were the arms of a giant, who was strang- 
 ling underneath. They would be piled one upon another, 
 drawn under the fall, and then spurned into the hideous 
 regions below. Still afloat, — still struggling to escape. 
 One, that had got away, as it supposes, into clear water, is 
 deliberately drawn back ; a second one tumbles upon it from 
 19* 
 
222 KICHARD EDNEV AND 
 
 above; a third, rising from beneath, forces their groaning, 
 aching, battered bodies into fresh catastrophes. In this 
 commotion hundreds are engaged at the same moment. In 
 a light mood, you would imagine them whales or porpoises 
 at their gambols, or beach-bathers rolling in the surf. 
 They might seem to you instinct with a certain life, v/hich 
 was to be acted out in that spot. A more terrific suggestion 
 is that of humanity arrested in its progress, and Faith, Hope 
 and Charity, writhing in the cataract of evil, — springing to 
 regain a serener surface, and yet at every instant over- 
 powered by a relentless destiny ; or of a single heart, stricken 
 by calamity, panting, pleading to be free, yet doomed to an 
 irrevocable anguish. 
 
 But this did not propose to be a dramatic spectacle of ad- 
 miration or of terror ; it had more serious matter in hand. 
 There was a weak spot in the Dam. So the Man of Mind 
 in the city said. He whispered it to newspaper editors ; he 
 wrote information to the Dam Corporation about it; he 
 nudged it to the Sax^'^'ers and the Log-drivers ; he nodded 
 it to himself, as he walked past the Dam. Some people be- 
 lieved him. It got to the ears of the logs, and they would 
 see if it were so. In their submergence, like prisoners in a 
 dungeon, they found out the defect in the walls, and ma- 
 tured a plan for breaking through. Certain of the stoutest 
 of them, rearing concertedly their enormous shafts, fell, 
 battering-ram fashion, on the structure that detained them. 
 One broke the cross-ties; another dislodged the ballast-stones; 
 several, diving out of sight, unearthed the foundations ; and, 
 before any one but the Man of Mind saw it, the erection 
 gave way — the bulwark of the River fell. These resolute 
 logs did not enter the breach they made, but, having effected 
 their object, they sailed tauntingly awaJ^ In an hour the 
 entire pond was drained to the natural level of the stream. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. ^23 
 
 One way, it seemed, to get out of difficulty; one way for 
 Hopes and Hearts to liberate themselves, — turn, full-butt, 
 on the evil that beleaguers them ! 
 
 The Man of Mind stood immovable and frowning, and 
 pointed to the spot; and as they ran from all quarters to 
 see what had happened, he seemed to have the entire popu- 
 lation of the city on his finger's end, and they went just 
 where his finger directed, and believed just what his finger 
 indicated; and as he stood, immovable and frowning, everj'- 
 body was abashed by him, as a man of mind, and gave it 
 up that he was a man of mind. 
 
 But the Mill-owners and the Factory-companies cared 
 nothing for minds ; they wanted water. Their canal was 
 emptied, and their wheels were silent in the pit. The 
 work-folk were dismissed. It would take three weeks or a 
 month to effect repairs. 
 
 But the people, whose employment failed so suddenly, 
 did not grumble, so far as we heard. The girls would have 
 a vacation, and visit their friends ; Mr. Gouch and his family 
 would not starve, for he had a little laid by for a rainy or an 
 idle day. More than all, the indomitableness of " our peo- 
 ple " would be exhibited. The wounds of Young America 
 heal quick. A breach in a mill-dam, — fie! it is no more 
 than a bird-track through our incalculable sky. Then there 
 were repairs in the Mills that would occupy a number of 
 hands. Tunny felt bad, because such an event dispersed 
 his customers. But Chuk was as large a sufferer as any. 
 His boom was ruined ; the sudden cessation of the water 
 carried it off, logs and all. He and Mysie held on to the 
 guys, and retarded the catastrophe, by main strength, as 
 long as they could ; but when nought availed, and the fabric 
 of his heart and hope was being swept into the rapid cur- 
 rent, he flung his paddles into the boat, and sent that down 
 
224 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 too. Mysie was only afraid he would follow suit himself, 
 and clenched his arm to prevent such a piece of folly. 
 
 Richard was at work in the Mill when these things took 
 place. There Avere ladies there, and Melicent and Barbara. 
 Eichard, cant-dog in hand, would now and then go to the 
 door and look at the logs, and exchange a syllable with his 
 new acquaintance. But Captain Creamer, who, however 
 he might behave at the Grotto, was, reasonably, master on 
 his own premises, deemed Richard too young to have much 
 to do with the ladies, kept him engaged in fresh tasks, and, 
 as if he himself was of an age when such conversation 
 would be harmless, he monopolized it altogether. 
 
 When the accident was announced, it appeared that even 
 this sort of intimacy had not softened the Captain ; he 
 stormed at his men. The saw was half through the middle 
 run, and it seemed as if he would make them urge it to the 
 foot by their own strength of arm. 
 
 Of course, Richard and all hands were afloat, as well as 
 Chuk's boom. The Captain said they would not expect 
 wages to go on when nothing was doing, and when he, per- 
 haps, might find himself a ruined man to-morrow. Of 
 course they would not. They put on their coats, and went 
 home. 
 
 INIunk had employment for Richard at the stable ; in fact, 
 his brother-in-law could be of real use to him. The steam- 
 boats and rail-roads were running, and people were hasten- 
 ing to overtake them, and these people must have horses; 
 so that Munk & St. John's business was good. Their 
 business depended on that of the world at large, and this 
 was good. The stable was neat as a penny, with its white- 
 washed walls and well-swept floor. Each horse had his 
 name fairly inscribed above his stall ; there were Fly, Black 
 Maria, Beau Savage, Belle Fanny, and many more. A 
 
THE GOVEKNOR's FAMILY. 225 
 
 small office was attached to the establishment, where hung 
 the harnesses and whips, all in Primlico style. Here, also, 
 was a stove, and a bunk where the boy, Simon, slept. Into 
 this office a newspaper was dropped every morning. Mr. St. 
 John, the partner, was a nice man, and Simon was a clever 
 boy. Simon had an interesting peculiarity. It was the 
 snatch of a song he sung, that went thus : " O, the break 
 down, oh; O, the break down!" He sung this when he 
 groomed the horses, and when he swept the stable ; when 
 the carriages came in, and when they went out ; indeed, at 
 all times. What it meant, nobody could tell. It passed as 
 a mystery of human nature. Moreover, "Winkle appeared 
 every other afternoon, with his four horses all a-reek with 
 perspiration, and his face a-reek with good-nature. 
 
 There was in the stable a rare animal. Belle Fanny: 
 so sleek a skin, so arched a neck, so bright and cheer- 
 ful a countenance, such fleetness of foot, and gentleness of 
 spirit, were not often the perquisites of a single horse ; but 
 they were hers. How readily she started ; how freely she 
 moved ; how quick to stop ; how easy to turn ! — and with 
 her never shying or stumbling, she was a wonder. Then the 
 little wagon that belonged to her, — what an equipage 
 was that ! Ho ! Memmy and Bebby will ride to-day. 
 Queen Elizabeth, when she started on her Progresses, — the 
 green and blue Chariot-races of ancient Byzantium, — are 
 nothing compared with the excitement got up when these 
 young Imperialnesses went abroad. 
 
 We forbear to describe the ride. We can only say, the 
 weather was pleasant ; the roads were good ; the grass was 
 green ; the birds were songful ; and Uncle Richard never 
 was happier, nor the children either. 
 
 Sometimes Richard drove the hack to the wharves and 
 
226 niCHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 the depot; sometimes he went on family and social excur- 
 sions with the omnibus. 
 
 Munk had a garden, which Richard spaded and sowed. 
 Munk's lot extended from the street to the River, and com- 
 prised a quarter of an acre. This Richard resolved to orna- 
 ment and improve. He applied to the woods in the 
 neighborhood, where were all varieties of evergreen and 
 perdifoil. He knew how to dig deeply round the trees, to 
 sever the roots carefully, and prune the tops judiciously. He 
 was thoughtful enough, also, to choose a humid day for 
 this operation. He studied grouping and curves in the 
 arrangement of the trees. He supplied their roots with 
 well-rotted manure. Against the kitchen window, where 
 was the sink, and Roxy did her work, and the summer sun 
 burned like an oven, he planted a good-sized maple. He 
 ploughed and graded the rear portion of the lot, and laid 
 it down to grass. He induced his brother to purchase a 
 quantit}'- of fruit-trees, for which he discovered an abundance 
 of suitable locations. On the River-side of the estate was a 
 gully tufted with willows and alders, and vocal with birds, 
 where also flourished a willow of remarkable size. Hence 
 he called the place Willow Croft. 
 
 Was Richard in advance of his age and rank in this ? 
 He may have been : but he was not in advance of the news- 
 papers, nor of Pastor Harold, to say nothing of his own 
 taste. 
 
 Then, as if he had purposely designed that we should 
 write his history, how much prettier it is to say Willow 
 Croft, than Munk's, or his Brother-in-law's. I think there 
 is no person of refinement who will not rejoice in the new 
 terminology. 
 
 He had assistance ; — Mysie and Chuk volunteered their 
 services. There was not, probably a clean-bodied, fair- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 227 
 
 topped staddle within six miles, that Mysie had not talren 
 particular note of. Then she recollected a thorn that she had 
 seen in its full snow-bloom, and when it dripped with red 
 apples ; and she thought there was nothing so handsome in 
 the whole world, and Richard must have it. Chuk dug, 
 and pulled, and lifted, with amazing good-will. 
 
 But the Boy would take no pay. He seemed to recog- 
 nize no other cun'ency than that of the River; he made all 
 his drafts with the picaroon ; the use of the spade was real 
 bankruptcy to him ; and Richard had behaved so wickedly 
 at the Point, Chuk deemed his tender of money a sacrilege 
 on the memory of Bill and the boom ; and even his thanks 
 he rejected as a device of the adversar}^ 
 
 But Chuk got his pay, and Richard took his receipt, in 
 the children, who applauded what was done, and conde- 
 scended to disport amid the trees; Bebby indicated her 
 royal interest in the scene by upsetting one of the shrubs. 
 
 Chuk, as if he had inhaled magic gas, began to frolic 
 with the children; he acted as if he were a mere child, and 
 had never been anything else. He keeled over on the grass, 
 peeked through the trees, cock-a -whooped to Uncle Richard, 
 strutted behind Bebby. " This," said he, " is it: it was just 
 so, then — there was toddling and skirling; it huv stones, it 
 rolled in the dirt. But where is the woman with the blue 
 tire and the lasses cake ? " He repeated this question, and 
 turned towards the door of the house a wild, haggard stare. 
 He presented a comical, not to say pitiable picture; — 
 bare-headed, with long, tangled black hair, in the native lux- 
 uriance of which neither comb nor shears had interfered 
 for many a month, and a voluminous pepper-and-salt shirt, 
 that flared wide in the neck. 
 
 Roxy appeared in the door with a dry lunch in either 
 hand for the children. " That is the woman with the blue 
 
228 RICHARD EDNET, ETC. 
 
 tire and the lasses cake ! " shouted Chuk, and ran forward 
 with the children, flapping his arms like a new-fledged 
 chicken, to receive what the good dame would bestow, 
 
 Richard noticed, during this metamorphosis of the Boy, 
 that he dropped his customary oaths, and that his tone was 
 milder, and his language less rough and churlish, than at 
 other times. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 VIOLET DIES, 
 
 Richard was laying out his vegetable beds one morning, 
 and the children were to their knees and elbows in dirt, pre- 
 paring for baking, — moulding pie-crust, stirring puddings, 
 cupping cakes, out of the damp earth. Looking towards 
 the street, he saw the Old Man, the Grandfather of the Or- 
 phans, urgently bent upon something, as it were star-gazing, 
 — now lifting his face into the air, now peering across the 
 fields, anon putting his hand to his ear. Advancing to the 
 gate of Willow Croft, he entered it, and came with an ex- 
 cited step towards the garden. " Did you not hear it? Did 
 you not see it ? " said he to Richard. " My eyes and ears 
 are trying to cheat me out of it, because I am an old man ; 
 but I am too old for them." " What is it ? " asked Richard. 
 " The hang-bird," he replied. " I see it ! " said Memmy, 
 whose eyes were sharp as a razor, pointing with the bit of 
 a shingle she was at work with ; " it is there on the fence." 
 " That is a robin," answered Richard. " No," said the Old 
 Man, " it is a hang-bird. I have been out every morning 
 after it. I know its trump. It carried off her mother, and 
 now it has come for her." 
 
 Aunt Grint, who was making an early morning call on 
 Roxy, overhearing the conversation, appeared, exclaiming, 
 " Sakes alive ! what is going to happen now? Death every- 
 where, — death all around us, and who is ready ? " 
 
 " Did you see it ? " asked the Old Man. 
 
 " See it ! " she recoilingly answered. " How can you see 
 it, when a body is frightened to death hearing it ? " 
 20 
 
230 EICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 "Which way ?" eagerly inquired the other. 
 
 " It has n't any way. It is the most invisiblest thing that 
 ever was. You look right where it is, and it ain't there." 
 
 " I heard it in the lot." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " she exclaimed, " you can't hear it in the lot; 
 it is in the chamber. It was there just before our Roseltha 
 died. I heard it last night. God have mercy on us ! what 
 is a coming? O I " 
 
 " There it is on the tree ! " said Memmy. And Bebby 
 knew it was there ; she could see it, and she screeched 
 at it. 
 
 " For the love of heaven's sake ! " cried Aunt Grint, 
 " don't be noisy such a time as this. Who knows but what 
 it may be one of the children ? " 
 
 " It was a hangbird," said the Old Man. 
 
 " No, it was n't," rejoined Aunt Grint ; "don't you sup- 
 pose I should know, when I sat up in bed half an hour, a 
 hearing it ? And there the wretch kept at it on the left 
 wall, right over my shoulder, and none of us prepared. It 
 was a death-watch, as I was telling Roxy. O ! the poor 
 children ! " 
 
 " I would not talk in this way here. Aunt," said Rich- 
 ard. " Such ideas can do the children no good. It maybe 
 you are both right. This man's granddaughter is very 
 sick, and I have not thought she could live long." 
 
 They were both right. Death was near ; Violet was 
 dying. 
 
 That afternoon there were assembled about the final bed- 
 side of the Orphan, Dr. Broadwell, the Denningtons, the 
 Lady Caroline, Richard, Miss Eyre, and one or two other 
 girls from the Factories. The Grandfather held the hand 
 of the dying one, and seemed to be counting the pulses, as 
 if he had precisely calculated the last one. Junia leaned 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 2fil 
 
 over the pillow of her sister. Kespiration waxed rarer and 
 fainter, and all was over. 
 
 Dr. Broadwell said, "Our friend, we have every reason to 
 believe, has gone to her rest. She has been received by her 
 Saviour. She gave good evidence of reconciliation, and a 
 spiritual life, during the few months that I have been ac- 
 quainted with her. When our last hour shall come, may it 
 find us as prepared as she was." 
 
 From every eye gushed the silent, irrepressible tear ; every 
 bosom heaved with the tenderness of funereal anguish. The 
 Old Man, now that his watchings, his predictions, his little 
 duties were ended, and all that he had so carefully planned 
 was so entirely fulfilled, and there was nothing left, moaned, 
 and wept, and trembled; — forlorn decrepitude, bereft of 
 its staff, bereft of all on which its heart or its limbs could 
 lean ! Junia supported herself in Melicent's arms. 
 
 It is, in common language, hard parting. However joyous 
 or certain may be Immortality ; however undesirable, in any 
 instance, may be the prolongation of this earthly existence ; 
 however certified we are of the salvable condition of our 
 friends, — still, it is hard parting. Not the immediate pros- 
 pect of Heaven, not the presence of the Angel of Bliss, can 
 prevent the bitterness of emotion. We weep from sympa- 
 thy, and we weep from sorrow ; and sympathy makes the 
 sorrow of many one. In a moment, as by electric com- 
 munication, all hearts coalesce; and Miss Eyre wept as 
 purely, as deeply, as Barbara. 
 
 It is hard parting : the cessation, the giving over, the 
 farewell, the last view; the absence, the being gone ; nothing 
 for the eye to look upon, or the hand to feel, or the tongue 
 to speak to ; the withdrawal of the spirit, the burial of the 
 body ; the silence, and the lonesomeness. 
 
 It is hard parting : the room is bereft, the table is bereft; 
 
232 RICHARD EDNET AND 
 
 old clothes and old utensils are bereft ; the trees are stripped, 
 the landscape is lonely. There is a ceasing to talk, when 
 the thought is full ; a ceasing to think, when the heart is full ; 
 a ceasing to inquire and to communicate ; a ceasing to gather 
 reminiscences and to revive attachments. The subject is 
 gradually dropped from speech, and from letters ; dropped 
 from the countenance and the manner; it passes into an 
 allusion, it withdraws from the world, it cloisters itself in 
 the eternal sensations of the loving soul. 
 
 It is hard parting : — but it is not all parting, — there is a 
 going, too ; there is an elevation of spirit, as well as depres- 
 sion of the flesh. The parting takes us along with it. It 
 raises us from the limitable to the Illimitable. It gives to 
 Faith its province, and to Hope its destiny. Beyond this 
 vale of tears, our friends await us in the eternal Bloom ! 
 
 It is hard parting ; — but there is a remaining, too. AU 
 does not go. There are blessed memories and sweet relics 
 still in our hands, still sleeping on our bosoms, still sitting 
 by the fireside, still coming in at the door. Beauty, Holi- 
 ness, Love, are never sick; for them is no funeral bell. 
 That face visits us in our reveries when we wish to be all 
 alone with it ; an Ascended face, it shines on our despond- 
 ency, and smiles on our love ; it peoples the solitude with a 
 sacred invisibility ; it introduces us to the realm of the de- 
 parted, to converse with spirits — to commune with saints. 
 The medium between us and the dead is a purifying one. 
 It cleanses the character ; we see nothing bad in what is 
 gone ; there is no remembrance any more of sin ; we are 
 ravished by virtues perhaps too late recognized ; we adore 
 where we once hardly tolerated ; — a departed friend is 
 always an image of pure crystal. 
 
 And the body, the transient tabernacle, the clayey tene- 
 ment, has its wonderful mission. It hastens to repair the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 233 
 
 rent in our hearts, by its look of angelic peace ; as, in the for- 
 est, a prostrate tree hides its decay in a vesture of green 
 moss, so the body endues the pain and the waste of sickness 
 with an expression of health and repose. 
 
 When the last agony was over, the features of Violet 
 resumed their wonted composure ; —beautifully on the 
 pale cheek lay the long, silken eye-lashes ; on thin lips 
 flickered a smile, as it were a shadow reflected from the as- 
 cending, beatified spirit. The Lady Caroline crossed over 
 the silent breast the lily hands, and smoothed on the fore- 
 head the flaxen hair ; and the well-defined eyebrows were 
 still that western cloud, floating between eyes that had set 
 forever and the azure expanse of the forehead above. 
 
 Mrs. Whichcomb, and the tray, came into the room, more 
 quietly than usual, not to minister to the sick, but to remove 
 the traces of sickness, and gather up sundry medicinal 
 vessels, for which there was no further use. 
 
 Kichard left the room ; and Landlady followed him. 
 
 " It has come to this ! " said the latter. " Yes," replied 
 Richard, mournfully. "You would hardly have thought 
 it," she added. " I have feared it a long time," he rejoined. 
 She was behind him when she said this. Reaching the 
 landing, he turned towards her, and saw her eye drooping 
 over the tray, loaded with empty bottles and sundry trifles, 
 the wrecks of a vain Hygiene. To that tray, as he had 
 nothing else in particular to look at, his own gaze gravitated. 
 " How much is gone ! " she said, while a tear swelled in 
 her eye, which she tried to suppress, and her voice thickened 
 with emotion. " Yes," replied Richard, touched by her 
 emotion. " How little comes out of the sick room ! " she 
 went on ; " but to remember how faithful you was, and you 
 are kept up under the heavy blow. Then there is the going 
 up and down stairs, seeing to everything that is wanted, and 
 20^ 
 
234 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 with a weak back and so many others to look after, — if I 
 was n't a Christian, which I sometimes fear, I could n't have 
 got through it all. Who knows what death is, till it comes 
 into a body's house, and that a boarding-house, right amongst 
 so many, who all have their own feelings ? They will not 
 use the things again, and it takes a good while to get them 
 back into the room, which we have to do to raw hands, and 
 never tell them. Then there is the Doctor's bill, and the 
 Undertaker's, and the grave-digging, which must be paid ; 
 and you never know where the money is hid." Richard 
 heard enough, too much for his peace of mind; and he 
 retorted, with reasonable severity, " How can you so har- 
 row the sensibilities of the living, and insult the memories 
 of the dead ! '' 
 
 " So-ho ! " snapped the woman; "you would fob me off, 
 
 — you would shirk me out of my dues; when I have been 
 in the business thirty year, and stood between myself and 
 ruin six months at a time, which death always produces, and 
 the friends aftervA'-ards have no more hearts than a stone ! 
 Vou shall pay for it; this sickness shall come out of you!" 
 
 Richard escaped into the street. He provided for the 
 obsequies ; he took charge of the services on the burial daJ^ 
 It was a scant procession, but it comprised the elements of 
 tenderest sorrow. In a quiet lot, in the city burial-ground, 
 the remains of Violet were laid.. 
 
 What should become of the Old Man and Junia ? They 
 were without resources. The expenses incident to what had 
 transpired more than exliausted their little store. There 
 was a balance against them of a few dollars, which the 
 generosity of the Factory Girls, and some others, removed. 
 
 They could not remain at Whichcomb's, for two reasons, 
 
 — the head of that establishment w^ould not have them 
 there, and Junia had no wish to be there. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 235 
 
 Nor was Junia inclined to resume her labors in the Fac- 
 tor}\ The Old Man had a son-in-law in one of the neigh- 
 boring counties ; thither they would go. Meanwhile they 
 were invited to spend a few days at Willow Croft. 
 
 But how should they reach that distant town? Munk 
 & St. John's stage-route led partway to it, and it occurred 
 to Richard, as it probably would occur to half our readers, 
 that a free passage would be offered them. 
 
 But there was an obstacle. Mr. St. John was a right- 
 angled man ; he liked to see things square. He would have 
 the way-bill square with the passengers. He was wont to 
 follow the stage to the suburbs of the city, to see that the 
 footings squared with the seats. And he had introduced a 
 rule into the firm, possibly suggested by the laxity of his 
 associate, to have no free seats. A good rule, indeed, when 
 we reflect how a stage company is liable to be pestered by 
 mendicant applications, or imposed upon by fraudulent ones. 
 " If men are really poor, let the towns to which they belong, 
 or their friends, pay their passage. Why are we the sole 
 public benefactors ? " So Mr. St. John argued. 
 
 Richard was compromised with Junia. He had said 
 there could be no doubt about the conveyance. Munk con- 
 tributed half a dollar towards the fare, and so did Winkle, 
 and so did Aunt Grint. As much more was needed. There 
 were the Denningtons and others, but Junia was already 
 insolvent to their kindnesses. W^hat should Richard do ? 
 W'hat should Junia do ? They v;ere both in that pain in 
 which little things will sometimes involve pure and benevo- 
 lent minds; — Richard overleaping his means in an attempt 
 to do good ; Junia sorely perplexed by the trouble she gave 
 her friends. 
 
 Deliverance came in this wise. Munk and St. John 
 desired to send an agent into the country to purchase grain, 
 
236 RICH^IRD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 and look after stables and other things incident to an import- 
 ant stage-route, and Richard was deemed a suitable person 
 for such a trust. He wished to see the country, and was 
 glad to go ; but stipulated, as a consideration for his services, 
 that his unfortunate friends should be carried likewise. 
 
 So, one morning, after collecting passengers from all the 
 hotels, and taking in the mails from the Post-office, with his 
 clean-washed, newly-painted, and highly-enameled coach, 
 and his team of mettlesome, pawing, bright-haired bays, 
 Winkle drew up at Willow Croft. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE STAGE-DRIVER. 
 
 We promised to say something more of Winkle ; and this 
 is the chapter to do it ; and what we would say is, there 
 was no such man. This statement is quite true, and quite 
 false. Such is the nature of human language. The truth 
 will be understood by Winkle's friends. Is it convertible in 
 the Tartar tongue ? Let us explain. We suppose, and the 
 calculation is based on an unanimous popular sentiment, 
 that if all the Stage-drivers on the North American Conti- 
 nent were recast and made into one, that one would not be 
 equal to Winkle. Or thus, — if the essence of all good stage- 
 driverism on the aforesaid territory were extracted, it would 
 not compare with what could be got out of the smallest frag- 
 ment of Winkle. 
 
 In the first place. Winkle knew everybody, and every- 
 thing ; and every body and thing knew Winkle. He knew 
 all the girls, and the school-children, and the old men, and 
 the young men ; and bowed to them all, as he rode by, and 
 they bowed to him. For forty miles, he knew where every- 
 body lived, and who everj'body was that lived anywhere. 
 He knew the tall, white house on the hill, and the large 
 house, with pillars in front, among the trees, and the little 
 black house over in the field ; and there was always some- 
 body standing by all the houses, to whom he bowed. Some- 
 times he bowed to the well-sweep that happened to move in 
 the wind ; sometimes to a dog that sat on the door-steps. 
 How many smiling favors he got from the girls, who, after 
 
238 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 dinner, and after dressing for the afternoon, sat by the open 
 front windows ! how many from the children that swarmed 
 about the school-houses ! In fact, everybody smiled and 
 bowed when he passed, — black and hard-favored men ; 
 muggy and obstinate men; coarse and awkward men. 
 Every day he had a sort of President's tour. 
 
 Then, he pointed out the tree where a man hung himself, 
 and the woods where a bear was shot, and the barn that 
 was struck by lightning, and the stream where a man was 
 drowned. 
 
 And this, in the second place : because of his unbounded 
 good-nature. He did errands for all those people ; he ran 
 a sort of express to the city ; an express, too, from one neigh- 
 borhood to another. Then, he did his errands so correctly, 
 so promptly, and so genially. If those for whom he 
 acted were poor, he charged but little. He knew every 
 place in Woodylin, and could execute any order, from get- 
 ting iron castings to purchasing gimp, and matching paper 
 hangings, and delivering billet-doux. Furthermore — and 
 herein the beauty of Winkle was seen — he ran express be- 
 tween Hearts. Nothing pleased him better than to have a 
 love-case in hand between two persons on different parts of 
 his route ; there was such a carrj'ing of little notes, and little 
 remember-me's, and little nods and signs ; and then he could 
 drop a big bundle of tenderness in a single look, as he passed 
 the sweetheart, hanging out the washing of a Monday 
 morning. Then of the widow's son, whom he carried to 
 the city some five years before, and who had been all this 
 time at sea, he got the first intelligence ; and as he walked 
 his horses up a long hill, and the mother sat rocking and 
 knitting by the roadside, he told her that her boy had been 
 spoken off the Cape of Good Hope, or that his ship had been 
 reported from Rio. When anybody was sick along the road 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 239 
 
 he bore the daily intelligence to friends, who stood at their 
 doors waiting for it ; by what divination it was communi- 
 cated nobody could tell, but the effect was instantaneous ; so, 
 by an invisible, and, as it were, omnipotent hand, he dropped 
 smiles and tears, joy and sorrow, w^herever he went ; and 
 his own heart was so much in it all, none could help loving 
 him. In addition, and notwithstanding Mr. St. John, he 
 gave little gratuitous rides ; he let the boys hang on behind ; 
 and in the winter we have heard of his taking up half a 
 dozen school children with their mistress, and helping them 
 through snow-drifts. Then he carried the mail, which is it- 
 self a small universe in a leather bag ; — here sweet spring to 
 some bleak and ice-bound soul, — at the next turn a black 
 thunder-storm on some tranquil household ; — now singing at 
 one corner of its mouth, as if it was full of Jenny Linds, — 
 anon tromboning out its melancholy intelligence ; and, like a 
 Leyden jar on wheels, giving everybody a shock as it passes, 
 making some laugh and others scream. Winkle carried 
 this, and it was as if Winkle himself was it ; and some peo- 
 ple, notwithstanding they loved him so, hardly dare see him, 
 or have him open his mouth; they didn't know, any more 
 than Aunt Grint, w^hat had happened, or what might hap- 
 pen. In addition, he brought people home ; and as he drove 
 on, he got the first sight of the old roof and chimneys ; he got 
 the first sight of the rose-bushes and the lilacs in the yard ; 
 he saw, too, from the quietness about the house, that a 
 surprise was on hand ; he knew perfectly well that the 
 daughter whom he was bringing was not expected, — that 
 she meant to surprise the old folks. He did not hurry his 
 horses ; he did not make any sign. He landed the young 
 lady at the gate, and was taking off the baggage, when he 
 heard a scream in the door. He had expected it all, and 
 looked so sober, as he pulled at the strap, with one foot on 
 
240 EICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 the wheel, and his back bent to the ground. " Naughty, 
 naughty Winkle ! " cried the mother; "why didn't you 
 tell us Susau was coming ? You have almost killed me." 
 Winkle loved to kill people so. 
 
 In the third place, there is magic in the calling of a 
 Stage-driver. Everybody knows and aspires to know the 
 Stage-driver ; everj-body is knonia by, and is proud to be 
 known by, the Stage-driver. The little boys remember it a 
 month, if the Stage-driver speaks to them. There is a par- 
 ticular satisfaction to be able to distinguish, among drivers, 
 and say, it was Winkle, or it was Nason, or it was Mitch- 
 ell. The Stage-driver is Prince of a peculiar realm; and 
 that realm consists of the yellow coach he drives, and the 
 high seat he occupies, and his four mettlesome horses, and 
 forty miles of country road, and the heart of several prin- 
 cipal roads, not to speak of ten thousand little matters of 
 interest and pleasure, business and profit, news and gossip, 
 with which he is connected. Hence, he, like a Prince, is 
 held in reverence by the populace. Of all the people on the 
 earth, he is the one who rolls by in a gilded coach ; he is 
 the one who sweeps it high and dry over the world ; he is 
 the one who rides through his immense estate with the most 
 lordly and consequential air, and all the rest of us seem 
 to be but poor tenants, and gaping boors. It is some- 
 thing to speak to a Stage-driver ; it is a great thing to be 
 able to joke with him. It is a sign of a great man, to be 
 recognized by the Stage-driver. To be perchance known by 
 one who knows nobody, is nothing. To be known, to be 
 pointed out, to have your name whispered in a bystander's 
 ear, by one who knows everybody, affects you as if Omnis- 
 cience were speaking about you. The Stage-driver differs 
 from a Steamboat captain, in that the latter is not seen to 
 be so immediately connected with his craft as the former. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 241 
 
 "We meet the Captain at the breakfast-table : he is nobody ; 
 he is no more than we ; we can eat as well as he can. But 
 who dare touch the Stage-driver's ribbons ? Who dare swing 
 his whip ? 
 
 How rapidly and securely he drives down one hill and up 
 the next, — and that, with fifteen passengers and half a ton 
 of baggage ! Then how majestically he rounds to, at the 
 door of the Tavern ! What delicate pomp in the movement 
 of the four handsome horses ! In what style the cloud of dust, 
 that has served as an outrider all the way, passes off when 
 the coach stops ! How the villagers — the blacksmith, the 
 shoemaker, the thoughtful politician, and the boozy loafers, 
 that fill the stoop — grin and stare, and make their criticism ! 
 
 How he flings the reins and the tired horses to the stable- 
 boy, who presently returns with a splendid relay ! How he 
 accepts these from the boy with that sort of air with which 
 a king might be supposed to take his crown from the hands 
 of a valet ! There are his gloves, withal ; — he always 
 wears gloves, as much as a Saratoga fine-lady, and would 
 no sooner touch anything without gloves than such a lady 
 Avould a glass of Congress water. 
 
 There is, moreover, a mystery attaching to the Stage- 
 driver, — a mystery deeper than the question. Why the car- 
 casses of elephants are found imbedded in the ice-mountains 
 of the Arctics ? — even this, Why the Stage-driver is not 
 frozen to death in our winters ? His punctuality has some- 
 thing preternatural in it; — how, in the coldest weather, 
 in the severest storm, in fogs, in sleet, in hail, in lightning, 
 in mud, when nobody else is abroad, when Madam Denning- 
 ton hardly dare look out of her windows, when even Hel- 
 skill expects no customers, — then the Stage-driver appears, 
 rounding the corner, just as regular and just as quiet as the 
 old clock in the kitchen. 
 21 
 
242 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 It is no wonder that the height of the ambition of mul- 
 titudes of young men is to be a Stage-driver. This was 
 for one month Simon's ambition ; but it was clearly seen he 
 had not the necessary genius, and he gave it up, and went 
 on singing as abstractedly as ever, " O, the break down ! O, 
 the break down ! " The wonder is, that in this world of 
 uncertainty, and deception, and sin, where the temptations 
 to wrong are so frequent, and the impulse to it so easily 
 aroused, so good a driver as Winkle should be found. 
 
 Shall we say that Richard had all these thoughts about 
 Stage-drivers, and Winkle in particular ? He had many of 
 them ; — he could not help having many of them, for there 
 he sat on the box with Winkle, and saw whatever trans- 
 pired relating thereto. 
 
 They drove on through a well-cultivated, deep-soiled, 
 gently undulating country. The landscape did not mount 
 to the sublime, nor was it remarkable for boldness ; the sky- 
 line was agreeably scolloped, — qu ite subordinate dome-shaped 
 hills ever and anon arose into view. They crossed frequent 
 ravines. The road was skirted with Ponds, — those beauti- 
 ful collections of water, that singly or in groups challenge 
 the regard of the traveller in every portion of the country. 
 Winkle, as he knew the inhabitants, so also knew the hills, 
 the ponds, and the streams. 
 
 He told Richard the names of many of them, and they 
 were bad enough to be dismissed in silence ; but it is be- 
 cause they were so bad, Richard could not be silent, neither 
 shall we be. Many of the places were distinguished by the 
 name of some man who lived near by ; thus, there were 
 Vail Hill, Squier's Corner, Sills's Mills. Possibly, in a 
 country where Man is so respectable, any man may dignify 
 any spot whereto he is neighbor. There is, however, this 
 difTicuhj'. Man changes, moves away, dies, while the spot 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 243 
 
 remains, and then it is christened into the next comer. So 
 it happened that Vail Hill was sometimes called Water's 
 Hill, and sometimes Wrix's. They passed through " South 
 Smith," and " Smith Corner," and " North Smith." " Why 
 Avas this so called ? " asked Eichard. " From one of the 
 Heroes of the War, who shot a man — or a man shot him, 
 I forget which," replied 'Winkle. " What is this ? " asked 
 Kichard, as they stopped at a lovely hamlet on the margin 
 of a pond. " Mouth-of-the-Klaber Eoad," answered his 
 companion. " Old Squire Klaber, some years ago, built the 
 road ; and this was the mouth of it, and it has gone by that 
 name ever since. And that is Twenty-five-mile Pond." 
 
 A town would sometimes be thus discriminated : La 
 Fayette, La Fayette Centre, La Fayette Bridge, La Fayette 
 Ferry. There were "Forks" and Cross Roads. A favorite 
 classification was " Corners." One town had eight " Cor- 
 ners," — not on its edge, but in its middle. 
 
 Consider the effect of this arrangement. In John Gilpin's 
 race, substitute Stubb's Tavern, or Peacock's, for Belief Ed- 
 monton, and Cowper would have had a more dolorous time 
 than his hero. Make some other changes thus : for " Banks 
 of Air," read Banks of Teagle's Brook. Li the following 
 passage — 
 
 " More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves 
 Of Come, bosomed deep in chestnut groves ; " 
 
 for " Como " introduce " Long Pond," which is as fairly 
 bosomed in oaks and beeches, and overhung by as stupen- 
 dous hills. How could " Foss's Stream " be wTought into 
 any stanza like this, " Thou sweet flowing Dee, to thy 
 waters adieu ! " " Think of coming," says a recent trav- 
 eller, " into Ebkdale, and Ennisdale, of walking four miles 
 on the bank of UUswater, of looking with your living eyes 
 on Derwent Water, Grassmere, Windermere ! " Now, 
 
244 RICHARD EDNEY AXD 
 
 Richard rode through a beautiful valley belonging to Sam 
 Jones and Isaac Seymour, and along the margin of a 
 stream remarkable for its contrasts of thickets and clearing, 
 wildness and repose, known as " Eight-mile Brook ; " and 
 while the horses were changing, he went upon an elevation 
 called " Tumble-down-Dick ]\Iountain," from which was a 
 view of unequalled tint and variety, rimmed around with 
 those bright waters, " Spectacle Pond," " the Matthew 
 Paxson Pond," and " Smith Corner Pond ! " 
 
 But in the midst of these reflections, where was Junia ? 
 She sat on the back seat, with the curtain lifted, leaning on 
 the side-strap, rapt in her own thoughts. Winkle knew 
 he was carrying Sorrow that day, and he was graver than 
 usual. Richard relapsed into frequent reveries. All places, 
 independent of their names, were beautiful to Junia, — 
 beautiful, too, was what might be called the Spirit of the 
 road coming forward to greet Winkle. But this beauty was 
 shaded with grief. The stage was a teeming News-teller 
 dropping its items and its bundles of information into hands 
 that stretched up all along the way to receive them ; but it 
 would bring no news to her. It was carrj-ing her further 
 and further from the sacred spot of affection; and as often as 
 it might return over the same ground, it would bring no 
 word to her of the absent and the loved. 
 
 Richard offered her water, but she could not drink ; at a 
 hotel, where they stopped to dine, she could not eat ; and 
 when Richard would have walked with her into the streets 
 of the town, she could not go. 
 
 They reached the terminus of the route about sunset. 
 The Uncle of Junia lived a few miles distant. Thither, 
 Richard, taking a horse and wagon belonging to the Com- 
 pany, drove his friends, and arrived late in the evening. 
 This family he found very glad to see Junia and her Grand- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 245 
 
 father, and in very comfortable circumstances. The man 
 had indeed married a second wife, but a woman who exhib- 
 ited the tenderness, and preserved the recollections, of the 
 immediate Aunt of Junia, and daughter of the Old Man. 
 They were certainly open to affectionate appeal, and some 
 hidden, strong sensibility could alone have prevented Junia's 
 having recourse to them sooner. Early on the morrow 
 Eiohard returned. 
 
 Having attended to the business of the route, in a few 
 days he came back to the city. 
 21# 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A DOMESTIC SCENE. 
 
 "What is the matter?" said Munk, coming in to his 
 supper, and finding the children in a snarl. 
 
 " So much for gratifying the children!" replied his wife ; 
 "Mrs. Mellow told me never to gratify children, and I always 
 told you it was not a good plan." 
 
 " I hope there is no harm done," rejoined Munk. 
 
 " Mamma made us two dough-nut babies," said Memmy, 
 "and Bebby has eaten hers up, and now she wants mine." 
 
 Indeed, she did want it, and screamed lustily for it. 
 " She may have the head," said Memmy, — but that would 
 not do ; it was the whole or nothing. 
 
 Munk, meanwhile, had taken his seat at the table, and 
 was stirring his tea, looking at the lumps of sugar as they 
 turned up in his spoon. Mrs. Munk put Bebby up to the 
 table in her high chair. The child wanted a cooky. " Eat 
 your bread and milk first," enjoined the mother. The child 
 reached forward, and purloined the cooky. " Put it back ! " 
 cried the mother. The child did not obey. " Put it 
 back ! " the mother called out, still lou3fer. The child de- 
 layed. " Put it back ! " the mother screamed. The child 
 yielded, and began to cry. " Stop your crying! " — so the 
 mother pursued her. " You shall be whipped ! Asa, will 
 you take the child and whip her ? " Asa relucted. " We 
 must be obeyed, — we must be firm," — so the wife expostu- 
 lated and instructed, — " and I am too weak, you know I 
 am." Munk was not moved. Again Bebby began to cry 
 
RICHARD EPNEY, ETC. 247 
 
 for Memmy's dough-nut. " The children shall never have 
 another dough-nut in the world ! " threatened their mother, 
 " Don't say so," replied Munk. 
 
 " I shall go off! " bitterly exclaimed Roxy, and covered 
 her face with her apron. 
 
 " Don't do that," said Munk. 
 
 " No, no, I may never do anything, only be crazed by the 
 children !" 
 
 " Yes, Roxy, you may do everything, — everything you 
 wish to do, everything you ought to do. Did n't you love 
 to make the dough-nuts for them ? " 
 
 " I did ; but we are not to be ruled by our affections, but 
 by a sense of duty, or we shall ruin the children. Have n't 
 I told you so before ? " 
 
 " Were not you happy in doing what you did ? " 
 
 " Surely I was. Memmy asked me, and Bebby pleaded 
 so, and I was happy; but I had no right to be. I yielded 
 to it, and this comes of it." 
 
 The trouble of the parents only seemed to increase that 
 of the children, whose noise and altercation it became more 
 and more difficult to bear. 
 
 " Give her the whole," said Munk to Memmy. 
 
 *' That w'ould not be right, I think," interposed Richard. 
 " Bebby has not been very well to-day, and she has ap- 
 peared more fretful than ordinary. You had better look 
 into the matter, and see if it is not something besides the 
 dough-nut that ails her." 
 
 " She ought to be whipped ! " said Mrs. Munk. "Mrs. 
 Mellow says a whipping, now and then, does children good." 
 
 " Don't say that again, will you, Roxy ? " rejoined her 
 husband. 
 
 " Let me see w^hat can be done," added Richard. He 
 took the child into the rocking-chair, sang songs, and soon 
 had her fast asleep. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RICHARD AND THE GOVERNOR'S FAMILY AGAIN. 
 
 The Governor was in the practice of taking his fam- 
 ily, in a festive way, sometimes to " Spot," sometimes to 
 " Speckle," — names of ponds, of which there were several 
 in the neighborhood of the city, — w^here they spent the 
 day, and returned at night. This year he w^ould go to 
 " Spot," and "Climper's," Mr. Climper being the proprietor of 
 " Spot," and its hotel, its boats, and other recreative addita- 
 inents. The family, in this instance, meant more than it 
 does in our title ; it included married children and grand- 
 children, and it did not include Roscoe or Benjamin. 
 
 The Governor's carriage was too small, and he ordered 
 Munk & St. John's omnibus, and Richard was commis- 
 sioned to drive it. 
 
 Alice Weymouth, emerging from under the trees in the 
 front yard, was the first to discover Richard Edney on the 
 box. She smiled and blushed, and turned to Miss Rowena, 
 who laughed and turned to Barbara ; w'ho did the same to 
 Melicent, by w'hom the drollery was conveyed to her mother 
 and Mrs. Melbourne, where it stopped. And for a good 
 reason, — these were the last out of the house. " What are 
 )"ou laughing at ? " asked Mrs. Melbourne. Madam laughed 
 just because the others did, and said, " This is a pleasant 
 beginning, and we shall have more sport before the day is 
 over." 
 
 Notwithstanding Barbara and Melicent were so much 
 alike they were often mistaken for each other, they had 
 
RICHARD EDNEV, ETC, 249 
 
 their peculiarities ; and one was this, — that Barbara could 
 not ride on the outside of a coach, and Melicent disliked the 
 inside. So, when the rest were seated, Melicent mounted 
 the box with Richard. It had indeed got whispered all 
 through the party that it was Richard ; but Madam, who 
 hated an ado, hushed the folks, and Richard drove on 
 without molestation. 
 
 He took the same road that, a few months before, in mid- 
 winter, he had come to the city on. Grass was sprouting 
 where the heavy drifts lay. Cattle luxuriously fed in fields 
 from which they had gladly retreated. Barn-yards that had 
 been so variously and thickly stocked were open and 
 empty. Buds that folded themselves from the storm be- 
 neath the bark of trees were abroad and wantoning in the 
 sun. Doors that had been doubled, listed, bolted against 
 winter, were waltzing with summer. Men, whose every 
 look and step, whose every article of dress, and posture of 
 body, indicated a struggle with the old temperature, 
 sparkled and sped in the deliciousness and congeniality of 
 the new. 
 
 Richard remarked these changes, and spoke also of the 
 woman whom he extricated from a snow-drift. Melicent 
 knew Miss Freeling well, and liked her much ; and they 
 talked of that. 
 
 Richard went on to thinking of his first coming to the 
 city ; — of the Bridge, and the lively people from the 
 Athenaeum ; of the man with the umbrella, and his 
 solemn warning ; and of other things that had befallen, in 
 many of which Melicent herself had borne a part ; and now 
 he sat alone with one of the objects of his thought, and he 
 wished to know more of her, and she was ready to know 
 more of him. 
 
 How he could talk at random, and think of remote 
 
250 niCHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 things, and mind his four horses so well, she would like to 
 be informed. It was habit, he said, and the horses were well 
 trained. But attention to the brake now and then inter- 
 rupted conversation; and she was not sorry it did, for going 
 down hill on the top of an omnibus inclines a woman to 
 silence. How could horses be so courteous ? Why should 
 they not, in some rude moment, jerk the coach into the 
 ditch ? This brought up the whole question of horses, and 
 domestication, and the power of the human over the brute ; 
 all which topics Richard handled very sagely and instruct- 
 ively. 
 
 As they were walking slowly up a hill, Melicent observed, 
 for the second time since they started, "It is a fine day." 
 " Exquisitely fine," added Richard. There must have been 
 something in Richard's mind, or education, or association, to 
 suggest this expletive, which he pronounced as if he was 
 used to it, and deeply felt it. And there must have been 
 something in the day to revive the memory of such an ex- 
 pletive. And Melicent looked again at the day, and thougljt 
 of Richard. " A very blue sky, and very white clouds," 
 added he. A common remark. But Melicent herself had 
 hardly noticed the intensity of the blue and the white, and 
 she looked at them again. " How beautiful an opening 
 into the sky those two mountains make !" she said, inclining 
 her fan carelessly in the direction indicated, and letting it 
 rock back on the pivot of her hand. *' How fine a promon- 
 tory the sky makes down among the mountains ! " Richard 
 rejoined. He was ahead of her this time ; but he instantly 
 apologized by saying, " My teacher, Mr. Willwell, used to 
 instruct us that there was an earth-line of the sky, as 
 well as a sky-line of the earth. Instead of calling a moun- 
 tain high, he said we might call the sky hollow." '' He 
 must be an ingenious man," observed Melicent. " He is," 
 
THE governor's FA3IILY. 251 
 
 answered Richard. " He told the class in geography there 
 were harbors in the sky, and capes, and peninsulas ; and took 
 us out and showed them to us. The sky, he said, was like 
 a great ocean overhanging us, and bounded by the earth, and 
 having its shores along the hills and plains. He showed us 
 clouds at sea, and in a storm, and at anchor in the harbors. 
 Then he showed us how this earth-line of the sky varied its 
 height and distance relatively to our position and to sur- 
 rounding objects. Here was a hill fifty feet high, and sky 
 above it ; and the sky was fifty feet high, apparently, he 
 said, and the clouds were the same ; and it looked as he 
 said. On each side was a range of mountains a mile off, 
 and there the sky and clouds appeared to be a mile off. 
 The sky, he said, was not like an inverted bowl, having a 
 regular edge in the horizon, but rather like a bowl full of 
 water, that took all the forms of the irregularities of things 
 about us. — Here the road goes through a piece of woods; 
 let us see what is there." 
 
 " The sky," said Melicent, " is like a river above us ; and 
 there is a cloud before us, that seems to rest on the trees, 
 and is just as high as they are, — rather it is a bridge 
 across the river. Were we spiders or spirits, we might walk 
 on that bridge, or sail on that river. Your teacher's 
 theory," she added, as they drove on, "is a good one. As 
 we ascend, the sky recedes ; as we descend, it comes nearer." 
 
 " At the bottom of a well," remarked Richard, " the sky, 
 he said, would appear to rest on its mouth. We went 
 down into one, and found the fact to be so." 
 
 " A cloud," resumed Melicent, " appears to be stranded on 
 the top of that pasture-ground, and the cows look as if they 
 might tear it with their horns. Yet, if we were up there, 
 I suppose we should see the same cloud on the summit of 
 
252 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 some higher hill. — Have you seen paintings much, Mr. 
 Edney ? " 
 
 " I have not," replied Richard. 
 
 " I have often thought \A-hat studies the clouds might be 
 for painting ; yet how much better they are without paint- 
 ing!" 
 
 " They are better than pictures, Mr. Wilhvell said ; and 
 I doubt if any picture can exceed them." 
 
 Melicent wondered that a mill-boy and hack-driver should 
 be so well informed. There was no wonder about it. He 
 had had a good village school education, and improved on 
 what he was taught. 
 
 A scream was heard from the inside of the coach. A 
 bonnet had fallen. Melicent would hold the reins, while 
 Richard jumped down and recovered it, — she really would. 
 This pleased Richard, and it pleased Melicent, both equally. 
 
 Here was sympathy, harmony, a certain piece of never-to- 
 be-forgotten mutual good feeling. That Melicent should 
 offer to hold the reins, that Richard should think she 
 could hold them, that she did hold them, that she had held 
 them, — the reins, and the four horses, and the coachful of 
 people, — oh, these are trifles, but they are such sort of tri- 
 fles as helped while away a mile of the road, and such as 
 have their place and mission all along the road of life. 
 
 Let us look at this ride, and in fact this entire tale, in one 
 point of view : — that Richard Edney now had the Govern- 
 or's Family under his thumb, or, more literally, in his two 
 hands ; that there they w^ere, closely stowed under his feet, 
 in a tight vehicle, — a mere box, — and four stout horses in 
 front. If Richard were evil-disposed, how easy to do them 
 an injury ! If he were vain, how natural to feel exalted ! If 
 he were wanton, how pleasant to tease and scare them ! If 
 he knew the dignity, extent, and value of the Family, how 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 253 
 
 readily he might manage an advantage out of them ! But 
 his Father told him to treat everybody respectfully, — to 
 behave properly in all relations. If he were a servant, to be 
 faithful ; if he were a master, to be kind ; and if he drove, 
 to do it carefully, — to reverence life, and be tender of sensi- 
 bility, human or brute. Almost the last word his Mother 
 said to him was, " Kichard, be a good boy. I need n't say 
 it, I know ; but it is all that is in my heart, and all that is 
 in your duty, and I will say it again, Be a good boy." 
 Richard was a good boy, and of course a good driver, and 
 treated the Governor's Family becomingly, and drove them 
 securely. 
 
 So he got the party, in good shape, to " Spot," and 
 " Climper's." The hotel overlooked the water, and com- 
 manded a picturesque horizon. Climper was fat, and gruff, 
 — Giles to the contrary notwithstanding, — petulant, and 
 slow ; and one would think he neither understood the arts 
 of courtesy, nor the tricks of trade ; — and, furthermore, 
 that he had been set up in life at Spot Pond, by some cyn- 
 ical school of philosophers, on purpose to prove that our the- 
 ories, touching the effect of beauty and goodness on the 
 character, are moonshine. Every coach that darkened his 
 yard was not half so dark as he himself was all over his 
 house. But somehow Climper was the proprietor of 
 " Climper's," and of the fine view therefrom, and of the 
 best side of the Pond, and of the boats and bowling-alley; 
 and everybody liked Climper's, while everybody had an idea 
 of hating Climper, but did not do it. 
 
 This shows there is a difference between a man and 
 his attributes, — between quality and substance ; for there 
 might be a Climper's, and no Climper. 
 
 So Richard thought, when Climper wheezed forth to let 
 down the steps and hand the people out. He scowled, when 
 22 
 
254 KICHAKD EDNEY AND 
 
 he did so, and scolded because Richard had not driven a 
 few feet further, and worried because word had not been 
 sent that they v/ere coming. The grandchildren were 
 intimidated by the man, but Madam urged them along. 
 Still, Melicent would not be squired by such a grumbler, 
 and tried to find her way down from the box alone. Her foot 
 caught, and she would have fallen, if Richard had not 
 caught her. This brought around him the whole Family. 
 Madam had an inkling as to who the driver was ; and when 
 she saw him in such near proximity to her daughter, she 
 cast a searching sidelong^ glance at him, and thanked him. 
 Miss Rowena, who, on a former occasion, had really sneered 
 at Richard, was awe-stricken. Blelicent introduced Richard 
 in form to her several friends. 
 
 When this ceremony was ended, Richard proceeded to 
 look after his team. Climper's boy had already unhitched 
 the horses, and was leading them to the stable. Richard 
 took from the box a coarse frock he wore on such occasions, 
 and followed. While he was rubbing down the horses, 
 Climper appeared in haste, and said Mrs. Melbourne wanted 
 to see him. Richard would take off his frock. No ! The 
 lady could not wait, and Climper drove him off with his 
 fists. Richard went to the drawing-room, where were 
 Madam, Mrs. Melbourne, Melicent, and Rasle. " You wish 
 to see me," said Richard, looking rather indefinitely. " We 
 are very glad to see you," answered Madam, yet rather 
 dubiously. " Mrs. Melbourne wishes to see me," particu- 
 larized Richard. " I do not," answered that lady ; " I am 
 far from it." Richard was quite blanked. " Mr. Climper 
 said you did," he explained. They all smiled, and looked 
 knowing, except Mrs. Melbourne, who looked knowing, 
 but did not smile. Richard neither smiled nor looked 
 knowing. "A little pleasantry," said Melicent. " How are 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 255 
 
 your horses, sir?" She wished to turn the subject. 
 " There was n't anything pleasant about it," spoke out 
 Rasle. "Aunt Melbourne said she wished to see you pun- 
 ished for sweating the horses, and she did n't care how 
 quick." " Never mind, young man," said Madam, coming 
 kindly towards him, and as it were moving with him towards 
 the door. " Mrs. Melbourne has a way, and Mr. Climper has 
 a wa}--, and we all have ways, you know." O yes, Richard 
 knew; and went back, very pleasantly, to his work. It was 
 a trick of Climper's. 
 
 Having finished the horses, he threw off his frock, went 
 to the house, where he washed and combed, and loitered to 
 the verandah; where were Madam and Mrs. Melbourne. 
 Madam beckoned him to her side. " We owe you an apol- 
 ogy," she began. " Do not speak of it," said Richard. 
 "We owe you something — " "Nothing," he persisted. 
 " We owe you," she went on, " for the deliverance of the 
 Governor in one instance, and our daughter Melicent in 
 two, which makes three." "I only did my duty," an- 
 swered Richard. "And in that," interposed Mrs. Melbourne, 
 " we all come short. Why, Cousin, make such account of 
 trifles, when a whole life of sin lies against us?" Madam 
 was silent; she nev^er argued. This silence was interrupted 
 by the dashing of the Governor through the hall, followed 
 by the little ones. 
 
 " Hurra for the boats ! " he cried. 
 
 The Governor was a grave and reverend man ; but he 
 could unbend, — he could be quite relaxed, — and with chil- 
 dren he was playful as a child. Perhaps he remembered a 
 certain great one who was detected in his library playing 
 leap-frog with his children. 
 
 They scampered to the Pond, and after them puffed and 
 fretted the head of the domain. When they were well 
 
256 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 seated in the boat, Climper shoved them off; and he did it 
 after a fashion as if they were a cargo of small-pox. 
 
 Richard took the oars. He had seen that article before, 
 on the River, and the Lakes, to say nothing of his father's 
 mill-pond; and he pulled dextrously and strong. They 
 rowed to the middle of the Pond, The children dropped 
 hook ; had much gayety over their glorious expectations and 
 their insignificant success. They heard the rattle of the 
 king-fisher ; they descried the black heads of loons floating 
 upon the surface, like pieces of charcoal ; they saw the taU 
 firs on the banks, standing base to base, and spiring sub- 
 stance and shadow, into the skies. There were little holms, 
 and large islands. On one side, a dark schistous bluff" 
 faced the sky and darkened the water. On another, paral- 
 lelogramic farms, with white houses and capacious barns at 
 the head, and corn and grass lots at the foot, sloped to the 
 shore. " If sky is like water," said Melicent, " what shall 
 we do with sky in the water ? " " Sail on it," answered 
 Richard. " Un-spidered, un-spirited, we can do it, can't 
 we ? " she rejoined. " I wonder," said Barbara, " how the 
 fishes relish the arrival of a boat from the air-world, passing 
 like a cloud over their pleasant prospects. How should we 
 like to see a galley, having its sides lined with sharp-shoot- 
 ers, sail out from the Moon, and hover over the city ? " "I 
 wish I was a fish," spoke out Rasle. " Why ? " asked Mel- 
 icent. " I would bite Aunt Rowena's hook." That was 
 Rasle all over, and he made it all over with the rest. 
 There was great concert of merriment, and great discon- 
 certion of purpose. Miss Rowena had been soberly watch- 
 ing her line, and calculating her luck, for half an hour ; and 
 some others had, too. As it is considered a semi-crime and 
 a certain disgrace to go a-fishing and not catch fish, this sally 
 at once aggravated and decided their failure, and they con- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 257 
 
 eluded to return. " The fish are at the hotel," said the 
 Governor, " and I have a hook in my pocket that will catch 
 them." " What was that ? " the little ones asked. " The 
 round O hook, with a white face," said Easle, addressing 
 one of his nephews that was beginning to go to school. 
 
 Rolling nine-pins was part of " Climper's," and a consid- 
 erable part to the children. 
 
 Who should choose up with Grandfather? Mr. Edney, 
 he said ; and what he said, everybody said ; and some of 
 them thought so, and some of them did not tliink so. It 
 was Richard's first choice, and whom should he choose but 
 Madam herself ? The Governor took Mrs. Melbourne ; 
 Then Melicent was matched against Barbara, Eunice an- 
 swered to Easle, and so on to the very baby end of things. 
 Miss Rowena kept the tally. Now commenced the solemn 
 pauses, and the obstreperous outbursts ; the spurrings on to 
 the alley, and the banterings off"; the flourishes of attempt, 
 and the blankness of defeat; the young ones jumping up 
 and spatting their hands, the old ones heroically staid ; 
 complaints at the unevenness of floor on the one hand, 
 and quips at the awkwardness of the roller on the other ; 
 mock condolences, answered by mock applause ; such 
 screamings after some little runaway partisan, and such 
 cautions when he was found ; such shouts w^hen Grand- 
 father got a spare ball, and such shouts when Eunice got 
 one pin ; (he intense excitement as to who should beat, — 
 the little ones beating and annihilating each other a dozen 
 times, with their joyous tongues, before it was decided 
 which side had beat. Richard led off" handsomely, and 
 Madam was no mean player ; but the Governor was a great 
 ball, and so was Mrs. Melbourne : but Richard beat, or his 
 side did ; and such Yankee-doodling as the little ones, who 
 22* 
 
258 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 had beaten Grandfather, set up, was never heard this side 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 Some staid, and rolled longer ; some rushed to the swing, 
 and tore at it like a house-a-fire ; others chased one another, 
 like a troop of dogs, over the grass ; a portion betook them- 
 selves to the seclusion of a pine grove ; a few explored the 
 edges of the pond for lilies. 
 
 They were summoned to a dance; and the Governor 
 asked Richard to join them. But Richard, imagining the 
 invitation to spring more from politeness than cordiality, — 
 that it was rather from consistency's sake than any single- 
 ness of feeling, — declined. Now, Climper, fat and mulish, 
 always on the off side, always plaguing people, declared 
 Richard should dance; and, pushing him into the hall, said 
 if he did not dance, he would make him, and rendered 
 excuse abortive and retreat impossible. 
 
 Madam was tired ; so the Governor led out Miss Row- 
 ena, Melicent paired off with Barbara, and Richard bowed 
 to Mrs. Melbourne. This lady could not refuse, and Rich- 
 ard could not but advance ; so he and Mrs. Melbourne 
 danced together ! There may have been contrivance in 
 this; and, judging from the way Cousin bit her lip, one 
 might conclude she had something to do with it. 
 
 There was one advantage in Climper's, — it levelled dis- 
 tinctions. Here the Governor's Family bowled and danced 
 with their hack-driver. The same thing might not happen 
 anywhere else; but here, in this out of the way place, 
 where mirth and good feeling were the presiding genii, the 
 common sensibilities had free play ; and those tastes and 
 inclinations, which of themselves know no rank and belong 
 to all men, were spontaneously developed and harmoniously 
 exercised. They could all be merry, Richard and the Gov- 
 ernor alike ; and Mrs. Melbourne had to be, albeit she did 
 
THE CiOVEFNOr's FAMILY. 259 
 
 not like to be ; besides, among the oddities of Climper was 
 the practice of jumbling all sorts of people together, — a 
 practice, indeed, that might not seem suited either to the 
 decorum or the policy of a respectable landlord ; but it was 
 a way he had, and all who went to Climper's must put up 
 with Climper. More than that : this very way he had, so 
 repugnant to certain standards of feeling, accomplished the 
 end every one aimed at in going thither, — to be merry. 
 
 After the dance, Richard stood with Melicent on a knoll 
 overlooking the very pretty sheet of water that formed the 
 nucleus of the interest of the place. 
 
 "I have not thanked you," he said, "for the pleasure I 
 have had here." 
 
 " You have been a part of the pleasure," she replied, 
 "and may take a portion of the credit to yourself." 
 
 " How could such an one as Climper have selected this 
 beautiful place to dwell in ? " 
 
 " It was one of his oddities, I imagine ; he knew that 
 natural propriety would assign to him a plainer residence, 
 and out of sheer opposition to his destiny he came hither." 
 
 " The love of the Beautiful," continued Richard, "may 
 have captivated his heart." 
 
 " Did you say that ? " rejoined Melicent, in a way rather 
 abrupt, but earnest. 
 
 " Did I say what ? " inquired Richard, as if he was startled 
 at something he might have said. 
 
 "About Beauty and Climper." 
 
 " I said what I have heard Parson Harold say." 
 
 " Then you do not believe it ? " 
 
 " I believe and feel it." 
 
 " Repeat what you said." 
 
 " You banter me." 
 
 " I never was more serious." 
 
260 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 "I said the beauty of the place may have captivated 
 Climper." 
 
 " In that Pond," interposed Mrs. Melbourne, who had not 
 been far off during this conversation, " is plenty of slime 
 and eel-pouts, and the garbage of a thousand years." 
 
 " The slime," replied Richard, " is one of the best of fer- 
 tilizers ; and eel-pouts are a grateful dish to some people." 
 
 " Who told you so ? " asked the lady, quickly. 
 
 While Richard seemed to be refreshing his memory, Mel- 
 icent, laughing, said, " Parson Harold, I suppose." 
 
 " Very likely," answered Richard. " The Parson often 
 says everything in God's world has its use." 
 
 " Who is Parson Harold ? — and what does he know 
 about the wickedness that lies under all this fair surface ? " 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne delivered this slattingly, and then pulling 
 at Melicent, she said the little children w-anted help in get- 
 ting strawberries; and she asked — she only asked — Richard 
 if his horses had been watered ; she could not bear that the 
 poor, dumb beasts should suffer through the folly of men. 
 
 Richard went towards the stable. 
 
 " I must water my team," he said to Climper, whom he 
 encountered in the way. 
 
 " Don't pull wool over my eyes so ! " replied the latter. 
 "I smell dogs." 
 
 " Dogs ! " echoed Richard. 
 
 " Yes, dogs. And if it ain't dogs, it 's pups ; and I won't 
 have one here ! They bring them out in their coaches, and 
 hide them under the straw. Climper's is not to be imposed 
 upon, — Climper's has no hand in it; when they go up to 
 the polls, they shan't say, ' Climper's is against us, — Clim- 
 per's harbors dogs.' " 
 
 Richard laughed outright; but the more he laughed, the 
 more Climper blared, until he consented that the carriage 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 261 
 
 should be overhauled. The straw was ransacked, shawls 
 and tippets were thrown out, but to no purpose, — no sign 
 of a dog appeared. 
 
 " You belong to the anti-dogs ? " asked the landlord. 
 
 " I am of no party," replied Richard. " There is some 
 good in all parties." 
 
 " There is n't some good in all parties ! " replied the other, 
 doggishlj\ 
 
 " Indeed, there is some good in you." 
 
 " No, there is n't any good in me ! Don't tell me that ! " 
 
 " You love cats, don't you ? Kitty, Kitty," he called to 
 his fingers an amiable and womanly looking Maltese, and 
 taking her in his arms, stroked her back, in face of the wil- 
 ful man, and added, " That is good ; I love cats, too ! " 
 
 The strange Phumbician was touched, and, smiling good- 
 naturedly, he struck Richard smartly on his shoulders, and 
 bade him look after the horses, and went with him towards 
 the barn. 
 
 " You love cats," said Richard; " and do you love noth- 
 ing else ? " 
 
 " I love to be odd, — so get along ! " 
 
 "And nothing more ? " 
 
 " I love to hate dogs and plague folks." 
 
 " Do you not love this spot, this hill, this view, this 
 water ? " 
 
 " Yes, and because it plagues folks so to climb the hill, 
 and because they don't catch any fish, and because they get 
 ducked in the water, I love to have Mrs. Melbourne come 
 here, because she finds so many things to fret about ; the 
 children will get cold, or they will get drowned." 
 
 " You love cats, and to plague people ? " 
 
 " I did n't say I loved to plague people ; but to see them 
 
262 RICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 plague themselves, if they have a mind to. It is no 
 business of mine. I only give them the opportunity." 
 
 " That is why you settled here ? Come, now, tell me 
 the whole." 
 
 " I never told anybody." 
 
 " Tell me." 
 
 " I lost my wife and my children, and I had none to 
 love ; and I bought here, where I could love God alone, and 
 let the world craze about me as it liked." 
 
 " Can't you love me ? " 
 
 "Get along I" 
 
 " Why hate dogs so ? " 
 
 " My child was bitten by one ; don't ask about that. 
 She died ; don't speak of that ; let me alone of the dogs." 
 
 Climper helped Richard lead his horses to the pump ; he 
 gave them their full measure of oats, then drove our hero 
 back to where the Family was. 
 
 But Richard could not find it, or come near it; for the 
 whole group was concealed, and monopolized by certain 
 strangers, young gentlemen who had just arrived from the 
 city, among whom were young Chassford and Glendar. 
 The entire aspect of things indicated to Richard that his 
 company was not wanted, and he strolled to a distance. 
 He did wish to see Melicent, and make, as he thought, a 
 great communication to her. 
 
 Nor was Melicent indifferent to Richard. She saw his 
 disappointed look, and watched his retreating steps. She 
 presentlj'- took the liberty to leave her friends, and go where 
 he was sitting. 
 
 " I have discovered the secret of Climper," said Richard, 
 with considerable enthusiasm ; and related what Climper 
 had said. " He has been smitten by adversity, and makes 
 of this spot a refuge to his spirit." 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 263 
 
 Melicent looked at Richard incredulously, and then with 
 an expression of wonder. 
 
 " Do you doubt what I say ?" asked Richard. 
 
 " I am only surprised to hear you say it." 
 
 " If it be true — '' 
 
 " Yes ; — but that you should discover it." 
 
 " Why should I not ? " 
 
 '• Why should you not ? Only I did not think it of you." 
 She gave Richard another direct look, — one of so fixed and 
 searching a nature, that he started and said, " I hope I have 
 done no wrong." 
 
 " None at all," she replied, and caught a Iwig of the tree, 
 which she tore off and flung away with great apparent in- 
 difference. 
 
 Richard, not wholly at his ease, was yet sufficiently dis- 
 embarrassed to say, " This place is a Hermitage, — a queer 
 one ; but shall we not call it so ? My Teacher used to say 
 we ought to give pleasant names to pleasant places." 
 
 " Call it Mystery," she said. 
 
 " Nay," replied Richard, as the little children chased their 
 Grandfather in and out among the trees, full of gambol, and 
 breathlessness, and joy, "let us call it Merrywater." 
 
 " Climper will not like that." 
 
 " I will make him like it. He shall pull down his pres- 
 ent sign, and run up another." 
 
 " Will you be kind enough to see that my horse is rubbed 
 down, and grained, and put into my phaeton, when we start, 
 young man ? " said Glendar, who approached at this mo- 
 ment, and threw a quarter to Richard. " I will," replied 
 Richard, picking up the money, and going off. 
 
 The bell rang for supper, and the party was soon seated 
 around the sumptuous tables of Climper. Chassford took 
 care of Barbara, Glendar of Melicent, and the Governor and 
 
264 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 Climper of the whole. There were nice fried, white perch, 
 and crisp, savory pork; piles of bread, white and light; 
 yellow and sweet butter; bowls of strawberries, and pitchers 
 of cream ; cake of all sorts ; and the Family were hungry 
 and merry. Climper loved to plague people ; and Mrs. Mel- 
 bourne eschewed gingerbread, but Climper would make her 
 eat his gingerbread. Madam was sometimes delicate in 
 her meals, but he made her eat ; and those that loved to eat, 
 he would force to eat more than they ought to ; and so he 
 plagued them all. If mouths watered for the strawberries, 
 the strawberries seemed to water for the mouths, and the 
 cream foamed for the strawberries ; the bread was piled up 
 high, on purpose to fall easily into the hand ; and the pies 
 were in large plates, on purpose to go off in large pieces. 
 Climper's servants were at hand, with smoking cups of tea ; 
 and it was as if Climper, out of this abundance of good 
 things, had determined to destroy them all. 
 
 The sun was going down when Climper shut the coach 
 door, flung up the steps, and cried to Richard to be off with 
 his load. 
 
 Barbara was timid, and did not like the omnibus, and was 
 persuaded to resign herself to Chassford and his buggy. 
 
 Glendar attempted the same arrangement wiih Melicent, 
 but failed ; and she rode home as she had come out, — on 
 the box, with Richard. 
 
 They returned safely to Woodylin. IMelicent, with ap- 
 parent sincerity and good intention, invited Richard to call 
 at her father's. Nay, more, — Madam herself, to the 
 amazement of all, asked him to tea on a specified evening. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII, 
 
 AVE DO NOT KNOW 
 
 What is before us ; and Richard did not know what was 
 before him. Yet Miss Plumy Alicia Eyre was before 
 Ricliard ; her dark, thrilling eye was before him ; her pale, 
 pensive, earnest face was before him ; so was her searching, 
 pleading, piteous heart. But did Richard really know what 
 was before him? Was not the future hidden from him, and 
 was not the present even partially veiled ? 
 
 But with his body's eye he only saw Miss Eyre ; and 
 with his mind's eye, if he had striven to look another way 
 he could not, for she tyrannized over that too. 
 
 Miss Eyre was intimate at Munk's, and she brought fruit 
 and candies to the children. Moreover, Richard had been 
 sick two or three days, and Miss Eyre frequently called, 
 exhibiting the gentlest sympathy. She brought cordials to 
 his bed-side ; she spelled Roxy in the kitchen, while she 
 watched Avith her brother. 
 
 But Miss Eyre, as these pages have had occasion to 
 record, was unsphered, unhomed. In this she was to be 
 pitied. 
 
 Moreover, she lacked a contented mind ; she would not 
 submit to the orderings of Providence, or the inevitabilities 
 of fortune. She was too ambitious to be useful; too confi- 
 dent to be wise ; too bad to be good. She was too reckless 
 either to improve advantage or support evil. Here she 
 was to blame. 
 
 A little true humility, — even common candor of feeling, 
 23 
 
266 EICHAKD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 — a grain of piety, would have saved lier from the agitation 
 she was in, and the extremity to which she was tending. 
 
 Even now, Miss Eyre, with all that you have suffered 
 still burdening your memory, with all the lacerations of 
 sorrow yet fresh in your heart, may we not ask you if you 
 ought not to have been more considerate, — if some sugges- 
 tions of reason, humanity or religion, ought not to have re- 
 strained you ? Do not lay all the blame on others, but ask 
 your own soul if you can fully justify yourself. 
 
 Plumy Alicia appealed to the sympathies of Richard ; she 
 thrilled every commiserant fibre within him; her anguish, 
 like a troubled wave, beat upon him , her description of her- 
 self awakened his tenderness, while with consummate nicety 
 she concealed her design to do so. Her ministry to Richard 
 when he was sick, she knew, had established a place for her 
 in his gratitude ; she had imparted some intimate matters to 
 him, — a movement which, while it secures confidence, in- 
 spires self-esteem. She laid her hand upon his ; he could not 
 repudiate the familiarity, because by that act she seemed to 
 be discharging upon one stronger than herself a load of 
 sensation too heavy for her to bear. She looked into his 
 eye, but only to assure him how sad and heavy her own 
 was. 
 
 " Do not say that you love me," she said ; " I do not wish 
 you to say that ;" — she did wish it, nevertheless. " Kiss 
 me, and I go, — go with one assurance of friendship and 
 happiness, which, if it be all that is allowed me, will be a 
 precious keepsake forever." She said this with her warm 
 breath pulsating on his face. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 RICHARD RETURNS TO THE SAW-MILL. 
 
 The Dam in due time was repaired ; the Factories and 
 Saw-mills resuiTied operations, and the life and activity, rat- 
 tle and clatter, that attach to extensive mechanical works, 
 once more resounded. 
 
 But Saw No. 1 — Richard's appropriate field of action — 
 was dead. Captain Creamer had failed ; the breach in the 
 Dam ruined him. Richard, Mr. Gouch, Silver, and the rest 
 of the gang, gathered at their old resort; but there was no 
 one to employ them. None appeared, to rent the saw. The 
 Corporation, rather than that the instrument should lie idle, 
 offered to stock it, and let it by the thousand, if the original 
 hands, of whose ability and fidelity they had proof, would 
 take it. A bargain was soon struck. Mr. Gouch and 
 the others retained their several posts, whilst, by unani- 
 mous consent, it was arranged that Richard should assume 
 the superA-ision of the concern. An honor to our hero ! 
 For this office, it was evident to his fellows, he was well 
 qualified, and to it all were happy in raising him. His 
 readiness in figures, his judgment of timber, the accu- 
 racy and economy with which he could answer an order, 
 his familiarity with the several branches of work, — what 
 had become obvious during the winter, — united to never- 
 failing vigilance and sagacity, and great kindliness of 
 feeling and urbanity of intercourse, rendered the choice of 
 the company as easy to themselves as it was flattering to 
 him. His wages advanced with his responsibility ; and, if 
 
268 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 his labor was less manual, his duties were not less arduous 
 and exacting. 
 
 Clover was missing, — an absence which none regretted. 
 
 Affairs moved on harmoniously and prosperously. Mr. 
 Gouch, unabashed by the presence of Clover, grew a firmer 
 and more resolute man. Silver was silent and glum, but 
 not spiteful or rude. All the men had their weaknesses, as 
 well as their strength, and sport was too nimble and too 
 needful to be subdued by toil. There is no humor so 
 genial, no gayety so inspiring, as that which is awakened 
 among good-natured, hard-laboring men. 
 
 Summer was upon them, with its softening and expanding 
 influences ; — the great doors stood open, — the breeze was 
 welcome, — the roar of the Dam, which had been sharp 
 and hard in winter, grew round, limpid, melting, — the 
 rumbling of the wheels in the pit, the screeching of the 
 saws, all acknowledged the return of a milder dispensation. 
 
 The signs of business about the premises were not a little 
 pleasing; teams hurrying to and fro, the cries of the team- 
 sters, wheels laden with boards, carts filled with refuse, 
 and whatever indicated rapid exchange and a thriving 
 season. 
 
 In transacting the affairs of the concern, Eichard came 
 in contact with a variety of individuals in the city, — lum- 
 ber dealers, carpenters, and such as were engaged in the 
 erection of houses. He did a large amount of what is called 
 custom work. . 
 
 In all things his honesty and intelligence were of use to 
 him. He had been in the forest, studied trees, and investi- 
 gated the kinds and properties of wood. The hard and 
 the soft, the new and the seasoned, — what will bear the 
 weather and what must be protected, — what is adapted to 
 one end and what to another, — were familiar matters. In 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 269 
 
 manifold particulars, his opinion was sought, and his advice 
 followed. 
 
 During the summer, Richard and Nefon, the Bookseller, 
 became better acquainted ; and the more they became 
 acquainted, the better they liked each other; as if the non- 
 acquaintance of man with man were not at the foundation 
 of nine tenths of mortal dislikes ! Now, Nefon applied to 
 Richard to take a class in the Sunday-school, of which he 
 was Superintendent. Richard, with natural distrust of 
 his abilities, yet obedient to the rule he had adopted as the 
 supreme guide of life, to do good, replied that he would be 
 glad to do so. But an obstacle intervened, which seemed 
 at first sight not easy to be surmounted. His sister feared 
 such a step would alienate him from the church she attend 
 ed, and consign him remedilessly to Parson Smith's. Rich 
 ard declared that no position of this sort in the Church of 
 the Redemption should bind him to its authority or its infiu 
 ence, beyond the plain teachings of the New Testament 
 Eoxy promised him her prayers, — albeit she could not 
 yield him her blessing, as he entered upon this novel duty 
 To his class he added certain boys, whose abodes were 
 the shores of the River, the Islands, and the neglected 
 quarters of the New Town, and whom he had seen playing 
 the vagrant or the thief about the Mills; and had the satis- 
 faction of finding them punctual and interested, and of 
 recording their progress in divine knowledge. 
 23* 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HE VISITS THE GOVEEXOR's. 
 
 Among the events of not a little interest in this season's 
 experience was Richard's appointment with Madam Ben- 
 nington. He ascended the Governor's piazza and pulled at 
 the bell-handle with a slight palpitation of the heart ; and 
 the servant who ushered him in might have noticed a cer- 
 tain rusticity in his manner. 
 
 IMadam received him with grace and dignity. Melicent 
 and Barbara took his hand in a cordial way. With the 
 Governor, whose greatness of mind and force of character 
 were alwaj- s at the command of courtesy and kindness, and 
 replete with the minor social instincts, he was quite at ease. 
 Cousin Rowena was particularly complacent. There was 
 cause for this. Mrs. Blelbourne rallied strong against Rich- 
 ard, when she found attention to the Sawyer going so far as 
 a summons to a social family gathering. Not that she had 
 anything against Richard; only, — she could hardly tell 
 what. This was enough for Cousin, who thought the aver- 
 sion unreasonable, and was easily inclined to protect Rich- 
 ard from it. 
 
 Tea was carried round. Were Richard's nerves a little 
 wanton, and his hand a little clumsy ? What with cup and 
 saucer on his knees, and waiter with sugar and cream, 
 waiter with sandwiches and cheese, waiter with dough-nuts 
 and cake, and the gradual filling up of the narrow rim of 
 the only receptacle for this endless enumeration, and his 
 own desire to be polite, and his fear that he should not be, 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 271 
 
 and Mrs. Melbourne and Miss Kowena both watching him 
 so closely, — it was not strange there should be a downfall 
 both of bread and of feeling. But Cousin Rowena picked 
 up the fragments, and bit her lip. 
 
 The Governor's Family owed something to Richard, and 
 they were disposed to requite in full, and that in modes 
 at once delicate and honorable. Roscoe talked with him on 
 farming ; Rasle joked with him ; Barbara showed him the 
 library and pictures; Eunice played to him; Melicent 
 walked with him in the garden. 
 
 But would these parties square accounts, and be off? 
 Was this the purpose and upshot of their interview ? Was 
 there no common ground of humanity or religion, — no con- 
 sentaneousness of thought or feeling, — no grandeur of 
 moral aim, — no depth of character, — no aspiration for 
 ideal progress, — no accidental revelations of approved state 
 and being, which might suggest a perpetuity of acquaint- 
 ance, and even protract remembrance when calls were ended ? 
 
 In evidence that the invitation to Richard did not spring 
 from merely personal and private regards, but belonged to a 
 more expansive and general circle of social sentiments on 
 the part of the Family, other guests, obviously by invitation, 
 came in the evening. There were the Mayor Langreen, 
 the Redfernes of Victoria Square, the Lady Caroline, young 
 Chassford, Glendar, and other ladies and gentlemen. 
 
 Richard was in the centre, and, we might say, in the 
 centre of the centre, of the nobility of wealth, office and cul- 
 ture, and, if the worthy Dressmaker aforesaid is to be trust- 
 ed, of the common se?ise, of Woodylin. How did he carry 
 himself? He had heard his beloved Pastor speak of God's 
 and nature's noblemen, and perhaps sometimes thought he 
 was as good an one as any. He had heard from the lips of 
 his respected Teacher, and was himself sufficiently versed 
 
272 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 in g-eographj'' and history to know, that in some countries 
 the nobilitj' are distinguished by feathers in their caps, in 
 others by riding in coaches ; in some by a red patch on the 
 cheek, in others by a gilt sword ; and that it was once the 
 law that any man who had made three voyages round the 
 world should be knighted. But what did his knowledge 
 and convictions avail him now ? His favorite feeling, that 
 he was as good as anybody, — his indomitable resolution to 
 cower to no man, and be confounded by no woman, even 
 Pastor Harold with his sacred gown, and Teacher Willwell 
 with his impressive spectacles, — vanished from his recollec- 
 tion, and wavered in his hold ; and he felt himself amidst 
 these people, shivering, like a ship suddenly brought to, with 
 all sails in the wind. He was fidgety, wandering, purblind. 
 He stood face to face, and shoulder to shoulder, with these 
 people, not one of whom wore a sword, or had more feath- 
 ers in his cap, or rode in better coaches, or had made more 
 voyages round the world, than he ; yet he was not at ease. 
 To be in the centre of the Family and its appendages, and 
 compose one of its associates at an evening reiinion, was a 
 different thing from having them, as we have said, under 
 his thumb, and driving them in an omnibus. With entire 
 self-possession, leaning on a cant-dog, he could talk with 
 Melicent and Barbara in the Mill. Having nothing for his 
 muscular hands to clutch, how could he talk in that draw- 
 ing-room? Calm and cool, on a certain occasion, he seized 
 the Governor, and lifted him bodily out of watery peril ; yet 
 an introduction to the Governor's niece made him shake like 
 an aspen. He could take his turn at bowls or a dance with 
 the best of them ; but, alas for the imperfections of human 
 nature, he was not adequate to the demands of this social 
 hour ! 
 
 Still, Eichard's weakness was sustained and relieved by 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 273 
 
 the intelligent and charitable experience of the Family, and 
 he was borne in tolerable condition through the shoals and 
 breakers of first encounter with high life. 
 
 The cardinal maxim of his Teacher, that he must inquire 
 the use of, and derive wisdom from, every new thing he saw, 
 he was too agitated to apply. It was as much as he could 
 do to be there, without asking why he was there. If he had 
 gone on to asking questions, he would, peradventure, have 
 startled points of a still lower deep, that would choke and 
 flurry him far more than the superficial aspects of the case did. 
 
 In that something which goes by the name of high life, or 
 good society, is what pesters inquiry as much as it eludes 
 attempt. When it is said of one, he is aspiring, or of 
 another, he looks down upon us, what is implied but that 
 there is a something above, which the first has not reached, 
 and which, to the last, is an attainment and a power? 
 There is an Idea in it ; — that idea is supreme excellence ; 
 or, in that height is centred, and by it evermore is sym- 
 bolized, the sum of what, in a given community, or country, 
 or age, is deemed most valuable. There is a divinity in it, 
 — it is an order of God. Wealth and office are not it; 
 they are subsidiary to its plan, and typify some of its results ; 
 and are, remotely, a means of reaching it. Height, excel- 
 lence, superiority, are indeed tantamount and convertible 
 terms ; and imply, respectively, that precious something, 
 which .makes us feel poor and mean without it, and ever- 
 more hangs out to us its banner of hope, and is an ultimate 
 desire of the mind. If my neighbor slights me, he makes 
 me feel he has something which I have not ; and I either 
 sink into a brutish state of envy, or resolve to gain that 
 which shall make me his equal. Dr. Broadwell is in good 
 society partly by position; his position being that which 
 implies the requisites of good society. Mrs. Tunny means 
 
274 RICHARD EDNET AND 
 
 to get into it by the wealth of her husband ; but that will 
 depend wholly upon how he uses his wealth. Melicent — no 
 thanks to her — is born in it ; therefore her responsibility is 
 greater. If Richard shall be established in it, it will be by 
 hjs virtues. Fashion sometimes sets up for good society in 
 its own name ; but this is simply a mimicking of the great 
 Idea, and an attempt to get in by some other way. In 
 America, since what constitutes the. best society is not de- 
 termined by Court, it is determined by ideas ; and around 
 and toward these ideas is the community in city and coun- 
 try always gravitating. Primary instinct will in the end be 
 found as absolute as historical precedent. That is a wise 
 and righteous government which affords to ability the free 
 opportunity of rising to its proper height. Good society is 
 therefore not only a measure, but a crown, of exertion. 
 
 After all, that is the best society which God loves most ; 
 and among a depraved people much will pass for good 
 society which is really bad. 
 
 Richard was at his ease in the Saw-mill, and at Mrs. 
 Tunny's party, and at a public meeting; but he was not at 
 the Governor's. That mystic something which others pos- 
 sessed, he was conscious of lacking ; and he might have 
 retired in great disquiet, if Cousin Rowena had not support- 
 ed his flickering courage. He told her that he loved music, 
 and she ordered the young ladies to sing. This tranquil- 
 lized him, because it equalized him with the rest. He had 
 a good voice,' and well modulated, not to troubadour songs, 
 but to pieces of a different description. Sacred melodies 
 were familiar to him ; and he sang one, popularly known as 
 a pennyroyal hymn, — a measure that combines unction 
 and vivacity. It was well received, and he was pleased. 
 
 But, ever and anon, in course of the evening, — whether 
 it was owing to the heat of the room, or the proximity of 
 
THE GOVEKNOK's FAMILY. 275 
 
 unfavorable comparison, or the rapid transition of unaccus- 
 tomed persons and topics, or his own effort to divest himself 
 of what he most dreaded, — his perceptions clouded, and 
 his language tripped ; his hands swelled, and his face burnt. 
 He was glad to find an open door, and disburthen himself 
 to a draft of air. Blessings on the wind, that did for Rich- 
 ard what the Governor's Family, with its opulence, its 
 beauty, its breeding, could not do ! Melicent joined him on 
 the piazza ; and Richard, being himself again, could converse 
 and behave more to his satisfaction. 
 
 Richard was honest, and had a heart, and spoke of things 
 that he loved most to those who loved to hear them. Meli- 
 cent answered to the same description ; and as there were 
 many things in both their hearts alike, it was natural they 
 should get up quite an interchange of sentiment on cher- 
 ished and pleasant topics. 
 
 Correspondence of sentiment, connected as it often is 
 with correspondence of aim, is wont to lead to harmony of 
 feeling and mutuality of interest ; and Melicent left Richard, 
 with a strong desire to know more of him, and be more with 
 him. 
 
 Richard went home that night burthened with reflections ; 
 at one moment reproaching himself for pusillanimity and 
 weakness, — at another, questioning the authority of that 
 which exerted so strong a spell over him during the even- 
 ing; but after vibrating between several disagreeable and 
 disjointed subjects, he settled at last upon thinking about 
 Melicent. In her he saw exaltation without arrogance, 
 purity without demureness, tenderness without insipidity, 
 piety and no cant, beauty and no affectation, common sense 
 and yet great ardor and hope. 
 
 For the second time was he brought to the direct and 
 intense contemplation of Melicent ; and that in the night, — 
 
276 EICHAKD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 that with the glare and surroundings of the day withdrawn. 
 He had formerly thought of her as the Governor's daughter, 
 — beheld in her a wonderful instance of human and female 
 excellence, and admired the contrast she afforded to what 
 sometimes appears a dark back-ground of aristocracy, pride 
 of wealth, and meanness of station. He now thought of her 
 as Melicent ; she was individualized to his imagination, — 
 she was beginning to stand out alone in the universe to his 
 eye ; vapors or shadowy emptiness separated her from all 
 others, — an embarrassing, a hazardous state of affairs to a 
 young man. But, before he slept, the natural order of 
 things was restored, — her own proper world surrounded 
 and absorbed her ; and his own world, — his Saw-mill and 
 his rusticity, — came and took him off. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI, 
 
 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. 
 
 Richard's chief joy was his nieces ; and his Sundays, and 
 meal-times, and evenings, that gave him to them. He 
 played with them, and they made a child of him ; nay, 
 they made less than that ; they used him as if he had been 
 a giant moppet in whiskers, and tumbled him about like a 
 man of straw. He was the child, and they were the mas- 
 ters. He must listen to their wants, obey their commands, 
 bide their caprices, go where they wished, do what they 
 ordered ; they climbed up his chair, tore at his legs, rode 
 on his back, pilfered his pockets, hid his boots. He brought 
 blocks for them to build houses with, allotted a quarter of 
 the garden for their agricultural operations, put up a swing 
 for them on the willow-tree. Sundays, after church, he 
 went with them to Bill Stonners' Point, to see Chuk, and 
 through the woods to Mysie's, He filled their baskets with 
 box-berries and partridge-berries, and adorned their hats 
 with belhvorts and laurels. To Chuk the children were 
 an intelligence, — an incantation, — a glimmering of long- 
 lost ideas. Mysie showed them her cats and cows. 
 
 To add to the wonders, — a wonder it was to Memmy, 
 and a real wonder it might be to the universe, — Bebby be- 
 gan to talk ! The teeth came, and the talk would soon fol- 
 low. This was Memmy's philosophy; and is it not as 
 good as anybody's ? Who can explain the mystery of 
 speech ? Is it not God's miracle ? To witness this dull 
 clay putting itself into tune, — to see unconscious muscle 
 24 
 
278 KICHAKD EDNEY AND. 
 
 adapting itself to articulation ; ideas seizing upon corruptible 
 flesh and blood, and converting it into a living organism ; 
 to hear the short words, and the half-uttered long words, 
 and the endeavors after impossible words ; and how innu- 
 merable things seem, like bees about a hive, to fly about the 
 lips of the child, — some going in, some crawling on the edge, 
 and some falling back, and all keeping up such a buzz ; — 
 oh, these ivere new things, and well worth reporting to Mas- 
 ter Willwell ! And how Bebby's eyes would strain when 
 she tried to say something, and twinkle when she had said 
 something ; and Memmy's would twinkle too, and so would 
 Roxy's and Munk's, and the twinkle would be contagious, 
 and go all round the room. This was pleasant. 
 
 And what would the child say? what would be the first 
 utterance of that which from eternity had been silent, or 
 which from other worlds had come to take up its abode in 
 this ? What incipiency from the mystic depth of things 
 would start into being? It was " mamma " and " pn pa." 
 These were the first shoots from that thaumatergical seed- 
 bed, which was' ultimately to produce such harvests of prat- 
 tle, ratiocination, poetry, and newspapers ; — whereon would 
 that the dews of divine grace might descend, and adorn 
 them with heavenly beauty and sweetest charity ! 
 
 She ere long perpetrated those dreadful words, " I will," 
 and " I won't;" as if it were a crime to practise volition, and 
 presumption insupportable to be supposed capable of the pre- 
 rogative of free-agency, or to have any preference or aver- 
 sion. " Say 'I had rather not,' " enjoined the mother. "I 
 won't ! " answered the child. " You-will, won't you ? " pleaded 
 the mother. " I wont ! " reechoed the child. Roxy turned 
 to her husband, and seemed to relieve her sorrow, saying, 
 " It is just as I always said, and what Elder Jabson teaches : 
 Children are wicked." " Bebby wicked ! " said Munk, stop- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 279 
 
 ping what he was at — washing his face at the sink — and 
 looking- round. 
 
 " Bebby is wicked." Roxy said this, and was serene 
 again. 
 
 There is the nativity of ideas as well as words ; and Rich- 
 ard, being bound to inspect everything new, considered of 
 this also. Whether our ideas, for instance, of love and of 
 goodness, have a spiritual or material source, was a ques- 
 tion on which Master Wilhvell philanthropically descanted. 
 " You love Papa and Mamma," said he to Memmy, in a sort 
 of leading way ; " and whom else ? " "I love," replied the 
 child, " Bebby, and Uncle Rkhard, and — and — pussy, and 
 peaches." He had a peach in his hand. " Why do you 
 love peaches ? " He asked this in a playful manner, indeed, 
 but with earnestness of thought. " Because they are good," 
 was the brief, yet, to the child, very complete, reply. " And 
 you love Papa because he is good ? " The child assented. 
 This was a poser to Richard. Vainly did he invoke the 
 lessons of his Teacher. Was it one thing to the child, — 
 peaches or Papa ? Was it the same goodness, or the same 
 sense of goodness ? Both yielded pleasure. May it not be 
 that God awakens the sentiment of goodness, by affording to 
 sense and contemplation that which pleases usi But there 
 is a spiritual susceptibility of pleasure, as well as material ; 
 both sets of instincts were stirred in the child, — only she was 
 not old enough to distinguish between them. So Richard 
 found, on inquiry, that she hated badness, whether in Tur- 
 key rhubarb, or the neighbor's yelping dog, or drunken 
 Weasand. 
 
 Still, vast as these problems were, the children cared not 
 a straw for them ; they had rather play hide-and-seek among 
 the trees than among abstractions. They loved play, and 
 nothing but play, Roxy insisted. " I love Manama," said 
 
280 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Memmy. " Me lub Mamma, too," echoed Bebby, as sbe 
 stalked, with a made-up air of mixed pomposity and roguish- 
 ness, out of the room. Under the trees that Richard had 
 planted was their play-ground, and there they acted out 
 what their mother seemed to feel was their unhappy destiny, 
 — play. 
 
 Richard had set the trees, not at the corners of the yard, 
 not in straight lines, but in groups and curves ; thus creating 
 many little in-and-out places for caprice and pastime to 
 practise in. " Look at the children among the trees," he 
 called to his sister. She did look, and smiled. They were 
 nothing but her children, and these were nothing but trees ; 
 they were children too, who, in the house, were so often a 
 sigh on her heart, or an annoyance to her hands ; but now 
 they were pretty, — simply pretty, exquisitely pretty. She 
 felt this, and so did Richard ; and they showed it by their 
 looks, since neither spoke. 
 
 Trees, considered as an avenue for the eye to traverse, 
 enhance the beauty of objects at the end of it. The reader 
 has looked through trees at water or the sky, and witnessed 
 this effect. Nature, like Art, seems to require a border, in 
 order to be finished. The dressmaker hems and ruffles ; 
 the carpenter has his beads and pilasters ; the painter never 
 rests till his piece is framed. This appears to be an ulti- 
 mate law. Whether Master Willwell attempted to explain 
 it, we know not. We do know he was wont to tell his pu- 
 pils there were such laws ; stopping-places of thought, — 
 dykes in the seams where inquiry is ever mining. " Bread," 
 said he, " is bread ; and that is the v/hole thing. We may 
 say, indeed, it is a composition of flour, and 5'east, and 
 water ; but that is not it. Your mother's bread, that j'ou 
 get, fresh and warm, every Wednesday afternoon, so sweet 
 in milk, — why, it is a primitive idea ; it is bread, and that 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 281 
 
 is all we know about bread — " he* looked down on the 
 bench of little children, who were agape to see whereto so 
 much wisdom tended, and added, " except to eat it." So, 
 likewise, he would expatiate upon toads ; " A batrachian rep- 
 tile ; batrachia, naked body, and two feet ; what is a toad?" 
 " We are all toads I " cried the class. " Clumsy, harmless," 
 Here he paused, " Little babies are toads," answered one 
 of the scholars. " Body warty and thick," continued the 
 teacher ; " now who is a toad ? " " Peter Tubby ! " cried a 
 bright boy. " Yes," said the teacher, with an innocent 
 smile, "Peter Tubby is a toad. Nay," he added, "a toad 
 is a toad ; — repeat this in concert." So the class repeated 
 it, and some went home singing, " A toad is a toad." If we 
 should say, Nature loves a bordering, as it used to be said, 
 she abhorred a vacuum, we might state the whole truth. 
 An uninterrupted plane, — continuity of similar surface, vast, 
 monotonous, silent, — is intolerable. So a column must have 
 its cap, and a house its cornice ; so along the edge of the 
 highway spring innumerable flowers, and on its margin the 
 forest is lavish of its foliage ; so the sea is terminated by the 
 sky, and we look at the sky through vistas of embanked 
 and woofy cloud. Were you ever in a pine grove of a 
 bright moonlight night? How different from standing 
 upon a mountain at such a time ! We recommend to any 
 one on an eminence, to go back from the brink thereof, and 
 stand in the forest, and look out through the breaks and 
 crevices. A moss-rose is an instance in point, — beautiful 
 because it is bordered ; it is a landscape seen through trees. 
 A house in the midst of shrubbery is an instance ; so are 
 islands in a pond ; a view through half-raised window- 
 curtains, and distant scenery through a long suite of rooms; 
 so are light on foregrounds and shadows on backgrounds, in 
 all pictures. Glens, valleys, a flower in the grass, a star in 
 2i* 
 
282 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 the sky, belong to the same category. So did Memmy and 
 Bebby, at this present speaking; they were bordered by 
 trees, — cedars and birches were about them, like curls on the 
 face of fair maiden ; and one of Master Willwell's primitive 
 ideas turned up, — bread was bread ; a toad was a toad ; the 
 final sense was reached, and Richard and Roxy were pleased. 
 Then, in this case, the children were on the go, while the 
 bordering kept still ; they were the picture, dancing up and 
 down in its frame; they were the blue sky, crisping and 
 rippling behind the clouds. This great beauty, which they 
 were, was now in the shadow, now in the shade ; now its 
 straw hat and ruddy face gleamed through the green spray, 
 — now its silver, healthful voice carolled in ambuscade. It 
 ran round the trees that made it so beautiful ; it halted in 
 front of that which set it off so behind ; its fluttering was 
 seen through the depth of the little copse. A chipping 
 sparrow sang in the trees over it ; Munk sat on the steps, 
 and pressed his arm very tight about his wife's waist as 
 he beheld it ; passers-by stopped and leaned on the fence 
 to look at it. 
 
 Lo ! now Bebby stands between, and partly screened by, 
 two little cedars, about as tall as she; — and how beautiful 
 she is ; what a joy in her father's heart; what a glistening in 
 her mother's eyes; what a ravishment to Richard, all over, 
 she is, or the thing that she is ! She is a moss-rose, — a 
 rose mossed, — bordered. Is the beauty herself, or her cir- 
 cumstances ? 
 
 What is the principle herein involved ? Some refer the 
 interest of this class of phenomena to ideas of Infinity. It 
 is a glimpse, an opening, into the vast, they tell us. But 
 why, if vastness be the ultimate sentiment, is partial vast- 
 ness more attractive than entire ? Why curtain it, to 
 heighten the effect ? What has Bebby 's head, stuck through 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 283 
 
 those trees, to do with Infinity ? I should call it, rather, 
 Limitation. It is rather the reduction of the Infinite to pal- 
 pable bounds, than an elevation of the Finite to the immeas- 
 urable. Bebby runs away. Bebby is the same Bebby ; 
 the trees are the same trees ; but how different apart ! The 
 rose has lost its moss ; the view its border. Run back, little 
 additament ! Throw yourself into the middle of the picture, 
 or what will be a picture when you get there ! Consent to 
 be bordered. Those happy, blue eyes, — those flocculent, 
 foamy locks, — were they ever so pretty? The pea-green, 
 crinkly little cedars, — what enchantment they suddenly as- 
 sume ! How the beaut}"^ flashes from one to the other, and 
 centres in the whole ! How it vanishes when Bebby quits ! 
 Memmy had gone to crawling in the grass, full of frolic and 
 laughter, and Bebby must do so too. 
 
 " You will green your drawers all up ; come into the 
 house ! " cried their mother. 
 
 This ended the scene. 
 
 Parson Smith's and Dr. Broadwell's Sunday-school chil- 
 dren and teachers were planning a union picnic, combined 
 whh a rail-road ride and a sylvan meeting; and Richard 
 was going, and he wanted to take Memmy, and Memmy 
 wanted to go ; but Roxy clouded. She feared what might 
 be the effect of her children associating with Parson Smith's 
 and Dr. Broadwell's ; — they were aristocratic children ; they 
 would slight and deride hers ; Parson Smith's and Dr. 
 Broadwell's people felt themselves above Elder Jabson's, and 
 so on. But she said to her husband, and here she was more 
 positive, " They have n't clothes fit to go in, and you know 
 it ! " Munk need not feign ignorance, or affect to poh the 
 matter off; he was sufficiently conscious of the state of 
 affairs. " Always," continued his wife, " something is a 
 happening, and you are not such a man as you should be ! " 
 
284 HICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 "Do you want me to change into another man? — say into 
 Tunny, or Clover, or, if you like, into Elder Jabson^" 
 Munk did not say this iu his usual, that is, a pleasant way, 
 but in an irritated way ; he was roiled. Eoxy flung her 
 apron over her eyes, slatted into a chair, and began to cry. 
 There seemed to be no coming to terms now. Munk 
 knocked his pipe on the andiron, and looked into it, — cool, 
 — rapped again, — stinging, — and when the ashes were all 
 out, he refilled and lighted it, and went to smoking, and 
 reading the evening Catapult, — past endurance. " You 
 wicked man, you I " His wife seemed almost to gnash at 
 him. Munk did not stir. " I guess Memmy's clothes will 
 do," said Richard, in the way of oily interposition. — "I wish 
 you would ever have your shoes on ! " Roxy addressed this 
 to the child, who, insensible to what was going on overhead, 
 was down on the floor, busily divesting herself of what 
 clothing she had. " She shall have a new hat," said Munk. 
 "It was a black beaver, with plumes," rejoined his wife. 
 " That was last winter ! " explained the other. 
 
 " What if it was ? It was all the same then as now. 
 We don't have anything ! I wanted a Thibet shawl, small 
 figured, and you were not willing. Mrs. Xyphers had an am- 
 eline at Tunny's ; and what was I, what was I ? Bobbin & 
 Shally advertise forty kinds of silks ; and all of Dr. Broad- 
 well's folks are in there, — I have seen it with my own eyes ! 
 The parlor curtains I am ashamed of! Mrs. Tunny says, 
 have silk damask and tulip pins, and would have if you 
 were worth as much as you are ; and you are ! Memmy 
 might have a China pearl ! " An explosion ; Munk stood 
 the shock tolerably well. "Memmy shall have a China pearl, 
 if that will satisfy you." " If that will satisfy me, — as if 
 you had no feeling, and no sense of things, of yourself, — 
 as if all the blame must fall on me ! Mrs. Mellow is a 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 285 
 
 woman and a Christian, if there ever was one ! And her 
 house don't look like this ; and I know what she thinks when 
 she is here, though she don't say anything! " 
 
 Here was a cloud, and a shower ; and Richard was afraid 
 the children would get wet. " Do not say all this before 
 them," he interceded. 
 
 " Yes, before them ! " rejoined his sister. " They shall 
 know what a suffering mother they have ! I wish I was dead ! " 
 
 Memmy screamed, and Bebby screamed in sympathy; 
 Munk groaned, his wife sobbed. Richard took the children 
 out doors. 
 
 The upshot of the matter was a compromise; Roxy con- 
 sented to let Memmy go to the picnic, and Munk agreed 
 that his wife should have a fashionable dress. 
 
 In great spirits, of a clear morning, the children filed to 
 the depot and entered the cars. They rode on the banks of 
 the River, that now afforded lively glimpses through the 
 trees, now exposed its broad Siloam face, now withdrew 
 behind leafy headlands. They passed lumber-laden sloops, 
 steamboats, and merchandise packets. They went through 
 pretty towns, fruitful farms, and cool woods. They unloaded 
 at Sunny Hours, a grove so called. Here recreation enforced 
 itself, charity found its sphere, harmony attended freedom, 
 innocency sanctified mirth ; clean grass and breezy shades 
 inspired exertion, and invited to repose. The children were 
 kind to Memmy, the teachers affable with Richard. Memmy 
 could run among the trees with any of them, and there is no 
 aristocracy in eating. Unitary sentiments were exchanged; 
 congratulations of mutual good feeling made ; many hopes of 
 childhood, the Church, and the world, echoed. They sang 
 exultant songs, made earnest speeches, and returned. 
 
 Memmy got home safe, with her palm-leaf hat prettily 
 wreathed, and her gown soiled and torn. Roxy was not 
 
286 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 sorry that she did not wear China pearl, and Munk prom- 
 ised the child a new gingham ; and going with Dr. Broad- 
 well's and Parson Smith's children turned out not so bad a 
 thing, after all. 
 
 The parlor at Munk's was a hidden room, — an inner sanc- 
 tuarj', — a Blue Beard's chamber ; and Richard longed to 
 get into it. It was the largest and the pleasantest room in the 
 house, and he longed to enjoy it. But it was stepping on 
 corns to say anything about it. The room was not open 
 long enough for ventilation, and Richard declared the straw 
 under the carpet was must)^, and smelled damp and close. 
 The buzzing of a venturesome fly alone relieved the stillness 
 of the spot ; and a spider, not having the fear of Roxy before 
 his eyes, was setting his traps to catch the fly. But the 
 children would litter the carpet, soil the sofa, scratch the 
 chairs, disturb the things on the table. 
 
 Munk was satisfied with the kitchen, because he could 
 smoke, lean against the wall, put his feet on the stove-hearth, 
 sit in his shirt-sleeves, — in a word, be what he liked to be, a 
 free man, — better there than in the parlor ; and he did not 
 mix with the controversy. 
 
 The street-bell rang, and Richard answering it, encoun- 
 tered Mrs. Mellow, the lady to whom Roxy so often referred. 
 She was the Secretary of a Home Inspection Society, and 
 distributor of its tracts. She was well dressed, had a pa- 
 tronizing air, a soft, gentle voice, blue eyes, and her face 
 seemed all made up of tender-line and goodness. When 
 Roxy knew who had called, like a dozen girls let loose from 
 school, she dispersed in all directions at once ; she chased 
 the dust-brush, washed the children's faces, swept the hearth, 
 shut the table-drawer, and hurrying into the bed-room to 
 adjust her toilette, rapped and righted the pillows on the 
 bed, and smoothed the window-curtains. Not that ]\Irs. 
 
THE GOVER^•OK■s PA.\ULY. 2S7 
 
 Mellow \\Tis in the bed-room, or likely to be ; but she \\-as 
 in the house, and Eoxy acted as if she felt she was all over 
 the house. These matters being attended to, she presented 
 herself in the parlor. Honored as she deemed herself by 
 the call, she was in no state to do justice to it. Nerv- 
 ous, bungling, confused, as if she feared the walls of the 
 room would fall in and crush her visiter, and she had no 
 power to admonish her of the danger, she stiffly returned the 
 salutations of the lady, who took her sweetly by the hand, 
 and went so far as to kiss her. The customary domestic 
 inquiries ensued in routine, until the children were reached. 
 But these were on hand to report for themselves. They 
 bounced into the room, and like captives set free, they made 
 a wild and rude demonstration of their joj*. " Come to me, 
 little one," said Mrs. Mellow, holding out a blue-gloved 
 hand on her silken knee. But Memmy \\-as busy with a 
 gilt-edged book she had snatched from the table, and Bebby 
 was urging a chair towards the same forbidden height. 
 " They act so I " said Roxy, making vicarious confession for 
 the young transgi:essors, at the same time taking the book 
 from Menmiy. and the chair from Bebb}-. " Won't you go 
 see the lady ? " she besought them. Bebby was rolling 
 ^.. ihe carpet, pulling at Memmy's gown, who screamed to 
 free herself. " They always behave worse before company," 
 explained their mother. " I always said — " " "What have 
 you said ? " asked Mrs. Mellow. " Nothing," answered 
 Roxy, " only I used to think how children ought to behave 
 in company. I do believe we have the worst children 
 that ever was ! " " That depends a tjood deal on circum- 
 stances," replied Mrs. Mellow. •• Do you teach them 
 obedience ? " 
 
 " I endeavor to," said Roxy, " but they beat me out of it. 
 I am not so well sustained as I think I ought to be." She 
 
2S8 RICHARD EDNEY JlSD 
 
 glanced at Richard, who, having been requested by Mrs. 
 Mellow to sit, had remained in the room. 
 
 " One should never give up to children." Mrs. Mellow 
 said this positively. 
 
 " Never ? " asked Roxy. " Never. When you have laid 
 down a rule, adhere to it." 
 
 " What if the rule is a bad one ? " queried Richard. 
 
 Mrs. Mellow, unlike herself, bridled at this, and looked 
 sharply at Richard. But Richard was not pierced; and per- 
 haps because he was not, the lady remarked, as if it was 
 the most effective thing she could do, she was sorry to see 
 our young men, and laboring men too, imbibing transcen- 
 dental notions ; at the same time tendering Richard a tract, 
 which she said she hoped would teach him humility and the 
 fear of God. Richard accepted the tract, and unceremoni- 
 ously left the room. 
 
 " I fear for that brother of yours, Qlrs. Munk," said Mrs. 
 Mellow. 
 
 Now, Roxy, however she might view and feel some things, 
 loved Richard, and was proud of him, and was wont to hear 
 people speak well of him; and though she sometimes 
 blamed him to his face, she had no idea anybody else would 
 do so to hers ; and while she entertained a profound regard, 
 and an almost sen'ile reverence, for Mrs. Mellow, the lan- 
 guage of that lady served to jar the awe in which she stood, 
 and set her upon a train of independent thinking. Still, 
 she made no reply, and in a short time her caller left. 
 Moreover, she thought Mrs. Mellow reflected on her condi- 
 tion in life, and that of her brother, as belonging to the 
 laboring class ; and this was grievous. Mrs. Mellow had 
 never done such a thing before. She Avas rich, and she 
 belonged to the best church, and the best society, and lived 
 in an elegant house ; and Roxy thought she was an uncom- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 289 
 
 mon Christian, and never before, through the suaviloquy of 
 patronage and condescension, had the sting of derision ap- 
 peared. It was as if the dove concealed a serpent's tongue, 
 and Roxy felt herself bitten. 
 
 Still the sentiment of Mrs. Mellow, " Never yield to a 
 child," and the query of Richard, " What if it be a bad 
 rule ? " weighed in her mind. 
 
 The subject of the freedom of the parlor came up in con- 
 versation, a short time afterwards. " I always said I would 
 have a best room," observed Roxy. " That is the best room," 
 replied Richard, "which answers its purpose best, and con- 
 tributes most to the enjoyment of the family. Sometimes 
 the kitchen is the best room." "Yes," said Munk, not 
 looking from his paper, " be good and happy, — only be happy, 
 that 's all." " The best room," continued Richard, " on the 
 present basis, is the worst room — one that affords the least 
 satisfaction of any in the house. You are obliged, Roxy, to 
 defend it as it were with a broomstick against your children, 
 from morning to night." 
 
 " But," answered his sister, " I have made it a rule that 
 they shall never go into the parlor except we have company. 
 They will remember this rule, and I shall seem to yield to 
 them." 
 
 " What and if you actually yield to them ? It will be, as 
 Pastor Harold used to say a concession of arrangement to 
 affection, — of economy to happiness. It may be an exchange 
 of what is purely whimsical or fashionable, for what is use- 
 ful and salutary. How the children are tried and tempted 
 by that room ; how often it proves too strong for their virtue ; 
 how their inclinations are teazed, and their humors black- 
 ened, by your regulation! Take rainy days, and washing 
 days, and busy days, — the kitchen is too small for the chil- 
 dren and you, and the parlor is full of sunshine, and green- 
 25 
 
290 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 sward, and blithe freedom to them ; but they must forego it 
 all, and ?tay here in the suds. Would it be right to set a plate 
 of cake on that chair, and keep it uncovered before the chil- 
 dren for a week, and forbid them to touch it, and punish 
 them for touching it? That parlor is a great plate of cake, 
 and peaches and pears besides, to them. You say they 
 spoil things. That is because they are not used to them. 
 Familiarity with the contents of the room would moderate 
 the excitement of novelty. It is the rarity of entrance that 
 leads the children to abuse it so. This is according to Mr. 
 Willwell, who says, the more you hide things from people, 
 the more they want to see them." 
 
 " But I have said they should n't," answered Roxy. 
 
 " What if you said wrong ? That is the question. May 
 a parent never do wrong, or impose a wrong command ? If 
 he has done so, he ought to retract, I think. In doing 
 wrong, you violate God's law, disturb your own feelings, and 
 confound the moral perceptions of the children. On the 
 other hand, while you seem to stoop to the children, you are 
 really rising to the heights of absolute rectitude ; and if they 
 appear for the moment to gain a triumph over you, they 
 would soon find they had only arrived at a natural and 
 simple position ; and instead of using it as an advantage, it 
 would rather humble them by its responsibility. Parental 
 concession is provocative of filial obedience. That is Pastor 
 Harold again ; I have his sermons by heart." 
 
 " You will ' Pastor Harold ' me to death I " rejoined Roxy. 
 
 " He would kill you by love, as he did me once. But 
 that is the true Resurrection. Die to sin, that we may live 
 to holiness. Be firm in what is right, reasonable in what 
 is doubtful, but give up in what is wrong, — that is his 
 doctrine. Look into your own heart, Roxy, and see what 
 your motives are, in this thing. Do you keep the par- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 291 
 
 lor shut for the good of your children, or for the prosperity 
 of your house, or even for any reasons of comfort or edifica- 
 tion ? Is.it not solely for the world, — because you are 
 ambitious to have as good a parlor as Mrs. Tunnj', or from 
 fear of what Mrs. Mellow will think, or from a prurient 
 desire to have the reputation of keeping a handsome parlor? 
 You talk a good deal about the aristocracy, and pride-and- 
 vnnity folk, and worldly-minded professors ; and you think 
 you belong to a very humble and self-denying church; but 
 it seems to me you commit more sin, and betray more folly, 
 about your parlor, a hundred fold, than the Mayor's wife, 
 in allowing danchig at her house, for which you censured 
 her so ; or the Redferns, in taking the fine house in Victo- 
 ria Square, and who, you have said, were so abandoned to 
 the idolatry of this world." 
 
 Roxy oh-deared ; and Richard, not knovving but he was 
 pressing the subject too closely, dropped it. 
 
 Roxy was easily persuaded ; and p'erhaps that was one 
 source of the infelicity of her life. When she left her coun- 
 try home, the city persuaded her ; when she began to as- 
 sume a church relation, Elder Jabson persuaded her; when 
 she went into society, Mrs. Tunny persuaded her; — some- 
 time? it was Aunt Griiit; sometimes it was a thunder- 
 storm. Her husband once had great influence with her ; 
 but she had got used to him, — he had lost his seasoning, his 
 piquancy, his forcefulness, to her; a word from Elder Jab- 
 son outweighed whole sermons of Asa's. But Richard was 
 a fresh ministry, — there was at least the raciness and edge 
 of novelty to his words, and she was disposed to be per- 
 suaded once more. 
 
 It was agreed that the room should be thrown open, and 
 all rejoiced in the prospective enlargement. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 KNUCKLE LAKE. 
 
 During the j^ear, there arose in "Woodylin a movement, 
 which uhimately embodied itself in what was called the 
 Knuckle Lane Club. Its object was to remove degradation 
 from the city ; and no person was deemed fit to join it who 
 was not willing to spend an evening in Knuckle Lane. This 
 precinct, extending along a deep gorge, was sinuous, jagged, 
 damp and dark. It was a result of the city. Its waste 
 measured the improvement of the city. It was the slag 
 and dross of the city refinement. Its houses were the old 
 city houses, that had been replaced by better ones ; and 
 they looked as if they had been brought to the edge of the 
 gully, and one after another pitched into the receptacle be- 
 low, where they lay, in all shapes, at all angles, and in all 
 predicaments. 
 
 This Club did not, however, confine itself to that locality ; 
 it had a more comprehensive aim. It was a sort of subter- 
 ranean method of doing good in general. It proposed to 
 look at vice from beneath. Like the sewers of London, 
 there are moral sewers in all our cities, extending many 
 miles, in the labyrinthine passages of which one may travel 
 days. It would go into these. 
 
 The Club resolved, not merely to berate vice, but to fol- 
 low it home, — see its bed and board; talk with it, and 
 find out what was on its mind ; listen to its arguments ; 
 make a stethoscopic examination of it, and trace to their 
 source some of its streams. 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 293 
 
 The enterprise required tact, strength and faith. A num- 
 ber of individuals Avere combined in it. Some ladies acted 
 with it, — others sympathized. Some families in Victoria 
 Square contributed furniture and clothing; some rich men 
 gave money. But there must be workers, — Putnams of 
 this den. 
 
 The plan had been for some time maturing. There was 
 no secrecy about it, nor were there any attempts at pub- 
 licity. There was no desire to provoke opposition, or to be 
 impeded by prejudice ; therefore, those were chiefly spoken 
 to who, it was thought, vvouldbe interested in the matter. 
 Richard and Nefon were particularly interested. 
 
 In the coarse of this business, Richard made new acquaint- 
 ances, and, as he thought, with nice people. Among these was 
 Augustus Mangil, one of the Brokers. No one dreamed of 
 Augustus Mangil in such a connection. At his capacious 
 office window lay all day long piles of gold and silver, and 
 passers by, seeing the man through the window, and, as it 
 were, breast-high in the precious stuff, supposed him a sort 
 of monster, — half a knave, half a fool. He was reputed to 
 shave notes, get up panics, disturb the street; and, with a 
 shark-like voracity, devour railroads and factories, and orphan 
 patrimonies. He had a pleasant, smiling face, — but that was 
 to w'in your money. He played on the flute, — that w'as to 
 decoy the unwarj' ; his head was partly bald, and some said 
 the widow's tears scalded it ; yet he was fat and sleek ; — 
 still, there were hundreds who knew where his marrow and 
 oil flowed from. 
 
 But Nefon, who prided himself on his insight into human 
 nature, knew his man, and knew this man. He looked 
 him in the eye, somewhat as Klumpp would, and said, 
 " Gus," — he called him Gus, — "you must go with us." 
 " Go ? go ? go where ? " " Knuckle Lane." " I know 
 25* 
 
294 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 Knuckle Lane. I have just sold some Knuckle Lane 
 stock." " Don't speak of it. We must tn- to improve the 
 stock." 
 
 " Not speak of it ? " exclaimed the Broker. " I have 
 saved five dollars for the poor dog. He put all he had in a 
 railroad share, because they told him it would help his 
 tracking. Frightened, horse dead, wife confined, and all 
 that, — would sacrifice. I never stand about such things ; 
 cashed the bond, divide the profits; and five dollars is his, 
 — that goes into Knuckle Lane." 
 
 " Come along ! " said Nefon ; " \o\i are a man, and the 
 man, and our man." 
 
 In addition, Richard was introduced to a worthy lady, of 
 whom he had heard, a sister-in-law of the Broker's, Mrs. 
 Helen Mangil ; and as there was another lady in Woodylia 
 of the same name, and whose husband bore the same name 
 with that of the first, this one, in certain circles, was called 
 Helen the Good. 
 
 This Knackle Lane became a cau=:e ; it counted its 
 friends and supporters, — it grew into a spirit and a feeling. 
 
 Maj^or Langreen was its President, Parson Smith its 
 Secretary, Nefon its Treasurer; then it created a Do-some- 
 thing Committee, or might be said to resolve itself into such; 
 and this comprised men and women, among whom were 
 Richard, Mr. IMangil, Broker, Elder Jabson, Munk, Mr. 
 Cosgrove, Carpenter, Mr. Horr, Collector of Customs, Mr. 
 Lawtall, Pianoforte-maker, Ada Broadwell, the Lady Car- 
 oline, Helen the Good, Melicent, and others. 
 
 It will be recollected the condition of membership was 
 willingness to spend an evening in Knuckle Lane; and this, 
 in the estimation of many good people of Woodylin, was 
 narrow and exclusive. It savored of bigotry; it was a 
 reflection on excellence. ]\Irs, Tunny was shocked at it ; 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 295 
 
 the Redferns in Victoria Square sniffed at it. " But now," 
 said Nefon, "we know who is who; if anybody has got 
 quills, here is a chance to show them. Every man's eyes 
 must be his own chap in this business." 
 
 There must be first a reconnoissance, and a report. Rich- 
 ard, Mr. Marigil, Elder Jabson, and Nefon, were commis- 
 sioned to this task. It was a thick and misty night when 
 they sallied forth. From the height that overlooked 
 Knuckle Lane, that region, with its pent lights, appeared 
 like a gully cut through Hades by some deluge, along the 
 hideousness of which a dim phosphorescence luridly gleamed. 
 " We must peel and go at it," said Nefon. Not peel, but 
 wrap up, oh valorous man ! — pull on gutta percha boots, to 
 wade through that mire and dirt; clothe breast and arms in 
 faith and hope, to meet that sin and shame. It was the 
 rendezvous of theft, the resort of bawdery, and a creek into 
 which whatever is unfortunate in human condition, or de- 
 praved in human nature, daily set, like the tide, 
 
 " There are children there ! " ejaculated Richard. " There 
 are souls there," said Elder Jabson, with pious eagerness. 
 " I have a customer there," answered the oily, laughing- 
 Broker, " and I think we had better corner him." 
 
 They entered the house of the truckman, where they 
 found a sick wife, and a sorrowful looking man vainly 
 attempting to fill the office of nurse, and keep his infant 
 child alive. "Where was the Lady Caroline ?" bethought 
 Richard. It had not been deemed safe or prudent for the 
 ladies to come out that night. Mr. Mangil had in his 
 hands a balance of money due the truckman. This was 
 opportune. It enabled the man to buy a horse ; a horse 
 would restore him to his business, — his business would 
 support his family. "A transaction," said the Broker. " I 
 negotiated his share, and put five dollars into my own 
 
296 KICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 pocket ; if he has any more dealings of the sort, I should 
 be happy to act for him." 
 
 They went next to Fuzzle's, one of the men who had 
 been induced to sign the temperance pledge at Quiet Arbor, 
 the winter before. He had been, in his own language, " off 
 and on " abstemious. His wife was an acetate of bitter- 
 ness. He spent most of his evenings out ; drank to enjoy 
 himself; cursed the License law. 
 
 They visited a washerwoman, who cared more for others 
 than herself, and seemed to absorb in her own family all the 
 dirt she took from the world at large. 
 
 Whimp's was a vile and villanous spot, — no culture, no 
 ideas, no hope, no God. 
 
 Slaver's, they attempted to inventory, but it was an end- 
 less task ; it stood plus nothing, and minus everything. 
 Yet there were cats, and a pig, broken stools, smoked walls, 
 unseemly beds, and some of Elder Jabson's " souls," staring 
 out, wild and savage, through uncut hair, bronzed cheeks, 
 and shaking about in rags and dirt. 
 
 No. 6 was a rookery, — music and dancing, drhiking and 
 swearing, the Satyrism and Bacchantism of modern civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Our Heroes stood their ground at all points, patiently 
 investigated, kindly counselled, and carefully remembered. 
 Sometimes the Elder prayed. Nefon had with him tracts, 
 little picture-books, and embellished cards, which he dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 They made due report of proceedings. The Club was 
 surprised, horrified ; they inquired. What shall be done ? 
 They passed resolutions ; they adopted plans ; and all with 
 an honest purpose at the bottom. 
 
 Committees were sent out by twos ; not Knuckle Lane 
 alone, but other similar spots were visited. They explored 
 
THE governor's FAMILY, 297 
 
 the shores of the River, picking their way through drift- 
 wood, hulks of boats, drag-nets, hog-styes, hen-coops, and 
 went up the bank to tenements that iiang down from many- 
 stories above, where the freshet and the cholera sometimes 
 enter, — where squalidness and destitution are always 
 entering, — where children, like bank -swallows, are seen 
 entering, — inhabited by Canadian French, and Connaught 
 Irish. They traversed the Pebbles. They searched the 
 purlieus of hotels and stables. Eating-houses on the wharves, 
 and' boarding-houses in the same vicinity, were remembered. 
 They risked the most in the rum-shops. It was voted that 
 two members of the sacred band should sit out an evening 
 in these retreats. The thing was done. They entered the 
 curtained door, took chairs in the midst of that congrega- 
 tion, saw what was done, heard what was said, — staid from 
 eight o'clock till midnight. Some members of the company 
 chose gambling-rooms, dancing-halls, and the gallery of the 
 Theatre, for their field ; others frequented the circuses and 
 menageries, and entertainments promised by negro mimics, 
 mesmeric mountebanks, and jugglers of all sorts. Some 
 spent a portion of the Sabbath at the various Lazy Poles, 
 and Paradises, and the Islands. The Alms-house and Jail 
 were rummaged. 
 
 Not that this was done at once. Summer hardly sufficed, 
 and winter was upon them before even their preliminary 
 operations were concluded. 
 
 But Knuckle Lane flourished. Judge Burp joined the 
 society. Alanson M. Colenutt, the millionnaire, signified 
 his approval. The Editor of the Dogbane said in his office, 
 one day, in the presence of a large number of most notable 
 and keen-sighted Phumbicians, in an earnest but whispered 
 under-tone, swaying a great newspaper in both hands, he 
 believed it was a good thing. " I say it, — I will say it; J 
 
gya EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 say it not as a Phumbician, but as a man, — I believe it is 
 a good thing." Tode sprang from his chair, and leaving the 
 office, said, " Stop my paper ! " " Mr. Tode," cried the 
 Editor, " I am a Phumbician ; every drop of blood in my 
 veins boils vi^ith Dogbanian fire. I know what is due to our 
 cause. If they dare to meddle with that, and bring the curs 
 about our ears, — if a single whelp is heard to bark in con- 
 sequence of their movements, — no indignation, no scorn, 
 no blasting, is too great for them ! " Tode resumed his 
 seat. 
 
 It was rumored, the same daj'', on the opposite side of the 
 Kiver, that the Dogbane had caved in, having announced in 
 favor of Knuckle Lane, and was making capital out of the 
 new enterprise. The Catapult wauled, " What if some 
 poor man's dog was saved, — it was his comfort and de- 
 fence ; — he shared with the faithful creature his bread and 
 butter : and when he dies, who watches his grave, — who, 
 if we may so say, sheds a tear for the departed ? — who, 
 who, but his dog ? But that is not it ; we warn our read- 
 ers, it is not hatred to dogs that inspires the cunning of our 
 amiable contemporary; — it is a covert design to encourage 
 amongst us that spawn of perdition, the cats. The meat 
 that was conveyed by worthy members of this Club to a cer- 
 tain poor family is known to haze been fed out to a cat I 
 Driblets and bones, they say ! But driblets and bones are 
 nutritious. Cats are the mothers of Kittens ! ! This is 
 a momentous truth, and one we hope the people will duly 
 ponder." 
 
 A deputation, consisting of the most respectable members 
 of Knuckle Lane, headed by Judge Burp, visited both 
 offices, and explicitly assured the editors that Knuckle 
 Lane had nothing to do with Phumbics ; and the matter 
 was dropped from the public prints. 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. Zif9' 
 
 It went on, however, in the hearts of the people. It 
 gained the affections, and silenced the scruples, of multi- 
 tudes. 
 
 Richard was indefatigable. He had not so much leisure 
 as many, but he had faith and patience. One evening every 
 week, and, in emergencies, two, he assigned to Knuckle 
 Lane. 
 
 In these visits he was often aided and directed by Cor- 
 nelius Wheelan, whom he had rescued from the Grotto and 
 ruin, and who, so to say, having been pickled in vice and 
 crime, took a long time to freshen ; but as it is said beef 
 freshens better in salt water than fresh, so it seemed to take 
 all this man's humors out of him to go around among his 
 old associates and haunts; — and he became not only a bet- 
 ter man, but useful to those who were better than he, and 
 also to some that were worse. 
 
 Richard's special beat was the New Town ; yet sooner or 
 later, he visited almost the whole of the city. He went 
 down among the roots of many of its evils. He got into 
 the bosom, and, so to say, blossom, of much of its sorrow. 
 He sat by the bed-side of its remorse. He made himself at 
 home in its dens of iniquity. 
 
 It was a rule of Knuckle Lane to give no offensive public- 
 ity to discoveries they might make. As the historian of 
 the society, we are bound by the same reserve, and cannot 
 relate all that fell under the observation of our friend, albeit 
 they were matters of interest and moment, both to him and 
 his co-laborers. 
 
 We shall briefly advert to one or two results. The Club 
 had gathered facts and statistics enough, — the map of the 
 thing was definitely drawn and pretty deeply colored before 
 their ej-es. Some were overwhelmed, — some disheartened, 
 — but the majority seemed to derive illumination from afar, 
 
300 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 and clearness, on the whole, came to the relief of obscu- 
 
 rity- 
 
 Knuckle Lane, havhig disentangled itself from Phumbics, 
 came near falling out with Polemics, What was the Church 
 to it, and it to the Church ? — that was the question. One 
 or two Clergymen said it interfered with their labors, — 
 usurped the prerogative of the Church, and drew off com- 
 municants. But Clergy and Laity, on the whole, favored it. 
 Still, among the adherents of the cause, the inquiry arose. 
 Shall the Church go to Knuckle Lane, or Knuckle Lane 
 come to the Church ? But Knuckle Lane was too dirty and 
 too ragged to go to the Church. Shall the Church wash and 
 clothe it ? It may not stay washed and clothed. Shall the 
 Church support external Knuckle Lane organizations ? Not 
 agreed. Prosecute the rum-shops ? General shaking of 
 heads. Knuckle Lane itself would take it in dudgeon. 
 Furthermore, the Church is represented partly in Victoria 
 Square, and La Fayette-street, What have these to do 
 with Knuckle Lane ? Shall these streets go down to 
 Knuckle Lane? Shall Knuckle Lane, the Docks, the Sta- 
 bles, the Islands, go up to Victoria Square ? " Rather 
 a tight squeeze," said Nefon. "In plain language," ob- 
 served Mr. Cosgrove, Carpenter, " shall the Redferns and 
 the Fuzzles meet in one another's parlors and kitchens ? " 
 "In the existing state of human society," said Judge Burp, 
 rubbing the palms of his hands, " I should deem it imprac- 
 ticable. I doubt if Mrs. Redfern and Mrs. Fuzzle, on first 
 introduction, would not deem it a very awkward and disa- 
 greeable piece of business." 
 
 Why should not Victoria Square deputize its interest in 
 Knuckle Lane? "A good plan," whispered Mr. Lawtall, 
 Pianoforte-maker, to Nefon. — Nefon drew his hand hard 
 over his face, and was still. — Create deputy almoners of its 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 301 
 
 bread, deputy carriers of its compliments, deputy com- 
 municators of its instruction? But who shall bring back the 
 thanks, the love, and the evidences of good, from Knuckle 
 Lane to Victoria Square ? Shall Knuckle Lane have its 
 deputies, too ? Shall the whole business of Christian inter- 
 course and human duty be a matter of delegation ? Shall 
 the Eedferns, and the Tillingtons, and the Tissingtons, of 
 Victoria Square, — shall Governor Dennington, and Mayor 
 Langreen, and Judge Burp, of the city generally, — be doing 
 and acting, — sending bread, and sympathy, and encourage- 
 ment, to the Puzzles, and Whimps, and Slavers, of Knuckle 
 Lane, and these parties never see each other ? Shall the 
 Widow Droop, who lives by the Pebbles, receive a basket of 
 meat, a bed coverlid, a jacket for her boy, from the May- 
 oress, and never see the Mayoress, — never give vent to her 
 glad feelings, which else are quite a-bursting her, — never 
 kiss the hand that is so open and soft ? Shall the warm- 
 hearted Mayoress even not know where her beneficence goes, 
 or whom it blesses? — Great commotion, and a deal of 
 anxiety. — How shall the rich and poor meet together, and 
 the Lord be the Maker of them all ? " That is the ques- 
 tion," said Nefon. " That points to the ring-bolt, I tell youl " 
 
 A plan was proposed and achieved somewhat in this 
 wise. 
 
 A building was erected, called The Griped Hand, from a 
 device of that sort, cut in stone, over the entrance. It was 
 a three-story house, and divided into a Coffee-room, a Read- 
 ing-room, and an Assembly-room. It was a large building, 
 of freestone, tastefully designed, and standing in a con- 
 venient spot. It was a contribution of the Church, Victoria 
 Square, and other parts of the city, or of various individuals 
 in the city, — or, more systematically, of Religion, Wealth, 
 and Common Sense, — to Knuckle Lane. The Coffee-room 
 26 
 
302 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 supplied cheap refreshments of various kinds ; the Reading- 
 room was well stocked with newspapers, magazines, and 
 comprised also a library ; the Assembly-room was devoted 
 to miscellaneous gatherings, collations, reunions, lectures, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 All who were able paid something for its privileges ; those 
 without means were admitted gratuitously. Its ultimate 
 support was chargeable to the charities of the Churches and 
 individuals. 
 
 At the dedication, Dr. Broadwell preached an eloquent 
 discourse, and the combined Church choirs added excellent 
 music. 
 
 The people of Woodylin were invited to unite freely in 
 the Griped Hand, and what it could aflord. Members of the 
 holy brotherhood visited Knuckle Lane, and other places, 
 and extended the graciousness of the Griped Hand to those 
 people. 
 
 Would Fuzzie enjoy his evenings as well at the Griped 
 Hand as in Quiet Arbor? He did. Sailors, stevedores, 
 river-drivers, teamsters, came to the Griped Hand for their 
 cups of tea and coffee. Victoria Square and Knuckle Lane 
 did meet in the Assembly-room of the Griped Hand. Eve- 
 lina Redfern and Sally Whimp did shake hands, and con- 
 verse together, and appear like two Christians, at a Fourth of 
 July pic-nic in the same room ; and Evelina and Sally 
 bowed in the street the next day, and certain people did not 
 know where it would stop, this intimacy of those two ; indeed, 
 it would probably go on through this world into the next. 
 
 " Victoria Square is on the way to Knuckle Lane, and 
 Knuckle Lane is moving towards Victoria Square, actu- 
 ally ! " So Nefon exclaimed, thrusting down his right fist 
 emphatically on the counter, — his store full of people, — 
 and no man dared say aught against it. 
 
 1 
 
THE GOVEENOR's FAMILY. 303 
 
 The Church lost nothing. Indeed, the whole world, 
 belongs to the Church, through Christ Jesus, and has been 
 bought with a great price, and paid for ; but how many- 
 briers and. thorns, how much sour bog, how much gravelly 
 drift, there is on the farm ! The Church gained in the im- 
 provement of Knuckle Lane. It was so much muck, and 
 decayed vegetation, and corrupted life, hauled out and 
 mixed with Gospel lime and sunlight, and Woodylin culture ; 
 and it became excellent soil — and it was all clear gain to 
 the Church. 
 
 The rich and the poor met together; benefactor and bene- 
 ficiary looked each other in the face. The willing hand and 
 the relieved want poured out their feelings in common ; the 
 sick man saw his kind physician ; penury and hopelessness 
 beheld the eye that had been moved to tears over the story 
 thereof. And were not many glad to see the Lady Caro- 
 line, so free-hearted, so ready to do, so anxious to know 
 what she could do ? Many knew how she went up to Bill 
 Stonners' when nobody else would go, and staid by that 
 disease when nobody else would stay. She was the woman 
 that many had heard of, and she was sometimes pointed out 
 as the woman that was not afraid of Bill or Chuk, or sick- 
 ness or death ; and the Fuzzles, and Whimps, and Slavers, 
 stood in awe of her, as a god. Were n't they glad to speak 
 with her, and see her smile, and to have her elegance, and 
 wealth, and fashion, about them, as an atmosphere which 
 they could breathe, — as a little garden right jn the midst of 
 their bleakness and meanness, where they could play, and 
 pluck a flower or two? — and this they had at the Griped 
 Hand. Then how many crowded about Helen the Good, 
 with eyes, and hands, and hearts, all brimming with delight. 
 
 What of Religion? There are Churches enough in the 
 city, and preachers enough ; let Knuckle Lane go where it 
 
304 RICHARD EUNEY AND 
 
 chooses. So it was decided. After meeting in the Griped 
 Hand, and getting better acquainted, and loving each other 
 more, Knuckle Lane was more ready to worship with Vic- 
 toria Square. " Our Church is open to all," said Dr. 
 Broadwell; and so said Parson Smith, and so said Elder 
 Jabson. 
 
 What of Education? There is plenty of public schools; 
 let Knuckle Lane, and the Islands, be drawn into them. 
 
 Well, in process of time it was found the rum-shops were 
 a good deal thinned out. The Coffee-room, and kindness, 
 and cordiality, had superior attractions. " Men have feel- 
 ings as well as appetites, and a longing for home amidst all 
 dissipation," Richard used to say, quoting from Pastor 
 Harold. Then he added, — this he got too from the same 
 reverend source, — what St. Pierre relates, how the Euro- 
 pean settlers in the Isle of France said they should be happy 
 there if they could see a cowslip or a violet. Let us send, 
 he said, to these wanderers from virtue and peace, a cowslip 
 and a violet. 
 
 The Theatre lost some of its charms, and much of its per- 
 niciousness. The Griped Hand furnished cheap amuse- 
 ments for the poor. Knuckle Lane would be amused, and 
 cannot we amuse it? So asked Benjamin Dennington. 
 "Happy and good, — good and happy!" cried Munk. 
 Elder Jabson started, but Nefon held him to his seat, 
 " Can't go, my man, can't go ; it is rather hot for you, I 
 know, but you must stand fire." 
 
 Popular lectures were had in the Assembly-room, and 
 singing concerts; panoramas and wax-work were exliib- 
 ited ; that large class of people who itinerate through the 
 country with their wisdom and their shows found it for their 
 interest to employ the same Hall, where indeed Knuckle 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 305 
 
 Lane was admitted ad valorem, while Victoria Square paid 
 enough to keep the revenue good. 
 
 Did this redeem Knuckle Lane ? It went some ways 
 towards redeeming what was redemptible in it. Would any- 
 one refuse the blessings of the Griped Hand? He must 
 indeed be reprobate. Did it Christianize the Church and 
 Victoria Square ? It helped their Christianization. 
 
 Were there no drawbacks ? Yes, a plenty. One or two 
 of the Clergy and their people drew back. They said 
 there was no religion in it, — that to introduce the subject 
 of Knuckle Lane and the Griped Hand into their pulpits 
 was a desecration, — that they ought to preach the Gospel, 
 and not exciting topics, etc., etc. I need not enumerate all 
 they said. Miss Fiddledeeanna Redfern drew back ; — 
 did n't she, when her sister Evelina came in from the pic- 
 nic aforesaid ? And when she knew her sister had shaken 
 hands with Sally Whimp, very facetiously she seized the 
 tongs and made as if she would throw her sister's glove into 
 the fire. Mrs. Mellow drew back, because she said the 
 friends of the enterprise, in their distribution of tracts, 
 refused to accept those of which she was agent ; while, in 
 fact, they only said they did not wish to be confined to them. 
 But the knowing ones declared the true cause of this lady's 
 opposition lay in an unwillingness to have her children meet 
 with Knuckle Lane children at a juvenile celebration to be 
 given at the Griped Hand. Zephaniah O. Tainter, Jr., gen- 
 eral clacquer and spy of the Catapult club, held back, be- 
 cause he said he could see a cat in this Knuckle Lane meal. 
 Mary Crossmore, nurse, ditto, because this movement had 
 fished up two or three excellent nurses out of Knuckle Lane, 
 and her business might fall off. Mr. Squabosh, Superin- 
 tendent of Sewers and Drains, ditto, because it would 
 interfere with his contract. Mr. Catch, philosopher, sus- 
 26* 
 
306 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 pended opinion until it should be ascertained whether it 
 recognized the true theory of capital and labor. Mr. 
 Gresney, reformer, could not assent to it, because it did not 
 begin with the distinct enunciation of a principle. The 
 Man of Mind stood at the corners of the streets and looked 
 wise. 
 
 But why recount expressions and feelings that would fill 
 a volume, and which would reduce Richard Edney and the 
 Governor's Family to a very small space in their own book, 
 and which, in truth," gave Richard and his friends trouble 
 enough, without being employed to obscure the narration of 
 events in his story. 
 
 What did the Knuckle Lane adventure determine ? Not 
 whether the Knights Templars were guilty, nor who wrote 
 Ossian, nor whether mankind have more than one origin. 
 It did determine this to the mind of Richard, and others, 
 — that by resolutely undertaking to do good, something 
 might be done. 
 
 These matters, connected indeed with Richard, are yet 
 somewhat in anticipation of his story. They were two or 
 three years in progress, and during these years Richard 
 had other matters to attend to, and to these we must recur. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 NOTES BY THE WAY. 
 
 A Tale is like a web ; like muslin, where the thread is 
 regular, visible, and thin ; like sheeting, where it is the 
 same, but stout ; and in both cases the fabric is plain and 
 monotonous. It may be like Brussels carpeting, where 
 the thread disappears for a time, and is not easily traced, — 
 one color being now in sight, and then another, — and yet, in 
 all mutation, the design of the artist is preserved, and what 
 is lost in clearness of detail is made up in beauty of com- 
 position. A Tale may be like a garden, one quarter of 
 which shall be devoted to cereal grains, another to kitchen 
 sauce, a third shall be reserved for fruits, while the fourth is 
 gay with flowers, and the connection between the several 
 parts consists of naked paths alone ; yet it is a garden, — 
 Horticulture enforces its principles and maintains its dignity 
 throughout, and the innate garden-love is satisfied. So a 
 Tale may have its various departments, the only apparent 
 connection between which shall be the leaves of the book and 
 enumeration of the chapters, and still please Historical taste. 
 There is a real connection in both instances ; — in the first, 
 it is that of the brooding and immanent power of Nature, 
 which is always a unity and a beauty ; in the last, it is the 
 - heart of the Author, which is likewise a unity, and should 
 be a beauty. 
 
 A Tale is like this June morning, when I am now writ- 
 ing. I hear from my open windows the singing of birds, 
 the rumble of a stage-coach, and the blacksmith's anvil. 
 The water glides prettily through elms, and willows, and 
 
308 EICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 the back-sides of houses. There are deep shadows in my 
 landscape, and yonder hill-side, with its blossoming apple- 
 trees, glows in the sunlight, as if it belonged to some other 
 realm of being. On the right of my house is a deep gorge, 
 wet, weedy, where are toads and. snakes ; and fringing this, 
 and growing up in the midst of it, are all sorts of fresh, 
 green shrubs, and the flickering, glossy leaves of white 
 birches. Superb rock-maples overhang the roof of an iron 
 foundery, down under the hill at my feet. The dew, early 
 this morning, covered the world, with topazes and rainbows, 
 and my child got her feet wet in the midst of glory. 
 Through gully and orchard, basement windows and oriels, 
 shade and sheen, vibrates a delicious breeze. Over all, 
 hangs the sun ; down upon the village looks that eye of 
 infinite blessedness, and into the scene that urn of exhaust- 
 less beauty pours beauty ; the smoke from the foundery, and 
 the darkness of the gorge, are beautiful ; cows, feeding in 
 my neighbor's paddock, are pleasant to look upon ; Paddy, 
 with pickaxe on his shoulder, is happy; Rusticus, in the 
 cornfield, is a picture ; and the granite, through the verdure 
 of a distant mountain-side, gleams out like silver. This 
 morning's sun idealizes everything. Nature is not shocked 
 at toads. A Tale might be thus diversified ; and if through 
 it streamed love and gladness from the soul of the writer, 
 like sunlight, the structure would still be harmonious, and 
 the effect pleasing. 
 
 A Tale is like human life, — of which, indeed, it pur- 
 ports to be a transcript, — and human life exhibits some 
 contrast. The feelings even of a good man, for a single 
 day, undergo sundry transitions ; the subjects of thought and 
 occasions of emotion crowd a little upon each other. There 
 will be great bunches of shadow in one corner of a man's 
 heart, and right over against them, and looking down upon 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 309 
 
 them, and gilding, it may be, their edges, will be great ex- 
 panses of brightness. Through all the peace and delight of 
 one's being will be heard the perpetual wail of some sad 
 memory, even as I now hear, in this sunny, enlivening morn- 
 ing, the melancholy note of the peewee. 
 
 Richard had his varieties. During this Knuckle Lane 
 business, other things went on. Memmy and Bebby lived, 
 — lived in his heart, and in his arms, and in his fingers, 
 and in his ears, and before his eyes. They ran all over the 
 carpet of his days ; they sprawled upon it ; sometimes they 
 blew soap-bubbles on it ; sometimes they were like twin 
 cherubs asleep in one corner of it. Who shall follow their 
 thread, or describe their figure ? Plumy Alicia Eyre was 
 another thread ; or rather she was like the colored pile that 
 is wrought into the plain warp of Brussels carpeting afore- 
 said, and is reproduced at odd intervals. Miss Eyre indi- 
 cated, for a while, an interest in Knuckle Lane ; but, for 
 reasons which will be hereafter discoursed upon, that at- 
 tachment was not lasting. Clover, — what has become of 
 him ? He has been absent a long time, — not a thread in the 
 carpet, so much as a moth under it, and silently eating into 
 it ; and when the carpet is taken up and shaken, there will 
 be found unexpected holes in it, and many rotten places. 
 The Knuckle Lane attempt did not demolish Clover, nor did 
 the Griped Hand win his fellowship. He was like a dis- 
 turbed ghost, strolling through the earth, — a sort of discon- 
 certed fiend. He appeared at Green Mill occasionally, the 
 basin of his lower lip, and the crooks in his upper lip, in no 
 wise diminished. In the night, going home from his meet- 
 ings, Richard now and then saw, through the darkness before 
 him, the arms of Clover describing their favorite contor- 
 tions, like the vanes of a windmill ; and when he got home, 
 there were giant streaks of shadow playing in his imagina- 
 
310 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 tion,and these would sometimes hang over and threaten his 
 dreams. Captain Creamer seemed to wilt and dry up, after 
 his failure ; though whether, like the poisonous rhus, there 
 might not be some mischief in him after he was dry, 
 remained to be seen. 
 
 But we must advert to one or two things that bear upon 
 the fortune of our friend. 
 
 During his perambulations, — and perhaps we should say 
 his iiocthagancy, if nobody will be troubled at the word — 
 Here a verbal quiddity plucks at the sleeve of narration, and 
 obliges us to stop and answer, that it is hard to please 
 everybody. Leo X. preserved with care, and what whole- 
 ness he might, the remains of ancient Rome in the mod- 
 ern city. Sixtus V. would " clear away the ugly an- 
 tiquities," could not endure the Apollo Belvidere in the 
 Vatican, and righted the Minerva by substituting a cross for 
 her spear; and so he went on idealizing the whole city, — 
 that is, reducing it by what he would call the rules of a 
 Christian Idealism. As if there were not a higher ideal in 
 suffering Minerva to remain as she was ! 
 
 There are those who would clear our language of its 
 ugly antiquities, as if pagan Latin had not got into the 
 English, and become a part of it, and the best thing for us 
 was to make due use of it. We might say night-ioalking, 
 but that has a bad odor. A certain one was sorely shocked 
 when he found his good King, in his own palace, playing 
 with a basket of puppies about his neck ; — that was low. 
 He was equally shocked, on returning to the street, to see a 
 cobbler promenading with side-sword and silk stockings ; — 
 that was too high. Can any one tell us what is the aurea 
 mediocritas of our tongue ? Besides, even as Richard ad- 
 dicted himself to observation in behalf of his absent teacher 
 and friend, Mr. Willwell, so, as has been already premised, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 311 
 
 we are writing- with a latent reference to our Usbek cousins ; 
 and might it not be well for us to give them some insight 
 into the structure and sources of our language, as well as 
 into our manners and customs ? May it not be conjectured 
 withal that, in their incursions into the East, the ancient 
 Eomans dropped some portions of their language in that dis- 
 tant country, and that even ramifications or dialects of the 
 Tartar tongue shall at this day be found cognate with our 
 
 own 
 
 During his noctivagancy, we say, in the cause of Knuckle 
 Lane, Richard made many discoveries, and some which dis- 
 turbed him. He encountered the young men, Chassford 
 and Glendar, at gaming saloons, in tippling houses, and 
 sundry places where he thought they ought not to be, and 
 where it reflected no credit on the simplicity of their char- 
 acters or purity of their principles in being. Already, the 
 winter before, he saw them at the Grotto, and the sight 
 afforded him any but pleasant recollections. 
 
 Meanwhile he called once or twice at the Governor's, and 
 found these young men there. Their air was well-bred, 
 their dress fashionable, their conversation sprightly, and 
 their ease absolutely overwhelming. With a twirl of his 
 cane, or a touch of his goatee, Glendar could set Richard's 
 composure shaking like an earthquake. And Richard was 
 powerless, — he could not avenge himself. He did not 
 esteem the young men, but he had no desire to vent his 
 disesteem there. He sometimes thought he would speak to 
 Melicent or Barbara about them, but he did not. They 
 complimented the Knuckle Lane movement ; yet Richard 
 felt they could not in heart be much concerned for it. 
 
 An event of greater interest to Richard was his election 
 to the Common Council of the city. It was the second 
 spring after his arrival in Woodylin, when, at a meeting of 
 
312 EICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 those who styled themselves " The Friends of Improve- 
 ment," he was unanimously nominated. Richard was 
 young, and a new-comer. Yet, it may be remarked, the 
 Ward in which he lived, comprising, as it did, the Factories 
 and Saw-mills, and all the Beauty of Woodylin, had many 
 new-comers in it, and this class of people were inclined to 
 sppport one of their own men. More than that, Richard, 
 by this time, had become sole proprietor of the rent of two 
 saws. How did this come about ? Richard's father owned 
 a saw-mill ; lived upon a stream emptying into the River, 
 and was able to cut more logs than he wanted and send 
 them down stream. We have said that Bill Stonners' 
 Point was the best booming privilege on the River. Well, 
 Chuk, Bill's sole lieir, was sole owner of this chance. And 
 whom should Chuk want to assist, if not Richard? Whom 
 would he strike the picaroon week in and week out for, if 
 not Richard ? So it was arranged that the elder Edney 
 should furnish the logs, Chuk boom them, and Richard saw 
 them. More than thai, what Bill never would do, Chuk 
 was glad to do ; he went up to the stream on which Mr. 
 Edney lived, and "drove" the logs. He rolled them into 
 the water ; he helped them over shoals, rafted them, and 
 tended them as a flock of sheep, till he got them penned 
 in the boom. He would be out days and nights on this 
 business, never leaving it, rain or shine, and often waist- 
 deep in water for twelve hours together. This boom of 
 Chuk's, lying, as it did, contiguous to the Mills, and so safe 
 in all ordinary freshets, he was considered a very fortunate 
 man who could acquire the entire use of; and Richard 
 was considered a fortunate man. This circumstance added 
 to Richard's consequence in the eyes of his neighbors. 
 Then he had so excellent a friend in Mr. Cosgrove, the 
 
THE go^'er>'or's family, 313 
 
 princely contractor for buildings, and who purchased of him 
 to large amounts. 
 
 It made a great stir at the Saw-mills when it was known 
 Richard had obtained control of Chuk's boom, though per- 
 haps not twenty people elsewhere had the least intelligence 
 of the matter. 
 
 These circumstances aided Kichard's municipal advance- 
 ment. 
 
 Yet, his success was not without impediment. In the 
 first place, the Catapulters had long ruled the New ToA\ni, 
 and expected to do so now. Next, the Dogbanes, for the 
 sake of putting a pretty trick on their hereditary enemies, 
 "over the River," declared for Richard. To defeat this 
 ruse, the Catapulters proclaimed Richard a Mydriatic, and 
 brought up Richard's connection with a certain horse, whose 
 carcass Muiik tfc St. John had caused to be thro\^^l upon 
 the ice. The Dogbanes mortally feared water ; and inas- 
 much as neither part}' could use Richard, they silently con- 
 certed to pounce upon him, like the animals whose names 
 they bore, and devour him. li\ other words, they united 
 upon a ticket which should destroy that of the Friends of 
 Improvement, and in place of Richard substituted the name 
 of Clover ! This will hardly be credited by our near or dis- 
 tant readers, nor would it have been credited in Woodylin 
 generally, or even among the large body of supporters of 
 either ticket. It was the result of despair in the two par- 
 ties, and of indefatigable management on the part of Clover. 
 At the caucuses. Clover, whose real character could not 
 have been commonly understood, represented that he was 
 the only man who could be led against Richard with any 
 prospect of success. In addition, Clover, as we say, elec- 
 tioneered for himself and against Richard. 
 27 
 
314 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 The union ticket did not prevail, and Richard carried the 
 polls by a handsome majority. 
 
 In the city councils, Richard found problems enough to 
 last Euclid one year at least, and grave responsibilities that 
 would make an impression on the shoulders of a small 
 At'as. It was a post where a good man could do some good, 
 and a wise man be of some use. Mr. Langreen was Mayor, 
 and Nefonwas an Alderman, and Richard was not altogether 
 without friends at the board. He was able to do something 
 for the furtherance of his favorite idea, the Knuckle Lane 
 project. While this, indeed, had been conducted chiefly by 
 individuals, there were many points in which the city gov- 
 ernment could render it essential service. It was proposed 
 to new-lay the street that ran through Knuckle Lane, and 
 furnish that precinct with water at public expense. A 
 large space of ground that had lain neglected, quite in the 
 heart of the city, was purchased, fenced, and planted with 
 trees, for a park. 
 
 A nevv cemetery was consecrated, called Rosemarj^ Dell. 
 To this some of the tenants of the old ground were con- 
 veyed ; here, also, a new grave was made for Violet, one of 
 the Orphans. Richard selected the spot, — his friends 
 erected a handsome monument ; with his own hands he 
 planted shrubbery and flowers about it. 
 
 On the back side of Woodylin, and yet within ten min- 
 utes walk of Centre-street Church, was vvliat in some places 
 is called a valley, in others, a gully, through which the Peb- 
 bles brook meandered. At a distance, this spot looked like a 
 vast redoubt of foliage, or a hollow imbedded in trees. With- 
 in it the trees, elms and oaks, rose to a great height above the 
 observer. He saw at the bottom the thread-like rivulet, flow- 
 ing on like a lover's joy, as strolling, too, as lover's walks by 
 moonlight, crinkling its way along, and scolloping the ground 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 315 
 
 on either side, singing and shining all alone down its deep 
 bed, feeding the roots of trees, flinging its dew on the mosses, 
 and creating innumerable little pleasure-grounds for the 
 frogs. The banks were broken, deeply embayed, and boldly 
 projected. In this valley grew saxifrage, and spring-beauty, 
 and wild columbine, and here children came May-flower- 
 ing. The banks, too, were elevated and terrace-like, and 
 the ravine narrow ; and, with the canopy of trees overhead, 
 it was a cool and shady spot, most refreshing to the imagin- 
 ation and the feelings in a hot summer day, and just such 
 a place as one would wish to go into out of the sun. Among 
 the children, this spot had gone by the name of May-flower 
 Glen. But it had lost what the critics would call its unity, 
 and was parcelled oflT by rough fences into small lots, and 
 abandoned to cows and swine, and appropriated by little 
 moss-trooping children, v^rho crept under the fences, and by 
 birds, who seem to have a life-estate in all that God hath 
 made. .Richard, in his rambles with Memmy and Bebby, 
 had seen it, and admired it. 
 
 Through the influence of the Friends of Improvement, 
 May-flower Glen was conveyed to the city ; by which it was 
 cleared, its bog drained, gravel-walks laid, and seats con- 
 structed. It became a favorite resort of the citizens, and 
 tributary likewise to the cause of Knuckle Lane and the 
 Griped Hand; since here the rich and poor met together in 
 ways at once fraternal and respectful, joyous and refined. 
 So many of the Knuckle Lane people frequented it, there 
 was danger at one time of its losing caste, and becoming 
 not fashionable. But Evelina Redfern declared, if nothing 
 else, she would make a Christian duty of going there, not 
 to speak of what Ada Broadwell and the Lady Caroline did. 
 
 Among the first to call at Willow Croft and congratulate 
 Richard on his accession to office, was Miss Eyre ; and this 
 
316 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 she did in a way touchingly graceful, and insinuatingly del- 
 icate. Richard's name, as one of the Common Councilmen 
 for Ward 2, had appeared in all the papers ; and he saw it 
 in the evening, and again in the morning prints ; and it 
 seemed to him as if he saw it the next day in everybody's 
 face. Munk read it, and Roxy must look into the paper, 
 and even Memmy spelt it out ; and he felt as if in all houses 
 it had been read, and looked at, and spelt out. Mr. Gouch 
 and Silver, who were still in his employ, and of CQurse voted 
 for him, were overjoyed that he had beaten Clover ; and 
 now that he was, as it were, a part of the city, and was 
 backed by the whole city power, they realized that Clover 
 could do him, or them, or anybody else, no more harm. 
 They colored Richard's triumph and advantage so strongly 
 to his mind, he must needs feel it was great indeed, and feel, 
 too, as if he were the whole city, and Clover a very small 
 spot in it; and they were so enthusiastic for Richard, — they 
 hurraed him so, with the wink of their eyes, and the legerde- 
 main of their crowbars and pick-poles, — Richard might be 
 excused for believing everybody in the New Town and the 
 Old Town was his friend and constituent. The first little 
 honors a man receives are very thrilling, and seducing, and 
 softening, and make one feel as if he was all champagne, 
 and roses, and fiddle-strings. 
 
 These were new sensations to Richard. It may be 
 doubted if Teacher Willwell or Pastor Harold had prepared 
 him for the emergency. He could not now make observa- 
 tions on what he saw, but upon what he was ; and this was 
 public elevation, and private satisfaction, — it was, being a 
 Councilman of Woody lin, and an object of so much con- 
 gratulation. How would his -motto, To be Good axd do 
 Good, and the great purpose of his heart, to love and serve 
 God and his fellow-men, apply here ? He mailed three 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 317 
 
 papers, the next day, containing the report of his election, — 
 to his Father, and particularly for his Mother, and to 
 his Teacher and Minis-ter. He did think they would all be 
 glad ; and when he reflected on what they would think and 
 -ay, and especially on what his pious mother would feel, he 
 ilently prayed, " O, let me in this be good and do good I " 
 When he went to drop the papers in the office, the lobby 
 was full of people. Did these men know what a precious 
 message was crowding through them ? Could they imagine 
 what strong delight those three wrappers enclosed ? Did 
 they dream of the parental fascination in a single line of 
 small caps in those columns ? One man, intent on a news- 
 paper, drew in his elbows' to let Richard pass; another, 
 opening a letter containing a remittance, Richard had to go 
 round; a third, discussing the last night's play at the The- 
 atre, and chewing tobacco, turning suddenly, mistook Rich- 
 ard for the floor. The clerk in the office, jesting at the window 
 with a Dry Fish Culler touching the removal of the latter 
 from his post, for a minute did not see the papers that 
 Richard handed up to him ; and when he did, still laughing 
 with the other, he asked Richard if they were pamphlets, 
 and was seen to toss them, like peach-pits, into some hole or 
 other. The printers' boys jostled him with their great bas- 
 kets. Who cared for Richard's Mother ? 
 
 So Richard had it all to himself ; and there was enough 
 of it, and it was just as good to him as if everybody else 
 had it. 
 
 The clerk's indifferent look, a hundred people's pre- 
 occupied look, weighed not a feather against his own feel- 
 ings ; and, perhaps, if he thought anything about it, he took 
 some satisfaction in seeing his pride go to the stake, and 
 having his pleasant little emotions sufTer a slight martyr- 
 dom. It is natural to do so. If people won't notice us, we 
 27* 
 
318 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 retaliate upon them by calling them very stupid and dull ; 
 or by inflating our merit in our own eyes, till we fancy our- 
 selves too great to be appreciated, and then going off like a 
 hero to oblivion. Our neglect is the measure of our great- 
 ness. We have a certain bigness ; and he who belittles us 
 belittles himself, — he who enlarges us enlarges himself. 
 
 So Richard was not discomforted. Indeed, he experienced 
 all reasonable attentions. Nefon took him warmly by the 
 hand, and expressed great pleasure in the election. Several 
 smiled upon him, as he passed them, in a manner which 
 said, " We know what has happened," The " Friends of 
 Improvement " were delighted. 
 
 About this time it was, we say, that Miss Eyre called at 
 Willow Croft, She only added fuel to the flame of Rich- 
 ard's self-complaisance. The little ripples that had been 
 stirring about in his bosom, she set all going again. She 
 was the breeze on his surface, and covered him all over 
 with most charming wavelets, and foam, and agitation. 
 She brought the color to his cheeks, and made the blood 
 warm in his veins. She talked to him about his mother, 
 and how glad she would be ; and Clover, and how annoyed 
 he was ; and the Common Council Chamber, and how hon- 
 orable to sit there: and, like a magician, she raised a mist 
 that rose from the floor, transparent and luminous ; her form 
 and face were emparadized in it, and, like a cloud of trans- 
 figuration, it expanded, and enfolded them both. Never 
 was Miss Eyre's voice so musical, never was her eye so ten- 
 der, never was her sympathy so entrancing ; and Richard's 
 self-love, his susceptibility of encomium, his deep pleasure 
 in what had happened, — that weak and soft spot in his and 
 everybody's nature, — that spot which is so instinct with self, 
 and so alive to public handling, — that inbred regard to 
 reputation and character, which she touched so softly, so 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 319 
 
 deliciously, — these were all carried away by her ; and we 
 might say, Richard himself — for there was not much else left 
 to him at that moment — Richard himself was carried away 
 by Miss Eyre. Plumy Alicia's triumph was complete. No, 
 it was no triumph ; she would not have it so. If he seemed 
 to surrender, she magnanimously restored his arms ; if he 
 was like to grow impassioned, she wisely counselled himj 
 if his eye had any unnatural fervor, she deliberately hushed 
 it. "Do not say ' love ; ' — speech, words, breath, — what 
 are they to the doing, being, feeling ? Not if you said it, 
 but if you were it ; not what you can utter, but what you 
 can keep." She said this with a kind of memento mori 
 motion of her finger, and left the room. 
 
 What he could keep ! Keep, keep, keep ; — that word 
 rang a good while in Richard's ear, and with different 
 inflections; — now upward, the doubtful interrogative; now 
 circumflective, the ironical; now downwards, the grave and 
 solemn. 
 
 That night, when he retired to his chamber, into his 
 thought of God and the Holy Spirit Miss Eyre could not 
 enter; into his hope of the Redemption of the world by 
 Christ she could not enter; into his calculations for the suc- 
 cess of the Griped Hand she could not enter; into what he 
 most loved of the spiritual, the humane, the beautiful, she 
 could not enter; to the deeper life of his soul she was not 
 kindred ; of his heart of hearts she was not partaker. Her 
 only place seemed then to be to him in some little foolish 
 feelings of the hour. Between her and his principal exist- 
 ence was a great gulf. He felt remorseful at what he had 
 done ; h6 was mean and silly in his own sight. Yet he 
 reasoned that in what he said or did he had not committed 
 himself to her ; and while he would regard her with all 
 
320 RICHARD EDXEY, ETC. 
 
 kindness and affection, he could not allow her to be the mis- 
 tress of his being. 
 
 But of necessity Richard must see Miss Eyre frequently. 
 She was intimate at Willow Croft. She caressed the chil- 
 dren ; she was always chirp, limber-hearted, and free', as 
 Munk wished anybody to be ; she could tell Roxy what was 
 worn. Then she had ministered to Richard when he was 
 sick ; she had that hold on his consideration which a com- 
 munication of sorrows creates ; she sometimes attended the 
 Knuckle Lane meetings; she loathed and despised Clover; 
 she was, moreover, in a certain sense, poor and friendless, 
 — a dependent, an operative ; and she appealed to the sym- 
 pathies of Richard by whatever lies in the case of those 
 who are sometimes deemed as belonging to a proscribed 
 class. 
 
 We call her poor. She was an intelligent and industrious 
 weaver, and could clear three and four dollars a week. 
 
 The next time Richard saw her, his manner was cool, 
 and a little sheepish; — she laughed at him. The second 
 time, she amused herself in endeavoring to rally him. The 
 third time, by following the creep-mouse-catch-'em prec- 
 edent, she brought him more nearly en rapport, as the 
 mesmerizers say, with herself. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 ON CITIES. 
 
 In this connection and chapter, and moved bj^ certain 
 things recorded in the two previous chapters, the author is 
 induced to break through the proprieties of historical narra- 
 tive, and, after a hortatory sort, to submit a few obser- 
 vations on cities and large towns. Discoveries are being 
 pushed, and revelations made, in the principal cities of the 
 civilized world, thai, like the old tragedies, awaken terror 
 and pity ; and while sensibility is shocked, philanthropy is 
 puzzled. What shall be done with the intemperance, licei> 
 tiousness, beggary, disease, theft, that abound? Police- 
 courts, benevolent societies, houses of refuge, foundling hos- 
 pitals, are instituted ; the pulpit and the press unite in the 
 work of reformation. But as it is said the Ocean drives 
 back the w^aters of the Amazon, so this evil deluges and 
 prostrates the attempt to remove it. What is the cause of 
 the preponderating and disproportionate vice of our cities? 
 Why is there nearly ten-fold more crime and misery, in a 
 given city population, than in the same country population ? 
 The answer is contained in one word, — Density — that the 
 people are too crowded. You create a city; you multiply its 
 facilities, you open inlets to it from all the region round 
 about ; you boast of its growth, and all at once, like King 
 Edward, before-mentioned, you see a thousand little devils 
 jumping about your wealth and your increase. Then you 
 begin to cry out for sorrow. This density originates the 
 Wynds and Closes of Edinburgh ; it gives to London its St. 
 Giles; it develops itself in the Faubourgs of Paris; it turns 
 
322 KICHAED EPNEY AND 
 
 to Ann-street and Half Moon-place, in Boston, and the Five 
 Points and Park Row, in New York. Out of it come what 
 are named dens of infamy, haunts of iniquity. Density, — 
 high houses and narrow streets blocked together, inlaid most 
 mosaically with each other, — we designate as the root of tlie 
 difficulty. From this spring stem and branches, or second- 
 ary and tertiary calamities. First comes a want of ventila- 
 tion, and bad air; — this generates every species of moral and 
 physical distemperature. Next appears filth, and this turns 
 into a hot-bed of sorrows. This density of the city, like 
 night, which it too truly represents, is a covert for vice. In 
 it the lewd and the rascally nestle; to it, from all parts of 
 the country, the criminal and the vicious flee for shelter. 
 To over-people a given spot has the same efTect as to over- 
 load the stomach, — there must be pain and disorder. Why 
 should God's children, and Christ's little children, live in 
 garrets and cellars ? It was one of the Divine promises to 
 Jerusalem, that the streets of the city should be full of boys 
 and girls playing in the streets thereof. How could this be 
 fulfilled in any of our modern cities ? Willis reproaches 
 the New Yorkers, that they are not willing to live more 
 than one layer deep. It was a dispute of the Schools, how 
 many angels could dance on the point of a cambric needle, 
 and not fall ofT. Will the Home Journal — Home? — de- 
 signed to bless and beautify the homes of our people, — 
 will it tell us how many stories, or bodies deep, our people 
 can live, and be comfortable, virtuous and happy ? 
 
 In the State of Maine, we have understood, some distance 
 up the Kennebec river, near the lumbering region, is a 
 place where it is commonly reported the Sabbath stops. So, 
 in New York, if we are correctly informicd, during the hot 
 season, the Sabbath stops, and the people are obliged to go 
 to Hoboken, or Staten Island, or Brooklyn Heights, to find 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 323 
 
 it. If these layers go on increasing, how long before there 
 will be no Sabbath at all? Prithee, Mr. Willis, let the peo- 
 ple spread, that they may have a Sabbath, and worship, and 
 enjoyment, and breath, in their own city, of a Sunday. 
 
 In Rome, says Beckman," for want of room on the earth, 
 the buildings were extended towards the heavens. In Ham- 
 burg, the greater part of our houses are little less than sixty 
 feet high." He adds that it is difficult to extinguish fires in 
 these high-housed regions. Are such things a model, even 
 with Palladio to back them up? 
 
 Cities, according to Mr. Alison, may have been the cra- 
 dles of ancient liberty; they may have contributed, ac- 
 cording to M. Say, to the overthrow of Feudalism; let it 
 be, in the language of a writer before me, that " the spirit 
 of independence was awakened in the streets of Boston, 
 while it slumbered on the banks of the Connecticut ; " yet 
 if, under the guiding genius of convenience and parsimony, 
 we suffer them to go on crowding, — if like Jeshurun they 
 only wax fat and grow thick, — like him, they will behave 
 very unseemly. 
 
 But of the past we can only speak remedially, while of 
 the present and the future we can speak more radically and 
 decisively. A certain tendency, not onlj^ to city charters 
 but to city actuality, prevails in the nation. Villages are 
 changing to towns, and towns swell to cities. What would 
 we have done ? As the cardinal error of cities is Densify, 
 we would redeem them by Openness. Exterior walls are 
 gone out of use, for the reason perhaps that the walls are all 
 on the inside ; as is related of the Irish, there are no old 
 rags or cast-off hats seen in the windows of their houses, be- 
 cause they are exhausted on the bodies of the people. We 
 would make a clean breach through these walls; or, rather, 
 as we are speaking prospectively, we would not suffer such 
 
324 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 walls to exist. No street should be less than four rods in 
 width ; no lane, or court, less than three. Dwelling-houses 
 should be blocked together in not more than twos. — Why, 
 alas! deem the "corner-lot" the most eligible, when every 
 house might look two ways ? Why should " twenty-seven 
 feet front " mark the aristocracy ? Why the middle one of 
 each suite of rooms dark and dungeon-like? — Churches 
 should be the most conspicuous buildings, and stand in lots 
 of not less than ten rods square. Every school-house should 
 have twenty-five square rods. Every dwelling-house should 
 be removed two rods from the street, and not more than two 
 families be permitted to reside under the same roof, and 
 within the same walls. There should be central, or con- 
 tiguous, reserves of land, of twenty or fifty acres each, for 
 public parks and promenades. There should be trees in 
 every street, without exception, — trees about the Markets, 
 trees in front of the shops, and on the docks, and shading 
 the manufactories. " A city," says St. Pierre, " were it 
 even of marble, would appear dismal to me, if I saw in it 
 no trees and verdure." The glory of Lebanon, the cedar, 
 came unto God's ancient city, the fir-tree, the pine, and the 
 box together, to beautify the place of his sanctuary. So 
 much for Openness. And this is what God gave us when 
 he lifted the sky so high above our heads, and extended the 
 earth so broadly at our feet, and made such a breathing- 
 place for his children to inhabit. This would "countrify" 
 the city, and that is what we desire. Mr. Downing, in a 
 recent Horticulturist, proposes a plan for the more specific 
 distribution of houses and streets, which combines much 
 taste, neatness, and utility. 
 
 What is requisite for this? Land, — and, primarih^, this 
 is all. Our cities need not be less populous, but only more 
 dispersed. And have we not land enough ? Look at our 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. _ 325 
 
 towTis everywhere that are growing into cities, bunching 
 together their houses, pinching their streets, stuffing skinny 
 apartments with men, women and children, as Bologna- 
 meat ; mowing away, as in a hay-barn, family upon family; 
 digging cellars where the poor must hutch and burrow; cut- 
 tin£T down trees, stifling the green-sward, — and have they 
 not land enough ? The fault is not wholly or primarily 
 with real estate owners. It lies in the people generally. 
 Every man is over-anxious to be near his business ; so, in 
 advertisements of rents, " within five minutes' walk" of Wall- 
 street, or State-street, or the rail-road station, has becom.e a 
 leading recommendation. Our merchants and mechanics 
 will not reside more than "five minutes" from their busi- 
 ness ; and in this circle of " five minutes," as a Maelstrom, 
 they draw their homes, their wives and children, their 
 peace and purity, — and within it, or very near it, must live 
 the Minister and the Doctor, the drayman and the porter, 
 the baker and the washerwoman. This is Socialism with a 
 witness. 
 
 Our wishes in this matter are not unreasonable or singu- 
 lar. " The numerous instances," says Dr-^ Emerson, of 
 Philadelphia, " wherein the mercenary character of- 4«divid- 
 als has tempted them to put up nests of contracted tene- 
 ments in courts and alleys, admitting but little air, and yet 
 subject to the full influence of heat, has often induced us to 
 wish there could be some public regulation whereby the evil 
 could be checked." " Some provision of law should be 
 made," say the Health Commissioners of Boston, " by which 
 the number of tenants should be apportioned to the size 
 and general arrangements of a house." 
 
 " The number of cellars," they add, " used as dwelling- 
 houses, is 586, and each occupied by from five to fifteen 
 souls." There should be statute law against such things. 
 28 
 
326 RICHABD EDNEY AND 
 
 Very forcibly do this Committee remind us that "the whole 
 subject of streets, and ways, in respect to width, ventilation, 
 grade, and drainage, is one of very great and increasing 
 importance." [See Report of the Cholera in Boston, in 
 1849.] 
 
 To our towns and villages as they are, — pretty, thriving, 
 hopeful, — let us say a word. Preserve, so far as possible, 
 the old homesteads ; do not abandon fruitful gardens, and 
 venerable trees, and time-honored abodes, to shops and 
 tenements. There is land enough. Keep the burial-places 
 intact; embellish them, — beautify that sanctuary. Do not 
 allow petty speculators in lands to lay out your ways and 
 define your lots for you.^ If strangers are coming to 
 reside amongst you, encourage them to settle a little further 
 back, where it will be for your interest to open new streets 
 and offer convenient grounds. All around you are millions 
 of forest trees, the most beautiful God has made; — the 
 elm, unequalled for its majesty; the pine, so glorious in 
 winter, so musical and balmy in summer; the maple, sweet, 
 clean, thrifty ; the white birch, that lady of the woods ; the 
 fir, whose dense foliage and spiral uniformity mingle so 
 well with the luxuriant freedom of the others ; the walnut, 
 with its deep green and glossy umbrage. There are tupelos, 
 hornbeams, beeches, larches, cedars, spruces, all waiting to 
 be transplanted to your villages, yearning to expand in your 
 streets, and throw their refreshment and their loveliness 
 over your grounds and houses, over your old men and chil- 
 dren, your young men and maidens. 
 
 We do not say that Openness or trees will save the city 
 or the town ; we do say that with such things, those ren- 
 
 * All the miserable localities in Boston " are mainly owing to the fact of their 
 having been originally laid out by private speculators." — Report of the Cholera 
 in Boston, 1849. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 327 
 
 dezvous and nests of sin and shame, filth and wretchedness, 
 
 — those pests of every sense, which torture sympathy and 
 exhaust munificence, which tax our religion and morality, 
 our learning and wisdom, to provide some mitigation of, — 
 will be rendered impossible. 
 
 Says the author of that admirable book, The Studies of 
 Nature, " I love Paris. Next to the country, and a country 
 to my fancy, I prefer Paris to every place I have seen in 
 the world. I love that city for its happy situation ; I love 
 it because all the conveniences of life are assembled there, 
 
 — because it is the centre of all the powers of the kingdom, 
 and for the other reasons which gained it the attachment of 
 Michel Montaigne." In like manner, and for the same 
 cause, as a NewEnglander, I say, I love Boston ; and, as an 
 American, I love New York. Yet I cannot go to the ex- 
 tent of the good man before me, who adds, " I should wish 
 there were not another city in France, — that our provinces 
 were covered only with hamlets and villages." I could wish 
 there might be many cities in New England, and in Amer- 
 ica — each, in its way, beautiful for situation, and the glory 
 of the earth around it. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 RICHARD AT THE GOVERNOR'S ONCE MORE. 
 
 Months wore away, and Richard was not idle. Green 
 Mill prospered; "Knuckle Lane " steadilj' advanced ; the 
 " Friends of Improvement " were able to effect some whole- 
 some regulations ; the majority of the workmen at the Saw- 
 mills devoted spare hours to the Griped Hand, and a better 
 tone of feeling and manner prevailed amongst them ; the 
 parlor at Willow Croft was open, and Richard had much 
 delight in it with the children and his friends. His Father 
 and Mother had been to see him, and he, with Roxy, and 
 Memmy and Bebby, and Munk & St. John's best carriage, 
 made a journey to the paternal home. 
 
 Richard was happy, — at least, as much so as is ordinarily 
 the lot of mortals. He was invited to a party at the Mayor's, 
 to another at Nefon's, and to one at Judge Burp's; and these 
 were things of which his sister made account. 
 
 He called at the Governor's, — he was quite often there ; 
 and, in fact, Roxy, and Memmy, too, began to suspect he 
 was specially attracted there. Memmy used to say, " I 
 know Uncle Richard wants to see Miss Melicent." It was 
 obvious, on the other side, that his presence in St. Agnes- 
 street was allowed by the Family, and agreeable to Meli- 
 cent. So marked was the cordiality of these two persons, 
 it became rumored, in certain quarters, they were engaged. 
 The Family authorized no such declaration, — neither did 
 Richard. " If Melicent has her heart set on Mr. Edney, I 
 think she had better have him," observed Mrs. Slelbourne. 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 329 
 
 Madam never committed herself. She said, still intent cut- 
 ting out her pieces, " Yes, indeed ; but young folks change 
 their minds."' " I should never change my mind," added 
 Cousin Eowena. "Are you young?" asked Madam, with 
 a start. Cousin tried to laugh. " But how am I to regard 
 him ? " inquired Eunice, — " as a suitor of Melicent's, or only 
 a friend of the family ? " " You will not regard him at all," 
 replied her mother. " You will only behave properly towards 
 him." " I think," continued Mrs. Melbourne, " Melicent 
 ought to know something." " She does know something, 
 and will have to know more all her life," answered Madam, 
 " Keep a learning, — go on to wisdom ; she need not be in 
 haste to do it up at once ; we must summer and winter our 
 knowledge before we really know anything." 
 
 This was about the sum of what a bystander could col- 
 lect of the feelings of that domestic circle. Not but that 
 Miss Rowenahad her asides, and pleasant innuendoes; and 
 Alice Weymouth would not only laugh outright, but even 
 relapse into great soberness, when she thought of it all. 
 The Governor in no wise interfered, leaving such matters to 
 the sense and choice of his children. 
 
 I know not that Richard asked any questions, or received 
 any answers. He was happy with Melicent; happy to 
 work with her in "Knuckle Lane," — to walk with her in 
 JMayflower Glen, — to sit with her under the vines of the 
 piazza. Into the full circle of his being she seemed to flow, 
 and melt, and be as one with him ; into his adoration of the 
 Supreme, into his studies of philanthropy, into his estima- 
 tion of man, and all his conscience of duty, she came. St. 
 Cuthbert built the windows of his hovel so high he could 
 not see the earth therefrom, and could only look out upon 
 the heavens, which became his sole object of contemplation. 
 Such was not the love of Richard and Melicent ; it did not 
 28* 
 
330 RICHARD EDXEY AND 
 
 look into the heavens, or the ideal and dreamy alone. It 
 looked upon the world at their feet, at men and things about 
 them, and life as it is. 
 
 But lowly as Richard's feelings were, plain and simple as 
 were his delights, he Avas still a conspicuous mark for the 
 shafts of adversity. However, in his love of Melicent, he 
 may have had no other consciousness than that of the lily- 
 of-the-valley, there lurked an envious blast that would 
 reach and rend him. His relation to the Governor's Fam- 
 ily must of necessity become a topic of remark, — not to 
 say an occasion of surprise, — to many. Roxy, of course, 
 as the matter began to come into shape before her eyes, was 
 overjoyed; Mysie, who knew everybody, said, "I'm glad, 
 — she is one of the best critturs in the world." Mangil 
 said, " She 's never hard up." Miss Eyre must say some- 
 thing, and do something. All that she said and did we 
 cannot relate. 
 
 But Richard ere long became sensible of her attempt at 
 something; and first, quite negatively, quite silently. She 
 did not bow as he passed her in the street. That was noth- 
 ing, — it might have been an accident. Soon he met her 
 face to face. She did not look at him ; she averted her 
 eye, and slighted his salutation. That was positive, and 
 palpable. She came no more to Willow Croft; — that 
 meant something. He encountered her again at a party at 
 Tunny's. Her face was dark with apparent rage or con- 
 tempt. She flung herself from the side of the room where 
 he stood, as if he were the jaws of a crocodile. This was 
 awful, — it was dagger-like, — to Richard. 
 
 Here was food for speculation. Richard reflected that 
 he had been friendly, and even indulgent, towards her, — 
 that she had been free and easy with him. She had even 
 sometimes rallied him on going to the Governor's so 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 331 
 
 much. There was an outer door, a little porch-way of his 
 feelings, where he and Miss Eyre could entertain each 
 other, sit and chat ; but into the inner chamber of his nature 
 she could not come, and he supposed she knew she could 
 not. Alas! here he was greatly mistaken. He had got out 
 of the mist she once raised about him, and could see things 
 very clearly, and, as he thought, see her very clearly; — 
 here, too, he was mistaken. He had always been glad to 
 meet her. She was vivacious, witty, pungent ; and she 
 seemed glad to meet him. Now, this change, — what did it 
 purport ? So sudden, too, so unpremised, — what had hap- 
 pened ? She was absent from the city when the rumor of 
 his engagement with Melicent transpired. After her re- 
 turn, he noticed the alteration in her manner. It must have 
 something to do with that. 
 
 But what with that ? — what with anything ? He would 
 find out, — he would speak with her. No, — she would 
 not be spoken with ; — she avoided him, — she went by on 
 the other side, — she was deaf when he addressed her. 
 
 Did he communicate this annoyance to Melicent ? He 
 did not. He thought he would ; — he was on the verge of 
 opening the subject one evening, when Chassford and Glen- 
 dar entered the room. This put his purpose to flight. Why 
 pursue it ? Miss Eyre, and Miss Eyre's coolness, were no 
 part of him and Melicent ; it was a mere fleck in the sky 
 that was full of brightness and repose to him ; a fleck, too, 
 at his back, in some other direction than that towards which 
 he was looking. It was an irritation, and for that reason he 
 would avoid it, where all was quietness and joy. He scraped 
 it 0^ as he entered the door of the pleasant mansion, as so 
 much mud on the sole of his boot. Was he not confiden- 
 tial with Melicent ? Exceedingly so. But this was a tran- 
 sient, temporary grievance, personal to himself, that he need 
 
332 RICHABD EDXEY AND 
 
 not trouble her with, — that he would soon surmount or for- 
 get. When one is introduced to the great and the good, he 
 instinctively leaves behind his meanness and his littleness ; 
 and in the movement of the affections, what is hopeful, in- 
 teresting, fair, clusters together, as in winter we gather about 
 a bright fire, and forget how many cold and dreary rooms 
 there are in the house. 
 
 Chassford and Glendar were an embarrassment to Rich- 
 ard ; they embarrassed him by their looks, but more by their 
 conduct. In the same room with him, they disturbed what 
 we might call his physical equilibrium; in other rooms, and 
 other places, they disturbed his moral equanimity. Could 
 he shake them off? Could he disarm their insolence? 
 Could he expel the consciousness of their dissipation ? They 
 were kind of suitors general of the Governor's Family, and 
 suitors particular of Melicent and Barbara. Glendar was a 
 fourth nephew and protege of Mrs. Melbourne. His parents 
 resided in a distant city, and he came to Woodylin to 
 expatiate. Mrs. Melbourne saw no faults in her favorites. 
 There was a certain blind passionateness in this woman's 
 affection. She was, as some thought, the wilful supporter 
 and prejudiced advocate of those she liked. She saw no 
 reason why Glendar should not marry into the Family. If 
 Melicent was preoccupied, he might attach himself to Bar- 
 bara. But Chassford monopolized Barbara. Certainly, 
 then, Melicent ought to know, to make up her mind, and 
 have the thing settled in the house, whether she would have 
 Eichard or not. However, these were points discussed 
 rather in her own mind, and just exposed edgewise in the 
 presence of the senior females, and not produced before the 
 girls themselves. 
 
 Chassford had a fine education, and fine abilities. He 
 led his class at College, — his professional promise was 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 333 
 
 great. But he was ruining himself by profligacy. And it 
 so happened, Richard knew more of this than anybody. 
 The shining talents of the young man, his boyhood fairness, 
 his visible industry, all the hopes and expectations that had 
 been garnered in him by doting parents and partial friends, 
 concealed the defects of his character. With Barbara, he 
 could be, and really was, musical, poetical, ideal, romantic, 
 profound, spiritual. 
 
 Richard found he had eggs to walk on, and a plenty of 
 them, and some not very sound ones, in the matter of these 
 young men. Nor was he sure that duty required, or expe- 
 diency would justify, any suggestions whatever as to what 
 he might know or think of them. The Governor's Family, 
 jvithal, was, to some extent, terra incog?tita to him ; it had 
 its own customs, preferences, and reasons, — its own con- 
 nections and law of life, — and Richard might naturally 
 presume it would take care of itself, and must be indeed its 
 own keeper. Then it was a juncture of that extreme and 
 finished delicacy, for which he was not adequate, either in 
 tact or experience. 
 
 Lovers are oblivious ; and when Richard was alone with 
 ]\Ielicent, Miss Eyre, Chassford and Glendar, were like a 
 dream of the night, which we never think of in the day- 
 time. 
 
 But he could not always be alone with Melicent. One 
 day he found himself at the Governor's alone with Mrs. 
 Melbourne. Melicent and Barbara had gone on a journey 
 with their Father and Mother. 
 
 "If you like our Melicent, why do you not propose?" 
 Mrs. Melbourne said this not reproachfully, — not with any 
 dislike to Richard, but simply for his sake, and to fetch 
 things to a focus. 
 
334 RICHABD EDNEY AND 
 
 " The Governor and Madam Dennington both sanction 
 our intimacy, I believe," replied he. 
 
 J" Glendar wants her, if you don't have her," added the 
 lady. 
 
 Daggers again ! What could the woman think ? Was 
 love like a berth in a steamboat, and were lovers to say quick 
 which they would have ? Had Mrs. Melbourne forgotten 
 that she was once young, and had the tender passion ? Not 
 exactly this ; she deemed either of the young men an eligi- 
 ble match for the young lady, — or, if her judgment con- 
 sented to Richard, her affection supported Glendar. She 
 did venture upon liberties with Richard, which she would 
 not have taken with some others, accounting possibly the 
 hardness of his early education and habits a sufficient foil 
 for her own boldness. She was kind-hearted in what she 
 said, and would have Richard know, if he did not take the 
 prize, he was only standing in the way of one eager to 
 grasp it. 
 
 Yet it was not so much Richard's sensibilities that were 
 startled, as his recollections ; — it was that Glendar should 
 be named, — the Glendar whom he had seen in so many 
 unfavorable lights, and withal in so deep shadows, — and his 
 thought of whom was as wide from Melicent as the realm 
 of outer darkness. 
 
 He was moved to speak, and vent his mind. So he told 
 Mrs. Melbourne that, not a month before, he saw Glendar 
 drunk in a rookery, — that it was not possible for Melicent 
 to love him. 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne was horrified, — too much so to be calm, or 
 reasonable. She even went so far as to be more indignant 
 at the teller than the story ; — she flouted the idea ; she would 
 not believe such a thing; and, turning upon Richard, she 
 charged the story to his jealousy. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 335 
 
 Richard left the house. 
 
 A few days afterwards, as he was sitting on the door- 
 steps at Willow Croft, the Governor's servant appeared at 
 the gate, and handed him a note, which ran as follows : — 
 
 " Mr. Edney is requested to discontinue his visits at the 
 Governor's. Depravity of heart, foulness of intention, and 
 viciousness of life, cannot always be concealed. If he 
 wishes for information, he can inquire of Miss Plumy 
 Alicia Eyre. In the absence of the Governor and his fam- 
 ily, the undersigned, retaining sole charge of the house, 
 deems it her duty to protect its purity and defend its honor; 
 and she would leave Mr. Edney no possible room to doubt 
 that an authority assumed by weak and feeble hands will 
 be supported by others stronger than herself, and as strong 
 as anybody. Clarissa Melbourne." 
 
 If one of those forty-feet logs, that thrash about in such 
 hair-brained fashion, at the foot of the Dam, in a freshet, 
 had struck Richard across the breast, it could not have 
 affected him more sensibly in that region than did this 
 note. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE UNDERTOW. 
 
 Miss Plumy Alicia Eyre came to Woodjdin young', 
 destitute, and unknown. Her first service was in the Gov- 
 ernor's Family, where she was little maid of all work, and 
 particular little maid of Mrs. Melbourne. This lady always 
 had a pet, — if not an animate, an inanimate thing; sometimes 
 it was the asparagus-bed in the garden ; now the horses in 
 the barn ; at one moment it was a poor widow in the neigh- 
 borhood; again it was somebody arrested for murder, a 
 thousand miles off. In the present instance, it chanced to 
 be Plumy Alicia. Neglect in any shape fired her compas- 
 sion, and Plumy Alicia was neglected; her feet were neg- 
 lected, and her head, — she had no shoes, no bonnet, and a 
 scant wardrobe. Here was a fine theatre for Mrs. Melbourne's 
 piety and benevolence, and she improved it. She taught 
 the child to read and to sew, and gave her books and bright 
 clothes. She put the little maid under great obligation ; but 
 the little maid did not like the load. She was froward, 
 vain, ambitious, or what it may be, and wanted higher 
 wages and a higher post; and she left the Governor's. 
 She exchanged Mrs. Melbourne's fine chamber for Mrs. 
 Tunny's dark kitchen ; but she got better pay, a more inde- 
 pendent way of life, and a nearer view of the world at large, 
 — or a view of Mrs. Tunny's view. Whatever aristocratic 
 aspirations the Green Grocer's lady may have cultivated, she 
 was free with her domestics, — very free with such as had 
 lived in good families; and Plumy Alicia had lived at the 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 337 
 
 Governor's ; and Mrs. Tunny seemed to feel that her house, 
 or rather her means of makmg a house, went up a number 
 of degrees in the acquisition of such a servant. Miss Eyre 
 left Mrs. Tunny for the Factories and Whichcomb's, where 
 this Tale found her. 
 
 Cessation of intercourse was not the only method by 
 Avhich IMiss Eyre chose to signify her sentiments towards 
 Eichard; she matured a story that vitally touched his repu- 
 tation. With this she went to the Governor's, and sought 
 an interview with her old mistress. These two had kept 
 up the remembrance of each other, and Mrs. Melbourne 
 ever offered to her former servant and pet the assurance of a 
 perpetual consideration. Miss Eyre looked pensive and 
 sad ; — she was really distressed ; she was apparently out- 
 raged. There was truth with a coloring of falsehood, and 
 falsehood with a coloring of truth, in all she said. Eichard 
 had been attentive to her, confidential with her, and often 
 alone with her. These were things not to be questioned. 
 " He won my heart," said Miss Eyre ; — that might be. " I 
 had no other friend but him;" — of the same sort. "He 
 knew that I sacrificed many others for him ;" — that might 
 admit of question. Mrs. Melbourne could see no question 
 in it. "I surrendered at discretion;" — true. Here she 
 shed tears ; — mixed. " Is he so black-hearted ? " flared 
 Mrs. Melbourne. " Heartless ! " sobbed Miss Eyre. " Black- 
 hearted ! " continued Mrs. Melbourne. " He unites the vul- 
 garity of the lower classes with the insolence of the higher. 
 He is reckless from instinct, and designing from position. 
 He is ; he must be. That is it ! I understand him now. 
 I see through him. How blinded I have been ! What crea- 
 tures we are, when God leaves us to ourselves ! How can I 
 thank you for opening my eyes, and all our eyes, before it 
 was too late ? " 
 
 29 
 
338 KICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 The result of this interview appeared in the note, a copy 
 of which has been furnished for the perusal of the reader. 
 The original remained in Richard's hand, and brain, and 
 agony. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE " BOIL." 
 
 He went to his chamber, fell upon his bed, and buried his 
 face in the pillow ; as if his pillow could help him, or cared 
 for him, or could soothe the sensations that racked his 
 thought. " Inquire of Miss Plumy Ahcia Eyre." Yes, 
 Plumy Alicia, you had done it ; you were at the bottom of 
 this ; you thrust that iron into his soul ! Richard knew 
 Miss Eyre was rash, fickle, schemy, and fond of adventure ; 
 he did not believe her so infamous, so utterly abominable, 
 so abandoned. What should he think now ? What do ? 
 
 When he came down to breakfast, the next morning, he 
 looked pale, and had small appetite. He drank half a cup 
 of coffee, nibbled at a slice of bread, and refused a piece of 
 Indian cake Roxy had baked on purpose for him. His sis- 
 ter took alarm. " Are you sick, Richard ? " " Not much," 
 he answered. " Have some cracker toast, and sage tea ? " 
 No. " A good cold-water bath, with hard rubbing, is the 
 thing," said Munk, who was a real hydriatic in his way. 
 "If Uncle Richard is sick," said Memmy, "Plumy will 
 come, and Miss Melicent will come too ; and we shall have 
 such nice times, with quince sauce, and lots of candy ! " 
 " Tanny, tanny ! " shouted Bebby. " Pumy bing tanny ! " 
 and she wriggled for joy in her high chair, and displaced her 
 bib, and pulled her dish of bread and milk into her lap. 
 " Dear me ! " cried Roxy ; " what trouble is in candy ! I have 
 sometimes wished I could never see the sight of those ladies. 
 Bebby is all the whole continual time in mischief ! " Rich- 
 
340 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 ard availed himself of the slight breeze to make his escape. 
 Roxy called after him, as he left the room: "You never 
 will have anything done for you ; and you will come back 
 dead, the next we know ! " 
 
 Richard felt, at the moment, there was more truth in her 
 words than she always put into them. 
 
 He went to the Mill, and assumed his customary duties. 
 But it was hard to carry them through. There was slipperi- 
 ness in his hold, and dizziness in his calculations. He was 
 like a man who undertakes to raise a barrel of flour in a fit 
 of laughter. " Sick," muttered Mr. Gouch, " sick; and sick 
 is foolish to be here. Go to bed, — be sick." 
 
 That afternoon Richard went to bed, on a cup of sage tea, 
 and slept soundly ; he slept none the night before. 
 
 He made no blunders at tea, but drank two strong cups 
 of oolong, disposed of a large biscuit, and honored some new 
 cake, for which Roxy had obtained the receipt of Mrs. 
 Mellow. 
 
 In the evening he went to Whichcomb's, to see Miss Eyre. 
 " Plumy Alicia may be in to some folk," replied the landlady 
 to his inquiry at the door. " Is she in to you ? " " She 
 is," replied Richard, emphatically, endeavoring to smooth the 
 way through the difficulty of his feeling by pleasantry of 
 speech. "Not as you knows of," answered Mrs. Which- 
 comb. " Plumy Alicia said, says she, I am not at home, 
 says she." " Is she at home to me ? " asked Richard. 
 " Can I find her ? " He began to push by the doorkeeper. 
 "Ah! Charley Walter, said I;" so the woman went on. 
 " ' No such a thing,' said he. They made the awfulest 
 piece of work of it that ever was. Velzora Ann had on her 
 spick and span new silk." 
 
 " I must see Miss Eyre ! " cried Richard. 
 
 " Would you impose on the Ladies' Parlor, which Cain 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 341 
 
 hasn't, and Miss Elbertina Lucetta, Miss Allura, Miss El- 
 zena, that was an orphan, and always slept four in a bed, till 
 she found Whichcomb's, and nothing relishing — " "Are 
 they all there ? " urged the agonized caller. He enforced 
 his way to the room which on the door was labelled " Ladies' 
 Parlor." Sev^eral girls fled as he entered, among whom 
 was not Miss Eyre. He did not wait long, however, before 
 the object of his quest came in sight. With right thumb 
 and finger she raised a fold of her muslin dress, trimmed 
 her face three points to the left, and crushed herself forward 
 in the direction of the floor, like a ship pitching, and, rising, 
 sailed away to a chair at some distance from her caller. 
 " What is the meaning of this ? " asked Richard, or rather a 
 voice from within Richard, that came up, groping and 
 trembling, all the way, through the thickness and huskiness 
 of his feelings. " Mr. Edney, having precipitated himself 
 through a reserve which has been so long maintained, and 
 with such obvious propriety imposed, cannot be too much 
 out of breath to relate the nature of his errand," replied Miss 
 Eyre, hammering the arm of the chair with her fan. 
 
 " Why have you so long avoided me, and why, at last, 
 have you approached me only to wound me, — approached 
 my happiness only to destroy it forever?" 
 
 " I shall not sit here to be accused," replied Miss Eyre. 
 " I shall claim the protection of the house." 
 
 " The house," rejoined Richard, " and all its walls, and 
 all its inmates, may tumble down upon us; — you must 
 hear what I have to say." 
 
 Miss Eyre paced the room loftily, as if she were in a pair 
 of buskins. 
 
 She turned and said, " Is your happiness mv happiness, 
 Mr. Edney ? " 
 
 Richard stammered in reply. 
 29-* 
 
342 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 " The question embarrasses you, I see ; you need not 
 answer it." 
 
 " I am at a loss to know why your happiness should aim 
 so fatally at my wretchedness." 
 
 " O, you are unhappy ! I am sorry for you." 
 
 " Have done with this, and tell me what has instigated 
 you to poison the ear of Mrs. Melbourne against me ! " 
 
 " Dare you charge that meanness upon me ? " 
 
 " You know what you have done ! " 
 
 " I told Mrs. Melbourne you had shown an affection 
 for me." 
 
 " Was that all ? " 
 
 " All you did ? " 
 
 " All you told her ? " 
 
 " Will you say it is false ? " 
 
 " That I had a love-affection for you, — that I was ear- 
 nestly interested in you ? " 
 
 " Eh ! earnestly, earnestly ! Superficially ? Partly, fan- 
 cifully ? I see ! I see ! " 
 
 " Wh)^, at this hour, and in this place, and under these 
 circumstances, can you harrow me so ? Read that ! " He 
 gave her Mrs. Melbourne's note. 
 
 She read it, and said, " Do not feel so bad about that. 
 Aunt Melbourne is a little notional." 
 
 " If any other than a bad feeling is proper to the case, I 
 would dismiss a bad feeling; but I cannot dislodge the 
 conviction that you have acted very ungratefully." 
 
 •' Do you love me, Richard ? " 
 
 " You bade me never say that I loved you." 
 
 " But do you?" 
 
 " How can I answer you ? " 
 
 " You can say that you do not. It will be some pleasure 
 for me to hear the word ' love' on your lips, — to see it pass 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 343 
 
 them ; even if it went reluctantly and slowly, — as if it was 
 a sweet spot to go through, — as if it loved to linger among 
 the impediments of feeling, — as if it loved to hear its own 
 sound. Say ' do not ' love ; say ' do ' love ; — naughty little 
 ' love,' that hides behind the ' not; ' — yet it is ' love,' — and 
 'love,' or ' not love,' is the same. ' Not love' is love with a 
 handle." 
 
 " I detest you ! " Richard said this in a passion, quite 
 wrought up. Miss Eyre coolly replied, " We are even, — 
 let us part." 
 
 " Not until I know how you have implicated me with 
 Mrs. Melbourne ! " 
 
 " You did not once kiss me ? You cannot say that. 
 You have not that to think of. How you blush ! Color 
 fades from your lips into your cheeks ! — Well, well ; 
 nothing should inhabit those lips but kisses ; — all the girls 
 say so. You are biting your lips to bring the blood back ! " 
 
 The wretch ! Spurn her, — crush her ! Insane wicked- 
 ness, intolerable absurdity! the reader is ready to exclaim; 
 and so, perhaps, was Richard. What business has she 
 here ? Yet is not all villany absurd, unnatural ? Could 
 we get at the springs of misconduct, in any case, should we 
 not be surprised ? 
 
 The truth is. Miss Eyre had formed a strong and des- 
 potic attachment for Richard. She had been resolved to 
 possess him. Her long silence and reserve was a mode of 
 ascertaining his inclinations. She heard of his engagement 
 with Melicent, and knew how often he was at the Gov- 
 ernor's. Her communication to Mrs. Melbourne had a first 
 object, to discover the nature of his connection with Meli- 
 cent ; and, secondly, to dissolve it, and free him for herself; 
 and finally, if foiled herein, to be avenged upon him. At 
 this meeting at Whichcomb's, she maintained, with cardinal 
 
344 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Uness, a single point, — the development of the actual 
 state and movement of his mind and heart. 
 
 To be avenged upon him, in the last resort, we say. 
 How could that be, if she loved him ? ask our gentle, true- 
 hearted readers. We might refer them to sacred writ, and 
 Potiphar's wife. Joseph could not be more astonished at 
 the order for his arrest, than was Richard at the conduct of 
 Miss Eyre. We run no parallel between these two ladies, 
 further than to the point of love and vengeance. We have 
 never said Miss Eyre was ill-intentioned ; — she was ill-regu- 
 lated. The wrong she did Richard was rather the wan- 
 tonness of passion than the deliberation of insult. As is 
 said, the rare and costly manuscripts used in forming the 
 Complutensian Polygloll; were used for rockets, so it seemed 
 sometimes as if she tossed up the sacred and precious 
 feelings of Richard's heart merely for the pleasure of seeing 
 them explode ; yet it is evident in this pastime her own 
 deepest sentiments were involved also. She scattered fire- 
 brands without seeming to think how hot they were. She 
 followed her ends with great clearness of heart, but with 
 utter blindness of eye ; or, rather, with a distinct aim, but 
 confused method. She was more capricious in appearance 
 than in purpose. But she would sport with her victim, 
 before she put him to death. Richard seemed to feel that 
 his death was foreshadowed, while, at the same moment, 
 Miss Eyre was loth to administer the final stroke. 
 
 " Tell me what you have done ! " Richard said this so 
 sternly and coldly, with look so sullen and menacing, and 
 tone so hard and inexorable, that Miss Eyre must have seen 
 the folly of dalliance. 
 
 She replied, "I will not tell you what I have done; — I 
 will tell you what I will do and be. I hate you; yet not 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 345 
 
 vitally, but as death hates, — as a bruised and broken heart 
 hates, — as a woman that can feel hates ! — " 
 
 " Spare me this ! " cried Richard, smiting his hand upon 
 his brow. "Anything but such a thing ! any torture you 
 may inflict, but such a torture ! Do not strew my path 
 with the mutilated fragments of a heart ! do not doom my 
 vision to the sight of sensibility in ruins ! Kill me in some 
 other way ! — " 
 
 Miss Eyre leaned her head upon the arm of her chair, 
 and was heard to sob. 
 
 " Dear Plumy Alicia ! " said Richard, approaching and 
 attempting to take her hand. She waved him off. " Go," 
 said she ; " your work is done, and mine is done ! " 
 
 Richard took himself heavily from the house. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 DRAWTNT UNDER. 
 
 Miss Eyke was an enigma ; to Richard, certainly, and to 
 many who may be inclined to bestow a thought upon her. 
 She was of the somewhat numerous family of Eyres, — of 
 an obscure branch, indeed. When she was quite young, she 
 demonstrated the superiority of her sex by romping with the 
 boys. As if she had early imbibed exalted notions of 
 womanhood, she once undertook to break a colt. But she 
 had no Family, no Church, no School. Her tendencies, 
 whether good or evil, were xmsoothed by affection, 
 unmoulded by religion, unrefined by culture. Her manner 
 in the present instance was contradictory, and her intention 
 uncertain. She deigned no explanation herself, and we 
 might be balked to attempt one for her. 
 
 In five minutes after Richard left, the girls dashed into 
 the room; and she was jocose, talkative as ever, and rattled 
 away wdth the merriest of them, — all traces of concern 
 having vanished, and her look as bright as if she had 
 just washed in a sunbeam. 
 
 Richard did not recover so easily, — indeed his power of 
 elasticity seemed for the moment destroyed. To rise from 
 the blow he had received, was an attainment in his own 
 estimation impossible. He was naturally of heavier mould 
 than Miss Eyre ; — such, at least, w^ould be a reasonable 
 deduction from the facts of the case. 
 
 He did not mention what had befallen to his sister, or to 
 any one. He bore the burden alone. 
 
EICHAED EDNEY, ETC. 347 
 
 Alone ? Richard was, or professed to be, a Christian ; and, 
 like his Master, he might still have the Father with him. 
 
 He disburthened his heart to God ; — he poured the an- 
 guish of his spirit into the ear of Heaven. Like a captive, 
 he lifted his galled hands, and implored Divine mercy and 
 love to strike off the chainfe. He listened to the starry- 
 night, that some voice from dimmest ethereal space might 
 speak to his troubled soul, saying, Peace, be still ! 
 
 Had he sinned ? This thought shot like a lightning 
 gleam through his brain. His conduct, as in a mirage, rose 
 in sudden, pictorial, prolonged prospective to his view. 
 Many things wore a sinful aspect. An afirighted imagina- 
 tion would readily detect many sinful spots. He cried out, 
 with tenderest contrition, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" 
 
 But the worst was yet to come, if there could be any 
 worse, where the desolation was so entire. 
 
 He did not go near the Governor's again. He could 
 have no further communications with Mrs. Melbourne. His 
 heart failed him at the thought of seeing her. Melicent 
 was absent. What on her return ? He did not write her. 
 -A letter he had from her remained in his desk, unopened. 
 
 What would the Governor say, and IVIadam, and Barbara, 
 
 or Chassford, or Glendar, or ; but why go over the 
 
 series of interested persons, or conjure among possible 
 events the recollection of any one of which pierced him so 
 vitally ? 
 
 Not many days afterwards, Melicent returned. The Gov- 
 ernor's consequence in town rendered his movements matter 
 of public rumor, and in this way Richard ascertained what 
 by direct inquiry he might not have put himself upon find- 
 ing out. He realized what was before him, and waited the 
 progress of events, and the course of the hours, silently and 
 awfully, as Alcestis did the unfoldings of Fate, 
 
348 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 It came, — came like a thunderbolt which one expects j 
 bowed, tense, hot, and almost shrinking, in the suffocating 
 silence, and dismal darkness, he hardly dare open his eyes, 
 lest he should see himself struck. The house shook, and 
 his sight reeled, and he knew it had come. It came in the 
 shape of a note from Mrs. Melbourne, covering one from 
 Melicent. 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne flashed thus. " I will not accuse you, 
 since your own conscience must have done that office for 
 you. I shall pray for you, that God would lead you to 
 repentance, and that you may be saved at last. It is unnec- 
 essary to remind you of the distress you have occasioned 
 us, as I fear you are incapable of feeling it. The purpose 
 of this present is answered when I inform you that your 
 visits here are interdicted. Melicent, poor child, whose hap- 
 piness you have so rudely and vulgarly assailed, will give 
 the dismissal under her own hand." 
 
 If Melicent flashed, she rained, too ; and her flash showed 
 rather a confused state of the elements above, — rapid con- 
 densation of vapors, meeting of adverse winds, — than an 
 attempt to injure anything below. 
 
 Her note had evidently coihmenced with " Dear Richard," 
 and " Dear Sir " was the cover of a blot. And this little 
 incident characterized the entire manuscript. She was in 
 doubt what to write; — whether to regard Richard in the 
 light of conscious rascality, or of scandalized innocence. If 
 she thought that a tender word would be exposed to bar- 
 barous insolence, she more deeply feared that severe words 
 would pierce to the quick a virtuous sorrow. So Richard 
 passed before her imagination like the changing Spectre of 
 the Brocken, — assuming a new phase of terror, or of beauty, 
 according to the fluctuating mood of her own mind. She 
 did say, " I shall delay, — not my decision, for I have none, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 349 
 
 but my feelings, — as to which I know not what to have. In 
 my present course, I must be governed by others, who have 
 always led me wisely and well, and to whom I have loved 
 to render obedience. It is well that it is so, for at this mo- 
 ment I am incapable of directing my own steps. I thank you 
 for your information respecting Glendar, since I persuade 
 myself it was truthfully spoken and generously intended. 
 I need not say that my instincts had presaged what your 
 observation announced. I pray God to have mercy upon 
 you, and upon me ; — if you have done wrong, that you may 
 sincerely repent, — if you. have done right, that you may be 
 vindicated; — if I am in the way of truth, that I may have 
 strength to support the heavy blow, — if I am in error, that 
 my eyes may be speedily opened. The excitement of our 
 family is at present too considerable for deliberation, and too 
 exacting for candor. I have but one alternative, — to listen 
 and be silent, or to discuss and despair." 
 
 After all, " our family " must be construed as a figure of 
 speech, or a natural trope of feeling, and, primarily, denoting 
 Mrs. INIelbourne. The Governor said nothing, though he 
 looked a good deal. Madam vented her surprise and sor- 
 row in a brief ejaculation, which she capped with a passage 
 of Scripture. Barbara knew not what to say. Cousin Row- 
 ena became very serious. Mrs. Melbourne, as she preoccu- 
 pied the ground, likewise preoccupied all judgments. She 
 had seen Miss Eyre, and she knew what was what. She 
 had the power of raising a breeze in the family, and oblig- 
 ing its members either to scud under bafe poles, or to haul 
 to. Then Glendar was sorely, and as she thought, honestly 
 thought, wickedly involved. Then it was a grave and a 
 dark matter. What could be done but acquiesce in Mrs. 
 Melbourne's foregone conclusion, that Richard be interdicted 
 30 
 
350 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 the house. " But," added Madam, " to everything there is 
 a time and a judgment." 
 
 Richard might have gone to the Governor's, and applied 
 tongue and person to dissipate the gloom and perplexity that 
 rumor and speculation threw over the subject. He might 
 have cast his own consciousness at the feet of Melicent, and 
 said, " That is my vindication ! " 
 
 But he was unused to extremities, — he had had but little 
 taste heretofore of what are called the trials of life. He had 
 fortitude for distress, and boldness in danger. He lacked 
 that rashness — sometimes a virtue — which loves a fier^' 
 peril, and possessed no dexterity adapted to the subtile and 
 nice points of a dilemma. 
 
 More than this, — between Richard and the Governor's 
 Family was a Brocken Spectre too, dilating in portentous 
 dimension, and guarding the passage with audacious and 
 shadowy arms. That was Miss Eyre, and Miss Eyre's 
 assumed wrongs, and her real distress, and his own unex- 
 plainable complicity therewith. He could not banish her 
 image, or dispossess him^self of her impression and power. 
 She had got into his imagination, and like a vessel in dis- 
 tress, she seemed to be stranded in his heart. 
 
 Now, furthermore, he must prepare himself for the after- 
 clap. What had befallen must become public. Roxy must 
 know it, and it would kill her; Munk must know it, and it 
 would be a damper to his pleasant feelings ; and Memmy 
 and Bebby must know it, and they would be sorry. The 
 " World " must know it ; and how rejoiced it would be at this 
 addition to its Cabinet of Entertaining Knowledge, — how 
 wise it would become all at once, — how exceedingly en- 
 dowed, — how sparkling and brilliant! Richard's valued 
 friends would hear of it, — Mr. Gouch and Silver, Mangil and 
 Nefon, Mysie and Chuk. The Church would have to con- 
 

 THE GOVERNOR S FAMIT.Y, 
 
 351? 
 
 sider of it, and " Knuckle Lane ! " What icmdd Mrs. Tunny- 
 say ? There was Clover to be elated, Miss Fiddledeeana 
 Redfern to sneer, and Mrs. Mellow to deduce a solemn im- 
 provement. Aunt Grint had already been foretold it. 
 
 And Aunt Grint was the first to break it to Willow Croft, 
 " What has happened ? " she exclaimed, panting and star- 
 ing; "my wrists ached Saturday, in the afternoon, and 
 there must be a storm. I met Mrs. Tunny, and she was in 
 the greatest state of mind. Mrs. Quiddy, who is hauled 
 up with rheumatis, came out to ask me. Do be quiet, 
 children ! — pity sakes ! what a noise ! one can't hear one's 
 self speak ! " 
 
 " What has happened ? " cried Roxy, amazed. 
 
 " I worked as tight as I could spring to come down. I 
 had n't no more idea of it than nothing at all, if it had n't 
 been for running out to hear a woodpecker ; then I knew 
 there was a rotten tree somewhere, — I knew it before Mr. 
 Gouch passed the house." 
 
 " What is it ? " emphasized Roxy. 
 
 "Don't you know," replied Aunt Grint, "that that Miss 
 Dennington — " 
 
 " She is n't dead ! " screamed Roxy. 
 
 " No, indeed ! " 
 
 " Nor taken the cholera ? " 
 
 " Only think ! " Aunt Grint's loud and masculine voice 
 sank to an unnatural susurration. " She has turned off 
 Richard; the engagement is broke up. I might have seen 
 it. The spider, — 't was when I was sewing with my basket 
 on the table, and Sally a-sweeping the floor, — the crittur 
 never come nigh, but kept edging round. I told Sally we 
 should n't have a wedding gown — " 
 
 Roxy, meanwhile, let fall the bellows that she had been 
 trying for five minutes to hang up ; she suffered the milk to 
 
352 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 boil over on the coals ; she did not prevent Bebby going to 
 the sugur-bucket in the closet, — three things that she had not 
 done or forborne to do, before, all her life. She attempted to 
 listen ; but her ear was clearer than her mind ; — or, as is 
 said of the telegraph wires, the auditory nerve was down 
 somew'here. Sundry exclamations, however, indicated that 
 she was alarmed, while her rushing to seize Bebby showed 
 that, if her feelings could find vent somewhere, she might 
 be calm and self-possessed. She quietly washed the child's 
 hands, and sat down with her in the little rocking-chair. 
 She asked Aunt Grint but one question, the reply to which 
 removed the necessity of all further communications touch- 
 ing the credibility of the information she had characteris- 
 tically but crookedly conveyed, and was still. She was very 
 still, and calm, and motionless ; so much so, the child looked 
 into her face, as if something was the matter. She stroked 
 the child's sunny locks. 
 
 Presently Richard came in. He perceived the condition 
 of things. He was composed, but a little flushed ; his lip 
 quivered, and his voice was tremulous ; — yet a smile shot 
 up through his face, — a sort of Zodiacal Light, through 
 which might be seen the gray infinitude of his sorrow, 
 beneath which the sun of his hope had set, while in the 
 still vault around burned the stars of pure feeling, like ves- 
 tal lamps, that burned on only because it was in their des- 
 tiny never to go out. 
 
 Roxy said nothing ; she looked at Richard, and instantly 
 her gaze was stricken to the floor. She rose, set the child 
 deliberately on its feet, went to her brother, threw her arms 
 about his neck, and they both wept. 
 
 Aunt Grint trotted her heel on the floor, drummed the 
 window-sill with her finger, took the boiling milk from the 
 coals, and went away. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 35S 
 
 It was a great sorrow to Roxy, and a real one. There 
 was body to it. The petty annoyances, and transient disa- 
 greements, that ruffled so many of her hours, were drowned 
 out by this profound woe; — or, to change the metaphor, as 
 a heavy rain arrests the agitation of waves, and smooths 
 the surface of the sea, this pouring event restored the uni- 
 formity of her spirits, and filled her with serene thought- 
 fulness. She seemed to comprehend the extent of the 
 calamity of her brother, and, as by some inspiration, to take 
 a sense of the mischief secretly working at the centre of it, 
 and she rose to the height of the evil that so suddenly 
 unfolded before her. 
 
 In sympathizing with her brother, Roxy lost much of her 
 petulancy and caprice, and ingenuous concern for real sufl^er- 
 ing supplanted a morbid nettlesomeness to fancied evils. 
 
 Richard could but confirm to his sister what Aunt Grint 
 had stated as to his separation from Melicent. He did not, 
 however, feel at liberty to discuss all the causes that may 
 have led to it ; nor did he allude to the probable agency of 
 Miss Eyre in the affair. 
 
 But Roxy, whose keenness of penetration exceeded Rich- 
 ard's wise reserve, said, in a knowing way, " Has Plumy 
 Alicia anything to do with it ? " Richard assented, by try- 
 ing to be silent. " I will not press an answer," said Roxy. 
 Now Richard nodded and added, " I do not wish to speak 
 of that; I cannot." His sister replied, " I understand it; I 
 think I do. I recall many things at this moment that have 
 a bearing upon it. I will be silent as long as you wish me 
 to be." 
 
 " You are not dead ? " said Richard. 
 
 " How you talk ! " 
 
 " I thought it would kill you." 
 
 " You banter me," answered Roxy. " I have been so 
 30^ 
 
354 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 often at the point of death upon little things, this great 
 thing may restore me to life." 
 
 This remark of Roxy's, generalized into a trait of charac- 
 ter, is not without distinguished precedent. Great Henry 
 of France " was less than a woman in a coach, and cried 
 out whenever it appeared likely to overturn, and betrayed 
 the utmost timidity. But in the field he was brave even to 
 intrepidity, and accustomed to regard death in the ranks of 
 war with the highest composure." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 FLOOD CONTINUES TO KISE. 
 
 Richard had now commiseration from his friends, in 
 place of the congratulations that were still green in his 
 memory. To be pitied is sometimes more disagreeable 
 than to be blamed. The latter inspires rejoinder, while the 
 former leaves us nothing to say. One befogs us in an 
 uncomfortable stupidity ; the other is like a bomb-shell in 
 the midst of our activity, and arouses the impulse of flight. 
 We extenuate our faults ; we tremble at our misfortunes. 
 We can remonstrate with malediction ; we must submit to 
 compassion. 
 
 The Mill-men expressed their pity chiefly in silence. 
 When they were filing their saws, or squinting at the mark, 
 or even bending over a cant-dog, they seemed to have one 
 eye on Richard, — not tauntingly, not even vulgarly curious, 
 — but with a sort of sympathy — with some genuine fellow- 
 feeling ; — for Richard was respected and beloved in the 
 Mill. If they had only spoken, — if they had asked him. 
 something, — it v^^ould have been a relief. No : he was 
 mistaken there. It would do him no good. He could not 
 continue the conversation. 
 
 In the grating, rumbling, screeching, of the building at 
 large, there was not much kindness indicated, but rather a 
 sullen mockery. 
 
 Silver sat on a pile of boards, and clumsily beckoned 
 Richard to his side. But Silver could n't speak ; his tongue 
 was always thick, and now it filled his mouth, — filled it 
 
356 -RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 even to the exclusion of his pipe, which he was obliged to 
 withdraw. Taking out the pipe, like unplugging a hogs- 
 head of liquor, sometimes gives vent to words. It did not 
 help Silver ; he was still thick and ropy. He struck his 
 iron bar tremendously on a log before him, and got up. 
 
 Mr. Gouch, pointing quickly to the Dam, said, " There ! " 
 and then, as he knocked up the bail-dog, he said, " There ! " 
 and every time he struck, he repeated, " There ! " 
 
 The Dam, Eichard could render. But driving in the 
 bail-dog, — did that mean how the iron had gone into his 
 soul? Perhaps it did. 
 
 Mrs. Tunny entered Willow Croft with a mingled air of 
 disdain, triumph, and pity, over the Avhole of which was 
 spread a very thin layer of magnanimity. But neither 
 Eoxy nor Richard was deceived or plagued by her. 
 
 Hitherto, Richard's fortune only was involved, while his 
 character remained untouched. But in a few days, the more 
 depressing intelligence reached his ears, that he was under 
 reproach, that baseness of conduct was assigned as the 
 cause of his dismissal, and that such a statement came 
 authentically from the Governor's Family itself. 
 
 Well, here was blame, if that suited him any better. 1 
 think it did not. For now he would be expected either to 
 afhrm or deny ; and he could do neither. 
 
 Now, not only the iron entered his soul, but it seemed to 
 be rusting in, and gangrening everything in its neighbor- 
 hood. It was like a return stroke of the lightning. His 
 spirits, that had been bending like willows, appeared to be 
 fairly draggled in the mire. He had now the world to 
 encounter in its most dismal form, — that of contumely, 
 sarcasm, and neglect. Frederick, at the siege of Brescia, 
 when he could carry his point in no other way, exposed his 
 prisoners on his battering-rams to the stones of the besieged, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 851 
 
 their friends. If Richard had one poor virtue in common 
 with the rest of mankind, he hardly dare present it to what 
 he conceived would be a general attack upon him. He 
 would prefer to retire from the contest. The river-logs, 
 with which his early years were familiar, in a freshet, are 
 sometimes carried high up the bank, or floated into a contig- 
 uous flat, where the receding waters suffer them to mildew, 
 doze, and perish. Recent events, that had borne him a good 
 distance from his proper source, and precipitated him down 
 sundry cataracts, had at length landed him in a low thicket, 
 where he was willing to die. 
 
 He lessened his visits to the Old Town. There was 
 nothing pleasant there. One day he met Melicent. She 
 stiffly bowed ; but this was owing as much to hesitancy of 
 feeling, as to purpose of will. Immediately afterwards, 
 a man inquired if he could direct him to Munk & St. 
 John's stable. He did not hear him, and replied, " No. 16 
 Victoria Square." Mrs. Melbourne passed him without a 
 token of recognition. By this time, his heart had got pretty 
 well into his mouth, and, like Silver's tongue, there would 
 seem to be hardly anything else there ; and he found it not 
 easy to swallow again. It would get into his eyes, too, as 
 big as a beam, and into his ears. We have said that Miss 
 Eyre had got into his heart ; of course, she accompanied 
 that organ occasionally in its visits to the several senses. 
 He met Glendar, and Glendar looked as if he could eat 
 him ; and Richard felt he should not be sorry if he did. 
 
 But Richard was a Christian, and the impulse of his life 
 had been, doing good and being good. Nor could he now 
 forget this original obligation. His closet, and the family- 
 altar he had helped to rear at Willow Croft, and his Bible, 
 every day reminded him of it ; — it caught his eye in large 
 street-bill type on the wall of his chamber, where Pastor 
 
558 KICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Harold recommended his young parisliioners to post it; Sun- 
 days, and the " Knuckle Lane " evenings, brought it round 
 to him. 
 
 What should he do ? He read that if he had offended 
 his brother, before he offered his gift to the Lord, he must 
 go and be reconciled to his brother. He had offended Mrs. 
 Melbourne, and Miss Eyre, and perhaps Melicent. But 
 how to be reconciled ! He would endeavor to be reconciled 
 in his own heart and before God, if he could not in outward 
 relation and before his fellows. If reviled, he would revile 
 not again, and abuse he would return with benisons. But 
 the wall of offence seemed to grow thicker and higher. 
 
 In naval engagements, the Athenians were wont to 
 reserve huge masses of lead in the tops of their vessels ; and 
 when they could subdue the enemy in no other way, they 
 let fall these rather cogent junks, and sank his ship. There 
 were some things in reserve for Richard. 
 
 Now^, Madam Bennington had a feeling in common rather 
 with her daughter than with her cousin-in-law. To be sure, 
 if _Richard was what had been represented, there could be 
 no doubt as to the propriety of the course the Family 
 adopted respecting him. But had the case been sufficiently 
 investigated ? Mrs. Melbourne conceded that the examina- 
 tion might be extended, though she anticipated no favorable 
 result ; nay, more, as if a new trial had been granted, she 
 was willing to act in the premises, and collect and revise 
 the evidence. She had had Mrs. Eyre closeted with her ; 
 and when, in her black silk and green parasol, she started 
 on her tour of inquiry, who should be her cicerone but Miss 
 Eyre ? 
 
 The forenoon's work resulted in a sort of council or 
 inquest, to be holden at Whichcomb's in the afternoon. 
 Mrs, Melbourne sent a candid and polite note to Richard, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 359 
 
 informing him of what was a-foot, and inviting him to be 
 present. He chose rather to appear by attorney, and Roxy 
 went in his stead. 
 
 There were assembled at the Boarding House, — Front 
 Stairs Carpeted, and that was not Cain's, — in the " Ladies' 
 Parlor," the head of the establishment, Mrs. Melbourne, 
 Miss Rowena, Mrs. Tunny, Mrs. Mellow, Mrs. Xyphers, 
 Miss EjTe, Mrs. Crossmore, Nurse, Miss Elbertina Lucetta, 
 Factory Girl, and Roxy. 
 
 Mrs. Whichcomb introduced the testimony. " It was a 
 Wednesday," she said; "a Monday we didn't wash, which 
 sometimes is, and the next day the things froze on the line. 
 It was one of the coldest days that ever was ; it was a heavy 
 wash, as Cain's folk know, for it is right in sight of their 
 basement, where they scour their pewter." 
 
 " Won't you tell," said Miss Eyre, " what he did in the 
 house !" 
 
 " It was a Wednesday, for I had been up late ironing, 
 and tending on the sick, and getting jellies, and carrying up 
 wood, which is to be found at Whichcomb's, and is a most 
 an excellent place to board at, as all the girls say, and nigh 
 upon twelve o'clock, when he came in and went right up to 
 No. 3. O Charley Walter! where is he now? My bones 
 were aching in bed when I heard it; and he staid with them 
 all night ; for Miss Junia, and Violet that 's dead and gone, 
 would n't dare to deny it. If Velzora Ann had only a 
 thought; for Miss Elbertina Lucetta was just as sure to tell 
 of it as the world ; and there was n't a grain of need of his 
 going in there." 
 
 " What did he go there for ? " asked Roxy. 
 
 " I won't say it was for the silver spoon ; I scorn to make 
 such a charge, if folks was sick, and he was mean enough 
 to do it, for they have what they please at Whichcomb's, 
 
S6(f RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 and the thino-s are always on the table. He knows what 
 he was there for, and what never happened here before, as 
 Charley Walter said; and he owned the next morning, and 
 our reputation was good, and if they wanted to see them, 
 they could always do it in the Ladies' Parlor, Miss Elzena 
 knows, and the new comers know it the first day." 
 
 " He must have been there with an evil intention," said 
 Mrs. Melbourne. Mrs. Tunny winked ; Mrs. Mellow sighed 
 a response. 
 
 " Rowena, what do you say ? " Mrs. Melbourne put this 
 question. 
 
 " I do not know as I can say but it looks bad," Miss Row- 
 ena replied, with a most uncomfortable attempt at evasion. 
 
 " It does so ! " ejaculated Mrs. Whichcomb. 
 
 "It is impossible ! " exclaimed Roxy. 
 
 Now, Roxy was unfortunately situated. Ostensibly the 
 advocate of the accused, she really, by imputation, occupied 
 the dock in his place ; or she appeared an interested and 
 most partial witness, and her word was worth just as much 
 as the prisoner's would be in room of it, and no more. 
 
 Where was the Old Man? He was an imbecile. 
 Where was Jiinia? Miss Eyre was willing Junia should 
 be called ; and added, with an air of confidence that silenced 
 all expectation from this quarter, she hoped they would send 
 for her. She had heard, indeed, that she had gone to parts 
 unknown ; but they might write. 
 
 " Did not Captain Creamer order Richard to stay by the 
 old man ? " asked Roxy. 
 
 At this question and moment, a new champion of Rich- 
 ard appeared, in Miss Freeling, the Dressmaker, She was 
 at work at Tunny's when Mrs. Melbourne called in the 
 morning. At some sacrifice of wages, and greater of Mrs. 
 Tunny's pleasure, she resolved to attend the examination, 
 
THE GOVERNORS FAMILY. 
 
 361 
 
 and came in just as Eoxy propounded the aforesaid question. 
 She declared Captain Creamer ought to be sent for, and his 
 testimony- heard. Mrs. Melbourne saw the reasonableness 
 of this. Word was accordingly despatched to the old 
 employer of the arraigned ; but he replied he would have 
 nothing to do with the fellow, and that nothing was too bad 
 for him, or after that sort : and this answer, while it palsied 
 Roxy, and horrified Miss Freeling, was what the rest 
 expected, as it entirely satisfied Mrs. Melbourne. 
 
 Moreover, by well-directed cross-questioning, Miss Eyre 
 drew from Roxy that Richard seemed very attentive to 
 Junia ; that he obtained board for her at Willow Croft, and, 
 finally, that he went with her into the country. 
 
 So matters went on. Mrs. Tunny corroborated Miss 
 Eyre as to Richard's being some time alone with her, on 
 the back stairs, at a party at her house. What was herein, 
 insinuated brought Miss Freeling to her feet. She was at 
 the same party, and had a long conversation with Richard ; 
 she knew him better; he was a noble, high-minded man. 
 But Miss Freeling was like a stray grasshopper in a brood 
 of turkeys, each ready to devour her. 
 
 There was more than one mass of lead. Mrs. Crossmore, 
 disappointed Nurse, resident in Knuckle Lane, had seen 
 Richard in unseemly places, at unseemly hours. 
 
 Mrs. Xyphers, unfortunate woman, divorced from her 
 husband, fooled by Clover, now a crony, now an enemy of 
 Miss Eyre, — broken in spirit, confused in judgment, distrust- 
 ful of everybody, — was induced to say, what she believed 
 to be true, that she had no doubt Richard was base and 
 unprincipled. 
 
 Miss Elbertina Lucetta attempted no more than the con- 
 firmation of Mrs. Whichcomb's story, that Richard was at 
 31 
 
362 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 the house, suspiciously, one winter night. She occupied 
 the next chamber, and was awake with the tooth-ache. 
 
 Mrs. Mellow, Tract-distributor, had been in all parts of 
 the city; she had tried the public pulse on the Knuckle 
 Lane movement, raked for opposition to it, and collected 
 whatever gossiping items might w^ork against it, or its 
 originators ; and she was able to recount some things that 
 reflected, not positively, she said, but presumptively, on 
 Richard. But, from a little personal acquaintance, she knew 
 him to be self-willed, bold, froward, and an instructor of evil 
 things ; and she was ready to believe anything of him. 
 Especially, she said, " that a common laborer should seek to 
 intermarry in our best families; that one should stride from 
 the Saw-mill to the Governor's house ; that, after rolling 
 logs and handling lumber all day, he should expect to dis- 
 pose of his fatigue in the evening on damask lounges, and 
 wear off his coarseness under silken curtains, — indicated an 
 effrontery as dangerous as it was detestable." 
 
 Why pursue details, when the result announces itself? 
 Miss Freeling, with all her eloquence and good sense, could 
 not arrest judgment. Mrs. Melbourne, who had not only 
 the summing up, but the decision, of the case, said she was 
 satisfied ; though the full extent of her satisfaction she kept 
 for other and more private ears. 
 
 Miss Rowena remained a silent spectator of proceedings. 
 She was not inclined to side with Mrs. Melbourne, but she 
 saw no loop-hole of extrication for Richard. At the close 
 of the meeting, she drew a long breath of mingled surprise 
 and disappointment, anguish and sorrow, and went home. 
 
 This may seem a tempest in a tea-pot to some ; but it was 
 a very large tea-pot, and one that held water enough to 
 scald a good deal of happiness. If considerable events 
 sprung from small causes, the instance is not unparalleled. 
 
 i 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 363 
 
 A silver medal involved the Dutch in a long conflict with 
 Louis XIV. The true motive of the affair under review- 
 may not have been apprehended by the majority of those con- 
 cerned in it ; so Mr. Alison says the real object of a war is 
 never understood by the people, who are expected to fight 
 its battles, and not trouble themselves as to its meaning. 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne looked only on one side of a subject, and 
 when that happened to be a dark side, she looked a long 
 while, — so long, in 'fact, she saw nothing else. Where, iia 
 all this matter, were Richard's obvious excellences ? where 
 his piety, his benevolence, his heroism ? where his straight- 
 forward consistency, and his transparent probity of charac- 
 ter? She saw nothing of these. This was her position : 
 she attributed the virtues of Richard to ambition, and his 
 vices to intention. A feeling lurked in her heart, withal, 
 which Mrs. Mellow more broadly hinted, that one of Rich- 
 ard's birth, connections, and calling, was ill-adapted for an 
 inmate in the Governor's Family. More than this, but in 
 connection with it, the different classes of society in the city 
 did not understand each other. Between what Miss Free- 
 ling called the Pickle-eaters and the Gum-chewers, there 
 were strange mistakes. The Cashmere shawls mistrusted 
 what might lie under a Scotch plaid. In plain terms, the 
 Governor's Family did not perfectly understand Richard ; 
 certainly the Mrs. Melbournism of the Family did not. 
 
 It will be remembered, moreover, that the .evidence elic- 
 ited at Whichcomb's was not primary, but secondary ; not 
 essential, but tributary; and, coming as it did on the heel 
 of Miss Eyre's more private communications, and in the 
 way of incidental circumstance, which some are so profound 
 as to tell us never lies, and confirming in all poinrs what 
 had been directly asserted, it led to an overwhelming verdict 
 against Richard. 
 
364 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Eoxy reported proceedings at Willow Croft; but Richard, I 
 as if he had foreseen the course of things, manifested no i 
 alarm. He had been so diligently racked, an additional 
 turn of the screw could not aggravate his distress. If he 
 had any lingering hopes of a favorable turn of affairs, or 
 plausible scheme for recovering the ground he had lost, 
 these were finally blasted. The little radicles of a tree 
 adhere tenaciously to the bank in which they have been 
 nourished, after the rising flood has mastered the branches 
 and trunk, and even undermined the main body of the root 
 itself; so the tenderness of nature cleaves to objects in 
 which it has had delight, when all energy and resolution 
 have given out ; but this fond hold of sentiment and feeling 
 in Richard broke at last. 
 
 There were some sad hours at Willow Croft. The house 
 was shaded, at times, so etTectually, the want of window- 
 blinds and overhanging trees would not have been felt. 
 While the matter was in some respects too deep for the 
 penetration, or rather for the business, of Munk, it was too 
 serious for him to trifle with ; and at the same time, like the 
 effect of telling pleasant stories to a sick child, and making it 
 smile, he could not forbear those feathery sallies and sunny 
 quips in which he so much abounded. The change in 
 Roxy, so noble and so visible, gave her husband almost as 
 much delight as the sorrow of Richard did pain; and 
 especially as that change employed itself upon the sorrow, 
 and was an alleviation of it, and a visit of queenliness unto 
 it ; and as it rejoiced Richard so, and made him sometimes 
 almost forget his sorrow, and made his sorrow seem so like 
 a dark night full of glow-worms, Munk could not but keep 
 some of his old flow of spirits. 
 
 " I have just read, in the evening paper, " said he, 
 knocking his pipe on the palm of his left hand, " that ' Mr , 
 
THE G0\T;RN0R S FABriLY, 3b& 
 
 Brunei acknowledged he had taken his first lessons for 
 forming the great Thames Tunnel from the ship-worm, 
 whose motions he observed as it perforated the wood, arch- 
 ing its way onwards, and varnishing the roof of the passage 
 with its secretions.' The evil is big enough, — it is like a 
 mountain ; and we are worms, — but perhaps we shall get 
 through it at some rate. Queen Victoria has some hard 
 times, — how she is going to tunnel that great English 
 nation, so things will run smooth and easy, I don't see; 
 but let us be good and happy, and happy and good." He 
 had refilled his pipe, and uttered these last words simulta- 
 neously with putting it in his mouth, and holding a Lucifer 
 match over the bowl to light it. 
 
 Richard would try to be good, but he found it hard to be 
 happy. That a sense of innocence will always insure 
 repose of spirit, — that, if the conscience be clear, the heart 
 will be light, — is rather a dogma of fancy than a conclusion 
 of fact. Those nations that employed the rack understood 
 human nature better than this ; they knew that, as com- 
 pression of the waist drives the blood into the face, inno- 
 cence was susceptible of the strictures of pain to an extent 
 that blushes with apparent guilt ; and demonstrated that 
 through exquisiteness of agony, the most virtuous man 
 in the world would confess himself the most criminal and 
 reprobate, — in a word, that our nature can be implicated in 
 baseness, by tempting it with sorrow. 
 
 Sometimes Richard gasped from a certain internal hollow 
 
 of pain ; sometimes cold prickles ran over him from head 
 
 to foot, as if one were leisurely sprinkling him with a 
 
 water-pot full of fleas and frost; sometimes he played with 
 
 the childran, but languidly, as an invalid takes a ride, and 
 
 not so much entering into the pleasure of the thing, as that 
 
 the pleasure of the thing may enter into him ; sometimes he 
 31# 
 
366 HICHARD EDNEV, ETC. 
 
 fell heavily on }iis bed. — sometimes he paced energetically 
 his chamber; now he would be all strung up, and clenched, 
 and wirj', — again he was flaccid, limpsy, dissoluble as water. 
 He did not shed many tears, but there was a sort of burning 
 aridness, combined with a swollen tightness, back of his 
 eyes; at one time, he read all the papers, — at another, he 
 devoted his leisure to looking from the window. 
 
 Roxy was good to him, — very good. She made him the 
 best cup of tea, boiled his potatoes in the mealiest wa}', 
 lightened up the bread till it lay in slices on the plate like 
 tiers of new honeycomb from the Patent boxes. But oh, 
 she had to be so considerate! If she could have asked him 
 how he did, instead of complimenting the morning to him ; 
 if she could have looked at his tongue, instead of half 
 ignoring his presence ; if she could have asked him what 
 she should do for him, instead of having to try to do so 
 much ; if she could liaA-e just inquired if he would have 
 some arrow-root, or green peas without butter, or a rasher 
 of pork ; if she could have had the privilege of keeping the 
 children still, instead of feeling obliged to urge them to 
 entertain their Uncle ; if she could have driven off" the man 
 with the hand-organ and the monkey, instead of tempting 
 him with a few cents to the gate, to grind his organ, 
 and make his monkey dance ; — then it would seem to be 
 better. 
 
 But there was Richard's Motto ; sometimes it seemed to 
 fly out of the wall, like a wasp, and sting him in the face 
 when he looked at it. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 INTROSPECTIVE. 
 
 He must adjust himself to what was about him. He 
 must ascertain the extent of his obligations and deficits, and 
 square accounts with existence. He had relations to man- 
 kind that involved a personal attention, — offices to fill or 
 resign, — scenes to be visited or abandoned. 
 
 " What will God have me to do ? " he asked. " My 
 character is questioned, and my influence neutralized ; my 
 pretensions will be derided, and my efforts opposed." 
 
 He was teacher in the same Sunday-school with Melicent 
 and Barbara, one of whom had a class in the vestry, 
 directly fronting him. One Sabbath he was at his post ; 
 but he imagined he could not repeat the endeavor. It was 
 not so much a cross which he would heroically bear, as an 
 execution that it were wise to. dispense with. He told his 
 class, with some emotion, he should instruct them no more, 
 but that he should be happy to see them at Willow Croft. 
 The children opened their innocent eyes with quite a burst 
 of wonderment, for they were attached to their teacher and 
 ignorant of events ; but he quietly sat down and turned his 
 back to them. 
 
 He had passed some of his happiest and most useful 
 hours in the cause of Knuckle Lane, and at the Griped 
 Hand. This was an interest that he loved, and a privilege 
 that he prized. Shall he attend these meetings no more ? 
 Shall he maintain the "Be Good," but the "Do Good" 
 become no other than a lost dream of his youth, — a ruined 
 
368 BICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 attainment of his piety ? But how persevere in duties that 
 brought him into so scandalized a juxtaposition ? — how, 
 with such a load on his heart ; — how, with so much shame 
 in his apprehensions ; — how, with a sort of aha ! aha ! pur- 
 suing him down the street ? 
 
 The Hebrew Scribes used to write in the margin of the 
 Bible words that were to be pronounced in room of offensive 
 ones in the text, which they dared not alter. Richard seemed 
 to have the feeling that he was an offensive word in the 
 sacred text of those movements in which he had been en- 
 gaged, — movements that he reverenced and loved, — and 
 that he ought to betake himself to the margin. 
 
 Richard had friends, — friends for adversity, — who ad- 
 hered to him whatever might befall. Some of his Knuckle 
 Lane associates, believing in his integrity, not only loaned 
 him a generous confidence, but would incite him to vindi- 
 cate his position, and repossess himself of what Mrs. Mel- 
 bournism had taken away. There were those who did not 
 like Mrs. Eyre, and were impatient at the injustice she 
 seemed guilty of. But nothing could dissuade Richard 
 from letting those matters alone. " Come back to ' Knuckle 
 Lane,' " said Mangil, the Broker. " Cornered, sharp, hard 
 getting round ? Poh ! poh ! never heard of such a thing. 
 Banks refuse ? Come into the street ; call, — you know 
 where, — 21 Exchange. Never mind backers, — you have 
 a back of your own ; " — he struck him there ; — " perhaps 
 you have forgotten some old deposites ; if you don't call for 
 them, why, they must pass over to your heirs." 
 
 Now, Richard made some mistakes, and one very plain 
 one. He exaggerated the consequence that attached to his 
 person and action, and seemed to imagine there was a pub- 
 lic excitement about his affairs. The city appeared to him 
 one great eye ; and that eye, like the sun, looking straight 
 
THE GOVEKNOk's FAMILY. 369 
 
 down upon him, and making his shadow the measure of its 
 intensity. In fact, there were twenty thousand eyes in the 
 Old Town and the New ; and it woukl be a miracle, indeed, 
 if these had all at once become so disinterested, so curious, 
 or so crazed, as, neglecting their own business, to mind 
 nothing else but a lessee of Green Mill. It was as if there 
 were no other self, — no other disappointment, or anxiety, or 
 sorrow, — but his ; as if the people he passed in the street, — 
 that looked at him, indeed, but only to take the right side 
 of him, — were not full of bargains and speculations, of 
 hurryings and fears, of burdens and woes, of light, love, 
 and hope, whhout him; as if the houses, that seemed to 
 stare on him from their windows, were not veiled in their 
 sick chambers, embroiled in their kitchens, turned topsy- 
 turvy in their clearings, asleep in their luxuriance or their 
 solitude, and cared nothing for him. 
 
 This turn of Richard's mind was not an uncommon one. 
 A chambermaid, — I have this out Jonathan Swift, D. D., — 
 talking with one of her fellow-servants, said, " I hear it is all 
 over London that I am going to leave my lady." The same 
 Divine has other instances, which I need not be at pains to 
 repeat. An Englishman, having written a three-penny 
 pamphlet against France, hearing that a French privateer 
 had been seen off the coast, fled to town, and told his 
 friends " they need not wonder at his haste, for the French 
 King had sent a privateer on purpose to catch him." In a 
 book-stall, Mr. Swift says he took up a volume entitled 
 " Poems, by the author of The Choice." " Poems " were 
 unendurable ; " But what," asked the Dean, "is The Choice, 
 or who ever heard of its author ? " 
 
 " This," concludes our moralist, " arises from the great 
 importance which every man supposes himself to be of." 
 
 Whatever he undertook, Richard might feel it would be 
 
370 EICHAED EDNEY AND 
 
 entitled, " By the author of a Certain Disturbance ! " Yet 
 how many there were in Woodylin who had never seen the 
 book, nor heard of the disturbance ! How many who had 
 only seen the cover of the book, or read its title in a news- 
 paper advertisement ! 
 
 Perhaps being deplumed has the same effect as wearing 
 feathers, in the fancy that one is the observed of all observ- 
 ers ; and a sense of disgrace excites the reacting imagina- 
 tion like a love of applause. 
 
 We have said Richard's heart, among other vagaries, got 
 into his eyes and ears. In that heart was a variety of 
 things, — the "World," the Church, the street, — this and 
 that man, this and that circle, — many vague and indefinable 
 objects, and strange and wonderful impressions of things; 
 and he could hardly look up without seeing or hearing what 
 pertained to himself, — even as we should suppose, more 
 literally, the sweet singer of Sweden, who has filled the 
 earth with her melody, could hardly open her ears any- 
 where without hearing the echo of her voice, as she cer- 
 tainly cannot open her eyes without seeing her name in all 
 places and on all things. 
 
 Yet herein he mistook, — I will not say his duty, — but 
 the fact. 
 
 In the city at large, the Old Town especially, and among 
 the citizens outside of the Family connection, his rejection 
 by the Governor's daughter was a nine days' wonder, with 
 an evening or two of commentary, and no more ; and even 
 in that connection, except in the detached and remote hours 
 of unreserve and reverie, it gradually dropped from the 
 tongue. 
 
 We say Richard made a mistake. Yet it might have 
 been difficult for him to be correct. 
 
 His great sorrow held up the world to his view as in a 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 371 
 
 kaleidoscope, which by invisible hands it kept turning round ; 
 and, at each revolution, men and women, — his fellow- 
 beings, -^ like the glass and beads in the toy aforesaid, 
 tumbled into unexpected groups, and darted ofT with every 
 conceivable expression. 
 
 It would be hard to determine his precise footing with 
 such folks. 
 
 For the most part, he left the public walks, and attached 
 himself to the Saw-mill and Willow Croft. 
 
 He had plenty of time for reflection; and among the 
 things that self-examination brought to light, he thought he 
 espied a lurking ambition. Had he been too ambitious ? 
 — sinfully so? — or only to the extent that was natural, 
 laudable, and Christian? His desire to do good, he feared, 
 had been a desire to do great good ; his actual superiority, 
 in feeling and comprehension, to many about him, seemed 
 to have been tinctured with conceit ; his endeavor to rise in 
 the world, honorable and praiseworthy as were the means, 
 indicated some narrowness of motive ; his energy and per- 
 severance, in every benevolent word and work,^ were vitiated 
 by a regard to human approbation ; — perhaps he had relied 
 less on God, and too much on his own activity of nature. 
 Why did he feel, at times, so wretchedly, and mourn sore 
 like a dove over his disappointment? If he were truly a 
 child of God, and sanctified in soul, and imbued with res- 
 ignation, and raised to the tranquillity of life in Jesus, and 
 heir presumptive of eternal blessedness, would he breathe so 
 heavily ? These questions he could not revolve without 
 solicitude. 
 
 Was there not a certain swelling up and inflation of self- 
 ish regard in the whole scheme of his life, and filling a 
 space that should be occupied solely by God and duty? 
 Was he not more mortified at the discredit attached to his 
 
372 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 reputation, than distressed for detriment accruing to the 
 cause of Christ ? Would he be willing that the works of 
 godliness and humanitj^ should go on, and he himself have 
 no agency, or award, or figure therein ? Startling topics 
 these, that made his conscience throb, as if its nerve had 
 been touched by a dentist's needle. It is said that ants, in a 
 Church of Brazil, having bored through the floor, brought 
 up from the vaults beneath bits of coffins and shreds of 
 grave-clothes, and displayed them to the shuddering eyes 
 of the worshippers. A great sorrow, even in a sanctified 
 mind, sinks to the depths of one's being, and perforating the 
 vaults where follies and sins lie dead and buried, will some- 
 times surprise him with the sight of remnants of things 
 abhorred and rejected, and which he supposed had perished 
 forever. 
 
 " The importance which ever}' man supposes himself to be 
 of" assumed an unusual aspect, and dilated in extraordinary 
 proportions, in Richard's mind, about this time. He never 
 had such a realization of himself before. If he would ever 
 be great, he never felt himself so large, never experienced 
 such an exaggerated consciousness, as now. He seemed 
 aforetime to have lost sight of his own existence and indi- 
 vidualit}^; and now that existence and individuality, — what- 
 ever he had done or been, — all the plans he had engaged 
 in, — all the intercourse he had enjoyed, — seemed to con- 
 front him, and inflesh before his eyes, and well up in his 
 heart, and to be himself, and to double himself, and to shut 
 out from his attention all things but his attention. He had 
 no idea of what he had attained, until compelled to retreat, 
 and contemplate his ground from a distance. One measures 
 his height more by his fall than by his rise. The fall is 
 material and perceptible ; the rise is spiritual, gradual, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 373 
 
 cla\vn-like. One falls with a crash, — he goes up with a 
 kind of buoyancy. 
 
 Sometimes he exclaimed, with Job, " O that I were as in 
 months past, — as I was in the days of my youth ! " He 
 wished himself like the boy David, a keeper of sheep again 
 in his father's pasture; — he sighed for the obscurity and 
 silence of the old forests where he had cut timber and slept 
 on boughs. He wished that he had never left the station 
 of slip-tender, under Captain Creamer ; — he envied his own 
 boy, the shingle-sticker. 
 
 He called to mind Cromwell's lament in Shakspeare. He 
 had read Shakspeare. It was the advice of Pastor Harold 
 for young persons to possess the great dramatist, — agreea- 
 bly, perhaps, to what tradition reports of old Dr. Strong, of 
 Hartford, Ct., who said he wanted but two books in his 
 library — the Bible and Shakspeare. He pathetically re- 
 peated Othello's words : — 
 
 " Had it pleased Heaven 
 To try me with affliction ; had he rained 
 All kind of sores, and shames, on my bare head ; 
 Steeped me in poverty to the very lips ; — 
 * * * But (alas !) to make me 
 A fixed figure for the lime of scorn 
 To point his slow, unmoving finger at, — 
 O! O!" 
 
 This " ! ! " came to be quite familiar to Richard. It 
 was all that remained to him in the way of expression. It 
 was as a letting off of steam. Eructation is useful in dis- 
 burthening the heart. The whole course of his days seemed 
 to have suddenly struck into a funeral procession, and the 
 noise of the world to be a beat of the muffled drum, and he 
 himself to be keeping slow and measured tread, as he moved 
 downwards to obscurity and silence. 
 
 Yet Richard recollected duty, and strove to carry forward 
 32 
 
374 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 the intention, if he was obliged to deviate from the method, 
 of his former goodness. 
 
 He went occasionally to Elder Jabson's evening meetings, 
 in the neighborhood of Willow Croft. The Elder was kind 
 and attentive to Richard, and, waiving reproachful consider- 
 ations, treated him as a friend and brother. At this time 
 the doctrine of the Second Advent was being discussed in 
 the Elder's parish, and it agitated the meetings. The good 
 Minister himself was not free of doubt. Some of his flock 
 were selling out, in anticipation of the great event. Richard 
 spoke on the subject with some warmth, and not a little 
 judgment. He explained that the anticipated Coming of 
 our Lord, so far as concerned this world, was a spiritual phe- 
 nomenon ; — that it was to be realized in the heart and life, 
 and to be fulfilled in the amelioration of society and pro- 
 gress of the race. The fire, said he, is that which consumes 
 iniquity. The cloud-gloiy is the beauty of holiness. The 
 light is the radiance of universal love. The new heavens 
 are what we may have in our families, our towns, our na- 
 tion. The idea of atmospheric convulsions and geological 
 ruin, he said, originated in error and superstition ; and he 
 explained how, in every age and in various places, it had 
 been productive of terrible evils and unspeakable wretched- 
 ness. He must have been indebted for some of his facts 
 to Pastor Harold. Then he expatiated with fert'or, and 
 almost a Pythian boldness, on the power, solemnity and 
 grandeur, of the real coming of Jesus. 
 
 The Elder was pleased, and most of the congregation 
 acquiesced. " I have felt under trial," said the former, 
 " like a cart pressed under sheaves. I have sometimes 
 thought, in this matter, we had run, before we were sent ; 
 but I have peace in my soul to-night, — I might say a 
 shouting, peace. We shall have cause to thank God in the 
 
THE GOVEBNOR's FAMILY. 375 
 
 day of eternity for Brother Edney's word. I believe he 
 spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. Let us rejoice 
 that we are not in hell, but still on praying ground ! " 
 
 Richard felt refreshed, that night, by the vision of Jesus 
 that had been kindled in his imagination. He compared his 
 feelings when he got home with the thought he had at the 
 meeting. He was sensible of a harmony between the two, 
 — that he had uttered not merely what he knew, or what 
 the occasion momentarily suggested, but what was profound 
 in his convictions, bedded in his nature, and what, after all, 
 seemed an indestructible tendency and appetency of his 
 spirit. He was glad to have those old and beloved sensa- 
 tions revive ; — it was a coming up from the darkness that 
 covered them of sentiments and principles that he believed 
 were eternal within him. The image of the coming king- 
 dom of his Lord had a brightness and majesty that con- 
 trasted his situation indeed, but not his purposes ; and if it 
 discouraged certain forms of overt action, it animated all 
 the more the interior sphere of his piety. 
 
 In the parlor, with Roxy and Munk, before retiring, he 
 sang the hymn that begins, " I love thy kingdom, Lord." 
 At these words, — 
 
 " If e'er my heart forget 
 Her welfare or her woe, 
 Let every joy this heart forsake, 
 And every grief o'erflow," — 
 
 they were all touched. Richard was a good and sincere 
 singer, and Roxy not only knew that the pathos of his 
 voice truly interpreted the condition of his soul, but she felt 
 how with a certain choking resoluteness of heart, and sol- 
 emn, painful heroism of intent, he sang. 
 
 The next day, obedient to the feeling of the night before, 
 he purchased a small golden cross, which he lodged care- 
 
376 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 fully within his vest, and wore over his heart. Every night 
 he hung it up directly under his Motto. 
 
 Richard would still do good ; n-or was he without oppor- 
 tunity. Outside of the large and tempting field where he 
 had so long labored, and from which he imagined himself in 
 a sense banished, in the "margin" of things where he lived, 
 he found enclosures, or rather wastes, that demanded Chris- 
 tian attention, and appealed to Christian fidelity. At Bill 
 Storiners' Point, collecting his pupils from the neighboring 
 forest, from the docks, and Islands, including Chuk, and two 
 or three mill-boys and river-drivers, he formed a sort of 
 Ragged School ; and Sunday evening he had a small con- 
 gregation of what are sometimes denominated the Great 
 Unwashed ; and Miss Freeling would call the Bare Feet. 
 These had to be instructed, not only in the first principles of 
 the doctrine of Christ, but in rudiments of behavior and 
 decency, and the proper use of their mother tongue ; and 
 some must be taught reading and spelling. I know not 
 whether it is an honor to Chuk, or a reflection on the rest, 
 to say he was at the head of the class. 
 
 In this, Richard did not forget the Griped Hand and the 
 Church. He loved and would serve both ; and hoped that 
 he might make of these "Wild Olives, as he called them, 
 plants that would do to graft on the domestic and civilized 
 stock, and such as might adorn and bless those higher 
 spheres to which he hoped ultimately to commit them. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Mr. Augustits Ma:xgil, the musical money-dealer, — why 
 should not such a man be musical ? — approached Richard, 
 as he was " shutting down " the Mill, one day, in his lively 
 way ; his little eyes pleasantly snapping, his left finger 
 playing about his ear, and his right knee crooking rather 
 antic-like. "An investment," said he. "A little down, 
 but a good deal up. In plain words," he continued, " I have 
 embarked in hens. Not deep, but high, — high, I call it ; 
 so ; " — he marked an altitude with his hand in the air. 
 " Flour-barrel high ; — full-blood Shanghae ; — eight dollars 
 a pair ; — feathered to the heel ; — an egg a day, and ask no 
 questions. I want a place to put them. If you will fur- 
 nish that, it shall be joint-stock. At Willow Croft is just 
 the spot, and your folks, women and children, are just the 
 men. "We shall want a few boards and laths." 
 
 They walked oa together towards Willow Croft. En- 
 countering Munk, the Broker's scheme was opened to him. 
 Richard was ready, and Munk consented. The children 
 were delighted, and Roxy was to have plenty of fresh eggs. 
 
 They selected a place at the foot of the lot, Richard 
 ordered up the lumber, and Mangil superintended the struc- 
 ture. In a few days they had a " house " well appointed, 
 and three or four families of the most notable Asiatic fowls. 
 
 Every morning one of the " Wild Olive " boys brought a 
 box of what was termed fresh meat for chickens, — beetles, 
 32* 
 
37S RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 spiders, worms ; and there was such a time feeding the 
 family, and Memmy and Bebby did busk and pudder so, 
 we cannot tell it all. There were eggs, and there were 
 chickens ; — the marvel ! Munk liked to eat eggs ; Roxy liked 
 to cook eggs ; Memmy liked to bring them in in a basket ; 
 and Bebby liked to hold one in her hand, — just once, — just 
 a little, — so softly, — so shrinkingly ; and Richard and 
 the Broker liked to count the profits. There were so many 
 questions, withal, about lime, sand, water, oats, barley, and 
 what not; and how to prevent a hen setting when she was 
 a mind to, and how to make her set when she was not a 
 mind to ; and which was best, one large egg, or two small 
 ones ; and about the value of the different importations ; 
 and there were so many persons to see the hennery, and so 
 many inquiries to be answered, and so many suggestions to 
 be considered, and so many wipes to be parried ; — it was 
 altogether exciting business ; and it was just the sort of 
 excitement that Richard needed. 
 
 Did Mangil know this ? Ah I there is a question. Roxy 
 said he did ; and that this was a trick of his. INIangil had 
 his way, the same as Climper had, and the rest of mankind 
 have. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 INCIDENTS. 
 
 We were about to commence this chapter with the word 
 " Our readers." But while adjusting the nib of our pen on 
 our thumb-nail ; — the prongs having crossed their arms, — 
 tired and sleepy, we suppose, — it was late at night ; — that 
 word, sleepy too, impatient and fretful, began to mutter. 
 " Readers ! what does he know about readers ? His read- 
 ers ; I should wonder ! " it seemed to say. This made us 
 curl a little, and while we were meditating some stifling 
 rejoinder to this impertinence, the solar lamp suddenly gave 
 out. There was no help for that, and we sank back resign- 
 edly in the rocking-chair, and fell into a doze. It may be 
 added, that we had been engaged, the day before, reading a 
 work entitled " The true history of the earth and its 
 INHABITANTS ; sJioiving the analogy between man and brute, 
 and deducing the human race from Jive varieties of the 
 oyster, recently discovered in a fossil state under the Frejich 
 Academy ;" a suggestive volume, with plates of sections and 
 atoms of shells as microscopically developed, in which, 
 among other things, are seen human forms in embryo, lobes 
 of the heart, brain-shaped configurations, finger-nails ; the 
 chit of an idea, and a veiy perfect approximation to a Gothic 
 church. 
 
 While sleeping, we seemed to be standing on a plain, 
 where were many animals, and a number of books ; and in 
 the distance stood anxious-looking umbrae of authors. First 
 advanced the lion, and.with a slight flourish of the tail, he 
 
380 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 devoured fifteen of the newest books ; a dream-allusion, I 
 suppose, to a habit this animal possesses of taking fifteen 
 pounds of raw flesh at a meal. Then came a kangaroo, who, 
 lifting the lid of a book, instantly leaped from the imprima- 
 tur to the colophon, and proceeded in this way from volume 
 to volume, as it were playing leap-frog among them. A 
 chamois goat would open a book, and if he found crags and 
 chasms in it, he gambolled amongst them, and seemed to be 
 uneasy at a level spot. A book was seen sinking in a pond 
 of water; instantly, at the beck of an author, a Newfound- 
 land dog swam for it, and bore it safe to the shore. Mar- 
 mots appeared burrowing in books, and making a home for 
 themselves in the middle of the pile. A squirrel sat on the 
 cover of one, with a nut in its mouth, A flock of crows 
 alighted on the spot. The authors trembled ; they seized 
 the forlorn shade of one of their number, and set it on a 
 pole for a scare-crow. Chimney-swallows flitted among the 
 books, in pursuit of dark and smirchy places, where they 
 could build their nests. An anaconda glided through the 
 grass, and having first smoothed and polished the volume of 
 his choice with a sort of mucilage, proceeded to swallow it. 
 Then he fell into a swollen torpor, with the corners of the 
 book protruding from his mouth. A rhinoceros came up 
 from a muddy creek, having a terrible horn on his nose, 
 which he turned every way ; — the timid umbrae fled. The 
 creature, approaching the books, gored some and tossed 
 others. Looking in the direction where we were standing, 
 he seemed to be aiming his horn at our shadowy self; — in 
 exceeding terror we awoke. 
 
 This dream, mixed and incongruous indeed, as all dreams 
 are, and the History above mentioned, set us upon reflection. 
 Is there not, we asked, an analogy between certain zoologi- 
 cal species and the readers of books ? The law of analogy 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 381 
 
 would seem indeed to be imperfectly developed ; and yet its 
 accredited results are striking. For instance, Ulrici dis- 
 covers in the plays of Shakspeare a compend of all the 
 points of Calvinism. Gardiner classifies musical instru- 
 ments after the colors of the prism. Even in the Bible, we 
 find David comparing himself in trouble to a bottle in the 
 smoke. Should we transcend the proprieties of the case, if, 
 in a matter of mere speculation, we discriminated readers 
 of books by the marks of certain faunae ? In fact, is not 
 this agreeable to the whole method of analogical and deriv- 
 ative science ? 
 
 There is, then, the leopard. It is related this animal may 
 be taken in a trap with a mirror at the bottom. Let an 
 author bait his book with a looking-glass; this reader, 
 discerning in his own image what he supposes is a monster 
 that he is in duty bound to devour, pitches in headlong, and 
 may be easily taken. The Newfoundland dog, we should 
 imagine, would be a favorite of all authors. The cat is the 
 delight of most persons ; yet, if you chance to tread on the 
 tail of one that has been a pet for years, the creature will 
 turn on you teeth and claws. The giraffe goes through the 
 forest of an author's thoughts, and plucks off the sweet buds 
 and tender leaves from the tops of the trees ; at the same 
 time, with dirty hoof, he tramples the pretty stars-of-Bethle- 
 hem, and useful checkerberries, that grow beneath. Rather 
 to be avoided, we should suppose. The hippopotamus sinks 
 into a book, like water, and can be seen walking at his ease 
 on the bottom. He is obliged to rise to the surface to take 
 breath. The musk-deer reader is graceful and engaging; 
 has beautiful dark eyes, with a voice like a sigh ; but is said 
 to be indolent. Wild turkeys, before proceeding, assemble 
 on an eminence, and remain in consultation one or two days. 
 At length the leader gives the signal note, and taking a par- 
 
3e2 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 ticular direction, is followed by the rest. — Common in Amer- 
 ica. It is justly observed, that the sagacity which enables 
 the domestic cock with such precision to announce the hour 
 of dawn, is matter of astonishment. One is sufficient. — 
 The bob-o-link is remarkable for changing his name, note, 
 and color, as he goes from the North to the South. How 
 fortunate is that author whose friends are the mocking- 
 birds ! Would somebody present us a cage of canaries, 
 to hang in the bay-window of our study, and sing betimes 
 to our melancholy, and answer when we whistle, we 
 should deem ourselves happy. At rare and angelic inter- 
 vals, — a shuttle-like iridescence, a feathery pause in the 
 stillness of things, — a little humming-bird has been seen 
 gliding about our verandah, and tasting with nicest relish 
 the honeysuckles whose nee tared goblets hang out all 
 day long on the pillars. If we were to name a reader 
 to be -chiefly recommended, we should find the type in 
 those very common objects, cows. They begin at the bars, 
 the title-page, and graze to the end of the pasture, and 
 regraze ; they drink at the murmuring brooks, the pleasant 
 fancies of an author, — repose under the shade of the great 
 trees, and ruminate ; they afford to the public tasteful and 
 useful results of their labor. The swan offers points of 
 interest. To see this graceful creature, with arched neck 
 and half-displayed pinions, sailing over the serene surface of 
 a great idea, which reflects, as she passes, the sno-wy beauty 
 of her dress, flatters an author's vanity. The most terrible 
 of all American snakes is the copper-head. An author 
 need not be afraid of toads. They are useful about one's 
 grounds. They feed on insects, and are good against 
 vermin. There is a vulgar notion concerning this creature, 
 it being supposed, from the great numbers that appear after 
 a rain, they descend with the shower. This may be true. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 383 
 
 The great lantern-fly is remarkable for the light that 
 emanates from its head, — a light by which it usually reads. 
 
 These are some of the kinds of readers distinguished in the 
 manner above mentioned. They are such as an author will 
 meet with ; — many of them he will be happy to see ; others 
 he will do well to shun. At first blush there is something 
 dismal in a writer's prospect. Quite large portions of his 
 world seem to consist of jungle overrun with rapacious 
 beasts and reptiles, or of swamps crowded by venomous 
 insects. But these must all live. Dr. Good tells us. More- 
 over, we may remember that insects are useful in disin- 
 tegrating the soil, and rendering it light, loamy, and fertile. 
 There is, it may be added, in the East, a tribe of barbarians 
 who handle the most venomous reptiles with impunity, and 
 eat them alive, from head to tail. Celsus and Lucan make 
 mention of them, and they were called by the ancients, 
 Psylli. A club of authors might import a few. Besides, 
 Dr. Bell contends that there is no real ferocity in the lion, 
 for instance ; that his glare is merely excited attention, and 
 his grin or snarl the natural motion of uncasing his fangs 
 before using them. How many of the feras, withal, can be 
 tamed ! In fishes the sense of smell is so acute, that if an 
 author will rub his hand with extract of rose, or even leaves 
 of marjoram, and dip it into the water, he can draw any 
 quantity of these creatures into it. Good Pierre, before 
 quoted, declares, and supports his opinion by striking testi- 
 mony, that wild beasts will fly a naked man ; whence I 
 infer that an author would do well to present his thoughts 
 simply, directly, as it were naturally, and not rely upon con- 
 ventional adaptation, or academical canons. 
 
 And we are reminded, in this connection, nor can we for- 
 bear to mention, what a fine race of readers used to exist, — 
 the Lectores of scholastic days. " Candidus," " ingenuus," 
 
384 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 " benevolens," " vigilans," were universal traits. Has that 
 race become extinct ? 
 
 We digress. We were about to say, our readers would 
 remember — something. — Yet, after all, does not this 
 imply considerable ? First, that we have readers ; secondly, 
 that they have read the book ; and thirdly, that they have 
 attended to what they read. Can one imply so much, 
 without a latent reference to other things, — say, to this 
 whole matter of the different sorts of readers, that we 
 have so pleasantly discussed ? Nor can it be a thing of 
 small personal moment for any author to know what sort of 
 readers he shall be. surrounded by, — whether by swans or 
 anacondas, nightingales or cougars. If the reader of these 
 pages has any of the properties of the domestic cat, for 
 example, we can rely upon him, and while he honors us 
 with his confidence, and has a place by our fireside, we will 
 be cautious how we tread ; for this creature inspects every 
 portion of a new house before she makes up her mind about 
 it. So our reader will have gone over that passage, and a 
 short one it is, in Chapter V., where allusion is made to cer- 
 tain business transactions between the elder Edney and 
 Governor Dennington ; and will remember — it is a trifle — 
 that the former was under indentures to the latter as 
 relating to his farm ; and that one of Richard's objects in 
 coming to Woodylin was to obtain means for cancelling this 
 contract. Being so fortunate as to have amassed the 
 requisite sum, now, while his sorrow was fresh upon him, 
 he repaired to the Governor's office to apply it. That 
 gentleman received our friend courteously and quietly, as 
 was his custom ; greeted him with a cordial " good-morn- 
 ing ;" shook hands with him ; shoved a chair towards him, 
 and had him seated by his table ; alluded to the pleasant- 
 ness of the weather, and inquired after his father. He 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 385 
 
 took from a large file the papers in question, computed the 
 interest, counted the money, and gave Richard a receipt. 
 The Governor loved to do business ; he did it in the softest 
 and easiest way imaginable. Perhaps this made him so 
 good-natured at the present moment. 
 
 Richard arose to leave, when, as if a new thought had 
 struck him, taking a gold piece from his pocket, he extended 
 it towards the Governor, and, with suppressed emotion, said, 
 " Sir, I received that, two or three years since, upon resign- 
 ing a horse, whose fright in the street had arrested my 
 attention. I do not wish to keep it." " I recollect," said 
 the Governor. " My daughter Melicent was in the sleigh. 
 It showed spirit and nerve." " I do not wish to keep it," 
 reiterated Richard, growing paroxysmal inside. "Melicent 
 said," continued the Governor, unmoved, but bland, " few 
 acts of heroism were better carried through, or deserved 
 more honorable remembrance." " Will you have the kind- 
 ness, Sir," pursued Richard, " to receive back that which. 
 suggests nothing pleasant to my memory?" The Governor 
 did not, or could not, or would not, enter into the spirit of 
 Richard's tender; he merely replied, " It is not mine, — it 
 is yours." He opened his day-book, and appeared to be 
 making an entry. Richard would have thrown the gold into 
 the fireplace, or out of the window; but the manner of the 
 Governor would not allow this, and, finally, forced it back 
 into his pocket. 
 
 Richard was a little piqued, and a little surprised ; and on 
 his way home he could but wonder, partly at himself, and 
 partly at the Governor. It was as if the latter was wholly 
 ignorant of all recent transactions, and the former was sen- 
 sible of nothipg else ; and this sensibility, and this ignorance, 
 had a queer encounter. 
 . Richard went to the office with any quantity of misgiv- 
 33 
 
386 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 ings and chokings, yet the Governor did not, in any way, 
 appear to be cognizant of, or willing to revive, disagreeable 
 recollections. Wherefore ? This puzzled Richard. Did 
 politeness conceal contempt ? Was the Governor's aversion, 
 like deep water, silent because it was deep? Did business 
 keep in abeyance all paternal and moral sentiments ? Yet 
 he alluded unreservedly to his daughter, and pleasantly to 
 the reminiscences of Richard, who, on the whole, felt better 
 after the interview than before. 
 
 From this incident we are disposed to draw an inference 
 for our readers Ruminantes. It is said men are governed 
 by their interests, — that is, pecuniary interests. We 
 oppose the example of Richard, point-blank, to that theory. 
 He would gladly be rid of money. Nay, men are governed 
 by their emotions ; in other words, moral sentiments. 
 Again, it is asserted that the golden eagle is one of the 
 American gods; nay, furthermore, Richard held in his hand 
 a veritable golden eagle, which he would cheerfully have 
 flung to the depths of Tartarus; into the face of Pluto him- 
 self, if he could; — a fact worthy of consideration. Gold, 
 heavy as it is, will not outweigh a passion, be it individual, 
 — be it national. This we suggest to those of our read- 
 ers who do not affect the golden eagle, or the fustian 
 eagle, and yet are like the mountain eagle, in the grandeur 
 of their flight, intensity of their gaze, terror of their swoop, 
 and especially in the way they pounce upon another of their 
 tribe, the fish-hawk, to disgorge him of his prey. 
 
 Another incident. As Richard was walking, towards 
 dusk, turning the corner of St. Agnes-street, he saw Mel- 
 icent slowly approaching the gate of her father's house. 
 Here she stopped, and stood looking in a direction opposite 
 from him. She was a dozen rods off". Above her were the 
 branches of the great elms. Beyond was the sunset. She had 
 
THE GOVEKNOr's FAMILY. 387 
 
 on the same blue shirred bonnet, white cashmere shawl with 
 dark spots, and blue muslin dress, — the same that Richard 
 had seen before. Her hand reposed softly and gracefully on 
 the latch of the gate ; her parasol was dropped, carelessly 
 upturned, on the flagging at her feet. Richard's heart went 
 to throbbing, of course. It was as if the sight diffused a 
 fragrance, in which all his senses swam. She disengaged 
 the shawl from her neck, and hung it on her arm, still look- 
 ing the other way. If Richard had been a German, ho w^ould 
 have wept; if an Jtalian, torn his hair; if a Frenchman, 
 leaped towards the beloved one. He was an American, and 
 did not know what to do. He could not remain stationary ; he 
 dared not advance. As he was about to retreat, or, rather, 
 make a detour across the street, on the opposite walk he be- 
 held Miss Eyre. She was loitering, and had evidently been 
 watching him and Melicent. Well, go back. But in this 
 direction, his eye encountered the person of Clover, partially 
 concealed by the twilight shadows of the trees, who had 
 been reconnoitring all three. Fly, sink, burst; he would 
 have rejoiced in any slight miracle, or, as he was sufficiently 
 distended, why not, like a kernel of corn in the fire, permit 
 him to pop out of his dilemma, and drop, say, into his little 
 chamber at Willow Croft? There was the glimmer of an 
 equivocal smile on Miss Eyre's face; Clover satanically 
 gloated ; Melicent had her back towards him, with her eyes 
 on the clouds. Silent, calm, unconscious Melicent, in her 
 blue dress ; what a fever she created, — what a prairie-on- 
 fire, with the flames approaching and fencing one in on all 
 sides, she incontinently aroused ! She went through the 
 gate, and into the house, and made an escape at once for 
 Richard's person and alarm. 
 
 A reader of the manuscript, — perhaps a lion inspecting 
 a flock of kids in the distance, — perhaps a musk-deer, 
 
388 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 pretty, but languid, — says the wTriter questions, when he 
 ought to narrate ; hints at what should be developed, is 
 redundant in unimportant brevities, sparing in what is rich 
 and copious, and that, hastening through pleasant fields, he 
 loiters in barrens. For instance, that in this last incident, 
 while there is much said, there is an omission of what is 
 essential to the right feeling of the scene, — to wit, that the 
 dress of Melicent, the contour of her person, the verisimili- 
 tude of her motion, the way she rested her arm on the gate, 
 had been endeared to Kichard by the deepest of all associa- 
 tions — love. That the gate-post supplanted his arm, and 
 he must needs be pained at the interference. That the con- 
 trast between the pleasant past and the dismal present was 
 provoking; that his heart was inflamed with a sense of 
 repulsed, disdained love, that still loved on. Our reply is, 
 that we described the case in its phenomena, if not in its 
 substance ; that we stated the external facts, if not their 
 spiritual connection ; in a word, acting upon the suggestions 
 of our respected College Rhetorical Professor, made many 
 years ago, and living in our memory still, we " left some- 
 thing to the imagination of the reader." 
 
 That night, as sometimes happened, Bebby slept with 
 Richard. The Moon, bright and full, shone into the 
 chamber, and upon the bed, and on the child, restoring the 
 beauty of the features, and illuminating the silvery hair of 
 the slumberer. Richard raised himself on his elbow, and 
 bent over the unconscious enchanter with mingled agony 
 and ecstasy. It was as if a vision of beauty and repose had 
 been lent to him from some far off heaven. It was as if his 
 own innocency and early promise had been collected out of 
 his life, and laid in breathing form at his side. Was it his 
 Childhood come back to mock him ? Was it put there to 
 re inspire him ? He worked his fingers in his dark hair, till 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 389 
 
 it hung in tang-Jed locks over the pearly fairness before him, 
 and his worried brow contrasted strongly with the calm face 
 of the little one.. It was Despair bending over Hope ; it was 
 Sorrow confronted with Blessedness ; it was penitent Aspi- 
 ration weeping at the feet of some long-lost Ideality. He 
 kissed the child, inhaled its balsamic breath, and laid down 
 by the side of it to sleep. 
 
 Fourth-of-July came, and the evening was to be celebrated 
 with a new display, — the illumination of May-flower Glen, 
 by lamps suspended in the trees, and heightened, withal, 
 by a band of music. Everybody was abroad that day, and 
 Richard, with Memmy and Bebby, followed in the wake. 
 
 Richard's enjoyment seemed rather to lie behind him, in 
 the children, than before him, in the scenes of the occasion. 
 He appeared to be hauling his pleasures along, instead of 
 going in pursuit of them. He labored under the mistake we 
 have commented upon. There were, at a moderate compu- 
 tation, 30,000 people in the city and in the streets thereof, 
 that morning, and all recreating ; and how few knew any- 
 thing of Richard, and how fewer were intent on anything else 
 than happiness, or were unwilling that everybody should 
 be happy loo ! Richard found this out before the day 
 was over, and that he had really nothing else to do but for- 
 get himself, and care and sorrow, and be as happy as the 
 rest. He found out, too, that he was not of any conse- 
 quence compared with a show-bill of the Theatre, which a 
 jam of people on the side-walk were almost in a quarrel to 
 see, and never thought of opening for him to pass. There 
 were gay processions through the streets, and great crowds 
 following them ; there were crowds about Dr. Broad well's 
 Church, where an oration was to be delivered ; >there vvere 
 multitudes of boys and girls, from the country, filling the 
 candy-shops and ice-cream saloons. Memmy and Bebby 
 33* 
 
390 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 saw SO many strange sights, and fell into so many novel 
 situations, their surprise, curiosity and glee, were gradually 
 communicated to their Uncle. 
 
 But May-flower Glen, in the evening, was the greatest 
 spectacle. Half a thousand lamps shed a palatial, alabas- 
 trian light through sylvan corridors, and on grassy ter- 
 races ; they glimmered in the tinkling brook, and glowed 
 again in thousands of bright countenances. There was the 
 vacant strolling to and fro, the chattering of animated 
 groups, the roistering of children, and the quiet looking on 
 of elderly people. There were fair young ladies, in white 
 dresses, and lavender-colored dresses, and changeable silk 
 dresses ; girdled, tuniced, caped ; with flowers in their hands, 
 and on their breasts, and in their hair; and great luxuriance 
 of beautiful hair, and great glory of joyous feeling, and a 
 whole Avoca-vale of sweetness, loveliness, and hope, in their 
 eyes and on their lips. There were noble-looking young 
 rnen, in white trowsers and vests, and some with red sashes. 
 Hidden music filled the place with enchantment, as if Pan 
 and his nymphs, and their pipes, were concealed in the 
 grove. 
 
 We have not said that Richard had anything to do in 
 getting this up ; — he had, nevertheless. He was on the 
 committee of arrangements ; and, if less conspicuous, was as 
 effective as any. This committee wore red sashes ; — Rich- 
 ard omitted the badge. 
 
 Richard was so caught up, subdued, or etherized^ or 
 whatever it be, by the pleasantness of the hour, he saw Miss 
 Eyre pass without a pang, and beheld Melicent in the dis- 
 tance without emotion, unless it be that of simple gladness. 
 
 As he stood, with the two children in front of him, on a 
 seat, ]\Iangil approached, with Melicent and Helen the Good 
 on his arm. Mangil bowed, and Richard bowed, and they 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. dyL 
 
 all bowed ; and Mangil took Eichard's hand, and so did 
 Helen the Good, and Richard and Melicent exchanged the 
 same, compliment. " Beautiful !" said the Broker; "fine, 
 inexpressible, — a high quotation ! It carries the board," 
 " It was a splendid idea," said Helen the Good. "I enjoy it 
 exceedingly. Don't you? " said Melicent. Richard replied 
 that he did. " The children," added Melicent, " are so 
 happy!" "It is a great treat to them," rejoined Richard. 
 The children showed a joyous excitement when they saw 
 Melicent ; but Richard had the advantage of them, and kept 
 them still. Mangil, being one of the committee, wore a 
 sash, and, alluding pleasantly to Richard's want of it, said, 
 " You are not in authority to-night." " It goes off of itself," 
 replied Richard. " Then it must have been admirably con- 
 trived," added Helen the Good. " I think so, too," said 
 Melicent. 
 
 At this moment, a lamp fell in the rear of Richard, and 
 there was a shriek in the crowd. " Will the ladies please 
 to look after the children?" said Richard, starting for the 
 scene of alarm. It was Miss Eyre, whom the accident 
 frightened into a swoon. Richard helped, bear her to a 
 seat, where, with due application of fans, and water from 
 the brook, she presently recovered. Richard returned to the 
 children, whom he found alone with Melicent. " Helen the 
 Good," said the latter, "is always foremost in scenes of dis- 
 tress, and withholds from no terrors ; and she, with Mr. 
 Mangil, followed you." " I was apprehensive," said Richard, 
 " in the haste of preparation, that some of the lamps were not 
 made sufficiently fast. I regret it exceedingly." " Did you 
 know the person?" asked Melicent. " It was Miss Eyre," 
 replied Richard. "It is but a trifle," continued Melicent, 
 "and produces no sensible effect on the general festivity," 
 " More scared than hurt," said Helen the Good, who 
 
392 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 returned, laughing. " She is a sensitive creature," re- 
 joined Melicent. " We were discussing the propriety of 
 repeating these illuminations," said the Broker. " I should 
 like it," said Eichard. " So should I," said Helen the 
 Good. " And I," responded Melicent. 
 
 Promenading commenced, and Mangil, with the ladies, 
 wheeling into the ranks, moved off to music. 
 
 As Richard had received and conversed with Melicent, so 
 he saw her retire, without agitation. He did watch the 
 rose-bud in her hair, till it was lost in a thicket of flowers 
 and the glimmering distance. 
 
 Ere long the band struck up Home, Sweet Home, the sig- 
 nal of dispersion, and the people obeyed the hint. 
 
 The sentimentalist asks, how could Richard keep his 
 countenance and heart, during such an interview with Meli- 
 cent? The reply has already been indicated in what was 
 said of the general exhilaration of the hour. There is an. 
 effect in festivity like music, at once exciting and tranquil- 
 lizing; it clears the atmosphere of the mind, and leaves one 
 in a state of azure quietude. 
 
 But, interposes the lady judge, that may answer for 
 Eichard ; — it does not explain Melicent. No woman, who 
 had ever so loved, or was so separated, could be so insensi- 
 ble and emotionless in a subsequent encounter. We would 
 not be wise above what is written, nor above what a lady 
 knows. But we are at liberty to conjecture, — first, that the 
 laws of emotion in the two sexes are not radically different ; 
 and,* therefore, secondly, that a woman, under these circum- 
 stances, might be calm. We believe, furthermore, if the 
 phrase does not offend, that a woman will swallow down 
 more emotion than a man, and preserve a face of stone 
 when the latter is flaming to the roots of his hair. Besides, 
 it may be stated that the love both of Richard and Melicent 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 393 
 
 was founded, as Miss Edgeworth would say, on esteem, and 
 not on impulse; and this will afford some key to their sub- 
 sequent conduct, throughout. Finally, Melicent was not 
 the aggressor, — she was purely a sufferer; and Christian 
 principle, to speak of nothing else, would save her from 
 rudeness, — check the ferment of feeling, and help maintain 
 the equilibrium of her mind. 
 
 What may be called the Philosophy of Blushes, in other 
 words, the law of the expression of emotion, has not been 
 written ; or if so, we have not seen it. The subject is a 
 curious and a serious one. Life and death hang upon it. 
 
 How had Melicent borne herself in trials so painful to the 
 female heart, and to all hearts, through which she had 
 passed ? If we should say she sometimes lamented and 
 wept, — that she had her hours of terror and anguish, — 
 should we hazard any truth ? Richard had arisen to her eye 
 a splendid model of a human being; and to see this shattered 
 by one blow, must needs distress her. But she had supports 
 that Eichard wanted ; — one, in the unequivocalness of her 
 position ; another, in the multitude of her friends; a third, 
 in the abundant and elegant ministries of her daily life. 
 
 In a letter to a friend, she says, "You will expect me 
 to be dejected. I am saddened by Richard, and for him. 
 He was so purely princely to my imagination, I am slow to 
 comprehend his vulgarity. Could the great Enemy of souls 
 dissemble so ? My attention was first called to the heroism, 
 simplicity, and modesty, of his outward life. My interest 
 was awakened by contact with his sentiments. I first knew 
 his heart, — was introduced to his reflections, and, so to 
 say, made the journey of his principles and purposes ; and 
 found myself a lover. I loved him as soul can love soul, 
 as sympathy yearns for sympathy, as weakness is won by 
 strength, as aspiration adores grandeur. Was he great 
 
394 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 enough to deceive me? — simply, coldly, infernally vast 
 enough ? Harrowing suggestion ! cruel imputation ! ]My 
 chamber, which, has been enlivened by the flow of every 
 pleasant feeling, is sacred to silence and to sorrow. A 
 Sleeping Christ hangs on my walls ; — let me repose on my 
 God. Above sin and woe, doubt and questioning, is the All 
 Love ; — let me be the child of its bosom. Sparrows sing 
 in the trees at my window. Sunshine, and the blue heavens 
 above, and thegreen earth beneath, enconapass them. In 
 the midst of the beauty of Virtue and Hope that still sur- 
 rounds my darkened life, let me sing too." 
 
CHAPTER XXX VIII. 
 
 CLOVER DISTINCT. 
 
 Clover had been at Green Mill frequently of late, loafer- 
 wise. The natural insolence of his look was deepened by 
 a mock complacency. Richard gave little heed to htm, 
 until, at length, he would be heeded. He sat with his feet 
 tossing on the mill-chain, — an endless chain, revolving on 
 a toothed shaft, and running through the entire width of the 
 building, employed to haul logs from the basin up the slip 
 to the bed. He blew out the contents of his mouth in stud- 
 ied and very dramatic directions. With his fists he seemed 
 to be kneading the air into strange shapes, which he wished 
 Richard to look at. 
 
 " ' Good morning,' did you say, Mr. Edney ? Yes, very 
 good ; perhaps what some meekly call morally good. Cer- 
 t&'mlee. How was the night? That good, too? Night, — 
 shadows, misery ; is there such a thing ? IMisery is heaves 
 in horses, — what is it in man? In cows, it is the horn- 
 distemper. La la la, rol la ! " 
 
 " I will be obliged to you to regard my feet, in disposing 
 of your humor," said Richard, punning and reproachful. 
 
 "I do," replied Clover; "it is no put-out to me at all. 
 I was fearful of losing your attention, — I did not know 
 but you would get abstracted. That cutting-off saw, I 
 should say, wanted filing; it has seen some hard stuff. 
 Goose-oil and yellow snuff are good for croup, and all cases 
 of strangulation, and when a man's heart gets into his 
 throat, and for a wheezy old mill like this." 
 
396 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 "I shall trouble you to remove your feet from that 
 chain, " said Richard. 
 
 " CertainZee ; you want to start it, — you want to see it 
 go round and round, — you want to see it haul up the great 
 black trunks of old life and hope ; and I could stop it, — I 
 could prevent it." 
 
 " I only meant, " replied Kichard, " if you did not stand 
 back, you might get hurt." 
 
 " I only mean," rejoined Clover, " that while my feet are 
 on the chain, you would not wish to or dare to start it. 
 Off? yes, I take them off; if you want to hear the clank, 
 clank, and see, coming up the slip, the shivered butts of 
 things, and the hearts all eaten out, and hollow and dead. 
 That is the English of it." 
 
 «' Of what ? " 
 
 " What you have been thinking about, this morning." 
 
 "I dislike your presence." 
 
 " I know you do." 
 
 " I shall take some pains to rid myself of it." 
 
 " It cannot be got rid of. You must keep it by you. 
 Your pains-taking makes it stick closer. It hugs, — abso- 
 lutely hugs." 
 
 Richard had become considerably aroused, to say the least, 
 by these words of Clover; and could not help but suspect him. 
 
 " Speak plain," he said. 
 
 " I do," replied Clover, with an unutterable sneer ; " so 
 plain you perfectly comprehend what I say. Shall I speak 
 plainer? " 
 
 " Come this way," said Richard, and called the fellow to 
 the rear of the building. 
 
 " You are acquainted with Miss Eyre ? " said Clover. 
 
 " I know her," replied Richard. 
 
 " Too well ! " 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 397 
 
 " None of your innuendoes, or I shall be tempted to pitch 
 you into the water ! " 
 
 " Where you have been, for some time. I doubt if you 
 can be anxious for my company." 
 
 " Why do you assail me in this way ? " 
 
 "I am acting out my unspeakable DESTINY ! ! " 
 
 " How long have you been at it ? " 
 
 " Some months." 
 
 " Have )'ou had any particular understanding with Miss 
 Eyre ? Answer me that." 
 
 " I have seen Miss Eyre." 
 
 " Have you conspired with her as against me ? " 
 
 "A singular question, — a cowardly question; I don't 
 wonder you look pale in asking it. But why set the chain 
 a-going ? " 
 
 •' What do 3'ou mean by j'our feet being on it ? " 
 
 " O, I like to rest them there. I skip and play on it; I 
 
 DANCE ON IT ! " 
 
 " You are a devil ! " 
 
 " Nay, you mistake ; mj'- name is Clover, — John Clover, 
 
 — son of Col. Clover, of Clover Hill. Moreover, the world 
 is clover, and you are clover, and I am — you know what, 
 
 — in it ; a little one, a fat one, a bright-eyed one. Tweedle 
 dum, tweedle dee, dum de dee dum ! " 
 
 " You have instigated Miss Eyre." 
 
 " I have exercised my rights. Have you forgotten ? I was 
 afraid you would forget. Now, say your catechism. — Who 
 was the first man ? " 
 
 "Adam," replied Richard; waiting to see what would 
 come. 
 
 " Who was the second man ? " 
 
 " In his own estimation, Clover." 
 
 " Well done ! a bright lad. You slightly transposed ; 
 34 
 
398 RICHARD EDNEY A^V 
 
 Clover is the first man, and Adam the second. A mere 
 slip of memory. Try again. By what did the French take 
 Algiers ? " 
 
 " Might." 
 
 " Good ! Frame that, and hang it up to look at. By 
 what right do they hold it ? " 
 
 " Might." 
 
 " Bravissimo ! Go to the head of your class. By what 
 right are English laws in force in Calcutta ? " 
 
 "Might." 
 
 " Make that a postulate of your whole life ! By what 
 right are men held iia slavery ? " 
 
 " Might." 
 
 " That is the story ! You are now indoctrinated. Might 
 IS RIGHT ! ! Might creates right, — sustains right, — is the 
 sober little thing itself. This is the first principle of human 
 affairs. It is the universal law. It is the method of the 
 world ; and I am the world. I am an embodiment of it. 
 Its principles are seated in my breast;" he thumped his 
 ribbed hoUowness. " Its laws are codified, if I may use 
 the expression, in my fist ; " he displayed that member. 
 
 " And you have interfered with my happiness ?" 
 
 " You have insulted my banner ! You have fished in 
 my waters ; you have interrupted my business ; you have 
 usurped authority in my domain ; and I have crushed you ! 
 I could do it, and I did do it ; that is all ! Whooeehoo ! 
 whooeehoo ! " 
 
 It flashed upon Richard, — nay, it blazed and burnt upon 
 him, as if the sun had fallen at his feet, — that Clover was 
 6ack of the diffiiculty with Miss Eyre, and beneath it ; 
 remedilessly, diabolically, and everlastingly, there; and, 
 staggering at the thought, " Good God ! " he cried, quite 
 unable to contain his emotion. 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. J»tf 
 
 " Perhaps you have not read," continued Clover, " what a 
 great historian says, that the sufferings of war purge human 
 nature. 1 mean that your human nature shall be purged. 
 And as you begin to pray, I doubt not you already feel 
 humble and penitent, and are ready to sue for peace, — for 
 peace with me." 
 
 " No more ! " said Richard ; " no more ! You have suc- 
 ceeded. You have crushed me. Heaven shall avenge 
 itself, — I will not. Could I pray, 'Father, forgive thee !' 
 I gather myself unto myself and my God. I submit to an 
 inexplicable Providence. I cease from life in the flesh, that 
 I may live the life of the spirit. Go, Clover ! I will not 
 &ay, go and be danmed ; but go and sin no more." 
 
 Richard clasped his hands bitterlj'-, and exclaimed, " O 
 my Father ! had it pleased thee that this cup should pass 
 from me ! Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done ! " 
 
 The Mill-men, as if a serious disturbance had arisen, with 
 axes and poles, ran forward ; and, at a word from Richard, 
 it seemed as if they would have struck Clover dead. Rich- 
 ard waved them into silence, and Clover strode from the 
 spot. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 IN WHICH THE AUTHOR BRIEFLY PHILOSOPHIZES ON MAN. 
 
 On a previous page, we undertook to say what a Tale, 
 with Richard and sundry things in it, was like. We did 
 not state what Richard, with sundry things in him, was like. 
 How, with emotion succeeding emotion, excitement spoom- 
 ing across excitement, and the suppression of all elementaiy 
 hope and life, could he exist at all ? We found him joyous 
 and glad in "Knuckle Lane" and Melicent, upset by Miss 
 Eyre, trembling before Melicent at the gate, calm in May- 
 flower Glen, lively in the Hennery, and now " crushed " by 
 Clover. Wave follows wave in the human breast, tumult 
 vies with tumult. But what is the human breast? What 
 is left of Richard now ? Let him have a good night's sleep, 
 some one says, and he will wake up feeling better. Nay, 
 and let it be all solemnly said, there is an Underv/orking, as 
 well as All-Encompassing God, who knits together the shat- 
 tered fibres of existence, and repairs the breaches in the 
 foundations of the soul. The great reaper, Sorrow, did seem 
 to have clipped Richard close and clean, and stooked him out 
 for aye; but there remained charity, truth, duty, and abso- 
 lute submission to God. And Richard had the spirit of 
 Christ; — or, at least, we shall for the present beg so much 
 out of the main question at issue. He was so thoroughly in 
 the feeling of his Master, that, in this his last trial, as it 
 were instinctively and unconsciously, he expressed himself 
 in those words which have become a formula of agony and 
 piety in all ages. His moral existence, his self-counter- 
 
RICHAED EDNEY, ETC. 401 
 
 poise, his capability of sustained exertion, would seem to be 
 annihilated by the unremitting stroke of misfortune ; yet 
 he lived and worked on. How could this be, except through 
 the power of God, in which he trusted, and unto which 
 he clave ? There is the Gulf Stream, which moves on 
 betimes and proportionately, straight forwards, forevermore. 
 The winds would head it off; — they only fret its surface. 
 The tides invade it ; — it lifts them up, and bears them in 
 its arms. There may be a Gulf Stream of piety, conscien- 
 tiousness, rectitude, and faith in man. We hope there was 
 one in Richard. 
 
 34* 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 RICHAKD PERSISTS IN TRYING TO DO §00D. 
 
 He kept up his Ragged School, and did his best to tame 
 the Wild Olives. And in this charity he chanced upon two 
 singular and very unexpected co-laborers. These were none 
 other than Captain Creamer and Tunny. The Captain had 
 become reduced in estate and in feeling, — so much so, as 
 to beg small favors in money from Richard, whom he had 
 both patronized and abused. This tested Richard's Chris- 
 tian principle. Would he assist a man who had so an- 
 noyed him? He did, — he was kind to the Captain when 
 others abandoned him. The Captain became peevish and 
 dejected, as he was deserted and despised. Under these 
 circumstances, Richard not only helped him, but was able to 
 secure his help. He told him there was work to be done in 
 the Ragged School, and prevailed with him to unite in that 
 enterprise. But how should Tunny be there ? The Green 
 Grocer had fallen, too, — failed, and, like Richard, was 
 crushed. Worse than the mice, whose inroads he so pathet- 
 ically described, the vanity and folly of his wife had under- 
 mined him. He was reduced to what " the law allowed," 
 — less then than now ; everything else, even to his credit 
 and good name, fled. It was rumored that he gambled ; — 
 and this hurt him. 
 
 Richard visited him in his bereavement, and his wife in 
 her despair, and was a comforter unto both. It was a sight 
 to melt one's heart, to see Mrs. Tunny in her faded kitchen 
 dress, without a curl in her hair, or a bow on her bosom. 
 Richard found employment in the Mill for Theodoric, their 
 
niCTIARD EDNEY, ETC. 403 
 
 son. The Sailmaker, who had married their daughter 
 Faustina, and between whom and Mrs. Tunny alienation 
 never slumbered, Richard reconciled, and persuaded him to 
 commiserate his mother-in-law, and take her to live with 
 him. The husband he summoned in his train of benefi- 
 cence. 
 
 These three men, sufficiently miserable themselves, yet 
 found a lower misery to which they could minister. It 
 made Roxy smile to see Richard start off for the Point, of a 
 Sunday afternoon, with his two fellow-missionaries, on 
 their work of mercy. Mysie was the sexton of this Church, 
 — she opened the house, swept the floor, and lighted the 
 candles. 
 
 There was a little pleasant reiiction in Richard's favor. 
 Captain Creamer repented him of the wrong he did to 
 Richard, in refusing to testify before the court of females at 
 Whichcomb's. He knew it was his authoritative injunction 
 that caused Richard to stay in the chamber with the Old 
 Man and orphan girls. He would make reparation. Un- 
 known to Richard, who would not have suffered it, he went 
 to Miss Frecling, — a sort of flame of the Captain's earlier 
 and better days, — and reported tlie facts. This lady 
 repaired immediately to Miss Rowena,whom she knew par- 
 ticularly well, and repeated what she had heard. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 RICHARD GOES INTO THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Miss Eowena, while she could not doubt Richard's wrong- 
 doing, still felt that he had been harshly disposed of by Mrs. 
 Melbourne. In discussing the matter with the latter, she 
 even went so far as to seem to clear him altogether. She 
 was not sorry for any fissure of brightness in the case. She 
 thoroughly disliked Glendar. Keeping her own counsels, 
 however, she had the boldness, in company with Miss Free- 
 ling, to come directly to Willow Croft. Could the testimony 
 of Junia be had ? Would Richard be willing to go and see 
 her ? "I ask this," said she, " not in relation to any other 
 thing, or other person, than myself. I should really like to 
 know if Mrs. Whichcomb misrepresented. For my private 
 satisfaction, will you go ? " Miss Freeling and Roxy united 
 in urging the measure. " It can alter nothing," replied 
 Richard. But go he must. 
 
 It was midsummer, and Green Mill was active. — Captain 
 Creamer, to say nothing of Mr. Gouch and Silver, would 
 take care of that. 
 
 It was midsummer, and Richard had had his Night's 
 Dream ; and he would be glad of daylight, — he would be 
 glad of rest and recreation. 
 
 So he set off with Winkle on the road he had formerly 
 traversed. Winkle was kind to Richard, as he was to every- 
 body, and did all in his power to cheer the journey. What 
 on his former ride had really interested and delighted Rich- 
 ard, in Winkle and in the way, now had a melo-dramatic 
 effect, that served to divert him. 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 405 
 
 " That man," Winkle would say, as he passed along^, 
 " is n't dead yet. He has been dying this two year. — That 
 girl lost her lover. I did all I could to save him. — The 
 right eye of that goose has n't winked for twenty years. — 
 That boy has swung on that gate so long the hinges have 
 rusted off. — I wonder when Tim Doze finds time to eat ! 
 He began picking his teeth in the door-way under the old 
 driver, and has kept at it ever since." 
 
 Richard at length reached the house whither he had orig- 
 inally conveyed Junia. 
 
 Junia was there, notwithstanding rumors of another sort. 
 The Old Man, her grandfather, was still alive, but weak and 
 infirm ; and he remembered the kindness Richard had done 
 unto him. Their abode was a pleasant one, in a region, on 
 a moderate scale, of considerable diversity. Elms towered 
 in shallow coombs. Corn-lots swept from the sky on one 
 side to a gully on the other. Wheat eddied across sunny 
 slopes. The light-green mowing was terminated by a belt 
 of dark forest. In the rear of the house was a flourishing 
 orchard. Cattle and sheep could be seen lying in clumps 
 of trees in the pastures. The highway, passing a neighbor- 
 ing farm-house, disappeared in wooded hills. Venerable 
 oaks were scattered about the premises. A white school- 
 house, and its " bordering " of maples, crowned a swell in 
 the landscape. There were many things that operated to 
 remind Richard of his own home and childhood, and recall 
 the days of his innocent and unfettered existence. The 
 woodbine, that veiled the front of the house, rolled its tide 
 of verdure over the roof, and shaded the snug parlor, was 
 like one he himself set out, and had recently seen, in Green 
 Meadow. The back porch, with its posts all alive with hop- 
 vines, was so like his mother's. The dairy-room had the 
 same white shelves and savory neatness as the one he had 
 
406 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 passed a thousand times. The gourd-dipper, — how often 
 had he dipped water with it, and held it by both hands to 
 drink ! In the garden, too, was the old sage-bed and its 
 border of marigolds and chrysanthemums. Farmer Cress- 
 well was an intelligent and industrious, and of course a 
 thriving man. His wife, the aunt-in-law of Junia, supported 
 her side of the house. They had a son, who helped his 
 father, — a daughter, the right hand of her mother, and 
 little children at school. They bought books, and took a 
 newspaper. It was a magnanimous and kind-hearted fam- 
 ily. They welcomed Richard with rural hospitality to rural 
 
 joys- 
 Here Junia had spent the years since she left Woodylin, 
 The father of Junia, an artist, having gone to Rome to com- 
 plete his education, on the return voyage was drowned. Her 
 mother died while the children were young, leaving to them 
 the legacy of a tender memory and unavailing regrets, — of 
 a spirit attuned to purest impulses, and a malady that ere 
 long appeared in Violet. They remained with their grand- 
 parents until one died, and adversity and weakness pros- 
 trated the other. The change in their grandfather, united 
 with alarming symptoms in Violet, induced the girls to 
 resort to the Factories. 
 
 Their aunt, the wife of Farmer Cresswell, and only sur- 
 viving child of the Old Man, meanwhile had died. Junia 
 was ignorant of her successor. If she had known what a 
 woman she was, and what a home the farm might be to her, 
 she would have been spared, if not her residence, at least 
 some of her sorrows, at Woodylin. 
 
 In her new home, she assumed charge of the school in 
 the neighborhood ; but tendencies similar to those that pros- 
 trated her sister disclosing themselves in her constitution, 
 at length forbade this species of exertion. 
 
THE GOTERXOR S FAitflLY. 9^ 
 
 The alteration in Junia, apparent to Richard's eye, for an 
 instant afflicted his imagination as a cloud on the joyousness 
 of her greeting, and a solemnity pervading the cheerful 
 courtesies of the house. 
 
 But sickness and sorrow are so much alike, this impres- 
 sion gradually assimilated with the prevailing mood of Rich- 
 ard's mind ; his sensations became toned down to the color 
 of Junia, and he seemed in spirit to be brought very near 
 unto her. 
 
 The neighbors said she was threatened with a decline. 
 She appeared, indeed, to have been summoned by the voice 
 of Violet, and to be slowly following to the realm of spirits. 
 The Old Man presaged the result, and, with decrepit hilar- 
 ity, instructed Richard in the fatal signs, and demonstrated 
 the veritableness of his predictions. 
 
 Yet Junia retained all her equanimity, and a good portion 
 of her strength. She went with Richard into the fields, and 
 took a long walk with him to a spring in the mountains ; 
 he helped her trim and relay the flowers in the garden. 
 
 Several days passed in delicious abandonment. 
 
 Richard imparted his distress to Junia, and she was 
 prompt to reply to it. But these communications and this 
 intercourse were not without a certain perplexity, the nature 
 of which we will endeavor to unfold. 
 
 This brings us to a sacred precinct of the human heart, 
 and one that we"should shrink from traversing, did not the 
 proper development of this Tale seem imperatively to 
 demand it ; and more especially were we not confident that 
 no handling of ours could detract from the essential interest 
 and value that invested -the subject to the parties imme- 
 diately concerned. 
 
 Let us briefly state the facts, leaving the mystical and 
 unknown spirit of things to that interpretation which they 
 may justly bear. Junia loved Richard, — not with an im» 
 
408 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 patient, or imperious, or forestalling love, — but with a 
 deep, strong love ; — a love constant, if not adhesive, -^ a 
 love that remembered, even if it was deficient in attention, 
 
 Richard's piety and charity, his delicate and constant 
 assiduity, his devotion to her sister Violet, and subsequent 
 care of herself, at that early period when this Tale opens, 
 won upon the heart of Junia, raised her mere enjoyment of 
 goodness to some desire of its possession, carried her from 
 the common ground of friendship and esteem to that some- 
 times called hazardous verge, where such feelings slide into 
 love, — slide unwittingly and unpurpdsely into it; — into a 
 love that does not announce itself, but lives in the shadow 
 of things about it, — lives, nun-like, in its own rriystery, and 
 novelty, and blessedness ; — and, perhaps, like the nightin- 
 gale, sings all the more sweetly for its confinement and 
 seclusion. In all this, as we conceive, no trace of bMme 
 attaches to Junia. Richard, at the time, had some dim 
 and unheeding impression of the fact. But, as an honora- 
 ble man, he encouraged nothing; as a modest man, he was 
 flattered by nothing; as a young man, preoccupied with 
 business and apprenticed to a trade, he remembered noth- 
 ing. 
 
 But when it was proposed that he should see Junia, dim 
 impressions of the past revived, — passively and spontane- 
 ously revived, — and perhaps worked to confuse his deci- 
 sion. And really the matter troubled his approach to her. 
 His errand related to his engagement with another, — re- 
 lated to what must indicate to Junia how hopelessly she 
 was separated from him ; — related, in a word, to topics 
 that must give her pain. 
 
 Moreover, Miss Eyre knew of the state of Junia's^eart. 
 Having early consecrated herself to Richard, Plumy Alicia 
 was jealous of any intervention or rivalry. She was wit- 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. ■fi)9*- 
 
 ness of Richard's fidelity in the sick chamber ; she fol- 
 lowed Junia when she went to Willow Croft, and, by 
 methods peculiar to herself, learned the secret that otherwise 
 might have slumbered forever in the Orphan's breast. 
 
 Mrs. Eyre relied upon what she knew for the accom- 
 plishment of her subsequent purposes, or rather to prevent 
 Richard accomplish his. She believed that Junia, deeply 
 attached to Richard, would not lend an influence to facili- 
 tate his inclinations for another, and would prefer, of the 
 two, rather to widen, than close, the breach between him 
 and Mehcent. She felt perfectly safe with Junia, and 
 hence the freedom with which she alluded to her at the 
 council at Whichcomb's. Miss Eyre mistook her own sex. 
 Richard trusted the magnanimity of a virtuous heart ! 
 
 The short and decisive inquiry he had to make of Junia, 
 whether his conduct towards her was open to question, she 
 answered with a prompt No ! " But why do you ask ? " 
 said she. 
 
 "For the gratification of my friends." 
 
 "You say you are separated from Miss Dennington?" 
 
 "Forever! " he added, with energy. 
 
 They were silent. Junia plucked the grass on which she 
 was sitting. Richard looked at the flickering branches of 
 the tree overhead. 
 
 " You did love her ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 "And do?" 
 
 " It is the mystery of my existence," replied Richard, 
 " that I do when I may not, and the discipline which my 
 heavenly Father imposes, that I must when I cannot." 
 
 " Do and may not, must and cannot," rejoined Junia, 
 smiling ; " ever and never ; now and now, and no to-mor- 
 35 
 
410 EICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 row ; — how strange a world this is ! There are others 
 like you." 
 
 This declaration startled Richard. He thought he knew 
 what it meant, and feared there was more meaning than he 
 would be able to manage. 
 
 " May not a desolate heart," she said, " embrace a deso- 
 late heart ? Embrace mine ! Hope," she continued, " dis- 
 tributes flowers in her vases, and keeps them to look at till 
 their brief day is over, when, like a careful housewife, she 
 flings them into a heap to die together ! " 
 
 She laid her hand upon his shoulder ; then, taking his 
 arm, they walked into the house. 
 
 It was a delightful home she had, and Richard was made 
 very happy there, and the family kept him many days. He 
 would hardly be sorry if it were decreed they should keep 
 him always there. Rarely had he seen the sun shine on 
 so pleasant a spot, — rarely had he seen so pleasant a spot, 
 when there was no sun. 
 
 " I love you," said Junia, " therefore do not be afraid of 
 me ; — I love you, therefore I will be your best friend; — 
 I love you, and I love those that love you. I have no 
 selfishness, no vanity, and will do what I can to make you 
 happy. I find my little all of bliss in telling you that I love 
 you. They say I shall die soon, — I will die for you. You 
 do not know a woman's heart, — you never can ; — nor a 
 young girl's heart, such as mine was, and has been, and 
 must ever be ; — nor how, as a wound in a tender sapling, 
 even when it heals up, remains in the tree, and becomes a 
 part of its heart, and gives its own shape to the fibres, and 
 has veins through which the life of the whole flows, — you 
 have been to me. And now, when you are lowest and most 
 degraded, and, if it must be so, most hopeless to my wish, 
 this love loves you the most." 
 
THE governor's FAMILY.' 411 
 
 If Richard ever felt drawn towards any human being, — 
 if he ever felt repaid a thousand times over for all he had 
 done for any one, — if he ever felt thankfulness at relief, 
 like a sudden recoil in the jaws of a vice that held him, — 
 he felt this now in respect of Junia. 
 
 To a paper, like a deposition, or affidavit, vindicating 
 Richard from the calumny promulgated by Mrs. Which- 
 comb, and behind which Miss Eyre intrenched herself, com- 
 prising, likewise, the warmest and most forcible allusions to 
 his probity and sincerity, Junia affixed her signature, as did 
 likewise her Grandfather. 
 
 With this, Richard returned to Woodylin. 
 
 The document was conveyed to Miss Rowena, who, as to 
 her personal rencontre with Mrs. Melbourne, rejoiced in the 
 support it furnished. But more : she showed it privately to 
 Melicent, who derived what consolation she could from its 
 contents. Mrs. Melbourne, to whom it was communicated, 
 admitted its truthfulness, and allowed its entire weight. 
 But, said she, " Rowena, you must see that is not all, — it 
 is not a beginning. If that was all, the case were quickly 
 determined. I rejoice as much as you do in this. But the 
 greater, the stubborn, the wicked facts remain. Our evi- 
 dence is not like a chain that can be spoilt in its links ; — it 
 is like a stone-wall ; and though you remove a single rock, 
 the strength of the whole is not shaken," There was 
 force in the remark, however it stood with the evidence ; — 
 and Melicent felt it, and was silent. Cousin Rowena, not 
 quite abashed, said, " Perhaps we can make a breach through 
 the wall." 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 QUIET RESUMPTION OF LIFE. 
 
 Miss Freeling, who became a sort of messenger between 
 Richard and the Governor's Family, told him how Miss 
 Rowena was pleased with the paper; — beyond this, she could 
 say nothing, and Richard expected nothing. In this, still, 
 he was repaid for his journey ; and added to this, his spirits 
 seemed to revive in the remembrance of Junia. He wrote 
 to her, and she to him ; and her letters were as music in 
 the night of his sorrows. 
 
 Clover clenched the nail of Richard's calamity, which 
 Miss Eyre had already driven to the head ; and despair be- 
 coming a habit and law of his mind, and getting himself 
 used to it, it offered less and less obstruction to the routine 
 of his days, and uniformity of his feelings. 
 
 He bowed to the will of Heaven, and addressed himself 
 with firmness and sobriety to the days of the years of his 
 pilgrimage. He read his Bible more diligently, — not to 
 repine with Job, but to invigorate himself on Paul, and 
 especially to imitate his Master, who went about doing 
 
 There were moments when he would abandon the city, 
 and retire to the country, returning to the house of his 
 father, or wedding the shadows of his heart to the evening 
 of the days of Junia. But his business was extensive, and 
 its concerns complicated, and it involved the interest of par- 
 ties very dear to him. 
 
 While he would utterly banish Melicent from his thoughts, 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 413 
 
 we may suppose he did it somewhat like the poet in Gil 
 Bias, who, having resolved to abandon his art, bade an eter- 
 nal adieu to the Muses, in verse ! 
 
 Did he never complain ? Did no discontent overhang his 
 brow ? Did no imprecation attempt the purity of his lip ? 
 
 There is no trial so severe as that of the heart. There 
 is no furnace of affliction so hot as that enkindled in the 
 sensibilities. There is no temptation from which a man 
 had better pray for quick deliverance than that addressed to 
 the affections and sentiments. 
 
 The fowls were a fortunate affair. They supplied his 
 purse with cash, and his leisure with amusement. The 
 crowing of the cocks set Memmy and Bebby to cackling, and 
 Uncle must of course pipe up a little, too. 
 
 The ancient Church used to clothe its penitents in white 
 sheets. Richard seemed to belong to this class, for Roxy 
 declared his face was white as a sheet ; but Aunt Grint, 
 more lenient than those priests who ordered hair-shirts in 
 addition, recommended the extract of valerian, under which 
 he visibly amended. 
 
 And if still in any sense outside of the Church, he was 
 willing to serve it in the humble capacity of verger ; and he 
 sought to get his Ragged children into some of the meet- 
 ings. At least, he raised them to the Griped Hand, which 
 was a stepping-stone to the Church. Chuk improved in 
 manners and speech, and suffered Mysie to comb his hair 
 and wash his clothes. 
 
 The golden apples which Hercules took from the garden 
 of the Hesperides could not be kept anywhere else, and had 
 to be conveyed back where they grew. Men may say what 
 they will about the cultivation of virtue outside the Church, 
 there will always be a sighing and pining of these virtues 
 for the Church — the true Church. Richard especially, as 
 35* 
 
414 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 he seemed to have derived the seeds of the good he was able 
 to effect from the Church, was most happy in being permit- 
 ted to return thither sonie of the fruit. In truth, are not all 
 ragamuffins, gamins, sneaks, trulls, topers, Golden Apples, 
 that at some period or other have been stolen from the 
 Church? 
 
 Richard's old pupils of the Sabbath-school visited him, 
 and he took them to see his " Olive-garden," and they 
 assisted him in cultivating it. They brought their little 
 library-books, full of pictures and pretty ideas, and gave 
 them to these outcasts. They invited them to their pic- 
 nics and rural celebrations, and their mothers and aunts 
 made decent clothes for them. These Sabbath-school boys 
 led Chuk to the Griped Hand! This was considered a 
 great exploit, — a crowning triumph. 
 
 Dr. Broadwell and Parson Smith honored Richard with a 
 visit. These gentlemen, while they supposed Richard essen- 
 tially culpable, relied on his judgment and discretion, and 
 could not question his good intentions. Parson Smith, 
 indeed, had frequently seen Richard, and believing in the 
 soundness of his piety and purity of his aims, notwithstanding 
 the darkness that shrouded portions of his history, and see- 
 ing, as he thought, every token of contrition, was unwilling 
 that his relations to the Church and Christian people should 
 materially change. If he were a sinner before God, the 
 Parson argued, he had better keep within reach of the 
 appointed means of grace. 
 
 They called to converse with Richard on the Theatre^ 
 circuses, and similar things, that were the pests of recrea- 
 tion, and corrupted the proper pastime of the people. The 
 discussion was harmonious and interesting. To concen- 
 trate on the Griped Hand, and make that attractive to Lei- 
 sure and Weariness, to Ignorance and Grossness, and the 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 415 
 
 varied desultory thirsts and instincts of men, was a foregone 
 conclusion. But could it have a kind of municipal prerog- 
 ative, — would the city confer upon the Rectors of that insti- 
 tution a licensing power, and compel the wandering disciples 
 of Thespis, and rude children of the Centaurs, to submit to 
 their arbitration, — a point would be gained. So these 
 Churchmen thought, and Richard with them. 
 
 Both these divines, in conversation with Richard, wholly 
 forgot that Richard was a bad man. The exercise of the 
 mind on any good object is wont to give a turn of goodness 
 to the mind. Moreover, Parson Smith theorized that bad 
 men might have some good qualities, and Dr. Broadwell 
 practised on the Parson's theory; — thus the working meth- 
 ods of these two men were identical. It was a favorite 
 notion with the Parson, that you had better shake hands with 
 a man's virtues, than kick at his vices. He was known 
 once to have said he would sooner take virtue from the 
 devil's back, than see it sprawling under his belly. 
 
 Some called this smooth preaching. " There are different 
 kinds of smoothness," he replied. " There is the smooth- 
 ing quality of the laundress' iron, the carpenter's plane, 
 and the farmer's roller ; there is a smooth road, and a 
 smooth skin ; there is the smoothness of silk and of liquor. 
 If we can iron down some of the wrinkles in human soci- 
 ety, — it is already well starched, — or joint religion and 
 life, or roll the fields we sow, that they may stand a drought, 
 and the Church be saved from dulling her scythe on stones, 
 when she mows, — it were smooth preaching something 
 yrorth." 
 
 Richard was an atom distressed by a letter from Junia, in 
 which, after announcing the death of her grandfather, she 
 says, " I am going to Woodylin. I long to be where Violet 
 is buried and Richard suffers. My father's earnest, beauti- 
 ful soul urges me. My mother's image, as an enmarbled 
 
416 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 pale reminiscence, in the shadows of the past, smiles upon 
 me. Grandfather heard in the trees the same bird that 
 foreshadowed the death of Violet, and looking at me, he said 
 its note was Wood-y-lin ! I tremble for thy misery, good, 
 kind one ! Have I not caused it all ? Let me, if I cannot 
 remove it, be where it is. Be not troubled for my coming. 
 My excellent uncle consents to the journey. My cousin will 
 convey me to the stage road. Winkle will take care of 
 me then." 
 
 Richard replied, begging her not to come. Her presence, 
 while it would rejoice him, would do his cause no good ; — 
 that was past attempt, or hope. Her health, he said, would 
 be endangered. She would be among strangers, without a 
 home, or comforts, or friends, like her uncle's. 
 
 She rejoined, " Leave me to my resolution and my love. 
 Give me the ministry of your smile and gladness, for one 
 day. Conduct me to the spot where Violet lies, and, with 
 thy arm to lean upon, and the beauty of Rosemary Dell 
 about me, I shall go cheerfully to my final rest." 
 
 Richard gave instructions to Winkle, — who was on the 
 alert for whatever was pathetic, as well as prompt in what 
 was purely commercial, on his route, — to be mindful of 
 Junia, and bring her safely. 
 
 But Winkle could manage better than Richard. " Let 
 herwait another week, and that will be, he said, a full week; 
 and Mr. St. John will have to fit out an extra, and it shall 
 be the pleasant little invalid hack, and Simon, the pleasant 
 little invalid hack-dri^'er, shall drive it ; for Mr. St. John 
 owes it to the route, ever since he lost his bet on Tunny's 
 head ; and Munk will not object. I always told them, if we 
 only had a sick people's carriage, and a carriage with blinds 
 for lovers, and Simon, with his pleasant way of singing, to 
 drive it, we should do a swimming business. Did you ever 
 drive lovers ? It 's rich, driving them for nothing ! " 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITER ACTUALLY COMES. 
 
 A VIOLENT thumping was heard at the door of Willow 
 Croft, which, before it could be properly noticed, answered 
 itself, and burst into the house in the obese and burly shape 
 of Climper, of Climper's, or rather of Merrywater. He had 
 on a farmer's frock, and brandished a large whip in his hand. 
 " I am an odd fish," he said ; " I know I am. People abuse 
 me, and I let them alone ; — that is odd. They are kind to 
 me, and I am kind to them ; — that is odd. They won't be 
 happy, and I make them happy; — that, again, is odd. Out 
 of this," — he touched Richard with his whip, — " no more 
 sulking ! You would n't dance with Mrs. Melbourne, and I 
 made you ; and she likes it, and has had some more of it, 
 and I mean she shall have more yet. I love to please peo- 
 ple. Forward ! " 
 
 This was concise and forcible, — rather too much so for 
 Richard, in his present weak state. He would fain have an 
 explanation. The commentary was as obscure as the text. 
 But Richard learned as much as this, — that Climper liked 
 Richard and the Governor's Family ; — there may have been 
 cause from the fact that the Governor and his Family, and the 
 coaches belonging to Munk, Richard's brother-in-law, often 
 visited Merry water, and were profitable customers of Climper; 
 — that he had heard of the rupture between them, and pos- 
 sessed, as he imagined, a clue to the origin of it in Clover. 
 This fellow had been at Merrywater with Miss Eyre, Once, 
 being out with them on the pond, and drowsily tending the 
 
418 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 tiller, and, as they thought, sleepmg, he overheard Clover 
 urging Miss Eyre to the- assault of Eichard, and particu- 
 larly suggesting the method of approach, through Mrs. INIel- 
 bourne. He thought little of it at the time, — believed Rich- 
 ard could take care of himself. But a party, comprising 
 Captain Creamer, Mangil, Helen the Good, and Miss Free- 
 ling, being at his house, told him of the disastrous and irre- 
 trievable result. This man cherished, moreover, a particu- 
 lar disrelish for Clover, who ran up bills at Merrywater 
 v\rhich he never paid, and plagued Climper by a little yelp- 
 ing terrier that he took with him. Coming to Woodylin 
 with a load of vegetables for the Market, he went to Wil- 
 low Croft with purposes that he whimsically and character- 
 istically unfolded. 
 
 He would lead Richard to the Governor's. Richard drew 
 back. " That 's pleasant," said he. " I like opposition. It 
 stimulates me. Forward ! I '11 cry fire, if you wish it, and 
 raise the neighbors. Shall I run off with one of the chil- 
 dren ? Shall I go and let your hens out of the coop ? Shall 
 I get the city crier to ring your dumpishness through the 
 streets, — or you will not start? He laid his hand on 
 Richard's collar. The children clung to their mother, who 
 was herself alarmed. " I am not much used to women and 
 children," he said. " They are flesh, I suppose ; and all 
 flesh is vanity. If Richard knew this, he would be wiser 
 than he is now. We must teach him." 
 
 At this instant. Aunt Grint entered the room, in one of 
 her panics, though of a pleasanter sort than usual. " What 
 is it ? " she exclaimed. " We heard crickets as lively as 
 could be ! I could n't stop. I told Sally to mind the pot, 
 and I 'd run out, and see." 
 
 " We want this fellow to go to the Governor's," replied 
 Climper, " and he is n't willing. It 's a dreadful cross, but 
 he must bear it." 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 419 
 
 " That 's it ! " echoed the old woman. " I knew it was 
 something pleasant. I could n't stay to put up the dishes, 
 but come right out in the suds as I was. He shall go." 
 
 If Climper pulled at Richard's collar, Aunt Grint seemed 
 to drub his shoulders. 
 
 Resistance was unavailing against this novel pertinac- 
 ity. Richard took his hat, and went with Climper. Re- 
 luctantly, and with a shudder of trepidation, he allowed 
 himself to be taken to and through the Governor's gate, and 
 across the yard, and up the piazza, and face to face with the 
 great front-door. He must endure the heavy tramp of his 
 companion where he wished himself all cat's-paws, and his 
 violent ringing of the bell when there was not strength 
 enough in his own arm to shake a cob-web. Climper asked 
 for Mrs. Melbourne, and they were taken to the drawing- 
 room, Mrs. Melbourne appeared. She was formal and 
 reserved. She did not know to what she owed the honor of 
 the visit or the company. " To the pleasure I have in com- 
 ing to see you," replied Climper,, — " the same as people 
 come to see me," " People often behave very rudely at your 
 house," replied Mrs. Melbourne, " I know they do," re- 
 joined Climper, " and that is what has brought me here. 
 This young man — " 
 
 " I thought you would reler to his conduct," interrupted 
 the lady ; " but you need not. We are too well informed. 
 We (Jo not wish the subject broached in this way, Mr. 
 Climper." 
 
 " There are some things you would be glad to know." 
 
 " Nothing, — nothing," 
 
 " There are some things I should like to tell you, I am 
 an odd man, — very odd; I love to tell the truth." 
 
 " If anything more is to be said, I must call witnesses, I 
 am disinclined to personal communications relating to Mr. 
 Edaey," 
 
420 RICHARD EDNEY AKD 
 
 She left the room firmly, and returned with Miss Row- 
 ena, Barbara, and Glendar, — a formidable troop, that 
 would have abashed anybody but Climper. Cousin took a 
 seat on the sofa by Richard. Barbara posted herself behind 
 the centre-table, where she thrust one hand into a book, as 
 if she would let agitation discharge at the ends of her fin- 
 gers into its leaves. Glendar sat very stiffly in a chair, with 
 his hand in his vest. It fell to Mrs. Melbourne to face the 
 occasion, and support its dignity. 
 
 Climper, in his way, related the plot Clover had concerted 
 against the peace of Richard and the Family. 
 
 " I know nothing of Clover, — neither do I desire to," 
 interposed Mrs. Melbourne. 
 
 " Perhaps you do not," rejoined Climper. " I always go 
 against people's feelings, you say. I cannot stop that now; 
 — you must know about him." 
 
 " You will not insult my Aunt," said Glendar. 
 
 " Nor you either, so long as you run up bills at Merry- 
 water, which I suppose your Aunt is to pay." 
 
 Glendar grew more stiff in his chair, and seemed with the 
 hand in his vest to be clutching at his heart. Mrs. Mel- 
 bourne looked angrily at Climper, and worriedly at her 
 nephew. Cousin bit her lip very hard. 
 
 " There is nothing frightful in Clover." Mrs. Melbourne 
 tried to laugh the matter off". Climper laughed harder, and 
 added, " You are right. I have got my heel upon him." 
 
 " He is not a brute." This was a fling at Climper him- 
 self. 
 
 " He loves dogs, and is a dog ! " 
 
 " He is n't Miss Eyre ; — you must know he is n't, Mr. 
 Climper; and that is where wickedness lies." 
 
 Barbara trembled, and Richard, too. 
 
 " I have told you the truth about him,'" continued Clim- 
 per ; "and whether he is Miss Eyre or not, you can see. I 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 421 
 
 rather guess Miss Eyre is n't him, and is somebody else, and 
 you would do well to think so. He is a villain ; and if she 
 is n't him, perhaps she is n't a villain. Think of that. It 
 may do you all good to think of that. And I mean some- 
 body shall think of that. If you do not, and Miss Melicent 
 would come in, I would make her think of it." 
 
 This allusion to Melicent brought Glendar to his feet, but 
 it did not anybody else. Spending himself in an effort to 
 stand, tired, the young man left the room, and was speedily 
 followed by his indignant Aunt. 
 
 Climper said, " My business was with Mrs. Melbourne, 
 and I will go," — and took his leave. 
 
 No sooner was he out of the house than Mrs. Melbourne 
 returned, in haste, and flushed. 
 
 " We have been abused by that man. He was always a 
 brute ! " she said. 
 
 "You are very kind to the brute creation, Mrs. Mel- 
 bourne," said Cousin, softly. 
 
 This was better said than received. It raised a storm, in 
 which Richard would fain have got away. 
 
 " All this is nothing to the point," said Mrs. Melbourne. 
 " You must see that it is n't, Rowena." She did not deign 
 to address Richard. 
 
 " If it 's Clover's doings — " Cousin Rowena began to say. 
 
 " 'T is somebody's else doings ! " Mrs. Melbourne said 
 this with a tone so terrible, and a look so scathing, Richard 
 could not contain himself, and quite abruptly left the house. 
 
 He did, however, hear other words which Mrs. Melbourne 
 uttered, with a loud and almost tragic emphasis — 
 
 " You must see, Barbara, that Clover's agency don't alter 
 Miss Eyre's wrongs, nor that fellow's baseness ! " 
 
 These words, and the ring of the voice, adhered to Rich- 
 ard all the way home. 
 36 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 JUNLA. FULFILS HER INTENTION. 
 
 She came to the relief of Richard's spirits, and, as it 
 were, to the care of his hands ; and in the last, perhaps, 
 carried out the idea of the first, since a little outward over- 
 sight of this sort, and secular responsibility, could do him 
 no harm. 
 
 Simon brought her in the best manner Winkle could 
 devise. She entered softly and quietly, with an air of lofty 
 purpose, united to a sense of delicate position ; her face 
 was not so much sickly pale, as subdued by spiritual con- 
 cern ; her voice was sweet, but evening-like ; her eye was 
 mellow with love and enthusiasm. She kissed Roxy and 
 the children. 
 
 After tea, she sat in the rocking-chair in the parlor. 
 Junia had a more southern cast than Violet ; she was born, 
 her Grandfather used to say, in a warmer month. She had 
 dark eyes, and small and firm lips. The twilight, — that 
 blush with which Night introduces her starry train to the 
 world, — from over dun hills, crossing silent hollows and 
 entering the room through the cool trees Richard had 
 planted in the yard, — was reflected in the pure and exalted 
 fervor of her countenance. Was she, as one of the clouds 
 that floated in that burning expanse, turned for a brief 
 moment to flesh ? Was she a Daughter of God, ready to 
 be offered on some altar of human sorrow? Her thin 
 fingers, the delicacy of her frame, and even the sculptured 
 precision of her features, indicated, that if of mortal essence, 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 423 
 
 purged of mortal defilement, she was even then undergoing 
 translation. 
 
 " I have but one duty in life, Eichard," she said, " and 
 that is to thee ; my next is to join the Immortals. The 
 recompense and fulfilment of my love, that has been grow- 
 ing in the lonely places of thought, like the pitcher-plant, 
 and filling its cup with the dew and rain of an ideal good, 
 is to pour its contents on your parched life, and to see thee 
 blessed, thou greatly noble, and greatly wronged one ! " 
 
 Almost as if she were divinely inspired, Richard was 
 subdued before Junia, and ventured no remonstrance to the 
 course of her inclinations. 
 
 She had changed since he saw her ; she was feebler, but 
 more resolved, — less unreserved in her love, but more self- 
 forgetful in its intents, — very cheerful and very serious. 
 
 In two or three days, having worn off the fatigue of 
 her journey, she expressed a desire to visit the grave ef 
 Violet. 
 
 Simon, wlio had risen from stable-boy to hack-driA-er, who 
 loved to serve Richard, and continued to sing, with new 
 pathos to Richard's ear, that melancholy refrain, like a frag- 
 ment from the ruin of some old dirge which he carried about 
 wdth him, was ordered to bring up the invalid coach. 
 
 Junia entered the parlor from her chamber, clad in white ; 
 her dress and gloves were white, and a white rose-bud 
 adorned her hair. There was a singularly clear and lumin- 
 ous effect in her person and attire ; throughout, an unusual 
 carefulness showed, and her appearance was suggestive 
 almost of a bridal occasion, — an illusion which the pallid 
 ardor of her look rather heightened than destroyed. Fair to 
 the senses, her aspect was still more affecting to the imag- 
 ination ; and Richard, sacredly moved, drew from under his 
 
424 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 vest, where he had so sadly worn it, the small golden cross, 
 which he reverently hung on her neck. 
 
 Simon's song was heard at the gate, and Junia, throwing 
 on her bonnet and shawl, left the house. Richard would 
 have done more than hand her into the carriage, — he would 
 go with her; but she said, " Not now." He could do little 
 else than listen to the wailing cavatina of the boy, as he 
 drove off with the precious minister to his peace. 
 
 She was driven to Rosemary Dell. Under the shadows 
 of pines, and along circling walks, she wended her way to 
 the spot where Violet lay. A willow hung over the enclos- 
 ure ; and those flowers that gave the sleeper her name, in 
 lowly beauty — little Vestal-fires of Nature — cherished 
 the sanctity of her grave. Junia leaned upon the willow, 
 and wept ; in weeping she vented her sisterly sorrow, and 
 at the same time, as it were, moistened and bedewed the 
 springs of her own feeling. What went forth in sadness, 
 like the exlialation of troubled water, returned in gentle 
 showers of consolation and gladness to the wasting verdure 
 of her soul. " Soon, soon," she said, " I shall be with you, 
 thou blessed one ! I thank thee that I can weep for thee, — 
 I feel how nearly I am at one with thee ! A mission which 
 thou wouldst bless, for the friend of us both, and for one 
 whom, oh my sister, thou couldst have loved, — an injured 
 one of earth, — is the brief distance I must travel, before I 
 come to thee, — and to you. Father, Mother, — and to Thee, 
 oh Saviour of men ! " 
 
 Having finished her prayer, she returned to the carriage. 
 
 Did she perceive that Miss Eyre was in the cemetery, 
 alone, and apparently thoughtful and pensive, — like some 
 penitent Spirit of Evil, meditating among those vestiges of 
 decay ? She was there ; and with steadfast eye, — nor could 
 it be otherwise than with deep sensitiveness of heart, — 
 
THK GOVEKNOR's FAMILY. 425 
 
 behind contiguous shrubbery, she beheld the emotion of 
 Junia. She followed her as she left the place, and over- 
 heard her direction to Simon, to Governor Bennington's. 
 
 We shall take the liberty to enter with Junia at the 
 Governor's, and while she waits reception, look at the state 
 of feeling the Family is in. 
 
 Miss Eyre had been summoned as a rejoinder to Climper. 
 She denied Clover's complicity with her afiixirs ; — this to 
 Mrs. Melbourne. But to Miss Rowena, who questioned her 
 more at length, she admitted, not that her wrongs were less, 
 but that, her delicacy being greater, Clover appeared, and 
 not only recommended, but potentially and portentously 
 urged her to the course she had taken. Herein she spoke 
 absolute truth. 
 
 The Family, then, we cannot say were in a stale of 
 doubt, but in a state of certainty, with its surface somewhat 
 ruffled. Mrs. Melbourne, however, was ruffled painfully, — 
 Cousin Rowena pleasantly. The latter rejoiced in the 
 agitation Climper had given the Family, and was glad 
 to feel anything like a disturbance in the career of those 
 terrible convictions down which she was rapidly tending. 
 Melicent, about whom all the interest and all the moods of 
 the Family gravitated, must listen to varied accounts, and 
 be torn by contending emotions. 
 
 Miss Eyre having become domiciled equally in Mrs. 
 Melbourne's heart and rooms, by a side door, entered the 
 house soon after Junia, and went to the chamber of her 
 friend. 
 
 Junia inquired for Melicent, whom she had seen in 
 Violet's sickness. Melicent did not recollect Junia. She 
 extended her hand to the pale figure before her, whose min- 
 gled look of anxiety and earnestness, as well as the shadowy 
 features and pure attire, arrested her attention and kindled 
 36*= 
 
426 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 her fancy. " I am Junia," said the latter. " When Violet 
 was sick, you were with us ; you laid flowers on her bier." 
 
 Melicent, moved by this recall of the past, and the vision 
 of the present, affectionately saluted her. 
 
 " I wish to speak of Richard." Junia said this with an 
 emphasis that quite thrilled Melicent, who, at once surprised 
 and awed, echoed, " Richard ! " In a moment, collecting 
 herself, she said, " If of that, come to my chamber," — 
 whither they went. 
 
 " I came," said Junia, when they were seated, " to inter- 
 cede for Richard. I know him to be pure and good. I 
 have long known him so. And you, Melicent, -;— you have 
 known him so. Your heart, your memory, your reason, 
 remind you of nothing else." 
 
 Melicent became pale, — paler, even, than the speaker 
 before her. 
 
 " Do not think of that, — do not confuse yourself with 
 it at all," continued Junia. " He has erred, — he may have 
 sinned ; but his sin is not beyond forgiveness or removal. 
 It is lost in the depth of his piety, — it is swept away by 
 his virtues, as a leaf on the river." 
 
 " I do not think of that," answered Melicent, strongly 
 agitated ; " I think beyond that, of him." 
 
 " And he loves you ! " 
 
 " Loves me ? " cried Melicent. 
 
 "Loves you," replied Junia, "with unmixed, unchanging 
 love, — loves as purely as an angel in heaven might love." 
 
 " How can you know that ? — alas ! alas ! " 
 
 "I know him," replied Junia; "how, I cannot tell, — I 
 dare not tell. I know him, as your own heart knows him ; 
 — and tell me, do you love him ?" 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Melicent ; " where is that in my deepest 
 
THE governor's FAmLY. 427 
 
 heart which I once was, and worshipped, and lost, and 
 missed ? " 
 
 " I recall it," said Junia ; " I bring it back." 
 
 " To have once doubted," said Melicent, " not that, for 
 that might be; but to doubt him, to fear him; to feel the 
 approach of vague, invisible possibilities, which smite and 
 stagger you, when you can do nothing ; to have the venom- 
 ous, bitter uncertainties of things, like reptiles from the Dark 
 Mountains, get into your heart, and be shut in there, — 
 there, where a woman's longing, and hope, and ideal, are all 
 kept; to be once so disturbed and so sickened ; — oh, what 
 is wom.an ? What are you ? What am I ? " 
 
 " Hear me," said Junia ; " listen to me. I speak as a 
 woman." 
 
 "A Great Evil," rejoined Melicent, "has befallen me; 
 the Good Father knows why. Its terror chills my frame ; 
 its darkness obscures my thought. O, Parent of the Uni- 
 verse, teach thy child submission, — guide her heart ! " 
 She started from her chair, and with mingled despair, 
 mournfulness, and hope, walked the room, wringing her 
 hands wildly. She flung herself on a seat in the embrasure 
 of the window, where the heavy tapestry concealed her face, 
 but could not hide the voice of her anguish. 
 
 Junia rose, and deliberately laid off her bonnet and shawl. 
 She approached Melicent, and solemnly knelt at her feet. 
 As if a flash of pathos, inspired by piety, had knelt before her, 
 the white array, ghostly complexion, and golden cross of 
 Junia, mystically aroused Melicent. 
 
 " What is this I see ?" she exclaimed. 
 
 " The lover and the bride of Richard," calmly replied 
 Junia. " Such I plead with thee for him — " 
 
 " What do I hear?'' Melicent cried, still more excited. 
 
 " Listen, oh best beloved of the best beloved ! I love 
 
428 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 Richard ; — I loved him for his greatness and his purity ; I 
 loved him with the instinct of girlhood, — I have loved him 
 with the meditativeness of womanhood. I love you, oh 
 precious sister of my soul ! because you love him. I know 
 what you feel ; I share your sufferings. He, too, suffers. I 
 have been near his heart ; I have heard its lonely anguish ; 
 I have felt its tortured throbs. I love his happiness ; and 
 his happiness is your love ; and the happiness of you both 
 is your mutual reiinion. I am his bride, but through you. 
 My love for him I give to you. Take it into your heart, — 
 let it be your love ! Let it survive in the depth of your 
 affection ! Let it shed its light upon the darkness that sur- 
 rounds you ! And when, in the rapture of being, you can call 
 him your own, remember, oh remember, that one, young and 
 inexperienced, — too susceptible, perhaps too constant, — that 
 Junia loved him too ! " 
 
 "How can I support this?" exclaimed Blelicent. "In 
 what heavenly transition do I awake ? Art thou a mortal ?" 
 
 " I am simple Junia," replied the other ; " but hear me ; 
 — I am brided to Richard's and your felicitj'-. I put on this 
 little array, such as a fond girl's heart might choose ; cloth- 
 ing not my body, but an irrepressible promise of things in 
 my soul; clothing, it may be, some -old, pleasant feelings, 
 that once wished to be the bride of Richard ; clothing, too, 
 the brief remaining hour of my life for marriage with the 
 ideal vision which your union with him is to my mind, — 
 the union of Wealth and Worth, — of Refinement and 
 Nobleness, — of Richard and Melicent ! " 
 
 " Dearest Junia ! " cried Melicent ; " purest of beings ! 
 Let me embrace you, — let me fold to my heart its long-lost 
 tranquillity ! " 
 
 " I perish, — I die ! " answered Junia. " The voice of the 
 oriole has been heard. My happiness is complete when 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 429 
 
 yours begins. I am called to the spirit land, — let me 
 bless you and Richard ere I go — " 
 
 Her voice faltered ; blood on her lips betrayed the violent 
 hemorrhage that succeeded. She fainted ; and while Meli- 
 cent was attempting to support her, an outbursting sob, as 
 of some one in the chamber, was heard. It was Miss Eyre, 
 who instantly, but trembling with emotion, advanced, and 
 assisted in carrying the languid frame to the bed. 
 
 Miss Eyre had followed Junia, — followed her with 
 more than usual concern, and even approached the chamber 
 of Melicent, where, moved by the impassioned language 
 within, she opened the door, and beheld Junia at Meliceut's 
 feet, and heard her words. 
 
 She was at least awed. Solemn, tender, delicate, she 
 exerted herself to bring back the spirit that seemed so sud- 
 denly and so affectingly to have vanished. 
 
 Opening her eyes, Junia said, " Ah, Plumy Alicia ! and 
 you too, — you to bless the hour, — you to make us all 
 happy ?" 
 
 The house was aroused. Madam Dennington, confined 
 to her room by some illness of the season, could no more 
 than give directions for the sick one. Miss Ej-re sum- 
 moned Mrs. Melbourne, who was always kind to the unfor- 
 tunate, and who forgot everything else in an occasion like 
 the present. 
 
 Dr. Chassford, the family physician, was called, who, 
 with other specifics, ordered quietness and rest. His man- 
 ner showed, what all felt, that Junia could not live long. 
 
 " I am quiet," she said, a little while afterwards. " I 
 have unburdened my heart, and I rest." 
 
 But she grew weaker, and could not be moved. " Send 
 word," she said, " to Willow Croft, that 1 cannot return to- 
 day, but not to be alarmed for me." 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE HEART OF MISS EYRE. 
 
 The immediate excitement of this casualty having sub- 
 sided, the Family were left to ponder more serious matters 
 connected with the visit of Junia. Mrs. Whichcomb and the 
 council were disposed of, — Clover's villany stood revealed. 
 What remained, that Richard should not be immediately 
 summoned, and the reconciliation celebrated? Miss Eyre 
 remained, broodingly, silently, awfully. She remained 
 literally with Mrs. Melbourne, who would not suffer her to 
 leave the house ; — she remained mysticallj^ in all hearts 
 and apprehensions. Why should not the Family throw 
 itself upon its intuitions, and act at once in obedience 
 thereto ? It was not a way it had, — if we except Barbara, 
 who had such a way, and put on her hat to execute it. But 
 Roscoe, who was pruning trees in the front yard, prevented 
 her; — Roscoe, the silent and unsocial one, reputed so queer 
 and strange. " Plumy Alicia," said he, " has not spoken. 
 If Richard is recalled, she must be banished; his exonera- 
 tion is her perdition. We must wait a little. There are 
 things to be explained yet. Who of us can pretend to 
 fathom all this mystery ? " Barbara loved Roscoe and 
 yielded to him. 
 
 Melicent and Junia both felt, and they all felt, what 
 Roscoe expressed. " God will help us, " said Junia. " Let 
 us wait on him." " I can wait, if you can," responded 
 Melicent. 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 431 
 
 What would Miss Eyre do ? We have said she betrayed 
 extreme emotion at the sight of Junia and Melicent. What 
 did she see at that moment ? She saw an old, fond love, 
 intent, not upon the possession but the welfare of the 
 beloved; she saw hopelessness pleading with aversion in 
 behalf of neglect ; she saw virtue seeking to acquit turpi- 
 tude to conscience ; disinterestedness launched on destruction 
 to render deliverance. She saw Junia supplicating Melicent 
 for Richard; she saw woman's heart yielding heroically to 
 rival supremacy; she saw a young girl's gushing, undying 
 affection, sacrificing itself on the altar of another's love. 
 She beheld cheerfulness where she anticipated moodiness, 
 constancy where she had prophesied hatred ; and was the 
 witness of a defence from a quarter which to her oa^ti mind 
 boded nothing but scorn and vengeance. 
 
 The sight overcame her ; it^ novelty, mystery, pathos, 
 amazed her ; its incantation spun through all her frame. 
 But while it swept like a wind across the forest of her 
 sensibilities, we are not prepared to say it upturned a single 
 root of her purpose. 
 
 The next day, being alone with Mrs. Melbourne, she 
 burst into tears. 
 
 " I do not wonder )'ou feel bad," said her old mistress. 
 "If I were not more than usually sustained, I should cry too. 
 What a height of impudence and vulgarity I " 
 
 Miss Eyre made no answer. 
 
 " Try the camphor-bottle ; — oh dear, how wicked is man! 
 how unfeeling are the lower orders ! That Richard would 
 kill you, if he were left to himself one moment ! I have 
 seen him strike a horse that was all in a foam of sweat. — 
 Open the window, where you can breathe." This did not 
 abate Miss Eyre's distress. 
 
 " I do not blame you, Plumy Alicia," continued her com- 
 
432 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 forter. " I cannot ; I have it not in my heart to see the least 
 of God's creatures suffer, except some who deserve it. — 
 Well, I will not, — I know you are tender on that point. 
 Don't cry so, dear girl ! you shall marry Kichard. Lie 
 on my bed, — smell of this chamomile. If Richard has 
 wronged you, and you still love him, you shall have him. 
 I know we cannot help our feelings. When I was young — 
 oh God forgive me ! — There, there ; I will never speak 
 against Richard again." 
 
 Miss Eyre wept herself to sleep, and sank from convul- 
 sions to repose. 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne smoothed her hair and dress, and sat 
 tenderly by her side. " I did not know," she said within 
 herself, " she could feel so much. But she shall not be dis- 
 appointed. What could have induced that country girl to 
 undertake such a thing? Why is she sick? Do we not 
 see God's finger in it? — That Glendar should be rejected, 
 and that bad man promoted, is impossible." 
 
 When Miss Eyre awoke, it was with a manner apparently 
 averted from Mrs. Melbourne ; so much so that this lady 
 regarded her with surprise. 
 
 " Why don't you speak ? " she said. 
 
 " I can't to you," replied Miss Eyre. 
 
 " Why not to me ? I am your friend. What are you 
 going to do ? " She asked this with consternation, as Miss 
 Eyre, with hidden determination in her eye, left the bed. 
 
 " To see Junia," answered Miss Eyre. 
 
 " She has told her story," murmured Mrs. Melbourne. 
 
 " What if there were some truth in it ? " rejoined the 
 other. 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne would have screamed ; but she hushed 
 herself, and said, " Plumy Alicia, how rash ! Will you 
 ruin yourself, and disgrace us all? May she not have 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 433 
 
 deceived ? There is nothing too bad for some people to do ! 
 Who sent her here, — who ? I wish the truth might be told, 
 — all the truth, — and I am glad there area few honest 
 ears to hear it ! " 
 
 Miss Eyre disappeared. She went to the bed-side of 
 Junia. 
 
 Junia looked up, with a serene, rill-like smile, and laid 
 her thin, transparent hand outside the bed, as it were invit- 
 ing Miss Eyre's into it. 
 
 " Did you love Richard ? " said Miss Eyre. 
 
 " You know I loved him," replied Junia. 
 
 " And you gave him up ? " 
 
 " God took him, and gave him to another." 
 . " I am not religious. Tell Mrs. Melbourne of that. 
 Had you no hatred to him for leaving you ? " 
 
 " He never left me; — I only clung to him." 
 
 " In that clinging, Junia, w-as there not joy, rapture, 
 life ? " 
 
 " Alas, dear Plumy Alicia, yes ! " 
 
 " But you gave it all up, and have helped another one to 
 cling where you were clinging, and to exult in what was 
 your bliss ? " 
 
 " She had a better right than I. Besides, his happiness 
 was concerned, and her happiness, and the happiness of so 
 many. And, dear Plumy Alicia, I have never been so happy 
 as I am now ; — I have done no more than my duty, and 
 what God would have me do. You will not make Richard 
 unhappj% will you? You will not do anything to distress 
 his noble spirit, will you ? You have been weeping ; you 
 will never weep again when Richard is happy ; — you will be 
 happy too." 
 
 Miss Eyre could not answer ; she meditated. 
 
 Junia resumed. " I could not go into the next world, — 
 37 
 
434 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 and we must all go there, — with the sin of unkindness to 
 Richard, and Melicent, and all these excellent ones, on my 
 soul." 
 
 Miss Eyre withdrew to the window, and sat where Mel- 
 icent sat and Junia kneeled. 
 
 The same day. Miss Rowena did slip away to Willow 
 Croft, but simply to tell them how Junia was, and to tell 
 Richard how nobly she had vindicated him. She dared 
 only allude to Miss Eyre ; and Richard, perhaps, wished 
 her to do no more than that. He had himself a feeling 
 about Miss Eyre which Miss Rowena could not fathom. 
 
 Another night passed in the Family, — a night of thick, 
 silent darkness, w^hen the clouds seem to be in the streets, 
 and walking about the houses, — when the windows all 
 become black mirrors of things in the room, and if the 
 heart is sad, these images look very gloomy. The whisk- 
 ing of wind in the trees, or the pattering of rain on the 
 piazza, would have been a relief. Mrs. Melbourne was very 
 melancholy, and Miss Eyre very pale. 
 
 Junia was a little day-time in her own heart and chamber, 
 — a pleasant taper of resignation and patience ; and she 
 made Melicent and Barbara, who sat with her, feel hopeful 
 and cheerful. 
 
 The next morning, Miss Eyre sought a private moment 
 with Melicent. She said, " Neither yoU nor I can abide 
 this much longer. I do not speak. Do you wish me to ? 
 Do you wish me to open my mouth ? Do you wish to look 
 through fair lips and beautiful teeth — they say I have 
 them, — and beyond the smoothness of my tongue, into the 
 depths of what I am, — into here, — into this, — which 
 they call a heart ? " 
 
 "Let me see everything it is in your power to show, that 
 will be of any use to see," replied Melicent. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 436 
 
 " Under this roof," continued Miss Eyre, " that now 
 accuses me, derived I the elements of my crime. Some of 
 them, — not all. Here were sown the seeds of. the bitter 
 night-shade you now taste in me. Not you, gentle, great 
 one ; — not Barbara ; — not the Governor. Mrs. Melbourne 
 taught me the essential worthlessness of that large class of 
 people among whom I was born, and with whom it might be 
 my fortune to spend my days. Mrs. Melbourne is generous, 
 humane, tender-hearted. I am under a thousand obliga- 
 tions to her kindness ; but she despises the lower orders, and 
 she would have me despise, betray, disinherit my own kith 
 and kin. I was ambitious, — proud, they call it. What is 
 That ? You know not. You were born great. You cannot 
 step out without stepping into littleness. Then how easy, 
 how pleasant, to take a few steps in that direction, — merely 
 passing from Wilton carpets to dusty streets, — and go 
 home to your own greatness ! But for me, born little, to 
 step into greatness, — how hard, how hazardous ! Then to 
 go home to littleness, — to creep back, after a pleasant 
 exaltation, into one's mean hovel, — you know not what 
 that is ! 
 
 " Then there is love. O burden, unreilcting fatality, or- 
 ganic sigh, of woman ! But whom love ? Where my 
 hearth-stone ? Who lie in these arms ? You cannot under- 
 stand this. You are in a gallery of fine portraits, and can 
 take any one. I am surrounded by daubs, and must hunt 
 for what is tolerable. Have I no desire for what is excel- 
 lent? Pulsates not every fibre of this woman's frame for 
 the embrace of purity, elevation, nobleness ? I saw Rich- 
 ard, — I liked him; — I tell you I liked him! He united 
 the loftiness of the higher classes with the solid virtues of 
 his own. I sprang towards him, in my heart, wantonly 
 wildly. His reserve and moderation the rather inflamed 
 
436 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 me. I intrigued, — yes, I was trained to that. What self- 
 ishness of voluptuousness, what shallowness of mediocrity, 
 what cravings of the hod-clopperhood, have importuned for 
 me, and sighed at my feet, and cajoled my vanity ! I tor- 
 tured him. The Redferns tortured me, more than you 
 know of, — more than I can relate. Virtue, — I am not 
 virtuous ! Is Mrs. Melbourne, who has so perverted my 
 existence, virtuous ? Is F.iddledeeana Redfern, who has so 
 wounded every womanly sensibility within me, virtuous ? 
 Do not look so upbraidingly at me ! " 
 
 " I do not upbraid you. I am only deeply concerned in 
 what you say." 
 
 " Give me your smelling-bottle. I am not going to faint. 
 I want to carry off my excitement with spirit. You cannot 
 think of my faults worse than I suffer from them. I abhor 
 Clover ; but he menaced me, — menaced not only my happi- 
 ness, but even my life. I should support his cause, he 
 said, or he would overrun me, — he would destroy me. He 
 would have plunged me into the depths of Merrywater. 
 Well if he had ! I could not endure Richard's union with, 
 you. Hear the whole, and then do with me as you will. It 
 rankled here. I could not help it." 
 
 " You mean," said Melicent, " you did not help it. You 
 never practised self-control ; you had no religious humil- 
 ity." 
 
 " Practised nothing, — had nothing, that you call good. 
 No, no! Little of that has addressed itself to me. Good 
 men, — your good men, — do not speak to me; — bad 
 men are false and selfish with me. My regard for Rich- 
 ard was the only good thing of my life ! I believed he 
 loved me ; at least, I believed I could make him love 
 me, — that I had made him love me. Others managed for 
 my approbation, — why should I not for his? Glendar has 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 437 
 
 adored my smile, — why should I not fawn on Eichard's 
 heart ? You are interested, — you may well be. I come to 
 the quick of the thing. / have told Jio miti-uths about Rich- 
 ard .' — Do not destroy your fan; you may be glad to use 
 it before I have done. — Have you not learned that nobody 
 tells lies ? They tell truths so that they shall seem a lie, 
 
 — that is all. I let untruths be told ; — or rather, surrounded 
 by stupidity and fanaticism, I had only to let the false im- 
 pressions of people take their own course. I gave to truth 
 a little of the rouge, the twinkle, the fine airs, of falsehood, 
 and I had no further trouble. I knew not precisely the na- 
 ture of his visits at the sick chamber of Violet ; nor did I 
 care to know, — it was little to me, any way. • Mrs. Which- 
 comb believed, or made herself believe, he had other objects 
 than charity ; and she made more than one bejieve it, too. 
 The lower orders have their faults and vices. They do not 
 understand nobleness, or intellectuality, or cultured simplic- 
 ity and freedom. They misappreciate you, Melicent, and 
 your father, and your church, and your minister, and your 
 whole social circle and position. It is not a month since, 
 down on the Islands, I heard a man say he hoped the Gov- 
 ernor would come to his last crust, — he did not care how 
 soon I How easy, then, to pervert a visit to a sick chamber ! 
 I knew Junia loved Richard ; and that I did care to know. 
 I first dreaded, then hated her. And afterwards, so far as 
 his connection with )'ou was concerned, I thought she would 
 hate him. Here I was mistaken. Of that, presently." 
 
 " You acquit Richard of the aspersions that have been 
 thrown upon him ? " said Melicent, with some earnestness. 
 
 " Do not be impassioned ; — that is reserved for me. Junia 
 disappointed me ; she appalled me ; she has wrung my heart, 
 
 — ^vrung its animosity, its fire, its intention, all out of it. 
 She is the first gleam of light in this dark world of affections 
 
 37* 
 
438 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 and passions that surrounds me. As Clover says, she has 
 crushed me ! Sorrow, remorse, hurtle pitilessly through this 
 ruin of my being. Eichard is too innocent, -;— too harm- 
 less. If he had only been guilty, — not that, — if he had 
 been selfish or forward, — I should have loved him more : — 
 nay, I should have scorned him ! He has his weak points ; 
 and his weak ones are my strong ones, and there I should 
 have mastered him, but for a something beyond. — What is 
 that something ? " 
 
 " Eeligion, — Conscience, — God." 
 
 " I did not ask to be told of that. I only asked in a 
 reverie sort of way. Richard relies on the simplicity of 
 things, and what he supposes to be the goodness of men. 
 He deceives himself." 
 
 " Are you never deceived ?" 
 
 " Richard is sorry for me. He knows I am not exempt 
 from pangs. He feels committed, not to me, but to my mis- 
 ery. You can break a man's heart, sometimes, by breaking 
 your own." 
 
 "Angelic Richard! Wicked, wicked Plumy Alicia I " 
 
 " Not on purpose, — not altogether with guile. — I was 
 broken. He has even now to step over my desolation to 
 reach you." 
 
 Melicent raised her handkerchief to her face. 
 
 " You can weep, Melicent. I have wept. I have 
 drained myself dry, as the stubble after reaping. 
 
 " Did Richard have no intention and respect of love 
 towards me ? Could I raise none such ? Ah ! he said he 
 detested me! I have been deceived, — I deceived myself. 
 Junia ! Junia ! thou wert a woman ; I was a — 
 
 " Where am I ? Whither shall I turn ? The world, that 
 clutched at my story, and, bartering its respect for its envy, 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 439 
 
 patronized my cause, and poured its venom on Richard, will 
 whirl upon me." 
 
 "Is there not such a thing as duty?" 
 
 " Junia said so, and you say so; and I suppose it is so." 
 
 " You speak," said Melicent, " as if there were no good- 
 ness. Is there none in the Church, — none in the Griped 
 Hand, — none in the little children, — none in every street 
 of the city, or in a thousand families, and in innumerable 
 individuals ? " 
 
 " Yes, there are good, honest men and women among 
 what are called the lower orders, — young men and young 
 women, whom I have associated with, and worked with, — 
 who would not do a wrong thing for the world, — who are 
 goodness itself, more than you know of. But I must, for- 
 sooth, look down upon them ! I nmst see among them a 
 lower order of taste and feeling! And, in fact, I must find 
 amongst many of them an ignorant, indeed, but systematic 
 depreciation of what is ever and deeply to my eye socially 
 bright and glorious, the Governor's Family. Who of them 
 could afford me that sympathy which my heart craved, or 
 my judgment would select? I must either marry a man 
 whom I despised, or be the mistress of a man who despised 
 me. I would do and be neither. A man like Richard, Lum- 
 berer though he be, can marry the Governor's daughter ! " 
 
 " What if you should marry the Governor's son ? " said 
 Melicent, playfully. " There is Brother Roscoe, the odd 
 one. He used to like you ; he left his books to be with 
 you ; he used to swing you under the elms, and run of 
 your errands. He is not fond of our society ; he attaches 
 himself to none of the young ladies that visit us. In all 
 this dreadful affair, I have noticed that he abstained from 
 reproaching you. I am not certain but you carried away a 
 portion of his heart." 
 
440 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 " Are you willing that I should marry him ? " asked Miss 
 Eyre. 
 
 " Indeed, I am." 
 
 " Pure, good, magnanimous Melicent, how I thank you, 
 
 — how I love you — how I am all vanquished again, — 
 killed by goodness ! Not that I will marry him ; I will not, 
 
 — never, never! — but that you reveal yourself so, — you 
 look out so prettily, and so Junia-like ! " 
 
 " Then you give me Richard, if I give you Roscoe ? " 
 This, also, playfully. 
 
 "Richard is all yours, — was ever yours ; his fair, large 
 being, hidden to me, broods over you. I am healed, not by 
 your promises, but by your goodness. Richard will see no 
 bruises in me. But to the world I am dead, — I must be as 
 dead. How can I be obscure enough ? How shall I escape 
 Mrs. Melbourne ? Cousin Rowena, and Barbara, and all 
 of you, must loathe me. I do not ask you to save me. 
 Junia yielded up all her love for you ; — you yield all the 
 sentiments of your rank for me. What is left for me but 
 to yield myself to — fate ? 
 
 "God — " 
 
 "I am humbled ; — teach me to be pious." 
 
 "And to my discretion." 
 
 "I am a child ; — lead me where you will." 
 
 "I can take care of Mrs. Melbourne, and our family can 
 take care of itself, and Providence \\nll take care of the 
 world." 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THE SUN BREAKS OUT, 
 
 Richard walked down St. Agnes-street, with a tranquil, 
 lydian step. At the gate of the Governor's, he saw Meli- 
 cent standing in the vine-wreathed piazza, where she had 
 come out to wait for him. She was dressed in her peculiar 
 blue, which she remembered Richard liked ; and she was a 
 pure blue thought already, in Richard's imagination, and 
 looked as if her Guardian Angel had bathed her in the 
 azure of the sky, and the azure of Richard's feelings, and 
 placed her there on purpose to meet her old and good 
 beloved. 
 
 She received him with an affectionate smile, — a smile 
 that bared her teeth beautifully, but pensively, as if joy 
 still swam in the remembrance of a long sorrow ; — a smile 
 that, descending, clove asunder her arms, and parted the 
 Doubt and the Fear that had hung over her being, and 
 turned them into silvery clouds, on the right hand and the 
 left, through which Richard passed to the brightness of her 
 spirit. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 ORANGE-BLOSSOMS. 
 
 The Wedding Eve of Richard and Melicent was a splen- 
 did one, — splendid in its feelings, in its guests, in its 
 appointments. All the friends of Richard and all the 
 friends of Melicent were there, and this was a multitude. 
 The Father and Mother of Richard were there, and his 
 early spiritual and intellectual guides. Pastor Harold and 
 Teacher Willwell. Through an illuminated archway of 
 trees, and an illuminated portal, the guests swept to bright 
 chambers, — bright as the day-spring of joy that had arisen 
 on the house. The brightness flowed down and culminated 
 in the ample drawing-room, — raying from astrals and wax- 
 lights, from minstrel hearts and evening-star eyes, from 
 fragrant fiovv^ers and glorified dresses, and, more than all, 
 from the deep, central fires of holy, fervent felicitation. 
 
 Beneath one of the antique arches that garnished the 
 space on either side of the chimney stood Miss Eyre and 
 Chassford. Parson Smith was not sorry to be called to 
 marry Richard and Melicent, and it is said- clergymen 
 generally are happy at weddings, and fond of wedding-cake. 
 If there was one person in the room not fully penetrated with 
 the spirit of the occasion, it was Mrs. Melbourne. She had 
 the habit of saying a wedding was like a funeral ; and, as if 
 to actualize the sentiment, she came out in black. 
 
 There entered, to make the vow and receive the covenant 
 which the State ordains and the Church supports, — which 
 in all ages has been agreeable to the reason and religion 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC, 443 
 
 of mankind, — Richard and Melicent, with their train of 
 attendants. 
 
 The service was simple and affecting, brief and full, edi- 
 fying and hopeful. Before the benediction, an appropriate 
 hymn was sung, led by Mangil, chorister in the Church of 
 the Redemption. There was a movement as of a flocking 
 to kiss the bride, Avhen Junia entered the room. The 
 crowd held back ; all eyes were suspended on her, while as 
 a vision she passed through. She approached the altar- 
 place, and kissed Melicent. Taking from her breast the 
 golden cross of Richard, she hung it on Melicent's neck. 
 She tenderly kissed Richard ; it was her first and her last 
 kiss. She was supported out of the room, and was seen no 
 more alive on the earth. 
 
 The returning and irresistible wave of joy brought the 
 whole room about the Bride and Groom, and kisses and con- 
 gratulations fell upon them, like bouquets at the feet of 
 Jenny Lind ; — we cannot keep that woman out of our mind, 
 though we have never seen or heard her, and never expect 
 to do so; — not as if the spot Junia's lips had touched was 
 holy ground, where no one might tread, but as if her com- 
 ing in had been a ray of the sunshine of God on pleasant 
 fields, where old men and children, young men and maidens, 
 might freely disport. Cake and wine ; — and, lest some 
 feral reader shall find here a bone to pick with us, we will 
 tell the whole truth, — it was Cousin Rowena's raspberry 
 wine ; — cake and wine were brought in, and quickly and 
 pleasantly disposed of. Then followed the Bride Cake ; the 
 May Queen, in this procession of good things, mounted on a 
 silver basket, and daintily adorned with flowers and shrub- 
 bery. This, appropriated to the unmarried, contained a 
 diamond ring, with the significance that whoever got the 
 rina: would be married first. Bachelors and maidens were 
 
444 RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 
 
 instantly as wounded birds. Cousin Eowena bit her lip. 
 She made the cake, and knew where the ring lay, and 
 superintended the distribution. Barbara got the ring. 
 
 This was hardly fair, as she belonged to the house ; but 
 there remained only one piece, and there could be no collu- 
 sion about that ; and it was to Cousin's mind as if Provi- 
 dence directed the matter, and she said, slyly, " Take it, 
 take it ;" so the talismanic bauble fell into the hands of 
 Barbara. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 ATHANATOPSIS. 
 
 Toll heavily, — toll sadly ! Ring out, oh Funeral Bell ! 
 Thou hast a place in this our world. Thy knell is needed 
 as well as thy chime, and w^ill find as many hearts prepared 
 for it. There is a peal, not of exultation as of success, — 
 not of terror as of the grave ; but between these, and yet 
 louder and deeper, more thrilling, more ecstasizing; pro- 
 longed in all the exercises of profoundest sentiment, — 
 awakening dim and heavenly responses in the furthest- 
 reaching glimpses of the imagination, — drowning the voices 
 of the world, — attempering every vain, every selfish im- 
 pulse, — coming upon the hours of meditation and feeling, 
 like the pensive rhythm of the sea on the beach at midnight ; 
 breaking in upon the abodes of sordidness, lust, and all 
 unrighteousness, with the hoarse clangor of gathering doom ; 
 a peal that kindles a thousand chords in every heart — new 
 and strange chords — and shakes with a master hand old 
 chords, — chords that strike through, eliminate from, and 
 push beyond, all ordinary pulses of existence, — chords that, 
 starting in the slumbering ages that have gone by, vibrat- 
 ing amid the turmoil and din of the present hour, carry 
 forward the feelings to the regions of Light, Hope, Proph- 
 ecy : — it is the peal of Immortality ! 
 
 Toll on, — toll out, thou Passing Bell ! At thy voice, the 
 
 solemn owl awakes, and the cry of the whippoorwill is 
 
 heard ; amaranths and myrtles grow, and daisies and violets 
 
 start in their humble beds; willows and cypresses, green 
 
 38 
 
446 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 fountains of sorrow, break out on the hill-side and in the 
 valley J the rock sprouts in obelisks, and sterile marble 
 yields fair cherubic forms ; slips of roses are planted, to be 
 tended in the long coming years of sorrow; and slips of old, 
 departed feelings are gathered up, and reanimated in the 
 bosom of loneliness. 
 
 Toll on, — toll out ! At thy wail, softness comes over 
 the sky, and piety into the heart ; friendship and love throng 
 to the cemetery, and tears distil as the dew on the green 
 leaves that grow about the tomb, and climb as the ivy over 
 ancient and beloved reminiscences ; taste and art go forth 
 on feet of affection, and, with an eye of tender inspiration, 
 from all God's earth select the fairest spots for the dead, 
 to lie in. 
 
 Toll, toll ! Envy departs, animosities subside, alienations 
 are reconciled ; the fretful insect that weaves in the loom of 
 discord and strife intermits its labor ; the corroding worm 
 at the root of faction and party stops its gnawing. 
 
 Toll, toll! Thy plaintive reverberations spread every- 
 where, and melt humanity into one ; the rich man speaks 
 gently to the poor, and the poor man pities the rich ; the 
 bereaved Pagan mother folds to her bosom the weeping 
 Christian mother; the ferocity of revolution pauses, muffles 
 its grimness and its arms on the threshold of the chamber of 
 the dying prince. Thy pathos sways the earth, and as the 
 wind, in eddies of light and shadow, with lulling murmur, 
 flovvs across a field of supple wheat, so mournfulness, in 
 endless, soothing measures, rolls over the hearts of the peo- 
 ple of the world ; and from the line to either pole, all tribes 
 and tongues undulate in one long, ever-recurring, harmoni- 
 ous tremor of sad sensibility. 
 
 Toll long, — toll loud, oh Soul-Bell ! the requiem of time, 
 — the matin of eternity ; the dirge of earth, — the anthem 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. 
 
 447 
 
 of heaven ; the bell that Faith rings at the door of Futurity, 
 — the bell that summons the guests to the marriage supper of 
 the Lamb ! " Foolish man ! that which thou sowest is not 
 quickened except it die ; this corruption shall put on incor- 
 ruption, and this mortal immortality." The bell which ye 
 hear is the signal-note of the great transition ; it announces 
 the final Germination, — it heralds the released soul to the 
 paradise above. It rings out over the successive ages and 
 generations, proclaiming the Quickening era of human 
 existence, and conducting the grand emergence through 
 Death to Life. 
 
 Strike once more. Christened Bell ! Thou art not unwel- 
 come. Thy solemnity jars not our festivity. As evening 
 opens a higher, more studded immensity than the day, thy 
 shadowiness 'reveals the dim, unspeakable glory which the 
 sunshine of joy hides to our eye. The twilight of the mortal 
 is the dawn of the immortal. A burial may succeed a wed- 
 ding ; — the burial-day of Junia comes not harshly on the 
 wedding-day of Eichard and Melicent. 
 
 Slowly, — tenderly ! The city is hushed, and the peo- 
 ple thereof listen reverently. Young maidens bring flowers 
 to her bier, and young men bear her on their shoulders. 
 Diligent girls from the Factories, and strong men from the 
 Mills, come out; for Junia had worked in the first, and 
 Eichard belonged to the last. Many knew how Junia had 
 contributed to the nuptials that had been so universally 
 celebrated ; and she died at the Governor's, and was buried 
 from his house ; and there were united in her death and 
 burial not only the popular sympathies, but the prestige of 
 the Family, and there fell into the procession a long con- 
 course of citizens. 
 
 Slowly and tenderly ! for Eichard and Melicent follow as 
 chief mourners; and there glide into the procession the 
 
448 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 fondness and true-heartedness of maidenhood, and the kin- 
 dling and respectful admiration of young men ; and much 
 pursed and austere meanness of manhood relaxes, and 
 walks after. Old and warm recollections of what once 
 was, and the cherished but fading idealism of what may be, 
 moved by the sound of the bell, lengthen out the throng. 
 Aspiration comes up from the lowly hovel, humility leaves 
 the lordly chamber, and pity breaks from many a hard and 
 coarse environment, to wait on the burial. 
 
 Toll cheerfully ! cheerfully ! Memmy and Bebby are 
 there, and other little children, walking two and two. 
 There was a tear in Memmy's eye, for she had thought that 
 she might become an angel too. In that morning of her 
 days, and early dawn of thought, the dews of immortal feeling 
 fell on her eye-lids. The " reminiscence of heaven" within 
 her got glimpses of its bright home, and it seemed not a 
 great way to Jesus, who she knew took little children into 
 his arms and blessed them. 
 
 Toll mercifully, oh mercifully ! for the traducer is there. 
 In deep black, folded in a deeper night of sorrow and con- 
 trition, slowly follows Miss Eyre, — " the woman which was 
 a sinner," weeping at the feet of that great Blessedness, so 
 lately revealed, so suddenly snatched away, but from which 
 to her soul descended the words of peace and forgiveness, 
 which may yet dry her tears, and animate her for the duties 
 of life. 
 
 On, on, to Rosemary Dell, through solemn shades and 
 soft circuits, to the grave by the side of Violet ! 
 
 The Minister sprinkled dust on the coffin, and said, 
 "Dust to dust, — earth to earth;" and, looking aloft, he 
 added, " Spirit to spirit, — the soul to its God ! Behold," 
 he continued, " where they have laid her ! Sweet is the 
 sleep of death, — beautiful the repose of the grave ! No 
 
THE GOVERNOR S FAMILY. 44^ 
 
 more shall storm disturb her peace ; no more shall calamity 
 afflict her days ! But," he added " she is not here, — she 
 is risen. The grave cannot contain the immortal essence. 
 She has ascended to her Father and our Father, to her 
 God and our God. A flower of the Spiritual life, she was 
 permitted to blossom beneath our skies, on this our soil. 
 We beheld her beauty, — we inhaled her fragrance. But 
 that Spiritual life has not its eternal home here. She died, 
 and is quickened ; — she was quickened even to our sight. 
 Dropping the perishable tabernacle of the flesh, her soul 
 rises to the beatitude of the life beyond our life. The mem- 
 ory and power of her virtues remain for our comfort and 
 edification." 
 
 38^ 
 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 E PITH A LAM Y. 
 
 Not incongruous, we trust, with any one's presentiments, 
 or with the spirit of these pages, or with the solemnities of 
 a preceding day, as we have reason to think it was not with 
 the feelings of Richard Edney and the Governor's Family, 
 was a festivity that came off a short time afterward, — a 
 sort of bridal party thrown open to the public. It was a 
 gift of the Governor to the city, or that portion of the city 
 immediately concerned. No house had room enough, and 
 Mayflower Glen offered its commodiousness and beauty. 
 The invitation was to the Griped Hand and all interested 
 therein ; and of course included a multitude of the Church, 
 many of the first and last families in Woodylin, the Friends 
 of Improvement, Knuckle Lane, the Wild Olives, and the 
 Islands. The Glen was lighted ; music enlivened the 
 scene ; refreshments abounded. None were excluded save 
 such as banished themselves by indifTerence to the Griped 
 Hand, of which Richard was co-founder, and those who 
 could have no interest in the Glen, — a part of the system 
 of urban regeneration that had been undertaken. Bronze- 
 faced and tow-headed Wild Olive boys, in whole jackets, 
 were there; River Drivers and Islanders, in clean shirts, 
 were there ; Chuk, looking like a tame, Christianized, happy 
 young Orson, was there ; Mysie, in a new blanket shawl, 
 — a benison she prized above all things, folded about her 
 huge figure with a kind of Indian stateliness, — was there ; 
 the clerg}^ and their deacons, representatives from Victoria 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 451 
 
 Square and La Fayette-street, parents and children, enthu- 
 siastic young men, and a flowery troop of young girls, were 
 there. 
 
 Richard and Melicent came, with their grooms-men and 
 bride-maids, and other friends. They entered the Glen under 
 a sylvan arch. Young children threw roses, white lilies, 
 pansies, and sweet herbs, on the walks before them. Joyous 
 music saluted them. As they approached the centre of the 
 spot, an illuminated device sprang up as by magic over their 
 heads, consisting of a True Love Knot, woven of laurel, and 
 enclosing the two words, Virtue and Honor, and supported 
 on one side by Wild Olive boys, and on the other by Clar- 
 ence Redfern and Herder Langreen. At a turn in the prome- 
 nade, in a mossy nook under the trees, and so lighted as to 
 have the effect of a distant mountain side, they saw two 
 figures in white, representing Junia bestowing a chaplet on 
 Melicent. The procession broke up, and the multitude 
 mingled together, and did what free and joyous folk are 
 wont to do on free and joyous occasions, in the midst of so 
 many pleasant surroundings, and moved by so many pleas- 
 ant impulses. 
 
 This festivity, originating, indeed, with the Governor, had 
 been prosecuted in detail by the benevolent and ingenious 
 friends of Richard and Melicent. 
 
CHAPTER L. 
 
 THE END OF CLOVER. 
 
 Without book, bell or prayer, unshriven, unhousled, with 
 no procession and no sorrow. Clover died, and was buried. 
 
 There are bad men in our world, and bad things. That 
 the substance of the first, or the type of the last, should 
 perish, can excite no regret. 
 
 Clover, if we may rely on his own account of himself, 
 however he possessed the first, certainly instanced the last ; 
 — he was an embodiment of all horridness. 
 
 Not merely poetic, but historic, or, we might saj^, pro- 
 phetic justice, requires that he should die. 
 
 Nor, powerful as has hitherto been his influence, and 
 great "his terror, shall we be troubled to dispose of him, — 
 for God took him away. 
 
 In the suburbs of the city was a tavern known as the 
 Bay Horse, — almost the only spot within the municipality 
 that had not been purged of alcoholic infection. It was 
 kept by Helskill, — hacking, timid Helskill, — formerly of 
 Quiet Arbor, who had fled thither with the relics of his 
 propertj', his disinterestedness, and his customers. It was a 
 stopping-place of teamsters, and the lounge of Belialism. In 
 the bar-room, or " office," of this place, one night. Clover 
 and his confreres were met. The " oflice," like many others 
 of its kind, was a ding}', sultry, mephitic room, and its 
 walls were plastered many layers deep with show-bills, cir- 
 cus pictures, and lithographic battle-pieces and heads of the 
 P*residents. A large box of sand supported a Franklin 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 453 
 
 Stove, serving to insure the house against fire, and the deli- 
 cacy of its inmates against alarm at not having a place to 
 dispose of tobacco-quids, and other matters that distinguish 
 man from the brute. Lamps burned as in a fog, the smoke 
 of the room and dust of the ceiling absorbing most of the 
 rays, and leaving the less volatile accumulations on the floor 
 quite in the lurch. 
 
 It vt'as a night of pitchy darkness, and cavernous winds, 
 interspersed with thunder and lightning. 
 
 The fellows there assembled had been drinking, and some 
 of them were quite " balmy." 
 
 There was Philemon Sweetly, whom we have before 
 seen at the Green Mill, so lively and reckless. Clover had 
 seduced him, and he was now out at his elbows, out at his 
 purse, out at his cheeks, out everywhere save in his invisi- 
 ble tambourine. There was Weasand, an old attache of 
 Quiet Arbor, who had adhered to Helskill through all 
 mutations of place and fortune. Mr. Serme, a broken-down 
 Theatre-manager, Mr. Graver, an inhabitant of the hamlet 
 of which the Bay Horse was the principal house, and one 
 or two teamsters, made up the group. 
 
 Gusts of rain smote the house ; flashes of lightning, — 
 what perhaps nothing else would do, — revealed these men 
 to themselves ; thunder "rolled and exploded over their 
 heads ; the windows became alternate mirrors of dismalness 
 within, and breaks into yawning, blazing gulfs without. 
 
 " I suppose I am Jove's bird," said Clover, pacing the 
 floor. " They reckon me in the family, I think." 
 
 " Your upper lip," replied Philemon, " favors the idea ; — 
 it is hooked, and dragonish." 
 
 "That is nothing to my talons, Phil." He clutched at 
 Helskill ; and Helskill, being a pliant man, suffered himself 
 
454 RICHARD EDMEY AND 
 
 to be pulled to the floor. " But," continued Clover, " I am 
 gorged. I have repasted on Richard." 
 
 " And feel qualmish ? " 
 
 "I shall revive,^^ replied Clover. "I vrorsted Richard, 
 and he capitulated. But the smothered fire of rebellion 
 breaks out, and that must be smothered by the fires of this 
 red right arm ! " 
 
 " Let us be easy where we are," said Weasand, scraping 
 his thumb-nail with a jack-knife ; " Helskill is accommo- 
 dating, the old ' Horse ' is in tolerable flesh, and we can 
 have a few more pleasant rides before the Black Car comes 
 along." 
 
 " I would n't speak of it," said Mr. Serme, who, stretched 
 on a table, was trying to cover his eyes from the storm. " I 
 feel as if it was here now, — as if it was all around us, 
 and we were in it." 
 
 " Repeat it ! " said Clover, 
 
 " Let us not be too free," said Mr. Craver, a red-visaged 
 but white-livered man, who preferred the Bay Horse to his 
 own parlor and wife and children. He occupied a corner 
 of the settee, and was trying very hard to locate his chin 
 on the knob of his cane. " I see a coffin in the lamp, and a 
 dead woman's eyes are looking in at the window. Let us 
 be as easy as we can. I never wished to wrong an^'body." 
 
 " mighty thunderbolt ! " — thus apostrophized Clover, — 
 " I am thy fellow ! " 
 
 A blinding flash, that made Helskill shriek, and cry, 
 «' Don't ! Clover, don't ! " 
 
 " Say, Do ! " rejoined Clover. 
 
 "O dear! yes, — do, then, do!" answered the peaceful, 
 willowy host. 
 
 " I smite, like thee ! " contirmed Clover. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 455 
 
 " I wonder if it ever gets its knuckles hurt, and bunged 
 in the eye ? " asked Philemon. 
 
 " It is not afraid to try them," replied Clover, aiming a 
 blow at Philemon, which the latter avoided by a little tam- 
 bourining of the head. 
 
 " 'T is horrible to die so, Mr. Graver," said Mr. Serme. 
 " You can't even turn on your side to get rid of it, or take 
 it easier." 
 
 " There will be one less to eat corn," observed a teamster, 
 who sat in a broken-bottomed chair, with his cheeks repos- 
 ing in the palms of his hands. 
 
 " I don't see why my wife takes it so hard," marvelled 
 Mr. Graver. " What is she out such a night as this for? I 
 always said to her, says I, ' Mrs. Graver, you have enough 
 to eat.' Need she shriek so, and my daughters hang 
 shrouds on the trees for me to look at ? " 
 
 " I DEFY it ! " said Glover. 
 
 "Please," said Weasand, "stand out of my light, the 
 next time it comes ; I want to get a look at Helskill's face." 
 
 " I am awful," continued Clover, " but useful ; and, if 
 severe, yet just." 
 
 " Just so, exactly," remarked the teamster. 
 
 " Look at Glover, Helskill," said Philemon ; " I command 
 you to look at him I " 
 
 " I will, I will," replied the obliging man. " Only this; " 
 — he shook his head as if the lightnings annoyed him. 
 
 " History," Glover went on, " makes more mention of me 
 than of any other living man. Art adores me, — lo ! " He 
 pointed to the pictures on the walls. There was a battle of 
 the Florida War, supported by a figure of Liberty on one 
 side of the piece, and Justice on the other. " 0, reverend 
 gods I " he exclaimed ; " ye know, ye appreciate my worth ! 
 
456 RICHAUD EDNEY AND 
 
 O Divine Providence, how couldst thou get on vsrithout 
 
 me 
 
 " Devils and damned spirits ! " groaned Mr. Serme ; " I 
 am not ready. Hell opens to receive me ! Mr. Graver, take 
 my conscience, — cut it out, — hide it, — burn it ! Quick ! 
 — they are after it." 
 
 "A man has a right to drink," replied Mr. Graver; "I 
 always told Mrs. Graver so." 
 
 " What hands the flies are to get into things ! " remarked 
 the teamster ; " here is one crawling under my shirt 
 sleeve." 
 
 " Good Helskill, — kind, hospitable Helskill, — would you 
 let a dry, a very dry man, have something to moisten him- 
 self? " asked Weasand. 
 
 A vivid and deafening bolt, that silenced them all. 
 
 " Appalling ! " said Glover ; " but sweet, and refreshing, 
 like glory." 
 
 " Glover is a knowing 'un," said Philemon. " I wonder 
 if he Avould n't like to go up among the lightnings, about 
 this time, and touch them off, — perhaps ram cartridges for 
 some of the big guns." 
 
 "Would they dare to touch me ofFi ! Gompeer of the 
 Almighty, I, Glover, am ; — the first and last resort of kings I 
 I am lightnings ! I wish I could fall to-night on two devoted 
 heads. It is with difliculty, with self-denial, my friends, 
 that I restrain myself." 
 
 " Folderol ! " answered Philemon ; " let them sleep. 
 They are just married. You have done mischief enough." 
 
 " Mischief! If it was not you, Phil, — if you was any- 
 body else, I would kill you, Phil. Thr'pence a pound on 
 tea is nothing to what I feel. I can feel, — I can feel an 
 insult. I can feel an invasion of my rights, — the rights 
 of all governments, — the rights of the stronger. Mischief! 
 
THE governor's fabiily. 457 
 
 You have not heard of Trajan's column, or Nelson's mon- 
 ument, or the Temple of Fame ? Lie still, puppy ! I dare 
 Almighty God ! " 
 
 " Not that ; — don't say that; — we are not quite up to 
 that," said Philemon, 
 
 " God says," continued Clover," Thou shalt not kill ; — I 
 kill. He says, Keep the Sabbath ; — ■ I never yet kept one. 
 He says. Love your enemy ; — now it strikes one it is 
 rather presumptuous to say that to me ! Why, I suppose I 
 am the only regular. Old Line, opposition left. If I were 
 out of the way, these numbskulls of humanity would have 
 a great time. My ancestors lived to a good old age, and I 
 shall do the same. Consult the Clover genealogy ! " 
 
 " Drink, Clover, and sit down." 
 
 " Not while you try to cow me, Phil. Not till my power 
 is acknowledged." 
 
 Another flash. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! that 's some. They smell me ! They know 
 I am up and dressed ! I defy the storm ! I challenge all 
 the fires of heaven ! Meet me, ye dread ministers, where 
 
 YE WILL, I Mil READY ! ! " 
 
 " Don't ! " cried Helskill. 
 
 " Mercy ! Clover, God, Devil ! " agonized Mr. Serme. 
 
 " It is n't best," said Mr. Craver. " If the children would 
 go to bed, and not be rummaging gullies so. It is n't best, 
 Mr. Clover. I hold to moderation. If Mrs. Craver — [a 
 flash] — wife, don't sweep that rock ; — put up your broom ! 
 Take in more sewing." 
 
 " I '11 stump him to do it ! " exclaimed* the teamster. 
 
 " Yes," said Philemon, " let him do it, — he wants to so 
 much." 
 
 " Do is the word ! " responded Clover. " I will meet 
 them at the Old Oak in the Stone Pasture ! I will meet 
 39 
 
458 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 their Goliath, the lightnings, there! I will tweak the nose 
 of Vengeance ! Come, boys, — follow bie ! " 
 
 He seized his hat, and rushed out of doors, followed by 
 the rest. Neither Mr. Serme nor Mr. Graver dared be left 
 alone ; and they went too. Helskill, whom no emergency 
 could deter from the systematic pursuit of his business, ran 
 after, with a bottle in each hand. 
 
 It was a fearful hour ; — gutters running in torrents, 
 winds whisking the helpless trees, the wizard glare of the 
 lightnings, the thunder bellowing a call to some unheard-of 
 catastrophe, filled them with excitement and forebodings. 
 On they went, across brook and bog, over fences and rock, 
 dripping, blaspheming, headed by the satanic Clover. 
 
 They reached the Old Oak, a large, skeleton-likV, wiry 
 tree, whose stubborn branches unbent to the storm, and only 
 the leaves were shaken, even as moss on a rock twinkles in 
 the wind. 
 
 Clover smote his fist on the tree, and, looking up, said, 
 " Ye powers of heaven, or hell, I have come ! ! ! " 
 
 A flash of lightning struck him dead ! It stunned his 
 comrades, who recovered to find their old leader, whose last 
 impious attitude the blaze at the same instant revealed and 
 extinguished, prostrate and dishevelled at the foot of the 
 tree. 
 
 That steel-nerved arm was wilted; — those scorn-glancing 
 eyes were upturned in glassy impotence ; — that redoubtable 
 chest should heave no more. His long red locks seemed to 
 sweal in the pouring rain ; — his trunk and limbs dammed 
 a brief rivulet that hasted to bury him. 
 
 Alarm of conscience crowding upon the shock of incident, 
 these infatuated rnen knew not what to do. They con- 
 sulted hurriedly and wildly, and proceeded to bury the car- 
 cass where it lay. 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 459 
 
 Turf, swale grass, stones, stumps, were brought together, 
 and piled upon it. Philemon, snatching the bottles of Hel- 
 skill, threw them upon the body of this wickedness, and 
 they were buried, too. 
 
 Through long hours these men worked. 
 
 The rain chilled and impeded exertion ; the lightning dis- 
 played a ghastly object to their eyes, and quickened more 
 ghastly apprehensions in their bosoms ; unrelenting thun- 
 ders rung out a judgment-day alarum ; Terror seemed to 
 winnow with its wings the air they breathed. 
 
 Their task done, they returned to the tavern soberer, and 
 we will hope, better men. 
 
CHAPTER LI. 
 
 GATHERED FRAGMENTS. 
 
 We might say more things of Richard, and of what per- 
 tains to him ; we might relate how, through the Governor, 
 who was one of the corporators of the Dam and Mills, he 
 became Agent of that extensive interest; how he built a 
 fine house on land near Bill Stonners' Point, deemed one 
 of the most picturesque spots in the Beauty of Woodylin ; 
 and how he got the land, with its fine park of forest trees, 
 of Mysie and Chuk, who would part mth it to nobody else ; 
 how he was respected and beloved by his fellow-citizens, 
 and became Mayor of the city ; and how the Griped Hand 
 continued to flourish, recruiting the Church on the one 
 hand, and replenishing the purity and beauty, the law and 
 order, of the city, on the other. But, leaving these things, 
 as, perhaps, we are bound in justice to do, " to the imagina- 
 tion of the reader," we shall briefly advert to one or two 
 other topics. 
 
 Barbara, as Cousin Rowena forethought, and the ring 
 seemed to announce, married Chassford. Their nuptials 
 were celebrated with becoming dignity and lustre. Richard 
 facilitated this consummation, — first, by his faithful dealing 
 with Chassford's vices ; secondly, by the support he afforded 
 to his virtues. We have so far outlined the character both 
 of Barbara and Chassford as possibly to afford ground for 
 the opinion that they were eminently fit for each other, as 
 regards native and genuine qualities of mind and heart, and 
 in matter of taste and education. 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 461 
 
 There interfered a melancholy barrier to their mutual 
 wishes, in the incipient profligacy of Chassford. If Richard 
 had his sorrows, Barbara was not without hers. And it is 
 worthy of remark, that while Richard was secretly laboring 
 to reform Chassford, Barbara was equally active, in a silent 
 way, for the restoration of Richard. Cousin Rowena was 
 not a little inspired by Barbara. In fact, Richard under- 
 stood Chassford better than Barbara did, and Barbara under- 
 stood Richard better than Melicent did ; and not unnaturally. 
 A great sorrow often disturbs the judgment in the direction 
 in which it moves, leaving it clear in other quarters. So 
 Barbara, darkened in regard to Chassford, thought she 
 could distinctly translate Richard to Melicent, as Richard 
 presumed he had the key to Chassford. After his return to 
 Melicent, Richard had freer opportunity to work for the 
 hearts and happiness of these unfortunate ones. If the 
 repentance of the sinner communicates joy to the heavenly 
 world, there must be pleasure in the sight of Fidelity fondly 
 sweeping among the waste of things for the lost piece of 
 virtue, — Hope sitting on the shore of evil, trying to discern 
 the form of the beloved one in the distant wreck, — Affec- 
 tion welcoming the weather-worn memories of other days, 
 opening its doors to the promise and aspiration of a new life, 
 and healing the wounds which sin has made. If Love can- 
 not forgive, how shall Justice ever ? 
 
 Glendar bowed himself politely from the Governor's 
 Family and from the city, as he does from this Tale. 
 
 Mrs. Melbourne bore no malice, and would allow that 
 she was actuated by no meanness, toward Richard. She 
 believed Miss Eyre, — her prejudices reinforced her belief; 
 her energy, having so strong a team in hand, would easily 
 haul Richard to perdition. His elevation, compassed in 
 39* 
 
462 RICHARD EDNEY AND 
 
 spite of herself, she had at length the good sense to see was 
 deserved, and the candor to applaud. 
 
 We take our leave of Miss Eyre with an unaffected 
 interest and the tenderest compassion. Forgiven by others, 
 she could not forgive herself. She would lay a daily offer- 
 ing of loneliness and woe on the altar of the Great Good 
 she had impeded. Koscoe would really have married her; 
 there was an oddity in the thing that suited the oddity of 
 his temper ; — or, rather, there was romance in her history 
 which kindled his imagination ; and more, there was a deep, 
 underlying vividness, freedom, struggle, in all her life, 
 which comported with the sensibilities of his own nature, — 
 sensibilities hidden by the roughness and reserve of his 
 ordinary manner. She replied, " There is a spot sacred to 
 the memory and peace of Junia, where she practised sub- 
 mission and obtained serenity ; and, what I have never done, 
 by schooling the importunities of her heart, and frowardness 
 of her will, she became strong in faith, and heroic in action. 
 Thither I would go. I have lived, I know not to what end, 
 or with what motive. I must ripen in seclusion those 
 virtues which can alone make life tolerable, or endeavor 
 useful. If you can love me, remember me; and if you 
 remember me, it will help me." She went to the farm-cot- 
 tage where Junia spent so many agreeable months. 
 
 Miss Freeling married Mr. Cosgrove, and Cousin Rowena 
 Teacher Willwell. This was Richard's doings, — nay, 
 Teacher Willwell did it himself. Practising the rule he 
 taught, — to see what things are made for, — at the nuptials 
 of Richard and Melicent, he decided that Cousin was made 
 for himself. She marvelled that so simple a rule could be 
 so accurate. 
 
 Simon rose to the post of Richard's hack-driver. 
 
 Captain Creamer so far prospered as to be able to take of 
 
THE governor's FAMILY. 463 
 
 Eichard the rent of the identical saw at which he had 
 originally offered Richard the chance of the slip. 
 
 Memmy and Bobby, — God bless their little hearts ! 
 words fail to describe their joy in seeing Uncle Richard 
 happy again, and particularly at the sight of his new house ; 
 and all the fleeting, bird-like ways they took to show it, — 
 and how they ran of errands between Mamma and Aunt 
 Melicent, — and in a little basket, under a little cover, car- 
 ried dishes of strawberries, and rounds of warm, light cake, 
 and an occasional potted pigeon. 
 
CHAPTER LII. 
 
 PARTING WORDS. 
 
 1. To the inquiry, " What business has Clover in these 
 pages ?" The same that what he represents has in the 
 world at large. 
 
 There is a Something both principle and practice, organ- 
 ized, constitutional, customary, bepraised, canonized, conse- 
 crated in the Prayer Book, and in many pulpits, — in the 
 public relations of the human kind, precisely like Clover in 
 the urban and domestic connections of this Tale. Clover 
 acts from the same impulse that that acts. That Something 
 is a gigantic, international Clover. Clover is the same 
 epitomized. It was agreeable to the original cast, as well 
 as ulterior purpose, of this volume, that that Something, his- 
 torically so conspicuous, should take a biographical form. 
 Let it be incarnated, and in personal unity inhabit a town, 
 and reside in our houses, and see how it looks ! 
 
 2. To those authors from whom, in the composition of 
 this Tale, we have borrowed, we return sincere thanks. If 
 our publishers, who are obliging gentlemen, consent, we 
 would like to forward a copy of the book to each of them. 
 If they dislike anything of theirs in this connection, they 
 will of course withdraw it ; — should they chance to like 
 anything of ours, they have full permission to use it. This 
 would seem to be fair. 
 
 Pope Gregory VII. burned the works of Varro, from whom 
 Augustine had largely drawn, that the Saint might not be 
 accused of plagiarism. We have no such extreme intention. 
 
RICHARD EDNEY, ETC. 465 
 
 First, it would be an endless task. What consteraation in 
 the literary world, should even the humblest author under- 
 take such a thing ! And such authors are the ones who 
 would be most inclined to cancel their obligations in this 
 way. We might fire the Cambridge librarj' ; but, alas ! the 
 assistant librarian, whose pleasant face has beguiled for us 
 so much weary research in those alcoves, and, as it were, 
 illuminated the black letter of so many recondite volumes, 
 
 — to see him shedding tears over their ashes, would undo 
 us ! We are weak there. Secondly, it comports at once 
 with manliness and humility to confess one's indebtedness. 
 Thirdly, as a matter of expediency, it is better to avail one's 
 self of a favorable wind and general convoy to fame, than 
 run the risk of being becalmed, and perhaps devoured, on 
 some private and unknown route. But, lastly, and chiefly, 
 let it be recorded, there is a social feeling among authors, 
 
 — they cherish convivial sentiments, — they are never 
 envious of a fellow; there is not, probably, a great author 
 living, but that, like a certain great king, would gladly 
 throw a chicken, or a chicken's wing, from his feathered 
 abundance, to any poor author, and enjoy its effect in light- 
 ing up the countenances of the poor author's wife and chil- 
 dren. Wherefore it is that plagiarism, after all, is to be 
 considered rather in the light of good cheer and kindly 
 intercourse, than as evidence of meanness of disposition, or 
 paucity of ideas. 
 
 3. To the tourist, who, with guide-book in hand, and 
 curious pains-taking, seeks to recover scenes and places 
 fleetingly commemorated in these pages, we are obliged to 
 say, he will be disappointed. This Tale, in the language 
 of art, is a composition, not a sketch. There is no such 
 city as Woodylin; or, more truly, we might affirm, the 
 materials of it exist throughout the country. Its population 
 
466 KICHARO EDXEY AND 
 
 and its pursuits are confined to no single locality, but are 
 scattered everywhere. Its elements of good, hope, progress, 
 may be developed everywhere ; — would, too, that whatever 
 it contains prejudicial to human weal might be depressed in 
 all regions of the earth I 
 4. To the book itself. 
 
 " Vade Liber." 
 Go, Little Book. 
 
 " Qualis, non ausim dicere, felix." 
 What will be your fortune, I cannot tell. 
 
 " Vade tamen quocunque lubet, quascunque per oras, 
 I blandas inter Charites, mystamque saluta 
 Musarum quemvis, si tibi lector erit. 
 Rura colas, urbemque." 
 Yet go •wherever you like, — go everywhere, — go among kind people ; 
 you may even venture to introduce yourself to the severer sort, if they will 
 admit you. Visit the city and the country. 
 
 "Si criticus lector, tumidus censorque molestus, 
 
 Zoilus et Momus, si rabiosa cohors," — approach, 
 "Fac fugias," — fly. 
 
 "Lseto omnes accipe vultu, 
 Quos, quas, vel quales, inde vel unde viros." 
 Look cheerfully upon all, men and women, and all of ever}' condition. 
 
 Go into farm-houses and rustic work-shops ; call at the 
 homes of the opulent and the powerful ; visit schools ; say 
 to the minister you have a word for the Church. I know 
 you will love the family ; — you may stay in the kitchen, 
 and, as you are so neatly dressed, and behave so prettily, 
 they will let you sit in the parlor. Let the hard hand of 
 the laboring classes hold you, nor need you shrink from the 
 soft hand of fair maiden. Speak pleasantly to the little 
 children ; — I need not fear on that score ; — speak wisely 
 and respectfully to parents. You may enter the haunts of 
 iniquity, and preach repentance there ; you may show your 
 
THE governor's fasiilt. 467 
 
 cheerful face in sordid abodes, and inspire a love for purity 
 and blessedness. Go West, — go South ; you need not fear 
 to utter a true word anywhere. Especially — and these 
 are your private instructions — speak to our Young Men, 
 and tell them not to be so anxious to exchange the sure 
 results of labor for the shifting promise of calculation, — tell 
 them that the hoe is better than the yard-stick. Instruct 
 them that the farmer's frock and the mechanic's apron are 
 as honorable as the merchant's clerk's paletot or the student's 
 cap. Show them how to rise in their calling, not out of it ; 
 and that intelligence, industry and virtue, are the only 
 decent way to honor and emolument. Help them to bear 
 sorrow, disappointment, and trial, which are wont to be the 
 lot of humanity. And, more especially, demonstrate to 
 them, and to all, how they may Be Good and Do Goon ! 
 ^' If it is thought worth while to take j'ou to Tartary, be 
 not afraid to go. Look up bright and strong. When those 
 people come to understand your language, I think they will 
 like you very much. 
 
 Should inquiries arise touching your parentage and con- 
 nections, — a natural' and laudable curiosity, which, as a 
 stranger in the world, you will be expected to enlighten, — 
 you may say that you are one of three, believed to be a 
 worthy family, comprising two brothers and one sister. 
 That a few years since, your author published the history 
 of a young woman, entitled " Margaret : a Tale of the Eeal 
 and the Ideal ; " — and that at the same time, and as a sort 
 of counterpart and sequel to this, he embraced the design of 
 writing the history of a young man, and you are the result. 
 The first shows what, in given circumstances, a woman can 
 do ; the last indicates what may be expected of a man ; — the 
 first is more antique ; the last, modern. Both are local in 
 action, but diflfusive in spirit. In the mean time, he has 
 
4ba RICHARD EDNEY, ETC, 
 
 written " Philo, an Evangeliad : " cosmopolitan, (ecumen- 
 ical, sempiternal, in its scope, embodying ideas rather than 
 facts, and uniting times and places ; and cast in the only- 
 form in which such subjects could be disposed of, the alle- 
 goric and symbolical, — or, as it is sometimes termed, the 
 poetic. The two first are individual workers ; the last is a 
 representative life. " Philo " is as an angel of the everlast- 
 ing Gospel ; you and " Margaret," one in the shop, and the 
 other on the farm, are practical Christians. However dif- 
 ferent your sphere or your manners, you may say you all 
 originate on the part of your author in a single desire to 
 glorify God and bless his fellow-men. "Philo "has been 
 called prosy ; " Margaret " was accounted tedious. You, 
 " Kichard," I know, will appear as well as you can, and be 
 Avhat you are, — honest certainly, pleasing if possible. 
 
 God bless thee. Little Book, and anoint thee for thy work, 
 and make thee a savor of good to many ! We shall meet 
 again, in other years or worlds. May we meet for good, 
 and not for evil ! If there is any evil in thy heart or thy 
 ways, God purge it from thee ! 
 
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