LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 DAVIS 
 
VASSAL! MOETON. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS PARKMAN, 
 
 AUTHOR 01 "HISTORY OP THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC," AND PRAIRIE AND 
 ROCKY MOUNTAIN LITE." 
 
 Ecrive qui voudral Chacun & ce m&tler, 
 
 Pent perdre impunfiment de 1'encre et du papier. 
 
 BOILEAU. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. 
 1856. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1856, by 
 
 PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 STEREOTYPED AT THB 
 BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Remote from towns he ran his godly race. Goldsmith. 
 
 "MACKNIGHT ON THE EPISTLES, that's the name of 
 the book?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, if you please. I am desirous of consulting it 
 with a view " 
 
 " Well, this way, Mr. Jacobs. Here's the librarian. Mr. 
 Stillingfleet, let me introduce my friend, the Reverend Mr. 
 Jacobs, of West Weathersfield." 
 
 " I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said Mr. 
 Jacobs, taking the librarian's hand with an air of diffident 
 veneration. 
 
 " Mr. Jacobs wishes to consult Mackwright on the Epistles." 
 
 " Macknight, if you please, Dr. Steele." 
 
 " O, Macknight. Will you be so kind as to let him have 
 the use of it in my name ? " 
 
 " If you will go with Mr. Rubens, sir," said the librarian, 
 "he will show you the book." 
 
 (3) 
 
4 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," replied Mr. Jacobs, to whom the words 
 were addressed ; and he followed the assistant among the 
 alcoves in a timid, tiptoe progress, for, to him, the very air he 
 breathed seemed redolent of learning, and the dust beneath 
 his feet consecrated to science. 
 
 Dr. Steele remained behind, conversing with the libra 
 rian. 
 
 " My friend has something of the ancient apostolic sim 
 plicity hanging about him still. He looks with as much awe 
 at Harvard College library as I did myself forty-five years ago, 
 when I came down from Steuben to join the freshman class." 
 
 " So you came from Steuben ! Did not old John Morton 
 come from the same place ? " 
 
 " To be sure he did. He was the glory of the town. He 
 pulled down the old clapboard meeting house that his father 
 used to preach in, and built a new one for him : besides giv 
 ing a start in business to half the young men of the village." 
 
 " Do you see that undergraduate at the end of the hall, 
 standing by the last alcove, reading ? " 
 
 " Yes ; what about him ? He seems a hardy, good-looking 
 young fellow enough." 
 
 " He is John Morton's son." 
 
 " Is it possible ? I remember him when he was a child, 
 but have not seen him for these ten years. After his father's 
 death, his mother took him to Europe, to be educated ; but 
 she never came back ; she died in Paris." 
 
 " He is Mr. Morton's only child is he not ? " 
 
 " Yes ; his first wife had no children ; and after he had 
 buried her, which, by the way, I believe was the happiest 
 
VASSALL MOBTON. 5 
 
 hour of his life, he married a very different sort of person, 
 Margaret Vassal!, this boy's mother." 
 
 " What, one of the old Vassall race ? " 
 
 " Exactly ; and, I suppose, the last survivor. I used to 
 know her. She was a handsome woman, and, bating her 
 family pride, altogether a very fine character. She managed 
 her husband admirably." 
 
 " Why, what need had John Morton of being managed ? " 
 
 " 0, Morton was a noble old gentleman, a merchant of the 
 old school, and generous as the day ; but he had his faults. 
 He made nothing of his three bottles of Madeira at dinner, 
 and besides Ah, Mr. Jacobs, so you have found Mac- 
 knight." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Mr. Jacobs, coming up, " I have the vol 
 umes." 
 
 "See that young man, yonder. That's the son of your old 
 friend, Mr. Morton." 
 
 " Really ! upon my word ! Ah ! Mr. Morton was a friend 
 to me, sir a very kind friend." 
 
 And, in the simplicity of his heart, Mr. Jacobs glided up 
 to the student, and blandly accosted him. 
 
 " How do you do, young gentleman ? I knew your worthy 
 father. I knew him well. I have often sat at his hospitable 
 board on anniversary week." 
 
 Thus addressed, Vassall Morton looked up from his book, 
 it was Froissart's Chronicle, inclined his head in ac 
 knowledgment, and waited to hear more. 
 
 " Ahem ! " coughed Mr. Jacobs, a little embarrassed : " your 
 father was a most worthy and estimable gentleman : a true 
 1* 
 
' 6 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 friend of the feeble and destitute. Ahem ! what class are 
 you in, Mr. Morton? " 
 
 " The junior class," said the young man, a suppressed smile 
 flickering at the corner of his mouth. 
 
 " Ahem ! I hope, sir, that, like your father, you will long 
 live to be an honor to your native town." 
 
 " Thank you, sir." 
 
 " I wish you good morning." 
 
 " Good morning, sir," said Morton, divided between an in 
 clination to smile at the odd, fumble little figure before him, 
 and an unwillingness to wound the other's feelings. 
 
 " Are you ready to go, Mr. Jacobs ? " said Dr. Steele. 
 
 " If you please, sir, we will now take our departure ; " 
 gathering the four volumes of Macknight on the Epistles 
 under, his arm ; " Good morning, Mr. Stillingfleet ; good 
 morning, Mr. Rubens. I am indebted to your kindness, gen 
 tlemen ahem ! " 
 
 " This is the way out, Mr. Jacobs," said Steele to his diffi 
 dent friend from West Weathersfield, who, in his embarrass 
 ment, was going out at the wrong door. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir ahem!" replied Mr. Jacobs, 
 with a bashful smile. And Dr. Steele, pointing to the true 
 exit, ushered his rustic and reverend protege from the sacred 
 precinct of learning. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Ricbt bardie baith in ernist and pl&j. Sir David Lyndsay. 
 
 " MORTON, what was the little old fogy in the white cravat 
 saying to you just now in the library ? " 
 
 " Telling me that my father was a worthy man, and that he 
 hoped I should make just such another." 
 
 " Ah, that was kind of him." 
 
 " What a pile of books you are lugging ! Here, let me 
 take half a dozen of them for you. You look as if you were 
 training to be a hotel porter." 
 
 " I am laying in for vacation." 
 
 "What sense is there in that? Let alone your Latin, 
 Greek, and mathematics ; what the deuse is vacation made 
 for ? Take to the woods, as I do, breathe the fresh air, and 
 see the world at large." 
 
 " Do you call it seeing the world at large, to go off into 
 some barbarous, uninhabitable place, among mosquitoes, 
 snakes, wolves, bears, and catamounts ? What sense is there 
 in that? What can you do when you get there? " 
 
 "Shoot muskrats, and fish for mudpouts. Will you go 
 with me?" 
 
 " Thank you, no. There's no one in the class featherwitted 
 enough to go with you, except Meredith, and he ought to 
 know better." (7) 
 
8 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Stay at home, then, and improve your mind. I shall be 
 off to-morrow." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mr. Horace Vinal shrugged his shoulders, a movement 
 which caused Sophocles and Seneca to escape from under his 
 arm. Morton gathered them out of the mud, and thrusting 
 them back again into their place, left his burdened fellow- 
 student to make the best of his way towards his den in 
 Stoughton Hall. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 0, love, in such a wilderness as this ! Gertrude of Wyoming. 
 
 MOKTON, e?i route for the barbarous districts of which 
 Vinal had expressed his disapproval, stopped by the way at a 
 spot which, though wild enough at that time, had ceased to 
 be a wilderness. This was the Notch of the White Moun 
 tains, perverted, since, into a resort of quasi fashion. Here, 
 arriving late at the lonely hostelry of one Tom Crawford, he 
 learned from that worthy person, to whom his face was well 
 known, that other guests, from Boston, like himself, were 
 seated at the tea table. Accordingly, descending thither, he 
 saw four persons. The first was a quiet-looking man, with 
 the air of a gentleman, and something in his appearance which 
 seemed to indicate military habits and training. Morton re 
 membered to have seen him before. At his side, and under 
 his tutelary care, sat two personages, who, from their dimen 
 sions, must have been boys of some seven years old, but from 
 the solemnity of their countenances, might have passed for a 
 brace of ancient philosophers. They looked so much alike 
 that Morton thought he saw double. Each was seated on a 
 volume of Clark's Commentaries, to raise his chin to the 
 needful height above the table cloth. Both were encased in 
 tunics, strapped about them with shining morocco belts. 
 
 (9) 
 
10 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Their small persons were terminated at one end by morocco 
 shoes of somewhat infantile pattern, and at the other by 
 enormous heads, with chalky complexions, pale, dilated eyes, 
 wrinkled foreheads, and mouths pursed up with an expression 
 of anxious care, abstruse meditation, and the most experi 
 enced wisdom. 
 
 In amazement at these phenomena, Morton .turned next 
 towards the fourth member of the party; and here he en 
 countered a new emotion, of a kind quite 'different. Hitherto, 
 in his college seclusion, he had not very often met, except in 
 imagination, with that union of beauty, breeding, and refine 
 ment which belongs to the best life of cities, and which he 
 now saw in the person of a young lady, a year or two his 
 junior. He longed for a pretext to address her, but found 
 none ; when her father for such he seemed broke si 
 lence, and accosted him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; is it possible that you are the son of 
 John Morton?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " He was my father's old friend. I thought I could 
 scarcely mistake your likeness to your mother." 
 
 " I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Colonel 
 Leslie." 
 
 Leslie inclined his head. 
 
 " My title clings to me, I find, though I have no right to 
 it now." 
 
 He had left the army long before, exchanging the rough 
 frontier service for pursuits more to his taste. 
 
 " Upon my word," pursued Leslie, " after conversing for 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 11 
 
 some time with the new comer on the scenery and game of 
 the mountains, " you seem to be aufait at this sort of thing." 
 
 " At least I ought to be ; I have spent half my college va 
 cations here." 
 
 " It is unlucky for us that we must set out for home in the 
 morning. You might have given us good advice in our sight 
 seeing." 
 
 " Crawford will tell you that I am tolerably well qualified 
 to be a guide." 
 
 " You do not look like a collegian. They are generally 
 thin and pale with studying." 
 
 " Oftener with laziness and cigar smoke." 
 
 " Very likely. You seem too hardy and active for a stu 
 dent." 
 
 Morton's weak point was touched. 
 
 " I can do well enough, I believe, in that way. Crawford 
 was boasting, last year, that he could outwrestle any man in 
 New England. I challenged him, and threw him on his back." 
 
 "You ! Crawford is twice as heavy and strong as you are." 
 
 " I am stronger than I seem," replied Morton, with great 
 complacency. 
 
 And Leslie, observing him with an eye not unused to meas 
 ure the thews and sinews of men, saw that, though his frame 
 was light, and his shoulders not broad, yet his compact pro 
 portions, deep chest, and muscular limbs, showed the highest 
 degree of bodily vigor. 
 
 " You are quite right. I would enlist you without asking 
 the surgeon's advice." 
 
 Here the nurse, attendant on the two philosophers, ap- 
 
12 VAS8ALL MOETON. 
 
 peared at the door ; and they, obedient to the mute summons, 
 scrambled gravely from their seats, and, with solemn steps, 
 withdrew. Miss Leslie presently followed, and Morton and 
 her father were left alone. 
 
 " You are from Harvard are you not ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Do you know Horace Vinal ? " 
 
 " Very well ; he is my classmate." 
 
 " Is he not thought a very promising young man ? " 
 
 " He is our first scholar." 
 
 " I hear him spoken of as a young man of fine abilities." 
 
 " And he knows how to make the best of them." 
 
 " Not at all dissipated." 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " And a great student." 
 
 " Digs day and night." 
 
 " A little ambitious, I suppose." 
 
 "A little." 
 
 " But very prudent." 
 
 " Uncommonly so." 
 
 " An excellent young man," exclaimed Leslie ; " I think 
 very highly of Horace Vinal." 
 
 Morton cast a sidelong glance at him, and there was a cov 
 ert smile in his. eye. He began to see a weak spot in his 
 companion. 
 
 " He will certainly make his way in the world," pursued 
 Leslie. 
 
 " No doubt of it." 
 
 "He is not so fond of out-door exercises as you seem 
 to be." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 13 
 
 " He is good at one kind of exercise." 
 
 " What's that ? " 
 
 " He can draw the long bow." 
 
 Leslie did not see Morton's meaning, and took the words 
 literally, as the latter intended he should. 
 
 " What, have you an archery club at college ? " 
 
 " No ; but there are one or two among us who use the 
 long bow, now and then, and Vinal beats them by all odds. 
 But he is very modest on the subject, and never alludes to it. 
 In fact, there are very few who know his skill in that way." 
 
 " It is all the better for his health to have some amusement 
 of the kind." 
 
 " Yes, it would be a pity if his health should suffer." 
 
 "I have often thought that his mind was too active for his 
 constitution." 
 
 Morton cast another sidelong look at Leslie. Though he 
 admired the daughter, he refrained with difficulty from quiz 
 zing the father. 
 
 " You seem to know Vinal very well." 
 
 " Yes, thoroughly ; I have known him from childhood ; 
 he is the son of my wife's sister, and I am his guardian. I 
 watch his progress with great interest." 
 
 " You will see him, I dare say, reach the top of the ladder. 
 At least, it will be no fault of his if he does not." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear my good opinion of him confirmed 
 by one who has seen so much of him." 
 
 And, rising, he left tke room. 
 
 " A very good young man, this seems to be," he thought 
 to himself, as he did so. 
 2 
 
14 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Amiable, good natured, and all that ; but very soft, for a 
 man who has seen hard service," thought Morton, on his part. 
 
 The party reassembled in the inn parlor. Masters William 
 and Marlborough, having gained a reprieve from their banish 
 ment, busied themselves at the table, the one in poring over 
 Brewster on Natural' Magic, the other in solving a problem 
 of Euclid. Leslie viewed these infant diversions by no means 
 with an eye of favor, and soon banished the students to a 
 retirement more suited to their tender years. The sentence 
 overcame all their philosophy, and they were carried off 
 howling. 
 
 Morton, meanwhile, was breathing a charmed air; and 
 though diffident in the presence of ladies, and not liberally 
 endowed by nature with the gift of tongues, his zeal to com 
 mend himself to the good opinion of Miss Edith Leslie 
 availed somewhat to supply the defect. He had never mixed 
 with the world, conventionally so called, and knew as much 
 of ladies as of mermaids. But having an ardent tempera 
 ment and a Quixotic imagination ; being addicted, moreover, 
 to Froissart and kindred writers ; and, indeed, visited with a 
 glimmering of that antique light which modern folly despises, 
 he would have been ready, with the eye of a handsome wo 
 man upon him, for any rash and ridiculous exploit. This 
 extravagance did him no manner of harm. On the contrary, 
 it went far to keep him out of mischief ; for in the breast of 
 this youngster a chivalresque instinct battled against the ur 
 gency of vigorous blood, and taught his nervous energies to 
 seek escape rather in ceaseless bodily exercises, rowing, riding, 
 and the like, than in any less commendable recreations. 
 
VASSALL MORTON". 15 
 
 The close of the evening found him with an imagination 
 much excited. In short, decisive symptoms declared them 
 selves of that wide-spread malady, of which he had read 
 much and pondered not a little, but which had not, as yet, 
 numbered him among its victims. Among the various emo 
 tions, novel, strange, and pleasurable, which began to possess 
 him, came, however, the dismal consciousness that, with the 
 morning sun, the enchantress of his fancy was to vanish like 
 a dream of the night. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it 
 Prom action and adrenture ? Oymbdine. 
 
 MORNING came, and the Leslies departed. Morton 
 watched the lumbering carriage till it disappeared down the 
 nigged gorge of the Notch, then drew a deep breath, and 
 ruefully betook himself to his day's sport. He explored, rod 
 in hand, the black pools and plunging cascades of the Saco ; 
 but for once that he thought of the trout, he thought ten 
 times of Edith Leslie. 
 
 Towards night, however, he returned with a basket reason 
 ably well filled ; and, as he drew near the inn, he saw a 
 young man, of his own age, or thereabouts, sitting under the 
 porch. He had a cast of features which, in a feudal country, 
 would have been taken as the sign of noble birth ; and 
 though he wore a slouched felt hat and a rough tweed frock, 
 though his attitude was careless, though he held between his 
 teeth a common clay pipe, at which he puffed with much rel 
 ish, and though he was conversing on easy terms with two 
 attenuated old Vermont farmers, with faces like a pair of 
 baked apples, yet none but the most unpractised eye would 
 have taken him for other than a gentleman. 
 
 As soon as Morton saw him, he shouted a joyful greeting, 
 
 (16) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 17 
 
 to which Mr. Edward Meredith, rising and going to meet his 
 friend, replied with no'less emphasis. 
 
 " I thought," said Morton, " that you meant to do the du 
 tiful this time, and stay with your father and family at the 
 sea shore." 
 
 " Couldn't stand the sea shore," said Meredith, seating 
 himself again ; " so I came up to the mountains to see what 
 you were doing." 
 
 " You couldn't have done better ; but come this way, out 
 of earshot." 
 
 " Colonel," said Meredith, in a tone of melancholy remon 
 strance, " this seat is a good seat, an easy seat, a pleasant 
 seat. Why do you want to root me up ? " 
 
 " Come on, man," replied Morton. 
 
 " Show the way, then, Jack-a-lantern. But where do you 
 want to lead me ? I won't sit on the rail fence, and I won't 
 sit on the grass." 
 
 " There's a bench here for you." 
 
 " Has it a back ? " 
 
 " Yes, it has a back. There it is." 
 
 Meredith carefully removed a few twigs and shavings which 
 lay upon the bench, seated himself, rested his arm along the 
 back, and began puffing at his pipe again. But scarcely had 
 he thus composed himself when the tea, bell rang from the 
 house. 
 
 "Do you hear that, now ? Another move to make ! 
 Didn't I tell you so ? " 
 
 " Not that I remember." 
 
 " Please to explain, colonel, what you expect to gain by 
 
 2* 
 
 
 
18 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 always bobbing about as you do, like a drop of quick 
 silver." 
 
 " To hear you, one would take you for the laziest fellow in 
 the universe." 
 
 " There's reason in all things. I keep my vital energies 
 against the time of need, instead of wasting them in unne 
 cessary gyrations. Ladies at the table ! New Yorkers in 
 full feather, or I'll be shot ! Now, what the deuse have lace 
 and ribbons to do in a place like this ? " 
 
 During the meal, the presence of the strangers was a check 
 upon their conversation. 
 
 " Crawford," said Meredith, when it was over, " have you 
 had that sofa taken into my room ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "And the arm chair?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And the candles ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " All right. Now, then, colonel, aUofis" 
 
 The name of colonel was Morton's college sobriquet. 
 Meredith led the way into a room which adjoined his bed 
 chamber, and which, under his direction, had assumed an air 
 of great comfort. Morton took possession of the sofa ; his 
 friend of the arm chair. 
 
 "What's the word with you ?" began the latter; "are 
 you bound for the Adirondacks, the Margalloway, or the 
 Penobscot ? " 
 
 " To the Margalloway, I think. You mean to go with me, 
 I hope." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 19 
 
 " To the Margalloway, or the antipodes, or any place this 
 side of the North Pole." 
 
 " Then, if you say so, we'll set off to-morrow." 
 
 " Gently, colonel. One day's fishing here. We have six 
 weeks before us. What sort of thing is that that you are 
 smoking? " 
 
 " Try, and judge for yourself," said Morton, handing his 
 cigar case. Meredith took a sample of its contents between 
 his fingers, and examined it with attention. 
 
 " I always thought you were a kind of heathen, and now 
 I know it. Where did you pick up that cigar ? " 
 
 " Do you find it so very had ? " 
 
 " It would not poison a man, and perhaps might pass for a 
 little better than none at all. But nobody except a pagan 
 would touch it when any thing better could be had." 
 
 " I forgot to bring any from town, and had to supply^ my 
 self on the way." 
 
 " That goes to redeem your character. Fling those away, 
 or give them to the landlord ; I have plenty of better ones. 
 But a pipe is the best thing at a place like this, and especially 
 at camp, in the woods." 
 
 " So I have often heard you say." 
 
 " Mine, though, made a sensation, not long ago." 
 
 " How was that ? " 
 
 " The whole brood of the Stubbs, bag and baggage, passed 
 here this afternoon." 
 
 " Thank Heaven they did not stop." 
 
 " They came in their private carriage. I nodded to Ben, 
 and touched my hat to Mrs. S. You should have seen their 
 faces. They thought there must be something out of joint 
 
20 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 in the mechanism of the universe, when a person of their 
 acquaintance could be seen smoking a pipe at a tavern door, 
 like a bog- trotting Irishman." 
 
 " You should have asked Ben to go with us." 
 
 " It would be the worst martyrdom the poor devil ever 
 had to pass through. Ben seemed displeased with the sce 
 nery. He says that the White Mountains are nothing to any 
 one who, like himself, has seen the Alps." 
 
 " Pray when did Stubb see the Alps ? " 
 
 " O, the whole family have seen the Alps, the Alps, 
 Italy, the Rhine, the nobility and gentry, and every thing else 
 that Europe affords. They all swear by Europe, and hold 
 the soil of America dirt cheap. You can see with half an 
 eye what they are an uncommonly bad imitation of an in 
 different model." 
 
 " Let them pass for what they are worth. Have you come 
 armed and equipped rifle, blanket, hatchet, and so forth ? " 
 
 " Yes, and I have brought an oil cloth tent." 
 
 "So much the better ; it is more convenient than a birch 
 bark shanty." 
 
 " I give you notice that I mean to take my ease in that 
 tent." 
 
 " I hope you will." 
 
 " One can be comfortable in the woods, as well as else 
 where. Remember, colonel, that we are out for amusement, 
 and not after scalps. Last summer, you drove ahead, rain 
 or shine, through thickets, and swamps, and ponds, as if you 
 were on some errand of life and death. For this once, have 
 mercy on frail humanity, and moderate your ardor." 
 
 Morton gave the pledge required. They passed the even- 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 21 
 
 ing in arranging the details of their journey, set forth and 
 spent three or four weeks in the forest between the settled 
 districts of Canada and Maine, poling their canoe up lonely 
 streams, meeting no human face, but smoking their pipes in 
 great contentment by their evening camp fire. They chased 
 a bear, and lost him in a windfall ; killed two moose, six 
 deer, and trout without number ; and underwent, with exem 
 plary patience, a martyrdom of midges, black flies, and mos 
 quitoes. And when, at last, they turned their faces home 
 ward, they wiled the way with plans of longer journeyings, 
 more bear, more moose, more deer, more trout, more 
 midges, black flies, and mosquitoes. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ; 
 Begardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 
 That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey. Gray. 
 
 IT was a week before " class day," that eventful day 
 which was virtually to close the college career of Morton and 
 his contemporaries. The little janitor, commonly called 
 Paddy O'Flinn, was ringing the evening prayer bell from the 
 cupola of Harvard Hall, its tone was dull and muffled, 
 some graceless sophomore having lately painted it white, in 
 side and out, and the students were mustering at the 
 summons. The sedate and the gay, the tender freshman and 
 the venerable senior, the prosperous city beau and the awk 
 ward country bumpkin, one and all were filing from their 
 respective quarters towards the chapel in University Hall. 
 The bell ceased ; the loiterers quickened their steps ; the last 
 belated freshman, with the dread of the proctor before his 
 eyes, bounded frantically up the steps ; and for a brief space 
 all was silence and solitude. Then there was a murmuring, 
 rushing sound, as of a coming tempest, and University Hall 
 disgorged its contents, casting forth the freshmen and juniors 
 at one door, and the sophomores and seniors at the other. 
 
 Of these last was Morton, who, with three or four of his 
 
 class, walked across the college yard, towards the great gate- 
 
 (22) 
 
VASSALL MOETON. 23 
 
 way. By his side was a young man named Rosny, carelessly 
 dressed, but with a lively, dare-devil face, and the look of a 
 good-natured game cock. 
 
 " I shall be sorry to leave this place," said Morton ; "I like 
 it. I like the elms, and the gravel walks, arid the scurvy old 
 brick and mortar buildings." 
 
 " Then I am not of your mind," said Rosny ; " gravel or 
 mud, brickbats or paving stones, they are the same to me, the 
 world over. Halloo, Wren," to a mustachioed youth who 
 just then joined them ; " we are bound to your room." 
 
 " That's as it should be. But where are the rest? " 
 
 "Coming all in good time; here's one of them." 
 
 A dapper little person approached, with a shining beaver, 
 yellow kid gloves, a switch cane, and a very stiff but some 
 what dashing cravat, surmounted by a round and rubicund 
 face. 
 
 "Ah, Chester!" exclaimed Wren; "the very man we 
 were looking for. Come and take a glass of punch at my 
 room." 
 
 " Punch, indeed ! " replied Chester, whose face had changed 
 from a prim expression to one of great hilarity the moment 
 he saw his friends " no, no, gentlemen, I renounce punch 
 and all its works. The pure unmixed, the pure juice of the 
 grape for me." 
 
 " But, Chester," urged Wren, " won't the pure mountain 
 dew be a sufficient inducement ? " 
 
 " The good company will be a sufficient inducement," said 
 Chester, waving his hand, " the good company, gentlemen, 
 and the good liquor. But what have we here ? Meredith 
 
24 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 and Vinal walking side by side. Good Heavens, what a con 
 junction ! " 
 
 The objects of Chester's astonishment, on a nattering invi 
 tation from Wren, joined the party, which, however, was 
 weakened by the* temporary secession of Rosny, who, plead 
 ing an errand in the village, left them with a promise to re 
 join them soon. His place was in a few moments more than 
 supplied by a new party of recruits, among whom was Stubb. 
 Arrived at Wren's room, the desk and other appliances of 
 study were banished from the table ; bottles and glasses 
 usurped their place, and the company composed themselves 
 for conversation, most of them permitting their chairs to 
 stand quietly on all fours, though one or two, like heathen 
 Yankees from the backwoods, forced them to rear rampant on 
 the hind legs, the occupant's feet resting on the ledge over 
 the fireplace. 
 
 A few minutes passed, when a quick, firm step came up the 
 stairs, and Rosny entered. 
 
 " How are you again, Dick ? " said Meredith. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Rosny," echoed Stubb, who sat 
 alone on the window seat. 
 
 "Eh? what's that?" demanded Rosny, turning sharp 
 round upon the last speaker, with a face divided between in 
 dignation and laughter. 
 
 " I said, * Good evening,' " replied Stubb, much discon 
 certed. 
 
 " And why didn't you say, ' Good morning,' yesterday, eh ? 
 when I met you in Boston, eh ? He gave me the cut di 
 rect," turning to the company. " Mr. Benjamin Stubb, here, 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 25 
 
 gave me the cut direct ! It was the pepper-and-salt coat and 
 the thunder-and-lightning breeches that Stubb couldn't think 
 
 of bowing to when he was walking in Street, with a 
 
 lady. Look here, Stubb," again facing the victim, 
 " what do you take me for ? and what the devil do you take 
 yourself for r I know your dirty family history. Your 
 grandfather was a bricklayer, and the Lord knows who your 
 great grandfather was. The best Huguenot blood of France 
 runs in my veins ! My ancestors were fighting at Ivry and 
 Jarnac, while yours were peddling coal and potatoes about 
 London streets, or digging mud in a ditch, for any thing you 
 or I know to the contrary." Stubb gasped. " Your father 
 has a crest painted on his carriage ; but where did he get it ? 
 Why, Cribb, the engraver, stole it for him out of the British 
 peerage." 
 
 Stubb, who was weak and timorous, here rose in great con 
 fusion, muttered something about conduct unbecoming to a 
 gentleman, and meaning to require an explanation, and ab 
 ruptly left the room. 
 
 " That job is finished," said Rosny, composedly seating 
 himself. " His bill is settled for him." 
 
 " But, Dick," said Morton, who had been laughing in his 
 sleeve during the scene, " do you want to be considered as a 
 Frenchman or an American ? " 
 
 "I'm an American," answered Rosny "an American 
 and a democrat, every inch." 
 
 Rosny had adopted democratic principles and habits parti y 
 out of spite against the class to which Stubb belonged, and 
 which he was pleased to designate as the " codfish aristoc- 
 3 
 
26 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 racy," and partly because he thought that he could thus most 
 effectually gain the ends of his impatient, hankering ambition. 
 His ancestor, the head of an eminent Huguenot race, had 
 been driven to America by the persecutions which followed 
 the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The family had lived 
 ever since in poverty and obscurity ; yet this fiery young dem 
 ocrat nourished an inordinate pride of birth, and never forgot 
 that he was descended from a line of warlike nobles. 
 
 " No, no," said Rosny, as Morton pushed a glass towards 
 him, " drinking is against my rule Well, as it's about the 
 last time," filling the glass, " here's to you all." 
 
 " The last time ! " said Morton ; " that's a dismal word. 
 If my next four years are as pleasant as these last have been, 
 I will never complain of them." 
 
 " I tell you, boys," said Meredith, who was tranquilly puff 
 ing at his cigar, " the cream of our lives is skimmed already. 
 Rough and tumble, hurry and worry that will be the story 
 with most of us, more or less, to the end of our days." 
 
 " Rough and tumble ! " exclaimed Rosny ; " so much the 
 better. ' Scots play best at the roughest game ' that's just 
 my case. Who wants to be always paddling about on smooth 
 water r Close reefed topsails, a gale astern, and breakers all 
 round that's the game." 
 
 " Every one to his taste," said Chester, shrugging his 
 shoulders. " I suppose a salamander loves the fire, but I 
 don't. ' The race of ambition ' ' the unconquerable will ' 
 pshaw! Cui lonol One chases after his object, and 
 when he has got it, he turns from it, and chases another. I 
 profess the philosophy of Horace enjoy the hour as it flies. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 27 
 
 Ah ! he was a model man, a man after my own heart, a gen 
 tleman and a man of the world. He could drink his Faler- 
 nian, and thank the gods for their gifts." 
 
 Rosny whispered in Morton's ear, " Chester ought to 
 have been born a century ago, among the John Bulls, up in 
 the cockloft of Brazen Nose College, or some such antedilu 
 vian hole." 
 
 In spite of these derogatory remarks, Chester, besides 
 being one of the best scholars in the class, was noted for a 
 social, jovial disposition, which, though, like Fluellen's valor, 
 a little out of fashion, made him a general favorite. 
 
 " Speaking of the next four years," said Wren, " I wonder 
 what plans each of us has made for that time. For my part, I 
 have no plan at all, and should be glad to profit by the sugges 
 tions of the rest. Come, Chester, what do you mean to do ? " 
 
 " Expatiate," said Chester, expanding his hands, and there 
 by revealing an odd little antique ring which he wore ; " take 
 mine ease, roaming, like the bee, from blossom to blossom. 
 I will leave the earnest men bah ! the men with a mis 
 sion to grub on in their vocation. I will renounce this 
 land of cotton mills and universal suffrage. First for Paris, 
 to walk the Boulevards, and go to the masked balls and the 
 opera; vive la bagatelle! then for Rome, to saunter 
 through the Vatican and the picture galleries, but not to 
 moralize with a long face over fallen grandeur, and the muta 
 bility of human affairs. No, no, gentlemen, I belong to an 
 other school of philosophy. I will sit among the ruins of the 
 Forum, and laugh, like Democritus, at the image of Death. 
 Then I will recreate myself at Capri, like the Caesars before 
 
28 VASSALL MOItTON. 
 
 me ; then eiijoy the dolcefar niente at Florence, and read the 
 Tuscan poets in the shades of Vallombrosa." 
 
 " But, Chester," interposed Wren, " don't you ever mean 
 to marry and settle down ? " 
 
 " I object to that phrase, ' settle down.' It calls up disa 
 greeable images. It reminds one of the backwoods, log cab 
 ins, men in shirt sleeves, and piles of pine boards and lumber. 
 Yes, certainly,, I mean to many. What man of taste would 
 leave matrimony out of his scheme of life ? One likes to 
 gather his treasures round him, his pictures, his vases, and 
 statues ; and how can he adorn his rooms with an ornament 
 more exquisite where can he find a piece of furniture more 
 charmingly moulded than a beautiful woman? " 
 
 This flourish, between jest and earnest, he pronounced 
 with a graceful wave of his hand. 
 
 " If, when you have married your beautiful woman," said 
 Morton, " you find you have caught a Tartar, it will serve you 
 right." 
 
 "Hear him," said Chester; "hear the barbarian. He will 
 ahvays be conjuring up some image of disquiet. * Rest, rest, 
 perturbed spirit.' " 
 
 "He could not rest, if he tried," said Horace Vinal. 
 
 " No, he is one of those unfortunates who lie under a sen 
 tence of endless activity. It is a disease, with which men 
 are afflicted for the sins of their ancestors ; and for the sins 
 of mine I was born among a whole nation of such. Perpet 
 ual motion, bustle and whirl, I grow dizzy to think of it. 
 They cannot rest themselves, and will not let any one else 
 rest. Always pursuing, always doing, never enjoying. A 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 29 
 
 true American cannot enjoy. He would build a steam saw 
 mill in Arcadia, and dam up the four rivers of Paradise for 
 cotton factories." 
 
 " But, Chester," said Wren, " that is not at all like Mor 
 ton; you know he hates utilitarianism." 
 
 " Yes, but still he cannot rest. He would not build saw 
 mills and dams ; but he would be sure to fire his rifle at some 
 of Adam's live stock, and set all Eden by the ears. Come, 
 Morton, I have told the company my plans. Let us hear 
 what yours are." 
 
 " My guardian wishes me to enter the law school." 
 
 " You are twenty-one now," said Vinal, " and can do as 
 you please." 
 
 Vinal was a very tall and slender young man, with a 
 strongly marked face, though thin and pale ; a grave, thought 
 ful eye, and compressed lips, expressing a kind of nervous 
 self-control. His dress was very elaborate and scrupulous, 
 though without the smallest trace of foppery. He was less 
 popular in the class than Morton, but had the reputation of 
 greater talents. This he owed, perhaps, to his habitual re 
 serve ; for every one thought that he understood Morton 
 thoroughly, while few pretended to fathom the silent and self- 
 contained Vinal. 
 
 " I should like well enough to study law," was Morton's 
 non-committal answer. 
 
 " I thought, Morton, that you were more of a philosopher. 
 
 Here you are, a young fellow, full of blood, and worth half 
 
 a million, and yet you speak of buckling down to the law. 
 
 That is all well enough for poor dogs like me, who go into 
 
 3* 
 
30 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 the mill from necessity. We drudge on for twenty years or 
 more, till we have scraped together a competency, or some 
 thing better, perhaps, and then we find that we have for 
 gotten how to enjoy it. We have grown so used to harness 
 that we are good for nothing out of it, and sacrifice body and 
 soul to our profession. You have reached already the point 
 that we are straining for. The world is all before you, man ; 
 launch out and enjoy yourself." 
 
 " Didn't you just say," asked Rosny, " that Morton couldn't 
 rest, if he tried?" 
 
 " I said he could not rest, but I did not say he could not 
 enjoy himself. Look at him : his cheek is ruddier and 
 browner than any of us. Nobody would believe that a fellow 
 like that was not made to enjoy life. I know Morton. He 
 could roam from blossom to blossom, as Chester says, with as 
 good a will as any body. He has an eye for the fair sex, cor 
 rect as he is at present. He knows a pretty face from a plain 
 one. The devil -will catch him yet with a black eye and a 
 rosy cheek." 
 
 " Then," said Morton, " he will show his good opinion of 
 my taste." 
 
 Rosny, who had his own reasons for disliking Vinal, here 
 broke in without ceremony, 
 
 "Be gad, Vinal, he will bait his hook differently when he 
 fishes for you." 
 
 " How will that be, Dick ? " said Meredith. 
 
 " With a five dollar bank note, and a lying puff in a news 
 paper ; and Vinal will jump at it like a mackerel at a red rag." 
 
 Vinal laughed, but with a bad grace. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 31 
 
 " Riches and fame ! " said Chester, anxious to smooth 
 away all traces of irritation " riches and fame ! I call those 
 legitimate objects of pursuit ; and the black eye is positively 
 praiseworthy. Come, , Morton, let us hear your plan. You 
 have not told it yet." 
 
 " I defer to Rosny he is my senior. Dick, some ten or 
 twelve years from this, I suppose I shall vote against you for 
 the presidency." 
 
 " Thank you. By that time you will have no whig party 
 left to vote with. The democrats will have it all their own. 
 way." 
 
 " I have often wondered what could have induced a driving 
 man of the world like you to come to college at all. You 
 have been here more than a year ; and in the same time, 
 with your previous knowledge, you might have learned as 
 much any where else at half the cost. You are not the fel 
 low to regard a degree of A. M. with superstitious venera 
 tion." 
 
 " You are right there, colonel. I am of no kith nor kin to 
 some of your New England old fogies, who would give their 
 souls for a D. D. or an LL. D. and get it, too, though 
 they know no more Greek or Hebrew than I know of Chot- 
 taw, and can barely manage to stumble along through the 
 Latin Testament. What's a piece of sheep's skin to me ? 
 Humbug is the current coin all the world over, and just 
 as much in this free and enlightened country as any where 
 else. I have schemes on foot, not political, no matter 
 what they are, out in the western country ; and I happen 
 to know that a degree from Harvard University is the medi- 
 
32 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 cine that suits my case ; with that for my credentials, I shall 
 carry it over all competitors. Yes, boys, gammon is the 
 word ; and the man who would rise in the world must use 
 the stepping stones." 
 
 " You're a victim of the national disease, Rosny," said 
 Chester. " Rising in the world ! that's the idea that ruins 
 us. It's that that makes us lean, starveling, nervous, rest 
 less, dyspeptic, hypochondriac, the most prosperous and 
 most uncomfortable people on earth. Sit down, man, and 
 take your ease. What garden will thrive if every plant in it 
 must be dug up every day, and set out in a better place ? " 
 
 " Ah, that's good doctrine for you. You have got nothing 
 to gain, and a good deal to lose. Stand up for the status quo, 
 old boy ; I would, in your place. Look at me, though. I 
 was cut adrift at fourteen, parents dead, not a cent in 
 my pocket, and since then I have tumbled along through 
 the world as I could. You can't kill me. I have more lives 
 than a cat. I have been thrown on my back a dozen times ; 
 but the harder I was flung down, the higher I bounced up 
 again. Why, I have known the time when I was glad to 
 earn a shilling by shovelling snow off a sidewalk. I have 
 tried my hand at every thing, printer's work, lecturing, 
 politics, editing, keeping school, and do you suppose I 
 shall be content to rest in the mud all my days ? Not a bit 
 of it. - I know my cue better. The time will come when 
 you'll see me shooting up like a rocket." 
 
 Here a broad glare against the window interrupted him, 
 and, looking out, his auditors saw a bonfire blazing with pe 
 culiar splendor under the windows of the chamber where the 
 
VASSALL M011TON. 33 
 
 Faculty were at that moment in solemn session. Three proc 
 tors and a tutor were hastening towards the scene of outrage, 
 when a stentorian voice from the adjacent darkness roared 
 forth a warning that there was a canister of gunpowder in 
 the fire expected every moment to explode. The prudent 
 officers therefore kept their distance, busying themselves with 
 noting down the names of several innocent spectators, while 
 the bonfire subsided to a natural death, the gunpowder hoax 
 having perfectly succeeded. 
 
 Mr. Wren's guests resumed their seats, mingling with 
 graver matters the usual badinage of a college gathering; 
 and when at length they separated, only a lonely light or two 
 glimmered from among the many windows of the academic 
 barracks which overlook the college green. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As if with Heaven a bargain they had made 
 To practise goodness and to be well paid, 
 They, too. devoutly as their fathers did, 
 Sin, sack, and sugar, equally forbid ; 
 Holding each hour uupardonably spent 
 That on the leger leaves no monument. Pars 
 
 MR. ERASTTJS FLINTLOCK sat at his counting room, in his 
 old leather-bottomed arm chair. Vassall Morton, his newly 
 emancipated ward, just twenty-one, stood before him, the 
 undisputed master of his father's ample wealth. 
 
 " What, no profession, Mr. Morton ? None whatever, sir ? " 
 
 " No, sir, none whatever." 
 
 The old man's leathery countenance expressed mingled 
 wrath and concern. 
 
 Flintlock was a stanch old New Englander, boasting him 
 self a true descendant of the Puritans, whose religious tenets 
 he inherited, along with most of their faults, and not a few 
 of their virtues. He was narrow as a vinegar cruet, and just 
 in all his ^dealings. There were three subjects on which he 
 could converse with more or less intelligence politics, theol 
 ogy, and business. Beyond these, he knew nothing ; and 
 except American history and practical science, he had an in 
 distinct idea that any thing more came of evil. He distrusted 
 a foreigner, and abhorred a Roman Catholic. All poetry, but 
 
 (34) 
 
VASSALL MOBTON. 35 
 
 Milton and the hymn book, was an abomination in his eyes ; 
 and he looked upon fiction as an emanation of the devil. To 
 the list of the cardinal virtues he added another, namely, 
 attention to business. In his early days, he had come from 
 his native Connecticut with letters to Morton's father, who, 
 seeing his value, took him as a clerk, placed unbounded trust 
 in him, and at last made him his partner. He was a youth 
 of slow parts, solid judgment, solemn countenance, steady 
 habits, and a most unplialaie conscience. He had no follies, 
 allowed himself no indulgences, and could enjoy no other 
 pleasures than business and church-going. He attended ser 
 vice morning, afternoon, and evening, and never smiled on 
 Sundays. His old age was as upright and stiff-necked as 
 might have been augured from such a youth. He thought 
 the rising generation were in a very bad way, and once gave 
 his son a scorching lecture on vanity and arrogance, because 
 the latter, who had been two years at college, very modestly 
 begged to be excused from carrying a roll of sample cotton, a 
 yard and a half long, from his father's store at one end of the 
 town, to the shop of a retail dealer at the other. 
 
 " What, no profession, Mr. Morton ? " 
 
 " None whatever, sir." 
 
 Morton was prepared for the consequence of these fatal 
 words, and sought to arm himself with the needful patience. 
 It would be folly, he knew, to debate the point with his 
 guardian, who was tough and unmanageable as a hickory 
 stump ; who would never see any side of a question but his 
 own, and on whose impervious brain reasons fell like rain 
 drops on a tarpauline. Flintlock, therefore, opened fire unan- 
 
36 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 swered, and discoursed for a full hour on duty, propriety, and 
 a due respect for what he called the general sense of the 
 community, which, as he assured his auditor, demands that 
 every one should have, some fixed and stated calling, by which 
 he may be recognized as a worthy and useful member of so 
 ciety. Sometimes he grew angry, and scolded his ward with 
 great vehemence ; then subsided into a pathetic strain, and 
 exhorted him, for the sake of his excellent father, not to grow 
 old in idleness and frivolity. Morton, respectful, but obdu 
 rate, heard him to an end, assured him that, though renoun 
 cing commerce and the professions, his life would by no 
 means be an idle one, thanked him for his care of his prop 
 erty, and took his leave ; while the old merchant sank back 
 into his chair, and groaned dismally, because the son of his 
 respected patron w r as on the road to perdition. 
 
 A moment's retrogression will explain the young man's 
 recusancy. 
 
 On a May evening, some two months before the close of 
 his college career, Morton sat in lonely meditation on a 
 wooden bench, by the classic border of Fresh Pond. By 
 every canon of polite fiction, his meditation ought to have 
 been engrossed by some object of romantic devotion ; but in 
 truth they were of a nature wholly mundane and sublunary. 
 
 He had been much exercised of late upon the choice of a 
 career for his future life. He liked none of the professions 
 for itself, and had no need to embrace it for support. He 
 loved action, and loved study ; was ambitious and fond of 
 applause. He had, moreover, enough of the American in his 
 composition never to be happy except when in pursuit of 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 37 
 
 something ; together with a disposition not very rare among 
 young men in New England, though seldom there, or else 
 where, joined to his abounding health and youthful spirits 
 a tendency to live for the future, and look at acts and things 
 with an eye to their final issues. 
 
 Thierry's Norman Conquest had fallen into his hands soon 
 after he entered college. The whole delighted him ; but he 
 read and re-read the opening chapters, which exhibit the 
 movements of the various races in their occupancy of the 
 west of Europe. This first gave him an impulse towards 
 ethnological inquiries. He soon began to find an absorbing 
 interest in tracing the distinctions, moral, intellectual, and 
 physical, of different races, as shown in their history, their 
 mythologies, their languages, their legends, their primitive 
 art, literature, and way of life. The idea grew upon him of 
 devoting his life to such studies. 
 
 Seated on the wooden bench at the edge of Fresh Pond, 
 he revolved, for the hundredth time, his proposed scheme, and 
 summed up what he regarded as its manifold advantages. It 
 would enable him to indulge his passion for travel, lead him 
 over rocks, deserts, and mountains, conduct him to Tartar 
 tents and Cossack hovels, make him intimate with the most 
 savage and disgusting of barbarians ; in short, give full swing 
 to his favorite propensities, and call into life all his energies 
 of body and mind. In view of this prospect, he clinched his 
 long- cherished purpose, devoting himself to ethnology for the 
 rest of his days. 
 
 He had a youthful way of thinking that any resolution 
 deliberately adopted by him must needs be final and conclu- 
 4 
 
38 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 give, and was fully convinced that his present determination 
 was a species of destiny, involving one of three results that 
 he should meet an early death, which he thought very likely ; 
 that he should be wholly disabled by illness, which he thought 
 scarcely possible ; or that, in the fulness of time, say twenty 
 or twenty-five years, his labors would have issue in some pro 
 digious work, redounding to his own honor and the un 
 speakable profit of science. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 'Tis a dull thing to travel like a mill horse, 
 
 Still in the place he was born in, round and blinded. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 A NOVEL-MAKER may claim a privilege which his betters 
 must forego. So, in the teeth of dramatic unities, let the 
 story leap a chasm of some two years. 
 
 Not that the void was a void to Morton. His nature 
 spurred him into perpetual action ; but his wanderings were 
 over at length; and he and Meredith sat under the porch 
 of Morton's house, a few miles from town. The features of 
 the latter were swarthy from exposures, while those of his 
 friend were somewhat pale, and had the expression of one 
 insufferably bored. 
 
 " Colonel, you are the luckiest fellow I know. Here you 
 have been following the backbone of the continent from Da- 
 rien to the head of the Missouri, mixing yourself up with 
 Spaniards and Aztecs, poking sticks into the crater of Popo- 
 catapetl, and living hand and glove with Blackfeet and Assin- 
 naboins, while I have been doing penance among bonds and 
 mortgages, and title deeds and leases. My father has thrown 
 up responsibility and gone to Europe and so- has every 
 body else and left all on my shoulders." 
 
 "Your time will come." 
 
 (39) 
 
40 VASSALL MOKTOX. 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " But what news is there ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " What, nothing since I went away? " 
 
 " The old story. You know it as well as I. Now and 
 then, a new engagement came out. Mrs. A. approved it, and 
 Mrs. B. didn't ; and then characters were discussed on both 
 sides. Something has been said of the balls, the opera, and 
 what not ; with the usual talk about the wickedness of the 
 democrats and the fanaticism of the abolitionists." 
 
 " You appear to have led a gay life." 
 
 " Very ! we need a war, an invasion, something of the 
 sort. It would put life into us, and rid us of a great deal of 
 nonsense. You were born with a stimulus in yourself, and 
 can stand this stagnant sort of existence ; but I need some 
 thing more lively." 
 
 " Then go with me on my next journey." 
 
 " Are you thinking of another already ? Rest in peace, 
 and thank Heaven that you have come home in a whole skin." 
 
 " I have done the North American continent ; but there 
 are four more left, not to mention the islands." 
 
 " And you mean to see them all ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Your science is a convenient hobby. It carries you wher 
 ever you fancy to go." 
 
 " You could not do better than go with me." 
 
 " I know it ; but, if wishes were horses I am train 
 ing Dick to take my place. I am a model elder brother to 
 that youngster in the way of cultivating his mind and morals ; 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 41 
 
 and when I have him up to the mark, I shall gain a year's 
 furlough for my pains. But when is your next journey to 
 begin next week ? " 
 
 " No, I mean to pin myself down here, and dig like a mole, 
 for the next ten months, at least." 
 
 '* If I had not had ocular proof of what a determined dig 
 you can be, I should set down your studies as mere hum- 
 bug." 
 
 " But I wish to hear the news." 
 
 " I would tell it willingly, if I knew any." 
 
 " Have the Primroses come home from Europe yet? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And the Everills ? " 
 
 "I believe not." 
 
 " Nor the Leslies, I suppose." 
 
 " For a reasonably sensible and straightforward fellow, you 
 have a queer way of making inquiries. You question like a 
 lady's letter, with the pith in the postscript. You ask after the 
 Primroses and the Everills, a stupid, priggish set, for whom 
 you care nothing, as earnestly as if you were in love with 
 them, and then grow indifferent when you come to the Les 
 lies, whom you like." 
 
 "Did I?" said Morton, in some discomposure; "I ask 
 their pardon. Have they come home ? " 
 
 " Not yet, but I believe they mean to come as soon as they 
 have staid their year out." 
 
 "And that will be very soon early in the spring, or 
 sooner." 
 
 " Now I think of it, I made the acquaintance, a few even- 
 4* 
 
42 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 ings ago, of a person who, I believe, is a relation or connec 
 tion of yours Miss Fanny Euston." 
 
 " O, yes, she is my third, fourth, or fifth cousin, or some 
 thing of that sort ; but I have not seen her since she was ten 
 years old. She was a great romp, then, and very plain." 
 
 " That last failing is cured. She has grown very hand 
 some." 
 
 " The first failing ought to be cured, too, by this time." 
 " I am not so clear on that point. She is a girl with an 
 abundance of education, and a good deal of a certain kind of 
 accomplishment music, and so on but no breeding at all. 
 If she had had the training of good society, she would have 
 been one of a thousand. As it is she cares for nobody, and 
 does and says whatever comes into her mind, without the 
 least regard to consequences or appearances." 
 
 " Does she affect naturalness, independence, and all that? " 
 " No, she affects nothing. The material is admirable. It 
 only needs to be refined, polished, and toned down. It's un 
 lucky, colonel, but in this world every thing worth having is 
 broken in pieces and mixed with something that one doesn't 
 want. It's an even balance, good and bad ; there's no use in 
 going off into raptures about any thing. One thing is cer 
 tain, though ; this cousin of yours has character enough to 
 supply material for a dozen Miss Primroses, without any visi 
 ble diminution." 
 
 " I should like to see her. I'll go to-morrow." 
 " You'd better. But now tell me something more about 
 your journey." 
 
 And, in reply to his friend's questions, Morton proceeded 
 to relate such incidents as had befallen him. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Beauty is a witch 
 
 Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. 
 D. Pedro. If thou wilt hold longer argument, 
 Do it in notes. 
 Benedick. Now, divine air, now is his soul ravished. 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 MORTON visited his cousin, Miss Fanny Euston, a guest, 
 for a few days, at a friend's house in town. By good fortune, 
 as he thought it, he found her alone ; and, as he conversed 
 with her, he employed himself after a practice usual with 
 him in studying her character, and making internal com 
 ments upon it. These insidious reflections, condensed into a 
 paragraph, would have been somewhat as follows : 
 
 " A fine figure, and a very handsome face ; but there is a 
 lurking devil in her eye, and about the corners of her mouth." 
 Here some ten minutes of animated dialogue ensued before 
 his observations had shaped themselves into further results. 
 " She is exceedingly clever ; she knows how to think and act 
 for herself. I should not like to cross her will. There is fire 
 enough in her to make a hundred women interesting. She is 
 none of our frosty New England beauties. She could love a* 
 man to the death, and hate him as well. She could . be a 
 heroine or a tigress. Every thing about her is wild and cha 
 otic, the unformed elements of a superb woman." 
 
 (43) 
 
44 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Here, the conversation having lasted a half hour or more, 
 his imagination began to disturb the deductions of his philos 
 ophy, and he was no longer in a mood of just psychological 
 analysis, when, to his vexation, his cousin's hostess, Miss 
 Jones, entering, brought his tete-a-tete to a close. She dis 
 played a marvellous fluency of discourse, and was eloquent 
 upon books, parties, paintings, and the opera. 
 
 . " I need not ask you, Mr. Morton, if you have seen Ten 
 nyson's new poem." 
 
 " Yes at the bookseller's." 
 
 "But surely you have read it." 
 
 " No, I am behind the age." 
 
 " Then thank Heaven for it," exclaimed his unceremonious 
 cousin ; " for of all insipidity, and affectation, and fine-spun, 
 wire-drawn trash, Tennyson carries away the palm. Every 
 body reads him because he is the fashion, and every body 
 admires him because he is the fashion. But he is a bubble, 
 a film, a gossamer ; there's nothing in him." 
 
 This explosion called forth a protest from the poet's ad 
 mirer. 
 
 " May I ask," said Morton to his cousin, " who are your 
 literary favorites ? " 
 
 " Not the latter-day poets the Tennysonian school ; 
 their puling mannerism is an insult to the Saxon tongue." 
 
 " But," urged Miss Jones, " you are not quite reasonable." 
 * " Of course I am not. It's not a woman's province to be 
 reasonable." 
 
 " Do you subscribe to these poetical heresies, Mr. Morton ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I think that Tennyson has often great 
 beauties." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 45 
 
 "If he sometimes wrote like an angel," pursued Fanny 
 Euston, " I should find no patience to see it in a man who 
 could put upon paper such parrot rhymes as these : 
 
 ' Not a whit of thy tuwhoo, 
 Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, 
 Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, 
 "With a lengthened loud halloo, 
 Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o ! ' 
 
 Bah ! it puts one in a passion to hear such twaddle." 
 
 " I see," said her friend, " that nothing less than your own 
 music will calm your indignation. Pray let us hear the bal 
 lad which you set to music this morning." 
 
 " I will sing, if you wish it ; but not that ballad." 
 And she seated herself before the open piano. 
 " What do you choose, Mr. Morton? " 
 " The Marseillaise. That, I think, is in your vein." 
 " Ah ! you can choose well ! " 
 
 And, running her fingers over the keys, she launched at 
 once into the warlike strains of the hymn of revolution. Her 
 voice and execution were admirable ; and though by no means 
 unconscious that she was producing an effect, she sang with 
 a fire, energy, and seeming recklessness that thrilled like 
 lightning through her auditor's veins. He rose involun 
 tarily from his seat. For that evening his study of char 
 acter was ended, and philosophy dislodged from her last 
 stronghold. 
 
 Half an hour later he was riding homeward in a mood 
 quite novel to his experience. He pushed his horse to a keen 
 
46 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 trot, as if by fierceness of motion to keep pace with the fiery 
 influence that was kindling all his nerves. 
 
 " I have had my fancies before this," he thought, " in 
 fact I have almost been in love ; but that feeling was no more 
 like this than a draught from a clear spring is like a draught 
 of spiced wine." 
 
 That night he fully expected to be haunted by a vision of 
 Fanny Euston ; but his slumbers were unromantically dream 
 less. 
 
 Three days later, he ventured another visit ; but his cousin 
 had returned to her home in the country. By this time 
 he was conscious of a great abatement of ardor; and his 
 equanimity was little moved by the disappointment. In a 
 week he had learned to look back on his transient emotion 
 as an effervescence of the moment, and to regard his relative 
 with no slight interest, indeed, yet by no means in a light 
 which could blind him to her glaring faults. He summoned 
 up all that he could recall of herself and her family, and 
 chiefly of her father, whom he remembered in his boyhood as 
 a rough, athletic man, whose black and bushy eyebrows were 
 usually contracted into something which seemed like a frown. 
 These boyish recollections were far from doing Euston justice. 
 He was a man of masculine and determined character. His 
 will was strong, his passions violent ; he was full of preju 
 dices, and when thwarted or contradicted, his rage was formi 
 dable. His honor was unquestioned ; he was most bluntly 
 and unmanageably honest. Yet through the rock and iron 
 of his character, there ran, known to but few, a delicate vein 
 of poetic feeling. The music of his daughter, or the verses 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 47 
 
 of his favorite Burns, could often bring tears to his stern gray 
 eyes. For his wife, whom he had married in a fit of pique 
 and disappointment, when little more than a boy, he cared 
 nothing ; but his fondness for his daughter was unbounded. 
 He alone could control her ; for she loved him ardently, and 
 he was the only living thing of which she stood in awe. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Elle ne manque jamais de saisir promptement 
 L'apparente lueur du moindre attachement, 
 D'en semer la nouvelle avec beaucoup de joie, 
 
 Le Tartvfe. 
 
 AMONG Morton's acquaintance was a certain Miss Blanche 
 Blondel. They had been schoolmates when children; and 
 as, at a later date, Miss Blanche had been fond of making 
 long visits to a friend in Cambridge, during term time, Mor 
 ton, in common with many others, had a college acquaintance 
 with her, so that they were now on a footing of easy inter 
 course. Not that he liked her. On the contrary, she had 
 inspired him with a very emphatic aversion ; but being rather 
 a skirmisher on the outposts of society, than enrolled in the 
 main battalion, she was anxious to make the most of the ac 
 quaintance she had. She had the eyes of an Argus, and was 
 as sly, smooth, watchful, and rusee as a tortoise shell cat ; 
 wonderfully dexterous at finding or making gossip, and un 
 wearied in sowing it, broadcast, to the right and left. 
 
 One evening Morton was at a ball, crowded to the verge 
 of suffocation. At length he found himself in a corner from 
 which there was no retreat, while the stately proportions 
 of Mrs. Frederic Goldenberg barred his onward progress. 
 But when that distinguished lady chanced to move aside, she 
 
 (48) 
 
VASSALL MOBTON. 49 
 
 revealed the countenance of Miss Blondel, beaming on him 
 like the moon after an eclipse. She nodded and smiled. 
 There was no escape. Morton smiled hypocritically, and 
 said, "'Good evening." Blanche, as usual, was eager for con 
 versation, and, after a few commonplaces, she said, turning up 
 her eyes at him with an arch expression, 
 
 " I have a piece of news to tell you, Mr. Morton." 
 
 "Ah!" replied Morton, expecting something disagreeable. 
 
 " A piece of news that you will be charmed to hear." 
 
 Indeed." 
 
 " Why, how cold you are ! And I know that, in your 
 heart, you are burning to hear it." 
 
 " If you think so, you are determined to give my patience 
 a hard schooling." 
 
 " Well, I will not tantalize you any more. Miss Edith 
 Leslie sailed from Liverpool for home last Wednesday." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " How cold you are again ! Are you not glad to 
 hear it?" 
 
 " Certainly all her friends will be glad to hear it." 
 
 " Upon my word, Mr. Morton, you are worse and worse. 
 When a gentleman dances twice with a young lady on class 
 day, and twice at Mrs. Fanfaron's ball, and joins her in the 
 street besides, has she not a right to feel hurt when he hears 
 with such profound indifference of her coming home after a 
 year's absence ? " 
 
 Morton could hardly restrain the extremity of his distaste 
 and impatience. 
 
 " Miss Leslie, I imagine, would spend very little thought 
 
50 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 upon the matter." And he hastened, first to change the con 
 versation, and then to close it altogether. 
 
 Having escaped from his fair informant, he remained di 
 vided between pleasure at the tidings, and annoyance at the 
 manner in which they had been told. 
 
 In a few days Miss Leslie arrived. Her beauty had ma 
 tured during her absence. She was conspicuously and bril 
 liantly handsome, and was admired accordingly, a fact which, 
 though she could not but be conscious of it, seemed to affect 
 her very little. Morton found her but slightly changed, with 
 the same polished and quiet frankness, the same lively conver 
 sation, not without a tinge of sarcasm, and the same enthusi 
 asm of character, betraying itself by an earnestness of man 
 ner, and never by any extravagance of expression. He had 
 many opportunities of seeing her, Miss Blanche Blondel 
 being but rarely present, and, in his growing admiration of 
 her, the charms of his unbridled cousin faded more and more 
 from his memory. 
 

 CHAPTER X. 
 
 For three whole days you thus may rest 
 From office business, news, and strife. Pope. 
 
 WHEN the summer heats set in, Meredith, one evening, 
 drove to Morton's house, and, arrayed in linen and grass- 
 cloth, smoked his cigar under his friend's veranda with as 
 much contentment as the thermometer at ninety would per 
 mit. The window at his side was that of the room which 
 Morton used as his study, and the table was covered with 
 books. 
 
 " Colonel," said Meredith, " what a painstaking fellow you 
 are ! Ever since you left college except when you were off 
 on that journey, which was one of the most rational things 
 you ever did in your life you have been digging here 
 among your books, as if you were some half-starved law stu 
 dent, with a prospect of matrimony." 
 
 " I've done digging for the present. It's against my prin 
 ciples to work much in July and August." 
 
 " "What do you mean to do ? " 
 
 " Set out on a journey." 
 
 " I suppose so. You are a lucky fellow." 
 
 " Give yourself a vacation, and come with me." 
 
 " No, I'm in for it for the next two months ; but I will 
 have my revenge before long." ( 51 ) 
 
52 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Three days from your office will never ruin you or your 
 family. Come with me to New Baden, if you can't do better." 
 
 " I think I can manage that, and I will." 
 
 Accordingly, on Monday morning, they took the train 
 thitherward. 
 
CHAPTER, XI. 
 
 The company is ' mixed,' (the phrase I quote is 
 
 As much as saying, they're below your notice.) Byvon. 
 
 Ox reaching New Baden, towards night, they learned that 
 there was to be a dance that evening, in the hall. 
 
 " The dense ! " ejaculated Meredith, as they entered ; " have 
 we come all this distance to find old faces again at New Ba 
 den ? Look at that corner." 
 
 Morton looked, and beheld a solemn group taking no part 
 in the amusements, but scrutinizing the scene with the air of 
 superior beings. He recognized the familiar countenance of 
 Mrs. Primrose, with her daughter, Miss Constance Primrose, 
 and her daughter's friend, Miss Wallflower. There, too, was 
 Mr. Benjamin Stubb, Morton's classmate, and Miss Prim 
 rose's reputed admirer, with several other kindred spirits. 
 Stubb was a tall and very slender young man, with a grave 
 and pallid visage, and an uncompromising rigidity of cravat. 
 Though his brain was unfurnished, his morals were reasonably 
 good, and he went regularly to church, believing that there 
 was, he could not tell how, an inseparable connection between 
 good society and the ritual of the English church. He 
 prided himself on his gentlemanly deportment, and regarded 
 a lady as a being who is under no circumstances to be ap- 
 5 * (53) 
 
54 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 preached, except through the medium of certain prescribed 
 forms and 'ceremonies. He seldom noticed those whom he 
 thought his inferiors, and was very formal and exact towards 
 the select few whom he acknowledged as his equals. As to 
 superiors, he confessed none, except in the highest ranks of 
 the English aristocracy, upon whom he looked with great 
 reverence. He thought that there was no really good society 
 in America, except the society of Boston, of which he re 
 garded himself and his connections as the crime, de la creme. 
 He cherished a just hereditary scorn of upstarts and par 
 venus ; for already nearly half a century had expired since 
 the Stubbs began to rise on golden wings from their native 
 mud. Nor was this their only claim to ancestral eminence ; 
 since a judicious investment of a little surplus income at the 
 College of Heralds had revealed the gratifying truth that the 
 Stubbs of Boston were lineal descendants of King Arthur. 
 
 Mrs. Primrose was a very benevolent and estimable person, 
 who knew nothing of the world beyond her own circle, and 
 looked with dire reprehension on any deviation from the stan 
 dard of morals and manners which she had been accustomed 
 to regard as the correct and proper one. Miss Constance 
 Primrose realized Stubb's most exalted ideal of a young lady. 
 She was very pretty, but with a face cold and unchanging as 
 marble. She carried an unquestionable air of good, not to 
 say of high breeding ; having in this point an advantage over 
 her mother, whose style savored a little of the simplicity of 
 her early surroundings. The material, indeed, was very slen 
 der ; but it had received a creditable polish ; and though she 
 had nothing to say, she said it with an undeniable grace. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 55 
 
 Morton and Meredith paid their compliments to the group, 
 the former hastening to mingle with the crowd again, while 
 Meredith remained to exchange a few words with the pretty, 
 modest, and too-much-neglected Miss Wallflower. 
 
 " Upon my word, Mr. Meredith," said Mrs. Primrose, 
 " Mr. Morton has found a singular pair of acquaintances." 
 
 " O, yes," said Meredith; "those are particular friends of 
 his." 
 
 " Very singular ! " murmured Mrs. Primrose. 
 
 Morton was walking slowly up the hall, conversing with an 
 odd-looking couple a heavy, thick set man, in the fantas 
 tic finery of a Broadway swell, and a woman of five feet ten, 
 thin and gaunt, with a yellow complexion, and a pair of fierce, 
 glittering eyes, like an Indian squaw in ill humor. She was 
 gorgeous in silk, brocade, and diamonds, and her huge, 
 gloveless, bony fingers sparkled with jewelry. Her husband, 
 on his part, displayed a mighty breastpin, in the shape of a 
 war horse rampant, in diamond frostwork. 
 
 " Mr. Meredith," murmured the horrified Mrs. Primrose, 
 " pray who are those persons ? " 
 
 " Aborigines from Red River. Mr. and Mrs. Major Orson, 
 of Natchitoches. He is a speculator, I believe, of more 
 wealth than reputation." 
 
 " And are they friends of Mr. Morton ? " 
 
 " 0, Morton is a student of humanity. He met them at 
 the tea table, and thinks them remarkable specimens of nat 
 ural history." 
 
 Mrs. Primrose did not hear this explanation. The trio had 
 now approached within a few yards ; and her whole attention 
 
56 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 was absorbed in listening to the high, penetrating voice of 
 the female ogre. 
 
 " There's one great and glorious thing about Natchitoches," 
 remarked Mrs. Orson. 
 
 " What's that ? " asked Morton. 
 
 " You can get every thing there to eat that heart can wish." 
 
 "That's a fact," said the major; "there ain't no discount 
 on that." 
 
 " Game, and fish, and fruit, and vegetables," pursued the 
 lady ; " any thing and every thing. The north can't compete 
 with it, I tell you. There's the pompano ! O, my ! Did 
 you ever eat a pompano ? " 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " Then you have got something to look forward to. That's 
 a fish that is a fish. Why, sir, you can begin at the tail, and 
 eat him clean away to the head, and the bones is just like 
 marrow ! It makes my mouth water to think of it ! " 
 
 " O, hush ! " cried the major, with sympathetic emotion. 
 
 " And then the fruit ! Think of the peaches ! They beat 
 your nasty little northern peaches all holler ! r ' 
 
 "Yes," added the major, and to have your own boys to 
 shin up the tree and throw 'em down to you ; and to sit un 
 der the shade all the afternoon eating 'em ; that's the way 
 to live ! " 
 
 " It's all the little niggers is good for, just to pick fruit." 
 
 " Troublesome animals, I should think," observed Morton. 
 
 " Well, they be ; and the growed-up niggers ain't much 
 better. To think of that girl, Cynthy, major. My ! wasn't 
 she one of 'em ! The major is, out of all account, too tender 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 57 
 
 to his niggers, and if it warn't for me, they wouldn't get a 
 speck of justice done. Why, what are all those folks moving 
 for ? My ! supper's ready. I'll go in with this gentleman, 
 major, and you may foller with any pretty gal that you can 
 get to come with you. I ain't a jealous woman" turning 
 to Morton "I let the major do pretty much what he 
 pleases." 
 
 Mrs. Primrose drew a deep breath. " There must be " 
 thus she communed with herself " something essentially 
 vulgar in the mind of that young man, if he can neglect a 
 cultivated and refined young lady like Constance, and at the 
 same time find pleasure in the conversation of a person like 
 that." And she considered within herself whether it would 
 not be best to warn Constance not to encourage any advances 
 which he might in future make. On second thoughts, re 
 flecting that his position was unquestionable, his wealth great, 
 and that she had never heard any thing against his morals, 
 she determined to suspend all action for the present, keeping 
 a close watch, meanwhile, on his behavior. 
 
 While Morton was thus brought to the bar in the matronly 
 breast of Mrs. Primrose, while the jury were bringing in a 
 verdict of guilty, joined to a recommendation to mercy, the 
 unconscious young man was leading his companion to the 
 supper room ; where, furnishing her with a huge plate of 
 oysters, he left her in perfect contentment. 
 
 Not long after, he encountered Meredith. 
 
 " How do you like your friend in the diamonds ? " 
 
 " She's a superb specimen ; about as civilized, with all her 
 jewelry, as a Pawnee 'squaw. She has a vein of womanhood, 
 
58 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 though. I saw her, in the tea room, fondle a kitten whose 
 foot had been trodden upon, as tenderly as if it had been a 
 child." 
 
 " If you had not been so busy with her, you would have 
 met a person much better worth your time." 
 
 "Who's that?" 
 
 " Miss Fanny Euston." 
 
 " Do you mean that she is here ? " 
 
 " She was here, in that room adjoining. But she has 
 gone ; you'll see nothing of her to-night." 
 
 " "Will not her being here induce you to stay ? " 
 
 The question, as he spoke it, had a sound of frankness ; 
 but the shameful truth must be confessed, that, in spite of his 
 friendship for Meredith, and his admiration of Miss Leslie, he 
 was a little jealous of his friend. 
 
 " No," replied Meredith, " it's out of the question. I must 
 be off the day after to-morrow. By the way, you never told 
 me how you liked Miss Euston." 
 
 " A rough diamond, needing nothing but to be cut, pol 
 ished, and set ! " 
 
 "It's too late, I think, for that. The polishing should have 
 begun before eighteen. She is quite unformed, and quite 
 unconscious of being so. I'll leave you here to fall in love 
 with her, if you like ; but if you do, colonel, you'll be a good 
 deal younger than I take you for." 
 
 There was something in his friend's tone which led Morton 
 half to suspect the truth. Meredith had himself a penchant 
 for Miss Fanny Euston, held in abeyance by a very lively per 
 ception of her faults. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Will you woo this wildcat ? KatJiarine. and Petruchio. 
 
 MEREDITH went away, as lie had proposed, leaving Mor 
 ton at New Baden. The latter soon came to the opinion that 
 he had never yet found so interesting a subject of psycho 
 logical observation as that afforded him in the person of his 
 relative, Miss Euston. She seemed to him the most wayward 
 of mortals ; yet in the midst of this lawlessness, generous 
 instincts were constantly betraying themselves, and a certain 
 native grace, a charm of womanhood, followed her wildest 
 caprices. She often gave great offence by her brusqueries ; 
 yet those who best knew her were commonly her ardent 
 friends. 
 
 Mrs. Primrose looked upon her with her most profound 
 and unqualified disapprobation. Her daughter copied her 
 sentiments ; while Stubb thought her an outside barbarian of 
 the most alarming character. Fanny Euston' s perceptions 
 were very acute. She saw the effect she had produced, and 
 seemed to take peculiar delight in aggravating it, and shock 
 ing the prejudices of he'r critics still more. 
 
 One afternoon, Miss Primrose, Mr. Stubb, Fanny Euston, 
 Morton, and several others, set out on a horseback excursion, 
 matronized by Mrs. Primrose. At a few miles from New 
 
 (59) 
 
60 TASSALL MOItTON. 
 
 Baden, Morton found himself riding at his cousin's side, a 
 little behind the rest. 
 
 " Do you know, I came this morning, to ask you to join us 
 on our walk to Elk Ridge." 
 
 " Ah, I am sorry I was not there." 
 
 " You were there ; but you seemed so deep in Ivanhoe, or 
 some other of your favorites, that I had no heart to inter 
 rupt you." 
 
 " But that was quite absurd. I should like to have gone." 
 
 " I am curious to know what book you were so busy with. 
 Something of Scott's was it not? " 
 
 "Not precisely." 
 
 " Nor one of the new novels," pursued Morton " those 
 are not after your taste." 
 
 " Not at all ; they are all full of some grand reform or phil 
 anthropic scheme, or the sorrows of some destitute, uninterest 
 ing little wretch, with whom you are required to sympathize." 
 
 " You are not moulded after the philanthropic model. But 
 may I ask, what book was entertaining you so much ? " 
 
 " Napier's Life of Montrose." 
 
 " And do you like it ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do." 
 
 " And you like Montrose ? " 
 
 " Certainly I like him." 
 
 " I could have sworn it. Do you remember his verses to 
 the lady of his heart? " 
 
 " That I do," said Fanny Euston, 
 
 ' Like Alexander I will reign, 
 And I will reign alone ; 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 61 
 
 My heart shall evermore disdain 
 
 A rival on my throne. 
 He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 Who puts it not unto the touch, 
 
 To win or lose it all. 
 
 ' But if thou wilt be constant then, 
 
 And faithful of thy word, 
 I'll make thee famous by my pen, 
 
 And glorious by my sword ; 
 I'll serve thee in such noble ways 
 
 Was never heard before ; 
 I'll dress and crown thee all with bays, 
 
 And love thee evermore.' 
 
 " Admirable ! I thought I had a good memory, but you 
 beat me hollow. You repeat the lines as if you liked them." 
 
 " Who would not like them ? " 
 
 " And yet his fashion of wooing would be a little peremp 
 tory for the nineteenth century." 
 
 " There are no Montroses in the nineteenth century." 
 
 " They are out of date, like many a good thing besides. 
 Not long ago, I saw some verses in a magazine a kind of 
 ballad on Montrose's execution." 
 
 " Can you repeat it ? " 
 
 " I cannot compete with you ; but I think I can give you a 
 stanza or two : 
 
 ' The morning dawned full darkly, 
 
 The rain came flashing down, 
 And the jagged streak of the levin bolt 
 
 Lit up the gloomy town : 
 6 
 
62 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 The thunder crashed across the heaven, 
 
 The fatal hour was come ; 
 And ay broke in, with muffled beat, 
 
 The 'larum of the drum. 
 There was madness on the earth below, 
 
 And anger in the sky, 
 And young and old. and rich and poor, 
 
 Came forth to see him die. 
 
 1 But when he came, though pale and wan, 
 
 He looked so great and high, 
 So noble was his manly front, 
 
 So calm his steadfast eye, 
 The rabble rout forbore to shout, 
 
 And each man held his breath, 
 For well they knew the hero's soul 
 
 Was face to face with death.' 
 
 Fanny Euston's eye kindled, as if at a strain of warlike 
 music. 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " I have forgotten the rest." 
 
 " Then pray find the verses and send them to me. Why is 
 it that, as you say, such men are out of date ? " 
 
 " What place, or what career, could they find in a commer 
 cial country ? " 
 
 " Then why were we born in a commercial country ? " 
 
 " You seem to make an ideal hero of Montrose." 
 
 " Not I. I am not the school girl you take me for. I 
 have no ideal hero. I do not believe in ideal heroes. Mont- 
 rose was a man, with the faults of a man ; full of faults, and 
 yet not a bad man either." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 63 
 
 " Very far from it." 
 
 " He liad great faults, but grand qualities to match them, 
 worth a thousand of the small, tame, correct virtues that 
 one sees hereabouts." 
 
 " Dangerous ideas, those, Mrs. Primrose would tell you." 
 
 " Deliver me from Mrs. Primrose ! " ejaculated Fanny. 
 
 They rode in silence for a few minutes, Morton's companion 
 murmuring to herself fragments of the lines which he had 
 just repeated. 
 
 " Look ! " she cried, suddenly. " How slowly our horses 
 have been walking ! The rest are almost out of sight. We 
 had better join them. Will you race with me ? " 
 
 " Any thing you please." 
 
 " Come on, then." 
 
 She touched her horse with the whip, and they set forward 
 at full speed. Fanny, who was by far the better mounted, 
 soon gained the day. 
 
 " Rein up," cried Morton, as they came near the party, 
 " or your horse will startle the others." 
 
 Fanny drew the curb, but not quite successfully ; and her 
 rapid arrival produced some commotion. Stubb's horse, in 
 particular, began to prance and curvet in a manner which 
 greatly disturbed his rider's equanimity. 
 
 " Whoa ! Whoa, boy ! " said Stubb. " Steady, now ! 
 steady, sir ! Whoa ! " 
 
 Fanny's eyes twinkled with malicious delight. She had a 
 great contempt for Stubb, who, on his part, was mortally 
 afraid of her. 
 
 " That's a good horse of yours," pushing close to his side. 
 
64 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 " Yes, a very fine horse, indeed. Steady, boy ! Steady, 
 now ! " 
 
 " A capital horse ; but he needs a spirited hand like yours 
 to manage him." 
 
 " Whoa ! Quiet, now ! poor fellow ! " 
 
 This last endearing address was checked by a sudden jolt, 
 produced by a spasmodic movement of the horse, which 
 shook the cavalier to his very centre. 
 
 " Punish him well with your spurs, Mr. Stubb, and let 
 him run ; that's the way to cure him of his tricks. Suppose 
 we try a race together." 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Euston, but the fact is Whoa, boy ! 
 whoa ! I mean, the stableman told me that he is rather 
 short of breath." 
 
 " O, never mind the stableman. Come, let's go." 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Euston, I believe not to-day." 
 
 " You astonish me. I will lay any bet you like you 
 shall name the wager any thing you please." 
 
 " Really, this is a little too bad ! " soliloquized the horri 
 fied Mrs. Primrose. "Miss Euston, I entreat of you I 
 beg that we may have no more racing. It is very danger 
 ous, besides being " 
 
 " What is it besides being dangerous, Mrs. Primrose ? " 
 
 " Very indecorous." 
 
 " I am very sorry, for I have set my heart on a race with 
 Mr. Stubb." 
 
 " Mr. Morton," said the distressed lady, aside to that 
 young gentleman, " you are a prudent and sober-minded 
 person ; pray- use your influence." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 65 
 
 She was interrupted by a most uncanonical ejaculation 
 from the author of her embarrassments, which, though 
 couched in a foreign language, petrified her into silence. A 
 sharp gust of wind had blown away Fanny's veil, and she 
 was on the point of dashing off in pursuit of it. 
 
 " Stop ! " cried Morton, " you'll break your neck. Let 
 me get it for you." 
 
 The veil sailed away before the wind, and Morton spurred, 
 in pursuit, delighted to display his horsemanship before 
 ladies, though it had no other merit than a tenacious seat 
 and a kind of recklessness, the result of an excitable temper 
 ament. The ground was rough and broken, and studded 
 with rocks and savin bushes, and as he galloped at a break 
 neck speed down the side of the hill, in a vain attempt to 
 catch the veil flying, even Fanny held her breath. He 
 secured his prize, as it caught against a bush, and returned 
 to the road. 
 
 " Now, Miss Euston," said Mrs. Primrose, looking folios 
 at the offender, " I trust we shall be allowed to go on in 
 peace." 
 
 There was an interval of repose. Stubb regained his peace 
 of mind. Miss Primrose, with whom he fancied himself in 
 love, smiled upon him, and his self-conceit, before shaken in 
 its stronghold, was returning in full force, when Fanny, who 
 nourished a peculiar spite against this harmless blockhead, 
 and whom that afternoon a very Satan of mischief seemed to 
 possess, again rode to his side, and renewed her solicitations 
 for a race. 
 
 "Miss Euston," said Mrs. Primrose, "I am -certain you 
 
 I 
 
66 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 would do nothing so unladylike as to force Mr. Stubb to 
 race against his will. Consider the example you would set 
 to Georgiana Gosling, who always imitates what she sees 
 you do." 
 
 The words were mild and motherly ; but the counte 
 nance of the outraged matron had an uncompromising look 
 of reprehension, which exasperated Fanny's wayward humor 
 beyond measure. She began, it is true, a lively conversation 
 011 general topics with the intelligent Stubb, but, meantime, 
 by alternately, checking and exciting her horse, and urging 
 him to play a variety of antics, she contrived to infect her 
 companion's steed with the like contagion. He pranced, 
 plunged, and chafed, till his rider was brought to the verge 
 of despair. 
 
 The road had become quite narrow, running through a 
 thick forest, frequented chiefly by woodcutters in the winter, 
 and hunters of the picturesque in summer. Fanny's imitator, 
 the adventurous Miss Gosling, a little girl of fourteen, had 
 ridden a few rods in advance of the rest, when suddenly they 
 saw her returning, astonished and disconsolate. 
 
 " We can't go any farther ; there's a great tree fallen 
 across the road." 
 
 A severe thundergust of the night before had overthrown 
 a hemlock, the trunk of which, partly sustained by the roots 
 and branches, formed a barrier about four feet from the 
 ground. It was impossible to pass through the woods on 
 either side, as they were very dense, and choked with a 
 tangled growth of laurel bushes. 
 
 " How very annoying ! " said Miss Primrose. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 67 ' 
 
 " What shall we do ? " inquired Miss Gosling. 
 
 "Why, jump over it, to be sure," said Fanny. "Mr. 
 Stubb and I will show you the way." 
 
 " You are surely not in earnest ! " cried Mrs. Primrose. 
 
 " Of course I am. I have taken higher leaps at the riding 
 school, twenty times." 
 
 " You had better not," said Morton, who had alighted by 
 the roadside to draw his saddle girth. 
 
 " It is too dangerous to be thought of for a single mo 
 ment," added Mrs. Primrose. 
 
 " Our horses," pursued the indiscreet Stubb, " are not 
 used to leaping, and some of the ladies would certainly be 
 hurt." 
 
 " The fool ! " thought Morton. " He has done it now." 
 
 Fanny threw a laughing, caustic glance at her victim. 
 
 " Mine will leap, I know ; and you are not a lady. Come, 
 Mr. Stubb." 
 
 " Miss Euston," interposed the excited Mrs. Primrose, " this 
 must not be. I am here in your mother's place, and she will 
 hold me responsible for your safety. I forbid you to go, Miss 
 Euston." 
 
 Fanny looked for a moment in her face. Morton caught 
 the expression. It was one of unqualified, though not ill- 
 natured, defiance. 
 
 " Come," cried Fanny again, and ran her horse towards the 
 tree. She leaped gallantly, and cleared the barrier ; but it 
 was evident that she had lost control of the spirited animal, 
 who galloped at a furious rate down the road. 
 
 Morton was still on foot, busied with his saddle girth. 
 
68 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 u The crazy child ! " exclaimed Mrs. Primrose ; " her horse 
 is runm'ng away. Go after her pray ! Mr. Stubb 
 somebody." 
 
 " O, quick ! quick ! do," cried little Miss Gosling, who 
 idolized Fanny, and was in an agony of fright for her. 
 
 Thus exhorted, the desperate Stubb cried, " Get up," and 
 galloped for the tree ; but his horse balked, and, leaping 
 aside, tumbled him into the mud. The ladies screamed. 
 Morton would have laughed, if he had not been too anxious 
 for Fanny. 
 
 " Get out of the way, Stubb," he cried, mounting with all 
 despatch. 
 
 Miss Primrose's admirer gathered himself up, regained his 
 hat, which had taken refuge in a puddle, and looked with 
 horror at a ghastly white rent across his knee. Morton 
 spurred his hack against the barrier, which the beast cleared 
 with difficulty, striking his hind hoofs as he went over. After 
 riding a short distance, he discovered Fanny, and saw, to his 
 great relief, that she was regaining control over her horse. 
 Half a mile farther on, the road divided. The larger branch 
 led to the right, Morton did not know whither ; the smaller 
 turned to the left, and after circling through the woods for 
 two or three miles, issued upon the high road. Fanny, who 
 was ignorant of the way, took the right hand branch. In a 
 few minutes after, she had brought her horse to a trot, and 
 Morton rode up to her side. 
 
 " You are wiser than I am, if you know where we are 
 going." 
 
 " I thought you knew the way. You were to have been 
 our guide." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 69 
 
 " We are on the wrong road. You should have turned to 
 the left." 
 
 " But have you no idea where this will lead us ? " 
 
 " Into a cedar swamp, for what I know. Had we not 
 better turn back ? " 
 
 " O, don't speak of turning back. I am in no mood for 
 turning back. Let us keep on. I am sure this will bring 
 us out somewhere." 
 
 " As you please," said Morton, knowing himself to be in 
 the position of an angler, whose only chance of managing his 
 salmon is to give it line. 
 
 " Where are all the rest ? " 
 
 " Holding a convention behind the tree, I suppose. At 
 least, I left them there." 
 
 " And did not Mr. Stubb dare the fatal leap ? " 
 
 " He tried, and was thrown into a mud puddle." 
 
 " No bodily harm, I hope." 
 
 " No ; beaver and broadcloth were the principal sufferers. 
 But his conceit is shaken out of him for twenty-four hours, 
 at least." 
 
 " Then I have wrought a miracle, and can claim to be 
 canonized on the strength of it." 
 
 " I hope you may be ; but I never expected to see your 
 name in the calendar of saints." 
 
 " As you will not allow me to be a saint, I suppose you 
 consider me as mad. Sanctity and madness, they say, are 
 of kin." 
 
 " A hair's breadth, or so, on this side madness." 
 
 " Then I am entitled to great credit for keeping my wits at 
 
70 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 all. What reasonable girl would not be driven mad with 
 Mrs. Primrose to watch her, and disapprove of her, and cor 
 rect her ? Strange is it not ? that some people if 
 Mrs. Primrose will allow me to use so inelegant an expres 
 sion are always rubbing one against the grain." 
 
 " To give you your due, I think you have paid off hand 
 somely any grudge you may owe in that quarter." 
 
 " There is consolation in that. Tell me you are of the 
 out-spoken sort are you not of my opinion ? Let me 
 know your mind. Mr. Stubb is " 
 
 A puppy." 
 
 " And the Primroses are " 
 
 " Uninteresting." 
 
 " For uninteresting, say insufferable. If Lucifer wishes to 
 gain me over to his side, let Mrs. Primrose be made my guar 
 dian angel, and his work is done." 
 
 " Your horse has cast a shoe," said Morton, abruptly, 
 " yes ; and he is lame besides." 
 
 " It is this broken, stony road. I wish we were at the end 
 of it." 
 
 " So do I. If the clouds would break for a moment, and 
 show us the sun, I could form some idea of the direction we 
 are following." 
 
 " Why," said Fanny, in alarm, looking at her watch, " the 
 sun must be very near setting." 
 
 Morton began to be very anxious, for his companion's sake, 
 when, a moment after, they came upon a broader track, which 
 intersected the other, and seemed a main thoroughfare of the 
 woodcutters. 
 
VASSALIi MORTON. 71 
 
 " This looks more promising," said Morton ; and turning 
 to the left, they pushed their horses to their best pace. Twi 
 light came on, and it was quite dark when they emerged at 
 length upon the broad and dusty highway. In a few minutes 
 they saw a countryman, with his hands in his pockets, and a 
 long nine between his lips, lounging by the roadside. 
 
 " How far is it to New Baden ? " 
 
 " Wai," replied the man, after studying his querist in 
 silence for about half a minute, " it's fifteen mile strong." 
 
 Morton looked at Fanny, whose horse was very lame, and 
 who, in spite of her spirit, began to show unmistakable signs 
 of fatigue. 
 
 " Is there a public house any where near ? " 
 
 " Yas ; it ain't far ahead to Mashum's." 
 
 "How far?" 
 
 " Rather better nor a mile." 
 
 On coming to the inn, Morton commended Fanny to the 
 care of the landlady, an honest New Hampshire woman, 
 remounted without delay, and urged his tired horse to such 
 speed that he reached the hotel before half past nine. His 
 arrival relieved the anxieties, or silenced the tattle of the 
 inmates ; and in the morning Fanny's uncle drove to the inn, 
 and brought back the adventurous damsel to New Baden. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Men will woo the tempest, 
 And wed it, to their cost. Passim Flowers. 
 
 Then fly betimes, for only they 
 Conquer love that run away. Carew. 
 
 MORTON had been for some time of opinion that he had 
 better leave New Baden ; yet still the philosophic youth staid 
 on, a week longer, a fortnight longer, and still he 
 lingered. It would be too much to say that he was in love 
 with his handsome, dare-devil cousin; but his mind was 
 greatly troubled in regard to her shaken and tossed with 
 a variety of conflicting emotions. The multiplied and con 
 stantly changing phases of her character, its strong but 
 utterly ungoverned resources, its frankness, enthusiasm, det 
 estation of all deceit or pretension, and, in spite of her 
 wildness, a deep vein of womanly tenderness which now and 
 then betrayed itself, all conspired to keep his interest some 
 what painfully excited. 
 
 One evening he left the crowded piazza of the hotel, and, 
 intending to flirt with solitude and a cigar, walked towards a 
 
 < 
 
 rustic arbor, overgrown with a wild grape vine, and standing 
 among a cluster of young elms at the foot of the garden. As 
 he drew near, he saw the gleam of ladies' dresses, and found 
 
 (72) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 73 
 
 the seats already occupied by Miss Fanny Euston and two 
 companions. Morton knew them well, and joined the party. 
 As neither the affected graces of the one companion nor the 
 voluble emptiness of the other had much interest in his eyes, 
 he directed his conversation chiefly to Fanny. In a few 
 minutes the two girls exchanged glances, rose, and alleging 
 some pretended engagement, returned to the hotel, bent on 
 making this casual interview assume the air of a flirtation. 
 
 Morton and his companion sat for a moment in silence. 
 
 " We are cousins are we not ? " said the former, at length. 
 
 " At least they would call us so in the Highlands." 
 
 " Then give me a cousin's privilege, and allow me to be 
 personal. Are you not out of spirits to-night ? " 
 
 " Why do you think me so ? " 
 
 " From your look and manner." 
 
 " Are you not tired to death of New Baden ? " 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " I am. What is it all worth ? weary, and vapid, and 
 flat, and stale, and unprofitable ! I have had enough of it." 
 
 " Then why not change it ? " 
 
 " To find the same thing in a new shape ! " 
 
 " Pardon 'me if I call that a freak of the moment. You 
 are the gayest of the gay." 
 
 " No, I am not." 
 
 " You are a belle here ; a centre light. The moths flutter 
 about you, though you do, now and then, singe their wings. 
 You frighten them, and they repay you with fine speeches." 
 
 " I am weary of them. For Heaven's sake, abuse me a 
 little. I know you have it often in your heart." 
 7 
 
74 TASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 " Abuse is sometimes nothing but flattery in disguise." 
 
 " Why do you smile ? That smile was at my expense." 
 
 " Why should you imagine so ? " 
 
 " I insist on your telling me its meaning." 
 
 " I was only thinking that when tribute in an old shape 
 has become wearisome, one may like to have it paid in a 
 new one." 
 
 " That certainly is not flattery. Do you know I am be 
 ginning to be afraid of you?" 
 
 " I could not have thought you afraid of any one." 
 
 " Yes, I am afraid of you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you are always observing me. Because you 
 penetrate my thoughts and understand me thoroughly." 
 
 " I am less deep than you suppose." 
 
 " At least you know all my faults. You are always, in a 
 quiet way, making gibes and sarcasms at my expense, and 
 touching upon my weakest points." 
 
 u Does it make you angry ? " 
 
 " No ; I rather like it ; but I wish to repay you. I wish 
 to find your weaknesses, but cannot. Have you any ? " 
 
 " Yes, an abundance." 
 
 " And will you tell me what they are ? " 
 
 " What, that you may use them against me ! The moment 
 you know them, you will attack me without mercy ; and if 
 you see me wince, it is all over with me." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that you cease to like one as soon as you find 
 that you can gain the least advantage over him. If I could 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 75 
 
 really make you a little afraid of me, you would like me all 
 the better for it. No, I will show you none of my weak 
 nesses ; and perhaps, if I did, you would not find them of a 
 kind that you could use against me. I can strike at you, 
 but you cannot hurt me. I am armed in proof. I defy you." 
 
 In saying this, at least, Morton showed some knowledge 
 of his companion's character. To defy her successfully was 
 a great step towards gaining her good graces ; for with all 
 her wildness she was very sensitive to the good or ill opinion 
 of those who could compel her to respect them. She became 
 very anxious to know what Morton thought of her. 
 
 " You say that you do not understand me thoroughly. 
 What is there in me that you do not understand ? " 
 
 " You may say that I do not understand you at all." 
 
 " That is mere evasion." 
 
 " Who can understand the language of Babel ? " 
 
 " Do you mean that I speak the language of Babel ? " 
 
 " Who can understand chaos ? " 
 
 " And am I chaos ? You are beginning your peculiar 
 style of compliment again." 
 
 " Do not be displeased at it. All the power and beauty 
 of the universe rose out of chaos." 
 
 " Now you are flattering in earnest." 
 
 " You are difficult to satisfy. What may I call you ? A 
 wild Arab racer without a rider ? " 
 
 " That will answer better." 
 
 " Or a rocket without a stick ? " 
 
 " I have seen rockets ; but I do not know what the stick 
 is. What is it ? What is it for ? " 
 
76 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " To give balance and aim to the rocket make it, as the 
 transcendentalists say, mount skyward, and end in stars and 
 4 golden rain.' " 
 
 " Very fine ! And how if it has no stick ? " 
 
 " Then it sparkles, and blazes, and hisses on the ground ; 
 flies up and down, this way and that, plays the deuse with 
 every thing and every body, and at last blows itself up to 
 no purpose." 
 
 " Ah, I see that the stick is very necessary. I will try to 
 get one." 
 
 " You speak in a bantering tone," said Morton, " but you 
 are in earnest." 
 
 " I am in earnest ! " exclaimed Fanny Euston, with a sud 
 den change of voice and manner. " Every word that you 
 have spoken is true. I am driven hither and thither by feel 
 ings and impulses, some bad, some good, chasing every 
 new fancy like so many butterflies or will-o'-the-wisps, 
 without thinking of results restless dissatisfied find 
 ing no life but in the excitement of the moment. Some 
 times I have hints of better things. Glimpses of light 
 break in upon me ; but they come, and they go again. I 
 have no rule of life, no guiding star." 
 
 Morton looked at his companion not without a certain 
 sense of victory. He saw that he had gained, for the moment 
 at least, an influence over her, and roused her to the expres 
 sion of feelings to which, perhaps, she had never given utter 
 ance before. Yet his own mind was any thing but tranquil. 
 Something more than admiration was stirring within him. He 
 felt impelled to explore farther the proud spirit which had 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 77 
 
 already yielded up to him some of its secrets. But lie felt 
 that, with her eyes upon him, he could not speak without 
 committing himself farther than he was prepared to do. In 
 this dilemma he determined to retreat a resolution for which 
 he was entitled to no little credit, if its merit is to be measured 
 by the effort it cost him. He rose from his seat. 
 
 " Fine? your star, Fanny, and you may challenge the 
 world. But I see people coming down the garden towards 
 us. We shall be invaded if we stay here. Let us walk 
 back towards the house." 
 
 When he found himself alone again, he paced his room in 
 no very enviable frame of mind. 
 
 " What devil impelled me to speak as I did ? It was no 
 part of mine to be telling her of her faults. Am I turning 
 philanthropist and busybody ? If I wished to gain her heart, 
 I suspect I have been taking the right course. What with 
 any other lady would have been intolerable presumption and 
 arrogance, is the most effectual way to win her esteem. And 
 why should I not wish to gain her heart ? There is good 
 there in abundance, if one could but depend on it. No ; I 
 am not blinded yet. This last outburst was a momentary 
 impulse, like all the rest ; and to-morrow she will be reckless 
 as ever. She delights in lawlessness, and rejoices in the zest 
 of breaking established bounds. Her wayward will is like a 
 cataract, and may carry her, God knows whither. No ; I 
 will not walk in this path ; I will not try to marry her. Her 
 heart is untouched that is clear as * the day. I wish 
 she could say as much of mine. I will leave this place to 
 morrow, cost what it will." 
 7* 
 
78 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 A letter from Boston gave him a pretext ; and bidding 
 farewell to his cousin and her mother, he took the early train 
 homewards. The newsboy brought him a paper, and his 
 eyes rested on the columns ; but his thoughts centred on 
 Fanny Euston and his last evening's conversation with her at 
 the foot of the garden. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 * * * One fire burns out another's burning, 
 
 One pain is lessened by another's anguish ; 
 Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; 
 
 One desperate grief cures with another's languish. 
 Take thou some new infection to thine eye, 
 And the rank poison of the old will die. Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 ALL da^r the train whirled along, and Morton's troubled 
 thoughts found no rest. 
 
 " Matherton ! " cried the conductor, opening the door of the 
 car, as the engine stopped in a large station house, at five 
 o'clock in the afternoon. Several passengers got out ; two 
 or three came in ; the bell rang, and with puffing and clank 
 ing, the train was on its way again. A newsboy passed down 
 the car with a bundle of newspapers and twopenny novels. 
 Morton bought one of the latter as an anodyne ; but even 
 " Orlando Melville, or the Victim of the Press Gang," failed 
 to produce the desired soporific effect, and his thoughts soon 
 recurred to their former channel. Suddenly a violent concus 
 sion, a crashing, thumping, and grating sound, the outcries 
 of a hundred passengers, the women screaming, and some 
 of the men not silent, with a furious rocking and tossing of 
 the car, ejected every thought but one of his personal safety. 
 All sprang to their feet, he among the rest. The first dis 
 tinct impression which his mind received was that of the map 
 
 (79) 
 
80 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 in front of him making a flying leap out of the open window 
 of the car, carrying the sash with him a dexterous piece of 
 gymnastics, only to be accounted for by the fact that the per 
 former was a distinguished artist of the Grand National Olym 
 pic Circus. His boots twinkled at the window, and he was 
 gone, alighting on his feet like a cat, but Morton was too 
 much frightened to laugh. In a few moments the car came 
 to a rest, without being overturned, though the front was 
 partly broken in, and the whole swung off the rails to an an 
 gle of forty-five degrees. On looking out at the window, the 
 first object that met Morton's eye was the baggage car, thrown 
 on its side, with the door uppermost. As he looked, the door 
 opened, and a head emerged like a triton from the deep, 
 or Banquo's ghost frpm a trap door white with wrath and 
 fright, and swearing with wonderful volubility. Then ap 
 peared another, rising by the side of the first, equally pallid, 
 but much less profane. The heads belonged to two men, 
 who had been seated in the compartment of the baggage car 
 allotted to the mails, and when it was flung off the track, had 
 been rattled together like dice in a box, suffering various 
 bruises, but no serious harm. The breaking of the defective 
 cast iron axle of the tender had caused the whole disaster, 
 which would doubtless have produced fatal consequences had 
 not the train been moving at a very slow rate. As it hap 
 pened, a few contusions were its worst results, and one of the 
 
 morning papers, 
 
 " for profound 
 
 And solid lying much renowned," 
 
 solemnly averred that none but Providence was responsible 
 for it. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 81 
 
 There was abundant noise and vociferation. The passen 
 gers left the train, some lending their bungling aid to repair 
 the mischief, while others withdrew to an inn which chanced 
 to be in the neighborhood. After looking for a time at the 
 downfallen tender and the uprooted rails, Morton, from some 
 idle impulse, entered the car which he had lately left. It 
 was empty ; and, passing through it, he looked into that im 
 mediately behind, which had remained safely upon the rails. 
 This also was empty, with the exception of a single person, a 
 young female figure, seated at one of the windows. She was 
 closely veiled, yet there was in her air that indefinable some 
 thing which told Morton at a glance that she was a lady. 
 He stepped to the ground, conjecturing whether or no she 
 had a companion. 
 
 Five minutes after, glancing at the window, he saw the 
 solitary traveller seated in the same position as before, and 
 became convinced that she was unattended. The women in 
 the train had left it at the outset. The busy and clamorous 
 throng of men alone remained ; and Morton easily conceived 
 that her situation must be an embarrassing one. He there 
 fore reentered the car and approached her. 
 
 " I am afraid we shall be detained here for two or three 
 hours, and perhaps till late at night. There is a public house 
 a little way off, to which the ladies in the train have gone. 
 If you will allow me, I will show you the way." 
 
 So he spoke ; or, rather, so he would have spoken ; but he 
 had scarcely begun when the veiled head was joyfully raised, 
 and the veil was thrown aside, disclosing to his astonished 
 eyes the features of Edith Leslie. She explained that sho 
 
82 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 was on her way from her father's country seat at Mather ton ; 
 and that he was to meet her at the station on the arrival of 
 the train. When the accident took place, she had been led 
 to suppose, from the conversation of two men near her, that 
 the train would not be very long detained, and had preferred 
 remaining in the car to mingling with the tumultuous throng 
 outside. 
 
 " It is too fine an afternoon," said Morton, as they left the 
 spot, "to be mured in that tavern. This lane has an inviting 
 look. Have you a mind to explore it ? " 
 
 They walked accordingly in the direction he proposed ; and, 
 as they did so, Morton cast many a stolen glance at the face 
 of his companion. The mind of the young philosopher was 
 that day in a peculiarly susceptible state. It seemed as if 
 Fanny Euston had kindled within him a flame which could 
 not fix itself upon her, yet must needs find fuel somewhere ; 
 and as his eye met that of Edith Leslie, he began to feel that 
 she held a deeper place in his thoughts than he had ever be 
 fore suspected. 
 
 By the side of the lane stood an ancient abode, whose rot 
 ten shingles supported a rich crop of green mosses ; and in 
 the yard an old man, who looked like a relic of Bunker Hill 
 fight, was diligently chopping firewood. 
 
 " What does this lane lead to ? " asked Morton, looking 
 over the fence. 
 
 The woodchopper leaned on his axe, wiped his brows 
 with the tatters of a red handkerchief, and seemed revolv 
 ing the expediency of communicating the desired informa 
 tion. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 83 
 
 " Well," he returned, after mature reflection, " if you go 
 fur enough, it'll take you down to the Diamond Pool." 
 
 " The Diamond Pool," said Miss Leslie ; " that has a prom 
 ising sound." 
 
 The lane soon began to lead them down the side of a rug 
 ged hill, between barberry bushes and stunted savins, with 
 neglected stone walls, where the striped ground squirrels 
 chirruped as they dodged into the crevices. In a few mo 
 ments they had a glimpse of the water, shining between the 
 branches of the trees below. 
 
 " Upon my word," said Morton, as they stood on the mar 
 gin, " the Diamond Pool is not to be despised. We have 
 chosen our walk well, and found, a tempting place of rest at 
 the end of it." 
 
 "A grassy bank, a clear spring, with cardinal flowers 
 along the edge a cluster of maple trees " 
 
 " And a flat rock at the foot of one of them, for you to rest 
 upon. We are well provided for." 
 
 " Except that a seat for you seems to have been forgotten." 
 
 " No, if I wish to rest, this mound of grass will serve my 
 turn. I am used to bivouacs." 
 
 The sun had just vanished behind the rocky hill on the far 
 ther side of the water ; a sea of liquid fire, clouds blazoned in 
 gold and crimson, betokened his recent presence. The lake lay 
 like a great mirror framed in green. Another sunset glowed 
 in its depths ; rocks, hills, and trees grew downward ; and 
 the kingfisher, as he flitted over it, made a dash at the sur 
 face, as if to peck at the adversary bird, which seemed shoot 
 ing upward to meet him. 
 
84 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 " One might imagine," said Miss Leslie, " that we were a 
 hundred miles away from railroads, factories, and all abomi 
 nations of the kind." 
 
 " They will follow soon," said Morton ; " they are not far 
 off". There is no sanctuary from American enterprise." 
 
 " I know it is omnipotent at spoiling a landscape ; but I 
 hope that this one may escape, at least if there is no mill 
 privilege in the neighborhood." 
 
 " There is an excellent one at the outlet of the pond, 
 beyond the three elms yonder. I prophesy that in five years 
 there will be a brick factory on that meadow, with a row of 
 one story houses for the operatives." 
 
 " It will be a scandal and a profanation. It is too beauti 
 ful for such base uses. But at least that old cedar tree, 
 rooted in a cleft of the precipice, has found a safe sanctuary. 
 There it was growing in King Philip's time ; in its younger 
 days it saw Indian wigwams standing on this bank ; and 
 there its offspring will grow after it, safe from Yankee 
 axes." 
 
 " One cannot be sure of that. A time will come yet, when 
 those rocks will be blasted to build a town hall, or open an 
 other railroad track." 
 
 " But they cannot build railroads and factories in the 
 clouds. Our New England sunsets will still remain to re 
 mind one that there is an ideal side of life something in it 
 besides locomotives and cotton gins." 
 
 " There it is that you are wiser than we are. You are 
 mistresses of a domain of which men, for the most part, 
 know little or nothing." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 85 
 
 " Pray what domain may that be ? " 
 
 " One that is all mystery to me a world of thoughts and 
 sentiments which to most men is a cloudland, an undiscovered 
 country, of which they may possibly recognize the existence, 
 but of whose geography they know nothing." 
 
 "Why should they be more ignorant of it than women? " 
 
 " Because they are commonly given over to practicalities, 
 mixed hopelessly with rivalries and ambitions. Even in their 
 highest pursuits, they propose to themselves some definite 
 point to be gained, some object to be achieved ; but women 
 are left to the world of their own minds there they can 
 expatiate at will." 
 
 " That is a dangerous privilege." 
 
 " They have leisure to muse on the joys and troubles of 
 life, and explore depths which we bridge over." 
 
 " Either your mind has very much changed, or I have 
 very much mistaken it. Pardon me, but I fancied that 
 you were like lago, ' nothing if not critical ; ' or at least 
 that you sympathized with his slanderous opinions of wo 
 mankind." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! What treasonable thought did you sup 
 pose me to harbor against the better part of humanity? " 
 
 " At all events, I never supposed you to believe that the 
 better part of humanity passed their leisure time in meta 
 physical reveries and abstruse meditations." 
 
 " You were speaking, just now, of ideals. May not I have 
 mine ? " 
 
 " So your ideal woman is a transcendental philosopher, 
 seated in the midst of your undiscovered cloudland." 
 8 
 
86 VASSAL!, MORTON. 
 
 " Deliver me from such a one ! My ideal is full of thought 
 and of feeling ; but no one yet ever dreamed of branding her 
 as a philosopher. But why did you think me so very 
 critical ? I am hardly old enough yet to make an lago or a 
 Rochefoucault." 
 
 " And yet you used always to have some saying of Roche 
 foucault at your tongue's end." 
 
 " I detest him, nevertheless, for a French Mephistopheles, 
 and all his tribe with him." 
 
 " When I said as much, you always told me that his say 
 ings had a great deal of truth in them." 
 
 " And have they not a great deal of truth ? " 
 
 " I cannot pretend to know mankind well enough to an 
 swer ; but I sincerely hope, not much. Life would be worse 
 than a blank if men and women were what he represents 
 them to be." 
 
 " I think not ; for if one cannot learn to be enthusiastic in 
 regard to the actualities of human nature, he can console 
 himself by a boundless faith in its possibilities. And now 
 and then, thank God, Rochefoucault to the contrary not 
 withstanding, one finds the possibility realized." 
 
 His companion made no reply; and Morton stood for a 
 moment with his eyes bent upon her face, which, to his 
 enamoured fancy, seemed to reflect the calm beauty of the 
 landscape on which she was gazing. He thought of Fanny 
 Euston ; he recalled his last evening's conversation with her, 
 and felt blindly impelled to give some form of expression 
 to the feeling which began to master him. 
 
 " Miss Leslie, were you ever in a storm at sea ? " 
 
VA.SSALL MORTON. 87 
 
 " Yes, in a slight one ; but the ship was strong ; there was 
 very little danger." 
 
 " Then you were never flung about, as I have been, in an 
 indifferent egg shell of a craft, out of sight of land, at the 
 mercy of winds and waves." 
 
 " I did not know that you had been at sea. Ah,- yes, 
 you were at school in France, when you were a boy were 
 you not ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but this happened since I have become a man, and 
 not long ago. I think I shall never forget it. The sun was 
 bright at one moment, and all was black as a hurricane the 
 next. The wind came from every point of the compass al 
 ways shifting, never resting. I had not an instant's peace. It 
 was all watching all anxiety and yet there was a kind of 
 pleasure in it. If I had had wings, I doubt if I should have 
 found heart to use them. It was a strange gale. It blew 
 hot and cold by fits ; I thought I should lose my reckoning 
 altogether, and be blown away, body and soul." 
 
 " Really, I cannot imagine where your tempest is going to 
 carry you." 
 
 " Nor could I ; when, of a sudden, I found myself safe 
 on shore. My good star led me to a place beautiful as the 
 May sunshine could make it ; a scene where art and nature 
 were blended so harmoniously, that they seemed to have 
 grown together from the same birth ; full of repose, and tran 
 quil, graceful power ; such a scene, in short, as made me 
 wish that Nature would embody herself in a visible form, 
 that I might swear homage to her forever." 
 
 Had an interpreter been needed, Morton's look and voice 
 
88 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 must have betrayed, at least, some part of his meaning. The 
 color deepened slightly on his companion's cheek, but she 
 replied, without any further sign of consciousness, 
 
 " I never knew that you were quite so ardent a votary of 
 nature. You had better put your emotions into verse, and 
 sell them to the magazines, after the true poetic custom. In 
 a little time, I don't doubt, Dr. Griswold would find a place 
 for you in his constellation of poets." 
 
 " Ah," said Morton, " it is cruel of you to fling cold water 
 on my rhapsodies. But my flight is over. And now I will 
 try my best to gain the esteem in your eyes of a man of 
 sense and a sound mind." 
 
 " And now those night-hawks over head are beginning to 
 tell us that we had better go back to the railroad. I suppose 
 you will place it among the other frailties of women ; but I 
 cannot help being a little afraid that if we stay longer, that 
 crippled train will run away and leave us behind." 
 
 " Then good night to the Diamond Pool," said Morton, as 
 they left the place. " I shall not forget it ; I owe it double 
 thanks. It has shown me a pretty landscape, and made me a 
 wiser man." 
 
 " I can hardly see how that may be." 
 
 " It has taught me not to speak too earnestly with my 
 friend, lest she should banter me ; and by no means to be 
 drawn into any absurdity, lest she should laugh at me out 
 right." 
 
 " Do you mean that you thought that I laughed at you ? " 
 
 " Did you not ? " 
 
 " If I gave you cause to think that I did, I can only say, 
 frankly and heartily, that I am very sorry for it." 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 89 
 
 " Now I am emboldened to be absurd again, and speak 
 more parables. I have found a locked-up treasure a sealed 
 fountain. I long to open it, but cannot." 
 
 " Your figures are too deep for me. I can make nothing 
 of them." 
 
 " Then I will sink to plain prose. I have a friend whose 
 heart is full of warm feeling and earnest thought ; but, out 
 of reserve, or Heaven knows what, she will express it to 
 nobody but one or two intimate companions. She tantalizes 
 the rest with a bantering word ; and sometimes, when she is 
 most in earnest, she seems to be most in jest. But why do 
 you smile ? " 
 
 "Ask your friend Mr. Sharpe. He is your friend is 
 he not ? " 
 
 " I suppose so, though he is old enough to be my father. 
 But why should I ask him ? " 
 
 " Because he once described to me a person very much 
 like the one you have just described." 
 
 " Who was the person ? " 
 
 a Mr. Sharpe said that, though he was in general quite 
 frank and undisguised, yet, if he were particularly in earnest 
 on any subject, he was apt to speak lightly of it, or perhaps 
 ridicule it, to hide his real feeling." 
 
 " Pray, who was this person ? What was his name ? " 
 
 " Mr. Vassall Morton." 
 
 " Did Sharpe say that of me ? It is not a month since I 
 was walking with him, his evening constitutional, and 
 he said the very same thing of you. Now, as I hope to live 
 8* 
 
90 TASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 an honest man, I was never half so much flattered in my life, 
 as by being slandered in such company." 
 
 Here he was interrupted abruptly, for, turning a corner, 
 they came full upon the inn, or hotel, as its sign proclaimed 
 it to be. Discontented male passengers were lounging about 
 the bar room ; disconsolate female passengers sat, in bonnets 
 and shawls, in the parlor ; and an unspeakable air of uneasi 
 ness and discomfort pervaded the whole place. 
 
 " Our walk is over," sighed Morton ; " I wish it had a 
 more propitious ending. And now let me be your courier, or 
 do your commands in any other capacity in which I can 
 serve you." 
 
 At eleven o'clock that night the train rolled into the station 
 house at Boston, some four hours behind its time. 
 
 " My father will certainly be here," said Miss Leslie ; but 
 her father was nowhere to be seen. Morton conducted her 
 to a carriage. Her trunks and his own had already been 
 placed upon it, when, by the lantern of one of the porters, 
 Morton descried the agitated colonel threading the crowd in 
 anxious search of his daughter. He had been waiting ner 
 vously since seven o'clock, and, when the train came in, had 
 looked for her in every place but the right one. Morton 
 hastened to relieve his fears. 
 
 " What do you mean to do with yourself to-night ? " 
 Leslie asked, as the carriage drove towards his house. 
 
 " Drive to my house in the country." 
 
 "Your people will not expect you, and will be in bed 
 before you can get there. You had much better come home 
 with me." 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 91 
 
 Morton was but too glad to accept the invitation. 
 
 Having bade good night to his host and his host's daugh 
 ter, he passed some hours in dreamy cogitation ; then tried 
 to sleep ; but sleep long kept aloof, the consciousness of being 
 under the same roof with Edith Leslie brought with it so 
 strange a sensation. But as delicate health, that grand 
 auxiliary of sentiment, was quite unknown to him, nature 
 prevailed in the end, and at seven the next morning, a ser 
 vant's knock wakened him from a deep sleep, a vision of 
 Mount Katahdin, and an imaginary moose hunt. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Yet even these joys dire jealousy molests, 
 
 And blackens each fair image in our breasts. Lyttldon. 
 
 DESCENDING to the breakfast room, he found Leslie, as 
 usual, quiet, cordial, and gentlemanly, beguiling the moments 
 of expectancy with a newspaper, while his daughter presided 
 at the coffee urn. Leslie happened to be in a garrulous mood, 
 and talked incessantly about his former military frontier life, 
 of which, though he had detested it in the experience, he was 
 very fond in the retrospect. Morton, who had some acquaint 
 ance with such matters, was a tempting auditor, though he 
 would gladly have exchanged the profuse anecdotes of white- 
 wolf running and deer shooting for a few moments' conver 
 sation with Miss Edith Leslie. This her father's busy tongue 
 put out of the question ; but Morton consoled himself with 
 the thought that to bask in her presence was, in itself, no 
 mean privilege. 
 
 His cup of nectar, such as it was, was in a few minutes 
 dashed with gall ; for the street door opened without a sum 
 mons from the bell, a man's step sounded in the hall, and 
 Horace Vinal came in, with a bundle of papers in his hand. 
 
 Vinal had become of late all-important to his former guar 
 dian. He was his chief business agent, and Leslie was never 
 
 (92) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 93 
 
 tired of expatiating on his talents, energy, application, and 
 elevated character. In short, he was fast becoming depend 
 ent on him, and felt towards him the affection which a weak 
 and kindly man may feel towards one of far greater force and 
 capacity, whom, he believes sincerely attached to him and 
 devoted to his interests. 
 
 Vinal, as he entered, had the air of a man versed in affairs, 
 and acquainted both with that vast and various theatre which 
 men call the world, and with those conventional circles 
 which ladies call the world. He had been absent for a few 
 days on a mission of business, from which he had returned 
 the evening before. Leslie received him with a most warm 
 greeting, and his daughter with a smile of easy friendship, 
 which was wormwood to the troubled spirit of Morton. The 
 two rivals for such, by a common instinct, each felt the 
 other to be regarded each other with faces of courtesy and 
 hearts of wrath. 
 
 " How came this fellow here ? " thought Vinal, as he smil 
 ingly grasped his classmate's hand. 
 
 " The devil take him ! " thought Morton, as he returned 
 the greeting, but with a much worse grace. 
 
 They seated themselves on opposite sides of the table, 
 while the Helen who had kindled this covert warfare in their 
 breasts dispensed a cup of coffee to each in turn. 
 
 There was a singular contrast between the adversaries. 
 On the one side, the self-dependent Vinal, with little health 
 and no other wealth than his busy and able brain ; with thin 
 features, wan cheek, and pale, firm lip ; with piercing obser 
 vation and rapid judgment ; self-contained, self-controlled, 
 
94 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 self-coniiding. But for his measuring five feet ten, he might 
 have stood for Dryden's Achitophel : 
 
 " A fiery soul, which, working out its way, 
 Fretted the pygmy body to decay, 
 And o'er informed the tenement of clay." 
 
 On the other side sat the pet of fortune, fondled, if he 
 could have endured such blandishment, in the very lap of 
 affluence ; with a cheek brown with wind and weather, and 
 an eye which, as he often boasted, could look the sun in the 
 face. His nature was so happily tempered, that to the degree 
 of nervous stimulus which engenders, or is engendered by, an 
 energetic character, he joined an indefinite capacity both of 
 endurance and enjoyment ; and yet the possessor of all these 
 gifts was just now in a mood of extreme dissatisfaction and 
 discomfort. 
 
 Leslie began to speak with Vinal upon business. Morton 
 snatched the opportunity to converse with the person most 
 interesting to him. Vinal glanced at him askance. Each 
 began to hate the other, after his own fashion. Morton 
 would gladly have come to open rupture, and flung defiance at 
 his rival ; but Vinal was far remote from any wish of the kind. 
 
 Morton remained at the house as long as he in decency 
 could, and then bade them good morning, execrating Vinal 
 as he went down the steps. 
 
 That very afternoon, as he was walking near his cottage in 
 the country, ruminating on Edith Leslie and Horace Vinal, 
 he raised his head and saw a lady and gentleman, on horse 
 back, emerging into view from a wooded bend of the road. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 95 
 
 A thrill ran through him from head to foot. They were the 
 two persons of whom he was thinking. He bowed to Miss 
 Leslie. She replied with a frank bow and smile ; and Vinal, 
 as he passed, made an easy nonchalant gesture of recognition. 
 The jealous pedestrian turned and looked after them. They 
 had ridden a few rods when Vinal also turned his head, but, 
 catching Morton's eye, instantly averted it again. Morton 
 fairly ground his teeth with anger and vexation. To be jeal 
 ous was bad enough ; but that Vinal should be conscious of 
 his jealousy, and perhaps triumph in it, goaded him beyond 
 endurance. He went home, saddled and bridled a horse with 
 his own hands, mounted, and ranged the country for an 
 hour or two, to get rid of the vulture that was preying on 
 him. At length he grew more rational, and was able to 
 reflect that Vinal' s riding with Miss Leslie did not necessa 
 rily imply that he stood, in any special sense, within her 
 favor, since he was the "near relative of her mother-in-law, 
 and had formerly been for years an inmate of her father's 
 house. 
 
 On the next day, at a time when he thought that Vinal 
 must be safe in his office, Morton took heart of grace, and 
 called on Miss Leslie. An old woman, an ancient dependant 
 of the family, raised, as she would have phrased it, in the 
 backwoods of Matherton, opened the door. 
 
 " Is Miss Leslie alt home ? " 
 
 " No ; she was took sick yesterday, very sudden." 
 
 " Miss Leslie ! " ejaculated the visitor. 
 
 " Yes ; the doctor says she's goin' to die, sartin ; right 
 away, may be." 
 
96 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " What ? " gasped Morton. 
 
 " It wasn't only this morning we heered on it," said the 
 old Yankee housekeeper, " and Miss Edith's gone up to 
 Matherton, to tend on her." 
 
 " O, you mean Mrs. Leslie." 
 
 " Yes ; Miss Leslie, Miss Edith's mother-in-law ; she never 
 was a well woman, ever since I've knowed her." 
 
 And the old woman closed the door ; while Morton walked 
 away, without knowing in what direction he was moving. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Sganarefte. 0, la grande fatigue quo d'avoir une femme, et qu'Aristote a bieu 
 raison quand il dit qu'une femme est pire qu'un d6mon I Le Mededn Ma2gr6 Lui. 
 
 Thus day by day and month by month we past ; 
 It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last Pope. 
 
 IT was nine years since, in an evil hour, Leslie had first 
 seen Miss Cynthia Everille, playing on a harp, and accom 
 panying herself in a thin, sweet voice, with words of her 
 own composing. His weak heart succumbed : he fell in love 
 off hand ; and within a year after the death of his first wife, 
 Edith's mother, her picture was taken from the wall, and a 
 second Mrs. Leslie reigned in her stead. 
 
 " Sweet," " charming," " fascinating," were the 
 least of the adjectives lavished on the interesting bride. 
 Some of his lady acquaintance felicitated him that he had 
 espoused an angel, an embodied beatitude not more than 
 half pertaining to this world. In fact, there was a certain 
 aerial grace in her movements, a certain translucency in her 
 small alabaster features, which might countenance such a no 
 tion. The winning smile, too, with which she met her vis 
 itors on her reception Thursdays, savored wholly of the 
 angelic. She breathed courtesies around her as the beneficent 
 royalty of Naples scatters sugar plums among his loving sub- 
 9 (97) 
 
98 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 jects at the carnival, and, on the next day, sends them to 
 prison by the cart load. 
 
 The tyranny of the strong is bad enough ; but the tyranny 
 of the weak is intolerable ; and this latter visitation came 
 upon Leslie in its most rueful form that, namely, whose 
 weapons are sobs, sighs, vapors, and the dire coercion of 
 hysteric fits. He was a soft-hearted fool, and a fair subject 
 for such oppression. Not that his newly-installed mistress 
 his mistress, since she made him her slave was naturally 
 of an ill temper. On the contrary, she was somewhat amia 
 ble, or, at least, much given to tears and tenderness ; but in 
 process of time, this profuse sensibility had all centred on 
 herself. In short, she was profoundly selfish, though nothing 
 could have astonished her more than to tell her so ; for, in 
 her own eyes, she seemed a miracle of sensibility, as indeed 
 she was, though her sensibility had learned to give little 
 response to any woes but her own. What these woes might 
 be would be hard to say : she had a wonderful talent for 
 finding and inventing grievances. She was submerged and 
 drowned in a sentimental melancholy, which wore in turn ten 
 thousand different aspects, each worse than the other. She 
 was a sea-anemone, covered with a myriad of filaments, all 
 more shrinking and sensitive than a snail's horns. 
 
 One reads of famished wretches who have tried to nourish 
 life from the current of their own veins. So, in a figurative 
 sense, did she. She was always anatomizing her own ridicu 
 lous heart ; groping among the depths of her own sickly 
 fancies, and making them her daily food. She was a busy 
 gatherer of tokens, souvenirs, and mementoes, and was 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 99 
 
 beset with blighted hopes, vain longings, sad remembrances, 
 and all the spectral ills engendered between a frail mind and 
 a depraved stomach. She was a great reader, and floated 
 rudderless through a sea of books, fishing out of it all that 
 was tender, morbid, and despairing, and stowing it up in 
 albums. 
 
 It may be thought that some disconsolate memory, some 
 affection nipped in the bud, or the like catastrophe, had 
 brought her to this pass. Far from it. She mourned that 
 her fate had been too flat and sterile ; that the rapturous 
 emotions of her heart had never been awakened ; that no 
 sentimental passion, in short, had ever stirred her soul from 
 its depths. This was the grievance which rankled most in 
 her reveries. To give her her due, she never told it to her 
 husband ; but she brooded upon it in secret ; and the result 
 was, a multitude of affecting verses, which she treasured in 
 her album as anonymous. 
 
 Leslie, though none of the wisest of men, was one of the 
 most amiable ; and, under his wife's discipline, he learned to 
 be one of the most discreet. It behooved him to be watchful 
 and circumspect. His married life was a voyage through 
 shoals and shallows, and needed sagacious pilotage ; for no 
 common eye could see where the danger lay. There was an 
 endless variety of subjects tabooed to him; matters to all 
 appearance quite indifferent, but to which he must never 
 allude, because, Heaven knows how, they touched some trem 
 bling susceptibility, or wakened some grievous memory from 
 its blessed sleep. The penalty, if the case were mild, would 
 be a deep-drawn sigh ; if more aggravated, a flood of tears ; 
 
100 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 if extreme, an hysteric fit. And if, in his efforts to console 
 her, he ventured to add any thing in the form of remon 
 strance, or let fall any word which might intimate that her 
 conduct was not quite reasonable, the outraged sufferer would 
 cease weeping, cast up her eyes reproachfully, and murmuring, 
 " O William, is it come to this ? " relapse again instantly 
 into the depths of sobbing affliction. It was only by the 
 most abject submission, coupled with all the resources of 
 conjugal eloquence, that Leslie could succeed at length in 
 purchasing a look of resignation and a faint smile of for 
 giveness. 
 
 Use, it is said, will blunt the sharpest of troubles. In 
 time, he became acclimated to his fate ; yet, on one or two 
 occasions, his equanimity was quite overset. He thought 
 that his wife was losing her wits ; for, as he came into her 
 room, she fixed on him a melting gaze, sank on his shoulder, 
 and flooded him with such a freshet of tears, that he might 
 have complained with De Bracy, that a water fiend possessed 
 her. The truth was, she had just been musing on her own 
 dissolution, and imagining, in a luxury of woe, her own fu 
 neral, with all the circumstance of that sad event. As she 
 looked around and bethought her how desolate that chamber 
 w ould be when she was gone, and how each trifle that had 
 once been hers would be treasured by those she left behind, 
 her sensitive heart had dissolved in tenderness, and produced 
 the hydraulic demonstration just mentioned. 
 
 This libel on womankind became the mother of a pair of 
 twins the same infant prodigies whom Morton had seen at 
 the White Mountains. Both perished at the age of seven, 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 101 
 
 their precocious brains having by that time usurped all the 
 vitality of their miserable little bodies. She was inconsolable 
 at their death, though, while they lived, her delicate nerves 
 could seldom abide their presence for five minutes at a time. 
 
 There was once an idiot, who, being of a conciliating tem 
 per, thought to appease a fire and persuade it to go out by 
 feeding it with fuel till it should be satisfied, and crave no 
 more. On the same principle Leslie tried to satisfy the ex 
 acting spirit of his wife by a most watchful and anxious de 
 votion to all her whims ; but the greater his devotion, the 
 more exacting she grew. She felt her power, and used it 
 without mercy. She was, withal, intolerably jealous, not so 
 much of any living rival, as of the memory of a dead one, 
 Leslie's former wife. Here, indeed, she had some show of 
 reason ; for the poles are not wider asunder than were the 
 characters of herself and her predecessor. 
 
 Those who had known the latter in her maidenhood she 
 married young, or perhaps she would never have married Les 
 lie knew her as the dominant belle of the season, conspic 
 uous for her beauty, her position, and for a degree of culture 
 rare in America at that time ; devoted and ardent towards a 
 few close friends, haughty and distant towards the many ; 
 greatly loved by her few intimates, and either greatly admired 
 or greatly disliked by most others around her. Those who 
 knew her in the last years of her life knew her as one who 
 had passed through a fiery ordeal. Of her many children, 
 only one was left. They had fallen around her in a sudden 
 and sharp succession, till it seemed to her that a destroying 
 doom had gone forth against her race, and that the world of 
 
102 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 her affections was turned to a field of carnage. Leslie felt 
 the shock acutely, not to say intensely, for a while ; but the 
 storm passed, and left on him. very little trace. It sank into 
 the deeper nature of his wife with such a penetrating sense 
 of the vanity of life and the rottenness of mortal hope, as, in 
 the olden time, drew saints and anchorites to renounce the 
 world and give themselves to penance and seclusion. It 
 made no anchorite of her. She rose from her baptism of fire 
 saddened, but not broken nor unstrung ; with a rooted faith 
 and an absolute resignation ; a nice perception of all human 
 suffering; sympathies broad and embracing as the air; a 
 benevolence pervading as the sunshine ; and a spirit so calm 
 in its elevation that no wind of calamity had power to ruffle it. 
 Edith Leslie was a child when her mother died, yet old 
 enough to feel the loss profoundly, and to be greatly shocked 
 and cast down at the alacrity with which her father contrived 
 to forget it. Having reduced Leslie to obedience, his bride 
 essayed the same experiment on his daughter, but failed no 
 tably. There was something in the nature of the latter which 
 revolted so impatiently against the selfish caprices and morbid 
 fooleries which were played off hourly before her, she was 
 so indignant, moreover, at seeing her father sunk inch by inch 
 in the slough of matrimonial thraldom, that the issue might 
 easily have been a protracted household feud. None but her 
 self could know with how costly an effort she schooled her 
 self to patience. With a caustic wit, and a fervent fancy 
 which haunted her with images of an ideal life brighter than 
 the work-day world around her, a nature with impulses 
 which, less curbed and tempered, might have carried her 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 103 
 
 through all the mazes of morbid rebellion, she still bent her 
 self to accept her lot as she found it, in the full faith that 
 flowers may be taught to grow on the flintiest soil. And 
 now that the imagined maladies of a lifetime were turned at 
 last into a mortal reality, and her step-mother lay on her death 
 bed, Edith Leslie watched by her side with as much care as 
 if this wretched piece of perverted sensibility had deserved 
 her affection and esteem. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Bestrew me, but I love her*eartily, 
 
 For she is wise, if I can judge of her; 
 
 And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true ; 
 
 And true she is, as she hath proved herself; 
 
 And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true, 
 
 Shall she be placed in my constant soul. MercMnt of Venice. 
 
 A WEEK after he had heard the tidings from the old house 
 keeper, Morton saw Dr. Steele coming out of a patient's door 
 and getting into his chaise. 
 
 " Good morning, Dr. Steele." 
 
 " Sir, your servant," said the old-fashioned doctor. 
 
 " I'm sorry to hear that Mrs. Leslie is so ill." 
 
 " It's very sad," said the doctor. " Now, what the dense 
 is this young fellow stopping me for? " this was his inter 
 nal comment. 
 
 " I hope you don't despair of her." 
 
 " Well, sir, she will hold out to-morrow, and the next 
 day, too." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Your check rein is loose. Let me 
 make it right." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Morton," said the doctor, somewhat mol 
 lified. 
 
 " Ahem ! Colonel Leslie is well, I hope." 
 
 " Apparently so, sir." 
 
 (104) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 105 
 
 " And ahem ! his family, too,* 
 
 " I wasn't aware he had a family." 
 
 " I mean that is to say his daughter Miss Leslie." 
 
 The shrewd doctor turned his gray eyes sideways on the 
 querist. 
 
 "Ah, his daughter. What did you wish to know of 
 her, sir?" 
 
 " Merely to inquire " said Morton, stammering and 
 
 blushing visibly. " I mean only to ask if she is well." 
 
 " I know nothing to the contrary. She seemed very well 
 when I brought her down from Matherton last evening. I 
 dare say, though, she can tell you herself a great deal better 
 than I can. Good morning, Mr. Morton." 
 
 And with a slight twinkle in his eye, Dr. Steele drove off. 
 
 Morton looked after the chaise, as it lumbered down the 
 street. 
 
 " May I be hanged and quartered if I ever question you 
 again; you are too sharp, by half." 
 
 The doctor's information was very welcome, however ; and, 
 armed with an anxious inquiry after her mother's health, 
 Morton proceeded to call upon Miss Leslie. She had come 
 to the city, as he had already judged, on some mission con 
 nected with the wants of the invalid, and was to go back to 
 Matherton, with Dr. Steele, in the afternoon. 
 
 Thenceforward, for a week or upwards, he saw her no more ; 
 but, during the interval, he contrived, by various expedients, 
 to keep himself advised of the condition and movements of 
 the family at Matherton. Among other incidents, he became 
 aware of two visits made them by Vinal, and was tormented, 
 
106 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 in consequence, with an unutterable jealousy. One morning 
 he met the purblind old housekeeper, mousing along in spec 
 tacles through the crowded street, and, stopping her, to her 
 great alarm and perplexity, he made his- usual inquiry con 
 cerning Mrs. Leslie's health. This investigation led to the 
 discovery that Miss Edith was coming from Matherton that 
 very afternoon. 
 
 Morton, upon this, grew so restless, that he could not 
 refrain from going to the railroad station, a little before the 
 train was to come in. And here his worst fear was realized ; 
 for he beheld, slowly pacing along the platform, the hated 
 form of Horace Vinal. Morton retreated unseen, went into 
 a neighboring hotel, and seated himself, a little withdrawn 
 from a window, where he could see all that passed. The 
 train arrived ; and soon after Vinal appeared, conducting 
 Miss Leslie to a carriage, with an air, as Morton thought, of 
 the most anxious devotion. He grasped his walking stick, 
 and burned with a feverish longing to break it across his 
 rival's back. 
 
 He saw Miss Leslie on the next day, and thus added fuel 
 to a flame which already burned high enough. In short, he 
 found himself in that most profoundly serious and profoundly 
 ridiculous of all conditions, the condition of being over head 
 and ears in love, and his zeal for science was merged utterly 
 in a more engrossing devotion. By one means or another, he 
 contrived to keep pace with the course of things at Mather- 
 ton, and learned from day to day that Mrs. Leslie was worse, 
 that she seemed to revive a little, that she was on the 
 point of death, that she was dead. By the time this sad 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 107 
 
 climax was reached, he had been starving a fortnight from the 
 sight of his mistress, having the consolation to know that 
 meantime his rival had made at least four visits to Matherton. 
 
 One morning Morton was pacing the street in an abstracted 
 mood, his looks bent on the bricks, when, chancing to look 
 up, he saw those very eyes which his fancy had been that 
 moment picturing, employed in guiding their owner's steps 
 over a crossing towards him. As Edith Leslie stepped upon 
 the sidewalk, she saw him for the first time. He bowed, 
 joined her, spoke a few bungling words of condolence, and 
 walked on at her side. After the fashion of those who are 
 peculiarly anxious to appear at their best advantage, he 
 appeared at his worst. And when his companion bade him 
 good morning on the steps of her father's house, she left him 
 in a most unenviable mood, muttering maledictions against 
 himself and his fate, and brought, indeed, to the borders of 
 despair. This depression, however, was not long in produ 
 cing its reaction, under the influence of which, adopting his 
 usual panacea against mental ailments, he mounted his horse, 
 and spurred into the country. 
 
 Here, about sunset, he beheld a horseman, slowly pacing 
 along the road in front. On this, he drew rein, and began to 
 look about him for the means of escape ; for in the person of 
 the rider he recognized his classmate Wren, to whose society 
 he was far from partial. Neither lane nor by-road was to 
 be seen. 
 
 " At the worst," he thought, "it is but a mile or two ; " 
 and, setting forward at a trot again, he was in a moment at 
 his classmate's side. 
 
108 VASSAI/L MORTON. 
 
 " How are you, Wren ? " 
 
 " Ah. Morton, good evening," exclaimed Wren, with a 
 graceful wave of his hand. " I'm delighted to see you. A 
 charming evening isn't it ? " 
 
 " Charming." 
 
 " That's a fine horse you have." 
 
 " Tolerably good." 
 
 " Did you ever observe this fellow that I'm riding ? Do 
 you see how long and straight he is in the back ? Well, 
 that's the Arab blood that's in him. His grandfather was a 
 superb Arab, that the Pacha of Egypt gave my uncle when 
 he was travelling there ; " and he proceeded to dilate at large 
 on the merits and pedigree of his horse, the truth being that 
 he and his ancestry before him had been born and bred in 
 the State of Vermont. Morton listened with civil incredulity, 
 and wished his companion at the antipodes. 
 
 " Ah, there's my cousin's house," exclaimed Wren, point 
 ing to a very pretty cottage and grounds which they were 
 approaching " Mary Holyoke, you know Mary Everard 
 that was some three months ago. What a delightful retreat 
 for the honeymoon ! " 
 
 " Very," said Morton. 
 
 " Stop there with me, will you ? I'm going in for a few 
 minutes, to wish them a pleasant journey. They. are going 
 to Niagara to-morrow." 
 
 " Thank you, I believe I won't stop." 
 
 " As you please, my dear fellow. I think they are quite 
 right to travel now ; it's a better season than the spring ; and 
 a honeymoon journey, after all, isn't all romance, you know. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 109 
 
 Besides, they are going to have a charming companion 
 Miss Leslie." 
 
 " I thought that she had just lost her mother-in-law." 
 
 " That's the very thing. She's almost ill with watching 
 night after night; so Mary, they used to be friends at 
 school, has been very anxious that she should make the 
 journey with them, for a change of scene, you know, and 
 Colonel Leslie has persuaded her to go." 
 
 " When will they leave town ? " 
 
 " To-morrow. They mean to spend a few days at Trenton, 
 and then go to the Falls. But here we are ; won't you 
 change your mind, and come in ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. Good night." 
 
 " Good evening, then ; " and waving his hand again, Wren 
 trotted up the avenue. 
 
 " Virtue never goes unrewarded," thought Morton ; " if I 
 hadn't joined the fellow, I might not have known about this 
 journey." 
 
 On the next day he discovered that they had actually gone, 
 and that, as Wren had said, Niagara was to be the ultimatum 
 of their tour. On the following morning, he himself took 
 the western train, and made all speed for the Falls. 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 If folly grows romantic, I must paint it. Pope. 
 
 ON the American side of the Niagara, a few miles below 
 the Falls, is a deep chasm, bearing the inauspicious christen 
 ing of the Devil's Hole. Near it there is or perhaps was, 
 for things have changed thereabouts a path winding far 
 down among rocks and forests, till it leads to the brink of 
 the river. Here, darkened by the beetling cliffs and sombre 
 forests, the Niagara surges on its way, like a compressed 
 ocean, raging -to break free. At the verge of this watery 
 convulsion stood Holyoke and his wife, Miss Leslie, and 
 Morton, whom they had chanced to meet that morning. 
 
 " It is very fine, no doubt," said the good-natured, though 
 very shallow Mrs. Holyoke, " but I have no mind to take 
 cold in these dark woods. If we stay much longer, I believe I 
 I shall go mad, looking at that rushing, foaming water, and 
 throw myself in. Come, Harry, let us go back to daylight 
 again." 
 
 " Just as you please," said the model husband, offering 
 his arm. 
 
 " Come, Edith ; why, she really seems to like it ; 
 Edith ! she don't hear me ; no wonder, in all this noise ; 
 
 (110) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. Ill 
 
 Edith, we are going back to the upper world. You can 
 stay here, if you please, with Mr. Morton." 
 
 But Miss Leslie chose to follow her friend ; while Morton 
 aided her up the rough path. 
 
 " I have observed," he said, as they came to smoother 
 ground, " in our excursions yesterday and to-day, that Mrs. 
 Holyoke has not much of your liking for rocks, trees, and 
 water. I mean, that she has no great taste for nature." 
 
 " At all events, she has an eye for what is picturesque in 
 it. She is an artist, you know, and paints in water colors 
 extremely well." 
 
 " Yes, and whenever she sees a landscape, she thinks only 
 how it would look on paper or canvas, and judges it accord 
 ingly. That is not a genuine love of nature. One does not 
 value a friend for good looks, or dress, or air ; and so, in 
 the same way, is not a true fondness for nature independ 
 ent, to some extent at least, of effects of form, or color, or 
 grouping ? " 
 
 " It does not imply, I think, any artistic talent, or even a 
 good eye for artistic effect. And yet I cannot conceive of a 
 greaNandscape artist being without it, any more than a great 
 poet." 
 
 "If he were, he would be no better than a refined scene 
 painter. We are in a commercial country ; so pardon me if 
 I use commercial language. This liking for nature is a capi 
 tal investment. She is always a kind mistress, a good friend, 
 always ready with a tranquillizing word, never inconstant, 
 never out of humor, never sad." 
 
 " And yet sometimes she can speak sadly, too." 
 
112 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Edith Leslie said no more ; but there came before her the 
 remembrance of her long watchings in the room of the dying 
 Mrs. Leslie, when, seated by the window, open in the hot 
 summer nights, she had listened, hour after hour, mournfully, 
 drearily, almost with superstitious awe, to the chirping of the 
 crickets, the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill, and now and 
 then the hooting of a distant owl. 
 
 " Here in America," continued Morton, " we ought to 
 make the most of this feeling for nature ; for we have very 
 little else." 
 
 " And yet there is less of it here than in some other 
 countries ; in England, for instance." 
 
 " We are too busy for such vanities. Besides, we are just 
 now in an unlucky position. A wilderness is one thing ; 
 savageness and solitude have a character of their own ; and 
 so has a polished landscape with associations of art, poetry, 
 legend, and history." 
 
 " And we have destroyed the one, and have not yet found 
 the other." 
 
 " And so, between two stools we fall to the ground." 
 
 " If you have a liking for a wilderness and primitive 
 scenery, I don't think that you have much reason to com 
 plain ; for you, at least, have contrived to see something of 
 them." 
 
 " And you of the other sort ; art and history wedded to 
 nature ; at Tivoli, for example, at the Lake of Albano ; 
 where else shall I say ? " 
 
 " Say, at Giardini, in Sicily." 
 
 " Why at Giardini ? I never heard of it before." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 113 
 
 " Not that the view there is finer than in some other 
 places, though towards evening it is very beautiful. You 
 see the ocean on one side, and the mountains on the other, 
 covered to the top with orange, lemon, and olive trees, and 
 Mount Etna rising above them all, with a spire of white 
 smoke curling out of its crater, tinted with red, yellow, and 
 purple, where the sunset strikes it. On the mountain above 
 you there is an ancient theatre, where a Greek audience 
 once sat on the stone benches, and after them, in their turn, 
 a Roman. On the peak of the mountain over it is a Saracen 
 castle, and, not far off, a Norman tower." 
 
 " So that the whole is an embodiment of poetry and 
 history from the days of the Odyssey downwards." 
 
 " Nobody, I think, who has seen that eastern shore of 
 Sicily can have escaped without some strong impression from 
 it. The Fourrierites, you know, pretend to believe that the 
 earth is a living being, with a soul, only a larger one, like 
 ours that creep on the outside of it. One is sometimes 
 tempted to adopt their idea, and fancy that the changing 
 face of nature is the expression of the earth's thoughts, and 
 its way of communicating with us." 
 
 " A landscape will sometimes have a life and a language, 
 that is, when one happens to be in the mood to hear it, 
 and yet, after all, association is commonly the main source, 
 of its power. The Hudson, I imagine, can match the Rhine 
 in point of mere beauty ; but a few ruined castles, with the 
 memories about them, turn the tables dead against us." 
 
 " You have always have you not ? - had a penchant for 
 the barbarism of the middle ages." 
 10* 
 
114 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 " Not for their barbarism, but for the germs of civilization 
 that lay in the midst of it. Religion towards God, devotion 
 towards women these were the vital ideas of the middle 
 ages." 
 
 " But how were those ideas acted on ? Their religion was 
 not much better than a mass of superstitions." 
 
 " Not more gross and vulgar than the spirit rapping super 
 stition, the last freak into which this age of reason has stum 
 bled. And, for the other idea, the fundamental idea of 
 chivalry, we are beginning to replace it with woman's rights, 
 Heaven deliver us ! " 
 
 " Pardon me if I doubt whether ladies in the middle ages 
 were better treated than they are now. The theory was ad 
 mirable, no doubt, but the practice, if there were any, seems 
 at this distance a little ridiculous." 
 
 " Chivalry was like Don Quixote, who stands for it 
 fantastic and absurd enough on the outside, but noble at 
 the core." 
 
 " But you would not imply seriously that you would pre 
 fer the age of chivalry to this nineteenth century." 
 
 " No, the reign of shopkeepers is better than the reign of 
 cutthroats. But the nineteenth century has no right to 
 abuse the middle ages. The best feature of its civilization is 
 handed down from them. That feeling which found a place 
 in the rough hearts of our northern ancestry, half savages as 
 they were, and gave to their favorite goddess attributes more 
 high and delicate than any with which the Greeks and Ro 
 mans, at the summit of their refinement, ever invested their 
 Venus ; the feeling which afterwards grew into the sentiment 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 115 
 
 of chivalry, and, hand in hand with Christianity, has made 
 our modern civilization what it is, that is the heritage we 
 owe to the middle ages, and for which we are bound to be 
 grateful to them. It was a flower all the fairer for springing 
 in the midst of darkness and barbarism ; and now that we 
 have it in a kinder soil, we can only hope that it is not fast 
 losing its fragrance and brightness." 
 
 " Of that, I imagine, a woman is a very poor judge ; but 
 if it has lost its antique freshness, at all events we can enjoy 
 it in peace and tranquillity, and be spared the risk of life and 
 limb in gathering it. Those sweetbrier blossoms that grow 
 yonder, down the side of the precipice, are very pretty, but it 
 would require nothing less than a paladin, or a knight errant, 
 made crazy with the hope of a smile, to get them and bring 
 them up." 
 
 " Now it is you that asperse the present, and I that will 
 defend it." And the words were hardly spoken before the 
 young fool was over the edge of the cliff, scarcely hearing his 
 companion's startled cry of remonstrance. 
 
 The rock sloped steeply to a few feet below the spot where 
 the brier grew, and then sank in a sheer precipice of a hun 
 dred feet or more, so that if hand or foot had failed him, his 
 career would have ended somewhat abruptly. To the spec 
 tatress above the danger seemed appalling ; but, with the 
 climber's practised eye and well-strung sinews, it was in fact 
 very slight. Once, indeed, a fragment of stone loosened 
 under his foot, and fell with a splintering crash upon the 
 rocks below, followed by a shower of pebbles and gravel, 
 rattling among the trees. But he soon reached his prize, 
 
116 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 secured it in his hatband, and grasping the friendly root of a 
 spruce tree, drew himself up to the level top of the cliff. 
 
 Here he saw the fruit of his Quixotism. Edith Leslie, 
 pale as death, seemed on the very verge of fainting. He 
 sprang in great consternation to her aid, supported her to a 
 rock near at hand, on which she could rest ; and as her mo 
 mentary dizziness passed away, she began to distinguish his 
 eager words of apology and self-reproach. 
 
 " You will think that I have grown backward into a child 
 again. Think what you will ; I deserve your worst thought ; 
 only do not believe that I could fancy such paltry exploits 
 and paltry risks could be a tribute worthy of you ; or 
 that you are to be served with such boy's service as that. 
 Here are the flowers : throw them away, or keep them as a 
 memento of my absurdity ; but let them remind you, at the 
 same time, that wherever your wish points, there I would go, 
 if it were into the jaws of fate." 
 
 Here, looking up, he saw the expediency of curtailing his 
 eloquence ; for not far off appeared their two companions, 
 returning to look for them. Both Miss Leslie and he had 
 much ado to explain, the one why her face was so pale, the 
 other why his dress was so dusty and disordered. The car 
 riage was waiting for them on the road near by ; and their 
 morning's excursion being finished, they proceeded towards 
 it, Morton leading the way in silence. 
 
 His first feeling had been one of compunction and indigna 
 tion at himself; but close upon it followed another, very dif 
 ferent a sense of mixed suspense and delight. What 
 augury might he not draw from the pale cheek and fainting 
 form of his companion ? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 For, in the days of yore, the birds of parts 
 
 Were bred to speak, and sing, and learn the liberal arts. 
 
 The Cock and the Fox. 
 Thine is the adventure, thine the victory ; 
 Well has thy fortune turned the dice for thee. 
 
 Palamvn and Arcite. 
 
 DURING the rest of the journey, Morton, on Mrs. Hoi- 
 yoke's invitation, was one of the party. Again and again 
 he was impelled to learn his fate ; but recoiled from casting 
 the die, dreading that his hour was not come. Still, though 
 every day more helplessly spell-bound, his mood was not de 
 spondent. 
 
 They came to the town of , a half day from home. 
 
 "My household gods are not far off," said Morton. " My 
 father was born at Steuben, a few miles below, where my 
 grandfather used to preach against King George, and stir up 
 his parish to rebellion. I have relations there still, and have 
 a mind to spend to-morrow with them." 
 
 This announcement proceeded much less from family affec 
 tion than from another motive. Mrs. Holyoke saw it in an 
 instant. 
 
 " Excellent ! Then Miss Leslie can accept her friend's 
 invitation to make a day's visit at this place ; and you will 
 meet her and escort her to Boston." 
 
 (117) 
 
 , 
 
118 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 And Morton, much rejoiced at this successful issue of his 
 diplomacy, repaired to his relatives at Steuben ; Holyoke and 
 his wife proceeded homeward ; while Miss Leslie remained to 
 accomplish the visit with her country friend. 
 
 Morton spent a quiet day in the primitive New England 
 village, a place of which boyish association made him fond. 
 On the next morning, Miss Leslie was to come to Steuben, 
 with her hostess ; but as there was an abundance of time be 
 fore the train would appear, he strolled along a quiet road 
 leading back into the country. He soon came to an old inn, 
 over whose tottering porch King George's head might once 
 have swung. Nothing human was astir. The ancient lilacs 
 flaunted before the door ; the tall sunflowers peered over the 
 garden fence ; the primeval well-sweep slanted aloft, far 
 above the mossy shingles of the roof. The rural quiet of the 
 place tempted him. He sat under the porch, and watched the 
 swallows sailing in and out of the great barn whose doors 
 stood wide open, on the opposite side of the road. 
 
 A voice broke the silence a voice from the barn yard. 
 It was the voice of a hen mother, the announcement that an 
 egg was born into the world. Not the proud, exulting cackle 
 which ordinarily proclaims that auspicious event, but a repin 
 ing, discontented cry, now rising in vehement remonstrance 
 with destiny, now sinking into a low cluck of disgust. Mor 
 ton, skilled in the language of birds, construed these melan 
 choly cacklings as follows : 
 
 " Whither does all this tend ? Why is my happiness 
 blighted, my aspirations repressed? Why am I forever 
 penned up within these narrow precincts, amid low domestic 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 119 
 
 cares, and sordid, uncongenial, unsympathizing associates? 
 And thou, my white and spotless offspring, what shall be thy 
 fate ? To be steeped in hot water, and eaten with a spoon ? 
 Or art thou to be the germ of an existence wretched as my 
 own, doomed to a ceaseless round of daily parturition ? O, 
 weariness ! O, misery ! O, despair ! " 
 
 And throwing her ruffled feelings into one indignant cackle, 
 the hen was silent. 
 
 The advent of a human biped here enlivened the scene. 
 This was a young gentleman on horseback, a collegian to all 
 appearance, admirably mounted, but bestriding his horse with 
 the look of one who has just passed his first course under the 
 riding master, and rides by the book, as Touchstone quar 
 relled. This important personage, with an air oddly com 
 pounded of assumption and timidity, proceeded to call the 
 hostler, and order oats for his horse, after which he strutted 
 into the house, switching his leg with his whip. 
 
 As ample time remained, Morton continued his walk along 
 the road, his mood in harmony with the brightness of the 
 morning. He was in a humor to please himself with trifles. 
 A ground squirrel chirruped at him from a crevice of the wall. 
 He stood watching the small, shy visage, as it looked out at 
 him. Then a red squirrel, a much livelier companion, uttered 
 its trilling cry from a clump of hazel bushes. Morton seated 
 himself on a stone very near it. The squirrel resented the 
 intrusion, ran out on a fence rail towards the offender, chat 
 tered, scolded, swelled himself like a miniature muff, made 
 his tail and his whole body vibrate with his wrath ; then 
 suddenly dodged down behind the rail and peered over it at 
 
120 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 the trespasser, his nose and one eye alone being visible ; then 
 bolted into full sight again, and scolded as before, jerking 
 himself from side to side in the extremity of his petulance ; 
 till at last, without the smallest apparent cause, he suddenly 
 wheeled about and fled, bounding like the wind along the top 
 of the stone wall. 
 
 This interview over, Morton looked at his watch, saw that 
 it was time to go back towards the village, and began to 
 retrace his steps accordingly. He had gone but a few paces, 
 when he saw a countryman, a simple-looking fellow, running 
 at top speed, and in great excitement, up a byway, which 
 led to the railroad, the latter crossing it by a high bridge, at 
 some distance from the station. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " demanded Morton. 
 
 " The railroad cars ! " gasped the countryman. 
 
 " What of them ? " 
 
 " They'll all go to smash, and no mistake." 
 
 " What ! " cried Morton, aghast. 
 
 " Fact, mister. Some born devil has been and sawed the 
 bridge timbers most through in the middle." 
 
 " What ! " cried Morton again. 
 
 " Sure as I stand here ! I seen the heaps of sawdust on 
 the road. That's the way I come to take notice. The 
 minute the locomotive gets on the bridge, down she'll go, 
 and no two ways about it." 
 
 Morton had no doubt that the man was right. The news 
 papers, within the last few weeks, had contained various 
 accounts of impediments, great and small, maliciously placed 
 on railroads. It was a species of villany which was just 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 121 
 
 then having its run, as incendiarism will sometimes have ; 
 and a like case of a bridge partly sawed through had lately 
 occurred in a neighboring state. 
 
 " You fool ! " exclaimed Morton, in anguish and despair ; 
 " why didn't you get on the track, and stop the train ? " 
 
 " I'd like to see you stop the train ! " retorted the man. 
 
 Morton turned to run for the road, bent on stopping the 
 engine, or letting it pass over him. But as he turned, a new 
 arrival caught his eye. This was the cavalier who had baited 
 his horse at the inn, and who, seeing the excited looks of the 
 two men, had checked his pace, and was looking at them with 
 much curiosity. 
 
 Crazed with agitation, and hardly knowing what he did, 
 Morton leaped towards him, seized his horse, a powerful and 
 high-mettled animal, by the head, and, with a few broken 
 words of explanation, called on him to dismount. The aston 
 ished collegian did not comply. Morton bore back fiercely 
 on the bit ; the horse plunged and snorted ; the rider clutched 
 the pommel ; Morton took him by the arm, drew him to the 
 ground, mounted at a bound after him, and, as he touched 
 the saddle, struck his whalebone walking stick with all his 
 force over the horse's flank. The horse leaped forward fran 
 tically, and rushed headlong down the road. His discarded 
 rider saw his hoofs twinkling for an instant out of the cloud 
 of dust, and thought he had had a Heaven-directed escape 
 from a madman. 
 
 The small village above Steuben, at which Miss Leslie and 
 her friend were to take the train, was three miles off. The 
 road ran almost directly towards it for more than three fourths 
 11 
 
122 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 of the way, when it made a bend to the right. Morton, with 
 his furious riding, very soon reached this point. He could 
 see the station house before him, on the left, and not more 
 than a third of a mile distant. The space between, though 
 uneven, had no visible impediments but a few low fences and 
 scattered clumps of bushes. Morton pushed through the 
 barberry growth that fringed the road, galloped over the hard 
 pasture, leaped one fence, passed a gap in another, and half 
 way to his goal, found himself and his horse in a quagmire. 
 At this moment, straining his eyes towards the cluster of 
 houses, he saw, with agony at his heart, a white puff of 
 vapor rising above the trees beyond. Then the dark outline 
 of the train came into view, checking its way, and stopping, 
 half hidden behind the buildings. 
 
 Morton knew that it would stop only for a moment, and 
 plied his horse with merciless blows. The horse plunged 
 through the mire, the mud and water spouting high above 
 his rider's head, gained the firm ground, and bounded for 
 ward wild with fright and fury. It was too late. The bell 
 rang, and with quicker and quicker pants, the engine began 
 to move. Morton shouted, gesticulated, still it did not 
 stop, though the passengers seemed to take alarm, for a head 
 was thrust from every window, while the occupants of an 
 open carriage drawn up on the road were bending eagerly 
 towards him. 
 
 Morton wheeled to the left, and urged his horse up the 
 embankment in front of the train. With a violent effort, ho 
 reached the top. The engineer was running against timo, 
 and cared for nothing but winning his match. He blew the 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 123 
 
 steam whistle ; and as Morton dragged on the curb with 
 desperate strength, the horse reared upright, pawing the air. 
 But, as he rose, Morton disengaged his feet, slid over the 
 crupper to the ground, and let go the rein. The horse leaped 
 down the bank, and scoured over the meadow, mad w r ith 
 terror. Morton took his stand in the middle of the track, 
 and facing the advancing train, stood immovable as a post. 
 The engineer reversed the engine, brought it to a stand 
 within a few yards of him, and, with a profusion of oaths, 
 demanded what he wanted. 
 
 Before the breathless Morton could well explain himself, 
 the passengers began to leap out of the cars, and running 
 forward, gathered about him. He soon found words to make 
 the case known. But one object alone engrossed him. He 
 pushed on among the throng of questioning, eager men, 
 mounted the foremost car, and made his way through it, the 
 crowd pushing behind and around him, and plying him with 
 questions, to which, in the confusion and abstraction of his 
 faculties, he gave wild and random answers. He looked at 
 every face. Edith Leslie was not there. He crossed the 
 platform into the next car, passed through it, and still could 
 not find her. It was the last in the train. And now a 
 strange feeling came over him, a bitterness, a sense of disap 
 pointment, as if his efforts and his pangs had been uncalled 
 for and profitless ; for so intensely had his thoughts been 
 concentred on one object, that he forgot for the moment the 
 hundred men and women whom he had saved from deadly 
 jeopardy. 
 
 The train rolled back to the station, the distance being 
 
124 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 only a few rods. Morton got out and leaned against the 
 wall of the house. Men thronged about him with questions, 
 exclamations, thanks, praises. The reaction of his violent 
 emotion produced in him a frame of mind almost childish. 
 He was restless to free himself from the crowd. 
 
 " It's nothing ; it's nothing," he answered, as fresh praises 
 were showered on him. " I saw the train going to the devil, 
 and did what I could to save it. Any of you, I dare say, 
 would have done as much. Be good enough to let me have 
 a little air." 
 
 The crowd gave way, and he walked forward past the 
 corner of the building. Here, standing on the road, close at 
 hand, he suddenly saw an open carriage, and in it, pale as 
 death, sat Miss Leslie, with her friend, and a boy of twelve, 
 her friend's brother. He sprang towards it with an irrepres 
 sible impulse. 
 
 " My God ! Miss Leslie, I thought you were in the train." 
 
 " And so we should have been," said the boy, " but the 
 cars came in three minutes before their time." 
 
 Edith Leslie did not utter a word. 
 
 Some of the passengers were soon about him again. He 
 repeated to them what he knew of the danger, and told them 
 how he had learned ft. In a few minutes, several men were 
 seen at a distance on the railroad, running forward with a 
 handkerchief tied to a stick to warn off the train. A few 
 minutes later, a Connecticut pedler, one of the passengers, 
 came up to Morton. 
 
 '* Mister, they're going to do the handsome thing by you. 
 They're getting up a subscription to give you a piece of silver 
 plate." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 125 
 
 " The deuse they are ! " was Morton's ungrateful response. 
 
 Going into the room where the passengers were met, he 
 found that the pedler had told the truth ; on which, for the 
 first and last time in his life, he addressed an assemblage of 
 his fellow-citizens. He told them that he thanked them for 
 their kind intention ; but that if he had done them a service, 
 he wished for no other recompense than the knowledge of it, 
 and urged them, if they did any thing in the matter, to 
 devote their efforts to gaining the arrest and punishment of 
 the scoundrel who had attempted the mischief. His oratory 
 was much applauded ; many, who had thought themselves in 
 for the subscription, joyfully buttoned their pockets, and, 
 instead of the plate, he received a series of complimentary 
 resolutions, to be published in the newspapers. 
 
 Meanwhile, having made his speech, he had lost no time in 
 making his escape also. Going back to the carriage, Miss 
 Leslie's friend asked him to accompany them home, whence 
 they could return to take the afternoon train, when the bridge 
 would, no doubt, be repaired. Morton, however, declined the 
 invitation, and, having sent two men to catch the horse, with 
 instructions to refer the distressed owner to him, he drove in 
 a farmer's wagon to Steuben. In a few hours, he rejoined 
 Miss Leslie and her friend ; and having escorted both safely 
 to town, took leave of the former, that evening, at the door 
 of her father's house. 
 
 Several of the newspapers next morning contained the 
 
 resolutions passed by the passengers, trumpeting Morton's 
 
 humanity, presence of mind, &c. He himself very well knew 
 
 that the praise was undeserved, since he had neither thought 
 
 11* 
 
126 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 nor cared for the objects of his supposed humanity, and, far 
 from acting with presence of mind, had scarcely known what 
 he was about. 
 
 The bridge had been cut by an Irish mechanic in the 
 employ of the road, who, for some misdemeanor, had been 
 reprimanded and turned out, and who had passed half the 
 night in preparing his demoniac revenge. It afterwards 
 appeared that he had been a state's prison convict in a neigh 
 boring state, and that he would have been still in confine 
 ment, had not the officious zeal of certain benevolent persons 
 availed to set him loose before his time. 
 
CHAPTER, XX. 
 
 For true it is, as in principio, 
 Mulier est haminis confusio ; 
 Madam, the meaning of this Latin is, 
 That woman is to man his sovereign bliss. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, 
 And made her man his paradise forego. 
 These are the words of Chanticleer, not mine ; 
 I honor dames, and think their sex divine. Dryden. 
 
 Ox the day after their return, Morton visited Miss Leslie 
 to learn if she had suffered from the fatigues and alarms of 
 yesterday ; and, in truth, she had the pale face of one whose 
 rest has been short and broken. 
 
 " It has been my fate to terrify you," said the anxious 
 Morton. 
 
 During his visit, the door bell was most obtrusively busy. 
 Messages, parcels, notes, cards, visitors came in, and expelled 
 all hope of a tete a tete. 
 
 Soon after he left the room, Leslie entered. 
 
 " Who gave you those flowers, Edith ? " 
 
 " Mr. Morton, sir." 
 
 " Humph ! " ejaculated Leslie, with a look by no means 
 of gratification. 
 
 Meanwhile, Morton, walking the street in an abstracted 
 
 (127) 
 
128 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 
 
 mood, overtook unawares his bachelor friend Mr. Benedick 
 Sharpe, jurist, philosopher, and man of letters a personage 
 whose ordinary discourse was a singular imbroglio of irony 
 and earnest. 
 
 " Why, Morton, what problem of ethnology are you at 
 now ? the unity of the human race, and the descent from 
 Adam science versus orthodoxy is that it ? " 
 
 " Nothing so deep." 
 
 " What, nothing ethnological ? " 
 
 "Nothing at all." 
 
 " Ah, then I begin to tremble for you. There's but one 
 thing else could lose you in such a maze. The flame of a 
 candle is very pretty ; but the moth that flies into it scorches 
 his wings, poor devil." 
 
 " I am too dull to see through your metaphors." 
 
 " There's another blind divinity besides Justice. Beware 
 the shoal of matrimony ! Many a good fellow has been 
 wrecked there." , 
 
 " Harping on your old string ! You are a professed woman 
 hater." 
 
 " Who, I ? Now that is a scandalous libel. I admire 
 them, of course." 
 
 " And yet there's not a lady of your acquaintance whom I 
 have not heard you analyze, criticise, cavil at, and disparage." 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " 
 
 " You have no conscience to deny it." 
 
 " I protest I have the greatest ahem ! admiration for 
 the ladies of our acquaintance. We have an excellent assort 
 ment, we have witty women ; brilliant women ; women of 
 
TASSALL MORTOX. 129 
 
 taste and genius ; exact and fastidious women, a full sup 
 ply, accomplished women ; finished and elegant women, - 
 not too many, But still we have them ; learned women ; gen 
 tle, amiable, tender women ; sharp and caustic women ; sensi 
 ble and practical women ; domestic women, all unimpeach 
 able, all good in their kind." 
 
 " Then why is matrimony so dangerous ? " 
 
 " No, no, not dangerous, exactly, thanks to discreet 
 nurture and northern winters ; not dangerous hereabouts as it 
 was in the days of the old satirists. A wise man may be 
 safe enough here from any climax of matrimonial evil ; but 
 there are minor mischiefs, daily desagremens." 
 
 " What, in spite of that catalogue of feminine virtues which 
 you delivered just now ? " 
 
 " Vanity of vanities ! Admirable in the abstract ; excel 
 lent at a safe distance ; but to be tied to for life, bed and 
 board, day light and candle light, that's another thing." 
 
 " Even the tender and amiable, is there risk even there ? " 
 
 " One cloys on perpetual sweetmeats." 
 
 " And the domestic women ? " 
 
 " Who incarcerate themselves in their nurseries, and have 
 no brains but for their babies ; who are frantic if the infant 
 coughs, and are buried and lost among cradles, porringers, 
 go-carts, pills, and prescriptions." 
 
 " The brilliant woman, then ? " 
 
 " Brilliant at dinner tables and soirees ; but, on the next 
 day, your Corinne is disconsolate with a' headache. Her wit 
 is for the world, her moods and mopings, caprices and 
 lamentations, those she keeps for her husband." 
 
130 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " You are a cynic. The woman of taste and genius ; 
 where do you place her ? " 
 
 "What are the rude heart and brain of a man to such 
 exalted susceptibilities ? What homage is too much for him 
 to render ? Be a bond slave to the sweet enthusiast. Bow 
 yourself before the delicate shrine. Do your devoirs ; she 
 will not bate you a jot." 
 
 " But there are in the world women governed by reason." 
 
 " My dear Morton, are you demented ? A woman always 
 rational, always sensible, always consistent ; a logical woman ; 
 one who can distinguish the relations of cause and effect, one 
 who marches straight to her purpose like a man, who ever 
 found such a woman ; or, finding her, who could endure such 
 a one ? " 
 
 " You fly into extremes ; but women may be rational, as 
 well as men." 
 
 " I like to see the organ of faith well developed, yours 
 is a miracle. Granted, a rational woman ; and with a liberal 
 rendering of the word, such, I admit, are now and then seen, 
 women always even, always cheerful, never morbid, always 
 industrious, always practical ; busy with good works, 
 charity, for example, or making puddings, pious daugh 
 ters, model wives, pattern mothers " 
 
 11 At last you have found a creditable character." 
 
 " Very creditable ; but far from interesting. The truth is, 
 Morton, the very uncertainty, the flitting gleams and shadows, 
 the opalescent light, the chameleon coloring of a woman's 
 mind are what make her fascination, the- fascination and 
 the danger, there lies the dilemma. Shun the danger, 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 131 
 
 and you lose the charm as well. A woman's human nature 
 is not our human nature ; the tissue is more cunningly 
 woven ; the string more responsive ; the essence lighter and 
 subtler, forgive the poetic style, appropriate to the 
 theme, you know. In their virtues and their faults they 
 shoot away into paths where we do not track them. They 
 can sink in a more abject abasement ; and sometimes, again, 
 while we tread the earth, they are aeronauts of the pure ether. 
 Stable, stubborn, impassive man holds the steadfast tenor of 
 his walk, little moved by influences which, on the one hand, 
 bury his helpmate in ruin, or, on the other, wing her on a 
 flight to the zenith. They out-sin us, and they out-saint 
 us ; weak as a reed, and strong as an oak ; measureless in 
 folly, profound in wisdom ; for the deepest of all wisdom 
 springs, not out of a questioning brain, but out of a con 
 fiding heart ; and all human knowledge must find its root at 
 last in a blind belief. There, I have given you a sublime 
 touch of eloquence ; and, for the moral to it, shun matri 
 mony. It is Satan's slyest mantrap. No, not so, at all ; it 
 is a blessed institution for perfecting mankind in patience, 
 charity, and meekness, and booking their names in the cata 
 logue of saints. So be wise, in time. Good by. Look 
 before you leap ! " 
 
 And, with an ironical twinkle in his eye, Sharpe vanished. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Quelle diable de fantaisie t'es tu al!6 mettre dans la cervelle ? Tu le veux, amour ; U 
 faut fetre fou comme beaucoup d'autrea. Le. Malade, Imaginaire. 
 
 MATHEKTOX, renowned through both hemispheres for the 
 manufacture of glass ware, stands, unless this history errs, 
 on the line of the Northern Central Railroad, the distance 
 from its post office to the post office at Boston being just 
 thirty-three miles. Four miles from the village is the tract 
 of land which Leslie's forefather, far back in New England 
 antiquity, bought of the Indians. The original purchase , 
 covered several square miles, since dwindled to some two 
 hundred acres. Here, in a sequestered and very beautiful 
 spot, stands the mansion which Leslie's grandfather built 
 some eighty-five years ago. In its day it was reputed of 
 matchless elegance, and, with Leslie's repairs and improve 
 ments, it might still pass as a very handsome old country 
 residence. Sagamore Pond, or Lake Sagamore, as the last 
 Mrs. Leslie, who had lived in England, insisted on calling 
 it, washes the foot of the garden ; and along the northern ; 
 verge of the estate, Battle Brook steals down to the pond, \ 
 under the thick shade of the hemlock trees. Here King ' 
 Philip's warriors once lay in ambush, through a hot sum- i 
 
 (132) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 133 
 
 mer's day ; here many pious Puritans were butchered, and 
 many carried off into doleful captivity. 
 
 At the house at Battle Brook, Leslie, during spring, sum 
 mer, and autumn, had always spent every leisure moment 
 that he could snatch from his affairs. Since his connection 
 with Vinal, these intervals had become both long and fre 
 quent. And, since grief has a privilege, and since, moreover, 
 a somewhat alarming cough had lately begun to trouble him, 
 he now committed all to Vinal' s hands, and, on the day after 
 his daughter's return, repaired with her to his favorite home 
 stead, there to remain till the autumn frosts should warn 
 them back to town. Forthwith Matherton became the focus 
 to which all the thoughts of Morton concentred. 
 
 Thither, pretext or no pretext, he resolved to go. He 
 went, accordingly, and made his quarters at the grand hotel 
 of Matherton. Fortunately, Battle Brook was then the best 
 trout stream in Massachusetts ; and this would give, he flat 
 tered himself, some faint color to his proceeding. He arrived 
 in the afternoon, and, mounting a horse, rode to the inn at 
 the edge of Sagamore Pond, a mile or more from Leslie's 
 house. 
 
 He had scarcely reached it, when a brief sharp thunder 
 shower came up, and passed away as quickly. As the sun 
 was setting, he rowed out in a small boat upon the pond. 
 Here, skirting the brink of a sequestered cove, which the 
 beech and tupelo trees overhung, and where every thing was 
 still but the evening singing of a robin, and the mysterious 
 whisper of the rain-drops, falling from innumerable leaves, 
 with countless tiny circles on the breathless water, here, 
 12 
 
134 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 where his boat glided as if buoyed on a liquid air, while, over 
 the pebbly bottom, the perch and dace fled away from under 
 the shadowing prow, he lingered dreamily for a while, and 
 then, bending to his oars, bore out into the middle of the 
 pond. The west was gorgeous with the sunset, while, far in 
 front, glimmering among the trees, he could see the shrine 
 of his idolatry, the roof that sheltered Edith Leslie. 
 
 A light breeze crisped the water, the ripples murmured 
 with a lulling sound under his boat, and, lying at ease, he 
 gave himself up to his reveries. 
 
 His passion-kindled fancies ranged earth, sea, and sky ; 
 wandered into the past, lost themselves in the future ; evoked 
 the shadows of dead history ; mixed in one phantom conclave 
 the hairy war gods of the north, the bright shapes of Grecian 
 fable, the enormities of Egyptian mythology ; and, looking 
 into the burning depths above him, he mused of human hopes, 
 human aspirations, human destiny. That oddly compounded 
 malady which had fastened on him had brought with it the 
 intense yet tranquil awakening of every faculty with which it 
 will sometimes visit those of the ruder sex whom it attacks 
 with virulence. 
 
 The magic of earth and sky ; the black pines rearing their 
 shaggy tops against the blazing west ; the shores mingling in 
 many-tinted shadow ; the fiery sky, where three little clouds 
 hovered like flaming spirits ; the fiery water, where he and 
 his boat floated as in a crimson sea; the whole glowing 
 scene, glowing deeper yet in the fervid light of passion, pen 
 etrated him like an enchantment. He scarcely knew himself ; 
 and in his supreme of intoxication, the familiar world around 
 him was sublimed into a vision of Eden. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 If it were now to die, 
 'Twere now to be most happy ; for I fear, 
 My soul hath her content so absolute, 
 That not another comfort like to this 
 Succeeds in unknown fate. OthtUo. 
 
 IT was a day of cloudless sunshine when Morton set forth 
 for the house at Battle Brook ; hut his mind was far from 
 sharing the brightness of the wjrld without. The hope that 
 flowed so full and calmly the night before had ebbed and 
 left him dry. He was shaken with doubts, misgivings, per 
 turbations. He walked his horse up the avenue, till he came 
 within view of the house, a large, square mansion, with a 
 veranda on three sides, a quiet-looking place enough, but in 
 Morton's eyes priceless as Aladdin's palace, and sacred as 
 Our Lady's ' house at Loretto. A monthly honeysuckle 
 twined about one of the columns of the porch ; the hall door 
 stood open, and the air played freely through from front 
 to rear. 
 
 He gave his horse to the charge of an old Scotchman who 
 was mowing the lawn, rang at the door, asked for Miss Leslie, 
 and was shown into the vacant parlor. With its straw car 
 peting and light summer furniture, it was bright and cheerful 
 as every thing else about it. Engravings from Turner and 
 
 (135) 
 
136 TASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 Landseer, framed in black walnut, hung against the walls ; 
 and on a small table in a corner stood a bird cage, with the 
 door left purposely open. The inmate was hopping about 
 the room, without attempting to escape, though the windows 
 also were open. 
 
 " No wonder it will not leave her," thought the visitor. 
 
 He seated himself by the window, and looked out on the 
 fields and the groves beyond. Far down in the meadow, the 
 yellow-tufted rye was undulating in the warm summer wind, 
 wave chasing wave in graceful succession. The birds would 
 not sing, the afternoon was too hot, but the buzz, and 
 hum, and chirrup of a myriad of insects rose from their lurk 
 ing-places in the grass, while now and then the cicala raised 
 its piercing voice from a neighboring apple tree. 
 
 Suddenly Morton's heart began to beat ; a light step on 
 the staircase reached his ear, and the rustling of a dress. 
 Miss Leslie came in with her usual natural and quiet ease of 
 manner, while he rose to receive her with his heart in his 
 throat. And now, when he needed them most, his wits 
 seemed to fail him. He tried to converse, and produced 
 nothing but barren commonplace. Again and again the con 
 versation flagged; and the hum and chirrup of the insect 
 world without filled the pauses between. 
 
 He glanced at his companion. 
 
 "Be a man, you idiot," he apostrophized himself. 
 
 He looked at her again, as she bent over the embroidery 
 with which her fingers were employed. 
 
 " I must speak out, or die," he thought. 
 
 He rested his arm on the table. He leaned towards her. 
 
TASSALL MORTON. 137 
 
 Heaven knows what nonsense was on his lips, when the sound 
 of a man's footstep in the hall made him subside into his 
 chair, and do his best to look nonchalant. Leslie entered, 
 cast an uneasy glance at the visitor, and greeted him with 
 somewhat cool courtesy. 
 
 " I have just met Miss Weston and her sister," said Leslie 
 to his daughter ; " I think they will be here in a few minutes." 
 
 Morton looked at a Landseer on the wall, and gnawed his 
 lip with vexation. 
 
 Leslie took a turn or two about the room, looked out at 
 the window, remarked that it was a hot afternoon, said that 
 the hay crop had been the heaviest ever known, in conse 
 quence, he opined, of the joint effects of heat, moisture, and 
 guano ; and was descanting on the ravages committed by the 
 borers on a certain peach tree^ when Miss Weston and her 
 sister appeared. 
 
 "It's all up with me. She does not care for me a straw," 
 thought Morton, as he saw the easy cordiality with wljich 
 Miss Leslie received her guests. He was introduced. Miss 
 Weston complimented him. on the affair of the railroad. His 
 reply was cold and constrained. Leslie soon left the room. 
 Morton felt himself de trop, yet could not muster strength of 
 mind to go. Conversation nagged. Every body became 
 constrained. Miss Weston suspected the truth, and glanced 
 at her sister that they should take their leave, when, at this 
 juncture, a servant came to announce tea. 
 
 The ebbs and flows of the human mind are beyond the 
 reach of astronomy. As they went into the next room, Mor 
 ton became conscious of a faint and indefinite something in 
 12* 
 
138 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 the face of his mistress, which, he could not tell why, cast a 
 gleam of light into his darkness, and lifted him out of the 
 slough of despond in which he had been floundering for the 
 last half hour. A flush of hope dawned on him. His con 
 straint passed away, and Miss Weston's opinion of him was 
 wonderfully revolutionized. At length, much to his delight, 
 one of the visitors remarked to the other, that they had better 
 go home before it grew too dark. But here a new alarm 
 seized him. Might he not be expected to offer them his es 
 cort ? Terrified at this idea, and oblivious of all gallantry, he 
 made his escape into the garden, impelled so he left them 
 to infer by a delicate wish to free them from the restraint 
 of his presence. Here he walked to and fro behind the 
 hedge, in no small agitation, but with all his faculties on the 
 alert. 
 
 In a quarter of an hour, he heard voices at the hall door ; 
 and approaching behind a cluster of high laurels, saw Edith 
 Leslie accompanying her two friends down the avenue. After 
 walking with them a few rods, she bade them good evening, 
 and turned back towards the house. Morton went forward 
 to meet her. 
 
 " There is a beautiful sunset over the water, beyond the 
 garden. Will you walk that way ? " 
 
 They turned down one of the garden paths. 
 
 " What did you think of me this afternoon ? " asked Mor 
 ton " did you think me ill, or bewitched, or turned idiot ? " 
 
 " Neither. I thought you a little taciturn, at first." 
 
 " I am fortunate if that was your worst opinion. I believe 
 I was under a spell. Did you never dream all people, I 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 139 
 
 believe, have something in common in their dreams of being 
 in some great peril, without power to move hand or foot to 
 escape ? of being under some desperate necessity of speaking, 
 without power to open your lips ? or of seeing before you 
 some splendid prize, without power to make even an effort to 
 grasp it ? Something like that was my case." Here he came 
 to an abrupt stop, walked on a pace or two, then turned to 
 his companion with a vehemence which startled her " Miss 
 Leslie, you heard your friend praise me for humanity 
 courage what not ? It was all a mistake all a delusion. 
 I thought you were in the train. I was wild with agony ; 
 and when the people were crowding after me, I thought that 
 all had been for nothing, because I had not saved you. I 
 can hardly tell what I did ; it was mere blind instinct. I 
 could have ridden into the fire, and perhaps not have felt the 
 burning. There is a spell upon me. I am changed life is 
 changed every thing is changed. I scarcely know myself. 
 It mans me, and it makes me a child again. The world puts 
 on a new face ; just as this sunset lights the earth with pur 
 ple and vermilion, and turns it to a fairy land. Forgive me ; 
 I don't know what I am saying. I am in fear that all this 
 brightness will change of a sudden into winter and night, 
 and cold, rocky commonplace. You know what I would say. 
 I have no words fit to say it. You are my judge, to lift me 
 up, or cast me down." 
 
 Here he stopped again abruptly, and looked at his compan 
 ion in much greater agitation than he would have felt if he 
 had just thrown the dice for life or death. She stood for a 
 moment with her eyes fixed on the earth, as if waiting for 
 him to go on, then slowly raised them to his face. 
 
140 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 " You risked your life to save mine. You need not believe 
 that I could ever forget it." 
 
 Morton's heart sprang to his lips. Nature had not been 
 liberal to him in the gift of tongues, but the energy of his 
 emotion supplied the defect. Nor were his words thrown 
 away ; for with all its outward calm, the nature that responded 
 to them was earnest and ardent as his own. 
 
 It was an hour or more since the whippoorwills had begun 
 their evening cries, when they returned to the house. Can 
 dles were lighted, and Leslie was sitting with two persons 
 from the neighborhood, an agent of the Matherton factories 
 and a lawyer, conversing upon railroad stocks. He looked 
 very uneasily at his daughter and Morton, but said nothing. 
 The latter was engrossed with one idea ; but he forced himself 
 to join in the conversation, and favored the company with his 
 views not very lucid on this occasion upon the tobic 
 under discussion. He soon, however, contrived to whisper 
 to Miss Leslie, " I shall go in five minutes will you meet 
 me in the hall ? " She left the room in a few moments ; and 
 Morton, after a short interval, took his leave, in much alarm 
 lest his intended father-in-law should strain courtesy so far as 
 to follow him. Leslie, however, remained quiet ; and he 
 found his mistress waiting for him at the hall door. Their 
 interview was short, but Morton never forgot it. After bid 
 ding her good night some eight or ten times, he compelled 
 himself to leave the house, mounted his horse, waved his 
 hand to Edith Leslie, whom he saw watching him from a side 
 window, wheeled, rode down the avenue, turned as he reached 
 the entrance of the trees, and waved his hand again towards 
 
YASSALL MOKTON. 141 
 
 the window. His heart was full to overflowing, and tears, 
 not of sorrow, ran down his cheeks. " Good Heaven ! " 
 laughed Morton, as he brushed them away, " this has not 
 happened to me before these twelve years." He waved a 
 farewell once more, and spurring his horse, rode down the 
 avenue into the high road. 
 
 It was a soft, warm, starlight evening, and, as he passed 
 along, he heard the voices of the whippoorwills from far and 
 near, while the meadows, the orchards, and the borders of 
 the woods sparkled with fireflies. With loosened rein, he 
 suffered his horse to canter lightly forward, and gave himself 
 up to the enchantment of his dreams. A thousand times in 
 his after life did he recall the visions of that evening's ride. 
 
 About a mile before reaching the town, the road passed, 
 for a few rods, through a belt of thick woods. While riding 
 through the darkest of the shadow, a strange cry startled 
 him a shriek so wild and awful that the blood curdled in 
 his veins, and his horse leaped aside with fright. There was 
 a rustling among the branches over his head, a flapping and 
 fanning of broad pinions, and the dusky form of some great 
 bird sailed away into the innermost darkness of the woods. 
 Morton knew the sound. It was the voice of the great 
 horned owl, rarely found in that part of the country, though 
 he had once or twice before heard its midnight yells in the 
 lonely forests of Maine. 
 
 The cry long rang in his ears. It seemed fraught with 
 startling portent, clouded his spirits, and umbered the rose- 
 tint of his reveries. He turned his face to the stars, and 
 breathed a prayer for the welfare of his mistress. 
 

 CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 L'ambition, 1'amour, 1'avarice, la haine, 
 
 Tiennent comme un format son esprit a la chalne. 
 
 NOBODY knew Vinal but Vinal himself. Know thyself was 
 his favorite maxim. He practised upon it, as he flattered 
 himself, with a rigorous and unsparing logic, applying the 
 dissecting knife and microscope to the secrets of his mind, 
 probing, testing, studying, pitilessly ripping up all that would 
 fain hide itself. The aim of all this scrutiny was, thoroughly 
 to comprehend the machine, in order to direct and perfect it 
 to its highest efficiency. 
 
 Vinal, as men go, knew himself very well ; and yet there 
 were points of his character which escaped him, or which, 
 rather, he misnamed. He knew perfectly that he was ambi 
 tious, selfish, unscrupulous : this he confessed in his own ear, 
 pluming himself much on his philosophic candor. But he 
 never would see that he was eflvious. In his mental map of 
 himself, envy was laid down as pride and emulation. The 
 wrestlings of human nature are not all of the sort figured in 
 the Pilgrim's Progress and set forth in the Catechism. Vinal 
 had an ideal ; he had cherished it from boyhood, and battled 
 ever since to realize it. He would fain make himself the fin 
 ished man of the world, the unflinching, all-knowing, all- 
 
 (142) 
 
VASSALL MOBTON. 143 
 
 potential man of affairs, like a blade of steel, smooth and 
 polished, but keen, searching, resistless. This was his aim ; 
 but nature was always balking him. He was the victim of a 
 constitutional timidity, his scourge from childhood. He had 
 been known to swoon outright, on being run away with in a 
 chaise, and he never could muster nerve enough to fire a gun. 
 Against this defect his pride rose in revolt. It thwarted him 
 at every turn, and conflicted with all his aspirations. In 
 short, he could not endure its presence, and fought against it 
 with an iron energy of will. Thus his life was a secret, 
 unremitting struggle, whose mark was written on his pale, 
 nervous, resolute features. It's an ill wind that blows no 
 good. This painful warfare achieved a singular vigor and 
 concentration of character, and would have led to still better 
 issues, had the assailing force been marshalled under a better 
 banner. A lofty purpose may turn timidity to- heroism ; but 
 a purpose like Vinal's is by no means so efficacious, and the 
 man remains, if not quite a coward, yet something very 
 like one. 
 
 It would have been well for Vinal if, like Morton, he had 
 been born to a fortune. In that case for he had no apti 
 tude for pleasure hunting his restless energies would 
 probably have spurred him into some creditable field of effort, 
 natural science, mathematics, or philology, to all of which he 
 inclined. But Fate had not been so propitious ; and to 
 achieve the task which she had forgotten was the zenith of 
 his aspirations. 
 
 There was one person who had always been an eyesore to 
 him, and a stumbling block in his way. This was Vassall 
 
144 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 Morton. Morton, at twenty-three, was, in feeling, still a 
 boy ; Vinal, at twenty-three, was a well-ripened man. But 
 the man hated the boy ; and the boy retorted with a dislike 
 which was largely dashed with scorn. Vinal felt the scorn, 
 and it cut him to the quick, the more so, that he could not 
 hide from himself that he stood in awe of Morton. He 
 hated him, too, because he had that which he, Vinal, lacked 
 fortune, good health, steady nerve. He hated him, because 
 he thought that Morton understood him ; because the frank 
 ness of the latter' s nature rebuked the secrecy of his own ; 
 and, above all, because he saw in him his most formidable 
 rival in the affections of Edith Leslie. 
 
 Vinal's nature, self-drilled as it was, could not be called a 
 cold one. It had in it spots and veins of sensitiveness. 
 When a child, this sensitiveness had often been morbidly 
 awake, and had caused him much suffering ; but as he grew 
 towards manhood, it had been overlaid and hidden by very 
 different qualities, not often found in connection with it. Of 
 late, however, he had been in love, with Edith Leslie, as 
 well as with her money, and the dormant susceptibilities 
 of his childhood had been in some sort reawakened. 
 
 His mind, inharmonious and unhappy as nature and him 
 self had jointly made it, had never yet felt a pang so sharp 
 as when, arriving at Matherton, he learned privately from 
 Colonel Leslie the engagement which had passed between 
 Morton and his daughter. Miss Leslie's twice rejected 
 suitor compressed his thin lips in silence ; it was his usual 
 sign of strong emotion. Leslie pressed his favorite's hand, 
 he would fain have called him son-in-law, and, turning 
 away abruptly, Vinal left the house. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 145 
 
 The man whom he envied and hated had triumphed ; 
 robbed him of fortune, and robbed him of happiness ; happi 
 ness of which Morton had had already his full share, and a 
 fortune which would but swell the ample bulk of his posses 
 sions. Vinal was frenzied with grief, rage, and jealousy. 
 13 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Clo. That she should love this fellow and refuse me ! 
 
 If it be sin to make a true election, she is damned. Cymbdine. 
 
 MORTON sat in the reading room of the National, the grand 
 hotel of Matherton. It was by no means an elegant apart 
 ment. " In the middle was a table covered with newspapers ; 
 at the sides were desks, likewise covered with newspapers, 
 padlocked together in files. The walls and the ceiling glared 
 a drear monotony of white, broken, however, by sundry orna 
 ments, worthy the attention of the curious. Here, framed in 
 birdseye maple, was the engraved likeness of " Old Hickory," 
 with hat and cane in hand, a cloak to hide the gauntness of 
 his figure, and hair bristling in electrified disorder. Here, 
 too, was a colored print of the favorite steamboat " Queen of 
 the Lake ; " Niagara Falls, by a license of art, forming a 
 blue curtain in the background. At its side was a lithograph 
 of the Empire Hotel, New York, the sidewalk in front 
 being embellished with groups of pedestrians, dressed with 
 matchless elegance, after the fashion plates ; and, over against 
 this, an advertisement of Jessup's steel, encircled with a 
 lithographed halo, composed of chisels, axes, hammers, saws, 
 and ploughshares. 
 
 The apartment, thus furnished and thus adorned, had, 
 
 (146) 
 
TASSALL MORTON. 147 
 
 besides Morton, but two occupants ; the one a factory agent, 
 who stood at a desk, absorbed in the New Orleans Picayune ; 
 the other a country tailor, who displayed the sign of the 
 " Full-dressed Man " at the neighboring village of Mudfield, 
 and was now seated at a window, busied in polishing a huge 
 garnet ring, which he wore, with a red silk handkerchief. 
 
 In a window recess, aloof from the tailor's, sat Morton, 
 scarcely conscious of any presence but that of his own 
 thoughts. He had found a philosopher's stone ; and through 
 the rest of his life, this comfortless reading room of the 
 Matherton Hotel, this sanctuary of dry and weary Yankee- 
 dom, was linked in his memory \\ith dreams of golden 
 brightness. 
 
 A firm, quick step crossed the threshold, and paced the 
 sanded floor. Till this moment, Morton had remained ab 
 sorbed, shut in from the outer world ; but now an influence, 
 which believers may call magnetism, made him look up and 
 bend forward from the recess to see who the sudden stranger 
 might be. The stranger turned also, and showed the pale, 
 fixed face of Horace Vinal. 
 
 Morton was disposed to be on good terms with all the 
 world, and more especially with his defeated rival. 
 
 " Good morning, Vinal," he said, holding out his hand, 
 which Vinal took, his cold, thin fingers trembling in the 
 warm grasp of Morton. He had had no ' thought of finding 
 him there ; the encounter was unlocked for as it was unwel 
 come ; and, as he muttered a few passing words of common 
 place, his features grew haggard with the violence of strug 
 gling emotion. He turned away, went to a desk, pretended 
 
148 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 to read a newspaper for a few moments, and then left the 
 room. 
 
 Morton looked after him. He had no doubt that Vinal 
 had heard of his misfortune ; and the first sense of pain 
 which, since the evening before last, the successful lover 
 had felt, now crossed his mind. 
 
 " It's devilish hard for him, poor fellow," he thought, as, 
 measuring Vinal' s passion by his own, a vivid image of the 
 latter's suffering rose upon him. 
 
 Vinal strode along a corridor of the hotel. There was no 
 one to see him. His forehead was knit, his nostrils distend 
 ed, his jaws clinched. A man, whom he knew, came from a 
 side passage. Instantly Vinal's face was calm again, and as 
 the other passed he greeted him with a smile. He went out 
 into the main street of the town, along which he walked for a 
 few rods with his usual air of alert composure ; then turned 
 down a narrow and unfrequented by-way. Here his whole 
 bearing changed. He trod the gravelled sidewalk with a 
 fierce, nervous motion ; and with hands clinched and eyes 
 fixed on the ground, muttered through his set teeth, 
 
 " Fair or foul, by G , I'll be even with him." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 0, quha is this has done this deed, 
 
 This ill deed done to me? 
 To send me out this time o' the zeir, 
 
 To sail upon the sea. Percy Eeliques. 
 
 A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint. Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 " YOUR proposal flatters me, Mr. Morton ; and, in many 
 points of view, the connection you offer would be a desirable 
 one, a very desirable one. But I must say to you plainly, 
 that if my wishes alone were consulted, my daughter would 
 bestow her hand elsewhere. Perhaps I need not tell you 
 that Horace Vinal, who was my ward, and my late wife's 
 relation, and who has been my partner in business for a year 
 or more, is a young man whom I have looked upon as my 
 son, and whom it was my very earnest hope to have seen 
 such in reality. You who have had an opportunity of know 
 ing him can hardly be surprised that, after so long an inti 
 macy, I should prefer this connection to any other. I have 
 seen him in all the relations of life, and the more I have seen 
 the more I have learned to esteem him." 
 
 " You speak with a good deal of emphasis of his character. 
 May I ask if any part of your objection to me rests on that 
 score." 
 
 " In a matter like this, I am bound to be frank with you. 
 13* 
 
150 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Iii many quarters, I hear you very highly spoken of, so 
 highly, in fact, that I am disposed to take with every qualifi 
 cation what I have heard to your disadvantage." 
 
 " Pray, what is that ? " 
 
 " I was a soldier once, and don't incline to inquire too 
 closely into the way young men may see fit to amuse them 
 selves. But on a point where my daughter's happiness might 
 be involved " 
 
 " Upon my word, sir, I don't understand you." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Morton, I hear that is, I have learned 
 that, like other young men of leisure, you have had your 
 bonnes fortunes, and winged other game than partridges and 
 woodcock." 
 
 Morton looked at him in surprise. The truth was, that, 
 some time before, the discreet and far-sighted Vinal had con 
 trived to inoculate his patron with this calumny, which he 
 thought the species most likely to take readily. And such 
 had been his tact, that Leslie, though well imbued with the 
 idea, would have been puzzled to say whence he had received 
 it. A man of shallow-brained uprightness like his, if he 
 yields too easy a belief to falsehood, has the advantage of 
 yielding also an easy belief to truth. A few words from 
 Morton sufficed to carry conviction to the frank-hearted 
 auditor, who, feeling that, at least as regarded its worst 
 features, his charge must be groundless, hastened to make 
 the amende. 
 
 " Your word is enough, Mr. Morton, and I owe you an 
 apology for imagining that you could be false or heartless in 
 any connection \vhatever. I think, however, that you can see 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 151 
 
 how, without disparagement to you, I should still regret that 
 Horace Vinal, who is personally so near to me, so devoted to 
 my interests, and so strongly attached to my daughter, should 
 be disappointed. I advised him, yesterday, to go to Europe, 
 to recruit his health. I am told that you had yourself some 
 plan of the kind." 
 
 " A very indefinite one, sir ; in fact, amounting to none 
 at all." 
 
 " Go this autumn ; be absent a year, that is not too 
 long for seeing Europe, and if at the end of that time you 
 and my daughter should remain as earnest in this matter as 
 you are now, why, I am not the man to persist in opposing 
 her inclination." 
 
 The sentence was hard ; but there was no appeal. Leslie 
 had told Vinal the day before that he would despatch Morton 
 on his travels, intimating a hope that a long separation might 
 bring about a change in his daughter's feelings. Morton saw 
 nothing for it but acquiescence ; to which, indeed, Miss 
 Leslie urged him, confiding in the strength of his attach 
 ment, and happy to reconcile adverse duties and inclinations 
 at any price. 
 
 Meanwhile, he had not the smallest suspicion of the subtle 
 trick which his rival had played him. " This is a charitable 
 world ! " he thought ; " one must keep the beaten track, 
 look demure, and talk virtue, or, in one shape or another, it 
 will be the worse for him." 
 
CHAPTER, XXVI. 
 
 Then loathed he in his native land to dwell. Childe Harold. 
 
 Stend. A gentleman born, Master Parson, who writes himself Armigero; in any 
 bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero ! 
 
 Shal. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years. Merry 
 Wives of Windsor. 
 
 THE engagement of Miss Leslie and Morton was to be 
 kept secret till the latter's return. None knew it but Les 
 lie and Vinal. Vinal, within a few weeks, sailed for Eu 
 rope, meaning, however, to be absent only three or four 
 months. Other motives apart, he felt, and Leslie saw, that 
 his health, always shivering in the wind, demanded the 
 change. 
 
 Meanwhile, Morton made the best of a six weeks' reprieve ; 
 and hampered as he was by the injunction of secrecy, and 
 the precautions which it demanded, he crowded the short 
 interval with half a lifetime of mixed pleasure and pain, 
 expectation and anxiety. 
 
 It was past but too quickly ; in three days more he must 
 set sail. Walking the street in a rueful mood, he met his 
 classmate, Chester, who, having made the tour of Europe, had 
 lost his obsolete ways, and grown backward into a man of 
 the present world. 
 
 (152) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 153 
 
 " Good morning, Morton. Making calls ? I see it by 
 your face." 
 
 " Yes ; it's a thing that must be done sometimes." 
 
 " Pour prendre conge, I suppose. I hear you are off very 
 soon." 
 
 " The day after to-morrow." 
 
 " You couldn't do a wiser thing. When a man finds him 
 self in a scrape, he had better get out of it as soon as possi 
 ble ; therefore, if he finds himself born in America, he had 
 better forswear his country." 
 
 " Patriotic sentiments those." 
 
 " I can't answer for the patriotism ; but they are the senti 
 ments of a true son of the Pilgrim Fathers, who renounced 
 their country because they couldn't stand it, and came over 
 here. I mean to follow their example, and go back again. 
 They fled so the story goes from persecution. I mean 
 to fly from persecution too, the persecution of a social 
 atmosphere that I find hostile to my constitution, and a 
 climate not fit for a reasonable being to live in." 
 
 " I don't know why you should be so fierce against the 
 climate. By your look, you seem to thrive in it." 
 
 " The bodily man thrives passably well. It's the immortal 
 part that suffers. Fierce ! why, the climate makes me fierce. 
 Who can be a philosopher in such a climate ? or a poet ? 
 or an artist ? any thing but a steam engine ? It is { a 
 perpetual spur, an unremitting goad. Nobody is happy in 
 it except the men who ride on locomotives and conduct 
 express trains, always on the move. O, so you go in here, 
 do you ? " 
 
154 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Yes, to see Mrs. Primrose. Will you come too r " 
 
 " No, thank you," replied Chester, walking away, with a 
 comical look. 
 
 Morton rang the door bell, and found Mrs. Primrose at 
 home. 
 
 There was a book on the table. He took it up. It was a 
 novel, lately published. 
 
 Morton praised it. 
 
 Mrs. Primrose dissented, with great emphasis. 
 
 " You are severe upon the book." 
 
 " Not more so than it deserves," replied Mrs. Primrose ; 
 " it is too coarse to be permitted for a moment." 
 
 " And yet the moral tone seems good enough." 
 
 ". I do not blame the morality so much as the bad taste. 
 It is full of slang dialogue, and was certainly written by a 
 very unrefined person." 
 
 " It makes its characters speak as such people speak in 
 real life." 
 
 " It is not merely that," said Mrs. Primrose, slightly purs 
 ing her mouth ; " it contains, besides, expressions absolutely 
 reprehensible." 
 
 " One does not admire its good taste ; but a little blunt 
 Saxon never did much harm." 
 
 " No daughter of mine shall read it," said Mrs. Primrose, 
 with gravity. 
 
 " I imagine that if literature is to reflect human life truly, 
 it can hardly be limited to the language of the drawing 
 . room." 
 
 " Then it should be banished from the drawing room," 
 said Mrs. Primrose, with severity. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 155 
 
 Here several visitors appeared, and Morton presently took 
 leave. 
 
 He was but a few rods from the door, when a quick step 
 came behind him. 
 
 " Hallo, colonel, where are you going at such a rate ? " 
 
 Morton turned, and saw his classmate, Rosny. 
 
 " Why, Dick, I'm glad to see you." 
 
 " They tell me you're bound for Europe." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, it's a good move. If a man has money, he had 
 better enjoy it." 
 
 " I shall be driving out of town in an hour. Come and 
 dine with me." 
 
 " Sorry, colonel, but it can't be done. I'm out on the 
 stump in the cause of democracy. Shall be off westward in 
 two hours, and shake the dust from my shoes against this 
 nest of whiggery and old fogyism." 
 
 "Democracy is under the weather just now, Dick." 
 
 " Just now, I grant you. What with log cabins and hard 
 cider, and coons, the enlightened people are pretty well gam 
 moned. But there's a good time coming. Before you know 
 it, democracy will be upon you again like a load of bricks. 
 Why, what can you expect of a party that will take a coon 
 for its emblem ? I saw one chained up this morning in the 
 yard of Taft's tavern, a dirty, mean-looking beast, about half 
 way between a jackal and an owl. He looked uncommonly 
 well in health, and could puff out his fur as round as a muff. 
 But, when you looked close, there was nothing of him but 
 skin and bone ; exactly like the whig party. He put up his 
 
156 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 nose, and smiled at me. I suppose damn his impudence 
 he tffok me for a whig. That coon is going into a decline. 
 It won't be long before he is taken by the tail and tossed over 
 Charles River bridge ; and there he'll lie on the mud at low 
 tide, for a genuine emblem of the defunct whig party, and a 
 solemn warning to all coon worshippers." 
 
 " Let the whigs alone, Dick ; and if you won't dine with 
 me, come in here and drink a glass of claret." 
 
 " That I'll do." And they went into the hotel accordingly. 
 
 As Rosny took up his glass, Morton observed a large old 
 seal ring on his finger. 
 
 " Do you call yourself a democrat, and yet always wear 
 that ring of yours ? " 
 
 " Why, what's the matter with the ring ? " 
 
 " Nothing, except that it is a badge of feudalism, aristoc 
 racy, and every thing else abominable to your party." 
 
 " Pshaw, man. Look here : do you see that crest, cut in 
 the stone ? That crest followed King Francis to Pavia, and 
 when Henri Quatre charged at Ivry, it wasn't far behind him. 
 It is mine by right. It comes down to me, straight as a bee 
 line, through twenty generations. And do you think I'm 
 going to renounce my birthright ? No, be gad ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't. But what becomes of your democracy? " 
 
 " Democracy is tall enough to take care of itself. I wear 
 that ring ; but it don't follow that I stand on my ancestry. 
 You needn't laugh : the case is just this. If the blood in 
 my veins makes me stand to my colors where another man 
 would flinch, or hold my head up where another would be 
 sprawling on his back ; if it gives me a better pluck, grit, 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 157 
 
 go-ahead ; why, that's what I stand on, that's my patent of 
 nobility. What the deuse are you laughing at ? the per 
 sonal quality, don't you see ? and not the ancestry." 
 
 " If you stand on personal merit, you'll be sure to go under 
 before long. The democracy are growing as jealous of that 
 as of ancestry, or of wealth either." 
 
 " Why, what do you know about politics ? You never had 
 any thing to do with them. You are no more fit for a politi 
 cian than for a fiddler." 
 
 " I'm glad you think so. If I must serve the country in 
 any public capacity, I pray Heaven it may be as a scavenger 
 sooner than as a politician. Who can touch pitch and be 
 clean? I'll pay back your compliment, Dick. You are a 
 great deal too downright to succeed in public life." 
 
 " I'll find a way or make one. But I tell you, colonel," 
 and a shade of something like disappointment passed over 
 his face, "if a man wants the people's votes, it's fifty to 
 one that he's got to sink himself lower than the gutter before 
 he gets them." 
 
 " Yes, and when the people have turned out of office every 
 man of virtue, honor, manliness, independence, and ability, 
 then they will fling up their caps and brag that their day is 
 come, and their triumph finished over the damned aristocracy." 
 
 " You are an unbeliever. You haven't half faith enough 
 in the people. Now I put it to your common sense. Isn't 
 there a thousand times more patriotism in the laboring classes 
 in this country yes, and about as much intelligence as in 
 the rabble of sham fashionables at Saratoga, or any other 
 muster of our moneyed snobs and flunkeys ? " 
 14 
 
158 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Exceptions excepted, yes." 
 
 '* War to the knife with the codfish aristocracy ! They are 
 a kind of mongrel beast, expressly devised and concocted for 
 me to kick. I don't mean the gentlemen with money ; nor 
 the good fellows with money. I know what a gentleman is ; 
 yes, and a lady, too, though I do make stump speeches, and 
 shake hands all round with the sovereign people. That sort 
 are welcome to their money. No, sir, it's the moneyed snobs, 
 the gilded toadstools, that it's my mission to pitch into." 
 
 " Excuse me a moment, Dick," said Morton, suddenly leap 
 ing from his seat, as a lady passed the window. 
 
 " A lady, eh ! Then I'll be off." 
 
 " No, no, stay where you are. I'll be back again in three 
 minutes." 
 
 He ran out of the hotel, and walked at his best pace in 
 pursuit of Fanny Euston, who, on her part, was walking with 
 an earnest air, like one whose thoughts were engaged with 
 some engrossing subject. He reached her side, and made a 
 movement to accost her ; but she seemed unconscious of his 
 presence. 
 
 " Miss Fanny Euston, will you pardon me for breaking in 
 upon your reveries ? " 
 
 She turned and recognized him, but her smile of recogni 
 tion was a very mournful one. 
 
 " I have stopped you to take my leave, a good deal more 
 in short hand than I meant it should have been. I shall sail 
 for Europe the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " Yes ? Is not that a little sudden ? " 
 
 " More sudden than I wish it were. I am not at all in a 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 159 
 
 travelling humor. I have been too much pressed for time to 
 ride out, as I meant to do, to your father's house." 
 
 "We are all in town now. My father came from New 
 Orleans yesterday, very ill." 
 
 " I did not hear of it. I trust not dangerously ill." 
 
 " He is dying. He cannot live a week." 
 
 Morton well knew the strength and depth of her attach 
 ment to her father. He pressed her hand in silent sympathy. 
 
 " It grieves me, Fanny," he said, after a moment, " to part 
 from you under such a cloud." 
 
 " Good by," she replied, returning the friendly pressure. 
 " I wish you with all my heart a pleasant and prosperous 
 journey." 
 
 Morton turned back, wondering at the sudden dignity of 
 manner which grief had given to the wild and lawless Fanny 
 Euston. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Ham. Thou wouldst not think how ill's all here about my heart, but it is no 
 matter. 
 
 Hor. Nay, good my lord 
 
 Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps 
 trouble a woman. 
 
 Hor. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it. 
 
 Ham. Not a whit. We defy augury. 
 
 MOETON'S day of departure came. It was a comfortless, 
 savage, gusty morning, an east wind blowing in from the bay. 
 The hour to set sail was near ; he should have been on board ; 
 but still he lingered with Edith Leslie. The secrecy on which 
 her father insisted made it impossible for her to go with him 
 to the ship. 
 
 Morton forced himself away ; his hand w r as on the door, 
 but his heart failed him, and he turned back again. On the 
 mind of each there was something more than the pain of a 
 year's separation. A dark foreboding, a cloud of dull and 
 sullen portent, hung over them both. The smooth and bright 
 crusting with which habit and training had iced over the 
 warm nature of Edith Leslie w r as broken and swept away ; 
 and as Morton seized her hands, she disengaged herself, and, 
 throwing herself on his neck, sobbed convulsively. Morton 
 pressed her to his heart, and buried his face in her clustering 
 tresses ; then, breaking from her, ran blindly from the house. 
 
 (160) 
 
TASSALL MORTON. 161 
 
 He repaired to the house of Meredith, who met him at the 
 door. 
 
 " You've no time to lose. Here's the carriage. Your . 
 trunks are all right. Come on." 
 
 They drove towards the wharf. 
 
 " I'd give my head to change places with you," said Meredith. 
 
 " I wish you could." 
 
 There was so much pain and dejection in his look, that his 
 friend could not fail to observe it. 
 
 " You don't want to go, then ? I have noticed all along 
 that you seemed devilish cool about it." 
 
 " Ned," said Morton, " I never used to think myself super 
 stitious ; but I begin now to change my mind. Heaven 
 knows why, but I have strange notions running in my brain. 
 My dog howled all last night ; and not long ago, an owl 
 
 yelled over my head, and that, too, at a time But 
 
 you'll think I have lost my wits." 
 
 Meredith, in truth, was greatly amazed at this betrayal of a 
 weakness of which, long and closely as he had known his 
 companion, he had never suspected him. 
 
 " Why, colonel, I have seen you set out on a journey as 
 long and fifty times as hazardous as this, as carelessly as if 
 you were going to a dinner party." 
 
 " I know it ; but times are changed with me. I am not 
 quite the child, though, that you may suppose." 
 
 " If you have such a feeling about going, I would give it 
 up. It's not too late." 
 
 " No, I haven't sunk yet to that pass." And, as he spoke, 
 the carriage stopped at the pier. 
 14* 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I can't but say it is an awkward sight 
 To see one's native land receding through 
 The growing waters. Byron, 
 
 THE day brightened as the steamer bore out to sea, and 
 the sun streamed along the fast-receding shore. Morton 
 stood at the ship's stern, gazing back longingly towards 
 his native rocks. Though far from inclining to echo those 
 set terms of praise which the progeny of the Puritans are 
 fond of lavishing on themselves, he felt himself bound with 
 enduring cords to the woods and hills of New England, the 
 scene of his boyish aspirations, of his pure ambition, and 
 his devoted love ; and while the crags of Gloucester faded 
 from his sight, his eyes were dimmed as he turned them 
 towards those rugged shores. 
 
 " Well, young man, seems to me you look a leetle kind o' 
 streak-ed at the idee pf quitting home," said a husky voice at 
 his elbow. 
 
 Morton turned, and saw a small man, with a meagre, hatchet 
 face, and a huge pair of black whiskers hedging round a 
 countenance so dead and pallid that one could see at a glance 
 that he was in a consumption. He had an eye hard as a 
 flint, one that might have faced a Gorgon without risk. 
 
 (162) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 163 
 
 Morton regarded him with an expression which told him, 
 as plainly as words, to go about his business ; but he might 
 as well have tried to look an image of brass out of coun 
 tenance. 
 
 " Now /," pursued the small man, " have some reason to 
 feel bad. It's an even bet if ever I see Boston lighthouse 
 again about six of one and half a dozen of the other. I * 
 consider myself a gone sucker. I've ben going, going, for 
 about two years, and pretty soon I expect I shall be going, 
 going, gone." 
 
 These words, uttered in a sort of bravado, were interrupted 
 by a violent fit of coughing. 
 
 " Ever crossed the pond before r " asked the small man, as 
 soon as he could gain breath. 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Business ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I thought not. You don't look like a business man. I 
 know a business man, a mile off, by the cut of his jib. I'm 
 a business man myself, and a hard used one at that." 
 
 Here a fresh fit of coughing began. 
 
 " Bad health ; bad health, and damned hard luck, that's 
 what has finished up this child. If it worn't for them, I 
 should be worth my hundred thousand dollars this very 
 minute." 
 
 Another fit of coughing. 
 
 " So you've ben across before. Well, so've I. That was 
 three years ago, by the doctors' advice. It's great advice they 
 give a man. It's good for their pockets, and there's deused 
 
164 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 little else it's good for. I spent that year over three thousand 
 dollars ; and if I'd staid to home, and stuck to my business, 
 /should have ben jest about as well, and cleared, well, 
 yes, I should have cleared double the money, at the smallest 
 figger." 
 
 More coughing. 
 
 " I expect you travel for pleasure." 
 
 Morton replied by an inarticulate sound, which the other 
 might interpret as he pleased. He chose to interpret it in 
 the affirmative. 
 
 "Well, that's all very well for a young man like you. 
 You are young enough to like to look at the curiosities, and 
 take an interest in what's going on ; but I'm too old a bird 
 for that. One night I was down to Palermo, there was an 
 eruption of Mount Etna going on. We were on the piazzy 
 at the back of Marston the consul's house, and there it was 
 blazing away to kill, way off on the further side of the island. 
 Well, the ladies was all O-ing and Ah-ing like fits. ' Non 
 sense ! ' says I ; * it ain't a circumstance to the fire that burnt 
 down my splendid new freestone-front store on Broadway. 
 Now that was something worth saying O at.' " 
 
 More coughing. 
 
 " There was a young man there from Boston, and we went 
 round to look at the churches. He was all for staring at the 
 pictures, and the marble images, and the Lord knows what all, 
 while I went and paced off the length of the church from the 
 door up to the altar, and then again crosswise. There wasn't 
 a church in Palermo worth shaking a stick at that I didn't 
 know the size of, and have it all set down on paper." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 165 
 
 " And what good did that do you ? " 
 
 " What good did that do me ? Why, I had something to 
 show for my pains, something that would keep. They wanted 
 me to ride up on the back of a jackass to the top of 
 a mountain to see a cavern where some she saint or other 
 used to live, St. Rosa Lee, or some such nigger-minstrel 
 name." 
 
 " St. Rosalie, I suppose you mean." 
 
 " St. Rosaly or St. Rosa Lee, it comes to pretty much 
 the same. She was fool enough to leave a comfortable home 
 inside of a palace, too, be gad and go and live all alone 
 by herself in that cavern. Well, they wanted me to ride up 
 on the jackass and see it. ' No,' says I, l you don't ketch 
 me,' says I ; ' if I did, I might as well change places with the 
 jackass right away,' says I." 
 
 A fresh fit of coughing. 
 
 " Yes, sir, bad health and hard luck, that's ben the finish 
 ing of me, or else this minute I could show you my solid 
 hundred thousand. The fire was what begun it all. A 
 splendid freestone-front store, that hadn't its beat in all New 
 York, chock full of goods, that worn't more than half covered 
 by the insurance, burnt clean down to the sidewalk ! Then 
 come the great failure you've heard of Bragg, Dash, and 
 Bustup. I tell you, I was sucked in there to a handsome 
 figger. Top of all that, my health caved in, uh, uh, 
 uh." Here the coughing grew violent. "Well, I'm a gone 
 sucker, and it's no use crying over spilt milk. But if it 
 worn't for bad health and damned hard luck, I should have 
 
166 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 been worth a hun uh uh uh a hundred thousand 
 dol uh uh dollars, uh uh uh uh uh." 
 " This wind is too sharp for you," observed Morton. 
 " Fact," said the invalid ; " I can't stand it no how." 
 He went down to the cabin, Morton's eye following him in 
 pity and disgust. 
 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The useful science of the world to know, 
 
 Which books can never teach, nor pedants show. Lyttkton. 
 
 THE steamer, in due time, reached Liverpool ; but Morton 
 remained only a few days in England, crossing to Boulogne, 
 and thence to Paris. Here he arrived late one afternoon; 
 and taking his seat at the table d'hote of Meurice's Hotel, he 
 presently discovered among the guests the familiar profile of 
 Vinal, who was just returned from a flying tour through the 
 provinces. Vinal seemed not to see him ; but at the close of 
 the dinner, Morton came behind his chair and spoke to him. 
 At his side sat a young man, whose face Morton remembered 
 to have seen before. Vinal introduced him as Mr. Richards. 
 When a boy, he had been a schoolmate of them both, and 
 now called himself a medical student, living on the other side 
 of the Seine. Having been in Paris for two years or more, 
 he had, as he prided himself, a thorough knowledge of it ; 
 that is to say, he knew its sights of all kinds, and places of 
 amusement of high and low degree. The sagacious Vinal 
 thought himself happy in so able and zealous a guide. 
 
 " Mr. Vinal and I are going on an excursion about town 
 to-night," said Richards ; " won't you go with us ? " 
 
 (167) 
 
168 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Thank you," replied Morton, " I have letters to write, 
 and do not mean to go out this evening." 
 
 Vinal and Richards accordingly set forth without him, the 
 latter acquitting himself wholly to his companion's satis 
 faction and his own. Vinal, who inclined very little to 
 youthful amusements, contemplated all he saw with the eye 
 of a philosopher rather than of a sybarite, looking upon it as 
 a curious study of human nature, in the knowledge of which 
 he was always eager to perfect himself. In the course of 
 their excursion, they entered a large and handsome building 
 on the Boulevard des Italiens. Here they passed through a 
 succession oL rooms filled with men engaged in various 
 games of hazard, more or less deep, and came at length to 
 two small apartments, which seemed to form the penetralia 
 of the temple. 
 
 In the farther of these was a table, about which sat some 
 eight or ten well-dressed men, and at the head, a sedate, col 
 lected, vigilant-looking person, with a little wooden rake in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Messieurs, tout est fait. Rien ne va plus" he said, 
 drawing towards him a plentiful heap of gold coin, almost at 
 the instant that Vinal and Richards came in. The game was 
 that moment finished. 
 
 As he spoke, a strong, thick-set man rose abruptly from the 
 table, muttering a savage oath through his black moustache, 
 and brushing fiercely past the two visitors, went out at the 
 door. Richards pressed Vinal' s arm, as a hint that he should 
 observe him. As the game was not immediately resumed, 
 they soon left the room ; and after staking and losing a few 
 small pieces at another table, returned to the street. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 169 
 
 " Did you observe that man who passed us ? " asked 
 Richards. 
 
 " Yes. He seemed out of humor with his luck." 
 
 " He was clean emptied out ; I would swear to it. I was 
 afraid he would see me as he went by, but he didn't." 
 
 " Why, do you know him ? " 
 
 " O, yes ; and you ought to know him too, if you want to 
 understand how things are managed hereabouts. He's a 
 patriot, agitator, democrat, red republican, conspir 
 ator, you can call him whichever you like, according to 
 taste. He's mixed up with all the secret clubs, secret com 
 mittees, and what not, from one end of the continent to the 
 other. He's a sort of political sapper and miner, not 
 exactly like our patriots of '76, but all's fair that aims a kick 
 at the House of Hapsburg." 
 
 " Has he any special spite in that quarter ? " 
 
 " He has been intriguing so long in Austria and Lombardy, 
 that now he could not show his face there a moment without 
 being arrested. So he is living here, where he keeps very 
 quiet at present, for fear of consequences." 
 
 " What is his name ? " 
 
 " Speyer, Henry Speyer." 
 
 " A German ? " 
 
 " No ; he's of no nation at all. He belongs to a sort of 
 mongrel breed, from the Rock of Gibraltar, a cross of 
 half the nations in Europe. They go by the name of Rock 
 Scorpions. Speyer is a compound of German, Spanish, 
 English, French, Genoese, and Moorish, and the result is the 
 greatest rascal that ever went unhung. Still you ought to 
 15 
 
170 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 know him ; lie is a curiosity, one of the men of the times. 
 If you want to know the secret springs of the revolution that 
 all the newspapers will be full of not many years from this, 
 why, Speyer is one of them." 
 
 " But is there not some risk in being in communication 
 with such a man ? " 
 
 " Yes, if one isn't cautious. But, as I'll manage it, it will 
 be perfectly safe." 
 
 Vinal, though morbidly timorous as respected peril to life 
 or limb, was not wholly deficient in the courage of the in 
 triguer a quality quite distinct from the courage of the 
 soldier. Any thing which promised to show him human 
 nature under a new aspect, or disclose to him a hidden spring 
 of human action, had a resistless attraction in his eyes. He 
 therefore assented to RicharJs's proposal, and promised that, 
 at some more auspicious time, he would go with him to the 
 patriot's lodging. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Those travelled youths whom tender mothers wean 
 And send abroad to see and to be seen, 
 Have made all Europe's vices so well known, 
 They seem almost as natural as our own. Churchill. 
 
 ON the next morning, Vinal, Morton, and two other young 
 Americans were seated together in the coffee room at Meu- 
 rice's. They were discussing plans of travel. 
 
 " Then you don't intend to stay long in Paris," said one 
 of the strangers to Morton. 
 
 " Not at present. I shall set out in a few days for 
 Vienna, and then go down the Danube." 
 
 " That's an original idea. What will you find there worth 
 seeing ? " 
 
 "It's a fancy of mine. There is no place in Europe where 
 one can see such a conglomerate of nations and races as in 
 the provinces along the Danube. I like to see the human 
 animal in all his varieties, that's my specialty." 
 
 " But what facilities will you find there for travelling ? " 
 
 " 0, I shall be content with any that offer ; tho vehicles of 
 the country, whatever they are. I don't believe in travelling 
 en grand seigneur. By mixing with the people, and doing 
 at Rome as the Romans do, one learns in a month more than 
 he could learn in ten years by the other way." 
 
 (171) 
 
172 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " You'll take your servant with you, I suppose." 
 
 " No. I shall discharge him when I leave Paris." 
 
 After conversing for some time longer, Morton and the two 
 young men left the room, while Vinal still remained faithful 
 to the attractions of his omelet. He was interrupted hy 
 the advent of the small man who had accosted Morton in the 
 steamer, and had since favored him with his company from 
 Liverpool to Paris. 
 
 " Well, here's a pretty business, damned if there isn't," 
 said the new arrival, seating himself indignantly. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " asked Vinal. 
 
 " What's the matter ! Why, there's a good deal the 
 matter. There was a young man in Philadelphy named Wil- 
 kins, John Wilkins, I've known him ever sence he was 
 knee high to a toad, and a likelier young feller there isn't in 
 the States. He was goin' on to make a right smart, active, 
 business man, too. Well, he was clerk in one of the biggest 
 drug concerns south of New York city, Gooch and Scam- 
 mony, I tell you, they do a tall business out west, and 
 no mistake. No, sir, Gooch and Scammony ain't hardly got 
 their beat in the drug business nowhere." 
 
 " But what about the clerk ? " 
 
 " What about him ? Why, that's just what I was going 
 on to tell you. Well, John, he had a little money laid up ; 
 so he thought he'd just come out and see a bit of the world. 
 Well, there was a German there at Philadelphy who had to 
 cut stick from the old country on account of some political 
 muss or other. John and he worn't on good terms ; it was 
 about a gal, John says. However, jest about the time John 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 173 
 
 talked of coming out to Europe, the German comes and 
 makes it up, and pretends to be friends again. ' John,' says 
 he, ' I've got relations out to Vienny, where I come from ; 
 first-rate, genteel folks ; now/ says he, * perhaps you might 
 like me to make you acquainted with 'em. They'd do the 
 handsome thing by you, and no mistake.' ' Well,' says John, 
 ' I don't mind if you do.' So the German gives him some 
 letters ; and, sure enough, they treated him very civil ; but 
 the very next morning, before he was out of bed, up comes 
 the police, and carries him off to jail; and that, I guess, 
 would have been about the last we'd ever have seen of John 
 Wilkins, if, by the slimmest ghost of a chance, he hadn't got 
 word to our minister, and the minister blowed out so hard 
 about it, that they just let John go, and said they was very 
 sorry, and it was all a mistake, but he'd better make tracks 
 out of Austria in double quick time, because if he didn't, 
 they didn't know as there was any body there would under 
 take to be responsible for what might happen." 
 
 Here the orator's breath quite failed, and he coughed till 
 his hatchet face turned blue. Vinal reflected in silence. 
 
 " Wasn't he an Amerikin? " pursued the small man, " and 
 didn't he have an Amerikin passport in his pocket ? I expect 
 to go where I please, and keep what company I please, 
 uh, uh, uh. I'm an Amerikin, uh, and that's 
 enough ; and a considerable wide margin to spare, uh, 
 uh, uh." 
 
 " But what evidence is there that the German had any 
 thing to do with the affair ? " 
 15* 
 
174 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 " That's the deused part of the business. There ain't no 
 evidence to fix it on him." 
 
 " Were the letters he gave your friend sealed ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it. They was open, and read jest as fair as 
 need be." 
 
 " Probably he was imprudent, and said something which 
 compromised him. Stone walls, you know, have ears in 
 Austria." 
 
 Well, I don't know." 
 
 " It is very easy for an American to get into trouble with 
 the Austrian government. There is a natural antipathy 
 between them." 
 
 " Damn such a government.*' 
 
 " Exactly ; you're quite right there." 
 
 " Why, if you or me was to go down to Austria, and hap 
 pen to rip out what we thought of 'em, where's the guarantee 
 that they wouldn't stick us down in some of their prisons, 
 and nobody be any wiser for it ? " 
 
 " There is no guarantee at all." 
 
 " I've heerd said that such things has happened." 
 
 " No doubt of it. About this German, I should advise 
 your friend to be cautious how he accuses him of any inten 
 tion of having him arrested. If the letters had been sealed, 
 there might have been some ground for suspicion ; but as the 
 case stands, I do not see how there can be any. And it is a 
 little hard upon a man, when he meant to do a kindness, to 
 charge him with playing such a trick as that." 
 
 " Well, it may be as you think. It looks like enough, 
 any way." 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 175 
 
 The small man addressed himself to his breakfast. Vinal 
 sat playing with his spoon, his brain filled with busy and 
 feverish thoughts. 
 
 In a few minutes, a messenger from an American banking 
 house came in, looking about the room as if in search of 
 some person. Observing Vinal, whom he had seen before, 
 he asked if he knew where Mr. Morton was. 
 
 " Letters there for me ? " demanded Vinal, taking several 
 which the messenger held in his hand, and glancing over the 
 directions. 
 
 " No, sir, they are all Mr. Morton's." 
 
 At that instant Vinal discovered the well-remembered 
 handwriting of Edith Leslie. His pale face grew a shade 
 paler. 
 
 " O, Mr. Morton's ! I don't know where you will find 
 him," and he gave back the letters to the messenger, who 
 presently left the room. 
 
 Vinal sat for a few minutes more, brooding in silence ; 
 then slowly rose, and walked away. In going towards the 
 room of the liotel which he occupied, he passed along a 
 corridor, opposite the end of which opened a parlor occupied 
 by Morton. The door was open, and Vinal, as he advanced, 
 could plainly see his rival within. Morton had been on the 
 point of going out. His hat and gloves lay on the table at his 
 side ; near them were three or four sealed letters ; another 
 Vinal well knew from whom was open in his hands ; 
 and as he stood bending over it, there was a sunlight in the 
 eye of the successful lover which shot deadly envy into the 
 breast of Vinal. Hate and jealousy gnawed and rankled at 
 his heart. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Though I do hate him as I do hell pains, 
 
 I must throw out a flag and sign of love. OtJietto. 
 
 THAT day Vinal drove to the Quartier Latin, called upon 
 his friend Richards, and asked him to dine at the Trois 
 Freres Provenaux. Mr. Richards was never known to 
 decline such an invitation. 
 
 To the Trois Freres accordingly they repaired. Richards, 
 whose social position at home was much inferior to that of 
 his entertainer, thought the latter a capital fellow ; especially 
 when Vinal flattered him by deferring to his better taste and 
 experience in the ordering of the dinner. But when, after 
 nightfall, they issued forth again upon the open area of the 
 Palais Royal, the delicate Vinal shivered with the cold. A 
 chill wind and a dreary rain had set in, and Vinal, always 
 cautious in such matters, said that before proceeding on their 
 evening's amusements, he would go to Meurice's and get an 
 overcoat. 
 
 The overcoat being found, Vinal, buttoned to the chin, 
 came down the stairway, and rejoined Richards. 
 
 Morton had just before sent a servant for a carriage, to 
 drive to the opera, and was waiting wrapped in his cloak, 
 
 on the steps outside the door. 
 
 (176) 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 177 
 
 " What shall our first move be ? " asked Richards of Vinal, 
 as they passed out. 
 
 " Whatever you like." 
 
 " You had better give the word." 
 
 " Then suppose we go and see your friend, the professor." 
 
 " Who the deuse is Richards' s friend, the professor ? " 
 thought Morton, as the others passed without observing him. 
 
 " The professor" was a cant term for Mr. Henry Speyer. 
 
 Speyer lived in an obscure part of the Latin quarter ; and 
 Richards, who was vain of his intimacy with this scoundrel, 
 as indicating how deeply he was versed in Paris life, ap 
 proached his lodging with much circumspection, by dim and 
 devious routes. 
 
 " My name is Wilton, and I hail from New Orleans," said 
 Vinal, as they reached the patriot's threshold. 
 
 As Mr. Wilton, of New Orleans, then, Vinal became known 
 to Mr. Henry Speyer. The latter' s quarters were any thing 
 but commodious or attractive ; and Richards invited him to a 
 petit souper at his own lodgings, which were not very remote. 
 Leaving Speyer to make his own way thither, he proceeded 
 to summon two additional guests, in the persons of two 
 friends of his own, his favorite partners at the Chaumiere. 
 With the aid of wine and cigars, the party became, in time, 
 very animated. Vinal, who had a quick and pungent wit, 
 drew upon himself much applause, and Speyer regarded him 
 with especial commendation. But while he played his part 
 thus successfully, he was studying his companions, as a scholar 
 studies, a book ; studiously keeping himself cool ; sipping a 
 few drops of his wine, and slyly spilling the rest under the 
 
178 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 table, while he did his best to stimulate the others, and espe 
 cially Speyer, to drink. Speyer drank, indeed, but the wine 
 seemed to produce no more effect on him than water. He 
 remained as cool as Vinal himself. The latter, young as he 
 was, was a close and penetrating judge of men ; and when, 
 at two o'clock in the morning, he returned to his hotel, he 
 carried with him the conviction that, in his present beggared 
 condition, a few hundred francs would bribe the patriot to 
 commit any moderately safe villany. 
 
 The evening, however, had had one result which Vinal 
 regretted. Mr. Richards, being obfuscated with champagne, 
 had repeatedly called him by his true name ; so that Speyer 
 was fully aware that his new acquaintance was not Mr. Wil 
 ton, of New Orleans, but Mr. Horace Vinal, of Boston. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 And, far the blackest there, the traitor friend. Dryden. 
 
 
 
 SEVERAL days had passed, during which Vinal contrived to 
 have more than one private interview with his new acquaint 
 ance, Speyer. He had sounded him with much astuteness ; 
 found that he could serve him ; and was confirmed in his 
 assurance that he would. 
 
 Morton, he knew, was to leave Paris on the next morning. 
 The time to act was now, or never. 
 
 At about three in the afternoon, he discovered his rival 
 sauntering along an avenue in the garden of the Tuileries ; 
 and walking up behind, he joined him. 
 
 " There are some of us," said Vinal, after a few moments' 
 conversation, " going to Versailles to-morrow. Will you go ? " 
 
 " I mean to leave Paris to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ! That's very sudden." 
 
 " I shall come back again in a few months." 
 
 " Your first move is to Italy, I think you said." 
 
 " No, to Austria and the Danube." 
 
 " O, I remember ; it is West who is going to Italy. I 
 think he has chosen the better route of the two." 
 
 " Yes, as far as history and works of art are concerned. 
 But the Austrian provinces are the best field for me. I 
 
 (179) 
 
180 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 am mounted on a hobby, you know, and my time is so short 
 that I must make the most of what I have." 
 
 " You wish to see the people the different races is 
 that it ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You ought to be well booked up before you go, or you'll 
 lose time. By the way, I made an acquaintance a little 
 while ago in the diligence from Strasburg a very agreeable 
 man, a professor at Berlin " 
 
 " 0, the professor whom you and Richards were going to 
 see, the other night." 
 
 A thrill shot through Vinal's nerves ; but the unsuspecting 
 Morton almost instantly relieved his terror. 
 
 " I was standing on the steps as you went out, and heard 
 you say that you were going to visit him. From the way in 
 which you spoke, I imagined him to be some professor of the 
 noble art of self-defence." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " laughed Vinal, not quite recovered from his sur 
 prise ; " no, not precisely that ; Speyer is a philologist 
 that's his department." 
 
 " And Richards knows him, too ? " 
 
 " Yes, through my introduction." 
 
 " From your calling him ' his friend, the professor/ I 
 imagined that the acquaintance began the other way." 
 
 " Yes, his friend, with a vengeance. Confound the fellow, 
 as I was walking with him the other day, we met Speyer, and 
 I, thinking no harm, introduced them ; but it wasn't twenty- 
 four hours before Richards was at him to borrow money, 
 which Speyer let him have. I dare say Richards has bled 
 you as well." 
 
VASSALL MOETON. 181 
 
 No." 
 
 " No ? Then you are luckier than I am. I advise you to 
 keep out of his way, or he'll pin you before you know it." 
 
 " I should judge as much." 
 
 " I spoke of Professor Speyer because he was born in some 
 outlandish corner of the Austrian empire, Croatia, I think 
 he told me, and had his head full of political soap bubbles 
 founded on the distribution of races in that part of the world. 
 He put me to sleep half a dozen times with talking about 
 Pansclavism and the manifest destinies of the Sclavic peoples. 
 He is the very man for you ; and I am sorry I didn't think 
 of it before." 
 
 " Well," said Morton, " I must blunder through as I can." 
 
 " Are you at leisure ? I'll go with you this afternoon, if 
 you like, and call on him." 
 
 " I dare say my visit would bore him." 
 
 " Get him upon the races in the Austrian empire, and he 
 will be more apt to bore you. Are you free at four o'clock ? " 
 pursued Vinal, looking at his watch. 
 
 " Yes, quite so." 
 
 " Very well. I'm going now to my tailor's. Every gen 
 uine American, you know, must have a new fit-out in Paris. 
 I'll meet you at Meurice's at four, and we'll go from there to 
 Speyer's." 
 
 Vinal had three quarters of an hour to spare. He spent a 
 part of them in forging the next link of his chain. At four 
 he rejoined Morton, and they walked out together. 
 
 " I think you'll like Professor Speyer," said Vinal. " I 
 have become quite intimate with him, on the strength of a 
 16 
 
182 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 fortnight's acquaintance. He urges me to go to Hungary and 
 Transylvania, and offered me introductions to his friends 
 there. It would not be a bad plan for you to ask him for 
 letters. They would not make you acquainted with the Aus 
 trian Jiaut ton, but they would bring you into contact with 
 men of his own stamp, people of knowledge and intelli 
 gence, who could be of great service to you, and with whom 
 you needn't be on terms of much ceremony. Here's the 
 place ; he lives here." 
 
 It was a lodging house on the Rue Rivoli. Vinal rang the 
 bell. The porter appeared. 
 
 " Is Professor Speyer at home ? " 
 
 " Non, monsieur ; il est sorti" 
 
 Vinal had just bribed the man to give this answer. 
 
 " That's unlucky," he said. " Well, if you like, we can 
 come again this evening." 
 
 " I am engaged to dine this evening at Madame *s." 
 
 Vinal had known of this engagement. 
 
 " I don't see, then, but that you will lose your chance with 
 Speyer. Well, fortune de guerre. I should like to have had 
 you see him, though." 
 
 And they walked towards the Boulevards, conversing on 
 indifferent matters. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Whose nature is so far from doing evil 
 
 That he suspects none ; on whose foolish honesty 
 
 My practices ride easy. King Lear. 
 
 EARLY the next morning, Morton was writing in his room, 
 when Vinal came in. 
 
 " Are you still bent on going off to-day ? " 
 
 "Yes, within an hour." 
 
 " I was passing last evening by Professor Speyer's lodgings, 
 and, seeing a light at his window, went in. I told him that 
 I had come to find him in the afternoon with an old acquaint 
 ance of mine, who was going to the Austrian provinces, and 
 that I had advised you to ask introductions from him to his 
 friends there. He was a good deal interested, as I knew he 
 would be, in what I told him about the objects of your jour 
 ney. ' I'm very sorry,' he said, ' that I did not see your friend, 
 for I could have given him letters which I don't doubt would 
 have been of great use to him. But wait a few minutes,' 
 said he, ' and I'll write a few lines now.' Here they are," 
 continued Vinal, giving to Morton four or five notes of in 
 troduction. " You can put them in your pocket, and use 
 them or not, as you may find convenient." 
 
 " I'm very much obliged to you," said Morton. " Tell 
 Professor Speyer that I am greatly indebted to his kindness, 
 
 (183) 
 
184 VASSALL MOBTOX. 
 
 and shall be happy to avail myself of it. You are looking 
 very pale ; are you ill ? " 
 
 " No, not at all," stammered Vinal, " but, what is nearly as 
 bad, I have been kept awake all night with a raging toothache." 
 
 He had been awake all night, but not with toothache. 
 
 " There is one consolation for that trouble ; cold steel will 
 cure it." 
 
 " Yes, but the remedy is none of the pleasantest. I won't 
 interrupt you any longer. Good by. I wish you a pleasant 
 journey." 
 
 He shook hands with Morton, and, pressing his haggard 
 cheek, as if to stifle the pain, left the room. 
 
 With a new letter from Edith Leslie before him, Morton 
 saw the world in rose tint. Happiness blinded him, and he 
 was in no mood to doubt of human nature. He blamed him 
 self for his harsh opinions of Vinal. 
 
 " It's very generous of him to interest himself at this time, 
 in my affairs. ' ' Tis my nature's plague to spy into abuses.' 
 I have misjudged him. He is a better fellow than I ever took 
 him for." 
 
 The notes were written in a peculiarly neat, small hand, 
 and bore the signature of Henry Speyer. They all spoke of 
 Morton as interested in a common object with the person 
 addressed; but, with this exception, there was nothing in 
 them which drew his attention, especially as they were in 
 German, a language with which he was not very familiar. 
 As for the circumstance of their having been given at all to a 
 person whom the writer had never seen, Morton accounted 
 for it on the score of the good natured professor's desire to 
 oblige his valued friend Vinal. 
 
CHAPTEB XXXIV. 
 
 Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. Macbeth. 
 
 THE requisites of a successful villain are manifold. The 
 toughened conscience, the ready wit, the sage experience, the 
 mind tutored, like lago, in all qualities of human dealing, 
 all these, in some reasonable measure, Vinal had ; but he 
 miserably lacked the vulgar, but no less needful requisite of 
 a sound bodily fibre to support the workings of his brain. 
 His mind was a good lever with a feeble fulcrum ; a gun 
 mounted on a tottering rampart. When every breath of 
 emotion that touches the fine-strung organism quivers along 
 the electric chord to the brain, kindling there strange pertur 
 bations, then philosophy must lower her tone, and stoicism 
 itself must soon confess that its only resource is to avoid the 
 enemy with whom it cannot cope. Vinal was but ill fitted 
 to act the part he had undertaken. The excitements of 
 villany were too much for him. Peace of mind was as need 
 ful to him as food and drink. He had been battling all his 
 life against what he imagined to be a defect of his mental 
 forces, but which had, in the main, no deeper root than in the 
 sensitiveness of his bodily constitution. In prudence and 
 common sense, he was bound to seek asylum in that blissful 
 serenity, that benignant calm, said to be the unfailing attend- 
 16* (185) 
 
186 VASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 ant on piety and good works. Never did Nature give a 
 sharper hint than she gave to Vinal to eschew evil courses, 
 and leaving rascality to tougher nerves, to tread the placid 
 paths of virtue and discretion. Vinal saw fit to disregard 
 the hint, and the consequences became somewhat grievous. 
 
 While his intrigue was in progress, his nerves had given 
 him no great trouble. Hate and jealousy absorbed him. 
 He was steadfast in his purpose to get rid of his rival. But 
 now that the mine was laid, and the match lighted, a change 
 began to come upon him. It was his maiden felony ; his 
 first debut in the distinct character of a scoundrel ; and, 
 though his conscience was none of the liveliest, it sufficed to 
 visit him with some qualms. Anxieties, doubts, fears, began 
 to prey upon him ; sleep failed him ; his nerves were set 
 more and more on edge ; in short, body and mind, mutually 
 acting on each other, were fast bringing him to a state quite 
 adverse to the maxims of his philosophy. 
 
 When a sophomore in college, his favorite reading had 
 been Foster's Essay on Decision of Character, and he had 
 aspired to realize in his own person the type of character 
 therein set forth ; the man of steel, who, in his firm march 
 towards his ends, knows neither doubts, nor waverings, nor 
 relentings. Of this ideal he was now falling lamentably 
 short ; and as, at two o'clock in the morning, he rose from his 
 restless bed, and paced his chamber to and fro, vainly up 
 braiding his weakness, and struggling to reason down the 
 rebellious vibration of his nerves, he was any thing but the 
 inexorable hero of his boyish fancy. 
 
 "The thing is done," so he communed with himself, 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 187 
 
 "it was deliberately done, and well done. That hound, is 
 chained and muzzled, or will be so soon. For a time, at 
 least, he is out of my path. But is he ? What if he should 
 escape the trap ? What if those men to whom I have sent 
 him are less an abomination in the eyes of the government 
 than there is reason to think them ? No doubt he will be 
 compromised ; no doubt he will get into difficulty ; but if he 
 should get out again ! if, within a year from this he should 
 come home to charge me with trapanning him ! Pshaw ! he 
 could prove nothing. He would be thought malicious if he 
 accused me. But he may suspect ! " and this idea sufficed to 
 fill his excited mind with fresh agitation. For three nights 
 he had been without sleep ; and now his irritable system was 
 wrought almost to the point of fever. 
 
 " Half measures are nothing ! The nail must be driven 
 home and clinched ! I must make sure of him." And early 
 in the morning he went to find Speyer. 
 
 Speyer was not to be found. In his eagerness, he went 
 again and again to seek him, though he knew that there was 
 risk in doing so. At length he succeeded ; and in spite of 
 his resolute and long-practised self-control, his confederate 
 saw at a glance, in his shining eye, flushed cheek, and the 
 nervous compression of his lips, that he was under a great, 
 though a painfully repressed excitement. 
 
 "Well, monsieur, do you hear any thing from your 
 friend ? " 
 
 " No, it is not time to hear." 
 
 " You will have to wait a long while before the time 
 comes." 
 
188 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Your letters were very well so far as they go ; but the 
 thing should be done thoroughly. What I wish you to do is 
 this. Write to him a letter, implicating him in your revolu 
 tionary plot. He will be under suspicion. Every letter sent 
 to him will be stopped and opened by the police." 
 
 " If that is done, I will warrant you quit of him ; at least 
 for some years to come." 
 
 " They will imprison him," said Vinal, nervously, " but 
 that will be the whole, his life will be in no danger." 
 
 " His life ! " returned Speyer, glancing sidelong at his 
 visitor ; " don't be troubled on that score. They won't kill 
 him." 
 
 " Then write the letter," said Vinal, laying a rouleau of 
 gold on the table, " and write it in such a way that it shall 
 spring the trap on him, and keep him caged till doomsday." 
 
 The letter was written. Vinal read it, re-read it, sealed 
 it, and with a quivering hand thrust it into the post office. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Thy hope is young, thy heart is strong, but yet a day may be, 
 When thou shalt weep in dungeon deep, and none thy weeping see. 
 
 The Count of Saldana. 
 
 MORTON had left Vienna, and was journeying in the dili 
 gence on the confines of Styria. The cumbrous machine had 
 been lumbering on all night. Awaking at daybreak from his 
 comfortless sleep, and looking through the breath-bedimmed 
 panes before him, he saw the postilion's shoulders wearily 
 jolting up and down with the motion of the lazy horses. He 
 had one fellow-traveller in the compartment which he occu 
 pied, a man of thirty-five or thereabouts, who had taken the 
 diligence late the evening before, and who now, his shoulders 
 supported by the leather straps which hung for the purpose 
 from the roof, and his head tumbling forward on his chest, 
 was dozing with a ludicrously grim expression of counte 
 nance. At length a sudden jolt awakened him ; he started, 
 shook himself, looked about him, inclined his head by way 
 of salutation to his fellow-traveller, and opened a conversa 
 tion with a remark on the dullness of the morning. After 
 conversing for a time in French, the stranger said in excellent 
 English, " I see there is no need of our speaking French, 
 for by your accent I judge that you are English. I myself 
 
 (189) 
 
190 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 have a little of the English about me ; that is to say, I was 
 four years at Oxford, though I am German by birth." 
 
 " I am not English, though my ancestors were." 
 
 " You are American, then ? " said the stranger, looking at 
 him with some curiosity ; and from this beginning, their 
 acquaintance ripened fast. The German, regarding his com 
 panion as a young man of more intelligence than experience, 
 conversed with an ease and frankness which fast gained upon 
 Morton's confidence. He proved, indeed, a storehouse of 
 information, discoursing of the people, the country, and even 
 the government, with little reserve, and an admirable copi 
 ousness and minuteness of knowledge. At length he asked 
 Morton if he had any acquaintance in Austria. 
 
 " None, excepting one or two persons at Vienna, to whom 
 I had letters." 
 
 " Then you have probably made agreeable acquaintances. 
 The society of Vienna is a very pleasant one." 
 
 " My letters were, or purported to be, to savans and lit 
 erary men." 
 
 " There, too, you should have found persons well worth 
 the meeting." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it." 
 
 " You do not speak," said the investigating stranger, with 
 a smile, " like one who has been much pleased with his ex 
 perience." 
 
 " I have had no opportunity to judge fairly of the Vien 
 nese savans" 
 
 " Your letters gave you no opportunity ? " 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 191 
 
 " They were given me at Paris, in a rather singular way ; 
 and, to say the truth, the persons to whom they introduced 
 me were so little to my taste, that after delivering one or two 
 of them, I determined not to use the rest." 
 
 " You appear to have been very unfortunate. Will you 
 allow me to ask to whom your letters were addressed ? " 
 
 " They were written by a person whom I never saw, and 
 were given to me by a friend, an acquaintance, of mine, 
 as a means of gaining- information about the country ; such 
 information as that for which I am indebted to you. I have 
 been a good deal perplexed as to the character of the persons 
 to whom they were written." 
 
 " Very probably I could aid you." 
 
 Morton mentioned the names of the men he had seen. 
 
 The German at first looked puzzled, then amazed, then 
 distrustful. 
 
 " Your letters were got for you by a friend of yours ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And were written by " 
 
 " A professor from Berlin, named Speyer, Henry Speyer." 
 
 " Henry Speyer ! " repeated the German, in astonish 
 ment. 
 
 " You were saying that you had lived for some years at 
 Berlin. Perhaps you can tell me who and what he is." 
 
 " I know of no Professor Henry Speyer at Berlin." 
 
 " This man, I am told, is well known as a philologist." 
 
 " There is a Henry Speyer who is a philologist, so far as 
 speaking every language in Europe can make him one ; but 
 he was never a professor in Berlin or any where else." 
 
192 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 Morton looked perplexed. The German studied his face 
 for a moment, and then said, 
 
 " You say that a friend of yours gave you letters from 
 Henry Speyer to the men you just named ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! Have you ever quarrelled with 
 your friend ? Are you on terms with your friend's mistress ? 
 or do you stand between your friend and a fortune ? " 
 
 A cold thrill passed through Morton's frame. There was 
 an approach to truth in both the two last suppositions. 
 
 " Either you are very much deeper than I know how to 
 comprehend you, or else you are the victim of a plot." 
 
 " What kind of plot ? " demanded the startled Morton ; 
 " who is Speyer, and who are the other men ? " 
 
 " I will tell you. Speyer is an intriguer, a revolutionist, 
 a man in every way infamous. As for his being a professor, 
 he is no more a professor than he is a prime minister, and 
 you may ascribe what motives you please to your friend for 
 giving him the name. He dares not set foot in Austria. If 
 he did, it would go very hard with him. The other men are 
 of the same kidney his aiders, abetters, fellow conspira 
 tors ; known or suspected to be plotting for the overthrow 
 of the government." 
 
 " Then why are they at liberty ? " 
 
 *' Do you call it liberty to be day and night under the eye 
 of the police to be dogged and watched every hour of 
 their lives ? They serve as a sort of decoy. All who hold 
 communication with them are noted down as dangerous ; 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 193 
 
 and my only wonder is, that you have not before this heard 
 from the police." 
 
 *' And what would you advise me to do ? " 
 
 " Get out of Austria as soon and as quietly as you can. 
 When you have passed the frontier you will be safe, and 
 not before." 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Monsieur, j'ai deux mots a vous dire ; 
 Messieurs les marechaux, dont j'ai commandement, 
 Vous mandent de venir les trouver promptement, 
 Monsieur. Le Misanthrope. 
 
 THAT evening Morton arrived at the post house at 
 
 He was alone, his companion of the morning, whose route 
 lay in another direction, having left him long before. At the 
 head of the ancient staircase, the host welcomed him with a 
 " good night," and ushered him into a large, low, wooden room, 
 where some thirty men and women were smoking, eating, 
 and lounging among the tables and benches. Old Germans 
 talked over their beer pots, and puffed at their pipes ; young 
 ones laughed and bantered with the servant girls. A French 
 man, en route for Laibach, gulped down his bowlful of soup, 
 sprang to the window when he heard the postilion's horn, 
 bounded back to finish his tumbler of "wine, then seized his 
 cane, and dashed out in hot haste. A small, prim student 
 strutted to the window to watch him, pipe in hand, and an 
 amused grin on his face ; then turned to roar for more beer, 
 and joke with the girl who brought it. 
 
 Morton sat alone, incensed, disturbed, anxious. He had 
 resolved to go no farther without taking measures to secure 
 his own safety ; and a day or two, he hoped, would place 
 
 (194) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 195 
 
 him out of the reach of danger. Meanwhile, what with his 
 horror at the villany which had duped him, his anger with 
 himself at being duped, and the consciousness that the hun 
 dred-handed despotism of Austria might at any moment close 
 its gripe upon him, the condition of his mind was far from 
 enviable. 
 
 As he surveyed the noisy groups around him, three men 
 appeared at the door. Morton sipped his wine, and watched 
 them uneasily out of the corner of his eye. One of them 
 was a military officer ; another was a tall man in a civil 
 dress ; the third was the conductor of the diligence in which 
 Morton had travelled all day. The conductor looked towards 
 him significantly ; the tall man inclined his head, as a token 
 that he understood the sign. Then approaching, hat in hand, 
 he said very courteously, in French, 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur ; I regret that I must give you some 
 little trouble. I have a carriage below ; will you have the 
 goodness to accept a seat in it ? " 
 
 " To go whither ? " demanded Morton, in alarm. 
 
 " To the office of police, monsieur." 
 
 The Austrian Briareus had clutched him at last. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Are you called forth, from out a world of men, 
 To slay the innocent ? What is my offence ? 
 Where is the evidence that doth accuse me ? 
 What lawful quest have given their verdict up 
 Unto the frowning judge ? Richard HI. 
 
 " Yotr have trifled long enough," said the commissioner ; 
 " declare what you know, or you shall be dealt with sum 
 marily." 
 
 A long journey, manacled like a felon, and guarded by 
 dragoons with loaded carbines ; a rigorous imprisonment, 
 already five months protracted ; repeated examinations before 
 a military tribunal ; cross-questionings, threats, and insults, 
 to extort his supposed secrets ; all these had formed a 
 sharp transition from the halcyon days of Vassall Morton's 
 prosperity. 
 
 " Declare what you know, or you shall be dealt with 
 summarily." 
 
 " I know nothing, and therefore can declare nothing." 
 
 " You have held that tone long enough. Do you imagine 
 that we are to be deceived by your inventions ? Tell what 
 you know, or in twenty minutes you will be led to the 
 rampart and shot." 
 
 " I am in your power, and you can do what you will." 
 
 (196) 
 
VASSALL MOETON. 197 
 
 The commissioner spoke in German to the corporal of the 
 guard, who took Morton into custody, and was leading him 
 from the room. 
 
 " Stop," cried the official, from his seat. 
 
 Morton turned. 
 
 " You are destroying yourself, young man." 
 
 " It is false. You are murdering me." 
 
 " Do not answer me. I tell you, you are murdering your 
 self. Are you the fool to fling away your life in a fit of 
 obstinacy ? " 
 
 " Are you the villain to shoot innocent men in cold blood ? " 
 
 The commissioner swore a savage oath, and with an angry 
 gesture sent the corporal from the room. 
 
 The corporal led his prisoner along the corridor, which had 
 grown ruefully familiar to Morton's eye ; but instead of 
 following the way which led to the latter 's cell, he turned 
 into a much wider and more commodious passage. Here, at 
 his open door, stood Padre Luca, confessing priest of the 
 castle. 
 
 Padre Luca had mistaken his calling, when he took it upon 
 him to discharge such a function. He was too tender of 
 heart, too soft of nature ; ill seasoned, moreover, to his work, 
 for he had been but a week in the fortress, and this was the 
 first victim whom it behooved him to prepare for death. And 
 when he saw the young prisoner, and learned the instant 
 doom under which he stood, his nerves grew tremulous, and 
 he found no words to usher in his ghostly counsels. 
 
 Corporal Max Kubitski, with a face unperturbed as a block, 
 unfettered Morton's wrists, left him with the confessor, and 
 17* 
 
198 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 withdrew, placing a soldier on guard at the door without. 
 Morton sat silent and calm. The hand of Padre Luca 
 quivered with agitation. 
 
 *' My son," he began ; and here his voice faltered. 
 
 " I trust," he said, finding his tongue again, " that you are 
 a faithful child of our holy mother, the church, and that the 
 heresies and infidelities of these times " 
 
 " Father," said Morton, willingly adopting the filial ad 
 dress to the kind-hearted priest, " I am a Protestant. I was 
 born and bred among Protestants. I respect your ancient 
 church for the good she has done in ages past, and for the 
 good men who have held her faith ; but I do not believe her 
 doctrine, nor approve her practice." 
 
 The priest's face betrayed his discomposure. 
 
 " My son, my dear son, it is not too late ; it is never too 
 late. Listen to the truth ; renounce your fatal errors. I 
 will baptize you ; and when you are gone, I will pray our 
 great saint of Milan to intercede for you, and I will say 
 masses for your soul." 
 
 Morton smiled faintly, and shook his head. 
 
 " I thank you ; but it is too late for conversion. I must 
 die in my heresy, as I have lived." 
 
 "So young!" exclaimed Padre Luca; "and so calm on 
 the brink of eternity ! Ah, it is hard to die, when so much 
 is left to enjoy ; but it is worse to plunge from present 
 suffering into everlasting despair." And he proceeded to 
 give a most graphic picture of post-mortal torment's, drawn 
 from the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, a work very 
 iamiliar to his meditations. This dire imagery failed to 
 convince the dying heretic. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 199 
 
 " My mind is made up. I cannot believe your doctrine, 
 but I can feel your kindness. You have spoken the first 
 friendly words that I have heard for months." 
 
 " It is hard that you should die so unprepared, and so 
 young. You have relatives ? You have friends ? " 
 
 " More than friends ! More than friends ! " groaned Mor 
 ton. And as a flood of recollection swept over him, his 
 heart for a moment was sick with anguish. 
 
 " Come with me," whispered Padre Luca. He led the 
 way into the chapel of the castle, which adjoined his room. 
 Here he bowed and crossed himself before an altar, over 
 which was displayed a painting of the Virgin. 
 
 " Our Blessed Mother is full of love, full of mercy. See, 
 hang this round your neck " placing in his hand a small 
 medal on which her image was stamped. " Go and kneel 
 before that altar, and repeat these words," pointing to the 
 Ave Maria in a little book of devotion. " Call on her with a 
 true heart, and she will have pity. She cannot see you 
 perish, body and soul. She will appear, and teach you the 
 truth." 
 
 There was so much of earnestness and sincerity in his 
 words, that Morton felt nothing but gratitude as he an 
 swered, 
 
 " It would be no better than a mockery, if I should do as 
 you wish. I cannot " 
 
 Here a clear, deep voice from the adjacent room interrupted 
 him. 
 
 " Mother of heaven ! " cried Padre Luca, greatly agitated. 
 
 " I am ready," answered Morton, in a voice firm as that 
 which summoned him. 
 
200 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 He returned to the priest's apartment, and in the doorway 
 stood the athletic corporal, like the statue of a modern 
 Mars. 
 
 " Mio figlio ! Mio caro figlio ! " faltered Padre Luca, 
 laying a tremulous hand on the young man's shoulder. The 
 kindly accents of the melodious Italian fell on his ear like a 
 strain of music. 
 
 " You must not die now ; you are not prepared. I will go 
 to the commissioner. He will grant time." 
 
 He was pushing past the corporal, when Morton gently 
 checked him. 
 
 " I thank you, father, a thousand times ; but if I must die, 
 there is no mercy in a half hour's delay. Let me go. This 
 sentence may be, after all, a kindness." 
 
 The corporal took him into custody ; and, with three sol 
 diers before and three behind, he moved towards his place of 
 execution. He seemed to himself like one not fully awake ; 
 the stern reality would not come home to his thoughts, until, 
 as he was mounting a* flight of steps leading to the rampart, 
 a vivid remembrance glowed upon him of that summer even 
 ing when, in her father's garden, Edith Leslie had accepted 
 his love. It was with a desperate effort of pride and resolu 
 tion that he quelled the emotion which rose choking to his 
 throat, and murmuring a petition for her safety, walked 
 forward with an unchanged face. 
 
 A light shone in upon the passage, and they stood in a 
 moment upon the rampart, whence a panorama of sunny 
 mountains opened on the view. It was a space of some 
 extent, paved with flag-stones, a*id compassed with battle- 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 201 
 
 ments and walls. On one side stood, leaning on their mus 
 kets, a file of Bohemian soldiers, in their close frogged uni 
 forms and long mustaches. These, with their officer, Cor 
 poral Kubitski, with his six men, a sub-official acting for the 
 commissioner, and Padre Luca, were the only persons present, 
 besides the prisoner. The latter was placed before the Bo 
 hemians, at the distance of twelve or fourteen paces. The 
 corporal and his men drew aside. 
 
 " Now," demanded the deputy, " will you confess what you 
 know, or will you die ? " 
 
 " I have told you, once and again, that I have nothing to 
 confess." 
 
 " Then take the consequence of your obstinacy." 
 
 He motioned to the officer. A word of command was 
 given. Each soldier loaded with ball, and the ramrods rat 
 tled as they sent home the charge. Another command, and 
 the cocked muskets rose to the level, concentrating their aim 
 against the prisoner's breast. 
 
 " If you will speak, speak now. You have a quarter of a 
 minute to save yourself." And the deputy took out his 
 watch. 
 
 Morton turned his head slowly, and looked at him for an 
 instant in silence. 
 
 " Speak, speak," cried Padre Luca, pressing towards him ; 
 " tell him what you know." 
 
 The sharp voice of the officer warned him back. 
 
 Morton stood with compressed lips, and every nerve at its 
 tension, in instant expectation of the volley; already, in 
 fancy, he felt the bullets plunging through his breast ; but 
 
202 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 not a muscle flinched, and he fronted the deadly muzzles with 
 an unblenching eye. The deputy scrutinized his face, and 
 turned away, muttering. At that moment a man, who 
 through the whole scene had stood hidden in the entrance of 
 a passage, ran out Avith a pretence of great haste and earnest 
 ness, and called to stop the execution, since the commissioner 
 had granted a reprieve. In fact, the whole affair was a sham, 
 played off upon the prisoner to terrify him into confession. 
 
 The Bohemians recovered their muskets, and the bewil 
 dered Morton was once more in custody of the corporal, who 
 led him, guarded as before, back towards his cell. Padre 
 Luca, who thought that an interposition of the Virgin had 
 softened the commissioner's heart, hastened to his oratory to 
 pray for the heretic's conversion. Faint and heartsick, Mor 
 ton scarcely knew what was passing, till he was thrust in at 
 his narrow door. The jailer was there, but the corporal en 
 tered als.o, to aid in taking the handcuffs from his wrists. 
 
 One might have looked in vain among ten thousand to find 
 a nobler model of masculine proportion than this soldier. 
 He stood more than six feet high, and Morton, who loved to 
 look upon a man, had often, even in his distress, admired his 
 martial bearing and the powerful symmetry of his frame. 
 His face, too, was singularly fine in its way, and though the 
 discipline of long habit usually banished from it any distinct 
 expression, yet the cast of the features, and the manly curve 
 of the lip, which the thick brown mustache could not wholly 
 hide, seemed to augur a brave, generous, and loyal nature. 
 
 More stupefied than cheered at being snatched, as he sup 
 posed, from the jaws of death, Morton stood passive while his 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 203 
 
 hands were released. The jailer left him for a moment, and 
 
 crossed over to the opposite corner of the cell. His back was 
 
 turned as he did so. The corporal's six soldiers were all in 
 
 the passage without. At that instant, Morton felt a warm 
 
 breath at his ear, and heard whispered in a barbarous accent, 
 
 " Courage, mon ami ! Vive la lilerte ! Vive TAmerique ! " 
 
 He turned ; but the martial visage of the corporal was 
 
 unmoved as bronze ; and, in a moment more, the iron door 
 
 clanged behind him as he disappeared. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXVIII. 
 
 Death, why now so slow art thou ? why fearest thou to smite ? 
 
 Lamentatwn of Don Roderick. 
 
 When all the blandishments of life are gone, 
 
 The coward sneaks to death, the brave live on. Sewett. 
 
 THE whispered words of the corporal kindled a spark of 
 hope in Morton's breast ; but it was destined to fade and die. 
 Once he was sure that he heard the tones of his voice in the 
 passage without his cell ; but weeks passed, months passed, 
 and he did not see him again. 
 
 And now let the curtain drop for a space of three years. 
 
 Morton was still a prisoner. Despair was at hand. He 
 longed to die. His longing at length seemed near its accom 
 plishment. A raging fever seized him, and for days he lay 
 delirious, balanced on the brink of death. But his constitu 
 tion endured the shock ; and late one night he lay on his 
 pallet, exhausted, worn to a skeleton, yet fully conscious of 
 his situation. 
 
 The locks clashed, the hinges jarred, and a physician of the 
 prison, a bulky German, stood at his side. 
 
 He felt his patient's pulse. 
 
 " Shall I die, or not ? " demanded the sick man. 
 
 " Die ! " echoed the German, a laugh gurgling within him, 
 
 (204) 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 205 
 
 like the first symptom of an earthquake ; "all men die, but 
 this sickness will never kill you. It would have killed 
 ninety-nine out of a hundred ; but you are as tough as a rhi 
 noceros." 
 
 Morton turned to the wall, and cursed the hour when he 
 was born. 
 
 The German gave a prescription to his attendant; the 
 locks clashed again behind him, and Morton was left alone 
 with his misery. 
 
 The lamp in the passage without shone through the grated 
 opening above the door, and shed a square of yellow light on 
 the black, damp stones of the dungeon. They sweated and 
 trickled with a clammy moisture ; and the brick pavement 
 was wet, as if the clouds had rained upon it. Morton lay 
 motionless as a dead man. The crisis of his disorder was 
 past ; but its effects were heavy upon him, and his mind 
 shared the deep exhaustion of his body. Perilous thoughts 
 rose upon him, spectral and hollow-eyed. 
 
 " By what right am I doomed to this protracted misery ? 
 By what justice, when a refuge is at hanfi, am I forbidden to 
 fly to it ? I have only to drag myself from this bed, and rest 
 for a few moments on those wet, cold bricks, and all the med 
 icines in Austria could not keep me many days a prisoner. 
 And who could blame me ? Who could say that I destroyed 
 myself? It is not suicide. It is but aiding kindly nature to 
 do a deed of mercy." 
 
 He repelled the thought ; but it returned. He repelled it 
 again, but still it returned. The insidious demon was again 
 and again at his ear, stealing back with a noiseless gliding, 
 18 
 
206 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 smoothly commending her poison to his lips, soothing his 
 worn spirit as the vampire fans its slumbering victim with 
 its wings. But his better nature, not without a higher 
 appeal, fortified itself against her, and struggled to hold its 
 ground. 
 
 When the French besieged Saragossa ; when her walls 
 crumbled before their batteries ; when, day by day, through 
 secret mine or open assault, foot by foot, they won their way 
 inward towards her heart ; when treason within aided force 
 without, and famine and pestilence leagued against her, 
 still her undespairing children refused to yield. Sick men 
 dragged themselves to the barricades, women and boys 
 pointed the cannon, and her heroic banner still floated above 
 the wreck. 
 
 Thus, spent with disease, gnawed with pertinacious mis 
 eries, assailed by black memories of the past, and blacker 
 forebodings, of the future, did Morton maintain his weary 
 battle with despair. 
 
CHAPTER, XXXIX. 
 
 Who would lose, 
 
 Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
 These thoughts that wander through eternity? 
 
 To be weak is miserable, 
 
 Doing or suffering. Paradise Lost. 
 
 MORTON recovered slowly. The influences about him were 
 any -thing but favorable to a quick convalescence, and it was 
 months before he was himself again. Even then, though his 
 health seemed confirmed, a deeper cloud remained upon his 
 spirits : his dungeon seemed more dark and gloomy, his 
 prospects more desperate. 
 
 One day he paced his cell in a mood of more than usual 
 depression. 
 
 " Fools and knaves are at large ; robbery and murder have 
 full scope ; vanity and profligacy run their free career ; then 
 why is honest effort paralyzed, and buried here alive ? There 
 arc those in these vaults, men innocent of crime as I, 
 men who would have been an honor to their race, who 
 have passed a score of years in this living death. And cant 
 ing fools would console them with saying that ' all is for the 
 best.' I will sooner believe that the world is governed by 
 devils, and that the prince of them all is bodied in Metter- 
 nich. Why is there not in crushed hope, and stifled wrath, 
 
 (207) 
 
208 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 and swelling anguish, and frenzy, and despair, a force to burst 
 these hellish sepulchres, and blow them to the moon ! 
 
 " It is but a weak punishment to which Milton dooms his 
 ruined angel. Action, enterprise, achievement, a hell 
 like that is heaven to the cells of Ehrenberg. He should have 
 chained him to a rock, and left him alone to the torture of 
 his own thoughts ; the unutterable agonies of a mind prey 
 ing on itself for want of other sustenance. Action ! mured 
 in this dungeon, the starved soul gasps for it as the lungs for 
 air. ' Action, action, action ! all in all ! What is life 
 without it ? A marsh, a quagmire, a rotten, stagnant pool. 
 It is its own reward. The chase is all ; the prize nothing. 
 The huntsmen chase the fox all day, and, when they have 
 caught her, fling her to their hounds for a worthless vermin. 
 Alexander wept that he had no more worlds to conquer. What 
 did it profit him that a conquered world lay already at his feet ? 
 The errant knights who roamed the world with their mis 
 tress's glove on their helmet, achieving impossibilities in her 
 name, which of them could have endured to live in peace 
 with her for a six-month ? The crusader master of Jerusa 
 lem, Cortes with Mexico subdued, any hero when his work 
 is done, falls back to the ranks of common men. His lamp 
 is out, his fire quenched ; and what avails the stale, lack 
 lustre remnant of his days ? 
 
 " Action ! the panacea of human ills ; the sure resource of 
 misery ; the refuge of bad consciences ; a maelstroom, in 
 whose giddy vortex saints and villains may whirl alike. 
 How like a madman some great criminal, some Macbeth, will 
 plunge on through his slough of blood and treachery, frantic 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 209 
 
 to dam out justice at every chink, and bulwark himself against 
 fate ; clinching crime with crime ; giving conscience no time 
 to stab ; finding no rest ; but still plunging on, desperate 
 and blind ! How like a madman some pious anchorite, fervent 
 to win heaven, will pile torture on torture, fast, and vigil, 
 and scourge, made wretched daily with some fresh scruple, 
 delving to find some new depth of self-abasement, and still 
 struggling on unsatisfied, insatiable of penance, till the 
 grave devours him ! Human activity ! to pursue a security 
 which is never reached, a contentment which eludes the 
 grasp, some golden consummation which proves but hollow 
 mockery ; to seize the prize, to taste it, to fling it away, and 
 reach after another ! This cell, where I thought myself buried 
 and sealed up from knowledge, is, after all, a school of philos 
 ophy. It teaches a dreary wisdom of its own. Through 
 these stone walls I can see the follies of the world more 
 clearly than when I was in the midst, of them. A dreary 
 wisdom ; and yet not wholly dreary. There is a power and a 
 consolation in it. Misery is the mind-maker ; the revealer of 
 truth ; the spring of nobleness ; the test, the purger, the 
 strengthener of the spirit. Our natures are like grapes in the 
 wine press : they must be pressed to the uttermost before 
 they will give forth all their virtue. 
 
 " Why do I delude myself? What good can be wrung out 
 of a misery like mine ? It is folly to cheat myself with hope. 
 This hell-begotten Austria has me fast, and will not loosen 
 her gripe. Abroad in the free world, fortitude will count 
 for much. There, one can hold firm the clefts and cracks 
 of his tottering fortunes with the cement of an unyield- 
 18* 
 
210 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 ing mind ; but here, it is but bare and blank endurance. 
 Yet it is something that I can still find heart to face my 
 doom ; that there are still moments when I dare to meet this 
 death-in-life, this slow-consuming horror, face to face, and 
 look into all its hideousness without shrinking. To creep on 
 to my end through years of slow decay, mind and soul fam 
 ishing in solitude, sapped and worn, eaten and fretted away, 
 by the droppings of lonely thought, till I find my rest at last 
 under these cursed stones . l God ! could I but die the death 
 of a man ! De Foix, Dundee, Wolfe. I grudge them 
 their bloody end. When the fierce blood boiled highest, 
 when the keen life was tingling through their veins, and the 
 shout of victory ringing in their ears, then to be launched at 
 a breath forth into the wilderness of space, to sail through 
 eternity, to explore the seas and continents of the vast un 
 known ! But I, I must lie here and rot. You fool ! you 
 are tied to the stake, and must bide the baiting as you can. 
 Will you play the coward ? What can you gain by that ? 
 You cannot run away. What wretch, when misery falls upon 
 him, will not cry out, ' Take any shape but that ? ' In the 
 familiar crowd, in the daily resort, how many an unregarded 
 face masks a wretchedness worse than this ! some shrunken, 
 cankered soul, palsied and world-weary, more hopelessly 
 dungeoned than you. Crush down your anguish, choke 
 down your groan, and say, Heaven's will be done.' 
 
 " Muster what courage you may. Not those spasms of 
 valor that make the hero of an emergency, and when the 
 heart is on fire and the soul in arms, bear him on to great 
 achievement. Mine must be an inward flame, that warms 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 211 
 
 though it cannot shine ; a fire, like the sacred Chaldean fire, 
 that must never go out ; a perpetual spring, flowing up with 
 out ceasing, to meet the unceasing need. 
 
 "And you, source of my deepest joy and my deepest sor 
 row, do not fail me now. Come to me in this darkness ; 
 let your spirit haunt this tomb where I lie buried. In your 
 presence, the evil of my heart shrank back, rebuked ; its good 
 sprang up and grew in life and freshness. You rose upon me 
 like the sun, warming every noble germ into leaf and flower. 
 You streamed into my soul, banishing its mists, and glad 
 dening it to its depths with summer light. These are no 
 girl's tears. Towards myself and my own woes, I have 
 hardened my heart like the barren flint. I should be less 
 than man if I did not weep when I think of you. You must 
 pass the appointed lot ; you must fade with time and sorrow ; 
 but to me you will be radiant still with youth and beauty. 
 So will I bide my hour, anchored on that pure and lofty 
 memory, waiting that last release when the winged spirit 
 shall laugh at bolts and dungeon bars." 
 
CHAPTEK XL. 
 
 Lost liberty and love at once he bore ; 
 
 His prison pained him much, his passion more. Palemon and Arctic. 
 
 SINCE his illness, Morton had had some of an invalid's 
 privilege. He had been allowed to walk on the rampart for 
 half an hour daily. In the distance, a great mountain range 
 bounded the view, and, nearer, the Croatian forest stretched 
 its dark and wild frontier. The scene recalled kindred scenes 
 at home ; and when he was led back to his cell, when the 
 heavy door clashed and the bolts grated upon him, he leaned 
 his forehead on his hand, and stood in fancy again among the 
 mountains of New England, with all their associations of 
 health, freedom, and golden hopes. The White Mountains 
 seemed to rise around him like a living presence, rugged with 
 their rocks and pines, scarred with avalanches, cinctured with 
 morning mists ; and, standing again on the bank of the Saco, 
 he seemed to feel their breezes and hear the brawling of their 
 waters. Then his roused fancy took a wider range ; carried 
 him across the Alleghanies and along the Ohio, up the Mis 
 sissippi to its source, and downward to the sea, picturing the 
 whole like the shifting scene of a panorama. 
 
 " Ah," he thought, " if my story could be blown abroad 
 over those western waters ! How long then should I lie here 
 
 (212) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 213 
 
 dying by inches ? The farmers of Ohio, the planters of Ten 
 nessee, the backwoodsmen of Missouri, how would they endure 
 such outrage to the meanest member of their haughty sov 
 ereignty ! A hopeless dream ! I have looked my last on 
 America. My wrongs will find no voice. They and I are 
 smothering together, safely walled up in sound and solid 
 mason-work. Strange, the power of fancy ! Heaven knows 
 how or why, but at this moment I could believe myself seated 
 on the edge of the lake at Matherton, under the beech trees, 
 on a hot July noon. The leaves will not rustle ; the birds 
 will not sing ; nothing seems awake but the small yellow 
 butterflies, flickering over the clover tops, and the heat-loving 
 cicala, raising his shrill voice from the dead pear tree. The 
 breathless pines on the farther bank grow downward in the 
 glassy mirror. The water lies at my feet, pellucid as the air ; 
 the dace, the bream, and the perch glide through it like spirits, 
 their shadows following them over the quartz pebbles ; and, 
 in the cove hard by, the pirate pickerel lies asleep under the 
 water lilies. 
 
 " On such a day, I came down the garden walk, and found 
 Edith reading under the shade of the maple grove. On the 
 evening of such a day, I heard from her lips the words which 
 seemed to launch me upon a life of more than human happi 
 ness. Could I have looked into the future ! Could I have 
 lifted the glowing curtain which my fancy drew before it, the 
 gay and gilded illusion which covered the hideous truth ! 
 Where is she now ? Does she still walk in the garden, and 
 read under the grove of maples ? She thinks me dead : 
 almost four years ! She has good cause to think so ; and 
 
214 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 perhaps at this moment some glib-tongued suitor, as earnest 
 and eager as I was, is whispering persuasion into her ear, 
 winning her to his hearth stone and his arms. Powers of 
 hell, if you would rack man's soul with torments like your 
 own, show him first a gleam of heaven ; bathe him in celestial 
 light ; then thrust him down to a damnation like this." 
 
 And he groaned between his set teeth, in the extremity of 
 mental torture. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 The manly heart must sometimes cease to languish, 
 Ruled by the manly brain. Bayard Taylor. 
 
 day the jailer came in at his stated hour. He was, 
 by birth, a German peasant, stupid and brutish enough ; but, 
 his calling considered, he might have been worse, and, in the 
 lack of better company, Morton had diligently cultivated his 
 acquaintance. On this occasion he was more than commonly 
 dogged and impenetrable ; and, on being taken to task for 
 some neglect or malperformance of his functions, he made no 
 manner of reply, by word, look, or gesture. Being again 
 upbraided, he turned for a moment towards the prisoner a 
 face as expressive as a block of pudding stone, and then 
 sullenly continued his work as before. Morton laughed, 
 partly in vexation, and resumed his walk, of just three paces, 
 to and fro, the length of his cell. He followed the jailer 
 with his eye, as the latter closed the door. 
 
 " ' God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.' 
 Measure the distance from Shakspeare down to that fellow, 
 and then from him again down to a baboon, and which meas 
 urement would be the longer ? It would be a knotty problem 
 to settle the question of kindred ; and yet, after all, a soul 
 to be saved, such as it is, and an indefinite power of expan- 
 
 (215) 
 
216 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 sion and refining, give Jacob strong odds against the baboon. 
 He has human possibilities, like the rest of us ; his unit goes 
 to make up the sum of man ; man, the riddle and marvel of 
 the universe, the centre of interest, the centre of wonder. 
 When I was a boy, I pleased myself with planning that I 
 would study out the springs of human action, and trace human 
 emotion up to its sources. It was a boy's idea, to fathom 
 the unfathomable, to line and map out the shifting clouds and 
 the ever-moving winds. De Stael speaks the truth ' Man 
 may learn to rule man, but only God can comprehend him.' 
 View him under one aspect only. Seek to analyze that per 
 vading passion, that mighty mystic influence which, conscious 
 ly or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, prevails in human 
 action, and holds the sovereignty of the world. It is a vain 
 attempt ; the reason loses and confounds itself. What human 
 faculty can follow the workings of a principle which at once 
 exalts man to the stars, and fetters him to the earth ; which 
 can fire him with triumphant energies, or lull him into effem 
 inate repose ; kindle strange aspirations and eager longings 
 after knowledge ; spur the intellect to range time and space, 
 or cramp it within narrow confines, among mean fancies and 
 base associations ? In its mysterious contradictions, its bound 
 less possibilities of good and ill, it is a type of human nature 
 itself. The soldier saint, Loyola, was right when he figured 
 the conflicts of man's spirit by the collision of two armies, 
 ranked under adverse banners ; for what is the spirit of man 
 but a field of war, with its marches and retreats, its ambus 
 cades, stratagems, surprises, skirmishings, and weary life 
 long sieges ; its shock of onset, and death-grapple, throat to 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 217 
 
 throat ? And whoever would be wise, or safe, must sentinel 
 his thoughts, and rule his mind by martial law, like a city 
 beleaguered. 
 
 " How to escape such strife ! There is no escape. It has 
 followed hermits to their deserts ; and it follows me to my 
 prison. It will find no end but in that decay and torpor, that 
 callousness of faculty, which long imprisonment is said to 
 bring, but which, as yet, I do not feel. Perhaps I may never 
 feel it ; for strive as I will to prepare for the worst, by inuring 
 my mind to contemplate it, that spark of hope which never, 
 it is said, dies wholly in a human heart, is still alive in mine. 
 And sometimes, of late, it has kindled and glowed, as now, 
 with a strange brightness. Is it a delusion, or the presage of 
 some succor not far distant ? Let that be as it may, I will 
 still cling to the possibility of a better time. Whatever new 
 disaster meets me, I will confront it with some new audacity 
 of hope. I will nail my flag to the mast, and there it shall 
 fly till all go down, or till flag, mast, and hulk rot together." 
 19 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 But droop not; fortune at your time of life, 
 
 Although a female moderately fickle, 
 Will hardly leave you, as she's not your wife, 
 
 For any length of days in such a pickle. Don Juan. 
 
 HERE his reflections were interrupted by the opening of 
 the outer door of his cell, and a voice somewhat sternly 
 pronouncing his name. 
 
 It was a regulation of the prison, that twice a day an 
 official should visit each cell, to prevent the possibility of the 
 tenant's attempting to escape, or hold communication with 
 neighboring prisoners. This duty was commonly discharged 
 by non-commissioned officers of certain corps in the garrison. 
 Each cell had two doors. The outer one was of massive 
 wood, guarded by iron plates and rivets. The inner door, 
 though much less ponderous, was secured with equal care ; 
 but in the middle of it was an oblong aperture, much like 
 that of a post office letter box, though shorter and wider. 
 The visiting official opened the outer door, and without open 
 ing the inner, could see the prisoner by applying his eye to 
 this aperture. 
 
 " What are you doing there ? " demanded the voice, in the 
 usual form of the visitor's challenge. 
 
 The voice was different from that to which Morton had 
 
 (218) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 219 
 
 been accustomed ; and, as he gave the usual answer, he 
 looked towards the opening. Here he saw a full, clear, blue 
 eye, with a brown eyebrow, very well formed ; altogether a 
 different eye from that which had formerly presented itself, 
 a contracted, blackish, or mud-colored organ, furrowed round 
 about with the wrinkles called " crow's feet ; " altogether 
 a mean and vulgar-looking eye, belonging, indeed, to a 
 rugged old soldier, whose skull might safely have been 
 warranted sabre-proof. 
 
 Morton looked at the eye, and the eye looked at him, with 
 great intentness, seemingly, for some twenty seconds. Then 
 it disappeared, but returned, and resumed its scrutiny for 
 some moments longer. 
 
 " A new broom sweeps clean," thought Morton ; " that 
 fellow means to do his duty." 
 
 The eye vanished at length, the door closed, and the step 
 of the retiring visitor sounded along the flag-stones. 
 
 Morton thought little more of the matter, but busied him 
 self with his usual masculine employment of stocking knit 
 ting, till seven in the evening, when the visitor came on his 
 second round, and the same voice challenged him through the 
 opening. He looked up, and saw the eye again ; when to 
 his astonishment, the low, hissing sound " s s t " 
 used by Italians and some other Europeans when they wish 
 to attract attention, sounded from the soldier's lips. At the 
 next instant, however, something seemed to have alarmed 
 him ; for the eye disappeared, and the door closed abruptly. 
 
 Morton perplexed himself greatly with conjectures about 
 this incident, and had half persuaded himself that the whole 
 
220 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 was a cheat of the fancy ; when, on the next morning, as he 
 was led back, under a guard, from his walk on the rampart, 
 he saw, on entering a long gallery of the prison, a tall man 
 approaching from the farther end. He recognized him at 
 once. It was Max Kubitski, the corporal, who long before 
 had guarded him to his sham execution, and whose friendly 
 whisper in his cell had wakened in him a short gleam of 
 hope. As the corporal passed, his eye met Morton's for an 
 instant, with, as the latter thought, a glance of recognition. 
 
 In vain he tried to reason down the new hope that, in 
 spite of himself, this meeting kindled. Of one thing he was 
 sure ; the corporal's eye was the eye that looked in upon 
 him through the hole in the door ; and he felt assured, more 
 over, that, from whatever cause, the corporal inclined to 
 befriend him. 
 
 He waited, in great expectancy and some agitation, for the 
 next visit ; and at the stated hour, the outer door was 
 opened, and the eye appeared. 
 
 Morton, as he replied to the challenge, made a gesture of 
 friendly recognition. 
 
 " You remember me, eh ? " whispered a voice, in broken 
 French ; " be always close to the door when I come. I shall 
 have something to tell you." 
 
 The moustached lips whence the whisper issued were 
 withdrawn from the opening, and Morton was left to his 
 reflections. 
 
 To have a friend near him, however humble, was much, 
 and the hope, slender as it seemed, that this friend might aid 
 him, filled him with a feverish excitement. Why the corpo- 
 
VASSALL MORTOX. 221 
 
 ral should interest himself in his behalf, he could not imagine ; 
 and he waited restlessly for his next coming. 
 
 In due time, the eye appeared. 
 
 " Look here," whispered Max, and thrust a paper through 
 the opening, waiting only long enough to see Morton pick 
 it up. 
 
 The chirography was worse, if possible, than the spelling ; 
 but Morton at last deciphered words to the following purport. 
 
 " You are brave. Don't despair. I shall help you, if I 
 can. Long live America ! Down with the emperor ! Only 
 be patient. Be sure to chew this paper, and swallow it." 
 
 The last injunction had its objections, and the prisoner 
 compromised the matter by tearing the paper into small 
 pieces, and stuffing them into the crevices of the floor. 
 
 At the next appearance of the eye, Morton, in a few rapid 
 words, expressed his gratitude ; adding that if the corporal 
 would help him to escape, and go with him to America, he 
 would make him rich for life. 
 
 The intimation probably had its effect ; and yel in the case 
 of Max it was not needed. Though his tastes and habits 
 savored of the barrack, the corporal was one of the most 
 simple-hearted and generous of men, with, besides, much of 
 that kind of enthusiasm of character which is apt to be rather 
 ornamental than useful to its owner. His birth and connec 
 tions were not quite so low as might have been argued from 
 his mean station in the service, in which his life had been 
 spent from boyhood. He was a native of Gallicia. Several 
 of his brothers, and others of his relatives, had been deeply" 
 compromised in the Polish rising of 1831, and had r/iffered 
 19* 
 
222 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 heavy and humiliating penalties in consequence. His eldest 
 brother, however, had escaped in time, and gone to America, 
 where, being very different in character from Max, he had 
 thriven wonderfully. After a long absence, he had re 
 appeared, travelling with a United States passport, as an 
 American, inveighing against European despotisms, and di 
 lating on the glories of his adopted country. Max, the only 
 auditor of these declamations, was greatly excited by them. 
 He had long been tired of his thankless position in the Aus 
 trian service ; and listening to his brother's persuasions, he 
 agreed to desert, and go with him to America, the seat, as he 
 began to imagine, of more than earthly beatitude. But before 
 he could find opportunity, his cautious brother took alarm ; 
 and seeing some indications that his identity was suspected 
 by the police, decamped with the promptness and alacrity 
 which had always distinguished him in times of danger. 
 Max, therefore, was left alone ; his adviser, for fear of com 
 promising him, not daring to attempt any communication. 
 
 It was soon after this, that, being on guard in the commis 
 sioner's inquest room at Ehrenberg, Max first saw Morton, 
 brought in for examination, and learned from the questions 
 and replies, that the prisoner was an American. His interest 
 was greatly stirred ; for he had never seen one of the favored 
 race before ; and, like the commissioner, he had no doubt that 
 Morton had come on a revolutionary mission. His interest 
 was inflamed to enthusiasm, when, being ordered to guard 
 Morton to his execution, he saw the calmness with which the 
 latter faced his expected fate. Indeed, his soldier heart was 
 moved so deeply, that in the flush of the moment he con- 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 223 
 
 ceived the idea of helping Morton to escape, and going with 
 him to the land of promise. It. was an idea more easily con 
 ceived than executed ; and before he could find an opportu 
 nity, his corps was removed from the castle, and sent on duty 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Max had always detested the life of a garrison, and espe 
 cially of a prison garrison, and the change proved very agree 
 able to him. Though brave as the bravest, he had not much 
 energy or forecast, and commonly let his affairs take care of 
 themselves. He lived on from day to day, neither abandon 
 ing his plan of desertion, nor acting upon it ; until, after 
 more than two years, he was remanded to Ehrenberg, where 
 his old disgust returned in greater force than ever. In this 
 state of his mind, the duty of visitor was assigned to him, 
 thus bringing him in contact with Morton, reviving his half- 
 forgotten feeling, and, at the same time, promising him an 
 opportunity to carry his former scheme into effect. 
 
 To this time, Morton had borne his troubles with as much 
 philosophy as could reasonably have been expected ; but now 
 that something like a tangible hope began to open on him, 
 the excitement became intense. He waited the daily visits 
 of the soldier with a painful eagerness and suspense. At the 
 stated hours, Max always came ; and, at each return, some 
 whispered word of friendship greeted the prisoner's ear. 
 
 Two days after the first paper, he thrust in another ; and 
 Morton read as follows : 
 
 " We must wait ; but our time will come ; perhaps in ten 
 days ; perhaps in a week. I shall watch for a chance. Only 
 be patient." 
 
224 VASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 Five long and anxious days succeeded ; when, on the fore 
 noon of the sixth, Max thrust in a third paper ; and Morton, 
 with a beating heart, read, 
 
 " When the jailer comes this afternoon, make him talk with 
 you, and keep him with his back to the door. I shall come. 
 Be cool and steady. I shall tell you what to do." 
 
 Illness and long confinement had wrought upon Morton's 
 system in a manner which made it doubly difficult to preserve 
 the coolness which the emergency demanded ; but he sum 
 moned his utmost resolution to meet this crisis of his fate. 
 
 The jailer was nowise addicted to conversation ; and how 
 to engage him in it, w T as a problem of some difficulty. There 
 was only one topic on which Morton had ever seen him at all 
 animated. This was the battle of Wagram, in which, in his 
 youth, he had taken part, and where he had received a sabre 
 cut, which had left a ghastly blue scar across his cheek. In 
 dilating on this momentous passage of his life, the old German 
 would sometimes be roused into a great excitement ; and 
 Morton had often amused himself with trying to comprehend 
 the jargon which he poured out, in thick gobbling tones, 
 about cannonading and charging, sabres and bombshells, 
 pointing continually at his scar, and laboring to impress his 
 hearer with the conviction, immovably fixed in his own mind, 
 that he, Jacob, was one of the chief heroes of the day. 
 
 At his usual hour, about the middle of the afternoon, 
 Jacob appeared. As he came in, he closed the outer door, 
 which secured itself by a latch. This latch could be moved 
 back from within or without, by a species of key in the jail 
 er's keeping, Max also, as visitor, having a duplicate. The 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 225 
 
 jailer alone had the key of the inner door ; but this, during 
 his stay in the cell, he never thought it necessary to close. 
 
 Jacob went through his ordinary routine, breathing deeply, 
 meanwhile, and talking unconsciously to himself, after his 
 usual manner. 
 
 " Do you know, Jacob," said Morton, seating himself on a 
 stool in the farther corner, " I was dreaming the other night 
 of you and the battle of Wagram." 
 
 " Eh ! " grunted the jailer. 
 
 " What you have been telling me about it is a lie. You 
 were never in that battle at all." 
 
 " Eh ! " 
 
 "You were frightened, and ran off before the fighting 
 began." 
 
 " Run! I run off ! " growled Jacob, the idea slowly pen 
 etrating his brain. 
 
 Morton nodded assent. 
 
 The jailer turned and stared at him for a moment with open 
 eyes and mouth. Theji, as his wrath slowly mounted, he 
 began -to pour forth a flood of denial, mixed with invective 
 against his assailant, appealing to his scar as proof positive 
 of his valor. 
 
 '* A sabre never made that scar," said Morton, as the other 
 paused in his eloquence. 
 
 Jacob stared at him, speechless. 
 
 "You got it in a drunken row." 
 
 At this Jacob's rage seemed to choke his utterance ; and 
 Morton thought he would attack him bodily, as he stood be 
 fore him, shaking his fists, and stamping on the pavement. 
 
226 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 This pantomime was brought to a sudden close by a pair 
 of strong hands clinched around Jacob's neck from behind, 
 with the gripe of a vice. 
 
 *' Shut the door," whispered Max. 
 
 On entering, he had left it ajar. Morton hastened to close 
 it. The corporal meanwhile laid Jacob flat on the floor of 
 the cell. 
 
 " Take my bayonet, and run it through him if he makes a 
 sound." 
 
 Morton drew the bayonet from its sheath at the belt of 
 Max, and kneeling on the jailer's breast, pressed the point of 
 the weapon against his throat. Max then loosed his grasp, 
 and gagged him effectually with a piece of wood and a cord 
 which he had brought for the purpose. Jacob lay, during the 
 whole, quite motionless, glaring upward with glassy, blood 
 shot eyes, stupefied with fright and astonishment. 
 
 " You must put on his clothes," said Max. 
 
 They accordingly took off the jailer's outer garments, 
 which Morton substituted for his own, drawing the deep- 
 visored cap over his eyes. Max, at the same time, bound the 
 jailer, hand and foot, with strings of leather, which he took 
 from his pocket. 
 
 " Look out into the gallery," he said, unclosing the door, 
 "and see if there's any body in the way." 
 
 Morton, in his jailer's dress, went out, and, looking back, 
 reported that the coast was clear. Max followed, and closed 
 the door. The helpless Jacob remained a prisoner, till some 
 other functionary of the castle should come to his relief. 
 
 They passed along the gallery, down one flight of steps, 
 

 VASSALL MORTON. 227 
 
 and up another, meeting no one but a soldier, to whom Max 
 gave a careless nod of recognition. There were several pri 
 vate outlets to the castle, but each was guarded by a sentinel ; 
 and it was chiefly his preparation against this difficulty that 
 had caused Max's delay. 
 
 Among his acquaintance was an old soldier, called Peter, 
 a Prussian by birth. He had learned to read and write, 
 and being inordinately vain of his superior acquirements, 
 looked upon himself as the most learned of men. When off 
 duty, he was commonly to be found in a corner of the bar 
 rack, poring over a greasy little book, which he always car 
 ried in his pocket. As his temper was exceedingly sour and 
 disagreeable, he was no favorite ; indeed, he was the general 
 butt of his brother soldiers, who delighted to exasperate his 
 crusty mood. Max, however, with a view to the furtherance 
 of his scheme, had of late courted his good graces, flattering 
 him on his learning, often asking him to drink, and otherwise 
 cajoling him. Finding that, on this day, Peter's turn had 
 come to stand guard at a certain postern of the prison, he 
 had contrived to drug him with a strong dose of opium, 
 mixed with a dram of bitters. Max, who was a singular 
 compound of simplicity and finesse, the former the result of 
 nature, the latter of circumstance, plumed himself greatly on 
 this exploit. 
 
 As they approached the narrow door in question, Max 
 stooped and took off his shoes, motioning Morton to do the 
 same. At a few paces farther on, they saw the sentinel, 
 walking to and fro on his post, with no very military gait. 
 
 Max, who was wonderfully cool and composed, pressed 
 Morton's arm. 
 
228 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Voila, monsieur" lie was now and hereafter very re 
 spectful in his manner towards the man he was saving, 
 " voild ; look at the old booby ; how he reels and staggers 
 about ah ! do you see ? " 
 
 Peter had stopped in his walk, and was leaning against the 
 wall, nodding his head with a look indescribably sleepy and 
 silly. Meanwhile his musket was slowly slipping down be 
 tween his arm and his side, in spite of one or two efforts to 
 clutch it. At last the butt struck on the pavement. The 
 sound roused the sentinel from his torpor. He shook him 
 self, and began his walk again ; but in a few moments 
 stopped, leaned his shoulder against the wall, on the farther 
 side of the door, let his musket this time rest fairly on the 
 floor, and began nodding and butting his head, in a most 
 ludicrous manner, into an angle of the wall. 
 
 Max again pressed Morton's arm, and gliding on tiptoe 
 past the drugged sentinel, they went out at the door without 
 alarming him. They were now in an obscure and narrow 
 precinct of the castle, flanked on one side by a high wall of 
 ancient masonry, and on the other by the rear of various out 
 buildings. The place did no great credit to the neatness of 
 the garrison, being littered with a variety of refuse ; but no 
 living thing was visible ; none, that is, but a gray cat sneak 
 ing along under the wall of a shed, with a newly-killed rat 
 dangling from her mouth. 
 
 They next passed into a wider area, overlooked on the left 
 by the rear of the principal range of barracks. 
 
 " Hallo, Max, where are you going ? " cried a voice. 
 
 Max looked up, and saw a brother corporal leaning out at 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 229 
 
 one of the barrack windows, with a fatigue cap on one side 
 of his head, and a German pipe between his moustached lips. 
 
 " To the village." 
 
 " Who gave you leave ? " 
 
 " The lieutenant." 
 
 "It's good company you are in. What are you going to 
 do below ? " 
 
 " Get me a pipe. Mine is broke. What is a man fit for 
 without his pipe ? " 
 
 The other at the window replied by a joke, not very re 
 fined, levelled at Max and nis companion. Max retorted 
 only by a ludicrous gesture of derision, which drew a horse 
 laugh from a soldier at another window, under cover of which 
 they passed out of the area, and reached a pathway leading 
 down the height. 
 
 A natural gully, or shallow ravine, twisted and zigzagged 
 down the side of the rock. In wet weather, it became a 
 little watercourse, conducting all the rain that fell on the 
 western roofs of the castle down to the filthy and picturesque 
 hamlet of Ehrenberg, with its dirty population of five hun 
 dred Wallack and Croat peasants, and a horde of dirtier 
 gypsies, nested in the outskirts. In dry weather, the gully 
 served as a pathway, which the soldiers often used in their 
 descents to the village. 
 
 Max began to descend, and Morton followed at his heels. 
 The fresh wind, the open view, the unwonted sense of tread 
 ing mother earth, wrought on him strangely; not, as on 
 the wrestler of old, to nerve him with renewed force. He 
 grew faint, dizzy, and half blind ; and as he staggered after 
 20 
 
230 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 his guide, lie felt for the first time how the prison had sapped 
 away his strength. 
 
 In ten minutes, they were at the bottom, and picking their 
 way past the rear of the squalid cottages, among rickety out 
 houses, broken fences, heaps of litter, pigs, children, and 
 other impediments. Most of the men were absent ; a few 
 women only stared at them as they passed. With one very 
 pretty Wallack girl, Max, for the sake of appearances, ex 
 changed a few words of bantering gallantry. She stood 
 looking after him admiringly. Behind the next cottage, a 
 yellow Hungarian shepherd dog, large as a wolf, jumped sud 
 denly from a heap of rotten straw, on which he had been 
 dozing, and made a fierce dash at Max's leg ; but the latter 
 gave him a kick in the teeth, which sent him off yelping, 
 followed by a brickbat, and a curse from the Wallack damsel. 
 
 Beyond the village, the ground was without trees or shrubs 
 for a full half mile ; yet it was uneven, not to say broken ; 
 and Max, who had made a careful reconnaissance, knew that 
 if they could but reach unnoticed a hollow some twenty rodV 
 from the skirts of the hamlet, no eye from the ramparts could 
 see them. Towards this, therefore, he walked, with an air 
 of great nonchalance, Morton following, his heart in his 
 throat. Their movements were either unseen, or failed to 
 excite suspicion ; and taking a beaten track into the hollow, 
 they came upon a spring at the foot of a rock, where three 
 women were pounding clothes on a stone with clubs, by way 
 of washing them ; while a lazy boor, in a broad felt hat, lay 
 on the ground listlessly watching the process. 
 
 In five minutes more, the hollow ceased to conceal them ; 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 231 
 
 and, to Morton's great dismay, they stood again within eye 
 shot of the castle. Max, however, with the skill of an old 
 deer stalker, soon managed to place, first, a large rock, then 
 the rugged shoulder of a hill, between themselves and the 
 detested battlements. Next they gained the partial shelter 
 of the scattered scrub oaks and pines which formed a ragged 
 outskirt to the deeper forest behind, and, in a few moments 
 more, reached the dark asylum of its matted boughs and 
 underwood. 
 
 Thus far they had walked at the leisurely pace of a pair of 
 idle strollers ; but no sooner were they well out of sight, 
 than Max cried, " Come on ! " and set out at a run. When 
 he turned, however, and saw the pale face of Morton, already 
 tired with unwonted effort, he took a flask of brandy from 
 his pocket. The fiery draught strung Morton's sinews afresh. 
 They pushed on, over hills and hollows, by cattle paths and 
 brooks, across open glades, and through wooded tracts, dense 
 and breathless as an American forest. 
 
 " Look ! " said Max, stopping on a rising ground, and 
 pointing back over the woods. Three miles off, the rock of 
 Ehrenberg rose in view, bearing aloft its heavy load of battle 
 ments and towers. Morton gave it one look, prayed it 
 might be the last, and motioned his companion forward 
 again. 
 
 They came to a lazy brook, stealing out of a marsh. In 
 the mud by its side was the slough where a wild boar had 
 wallowed. The solitude and savageness of the place shot a 
 fresh life through Morton's failing veins. The sense came 
 upon him that his fate was now in his own hands ; the 
 
232 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 resolve that he would never be taken alive. He called Max 
 to stop. 
 
 " Have you any weapon besides your bayonet ? " 
 
 Max produced a pair of pistols, which he had contrived to 
 appropriate ; and, keeping one of them, handed the other to 
 Morton. 
 
 It was dusk before they stopped, in the depth of the woods, 
 on a grassy spot, shut in by a tall cliff, and a growth of old 
 beeches, oaks, and evergreens. Morton threw himself on the 
 ground. Max made a fire, by plugging up the touch-hole of 
 his flint-lock pistol, and placing in the pan, by way of tinder, a 
 piece of cotton rag, rubbed with a little wet gunpowder. 
 Morton roused himself, and breaking off small branches of the 
 firs and spruces, piled them for beds. The loaf which the jailer 
 had brought for his next day's meal, with some more solid 
 viands which Max produced, served them for supper ; and, 
 for drink, they scooped water in their hands from the neigh 
 boring brook. 
 
 It grew dark, and as they sat together by the fire, the red 
 light flared against the jagged rock, the shaggy fir boughs, 
 and knotty limbs of the oaks. It seemed to Morton as if 
 time and space were done away ; as if the prison were a 
 dream ; and as if, once more on some college ramble, he were 
 seated by a camp fire in the familiar forests of America. But 
 instead of a vagabond Indian, or the hardy face of a Penob- 
 scot lumberman, the flame fell on the frogged uniform and 
 long, waxed moustache of Corporal Max, as he sat cross- 
 legged, like a Turk, on the pile of evergreens. 
 
 As Morton looked on. his manly face, and thought of the 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 233 
 
 boundless debt he owed him, his heart warmed towards him, 
 and he poured forth his gratitude as well as he could, in the 
 patchwork of languages which Max himself had used as his 
 medium of communication. 
 
 The latter soon fell asleep, and lay snoring lustily. With 
 his companion sleep was impossible. He lay watching the 
 stars, and the dull folds of smoke that half hid them, listen 
 ing to the wind, and the mysterious sounds of the forest, and, 
 as the night drew on, sharing with the damp and cold. His 
 mind was a maze of confused emotions, suspense, and delight, 
 hope, and fear, mingling in a dreamy chaos ; till at last 
 fatigue prevailed, and he, too, fell asleep ; a sleep haunted by 
 hideous images, yet with its intervals of deep peace and 
 repose. 
 
 He woke, shivering ; and rising in the twilight, stirred the 
 half-dead embers, and crouched over them for warmth. But, 
 as the fresh odors of the morning reached his senses, they 
 brought so vividly upon him the memory of his youthful 
 health, and hope, and liberty, that his spirits rose almost to 
 defiance of the peril around him. He woke Max, whose 
 slumbers were noisy as ever, and they pushed forward again 
 on a well-beaten cattle path, leading westward. 
 
 About sunrise they found a cow, one of the gray, long- 
 horned breed of the country, grazing very peacefully. Max 
 looked about him, and began to move with caution. The 
 cow was wild, and would not let them pass her, but walked 
 before them along the path. In a few minutes, a great num 
 ber of cattle appeared, grazing on an open glade, with two 
 men watching them. They were of the half-savage herds- 
 20* 
 
234 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 men of tins district, little better than banditti. One of them 
 sat on a rock, the other lounged on the grass. Both were 
 dressed in coarse linen shirts and trousers, short, heavy wool 
 len cloaks thrown over their shoulders, a kind of rude 
 sandals, and broad felt hats. For weapons, one carried a 
 club, the other a hatchet, the long handle of which served 
 him for a walking stick. 
 
 Max whispered to Morton ; and stealing unperceived 
 through the bushes, they suddenly appeared before the two 
 men, much, as it seemed, to their amazement. Max, in a 
 language quite new to his companion, desired them to change 
 clothes with Morton and himself. The voice and air of the 
 applicant, and the butt of a pistol protruding from the breast 
 pocket of each of the strangers, gave warning that the wish 
 could not wisely be slighted. The boors complied, the more 
 willingly as they would be great gainers by the bargain. 
 Max threw off his uniform, and put on the dress of the taller 
 herdsman. Morton satisfied himself with the woollen cloak 
 of the other, in exchange for the jailer's coat. 
 
 The exchange made, he signed to the man to give him the 
 hatchet which he carried ; but the boor hesitated, scowling 
 very sullenly. Max hastened to interpose, and offered a silver 
 coin in return for the hatchet, which its owner at once 
 surrendered. It was by no means any love of abstract justice 
 which dictated this procedure ; but a desire, on Max's part, 
 to leave the men in good humor, lest, being offended, they 
 might set the soldiers on the track of the fugitives. 
 
 They parted on the best terms, and Max and Morton 
 betook themselves again to the woods. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Like bloodhounds now they search me out ; 
 
 Hark to tLo vhiftla and the shout! 
 
 The uluiso id up, but they shall know, 
 
 The stag at bay's a dangerous fuo. Lady of (lie Lake. 
 
 THREE or four weeks passed. They were deep within the 
 bounds of Tyrol. By avoiding towns and highways, travel 
 ling often in the night, making prize of every stray sheep, 
 pig, or fowl, and a diligent robbing of henroosts, they had 
 thus far contrived to^ elude arrest, and support life. 
 
 Morton was greatly changed. Body and mind, he was 
 formed for hardship, and toils which would have broken a 
 weaker frame had nerved and strengthened his. But of late 
 their suffering had increased. They found but poor forage 
 among the poverty-pinched mountaineers, and for two days, 
 had had no better sustenance than the soft inner bark of the 
 pine trees. This, with previous abstinence, had sunk them to 
 the last extremity, and brought Max to the verge of despair. 
 
 It was a rainy afternoon ; rain drizzling in the valleys, 
 clouds hanging on the mountains, dark vapors steaming up 
 from the chasms, and clinging sullenly to the edge of the 
 pine forests. Max and Morton sat under a dripping rock, on 
 a mountain which overhangs a nameless little valley, not far 
 to the north of the Val di Sole. 
 
 (235) 
 
236 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 " Keep a good heart, Max," said Morton, " it shall go hard 
 but you and I will get out of this scrape yet." 
 
 Max shook his head despondingly. His bold spirit was 
 starved out of him. Morton's courage, unlike that of his 
 companion, was the result more of his mental habits than of 
 a native constitutional intrepidity, and was therefore much 
 less subject to the changes of his bodily condition. He had 
 proved Max, and knew him to be brave as he was warm and 
 true-hearted ; but the corporal's valor, like that of Homer's 
 heroes, was best displayed on a full stomach. 
 
 " There's nothing else for it," said Morton ; " we must 
 take the bull by the horns. One of those houses below is an 
 inn, or something that pretends to be one. I can see the 
 bush fastened to the door post. We must go and buy food ; 
 or else lie here and die." 
 
 " It is better to be shot than starve," said Max. 
 
 " Come on, then. You must be spokesman. I am good 
 for nothing in that way ; .but if there's any trouble, I'll stand 
 by you as well as I can." 
 
 Max had had a little money in copper and silver, the 
 greater part of which he had consigned to the keeping of 
 Morton, as the more careful treasurer. With this for their 
 passport, they issued from, the cover of the woods, and began 
 to cross the mountain slopes and rough pasture that lay be 
 tween them and the hamlet. 
 
 The latter, as they drew near, seemed by no means so in 
 significant as at first, a rising ground having hidden a part of 
 it. They came to the inn, a low stone building of a most 
 respectable antiquity, and pushing open the door, were met 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 237 
 
 by a short man who seemed to be the owner. Max produced 
 a handful of kreutzers, and asked for bread and meat. The 
 host looked at the strangers, then at their money ; seemed 
 satisfied with both, and showed them up a flight of broken 
 steps to a large room above the half-sunken kitchen. Here, 
 at his call, a girl brought the food and placed it on a table. 
 He next asked if they would not have beer ; and Max as 
 senting, went out to bring it. 
 
 The fugitives now addressed themselves to their meal with 
 the keenness of starving men ; but the prudent Morton took 
 care, at the same time, to secure the more portable of the 
 viands for future need. Having dulled the edge of his appe 
 tite, he began to grow uneasy at the landlord's long absence. 
 
 " What is that man doing ? He might have brewed the 
 beer by this time." 
 
 " He does take his time," responded Max, also growing 
 anxious. 
 
 " This is no place for us. Take the rest of that biscuit, 
 and let's be off." 
 
 Max was following this counsel, when " Hark ! " cried 
 
 Morton ; " what noise is that ? " 
 
 " Go to the window and look." 
 
 Morton did so. 
 
 41 
 
 "My God!" he exclaimed, recoiling, his face ghastly with 
 dismay. 
 
 Max sprang to the window. Below, at the door, four or 
 five men were standing, and among them two gendarmes, 
 while others were in the act of entering. 
 
 The outlandish dress of the two strangers had at once 
 
238 VASSALL MO ETON. 
 
 roused the landlord's suspicion. Of Max's character he had 
 not a moment's doubt ; for in him no disguise could hide 
 the look and port of the trained soldier. By ill luck, a party 
 of gendarmes were in the village, weather-bound on their 
 way from Latsch. Having secured his guests' money, the 
 landlord thought to make a farther profit from them ; and, 
 sure of his reward, reported to the officer in command, that 
 there were in his house two men, the taller of whom was cer 
 tainly a deserter, while the other could not be a peasant, 
 though he wore the dress of one. The officer mustered his 
 followers, and hastened to beat up the game. 
 
 He entered as Max turned from the window, and came up 
 to him, sword in hand. 
 
 " I arrest you. Give yourselves up, you and the other." 
 
 But before the words were well out of his mouth, the fist 
 of Max fell between his eyes like a battering ram, and dashed 
 him back against the soldier next behind him. 
 
 " Come on," cried Max to Morton, and leaped through the 
 open window at the farther end of the room. Morton fol 
 lowed in time to escape two or three bayonet thrusts which 
 were made after him. They both vaulted over a fence, and 
 ran through the narrow passage between an old shed and a 
 huge square stack of the last year's hay. A musket or two 
 were let off at them, but to no effect ; and splashing across a 
 shallow brook, they made at headlong speed for the shelter 
 of the mountains. 
 
 As they reached the base, Max looked back. Seven or 
 eight gendarmes were after them, and behind, later joining 
 the chase, ran two or three men in a different dress. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 239 
 
 " Riflemen ! " muttered Max, with an oath. 
 
 Breasting the rough heights, clinging to stumps, roots, and 
 bushes, they made their way up with all the speed which 
 desperate need could give them. They were soon among 
 thick trees, hidden from the pursuers, and almost from each 
 other. But the shouts of the soldiers came up from below : 
 they all gave tongue like so many hounds. 
 
 " Curse your yelping throats ! " gasped Morton. Breath 
 less and half spent, he was clinging to a sapling on the edge 
 of a steep pitch of the hill. One of the soldiers saw him. 
 A musket shot rang from below, the hollow hum of the ball 
 passing high above his head. 
 
 Max laughed in fierce derision. They ran forward again 
 across a wide plateau, nearly void of trees ; and before they 
 had fairly gained its farther side, the foremost pursuers were 
 at the border of woods they had just left. Their late fam 
 ine made fatal odds against them. The gendarmes, indeecf, 
 gained little in the race ; but the more active riflemen were 
 nearer every moment. 
 
 Climbing, running, and scrambling among rocks, trees, and 
 bushes, they won their way up till they came to another 
 plateau, which broke the ascent of the mountain a furlong 
 above the former. Across this they dashed at full speed. 
 They were within a rod or two of the woods beyond, Max 
 running on Morton's left, a little in advance of him, when a 
 musket was fired at them from behind. The aim was so bad, 
 that they did not even hear the humming of the bullet. At 
 the next instant, came a dull, plunging report, unlike the 
 former. Max leaped four feet into the air, and fell forward 
 
240 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 on his face with a force that seemed to shake the earth. 
 Morton kneeled by his side ; turned him on his back ; lifted 
 him by main strength into a sitting posture. Both his hands 
 were clutched full of grass and earth. 
 
 " Max ! Max ! " cried Morton, in the extremity of anguish ; 
 " speak, Max, for God's sake." 
 
 But Max said nothing. His hat had fallen off; his eyes 
 rolled wildly under his tangled hair ; he gasped ; blood flowed 
 from his lips ; and a spot of blood was soaking wider and 
 wider upon the breast of his shirt. Then a deathly change 
 came q.ver his dilated eyeballs. Morton had seen the throes 
 of the wounded bison, when the fierce eyes, glaring with an 
 gry life, are clouded of a sudden into a dull, cold jelly, fixed 
 unmeaning lumps. It was a change like this that he saw in 
 the eyes of Max. His friend was dead. The fatal rifle of 
 Tyrol had done its work. The ball had pierced him from 
 back to breast, and torn through his heart on its way. 
 
 The whole passed in a few moments ; but when Morton 
 looked up, nearly all the pursuers were in sight on the open 
 ground, and one of them, the man who had fired the death 
 shot, was almost upon him. He snatched Max's pistol, which 
 had fallen on the grass, and, blind with grief and fury, ran for 
 ward, levelled, and pulled the trigger. The pistol, wet with 
 the rain, missed fire. The man was not four paces off. Mor 
 ton hurled the pistol at his face. The iron barrel clashed 
 against his teeth, and sent him reeling backward, bleeding 
 and half stunned. Griping his hatchet, his best remaining 
 friend, Morton turned for the woods, gained them at throe 
 bounds, and tore through the cover like a hunted wolf. 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 241 
 
 Over rocks, among trees, through thickets and brambles, 
 he struggled and clambered on, seeking safety, like the Rocky 
 Mountain goat, in the rudest and wildest refuge. But in a 
 few minutes, his flight was stopped. Rocks rose before him, 
 and rocks on each side. He was caught in a complete cut de 
 sac. He might have climbed the precipices, but, in the act, 
 the shots from below would soon have tumbled him to the 
 earth again. There was no escape ; and, grinding his teeth 
 in rage and desperation, he turned savagely at bay. 
 
 Three or four of the men were very near him ; and almost 
 as he turned, one of them came in sight, pushing through the 
 bushes. As he saw .the game, he gave a shout, a sort of view 
 halloo. Then appeared another, and another, all advancing 
 upon him. In a moment, he would have been in their hands, 
 alive or dead ; but, without waiting the attack, he sprang on 
 the foremost like a tiger, and plunged his hatchet deep in the 
 soldier's eyes and brain. Then pushing past another, who, 
 with a hesitating movement, was making towards him, he 
 dashed down a sloping mass of rocks, dived into a labyrinth 
 of thickets, and thence into a dark and hollow gorge of the 
 mountain. Along this he ran like one with death's shadow 
 behind him, losing himself deeper and deeper among the cha 
 otic rocks and ragged trees. He stopped, at last, and listened. 
 Far behind, he could hear his pursuers shouting to each other. 
 The pack were at fault, and ranging in vain search after him. 
 
 Spent as he was, he pressed on again, following upward 
 
 for an hour or more the course of a brook, which issued from 
 
 a narrow glen, reaching far back into the solitude of the 
 
 mountains. His mind was dim and confused, a cloudland of 
 
 21 
 
242 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 mixed emotions ; deep grief for his murdered friend, deep 
 rage that he had been hunted like a wild beast, a longing for 
 further vengeance, a sense, almost to despair, of his own lone 
 liness and peril. He felt himself outcast from mankind, 
 driven back to find a sanctuary among the dens and fastnesses 
 of Nature. She alone, amid the general frown, seemed pro 
 pitious ; for of a sudden the clouds sundered in the west ; a 
 gush of warm light poured across the dripping mountains, 
 and flushed the distant glaciers with their evening rose-tint. 
 In the depths where he stood, all was shadow ; but the crags 
 above were basking in the sunshine, and the savage old pines, 
 jewelled with rain drops, seemed stretching their shaggy arms 
 to welcome the kindly radiance. Morton threw himself on 
 the ground, and commended his desperate fortunes to the God 
 of the waste and the mountain. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 In dread, in danger, and alone, 
 
 Famished and chilled, through ways unknown, 
 
 Tangled and steep, he journeyed on. Lady of (he Lake. 
 
 WHOEVER, journeying southward from Coire, passes 
 through the Via Mala, thence through the village of Andeer, 
 and thence turns to the left, following a mountain path up 
 the torrent of the Aversa, will soon lose himself in the soli 
 tudes of the savage valley of Ferrera. Thither Morton made 
 his way ; but not by so smooth an access. Ignorant of the 
 country, and guided chiefly by the sun, he had pushed blindly 
 forward by puths best known to the chamois and those who 
 chase them. 
 
 His best hope had been to meet some of his travelling 
 countrymen, from whom he could gain help. To this end he 
 had once and again approached the highways, and as often 
 some real or seeming danger had driven him back to the 
 mountains. For a day or more, the food he had taken from 
 the inn served to support him. He had flung away Max's 
 pistol, but still had his own. It served him to kindle a fire ; 
 and by loading it with gravel, in place of shot, he contrived 
 to kill thrushes and other small birds. Their nests, too, full 
 at this time of eggs and young, supplied a meagre resource ; 
 and once, being hard pressed, he made, a Gallic banquet on a 
 
 (243) 
 
244 YASSALL MOETON. 
 
 party of serenaders who were croaking and trilling their 
 evening concert about the edge of a shallow pool. Frogs 
 have found warm eulogists ; but never did the art of Paris or 
 Bologna transmute those delectable reptiles into so savory a 
 repast as did the famine-sharpened appetite of Morton. 
 
 Upon fare like this, he wandered on, till he stumbled upon 
 the valley of Ferrera. 
 
 He had found at last an asylum wild enough to content 
 the most pious of eremites, or the most desperate of bandits. 
 Below he saw the raging water foaming along the depths of 
 its black ravine ; above the stupendous ramparts that 
 walled the valley in cliffs, along whose giddy verge the 
 firs were dwindled to feathers. Cascades spouted from their 
 tops, scattering to mist and nothingness long before their 
 measureless leap was done. The tribute drawn from the 
 clouds the lavish mountain flung back to the clouds again. 
 Rocks were piled on rocks, ruin on fuin, and, high over all, 
 the glaciers of the Splugen shone like cliffs of silver. 
 
 Take a savage from his woods or his prairies, and, school 
 him as you will, the ingrained savage will still declare itself. 
 Take the most polished of mankind, turn him into the wil 
 derness, and forthwith the dormant savage begins to appear. 
 Hunt him with enemies, gnaw him with hunger, beat him 
 with wind and rain, and observe the result ; how the delicate 
 tissues of civilization are blown away, how rude passions start 
 into life, how his bodily cravings grow clamorous and impor 
 tunate, how he grows reckless of his own "blood and the 
 blood of others. " Men are as the times." Young Love 
 lace of the hussars singing a duet at Lady Belgrave's soiree. 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 245 
 
 would hardly know himself, hewing down Russian artillery 
 men at Balaklava. 
 
 Had Meredith met his old comrade as he was making his 
 slow way among the rocks and ravines, in dress no better 
 than the meanest peasant, his face moustached and bearded, 
 and thin and dark with hardship, he would have needed the 
 eyes of a lynx to detect Morton the millionaire. The mind 
 of the latter shared, in some sort, the changes of his outer 
 man. Proscribed and hunted, starved into fierceness, his 
 best friend murdered at his side, his mood was, to say the 
 least, none of the most benign. But, as he toiled on his 
 way, he turned aside to rest in a sunny nook, deep sheltered 
 among rocks. Here, where the fresh grass tempted him, and 
 where, from a jutting crag, the water, trickling from some hid 
 den spring, fell in rapid drops, tinkling into a pool below, 
 and, as they fell, flashing in the sun like a string of diamonds, 
 here, in this quiet nook, he sat down ; and, as he did so, 
 he saw by his side, close nestled in the young grass, a little 
 family of white and purple blossoms. They were blossoms 
 of the crocus, a native of these valleys. 
 
 Morton bent over them, and put aside the grass from the 
 delicate petals. A flower will now and then find a voice, 
 and that not a weak one. As he looked, there came in upon 
 him such a surge of recollection, such a memory of New 
 England gardens, such a vision of loved faces, and, chief 
 before them all, the face he best loved, such an awakening of 
 every tender thought that had once possessed him, and all in 
 such overpowering contrast with his present misery, that the 
 famished outlaw burst into a flood of tears. 
 21* 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 The lamentable change is from the best ; 
 
 The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, 
 
 Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace. Lear. 
 
 THE Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, recreating him 
 self with a hunting tour among the Pawnees, killed a buffalo ; 
 and being, as he assures us, ravenously hungry, proceeded to 
 regale himself on his game, without asking the aid of the 
 cook. Morton, in his wandering, had the good luck to kill a 
 straggling sheep ; and being twice as hungry as the Honora 
 ble Charles Augustus Murray, it may be set down largely to 
 his credit, if he did not follow that gentleman's example. 
 At all events, the sheep was a windfall of the first magnitude. 
 Morton had woodcraft enough to turn the fleece into a recep 
 tacle for carrying such parts of the flesh as best answered 
 his purposes ; and thus he was well provisioned for several 
 days. 
 
 After various roamings, by night and by day, he came 
 upon a broad road, clearly one of the great alpine passes. 
 Which of them he eould not tell. He would have given the 
 world to learn ; for he knew nothing of his w r hereabouts, 
 and thought himself still in Tyrol, or, at the best, in Bormio. 
 His attempts to gain information from the peasants had 
 always failed, and, in one or two instances, had seemed to 
 
 (246) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 247 
 
 threaten serious consequences. Though brave enough in the 
 front of an open danger, the secret toils which had been 
 about him so long had taught him to shrink from the face of 
 man. Moreover, he could not speak the prevalent language 
 of the district, and his Italian, which might sometimes have 
 served him, was none of the best. A little local knowledge 
 could have saved him a world of suifering ; but, in the lack 
 of it, he pushed blindly on, resolved to die on the mountains 
 rather than risk another prison. 
 
 The sky for some days had been overclouded. He had 
 lost the points of the compass ; and when he saw the great 
 highway stretching before him, dim and lonely in the gray 
 of the morning, he thought, or hoped, that it would lead 
 him into the heart of Switzerland. It was the pass of the 
 Splugen, where it leaves the Rheinwald. Turning his back 
 on safety, he began to plod on towards the lion's jaws. 
 
 Seeing a small cottage, in a recess of the forest, he recon 
 noitred it, with the laudable view of robbing a henroost. 
 While thus employed, he saw two men leave the house, and 
 betake themselves to their work in some remote part of the 
 mountain. After a long reconnaissance, he could see no one 
 about the place but a young woman, about six feet high, 
 who, fork in hand, was busying herself in a field with labors 
 much less elegant than useful. Morton watched her for a 
 time, then, taking heart of grace, walked towards her from 
 his lurking-place, holding between his fingers, as a talisman, 
 a piece of silver, part of the scanty trust which Max had 
 left him. 
 
 When he beheld her lusty proportions, her white teeth, 
 
248 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 grinning between perplexity at his appearance and pleasure 
 at sight of the coin, and her broad cheeks, ruddy with 
 health, good-nature, and stupidity, his apprehensions van 
 ished. She seemed not at all afraid of him. In truth, she 
 and her pitchfork might between them have put two common 
 men to flight. He spoke to her in bad Italian, and asked for 
 food, proffering the money in exchange. She answered in a 
 patois which was Greek to him, mixed with a few words of 
 Italian, worse than his own. She seemed, however, to catch 
 his meaning very clearly ; for, running to the house, she 
 presently emerged with a loaf of barley bread and a formi 
 dable piece of bacon. These she gave him, and, taking the 
 silver, tied it up with much care in a corner of her apron. 
 
 Thus far successful, Morton next tried to learn something 
 touching the country and the routes ; but here his failure 
 was signal. Where food and drink were the topics in hand, 
 and especially when her wits were quickened by the sight of 
 silver, she had contrived to understand him ; but with mat 
 ters more abstruse her faculties had never been trained to 
 grapple. She showed, however, no lack of good-will, nod 
 ding, laughing, and answering, " <Si, si!" to all his questions 
 indiscriminately. With this he had to content himself. He 
 bade her " addio" received a friendly nod and grin in return, 
 and went on his way, much less bitter against mankind than 
 he had been ten minutes before. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 Auf. Your hand! Most welcome. 
 
 1 Serv. Here's a strange alteration! 
 
 2 Serv. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel ; and yet 
 my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him. Conolanus. 
 
 IN passing the Splugen, Morton journeyed chiefly in the 
 night, making a wide detour over the crusted snow to avoid 
 the station at the summit. By day, he found some safe 
 retreat where he could rest and sleep in tolerable ease and 
 warmth. His night progress was, for the most part, on a 
 broad, clear road, very different from that rugged path by the 
 Cardinel, where, some forty-seven years before, the avalanches 
 cut through Macdonald's columns, and swept men and horses 
 to bottomless ruin. 
 
 The sky was still clouded ; but there was a full moon 
 behind the clouds, and the mountains reflected its light, from 
 their vast surfaces of snow. He could hear any approaching 
 foot from a great distance, for there was nothing to break the 
 stillness but the hollow fall of torrents, and the whisper and 
 moan of winds through ravines and gorges. 
 
 On the third night, he was descending the defiles that lead 
 from Campo Dolcino to Chiavenna. He passed Chiavenna, 
 and soon a new scene opened upon him. The Alps were 
 behind him, cliff and chasm, torrent and ravine, and the icy 
 
 (249) 
 
250 VASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 sheen of glaciers. Italy received him, robed in her "fatal 
 gift of beauty ; " in the midst of her shame, radiant as in her 
 day of honor ; breathing still of history, and art, and poetry. 
 
 Standing on the heights behind Colico, he saw the Lake 
 of Como stretching southward, its banks studded with villas, 
 its hills green with the chestnut and the laurel, the fig, pome 
 granate, and vine. But, to the north, the sheer cliffs rose 
 like a battlement, and, higher yet, towered cold white peaks, 
 aloof in stern and lofty desolation. 
 
 Reality mil now and then make fancy blush for herself. 
 The Easter illumination of St. Peter's may match the wildest 
 dream of the Arabian Nights ; and this scene on the Lake 
 of Como, with the sunset upon it, may outvie the highest 
 wrought counterfeit of Claude or Salvator, or both combined. 
 The world, much abused as she is, does her part. She is 
 profuse of beauties ; but, in the midst of them, one still 
 drags with him his own work-day identity. Go where he 
 will, his old Adam still hangs about him ; and the spell- 
 breaking sense that he is himself and no other scatters every 
 charm that Art and Nature would cast over him. 
 
 Morton, poor devil, had other matters to think of than 
 scenery. Hunger and danger are a cure for the most rabid 
 love of landscape. His bread and bacon had given out, and 
 the phantom of an Austrian sbirro rode him like a nightmare. 
 Mustering his best recollections of geography, he came to the 
 belief that he was either on the Lake of Como, or, as seemed 
 to him much more likely, on the lake farther eastward, that 
 of Garda. One thing was certain : he was on a great route of 
 travel. His best course, as he thought, was to watch for the 
 

 VASSALL MORTON. 251 
 
 chance of a meeting with some American or English tourist, 
 to whom he could make his case known ; and meanwhile, 
 though a worse actor never appeared on any stage, to pass 
 himself off, if he could, as a beggar. 
 
 He passed a night on the hills above Colico, and happily 
 for him, above the malaria; woke half famished from his 
 miserably broken sleep, and wearily walked on his way, won 
 dering if, in support of his character, he could ever find grace 
 to say, " Datemi qualche cosa." There was something in the 
 idea of thus sneaking through a country that grated on 
 him with peculiar discomfort ; and to have headed the forlorn 
 hope of a storming party would have been less trying to his 
 nerve. 
 
 The thought how to content the cravings of his hunger 
 soon absorbed all other thoughts. Looking about him, he 
 saw a small white house, standing alone on the road by the 
 shore of the lake ; and over the door he could read from 
 afar the sign, " Spaccio di Vino" Famine got the better of 
 caution. He approached warily, ensconced himself behind 
 an old wall, and, quite unseen, began his observations. The 
 house was but a few rods off, on the other side of the road. 
 An old wayfarer sat in the porch, busy in breakfasting on 
 curds, pressed hard like a cheese, a slice of very black and 
 solid-looking bread serving him for a plate. In a few mo 
 ments, the landlord, a freckled-faced Italian, came to the 
 door, and began to chat with his customer. Morton took a 
 coin from his pocket, walked forth from his hiding-place, and 
 was approaching, still unnoticed, when he was startled by the 
 sound of a horse's tread, on the road beyond the house. A 
 
252 YASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 single glance at the rider told him that there was no danger, 
 and made his heart beat with sudden hope. 
 
 " II signor Inglese" remarked the host to his friend. 
 " Buorf giorno, eccellenza, buon' giorno" lifting his white 
 night cap, and bowing with a great flourish. 
 
 The young man touched his hat with a careless smile, and 
 half-turning his horse, asked, 
 
 " Padrone, has my man passed this way ? " 
 
 He had, to Morton's eye, rather the easy manner of a well- 
 bred American, than the more distant bearing common with 
 an English gentleman. 
 
 " Eccellenza, si,'' replied the padrone, " he passed a quar 
 ter of an hour ago, with the birds your excellency has shot." 
 
 The young man rode on, passing Morton, as he stood by 
 the roadside. 
 
 " I have seen that face before," said the latter to himself 
 " in a dream, for what I know, but I have seen it." 
 
 It was a frank and open face, manly, yet full of kindliness, 
 not without a tinge of melancholy. 
 
 " Come of it what will," thought the fugitive, " I will speak 
 to him." 
 
 He walked after the retiring horseman, and when an angle 
 of the road concealed him from the inn, quickened his pace 
 almost to a run. But at that moment the Englishman struck 
 into a sharp trot, and disappeared over the ridge of a hill. 
 Morton soon gained sight of him again, and kept him in view 
 for about a mile, when he saw him enter the gateway belong 
 ing to a small villa, between the road and the water. It was 
 a very pretty spot ; the grounds terraced to the edge of the 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 253 
 
 lake ; with laurels, cypresses, box hedges, a fountain or two, 
 an artificial grotto, and a superb diorama of water and 
 mountains. 
 
 Morton stood waiting at the gate. At length he saw a 
 female domestic, evidently Italian, passing through the shrub 
 bery before the house, and disappearing behind it. In a few 
 minutes more, a solemn personage appeared at the door, 
 whom he would have known at a mile's distance for an old 
 English servant. He stood looking with great gravity out 
 upon the grounds. Morton approached, and accosting him 
 in Italian, asked to see his master. 
 
 John was not a proficient in the tongue of Ariosto and 
 Dante. Indeed, in his intercourse with the natives, he had 
 seen occasion for one phrase alone, and that a somewhat pithy 
 and repellant one, Andate al diavolo. 
 
 He glared with supreme and savage scorn on the tatterde 
 malion stranger, and uttered his talismanic words, 
 
 " Andarty al devillio ! " 
 
 Morton changed his tactics ; and, looking fixedly at the 
 human mastiff, said in English, 
 
 "Go to your master, sir, and tell him that I wish to speak 
 with him." 
 
 The Saxon words and the tone of authority coming from 
 one whom he had taken for a vagrant beggar, astonished the 
 old man beyond utterance. He stared for a moment, 
 turned to obey, then turned back again, 
 
 " Mr. Wentworth is at breakfast, sir." 
 
 The last monosyllable was spoken in a doubtful tone, the 
 22 
 
254 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 speaker being perplexed between respect for the tone and 
 language of the stranger, and contempt for his vagabond 
 attire. 
 
 " Then bring me pen, ink, and paper I will write to 
 him." 
 
 And pushing past the servant, he seated himself on a chair 
 in the hall. 
 
 John went for the articles required, first glancing around 
 to see what items of plunder might be within the intruder's 
 reach. Morton in his absence opened several books which 
 lay upon a table ; and in one of them he saw, pencilled on 
 the fly leaf, the name of the owner, Robert Wentworth. 
 
 The pen, ink, and paper arriving, he wrote as follows, 
 John meanwhile keeping a vigilant guard over him : 
 
 Sir : I am a native of the United States, who, for the 
 past four years, have been a prisoner in the Castle of Ehren- 
 berg, confined for no offence, political or otherwise, but 
 on a groundless suspicion. I escaped by the assistance 
 of a soldier in the garrison, and have made my way thus far 
 in the dress of a peasant. I am anxious to reach Genoa, or 
 some other port beyond the power of Austria, but am em 
 barrassed and endangered by my ignorance of the routes and 
 the state of the country. Information on these points, and 
 the means of communicating with an American consul, are the 
 only aid of which I am in necessity ; and I take the liberty 
 of applying to you in the hope of obtaining it. By giving it, 
 you will oblige me in a matter of life and death. The people 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 255 
 
 of the country cannot be trusted ; but I may rely securely on 
 the generosity of an English gentleman. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 He sealed the note, and gave it to the old servant. The 
 latter mounted the stairs, and reappearing in a few moments, 
 said, in his former doubtful tone, " Please to walk up." 
 
 Morton followed him to the door of a small room looking 
 upon the lake. Near the window stood the young man 
 whom he had seen at the inn, with the note open in his hand. 
 Morton entered, inclining his head slightly. The other re 
 turned his salutation, looked at him for an instant without 
 speaking, and then, coming forward, gave him his hand, and 
 bade him welcome with the utmost frankness. 
 
 Astonished, and half overcome, Morton could only stam 
 mer his acknowledgments for such a reception of one who 
 came with no passport but his own word. 
 
 " O," said Wentworth, smiling, " when I meet an honest 
 man, I know him by instinct, as Falstaff knew the true prince. 
 Sit down ; I am glad to see you ; and shall be still more glad 
 if I can help you." 
 
 The old servant received some whispered directions, and 
 left the room. Morton gave a short outline of his story, to 
 which his host listened with unequivocal signs of interest. 
 
 " I wish," said Wentworth, " that you were the only inno 
 cent victim of Austrian despotism. It is a monstrous infamy, 
 built on fraud and force, but too refined, too artificial, too 
 complicated to endure." 
 
256 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Bullets and cold steel are the medicines for it," said 
 Morton. 
 
 Here the servant reappeared. 
 
 " Here, at all events, you are safe. Stay with me to-day, 
 and I think I can promise you that in a few days more you 
 may stand on the deck of an American frigate. If you will 
 go with John, he will help you to get rid of that villanous 
 disguise." 
 
 Morton followed the old man into an adjoining room, where 
 he found a bath, a suit of clothes, and the various appliances 
 of the toilet prepared for him. And here he was left alone 
 to indulge his reflections and revolutionize his outward man. 
 
 Meanwhile Wentworth sat musing by the window : " His 
 face haunts me ; and yet, for my life, I cannot remember 
 where I have seen him before. I would stake all on his truth 
 and honor. That firm lip and undespairing eye are a history 
 in themselves. Strange the difference between man and 
 man. How should I have borne such suffering ? Why, gone 
 mad, I suppose, or destroyed myself. One sorrow no, nor 
 a hundred would never unman him, and make him dream 
 away his life, watching the sun rise and set, here by the Lake 
 of Como. I scarcely know why, but my heart warms towards 
 him like an old friend. Cost what it may, I will not leave 
 him till he is out of danger." 
 
 He was still musing in this strain, when Morton returned, 
 a changed man in person and in mind. It seemed as if, in 
 casting off his squalid livery of misery and peril, a burden of 
 care had fallen with it ; as if the sullen cloud that had 
 brooded over him so long had been pierced at length by a 
 

 VASSALL MORTON. 257 
 
 gladdening beam of sunlight, and the sombre landscape were 
 smiling again with pristine light and promise. His buoyant 
 and defiant spirit resumed its native tone ; and a strange con 
 fidence sprang up within him, as if a desperate crisis of his 
 destiny had been safely passed. 
 
 Wentworth saw the change at a glance. 
 
 " Why, man, I see freedom in your eye already. But sit 
 down ; 'it's ill talking between a full man and a fasting,' and 
 you must be half starved." 
 
 Morton was so, in truth. He seated himself at the table, 
 and addressed himself to the repast provided for him with the 
 keenness of a mountain trapper, while bis entertainer played 
 with his knife and fork to keep him in countenance. 
 
 " Do you know," said Wentworth, at length "I am 
 sure I have seen you before." 
 
 " And I have seen you I could swear to it ; and yet I 
 do not know where." 
 
 " Were you ever in England ? " 
 
 " Only for a few days." 
 
 " I was once in America." 
 
 When ? " 
 
 " In 1839. I*was at Boston in March of that year." 
 
 Morton shook his head. " I remember that time perfectly. 
 I was in New Orleans in March, and afterwards in Texas." 
 
 " From Boston 1 went westward up the Missouri and 
 
 r *. 
 
 out upon the prairies." 
 
 Morton paused a moment in doubt ; then sprang to his 
 feet with a joyful exclamation, 
 
 " The prairies ! Have you forgotten the Big Horn Branch 
 22* 
 
258 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 of the Yellow Stone, and the camp under the old cotton- 
 wood trees ! " 
 
 Wentworth leaped up, and grasped both his guest's hands. 
 
 " Forgotten ! No ; I shall never forget the morning when 
 you came over to us with that tall, half-breed fellow, in a 
 Canadian capote." 
 
 " Yes, Antoine Le Rouge." 
 
 " We should have starved if you had not found us, and 
 perhaps lost our scalps into the bargain." 
 
 " The Rickarees had made a clean sweep of your horses." 
 
 " Not a hoof was left to us. Our four Canadians were 
 scared to death ; I was ill ; not one of us was fit for service 
 but Ireton ; and we had not three days' provision. If you 
 had not given us your spare mules and horses, and seen us 
 safe to Fort Cass, the wolves would have made a supper of 
 some of us." 
 
 " And do you remember," said Morton, " after we broke up 
 camp that morning, how the Rickaree devils came galloping 
 at us down the hill, and thought they could ride over us, 
 and how we fought them all the forenoon, lying on our faces 
 behind the pack saddles and baggage ? " 
 
 " I remember it as if it were yesterday. * I can hear the 
 crack of the rifles now, and the yelling of those bloodthirsty 
 vagabonds." 
 
 " It is strange," pursued Wentworth, " that I did not rec 
 ognize you at once. I have thought of you a thousand times ; 
 but it is eight years since we met, and you are very much 
 changed. Besides we were together only two days. And 
 yet I can hardly forgive myself." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 259 
 
 " Any wandering trapper would have done as much for 
 you as I did ; or, if he had not, he would have deserved a cud 
 gelling. What has become of the young man, or boy, rather, 
 who was with you ? " 
 
 " You mean Ireton. Dead, poor fellow dead." 
 
 " I am very sorry. He was the coolest of us all in the 
 fight. He had a singular face, but a very handsome one, I 
 can recall it distinctly at this moment." 
 
 Went worth took a miniature from a desk, opened it, and 
 placed it before Morton. 
 
 " These are his features," said the latter, " but this is the 
 portrait of a lady." 
 
 " His sister his twin sister. Dead too ! " 
 
 There was a change, as he spoke, in his voice and manner, 
 so marked that Morton forbore to pursue the subject farther. 
 He studied the picture in silence. It was a young and beau 
 tiful face, delicate, yet full of fire ; and by some subtilty of 
 his craft, the artist had given to the eyes an expression which 
 reminded him of the restless glances which he had seen a 
 caged falcon at the Garden of Plants cast upwards at the sky, 
 into which he was debarred from soaring. 
 
 In a few moments, Wentworth spoke in his accustomed tone. 
 
 " The point first to be thought of, is to get you out of this 
 predicament. I have a man who took to his bed this morn 
 ing, and is at present shaking in an ague fit. He is of about 
 your age, height, and complexion ; and by wearing his dress, 
 you could travel under his passport. I am not at all a sus 
 pected person, and if my friend will pass for a few days as 
 my servant, I do not doubt that we shall reach Genoa without 
 interruption." 
 
260 VASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 Morton warmly expressed his gratitude, but protested 
 against Wentworth's undertaking the journey on his account. 
 
 " O, I am going to Genoa for my pleasure, and shall be 
 glad of your company. The steamer for Como touches here 
 this afternoon. ' Dull not device by coldness and delay ; ' 
 we will go on board, and be in Milan to-morrow." 
 
 They conversed for an hour, when Morton withdrew to ad 
 just his new disguise. Wentworth followed him with his 
 eye as he disappeared ; then sank into the musing mood 
 which had grown habitual to him. 
 
 " When I saw him last," so his thoughts shaped them 
 selves, " my drama was opening ; and now it is played 
 out light and darkness, smiles and tears and the curtain 
 is dropped forever. When I saw him last, I was gathering 
 the prairie flowers and dedicating them to her, though she 
 did not suspect it, and dreaming of her by camp fires and 
 in night watches." 
 
 The miniature still lay on the table. He drew it towards 
 him and gazed on it fixedly : 
 
 " Mine for a space, and now gone vanished like a 
 dream. You were a meteor between earth and sky, with a 
 light that flickered and blazed and darkened, but a warmth 
 constant and unchanged. Of all who admired the brightness 
 of that erratic star, how few could know what gladness it 
 shed around it, what desolation it has left behind ! " 
 
 He gazed on the picture till his eyes grew dim ; then sat 
 for a few moments, listless and abstracted ; then rc-K, with 
 an effort, and bent his mind to the task before him. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 that a man might know 
 
 The end of this day's business ere it come. Julius Gxsar. 
 
 THE diligence rolled into Genoa. Wentworth was in tho 
 cowpe, and on the top sat Morton, as his servant. They had 
 made the journey without interruption. 
 
 Morton reported himself to the American consul, and told 
 his story. The wrath and astonishment of that official were 
 great ; - but they were as nothing to the patriotic fury of three 
 New York dry goods importers, who, mingling pleasure with 
 business, were just arrived from Paris. Nothing was talked 
 of but an immediate bombardment of Trieste, and a probable 
 assault of Vienna. 
 
 Escaping as soon as he could from this demonstration, 
 Morton bade his fervid countrymen good morning, and went 
 out with Wentworth, who introduced him to his banker. 
 He learned from the consul that a merchant brig was in 
 port, nearly ready to sail for home, and gladly took passage 
 in her. 
 
 And now at last he was safe ; and safety should have 
 brought with it a lightening of the spirits, a sense of relief. 
 In fact, however, it brought little or nothing of the kind. 
 
 (261) 
 
262 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 The human mind, happily, cannot well hold more than one 
 crowning evil at a time. One black thought, firmly lodged, 
 will commonly keep the rest at bay. The fear of famine and 
 a prison had left him no leisure to plague himself with less 
 imminent mischiefs ; but now, this fear being ousted, a new 
 devil leaped into its empty seat. At the first moment when 
 he could find himself alone, he wrote to Edith Leslie, telling 
 her how he had been imprisoned, how, for almost five wretched 
 years, her image had been his constant friend, how he had 
 escaped, and how he was hastening homeward to claim the 
 fulfilment of her word. He hinted nothing of his conviction 
 that Vinal had been instrumental to his detention. He 
 began divided between hope and fear, but as he wrote, a 
 foreboding grew upon him that she was no longer living, 
 or, at least, no longer living for him. The letter, despatched 
 post haste, would reach home a full fortnight before his own 
 arrival. 
 
 Having seen his friend in safety, Wentworth set out on his 
 return ; and, as they shook hands at parting, their eyes met 
 with a look that showed how clearly the two men understood 
 each other. 
 
 Wentworth smiled as Morton tried to express his gratitude. 
 
 " You have cleared that score. I do not mean now the old 
 affair on the Big Horn. I have been dreaming, lately, and 
 you have waked me." 
 
 " I should never have imagined that you were dozing." 
 
 " Call it what you will. The truth is," added Wentworth, 
 with some hesitation, "an old memory has been hanging 
 

 VASSALL MORTON. 263 
 
 about me, and I believe has made a girl of me. But that is 
 past and done. I shall leave the Lake of ConiOj There is a 
 career for me at home, and a good one, if I will but take it. 
 Come to England, and you will find me there." 
 
 Morton went with him past the gates, and, with a heavy 
 heart, watched him on his way northward. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 His restless eye 
 
 Glanced forward frequently, as if some ill 
 He dared not meet were there. Willis. 
 
 AFTEK some days' delay, the brig put to sea, Morton on 
 board. The cliffs behind Gibraltar came in sight at last, and 
 a fresh levanter blew her out like an arrow upon the Atlantic. 
 They were becalmed off the Azores. The sea was like glass ; 
 the turtles came up to sleep at the top ; the tar melted out of 
 the seams ; and as the vessel moved on the long, lazy swells, 
 the masts kept up- their weary creaking from morning till 
 night, and from night till morning. Morton walked the deck 
 in a fever of impatience. 
 
 At length an east wind sprang up, and with studding sails 
 spread like wings, the brig ran before it, reeling like a drunken 
 sea-gull. 
 
 On the forty-first day, the Neversink heights rose on the 
 horizon. Vessels innumerable passed steamers, merchant 
 men, war ships. The highlands of Staten Island, with its 
 villages and villas, lay close on their left, and the Bay of New 
 York opened before them, sparkling in the morning sun, and 
 alive with moving sails. On the right lay a forest of masts ; 
 in front, the Castle lifted its ugly familiar front ; and farther 
 
 on, the spire of Trinity towered over the wilderness of brick. 
 
 (264) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 265 
 
 Morton called a boat alongside, embarked his luggage, and 
 went on shore. And, in spite of that depression which fol 
 lows long and deep excitement, in spite of the anxieties that 
 engrossed him, he felt a thrill of delight as his foot pressed 
 American soil. 
 
 This pleasure, however, was short. The thought of Edith 
 Leslie had been so long the solace of his confinement, that it 
 seemed to have grown into a part of himself ; at all events, 
 nofy that his doubts were on the verge of decision, for good 
 or evil, it drove every other thought from his mind. Reach 
 ing his hotel, he found that he could not set out for Boston 
 till the afternoon ; and to get rid of the interval, he turned 
 over the Boston newspapers in the reading room, searching 
 for the mention of any familiar names. Here he was more 
 successful than he cared to be ; for he presently discovered 
 the name of Horace Vinal, figuring in the list of directors of 
 a joint stock company. 
 
 " The hound ! " muttered Morton ; " so he is alive yet ! " 
 
 And leaving the hotel, he walked up the crowded sidewalk 
 of Broadway, in a mood any thing but tranquil. 
 23 
 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 Affliction is enamoured of th^ parts, 
 
 And thou art wedded to calamity. Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 HE had not gone far, when he became aware of a footstep 
 closely following him. He was about to look back, when a - 
 little man passed before him, glancing furtively in his face 
 with a ludicrous expression of doubt, amazement, and curi 
 osity. Morton at oncB recognized the features of an odd, 
 simple-minded classmate, named Shingles. " Charley," he 
 exclaimed, "how do you do ? " 
 
 " It is you," cried Shingles, with an ejaculation of profound 
 astonishment ; " solid flesh and blood ! " grasping Morton's 
 extended hand " and not your ghost. Why, we all thought 
 you were dead ! " 
 
 " Not quite," said Morton. 
 
 " Dead and buried," repeated Shingles, " off in Transylva 
 nia, or some such place." 
 
 " I was buried, but they buried me alive." 
 
 Shingles, who had a taste for the horrible, took the asser 
 tion literally, and dilated his eyes like an owl on the lookout 
 for a mouse. 
 
 " But how did you manage to get out ? " 
 
 " I contrived to break loose, after a few years." 
 
 (266) 
 
 1 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 267 
 
 Shingles stared in horror and perplexity. 
 
 "Don't be frightened, Charley. I'm all right, neither 
 ghost nor vampire. But we shall be pushed off the sidewalk, 
 if we stand here." 
 
 " Come down into Florence's, then, and let me hear about 
 it. Hang me if I ever expected to see you again. I 
 shouldn't like to have met you alone, at night, any where 
 near a graveyard. At our last class meeting, we were all 
 talking about you, and saying you were a deused good fellow, 
 and what a pity it was. And here you are alive ; it was all 
 for nothing!" 
 
 " That's very unlucky," said Morton, as they descended 
 into the restaurant. 
 
 " By Jove," exclaimed Shingles, whose amazement was 
 still strong upon him, " I was never so much astonished in 
 my life as when I saw you just now. I was coming out of a 
 shop, as you passed along the sidewalk. I felt as if I had 
 seen a spirit. I followed behind you, and wasn't quite sure 
 it was you, till I saw your trick of rapping your cane against 
 the bricks as you walked along. Then I said to myself, it's 
 he, or else old Beelzebub, in his likeness. But come, tell us 
 how it was. How did you get off alive ? " 
 
 Morton briefly recounted his imprisonment and escape, 
 interrupted by the wondering ejaculations of his auditor. 
 
 "Who would have thought," exclaimed Shingles, "when 
 you and I used to go up to Elk Pond, on Saturdays, to catch 
 perch and pickerel, that you would ever have been shut up in 
 the dungeon of an Austrian castle ? You remember those 
 old times don't you ? " 
 
268 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " That I do," said Morton. 
 
 " Do you remember the old tavern, where we used to lunch, 
 and the pretty girl that waited on the table ? " 
 
 " The girl that you raved about' all the way home ? Yes, 
 I remember." 
 
 " By Jove, to think you've been shut up in a dungeon ! 
 Well, I haven't any very brilliant account to give of myself. 
 I began to practise law, but I was never meant for a lawyer ; 
 so I gave it up, and have been ever since at my father's old 
 place, just pottering about, you know. I was born in the 
 country, and brought up there, and I mean to live there, only 
 now and then I come down to New York, on a bend, just 
 for a change." 
 
 " I suppose you can tell me the news. How are all the 
 fellows ? How is Meredith ? " 
 
 '4 Very well, I believe. He is living in Boston." 
 
 " Married, or single ? " 
 
 " Single. We are not much of a marrying class. Wren 
 was the first. Was that before you went away, or after ? 
 We voted to send him a cradle ; but he did not know how to 
 take it. He thought we were fooling him, and got quite an 
 gry. No, we are not at all a marrying class, nor a dying 
 class either, for that matter. There are not more than five or 
 six dead, and twelve or fourteen married ; we reckoned them 
 up last class meeting." 
 
 " Vinal what of him ? " 
 
 " O, he's alive, and married, too." 
 
 Morton turned pale. " Married ! to whom ? " 
 
 " Well, they say he's made a first-rate match. I don't 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 269 
 
 know her myself. I'm not a party-going man; I never 
 was, you know. I haven't been thrown in much with that 
 kind of people. But they tell me he couldn't have done 
 better." 
 
 " What's her name ? " demanded Morton. 
 
 "Miss Leslie Colonel Leslie's daughter. But what's 
 the matter ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 " It's nothing," gasped Morton ; " I had a fever in prison, 
 and have never been quite well since. I grow dizzy, some 
 times." 
 
 " You will grow dizzy, with a vengeance, if you drink 
 wine in that way." 
 
 " It's nothing," repeated Morton ; " it will be over in a 
 minute. What were you saying ? " 
 
 " About the fellows that have married, O, Vinal, I 
 was saying that he had just got married." 
 
 " Well, what about it ? " 
 
 " Why, nothing particular." 
 
 " When was it ? " 
 
 " Last month." 
 
 " Within a month ! Are you sure ? " 
 
 " 0, yes. I was in Boston myself at the time, and heard 
 all about it. Her father was ill ; so the marriage was private. 
 Vinal is a sort of fellow that somehow I never cottoned to 
 much. I don't think he's very disinterested. I like a fellow 
 that will swear when he is angry, and not keep close shut up, 
 like an oyster." 
 
 The tattle of his rustic companion was become intolerable 
 to Morton. He had received his stab, and wished to hear no 
 23* 
 
270 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 more. In a few minutes, he rose from the table. " Charley, 
 I am sorry to leave you so suddenly, but I am not well. The 
 fresh air and a hard walk are all that will set me up. I shall 
 see you again." 
 
 " But where are you staying ? " 
 
 " At Blancard's. Good morning, old fellow." 
 
CHAPTER L. 
 
 Fab. . . . Elleest . 
 
 &v. Quoi ? 
 
 Fab. Marine! 
 
 Sev Ce coup de foudre est grand ! PolyeucU. 
 
 The world's my oyster, which T with sword will open. Henry IV. 
 Put money in thy $urse ; follow these wars. Othello. 
 
 MORTOX walked down Broadway at a rapid pace, entered 
 his hotel, mounted to his room, seated himself, rested his 
 forehead on his hand, and, with fixed eyes and compressed 
 lips, remained in this position for some minutes, motionless 
 as if carved out of oak. Then, rising, he paced the room, 
 buried his face in his hands, and groaned with irrepressible 
 anguish. Suddenly the door was burst open, and an Irish 
 servant, apparently in a great hurry, bolted in, and tossed a 
 card on the table, saying at the same time, " Gen'lman 
 down stairs wants to see you." 
 
 Morton broke into a rage, to hide the traces of a different 
 passion. 
 
 " Why do you come in without knocking ? Learn better 
 manners, or I shall teach them to you." 
 
 " I beg pardon, sir," said the servant, reduced at once to 
 
 (271) 
 
272 YASSALL MOETON. 
 
 the depth of obsequiousness, " there's a gentleman, sir an 
 officer, sir, would like to see you, sir." 
 
 " An officer ! I don't know any officers. There's some 
 mistake.'* 
 
 " He said Mr. Morton, sir. This is his card, sir." 
 
 Morton looked at the card, and read the name of his 
 classmate Rosny. 
 
 " Very well. Ask the gentleman to come up. No, 
 here," as the servant was retreating along the passage, 
 " where is he ? " 
 
 " In the reading room, sir." 
 
 " Tell him I will come down in a moment." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I will, sir." 
 
 Morton adjusted his dress, strove to banish from his 
 features all traces of the emotion which had just overwhelmed 
 him, went down, stairs, and met Rosny with an air of as 
 much cordiality as if there were nothing in his mind but the 
 pleasure of seeing an old friend. Rosny, his first welcome 
 over, surveyed him from head to foot. 
 
 " A good deal changed ! Thinner, darker complexioned, 
 decidedly older. And yet you've weathered it well. It's a 
 thing that I could never stand, to be boxed up in four 
 stone walls. I would throttle the jailer first, and then knock 
 my brains out against the stones." 
 
 " Did Shingles tell you of my being here ? " 
 
 " Yes, I met him just now, with his eyes bigger than 
 ever. When I saw him making a dive at me across the 
 street, among the omnibuses and carriages, I knew that 
 something extraordinary was to pay." 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 273 
 
 
 
 " You have changed your outward man, too, since I saw 
 you last," said Morton, looking at his companion's costume, 
 which consisted of a gray volunteer uniform. 
 
 " Yes, I'm in Uncle Sam's pay now. Off for Mexico in 
 a day or two ; revel in the Halls of the Montezumas, you 
 know." 
 
 " What rank do you hold in the service, Dick ? " 
 
 " You'll please to address me as Major Rosny ; that is, till 
 good luck and the Mexican bullets make a colonel of me. 
 I have just dropped in to shake hands with you. I have an 
 appointment to keep in five minutes. You have nothing 
 particular to do to-day have you ? " 
 
 " Nothing very particular," said Morton, hesitating. 
 
 " Then come and dine with me at Delmonico's at four 
 o'clock. What ! you don't mean to say no, do you ? 
 Is that the Avay you treat your friends ? Come, I shall be 
 here at four, precisely. Au revoir" 
 
 And, with his usual celerity of motion, Rosny left the 
 hotel. 
 
 Morton slowly remounted to his room, locked the door 
 this time, to keep out intruders, seated himself, and gave 
 himself up to his dark and morbid reveries. 
 
 " God ! of what is this world made ! Villany thrives, and 
 innocent men are racked with the pangs of hell. Poverty 
 starving its victims, luxury poisoning them ; the passions 
 of tigers and the mean vices of reptiles ; treacherous 
 hatred, faithless love ; deceitful hope, vain struggles, end 
 less suffering, a hell of misery and darkness. A fair 
 sunrise, to cheat the eye ; then clouds and storms, 
 
274 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 
 
 blackness and desolation ! To look back over the last five 
 years ! Then I was basking in sunshine ; and out of that 
 brightness what a doom is fallen on me ! My life my 
 guiding star quenched in a vile morass lost forever in the 
 arms of this accursed villain ! " 
 
 Morton rose abruptly, went to the window, and stood look 
 ing out with a fixed gaze, wholly unconscious of what was 
 before him. In a moment he turned again, and there was a 
 wild and deadly light in his eyes. A thought had struck 
 him, shooting an electric life through all his veins, and kin 
 dling him into a kind of fierce ecstasy. He would go to 
 Vinal, charge him with his perfidy, challenge him, and put 
 him to death. He paced the room in great disorder. A 
 resistless power seemed to have seized upon him, sweeping 
 him forward with the force of a torrent. He clinched his 
 teeth and breathed deeply. The thought of action and of 
 vengeance lighted up his perturbed and. gloomy mind as the 
 baleful glare of a conflagration lights up a stormy midnight. 
 Suddenly he stopped, seated himself again, and remained for 
 some minutes in violent mental conflict. " I thank God," he 
 murmured at length, apostrophizing his enemy, " that you 
 were not just now within my reach. You have ruined me 
 for this life ; you shall not ruin me for the next. Live, and 
 work out your own destruction." 
 
 He walked the room again, calmly enough, but in great 
 dejection. " It may be," he thought, " that I am not his 
 only victim. Perhaps the same art that snared me, has, by 
 some infernal machination, entrapped her also. I believe it ; 
 at least, I will try to believe it." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 275 
 
 He looked from the window upon the keen and busy 
 crowds passing below in unbroken streams, to and from their 
 places of business ; and his mind tinged them with its own 
 moody coloring. 
 
 " You flight of human vultures ! How many of you can 
 show lives governed by any generous purpose or noble 
 thought ? Behind how many of those sharp and sallow 
 features, furrowed with early wrinkles, lies the soul of a 
 man ? Desperate chasers after wealth, which, when you 
 have won it, you have never been taught to use ; reckless 
 pleasure hunters, beguiling others that your victims may. 
 beguile in turn, and both sink to perdition together. What 
 you win with trickery, you throw away in vanity or debauch. 
 The counting room or the broker's board by day ; brandy, 
 billiards, and the rendezvous by night ; so you go, a 
 short, quick road ; driving to your doom with a high-pres 
 sure power of rapacity, vain glory, and lust. Man ! the 
 thistledown of fortune, the shuttlecock of passion ; whirled 
 on to destruction by the wildfire in his veins, unless by 
 struggling and by prayer he can keep the narrow adamantine 
 track laid down for his career ! " 
 
 In such distempered reflections he passed some time. 
 Even in the darkest passages of his imprisonment, his mind 
 had scarcely been shaken so far from its habitual poise. 
 Growing weary at length of solitude, he went out of the 
 house ; and, avoiding the great thoroughfares, where he 
 might perhaps meet an acquaintance, he threaded at a rapid 
 pace those meaner streets and lanes, where even the best 
 balanced mind may find abundant food for gloomy meditation. 
 
276 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 From time to time, as the image of his enemy rose before 
 him, the desire for vengeance came upon him afresh, like a 
 fever fit. He burned to seize Vinal by the throat, and, at 
 least, force him to unmask his iniquity to the world. 
 
 As he was passing down Water Street, he recollected, 
 with some vexation, that Rosny had promised to call for him 
 at four o'clock, and retraced his steps to the hotel, where, true 
 to the minute, that punctual adventurer presently appeared. 
 
 " Come," said Rosny ; " if you are ready, we will walk 
 down street." 
 
 They repaired to Delmonico's, where, in a private room, 
 a sumptuous repast had been made ready. Morton, over his 
 companion's claret, was obliged to recount the circumstances 
 of his imprisonment. Rosny, on his part, gave an outline of 
 his own fortunes since they had last met. He had been once 
 or twice on the point of very considerable success, but his 
 vaulting ambition had always overleaped itself, and by too 
 great eagerness and grasping at too much, he had repeatedly- 
 failed of his prize, only, however, to rally after every reverse 
 with undiminished confidence and spirit. Such, at least, 
 we're the conclusions which Morton drew from his compan 
 ion's somewhat inflated account of himself. 
 
 After the cloth had been removed, Rosny bit off the end 
 of a cigar, lighted it, puffed at it two or three times, and 
 then, holding it between his fingers, went on with an harangue 
 which the operations of the waiter had interrupted. 
 
 " I tell you, these are great times that we live in. The 
 world has seen nothing like them since the days of Columbus 
 and Cortes. These are the times and this is the country for 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 277 
 
 a man of merit to thrive in. Let him identify himself with 
 the progressive movements of the age, yes, faith, let him 
 be a leader of them, and there's nothing tog large for him 
 to hope for. Why, sir, the day is not far off, when the stars 
 and stripes will be seen from Hudson's Bay to Panama. 
 Cuba will come next ; Brazil next. Lord knows where we 
 shall stop. There's a field for a man of ability and pluck ! " 
 
 Morton smiled. Rosny relighted his cigar, which, in the 
 fervor of his declamation, he had allowed to go out, gave a 
 vigorous whiff or two, and proceeded. 
 
 " We have just lost a splendid chance. I did flatter my 
 self that there was going to be a row with England, on the 
 Oregon question ; but it was a flash in the pan ; it all ended 
 in smoke." 
 
 " Why do you want to fight with John Bull ? " asked 
 Morton. 
 
 " For two good reasons. In the first place, I hate him. I 
 hate him in right of my French ancestors, and I hate him as 
 a true American democrat. Then, over and above all that, a 
 war with the English would be the making of me. I should 
 rise then. I would be their Hannibal. But now we have 
 nothing better to do than giving fits to these yellow Mexican 
 vagabonds." 
 
 " A shabby employment," said Morton, " and yet I think I 
 should like it." 
 
 " You would, ey ? then go with me to Mexico." 
 
 " It's a temptation," said Morton, his eyes lighted with a 
 sudden gleam, " I am in a mood for any thing, I do not 
 care what." 
 
 24 
 
278 VASSALL MORTON". 
 
 " I knew there was something ailing you," said Rosny ; 
 " why, you have had no appetite. You've lost all your 
 spirits. Has any thing happened ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 " Nothing to speak of. I am well enough in health." 
 
 " Well, come with me to Mexico. When a man is under 
 a cloud, he always makes the better soldier for it. If you 
 have had bad luck, why, you can fight like a Trojan." 
 
 " I could storm Hell Gates to-day," exclaimed Morton, 
 giving a momentary vent to his long pent up emotion. 
 
 " Good ! I always knew that there was stuff in you, 
 though you are worth half a million. It isn't that, though 
 
 is it ? You haven't lost property have you ? " 
 
 " Not that I know. Never mind, Dick ; every man has 
 his little vexations, sometimes, and is entitled to the privilege 
 of swearing at them." 
 
 " Well, I am not the man to pry into your private affairs. 
 Come with me to Mexico. I can promise you a captain's 
 commission, perhaps I can get you a major's. I am not a 
 cipher in the democratic party, I'd have you know, though I 
 am not yet what I shall be soon. I helped Polk to his 
 election, and my word will go for something. But, pshaw ! 
 
 what am I talking about ? With your money, and a little 
 management, you can get any thing you want." 
 
 " I have more than half a mind," said Morton, hesitating ; 
 " but, no, I won't go." 
 
 " Pshaw, man ! You don't know what you are saying. 
 You don't know what chances you are throwing away. Look 
 at it. It isn't the military fame, the glorification in the 
 newspapers, seeing pictures of yourself in the shop win- 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 279 
 
 dows, charging full tilt among the Mexicans, and all that. 
 You can take that for what it's worth. Tastes differ in such 
 matters. But, I tell you, the men who distinguish themselves 
 in Mexico are going to carry all before them in the political 
 world. The people will go for them, neck or nothing. I 
 know what our enlightened democracy is made of." Here a 
 slight grin flickered for an instant about the corners of his 
 mouth ; but he grew serious again at once. " Yes, sir, a 
 new world is going to begin. The old incumbents Web 
 ster, Clay, Calhoun, and the rest will pass off the stage, 
 before long, and make room for younger men men who 
 will keep up with the times. Then will be our chance ! Put 
 brass in your forehead, you have money enough in your 
 purse already, get a halo of Mexican glory round your 
 head, and you will shoot up like a rocket. First go to the 
 war, then dive into politics, and you and I will be the biggest 
 frogs in the puddle." 
 
 " There's a fallacy in your conclusions," said Morton ; 
 " the officers of rank, the generals and colonels, will carry off 
 the glory ; and we shall have nothing but the blows." 
 
 " The Mexican bullets will make that all right. I tell you, 
 they are going to fly like hail. They will dock off the heads 
 above us, and make a clear path for us to mount by." 
 
 " Suppose that they should hit the wrong man," suggested 
 Morton. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed Rosny, " we won't look at the 
 matter in that light." 
 
 There was a momentary pause. 
 
 " Now's your time," urged Rosny. " Come, say the word." 
 
280 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Morton paced the room with knit brows and lips pressed 
 together. 
 
 " Glory," exclaimed his military friend, summing up the 
 advantages of a Mexican campaign, " glory, preferment, 
 life, of the fastest kind, what more would you have ? " 
 
 Morton had a strong native thirst for adventure, and a pen 
 chant for military exploit. In his present frame of mind, he 
 felt violently impelled to cut loose from all his old ideas and 
 scruples, and launch at once upon a new life, fresh, unshac 
 kled, and reckless, to plunge headlong into the tumult of 
 the active world ; fight its battles, run its races, give and 
 take its blows, strain after its prizes, forget the past and 
 all its associations in the fever of the present. Mexico rose 
 before his thoughts snowy volcanoes, and tropical forests ; 
 the cocoa, the palm, and the cactus ; bastioned cities and 
 intrenched heights ; the rush and din of battle ; war with its 
 fierce excitements and unbounded license. To his disordered 
 mood, the scene had fascinations almost resistless, and he 
 burned to play his part in the fiery drama. 
 
 " And why not ? " so his thoughts ran, " why not 
 obey what fate and nature dictate ? Calm, and peace, and 
 happiness, farewell to them ! That stake is played and 
 lost. I am no more fit now for domestic life than a prairie 
 wolf. I should answer better for an Ishmaelite or a Pawnee. 
 Deus vult. Why should I fly in the face of Providence ? " 
 
 Rosny, his uniform coat half unbuttoned for the sake of ease, 
 sat lolling back in his chair, puffing wreaths of cigar smoke 
 from his lips, eying Morton as he paced the room, and throwing 
 out, from time to time, a word of encouragement to stimulate 
 
YASSALL MOETOl*. 281 
 
 his resolution. He was about to lose all patience at his com 
 panion's pertinacious silence, when the latter stopped, and 
 turned towards him with the air of one whose mind is 
 made up. 
 
 " Dick," said Morton, <' when I was in college, I laid down 
 my plan of life, and adopted one maxim to which I mean 
 to hold fast." 
 
 " Well, what was that ? " demanded the impatient Rosny. 
 
 " Never to abandon an enterprise once begun ; to push on 
 till the point is gained, in spite of pain, delay, danger, disap 
 pointment, any thing." 
 
 " Good, so far. What next ? " 
 
 " Some years ago, I entered upon certain plans, which 
 have not yet been accomplished. I have been interrupted, 
 balked, kicked and cuffed by fortune, till I am more than half 
 disgusted with the world. But I mean still to take up the 
 broken thread where I left it, and carry it forward as before." 
 
 " The moral of that is, I suppose, that you won't go to 
 Mexico." , 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 "Well, I shan't try to debate the matter with you. I 
 know you of old. When your foot is once down, it's useless 
 for me to try to make you lift it up again. But remember 
 what I say, you will repent not taking my advice." 
 
 Rosny finished his cigar, and they left the restaurant 
 together. On their way up the street, they stopped at a 
 recruiting office. " Captain Rumbold, my friend Mr. Mor 
 ton," said Rosny, who soon after, however, entered into an 
 earnest conversation with the officer upon some affair of 
 24* 
 
282 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 business, leaving Morton at leisure to observe six or eight 
 volunteers, who were about to be sent to Governor's Island, 
 in charge of a sergeant. 
 
 " What do you think of our boys ? " asked Rosny, casting 
 a comical look at Morton, as they went down stairs. 
 
 " I never saw such a gang of tobacco-chewing, soap-locked 
 rascals." 
 
 " Food for powder," said Rosny, " they'll fill a ditch as 
 well as better. The country needs a little blood-letting. 
 These fellows are not like Falstaff's, though. They will 
 fight. Not a man of them but will whip his weight in 
 wildcats." 
 
 
CHAPTER LI. 
 
 A raconter ses maux, sou vent on les soulage. Pdyeucte. 
 
 " Do you remember Buckland ? " asked Rosny, as they 
 walked up Broadway. 
 
 " The Virginian ? Yes, perfectly." 
 
 " There he is." 
 
 Morton, following the direction of his companion's eye, 
 saw, a little in advance, a tall man, slenderly but gracefully 
 formed, walking slowly, with a listless air, as if but half con 
 scious of what was going on around him. They checked 
 their pace, to avoid overtaking him. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Rosny ; " he's in a bad way." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear it. He was a lively, pleasant fellow 
 when I knew him, very fond of the society of ladies." 
 
 " That's all over now. He has been very dissipated for 
 the last two or three years, and is broken down completely, 
 body and mind. It's a great pity. I am very sorry for him," 
 said Rosny, in whom, notwithstanding his restless ambition, 
 there was a vein of warm and kindly feeling. 
 
 " Is he living in New York ? " 
 
 " Yes, he has been here ever since leaving college. He 
 began to practise as a lawyer. It's much he ever did or ever 
 will do at the law ! There was never any go-ahead in him 
 
 (283) 
 
284 V'ASSALL MOETON. 
 
 no energy, no decision and lie does nothing now, but read 
 a little, and lounge about, in a moody, -abstracted way, with 
 his wits in the clouds. Get him into good company, and 
 wind him up with a glass of brandy, and he is himself again 
 for a while, tells a story and sings a song as he used to do, 
 but it is soon over. Do you want to speak to him? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Come on, then. How are you, Buckland ? Here's an 
 old friend, redivivus." 
 
 Hearing himself thus accosted, Buckland turned towards 
 the speaker a face which, though pale and sallow, was still 
 handsome. His dress, contrary to his former habit, was care 
 less and negligent ; and, though he could not have been more 
 than thirty, a few gray hairs had begun to mingle with his 
 long, black moustache. Changed as he was, he had that air 
 of quiet and graceful courtesy which can only be acquired by 
 habitual intercourse with polished society in early life ; and 
 Morton saw in him the melancholy wreck of a highly-bred 
 gentleman. 
 
 When the first surprise of the meeting was over, Rosny 
 related the story of Morton's imprisonment to the wondering 
 ear of Buckland. Having urgent business on his hands, he 
 soon after took leave of his two companions. Morton and 
 Buckland, after strolling for a time up and down Broadway, 
 entered the restaurant attached to Blancard's hotel, and took 
 a table in a remote corner of the room, which was nearly 
 empty. 
 
 Buckland was, as Rosny had described him, moody and 
 abstracted, often seeming at a loss to collect his thoughts. 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 285 
 
 He sipped his chocolate in silence, and, even when spoken to, 
 sometimes returned no answer. Morton, in little better spir 
 its than his companion, sat leaning his forehead dejectedly on 
 his hand. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Buckland, after one of his silent fits, 
 " to be so wretched a companion ; but I am not the man I 
 used to be." 
 
 " We are but a melancholy pair," replied Morton. 
 
 " I saw from the first that you were very much out of 
 spirits, not at all what one would expect a man to be who 
 had just escaped from sufferings like yours. There is some 
 trouble on your mind." 
 
 Morton was fatigued and sick at heart. He had practised 
 self-control till he was tired- of it ; and he allowed a shade 
 of emotion to pass across his face. 
 
 " There is a woman in it," said Buckland, regarding him 
 with a scrutinizing eye. 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " demanded Morton, startled and 
 dismayed at this home thrust. 
 
 " Are not women the source of nine tenths of our suffer 
 ings? " replied Buckland/ " The world is a huge, clashing, 
 jangling, disjointed piece of mechanism, and they are the 
 authors of its worst disorder." 
 
 "Sometimes," said Morton, "men will blame women for 
 sufferings which they might, with better justice, lay at their 
 own doors." 
 
 Buckland raised his head quickly, and looked in his com 
 panion's face. " It may be so," he said, after a moment's 
 pause. " Perhaps you are right, perhaps you are right. 
 
286 TASSALL MORTON. 
 
 But, let that be as it will, there are no miseries in life to 
 match those which spring out of the relation of the sexes." 
 
 Morton, for reasons of his own, did not care to pursue the 
 subject, and his companion relapsed into his former silence. 
 After a time, they went into the smoking room, where Buck- 
 land lighted a cigar. Morton observed that, as he did so, his 
 fingers trembled in a manner which showed that his whole 
 nervous system was shattered and unstrung. 
 
 " I would not advise you to smoke much," said Morton ; 
 " you have not the constitution to bear it." 
 
 Buckland smiled bitterly. He had grown reckless whether 
 he injured himself or not. 
 
 They seated themselves near the window ; but Buckland 
 soon grew uneasy, alternately looking at his watch and gaz 
 ing into the street. At length he rose, and asked Morton to 
 walk out with him. The latter, on the principle that misery 
 loves company, readily complied ; and they went down Broad 
 way nearly to the Bowling Green. Here Buckland turned, 
 and they retraced their steps to within a few squares of the 
 Astor House. This they repeated several times, Morton's 
 companion constantly resisting evety movement on his part to 
 vary in the least the course of their promenade. While their 
 walk was up the street, Buckland, though evidently restless 
 and uneasy, had the same abstracted air as before ; but when 
 they moved in the opposite direction, his whole manner 
 changed, and he seemed anxiously on the watch, as if for 
 some person whom he expected every moment to meet. It 
 was about eight in the evening. The street was brilliant with 
 gas ; crowds of people, men and women, were moving along 
 
YASSALL MOKTON. 287 
 
 the sidewalk ; and upon each group, as it approached, Buck- 
 land bent a gaze of eager scrutiny. 
 
 They were passing a large bookstore, when Morton felt 
 his companion suddenly press the -arm on which he was lean 
 ing. Hastily stepping aside, and dragging Morton with him, 
 he ensconced himself behind the board on which the book 
 seller pasted his advertising placards, which partially con 
 cealed him, and, together with the projection over the shop 
 door, screened him from the light of the neighboring gas 
 lamp. Here he stood motionless, his eyes riveted on some 
 approaching object. Following the direction of his gaze, 
 Morton saw a tall man in the uniform of an army officer of 
 rank, and, leaning on his arm, a light and delicate female 
 figure, elegantly, but not showily dressed. They were close 
 at hand when he discovered them, and in a moment they had 
 passed on under the glare of the lamp, and mingled with the 
 throng beyond ; but Morton retained a vivid impression of 
 features beautifully moulded, and a pair of restless dark eyes, 
 roving from side to side with piercing, yet furtive glances. 
 
 Buckland, stepping from his retreat, made a hesitating, for 
 ward movement, as if undecided whether to follow them or 
 not. He stopped with a kind of suppressed groan, and tak 
 ing Morton's arm again, moved slowly with him down the 
 street. Two or three times, Morton spoke to him, but he 
 seemed not to hear, or, at best, answered in monosyllables, 
 with an absent air. When they reached the hotel, then re 
 cently established on the European plan, near the Bowling 
 Green, Buckland entered, called for brandy, and, his compan 
 ion declining to join him, hastily drank the liquor with the 
 
288 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 same trembling hand which Morton had before remarked. 
 On leaving the house, they continued their walk downward 
 till they reached the Battery. And as they entered the shaded 
 walks of that promenade, the moon was shining on the trees, 
 and on the quiet waters of the adjacent bay. 
 
 "You must think very strangely of me," said Buckland, 
 at length breaking his long silence ; " in fact, I scarcely 
 know myself. I am a changed man, a lost and broken 
 man, body and soul, a sea-weed drifting helplessly on the 
 water." 
 
 " You take too dark a view," said Morton, greatly moved ; 
 " there is good hope for you yet, if you will not fling it away." 
 
 Buckland shook his head. " I wish I had been born such 
 a man as Rosny. He is a practical man of the world, always 
 in pursuit of something, with nothing to excite or trouble 
 him but the success or failure of his schemes. He cannot 
 understand my feelings. Yes, I wish to Heaven I had been 
 born a practical, hard-headed man, such, for instance, as 
 your cool, common sense Yankees. What do they know or 
 care for the troubles that are wearing me away by inches ? " 
 
 " Buckland," said Morton, " your nerves are very much 
 weakened and disordered, and particular troubles weigh upon 
 and engross you, as they could not if you were well. What 
 you most need is a good physician." 
 
 " ' Could he minister to a mind diseased ? ' Come, sit d^wn 
 here on this bench. Perhaps you have never felt I hope 
 you have never had occasion to feel impelled to relieve 
 some torment pressing on your mind, by telling it to a friend. 
 Genuine friends are rare. When one meets them, he knows 
 
VASSALL MOHTON. 289 
 
 them by instinct. I need not fear you ; you will not laugh 
 at me to yourself, and tell me, as some others do, that a man 
 of force and energy would fling off an affair like mine, and 
 not suffer it to weigh upon him like a nightmare." 
 
 " When you have recovered your health, perhaps I may 
 tell you so ; but not till then." 
 
 " I am like the Ancient Mariner," continued Buckland, 
 with a faint smile ; " when I find the man who must hear my 
 story, I know him the moment I see his face. Your good 
 sense will tell you that I have been a knave and a fool ; but 
 your good heart will prevent your showing me that you 
 think so." 
 
 Morton looked with deep compassion on his old comrade, 
 and wondered what follies or misfortunes could have sunk his 
 former gallant spirit so far. In his weakened and depressed 
 condition, Buckland seemed to lean for support on his friend's 
 firmer and better governed nature, and to draw strength from 
 the contact. 
 
 " After all," he said in a livelier tone, " what right have I 
 to bore you with this story of mine ? " 
 
 " Any thing that you are willing to tell," answered Mor 
 ton, " I shall be glad to hear." 
 25 
 
CHAPTER LI I. 
 
 On me laisse tout croire ; on fait gloire de tout ; 
 
 Et cependant mon cceur est encore assez lache 
 
 Pour ne pouvoir briser la chaine qui 1'attache. Le Misanthrope. 
 
 11 1 HAD an old friend," Buckland began, with some glim 
 mering of his former vivacity, " De Ruyter, I don't 
 think you ever knew him. He was the representative of a 
 family great in its day and generation, but broken in fortune, 
 and without means to support its pretensions. This did not 
 at all tend to diminish their pride, precisely of that kind 
 which goeth before destruction. De Ruyter was a good fel 
 low, however, and, if he had had twenty thousand a year, he 
 would have spent it all. One summer, four years ago, he 
 went with his child his wife had died the year before 
 and his two sisters to spend a few weeks at a quiet little 
 watering-place on the Jersey shore, frequented by people of 
 good standing, but not fashionably inclined. De Ruyter 
 praised the sporting in the neighborhood, and persuaded me 
 to go with him. 
 
 " His sisters were very agreeable women, cultivated 
 and lively, but proud as Lucifer, and desperately exclusive. 
 A nouveau riche was, in their eyes, equivalent to every 
 thing that is odious and detestable ; and to call a man a 
 parvenu was to steep him in infamy forever. The men at 
 
 (290) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 291 
 
 the house were, for the most part, of no great account 
 chiefly old bachelors, or sober family men run to seed, with a 
 number of awkward young boobies not yet in bloom. The 
 two ladies liked the company of a lazy fellow like me, a but 
 terfly of society, with the poets, at least the sentimental ones, 
 on my tongue's end, and the latest advices from the fashion 
 able world. I staid there a week, and when that was over 
 they persuaded me to stay another. 
 
 " On the day after, there was a fresh arrival, a gentleman 
 from Philadelphia, with his sister and his daughter. He 
 only remained for the night, and went away in the morning, 
 leaving the ladies behind. The sister was a starched old per 
 son, a sort of purblind duenna, with grizzled hair, gold 
 spectacles, and cap. The daughter I need not describe, for 
 you saw her half an hour ago. 
 
 " Her family was good enough ; her father a lawyer in Phil 
 adelphia. She was well educated played admirably, and 
 spoke excellent French and Italian. How much or how little 
 she had frequented cultivated society, I do not know, her 
 own assertions went for nothing ; but she had the utmost 
 ease and grace of manner, and . an invincible self-possession. 
 Her ruling passion was a compound of vanity and pride, an 
 insatiable craving for admiration and power. Whatever as 
 sociates she happened to be among, nothing satisfied her but 
 to be the cynosure of all eyes, the centre of all influence. I 
 have known women enough, women of all kinds, good, bad, 
 and indifferent ; but such a one as she I never met but once. I 
 shall not soon forget the evening when I first saw her, seated 
 opposite me at the tea table. She was a small, light figure, 
 
29.2 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 as you saw her just now, the features, perhaps, a trifle 
 too large. I never recall her, as she appeared at that time, 
 without thinking of Byron's description of one of his mis 
 chief-making heroines : 
 
 " ' Her form had all the softness of her sex, 
 
 Her features all the sweetness of the devil, 
 When he put on the cherub to perplex 
 Eve, and paved God knows how the road to evil.' 
 
 " She was utterly unscrupulous. The depth of her artifice 
 was unfathomable. She soon became the moving spirit of 
 that little cockney watering-place some admiring her, 
 some hating her, some desperately smitten with her. I can 
 see through her manoeuvres now, but then I was blind as 
 a mole. She understood every body about her, and held 
 out to each the kind of bait which was most likely to 
 attract him. There was a sort of dilettante there whose 
 heart she won by talking to him of the Italian poets, which, 
 by the way, she really loved, for there was a dash of genius 
 in her. She aimed to impress each one with the idea that 
 in her heart she liked him better than any one else ; and it 
 was her game to appear on all occasions perfectly impulsive 
 and spontaneous, while, in fact, every look, word, or act of 
 hers had an object in it. In short, she was an accomplished 
 actress ; and, had her figure J^en more commanding, she 
 might have rivalled Rachel on*he stage. No two people 
 were exactly agreed .in opinion concerning her; but all I 
 mean all the men thought her excessively interesting ; and 
 I remember that two young collegians had nearly fought a 
 
VASSA.LL MORTON. 293 
 
 duel about her, each thinking that she was in love with him. 
 Nothing delighted her more than to become the occasion of 
 the jealousy of married women towards their husbands, 
 nothing, that is, except the still greater delight of fascinating 
 a certain young New Yorker who had come to the house on 
 a visit to his betrothed. 
 
 " For some time every one supposed her to be unmarried. 
 She did her best, indeed, to encourage the idea, since 
 she thus gained to herself more notice and more marked 
 attentions. At length, to the astonishment of every body, 
 it came out that she had been, for more than a year, 
 married to a cousin of her own, a weak and imbecile young 
 ster, as I afterwards learned, who was then absent on an 
 East India voyage, and who, happily for himself, has since 
 died. 
 
 " I said that all the men in the house were interested in her ; 
 but you should have seen the commotion she raised among 
 the women ! There were three or four simple girls about 
 her who admired her, and were her devoted instruments ; but 
 with the rest she was at sword's point. There were a 
 thousand ways in which they and she could come into col 
 lision ; and, of course, they soon found her out, while the 
 men remained in the dark. If they were handsome and at 
 tractive, she hated them ; and if they would not conform to 
 her will, she could never forgive it. The disputes, the jars, 
 the jealousies, the backbiting!, the tricks and stratagems of 
 female warfare that I have seen in that house, and all of her 
 raising ! She was a dangerous enemy. Her tongue could 
 sting like a wasp ; and all the while she would smile on her 
 25* 
 
294 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 victim as if she were reporting some agreeable compliment. 
 She had a satanic dexterity in dealing out her stabs, always 
 choosing the time, place, and company, where they would tell 
 with the sharpest effect. 
 
 " With all her insincerity, there was still a tincture of real 
 ity in her. Her passions and emotions were strong ; and she 
 was so addicted to falsehood, that I am confident she did not 
 always know whether the feeling she expressed were real or 
 pretended. 
 
 " The grace and apparent abandon of her manner, her 
 beauty, her wit, her singular power of influencing the will 
 of others, and the dash of poetry, which, strange as you may 
 think it, still pervaded her, made her altogether a very peril 
 ous acquaintance. I, certainly, have cause to say so. I 
 lingered a week, a fortnight, a month, and still could not find 
 resolution to go. I had an air, a name in society, and the 
 reputation of being dangerous. She thought me worth 
 angling for, put forth all her arts, and caught me. 
 
 " I have read an Indian legend of a fisherman who catches a 
 fish and drags him to the surface, but in the midst of his tri 
 umph, the fish swallows him, canoe and all. The angler, 
 however, kills him by striking at his heart with his flinty 
 war club, and then makes his escape by tearing a way through 
 his vitals. The case of the fish is precisely analogous to mine. 
 She caught me, as I said before ; but I caught her in turn. 
 She fell in love with me, wildly and desperately. Her pas 
 sions were as fierce and as transient as a tropical hurricane. 
 She had no scruples ; and I had not as many as I should 
 have had. One evening we were gone, and two days after 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 295 
 
 we were out of sight of land on board one of the Cunard 
 steamers. 
 
 " For the next two months, I was in paradise. Then came 
 a purgatory, or something worse. Her passion for me sub 
 sided as quickly as it had arisen. She was herself again. 
 Her vanity and artifice, her insatiable love of intrigue and 
 adventure, returned with double force. I wore myself out 
 with watching, vexation, and anxiety. She tried every means 
 to attract attention and draw admirers, and every where she 
 succeeded. I remember that one night at Naples she insisted 
 on going with me to the theatre of San Carlo, in the dress of 
 a young man, and wearing a moustache. The disguise was 
 detected, as she meant it should be, and eyes centred upon 
 her from all the boxes. I tried to travel with her through 
 remote and unfrequented countries, such as the interior of 
 Sicily ; but it was all in vain. There was no resisting her 
 fiery will, and I was compelled to go wherever she wished. 
 
 " One afternoon, at Messina, at the table d'hote, we met a 
 lively young Spanish nobleman. She caught his eye ; I saw 
 them exchange glances. In spite of all my precautions, 
 messages, billets, and momentary interviews passed between 
 them. I challenged the Spaniard, gave him a severe flesh 
 wound, and thought I had taught him a lesson. Not at all. 
 On the next day, coming to my lodgings, I found her gone, 
 no one could tell whither. I was desperate, and could have 
 done any thing ; but there was nothing to be done. I could 
 not find her, and if I had it would have availed me nothing. 
 
 " I returned to America, wrought up to the verge of a nervous 
 fever ; and, by mingling in amusements of every kind, tried 
 
296 VASSALL MORTOX. 
 
 to forget her. In six or eight months I had partially suc 
 ceeded. My health was not good, and I had made a journey 
 of a few weeks to the west ; when, on returning, it was a 
 sultry July afternoon, I remember it as if it were yester 
 day, sitting in the reading room window of the New York 
 Hotel, I saw her passing down Broadway in an open carnage ; 
 and, with the sight, my passion awoke again at fever heat. She 
 had left the Spaniard, and come to America with a New York 
 gentleman, who had lived for some time in Paris. I had an 
 interview with her, and she promised to join me again ; but 
 she broke her word. She saw at once what a power she still 
 held over me ; and she has used it most mercilessly ever 
 since. She practises all her arts on me, as if I were a new 
 lover, whom she wished to insnare. Sometimes she natters 
 me ; sometimes she repels me ; now and then she allows me 
 stolen interviews, or long walks or rides with her. She 
 plays me as an angler plays a salmon that he has hooked, till 
 he brings him gasping to his death. I have plunged into dis 
 sipations of all kinds, to drown the memory of her. It is all 
 useless. She knows the torments I am suffering, and she 
 rejoices in them. Perhaps she remembers that it was I who 
 made her what she is, and takes this for her revenge. But, 
 pshaw ! if I had not eloped with her, some one else would 
 have done so soon ; and that she perfectly well knows. It is 
 her vanity nothing but her vanity: she delights to hold 
 me in bondage ; she knows that I am her slave, and she glo 
 ries in it." 
 
 "But why, in Heaven's name," demanded Morton, "do 
 you not break away from this miserable fascination? " 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 297 
 
 " There it is ! " Buckland answered ; " I only wish that I 
 had the power. I have resolved twenty times to leave New 
 York, and my resolution has failed me as often." 
 
 " Who takes charge of her now ? " 
 
 " Colonel . He seems as crazy after her as I was." 
 
 " I can hardly comprehend," pursued Morton, " how, un 
 derstanding her character as you do, you can still remain so 
 infatuated with her." 
 
 " Neither can I comprehend it. I can only feel it. Strange 
 is it not ? that I, who used to be regarded as a mere flirt ; 
 who, as a lady acquaintance once told me, had a great deal 
 too much sentiment, but no heart at all ; I, who, in my time, 
 have written love verses to twenty different ladies, should 
 be so enchained at last by this black-eyed witch ! " 
 
 " Very strange." 
 
 " And now what would you recommend ? what advice do 
 you give me ? You see in what a predicament I stand. 
 What ought I to do ? " 
 
 "With your broken health and weakened nerves," said 
 Morton, " it is useless for you to attempt contending against 
 this fancy that has taken possession of you. You must run 
 away from it. Take a long voyage ; the longer the better. 
 I will go with you to engage your passage to-morrow." 
 
 Buckland hesitated at first, slowly shaking his head ; but 
 in a moment he said, with some animation, " Yes, I will go, 
 on one condition ; you must promise to go with me." 
 
 The will, the motive power, never very strong in him, 
 was now completely relaxed. He was unfitted for action of 
 any kind, and was, as he himself said, no better than a sea 
 
298 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 weed drifting on the water. Morton walked the streets with 
 him for some hours. He seemed to cling to his companion, 
 like an. ivy to the supporting trunk, and was evidently reluc 
 tant to resign his company. At length, Morton, who was 
 exhausted with the excitements of the day, pleaded fatigue, 
 and bade him good night. He turned again, however, and, 
 by the blaze of the gas lamps, followed with his eye Buck- 
 land's slowly receding figure. 
 
 " A few hours ago," he said to himself, " I thought myself 
 unhappy ; but what is my suffering compared to his ? I am 
 not, thank God, the builder of my own misfortunes, nor 
 pursued with the reflection that they are a just retribution for 
 my own misdeeds. With health, liberty, self-respect, and a 
 good conscience, what man has a right to call himself mis 
 erable ? " 
 
CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Gray's Elegy. 
 
 MR. SHINGLES had an acquaintance among the gentlemen 
 of the press ; and, chancing to meet his quill-driving friend, 
 he told him Morton's story. It appeared, accordingly, beau 
 tifully embellished, in one of the evening papers, and was 
 copied, the next morning, into several others. Consequently, 
 Morton had scarcely risen from breakfast, when he was visited 
 by half a dozen persons, editors and others, eager to hear his 
 adventures, for the gratification of their own curiosity, or 
 that of the public. As he detested such visitations, and as 
 several of his callers, from their countenances alone, inspired 
 him with an earnest longing to kick them down stairs, he 
 hastened to avoid the nuisance by escaping into the street. 
 Since the tidings he had heard from Shingles, his native town 
 had lost all attraction for him ; in fact he shrank from going 
 thither, and willingly lingered another day in New York. 
 
 Going to Buckland's lodgings, he renewed his persuasions 
 of the evening before, and strongly urged him to leave New 
 York. Buckland assented to every thing he said ; and, hear 
 ing of a ship about to sail for the East Indies, Morton went 
 with his friend to the merchant to whom she belonged, and 
 
 induced him to engage a passage in her. 
 
 (299) 
 
300 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Returning to his hotel at about two o'clock, a waiter 
 brought him a card, telling him that a boy had just left it for 
 him. It was Rosny's ; and on it were scrawled with a pencil 
 the following concise and characteristic words : 
 
 Dear M. : Uncle Sam in a deuse of a hurry. Ordered to 
 the island this afternoon. Off for Mexico to-morrow. Sorry 
 not to see you, but haven't a minute to spare. Good luck. 
 
 Au revoir. 
 
 Yours till doomsday, 
 
 ROSNY. 
 
 Morton went to the recruiting office where he had been 
 with Rosny on the day before, learned the time and place of 
 the embarkation, was on the spot at the hour named, and in a 
 few minutes saw Rosny striding down the wharf in most 
 unmilitary haste, his hair fluttering in the wind. He was so 
 engrossed in making certain arrangements, and issuing his 
 mandates to the soldiers who were to row him and some other 
 officers to Governor's Island, that he did not observe Morton, 
 who stood quietly leaning against a post. 
 
 " Hallo, Dick," said the latter at length. " Haven't you 
 eyes to see your friends ? " 
 
 Rosny turned, in great surprise, and greeted him most 
 emphatically. 
 
 " Come, Morton,'* he said, as he was stepping into the 
 boat, " you'll change your mind after all, won't you ? 
 and meet me at Vera Cruz." 
 
 " I'll sit at home, and read your exploits in the papers," 
 replied Morton. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 301 
 
 " Well ; a wilful man must have his way. Adieu.*' 
 
 " Good by. May you live to be a general, or any thing 
 else you like, short of the presidency." 
 
 " Why, shouldn't I make a good president ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What ? too progressive, too wide awake, too en 
 lightened, ey ? " 
 
 " Yes, and too pugnacious." 
 
 " There you are again, Boston all over. I'll be president 
 yet, if only to spite the Bostonites. . You shall write my life, 
 and I'll give you an office for it. Farewell." 
 
 Morton watched the receding boat till it was almost out of 
 sight, waved his hat to Rosny, who waved his own in return, 
 and walked back to the hotel, wondering what would be the 
 issue of his old classmate's ambitious schemes. 
 
 How, among a throng of brave men, Rosny gained a name 
 for determined daring ; how, on every occasion that offered, 
 he displayed the fire of the Frenchman, and the stubborn 
 mettle of the Saxon, whose blood mingled in his veins ; 
 how, though sick and wounded, he dragged himself from the 
 hospital at Puebla, and, mounting his horse, pushed forward 
 with the advancing columns ; how gallantly, under the 
 murdering storm of musketry and grape, he led his intrepid 
 blackguards up the rocks of Chapultepec ; how, while 
 shouting among the foremost, he climbed the hostile rampart, 
 a bullet plunged into his brain, and dashed him, quivering and 
 dead, to the foot of the scaling ladders ; all this, and more 
 likewise, is it not written in the New York Herald ? 
 
 About a year after Rosny's departure, Morton chanced to 
 26 
 
302 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 be again in New York, when, in going out one morning, he 
 beheld all the symptoms of some impending solemnity. Flags, 
 festooned with crape, were strung across Broadway from 
 building to building. The shops were half closed, and the 
 streets were fast filling with people. Patriot citizens, ex 
 changing the yardstick for the sword, strode the sidewalk in 
 gorgeous panoply ; and now and then a mounted warrior can 
 tered along the pavement, struggling to keep his balance on 
 his fiery coach horse. In an hour or two more, the pageant 
 was in full operation. Looking from his hotel window, 
 Morton beheld a radiant river of shining bayonets, many 
 colored plumes, and martial millinery, solemnly flowing down 
 the middle of Broadway, to strange and lugubrious music, 
 between melancholy shores of black broadcloth and beaver 
 hats. At length a train of hearses appeared slowly advancing 
 to the wailing music of the bands, encircled by the harmless 
 sabres of the civic warriors, playing soldier, around the 
 remains of those who had borne the part in tragic earnest. 
 Over every hearse the national flag was drooping, and upon 
 each was inscribed the name of its unconscious tenant. They 
 were officers slain in battle during the last Mexican campaign. 
 Four of the hearses passed. Morton read the names. They 
 were all unknown to him ; but as the fifth approached, he 
 looked, started, and looked again ; for wrought in white upon 
 the sable drapery he saw, distinct and clear, the name of 
 Rosny. Descending to the street, he joined the procession ; 
 he even underwent the funeral oration at the City Hall ; and 
 when it was over, shouldering through the crowd, he stood 
 by the side of all that remained of his old classmate. Rosny's 
 
 | 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 303 
 
 cap, and the sword lie had used so well, lay on the lid of the 
 coffin ; and Morton turned away, with eyes not quite dry, as 
 he recalled his many genial traits and his undaunted spirit. 
 
 To resume. On returning to his hotel after taking leave 
 of Rosny, Morton found a note awaiting him, directed in a 
 female hand. He opened it, and read the signature, Ellen 
 Ashland, the name of a lady whom he had well known in 
 Boston, and who, just before he had sailed for Europe, had 
 been married to an eminent lawyer of his acquaintance. She 
 wrote that she had seen an account of his escape from 
 prison, and arrival in New York, in the morning paper, 
 expressed an earnest wish to see him, and invited him to visit 
 her at the New York Hotel, where she was spending a few days 
 with her husband. 
 
 As the time named was almost come, Morton called a 
 coach, and drove up town. His friend received him with a 
 peculiar warmth and earnestness of manner. Morton had 
 known her as a person of marked character and strong but 
 strictly governed emotions, not always permitting the expres 
 sion of a feeling to keep pace with the feeling itself. He 
 greatly liked and esteemed her, and her presence disarmed 
 him, in a great degree, of his usual reserve. 
 
 Her husband had been absent all day in Brooklyn, and 
 'would not return till late in the evening. 
 
 " It is five years since I have spoken to a lady," said 
 Morton, as he seated himself at the tea table. 
 
 As he was not scrupulous to wear a mask before her, she 
 quickly discovered the depressed condition of his mind ; and 
 on her charging him with being very much out of spirits, he 
 admitted that he was so. 
 
 . * 
 
304 . VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " One would think," she observed, " that after the suffer 
 ings that you have passed, you would have come home in a 
 different mood of mind." 
 
 " And so I did," said Morton. 
 
 " You seem in no great haste to see your friends and 
 relations in Boston." 
 
 " I have no near relations there." 
 
 " But you have friends." 
 
 " Yes ; I have heard from them. I met an acquaintance 
 yesterday." 
 
 " You have heard, then " And she bent her eyes upon 
 
 his face, with a look searching but full of kindness, as if 
 studying his thoughts. 
 
 " Five years," she continued, " is a long time. Great 
 changes may have taken place." 
 
 " Changes have taken place," said Morton. 
 
 " You have lost none of your intimate friends, as far 
 as I know them ; but some have left Boston, and some are 
 married." 
 
 Morton did not look up ; but an undefined expression 
 passed across his face, like the shadow of a black cloud. 
 When, a moment after, he raised his eyes, he saw those of 
 Mrs. Ashland fixed upon him with the same earnest gaze as 
 before. Such scrutiny from another would have been intoler 
 able to him ; but in her it gave him no uneasiness. 
 
 A servant entering changed for a time the character of their 
 conversation. A quarter of an hour afterwards they were 
 again alone, and Morton was seated near the window, when 
 his friend approached him, her features kindling with a look 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 305 
 
 of ill- suppressed feeling, laid her hand on his shoulder, and 
 said, "Vassall," she had always before addressed him as 
 Mr. Morton, " my heart bleeds for you for you and for 
 Edith Leslie." 
 
 Morton looked up till he met her eyes. The surprise, the 
 sudden consciousness that she was privy to his grief, the 
 warm and heartfelt woman's sympathy that he read in every 
 line of her face, were too much for his manhood, and he 
 
 burst into tears. 
 
 26* 
 
CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 TSlle n'est point paijure, elle n'est point leg&re ; 
 
 Son devoir m'a trahi, mon malheur, et son p&re. Pdyeucte. 
 
 MOETON'S evening with Mrs. Ashland, and the story which 
 she told him, removed at least one pain from his breast. He 
 learned that Edith Leslie was not in fault ; and that, great as 
 his misfortune might be, his idol was not turned to clay. 
 
 His friend's narrative, however, was very defective. She 
 could give results merely, not knowing, or suspecting, the 
 hidden springs which produced them ; and Morton was left to 
 form his own conclusions. The following is a more explicit 
 statement. 
 
 Morton embarked for Europe, and the return steamer 
 brought, in due course, a letter to Edith Leslie. With the 
 next steamer came another ; with the next, a third ; all as 
 absurd epistles as the most exacting mistress could desire. 
 The succeeding mail was silent. She wondered and hoped ; 
 but when the next arrived, and brought no tidings, her heart 
 began to fail. The winter wore away, and still no letter 
 came. She was living, at that time, with her father, at his 
 country seat. Leslie's health was declining, and when Vinal 
 returned from his short European tour, he consigned to his 
 hands the care of his affairs, and spent the greater part of his 
 
 (306) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 307 
 
 time at Matherton ; for he had a strong love for the home of 
 his boyhood. 
 
 Spring returned, and blossomed into summer ; but nothing 
 was heard of Morton. The season ripened ; the fringed gen 
 tian sprang in the meadow, and the aster by the roadside ; 
 but no word .came. In the forests, the October frosts began 
 their gorgeous work. The ash put on its purple ; the oak its 
 varied coloring ; the sumach its blood-red glare ; and at even 
 ing, the sun went down in cold, stern splendors behind the 
 painted mountains. Dry leaves whirled upon the ground; 
 chill clouds mustered in the sky; and flakes of snow, the 
 harbingers of storm, were blown along the frozen road. Then 
 winter sank upon the landscape, and deeper winter on the 
 heart of the unhappy girl. 
 
 Time passed on, and the hope of Morton's return grew 
 fainter. Leslie, seeing his daughter's deep distress, made a 
 journey to Europe ; but his search was fruitless. Meredith, 
 who spent a year on the continent, pursued the same inquiries, 
 but could trace his friend no farther than the town of Neu- 
 burg, in Bavaria. Morton, before his departure, had made 
 his will, and in the ardor of his attachment, had left the 
 bulk of his property to his betrothed, distributing a compara 
 tively small residue among a number of poor relations, none 
 of whom had either the means or the worldly knowledge to 
 take measures for ascertaining his fate. 
 
 Meanwhile, Leslie had fallen into a decline ; and there was 
 no hope that his life could be protracted beyond a year or 
 two. He became more than ever dependent upon Vinal, who 
 now assumed nearly the whole charge of his affairs, acquitting 
 
308 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 himself with great ability, and, in this instance, with entire 
 faithfulness. A rickety manufacturing concern, which for 
 years had been a drain upon Leslie's purse, began, under 
 Vinal's control, to yield a good profit ; and the former saw 
 all his resources quickened and replenished, as if by an infu 
 sion of new life. 
 
 Vinal was mounting very high in the general esteem. His 
 polished address, a little too precise, however, his ac 
 knowledged scholarship, his character for honor and integrity, 
 and his energy and capacity for business, commended him to 
 all classes. He passed current alike in ball rooms and on 
 change. Men of the world never doubted him ; and, after 
 all, this confidence was not quite groundless, for Vinal, who 
 had a sage eye to his own interest, had embraced the maxim 
 that, in matters of business, a course of absolute integrity is, 
 under all ordinary circumstances, the only wise policy. 
 
 As, in process of time, the conviction of Morton's death was 
 confirmed, Leslie's old wish for a union between his daughter 
 and Vinal began again to grow strong within him. Some two 
 years after her lover's disappearance, he ventured to speak to 
 her of this favorite plan ; but it was long before he dared 
 allude to it again. Meanwhile, Vinal's attentions had been 
 assiduous and constant, yet so tempered as to convey the 
 idea that he despaired of any other reward than the contin 
 uance of her friendship. At length, however, certain of her 
 father's countenance, and assuming Morton's death as now 
 beyond a doubt, he began, with all possible delicacy and cau 
 tion, to renew his former addresses. He was not long in dis 
 covering that his cause was quite hopeless, unless, he could 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 309 
 
 produce some positive proof that Morton was no longer 
 alive. 
 
 During the third summer of the latter's absence, Vinal 
 went, for two or three months, to Europe, the state of his 
 health being the alleged motive. While in Paris, he tried to 
 find his former confederate, Speyer, but could only learn that 
 he was no longer in that city. On returning to America, he 
 told Leslie that he had inquired after Morton, on all sides, 
 without the least success, but had taken measures which, he 
 thought it not impossible, might in time lead to some dis 
 covery. In various parts of Germany, there was, as he af 
 firmed, a class of travelling merchants and commercial agents, 
 who, from the nature of their avocations, had every facility 
 for making inquiries within the districta which they frequented. 
 He had taken pains, he said, to become acquainted with a 
 large number of these men, to whom he had stated the case 
 of Morton's disappearance, and promised a reward for any 
 information concerning him. 
 
 Some time after this, he told Leslie that he had had word 
 from one of these correspondents. The latter, he affirmed, had 
 heard that a young man, said to be an Englishman, had died 
 very suddenly three or four years before, in an unfrequented 
 part of Bohemia. The German declared himself ready, if 
 desired, to go to the district in question, and inquire into the 
 matter. Leslie was anxious that the inquiry should be made ; 
 upon which Vinal, though seeming not at all sanguine as to 
 any result, gave him the name of his imaginary correspondent, 
 and advised that he should write to him. Leslie, however, 
 as Vinal had foreseen, desired that the latter should carry on 
 
310 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 the correspondence. He accordingly wrote a letter, directed 
 to Jacob Hatz. This he showed to Leslie, and mailed it in 
 his presence, consigning it to a long repose in some continen 
 tal dead letter office. At the same time, he secretly de 
 spatched another letter, directed to Henry Speyer ; for he 
 had meanwhile discovered the address of this serviceable per 
 son. This letter was as follows : 
 
 Dear Sir : You cannot have forgotten some interviews 
 and correspondence which formerly passed between us con 
 cerning a person who soon after was unfortunate enough to 
 fall under the notice of the Austrian police. Nothing has 
 since been heard of him, and it is commonly believed here 
 that he is dead. It is my desire to have this opinion con 
 firmed ; and having found you honorable and efficient on an 
 other occasion, I cannot doubt that I shall find you so in this. 
 May I beg your services in the following particulars ? 
 
 1st. To take an imaginary journey into Bohemia, Mora 
 via, or parts adjacent. 
 
 2d. To discover that, three years or more ago, a young 
 
 man, an American, named , travelling alone 
 
 on horseback in an unfrequented part of the country, (this 
 was his habit,) was attacked .by cholera, or any other violent 
 disease prevalent thereabouts, which carried him off in less 
 than three days. 
 
 3d. That he died at a small village inn ; that a Lutheran 
 clergyman took charge of his effects, and wrote to his friends ; 
 but that the letter may have miscarried, or the clergyman 
 may have played false, and kept the windfall that had come 
 to him. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 311 
 
 4th. That two years ago, the clergyman removed into 
 Hungary, but that the innkeeper, a stupid, beetle-headed 
 fellow, showed you a headstone in the Protestant burial 
 
 ground, with 's name upon it. The innkeeper may 
 
 describe him as a young man of twenty-four, or less, but 
 must not remember too much, as this might attract further 
 inquiry. 
 
 This is the outline, and will serve to indicate the kind of 
 thing required. Vary it, in respect to details, as your judg 
 ment and your knowledge of the customs of the country may 
 suggest. Names are omitted. Please observe the ciphers 
 which stand in their places. You will soon receive, through 
 another channel, means to supply the deficiency, if, indeed, 
 your memory will not do so unaided. 
 
 Sign your letter Jacob Hatz. There is another point, 
 which I beg you to observe particularly. Mention that on 
 the gravestone, besides the name, was carved a figure, like 
 an urn or cup, with a large ball above it. Date of death, 
 also ; December 7, 1841. 
 
 I herewith enclose five hundred francs. On receiving 
 your reply, with this letter enclosed, I shall immediately send 
 you five hundred more. If I were not a poor man, and ex 
 pecting always to be so, I could remunerate your services 
 better. 
 
 With the fullest reliance on your honor and discretion, I 
 
 remain, 
 
 Yours, truly, . 
 
 P. S. For your better direction, I subjoin a formula to 
 be followed in the beginning of your letter. You can word 
 the rest in your own way. Write in French. 
 
312 VASSAJLL MORTON. 
 
 Vinal, if he had dared, would gladly have forged such a 
 letter as he required, instead of trusting to another person ; 
 but art or nature had not gifted him with the needful skill ; 
 and he was anxious, moreover, to have the foreign postmarks 
 stamped upon it in form. 
 
 In due time, Speyer's answer came. He had neglected to 
 return Vinal's letter, as desired ; but in other respects, his 
 performance gave his employer ample satisfaction. The latter 
 showed it to Leslie, who seemed convinced by it; while his 
 daughter, on reading it, abandoned at once the hope to which 
 she' had hitherto clung, that Morton might still be living. 
 
 "I remember this Hatz very well," said Vinal; "he 
 seemed to be a plain, honest sort of man, an agent, I be 
 lieve, of a merchant in Strasburg. And yet the reward I 
 promised might have been too great a temptation." 
 
 " Then," said Leslie, " you would not receive this as a 
 proof of Mr. Morton's death ? " 
 
 " No, I would not : that is, I should not but for one thing; 
 it is so very much like Vassall Morton to be travelling 
 alone, on horseback, in an out-of-the-way part of the country." 
 
 " Did you observe," pursued Leslie, " what he says of fig 
 ures of an urn and ball cut on the gravestone ? " 
 
 " I saw it, but did not observe it particularly." 
 
 Leslie gave him the letter, and Vinal read the part re 
 ferred to. 
 
 " What can it mean ? " asked Leslie. 
 
 " I can't conceive," replied Vinal. 
 
 "It is the vase and sun," said Edith Leslie; "the device 
 of his mother's family, the Vassalls." 
 
VASSA.LL MORTON. 313 
 
 " Ah," exclaimed Vinal, looking up with a face of mourn 
 ful interest, "you must be right; the same figures are 
 carved on the tomb of the Vassalls, in the old churchyard at 
 Cambridge." 
 
 " They were cut," pursued Miss Leslie, " on a garnet ring, 
 which he always used as a seal." 
 
 " I remember his showing me that ring," said her father, 
 " and telling me that it was older than the voyage of the 
 Mayflower. It was a kind of heirloom, which his mother had 
 left him." 
 
 " Yes," suggested the sympathizing Vinal, who had long 
 known that Morton used no other seal than this ring ; " and 
 the device on it was supposed to be his armorial bearing, and 
 so cut on the gravestone, as it is on the Vassall tomb at 
 Cambridge. 
 
 All doubt of Morton's death was now dispelled. His be 
 trothed stored his image in her thoughts, as that of one lost 
 for this world ; and Vinal saw the field clear before him. 
 Leslie was failing fast ; and, as his life ebbed, his wish for 
 his daughter's marriage with Vinal grew and strengthened. 
 He urged her, daily, to listen to his suit ; extolling his favor 
 ite's talents, energy, acquirements, and unimpeachable char 
 acter praises which she believed to be wholly just. Vinal, 
 on his part, seconded these parental efforts with most earnest, 
 beseeching, not to say abject importunities. The compassion 
 which he contrived to excite, an idea of duty, and an urgent 
 wish to gratify her dying father, at length prevailed with her ; 
 and laying before Vinal the true state of her feelings, she 
 consented, on such terms, to accept his suit. 
 27 
 
314 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Vinal had gained his point ; but he had scarcely done so, 
 when his spirits were dashed by an untoward incident, the 
 nature of which may be guessed hereafter. And, as it never 
 rains but it pours, this reverse of luck was soon followed by 
 a second, of another kind. 
 
 One afternoon, returning from his customary constitutional 
 ride, he was in the act of turning the upper corner of a 
 street which slopes downward somewhat steeply till it meets 
 a main thoroughfare of the town. A small ragamuffin boy 
 was standing on the curbstone, with a blade of grass between 
 his thumbs, through which he blew with might and main, 
 evidently to startle VinaTs horse, whose head was within a 
 yard of him. He succeeded to his complete satisfaction. 
 Vinal switched at the youngster with his whip ; but this only 
 made matters worse. The horse galloped down the street 
 at a rate which his rider's weak arm could not check ; and, 
 at the corner of the main street, wheeling suddenly to the 
 left, he slipped on the wet pavement, and fell with a crash on 
 his side. Horse and man lay motionless, till a city teamster, 
 running up, raised the former by the bridle. Two or three 
 passers by came to Vinal's aid ; but as they lifted him, he set 
 his teeth with pain. The horse had fallen on his left leg, 
 breaking it above the knee. 
 
 Vinal was timid to excess in time of danger ; but he could 
 bear pain with the firmness of a stoic. While he felt him 
 self run away with, and at the moment of his fall, he had 
 been greatly confused. He no sooner saw that the worst was 
 over, than he rallied his faculties, and asserted his usual self- 
 mastery. His face was fast growing pale with violence of 
 pain ; but he was quite himself again. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 315 
 
 A crowd gathered about him, as he lay leaning on the steps 
 of the neighboring church. 
 
 " Shall we carry you to the Hotel ? " asked a gen 
 tleman. 
 
 " Yes, if you please. But first be kind enough to bring a 
 shutter. They will give you one at the school round the cor 
 ner. When a man is killed, drunk, or maimed, there is 
 nothing like a shutter. How do you do, Edwards ? " to a 
 man whom he recognized in the crowd. 
 
 " I hope you are not badly hurt." 
 
 " My leg is broken." 
 
 " Are you in great pain ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a bad business, I think. Will you oblige me by 
 seeing that my horse is led to the stable in Street ? " 
 
 The shutter was soon brought. 
 
 " Thank you. Lift me very gently." 
 
 As they moved him he clinched his teeth again in silent 
 torture. 
 
 " All right. Now one take the shutter at the head, and 
 one at the feet. You'll find me a light weight." 
 
 And thus, between two men, escorted by a procession of 
 schoolboys just let loose, Vinal was carried to the hotel. 
 
 The event justified his presage. He was forced to lie 
 motionless for weeks, suffering greatly from bodily pain, and 
 no less from certain anxieties which of late had harassed him. 
 Leslie, on his part, was in great distress at the disaster. He 
 felt, or fancied himself, near his end ; and thS wish next his 
 heart was to see the marriage accomplished before he died. 
 It was therefore determined that, notwithstanding the inaus- 
 
316 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 picious plight of the bridegroom, it should take place at the 
 time before fixed upon, four months after the beginning of 
 the engagement. 
 
 The ceremony was very private. None were present but 
 two or three friends of Miss Leslie, the dying father, borne 
 thither in a chair, the disabled bridegroom, and the pale and 
 agitated bride ; for that morning, standing before Morton's 
 picture, a strange misgiving and a dark foreboding had fallen 
 upon her, and the sun never shone on a bride more wretched. 
 Her nearest friend, Mrs. Ashland, was at her side. She was 
 the only person, besides her father and Vinal, who knew of 
 her engagement to Morton, and, indeed, had been her confi 
 dante from first to last. Soon after Morton's disappearance, 
 an accident had brought them together, reviving an old school 
 intimacy ; and Edith Leslie, in her suspense and misery, was 
 but too glad to find a friend in whom she could trust without 
 reserve. 
 
 The rite was ended, and Edith Leslie was Edith Vinal. 
 Days and weeks passed ; Leslie slowly declined, and Vinal 
 slowly recovered. She divided her time between them, pass 
 ing the greater part of the day with the latter, and returning 
 at evening to watch by her father's bed or rest within sound 
 of his voice. At length, three weeks after her marriage, on 
 a morning the horror of which remained scarred always in 
 her memory, Morton's letter from Genoa was put into her 
 hands ; and the long-disciplined patience with which she had 
 armed herself, the religion which she had called to her aid, 
 all the guards and defences of her mind, were borne down, 
 for a time, by the resistless flood of passion, which, like a 
 river bursting its barriers, swept all before it. 
 
CHAPTER LV. 
 
 We twain have met like ships upon the sea, 
 Who hold an hour's converse, * * * 
 One little hour ! and then away they speed 
 On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, 
 To meet no more. Alexander Smith. 
 
 " GOOD morning, Ned," said Morton to his friend Meredith. 
 He had come to Boston the day before, and had already seen 
 Meredith more than once. 
 
 " Going already ? Sit down, man. Why are you in such 
 a hurry ? " 
 
 " I shall look in again before night." 
 
 " You are not well. I never thought you could look so 
 worn and haggard." 
 
 " Try the prison of Ehrenberg for four or five years, and 
 see how you will look when you get out. It's nothing, 
 though. A little rest will make all right again." 
 
 " You are not very likely to get it. You are a lion now, 
 and people will not leave you alone." 
 
 " They shall. I am not in the humor for balls and dinner 
 parties." 
 
 He went to the house of Mrs. Ashland, whom he had 
 accompanied homeward from New York. 
 
 " Have you the letter for me ? " 
 
 27 * (317) 
 
318 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 The letter was that which had come from Europe with the 
 story of his death. On hearing Mrs. Ashland' s account, he 
 had at once conjectured that this was but another stroke of 
 Vinal's diplomacy ; but he had been careful not to intimate 
 to his friend the least suspicion against the latter. 
 
 The commission of obtaining from Edith the letter in ques 
 tion was far from an agreeable one ; but Mrs. Ashland had 
 accomplished it, and now placed the paper in Morton's hands. 
 
 The signature was not that of Speyer ; but at the first 
 glance, Morton was sure that the small, neat handwriting was 
 the same with that of the treacherous notes of introduction 
 given him by Vinal at Paris. As he studied the letter, read 
 ing and re-reading it, his companion, who remembered him 
 chiefly as a frank, good-humored young man, was startled at 
 the stern and almost fierce expression which once or twice 
 came over his features, and seemed to be banished by an 
 effort. A vague suspicion of some mystery rose in her mind, 
 but Morton hastened to divert her. 
 
 " I hope that Edith will not refuse a visit from me." 
 
 Here, again, Mrs. Ashland promised to mediate for him, 
 and in the afternoon he received a note from her, saying that 
 Vinal's wife w r ould see him on the next morning. 
 
 At the hour named, he rang at the door, forced his lips 
 to inquire for " Mrs. Vinal," gave his name to the servant, 
 and was shown into the drawing room. 
 
 It was nearly five years since he had last seen that well- 
 remembered room. Nothing was changed. It remained 
 precisely as he had known it when he stood prosperously on 
 the farther verge of that dreary chasm of time ; and as each 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 319 
 
 familiar object met his eye, such a flood of bitter recollection 
 came upon him, that for a moment he. bent his head upon his 
 breast. 
 
 He raised it, and started as he did so. Reflected in the 
 mirror at the end of the room, as if the art of some new Cor 
 nelius had evoked it, stood, pale as marble, the form that had 
 so long attended his sleeping and waking dreams. Morton 
 turned quickly, and saw Edith standing motionless in the 
 doorway. 
 
 He advanced towards her, and took her hand in both his 
 own. She raised her eyes to his face in silence. He tried to 
 speak, but tried in vain. At length he found utterance. 
 
 " I know it all. Ellen Ashland has told me every thing. 
 I do not blame you ; no one can blame you." 
 
 " Thank God that you think so." 
 
 '* Yes, thank God ; for when I thought that you had 
 forgotten me " 
 
 " Then you did think so ? " 
 
 " For a time ; and it seemed to me as if no more con 
 stancy were left on earth ; as if it had been sapped and 
 undermined in its very citadel." 
 
 " Do not believ that I forgot you for a single hour ; or 
 that I can ever forget you. You and I have been joined at 
 least in an equal sorrow and suspense. We have walked 
 through depths together, and drank the same gall and 
 bitterness." 
 
 " That one month four miserable weeks should have 
 worked all this ! One month sooner, and this black picture 
 of our lives would have been bright again as the sunshine. 
 
320 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 I could believe that some infernal power had taken the reins 
 of our fate." 
 
 " Do not say so, nor think so. You have fronted death ; 
 you have braved despair ; and now bear this blow victoriously 
 as you have borne the rest." 
 
 " The crowning blow is the heaviest of all." 
 
 " Look into my heart, if you could look into it, and 
 see on which of us it has fallen with the more sickening and 
 withering force." 
 
 Morton looked into her face. It was like a deep lake 
 becalmed, into which strong springs are boiling up from rocks 
 at the bottom. The surface is still ; but looking more closely, 
 one may discern faint gliding undulations and trembling lines, 
 which betray the turmoil below. Morton saw them, and felt 
 their purport. 
 
 " I would to God," he said, " I could bear your burden 
 for you." 
 
 Edith buried her face, and burst into a flood of weeping. 
 
 Grief, mixed with more ardent emotion, wrought with such 
 violence in Morton's breast, that he scarcely restrained his 
 impulse to throw himself at her feet. In a few moments, she 
 raised her head. 
 
 " Do not think from this, that I am not resigned to what 
 has fallen on us. It is best. Incomprehensible as it is, it is 
 best for us both." 
 
 A passionate denial rose to Morton's lips ; but he did not 
 utter it. 
 
 " I overrated my strength. I am weaker than I hoped to 
 have found myself. You wish to bear my burden ! You 
 
VA8SALL MORTON. 321 
 
 have had enough to bear of your own, Vassall ; but with 
 you, endurance is not the whole. You still have youth, 
 health, vigor. To. one of your instincts, the world has noble 
 tasks enough. With a heart/steeled by dangers, refined by 
 sufferings, tempered in fires of anguish, what path need you 
 fear to tread ? Forget the past ; no, do not forget it ; only 
 forget all in it that may damp your courage or weaken your 
 hand. When I knew you first, you were full of zeal in a 
 worthy and generous enterprise. Cling to it still. Let me 
 see the tree which I knew in its blossoming bear a full fruit 
 at maturity. Let me see the ardent and earnest spirit which 
 I knew in the beginning, not quelled or flagging by the way, 
 but holding on its course to the end. The pure chivalry of 
 your heart which constrained me to love you, the instinct 
 which turned towards honor and nobleness as a tree turns 
 its branches to the sun, do not part from it; keep it 
 unstained for my sake, and let it brighten and strengthen all 
 your life." 
 
 " If preachers could speak with your tongue," exclaimed 
 Morton, " the world would forget itself and grow virtuous. 
 The love that I have lost on earth I will set among the stars. 
 It shall be my beacon till the day I die." 
 
 " We are too delicate and timorous to bear a part in the 
 active struggles of life ; but it is a woman's office to raise 
 and purify the thoughts of those who do. You, whose strong 
 natures are formed for warfare, cannot be so sensitive as we 
 are to every spot that dims the brightness of your armor. It 
 is easy for me, before one whom I have loved as I have loved 
 you, to hold this tone, and be borne up for a time above the 
 
322 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 thought of grief and renouncement. But it is a different 
 task to still, through all a lifetime, the longings of a woman's 
 heart, and the impatient surgings of a woman's temperament. 
 This is the task assigned me, and I accept it. Life action 
 are before you. Patience is my medicine ; the slow talis 
 man which must open in the end my door of promise." 
 
 Morton pressed her hand to his lips. 
 
 " * There is some soul of goodness in things evil.' A sorrow 
 under which, feebly borne, the mind would wither to the 
 earth, borne well will lift it above the clouds. Do not believe 
 that I have deceived any one. He knows on what terms he 
 takes me. I feel respect, esteem, confidence, warm friendship 
 for him." 
 
 " May you never be undeceived," thought Morton to 
 himself. 
 
 " But for any more ardent love, that, I told him, was 
 buried in the grave with you." 
 
 She was silent for a moment, and then went on. 
 
 " It will not be wise, or right, for us to see each other 
 often. In time, you will meet some one with whom you can 
 forget the pain of this separation." 
 
 Morton shook his head. 
 
 " Yes at least I trust you will. But we can never 
 forget what we have been to each other. Our reality is 
 melted into a dream, but we must not allow it to remain a 
 dream. Let it be to us a fountain of high thoughts, whose 
 streams may water all our lives." 
 
 " You are an alchemist, Edith," said Morton ; " you have 
 found the secret to change lead and iron into pure gold. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 323 
 
 And yet you make me feel, more than ever, if that can be, 
 what a crown I have lost." 
 
 When Morton left the house, after a half hour's interview, 
 the agitation with which he had entered it had sunk into 
 quiet ; for an influence had fallen upon him as soothing and 
 elevating as if he had been listening to the paschal music in 
 the chapel of the choir at St. Peter's. And as an aeronaut, 
 tossed among tempestuous clouds, is borne of a sudden above 
 the turmoil, and floats serene in a calmer sky, so the troubled 
 mind of Morton felt itself buoyed up for a space above the 
 tumult of passionate and bitter thought. 
 
CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
 Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit. Dryden. 
 
 ON the next morning he was walking near the Court 
 House, when a man accosted him, touching his hat with one 
 hand, and holding out the other in the way of friendly salu 
 tation. Morton, however, was at a loss to recognize him. 
 He had an air which may most conveniently be described as 
 raffish, a hat set on one side of his head, and a good-natured, 
 easy, devil-may-care face. 
 
 " Richards is my name," said the stranger. " I met you at 
 Paris, just before you went into Austria." 
 
 This was quite enough. Morton, who had repeatedly re 
 volved all the circumstances connected with his arrest, at 
 once recalled the accident by which he had discovered Rich 
 ards and Vinal, on their way together to visit Speyer. Mor 
 ton determined to cultivate this new acquaintance ; which, 
 however, seemed likely to grow without much tillage. 
 
 " I went on two or three excursions about the city with 
 you, Mr. Vinal, and the rest. Perhaps you have not forgot 
 ten it." 
 
 " Not in the least ; but you are changed since then." 
 
 "Yes," said Richards, touching the place where his mous- 
 
 (324) 
 
VASSALL MOBTON. 325 
 
 taches had once grown, " I cut them off when I went into 
 practice here in Boston. I found they were ruining my char 
 acter as a professional man." 
 
 " How long were you in Paris after I saw you ? " 
 " Two years, off and on. I wish I were there now." And 
 taking Morton's arm, he proceeded to catechize him touching 
 his imprisonment and escape, of which he said he had first 
 read in the New York Herald. Morton satisfied his curios 
 ity, taking care to give him no suspicion of Speyer' s connec 
 tion with the affair, and allowing him to infer that the arrest 
 was caused by an accidental concurrence of suspicious cir 
 cumstances. Richards, at the end, broke out into a savage, 
 red republican tirade against Metternich and the Austrian 
 government. 
 
 " By the way," said Morton, when his companion's heat 
 had subsided, " do you happen to remember a man called 
 Speyer, or something like it, a republican propagandist, at 
 Paris ? I believe you knew him." 
 
 " I never knew any body else," replied Richards, adopting 
 a cis- Atlantic figure of speech for which rhetoricians have as 
 yet found no name. 
 
 " Do you know where he is now ? " 
 " What, have you lent money to Speyer, too ? " 
 " He is heavily in my debt," said Morton, evasively. 
 " That's odd. He seems to have been borrowing money 
 all round. I remember, about a year or more ago, I met Mr. 
 Vinal, and he began to talk about Paris. ' By the way,' said 
 he to me, * do you happen to remember a man named Spires, 
 or Speyers, or some such thing ? I lent him five hundred 
 28 
 
326 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 francs/ * I wish you may get it,' said I. ' Well/ said Vinal, 
 * I have a friend going to Paris, who will try what can be done 
 for me.' So I set him on the track. I don't know whether 
 he got his money or not, but I saw him talking with Speyer 
 in the street, one evening last spring, and Vinal looked as 
 sour as if he had swallowed a bottle of vitriol." 
 
 " Talking with Speyer last spring ! " repeated Morton ; 
 " has he been to Paris ? " 
 
 " Speyer has come out to America. There is not a country 
 in Europe but has grown too hot for him. He was under 
 surveillance in Paris, all the time I knew him." 
 
 " When did he come ? " 
 
 " Six or eight months ago." 
 
 " Where is he to be found ? " 
 
 " In" New York, chiefly. If you could have caught him 
 when he was here in Boston, in the spring, you might have 
 got something out of him ; for he seemed flush of money." 
 
 " What, after you saw him with Vinal ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Have you seen him more than once in Boston ? " 
 
 " Yes, two or three times." 
 
 " Is he in New York now ? " 
 
 " I suppose so ; but I would not advise your trying to do 
 any thing with him. You had better pocket your loss, and 
 let him go. However, if you want to try, I can refer you to 
 a man who can probably help you to find his whereabouts." 
 
 " Thank you ; there's no harm in making the attempt. I 
 don't know Speyer well. What kind of man is he ? " 
 
 " Well, I will draw his portrait for you. He is sly as a 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 327 
 
 fox ; always contriving, plotting, and working under ground. 
 Intrigue is his native element. He takes to it like a chame 
 leon to air, or a salamander to fire." 
 
 " An artful, managing fellow, not bold enough to make a 
 direct attack ? " 
 
 " Bold ! There is nothing on the earth, or under it, that 
 he fears. He will not make a direct attack, if he can help it, 
 because it is against his instinct ; but press upon him 
 crowd him a little and he will show his teeth like a Bengal 
 tiger. He is always in hot water ; for he never could be 
 happy out of it. He has his weaknesses, though. A woman 
 whom he takes a fancy to can turn him round her finger. I 
 never knew a man so desperate in that way, or such a devil 
 incarnate when a fit of jealousy seizes him." 
 
 "You draw a flattering likeness of your friend," said 
 Morton. 
 
 " 0," said Richards, laughing, " I cut half my foreign ac 
 quaintance, now that I am at home." 
 
 Before leaving his new companion, Morton obtained from 
 him the name and direction of the person of whom he had 
 spoken as likely to know where Speyer was to be found. 
 Left alone at length, he pondered on what he had heard : 
 
 " So Vinal applied to Richards, to learn Speyer' s address, 
 when he wrote to him to report me dead. Speyer in Amer 
 ica ! having interviews with Vinal ! and flush of money ! 
 Can it be possible that this agent of his villany has become 
 the instrument of his punishment ? that the Furies are al 
 ready on his track ? If Speyer kept Vinal' s letter, as, under 
 the circumstances, such a calculating knave would be apt to 
 
328 TASSALL MORTON. 
 
 do, he has that in his hands which would make my friend 
 open his purse strings ; yes, make him coin his life blood, to 
 satisfy him. It is past doubting ; Vinal has it now ; this 
 cormorant is preying upon him." 
 
 That afternoon Morton took the night train to New York, 
 in search of Speyer. 
 
CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 Though those that are betrayed 
 Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor 
 Stands in worse case of woe. Cymbeline. 
 
 VINAL sat alone, propped and cushioned in an arm chair, 
 when a clerk from his office came to hring him his morning 
 letters. He looked over the superscriptions till he saw one 
 in a foreign hand. Vinal compressed his pale lips. When 
 the clerk had left the room, he glanced ahout him nervously, 
 tore open the letter, and read it in haste. 
 
 " The bloodsucker ! Money ; more money ! He soaks it 
 up like a sponge ; or, rather, I am the sponge, and he means 
 to wring me dry. In jail ! Well, he has found his place, for 
 once. Six hundred dollars ! That, I suppose, is to pay his 
 fine ; to uncage the wild beast, and set him loose. I wish 
 he were sentenced for ten years ; then he might lie there, and 
 rot. I must send him something enough to keep him in 
 play. No, I will send him nothing. He is in trouble ; and 
 I may turn it to account. I will write to him that, if he will 
 return me my letters, I will give him a thousand dollars now, 
 and an annuity of five hundred for six years to come. I shall 
 do well if I can draw the viper's teeth at that price. Then 
 I can breathe again ; unless Morton should have suspected 
 the trick I played him, or what if he should meet with 
 28 * < 329 ) 
 
330 VASSALL MOETON 
 
 Speyer ! But that is not likely, for he never knew him, nor 
 saw him, and Speyer will shun him as he would the plague. 
 I wish they had shot him in the prison, as I am told they 
 meant to do. There would have been one stumbling block 
 away ; one lion out of my path. But now the sword hangs 
 over me by a hair ; I am racked and torn like a toad under a 
 harrow ; no rest, no peace ! What if Speyer should do as he 
 threatens, print my letters, and placard them about the 
 streets ! I will buy them out of his hands if it cost all I 
 have. And even then I shall not be safe, as long as this ruf 
 fian is above ground. With him and Morton to haunt me, 
 my life is a slow death, a purgatory, a hell." 
 
 He tore Speyer's letter into small fragments, rolled and 
 crushed them together, and scattered them under the grate. 
 
CHAPTER, LVIII. 
 
 When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will. 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 MOKTON reached New York, and found the person to whom 
 he had been referred by Richards. He proved to be a Ger 
 man, of respectable appearance enough ; but Morton could 
 learn nothing from him. He admitted that he had once 
 known Speyer ; but stubbornly denied all present knowledge 
 concerning him ; and after various inquiry elsewhere, which 
 brought him into contact with much vile company, without 
 helping him towards his end, Morton gave over the search, 
 and returned to Boston. 
 
 A day or two after, he met Richards in the street. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Richards, I was in New York the other day, 
 and saw your man ; but he knew nothing about Speyer." 
 
 Richards laughed. 
 
 " I dare say not ; just let me write to him ; he will tell me 
 a different story. I used to be hand and glove with all these 
 refugees ; and I will lay you any bet I find Speyer' s where 
 abouts within a week." 
 
 Accordingly, three or four days after, Richards called at 
 Morton's lodgings, with an air of great self-satisfaction. 
 
 " I have spotted your game for you, sir, and he won't run 
 
 (331) 
 
332 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 away in a hurry, either. He'll be sure to wait till you come. 
 He's in jail." 
 
 " What, for debt ? " 
 
 " No, for an assault on a Frenchman. It was about a 
 woman, a friend of Speyer's. You know I told you what a 
 jealous fellow he is." And he proceeded to recount what 
 further information he had gained. 
 
 " Odd," pondered Richards, after parting from Morton, 
 " that a millionnaire like him, and not at all a mean man 
 either, should trouble himself so much about any picayune 
 debt that Speyer can owe him. There is something in this 
 business more than I can make out." 
 
 While Richards occupied himself with these reflections, 
 Morton repaired to his lodgings and made his preparations. 
 On the next morning, he was in New York again. 
 
 He went to the jail where Speyer was confined, and readily 
 gained leave to see him. A somewhat loquacious officer, 
 who was to conduct him to the prisoner's room, confirmed 
 what Richards had told him, and gave him some new particu 
 lars. Speyer, he said, had never before, to his knowledge, 
 come under the notice of the police. He had been living in 
 good lodgings, and in a somewhat showy style. The person 
 who had occasioned the quarrel was an Italian girl. " She 
 comes every day to see him," said the policeman " she's 
 a wild one, I tell you ; and he frets himself to death because 
 he is shut up here, and can't be round to look after her." 
 
 " So much the better," thought Morton, who hoped that 
 this impatience would aid him in his intended negotiation. 
 
 " For how long a time is he sentenced ? " he asked. 
 
VASSALL MOETON. 333 
 
 " For three weeks ; unless he can find somebody to pay 
 his fine for him." 
 
 On entering the prisoner's room, Morton saw a man of 
 about forty, well dressed, though in a jail, but whose sallow 
 features, deep-set eyes, and square, massive lower jaw, well 
 covered with a black beard, indicated a character likely to be 
 any thing but tractable. If he had been either a gentleman 
 on the one hand, or a common ruffian on the other, his visitor 
 might have better known how to deal with him ; but he had 
 the look of one to whom, whatever he might be at heart, a 
 various contact with mankind had armed with an invincible 
 self-possession, and guarded at all points against surprise. 
 
 Morton was a wretched diplomatist, and had sense enough 
 to know it. He knew that if he tried to manoeuvre with his 
 antagonist, the latter would outflank him in a moment, and 
 he had therefore resolved on a sudden and direct attack. But 
 when he saw Speyer, he could not repress a lingering doubt 
 whether he were in fact the person of whom he was in search. 
 His chief object was to gain from him, if possible, any letters 
 of Vinal which might be in his hands. There was no direct 
 evidence that he had any such letters ; yet Morton thought 
 that the only hope of success lay in assuming his having them 
 as a certainty, and pretending a positive knowledge, where, 
 in truth, he had no other ground of action than conjecture. 
 So he smothered his doubts, and as soon as the policeman 
 was gone, made a crashing onset on the enemy. 
 
 " My name is Vassall Morton. I escaped four months ago 
 from the Castle of Ehrenberg. I have known something of 
 you through Mr. Vinal." 
 
334 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 If Morton were in doubt before, all his doubts were now 
 scattered, for a look of irrepressible surprise passed across 
 Speyer's features, mingled with as much dismay as his nature 
 was capable of feeling. At the next instant, every trace of it 
 had disappeared ; and slowly shaking his head, to indicate 
 unconsciousness, he looked at Morton inquiringly, with an 
 eye perfectly self-possessed and impenetrable. His visitor, 
 however, was not to be so deceived. 
 
 " I have no enmity against you, nor any wish to injure 
 you. On the contrary, I will pay your fine, and set you free, 
 if you will have it so. You have letters concerning me, 
 written to you by Vinal. Give them to me, and I will do as 
 I say. No harm shall come to you, and I will give you 
 money to carry you to any part of the world you wish." 
 
 " What letters ? " asked Speyer. 
 
 " We will have no bush-beating. You wish to get out of 
 jail, and have good reason for wishing to get out at once. 
 If you will give me those letters, you shall be free in three 
 hours, and safe. If you will not, I may give you some 
 trouble." 
 
 Speyer was silent for a moment. 
 
 '* I know the letters are of use to you. You can play a 
 profitable game with them ; but I can stop your game at any 
 moment I please." 
 
 " I can get four thousand dollars for them to-morrow," 
 said Speyer. 
 
 " Then why are you here in jail ?" 
 
 " Vinal offers it ; here it is." And taking a note from his 
 pocket, Speyer read Vinal' s proposal to buy the letters. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 335 
 
 " Let me see it," said Morton, taking the note from 
 Speyer's hand. " This, of itself, is evidence against him. 
 With your leave, I will keep it. Now hear my offer. Give 
 me the letters, and I will pay your fine. Then go with me 
 to Boston, and I will make Vinal pay you on the spot every 
 dollar that he has offered, on condition that you promise to 
 leave the United States, and never return." 
 
 Speyer reflected. He came to the conclusion that Morton 
 did not mean to expose Vinal ; but only, like himself, to 
 extort money from him ; and wished that he, Speyer, should 
 leave the country in order to get rid of a competitor. Mor 
 ton's object was quite different. He could not foresee to 
 what extremities Speyer's extortion might drive its victim ; 
 and he aimed to check it, by no means out of any tenderness 
 for Vinal, but lest his wife might suffer from its consequences. 
 
 Speyer, on his part, fevered with jealousy, was chafing to 
 be at large again. 
 
 " When will you pay my fine ? " 
 
 " Now." 
 
 " Then I accept your proposal." 
 
 " Can I rely on your promise to leave the country, and 
 make no further drafts on Vinal ? " 
 
 Speyer cast a glance at him, as if he had read his mind. 
 
 " I will promise." 
 
 " Will you swear ? " 
 
 Speyer readily took the oath, insisting that Morton should 
 swear in turn to keep his part of the condition. 
 
 " Now let me see the letters." 
 
 " I must send to my lodgings for them. If you will come 
 back in two hours, you shall have them." 
 
336 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " I should have thought you would keep them by you." 
 
 '* No ; but they are safe. Come back at twelve with the 
 money for my fine, and they shall be here for you." 
 
 Morton had no sooner left the room, than Speyer despatched 
 an underling of the jail to buy for him a few sheets of the 
 thin, half- transparent paper in common use for European 
 correspondence. This being brought, he opened his trunk, 
 and delving to the bottom, drew up a leather case, from which 
 he took the letters in question. Laying the thin paper over 
 them, he proceeded to trace with a pen an exact facsimile. 
 He was well practised at such work, and after one or two 
 failures, succeeded perfectly. Folding his counterfeits after 
 the manner of the originals, he placed them in the envelopes 
 belonging to the latter ; and within a half hour after his task 
 was finished, Morton reappeared. 
 
 Speyer gave him one of the facsimiles. He read it atten 
 tively, without seeing the imposture. The handwriting, 
 though disguised, was evidently Vinal's ; but it had neither 
 the signature of the writer, nor Morton's name. The place 
 of each was supplied by a cipher. 
 
 " Reference is made here to another letter. Where is it ? " 
 
 Speyer gave him the second counterfeit. The envelope 
 bore a postmark of a few days later than the first. The 
 note contained merely the names of Morton and Vinal, with 
 ciphers affixed, referring to those in the first letter. 
 
 " Have you no more of Vinal's papers ? " 
 
 Speyer shook his head. Indeed, the letters, if genuine, 
 would have been amply sufficient to place their writer in 
 Morton's power. The latter at once took the necessary meas- 
 
VASSALL MORTON,, 337 
 
 ures to gain the prisoner's release. Speyer no sooner found 
 himself at liberty than he hastened to search but the fair 
 object of his anxieties, promising to meet Morton on the 
 steamboat for Boston in the afternoon. His doubts were 
 strong whether the other would keep faith with him ; but he 
 amply consoled himself with the thought that, at the worst, 
 he still had means to bring Vinal to terms. 
 29 
 
CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 What spectre can the charnel send 
 
 So dreadful as an injured Mend ? Rokeby. 
 
 " STKANGE," thought Vinal, " that I hear nothing from 
 him." 
 
 It was three days since he had written to Speyer ; and his 
 chief anxiety was, lest his note should have miscarried. 
 Pain and long confinement had wrought heavily upon him. 
 Every emotion, every care, thrilled with a morbid keenness 
 upon his brain and nerves ; but hitherto he had ruled his 
 sensitive organism with an iron self-control, and calmed its 
 perturbations with a fortitude which in a better man would 
 have been heroic. 
 
 His wife was in the room, and, as his eye rested on her, i 
 kindled with a kind of troubled delight, for he loved he: 
 strongly, after his fashion. He had remarked of late a singu 
 lar assiduity and tenderness in her devotion to him. Her 
 position, in fact, was not unlike that of one who, broken and 
 overborne by some irreparable sorrow, had renounced the 
 world and its happiness, to embrace a new life, and build up 
 for herself a new hope in the calm sanctuary of a convent. 
 In the same spirit, Edith Leslie, bidding farewell to her girl 
 ish dream of life, its morning rose tint, and cloud draperies 
 
 (338) 
 
 : 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 839 
 
 of gold and purple, gave herself to the practical duties before 
 her, and sought, in their devoted fulfilment, to strengthen her 
 self against the flood which for a time had overwhelmed her. 
 
 Vinal, who, acute as he was, could not understand the 
 state of mind from which her peculiar kindness of manner 
 towards him rose, pleased himself with the idea that his 
 rival's return was not so great a shock to her as he had at 
 first feared, and that, after all, she was more fond of him 
 than of Morton. This notion consoled his disturbed thoughts 
 not a little. Still he was abundantly anxious and harassed. 
 
 " If Morton should suspect ! He has not come to see me ; 
 but that is natural enough, under the circumstances. And if 
 he does suspect, he can have no proof. No one here suspects 
 me. They say it was strange that my European correspond 
 ent should have made such a mistake ; but that is all. No 
 one dreams that I had a hand in it ; and why should they ? 
 No one knew of Edith's engagement to him, except herself, 
 her father, and her confidantes. I suppose she has confi 
 dantes all girls have them. I wish their epitaphs were 
 written, whoever they are. Well, 
 
 ' Come what come may, 
 Time and the hour run through the roughest day.' 
 
 But this is a dangerous business a cursed business. Why 
 does not Speyer write ? " 
 
 As his thoughts ran in this strain, he looked up, and his 
 eye caught that of his wife. She was struck with his troubled 
 expression. 
 
 " You look anxious and care-worn. Are you ill ? " 
 
340 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 " Come to me, Edith," said Vinal, with a faint smile. 
 
 She came to the side of his chair, and he took her hand. 
 
 " Edith, I am not well to-day. My head swims. This 
 long confinement is eating away my life by inches." 
 
 " In a week more, I trust, you will be able to move again. 
 The country air will give you new life. But why do you 
 look so troubled ? " 
 
 " Dreams, Edith, bad dreams, like Hamlet's, I suppose. 
 It is very strange, I cannot imagine why it is, but to-day 
 I have felt oppressed, weighed down, shadowed as if a cloud 
 hung over me. I am not myself. A man is a mere slave to 
 his nervous system, and when that is overthrown, his whole 
 soul is shaken with it. The country is my hope, Edith. 
 We will go there together, soon, and begin life anew." 
 
 A knock at the door interrupted him. 
 
 " Come in," cried Vinal, in his usual quick, decisive tone. 
 
 A servant entered. 
 
 Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " A gentleman wishes to see you, sir." 
 
 " Did he give his name ? " 
 
 " Mr. Edwards, sir." 
 
 " Ask him to come up." 
 
 " A man whom I expected this morning on business," he 
 said, in explanation to his wife, as the servant closed the 
 door. " I wish he were any w r here but here. And so you 
 are going away." She was dressed to go out. " He will 
 be here only a moment ; do not be gone long." 
 
 " No, I will be with you again in an hour." 
 
 " Do not forget," said Vinal, pressing her hand, " for when 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 341 
 
 you leave the room, Edith, it is as if a sunbeam were 
 shut out." 
 
 As Vinal, sick in body and mind, thus leaned in his distress 
 on the victim of his villany, he cast into her face a look that 
 was almost piteous. She, seeing nothing but his love for her, 
 warmed towards him with compassion ; the more so since, 
 till that moment, she had known him as a calm, firm man, a 
 model, to her eyes, of masculine self-government. A mind 
 tortured with suspense, acting upon a weak and morbidly 
 sensitive body, had betrayed him into this unwonted imbe 
 cility. 
 
 The step of the visitor sounded in the passage ; and return 
 ing the pressure of his hand, his wife went out at the door 
 of a small adjoining room, opening upon the side passage by 
 which she commonly entered and left the hotel. 
 
 After a few minutes' interview, Edwards took his leave, and 
 Vinal, left alone, fell into his former train of thought. In a 
 moment, he was again interrupted by a knock at the door, 
 quite unlike the hasty rap of the hotel servant. 
 
 " Come in," cried Vinal. 
 
 The door opened, and Vassall Morton entered. He had 
 learned from the retiring visitor that Vinal was alone. 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " exclaimed Vinal, his face beaming 
 with a transport of welcome. " My dear fellow ! " 
 
 But Morton stood without taking his proffered hand. The 
 smile remained frozen on Vinal' s face, and cold drops of 
 doubt and fear began to gather on his forehead. 
 
 " There is another friend of yours in the passage," said 
 Morton. " Come in, Speyer." 
 29* 
 
342 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Speyer entered, bowing with his usual composure. Vinal 
 sank bank in his chair, collapsing like a man withered with a 
 palsy stroke. 
 
 " Vinal," said Morton, after a silence of some moments, 
 " you have a cool way of receiving your acquaintances." 
 
 He made no answer, but still sat, or rather crouched, in 
 the depths of his easy chair, where the thick bounding of 
 his heart almost choked him. Morton stood for some time 
 longer, looking at him. He had not reached such a point of 
 Christian forgiveness as not to find pleasure in his enemy's 
 tortures, and he saw that his silence tortured him more than 
 words. 
 
 " Vinal," he said at length, " I used to know you in col 
 lege for a liar and a coward ; and since then you have grown 
 well in both ways. You have hatched into a full-fledged 
 villain ; and now that I have found you out, you crouch like 
 a whipped cur." 
 
 No answer was returned, and Morton's anger began to 
 yield to a different feeling. If he could have seen the con 
 dition of Vinal's mind and body, he might, between pity and 
 contempt, have spared him. 
 
 " I came to upbraid you with your knaveries ; but I find 
 you hardly worth the trouble. Do you see this letter ? It is 
 the same that you wrote to this man at Marseilles, instructing 
 him to forge a story that I was dead, and that he had seen 
 my gravestone, with my mother's family device upon it. 
 Will you dare deny that you wrote it ? You will not ! I 
 thought as much. I have unravelled you from first to last. 
 Five years ago, you bribed Speyer, here, to compromise me 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 343 
 
 with the Austrian police. Pretending to be my friend, you 
 gave me letters which betrayed me into a prison, where you 
 hoped that I would end my days ; and, next, you contrived 
 this trickery to prove me dead. Is there any name in the 
 English tongue too vile to mark you r " 
 
 Vinal sat as if stricken dumb. 
 
 " I know your reputation," pursued Morton. " You are 
 in high feather here. You pass for a man of virtue, integrity, 
 and honor. You make speeches at public meetings ; Fourth 
 of July orations ; Phi Beta orations ; charity harangues 
 any thing that smacks of philanthropy and goodness ; any 
 thing that will varnish you in the public eye. Why am I 
 not bound to lay bare this whitewashed lie ? What with 
 holds me from grinding you like a scorpion under my boot- 
 heel, or flinging you on the pavement to be stared at like a 
 scotched viper ? A word from me, and you are ruined. 
 You need not fear it. Stay, and enjoy your honors as you 
 can ; but my foot shall be on your neck. This letter of 
 yours is the spell by which I will rule you, body and soul." 
 
 Here he paused again ; but Vinal's tongue was powerless. 
 
 u I tell you again, for I would not have you desperate, that 
 I do not mean to ruin you. Bear yourself wisely, and you 
 are safe, at least from me. Have you lost your speech ? Are 
 you turned dumb ? " 
 
 Vinal muttered inarticulately. 
 
 " There is another danger which I have done my best to 
 ward off from you. This man, who had you at his mercy, 
 has sworn to leave the country, and never to return ; on 
 which score you will please to pay him the money you offered 
 him for the purchase of your letters." 
 
344 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 Vinal seemed confused and stupefied, and Morton was 
 forced to be more explicit in his demands. At length, the 
 former signed a note for the amount, though not without 
 stammering objections to his name appearing on it in connec 
 tion with Speyer's. Morton, however, turned a deaf ear to 
 these remonstrances. 
 
 " Here is your pay," he said to Speyer. " Any bank will 
 discount this for you. Now, to what place do you mean 
 to go ? " 
 
 " To Venezuela.. I have a friend there in the army. He 
 will get a commission for me." 
 
 " Very well. See that you stay there ; or, at all events, 
 do not come back to the United States. If you do, you will 
 perjure yourself. Now, go ; I have done with you. Vinal, 
 I will leave you to your reflections ; and when you can sleep 
 in peace, free from Speyer's persecutions, remember to whom 
 you owe it." 
 
 Vinal sat like a withered plant, his head sinking between 
 his shoulders, while his hand, still unconsciously holding the 
 pen, rested on the arm of his chair. There was something 
 in his appearance at once so abject and so piteous, that a 
 changed feeling came over Morton as he looked on him. By 
 a sudden impulse, akin to pity, he stepped towards him, and 
 took his wrist. The pen dropped from his pale fingers, 
 which quivered like an aspen bough ; and as Morton stood 
 gazing on him, Vinal' s upturned eyes met his, as if riveted 
 there by a helpless fascination. 
 
 . " You unhappy wretch ! You are burning already with 
 the pains of the damned. Flint and iron could not see you 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 345 
 
 without softening. I have saved you, not out of mercy, 
 nor forgiveness, not for your sake ; but I have saved you. 
 I have pushed away the sword that hung over you by a hair. 
 You are free now to be happy." 
 
 But as he spoke this last word, so fierce a pang shot into 
 his heart, remembering what he had lost, and what Vinal had 
 won, that his pity was scattered like mist before a thunder 
 squall. He flung back the passive hand against the breast 
 of its terrified owner, turned abruptly, and left the room. 
 
 No sooner had the door closed behind him, than the door 
 of the anteroom opposite was flung open, and Edith Leslie, 
 rushing in, stood before Vinal with the wild look of one who 
 gasps for breath. She attempted to speak, but broken words 
 and inarticulate sounds were all her lips would utter. 
 Strength failed her in the effort, and pressing her hands to 
 her forehead, she sank fainting to the floor. 
 
CHAPTER LX. 
 
 I will not go with thee ; 
 I will instruct my sorrows to be proud. King Jo7m. 
 
 Ox the next morning, Yinal learned that his wife was ill, 
 and confined to her room in her father's house. On the day 
 following, he was told that she was no better ; but on the 
 third morning, a letter, in her handwriting, was given him. 
 He opened it, and read as follows : 
 
 I heard all. I have learned, at last, to know you. These 
 were your bad dreams ! This was the cloud that overshad 
 owed you ! No wonder that your eye was anxious, your 
 forehead wrinkled, and your cheek pale. To have led that 
 brave and loyal heart through months and years of anguish ! 
 to have buried him from the light of day! to have 
 buried him in darkness and despair, if despair could ever touch 
 a soul like his ! And there he would have been lost forever, 
 if you had had your will, if a higher hand had not been 
 outstretched to save him. One whom you dared not meet 
 face to face ; one as far above your sphere as the eagle is 
 above the serpent to which he likened you ! You have taught 
 me how sin can cringe and cower under the anger of a true 
 and deeply outraged man. That I should have lived to hear 
 
 (346) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 847 
 
 my husband called a villain ! and still live to tell him that 
 the word was just ! My husband ! You are not my hus 
 band. It was not a criminal, a traitorous wretch, whom I 
 pledged myself to love and honor. You have insnared me ; 
 you have me, for a time, safely entangled in your meshes. 
 The same cause which led me to this yoke must withhold me 
 from casting it off. I cannot imbitter my father's dying mo 
 ments. I cannot bring distress and horror to his tranquil 
 death bed. For his sake, I will play the hypocrite, and 
 stoop to pass in the world's eye as your wife. For the few 
 weeks he has to live, I will lodge, if I must, under your roof; 
 I will sit, if I must, at your table ; but when my father is 
 gone, let the world impute to me what blame it will, I will 
 leave you forever. You need not fear that I shall expose 
 your crimes. If he could spare you, it does not become me 
 to speak. Live on, and make what atonement you may ; 
 but meanwhile there is a gulf between us wider than death. 
 
 EDITH LESLIE. 
 
 An accident, arising out of her very devotion to Vinal, had 
 made known his secret to her. In the anteroom which led 
 from the side passage of the hotel to his apartment, and 
 through which, on the morning of his interview with Morton, 
 she had intended to pass on her way out, was a table, covered 
 with books and engravings, with which the invalid had been 
 amusing his leisure. The sight of them reminded her that 
 she had promised to get for him a series of German etchings, 
 which he had expressed a wish to see. She seated her 
 self, to write a request to the friend who had them, that 
 
348 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 he would send them to the hotel. Her hand was on the 
 bell, to call the servant, when the peculiarly emphatic and 
 earnest manner with which Vinal greeted some new visitor 
 caught her attention. The door had sprung ajar on the lock ; 
 the speakers were very near it, and Morton's tone was none 
 of the softest. She remained as if charmed to her seat ; and 
 every word fell on her ear as clearly as if she had stood in 
 the same room. 
 
CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, 
 A stage where, every man must play a part, 
 And mine a sad one. Merchant of Venice. 
 
 The past is past. I see the future stretch 
 
 All dark and barren as a rainy sea. Alexander Smith. 
 
 MORTON took possession again of his house in the coun 
 try, which still remained in the keeping of one of his humble 
 relatives, into whose charge he had given it. He turned the 
 key of his long-deserted library. A loving influence had 
 presided here in his absence, and, even when he was given up 
 for lost, every thing had been scrupulously kept as he had 
 left it. 
 
 Here he immured himself; avoided all society but that of 
 a few personal friends ; and by plunging into the studies 
 which had formerly engrossed him, tried to escape the perse 
 cution of his own thoughts. It was a forced and painful 
 task. The marks in his books, the pencil notes on their mar 
 gins, his voluminous piles of memoranda, were all so many 
 sharp memorials of the past, to remind him that he was re 
 suming in darkness and despondency the work that he had 
 left in sunshine. 
 
 In process of time, however, his ancient interest in his 
 30 
 
TASSALL MORTON. 
 
 favorite pursuit began to rekindle. He began to feel that 
 the years of his imprisonment had not been the dead and 
 barren blank which he had inclined to think them. His mind 
 had ripened in its solitude, and the studies which he had 
 before followed with the zeal of a bo'y, more eager than able 
 to deal with the broad questions which they involved, he 
 could now grasp with the matured intellect of a man. 
 
 But while Morton was thus laboring on, Edith Leslie was 
 passing through an ordeal incomparably more severe. Month 
 after month dragged on, and her father still lingered, sinking 
 again and again to the very edge of the grave, and then rally 
 ing, as if with a fresh life. Vinal, meanwhile, was in a good 
 measure recovered from the effects of his accident. His home 
 and hers, if it could be called a home, was now a house in 
 town, which her father had fitted up for her in view of her 
 marriage. She had a painful and delicate part to act at her 
 father's bedside, to appear as the happy and contented wife ; i 
 at home, to endure the presence of the man whose treachery 
 filled her with horror, and whose love for her, though she had 
 never spoken a word of reproof, had changed into fear and 
 hatred. Of his actual presence, however, she had to endure 
 little ; for he shunned her studiously ; and her house was to 
 her a solitude, where she passed hours of a suffering more 
 intense than Morton had ever known in the dungeons of 
 Ehrenberg. 
 
 Meanwhile, the servants, those domestic spies, did not fail 
 to rumor abroad the singular mode of life of the brid^ and 
 bridegroom ; that Vinal avoided the house ; that they seldo 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 35V 
 
 
 
 met, even at meals ; and that no word or look of sympathy or 
 confidence seemed ever to pass between them. Such rumors 
 found their currency among the busier gossips of the town ; 
 but Morton, secluded among his books, remained wholly ig 
 norant of them. 
 
CHAPTER, LXII. 
 
 Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best. Webster. 
 
 IT was nearly a year since he had landed at New York, and 
 Morton still remained a literary hermit. Society was stale 
 and distasteful to him. He passed three fourths of his day 
 in his library, and the rest on horseback. At length, how 
 ever^ it happened that a cousin of his mother, one of his few 
 relatives in the city, was to give a ball on occasion of her 
 daughter's debut ; and lest his refusal should be thought un 
 kind, Morton promised to come. He drove to town in the 
 afternoon ; and walking through a somewhat obscure street, 
 suddenly, on turning a corner, saw, some four or five rods 
 before him, a well-remembered face. It was the face of 
 Henry Speyer. The discovery was mutual. Speyer instantly 
 turned down a by-lane. Morton quickened his pace, and 
 reached the head of the lane in time to see the broad shoul 
 ders of the patriot in full retreat. He soon lost sight of him 
 among a wilderness of back yards and squalid houses. The 
 incident greatly disturbed and exasperated him. " A broken 
 oath is nothing to him," he thought to himself; "he is at 
 Vinal again, dragging at his veins like a vampire." 
 
 The evening drew on, and he entered the ball room in a 
 gloomy and dejected frame of mind. After a few words to 
 
 (352) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 353 
 
 his relatives, he took his stand among a group who were 
 watching the dancers; and had scarcely done so, when. he 
 saw a young lady, simply, but very richly dressed, whose fine 
 figure and powerfully expressive beauty arrested his eye at 
 once. The indifference and listlessness with which he had 
 entered vanished. He soon observed that she was not an 
 object of attention to him alone ; for near him -stood a certain 
 old beau, well known about town, and a young collegian, 
 both following her with their eyes. The music ceased, and 
 her partner led her to a seat at the farther side of the room. 
 Glancing at his two neighbors, Morton saw that they were in 
 the act of moving towards her ; but he, being nearer, had the 
 advantage. Gliding through the dissolving fragments of the 
 dance, he stood by her side. 
 
 " Miss Fanny Euston, I see two persons coming to ask you 
 to dance. May I hope that you will reject them for an old 
 friend's sake, and let me be your partner? " 
 
 She raised her eyes with a perplexed look, which instantly 
 changed to a bright gleam of recognition, and cordially took 
 his proffered hand. 
 
 "So," said Morton, "you have not forgotten me. And 
 yet, as I see you, I hardly dare to take up again the broken 
 thread of our old intimacy. I used to call you Fanny." 
 
 *' Call me Fanny still," she said, " if only for the memory 
 of auld lang syne." 
 
 " I hoped to have seen you before, but you have been 
 away." 
 
 " Yes, with my relations, and yours, at Baltimore. I have 
 heard a great deal about you. Your story is the talk of the 
 30* 
 
354 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 town. You might be the lion of the season ; but I have not 
 seen you at parties." 
 
 " No, I have outlived my liking for such matters." 
 " I cannot wonder at it. What horrors you have suffered ! 
 what dangers you have passed ! " 
 " I have weathered them, though." 
 " You were more than four years in a dungeon." 
 " Yes, but I gave them the slip." 
 " You were led out to be shot by the soldiers." 
 " They thought better of it, and saved their ammunition." 
 "And yet I see," said Miss Euston, smiling, " that you still 
 remain your former self. I remember telling you that, if you 
 were sentenced to the rack, you would go to it with a gibe 
 on your tongue, and speak of it afterwards as a pleasant di 
 version. But," she added, with a changed look, " you have 
 not come off unscathed. Your face is darker and thinner 
 than it used to be, and there are lines in it that were not 
 there before." 
 
 " Fortune fondled me till she grew tired of me ; then 
 turned at me, tooth and nail." 
 
 " You banter with your lips, but your look belies your 
 words. You have suffered greatly ; you have suffered in 
 tensely." 
 
 Morton looked grave in spite of himself. 
 " Perhaps you are right. I have very little heart left for 
 jesting." 
 
 The eyes of his companion, as they met his, assumed a pe 
 culiar softness. 
 
 " You must have suffered beyond all power of words to 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 355 
 
 speak it. The world to you was fresh and full of interest. 
 You were ambitious ; full of ardor and energy ; loving hard 
 ship for its own sake, and obstacles for the sake of conquering 
 them. You were formed for action. It was your element 
 your breath ; and without it you did not care to live. You 
 were high in confidence, and believed that whatever you had 
 once resolved on must, sooner or later, come to pass." 
 
 " Why are you saying this ? " demanded Morton, in great 
 surprise. 
 
 " Out of this life you were suddenly snatched and buried 
 in a dungeon ; shut off from all intercourse with men ; your 
 energies stifled ; your restless mind left to prey upon itself, 
 or sustain a weary siege against despair. Pain or danger you 
 could have faced like a man ; but this passive misery must to 
 you have been a daily death." 
 
 "Who," interrupted Morton, "taught you, a woman, to 
 penetrate the nature of a man, and describe sufferings that 
 you never felt ? " 
 
 " Your mind was like a spring of steel, springing up the 
 more strongly the harder it was pressed down. The suffer 
 ing must have been deep indeed from which you could not 
 rebound. To have escaped, to have reached home, and to 
 have found any thing but relief and delight " 
 
 " Home ! " ejaculated Morton, bitterly, as a sharp mem 
 ory of the anguish which had met him on the threshold came 
 over him. " A prison may be borne with patience. Those 
 are fortunate who have felt no keener stabs." 
 
 The words, equivocal as they were, were scarcely spoken, 
 when he had repented them. Fanny Euston was silent for a 
 
356 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 moment. " Can it be possible," she thought, " that the 
 stories whispered about, that before he went away he was 
 engaged to Edith Leslie, are something more than an idle 
 rumor ? " 
 
 " Why do you look at me so searchingly ? " thought Mor 
 ton, on his part, as, raising his eyes, he saw those of his 
 friend fixed on him in a gaze in which a woman's curiosity 
 was mingled with a fully equal share of a woman's kindliness 
 and sympathy. He hastened to escape from the critical 
 ground which he had approached. 
 
 " I can retort upon you," he said. " You have had your 
 ordeal, too." 
 
 . " What, do you see its traces ? Do you find me scorched 
 and withered ? " 
 
 " I see," said Morton, " such traces as on gold that has 
 passed through the furnace." 
 
 " Truly, I have cause to rejoice, then ; for I remember 
 that, among other compliments, you once intimated your 
 opinion that I was possessed with a devil." 
 
 " I am afraid that I pushed to its farthest limit my privi 
 lege of cousinship." 
 
 " And yet, when I look back to that time, I cannot help 
 thinking that you had some reason for believing that an in 
 fluence from the nether world had some share in me." 
 
 " Now pardon me, if I am rude again. Looking at you, I 
 can see the same devil still." 
 
 " Indeed, and you will console me now, as you did then, 
 by telling me that a dash of viciousness is necessary to make 
 a character interesting." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 357 
 
 " I should prune and explain my speech. By a devil, I 
 did not mean a malicious imp of darkness, wholly bent on 
 evil. I meant nothing more than certain impulses and emo 
 tions, passions, if I may call them so, very turbulent 
 tenants, yet of admirable use when well dealt with. These 
 were the devil whom I used to see in you, and whom I see 
 still." 
 
 " I shall tremble at myself." 
 
 " Then you are not so brave as you were when you leaped 
 the fallen tree at New Baden. Your demon has ceased to 
 have an alarming look. I think you have turned him to 
 good account. Shall I illustrate from the legends of the 
 saints ? " 
 
 " In any way you please ; but I should never have expected 
 you to resort to so pious a source." 
 
 " St. Bernard, crossing the Alps on some holy errand, was 
 met by Satan, who, being anxious to prevent his journey, 
 broke one of his carriage wheels. But St. Bernard caught 
 him, sprinkled him with holy water, doubled him into a wheel, 
 and put him upon the carriage in place of the broken one. 
 The legend says that he answered the purpose admirably, and 
 bore the saint safely to the end of his journey." 
 
 " Your legend is absurd enough ; but I think I catch your 
 meaning, and wish I could think you wholly in the right. It 
 is singular that you and I have never met without our con 
 versation becoming personal to ourselves. We are always 
 studying each other always trying to penetrate each other's 
 thoughts." 
 
 " On one side, at least, the success has been complete. As 
 
358 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 you look at me, I feel that you are reading me like a book, 
 from title page to finis." 
 
 " You greatly overrate my penetration. I am conscious, at 
 this moment, of movements in your mind which I do not 
 understand." 
 
 " And would you have me confess them to you ? " 
 
 " You might repent it afterwards ; and that would make a 
 breach between us." 
 
 " You are a miraculous woman, to postpone your curiosity 
 to a scruple like that. No, I would not have spoken of con 
 fession, if I should ever repent it. Do you know, I would 
 rather open my mind to you than to any one else I am now 
 acquainted with." 
 
 " But you have male friends ; very old and intimate ones." 
 
 " Excellent in their way ; but I would as soon confess to 
 my horse. Find me a woman of sense, with a brain to dis 
 cern, a heart to feel, passion to feel vehemently, and principle 
 to feel rightly, and I will show her my mind ; or, if not, I 
 will show it to no one. Now, after this preamble, you have 
 a right to think that I should begin to confess something at 
 once. But first, I will ask you a question." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Tell me what effect you think any long and severe suf 
 fering ought to have on a man something, I mean, that 
 would bring him to the brink of despair, and keep him there 
 for months and years." 
 
 " What kind of man do you mean ? " 
 
 " Suppose one given over to pleasure, ambition, or any 
 other engrossing pursuit not too disinterested." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 359 
 
 " It would depend on how the suffering was taken." 
 
 " Suppose him resolved to make the best of a bad bargain." 
 
 " Why, the effect ought to be good, I suppose, so the 
 preachers say." 
 
 " I do not wish to know what the preachers say. I wish 
 your own opinion." 
 
 " Are you quite in earnest ? " 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 "Such suffering, rightly taken, would strip life of its dis 
 guises, and show it in its naked truth. It would teach the 
 man to know himself and to know others. It would awaken 
 his sympathies, enlarge his mind, and greatly expand his 
 sphere of vision ; teach him -to hold present pleasure and 
 present pain in small account, and to look beyond them into 
 a future of boundless hopes and fears." 
 
 " Now," said Morton, " you have betrayed yourself." 
 
 " How have I betrayed myself? " asked his friend, in some 
 discomposure. 
 
 " You have shown me the secrets of your own mind. 
 You have given me a glimpse of your own history, since we 
 last met." 
 
 " And so, under pretence of confessing to me, you have 
 been plotting to make me confess to you ! " 
 
 " No, you shall hear my confession. I have it now, such 
 as it is, at my tongue's end." 
 
 " I have no faith in you." 
 
 " Perhaps you will have still less when you have heard 
 this great secret. You remember me before I went away. 
 I was a very exemplary young gentleman, quiet, orderly, 
 
360 VASSALL MOETOX. 
 
 well behaved, of a studious turn, soberly and virtuously 
 given." 
 
 " You give yourself an excellent character." 
 
 " And what should be the results of the discipline of a 
 dungeon on such a person ? " 
 
 " Discipline would be a superfluity, considering your per 
 fections." 
 
 " So I thought myself. Nevertheless, for four years, or so, 
 I was shut up, with nothing to look at but stone walls, under 
 circumstances most favorable for the culture of patience, 
 resignation, forgiveness, and all the Christian virtues ; and 
 yet the devil has never been half so busy with me as since I 
 came out ; never whispered half so many villanous sugges 
 tions into my ears, nor baited me with such scandalous temp 
 tations." 
 
 " That is very strange," said Fanny Euston, who was 
 looking at him intently. 
 
 " For example," pursued Morton, " a little more than a 
 year ago, in New York, he said to me, * Renounce all your 
 old plans, and habits, and antiquated scruples reclaim your 
 natural freedom fling yourself headlong into the turmoil 
 of the world chase whatever fate or fortune throws in your 
 way enjoy the zest of lawless pleasures launch into mad 
 adventure embark on schemes of ambition care nothing 
 for the past or the future think only of the present fear 
 neither God nor man, and follow your vagrant star wherever 
 it leads you." 
 
 Morton knew that, restrained and governed as it might be, 
 there was quicksilver enough in his companion's veins to ena- 
 
VASSA.LL MOKTON. 361 
 
 ble her to understand what he had said, and prevent her 
 being startled at it. But he was by no means prepared for 
 the close attack she proceeded to make on him. 
 
 " Such a state of mind is foreign to your nature. You 
 have prudence and forecast. You used to make plans for the 
 future, and study the final results of every thing you did. 
 There is something upon your mind. It is not imprisonment 
 only that has caused that compression of your lips, and 
 marked those lines on your face. You have met with some 
 deep disaster, some overwhelming disappointment. Nothing 
 else could have wrought such a convulsion in you." 
 
 Morton was taken by surprise ; and, as he struggled to 
 frame an answer, his features betrayed an emotion which he 
 could not hide. Fanny Euston hastened to relieve his em 
 barrassment, and assuage, as far as she could, the tumult she 
 had called up. 
 
 " With whatever fate you may have had to battle, your 
 wounds are in the front, all honorable scars. Your des 
 peration is past ; it was only for the hour ; and for the 
 other extreme, it is not in you to suffer that." 
 
 " What other extreme ? " 
 
 " Idle dreaming ; melancholy ; weak pining at disap 
 pointment." 
 
 " No, thank God, it is not in me to lie and whine like a 
 sick child." 
 
 " You are the firmer for what you have passed. Manhood, 
 the proudest of all possession to a man, is strengthened and 
 deepened in you." 
 31 
 
362 VASSALL MORTON 
 
 " What do you call this manhood, which you seem to hold 
 in such high account ? " 
 
 " That unflinching quality which, strong in generous 
 thought and high purpose, bears onward towards its goal, 
 knowing no fear but the fear of God ; wise, prudent, calm, 
 yet daring and hoping all things ; not dismayed by reverses, 
 nor elated by success ; never bending nor receding ; weary 
 ing out ill fortune by undespairing constancy ; unconquered 
 by pain or sorrow, or deferred hope ; fiery in attack, stead 
 fast in resistance, unshaken in the front of death ; and when 
 courage is vain, and hope seems folly, when crushing calamity 
 presses it to the earth, and the exhausted body will no longer 
 obey the still undaunted mind, then putting forth its hardest, 
 saddest heroism, the unlaurelled heroism of endurance, 
 patiently biding its time." 
 
 " And how if its time never come ? " 
 
 " Then dying at its post, like the Roman sentinel at 
 Pompeii." 
 
 Her words struck a chord in Morton's nature, and roused 
 his early enthusiasm, dormant for years. 
 
 " Fanny," he said, " I thank you. You give me back my 
 youth. An hour ago, the world was as dull to me as a 
 November day ; but you have brought June back again. You 
 would make a coward valiant, and breathe life into a 
 dead man." 
 
 Miss Euston seemed, for a moment, in embarrassment what 
 to reply ; indeed, she showed some signs of discomposure, 
 contrasting with her former frankness. They were still in 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 363 
 
 the recess of the window. She was visible to those in the 
 room ; while he, standing opposite, was hidden by a cur 
 tain. At this moment, a gentleman, with a slight limp in 
 his gait, approaching quickly, accosted Miss Euston, smil 
 ing with an air of the most earnest affability. She looked 
 up to reply, but, as she did so, her eyes were arrested 
 by a sudden change in the features of her companion, who 
 was bending on the new comer a look so fierce and threat 
 ening, that she scarcely repressed an ejaculation of surprise. 
 Mr. Horace Vinal followed the direction of her gaze, and 
 saw himself face to face with the victim of his villany. 
 He started as if he had found a grizzly bear behind the 
 curtain. The smile vanished from his lips, the color from 
 his cheeks, and he hastily drew back, and mingled with the 
 crowd. 
 
 This sudden apparition, breaking in upon the brightening 
 mood of the moment, incensed Morton almost to fury ; and 
 his anger, absurdly enough, was a little tinged with a feel 
 ing not wholly unlike jealousy. He made an involuntary 
 movement to follow his enemy, but recollecting himself, 
 smoothed his brow and calmed his ruffled spirit as he best 
 might. 
 
 " You seem to know that man very well," he said to Miss 
 Euston. 
 
 " Yes, I know him." 
 
 " He seems to think himself on excellent terms with you." 
 
 " He has charge of my mother's property." 
 
 " You are good at reading faces. I hope you liked the 
 expression on his, as he slunk away just now." 
 
364 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 "It was fear abject fear. Why are you so angry? 
 Why is he so frightened ? " 
 
 " His nerves, you may have observed, are something of the 
 weakest. He is my attendant genius, my familiar. A word 
 from me, and he will run my errand like a spaniel." 
 
 " How could you gain such power over him ? " she asked, 
 in great astonishment. 
 
 " Magnetism, Fanny, magnetism. The effects of the 
 mesmeric "fluid are wonderful. See, the polking is over ; 
 they are forming a quadrille. Shall we take our places in 
 the set?" 
 
 During the dance, Morton looked for his enemy, but could 
 not discover him till it was over, and he had led his partner 
 to a seat. 
 
 " Look," he said, " there is our friend again ; in the next 
 
 room, just beyond the folding doors, talking with Mrs. 
 
 and Mrs. . He seems to have got the better of the 
 
 shock to his nerves ; at least, he stands up manfully against 
 it. Mr. Horace Vinal has a stout heart, and needs nothing 
 but valor, and one other quality, to make a hero. But his 
 face is flushed. I fear he suffers in his health. See, he 
 makes himself very agreeable. Vinal was always famous for 
 his wit. Pardon me a moment ; I have a word for my 
 friend's ear." 
 
 Fanny Euston looked at him doubtingly. 
 
 " Pray, don't be discomposed. There's no gunpowder im 
 pending. Vinal is not a fighting man ; nor am I. What I 
 have to say is altogether pacific, loving, and scriptural." 
 
 And passing into the adjoining room, he approached Vinal, 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 365 
 
 who no sooner saw the movement, than he showed a manifest 
 uneasiness. His forced animation ceased, his manner became 
 constrained, and while Morton stood near, waiting an oppor 
 tunity to speak to him, he withdrew to another part of the 
 room. Morton followed, and pronounced his name. Vinal, 
 with pretended unconsciousness, mingled with the crowd. 
 Morton again tried to accost him, and again Vinal moved 
 away. Impatient and exasperated, Morton stepped behind 
 him, touched his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, 
 
 " You fool, do you know your danger ? Speyer is looking 
 for you. I saw him this afternoon. He looks as if he needed 
 your charity. You had better be generous with him. He is 
 a tiger, and will be upon you before you know it." 
 
 Anger and terror, of which the latter vastly predominated, 
 gave a ghastly look to Vinal' s face, as he turned it towards 
 Morton. But he drew back without a word, and soon left 
 the room. 
 
 " Where is Mr. Vinal ? " asked the wondering Fanny 
 Euston, as her companion returned to her side. The momen 
 tary interview had been invisible from where she sat. 
 
 " Obeyed the magic word, and vanished. Never doubt 
 again the power of magnetism. Now you may see that the 
 claptrap of the charlatans about the mutual influence of con 
 genial spheres is not quite such trash as one might think. 
 Vinal and I, being congenial spheres, put each other, the one 
 into a passion, the other into a fright. But I have a request 
 to you. Whoever knows you, knows, in spite of the libellers, 
 a woman who can keep counsel ; and as I am modest in 
 respect to my magnetic gifts, I shall beg it of you, that you 
 31* 
 
366 YASSALL MORTON. 
 
 will not mention these experiments to any one. Good even 
 ing. I have revived to-night an old and valued friendship. 
 If I can help it, it shall not die again." 
 
 He took leave of his hostess, wrapped his cloak about 
 him, and walked out into the drizzling night. 
 
CHAPTEB LXIII. 
 
 Nought's bad, all's spent, 
 Where our desire is got without content. 
 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy, 
 Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. Macbeth. 
 
 MORTON walked the street, on the next day, in a mood 
 less grave than had lately been his wont, but in one of any 
 thing but self-approval. 
 
 " It is singular," he thought, " I could" never meet her 
 without forgetting myself, without being betrayed into 
 some absurdity or other. I thought by this time that I had 
 grown wiser, or, at least, was well fenced against that kind 
 of risk. But it is the same now as ever. I was a fool at New 
 Baden, and I was a fool again last night, though after a differ 
 ent fashion. After all, when a fresh breeze comes, why should 
 I not breathe it ? when a ray of sun comes, why should I not 
 bask in it ? But what impelled me to insult that wretch, who 
 I knew dared not and could not answer me ? " 
 
 He pondered for a moment, then turned and walked 
 slowly towards Vinal's place of business. 
 
 " Is Mr. Vinal here ? " he asked of one of the clerks. 
 
 " Yes, sir, he is in that inner room." 
 
 " Is any one with him ? " 
 
 (367) 
 
368 VA.SSALL MOETON. 
 
 " No, sir." And Morton opened the door and entered. 
 Vinal sat before a table, on which letters and papers were 
 lying ; but he was leaning backward in his chair, with a pain 
 fully knit brow, and a face of ghastly paleness. It flushed 
 of a sudden as Morton appeared, and his whole look and 
 mien showed an irrepressible agitation. 
 
 Morton closed the door. " Vinal," he said, " you need 
 not fear that I have come with any hostile purpose. On the 
 contrary, I will serve you, if I can. Last night I used words 
 to you which I have since regretted. I beg you to accept my 
 apology." 
 
 Vinal made no reply. 
 
 " I saw Speyer in the street last evening, and tried to 
 speak with him, but could not stop him. He can hardly 
 have any other purpose in breaking his oath and coming here 
 again, than to get more money from you. Has he been 
 to you ? " 
 
 Still Vinal was silent. 
 
 " I think," continued Morton, " that you cannot fail to see 
 my motive. I wish to keep him from you, not on your 
 account, but on your wife's. If you let him, he will torment 
 you to your death. Have you seen him since last evening ? " 
 
 Vinal inclined his head. 
 
 " Where is he now ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Has he left the city ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I suppose so." 
 
 " And you gave him money ? " 
 
 Vinal was silent again. Morton took his silence for assent. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 369 
 
 " When lie comes again, tell me of it, and let me speak to 
 him. Possibly I may find means to rid you of him. Mean 
 time remember this. He has given your letter up to me. 
 He has no proofs to show against you, unless he has other 
 letters of yours ; is that the case ?" 
 
 Vinal shook his head. 
 
 " Then, if he proclaims you, his word will not be taken, 
 unless I sustain it ; and I shall keep silent unless you give 
 me some new cause to speak. I do not see that he can harm 
 you much without my help ; so give him no more money, and 
 set him at defiance." 
 
 Morton left the room ; but his words had brought no 
 relief to the wretched Vinal. Speyer had shown him his 
 letter, and told him the artifice by which he had kept it, and 
 palmed off a counterfeit on Morton. He felt himself at the 
 mercy of a miscreant as rapacious, fierce, and pitiless, as a 
 wolverene dropping on its prey. 
 
CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 Ah, would my friendship with thee 
 Might drown the memory of all patterns past ! Suckling. 
 
 SOME few days after, riding, as usual, in the afternoon, 
 Morton saw on the road before him a lady on horseback, 
 riding in the same direction. At a glance, he recognized 
 the air and figure of Fanny Euston. This remnant, at least, 
 of her former spirit remained to her, she did not hesi 
 tate to ride unattended. Morton checked his horse, reflected 
 for a little, then touched him with the spur, and in a moment 
 was at her side. After they had conversed for a while, she 
 said, 
 
 " I have heard a great deal of your imprisonment from 
 others, but nothing from yourself. Will you not let me hear 
 your story from your own lips ? " 
 
 " It was a long and dull history to live through, and will be 
 a short and dull one to tell." 
 
 " I have never been able to hear clearly why you were 
 arrested at all." 
 
 " It was a simple matter. The Austrian government is 
 like a tyrant and a coward, frightened at shadows. I had 
 one or two acquaintances at Vienna who had been implicated, 
 though I did not know it, in plots against the government. 
 
 (370) 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 371 
 
 I, being an American, was imagined to be, as a matter of 
 course, a democrat, and in league witlj them. It needed very 
 little more ; and they shut me up, as they have done many 
 an innocent man before me." 
 
 " Looking back at your imprisonment, it must seem to you 
 a broad, dark chasm in your life." 
 
 " Broad and black enough ; but not quite so void as I once 
 thought." 
 
 " No ; in struggling through it, I can see that you have 
 not come out empty handed." 
 
 " Not I ; I should be glad to rid myself of the larger part 
 of the load. One is sometimes punished with the fulfilment, 
 of his own whims. I remember wishing and that not so 
 many years back that I might sound all the strings of 
 human joys and sufferings, try life in all its phases, in 
 peace and war, a dungeon, if I remember right, inclusive. I 
 have had my fill of it, and do not care to repeat the experi 
 ment." 
 
 " Some of the damp and darkness of your dungeon still 
 clings about you, and out of the midst of it, you look back 
 over the gulf to a shore of light and sunshine, where you 
 were once standing." 
 
 " You read me like a sibyl, as you always do. None but a 
 child or a fool will seriously regret any shape of experience 
 out of which he has come with mind and senses still sound, 
 though it may have changed the prismatic colors of life into 
 a neutral tint, a universal gray, a Scotch mist, with light 
 enough to delve by, and nothing more." 
 
 " One's life is a series of compromises, at best. One must 
 
372 v VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 capitulate with Fate, gain from her as much good as may be, 
 
 and as little evil." 
 
 % 
 
 " And then set his teeth and endure. As for myself, 
 though, if gifts were portioned out among mankind in equal 
 allotments, I should count myself, even now, as having more 
 than my share." 
 
 " That idea of equalized happiness is a great fallacy." 
 
 " Every idea of mortal equality is a great fallacy ; and all 
 the systems built on it are built on a quicksand. There is 
 no equality in- nature. There are mountains and valleys, 
 deserts and meadows, the fertile and the barren. There is 
 no equality in human minds or human character. Who shall 
 measure the distance from the noblest to the meanest of men, 
 or the yet vaster distance from the noblest to the meanest of 
 women ? The differences among mankind are broader than 
 any but the greatest of men can grasp. With pains enough, 
 one may comprehend, in a measure, the minds on a level with 
 his own or below it; but, above, he sees nothing clearly. 
 To follow the movements of a great man's mind, he must raise 
 himself almost to an equal greatness." 
 
 " A hopeless attempt with most. Every one has a limit." 
 
 " But men make more limits for themselves than Nature 
 makes for them." 
 
 " You seem to me a person with a singular capacity of 
 growth. You push forth fibres into every soil, and draw nu 
 triment from sources most foreign to you." 
 
 " An indifferent stock needs all the aliment it can find. I 
 am fortunate in my planting. Companionship is that which 
 shapes us ; and I have found men, and what is more to the 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 373 
 
 purpose, women, who have met my best requirement. One's 
 friends have all their special influence with which they affect 
 him. Yours, to me, was always a rousing and wakening in 
 fluence, an electric life. You have shot a ray of sun down into 
 my shadow, and I am bound at least to thank you for it." 
 
 " I hope, for old friendship's sake, that your shadow may 
 soon cease to need such farthing-candle illumination. Here 
 is my mother's house. She will be glad to see you." 
 
 " I thank you : I will come soon, but not to-day." 
 
 And, taking leave of his companion, he turned his horse 
 homeward. 
 
 " A vain attempt ! I thought a light might kindle again ; 
 but it is all dust and ashes, with only a sparkle or two. No 
 more flame ; the fuel is burnt out. Shall I go on ? Shall I 
 offer what is left of my heart ? A poor tribute for her. 
 She should command a better ; and there is something in her 
 manner, warm and cordial as she is, that tells me that I 
 should offer it in vain." 
 32 
 
CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 Art thou so blind 
 
 To fling away the gem whose untold worth, 
 Hid 'neath the roughness of its native mine, 
 Tempts not the eye ? Touched by the artist's wheel, 
 The hardest stone flashes the diamond's light. Anon. 
 
 A FEW days later, Morton was seated with his friend 
 Meredith. 
 
 " Ned, this is a slow life. Do you know, I have made up 
 my mind to change it.'* 
 
 " You have been so busy this year past, that I thought 
 you would be content to stay where you are." 
 
 " On the contrary, my vocation takes me abroad." 
 
 " Where will you go ? " 
 
 " To Egypt, Arabia, India, the East Indies, the South Sea 
 Islands." 
 
 " All in the cause of science ? " 
 
 " At any rate, the thing is necessary to my plans." 
 
 " The old Adam sticks to you still. Are you sure that no 
 Pequot blood ever got into your veins ? " 
 
 " I don't know as to that. My ancestors were Puritans to 
 the backbone, witch-burners, Quaker-killers, and Indian- 
 haters. I only know that when I am bored, my first instinct 
 is to cut loose, and take to the woods. It conies over me 
 
 (374) 
 
VASSAL!, MOKTON. 375 
 
 like an ague-fit. There are two places where a man finds 
 sea room enough ; one is a great metropolis, the other is a 
 wilderness. There is no freedom in a place like this. One 
 can only be independent here by living out of the world as I 
 have been doing." 
 
 " Here in America, we have political freedom ad nauseam ; 
 and we pay for it with a loss of social freedom." 
 
 " You remember an agreement of ours, years ago, that you 
 and I should travel together. Now, will you stand to it, and 
 go with me ? " 
 
 " Other considerations apart, I should like nothing better ; 
 but, as matters stand with me now, it's quite out of the 
 question." 
 
 Morton was silent for a moment. "Ned," he said, at 
 length, " I heard a rumor yesterday. It is no part of mine 
 to obtrude myself into your private affairs, and I should not 
 speak if I had not a reason, the better half of which is, that 
 I think I can serve you. I heard that you were paying your 
 addresses to Miss Euston." 
 
 " One cannot look twice at a lady without having it noted 
 down in black and white, and turned into tea-table talk." 
 
 ** I met Miss Euston a few evenings ago. I used to know 
 her before I went to Europe, but had not seen her since. If 
 what I heard is true, I think you have shown something more 
 than good taste." 
 
 " You remember her," said Meredith, after a pause, " as 
 she was the summer when you and I went to New Baden." 
 
 " Yes, I knew her then very well." 
 
376 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " I liked her better at that time than you ever supposed. 
 She was very young ; just out of school, in fact. She had 
 lived all her life in the suburbs, and had grown up like an 
 unpruned rose bush, a fine stock in a strong soil, but 
 throwing out its shoots quite wildly and at random." 
 
 " I know it ; but all that is changed, I can't conceive 
 how." 
 
 " I can tell you. The one person whom she loved and 
 stood in awe of was her father. He was a man, and a strong 
 one. He died suddenly about the time you went away. It 
 was the first blow she had ever felt ; and his death was only 
 the beginning of greater troubles. You remember her brother 
 Henry." 
 
 " I remember him when he was at school a good-natured, 
 high-spirited little fellow, whom every body liked." 
 
 " With wild blood enough for a regiment, and as careless, 
 thoughtless, and easy-tempered as a child, such as he was, in 
 fact. His father, being out of the country on his affairs, sent 
 him to New York, where he fell in with a bad set, and grew 
 very dissipated. Then, to get him out of harm's way, they 
 shipped him off to Canton, where he soon began to ruin 
 himself, hand over hand. At last, a few months after his 
 father's death, his mother and sister heard that he was on his 
 way home, with his health completely broken. The next 
 news was, that he was at Alexandria, dangerously ill of 
 a slow fever. His mother, who, with all respect, is the 
 weakest of mortals, broke down at once into a state of help 
 lessness, and could >do nothing but weep and lament. The 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 377 
 
 whole burden fell upon Ms sister. She went with her mother 
 and a man servant to Alexandria, and took charge of her 
 brother, whose fever left him in such an exhausted state that 
 he fell into a decline. She brought him as far as Naples, 
 but he could go no farther ; and here she attended him for 
 five months, till he died ; her mother sinking, meanwhile, 
 into a kind of moping imbecility. By that time, her uncle 
 had found grace to come and join them. Then her turn 
 came ; her strength failed her, and she fell violently ill. 
 For a week, her life was despaired of ; but she rallied, against 
 all hope. I was in Naples soon after, and used to meet her 
 every morning, as she drove in an open carriage to BaiaB. I 
 never saw such a transformation. She was pale as death, but 
 very beautiful ; and her whole expression was changed. She 
 had always been very fond of her brother. There were some 
 points of likeness between them. He had her wildness, and 
 her kindliness of disposition, but none of her vigorous good 
 sense, and was altogether inferior to her in intellect. Now 
 you can have some idea why you find her so different from 
 what you once knew her to be." 
 
 " I knew," said Morton, " that she had passed through the 
 fire in some way ; but how I could not tell. I think, now, 
 still better of your judgment, Ned." 
 
 " Then you see why I will not go with you. I must 
 bring this matter to an issue. For good or evil, I must know 
 how it goes with me. It is not a new thing. It is of longer 
 date than you imagined, or she either. What the end of it 
 may be, Heaven only knows ; but one thing is certain, you 
 will not see me in the South Seas before this point is cleared." 
 32* 
 
378 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 " Then I shall never see you there." 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " 
 
 " Your travelling days are over. At least I think so." 
 
 *' Do you mean ? " 
 
 " That you are playing at a game where I think you will 
 win." 
 
 " What reason have you to think so ? " demanded Mere 
 dith, nervously. 
 
 " Take the opinion, and let the reason go. On such an 
 argument a good reason will sometimes dwindle into nothing 
 when one tries to explain it." 
 
 His hand was on the door as he spoke, and bidding his 
 friend good morning, he left him to his meditations. 
 
CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 Why waste thy joyous hours in needless pain, 
 
 Seeking for danger and adventure vain ? Fairy Queen. 
 
 MORTON mounted his horse, and rode to the house of Mrs. 
 Euston. He found her daughter alone. 
 
 " I have come to take leave of you. I am on my travels 
 again." 
 
 " Again ! You are always on the wing. I supposed that 
 you must have learned, by this time, to value home, or, at 
 least, be reconciled to staying there in peace." 
 
 " My home is a little lonely, and none of the liveliest. 
 Movement is my best repose." 
 
 " You are wholly made up of restlessness." 
 
 " That is Nature's failing, not mine ; or if Nature declines 
 to bear the burden of my shortcomings, I will put them upon 
 Destiny, and with much better cause. But this is not rest 
 lessness ; or, if it is, it has method in it. This journey is a 
 plan of eight years' standing. I concocted it when I was a 
 junior, half fledged, at college, and never lost sight of it but 
 once, and then for a cause that does not exist now." 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 Morton gave the outline of his journey. 
 
 ** But is not that very difficult and dangerous ? " 
 
 (379) 
 
380 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 " Not very." 
 
 " You will not be alone, surely." 
 
 " I provided for a companion years ago. My friend Mere 
 dith and I struck an agreement, that when I went on this 
 journey he should go with me." 
 
 An instant shadow passed across the face of Fanny Euston. 
 
 " So you will have a companion," she replied, with a non 
 chalance too distinct to be genuine. 
 
 " Not at all. He breaks his word. He won't hear of going." 
 
 The cloud vanished. 
 
 " I take it ill of him ; for I had relied on having him with 
 me. He and I are old fellow-travellers. I have tried him in 
 sunshine and rain, and know his metal." And he launched 
 into an emphatic eulogy of his friend, to which Fanny Euston 
 listened with a pleasure which she could not wholly hide. 
 
 " He best knows why he fails me. It is some cogent and 
 prevailing reason ; no light cause, or sudden fancy. Some 
 powerful motive, mining deep and moving strongly, has 
 shaken him from his purpose ; so I forgive him for his 
 falling off." 
 
 As Morton spoke, he was studying his companion's features, 
 and she, conscious of his scrutiny, visibly changed color. 
 
 " Dear cousin," he said, with a changed tone, " if I must 
 lose my friend, let me find, when I return, that my loss has 
 been overbalanced by his gain. I will reconcile myself to it, 
 if it may help to win for him the bounty that he aspires to." 
 
 The blush deepened to crimson on Fanny Euston' s cheek ; 
 and without waiting for more words, Morton bade her 
 farewell. 
 
CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 Mais ai-je sur son ame encor quelque pouvoir, 
 
 Quelque reste d'amour s'y fait il encor voir. Polyeucte. 
 
 WITH a slow step and a sinking heart, Morton entered 
 Mrs. Ashland's drawing room. He told her of his proposed 
 journey ; told her that he should leave the country within a 
 few days, to be absent for a year or two at least, and asked 
 her mediation to gain for him a parting interview with Edith 
 Leslie. 
 
 Mrs. Ashland, and she only, knew the whole misery of her 
 friend's position, and feared lest, exhausted as she was by 
 mental pain and long watching, and divided between her 
 unexftnguished love for Morton, and her abhorrence of the 
 criminal who by name and the letter of the law was her hus 
 band, the meeting might put her self-mastery to too painful a 
 proof. She therefore, though with a very evident reluctance, 
 dissuaded Morton from it. 
 
 " Edith has been taxed already to the farthest limit of her 
 strength. She is not ill, but quite worn and spent. She is 
 almost constantly with her father, who, now, can hardly be 
 said to live, and needs constant care. To see you at this 
 
 time would agitate her too much." 
 
 (381) 
 
382 VASSALL MOKTON. 
 
 " Can the sight of me still have so much power to 
 move her ? " 
 
 " You know what she is. A feeling once rooted in her 
 mind does not loosen its hold. There are very few who com 
 prehend her. Her character is so balanced and so harmo 
 nious, so quiet and noiseless in its movement, that no one 
 suspects the force, and faith, and energy that are in it. It is 
 not in words or in looks that she shows herself. It is in 
 action, in emergencies, that she declares her power over her 
 self and over others." 
 
 Morton's passion glowed upon him with all its early fervor. 
 
 " I will tell her what you wish. But her cup is full 
 already, and you can hardly be willing to shake it to over 
 flowing. It is impossible that her father should linger many 
 days more ; and when that is over, it will bring her a relief, 
 though she may not think it so, in more ways than one." 
 
 Morton assented to his friend's reasons, and leaving his 
 farewell for Edith Leslie, mournfully took his leave. 
 
CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 Grief and patience, rooted in her both, 
 Mingle their spurs together. Cymbdine. 
 
 LESLIE was dead ; beyond the reach of wounds and sor 
 row ; and the only tie which held his daughter to Vinal was 
 at last broken. She left him, as she had promised, and made 
 her abode with Mrs. Ashland, in her cottage by the sea shore. 
 
 She sat alone at an open window, looking out upon the 
 sea, an illimitable dreariness, waveless and dull as tarnished 
 lead ; clouded with sullen mists, but still rocking in long, 
 dead swells with the motion of a past storm. 
 
 Her thoughts followed on the track of the absent Morton. 
 
 " It is best for you to have gone ; to have made for your 
 self a relief in your man's element of action and struggle. 
 Such a change is happiness, after the misery you have known. 
 It was a bitter schooling ; a long siege, and a dreary one ; 
 but you have triumphed, and you wear its trophy, the 
 heroic calm, the mind tranquil with consciousness of power. 
 You have wrung a proud tribute out of sorrow ; but has it 
 yielded you all its treasure ? Could you but have rested less 
 loftily on your own firm resolve and unbending pride of man 
 hood ! Could you but have learned that gentler, deeper, 
 higher philosophy which builds for itself a temple out of 
 
384 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 ruin, and makes weakness invincible with binding its tendrils 
 to the rock ! 
 
 " Your fate and mine have not been a bed of roses ; but 
 the fierceness of yours is past, and I must still wait the issues 
 of mine. I have renounced this fraud and mockery of empty 
 words which was to have bound me to a life-long horror. 
 The world will think very strangely of me. That must be 
 borne, too ; and such a load is light, to the burden I have 
 borne already." 
 
 A few days later, tidings came that Vinal was ill. Edith 
 Leslie rejoined him ; but, finding that her presence was any 
 thing but soothing to him, she left him in the care of others, 
 and returned to her friend's house. It was but a sudden and 
 short attack, from which he recovered in a week or two. 
 
CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 Fal. Reason, you rogue, reason; thinkest thou I'll endanger my soul gratis? 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 Pistol. Base is the slave that pays. Henry V. 
 
 TIME had been when, his youth considered, Vinal was a 
 beaming star in the commercial heaven. On 'change, 
 
 " His name was great, 
 In mouths of wisest censure." 
 
 The astutest broker pronounced him good ; the sagest 
 money lender took his paper without a question. But of late, 
 his signature had lost a little of its efficacy. It was whis 
 pered that he was not as sound as his repute gave out ; that 
 his operations were no longer marked by his former clear 
 headed forecast ; that he was deep in doubtful and dangerous 
 speculation. In short, his credit stood by no means where it 
 had stood a twelvemonth earlier. 
 
 Possibly these rumors took their first impulse, not on 
 'change, but at tea tables, and in drawing rooms. His wife's 
 separation from him had given ample food to speculation ; 
 and gossip had for once been just, asserting, with few dis 
 senting voices, that there must needs be some fault, and a 
 grave one, on the part of Vinal. The event had ceased to be 
 33 
 
386 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 . 
 
 a very recent one ; but surmise was still rife concerning its 
 mysterious cause. 
 
 Meanwhile, Vinal was being goaded into recklessness, 
 frightened out of his propriety, haunted, devil-driven, mad 
 dened into desperate courses. Late one night, he was pacing 
 his library, with a quick, disordered step. His servants were 
 in their beds, excepting a man, nodding his drowsy vigil over 
 the kitchen fire. Vinal's affairs were fast drawing to a crisis. 
 A few weeks must determine the success or failure of a broad 
 scheme of fraud, on which he had staked his fortunes and 
 himself, and whose issues would sink him to disgrace and 
 ruin, or lift him for a time to the pinnacle of a knave's pros 
 perity. But, meanwhile, how to keep his head above water ! 
 Claims thickened upon him ; he was meshed in a network of 
 perplexities ; and, with him, bankruptcy would involve far 
 more than a loss of fortune. 
 
 There was a ring at the door bell. Vinal stopped short in 
 his feverish walk, raised his head with a startled motion, and 
 listened like a fox who hears the hounds. His instinct fore 
 boded the worst. His cheek flushed, and his eye bright 
 ened, not with spirit, but with desperation. 
 
 The bell rang again. This time, the sleepy servant roused 
 himself. Vinal heard his step along the hall ; heard the 
 opening of the street door, and a man's voice pronouncing his 
 name. The moment after, his evil spirit stood before him, in 
 the shape of Henry Speyer. 
 
 Vinal gave him no time to speak, but shutting the door in 
 the servant's face, turned upon his visitor with such courage 
 as a cat will show when a bulldog has driven her into a corner. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 387 
 
 " Again ! Are you here again ? It is hardly a month 
 since you were here last. What have you done with what 
 I gave you then ? Do you think I am made of gold ? Do 
 you take me for a bank that you can draw on at will ? " 
 
 " I am sorry to trouble you so soon, but I am very hard 
 pressed." 
 
 " Hard pressed ! So am I hard pressed. Here for a year 
 and more I have been supporting you in your extravagance 
 'you and your mistresses ; you have been living on me like 
 princes, dress, drinking, feasting, horses, gambling ! 
 among you, you make my money spin away like water. 
 Every well has a bottom to it, and you have got to the bottom 
 of mine." 
 
 Speyer laughed with savage incredulity. 
 
 " Any thing in reason I am ready to do for you ; but it's of 
 no use. More ! more ! is always the word. You think you 
 have found a gold mine. You mistake. Here I have a note 
 due to-morrow ; and another on Monday that was for 
 money I borrowed to give you. Heaven knows how I shall 
 jpay them. Go back, and come again a month from this." 
 
 " It won't do. I must have it now." 
 . *' I tell you, I have none to give you." 
 
 " Do you see this ? " said Speyer, producing a roll of 
 printed^ papers, and giving one to Vinal. 
 
 It was VinaPs letter, in the form of a placard, with a state 
 ment of the whole affair prefixed. Speyer had had it printed 
 secretly in New York, the names of Morton and Vinal being 
 left blank, and ingeniously filled in by himself with a pen. 
 
 " Give me the money, or show me how to get it, or I will 
 
888 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 have you posted up at every street corner in town. I have 
 your letter here. I shall send it to your Mend, the editor of 
 the Sink." 
 
 The Sink was a scurrilous newspaper, which the virtuous 
 Vinal, always anxious for the morals of the city, had once 
 caused to be prosecuted as a nuisance, for which the editor 
 bore him a special grudge. 
 
 But Vinal at last was brought to bay. Threats, which 
 Speyer thought irresistible, had lost their power. He threw 
 back the paper, and said desperately, " Do what you will." 
 
 Speyer made a step forward, and faced his prey. 
 
 " Will you give me the money ? " 
 
 By G , no ! " 
 
 By G , you shall ! " 
 
 And Speyer seized him by the breast of his waistcoat. 
 
 Vinal had been trained in the habits of a gentleman. He 
 had never known personal outrage before. He grew purple 
 with rage. The veins of his forehead swelled like whipcord, 
 and his eyes glittered like a rattlesnake's. 
 
 " Take off your hand ! " 
 
 The words were less articulated than hissed between his 
 teeth. 
 
 " Take off your hand." 
 
 Speyer clutched him with a harder gripe, and shook him to 
 and fro. Quick as lightning, Vinal struck him in the face. 
 Speyer glared and grinned on his victim like an enraged tiger. 
 For a moment, he shook him as a terrier shakes a rat ; then 
 flung him backward against the farther side of the room. 
 Here, striking the wall, he fell helpless, among the window 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 389 
 
 curtains and overturned chairs. Speyer would probably have 
 followed up his attack ; but at the instant, the servant, who, 
 by a happy accident, was at the side door, in the near neigh 
 borhood of the keyhole, ran in in time to save Vinal from 
 more serious discomfiture. 
 
 Speyer hesitated ; turned from one to the other with mur 
 der in his look; then, slowly moving backwards, left the 
 room, whence the servant's valor did not mount to the point 
 of following him. 
 33* 
 
CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 He is composed and framed of treachery, 
 
 And fled he is upon this villany. Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 EDWAKD MEREDITH, the affianced bridegroom of Miss 
 Fanny Euston, sailing on a smooth sea, under full canvas, 
 towards the pleasing but perilous bounds of matrimony, was 
 walking in the morning towards the post office, in the frame 
 of mind proper to his condition. He passed that place of 
 unrest where the Law hangs her blazons from every window, 
 and approached the heart and brain of the city, the precinct 
 sacred to commerce and finance. Here, gathered about a 
 corner, he saw a crowd, elbowing each other with unusual 
 vehemence. Meredith, with all despatch, crossed over to the 
 opposite side. But here, again, his attention was caught by a 
 singular clamor among the rabble of newsboys, as noisy and 
 intrusive as a flight of dorr-bugs on a June evening. And, 
 not far off, another crowd was gathered at the office of the 
 Weekly Sink. Curiosity became too strong for his native 
 antipathy. He saw an acquaintance, with a crushed hat, and 
 a face of bewildered amazement, just struggling out of the 
 press. 
 
 " What's the row ? " demanded Meredith. 
 
 (390) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 391 
 
 " Go and read that paper," returned the other, with an as 
 tonished ejaculation, of more emphasis than unction. 
 
 Meredith shouldered into the crowd, looked over the hats 
 of some, between the hats of others, and saw, pasted to the 
 stone door post, a placard large as the handbill of a theatre. 
 Over it was displayed a sheet of paper, on which was daubed, 
 in ink, the words, Astounding Disclosures ! ! ! Crime in 
 High Life ! ! ! ! And on the placard he beheld the names 
 of his classmate Horace Vinal, and his friend Vassall 
 Morton. 
 
 Meredith pushed and shouldered with the boldest, gained 
 a favorable position, braced himself there, and ran his eye 
 through the whole. Then, with a convulsive effort, he re 
 gained his liberty, beckoned a newsboy, and purchased the 
 extra sheet of the Weekly Sink. Here, however, he learned 
 very little. The editor, taught wisdom by experience, had 
 tempered malice with caution. He spoke of the duty he owed 
 to the public, his position as guardian and censor of the pub 
 lic morals, and affirmed that, in this capacity, he had that 
 morning received through the post office the original of the 
 letter of which a copy was printed on the placards posted in 
 various parts of the city. With the letter had come also 
 an anonymous note, highly complimentary to himself in his 
 official capacity, a copy of which he subjoined. As for the 
 letter, he did not think himself called upon to give it imme 
 diate publicity in his columns ; but he would submit it for 
 inspection to any persons anxious to see it, after which he 
 should place it in the hands of the police. 
 
 Though the editor of the Sink was thus discreet, the letter, 
 
392 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 in the course of the day, found its way into several of the 
 penny papers, to which copies of the placard containing it 
 had been mailed. From the dram shop to the drawing room, 
 the commotion was unspeakable. The mass of readers floun 
 dered in a sea of crude conjecture ; but those who knew the 
 parties, recalling a faint and exploded rumor of Morton's en 
 gagement to Miss Leslie, and connecting it with her separa 
 tion from Vinal, gained a glimpse of something like the truth. 
 
 The only new light thrown upon the matter came from the 
 servant, who told all that he knew, and much more, of the 
 nocturnal scene between Speyer and Vinal, affirming, with 
 much complacency, that he had saved his master's life. Miss 
 Leslie and Mrs. Ashland studiously kept silent. Morton was 
 at the antipodes ; while the unknown divulger of the mys 
 tery eluded all attempts to trace him. Speyer, in fact, having 
 sprung his mine, had fled from his danger and his debts, and 
 taking passage for New Orleans, sailed thence to Vera Cruz. 
 
 Meredith, perplexed and astounded, wrote a letter to Mor 
 ton, directing it to Calcutta, whither the latter was to repair, 
 after voyaging among the East India Islands. 
 
 Meanwhile, great search was made for Vinal ; but Vinal 
 was nowhere to be found. 
 
CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. Tempest. 
 
 Let the great gods, 
 
 That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, 
 Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, 
 That hast within thee undivulged crimes 
 Unwhipped of justice ! Ilide, thou bloody hand; 
 Thou perjured and thou simular man of virtue, 
 That art incestuous ! Caitiff, to pieces shake, 
 That under covert and convenient seeming, 
 Hast practised on man's life ! Lear. 
 
 AT one o'clock at night, in the midst of the Atlantic, a 
 hundred leagues west of the Azores, the bark Swallow, 
 freighted with salt cod for the Levant, was scudding furiously, 
 under a close-reefed foresail, before a fierce gale. On board 
 were her captain, two mates, seven men, a black steward, a 
 cabin boy, and Mr. John White, a passenger. 
 
 The captain and his mates were all on deck. John White, 
 otherwise Horace Vinal, occupied a kind of store room, open 
 ing out of the cabin. Here a temporary berth had been 
 nailed up for him, while on the opposite side were stowed a 
 trunk belonging to him, and three barrels of onions belong 
 ing to the vessel's owners, all well lashed in their places. 
 
 The dead lights were in, but the seas, striking like mallets 
 against the stern, pierced in fine mist through invisible crev 
 ices, bedrizzling every thing with salt dew. The lantern, 
 
894 VASSA.LL MORTON. 
 
 hanging from the cabin roof, swung angrily with the reckless 
 plungings of the vessel. 
 
 Vinal was a good sailor ; that is to say, he was not very 
 liable to that ocean scourge, seasickness, and the few qualms 
 he had suffered were by this time effectually frightened out 
 of him. As darkness closed, he had lain down in his clothes ; 
 and flung from side to side till his bones ached with the inces 
 sant rolling of the bark, he listened sleeplessly to the hide 
 ous booming of the storm. Suddenly there came a roar so 
 appalling, that he leaped out of his berth with terror. It 
 seemed to him as if a Niagara had broken above the vessel, 
 and was crushing her down to the nethermost abyss. The 
 rush of waters died away. Then came the bellow of the 
 speaking trumpet, the trampling of feet, the shouts of men, 
 the hoarse fluttering of canvas. In a few moments he felt 
 a change in the vessel's motion. She no longer rocked with 
 a constant reel from side to side, but seemed flung about at 
 random, hither and thither, at the mercy of the storm. 
 
 She had been, in fact, within a hair's breadth of founder 
 ing. A huge wave, chasing on her wake, swelling huger and 
 huger, towering higher and higher, had curled, at last, its 
 black crest abore her stern, and, breaking, fallen on her in a 
 deluge. The captain, a Barnstable man of the go-ahead 
 stamp, was brought at last to furl his foresail and lie to. 
 
 Vinal, restless with his fear, climbed the narrow stairway 
 which led up to the deck, and pushed open the door at the 
 top ; but a blast of wind and salt spray clapped it in his face, 
 and would have knocked him to the foot of the steps, if he 
 had not clung to the handrail. He groped his way as he 
 
VASSAL!, MORTON. 395 
 
 could back to his berth. ' Here he lay for a quarter of an 
 hour, when the captain came down, enveloped in oilcloths, 
 and dripping like a Newfoundland dog just out of the water. 
 Vinal emerged from his den, and presenting himself with his 
 haggard face, and hair bristling in disorder, questioned the 
 bedrenched commander touching the state of things on deck. 
 But the latter was in a crusty and savage mood. 
 
 " Hey ! what is it ? " surveying the apparition by the 
 light of the swinging lantern, " well, you be a beauty, I'll 
 be damned if you ain't." 
 
 " I did not ask you how I looked ; I asked you about the 
 weather." 
 
 " Well, it ain't the sweetest night I ever see ; but I guess 
 you won't drown this time." 
 
 " My friend," said Vinal, " learn to mend your way of speak 
 ing, and use a civil tongue." 
 
 The captain stared at him, muttered an oath or two, and 
 then turned away. 
 
 Day broke, and Vinal went on deck. It was a wild dawn 
 ing. The storm was at its height. One rag of a topsail was 
 set to steady the vessel ; all the rest was bare poles and black 
 dripping cordage, through which the gale yelled like a forest in 
 a tornado. The sky was dull gray ; the ocean was dull gray. 
 There was no horizon. The vessel struggled among tossing 
 mountains, while tons of water washed her decks, and the 
 men, half drowned, clung to the rigging. Vast misshapen 
 ridges of water bore down from the windward, breaking into 
 foam along their crests, struck the vessel with a sullen shock, 
 burst over her bulwarks, deluged her from stem to stern, 
 
396 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 heaved her aloft as they rolled on, and then left her to sink 
 again into the deep trough of the sea. 
 
 Vinal was in great fear ; but nothing in his look betrayed 
 it. He soon went below to escape the drenching seas ; but 
 towards noon, Hansen, the second mate, a good-natured old 
 sea dog, came down with the welcome news that the gale 
 had suddenly abated. Vinal went on deck again, and saw a 
 singular spectacle. The wind had strangely lulled ; but the 
 waves were huge and furious as ever ; and the bark rose 
 and pitched, and was flung to and fro with great violence, but 
 in a silence almost perfect. Water, in great quantities, still 
 washed the deck, but. found ready escape through a large 
 port in the after part of the vessel, the lid of which, hanging 
 vertically, had been left unfastened. 
 
 The lull was of short space. A hoarse, low sound began 
 to growl in the distance like muffled thunder. It grew 
 louder, nearer, and the gale was on them again. This 
 time it blew from the north-west, and less fiercely than before. 
 The venturous captain made sail. The yards were braced 
 round ; and leaning from the wind till her lee gunwale scooped 
 the water, the vessel plunged on her way like a racehorse. 
 The clouds were rent ; blue sky appeared. Strong winds 
 tore them apart, and the sun blazed out over the watery con 
 vulsion, changing its blackness to a rich blue, almost as dark, 
 where the whirling streaks of foam seemed like snow wreaths 
 on the mountains. Jets of foam, too, spouted from under 
 the vessel's bows, as she dashed them against the opposing 
 seas ; and the prickling spray flew as high as the main top. 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 397 
 
 The ocean was like a viking in his robust carousals, terror 
 and mirth, laughter and fierceness, all in one. 
 
 But the mind of Vinal was blackness and unmixed gall. 
 His game was played and lost. The worst that he feared had 
 befallen him. Suspense was over, and he was freed from the 
 incubus that had ridden him so long. A something like 
 relief mixed itself with his bitter and vindictive musings. 
 He had not fled empty handed. He and Morton's friend 
 Sharpe had been joint trustees of a large estate, a part 
 of which, in a form that made it readily available, happened 
 to be in Vinal's hands at the time of his crisis. Dread 
 of his quick- sighted and vigilant colleague had hitherto 
 prevented him from applying it to his own uses. But this 
 fear had now lost its force. He took it with him on his 
 flight, and converted it into money in New York, where he 
 had embarked. 
 
 At night the descent of Hansen to supper was a welcome 
 diversion to his lonely thoughts. The old sailor seated him 
 self at the table : 
 
 " I've lost all my appetite, and got a horse's. Here, stew 
 ard, you nigger, where be yer ? Fetch along that beefsteak. 
 What do you call this here ? Well, never mind what you 
 call it, here goes into it, any how." 
 
 A silent and destructive onslaught upon the dish before him 
 followed. Then, laying down his knife and fork for a mo 
 ment, 
 
 " I've knowed the time when I could have ate up the doc 
 tor there," pointing to the steward, " bones and all, and 
 couldn't get a mouthful, no way you could fix it." Then, 
 34 
 
398 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 resuming his labors, " Tell you what, squire, this here 
 agrees with me. Come out of that berth now, and sit down 
 here alongside o' me. Just walk into that beefsteak, like I 
 do. That 'ere beats physicking all holler." 
 
 Thus discoursing, partly to himself and partly to Vinal, 
 and, by turns, berating the grinning steward in a' jocular 
 strain, Mr. Hansen continued his repast. When, at last, 
 he left the cabin, Vinal found the solitude too dreary for 
 endurance ; and, to break its monotony, he also went on 
 deck. 
 
 The vessel still scoured wildly along ; and as she plunged 
 through the angry seas, so the moon was sailing among 
 stormy clouds, now eclipsed and lost, now shining brightly 
 out, silvering the seething foam, and casting the shadows of 
 spars and rigging on the glistening deck. Vinal bent over 
 the bulwark and looked down on the bubbles, as they fled 
 past, flashing in the moon. 
 
 His thoughts flew backward with them, and dwelt on the 
 hated home from which he was escaping. 
 
 " What an outcry ! what gapes of wonder, and eyes turned 
 up to heaven ! Gulled, befooled, hoodwinked ! and now, at 
 last, you have found it out, and make earth and heaven ring 
 with your virtuous spite. I knew you all, and played you as 
 I would play the pieces on a chess board. The game was a 
 good one in the main, but with some blunders, and for those 
 I pay the price. If I had had that villain's brute strength, 
 and the brute nerve that goes with it, there would have been 
 a different story to tell. Before this, I would have found a way 
 to grind him to the earth, and set my foot on his neck. 
 
YASSALL MORTON. 399 
 
 They think him virtuous. He thinks himself so. The shal- 
 low-witted idiots ! Their eyes can only see skin-deep. They 
 love to be cheated. They swallow fallacies as a child swal 
 lows sweetmeats. The tinsel dazzles them, and they take it 
 for gold. Virtue ! a delusion of self-interest self-interest, 
 the spring, lever, and fulcrum of the world. It is for my 
 interest, for every body's interest, that his neighbors should 
 be honest, candid, open, forgiving, charitable, continent, sober, 
 and what not. Therefore, by the general consent of man 
 kind, the inevitable instinct of self-interest, such quali 
 ties are exalted into sanctity ; christened with the name of 
 virtues ; draped in white, and crowned with halos ; rewarded 
 with praises here and paradise hereafter. Drape the skeleton 
 as you will, the bare skeleton is still there. Paint as thick 
 as you will, the bare skull grins under it, to all who have 
 the eyes to see, and the hardihood to use them. How many 
 among mankind have courage to face the naked truth ? Not 
 one in a thousand. Cannot the fools draw reason out of the 
 analogy of things ? Can they not see that, as their bodies 
 will be melted and merged into the bodily substance of the 
 world, so their minds will be merged in the great universal 
 mind, the animus mundi, out of which they sprang, like 
 bubbles on the water, and into which they will sink again, like 
 bubbles when they burst ? Immortality ! They may please 
 themselves with the name ; but of what worth is an immor 
 tality where individuality is lost, and each conscious atom 
 drowned in the vast immensity ? What a howling and 
 screeching the wind makes in the rigging ! If I were given 
 to superstition, I could fancy that a legion from the nether 
 
400 VASSALL MOBTON. 
 
 
 
 world were bestriding the ropes, yelping in grand jubilation 
 
 at the sight of " 
 
 Here his thoughts were abruptly cut short. A combing 
 wave struck the vessel. She lurched with violence, and a 
 shower of foam flew over her side. Vinal lost his balance. 
 His feet slipped from under him. He fell, and slid quickly 
 across the wet and tossing deck. Instinctively he braced 
 his feet to stop himself against the bulwark on the lee side. 
 But at the point where they touched it was the large port 
 before mentioned. Though closed to all appearance, the bolt 
 was still unfastened. It flew open at his touch. Vinal 
 clutched to save himself. His fingers slipped on the wet 
 timbers, and with a cry of horror, he was shot into the bub 
 bling surges. There was a blinding in his eyes, a ringing in 
 his ears ; then, for an instant, he saw the light, and the black 
 hulk of the vessel fled past like a shadow. Then a wave 
 swept over him : all was darkness and convulsion, and a 
 maddened sense of being flung high aloft, as the wave rolled 
 him towards its crest like a drift sea weed. Here again light 
 broke upon him ; and flying above the merciless chaos, he 
 saw something like the white wing of a huge bird. It was 
 the reefed main-topsail of the receding vessel. He shrieked 
 wildly. A torrent of brine dashed back the cry, and foam 
 ing over his head, plunged him down into darkness again. 
 Again he rose, gasping and half senseless ; and again the 
 ravenous breakers beat him down. A moment of struggle 
 and of agony ; then a long nightmare of dreamy horror, 
 while, slowly settling downward, he sank below the turmoil 
 of the storm ; slowly and more slowly still, till the denser 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 401 
 
 water sustained his weight. Then with limbs outstretched, 
 he hovered in mid ocean, lonely, void, and vast, like a 
 hawk poised in mid-air, while his felon spirit, bubbling 
 to the surface, winged its dreary flight through the whistling 
 
 storm. 
 
 34* 
 
CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 Adventure and endurance and emprise 
 Exalted his mind's faculties, and strung 
 His body's sinews. Bryant. 
 
 ON a rock, at the end of the promontory which forms the 
 harbor of Beyrout, stood Vassall Morton ; and at his side 
 his friend Buckland, whom he had met in New York just 
 after his return from Austria. They had encountered again 
 in the East Indies, and had made together a long and varied 
 journey, not without hardship and danger, among the tribes 
 of Upper India and Central Asia. Buckland was greatly 
 changed. His look and bearing betokened recovered health 
 and spirit ; while his companion, in the fulness of masculine 
 vigor, was swarthy as an Arab with the long burning of the 
 Eastern sun. 
 
 " Our travels are over, Buckland. We have nothing to do, 
 now, but to get on board ship, and lie still for a few weeks, 
 and we shall be at home again. I hardly know why it is 
 that I wish so much to shorten the space, unless from a cat 
 like propensity to haunt old places." 
 
 " And to see your friends again." 
 
 " Yes, that is something a good deal. I have friends 
 enough, unless they have died since I last heard from them. 
 But for household gods, I have none ; or, rather, my ancestral 
 
 (402) 
 
VASSALL MOKT03ST. 403 
 
 Lares have no better abode than an old clapboarded parson 
 age in an up-country Yankee village. You are much more 
 fortunate in that respect. You go home again, besides, a new 
 man, rejuvenated in mind and body." 
 
 " Thanks to you for that. I was a wreck till you set me 
 afloat and refitted me." 
 
 " I gave you a shove off shore ; but the refitting came 
 afterwards, and was no doing of mine. I should hardly 
 know you for the same man." 
 
 " That infatuation seems to me like a dream, as I remem 
 ber you prophesied on the evening when we sat together on 
 the Battery." 
 
 " Half of a woman's weakness springs from the sensitive 
 ness of her bodily organization ; and three fourths of your 
 infatuation may be laid to the same account. One may say 
 that, without any tendency to flounder into materialism. You 
 are a man again now ; and even if you had not heard of 
 your sorceress's death, you might go back, I think, without 
 the least fear of her spells." 
 
 " I hope so ; but I wish that, like you, I had some engross 
 ing object to return to." 
 
 " I wish that, like you, I had a family, and a fixed home to 
 return to. My travels are finished, though. I have roamed 
 the world enough. My objects are accomplished, as well as 
 I could ever accomplish them. I have not wandered for 
 nothing ; and now I shall bend myself to make my journey- 
 ings bear what fruit I can. By the sun, and by my watch, 
 it is time for the consul to have returned. Did not his ser 
 vant say that he would come ashore from the frigate at 
 about six ? " 
 
404 VASSALL MOBTOX. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " If he does not, I will get a boat and go to find him. He 
 must have letters for one or the other of us." 
 
 " I will ride to the town, and see if he has come." 
 
 " Very well ; I will wait for you here." 
 
 Their horses were near at hand, in the keeping of an Arab 
 servant. Buckland mounted his own, and rode off". 
 
 Morton seated himself on a jutting edge of the rock over 
 hanging the bay, and gave himself up to his thoughts. 
 
 " Two years of wandering ! Two years more, and I should 
 grow like the man in Anastasius, never happy at rest, never 
 content in motion. I have had my fill of adventure. I must 
 learn repose before it is too late. Why is it that I look so 
 longingly towards America ? Except half a dozen near 
 friends, I have no ties there that are worth the name. Amer 
 ica is the paradise of the laboring class, the purgatory of 
 those of educated tastes. What career is open to me there, 
 that I could not better follow elsewhere ? I have chosen my 
 path. I have an object which fills and -engrosses me, and 
 would fill the lifetime of twenty men abler than I. America 
 is not my best field of labor ; but where else should I plant 
 myself? I could not live in England. I am of English race, 
 but of an altered type ; too like, and too unlike, to find har 
 mony there. The continent is more cosmopolitan ; but it 
 would be a dreary life. I should grow homesick, thinking 
 of the old woods and rocks. I will go home, buckle to my 
 work, and end my days where I began them. 
 
 " My life has been, in its small way, a varied one ; very 
 hard, at times, but perhaps none too much so. Blows are 
 
YASSALL MOKTON. 405 
 
 good for most men, and suffering, to the farthest limit of their 
 endurance, what they most need. It is a child's part to 
 complain under any fate ; and what color of complaint have 
 I, or any man sound in mind and body, and with the world 
 free before him ? And yet I turn girl-hearted when I think 
 of that summer evening by the lake at Matherton. What is 
 my fate to Edith Leslie's ? How will a few years of suffering, 
 with one deadening memory in their wake, compare with her 
 life-long endurance ? A woman's nature, it is said, will 
 mould itself into conformity with her husband's. I will 
 rather believe that Vinal's presence, instead of drawing her 
 to itself, has repelled her upward into a higher atmosphere, 
 and made her life as lofty as it must be sad. I wish to go 
 back, and yet I shrink from this voyage. I have some cause, 
 remembering my last welcome home. Heaven knows what I 
 may learn of her this time. It was her marriage then ; per 
 haps it will be her death now. And which of the two will 
 have been the worse either for me to hear or for her to under 
 go ? Perhaps these letters may bring some word of her ; 
 though that is not likely, for none of my friends, but one, 
 know that I should have any special interest in hearing it. 
 If they write of her, it will be some news of disaster." 
 
 These dismal forebodings weighed upon him, and his desire 
 to have them resolved soon grew so importunate, that mount 
 ing his horse, he followed Buckland's track towards the town. 
 Threading the busy streets, he stopped before a door adorned 
 with the effigy of a spread eagle wearing a striped shield 
 about his neck, and clutching thunderbolts and olive boughs 
 in his claws. He threw the rein to his servant, mounted the 
 consular stair, and at the head met Buckland emerging. 
 
406 VASSALL MOETON. 
 
 " Is the consul come ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and letters for you. I am sorry for you, if you 
 mean to answer them all." 
 
 And he gave Morton a formidable packet. Morton cut 
 the string. 
 
 " These are all six or eight months old. They are post 
 marked from Calcutta." 
 
 " Yes, they came after we had gone up the country, and 
 were sent back to this place to meet you. Wait a moment ; 
 here are more. These two have just come from England." 
 
 Morton took them ; recognized on one the handwriting of 
 Meredith ; on the other, that of his friend Mrs. Ashland. 
 His heart leaped to his throat ; he tore open the seal, and 
 glanced down the page. 
 
 Buckland saw his agitation. 
 
 " No bad news, I trust." 
 
 " I had an enemy, and he is dead. You shall know more 
 of it to-morrow." 
 
 And hastening from the house, he mounted again, and 
 through the midst of mules, donkeys, dromedaries, men, chil 
 dren, and old women, rode at an unlawful speed towards his 
 lodging. 
 
 Here, with a beating heart, he explored his profuse corre 
 spondence from beginning to end. By the Calcutta packet, 
 he learned how his native town had been thrown into commo 
 tion by the exposure and flight of Vinal, and how his friends 
 were eager and impatient to hear his explanation of the affair. 
 The more recent letters bore tidings still more startling. The 
 bark Swallow had touched at Gibraltar, and a letter from 
 
VASSALL MOKTON. 407 
 
 her captain to her owners, forwarded by the Oriental steamer 
 on her return voyage, told how his passenger, John White, 
 had been lost overboard during a gale, two of the crew hav 
 ing seen the accident ; how, arriving at Gibraltar, his trunks 
 had been opened in the consul's presence, to learn his address ; 
 and how, along with a large amount of money in gold, letters 
 and papers had been found, showing that he was not John 
 White, but Horace Vinal, of Boston. * * * 
 
 On the next morning, Morton despatched a letter to Mere 
 dith. In it, he told his friend the whole course of his story ; 
 and these were the closing words : 
 
 " One thing you may well believe that, before you will 
 have had this letter many days, I shall follow it. There will 
 be no rest for me till I touch American soil. An old passion, 
 only half stifled under a load of hopelessness, springs into 
 fresh life again, and burns, less brightly, perhaps, but I can 
 almost believe, more deeply and fervently than ever. I was 
 consoling myself yesterday with trying to think that blows 
 were my mind's best medicine ; but I feel now, that after 
 being broken with the plough and harrow, it will yield the 
 better for the summer sunshine. Yet I am afraid to flatter 
 myself with too bright a prospect. Miss Leslie loved me, 
 and the planets in their course are not more constant and 
 unswerving ; but I cannot tell what may have been the effect 
 of so much suffering, or what determination, fatal to my hope, 
 it may not have impelled her to embrace. She will soon 
 know my mind. I have written to her, and begged her to 
 send her reply to New York, where, if my reckoning does 
 not fail, T shall arrive about the middle of June. By it 
 
408 TASSALL MOBTOX. 
 
 I shall be able to judge to what fortune I am to look 
 forward. 
 
 " You have so lately passed your own anxieties, that you 
 will easily appreciate mine. I can wish for them nothing 
 more than that they may find as happy an issue ; and I will 
 take it as an earnest of the intentions of destiny towards me 
 that it has just brought together my two best friends." 
 
CHAPTEB LXXIII. 
 
 Joy never feasts so high 
 
 As when his first course is of misery. Suckling. 
 
 AGAIN the Jersey heights rose on the eye of Morton, and 
 the woods and villas of Staten Island. Again the broad 
 breast of New York harbor opened before him, sparkling in 
 the June sun ; the rugged front of the Castle, and the ta 
 pering spire of Trinity. He bethought him of his last re 
 turn, and its unforgotten blackness threw its shadow across 
 his mind. He turned, doubting and tremulous, towards the 
 future ; but here his horizon brightened as with the sunrise, 
 shooting to the zenith its shafts of tranquil light. 
 
 Meanwhile, the telegraph had darted to Boston a notice 
 that the approaching steamer had been signalled off the coast. 
 Meredith took the night train to meet his friend ; but, arriv 
 ing, he learned that Morton was already on shore. Driving 
 from one hotel to another, he found, at length, the latter' s 
 resting-place. 
 
 " Shall I take up your name, sir? " 
 "No, show me his room; I will go myself." 
 He knocked at the door. There was no answer. He 
 knocked again, and a voice replied suddenly, like that of a 
 man roused from a revery. 
 35 
 
410 . VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 He entered ; and at the next moment, Morton grasped his 
 hand. 
 
 "You have found yourself again," said Meredith; "you 
 have grown back again to your old look." 
 
 Morton's eye glistened. 
 
 " I think I know the handwriting of that letter. Miss 
 Leslie's, I will call her so still it is hers, is it not? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " She writes, I trust, what you hoped to hear." 
 
 " All that I hoped, and much more." 
 
 " I am glad of it from my heart. Fortune has been hard 
 enough upon you. She was bound to pay you her score." 
 
 "She has done so with usury." 
 
 " Are you going to Boston this afternoon ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Then you have just two hours to spare. If you have any 
 leisure for such sublunary matters, we had better get dinner 
 at once. Romeo himself, at his worst case, asks his friend 
 when they shall dine." 
 
 Three hours later, the eastward-bound steamer was plough 
 ing the Sound, and Morton and Meredith paced her deck. 
 
 " I have told you now the whole history, from first to last. 
 I need not ask you to forgive my having kept it secret from 
 you so long." 
 
 " Why should you ask me ? Every man has a right to his 
 own secrets, and I like him the better for keeping them. 
 Vinal, at all events, had good cause to thank you." 
 
 " He is dead ; and his memory, if it will, had better die 
 with him." 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 41 1 
 
 " You said in your letter that his agent was called Henry 
 Speyer. I, thought, at the time, that I had seen the name 
 before ; and a day or two" since, I found it accidentally again. 
 The newspapers, two months or more ago, mention a foreigner 
 called Henry Speyer as an officer in this last piratical forray 
 into Cuba. His party lost their way, fell into an ambuscade 
 of government soldiers, and Speyer was shot through the 
 head." 
 
 " He found a better end than his principal." 
 " And deserved a better one. A professed rascal is better 
 than a pharisee." 
 
CHAPTER, LXXIV. 
 
 The rainbow to the storms of life ; 
 The evening beam that smiles the clouds away. Bride, of Abydos. 
 
 MORTON rode along the edge of the lake at Matherton. 
 He passed under the shadowy verdure of the pines, and ap 
 proached the old family mansion of the Leslies. It was 
 years since he had seen it. His imprisonment, his escape, his 
 dreary greeting home, all lay between. He was the same 
 man, yet different ; with a mind calmed by experience, and 
 strong by action and endurance ; an ardor which had lost all 
 of its intoxication, but none of its force ; and which, as the 
 past and the present rose upon his thoughts, was tempered 
 with a melancholy which had in it nothing of pain. 
 
 The hall door stood open, as if to welcome him. The 
 roses and the laurels were in bloom ; the grass, ripe for the 
 scythe, was waving in the meadow ; and, by glimpses between 
 the elm and maple boughs, the lake, crisped in the June wind, 
 was sparkling with the sunlight. 
 
 Morton dismounted ; his foot was on the porch ; but he 
 had no time for thought ; for a step sounded in the hall, and 
 Edith met him on the threshold. 
 
 # # % # * 
 
 That evening, at sunset, Miss Leslie and Morton stood on 
 
 (412) 
 
VASSALL MORTON. 413 
 
 the brink of the lake, at the foot of the garden. It was the 
 spot which had been most sweet and most bitter in the latter's 
 recollections. 
 
 " Do you remember, Edith, when we last stood here ? " 
 
 " How could I ever forget ? " 
 
 " The years that have passed since are like a nightmare. 
 I could believe them so, but that I feel their marks." 
 
 "And I, as well; we were boy and girl then." 
 
 " At least, I was a boy ; and, do you know, I find you dif 
 ferent from what I had pictured you." 
 
 " Should I be sorry for it, or glad ? " 
 
 " I had pictured you as I saw you last, very calm, very 
 resolute, very sad ; but you are like the breaking of a long, 
 dull storm. The sun shines again, and the world glows the 
 brighter for past rain and darkness." 
 
 " Could I have welcomed you home with a sad face ? 
 Could I be calm and cold, now that I have found what I 
 thought was lost forever ? when the ashes of my life have 
 kindled into flame again? Because J, and others, have 
 known sorrow-} should I turn my face into a homily, and be 
 your lifelong memento mori ? " 
 
 " It is a brave heart that can hide a deep thought under a 
 smile." 
 
 "And a weak one that is always crouching among the 
 shadows." 
 
 " There is an abounding spirit of faith in you ; the essence 
 which makes heroes, from Joan of Arc to Jeanie Deans." 
 
 " I know no one with faith like yours, which could hold to 
 you through all your years of living burial." 
 35* 
 
414 VASSALL MORTON. 
 
 " Mine ! it was wrenched to its uttermost roots. I thought 
 the world was given over to the devil." 
 
 " But that was only for the moment." 
 
 " I consoled myself with imagining that I had come to the 
 worst, and that any change must needs be for the better ; 
 but now I am lifted of a sudden to such a pitch of fortune, 
 that I tremble at it. Many a man, my equal or superior, no 
 weaker in heart or meaner in aim than I, has been fettered 
 through his days by cramping poverty, while I stand mailed 
 and weaponed at all points. Many a man of noble instincts 
 and high requirements has found in life nothing but a mock 
 ery of his imaginings, a bright dream, matched with a base 
 reality. Who can blame him if he turn cynic? I have 
 dreamed a dream, too ; wakened, and found it a living 
 truth." 
 
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