BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE

NO. CCCXXIX. MARCH, 1843. VOL. LIII.

CONTENTS.

• AMMALÁT BEK. A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI
• POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.—NO. VI.
• CALEB STUKELY. PART XII.
• IMAGINARY CONVERSATION. BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. SANDT AND KOTZEBUE
• THE JEWELLER’S WIFE. A PASSAGE IN THE CAREER OF EL EMPECINADO
• THE TALE OF A TUB: AN ADDITIONAL CHAPTER—HOW JACK RAN MAD A SECOND TIME
• PAUL DE KOCKNEYISMS, BY A COCKNEY
• THE WORLD OF LONDON. SECOND SERIES. PART III.
• THE LOST LAMB. BY DELTA
• COMTE
• [FOOTNOTES].

AMMALÁT BEK.

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI. BY THOMAS B. SHAW, B.A.
OF CAMBRIDGE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE IMPERIAL
LYCEUM OF TSARSKOË SELO.

THE TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

The English mania for travelling, which supplies our continental neighbours
with such abundant matter for wonderment and witticism, is of no very
recent date. Now more than ever, perhaps, does this passion seem to possess
us:

when the press groans with “Tours,” “Trips,” “Hand-books,” “Journeys,”
“Visits.”

In spite of this, it is as notorious as unaccountable, that England knows
very little, or at least very little correctly, of the social condition, manners,
and literature of one of the most powerful among her continental sisters.

The friendly relations between Great Britain and Russia, established in the
reign of Edward V., have subsisted without interruption since that epoch, so
auspicious to both nations: the bond of amity, first knit by Chancellor in 1554,
has never since been relaxed: the two nations have advanced, each at its own
pace, and by its own paths, towards the sublime goal of improvement and
civilization—have stood shoulder to shoulder in the battle for the weal and
liberty of mankind.

It is, nevertheless, as strange as true, that the land of Alfred and Elizabeth
is yet but imperfectly acquainted with the country of Peter and of Catharine.
The cause of this ignorance is assuredly not to be found in any indifference
or want of curiosity on the part of English travellers. There is no lack of
pilgrims annually leaving the bank of Thames,

armed duly with note-book and “patent Mordan,” directing their wandering
steps to the shores of Ingria, or the gilded cupolas of Moscow. But a very
short residence in the empire of the Tsar will suffice to convince a foreigner
how defective, and often how false, is the information given by travellers respecting
the social and national character of the Russians. These abundant
and singular misrepresentations are not, of course, voluntary; and it may not
be useless to point out their principal sources.

The chief of these is, without doubt, the difficulty and novelty of the language,
and the unfortunate facility of travelling over the beaten track—from
St Petersburg to Moscow, and from Moscow, perhaps, to Nijny Nóvgorod, without
any acquaintance with that language. The foreigner may enjoy, during a
visit of the usual duration, the hospitality for which the higher classes are so
justly celebrated; but his association with the nobility will be found an absolute
obstacle to the making even a trifling progress in the Russian language;
which, though now regaining a degree of attention from the elevated
classes,¹
too long denied to it by those with whom their native tongue was an unfashionable
one—he would have no occasion at all to speak, and not even very
frequent opportunities of hearing.

But even in those rare cases where the stranger united to a determination
to study the noble and interesting language of the country, an intention of
remaining here long enough to learn it, he was often discouraged by the belief,
that the literature was too poor to repay his time and labour. Besides,
the Russian language has so little relation to the other European tongues—it
stands so much alone, and throws so little direct light upon any of them, that
another obstacle was thrown into his way.

The acquisition of any one of that great family of languages, all derived,
more or less remotely, from the Latin, which extends over the whole south
and west of Europe, cannot fail to cast a strong light upon the other cognate
dialects; as the knowledge of any one of the Oriental tongues facilitates,
nay almost confers, a mastery over the thousand others, which are less languages
of distinct type than dialects of the same speech, offshoots from the
same stock.

Add to this, the extraordinary errors and omissions which abound in every
disquisition hitherto published in French, English, and German periodicals
with regard to Russian literature, and deform those wretched rags of translation
which are all that has been hitherto done towards the reproduction, in
our own language, of the literature of Russia. These versions were made by
persons utterly unacquainted with the country, the manners, and the people, or
made after the Russian had been distilled through the alembic of a previous
French or German translation.

Poetry naturally forces its way into the notice of a foreign nation sooner
than prose; but it is, nevertheless, rather singular than honourable to the
literary enterprise of England, that the present is the first attempt to introduce
to the British public any work of Russian Prose Fiction whatever, with any
thing like a reasonable selection of subject and character, at least directly from
the original language.

The two volumes of Translations published by Bowring, under the title of
“Russian Anthology,” and consisting chiefly of short lyric pieces, would appear
at first sight an exception to that indifference to the productions of Russian
genius of which we have accused the English public; and the popularity
of that collection would be an additional encouragement to the hope, that our
charge may be, if not ill-founded, at least exaggerated.

We are willing to believe, that the degree—if we are rightly informed, no
slight one—of interest with which these volumes were welcomed in England,
was sufficient to blind their readers to the extreme incompetency with which
the translations they contained were executed.

It is always painful to find fault—more painful to criticise with severity—the
work of a person whose motive was the same as that which actuates the present
publication; but when the gross unfaithfulness² exhibited in the versions
in question tends to give a false and disparaging idea of the value and the tone
of Russian poetry, we may be excused for our apparent uncourteousness in
thus pointing out their defects.

It will not, we trust, be considered out of place to give our readers a brief
sketch of the history of the Russian literature; the origin, growth, and fortunes
of which are marked by much that is peculiar. In doing this we shall
content ourselves with noting, as briefly as possible, the events which preceded
and accompanied the birth of letters in Russia, and the evolution of a literature
not elaborated by the slow and imperceptible action of time, but bursting,
like the armed Pallas, suddenly into light.

In performing this task, we shall confine our attention solely to the department
of Prose Fiction, looking forward meanwhile with anxiety, though not
without hope, to a future opportunity of discussing more fully the intellectual
annals of Russia.

In the year of redemption 863, two Greeks of Thessalonika, Cyril³ and
Methodius, sent by Michael, Emperor of the East, conferred the precious
boon of alphabetic writing upon Kostisláff, Sviatopólk, and Kótsel, then chiefs
of the Moravians.

The characters they introduced were naturally those of the Greek alphabet,
to which they were obliged, in order to represent certain sounds which do not
occur in the Greek language,⁴ to add a number of other signs borrowed from
the Hebrew, the Armenian, and the Coptic. So closely, indeed, did this alphabet,
called the Cyrillian, follow the Greek characters, that the use of the
aspirates was retained without any necessity.

These characters (with the exception of a few which are omitted in the Russian)
varied surprisingly little in their form,⁵ and perhaps without any change
whatever in their vocal value, compose the modern alphabet of the Russian language;
an examination of which would go far, in our opinion, to settle the
long agitated question respecting the ancient pronunciation of the classic languages,
particularly as Cyril and his brother adapted the Greek alphabet to a
language totally foreign from, and unconnected with, any dialect of Greek.

In this, as in all other languages, the translation of the Bible is the first
monument and model of literature. This version was made by Cyril immediately
after the composition of the alphabet. The language spoken at Thessalonika
was the Servian: but from the immense number of purely Greek
words which occur in the translation, as well as from the fact of the version
being a strictly literal one, it is probable that the Scriptures were not translated
into any specific spoken dialect at all; but that a kind of mezzo-termine
was selected—or rather formed—for the purpose. What we have advanced
derives a still stronger degree of probability from the circumstance, that the
Slavonic Bible follows the Greek construction. This Bible, with slight changes
and corrections produced by three or four revisions made at different periods,
is that still employed by the Russian Church; and the present spoken language
of the country differs so widely from it, that the Slavonian of the
Bible forms a separate branch of education to the priests and to the upper
classes—who are instructed in this dead language, precisely as an Italian must
study Latin in order to read the Bible.

Above the sterile and uninteresting desert of early Russian history, towers,
like the gigantic Sphynx of Ghizeh over the sand of the Thebaid, one colossal
figure—that of Vladímir Sviatoslávitch; the first to surmount the bloody
splendour of the Great Prince’s bonnet⁶ with the mildly-radiant Cross of
Christ.

From the conversion to Christianity of Vladímir and his subjects—passing
over the wild and rapacious dominion of the Tartar hordes, which lasted for
about 250 years—we may consider two languages, essentially distinct, to have
been employed in Russia till the end of the 17th century—the one the written
or learned, the other the spoken language.

The former was the Slavonian into which the Holy Scriptures were translated:
and this remained the learned or official language for a long period.
In this—or in an imitation of this, effected with various degrees of success—were
compiled the different collections of Monkish annals which form the
treasury whence future historians were to select their materials from among
the valuable, but confused accumulations of facts; in this the solemn acts of
Government, treaties, codes, &c., were composed; and the few writings which
cannot be comprised under the above classes⁷ were naturally compiled in the
language, emphatically that of the Church and of learning.

The sceptre of the wild Tartar Khans was not, as may be imagined, much
allied to the pen; the hordes of fierce and greedy savages which overran,
like the locusts of the Apocalypse, for two centuries and a half the fertile
plains of central and southern Russia, contented themselves with exacting
tribute from a nation which they despised probably too much to feel any desire
of interfering with its language; and the dominion of the Tartars produced
hardly any perceptible effect upon the Russian tongue.⁸

It is to the reign of Alexéi Mikháilovitch, who united Little Russia to
Muscovy, that we must look for the germ of the modern literature of the
country: the language had begun to feel the influence of the Little Russian,
tinctured by the effects of Polish civilization, and the spirit of classicism which
so long distinguished the Sarmatian literature.

The impulse given to this union, of so momentous an import to the future
fortunes of the empire, at the beginning of the year 1654, would possibly have
brought forth in course of time a literature in Russia such as we now find it,
had not the extraordinary reign, and still more extraordinary character, of
Peter the Great interposed certain disturbing—if, indeed, they may not be called
in some measure impeding—forces. That giant hand which broke down the
long impregnable dike which had hitherto separated Russia from the rest of
Europe, and admitted the arts, the learning, and the civilization of the West
to rush in with so impetuous a flood, fertilizing as it came, but also destroying
and sweeping away something that was valuable, much that was national—that
hand was unavoidably too heavy and too strong to nurse the infant seedling
of literature; and the command and example of Peter perhaps rather
favoured the imitation of what was good in other languages, than the production
of originality in his own.

This opinion, bold and perhaps rash as it may appear to Russians, seems to
derive some support, as well as illustration, from the immense number of foreign
words which make the Russian of Peter’s time

the mania for every thing foreign having overwhelmed the language with an
infinity of terms rudely torn, not skilfully adapted, from every tongue; terms
which might have been—have, indeed, since been—translated into words of
Russian form and origin. A review of the literary progress made at this
time will, we think, go far to establish our proposition; it will exhibit a very
large proportion of translations, but very few original productions.

From this period begins the more immediate object of the present note: we
shall briefly trace the rise and fortunes of the present, or vernacular Russian
literature; confining our attention, as we have proposed, to the Prose Fiction,
and contenting ourselves with noting, cursorily, the principal authors in this
kind, living and dead.

At the time of Peter the Great, there may be said to have existed (it will
be convenient to keep in mind) three languages—the Slavonic, to which we
have already alluded; the Russian; and the dialect of Little Russia.

The fact, that the learned are not yet agreed upon the exact epoch from
which to date the origin of the modern Russian literature, will probably raise
a smile on the reader’s lip; but the difficulty of establishing this important
starting-point will become apparent when he reflects upon the circumstance,
that the literature is—as we have stated—divisible into two distinct and widely
differing regions. It will be sufficiently accurate to date the origin of the
modern Russian literature at about a century back from the present time;
and to consider Lomonósoff as its founder. Mikháil Vassílievitch Lomonósoff,
born in 1711, is the author who may with justice be regarded as the
Chaucer or the Boccacio of the North: a man of immense and varied accomplishments,
distinguished in almost every department of literature, and in many
of the walks of science. An orator and a poet, he adorned the language whose
principles he had fixed as a grammarian.

He was the first to write in the spoken language of his country, and, in
conjunction with his two contemporaries, Soumarókoff and Kheráskoff, he laid
the foundations of the Russian literature.

Of the other two names we have mentioned as entitled to share the reverence
due from every Russian to the fathers of his country’s letters, it will be
sufficient to remark, that Soumarókoff was the first to introduce tragedy and
opera, and Kheráskoff, the author of two epic poems which we omit to particularize,
as not coming within our present scope, wrote a work entitled
“Cadmus and Harmonia,” which may be considered as the first romance.
It is a narrative and metaphysical work, which we should class as a “prose
poem;” the style being considerably elevated above the tone of the “Musa
pedestris.”

The name of Emín comes next in historical, though not literary, importance:
though the greater part of his productions consists of translations, particularly
of those shorter pieces of prose fiction called by the Italians “novelle,”
he was the author of a few original pieces, now but little read; his
style bears the marks, like that of Kheráskoff, of heaviness, stiffness, and want
of finish.

The reputation of Karamzín is too widely spread throughout Europe to
render necessary more than a passing remark as to the additions made by him
to the literature of his country in the department of fiction: he commenced
a romance, of which he only lived to finish a few of the first chapters.

Naréjniy was the first to paint the real life of Russia—or rather of the South
or Little Russia: in his works there is a good deal of vivacity, but as they are
deformed by defects both in style and taste, his reputation has become almost
extinct. We cannot quit this division of our subject, which refers to romantic
fiction anterior to the appearance of the regular historical novel, without mentioning
the names of two, among a considerable number of authors, distinguished
as having produced short narratives or tales, embodying some historical
event—Polevói and Bestónjeff—the latter of whom wrote, under the
name of Marlínski, a very large number of tales, which have acquired a high
and deserved reputation.

It is with Zagóskin that we may regard the regular historical novel—viewing
that species of composition as exemplified in the works of Scott—as having
commenced.

With reference to the present state of romance in Russia, the field is so
extensive as to render impossible, in this place, more than a cursory allusion
to the principal authors and their best-known works: in doing which, we shall
attend more exclusively to those productions of which the subject or treatment
is purely national.

One of the most popular and prolific writers of fiction is Zagóskin, whose
historical romance “Yoúriy Milosláffskiy,” met with great and permanent
success. The epoch of this story is in 1612, a most interesting crisis in the
Russian history, when the valour of Mínin enabled his countrymen to shake
off the hated yoke of Poland. His other work, “Roslavleóff,” is less interesting:
the period is 1812. We may also mention his “Iskonsítel”—”the
Tempter”—a fantastic story, in which an imaginary being is represented as
mingling with and influencing the affairs of real life.

Of Boulgárin, we may mention, besides his “Ivan Vuíjgin,” a romance in the
manner of “Gil Blas,” the scenery and characters of which are entirely Russian,
two historical novels of considerable importance. “The False Dimítri,” and
“Mazeppa,”—the hero of the latter being a real person, and not, as most
readers are aware, a fictitious character invented by Byron.

Next comes the name of Lajétchnikoff, whose “Last Page” possesses a
reputation, we believe, tolerably extensive throughout Europe. The action
passes during the war between Charles XII. and Peter the Great, and Catharine
plays a chief part in it, as servant of the pastor Glück, becoming empress
at the conclusion. The “House of Ice,” by the same writer, is perhaps
more generally known than the preceding work. The last-named romance
depicts with great spirit the struggle between the Russian and foreign parties
in the reign of Anna Ivánovna. But perhaps the most remarkable work of
Lajétchnikoff is the romance entitled “Bassourmán,” the scene of which is
laid under Iván III., surnamed the Great.⁹ Another Polevói (Nikolái) produced
a work of great merit:—”The Oath at the Tomb of Our Lord,” a very
faithful picture of the first half of the fifteenth century, and singular from the
circumstance that love plays no part in the drama. Besides this, we owe to
Polevói a wild story entitled “Abbaddon.” Veltman produced, under the
title of “Kostshéi the Deathless,” a historical study of the manners of the
twelfth century, possessing considerable merit. It would be unjust to omit
the name of a lady, the Countess Shíshkin, who produced the historical novel
“Mikháil Vassílievitch Skópin-Shúisky,” which obtained great popularity.

The picturesque career of Lomonósoff gave materials for a romantic biography
of that poet, the work of Xenophónt Polevói, resembling, in its mixture
of truth and fiction, the “Wahrheit und Dichtung” of Goethe.

Among the considerable number of romances already mentioned, those exhibiting
scenes of private life and domestic interest have not been neglected.
Kaláshnikoff wrote “The Merchant Jáloboff’s Daughter,” and the “Kamtchadálka,”
both describing the scenery and manners of Siberia; the former
painting various parts of that wild and interesting country, the latter confined
more particularly to the Peninsula of Kamtchátka. Besides Gógol, whose
easy and prolific pen has presented us with so many humorous sketches of
provincial life, we cannot pass over Begitchéff, whose “Khólmsky Family”
possesses much interest; but the delineations of Gógol depend so much for
their effect upon delicate shades of manner, &c., that it is not probable they
can ever be effectively reproduced in another language.

Mentioning Peróffsky, whose “Monastírka” gives a picture of Russian
interior life, we pass to Gretch, an author of some European reputation.
His “Trip to Germany” describes, with singular piquancy, the manners of
a very curious race—the Germans of St Petersburg; and “Tchérnaia Jénstchina,”
“the Black Woman,” presents a picture of Russian society, which
was welcomed with great eagerness by the public.

The object of these pages being to invite the attention of British readers to
a very rich field, in a literature hitherto most unaccountably neglected by the
English public, the present would not be a fit occasion to enter with any
minuteness into the history of Russian letters, or to give, in fact, more than a
passing allusion to its chief features; the translator hopes that he will be excused
for the meagreness of the present notice.

He will be abundantly repaid for his exertions, by the discovery of any increasing
desire on the part of his countrymen to become more accurately
acquainted with the character of a nation, worthy, he is convinced, of a very
high degree of respect and admiration. How could that acquaintance be so
delightfully, or so effectually made, as by the interchange of literature? The
great works of English genius are read, studied, and admired, throughout the
vast empire of Russia; the language of England is rapidly and steadily extending,
and justice, no less than policy, demands, that many absurd misapprehensions
respecting the social and domestic character, no less than the
history, of Russia, should be dispelled by truth.

The translator, in conclusion, trusts that it will not be superfluous to specify
one or two of the reasons which induced him to select the present romance,
as the first-fruit of his attempt to naturalize in England the literature
of Russia.

It is considered as a very good specimen of the author’s style; the facts and
characters are all strictly true;¹⁰ besides this, the author passed many years
in the Caucasus, and made full use of the opportunities he thus enjoyed of becoming
familiar with the language, manners, and scenery of a region on
which the attention of the English public has long been turned with peculiar
interest.

The picturesqueness as well as the fidelity of his description will, it is
hoped, secure for the tale a favourable reception with a public always
“novitatis avida,” and whose appetite, now somewhat palled with the “Bismillahs”
and “Mashallahs” of the ordinary oriental novels, may find some
piquancy in a new variety of Mahomedan life—that of the Caucasian Tartars.

The Russian language possessing many characters and some few sounds for
which there is no exact equivalent in English, we beg to say a word upon the
method adopted on the present occasion so to represent the Russian orthography,
as to avoid the shocking barbarisms of such combinations as zh, &c.
&c., and to secure, at the same time, an approach to the correct pronunciation.
Throughout these pages the vowels a, e, i, o, y, are supposed to be pronounced
as in French, the diphthong ou as in the word you, the j always with
the French sound.

With respect to the combinations of consonants employed, kh has the gutteral
sound of the ch in the Scottish word loch, and gh is like a rather rough
or coarse aspirate.

The simple g is invariably to be uttered hard, as in gun or gall.

To avoid the possibility of errors, the combination tch, though not a very
soft one to the eye, represents a Russian sound for which there is no character
in English. It is, of course, uttered as in the word watch.

As a great deal of the apparent discord of Russian words, as pronounced by
foreigners, arises from ignorance of the place of the accent, we have added a
sign over every polysyllable word, indicating the part on which the stress is
to be laid.

The few preceding rules will, the translator hopes, enable his countrymen
to attack the pronunciation of the Russian names without the ancient dread
inspired by terrific and complicated clusters of consonants; and will perhaps
prove to them that the language is both an easy and a melodious one.

CHAPTER I.

It was Djoumá.¹¹ Not far from
Bouináki, a considerable village of
Northern Daghestán, the young Tartars
were assembled for their national
exercise called “djigítering;” that is,
the horse-race accompanied by various
trials of boldness and strength. Bouináki
is situated upon two ledges of
the precipitous rocks of the mountain:
on the left of the road leading from
Derbend to Tarki, rises, soaring above
the town, the crest of Caucasus, feathered
with wood; on the right, the
shore, sinking imperceptibly, spreads
itself out into meadows, on which the
Caspian Sea pours its eternal murmur,
like the voice of human multitudes.

A vernal day was fading into evening,
and all the inhabitants, attracted
rather by the coolness of the breeze
than by any feeling of curiosity, had
quitted their sáklas,¹² and assembled
in crowds on both sides of the road.
The women, without veils, and with
coloured kerchiefs rolled like turbans
round their heads, clad in the long
chemise,¹³ confined by the short arkhaloúkh,
and wide toumáns,¹⁴ sat in
rows, while strings of children sported
before them. The men, assembled in
little groups, stood, or rested on their
knees;¹⁵ others, in twos or threes,
walked slowly round, smoking tobacco
in little wooden pipes: a cheerful
buzz arose, and ever and anon resounded
the clattering of hoofs, and
the cry “katch, katch!” (make way!)
from the horsemen preparing for the
race.

Nature, in Daghestán, is most
lovely in the month of May. Millions
of roses poured their blushes over the
crags; their odour was streaming in
the air; the nightingale was not silent
in the green twilight of the wood, almond-trees,
all silvered with their
flowers, arose like the cupolas of a
pagoda, and resembled, with their
lofty branches twined with leaves,
the minarets of some Mussulman
mosque. Broad-breasted oaks, like
sturdy old warriors, rose here and
there, while poplars and chenart-trees,
assembled in groups and surrounded
by underwood, looked like children
ready to wander away to the mountains,
to escape the summer heats.
Sportive flocks of sheep—their fleeces
speckled with rose-colour; buffaloes
wallowing in the mud of the fountains,
or for hours together lazily butting
each other with their horns; here and
there on the mountains noble steeds,
which moved (their manes floating on
the breeze) with a haughty trot along
the hills—such is the frame that encloses
the picture of every Mussulman
village. On this Djoumá, the
neighbourhood of Bouináki was more
than usually animated. The sun
poured his floods of gold on the dark
walls of the flat-roofed sáklas, clothing
them with fantastic shadows, and
adding beauty to their forms. In the
distance, crawling along the mountain,
the creaking arbas¹⁶ flitted among
the grave-stones of a little burial-ground … past
them, before
them, flew a horseman, raising the
dust along the road … the mountain
crest and the boundless sea gave
grandeur to this picture, and all nature
breathed a glow of life.

“He comes, he comes!” was murmured
through the crowd; all was in
motion. The horsemen, who till now
had been chattering with their acquaintance
on foot, or disorderedly
riding about the meadow, now leaped
upon their steeds, and dashed forward
to meet the cavalcade which was descending
to the plain: it was Ammalát
Bek, the nephew of the Shamkhál¹⁷
of Tarki, with his suite. He
was habited in a black Persian cloak,
edged with gold-lace, the hanging
sleeves thrown back over his shoulders.
A Turkish shawl was wound
round his arkhaloúkh, which was made
of flowered silk. Red shalwárs were
lost in his yellow high-heeled riding-boots.
His gun, dagger, and
pistol, glittered with gold and silver
arabesque work. The hilt of his
sabre was enriched with gems. The
Prince of Tarki was a tall, well-made
youth, of frank countenance; black
curls streamed behind his ears from
under his cap—a slight mustache
shaded his upper lip—his eyes glittered
with a proud courtesy. He rode
a bright bay steed, which fretted under
his hand like a whirlwind. Contrary
to custom, the horse’s caparison was
not the round Persian housing, embroidered
all over with silk, but the
light Circassian saddle, ornamented
with silver on a black ground; and
the stirrups were of the black steel of
Kharamán, inlaid with gold. Twenty
noúkers¹⁸ on spirited horses, and
dressed in cloaks glittering with lace,
their caps cocked jauntily, and leaning
affectedly on one side, pranced
and sidled after him. The people
respectfully stood up before their Bek,
and bowed, pressing their right hand
upon their right knee. A murmur of
whispered approbation followed the
young chief as he passed among the
women. Arrived at the southern extremity
of the ground, Ammalát stopped.
The chief people, the old men
leaning upon their sticks, and the
elders of Bouináki, stood round in a
circle to catch a kind word from the
Bek; but Ammalát did not pay them
any particular attention, and with cold
politeness replied in monosyllables to
the flatteries and obeisances of his inferiors.
He waved his hand; this was
the signal to commence the race.

Twenty of the most fiery horsemen
dashed forward, without the slightest
order or regularity, galloping onward
and back again, placing themselves in
all kinds of attitudes, and alternately
passing each other. At one moment
they jostled one another from the
course, and at the same time held in
their horses, then again they let them
go at full gallop over the plain. After
this, they each took slender sticks,
called djigidís, and darted them as they
rode, either in the charge or the pursuit,
and again seizing them as they
flew, or picking them up from the
earth. Several tumbled from their
saddles under the strong blows; and
then resounded the loud laugh of the
spectators, while loud applauses greeted
the conqueror; sometimes the horses
stumbled, and the riders were thrown
over their heads, hurled off by a double
force from the shortness of their
stirrups. Then commenced the shooting.
Ammalát Bek had remained a
little apart, looking on with apparent
pleasure. His noúkers, one after the
other, had joined the crowd of djigíterers,
so that, at last, only two were
left by his side. For some time he
was immovable, and followed with
an indifferent gaze the imitation of an
Asiatic combat; but by degrees his
interest grew stronger. At first he
watched the cavaliers with great attention,
then he began to encourage
them by his voice and gestures, he
rose higher in his stirrups, and at last
the warrior-blood boiled in his veins,
when his favourite noúker could not
hit a cap which he had thrown down
before him. He snatched his gun
from his attendants, and dashed forward
like an arrow, winding among
the sporters. “Make way—make way!”
was heard around, and all, dispersing
like a rain-cloud on either side, gave
place to Ammalát Bek.

At the distance of a verst¹⁹ stood ten
poles with caps hanging on them.
Ammalát rode straight up to them,
waved his gun round his head, and
turned close round the pole; as he
turned he stood up in his stirrups,
turned back—bang!—the cap tumbled
to the ground; without checking his
speed he reloaded, the reins hanging
on his horse’s neck—knocked off another,
then a third—and so on the
whole ten. A murmur of applause
arose on all sides; but Ammalát,
without stopping, threw his gun into
the hands of one of his noúkers, pulled
out a pistol from his belt, and with
the ball struck the shoe from the hind
foot of his horse; the shoe flew off,
and fell far behind him; he then again
took his gun from his noúker, and
ordered him to gallop on before him.
Quicker than thought both darted
forward. When half-way round the
course, the noúker drew from his
pocket a rouble, and threw it up in
the air. Ammalát raised himself in
the saddle, without waiting till it fell;
but at the very instant his horse stumbled
with all his four legs together,
and striking the dust with his nostrils,
rolled prostrate. All uttered a cry of
terror; but the dexterous horseman,
standing up in the stirrups, without
losing his seat, or even leaning forward,
as if he had been aware that he
was going to fall, fired rapidly, and
hitting the rouble with his ball, hurled
it far among the people. The crowd
shouted with delight—”Igeed, igeed!
(bravo!) Alla valla-ha!” But Ammalát
Bek, modestly retiring, dismounted
from his steed, and throwing
the reins to his djilladár, (groom,) ordered
him immediately to have the
horse shod. The race and the shooting
was continued.

At this moment there rode up to
Ammalát his emdjék,²⁰ Saphir-Ali, the
son of one of the poor beks of Bouináki,
a young man of an agreeable
exterior, and simple, cheerful character.
He had grown up with Ammalát,
and therefore treated him with great
familiarity. He leaped from his horse,
and nodding his head, exclaimed—”Noúker
Mémet Rasoúl has knocked
up the old cropped²¹ stallion, in trying
to leap him over a ditch seven
paces wide.” “And did he leap it?”
cried Ammalát impatiently. “Bring
him instantly to me!” He went to
meet the horse—and without putting
his foot in the stirrup, leaped into the
saddle, and galloped to the bed of a
mountain-torrent. As he galloped, he
pressed the horse with his knee, but
the wearied animal, not trusting to his
strength, bolted aside on the very
brink, and Ammalát was obliged to
make another turn. The second time,
the steed, stimulated by the whip,
reared up on his hind-legs in order to
leap the ditch, but he hesitated, grew
restive, and resisted with his fore-feet.
Ammalát grew angry. In vain did
Saphir-Ali entreat him not to force
the horse, which had lost in many a
combat and journey the elasticity of
his limbs. Ammalát would not listen
to any thing; but urging him with a
cry, and striking him with his drawn
sabre for the third time, he galloped
him at the ravine; and when, for the
third time, the old horse stopped short
in his stride, not daring to leap, he
struck him so violently on the head
with the hilt of his sabre, that he fell
lifeless on the earth.

“This is the reward of faithful service!”
said Saphir-Ali, compassionately,
as he gazed on the lifeless
steed.

“This is the reward of disobedience!”
replied Ammalát, with flashing
eyes.

Seeing the anger of the Bek, all
were silent. The horsemen, however,
continued their djigítering.

And suddenly was heard the thunder
of Russian drums, and the bayonets
of Russian soldiers glittered as
they wound over the hill. It was a
company of the Kourínsky regiment
of infantry, sent from a detachment
which had been dispatched to Akoúsh,
then in a state of revolt, under Sheikh
Ali Khan, the banished chief of Derbend.
This company had been protecting
a convoy of supplies from Derbend,
whither it was returning by the
mountain road. The commander of
the company, Captain ——, and one
officer with him, rode in front. Before
they had reached the race-course,
the retreat was beaten, and the company
halted, throwing aside their
havresacks and piling their muskets,
but without lighting a fire.

The arrival of a Russian detachment
could have been no novelty to
the inhabitants of Daghestán in the
year 1819; and even yet, it must be
confessed, it is an event that gives
them no pleasure. Superstition made
them look on the Russians as eternal
enemies—enemies, however, vigorous
and able; and they determined, therefore,
not to injure them but in secret,
by concealing their hatred under a
mask of amity. A buzz spread among
the people on the appearance of the
Russians: the women returned by
winding paths to the village, not forgetting,
however, to gaze secretly at
the strangers. The men, on the contrary,
threw fierce glances at them
over their shoulders, and began to assemble
in groups, discussing how they
might best get rid of them, and relieve
themselves from the podvód²², and so
on. A multitude of loungers and boys,
however, surrounded the Russians as
they reposed upon the grass. Some
of the Kekkhoúds (starosts²³) and
Tehaoúshes (desiátniks²⁴) appointed
by the Russian Government, hastily
advancing to the Captain, pulled off
their caps, after the usual salutation,
“Khot ghialdi!” (welcome!) and
“Yakshimoúsen, tazamoúsen, sen-ne-ma-moúsen,”
(I greet you,) arrived
at the inevitable question at a meeting
of Asiatics, “What news?”—”Na
khaber?”

“The only news with me is, that
my horse has cast a shoe, and the
poor devil is dead lame,” answered
the Captain in pretty good Tartar:
“and here is, just ápropos, a blacksmith!”
he continued, turning to a
broad-shouldered Tartar, who was
filing the fresh-shod hoof of Ammalát’s
horse. “Kounák! (my friend,)—shoe
my horse—the shoes are ready—’tis
but the clink of a hammer, and
’tis done in a moment!”

The blacksmith turned sulkily towards
the Captain a face tanned by his
forge and by the sun, looked from the
corners of his eyes at his questioner,
stroked the thick mustache which
overshadowed a beard long unrazored,
and which might for its bristles have
done honour to any boar; flattened
his arákshin (bonnet) on his head,
and coolly continued putting away his
tools in their bag.

“Do you understand me, son of a
wolf race?” said the Captain.

“I understand you well,” answered
the blacksmith,—”you want your
horse shod.”

“And I should advise you to shoe
him,” replied the Captain, observing
on the part of the Tartar a desire to
jest.

“To-day is a holiday: I will not
work.”

“I will pay you what you like for
your work; but I tell you that, whether
you like it or not, you must do what
I want.”

“The will of Allah is above ours;
and he does not permit us to work on
Djoumá. We sin enough for gain on
common days, so on a holiday I do
not wish to buy coals with silver.”²⁵

“But were you not at work just
now, obstinate blockhead? Is not
one horse the same as another?
Besides, mine is a real Mussulman—look
at the mark²⁶—the blood of Karabákh.”

“All horses are alike; but not so
those who ride them: Ammalát Bek
is my aga (lord.)”

“That is, if you had taken it into
your head to refuse him, he would have
had your ears cropped; but you will
not work for me, in the hope that I
would not dare to do the same. Very
well, my friend! I certainly will not
crop your ears, but be assured that I
will warm that orthodox back of yours
with two hundred pretty stinging
nogaikas (lashes with a whip) if you
won’t leave off your nonsense—do you
hear?”

“I hear—and I answer as I did before:
I will not shoe the horse—for I
am a good Mussulman.”

“And I will make you shoe him,
because I am a good soldier. As you
have worked at the will of your Bek,
you shall work for the need of a Russian
officer—without this I cannot proceed.
Corporals, forward!”

In the mean time a circle of gazers
had been extending round the obstinate
blacksmith, like a ring made in
the water by casting a stone into it.
Some in the crowd were disputing the
best places, hardly knowing what they
were running to see; and at last more
cries were heard: “It is not fair—it
cannot be: to-day is a holiday: to-day
it is a sin to work!” Some of the
boldest, trusting to their numbers,
pulled their caps over their eyes, and
felt at the hilts of their daggers, pressing
close up to the Captain, and crying
“Don’t shoe him, Alékper! Do
nothing for him: here’s news, my masters!
What new prophets for us are
these unwashed Russians?” The Captain
was a brave man, and thoroughly
understood the Asiatics. “Away, ye
rascals!” he cried in a rage, laying
his hand on the butt of his pistol. “Be
silent, or the first that dares to let an
insult pass his teeth, shall have them
closed with a leaden seal!”

This threat, enforced by the bayonets
of some of the soldiers, succeeded
immediately: they who were timid
took to their heels—the bolder held
their tongues. Even the orthodox
blacksmith, seeing that the affair was
becoming serious, looked round on all
sides, and muttered “Nedjelaim?”
(What can I do?) tucked up his
sleeves, pulled out from his bag the
hammer and pincers, and began to
shoe the Russian’s horse, grumbling
between his teeth, “Vala billa beetmi
eddeem, (I will not do it, by God!)”
It must be remarked that all this took
place out of Ammalát’s presence. He
had hardly looked at the Russians,
when, in order to avoid a disagreeable
rencontre, he mounted the horse
which had just been shod, and galloped
off to Bouináki, where his house
was situated.

While this was taking place at one
end of the exercising ground, a horseman
rode up to the front of the
reposing soldiers. He was of middling
stature, but of athletic frame, and was
clothed in a shirt of linked mail, his
head protected by a helmet, and in
full warlike equipment, and followed
by five noúkers. By their dusty
dress, and the foam which covered
their horses, it might be seen that they
had ridden far and fast. The first
horseman, fixing his eye on the soldiers,
advanced slowly along the piles
of muskets, upsetting the two pyramids
of fire-arms. The noúkers, following
the steps of their master, far
from turning aside, coolly rode over
the scattered weapons. The sentry,
who had challenged them while they were
yet at some distance, and warned
them not to approach, seized the bit
of the steed bestridden by the mail-coated
horseman, while the rest of the
soldiers, enraged at such an insult
from a Mussulman, assailed the party
with abuse. “Hold hard! Who are
you?” was the challenge and question
of the sentinel. “Thou must be a
raw recruit if thou knowest not Sultan
Akhmet Khan of Avár,”²⁷ coolly
answered the man in mail, shaking off
the hand of the sentry from his reins.
“I think last year I left the Russians
a keepsake at Báshli. Translate that
for him,” he said to one of his noúkers.
The Aváretz repeated his words
in pretty intelligible Russian.

“‘Tis Akhmet Khan! Akhmet
Khan!” shouted the soldiers. “Seize
him! hold him fast! down with him!
pay him for the affair of Báshli²⁸—the
villains cut our wounded to pieces.”

“Away, brute!” cried Sultan Akhmet
Khan to the soldier who had again
seized the bridle of his horse—”I am
a Russian general.”

“A Russian traitor!” roared a multitude
of voices; “bring him to the
Captain: drag him to Derbend, to
Colonel Verkhóffsky.”

“‘Tis only to hell I would go with
such guides!” said Akhmet, with a
contemptuous smile, and making his
horse rear, he turned him to the right
and left; then, with a blow of the
nogaik,²⁹ he made him leap into the
air, and disappeared. The noúkers
kept their eye on the movements of
their chief, and uttering their warcry,
followed his steps, and overthrowing
several of the soldiers, cleared a
way for themselves into the road. After
galloping off to a distance of scarce
a hundred paces, the Khan rode away
at a slow walk, with an expression of
the greatest sang-froid, not deigning
to look back, and coolly playing with
his bridle. The crowd of Tartars
assembled round the blacksmith attracted
his attention. “What are
you quarrelling about, friends?” asked
Akhmet Khan of the nearest, reining
in his horse.

In sign of respect and reverence,
they all applied their hands to their
foreheads when they saw the Khan.
The timid or peaceably disposed among
them, dreading the consequences, either
from the Russians or the Khan, to
which this rencontre might expose
them, exhibited much discomfiture at
the question; but the idle, the ruffian,
and the desperate—for all beheld with
hatred the Russian domination—crowded
turbulently round him with
delight. They hurriedly told him
what was the matter.

“And you stand, like buffaloes,
stupidly looking on, while they force
your brother to work like a brute
under the yoke!” exclaimed the Khan,
gloomily, to the bystanders; “while
they laugh in your face at your customs,
and trample your faith under
their feet! and ye whine like old women,
instead of revenging yourselves
like men! Cowards! cowards!”

“What can we do?” cried a multitude
of voices together; “the Russians
have cannon—they have bayonets!”

“And ye, have ye not guns? have
ye not daggers? It is not the Russians
that are brave, but ye that are
cowards! Shame of Mussulmans!
The sword of Daghestán trembles
before the Russian whip. Ye are
afraid of the roll of the cannon; but
ye fear not the reproach of cowardice.
The fermán of a Russian prístav³⁰ is
holier to you than a chapter of the
Koran. Siberia frightens you more
than hell. Did your forefathers act,
did your forefathers think thus? They
counted not their enemies, they calculated
not. Outnumbered or not,
they met them, bravely fought them,
and gloriously died! And what fear
ye? Have the Russians ribs of iron?
Have their cannon no breach? Is it
not by the tail that you seize the scorpion?”
This address stirred the crowd.
The Tartar vanity was touched to the
quick. “What do we care for them?
Why do we let them lord it over us
here?” was heard around. “Let us
liberate the blacksmith from his work—let
us liberate him!” they roared, as
they narrowed their circle round the
Russian soldiers, amidst whom Alékper
was shoeing the captain’s horse.
The confusion increased. Satisfied
with the tumult he had created, Sultan
Akhmet Khan, not wishing to mix
himself up in an insignificant brawl,
rode out of the crowd, leaving two
noúkers to keep alive the violent spirit
among the Tartars, while, accompanied
by the remainder, he rode rapidly
to the ootakh³¹ of Ammalát.

“Mayest thou be victorious,” said
Sultan Akhmet Khan to Ammalát
Bek, who received him at the threshold.
This ordinary salutation, in the
Circassian language, was pronounced
with so marked an emphasis, that
Ammalát as he kissed him, asked,
“Is that a jest or a prophecy, my fair
guest?”

“That depends on thee,” replied
the Sultan. “It is upon the right
heir of the Shamkhalát³² that it
depends to draw the sword from the
scabbard.”

“To sheath it no more, Khan? An
unenviable destiny. Methinks it is
better to reign in Bouináki, than for
an empty title to be obliged to hide
in the mountains like a jackal.”

“To bound from the mountains like
a lion, Ammalát; and to repose, after
your glorious toils, in the palace of
your ancestors.”

“To repose? Is it not better not
to be awakened at all?

“Would you behold but in a dream
what you ought to possess in reality?
The Russians are giving you the
poppy, and will lull you with tales,
while another plucks the golden
flowers of the garden.”³³

“What can I do with my force?”

“Force—that is in thy soul,
Ammalát!… Despise dangers and
they bend before you…. Dost thou
hear that?” added Sultan Akhmet
Khan, as the sound of firing reached
them from the town. “It is the voice
of victory!”

Saphir-Ali rushed into the chamber
with an agitated face.

“Bouináki is in revolt,” he hurriedly
began; “a crowd of rioters
has overpowered the detachment, and
they have begun to fire from the
rocks.”³⁴

“Rascals!” cried Ammalát, as he
threw his gun over his shoulder.
“How dared they to rise without me!
Run, Saphir-Ali, threaten them with
my name; kill the first who disobeys.”

“I have done all I could to restrain
them,” said Saphir-Ali, “but none
would listen to me, for the noúkers of
Sultan Akhmet Khan were urging
them on, saying that he had ordered
them to slay the Russians.”

“Indeed! did my noúkers say
that?” asked the Khan.

“They did not say so much, but
they set the example,” said Saphir-Ali.

“In that case they have done well,”
replied Sultan Akhmet Khan: “this
is brave!”

“What hast thou done, Khan!”
cried Ammalát, angrily.

“What you might have done long
ago!”

“How can I justify myself to the
Russians?”

“With lead and steel…. The
firing is begun…. Fate works for
you … the sword is drawn … let us
go seek the Russians!”

“They are here!” cried the Captain,
who, followed by two men, had
broken through the disorderly ranks
of the Tartars, and dashed into the
house of their chief. Confounded by
the unexpected outbreak in which
he was certain to be considered a
party, Ammalát saluted his enraged
guest—”Come in peace!” he said to
him in Tartar.

“I care not whether I come in
peace or no,” answered the Captain,
“but I find no peaceful reception in
Bouináki. Thy Tartars, Ammalát,
have dared to fire upon a soldier of
mine, of yours, a subject of our
Tsar.”

“In very deed, ’twas absurd to fire
on a Russian,” said the Khan, contemptuously
stretching himself on the
cushions of the divan, “when they
might have cut his throat.”

“Here is the cause of all the mischief,
Ammalát!” said the Captain,
angrily, pointing to the Khan; “but
for this insolent rebel not a trigger
would have been pulled in Bouináki!
But you have done well, Ammalát
Bek, to invite Russians as friends,
and to receive their foe as a guest, to
shelter him as a comrade, to honour
him as a friend! Ammalát Bek, this
man is named in the order of the
commander-in-chief; give him up.”

“Captain,” answered Ammalát,
“with us a guest is sacred. To give
him up would be a sin upon my soul,
an ineffaceable shame upon my head;
respect my entreaty; respect our
customs.”

“I will tell you, in your turn—respect
the Russian laws. Remember
your duty. You have sworn allegiance
to the Tsar, and your oath obliges
you not to spare your own brother
if he is a criminal.”

“Rather would I give up my brother
than my guest, Sir Captain! It
is not for you to judge my promises
and obligations. My tribunal is Allah
and the padishah! In the field,
let fortune take care of the Khan;
but within my threshold, beneath my
roof, I am bound to be his protector,
and I will be!”

“And you shall be answerable for
this traitor!”

The Khan had lain in haughty silence
during this dispute, breathing
the smoke from his pipe: but at the
word “traitor,” his blood was fired,
he started up, and rushed indignantly
to the Captain.

“Traitor, say you?” he cried.
“Say rather, that I refused to betray
him to whom I was bound by promise.
The Russian padishah gave
me rank, the sardar³⁵ caressed me—and
I was faithful so long as they demanded
of me nothing impossible or
humiliating. But, all of a sudden, they
wished me to admit troops into Avár—to
permit fortresses to be built
there; and what name should I have
deserved, if I had sold the blood and
sweat of the Aváretzes, my brethren!
If I had attempted this, think ye that
I could have done it? A thousand
free daggers, a thousand unhired bullets,
would have flown to the heart of
the betrayer. The very rocks would
have fallen on the son who could betray
his father. I refused the friendship
of the Russians; but I was not
their enemy—and what was the reward
of my just intentions, my honest
counsels? I was deeply, personally
insulted by the letter of one of your
generals, whom I had warned. That
insolence cost him dear at Báshli … I
shed a river of blood for some few
drops of insulting ink, and that river
divides us for ever.”

“That blood cries for vengeance!”
replied the enraged Captain. “Thou
shalt not escape it, robber!”

“Nor thou from me!” shouted the
infuriated Khan, plunging his dagger
into the body of the Captain, as he
lifted his hand to seize him by the collar.
Severely wounded, the officer
fell groaning on the carpet.

“Thou hast undone me!” cried
Ammalát, wringing his hands. “He
is a Russian, and my guest!”

“There are insults which a roof
cannot cover,” sullenly replied the
Khan. “The die is cast: it is no
time to hesitate. Shut your gate, call
your people, and let us attack the
enemy.”

“An hour ago I had no enemy … there
are no means now for repulsing
them … I have neither powder nor
ball … The people are dispersed.”

“They have fled!” cried Saphir-Ali
in despair. “The Russians are
advancing at full march over the hill.
They are close at hand!”

“If so, go with me, Ammalát!”
said the Khan. “I rode to Tchetchná
yesterday, to raise the revolt along
the line … What will be the end,
God knows; but there is bread in the
mountains. Do you consent?”

“Let us go!” … replied Ammalát,
resolvedly…. “When our
only safety is in flight, it is no time
for disputes and reproaches.”

“Ho! horses, and six noúkers with
me!”

“And am I to go with you?” said
Saphir-Ali, with tears in his eyes—”with
you for weal or woe!”

“No, my good Saphir-Ali, no.
Remain you here to govern the household,
that our people and the strangers
may not seize every thing. Give my
greeting to my wife, and take her
to my father-in-law, the Shamkhál.
Forget me not, and farewell!”

They had barely time to escape at
full gallop by one gate, when the Russians
dashed in at the other.

CHAPTER II.

The vernal noon was shining upon
the peaks of Caucasus, and the loud
voices of the moollahs had called the
inhabitants of Tchetchná to prayer.
By degrees they came forth from the
mosques, and though invisible to each
other from the towers on which they
stood, their solitary voices, after awaking
for a moment the echoes of the
hills, sank to stillness in the silent
air.

The moollah, Hadji Suleiman, a
Turkish devotee, one of those missionaries
annually sent into the mountains
by the Divan of Stamboul, to
spread and strengthen the faith, and
to increase the detestation felt by the
inhabitants for the Russians, was reposing
on the roof of the mosque,
having performed the usual call, ablution,
and prayer. He had not been long
installed as moollah of Igáli, a
village of Tchetchná; and plunged in
a deep contemplation of his hoary
beard, and the circling smoke-wreaths
that rose from his pipe, he gazed from
time to time with a curious interest
on the mountains, and on the defiles
which lay towards the north, right
before his eyes. On the left arose the
precipitous ridges dividing Tchetchná
from Avár, and beyond them glittered
the snows of Caucasus; sáklas scattered
disorderly along the ridges half-way
up the mountain, and narrow
paths led to these fortresses built by
nature, and employed by the hill-robbers
to defend their liberty, or secure
their plunder. All was still in the
village and the surrounding hills;
there was not a human being to be
seen on the roads or streets; flocks of
sheep were reposing in the shade of
the cliffs; the buffaloes were crowded
in the muddy swamps near the springs,
with only their muzzles protruded
from the marsh. Nought save the
hum of the insects—nought save the
monotonous chirp of the grasshoppers
indicated life amid the breathless
silence of the mountains; and Hadji
Suleiman, stretched under the cupola,
was intensely enjoying the stillness
and repose of nature, so congenial to
the lazy immobility of the Turkish
character. Indolently he turned his
eyes, whose fire was extinguished, and
which no longer reflected the light of
the sun, and at length they fell upon
two horsemen, slowly climbing the
opposite side of the declivity.

“Néphtali!” cried our Moollah,
turning towards a neighbouring sákla,
at the gate of which stood a saddled
horse. And then a handsome Tchetchenetz,
with short cut beard, and
shaggy cap covering half his face, ran
out into the street. “I see two horsemen,”
continued the Moollah; “they
are riding round the village!”

“Most likely Jews or Armenians,”
answered Néphtali. “They do not
choose to hire a guide, and will break
their necks in the winding road. The
wild-goats, and our boldest riders,
would not plunge into these recesses
without precaution.”

“No, brother Néphtali; I have
been twice to Mecca, and have seen
plenty of Jews and Armenians every
where. But these riders look not like
Hebrew chafferers, unless, indeed, they
exchange steel for gold in the mountain
road. They have no bales of
merchandise. Look at them yourself
from above; your eyes are surer than
mine; mine have had their day, and
done their work. There was a time
when I could count the buttons on a
Russian soldier’s coat a verst off, and
my rifle never missed an infidel; but
now I could not distinguish a ram of
my own afar.”

By this time Néphtali was at the
side of the Moollah, and was examining
the travellers with an eagle
glance.

“The noonday is hot, and the road
rugged,” said Suleiman; “invite the
travellers to refresh themselves and
their horses: perhaps they have news:
besides, the Koran commands us to
show hospitality.”

“With us in the mountains, and
before the Koran, never did a stranger
leave a village hungry or sad; never
did he depart without tchourek,³⁶ without
blessing, without a guide; but these
people are suspicious: why do they
avoid honest men, and pass our village
by by-roads, and with danger to their
life?”

“It seems that they are your countrymen,”
said Suleiman, shading his
eyes with his hand: “their dress is
Tchetchná. Perhaps they are returning
from a plundering exhibition, to
which your father went with a hundred
of his neighbours; or perhaps they are
brothers, going to revenge blood for
blood.”

“No, Suleiman, that is not like us.
Could a mountaineer’s heart refrain
from coming to see his countrymen—to
boast of his exploits against the
Russians, and to show his booty?
These are neither avengers of blood
nor Abreks—their faces are not covered
by the báshlik; besides, dress is deceptive.
Who can tell that those are
not Russian deserters! The other
day a Kázak, who had murdered his
master, fled from Goumbet-Aoúl with
his horse and arms…. The devil is
strong!”

“He is strong in them in whom
the faith is weak, Néphtali;—yet, if
I mistake not, the hinder horseman
has hair flowing from under his cap.”

“May I be pounded to dust, but it
is so! It is either a Russian, or, what
is worse, a Tartar Shageed.³⁷ Stop a
moment, my friend; I will comb your
zilflárs for you! In half-an-hour I will
return, Suleiman, either with them,—or
one of us three shall feed the mountain
berkoots (eagles.)”

Néphtali rushed down the stairs,
threw the gun on his shoulders, leapt
into his saddle and dashed down the
hill, caring neither for furrow nor stone.
Only the dust arose, and the pebbles
streamed down after the bold horseman.”

“Alla akbér!” gravely exclaimed
Suleiman, and lit his pipe.

Néphtali soon came up with the
strangers. Their horses were covered
with foam, and the sweat-drops rained
from them on the narrow path by
which they were climbing the mountain.
The first was clothed in a shirt
of mail, the other in the Circassian
dress: except that he wore a Persian
sabre instead of a sháshka,³⁸ suspended
by a laced girdle. His left arm was
covered with blood, bound up with a
handkerchief, and supported by the
sword-knot. The faces of both were
concealed. For some time he rode
behind them along the slippery path,
which overhung a precipice; but at
the first open space he galloped by
them, and turned his horse round.
“Salám aleikom!” said he, opposing
their passage along the rugged and
half-built road among the rocks, as he
made ready his arms. The foremost
horseman suddenly wrapped his boúrka³⁹
round his face, so as to leave
visible only his knit brows: “Aleikom
Salám!” answered he, cocking his
gun, and fixing himself in the saddle.

“God give you a good journey!”
said Néphtali. repeating the usual salutation,
and preparing, at the first
hostile movement, to shoot the stranger.

“God give you enough of sense not
to interrupt the traveller,” replied his
antagonist, impatiently: “What would
you with us, Kounák?”⁴⁰

“I offer you rest, and a brother’s
repast, barley and stalls for your horses.
My threshold flourishes by hospitality:
the blessing of the stranger increaseth
the flock, and giveth sharpness to the
sword of the master. Fix not the seal
of reproach on our whole village. Let
them not say, ‘They have seen travellers
in the heat of noon, and
have not refreshed them nor sheltered
them.'”

“We thank you for your kindness;
but we are not wont to take forced
hospitality; and haste is even more
necessary for us than rest.”

“You ride to your death without a
guide.”

“Guide!” exclaimed the traveller;
“I know every step of the Caucasus.
I have been where your serpents
climb not, your tigers cannot mount,
your eagles cannot fly. Make way,
comrade: thy threshold is not on
God’s high-road, and I have no time
to prate with thee.”

“I will not yield a step, till I know
who and whence you are!”

“Insolent scoundrel, out of my way,
or thy mother shall beg thy bones
from the jackall and the wind! Thank
your luck, Néphtali, that thy father
and I have eaten one another’s salt;
and often have ridden by his side in
the battle. Unworthy son! thou art
rambling about the roads, and ready to
attack the peaceable travellers, while
thy father’s corse lies rotting on the
fields of Russia, and the wives of the
Kazáks are selling his arms in the
bazar. Néphtali, thy father was slain
yesterday beyond the Térek. Dost
thou know me now?”

“Sultan Akhmet Khan!” cried the
Tchetchenetz, struck by the piercing
look and by the terrible news. His
voice was stifled, and he fell forward
on his horse’s neck in inexpressible
grief.

“Yes, I am Sultan Akhmet Khan!
but grave this in your memory, Néphtali—that
if you say to any one, ‘I
have seen the Khan of Avár,’ my vengeance
will live from generation to
generation.”

The strangers passed on, the Khan
in silence, plunged, as it seemed, in
painful recollections; Ammalát (for it
was he) in gloomy thought. The dress
of both bore witness to recent fighting;
their mustaches were singed by the
priming, and splashes of blood had
dried upon their faces; but the proud
look of the first seemed to defy to the
combat fate and chance; a gloomy
smile, of hate mingled with scorn, contracted
his lip. On the other hand,
on the features of Ammalát exhaustion
was painted. He could hardly turn
his languid eyes; and from time to time
a groan escaped him, caused by the
pain of his wounded arm. The uneasy
pace of the Tartar horse, unaccustomed
to the mountain roads, renewed
the torment of his wound. He
was the first to break the silence.

“Why have you refused the offer of
these good people? We might have
stopped an hour or two to repose,
and at dewfall we could have proceeded.”

“You think so, because you feel
like a young man, dear Ammalát: you
are used to rule your Tartars like
slaves, and you fancy that you can
conduct yourself with the same ease
among the free mountaineers. The
hand of fate weighs heavily upon us;—we
are defeated and flying. Hundreds
of brave mountaineers—your
noúkers and my own—have fallen in
fight with the Russians; and the
Tchetchenetz has seen turned to flight
the face of Sultan Akhmet Khan,
which they are wont to behold the
star of victory! To accept the beggar’s
repast, perhaps to hear reproaches
for the death of fathers and sons, carried
away by me in this rash expedition—’twould
be to lose their confidence
for ever. Time will pass, tears
will dry up; the thirst of vengeance
will take place of grief for the dead;
and then again Sultan Akhmet will be
seen the prophet of plunder and of
blood. Then again the battle-signal
shall echo through the mountains, and
I shall once more lead flying bands of
avengers into the Russian limits. If I
go now, in the moment of defeat, the
Tchetchenetz will judge that Allah
giveth and taketh away victory. They
may offend me by rash words, and
with me an offence is ineffaceable; and
the revenge of a personal offence would
obstruct the road that leads me to the
Russians. Why, then, provoke a quarrel
with a brave people—and destroy
the idol of glory on which they are
wont to gaze with rapture? Never
does man appear so mean as in weakness,
when every one can measure
his strength with him fearlessly: besides,
you need a skilful leech, and
nowhere will you find a better than at
my house. To-morrow we shall be at
home; have patience until then.”

With a gesture of gratitude Ammalát
Bek placed his hand upon his heart
and forehead: he perfectly felt the
truth of the Khan’s words, but exhaustion
for many hours had been
overwhelming him. Avoiding the villages,
they passed the night among the
rocks, eating a handful of millet boiled
in honey, without the mountaineers
seldom set out on a journey.
Crossing the Koi-Soú by the bridge
near the Asheért, quitting its northern
branch, and leaving behind them
Andéh, and the country of the Boulinétzes
of the Koi-Soú, and the naked
chain of Salataóu. A rude path lay
before them, winding among forests
and cliffs terrible to body and soul;
and they began to climb the last chain
which separated them on the north
from Khounzákh or Avár, the capital of
the Khans. The forest, and then the
underwood, had gradually disappeared
from the naked flint of the mountain,
on which cloud and tempest could
hardly wander. To reach the summit,
our travellers were compelled to ride
alternately to the right and to the left,
so precipitous was the ascent of the
rocks. The experienced steed of the
Khan stepped cautiously and surely
from stone to stone, feeling his way
with his hoofs, and when they slipped,
gliding on his haunches down the declivities:
while the ardent fiery horse
of Ammalát, trained in the hills of
Daghestán, fretted, curveted, and
slipped. Deprived of his customary
grooming, he could not support a two
days’ flight under the intense cold
and burning sunshine of the mountains,
travelling among sharp rocks, and
nourished only by the scanty herbage
of the crevices. He snorted heavily
as he climbed higher and higher; the
sweat streamed from his poitrel; his
large nostrils were dry and parched,
and foam boiled from his bit. “Allah
berekét!” exclaimed Ammalát, as
he reached the crest from which there
opened before him a view of Avár:
but at the very moment his exhausted
horse fell under him; the blood spouted
from his open mouth, and his last
breath burst the saddle-girth.

The Khan assisted the Bek to extricate
himself from the stirrups; but
observed with alarm that his efforts
had displaced the bandage on Ammalát’s
wounded arm, and that the blood
was soaking through it afresh. The
young man, it seemed, was insensible
to pain; tears were rolling down his
face upon the dead horse. So one
drop fills not, but overflows the cup.
“Thou wilt never more bear me like
down upon the wind,” he said, “nor
hear behind thee from the dust-cloud
of the race, the shouts, unpleasing to
the rival, the acclamations of the
people: in the blaze of battle no more
shalt thou carry me from the iron rain
of the Russian cannon. With thee I
gained the fame of a warrior—why
should I survive, or it, or thee?” He
bent his face upon his knee, and remained
silent a long time, while the
Khan carefully bound up his wounded
arm: at length Ammalát raised his
head: “Leave me!” he cried, resolutely:
“leave, Sultan Akhmet Khan,
a wretch to his fate! The way is long,
and I am exhausted. By remaining
with me, you will perish in vain. See!
the eagle soars around us; he knows
that my heart will soon quiver beneath
his talons, and I thank God! Better
find an airy grave in the maw of a bird
of prey, than leave my corse beneath
a Christian foot. Farewell, linger
not.”

“For shame, Ammalát! you trip
against a straw….! What
the great harm? You are wounded,
and your horse is dead. Your wound
will soon healed, and we will find
you a better horse! Allah sendeth not
misfortunes alone. In the flower of
your age, and the full vigour of your
faculties, it is a sin to despair. Mount
my horse, I will lead him by the bridle,
and by night we shall be at home.
Time is precious!”

“For me, time is no more, Sultan
Ahkmet Khan … I thank you
heartily for your brotherly care, but I
cannot take advantage of it … you
yourself cannot support a march on
foot after such fatigue. I repeat …
leave me to my fate. Here, on these
inaccessible heights, I will die free and
contented … And what is there to
recall me to life! My parents lie under
the earth, my wife is blind, my uncle
and father-in-law the Shamkhál are
cowering at Tarki before the Russians
… the Giaour is revelling in my
native land, in my inheritance; and I
myself an a wanderer from my home,
a runaway from battle. I neither can,
nor ought to live.”

“You ought not to talk such nonsense,
dear Ammalát:—and nothing
but fever can excuse you. We are
created that we may live longer than
our fathers. For wives, if one has
not teazed you enough, we will find
you three more. If you love not the
Shamkhál, yet love your own inheritance—you
ought to live, if but for
that; since to a dead man power is
useless, and victory impossible. Revenge
on the Russians is a holy duty:
live, if but for that. That we are
beaten, is no novelty for a warrior;
to-day luck is theirs, to-morrow it falls
to us. Allah gives fortune; but a man
creates his own glory, not by fortune,
but by firmness. Take courage, my
friend Ammalát…. You are
wounded and weak; I am strong from
habit, and not fatigued by flight.
Mount! and we may yet live to beat
the Russians.”

The colour returned to Ammalát’s
face … “Yes, I will live for revenge!”
he cried: “for revenge both
secret and open. Believe me, Sultan
Akhmet Khan, it is only for this that I
accept your generosity! Henceforth
I am yours; I swear by the graves of
my fathers…. I am yours! Guide
my steps, direct the strokes of my arm;
and if ever, drowned in softness, I forget
my oath, remind me of this moment,
of this mountain peak: Ammalát
Bek will awake, and his dagger will
be lightning!”

The Khan embraced him, as he lifted
the excited youth into the saddle.
“Now I behold in you the pure blood
of the Emírs!” said he: “the burning
blood of their children, which flows in
our veins like the sulphur in the entrails
of the rocks, which, ever and
anon inflaming, shakes and topples
down the crags.” Steadying with one
hand the wounded man in the saddle,
the Khan began cautiously to descend
the rugged croft. Occasionally the
stones fell rattling from under their
feet, or the horse slid downward over
the smooth granite, so that they were
well pleased to reach the mossy slopes.
By degrees, creeping plants began to
appear, spreading their green sheets;
and, waving from the crevices like fans,
they hung down in long ringlets like
ribbons or flags. At length they reached
a thick wood of nut-trees; then
came the oak, the wild cherry, and,
lower still, the tchinár,⁴¹ and the tchindár.
The variety, the wealth of vegetation,
and the majestic silence of the
umbrageous forest, produced a kind of involuntary
adoration of the wild strength
of nature. Ever and anon, from the
midnight darkness of the boughs, there
dawned, like the morning, glimpses of
meadows, covered with a fragrant carpet
of flowers untrodden by the foot
of man. The pathway at one time
lost itself in the depth of the thicket;
at another, crept forth upon the edge
of the rock, below which gleamed and
murmured a rivulet, now foaming over
the stones, then again slumbering on
its rocky bed, under the shade of the
barberry and the eglantine. Pheasants,
sparkling with their rainbow tails,
flitted from shrub to shrub; flights of
wild pigeons flew over the crags, sometimes
in an horizontal troop, sometimes
like a column, rising to the sky; and
sunset flooded all with its airy purple,
and light mists began to rise from the
narrow gorges: every thing breathed
the freshness of evening. Our travellers
were now near the village of Aki,
and separated only by a hill from
Khounzákh. A low crest alone divided
them from that village, when
the report of a gun resounded from
the mountain, and, like an ominous
signal, was repeated by the echoes
of the cliffs. The travellers halted
irresolute: the echoes by degrees sank
into stillness. “Our hunters!” cried
Sultan Akhmet Khan, wiping the
sweat from his face: “they expect
me not, and think not to meet me
here! Many tears of joy, and many of
sorrow, do I bear to Khounzákh!”
Unfeigned sorrow was expressed in
the face of Akhmet Khan. Vividly
does every soft and every savage sentiment
play on the features of the Asiatic.

Another report soon interrupted his
meditation; then another, and another.
Shot answered shot, and at length
thickened into a warm fire. “‘Tis
the Russians!” cried Ammalát, drawing
his sabre. He pressed his horse
with the stirrup, as though he would
have leaped over the ridge at a single
bound; but in a moment his strength
failed him, and the blade fell ringing
on the ground, as his arm dropped
heavily by his side. “Khan!” said
he, dismounting, “go to the succour
of your people; your face will be
worth more to them than a hundred
warriors.”

The Khan heard him not; he was
listening intently for the flight of the
balls, as if he would distinguish those
of the Russian from the Avárian.
“Have they, besides the agility of the
goat, stolen the wings of the eagle
of Kazbéc? Can they have reached
our inaccessible fastnesses?” said he,
leaning to the saddle, with his foot already
in the stirrup. “Farewell, Ammalát!”
he cried at length, listening to
the firing, which now grew hotter: “I
go to perish on the ruins I have made,
after striking like a thunderbolt!” At
this moment a bullet whistled by, and
fell at his feet. Bending down and
picking it up, his face was lighted with
a smile. He quietly took his foot from
the stirrup, and turning to Ammalát,
“Mount!” said he, “you shall presently
find with your own eyes an answer
to this riddle. The Russian bullets
are of lead; but this is copper⁴²—an
Aváretz, my dear countryman. Besides,
it comes from the south, where
the Russians cannot be.”

They ascended to the summit of the
crest, and before their view opened two
villages, situated on the opposite sides
of a deep ravine; from behind them
came the firing. The inhabitants
sheltering themselves behind rocks and
hedges, were firing at each other. Between
them the women were incessantly
running, sobbing and weeping
when any combatant, approaching the
edge of the ravine, fell wounded. They
carried stones, and, regardless of the
whistling of the balls, fearlessly piled
them up, so as to make a kind of defence.
Cries of joy arose from one side or the
other, as a wounded adversary was
carried from the field; a groan of sorrow
ascended in the air when one of
their kinsmen or comrades was hit.
Ammalát gazed at the combat for some
time with surprise, a combat in which
there was a great deal more noise than
execution. At length he turned an
enquiring eye upon the Khan.

“With us these are everyday affairs!”
he answered, delightedly marking
each report. “Such skirmishes
cherish among us a warlike spirit and
warlike habits. With you, private
quarrels end in a few blows of the dagger;
among us they become the common
business of whole villages, and any
trifle is enough to occasion them. Probably
they are fighting about some cow
that has been stolen. With us it is no
disgrace to steal in another village—the
shame is, to be found out. Admire the
coolness of our women; the balls are
whizzing about like gnats, yet they pay
no attention to them! Worthy wives
and mothers of brave men! To be
sure, there would be eternal disgrace
to him who could wound a woman,
yet no man can answer for a ball. A
sharp eye may aim it; but blind chance
carries it to the mark. But darkness
is falling from heaven, and dividing
these enemies for a moment. Let us
hasten to my kinsmen.”

Nothing but the experience of the
Khan could have saved our travellers
from frequent falls in the precipitous
descent to the river Ouzén. Ammalát
could see scarcely any thing before
him; the double veil of night and
weakness enveloped his eyes; his head
turned: he beheld, as it were in a
dream, when they again mounted an
eminence, the gate and watch-tower of
the Khan’s house. With an uncertain
foot he dismounted in a courtyard,
surrounded by shouting noúkers
and attendants; and he had hardly stepped
over the grated threshold when his
breath failed him—a deadly paleness
poured its snow over the wounded
man’s face; and the young Bek, exhausted
by loss of blood, fatigued by
travel, hunger, and anguish of soul,
fell senseless on the embroidered carpets.

POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.

No. VI.

THE LAY OF THE BELL.

VOTIVE TABLETS.

THE GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.

TO ——.

GENIUS.

CORRECTNESS—(Free translation.)

THE IMITATOR.

THE MASTER.

TO THE MYSTIC.

ASTRONOMICAL WORKS.

THE DIVISION OF RANKS.

THEOPHANY.

THE CHIEF END OF MAN.

ULYSSES.

JOVE TO HERCULES.

THE SOWER.

THE MERCHANT.

COLUMBUS.

THE ANTIQUE TO THE NORTHERN WANDERER.

THE ANTIQUE AT PARIS.

THE POETRY OF LIFE.

CALEB STUKELY.

PART XII.

THE PARSONAGE.

It was not without misgiving that
I knocked modestly at the door of
Mr Jehu Tomkins. For himself,
there was no solidity in his moral
composition, nothing to grapple or
rely upon. He was a small weak
man of no character at all, and but
for his powerful wife and active partner,
would have become the smallest
of unknown quantities in the respectable
parish that contained him. Upon
his own weak shoulders he could not
have sustained the burden of an establishment,
and must inevitably have
dwindled into the lightest of light
porters, or the most aged of errand-boys.
Nothing could have saved him
from the operation of a law, as powerful
and certain as that of gravitation,
in virtue of which the soft and
empty-headed of this world walk to
the wall, and resign, without a murmur,
their places to their betters. As
for the deaconess, I have said already
that the fact of her being a lady, and
the possessor of a heart, constituted the
only ground of hope that I could have
in reference to her. This I felt to be
insecure enough when I held the
knocker in my hand, and remembered
all at once the many little tales that I
had heard, every one of which went
far to prove that ladies may be ladies
without the generous weakness of
their sex,—and carry hearts about
with them as easily as they carry bags.

My first application was unsuccessful.
The deacon was not at home.
“Mr Tomkins and his lady had gone
to hear the Reverend Doctor Whitefroth,”—a
northern and eccentric
light, now blazing for a time in the
metropolis. It is a curious fact, and
worthy to be recorded, that Mr Tomkins,
and Mr Buster, and every non-conformist
whom I had hitherto encountered,
never professed to visit the
house of prayer with any other object
than that of hearing. It was never by
any accident to worship or to pray.
What, in truth was the vast but lowly
looking building, into which hundreds
crowded with the dapper deacon
at their head, sabbath after sabbath—what
but a temple sacred to
vanity and excitement, eloquence and
perspiration! Which one individual,
taken at random from the concourse,
was not ready to declare that his business
there that day was “to hear the
dear good man,” and nothing else? If
you could lay bare—as, thank Heaven,
you cannot—your fellow-creature’s
heart, whither would you behold stealing
away the adoration that, in such
a place, in such a time, is due to one
alone—whither, if not to Mr Clayton?
But let this pass.

I paid a second visit to my friend,
and gained admittance. It was about
half-past eight o’clock in the evening,
and the shop had been closed some
twenty minutes before. I was ushered
into a well-furnished room behind
the shop, where sat the firm—Mrs
Jehu and the junior partner. The
latter looked into his lady’s face, perceived
a smile upon it, and then—but
not till then, he offered me his hand,
and welcomed me with much apparent
warmth. This ceremony over, Mr
Tomkins grew fidgety and uneasy,
and betrayed a great anxiety to get
up a conversation which he had not
heart enough to set a going. Mrs
Tomkins, a woman of the world,
evinced no anxiety at all, sat smiling,
and in peace. I perceived immediately
that I must state at once the
object of my visit, and I proceeded to
the task.

“Mrs Tomkins,” I commenced.

“Sir?” said that lady, and then a
postman’s knock brought us to a stop,
and Jehu skipped across the room to
listen at the door.

“That’s him, my dear Jemima,” exclaimed
the linen-draper, “I know his
knock,” and then he skipped as quickly
to his chair again.

The door of the apartment was
opened by a servant girl, who entered
the room alone and approached her
mistress with a card. Mrs Tomkins
looked at it through her eye-glass,
said “she was most happy,” and the
servant then retired. The card was
placed upon the table near me, and,
as I believe, for my inspection. I
took it up, and read the following
words, “Mr Stanislaus Levisohn.”
They were engraven in the centre of
the paper, and were surrounded by a
circle of rays, which in its turn was
enveloped in a circle of clouds. In
the very corner of the card, and in
very small characters, the words “general
merchant” were written.

There was a noise of shoe-cleaning
outside the door for about five minutes,
then the door was opened again by
the domestic, and a remarkable gentleman
walked very slowly in. He
was a tall individual, with small cunning
eyes, black eye-brows, and a
beard. He was rather shabbily attired,
and not washed with care. He
had thick boorish hands, and he smelt
unpleasantly of tobacco smoke; an
affected grin at variance with every
feature, was planted on his face, and
sickened an unprejudiced observer at
the very first gaze. His mode of uttering
English betrayed him for a foreigner.
He was a native of Poland.
Before uttering a syllable, the interesting
stranger walked to a corner of
the room, turned himself to the wall,
and muttered a few undistinguishable
words. He then bowed lowly to the
company, and took a chair, grinning
all the while.

“Is that a Polish move?” asked
Mr Tomkins.

“It vos de coshtom mit de anshent
tribes, my tear sare, vor alles tings, to
recommend de family to de protection
of de hevins. Vy not now mit all
goot Christians?”

“Why not indeed?” added Mrs
Tomkins. “May I offer you a glass of
raisin wine?”

“Tank you. For de shtomack’s
sake—yase.”

A glass was poured out. It was
but decent to offer me another. I paid
my compliments to the hostess and
the gentlemen, and was about to drink
it off, when the enlightened foreigner
called upon me in a loud voice to desist.

“Shtay, mein young friend—ve are
not de heathen and de cannibal. It
is our privilege to live in de Christian
society mit de Christian lady. Ve
most ask blessing—alvays—never forget—you
excuse—vait tree minutes.”

It was not for me to protest against
so pious a movement, albeit it presented
itself somewhat inopportunely and
out of place. Mr Levisohn covered
his face with one hand, and murmured
a few words. The last only reached
me. It was “Amen,” and this was
rather heaved up in a sigh, than articulately
expressed.

“Do you like the wine?” asked
Jehu, as if he thought it superfine.

“Yase, I like moch—especially de
sherry and de port.”

Jehu smiled, but made no reply.

Mrs Tomkins supposed that port
and sherry were favourite beverages
in Poland, but, for her part, she had
found that nothing agreed so well with
British stomachs as the native wines.

“Ah! my lady,” said the Pole, “ve
can give up very moch so long ve got
British religions.”

“Very true, indeed,” answered Mrs
Tomkins. “Pray, Mr Levisohn,
what may be your opinion of the lost
sheep? Do you think they will come
into the fold during our time?”

Before the gentleman replies, it may
be proper to state on his behalf, that
he had never given his questioner any
reason to suppose that he was better
informed on such mysterious subjects
than herself. The history of his introduction
into the family of the linen-draper
is very short. He had been
for some years connected with Mr
Tomkins in the way of business,
having supplied that gentleman with
all the genuine foreign, but certainly
English, perfumery, that was retailed
with considerable profit in his over-nice
and pious establishment. Mrs
Tomkins, no less zealous in the cause
of the church than that of her own
shop, at length, and all on a sudden,
resolved to set about his conversion,
and to present him to the chapel as a
brand plucked with her own hand from
the burning. As a preliminary step,
he was invited to supper, and treated
with peculiar respect. The matter
was gently touched upon, but discussion
postponed until another occasion.
Mr Levisohn being very shrewd, very
needy, and enjoying no particular
principles of morality and religion,
perceived immediately the object of
his hostess, met her more than half-way
in her Christian purposes, and
accepted her numerous invitations to
tea and supper with the most affectionate
readiness. Within two months
he was received into the bosom of the
church, and became as celebrated for
the depth and intensity of his belief
as for the earnestness and promptitude
with which he attended the meetings
of the brethren, particularly those in
which eating and drinking did not
constitute the least important part of
the proceedings. Being a foreigner,
he was listened to with the deepest
attention, very often indeed to his
serious annoyance, for his ignorance
was awful, and his assurance, great as
it was, not always sufficient to get him
clear of his difficulties. His foreign
accent, however, worked wonders for
him, and whenever too hard pressed,
afforded him a secure and happy retreat.
An unmeaning grin, and “me
not pronounce,” had saved him from
precipices, down which an Englishman,
cæteris paribus, must unquestionably
have been dashed.

“Vill dey come?” said Mr Levisohn,
in answer to the question. “Yase,
certainly, if dey like, I tink.”

“Ah, sir, I fear you are a latitudinarian,”
said the lady.

“I hope Hevin, my dear lady, vill
forgive me for dat, and all my wickedness.
I am a shinner, I shtink!”

I looked at the converted gentleman,
at the same moment that Mrs Jehu
assured him that it would be a great
thing if they were all as satisfied of
their condition as he might be. “Your
strong convictions of your worthlessness
is alone a proof,” she added, “of
your accepted state.”

“My lady,” continued the humble
Stanislaus, “I am rotten, I am a tief,
a blackguard, a swindler, a pickpocket,
a housebreak, a sticker mit de knife.
I vish somebody would call me names
all de day long, because I forget sometime
dat I am de nashty vurm of de
creation. I tink I hire a boy to call
me names, and make me not forget.
Oh, my lady, I alvays remember those
fine words you sing—

“That is so conscientious of you.
Pray, my dear sir, is there an Establishment
in Poland? or have you Independent
churches?”

“Ah, my dear lady, we have noting
at all!”

“Is it possible?”

“Yase, it is possible—it is true.”

“Who could have thought it!
What! nothing?”

“Noting at all, my lady. Do not
ask me again, I pray you. It is
frightful to a goot Christian to talk
dese tings.”

“What is your opinion of the Arminian
doctrine, Mr Stanislaus?”

“Do you mean de doctrine?” enquired
Stanislaus, slowly, as though
he found some difficulty in answering
the question.

“Yes, my dear sir.”

“I tink,” said the gentleman, after
some delay, “it vould he very goot if
were not for someting.”

“Dear me!” cried Mrs Jehu, “that
is so exactly my opinion!”

“Den dere is noting more to be
said about dat,” continued Stanislaus,
interrupting her; “and I hope you
vill not ask dese deep questions, my
dear lady, vich are not at all proper to
be answered, and vich put me into de
low spirits. Shall ve sing a hymn?”

“By all means,” exclaimed the hostess,
who immediately made preparations
for the ceremony. Hymn-books
were introduced, and the servant-maid
ordered up, and then a quartet was
performed by Mr Levisohn, Mrs Tomkins,
her husband, and Betsy. The
subject of the song was the courtship of
Isaac. Two verses only have remained
in my memory, and the manner
in which they were given out by
the fervent Stanislaus will never be
forgotten. They ran thus:—

This being concluded, Mr Tomkins
asked Mr Levisohn what he had to
say in the business line, to which Mr
Levisohn replied, “Someting very
goot, but should he not vait until after
soppare?” whereupon Mr Tomkins
gave his lady a significant leer, and
the latter retired, evidently to prepare
the much desired repast. Then did
little Jehu turn confidentially to Stanislaus,
and ask him when he meant to
deliver that ere conac that he had
promised him so long ago.

“Ven Providence, my tear dikkon,
paremits—I expect a case of goots at
de cushtom-house every day; but my
friend vot examins de marchandis,
and vot saves me de duties ven I
makes it all right mit him, is vary ill,
I am sorry for to say, and ve most
vait, mit Christian patience, my dear
sare, till he get well. You see
dat?”

“Oh, yes; that’s clear enough. Well,
Stanny, I only hope that fellow won’t
die. I don’t think you’d find it so easy
to make it all right with any other
chap; that’s all!”

“I hope he vill not die. Ve mosht
pray dat he live, my dear dikkon. I
tink it vill be vell if der goot Mr Clayton
pray mit der church for him. You
shall speak for him.”

“Well, what have you done about
the Eau de Cologne?” continued Jehu
Tomkins. “Have you nailed the fellow?”

“It vos specially about dis matter
dat I vish to see you, my dear sare. I
persvade der man to sell ten cases.
He be very nearly vot you call in der
mess. He valk into de Gazette next
week. He shtarve now. I pity him.
De ten cases cost him ten pounds. I
give fifty shilling—two pound ten.
He buy meat for de childs, and is
tankful. I take ten shillings for my
trouble. Der Christian satisfied mit
vary little.”

“Any good bills in the market,
Stanny?”

Stanislaus Levisohn winked.

“Ho—you don’t say so,” said the
deacon. “Have you got ’em with you?”

“After soppare, my dear sare,”
answered Stanislaus, who looked at
me, and winked again significantly at
Jehu.

Mrs Tomkins returned, accompanied
by the vocal Betsy. The cloth
was spread, and real silver forks, and
fine cut tumblers, and blue plates with
scripture patterns, speedily appeared.
Then came a dish of fried sausages and
parsley—then baked potatoes—then
lamb chops. Then we all sat round
the table, and then, against all order
and propriety, Mrs Jehu grossly and
publicly insulted her husband at his
own board, by calling upon the enlightened
foreigner to ask a blessing
upon the meal.

The company sat down; but scarcely
were we seated before Stanislaus
resumed.

“I tank you, my tear goot Mrs
Tomkins for dat shop mit der brown,
ven it comes to my turn to be sarved.
It look just der ting.”

Mrs Jehu served her guest immediately.

“I vill take a sossage, tear lady,
also, if you please.”

“And a baked potato?”

“And a baked potato? Yase.”

He was served.

“I beg your pardon, Christian
lady, have you got, perhaps, der littel
pickel-chesnut and der crimson cabbage?”

“Mr Tomkins, go down-stairs and
get the pickles,” said the mistress of
the house, and Tomkins vanished like
a mouse on tiptoe.

Before he could return, Stanislaus
had eaten more than half his chop,
and discovered that, after all, “it was
not just the ting.” Mrs Jehu entreated
him to try another. He declined
at first; but at length suffered
himself to be persuaded. Four chops
had graced the dish originally; the
remaining two were divided equally
between the lady and myself. I begged
that my share might be left for
the worthy host, but receiving a recommendation
from his wife “not to
mind him,” I said no more, but kept
Mr Stanislaus Levisohn in countenance.

“I hope you’ll find it to your liking,
Mr Stukely,” said our hostess.

“Mishter vat?” exclaimed the
foreigner, looking quickly up. “I
tink I”——

“What is the matter, my dear sir?”
enquired the lady of the house.

“Noting, my tear friend, I tought
der young gentleman vos a poor unconverted
sinner dat I met a long time
ago. Dat is all. Ve talk of someting
else.”

Has the reader forgotten the dark-visaged
individual, who at the examination
of my lamented father before
the Commissioners of Bankruptcy
made his appearance in company
with Mr Levy and the ready Ikey?
Him I mean of the vivid imagination,
who swore to facts which were no
facts at all, and whom an unpoetic
jury sentenced to vile imprisonment
for wilful perjury? There he sat,
transformed into a Pole, bearded and
whiskered, and the hair of his head
close clipped, but in every other regard
the same as when the constable
invited him to forsake a too prosaic
and ungrateful world: and had Mr
Levisohn been wise and guarded, the
discovery would never have been
made by me; for we had met but
once before, then only for a short half
hour, and under agitating circumstances.
But my curiosity and attention
once roused by his exclamation, it
was impossible to mistake my man.
I fixed my eye upon him, and the
harder he pulled at his chop, and the
more he attempted to evade my gaze,
the more satisfied was I that a villain
and an impostor was seated amongst us.
Thinking, absurdly enough, to do my
host and hostess a lasting service, I
determined without delay to unmask
the pretended saint, and to secure his
victims from the designs he purposed.

“Mr Levisohn,” I said immediately,
“you have told the truth—we
have met before.”

“Nevare, my tear friend, you mistake;
nevare in my life, upon my vurd.”

“Mrs Tomkins,” I continued, rising,
“I should not be worthy of your
hospitality if I did not at once make
known to you the character of that
man. He is a convicted criminal. I
have myself known him to be guilty
of the grossest practices.” Mr Levisohn
dropped his chop, turned his
greasy face up, and then looked round
the room, and endeavoured to appear
unconcerned, innocent, and amazed
all at once. At this moment Jehu entered
the room with the pickles, and
the face of the deaconess grew fearfully
stern.

“Were you ever in the Court of Bankruptcy,
Mr Levisohn?” I continued.

“I have never been out of London,
my good sare. You labour under
de mistake.—I excuse you. Ah!”
he cried our suddenly, as if a new idea
had struck him very hard; “I see
now vot it is. I explain. You take
me for somebody else.”

“I do not, sir. I accuse you publicly
of having committed perjury of the
most shameless kind, and I can prove
you guilty of the charge. Do you
know a person of the name of Levy?”

Mr Stanislaus looked to the ceiling
after the manner of individuals who
desire, or who do not desire, as the
case may be, to call a subject to remembrance.
“No,” he answered,
after a long pause; “certainly not.
I never hear dat name.”

“Beware of him, Mrs Tomkins,”
I continued, “he is an impostor, a
disgrace to mankind, and to the faith
which he professes.”

“What do you mean by that, you
impertinent young man?” said Mrs
Tomkins, her blood rising to her
face, herself rising from her chair.
“I should have thought that a man
who had been so recently expelled
from his church would have had more
decency. A pretty person you must
be, to bring a charge of this kind
against so good a creature as that.”

“No, do not say dat,” interposted
Stanny; “I am not goot. I am a
brute beast.”

“Mr Tomkins,” continued the
lady, “I don’t know what object that
person has in disturbing the peace of
our family, or why he comes here at
all to-night. He is a mischief-making,
hardened young man, or he would
never have come to what he has.
Well, I’m sure—What will Satan put
into his head next!”

“I vould vish you be not angry.
Der young gentleman is, I dare say,
vary goot at heart. He is labouring
under de deloosions.”

“Mr Levisohn, pardon me, I am
not. Proofs exist, and I can bring
them to convict you.”

“Do you hear that, Mr Tomkins.
Were you ever insulted so before? Are
you master in your own house?”

“What shall I do?” said Jehu,
trembling with excitement at the door.

“Do! What! Give him his hat,
turn him out.”

“Oh, my dear goot Christian friends,”
said Mr Levisohn, imploringly; “de
booels of der Christian growls ven
he shees dese sights; vot is de goot
of to fight? It is shtoopid. Let me
be der peacemaker. Der yong man
has been drink, perhaps. I forgive
him from te bottom of my heart. If
ve quarrel ve fight. If ve fight ve
lose every ting.

“Mr Tomkins,” I exclaimed, “I
court inquiry, I can obtain proofs.”

“We want none of your proofs,
you backslider,” cried the deaconess.

“Madam, you”——

“Get out of the house, ambassador
of Satan! Mr Tomkins, will you tell
him instantly to go?”

“Go!” squealed Tomkins from the
door, not advancing an inch.

I seized my hat, and left the table.

“You will be sorry for this, sir,”
said I; “and you, madam”——

“Don’t talk to me, you bad man.
If you don’t go this minute I’ll spring
the rattle and have up the watchmen.”

I did not attempt to say another
word. I left the room, and hurried
from the house. I had hardly shut
the street door before it was violently
opened again, and the head of Mr
Levisohn made itself apparent.

“Go home,” exclaimed that gentleman,
“and pray to be shaved, you
shtoopid ass.”

It was not many days after the
enacting of this scene, that I entered
upon my duties as the instructor of
the infant children of my friend. It
was useless to renew my application
to the deacon, and I abandoned the
idea. The youngest of my pupils was
the lisping Billy. It was my honour
to introduce him at the very porch of
knowledge—to place him on the first
step of learning’s ladder—to make familiar
to him the simple letters of his
native tongue, in whose mysterious
combinations the mighty souls of men
appear and speak. The lesson of the
alphabet was the first that I gave,
and a heavy sadness depressed and
humbled me when, as the child repeated
wonderingly after me, letter
by letter, I could not but feel deeply
and acutely the miserable blighting
of my youthful promises. How long
was it ago—it seemed but yesterday,
when the sun used to shine brightly
into my own dear bed-room, and
awake me with its first gush of light,
telling my ready fancy that he came
to rouse me from inaction, and to encourage
me to my labours. Oh, happy
labours! Beloved books! What joy
I had amongst you! The house was
silent—the city’s streets tranquil as
the breath of morning. I heard nothing
but the glorious deeds ye spoke
of, and saw only the worthies that
were but dust, when centuries now
passed were yet unborn, but whose
immortal spirits are vouchsafed still
to elevate man, and cheer him onward.
How intense and sweet was
our communion; and as I read and
read on, how gratefully repose crept
over me; how difficult it seemed to
think unkindly of the world, or to believe
in all the tales of human selfishness
and cruelty with which the old
will ever mock the ear and dull the
heart of the confiding and the young.
How willing I felt to love, and how
gay a place was earth, with her constant
sun, and overflowing lap, and
her thousand joys, for man! And how
intense was the fire of hope that burned
within me—fed with new fuel every
passing hour, and how abiding and
how beautiful the future! THE FUTURE!
and it was here—a nothing—a
dream—a melancholy phantasm!

There are seasons of adversity, in
which the mind, plunged in despondency
and gloom, is startled and distressed
by pictures of a happier time,
that travel far to fool and tantalize
the suffering heart. I sat with the
child, and gazing full upon him, beheld
him not, but—a vision of my
father’s house. There sits the good
old man, and at his side—ah, how seldom
were they apart!—my mother.
And there, too, is the clergyman, my
first instructor. Every well-remembered
piece of furniture is there. The
chair, sacred to my sire, and venerated
by me for its age, and for our long
intimacy. I have known it since
first I knew myself. The antique
bookcase—the solid chest of drawers—the
solemn sofa, all substantial as
ever, and looking, as at first, the immoveable
and natural properties of
the domestic parlour. My mother
has her eyes upon me, and they are
full of tears. My father and the minister
are building up my fortunes,
are fixing in the sandy basis of futurity
an edifice formed of glittering
words, incorporeal as the breath that
rears it. And the feelings of that hour
come back upon me. I glow with
animation, confidence, and love. I
have the strong delight that beats
within the bosom of the boy who has
the parents’ trusty smile for ever on
him. I dream of pouring happiness
into those fond hearts—of growing up
to be their prop and staff in their decline.
I pierce into the future, and
behold myself the esteemed and honoured
amongst men—the patient,
well-rewarded scholar—the cherished
and the cherisher of the dear authors
of my life—all brightness—all glory—all
unsullied joy. The child touches
my wet cheek, and asks me why I
weep?—why?—why? He knows not
of the early wreck that has annihilated
the unhappy teacher’s peace.

We were still engaged upon our
lesson, when John Thompson interrupted
the proceeding, by entering
the apartment in great haste, and
placing in my hands a newspaper.
“He had been searching,” he said,
“for one whole fortnight, to find a
situation that would suit me, and now
he thought that he had hit upon it.
There it was, ‘a tutorer in a human
family,’ to teach the languages and
the sciences. Apply from two to four.
It’s just three now. Send the youngster
to his mother, and see after it,
my friend. I wouldn’t have you lose
it for the world.” I took the journal
from his hands, and, as though placed
there by the hand of the avenger to
arouse deeper remorse, to draw still
hotter blood from the lacerated heart,
the following announcement, and nothing
else, glared on the paper, and
took possession of my sight.

“UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE. After
a contest more severe than any known
for years, MR JOHN SMITHSON, of
Trinity College, Cambridge, has been
declared THE SENIOR WRANGLER of
his year. Mr Smithson is, we understand,
the son of a humble curate
in Norfolk, whose principal support
has been derived from the exertions
of his son during his residence in the
University. The honour could not
have been conferred on a more
deserving child of Alma Mater.”

A hundred recollections crowded
on my brain. My heart was torn with
anguish. The perseverance and the
filial piety of Smithson, so opposite
to my unsteadiness and unnatural disloyalty,
confounded and unmanned
me. I burst into tears before the faithful
Thompson, and covered my face
for very shame.

“What is the matter, lad?” exclaimed
the good fellow, pale with
surprise, his eye trembling with honest
feeling. “Have I hurt you? Drat
the paper! Don’t think, Stukely, I
wished to get rid of you. Don’t think
so hard of your old friend. I thought
to help and do you service; I know
you have the feelings of a gentleman
about you, and I wouldn’t wound ’em,
God knows, for any thing. There,
think no more about it. I am so rough
a hand, I’m not fit to live with Christians.
I mean no harm, believe me.
Get rid of you, my boy! I only wish
you’d say this is your home, and
never leave me—that would make me
happy.”

“Thompson,” I answered, through
my tears, “I am not deserving of
your friendship. You have not offended
me. You have never wronged
me. You are all kindness and truth.
I have had no real enemy but myself.
Read that paper.”

I pointed to the paragraph, and he
read it.

“What of it?” he asked.

“Thompson,” listen to me; “what
do you say of such a son?”

“I can guess his father’s feelings,”
said my friend. “Earth’s a heaven,
Stukely, when father and child live
together as God appointed them.”

“But when a child breaks a parent’s
heart, Thompson—what then?”

“Don’t talk about it, lad. I have
got eleven of ’em, and that’s a side of
the picture that I can’t look at with
pleasure. I think the boys are good.
They have gone on well as yet; but
who can tell what a few years will
do?”

“Or a few months, Thompson,” I
answered quickly, “or a few days, or
hours, when the will is fickle, principles
unfixed, and the heart treacherous
and false. That Smithson and I,
Thompson, were fellow students. We
left home together—we took up our
abode in the University together—we
were attached to the same college—taught
by the same master—read from
the same books. My feelings were
as warm as his. My resolution to do
well apparently as firm, my knowledge
and attainments as extensive. If he
was encouraged, and protected, and
urged forward by the fond love of a
devoted household—so was I. If parental
blessings hallowed his entrance
upon those pursuits which have ended
so successfully for him—so did they
mine. If he had motive for exertion,
I had not less—we were equal in the
race which we began together—look
at us now!”

“How did it happen, then?”

“He was honest and faithful to his
purpose. I was not. He saw one object
far in the distance before him,
and looked neither to the right nor
left, but dug his arduous way towards
it. He craved not the false excitement
of temporary applause, nor
deemed the opinion of weak men essential
to his design. He had a sacred
duty to perform, which left him
not the choice of action, and he performed
it to the letter. He had a feeling
conscience, and a reasoning heart,
and the home of his youth, and the
sister who had grown up with him,
the father who had laboured, the mother
who had striven for him, visited
him by night and by day—in his silent
study, and in his lonely bed, comforting,
animating, and supporting him
by their delightful presence.”

“And what did you do?”

“Just the reverse of this. I had
neither simplicity of aim, nor stability
of affection. One slip from the path,
and I hadn’t energy to take the road
again. One vicious inclination, and
the virtuous resolves of years melted
before it. The sneer of a fool could
frighten me from rectitude—the smile
of a girl render me indifferent to the
pangs that tear a parent’s heart.
Look at us both. Look at him—the
man whom I treated with contemptuous
derision. What a return home
for him—his mission accomplished—HIS
DUTY DONE! Look at me, the outcast,
the beggar, the despised—the
author of a mother’s death, a father’s
bankruptcy and ruin—with no excuse
for misconduct, no promise for the
future, no self-justification, and no
hope of pardon beyond that afforded
to the vilest criminal that comes repentant
to the mercy throne of God!”

“Well—but, sir—Stukely—don’t
take the thing to heart. You are
young—look for’rads. Oh, I tell you,
it’s a blessed thing to be sorry for our
faults, and to feel as if we wished to
do better for the time to come. I’m
an older man than you, and I bid you
take comfort, and trust to God for
better things, and better things will
come, too. You are not so badly off
now as you were this time twelvemonth.
And you know I’ll never
leave you. Don’t despond—don’t give
away. It’s unnatural for a man to
do it, and he’s lost if he does. Oh,
bless you, this is a life of suffering and
sorrow, and well it is; for who wouldn’t
go mad to think of leaving all his
young ‘uns behind him, and every
thing he loves, if he wasn’t taught
that there’s a quieter place above,
where all shall meet agin? You know
me, my boy; I can’t talk, but I want
to comfort you and cheer you up—and
so, give me your hand, old fellow, and
say you won’t think of all this any more,
but try and forget it, and see about
settling comfortably in life. What do
you say to the advertisement? A tutorer
in a human family, to teach the languages
and the sciences. Come now,
that’s right; I’m glad to see you
laugh. I suppose I don’t give the
right pronunciation to the words.
Well, never mind; laugh at your old
friend. He’d rather see you laugh
at him than teaze your heart about
your troubles.”

Thompson would not be satisfied
until I had read the advertisement,
and given him my opinion of its merits.
He would not suffer me to say another
word about my past misfortunes, but
insisted on my looking forward cheerfully,
and like a man. The situation
appeared to him just the thing for me;
and after all, if I had wrangled as
well as that ‘ere Smithson—(though,
at the same time, wrangling seemed a
very aggravating word to put into
young men’s mouths at all)—perhaps
I shouldn’t have been half as
happy as a quiet comfortable life
would make me. “I was cut out for
a tutorer. He was sure of it. So
he’d thank me to read the paper without
another syllable.” The advertisement,
in truth, was promising. “The
advertiser, in London, desired to engage
the services of a young gentleman,
capable of teaching the ancient
languages, and giving his pupils ‘an
introduction to the sciences.’ The
salary would be liberal, and the occupation
with a humane family in the
country, who would receive the tutor
as one of themselves. References
would be required and given.”

“References would be required and
given,” I repeated, after having concluded
the advertisement, and put the
paper down.

“Yes, that’s the only thing!” said
Thompson, scratching his honest ear,
like a man perplexed and driven to a
corner. “We haven’t got no references
to give. But I’ll tell you what we’ve
got though. We’ve got the papers
of these freehold premises, and we’ve
something like two thousand in the
bank. I’ll give ’em them, if you
turns out a bad ‘un. That I’ll undertake
to do, and shan’t be frightened
either. Now, you just go, and
see if you can get it. Where do you
apply?”

“Wait, Thompson. I must not
suffer you”——

“Did you hear what I said, sir?
where do you apply?”

“At X.Y.Z.” said I, “in Swallow
street, Saint James’s.”

“Then, don’t you lose a minute.
I shouldn’t be surprised if the place is
run down already. London’s overstocked
with tutorers and men of larning.
You come along o’ me, Billy,
and don’t you lose sight of this ‘ere
chance, my boy. If they wants a reference,
tell ’em I’ll be glad to wait
upon ’em.”

Three days had not elapsed after
this conversation, before my services
were accepted by X.Y.Z.—and I
had engaged to travel into Devonshire
to enter at once upon my duties, as
teacher in the dwelling-house of the
Reverend Walter Fairman. X.Y.Z.
was a man of business; and, fortunately
for me, had known my father well.
He was satisfied with my connexion,
and with the unbounded recommendation
which Thompson gave with me.
Mr Fairman was incumbent of one of
the loveliest parishes in England, and
the guardian and teacher of six boys.
My salary was fifty pounds per annum,
with board and lodging. The
matter was settled in a few hours,
and before I had time to consider, my
place was taken in the coach, and a
letter was dispatched to Mr Fairman,
announcing my intended departure.
Nothing could exceed the joy
of Thompson at my success—nothing
could be kinder and more anxious
than his valuable advice.

“Now,” he said as we walked together
from the coach-office, “was I
wrong in telling you that better things
would turn up? Take care of yourself,
and the best wrangler of the lot may
be glad to change places with you. It
isn’t lots of larning, or lots of money,
or lots of houses and coaches, that
makes a man happy in this world.
They never can do it; but they can do
just the contrarery, and make him
the miserablest wretch as crawls. A
contented mind is ‘the one thing
needful.’ Take what God gives
gratefully, and do unto others as you
would that they should do unto you.
That’s a maxim that my poor father
was always giving me, and, I wish,
when I take the young ‘uns to church,
that they could always hear it, for human
natur needs it.”

The evening before my setting out
was spent with Thompson’s family. I
had received a special invitation, and
Thompson, with the labouring sons,
were under an engagement to the
mistress of the house, to leave the
workshop at least an hour earlier than
usual. Oh, it was a sight to move
the heart of one more hardened than
I can boast to be, to behold the affectionate
party assembled to bid me
farewell, and to do honour to our
leave-taking. A little feast was prepared
for the occasion, and my many
friends were dressed, all in their Sunday
clothes, befittingly. There was
not one who had not something to
give me for a token. Mary had worked
me a purse; and Mary blushed
whilst her mother betrayed her, and
gave the little keepsake. Ellen thought
a pincushion might be useful; and
the knitter of the large establishment
provided me with comforters.
All the little fellows, down
to Billy himself, had a separate gift,
which each must offer with a kiss,
and with a word or two expressive of
his good wishes. All hoped I would
come soon again, and Aleck more than
hinted a request that I would postpone
my departure to some indefinite
period which he could not name.
Poor tremulous heart! how it throbbed
amongst them all, and how sad it
felt to part from them! Love bound
me to the happy room—the only love
that connected the poor outcast with
the wide cold world. This was the
home of my affections—could I leave
it—could I venture once more upon
the boisterous waters of life without
regret and apprehension?

Thompson kindly offered to accompany
me on the following morning to
the inn from which I was destined to
depart, but I would not hear of it.
He was full of business; had little
time to spare, and none to throw
away upon me. I begged him not to
think of it, and he acquiesced in my
wishes. We were sitting together,
and his wife and children had an hour
or two previously retired to rest.

“Them’s good children, ain’t they,
Stukely?” enquired Thompson, after
having made a long pause.

“You may well be proud of them,”
I answered.

“It looked nice of ’em to make you
a little present of something before
you went. But it was quite right.
That’s just as it should be. I like
that sort of thing, especially when a
man understands the sperrit that a
thing’s given with. Now, some fellows
would have been offended if any
thing had been offered ’em. How I
do hate all that!”

“I assure you, Thompson, I feel
deeply their kind treatment of their
friend. I shall never forget it.”

“You ain’t offended, then?”

“No, indeed.”

“Well, now, I am so happy to hear
it, you can’t think,” continued Thompson,
fumbling about his breeches
pocket, and drawing from it at length
something which he concealed in his
fist. “There, take that,” he suddenly
exclaimed; “take it, my old fellow,
and God bless you. It’s no good
trying to make a fuss about it.”

I held a purse of money in my
hand.

“No, Thompson,” I replied, “I
cannot accept it. Do not think me
proud or ungrateful; but I have no
right to take it.”

“It’s only twenty guineas, man,
and I can afford it. Now look, Stukely,
you are going to leave me. If you
don’t take it, you’ll make me as
wretched as the day is long. You
are my friend, and my friend mustn’t
go amongst strangers without an independent
spirit. If you have twenty
guineas in your pocket, you needn’t
be worrying yourself about little things.
You’ll find plenty of ways to make the
money useful. You shall pay me, if
you like, when you grow rich, and we
meets again; but take it now, and make
John Thompson happy.”

In the lap of nature the troubled
mind gets rest; and the wounds of
the heart heal rapidly, once delivered
there, safe from contact with the infectious
world; and the bosom of the
nursing mother is not more powerful
or quick to lull the pain and still the
sobs of her distressed ones. It is the
sanctuary of the bruised spirit, and to
arrive at it is to secure shelter and to
find repose. Peace, eternal and blessed,
birthright and joy of angels,
whither do those glimpses hover that
we catch of thee in this tumultuous
life, weak, faint, and transient though
they be, melting the human soul with
heavenly tranquillity? Whither, if
not upon the everlasting hills, where
the brown line divides the sky, or on
the gentle sea, where sea and sky are
one—a liquid cupola—or in the leafy
woods and secret vales, where beauty
lends her thrilling voice to silence?
How often will the remembrance only
of one bright spot—a vision of Paradise
rising over the dull waste of my
existence—send a glow of comfort to
my aged heart, and a fresh feeling of
repose which the harsh business of
life cannot extinguish or disturb!
And what a fair history comes with
that shadowy recollection! How much
of passionate condensed existence is
involved in it, and how mysteriously,
yet naturally connected with it, seem
all the noblest feelings of my imperfect
nature! The scene of beauty has
become “a joy for ever.”

I recall a spring day—a sparkling
day of the season of youth and promise—and
a nook of earth, fit for the
wild unshackled sun to skip along and
brighten with his inconstant giddy
light. Hope is everywhere; murmuring
in the brooks, and smiling in
the sky. Upon the bursting trees she
sits; she nestles in the hedges. She
fills the throat of mating birds, and
bears the soaring lark nearer and
nearer to the gate of Heaven. It is
the first holiday of the year, and the
universal heart is glad. Grief and
apprehension cannot dwell in the human
breast on such a day; and, for an
hour, even Self is merged in the general
joy. I reach my destination;
and the regrets for the past, and the
fear for the future, which have accompanied
me through the long and
anxious journey, fall from the oppressed
spirit, and leave it buoyant,
cheerful, free—free to delight itself
in a land of enchantment, and to revel
again in the unsubstantial glories of
a youthful dream. I paint the Future
in the colours that surround me, and
I confide in her again.

It was noon when we reached the
headquarters of the straggling parish
of Deerhurst—its chief village. We
had travelled since the golden sunrise
over noble earth, and amongst
scenes scarcely less heavenly than the
blue vault which smiled upon them.
Now the horizon was bounded by a
range of lofty hills linked to each
other by gentle undulations, and bearing
to their summits innumerable and
giant trees; these, crowded together,
and swayed by the brisk wind, presented
to the eye the figure of a vast
and supernatural sea, and made the
intervening vale of loveliness a neglected
blank. Then we emerged
suddenly—yes, instantaneously—as
though designing nature, with purpose
to surprize, had hid behind the jutting
crag, beneath the rugged steep—upon
a world of beauty; garden upon garden,
sward upon sward, hamlet upon
hamlet, far as the sight could reach,
and purple shades of all beyond.
Then, flashes of the broad ocean, like
quick transitory bursts of light, started
at intervals, washing the feet of a
tall emerald cliff, or, like a lake,
buried between the hills. Shorter
and shorter become the intermissions,
larger and larger grows the watery
expanse, until, at length, the mighty
element rolls unobstructed on, and
earth, decked in her verdant leaves,
her flowers and gems, is on the shore
to greet her.

The entrance to the village is by a
swift, precipitous descent. On either
side are piled rude stones, placed there
by a subtle hand, and with a poet’s
aim, to touch the fancy, and to soothe
the traveller with thoughts of other
times—of ruined castles, and of old
terrace walks. Already have the
stones fulfilled their purpose, and the
ivy, the brier, and the saxifrage have
found a home amongst them. At the
foot of the declivity, standing like a
watchful mother, is the church—the
small, the unpretending, the venerable
and lovely village church. You do
not see a house till she is passed. Before
a house was built about her, she
was an aged church, and her favoured
graves were rich in heavenly clay.
The churchyard gate; and then at
once, the limited and quiet village,
nestling in a valley and shut out from
the world: beautiful and self-sufficient.
Hill upon hill behind, each greener
than the last—hill upon hill before,
all exclusion, and nothing but her
own surpassing loveliness to console
and cheer her solitude. And is it not
enough? What if she know little of
the sea beyond its voice, and nothing
of external life—her crystal stream,
her myrtle-covered cottages, her garden
plots, her variegated flowers and
massive foliage, her shady dells and
scented lanes are joys enough for her
small commonwealth. Thin curling
smoke that rises like a spirit from
the hidden bosom of one green hillock,
proclaims the single house that
has its seat upon the eminence. It is
the parsonage—my future home.

With a trembling heart I left the
little inn, and took my silent way to
the incumbent’s house. There was
no eye to follow me, the leafy street
was tenantless, and seemed made over
to the restless sun and dissolute winds
to wanton through it as they pleased.
As I ascended, the view enlarged—beauty
became more beauteous, silence
more profound. I reached the
parsonage gate, and my heart yearned
to tell how much I longed to live and
die on this sequestered and most peaceful
spot. The dwelling-house was
primitive and low; its long and overhanging
roof was thatched; its windows
small and many. A myrtle,
luxuriant as a vine, covered its entire
front, and concealed the ancient brick
and wood. A raised bank surrounded
the green nest, and a gentle slope conducted
to a lawn fringed with the earliest
flowers of the year. I rang the
loud bell, and a neatly dressed servant-girl
gave me admittance to the
house. In a room of moderate size,
furnished by a hand as old at least as
the grandsires of the present occupants,
and well supplied with books,
sat the incumbent. He was a man of
fifty years of age or more, tall and
gentlemanly in demeanour. His head
was partly bald, and what remained of
his hair was grey almost to whiteness.
He had a noble forehead, a marked
brow, and a cold grey eye. His
mouth betrayed sorrow, or habitual
deep reflection, and the expression of
every other feature tended to seriousness.
The first impression was unfavourable.
A youth, who was reading
with the minister when I entered
the apartment, was dismissed with a
simple inclination of the head, and the
Rev. Walter Fairman then pointed to
a seat.

“You have had a tedious journey,
Mr Stukely,” began the incumbent,
“and you are fatigued, no doubt.”

“What a glorious spot this is, sir!”
I exclaimed.

“Yes, it is pretty,” answered Mr
Fairman, very coldly as I thought.
“Are you hungry, Mr Stukely? We
dine early; but pray take refreshment
if you need it.”

I declined respectfully.

“Do you bring letters from my
agent?”

“I have a parcel in my trunk, sir,
which will be here immediately.
What magnificent trees!” I exclaimed
again, my eyes riveted upon a stately
cluster, which were about a hundred
yards distant.

“Have you been accustomed to
tuition?” asked Mr Fairman, taking
no notice of my remark.

“I have not, sir, but I am sure
that I shall be delighted with the
occupation. I have always thought
so.”

“We must not be too sanguine.
Nothing requires more delicate handling
than the mind of youth. In no
business is experience, great discernment
and tact, so much needed as in
that of instruction.”

“Yes, sir, I am aware of it.”

“No doubt,” answered Mr Fairman
quietly. “How old are you?”

I told my age, and blushed.

“Well, well,” said the incumbent,
“I have no doubt we shall do. You
are a Cambridge man, Mr Graham
writes me?”

“I was only a year, sir, at the university.
Circumstances prevented a
longer residence. I believe I mentioned
the fact to Mr Graham.”

“Oh yes, he told me so. You
shall see the boys this afternoon. They
are fine-hearted lads, and much may
be done with them. There are six.
Two of them are pretty well advanced.
They read Euripides and
Horace. Is Euripides a favourite of
yours?”

“He is tender, plaintive, and passionate,”
I answered; “but perhaps I
may be pardoned if I venture to prefer
the vigour and majesty of the sterner
tragedian.”

“You mean you like Æschylus
better. Do you write poetry, Mr
Stukely? Not Latin verses, but English
poetry.”

“I do not, sir.”

“Well, I am glad of that. It
struck me that you did. Will you
really take no refreshment? Are you
not fatigued?”

“Not in the least, sir. This lovely
prospect, for one who has seen so little
of nature as I have, is refreshment
enough for the present.”

“Ah,” said Mr Fairman, sighing
faintly, “you will get accustomed to
it. There is something in the prospect,
but more in your own mind.
Some of our poor fellows would be
easily served and satisfied, if we could
feed them on the prospect. But if
you are not tired you shall see more
of it if you will. I have to go down
to the village. We have an hour
till dinner-time. Will you accompany
me?”

“With pleasure, sir.”

“Very well.” Mr Fairman then rang
the bell, and the servant girl came in.

“Where’s Miss Ellen, Mary?”
asked the incumbent.

“She has been in the village since
breakfast, sir. Mrs Barnes sent word
that she was ill, and Miss took her the
rice and sago that Dr Mayhew ordered.”

“Has Warden been this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“Foolish fellow. I’ll call on him.
Mary, if Cuthbert the fisherman
comes, give him that bottle of port
wine; but tell him not to touch a drop
of it himself. It is for his sick child,
and it is committing robbery to take
it. Let him have the blanket also
that was looked out for him.”

“It’s gone, sir. Miss sent it yesterday.”

“Very well. There is nothing
more. Now, Mr Stukely, we will go.”

I have said already that the first
opinion which I formed of the disposition
of Mr Fairman was not a flattering
one. Before he spoke a word,
I felt disappointed and depressed.
My impression after our short conversation
was worse than the first.
The natural effect of the scene
in which I suddenly found myself,
had been to prepare my ever too
forward spirit for a man of enthusiasm
and poetic temperament. Mr
Fairman was many degrees removed
from warmth. He spoke to me in
a sharp tone of voice, and sometimes,
I suspected, with the intention
of mocking me. His manner, when
he addressed the servant-girl, was not
more pleasing. When I followed him
from the room, I regretted the haste
with which I had accepted my appointment;
but a moment afterwards
I entered into fairyland again, and
the passing shadow left me grateful
to Providence for so much real enjoyment.
We descended the hill,
and for a time, in silence, Mr Fairman
was evidently engaged in deep
thought, and I had no wish to disturb
him. Every now and then we lighted
upon a view of especial beauty, and I
was on the point of expressing my unbounded
admiration, when one look at
my cool and matter-of-fact companion
at once annoyed and stopped me.

“Yes,” said Mr Fairman at length,
still musing. “It is very difficult—very
difficult to manage the poor. I
wonder if they are grateful at heart.
What do you think, Mr Stukely?”

“I have nothing to say of the poor,
sir, but praise.”

Mr Fairman looked hard at me, and
smiled unpleasantly.

“It is the scenery, I suppose. That
will make you praise every thing for
the next day or so. It will not do,
though. We must walk on our feet,
and be prosaic in this world. The
poor are not as poets paint them, nor
is there so much happiness in a hovel
as they would lead you to expect. The
poets are like you—they have nothing
to say but praise. Ah, me! they draw
largely on their imaginations.”

“I do not, sir, in this instance,”
I answered, somewhat nettled. “My
most valued friends are in the humblest
ranks of life. I am proud to say
so. I am not prepared to add, that
the most generous of men are the most
needy, although it has been my lot to
meet with sympathy and succour at
the hands of those who were much in
want of both themselves.”

“I believe you, Mr Stukely,” answered
the incumbent in a more feeling
tone. “I am not fond of theories;
yet that’s a theory with which I would
willingly pass through life; but it will
not answer. It is knocked on the head
every hour of the day. Perhaps it is
our own fault. We do not know how
to reach the hearts, and educate the
feelings of the ignorant and helpless.
Just step in here.”

We were standing before a hut at
the base of the hill. It was a low
dirty-looking place, all roof, with a
neglected garden surrounding it. One
window was in the cob-wall. It had
been fixed there originally, doubtless
with the object of affording light to
the inmates; but light, not being essential
to the comfort or happiness of the
present tenants, was in a great measure
excluded by a number of small
rags which occupied the place of the
diamond panes that had departed
many months before. A child, ill-clad,
in fragments of clothes, with
long and dirty hair, unclean face, and
naked feet, cried at the door, and loud
talking was heard within. Mr Fairman
knocked with his knuckle before he
entered, and a gruff voice desired him to
“come in.” A stout fellow, with a
surly countenance and unshaven beard,
was sitting over an apology for a fire,
and a female of the same age and condition
was near him. She bore an
unhappy infant in her arms, whose
melancholy peakish face, not twelve-months
old, looked already conscious
of prevailing misery. There was no
flooring to the room, which contained
no one perfect or complete article of
furniture, but symptoms of many,
from the blanketless bed down to the
solitary coverless saucepan. Need I
add, that the man who sat there, the
degraded father of the house, had his
measure of liquor before him, and
that the means of purchasing it were
never wanting, however impudently
charity might be called upon to supply
the starving family with bread?

The man did not rise upon our entrance.
He changed colour very
slightly, and looked more ignorantly
surly, or tried to do so.

“Well, Jacob Warden,” said the
incumbent, “you are determined to
brave it out, I see.” The fellow did
not answer.

“When I told you yesterday that
your idleness and bad habits were
bringing you to ruin, you answered—I
was a liar. I then said, that when
you were sorry for having uttered
that expression, you might come to
the parsonage and tell me so. You
have not been yet—I am grieved to
say it. What have I ever done to you,
Jacob Warden, that you should behave
so wickedly? I do not wish you
to humble yourself to me, but I should
have been glad to see you do your
duty. If I did mine, perhaps, I should
give you up, and see you no more, for
I fear you are a hardened man.”

“He hasn’t had no work for a
month,” said the wife, in a tone of upbraiding,
as if the minister had been
the wilful cause of it.

“And whose fault is that, Mrs
Warden? There is work enough for
sober and honest men in the parish.
Why was your husband turned away
from the Squire’s?”

“Why, all along of them spoons.
They never could prove it agin him,
that’s one thing—though they tried it
hard enough.”

“Come, come, Mrs Warden, if
you love that man, take the right
way to show it. Think of your children.”

“Yes; if I didn’t—who would, I
should like to know? The poor are
trodden under foot.”

“Not so, Mrs Warden, the poor
are taken care of, if they are deserving.
God loves the poor, and commands
us all to love them. Give me
your Bible?” The woman hesitated a
minute, and then answered—

“Never mind the Bible, that won’t
get us bread.”

“Give me your Bible, Mrs Warden.”

“We have’nt got it. What’s the
use of keeping a Bible in the house for
children as can’t read, when they are
crying for summat to eat?”

“You have sold it, then?”

“We got a shilling on it—that’s all.”

“Have you ever applied to us for
food, and has it been denied you?”

“Well, I don’t know. The servant
always looks grumpy at us when we
come a-begging, and seems to begrudge
us every mouthful. It’s all very well
to live on other persons’ leavings. I
dare say you don’t give us what you
could eat yourselves.”

“We give the best we can afford,
Mrs Warden, and, God knows, with
no such feeling as you suppose. How
is the child? Is it better?”

“Yes, no thanks to Doctor Mayhew
either.”

“Did he not call, then?”

“Call! Yes, but he made me tramp
to his house for the physic, and when
he passed the cottage the other day, I
called after him; but devil a bit would
he come back. We might have died
first, of course: he knows, he isn’t paid,
and what does he care?”

“It is very wrong of you to talk so.
You are well aware that he was hurrying
to a case of urgency, and could
not be detained. He visited you upon
the following day, and told you so.”

“Oh yes, the following day!
What’s that to do with it?”

“Woman” exclaimed Mr Fairman,
solemnly, “my heart bleeds for those
poor children. What will become of
them with such an example before
their eyes? I can say no more to
you than I have repeated a hundred
times before. I would make you
happy in this world if I could; I
would save you. You forbid me. I
would be your true friend, and you
look upon me as an enemy. Heaven,
I trust, will melt your heart! What
is that child screaming for?”

“What! she hasn’t had a blessed
thing to-day. We had nothing for her.”

Mr Fairman took some biscuits from
his pockets, and placed them on the
table. “Let the girl come in, and
eat,” said he. “I shall send you some
meat from the village. Warden, I
cannot tell you how deeply I feel
your wickedness. I did expect you to
come to the parsonage and say you
were sorry. It would have looked
well, and I should have liked it. You
put it out of my power to help you.
It is most distressing to see you both
going headlong to destruction. May
you live to repent! I shall see you
again this evening, and I will speak
to you alone. Come, Mr Stukely,
our time is getting short.”

The incumbent spoke rapidly, and
seemed affected. I looked at him, and
could hardly believe him to be the
cold and unimpassioned man that I
had at first imagined him.

We pursued our way towards the
village.

“There, sir,” said the minister in a
quick tone of voice, “what is the
beautiful prospect, and what are the
noble trees, to the heart of that man?
What have they to do at all with
man’s morality? Had those people
never seen a shrub or flower, could
they have been more impenetrable,
more insolent and suspicious, or
steeped in vice much deeper? That
man wants only opportunity, a large
sphere of action, and the variety of
crime and motive that are to be found
amongst congregated masses of mankind,
to become a monster. His passions
and his vices are as wilful and
as strong as those of any man born
and bred in the sinks of a great city.
They have fewer outlets, less capability
of mischief—and there is the difference.”

I ventured no remark, and the incumbent,
after a short pause, continued
in a milder strain.

“I may be, after all, weak and inefficient.
Doubtless great delicacy and
caution are required. Heavenly
truths are not to be administered to
these as to the refined and willing.
The land must be ploughed, or it is
useless to sow the seed. Am I not
perhaps, an unskilful labourer?”

Mr Fairman stopped at the first
house in the village—the prettiest of
the half dozen myrtle-covered cottages
before alluded to. Here he
tapped softly, and a gentle foot that
seemed to know the visitor hastened
to admit him.

“Well, Mary,” said the minister,
glancing round the room—a clean
and happy-looking room it was—”where’s
Michael?”

“He is gone, sir, as you bade him,
to make it up with Cousin Willett.
He couldn’t rest easy, sir, since you
told him that it was no use coming to
church so long as he bore malice. He
won’t be long, sir.”

Mr Fairman smiled; and cold as his
grey eye might be, it did not seem so
steady now.

“Mary, that is good of him; tell
him his minister is pleased. How is
work with him?”

“He has enough to do, to carry
him to the month’s end, sir.”

“Then at the month’s end, Mary,
let him come to the parsonage. I
have something for him there. But
we can wait till then. Have you seen
the itinerary preacher since?”

“It is not his time, sir. He
didn’t promise to come till Monday
week.”

“Do neither you nor Michael speak
with him, nor listen to his public
preachings. I mean, regard him not
as one having authority. I speak solemnly,
and with a view to your eternal
peace. Do not forget.”

Every house was visited, and in all,
opportunity was found for the exercise
of the benevolent feelings by
which the incumbent was manifestly
actuated. He lost no occasion of affording
his flock sound instruction and
good advice. It could not be doubted
for an instant that their real welfare,
temporal and everlasting, lay
deeply in his heart. I was struck by
one distinguishing feature in his mode
of dealing with his people; it was so
opposed to the doctrine and practice
of Mr Clayton, and of those who were
connected with him. With the latter,
a certain degree of physical fervour,
and a conventional peculiarity
of expression, were insisted upon and
accepted as evidences of grace and renewed
life. With Mr Fairman, neither
acquired heat, nor the more easily
acquired jargon of a clique, were
taken into account. He rather repressed
than encouraged their existence;
but he was desirous, and even
eager, to establish rectitude of conduct
and purity of feeling in the disciples
around him: these were to him
tangible witnesses of the operation of
that celestial Spirit before whose light
the mists of simulation and deceit fade
unresistingly away. I could not help
remarking, however, that in every
cottage the same injunction was given
in respect of the itinerant; the same
solemnity of manner accompanied the
command; the same importance was
attached to its obedience. There
seemed to me, fresh from the hands
of Mr Clayton, something of bigotry
and uncharitableness in all this. I
did not hint at this effect upon my
own mind, nor did I inquire into the
motives of the minister. I was not
pleased; but I said nothing. As if
Mr Fairman read my very thoughts,
he addressed me on the subject almost
before the door of the last cottage was
closed upon us.

“Bigoted and narrow-minded, are
the terms, Mr Stukely, by which the
extremely liberal would characterize
the line of conduct which I am compelled
by duty to pursue. I cannot
be frightened by harsh terms. I am
the pastor of these people, and must
decide and act for them. I am their
shepherd, and must be faithful. Poor
and ignorant, and unripe in judgment,
and easily deceived by the shows and
counterfeits of truth as the ignorant
are, is it for me to hand them over to
perplexity and risk? They are simple
believers, and are contented. They
worship God, and are at peace. They
know their lot, and do not murmur at
it. Is it right that they should be
disturbed with the religious differences
and theological subtleties which
have already divided into innumerable
sects the universal family of Christians
whom God made one? Is it fair
or merciful to whisper into their ears
the plausible reasons of dissatisfaction,
envy, and complaining, to which the
uninformed of all classes but too eagerly
listen? I have ever found the
religious and the political propagandist
united in the same individual.
The man who proposes to the simple
to improve his creed, is ready
to point out the way to better his condition.
He succeeds in rendering
him unhappy in both, and there he
leaves him. So would this man, and
I would rather die for my people,
than tamely give them over to their
misery.”

A tall, stout, weather-beaten man,
in the coarse dress of a fisherman, descending
the hill, intercepted our way.
It was the man Cuthbert, already
mentioned by Mr Fairman. He
touched his southwester to the incumbent.

“How is the boy, Cuthbert?” asked
the minister, stopping at the same
moment.

“All but well, sir. Doctor Mayhew
don’t mean to come again. It’s
all along of them nourishments that
Miss Ellen sent us down. The Doctor
says he must have died without
them.”

“Well, Cuthbert, I trust that we
shall find you grateful.”

“Grateful, sir!” exclaimed the
man. “If ever I forget what you
have done for that poor child, I hope
the breath——” The brawny fisherman
could say no more. His eyes
filled suddenly with tears, and he held
down his head, ashamed of them. He
had no cause to be so.

“Be honest and industrious, Cuthbert;
give that boy a good example.
Teach him to love his God, and his
neighbour as himself. That will be
gratitude enough, and more than pay
Miss Ellen.”

“I’ll try to do it, sir. God bless you!”

We said little till we reached the
parsonage again; but before I re-entered
its gate the Reverend Walter
Fairman had risen in my esteem, and
ceased to be considered a cold and
unfeeling man.

We dined; the party consisting of
the incumbent, the six students, and
myself. The daughter, the only
daughter and child of Mr Fairman,
who was himself a widower, had not
returned from the cottage to which
she had been called in the morning.
It was necessary that a female should
be in constant attendance upon the
aged invalid; a messenger had been
despatched to the neighbouring village
for an experienced nurse; and
until her arrival Miss Fairman would
permit no one but herself to undertake
the duties of the sick chamber.
It was on this account that we were
deprived of the pleasure of her society,
for her accustomed seat was at the
head of her father’s table. I was
pleased with the pupils. They were
affable and well-bred. They treated
the incumbent with marked respect,
and behaved towards their new teacher
with the generous kindness and freedom
of true young gentlemen. The
two eldest boys might be fifteen years
of age. The remaining four could
not have reached their thirteenth year.
In the afternoon I had the scholars to
myself. The incumbent retired to his
library, and left us to pass our first
day in removing the restraint that was
the natural accompaniment of our different
positions, and in securing our
intimacy. I talked of the scenery, and
found willing listeners. They understood
me better than their master, for
they were worshippers themselves.
They promised to show me lovelier
spots than any I had met with yet; sacred
corners, known only to themselves,
down by the sea, where the arbute
and laurustinus grew like trees, and
children of the ocean. Then there were
villages near, more beautiful even than
their own; one that lay in the lap of a
large hill, with the sea creeping round,
or rolling at its feet like thunder,
sometimes. What lanes, too, Miss
Fairman knew of! She would take
me into places worth the looking at;
and oh, what drawings she had made
from them! Their sisters had bought
drawings, and paid very dearly for
them too, that were not half so finely
done! They would ask her to show
me her portfolio, and she would do it
directly, for she was the kindest creature
living. It was not the worst
trait in the disposition of these boys,
that, whatever might be the subject of
conversation, or from whatever point
we might start in our discourse, they
found pleasure in making all things
bear towards the honour and renown
of their young mistress. The scenery
was nothing without Miss Fairman
and her sketches. The house was
dull without her, and the singing in
the church, if she were ill and absent,
was as different as could be. There
were the sweetest birds that could be,
heard warbling in the high trees that
lined the narrow roads; but at Miss
Fairman’s window there was a nightingale
that beat them all. The day
wore on, and I did not see the general
favourite. It was dusk when she
reached the parsonage, and then she
retired immediately to rest, tired from
the labours of the day. The friend
of the family, Doctor Mayhew, had
accompanied Miss Fairman home;
he remained with the incumbent, and
I continued with my young companions
until their bedtime. They departed,
leaving me their books, and
then I took a survey of the work that
was before me. My duties were to
commence on the following day, and
our first subject was the tragedy of
Hecuba. How very grateful did I
feel for the sound instruction which I
had received in early life from my revered
pains-taking tutor, for the solid
groundwork that he had established,
and for the rational mode of tuition
which he had from the first adopted.
From the moment that he undertook
to cultivate and inform the youthful
intellect, this became itself an active
instrument in the attainment of
knowledge—not, as is so often the
case, the mere idle depositary of encumbering
words. It was little that
he required to be gained by rote, for
he regarded all acquisitions as useless
in which the understanding had not
the chiefest share. He was pleased
to communicate facts, and anxious to
discover, from examination, that the
principles which they contained had
been accurately seen and understood.
Then no labour and perseverance on
his part were deemed too great for
his pupil, and the business of his life
became his first pleasure. In the
study of Greek, for which at an early
age I evinced great aptitude, I learnt
the structure of the language and its
laws from the keen observations of
my master, whose rules were drawn
from the classic work before us—rather
than from grammars. To this
hour I retain the information thus
obtained, and at no period of my life
have I ever had greater cause for
thankfulness, than when, after many
months of idleness and neglect, with a
view to purchase bread I opened, not
without anxiety, my book again, and
found that time had not impaired
my knowledge, and that light shone
brightly on the pages, as it did of old.
Towards the close of the evening, I
was invited to the study of Mr Fairman.
Doctor Mayhew was still with
him, and I was introduced to the physician
as the teacher newly arrived
from London. The doctor was a
stout good-humoured gentleman of
the middle height, with a cheerful
and healthy-looking countenance.
He was, in truth, a jovial man, as
well as a great snuff-taker. The incumbent
offered me a chair, and placed
a decanter of wine before me. His
own glass of port was untouched,
and he looked serious and dejected.

“Well, sir, how does London
look?” enquired the doctor, “are
the folks as mad as they used to be?
What new invention is the rage now?
What bubble is going to burst? What
lord committed forgery last? Who
was the last woman murdered before
you started?”

I confessed my inability to answer.

“Well, never mind. There isn’t
much lost. I am almost ashamed of
old England, that’s the truth on’t. I
have given over reading the newspapers,
for they are about as full of
horrors as Miss What’s-her-name’s
tales of the Infernals. What an age
this is! all crime and fanaticism!
Everyman and everything is on the
rush. Come, Fairman, take your wine.”

Mr Fairman sat gazing on the fire,
quietly, and took no notice of the request.
“People’s heads,” continued
the medical gentleman, “seem
turned topsy-turvy. Dear me, how
different it was in my time! What
men are about, I can’t think. The
very last newspaper I read had an
advertisement that I should as soon
have expected to see there when my
father was alive, as a ship sailing
along this coast keel upwards. You
saw it, Fairman. It was just under
the Everlasting Life Pill advertisement;
and announced that the Reverend
Mr Somebody would preach
on the Sunday following, at some conventicle,
when the public were invited
to listen to him—and that the doors
would be opened half an hour earlier
than usual to prevent squeezing.
That’s modern religion, and it looks
as much like ancient play-acting as
two peas. Where will these marching
days of improvement bring us to
at last?”

“Tell me, Mayhew,” said Mr
Fairman, “does it not surprise you
that a girl of her age should be so
easily fatigued?”

“My dear friend, that makes the
sixth time of asking. Let us hope
that it will be the last. I don’t know
what you mean by ‘so easily‘ fatigued.
The poor girl has been in the village
all day, fomenting and poulticing old
Mrs Barnes, and if it had been any
girl but herself, she would have been
tired out long before. Make your
mind easy. I have sent the naughty
puss to bed, and she’ll be as fresh as a
rose in the morning.”

“She must keep her exertions within
proper bounds,” continued the incumbent.
“I am sure she has not
strength enough to carry out her
good intentions. I have watched her
narrowly, and cannot be mistaken.”

“You do wrong, then, Fairman.
Anxious watching creates fear, without
the shadow of an excuse for it.
When we have anything like a bad
symptom, it is time to get uneasy.”

“Yes, but what do you call a bad
symptom, Doctor?”

“Why, I call your worrying yourself
into fidgets, and teazing me into
an ill temper, a shocking symptom of
bad behaviour. If it continue, you
must take a doze. Come, my friend,
let me prescribe that glass of good
old port. It does credit to the cloth.”

“Seriously, Mayhew, have you
never noticed the short, hacking cough
that sometimes troubles her?”

“Yes; I noticed it last January for
the space of one week, when there
was not a person within ten miles of
you who was not either hacking, as
you call it, or blowing his nose from
morning till night. The dear child
had a cold, and so had you, and I, and
everybody else.”

“And that sudden flush, too?”

“Why, you’ll be complaining of the
bloom on the peach next! That’s
health, and nothing else, take my
word for it.”

“I am, perhaps, morbidly apprehensive;
but I cannot forget her poor
mother. You attended her, Mayhew,
and you know how suddenly that
came upon us. Poor Ellen! what
should I do without her!”

“Fairman, join me in wishing success
to our young friend here. Mr
Stukely, here’s your good health; and
success and happiness attend you.
You’ll find little society here; but it
is of the right sort, I can tell you.
You must make yourself at home.”
The minister became more cheerful,
and an hour passed in pleasant conversation.
At ten o’clock, the horse
of Doctor Mayhew was brought to the
gate, and the gentleman departed in
great good-humour. Almost immediately
afterwards, the incumbent
himself conducted me to my sleeping
apartment, and I was not loth to get
my rest. I fell asleep with the beautiful
village floating before my weary
eyes, and the first day of my residence
at the parsonage closed peacefully
upon me.

It was at the breakfast table on the
succeeding morning that I beheld the
daughter of the incumbent, the favourite
and companion of my pupils, and
mistress of the house—a maiden in
her twentieth year. She was simply
and artlessly attired, gentle and retiring
in demeanour, and femininely
sweet rather than beautiful in expression.
Her figure was slender, her
voice soft and musical; her hair light
brown, and worn plain across a forehead
white as marble. The eye-brows
which arched the small, rich, hazel
eyes were delicately drawn, and the
slightly aquiline nose might have
formed a study for an artist. With
the exception, however, of this last-named
feature, there was little in the
individual lineaments of the face to
surprise or rivet the observer. Extreme
simplicity, and perfect innocence—these
were stamped upon the
countenance, and were its charm. It
was a strange feeling that possessed
me when I first gazed upon her through
the chaste atmosphere that dwelt
around her. It was degradation deep
and unaffected—a sense of shame and
undeservedness. I remembered with
self-abhorrence the relation that had
existed between the unhappy Emma
and myself, and the enormity and
disgrace of my offence never looked
so great as now, and here—in the
bright presence of unconscious purity.
She reassured and welcomed me with
a natural smile, and pursued her occupation
with quiet cheerfulness and
unconstraint. I did not wonder that
her father loved her, and entertained
the thought of losing her with fear;
for, young and gentle as she was, she
evinced wisdom and age in her deep
sense of duty, and in the government
of her happy home. Method and
order waited on her doings, and sweetness
and tranquillity—the ease and
dignity of a matron elevating and
upholding the maiden’s native modesty.
And did she not love her sire
as ardently? Yes, if her virgin soul
spoke faithfully in every movement of
her guileless face. Yes, if there be
truth in tones that strike the heart to
thrill it—in thoughts that write their
meaning in the watchful eye, in words
that issue straight from the fount of
love, in acts that do not bear one
shade of selfish purpose. It was not
a labour of time to learn that the existence
of the child, her peace and
happiness, were merged in those of
the fond parent. He was every thing
to her, as she to him. She had no
brother—he no wife: these natural
channels of affection cut away, the
stream was strong and deep that flowed
into each other’s hearts. My first
interview with the young lady was
necessarily limited. I would gladly
have prolonged it. The morning was
passed with my pupils, and my mind
stole often from the work before me
to dwell upon the face and form of
her, whom, as a sister, I could have
doated on and cherished. How happy
I should have been, I deemed, if I
had been so blessed. Useless reflection!
and yet pleased was I to dwell
upon it, and to welcome its return, as
often as it recurred. At dinner we
met again. To be admitted into her
presence seemed the reward for my
morning toil—a privilege rather than
a right. What labour was too great
for the advantage of such moments?—moments
indeed they were, and
less—flashes of time, that were not
here before they had disappeared.
We exchanged but few words. I was
still oppressed with the conviction of
my own unworthiness, and wondered
if she could read in my burning face
the history of shame. How she must
avoid and despise me, thought I, when
she has discovered all, and how bold
and wicked it was to darken the light
in which she lived with the guilt that
was a part of me! Not the less did I
experience this when she spoke to me
with kindness and unreserve. The
feeling grew in strength. I was conscious
of deceit and fraud, and could
not shake the knowledge off. I was
taking mean advantage of her confidence,
assuming a character to which
I had no claim, and listening to the
accents of innocence and virtue with
the equanimity of one good and spotless
as herself. In the afternoon the
young students resumed their work.
When it was over, we strolled amongst
the hills; and, at the close of a delightful
walk, found ourselves in the
enchanting village. Here we encountered
Miss Fairman and the incumbent,
and we returned home in company.
In one short hour we reached
it. How many hours have passed
since that was ravished from the hand
of Time, and registered in the tenacious
memory! Years have floated
by, and silently have dropped into the
boundless sea, unheeded, unregretted;
and these few minutes—sacred relics—live
and linger in the world, in
mercy it may be, to lighten up my
lonely hearth, or save the whitened
head from drooping. The spirit of
one golden hour shall hover through
a life, and shed glory where he falls.
What are the unfruitful, unremembered
years that rush along, frightening
mortality with their fatal speed—an
instant in eternity! What are the
moments loaded with passion, intense,
and never-dying—years, ages upon
earth! Away with the divisions of
time, whilst one short breath—the
smallest particle or measure of duration,
shall outweigh ages. Breathless
and silent is the dewy eve. Trailing
a host of glittering clouds behind him,
the sun stalks down, and leaves the
emerald hills in deeper green. The
lambs are skipping on the path—the
shepherd as loth to lead them home
as they to go. The labourer has done
his work, and whistles his way back.
The minister has much of good and
wise to say to his young family. They
hear the business of the day; their
guardian draws the moral, and bids
them think it over. Upon my arm I
bear his child, the fairest object of the
twilight group. She tells me histories
of this charmed spot, and the good
old tales that are as old as the gray
church beneath us: she smiles, and
speaks of joys amongst the hills, ignorant
of the tearful eye and throbbing
heart beside her, that overflow
with new-found bliss, and cannot bear
their weight of happiness.

Another day of natural gladness—and
then the Sabbath; this not less
cheerful and inspiriting than the preceding.
The sun shone fair upon the
ancient church, and made its venerable
gray stones sparkle and look young
again. The dark-green ivy that for
many a year has clung there, looked
no longer sad and sombre, but gay
and lively as the newest of the new-born
leaves that smiled on every tree.
The inhabitants of the secluded village
were already a-foot when we
proceeded from the parsonage, and
men and women from adjacent villages
were on the road to join them.
The deep-toned bell pealed solemnly,
and sanctified the vale; for its sound
strikes deeply ever on the broad ear
of nature. Willows and yew-trees
shelter the graves of the departed villagers,
and the living wend their way
beneath them, subdued to seriousness,
it may be, by the breathless voice that
dwells in every well-remembered
mound. There is not one who does
not carry on his brow the thoughts
that best become it now. All are well
dressed, all look cleanly and contented.
The children are with their parents,
their natural and best instructors.
Whom should they love so
well? To whom is honour due if not
to them? The village owns no school
to disannul the tie of blood, to warp
and weaken the affection that holds
them well together.

All was quietness and decorum in
the house of prayer. Every earnest
eye was fixed, not upon Mr Fairman,
but on the book from which the people
prayed, in which they found their
own good thoughts portrayed, their
pious wishes told, their sorrow and
repentance in clearest form described.
Every humble penitent was on his
knees. With one voice, loud and
heartfelt, came the responses which
spoke the people’s acquiescence in all
the pastor urged and prayed on their
behalf. The worship over, Mr Fairman
addressed his congregation, selecting
his subject from the lesson of
the day, and fitting his words to the
capacities of those who listened. Let
me particularly note, that whilst the
incumbent pointed distinctly to the
cross as the only ground of a sinner’s
hope, he insisted upon good works as
the necessary and essential accompaniment
of his faith. “Do not tell me,
my dear friends,” he said, at the conclusion
of his address—”do not tell
me that you believe, if your daily life
is unworthy a believer. I will not
trust you. What is your belief, if
your heart is busy in contrivances to
overreach your neighbour? What is
it, if your mind is filled with envy,
malice, hatred, and revenge? What
if you are given over to disgraceful
lusts—to drunkenness and debauchery?
What if you are ashamed to speak the
truth, and are willing to become a
liar? I tell you, and I have warrant
for what I say, that your conduct one
towards another must be straightforward,
honest, generous, kind, and affectionate,
or you cannot be in a safe
and happy state. You owe it to yourselves
to be so; for if you are poor
and labouring men, you have an immortal
soul within you, and it is your
greatest ornament. It is that which
gives the meanest of us a dignity that
no earthly honours can supply; a dignity
that it becomes the first and last
of us by every means to cherish and
support. Is it not, my friends, degrading,
fearful to know that we bear
about with us the very image of our
God, and that we are acting worse
than the very brutes of the field? Do
yourselves justice. Be pure—pure in
mind and body. Be honest, in word
and deed. Be loving to one another.
Crush every wish to do evil, or to
speak harshly; be brothers, and feel
that you are working out the wishes
of a benevolent and loving Father,
who has created you for love, and
smiles upon you when you do his bidding.”
There was more to this effect,
but nothing need be added to explain
the scope and tendency of his discourse.
His congregation could not mistake
his meaning; they could not fail to
profit by it, if reason was not proof
against the soundest argument. As
quietly as, and, if it be possible, more
seriously than, they entered the church,
did the small band of worshippers, at
the close of the service, retire from it.
Could it be my fancy, or did the wife
in truth cling closer to her husband—the
father clasp his little boy more
firmly in his hand? Did neighbour
nod to neighbour more eagerly as they
parted at the churchyard gate—did
every look and movement of the many
groups bespeak a spirit touched, a
mind reproved? I may not say so,
for my own heart was melted by the
scene, and might mislead my judgment.
There was a second service in
the afternoon. This concluded, we
walked to the sea-beach. In the evening
Mr Fairman related a connected
history from the Old Testament,
whilst the pupils tracked his progress
on their maps, and the narrative became
a living thing in their remembrances.
Serious conversation then
succeeded; to this a simple prayer,
and the day closed, sweetly and calmly,
as a day might close in Paradise.

The events of the following month
partook of the character of those already
glanced at. The minister was
unremitting in his attendance upon
his parishioners, and no day passed
during which something had not been
accomplished for their spiritual improvement
or worldly comfort. His
loving daughter was a handmaid at
his side, ministering with him, and
shedding sunshine where she came.
The villagers were frugal and industrious;
and seemed, for the most part,
sensible of their incumbent’s untiring
efforts. Improvement appeared even
in the cottage of the desperate Warden.
Mr Fairman obtained employment for
him. For a fortnight he had attended
to it, and no complaint had reached
the parsonage of misbehaviour. His
wife had learned to bear her imagined
wrongs in silence, and could even
submit to a visit from her best friend
without insulting him for the condescension.
My own days passed
smoothly on. My occupation grew
every day more pleasing, and the results
of my endeavours as gratifying
as I could wish them. My pupils were
attached to me, and I beheld them improving
gradually and securely under
their instruction. Mr Fairman, who,
for a week together, had witnessed the
course of my tuition, and watched it
narrowly, was pleased to express his
approbation in the warmest terms.
Much of the coldness with which I
thought he had at first encountered
me disappeared, and his manner grew
daily more friendly and confiding. His
treatment was most generous. He
received me into the bosom of his
family as a son, and strove to render
his fair habitation my genuine and natural
home.

Another month passed by, and the
colour and tone of my existence had
suffered a momentous change. In the
acquirement of a fearful joy, I had
lost all joy. In rendering every moment
of my life blissful and ecstatic,
I had robbed myself of all felicity. A
few weeks before, and my state of
being had realized a serenity that defied
all causes of perturbation and disquiet.
Now it was a sea of agitation
and disorder; and a breath, a nothing
had brought the restless waves upon
the quiet surface. Through the kindness
of Mr Fairman, my evenings had
been almost invariably passed in the society
of himself and his daughter. The
lads were early risers, and retired, on
that account, at a very early hour to
rest. Upon their dismission, I had
been requested to join the company in
the drawing-room. This company included
sometimes Doctor Mayhew,
the neighbouring squire, or a chance
visitor, but consisted oftenest only of
the incumbent and his daughter.
Aware of the friendly motive which
suggested the request, I obeyed it with
alacrity. On these occasions, Miss
Fairman used her pencil, whilst I read
aloud; or she would ply her needle,
and soothe at intervals her father’s
ear with strains of music, which he, for
many reasons, loved to hear. Once or
twice the incumbent had been called
away, and his child and I were left
together. I had no reason to be silent
whilst the good minister was present,
yet I found that I could speak more
confidently and better when he was
absent. We conversed with freedom
and unrestraint. I found the maiden’s
mind well stored—her voice was not
more sweet than was her understanding
clear and cloudless. Books had
been her joy, which, in the season of
suffering, had been my consolation.
They were a common source of pleasure.
She spoke of them with feeling,
and I could understand her. I regarded
her with deep unfeigned respect; but,
the evening over, I took my leave, as
I had come—in peace. Miss Fairman
left the parsonage to pay a two-days’
visit at a house in the vicinity. Until
the evening of the first day I was not
sensible of her absence. It was then,
and at the customary hour of our reunion,
that, for the first time, I experienced,
with alarm, a sense of loneliness
and desertion—that I became tremblingly
conscious of the secret growth
of an affection that had waited only
for the time and circumstance to make
its presence and its power known and
dreaded. In the daily enjoyment of
her society, I had not estimated its
influence and value. Once denied it,
and I dared not acknowledge to myself
how precious it had become, how
silently and fatally it had wrought
upon my heart. The impropriety and
folly of self-indulgence were at once
apparent—yes, the vanity and wickedness—and,
startled by what looked
like guilt, I determined manfully to
rise superior to temptation. I took
refuge in my books; they lacked their
usual interest, were ineffectual in reducing
the ruffled mind to order. I
rose and paced my room, but I could
not escape from agitating thought. I
sought the minister in his study, and
hoped to bring myself to calm and
reason by dwelling seriously on the
business of the day—with him, the
father of the lady, and my master. He
was not there. He had left the parsonage
with Doctor Mayhew an hour
before. I walked into the open air
restless and unhappy, relying on the
freshness and repose of night to be
subdued and comforted. It was a
night to soften anger—to conquer
envy—to destroy revenge—beautiful
and bright. The hills were bathed in
liquid silvery light, and on their heights,
and in the vale, on all around, lay
passion slumbering. What could I
find on such a night, but favour and
incitement, support and confirmation,
flattery and delusion? Every object
ministered to the imagination, and
love had given that wings. I trembled
as I pursued my road, and fuel found
its unobstructed way rapidly to the
flame within. Self-absorbed, I wandered
on. I did not choose my path.
I believed I did not, and I stopped at
length—before the house that held
her. I gazed upon it with reverence
and love. One room was lighted up.
Shadows flitted across the curtained
window, and my heart throbbed sensibly
when, amongst them, I imagined
I could trace her form. I was borne
down by a conviction of wrong and
culpability, but I could not move, or
for a moment draw away my look. It
was a strange assurance that I felt—but
I did feel it, strongly and
emphatically—that I should see her palpably
before I left the place. I waited for
that sight in certain expectation, and
it came. A light was carried from
the room. Diminished illumination
there, and sudden brightness against a
previously darkened casement, made
this evident. The light ascended—another
casement higher than the last
was, in its turn, illumined, and it betrayed
her figure. She approached
the window, and, for an instant—oh
how brief!—looked into the heavenly
night. My poor heart sickened with
delight, and I strained my eyes long
after all was blank and dark again.

Daylight, and the employments of
day, if they did not remove, weakened
the turbulence of the preceding
night. The more I found my passion
acquiring mastery, with greater
vigour I renewed my work, and with
more determination I pursued the
objects that were most likely to fight
and overcome it. I laboured with the
youths for a longer period. I undertook
to prepare a composition for the
following day which I knew must take
much thought and many hours in
working out. I armed myself at all
points—but the evening came and
found me once more conscious of
a void that left me prostrate. Mr
Fairman was again absent from home.
I could not rest in it, and I too sallied
forth, but this time, to the village. I
would not deliberately offer violence
to my conscience, and I shrunk from
a premeditated visit to the distant
house. My own acquaintances in
the village were not many, or of long
standing, but there were some half
dozen, especial favourites of the incumbent’s
daughter. To one of these
I bent my steps, with no other purpose
than that of baffling time that
hung upon me painfully and heavily
at home. For a few minutes I spoke
with the aged female of the house on
general topics; then a passing observation—in
spite of me—escaped my
lips in reference to Miss Ellen. The
villager took up the theme and expatiated
widely. There was no end to
what she had to say of good and kind
for the dear lady. I could have hugged
her for her praise. Prudence bade
me forsake the dangerous ground, and
so I did, to return again with tenfold
curiosity and zest. I asked a hundred
questions, each one revealing more
interest and ardour than the last, and
involving me in deeper peril. It was
at length accomplished. My companion
hesitated suddenly in a discourse,
then stopped, and looked me in the
face, smiling cunningly. “I tell you
what, sir,” she exclaimed at last, and
loudly, “you are over head and ears
in love, and that’s the truth on’t.”

“Hush, good woman,” I replied,
blushing to the forehead, and hastening
to shut an open door. “Don’t
speak so loud. You mistake, it is no
such thing. I shall be angry if you
say so—very angry. What can you
mean?”

“Just what I say, sir. Why, do
you know how old I am? Seventy-three.
I think I ought to tell, and
where’s the harm of it? Who couldn’t
love the sweetest lady in the parish—bless
her young feeling heart!”

“I tell you—you mistake—you are
to blame. I command you not to repeat
this to a living soul. If it should
come to the incumbent’s ears”—

“Trust me for that, sir. I’m no
blab. He shan’t be wiser for such as
me. But do you mean to tell me, sir,
with that red face of your’n, you
haven’t lost your heart—leave alone
your trembling? ah, well, I hopes
you’ll both be happy, anyhow.”

I endeavoured to remonstrate, but
the old woman only laughed and shook
her aged head. I left her, grieved
and apprehensive. My secret thoughts
had been discovered. How soon
might they be carried to the confiding
minister and his unsuspecting daughter!
What would they think of me!
It was a day of anxiety and trouble,
that on which Miss Fairman returned
to the parsonage. I received my
usual invitation; but I was indisposed,
and did not go. I resolved to see her
only during meals, and when it was
impossible to avoid her. I would not
seek her presence. Foolish effort!
It had been better to pass hours in
her sight, for previous separation made
union more intense, and the passionate
enjoyment of a fleeting instant
was hoarded up, and became nourishment
for the livelong day.

It was a soft rich afternoon in
June, and chance made me the companion
of Miss Fairman. We were
alone: I had encountered her at a distance
of about a mile from the parsonage,
on the sea-shore, whither I had
walked distressed in spirit, and grateful
for the privilege of listening in gloomy
quietude to the soothing sounds of
nature—medicinal ever. The lady
was at my side almost before I was
aware of her approach. My heart
throbbed whilst she smiled upon me,
sweetly as she smiled on all. Her
deep hazel eye was moist. Could it
be from weeping?

“What has happened, Miss Fairman?”
I asked immediately.

“Do I betray my weakness, then?”
she answered. “I am sorry for it;
for dear papa tells all the villagers
that no wise man weeps—and no wise
woman either, I suppose. But I cannot
help it. We are but a small family
in the village, and it makes me
very sad to miss the old faces one after
another, and to see old friends dropping
and dropping into the silent
grave.”

As she spoke the church-bell tolled,
and she turned pale, and ceased. I
offered her my arm, and we walked
on.

“Whom do you mourn, Miss
Fairman?” I asked at length.

“A dear good friend—my best and
oldest. When poor mamma was
dying, she made me over to her care.
She was her nurse, and was mine for
years. It is very wrong of me to weep
for her. She was good and pious,
and is blest.”

The church-bell tolled again, and
my companion shuddered.

“Oh! I cannot listen to that bell,”
she said. “I wish papa would do
away with it. What a withering
sound it has! I heard it first when it
was tolling for my dear mother. It
fell upon my heart like iron then, and
it falls so now.”

“I cannot say that I dislike the
melancholy chime. Death is sad. Its
messenger should not be gay.”

“It is the soul that sees and hears.
Beauty and music are created quickly
if the heart be joyful. So my book says,
and it is true. You have had no cause
to think that bell a hideous thing.”

“Yet I have suffered youth’s severest
loss. I have lost a mother.”

“You speak the truth. Yes, I have
a kind father left me—and you”—

“I am an orphan, friendless and
deserted. God grant, Miss Fairman,
you may be spared my fate for years.”

“Not friendless or deserted either,
Mr Stukely,” answered the young
lady kindly; “papa does not deserve,
I am sure, that you should speak so
harshly.”

“Pardon me, Miss Fairman. I did
not mean to say that. He has been
most generous to me—kinder than I
deserve. But I have borne much,
and still must bear. The fatherless
and motherless is in the world alone.
He needs no greater punishment.”

“You must not talk so. Papa will,
I am sure, be a father to you, as he is
to all who need one. You do not
know him, Mr Stukely. His heart is
overflowing with tenderness and charity.
You cannot judge him by his
manner. He has had his share of sorrow
and misfortune; and death has
been at his door oftener than once.
Friends have been unfaithful and men
have been ungrateful; but trial and
suffering have not hardened him. You
have seen him amongst the poor, but
you have not seen him as I have; nor
have I beheld him as his Maker has,
in the secret workings of his spirit,
which is pure and good, believe me.
He has received injury like a child,
and dealt mercy and love with the liberality
of an angel. Trust my father,
Mr Stukely.”—

The maiden spoke quickly and
passionately, and her neck and face
crimsoned with animation. I quivered,
for her tones communicated fire—but
my line of conduct was marked,
and it shone clear in spite of the clouds
of emotion which strove to envelope
and conceal it—as they did too soon.

“I would trust him, Miss Fairman,
and I do,” I answered with a faltering
tongue. “I appreciate his character
and I revere him. I could have made
my home with him. I prayed that I
might do so. Heaven seemed to have
directed my steps to this blissful spot,
and to have pointed out at length a
resting place for my tired feet. I have
been most happy here—too happy—I
have proved ungrateful, and I know
how rashly I have forfeited this and
every thing. I cannot live here. This
is no home for me. I will go into the
world again—cast myself upon it—do
any thing. I could be a labourer
on the highways, and be contented
if I could see that I had done my duty,
and behaved with honour. Believe
me, Miss Fairman, I have not deliberately
indulged—I have struggled,
fought, and battled, till my brain has
tottered. I am wretched and forlorn—but
I will leave you—to-morrow—would
that I had never come——.”
I could say no more. My full heart
spoke its agony in tears.

“What has occurred? What afflicts
you? You alarm me, Mr Stukely.”

I had sternly determined to permit
no one look to give expression to the
feeling which consumed me, to obstruct
by force the passage of the remotest
hint that should struggle to
betray me; but as the maiden looked
full and timidly upon me, I felt in defiance
of me, and against all opposition,
the tell-tale passion rising from
my soul, and creeping to my eye. It
would not be held back. In an instant,
with one treacherous glance, all
was spoken and revealed.

IMAGINARY CONVERSATION. BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.

Sandt.—Generally men of letters in our days, contrary to the practice of
antiquity, are little fond of admitting the young and unlearned into their
studies or their society.

Kotzebue.—They should rather those than others. The young must cease
to be young, and the unlearned may cease to be unlearned. According to the
letters you bring with you, sir, there is only youth against you. In the seclusion
of a college life, you appear to have studied with much assiduity and advantage,
and to have pursued no other courses than the paths of wisdom.

Sandt.—Do you approve of the pursuit?

Kotzebue.—Who does not?

Sandt.—None, if you will consent that they direct the chase, bag the game,
inebriate some of the sportsmen, and leave the rest behind in the slough.
May I ask you another question?

Kotzebue.—Certainly.

Sandt.—Where lie the paths of wisdom? I did not expect, my dear sir
to throw you back upon your chair. I hope it was no rudeness to seek information
from you?

Kotzebue.—The paths of wisdom, young man, are those which lead us to
truth and happiness.

Sandt.—If they lead us away from fortune, from employments, from civil
and political utility; if they cast us where the powerful persecute, where the
rich trample us down, and where the poorer (at seeing it) despise us, rejecting
our counsel and spurning our consolation, what valuable truth do they
enable us to discover, or what rational happiness to expect? To say that
wisdom leads to truth, is only to say that wisdom leads to wisdom; for such
is truth. Nonsense is better than falsehood; and we come to that.

Kotzebue.—How?

Sandt.—No falsehood is more palpable than that wisdom leads to happiness—I
mean in this world; in another, we may well indeed believe that
the words are constructed of very different materials. But here we are,
standing on a barren molehill that crumbles and sinks under our tread; here
we are, and show me from hence, Von Kotzebue, a discoverer who has not
suffered for his discovery, whether it be of a world or of a truth—whether a
Columbus or a Galileo. Let us come down lower: Show me a man who
has detected the injustice of a law, the absurdity of a tenet, the malversation
of a minister, or the impiety of a priest, and who has not been stoned, or
hanged, or burnt, or imprisoned, or exiled, or reduced to poverty. The chain
of Prometheus is hanging yet upon his rock, and weaker limbs writhe daily
in its rusty links. Who then, unless for others, would be a darer of wisdom?
And yet, how full of it is even the inanimate world? We may gather it out
of stones and straws. Much lies within the reach of all: little has been
collected by the wisest of the wise. O slaves to passion! O minions to power!
ye carry your own scourges about you; ye endure their tortures daily; yet
ye crouch for more. Ye believe that God beholds you; ye know that he will
punish you, even worse than ye punish yourselves; and still ye lick the dust
where the Old Serpent went before you.

Kotzebue.—I am afraid, sir, you have formed to yourself a romantic and
strange idea, both of happiness and of wisdom.

Sandt.—I too am afraid it may be so. My idea of happiness is, the power
of communicating peace, good-will, gentle affections, ease, comfort, independence,
freedom, to all men capable of them.

Kotzebue.—The idea is, truly, no humble one.

Sandt.—A higher may descend more securely on a stronger mind. The
power of communicating those blessings to the capable, is enough for my
aspirations. A stronger mind may exercise its faculties in the divine work of
creating the capacity.

Kotzebue.—Childish! childish!—Men have cravings enow already; give
them fresh capacities, and they will have fresh appetites. Let us be contented
in the sphere wherein it is the will of Providence to place us; and let us render
ourselves useful in it to the utmost of our power, without idle aspirations
after impracticable good.

Sandt.—O sir! you lead me where I tremble to step; to the haunts of your
intellect, to the recesses of your spirit. Alas! alas! how small and how
vacant is the central chamber of the lofty pyramid?

Kotzebue.—Is this to me?

Sandt.—To you, and many mightier. Reverting to your own words; could
not you yourself have remained in the sphere you were placed in?

Kotzebue.—What sphere? I have written dramas, and novels, and travels.
I have been called to the Imperial Court of Russia.

Sandt.—You sought celebrity.—I blame not that. The thick air of multitudes
may be good for some constitutions of mind, as the thinner of solitudes
is for others. Some horses will not run without the clapping of hands; others
fly out of the course rather than hear it. But let us come to the point. Imperial
courts! What do they know of letters? What letters do they countenance—do
they tolerate?

Kotzebue.—Plays.

Sandt.—Playthings.

Kotzebue.—Travels.

Sandt.—On their business. O ye paviours of the dreary road along which
their cannon rolls for conquest! my blood throbs at every stroke of your
rammers. When will ye lay them by?

Kotzebue.—We are not such drudges.

Sandt.—Germans! Germans! Must ye never have a rood on earth ye can
call your own, in the vast inheritance of your fathers?

Kotzebue.—Those who strive and labour, gain it; and many have rich possessions.

Sandt.—None; not the highest.

Kotzebue.—Perhaps you may think them insecure; but they are not lost yet,
although the rapacity of France does indeed threaten to swallow them up.
But her fraudulence is more to be apprehended than her force. The promise
of liberty is more formidable than the threat of servitude. The wise know
that she never will bring us freedom; the brave know that she never can
bring us thraldom. She herself is alike impatient of both; in the dazzle of
arms she mistakes the one for the other, and is never more agitated than in
the midst of peace.

Sandt.—The fools that went to war against her, did the only thing that
could unite her; and every sword they drew was a conductor of that lightening
which fell upon their heads. But we must now look at our homes.
Where there is no strict union, there is no perfect love; and where no perfect
love, there is no true helper. Are you satisfied, sir, at the celebrity and
the distinctions you have obtained?

Kotzebue.—My celebrity and distinctions, if I must speak of them, quite
satisfy me. Neither in youth nor in advancing age—neither in difficult nor
in easy circumstances, have I ventured to proclaim myself the tutor or the
guardian of mankind.

Sandt.—I understand the reproof, and receive it humbly and gratefully.
You did well in writing the dramas, and the novels, and the travels; but,
pardon my question, who called you to the courts of princes in strange
countries?

Kotzebue.—They themselves.

Sandt.—They have no more right to take you away from your country,
than to eradicate a forest, or to subvert a church in it. You belong to the
land that bore you, and were not at liberty—(if right and liberty are one, and
unless they are, they are good for nothing)—you were not at liberty, I repeat
it, to enter into the service of an alien.

Kotzebue.—No magistrate, higher or lower, forbade me. Fine notions of
freedom are these!

Sandt.—A man is always a minor in regard to his fatherland; and the servants
of his fatherland are wrong and criminal, if they whisper in his ear that
he may go away, that he may work in another country, that he may ask to be
fed in it, and that he may wait there until orders and tasks are given for his
hands to execute. Being a German, you voluntarily placed yourself in a
position where you might eventually be coerced to act against Germans.

Kotzebue.—I would not.

Sandt.—Perhaps you think so.

Kotzebue.—Sir, I know my duty.

Sandt.—We all do; yet duties are transgressed, and daily. Where the will
is weak in accepting, it is weaker in resisting. Already have you left the
ranks of your fellow-citizens—already have you taken the enlisting money and
marched away.

Kotzebue.—Phrases! metaphors! and let me tell you, M. Sandt, not very
polite ones. You have hitherto seen little of the world, and you speak rather
the language of books than of men.

Sandt.—What! are books written by some creatures of less intellect than
ours? I fancied them to convey the language and reasonings of men. I was
wrong, and you are right, Von Kotzebue! They are, in general, the productions
of such as have neither the constancy of courage, nor the continuity of
sense, to act up to what they know to be right, or to maintain it, even in
words, to the end of their lives. You are aware that I am speaking now of
political ethics. This is the worst I can think of the matter, and bad enough
is this.

Kotzebue.—You misunderstand me. Our conduct must fall in with our
circumstances. We may be patriotic, yet not puritanical in our patriotism,
not harsh, nor intolerant, nor contracted. The philosophical mind should
consider the whole world as its habitation, and not look so minutely into it
as to see the lines that divide nations and governments; much less should it
act the part of a busy shrew, and take pleasure in giving loose to the tongue,
at finding things a little out of place.

Sandt.—We will leave the shrew where we find her: she certainly is better
with the comedian than with the philosopher. But this indistinctness in the
moral and political line begets indifference. He who does not keep his own
country more closely in view than any other, soon mixes land with sea, and
sea with air, and loses sight of every thing, at least, for which he was placed
in contact with his fellow men. Let us unite, if possible, with the nearest:
Let usages and familiarities bind us: this being once accomplished, let us
confederate for security and peace with all the people round, particularly
with people of the same language, laws, and religion. We pour out wine to
those about us, wishing the same fellowship and conviviality to others: but
to enlarge the circle would disturb and deaden its harmony. We irrigate the
ground in our gardens: the public road may require the water equally: yet
we give it rather to our borders; and first to those that lie against the house!
God himself did not fill the world at once with happy creatures: he enlivened
one small portion of it with them, and began with single affections, as well as
pure and unmixt. We must have an object and an aim, or our strength, if
any strength belongs to us, will be useless.

Kotzebue.—There is much good sense in these remarks: but I am not at
all times at leisure and in readiness to receive instruction. I am old enough to
have laid down my own plans of life; and I trust I am by no means deficient
in the relations I bear to society.

Sandt.—Lovest thou thy children? Oh! my heart bleeds! But the birds
can fly; and the nest requires no warmth from the parent, no cover against
the rain and the wind.

Kotzebue.—This is wildness: this is agony. Your face is laden with large
drops; some of them tears, some not. Be more rational and calm, my dear
young man! and less enthusiastic.

Sandt.—They who will not let us be rational, make us enthusiastic by force.
Do you love your children? I ask you again. If you do, you must love them
more than another man’s. Only they who are indifferent to all, profess a
parity.

Kotzebue.—Sir! indeed your conversation very much surprises me.

Sandt.—I see it does: you stare, and would look proud. Emperors and
kings, and all but maniacs, would lose that faculty with me. I could speedily
bring them to a just sense of their nothingness, unless their ears were calked
and pitched, although I am no Savonarola. He, too, died sadly!

Kotzebue.—Amid so much confidence of power, and such an assumption of
authority, your voice is gentle—almost plaintive.

Sandt.—It should be plaintive. Oh, could it be but persuasive!

Kotzebue.—Why take this deep interest in me? I do not merit nor require
it. Surely any one would think we had been acquainted with each other for
many years.

Sandt.—What! should I have asked you such a question as the last, after
long knowing you?

Kotzebue, (aside.)—This resembles insanity.

Sandt.—The insane have quick ears, sir, and sometimes quick apprehensions.

Kotzebue.—I really beg your pardon.

Sandt.—I ought not then to have heard you, and beg yours. My madness
could release many from a worse; from a madness which hurts them grievously;
a madness which has been and will be hereditary: mine, again and again
I repeat it, would burst asunder the strong swathes that fasten them to pillar
and post. Sir! sir! if I entertained not the remains of respect for you, in
your domestic state, I should never have held with you this conversation.
Germany is Germany: she ought to have nothing political in common with
what is not Germany. Her freedom and security now demand that she celebrate
the communion of the faithful. Our country is the only one in all the
explored regions on earth that never has been conquered. Arabia and Russia
boast it falsely; France falsely; Rome falsely. A fragment off the empire of
Darius fell and crushed her: Valentinian was the footstool of Sapor, and
Rome was buried in Byzantium. Boys must not learn this, and men will not.
Britain, the wealthiest and most powerful of nations, and, after our own, the
most literate and humane, received from us colonies and laws. Alas! those
laws, which she retains as her fairest heritage, we value not: we surrender
them to gangs of robbers, who fortify themselves within walled cities, and
enter into leagues against us. When they quarrel, they push us upon one
another’s sword, and command us to thank God for the victories that enslave
us. These are the glories we celebrate; these are the festivals we hold, on
the burial-mounds of our ancestors. Blessed are those who lie under them!
blessed are also those who remember what they were, and call upon their
names in the holiness of love.

Kotzebue.—Moderate the transport that inflames and consumes you. There
is no dishonour in a nation being conquered by a stronger.

Sandt.—There may be great dishonour in letting it be stronger; great, for
instance, in our disunion.

Kotzebue.—We have only been conquered by the French in our turn.

Sandt.—No, sir, no: we have not been, in turn or out. Our puny princes
were disarmed by promises and lies: they accepted paper crowns from the
very thief who was sweeping into his hat their forks and spoons. A cunning
traitor snared incautious ones, plucked them, devoured them, and slept upon
their feathers.

Kotzebue.—I would rather turn back with you to the ancient glories of our
country than fix my attention on the sorrowful scenes more near to us. We
may be justly proud of our literary men, who unite the suffrages of every
capital, to the exclusion of almost all their own.

Sandt.—Many Germans well deserve this honour, others are manger-fed
and hirelings.

Kotzebue.—The English and the Greeks are the only nations that rival us
in poetry, or in any works of imagination.

Sandt.—While on this high ground we pretend to a rivalship with England
and Greece, can we reflect, without a sinking of the heart, on our inferiority
in political and civil dignity? Why are we lower than they? Our mothers
are like their mothers; our children are like their children; our limbs are as
strong, our capacities are as enlarged, our desire of improvement in the arts
and sciences is neither less vivid and generous, nor less temperate and well-directed.
The Greeks were under disadvantages which never bore in any
degree on us; yet they rose through them vigorously and erectly. They
were Asiatic in what ought to be the finer part of the affections; their women
were veiled and secluded, never visited the captive, never released the slave,
never sat by the sick in the hospital, never heard the child’s lesson repeated
in the school. Ours are more tender, compassionate, and charitable, than
poets have feigned of the past, or prophets have announced of the future;
and, nursed at their breasts and educated at their feet, blush we not at our
degeneracy? The most indifferent stranger feels a pleasure at finding, in
the worst-written history of Spain, her various kingdoms ultimately mingled,
although the character of the governors, and perhaps of the governed, is congenial
to few. What delight, then, must overflow on Europe, from seeing
the mother of her noblest nation rear again her venerable head, and bless all
her children for the first time united!

Kotzebue.—I am bound to oppose such a project.

Sandt.—Say not so: in God’s name, say not so.

Kotzebue.—In such confederacy I see nothing but conspiracy and rebellion,
and I am bound, I tell you again, sir, to defeat it, if possible.

Sandt.—Bound! I must then release you.

Kotzebue.—How should you, young gentleman, release me?

Sandt.—May no pain follow the cutting of the knot! But think again:
think better: spare me!

Kotzebue.—I will not betray you.

Sandt.—That would serve nobody: yet, if in your opinion betraying me
can benefit you or your family, deem it no harm; so much greater has been
done by you in abandoning the cause of Germany. Here is your paper;
here is your ink.

Kotzebue.—Do you imagine me an informer?

Sandt.—From maxims and conduct such as yours, spring up the brood, the
necessity, and the occupation of them. There would be none, if good men
thought it a part of goodness to be as active and vigilant as the bad. I must
go, sir! Return to yourself in time! How it pains me to think of losing you!
Be my friend!

Kotzebue.—I would be.

Sandt.—Be a German!

Kotzebue.—I am.

Sandt, (having gone out.)—Perjurer and profaner! Yet his heart is kindly.
I must grieve for him! Away with tenderness! I disrobe him of the privilege
to pity me or to praise me, as he would have done had I lived of old.
Better men shall do more. God calls them: me too he calls: I will enter the
door again. May the greater sacrifice bring the people together, and hold
them evermore in peace and concord. The lesser victim follows willingly.
(Enters again.)

Turn! die! (strikes.)

Alas! alas! no man ever fell alone. How many innocent always perish
with one guilty! and writhe longer!

Unhappy children! I shall weep for you elsewhere. Some days are left
me. In a very few the whole of this little world will lie between us. I have
sanctified in you the memory of your father. Genius but reveals dishonour,
commiseration covers it.

THE JEWELLER’S WIFE.

A PASSAGE IN THE CAREER OF EL EMPECINADO.

When the Empecinado, after escaping
from the Burgo de Osma, rejoined
his band, and again repaired to the
favourite skirmishing ground on the
banks of the Duero, he found the state
of affairs in Old Castile becoming
daily less favourable for his operations.
The French overran the greater
part of the province, and visited
with severe punishment any disobedience
of their orders; so that the
peasantry no longer dared to assist
the guerillas as they had previously
done. Many of the villages on the
Duero had become afrancesados, not,
it is true, through love, but through
dread of the invaders, and in the hope
of preserving themselves from pillage
and oppression. However much the
people in their hearts might wish success
to men like the Empecinado, the
guerillas were too few and too feeble
to afford protection to those who, by
giving them assistance or information,
would incur the displeasure of the
French. The clergy were the only
class that, almost without an exception,
remained stanch to the cause
of Spanish independence, and their
purses and refectories were ever open
to those who took up arms in its defence.

Noways deterred by this unfavourable
aspect of affairs, the Empecinado
resolved to carry on the war in Old
Castile, even though unaided and alone.
He established his bivouac in the pine-woods
of Coca, and sent out spies towards
Somosierra and Burgos, to get
information of some convoy of which
the capture might yield both honour
and profit.

It was on the second morning after
the departure of the spies, and a few
minutes before daybreak, that the
little camp was aroused by a shot from
a sentry, placed on the skirt of the
wood. In an instant every man was
on his feet. It was the Empecinado’s
custom, when outlying in this manner,
to make one-half his band sleep fully
armed and equipped, with their horses
saddled and bridled beside them; and
a fortunate precaution it was in this
instance. Scarcely had the men time
to untether and spring upon their
horses, when the sentry galloped
headlong into the camp.

“Los Franceses! Los Franceses!”
exclaimed he, breathless with speed.

One of the Empecinado’s first qualities
was his presence of mind, which
never deserted him even in the most
critical situations. Instantly forming
up that moiety of his men which was
already in the saddle, he left a detachment
in front of those who were hastily
saddling and arming, and with the remainder
retired a little to the left of
the open ground on which the bivouac
was established. Almost before he
had completed this arrangement, the
jingling of arms and clattering of
horses’ feet were heard, and a squadron
of French cavalry galloped
down the glade. The Empecinado
gave the word to charge, and as
Fuentes at the head of one party advanced
to meet them, he himself attacked
them in flank. The French,
not having anticipated much opposition
from a foe whom they had expected
to find sleeping, were somewhat
surprized at the fierce resistance
they met. A hard fight took place,
rendered still more confused by the
darkness, or rather by a faint grey
light, which was just beginning to appear,
and gave a shadowy indistinctness
to surrounding objects. The
Spaniards were inferior in number to
their opponents, and it was beginning
to go hard with them, when the remainder
of the guerillas, now armed
and mounted, came up to their assistance.
On perceiving this accession
to their adversaries’ force, the French
thought they had been led into an
ambuscade, and retreating in tolerable
order to the edge of the wood, at last
fairly turned tail and ran for it, leaving
several killed and wounded on the
ground, and were pursued for some distance
by the guerillas, who, however,
only succeeded in making one prisoner.
This was a young man in the dress of
a peasant, who being badly mounted,
was easily overtaken. On being
brought before the Empecinado, the
latter with no small surprize recognized
a native of Aranda, named Pedro
Gutierrez, who was one of the
emissaries he had sent out two days
previously to get information concerning
the movements of the enemy.

With pale cheek and faltering
voice, the prisoner answered the Empecinado’s
interrogatories. It appears
that he had been detected as a spy by
the French, who had given him his
choice between a halter and the betrayal
of his countrymen and employers.
With the fear of death before
his eyes, he had consented to turn
traitor.

The deepest silence prevailed among
the guerillas during his narrative, and
remained unbroken for a full minute
after he had concluded. The Empecinado’s
brow was black as thunder,
and his features assumed an expression
which the trembling wretch well
knew how to interpret.

“Que podia hacer, señores?” said
the culprit, casting an appealing, imploring
glance around him. “The
rope was round my neck; I have an
aged father and am his only support.
Life is very sweet. What could I
do?”

“Die!” replied the Empecinado,
in his deep stern voice—”Die like a
man then, instead of dying like a dog
now!”

He turned his back upon him, and
ten minutes later, the body of the unfortunate
spy was dangling from the
branches of a neighbouring tree, and
the guerillas marched off to seek another
and a safer bivouac.

A few days after this incident the
other spies returned, and after receiving
their report, and consulting with
his lieutenant, Mariano Fuentes, the
Empecinado broke up the little camp,
and led his band in the direction of
the camino réal.

Along that part of the high-road,
from Madrid to the Pyrenees, which
winds through the mountain range of
Onrubias, an escort of fifty French
dragoons was marching, about an hour
before dusk, on an evening of early
spring. Two carriages, and three or
four heavily-laden carts, each drawn
by half-a-dozen mules, composed the
whole of the convoy; the value of
which, however, might be deemed
considerable, judging from the strength
of the escort, and the precautions observed
by the officer in command to
avoid a surprise—precautions which
were not of much avail; for, on reaching
a spot where the road widened
considerably, and was traversed by a
broad ravine, the party was suddenly
charged on either flank by double their
number of guerillas. The dragoons
made a gallant resistance, but it was
a short one, for they had no room or
time to form in any order, and were
far overmatched in the hand-to-hand
contest that ensued. With the very
first who fled went a gentleman in
civilian’s garb, who sprang out of the
most elegant of the two carriages, and
mounting a fine Andalusian horse led
by a groom, was off like the wind,
disregarding the shrieks of his travelling
companion, a female two or three-and-twenty
years old, of great beauty,
and very richly attired. The cries
and alarm of the lady thus deserted
were redoubled, when an instant later
a guerilla of fierce aspect presented
himself at the carriage-door.

“Have no fear, señora,” said the
Empecinado, “you are in the hands
of honourable men, and no harm shall
be done you.” And having by suchlike
assurances succeeded in calming
her terrors, he obtained from her
some information as to the contents
of the carts and carriages, as well as
regarding herself and her late companion.

The man who had abandoned her,
and consulted his own safety by flying
with the escort, was her husband,
Monsieur Barbot, jeweller and diamond
merchant to the late King
Charles the Fourth. Alarmed by the
unsettled state of things in Spain, he
was hastening to take refuge in France,
with his handsome wife and his great
wealth—of the latter of which no inconsiderable
portion was contained in
the carriage, in the shape of caskets
of jewellery, diamonds, and other
valuables.

Repairing to the neighbouring
mountains, the guerillas proceeded to
examine their booty, which the Empecinado
permitted them to divide
among themselves, with the exception
of the carriage and its contents, including
the lady, which he reserved
for his own share.

On the following day came letters
from the French military governor of
Aranda del Duero, and from Monsieur
Barbot, who had taken refuge in that
town, and offered a large sum as ransom
for his wife. To this application
the Empecinado did not vouchsafe
any answer, but marched off to his
native village of Castrillo, taking with
him jewels, carriage, and lady. The
latter he established in the house of
his brother Manuel, recommending
her to the care of his sister-in-law,
and commanding that she should be
treated with all possible respect, and
her wishes attended to on every point.

The Empecinado’s exultation at
the success of his enterprize was great,
but he little foresaw all the danger
and trouble that his rich capture was
hereafter to occasion him. He had
become violently enamoured of his fair
prisoner, and in order to have leisure
to pay his court to her, he sent off his
partida on a distant expedition under
the command of Fuentes, and himself
remained at Castrillo, doing his utmost
to find favour in the eyes of the
beautiful Madame Barbot. He was then
in the prime of life, a remarkably
handsome man, and notwithstanding
that the French affected to treat him
as a brigand, his courage and patriotism
were admitted by the unprejudiced
among all parties, and his bold
and successful deeds had already
procured him a degree of renown that
was an additional recommendation of
him to the fair sex. It may not,
therefore, be deemed very surprising
that, after the first few days of her
captivity were passed, and she had
become a little used to the novelty of
her position, the lady began to consider
the Empecinado with some
degree of favour, and seemed not altogether
disposed to be inconsolable in
her widowhood. He on his part spared
no pains to please her. His very nature
seemed changed by the violence
of his new passion; and so great was
the metamorphosis that his best friends
scarcely recognized him for the same
man. He seemed totally to have forgotten
the career to which he had devoted
himself, and the hatred and
war of extermination he had vowed
against the French. The restless activity
and spirit of enterprize which
formed such distinguishing traits in
his character, were completely lulled
to sleep by the charms of the fair
Barbot. Nor was the change in his
external appearance less striking.
Aware that the rude manners and
attire of a guerilla were not likely to
please the fastidious taste of a town-bred
dame, he hastened to discard
them. His rough bushy beard and
mustaches were carefully trimmed
and adjusted by the most expert barber
of the neighbourhood; his
sheepskin jacket, heavy boots, and jingling
double-roweled spurs thrown aside,
and in their place he assumed the national
garb, so well adapted to show
off a handsome person, and which,
although now almost disused throughout
Spain, far surpasses in elegance the
prevailing costumes of the nineteenth
century: a short light jacket of black
velvet, and waistcoat of the richest
silk, both profusely decorated with
gold filigree buttons; purple velvet
breeches fastened at the knee with
bunches of ribands; silk stockings,
and falling boots of chamois leather,
by the most expert maker in Cordova;
a crimson silk sash round his waist,
and round his neck a silk handkerchief,
of which the ends were drawn
through a magnificent jewelled ring.
A green velvet cap, ornamented with
sables and silver, and an ample cloak
trimmed with silver lace, the spoil of
a commandant of French gendarmes,
completed this picturesque costume.

Thus attired, and mounted on a
splendid horse, the Empecinado escorted
the object of his new flame to
all the fêtes and merry-makings of the
surrounding country. Not a romeria
in the neighbouring villages, not a
fair or a bull-fight in all the valley of
the Duero, but were graced by the
presence of Martin Diez and his dulcinea,
whose fine horse and gallant
equipment, but more especially the
beauty of the rider, inspired universal
admiration. As might be expected,
many of those who had known the
Empecinado a poor vine-dresser, became
envious of his good fortune,
and others who envied him not, were
indignant at seeing him waste his
time in such degrading effeminacy,
instead of following up the career
which he had so nobly begun. There
was much murmuring, therefore, to
which, however, he gave little heed;
and several weeks had passed in the
manner above described, when an incident
occurred to rouse him from the
sort of lethargy in which he was sunk.

A despatch reached him from the
Captain-General, Don Gregorio Cuesta,
requiring his immediate presence
at Ciudad Rodrigo, there to receive
directions concerning the execution
of a service of the greatest importance,
and which was to be intrusted
to him.

This order had its origin in circumstances
of which the Empecinado was
totally ignorant. The jeweller Barbot,
finding that neither large offers
nor threats of punishment had any
effect upon the Empecinado, who persisted
in keeping his wife prisoner,
made interest with the Duke of Infantado,
then general of one of the
Spanish armies, and besought him to
exert his influence in favour of the
captive lady, and to have her restored
to her friends. The duke, who was
a very important personage at the
court of Charles the Fourth, and the
favourite of Ferdinand the Seventh
at the beginning of his reign, entertained
a particular friendship for Barbot;
and, if the chronique scandaleuse
of Madrid might be believed, a still
more particular one for his wife. He
immediately wrote to General Cuesta,
desiring that the lady might be sent
back to her husband without delay, as
well as all the jewels and other spoil
that had been seized by the Empecinado.

With much difficulty did the guerilla
make up his mind to abandon
the inglorious position, and to go
where duty called him. Strongly
recommending his captive to his brother
and sister-in-law, he set out for
Ciudad Rodrigo, escorted by a sergeant
and ten men of his partida.
They had not proceeded half a mile
from Castrillo, when, from behind a
hedge bordering the road, a shot was
fired, and the bullet slightly wounded
the Empecinado’s charger. Two of
the escort pushed their horses through
the hedge, and immediately returned,
dragging between them a grey-haired
old man, seventy years of age, who
clutched in his wrinkled fingers a
rusty carbine that had just been discharged.

“He is surely mad!” exclaimed
the Empecinado, gazing in astonishment
at the venerable assassin. “Dime,
viejo; do you know me? And why do
you seek my life?”

“Si, si, te conozes. You are the
Empecinado—the bloody Empecinado.
Give me back my Pedro,
whom you murdered. Ay di me!
mi Pedrillo, te han matado!“

And the old man’s frame quivered
with rage, as he glared on the Empecinado
with an expression of unutterable
hate.

One of the guerillas stepped forward—

“‘Tis old Gutierrez, the father of
Pedro, who was hung in the Piñares
de Coca, for betraying us to the
French.”

“Throw his carbine into yonder
pool, and leave the poor wretch,” said
the Empecinado; “his son deserved
the death he met.”

“He missed his aim to-day, but he
may point truer another time,” said
one of the men, half drawing a pistol
from his holster.

“Harm him not!” said the Empecinado
sternly, and the party rode on.

“Maldito seas!” screamed the old
man, casting himself in the dust of
the road, in a paroxysm of impotent
fury. “Maldito! Maldito! Ay de
mi! mi Pedrillo!“

And his curses and lamentations
continued till the guerillas were out
of hearing.

On arriving at Ciudad Rodrigo, the
Empecinado went immediately to General
Cuesta, who, although he did
not receive him unkindly, could not
but blame him greatly for the enormous
crime he had committed in carrying
off a lady who was distinguished
by so mighty a personage as the Duke
of Infantado. He told him it was absolutely
necessary to devise some plan
by which the Duke’s anger might be
appeased. Murat also had sent a message
to the central junta, saying, that
if satisfaction were not given, he
would send troops to lay waste the
whole district of Penafiel, in which
Castrillo was situated; and it was
probable, that if he had not done so
already, it was because a large portion
of the inhabitants of that district were
believed to be well affected to the
French. Without exactly telling him
what he must do, the old general gave
him a despatch for the corregidor of
Penafiel, and desired him to present
himself before that functionary, and
concert with him the measures to be
taken.

The Empecinado took his leave,
and was quitting the governor’s palace
when he overtook at the door an
avogado, who was a countryman of
his, and whom he had left at Castrillo
when he set out from that place. The
sight of this man was a ray of light to
the Empecinado, who immediately suspected
that his enemies were intriguing
against him. He proposed to the
lawyer that they should walk
to the inn, to which the latter consented.
They had to traverse a lonely
place, known by the name of San
Francisco’s Meadow, and on arriving
there, behind the shelter of some walls,
the Empecinado seized the advocate
by the collar, and swore he would
strangle him if he did not instantly
confess what business had brought
him to Ciudad Rodrigo, as well as all
the plans or plots against the Empecinado
to which he might be privy.

The lawyer, who had known Diez
from his childhood, and was fully
aware of his desperate character and
of his own peril, trembled for his life,
and besought him earnestly to use no
violence, for that he was willing to
tell all he knew. Thereupon the Empecinado
loosened his grasp, which
had wellnigh throttled the poor avogado,
and cocking a pistol, as a sort
of warning to the other to tell the
truth, bade him sit down beside him
and proceed with his narrative.

The lawyer informed him that the
ayuntamiento or corporation of Castrillo,
and those of all the towns and
villages of the district, found themselves
in great trouble on account of
the convoy he had intercepted, and
more particularly of the lady whom
he kept prisoner, and whose friends it
appeared were persons of much influence
with both contending parties, for
that the junta and the French had
alike demanded her liberty; and while
the latter were about to send troops
to put the whole country to fire and
sword, the former, as well as the Spanish
generals, had refused to afford
them any protection against the consequences
of her detention, and accused
the ayuntamiento and the priests
of encouraging the Empecinado to
hold her in captivity. He himself
had been sent to Ciudad Rodrigo to
beg General Cuesta’s advice, and the
general had declared himself unable
to assist them, but recommended them
to restore the lady and treasure, if they
did not wish the French to lay waste
the country, and take by force the
bone of contention.

The Empecinado, suspecting that
General Cuesta had not used all due
frankness with him in this matter,
handed to the lawyer the letter that
had been given him for the corregidor
of Penafiel, and compelled him, much
against his will, to open and read it.
Its contents coincided with what the
avogado had told him; the general
advising the corregidor to use every
means to compromise the matter, rather
than wait till the French should
do themselves justice by the strong
hand.

Perceiving that, from various motives,
every body was against him in
this matter, the Empecinado bethought
himself how he should get out of the
scrape.

“As an old friend and countryman,
and more especially as a lawyer,”
said he to the avogado, “you are the
most fitting man to give me advice in
this difficulty. Tell me, then, what I
ought to do, in order that our native
town, which is innocent in the matter,
should suffer no prejudice.”

“You speak now like a sensible
man,” replied the other, “and as a
friend will I advise you. Let us immediately
set off to Penafiel, deliver
the general’s letter to the corregidor,
and take him with us to Castrillo.
There, for form’s sake, an examination
of your conduct in the affair can
take place. You shall give up the
jewels, the carriage, and the lady, and
set off immediately to join your partida.”

“To the greater part of that I willingly
agree,” said the Empecinado.
“The jewels are buried in the cellar,
and the carriage is in the stable.
Take both when you list. But as to
the lady, before I give her up, I will
give up my own soul. She is my
property; I took her in fair fight,
and at the risk of my life.”

“You will think better of it before
we get to Castrillo,” replied the lawyer.

The Empecinado shook his head,
but led the way to the inn, where they
took horse, and the next day reached
Penafiel, whence they set out the following
morning for Castrillo, which is
a couple of leagues further, accompanied
by the corregidor, his secretary,
and two alguazils. The Empecinado
was induced to leave his escort at
Penafiel, in order that the sort of pro
formâ investigation which was to be
gone through might not appear to have
taken place under circumstances of
intimidation. The avogado started a
couple of hours earlier than the rest
of the party, to have things in readiness,
so that the proceedings might be
got through as rapidly as possible.

It was about eight o’clock on a fine
summer’s morning that the Empecinado
and his companions reached Castrillo.
As they entered the town, an
old mendicant, who was lying curled
up like a dog in the sunshine under
the porch of a house, lifted his head
at the noise of the horses. As his
eyes rested upon Diez, he made a
bound forward with an agility extraordinary
in one of his years, and fell
almost under the feet of the Empecinado’s
horse, making the startled animal
spring aside with a violence and
suddenness sufficient to unhorse many
a less practised rider than the one who
bestrode him. The Empecinado lifted
his whip in anger, but the old man,
who had risen to his feet, showed no
sign of fear, and as he stood in the
middle of the road, and immediately
in the path of the Empecinado, the
latter recognized the wild features and
long grey hair of old Gutierrez.

“Maldito seas!” cried the old man,
extending his arms towards the guerilla.
“Murderer! the hour of vengeance
is nigh. I saw it in my dreams.
My Pedrillo showed me his assassin
trampled under the feet of horses.
Asesino! Venga la hora de tu
muerte!“

And the old man, who was half
crazed by his misfortunes, relapsed
into an incoherent strain of lamentations
for his son, and curses upon him
whom he called his murderer.

The Empecinado, who, on recognizing
old Gutierrez, had lowered his
riding-whip, and listened unmoved to
his curses and predictions, rode forward,
explaining as he went, to the
astonished corregidor, the scene that
had just occurred. A little further on
he separated from his companions,
giving them rendezvous at ten o’clock
at the house of the ayuntamiento.
Proceeding to his brother’s dwelling,
he paid a visit to Madame Barbot,
breakfasted with her, and then prepared
to keep his appointment. He
placed a brace of pistols and a poniard
in his belt, and taking a loaded trabuco
or blunderbuss, in his hand,
wrapped himself in his cloak so as to
conceal his weapons, and repaired to
the town-hall.

He found the tribunal already installed,
and every thing in readiness.
Saluting the corregidor, he began pacing
up and down the room without
taking off his cloak. The corregidor
repeatedly urged him to be seated, but
he refused, and continued his walk,
replying to the questions that were
put to him, his answers to which were
duly written down. About a quarter of
an hour had passed in this manner, when
a noise of feet and talking was heard
in the street, and the Empecinado, as
he passed one of the windows that
looked out upon the plaza, saw, with
no very comfortable feelings, that a
number of armed peasants were entering
the town hall. He perceived
that he was betrayed, but his presence
of mind stood his friend, and with his
usual promptitude, he in a moment
decided how he should act. Without
allowing it to appear that he had any
suspicion of what was going on, he
walked to the door of the audience
chamber, and before any one could interfere,
shut and locked it. Then
stepping up to the corregidor, he
threw off his cloak, and presented his
trabuco at the magistrate’s head.

“Señor Corregidor,” said he, “this
is not our agreement, but a base act
of treachery. Commend yourself to
God, for you are about to die.”

The corregidor was so dreadfully
terrified at these words, and at the
menacing action of the Empecinado,
that he swooned away, and fell down
under the table—the escribano fled
into an adjoining chamber, and concealed
himself under a bed—while the
alguazils, trembling with fear, threw
themselves upon their knees, and petitioned
for mercy. The Empecinado,
finding himself with so little trouble
master of the field of battle, took possession
of the papers that were lying
upon the table, and, unlocking the
door, proceeded to the principal staircase,
which he found occupied by
inhabitants of the town, armed with
muskets and fowling-pieces. Placing
his blunderbuss under his arm, with
his hand upon the trigger, “Make
way!” cried he; “the first who
moves a finger may reckon upon the
contents of my trabuco.” His menace
and resolute character produced the
desired effect; a passage was opened,
and he left the house in triumph. On
reaching the street, however, he found
a great crowd of men, women, and
even children, assembled, who occupied
the plaza and all the adjacent
streets, and received him with loud
cries of “Death to the Empecinado!
Muera el ladron y mal Cristiano!”
The armed men whom he had left in
the town-house fired several shots at
him from the windows, but nobody
dared to lay hands upon him, as he
marched slowly and steadily through
the crowd, trabuco in hand, and casting
glances on either side that made
those upon whom they fell shrink involuntarily
backwards.

On the low roof of one of the houses
of the plaza, that formed the angle
of the Calle de la Cruz, or street of the
cross, old Gutierrez had taken his station.
With the fire of insanity in his
bloodshot eyes, and a grin of exultation
upon his wasted features, he witnessed
the persecution of the Empecinado,
and while his ears drank in the
yells and hootings of the multitude,
he added his shrill cracked voice to
the uproar. When the shots were
fired from the town-hall, he bounded
and capered upon the platform, clapping
his meagre fingers together in
ecstasy; but as the Empecinado got
further from the house, and the firing
was discontinued, an expression of
anxiety replaced the look of triumph
that had lighted up the old maniac’s
face. Diez still moved on unhurt,
and was now within a few paces of
the house on which Gutierrez had
perched himself. The old man’s uneasiness
increased. “Va a escapar!”
muttered he to himself; “they will
let him escape. Oh, if I had a gun,
my Pedrillo would soon be avenged!”

The Empecinado was passing under
the house. A sudden thought struck
Gutierrez. Stamping with his foot,
he broke two or three of the tiles on
which he was standing, and snatching
up a large heavy fragment, he leaned
over the edge of the roof to get a full
view of the Empecinado, who was at
that moment leaving the plaza and
entering the Calle de la Cruz. In
five seconds more he would be out of
sight. As it was, it was only by leaning
very far forward that Gutierrez
could see him, walking calmly along,
and keeping at bay the angry but
cowardly mob that yelped at his heels,
like a parcel of village curs pursuing
a bloodhound, whose look alone prevents
their too near approach.

Throwing his left arm round a
chimney, the old man swung himself
forward, and with all the force that
he possessed, hurled the tile at the
object of his hate. The missile struck
the Empecinado upon the temple, and
he fell, stunned and bleeding, to the
ground.

“Viva!” screamed Gutierrez; but
a cry of agony followed the shout of
exultation. The chimney by which
the old man supported himself was
loose and crumbling, and totally unfit
to bear his weight as he hung on by
it, and leaned forward to gloat over
his vengeance. It tottered for a moment,
and then fell with a crash into
the street. The height was not great,
but the pavement was sharp and uneven;
the old man pitched upon his
head, and when lifted up was already
a corpse.

When the mob saw the Empecinado
fall, they threw themselves upon him
with as much ferocity as they had
previously shown cowardice, and beat
and ill-treated him in every possible
manner. Not satisfied with that, they
bound him hand and foot, and pushed
him through a cellar window, throwing
after him stones, and every thing
they could find lying about the street.
At last, wearied by their own brutality,
they left him for dead, and he
remained in that state till nightfall,
when the corregidor and the ayuntamiento
proceeded to inspect his body,
in order to certify his death, and have
him buried. When he was brought
out of the cellar, however, they perceived
he still breathed, and sent for
a surgeon, and also for a priest to administer
the last sacraments. They
then carried him upon a ladder to the
posito, or public granary, a strong
building, where they considered he
would be in safety, and put him to
bed, bathed in blood and covered with
wounds and bruises.

The corregidor, fearing that the
news of the riot, and of the death of
the Empecinado, would reach Penafiel,
and that the escort which had been
left there, and the many partizans that
Diez had in that town, would come
over to Castrillo to avenge his death,
persuaded one of the curés or parish
priests of the latter place, to go over to
Penafiel in all haste, and, counterfeiting
great alarm, to spread the report
that the French had entered Castrillo,
seized the Empecinado, and carried
him off to Aranda. This was accordingly
done; and the Empecinado’s escort
being made aware of the vicinity
of the French and the risk they ran,
immediately mounted their horses and
marched to join Mariano Fuentes, accompanied
by upwards of fifty young
men, all partizans of the Empecinado,
and eager to revenge him. This matter
being arranged, the corregidor had
the jewels that were buried in the
cellar of Manuel Diez dug up, and
having taken possession of them, and
installed Madame Barbot with all due
attention in one of the principal houses
of the town, he forwarded a report to
General Cuesta of all that had occurred.
The general immediately sent
an escort to conduct the lady and the
treasure to Ciudad Rodrigo, and ordered
that as soon as the Empecinado
was in a state to be moved, he should
also be sent under a strong guard to
that city.

Meanwhile, the Empecinado’s vigorous
constitution triumphed over the
injuries he had received, and he was
getting so rapidly better, that for his
safer custody the corregidor thought
it necessary to have him heavily ironed.
Deeming it impossible he should escape,
and there being no troops in the
village, no sentry was placed over him,
so that at night his friends were able
to hold discourse with him through the
grating of one of the windows of the
posito. In this manner he contrived
to send a message to his brother
Manuel, who, having also got into
trouble on account of Madame Barbot’s
detention, had been compelled to
take refuge in the mountains of Bilbuena,
three leagues from Castrillo.
Manuel took advantage of a dark night
to steal into the town in disguise, and
to speak with the Empecinado. He
informed him that the superior of the
Bernardine Monastery, in the Sierra
de Balbuena, had been advised that it
was the intention of the Empecinado’s
enemies to deliver him over to the
French, in order that they might shoot
him. The Empecinado replied, that
he strongly suspected there was some
such plot in agitation, and desired his
brother to seek out Mariano Fuentes,
and order him to march his band into
the neighbourhood of Castrillo, and
that on their arrival he would send
them word what to do.

Eight days elapsed, and the Empecinado
was now completely cured
of his wounds, so that he was in much
apprehension lest he should be sent off
to Ciudad Rodrio before the arrival
of Fuentes. On the eighth night,
however, his brother came to the window,
and informed him that the partida
was in the neighbourhood, and
only waited his orders to march upon
Castrillo, rescue him, and revenge the
treatment he had received. This the
Empecinado strongly enjoined them
not to do, but desired his brother to
come to his prison door at two o’clock
the next morning with a led horse, and
that he had the means to set himself
at liberty. Manuel Diez did as he was
ordered, wondering, however, in what
manner the Empecinado intended to
get out of the posito, which was a
solidly constructed edifice with a massive
door and grated windows. But
the next night, when the guerilla heard
the horses approaching his prison, he
seized the door by an iron bar that
traversed it on the inner side, and,
exerting his prodigious strength, tore
it off the hinges as though it had been
of pasteboard. His feet being fastened
together by a chain, he was compelled
to sit sideways upon the saddle; but
so elated was he to find himself once
more at liberty that he pushed his
horse into a gallop, and with his fetters
clanking as he went, dashed
through the streets of Castrillo, to the
astonishment and consternation of the
inhabitants, who knew not what devil’s
dance was going on in their usually
quiet town.

At Olmos, a village a quarter of
a league from Castrillo, the fugitives
halted, and roused a smith, who
knocked off the Empecinado’s irons.
After a short rest at the house of an
approved friend they remounted their
horses, and a little after daybreak
reached the place where Fuentes had
taken up his bivouac. The Empecinado
was received with great rejoicing,
and immediately resumed the
command. He passed a review of his
band, and found it consisted of two
hundred and twenty men, all well
mounted and armed.

Great was the alarm of the inhabitants
of Castrillo when they found the
prison broken open and the prisoner
gone; and their terror was increased
a hundred-fold, when a few hours
later news was brought that the Empecinado
was marching towards the
town at the head of a strong body of
cavalry. Some concealed themselves
in cellars and suchlike hiding-places,
others left the town and fled to the
neighbouring woods; but the majority,
despairing of escape by human means
from the terrible anger of the Empecinado,
shut themselves up in their
houses, closed the doors and windows,
and prayed to the Virgin for deliverance
from the impending evil. Never
had there been seen in Castrillo such
a counting of rosaries and beating of
breasts, such genuflexions, and mumbling
of aves and paters, as upon that
morning.

At noon the Empecinado entered
the town at the head of his band,
trumpets sounding, and the men firing
their pistols and carbines into the air,
in sign of joy at having recovered
their leader. Forming up the partida
in the market-place, the Empecinado
sent for the corregidor and other
authorities, who presented themselves
before him pale and trembling, and
fully believing they had not five minutes
to live.

“Fear nothing!” said the Empecinado,
observing their terror. “It
is certain I have met foul treatment
at your hands; and it was the harder
to bear coming from my own countrymen
and townsfolk. But you have
been misled, and will one day repent
your conduct. I have forgotten your
ill usage, and only remember the
poverty of my native town, and the
misery in which this war has plunged
many of its inhabitants.”

So saying, he delivered to the alcalde
and the parish priests a hundred
ounces of gold for the relief of the
poor and support of the hospital, and
ten more to be spent in a novillada, or
bull-bait and festival for the whole
town. Cutting short their thanks
and excuses, he left Castrillo and
marched to the village of Sacramenia,
where he quartered his men, and, accompanied
by Mariano Fuentes, went
to pay a visit to a neighbouring monastery.
The monks received him
with open arms and a hearty welcome,
hailing him as the main prop
of the cause of independence in Old
Castile. They sat down to dinner in
the refectory; and the conversation
turning upon the state of the country,
the Empecinado expressed his unwillingness
to carry on the war in that
province, on account of the little confidence
he could place in the inhabitants,
so many of whom had become
afrancesados; and as a proof of this,
he related all that had occurred to him
at Castrillo. Upon hearing this the
abbot, who was a man distinguished
for his talents and patriotism, recommended
Diez to lead his band to New
Castile, where he would not have to
encounter the persecutions of those
who, having known him poor and insignificant,
envied him his good fortune,
and sought to throw obstacles in
his path. He offered to get him letters
from the general of the order of
San Bernardo to the superiors of the
various monasteries, in order that he
might receive such assistance and
support as they could give, and he
might chance to require.

“No one is a prophet in his own
country,” said the good father; “Mahomet
in his native town of Medina
met with the same ill-treatment that
you, Martin Diez, have encountered
in the place of your birth. Abandon,
then, a province which does not recognize
your value, and go where your
reputation has already preceded you,
to defend the holy cause of Spain and
of religion.”

Struck by the justice of this reasoning,
the Empecinado resolved to
change the scene of his operations,
and the next morning marched his
squadron in the direction of New
Castile.

THE TALE OF A TUB: AN ADDITIONAL CHAPTER.

HOW JACK RAN MAD A SECOND TIME.

After Jack and Martin parted company,
you may remember that Jack,
who had turned his face northward,
got into high favour with the landlord
of the North Farm Estate, who, being
mightily edified with his discourses
and sanctimonious demeanour, and
not aware of his having been mad
before, or being, perchance, just
as mad himself—took him in, made
much of him, gave him a cottage
upon his manor to live in, and built
him a tabernacle in which he might
hold forth when the spirit moved him.
In process of time, however, it happened
that North Farm and the Albion
Estates came into the possession of one
proprietor, Esquire Bull, in whose
house Martin had always been retained
as domestic chaplain—at least,
ever since that desperate scuffle with
Lord Peter and his crew, when he
tried to land some Spanish smugglers
on the coast, for the purpose of carrying
off Martin, and establishing himself
in Squire Bull’s house in his stead.
Squire Bull, who was a man of his
word, and wished to leave all things
on North Farm as he found them,
Jack and his tabernacle included, undertook
at once to pay him a reasonable
salary, with the free use of his
house and tabernacle to him and his
heirs for ever. But knowing that on
a previous occasion, (which you may
recollect,⁴⁶) Jack’s melancholy had gone
so far that he had hanged himself,
though he was cut down just before
giving up the ghost, and by dint of
bloodletting and galvanism, had been
revived; and also that, notwithstanding
his periodical fits and hallucinations,
he could beat even Peter himself,
who had been his instructor, for
cunning and casuistry, he took care that,
before Jack was allowed to take possession
under his new lease, every thing
should be made square between them.
So he had the terms of their indenture
all written out on parchment, signed,
sealed, and delivered before witnesses,
and even got a private Act of Parliament
carried through, for the purpose
of making every thing between them
more secure. And well it was for the
Squire that he bethought himself of his
precaution in time, as you will afterwards
hear.

This union of the two entailed
properties in the Bull family, brought
Jack and Martin a good deal more
into one anothers’ company than they
had formerly been; and ’twas clear,
that Jack, who had now got somewhat
ashamed of his threadbare raiment,
and tired of his spare oatmeal diet,
was mightily struck with the dignified
air and comfortable look of Martin,
and grudged him the frequency with
which he was invited to Squire Bull’s
table. By degrees, he began to conform
his own uncouth manner to an
imitation of his. He wore a better
coat, which he no longer rubbed
against the wall to take the gloss from
off it; he ceased to interlard all his
ordinary speech with texts of Scripture;
his snuffle abated audibly; he
gave up his habit of extempore rhapsody,
and lost, in a great measure,
his aversion to Christmas tarts and
plum-pudding. After a time, he might
even be seen with a fishing-rod over
his shoulder; then he contrived sundry
improvements in gun-locks and double-barrels,
for which he took out a patent,
and in fact did not entirely escape the
suspicion of being a poacher. He
held assemblies in his house, where at
times he allowed a little singing; nay,
on one occasion, a son of his—for he
had now a large family—was found
accompanying a psalm-tune upon the
(barrel) organ, and it was rumoured
about the house, that Jack, though he
thought it prudent to disclaim this
overture, had no great objection to
it. Be that as it may, it is certain,
that instead of his old peaked hat and
band, Jack latterly took to wearing
broad-brimmed beavers, which he was
seen trying to mould into a spout-like
shape, much resembling a shovel. And
so far had the transformation gone, that
the Vicar of Fudley, meeting him one
evening walking to an assembly arrayed
in a court coat, with this extraordinary
hat upon his head, and a pair
of silver buckles in his shoes, pulled
off his hat to him at a little distance,
mistaking him for a near relation of
Martin, if not for Martin himself.

There was no great harm you will
think in all these whims, and for my
own part, I believe that Jack was never
so honest a fellow as he was during this
time, when he was profiting by Martin’s
example. He kept his own place,
ruling his family in a quiet and orderly
way, without disturbing the peace of
his neighbours: and seemed to have
forgotten his old tricks of setting people
by the ears, and picking quarrels with
constables and justices of the peace.
Howbeit, those who knew him longest
and best, always said that this was too
good to last: that with him these intervals
of sobriety and moderation
were always the prelude to a violent
access of his peculiar malady, and
that by-and-bye he would break out
again, and that there would be the
devil to pay, and no pitch hot.

It so happened that Squire Bull had
a good many small village schools on
his Estate of North Farm, to which the
former proprietors had always been in
the custom of appointing the ushers
themselves; and much to Jack’s annoyance,
when Squire Bull succeeded, the
latter had taken care in his bargain with
him, to keep the right of appointment
to these in his own hand. But, at the
same time, he told Jack fairly, that as
he had no wish to dabble in Latin,
Greek, or school learning himself, he
left him at full liberty to say whether
those whom he appointed were fit for
the situation or not—so that if they
turned out to be ignoramuses, deboshed
fellows, or drunken dogs, Jack
had only to say so on good grounds,
and they were forthwith sent adrift.
Matters went on for a time very
smoothly on this footing. Nay, it was
even said that Jack was inclined to
carry his complaisance rather far, and
after a time seldom troubled himself
much about the usher’s qualifications,
provided his credentials were all right.
He might ask the young fellow, who
presented John’s commission, perhaps,
what was the first letter of the
Greek alphabet? what was Latin for
beef and greens? or where Moses was
when the candle was blown out?—but
if the candidate answered these questions
correctly, and if there were no
scandal or fama clamosa against him,
as Jack in his peculiar jargon expressed
it, he generally shook hands with him
at once, put the key of the schoolhouse
in his hand, and told him civilly
to walk up-stairs.

The truth was, however, that in
this respect Jack had little reason to
complain; for though the Squire, in the
outset, may not have been very particular
as to his choice, and it was said
once or twice gave an ushership to an
old exciseman, on account of his skill
in mensuration of fluids, he had latterly
become very particular, and
would not hear of settling any body
as schoolmaster on North Farm,
who did not come to him with an
excellent character, certified by two
or three respectable householders at
least. But, strangely enough, it was
observed that just in proportion as the
Squire became more considerate, Jack
became more arrogant, pestilent, and
troublesome. Now-a-days he was always
discovering some objection to the
Squire’s appointments: one usher, it
seemed, spoke too low, another too loud,
one used an ear-trumpet, another a pair
of grass-green spectacles; one had
no sufficient gifts for flogging; another
flogged either too high or too
low—(for Jack was like the deserter,
there was no pleasing him as to the
mode of conducting the operation;)
and, finally, another was rejected because
he was unacquainted with the
vernacular of Ossian—to the great
injury and damage, as was alleged, of
two Highland chairmen, who at an
advanced period of life were completing
their education in the school in
question. At first Squire Bull, honest
gentleman, had given in to these
strange humours on the part of Jack,
believing that this new-born zeal on
his part was in the main conscientious,
though he could not help thinking it
at times sufficiently whimsical and preposterous.
He had even gone so far,
occasionally, as to send Jack a list of
those to whom he proposed giving
the usherships, accompanied with a
polite note, in some such terms as
these, “Squire Bull presents his respects,
and begs his good friend Jack
will read over the enclosed list, and
take the trouble of choosing for himself;”
a request with which Jack was
always ready to comply. And, further,
as Jack had always a great hankering
after little-goes and penny subscriptions
of every kind, and was eternally
trumpeting forth some new nostrum
or scheme of this kind, as he used to
call it, the Squire had been prevailed
upon to purchase from him a good
many tickets for these schemes from
time to time, for which he always
paid in hard cash, though I have never
heard that any of them turned up
prizes, except it may have been to
Jack himself.

Jack, as we have said, grew bolder
as the Squire became more complying,
thinking that, in the matter of
these appointments, as he had once
got his hand in, it would be his own
fault if he could not contrive to
wriggle in his whole body. It so happened,
too, that just about the very
time that one of John’s usherships became
vacant, one of those atrabilious
and hypochondriac fits came over Jack,
with which, as we have said, he was periodically
afflicted, and which, though
they certainly unsettled his brain a
little, only served, as in the case of
other lunatics, to render him, during
the paroxysm, more cunning, inventive,
and mischievous. After
moving about in a moping way for
a day or two—mumbling in corners,
and pretending to fall on his knees,
in his old fashion, in the midst of
the street, he suddenly got up, flung
his broad-brimmed beaver into the
kennel, trampled his wig in the dirt,
so as to expose his large ears as
of old, ran home, pulled his rusty
black doublet out of the chest where it
had lain for years, squeezing it on as
he best could—for he had got somewhat
corpulent in the mean time—and
thus transfigured, he set out to consult
the village attorney, with whom
it was observed he remained closeted
for several hours, turning over Burns’
Justice, and perusing an office-copy
of his indenture with the Squire—a
planetary conjunction from which
those who were astrologically given
boded no good.

What passed between these worthies
on this occasion—whether the
attorney really persuaded Jack that,
if he set about it, he would undertake
to find him a flaw in his contract with
Squire Bull, which would enable him
to take the matter of the usherships
into his own hand, and to do as he
pleased; or whether Jack—as he
seemed afterwards to admit in private—believed
nothing of what the attorney
told him, but was resolved to take
advantage of the Squire’s good-nature,
and to run all risks as to the result, ’tis
hard to say. Certain it was, however,
that Jack posted down at once from
the attorney’s chamber to the village
school, which happened to be then
vacant, and gathering the elder boys
about him, he told them he had reason
to believe the Squire was about to
send them another usher, very different
from the last, who was a mortal
enemy to marbles, pitch-and-toss,
chuck-farthing, ginger-bread, and
half holydays; with a corresponding
liking to long tasks and short commons;
that the use of the cane would
be regularly taught, along with that of
the globes, accompanied with cuts and
other practical demonstrations; that
the only chance of escaping this visitation
was to take a bold line, and
show face to the usher at once, since
otherwise the chance was, that at no
distant period they might be obliged
to do the very reverse.

Jack further reasoned the matter with
the boys learnedly, somewhat in this
fashion—”That as no one could have
so strong an interest in the matter, so
no one could be so good a judge of
the qualifications of the schoolmaster
as the schoolboy; that the close and
intimate relation between these parties
was of the nature of a mutual contract,
in the formation of which both had an
equal right to be consulted; so that,
without mutual consent, or, as it
were, a harmonious call by the boys,
there could be no valid ushership, but
a mere usurpation of the power of the
tawse, and unwarrantable administration
of the birchen twig; that, further,
this latter power involved a
fundamental feature, in which they
could not but feel they had all a deep
interest—and which, he might say,
lay at the bottom of the whole question;
that he himself perfectly remembered
that, in former days, the schoolboys
had always exercised this privilege,
which he held to be equally
salutary and constitutional; and that
he would, at his leisure, show them a
private memorandum-book of his own,
in which, though he had hitherto said
nothing about it, he had found an entry
to that effect made some thirty years
before. In short, he told them, if
they did not wish to be rode over
rough-shod, they must stand up boldly
for themselves, and try to get all the
schools in the neighbourhood to join
them, if necessary, in a regular barring-out,
or general procession, in
which they were to appear with flags
and banners, bearing such inscriptions
as the following: “Pro aris et focis“—”Liberty
is like the air we breathe,”
&c. &c., and, lastly, in large gilt
capitals—”No usher to be intruded into
any school contrary to the will of the
scholars in schoolroom assembled.” And,
in short, that this process was to be
repeated until they succeeded in getting
quit of Squire Bull’s usher, and
getting an usher who would flog them
with all the forbearance and reserve
with which Sancho chastised his own
flesh while engaged in the process of
disenchanting Dulcinea del Toboso.
At the same time, with that cunning
which was natural to him, Jack took
care to let the scholars know that
his name was not to be mentioned in
the transaction; and that, if they
were asked any questions, they must
be prepared to say, nay, to swear, for
that matter, that they objected to
John’s usher from no personal dislike
to the man himself, and without having
received fee or reward, in the shape of
apples, lollypops, gingerbread, barley-sugar,
or sweetmeats whatever—or
sixpences, groats, pence, halfpence, or
other current coin of the realm.

It will be readily imagined that this
oration of Jack, pronounced as it was
with some of his old unction, and accompanied
with that miraculous and
subtle twist of the tongue which
we have described in a former chapter,⁴⁷
produced exactly the effect upon
his audience which might be expected.
The boys were delighted—tossed up
their caps—gave Jack three cheers,
and told him if he stood by them they
would stand by him, and that they
were much mistaken if they did not
contrive to make the schoolhouse too
hot for any usher whom Squire Bull
might think fit to send them.

It happened not long after, as Jack
had anticipated, that one morning a
young man called upon with a letter
from the Squire, intimating that he
had named him to the vacant ushership;
and requesting Jack to examine
into his qualifications as usual. Jack
begged him to be seated, and (having
privately sent a message to the schoolboys)
continued to entertain him with
enquiries as to John’s health and the
state of the weather, till he heard, by
the noise in the court, that the boys
had arrived. In they marched accordingly,
armed with horn-books,
primers, slates, rulers, Gunter’s-scales,
and copy-books, taking up their station
near the writing-desk. The young
usher-elect, though he thought this a
whimsical exhibition, supposed that
the urchins had been brought there
only to do honour to his examination,
and accordingly begged Jack, as he
was in a hurry, to proceed. “Fair and
softly, young man,” said Jack, in his
blandest tones; “we must first see what
these intelligent young gentlemen
have got to say to that. Tom, my
fine fellow, here is a gentleman sent
by Squire Bull to be your usher.
What do you say to him?” “I don’t
like him,” said Tom. “May I venture
to ask why?” said the usher,
putting in a word. “Don’t like him,”
repeated Tom. “Don’t like him neither,”
said Dick. “And no mistake,”
added Peter, with a grin, which immediately
circulated round the school.
“It is quite impossible,” said Jack,
“under existing circumstances, that the
matter can proceed any further; it is
plain the school can never be edified
by such an usher. But, stop, that
there may be no misconception on the
subject. Here you, Smith—do you
really mean to say, on soul and conscience,
you don’t think this respectable
gentleman can do you any good?”
Of course, Smith stated that his mind
was quite made up on the subject.
“Come here, Jenkins,” said Jack,
beckoning to another boy; “tell the
truth now—honour bright, remember.
Has any body given or promised you
any apples, parliament, or other
sweetmeat unknown, to induce you to
vote against the usher?” Jenkins,
who had just wiped his lips of the last
remains of a gingerbread cake, which
somehow or other had dropped into
his pocket by accident, protested, on
his honour, that he was quite above
such a thing, and was, in fact, actuated
purely by a conscientious zeal for
the cause of flogging all over the
world. “The scruples of these intelligent
and ingenuous youths,” said
John, turning to the usher, “must,
in conscience, receive effect; the law,
as laid down in my copy of Squire
Bull’s own contract, is this—’That
noe ushere be yntruded intoe anie
schoole against ye wille of ye schooleboys
in schoole-roome assembled.’
So, with your permission, we will adjourn
the consideration of the case
till the Greek Calends, or latter Lammas,
if that be more convenient.” And,
so saying, he left John’s letter lying on
the table, and shut the schoolroom
door in the face of the astonished usher.

Squire Bull, as may be imagined,
was not a little astonished and mortified
at hearing from the usher, who
returned looking foolish and chop-fallen,
of this outbreak on the part of
Jack, for whom he had really begun
to conceive a sort of sneaking kindness;
but knowing of old his fantastical
and melancholic turn, he attributed
this sally rather to the state of his
bowels, which at all times he exceedingly
neglected, and which, being
puffed up with flatulency and indigestion
to an extraordinary degree, not
unfrequently acted upon his brain—generating
therein strange conceits
and dangerous hallucinations—than
to any settled intention on Jack’s part
to pick a quarrel with him or evade
performance of the conditions of their
indenture, so long as he was not under
the influence of hypochondria. And
having this notion as to Jack’s motives,
and knowing nothing of the
private confab at the village lawyer’s,
he could not help believing that, by a
brisk course of purgatives and an antiphlogistic
treatment—and without
resorting to a strait-waistcoat, which
many who knew Jack’s pranks at once
recommended him to adopt—he might
be cured of those acrid and intoxicating
vapours, which, ascending into
the brain, led him into such extravagant
vagaries. “I’faith,” said the
Squire, “since the poor man has
taken this mad fancy into his head
as to the terms of his bargain, the
best way to restore him to his senses
is to bring the matter, as he himself
seemed to desire it, before the Justices
of the Peace at once: ‘Tis a hundred
to one but he will have come
to his senses long before they have
come to a decision; at all events,
unless he is madder than I take him
to be, when he finds how plain the
terms of the indenture are, he will
surely submit with a good grace.'”

So thought the Squire; and, accordingly,
by his direction, the usher-elect
brought his case before the Justices at
their next sittings, who forthwith summoned
Jack before them to know why
he refused performance of his contract
with the Squire. Jack came on the
day appointed, attended by the attorney—though
for that matter he might
have safely left him behind, being
fully as much master of all equivocation
or chicanery as if he had never
handled anything but quills and quirks
from his youth upward. This, indeed,
was probably the effect of his old
training in Peter’s family, for whose
hairsplitting distinctions and Jesuistical
casuistries, notwithstanding his
dislike to the man himself, he had a
certain admiration, founded on a secret
affinity of nature. Indeed it was
wonderful to observe how, with all
Jack’s hatred to Peter, real or pretended,
he took after him in so many
points—insomuch that at times, their
look, voice, manner, and way of thinking,
were so closely alike, that those
who knew them best might very well
have mistaken them for each other.
The usher having produced the Squire’s
copy of the indenture, pointed out the
clause by which Jack became bound
to examine and admit to the schools
on North Farm any qualified usher
whom the Squire might send—as the
condition on which he was to retain
his right to the tabernacle and his
own mansion upon the Farm—at the
same time showing Jack’s seal and
signature at the bottom of the deed.
Jack, being called upon by the justices
to show cause, pulled out of his
pocket an old memorandum-book—very
greasy, musty, and ill-flavoured—and
which, from the quantity of dust
and cobwebs with which it was overlaid,
had obviously been lying on the
shelf for half a century at least. This
he placed in the hands of his friend
Snacks the attorney, pointing out to
him a page or two which he had
marked with his thumb nail, as appropriate
to the matter in hand. And
there, to be sure, was to be found,
among a quantity of other nostrums,
recipes, cooking receipts, prescriptions,
and omnium-gatherums of all
kinds, an entry to this effect:—”That
no ushere be yntruded intoe anie
schoole against ye wille of ye schooleboys
in schoole-roome assembled.”
Whereupon the attorney maintained,
that, as this memorandum-book of
Jack’s was plainly of older date than
the indenture, and had evidently been
seen by the Squire at or prior to the
time of signing, as appeared from some
of the entries which it contained being
incorporated in the deed, it must
be presumed, that its whole contents,
though not to be found in the
indenture per expressum, or totidem
verbis, were yet included therein implicitly,
or in a latent form, inasmuch
as they were not per expressum excluded
therefrom;—this being, as you
will recollect, precisely the argument
which Jack had borrowed from Peter,
when the latter construed their father’s
will in the question as to the
lawfulness of their wearing shoulder-knots;
and very much of the same
kind with that celebrated thesis which
Peter afterwards maintained in the
matter of the brown loaf. And though
he was obliged to admit (what indeed
from the very look of the book he
could not well dispute) that no such
rule had ever been known or acted
upon—and on the contrary that Jack,
until this last occasion, had always
admitted the Squire’s ushers without
objection whatsoever; yet he contended
vehemently, that now that his
conscience was awakened on the subject,
the past must be laid out of view;
and that the old memorandum-book,
as part and parcel of the indenture
itself, must receive effect; and farther,
that whether he, Jack, was right
or wrong in this matter, the Justices
had no right to interfere with them.

But the Justices, on looking into this
antiquated document, found that, besides
this notandum, the memorandum-book
contained a number of other entries
of a very extraordinary kind—such,
for instance, as that Martin was
no better than he should be, and ought
to be put down speedily: that Squire
Bull had no more right to nominate
ushers than he had to be Khan of Tartary:
that that right belonged exclusively
to Jack himself, or to the schoolboys
under Jack’s control and direction:
that Jack was to have the sole
right of laying down rules for his own
government, and of enforcing them
against himself by the necessary compulsitors,
if the case should arise; thus,
that Jack should have full powers to
censure, fine, punish, flog, flay, banish,
imprison, or set himself in the stocks
as often as he should think fit; but
that whether Jack did right or wrong,
in any given case, Jack was himself
to be the sole judge, and neither
Squire Bull nor any of his Justices of
the Peace was to have one word to
say to him or his proceedings in the
matter: on the contrary, that any
such interference on their part, was
to be regarded as a high grievance
and misdemeanour on their part, for
which Jack was to be entitled at the
least to read them a lecture from the
writing-desk, and shut the schoolroom
door in their own or their children’s
face.

There were many other whimsical
and extravagant things contained in
this private note-book, so much so,
that it was evident no man in his senses
could ever have intended to make them
part of his bargain with Jack. But
the matter was put beyond a doubt
by the usher producing the original
draft of the indenture, on which some
of these crotchets, including this fancy
about the right of the schoolboys to
reject the usher if they did not like
him, had been interlined in Jack’s
hand: but all of which the Squire, on
revising the deed, had scored out with
his own pen, adding in the margin,
opposite to the very passage, the
words, in italics—”See him damned
first.—J.B.” And as it could not
be disputed that Jack and the Squire
ultimately subscribed the deed, omitting
all this nonsense—the Justices had
no hesitation in holding, that Jack’s
private memorandum-book, even if he
had always carried it in his breeches
pocket, and quoted it on all occasions,
instead of leaving it—as it was plain
he had done—for many a long year, in
some forgotten corner of his trunk
or lumber-room, could no more affect
the construction of the indenture
between himself and Squire, or
afford him any defence against performance
of his part of that indenture, than
if he had founded on the statutes of
Prester John, on the laws of Hum-Bug,
Fee-Faw-Fum, or any other
Emperor of China for the time being.
And so, after hearing very deliberately
all that the attorney for Jack had to
say to the contrary, they decided that
Jack must forthwith proceed to examine
the usher, and give him possession,
if qualified, of the schoolhouse
and other appurtenances; or
else make up his mind to a thundering
action of damages if he did not.

The Justices thought that Jack, on
hearing the case fairly stated, and
their opinion given against him, with
a long string of cases in point, would
yield, and give the usher possession
in the usual way; but no: no sooner
was the sentence written out than Jack
entered an appeal to the Quarter-sessions.
There the whole matter was
heard over again, at great length, before
a full bench; but after Jack and
his attorney had spoken till they were
tired, the Quarter-sessions, without a
moment’s hesitation, confirmed the
sentence of the Justices, with costs.