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diff --git a/old/cndns10.txt b/old/cndns10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9b12ff --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cndns10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5427 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Condensed Novels, by Bret Harte* +#7 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Condensed Novels + +by Bret Harte + +August, 2000 [Etext #2277] + +CONTENTS: +HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES +LOTHOW, or THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION +MUCK-A-MUCK, A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL, AFTER JAMES FENIMORE COOPER +TERENCE DENVILLE +SELINA SEDILIA +THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN [AFTER THE THREE MUSKETEERS, BY DUMAS] +MISS MIX [AFTER CHARLOTTE BRONTE] +GUY HEAVYSTONE; OR, "ENTIRE." +MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY +JOHN JENKINS; OR, THE SMOKER REFORMED +NO TITLE [AFTER WILKE COLLINS] + Contains: + MARY JONES'S NARRATIVE + THE SLIM YOUNG MAN'S STORY + NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD + COUNT MOSCOW'S NARRATIVE + DR. DIGGS'S STATEMENT + +MARY MCGILLUP, A SOUTHERN NOVEL, AFTER BELLE BOYD + + +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Condensed Novels, by Bret Harte* +******This file should be named cndns10.txt or cndns10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, cndns11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cndns10a.txt. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +CONDENSED NOVELS + +by BRET HARTE + + + + +Contents: +HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES +LOTHOW, or THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION +MUCK-A-MUCK, A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL, AFTER JAMES FENIMORE COOPER +TERENCE DENVILLE +SELINA SEDILIA +THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN [AFTER THE THREE MUSKETEERS, BY DUMAS] +MISS MIX [AFTER CHARLOTTE BRONTE] +GUY HEAVYSTONE; OR, "ENTIRE." +MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY +JOHN JENKINS; OR, THE SMOKER REFORMED +NO TITLE [AFTER WILKE COLLINS] + Contains: + MARY JONES'S NARRATIVE + THE SLIM YOUNG MAN'S STORY + NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD + COUNT MOSCOW'S NARRATIVE + DR. DIGGS'S STATEMENT + +MARY MCGILLUP, A SOUTHERN NOVEL, AFTER BELLE BOYD + + + + + +HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES. + +BY CH--S R--DE. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +The Dodds were dead. For twenty year they had slept under the +green graves of Kittery churchyard. The townfolk still spoke of +them kindly. The keeper of the alehouse, where David had smoked +his pipe, regretted him regularly, and Mistress Kitty, Mrs. Dodd's +maid, whose trim figure always looked well in her mistress's gowns, +was inconsolable. The Hardins were in America. Raby was +aristocratically gouty; Mrs. Raby, religious. Briefly, then, we +have disposed of-- + +1. Mr. and Mrs. Dodd (dead). + +2. Mr. and Mrs. Hardin (translated). + +3. Raby, baron et femme. (Yet I don't know about the former; he +came of a long-lived family, and the gout is an uncertain disease.) + +We have active at the present writing (place aux dames)-- + +1. Lady Caroline Coventry, niece of Sir Frederick. + +2. Faraday Huxley Little, son of Henry and Grace Little, deceased. + +Sequitur to the above, A HERO AND HEROINE. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +On the death of his parents, Faraday Little was taken to Raby Hall. +In accepting his guardianship, Mr. Raby struggled stoutly against +two prejudices: Faraday was plain-looking and sceptical. + +"Handsome is as handsome does, sweetheart," pleaded Jael, +interceding for the orphan with arms that were still beautiful. +"Dear knows, it is not his fault if he does not look like--his +father," she added with a great gulp. Jael was a woman, and +vindicated her womanhood by never entirely forgiving a former +rival. + +"It's not that alone, madam," screamed Raby, "but, d--m it, the +little rascal's a scientist,--an atheist, a radical, a scoffer! +Disbelieves in the Bible, ma'am; is full of this Darwinian stuff +about natural selection and descent. Descent, forsooth! In my +day, madam, gentlemen were content to trace their ancestors back to +gentlemen, and not to--monkeys!" + +"Dear heart, the boy is clever," urged Jael. + +"Clever!" roared Raby; "what does a gentleman want with +cleverness?" + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Young Little WAS clever. At seven he had constructed a telescope; +at nine, a flying-machine. At ten he saved a valuable life. + +Norwood Park was the adjacent estate,--a lordly domain dotted with +red deer and black trunks, but scrupulously kept with gravelled +roads as hard and blue as steel. There Little was strolling one +summer morning, meditating on a new top with concealed springs. At +a little distance before him he saw the flutter of lace and +ribbons. A young lady, a very young lady,--say of seven summers,-- +tricked out in the crying abominations of the present fashion, +stood beside a low bush. Her nursery-maid was not present, +possibly owing to the fact that John the footman was also absent. + +Suddenly Little came towards her. "Excuse me, but do you know what +those berries are?" He was pointing to the low bush filled with +dark clusters of shining--suspiciously shining--fruit. + +"Certainly; they are blueberries." + +"Pardon me; you are mistaken. They belong to quite another +family." + +Miss Impudence drew herself up to her full height (exactly three +feet nine and a half inches), and, curling an eight of an inch of +scarlet lip, said, scornfully. "YOUR family, perhaps." + +Faraday Little smiled in the superiority of boyhood over girlhood. + +"I allude to the classification. That plant is the belladonna, or +deadly nightshade. Its alkaloid is a narcotic poison." + +Sauciness turned pale. "I--have--just--eaten--some!" And began to +whimper. "O dear, what shall I do?" Then did it, i. e. wrung her +small fingers and cried. + +"Pardon me one moment." Little passed his arm around her neck, and +with his thumb opened widely the patrician-veined lids of her sweet +blue eyes. "Thank Heaven, there is yet no dilation of the pupil; +it is not too late!" He cast a rapid glance around. The nozzle +and about three feet of garden hose lay near him. + +"Open your mouth, quick!" + +It was a pretty, kissable mouth. But young Little meant business. +He put the nozzle down her pink throat as far as it would go. + +"Now, don't move." + +He wrapped his handkerchief around a hoopstick. Then he inserted +both in the other end of the stiff hose. It fitted snugly. He +shoved it in and then drew it back. + +Nature abhors a vacuum. The young patrician was as amenable to +this law as the child of the lowest peasant. + +She succumbed. It was all over in a minute. Then she burst into a +small fury. + +"You nasty, bad--UGLY boy." + +Young Little winced, but smiled. + +"Stimulants," he whispered to the frightened nursery-maid who +approached; "good evening." He was gone. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +The breach between young Little and Mr. Raby was slowly widening. +Little found objectionable features in the Hall. "This black oak +ceiling and wainscoating is not as healthful as plaster; besides, +it absorbs the light. The bedroom ceiling is too low; the +Elizabethan architects knew nothing of ventilation. The color of +that oak panelling which you admire is due to an excess of carbon +and the exuvia from the pores of your skin--" + +"Leave the house," bellowed Raby, "before the roof falls on your +sacrilegious head!" + +As Little left the house, Lady Caroline and a handsome boy of about +Little's age entered. Lady Caroline recoiled, and then--blushed. +Little glared; he instinctively felt the presence of a rival. + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Little worked hard. He studied night and day. In five years he +became a lecturer, then a professor. + +He soared as high as the clouds, he dipped as low as the cellars of +the London poor. He analyzed the London fog, and found it two +parts smoke, one disease, one unmentionable abominations. He +published a pamphlet, which was violently attacked. Then he knew +he had done something. + +But he had not forgotten Caroline. He was walking one day in the +Zoological Gardens and he came upon a pretty picture,--flesh and +blood too. + +Lady Caroline feeding buns to the bears! An exquisite thrill +passed through his veins. She turned her sweet face and their eyes +met. They recollected their first meeting seven years before, but +it was his turn to be shy and timid. Wonderful power of age and +sex! She met him with perfect self-possession. + +"Well meant, but indigestible I fear" (he alluded to the buns). + +"A clever person like yourself can easily correct that" (she, the +slyboots, was thinking of something else). + +In a few moments they were chatting gayly. Little eagerly +descanted upon the different animals; she listened with delicious +interest. An hour glided delightfully away. + +After this sunshine, clouds. + +To them suddenly entered Mr. Raby and a handsome young man. The +gentlemen bowed stiffly and looked vicious,--as they felt. The +lady of this quartette smiled amiably, as she did not feel. + +"Looking at your ancestors, I suppose," said Mr. Raby, pointing to +the monkeys; "we will not disturb you. Come." And he led +Caroline away. + +Little was heart-sick. He dared not follow them. But an hour +later he saw something which filled his heart with bliss +unspeakable. + +Lady Caroline, with a divine smile on her face, feeding the +monkeys! + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Encouraged by love, Little worked hard upon his new flying-machine. +His labors were lightened by talking of the beloved one with her +French maid Therese, whom he had discreetly bribed. Mademoiselle +Therese was venal, like all her class, but in this instance I fear +she was not bribed by British gold. Strange as it may seem to the +British mind, it was British genius, British eloquence, British +thought, that brought her to the feet of this young savan. + +"I believe," said Lady Caroline, one day, interrupting her maid in +a glowing eulogium upon the skill of "M. Leetell,"--"I believe you +are in love with this Professor." A quick flush crossed the olive +cheek of Therese, which Lady Caroline afterward remembered. + +The eventful day of trial came. The public were gathered, +impatient and scornful as the pigheaded public are apt to be. In +the open area a long cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna +sausage, swayed above the machine, from which, like some enormous +bird caught in a net, it tried to free itself. A heavy rope held +it fast to the ground. + +Little was waiting for the ballast, when his eye caught Lady +Caroline's among the spectators. The glance was appealing. In a +moment he was at her side. + +"I should like so much to get into the machine," said the arch- +hypocrite, demurely. + +"Are you engaged to marry young Raby," said Little, bluntly. + +"As you please," she said with a courtesy; "do I take this as a +refusal?" + +Little was a gentleman. He lifted her and her lapdog into the car. + +"How nice! it won't go off?" + +"No, the rope is strong, and the ballast is not yet in." + +A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands +stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward. + +Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,--Little's! But in +the same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled +from his feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into +space. + + +CHAPTER VII.* + + +* The right of dramatization of this and succeeding chapters is +reserved by the writer. + + +Lady Caroline fainted. The cold watery nose of her dog on her +cheek brought her to herself. She dared not look over the edge of +the car; she dared not look up to the bellying monster above her, +bearing her to death. She threw herself on the bottom of the car, +and embraced the only living thing spared her,--the poodle. Then +she cried. Then a clear voice came apparently out of the +circumambient air:-- + +"May I trouble you to look at the barometer?" + +She put her head over the car. Little was hanging at the end of a +long rope. She put her head back again. + +In another moment he saw her perplexed, blushing face over the +edge,--blissful sight. + +"O, please don't think of coming up! Stay there, do!" + +Little stayed. Of course she could make nothing out of the +barometer, and said so. Little smiled. + +"Will you kindly send it down to me?" + +But she had no string or cord. Finally she said, "Wait a moment." + +Little waited. This time her face did not appear. The barometer +came slowly down at the end of--a stay-lace. + +The barometer showed a frightful elevation. Little looked up at +the valve and said nothing. Presently he heard a sigh. Then a +sob. Then, rather sharply,-- + +"Why don't you do something?" + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Little came up the rope hand over hand. Lady Caroline crouched in +the farther side of the car. Fido, the poodle, whined. "Poor +thing," said Lady Caroline, "it's hungry." + +"Do you wish to save the dog?" said Little. + +"Yes." + +"Give me your parasol." + +She handed Little a good-sized affair of lace and silk and +whalebone. (None of your "sunshades.") Little examined its ribs +carefully. + +"Give me the dog." + +Lady Caroline hurriedly slipped a note under the dog's collar, and +passed over her pet. + +Little tied the dog to the handle of the parasol and launched them +both into space. The next moment they were slowly, but tranquilly, +sailing to the earth. + +"A parasol and a parachute are distinct, but not different. Be not +alarmed, he will get his dinner at some farm-house." + +"Where are we now?" + +"That opaque spot you see is London fog. Those twin clouds are +North and South America. Jerusalem and Madagascar are those specks +to the right." + +Lady Caroline moved nearer; she was becoming interested. Then she +recalled herself and said freezingly, "How are we going to +descend?" + +"By opening the valve." + +"Why don't you open it then?" + +"BECAUSE THE VALVE-STRING IS BROKEN!" + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Lady Caroline fainted. When she revived it was dark. They were +apparently cleaving their way through a solid block of black +marble. She moaned and shuddered. + +"I wish we had a light." + +"I have no lucifers," said Little. "I observe, however, that you +wear a necklace of amber. Amber under certain conditions becomes +highly electrical. Permit me." + +He took the amber necklace and rubbed it briskly. Then he asked +her to present her knuckle to the gem. A bright spark was the +result. This was repeated for some hours. The light was not +brilliant, but it was enough for the purposes of propriety, and +satisfied the delicately minded girl. + +Suddenly there was a tearing, hissing noise and a smell of gas. +Little looked up and turned pale. The balloon, at what I shall +call the pointed end of the Bologna sausage, was evidently bursting +from increased pressure. The gas was escaping, and already they +were beginning to descend. Little was resigned but firm. + +"If the silk gives way, then we are lost. Unfortunately I have no +rope nor material for binding it." + +The woman's instinct had arrived at the same conclusion sooner than +the man's reason. But she was hesitating over a detail. + +"Will you go down the rope for a moment?" she said, with a sweet +smile. + +Little went down. Presently she called to him. She held something +in her hand,--a wonderful invention of the seventeenth century, +improved and perfected in this: a pyramid of sixteen circular hoops +of light yet strong steel, attached to each other by cloth bands. + +With a cry of joy Little seized them, climbed to the balloon, and +fitted the elastic hoops over its conical end. Then he returned to +the car. + +"We are saved." + +Lady Caroline, blushing, gathered her slim but antique drapery +against the other end of the car. + + +CHAPTER X. + + +They were slowly descending. Presently Lady Caroline distinguished +the outlines of Raby Hall. "I think I will get out here," she +said. + +Little anchored the balloon and prepared to follow her. + +"Not so, my friend," she said, with an arch smile. "We must not be +seen together. People might talk. Farewell." + +Little sprang again into the balloon and sped away to America. He +came down in California, oddly enough in front of Hardin's door, at +Dutch Flat. Hardin was just examining a specimen of ore. + +"You are a scientist; can you tell me if that is worth anything?" +he said, handing it to Little. + +Little held it to the light. "It contains ninety per cent of +silver." + +Hardin embraced him. "Can I do anything for you, and why are you +here?" + +Little told his story. Hardin asked to see the rope. Then he +examined it carefully. + +"Ah, this was cut, not broken!" + +"With a knife?" asked Little. + +"No. Observe both sides are equally indented. It was done with a +SCISSORS!" + +"Just Heaven!" gasped Little. "Therese!" + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Little returned to London. Passing through London one day he met a +dog-fancier. "Buy a nice poodle, sir?" + +Something in the animal attracted his attention. "Fido!" he +gasped. + +The dog yelped. + +Little bought him. On taking off his collar a piece of paper +rustled to the floor. He knew the handwriting and kissed it. It +ran:-- + + +"TO THE HON. AUGUSTUS RABY--I cannot marry you. If I marry any +one" (sly puss) "it will be the man who has twice saved my life,-- +Professor Little. + +"CAROLINE COVENTRY." + + +And she did. + + + +LOTHAW; + +OR, + +THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. + +BY MR. BENJAMINS. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"I remember him a little boy," said the Duchess. "His mother was a +dear friend of mine; you know she was one of my bridesmaids." + +"And you have never seen him since, mamma?" asked the oldest +married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother. + +"Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached +myself, but it is so difficult to see boys." + +This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning- +room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat +involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married +daughters. One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the +fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which +none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe +was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than +L1,000,000; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; +a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality +of gold leaf. Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with +embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with +mother-of-pearl. Others, more remote, occasionally burst into +melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given +to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private +use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for +publication. + +The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and +position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms. +Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were +exactly like their parents,--a peculiarity of the aristocratic and +wealthy. They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their +parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of +their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been +taken for their own children's elder son and daughter. The +daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest +nobles in the land. That exception was the Lady Coriander, who, +there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of L1,000,000, +waited. Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their +breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial +respect to their father's Tory instincts and their mother's +Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the +effect was dazzling as it was refined. It was this peculiarity and +their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the +good-humored St. Addlegourd, to say that, "'Pon my soul, you know, +the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards, +you know." St. Addlegourd was a radical. Having a rent-roll of +L15,000,000, and belonging to one of the oldest families in +Britain, he could afford to be. + +"Mamma, I've just dropped a pearl," said the Lady Coriander, +bending over the Persian hearthrug. + +"From your lips, sweet friend," said Lothaw, who came of age and +entered the room at the same moment. + +"No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave +Isaacs and Sons L50,000 for the two." + +"Ah, indeed," said the Duchess, languidly rising; "let us go to +luncheon." + +"But your Grace," interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and +had dropped on all-fours on the carpet in search of the missing +gem, "consider the value--" + +"Dear friend," interposed the Duchess, with infinite tact, gently +lifting him by the tails of his dress-coat, "I am waiting for your +arm." + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Lothaw was immensely rich. The possessor of seventeen castles, +fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had +other estates of which he had not even heard. + +Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their +purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this +accomplishment. Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after +seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to +"tight croquet" the Lady Aniseed's ball, he limped away to join the +Duchess. + +"I'm going to the hennery," she said. + +"Let me go with you, I dearly love fowls--broiled," he added, +thoughtfully. + +"The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day," +continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact. + + + "Lady Montairy, + Quite contrairy, + How do your cochins grow?" + + +sang Lothaw gayly. + +The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence, Lothaw +abruptly and gravely said:-- + +"If you please, ma'am, when I come into my property I should like +to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady +Coriander." + +"You amaze me, dear friend, and yet both your aspirations are noble +and eminently proper," said the Duchess; "Coriander is but a +child,--and yet," she added, looking graciously upon her companion, +"for the matter of that, so are you." + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Mr. Putney Giles's was Lothaw's first grand dinner-party. Yet, by +carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself +creditably, and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first +secretly testing its contents with a spoon. The conversation was +peculiar and singularly interesting. + +"Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the +thermometer?" said Mrs. Putney Giles to her companion. + +"I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal +lines," replied Lothaw. + +"I should say it was a matter of latitude," observed a loud +talkative man opposite. He was an Oxford Professor with a taste +for satire, and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, +during dinner, by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known +Chancellor of the Exchequer,--a great statesman and brilliant +novelist,--whom he feared and hated. + +Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it +absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill. His Eminence, the +Cardinal, was announced. He entered with great suavity of manner, +and, after shaking hands with everybody, asking after their +relatives, and chucking the more delicate females under the chin +with a high-bred grace peculiar to his profession, he sat down, +saying, "And how do we all find ourselves this evening, my dears?" +in several different languages, which he spoke fluently. + +Lothaw's heart was touched. His deeply religious convictions were +impressed. He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, +and received absolution. "To-morrow," he said to himself, "I will +partake of the communion, and endow the Church with my vast +estates. For the present I'll let the improved cottages go." + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +As Lothaw turned to leave the Cardinal, he was struck by a +beautiful face. It was that of a matron, slim but shapely as an +Ionic column. Her face was Grecian, with Corinthian temples; +Hellenic eyes that looked from jutting eyebrows, like dormer- +windows in an Attic forehead, completed her perfect Athenian +outline. She wore a black frock-coat tightly buttoned over her +bloomer trousers, and a standing collar. + +"Your Lordship is struck by that face," said a social parasite. + +"I am; who is she?" + +"Her name is Mary Ann. She is married to an American, and has +lately invented a new religion" + +"Ah!" said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from +rushing toward her. + +"Yes; shall I introduce you?" + +Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander's High Church proclivities, of the +Cardinal, and hesitated: "No, I thank you, not now." + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Lothaw was maturing. He had attended two woman's rights +conventions, three Fenian meetings, had dined at White's, and had +danced vis-a-vis to a prince of the blood, and eaten off of gold +plates at Crecy House. + +His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the +University. He was driving over there one day, when he perceived +some rustics and menials endeavoring to stop a pair of runaway +horses attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were +seated. Calmly awaiting the termination of the accident, with +high-bred courtesy Lothaw forbore to interfere until the carriage +was overturned, the occupants thrown out, and the runaways secured +by the servants, when he advanced and offered the lady the +exclusive use of his Oxford stables. + +Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he +remembered, she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels +into the light and presented him with ladylike dignity as her +husband, Major-General Camperdown, an American. + +"Ah," said Lothaw, carelessly, "I believe I have some land there. +If I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the +State of--Illinois--I think you call it." + +"Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me +introduce myself as your tenant." + +Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he +seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs +of inferiority and plebeian extraction. + +"We have met before," said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his +arm, while they visited his stables, the University, and other +places of interest in Oxford. "Pray tell me, what is this new +religion of yours?" + +"It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism. +Embrace it and me." + +Lothaw did not know exactly what to do. She however soothed and +sustained his agitated frame and sealed with an embrace his +speechless form. The General approached and coughed slightly with +gentlemanly tact. + +"My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this +subject," she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the +General's side. Come with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of +the past." + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +As Lothaw drove toward his country-seat, "The Mural Enclosure," he +observed a crowd, apparently of the working class, gathered around +a singular-looking man in the picturesque garb of an Ethiopian +serenader. "What does he say?" inquired Lothaw of his driver. + +The man touched his hat respectfully and said, "My Mary Ann." + +"'My Mary Ann!'" Lothaw's heart beat rapidly. Who was this +mysterious foreigner? He had heard from Lady Coriander of a +certain Popish plot; but could he connect Mr. Camperdown with it? + +The spectacle of two hundred men at arms who advanced to meet him +at the gates of The Mural Enclosure drove all else from the still +youthful and impressible mind of Lothaw. Immediately behind them, +on the steps of the baronial halls, were ranged his retainers, led +by the chief cook and bottle-washer, and head crumb-remover. On +either side were two companies of laundry-maids, preceded by the +chief crimper and fluter, supporting a long Ancestral Line, on +which depended the family linen, and under which the youthful lord +of the manor passed into the halls of his fathers. Twenty-four +scullions carried the massive gold and silver plate of the family +on their shoulders, and deposited it at the feet of their master. +The spoons were then solemnly counted by the steward, and the +perfect ceremony ended. + +Lothaw sighed. He sought out the gorgeously gilded "Taj," or +sacred mausoleum erected to his grandfather in the second story +front room, and wept over the man he did not know. He wandered +alone in his magnificent park, and then, throwing himself on a +grassy bank, pondered on the Great First Cause, and the necessity +of religion. "I will send Mary Ann a handsome present," said +Lothaw, thoughtfully. + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +"Each of these pearls, my Lord, is worth fifty thousand guineas," +said Mr. Amethyst, the fashionable jeweler, as he lightly lifted a +large shovelful from a convenient bin behind his counter. + +"Indeed," said Lothaw, carelessly, "I should prefer to see some +expensive ones. + +"Some number sixes, I suppose," said Mr. Amethyst, taking a couple +from the apex of a small pyramid that lay piled on the shelf. +"These are about the size of the Duchess of Billingsgate's, but +they are in finer condition. The fact is, her Grace permits her +two children, the Marquis of Smithfield and the Duke of St. Giles,-- +two sweet pretty boys, my Lord,--to use them as marbles in their +games. Pearls require some attention, and I go down there +regularly twice a week to clean them. Perhaps your Lordship would +like some ropes of pearls?" + +"About half a cable's length," said Lothaw, shortly, "and send them +to my lodgings." + +Mr. Amethyst became thoughtful. "I am afraid I have not the exact +number--that is--excuse me one moment. I will run over to the +Tower and borrow a few from the crown jewels." And before Lothaw +could prevent him, he seized his hat and left Lothaw alone. + +His position certainly was embarrassing. He could not move without +stepping on costly gems which had rolled from the counter; the +rarest diamonds lay scattered on the shelves; untold fortunes in +priceless emeralds lay within his grasp. Although such was the +aristocratic purity of his blood and the strength of his religious +convictions that he probably would not have pocketed a single +diamond, still he could not help thinking that he might he accused +of taking some. "You can search me, if you like," he said when Mr. +Amethyst returned; "but I assure you, upon the honor of a +gentleman, that I have taken nothing." + +"Enough, my Lord," said Mr. Amethyst, with a low bow; "we never +search the aristocracy." + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +As Lothaw left Mr. Amethyst's, he ran against General Camperdown. +"How is Mary Ann?" he asked hurriedly. + +"I regret to state that she is dying," said the general, with a +grave voice, as he removed his cigar from his lips, and lifted his +hat to Lothaw. + +"Dying!" said Lothaw, incredulously. + +"Alas, too true!" replied the General. "The engagements of a long +lecturing season, exposure in travelling by railway during the +winter, and the imperfect nourishment afforded by the refreshments +along the road, have told on her delicate frame. But she wants to +see you before she dies. Here is the key of my lodging. I will +finish my cigar out here." + +Lothaw hardly recognized those wasted Hellenic outlines as he +entered the dimly lighted room of the dying woman. She was already +a classic ruin,--as wrecked and yet as perfect as the Parthenon. +He grasped her hand silently. + +"Open-air speaking twice a week, and saleratus bread in the rural +districts, have brought me to this," she said feebly; "but it is +well. The cause progresses. The tyrant man succumbs." + +Lothaw could only press her hand. + +"Promise me one thing. Don't--whatever you do--become a Catholic." + +"Why?" + +"The Church does not recognize divorce. And now embrace me. I +would prefer at this supreme moment to introduce myself to the next +world through the medium of the best society in this. Good by. +When I am dead, be good enough to inform my husband of the fact." + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Lothaw spent the next six months on an Aryan island, in an Aryan +climate, and with an Aryan race. + +"This is an Aryan landscape," said his host, "and that is a Mary +Ann statue." It was, in fact, a full-length figure in marble of +Mrs. General Camperdown! + +"If you please, I should like to become a Pagan," said Lothaw, one +day, after listening to an impassioned discourse on Greek art from +the lips of his host. + +But that night, on consulting a well-known spiritual medium, Lothaw +received a message from the late Mrs. General Camperdown, advising +him to return to England. Two days later he presented himself at +Plusham. + +"The young ladies are in the garden," said the Duchess. "Don't you +want to go and pick a rose?" she added with a gracious smile, and +the nearest approach to a wink that was consistent with her +patrician bearing and aquiline nose. + +Lothaw went and presently returned with the blushing Coriander upon +his arm. + +"Bless you, my children," said the Duchess. Then, turning to +Lothaw, she said: "You have simply fulfilled and accepted your +inevitable destiny. It was morally impossible for you to marry out +of this family. For the present, the Church of England is safe." + + + +MUCK-A-MUCK. + +A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL. + +AFTER COOPER. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of +the setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes +peculiar to the Sierras of California. On the right the curling +smoke of an Indian village rose between the columns of the lofty +pines, while to the left the log cottage of Judge Tompkins, +embowered in buckeyes, completed the enchanting picture. + +Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious, +and in keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior +gave evidence of the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An +aquarium, containing goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at +one end of the apartment, while a magnificent grand piano occupied +the other. The floor was covered with a yielding tapestry carpet, +and the walls were adorned with paintings from the pencils of Van +Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael Angelo, and the productions of +the more modern Turner, Kensett, Church, and Bierstadt. Although +Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of civilization as his +home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego the habits and +tastes of his former life. He was seated in a luxurious arm-chair, +writing at a mahogany ecritoire, while his daughter, a lovely young +girl of seventeen summers, plied her crochet-needle on an ottoman +beside him. A bright fire of pine logs flickered and flamed on the +ample hearth. + +Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins's only child. Her +mother had long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no +pains had been spared with the daughter's education. She was a +graduate of one of the principal seminaries, and spoke French with +a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly beautiful, she was dressed in +a white moire antique robe trimmed with tulle. That simple rosebud +with which most heroines exclusively decorate their hair, was all +she wore in her raven locks. + +The Judge was the first to break the silence. + +"Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been +incautiously chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which +exudes copiously therefrom, is not conducive to composition." + +"True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant +crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned +ligneous fragments." + +The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the +graceful girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green +wood in the musical accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her +hair tenderly, when the shadow of a tall figure, which suddenly +darkened the doorway, caused him to look up. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form +and features of the haughty aborigine,--the untaught and +untrammelled son of the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, +negligently but gracefully thrown, disclosed a bare and powerful +breast, decorated with a quantity of three-cent postage-stamps +which he had despoiled from an Overland Mail stage a few weeks +previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins's, adorned by a +simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which his +straight locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side, +while his left was engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, +which the lawless grace and freedom of his lower limbs evidently +could not brook. + +"Why," said the Indian, in a low sweet tone,--"why does the Pale +Face still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue +him, even as O-kee-chow, the wild-cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? +Why are the feet of Sorrel-top, the white chief, among the acorns +of Muck-a-muck, the mountain forest? Why," he repeated, quietly +but firmly abstracting a silver spoon from the table,--"why do you +seek to drive him from the wigwams of his fathers? His brothers +are already gone to the happy hunting-grounds. Will the Pale Face +seek him there?" And, averting his face from the Judge, he hastily +slipped a silver cake-basket beneath his blanket, to conceal his +emotion. + +"Muck-a-Muck has spoken," said Genevra, softly. "Let him now +listen. Are the acorns of the mountain sweeter than the esculent +and nutritious bean of the Pale Face miner? Does my brother prize +the edible qualities of the snail above that of the crisp and +oleaginous bacon? Delicious are the grasshoppers that sport on the +hillside,--are they better than the dried apples of the Pale Faces? +Pleasant is the gurgle of the torrent, Kish-Kish, but is it better +than the cluck-cluck of old Bourbon from the old stone bottle?" + +"Ugh!" said the Indian,--"ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. +Her words fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of +Muck-a-Muck is hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of +Dutch Flat?" + +"She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck," said the Judge, gazing fondly on his +daughter. "It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you,-- +you need NOT dance the Dance of Snow Shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, +the Dance of Green Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A +strange sadness overpowers me." + +"I go," said the Indian. "Tell your great chief in Washington, the +Sachem Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of +the adventurous Pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward +the star of empire takes its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute +nation are for Reconstruction to a man, and that Klamath will poll +a heavy Republican vote in the fall." + +And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck +withdrew. + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after +the retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to +Virginia City. "He may never return again," sighed the young girl +as she glanced at the frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly +careering horses,--"at least, with unbroken bones. Should he meet +with an accident! I mind me now a fearful legend, familiar to my +childhood. Can it be that the drivers on this line are privately +instructed to despatch all passengers maimed by accident, to +prevent tedious litigation? No, no. But why this weight upon my +heart?" + +She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over +the keys. Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first +verse of one of the most popular Irish ballads:-- + + + "O Arrah, ma dheelish, the distant dudheen + Lies soft in the moonlight, ma bouchal vourneen: + The springing gossoons on the heather are still, + And the caubeens and colleens are heard on the hills." + + +But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, +her hands sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away +the mysterious shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on +a white crape bonnet, and carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored +gloves over her taper fingers, she seized her parasol and plunged +into the depths of the pine forest. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Genevra had not proceeded many miles before a weariness seized upon +her fragile limbs, and she would fain seat herself upon the trunk +of a prostrate pine, which she previously dusted with her +handkerchief. The sun was just sinking below the horizon, and the +scene was one of gorgeous and sylvan beauty. "How beautiful is +Nature!" murmured the innocent girl, as, reclining gracefully +against the root of the tree, she gathered up her skirts and tied a +handkerchief around her throat. But a low growl interrupted her +meditation. Starting to her feet, her eyes met a sight which froze +her blood with terror. + +The only outlet to the forest was the narrow path, barely wide +enough for a single person, hemmed in by trees and rocks, which she +had just traversed. Down this path, in Indian file, came a +monstrous grizzly, closely followed by a California lion, a wild- +cat, and a buffalo, the rear being brought up by a wild Spanish +bull. The mouths of the three first animals were distended with +frightful significance; the horns of the last were lowered as +ominously. As Genevra was preparing to faint, she heard a low +voice behind her. + +"Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this ain't the puttiest chance yet." + +At the same moment, a long, shining barrel dropped lightly from +behind her, and rested over her shoulder. + +Genevra shuddered. + +"Dern ye--don't move!" + +Genevra became motionless. + +The crack of a rifle rang through the woods. Three frightful yells +were heard, and two sullen roars. Five animals bounded into the +air and five lifeless bodies lay upon the plain. The well-aimed +bullet had done its work. Entering the open throat of the grizzly, +it had traversed his body only to enter the throat of the +California lion, and in like manner the catamount, until it passed +through into the respective foreheads of the bull and the buffalo, +and finally fell flattened from the rocky hillside. + +Genevra turned quickly. "My preserver!" she shrieked, and fell +into the arms of Natty Bumpo, the celebrated Pike Ranger of Donner +Lake. + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The moon rose cheerfully above Donner Lake. On its placid bosom a +dug-out canoe glided rapidly, containing Natty Bumpo and Genevra +Tompkins. + +Both were silent. The same thought possessed each, and perhaps +there was sweet companionship even in the unbroken quiet. Genevra +bit the handle of her parasol and blushed. Natty Bumpo took a +fresh chew of tobacco. At length Genevra said, as if in half- +spoken revery:-- + +"The soft shining of the moon and the peaceful ripple of the waves +seem to say to us various things of an instructive and moral +tendency." + +"You may bet yer pile on that, Miss," said her companion, gravely. +"It's all the preachin' and psalm-singin' I've heern since I was a +boy." + +"Noble being!" said Miss Tompkins to herself, glancing at the +stately Pike as he bent over his paddle to conceal his emotion. +"Reared in this wild seclusion, yet he has become penetrated with +visible consciousness of a Great First Cause." Then, collecting +herself, she said aloud: "Methinks 'twere pleasant to glide ever +thus down the stream of life, hand in hand with the one being whom +the soul claims as its affinity. But what am I saying?"--and the +delicate-minded girl hid her face in her hands. + +A long silence ensued, which was at length broken by her companion. + +"Ef you mean you're on the marry," he said, thoughtfully, "I ain't +in no wise partikler!" + +"My husband," faltered the blushing girl; and she fell into his +arms. + +In ten minutes more the loving couple had landed at Judge +Tompkins's. + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A year has passed away. Natty Bumpo was returning from Gold Hill, +where he had been to purchase provisions. On his way to Donner +Lake, rumors of an Indian uprising met his ears. "Dern their pesky +skins, ef they dare to touch my Jenny," he muttered between his +clenched teeth. + +It was dark when he reached the borders of the lake. Around a +glittering fire he dimly discerned dusky figures dancing. They +were in war paint. Conspicuous among them was the renowned Muck-a- +Muck. But why did the fingers of Natty Bumpo tighten convulsively +around his rifle? + +The chief held in his hand long tufts of raven hair. The heart of +the pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of +Genevra. In a moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a +sharp "ping," Muck-a-Muck leaped into the air a corpse. To knock +out the brains of the remaining savages, tear the tresses from the +stiffening hand of Muck-a-Muck, and dash rapidly forward to the +cottage of Judge Tompkins, was the work of a moment. + +He burst open the door. Why did he stand transfixed with open +mouth and distended eyeballs? Was the sight too horrible to be +borne? On the contrary, before him, in her peerless beauty, stood +Genevra Tompkins, leaning on her father's arm. + +"Ye'r not scalped, then!" gasped her lover. + +"No. I have no hesitation in saying that I am not; but why this +abruptness?" responded Genevra. + +Bumpo could not speak, but frantically produced the silken tresses. +Genevra turned her face aside. + +"Why, that's her waterfall!" said the Judge. + +Bumpo sank fainting to the floor. + +The famous Pike chieftain never recovered from the deceit, and +refused to marry Genevra, who died, twenty years afterwards, of a +broken heart. Judge Tompkins lost his fortune in Wild Cat. The +stage passes twice a week the deserted cottage at Donner Lake. +Thus was the death of Muck-a-Muck avenged. + + + +TERENCE DENVILLE. + +BY CH--L--S L--V--R. + + +CHAPTER I. + +MY HOME. + + +The little village of Pilwiddle is one of the smallest and +obscurest hamlets on the western coast of Ireland. On a lofty +crag, overlooking the hoarse Atlantic, stands "Denville's Shot +Tower"--a corruption by the peasantry of D'Enville's Chateau, so +called from my great-grandfather, Phelim St. Kemy d'Enville, who +assumed the name and title of a French heiress with whom he ran +away. To this fact my familiar knowledge and excellent +pronunciation of the French language may be attributed, as well as +many of the events which covered my after life. + +The Denvilles were always passionately fond of field sports. At +the age of four, I was already the boldest rider and the best shot +in the country. When only eight, I won the St. Remy Cup at the +Pilwiddle races,--riding my favorite bloodmare Hellfire. As I +approached the stand amidst the plaudits of the assembled +multitude, and cries of, "Thrue for ye, Masther Terence," and "O, +but it's a Dinville!" there was a slight stir among the gentry, who +surrounded the Lord Lieutenant, and other titled personages whom +the race had attracted thither. "How young he is,--a mere child; +and yet how noble-looking," said a sweet low voice, which thrilled +my soul. + +I looked up and met the full liquid orbs of the Hon. Blanche +Fitzroy Sackville, youngest daughter of the Lord Lieutenant. She +blushed deeply. I turned pale and almost fainted. But the cold, +sneering tones of a masculine voice sent the blood back again into +my youthful cheek. + +"Very likely the ragged scion of one of these banditti Irish +gentry, who has taken naturally to 'the road.' He should be at +school--though I warrant me his knowledge of Terence will not +extend beyond his own name," said Lord Henry Somerset, aid-de-camp +to the Lord Lieutenant. + +A moment and I was perfectly calm, though cold as ice. +Dismounting, and stepping to the side of the speaker, I said in a +low, firm voice:-- + +"Had your Lordship read Terence more carefully, you would have +learned that banditti are sometimes proficient in other arts beside +horsemanship," and I touched his holster significantly with my +hand. I had not read Terence myself, but with the skilful audacity +of my race I calculated that a vague allusion, coupled with a +threat, would embarrass him. It did. + +"Ah--what mean you?" he said, white with rage. + +"Enough, we are observed," I replied; "Father Tom will wait on you +this evening; and to-morrow morning, my lord, in the glen below +Pilwiddle we will meet again." + +"Father Tom--glen!" ejaculated the Englishman, with genuine +surprise. "What? do priests carry challenges and act as seconds in +your infernal country?" + +"Yes!" I answered, scornfully, "why should they not? Their +services are more often necessary than those of a surgeon," I added +significantly, turning away. + +The party slowly rode off, with the exception of the Hon. Blanche +Sackville, who lingered for a moment behind. In an instant I was +at her side. Bending her blushing face over the neck of her white +filly, she said hurriedly:-- + +"Words have passed between Lord Somerset and yourself. You are +about to fight. Don't deny it--but hear me. You will meet him--I +know your skill of weapons. He will be at your mercy. I entreat +you to spare his life!" + +I hesitated. "Never!" I cried passionately; "he has insulted a +Denville!" + +"Terence," she whispered, "Terence--FOR MY SAKE?" + +The blood rushed to my cheeks, and her eyes sought the ground in +bashful confusion. + +"You love him then?" I cried, bitterly. + +"No, no," she said, agitatedly, "no, you do me wrong. I--I--cannot +explain myself. My father!--the Lady Dowager Sackville--the estate +of Sackville--the borough--my uncle, Fitzroy Somerset. Ah! what am +I saying? Forgive me. O Terence," she said, as her beautiful head +sank on my shoulder, "you know not what I suffer!" + +I seized her hand and covered it with passionate kisses. But the +high-bred English girl, recovering something of her former hauteur, +said hastily, "Leave me, leave me, but promise!" + +"I promise," I replied, enthusiastically; "I WILL spare his life!" + +"Thanks, Terence,--thanks!" and disengaging her hand from my lips +she rode rapidly away. + +The next morning, the Hon. Captain Henry Somerset and myself +exchanged nineteen shots in the glen, and at each fire I shot away +a button from his uniform. As my last bullet shot off the last +button from his sleeve, I remarked quietly, "You seem now, my lord, +to be almost as ragged as the gentry you sneered at," and rode +haughtily away. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE FIGHTING FIFTY-SIXTH. + + +When I was nineteen years old my father sold the Chateau d'Enville +and purchased my commission in the "Fifty-sixth" with the proceeds. +"I say, Denville," said young McSpadden, a boy-faced ensign, who +had just joined, "you'll represent the estate in the Army, if you +won't in the House." Poor fellow, he paid for his meaningless joke +with his life, for I shot him through the heart the next morning. +"You're a good fellow, Denville," said the poor boy faintly, as I +knelt beside him: "good by!" For the first time since my +grandfather's death I wept. I could not help thinking that I would +have been a better man if Blanche--but why proceed? Was she not +now in Florence--the belle of the English Embassy? + +But Napoleon had returned from Elba. Europe was in a blaze of +excitement. The Allies were preparing to resist the Man of +Destiny. We were ordered from Gibraltar home, and were soon again +en route for Brussels. I did not regret that I was to be placed in +active service. I was ambitious, and longed for an opportunity to +distinguish myself. My garrison life in Gibraltar had been +monotonous and dull. I had killed five men in duel, and had an +affair with the colonel of my regiment, who handsomely apologized +before the matter assumed a serious aspect. I had been twice in +love. Yet these were but boyish freaks and follies. I wished to +be a man. + +The time soon came,--the morning of Waterloo. But why describe +that momentous battle, on which the fate of the entire world was +hanging? Twice were the Fifty-sixth surrounded by French +cuirassiers, and twice did we mow them down by our fire. I had +seven horses shot under me, and was mounting the eighth, when an +orderly rode up hastily, touched his cap, and, handing me a +despatch, galloped rapidly away. + +I opened it hurriedly and read:-- + +"LET PICTON ADVANCE IMMEDIATELY ON THE RIGHT." + +I saw it all at a glance. I had been mistaken for a general +officer. But what was to be done? Picton's division was two miles +away, only accessible through a heavy cross fire of artillery and +musketry. But my mind was made up. + +In an instant I was engaged with an entire squadron of cavalry, who +endeavored to surround me. Cutting my way through them, I advanced +boldly upon a battery and sabred the gunners before they could +bring their pieces to bear. Looking around, I saw that I had in +fact penetrated the French centre. Before I was well aware of the +locality, I was hailed by a sharp voice in French,-- + +"Come here, sir!" + +I obeyed, and advanced to the side of a little man in a cocked hat. + +"Has Grouchy come?" + +"Not yet, sire," I replied,--for it was the Emperor. + +"Ha!" he said suddenly, bending his piercing eyes on my uniform; "a +prisoner?" + +"No, sire," I said, proudly. + +"A spy?" + +I placed my hand upon my sword, but a gesture from the Emperor bade +me forbear. + +"You are a brave man," he said. + +I took my snuff-box from my pocket, and, taking a pinch, replied by +handing it, with a bow, to the Emperor. + +His quick eye caught the cipher on the lid. "What! a D'Enville? +Ha! this accounts for the purity of your accent. Any relation to +Roderick d'Enville?" + +"My father, sire." + +"He was my school-fellow at the Ecole Polytechnique. Embrace me!" +And the Emperor fell upon my neck in the presence of his entire +staff. Then, recovering himself, he gently placed in my hand his +own magnificent snuff-box, in exchange for mine, and hanging upon +my breast the cross of the Legion of Honor which he took from his +own, he bade one of his Marshals conduct me back to my regiment. + +I was so intoxicated with the honor of which I had been the +recipient, that on reaching our lines I uttered a shout of joy and +put spurs to my horse. The intelligent animal seemed to sympathize +with my feelings, and fairly flew over the ground. On a rising +eminence a few yards before me stood a gray-haired officer, +surrounded by his staff. I don't know what possessed me, but +putting spurs to my horse, I rode at him boldly, and with one bound +cleared him, horse and all. A shout of indignation arose from the +assembled staff. I wheeled suddenly, with the intention of +apologizing, but my mare misunderstood me, and, again dashing +forward, once more vaulted over the head of the officer, this time +unfortunately uncovering him by a vicious kick of her hoof. "Seize +him!" roared the entire army. I was seized. As the soldiers led +me away, I asked the name of the gray-haired officer. "That--why, +that's the DUKE OF WELLINGTON!" + +I fainted. + + * * * * * * + +For six months I had brain-fever. During my illness ten grapeshot +were extracted from my body which I had unconsciously received +during the battle. When I opened my eyes I met the sweet glance of +a Sister of Charity. + +"Blanche!" I stammered feebly. + +"The same," she replied. + +"You here?" + +"Yes, dear; but hush! It's a long story. You see, dear Terence, +your grandfather married my great-aunt's sister, and your father +again married my grandmother's niece, who, dying without a will, +was, according to the French law--" + +"But I do not comprehend," I said. + +"Of course not," said Blanche, with her old sweet smile; "you've +had brain-fever; so go to sleep." + +I understood, however, that Blanche loved me; and I am now, dear +reader, Sir Terence Sackville, K. C. B., and Lady Blanche is Lady +Sackville. + + + +SELINA SEDILIA. + +BY MISS M. E. B--DD--N AND MRS. H--N--Y W--D. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +The sun was setting over Sloperton Grange, and reddened the window +of the lonely chamber in the western tower, supposed to be haunted +by Sir Edward Sedilia, the founder of the Grange. In the dreamy +distance arose the gilded mausoleum of Lady Felicia Sedilia, who +haunted that portion of Sedilia Manor, known as "Stiff-uns Acre." +A little to the left of the Grange might have been seen a +mouldering ruin, known as "Guy's Keep," haunted by the spirit of +Sir Guy Sedilia, who was found, one morning, crushed by one of the +fallen battlements. Yet, as the setting sun gilded these objects, +a beautiful and almost holy calm seemed diffused about the Grange. + +The Lady Selina sat by an oriel window, overlooking the park. The +sun sank gently in the bosom of the German Ocean, and yet the lady +did not lift her beautiful head from the finely curved arm and +diminutive hand which supported it. When darkness finally shrouded +the landscape she started, for the sound of horse-hoofs clattered +over the stones of the avenue. She had scarcely risen before an +aristocratic young man fell on his knees before her. + +"My Selina!" + +"Edgardo! You here?" + +"Yes, dearest." + +"And--you--you--have--seen nothing?" said the lady in an agitated +voice and nervous manner, turning her face aside to conceal her +emotion. + +"Nothing--that is nothing of any account," said Edgardo. "I passed +the ghost of your aunt in the park, noticed the spectre of your +uncle in the ruined keep, and observed the familiar features of the +spirit of your great-grandfather at his usual post. But nothing +beyond these trifles, my Selina. Nothing more, love, absolutely +nothing." + +The young man turned his dark liquid orbs fondly upon the ingenuous +face of his betrothed. + +"My own Edgardo!--and you still love me? You still would marry me +in spite of this dark mystery which surrounds me? In spite of the +fatal history of my race? In spite of the ominous predictions of +my aged nurse?" + +"I would, Selina"; and the young man passed his arm around her +yielding waist. The two lovers gazed at each other's faces in +unspeakable bliss. Suddenly Selina started. + +"Leave me, Edgardo! leave me! A mysterious something--a fatal +misgiving--a dark ambiguity--an equivocal mistrust oppresses me. I +would be alone!" + +The young man arose, and cast a loving glance on the lady. "Then +we will be married on the seventeenth." + +"The seventeenth," repeated Selina, with a mysterious shudder. + +They embraced and parted. As the clatter of hoofs in the court- +yard died away, the Lady Selina sank into the chair she had just +quitted. + +"The seventeenth," she repeated slowly, with the same fateful +shudder. "Ah!--what if he should know that I have another husband +living? Dare I reveal to him that I have two legitimate and three +natural children? Dare I repeat to him the history of my youth? +Dare I confess that at the age of seven I poisoned my sister, by +putting verdigris in her cream-tarts,--that I threw my cousin from +a swing at the age of twelve? That the lady's-maid who incurred +the displeasure of my girlhood now lies at the bottom of the horse- +pond? No! no! he is too pure,--too good,--too innocent, to hear +such improper conversation!" and her whole body writhed as she +rocked to and fro in a paroxysm of grief. + +But she was soon calm. Rising to her feet, she opened a secret +panel in the wall, and revealed a slow-match ready for lighting. + +"This match," said the Lady Selina, "is connected with a mine +beneath the western tower, where my three children are confined; +another branch of it lies under the parish church, where the record +of my first marriage is kept. I have only to light this match and +the whole of my past life is swept away!" she approached the match +with a lighted candle. + +But a hand was laid upon her arm, and with a shriek the Lady Selina +fell on her knees before the spectre of Sir Guy. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Forbear, Selina," said the phantom in a hollow voice. + +"Why should I forbear?" responded Selina haughtily, as she +recovered her courage. "You know the secret of our race?" + +"I do. Understand me,--I do not object to the eccentricities of +your youth. I know the fearful destiny which, pursuing you, led +you to poison your sister and drown your lady's-maid. I know the +awful doom which I have brought upon this house! But if you make +way with these children--" + +"Well," said the Lady Selina, hastily. + +"They will haunt you!" + +"Well, I fear them not," said Selina, drawing her superb figure to +its full height. + +"Yes, but, my dear child, what place are they to haunt? The ruin +is sacred to your uncle's spirit. Your aunt monopolizes the park, +and, I must be allowed to state, not unfrequently trespasses upon +the grounds of others. The horse-pond is frequented by the spirit +of your maid, and your murdered sister walks these corridors. To +be plain, there is no room at Sloperton Grange for another ghost. +I cannot have them in my room,--for you know I don't like children. +Think of this, rash girl, and forbear! Would you, Selina," said +the phantom, mournfully,--"would you force your great-grandfather's +spirit to take lodgings elsewhere?" + +Lady Selina's hand trembled; the lighted candle fell from her +nerveless fingers. + +"No," she cried passionately; "never!" and fell fainting to the +floor. + + +CHAPTER III + + +Edgardo galloped rapidly towards Sloperton. When the outline of +the Grange had faded away in the darkness, he reined his +magnificent steed beside the ruins of Guy's Keep. + +"It wants but a few minutes of the hour," he said, consulting his +watch by the light of the moon. "He dare not break his word. He +will come." He paused, and peered anxiously into the darkness. +"But come what may, she is mine," he continued, as his thoughts +reverted fondly to the fair lady he had quitted. "Yet if she knew +all. If she knew that I were a disgraced and ruined man,--a felon +and an outcast. If she knew that at the age of fourteen I murdered +my Latin tutor and forged my uncle's will. If she knew that I had +three wives already, and that the fourth victim of misplaced +confidence and my unfortunate peculiarity is expected to be at +Sloperton by to-night's train with her baby. But no; she must not +know it. Constance must not arrive. Burke the Slogger must attend +to that. + +"Ha! here he is! Well?" + +These words were addressed to a ruffian in a slouched hat, who +suddenly appeared from Guy's Keep. + +"I be's here, measter," said the villain, with a disgracefully low +accent and complete disregard of grammatical rules. + +"It is well. Listen: I'm in possession of facts that will send you +to the gallows. I know of the murder of Bill Smithers, the robbery +of the tollgate-keeper, and the making away of the youngest +daughter of Sir Reginald de Walton. A word from me, and the +officers of justice are on your track." + +Burke the Slogger trembled. + +"Hark ye! serve my purpose, and I may yet save you. The 5.30 train +from Clapham will be due at Sloperton at 9.25. IT MUST NOT +ARRIVE!" + +The villain's eyes sparkled as he nodded at Edgardo. + +"Enough,--you understand; leave me!" + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +About half a mile from Sloperton Station the South Clapham and +Medway line crossed a bridge over Sloperton-on-Trent. As the +shades of evening were closing, a man in a slouched hat might have +been seen carrying a saw and axe under his arm, hanging about the +bridge. From time to time he disappeared in the shadow of its +abutments, but the sound of a saw and axe still betrayed his +vicinity. At exactly nine o'clock he reappeared, and, crossing to +the Sloperton side, rested his shoulder against the abutment and +gave a shove. The bridge swayed a moment, and then fell with a +splash into the water, leaving a space of one hundred feet between +the two banks. This done, Burke the Slogger,--for it was he,--with +a fiendish chuckle seated himself on the divided railway track and +awaited the coming of the train. + +A shriek from the woods announced its approach. For an instant +Burke the Slogger saw the glaring of a red lamp. The ground +trembled. The train was going with fearful rapidity. Another +second and it had reached the bank. Burke the Slogger uttered a +fiendish laugh. But the next moment the train leaped across the +chasm, striking the rails exactly even, and, dashing out the life +of Burke the Slogger, sped away to Sloperton. + +The first object that greeted Edgardo, as he rode up to the station +on the arrival of the train, was the body of Burke the Slogger +hanging on the cow-catcher; the second was the face of his deserted +wife looking from the windows of a second-class carriage. + + +CHAPTER V. + + +A nameless terror seemed to have taken possession of Clarissa, Lady +Selina's maid, as she rushed into the presence of her mistress. + +"O my lady, such news!" + +"Explain yourself," said her mistress, rising. + +"An accident has happened on the railway, and a man has been +killed." + +"What--not Edgardo!" almost screamed Selina. + +"No, Burke the Slogger!" your ladyship. + +"My first husband!" said Lady Selina, sinking on her knees. "Just +Heaven, I thank thee!" + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The morning of the seventeenth dawned brightly over Sloperton. "A +fine day for the wedding," said the sexton to Swipes, the butler of +Sloperton Grange. The aged retainer shook his head sadly. "Alas! +there's no trusting in signs!" he continued. "Seventy-five years +ago, on a day like this, my young mistress--" But he was cut short +by the appearance of a stranger. + +"I would see Sir Edgardo," said the new-comer, impatiently. + +The bridegroom, who, with the rest of the wedding-train, was about +stepping into the carriage to proceed to the parish church, drew +the stranger aside. + +"It's done!" said the stranger, in a hoarse whisper. + +"Ah! and you buried her?" + +"With the others!" + +"Enough. No more at present. Meet me after the ceremony, and you +shall have your reward." + +The stranger shuffled away, and Edgardo returned to his bride. "A +trifling matter of business I had forgotten, my dear Selina; let us +proceed." And the young man pressed the timid hand of his blushing +bride as he handed her into the carriage. The cavalcade rode out +of the court-yard. At the same moment, the deep bell on Guy's Keep +tolled ominously. + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Scarcely had the wedding-train left the Grange, than Alice Sedilia, +youngest daughter of Lady Selina, made her escape from the western +tower, owing to a lack of watchfulness on the part of Clarissa. +The innocent child, freed from restraint, rambled through the +lonely corridors, and finally, opening a door, found herself in her +mother's boudoir. For some time she amused herself by examining +the various ornaments and elegant trifles with which it was filled. +Then, in pursuance of a childish freak, she dressed herself in her +mother's laces and ribbons. In this occupation she chanced to +touch a peg which proved to be a spring that opened a secret panel +in the wall. Alice uttered a cry of delight as she noticed what, +to her childish fancy, appeared to be the slow-match of a fire- +work. Taking a lucifer match in her hand she approached the fuse. +She hesitated a moment. What would her mother and her nurse say? + +Suddenly the ringing of the chimes of Sloperton parish church met +her ear. Alice knew that the sound signified that the marriage +party had entered the church, and that she was secure from +interruption. With a childish smile upon her lips, Alice Sedilia +touched off the slow-match. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +At exactly two o'clock on the seventeenth, Rupert Sedilia, who had +just returned from India, was thoughtfully descending the hill +toward Sloperton manor. "If I can prove that my aunt Lady Selina +was married before my father died, I can establish my claim to +Sloperton Grange," he uttered, half aloud. He paused, for a sudden +trembling of the earth beneath his feet, and a terrific explosion, +as of a park of artillery, arrested his progress. At the same +moment he beheld a dense cloud of smoke envelop the churchyard of +Sloperton, and the western tower of the Grange seemed to be lifted +bodily from its foundation. The air seemed filled with falling +fragments, and two dark objects struck the earth close at his feet. +Rupert picked them up. One seemed to be a heavy volume bound in +brass. + +A cry burst from his lips. + +"The Parish Records." He opened the volume hastily. It contained +the marriage of Lady Selina to "Burke the Slogger." + +The second object proved to be a piece of parchment. He tore it +open with trembling fingers. It was the missing will of Sir James +Sedilia! + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +When the bells again rang on the new parish church of Sloperton it +was for the marriage of Sir Rupert Sedilia and his cousin, the only +remaining members of the family. + +Five more ghosts were added to the supernatural population of +Sloperton Grange. Perhaps this was the reason why Sir Rupert sold +the property shortly afterward, and that for many years a dark +shadow seemed to hang over the ruins of Sloperton Grange. + + + +THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN. + +BY AL--X--D--R D--M--S + + +CHAPTER I. + +SHOWING THE QUALITY OF THE CUSTOMERS OF THE INNKEEPER OF PROVINS. + + +Twenty years after, the gigantic innkeeper of Provins stood looking +at a cloud of dust on the highway. + +This cloud of dust betokened the approach of a traveller. +Travellers had been rare that season on the highway between Paris +and Provins. + +The heart of the innkeeper rejoiced. Turning to Dame Perigord, his +wife, he said, stroking his white apron:-- + +"St. Denis! make haste and spread the cloth. Add a bottle of +Charlevoix to the table. This traveller, who rides so fast, by his +pace must be a Monseigneur." + +Truly the traveller, clad in the uniform of a musketeer, as he drew +up to the door of the hostelry, did not seem to have spared his +horse. Throwing his reins to the landlord, he leaped lightly to +the ground. He was a young man of four-and-twenty, and spoke with +a slight Gascon accent. + +"I am hungry, Morbleu! I wish to dine!" + +The gigantic innkeeper bowed and led the way to a neat apartment, +where a table stood covered with tempting viands. The musketeer at +once set to work. Fowls, fish, and pates disappeared before him. +Perigord sighed as he witnessed the devastations. Only once the +stranger paused. + +"Wine!" Perigord brought wine. The stranger drank a dozen +bottles. Finally he rose to depart. Turning to the expectant +landlord, he said:-- + +"Charge it." + +"To whom, your highness?" said Perigord, anxiously. + +"To his Eminence!" + +"Mazarin!" ejaculated the innkeeper. + +"The same. Bring me my horse," and the musketeer, remounting his +favorite animal, rode away. + +The innkeeper slowly turned back into the inn. Scarcely had he +reached the courtyard before the clatter of hoofs again called him +to the doorway. A young musketeer of a light and graceful figure +rode up. + +"Parbleu, my dear Perigord, I am famishing. What have you got for +dinner?" + +"Venison, capons, larks, and pigeons, your excellency," replied the +obsequious landlord, bowing to the ground. + +"Enough!" The young musketeer dismounted and entered the inn. +Seating himself at the table replenished by the careful Perigord, +he speedily swept it as clean as the first comer. + +"Some wine, my brave Perigord," said the graceful young musketeer, +as soon as he could find utterance. + +Perigord brought three dozen of Charlevoix. The young man emptied +them almost at a draught. + +"By-by, Perigord," he said lightly, waving his hand, as, preceding +the astonished landlord, he slowly withdrew. + +"But, your highness,--the bill," said the astounded Perigord. + +"Ah, the bill. Charge it!" + +"To whom?" + +"The Queen!" + +"What, Madame?" + +"The same. Adieu, my good Perigord." And the graceful stranger +rode away. An interval of quiet succeeded, in which the innkeeper +gazed wofully at his wife. Suddenly he was startled by a clatter +of hoofs, and an aristocratic figure stood in the doorway. + +"Ah," said the courtier good-naturedly. "What, do my eyes deceive +me? No, it is the festive and luxurious Perigord. Perigord, +listen. I famish. I languish. I would dine." + +The innkeeper again covered the table with viands. Again it was +swept clean as the fields of Egypt before the miraculous swarm of +locusts. The stranger looked up. + +"Bring me another fowl, my Perigord." + +"Impossible, your excellency; the larder is stripped clean." + +"Another flitch of bacon, then." + +"Impossible, your highness; there is no more." + +"Well, then, wine!" + +The landlord brought one hundred and forty-four bottles. The +courtier drank them all. + +"One may drink if one cannot eat," said the aristocratic stranger, +good-humoredly. + +The innkeeper shuddered. + +The guest rose to depart. The innkeeper came slowly forward with +his bill, to which he had covertly added the losses which he had +suffered from the previous strangers. + +"Ah, the bill. Charge it." + +"Charge it! to whom?" + +"To the King," said the guest. + +"What! his Majesty?" + +"Certainly. Farewell, Perigord." + +The innkeeper groaned. Then he went out and took down his sign. +Then remarked to his wife:-- + +"I am a plain man, and don't understand politics. It seems, +however, that the country is in a troubled state. Between his +Eminence the Cardinal, his Majesty the King, and her Majesty the +Queen, I am a ruined man." + +"Stay," said Dame Perigord, "I have an idea." + +"And that is--" + +"Become yourself a musketeer." + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE COMBAT. + + +On leaving Provins the first musketeer proceeded to Nangis, where +he was reinforced by thirty-three followers. The second musketeer, +arriving at Nangis at the same moment, placed himself at the head +of thirty-three more. The third guest of the landlord of Provins +arrived at Nangis in time to assemble together thirty-three other +musketeers. + +The first stranger led the troops of his Eminence. + +The second led the troops of the Queen. + +The third led the troops of the King. + +The fight commenced. It raged terribly for seven hours. The first +musketeer killed thirty of the Queen's troops. The second +musketeer killed thirty of the King's troops. The third musketeer +killed thirty of his Eminence's troops. + +By this time it will be perceived the number of musketeers had been +narrowed down to four on each side. + +Naturally the three principal warriors approached each other. + +They simultaneously uttered a cry. + +"Aramis!" + +"Athos!" + +"D'Artagnan!" + +They fell into each other's arms. + +"And it seems that we are fighting against each other, my +children," said the Count de la Fere, mournfully. + +"How singular!" exclaimed Aramis and D'Artagnan. + +"Let us stop this fratricidal warfare," said Athos. + +"We will!" they exclaimed together. + +"But how to disband our followers?" queried D'Artagnan. + +Aramis winked. They understood each other. "Let us cut 'em down!" + +They cut 'em down. Aramis killed three. D'Artagnan three. Athos +three. + +The friends again embraced. "How like old times," said Aramis. +"How touching!" exclaimed the serious and philosophic Count de la +Fere. + +The galloping of hoofs caused them to withdraw from each other's +embraces. A gigantic figure rapidly approached. + +"The innkeeper of Provins!" they cried, drawing their swords. + +"Perigord, down with him!" shouted D'Artagnan. + +"Stay," said Athos. + +The gigantic figure was beside them. He uttered a cry. + +"Athos, Aramis, D'Artagnan!" + +"Porthos!" exclaimed the astonished trio. + +"The same." They all fell in each other's arms. + +The Count de la Fere slowly raised his hands to Heaven. "Bless +you! Bless us, my children! However different our opinion may be +in regard to politics, we have but one opinion in regard to our own +merits. Where can you find a better man than Aramus?" + +"Than Porthos?" said Aramis. + +"Than D'Artagnan?" said Porthos. + +"Than Athos?" said D'Artagnan. + + +CHAPTER III. + +SHOWING HOW THE KING OF FRANCE WENT UP A LADDER. + + +The King descended into the garden. Proceeding cautiously along +the terraced walk, he came to the wall immediately below the +windows of Madame. To the left were two windows, concealed by +vines. They opened into the apartments of La Valliere. + +The King sighed. + +"It is about nineteen feet to that window," said the King. "If I +had a ladder about nineteen feet long, it would reach to that +window. This is logic." + +Suddenly the King stumbled over something. "St. Denis!" he +exclaimed, looking down. It was a ladder, just nineteen feet long. + +The King placed it against the wall. In so doing, he fixed the +lower end upon the abdomen of a man who lay concealed by the wall +The man did not utter a cry or wince. The King suspected nothing. +He ascended the ladder. + +The ladder was too short. Louis the Grand was not a tall man. He +was still two feet below the window. + +"Dear me!" said the King. + +Suddenly the ladder was lifted two feet from below. This enabled +the King to leap in the window. At the farther end of the +apartment stood a young girl, with red hair and a lame leg. She +was trembling with emotion. + +"Louise!" + +"The King!" + +"Ah, my God, mademoiselle." + +"Ah, my God, sire." + +But a low knock at the door interrupted the lovers. The King +uttered a cry of rage; Louise one of despair. + +The door opened and D'Artagnan entered. + +"Good evening, sire," said the musketeer. + +The King touched a bell. Porthos appeared in the doorway. + +"Good evening, sire." + +"Arrest M. D'Artagnan." + +Porthos looked at D'Artagnan, and did not move. + +The King almost turned purple with rage. He again touched the +bell. Athos entered. + +"Count, arrest Porthos and D'Artagnan." + +The Count de la Fere glanced at Porthos and D'Artagnan, and smiled +sweetly. + +"Sacre! Where is Aramis?" said the King, violently. + +"Here, sire," and Aramis entered. + +"Arrest Athos, Porthos, and D'Artagnan." + +Aramis bowed and folded his arms. + +"Arrest yourself!" + +Aramis did not move. + +The King shuddered and turned pale. "Am I not King of France?" + +"Assuredly, sire, but we are also severally, Porthos, Aramis, +D'Artagnan, and Athos." + +"Ah!" said the King. + +"Yes, sire." + +"What does this mean?" + +"It means, your Majesty," said Aramis, stepping forward, "that your +conduct as a married man is highly improper. I am an Abbe, and I +object to these improprieties. My friends here, D'Artagnan, Athos, +and Porthos, pure-minded young men, are also terribly shocked. +Observe, sire, how they blush!" + +Athos, Porthos, and D'Artagnan blushed. "Ah," said the King, +thoughtfully. "You teach me a lesson. You are devoted and noble +young gentlemen, but your only weakness is your excessive modesty. +From this moment I make you all Marshals and Dukes, with the +exception of Aramis." + +"And me, sire?" said Aramis. + +"You shall be an Archbishop!" + +The four friends looked up and then rushed into each other's arms. +The King embraced Louise de la Valliere, by way of keeping them +company. A pause ensued. At last Athos spoke:-- + +"Swear, my children, that, next to yourselves, you will respect-- +the King of France; and remember that 'Forty years after' we will +meet again." + + + +THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD. + +BY SIR ED--D L--TT--N B--LW--R. + + +BOOK I. + +THE PROMPTINGS OF THE IDEAL. + + +It was noon. Sir Edward had stepped from his brougham and was +proceeding on foot down the Strand. He was dressed with his usual +faultless taste, but in alighting from his vehicle his foot had +slipped, and a small round disk of conglomerated soil, which +instantly appeared on his high arched instep, marred the harmonious +glitter of his boots. Sir Edward was fastidious. Casting his eyes +around, at a little distance he perceived the stand of a youthful +bootblack. Thither he sauntered, and carelessly placing his foot +on the low stool, he waited the application of the polisher's art. +"'Tis true," said Sir Edward to himself, yet half aloud, "the +contact of the Foul and the Disgusting mars the general effect of +the Shiny and the Beautiful--and, yet, why am I here? I repeat it, +calmly and deliberately--why am I here? Ha! Boy!" + +The Boy looked up--his dark Italian eyes glanced intelligently at +the Philosopher, and as with one hand he tossed back his glossy +curls, from his marble brow, and with the other he spread the +equally glossy Day & Martin over the Baronet's boot, he answered in +deep rich tones: "The Ideal is subjective to the Real. The +exercise of apperception gives a distinctiveness to idiocracy, +which is, however, subject to the limits of ME. You are an admirer +of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots blacked. The Beautiful +is attainable by means of the Coin." + +"Ah," said Sir Edward thoughtfully, gazing upon the almost supernal +beauty of the Child before him; "you speak well. You have read +Kant." + +The Boy blushed deeply. He drew a copy of Kant from his blouse, +but in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom +on the ground. The Baronet picked them up. + +"Ah!" said the Philosopher, "what's this? Cicero's De Senectute, +at your age, too? Martial's Epigrams, Caesar's Commentaries. +What! a classical scholar?" + +"E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!" said +the Boy, enthusiastically. The Philosopher gazed at the Child. A +strange presence seemed to transfuse and possess him. Over the +brow of the Boy glittered the pale nimbus of the Student. + +"Ah, and Schiller's Robbers, too?" queried the Philosopher. + +"Das ist ausgespielt," said the Boy, modestly. + +"Then you have read my translation of Schiller's Ballads?" +continued the Baronet, with some show of interest. + +"I have, and infinitely prefer them to the original," said the Boy, +with intellectual warmth. "You have shown how in Actual life we +strive for a Goal we cannot reach; how in the Ideal the Goal is +attainable, and there effort is victory. You have given us the +Antithesis which is a key to the Remainder, and constantly balances +before us the conditions of the Actual and the privileges of the +Ideal." + +My very words," said the Baronet; "wonderful, wonderful!" and he +gazed fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial +employment. Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student +had been absorbed in the Boy. + +But Sir Edward's boots were blacked, and he turned to depart. +Placing his hand upon the clustering tendrils that surrounded the +classic nob of the infant Italian, he said softly, like a strain of +distant music:-- + +"Boy, you have done well. Love the Good. Protect the Innocent. +Provide for The Indigent. Respect the Philosopher. . . . Stay! +Can you tell we what IS The True, The Beautiful, The Innocent, The +Virtuous?" + +"They are things that commence with a capital letter," said the +Boy, promptly. + +"Enough! Respect everything that commences with a capital letter! +Respect ME!" and dropping a half-penny in the hand of the boy, he +departed. + +The Boy gazed fixedly at the coin. A frightful and instantaneous +change overspread his features. His noble brow was corrugated with +baser lines of calculation. His black eye, serpent-like, glittered +with suppressed passion. Dropping upon his hands and feet, he +crawled to the curbstone and hissed after the retreating form of +the Baronet, the single word:-- + +"Bilk!" + + +BOOK II. + +IN THE WORLD. + + +"Eleven years ago," said Sir Edward to himself, as his brougham +slowly rolled him toward the Committee Room; "just eleven years ago +my natural son disappeared mysteriously. I have no doubt in the +world but that this little bootblack is he. His mother died in +Italy. He resembles his mother very much. Perhaps I ought to +provide for him. Shall I disclose myself? No! no! Better he +should taste the sweets of Labor. Penury ennobles the mind and +kindles the Love of the Beautiful. I will act to him, not like a +Father, not like a Guardian, not like a Friend--but like a +Philosopher!" + +With these words, Sir Edward entered the Committee Room. His +Secretary approached him. "Sir Edward, there are fears of a +division in the House, and the Prime Minister has sent for you." + +"I will be there," said Sir Edward, as he placed his hand on his +chest and uttered a hollow cough! + +No one who heard the Baronet that night, in his sarcastic and +withering speech on the Drainage and Sewerage Bill, would have +recognized the lover of the Ideal and the Philosopher of the +Beautiful. No one who listened to his eloquence would have dreamed +of the Spartan resolution this iron man had taken in regard to the +Lost Boy--his own beloved Lionel. None! + +"A fine speech from Sir Edward to-night," said Lord Billingsgate, +as, arm-and-arm with the Premier, he entered his carriage. + +"Yes! but how dreadfully he coughs!" + +"Exactly. Dr. Bolus says his lungs are entirely gone; he breathes +entirely by an effort of will, and altogether independent of +pulmonary assistance." + +"How strange!" and the carriage rolled away. + + +BOOK III. + +THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD. + + +"ADON AI, appear! appear!" + +And as the Seer spoke, the awful Presence glided out of +Nothingness, and sat, sphinx-like, at the feet of the Alchemist. + +"I am come!" said the Thing. + +"You should say, 'I have come,'--it's better grammar," said the +Boy-Neophyte, thoughtfully accenting the substituted expression. + +"Hush, rash Boy," said the Seer, sternly. "Would you oppose your +feeble knowledge to the infinite intelligence of the Unmistakable? +A word, and you are lost forever." + +The Boy breathed a silent prayer, and, handing a sealed package to +the Seer, begged him to hand it to his father in case of his +premature decease. + +"You have sent for me," hissed the Presence. "Behold me, +Apokatharticon,--the Unpronounceable. In me all things exist that +are not already coexistent. I am the Unattainable, the Intangible, +the Cause, and the Effect. In me observe the Brahma of Mr. +Emerson; not only Brahma himself, but also the sacred musical +composition rehearsed by the faithful Hindoo. I am the real Gyges. +None others are genuine." + +And the veiled Son of the Starbeam laid himself loosely about the +room, and permeated Space generally. + +"Unfathomable Mystery," said the Rosicrucian in a low, sweet voice. +"Brave Child with the Vitreous Optic! Thou who pervadest all +things and rubbest against us without abrasion of the cuticle. I +command thee, speak!" + +And the misty, intangible, indefinite Presence spoke. + + +BOOK IV. + +MYSELF. + + +After the events related in the last chapter, the reader will +perceive that nothing was easier than to reconcile Sir Edward to +his son Lionel, nor to resuscitate the beautiful Italian girl, who, +it appears, was not dead, and to cause Sir Edward to marry his +first and boyish love, whom he had deserted. They were married in +St. George's, Hanover Square. As the bridal party stood before the +altar, Sir Edward, with a sweet sad smile, said, in quite his old +manner:-- + +"The Sublime and Beautiful are the Real; the only Ideal is the +Ridiculous and Homely. Let us always remember this. Let us +through life endeavor to personify the virtues, and always begin +'em with a capital letter. Let us, whenever we can find an +opportunity, deliver our sentiments in the form of round-hand +copies. Respect the Aged. Eschew Vulgarity. Admire Ourselves. +Regard the Novelist." + + + +THE HAUNTED MAN. + +A CHRISTMAS STORY. + +BY CH--R--S D--CK--NS. + + +PART I. + +THE FIRST PHANTOM. + + +Don't tell me that it wasn't a knocker. I had seen it often +enough, and I ought to know. So ought the three-o'clock beer, in +dirty high-lows, swinging himself over the railing, or executing a +demoniacal jig upon the doorstep; so ought the butcher, although +butchers as a general thing are scornful of such trifles; so ought +the postman, to whom knockers of the most extravagant description +were merely human weaknesses, that were to be pitied and used. And +so ought, for the matter of that, etc., etc., etc. + +But then it was SUCH a knocker. A wild, extravagant, and utterly +incomprehensible knocker. A knocker so mysterious and suspicious +that Policeman X 37, first coming upon it, felt inclined to take it +instantly in custody, but compromised with his professional +instincts by sharply and sternly noting it with an eye that +admitted of no nonsense, but confidently expected to detect its +secret yet. An ugly knocker; a knocker with a hard, human face, +that was a type of the harder human face within. A human face that +held between its teeth a brazen rod. So hereafter, in the +mysterious future should be held, etc., etc. + +But if the knocker had a fierce human aspect in the glare of day, +you should have seen it at night, when it peered out of the +gathering shadows and suggested an ambushed figure; when the light +of the street lamps fell upon it, and wrought a play of sinister +expression in its hard outlines; when it seemed to wink meaningly +at a shrouded figure who, as the night fell darkly, crept up the +steps and passed into the mysterious house; when the swinging door +disclosed a black passage into which the figure seemed to lose +itself and become a part of the mysterious gloom; when the night +grew boisterous and the fierce wind made furious charges at the +knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it away in triumph. Such +a night as this. + +It was a wild and pitiless wind. A wind that had commenced life as +a gentle country zephyr, but wandering through manufacturing towns +had become demoralized, and reaching the city had plunged into +extravagant dissipation and wild excesses. A roistering wind that +indulged in Bacchanalian shouts on the street corners, that knocked +off the hats from the heads of helpless passengers, and then +fulfilled its duties by speeding away, like all young prodigals,-- +to sea. + +He sat alone in a gloomy library listening to the wind that roared +in the chimney. Around him novels and story-books were strewn +thickly; in his lap he held one with its pages freshly cut, and +turned the leaves wearily until his eyes rested upon a portrait in +its frontispiece. And as the wind howled the more fiercely, and +the darkness without fell blacker, a strange and fateful likeness +to that portrait appeared above his chair and leaned upon his +shoulder. The Haunted Man gazed at the portrait and sighed. The +figure gazed at the portrait and sighed too. + +"Here again?" said the Haunted Man. + +"Here again," it repeated in a low voice. + +"Another novel?" + +"Another novel." + +"The old story?" + +"The old story." + +"I see a child," said the Haunted Man, gazing from the pages of the +book into the fire,--"a most unnatural child, a model infant. It +is prematurely old and philosophic. It dies in poverty to slow +music. It dies surrounded by luxury to slow music. It dies with +an accompaniment of golden water and rattling carts to slow music. +Previous to its decease it makes a will; it repeats the Lord's +Prayer, it kisses the 'boofer lady.' That child--" + +"Is mine," said the phantom. + +"I see a good woman, undersized. I see several charming women, but +they are all undersized. They are more or less imbecile and +idiotic, but always fascinating and undersized. They wear +coquettish caps and aprons. I observe that feminine virtue is +invariably below the medium height, and that it is always simple +and infantine. These women--" + +"Are mine." + +"I see a haughty, proud, and wicked lady. She is tall and queenly. +I remark that all proud and wicked women are tall and queenly. +That woman--" + +"Is mine," said the phantom, wringing his hands. + +"I see several things continually impending. I observe that +whenever an accident, a murder, or death is about to happen, there +is something in the furniture, in the locality, in the atmosphere, +that foreshadows and suggests it years in advance. I cannot say +that in real life I have noticed it,--the perception of this +surprising fact belongs--" + +"To me!" said the phantom. The Haunted Man continued, in a +despairing tone:-- + +"I see the influence of this in the magazines and daily papers; I +see weak imitators rise up and enfeeble the world with senseless +formula. I am getting tired of it. It won't do, Charles! it won't +do!" and the Haunted Man buried his head in his hands and groaned. +The figure looked down upon him sternly: the portrait in the +frontispiece frowned as he gazed. + +"Wretched man," said the phantom, "and how have these things +affected you?" + +"Once I laughed and cried, but then I was younger. Now, I would +forget them if I could." + +"Have then your wish. And take this with you, man whom I renounce. +From this day henceforth you shall live with those whom I displace. +Without forgetting me, 't will be your lot to walk through life as +if we had not met. But first you shall survey these scenes that +henceforth must be yours. At one to-night, prepare to meet the +phantom I have raised. Farewell!" + +The sound of its voice seemed to fade away with the dying wind, and +the Haunted Man was alone. But the firelight flickered gayly, and +the light danced on the walls, making grotesque figures of the +furniture. + +"Ha, ha!" said the Haunted Man, rubbing his hands gleefully; "now +for a whiskey punch and a cigar." + + +BOOK II. + +THE SECOND PHANTOM. + + +One! The stroke of the far-off bell had hardly died before the +front door closed with a reverberating clang. Steps were heard +along the passage; the library door swung open of itself, and the +Knocker--yes, the Knocker--slowly strode into the room. The +Haunted Man rubbed his eyes,--no! there could be no mistake about +it,--it was the Knocker's face, mounted on a misty, almost +imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth +to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon. + +"It's a cold evening," said the Haunted Man. + +"It is," said the Goblin, in a hard, metallic voice. + +"It must be pretty cold out there," said the Haunted Man, with +vague politeness. "Do you ever--will you--take some hot water and +brandy?" + +"No," said the Goblin. + +"Perhaps you'd like it cold, by way of change?" continued the +Haunted Man, correcting himself, as he remembered the peculiar +temperature with which the Goblin was probably familiar. + +"Time flies," said the Goblin coldly. "We have no leisure for idle +talk. Come!" He moved his ghostly truncheon toward the window, +and laid his hand upon the other's arm. At his touch the body of +the Haunted Man seemed to become as thin and incorporeal as that of +the Goblin himself, and together they glided out of the window into +the black and blowy night. + +In the rapidity of their flight the senses of the Haunted Man +seemed to leave him. At length they stopped suddenly. + +"What do you see?" asked the Goblin. + +"I see a battlemented mediaeval castle. Gallant men in mail ride +over the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntleted fingers to fair +ladies, who wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray +and tournament. I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of +delicate women, and shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I +see a Jewess about to leap from a battlement. I see knightly +deeds, violence, rapine, and a good deal of blood. I've seen +pretty much the same at Astley's." + +"Look again." + +"I see purple moors, glens, masculine women, bare-legged men, +priggish book-worms, more violence, physical excellence, and blood. +Always blood,--and the superiority of physical attainments." + +"And how do you feel now?" said the Goblin. + +The Haunted Man shrugged his shoulders. "None the better for being +carried back and asked to sympathize with a barbarous age." + +The Goblin smiled and clutched his arm; they again sped rapidly +through the black night and again halted. + +"What do you see?" said the Goblin. + +"I see a barrack room, with a mess table, and a group of +intoxicated Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving +challenges to duel. I see a young Irish gentleman capable of +performing prodigies of valor. I learn incidentally that the acme +of all heroism is the cornetcy of a dragoon regiment. I hear a +good deal of French! No, thank you," said the Haunted Man +hurriedly, as he stayed the waving hand of the Goblin; "I would +rather NOT go to the Peninsula, and don't care to have a private +interview with Napoleon." + +Again the Goblin flew away with the unfortunate man, and from a +strange roaring below them he judged they were above the ocean. A +ship hove in sight, and the Goblin stayed its flight. "Look," he +said, squeezing his companion's arm. + +The Haunted Man yawned. "Don't you think, Charles, you're rather +running this thing into the ground? Of course it's very moral and +instructive, and all that. But ain't there a little too much +pantomime about it? Come now!" + +"Look!" repeated the Goblin, pinching his arm malevolently. The +Haunted Man groaned. + +"O, of course, I see her Majesty's ship Arethusa. Of course I am +familiar with her stern First Lieutenant, her eccentric Captain, +her one fascinating and several mischievous midshipmen. Of course +I know it's a splendid thing to see all this, and not to be +seasick. O, there the young gentlemen are going to play a trick on +the purser. For God's sake, let us go," and the unhappy man +absolutely dragged the Goblin away with him. + +When they next halted, it was at the edge of a broad and boundless +prairie, in the middle of an oak opening. + +"I see," said the Haunted Man, without waiting for his cue, but +mechanically, and as if he were repeating a lesson which the Goblin +had taught him,--"I see the Noble Savage. He is very fine to look +at! But I observe under his war-paint, feathers, and picturesque +blanket, dirt, disease, and an unsymmetrical contour. I observe +beneath his inflated rhetoric deceit and hypocrisy; beneath his +physical hardihood, cruelty, malice, and revenge. The Noble Savage +is a humbug. I remarked the same to Mr. Catlin." + +"Come," said the phantom. + +The Haunted Man sighed, and took out his watch. "Couldn't we do +the rest of this another time?" + +"My hour is almost spent, irreverent being, but there is yet a +chance for your reformation. Come!" + +Again they sped through the night, and again halted. The sound of +delicious but melancholy music fell upon their ears. + +"I see," said the Haunted Man, with something of interest in his +manner,--"I see an old moss-covered manse beside a sluggish, +flowing river. I see weird shapes: witches, Puritans, clergymen, +little children, judges, mesmerized maidens, moving to the sound of +melody that thrills me with its sweetness and purity. But, +although carried along its calm and evenly flowing current, the +shapes are strange and frightful: an eating lichen gnaws at the +heart of each. Not only the clergymen, but witch, maiden, judge, +and Puritan, all wear Scarlet Letters of some kind burned upon +their hearts. I am fascinated and thrilled, but I feel a morbid +sensitiveness creeping over me. I--I beg your pardon." The Goblin +was yawning frightfully. "Well, perhaps we had better go." + +"One more, and the last," said the Goblin. + +They were moving home. Streaks of red were beginning to appear in +the eastern sky. Along the banks of the blackly flowing river by +moorland and stagnant fens, by low houses, clustering close to the +water's edge, like strange mollusks, crawled upon the beach to dry; +by misty black barges, the more misty and indistinct seen through +its mysterious veil, the river fog was slowly rising. So rolled +away and rose from the heart of the Haunted Man, etc., etc. + +They stopped before a quaint mansion of red brick. The Goblin +waved his hand without speaking. + +"I see," said the Haunted Man, "a gay drawing-room. I see my old +friends of the club, of the college, of society, even as they lived +and moved. I see the gallant and unselfish men, whom I have loved, +and the snobs whom I have hated. I see strangely mingling with +them, and now and then blending with their forms, our old friends +Dick Steele, Addison, and Congreve. I observe, though, that these +gentlemen have a habit of getting too much in the way. The royal +standard of Queen Anne, not in itself a beautiful ornament, is +rather too prominent in the picture. The long galleries of black +oak, the formal furniture, the old portraits, are picturesque, but +depressing. The house is damp. I enjoy myself better here on the +lawn, where they are getting up a Vanity Fair. See, the bell +rings, the curtain is rising, the puppets are brought out for a new +play. Let me see." + +The Haunted Man was pressing forward in his eagerness, but the hand +of the Goblin stayed him, and pointing to his feet he saw, between +him and the rising curtain, a new-made grave. And bending above +the grave in passionate grief, the Haunted Man beheld the phantom +of the previous night. + + * * * * * + +The Haunted Man started, and--woke. The bright sunshine streamed +into the room. The air was sparkling with frost. He ran joyously +to the window and opened it. A small boy saluted him with "Merry +Christmas." The Haunted Man instantly gave him a Bank of England +note. "How much like Tiny Tim, Tom, and Bobby that boy looked,-- +bless my soul, what a genius this Dickens has!" + +A knock at the door, and Boots entered. + +"Consider your salary doubled instantly. Have you read David +Copperfield?" + +"Yezzur." + +"Your salary is quadrupled. What do you think of the Old Curiosity +Shop?" + +The man instantly burst into a torrent of tears, and then into a +roar of laughter. + +"Enough! Here are five thousand pounds. Open a porter-house, and +call it, 'Our Mutual Friend.' Huzza! I feel so happy!" And the +haunted Man danced about the room. + +And so, bathed in the light of that blessed sun, and yet glowing +with the warmth of a good action, the Haunted Man, haunted no +longer, save by those shapes which make the dreams of children +beautiful, reseated himself in his chair, and finished Our Mutual +Friend. + + + +MISS MIX. + +BY CH--L--TTE BR--NTE. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +My earliest impressions are of a huge, misshapen rock, against +which the hoarse waves beat unceasingly. On this rock three +pelicans are standing in a defiant attitude. A dark sky lowers in +the background, while two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant eye +with extreme disfavor the floating corpse of a drowned woman in the +foreground. A few bracelets, coral necklaces, and other articles +of jewelry, scattered around loosely, complete this remarkable +picture. + +It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way, symbolizes, to my +fancy, the character of a man. I have never been able to explain +exactly why. I think I must have seen the picture in some +illustrated volume, when a baby, or my mother may have dreamed it +before I was born. + +As a child I was not handsome. When I consulted the triangular bit +of looking-glass which I always carried with me, it showed a pale, +sandy, and freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of seaweed +when the sun strikes it in deep water. My eyes were said to be +indistinctive; they were a faint, ashen gray; but above them rose-- +my only beauty--a high, massive, domelike forehead, with polished +temples, like door-knobs of the purest porcelain. + +Our family was a family of governesses. My mother had been one, +and my sisters had the same occupation. Consequently, when, at the +age of thirteen, my eldest sister handed me the advertisement of +Mr. Rawjester, clipped from that day's "Times," I accepted it as my +destiny. Nevertheless, a mysterious presentiment of an indefinite +future haunted me in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little +snow-white bed. The next morning, with two bandboxes tied up in +silk handkerchiefs, and a hair trunk, I turned my back upon Minerva +Cottage forever. + + +CHAPTER II. + +Blunderbore Hall, the seat of James Rawjester, Esq., was +encompassed by dark pines and funereal hemlocks on all sides. The +wind sang weirdly in the turrets and moaned through the long-drawn +avenues of the park. As I approached the house I saw several +mysterious figures flit before the windows, and a yell of demoniac +laughter answered my summons at the bell. While I strove to +repress my gloomy forebodings, the housekeeper, a timid, scared- +looking old woman, showed me into the library. + +I entered, overcome with conflicting emotions. I was dressed in a +narrow gown of dark serge, trimmed with black bugles. A thick +green shawl was pinned across my breast. My hands were encased +with black half-mittens worked with steel beads; on my feet were +large pattens, originally the property of my deceased grandmother. +I carried a blue cotton umbrella. As I passed before a mirror, I +could not help glancing at it, nor could I disguise from myself the +fact that I was not handsome. + +Drawing a chair into a recess, I sat down with folded hands, calmly +awaiting the arrival of my master. Once or twice a fearful yell +rang through the house, or the rattling of chains, and curses +uttered in a deep, manly voice, broke upon the oppressive +stillness. I began to feel my soul rising with the emergency of +the moment. + +"You look alarmed, miss. You don't hear anything, my dear, do +you?" asked the housekeeper nervously. + +"Nothing whatever," I remarked calmly, as a terrific scream, +followed by the dragging of chairs and tables in the room above, +drowned for a moment my reply. "It is the silence, on the +contrary, which has made me foolishly nervous." + +The housekeeper looked at me approvingly, and instantly made some +tea for me. + +I drank seven cups; as I was beginning the eighth, I heard a crash, +and the next moment a man leaped into the room through the broken +window. + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The crash startled me from my self-control. The housekeeper bent +toward me and whispered:-- + +"Don't be excited. It's Mr. Rawjester,--he prefers to come in +sometimes in this way. It's his playfulness, ha! ha! ha!" + +"I perceive," I said calmly. "It's the unfettered impulse of a +lofty soul breaking the tyrannizing bonds of custom." And I turned +toward him. + +He had never once looked at me. He stood with his back to the +fire, which set off the herculean breadth of his shoulders. His +face was dark and expressive; his under jaw squarely formed, and +remarkably heavy. I was struck with his remarkable likeness to a +Gorilla. + +As he absently tied the poker into hard knots with his nervous +fingers, I watched him with some interest. Suddenly he turned +toward me:-- + +"Do you think I'm handsome, young woman?" + +"Not classically beautiful," I returned calmly; "but you have, if I +may so express myself, an abstract manliness,--a sincere and +wholesome barbarity which, involving as it does the naturalness--" +But I stopped, for he yawned at that moment,--an action which +singularly developed the immense breadth of his lower jaw,--and I +saw he had forgotten me. Presently he turned to the housekeeper:-- + +"Leave us." + +The old woman withdrew with a courtesy. + +Mr. Rawjester deliberately turned his back upon me and remained +silent for twenty minutes. I drew my shawl the more closely around +my shoulders and closed my eyes. + +"You are the governess?" at length he said. + +"I am, sir." + +"A creature who teaches geography, arithmetic, and the use of the +globes--ha!--a wretched remnant of femininity,--a skimp pattern of +girlhood with a premature flavor of tea-leaves and morality. Ugh!" + +I bowed my head silently. + +"Listen to me, girl!" he said sternly; "this child you have come to +teach--my ward--is not legitimate. She is the offspring of my +mistress,--a common harlot. Ah! Miss Mix, what do you think of me +now?" + +"I admire," I replied calmly, "your sincerity. A mawkish regard +for delicacy might have kept this disclosure to yourself. I only +recognize in your frankness that perfect community of thought and +sentiment which should exist between original natures." + +I looked up; he had already forgotten my presence, and was engaged +in pulling off his boots and coat. This done, he sank down in an +arm-chair before the fire, and ran the poker wearily through his +hair. I could not help pitying him. + +The wind howled dismally without, and the rain beat furiously +against the windows. I crept toward him and seated myself on a low +stool beside his chair. + +Presently he turned, without seeing me, and placed his foot +absently in my lap. I affected not to notice it. But he started +and looked down. + +"You here yet--Carrothead? Ah, I forgot. Do you speak French?" + +"Oui, Monsieur" + +"Taisez-vous!" he said sharply, with singular purity of accent. I +complied. The wind moaned fearfully in the chimney, and the light +burned dimly. I shuddered in spite of myself. "Ah, you tremble, +girl!" + +"It is a fearful night." + +"Fearful! Call you this fearful, ha! ha! ha! Look! you wretched +little atom, look!" and he dashed forward, and, leaping out of the +window, stood like a statue in the pelting storm, with folded arms. +He did not stay long, but in a few minutes returned by way of the +hall chimney. I saw from the way that he wiped his feet on my +dress that he had again forgotten my presence. + +"You are a governess. What can you teach?" he asked, suddenly and +fiercely thrusting his face in mine. + +"Manners!" I replied, calmly. + +"Ha! teach ME!" + +"You mistake yourself," I said, adjusting my mittens. "Your +manners require not the artificial restraint of society. You are +radically polite; this impetuosity and ferociousness is simply the +sincerity which is the basis of a proper deportment. Your +instincts are moral; your better nature, I see, is religious. As +St. Paul justly remarks--see chap. 6, 8, 9, and 10--" + +He seized a heavy candlestick, and threw it at me. I dodged it +submissively but firmly. + +"Excuse me," he remarked, as his under jaw slowly relaxed. "Excuse +me, Miss Mix--but I can't stand St. Paul! Enough--you are +engaged." + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +I followed the housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. +As we passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was +closed by an iron gate with a grating. Three of the doors on the +corridor were likewise grated. A strange noise, as of shuffling +feet and the howling of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. +Bidding the housekeeper good night, and taking the candle, I +entered my bedchamber. + +I took off my dress, and, putting on a yellow flannel nightgown, +which I could not help feeling did not agree with my complexion, I +composed myself to rest by reading Blair's Rhetoric and Paley's +Moral Philosophy. I had just put out the light, when I heard +voices in the corridor. I listened attentively. I recognized Mr. +Rawjester's stern tones. + +"Have you fed No. 1?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir," said a gruff voice, apparently belonging to a domestic. + +"How's No. 2?" + +"She's a little off her feed, just now, but will pick up in a day +or two!" + +"And No. 3?" + +"Perfectly furious, sir. Her tantrums are ungovernable." + +"Hush!" + +The voices died away, and I sank into a fitful slumber. + +I dreamed that I was wandering through a tropical forest. Suddenly +I saw the figure of a gorilla approaching me. As it neared me, I +recognized the features of Mr. Rawjester. He held his hand to his +side as if in pain. I saw that he had been wounded. He recognized +me and called me by name, but at the same moment the vision changed +to an Ashantee village, where, around the fire, a group of negroes +were dancing and participating in some wild Obi festival. I awoke +with the strain still ringing in my ears. + +"Hokee-pokee wokee fum!" + +Good Heavens! could I be dreaming? I heard the voice distinctly on +the floor below, and smelt something burning. I arose, with an +indistinct presentiment of evil, and hastily putting some cotton in +my ears and tying a towel about my head, I wrapped myself in a +shawl and rushed down stairs. The door of Mr. Rawjester's room was +open. I entered. + +Mr. Rawjester lay apparently in a deep slumber, from which even the +clouds of smoke that came from the burning curtains of his bed +could not rouse him. Around the room a large and powerful negress, +scantily attired, with her head adorned with feathers, was dancing +wildly, accompanying herself with bone castanets. It looked like +some terrible fetich. + +I did not lose my calmness. After firmly emptying the pitcher, +basin, and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to +the garden, and, returning with the garden-engine, I directed a +small stream at Mr. Rawjester. + +At my entrance the gigantic negress fled. Mr. Rawjester yawned and +woke. I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the +reason of my presence. He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or +discomposed. He gazed at me curiously. + +"So you risked your life to save mine, eh? you canary-colored +teacher of infants." + +I blushed modestly, and drew my shawl tightly over my yellow +flannel nightgown. + +"You love me, Mary Jane,--don't deny it! This trembling shows it!" +He drew me closely toward him, and said, with his deep voice +tenderly modulated:-- + +"How's her pooty tootens,--did she get her 'ittle tootens wet,-- +bess her?" + +I understood his allusion to my feet. I glanced down and saw that +in my hurry I had put on a pair of his old india-rubbers. My feet +were not small or pretty, and the addition did not add to their +beauty. + +"Let me go, sir," I remarked quietly. "This is entirely improper; +it sets a bad example for your child." And I firmly but gently +extricated myself from his grasp. I approached the door. He +seemed for a moment buried in deep thought. + +"You say this was a negress?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Humph, No. 1, I suppose?" + +"Who is Number One, sir?" + +"My FIRST," he remarked, with a significant and sarcastic smile. +Then, relapsing into his old manner, he threw his boots at my head, +and bade me begone. I withdrew calmly. + + +CHAPTER V. + + +My pupil was a bright little girl, who spoke French with a perfect +accent. Her mother had been a French ballet-dancer, which probably +accounted for it. Although she was only six years old, it was easy +to perceive that she had been several times in love. She once said +to me:-- + +"Miss Mix, did you ever have the grande passion? Did you ever feel +a fluttering here?" and she placed her hand upon her small chest, +and sighed quaintly, "a kind of distaste for bonbons and caromels, +when the world seemed as tasteless and hollow as a broken cordial +drop." + +"Then you have felt it, Nina?" I said quietly. "O dear, yes. +There was Buttons,--that was our page, you know,--I loved him +dearly, but papa sent him away. Then there was Dick, the groom, +but he laughed at me, and I suffered misery!" and she struck a +tragic French attitude. "There is to be company here to-morrow," +she added, rattling on with childish naivete, "and papa's +sweetheart--Blanche Marabout--is to be here. You know they say she +is to be my mamma." + +What thrill was this shot through me? But I rose calmly, and, +administering a slight correction to the child, left the apartment. + +Blunderbore House, for the next week, was the scene of gayety and +merriment. That portion of the mansion closed with a grating was +walled up, and the midnight shrieks no longer troubled me. + +But I felt more keenly the degradation of my situation. I was +obliged to help Lady Blanche at her toilet and help her to look +beautiful. For what? To captivate him? O--no, no,--but why this +sudden thrill and faintness? Did he really love her? I had seen +him pinch and swear at her. But I reflected that he had thrown a +candlestick at my head, and my foolish heart was reassured. + +It was a night of festivity, when a sudden message obliged Mr. +Rawjester to leave his guests for a few hours. "Make yourselves +merry, idiots," he added, under his breath, as he passed me. The +door closed and he was gone. + +An half-hour passed. In the midst of the dancing a shriek was +heard, and out of the swaying crowd of fainting women and excited +men a wild figure strode into the room. One glance showed it to be +a highwayman, heavily armed, holding a pistol in each hand. + +"Let no one pass out of this room!" he said, in a voice of thunder. +"The house is surrounded and you cannot escape. The first one who +crosses yonder threshold will be shot like a dog. Gentlemen, I'll +trouble you to approach in single file, and hand me your purses and +watches." + +Finding resistance useless, the order was ungraciously obeyed. + +"Now, ladies, please to pass up your jewelry and trinkets." + +This order was still more ungraciously complied with. As Blanche +handed to the bandit captain her bracelet, she endeavored to +conceal a diamond necklace, the gift of Mr. Rawjester, in her +bosom. But, with a demoniac grin, the powerful brute tore it from +its concealment, and, administering a hearty box on the ear of the +young girl, flung her aside. + +It was now my turn. With a beating heart I made my way to the +robber chieftain, and sank at his feet. "O sir, I am nothing but a +poor governess, pray let me go." + +"O ho! A governess? Give me your last month's wages, then. Give +me what you have stolen from your master!" and he laughed +fiendishly. + +I gazed at him quietly, and said, in a low voice: "I have stolen +nothing from you, Mr. Rawjester!" + +"Ah, discovered! Hush! listen, girl!" he hissed, in a fiercer +whisper, "utter a syllable to frustrate my plans and you die; aid +me, and--" But he was gone. + +In a few moments the party, with the exception of myself, were +gagged and locked in the cellar. The next moment torches were +applied to the rich hangings, and the house was in flames. I felt +a strong hand seize me, and bear me out in the open air and place +me upon the hillside, where I could overlook the burning mansion. +It was Mr. Rawjester. + +"Burn!" he said, as he shook his fist at the flames. Then sinking +on his knees before me, he said hurriedly:-- + +"Mary Jane, I love you; the obstacles to our union are or will be +soon removed. In yonder mansion were confined my three crazy +wives. One of them, as you know, attempted to kill me! Ha! this +is vengeance! But will you be mine?" + +I fell, without a word, upon his neck. + + + +GUY HEAVYSTONE; + +OR, + +"ENTIRE." + +A MUSCULAR NOVEL. + +BY THE AUTHOR or "SWORD AND GUN." + + +CHAPTER I. + +"Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus." + + +A dingy, swashy, splashy afternoon in October; a school-yard filled +with a mob of riotous boys. A lot of us standing outside. + +Suddenly came a dull, crashing sound from the school-room. At the +ominous interruption I shuddered involuntarily, and called to +Smithsye:-- + +"What's up, Smithums?" + +"Guy's cleaning out the fourth form," he replied. + +At the same moment George de Coverly passed me, holding his nose, +from whence the bright Norman blood streamed redly. To him the +plebeian Smithsye laughingly:-- + +"Cully! how's his nibs?" + +I pushed the door of the school-room open. There are some +spectacles which a man never forgets. The burning of Troy probably +seemed a large-sized conflagration to the pious Aeneas, and made an +impression on him which he carried away with the feeble Anchises. + +In the centre of the room, lightly brandishing the piston-rod of a +steam-engine, stood Guy Heavystone alone. I say alone, for the +pile of small boys on the floor in the corner could hardly be +called company. + +I will try and sketch him for the reader. Guy Heavystone was then +only fifteen. His broad, deep chest, his sinewy and quivering +flank, his straight pastern, showed him to be a thoroughbred. +Perhaps he was a trifle heavy in the fetlock, but he held his head +haughtily erect. His eyes were glittering but pitiless. There was +a sternness about the lower part of his face,--the old Heavystone +look,--a sternness, heightened, perhaps, by the snaffle-bit which, +in one of his strange freaks, he wore in his mouth to curb his +occasional ferocity. His dress was well adapted to his square-set +and herculean frame. A striped knit undershirt, close-fitting +striped tights, and a few spangles set off his figure; a neat +Glengarry cap adorned his head. On it was displayed the Heavystone +crest, a cock regardant on a dunghill or, and the motto, "Devil a +better!" + +I thought of Horatius on the bridge, of Hector before the walls. I +always make it a point to think of something classical at such +times. + +He saw me, and his sternness partly relaxed. Something like a +smile struggled through his grim lineaments. It was like looking +on the Jungfrau after having seen Mont Blanc,--a trifle, only a +trifle less sublime and awful. Resting his hand lightly on the +shoulder of the head-master, who shuddered and collapsed under his +touch, he strode toward me. + +His walk was peculiar. You could not call it a stride. It was +like the "crest-tossing Bellerophon,"--a kind of prancing gait. +Guy Heavystone pranced toward me. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Lord Lovel he stood at the garden gate, +A-combing his milk-white steed." + + +It was the winter of 186- when I next met Guy Heavystone. He had +left the University and had entered the 76th "Heavies." "I have +exchanged the gown for the sword, you see," he said, grasping my +hand, and fracturing the bones of my little finger, as he shook it. + +I gazed at him with unmixed admiration. He was squarer, sterner, +and in every way smarter and more remarkable than ever. I began to +feel toward this man as Phalaster felt towards Phyrgino, as +somebody must have felt toward Archididasculus, as Boswell felt +toward Johnson. + +"Come into my den," he said, and lifting me gently by the seat of +my pantaloons he carried me up stairs and deposited me, before I +could apologize, on the sofa. I looked around the room. It was a +bachelor's apartment, characteristically furnished in the taste of +the proprietor. A few claymores and battle-axes were ranged +against the wall, and a culverin, captured by Sir Ralph Heavystone, +occupied the corner, the other end of the room being taken up by a +light battery. Foils, boxing-gloves, saddles, and fishing-poles +lay around carelessly. A small pile of billets-doux lay upon a +silver salver. The man was not an anchorite, nor yet a Sir +Galahad. + +I never could tell what Guy thought of women. "Poor little +beasts," he would often say when the conversation turned on any of +his fresh conquests. Then, passing his hand over his marble brow, +the old look of stern fixedness of purpose and unflinching severity +would straighten the lines of his mouth, and he would mutter, half +to himself, "S'death!" + +"Come with me to Heavystone Grange. The Exmoor Hounds throw off +to-morrow. I'll give you a mount," he said, as he amused himself +by rolling up a silver candlestick between his fingers. "You shall +have Cleopatra. But stay," he added, thoughtfully; "now I +remember, I ordered Cleopatra to be shot this morning." + +"And why?" I queried. + +"She threw her rider yesterday and fell on him--" + +"And killed him?" + +"No. That's the reason why I have ordered her to be shot. I keep +no animals that are not dangerous--I should add--DEADLY!" He +hissed the last sentence between his teeth, and a gloomy frown +descended over his calm brow. + +I affected to turn over the tradesman's bills that lay on the +table, for, like all of the Heavystone race, Guy seldom paid cash, +and said:-- + +"You remind me of the time when Leonidas--" + +"O, bother Leonidas and your classical allusions. Come!" + +We descended to dinner. + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"He carries weight, he rides a race, +'Tis for a thousand pound." + + +"There is Flora Billingsgate, the greatest coquette and hardest +rider in the country," said my companion, Ralph Mortmain, as we +stood upon Dingleby Common before the meet. + +I looked up and beheld Guy Heavystone bending haughtily over the +saddle, as he addressed a beautiful brunette. She was indeed a +splendidly groomed and high-spirited woman. We were near enough to +overhear the following conversation, which any high-toned reader +will recognize as the common and natural expression of the higher +classes. + +"When Diana takes the field the chase is not wholly confined to +objects ferae naturae," said Guy, darting a significant glance at +his companion. Flora did not shrink either from the glance or the +meaning implied in the sarcasm. + +"If I were looking for an Endymion, now--" she said archly, as she +playfully cantered over a few hounds and leaped a five-barred gate. + +Guy whispered a few words, inaudible to the rest of the party, and, +curvetting slightly, cleverly cleared two of the huntsmen in a +flying leap, galloped up the front steps of the mansion, and +dashing at full speed through the hall leaped through the drawing- +room window and rejoined me, languidly, on the lawn. + +"Be careful of Flora Billingsgate," he said to me, in low stern +tones, while his pitiless eye shot a baleful fire. "Gardez vous!" + +"Gnothi seauton," I replied calmly, not wishing to appear to be +behind him in perception or verbal felicity. + +Guy started off in high spirits. He was well carried. He and the +first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, +while the hounds were rolling over their fox a hundred yards +farther in the open. + +But an unexpected circumstance occurred. Coming back, his chestnut +mare refused a ten-foot wall. She reared and fell backward. Again +he led her up to it lightly; again she refused, falling heavily +from the coping. Guy started to his feet. The old pitiless fire +shone in his eyes; the old stern look settled around his mouth. +Seizing the mare by the tail and mane he threw her over the wall. +She landed twenty feet on the other side, erect and trembling. +Lightly leaping the same obstacle himself, he remounted her. She +did not refuse the wall the next time. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"He holds him by his glittering eye." + + +Guy was in the North of Ireland, cock-shooting. So Ralph Mortmain +told me, and also that the match between Mary Brandagee and Guy had +been broken off by Flora Billingsgate. "I don't like those +Billingsgates," said Ralph, "they're a bad stock. Her father, +Smithfield de Billingsgate, had an unpleasant way of turning up the +knave from the bottom of the pack. But nous verrons; let us go and +see Guy." + +The next morning we started for Fin-ma-Coul's Crossing. When I +reached the shooting-box, where Guy was entertaining a select +company of friends, Flora Billingsgate greeted me with a saucy +smile. + +Guy was even squarer and sterner than ever. His gusts of passion +were more frequent, and it was with difficulty that he could keep +an able-bodied servant in his family. His present retainers were +more or less maimed from exposure to the fury of their master. +There was a strange cynicism, a cutting sarcasm in his address, +piercing through his polished manner. I thought of Timon, etc., +etc. + +One evening, we were sitting over our Chambertin, after a hard +day's work, and Guy was listlessly turning over some letters, when +suddenly he uttered a cry. Did you ever hear the trumpeting of a +wounded elephant? It was like that. + +I looked at him with consternation. He was glancing at a letter +which he held at arm's length, and snorting, as it were, at it as +he gazed. The lower part of his face was stern, but not as rigid +as usual. He was slowly grinding between his teeth the fragments +of the glass he had just been drinking from. Suddenly he seized +one of his servants, and, forcing the wretch upon his knees, +exclaimed, with the roar of a tiger:-- + +"Dog! why was this kept from me?" + +"Why, please, sir, Miss Flora said as how it was a reconciliation +from Miss Brandagee, and it was to be kept from you where you would +not be likely to see it,--and--and--" + +"Speak, dog! and you--" + +"I put it among your bills, sir!" + +With a groan, like distant thunder, Guy fell swooning to the floor. + +He soon recovered, for the next moment a servant came rushing into +the room with the information that a number of the ingenuous +peasantry of the neighborhood were about to indulge that evening in +the national pastime of burning a farm-house and shooting a +landlord. Guy smiled a fearful smile, without, however, altering +his stern and pitiless expression. + +"Let them come," he said calmly; "I feel like entertaining +company." + +We barricaded the doors and windows, and then chose our arms from +the armory. Guy's choice was a singular one: it was a landing net +with a long handle, and a sharp cavalry sabre. + +We were not destined to remain long in ignorance of its use. A +howl was heard from without, and a party of fifty or sixty armed +men precipitated themselves against the door. + +Suddenly the window opened. With the rapidity of lightning, Guy +Heavystone cast the net over the head of the ringleader, ejaculated +"Habet!" and with a back stroke of his cavalry sabre severed the +member from its trunk, and, drawing the net back again, cast the +gory head upon the floor, saying quietly:-- + +"One." + +Again the net was cast, the steel flashed, the net was withdrawn, +and an ominous "Two!" accompanied the head as it rolled on the +floor. + +"Do you remember what Pliny says of the gladiator?" said Guy, +calmly wiping his sabre. "How graphic is that passage commencing +'Inter nos, etc.'" The sport continued until the heads of twenty +desperadoes had been gathered in. The rest seemed inclined to +disperse. Guy incautiously showed himself at the door; a ringing +shot was heard, and he staggered back, pierced through the heart. +Grasping the door-post in the last unconscious throes of his mighty +frame, the whole side of the house yielded to that earthquake +tremor, and we had barely time to escape before the whole building +fell in ruins. I thought of Samson, the Giant Judge, etc., etc.; +but all was over. + +Guy Heavystone had died as he had lived,--HARD. + + + +MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY. + +A NAVAL OFFICER. + +BY CAPTAIN M--RRY--T, R. N. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +My father was a north-country surgeon. He had retired, a widower, +from her Majesty's navy many years before, and had a small practice +in his native village. When I was seven years old he employed me +to carry medicines to his patients. Being of a lively disposition, +I sometimes amused myself; during my daily rounds, by mixing the +contents of the different phials. Although I had no reason to +doubt that the general result of this practice was beneficial, yet, +as the death of a consumptive curate followed the addition of a +strong mercurial lotion to his expectorant, my father concluded to +withdraw me from the profession and send me to school. + +Grubbins, the schoolmaster, was a tyrant, and it was not long +before my impetuous and self-willed nature rebelled against his +authority. I soon began to form plans of revenge. In this I was +assisted by Tom Snaffle,--a schoolfellow. One day Tom suggested:-- + +"Suppose we blow him up. I've got two pounds of powder!" + +"No, that's too noisy," I replied. + +Tom was silent for a minute, and again spoke:-- + +"You remember how you flattened out the curate, Pills! Couldn't +you give Grubbins something--something to make him leathery sick-- +eh?" + +A flash of inspiration crossed my mind. I went to the shop of the +village apothecary. He knew me; I had often purchased vitriol, +which I poured into Grubbins's inkstand to corrode his pens and +burn up his coat-tail, on which he was in the habit of wiping them. +I boldly asked for an ounce of chloroform. The young apothecary +winked and handed me the bottle. + +It was Grubbins's custom to throw his handkerchief over his head, +recline in his chair and take a short nap during recess. Watching +my opportunity, as he dozed, I managed to slip his handkerchief +from his face and substitute my own, moistened with chloroform. In +a few minutes he was insensible. Tom and I then quickly shaved his +head, beard, and eyebrows, blackened his face with a mixture of +vitriol and burnt cork, and fled. There was a row and scandal the +next day. My father always excused me by asserting that Grubbins +had got drunk,--but somehow found it convenient to procure me an +appointment in her Majesty's navy at an early day. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +An official letter, with the Admiralty seal, informed me that I was +expected to join H. M. ship Belcher, Captain Boltrope, at +Portsmouth, without delay. In a few days I presented myself to a +tall, stern-visaged man, who was slowly pacing the leeward side of +the quarter-deck. As I touched my hat he eyed me sternly:-- + +"So ho! Another young suckling. The service is going to the +devil. Nothing but babes in the cockpit and grannies in the board. +Boatswain's mate, pass the word for Mr. Cheek!" + +Mr. Cheek, the steward, appeared and touched his hat. "Introduce +Mr. Breezy to the young gentlemen. Stop! Where's Mr. Swizzle?" + +"At the masthead, sir." + +"Where's Mr. Lankey?" + +"At the masthead, sir." + +"Mr. Briggs?" + +"Masthead, too, sir." + +"And the rest of the young gentlemen?" roared the enraged officer. + +"All masthead, sir." + +"Ah!" said Captain Boltrope, as he smiled grimly, "under the +circumstances, Mr. Breezy, you had better go to the masthead too." + + +CHAPTER III. + + +At the masthead I made the acquaintance of two youngsters of about +my own age, one of whom informed me that he had been there three +hundred and thirty-two days out of the year. + +"In rough weather, when the old cock is out of sorts, you know, we +never come down," added a young gentleman of nine years, with a +dirk nearly as long as himself, who had been introduced to me as +Mr. Briggs. "By the way, Pills," be continued, "how did you come +to omit giving the captain a naval salute?" + +"Why, I touched my hat," I said, innocently. + +"Yes, but that isn't enough, you know. That will do very well at +other times. He expects the naval salute when you first come on +board--greeny!" + +I began to feel alarmed, and begged him to explain. + +"Why, you see, after touching your hat, you should have touched him +lightly with your forefinger in his waistcoat, so, and asked, +'How's his nibs?'--you see?" + +"How's his nibs?" I repeated. + +"Exactly. He would have drawn back a little, and then you should +have repeated the salute remarking, 'How's his royal nibs?' asking +cautiously after his wife and family, and requesting to be +introduced to the gunner's daughter." + +"The gunner's daughter?" + +"The same; you know she takes care of us young gentlemen; now don't +forget, Pillsy!" + +When we were called down to the deck I thought it a good chance to +profit by this instruction. I approached Captain Boltrope and +repeated the salute without conscientiously omitting a single +detail. He remained for a moment, livid and speechless. At length +he gasped out:-- + +"Boatswain's mate?" + +"If you please, sir," I asked, tremulously, "I should like to be +introduced to the gunner's daughter!" + +"O, very good, sir!" screamed Captain Boltrope, rubbing his hands +and absolutely capering about the deck with rage. "O d--n you! Of +course you shall! O ho! the gunner's daughter! O, h--ll! this is +too much! Boatswain's mate!" Before I well knew where I was, I +was seized, borne to an eight-pounder, tied upon it and flogged! + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +As we sat together in the cockpit, picking the weevils out of our +biscuit, Briggs consoled me for my late mishap, adding that the +"naval salute," as a custom, seemed just then to be honored more in +the BREACH than the observance. I joined in the hilarity +occasioned by the witticism, and in a few moments we were all +friends. Presently Swizzle turned to me:-- + +"We have been just planning how to confiscate a keg of claret, +which Nips, the purser, keeps under his bunk. The old nipcheese +lies there drunk half the day, and there's no getting at it." + +"Let's get beneath the state-room and bore through the deck, and so +tap it," said Lankey. + +The proposition was received with a shout of applause. A long +half-inch auger and bit was procured from Chips, the carpenter's +mate, and Swizzle, after a careful examination of the timbers +beneath the ward-room, commenced operations. The auger at last +disappeared, when suddenly there was a slight disturbance on the +deck above. Swizzle withdrew the auger hurriedly; from its point a +few bright red drops trickled. + +"Huzza! send her up again!" cried Lankey. + +The auger was again applied. This time a shriek was heard from the +purser's cabin. Instantly the light was doused, and the party +retreated hurriedly to the cockpit. A sound of snoring was heard +as the sentry stuck his head into the door. "All right, sir," he +replied in answer to the voice of the officer of the deck. + +The next morning we heard that Nips was in the surgeon's hands, +with a bad wound in the fleshy part of his leg, and that the auger +had NOT struck claret. + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"Now, Pills, you'll have a chance to smell powder," said Briggs as +he entered the cockpit and buckled around his waist an enormous +cutlass. "We have just sighted a French ship." + +We went on deck. Captain Boltrope grinned as we touched our hats. +He hated the purser. "Come, young gentlemen, if you're boring for +french claret, yonder's a good quality. Mind your con, sir," he +added, turning to the quartermaster, who was grinning. + +The ship was already cleared for action. The men, in their +eagerness, had started the coffee from the tubs and filled them +with shot. Presently the Frenchman yawed, and a shot from a long +thirty-two came skipping over the water. It killed the +quartermaster and took off both of Lankey's legs. "Tell the purser +our account is squared," said the dying boy, with a feeble smile. + +The fight raged fiercely for two hours. I remember killing the +French Admiral, as we boarded, but on looking around for Briggs, +after the smoke had cleared away, I was intensely amused at +witnessing the following novel sight:-- + +Briggs had pinned the French captain against the mast with his +cutlass, and was now engaged, with all the hilarity of youth, in +pulling the captain's coat-tails between his legs, in imitation of +a dancing-jack. As the Frenchman lifted his legs and arms, at each +jerk of Briggs's, I could not help participating in the general +mirth. + +"You young devil, what are you doing?" said a stifled voice behind +me. I looked up and beheld Captain Boltrope, endeavoring to calm +his stern features, but the twitching around his mouth betrayed his +intense enjoyment of the scene. "Go to the masthead--up with you, +sir!" he repeated sternly to Briggs. + +"Very good, sir," said the boy, coolly preparing to mount the +shrouds. "Good by, Johnny Crapaud. Humph!" he added, in a tone +intended for my ear, "a pretty way to treat a hero. The service is +going to the devil!" + +I thought so too. + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +We were ordered to the West Indies. Although Captain Boltrope's +manner toward me was still severe, and even harsh, I understood +that my name had been favorably mentioned in the despatches. + +Reader, were you ever at Jamaica? If so, you remember the +negresses, the oranges, Port Royal Tom--the yellow fever. After +being two weeks at the station, I was taken sick of the fever. In +a month I was delirious. During my paroxysms, I had a wild +distempered dream of a stern face bending anxiously over my pillow, +a rough hand smoothing my hair, and a kind voice saying:-- + +"Bess his 'ittle heart! Did he have the naughty fever?" This face +seemed again changed to the well-known stern features of Captain +Boltrope. + +When I was convalescent, a packet edged in black was put in my +hand. It contained the news of my father's death, and a sealed +letter which he had requested to be given to me on his decease. I +opened it tremblingly. It read thus:-- + + +"My dear Boy:--I regret to inform you that in all probability you +are not my son. Your mother, I am grieved to say, was a highly +improper person. Who your father may be, I really cannot say, but +perhaps the Honorable Henry Boltrope, Captain R. N., may be able to +inform you. Circumstances over which I have no control have +deferred this important disclosure. + +"YOUR STRICKEN PARENT." + + +And so Captain Boltrope was my father. Heavens! Was it a dream? +I recalled his stern manner, his observant eye, his ill-concealed +uneasiness when in my presence. I longed to embrace him. +Staggering to my feet, I rushed in my scanty apparel to the deck, +where Captain Boltrope was just then engaged in receiving the +Governor's wife and daughter. The ladies shrieked; the youngest, a +beautiful girl, blushed deeply. Heeding them not, I sank at his +feet, and, embracing them, cried:-- + +"My father!" + +"Chuck him overboard!" roared Captain Boltrope. + +"Stay," pleaded the soft voice of Clara Maitland, the Governor's +daughter. + +"Shave his head! he's a wretched lunatic!" continued Captain +Boltrope, while his voice trembled with excitement. + +"No, let me nurse and take care of him," said the lovely girl, +blushing as she spoke. "Mamma, can't we take him home?" + +The daughter's pleading was not without effect. In the mean time I +had fainted. When I recovered my senses I found myself in Governor +Maitland's mansion. + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The reader will guess what followed. I fell deeply in love with +Clara Maitland, to whom I confided the secret of my birth. The +generous girl asserted that she had detected the superiority of my +manner at once. We plighted our troth, and resolved to wait upon +events. + +Briggs called to see me a few days afterward. He said that the +purser had insulted the whole cockpit, and all the midshipmen had +called him out. But he added thoughtfully: "I don't see how we can +arrange the duel. You see there are six of us to fight him." + +"Very easily," I replied. "Let your fellows all stand in a row, +and take his fire; that, you see, gives him six chances to one, and +he must be a bad shot if he can't hit one of you; while, on the +other hand, you see, he gets a volley from you six, and one of +you'll be certain to fetch him." + +"Exactly"; and away Briggs went, but soon returned to say that the +purser had declined,--"like a d--d coward," he added. + +But the news of the sudden and serious illness of Captain Boltrope +put off the duel. I hastened to his bedside, but too late,--an +hour previous he had given up the ghost. + +I resolved to return to England. I made known the secret of my +birth, and exhibited my adopted father's letter to Lady Maitland, +who at once suggested my marriage with her daughter, before I +returned to claim the property. We were married, and took our +departure next day. + +I made no delay in posting at once, in company with my wife and my +friend Briggs, to my native village. Judge of my horror and +surprise when my late adopted father came out of his shop to +welcome me. + +"Then you are not dead!" I gasped. + +"No, my dear boy." + +"And this letter?" + +My father--as I must still call him--glanced on the paper, and +pronounced it a forgery. Briggs roared with laughter. I turned to +him and demanded an explanation. + +"Why, don't you see, Greeny, it's all a joke,--a midshipman's +joke!" + +"But--" I asked. + +"Don't be a fool. You've got a good wife,--be satisfied." + +I turned to Clara, and was satisfied. Although Mrs. Maitland never +forgave me, the jolly old Governor laughed heartily over the joke, +and so well used his influence that I soon became, dear reader, +Admiral Breezy, K. C. B. + + + +JOHN JENKINS; + +OR, + +THE SMOKER REFORMED. + +BY T. S. A--TH--R. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +One cigar a day!" said Judge Boompointer. + +One cigar a day!" repeated John Jenkins, as with trepidation he +dropped his half-consumed cigar under his work-bench. + +"One cigar a day is three cents a day," remarked Judge Boompointer, +gravely; "and do you know, sir, what one cigar a day, or three +cents a day, amounts to in the course of four years?" + +John Jenkins, in his boyhood, had attended the village school, and +possessed considerable arithmetical ability. Taking up a shingle +which lay upon his work-bench, and producing a piece of chalk, with +a feeling of conscious pride he made an exhaustive calculation. + +"Exactly forty-three dollars and eighty cents," he replied, wiping +the perspiration from his heated brow, while his face flushed with +honest enthusiasm. + +"Well, sir, if you saved three cents a day, instead of wasting it, +you would now be the possessor of a new suit of clothes, an +illustrated Family Bible, a pew in the church, a complete set of +Patent Office Reports, a hymn-book, and a paid subscription to +Arthur's Home Magazine, which could be purchased for exactly forty- +three dollars and eighty cents; and," added the Judge, with +increasing sternness, "if you calculate leap-year, which you seem +to have strangely omitted, you have three cents more, sir; THREE +CENTS MORE! What would that buy you, sir?" + +"A cigar," suggested John Jenkins; but, coloring again deeply, he +hid his face. + +"No, sir," said the Judge, with a sweet smile of benevolence +stealing over his stern features; "properly invested, it would buy +you that which passeth all price. Dropped into the missionary-box, +who can tell what heathen, now idly and joyously wantoning in +nakedness and sin, might be brought to a sense of his miserable +condition, and made, through that three cents, to feel the torments +of the wicked?" + +With these words the Judge retired, leaving John Jenkins buried in +profound thought. "Three cents a day," he muttered. "In forty +years I might be worth four hundred and thirty-eight dollars and +ten cents,--and then I might marry Mary. Ah, Mary!" The young +carpenter sighed, and, drawing a twenty-five cent daguerreotype +from his vest-pocket, gazed long and fervidly upon the features of +a young girl in book muslin and a coral necklace. Then, with a +resolute expression, he carefully locked the door of his workshop +and departed. + +Alas! his good resolutions were too late. We trifle with the tide +of fortune which too often nips us in the bud and casts the dark +shadow of misfortune over the bright lexicon of youth! That night +the half-consumed fragment of John Jenkins's cigar set fire to his +workshop and burned it up, together with all his tools and +materials. There was no insurance. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE DOWNWARD PATH. + + +"Then you still persist in marrying John Jenkins?" queried Judge +Boompointer, as he playfully, with paternal familiarity, lifted the +golden curls of the village belle, Mary Jones. + +"I do," replied the fair young girl, in a low voice, that resembled +rock candy in its saccharine firmness,--"I do. He has promised to +reform. Since he lost all his property by fire--" + +"The result of his pernicious habit, though he illogically persists +in charging it to me," interrupted the Judge. + +"Since then," continued the young girl, "he has endeavored to break +himself of the habit. He tells me that he has substituted the +stalks of the Indian ratan, the outer part of a leguminous plant +called the smoking-bean, and the fragmentary and unconsumed +remainder of cigars which occur at rare and uncertain intervals +along the road, which, as he informs me, though deficient in +quality and strength, are comparatively inexpensive." And, +blushing at her own eloquence, the young girl hid her curls on the +Judge's arm. + +"Poor thing!" muttered Judge Boompointer. "Dare I tell her all? +Yet I must." + +"I shall cling to him," continued the young girl, rising with her +theme, "as the young vine clings to some hoary ruin. Nay, nay, +chide me not, Judge Boompointer. I will marry John Jenkins!" + +The Judge was evidently affected. Seating himself at the table, he +wrote a few lines hurriedly upon a piece of paper, which he folded +and placed in the fingers of the destined bride of John Jenkins. + +"Mary Jones," said the Judge, with impressive earnestness, "take +this trifle as a wedding gift from one who respects your fidelity +and truthfulness. At the altar let it be a reminder of me." And +covering his face hastily with a handkerchief, the stern and iron- +willed man left the room. As the door closed, Mary unfolded the +paper. It was an order on the corner grocery for three yards of +flannel, a paper of needles, four pounds of soap, one pound of +starch, and two boxes of matches! + +"Noble and thoughtful man!" was all Mary Jones could exclaim, as +she hid her face in her hands and burst into a flood of tears. + + * * * * * + +The bells of Cloverdale are ringing merrily. It is a wedding. +"How beautiful they look!" is the exclamation that passes from lip +to lip, as Mary Jones, leaning timidly on the arm of John Jenkins, +enters the church. But the bride is agitated, and the bridegroom +betrays a feverish nervousness. As they stand in the vestibule, +John Jenkins fumbles earnestly in his vest-pocket. Can it be the +ring he is anxious about? No. He draws a small brown substance +from his pocket, and biting off a piece, hastily replaces the +fragment and gazes furtively around. Surely no one saw him? Alas! +the eyes of two of that wedding party saw the fatal act. Judge +Boompointer shook his head sternly. Mary Jones sighed and breathed +a silent prayer. Her husband chewed! + + +CHAPTER III. AND LAST. + + +"What! more bread?" said John Jenkins, gruffly. "You're always +asking for money for bread. D--nation! Do you want to ruin me by +your extravagance?" and as he uttered these words he drew from his +pocket a bottle of whiskey, a pipe, and a paper of tobacco. +Emptying the first at a draught, he threw the empty bottle at the +head of his eldest boy, a youth of twelve summers. The missile +struck the child full in the temple, and stretched him a lifeless +corpse. Mrs. Jenkins, whom the reader will hardly recognize as the +once gay and beautiful Mary Jones, raised the dead body of her son +in her arms, and carefully placing the unfortunate youth beside the +pump in the back yard, returned with saddened step to the house. +At another time, and in brighter days, she might have wept at the +occurrence. She was past tears now. + +"Father, your conduct is reprehensible!" said little Harrison +Jenkins, the youngest boy. "Where do you expect to go when you +die?" + +"Ah!" said John Jenkins, fiercely; "this comes of giving children a +liberal education; this is the result of Sabbath schools. Down, +viper!" + +A tumbler thrown from the same parental fist laid out the youthful +Harrison cold. The four other children had, in the mean time, +gathered around the table with anxious expectancy. With a chuckle, +the now changed and brutal John Jenkins produced four pipes, and, +filling them with tobacco, handed one to each of his offspring and +bade them smoke. "It's better than bread!" laughed the wretch +hoarsely. + +Mary Jenkins, though of a patient nature, felt it her duty now to +speak. "I have borne much, John Jenkins," she said. "But I prefer +that the children should not smoke. It is an unclean habit, and +soils their clothes. I ask this as a special favor!" + +John Jenkins hesitated,--the pangs of remorse began to seize him. + +"Promise me this, John!" urged Mary upon her knees. + +"I promise!" reluctantly answered John. + +"And you will put the money in a savings-bank?" + +"I will," repeated her husband; "and I'LL give up smoking, too." + +"'Tis well, John Jenkins!" said Judge Boompointer, appearing +suddenly from behind the door, where he had been concealed during +this interview. "Nobly said! my man. Cheer up! I will see that +the children are decently buried." The husband and wife fell into +each other's arms. And Judge Boompointer, gazing upon the +affecting spectacle, burst into tears. + +From that day John Jenkins was an altered man. + + + +NO TITLE. + +By W--LK--E C--LL--NS. + + +PROLOGUE. + + +The following advertisement appeared in the "Times" of the 17th of +June, 1845:-- + + +WANTED.--A few young men for a light genteel employment. + Address J. W., P. O. + + +In the same paper, of same date, in another column:-- + + +TO LET.--That commodious and elegant family mansion, No. 27 +Limehouse Road, Pultneyville, will be rented low to a respectable +tenant if applied for immediately, the family being about to remove +to the continent. + + +Under the local intelligence, in another column:-- + + +MISSING.--An unknown elderly gentleman a week ago left his lodgings +in the Kent Road, since which nothing has been heard of him. He +left no trace of his identity except a portmanteau containing a +couple of shirts marked "209, WARD." + + +To find the connection between the mysterious disappearance of the +elderly gentleman and the anonymous communication, the relevancy of +both these incidents to the letting of a commodious family mansion, +and the dead secret involved in the three occurrences, is the task +of the writer of this history. + +A slim young man with spectacles, a large hat, drab gaiters, and a +note-book, sat late that night with a copy of the "Times" before +him, and a pencil which he rattled nervously between his teeth in +the coffee-room of the "Blue Dragon." + + +CHAPTER I. + +MARY JONES'S NARRATIVE. + + +I am upper housemaid to the family that live at No. 27 Limehouse +Road, Pultneyville. I have been requested by Mr. Wilkey Collings, +which I takes the liberty of here stating is a gentleman born and +bred, and has some consideration for the feelings of servants, and +is not above rewarding them for their trouble, which is more than +you can say for some who ask questions and gets short answers +enough, gracious knows, to tell what I know about them. I have +been requested to tell my story in my own langwidge, though, being +no schollard, mind cannot conceive. I think my master is a brute. +Do not know that he has ever attempted to poison my missus,--which +is too good for him, and how she ever came to marry him, heart only +can tell,--but believe him to be capable of any such hatrosity. +Have heard him swear dreadful because of not having his shaving- +water at nine o'clock precisely. Do not know whether he ever +forged a will or tried to get my missus' property, although, not +having confidence in the man, should not be surprised if he had +done so. Believe that there was always something mysterious in his +conduct. Remember distinctly how the family left home to go +abroad. Was putting up my back hair, last Saturday morning, when I +heard a ring. Says cook, "That's missus' bell, and mind you hurry +or the master 'ill know why." Says I, "Humbly thanking you, mem, +but taking advice of them as is competent to give it, I'll take my +time." Found missus dressing herself and master growling as usual. +Says missus, quite calm and easy like, "Mary, we begin to pack to- +day." "What for, mem?" says I, taken aback. "What's that hussy +asking?" says master from the bedclothes quite savage like. "For +the Continent--Italy," says missus--"Can you go Mary?" Her voice +was quite gentle and saintlike, but I knew the struggle it cost, +and says I, "With YOU mem, to India's torrid clime, if required, +but with African Gorillas," says I, looking toward the bed, +"never." "Leave the room," says master, starting up and catching +of his bootjack. "Why Charles!" says missus, "how you talk!" +affecting surprise. "Do go Mary," says she, slipping a half-crown +into my hand. I left the room scorning to take notice of the +odious wretch's conduct. + +Cannot say whether my master and missus were ever legally married. +What with the dreadful state of morals nowadays and them stories in +the circulating libraries, innocent girls don't know into what +society they might be obliged to take situations. Never saw +missus' marriage certificate, though I have quite accidental-like +looked in her desk when open, and would have seen it. Do not know +of any lovers missus might have had. Believe she had a liking for +John Thomas, footman, for she was always spiteful-like--poor lady-- +when we were together--though there was nothing between us, as Cook +well knows, and dare not deny, and missus needn't have been +jealous. Have never seen arsenic or Prussian acid in any of the +private drawers--but have seen paregoric and camphor. One of my +master's friends was a Count Moscow, a Russian papist--which I +detested. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SLIM YOUNG MAN'S STORY. + + +I am by profession a reporter, and writer for the press. I live at +Pultneyville. I have always had a passion for the marvellous, and +have been distinguished for my facility in tracing out mysteries, +and solving enigmatical occurrences. On the night of the 17th +June, 1845, I left my office and walked homeward. The night was +bright and starlight. I was revolving in my mind the words of a +singular item I had just read in the "Times." I had reached the +darkest portion of the road, and found my self mechanically +repeating: "An elderly gentleman a week ago left his lodgings on +the Kent Road," when suddenly I heard a step behind me. + +I turned quickly, with an expression of horror in my face, and by +the light of the newly risen moon beheld an elderly gentleman, with +green cotton umbrella, approaching me. His hair, which was snow +white, was parted over a broad, open forehead. The expression of +his face, which was slightly flushed, was that of amiability +verging almost upon imbecility. There was a strange, inquiring +look about the widely opened mild blue eye,--a look that might have +been intensified to insanity, or modified to idiocy. As he passed +me, he paused and partly turned his face, with a gesture of +inquiry. I see him still, his white locks blowing in the evening +breeze, his hat a little on the back of his head, and his figure +painted in relief against the dark blue sky. + +Suddenly he turned his mild eye full upon me. A weak smile played +about his thin lips. In a voice which had something of the +tremulousness of age and the self-satisfied chuckle of imbecility +in it, he asked, pointing to the rising moon, "Why?--hush!" + +He had dodged behind me, and appeared to be looking anxiously down +the road. I could feel his aged frame shaking with terror as he +laid his thin hands upon my shoulders and faced me in the direction +of the supposed danger. + +"Hush! did you not hear them coming?" + +I listened; there was no sound but the soughing of the roadside +trees in the evening wind. I endeavored to reassure him, with such +success that in a few moments the old weak smile appeared on his +benevolent face. + +"Why?--" But the look of interrogation was succeeded by a hopeless +blankness. + +"Why!" I repeated with assuring accents. + +"Why," he said, a gleam of intelligence flickering over his face, +"is yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean, casting a flood +of light o'er hill and dale, like-- Why," he repeated, with a +feeble smile, "is yonder moon, as she sails in the blue empyrean--" +He hesitated,--stammered,--and gazed at me hopelessly, with the +tears dripping from his moist and widely opened eyes. + +I took his hand kindly in my own. "Casting a shadow o'er hill and +dale," I repeated quietly, leading him up the subject, "like-- +Come, now." + +"Ah!" he said, pressing my hand tremulously, "you know it?" + +"I do. Why is it like--the--eh--the commodious mansion on the +Limehouse Road?" + +A blank stare only followed. He shook his head sadly. "Like the +young men wanted for a light, genteel employment?" + +He wagged his feeble old head cunningly. + +"Or, Mr. Ward," I said, with bold confidence, "like the mysterious +disappearance from the Kent Road?" + +The moment was full of suspense. He did not seem to hear me. +Suddenly he turned. + +"Ha!" + +I darted forward. But he had vanished in the darkness. + + +CHAPTER III. + +NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD. + + +It was a hot midsummer evening. Limehouse Road was deserted save +by dust and a few rattling butchers' carts, and the bell of the +muffin and crumpet man. A commodious mansion, which stood on the +right of the road as you enter Pultneyville, surrounded by stately +poplars and a high fence surmounted by a chevaux de frise of broken +glass, looked to the passing and footsore pedestrian like the +genius of seclusion and solitude. A bill announcing in the usual +terms that the house was to let, hung from the bell at the +servants' entrance. + +As the shades of evening closed, and the long shadows of the +poplars stretched across the road, a man carrying a small kettle +stopped and gazed, first at the bill and then at the house. When +he had reached the corner of the fence, he again stopped and looked +cautiously up and down the road. Apparently satisfied with the +result of his scrutiny, he deliberately sat himself down in the +dark shadow of the fence, and at once busied himself in some +employment, so well concealed as to be invisible to the gaze of +passers-by. At the end of an hour he retired cautiously. + +But not altogether unseen. A slim young man, with spectacles and +note-book, stepped from behind a tree as the retreating figure of +the intruder was lost in the twilight, and transferred from the +fence to his note-book the freshly stencilled inscription, "S--T-- +1860--X." + + +CHAPTER IV. + +COUNT MOSCOW'S NARRATIVE. + + +I am a foreigner. Observe! To be a foreigner in England is to be +mysterious, suspicious, intriguing. M. Collins has requested the +history of my complicity with certain occurrences. It is nothing, +bah! absolutely nothing. + +I write with ease and fluency. Why should I not write? Tra la la? +I am what you English call corpulent. Ha, ha! I am a pupil of +Macchiavelli. I find it much better to disbelieve everything, and +to approach my subject and wishes circuitously, than in a direct +manner. You have observed that playful animal, the cat. Call it, +and it does not come to you directly, but rubs itself against all +the furniture in the room, and reaches you finally--and scratches. +Ah, ha, scratches! I am of the feline species. People call me a +villain--bah! + +I know the family, living No. 27 Limehouse Road. I respect the +gentleman,--a fine, burly specimen of your Englishman,--and madame, +charming, ravishing, delightful. When it became known to me that +they designed to let their delightful residence, and visit foreign +shores, I at once called upon them. I kissed the hand of madame. +I embraced the great Englishman. Madame blushed slightly. The +great Englishman shook my hand like a mastiff. + +I began in that dexterous, insinuating manner, of which I am truly +proud. I thought madame was ill. Ah, no. A change, then, was all +that was required. I sat down at the piano and sang. In a few +minutes madame retired. I was alone with my friend. + +Seizing his hand, I began with every demonstration of courteous +sympathy. I do not repeat my words, for my intention was conveyed +more in accent, emphasis, and manner, than speech. I hinted to him +that he had another wife living. I suggested that this was +balanced--ha!--by his wife's lover. That, possibly, he wished to +fly; hence the letting of his delightful mansion. That he +regularly and systematically beat his wife in the English manner, +and that she repeatedly deceived me. I talked of hope, of +consolation, of remedy. I carelessly produced a bottle of +strychnine and a small vial of stramonium from my pocket, and +enlarged on the efficiency of drugs. His face, which had gradually +become convulsed, suddenly became fixed with a frightful +expression. He started to his feet, and roared: "You d--d +Frenchman!" + +I instantly changed my tactics, and endeavored to embrace him. He +kicked me twice, violently. I begged permission to kiss madame's +hand. He replied by throwing me down stairs. + +I am in bed with my head bound up, and beef-steaks upon my eyes, +but still confident and buoyant. I have not lost faith in +Macchiavelli. Tra la la! as they sing in the opera. I kiss +everybody's hands. + + +CHAPTER V. + +DR. DIGGS'S STATEMENT. + + +My name is David Diggs. I am a surgeon, living at No. 9 Tottenham +Court. On the 15th of June, 1854, I was called to see an elderly +gentleman lodging on the Kent Road. Found him highly excited, with +strong febrile symptoms, pulse 120, increasing. Repeated +incoherently what I judged to be the popular form of a conundrum. +On closer examination found acute hydrocephalus and both lobes of +the brain rapidly filling with water. In consultation with an +eminent phrenologist, it was further discovered that all the organs +were more or less obliterated, except that of Comparison. Hence +the patient was enabled to only distinguish the most common points +of resemblance between objects, without drawing upon other +faculties, such as Ideality or Language, for assistance. Later in +the day found him sinking,--being evidently unable to carry the +most ordinary conundrum to a successful issue. Exhibited Tinct. +Val., Ext. Opii, and Camphor, and prescribed quiet and emollients. +On the 17th the patient was missing. + + +CHAPTER LAST. + +STATEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER. + + +On the 18th of June, Mr. Wilkie Collins left a roll of manuscript +with us for publication, without title or direction, since which +time he has not been heard from. In spite of the care of the +proof-readers, and valuable literary assistance, it is feared that +the continuity of the story has been destroyed by some accidental +misplacing of chapters during its progress. How and what chapters +are so misplaced, the publisher leaves to an indulgent public to +discover. + + + +N N. + +BEING A NOVEL IN THE FRENCH PARAGRAPHIC STYLE. + + +--Mademoiselle, I swear to you that I love you. + +--You who read these pages. You who turn your burning eyes upon +these words--words that I trace-- Ah, Heaven! the thought maddens +me. + +--I will be calm. I will imitate the reserve of the festive +Englishman, who wears a spotted handkerchief which he calls a +Belchio, who eats biftek, and caresses a bulldog. I will subdue +myself like him. + +--Ha! Poto-beer! All right--Goddam! + +--Or, I will conduct myself as the free-born American--the gay +Brother Jonathan! I will whittle me a stick. I will whistle to +myself "Yankee Doodle," and forget my passion in excessive +expectoration. + +--Hoho!--wake snakes and walk chalks. + + +The world is divided into two great divisions,--Paris and the +provinces. There is but one Paris. There are several provinces, +among which may be numbered England, America, Russia, and Italy. + +N N. was a Parisian. + +But N N. did not live in Paris. Drop a Parisian in the provinces, +and you drop a part of Paris with him. Drop him in Senegambia, and +in three days he will give you an omelette soufflee, or a pate de +foie gras, served by the neatest of Senegambian filles, whom he +will call Mademoiselle. In three weeks he will give you an opera. + +N N. was not dropped in Senegambia, but in San Francisco,--quite as +awkward. + +They find gold in San Francisco, but they don't understand gilding. + +N N. existed three years in this place. He became bald on the top +of his head, as all Parisians do. Look down from your box at the +Opera Comique, Mademoiselle, and count the bald crowns of the fast +young men in the pit. Ah--you tremble! They show where the arrows +of love have struck and glanced off. + +N N. was also near-sighted, as all Parisians finally become. This +is a gallant provision of Nature to spare them the mortification of +observing that their lady friends grow old. After a certain age +every woman is handsome to a Parisian. + +One day, N N. was walking down Washington street. Suddenly he +stopped. + +He was standing before the door of a mantuamaker. Beside the +counter, at the farther extremity of the shop, stood a young and +elegantly formed woman. Her face was turned from N N. He entered. +With a plausible excuse, and seeming indifference, he gracefully +opened conversation with the mantuamaker as only a Parisian can. +But he had to deal with a Parisian. His attempts to view the +features of the fair stranger by the counter were deftly combated +by the shop-woman. He was obliged to retire. + +N N. went home and lost his appetite. He was haunted by the +elegant basque and graceful shoulders of the fair unknown, during +the whole night. + +The next day he sauntered by the mantuamaker. Ah! Heavens! A +thrill ran through his frame, and his fingers tingled with a +delicious electricity. The fair inconnue was there! He raised his +hat gracefully. He was not certain, but he thought that a slight +motion of her faultless bonnet betrayed recognition. He would have +wildly darted into the shop, but just then the figure of the +mantuamaker appeared in the doorway. + +--Did Monsieur wish anything? + +Misfortune! Desperation. N N. purchased a bottle of Prussic acid, +a sack of charcoal, and a quire of pink note-paper, and returned +home. He wrote a letter of farewell to the closely fitting basque, +and opened the bottle of Prussic acid. + +Some one knocked at his door. It was a Chinaman, with his weekly +linen. + +These Chinese are docile, but not intelligent. They are ingenious, +but not creative. They are cunning in expedients, but deficient in +tact. In love they are simply barbarous. They purchase their +wives openly, and not constructively by attorney. By offering +small sums for their sweethearts, they degrade the value of the +sex. + +Nevertheless, N N. felt he was saved. He explained all to the +faithful Mongolian, and exhibited the letter he had written. He +implored him to deliver it. + +The Mongolian assented. The race are not cleanly or sweet-savored, +but N N. fell upon his neck. He embraced him with one hand, and +closed his nostrils with the other. Through him, he felt he +clasped the close-fitting basque. + +The next day was one of agony and suspense. Evening came, but no +Mercy. N N. lit the charcoal. But, to compose his nerves, he +closed his door and first walked mildly up and down Montgomery +Steeet. When he returned, he found the faithful Mongolian on the +steps. + +--All lity! + +These Chinese are not accurate in their pronunciation. They avoid +the r, like the English nobleman. + +N N. gasped for breath. He leaned heavily against the Chinaman. + +--Then you have seen her, Ching Long? + +--Yes. All lity. She cum. Top side of house. + +The docile barbarian pointed up the stairs, and chuckled. + +--She here--impossible! Ah, Heaven! do I dream? + +--Yes. All lity,--top side of house. Good by, John. + +This is the familiar parting epithet of the Mongolian. It is +equivalent to our au revoir. + +N N. gazed with a stupefied air on the departing servant. + +He placed his hand on his throbbing heart. She here,--alone +beneath this roof. O Heavens, what happiness! + +But how? Torn from her home. Ruthlessly dragged, perhaps, from +her evening devotions, by the hands of a relentless barbarian. +Could she forgive him? + +He dashed frantically up the stairs. He opened the door. She was +standing beside his couch with averted face. + +A strange giddiness overtook him. He sank upon his knees at the +threshold. + +--Pardon, pardon. My angel, can you forgive me? + +A terrible nausea now seemed added to the fearful giddiness. His +utterance grew thick and sluggish. + +--Speak, speak, enchantress. Forgiveness is all I ask. My Love, +my Life! + +She did not answer. He staggered to his feet. As he rose, his +eyes fell on the pan of burning charcoal. A terrible suspicion +flashed across his mind. This giddiness,--this nausea. The +ignorance of the barbarian. This silence. O merciful heavens! she +was dying! + +He crawled toward her. He touched her. She fell forward with a +lifeless sound upon the floor. He uttered a piercing shriek, and +threw himself beside her. + + * * * * * + +A file of gendarmes, accompanied by the Chef Burke, found him the +next morning lying lifeless upon the floor. They laughed +brutally,--these cruel minions of the law,--and disengaged his arm +from the waist of the wooden dummy which they had come to reclaim +for the mantuamaker. + +Emptying a few bucketfuls of water over his form, they finally +succeeded in robbing him, not only of his mistress, but of that +Death he had coveted without her. + +Ah! we live in a strange world, Messieurs. + + + +FANTINE. + +AFTER THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. + + +PROLOGUE. + + +As long as there shall exist three paradoxes, a moral Frenchman, a +religious Atheist, and a believing sceptic; so long, in fact, as +booksellers shall wait--say twenty-five years--for a new gospel; so +long as paper shall remain cheap and ink three sous a bottle, I +have no hesitation in saying that such books as these are not +utterly profitless. + +VICTOR HUGO. + + +I. + + +To be good is to be queer. What is a good man? Bishop Myriel. + +My friend, you will possibly object to this. You will say you know +what a good man is. Perhaps you will say your clergyman is a good +man, for instance. + +Bah! you are mistaken; you are an Englishman, and an Englishman is +a beast. + +Englishmen think they are moral when they are only serious. These +Englishmen also wear ill-shaped hats, and dress horribly! + +Bah! they are canaille. + +Still, Bishop Myriel was a good man,--quite as good as you. Better +than you, in fact. + +One day M. Myriel was in Paris. This angel used to walk about the +streets like any other man. He was not proud, though fine-looking. +Well, three gamins de Paris called him bad names. Says one:-- + +"Ah, mon Dieu! there goes a priest; look out for your eggs and +chickens!" + +What did this good man do? He called to them kindly. + +"My children," said he, "this is clearly not your fault. I +recognize in this insult and irreverence only the fault of your +immediate progenitors. Let us pray for your immediate +progenitors." + +They knelt down and prayed for their immediate progenitors. + +The effect was touching. + +The Bishop looked calmly around. + +"On reflection," said he, gravely, "I was mistaken; this is clearly +the fault of Society. Let us pray for Society." + +They knelt down and prayed for Society. + +The effect was sublimer yet. What do you think of that? You, I +mean. + +Everybody remembers the story of the Bishop and Mother Nez +Retrousse. Old Mother Nez Retrouse sold asparagus. She was poor; +there's a great deal of meaning in that word, my friend. Some +people say "poor but honest." I say, Bah! + +Bishop Myriel bought six bunches of asparagus. This good man had +one charming failing; he was fond of asparagus. He gave her a +franc and received three sous change. + +The sous were bad,--counterfeit. What did this good Bishop do? He +said: "I should not have taken change from a poor woman." + +Then afterwards, to his housekeeper: "Never take change from a poor +woman." + +Then he added to himself: "For the sous will probably be bad." + + +II. + + +When a man commits a crime, society claps him in prison. A prison +is one of the worst hotels imaginable. The people there are low +and vulgar. The butter is bad, the coffee is green. Ah, it is +horrible! + +In prison, as in a bad hotel, a man soon loses, not only his +morals, but what is much worse to a Frenchman, his sense of +refinement and delicacy. + +Jean Valjean came from prison with confused notions of society. He +forgot the modern peculiarities of hospitality. So he walked off +with the Bishop's candlesticks. + +Let us consider: candlesticks were stolen; that was evident. +Society put Jean Valjean in prison; that was evident, too. In +prison, Society took away his refinement; that is evident, +likewise. + +Who is Society? + +You and I are Society. + +My friend, you and I stole those candlesticks! + + +III. + + +The Bishop thought so, too. He meditated profoundly for six days. +On the morning of the seventh he went to the Prefecture of Police. + +He said: "Monsieur, have me arrested. I have stolen candlesticks." + +The official was governed by the law of Society, and refused. + +What did this Bishop do? + +He had a charming ball and chain made, affixed to his leg, and wore +it the rest of his life. + +This is a fact! + + +IV. + + +Love is a mystery. + +A little friend of mine down in the country, at Auvergne, said to +me one day: "Victor, Love is the world,--it contains everything." + +She was only sixteen, this sharp-witted little girl, and a +beautiful blonde. She thought everything of me. + +Fantine was one of those women who do wrong in the most virtuous +and touching manner. This is a peculiarity of French grisettes. + +You are an Englishman, and you don't understand. Learn, my friend, +learn. Come to Paris and improve your morals. + +Fantine was the soul of modesty. She always wore high-neck +dresses. High-neck dresses are a sign of modesty. + +Fantine loved Tholmoyes. Why? My God! What are you to do? It +was the fault of her parents, and she hadn't any. How shall you +teach her? You must teach the parent if you wish to educate the +child. How would you become virtuous? + +Teach your grandmother! + + +V. + + +When Tholmoyes ran away from Fantine,--which was done in a +charming, gentlemanly manner,--Fantine became convinced that a +rigid sense of propriety might look upon her conduct as immoral. +She was a creature of sensitiveness,--and her eyes were opened. + +She was virtuous still, and resolved to break off the liaison at +once. + +So she put up her wardrobe and baby in a bundle. Child as she was, +she loved them both. Then left Paris. + + +VI. + + +Fantine's native place had changed. + +M. Madeline--an angel, and inventor of jet work--had been teaching +the villagers how to make spurious jet. + +This is a progressive age. Those Americans,--children of the +West,--they make nutmegs out of wood. + +I, myself, have seen hams made of pine, in the wigwams of those +children of the forest. + +But civilization has acquired deception too. Society is made up of +deception. Even the best French society. + +Still there was one sincere episode. + +Eh? + +The French Revolution! + + +VII. + + +M. Madeline was, if anything, better than Myriel. + +M. Myriel was a saint. M. Madeline a good man. + +M. Myriel was dead. M. Madeline was living. + +That made all the difference. + +M. Madeline made virtue profitable. I have seen it written:-- + +"Be virtuous and you will be happy." + +Where did I see this written? In the modern Bible? No. In the +Koran? No. In Rousseau? No. Diderot? No. Where then? + +In a copy-book. + + +VIII. + + +M. Madeline was M. le Maire. + +This is how it came about. + +For a long time he refused the honor. One day an old woman, +standing on the steps, said:-- + +"Bah, a good mayor is a good thing. + +"You are a good thing. + +"Be a good mayor." + +This woman was a rhetorician. She understood inductive +ratiocination. + + +IX. + + +When this good M. Madeline, whom the reader will perceive must have +been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to +justice as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was +turned away from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses +from society. Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:-- + +First her lover. + +Then her child. + +Then her place. + +Then her hair. + +Then her teeth. + +Then her liberty. + +Then her life. + +What do you think of society after that? I tell you the present +social system is a humbug. + + +X. + + +This is necessarily the end of Fantine. There are other things +that will be stated in other volumes to follow. Don't be alarmed; +there are plenty of miserable people left. + +Au revoir--my friend. + + + +"LA FEMME." + +AFTER THE FRENCH OF M. MICHELET. + + +I. + +WOMEN AS AN INSTITUTION. + + +"If it were not for women, few of us would at present be in +existence." This is the remark of a cautious and discreet writer. +He was also sagacious and intelligent. + +Woman! Look upon her and admire her. Gaze upon her and love her. +If she wishes to embrace you, permit her. Remember she is weak and +you are strong. + +But don't treat her unkindly. Don't make love to another woman +before her face, even if she be your wife. Don't do it. Always be +polite, even should she fancy somebody better than you. + +If your mother, my dear Amadis, had not fancied your father better +than somebody, you might have been that somebody's son. Consider +this. Always be a philosopher, even about women. + +Few men understand women. Frenchmen, perhaps, better than any one +else. I am a Frenchman. + + +II. + +THE INFANT. + + +She is a child--a little thing--an infant. + +She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are +married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free--they are +married--perhaps--they love one another--who knows? + +But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant--a small thing--a +trifle! + +She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red, +and positively ugly. She feels this keenly and cries. She weeps. +Ah, my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are +really distressing. + +Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously +like M. Alphonse de Lamartine in his Confessions. + +If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will +examine her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even +YOU, misunderstand her. + +Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her +dimpled arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a +language of her own. She says, "goo goo," and "ga ga." + +She demands something--this infant! + +She is faint, poor thing. She famishes. She wishes to be +restored. Restore her, Mother! + +It is the first duty of a mother to restore her child! + + +III. + +THE DOLL. + + +She is hardly able to walk; she already totters under the weight of +a doll. + +It is a charming and elegant affair. It has pink cheeks and +purple-black hair. She prefers brunettes, for she has already, +with the quick knowledge of a French infant, perceived she is a +blonde, and that her doll cannot rival her. Mon Dieu, how +touching! Happy child! She spends hours in preparing its toilet. +She begins to show her taste in the exquisite details of its dress. +She loves it madly, devotedly. She will prefer it to bonbons. She +already anticipates the wealth of love she will hereafter pour out +on her lover, her mother, her father, and finally, perhaps, her +husband. + +This is the time the anxious parent will guide these first +outpourings. She will read her extracts from Michelet's L'Amour, +Rousseau's Heloise, and the Revue des deux Mondes. + + +IV. + +THE MUD PIE. + + +She was in tears to-day. + +She had stolen away from her bonne and was with some rustic +infants. They had noses in the air, and large, coarse hands and +feet. + +They had seated themselves around a pool in the road, and were +fashioning fantastic shapes in the clayey soil with their hands. +Her throat swelled and her eyes sparkled with delight as, for the +first time, her soft palms touched the plastic mud. She made a +graceful and lovely pie. She stuffed it with stones for almonds +and plums. She forgot everything. It was being baked in the solar +rays, when madame came and took her away. + +She weeps. It is night, and she is weeping still. + + +V. + +HER FIRST LOVE. + + +She no longer doubts her beauty. She is loved. She saw him +secretly. He is vivacious and sprightly. He is famous. He has +already had an affair with Finfin, the fille de chambre, and poor +Finfin is desolate. He is noble. She knows he is the son of +Madame la Baronne Couturiere. She adores him. + +She affects not to notice him. Poor little thing! Hippolyte is +distracted--annihilated--inconsolable and charming. + +She admires his boots, his cravat, his little gloves his exquisite +pantaloons--his coat, and cane. + +She offers to run away with him. He is transported, but +magnanimous. He is wearied, perhaps. She sees him the next day +offering flowers to the daughter of Madame la Comtesse +Blanchisseuse. + +She is again in tears. + +She reads Paul et Virginie. She is secretly transported. When she +reads how the exemplary young woman laid down her life rather than +appear en deshabille to her lover, she weeps again. Tasteful and +virtuous Bernardine de St. Pierre!--the daughters of France admire +you! + +All this time her doll is headless in the cabinet. The mud pie is +broken on the road. + + +VI. + +THE WIFE. + + +She is tired of loving and she marries. + +Her mother thinks it, on the whole, the best thing. As the day +approaches, she is found frequently in tears. Her mother will not +permit the affianced one to see her, and he makes several attempts +to commit suicide. + +But something happens. Perhaps it is winter, and the water is +cold. Perhaps there are not enough people present to witness his +heroism. + +In this way her future husband is spared to her. The ways of +Providence are indeed mysterious. At this time her mother will +talk with her. She will offer philosophy. She will tell her she +was married herself. + +But what is this new and ravishing light that breaks upon her? The +toilet and wedding clothes! She is in a new sphere. + +She makes out her list in her own charming writing. Here it is. +Let every mother heed it.* + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + +She is married. On the day after, she meets her old lover, +Hippolyte. He is again transported. + + +* The delicate reader will appreciate the omission of certain +articles for which English synonymes are forbidden. + + +VII. + +HER OLD AGE. + + +A Frenchwoman never grows old. + + + +MARY MCGILLUP. + +A SOUTHERN NOVEL. + +AFTER BELLE BOYD. + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. A. S--LA. + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +"Will you write me up?" + +The scene was near Temple Bar. The speaker was the famous rebel +Mary McGillup,--a young girl of fragile frame, and long, lustrous +black hair. I must confess that the question was a peculiar one, +and, under the circumstances, somewhat puzzling. It was true I had +been kindly treated by the Northerners, and, though prejudiced +against them, was to some extent under obligations to them. It was +true that I knew little or nothing of American politics, history, +or geography. But when did an English writer ever weigh such +trifles? Turning to the speaker, I inquired with some caution the +amount of pecuniary compensation offered for the work. + +"Sir!" she said, drawing her fragile form to its full height, "you +insult me,--you insult the South." + +"But look ye here, d'ye see--the tin--the blunt--the ready--the +stiff; you know. Don't ye see, we can't do without that, you +know!" + +It shall be contingent on the success of the story," she answered +haughtily. "In the mean time take this precious gem." And drawing +a diamond ring from her finger, she placed it with a roll of MSS. +in my hands and vanished. + +Although unable to procure more than L1 2s. 6 d. from an +intelligent pawnbroker to whom I stated the circumstances and with +whom I pledged the ring, my sympathies with the cause of a +downtrodden and chivalrous people were at once enlisted. I could +not help wondering that in rich England, the home of the oppressed +and the free, a young and lovely woman like the fair author of +those pages should be obliged to thus pawn her jewels--her marriage +gift--for the means to procure her bread! With the exception of +the English aristocracy,--who much resemble them,--I do not know of +a class of people that I so much admire as the Southern planters. +May I become better acquainted with both! + +Since writing the above, the news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination +has reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied +with the result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet +there will be men who will charge this act upon the chivalrous +South. This leads me to repeat a remark once before made by me in +this connection which has become justly celebrated. It is this:-- + +"It is usual, in cases of murder, to look for the criminal among +those who expect to be benefited by the crime. In the death of +Lincoln, his immediate successor in office alone receives the +benefit of his dying." + +If her Majesty Queen Victoria were assassinated, which Heaven +forbid, the one most benefited by her decease would, of course, be +his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, her immediate successor. +It would be unnecessary to state that suspicion would at once point +to the real culprit, which would of course be his Royal Highness. +This is logic. + +But I have done. After having thus stated my opinion in favor of +the South, I would merely remark that there is One who judgeth all +things,--who weigheth the cause between brother and brother,--and +awardeth the perfect retribution; and whose ultimate decision I, as +a British subject, have only anticipated. + +G. A. S. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Every reader of Belle Boyd's narrative will remember an allusion to +a "lovely, fragile-looking girl of nineteen," who rivalled Belle +Boyd in devotion to the Southern cause, and who, like her, earned +the enviable distinction of being a "rebel spy." + +I am that "fragile" young creature. Although on friendly terms +with the late Miss Boyd, now Mrs. Hardinge, candor compels me to +state that nothing but our common politics prevents me from +exposing the ungenerous spirit she has displayed in this allusion. +To be dismissed in a single paragraph after years of-- But I +anticipate. To put up with this feeble and forced acknowledgment +of services rendered would be a confession of a craven spirit, +which, thank God, though "fragile" and only "nineteen," I do not +possess. I may not have the "blood of a Howard" in my veins, as +some people, whom I shall not disgrace myself by naming, claim to +have, but I have yet to learn that the race of McGillup ever yet +brooked slight or insult. I shall not say that attention in +certain quarters seems to have turned SOME PEOPLE'S heads; nor that +it would have been more delicate if certain folks had kept quiet on +the subject of their courtship, and the rejection of certain +offers, when it is known that their forward conduct was all that +procured them a husband! Thank heaven, the South has some +daughters who are above such base considerations! While nothing +shall tempt me to reveal the promises to share equally the fame of +certain enterprises, which were made by one who shall now be +nameless, I have deemed it only just to myself to put my own +adventures upon record. If they are not equal to those of another +individual, it is because, though "fragile," my education has +taught me to have some consideration for the truth. I am done. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +I was born in Missouri. My dislike for the Northern scum was +inherent. This was shown, at an early age, in the extreme distaste +I exhibited for Webster's spelling-book,--the work of a well-known +Eastern Abolitionist. I cannot be too grateful for the +consideration shown by my chivalrous father,--a gentleman of the +old school,--who resisted to the last an attempt to introduce +Mitchell's Astronomy and Geography into the public school of our +district. When I state that this same Mitchell became afterward a +hireling helot in the Yankee Army, every intelligent reader will +appreciate the prophetic discrimination of this true son of the +South. + +I was eight years old when I struck the first blow for Southern +freedom against the Northern Tyrant. It is hardly necessary to +state that in this instance the oppressor was a pale, overworked +New England "schoolmarm." The principle for which I was +contending, I felt, however, to be the same. Resenting an affront +put upon me, I one day heaved a rock* at the head of the Vandal +schoolmistress. I was seized and overpowered. My pen falters as I +reach the climax. English readers will not give credit to this +sickening story,--the civilized world will avert its head,--but I, +Mary McGillup, was publicly SPANKED! + + +* NOTE, BY G. A. S.--In the Southwest, any stone larger than a pea +is termed "a rock." + + +CHAPTER III. + + +But the chaotic vortex of civil war approached, and fell +destruction, often procrastinated, brooded in storm.* As the +English people may like to know what was really the origin of the +rebellion, I have no hesitation in giving them the true and only +cause. Slavery had nothing to do with it, although the violation +of the Declaration of Independence, in the disregard by the North +of the Fugitive Slave Law,** might have provoked a less fiery +people than the Southrons. At the inception of the struggle a +large amount of Southern indebtedness was held by the people of the +North. To force payment from the generous but insolvent debtor--to +obtain liquidation from the Southern planter--was really the +soulless and mercenary object of the craven Northerners. Let the +common people of England look to this. Let the improvident +literary hack; the starved impecunious Grub Street debtor; the +newspaper frequenter of sponging-houses, remember this in their +criticisms of the vile and slavish Yankee. + + +* I make no pretension to fine writing, but perhaps Mrs. Hardinge +can lay over that. O, of course! M. McG. + +** The Declaration of Independence grants to each subject "the +pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness." A fugitive slave may be +said to personify "life, liberty, and happiness." Hence his +pursuit is really legal. This is logic. G. A. S. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +The roasting of an Abolitionist, by a greatly infuriated community, +was my first taste of the horrors of civil war. Heavens! Why will +the North persist in this fratricidal warfare? The expulsion of +several Union refugees, which soon followed, now fairly plunged my +beloved State in the seething vortex. + +I was sitting at the piano one afternoon, singing that stirring +refrain, so justly celebrated, but which a craven spirit, unworthy +of England, has excluded from some of her principal restaurants, +and was dwelling with some enthusiasm on the following line:-- + + + "Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!" + + +when a fragment of that scum, clothed in that detestable blue +uniform which is the symbol of oppression, entered the apartment. +"I have the honor of addressing the celebrated rebel spy, Miss +McGillup," said the Vandal officer. + +In a moment I was perfectly calm. With the exception of slightly +expectorating twice in the face of the minion, I did not betray my +agitation. Haughtily, yet firmly, I replied:-- + +"I am." + +"You looked as if you might be," the brute replied, as he turned on +his heel to leave the apartment. + +In an instant I threw myself before him. "You shall not leave here +thus," I shrieked, grappling him with an energy which no one, +seeing my frail figure, would have believed. "I know the +reputation of your hireling crew. I read your dreadful purpose in +your eye. Tell me not that your designs are not sinister. You +came here to insult me,--to kiss me, perhaps. You sha'n't,--you +naughty man. Go away!" + +The blush of conscious degradation rose to the cheek of the Lincoln +hireling as he turned his face away from mine. + +In an instant I drew my pistol from my belt, which, in anticipation +of some such outrage, I always carried, and shot him. + + +CHAPTER V. + + + "Thy forte was less to act than speak, + Maryland! + Thy politics were changed each week, + Maryland! + With Northern Vandals thou wast meek, + With sympathizers thou wouldst shriek, + I know thee--O, 'twas like thy cheek! + Maryland! my Maryland!" + + +After committing the act described in the preceding chapter, which +every English reader will pardon, I went up stairs, put on a clean +pair of stockings, and, placing a rose in my lustrous black hair, +proceeded at once to the camp of Generals Price and Mosby to put +them in possession of information which would lead to the +destruction of a portion of the Federal Army. During a great part +of my flight I was exposed to a running fire from the Federal +pickets of such coarse expressions as, "Go it, Sally Reb," "Dust +it, my Confederate beauty," but I succeeded in reaching the +glorious Southern camp uninjured. + +In a week afterwards I was arrested, by a lettre de cachet of Mr. +Stanton, and placed in the Bastile. British readers of my story +will express surprise at these terms, but I assure them that not +only these articles but tumbrils, guillotines, and conciergeries +were in active use among the Federals. If substantiation be +required, I refer to the Charleston Mercury, the only reliable +organ, next to the New York Daily News, published in the country. +At the Bastile I made the acquaintance of the accomplished and +elegant author of Guy Livingstone,* to whom I presented a curiously +carved thigh-bone of a Union officer, and from whom I received the +following beautiful acknowledgment:-- + + +"Demoiselle:--Should I ever win hame to my ain countrie, I make +mine avow to enshrine in my reliquaire this elegant bijouterie and +offering of La Belle Rebelle. Nay, methinks this fraction of man's +anatomy were some compensation for the rib lost by the 'grand old +gardener,' Adam." + + +* The recent conduct of Mr. Livingstone renders him unworthy of my +notice. His disgusting praise of Belle Boyd, and complete ignoring +of my claims, show the artfulness of some females and puppyism of +some men. M. McG. + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Released at last from durance vile and placed on board of an Erie +canal-boat, on my way to Canada, I for a moment breathed the sweets +of liberty. Perhaps the interval gave me opportunity to indulge in +certain reveries which I had hitherto sternly dismissed. Henry +Breckinridge Folair, a consistent copperhead, captain of the canal- +boat, again and again pressed that suit I had so often rejected. + +It was a lovely moonlight night. We sat on the deck of the gliding +craft. The moonbeam and the lash of the driver fell softly on the +flanks of the off horse, and only the surging of the tow-rope broke +the silence. Folair's arm clasped my waist. I suffered it to +remain. Placing in my lap a small but not ungrateful roll of +checkerberry lozenges, he took the occasion to repeat softly in my +ear the words of a motto he had just unwrapped--with its graceful +covering of the tissue paper--from a sugar almond. The heart of +the wicked little rebel, Mary McGillup, was won! + +The story of Mary McGillup is done. I might have added the journal +of my husband, Henry Breckinridge Folair, but as it refers chiefly +to his freights, and a schedule of his passengers, I have been +obliged, reluctantly, to suppress it. + +It is due to my friends to say that I have been requested not to +write this book. Expressions have reached my ears, the reverse of +complimentary. I have been told that its publication will probably +insure my banishment for life. Be it so. If the cause for which I +labored have been subserved, I am content. + +LONDON, May, 1865. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Condensed Novels, by Bret Harte + |