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diff --git a/18126.txt b/18126.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cb5afd --- /dev/null +++ b/18126.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10445 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tales of the Chesapeake, by George Alfred +Townsend + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Tales of the Chesapeake + + +Author: George Alfred Townsend + + + +Release Date: April 5, 2006 [eBook #18126] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF THE CHESAPEAKE*** + + +E-text prepared by Bethanne M. Simms, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +TALES OF THE CHESAPEAKE + +by + +GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND + +"GATH." + + + + + + + + A fruity smell is in the school-house lane; + The clover bees are sick with evening heats; + A few old houses from the window-pane + Fling back the flame of sunset, and there beats + The throb of oars from basking oyster fleets, + And clangorous music of the oyster tongs + Plunged down in deep bivalvulous retreats, + And sound of seine drawn home with negro songs. + + + + +New York: +American News Company, +39 and 41 Chambers Street. +1880. +Copyright, 1880, +Geo. Alfred Townsend. + + + + + +TO MY FATHER, + +REV. STEPHEN TOWNSEND, M.D., PH.D., + +WHOSE ANCESTORS EXPLORED THE CHESAPEAKE BAY IN 1623, +AND WERE SETTLED ON THE POCOMOKE RIVER ALMOST +TWO HUNDRED YEARS, NEAR HIS BIRTHPLACE; + +WITH + +THE AFFECTION OF + +_HIS ONLY SURVIVING SON._ + + + + +Of the following pieces, two, "Kidnapped," and "Dominion over the +Fish," have been published in _Chambers's Journal_, London. The poem +"Herman of Bohemia Manor" is new. All the compositions illustrate the +same general locality. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +MOTHERNOOK. + +THE EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND. + + + One day, worn out with head and pen, + And the debate of public men, + I said aloud, "Oh! if there were + Some place to make me young awhile, + I would go there, I would go there, + And if it were a many a mile!" + Then something cried--perhaps my map, + That not in vain I oft invoke-- + "Go seek again your mother's lap, + The dear old soil that gave you sap, + And see the land of Pocomoke!" + + A sense of shame that never yet + My foot on that old shore was set, + Though prodigal in wandering, + Arose; and with a tingled cheek, + Like some late wild duck on the wing, + I started down the Chesapeake. + The morning sunlight, silvery calm, + From basking shores of woodland broke, + And capes and inlets breathing balm, + And lovely islands clothed in palm, + Closed round the sound of Pocomoke. + + The pungy boats at anchor swing, + The long canoes were oystering, + And moving barges played the seine + Along the beaches of Tangiers; + I heard the British drums again + As in their predatory years, + When Kedge's Straits the Tories swept, + And Ross's camp-fires hid in smoke. + They plundered all the coasts except + The camp the Island Parson kept + For praying men of Pocomoke. + + And when we thread in quaint intrigue + Onancock Creek and Pungoteague, + The world and wars behind us stop. + On God's frontiers we seem to be + As at Rehoboth wharf we drop, + And see the Kirk of Mackemie: + The first he was to teach the creed + The rugged Scotch will ne'er revoke; + His slaves he made to work and read, + Nor powers Episcopal to heed, + That held the glebes on Pocomoke. + + But quiet nooks like these unman + The grim predestinarian, + Whose soul expands to mountain views; + And Wesley's tenets, like a tide, + These level shores with love suffuse, + Where'er his patient preachers ride. + The landscape quivered with the swells + And felt the steamer's paddle stroke, + That tossed the hollow gum-tree shells, + As if some puffing craft of hell's + The fisher chased in Pocomoke. + + Anon the river spreads to coves, + And in the tides grow giant groves. + The water shines like ebony, + And odors resinous ascend + From many an old balsamic tree, + Whose roots the terrapin befriend; + The great ball cypress, fringed with beard, + Presides above the water oak, + As doth its shingles, well revered, + O'er many a happy home endeared + To thousands far from Pocomoke. + + And solemn hemlocks drink the dew, + Like that old Socrates they slew; + The piny forests moan and moan, + And in the marshy splutter docks, + As if they grazed on sky alone, + Rove airily the herds of ox. + Then, like a narrow strait of light, + The banks draw close, the long trees yoke, + And strong old manses on the height + Stand overhead, as to invite + To good old cheer on Pocomoke. + + And cunning baskets midstream lie + To trap the perch that gambol by; + In coves of creek the saw-mills sing, + And trim the spar and hew the mast; + And the gaunt loons dart on the wing, + To see the steamer looming past. + Now timber shores and massive piles + Repel our hull with friendly stroke, + And guide us up the long defiles, + Till after many fairy miles + We reach the head of Pocomoke. + + Is it Snow Hill that greets me back + To this old loamy _cul-de-sac_? + Spread on the level river shore, + Beneath the bending willow-trees + And speckled trunks of sycamore, + All moist with airs of rival seas? + Are these old men who gravely bow, + As if a stranger all awoke, + The same who heard my parents vow, + --Ah well! in simpler days than now-- + To love and serve by Pocomoke? + + Does Chincoteague as then produce + These rugged ponies, lean and spruce? + Are these the steers of Accomac + That do the negro's drone obey? + The things of childhood all come back: + The wonder tales of mother day! + The jail, the inn, the ivy vines + That yon old English churchside cloak, + Wherein we read the stately lines + Of Addison, writ in his signs, + Above the dead of Pocomoke. + + The world in this old nook may peep, + And think it listless and asleep; + But I have seen the world enough + To think its grandeur something dull. + And here were men of sterling stuff, + In their own era wonderful: + Young Luther Martin's wayward race, + And William Winder's core of oak, + The lion heart of Samuel Chase, + And great Decatur's royal face, + And Henry Wise of Pocomoke. + + When we have raged our little part, + And weary out of strife and art, + Oh! could we bring to these still shores + The peace they have who harbor here, + And rest upon our echoing oars, + And float adown this tranquil sphere, + Then might yon stars shine down on me, + With all the hope those lovers spoke, + Who walked these tranquil streets I see + And thought God's love nowhere so free + Nor life so good as Pocomoke. + + + + +TALES AND IDYLS. + + +KING OF CHINCOTEAGUE + +HAUNTED PUNGY + +TICKING STONE + +THE IMP IN NANJEMOY + +FALL OF UTIE + +LEGEND OF FUNKSTOWN + +JUDGE WHALEY'S DEMON + +A CONVENT LEGEND + +CRUTCH, THE PAGE + +HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR + +KIDNAPPED + +THE JUDGE'S LAST TUNE + +DOMINION OVER THE FISH + +THE CIRCUIT PREACHER + +THE BIG IDIOT + +A BAYSIDE IDYL + +SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S NIGHT + +PHANTOM ARCHITECT + +THE LOBBY BROTHER + +POTOMAC RIVER + +TELL-TALE FEET + +UPPER MARLB'RO' + +PREACHERS' SONS IN 1849 + +CHESTER RIVER + +OLD WASHINGTON ALMSHOUSE + +OLD ST. MARY'S + + + + +KING OF CHINCOTEAGUE. + + +The night before Christmas, frosty moonlight, the outcast preacher +came down to the island shore and raised his hands to the stars. + +"O God! whose word I so long preached in meekness and sincerity," he +cried, "have mercy on my child and its mother, who are poor as were +Thine own this morning, eighteen hundred and forty years ago!" + +The moonlight scarcely fretted the soft expanse of Chincoteague Bay. +There seemed a slender hand of silver reaching down from the sky to +tremble on the long chords of the water, lying there in light and +shade, like a harp. The drowsy dash of the low surf on the bar beyond +the inlet was harsh to this still and shallow haven for wreckers and +oystermen. It was very far from any busy city or hive of men, between +the ocean and the sandy peninsula of Maryland. + +But no land is so remote that it may not have its banished men. The +outcast preacher had committed the one deadly sin acknowledged amongst +those wild wreckers and watermen. It was not that he had knocked a +drowning man in the head, nor shown a false signal along the shore to +decoy a vessel into the breakers, nor darkened the lighthouse lamp. +These things had been done, but not by him. + +He had married out of his race. His wife was crossed with despised +blood. + +"What do you seek, preacher?" exclaimed a gruff, hard voice. "Has the +Canaanite woman driven you out from your hut this sharp weather, in +the night?" + +"No," answered the outcast preacher. "My heart has sent me forth to +beg the service of your oyster-tongs, that I may dip a peck of +oysters from the cove. We are almost starved." + +"And rightly starved, O psalm-singer! You were doing well. Preaching, +ha! ha! Preaching the miracle of the God in the manger, the baby of +the maid. You prayed and travelled for the good of Christians. The +time came when you practised that gospel. You married the daughter of +a slave. Then they cast you off. They outlawed you. You were made +meaner, Levin Purnell, than the Jew of Chincoteague!" + +The speaker was a bearded, swarthy, low-set man, who looked out from +the cabin of a pungy boat. His words rang in the cold air like +dropping icicles articulate. + +"I know you, Issachar," exclaimed the outcast preacher. "They say that +you are hard and avaricious. Your people were bond slaves once to +every nation. This is the birth night of my faith. In the name of +Joseph, who fed your brethren when they were starving, with their +father, for corn, give me a few oysters, that we may live, and not +die!" + +The Jew felt the supplication. He was reminded of Christmas eve. The +poorest family on Chincoteague had bought his liquor that night for a +carouse, or brought from the distant court-house town something for +the children's stockings. Before him was one whose service had been +that powerful religion, shivering in the light of its natal star on +the loneliest sea-shore of the Atlantic. He had harmed no man, yet all +shunned him, because he had loved, and honored his love with a +religious rite, instead of profaning it, like others of his race. + +"Take my tongs," replied the Jew. "Dip yonder! It will be your only +Christmas gift." + +"Peace to thee on earth and good-will to thee from men!" answered the +outcast. + +The preacher raised the long-handled rakes, spread the handles, and +dropped them into the Sound. They gave from the bottom a dull, ringing +tingle along their shafts. He strove to lift them with their weight +of oysters, but his famished strength was insufficient. + +"I am very weak and faint," he said. "Oh, help me, for the pity of +God!" + +The Jew came to his relief doggedly. The Jew was a powerful, +bow-legged man, but with all his strength he could scarcely raise the +burden. + +"By Abraham!" he muttered, "they are oysters of lead. They will +neither let go nor rise." + +He finally rolled upon the deck a single object. It broke apart as it +fell. The moonlight, released by his humped shadow, fell upon +something sparkling, at which he leaped with a sudden thirst, and +cried: + +"Gold! Jewels! They are mine." + +It was an iron casket, old and rusty, that he had raised. Within it, +partly rusted to the case, the precious lustre to which he had devoted +his life flashed out to the o'erspread arch of night, sown thick with +star-dust. A furious strength was added to his body. He broke the +object from the casket and held it up to eyes of increased wonder and +awe. Then, with an oath, he would have plunged it back into the sea. + +The outcast preacher interposed. + +"It is your Christmas gift, Issachar. _It is a cross._ Curse not! It +cannot harm you nor me. Dip again, and bring me a few oysters, or my +wife may die." + +"I know the form of that cross," said the oyster-man. "It is Spanish. +Many a year ago, no doubt, some high-pooped galleon, running close to +the coast, went ashore on Chincoteague and drifted piecemeal through +the inlet, wider then than now. This mummery, this altar toy, destined +for some Papist mission-house, has lain all these years in the +brackish Sound. Ha! ha! That Issachar the Jew should raise a cross, +and on the Christian's Christmas eve! But it is mine! My tongs, my +vessel, myself brought it aboard!" + +He seized the preacher's skinny arm with the ferocity of greed. + +"I do not claim it, Issachar. My worship is not of forms and images. +Dip again, and help me to my hut with a few oysters, for I am very +faint. Then all my knowledge and interest in this effigy I will +surrender to you." + +"Agreed!" exclaimed the Jew, plunging the tongs to the bottom again +and again, in his satisfaction. + +They walked inland across the difficult sands, the Jew carrying the +crucifix jealously. Lights gleamed from a few huts along the level +island. At the meanest hut of all they stopped, and heard within a +baby's cry, to which there was no response. The preacher staggered +back with apprehension. The Jew raised the latch and led the way. + +The light of some burning driftwood and dried sea-weed filled the low +roof and was reflected back to a cot, on which a woman lay with a +living child beside her. Something dread and ineffable was conveyed by +that stiffened form. The Jew, familiar with misery and all its +indications, caught the preacher in his arms. + +"Levin Purnell," he said, "thy Christmas gift has come. Bear up! There +is no more persecution for thee. She is dead!" + +The outcast preacher looked once, wildly, on the woman's face, and +with a cry pressed his hands to his heart. The Jew laid him down upon +a miserable pallet, and for a few moments watched him steadily. +Neither sound nor motion revealed the presence of the cold spark of +life. The husband's heart was broken. + +"Poor wretch!" exclaimed the Jew. "Mismated couple; in death as +obstinate as in life. Lie there together, befriended in the closing +hour by the Jew of Chincoteague, a present--to-morrow's Christmas--for +thy neighbors of this Christian island!" + +He stirred the fire. Death had no terrors for him, who had seen it by +land and sea, in brawls and shipwrecks, by hunger and by scurvy. He +laid the bodies side by side, and warmed the infant at the fire. +Looking up from the living child's face, he caught the sparkle of the +crucifix he had discovered, where it stood in the narrow window-sill. +There were gems of various colors in it, and they reflected the +firelight lustrously, like a slender chandelier, or, as the Jew +remembered in the version of the Evangels, like the gifts those +bearded wise men, of whom he might resemble one, brought to the manger +of the infant Christ--gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Struck +by the conceit, he looked again at the baby's face--the baby but a few +days or weeks old--and he felt, in spite of himself, a softness and +pity. + +"It might be true," he muttered, "that a Jewish man, a tricked and +unsuspecting husband of a menial, like her who has perished with this +preacher, _did_ behold a new-born baby in the manger of an inn, +eighteen hundred and forty years ago." + +He looked again at the cross. In the relief of the night against the +window-pane its jewels shone like the only living things in the hovel. +A figure was extended upon this cross, and every nail was a precious +stone; the crown of thorns was all diamonds. + +"It might be true," he said again, "that on a cross-beam like that, +the manger baby perished for some audacity--as I might be put to death +if I mocked the usages of a whole nation, as this preacher has done." + +The cross, an object as high as one of the window-panes, and suffused +with the exuding dyes of its jewels, took now a dewy lustre, as if +weeping precious gum and amber. The Jew felt an instant's sense of +superstition, which he dashed away, and placing the child, already +sleeping, before the fire, awakened rapacity led him to hunt the hovel +over. He found nothing but a few religious books, and amongst them a +leather-covered Testament, which he opened and read with +insensibility--passing on, at length, to interest, then to +fascination, at last to rage and defiance--the opening chapters and +the close of the story of Jesus. + +"Now, by the sufferings of my patient race! I will do a thing unlike +myself, to prove this testimony a libel. Here is a child more homeless +than this carpenter, Joseph's, without the false pretence of coming +of David's line. Its mother tainted with negro blood, like the slaves +I have imported. Its father the obscurest preacher of his sect. I will +rob the shark and the crab of a repast. It shall be my child and a +Hebrew. Yea, if I can make it so, a Rabbi of Israel!" + +Issachar looked again at the cross. Day was breaking in the window +behind it, and the rich light of its gems was obscurer, but its form +and proportions seemed to have expanded--perhaps because he had worn +his eyes reading by the firelight--and the outstretched figure looked +large as humanity, and the cross lofty and real, as that which it was +made to commemorate. He hid it beneath his garment, and walked forth +into the gray dawn of Christmas. One star remained in mid-heaven, +whiter than the day. It poised over the hovel of the dead like +something new-born in the sky, and unacquainted with its fellow orbs. + +"Christmas gift!" shouted a party of lads and women, rushing upon the +Jew. "Christmas gift! You are caught, Issachar. Give us a present, old +miser!" + +It was the custom in that old settled country that whoever should be +earliest up, and say "Christmas gift!" to others, should receive some +little token in farthings or kind. + +"Bah!" answered the Jew. "Look in yonder, where the best of your +religion lie, perished by your inhumanity, and behold your Christmas +gift to them!" + +There, where no friendly feet but those of negroes and slaves had +entered for months, the strengthening morning showed a young wife, +almost white, and the most beautiful of her type, with comely +features, and eyes and hair that the proudest white beauty might envy. +The gauntness of death had scarcely diminished those charms which had +brought the pride of the world's esteem and the prudence of religion +to her feet, and lifted her to virtuous matrimony, only to banish her +lover from the hearthstones of his race and make them both outcasts, +the poorest of the creatures of God, even on Chincoteague. A slight +sense of self-accusation touched the bystanders. + +"He was a good preacher," said one, "and I was converted under him. He +baptized my children. That he should have married a darkey!" + +"She was a pious girl," added another, "and from her youth up was in +temptation, which she resisted, like a white woman. That she should +have ruined this preacher!" + +"He was a poet," said a third. "'Peared like as if he believed every +thing he preached. But, my sakes! we can't have sich things in _our_ +church." + +"She loved him, too, the hussy!" exclaimed a fourth. "She would have +been his slave if he had asked her. Oh! what misery she felt when she +knew that his passion for her was starving him, body and soul!" + +They slipped away, with a feeling that, somehow, two very guilty +people had been punished in those two. The negroes made the funeral +procession. The Jew walked amongst the negroes. + +"O Father Abraham," he said, chuckling to himself, "forgive me that I +stand here, no renegade to my faith, yet the only white Christian on +Chincoteague!" + +Issachar was oyster-man, sailor, and sutler in one. He advanced money +to build pungy boats, knit nets, and make huts. He kept a trading +place, packed fish, and dealt with the Eastern port cities by a +schooner whose crew he shipped himself and sometimes commanded her. He +was a wrecker, too, prompt and enterprising; passed middle life, but +full of vitality; bold and cunning in equal degree; and he had been, +it was guessed, a slaver, and some said a pirate. He was called by the +negroes the King of Chincoteague. His schooner was named The Eli. + +Chincoteague is the principal inhabited island along the one hundred +miles of coast between the capes of the Delaware and of the +Chesapeake--a coast of low bars, divided into long and slender islands +by a dozen inlets, which, almost filled with sand, permit only +light-draught vessels to enter; and it is destruction to any ship to +go ashore on that coast, where five successive lighthouses warn the +commerce of the Atlantic off, but are unable to intimidate the storms +which sweep the low shores and almost threaten to leap over the +peninsula and submerge it. Chincoteague lies like a tongue between two +inlets, and partly protrudes into the sea, but is also sheltered in +part by the bar of Assateague, whose light has flamed for years. +Chincoteague is about ten miles long, and behind it an inland bay +stretches continuously, under various names, for thirty miles, +protected from the ocean, and scarcely flavored with its salt, except +near the outlet at Chincoteague, where the oysters lie in the brackish +sluices, and all sorts of fish, from shrimps to sharks, hover around +the oyster beds. In the green depths they can be seen, and there the +crab darts sidewise, like a shooting star. In the sandy beach grows +the mamano, or snail-clam, putting his head from his shell at high +tide to suck nutrition from the mysterious food of the sea, and giving +back such chowder to man as makes the eater feel his stomach to +possess a nobility above the pleasures of the brain. The bay of +Chincoteague is five or six miles wide, and the nearest hamlet is in +Virginia, as is Chincoteague island also. The hamlet takes the name of +Horntown, and not far from there is the old court-house seat of Snow +Hill, in Maryland. Every soul on Chincoteague was native there or +thereabout, except Issachar the Jew. + +He had appeared amongst them after a sudden storm, the solitary +survivor of a wreck that had partly drifted ashore, and, as he said, +gone down with all his fortune. The mild air and easy livelihood of +the spot pleased the Jew, after his first despair, and he set about +making another fortune. Capable, solitary and active, he soon +outstripped all the people of the islands, and neither beloved nor +unbeloved, lived grimly, as chance ordained, and until now, had never +shown more than business benevolence. It was a surprising thing to the +people of Chincoteague, when the news went round that he had been over +to court at Drummond-town and given his recognizance to bring up the +orphan boy--whom he named Abraham Purnell--so that the county should +not be at the expense of him, and he also brought out from New York, +on the Eli's next trip, a Hebrew woman to be the boy's matron. Suckled +at a negro's breast, Abraham grew to a vigorous youth, resembling his +guardian's race and his mother's as well, in the curling nature of his +hair and the brightness of his eyes. The Old Testament Scriptures +alone were taught him, and Issachar himself joined the family circle +at daily prayer to encourage the faith of Israel in the stranger. The +finest of the lean, tough ponies, bred only on Chincoteague, and +renowned throughout the peninsula for their endurance, was bought for +the boy, as he grew older. He was made Issachar's companion, and, in +course of time, passed in fireside talk for a Jew, like his protector. + +Only once the superior comfort and clothing of Issachar's _protege_ +provoked the remark from one of a group of men that Abraham was "only +a stuck-up nigger, anyway;" and then, like a maniac, Old Issachar +dashed from his store with a boat-hook and struck down the offender +like a dead man. + +But the boy was of such docile and beautiful nature that he excited no +general antagonism. He was four removals from pure African blood, and +as his mother had been a freed girl, he was a citizen, or might be if +he pleased. The certain heir of Issachar's possessions, the only thing +except gold that Issachar loved, and of a parentage which linked +misfortune with piety, his mysterious nativity gave him with the +negroes a sacred character. They believed that he would become their +king and priest and lead them out of bondage to a promised land; and +this involuntary homage so pleased old Issachar that his heart +inclined toward the black race above the Christian whites around him. +If an aged negro fell sick, the Jew sent, by his ward, medicine and +food. If a very poor negro was buried, the Jew contributed to the +expenses. He gave the first counsel of worldly wisdom to the negro +freedmen, and gave them faithful interest on their savings. One slave +that he possessed he set free, saying: + +"By Jacob's staff! I will not hold as cattle the blood people of my +son!" + +His enlarged benevolence made no difference in his business. It grew +to the widest limits of that humble society, and by the accident of a +younger life coming forward to bear his honor up, Issachar grew into +sympathy with the social life of all the lower peninsula. If they +wanted money for public enterprise on the mainland, the Jew of +Chincoteague was first to be thought of. His credit, Masonic in its +reach, extended to his compatriots in distant cities, and the +politicians crossed the Sound to bring him into alliance with their +parties. To personal flattery he was obtuse, except when it reached +his ward, and then a melting mood came over him. At every Christmas he +led himself the eloquent Oriental prayer, young Abraham responding +with even a richer imagery, for his mind was alert, his schooling had +been private and unintermittent, and his father's enthusiasm and his +mother's docility made him a poet and a son together. + +"My son," said the Jew, as Abraham's fifteenth Christmas approached, +"the time is at hand when we must part for years. I am growing old, +and the loss of thee, O my love! is harder than thou canst know. The +sands of life are running out with me, as from an hour-glass. With +thee the heavens are rosy and the world is new. Thou beautiful Samuel, +Jehovah's selected one! Wilt thou remember me when far away?" + +"Father," answered Abraham, "what besides thee can I love? Every +morning, and at noon, and again at night, I will face from the East to +pray toward thee; for God will not listen unless I am grateful to my +father." + +"Thou art going to Amsterdam," said Issachar. "There, amongst the +noblest Jews of Europe, the descendants of the Jewish Portuguese, the +Hebrew tongue in its purity, the law of Moses in its majesty, our lore +in its plenitude, thou wilt learn. I look to thee, adopted child of +Israel! to give the promise of thy youth to the study of our grand old +religion, and, like the infant Moses, discovered amongst these +bulrushes of Chincoteague, to be the reviver of our faith, the +statesman of our sect. Yea! the rebuilder of our Zion. It has been +ordained that these things will be done, and, by the stars of Abraham; +it shall be so!" + +"My father," said young Abraham, "God will keep all His promises." + +The Jew took from a chest of massive cedar wood, empty of all besides, +the precious crucifix. + +"Look on that," he exclaimed. "Dost thou know what it represents?" + +"No," answered Abraham. + +"It is the symbol of the faith in which thy father died. A Hebrew +impostor, one Jesus, was nailed by the Roman conquerors of Jerusalem +to a cross-piece of wood. He affected to be the son of David and the +Saviour of men. My son, in the name of his punishment the children of +Israel have been burned at the stake, dispersed abroad among the +nations, and hated of mankind. Preaching his imposture thy father and +thy mother were suffered to die for their consistency. See what I have +done with the bauble! The years I have expended on thy mind and +comfort have cost me money. From that crucifix, one by one, I have +plucked the precious stones for thy education. Here, from the side, +where they say the soldier's spear was thrust, I have sold the costly +ruby. The nail in the feet, a sapphire, paid thy Jewish matron. The +emerald in this right hand purchased thy books. I send thee abroad +with the price of the diamonds in the crown." + +"Father," said young Abraham, "the image is hallowed to me for thy +piety. It is Humanity, O my father! that has made me devoutly a Jew, +and thee, unsuspectingly, a Christian." + +He sailed away upon the Eli. His parting words had affected old +Issachar so much that his mind returned along the course of years to +the Christmas night he had passed in the outcast preacher's hut, and +the curious story of Jesus he had read there in the New Testament and +in the presence of the dead. + +"To-morrow is Christmas," said the Jew; "a hallowed day to me, because +it brought me a son whose obedience and piety have gratified the exile +of my old age. Although these Christians have covered him with their +despite, his excellent charity remembers it not. I will be no less +magnanimous, and I will cross the bay and attend the Methodist worship +at Snow Hill on Christmas morning, that I may communicate its +frivolity to my son." + +He kept his word; and for fear thieves might discover and steal the +valuable crucifix, he hid it beneath his vesture and carried it to the +mainland. The little plank meeting-house at the edge of Snow Hill was +filled with whites on the floor, but in the end gallery, amongst the +negroes, Issachar haughtily took his seat, an object of wonder to both +races, for his face and reputation were generally recognized. Perhaps +it was for this reason that the young preacher, a gentle, graceful +person, adapted his sermon to the sweetness of the Christian story +rather than bear upon those descriptions which might antagonize his +Jewish auditor. + +He told the story of the world's selfishness when Christ appeared; how +the Jews, living in the straitest of sectarian aristocracies, inviting +and receiving no accessions, had finally fallen under the dogmatism of +the uncharitable Pharisees, who esteemed themselves the only righteous +devotees and doctrinaires amongst the millions of people on the earth. +Jesus, a youth of good Jewish extraction, and honorable family, had +been bold enough to denounce Phariseeism and make its votaries +ridiculous. He was scorned by them, if for no other crime, for the +cheap offence, in a bigoted age, denominated blasphemy. Here the +preacher, looking toward the Jew, paid a tribute to the antiquity and +loyalty of the better class of Jews, and said that it was well known +that one of his own forerunners in the Christian ministry, dying in +penury from the consequences of a marital mistake, had been befriended +in his death and in his posterity by a gallant follower of the House +of Israel. + +The congregation, facing about to look at the Jew in the gallery, +amongst the negroes, were surprised to see tears on his gray +eyelashes, and the colored elders, who loved Issachar exceedingly, +exclaimed, in stentorian chorus: + +"Praise God for dat Israelite, in whom dar is no guile! Hallelujah!" + +Then, as if the Christmas frost had melted, these grateful +exclamations made warmth at once in both races, and encouraged the +orator in his extemporization. Issachar began to appreciate the +possibility of the founder of a more liberal sect of Jews, whose +charitable hand should be extended to Gentiles also, and whose heaven +should comprehend all the posterity of Adam. Perhaps his son's +portrait was in his mind--that loving son who had but just departed in +the interests of the law of Moses and the restoration of the Temple. +At the end of the sermon alms were invited for the support of the +minister and the propagation of such a gospel as he had preached. With +a mixture of pride and humility old Issachar descended the gallery +stairs and walked up the aisle, and, taking the crucifix from his +breast, planted it upon the altar. + +"There," he said, "if your sect asserts the sentiments of this sermon, +you are entitled to this rich image. I am repaid for its possession by +a son of Gentile parentage whose obedience has been the delight of my +old years, and for the gift God has given me in him, I tender you +this counterfeit of Jesus nailed on the Roman scaffold." + +The congregation gazed a minute at the golden cross. Ireful laughter +broke forth, followed by rage. + +"The pagan! The papist! The Turk! The idolater!" they exclaimed. "He +mocks the memory of our Saviour on Christmas morning! Out with him!" + +The Jew recovered the crucifix and put it beneath his mantle. He +vouchsafed no reply except a scornful "Ha! ha! ha!" and with this he +strode out of the Methodist meeting, rejoined his boatmen, and +returned to the island of Chincoteague. + +Years passed, and the Jew grew very feeble. He had lasted his +fourscore and ten years, and prosperity had attended him through all, +and children loved him; but, true to his first and only fondness, his +heart was ever across the sea, where gentle Abraham, studiously intent +amongst the Rabbis, communicated with his father by every mail and +raised the old man's mind to a height of serious appreciation which +greed and commerce had never given him. Although hungering for his +boy, Issachar forebore to disturb young Abraham's studies until a +bitter illness came to him, and in his gloom and solitude his great +want burst from his lips, and he said aloud: + +"Almighty Father! What will it avail to these old bones if the Temple +be rebuilded, and I die without placing my hands on the eyelids of my +boy and blessing him in Thy name? I will pluck from this Christian +image the last jewel and dispose of it, that he may return and place +his hands in mine, and receive my benediction, and gladden me with his +gratitude." + +The image was therefore wholly separated from the cross. Nothing +remained but the figure in gold of that bloody Pillory on which He +died on whom two hundred millions of human beings rely for +intercession with their Creator and Destiny. + +The days seemed months to the Jew of Chincoteague. The negroes +gathered round his cabin to be of assistance if he should require it; +for they also looked for young Abraham as the Shiloh of their race, +and would have died for old Issachar, unredeemed as they thought him, +except by his goodness to their prince and favorite. + +A high tide, following a series of dreadful storms, arose on the coast +of the peninsula, as if the Gulf Stream, like a vast ploughshare, had +thrown the Atlantic up from its furrow and tossed it over the beach of +Assateague. + +The sturdy ponies were all drowned. The sea was undivided from the +bay. Pungy boats and canoes drifted helplessly along the coast, and +the Eli alone was out of danger in the harbor of New York, waiting to +receive young Abraham. At last the freshet crept over the house-tops, +and nothing remained but the cottage of the Jew, planted on piles, +which lifting it higher than the surrounding houses, yet threatened it +the more if the water should float it from its pedestal and send it to +sea. Every effort was made to induce the Jew to abandon it, but he was +obdurate. + +"By the tables of the law!" he said, "living or dead, here will I +abide until my son returns." + +The bravest negro left the island of Chincoteague at last, placing +food beside old Issachar, and there he lay upon his pallet, with +nothing to pierce the darkness of his lair except that sacred cross he +had raised from the depths of the ocean. That object, like a sentient, +overruling thing, still shed its lustre upon the wretched interior of +the deserted hut, and, day by day, repeated its story to the neglected +occupant. + +The mighty storm increased in power as Christmas approached, in the +year one thousand eight hundred and fifty----. Wrecks came ashore on +the submerged shoal of Chincoteague, but there were now no wreckers to +labor for salvage. The Eli, too, was overdue. One night a familiar gun +was heard at sea, thrice, and twice thrice, and Issachar raised up and +said, in anguish: + +"It is my schooner. My son is at hand and in danger. Oh! for a day's +strength, as I had it in my youth, to go to his relief through the +surf. But, miserable object that I am! I cannot rise from my bed. What +help, what hope, in the earth or in heaven can I implore?" + +The naked cross beamed brightly all at once in the darkness of the +cabin. Issachar felt the legend it conveyed, and with piety, not +apostacy, he uttered: + +"O Paschal Lamb! O Waif of God! Die Thou for me this night, and give +me to look upon the countenance of my son!" + +The Jew, intently gazing at the cross, passed into such a stupor or +ecstasy that he had no knowledge of the flight of time. He only knew +that, after a certain dreamy interval, the door of his house yielded +to a living man, and, nearly naked with breasting the surf and +fighting for life, young Abraham staggered into the hut and recognized +his father. + +"O son!" cried Issachar, "I feel the news thou hast to tell. The Eli +is wrecked and thou only hast survived. The moments are precious. +Hark! this house is yielding to the buoyant current. Stay not for me, +whose sands are nearly run. I am too old to try for life or fear to +die, but thou art full of youth and beauty, and Israel needs thee in +the world behind me. Let me bless thee, Abraham, and commit thee to +God." + +The water entered the cracks of the cabin; a pitching motion, as if it +were afloat, made the son of the negro cling closer to the Jew. + +"Father," he said, "I have passed the bitterness of death. When the +vessel struck and threw me into the surf, I cried to God and fought +for life. The waves rolled over me, and the agony of dying so young +and happy grew into such a terror that I could not pray. In my despair +a something seemed to grasp me, like tongs of iron, and my eyes were +filled with light, bright as the face of the I AM. Behold! I am here, +and that which saved me has made me content to die by thee." + +The old man drew the dripping ringlets of the younger one to his +venerable beard. The house rocked like a sailing vessel, and the +strong sea-fogs seemed to close them round. + +"We are sailing to sea," whispered the Jew. "It is too late to escape. +The next billow may fling us apart, and our bones shall descend +amongst the oyster-shells to build houses for the nutritious beings of +the water. Thence, some day, my son, from the heavens God may drop His +tongs and draw us up to Him, as on this night thy father and I drew +the casket, many years ago. Look there! Look there!" + +The heads of both were turned toward the spot where the finger of the +old man pointed, and they saw the denuded cross shining in the light +of the agitated fire, so large and bright that it reduced all other +objects to insignificance. + +"It was a light like that," exclaimed Abraham, "which shone in my eyes +through the darkness of the billows." + +"It was on that," whispered Issachar, "that I called for help, my son, +when thou wert dying. From the hour I dipped it from the water my +heart has been warmer to the world and man. Is there, in all the hoary +traditions of our church, a reason why we should not beseech its +illumination again before it returns to the ocean with ourselves? Do +thou decide, who art full of wisdom; for I am ignorant in thy eyes, +and heavy with sins." + +The cross, resplendent, seemed to wear a visible countenance. Wrapped +in Issachar's arms, like a babe to its mother, young Abraham extended +his hands to the effigy, and in its beams a wondrous consolation of +love and rest returned to those poor companions, reconciling them to +their helplessness in the presence of the Almighty awe. + +"Child of God!" exclaimed the Jew, "thou beauty of the Gentiles, I +gave thee life but for a span, and thou seemest to bring to me the +life immortal." + +The morning broke on the shore frosty and clear after the subsided +storm, and the earliest wreckers, seeking in the drift for Christmas +gifts to give their children, found well-remembered parts of the Eli +and portions of the tenement of its proprietor. A wave rolled higher +than the rest and cast upon the shore two bodies--a young man of the +comely face and symmetry of a woman, without a sign of pain in his +features and dark, oriental eyes, and an old man, venerable as an +inhabitant of the ocean and mysterious as a being of some race +anterior to the deluge. In his rugged face the marks of that antiquity +which has something stately in the lowest types of the Jew, and in +this one an almost Mosaic might, were softened to a magnanimity where +death had nothing to contribute but its silence and respect. Laying +them together, the fishermen and idlers looked at them with a +superstition partly of remorse and mild remembrance, and the star of +Christmas twinkled over them in the sky. None felt that they were +other than father and son, and black men and white, indifferent that +day to social prejudices, followed the child of Hagar and the Hebrew +patriarch to the grave. + + + + +HAUNTED PUNGY. + + + They hewed the pines on Haunted Point + To build the pungy boat, + And other axes than their own + Yet other echoes smote; + They heard the phantom carpenters, + But not a man could see; + And every pine that crashed to earth + Brought down a viewless tree. + + They launched the pungy, not alone; + Another vessel slipped + Down in the water with their own, + And ghostly sailors shipped; + They heard the rigging flap and creak, + And hollow orders cried. + But not a living man could seek, + And not a boat beside. + + They sailed away from Haunted Point, + Convoyed by something more: + A boatswain's whistle answered back, + And oar replied to oar. + No matter where the anchor dropped, + The fiends would not aroint, + And every morn the pungy boat + Still lay off Haunted Point. + + They hailed; and voices as in fog + Seemed half to speak again-- + A devilish chuckling rolled afar, + And mutiny of men. + The parson of the islands said + It was the pirate band, + Whose gold was lost on Haunted Point + And hid with bloody hand. + + Until what time a kidnapped boy, + By ruffians whipped and stole, + Should in the groves of Haunted Point + Convert his stealer's soul! + They stole the island parson's child, + He said a little prayer: + Down sank the ground; a gliding sound + Went whispering through the air. + + And in the depths the pungy sank; + And, as the divers told, + They sought the wreck to lift again, + And found the pirates' gold. + And in a chapel close at hand + The pious freedmen toil; + No slaves are left in all the land, + Nor any pirates' spoil. + + + + +TICKING STONE. + + +People say that a certain tombstone in the London Tract "Hardshell" +Baptist graveyard, near Newark, Delaware, will give to the ear placed +flat upon it the sound of a ticking like a watch. The London Tract +Church, as its name implies, was the worshipping place of certain +settlers who either came from London, or chose land owned by a London +company. It is a quaint edifice of hard stone, with low-bent bevelled +roof, and surrounded by a stone wall, which has a shingle coping. The +wall incloses many gravestones, their inscriptions showing that very +many of the old worshippers of the church were Welsh. Some large and +healthy forest trees partly shade the graveyard and the grassy and +sandy cross-roads where it stands, near the brink of the pretty White +Clay Creek. + +I climbed over the coping of the graveyard wall last spring, and +followed my companion, the narrator of the following story, to what +appeared to be the very oldest portion of the inclosure. The +tombstones were in some cases quite illegible as to inscriptions, worn +bare and smooth by more than a century's rains and chipping frosts, +and others were sunken deep in the grass so as to afford only partial +recompense for the epitaph hunter. + +"This is the Ticking Stone," said my companion, pointing to a +recumbent slab, worn smooth and scarcely showing a trace of former +lettering; "put your ear upon it while I pull away the weeds, and then +note if you hear any thing." + +I laid my ear upon the mossy stone, and almost immediately felt an +audible, almost tangible ticking, like that of a lady's watch. + +"You are scratching the stone, Pusey," I cried to my informant. + +"No! Upon my honor! That is not the sound of a scratch that you hear. +It cannot be any insect nor any process of moving life in the stone or +beneath it. Can you liken it to any thing but the equal motion of a +rather feeble timepiece?" + +I listened again, and this time longer, and a sort of superstition +grew over me, so that had I been alone, probably I would have +experienced a sense of timid loneliness. To stand amidst those silent +memorial stones of the early times and hear a watch beat beneath one +of them as perfectly as you can feel it in your vest pocket, and then +to feel your heart start nervously at the recognition of this +disassociated sound, is not satisfying, even when in human company. + +"This is the best ghost I have ever found," I said. "Perhaps some one +has slipped a watch underneath, for it is somebody's watch; there _is_ +something real in it." + +"I took the stone up once myself," said Pusey, "and the ticking then +seemed to come up from the ground. While I deliberated, an old man +came out of yonder old sexton-looking house, and warned me not to +disturb the dead. He crossed the wall, and assisted me to replace the +stone, and then bade me sit down upon it, ancient mariner-like, while +he disclosed the cause of the phenomenon." + +Here my companion stopped a minute--and in the pause we could hear the +old trees wave very solemnly above us, and a nut, or burr, or sycamore +ball, came rattling down the old kirk roof as we stood there in the +graves, to startle us the more, and then he said: + +"It is just as queer as the tale he told me--the disappearance of that +old man. Nobody about here can recognize him from my descriptions. He +walked toward the old mill down the Newark road, and the next time I +looked up he was gone. The people in the house there think I am +flighty in my mind for insisting upon his appearance to me at all." + +"Go on with the tale right here, my flesh-creeping friend," I said. +"It will do us good to feel occasionally solemn." + + * * * * * + +"This stone, young man," said my Quakerly rebuker, in a hard country +farmer's voice; "this stone is the London Tract Ticking Stone. It is +the oldest preacher and admonitor in this churchyard. It is older than +the graves of any of the known pastors or communicants round about it. + +"In the year 1764 the comparative solitude of this region was broken +by a large party of chain-bearers, rod-men, axe-men, commissaries, +cooks, baggage-carriers, and camp-followers. They had come by order of +Lord Baltimore and William Penn, to terminate a long controversy +between two great landed proprietors, and they were led by Charles +Mason, of the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich, England, and by +Jeremiah Dixon, the son of a collier discovered in a coalpit. For +three years they continued westward, running their stakes over +mountains and streams, like a gypsy camp in appearance, frightening +the Indians with their sorcery. But, near this spot, they halted +longest, to fix with precision the tangent point, and the point of +intersection of three States--the circular head of Delaware, the +abutting right angle of Maryland, and the tiny pan-handle of +Pennsylvania. + +"The people of this region were sparse in number, but of strong, +sober, and yet wild characteristics. The long boundary quarrel had +made them predatory, and though God-fearing people, they would fight +with all their religious intensity for their right in the land and the +dominion of their particular province. They suspended their feuds when +the surveying battalion came into their broken country, and looked +with curious interest upon all that pertained to the distinguished +foreign mathematicians. Around their camp of tents and pack-mules, +peddlers and preachers called together their motley congregations, and +the sound of axes clearing the timber was accompanied by fiddling and +haranguing, the fighting of dogs, and the coarse tones of religious or +business oratory. It was in the height of the era of the great period +of the Dissenters in England, and Methodist, Baptist, and Calvinistic +zealots were piercing to the boundaries of English-speaking people, +wild forerunners of those organized bands of clergy which were +speedily to make our colonies sober-minded, and prepare them for +self-government. + +"Charles Mason was the scientific spirit of the party--a cool, +observing, painstaking, plodding man, slow in his processes and +reliable in his conclusions, and the bond of friendship between +himself and Dixon was that of two unequal minds admiring the +superiorities of each other. They had already proceeded together to +the Cape of Good Hope on two occasions to study an eclipse and an +occultation. Mason liked Dixon for his ready spirits, almost +improvident courage, speed with details, and worldly bearing. Though +little is known of their memories now, because they left us no +prolific records and spent much of the period of service among us in +the midst of the wilderness or in the reticence required for +mathematical calculation, yet they were the successors of Washington +in the surveying of the Alleghany ridges. Their survey was reliable; +the line was true. How much superior does it stand to-day to the line +of thirty degrees thirty minutes, which is the next great political +parallel below it, and was partly run only a few years afterwards! Up +to their line for the next hundred years flowed the waters of slavery, +but sent no human drop beyond, which did not evaporate in the free +light of a milder sun. God speed the surveyor, whoever he be, who +plants the stakes of a tranquil commonwealth and leaves them to be +the limit of bad principles, the pioneer line of good ones! + +"Charles Mason had spent many years of his life, up to his old age, +experimenting with timepieces of his own invention. Many years before, +Sir Isaac Newton had called the attention of the British Government to +the necessity for an accurate portable time-keeper at sea, to +determine longitude, and in 1714 Parliament offered a reward of 20,000 +pounds sterling for such a chronometer. Thenceforward for fifty years +the inventive spirits of England and the Continent were secretly at +work to produce a timepiece which would deserve the large reward, +amongst them Charles Mason, who labored with such perfect discretion +and uncommunicative self-reliance that none knew, none will ever know, +the motive principle he employed or the enginery he devised. While he +was working at this survey, near the spot at which we stand, the Board +of Award gave the L20,000 to one John Harrison, almost at the very +instant when Mason and Dixon's line was begun. This you can confirm by +any history of Horology. Charles Mason lived down to the year 1787, +surviving Dixon, who had died in England ten years previously, and he +was known to say to the end of his days, to people resident in +Philadelphia, that a child had eaten up L20,000 belonging to him at a +single mouthful. + +"The child whom the neighborhood at that time accused of this act was +known in later life as Fithian Minuit, babe of a woman of mixed +English and Finnish-Dutch descent, who came from the fishermen's town +of Head of Elk, a few hours jog to the southward, to sell fish to the +surveying camp. She was a woman of mingled severity of features and +bodily obesity, uniting in one temper and frame the Scandinavian and +the Low Dutch traits, ignorant good-humor, grim commerce, and stolid +appetite. Her baby was the fattest, quaintest, and ugliest in the +country; ready to devour any thing, to grin at any thing, go to the +arms of everybody, and, in short, it represented all the traits of +the Middle State races--the government of the members, including the +brain, by the belly. + +"One day this Finnish-Dutch baby--aged perhaps two years--was picked +up by one of the assistant surveyors and carried into the tent of +Charles Mason. The great surveyor was at that instant bending down +over a small metallic object which he was examining through the medium +of a lens. He recognized the child, and seemed glad of the opportunity +to dismiss more serious occupation from his mind, so he instantly +leaped up and poked the fat urchin with his thumb, tempting the bite +of its teeth with his forefinger, and was otherwise reducing his tired +faculties to the needs of a child's amusement, when suddenly the voice +of its mother at the tent's opening drew him away. + +"'Fresh fish, mighty surveyor! Fall shad, and the most beautiful +yellow perch. Buy something for the sake of Minuit's baby!' + +"The celebrated surveyor, who seemed in an admirable humor, stepped +just outside the tent to look at the fish, and in that little interval +his assistant, seized with inquisitiveness, stole up to his table, and +picked up the tiny object lying there under the magnifying glass. + +"'This is the little ticking seducer which absorbs my master's time,' +he said. 'Why, it isn't big enough for an infant to count the minutes +of its life upon it!' + +"At this the fat, good-humored baby, anticipating something to eat, +reached out its hands. The surveyor's assistant, in a moment of +mischief, put the object in the child's grasp. The child clutched it, +bit at it, and swallowed it whole in an instant. + +"Before the assistant surveyor could think of any other harm done than +the possible choking of the child, the child's mother and the great +surveyor entered the tent. The arms of the first reached for her +offspring, and of the second for the subject of his experiment. + +"'My chronometer!' + +"'The child of the fish-woman ate it!' + +"The fish-woman screamed, and reversed the urchin after the manner of +mothers, and swung him to and fro like a pendulum. He came up a trifle +red in the face, but laughing as usual, and the ludicrous +inappositeness of the great loss, the unconscious cause of it, the +baby's wonderful digestion, the assistant's distress, and the +surveyor's calm but pallid self-control, made Jeremiah Dixon, dropping +in at the minute, roar with laughter. + +"'Dixon,' said Mason, 'the work of half my life, my everlasting +timepiece, just completed and set going, has found a temperature where +it requires no compensation balance.' + +"'I am glad of it,' said his associate, 'for now we can proceed with +Mason and Dixon's line, and nothing else!' + +"A look, more of pity than of reproach, passed over Mason's scarcely +ruffled face--the pity of one man solely conscious of a great object +lost, for another, indifferent or ignorant both of the object and the +loss. He took the smiling urchin in his hands, and raising it upon his +shoulder, placed his ear to its side. Thence came with faint +regularity the sound of a simple, gentle ticking. They all heard it by +turns, and, while they paused in puzzled wonder and humor, the +undaunted infant looked down as innocent as a chubby, cheery face +painted on some household clock. The innocent expression of the child +touched the mathematician's heart. He filled a glass with good Madeira +wine, and drank the devourer's health in these benignant words: + +"'May Minuit's baby run as long and as true as the article on which he +has made his meal!' + +"Next day they set the great stone in the corner of the State of +Maryland, and, breaking camp, vanished westward through the cleft of +light opened by their pioneers, pursued yet for many miles by a motley +multitude. + +"Before many years this fertile country filled up with hamlets, +mills, and churches; the War of Independence scarcely interrupted its +prosperity, because the Quaker element adhered with constancy to +neither side, and only one campaign was fought here. The story of the +boy who ate a watch passed out of general knowledge and remark; he was +known to have been a drummer at the battle of Chadd's Ford, and to +have buried his mother before the close of the war, at the Delaware +fishing hamlet of Marcus Hook, amongst her Finnish progenitors. + +"But soon after the peace, the short, fat body and queer, merry Dutch +face of Fithian Minuit were known all along the roads of Chester, +Cecil, and Newcastle counties, by parts of the people of three States, +as components of one of the least offensive, most industrious, and +most lively and popular young chaps around the head of the Chesapeake. + +"He was respectful with the old and congenial with the young--always +going and never tired, up early and late, of a chirruping sort of +address and an equal temper, and while he appeared to be thrifty and +money-making, he did all manner of good turns for the high and the +humble; and, although everybody said he was the homeliest young man in +the region, yet more village girls went to their front doors to see +him than if he had been a showman coming to town to do feats of magic. +He was not unintelligent either, and could play on the violin, compute +accounts equal to the best country book-keeper, and as he was of +religious turn, although attached to no particular denomination, the +meeting-houses on every side, hardly excepting the Quakers themselves, +delighted to see him drive up on Sundays and tell an anecdote to the +children and sing a little air, half-hymn sort, half stave, but always +given with a good countenance, which apologized for the worldly notes +of it. If any severe interpreter of Christian amusements took the +people to task for tolerating such a universal and desultory +character, there were others to rise up and ask what evil or +passionate word or act of sorry behavior in Fithian Minuit could be +instanced. The severe Francis Asbury himself raised the question once +on the Bohemia Manor amongst the Methodists, and got so little support +that he charged young Minuit with the possession of some devilish art +or spell to entrap the people; but Fithian once, when the good +itinerant's horse broke down on the road, met Mr. Asbury, won his +affections, and mended his big silver watch. + +"This mending of clocks, watches, and every description of +time-keepers was the occupation of Minuit. He had picked up the art, +some said, from a Yankee in the army at the close of the war, and +certainly no man of his time or territory had such good luck with +timepieces. Residing in the little village of Christina (by the +pretentious called Christi-anna, and by the crude, with nearer +rectitude, called Crist_ene_), Fithian kept a snug little shop full of +all manners and forms of clocks, dials, sand-glasses, hour-burning +candles, water-clocks, and night tapers. He had amended and improved +the new Graham clock, called the 'dead scapement,' or 'dead-beat +escapement' (the origin of our modern word _dead-beat_, signifying a +man who does not meet his engagements, whereas the original +'dead-beat' was the most faithful engagements-keeper of its time. +Perhaps a dead-beat nowadays is a time-server; for this would be a +correct derivation). From this shop the young Minuit, in a plain but +reliable wagon, with a nag never fast and never slow, and indifferent +to temperatures, travelled the country for a radius of forty +miles--not embarrassed even by the Delaware, which he crossed once a +month, and attended fully to the temporal and partly to the spiritual +needs of all the Jerseymen betwixt Elsinborough and Swedesboro. + +"Over the door of Minuit's whitewashed cabin on the knoll of Christina +was the sign of a jovial, fat person, bearing some resemblance to +himself, in the centre of whose stomach stood a clock inscribed, 'My +time is everybody's.' Past this little shop went the entire long +caravan and cavalcade by land between the North and South, +stage-coaches, mail-riders, highwaymen, chariots, herdsters, and +tramps; for Christina bridge was on the great tide-water road and at +the head of navigation on the Swedish river of the same name, so that +here vessels from the Delaware transferred their cargo to wagons, and +a portage of only ten miles to the Head of Elk gave goods and +passengers reshipment down the Chesapeake. This village declined only +when the canal just below it was opened in 1829 and a little railway +in 1833. It was nearly a century and a half old when Minuit set his +sign there, before General Washington went past it to be inaugurated. +From Fithian's window the pleasant land was seen spread out below him +beyond the Christina; and the Swedish, Dutch, and English farms smiled +from their loamy levels on sails which moved with scarcely perceptible +motion through the narrow dykes planted with greenest willows. Before +his door the teamsters, ill-tempered with lashing and swearing at +their teams in the ruts of Iron Hill, schoolboys from Nottingham, +millers' men from Upper White Clay, and bargemen and stage passengers, +recovered temper to see the sign of the great paunch with a timepiece +set so naturally in it indicating the hour of dinner. Within they +found the clock-maker, with face beaming as if reflected from a +watch-case, working handily amongst a hundred ticking pieces, of which +he looked to be one. There were large sundials for the outer walls of +barns and farm-houses, very popular in the Pennsylvania hills; +sand-glasses for the Peninsula, where it cost nothing to fill them; +and hour-burning candles, much affected by the Chesapeake gentry, +which gave at once light and time. There were ancient striking clocks, +such as the monks may have used to disturb them for early prayers, +which, with a horrible rattle of wheels and clash of heavy weights, +hammered the alarm. There were the tremendous watches of river +captains who had aspired to go to sea, and old crutch escapement +watches which Huygens himself had perhaps handled in Holland. The +window was filled with trains of wheels and pinions, snails and racks, +crystals, and faces and watches, cackling at each other. There were +striking clocks which rung chimes or rocked like little vessels on +apparent billows, or started off with notes like grasshoppers. A +hundred of the most musical tree-frogs shut up in a piano might give a +feeble notion of the tunes and thrummings assembled in this shop. It +was the same day or night, and the power of Fithian Minuit over +time-keepers was nearly miraculous. He appeared to be able to smile an +old watch into action. Transferred to his hand, some spent and rusty +sentinel, long silent and useless, seemed to feel the warmth of the +mender and resumed the round of duty. He would buy from the old estate +halls on the Sassafras and the Chester rivers, tall, solemn clocks, +dead to the purpose of their creation, their stately learned faces +lost to former automatic expressions or waggery, and when exposed to +the infectious influences of his shop, a gurgle of sound as of the +inhalation of air into their lungs had been heard, according to some +people, and next day the carcass of the clock would be found resonant +and its faculties recovered. One day the great patriots, John +Dickinson and Caesar Rodney, riding past Christina together, stopped +for dinner, and sent their watches in to be cleaned meantime. + +"'Minuit,' said Rodney, 'you are a devil with a time-keeper!' + +"'Nay, Minuit,' said Dickinson, 'thou art the gentlest custodian of +time in our parts. I would some one could regulate these States and +times like thee.' + +"The country round resorted to Minuit for repairs, but he generally +came himself along the roads fortuitously about the time anybody's +dials stood still. He was almost equal as a weather prophet to his +fame as a mechanic, and as his broad, fat face, blue eyes, and portly +body passed some farmer's gate, the cheery cry would go up, perhaps: + +"'Make hay--the wind's right!' or again: 'Time enough, farmer, with +another pair of hands. But it's coming from the east!' + +"Had it been possible to suggest any superstition about a man +universally popular, people would have said that this henchman of time +and minute-hand of diligence drew his power from doubtful sources. +Further north, where there was less superstition than amongst these +mingled unspiritualized populations, Minuit might have been burnt as a +wizard. A little doctor in the Deutsch hills, who once prescribed for +the clock-mender, reported that his pulse had a metallic beat, and, +looking suddenly up, he saw, where Minuit's face had been, a round +clock face looking down and ticking at him. This doctor was a +worthless fellow, however, and loose of tongue. Minuit, it was +observed, never used a tuning-fork in church, like all leaders of +religious music, but cast his eyes down a moment towards his heart, +and tapped his foot, and then, as if catching the pitch somewhere from +within, he raised the tune and carried it forward with an exquisite +sense of rhythm. + +"A very old man and a cripple, who lived across the way from Minuit's, +affected to observe extraordinary changes in his stature according to +the weather changes, elongating as the temperature rose, and in very +cold weather sinking into himself; this man also observed, on the day +of a solar eclipse, that for the period there was nothing at all in +the place where the clock-mender's head had been except a ring of +light which enlarged as the disk of the sun was released. But who +could rely upon the vagaries of an old man, who could do nothing but +make memoranda out of his window upon the doings of his neighbors? + +"If anybody knew more than that Fithian Minuit was an obliging, +neighborly man, and a model for mechanics, it must have been the +subject of his romance. He was related to have told all that he knew +upon the mystery of his being to his clergyman, and there is nothing +now to confirm the gossip; for the preacher himself has gone to sleep +in the old Shrewsbury graveyard in Maryland. + +"At Port Penn, where the last island in the channel of the lower +Delaware now raises its flaming beacon, and the belated collier steers +safely by Reedy Island light, lived the daughter of an old West India +and coasting captain, who would permit his chronometers to be repaired +and cleaned by nobody but Minuit. His cottage stood where now there is +a broad and sandy street leading to a wooden pier and to +bathing-houses on a pleasure beach. The few people near at hand were +pilots, captains of bay craft, and grain-buyers; although the Dutch +and Swedish farms, alternating with long marshes, musical with birds, +had lined the wide Delaware at this point many a year. In calm, sunny +weather, the broad beauty of the river and its low gold and emerald +shores, with bulky vessels swinging up on the slow full tide, combined +the sceneries of America and the Netherlands; but when a gale blew +over the low shores, scattering the reed-birds like the golden pollen +of the marsh lilies, and cold white gulls succeeded, diving and +careening like sharks of the sky, the ships and coasters felt no +serenity in these wide yeasty reaches of the Delaware bay, and they +labored to drop anchor behind the natural breakwater of Reedy Island. +There, clustering about as thickly in that olden time as they now seek +from all the ocean round the costly shelter of Henlopen breakwater, +coaster and pirate, fisherman and slaver, sent up the prayer a +beneficent government has since granted in the fullest measure, for a +perfect Coast Survey and a vigilant Lighthouse Board. + +"The daughter of Captain Lum was named Lois, and she was the junior of +Fithian Minuit by several years, a slender, beautiful girl, with hair +and eyes of the softest brown, and household ways, daughterly and +endearing. + +"The old sea-captain, who made five voyages a year to the nearer +Indies, and sent ashore to Port Penn as he passed, returning, the best +of rum and the freshest of tropical fruits, looked with a jealous eye +upon any possible suitor to his daughter, and had, perhaps, +embarrassed her prospects for a younger protector, if such she had +ever wished. But he loved to see the clock-maker come to the cottage, +who had never shown partiality for any woman, while popular with all. + +"'Minuit,' he used to say, 'the best man on watch by land or sea, thou +North Star; look to my girl as to my chronometer, and I'll pay thee +twice the cost of thy time!' + +"It was the captain's delight, while ashore, to have every timepiece, +stationary or portable, taken apart in the presence of his daughter +and himself, while he told his sailor yarns, and Lois stood ready to +serve his punch, or pass to the fat, smooth-faced, cheerful Minuit the +pieces of mechanism: brass gimbals, chronometer-boxes, wheels and +springs, ship-glasses, compasses, the manifold parts of little things +by which men grope their way out of sight of land, hung between a +human watch and the crystal shell of the embossed heaven. Chronometers +were with Minuit attractive and yet awe-giving subjects. The legend of +his childhood, well forgotten by all else, said that he had swallowed +a chronometer, so small that a sea-captain could swim with it in his +mouth. And now the sailors of all the navies cruised by the aid of +clumsy watches, big as house-clocks, which to look at made Minuit +smile with pity. + +"'Captain Lum,' he said aloud, on the eve of a voyage in the winter +season, 'I have often yearned to go to sea. The sight of it makes me a +little wild. I think I could guess my way over it and about it, by +inherent reckoning.' + +"He saw the pair of white hands holding something before him tremble a +little, and he looked up. The spiritual face of Lois was looking at +his with wistful apprehension and interest. If ever his pulse beat out +of time it was now--for in that exchange of glances he felt what she +did not understand--that he was beloved. + +"Pain and joy, not swiftly, but softly, filled Minuit--pain, because +he had loved this girl and wished never to have her know it, but would +keep it an unbreathed, a holy mystery; and joy, like any lover's +recognizing himself in the dear heart he had never importuned. + +"Next day the good ship Chirpland came off Port Penn. The jolly +captain saying adieu to Minuit, clasped his hand. + +"'I saw thy look and my daughter's yesterday,' he said. 'It is weak of +me to deny her a man like thee, thou sailor's friend. My ship is old. +These coasts are dangerous. Nights and days come when we get no sight +of lights ashore or in heaven. If thy chronometer fail, fail not thou, +but be to her repairer and possessor!' + +"The discovery and the trust embarrassed Minuit, but he had never +denied the request of any man. His time, as his sign affirmed, was +everybody's. Yet a thrill, a twang, a twinge of delicious fear passed +through him now. He loved this girl dearly, but he feared to love at +all. He had now both the parental and the womanly recognition, and his +days were lonely even with his garrulous timepieces, but he felt a +lonelier sense of the possibility of turning her affection to awe. +Those queer legends of his birth, his affinity for fixed luminaries +and motions, and his conscious knowledge that he stood in some way +related to spheres and orbits, and the laws of revolution and period, +had never disturbed his mind in its calculations. But if he did stand +exceptional in these respects to his fellow-men, might another and a +beloved one comprehend what he himself did not? Yet the kindly regard +of his neighbors, the composure of a conscience well consulted, and +the hope that he was worthy of human love, made him resolve to keep +the captain's admonition, though he hoped the occasion to obey it +might never arrive. + +"In the absence of the good ship, however, love could not be deceived. +It spoke in waitings and longings, and in tender glances and +considerateness. She knew the rattle of his carriage-wheels, and he +could feel her in the air like the breath of a beautiful day soon to +appear in distance. Time, toward which he stood in such natural +harmony, was dearer that it contained this passion and life more +exquisite, and himself more questionable for it all. + +"It was a stormy winter. Ships strewed the coast between Hatteras and +Navesink, and the capes of the Delaware received many a tattered +barque. The ice poured down and wedged itself between Reedy Island and +the shores, and crushed to pieces many that had escaped the ocean +gales. One night in a raging storm the door of Captain Lum's cabin was +thrown open, and a sailor appeared fresh from the water. He bore in +his hand a chronometer, which Minuit recognized in a moment, and he +drew his arm for the first time around the maiden's form. + +"'The Chirpland went down on Five Fathom Shoal, and the captain stood +by her. He bade us return his chronometer, and say that he perished in +the assurance that his daughter was left to the guidance of another +fully as sure.' + +"'My child,' said Minuit, 'I accept thee wholly, sharing thy griefs! +Weep, but on the breast of one who loves thee!' + +"The village of Christina rejoiced when its broad-faced, dimpled +friend came home with a bride so fair and well-descended. They dressed +the sign before his door with flowers. Only the groom wore an anxious +face as he led her into his tidy home, now for the first time blessed +with a mistress. + +"The night of the nuptials came softly down, as nowhere else except +upon the skies of the Delaware and Chesapeake, and Minuit was happy. +The thrumming clocks in the shop below mingled their tones and +tickings in one consonant chorus, scarcely heard above the long drone +and low monotonies of the insects in the creeks and woods, which +assisted silence. The husband slept, how well beloved he could not +know. + +"In the dreams of the night he was awakened. In the pale moonshine he +saw his wife, clad in her garments of whiteness, standing by his bed +all trembling. + +"'Tell me,' she said, 'what it is that I hear? I have listened till I +am afraid. As I lay in this room perfectly silent, with my head, my +husband, nearest your heart, I felt the ticking of a watch. At first +it was only curious and strange. Now it haunts me and terrifies me. I +am a simple girl, new and nervous to this wedded life. Is this noise +natural? What is it?' + +"Minuit trembled also. + +"'Lois, my bride, my heaven!' he said. 'Oh! pity me, who have tried to +pity all and make all happy, if I cannot myself explain away the cause +of your alarm. I have kept myself lonely these many years, aware that +I was not like other men, but that my heart--no evil monitor to +me--gave a different sound. There is nothing in its beat, my wife, to +make you fear it. Return and lay your head upon it, and you will hear +it say this only, if you listen with faith: _love_!' + +"Thus the watch-maker turned superstition to assurance, and the +admonition of his heart was a source of joy instead of fear to the +listener at its side. It ticked a few bright years with constancy, and +was the last benediction of the world to her ere she was ushered into +that peace which passeth understanding. + +"At the death of his wife Minuit felt a deeper sense of his +responsibility to time, and the finite uses of it expanded to a +cheerful conception of the infinite. The country round was generally +settled by a religious people, and the many meeting-houses of +different sects had his equal confidence and sympathy. Pursuing his +craft with unwearied diligence, and delighting the homestead with his +violin as of old, a more pensive and wistful expression replaced his +smile, and love withdrawn beckoned him toward it beyond the boundaries +of period. Hard populations, which would not listen to preachers, +heard with delight the amiable warnings of this friendly man, and as +his own generation grew older, a new race dawned to whom he appeared +in the light of a pure-spirited evangelist. 'Improve the time! watch +it! ennoble it! It is a part of the beautiful and perpetual circle of +everlasting duty. It is to the great future only the little disk of a +second-hand, traversed as swiftly, while the great rim of heaven +accepts it as a part of the eternal round!' Such was the burden of his +sermon. + +"He could ride all along the roads, and hear his missionaries +preaching for him wherever a clock struck, or a dial on the gable of a +great stone barn propelled its shadows. His tracts were in every +farmer's vest pocket. Whatever he made he consecrated with a paragraph +of counsel. + +"The old sign faded out. The clock-maker's sight grew dim, but his +apprehensions of the everlasting love and occupation were clearer and +more confident to the end. + +"One day they found him in the graveyard of the London Tract, by the +side of the spot where his wife was interred, worn and asleep at the +ripe age of three-score. + +"The mill teams and the farm wagons stopped in the road, and the +country folks gathered round in silence. + +"'Run down at last,' said one. 'If there are heavenly harps and bells, +he hears them now!'" + +And there they hear the ticking, the preaching of this faithful life, +under the old stone, sending up its pleasant message yet. The stone is +perishing like a broken crystal, but the memory of the diligent and +useful man beneath it rings amongst the holy harmonies of the country. +Though dead, he yet speaketh! + + + + +THE IMP IN NANJEMOY. + + + Dull in the night, when the camps were still, + Thumped two nags over Good Hope Hill; + The white deserter, the passing spy, + Took to the brush as the pair went by; + The army mule gave over the chase; + The Catholic negro, hearing the pace, + Said, as they splashed through Oxon Run: + "Dey ride like de soldiers who speared God's Son!" + But when Good Friday's bells behind + Died in the capital on the wind, + He who rode foremost paused to say: + "Herold, spur up to my side, scared boy! + A word has rung in my ears all day-- + Merely a jingle, 'Nanjemoy.'" + + "Ha!" said Herold, "John, why that's + A little old creek on the river. Surratt's + Lies just before us. You halt on the green + While I slip in the tavern and get your carbine!" + The outlaw drank of the whiskey deep, + Which the tipsy landlord, half asleep, + Brought to his side, and his broken foot + He raised from the stirrup and slashed the boot. + "Lloyd," he cried, "if some news you invite-- + Old Seward was stabbed in his bed to-night. + Lincoln _I_ shot--that long-lived fox-- + As he looked at the play from the theatre box; + And it seemed to me that the sound I heard, + As the audience fluttered, like ducks round decoy, + Was only the buzz of a musical word + That I cannot get rid of--'Nanjemoy.'" + + "Twenty miles we must ride before day, + Cross Mattawoman, Piscataway, + If in the morn we would take to the woods + In the swamp of Zekiah, at Doctor Mudd's!" + "Quaint are the names," thought the outlaw then, + "Though much I have mingled with Maryland men! + I have fever, I think, or my mind's o'erthrown. + Though scraped is the flesh by this broken bone, + Every jog that I take on this road so lonely, + With thoughts, aye bloody, my mind to employ, + I can but say, over and over, this only-- + The drowsy, melodious 'Nanjemoy.'" + + Silent they galloped by broken gates, + By slashes of pines around old estates; + By planters' graves afield under clumps + Of blackjack oaks and tobacco stumps; + The empty quarters of negroes grin + From clearings of cedar and chinquopin; + From fodder stacks the wild swine flew, + The shy young wheat the frost peeped through, + And the swamp owl hooted as if she knew + Of the crime, as she hailed: "Ahoy! Ahoy!" + And the chiming hoofs of the horses drew + The pitiless rhythm of "Nanjemoy." + + So in the dawn as perturbed and gray + They hid in the farm-house off the way, + And the worn assassin dozed in his chair, + A voice in his dreams or afloat in the air, + Like a spirit born in the Indian corn-- + Immemorial, vague, forlorn, + And disembodied--murmured forever + The name of the old creek up the river. + "God of blood!" he said unto Herold, + As they groped in the dusk, lost and imperilled, + In the oozy, entangled morass and mesh + Of hanging vines over Allen's Fresh: + "The chirp of birds and the drone of frogs, + The lizards and crickets from trees and bogs + Follow me yet, pursue and ferret + My soul with a word which I used to enjoy, + As if it had turned on me like a spirit + And stabbed my ear with its 'Nanjemoy.'" + + Ay! Great Nature fury or preacher + Makes, as she wists, of the tiniest creature-- + Arming a word, as it floats on the mind, + With the dagger of wrath and the wing of the wind. + What, though weighted to take them down, + Their swimming steeds in the river they drown, + And paddle the farther shore to gain, + Chased by gunboats or lost in rain? + Many a night they try the ferry + And the days in haggard sleep employ, + But every raft, or float, or wherry, + Drifts up the tide to Nanjemoy. + + "Ho! John, we shall have no more annoy, + We've crossed the river from Nanjemoy. + The bluffs of Virginny their shadows reach + To hide our landing upon the beach!" + Repelled from the manse to hide in the barn, + The sick wretch hears, like a far-away horn, + As he lies on the straw by the snoring boy, + The winding echo of "N-a-n-j-e-m-o-y." + All day it follows, all night it whines, + From the suck of waters, the moan of pines, + And the tread of cavalry following after, + The flash of flames on beam and rafter, + The shot, the strangle, the crash, the swoon, + Scarce break his trance or disturb the croon + Of the meaningless notes on his lips which fasten, + And the soldier hears, as he seeks to convoy + The dying words of the dark assassin, + A wandering murmur, like "Nanjemoy." + + + + +THE FALL OF UTIE. + + +The reception at Secretary Flake's was at its height. Bland Van, the +President of the nation, had departed with his boys; the punch-bowl +had been emptied nine times; and still the cry from our republican +society was, "Fill up!" + +A pair of young men, unacquainted with each other, pressed at the same +time to the punch-bowl, and Jack, the chief ladler, turning from the +younger, a clerk in civil dress, helped the elder, a tall naval +officer, to a couple of glasses. The clerk, young Utie, who was +somewhat flushed, addressed the chief ladler and remarked: + +"You dam nigger, didn't you see my glass?" + +"See it, sah? Yes! I've seen it seval times afo, dis evening." + +Black Jack then received the current allowance of curses for his color +and his impudence, all of which he took meekly, till the officer, +Lieutenant Dibdo, interrupted on the negro's behalf. + +"It's none o' yo affair, I reckon!" cried Utie sullenly. + +"The man had no intention of slighting you," said Dibdo. "You have +been drinking too much, boy, and your coarseness is coming out." + +A fresh crowd of thirsty people pressing up at this point gave Jack +his opportunity to cry: "Room around de punch-bowl!" + +And the disputants were separated and squeezed by the promenading +tides into different rooms. + +The officer presently forgot all about it, but not so young Utie, who +was partly drunk, entirely vain, not a gentleman by nature, and +outraged that anybody had dubbed him "a boy." He sought the side of a +fine young girl, the daughter of the chief of the bureau where he was +employed, and with whom he was in love. She was attired in the free +costume of republican receptions--bare arms, a low dress giving ample +display to the whitest shoulders in the room, and fine natural hair +dressed with flowers. Every gentleman who passed her during the +evening had looked his homage freely--old beaux, dignitaries, +officers, foreign deputies, _roues_--and as she had been two or three +winters in that kind of society, nothing discomposed her. + +"Robert," she said, with part of a glance, as Utie rejoined her, "you +go to the punch-bowl too much. You reflect upon me, sir. Besides, I +heard you quarrelling with that handsome officer. I am dying to know +him. Who is he?" + +Utie looked viciously up, anger and jealousy inflaming his heated +face, for, although he had no engagement with Miss Rideau, he +conceived himself her future suitor. But some rash words that he said +against the officer were scarcely heard by the self-possessed beauty +of official society, because, just then, the young officer and a +friend were approaching them. She dropped her eyes when she met +Lieutenant Dibdo's bold glance of admiration, perhaps in order not to +be privy to the more searching look with which, like a gentleman of +the world, he ran over the fine points of her plump body as he passed. +But young Utie, seeing the offender of a moment ago taking such ardent +and leisurely survey of the girl under his care, turned pale with +hate. The officer did not notice him at all, absorbed in the fine +colors, eyes, and proportions of Miss Rideau, and this further +outraged Utie who--to his credit be it said--had only modest thoughts +for her. When he saw, however, that she looked after the manly figure +and naval gilt of him of the profane eyes, as if to return his +admiration, the intoxicated boy dropped an oath. + +"I will horsewhip that powder-monkey!" he said. + +"Robert," said the girl placidly, "you won't. You have no horse and no +horsewhip, but you have been drinking. Go from me, sir! Some one else +shall see me home to-night." + +"I will kill the man who takes my place! Do you dare to speak that way +to me?" + +He had raised his voice, in his rage, so that some others heard it. +There was a little pause of pressing people, for that was a chivalrous +age as to the manner of men to women, and the young officer, just then +returning, availed himself of a pretty girl's dilemma to say: + +"May I assist you, miss? I presume you are not in very agreeable +company." + +"Thank you, sir," answered Miss Rideau. "I would be obliged to have +some one find my aunt for me; she is here somewhere." + +"Will you accept a stranger's arm?" + +"In this misfortune, I will." + +Dibdo took off the pretty girl, and one of his naval companions, +looking after him, exclaimed, "What a genius Dib. is with the ladies!" +But the companion, feeling a trembling, unsteady hand upon his arm, +turned about and met young Utie's desperate face. "I want to know the +name of that fellow!" said Utie. + +"That is Charles Dibdo," said the naval companion, "lieutenant of the +United States frigate Fox, and I recommend you, my boy, to address +_him_ in a civil tone. For me, I never mind a drunken man." + +Thoroughly demonized now, young Robert Utie turned blindly about for +some implement of revenge. He found it in Tiltock, a fellow-clerk, a +novitiate and a ninny, who was visible in the crowd. + +"Tiltock, are you a man of honor?" + +"I hope so, Bob." + +"Can you carry a challenge?" + +"Oh yes! I guess so, to 'blige a ole friend." + +"Can you write it?" + +"I'm afraid not." + +"Then take it by word of mouth. That scoundrel there, Lieutenant +Dibdo, has insulted a lady, and me too. I must have his blood. Follow +him up, and meet me at Gadsby's with his answer." + +Full of self-importance at this first and safe opportunity to stand +upon what is known as "the field of honor," Tiltock kept the +lieutenant in his eye, and took him finally aside and demanded a +meeting in the name of Utie. The naval officer answered that he had +simply relieved a lady from a drunken boy; but Tiltock, in the +dramatic way common to halcyon old times, refused to accept either +"drunken" or "boy" as terms appropriate to "the code," and pressed for +an answer. In five minutes the naval officer replied, through his +naval companion, that having ascertained Mr. Utie to be a gentleman's +son, and he as an United States officer not being able to decline a +challenge, the latter was accepted. The weapons were to be pistols, +the place the usual ground at Bladensburg, and the time the afternoon +of the next day. + +There was a good deal of drinking and boasting at the hotels that +night, Utie and Tiltock telling everybody, as a particular secret, +that there was to be "an 'fah honah," otherwise a "juel," at +"Bladensburg, sah!" The gin-drinking, cock-fighting, sporting element +of the town was aroused, and Utie and Tiltock were invited on all +sides to imbibe to the significant toast of "The Field." Very noisy, +very insolent, nuisances indeed, these two mere lads--the offspring of +a vain and ignorant social period of which some elements yet +remain--borrowed the money to hire a carriage, and at midnight they +set out with some associates by the old, rutty, clay road for the +Maryland village of Bladensburg. That night they caroused until +Nature, despite her revolt, put them to bed. In the morning, with a +swollen and sallow face, dry hair, unsteady hands, aching eyes and +dim vision, Robert Utie awoke to the recollection of his folly and his +rashness, and he realized the critical period which he had provoked. +His clerkship lost, his self-pride poignant, his pockets nearly empty, +his respectable career irretrievably terminated, his sweetheart +insulted, and his life in danger! There was no escape either from +despair or fate. Tiltock was strutting about below stairs with a +drunken old doctor, misnamed a surgeon, who deposited behind the bar a +rusty case of surgical instruments, and who took a deep potation to +the toast of "The fawchuns of waw." The Bladensburg people were well +aware of the occasion, and the old tavern was surrounded by loafers +and gossips, many of whom were boys who had walked out from the city +as we go to prize-fights in our day. To fill up the time a dog-fight +and a chicken-fight were improvised by the enterprising stable-boys in +the back yard, on the green slopes of the running Branch. While +Tiltock strutted out of town at an imposing pace to examine "The +Field," Robert Utie retired to his room, sought with an emetic to +relieve his stomach, and then sat down to write some letters and an +epitaph. The paper was thin, and the pen and ink matched it, but the +drunken boy's eyes marred more than all; for suddenly the secret +fountains of his lost youth were touched as by the prick of his pen, +and the drops gushed out upon the two words he had written: + +"Dear mother--" + +Not his sweetheart, who was nothing to him now; not his "honor," which +had been only vain-glory and deceit; not any thing but this earliest, +everlasting faith which is ours forever, whether we be steadfast or go +astray: the tie of home, of childhood, and of our mother's prayer and +kiss--this was the soft reproach which glided between a wasted youth +and the "field of valor" he had tempted. He wept. He sobbed. He threw +himself upon the bed, and pressing his temples into the ragged quilt, +felt the panorama of childhood pass across his mind like something +cool, sorrowful, and compassionate. The sickness _she_ had cured, the +bad words _she_ had taken from his undutiful lips, the whipping she +had saved him from at the cost of her deceit, the lie she had never +told _him_, the tears he had found her shedding upon her knees when +first he had been drinking, the money he had never given her out of +his salary but had spent with idlers, his ruined soul which to that +mother's thought was pure as a baby's still, and watched by all the +angels of God: these were admonitions from the green meadows of +childhood. Before was the barren field of honor. + +How short is the struggle betwixt youth and selfishness, that sum of +all diseases and crimes; that selfishness out of which wars arise and +hell is habitated! + +A poor, overworked Christian negro, a slave in the tavern, hearing the +sobbing of Robert Utie and aware that one of the duellists occupied +that room, lifted the latch, and wakened the wretched boy from his +remorse. + +"Young moss," he said, "doan you fight no juels! Oh! doan do it, for +de bressed Lord's sake! It's nuffin but pride and sin. Yo's only a +pore, spilt boy, but you got a soul, young moss! Doan you go git kilt +in dat ar bloody gully wha' so many gits hurt amoss to deff!" + +Utie arose from the dream of home, and kicked the poor slave out of +the room. He then drank, speculated upon his chances, practised with +an imaginary pistol at the wall, and meditated running away, +alternately, until Tiltock's business-step rang in the hall. + +"Bob," he said, "we've picked you a beautiful piece of ground, and the +other party's waiting. It's the most popular juel of the season." + +They walked up the sandy village street, under the old hip-roofed +houses, crossed the Branch bridge, and proceeded a quarter of a mile +on the road to Washington. There, where a rivulet crossed the road +amongst some bushes, they descended by a path into a copse, and on to +a green meadow-space cleared away by former rain freshets. Farm boys, +town boys, and intruders of all sorts were lurking near. The field of +honor resembled a gypsy camp. + +Lieutenant Dibdo's companion came up to Tiltock and said that his +friend did not wish to fight, and would make any manly apology, even +though unconscious of offence, if the challenge was withdrawn. The +crowd was ardent for the fight, and Tiltock, who was punctilious about +honor, particularly where he could cut a safe figure, repelled the +compromise, as "unwarranted by the code." He knew as much about the +code as about honor, and more about both than about getting a living. + +"Then," said the lieutenant, "I am authorized to say that my principal +will take Mr. Utie's first fire. Let him improve the generous chance +as he will. The second time we will make business of it." + +The interlopers fell back. The word was given: "Ready--Aim--Fire!" +Robert Utie, sustained by braggadocio, that quality which makes +murderers die on the scaffold heroically, fired full at the body of +Lieutenant Dibdo. That officer fired into the air and remained unmoved +and unharmed. + +"Is another shot demanded?" + +"Yes," said Tiltock, "our honor is not yet satisfied." + +He waved the crowd back in an imperious way--they having rushed in +after the first shot--and he gave the word himself like a dramatic +reading. + +Robert Utie looked, and this time with a livid, sobered face, into the +open pistol of the man he had provoked, the professional officer of +death. The fine, cool face behind the pistol was concise, grave, and +eloquent now as a judge's pronouncing the last sentence of the law. +The next instant the boy was biting and clawing at the ground in +mortal agony. The impatient crowd rushed in. A faint voice was heard +to gasp for what some said was "water" and some thought was "mother." +Then a figure with a dissipated face a little dignified by death, and +with some of the softness of childhood glimmering in it, like the +bright footfall of the good angel whose mission was done and whose +flight was taken--this figure lay upon its back amongst the bushes, +under the sunshine, peeped at by distant hills, contemplated by idlers +as if it were the body of a slain game-chicken, and the drunken +"surgeon" was idiotically feeling for its heart. + +"Gentlemen," said Tiltock with a flourish, "we are all witnesses that +every thing has been honorably conducted." + +The city had its little talk. The newspapers in those days were models +of what is called high-toned journalism, and printed nothing on purely +personal matters like duels when requested to respect the feelings of +families. As if "the feelings of families" were not the main cause of +duels! There was a mother somewhere, still clinging with her prayers +to the footstool of God, hoping for the soul of her boy even after +death and wickedness. This was all, except the revolution of the +world, and the wedding in due time upon it of Lieutenant Dibdo and +Miss Rideau. It was what was called a romantic wedding. + + + + +LEGEND OF FUNKSTOWN. + + +I. + + Nick Hammer sat in Funkstown + Before his tavern door-- + The same old blue-stone tavern + The wagoners knew of yore, + When the Conestoga schooners + Came staggering under their load, + And the lines of slow pack-horses + Stamped over the National Road. + + Nick Hammer and son together, + Both blowing pipe-smoke there, + Like a pair of stolid limekilns, + In the blue South Mountain air; + And the mills of the Antietam, + Grinding the Dunker's wheat + So oldly and so slowly, + Groaned up the deserted street. + + "What think'st thou, Nick, my father?" + Said Nick, the old man's twin. + "This whole year thou art silent. + Let a little speech begin. + Thou think'st the bar draws little; + That the stables are empty yet, + And the growing pride of Hagerstown, + Thou can'st not that forget." + + "Thou liest, Nick, my little boy; + For Hager's bells I hear + Like the bells of olden travel, + Forgot upon mine ear. + In a wonderful thing once asked him + Thy dear old daddy is sunk-- + I have sot here a year and wondered + Who the devil was Mr. Funk!" + +II. + + "A year ago I was smoking, + When a strange young fellow came by. + He was taking notes on paper, + And the rum in his'n was _rye_. + Says he: 'I'm a writin' a hist'ry'-- + 'Twas then I thought he was drunk-- + 'And I want to see your graveyard, + And the tomb of your founder, Funk!' + + "I think if he'd sot there, sonny, + I'd looked at him a week; + But he wanished tow'rd the graveyard, + Before your daddy could speak. + Directly back he tumbled, + Before I had quit my stare, + And he says: 'I'm disappinted! + No Funk is buried in there.' + + "'The Funks is all up-country'-- + That's all I could think to say, + 'There never was Funks in Funkstown, + And there ain't any Funks to-day.' + 'Why man,' he says, 'the city + That stands on Potomac's shores + Was settled by Funk, the elder, + Who afterward settled yours! + + "'The Carrols, they bust him yonder; + Old Hager, he bust him here; + But my heart will bust till I find him, + And make a sketch of his bier. + Oh shame on the Funkstown spirit + That in Maryland does dwell! + _He_ wouldn't consent to be buried + Where you can keep a hotel.'" + +III. + + "There's John Stocklager, daddy," + Said young Nick, thinking much; + "A hundred years he's settled + Amongst the mountain Dutch. + Ask _him_!" "Nay, young Nick Hammer, + You young fellows run too fast: + I shall set out here a thinking, + And maybe Funk'll go past!" + +IV. + + He drank and smoked and pondered, + And deep in the mystery sunk; + And the more Nick Hammer wondered + The duller he grew about Funk. + The wagoners talked it over, + And a new idea to trace + Enlivened the dead old village + Like a new house built in the place. + +V. + + One day in June two wagons + Came over Antietam bridge + And a tall old man behind them + Strode up the turnpike ridge. + His beard was long and grizzled, + His face was gnarled and long, + His voice was keen and nasal, + And his mouth and eye were strong. + + One wagon was full of boxes + And the other full of poles, + As the weaver's wife discovered + While the weaver took the tolls. + Two young men drove the horses, + And neither the people knew; + But young Nick asked a question + And that old man looked him through. + + A little feed they purchased, + And their teams drank in the creek, + And to and fro they travelled + As silently for a week-- + Went southward laden heavy, + And northward always light, + And the gnarled old man aye with them, + With the long beard flowing white. + + From Sharpsburg up to Cavetown + The story slowly rolled-- + That old man knew the mountains + Were filled with ore of gold. + The boxes held his crucibles; + 'Twas haunted where he trod; + And every shafted pole he brought + Was a divining rod! + + And none knew whence he came there, + Nor they his course who took, + Down the road to Harper's Ferry, + In a shaggy mountain nook; + But Nick the Sire grew certain, + While from his eye he shrunk, + That old man was none other + Than the missing Mr. Funk: + + The famous city-builder + Who once had pitched upon + The sunny ledge of Funkstown, + And the site of Washington. + Again he was returning + To the Potomac side, + To found a temple in the hills + Before he failed and died! + + And Nick laughed gently daily + That he alone had guessed + The mystery of the elder Funk + That had puzzled all the rest. + And younger Nick thought gently: + "Since that chap asked for Funk + There's been commotion in this town, + And daddy's always drunk." + +VI. + + But once the ring of rapid hoofs + Came sudden in the night, + And on the Blue Ridge summits flashed + The camp-fire's baleful light. + Young Nick was in the saddle, + With half the valley men, + To find that old man's fighting sons + Who kept the ferry glen. + + And like the golden ore that grew + To his divining rod, + The shining, armed soldiery + Swarmed o'er the clover sod; + O'er Crampton's gap the columns fought, + And by Antietam fords, + Till all the world, Nick Hammer thought, + At Funkstown had drawn swords. + +VII. + + Together, as in quiet days + Before the battle's roar, + Nick Hammer and his one-legg'd son + Smoked by the tavern door. + The dead who slept on Sharpsburg Heights + Were not more still than they; + They leaned together like the hills, + But nothing had to say; + + Save once, as at his wooden stump + The young man looked awhile, + And damned the man who made that war-- + He saw Nick Hammer smile. + "My little boy," the old man said, + "Think long as I have thunk-- + You'll find this war rests on the head + Of that 'air Mister Funk!" + + + + +JUDGE WHALEY'S DEMON. + + +In the little town of Chester, near the Bay of Chesapeake, lived an +elegant man, with the softest manners in the world and a shadow +forever on his countenance. He bore a blameless character and an +honored name. He had one son of the same name as his own, Perry +Whaley. This son was forever with him, for use or for pleasure; they +could not be happy separated, nor congenial together. A destiny seemed +to unite them, but with it also a baleful memory. The negroes +whispered that in the boy's conception and birth was a secret of +shame; he was not this father's son, and his mother had confessed it. + +That mother was gone--fled to a distant part of the world with her +betrayer--and the divorce was recorded while yet young Perry Whaley +was a babe. But the boy never knew it: his origin reposed in the +sensitive memory of his father only, and every day the father looked +at the son long and distantly, and the son at the father with a most +affectionate longing. + +"Papa," he would say, "can't you try to love me? Do I disobey you? I +am sure I am always unhappy out of your sight." + +The father could not do without that boy, but could only hate him. "My +son," he would reply, "you are obedient, but a demon! I could not love +you if I would!" + +"Never mind then, father, I can wait. There is plenty of time in life +to make you love me!" + +Judge Whaley--for he had been on the bench--was the highest example in +Maryland of honor and pride. A General of militia, often in the +Legislature, and once or twice a Senator at Washington, he had all +the shattered sensibilities of a proud man wounded in the soul. Age +was coming untimely upon his high temples and shadowed countenance, +and as he walked along the market-place and green court-house yard, +polite to men, boys, and negroes, they said in low tones, "Pity such a +real gentleman can't be happy!" + +In public affairs Judge Whaley was not silent: he led his party with +intrepid utterances, and his prejudices, like his intellect, were +strong; but though the election sometimes hung by a few votes, and his +influence then gave every temptation on the part of low speakers and +writers to allude to his domestic dishonor, the vile reminiscence was +never mentioned. A profound respect for the man permeated society, and +in his unsmiling way he was kind to whites and blacks. A slaveholder, +and at the head of the principal slave-holding connection, and the +particular champion in that region of slavery privileges, he would +take his Bible and visit the cottages of his negroes and read to them +even when sick of contagious fevers. He defended poor clients freely +in the courts, and fought for the lives of free negroes under capital +indictments. He was of the vestry of the aged Episcopal Church, which +dominated the social influence of the town, and never omitted +attendance on all the services, but with the shadow forever on his +brow. Young Perry went everywhere with his father, and chattered and +was active to oblige him, and sometimes by his boyish humor made a +little light weaken the strong edges of that paternal shadow; but in a +few minutes, looking up into the Judge's face, he would see that +distant, accusing look returned again. + +A great desire sprang up in the boy's heart to be fully loved by his +father. He looked at other boys and saw that they received from their +fathers a treatment not more gentle, but more real, as if a deep well +of feeling lay in those parents which could send up cool water or +tears, either in disagreement or sympathy. Young Perry had his own +horse and his negro, and was the only inhabitant, besides the Judge, +of the old black brick, square, colonial house on the brink of the +river--that house whence the light had gone in lurid flight when the +young wife, in the bravado of her shame, departed forever. + +Judge Whaley was able, with his intellectual sympathy, to observe that +his boy was apt and right-minded. + +Perry read law precociously, and liked it. He was the best juvenile +debater in the little old college on the slight hill overlooking the +town. His appearance was good, and he had a cheerful nature; yet +nowhere, among beautiful girls or riding companions, gunning on the +river, crabbing on the bridge, or skating on the meadows, was he half +so happy as with his father. + +"Well, Perry," the Judge would say, "how is my demon to-day--what is +he studying now?" + +"Studying you, papa; I don't understand you." + +"The time will come, alas for you!" exclaimed the Judge. + +"Do I displease you in any thing I do?" + +"No, my son." + +"Do you believe I love you?" + +"Yes, I do believe it. I wish, Perry, it could be returned." + +The son, under the influence of this discouraging confidence, became +serious and melancholy. He would take his gun on his shoulder and wade +out into the meadow marshes, as if for game, and there would be seen +by other gunners sitting on some old pier or perched on some worm +fence, looking straight up at the sky, as if it might answer the +riddle of his father's hate and his own unreciprocated affection. He +would also, on rainy or cold days, when the inmates could not stir +abroad, mount his horse and ride to the almshouse beyond the town +mill, and, taking a pleasant story or ballad from his pocket, read to +the huddled paupers, as well as to the keeper's family, attracted by +his pleasant condescension. By degrees the boy's face also took the +shadow worn by his father. + +"Oh, if they could only love!" remarked the old people around the +court-house; "or if they only could admit the real love between them!" + +The Judge never admitted it; that seemed to be a part of his religion, +a duty to himself, if painful, and the son never woke nor retired to +rest without searching in that paternal shadow for the kindly gleam of +awakened love, yet ever kissed the shadow only, and a brow that was +cold. + +One Christmas Day the river was frozen--a rare event in that genial +latitude, and hearing that wild geese were flying down toward the bay +creeks and coves, the Judge took his gun and a negro and set off, +without waiting for Perry, who was not immediately to be found. An +hour later the boy returned and heard of his father's departure, and +started on horseback to overtake the carriage. He followed the track +beyond the mill and almshouse, and across the heads of several +peninsulas or necks leading into the wide tidal river. A few frosted +persimmons hung yet to their warty branches; the hulls of last +autumn's black walnuts were beneath the spreading boughs; old orchards +of peach-trees where the tints of green and bud smouldered in pink +contrast to the oft-blackened and sapless branches, set off the purple +beads of the haw on the bushes along the lanes. Fish-hawks, flying +across the sky, felt the shadow of the flocks of wild ducks flying +higher; and rabbits crossed the road so boldly in the face of Perry +Whaley, that once a raccoon, limping across a cornfield like a lame +spaniel, turned too and took both barrels of Perry's gun without other +fright or injury than slightly to hurry its pace. As the young man +heard the crows chatter around the corn-shocks and the mocking-bird in +some alder-thicket answer and sauce the catbird's scream, he said to +himself: + +"Every thing is attached by an inner chord to something else, and that +other thing, free-hearted, carols or quarrels back--except father to +me. Can I not, too, find something to love me? There is Marion, the +Doctor's daughter, with the chestnut curls falling all round her +neck--she loves me, I know; but until I gain my father's love I cannot +think of woman!" + +The pine-trees above his head murmured rather than moaned, as if they +strongly sympathized with him and would presently make loud and angry +cause against his enemies. "What is it," asked Perry of his +unsuspecting mind, "which makes my father so unappeasable? What is +there in me which broods upon his just and honorable life, and which +he cannot drive away though he tries? Has he some learned +superstition, some religious vow or mistaken sacrifice?" + +Perry turned down a lane and then into the bed of a frozen brook, and +coming in sight of the broad river, espied his father, gun in hand, +stealthily creeping under a load of brush and twigs which the Judge's +negro had piled about his back and head, to conceal his figure from a +flock of ducks that were bathing and diving in an open place of deep +water, to which the ice had not extended. + +The gliding brush heap, by slow and flitting advances, had progressed +about to within gunshot of the scarce suspecting fowls, and Perry and +the negro, from different sides of the cove, watched with the keenest +interest--when suddenly, with very little noise, the ice gave way and +Judge Whaley had sunk in deep water, loaded down with heavy gunning +boots, shot-belt, overcoat and gun. The negro stood paralyzed a +minute and then fell upon his knees, unknowing what to do. A sense of +joy started in Perry Whaley's breast as strong as his apprehensive +fears. He might be made the instrument of saving that beloved life, +and dissipating the spell of its indifference! + +Nothing but this ardent passion saved Perry himself from drowning. He +had crossed the cove ere yet the impulse of parental recognition had +taken form, and throwing a rein from the carriage around the negro +man's armpits, and seizing a long fence-rail, ran rapidly across, +pulling both toward the point of danger. + +Judge Whaley had been a powerful man and an accomplished sportsman; +and still as resolute as in youth, struggled with all intelligence for +his life. He sank to the bottom on first breaking through the ice, +then reaching upward made two or three powerful efforts to catch the +rim of the ice-field and sank again in each endeavor, weighted down +with leather and iron. He had sunk to rise no more when Perry reached +the edge of the field, placed the end of the rail over the abyss and +planted the negro's weight upon it, and then he dived, head foremost, +into the freezing salt depths--where the tide was running--and with +the carriage rein looped in his right hand. Before he could lay hand +upon his father, that desperate man had seized him by the hair and +drawn his head to the bottom, and every instant Perry felt that his +remainder of breath was almost run unless he could break that iron +hold. Even in that instant of agony, with death painting its awful +pageantry on his interior sight, Perry felt a gladder kind of destiny; +that perhaps the arms of a father's love were around him, and in +another sphere, already about to dawn, the shadow might depart from +that kind face and unyearning heart. + +But with a sense of more human dutifulness, Perry recalled his +residuum of perception. It was necessary to break that drowning man's +grapple upon his hair, and taking the only way, if cruel, to assist +his father, the young man struck the elder's knuckles with his +clinched fist. As they released the rein was thrown about Judge +Whaley's shoulders and run through the buckle, and as his rescuer, +almost exhausted, swam upward, he made the rein fast to his ankle and +seized hold of the rail. Here occurred another agonizing delay. The +negro could not pull the rail in, between his own fears and the double +burden; the young man was exhausted and cramped with cold, and every +instant his father, still submerged, was drowning. At this moment +when the renewed probability of death brought no compensations of a +tender sentiment, it pleased the tide to whirl Judge Whaley's body +inwards, directly beneath the ice-field, and he being now insensible, +if alive at all, the negro clutched it effectually. In the awakened +pain and hope of that minute, Perry Whaley supported himself along the +piece of rail to the solid ice, and assisted to draw his father from +the water, and then swooned dead. They lay together, the unwelcome son +and the repelling father, under the universal pity of the great eye of +Heaven, on the natal day of Him who came into the world also +fatherless, but not disowned. + +A neighboring farmer sent one of his boys to Chester for the doctor, +and by rubbing and restoratives, both the Judge and his son were +brought back to circulation and pulsation. Perry soon recovered, but +Judge Whaley was saved only with the greatest difficulty. It was +nightfall in the hospitable farm-house before he was able to see or +speak, and then, a little drunken with the spirits which had been +administered, he asked in a whisper: + +"Who saved my life?" + +"Who but your son Perry?" answered the cheerful Doctor Voss. "You were +both wrapped together for a long while in the bottom of the cove!" + +"My son!" exclaimed Judge Whaley, scarcely understanding the reply. +"Who is my son?" + +"Here, father! We are both alive. Thank God!" + +"_My_ son?" muttered Judge Whaley. "Brave son! Who is it?" + +"Why, Perry Whaley!" answered the good housewife. "His arms are around +your neck. Those warm kisses were his!" + +The sick man glared about him till his eye fell on the boy. + +"Ha!" he whispered. "By you. Had I awakened in heaven would you have +been there, too?" + +The Judge sank back into a moment's insensibility, and the son sat +there sobbing piteously. + +Though saved from the wave Judge Whaley had a long following spell of +fever, in which his son nursed him for many weeks, and once the spark +of life seemed to have fled; the Judge's pulse stopped still, and +while they were at solemn prayer--the rector of the Episcopal Church +reading from his book--Perry cried: "He still lives. It is the +medicine he needs!" + +After the second resuscitation Dr. Voss remarked: "It is not often, +Judge Whaley, that a man's life is twice saved by his son!" + +Tears were no longer in Perry's eyes; he had heard his father in +delirium constantly repeat his name. After the Judge's recovery he +placed in Perry's pocket a fine English watch, and gave him a pair of +horses and a stylish wagon. + +"Hereafter," he said, "you shall take charge of the property. My son, +look about you and find a wife! In your character you are deserving of +a good one, for I fear the affection you are seeking can never arise +in my heart enough to satisfy you. Gratitude and respect are always +here, my son, but love has been a stranger to me these many years. I +wish you to marry while I live, and be happy in some good woman's +affection. I may die and you may not become my heir! There is the +doctor's beautiful daughter; she has my decided approval!" + +"If it is your wish, father, I will marry." + +The day Perry Whaley was admitted to the bar of Kent County on motion +of his father, he stopped with his pair of horses at Doctor Voss's +house, and asked Miss Marion to take a drive. She was a peerless +brunette, whose dark brown curls taking the light upon their +luxuriance seemed the rippling of water from the large amber wells of +her eyes. In childhood she had looked with admiration on his straight, +trim figure and manly courtesy, and hoped that she might find favor in +his sight. For this she had put by the scant opportunities in a small, +old, unvisited town, to be wedded to her equals, and the whispered +imputation that there was a taint in Perry Whaley's blood made no +impression upon her wishes. Her younger sisters were gone before her, +but true to the impetuous tendencies of her childhood she waited for +Perry, indulging the dream that she was destined to be his wife. + +The happy, supreme opportunity had come. They took the road over the +river drawbridge into another county; the frost was out of the ground, +and the loamy road invited the horses to their speed until the breath +of spring raised in Marion's cheeks the color that dressed the budding +peach orchards which spread over the whole landscape, as if Nature was +in maternity and her rosy breasts were full of milk. + +"Do you like these horses, Marion?" said Perry Whaley, when they had +gone several miles. "If you do you can drive them as long as you +live." + +She laughed, more because it was the feminine way than in her feeling. + +"Drive them alone?" + +"Only when you do not want me to go." + +"Then it will seldom be alone, Perry." + +They both breathed short in silence, the happy silence of youth's +desire and assent, until Perry said, "You are sure you love me, then?" + +"Must I be frank, Perry?" + +"As much as ever in your life!" + +"I am very sure. I loved you in my childhood--no more now than then, +except that the growth of love has strengthened with my strength." + +"Marion," said the young man with a thoughtful face, "if I have not +long ago recognized this fidelity, which, to be also frank with you, I +have suspected--not because of any desert of mine, but love is like +the light which we distinctly feel even with our eyes shut--it has +been because with all my soul I was laboring for my father's love +first. You have seen the shadow on his brow? How it came there I do +not know. I have thought that with my wife to light the dark chambers +of our old house, a triple love would bloom there, and what he has +called the demon in me would disappear beneath your beautiful +ministrations. Be that angel to both of us, and as my wife touch the +fountain of his tears and make his noble heart embrace me!" + +Marion Voss felt a great sense of trouble. "Is it possible," she +thought, "that Perry has never suspected the cause of that shadow on +the Judge's life? Perhaps not! It would have been cruel to tell Perry, +but crueller, perhaps, to let him grow to manhood in unchallenged +pride and find it out at such a critical time." The rest of the ride +passed in endearments and the engagement vow was made. + +"My dear one," said Marion, as they rolled on the bridge at Chester, +and the few lights of the town and of the vessels and the single +steamboat descended into the river, "had you not better have an +understanding with your father on the subject of his affection? +Perhaps you have talked in riddles. Something far back may have +disturbed your mutual faith. Whatever it is, nothing shall break my +promise to you. I will be your wife, or no man's. But the shadow that +is on Judge Whaley's face I fear no wife can drive away." + +These words disturbed young Perry Whaley, as he drove his horses into +the hotel stable and slowly pursued his way across the public plot or +area, past the old square brick Methodist church, already lighted +brightly for a special evening service, though it was a week-day. He +passed next the small, echoing market-house and the Episcopal church, +and court-house yard. Every thing he saw had at that moment the +appearance of something so very vivid and real that it frightened him. +Yonder was the spot where, with other boys, he had burned tar-barrels +on election nights; up a lane the jail where he had seen the prisoners +flatten their noses against the bars to beg tobacco; a tall Lombardy +poplar at a corner stood stolid except at its summit, where a portion +of the foliage whispered with a freshening sound. How still; as if +every thing was in suspense like him--the favorite of the old town +for so many years, and soon to become the possessor of its most +beautiful and virtuous woman! + +He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, +built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose +threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father +admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a +square-angled stairway in the corner leading above; a thick rag carpet +was on the floor; the furniture was mahogany and hair-cloth; on the +wall were portraits of the Whaleys or Whalleys, back to that regicide +who fled from the vengeance of King Charles's sons, and, escaping many +perils in New England, lived unrecognized on this peninsula. + +Judge Whaley had lighted a large oil lamp, and its shade threw the +flame upon his strong magisterial face, wherein grief and +righteousness seemed as highly blent as in some indigent republican +Milton or Pym. + +"My father," said Perry Whaley with the tender tone habitual to him, +"I have consulted your wishes as well as my desire. Marion Voss will +be my wife." + +"It is well, my son," replied Judge Whaley, placing upon his nose his +first pair of silver spectacles. "You are entitled to so much beauty +and grace on every ground of a dutiful youth and agreeable person, and +of talents which will make both of you a comfortable livelihood." + +"Father, with so great a change of relations before me, I desire to +obtain your whole confidence." + +Perry's voice trembled; the Judge sat still as one of the brazen +andirons where the wood burned with a colorless flame in the +fireplace. The father took off the spectacles and laid them down. + +"Confidence in what respect, Perry?" + +The young man walked to his father and knelt at his knee and clasped +his hand. Even then Perry saw the shadow gather in that kind man's +brow, as if he perceived the demon in his son. + +"Before I make a lady my wife, father, I want every mystery of my +life related. I have always heard that my mother died. Where is she +buried?" + +There was a long pause. + +"She is not dead," said Judge Whaley, without any inflection, "except +to me." + +"Not dead, father?" asked the son, with throbbing temples. "Oh, why +have I been so deceived? Were you unhappy?" + +"I thought I was happy," said the Judge huskily; "that was long my +impression." + +"And my mother--was she, too, happy when you were so?" + +"No." + +The young man rose and walked to the wainscot and back again. "Dear +father, I see the origin of the shadow upon your brow. Why was I not +told before? Perhaps the son of two unhappy parents might have brought +them together again, if for no other congenial end, than that he was +their only son!" + +The Judge raised his eyes to the imploring eyes of the younger man. +The shadow never was so deep upon his brow as Perry saw it now; it was +the shadow of a long inured agony intensified by a dread judicial +sympathy. + +"You are not my son!" he said. + +Perry's mouth opened, but not to articulate. He stretched out his +hands to touch something, and that only which he could not reach +struck and stunned him; he had fallen senseless to the floor. + +When Perry returned to knowledge he was lying upon the carpet, a cloak +under his head, and his father, walking up and down, stooped over him +frequently to look into his face with a tender, yet suffering +interest. The young man did not move, and only revealed his +wakefulness at last by raising his hand to check a relieving flow of +tears. + +"My dear boy," finally said Judge Whaley, himself shedding tears, "I +had supposed that you already knew something of the tragedy of my +life." + +"Never," moaned Perry. + +"Then, forgive me; I should myself have gradually told you the tale; +it might have come up with your growth, inwoven like a mere ghost +story. Did no playmate, no older intimate, not one of your age +striving for the bar, ever whisper to you that I had been deceived, +and that you, my only comfort, were the fruit of the deception?" + +"No, sir." Perry's tears seemed to dry in the recollection. "We were +both gentlemen--at least, after we reached this world. No one ever +insulted me nor you! I humbly thank God that, discredited as I may +have been, my conduct to all was so considerate that no one could +obtrude such a truth upon me. Is it the truth? O father!--I must call +you so! it is the only word I know--is this, at last, one of the +dreadful visions of diseased sleep or of insanity? Who am I? What was +my mother? I can bear it all, for now I have seen why you never loved +me." + +Perry, pale as death and still of feeble brain, had arisen as he spoke +and made this imploration with only the eloquence of haggard +forgetfulness. The Judge took Perry's hands and supported him. + +"My son, have I not earned the name of father? Yes, I have plucked the +poison-arrow from my heart and sucked its venom. I have taken the +offspring of my injurer and warmed it in my bosom. Every morning when +you arose I was reminded of my dishonor. Every night when we kissed +good-night, I felt, God knows, that I had loved my enemies and done +good to them which injured me!" + +The young man, looking up and around in the impotence of expression, +saw the portraits of the dead Whaleys in unbroken lineal +respectability, bending their eyes upon him--the one, the only +impostor of the name! + +"Perry," continued the Judge, "I am not wholly guilty of keeping you +blind. I have told you many times that between us was a gap, a rift of +something. I have sometimes said, as your artless caresses, mixed +with the bitter recollection of your origin, almost dispossessed my +reason, that you were 'my demon.'" + +"Yes, father; but I was so anxious to love you that I never brooded on +that. I see it all! Every repulse comes back to me now. You have +suffered, indeed, and been the Christian. But I must hear the tale +before I depart." + +"Depart! Where?" + +"To find my mother, if she lives. To find my name! I cannot bear this +one. It would be deceit." + +"Not even the name of My Son?" + +"Alas! no. Just as I am I must be known. My putative father, if he +lives, must give me another name." + +"Thank God, Perry, he is dead!" + +"But not his name. I can make honorable even my--" + +"Say it not!" exclaimed the Judge, placing his hand upon Perry's +mouth. "Pure as all your life has been, you shall not degrade it with +such a word. Oh, my son!--my orphan son!--dear faithful prattler +around my feet for all these desolate and haunted years, I have +doubted for your sake every thing--that wedlock was good, that pride +of virtuous origin was wise, that human jealousy was any thing but a +tiger's selfishness. I did not sow the seed that brought you forth; +too well I know it! Yet grateful and fair has been the vine as if +watered by the tears of angels; and when I sleep the demon in you +fades, and then, at least, your loving tendrils find all my nature an +arbor to take you up!" + +"Would to God!" said Perry bitterly, "that in the sleep of everlasting +death we laid together. O my God! how I have loved you--father!" + +The Judge enfolded the young man in his arms and like a child Perry +rested there. The lamp, previously burning very low, went out for want +of oil, as the old man nursed like his own babe the serpent's +offspring, not his own but another's untimely son, bred on the honor +of a husband's name. As they sat in the perfect darkness of the old +riverside mansion, Judge Whaley told his tale. + +He had neglected to marry until he had become of settled legal and +business habits, and more than forty-five years of age when he chose +for a wife a young lady who professed to admire and love him. They had +no children. The wife was a coquette, and began to woo admiration +almost as soon as the nuptials were done. Judge Whaley thought nothing +ill of this; he was in the heyday of his practice and willing to let +one so much his junior enjoy herself. Among his law students was a +young man from South Carolina, of brilliant manners and insidious +address. This person had already become so intimate with Mrs. Whaley +as to draw upon the Judge anonymous letters notifying him that he was +too indifferent, to which letters he gave no attention, only bestowing +the more confidence and freedom upon her, when, happily, as it was +thought, the wife showed signs of maternity. Perry was born, to the +joy of his father. The young mother, however, hastened to recover her +health and gayety. The favor she expressed for the student's society +was revived and not opposed by her husband. Judge Whaley returned +unexpectedly one day to his residence; he came upon a scene that in an +instant destroyed faith and rendered explanation impossible. His wife +was false. The student passionately avowed himself her seducer. The +Judge went through the ordeal like a magistrate. + +"Take her away with you," he said. "That is the only reparation you +can do her, until she is legally divorced, and after that, if +necessary, I will give her an allowance, but she cannot rest under +this roof another night. It has been the abode of chaste wives since +it was builded. My honor is at stake. This day she must go. Make her +your wife and let neither ever return." + +They departed by carriage, unknown to any, and never had returned. +But a few weeks after they disappeared a letter was received by Judge +Whaley, admonishing him that his son was the offspring of the same +illegal relations. It was signed and written by his wife. The wretched +man debated whether he should send the infant to an asylum or keep it +upon his premises. Through procrastination, continued for twenty +years, the child had derived all the advantages of legitimacy, and +still the demon of the husband's peace was the test of the gentleman's +religion. + +As this story had proceeded toward its final portions, the young man +had detached himself from his father's arms. When Judge Whaley +concluded in the darkness he waited in vain for a response. The old +man lighted the lamp and peered about the room wistfully. Perry was +gone. + +That night, in the happiness of her engagement, Marion Voss had a glad +unrest, which her mother noticed. "Dear," said the mother, "let us go +over to the Methodist church. It is one of their protracted meetings +or revivals, as they call it. If Perry comes he will know where to +find us, as I will leave word." + +The Methodists were second in social standing, but a wide gap +separated them from the slave-holding and family aristocracy, who were +Episcopalians. The sermon was delivered by one of their most powerful +proselytizers, an old man in a homespun suit, high shoulders, lean, +long figure, and glittering eyes. He was a wild kind of orator, +striking fear to the soul, dipping it in the fumes of damnation, +lifting it thence to the joys of heaven. Terrible, electrical +preaching! It was the product of uncultured genius and human +disappointment. Marion sat in awe, hardly knowing whether it was +impious or angelic. In a blind exordium the old zealot commanded those +who would save their souls to walk forward and kneel publicly at the +altar, and make their struggle there for salvation. + +The first whom Marion saw to walk up the dimly lighted aisle and kneel +was Perry Whaley. All in the church saw and knew him, and a +thunderous singing broke out, in which religious and mere +denominational zeal all threw their enthusiasm. + +"Judge Whaley's son--Episcopalian--admitted to the bar +to-day--wonderful!" + +Marion heard these whispers on every hand; and as the singing ceased, +and the congregation knelt to pray, Marion's mother saw her turning +very pale, and silently and unobserved led her out of the +meeting-house. + +It was one o'clock in the morning when Judge Whaley heard Perry enter +the door. He was preceded by the beams of a lamp, as his step came +almost trippingly up the stairs. The Judge looked up and saw the face +of his demon, streaked with recent tears and shaded with dishevelled +hair, but on it a look like eternal sunshine. + +"Glory! glory! glory!" exclaimed the young man hoarsely. He rushed +upon his aged friend, and kissed him in an ecstacy almost violent. + +"My boy! Perry! What is it? You are not out of your mind?" + +"No! no! I have found my father, our father!" + +"Who is it?" asked the Judge, with a rising superstition, as if this +were not his orphan, but its preternatural copy; "you have found your +father? What father?" + +"God!" exclaimed young Perry, his countenance like flame. "My father +is God and He is love!" + +The town of Chester and the whole country had now a serious of rapid +sensations. Judge Whaley and his son were turned lunatics, and behaved +like a pair of boys. Marion Voss had broken her engagement with Perry +Whaley because he insisted that he was not the Judge's son. Young +Perry was exhorting in the Methodist church, and studying and starving +himself to be a preacher. The Methodists were wild with social and +denominational triumph: the Episcopalians were outraged, and meditated +sending Perry to the lunatic asylum. Finally, to the great joy of +nervous people, the last sensation came--Perry Whaley had left +Chester to be a preacher. + +Judge Whaley now grew old rapidly, and meek and careless of his +attire. In an old pair of slippers, glove-less and abstracted, he +crossed the court-house green, no longer the first gentleman in the +county in courteous accost and lofty tone. He read his Bible in the +seclusion of his own house, and fishermen on the river coming in after +midnight saw the lamp-light stream through the chinks of his shutters, +and said: "He has never been the same since Perry went away." But he +read in the religious papers of the genius and power of the absent +one, roving like a young hermit loosened, and with a tongue of flame +over the length and breadth of the country, producing extraordinary +excitement and adding thousands to his humble denomination. + +On Christmas Day the Judge was sitting in his great room reading the +same mystic book, and listening, with a wistfulness that had never +left him, to every infrequent footfall in the street. There came a +knock at the door. He opened it, and out of the darkness into which he +could not see came a voice altered in pitch, but with remembered +accents in it, saying: + +"Father, mother has come home!" + +Stepping back before that extraordinary salutation, Judge Whaley saw a +man come forward leading a woman by the hand. The Judge receded until +he could go no farther, and sank into his chair. The woman knelt at +his feet; older, and grown gray and in the robes of humility, yet in +countenance as she had been, only purified, as it seemed, by suffering +and repentance, he saw his wife of more than twenty years before. + +Looking up into the face of the son he had watched so long for, the +old man saw a still more wonderful transformation. The elegant young +gentleman of a few months before was a living spectre, his bright eyes +standing out large and consumptive upon a transparent skin, and +glittering with fanaticism or excitement. + +"Perry Whaley," said the woman firmly, but with sweetness, "it is +twenty-two years since I left this house with hate of me in your heart +and a degraded name; I was in thought and act a pure woman, though the +evidence against me was mountain-high. My sin was that of many +women--flirtation. Nothing more, before my God! I trifled with one of +your students, a reckless and hot-blooded man, and inspired him with a +tyrannous passion. He swore if I would not fly with him to destroy me. +One day, the most dreadful of my life, he heard your foot upon the +stairs ascending to my chamber, and threw himself into it before you +and avowed himself your injurer. Then rose in confirmation of him +every girlish folly; I saw myself in your mild eyes condemned, in this +community long suspected, and by my own family discarded for your +sake. Where could I go but to the author of my sorrows? He became my +husband and I am a widow." + +Judge Whaley stretched out his hand in the direction of his eyes, not +upon the old wife at his feet, but toward his son, who had settled +into a chair and closed his eyes as if in tired rapture. + +"Hear me but a moment more," said the kneeling woman. "I was the slave +of an ever-jealous maniac; but my heart was still at this fireside +with your bowed spirit, and this our son. My husband told me that the +way to recover the child was to claim it as his. His motive, I fear, +was different--to place me on record as confessedly false and prevent +our reunion forever. But I was not wise enough to see it. I only +thought you would send my son to me. I waited in my lonely home in +Charleston years on years. He came at last, but not too late; my +frivolous soul, grown selfish with vanity and disappointment, bent +itself before God through the prayers of our son. I am forgiven, Perry +Whaley. _I have felt it!_" + +The old man did not answer, but strained his eyes upon his son. "See +there!" he slowly spoke, "Perry is dying. Famished all these years for +human love, this excess of joy has snapped the silver cord. Wife, +Mary, we have martyred him." + +It was the typhoid fever which had developed from Perry's wasting +vitality. He sank into delirium as they looked at him, and was carried +tenderly to his bed. Marion Voss came to nurse him with his mother. +She, too, after Perry's departure, had grown serious and followed his +example, and was a Methodist. The young zealot sank lower and lower, +despite science or prayers. Both churches prayed for him. Negroes and +whites united their hopes and kind offices. One morning he was of +dying pulse, and the bell in the Episcopal church began to toll. At +the bedside all the little family had instinctively knelt, and Perry's +mother was praying with streaming eyes, committing the worn-out nature +to Heavenly Love, when suddenly Judge Whaley, who had kept his hand on +Perry's pulse, exclaimed: + +"It beats! He lives again. The stimulant, Marion!" + +Father and son had rescued each other's lives. One day as Perry had +recovered strength, Judge Whaley said: + +"My son, are you a minister, qualified to perform marriages?" + +"Yes." + +"When you are ready and strong, will you marry your mother and me +again?" + +"Very soon," said Perry; "but not too soon. Here is Marion waiting for +me, as she has waited, like Rachel for Jacob, these many years. I +shall preach no more, dear father, except as a layman. I see by your +eyes that the demon is no longer in our home, and the remainder of my +life will be spent in returning to you the joy my presence for years +dispelled." + +"O Perry, my patient son," exclaimed the father, "they who entertain +angels unawares have nothing to look to with regret--except +unkindness." + + + + +A CONVENT LEGEND. + + + The General Moreau, that pure republican, + Who won at Hohenlinden so much glory, + And by Bonaparte hated, crossed the sea to be free. + And brought to the Delaware his story. + World-renowned as he was, unto Washington he strayed. + Where Pichegru, his friend, had contended, + And to Georgetown he rode, in search of a church, + To confess what of good he offended. + + The Jesuits' nest beckoned up to the height + Where pious John Carroll had laid it, + And the General knelt at the cell but to tell + His offence; yet or ever he said it, + A voice in the speech of his Bretagny home, + From within, where the monk was to listen, + Exclaimed like a soldier: "Ah me! _mon ami_, + Take my place and a sinful one christen! + + "For mine was the band that brought exile to you; + Cadoudal, the Chouan, my master, + Broke my sword and my heart, and I lost when I crost, + Both honor and love to be pastor. + A knight of the king and my lady at court, + At the call of Vendee the despised, + Into Paris I stole with a few, one or two, + As assassins, to murder disguised. + + "On the third of Nivose, in the narrowest street, + And never a traitor one to breathe it, + We prepared to blow up Bonaparte with a cart, + And a barrel of powder beneath it. + He came like a flash, dashing by, but behind, + Poor folks and his escort in feather, + And the child that we put, _sans_ remorse, by the horse, + Were torn all to pieces together." + + "To the guillotine both of my comrades were sent, + But the Church, saving me for the tonsure, + Hid me off in the wilds, and my dame, to her shame, + To be _Pere_ sold me out from a _Monsieur_; + And now she is clad in the silk of the court, + And I in the wool of confessor,-- + Hate me not, ere hence you go, Jean Victor Moreau! + And with France be my fame's intercessor!" + + "Limoelan! priest! is it you that I hear + In this convent by Washington's river? + Ah! France, how thy children are hurled round the world, + Like the arrows from destiny's quiver! + Take shrift for thy crime! Be thou pardoned with peace, + Poor exile of Breton, my brother!" + And the cannon of Dresden Moreau gave release, + The bells of the convent the other. + + + + +CRUTCH, THE PAGE. + + +I.--CHIPS. + +The Honorable Jeems Bee, of Texas, sitting in his committee-room half +an hour before the convening of Congress, waiting for his negro +familiar to compound a julep, was suddenly confronted by a small boy +on crutches. + +"A letter!" exclaimed Mr. Bee, "with the frank of Reybold on it--that +Yankeest of Pennsylvania Whigs! Yer's familiarity! Wants me to appoint +one U--U--U, what?" + +"Uriel Basil," said the small boy on crutches, with a clear, bold, but +rather sensitive voice. + +"Uriel Basil, a page in the House of Representatives, bein' an infirm, +deservin' boy, willin' to work to support his mother. Infirm boy wants +to be a page, on the recommendation of a Whig, to a Dimmycratic +committee. I say, gen'lemen, what do you think of that, heigh?" + +This last addressed to some other members of the committee, who had +meantime entered. + +"Infum boy will make a spry page," said the Hon. Box Izard, of +Arkansaw. + +"Harder to get infum page than the Speaker's eye," said the orator, +Pontotoc Bibb, of Georgia. + +"Harder to get both than a 'pintment in these crowded times on a +opposition recommendation when all ole Virginny is yaw to be tuk care +of," said Hon. Fitzchew Smy, of the Old Dominion. + +The small boy standing up on crutches, with large hazel eyes swimming +and wistful, so far from being cut down by these criticisms, stood +straighter, and only his narrow little chest showed feeling, as it +breathed quickly under his brown jacket. + +"I can run as fast as anybody," he said impetuously. "My sister says +so. You try me!" + +"Who's yo' sister, bub?" + +"Joyce." + +"Who's Joyce?" + +"Joyce Basil--_Miss_ Joyce Basil to you, gentlemen. My mother keeps +boarders. Mr. Reybold boards there. I think it's hard when a little +boy from the South wants to work, that the only body to help him find +it is a Northern man. Don't you?" + +"Good hit!" cried Jeroboam Coffee, Esq., of Alabama. "That boy would +run, if he could!" + +"Gentlemen," said another member of the committee, the youthful +abstractionist from South Carolina, who was reputed to be a great poet +on the stump, the Hon. Lowndes Cleburn--"gentlemen, that boy puts the +thing on its igeel merits and brings it home to us. I'll ju my juty in +this issue. Abe, wha's my julep?" + +"Gentlemen," said the Chairman of Committee, Jeems Bee, "it 'pears to +me that there's a social p'int right here. Reybold, bein' the only +Whig on the Lake and Bayou Committee, ought to have something if he +sees fit to ask for it. That's courtesy! We, of all men, gentlemen, +can't afford to forget it." + +"No, by durn!" cried Fitzchew Smy. + +"You're right, Bee!" cried Box Izard. "You give it a constitutional +set." + +"Reybold," continued Jeems Bee, thus encouraged, "Reybold is (to speak +out) no genius! He never will rise to the summits of usefulness. He +lacks the air, the swing, the _pose_, as the sculptors say; he won't +treat, but he'll lend a little money, provided he knows where you +goin' with it. If he ain't open-hearted, he ain't precisely mean!" + +"You're right, Bee!" (General expression.) + +"Further on, it may be said that the framers of the govment never +intended _all_ the patronage to go to one side. Mr. Jeffson put _that_ +on the steelyard principle: the long beam here, the big weight of +being in the minority there. Mr. Jackson only threw it considabul more +on one side, but even he, gentlemen, didn't take the whole patronage +from the Outs; he always left 'em enough to keep up the courtesy of +the thing, and we can't go behind _him_. Not and be true to our +traditions. Do I put it right?" + +"Bee," said the youthful Lowndes Cleburn, extending his hand, "you put +it with the lucidity and spirituality of Kulhoon himself!" + +"Thanks, Cleburn," said Bee; "this is a compliment not likely to be +forgotten, coming from you. Then it is agreed, as the Chayman of yo' +Committee, that I accede to the request of Mr. Reybold, of +Pennsylvania?" + +"Aye!" from everybody. + +"And now," said Mr. Bee, "as we wair all up late at the club last +night, I propose we take a second julep, and as Reybold is coming in +he will jine us." + +"I won't give you a farthing!" cried Reybold at the door, speaking to +some one. "Chips, indeed! What shall I give you money to gamble away +for? A gambling beggar is worse than an impostor! No, sir! +Emphatically no!" + +"A dollar for four chips for brave old Beau!" said the other voice. +"I've struck 'em all but you. By the State Arms! I've got rights in +this distreek! Everybody pays toll to brave old Beau! Come down!" + +The Northern Congressman retreated before this pertinacious mendicant +into his committee-room, and his pesterer followed him closely, +nothing abashed, even into the privileged cloisters of the committee. +The Southern members enjoyed the situation. + +"Chips, Right Honorable! Chips for old Beau. Nobody this ten-year has +run as long as you. I've laid for you, and now I've fell on you. Judge +Bee, the fust business befo' yo' committee this mornin' is a +assessment for old Beau, who's away down! Rheumatiz, bettin' on the +black, failure of remittances from Fauqueeah, and other casualties by +wind an' flood, have put ole Beau away down. He's a institution of his +country and must be sustained!" + +The laughter was general and cordial amongst the Southerners, while +the intruder pressed hard upon Mr. Reybold. He was a singular object; +tall, grim, half-comical, with a leer of low familiarity in his eves, +but his waxed mustache of military proportions, his patch of goatee +just above the chin, his elaborately oiled hair and flaming necktie, +set off his faded face with an odd gear of finery and impressiveness. +His skin was that of an old _roue's_, patched up and calked, but the +features were those of a once handsome man of style and carriage. + +He wore what appeared to be a cast-off spring overcoat, out of season +and color on this blustering winter day, a rich buff waistcoat of an +embossed pattern, such as few persons would care to assume, save, +perhaps, a gambler, negro buyer, or fine "buck" barber. The assumption +of a large and flashy pin stood in his frilled shirt-bosom. He wore +watch-seals without the accompanying watch, and his pantaloons, though +faded and threadbare, were once of fine material and cut in a style of +extravagant elegance, and they covered his long, shrunken, but +aristocratic limbs, and were strapped beneath his boots to keep them +shapely. The boots themselves had been once of varnished kid or fine +calf, but they were cracked and cut, partly by use, partly for +comfort; for it was plain that their wearer had the gout, by his +aristocratic hobble upon a gold-mounted cane, which was not the least +inconsistent garniture of his mendicancy. + +"Boys," said Fitzchew Smy, "I s'pose we better come down early. +There's a shillin', Beau. If I had one more sech constituent as you, I +should resign or die premachorely!" + +"There's a piece o' tobacker," said Jeems Bee languidly, "all I can +afforde, Beau, this mornin'. I went to a chicken-fight yesterday and +lost all my change." + +"Mine," said Box Izard, "is a regulation pen-knife, contributed by the +United States, with the regret, Beau, that I can't 'commodate you with +a pine coffin for you to git into and git away down lower than you +ever been." + +"Yaw's a dollar," said Pontotoc Bibb; "it'll do for me an' Lowndes +Cleburn, who's a poet and genius, and never has no money. This buys me +off, Beau, for a month." + +The gorgeous old mendicant took them all grimly and leering, and then +pounced upon the Northern man, assured by their twinkles and winks +that the rest expected some sport. + +"And now, Right Honorable from the banks of the Susquehanna, Colonel +Reybold--you see, I got your name; I ben a layin' for you!--come down +handsome for the Uncle and ornament of his capital and country. What's +yore's?" + +"Nothing," said Reybold in a quiet way. "I cannot give a man like you +any thing, even to get rid of him." + +"You're mean," said the stylish beggar, winking to the rest. "You hate +to put your hand down in yer pocket, mightily. I'd rather be ole Beau, +and live on suppers at the faro banks, than love a dollar like you!" + +"I'll make it a V for Beau," said Pontotoc Bibb, "if he gives him a +rub on the raw like that another lick. Durn a mean man, Cleburn!" + +"Come down, Northerner," pressed the incorrigible loafer again; "it +don't become a Right Honorable to be so mean with old Beau." + +The little boy on crutches, who had been looking at this scene in a +state of suspense and interest for some time, here cried hotly: + +"If you say Mr. Reybold is a mean man, you tell a story, you nasty +beggar! He often gives things to me and Joyce, my sister. He's just +got me work, which is the best thing to give; don't you think so, +gentlemen?" + +"Work," said Lowndes Cleburn, "is the best thing to give away, and the +most onhandy thing to keep. I like play the best--Beau's kind o' +play." + +"Yes," said Jeroboam Coffee; "I think I prefer to make the chips fly +out of a table more than out of a log." + +"I like to work!" cried the little boy, his hazel eyes shining, and +his poor, narrow body beating with unconscious fervor, half suspended +on his crutches, as if he were of that good descent and natural spirit +which could assert itself without bashfulness in the presence of older +people. "I like to work for my mother. If I was strong, like other +little boys, I would make money for her, so that she shouldn't keep +any boarders--except Mr. Reybold. Oh! she has to work a lot; but she's +proud and won't tell anybody. All the money I get I mean to give her; +but I wouldn't have it if I had to beg for it like that man!" + +"O Beau," said Colonel Jeems Bee, "you've cotched it now! Reybold's +even with you. Little Crutch has cooked your goose! Crutch is right +eloquent when his wind will permit." + +The fine old loafer looked at the boy, whom he had not previously +noticed, and it was observed that the last shaft had hurt his pride. +The boy returned his wounded look with a straight, undaunted, spirited +glance, out of a child's nature. Mr. Reybold was impressed with +something in the attitude of the two, which made him forget his own +interest in the controversy. + +Beau answered with a tone of nearly tender pacification: + +"Now, my little man; come, don't be hard on the old veteran! He's +down, old Beau is, sence the time he owned his blooded pacer and dined +with the _Corps Diplomatique_; Beau's down sence then; but don't call +the old feller hard names. We take it back, don't we?--we take _them_ +words back?" + +"There's a angel somewhere," said Lowndes Cleburn, "even in a +Washington bummer, which responds to a little chap on crutches with a +clear voice. Whether the angel takes the side of the bummer or the +little chap, is a p'int out of our jurisdiction. Abe, give Beau a +julep. He seems to have been demoralized by little Crutch's last." + +"Take them hard words back, Bub," whined the licensed mendicant, with +either real or affected pain; "it's a p'int of honor I'm a standin' +on. Do, now, little Major!" + +"I shan't!" cried the boy. "Go and work like me. You're big, and you +called Mr. Reybold mean. Haven't you got a wife or little girl, or +nobody to work for? You ought to work for yourself, anyhow. Oughtn't +he, gentlemen?" + +Reybold, who had slipped around by the little cripple and was holding +him in a caressing way from behind, looked over to Beau and was even +more impressed with that generally undaunted worthy's expression. It +was that of acute and suffering sensibility, perhaps the effervescence +of some little remaining pride, or it might have been a twinge of the +gout. Beau looked at the little boy, suspended there with the weak +back and the narrow chest, and that scintillant, sincere spirit +beaming out with courage born in the stock he belonged to. Admiration, +conciliation, and pain were in the ruined vagrant's eyes. Reybold felt +a sense of pity. He put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a +dollar. + +"Here, Beau," he said, "I'll make an exception. You seem to have some +feeling. Don't mind the boy!" + +In an instant the coin was flying from his hand through the air. The +beggar, with a livid face and clinched cane, confronted the +Congressman like a maniac. + +"You bilk!" he cried. "You supper customer! I'll brain you! I had +rather parted with my shoes at a dolly shop and gone gadding the hoof, +without a doss to sleep on--a town pauper, done on the vag--than to +have made been scurvy in the sight of that child and deserve his words +of shame!" + +He threw his head upon the table and burst into tears. + +II.--HASH. + +Mrs. Tryphonia Basil kept a boarding-house of the usual kind on +Four-and-a-Half Street. Male clerks--there were no female clerks in +the Government in 1854--to the number of half a dozen, two old bureau +officers, an architect's assistant, Reybold, and certain temporary +visitors made up the table. The landlady was the mistress; the slave +was Joyce. + +Joyce Basil was a fine-looking girl, who did not know it--a fact so +astounding as to be fitly related only in fiction. She did not know +it, because she had to work so hard for the boarders and her mother. +Loving her mother with the whole of her affection, she had suffered +all the pains and penalties of love from that repository. She was +to-day upbraided for her want of coquetry and neatness; to-morrow, for +proposing to desert her mother and elope with a person she had never +thought of. The mainstay of the establishment, she was not aware of +her usefulness. Accepting every complaint and outbreak as if she +deserved it, the poor girl lived at the capital a beautiful scullion, +an unsalaried domestic, and daily forwarded the food to the table, led +in the chamberwork, rose from bed unrested and retired with all her +bones aching. But she was of a natural grace that hard work could not +make awkward; work only gave her bodily power, brawn, and form. Though +no more than seventeen years of age, she was a superb woman, her chest +thrown forward, her back like the torso of a _Venus de Milo_, her head +placed on the throat of a Minerva, and the nature of a child moulded +in the form of a matron. Joyce Basil had black hair and eyes--very +long, excessive hair, that in the mornings she tied up with haste so +imperfectly, that once Reybold had seen it drop like a cloud around +her and nearly touch her feet. At that moment, seeing him, she +blushed. He plead, for once, a Congressman's impudence, and without +her objection, wound that great crown of woman's glory around her +head, and, as he did so, the perfection of her form and skin, and the +overrunning health and height of the Virginia girl, struck him so +thoroughly that he said: + +"Miss Joyce, I don't wonder that Virginia is the mother of +Presidents." + +Between Reybold and Joyce there were already the delicate relations of +a girl who did not know that she was a woman, and a man who knew she +was beautiful and worthy. He was a man vigilant over himself, and the +poverty and menial estate of Joyce Basil were already insuperable +obstacles to marrying her, but still he was attracted by her +insensibility that he could ever have regarded her in that light of +marriage. "Who was her father, the Judge?" he used to reflect. The +Judge was a favorite topic with Mrs. Basil at the table. + +"Mr. Reybold," she would say, "you commercial people of the Nawth +can't hunt, I believe. Jedge Basil is now on the mountains of Fawquear +hunting the plova. His grandfather's estate is full of plova." + +If, by chance, Reybold saw a look of care on Mrs. Basil's face, he +inquired for the Judge, her husband, and found he was still shooting +on the Occequan. + +"Does he never come to Washington, Mrs. Basil?" asked Reybold one day, +when his mind was very full of Joyce, the daughter. + +"Not while Congress is in session," said Mrs. Basil. "It's a little +too much of the _oi polloi_ for the Judge. His family, you may not +know, Mr. Reybold, air of the Basils of King George. They married into +the Tayloze of Mount Snaffle. The Tayloze of Mount Snaffle have Ingin +blood in their veins--the blood of Poky-huntus. They dropped the name +of Taylor, which had got to be common through a want of Ingin blood, +and spelled it with a E. It used to be Taylor, but now it's Tayloze." + +On another occasion, at sight of Joyce Basil cooking over the fire, +against whose flame her moulded arms took momentary roses upon their +ivory, Reybold said to himself: "Surely there is something above the +common in the race of this girl." And he asked the question of Mrs. +Basil: + +"Madame, how was the Judge, your husband, at the last advices?" + +"Hunting the snipe, Mr. Reybold. I suppose you do not have the snipe +in the North. It is the aristocratic fowl of the Old Dominion. Its +bill is only shorter than its legs, and it will not brown at the fire, +to perfection, unless upon a silver spit. Ah! when the Jedge and +myself were young, before his land troubles overtook us, we went to +the springs with our own silver and carriages, Mr. Reybold." + +Looking up at Mrs. Basil, Reybold noticed a pallor and flush +alternately, and she evaded his eye. + +Once Mrs. Basil borrowed a hundred dollars from Reybold in advance of +board, and the table suffered in consequence. + +"The Judge," she had explained, "is short of taxes on his Fawquear +lands. It's a desperate moment with him." Yet in two days the Judge +was shooting blue-winged teal at the mouth of the Accotink, and his +entire indifference to his family set Reybold to thinking whether the +Virginia husband and father was any thing more than a forgetful +savage. The boarders, however, made very merry over the absent +unknown. If the beefsteak was tough, threats were made to send for +"the Judge," and let him try a tooth on it; if scant, it was suggested +that the Judge might have paid a gunning visit to the premises and +inspected the larder. The daughter of the house kept such an even +temper, and was so obliging within the limitations of the +establishment, that many a boarder went to his department without +complaint, though with an appetite only partly satisfied. The boy, +Uriel, also was the guardsman of the household, old-faced as if with +the responsibility of taking care of two women. Indeed, the children +of the landlady were so well behaved and prepossessing that, compared +with Mrs. Basil's shabby _hauteur_ and garrulity, the legend of the +Judge seemed to require no other foundation than offspring of such +good spirit and intonation. + +Mrs. Tryphonia Basil was no respecter of persons. She kept boarders, +she said, as a matter of society, and to lighten the load of the +Judge. He had very little idea that she was making a mercantile matter +of hospitality, but, as she feelingly remarked, "the old families are +misplaced in such times as these yer, when the departments are filled +with Dutch, Yankees, Crackers, Pore Whites, and other foreigners." Her +manner was, at periods, insolent to Mr. Reybold, who seldom protested, +out of regard to the daughter and the little Page; he was a man of +quite ordinary appearance, saying little, never making speeches or +soliciting notice, and he accepted his fare and quarters with little +or no complaint. + +"Crutch," he said one day to the little boy, "did you ever see your +father?" + +"No, I never saw him, Mr. Reybold, but I've had letters from him." + +"Don't he ever come to see you when you are sick?" + +"No. He wanted to come once when my back was very sick, and I laid in +bed weeks and weeks, sir, dreaming, oh! such beautiful things. I +thought mamma and sister and I were all with papa in that old home we +are going to some day. He carried me up and down in his arms, and I +felt such rest that I never knew any thing like it, when I woke up, +and my back began to ache again. I wouldn't let mamma send for him, +though, because she said he was working for us all to make our +fortunes, and get doctors for me, and clothes and school for dear +Joyce. So I sent him my love, and told papa to work, and he and I +would bring the family out all right." + +"What did your papa seem like in that dream, my little boy? + +"Oh! sir, his forehead was bright as the sun. Sometimes I see him now +when I am tired at night after running all day through Congress." + +Reybold's eyes were full of tears as he listened to the boy, and, +turning aside, he saw Joyce Basil weeping also. + +"My dear girl," he said to her, looking up significantly, "I fear he +will see his great Father very soon." + +Reybold had few acquaintances, and he encouraged the landlady's +daughter to go about with him when she could get a leisure hour or +evening. Sometimes they took a seat at the theatre, more often at the +old Ascension Church, and once they attended a President's reception. +Joyce had the bearing of a well-bred lady, and the purity of thought +of a child. She was noticed as if she had been a new and distinguished +arrival in Washington. + +"Ah! Reybold," said Pontotoc Bibb, "I understand, ole feller, what +keeps you so quiet now. You've got a wife onbeknown to the Kemittee! +and a happy man I know you air." + +It pleased Reybold to hear this, and deepened his interest in the +landlady's family. His attention to her daughter stirred Mrs. Basil's +pride and revolt together. + +"My daughter, Colonel Reybold," she said, "is designed for the army. +The Judge never writes to me but he says: 'Tryphonee, be careful that +you impress upon my daughter the importance of the military +profession. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother married into +the army, and no girl of the Basil stock shall descend to civil life +while I can keep the Fawquear estates.'" + +"Madame," said the Congressman, "will you permit me to make the +suggestion that your daughter is already a woman and needs a father's +care, if she is ever to receive it. I beseech you to impress this +subject upon the Judge. His estates cannot be more precious to his +heart, if he is a man of honor; nay, what is better than honor, his +duty requires him to come to the side of these children, though he be +ever so constrained by business or pleasure to attend to more worldly +concerns." + +"The Judge," exclaimed Mrs. Basil, much miffed, "is a man of +hereditary ijees, Colonel Reybold. He is now in pursuit of +the--ahem!--the Kinvas-back on his ancestral waters. If he should hear +that you suggested a pacific life and the grovelling associations of +the capital for him, he might call you out, sir!" + +Reybold said no more; but one evening when Mrs. Basil was absent, +called across the Potomac, as happened frequently, at the summons of +the Judge--and on such occasions she generally requested a temporary +loan or a slight advance of board--Reybold found Joyce Basil in the +little parlor of the dwelling. She was alone and in tears, but the +little boy Uriel slept before the chimney-fire on a rug, and his pale, +thin face, catching the glow of the burning wood, looked beautified as +Reybold addressed the young woman. + +"Miss Joyce," he said, "our little brother works too hard. Is there +never to be relief for him? His poor, withered body, slung on those +crutches for hours and hours, racing up the aisles of the House with +stronger pages, is wearing him out. His ambition is very interesting +to see, but his breath is growing shorter and his strength is frailer +every week. Do you know what it will lead to?" + +"O my Lord!" she said, in the negrofied phrase natural to her +latitude, "I wish it was no sin to wish him dead." + +"Tell me, my friend," said Reybold, "can I do nothing to assist you +both? Let me understand you. Accept my sympathy and confidence. Where +is Uriel's father? What is this mystery?" + +She did not answer. + +"It is for no idle curiosity that I ask," he continued. "I will appeal +to him for his family, even at the risk of his resentment. Where is +he?" + +"Oh, do not ask!" she exclaimed. "You want me to tell you only the +truth. He is _there_!" + +She pointed to one of the old portraits in the room--a picture fairly +painted by some provincial artist--and it revealed a handsome face, a +little voluptuous but aristocratic, the shoulders clad in a martial +cloak, the neck in ruffles and ruffles, also and a diamond in the +shirt bosom. Reybold studied it with all his mind. + +"Then it is no fiction," he said, "that you have a living father, one +answering to your mother's description. Where have I seen that face? +Has some irreparable mistake, some miserable controversy, alienated +him from his wife? Has he another family?" + +She answered with spirit: + +"No, sir. He is my father and my brother's only. But I can tell you no +more." + +"Joyce," he said, taking her hand, "this is not enough. I will not +press you to betray any secret you may possess. Keep it. But of +yourself I must know something more. You are almost a woman. You are +beautiful." + +At this he tightened his grasp, and it brought him closer to her side. +She made a little struggle to draw away, but it pleased him to see +that when the first modest opposition had been tried she sat quite +happily, though trembling, with his arm around her. + +"Joyce," he continued, "you have a double duty: one to your mother and +this poor invalid, whose journey toward that Father's house not made +with hands is swiftly hastening; another duty toward your nobler +self--the future that is in you and your woman's heart. I tell you +again that you are beautiful, and the slavery to which you are +condemning yourself forever is an offence against the creator of such +perfection. Do you know what it is to love?" + +"I know what it is to feel kindness," she answered after a time of +silence. "I ought to know no more. You goodness is very dear to me. We +never sleep, brother and I, but we say your name together, and ask God +to bless you." + +Reybold sought in vain to suppress a confession he had resisted. The +contact of her form, her large dark eyes now fixed upon him in +emotion, the birth of the conscious woman in the virgin and her +affection still in the leashes of a slavish sacrifice, tempted him +onward to the conquest. + +"I am about to retire from Congress," he said. "It is no place for me +in times so insubstantial. There is darkness and beggary ahead for all +your Southern race. There is a crisis coming which will be followed by +desolation. The generation to which your parents belong is doomed! I +open my arms to you, dear girl, and offer you a home never yet +gladdened by a wife. Accept it, and leave Washington with me and with +your brother. I love you wholly." + +A happy light shone in her face a moment. She was weary to the bone +with the day's work, and had not the strength, if she had the will, to +prevent the Congressman drawing her to his heart. Sobbing there, she +spoke with bitter agony: + +"Heaven bless you, dear Mr. Reybold, with a wife good enough to +deserve you! Blessings on your generous heart. But I cannot leave +Washington. I love another here!" + +III.--DUST. + +The Lake and Bayou Committee reaped the reward of a good action. +Crutch, the page, as they all called Uriel Basil, affected the +sensibility of the whole committee to the extent that profanity almost +ceased there, and vulgarity became a crime in the presence of a child. +Gentle words and wishes became the rule; a glimmer of reverence and a +thought of piety were not unknown in that little chamber. + +"Dog my skin!" said Jeems Bee, "if I ever made a 'pintment that give +me sech satisfaction! I feel as if I had sot a nigger free!" + +The youthful abstractionist, Lowndes Cleburn, expressed it even +better. "Crutch," he said, "is like a angel reduced to his bones. Them +air wings or pinions, that he might have flew off with, being a pair +of crutches, keeps him here to tarry awhile in our service. But, +gentlemen, he's not got long to stay. His crutches is growing too +heavy for that expandin' sperit. Some day we'll look up and miss him +through our tears." + +They gave him many a present; they put a silver watch in his pocket, +and dressed him in a jacket with gilt buttons. He had a bouquet of +flowers to take home every day to that marvellous sister of whom he +spoke so often; and there were times when the whole committee, seeing +him drop off to sleep as he often did through frail and weary nature, +sat silently watching lest he might be wakened before his rest was +over. But no persuasion could take him off the floor of Congress. In +that solemn old Hall of Representatives, under the semicircle of gray +columns, he darted with agility from noon to dusk, keeping speed upon +his crutches with the healthiest of the pages, and racing into the +document-room; and through the dark and narrow corridors of the old +Capitol loft, where the House library was lost in twilight. Visitors +looked with interest and sympathy at the narrow back and body of this +invalid child, whose eyes were full of bright, beaming spirit. He +sometimes nodded on the steps by the Speaker's chair; and these spells +of dreaminess and fatigue increased as his disease advanced upon his +wasting system. Once he did not awaken at all until adjournment. The +great Congress and audience passed out, and the little fellow still +slept, with his head against the Clerk's desk, while all the other +pages were grouped around him, and they finally bore him off to the +committee-room in their arms, where, amongst the sympathetic watchers, +was old Beau. When Uriel opened his eyes the old mendicant was looking +into them. + +"Ah! little Major," he said, "poor Beau has been waiting for you to +take those bad words back. Old Beau thought it was all bob with his +little cove." + +"Beau," said the boy, "I've had such a dream! I thought my dear +father, who is working so hard to bring me home to him, had carried me +out on the river in a boat. We sailed through the greenest marshes, +among white lilies, where the wild ducks were tame as they can be. All +the ducks were diving and diving, and they brought up long stalks of +celery from the water and gave them to us. Father ate all his. But +mine turned into lilies and grew up so high that I felt myself going +with them, and the higher I went the more beautiful grew the birds. +Oh! let me sleep and see if it will be so again." + +The outcast raised his gold-headed cane and hobbled up and down the +room with a laced handkerchief at his eyes. + +"Great God!" he exclaimed, "another generation is going out, and here +I stay without a stake, playing a lone hand forever and forever." + +"Beau," said Reybold, "there's hope while one can feel. Don't go away +until you have a good word from our little passenger." + +The outstretched hand of the Northern Congressman was not refused by +the vagrant, whose eccentric sorrow yet amused the Southern +Committeemen. + +"Ole Beau's jib-boom of a mustache 'll put his eye out," said Pontotoc +Bibb, "ef he fetches another groan like that." + +"Beau's very shaky around the hams an' knees," said Box Izard; "he's +been a good figger, but even figgers can lie ef they stand up too +long." + +The little boy unclosed his eyes and looked around on all those +kindly, watching faces. + +"Did anybody fire a gun?" he said. "Oh! no. I was only dreaming that I +was hunting with father, and he shot at the beautiful pheasants that +were making such a whirring of wings for me. It was music. When can I +hunt with father, dear gentlemen?" + +They all felt the tread of the mighty hunter before the Lord very near +at hand; the hunter whose name is Death. + +"There are little tiny birds along the beach," muttered the boy. "They +twitter and run into the surf and back again, and am I one of them? I +must be; for I feel the water cold, and yet I see you all, so kind to +me! Don't whistle for me now; for I don't get much play, gentlemen! +Will the Speaker turn me out if I play with the beach birds just once? +I'm only a little boy working for my mother." + +"Dear Uriel," whispered Reybold, "here's Old Beau, to whom you once +spoke angrily. Don't you see him?" + +The little boy's eyes came back from far-land somewhere, and he saw +the ruined gamester at his feet. + +"Dear Beau," he said, "I can't get off to go home with you. They won't +excuse me, and I give all my money to mother. But you go to the back +gate. Ask for Joyce. She'll give you a nice warm meal every day. Go +with him, Mr. Reybold! If you ask for him it will be all right; for +Joyce--dear Joyce!--she loves you." + +The beach birds played again along the strand; the boy ran into the +foam with his companions and felt the spray once more. The Mighty +Hunter shot his bird--a little cripple that twittered the sweetest of +them all. Nothing moved in the solemn chamber of the committee but the +voice of an old forsaken man, sobbing bitterly. + +IV.--CAKE. + +The funeral was over, and Mr. Reybold marvelled much that the Judge +had not put in an appearance. The whole committee had attended the +obsequies of Crutch and acted as pall-bearers. Reybold had escorted +the page's sister to the Congressional cemetery, and had observed even +Old Beau to come with a wreath of flowers and hobble to the grave and +deposit them there. But the Judge, remorseless in death as frivolous +in life, never came near his mourning wife and daughter in their +severest sorrow. Mrs. Tryphonia Basil, seeing that this singular want +of behavior on the Judge's part was making some ado, raised her voice +above the general din of meals. + +"Jedge Basil," she exclaimed, "has been on his Tennessee purchase. +These Christmas times there's no getting through the snow in the +Cumberland Gap. He's stopped off thaw to shoot the--ahem!--the wild +torkey--a great passion with the Jedge. His half-uncle, Gineral +Johnson, of Awkinso, was a torkey-killer of high celebrity. He was a +Deshay on his Maw's side. I s'pose you haven't the torkey in the Dutch +country, Mr. Reybold?" + +"Madame," said Reybold, in a quieter moment, "have you written to the +Judge the fact of his son's death?" + +"Oh yes--to Fawquear." + +"Mrs. Basil," continued the Congressman, "I want you to be explicit +with me. Where is the Judge, your husband, at this moment?" + +"Excuse me, Colonel Reybold, this is a little of a assumption, sir. +The Jedge might call you out, sir, for intruding upon his incog. He's +very fine on his incog., you air awair." + +"Madame," exclaimed Reybold straightforwardly, "there are reasons why +I should communicate with your husband. My term in Congress is nearly +expired. I might arouse your interest, if I chose, by recalling to +your mind the memorandum of about seven hundred dollars in which you +are my debtor. That would be a reason for seeing your husband anywhere +north of the Potomac, but I do not intend to mention it. Is he +aware--are you?--that Joyce Basil is in love with some one in this +city?" + +Mrs. Basil drew a long breath, raised both hands, and ejaculated: +"Well, I declaw!" + +"I have it from her own lips," continued Reybold. "She told me as a +secret, but all my suspicions are awakened. If I can prevent it, +madame, that girl shall not follow the example of hundreds of her +class in Washington, and descend, through the boarding-house or the +lodging quarter, to be the wife of some common and unambitious clerk, +whose penury she must some day sustain by her labor. I love her +myself, but I will never take her until I know her heart to be free. +Who is this lover of your daughter?" + +An expression of agitation and cunning passed over Mrs. Basil's face. + +"Colonel Reybold," she whined, "I pity your blasted hopes. If I was a +widow, they should be comfoted. Alas! my daughter is in love with one +of the Fitzchews of Fawqueeah. His parents is cousins of the Jedge, +and attached to the military." + +The Congressman looked disappointed, but not yet satisfied. + +"Give me at once the address of your husband," he spoke. "If you do +not, I shall ask your daughter for it, and she cannot refuse me." + +The mistress of the boarding-house was not without alarm, but she +dispelled it with an outbreak of anger. + +"If my daughter disobeys her mother," she cried, "and betrays the +Jedge's incog., she is no Basil, Colonel Reybold. The Basils repudiate +her, and she may jine the Dutch and other foreigners at her pleasure." + +"That is her only safety," exclaimed Reybold. "I hope to break every +string that holds her to yonder barren honor and exhausted soil." + +He pointed toward Virginia, and hastened away to the Capitol. All the +way up the squalid and muddy avenue of that day he mused and wondered: +"Who is Fitzhugh? Is there such a person any more than a Judge Basil? +And yet there _is_ a Judge, for Joyce has told me so. _She_, at least, +cannot lie to me. At last," he thought, "the dream of my happiness is +over. Invincible in her prejudice as all these Virginians, Joyce Basil +has made her bed amongst the starveling First Families, and there she +means to live and die. Five years hence she will have her brood around +her. In ten years she will keep a boarding-house and borrow money. As +her daughters grow up to the stature and grace of their mother, they +will be proud and poor again and breed in and out, until the race will +perish from the earth." + +Slow to love, deeply interested, baffled but unsatisfied, Reybold made +up his mind to cut his perplexity short by leaving the city for the +county of Fauquier. As he passed down the avenue late that afternoon, +he turned into E Street, near the theatre, to engage a carriage for +his expedition. It was a street of livery-stables, gambling dens, +drinking houses, and worse; murders had been committed along its +sidewalks. The more pretentious _canaille_ of the city harbored there +to prey on the hotels close at hand and aspire to the chance +acquaintance of gentlemen. As Reybold stood in an archway of this +street, just as the evening shadows deepened above the line of sunset, +he saw something pass which made his heart start to his throat and +fastened him to the spot. Veiled and walking fast, as if escaping +detection or pursuit, the figure of Joyce Basil flitted over the +pavement and disappeared in a door about at the middle of this +Alsatian quarter of the capital. + +"What house is that?" he asked of a constable passing by, pointing to +the door she entered. + +"Gambling den," answered the officer. "It used to be old Phil +Pendleton's." + +Reybold knew the reputation of the house: a resort for the scions of +the old tide-water families, where hospitality thinly veiled the +paramount design of plunder. The connection established the truth of +Mrs. Basil's statement. Here, perhaps, already married to the +dissipated heir of some unproductive estate, Joyce Basil's lot was +cast forever. It might even be that she had been tempted here by some +wretch whose villainy she knew not of. Reybold's brain took fire at +the thought, and he pursued the fugitive into the doorway. A negro +steward unfastened a slide and peeped at Reybold knocking in the hall; +and, seeing him of respectable appearance, bowed ceremoniously as he +let down a chain and opened the door. + +"Short cards in the front saloon," he said; "supper and faro back. +Chambers on the third floor. Walk up." + +Reybold only tarried a moment at the gaming tables, where the silent, +monotonous deal from the tin box, the lazy stroke of the markers, and +the transfer of ivory "chips" from card to card of the sweat-cloth, +impressed him as the dullest form of vice he had ever found. Treading +softly up the stairs, he was attracted by the light of a door partly +ajar, and a deep groan, as of a dying person. He peeped through the +crack of the door, and beheld Joyce Basil leaning over an old man, +whose brow she moistened with her handkerchief. "Dear father," he +heard her say, and it brought consolation to more than the sick man. +Reybold threw open the door and entered into the presence of Mrs. +Basil and her daughter. The former arose with surprise and shame, and +cried: + +"Jedge Basil, the Dutch have hunted you down. He's here--the Yankee +creditor." + +Joyce Basil held up her hand in imploration, but Reybold did not heed +the woman's remark. He felt a weight rising from his heart, and the +blindness of many months lifted from his eyes. The dying mortal upon +the bed, over whose face the blue billow of death was rolling +rapidly, and whose eyes sought in his daughter's the promise of mercy +from on high, was the mysterious parent who had never arrived--the +Judge from Fauquier. In that old man's long waxed mustache, crimped +hair, and threadbare finery the Congressman recognized Old Beau, the +outcast gamester and mendicant, and the father of Joyce and Uriel +Basil. + +"Colonel Reybold," faltered that old wreck of manly beauty and of +promise long departed, "Old Beau's passing in his checks. The chant +coves will be telling to-morrow what they know of his life in the +papers, but I've dropped a cold deck on 'em these twenty years. Not +one knows Old Beau, the Bloke, to be Tom Basil, cadet at West Point in +the last generation. I've kept nothing of my own but my children's +good name. My little boy never knew me to be his father. I tried to +keep the secret from my daughter, but her affection broke down my +disguises. Thank God! the old rounder's deal has run out at last. For +his wife he'll flash her diles no more, nor be taken on the vag." + +"Basil," said Reybold, "what trust do you leave to me in your family?" + +Mrs. Basil strove to interpose, but the dying man raised his voice: + +"Tryphonee can go home to Fauquier. She was always welcome +there--without me. I was disinherited. But here, Colonel! My last drop +of blood is in the girl. She loves you." + +A rattle arose in the sinner's throat. He made an effort, and +transferred his daughter's hand to the Congressman's. Not taking it +away, she knelt with her future husband at the bedside and raised her +voice: + +"Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom, remember him!" + + + + +HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR. + +(_See note at end of poem._) + + +I.--THE MANOR. + + "My corn is gathered in the bins," + The Lord Augustin Herman said; + "My wild swine romp in chincapins; + Dried are the deer and beaver skins; + And on Elk Mountain's languid head + The autumn woods are red. + + "So in my heart an autumn falls; + I stand a lonely tree unleaved; + And to my hermit manor walls + The wild-goose from the water calls, + As if to mock a man bereaved: + My years are nearly sheaved. + + "Go saddle me the Flemish steed + My brother Verlett gave to me, + What time his sister did concede + Her dainty hand to hear me plead! + Poor soul! she's mouldering by the sea + And I with misery." + + The slave man brought the wild-maned horse + All wilder that with stags he grazed-- + Bred from the seed the knightly Norse + Rode from Araby. Like remorse + The eyes in his gray forehead blazed, + As on his lord he gazed. + + "Now guard ye well my lands and stock; + Slack not the seine, ply well the axe; + The eagle circles o'er the flock; + The Indian at my gates may knock: + The firelock prime for his attacks; + I ride the sunrise tracks." + + Swift as a wizard on a broom, + The strong gray horse and rider ran, + Adown the forest stripped of bloom. + By stump and bough that scarce gave room + To pass the woodman's caravan, + Rode the Bohemian. + + "Lord Herman, stay," the brewer cried, + "And Huddy's friendly flagon clink!" + And martial Hinoyossa spied + The horseman, moving with the tide + That ebbed from Appoquinimink, + Nor stopped to rest or drink. + + "Where rides old Herman?" Beekman mused; + "That railing wife has turned his head." + "He keeps the saddle as he used, + In younger days, when he enthused + Three provinces," Pierre Alricks said, + "And mapped their landscapes spread." + + Broad rose Zuydt River as the sail + Above his periauger flew; + Loud neighed the steed to snuff the gale; + But Herman saw not, swift and pale, + Two carrier pigeons, winging true + North-east, across the blue. + + They quit the cage of Stuyvesant's spy, + And lurking Willems' message bore: + ("This morn rode Herman rapid by, + Tow'rd Amsterdam, to satisfy + Yet wider titles than he tore + From shallow Baltimore!") + +II.--REPLEVIN. + + The second sunset at his back + From Navesink Highlands threw the shade + Of horse and Herman, long and black, + Across the golden ripples' track, + Where with the Kills the ocean played + A measured serenade; + + There where to sea a river ran, + Between tall hills of brown and sand, + A mountain island rose to span + The outlet of the Raritan, + And made a world on either hand, + Soft as a poet planned: + + Fair marshes pierced with brimming creeks, + Where wild-fowl dived to oyster caves; + And shores that swung to wooded peaks, + Where many a falling water seeks + The cascade's plunge to reach the waves, + And greenest farmland laves: + + Deep tide to every roadstead slips, + And many capes confuse the shore, + Yet none do with their forms eclipse + Yon ocean, made for royal ships, + Whose swells on silver beaches roar + And rock forevermore. + + Old Herman gazed through lengthening shades + Far up the inland, where the spires, + Defined on rocky palisades, + Flung sunset from their burnished blades, + And with their bells in evening choirs + Breathed homesick men's desires: + + "New Amsterdam! 'tis thine or mine-- + The foreground of this stately plan! + To me the Indian did assign + Totem on totem, line on line-- + Both Staten and the groves that ran + Far up the Raritan. + + "By spiteful Stuyvesant long restrained, + Now, while the English break his power, + Be Achter Kill again regained + And Herman's title entertained, + Here float my banner from my tower, + Here is my right, my hour!" + +III.--THE SQUATTERS. + + He scarce had finished, when a rush, + Like partridge through the stubble, broke, + And armed men trod down the brush; + A harsh voice, trembling in the hush, + As it must either stab or choke, + Imperiously spoke: + + "Ye conquered men of Achter Kill, + Whose farms by loyal toil ye got, + True Dutchmen! give this traitor will-- + And he is yours to loose or kill-- + All that ye have he will allot + Anew--field, cradle, cot. + + "Years past, beyond our Southern bounds, + On States' commission sent by me, + He mapped the English papists' grounds, + And like a Judas, o'er our wounds, + Our raiment parted openly: + This is the man ye see! + + "Yet followed by my sleepless age, + Fast as he rode my pigeons sped-- + Straight as the ravens from their cage, + Straight as the arrows of my rage, + Straight as the meteor overhead + That strikes a traitor dead." + + They bound Lord Herman fast as hate, + And bore him o'er to Staten Isle; + Behind him closed the postern gate, + And round him pitiless as fate, + Closed moat and palisade and pile: + "Thou diest at morn," they smile. + +IV.--STUYVESANT. + + Morn broke on lofty Staten's height, + O'er low Amboy and Arthur Kill; + And ocean dallying with the light, + Between the beaches leprous white, + And silent hook and headland hill, + And Stuyvesant had his will; + + One-legged he stood, his sharp mustache + Stiff as the sword he slashed in ire; + His bald crown, like a calabash, + Fringed round with ringlets white as ash, + And features scorched with inner fire; + Age wore him like a briar. + + "Bring the Bohemian forth!" he cried; + "Old man, thy moments are but few." + "So much the better, Dutchman! bide + Thy little time of aged pride, + Thy poor revenges to pursue-- + Thy date is hastening, too. + + "No crime is mine, save that I sought + A refuge past thy jealous ken, + And peaceful arts to strangers taught, + And mine own title hither brought, + Before the laws of Englishmen, + A banished denizen. + + "Yet that thy churlish soul may plead + A favor to a dying foe, + I'll ask thee, Stuyvesant, ere I bleed, + Let me once more on my gray steed + Thrice round the timbered _enceinte_ go: + Fire, when I tell thee so!" + + "What freak is this?" quoth Stuyvesant grim. + Quoth Herman, "'Twas a charger brave-- + Like my first bride in eye and limb-- + A wedding-gift; indulge the whim! + And from his back to plunge, I crave, + A bridegroom, in her grave." + + Then muttered the uneasy guard: + "We rob an old man of his lands, + And slay him. Sure his fate is hard, + His dying plea to disregard!" + "Ride then to death!" Stuyvesant commands; + "Unbind his horse, his hands!" + +V.--THE LEAP. + + The old steed darted in the fort, + And neighed and shook his long gray mane; + Then, seeing soldiery, his port + Grew savage. With a charger's snort, + Upright he reared, as young again + And scenting a campaign. + + Hard on his nostrils Herman laid + An iron hand and drew him down, + Then, mounting in the esplanade, + The rude Dutch rustics stared afraid: + "By Santa Claus! he needs no crown, + To look more proud renown!" + + Lame Stuyvesant, also, envious saw + How straight he sat in courteous power, + Like boldness sanctified by law, + And age gave magisterial awe; + Though in his last and bitter hour, + Of knightliness the flower. + + His gray hairs o'er his cassock blew, + And in his peak'd hat waved a plume; + A horn swung loose and shining through + High boots of buckskin, as he drew + The rein, a jewel burst to bloom: + The signet ring of doom. + + 'Thrice round the fort! Then as I raise + This hand, aim all and murder well!' + His head bends low; the steed's eyes blaze, + But not less bright do Herman's gaze, + As circling round the citadel, + He peers for hope in hell. + + Fast were the gates; no crevice showed. + The ramparts, spiked with palisades, + Grew higher as once round he rode; + The arquebusiers prime the load, + And drop to aim from ambuscades; + No latch, no loophole aids. + + But one small hut its chimney thrust + Between the timbers, close as they; + Twice round and with a desperate trust + Lord Herman muttered: "die I must: + _There_, CHARGE!" and spurred through beam and clay-- + "By heaven! he is away!" + +VI.--THE KILLS. + + In clouds of dust the muskets fire, + And volleying oaths old Stuyvesant from: + "Turn out! In yonder Kills he'll mire, + Or drown, unless the fiends conspire. + Mount! Follow! Still he must succumb-- + That tide was never swum." + + Through hut and chimney, down the ditch + And up the bank, plunge horse and man; + And down the Kills of bramble pitch, + Oft-stumbling, those old gray knees which, + Hunting the raccoon, led the van; + Now, limp yet game he ran. + + But cool and supple, Herman sat, + His mind at work, his frame the horse's, + And knew with each pulsation, that + Past foe and fen, past crag, and flat, + And marsh, the steed he nearer forces + To the broad sea's recourses. + + "Old friend," he thought, "thou art too weak + To try the Kills and drown, or falter, + The while from shore their marksmen seek + My heart. (Once o'er the Chesapeake + I paddled oarless.) Lest the halter + Be mine, I must not palter-- + + "Thou diest, though my marriage-gift: + I still can swim. Poor Joost, adieu!" + Ere ceased the heartfelt sigh he lift, + The prospect widened: all adrift, + The salty sluice burst into view, + Where grappling tides fought through, + + And sucked to doom the venturous bear, + And from his ferry swept the rower-- + How wide, how terrible, how fair! + Yet how inspiriting the air-- + How tempts the long salt grass the mower! + How treacherous the shore! + + Far up the right spread Newark Bay, + To lone Secaucus wooded rock; + Nor could the Kill von Kull convey + Passaic's mountain flood away: + In Arthur Kill the surges choke, + The wild tides interlock. + + O'er Arthur Kill the Holland farms + Their gambril roofs, red painted, show; + Beyond the newer Yankee swarms-- + His cider-presses spread their arms. + Before, the squatter; back, the foe; + And the dark waters flow. + + As that salt air the stallion felt, + He whimpers gayly, as if still is + Upon his sight his native Scheldt, + Or Skagger Rack, or Little Belt,-- + Their waving grass and silver lilies, + Where browsed the amorous fillies. + + And o'er the tide some lady nags + Blew back his challenge. Scarce could Herman + Hold in his seat. "By John of Prague's + True faith!" he thought, "thy spirit lags + Not, Joost! Thy course thyself determine!" + And plunges like a merman. + + Leander's spirit in the steed + Inspired his stroke, not Herman's fear; + And fast the island shores recede, + Fast rise the rider's spirits freed, + The golden mainland draws more near-- + "O gallant horse! 'tis here!" + +VII.--ELUSION. + + Across the Kills the muskets crack-- + "Ha! ha!" Lord Herman waves his beaver: + "Die of thy spleen ere I come back, + Old Stuyvesant!" With a noise of wrack + The fort blew up of his aggriever!-- + But not without retriever. + + For from the smoke two pigeons fly, + One south, one westward, separating, + And straight as arrows crossed the sky, + With silent orders ("_He must die_ + _Who comes hereafter. Lie in waiting!_") + Their snowy pinions freighting. + + They warn the men of Minisink; + They warn the Dutchmen of Zuydt River. + Now speed to Jersey's farther brink, + Old horse, old master, ere ye shrink!-- + Or ambushed fall ere moonrise quiver, + On paths where ye shall shiver. + + On went the twain till past the ford + That red-walled Raritan led over, + And lonely woodland shades explored. + Unarmed with firelock or with sword, + Free-hearted rode the forest rover, + Of all wild kind the drover: + + Fled deer and bear before his coming, + The wild-cat glared, the viper hissed; + And died the long day's insect-drumming. + Where things of night began their humming, + And witchly phantoms went to tryst, + Was Herman exorcist. + + "No land so tangled but my eye + Can map its confines and its courses; + Yet on life's map who can espy + Where hides his foe--where he shall die?" + So Herman said, and his resources + Resigned unto his horse's. + + All night the steed instinctive travelled-- + His weary rider wept for him-- + Through unseen gulfs the whirlwind ravelled, + Up moonlit beds of streamlets gravelled, + Till halting every bleeding limb, + He stands by something dim, + + And will not stir till morning breaks. + "What is't I see, low clustering there, + Beyond those broadening bays and lakes, + That yonder point familiar makes?-- + Is it New Amstel, lowly fair, + And this the Delaware?" + +VIII.--THE ECHO. + + Lord Herman hugged his horse with pride; + He raised his horn and blew so loudly, + That more than echoes back replied: + Horns answered louder; horsemen cried, + And muskets banged, as if avowedly + On Stuyvesant's errand proudly! + + "Die, traitor; fleer! though thou 'scape + Our ambush on thy devil's racer, + Caught here upon this marshy cape, + Thy bones the muskrat's brood shall scrape, + The sturgeon suck--Death thy embracer!" + So shouts each sanguine chaser. + + To die in sight of Amstel's walls, + And gallant Joost to die beside him?-- + O foolish blast, such fate that calls! + O river that the heart appalls! + Dear Joost may live. And _they_ bestride him? + "By hell! none else shall ride him! + + "My steed, thy limbs like mine are sore! + Few years are left us ere the billows + Roll over both. Come but once more, + And to the bottom or the shore, + Bear me and thee to happy pillows, + Or 'neath the water willows!" + + He strokes old Joost. He bends him low. + He winds his horn and laughs derision. + One spring!--they've cleared the bog and sloe, + And down the ebb tide buoyant go-- + That stately tide. So like a vision + Of home, to Norse and Frisian, + + Where full a league spread Maas and Rhine, + And in the marsh the rice-birds twitter; + The long cranes pasture and the kine + Loom lofty in the misty shine + Of dawn and reedy islands glitter: + Yet death all where is bitter. + + Ere out of range a volley peals, + But greed too great made aye a blunder. + His horse Lord Herman's self conceals, + Yet once his horse and he go under, + And rise again. No wound he feels. + They hold their fire in wonder! + + Short of the mark the bullets splash: + "Now drown thee, wizard! at thy pleasure," + The Dutchmen hiss through teeth they gnash. + He answers not; for o'er the plash + Of waves he hears Joost's gasping measure + Of breath's fast wasting treasure. + +IX.--PEGASUS. + + The sighs when dying comrades fall, + Struck by the foe, are only sad; + They leaped the ditch and climbed the wall, + And shared the purpose of us all; + The fame they have; the joy they had: + "Rest in thy tracks, brave lad!" + + But thou, poor beast! unknown to fame, + Whose heart is reached while ours is bounding, + Amidst the victory's acclaim-- + By thee we kneel with more of shame, + That bore us through the fight resounding, + And dumbly took our wounding! + + Lord Herman saw the blood drops seethe, + The nag's neck droop, the nostril bubble, + And loosed the bridle from his teeth; + Yet swam the old legs underneath, + Invincibly. The gap they double; + But further swim in trouble. + + And lovely Nature stretched her aid, + Her sympathetic tow and eddy; + The oars of air with azure blade, + And silent gravities persuade + And waft them onward, slow and steady-- + On duteous deeds aye ready. + + High leaped the perch. The hawk screamed joy. + Under Joost's belly musically + The ripples broke. Bright clouds convoy + The brute that man would but destroy, + And all instinctive agents rally + Strong and medicinally. + + In vain! The gurgling waters suck + That old life under. Herman swimming + Seized but the horse tail. Like a buck + Breasting a lake in wild woods' pluck, + Joost rose, the glaze his bright eyes dimming, + And blood his sockets brimming. + + Then voices speak and women cry. + The treading feet find soil to stand. + Above them the green ramparts lie, + And twixt their shadows and the sky, + The wondering burghers crowd the strand, + And Herman help to land: + + "Now to Newcastle's English walls, + Hail, Herman! and thy matchless stud!" + Joost staggers up the bank and falls, + And dying to his master crawls. + Yields up his long solicitude, + And spills his veins of blood. + + In Herman's arms his neck is prest, + With martial pride his dark eye glazes; + He feels the hand he loves the best + Stroke fondly, and a chill of rest, + As if he rolled in pasture daisies + And heard in winds his praises: + + "O couldst thou speak, what wouldst thou say? + I who can speak am dumb before thee. + Thine eyes that drink Olympian day + Where steeds of wings thy soul convey, + With pride of eagles circling o'er thee: + Thou seest I adore thee! + + "Bound to thy starry home and her + Who brought me thee and left earth hollow! + An honored grave thy bones inter, + And painting shall thy fame confer, + Ere in thy shining track I follow, + Thou courser of Apollo!" + +NOTE TO HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR.[1] + +The singular incident of this poem was published in 1862, in Rev. John +Lednum's "Personal Rise of Methodism," and in the following words: + +"It is said that the Dutch had him (Herman) a prisoner of war, at one +time, under sentence of death, in New York. A short time before he was +to be executed, he feigned himself to be deranged in mind, and +requested that his horse should be brought to him in the prison. The +horse was brought, finely caparisoned. Herman mounted him, and seemed +to be performing military exercises, when, on the first opportunity, +he bolted through one of the large windows, that was some fifteen feet +above ground, leaped down, swam the North River, ran his horse through +Jersey, and alighted on the bank of the Delaware, opposite Newcastle, +and thus made his escape from death and the Dutch. This daring feat, +tradition says, he had transferred to canvas--himself represented as +standing by the side of his charger, from whose nostrils the blood was +flowing."--Page 277. + +Such a singular and improbable story attracted great local attention, +and in 1870, Francis Vincent, publishing his "History of Delaware," +wrote: "The author found this incident in both Lednum and Foot, and +has seen a copy of this painting. It is in the possession of James R. +Oldham, Esq., of Christiana Bridge, the only male descendant of Herman +in Delaware State. He is the seventh in descent from Augustin +Herman."--Page 469. + +In 1875, Rev. Charles P. Mallery, of Chesapeake City, a part of the +Bohemia Manor, wrote in the Elkton (Md.) _Democrat_ as follows: +"Herman resided on the Manor for more than twenty years, during which +time he once rode to New York on the back of his favorite horse, to +reclaim his long-neglected possessions there. He found his land +occupied by squatters.... They secured him, as they thought, for the +night; but he soon found means to escape by leaping his horse through +a forced opening, swimming the North River, and continuing his flight +through New Jersey until he reached the shore opposite Newcastle, +where he swam his horse across the Delaware and was safe.... Dr. +Spotswood, of Newcastle, told me that there was a tradition in his +town that the horse was buried there." Augustin Herman made the first +drawing of New Amsterdam, and early maps of Maryland and New England. +He was the first speculator in city real estate in America. + +[Footnote 1: The Bohemia Manor is a tract of 18,000 acres of the best +land on the Delaware peninsula. It was granted to Augustine Herman, +Bohemian, whose tombstone, now lying in the yard of Richard Bayard, on +the site of Herman's park, bears date 1661. He received the manor for +making an early map of Maryland, and granted a part of the land to the +sect of Labadists. In the course of a century it became the homestead +of Senator Richard Bassett, heir of the last lord of the manor, and of +his son-in-law, Senator James A. Bayard, the first. Herman was the +principal historic personage about the head of the Chesapeake, and was +Peter Stuyvesant's diplomatist to New England as well as Maryland. The +argument he made for the priority of the Dutch settlement on the +Delaware was the basis of the independence of Delaware State. The +legend of his escape from New York is told in several local books and +newspapers, and it was the subject of one of his paintings, as he was +both draughtsman and designer. G. A. T.] + +In 1876 I visited the relics of Herman on the Manor, and observed the +topography and foliage. I then undertook to put this legend into +verse, but struck a short, ill-accommodating stanza, in which I +nevertheless persevered until the tale was told. I found that Herman +had bought, in 1652, "the Raritan Great Meadows and the territory +along the Staten Island Kills from Ompoge, or Amboy, to the Pechciesse +Creek, and a tract on the south side of the Raritan, opposite Staten +Island" (see Broadhead, page 537). It at once occurred to me to put +the seat of Herman's capture by squatters on this property, and to +take Staten Island's bold scenery as a contrast to that of the head of +the Chesapeake, whence Herman had ridden. He could, besides, more +reasonably swim the Kills than the North River with a horse, as a +gentle prelude to swimming the Delaware. + +One year before buying the above property (see Broadhead's "History of +New York," page 526), Peter Stuyvesant vindictively persecuted Herman, +Lockerman, and others, who retired to Staten Island to brood. These +men belonged to "the popular party." I therefore had a hint to make +Stuyvesant himself the incarcerator of Herman in a fort, and the most +available period seemed to be subsequent to the capture of Dutch New +York by the English, but before the Dutch settlements on the Delaware +were yielded. Stuyvesant surrendered New York September 8th, 1664. It +was not until October 10th that Newcastle on the Delaware surrendered. +The theory of the poem is that Herman, hearing New York to be English, +like Maryland where he resided, repaired to his possessions. +Stuyvesant rallies the squatters against him and makes use of a fort +on Staten Island, not yet noticed by the English, as Herman's place of +punishment. On Herman's escape this fort is blown up. When Herman +returns to Newcastle, it is no longer Dutch, but English. Four days is +the time of the action. The device of the carrier pigeons is possibly +an anachronism, and also the age of Herman. I have aimed to make the +story reasonable, if not creditable. + + + + +KIDNAPPED. + + +A celebrated apostle of the Methodist sect, on the Eastern shore of +Maryland, was the Rev. Titus Bates. He had been twenty-six years +engaged in the ministry, and was now a bronzed, worn, failing man, +consumed by the zeal of his order, but still anxious to continue his +work and die at his post. Like all his tribe, he was an itinerant, +moving from town to town every second year--these towns being his +places of abode, while his fields of labor were called "circuits," and +comprised many houses of worship scattered through the surrounding +district. He had chosen his wife with reference to his vocation, and +she was equally earnest with himself. She attended the sick, prayed +with the dying, taught Sabbath-schools, and organized religious +meetings among the women. They had but one son, Paul, an odd, silent +little fellow, who was thought to be more bashful than bright; but his +parents loved him tenderly, and argued the highest usefulness from his +still, sober, thoughtful habits. He was of a singularly dark +complexion, with fine black eyes and curling hair, and he was now old +enough to ride to and fro with his father upon the long pastoral +journeys. + +Paul's sixth birthday occurred on a raw Sunday in December. He had +been promised, as a special treat on that occasion, a visit to +Hogson's Corner, an old meeting-house near the bay-side, twenty miles +distant. His mother woke him at an early hour, and, while he +breakfasted, the gray pony Bob came to the door in the "sulky." His +mother bade him to be a good boy, and kissed him; he took his seat +upon a stool at his father's feet, and watched the stone parsonage +fade quickly out of sight. The last houses of the town vanished; they +passed some squalid huts of free negroes; and when, after an hour, +they came to a grim, solitary hill, the snow began to fall. It beat +down very fast, whitening the frozen furrows in the fields, making +pyramids of the charred stumps, and bleaching the sinuous +"worm-fences" which bordered the road. After a while, they found a +gate built across the way, and Paul leaped out to open it. The snow +was deep on the other side, and the little fellow's strength was taxed +to push it back; but he succeeded, and his father applauded him. Then +there were other gates; for there were few public highways here, and +the routes led through private fields. It seemed that he had opened a +great many gates before they came to the forest, and then Paul wrapped +his chilled wet feet in the thick buffalo hide, and watched the dreary +stretches of the pines moan by, the flakes still falling, and the +wheels of the sulky dragging in the drifts. The road was very lonely; +his father hummed snatches of hymns as they went, and the little boy +shaped grotesque figures down the dim aisles of the woods, and +wondered how it would be with travellers lost in their depths. He was +not sorry when they reached the meeting-house--a black old pile of +planks, propped upon logs, with a long shelter-roof for horses down +the side of the graveyard. A couple of sleighs, a rough-covered +wagon, called a "dearbourn," and several saddled horses, were tied +beneath the roof. Two very aged negroes were seen coming up one of the +cross-roads, and the shining, surging Chesapeake, bearing a few pale +sails, was visible in the other direction. Some boors were gossiping +in the churchyard, slashing their boots with their riding-whips; one +lean, solemn man came out to welcome the preacher, addressing him as +"Brother Bates;" and another led the sulky into the wagon-shed, and +treated Bob to some ears of corn, which he needed very much. + +Then they all repaired to the church, which looked inside like a +great barn. The beams and shingles were bare; some swallows in the +eaves flew and twittered at will; and a huge stove, with branching +pipes, stood in the naked aisle. The pews were hard and prim, and +occupied by pinch-visaged people; the pulpit was a plain shelf, with +hanging oil-lamps on either side; and over the door in the rear +projected a rheumatic gallery, where the black communicants were boxed +up like criminals. A kind old woman gave Paul a ginger-cake, but his +father motioned him to put it in his pocket; and after he had warmed +his feet, he was told to sit in the pew nearest the preacher on what +was called the "Amen side." Then the services began, the preacher +leading the hymns, and the cracked voices of the old ladies joining in +at the wrong places. But after a while a venerable negro in the +gallery tuned up, and sang down the shrill swallows with natural +melody. The prayers were long, and broken by ejaculations from the +pews. The text was announced amid profound silence, after everybody +had coughed several times, and then the itinerant launched into his +sermon. At first it was dry and argumentative, then burdened with +divisions and quotations, but in the end he closed the great book, and +made one of those fierce, feeling appeals--brimming with promises of +grace and threatenings of hell--in words so homely that all felt them +true, while the wild, interpolated cries of the believers thrilled and +terrified the young. + +Little Paul heard with pale lips these grim, religious revelations, +and his child's fancy conjured up awful pictures of worlds beyond the +grave. He wondered that the birds dared riot in the roof: the sky in +the gable window was full of cloudy marvels; and the snow beat under +the door, like a shroud blown out of one of the churchyard tombs. The +closing prayer was said at last, the unconverted walked away, but five +or six communicants remained to tell their experience in the +class-meeting. Paul's father gave him permission to go into the yard +if he liked, and the boy got into the sulky, beneath the buffalo, and +heard the sobs and hymns floating dismally on the wind. Grim shapes +thronged his mind again, wherein the Bible stories were mingled with +tales of ghosts and strange nursery fables. They chased each other in +and out, generating others as they went, and then came drowsiness, and +Paul slept. + +The class-meeting lasted an hour. It was very fervent and +demonstrative; and when it was over the kind old lady who had given +Paul the gingerbread asked the preacher home to dinner. She said that +roasted turkey, wild duck, and pumpkin-pie were waiting for them; and +Mr. Bates thought fondly what a treat it would be for Paul on his +birthday. He was to preach again that afternoon, seven miles away, and +so moved briskly toward the sulky. + +"The poor fellow is asleep," said the preacher, seeing that the +curling head was not thrust up at his approach. "I wonder of what he +dreams?" He drew near as he spoke. Old Bob was munching his corn +sedately; the sulky had a saucy air; the robe nestled in the front, +with the tiny stool peeping from a corner; but Paul was not there. The +preacher called aloud; the horses raised their ears in reply, and the +wheels crackled in the frozen crust. He called again; some +sleigh-bells jingled merrily, and then the pines moaned. He looked +into the other vehicles; he watched for the little foot-tracks in the +snow; he ran back to the old church, and searched beneath every pew. + +"Brethren--sisters," he cried, "I cannot find my boy!" and his voice was +tremulous. They gathered round him and some said that Paul had ridden +away with the worldly lads; others, that he was hiding mischievously. +But one silent bystander looked into the drifts, and traced four great +boot-marks close to the sulky. He followed them across the road into the +pines, and out into the road again, where they were lost in the +multitude of impressions. "Brother," he faltered, "God give you +strength! your boy has been stolen--kidnapped!" + +The old man staggered, but the kind old lady caught him, and as he +leaned upon her shoulder his face grew hard and blanched; then he +removed his hat, and his gray hair streamed over his gaunt features. +"Let us pray!" he said. + +The preacher plodded to his next appointment as if he had still a +child, and his sermon was as full and straightforward. He announced +his bereavement from the pulpit when he had done, and the whole +country was alarmed and excited. He bore the tidings to his desolate +home, and his stricken wife heard it with a stern resignation. +Thenceforward he preached more of the burning pit, and less of the +golden city; his eyes were full of fierce light, and his visage grew +long and ghastly. He denied himself all joys and comforts; his prayers +rang in the midnight through the gloomy parsonage; and he toiled in +the ministry as if reckless of life, and anxious to lose it in his +Master's service. The end came at last; the world closed over the grim +couple, and they hoped through the grave's portal to find their child. + +When Paul awoke from his nap in the sulky, he found himself far in the +forest, and moving swiftly forward. A huge negro, with bloodshot eyes, +was transferring him to an evil-looking white man, and he struggled in +the latter's arms, crying for his papa. + +The negro drew a long knife from his breast and flourished it before +Paul's face. "Hold um jaw, or I kill um dead!" he muttered. "Got um +grave dug out yer." + +"O yer young yerlin!" said the other man, boxing Paul's ears, "yer +don't know yer own father, don't yer? I'm yer parpa!" + +"You are not," cried Paul. "Where are you taking me? Where is the +church, and the sulky, and old Bob?" + +The negro drove his knife so close to Paul's throat that the boy +flinched and shrieked. + +"You dare to say fader to anybody," yelled the negro, "and I cut yo' +heart out! You dare to tell yer name, or yer fader's name, or wha yo +come from, and I cut yo' eyes out! I cut yo' heart and eyes out--do +yo' yar?" + +The lad was cowed into cold, tearless terror; he shrank from the +glittering edge, and trembled at the giant's murderous expression. He +thought they had brought him to this lonely spot to slay him, and he +embraced silence as the only chance for his young life. He wondered if +this were not one of his wild imaginings, or if it had not something +to do with the punishment pronounced in the morning's fierce sermon. + +The two men came to a ruined cabin after awhile; it was buried in deep +shade; the logs were worm-eaten, and the clay chimney had fallen down. +They climbed by a creaking ladder into the loft and laid Paul upon a +ragged bed. A young negro woman and her child were there, and the boy +saw that her foot was shackled to the floor, for the chain rattled as +she moved. They gave him a piece of beef and a corn-cake, and +stripping him of his tidy clothes, dressed him in the coarse blue +drilling worn by slaves. The two men drank frequently from the same +bottle, talking in low tones, and after a time both of them lay down +and slept. The woman dandled her child to and fro, for it moaned +painfully, and the pines without made a deep dirge. No birds trilled +or screamed in this desert place, but a roaring as of loud waters was +borne now and then on the twilight; it was the bay close below them, +making thunder upon the beach. + +When Paul woke from his second sleep he was on the deck of a vessel. +The shore lay beneath him, and the waves heaved behind. It was night; +the snow-flakes still filtered through the profound darkness, and the +wind whistled in the rigging. A red lantern moved along the beach; +some voices were heard speaking together, and one of them said: +"Don't be afraid of the boy; I have sold lots paler than him. Lick him +smartly if he gammons, and he'll tell no tales." + +Then they lifted the anchor aboard; the tide floated off the sloop; +they were soon scudding before the wind under a freezing starlight. +Two weary days passed over Paul, of travel by land and water. They +came to the city of Richmond at last, and marched him with five other +unfortunates to the common slave-pen. It was situated in a squalid +suburb, surrounded by a high spiked wall, and entered by an office +from which a watchman could observe the interior through two grated +doors. The pen consisted of a paved area open to the sky, except on +one side, where it was protected by a shelving roof, and of a jail or +den. The latter was walled up in a corner, but its inmates could look +out upon the area through a window in the door, and their savage +features revealed at the bars so terrified Paul that he retreated to +the opposite corner, afraid to look towards them. Now and then they +howled and blasphemed; for two were delirious from drunkenness and one +was desperate from rage, and as they moved like tigers to and fro, +their irons clanked behind them, dragging on the stone floor. A number +of women were huddled together beneath the roof, some as fair as Paul, +others as black as ebony. Some had babes at their breasts, others had +no regard for their offspring, but sat stolidly apart while their +children cried for nourishment. In the open place a bevy of the +coarser inmates were holding a rude dance, a large gray-haired man +patted time or "juber" with his feet and hands, calling the figures +huskily aloud; while the women, with bright turbans tied around their +heads, grinned and screamed with glee as they followed the measure +with their large, heavy shoes. + +Their efforts were directed not so much to grace as to strength, for +some kept up the dance for a whole hour, divesting themselves of +parcels of clothing as they proceeded, and breathing hard as if weary +to exhaustion. The men applauded vociferously, coupling the names of +the performers with wild ejaculations, but subsiding when the keeper +appeared at the door occasionally to command less noise. Remote from +the bacchanals crouched a serious group of negroes, who sang religious +melodies, quite oblivious of their wild associates; and in still +another quarter a humorous fellow was enlivening his constituents with +odd sayings and stories. Paul's heart sank within him as he looked +upon these scenes. A sense of his degradation rushed over his young +mind, and he threw himself upon the stones with his head in his hands, +and wept hot tears of bitterness. Henceforth he should be a creature, +a thing, a slave! He must know no ambition but indolence, no bliss but +ignorance, no rest but sleep, no hope but death! Long leagues must +interpose between himself and his home; he should never kiss his +mother again, or kneel with his father in the holiness of prayer. The +recollections of his childhood would be crushed out by agonizing +experiences of bondage; he would forget his name and the face of his +friends, and at last preserve only the horrible consciousness that he +was the chattel of his master! + +The uproar continued far into the night; one poor creature was +delivered of a child in the hazy light of the morning. Paul was too +young to think much of the matter, for his own sorrows engrossed him; +but he often recurred, in his subsequent career, to the romance of +that bondwoman, and the soul which first felt the breath of life in +the precincts of the slave shamble. What a childhood must it have had +to look back upon--cradled in disgrace, sung to sleep with the simple +melodies of grief, bred for no high purposes, but with the one +distinct and dreadful idea of gain--to be filched from that dusky +bosom when its little limbs had first essayed motion, that its feeble +lips might lisp the accents of servility. Days and weeks passed over +Paul, but he found no opportunity to tell his story. They kept him +purposely that he might forget it, or feel the hopelessness of +relating it. Other wretches came and went, till there remained none of +the original inmates of his prison, and he learned to mingle with his +coarse companions, joining sometimes in their gayety, and the high +walls stood forever between his dreams and the sky till the sombre +shadows were printed upon his heart. + +The boy's turn came at length. He climbed the auction block before the +gaping multitude, and leaped to show his suppleness. They were pleased +with his still serious manner, the paleness of his skin, his +thoughtful eyes, and the shining ringlets of his hair. Bids were +bandied briskly upon him, and the auctioneer rattled glibly of the +rare lot to be sold. + +"Who owns the boy?" cried a bystander. + +"Colonel James Purnell, of the Eastern shore," answered the +auctioneer. "His mother is a likely piece that will be in the market +presently." + +Tears came to Paul's eyes, but he held down the great sob that started +to his throat, and called lustily: "It is a wicked story! My father is +white, and my mother is white! I am not a slave, and they have stolen +me!" + +A loud, long laugh broke from the crowd, and the trader cracked a +merry joke, which helped the pleasantry. + +"We may call that a 'white lie,'" he said; "but it is a peart lad, and +the air with which he told it is worth a cool hundred! Going at four +hundred dollars--four hundred," etc. + +The bidding recommenced. The article rose in esteem, and Paul was +pushed from the block into the arms of a tall, angular person, who led +him into the city. That afternoon he was placed in a railway carriage, +and on the third night he was quartered in Mobile, at the dwelling of +his purchaser. The tall person proved to be the agent of a rich old +lady--a childless widow--who required a handsome, active lad, to wait +upon her person, and make a good appearance in the drawing-room. + +She had many servants; but Paul was not compelled to associate with +them, and his duties were light, though menial. When his mistress went +out to walk, he must carry her spaniel in his arms. He must stand +behind her at dinner, wielding a fly-brush of peacock's feathers. He +must run errands, and be equally ready to serve her whims and satisfy +her wants. She was not harsh, but very petulant; and had Paul been +hasty or high-tempered, his lot might have been a bitter one. On the +contrary, he was quiet, docile, and bashful, and he pleased her +marvellously. If he sometimes wept for the happy past, or felt a +child's strong yearning for something to love, he hid his grief from +those about him, and sought that consolation which the world cannot +take away in the simple prayers he had conned from his mother. He was +a slave, but not a negro. His pleasures were not theirs, for he had +quick intelligence, and he shrank from their loud, lewd glee. Their +blood had thickened through generations of bondage, and trained in the +harness of beasts, they had become creatures of draught. His had +rippled bright and brisk through generations of freedom, and a year +could not drag him to their level. He had learned to read and write, +and it was his habit to stand at the window in his leisure moments, +adding to his information from some pleasant book; but his mistress +supposed that he was looking at the pictures merely, till one day, +entering the dining-room softly, she heard him reading aloud. He had a +sweet, boy's voice, which somewhat pacified the anger she felt at such +presumption in a slave; and though at first rebuking him, she +reconsidered the matter during the evening, and bade him read to her +from a new novel. Henceforward Paul gained favor, and his mistress +found it convenient to employ him as an amanuensis. She released him +from menial duties, and gave him neat attire, and it was wonderful how +well these accessories became him. He was unassuming, as before, +submitting with patience to his lot; and at length he became +indispensable to Mrs. Everett. Her attachment to books of fiction +amounted to dissipation, and the part that he bore in their perusal +filled his warm imagination till his fancies were brighter than +romance--they became poetry. The one great grief of his life touched +his whole face with a pensive melancholy, but he forebore to tell them +his true history again, preferring to wait for some golden moment when +he might be believed and emancipated. + +From the beginning Mrs. Everett's agent disliked him. Wait was a +Northern adventurer, cool, courageous, and ambitious, who had settled +in the South with the resolution of becoming rich, and he had pursued +his purpose with steady inflexibility. He was not a bad man, but a +bitter one, and Paul had in some sort divided Mrs. Everett's esteem +from him. Previously he had been her sole and undisputed adviser, and +as she was readily influenced, he hoped, in course of time, to be +acceptable as her second husband. He was young and manly, and she was +giddy and middle-aged. Her relatives held him in contempt, but he had +proved his courage, and they did not care to cross him. But with the +coming of Paul he had lost somewhat of her regard, and he had laid it +to the boy's charge. Paul read his calm purpose in his keen eyes, and +he shuddered at the thought of some day falling into his relentless +hands. He labored to conciliate his enemy, but with little effect, +until one afternoon, Wait told him to obtain permission from Mrs. +Everett and come to the office. He dictated some ambiguous letters to +Paul, and gave him many papers to burn, meanwhile inspecting a pair of +long pistols which he took from a portmanteau. It was late in the +afternoon when he had done, and then he bade Paul take the case of +pistols, slip quietly into the street, and walk straight on till he +was overtaken. He obeyed, not without suspicion, and when he reached +the city limits found the agent, to his great surprise, seated in a +carriage. Two other persons attended him, and one, who was bald and +wore glasses, had a case of surgical instruments lying at his feet. +Paul climbed to the driver's box, and they dashed along by the +water-side, meeting a second carriage on their way. The last rays of +sunset were streaming over the low landscape when both carriages +stopped, their occupants dismounted, and Wait came to the front and +reached up his hand to Paul. + +"Good-by, boy," he said in a tone of unwonted tenderness; "remain here +a moment and you will see me again!" + +They filed along a dyke separating two swamps, and turning down to the +beach, were hidden behind a line of cypress trees. For a few moments +Paul only heard the roar of the surf, the noise of the distant town, +and the short breathing of the sedate negro beside him. Then there +were shouts, as of a person counting rapidly, and two reports so close +that one seemed the echo of the other. A few minutes afterward the +agent appeared, leaning upon the arms of his attendants. He was +divested of coat and vest, and as he came nearer, bareheaded, Paul saw +that his face was colorless and working as from deadly pain. His shirt +was perforated close to the collar, and the blood flowing beneath had +stained it to his waist, and dripped in a runnel from his boots. He +fainted when he had taken his seat; and as the carriage rolled away, +Paul looked back toward the duelling-ground, and beheld two men +bearing upon their shoulders a stiff, straight burden, wrapped in a +cloak. + +The second carriage passed him, driven swiftly, and it seemed to emit +a chill draught upon Paul like the damp wind from a tomb; it was the +presence of death, at whose very mention we grow cold. + +Wait had vindicated his courage, but at the expense of his life. He +lingered on in agony many days; and Paul so pitied him that he stole +into his darkened chamber and begged to do him kindnesses. The grim +man lay implacable, waiting for death; but one night as he writhed +with the dew upon his forehead, Paul heard him mutter, "My God! my +mother!" + +The boy remembered a quaint text of Scripture: "Save me, O God! for +the waters have come in unto my soul;" and he repeated it in the +strong man's ear. "Go on," cried Wait, rising upon his elbow; "I have +heard that before: tell me the rest." + +"I have the good book here," replied Paul. "I am sure it will be +pleasant to you, sir, if you will let me read." + +"Do so, boy; I used to know it well. An old friend taught those +strange words to me, but I have forgotten them now." + +Paul read some soothing and beautiful Psalms, which took his +companion's mind back to his native mountains, and the white spire of +the village church where he had worshipped with his mother. The hard +lines melted in his face as he listened, but Paul fell upon a bitter +verse, and the agent's conscience began to trouble him. He could not +look into the boy's eyes, for they seemed to rebuke him, and at last +he commanded Paul to stop. + +It was midnight. They heard the great clock in the hall strike twelve, +and all the household slumbered. + +"Go to your mistress's room," said Wait; "tell her that I must see her +_now_--she must come at once. The morning may never come to me. Go; +God bless you!" + +He called Paul back when he had got to the door, and added +falteringly: + +"My boy, do you say your prayers?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Would you mind thinking of me when you say them to-night?" + +"I do so every night, sir." + +"Good-night!" + +Paul heard the agent sobbing as he stole away; but when he knocked at +Mrs. Everett's door she answered petulantly, and at first she refused +to rise. She had little self-denial; it would pain her to enter a +dying chamber; and she would have left Wait to perish, had not some +strange passage from the romance entered her head of dead folk, with +secrets on their minds, haunting the living. It would be very terrible +to be haunted, and the old woman was frightened into obedience. When +she returned her mind was disquieted, and she made Paul stay in her +room to compose her with cheerful talk. Finally she fell asleep, and +he hastened to the agent's chamber. It was very dark within, and he +waited a moment that the other might recognize him. Wait seemed to be +in deep slumber, though Paul could not hear him breathe; but as the +lad ventured to place his head upon the quilt, it encountered a hand +so cold and hard that it seemed to be marble. Paul knew that he need +no longer remember his enemy in his prayers. + +What transpired between his mistress and her agent at this dying +interview Paul could not surmise, but he believed that it concerned +himself. He perceived that Mrs. Everett treated him more considerately +afterward; and many times, as he looked up from a long silence, he +found her regarding him inquisitively. She asked him strange questions +once, bearing upon his early life, and he was almost encouraged to +reveal the secret of his birth; but she seemed to divine his purpose, +and changed the theme. Something troubled her, he knew; and when he +applied himself to conciliate and cheer her, at those moments she +suffered most. Had she loved the stern, ambitious man whose closed +chamber still chilled her mansion? Was it because she was childless, +and travelling graveward? Or did she cherish a mother's feeling for +Paul, and wish that he was of her race, and worthy to be her son? +Toward each of these theories he inclined, favoring the last, and +finally he concluded that she did not love, but feared him. He had +grown tall and manly. An individual beauty, rather of mind than of +face, developed in him, and his mistress had been prodigal of favors, +so that his dress and ornaments corresponded with his person. He +might have ruled, rather than served in her dwelling; but content with +the recognition of his equality, he maintained the same modest guise, +and his mistress felt an uneasy pride in his promotion. One day he +found her weeping, and when he spoke she answered bitterly: + +"Paul, you have ceased to love me; you are ungrateful; you wish to be +free--you would leave me!" + +He responded pleasantly--for he had become familiar with such +moods--that he had found a new romance which he would read. It was not +a long story, but a thrilling one, and based upon the simple narrative +of Joseph in bondage. The outline was true, the details were fabulous, +and the old lady marvelled that a theme so trite could be so well +embellished. He read far into the night, and she bade him leave the +book upon her table, that she might peruse it again. + +"It is manuscript," he said, "and this is the only copy." + +"Why, Paul," she said, "how came you by it?" + +"I wrote it myself." + +Paul was indeed the author, having filled in the sorrows of his hero +from his own experiences. Mrs. Everett was loud in its praises; she +was sure that it indicated genius, and she lay awake that night +meditating an act of charity and of justice. She would make a free man +of Paul, and he should find in far lands that equality which he could +not obtain in his own. They would journey together. He should have +means and advantages, and become her protege and heir. But the strong +self-love defeated this resolve. If Paul were not bound to her by law, +he might forsake her, and she could not bear to lose him, for he had +become a part of her heart; but when she broached the matter, Paul +gave his parole never to leave her without consent. + +He was still a slave, with the taint of a trampled race in his blood, +and he said nothing to Mrs. Everett of his origin. They crossed the +seas; they dwelt in pleasant places, beneath soft skies; and Paul grew +in knowledge. But his patron was still harassed by some deep remorse. +She hurried him from city to city like the fabled apostate, and at +length fell sick in London, on the eve of their return to America. +Paul gleaned from her ravings in delirium the cause of her unrest. +Wait had made known to her on the night of his decease the secret of +the young man's origin, and had conjured her to do justice to the lad. +Her self-love had deterred her in consummating this duty, and +conscience had therefore tortured her. She was enabled to reach New +York, where she left the preacher's son the bulk of her property, and +received his gratitude and forgiveness before she died. + +Paul was free--haunted no longer by premonitions of future suffering; +and his first impulse was to return to the Eastern shore and discover +his desolate parents. His recollections of them were imperfect. He +preserved many trifling circumstances, though more important events +were forgotten; but as he made his way to the old village his heart +beat high. There were the negro quarters, the cornfields, the twisting +fences, and, at last, the shady stone parsonage--recollections they +seemed of objects beheld in a foggy dream. They directed him to the +Methodist Church--a prim, square structure in the centre of the +village--a tavern on one side, a court-house and market on the other; +and when the sexton threw open a window, the bleared light fell upon a +marble slab set in the wall: + + "Near this spot lie the remains of + REV. TITUS BATES, + for two years Pastor of this Congregation, + and of PEGGY, his Wife. + 'They have ceased from their labors, and their + works do follow them.'" + +Paul's hopes fell. He walked through the village friendless, and, +impelled by his swift-coming fancies, strolled far into the suburbs. +A crowd was collected round a squalid negro cabin, and, less by +interest than by instinct, he bent his steps toward it. + +"What is the matter, friend?" he asked of a bystander. + +"The boys hez scented kidnappers to this shanty," answered the man; +"and by doggy! they going to trap 'em!" + +The mob seemed to be fearfully incensed as Paul pushed close to the +scene. There were said to be two of the man-stealers, both of whom had +been very daring and successful. He heard their names called as Peter +Gettis and Dave Goule, and the opinion was expressed that the +first-named would not yield without a desperate struggle. The mob was +hot and clamorous, and while a selected committee entered the den to +search it, the rest brandished clubs and knives, and yelled for +justice and blood. Word came at length that the kidnappers were +concealed beneath the floor of the cabin; and at the hint, a score of +stalwart fellows began to pull up the planks, while their associates +formed a wide circle around, prepared to prevent escape. + +Finally, the cry arose: "Here they air! This is them! Drag 'em out! +Whoo-oop!" + +The men within the cabin rushed through the doors and windows as if +pursued, and a stalwart negro, with bloodshot eyes, almost naked, and +flourishing a huge knife, staggered to the threshold, and glared +fiercely round him. + +The circle stood firm; some were clubbing their cudgels, others +lifting their blades, and here and there along the line rang out the +click of a pistol. + +"Come, Pete," cried one of the ringleaders; "you're treed, Pete! Don't +be a fool, but give yourself in." + +The negro gnashed his teeth, and his wild eyes glared like coals of +fire. + +"Do you give me faih-play?" he bellowed, extending the knife. + +"Yes, Pete, yes," answered the multitude. + +"Then look heah," answered the wretch, drawing his knife across his +throat. He staggered into the air like an ox, cursing as he came. They +parted to avoid him, and as he reached a fence, a few rods from the +cabin, he leaned upon it, and swaying to and fro, raised his horrible +eyes to the sky. + +Paul recognized his ancient captor with a thrill and a silent prayer. +Vengeance had come in His own good time, and Paul felt no bitterness +toward the poor fellow, but prayed forgiveness for his slipping soul. + +The second offender burrowed so remotely that the mob could not drag +him from his covert. They struck at him with knives, and hired dogs to +creep beneath the logs and rend him, but in vain. At length one of the +ringleaders obtained a torch, and the cabin was fired in several +places. The flames spouted into the night, bursting from the small +windows, and the roof fell in with a crash, scattering ashes and +red-hot coals. They could hear the shriek of the victim now, and he +was seen dancing among the fire-brands, for the blaze encircled him +like an impassable wall. He made a desperate rush at length to +overleap the fire, and his figure, magnified by the red light, looked +gigantic as he sprang high in the air. A dozen pistols clattered +together--the man fell heavily forward, tossing up his scorched hands, +and the frizzing, cracking timbers closed darkly above him to the +thunder of his executioners' huzzas. + +Paul did not reveal himself. He left the village stealthily, and +journeyed northward. Years afterwards a name was added to the tablet +in the old church: + + "Here lie also the Remains of the + REV. PAUL BATES. + 'He went about doing good.'" + + + + +THE JUDGE'S LAST TUNE. + + + The Judge took down his fiddle, + And put his feet on the stove, + And heaved a sigh from his middle + That might have been fat, or love; + He leaned his head on the mantel, + And bent his ear to the strings, + And the tender chords awakened + The echoes of many things. + + The Bar had enjoyed the measure, + The Bench and Senate had been + Amused at the simple pleasure + He drew from his violin; + But weary of power and duty, + He had laid them down with a sigh, + Exhausted of life the beauty, + And he fiddled he knew not why. + + In the days when passion budded, + And she in the churchyard lain + Came over his books as he studied + With an exquisite pang of pain, + He played to his sons their mother's + Old favorites ere she wed; + Those tunes, like hundreds of others, + Were requiems of the dead. + + They lay in the kirk's inclosure: + All three, in the shadows dim, + In a cenotaph's cynosure + That waited for only him, + Who sat with his fiddle tuning + On the spot where his fame was won, + On the empty world communing, + Without a wife or a son. + + And he drew his bow so plaintive + And loud, like a human cry, + That the light of the shutter darkened + From somebody passing by. + A young man peeped at the pensive + Great man, so familiar known; + His features, if inoffensive, + Were like to the judge's own. + + "Come in," cried the politician-- + "Come not," his soul would have said-- + "Thou bringest to me a vision + Of a sin ere thy mother wed, + When I, wild boy from college, + Her humble desert o'ercame, + And we hid the guilty knowledge + Beneath thy father's name." + + The youth delayed no longer, + His sense of music strong, + Nor knew of his mother's wronger, + Nor that she had known a wrong; + Deep in the grave the secret + Her husband might never guess. + He stood before his father + With a loyal gentleness. + + "What tune, fair boy, desirest + My old friend's worthy son?-- + Say but what thou requirest, + And for father's sake 'tis done." + "Oh! Judge, our State's defender, + Whose life has all been power, + Play me the tune most tender, + When thou felt thy greatest hour!" + + The old man thought a minute, + Irresolutely stirred, + As if his fiddle's humor + Changed like a mocking-bird; + Then, as his tears came raining + Upon the plaintive chords, + He played the invitation + To the sinner, of his Lord's. + + "Come, poor and needy sinners, + And weak and sick, and sore, + The patient Jesus lingers + To draw you through the door." + It was a tune remembered + From old revival nights, + In crowded country churches, + Where dimly blew the lights. + + And boys grew superstitious + To hear the mourners wail. + The great man, self-degraded, + So sighed his contrite tale + In notes that failed for sobbing, + To feel Heaven's sentence well, + That took away his Isaac + And blessed the Ishmael. + + * * * * * + + Low in the tomb of glory + The old man's ashes lie-- + Unuttered this my story, + Unwritten to human eye; + And the young man, blessed and blessing, + Walks over the shady town, + The evil passions repressing, + And his head bent humbly down. + + Perhaps he marvels why treasure + Of the judge to his credit is set, + And an old revival measure + Should have been the statesman's pet. + But he hears the invitation, + And sees the streaming eyes + Of the old man lost to the nation, + And forgiven beyond the skies. + + + + +DOMINION OVER THE FISH. + + +"A gift-book for Christmas. A poem preferred. Limited text, and +profuse illustration." What should it be? + +As if by invocation, the Ancient Mariner rose before me! He stood in +the doorway of my office, and held me with his glittering eye. He +lifted his skinny hand to his long gray beard, and then gravely tipped +his oiled hat. "The reader for Spry, Stromboli, and Smith?" + +I had that honor, and handed him a chair. He sat in it after the +manner of a flounder, concentrated his eye upon me like a star-fish, +and produced a roll of manuscript with the fluttering claws of a +lobster. Then he stirred and squirmed, like an elderly eel, looking +distrustfully into the vestibule. I closed the door and begged to be +informed of his business. + +"I have a great work for you," he said mysteriously, proffering his +manuscript. As he leaned over to do this, I saw a shining something on +the top of his head, but the thick white hair concealed it when he +resumed his place. The manuscript smelled as if it had contained +mackerel, and looked as if it had come from the bottom of the sea. I +found, curiously enough, some fish-scales adhering to it, and its +title very oddly confirmed these testimonies--"Five Years in the Great +Deep." + +I glanced at the author with some surprise. He was the quaintest of +mariners, and if I had met him leagues under the sea, I should have +thought him in his proper element. His locks were like dry sea-weed; +his cheeks were so swollen that they might have contained gills, but +this was probably tobacco. When he wiped his nose with a handkerchief +like a scoop-net, some shells and pebbles fell from his pocket, and +his ears flapped like a pair of ventrals. I remarked as he pursued the +lost articles over the floor, that he wore a microscope strapped in a +leathern case, and a geological hammer belted to his side. He walked +as if habituated to swimming, and when he shrugged his shoulders I +expected to see a dorsal fin burst out of the back of his jacket. He +might have been sixty years of age, but looked much older, and behaved +like a well-born person, though, superficially judged, he might have +lived in Billingsgate. + +"A good title for a fiction," I said encouragingly. + +"I never penned a line of fiction in my life," exclaimed my visitor +sternly. + +Referring to the copy again, I saw that it purported to be the work of +"Rudentia Jones, Fellow of the Palaeontologic Society, Entomologist to +the Institute for Harmonizing the Universes, and Ruler of Subaqueous +Creation, excepting the Finny Mammalia." + +"Ah! I see," said I; "a capital title for a satire!" + +"Life is too grave, and science too sacred," replied my visitor, "for +the indulgence of idle banterings. The work is mine; I am its hero; +and it is all true." He wore so earnest a face, and looked so directly +and intelligently at me, that I forebore to smile. "I have travelled +in strange countries," he said; "Nature has been bountiful in her +revelations to me, indeed; my experiences have been so individual, +that I sometimes discredit them myself. I do not complain that others +ridicule them." + +He spoke in the manner of one devoted to his species; and an easy +dignity, which some trace to high birth and the consciousness of +dominion, became him very naturally. The eldest of the admirals, or +old Neptune himself, could not have seemed more kingly; but once or +twice he started at a noise from the publishing-house, as if longing +to get back to his legitimate brine. I told him to leave the +manuscript in my hands for a fortnight, that I might form an opinion +as to its claims for publication. + +"No!" he said quickly. "It is not a girl's romance, or a boy's poem, +or the strollings of a man-errant: it is of such rare value that gold +cannot purchase it; it is so priceless that I cannot own it myself; it +is like the air, or the water, or the light, or the magnet--the +property of all the peoples. It must not leave my sight. I must read +it to you now!" + +He literally held me with his eye. He stood erect dilating, until he +seemed to reach the height of a mainmast, as long and lank and brown +as the subject of the veritable _rime_; and his ears, contracted, +flapped like the pectorals of a flying-fish. It was uncertain whether +he was going to fly or swim, or seize and shake me. I believed him to +be either a lunatic or an apparition; but when the frenzy of the +moment was over, he became a very harmless, kindly, and grave old +gentleman, who begged my pardon for transgressing decorum in the +enthusiasm for his "great work." He still smelled abominably of fish, +but I could not take it into my heart to be harsh with this most +pertinacious of authors. + +I had been but a short time in the service of Spry, Stromboli & Smith, +and my nerves had not yet been exercised by sensitive and eccentric +writers. I had led a vagabond career myself, and had frequent reason, +in my incipient literary days, to be grieved with publishers' +"readers;" and when promoted to the same exalted place, I resolved to +be charitable, careful, and obliging--to do as I would be done by--to +crush no delicate Keats, to enrage no Johnson, by slight, prejudice, +or deprecation. But to suffer the infliction of a crack-brained old +naturalist, repeating an interminable manuscript in my own office, +went beyond my best resolve! Still there was little to do. It would be +a paltry task to select a poem for illustration, and had not this +same Ancient Mariner suggested an admirable one? + +"I can grant your request in part, Mr. Jones," I said at length; "you +may read one hour; and if at the end of that period I do not think +favorably of your article, you must promise to read no further." + +The old gentleman gave his parole at once, took a pair of great green +spectacles from a sea-grass case, and blowing his nose again, rained +pebbles and marine shells over the whole office. When he took the +manuscript from my hand, I saw the shining something distinctly on the +top of his head; and when he sat back to read, he was a perfect copy +of a dry old king-fish, looking through a pair of staring, glaring, +green eyes. Without more ado, and in a rippling kind of voice, as of +the rushing of deep water, the old naturalist read the following +introduction to a most wonderful manuscript: + +"At a very early period of my life I manifested an inclination for the +study of the sciences. In my eighteenth year I submitted a theory of +inter-stellar telegraphing to the Gymnotian Academy. It was my purpose +to have placed the papers simultaneously before the scientific bodies +of each of the seven planets in our constellation, but having no +capital, the design failed, though I was complimented thereupon by the +'Institute for Harmonizing the Universes,' and elected a contributing +member of that society. For several years I petitioned annually for +outfit and transportation to Scilly Islands,[2] on the Ecliptic +Circle, where I purposed to develop my scheme of transferring a +portion of our globe to the system of Orion. In this I was opposed by +the Palaeontologic Society, on the ground that some valuable fossils +were presumed to be there; and Parliament, opining that my protests +were subversive of the law of gravity, rejected them. A number of +projects, each of which, I firmly believe, would have benefited my +kind, and facilitated correspondence between all created beings, +terminated unfortunately, and my relatives at length placed it out of +my power to continue these philanthropic exertions. For some years I +was denied the ear of man, and in the interval my hair grew gray and +my body a trifle faint. But the lofty impulses of youth survived. My +mind could not be imprisoned, and I held communication with the stars +through the grating of my chamber in the still midnight. At last the +relief came. I had long prayed for it! My deliverer was Sirius, the +brightest of the celestial intelligences. He shone upon my window bars +with an intense concentrated light, and they reddened and melted +before daybreak. I fled to Glasgow in the month of April, 184-, and +obtained a captain's clerkship on the whaler Crimson Dragon. + +[Footnote 2: This group of Scilly Islands is in the South Pacific; not +off Land's End.] + +"We took in water at the Shetland Islands, and sailing north-westward, +skirted the coast of Greenland, whence, cruising in a southerly +direction, we lay off Labrador, and waited for our prey. Our crew was +fifty men, all told. Our captain had been a whaler thirty-eight years, +and had killed five hundred and six animals or eight more than the +renowned Scoresby. We carried seven light-boats for actual service, +and twenty-seven thousand feet, or more than five miles, of rope. +Three men kept watch, day and night, in the 'crow's-nest,' at the +maintop; but though we beat along the whole coast, through Davis' +Strait, and among the mighty icebergs of Baffin's Bay, we saw no +cetaceous creatures, save twice some floundering porpoises, and thrice +a solitary grampus. With these beings I endeavored to open +communication, but they made no intelligible responses. The stars also +of this latitude failed to comprehend my signals, from which I +concluded that they were less intelligent than those of more temperate +skies. But with the animalcules of the sea I obtained most gratifying +relations. A series of experiments with the _infusoria_ satisfied me +that they were not loath to an exchange of information, and finally +they followed the ship by myriads, so that all the waves were full of +fire, which the sailors remarked; and fearful of being observed, I +ceased my experiments for a time. + +"On the evening of the fifth Saturday of our cruise, I waited till the +changing of the watch; then I stole noiselessly upon deck, and +secreted myself behind a life-boat which hung at the side of the +vessel. The helmsman was nodding silently upon his tiller; two seamen +sat motionless upon the bow, and the lookout party in the crow's-nest +talked mutteringly of our ill-luck as they scanned the horizon. The +Northern Lights were pulsing like some great radiating heart, and the +sea was alternately flame and shadow. The headlands of Labrador lay to +the south--bare, boundless, precipitous; and to the east a glittering +iceberg floated slowly towards us, like a palace of gold and emerald. +The ship rolled calmly upon the long swells, the ripples plashing in +low lulling monotone, and her hull and spars were reflected darkly +beneath me. I drew a long gray hair from my temple, and subjected it +to a gentle friction between my palm and finger; then I pricked my +wrist, and leaning forward, placed it against my heart: five +blood-drops--symbols of the five types of organized creation--fell +simmering into the depths, and the scintillant hair, floating after +them, described a true spiral. In an instant the Aurora grew bright to +blindness; there was a rush of infinite stars, and a host of beautiful +beings fluttered to the surface of the sea, within the shadow of the +ship! A gull darted along the water, and in the far distance I heard +the bellow of the huge Greenland whale. All animate nature had +acknowledged my message; I had touched the nerve of the universes! + +"'Blow me if there warn't a whale, Ben!' said one of the men in the +maintop. + +"'My eyes! but it wor like it,' replied the other. + +"Fearful of being remarked, I slipped below, a second time +disappointed, but with such exultant feelings that I tried in vain to +sleep. The intimacy of species and their common language, lost in the +degeneracy of the first human beings, were about to be restored by me. +Confusion had overcome the counsels of the countless things which had +talked and dwelt together in the past, but science was about to win +back from sin the great secret of communication. I should translate +the scream of eagles and the cooing of doves; I should hear the gossip +of my household kittens, and speak familiarly with the mighty +hippopotami. The serpent should teach me his traditions, and the +multitude of mollusks should develop the mysteries of their sluggish +vitality; nay, the plurality of worlds should be demonstrated, and +with the combined intelligences of all the systems, we should wrest +the mysteries of life, matter, and eternity from their Divine +repository! + +"I lay awake all night revelling in these anticipations, and at dawn +was quite weak of body. It was now the Sabbath, and at nine o'clock +all hands were summoned to the poop-deck for the customary worship. I +lay upon a coil of rope, when the mate commenced to read the service, +and a deep drowsiness came over me. The lesson was a part of the first +chapter of Genesis--the weird history of creation. He had reached the +twenty-eighth verse when I dropped asleep. It could have been only an +instant's forgetfulness, for when I awoke he had not finished the +reading of the same verse, but in that instant a vision had passed +before me. + +"A female of marvellous beauty rose from the water. I had seen the +long green locks, the eyes of azure, and the glossy neck--it was +Tethys, the queen of the sea-nymphs. She was begotten of humidity in +the remote beginning, and seemed even now cloudy and incorporeal. +Euripius, the divinity of whirlpools, lay in the waves at her feet, +projecting a spectrum of spray, in an arch, above her head. + +"'Man,' she said, or rather rippled, for it was like the even voice of +waters, 'your love of nature, the boundlessness of your kindness, the +daring of your speculation, the profoundness of your introspection, +have made you one of us. Awake, and hear our decree!' + +"She melted into vapor, and disappeared. I opened my eyes. The crew +were grouped about the deck, the mate was reading the lesson, the +words which I heard were: 'Have dominion over the fish!' + +"'A fall! a fall!' was shouted from the maintop. The men on watch had +discovered the long-expected prey. + +"'Man the boats!' cried the captain; 'all hands be spry! Where away, +look out?' + +"'Sou'-west!' answered the crow's-nest, 'about two leagues. There must +be hoceans of 'em! They 'eave like water-spouts, and, lor! how they +lobtail!' + +"The seven boats were arranged in curved shape, so as to form a +semicircle around the animals; and the captain's, of which I took the +helm, formed the left tip of the crescent. We pulled steadily for a +half-hour over a smooth sea, and came at length so close to our +victims that we could count them. Truly it was 'a fall'! A few cubs +played recklessly around the surface; but there was an enormous bull, +whose bulk was much greater than that of the ship's hull, which came +once in full view, dived vertically, and beat the water with his +terrible tail, making such billows that a storm seemed to be raging. +The other animals swam in the froth and foam thus developed, now +plunging to the far depths, now shooting their huge bodies into the +air, and falling with a splash, as of the emptying of the ocean. The +scene was so exciting that even my wonderful discoveries passed out of +mind. Our oars dipped noiselessly; the crews were silent; the +harpooners stood, each in the bow of his launch, with naked weapons +extended, waiting to strike. The first opportunity occurred to the +launch on our extreme right. At the distance of twenty yards the +executioner hurled his javelin full into the back of the great bull; a +roar ensued and a frightful leap. The other creatures repeated the +agonized cry, and they swam southward with the velocity of a ship +under full sail. + +"'Now, lads, bend your oars!' shouted the captain through his trumpet. +The entire length of rope unwound directly from the reel or 'bollard' +of the first launch, and the line of a second boat was attached +forthwith; a third and a fourth were annexed, but the whale exhibited +no sign of exhaustion, and dragged his pursuers like the wind. A fifth +and a sixth line spun out. The captain's cheek grew pale, and he +opened his clasp-knife with a curse upon his lips. There remained the +line of our boat alone: unless the monster stopped within ten minutes, +we should lose every foot of the ship's cordage, and this last rope +would have to be severed. Tremulously a seaman attached it; it was +whirled out as if by a locomotive. The oars moved like light, but no +human activity could approach that of our victim. He nearly swamped +the launch, and the friction of the bollard threatened to set it +ablaze. + +"'What devil of the deep is this?' said the captain, bending forward +with his blade. The sailors ceased with hot faces, and stared aghast. +I seemed to hear calling voices; I grew faint and blind. The bollard +snapped with a dead, dull sound; I was entangled in the stout twine, +and tossed into the sea. Some oars were thrown overboard, that I might +be buoyed up. Three of the launches were turned toward me, and the +seamen called aloud that I should keep up courage. But the line pulled +me downward; my heart ceased to beat; I beheld with indescribable +terror the pale surface receding, and the dark shapes of the vessels +above me were finally lost to view. I knew that at the first +inhalation the brine would fill my mouth and lungs; I held my breath +hard, and tried to pray. Down, down, down into the blue depths--a +cycle of protracted years it seemed! My ears were stunned with +strange noises; my lips parted, and at length the sea rushed into my +throat; for an instant I seemed to strangle, but I did not perish. + +"The fluid was mysteriously expelled from me. I breathed as freely of +the water as a moment before I had breathed of the air! A weight was +lifted from my brain, which had before been crushing it, and my +temples grew suddenly cool. A spiracle had developed at the apex of my +cranium, and I exuded water through a cavity or 'blow-hole' in the top +of my head, like the cetacea around me!" + +The naturalist here paused and ran his hand through his hair. The +shining something among his gray locks revealed itself as a plate of +silver, circular in shape, covering what had evidently been an opening +in the skull. He looked less like a man than ever, and when, +consulting a glutinous old chronometer, like a jellyfish, he found +that his hour was passing, he begged so earnestly to be allowed to +finish his "Introduction," that I gave him leave. A boy coming in with +copy so frightened him, however, that I thought he was going to turn +upon his stomach, and swim away through the window. + +"I became sensible directly of three organic changes: my heels clave +together, my feet flattened, and my toes turned out, like a caudal +fin; my integument grew thick and hard, and my blood thin and chill. +But these conditions being novel to me, and my fears only equalled by +my wonder as yet, I was paralyzed, and continued to sink. I had +descended about one hundred fathoms, and was experiencing a strange +oppression, as of the forcing together of my bones, when I heard a +sonorous voice close below me say! 'If you go any deeper, you will +sustain a pressure of twenty atmospheres, and may not get back at +all.'" + +I looked beneath, and to my horror a huge whale was coming upward with +extended jaws. His half-human eyes were turned benignantly upon me; +but he was evidently in pain, and from a point in his back, where a +broken harpoon still remained, gouts of blood curdled upward, coloring +the water. His vocal power lay in his spiracle, and he said again: + +"'I should have been asphyxiated in five minutes.' + +"'Who is it that speaks?' I faltered. 'Leviathan, king of the sea, be +merciful!' + +"'I am called _New England Tom_ by the creatures of the upper +element,' answered the whale, 'although falsely thought to be of the +family of the Spermaceti; but though my exploits have recommended me +to my species, I am not equal to the high title you have given me. +_That_ is possessed by you and our sovereign Jonah only!' + +"The conviction rushed upon me that I had, indeed, 'dominion over the +fish'! + +"'I have suffered this wound for your majesty's sake,' said the whale +again; 'for I had been deputed to wait in this latitude for your +arrival, and convey you to our sovereign. But though I am now in the +third century of my age, I can survive a dozen such prickings, and if +I chose could shiver the Crimson Dragon with a blow of my tail, as in +1804 I stove the Essex, and made driftwood of her spars.' + +"In an instant I was seated within the mighty maw of this famous +monster. His jaw-bones were forty feet in length; the roof of his +mouth was fifteen feet high, and formed of a spacious arch of +'balleen,' or whale-bone. His crescent-shaped tail, thirty-five feet +from tip to tip, swept the depths twice or thrice; and when we emerged +into the air, the blood spouted from his pores, and he threw cataracts +of water through his spiracle. I saw the Crimson Dragon some miles +away, but there were no traces of her boats. The crews of the launches +were fathoms deep in the ocean! + +"I passed the cape of Greenland, rounded the base of Mount Hecla, and +was escorted to the abode of the king of the cetacea by a multitude of +his subjects. A submarine island, forty fathoms from the surface, had +been occupied three thousand years by this venerable person. He came +out to meet me upon the back of a mighty 'rorqual,' and a body-guard +of four hundred picked narwhals swam before him. Fifty white whales +surrounded their monarch, and a host of dolphins, grampuses, and +porpoises brought up the rear. Banners of dyed seal-skin bore his +arms--three gourds, _argent_, upon a field _vert_; and with these were +carried as trophies the wrecks of ships, including the identical +shallop whence he was expelled on the voyage to Tarshish. But, +marvellous beyond all, the 'great fish' (falsely so translated, since +no cetaceous creature can be denominated a _fish_) into which he was +received still lived, and accompanied him. It was now the eldest of +the species, but very sprightly, and burdened with dignities. The +Seer-King saluted gravely, and gave me a draught of spirits, distilled +from the fronds of a rare sea-tangle. His long tenure in the deep had +obliterated much of the similitude to man, but his memory of +terrestrial matters was extraordinary. The weeds were wrapped about +his head after the manner of a crown, and he carried a sceptre of +walrus tusk. He told me that his original three days' experience under +the sea had so cooled his blood, that the suns of Nineveh parched him, +and he had cried for cooling water. I informed him that Nineveh no +longer existed, at which he was gratified beyond measure; for his only +knowledge of events happening on the earth had been derived from the +wrecks which had sunk into his domain. I found that he was badly +informed upon matters of science, and he heard my theories of +harmonizing the universes with impatience. In his days, he said, no +such ideas were broached, and he was indifferent to the intellectual +development of his subjects. + +"My visit was brief, for, though the palace of Jonah had a sepulchral +grandeur about it--a mighty cavern beneath the waves--yet the +glittering stalactites which studded the roof, and the cold columns of +ice supporting its halls, nearly froze me, and at length I made ready +to depart. + +"An escort of 'thrashers,' or grampuses, accompanied me. The Seer-King +would have detached a cohort of white whales, but the animosity of my +tribes might have provoked combat. I left the cetacea with some +foreboding. They were allied in some degree to man; they were capable +of some human impressions; their blood was warm like mine; they +breathed with lungs; they had double hearts; and nourished kindness +for their offspring. But I was now about to be delivered over to the +cold, cruel, gluttonous tribes of the fish. The family of sharks +received me. They could not be counted for multitude. The terrible +_requiem_ of the storm--the cannibal white shark--welcomed me with +open jaws; the blue shark flung up his caudal for joy; the fox-shark +lashed the sea; the northern shark glared through his purblind orbs; +the hammer-head dilated his yellow irides; the purple dog-fish made a +low purring huzza; and the spotted eyes of the monk-fish glistened +with satisfaction. The hound-shark, the basking-shark, and the +port-beagle were not less loyal; and these, the most perfectly +organized of my cartilaginous tribes, handed me over to the +deep-swimming Norwegian 'sea-rat.' Thus I kept steadily southward, the +water growing warmer hour by hour, now riding on the serrated snouts +of saw-fishes, now moving in the midst of battalions of sword-fish, +now acknowledged by the great pike, now vaulting above the surface on +the backs of flying-fish, now clinging to the spines of sturgeons, now +passing through illimitable shoals of cod, now borne by the swift +sea-salmon, now dazzled by the golden scales of the carp, now passing +over miles of flat-fish, now hailed by monster conger-eels, now +swimming down files of leering hippocampuses, now received by +congregations of staid aldermanic lobsters. The torpedo telegraphed my +coming to the tribes before, and at last I reached my abode, on the +line of the equator, in mid-Atlantic. + +"The magnitude and beauty of my court no mind can realize. A truncated +cone of granitic rock, whose base extended to the profoundest depths +of the sea--even to the region of perpetual fire--formed with its +upper plane a circular lagoon at the surface of the ocean. Geysers or +volcanoes of fresh water gurgled up through the centre of this palace, +and vast submarine groves, intermixed with meadows, extended for +leagues along its sides. My household consisted entirely of silver and +golden carp, but my guards were of the loyal and gentle, yet +courageous and powerful xiphias (sword-fish). These barred the +unlicensed ingress of my subjects, and if the adventurous foot of man +should profane my lagoon, I could close its inlet and cover it with +floods. The dim aisles of the waters were full of wonderful lights: +combinations of colors, unknown above, were here developed in gigantic +_fuci_, around whose boles the scarlet tangle climbed, and parasites +of purple and emerald played upon their rinds. Some of these forests +pointed upward toward the sun; some grew downward, deriving light and +heat from the incandescent gulfs. My state apartments were built of +coral, in wondrous architecture, and trumpet-weed clothed their +battlements. Some cavernous recesses were lit with constellations of +shining zoophytes, and there were floors of pearl, studded with +diamonds. I could stroll through marvellous arch-ways, gathering +jewels at every step, or wander in my royal meadows, among the wrecks +and spoils of hurricanes; or rising through the mellow depths, sit +among the palms of the lagoon, watching the white sails of ships or +studying the awfulness of the storm. + +"For a time I secluded myself, theorizing upon the policy of my +government. My dominions were vast and venerable; they comprehended +two thirds of the surface of the globe; no deluges had destroyed them, +and they had been peopled ages before the coming of man. Life here +inhabited forms, vegetable and animal, to which the greatest +terrestrials were puny. But the darkness which of old rested on the +face of the deep, now shadowed its depths. There was no _mind_ here. +These gigantic beings were shapes without souls. How should I reason +with creatures who could not feel, whose heads could not know till +to-morrow that their members had been severed to-day--some of whom, in +a single moment, passed their whole existences, and fulfilled all the +functions of eating, drinking, and generating--who were not only +incapable of thoughts, affections, and emotions, but who could not +see, smell, hear, taste, or touch? But such subjects are among the +afflictions of all wise rulers, and I resolved to conclude upon +nothing till I had visited every part of my dominions. + +"During three years of travel I classified the fishes anew, all +previous enumeration being paltry, and made the notes and queries +which form the staple of my manuscript. I found fresh-water creatures +to which the sheat-fish would be a morsel, and hydras to which the +fabled sea-serpent would be a worm. I ascended the rivers with the +salmon, and fathomed the motives of the climbing-perch. I heard the +narrative of a _siluris_ tossed out of a volcano, and talked with a +haddock which produced at a birth more young than there are men upon +the globe. I have noted the harlequin-angler, which lived three weeks +in Amsterdam, hopping about on his fins like a toad; the sucking-fish +which adhered to Marc Antony's galley and held it fast; the +horned-fish (_fil en dos_) which the savages discard from their nets +in terror and prayer; and the sprats which rise with vapors into the +clouds, and are rained back into the sea. I have collected the +traditions of many of these beings, and have translated some of their +ballads. There is music under the ocean; but most of the fishes sing +with their fins, beating the water to rude measures. Among the +traditions of all the tribes is that of a time when the waters were +peaceful and the fishes happy, when none were rapacious, when death +was unknown, when no storms lashed the ripples into billows, and when +beings of the upper air bathed at the surface, and the fishes rendered +them homage. But some foul deed of which the finny folk were guiltless +brought confusion into the waters; the ocean covered all the globe, +corpses sank into the depths and were devoured, nets were let down +from above, strange fires were kindled beneath, and whirlpools, +water-spouts, storms, and volcanoes began. + +"I devoted a fourth year to perfecting my system of organic +communication, and made some advance toward developing life in +inorganic matter. From this latter attainment it would be but a step +to _perpetuate_ life, and I should thus restore immortality to man. +But the shark family having threatened to revolt, I left off my +investigations for some months, and organized a military force, with +which I massacred the malcontents till my subjects swam in blood. +Returning victoriously at the head of my legions, a sad incident +occurred. A ship was crossing our line of march, and I had an +unaccountable curiosity to hear something of terrestrial affairs. Five +sawfish, at my bidding, staved in the ship's bottom, and she sank +almost instantly. The corpses of the drowned drifted slowly down, and +as I passed among them, turning up the faces, I recognized in one the +features of my mother! + +"After a season of remorse I continued my investigations, but a novel +and unexpected discovery deranged my plans, and wrought a change in my +destiny. + +"The subtlest forms of matter, as commonly known, are the +imponderables--light, heat, magnetism, and electricity. I had +concluded that these were manifestations of some still subtler form, +and that this was _life_, beyond which lay the ethereal elements +(called _principles_) of mind and soul--soul being ultimate and +eternal. To demonstrate this I resolved to descend as far as possible +into the depths of the sea, and examine the beings which dwelt in the +remotest darkness. The conical shape of my island allowed me to +descend within its shelving interior, and yet sustain no great +atmospheric pressure. I selected a sturgeon, whose body was so +powerfully plated that he could not be crushed, and his long-pointed +shape gave him great facility for penetrating dense waters. I attached +a phosphorescent light to his caudal, that I might not lose him in the +gloom, and he preceded me along the sloping interior. We passed the +foundations of my court, bade adieu to the deep-swimming hydras, left +the profoundest polypi behind, and came at length to uninhabited +regions, three thousand fathoms below the surface. My pioneer here +suffered great inconvenience, and only by the most vigorous efforts +was able to progress at all. The blackness was literally tangible, and +our lantern, at most, only 'darkness visible.' By threat and +persuasion I forced him forward, hardly able to make headway myself. +He swept the almost solid element with his powerful tail, depressed +his sharp snout, sucked a long breath, and we darted forward +simultaneously. There was a cracking as of bones forced together, and +my cranium seemed to split. We shot out of the density into lighter +water, and the momentum carried us fifty fathoms beyond! + +"We had passed out of the limit of solar attraction, and were being +drawn toward the centre of the earth! + +"Before, we had been descending; now, we were rising. The fluid grew +rarer and warmer as we proceeded, the darkness more luminous, and at +last we became visible to each other, swimming in a ruby and +transparent liquid, unlike any aspect or part of our native domain. +The fluid became so rare finally, that the sturgeon was unable to go +farther, kept down by his superior gravity. Some lights glimmering +above us, and some mysterious sounds alarming him, he turned and fled. +I was left alone. + +"I reached the surface of this peaceful sea. A scene lay before me +more beautiful than any wonder of the deep. I knew that I was among +immortals, and that this was 'Happy Archipelago'! + +"The surface was calm. Some purple islets were sprinkled here and +there, and creatures marvellously fair were basking in the roseate +waters. They looked like angels half way out of heaven. Their faces +were of a silvery hue; their hairs shone on the stream like tremulous +beams of light; their eyes were of a tender azure, and their bosoms +rose and fell as if they were all dreaming of blessedness. Some +strains of ravishing harmony that were floating among the islands +ceased when I appeared, and I thought I heard the snapping of a +lute-string. All the spirits started at once. They were +crescent-shaped, and stood upon their nether tips. A star upon their +foreheads shone like a pure diamond. They saw me and vanished! + +"All but one! She was the fairest of the spirits, and looked, thus +frightened, like the pale new moon. The violet veins faded from her +lids, and her blue eyes were full of wonder. I felt as if, for the +first time, a sinless being had looked upon me, and my heart grew so +black and heavy that I sank a little way. I feared to breathe, for she +might vanish. I wished to lie forever with her face shining upon me. +What were science, and dominion, and the secret of man's immortality +to one pure glance like hers? In the agony of my soul I spoke: +'Spirit! Immortal! Woman! O stay! Speak to me!' + +"'Who are you? Whence do you come? You are not of us, nor of our +element.' + +"The voice was like a disembodied sound, coming from nothing, floating +in space eternally. + +"'I am a creature of a cursed race--ruler of a blighted domain--a +realm filled with violence: it lies beneath you.' + +"The pale face grew tender; the star on the forehead grew dim, like a +tearful eye. She pitied me. + +"'There are beings above us,' she said, 'winged beings, that talk with +us sometimes; but nothing below. Are _they_ sorrowful as you are? Are +their brows all heavy with sadness like yours? Why are they unhappy?' + +"I wept and moaned. + +"'They have not your pure eyes; they cannot hear your voice. They have +sinned.' + +"She glided toward me. I felt my gray hairs dropping one by one; my +heavy heart grew light; my groans softened to sighs. + +"A shape came suddenly between us. + +"I knew the long green locks, and the glossy neck. It was Tethys who +spoke. 'Man,' she said, 'you were made one of us, not one of these. Go +back to your domain, for you are mortal. Resume dominion over the +fish, or, striving to win more, lose all!' + +"I turned my face seaward bitterly. I looked back once; the blue eyes +were gleaming--oh, so tenderly!--and I could not go. I muttered an +execration at my bitter fate. Straightway the sky rocked, the sea +rose, the pale star vanished. I had spoken a wicked word. + +"I was consigned to Euripius, the divinity of whirlpools. In vain I +struggled in his watery arms; the swift current bore me circling away, +and finally whirled me with frightful velocity. My feet were shaken +asunder, my integument softened, my brain reeled. I was passed from +eddy to eddy; I became drunken with emotion; I suffered all the +tortures of the lost. A waterspout lifted me from the clutch of the +sea, and deposited me upon the dry land, close to the home of my +infancy. + +"I have passed the weary hours of my penance in arranging the memoirs +which follow. Science has again wooed me with her allurements; the +stars continue their correspondence. I have not despaired of the great +secret of immortality; and though these hairs are few and white, I +shall be rejuvenated in the tranquil depths of the water, and reassert +for ages my rightful dominion over the fish!" + +I was in doubt whether to laugh or wonder when the Ancient Mariner +concluded; but I was relieved from passing judgment upon his article +by the unceremonious entrance of a tall, lithe, gray-eyed person, who +wore gold seals and carried a thick walking-stick. The naturalist +appeared to be bent on diving through the floor, and swimming away +through the cellar; but he caught the stern, keen eye of the stranger +and cowered. The tall man lifted his cane, and struck the manuscript +out of his Highness's hands; he demolished the microscope at a blow, +and flung the geological hammer out of the window. + +"Come along," he said. "No! drop that trash--every article of it, or +else you'll be experimenting again. Come along!" + +They went away together, leaving my office littered with broken glass +and sea-shells. With some astonishment I followed through the +warehouse to the street; they had entered a carriage and were driving +rapidly away. The next morning's paper explained the whole occurrence +in the following paragraph: + +"_Much Learning hath made him mad._--Yesterday noon an elderly lunatic, +named Robert Jones, committed suicide by leaping over the parapet of +London Bridge. He was in the custody at the time of Dr. Stretveskit, the +celebrated keeper of the Asylum for Monomaniacs. He had been at large +some days, and was traced to several publishing-houses, whither he had +gone to contrive the publication of some insane vagaries. He was finally +overhauled at the office of Spry, Stromboli & Co., and placed in a +carriage; but seizing a favorable moment when travel was impeded upon +the bridge, he burst through the glass door and cleared the parapet at a +bound. Jones was an adventurous and dangerous character. Some years ago +he set fire to the Shrimpshire Asylum, where his family had confined +him, and went abroad upon a whale-ship; but meeting with an accident, he +underwent the process of trepanning and came home more crazy than +before. At one time he attempted to drown his mother, in furtherance of +some strange experiment; but it was thought at the date of his death +that he was recovering his wits. Among his delusions was a strange +one--that he had been made viceroy over all the fishes. His body has not +been recovered." + +I read the last sentence with a thrill. My late visitor might even now +be presiding at some finny council; and as I should have occasion to +cross the sea some day, an untimely shipwreck might place me in closer +relations with him. I determined, therefore, to print the manuscript +which remained in my hands. May it appease his Mightiness, the King of +the Fishes! + + + + +THE CIRCUIT PREACHER. + + + His thin wife's cheek grows pinched and pale with anxiousness intense; + He sees the brethren's prayerful eyes o'er all the conference; + He hears the Bishop slowly call the long "Appointment" rolls, + Where in His vineyard God would place these gatherers of souls. + + Apart, austere, the knot of grim Presiding Elders sit; + He wonders if some city "Charge" may not for him have writ? + Certes! could they his sermon hear on Paul and Luke awreck, + Then had his talent ne'er been hid on Annomessix Neck! + + Poor rugged heart, be still a pause, and you, worn wife, be meek! + Two years of banishment they read far down the Chesapeake! + Though Brother Bates, less eloquent, by Wilmington is wooed, + The Lord that counts the sparrows fall shall feed His little brood. + + "Cheer up! my girl, here Brother Riggs our circuit knows 'twill please. + He raised three hundred dollars there, besides the marriage fees. + What! tears from us who preached the word these thirty years or so? + Two years on barren Chincoteague, and two in Tuckahoe? + + "The schools are good, the brethren say, and our Church holds the wheel; + The Presbyterians lost their house; the Baptists lost their zeal. + The parsonage is clean and dry; the town has friendly folk,-- + Not half so dull as Murderkill, nor proud like Pocomoke. + + "Oh! Thy just will, our Lord, be done, though these eight seasons more, + We see our ague-crippled boys pine on the Eastern Shore, + While we, Thy stewards, journey out our dedicated years + Midst foresters of Nanticoke, or heathen of Tangiers! + + "Yea! some must serve on God's frontiers, and I shall fail, perforce, + To sow upon some better ground my most select discourse; + At Sassafras, or Smyrna, preach my argument on 'Drink,' + My series on the Pentateuch, at Appoquinimink. + + "Gray am I, brethren, in the work, though tough to bear my part; + It is these drooping little ones that sometimes wring my heart, + And cheat me with the vain conceit the cleverness is mine + To fill the churches of the Elk, and pass the Brandywine. + + "These hairs were brown, when, full of hope, ent'ring these holy lists, + Proud of my Order as a knight--the shouting Methodists-- + I made the pine woods ring with hymns, with prayer the night-winds shook, + And preached from Assawaman Light far north as Bombay Hook. + + "My nag was gray, my gig was new; fast went the sandy miles; + The eldest Trustees gave me praise, the fairest sisters smiles; + Still I recall how Elder Smith of Worten Heights averred. + My Apostolic Parallels the best he ever heard. + + "All winter long I rode the snows, rejoicing on my way; + At midnight our revival hymns rolled o'er the sobbing bay; + Three Sabbath sermons, every week, should tire a man of brass-- + And still our fervent membership must have their extra class! + + "Aggressive with the zeal of youth, in many a warm requite + I terrified Immersionists, and scourged the Millerite; + But larger, tenderer charities such vain debates supplant, + When the dear wife, saved by my zeal, loved the Itinerant. + + "No cooing dove of storms afeard, she shared my life's distress, + A singing Miriam, alway, in God's poor wilderness; + The wretched at her footstep smiled, the frivolous were still; + A bright path marked her pilgrimage, from Blackbird to Snowhill. + + "A new face in the parsonage, at church a double pride!-- + Like the Madonna and her babe they filled the 'Amen-side'-- + Crouched at my feet in the old gig, my boy, so fair and frank, + Naswongo's darkest marshes cheered, and sluices of Choptank. + + "My cloth drew close; too fruitful love my fruitless life outran; + The townfolk marvelled, when we moved, at such a caravan! + I wonder not my lads grew wild, when, bright, without the door + Spread the ripe, luring, wanton world--and we, within, so poor! + + "For, down the silent cypress aisles came shapes even me to scout, + Mocking the lean flanks of my mare, my boy's patched roundabout, + And saying: 'Have these starveling boors, thy congregation, souls, + That on their dull heads Heaven and thou pour forth such living coals? + + "Then prayer brought hopes, half secular, like seers by Endor's witch: + Beyond our barren Maryland God's folks were wise and rich; + Where climbing spires and easy pews showed how the preacher thrived, + And all old brethren paid their rents, and many young ones wived! + + "I saw the ships Henlopen pass with chaplains fat and sleek; + From Bishopshead with fancy's sails I crossed the Chesapeake; + In velvet pulpits of the North said my best sermons o'er-- + And that on Paul to Patmos driven, drew tears in Baltimore. + + "Well! well! my brethren, it is true we should not preach for pelf-- + (I would my sermon on Saint Paul the Bishop heard himself!) + But this crushed wife--these boys--these hairs! they cut me to the core; + Is it not hard, year after year, to ride the Eastern Shore? + + "Next year? Yes, yes, I thank you much! Then my reward may fall! + (That is a downright fair discourse on Patmos and St. Paul!) + So Brother Riggs, once more my voice shall ring in the old lists, + Cheer up, sick heart, who would not die among these Methodists?" + + + + +THE BIG IDIOT. + + +"Sister, thy boy is a big idiot--a very big idiot!" said Gerrit Van +Swearingen, the Schout of New Amstel. Then the Schout struck his long +official staff on the ground, and went off in a grand manner to +frighten debtors. + +The Widow Cloos made no reply, but dropped a couple of tears as she +saw her son, Nanking, shrink away before his uncle's frown and roll +his head in deprecation of such language. + +"My mother," he whispered, "won't the big wild turkeys fly away with +my uncle Gerrit if he calls me such dreadful names?" + +"Nanking," said the widow, kissing the big idiot, "your uncle is a +very great man. I don't know what is greater, unless it is an admiral, +or a stadtholder, or maybe a king!" + +"Yes," conceded Nanking, "he is a dreadfully great man. He puts +drunken Indians in the stocks and ties mighty smugglers up to the +whipping-pump. But Saint Nicholas will punish him if he calls me an +idiot." + +"Ah! Nanking," replied the widow, "nothing can curb your +uncle--neither the valiant Captain Hinoyossa, nor the puissant +director of every thing, great Beeckman, nor hardly Pietrus Stuyvesant +himself." + +"I know who can frighten him," exclaimed the big idiot. "Santa Claus! +He's bigger than a schout. Mother, his whip-lash can reach clear over +New Amstel--isn't it so? How many deers and ponies does he drive? Will +he bring me any thing this year?" + +"My poor son!" said the poor mother, "we are so far from Holland and +so very humble here, that Saint Nicholas may forget us this year; but +God will watch over us!" + +Nanking could hardly comprehend this astonishing statement: that Saint +Nicholas could ever forget little boys anywhere. So he went out by the +river to think about it. There were three or four Swedish boys out +there rolling marbles and playing at jack-stones. They did not like to +play with Dutch boys, but Nanking was only a big idiot, and they did +not harbor malice against him. + +"_He! Zoo!_" they cried; "wilt thou play?" + +"Yes, directly. But tell me, Peter Stalcop, and you, Paul Mink, do the +very poorest little boys in Sweden get nothing on Christmas?" + +"_Ah, Zon der tuijfel!_ without doubt," cried the boys. "Old Knecht +Clobes, your Santa Claus, is a bad man. That is why he gave the Dutch +our country here. And in Sweden, too, he turns people to wolves, and +brothers and sisters tear each other to pieces." + +"But not in Holland," exclaimed Nanking. "There he gives the strong +boys skates and the weak boys Canary wine. He brought, one time, long +ago, three murdered boys to life, so that they could eat goose for +Christmas dinner. And three poor maidens, whose lovers would not take +them because they had no marriage portions, found gold on the +window-sill to get them husbands." + +"_Foei! Fus!_ You're lied to, Nanking! There is no good Christmas in +this land." + +Nanking said they were very wicked to doubt true and good things. He +believed every thing, and particularly every thing pleasant. His +mother, whose house was on the river bank, looked out with a fond +sadness as she heard him playing, his heart amongst the little boys, +although he was so big. + +"_Ach! helas!_" she said to herself, "what will become of my dear +man-lamb? He is simple and fatherless, poor and confiding. Thank God, +at least he is not a woman!" + +The Widow Cloos had come but recently from Holland, sent out by +charity at the instance of her brother, Van Swearingen, the schout or +bailiff of New Amstel colony. Her son, who was almost a man in years, +had been kept in the Orphan House at Amsterdam until his growth made +him a misplaced object there, and his feeble intellect forbade that he +should become a soldier, and die, like his father, in the Dutch +battles. So the Widow Cloos brought Nanking out in the ship Mill, to +the city of Amsterdam's own colony on the banks of the South River, +which the English called the Delaware. They came in a starving time, +when the crops were drenched out by rains and all the people and the +soldiery of the fort were down with bilious and scarlet fever. The +widow was just getting over a long attack of this illness, and her +brother, the schout, regarded the innocent Nanking as the cause of her +poverty. + +"Thou hadst better drown him," said the hard official; "he'll eat all +thy substance or give the remainder away, for he believes every thing +and everybody." + +"O brother!" pleaded the widow, "if he did not believe something, how +sad would he be! All the children love him, and he is company for +them." + +It was an odd sight to see Nanking down with the boys, as big as the +father of any of them, playing as gently as the littlest. He rode them +pig-a-back on his broad shoulders; they liked to see him light his +pipe and smoke without getting sick. He worked for his mother, +carrying water and catching fish, and was the only person in New +Amstel (or Newcastle) who could go out into the woods fearlessly among +the Minquas Indians; for the Indians all believed that feeble-minded +people were the Great Spirit's especial friends, and saw beyond the +boundaries of this world into that better heaven where shad ran all +the year in the celestial rivers, and the oysters walked upon the +land to be eaten. Nanking believed all this, too. It was his confiding +nature which made him useless for worldly business. Hobgoblins and +genii, charms and saints, and whatever he had heard in earnest, he +held in earnest to be true. + +"Dear me!" thought Nanking, when he was done playing marbles, "can't I +be of use to somebody? Perhaps if I could do something useful my uncle +would not think me a big idiot. Then, besides, little Elsje Alrichs +might let me be her sweetheart and carry her doll!" + +Elsje was the daughter of Peter Alrichs, the late great director's +son, whose father slept in the graveyard of the little log church on +Sand Hook, beside Dominie Welius, the holy psalm-tune leader. Nanking +believed that when the weathercock on the church tingled in the wind, +it was Dominie Welius in the grave striking his tuning-fork to catch +the key-note. Peter Alrichs inherited the well-cleared farm of his +papa, and had the best estate in all New Amstel except Gerrit Van +Swearingen, who was accused of getting rich by smuggling, peculating, +and slave-catching. Little Elsje liked Nanking, but her father too, +said he was a big idiot. So Nanking had a hard time. + +"Elsje," cried Nanking one day, "don't tell anybody if I give you a +secret." + +"No, big sweetheart!" + +"I'm going to catch a stork!" + +"We don't have storks in New Netherlands, Nanking." + +"That's just where I'm going to be smart," exclaimed Nanking. "Because +there are no storks here I'm going to catch one. Then uncle Gerrit +cannot call me a big idiot." + +Elsje gave Nanking her doll to hold. He sat there as big as a soldier, +and handled the doll tenderly; for he believed it to be alive as much +as she did, and she was a little girl. + +"In Holland," said Nanking, "there is a stork on every happy chimney. +The farmers put a wagon-wheel on the chimney-top, and along comes your +stork and his family, and they build a nest on the wagon-wheel. There +it is, Elsje, all twigs and grass, warm as pie, heated by the +chimney-fire, and such a squawking you never heard. It keeps the devil +away! The old stork sits up on one long straight leg, and with the +other foot he hands the worms around to the family. I used to sit down +and watch them by the hour in that other Amstel where ours gets its +name." + +"By the great city of Amsterdam?" asked Elsje. + +"That's it. In Amstel, the suburb of Amsterdam, where you can see such +beautiful ships from all parts of the world. If I get a stork for our +chimney may I hold your doll another day?" + +"Yes, Nanking, and I'll give you a kiss." + +Nanking told his mother next day that he was going to the woods, and +not to cry if he did not return at dark. The Widow Cloos kissed him, +and saw him go happily up the street. + +"_Om licht en donker!_" she moaned. "Between the hawk and the buzzard! +Poor, simple son! The Indians may kill him, but here he will only get +his uncle's curse!" + +Nanking walked out through the little settlement of log and brick, and +past the court-house, where the stocks and whipping-post were always +standing. He saw his uncle Van Swearingen's smart dwelling, with its +end to the street and notched gables, and many panes in its glazed +windows, and two front doors, and large iron figures in front, telling +the date his uncle built it. A little way off was the fine residence +of Peter Alrichs, with a balcony on the roof where the family sat of +evenings, smoking their pipes and seeing starlight come out on the +river and the flag drop at sunset from Fort Casimir; or hearing the +roll of drums as they changed the guard or fired a gun to overhaul a +vessel. + +"If I get a stork and bring it back," thought Nanking, "won't I +astonish this town? It'll be proclaimed, I expect, in a public manner, +that Nanking Cloos is no longer the big idiot." + +The woods closed round New Amstel not very far from the houses, and +only an Indian path led on through the strong timber or marshy copse. +Nanking was unarmed and not afraid. He walked until long after sun-up, +and waded the headwater swamps of Christine Kill, until he saw before +him the hills of Chisopecke rise blue and wooded, and there he knew +the Minquas kept their fort. But the Minquas had no storks. He turned +the first and second of these hills and then crossed the range and +descended to the rain-washed country on the other side, where, amid +the low sparse pines on the lonely barrens, he could walk more +readily, guided south-westward by the proceeding sun. The fierce +Susquehannocks dwelt beyond the next high range, and Nanking had heard +from other Indians that they only had some storks. Fierce Indians they +were, but all Indians had been good to Nanking; so he advanced right +merrily, and at the crossing of the second river snaked a fish out of +the water with his line and made a fire with his flint and punk-wood +to cook it. When he had finished his meal he looked up and was +surrounded by Indians. + +They were fierce, grave Indians, armed with spears and bows. Although +they looked angry, Nanking wiped his mouth on his ragged sleeve and +saluted them all kindly--shaking hands. He perceived that they formed +around him closely, in front and rear, but he was not suspicious on +this account. The Indians marched him over a long range of very high +hills and stopped at a place where, through the timber, could be seen +a noble bay. + +"It is Chisopecke Bay," cried Nanking gladly, "and there, they say, +are storks and plentiful geese. I suppose, when we come to a proper +place, these Indians will ask me what I want." + +The Indians turned down from the bay-view, backward, by another trail, +and entered a very rocky glen, where rocks as big as the houses of New +Amstel were strewn all over the country-side. Following downward, by a +dangerous way like stair-steps, they entered at length a small shady +amphitheatre, where a waterfall plunged down a gorge and foamed and +thundered. Nanking fairly danced with delight. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I have seen paintings of cascades in Holland, but +nothing like this. My mother and Elsje must come here." + +The Indians, now present in great numbers, looked at Nanking dancing +and laughing with the greatest wonder, but still they were far from +affable. After a while they began to sit around in a large circle and +sing a doleful sort of tune. Then two Indians produced a long piece of +grapevine and tied one end of it to a tree and the other end around +Nanking's wrists, which were fastened together behind his back. A fire +had already been lighted at the foot of the tree, and the coals were +now strewn over the ground. + +"_Hond mold!_ Keep courage!" thought Nanking. "It is only some kind of +play or game. How can I get a stork from them unless I play with +them?" + +But the Indians still sung their doleful tune and did not laugh a bit. +The month was December, and the fire, at first grateful, grew +unreasonably warm. At last Nanking trod on a hot coal, which burnt his +old shoe through, and raised a blister on his heel. + +"Such a game as this I never learned in Amsterdam or New Amstel," +thought Nanking, laughing good-naturedly; "I guess I will cut it short +by riding one of their boys pig-a-back." + +So he picked out a young Indian with his roving eye, one perhaps +sixteen years old, and, darting upon him, lifted the Indian boy up in +powerful arms and carried him around the fiery circle. The young brave +struggled in vain. Nanking clinched his big fingers around the Indian +and dandled him like a baby. The effect upon the Indians in the +circle was exciting; they seized their spears, stopped their singing, +and rushed upon their guest with apparent or assumed fury. + +"_Ha! herfe!_" cried Nanking, "I have changed the monotony of this +game, anyhow!" + +At this moment an old Indian woman, the mother of the boy whom Nanking +had desired to amuse, threw herself between the upraised spears and +the laughing widow's son. She shouted something very earnestly, and +then stretched herself at Nanking's feet. All the other Indians also +flung themselves down in fear or revulsion of feeling, and some +crawled in another minute to where the burning coals were strewn over +the sward, and with their fingers or with tree-boughs returned these +coals to the fire, while others quenched the fire itself with water +from the torrent. Nanking had never lost his temper. He put the young +Indian down and kissed him, and shook hands with one after another, +who only rose as he approached them with a kind countenance. They +unbound his hands and overwhelmed him with attentions and professions, +and placed their fingers on their foreheads significantly, still +looking at him. + +"Well," exclaimed Nanking, "I hope they also don't take me for a big +idiot! No, they do not. It is only a part of the queer game." + +It was now growing late in the day, and Nanking wanted some food. The +Susquehannocks produced nuts, venison, fish, hominy, and succotash. +Their formerly savage countenances beamed confidence and +consideration. Nanking expressed his wishes by signs. He wanted a +great, long-legged, long-winged bird, a stork, to carry back alive to +New Amstel. The Indian chiefs conferred, and finally replied, by signs +and assurances, that they had such a bird, but that it would take two +whole days to procure one. + +"Very well," thought Nanking, "I may as well stay here until I get it, +and not return home like a fool. My mother will trust in God, if not +in Saint Nicholas, and I trust in both. Elsje will not forget me at +any time!" + +All the next day Nanking played ball and bandy with the Susquehannock +boys, and taught them jack-stones and how to make a shuttlecock. They +put eagle's feathers in his hair, and the old men adopted him into +their tribe. On the third day the absent Indians returned with a +stork. It was a white stork with a red bill and plenty of stork's +neck, but short legs. Nanking doubted if it could stand on one leg on +the top of a chimney and feed worms around to the young stork family, +but he felt very proud and happy. The whole tribe seemed to have +assembled to see Nanking go away. He had become the friend of all the +boys and women and the _protege_ of the tall warriors. They placed his +stork in a canoe, and in a second canoe following it were a couple of +large deers freshly killed, which he was to take to his mother as the +gift of the fierce Susquehannocks. Amid the cheers and adieus of the +nation the two canoes pushed off and, entering the broad bay, paddled +up a river under the side of a bar of blue mountains, until the river +dwindled to a mere creek, and finally its navigation ceased +altogether. By signs upon the head of the dead stag, indicating a +larger deer, Nanking knew they were at the "Head-of-Elk" River. His +fierce friends left him here with many professions of apology and +esteem, and soon after they departed Swedes and Minquas appeared, who +had observed the hostile canoes from their lookout stations on the +neighboring hills. These also welcomed Nanking, being already well +acquainted with him, and taking up his venison proceeded through the +woods toward New Amstel. He carried the live stork himself--a rough +bird, which would not yield to blandishments or good treatment. After +a very fatiguing journey and four days' absence from home, Nanking +entered New Amstel in the dead of night. + +"To-morrow," he thought, "I shall be repaid for all this. They will +say, 'Nanking Cloos is the smartest man in the colony of New Amstel.' +Perhaps I shall be a burgomaster, and eat terrapin stewed in Canary +wine!" + +Nanking was up betimes, looking at the chimneys on his mother's +dwelling, of which there were two, and both were the largest chimneys +in New Amstel. The Widow Cloos lived in a huge log building with brick +ends, long and rather low, which had been built by the commissary of +the colony at the expense of the city of Amsterdam as a magazine of +food and supply for her colonists; but after several years of +unprofitable experiment with the colony, it was resolved to give no +more provisions away, and the director, great Captain Hinoyossa, when +Van Swearingen became the schout, allowed the latter's sister to +inhabit one end of the warehouse, and that the farthest end from the +water. The rest was uninhabited, and Nanking, looking at the chimney +which surmounted the river gable, said to himself: + +"That will never do for my stork, as there is no fire lighted there. I +never saw smoke from that chimney in my life. The stork requires a +nest where there is heat, and plenty of it." + +He therefore prepared to climb to the chimney on the land-side and +establish a nest. There was a broken cart-wheel in the warehouse, +which Nanking procured and drew to the roof, and when daylight broke +upon the town the earliest loungers and fishermen saw the happy +simpleton working like a chimney-sweep, as they thought, except that +instead of brushing he was piling brush around the chimney on the +cart-wheel. His mother came out and looked joy to see him back; the +soldiers strolled down from the fort and the boys and women from the +town. Uncle Van Swearingen was there, smiting the ground with his +shodden staff, and ejaculating, "_Foei! weg! fychaam u!_ Fie! leave +off! fie on you! What absurdity is this on the property of our +_hoofstad_, our metropolis?" + +"Never mind, uncle!" answered the beaming Nanking. "I have been a +great man in the last few days. I have lived among the fierce +Susquehannocks. Presently you shall see something that you shall see!" + +Peter Alrichs also came down to the quay with his pretty daughter, who +could no longer keep her secret. "Good Nanking," she whispered, "is +building a nest for a real stork. He has found one, just like the dear +creatures in Holland!" + +The news was presently dispersed, and all felt an interest, until +finally Nanking produced his stork. + +"It is like a stork, indeed!" uttered Peter Alrichs; "'tis big as one, +too, but its wings are all white!" + +"'Tis a stork, _yah, op myne eer_! Upon my honor, it is!" muttered +uncle Van Swearingen. + +"Nanking is not an idiot, papa!" said Elsje, overjoyed. + +The widow was delighted at the enterprise of her son. + +When Nanking had carried the great bird to the nest he made a little +speech: + +"Worshipful masters and good people all, I have been at great pains to +get this stork, not for my own gratification entirely, though there +are some here I expect to please particularly. (He looked at Elsje and +his mother.) This stork will pick up the offal and eat it, and we +shall have no more bad fevers here for want of a good scavenger. By +and by he will bring more storks, and they will multiply; and every +house, however humble, shall have its own stork family to ornament the +chimney-top and remind us of our dear native land. I have done all +this good with the hope of being useful, and now I hope nobody will +call me wicked names any more." + +Nanking cut the fastenings on the bird and set it on the new-made +nest. In a minute the stork stood up on its short legs, poked its +beautiful head and neck into the air, and with its wings struck +Nanking so heavy a blow that it knocked him off the roof of the house, +but happily the fall did not hurt him. As he arose the huge bird was +spreading its wings for flight. Before Nanking could climb the ladder +again, it was sailing through the air, magnificent as a ship, toward +its winter pastures on the bay of Chisopecke. + +"_He! Zoo!_" exclaimed the soldiers. + +"_Foei! weg!_" cried the fishermen. + +Only three persons said "_Ach! helas!_"--the Widow Cloos, pretty +Elsje, and Nanking. + +"Thy stork is a savage bird!" cried Peter Alrichs. "The English on the +Chisopecke name it a _swan_!" + +Nanking burst into tears. His uncle struck the ground with his +schout's staff, swore dreadfully, and shouted to the Widow Cloos: + +"Sister, thy boy is nothing but a big idiot. Thou hadst better drown +him, as I told thee!" + +Nothing could equal the mortification of Nanking. He thought he would +die of grief. He was now known to be more of an idiot than ever, and +the fickle Miss Elsje would not let him hold her doll for a whole +week. + +"My poor son," entreated the widow, "do not pine and lose courage! The +venison will feed us half the winter. You can help me smoke it and dry +it. Do not give up your sweet simple faith, my boy! As long as you +keep that we are rich!" + +The next day Schout Van Swearingen, the great dignitary, came in and +said to Nanking: "As you are a big idiot and good for nothing else, I +will give you an office. Even there you will be a failure, for you are +too simple to steal any thing." + +Nanking's mother was happy to hear this, and to see her son in a +linsey-woolsey coat with large brass buttons, and six pairs of +breeches--the gift of the city of Amsterdam--stride up the streets of +New Amstel, with copper buckles in his shoes and his hair tied in an +eel-skin queue. The schout, his uncle, who was sheriff and chief of +police in one, marched him up to the jail and presented him with a +beautiful plaything--a handle of wood with nine leather whip-lashes +upon the end of it. "Your duties will be light," said the schout. +"Every man you flog will give your mother a fee. Come here with me and +begin your labors!" + +In the open space before the jail and _stadt huys_ were a pair of +stocks and a whipping-post. Nanking's uncle released a rough but +light-built man, who had been sitting in the stocks, and taking off +the man's jacket and shirt, fastened him to the post by his wrists. + +"Give this culprit fifty lashes, well laid on!" ordered the schout. + +Nanking turned pale. "Must I whip him? What has he been doing that he +is wicked?" + +"Smuggling!" exclaimed Schout Van Swearingen. "He has taken advantage +of the free port of New Amstel to smuggle to the Swedes of Altona and +New Gottenburg, and the English of Maryland. Mark his back well!" + +The sailor, as he seemed to be, looked at Nanking without fear. "Come, +earn your money," he said. + +"Uncle," cried Nanking, throwing down the whip, "how can I whip this +man who never injured me? Do not all the people smuggle in New Amstel? +Was it not to stop that which brought the mighty Director Stuyvesant +hither with the great schout of New Amsterdam, worshipful Peter +Tonneman? Yes, uncle, I have heard the people say so, and that you +have smuggled yourself ever since your superior, the glorious Captain +Hinoyossa, sailed to Europe." + +"Ha!" exclaimed the bold smuggler. "Van Swearingen, _dat is voor u_! +That is for you!" + +"_Vore God_!" exclaimed the schout; "am I exposed and mocked by this +idiot?" + +He took up the whip and beat Nanking so hard that the strong young man +had to disarm his uncle of the instrument. Then, stripped of his fine +clothes and restored to his rags, Nanking was returned with contempt +to his mother's house. + +"Mother!" he cried, throwing himself upon the floor, "am I an idiot +because I cannot hurt others? No, I will be a fool, but not +whip-master!" + +The shrewd Peter Alrichs came to the widow's abode and asked to see +Nanking. He brought with him the worshipful Beeckman, lord of all +South River, except New Amstel's little territory, which reached from +Christine Hill to Bombay Hook. They both put long questions to +Nanking, and he showed them his burnt heel, still scarred by the +fagots of the Susquehannocks. + +"_Ik houd dat voor waar!_ I believe it is true," they said to each +other. "They were burning him at the stake and he did not know it. +Yes, his feeble mind saved him!" + +"Not at all," protested Nanking. "It was because I thought no evil of +anybody." + +"Hearken, Nanking!" said Peter Alrichs, very soberly. "And you, Mother +Cloos, come hither too. This boy can make our fortunes if we can make +him fully comprehend us." + +"Yah, mynheers!" + +"He can return in safety to the land of the Susquehannocks, where no +other Dutchman can go and live. Thence, down the great river of rocks +and rapids, come all the valuable furs. Of these we Dutch on South +River receive altogether only ten thousand a year. Nanking must take +some rum and bright cloth to his friends, the chiefs, and make them +promise to send no more furs to the English of Chisopecke, but bring +them to Head-of-Elk. There we will make a treaty, and Nanking and +thee, widow, shall have part of our profits." + +"_Zeer wel!_" cried Nanking. "That is very well. But Elsje, may I +marry her, too?" + +"Well," said Peter Alrichs, smiling, "you can come to see her +sometimes and carry her doll." + +"Good enough!" cried Nanking, overjoyed. + +Before Nanking started on his trip, the sailor-man he had refused to +whip walked into his mother's house. + +"Widow Cloos, no doubt," he said, bowing. "Madame, I owe your son a +service. Here are three petticoats and a pair of blue stockings with +red clocks; for I see that your ankles still have a fine turn to +them." + +The widow courtesied low; for she had not received a compliment in +seven years. + +Nanking now began to show his leg also, as modestly as possible. + +"Ah! Nanking," cried the sailor, "I have a piece of good Holland stuff +for you to make you shirts and underclothes. 'Tis a pity so good a boy +has not a rich father; ha! widow?" + +The widow stooped very low again, but had the art to show her ankle to +the best advantage, though she blushed. She said it was very lonely +for her in the New World. + +"Now, Widow Cloos," continued the sailor, "I am Ffob Oothout, at your +service! I am a mariner. Some years ago, when Jacob Alrichs was our +director, I helped to build this great warehouse with my own hands. +They were good men, then, in charge of New Amstel's government. +Thieves and jealous rogues have succeeded them. Would you think it, +they suspect even me, and ordered Nanking to whip me with the cat! But +for Nanking I should have a bloody back at this minute, and you would +be wiping the brine out of it for me, I do not doubt!" + +Nanking had gone out meantime, seeing that he was to get no +clock-stockings. + +"Widow, come hither," said the sailor. "Do you know I like this big +barn of a warehouse. It is my handicraft, you know, and that attaches +me to it. Well, you say nothing to anybody, and let me sleep in the +river end. In a little while the noble veteran, Alexander D'Hinoyosso, +will be due from Holland on the ship Blue Cock. Then we will all have +good protection. In that ship are lots of supplies of mine. Of +evenings we can court and drink liquor of my own mulling. And when +the Blue Cock comes to port you shall have more petticoats and +high-heeled shoes than any beauty in New Amstel." + +Ffob Oothout stole a couple of kisses from the widow, like a bold +sailor-man, and she promised that he should lodge in the river end of +the Amsterdam warehouse. + +For the rest of that afternoon Nanking carried Elsje's beautiful doll, +and his feelings were very much comforted. + +"Big sweetheart," she said, "what a smart man you would be if you +could only make me a bigger doll than this, which would open and shut +its eyes and cry '_fus_; hush!'" + +Nanking left New Amstel at moonlight, at the head of a little +procession, carrying gay cloths and plenty of rum for the +Susquehannocks. The last words Peter Alrichs said to him were: "You +must talk wisely, Nanking. It is a mighty responsibility you have on +this errand. Remember Elsje!" + +Next morning Nanking pushed off in a boat, all alone, from the +Head-of-Elk, and rowed under the blue bar of mountain into the +Chisopecke, and turned up the creek below the rocky mouth of the great +river toward the council-fire retreat of the fierce Susquehannocks. As +he was about to step ashore a band of Englishmen confronted him, with +swords and muskets. + +"Whom art thou?" cried their leader, a stalwart man, with long +mustaches. + +"Only Nanking Cloos, mynheers, who used to be the big idiot of New +Amstel. But," he added, with confidence, "I am now a great man on a +very responsible mission to the Indians. I am to talk much and wisely. +They are to send to New Amstel thousands of furs and peltries, and I +am to give them this rum and finery!" + +"He talks beautifully," exclaimed the English; and the chief man +added: + +"Nanking, I know thee well. Thy mother is the pretty widow in the +house by the river. I am Colonel Utye, who swore so dreadfully when I +summoned New Amstel to surrender. Come ashore, Nanking." + +Nanking felt very proud to be recognized thus and receive such +compliments for his mother. The English poured out a big flagon of +French brandy and gravely drank his health, touching their foreheads +with their thumbs. The brandy elated and exalted Nanking very much. + +"Nanking," said Colonel Utye, "we desire to spare thee a long journey +and much danger. Leave here thy rum and presents, and return to thy +patrons, Alrichs and Beeckman, bearing our English gratitude, and thou +shalt wear a beautiful hat, such as the King of England allows only +his jester to put upon his head." + +Nanking felt very much obliged to these kind gentlemen. They made the +hat of the red cloth he had brought. It was like a tall steeple on a +house, and was at least three feet long. As proud as possible he +re-entered New Amstel on the evening of the day after he left it. It +was now within a few days of Christmas, and the Dutch burghers and +boors, and Swedes, English and Finns, were anticipating that holiday +by assembling at the two breweries which the town afforded, and +quaffing nightly of beer. Beeckman and Alrichs were interested in the +largest brewery, and their beer was sent by Appoquinimy in great +hogsheads to the English of Maryland in exchange for butts of tobacco. + +As Nanking walked into the big room where fifty men were drinking, his +prodigious red hat rose almost to the ceiling, and was greeted by +roars of laughter. + +"_Goeden avond! Hoe yaart gij!_ How do you do, my bully?" + +Nanking bowed politely, and singling out Beeckman and Alrichs, stood +before them with child-like joy. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "I gave all your presents to the noble Colonel +Utye, who sends his deepest gratitude, and presented me with this +exalted cap in acknowledgment of my capacity." + +"Thou idiot!" exclaimed Beeckman; "'tis a dunce's cap!" + +"Dunder and blitzen!" swore Peter Alrichs, "hast thou lost all our +provision and made fools of us, too?" + +They struck the dunce's cap off Nanking's head with their staves, and +threw their beer in his face. + +"Two hundred guilders are we out of pocket," cried both these great +men. "Was ever such a brainless dolt in our possessions?" + +The room rang with the cry, "Incurable idiot!" and Gerrit Van +Swearingen cried louder than any, "Go drown thyself, and spare thy +mother shame!" + +"Then I shall not marry Elsje?" exclaimed Nanking, bursting into +tears. + +"No!" stormed Peter Alrichs; "thou shalt marry a calf. Away!" + +When Nanking arrived home he found his mother sitting very close to +Ffob Oothout. He told his tale with a broken heart. + +"My man," exclaimed the rough sailor, in his kindest tone, but still +very rough, "take this advice from me: Whatever thou believest, tell +it not. Where thy head is weak, hold thy teeth tight. Then thou canst +still have faith in many things, and make no grief." + +The next day the Blue Cock sailed into the roadstead and the fort +thundered a salute. Fort and vessel dipped the tricolor flag of the +States-General and the municipal banner of Amsterdam. Beeckman +surrendered all the country on South River to Hinoyossa, who came +ashore very drunk and very haughty, and threatened to set up an empire +for himself and fit out privateers against the world. + +"Let him lose no time," muttered Ffob Oothout; "the English have +doomed these Western Netherlands!" + +Amidst the festivity Nanking was in a condition of despair. He had +seen Elsje on the street and she turned up her nose at him. Christmas +was only one day off, and Santa Claus, the Swede boys insisted, never +came to the sorrowing shores of New Amstel. + +"My uncle Gerrit was right," thought Nanking. "I had better drown +myself. Yes; I will watch on Christmas eve for Santa Claus. I will +give him plenty of time to come. He is the patron saint of children, +and if he neglects poor, simple boys in this needful place, there is +no truth in any thing. On Christmas morning I will fall into the river +without any noise. My mother will cry, perhaps, but nobody else, and +they will all say, 'It was better that the big idiot should be +drowned; he had not sense enough to keep out of the water.'" + +Nanking spent half the day watching the chimneys of his mother's +house. Both chimneys were precisely alike in form and capacity, and +the largest in the place. But the chimney next the river did not +retain the dark, smoky, red color of the chimney on the land side. + +"No wonder," thought Nanking, "for no fire nor smoke has been made in +that river chimney for years. It almost seems that the bricks therein +are oozing out their color and growing pale and streaked." + +Night fell while he was watching. Nanking hid himself upon the roof of +the house, determined to see if Saint Nicholas ever came to bless +children any more by descending into chimneys, or was only a myth. + +It was a little cold, and under the moonlight the frost was forming on +the marshes and fields. The broad, remorseless river flowed past with +nothing on its tide except the two or three vessels tied to the river +bank, of which the Blue Cock was directly under the widow's great +dwelling. From the town came sounds of revelry and wassail, of singing +and quarrel, and from the church on Sand Hook softer chanting, where +the women were twining holly and laurel and mistletoe. Nanking lay +flat on the roof, with his face turned toward the sky. The moon went +down and it grew very dark. + +"Lord of all things," he murmured, "forgive my rash intention and +comfort my poor mother!" + +The noise of the town died on the night air, and every light went out. +Nanking said to himself, "Is it Christmas at all, out in this lonely +wilderness of the world? Is it the same sky which covers Holland, and +are these stars as gentle as yonder, where all are rich and happy?" + +He heard a noise. A voice whispered, just above the edge of the +chimney on the river gable: "_Fus-s-s! Pas op!_" + +"What is that?" thought Nanking; "somebody saying, 'Hist! be careful?' +Surely I see something moving on the chimney, like a living head." + +The voice whispered again: "_Maak hast! Kom hier!_" Or, "Hasten! Come +here!" + +Nanking raised up and made a noise. + +"_Wie komt, daar_?" demanded the voice, and in a minute repeated: +"_Wie sprecht, daar_?" + +They ask, "Who comes and who speaks?" said Nanking. "Blessed be the +promises of heaven! It is Santa Claus!" + +Then he heard movements at the chimney, and people seemed to be +ascending and descending a ladder. There seemed, also, to be noises on +the deck of the Blue Cock, and sounds of falling burdens and spoken +words: "Maak plaats!" or make room for more. + +"I never heard of Santa Claus stopping so long at one humble house," +thought Nanking. + +After awhile all sounds ceased. Nanking crept to the chimney and +touched it with his hand. It had no opening whatever in the top. + +He felt around this mysterious chimney. "He! Zoo!" he said aloud, +"there is more wood here than brick. 'Tis a false chimney altogether!" + +Then he saw that his close observation had not been at fault. The +chimney over the river gable was a painted chimney, a mere invention. +Yet, surely Santa Claus had been there. + +After a time Nanking opened the top and side of this chimney as if +they were two doors. He found it packed with goods of all kinds--a ton +at least. + +"I will run and awaken my mother," he thought. "But no. Did not Ffob +Oothout tell me to blab no secrets and shut my teeth tight? I will +tell nobody. These costly things are all mine; for there are no other +boys in this whole dwelling but Nanking Cloos, the fatherless idiot!" + +He slipped down and hastened to his boat, which lay in a cove not far +below. Towing it along the bank to a sheltered place convenient, +Nanking began to load up the goods from the chimney. Before daylight +broke he had secured every thing, and hoisting sail was speedily +carried to the island of the Pea Patch, far down the bay--that island +which shone in the offing and seemed to close the river's mouth. Here, +in the wreck of an old galiot, he hid every article dry and secure; +kegs of liquors and wine, shawls and blankets, pieces of silk, +gunpowder, beautiful pipes, bars of silver and copper, and a whole bag +of gold. Nanking covered them with dry driftwood and boughs of trees, +and sailed again to New Amstel, where he arrived before breakfast. + +At breakfast Nanking found upon his bench a beautiful new gun. + +"It is thine, good child," said Ffob Oothout, "for sparing me those +lashes. Thy churlish uncle felt so reproved by thy innocent words that +he set me free. Widow, here is a _spiegel_ for thee, a looking-glass +to see, unseen, whoever passes up or down the street. That is a +woman's high privilege everywhere. Thou shalt be, erelong, the +best-dressed wife in all New Amstel. Nanking, wouldst thou like to +have a father?" + +"I would like you, Ffob Oothout, for a father." + +"Widow," said Ffob, "he has popped the question for me; wilt thou take +an old pirate for thy man?" + +"They are all pirates here," replied the blushing widow, "and thou +art the best pirate or man I have seen." + +"Well, then, when the English conquer this region I have that will +make thee rich. Till then let us wait on the good event, but not delay +the marriage." + +That Christmas Day they were married in form. As the three sat before +the fresh venison and drank wine from the store of the Blue Cock, +Nanking said: + +"Father Ffob, you are wise. Give me yet another word of advice, that I +may not continue to be a big idiot." + +"Trust whom thou wilt, Nanking, yet ever hold thy tongue. If thou hast +now a secret, hold it close. Begin this instant!" + +"Even the secrets of Santa Claus?" + +"Yes, even them." + +Nanking said no more. He found compensation for Elsje's contumely in +his gun, and roved the forests through, and peeped from time to time +at his mystic treasures. + +One day the news came overland that the English had taken New +Amsterdam. Then the great Hinoyossa and uncle Van Swearingen and +Alrichs and Beeckman swore dreadfully, and said they would fight to +the last man. Ffob Oothout went around amongst the Swedes and the +citizen Dutch, and prepared them to take the matter reasonably. + +One day in October of that same wonderful year, 1664, two mighty +vessels of war, flying the English flag, came to anchor off New Amstel +and the fort. They parleyed with the citizens for a surrender, and +Ffob Oothout conducted the negotiations. The citizens were to receive +protection and property. The fort replied by a cannon. Then the +English soldiery landed and formed their veteran lines. They charged +the ramparts and broke down the palisades, and killed three Dutchmen +and wounded ten more. Proclamation was made that New Amstel should for +all the future be named New-_castle_, and that Gerrit Van Swearingen, +the refractory schout, should yield up his noble property to Captain +John Carr, of the invaders, and Peter Alrichs lose every thing for the +benefit of the fortunate William Tom. + +The English soldiery proceeded to make barracks of the Amsterdam +warehouse. The first night they inhabited it they strove to light a +fire under the wooden chimney in the river gable. The chimney caught +fire and burnt out like an old hollow barrel. + +"Wife," exclaimed Ffob Oothout, looking grimly on, "in that chimney +was all my property and thine. Poor boy," he said to Nanking, "we must +all be poor together now." + +"No," cried Nanking, "I have yet the gifts of Santa Claus which I took +from that chimney on the night before Christmas. Yours, father, may be +burnt. Mine are all safe!" + +He sailed his father and mother to the island since called the Pea +Patch, and Ffob Oothout recognized his property. + +"Wonderful Nanking!" he cried, "thy faith was all the wisdom we had. +God protects the simple! Thou art our treasure." + +The great Hinoyossa condignly fled to Maryland. Uncle Van Swearingen +was exported to Holland, and in the dwelling of Peter Alrichs the +family of Ffob Oothout made their abode. + +"Nanking," asked the houseless Alrichs, "is not Elsje pretty yet?" + +"Not as pretty," answered Nanking, "as my little baby sister. I will +carry nobody's doll but hers." + +"Humph!" said Peter Alrichs, "you are not the big idiot I took you +for!" + + + + +A BAYSIDE IDYL. + + + Basking on the Choptank pleasant Cambridge lies + In the humid atmosphere under fluttered skies, + And the oaks and willows their protection fling + Round the court-house cluster and the public spring. + + There the streets are cleanly and they meet oblique, + Forced upon each other by the village creek + Winding round the ancient lawns, till the site appears + Like a moated fortress crumbling down with years. + + Round the town the oysters grow within the coves, + And the fertile cornfields bearing yellow loaves; + And the wild duck flying o'er the parish spire + Fall into the graveyard when the fowlers fire? + + There the old armorial stones dwellers seldom read; + There the ivy clambers like the rankest weed; + There the Cambridge lawyers sometimes scale the wall + To the grave of Helen, loveliest of all. + + Even here the fairest of the little band + Strangers call the fairest girls in Maryland, + Like the peach her color ere its dyes are fast, + And her form as slender as the virgin mast. + + Like a vessel gliding with a net in tow, + Up the street of evenings Helen seemed to flow, + Leaving light behind her and a nameless spell + Murmured in the young men, like an ocean shell. + + Made too early conscious of her power to charm, + Still unconscious ever love of men could harm, + Voices whispered to her: "Beauty rare as thine + Princes in the city never drank in wine! + + "Hide it not in Cambridge! Cross the bay and see + How a world delighted hastes to honor thee. + Seek the fortune-teller and thy future hear; + There is empire yonder; there is thy career!" + + Oh, the sad ambition and the speedy dart! + He, the fortune-reader, read poor Helen's heart; + And a face created for the hearthstone's light-- + Fishers tell its ruin as they scud by night. + + Whisper, whisper, whisper! leaf and wave and grass; + Look not sidewise, maiden, as the place you pass. + If you hear a restless spirit when you pray, + 'Tis the voice that tempted Helen o'er the bay. + + + + +SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S NIGHT. + + +An extraordinary story, some say the recital of a dream, or scenes in +somnambulism, is that of Andrew Waples, of Horntown, Va. He visited +Saratoga twenty years ago, well-to-do, the owner of slaves, sloops, +lands, and fisheries, and visits it now upon an income of $2000 a +year, derived from boiling down fish into phosphates for the midland +markets. He preserves, however, the habit and appearance of old days: +that is to say, his chin is folded away under his lip like a reef in a +mainsail; his cheek-bones hide his ears, so tusky and prominent are +the former, and tipped with a varnish of red, like corns on old folks' +feet; he has a nose which is so long and bony that it seems to have +been constructed in sections, like a tubular bridge, and to +communicate with itself by relays of sensation. A straight, mournful, +twinkling, yet aristocratic man was Andrew Waples, "befo' de waw, sah! +befo' de waw!" + +He had no sooner arrived at Saratoga than he met some ancient boon +companions, who took him off to the lake, exploded champagne, filled +his lungs with cigar-smoke, and sent him to bed, the first night, with +a decided thirst and no occasion to say his prayers. For it was +Andrew's intention, being a mournful man of the Eastern Shore, to pray +on every unusual occurrence. Piety is relative as well as real, but +Andrew Waples on this occasion jumped into bed, said hic and amen, and +"times befo' de waw," and went to sleep in the somnorific air of the +Springs. + +He awoke with a dry throat, a disposition to faint and surrender his +stomach, and an irresistible propensity to walk abroad and drink of +the waters. He looked at his watch: it was two o'clock, and Saturday +night. "Alas!" said Andrew Waples aloud, "the bars are closed. Even +Morrissey has gone to bed, and the club-house is in darkness, but +perhaps I can climb over the gate of some spring company, or find a +fountain uninclosed. Yes, there is the High Rock Spring!" + +He drew on his clothes partly, slipped his feet in slippers, and wrote +on a piece of paper, which he conspicuously posted on the gas bracket: + +"Andrew Waples, Gentleman (befo' de waw), departed from the United +States Hotel, at two o'clock A. M., precisely. If any accident happens +to him, seek at the High Rock Spring, or thereabouts." + +It was a sad, green, ghostly moonlight streaming through the elms as +Andrew Waples walked up Broadway. The moon appeared to be dredging for +oysters amongst the clouds, circling around there by bars, islets, and +shoals. Bits of spotted and mackerel-back sky swam like hosts of +menhaden through the pearly sheen of the more open aerial main. The +leaves of the tall domes and kissing branches of the elms, that peeped +on either side into open windows of people asleep and told across the +street to each other the secrets there, were now themselves heavy as +if with surfeit of gossip and they drooped and hardly rustled. Not a +tipsy waiter lurked in the shadows, not a skylarking couple of darkey +lovers whispered on doorsteps. No birds, nor even crickets, serenaded +the torpid night. The shuffling feet of Andrew Waples barely made +watch-dogs growl in their dreams, and started his own heart with the +concussions they produced on the arborescent and deeply-shadowed +aisles of the after midnight. He saw the town-hall clock pallidly +illuminated above its tower. The low frame villa of Chancellor +Walworth, cowering amongst the pine-trees, expressed the burden of +parricidal blood that had of late oppressed its memories. There were +no murmurs from the court-room where Judge Barnard had been tried, +but its deep silence seemed from the clock to tick: "Removed! +disqualified!" and "Disqualified! removed!" + +Turning from Broadway to lesser streets of cheap hotels and plain +boarding cottages, where weary women and girls had drudged all day +long, and washerwomen moaned and fluting and ruffling were the +amusements of the poor, Andrew Waples became haunted with the idea +that Saratoga was poisoned, that every soul in the village was dead, +and that he was to be the last man of the century to drink of the +Springs. Nature and night were in the swoon of love or death. Parting +their drowsy curtains went Waples through the muffled echoes, impelled +by nothing greater than a human thirst. + +He saw his shadow, at length, fall down the steep stairs of the valley +of High Rock Spring, as he stood at the top of the steps uncovered to +the moon. It was a shadow nearly a hundred feet long, a high-cheeked +head without a chin and all nose, like the profile of a mountain. But +what was extraordinary was the total absence of an abdominal part to +Mr. Waples' exaggerated shadow, for he distinctly saw a young +maple-tree, in perfect moonlight, grow through the cavity where his +stomach ought to have been. + +"I must be hollow," said Andrew, as he looked,--"the frame of a +stomach removed; for surely my whole figure is in blackness, except my +bread-basket." But his fears were dissipated by the sound of voices, +of glasses clinking and water running, and the evident semblance of +life at the High Rock Spring in the ravine beneath, to which the steep +stairs descended. At the same moment he descried another shadow +propelled alongside his own, as if from some far distance in the rear +a human object was slowly advancing to stand beside him. + +There were very old wooden houses around this precipice or promontory +of Saratoga, some of them a hundred years old, and decrepit and in +ruins; for here, at the High Rock, was the original fountain of the +village. As if from the cover of one of these old and decaying +tenements came a person of venerable aspect, with a tray of glasses +fastened to the top of a staff, like a great caster of bottles on a +broomstick. As this person stood by the side of Andrew Waples, and +planted his staff on the top step of the stairs, his prolonged shadow, +falling in the valley, gave him the appearance of a gigantic Neptune, +with a trident in his hand. + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Mr. Waples, "are you a town scavenger, to be up at +this time of the clock?" + +The man replied, after a very curious and explosive sound of his lips, +like the extraction of a cork from a bottle, "No, sir; I'm only the +Great Dipper." + +"Very good," resumed Mr. Waples. "Then, perhaps, you'll explain to me +a very great optical delusion, or tell me that I'm drunk. Do you see +our two shadows as they fall yonder on the ground, and amongst the +tree-tops? Now, if I have any eyes in my head, there is a stomach in +your shadow and no stomach whatever in mine." + +"Quite right," answered the Great Dipper. "You are the mere rim of a +former stomach. Abdominally, you are defunct." + +Andrew Waples put his hand instinctively where his stomach was +presumed to be, and he saw the hand of his shadow distinctly imitate +the motion, and repeat it through his empty centre. + +"This is Sir William Johnson's night," remarked the Great Dipper. "We +have a large company of guests on this anniversary, and no gentleman +is admitted with a stomach, nor any lady with a character. My whole +force of dippers is on to-night, and I must be spry." + +As the venerable man spoke, and ceased to speak, exploding before and +after each utterance, it occurred to Mr. Waples that his voice had a +sort of mineral-water gurgle, which was very refreshing to a thirsty +man's ears. He followed, therefore, down the flight of rickety stairs +and stood in the midst of a promenading party of many hundred people, +variously dressed and in the costumes of several generations. + +The canopy or pavilion of the spring, which, like a fairy temple, +seemed to have been exhaled from in bubbles, was yet capped, as in the +broad light of day, by a gilded eagle, from whose beak was suspended a +bottle of the water, and no other light was shed upon the scene than +the silver and golden radiance emitted together from this bottle, as +if ten thousand infinitely small goldfish floated there in liquid +quicksilver. The spring itself, flowing over its ancient mound of +lime, iron and clay, like the venerable beard over the Arabian +prophet's yellow breast, shed another light as if through a veil +fluttered the molten fire of some pulsating crater. The whole scene of +the narrow valley, the group of springs, the sandy walks, dark +foliage, and in closing ridges took a pale yellow hue from the +effervescing water and the irradiant bottle in the eagle's beak. The +people walking to and fro and drinking and returning, all carried +their hands upon their stomachs or sides, and sighed amidst their +flirtations. Mr. Waples saw, despite their garments, which represented +a hundred years and more of all kinds, from Continental uniforms and +hunting shirts to brocades, plush velvets, and court suits, that not a +being of all the multitude contained an abdomen. He stopped one large +and portly man, who was carried on a litter, and said: + +"Have you a window through you, too, old chap?" + +"'Sh!" exclaimed one of the supporters of the litter, who wore the +feathers and attire of an Indian. "'Tis Sir William Johnson--he who +receives to-night." + +"Young man," exclaimed that great and first of Indian agents, "this is +the spot where all people come to find their stomachs. Mine was lost +one hundred and ten years ago. The Mohawks, my wards, then brought me +through the forest to this spot. Faith! I was full of gout and humors, +and took a drink from a gourd. One night in the year I walk from +purgatory and quench my thirst at this font. The rest of the year I +limp in the agonies of dyspepsia." + +A large and short-set woman was walking in one of the paths, wearing +almost royal robes, and her train was held up by a company of young +gallants, some of whom whistled and trolled stanzas of foreign music. +"Can you tell me her name!" asked Waples, speaking to a bystander. + +"It is Madame Rush, the daughter of the banker who rivalled Girard. +She was a patroness of arts and letters in her day, full of +sentiment." + +"But disguised in a stomacher!" interrupted our friend. The lady +passed him as he spoke, and, looking regretfully in his face, +murmured: + +"Avoid hot joints for supper! Terrapin must crawl again. Drink nothing +but claret. Adieu!" + +"Really," thought Andrew Waples, "this is a sort of mass meeting of +human picture-frames. But here is one I know by his portrait--the +god-like head, the oxen eyes, the majestic stalk of Daniel Webster." +He was about to address this massive figure, when it turned and looked +upon him with rolling orbs like diamonds in dark caves. + +"Brandy," said the great man, "'tis the drink of a gentleman, and the +stimulus of oratory. But public life requires a thousand stomachs. Who +could have saved the Constitution on only one?" + +"Poor ghost!" thought Andrew Waples. "Yet here is a milder man, also +of mighty girth, like the frame of a mastodon, transparent. Your name, +my friend?" + +"John Meredith Clayton, of Delaware! I filled my paunch of midnights +with chicken soup. I arose from bed to riot in gravy. Ye who have +livers and intestines, think of my fame and fate!" + +The old man sobbed as he receded, and Waples had only time to get a +glimpse of the next trio before they were upon him. + +"I agree with Commodore Vanderbilt," said the other, the wearer of a +rubicund face, and great blue eyes. "My _forte_ was oysters and +economy. I grew wondrous fat and conservative, and one day awoke with +a stomach that exclaimed, 'I have become round, so that you can +trundle me for the exercise you deprived me of.' Henceforward, not +even the unequalled advantages of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad gave +me pleasure. I live like a skeleton world, without an inner globe, +without a paunch. Beware?" + +"Well," cried Mr. Waples, "it is a singular thing that the +conservative as well as the volatile lose their full habits. How is it +with Colonel Tom Scott, I wonder?" + +"No rest," exclaimed a full-necked man, "I eat at figures, and think +in my sleeping car. Go slow, go fast, young man, 'But it is even, +heads I win, stomach you lose!'" + +The shaggy iron-gray whiskers and hair of Charles Sumner were well +known to Mr. Waples, as that great Senator strutted down the maple +paths. "You here, also!" shouted Mr. Waples. + +"Ay!" answered the champion. "Freedom is not worth enjoying without +the gastric juice. The taste of Chateau Yquem pursues me through +eternity. There are times when Plymouth Rock is a pennyweight in value +compared to High Rock at Saratoga, and all the acts of Congress +foolish beside a pint of Congress water!" + +A tall and elegant man came by and said: "I was the reviver of the +running turf. My stomach was tough as my four-in-hand. 'Twas Angostura +nipped my bud. It was, by Saint Jerome!" + +Another passer, with a dark skin and a merry twinkle, said: "Uncle +John's under the weather to-night. But he can lay out another +generation yet. While there's sleep there's hope. Cecil's the word! +Give me me an order." + +A tremendous fellow, with a foot a little gouty, gulped down a gallon +of the water, and said: "Rufe Andrews never gives up while on that +high rock he builds his church!" + +"The way to eat a sheep's head," exclaimed a florid man, "is with +plain sauce. Clams are not kind after nightfall. Champagne destroyed +the coats of W. Wickham, Mayor of the _bon vivants_. _Sic transit_ +overtook my rapid transit. Heigh-ho!" + +"Hear me lisp a couplet," said the great poet Saxe. "Oh, how many a +slip 'twixt the couplet and the cup! Abdomen dominates. When Homer had +no paunch, he went blind." + +"Halt! 'Sdeath! is't I, that once could put the whole Brazilian court +to bed, who prowls these grounds for midnight water now? I am the +Chevalier Webb. Who says it is dyspepsia? I will spit him upon my +walking-staff." + +"Ees! 'tis good drinkin' at the fount when one can naught sleep. +Johnson, of Congress Spring, the resident cherub; that's my name. I +tipped the rosy, and it tripped on me. What measure I used to take +around the bread-basket!" + +"The top of the foine midnight to you!" said Richard O'Gorman. "I'm +here, my lords and gentle folk, to find a portion of my appetite. It +was not so when I could lead a revolution in a cabbage garden." + +So went past Uncle Dan Sanford and Father Farrell, and arm-in-arm, on +mutual errands of thirst, Judge Hilton and Joseph Seligman. + +"Shudge," said Seligman, "when you refushed me a room, it was only +becaush you had no stummicks? Heigh, Shudge?" + +"Ay, Joseph, me broth of a darlint," answered Hilton, "when a spalpeen +has no stummick, he speaks without circum--spection. Ye can impty yer +stummick wherever ye loike over the furniture, if ye'll fill this +aching void." + +So went the procession. All walking with hands laid heavily on their +paunches, or where they used to be. Lovers had lost the light of +interest from their eyes, wedded people the light of retrospection, +statesmen the pride of intellect, princes and legates the pride of +power. Wealth flashed in a thousand diamonds to contrast with the +heavy eyes that had no vanity in them, and religion wore the +asceticism of everlasting gloom instead of the hope of immortal life. + +As Mr. Andrew Waples beheld these things, and felt his thirst impel +him toward the fountain of the High Rock, he became sensible of a +wonderful change in the proportions of that object. It had always been +a mound or cone of sand, clay, magnesia, and lime, well oxidized, and +made rusty-red by the particles of iron in the composition deposited +with the other materials, through ages of overflow. It had never been +above three feet in height, and of little more diameter than a man's +stature. The water, flowing through its middle, sparkled and +discharged diamond showers of bubbles, and ran down the +ochre-besmeared sides, to disappear in the ground, the cavity through +which it came not more than ten inches wide. Such had been the +dimensions of the High Rock Spring. + +But it was now a mountain, rising high in the air, and flowing crystal +and gold, like a volcano in an eruption of jewels. The pyrites of +sulphur and motes of iron, that formerly gleamed in the rills that +trickled down its slopes, were now big as cascades, filled with +carbuncles and rocks of amethyst. A mist of soft splendor, like the +light of stars crushed to dust and diffused around the mountain's +head, revealed an immense multitudes of people scaling the slopes, and +drinking; and some were raising their hands to Heaven in praise, and +some were drawing the water from the mountain's base by flumes and +troughs. This extensive prospect fell to a foreground of people, such +as Mr. Waples had been mingling with, and these were clamoring and +supplicating for water faster than a hundred dippers there could pass +it up. The dippers were of all garbs and periods, from Indians and +rustics to boys in cadet uniform. The vessels with which they dipped +were of all shapes and metals, from conch shells and calabashes to +cups of transparent china, and goblets of gold and silver. Amongst the +dippers, conspicuous by his benevolent face and clothing of a +butternut color, was the Great Dipper himself, directing operations. + +"Drink freely!" he exclaimed, "for the night is going by. Sir William +Johnson has ordered his litter, and the company is breaking up. Drink +while you may, for the sun is soon to arise, and ye who have no +stomachs will be exposed and disgraced." + +"Hark ye! old friend," whispered Andrew Waples to the Great Dipper, +"are there here people alive, as well as dead people, and why do they +fear exposure?" + +The Great Dipper replied: "Nobody can be said to live who has lost his +stomach. We make no other distinction here. There are thousands who +have lost them, however, and who deceive mankind. Even these, you +perceive, who drink at the High Rock Spring, flirt while they feel +unutterable gloom, and so are dead women above the ground tied to +living men, and men without a human hope of health mated to joyous +beauty and animation." + +It seemed at this point that Mr. Waples shrank away down to the +ground, and the Great Dipper loomed up high as the mountain of High +Rock. His drinking glasses were as large as Mr. Waples' body; he was a +mighty giant, clad in colors like those of the overflowing mountain. + +"Old chap," cried Mr. Waples, "methinks your clothing up there is of +much age and tarnish. Tell me its material?" + +A voice came down the long ravines of the mountain like rolling +thunder. "It's calcareous tufa I'm a-wearing, wove on me by exudation +and accretion in the past two thousand years." + +At this point the head of the Great Dipper was quite invisible in the +clouds, but the tray of glasses he carried, which were now big as +barrels or full-sized casks, was set down on Mr. Waples' toe. As he +sought to get out of the way a torrent of water washed him up and +away, and he was spilled into one of the glasses; and then, as it +appeared, he was raised an inconceivable distance in the air and +plunged down like a bursted balloon from the sky to the sea, and he +found himself immersed in mineral water and rapidly descending, +against the current, toward the centre of the earth! + +Before Mr. Waples could get his breath he was landed in a bar or shoal +of mineral salt, which came nearly to the surface of the torrent in +which he found himself, and the current of this torrent was ascending +toward the surface, as full of mineral substances as a freshet is full +of saw-logs. Explosions of gas, loud and rapid as the guns in a naval +battle, took place on every side. The walls of the inclosure made a +large and almost regular cave or tunnel of blue marl, and in the +contrary way from the course of the stream. Mr. Waples sank along the +sides of the cave in the swash or backflow, until he arrived at a +grand archway of limestone, riven from a mass of slate. A voice from +the roof of the archway, whispering like a sigh of pain, articulated +shrilly, + +"Who goes back?" + +Waples discerned, in the joint or junction of the arch a huge deformed +object, whose hands were caught between the masses of stone, and he +still desperately pulled to divide them, so that the torrent could +escape through. The eyes of this object rolled in pain, but he gave no +sign of relinquishing his hold, and again the painful whisper skipped +through the abyss, "Who goes back from the alluvial?" Mr. Waples got a +breathful of air from an explosion of bubbles, and boldly replied, +"The Great Dipper's assistant." + +"Tell him," whispered the hunchback in the roof, "that Priam, the +Fault Finder, is holding the strata back, but wants the relief to come +on three centuries hence, that I may spit upon my hands." + +Mr. Waples had no time to reply, for a large bubble of carbonic acid +gas burst at that moment, and blew him through the gap or "fault" of +the rock, into the coldest and clammiest cavern he had ever trodden. +From every part of the walls, ceilings, and floor exuded moisture, +which flowed off in rills and large canals, until they formed the +torrent that disappeared at the Fault Finder's Archway. + +"Magnesia, faugh!" exclaimed Mr. Waples, unconscious that he was in +the presence of somebody. + +"You don't like Magnesia, then?" rejoined a large, spongy object on +the floor, whose forehead perspired while he looked up through the +chalky-white sockets of sightless eyes. "Why, he's a sixth part of all +that's drunk at the springs. Here, I'll call him up. Come Magnesia! +come Potash! come Lime, Soda, Lithia, and Baryta! Come ye all to the +presence of Prince Saturation." + +There glided to the Sponge's feet a number of leather-looking beings, +of broad, circular faces, and to every face a tail was appended on the +other side. + +"The gentleman don't like our laboratory," exclaimed the Sponge, +purring the while like a cat. "Apply your suckers to him, ye +percolating angels, and draw him to the forests of Fernandes!" + +Mr. Waples felt a hundred little wafers of suction take hold of his +body, and a sense of great compression, as if he was being pulled +through a mortar bed. He opened his eyes on the summit of a stalagmite +in a vast thicket or swamp of overthrown and decaying trees. Birds of +buried ages, whose long, bittern-like cries flopped wofully through +the silence, made ever and anon a call to each other, like the Nemesis +of century calling to century. One of these birds, having authority +and standing on one leg, observed to Mr. Waples, in a very +philosophical manner: + +"Stranger, are you of the Fungi family?" + +"No, Fernandes," answered our bold adventurer; "I live nearer the +phosphates when at home, and it's a good article." + +A mournful chorus of croons from the loons went round the solitude. +"Phosphates! phew! Phosphates! phew!" + +"This apartment," exclaimed the one-legged bird, "is exclusively for +fungi of the old families. Here we rot piecemeal and furnish gas to +the nine-thousandth generation after us. By our decay the springs are +fed with bubbles. Here is the world as it fell in the floral period, +and our boughs are budding anew in the Eldorado of the waters above +us." + +"Phosphates! phew!" shouted the great birds of this land of Lethe, as +Mr. Waples' stalagmite broke off and dropped him and set him astride +of an ancient pterodactyl bird that flew off with its burden to an +immense height, and swinging him there by the seat of his breeches, as +if he were to be the pendulum of a fundamental and firmamental clock, +the griffin-bird finally let go. Mr. Waples was propelled at least six +miles out of gravity, and tossed into a most deep and silent lake. +Nothing affected its loveliness but an oppressive shadow that came +from above, and seemed to sink every floating object in the scarcely +buoyant waves. No shores were visible, but distant mountains on one +side; nothing lived in the waters but meteoric lights and objects that +ran as if on errands for the spirit above. Broad, submissive, +unevaporating, but sinking down; the great inland lonely pool was +everywhere the creature of an invisible footprint. Mr. Waples knew the +power it obeyed to be that prostrate, cloud-like, overbrooding +presence, far above, with outlines like a mountain range. The silent +sea was the water-trough of Apalachia, the western dyke of the deluge +of Noah. The oppressive spirit, stretching overhead, was Bellydown, or +the thing that brooded over the waters of chaos, known to +schoolmasters as Atmospheric Pressure. + +Mr. Waples saw it all now. The spirit overhead, with equal and +eternal pressure, forced down this meteoric water through the slopes +of stone, until it reascended toward the clouds of its origin and was +lost in the forest of the fossils, where every decaying fibre made +bubbles to drive it forward, and hold in solution the mineral +substances it was to receive in the porous magnesian barrier between +it and freedom. Soaking through this, the water escaped by the break +in the strata at the arch of the Fault Finder. + +But who had ever passed back against the current of the earth's +barometry, from the spa to the reservoir, like Andrew Waples, of +Horntown, Eastern Shore of Virginia? + +He felt a mighty vanity overwhelm him to get recognition of some kind +from Bellydown, who disdained even thunder for a language. + +"Thou sprawling spirit, up yonder in the sky!" shouted Mr. Waples, +with much firmness, "if thou art not mere nightmare, mere figment of +the sciences, let me feel thy strength unequally, for once!" + +The vast cloud object moved and yawned. Something like a small world, +wearing a boot, smote Andrew Waples in the rear, as if the spirit +above had kicked him on the proper spot. He felt a pain and a flying +sensation, that was like paralysis on wings, and he never seemed to +stop for years, until he fell and struck the ground, and, after an +interval, looked around him. + +He was in his room, at the United States Hotel, and had fallen out of +bed. The clock in the Baptist church cupola struck two. On the gas +bracket was pinned a written notice, not yet dry, that Andrew Waples +had just started for the High Rock Spring. + +But he knew that his adventure continued to be true, for when he went +to breakfast at daylight, he found he had no stomach. + + + + +THE PHANTOM ARCHITECT. + + + Four hundred miles of brawling through many a mountain pass, + From the shadow of the Catskills to the rocks of Havre de Grace, + The Susquehanna flashes by willowy isles of May + And deluges of April to the splendors of the bay. + + It brings Otsego water and Juniata bright, + Chenango's sunny current and dark Swatara's night, + By booms of lumber winding and rafts of coal and ore, + And gliding barges crossing the dams from shore to shore. + + It is an aisle of silver along the mountain nave, + Where towers the Alleghany reflected in its wave, + By many a mine of treasure and many a borough quaint, + And many a home of hero and tomb of simple saint. + + The granite gates resign it to mingle with the bay, + And softened bars of mountain stand glowing o'er the way; + The wild game flock the offing; the great seine-barges go-- + From battery to windlass, and singing as they row. + + The negroes watch the lighthouse, the trains upon the bridge, + The little fisher's village strewn o'er the grassy ridge, + The cannoneers that, paddling in stealthy rafts of brush, + With their decoys around them, the juicy ducks do flush. + + And oft by night, they whisper, a phantom architect + Lurks round the Cape of Havre, of ruined intellect, + Who had designed a city upon this eminence, + To cover all the headland and rule the land from hence. + + And sometimes men belated the phantom builder find, + Lost on the darkened water and drifting with the wind; + Then by his will a vision starts sudden on the night-- + The city flashing splendor o'er all that barren height. + + Its dome of polished marble and tholus full of fire; + The dying look of sunset just fading from the spire; + The towers of its prisons, the spars and masts of fleets, + And lines of lamps that clamber along the crowded streets. + + The ships of war at anchor in the indented ports, + The thunder of the broadsides, the answer of the forts-- + These by his invocation arise and flame and thrill, + Raised on his faith tenacious and strengthened by his will. + + My soul! there is a city, set like a diadem, + Beyond a crystal river: the new Jerusalem. + The architect was lowly and walked with fishermen; + But only He can open the blessed sight again. + + + + +THE LOBBY BROTHER. + + +I. + +The express train going south on the Northern Central Railroad, March +3d, 186-, carried perhaps a score of newly-elected Congressmen, +prepared to take their seats on the first day of the term. For every +Congressman there were at least five followers, adventurers or +clients, some distinguished by their tighter-fitting faces, signifying +that they were men of commerce; others, by their unflagging and +somewhat overstrained amiability, not to say sycophancy, signifying +that out of the aforesaid Congressmen they expected something "fat." +Of the former class the hardest type was unquestionably Jabel Blake, +and the business which he had in hand with the freshly Honorable +Arthur MacNair, who sat at his side reading the Pittsburg news-paper, +was the establishment of a national bank at the town of Ross Valley, +Pennsylvania. + +Jabel Blake had as little the look of a bank president as had his +representative the bearing of a politician. MacNair was a thin, almost +fragile young person, with light-red hair and a freckled face and +clear blue eyes, which nearly made a parson of him--a suggestion +carried out by his plain guard and silver watch and his very sober, +settled expression. The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, who had served +three terms from the Apple-butter District, remarked of him, from the +adjoining seat, "Made his canvass, I s'pose, by a colporterin' +Methodist books, and stans ready to go to his hivinly home by way of +the Injin Ring!" + +But, in reality, the Congressman belonged to the same faith with his +constituent and client--both Presbyterians like their great-grandfathers, +who were Scotch pioneers among the spurs of the Alleghenies; and there +still lived these twain, in fashion little changed--MacNair a lawyer at +the court-house town, and Jabel Blake the creator, reviver, and +capitalist of the hamlet of Ross Valley. Jabel was hard, large, bony, and +dark, with pinched features and a whitish-gray eye, and a keen, thin, +long voice high-pitched, every separate accent of which betrayed the love +of money. + +"It's an expensive trip," said Jabel Blake; "it's a costly trip. More +men are made poor, Arthur MacNair, by travellin' than by sickness. +Twice a year to Pittsburg and twice to Phildelfy is the whole of my +gadding. I stop, in Phildelfy, at the Camel Tavern, on Second Street, +and a very expensive house--two dollars a day. At Washington they rob +everybody, I'm told, and I shall be glad to get away with my clothes." + +"Tut! Jabel," said MacNair, "brother Elk has taken rooms for me at +Willards', and for the little time you stay at the capital you can +lodge with us. A man who has elected a Congressman in spite of the +Pennsylvania Railroad shouldn't grudge one visit in his life-time to +Washington." + +"Oh!" said Jabel, "I don't know as I begrudge that, though your +election, Arty, cost me four hundred and seven dollars and--I've got +it here in a book." + +"I know that," said MacNair quietly; "don't read it again, Jabel. You +behaved like a sturdy, indignant man, paid all my expenses, though you +protested against an election in a moral land involving the +expenditure of a dime, and though you pass for the closest man west of +the mountains. And here we are, going upon errands of duty, as little +worldly as we can be, yet not anxious to belittle ourselves or our +district." + +"I'd cheerfully given more, Arty, to beat that corporation. A +twenty-dollar bill or so, you know! But money is tight. I've scraped +and scraped for years to start my bank at Ross Valley, and every +dollar wasted retards the village. You boys have cost me a sight of +money. There's Elk's sword and horse, and the schooling of both of +you, and the burying of your father, Jim MacNair, eighteen years ago +this May. Dear! dear!" + +The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, catching a part of this remark, +observed that Jabel Blake, judging by his appearance, shouldn't have +buried MacNair's father, but devoured him. Jabel's unfeeling remark +gave MacNair no apparent pain; but he said: + +"Jabel, don't speak to Elk about father. He is not as patient as he +should be, and perhaps in Washington they disguise some of the matters +which we treat bluntly and openly. There's Kitty Dunlevy, you know, +and she is a little proud." + +The glazed, whitish eye of Jabel bore the similitude of a beam of +satisfaction. + +"It's nothing agin you boys," he said, "that Jim MacNair, your father, +didn't do well. He wronged nobody but himself, as I made the +stonecutter say over his grave. _That_ cost me upwards of eleven +dollars, so I did _my_ duty by him. You boys don't seem to have his +appetite for liquor. You are a member of Congress, and Elk was one of +the bravest ginerals in the war; and I don't see, if he saves his +money and his health, but he is good enough even for Judge Dunlevy's +girl." + +Judge Dunlevy was the beau ideal of Jabel Blake, as the one eminent +local statesman of the region round Ross Valley--the County Judge when +Jabel was a child, the Supreme Justice of the State, and now a +District Justice of the United States in a distant field. His +reputation for purity, dignity, original social consideration, moral +intrepidity, and direct Scotch sagacity had made his name a tower of +strength in his native State. To Jabel's clannish and religious nature +Judge Dunlevy represented the loftiest possibilities of human +character; and that one of the two poor orphans--the sons of a +wood-cutter and log-roller on the Alleghenies, and the victim of +intemperance at last--whom Jabel had watched and partly reared, +should now be betrothed to Catharine Dunlevy, the judge's only +daughter, affected every remaining sentiment in Jabel's heart. + +Absorbed in the contemplation of this honorable alliance, Jabel took +out his account-book and absently cast up the additions, and so the +long delay at Baltimore caused no remarks and the landscapes slipped +by until, like the sharp oval of a colossal egg, the dome of the +Capitol arose above the vacant lots of the suburbs of Washington. + +A tall, handsome, manly gentleman in citizen black, standing +expectantly on the platform of the station, came up and greeted +MacNair with the word, + +"Arthur!" + +"Elk!" + +And the brothers, legislator and soldier, stood contrasted as they +clasped hands with the fondness of orphans of the same blood. They had +no superficial resemblances, Arthur being small, clerical, freckled, +and red-haired, with a staid face and dress and a stunted, ill-fed +look, like the growth of an ungracious soil; Elk, straight and tall, +with the breeding and clothing of a metropolitan man, with black eyes +and black hair and a small "imperial" goatee upon his nether lip; with +an adventurous nature and experience giving intonation to his regular +face, and the lights and contrasts of youth, command, valor, +sentiment, and professional associations adding such distinction that +every lady passenger going by looked at him, even in the din of a +depot, with admiration. + +To Jabel Blake, who came up lugging an ancient and large carpet-bag, +and who repelled every urchin who wanted the job of carrying it, Elk +MacNair spoke cordially but without enthusiasm. + +"Jabel," he said, "if I hear you growl about money as long as you are +here, I'll take you up to the Capitol and lose you among the +coal-holes." + +"It took many a grunt to make the money," said Jabel Blake, "and it's +natural to growl at the loss of it." + +By this time they had come to the street, and there in a livery +barouche were the superb broad shoulders, fringed from above with +fleece-white hair, of Judge Dunlevy. Health, wisdom, and hale, +honorable age were expressed attributes of his body and face, and by +his side, the flower of noble womanhood, sat Catharine, his child, +worthy of her parentage. Both of them welcomed Arthur MacNair with +that respectful warmth which acknowledged the nearness of his +relationship to the approaching nuptials, and the Judge said: + +"Great credit to Jabel Blake as a representative citizen, in that his +eyes have seen the glory of these fine boys, to whom he has been so +fast a friend!" + +Jabel's glassy eyes shone, and his mouth unclosed like a smile in a +fossil pair of jaws. + +"It's the nighest I ever come to being paid for my investment in Arty +and Elk," he said, "to get sech a compliment from Judge Dunlevy! They +_are_ good boys, though they've cost me a powerful lot, and I hope +they'll save their money, stick to their church, and never forgit Ross +Valley, which claims the honor of a buildin' 'em up." + +"Get up here, Jabel, and ride!" cried Elk. "Remember that coal-hole, +old man!" + +"No! no!" cried Jabel; "I can walk. These fine carriages is expensive +luxuries. They'll do for politicians, I 'spose, but not for business +men with limited means." + +The Judge made Jabel Blake sit facing him, however, and they rattled +off to the hotel, where Elk MacNair had secured a parlor and suite for +his brother in the retired end of the structure, commanding a view of +Newspaper Row upon one side and of the Treasury facade on the other. +The long, tarnished mirrors, the faded tapestry, and the heavy, +soiled, damask curtains impressed Jabel Blake as parts of the wild +extravagance of official society, and gave him many misgivings as to +the amount of his bill. He retained enough of his Scotch temperament, +however, to make no ceremony about a glass of punch, which the General +ordered up for the old man, Arthur MacNair only abstaining, and the +beauty and amiability of the Judge's daughter, who sat at his side and +beguiled him to speak of his idolized village, his mills, his +improvements, and his new bank, softened his hard countenance as by +the reflection of her own, and touched him with tender and gratified +conceptions of the social opportunities of his _proteges_. Miss +Dunlevy's face, with the clear intellectual and moral nature of her +father calmly looking out, expressed also a more emotional and more +sympathetic bias. A pure and strong woman, whose life had ripened +among the families and circles of the best in condition and influence, +she had never crossed to the meaner side of necessity, nor appreciated +the fact, scarcely palpable, even to her father, that he was poor. An +entire life spent in the public service had allowed neither time nor +propriety for improving his private fortune; and as his salary +continued over the war era at the same modest standard which had +barely sufficed for cheaper years, he had been making annual inroads +upon his little estate, which was now quite exhausted. His daughter +might have ended his heartache and crowned his wishes by availing +herself of any of several offers of marriage which had been made to +her; but the soldierly bearing, radiant face, and fine intellect of +Elk MacNair had conquered competition when first he sought, through +her father's influence, a lieutenancy in the army. + +His career had been brilliant and fortunate, and when he was brought +in from the field dangerously wounded, her womanly ministrations at +the hospital had helped to set him upon his horse again, with life +made better worth preserving for the promise of her hand, surrendered +with her father's free consent. It was a love-match, without +reservations or inquiries, the _rapport_ and wish of two equal +beings, kindred in youth, sympathy, and career, earnest to dwell +together and absorbed in the worship of each other. Folded in full +union of soul as perfectly as the leaves of a book, which are in +contact at every point equally, they felt at this period the wistful +tenderness of a marriage near at hand, and their eyes anticipated it, +seeking each other out. She was cast in the large stature of her +father, and her dark brown hair and eyes betokened the stability of +her character, while her graces of movement and speech no less +revealed her adaptability to the social responsibilities which she had +solely conducted since her mother's death. Together, Catharine and her +affianced made a couple equal to the fullest destiny, and they won +praise without envy from all. + +"It is a happy fortuity," said Judge Dunlevy, putting aside his glass; +"Catharine's marriage to a worthy man, native to my own part of the +country; Arthur's induction into national life; and hard-working Jabel +Blake's final triumph with his bank! There is no misgiving in the mind +of any of us. The way is all smooth. Perfect content, perfect love, no +stain upon our honors or our characters: with such simple family +democracies all over the land we vindicate the truthfulness of our +institutions, and grow old without desponding of our country!" + +"I feel almost religiously happy," said Arthur, the Congressman; "not +for myself, particularly; not for my mere election to Congress, for in +our district there are many abler men to make representatives of--I +hope none with more steadfast good intentions!--but Elk here always +had so much health, blood, wayward will, and brilliancy that I +sometimes feared he might abandon the safe highways of labor and +self-denial and try some dangerous short-cut to fortune. To see him +survive the battle-field and begin the longer campaigns of peace with +a profession, a reputation, no entanglements, and such a wife, makes +me a religious man. God bless you, brother Elk!" + +General MacNair said, in a jesting way, that Arthur was the truest, +most old-fashioned, and most ridiculously scrupulous brother that ever +grew up among the daisies; but he was affected, as were they all. + +"Elk MacNair," asked Jabel Blake, in his hard, incisive, positive, +business voice, "what do you mean to do after you are married?" + +The General looked at Jabel as if he were a little officious and with +large capacities for being disagreeable. + +"I have arranged to buy a partnership in a legal firm having the +largest practice in the North west. This is better than beginning +alone and waiting to make a business." + +"How much will that cost?" persisted Jabel Blake, not remarking the +growing repulsion with which the General answered, after some little +embarrassment: + +"One hundred and sixty thousand dollars." + +"Why!" cried Jabel Blake, "that is nearly as much as it takes to start +the Ross Valley bank. Take care! Take care! Beware, Elk MacNair, of +getting into debt at your time of life. It makes gray hairs come. It +breaks up domestic pleasure. It mortgages tranquil years. Neither a +borrower nor a lender be! That's Bible talk, and the Bible is not only +the best book for the family, but the best business book besides." + +"I don't mean to run in debt," said the General, with a look, perhaps +surly; "I mean to buy into the firm with cash." + +"Bosh!" said Jabel Blake, rising up, "where did you get one hundred +and sixty thousand dollars, Elk MacNair?" + +"If you were not claiming to its fullest extent the privilege of my +father's friend, Jabel, I should tell you that it was none of your +business! I will have made the money by the practice of law in the +City of Washington." + +"Dear me, Elk," said his brother, quietly; "I don't presume to be +worth five thousand dollars, all told. But I suppose you have genius +and opportunity, and the times are wondrous for men of acquaintance +and enterprise." + +Jabel Blake stared at Elk MacNair a long while without speaking. + +II. + +The sudden revelation that Elk MacNair was very rich had, on the +whole, a depressing effect. Kate Dunlevy, who had expected to marry +purely for love, found with a little chagrin that she was also +marrying for money. The Judge was led to remark upon the curiosities +of a speculative age and a fluctuating currency, and said he longed +for the solid times of hard coin, cheap prices, easy stages, and a +Jeffersonian republic. As for Jabel Blake, he was too late for that +day to deposit his bonds at the Treasury and obtain the currency for +the Ross Valley bank, so he went sauntering around the city, grim as a +defeated office-seeker. + +The brothers also made some calls, and Arthur MacNair was puzzled and +at the same time pleased, to find that his dashing junior knew +everybody, had something to chat about with innumerable strangers or +members, and was freely admitted to any public office he desired. They +came home at twilight, quite fatigued, and found Jabel Blake lying on +a bed in the inner chamber, fast asleep. + +"Dreaming of his bank!" said Elk MacNair; "what a metallic soul must +Jabel's be! His very voice rattles like money. His features are cut +hard as a face on a coin." + +"Jabel has good points, Elk," said the Congressman; "if you can +understand the passion of the town builder you can apprehend him. He +has devoted his life to Ross Valley, and the only text of Scripture he +finds it hard to understand is, that he who ruleth his soul is greater +than he who buildeth a city." + +The two brothers sat together in the main room; the day, at the +windows, was growing grayer, and they were silent for a while. + +The face of Elk MacNair had been growing long during the whole +afternoon, but with an assumed gayety he had sought to make the hours +pass pleasantly, and when his thoughtful and modest brother endeavored +to argue with him that his legal labors were wearing him out, Elk +MacNair turned the conversation off in a cheerful way by saying: + +"Arthur, I have arranged that you shall have the chairmanship of a +first-rate committee." + +"How arranged it?" + +"Oh, these things can be managed, you know. Every good position in +Washington has to be begged for, or brought about by strategic +approaches. I know the Speaker and the Speaker's friends below him, +and the old chairman of the committee where I wish you to be; and, +among us all, you have obtained the rare distinction, for a new +member, of going to the head of one of the best of the second-class +committees." + +"I do not like this, Elk," said Arthur. "I hope I am without ambition, +particularly of that sort which would annihilate processes and labors, +and seek to obtain distinction by an easy path. I do not know that I +shall make a speech during the whole of this Congress, although I +shall try to be in my seat every day, and to vote when I am well +informed. What committee is it that you have been at such pains to put +me at the head of it?" + +"The Committee on Ancient Contracts." + +Arthur MacNair, who had not much color at the best of times, turned a +little pale. + +"Elk," said he, "there is a bad sound in that word 'contracts.' Of +course, I do not take much stock in the widespread scandal about our +Government giving away contract work to do from base or personal +considerations; but I have a little belief that one ought to avoid +even the appearance of evil. I think I must refuse to go on that +committee." + +Elk MacNair seemed to grow darker and older, and his face assumed an +intensity of expression which his brother did not perceive. + +"Pshaw! Arty," he said, with agitation, "everything here goes by +friends. You brought with you no renown, no superstition, nothing +which would entitle you to the Speaker's consideration. He might have +put you, but for me, away down on the Committee on Revolutionary +Pensions." + +"I think I would like that committee," said Arthur MacNair quietly. +"In it I might be the means of doing gratitude to some old and needy +hero. I like those tasks which involve no notoriety. At home, in our +church and among our townsfolks, I always tried to get on the +societies which are unknown to public fame; and there, any little +thing which I can diligently do brings its own reward. I must decline +to go on the Committee on Ancient Contracts, Elk!" + +The younger brother, with his dark burning eyes, met at this point the +cool, unsuspecting glance of the country lawyer, and something in it +seemed to embarrass even his worldliness, for he rose from his seat +and threw up his hands impatiently. + +"Oh! very well," he said. "I thought I was doing you a service, and +now I see that it has been love's labor lost. In fact, I want you on +that committee to serve a little turn for me!" + +The country brother looked up with truthful surprise. + +"For you, Elk?" + +"Yes," cried the younger, striding up and down the floor with the step +of one made decisive by being put at bay; "I want you upon that +committee, not only to do me a turn but to do me a benefit; to come to +my rescue; to fulfil the expectations of many hard-working months; to +make me happy. Yes, Arthur, to make my fortune!" + +Arthur MacNair followed the rapid walk and excited voice of his +brother with astonishment. His small, thin, commonplace face seemed to +develop lights and intelligences which were painful to him, the +clearer his apprehensions became. He said, in a quiet, still voice, as +if he also were interested now, + +"I am afraid I am on the eve of hearing something bad, my brother. If +it must come, let it all come." + +"Arthur MacNair," said Elk, his voice raised above the ordinary pitch, +and the recklessness of an officer in the ardor of battle showing in +his working face, quick talk, and rapid gestures, "you _are_ on the +eve of hearing something. In your answer lies my destiny. I told you I +was a lawyer, and had made one hundred and sixty thousand dollars with +which I was to buy my way into an attorney's firm and establish myself +in business. It was true. I have made that engagement. My talent and +energy are recognized, and the place of which I spoke is waiting for +me immediately after my marriage. The lady who is to be my bride is +divided from me by no other consideration than this--that I have not +obtained the one hundred and sixty thousand dollars." + +The Congressman grew paler, and he made an effort to say "Go on," but +his voice was scarcely audible, and Elk MacNair saw that he seemed to +be suddenly sick. With self-reproach the younger brother observed all +this, but it was too late for him to falter; the time was too +precious. + +"Arty," he said; "oh, my brother, the whole story must be told and the +full crisis met. I am dependent upon you for the price of my +happiness; for the hand of my wife; for the key to my fortune; for all +that makes the future auspicious and the past clear. I am not a +lawyer, as I have said, in the common sense in which, with modest +effort and goodness, you have followed out your career. I am a +lobbyist!" + +"I returned from the war flushed with my success, and told on every +hand that an immediate and profound prosperity were close before me. +These politicians and speculators around the capital took me by the +hand, flattered me, and showed me where my fortune was within my own +grasp. Little by little they led me on, using my reputation and +influence to accomplish their ends; and my mode of living, my +acquaintances, my expectations, increased with my facilities, until, +chafing under the consciousness that I was working out the private +interests of others, I resolved to stake all upon one large hazard, +conclude this wayward, self-accusing life, and depart from the +purlieus of legislation. Up to the present time no stigma has been +attached to my irregularities, none have suspected that I was less +than I claimed to be--a soldier and a gentleman, betrothed to the +noblest woman in the world. But this manner of living in the end works +the destruction of habits and reputation to any who continue in it. To +be brief, I have found political life nothing but a commerce. All have +their price, and the highest sometimes sell out the cheapest. Men are +estimated here by their boldness and breadth only, and a single +successful venture of the kind I have in hand will dismiss me from +this city rich and without exposure, and I swear never again to be +seen in the lobbies of the Federal legislature. All my dependence in +this, however, is upon you. I watched your campaign in our native +region--how gallantly and how exceptionably you fought it, none knows +so well!--and I took to heart the belief that, wishing to see me +distinguished, wedded, and settled, your old scruples might give way, +and you would afford me this last, best chance. Shall I go on?" + +The small, thin face of the elder brother seemed to have lost all of +its vitality; his fragile form was even more diminished; it might +almost have been paralysis which had seized him. + +"Water!" he muttered. "I cannot talk." + +The younger brother ran for a glass, and with a look of mingled guilt +and affection sought to support him with his arm. Arthur MacNair +feebly repelled his assistance. + +"You may finish, sir," he said. + +"God forgive me," cried Elk MacNair, sinking into a chair; "my +brother, I beseech you, do not think so evil of me as to suppose that +in this enterprise I would compromise your character for one minute, +and if it shall be necessary, all the fault shall be mine by open +confession. There is an old claim for postal services rendered many +years ago, which has reposed in the catacombs of one of the +departments. The claimant has long been dead, and it was purchased for +a small sum from his heirs. There are some equities about the claim; +the attestations in its favor are purely documentary, and I have so +entirely manipulated every instrumentality on the way to its passage, +judicial, legislative, and executive, that if the Committee on Ancient +Contracts should report favorably upon it at the beginning of the +session, my confederates in the House will see that it goes along, and +the department will pay it immediately. Congress will then at once +adjourn, within a day or two, for such is the usage here. With my +share of the money, which will be large, I will be a man of wealth and +able to turn my back once and for all upon this Capitol. You are to be +the chairman of the committee; the other members, as is habitual here, +will intrust the whole matter to you; a few words explanatory of this +claim will send it on its way, and the crisis of my life will have +passed." + +When the younger brother had finished, he also seemed to have expended +his strength in the effort he had made, and he sat limp and +despondent. The elder brother, on the contrary, appeared to recover +his strength by a vigorous effort of the will. He stood up. He walked +straight before his brother and looked down upon him with his +penetrating blue eyes. + +"Elk MacNair," he said, "tell me--by our common origin, solemnly, +truthfully, and on your honor, tell me--will this claim stand the test +of full investigation? Is it right?" + +"Arthur," said the younger, feebly, "under that appeal I must speak +truthfully. The claim is irregular; perhaps it has been paid already. +There is no time for investigation. I have stocked the cards, and the +trick must be taken at once or never. You have this alternative. I can +take you off that committee, and I have a man in reversion who will +get the post and pass the claim." + +The stature of Arthur MacNair seemed to expand, and he became the +positive spirit of the room. + +"Not so," he said; "it shall not pass, Elk MacNair, neither by my help +nor by any other man's! You have acknowledged to me that there is no +justice in this thing. You have made me a party to a fraud. You shall +know that the only oath I came here to take is that of allegiance to +the interests of the country. No brotherhood, no sympathy, no +ambition, no pity, nothing shall be able to swerve me from my full +duty." + +"What would you do, fanatic?" cried Elk MacNair. + +"I will denounce that claim upon the floor of Congress, and couple +with the denunciation the story of this infamous proposal you have +made to a member of Congress." + +The younger brother gave a laugh. + +"What nonsense, Arthur," he said. "If you expect to find any large +class of Americans who will appreciate such heroism, exhibited at the +sacrifice of your own blood and family, you do not know your +countrymen in these days. The only men who deal in sentiment in our +time are demagogues, who never feel it. A sneer will go up from all +the circles of the capital, from all the presses of the land, at a man +who seeks, in a political age, to play the part of the elder Brutus." + +"Miserable, lost, dishonored man!" said Arthur MacNair. "In the +valleys of my State, in the quiet farming districts all through the +Union, among the hard-working, the penurious, and the plain--such as +you and your class despise--there are armies of men who would rise and +march upon this capital if they appreciated the whole of the scene in +which you have figured to-day! You would steal the money of the +people that you may buy a character and a position among your +countrymen. Shame upon the man who would defend the acquisition of +such booty to wed the woman he loves." + +Every word which Arthur MacNair had uttered, and most of all the last, +cut like a knife into the pride of Elk MacNair. + +"I thought I was pleading with my brother," he said hoarsely, "not to +a stone. I shall say no more. I have placed myself in your power. +Remember this: if my point is not carried within three days, or if it +be balked by your interference, I will blow out my brains. I have +walked to the door of hell on the battle-field, and I can go further." + +He seized his hat and hurried away like a fury. Arthur MacNair stood +motionless an instant in the middle of the floor, and then, worn out +with the intensity of the scene, his limbs gave way beneath him, and +he fell unconscious. + +In a moment the hard, strong face and giant form of Jabel Blake +appeared over the threshold of the bedroom; he lifted his Congressman +and counsel in his arms and carried him grimly to a sofa. + +III. + +The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe was much delighted, on the morning +subsequent to the occurrences related in our last chapter, to see +Jabel Blake walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with the pensive air of a +man whose heart had been broken. The Honorable Perkiomen supposed that +Jabel had failed to receive some drawback or other upon his +income-tax, and he rejoiced in the reverses of the close and thrifty. + +But Jabel Blake was now concerned solely with the sudden and violent +rupture between the MacNair brothers. He had little acquaintance with +Elk MacNair, and no great fondness for him; but, being well informed +as to the positive, combative traits of character in Arthur MacNair, +Jabel knew very well that what his counsel had threatened to do he +would do, though his own heart-strings might be sundered. + +The deepest wish in Jabel's heart, next to establishing a national +bank in Ross Valley, was to see the marriage between Kate Dunlevy and +the MacNair family brought to pass; yet such was his reverence for the +Dunlevys and so great his antagonism to the Washington Lobby that he +was half inclined to be himself the means of breaking off the match +between the daughter of his great neighbor and exemplar and the son of +his old chum and companion. + +Jabel took his way to the house of the old Circuit Judge, which was +one of a row of tall brown-stone structures not far from the city +hall, and when he rang the bell a servant showed him to a library in +the second story, where the Judge was dictating certain judicial +opinions to his daughter. The two elderly men retired to an adjacent +apartment, which seemed, from its appointments and the character of +needlework and literature strewn about, to be the _boudoir_ of Miss +Dunlevy; and the Judge, who was somewhat past the prime of life, +plunged into a long story about Ross Valley and its early settlement, +speaking much of the time with his eyes closed in a sort of half +reverie, while Jabel, who occupied a seat nearer to the library, was +meantime overhearing a conversation between Kate Dunlevy and young Elk +MacNair, who had followed hard upon Jabel's heels. The old Judge +meantime, used to their voices, paused only to remark that he thought +Elk MacNair one of the strongest, most brilliant, and most promising +men in the nation, and then went on with his dissertation upon pioneer +days among the spurs of the Alleghenies. Jabel, however, who was an +attentive, inquisitive busybody, and who lived in a part of the +country where folks of quality and large pursuits were few, observed +that the two voices in the next room were lowered, and that their +key, while not so high, was yet even more startling than before. + +"Kate," said Elk MacNair, "I had counted upon my brother as an assured +ally in something of the most momentous importance to me at this +juncture, before our marriage. My brother is a man of power, but of +narrow views, and I have unconsciously aroused his animosity. He is +not to be appeased. Nothing can divert him from his purpose. + +"It can be nothing, if Arthur is the arbiter and your happiness the +subject," said Miss Dunlevy. + +"It is a point of honor differently taken by two men," said Elk +MacNair; "and the issue is a matter of character. It is a matter of +fortune besides, and if neither relents both will suffer." + +These words were attended with some emotion which smote the rough +feelings of Jabel Blake, and he was a witness of some subsidiary +endearments, besides, which softened his indignation against the young +officer. So he followed Elk MacNair from the house and accosted him +upon the street. + +"General," he said, "I claim the privilege of a guardian over you +boys--over your brother in particular, who is a true man and an +obstinate one. I know the matter of your difference. If you do not +yield, Arthur MacNair will keep his word! You will be exposed on the +floor of Congress, exactly as he promised, and your engagement with +Kitty Dunlevy broken forever." + +"Jabel Blake," answered the soldier, "I know just what I am about. I +told my brother that I would blow my own head off if he sacrificed me +for a sentiment. And just that I mean to do." + +"I know the devil in the MacNair blood," said Jabel Blake; "but you +are playing a false part and Arthur a true one. He fought his campaign +against the corruptions and chicanery of power, and he will trample +you out like a snake." + +"He thinks he's correcting a boy," said Elk MacNair; "he shall find me +a soldier." + +"And you will find him a Christian soldier, truer to his allegiance +than to rob his country!" + +"Pshaw!" laughed Elk MacNair; "a skinflint who has raked up fortune +with his fingers, ground down his laborers, pinched his soul, and +stooped his stature for money, has no right to be my chaplain, Jabel +Blake! You have grown rich like a scavenger. What matter if I bring +down fortune with my rifle, though the American eagle be the bird. I +would spare my body some of the dirty crawling you have done to get +your bank!" + +"Base boy!" cried Jabel Blake, with more contempt than anger; "I will +live to teach you that a life of thrift and honest toil is above your +power to insult it. You can neither repel me nor break your brother's +heart. The time will come when you will weep to deserve the respect +you have lost from these gray hairs." + +He passed away with his old, heavy, deliberate gait, and left the +young man almost repentant. + +IV. + +The galleries and floors of the House of Representatives were crowded, +as was usual upon early working days of the session. Among the members +in a retired seat his red shock of hair, clerical dress, and thin, +worn, commonplace, freckled face denoted the new member from the +Scotch district of Pennsylvania. The gay daughter of the Honorable +Perkiomen Trappe, picking him out from the diplomatic gallery by the +aid of her opera-glass, remarked that she mourned for her country when +Europe could behold such a specimen of homespun among American +Congressmen. + +"And what's more, pet," said the Honorable Perkiomen, "he's a bin put +on a fat committee. He has the cheer in the room on Ancient Contracts, +and your unfortnit father is only a member under him. I think that +staving cavalry brother of his'n, Elk MacNair, fixed his feed for +him!" + +They turned to look at Elk MacNair, sitting in the gallery near by +with the venerable Judge and the Judge's daughter. His dark goatee, +eyes, and hair, were set in a face unusually pale and intense, and his +manly and refined worldly bearing suited his associations. Kate +Dunlevy, with her charms of bloom, repose, and stateliness, looked +like the wife of such a public man. + +"Elk," said she, "you do not seem to be at ease to-day. You are pale +and nervous, and you have stared down there at your brother's seat +till people are taking notice of you." + +"I am suffering a little, Kitty; that is all. My case comes up within +five minutes, and I might as well blow my head off if it shall stick +anywhere." + +His eyes seemed to flame out with a reckless light as he said this. + +"Arthur has a sick look as well," said Kate. "This public life is too +exciting for him. See how nervously he sips that glass of water." + +"Sick!" exclaimed Elk MacNair, with a voice of bitterness, yet with a +melancholy glance of admiration in the direction of the Congressman; +"he is more dangerous than sick. His will is sublime, Kate; nothing +can soften it, not even pity." + +The committees were now being called by the Speaker, and chairman +after chairman rose to make his report. As the list diminished more +and more, and the Committee upon Ancient Contracts approached its +turn, there were no two such livid, deathly faces in all the crowded +house as these two brothers wore. Elk MacNair's had a settled +ferocity. The youthfulness and comely moods were gone from it, and the +burnt-out countenance of a man of the world looked dead and ashen +above the exhausted reservoirs of a diseased mind. Nothing was left +but the last chance before despair, and apprehensive of the failure of +this hope also, his gloved hand, resting upon a pocket hidden at his +hip, sought support from the hilt of a pistol secreted there. Was +_this_ the meaning of the sullen and ghastly determination glaring +from his eyes? Yes, love and death were almost mated; and so in every +busy Congress do the spectres of temptation and ill-omen lurk in wait. + +The country brother on the floor showed also his tenacious purpose in +his compressed lips, straight, expanded breast and shoulders, and +clear and direct but grave look. No extremity of occasion could make a +heroic figure of him, but in his plain face was the beauty of moral +courage. He rose to his feet when the Speaker cried: + +"Committee on Ancient Contracts is next in order. The gentleman from +Pennsylvania!" + +The people in the galleries were not disappointed that such a homely +man should have no voice nor grace, and that he spoke only with the +gravest effort. + +"The gentleman's voice is inaudible to the chair," said the Speaker. + +But Elk MacNair had heard it from where he sat. He had distinguished +the fitful words: + +"The committee reports against the ---- claim for postal services, +desires that it do not pass, and the chairman wishes to make a +personal explanation relative to the claim." + +"Kitty," said Elk MacNair, in a coarse whisper, "my brother has broken +my heart!" + +"Stay!" said Miss Dunlevy; "he staggers in his seat as if he were +about to fall. A page has run to him with a letter. He reads it. Elk, +for Heaven's sake, go to his help! He is dying!" + +There was a rush of members about the new chairman of committee. +Confusion reigned upon the floor of Congress. The lobby brother had +apprehended it all. He cleared the gallery at a run, passed a familiar +doorkeeper like a dart, and raised his senior to his breast. + +"Arty," he whispered, "may Heaven forgive me! I repent of my folly and +wickedness, and entreat you to speak to me!" + +"Heaven has forgiven you, Elk MacNair!" muttered the spent +Congressman. "Your father's friend has spared your fame and my +feelings at the expense of his fortune. It has taken the bank of Jabel +Blake--the dream of his life--to save you from a dishonored name, and +to give you a wife too worthy for you!" + +He put a piece of paper in the lobbyist's hands. It said: + + "Arthur, I have given you the last gift in my power--a + costly and a dear one--to keep your brother from disgrace, + and to save you both remorse. I have bought the ---- claim, + and destroyed it, but Ross Valley has lost the bank. + + "JABEL BLAKE." + +V. + +On the terrace of the Capitol, while all this was occurring, a gaunt, +gigantic, aged figure might have been seen, looking away into the city +basking in the plain at his feet, with almost the bitterness of +prophecy. He carried an old worn carpet-bag, and a railroad ticket +appeared in his hat-band. It was Jabel Blake, shaking the dust of the +capital city from his feet! + +To him the soft and purple panorama brought no emotions, as pride of +country or aesthetic associations; and even the bracing savor of the +gale upon the eminence seemed laden, to his hard regard, with the +corruptions and excesses of a debauched government and a rank society. +The river, to him, was but the fair sewer to this sculptured +sepulchre. The lambent amphitheatre of the inclosing ridges was like +the wall of a jail which he longed to cross and return no more. He saw +the dark granite form of the Treasury Department, and groaned like one +whose heart was broken there. The bank of Ross Valley was never to be! + +Jabel thought in one instant of the inquiries which should be +addressed to him on his return, the prying curiosity of the hamlet, +the strictures of his neighbors and laborers, the exultation of his +enemies, the lost chance of his cherished village to become the mart +of its locality and dispense from its exchequer enterprise and aid to +farms and mines and mills. + +"The good God may make it up to my children some day," he said; "but +the bank is never to be in the life of old Jabel Blake!" + +So Jabel went home and met with all obtuseness the flying rumors of +the country. His worst enemies said that he had fallen from grace +while in Washington, and "bucked" with all his bonds against a faro +bank. His best friends obtained no explanation of his losses. He kept +his counsel, grew even sterner and thriftier than he had ever been, +and only at the Presbyterian church, where he prayed in public +frequently at the evening meetings, were glimpses afforded of his +recollections of Washington by the resonant appeals he made that the +money-changers might be lashed out of the temples there, and +desolation wrought upon them that sold doves. + +There was no bank at Ross Valley, but people began to say that old +Jabel Blake had particles of gold in the flinty composition of his +life, and that his trip to Washington had made him gentler and wider +in his charities. He was attentive to young children. He encouraged +young lovers. He lifted many errant people to their feet, and started +them on their way to a braver life of sacrifice. And fortune smiled +upon him as never before. His mills went day and night, stopping never +except on Sabbaths. The ground seemed to give forth iron and lime +wherever he dug for it. The town became the thriftiest settlement in +the Allegheny valleys, and Jabel Blake was the earliest riser and the +hardest delver in the State. + +It happened at the end of two years that rheumatism and an +overstrained old age brought Jabel Blake to bed, and a flood, passing +down the valley, aroused him, despite advice, to his old indomitable +leadership against its ravages. He returned to his rest never to +arise; for now a fever laid hold upon the old captain, and he talked +in his delirium of Judge Dunlevy and his bank, and he was attended all +the while by Arthur MacNair. + +One night, in a little spell of relief, Jabel Blake opened his eyes +and said, + +"Arty, I dreamed old Jabel Blake was in heaven, and that he had +founded a bank there!" + +"Jabel," said the young Congressman, "you must have some treasure laid +up there, old friend. And not only in heaven, but in this world also. +Look on this happy family redeemed by your sacrifice!" + +Jabel Blake opened his eyes wider, and they fell upon Judge Dunlevy. + +"This is a great honor," he said; "Ross Valley brings her great +citizen back." + +"No!" cried the Judge, "it is you, Jabel, who have brought us all to +your bedside to do ourselves honor. Here are Elk MacNair and my +daughter, who owe all their fortune to your fatherly kindness, and who +have come to repay you the uttermost farthing. Providence has +appreciated your sacrifice. They bring for your blessing, my grandson, +and the name they have given him is Jabel Blake." + +"Jabel," said General MacNair, "take with our full hearts this money. +It has been honestly earned with the capital of your bank. We return +it that you may fulfil the dream of your life!" + +Jabel Blake took the money, and a smile overspread his face. His hard +lineaments were soft and fatherly now, and their tears attested how +well he was esteemed. He drew Elk MacNair's ear to his lips, and said +feebly, and with his latest articulate breath, + +"General, you owe me two years' interest!" + +They laid Jabel Blake away by his fathers, and on the day of the +funeral Ross Valley was crowded like a shrine. + + + + +POTOMAC RIVER. + + + Brave river in the mountains bred, + And broadening on thy way, + So stately that thy stretches seem + The bosom of the bay! + Thy growth is like the nation's life, + Through which thy current flows-- + Already past the cataracts + And widening to repose. + + Thy springs are at the Fairfax stone, + Thy great arms northward course, + They join and break the mountain bars + With ever rallying force; + But in thy nature is such peace, + The beaten mountains yield, + And lie their riven battlements + Within thy silver shield. + + Through battle-fields thy runnels wind, + In fame thy ferries shine; + Thy ripples lave the ancient stones + On Freedom's boundary line; + Where every slave the border crossed, + A living host repass'd, + And of the sentries of thy fords, + John Brown shall be the last! + + Yet, O Potomac! of thy peace + Somewhat let faction feel, + And Northern Pilgrims patient hear + Of Mosby and MacNeill. + The long trees bloom where Stuart cross'd, + And weep where Ashby bled, + And every echo in thy hills + Seems Stonewall Jackson's tread. + + The love we bore in other days + No difference can bar, + And truce was kept at Vernon's grave + However rolled the war. + Like thee, oh river! human states + By many a rapid rage, + Before they reach the deeper tides + And glass the perfect age. + + Brief is the span since Calvert's huts + Were still the Indian's sport, + And Braddock's columns stumbled on + The borderer Cresap's fort, + Till now the tinted hills grow fond + Around yon marble height, + Where Freedom calmly rules a realm + That tires her eagle's flight. + + And still the wild deer sip thy springs, + The wild duck haunt thy coves, + And all the year the fisher fleets + Bask o'er thine oyster groves; + The strange new bass thy trout pursue. + And where the herring spawn, + The blue sky opens to let through + Thine own majestic swan. + + Haste, Nature! Raze yon shiftless halls, + Where pride penurious bides, + The while the richness of the hills + Runs off to choke the tides; + Where every negro cabin stood + A freeman's hearthside warm, + And broad estates of bramble wood + Expunge in many a farm! + + Fill and revive these fair arcades, + O race to Freedom born! + The tinkling herds that roam the glades, + The barge's mellow horn, + The lonesome sails that come and go + Repeat the wish again: + The ardent river yearns to know + Not memories, but MEN! + + + + +TELL-TALE FEET. + + +The din of the day is quiet now, and the street is deserted. The last +bacchanal reeled homeward an hour ago. The most belated cabman has +passed out of hearing. The one poor wretch who comes nightly to the +water-side has closed her complaint; I saw her shawl float over the +parapet as she flung her lean arms against the sky and went down with +a scream. Here, in the busiest spot of the mightiest city, there is no +human creature abroad; but footsteps are yet ringing on the +desolateness. They are heard only by me. There are two of them; the +first light, timorous, musical; the other harsh and heavy, as if shod +with steel. I recognize them with a thrill; for they have haunted me +many years, and they are speaking to me now. The one is soothing and +pleading, and it implores me to write; but the second is like the +striking of a revengeful knell. "Confession and Pardon," says the one; +"Horror and Remorse," echoes the other. They tinkle and toll thus +every midnight, when my hour of penance arrives and I have tried to +register my story. It is almost finished now. Let me read the pages +softly to myself: + +"My life has been a long career of suffering. The elements, whose +changes and combinations contribute to the pleasure of my species, +have arrayed themselves against me. I am fashioned so delicately that +the every-day bustle of the world provokes exquisite and incessant +pain. Embodied like my fellows, my nerves are yet sensitive beyond +girlishness, and my organs of sight, smell, and hearing are +marvellously acute. The inodorous elements are painfully odorous to +me. I can hear the subtlest processes in nature, and the densest +darkness is radiant with mysterious lights. My childhood was a +protracted horror, and the noises of a great city in which I lived +shattered and well-nigh crazed me. In the dead calms I shuddered at +the howling of winds. I fancied that I could detect the gliding +revolution of the earth, and hear the march of the moon in her +attendant orbit. + +"My parents loved me tenderly, and, failing to soothe or conciliate +me, they removed from the busy city to a secluded villa in the +suburbs. Those labors which necessitated abrupt or prolonged sound +were performed outside our grounds. The domestics were enjoined to +conduct their operations with the utmost quietude. Carriages never +came to the threshold, but stopped at the lodge; the drives were +strewn with bark to drown the rattle of wheels; familiar fowls and +beasts were excluded; the pines were cut down, though they had moaned +for half a century; the angles of the house were rounded, that the +wind might not scream and sigh of midnight, and the flapping of a +shutter would have warranted the dismissal of the servants. Thick +carpets covered the floors. My apartments lay in a remote wing, and +were surrounded with double walls, filled with wool, to deaden +communication. Goodly books were provided, but none which could arouse +fears or passions. Fiery romances were prohibited, and histories of +turmoil and war, with theology and its mournful revelations, and +medicine, which revived the bitter story of my organism. My library +was stocked with dreamy and diverting compositions--old Walton, the +pensive angler; the vagaries of ancient Burton, and the placid +essayists of the Addisonian day. Of poets I had Cowper and Wordsworth, +who loved quiet life and were the chroniclers of domestic men and +manners. Pictures of shadowy studios and calm lakes, unfrequented +coverts and sleepy wayside inns, covered my wall. The tints of +tapestry, panel, and furniture were subdued, and the sunshine which +mellowed a stained window was softened by an ingenious arrangement of +shades and refractors. Art opposed her quaintest contrivances against +the intense and violent moods of Nature, and my retirement was secure +from the inroads of all except my careful guardians. + +"But I was still unhappy, and the prey of vivid fancies. This privacy +suggested the great world without, where men were wrestling with +dangers. I imagined ships upon stormy seas, and whirlwinds around +mountain-homes; the chaos of cities, the rout of armies, dim arctic +solitudes, where the icebergs tumbled apart and the frozen seas split +asunder. They had banished painful occurrences, but the sensitive +organism could not be destroyed, and I bore up until almost insane, +struggling to be cheerful when stunned and dazzled. At last, when my +mother stole into my room one day--it was October, I think, for I +could hear the tiniest leaves dropping to the grass far below--I laid +my head wearily in her lap and covered my ears with my hands. My eyes +were filled with tears. + +"'My dear mother, I cannot bear this life. I suffer as of old, though +there be not a mote across the sun nor a breath in the air. If my mind +could be led from these consciousnesses, I might be calm.' + +"'Luke,' said my mother, 'you need a companion.' + +"The thought was a new one, and so thrilled me. + +"'No, mother,' I replied; 'strong, healthy beings could not exist thus +cloistered.' + +"'For less than money,' she responded, 'they have done more.' + +"'We should not agree,' I said; 'I would be peevish and he would +despise me.' + +"'Your companion must be a woman, my son.' + +"A succession of short chills passed through every nerve, and a +moment's faintness possessed me. + +"'It must not be,' I pleaded; 'a restless, chatting, plotting woman +would be worse than all.' + +"My mother marked my rising agitation and glided away. + +"'Whatever can relieve you, dear Luke,' she said, 'your father shall +obtain.' + +"I now fancied that they believed me mad, and that a keeper was to be +introduced to me, under the guise of a companion. I formed many mental +portraits of this fierce person, and they kept me awake through the +long watches. I even meditated escape, and unclosed my casement with +that design, but the sunlight, the bird songs, and the zephyrs rushed +into my window and staggered me like so many sentinels. One day I +slept fitfully, and dreamed that I was poor and orphaned, with the +alternatives of death or work before me. I had wandered to a village +and thrown myself beneath some elms, with a horrible despair sealing +my eyelids. Suddenly the grass was stirred by some human footfalls, +and two soft voices were speaking close beside me. + +"'It is strange,' said the first voice; 'he is pale and delicate, but +with no evidences of heavier afflictions.' + +"'You do not know him,' murmured the other; 'wait and see!' + +"A face bent down to mine, and the lips of a woman touched my cheek. I +started in my sleep, caught my breath gaspingly, and quivered like an +aspen. + +"'This is indeed terrible,' said the soft voice compassionately; 'but +do not despair. It cannot be nature. It must be habit, or bashfulness, +or the effect of some childish and forgotten fright. Cheer up, and +hope!" + +"'Be kind to him, Heraine,' resumed the other; 'you are my last resort, +and becoming his companion you become my child. Do not vex, do not excite +him. Be yourself--always calm, gentle, and affectionate--and the kindness +which you show my boy may God return to you in mercy and blessing!' + +"I unclosed my eyes; the scene was resolved to my quiet library. +Something glided through the door, but a form from the other side +flung a shadow across my face. A premonition of the keeper thrilled me +a moment, but I turned slowly at length and looked into the intruder's +face. + +"A woman, or rather a girl with a woman's face, serene and placid, as +if never ruffled by care or passion, sat between me and the window, +and the gloomy light softened her calm countenance. As I looked up her +lashes fell, and her blue eyes were bent fixedly upon the floor. She +seemed like one of my sedate portraits, which had come down from its +case. She waited, apparently, for some sign of recognition, or until +my surprise should have passed away, and did not move while I ran her +over with keen curiosity. She was, probably, of my own age, though her +self-possession might have stamped her as much older; but the bloom of +her cheek and her bosom just ripening were indices of a girl's year's. +She raised her eyes at length and bade me good afternoon in a voice +which reminded me of the faintest lullaby. The quiet tone was seconded +by an assuring glance, and directly we were conversing without +restraint, as if friends of years rather than acquaintances of an +hour. + +"Heraine was the impersonation of composure. The neutral tint of dress +corresponded with the smooth tresses of her brown hair. Her touch was +magnetic, and petulancy vanished at her smile as at a charm. Her +intelligence was, doubtless, the secret of her power. She divined my +moods without inquiry, and cheered them without effort. She led me out +of the unhealthy atmosphere engendered by my sensitiveness, and I +sometimes forgot my disability for hours. She was as good as she was +capable, and as amiable as she was resolute. We fraternized +immediately, and I felt all the newness of a regenerated life. My +temperament was fitful as of yore, but the gloomy spectres vanished; +and my attention being weaned from the slighter occurrences of +nature, I was no longer racked by their tremors and jars. The soft +face of Heraine seemed to hush all chaos, and when she smiled I +thought that the very earth had ceased to roll. When her large liquid +eyes were fully opened upon me, I seemed to be looking into the hungry +blue of the sky, and carried aloft by the look beyond the influence of +matter. For the moment my nerves grew numb, the compass of my senses +narrowed to her wondrous face, and the fetters which bound me to it +were forged of gold. + +"The months went by like the stars, which wheel eternally, but seem +motionless as we watch them. Sometimes we read aloud, but our voices +were low and lulling, as if quieter than silence. Then we talked of my +calm paintings, shadowing deeper lonelinesses in them. But it was my +highest rapture to sit in stillness for hours while Heraine, cushioned +at my feet, made cunning embroideries, like some facile poet whose +fingers were dropping rhymes. + +"I remarked that our conversations were progressive. My companion led +me gradually into forbidden themes, as if to strengthen and embolden +me. We went forth, in fancy, from our shadowy chamber, through deep +groves, into twilights, beneath soft skies, even into the glare of the +sun, and, at last, among the storms and the seas. I may have quivered, +but I was not shocked; for the wrack and roar of the universe were +drowned in the quietness of her voice. Then we walked abroad a little +way, and, though pained, I endured; for she did not abuse these +successes. She had travelled in far countries, and often read me +friendly letters which attested how well the world esteemed her. +Sometimes her acquaintances came to the house, but never to my room; +and once or twice she was absent a whole day, when my nervousness +returned. There was one correspondent whose missives were never read +to me--a fine, bold hand, which at length became familiar. Their +receipt pleased her, I thought, and once I ventured to say, + +"'Heraine, you have a pleasant letter there.' + +"She only blushed very much, and all her quietness was gone for a +moment. + +"As the months expanded into years, a new feeling engendered from our +intimacy. I did not comprehend it at first. It crept upon me like the +unfolding of a new sense, or the gradual realizing of the earliest +profound thought. An unexpected event gave it recognition. + +"The boldly-indorsed letters came twice a month at first, afterward +four times, and finally twice, thrice, and even five times a week. +Heraine was quick and flushed. She passed but two or three hours daily +in my apartment, and substituted for the embroidery a dress of such +bright hues that it dazzled my eyes. One day she took her accustomed +seat, with a face subdued to sadness and an irresolute manner. + +"'Luke,' she said, after a long pause, 'we have passed many days +pleasantly together?' + +"She did not wait for me to speak, though I thrilled and turned deadly +white. + +"'And because so pleasantly, I contemplate my farewell with regret.' + +"'Your farewell, Heraine?' + +"'Yes,' she said firmly; 'to-day--this afternoon--this hour--I bid +adieu to Glengoyle!' + +"I fell forward in my seat, forcing down my heart, which sobbed and +swelled, and the whole world rang, flared, and burst into violence. If +the seas had opened their fountains and the crust of the globe crushed +up, there would have been no greater chaos. But in my faintness and +agony I caught the blue eye which had soothed and melted me so often, +and, clasping my hands, I fell at her knees and said, + +"'Heraine, I love you!' + +"It was her time to tremble now, and I interpreted the pallor of her +cheek as a signal of hope. + +"'I know that I love you,' I said; 'if the earth and the stars were to +be blotted out, and you remain, I should not miss them. You are my +universe. Without you there is no creation, and the elements are at +war. If you leave me, you have left only a bright space in a wretched +eternity. No voice but yours can say "peace" to me. Be merciful and +remain!' + +"She was moved with my appeal, and tears came to her eyes. + +"'I did not know that it had come to this,' she said. Then her +composure returned, and she raised me with a smile. + +"'If you would win any woman,' she said meaningly, 'you must first be +a man. You are not a man, Luke. You are a child! You have shut the +sunlight from you, and the trill of a thrush pierces you like an +arrow. Would you cage your wife in the gloominess of this sepulchre? +Would you hush her songs, and tremble beneath her caresses, and die in +the delights of her love? Go! Open the window of this vault! Mingle +with the crowds of cities! Ascend into the mountains! Cross the seas! +Become worthy of my affection, and then entreat me again!' + +"She had shown me the abject thing I was. Her conditions were harder +than death; but the hope she had spoken was like a glimpse of Heaven, +and I answered, + +"'Heraine, I will do it!' + +"In a month I set out for my travels. An easy coach conveyed me to +London, and the third day I lay sick in Paris. Sore of body and brain, +strained in nerve and stunned in sense, I persisted in my resolve, and +was whirled, more dead than alive, across the Continent to Berlin. In +the period of three months I had traversed all the leading kingdoms +and pushed my purpose to the sandy banks of the Nile. Every moment in +this journey was an infinity of torture; but in the bitterest pangs I +remembered the divine consummation, and kept on. My infirmities were +increased rather than diminished. In the deepest thunder I could hear +the delving of the beetle; and though the whole vault blazed with +electric light, I could see the twinkle of the glow-worm. But among +the multitude of noises which haunted me, the most persistent were the +footfalls of men. There were pauses in the lives of all other beings. +The weasel and the hyena rested sometimes, and I could avoid their +haunts, but men were forever alert and ubiquitous. I heard them in +abysses, upon peaks, and in wildernesses. They trod upon my nerves; +they crushed sleep from my soul. I closed my ears in vain; I fled +without refuge; I prayed without avail. The patter of little children, +the footfall of the maiden, the elastic pace of the youth, the racking +limp of the cripple, the veteran hobbling upon his wooden stump, the +confused tread of crowds, the steady tramp of soldiers--these tortured +me by daylight, and I kept penance at midnight with the going of +outcasts and vagrants. + +"I learned to classify these footfalls. My sensations of them were so +keen that my memory retained them. I recognized individuals, not by +their faces but by their feet. A solitary tourist met me among the +ruins of Luxor; I knew his tread, though months had elapsed, among the +thousands on London Bridge. A gypsy family, whom I passed on the +Spanish sierras, went under my window in Paris, and I missed the feet +of the lad who had been hanged. Ten thieves were marched to the +pillory in Kiev; I counted the paces of the four who escaped, from a +closed diligence on the Simplon. I lost not one among the millions of +footfalls. But there were two which I distinguished every where. When +I pursued, they retreated; when I fled, they followed me. They were +like two echoes in different keys; and one of them I loved, the other +I hated. The first was soft, tinkling, harmonious, like a memory +rather than a sound; the other was firm, vigorous, and vehement, and +it kept time with the soft footstep, as if to drown it to my ears. +When I was fagged and wretched, the light footfall approached me; but +when, inspirited, I rose to behold its owner, it died away in the +thunder of its companion tread. + +"At last I embarked for America, and when the land disappeared I said +to myself, 'At sea, at least, no footfalls can follow.' But one night, +when the clangor of the screw drove me upon deck, I heard, far astern, +through the deep fog, the sound of two haunting feet. Next morning a +swifter steamer overtook us. The waves revelled between, and the winds +were high, but above the bellow of our engines and the elements, those +thrilling footfalls rang out. I caught a glimpse of a familiar +something, as the rival craft went by, and reeled and fell upon the +deck. + +"I found New York the noisiest city in the world, and felt that a +week's tenure would drive me mad. A fire occurred in Broadway the +night of my arrival, and the din of the mobs which ran to its relief +was greater than all the combined clamors of Europe. So I resorted to +a beautiful village called Wyoming, in the heart of the Susquehanna +mountains, and passed the month of September in comparative quiet. If +any place in the world is shut in from brawls and storms, it is this +historic valley. Its reminiscences were sad and painful to me, but its +scenes were like soft dreams. + +"During a part of my tenure in the village I missed my shadowy +attendants; but when, one day, I ascended to Prospect Rock, I heard +amid the hum of farms and mines and mills, those same audible +repetitions floating up the sides of the mountain. The valley grew dim +upon my sight, and I hastened nervously to my cottage. Thenceforward I +seldom lost them. When I penetrated the wild glen of the Lackawanna, +or climbed the Umbrella Tree, or ventured into the Wolf's Den, or sat +upon Queen Esther's Rock, or sailed upon Harvey's Lake, they followed +me, the one lulling, the other maddening--invisible but omnipresent +types of the good and the evil which forever hover in the air. + +"One day I ventured to Falling Waters, a reservoir which is +precipitated from a cliff, called Campbell's Ridge, into a gorge of +the Shawnee Mountains. The deafening roar of the cataract would be +almost deathly to me; but, strengthened by the promise of Heraine, I +determined to add this achievement to the long list of inflictions +endured for her sake. + +"I made the ascent on foot, and could see, from the base of the ridge, +the skein of foam shining through the pines in its everlasting flight +down the rocks. I became accustomed to the sound as I gradually +approached, and mused, with gladness, of an early return to England. +Heraine would acknowledge my vindication. Suffering more anguish from +a sunbeam or a song than others from the knout or the rack, I had yet +run the gauntlet of the intensest horrors, cheered by the certainty of +her regard. She would confess her error. We should shut out the world +again from our shadowy home at Glengoyle, and go down together, hand +in hand, to a deeper stillness. As I mused thus I heard the haunting +footfalls again, going up the mountain before me. To my delight, their +attendant demon was inaudible, and I pursued them rapturously. The +rush of waters grew louder. They had moaned before; they shrieked and +screamed now, as if in the agony of their suicidal leap. But, clear +and musical, above the hell of sound rang the tinkling feet which had +led me around the globe. + +"I called aloud. I quickened my pace. I could see only in glimpses +through my tears; but along the steep sinuosities of the path +something fluttered and vanished, and fluttered again--I recognized +Heraine. + +"I knew now the fidelity of her affection. She had followed my invalid +wanderings, to be near me in want and prostration. I could have knelt +in the aisle of the dim woods, with God's choir of waters pealing +before me, to weep my gratitude. But as the figure of Heraine +disappeared above, those other abhorred footfalls rang keenly below. +Deep, rapid, and elastic, they were sonorously defined above the clash +of the cataract. I fled, with my hands upon my ears. + +"On and on! winding among boles, creeping beneath branches, climbing +ledges, vaulting over fissures and chasms, I reached the open plain at +last, and halted unnerved upon the brink of the abyss. + +"The glory of the prospect filled me with exquisite pain. A mist, +arched by a delicate rainbow, rose from the tumbling flood, and the +sunny valley was visible, at intervals, beyond it, inclosed by blue +mountains and intersected by the pale, ribbon-like Susquehanna. It was +my fate to endure, not to enjoy; but at this moment the cataract was +forgotten in a deeper torment; the boughs opened, the sky split with +the shock of feet, and a man bounded from the wood. + +"He was tall, handsome, and athletic, and his ruddy cheeks were +flushed with exercise. He made a trumpet of his hands, and hallooed, +long and clear, + +"'Hera--a--a--ine!' + +"Then he whistled through his fist till the rocks and water rang. + +"'Where the deuce is the dear girl?' he said, and his eyes fell upon +me. + +"A terrible hatred rose in my heart against this man. It was the first +great passion I had nurtured, and had received no other provocation +than the empty sounds of his footfalls. But antipathies are not +accidental merely; they are organic; and my quick sense took alarm +even from his tread. One's character may be defined in his gait, but I +knew from the tramp of this person that his nature was averse to mine. +Why had he followed my affianced across the seas? Why had his crashing +drowned the music of her steps? Why had he uttered her name with an +endearment? Why had he been retained at her side, and I sent alone and +wretched before? My wrists knotted nervously as these accusations took +shape, and my blood became gall. + +"'I beg pardon,' he said curtly; 'but are you the young man we are +looking for?' + +"I asked through my teeth whom he designated in the term '_we_.' + +"'Heraine, of course,' he replied; 'give me your hand! We have +followed our little invalid--that's what we call you--over many a +league, and may make his acquaintance at last. Ralph Clendenning, at +your service!' + +"I shrank menacingly from him, and counted the dull throbs of my +heart. + +"'What! timid!' he said; 'and with so old a friend? I never met you, +indeed, but then I have talked of you so often that you have grown to +be quite a brother.' + +"I saw that he was frank and winning, and hated him the more. + +"'Upon my word,' he added, 'there was none whom I had resolved in my +mind to love so well, for the sake of Heraine.' + +"A cry escaped me, so bitter that it seemed a howl, and I clenched my +hands. + +"He still followed me along the very edge of the cliff, extending his +hand. A horrible impulse rushed upon me, and a thought darker than +jealousy caught it up. I hurled myself against him. He staggered on +the brink of the abyss, and went down with a sharp, half-stifled +scream! + +"My eyes followed the dead weight, as it rolled from ledge to ledge, +accelerated each instant by the force of the cataract. A world, tossed +out of gravity and crashing among the planets, could not have been +more awfully distinct. Down--down--down--a formless mass of fibre and +bone, the mist seemed to buoy it up when it reached the deepmost +cascade, and as it disappeared through the tops of the pines I heard +the coming of footfalls. + +"Mine was a soul in torment, listening to music in heaven. I stood, +stiff and numb in horror, staring into the gulf. The roar of the +cataract was smothered to a babble. The rainbow vibrated tremulously +to the dropping harmonies. I saw the familiar shadow as it gided to +my feet. A soft hand thrilled me with its touch, and the old voice +said, + +"'Dear Luke, I am Heraine, come back.' + +"I could not stir. My eyes were forged to the abyss. + +"'Why do you glare so wildly?' she said. 'Come! you have been brave, +and must not fail now. Have you no kind greeting for Heraine?' + +"Down in the abyss, swaying and rocking upon the pine bough, with the +frank smile as when I murdered him, I saw my victim in fancy. + +"'Speak, Luke,' she repeated. 'I have a dear friend here; he has made +the long pilgrimage with me, fondly anticipating this meeting. You +will know him to-day, and I am sure you will love him.' + +"Still surging upon mist and spray and bough, with the halo of the +rainbow shimmering above it, the noble face turned upward forgivingly. + +"'We have planned for your happiness, dear friend. Compared to the +retreat we have fashioned for you, Glengoyle is a Babel. But you are +ill, Luke; What terrible allurement lies in the waterfall? Come away +from the brink! Ralph! Ralph!' + +"She called in clear tones. The woods and waters answered back. + +"'He is there,' I stammered; 'down--deep--dead--do you see him?--how +he smiles and surges on the tufts of the pines! I--thrust him over--in +rage--even as he gave me his hand--I slew him!' + +"'Merciful God!' she whispered in horror; 'he was my husband!' + +"The rainbow dissolved; the waterfall deluged the valley; the +mountains were covered with waves; the skies grew pitchy dark; I saw +nothing more. + + * * * * * + +"My sensations upon waking were those of a diver who has risen from +the tranquil depths to the surface. Hubbub recommenced; horror +returned. My hair was shaven close to my skull; my head ached +dismally; I moved my hand with an effort, and my eyelids were so weak +that I could not unseal them for a time. + +"I was lying in my old chamber at Glengoyle, and Heraine was sitting +at my bedside. Her garments were sable, her brown hair thin, her face +placid, as of yore, but marked by deep-seated grief, and the magnetism +of will and courage was gone from it. To the eye she was the same; to +the mind, a weak and broken thing. Crime had changed both our natures; +she had been tutor and governess before, and I the passive, submissive +creature; but sin had made me bold, and sorrow worn her to a woman. + +"'Luke,' she said, in the same lullaby tone, 'do you know me? do you +recognize the place? are you still weak?' + +"'Heraine,' said I, sternly, 'do not the wrongs we have done each +other forbid this intimacy?' + +"'Oh, Luke!' she replied, 'let us not uncover the past. I have buried +your sin with its victim, and watched you through weary months, and +prayed God to pardon you.' + +"'Can God pardon your sin to me, Heraine?' + +"'I trust so, Luke,' she said feebly, 'if ever in my life I treasured +you a hard thought or did you any injury.' + +"'Is it no injury,' I said, 'to have lured me by a false promise from +my quiet home? I have endured the torture of cities, seas, suns, and +storms. Your pledge was my spur and talisman through all. But you had +cheated me with a lie. You were another's already. For you I have +stained my hands with blood and shut heaven against my soul!' + +"'As I have an account to Settle, Luke,' she pleaded, 'I meant your +happiness only. To have told you that I was wedded would have pained +you. I thought to familiarize you with scenes and sounds, by making my +regard an incentive to adventure. It was your mother's plan. I yielded +to the deception, and believed it good." + +"'It was a wicked falsehood,' I said; 'you knew the weakness of my +nature--that my sensitiveness was a disease--that to cross me was to +kill. You have made both of us wretched forever.' + +"My cruelty was murdering her; her face grew deathly in its pallor, +and she pressed her hands upon her heart. + +"'Let the dead man lie between us,' I proceeded; 'it is not seemly for +you to be my friend; and to me you are an ever-present accusation. We +must not see each other!' + +"'Oh, Luke!' she cried, falling upon her knees imploringly; 'I am a +bruised thing, a-weary of the world. This silence and darkness are +endeared to me. Do not send me away!' + +"'You agitate me,' I said; 'let us do our penance, each in loneliness. +There was a time when our sorrows were mutual; it is past; we have +only to say farewell.' + +"I covered my face with my hands; she touched my brow with her lips, +and when the door had closed upon her sobbing I heard her footfalls +making mournful music on the stairs. They rang upon the lawn, then +pattered down the drive; they passed desolately out of the gate, they +were lost on the highway, and then the world became blank again. + + * * * * * + +"'Luke,' said my mother timidly, 'Mrs. +Clendenning--Heraine--is--dead.' + +"'I know it,' said I quietly. + +"She seemed surprised, and interrogated me with her eyes. + +"'She died at twilight yesterday,' I stated; 'as the first candles +were lit in the lodge and the earliest star appeared--I heard her +footsteps.' + +"'At that time she passed away,' sobbed my mother. 'Oh, Luke! you were +cruel to the poor girl. Her parting prayer was made for you. To the +last you stood between Heraine and heaven.' + +"'At that time, mother, I was sitting at my window. Tears and thrills +haunted me during the afternoon, and I was frightened in the silence +and darkness. And I heard Heraine's footsteps come up the road, pass +the lodge, ascend the stairs, and cross my threshold. They were like +echoes rather than sounds--hollow and ghostly; and mingled with them +were the deeper footfalls of my other spectre, her husband.' + +"I could not inhabit my chamber now. These awful sounds drove me into +the open world, where I hoped to lose them in the tread of multitudes. +I wandered to the old church on the day of the funeral, and looked +upon the bier with dry and burning eyes. The pastor read of the holy +Jerusalem, and said that her pure feet were walking the golden +streets. But in the hushes of the sobbing I heard them close beside +me, and while children were strewing her grave with flowers they +followed me over the stile and through the village till I gained the +fields and took to my heels in fright. + +"I sought the resort of crowds, and lived amid turbulences. In busy +hours I baffled my pursuers; but in the dark midnights, when only the +miserable walked, I suffered the agonies of remorse and penance. The +ever-flowing stream of life on London Bridge became my solace. My +apartments are here, and I sit continually at an open window, leaning +far forward, to catch the thunder of the tramp. I know the footfalls +as of old. I see the suicide pace to and fro, to nerve herself for the +deed. I hear her sleek betrayer, and detect their wretched offspring +as he first essays to filch a handkerchief or a purse. + +"Oh, the footfalls! the footfalls! Each tread marks a good or a wicked +thought. A fiend or an angel starts beneath every heel. They write an +eternal record as they go. Their voices float forever to witness +against or for us. We people space as we cleave it. The ground that is +dumb as we spurn it has a memory and a revenge. I am more sensitive +than my kind; and my penance to these monitors of my sin is but a +realization of the terror which all must feel at the accusation of +their footfalls." + + + + +UPPER MARLB'RO'. + + + Through a narrow, ravelled valley, wearing down the farmer's soil, + The Patuxent flows inconstant, with a hue of clay and oil, + From the terraces of mill-dams and the temperate slopes of wheat, + To the bottoms of tobacco, watched by many a planter's seat. + + There the blackened drying-houses show the hanging shocks of green, + Smoking through the lifted shutters, sunning in the nicotine; + And around old steamboat-landings loiter mules and over-seers, + With the hogsheads of tobacco rolled together on the piers. + + Inland from the river stranded in a cove between the hills, + Lies old Marlb'ro' Court and village, acclimated to her chills; + And the white mists nightly rising from the swamps that trench her round, + Seem the sheeted ghosts of memories buried in that ancient ground. + + Here in days when still Prince George's of the province was the queen, + Great old judges ruled the gentry, gathering to the court-house green; + When the Ogles and the Tayloes matched their Arab steeds to race, + Judge Duval adjourned the sessions, Luther Martin quit his case. + + Here young Roger Taney lingered, while the horn and hounds were loud, + To behold the pompous Pinkney scattering learning to the crowd; + And old men great Wirt remembered, while their minds he strove to win, + As a little German urchin drumming at his father's inn. + + When the ocean barks could moor them in the shadow of the town + Ere the channels filled and mouldered with the rich soil wafted down-- + Here the Irish trader, Carroll, brought the bride of Darnell Hall, + And their Jesuit son was Bishop of the New World over all. + + Here the troopers of Prince George's, with their horse-tail helmets, won + Praise from valiant Eager Howard and from General Wilkinson; + And (the village doctor seeking from the British to restore) + Key, the poet, wrote his anthem in the light of Baltimore. + + One by one the homes colonial disappear in Time's decrees. + Though the apple orchards linger and the lanes of cherry-trees; + E'en the Woodyard[3] mansion kindles when the chimney-beam consumes, + And the tolerant Northern farmer ploughs around old Romish tombs. + + By the high white gravelled turnpike trails the sunken, copse-grown route, + Where the troops of Ross and Cockburn marched to victory, and about, + Halting twice at Upper Marlb'ro', where 'tis still tradition's brag, + That 'twas Barney got the victory though the British got the swag. + + But the Capital, rebuilded, counts 'mid towns rebellious this-- + Standing in the old slave region 'twixt it and Annapolis; + And the cannons their embrasures on the Anacostia forts + Open tow'rd old ruined Marlb'ro' and the dead Patuxent ports. + +[Footnote 3: "The Woodyard," the finest brick mansion on the western +peninsula of Maryland, the seat of the Wests, twelve miles from +Washington, burned down a few years ago by the unaccountable ignition +of the great beam of wood over the big chimney-place, which had stood +there for nearly 200 years. Either seasoned by the fire or fired by +spooks, it caught in the night, and a heap of imported bricks stood +next morning in place of The Woodyard.] + + Still from Washington some traveller, tempted by the easy grades, + Through the Long Old Fields continues cantering in the evening shades, + Till he hears the frogs and crickets serenading something lost, + In the aguey mists of Marlb'ro' banked before him like a frost. + + Then the lights begin to twinkle, and he hears the negroes' feet + Dancing in the old storehouses on the sandy business street, + And abandoned lawyers' lodges underneath the long trees lurk, + Like the vaults around a graveyard where the court-house is the kirk. + + He will see the sallow old men drinking juleps, grave and bleared-- + But no more their household servants at the court-house auctioneered; + And the county clerk will prove it by the records on his shelves, + That the fathers of the province were no better than ourselves. + + + + +PREACHERS' SONS IN 1849. + + +When I admit that these reminiscences are real, it will at once be +inferred that I am a preacher's son. The general reputation of my +class has been bad since the day of Eli; but I affirm and maintain +that reason does not bear out this verdict, however obstinate +experience may be. For why should the best parents have the worst +children? and that our itinerant sires were godly and self-sacrificing +men the most prodigal of their boys must confess. No flippant or +errant example rises before me when I take my father's portrait in my +hand and recall the humility and heroism of his life. A stern and +angular face, out of whose saliences look two ruddy windows, lit by a +steadfast cheerfulness, is thinly thatched by hairs of iron-gray, and +around the long loose throat a bunch of frosted beard sparkles as if +the painter's pencil had fastened there in reverence. I do not need to +study the bent, broad shoulders and thin sinewy limbs to measure the +hardness and steepness of his path; he climbed it like a bridegroom, +humming quaint snatches of hymns to lull his human waywardnesses, and +all the fever and errantry of our own vain career shrink abashed +before his high devotion. + +That I have turned out a rover is not odd; for the travelling +preacher's son is cradled upon the highway. Three months after my +birth we "moved" a hundred miles; by my sixteenth year we had made +eleven migrations. + +We children little sympathize with our weak and sickly mother on these +occasions, but look forward to a change of abode as something very +novel and desirable. We count the days between Christmas and April, +after which the annual "Conference" assembles in the distant city, and +we see our father, in his best black suit, quit the parsonage door +with an anxious face, cut to the heart by his wife's farewell, "May +they give you a good place, Thomas!" + +Then come letters--one, two, three: "The bishops are friendly;" "The +Presiding Elder has promised to do the best for us that he can;" "The +influential Doctor Bim has praised our missionary sermon, and Brother +Click, the Secretary, has applauded our Charge's large subscription to +the _Advocate_;" "Our character has passed even the severe approval of +the great theologian, Steep;" "Take courage, my dear, and hope for the +best!" + +The membership, meanwhile, are dropping in by couples to say kindly +words to our mother, whom they pity, and it is rumored that they are +collecting a purse to help us on our way. At last our father returns, +striving to hide his solicitude in a smile, for no fate to which they +could consign himself would scathe that grisly servant of his Master; +but for his family, who do not altogether share the spirit of his +mission, he has a little fear. He kisses us all in order, from the +least to the biggest, commencing and ending with our mother, and +playfully prevaricates as to our "appointment," the name of which we +noisily demand, until his wife says timidly, + +"Where do they send us, Thomas?" + +He tries to smile and trifle, but the possibility of her discontent +gives him so great pain that we children perceive it. + +"How would you like to go to Greensburg?" + +"Not _Greensburg_!" she says, with a sudden paleness. + +"Isn't it a good circuit?" he says smilingly; "they paid the last +preacher three hundred dollars, and his marriage fees were a hundred +more. They say he saved fifty dollars a year!" + +"Oh, Thomas, I thought I had fortitude, but this--" + +"Is only to test your faith," he cries. "A poor preacher's wife should +be willing to go anywhere--even to Greensburg; but that is not our +appointment, dear; we move to Swan Neck." + +Then the fun begins in earnest. The church people come to look at our +contribution bedquilts, and help us pack up the blue earthenware. The +legs of the prodigious box, yclept a milk chest, are summarily +amputated and laid away in it, with the parental library, which, we +are sorry to say, is equally doubtful in point of both ornament and +use. The good gossips slyly peep into the covers of Matthew Henry, and +regard their retiring pastor as a more learned man than they had +suspected, while the black letter-press of Lorenzo Dow, and John +Bunyan, and Fox's "Book of Martyrs" touches them like so much +necromancy. The faithful old clock, whose disorders are crises in our +humdrum pastoral year, is stopped and disjointed, much to our marvel, +and all the spare straw in the barn is brought to protect the large +gilt-edged cups and saucers, which say upon their edges, "To our +pastor," and "To our pastor's wife." The thin rag carpets are folded +away; the potatoes in the bin are sold to Brother Bibb, the grocer, +and to a very few of the select sisters we present a can of our +preserved quinces, with directions how to prepare them. Poor Em., the +black domestic, drops so many tears upon the parlor stove as she +carries it out to the wagon that the fresh blackening she has so +industriously given it goes for nothing; for Em. is to be discharged, +and the fact troubles her, though a preacher's servant has little to +eat and plenty to do. + +At last the old parsonage is quite bare and deserted, though our +successors, box and baggage, have moved in upon us, much to the +annoyance of the females, who see with jealousy that the new arrival +gets the lion's share of attention, and that Brother Tipp, whose +class-book we took from him, and who has backbitten us ever since, is +courteous as a dancing-master with our rival. We shall talk for six +years to come--that is, our mother--of Bangs's, the new-comer's, +impudence in feeding his horse on our oats, and shall never speak of +him as Brother Bangs, but simply call him _Bangs_, emphasized. We are +not even sure that he will not turn his poultry loose before ours has +been secured, and we boys, with great zeal, run down the roosters and +ducks, giving them, if the truth must be told, longer chase than is +necessary. The aged muscovy, we are sorry to say, lames himself in the +retreat, and the only goose on the premises hides among Powell's, the +neighbor's, so that we cannot tell which from which. However, the +property is tied up at last in the several wagons; Sister Phoenix's +lunch has been eaten, and our father, the itinerant, in his +shirt-sleeves, stands up, with pain and perspiration on his brow, to +bid his flock good-by. + +"Now, brethren," he says, with a quiver at his throat, "my time is +passing; I have finished the work appointed for me to do. Renew the +kindnesses you have done me and my little ones upon the good steward +who is to replace me. My heart weeps to cut the bonds which have held +us so long together; but in this world I am a pilgrim and a stranger. +Let us all pray!" + +As his shrill, broken voice goes up in a mingled wail and hosanna, we +children peep by stealth into the working faces of the bystanders, and +our own grow tearful, till our little sister cries aloud, and our +mother falls into some fond matron's arms. + +Immediately our wagons are on the way. The clustering village roofs +and the church spire sink down behind. We are too full of excitement +to share the silence of our elders, and the passing objects while us +to laughter and debate. + +Swan Neck is a representative circuit. It lies, as everybody knows, +somewhere upon the Eastern shore--that landmark and stronghold of +Methodism. The parsonage is in Crochettown, the county-seat, and the +circuit comprises half a dozen churches down the neck, among the pine +forests and on the bay side. Our father tells our mother on the way of +the advantages of the place, till we take it to be quite a metropolis. +He says that Wiggins, whom we succeed, gives a first-rate account of +it. One of the members (Judd) is a judge, and our church, in short, +rules the roast thereabout, and makes the Episcopalians stand around, +not to speak of the Baptists, who try as usual to edge us out. + +The boys ask with glowing cheeks if there is a river at Crochettown, +and are thrown into ecstasy by the reply that a large steamboat +touches there twice a week, and that there is a drawbridge. We are +less interested in the statement that the schools are good, but hear +with delight the history of one Dumple, an innkeeper, who persecutes +our church and sells quantities of "rum" to our young men. William, +the son of Wiggins, our predecessor, was once seen in the bar-room and +reported to his father, who fetched him home by _posse comitatus_, and +found that he smelled strongly of soda water. + +As we go along the road in this way, our furniture mean time having +been shipped by water, a very compact and knotty young man rides up +behind us upon a nag which we at once identify as church property. The +sleekness of the flanks betokens his conversance with other people's +corn-cribs, and he has a habit of shying at all the farm-house gates +as if habituated to stopping whenever he liked and staying to dinner. +His Perseus has a semi-gallant, semi-verdant way of lifting his hat, +and his voice is hard as his knuckles. + +"Woa, Sal!" he says (all preachers drive mares, it may be +interpolated), "have I the pleasure of addressing Brother Ryder?" + +"The same, sir." + +"My name is Chough, sir; the annual Conference has done me the favor +of associating my name with yours at Swan Neck." + +"Oh, ho! You are my colleague; my wife, Brother Chough!" + +The wife runs Brother Chough over immediately, who looks very red and +awkward, and she gives her estimate of him in an undertone. It will be +bad for Chough if he is at all airish or scholastic, or individual in +his opinions, for between a senior pastor's wife and his young +assistant there is an hereditary distrust; conceit has no show at all +in a young itinerant. + +But Chough wisely confines his remarks to asking questions about the +bishops, and agrees with us that Doctor Bim's address on the church +extension cause was sound as the Fathers, and finally gives us his own +extraction, which we trace to the respectable Choughs of Caroline +County, and at once fraternize with him. + +Those were happy days for us children! Cornfield and barn and negro +quarter rolled by us like things of fable. We watched the squirrels in +the scrubwood as never again we shall take interest in human +companionship, and stopped at farm-house troughs to water our nag with +keener joy than that with which we have since gazed upon far blue seas +or soft cis-alpine lakes and rivers. + +At last we reach the place; the complement of free negro cabins lies +on its outskirts; we ask the way to the Methodist preacher's +residence, and learning with feigned surprise that "he has just gone +an' lef town for good," cross a sandy creek and bridge, climb a hill, +and stop at our future threshold. + +It is an ancient edifice of brick; a pigmy stable stands beside it, +with a gate intervening, and in the rear we have a lot big enough to +graze one frugal horse, and a garden sufficiently large to employ us +boys. Our father starts off immediately to find the keys; but in the +face of a gathering of small lads in pinafores and jack-knives, who +come to gaze at us, we scale the gate, enter a back shutter, and cry +a welcome to our mother from the second-story front. + +We hastily scan the several chambers to claim all that we find in the +drawers and closets; are gratified to observe the bow-gun and +shinney-sticks of the young Wigginses departed, and quite fall out +among ourselves over the wooden effigy of an Indian which has tumbled +down from the barn-top. + +Soon the nearest neighbor of our persuasion arrives with our father, +and takes our mother and the baby away to his dwelling. A fat old +trustee and local preacher carries off ourself and sister, and we go +bashfully and wonderingly into the heart of the town, past the church, +past the market-house, past the tavern and court and public hall, +until the door of our host closes upon us, and our short sandy hairs +appear at the windows to scan the street and the people. + +Yeasty, our host, is the only local preacher in Crochettown, where he +also keeps a store, but is said to be as rich as Croesus, and +miserly as get out; and he has a pretty daughter, Margot, who sweeps +into the room like a little queen, and, being older than ourselves, +patronizes us till we blush. She rattles off all the town talk, the +parties in the winter season, the terrible master of the academy, and +the handsomest boys, including Barret, who is dissipated and writes +poetry; the beauty of Marian Lee, who seems to be the terror of young +gentlemen, though Margot don't see any thing in her, the proud piece! + +And so we pick up the history of the village with the diligence of +Froissart or Jean de Troyes, and eat last winter's apples by the ruddy +grate, listening to Margot, with our very round tow head upon our +sister's, filled with vague dreams of greatness and wealth, and old +Yeasty's silver half dollars piled up around us, and Margot to chat at +our side forever. + +Oh! innocent days of itinerant urchinhood, your freshness comes no +more; we "move on" as of old--waifs in the wide circuit of this nomad +life--but with the hymns which lulled us in the neglected +meeting-house, the prophecies they told us of toil, duty, reverence, +and content, have floated into heaven whither our father has gone! + +The bulk of our furniture being delayed, and our mother impatient of +accepting hospitality, we move into the great, bare parsonage house on +Saturday, and sit in the only furnished room. It grieves even +ourselves to see how this merry moving has thinned her anxious white +face, and therefore we forbear to fret her when we read the three long +Bible chapters she exacts. Josh, our brother, does not purposely +pronounce physician "physiken," as he is in the habit of doing, and +our sister remembers for once that ewe lamb is to be called "yo," and +not "e-we" in two syllables. The dinner is quite cold, but Josh, who +complains, is reminded of the poor Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, who +could not afford salt with his potatoes. Josh says that for his part +he don't like potatoes anyhow, and will not be comforted. + +In the afternoon we present ourselves at Sunday-school, and as the +preacher's sons are supposed to be first-class ecclesiastical +scholars, are put in the Bible-class. Here we surprise everybody by +the quantity of verses we know by heart, and get many red and blue +tickets for our reward. It must be confessed that we had been twice +before paid for the same lesson, it being our perquisite to carry all +that we know from school to school. We see Margot among the girls, +swinging her feet under the seat as she hummingly commits her lesson +to memory, and as her feet are very pretty, they do not perhaps move +unconsciously. But Josh and we have quite a battle as to Margot, Josh +saying, "She's my girl," and we averring that "we know better--she's +mine," until finally our sister disposes of the matter by betraying us +to the little coquette, whereat we are both ashamed, and go home +hastily. + +We feed and curry the horse by turns, and hunt eggs in the stable +with boisterous rivalry, and have quite a contest as to who shall go +down upon "the circuit" first, which is at last settled in favor of +the first person. + +On the appointed Sunday we rise betimes, "gear up" the nag to the +sulky, and depositing a carpet-stool in the foot, sit upon it between +our father's legs, and trot out of town at a respectably slow gait to +clear the preacher of any suspicion of keeping a fast horse. Fairly +out of town, however, we switch up somewhat, ourself watching over the +dasher the clods and dust thrown from the mare's shoes, and our father +humming snatches of hymns, with his grave eyes twinkling. + +We say "How de do," of course, to every passer-by, as it is the pride +of the profession to lead the etiquette of the country; and, passing +remarks upon the badness of the fences, the staunchness of the barns, +and the coziness of the dwellings, soon leave the cultivated high-road +for one of the by-ways which lead down the sparsely-settled "Neck." +The sombre pine forests gather about us; a squirrel or two runs across +the route, and a solitary crow caws in the tree-top; we hear the loud +"tap-tap-tap" of a woodpecker, and see through the sinuous aisles of +firs some groups of negroes pattering to church. The men take off +their hats obsequiously, and the women duck their heads, and our +father says benignantly, "Going to church, boys? that's right! I like +to see you honor the Great Master!" At which the younger Africans show +their teeth, and the more forward patriarchs reply, "Yes, massar, +bress de Lord!" + +So the teams increase in number like the wayfarers, all with the same +object in view, until we see the church at last, standing behind a +line of whitewashed palings, flanked by less pretentious worm fences, +and in the rear a long shed for horses, open in front, shadows the few +tomb memorials of stone and stake. + +Several lads and worldlings at the gate, slashing their boots with +riding-whips, make obeisance, while two or three plain old gentlemen +walk down to meet us, saying: + +"Brother Ryder, we _pre_-sume! Welcome to Dodson's Corner, Brother +Ryder!" + +We tie up the nag, loosen her bridle bit, and follow into the +meeting-house--a lofty building unplastered at the roof, whose open +eaves and shingles give place in summer to nests of wasps, and in the +winter to audacious birds, some of which swoop screaming to the +pulpit, and beat the window panes in futile flight. Two uncarpeted +aisles lead respectively to the men's side and the women's side--for, +far be it from us, primitive Methodists, to improve upon the +discipline of Wesley--and midway of each aisle, in square areas, stand +two high stoves, with branching pipes which radiate from their red-hot +cylinders of clay. The pulpit is a square unpainted barricade, with +pedestals on each side for a pair of oil-lamps; the cushions which +sustain the Bible are the gift of young unconverted ladies, and are +sacredly brought to the place of worship each Sunday morning and taken +away in the afternoon. + +By the side of the stove the old stewards and the new minister stand +awhile talking over the moral _status_ of the country, the advances +made by the Baptists, and the amount of money contributed by Dodson's +Corner to the various funds of the church. The folk, meanwhile, drop +in by squads, the colored element filling the unsteady gallery in the +rear, until our father looks at his open-faced watch, and says: + +"Bless my soul, brethren, it is time to begin the services!" + +He ascends into the pulpit. We sit on what is known as the "Amen +side," with our thumb in our button-hole, and watch the process of the +chief steward, who is unlimbering his tuning-fork. He obtains the +pitch of the tune by rapping the pew with this, or, if his teeth be +sound, which is rare, touches the prongs with his incisors. Then his +head--whose baldness, we imagine, arises from the people in the rear +looking all the hair off--is thrown back resolutely, his jaws fly wide +open, he projects a tangible stream of music to the roof, to the alarm +of the birds, and comes to a dead halt at the end of the second +line--for here we have congregational singing, and even those without +hymn books may assist to swell the music. But very often the leader +breaks down; the vanguard of old ladies cannot keep up the tune; +volunteers make desperate efforts to rally the chorus, but retire +discomfited, and the pastor, in addition to praying, reading, and +preaching, must finally, in his worn, subdued voice, lead the forlorn +hope. + +The sermon on this inaugural occasion may justly be termed a work of +art. It must be conclusive of the piety, learning, eloquence, and +sound doctrine of the preacher, and be by turns argumentative, +combative, stirring, pathetic, practical, and pictorial. The text has +about the same connection at first with the discourse that a campanile +has with a cathedral. A solid eulogium upon the book from which it is +taken gives occasion for some side-slashes at Voltaire, Hume, and +Gibbon; the deaths of these are contrasted with the obsequies of the +righteous, and the old-fashioned, material place of punishment is +reasserted and minutely described. The text is then said to naturally +resolve itself into three parts--the injunction, the direction, and +some practical illustrations. The injunction, it is further allowed, +re-subdivides itself, and these parts are each proclaimed in the form +of speech of "Once more." We are quite too old a hand at listening to +imagine that "once more" means _only_ once more, and start to +enumerate the beams in the roof, the panes in the windows, and the +gray hairs in the old gentleman's head before us. About the time that +we feel sleepy an anecdote arouses us: then the iteration of +expletives from the membership succeeds; we see that the owner of the +tuning-fork has fallen to sleep in so ingenious an attitude that he +would never have been detected but for his snore, and are amused by +the fashion one good lady has of slowly wagging her head as she drinks +in the discourse. A slight commotion in the gallery arises, which +gives a steward excuse to steal down the aisle and hasten to the scene +of disturbance; the final appeal, brimming with the poetry of mercy, +grace, patience, and salvation is said; we all kneel down upon the +hard cold floor while the last prayer is being made, and receive the +benediction, as if some invisible shadow of bright wings had fallen +upon the dust and fever of our lives. + +To say that the first person is weary but vindicates the sagacity of +our father, who steals down to our side and whispers, "You may go out, +Fred, if you are tired." But curiosity compels us to remain after the +congregation is dismissed, that we may hear the class-meeting +experiences. + +Those solemn corollaries to the service thrill me with their +recollection even now. The almost empty church echoing the sobs of the +weary, and heart-bruised, and spirit-broken; the pinched, hard faces +of the older people telling their bitter trials in bereavement, +misappreciation, and poverty. But bursting through all, that +unconquerable enthusiasm which lends to the face more than the glow of +intelligence, and to the heart more than the recompense of riches; the +timid utterance of the younger converts, outlining the rebellious +instincts of their tempted bodies, and their need of more faith, +grace, and help divine. While these speak in order, the bald-headed +chorister interpolates appropriate snatches of psalms, and the +preacher cries, "Patience, my brother! All will be well! Hope on, hope +ever!" + +At last the impatient negroes in the gallery have their opportunity, +and roll down thunders of exuberant piety, which, by their natural, +almost inspired eloquence, pathos, and vehemence, stir even their +masters to ejaculations of praise. + +How must such spiritually social reunions cheer the long, hard lives +of these poor, remote believers! He was a profound statesman who, +projecting a gospel for the lowly, devised the class-meeting as an +outlet for their suppressed emotions, sympathies, and sorrows. + +However, it is all over, and there is quite a dispute after the +"class" as to who shall have the pastor's company to dinner. It is a +piece of fine diplomacy to determine this. Policy dictates the most +influential; feeling, the most reverend and poor. But the interest of +the church is paramount; a compliment or a promise appeases the vanity +of the humbler, and we follow the double team of the great landholder, +Tibbet, and are soon sitting before his roaring fire. + +Itinerants are notoriously big eaters. Our father keeps a weather eye +on the provender as it is brought in smoking, and it being soon +apparent that the dinner is to be orthodox, if not apostolic, his +social attributes improve wonderfully. He breaks out in little spurts +of anecdote, not entirely secular, nor yet too didactic to be jovial. +They run upon young Brother Bolt, who once, after an unusual happy +"revival" night, to show his great faith, tried to leap over a creek +and doused himself to the ears; upon the great controversialist, +Whanger, who, being invited to preach in a "High Church" pulpit, +improved the occasion to trace apostolic succession as far back as +Pope Joan; upon the first intelligent contraband of his kind, whose +mistress affirmed that if one's ill deeds were numerically greater +than his good ones he would be--jammed, and if the contrary, saved, +and who responded, "Spose'n dey boff de same, missus?" + +These are told with inimitable spirit and mimicry, as want of clerical +wit is a direct impeachment of the validity of one's "call" to preach; +and when the table is filled, and with outstretched hands the blessing +said, our father gets a universal compliment for his carving. There is +roast turkey, with rich stuffing, bright cranberry sauce, and savory +pies of pumpkin, mince, and persimmon, cider to wash down the mealy +ripeness of the sweet potato, and at the end transparent quinces +drowned in velvet cream. How glibly goes the time! We play with a +young miss, who shows us her library, in which, we are sorry to say, a +book about pirates deeply absorbs us. But at last the sulky comes to +the door; we say good-by with touched full hearts, and pass hummingly +to appointment No. 2. + +This is "Sand Hill," perhaps, or "Mumpson Town," or "Ebenezer," or +"Dry Pond;" and when we have mustered again in the afternoon, and in +the evening for the third time, turn Sal's head toward the parsonage, +and sail along in the night, cold and worn, past fields of stubble, +over which the wind sweeps, past negro cabins, watching like human +things upon us, through dreary woods where the tall pines rock against +the stars and the clouds sail whitely by like witches going to a +rendezvous, past cheerful homes, gleaming light and rest and worldly +competence, the owners whereof have heard no deep command to carry the +gospel into wildernesses, or hearing disobeyed. And all the while our +father sings softly to himself, looking now and then at us who are his +cross, and again into the shining constellations which hide his crown. + +But we "preacher's sons," by which name we are universally +distinguished, have our own crosses as well. It is generally agreed +that much ought to be expected of us and little obtained. Let one of +us play truant from school, or use a naughty word in play, or make +marbles a source of revenue, or fight on the common when provoked, or +steal a cherry, and the fact travels our town over like a telegram. We +once suffer greatly in repute by selling our neighbor's old iron and +brass to an itinerant pedler, and are alleged to have run up a debit +account of one dime with an old negro who sells spruce beer and "horse +cakes"--whereafter we fail. + +The church people, much to our dissatisfaction, present us with +castaway coats and boots, which we are made to wear, and once or +twice, when we encounter Margot in this shape, we burst into tears +and run home to hide our wounded vanity in the stable loft. There, in +the "mow," while we devise bitter and futile conspiracies against +society, the mare, munching her fodder, looks up at us with patient +eyes, as if to say: "Am I not also mortified for the faith?" But we +are cut to the heart to think that Margot may contrast us with +better-dressed boys, and therefore think us of little spirit, +learning, and courage. It is for you, pretty coquette, that we carry +many scandals and scars! We do not quite love you, Margot; but we are +foolishly vain and sensitive, and your eyes are very beautiful! + +Still we are acknowledged at school to be "smart." All preacher's sons +are so by common concession, and though we may not visit the circus, +like others, we get abundance of free tickets for concerts, panoramas, +and glass-blowers. Once, indeed, the great Chippewa chief, +Haw-waw-many-squaw, having thrown the town into consternation by +placards of himself scalping his enemies and smoking their tobacco, +makes a triumphal entry into the main street at full gallop, and +pitching his tent before the court-house, walks into the +parsonage--war plumes, moccasins, and all--gives us complimentary +seats, and eats the better half of our dinner. This incident is a +source of pride to ourself beyond any thing experienced by any urchin +besides. We boast of it frequently, and, being disliked therefor, +commit several impromptu scalpings on our own account. + +Vagabonds unnumbered beg our hospitality, and get it. Some of these it +would be difficult to determine, either as to profession or +destination. Many of them are systematic pensioners upon the preacher, +and plead devotion to our denomination as a means of gaining our +hearts. They have the gossip of the "Conference" at their tongues' +ends, and lead our family devotion with the grace and hypocrisy of +Belial. + +The weddings that we hold are frequent and various. Runaway couples +come to us, blushing and short-winded, satisfy us of their lawful age, +are united, and pass into the moon, leaving a five-dollar bill behind +them. We cannot quite find it in our hearts, even at this late day, to +forgive those numerous candidates for felicity who hold the par value +of a wedding ceremony to be no more than two dollars. Yet, though we +grieve to admit it, two dollars is the average fee. At one time the +negro population, anxious to be wived by a white preacher, makes +inroads upon us _en masse_ to the detriment of decorum and our +carpets. We summarily shut down upon this business when we find that +their fees come to but half a dollar a pair. + +However, the year drifts by, and we are greatly concerned to know if +it is the sentiment of Swan Neck that we shall continue its pastor +another year. Old Yeasty, Margot's father, as we are aware, feels +himself slighted because we do not call upon him of Sundays to make +the closing prayers; for Yeasty's prayer is a sermon under another +name, and runs the morning into twilight; but a sly compliment that we +pay him in a diplomatic sermon at the end of the conference year +brings him round all right, and back we go to Swan Neck. + +So with burying the dead and writing their obituaries; making the +babes pure with that holy sprinkling which gives them, dying early, to +a Christian immortality; launching our thunders upon the bold, +softening the hearts of the errant, mingling with our unbending creed +the more pliable ethics of worldly graces, and, in a word, walking +like Saint John on the savage border of civilization, to thrill the +brutal and unlettered with the tidings of one just day to come--our +itinerant lives drift on till the marble slab in the meeting-house +wall writes the itinerant's only human memorial. + +We have dreamed our last. Burst from the narrow chrysalis which we +would gladly rebuild again, the seething, churning sea is before us +and around us; we only catch, like the strains of bells through the +fog, the hum of hymns, the drowsy murmur of the buzzing +Sabbath-school, and the nasal ring of the itinerant's summer sermon. +Margot is married to Chough, our whilom colleague, and makes her +migration in his Bedouin train, and does not know how once she +thrilled us. The tuning-fork is rusty, and the chorister in his coffin +may hear, if he can, his successor stirring the birds in the roof with +his sonorous melody. All are at rest, and we live on--moving, moving, +moving--so deeply fastened into our natures are our early instincts; +but every night we say the same parsonage prayer, and every morning +look upon the wall where hangs the grave, grim features we revere--the +Itinerant Preacher. + + + + +CHESTER RIVER. + + + Wise is the wild duck winging straight to thee, + River of summer! from the cold Arctic sea, + Coming, like his fathers for centuries, to seek + The sweet, salt pastures of the far Chesapeake. + + Soft 'twixt thy capes like sunset's purple coves, + Shallow the channel glides through silent oyster groves, + Round Kent's ancient isle, and by beaches brown, + Cleaving the fruity farms to slumb'rous Chestertown. + + Long ere the great bay bore the Baltimores, + Yielded thy virgin tide to Virginian oars; + Elsewhere the word went, "Multiply! increase!" + Long ago thy destinies were perfect as thy peace. + + Still, like thy water-fowl, dearly do I yearn, + In memory's migration once more to return, + Where the dull old college from the gentle ridge, + O'erlooks the sunny village, the river, and the bridge. + + On the pier decrepit I do loiter yet, + With my crafty crab-lines and my homespun net, + Till the silver fishes in pools of twilight swam, + And stars played round my bait in the coves of calm. + + Sweet were the chinquapins growing by thy brink, + Sweet the cool spring-water in the gourd to drink, + Beautiful the lilies when the tide declined, + As if night receding had left some stars behind. + + But when the peach tints vanished from the plain, + Or struggled no longer the shad against the seine, + Every reed in thy march into music stirred, + And to gold it blossomed in a singing bird. + + Eden of water-fowl! clinging to thy dells + Ages of mollusks have yielded their shells, + While, like the exquisite spirits they shed, + Ride the white swans in the surface o'erhead. + + Silent the otter, stealing by thy moon, + Through the fluttered heron, hears the cry of the loon; + Motionless the setter in thy dawnlight gray + Shows the happy hidden cove where the wild duck play. + + Homely are thy boatmen, venturing no more + In their dusky pungies than to Baltimore, + Happy when the freshet from northern mountains sweeps, + And strews the bay with lumber like wrecks upon the deeps. + + Not for thy homesteads of a former space, + Not for thy folk of supposititious race; + Something I love thee, river, for thy rest, + More for my childhood buried in thy breast. + + From the mightier empire of the solid land, + A pilgrim infrequent I seek thy fertile strand, + And with a calm affection would wish my grave to be + Where falls the Chester to the bay, the bay unto the sea. + + + + +OLD WASHINGTON ALMSHOUSE. + + +A stranger in Washington, looking down the wide outer avenue named +"Massachusetts," which goes bowling from knoll to knoll and disappears +in the unknown hills of the east, has no notion that it leads +anywhere, and gives up the conundrum. On the contrary, it points +straight to the Washington Asylum, better known as the District +Poor-House, an institution to become hereafter conspicuous to every +tourist who shall prefer the Baltimore and Potomac to the Baltimore +and Ohio Railroad; for the new line crosses the Eastern Branch by a +pile-bridge nearly in the rear of the poor-house, and let us hope that +when the whistle, like + + "the pibroch's music, thrills + To the heart of those lone hills," + +the dreary banks and bluffs of the Eastern Branch will show more +frequent signs of habitation and visitation. + +To visit the poor-house one must have a "permit" from the mayor, +physician, or a poor commissioner. Provided with this, he will follow +out Pennsylvania Avenue over Capitol Hill, until nearly at the brink +of the Anacostia or Eastern Branch, when by the oblique avenue called +"Georgia" he will pass to his right the Congressional burying-ground, +and arriving at the powder magazine in front, draw up at the almshouse +gate, a mile and a quarter from the palace of Congress. + +It is a smart brick building, four stories high, with green trimmings, +standing on the last promontory of some grassy commons beloved of +geese and billygoats. The short, black cedars, which appear to be a +species of vegetable crape, give a stubby look of grief to the region +round the poor-house, and, thickest at the Congressional Cemetery, +screen from the paupers the view of the city. Across the plains, once +made populous by army hospitals, few objects move except funeral +processions, creeping toward the graveyard or receding at a merry +gait, and occasional pensioners, out on leave, coming home dutifully +to their bed of charity. The report of some sportsman's gun, where he +is rowing in the marshes of the gray river, sometimes raises echoes in +the high hills and ravines of the other shore, where, many years ago, +the rifles of Graves and Cilley were heard by every partisan in the +land. Now the tall forts, raised in the war, are silent and deserted; +the few villas and farm-houses look from their background of pine upon +the smart edifice on the city shore, and its circle of hospitals +nearer the water, and its small-pox hospital a little removed, and +upon the dead-house and the Potter's Field at the river brink. We all +know the melancholy landscape of a poor-house. + +The Potter's Field preceded the poor-house on this site by many years. +The almshouse was formerly erected on M Street, between Sixth and +Seventh, and, being removed here, it burned to the ground in the month +of March, fourteen years ago, when the present brick structure was +raised. The entire premises, of which the main part is the almshouse +garden, occupy less than fifty acres, and the number of inmates is +less than two hundred, the females preponderating in the proportion of +three to one. Under the same roof are the almshouse and the +work-house, the inmates of the former being styled "Infirmants," and +of the latter "Penitents." The government of the institution is vested +in three commissioners, to whom is responsible the intendent, Mr. +Joseph F. Hodgson, a very cheerful and practical-looking "Bumble." + +Every Wednesday the three commissioners meet at this almshouse and +receive the weekly reports of the intendent, physician, and gardener. +Once every year these officers, and the matron, wagoner, and baker are +elected. Sixteen ounces of bread and eight ounces of beef are the +ration of the district pauper. The turnkey, gate-keeper, chief +watchmen, and chief nurses, are selected from the inmates. The gates +are closed at sunset, and the lights go out at eight P.M. all +winter. The inmates wear a uniform, labelled in large letters +"Work-house," or "Washington Asylum." + +The poor-house is an institution coeval with the capital. We are told +that while crabbed old Davy Burns, the owner of the most valuable part +of the site of Washington City, was haggling with General Washington +over his proportion of lots, his neglected and intemperate brother, +Tommy, was an inmate of the poor-house. + +Thus, while the Romulus of the place married his daughter to a +Congressman, and was buried in a "mausoleum" on H Street, Remus died +without the walls and mingled his ashes, perhaps, with paupers. + +The vaunted metropolis of the republican hopes of mankind--for such +was Washington, the fabulous city, advertised and praised in every +capital of Western Europe--drew to its site artists, adventurers, and +speculators from all lands. From Thomas Law, a secretary of Warren +Hastings, who wasted the earnings of India on enterprises here, to a +Frenchman who died on the guillotine for practising with an infernal +machine upon the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, the long train of +pilgrims came and saw and despaired, and many of them, perhaps, lie in +the Potter's Field. Old books and newspapers, chary on such personal +questions, contain occasional references as to some sculptor's +suicide, or to the straits of this or that French officer, a claimant +about Congress; and we know that Major L'Enfant, who conceived the +plan of the place, sought refuge with a pitying friend and died here +penniless. The long war of twenty years in Europe brought to America +thousands in search of safety and rest, and to these the magnetism of +the word "capital" was often the song of the siren wiling them to the +poor-house. By the time Europe had wearied of the sword, the fatality +attending high living, large slave-tilled estates, the love of +official society, and the defective education of the young men of +tide-water Virginia and Maryland, produced a new class of native-born +errants and broken profligates at Washington, and many a life whose +memories began with a coach-and-four and a park of deer ended them +between the coverlets of a poor-house bed. The old times were, after +all, very hollow times! We are fond of reading about the hospitality +of the Madisonian age, but could so many have accepted it if all were +prosperous? + +In our time, work being the fate and the redemption of us all, the +District Almshouse contains few government employes. Now and then, as +Mr. Hodgson told us, some clerk, spent with sickness or exhausted by +evil indulgences, takes the inevitable road across the vacant plains +and eats his pauper ration in silence or in resignation; but the age +is better, not, perhaps, because the heart of man is changed, but in +that society is organized upon truer principles of honor, of +manfulness, and of labor. The class of well-bred young men who are +ashamed to admit that they must earn their living, and who affect the +company of gamesters and chicken-fighters, has some remnants left +among us, but they find no aliment in the public sentiment, and hear +no response in the public tone. Duelling is over; visiting one's +relatives as a profession is done; thrift is no more a reproach, and +even the reputation of being a miser is rather complimentary to a man. +The worst chapters of humanity in America are those narrating the +indigence of the old agricultural families on the streams of the +Chesapeake; the quarterly sale of a slave to supply the demands of a +false understanding of generosity; the inhuman revelling of one's +friends upon the last possessions of his family, holding it to be a +jest to precipitate his ruin; the wild orgies held on the glebe of +some old parish church, horses hitched to the gravestones, and punch +mixed in the baptismal font; and at the last, delirium, impotence, +decay! Let those who would understand it read Bishop Meade, or descend +the Potomac and Rappahannock, even at this day, and cross certain +thresholds. + +The Washington poor-house seems to be well-arranged, except in one +respect: under the same roof, divided only by a partition and a +corridor, the vicious are lodged for punishment and the unfortunate +for refuge. + +We passed through a part of the building where, among old, toothless +women, semi-imbecile girls--the relicts of error, the heirs of +affliction--three babies of one mother were in charge of a strong, +rosy Irish nurse. Two of them, twins, were in her lap, and a third +upon the floor halloaing for joy. Such noble specimens of childhood we +had never seen; heads like Caesar's, eyes bright as the depths of wells +into which one laughs and receives his laughter back, and the +complexions and carriage of high birth. The woman was suckling them +all, and all crowed alternately, so that they made the bare floors and +walls light up as with pictures. A few yards off, though out of +hearing, were the thick forms of criminals, drunkards, wantons, and +vagrants, seen through the iron bars of their wicket, raising the +croon and song of an idle din, drumming on the floor, or moving to and +fro restlessly. Beneath this part of the almshouse were cells where +bad cases were locked up. The association of the poor and the wicked +affected us painfully. + +Strolling into the syphilitic wards, where, in the awful contemplation +of their daily, piecemeal decay, the silent victims were stretched all +day upon their cots; among the idiotic and the crazed; into the +apartments of the aged poor, seeing, let us hope, blessed visions of +life beyond these shambles; and drinking in, as we walked, the solemn +but needful lesson of our own possibilities and the mutations of our +nature, we stood at last among the graves of the almshouse dead--those +who have escaped the dissecting-knife. Scattered about, with little +stones and mounds here and there, under the occasional sullen green of +cedars, a dead-cart and a spade sticking up as symbols, and the +neglected river, deserted as the Styx, plashing against the low banks, +we felt the sobering melancholy of the spot and made the prayer of +"Give me neither poverty nor riches!" + +1871. + + + + +OLD ST. MARY'S. + + + This is the river. Like Southampton water + It enters broadly in the woody lands, + As if to break a continent asunder, + And sudden ceasing, lo! the city stands: + St. Mary's--stretching forth its yellow hands + Of beach, beneath the bluff where it commands + In vision only; for the fields are green + Above the pilgrims. Pleasant is the place; + No ruin mars its immemorial face. + As young as in virginity renewed, + Its widow's sorrows gone without a trace, + And tempting man to woo its solitude. + + The river loves it, and embraces still + Its comely form with two small arms of bay, + Whereon, of old, the Calvert's pinnace lay, + The Dove--dear bird!--the olive in its bill, + That to the Ark returned from every gale + And found a haven by this sheltering hill.[4] + + Lo! all composed, the soft horizons lie + Afloat upon the blueness of the coves, + And sometimes in the mirage does the sky + Seem to continue the dependent groves, + And draw in the canoe that careless roves + Among the stars repeated round the bow. + Far off the larger sails go down the world, + For nothing worldly sees St. Mary's now; + The ancient windmills all their sails have furled, + The standards of the Lords of Baltimore, + And they, the Lords, have passed to their repose; + And nothing sounds upon the pebbly shore + Except thy hidden bell, Saint Inigo's. + +[Footnote 4: The Catholic settlers of Maryland had a ship called The +Ark, and a pinnace called The Dove.] + + There in a wood the Jesuits' chapel stands + Amongst the gravestones, in secluded calm. + But, Sabbath days, the censer's healing balm, + The Crucified with His extended hands, + And music of the masses, draw the fold + Back to His worship, as in days of old. + + Upon a cape the priest's house northward blinks, + To see St. Mary's Seminary guard + The dead that sleep within the parish yard, + In English faith--the parish church that links + The present with the perished, for its walls + Are of the clay that was the capital's, + When halberdiers and musketeers kept ward, + And armor sounded in the oaken halls. + + A fruity smell is in the school-house lane; + The clover bees are sick with evening heats; + A few old houses from the window pane + Fling back the flame of sunset, and there beats + The throb of oars from basking oyster fleets, + And clangorous music of the oyster tongs, + Plunged down in deep bivalvulous retreats, + And sound of seine drawn home with negro songs. + + Night falls as heavily in such a clime + As tired childhood after all day's play, + Waiting for mother who has passed away, + And some old nurse, with iterated rhyme + Of hymns or topics of the olden time, + Lulls wonder with her tenderness to rest: + So, old St. Mary's! at the close of day, + Sing thou to me, a truant, on thy breast. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF THE CHESAPEAKE*** + + +******* This file should be named 18126.txt or 18126.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/1/2/18126 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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