GRAHAM’S

AMERICAN MONTHLY

MAGAZINE

Of Literature and Art,

EMBELLISHED WITH

MEZZOTINT AND STEEL ENGRAVINGS, MUSIC, ETC.

WILLIAM C. BRYANT, J. FENIMORE COOPER, RICHARD H. DANA, JAMES K. PAULDING, HENRY
W. LONGFELLOW, N. P. WILLIS, CHARLES F. HOFFMAN, J. R. LOWELL.

MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, MISS C. M. SEDGWICK, MRS. FRANCES S. OSGOOD, MRS. EMMA C.
EMBURY, MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS, MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY, MRS. A. M. F. ANNAN, ETC.

PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTORS.

GEORGE R. GRAHAM, AND ROBERT T. CONRAD, EDITORS.

VOLUME XXXII.

PHILADELPHIA:
GEORGE R. GRAHAM & CO. 98 CHESTNUT STREET.

……….

1848.

CONTENTS

OF THE

THIRTY-SECOND VOLUME.

JANUARY, 1848, TO JUNE, 1848.

POETRY

REVIEWS.

MUSIC.

ENGRAVINGS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS—ISSUE #1

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

LACE AND DIAMONDS.

OR TAKE CARE WHAT YOU DO.

BY THEODORE S. FAY.

“Don’t be angry, ma’ma—I wont jest any more,
if it displease you, but I will make a plain confession.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Clifford, “let me hear it.”

“I have not one feeling which I wish to conceal
from you. There have been moments when I liked
Mr. Franklin,” and a pretty color crossed her cheek,
“but I have been struck with a peculiarity which
has chilled warmer sentiments. He appears phlegmatic
and cold. There is about him a perpetual repose
that seems inconsistent with energy and feeling.
I am not satisfied that I could be happy with such a
person—not certain that he is capable of loving, or
of inspiring love. When I marry any one, he must
worship, he must adore me. He must be ready to
go crazy for me. Let him be full of faults, but let
him have—what so few possess—a warm, unselfish
heart.”

“I have heard you, through,” said Mrs. Clifford,
“now you must hear me. It is very proper that you
should not decide without full consideration. Examine
as long as you think necessary the qualities of
Mr. Franklin, and never marry him till he inspire
you with confidence and affection. But remember
something is due also to him; and the divine rule of
acting toward others as you wish them to act toward
you, must be applied here, as in every affair in life.
While you should not, I allow, be hurried into a
decision, yet your mind once made up, he should not
be kept a moment in suspense.”

“Do you think, ma’ma,” asked Caroline, “that he
has much feeling?”

“I think he has. I think him peculiarly gifted
with unselfish ardor. That which appears to you
coldness, is, in my opinion, the natural reserve of a
warm heart—so modest that it rather retires from
observation than parades itself before the world.
Sentiment and fire, when common on the lips, are not
more likely to be native to the soul. It is precisely
that calm, that repose you allude to, which forms, in
my judgment, the guarantee of Mr. Franklin’s sincerity,
and the finishing grace of his character—a
character in all other respects, also, a true and
noble one.”

Caroline did not listen without interest.

Mrs. Clifford was a native of New York, and had
come over just a year ago to enjoy a tour in Europe.
Franklin had been a fellow-passenger; and a sort of
intimacy had grown up between the young people,
which the gentleman had taken rather au serieux. He
had gladly availed himself of an accidental business
necessity which called the son and proposed traveling
companion of Mrs. Clifford suddenly home, to
join her little party, and had accompanied them
through Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and
Holland. The result was, that the happiness of his
life now appeared to depend upon an affirmative
monosyllable in reply to the offer he had just made
of his heart and hand. Mrs. Clifford was the widow
of a captain in the American navy, who had left her
only a moderate income—sufficient, but no more,
for the wants of herself and daughter. Mr. Franklin
was a lawyer of six-and-twenty, who had been
advised to repair the effects of too severe professional
application, by change of air, and a year’s
idleness and travel.

The conversation was scarcely finished, when the
subject of it was announced.

After the usual salutations, Mr. Franklin said he
had come, according to appointment, to accompany
the ladies on a walk, and to see the lions of London,
where they had arrived some days before. In a
few minutes, hats, shawls, and gloves, being duly
put in requisition, they had left their lodgings in
Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square, and were
wending their way toward Regent Street and the
Strand, through the crowds of this wonderful and
magnificent metropolis, of which every thing was
[Pg 2]
a delightful curiosity, and where, amid the millions
around, they knew and were known by scarcely a
human creature.

Every stranger, newly arrived and walking about
London, has noted the effect of this prodigious town
upon him; and how singularly he is lost in its immensity,
overwhelmed by its grandeur, and bewildered
amid its endless multiplicity of attractions. So it
was with our little party. Excited by the thousand
novel and dazzling objects, the hours fleeted away
like minutes; and it was late before they had executed
or even formed any plans.

“Let us at least go somewhere,” said Caroline.
“Let us go to St. Paul’s, or Westminster Abbey, or
the Tower; and we have, beside, purchases to make—for
ladies, you know, Mr. Franklin, have always
shopping to do.”

“Well, as it is so late,” said Mrs. Clifford, “and
we have promised to call on Mrs. Porter at half past
two, I propose to leave the lions for another morning,
and only enjoy our walk to-day.”

“Then, ma’ma, let us go to that splendid shop, and
look at the lace once more. Only think, Mr.
Franklin, we yesterday saw lace, not broader than
this, and I had a half fancy to buy some for a new
dress—and what do you suppose it cost?”

“I am little versed,” said Franklin, “in such
mysteries—five pounds, perhaps—”

“Twelve pounds—twelve pounds and a half sterling—sixty
American dollars. I never saw any thing
so superb. Ma’ma says I ought not even to look at
such a luxury.”

“But is lace really such a luxury?” inquired
Franklin, smiling.

“You can have no idea how exquisite this is!”

“As for me,” rejoined Franklin, “I can never tell
whether a lady’s lace is worth twelve pounds or
twelve cents. Although, I hope, not insensible to
the general effect of a toilette, yet lace and diamonds,
and all that sort of thing, are lost upon me entirely.”

“Oh, you barbarian!”

“Real beauty was never heightened by such ornaments,
and ugliness is invariably rendered more conspicuous
and ugly.”

“You will not find many ladies,” said Mrs. Clifford
“to agree with you.”

“Oh, yes! How often do we hear of belles, as
distinguished for the simplicity of their toilette, as for
the beauty of their persons. How often in real life,
and how frequently in novels. There you read that,
while the other ladies are shining in satin and lace,
and blazing in diamonds, the real rose of the evening
eclipses them all in a plain dress of white, without
jewels, like some modest flower, unconscious of her
charms, and therefore attracting more attention.”

“Well, I declare,” said Mrs. Clifford, smiling,
“it is just as you say!”

“And what does Miss Caroline think of my attack
on lace and diamonds?”

“Why,” said Caroline, laughing, “since you do
me the honor to require my opinion, I will give it
you. I agree that such pretending ornaments ill
become the old and ugly. There you are right. I
agree that the extremely beautiful may also dispense
with them. These ball-room belles of yours—these
real roses of the evening—are, I suspect, so lovely
as to make them exceptions to the general rule.
But there is a class of young ladies, among whom I
place myself, neither so old and ugly as to make
ornament ridiculous, nor so beautiful as to render it
unnecessary. To this middle class, a bit of lace—a
neat tab—a string of pearls here and there—a pretty
worked cape—or a coronet of diamonds, I assure you,
do no harm.”

“That you are not so ugly as to render ornament
ridiculous,” replied Franklin, “I allow; but that
there is, in your case, any want of lovelines to require—to
render—which—”

“Take care, Mr. Franklin!” interrupted Caroline,
mischievously, “you are steering right upon the
rocks; and a gentleman who refuses all decoration
to a lady’s toilette, should not embellish his own
conversation with flattery.”

“Upon my word,” replied he, in a lower voice,
“to whatever class you belong, Miss Clifford, you
do yourself injustice if you suppose lace and diamonds
can add to the power of your beauty, any
more than the greatest splendor of fortune could increase
the charms of your—”

“Ma’ma,” exclaimed Caroline, “we have passed
the lace shop.”

“So we have,” said Mrs. Clifford; “but why
should we go back—you certainly don’t mean to
buy any—?”

“No, ma’ma; but I want some edging, and I
might as well get it here, if only to enjoy another
look at the forbidden fruit.”

The shop was one of those magnificent establishments
of late years common in large metropolises.
A long hall led from the street quite back through
the building, or rather masses of buildings, to another
equally elegant entrance on the parallel street behind.
The doors were single sheets of heavy plate-glass.
In the windows all the glittering and precious
treasures of India and Asia seemed draped in gorgeous
confusion, and blazed also through unbroken
expanses of limpid glass of yet larger dimensions
than the doors. Silks, laces, Cashmere shawls,
damask, heavy and sumptuous velvets of bright
colors, and fit for a queen’s train, muslins of bewildering
beauty, dresses at £200 a piece, and handkerchiefs
of Manilla of almost fabulous value. The
interior presented similar displays on all sides, multiplied
by reflections from broad mirrors, gleaming
among marble columns. Perhaps those numerous
mirrors were intended to neutralize the somewhat
gloomy effect of the low ceiling, not sufficiently
elevated to admit the necessary light into the central
spaces. At various points, even in the day-time,
gas-lights burned brilliantly. Before the door were
drawn up half a dozen elegant coroneted equipages,
the well-groomed, shining horses, and richly-liveried
coachmen, indicating the rank of the noble owners;
and on the benches before the windows lounged
the tall and handsome footmen, with their long gold-headed
[Pg 3]
sticks, powdered heads, gaudy coats, brightcolored
plush breeches, and white silk stockings,
and gloves.

In the shop there were, perhaps, fifty persons, as
it happened to be a remarkably fine day in June—one
of those grateful gifts from heaven to earth which
lure people irresistibly out of the dark and weary
home, and which, when first occurring, after a long
and dismal winter, as in the present instance, appear
to empty into the sunshiny streets, every inhabitant,
the sick and the well, the lame and the blind alike,
from every house in town.

Caroline asked to be shown some of the lace which
she had looked at the day before. It was produced,
and Mrs. Clifford and Franklin were called to examine
it. The wonder consisted as much in the endless
variety of the patterns, as in the exquisite fineness
and richness of the material. The counter was soon
strewn with the airy treasures, one piece after another,
unrolled with rapidity, appeared to make a
lively impression on the young girl, who at last,
with a sigh, apologized to the polite person patiently
waiting the end of an examination which his practiced
eye had, doubtless, perceived was only one of
vain curiosity.

“It is too dear,” said Caroline, “I cannot afford it.
Pray let me see some narrow edging.”

“That lace is very pretty,” remarked a lady of a
commanding figure, evidently a person of rank.

“Very pretty, my lady,” replied the clerk who
had waited on Caroline.

“What is it?”

“Twelve and a half, my lady.”

“It is really pretty—give me twenty yards.”

“Very good, my lady.”

The article was measured and cut almost as soon
as ordered, and the remnant rewound into a small
parcel and thrown upon the counter.

At the same moment, and as a boy handed Caroline
the edging, wrapped in paper, for which she
had already paid, and which she took mechanically,
she heard one of the bystanders whisper to another:
“The Countess D——!” (one of the most celebrated
women of England.)

“Ma’ma,” said Caroline, “did you observe that
lady?”

And they left the shop.

“Bless me!” said Mrs. Clifford, looking at her
watch, “do you know how late it is? Half past two.
We promised to be at Mrs. Porter’s at this very
time. She said, you remember, she was going out
at four; and it will take us, I’m afraid, nearly an hour
to get there.”

“Then let us make haste, ma’ma!”

And with a very rapid pace they hurried back toward
Regent Street and Portland Place. They had gone
on in this way, perhaps, twenty minutes, when a
white-headed, respectable-looking old gentleman
was thrust aside by a rude fellow pushing by, so
that he ran against Caroline, and caused her to drop
her pocket-handkerchief. He stopped, with evident
marks of mortification, and picked it up, with a
polite apology. Caroline assured him she was not
hurt.

“But, my dear young lady,” said the benevolent-looking
old gentleman, “let me return your parcel.”

“Oh, that is not mine,” replied Caroline.

“I beg your pardon, it fell with your handkerchief.”

“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed Caroline, “what
have I done! I have brought away a piece of that
lace! Ma’ma, let us go back directly.”

Although the incident had occupied but a minute,
Mrs. Clifford and Franklin, engaged in conversation,
had not perceived it, and had gone several paces on.
The old gentleman smiled, bowed, and disappeared
around a corner.

At this moment a man stepped up, and laying his
hand roughly on Caroline’s arm, said,

“Young woman, you must come with me!”

And a second iron-hand grasped her other arm.

Shocked and affrighted, she saw they were
policemen.

Then the voice of a person very much out of
breath, cried,

“This is the one!—I can swear to her! And
look!—there is the very lace in her hand!”

Pale as death, bewildered with terror, the poor
girl could only attempt to say, “Ma’ma! ma’ma!”
but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and
her voice refused its office. A crowd had already
collected, and the words, “Lady been a stealing!”
and, “They’ve nabbed a thief!” were audible
enough.

“Come, my beauty!” said the man, pulling her
forward, “we’ve no time to lose.”

“Scoundrel!” cried the voice of Franklin, as he
grasped him by the throat, “who are you?”

“You see who we are;” was the stern reply;
“we’re policemen, in the execution of our duty.
Take your band off my throat.”

Franklin recognized their uniform, and relaxed
his hold.

“Policemen! and what have policemen to do
with this lady? You have made some stupid
blunder. This is a lady. She is under my protection.
Take your hand off her arm!”

“If she’s under your protection, the best thing
you can do is to accompany us,” replied the man,
bluntly; and he made another attempt to drag her
away.

Franklin restrained himself with an effort which
did him honor, conscious that violence would be
here out of place, and perceiving that it would be
utterly useless. He strove a moment to collect his
thoughts as one stunned by a thunderbolt.

“”What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“If you ask for information,” remarked the man.
impressed by his agonized astonishment, “I will
tell you; but wont the young woman get into a
hack, out of the crowd?”

An empty carriage happened to be passing, into
which, like a man in a dream, Franklin handed the
ladies. One police officer entered with them—the
other took his seat on the box with the coachman.
Caroline, although still colorless, had partly regained
her courage, and endeavored to smile. Mrs.
[Pg 4]
Clifford, in a most distressing state of agitation,
only found breath to say, “Well, this is a pretty
adventure, upon my word!”

As the carriage moved away, followed by a troop
of ragamuffins, leaping, laughing, and shouting,
Franklin said,

“And now, my good fellow, I have submitted
peaceably to this atrocious outrage, tell me by
whose authority you act, and in what way this
young lady has exposed herself to such an infamous
insult?”

“Well, in the first place,” said the man, coolly,
“I act by the authority of the Messieurs Blake,
Blanchard & Co.; and in the second place, the young
lady has exposed herself to such an infamous insult
by stealing ten yards of Brussels’ lace, at £12
a yard, value £120 sterling.”

“Scoundrel!” exclaimed Franklin, again grasping
his collar.

“Hollo! hollo! hollo!” cried the man—hands off,
my cove! and keep a civil tongue in your head,
you’d best. It aint of no use, I give you my word
of honor.”

“Miss Clifford—”

But Miss Clifford had covered her face with her
white hands, which did not conceal her still whiter
complexion.

“Why, look ye, sir,”, said the man, “if you
really aint a party to the offence, I’m very sorry
for you. The business is just this here. The shop
of Blake, Blanchard & Co., has been frequently
robbed, and sometimes by ladies. I was called, not
four mouths ago, to take a real lady to prison, who
had stole to the amount of £10. And to prison she
went, too, though some of the most respectable
people in town came down and begged for her.
Now this here young lady came yesterday to the
shop of Blake, Blanchard & Co.—tumbled every
thing upside down, and bought nothing—went away—to-day
came again—asked to see the most valuable
lace—bought ten shillings’ worth of narrow
edging, and left the premises. At her departure
she was seen to take ten yards of lace—value,
£120. I was called in, and followed her, with one
of the clerks, to identify her person. We perceived
her walking fast—very fast, indeed. It was as
much as we could do to overtake her. The clerk
can swear to her identity—and the lace was found
in her hand. Both the young man and myself can
swear to it, if she denies it—though I caution you,
Miss, not to say any thing at present, because it
can be used against you at your trial.”

“I do not deny it,” said Caroline, with flashing
eyes. “I took the lace, but did not know I took it.”

“Oh! ho-ho!” said the man. “I hope you can
make ’em believe that. Perhaps you can.”

“My dear friend,” cried Mrs. Clifford, now nearly
beside herself, “I assure you, this is a frightful
mistake. She carried the lace away from mere
carelessness. Here is all the money I have about
me. Take it for yourself, only let us go. My
daughter, I assure you, is utterly incapable of stealing.
You don’t know her. As for the lace, I am
willing to pay for it. My name is Mrs. Clifford. I
live No. —— Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square.
My dear, kind, good sir, turn the carriage and let us
go home. My husband was Captain Clifford, of the
American navy. Do you think we would be guilty
of stealing? I will give you any money you desire.
I will give you £50—only let us go.”

“If your husband was Admiral Nelson himself,”
replied the man, with dignity, “I could not let you
go now—not if you were to give me £500. I have
only to do my duty. It’s a very painful one—but
it must be done. I aint a judge. I’m a policeman;
and my business is to deliver you safe into the hands
of Blake, Blanchard & Co.”

To describe the whirl of thoughts which swept
through the mind of Franklin during the interval
would be impossible. He saw that a simple act of
carelessness had been committed by Caroline; but
he was enough of a lawyer to perceive that the
proof against her was singularly striking and unanswerable—and
he knew the world too well, not
to feel extraordinary alarm at the possible consequences.
In London, alone, without friends or acquaintances,
a glance into the future almost drove him to
distraction. At moments he was half mastered
by the impulse to bear Caroline away, by a
sudden coup de main; but his hand was held by the
reflection, that even were such a wild scheme possible,
success would be no means of security,
inasmuch as Mrs. Clifford had given her address;
while the attempt would exasperate the other party,
appear but a new evidence of guilt, and in every
way enhance the danger of their position.

As they approached the fatal shop, a large crowd
had collected around the door. Franklin felt that
he was in one of those crises on which hang human
destiny and life, and that he had need of more prudence
and wisdom than man can possess, except it
be given him from above. Deep, therefore, and
trusting, was his silent prayer to Him who hath
said, “Be strong and of a good courage. I will
not fail thee, nor forsake thee.“

Caroline appeared ready to sink into the earth
when the carriage stopped.

“My dearest Miss Clifford,” said Franklin, “these
men have fallen into a bungling error, and it will
require some prudence on our part to make them
see it. But compose yourself. Put down your
veil; say nothing till I call you—and may God, in
his mercy, grant that our ordeal be short!”

These words were uttered with a composure and
cheerful presence of mind which reassured in some
degree the fainting girl. She had at her side a protector
who would never desert her—a pilot with a
strong arm, a steady eye, and a bold heart—who
would steer her through the wild storm, if any
human being could.

Mrs. Clifford, speechless with terror, let down her
daughter’s veil as well as her shaking hands permitted,
and was led by Franklin from the carriage into
the house. He then handed, or rather lifted, out
Caroline, who clung to him with helplessness and
terror. The trembling party—a hundred unfeeling
[Pg 5]
eyes bent upon them—were conducted through the
shop to a back parlor, into the presence of Mr. Jennings,
the only one of the firm of Blake, Blanchard
& Co. who happened to be at home. As Franklin
saw him his heart sank in his bosom, and the courage
which had begun to mount with the danger, seemed
a mockery.

Mr. Jennings was a respectable looking man of
forty, of a thin, hard countenance, repelling manners,
and sharp voice, which, when excited, rose to
a piercing and discordant note. There was no sign
of mercy or moderation in his physiognomy. This
man, who, after faithful subordinate services, had
become the inferior and hardest working partner,
happened to be afflicted with a very violent temper,
which had been wrought into a rage by various recent
purloinings, apparently like the present, attributed
to female customers, and perpetrated with a
combined cunning and daring which baffled detection,
and he had long yearned to lay his hand upon
one of them. His passions and interests were mingled
together in this desire, which, in addition, he
supposed fully sanctioned by duty; and when a
man, and particularly such a man, of a narrow mind
and cold heart—loving power, and rarely enabled
to taste its sweets, once gets into his head the idea
that he is acting from duty—God help the poor victim
that falls within his grasp.

Such was the individual before whom, in the attitude
of a detected criminal, was dragged the sweet
and trembling girl. Such was the man before whom
Franklin stood, curbing within the limits of prudence
his high wrought feelings.

“Now, my honest women,” said Jennings, seating
himself magisterially in a large arm-chair by a
table, while the rest stood in a circle around, like
prisoners at a bar before their judge, “what have
you to say with regard to the atrocious act of
felony—”

“One moment, sir,” said Franklin. “You will
have the kindness to order chairs for those ladies.”

Mr. Jennings paused, fixed a surprised glance at
the speaker, and obeyed.

“Well then, now—” demanded he.

“I beg your pardon!” again interrupted Franklin,
“permit me, in your own interest, to make another
suggestion. Before you proceed in this examination,
I warn you, with all deference to the sincerity
of your present error, that you have before you two
ladies of respectability, and unblemished reputation,
and who are entirely innocent in this matter.”

“Bah!” ejaculated Mr. Jennings.

“Silence, sir,” cried Franklin, with an indignation
irrepressible. “You have dragged before you
through the streets of London, a young and innocent
girl, like a criminal. If circumstances seem
for a moment to give you the right, humanity, as
well as decency requires, at least till the question
of her guilt be settled, that you address her with respect,
and hear her defence with candor and
attention.”

Mr. Jennings turned pale, swallowed his rage,
and replied: “Speak, sir! speak, sir! I am all
candor and attention.”

“I beg your pardon,” resumed Franklin, “if I
have answered with too much asperity. But this
young lady is perfectly innocent. She has high
friends. You will consider her under the protection
of the American Ambassador at this Court! State
to me, if you please, your reasons for dragging her
before you in the custody of policemen.”

Awed by Franklin’s tone, but rather infuriated
than melted, Mr. Jennings answered with sarcastic
politeness—

“Certainly, sir, your request is a just one. The
case is this. The young lady came to my shop this
morning, and had brought out for her examination
the most expensive lace, of which, however, she
purchased none, but, instead, expended ten shillings
for some narrow edging. I must inform you that
persons in the dress of ladies, and even persons in
the rank of ladies, have more than once committed
thefts of this kind, and I have ordered one of the
young men to watch. This individual saw in a
mirror the young lady, as she was about to leave,
seize a parcel of lace, and carry it out under cover
of her pocket-handkerchief. We sent directly for
policemen—but so rapid was the flight of the party,
including yourself, that it was not without considerable
difficulty and delay that they were overtaken,
when the stolen lace was found in her hand. We
are often obliged to forego the gratification of
punishing such misdemeanors by the technical difficulty
of proving the crime upon the criminal. You
perceive how the present case stands. I am willing
to allow it is but fair you should be heard, if you
have any thing to say in reply.”

“I have much to say,” resumed Franklin, smiling
with assumed confidence, “enough to satisfy any
reasonable man, and I hope I stand before such a
one. That the young lady took the lace no one can
deny. But I will tell you how she took it. For the
first time in London, her mind naturally excited,
she was bewildered amid the novel and interesting
objects around her. The splendor of your establishment
dazzled her eyes and distracted her attention.
In company with her mother and myself she came
here to see the lace in question, but she could not
have intended to steal it, if I must answer to such
a charge, because it would have been impossible
for her to use such an article without the knowledge
of her mother. If she is a thief her mother and I
share her guilt. I therefore repeat to you that these
ladies can command references to raise them above
the slightest breath of suspicion—references sufficient
to satisfy the most incredulous—the most unreasonable.
She is a person of the purest life and
strongest principles. Not one of her friends, and,
after a proper examination, not one of the public,
will ever believe her guilty of any thing worse than
a mere moment of bewilderment and absence of
mind.”

“Upon my word, sir,” said Mr. Jennings, “you
have undertaken a pretty difficult task—no less than
to convince me that black is white, and that two and
[Pg 6]
two don’t make four. Who are you?—and where
are your references?”

Franklin did not succeed in concealing a certain
trepidation at this blunt demand, and it was not lost
upon Jennings.

“My references do not reside in England.”

“Ah! ha!”

“I am a stranger in your metropolis.”

“Oh! ho!”

“And therefore,” added Franklin, “every noble-minded
and fair-play loving Englishman will say,
possessing greater claim upon your moderation. I
can bring you, from my own country—through the
official intervention of the American Minister, references
to outweigh a thousand fold—ten million
fold—all opposite appearances. I can give a moral
demonstration that the intentional commission by
this young lady of the act with which she is
charged, is an utter, and a ridiculous impossibility.”

“I have now heard you,” said Jennings, “and I
am sorry to say, I must, notwithstanding, send the
lady before a magistrate. The ingenious arguments
you have used are equally applicable to every theft.
No reference—no rank—no character can weigh
against so plain a fact, proved by ocular demonstration.
No rational judge or jury can doubt she
stole the lace. It is my duty to make an example
of her. This is not the first, nor the second time,
we have been robbed by ladies in affluent circumstances,
and respectably connected. It is a peculiar
crime, and generally committed in a way which
renders it both difficult and dangerous, even when
we know the criminal, to attempt to fix the fact
upon her. This time we have caught her in the
very act. We have eye-witnesses enough to render
doubt impossible. She does not deny it. She
fled with precipitation. She was overtaken a long
distance off—nearly half an hour after the offence—the
lace was found in her hand—and her companion
tried to bribe the policeman with £50 to let
her escape. And do you now talk to me of ‘respectability,’
and ‘connections,’ and such nonsense?
I would go as far as you or any man to
save an innocent person from destruction. But
when once convinced, by my own eyes, of deliberate
guilt, it is too late for mercy. The ignorant
beggar, who steals to save himself from starving, I
could pity—I could almost release; but when the
rich and the educated resort to stealing, to gratify
their vanity and avarice, hoping to shelter themselves
from punishment by their ‘connections,’
and their high position in society—they must
be taught, sir, that they do it at a fearful peril, and
that detection will bring down upon them the same
vulgar and rigorous penalties as if they were the
lowest dregs of the people.”

“I agree with you perfectly,” replied Franklin,
with forced composure, although the plain picture
appalled him, and robbed his countenance of every
trace of color, “but permit me to remark that you
must be quite sure the person before you belongs to
this guilty class. Her innocence can be rendered
morally certain. The whole world will brand as
cruel injustice any harsh treatment. A careless
girl has been absent-minded. All people are liable
to be so. You look for your spectacles when they
are on your nose—or seek your pocket-handkerchief,
and find it in your hand—”

“Our opinions differ on that point,” said Mr.
Jennings coldly, “and a jury must decide between
us. Policemen, take the party before the magistrate.
I will follow with my witnesses, and I pledge
myself to visit so heinous a crime with the utmost
rigor of the law.”

The policemen stepped to the side of Caroline.

“I appeal to your generosity—to your mercy,”
cried Franklin, “that she may at least be taken to
the American Minister, instead of being dragged
before a magistrate. I request only that you act
with gentleness.”

Mr. Jennings pointed the policemen to the door.

“And I not only request, I demand it!” cried
Franklin. “If you refuse me, you refuse me at
your peril—”

“You have nothing to command here, sir,” replied
Mr. Jennings. “The American Minister can
make his statement before the magistrate. I am not
disposed to exercise the least mercy. Policemen,
your duty. If her fate be a terrible one, she has
herself to thank for it. I hope it may deter others
from following her example.”

“And what will be my daughter’s fate?” asked
the unsteady voice of Mrs. Clifford.

“Transportation for life,” was the reply.

Mrs. Clifford shrieked. Caroline rose wildly and
staggered toward the door. Mr. Jennings, as if
thirsting for her destruction, and fearing her escape,
seized her so roughly that she screamed with pain
and terror, when Franklin dragged him back and
hurled him to the wall. His impulse was to strike
him to the earth, but with one of the highest qualities
attained by man, self-government, he recollected
himself and refrained.

“Policemen,” shouted Mr. Jennings, very white,
“I command you to take the whole party into custody.
You witnessed the assault. I am in danger
of my life. They are a gang of thieves and cut-throats.
Off with them this instant.”

“Stop!” cried Franklin, and there was something
in his voice which arrested the step of the policemen,
and compelled Jennings to stand in breathless
attention. “I demand the presence of one or both
of your partners, before the young lady be removed.
You will not, because you dare not, refuse me this
reasonable request. If you do, sir, it were better
you never had been born. Guilty, or not guilty, the
person whom, before she has been tried, your infamous
lips have branded as a common thief, has a
right to all mild and gentle treatment, consistent
with law and justice. You say the jury will decide.
But the question is now whether your house is prepared
to send her before a jury. That is the question
to be discussed, and you are not in a temper of
mind, sir, to enable you to decide it impartially.
The affair will ring from one end of England and
[Pg 7]
the United States to the other, and the execrations
of thousands, who have as yet never heard of you,
will fall upon your name. You will find that there
are two sides to the question. You will find that
if the lady has a malignant accuser she has also indignant
and powerful defenders. The world will
say you might have been excusable not to release
her, but you had no right to hurry her before the
public with needless and brutal precipitation. They
will say—and I will take care to tell them—that,
overcome by your violent temper, you insulted—you
assaulted—a helpless young girl in your power,
whose guilt had not been proved, and that, because
I dragged you back—blind with wrath, and burning
with revenge—you dared to take upon yourself,
alone, the whole responsibility of this outrage,
which will bring punishment on you, and disgrace
on your house. They will say let no lady hereafter
trust herself across the threshold of Blake, Blanchard
& Co., where the watch is set and the trap laid for
the unwary. They will say that Mr. Jennings is a
foul calumniator of woman as a sex—that he has
charged the noble ladies of England with crime.
They will judge whether the young girl could be
guilty without the participation of her mother and
myself, who, as you say, fled with her. The case
is one of mere carelessness, or we are three thieves.
Go on, if you dare, without your partners. Your
house, will become infamous, and you—yourself—mark
me, sir, shall not escape the chastisement you
deserve!”

He ceased, and the silence remained for a while
unbroken.

This appeal was not, on the part of Franklin, the
mere result of passion and despair, although from
both it received a strange power. It was a wise
calculation that Jennings, who could not be reasoned
or melted, might be terrified from his purpose, till
the arrival of his partners, before whom the matter
might take a different turn. By a happy inspiration
Franklin had read the man aright, and he saw
changes of countenance, as he proceeded, which
gave boldness to his heart and fire to his lips. Jennings
was a coward. He was terror-struck at the
idea of acting on his “sole responsibility,” in an
affair which seemed likely to be so hotly contested.
The blood curdled in his veins at the thought of the
deadly enemies, darkly hinted at, and the consequences
clearly threatened. He saw Caroline was
no common thief, and Franklin no common man.
There were moments when he actually believed the
fact really was as Franklin represented—and, thus
quailing under the torrent of eloquence to which the
voice and manner gave something absolutely irresistible,
half suffocated with rage and fear, he said
with ill assumed indifference:

“Oh! very well, sir, very well. I will wait for
my partners. Nothing shall be done rashly. Nothing
from revenge. But the young lady shall not
escape. Mr. Williams, go and see if Mr. Blake or
Mr. Blanchard have come in.”

And thus at least more time was gained.

Mr. Williams went out, and returned to say that
Mr. Blake had not yet come in, but Mr. Blanchard
had, and would join them immediately.

The door opened and the person in question entered.
He was a young man of thirty, of unusually
prepossessing exterior. A stream of hope shot
through Franklin’s heart as he read his face.

Mr. Blanchard seated himself gravely in the large
chair which was abdicated in his favor by Jennings,
who related to him the facts, respectfully and clearly,
and called up the policemen and Mr. Williams in
confirmation.

“It is a bad case,” said Mr. Blanchard. “Our
duty is clear. Is there any thing said in the defence?”

“Oh yes, there is a powerful defence!” replied
Mr. Jennings, with a sneer, “the young lady took
the lace, and kept it half an hour, running away as
fast as she could, but she but she didn’t know she
had it!! ha! ha! ha!”

Mr. Blanchard shook his head.

“Sir, may I speak?” said Franklin.

“Speak,” returned Mr. Blanchard, in a low voice.
“If you have any thing to say I will hear it with
the sincerest desire to find it of weight. But you
have a difficult task before you. These occasions
are extremely painful. The necessity of sending to
prison a respectable young lady, as you represent
this person to be, is harrowing indeed; but private
feelings must give way to higher considerations. I
have a duty to perform—a duty to society—a duty
to my partners—a duty to God!”

“You have,” rejoined Franklin, “but if you properly
examine your conscience, and ask light of
Him who knows the truth, you will hear the voice
of God himself, warning you not to perform that
duty prematurely, carelessly, or cruelly. I ask
time. I offer references to prove that the person in
question, from education, character, habits, opinions,
religious principles, and her whole, pure and artless
life, is not, and could not be intentionally guilty of
the act in question. I request time to produce these
references. My young companion took the lace in
a moment of bewilderment—of absence of mind.
She has just arrived in London—is dazzled and excited.
If, sir, you have a sister, a daughter, a mother,
a wife, picture her—after such a careless accident—grasped
by a policeman, dragged through the
streets, exposed to the eyes of the jesting crowd—the
blackest construction put upon her action, shrinking
before a magistrate, cast into prison, and, God
knows what else!—and all because of an act, not in
reality more inexplicable than that of a man who
walks off with a hat not his own, or another person’s
umbrella—in a fit of forgetfulness.”

Jennings leaned over and whispered something to
Mr. Blanchard.

“It is quite probable,” said Mr. Blanchard, “that
[Pg 8]
you believe her innocent, but the various and glaring
circumstances do not permit me to be of your opinion.
The expressive flight, the intervening time,
long enough to discover a mistake merely accidental—the
bribe of £50—no—no—it is impossible,” said
he, rising, “I am sorry for you, sir, but this matter
rests no longer with me. The prisoner must be removed.”

“What I ask,” said Franklin, “is not her release.
It is only time to make you acquainted with the
proofs of which the case is susceptible. The ‘prisoner,’
as you call her, is as innocent as the snow
yet unfallen from heaven. I do not ask you to sacrifice
what you fancy your duty, I ask you only to
pause ere you execute it. I request you ere you
thrust a shrinking girl, as a suspected thief, before
the public, that you more carefully examine her side
of the question. Her bankers, the Messrs. Baring,
will answer for her presence whenever you desire.
My banker will answer for her. The American
Minister will satisfy you of the strong impropriety
of any other proceeding. Oh! sir, in the name of a
mother’s breaking heart—in the name of sweet
girlish innocence—in the name of God, believe
what I say! If you err, err on the side of mercy.
Think, when you lay your head this night on your
pillow, the day has not been lost, for it was marked
by an act of mercy. Think, when on your death-bed,
you plead at the throne of God, He has said,
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive
mercy.’ If she really had committed the offence, I
should not fear to ask you for mercy on her young
head—her inexperienced life. Our Divine Master
granted mercy even to the guilty. Will you refuse
it then to this trembling and innocent girl, for whose
guileless intention, in this terrible accident, I answer
before man and God, and with my life and soul.
Come here, Miss Clifford! Take off your veil. Tell
Mr. Blanchard, in the simple language of truth, how
this incident took place.”

“Yes, come here, my young friend,” said Mr.
Blanchard, “and tell me how this sad mistake
arose.”

Perhaps it was Franklin’s eloquence—perhaps it
was Caroline’s appearance—perhaps it was both,
which drew the silent tear from Mr. Blanchard’s
eyes, and those two significant words from his lips.
But oh! to Franklin’s soul, wrought up almost to
despair—almost, to madness—they were rapture,
they were ecstasy, they were like the first streak of
golden sky which announces to the half-wrecked
sailor that the tempest is over.

“Speak, my dear young lady,” said Mr. Blanchard,
“do not tremble so! you have nothing to fear
from me!”

“I left the door,” said Caroline, in a low voice,
“without knowing I had the lace. A gentleman
ran against me and knocked it out of my hand. He
picked it up. I then saw what I had done. I exclaimed,
‘ma’ma, let us go back!’—but ma’ma had
gone on—I was alone—two men seized me—and—and—”

She covered her face with her hands, and sunk
into the chair.

“But, so far from coming back,” said Mr. Jennings’
piercing voice, “you were walking rapidly
away.”

“No,” said Caroline.

“But I say yes!” screamed Jennings. “Mr.
Williams, was not the young woman walking rapidly
away?”

“She had been walking rapidly,” said Mr. Williams,
“but when we came up she was, as she says,
standing still, looking at the lace. It is also true that
an old gentleman ran against her, knocked the lace
out of her hand, and picked it up again. That I saw
from the distance.”

“Mark you!” exclaimed Franklin, “how each
small feature of her story is confirmed.”

“But you left our door,” exclaimed Mr. Jennings,
“at a furious pace.”

“That I can explain to your satisfaction,” said
Franklin. “We were engaged to call upon a lady,
Mrs. Porter, No. ——, Portland-Place, at half past
two. This Mrs. Porter herself can testify. We left
your door too late, and walked rapidly to keep our
appointment. You can ascertain from your clerks
at what hour we left.”

“It was just half past two,” said Mr. Williams.
“I looked at the clock.”

“Mark!” cried Franklin, with an air of triumph.

“Upon my word, Mr. Jennings,” said Mr. Blanchard,
“we have been too hasty—”

At this moment the door opened, and another
person entered.

“Just in time,” muttered Mr. Jennings.

It was Mr. Blake, chief partner in the firm of
Blake, Blanchard & Co. He was a venerable old
gentleman, of an agreeable person, with a certain
dignity which well became his snow-white hair, but
through which, on the present occasion, appeared
a settled firmness, almost a sternness, boding no
good.

“You have come in time,” said Jennings. “Do
you know what is going on here?”

“I do. The facts have been related to me.”

“And the famous defence?” added Jennings,
with one of his worst sneers, “do you know that
also?”

“I do. It is a clear case. There is but one
course for us.”

“And yet,” cried Jennings, “Mr. Blanchard has
been thinking it will not do to send so respectable
a young lady to prison. But I say you will not
have a case in forty years so proper to make a
wholesome example of. If you let this one go,
whom can you punish? Precautions were useless,
if thieves can commit their depredations under our
very noses with impunity.”

“I am of your opinion,”said Mr. Blake. “The
offence is of a very aggravated description; and I
deem it absolutely necessary to send the delinquent
before a magistrate to be punished as she deserves.”

“I have explained—” said Franklin.

But while he commenced once more his agonizing
task, Mr. Jennings took Mr. Blake aside, and
whispered to him some minutes vehemently.
Franklin attempted to speak again.

“I will hear no explanation,” said the old gentleman.
“No argument—no character—no references
can prevail against so wicked a felony so clearly
proved. The youth, condition in life, and education
[Pg 9]
of the person, only render the crime more
detestable, and the necessity for a terrible example
more unavoidable. Your own good sense should
have taught you, sir, that threats are here out of
place, and violence can only make matters worse.
I have solemnly vowed that I would meet the next
case with the utmost rigor of the law. I am determined
to prosecute. Where is the prisoner?
Policemen, take her into custody.”

“But,” cried Franklin.

“I will hear no more,” said Mr. Blake, coldly
and firmly. “Mr. Jennings, who has gone over
the case with the most attention, is thoroughly convinced—”

“Thoroughly!” said Mr. Jennings.

“Policemen—”

Franklin’s brain whirled in wild despair. He
clasped his hands—he conjured the mild, mistaken
man, whose slightest word could save Caroline
from destruction.

“Mercy! I ask only one day.”

“Young man, you plead in vain! Ask mercy of
God, but not of me.”

“Then listen, heart of stone!” cried Franklin, “and
hear my final words. You are old. Your head is
white; your feet are already in the grave. You will,
ere long, be called before your Maker—yourself a
trembling suppliant for mercy. If, with cold-blooded,
stupid obstinacy, in the face of my warning, you
drag this innocent and modest girl, prematurely,
into a police office—at a bar for criminals—to stand
a spectacle for the public, amid robbers, and murderers,
and to run the fearful chances of the law, I
solemnly warn you, old man, you will have innocent
blood on your conscience—you will call down
God’s curse upon your head.”

“What can I do?” said Mr. Blake, overwhelmed
by his irresistible earnestness.

“You can do unto others, as you would have them
do unto you—you can give us time for proof, and
yourself for reflection. You can suppose it was
your own daughter in her place. You can examine
more carefully. You can break from the leading-strings
of that malignant Mr. Jennings. You can
consult with Mr. Blanchard, a man of reason and
feeling, who disapproves your severity. You can
wait to satisfy yourself that this young lady is distinguished
for a stainless character, a pure life, strict
religious principles, humble faith in God, and habitual
communion with him. You can judge for yourself
whether this is a case of monomania—whether
a person thus distinguished, could be guilty of intentional
purloining. Sir, ocular demonstration
weighs nothing against such a character. You can
ask yourself more dispassionately whether it be not
a possibility—a very natural one—for an absent-minded
person to commit such an act mechanically
and unconsciously. You can hear her artless story
from her own lips, and candidly consider if it may
not be the truth.”

Carried away by Franklin’s eloquent vehemence,
Mr. Blake did look. Caroline had risen. The last
spark of earthly hope had fled. She stood, without
gesture or tear. It seemed as if death had already
laid his icy hand upon her, only her eyes were lifted
above, while she breathed a silent prayer to Him
whose mighty hand can raise the trusting heart, in
one instant, from the lowest depths of despair.

“Ha! What! God bless my soul!” suddenly ejaculated
the old gentleman, in great astonishment.
“What do I see! My dearest, sweetest young lady!
Mr. Blanchard! Mr. Jennings! Mr. Williams—”

Caroline gazed at him a moment—uttered a shriek
which thrilled to every heart with an electric shock,
cried, “Oh, sir, save me—you can save me!” and
fell insensible into the arms of Franklin.

“Policemen!—off with you!” cried Mr. Blake,
with tears in his eyes. “Mr. Jennings, you are a
fool! I answer with my life for this young lady. I
ran against her in the street. I picked up the lace,
and saw her look of astonishment and horror; and
heard her exclaim, “ma’ma! let us go back directly!”
Go, proclaim to every one in the establishment
that she is innocent. We are the guilty party—and
we are at her mercy!”

To terminate the exciting scene, Franklin proposed
to return home. A carriage was called.
Caroline had revived, and her feelings, fortunately,
found vent in tears. She wept bitterly on her
mother’s bosom, who gave it back with interest.
But in the midst of their joy, not one of the three
forgot to offer up their secret, thankful prayer, to
that overruling Providence, whose watchful mercy
had rescued them from a fate too horrible for
imagination.

Franklin could scarcely wait till they walked to
the carriage. He wished to carry—to drag Caroline
away. He shifted his position continually, without
apparent cause; at last shook hands with his companions,
saying he would follow the carriage, as he
wanted air and exercise.

They soon arrived home, where Caroline, in a
high state of excitement, was ordered to bed by a
physician; but, after soothing medicines had calmed
certain hysterical symptoms, she fell into a deep
sleep, which the doctor said was worth more than
all the apothecaries could compound. In fact, she
did not wake till late next morning, and in a day or
two was comparatively restored.

But poor Franklin had gone home in a raging
fever, which increased during the night to delirium.
His ravings were of magistrates, the jeering crowd,
dungeons, chains, and the convict-ship. Then he
was at the penal settlement. He heard the frightful
oaths, obscene jests, and blasphemous laughter of
the convicts. Among them he beheld Caroline
Clifford—haggard, and in rags—now toiling at her
task, now shrieking beneath the bloody lash—and
he seemed to grasp the throat of Jennings, and implored
him to stay his hellish hand.

More than a month passed before he was sufficiently
recovered to leave his room. Every day
Mrs. Clifford had visited him, and watched over
him with a mother’s love. Every day the carriage
of Mr. Blake brought the old gentleman to the bed-side
of the poor invalid, where he listened to the
[Pg 10]
ravings of his disturbed imagination, and shuddered
to think of what horrors—but for a providential
coincidence—he might have added to the history of
human wo.

At length Mr. Franklin was allowed to take a
drive. It is scarcely necessary to say that he called
on the ladies. Mrs. Clifford, previously apprized of
his intended visit, at the sound of the bell, accidentally
remembered that she had left her scissors
up stairs. So Franklin found Caroline alone.

“You are very, very pale,” cried the greatly
agitated girl, her eyes filling with good, honest
tears, as she gave him her hand.

He raised it to his lips.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Clifford.”

But, like Beatrice, she seemed to hold it there
again with a fervor which even the modest Franklin
could not wholly misunderstand.

“I owe you more than my life,” cried Caroline,
with such a look as she had never bestowed upon
him before.

“And yet,” cried Franklin, “you fraudulently withhold
from me the only payment in your power.”

“Nonsense—what payment,” cried she, blushing
deeply.

“Your dear self!” answered Franklin, in a
timid voice.

“Then you must collect your debt, as other hard-hearted
creditors do—by force.”

“In that case,” rejoined Franklin, with a boldness
which astonished himself, “an execution must issue,
and proceedings commence directly.”

Mrs. Clifford, having found her scissors, just then
entered the room, but not before the ardent lawyer
had performed the threatened duty—not quite so
harrowing a one as that attempted by Mr. Jennings,
though it led to the same result, viz., she was obviously
transported, and, as it turned out—-for life.

Nor is this all.

Old Mr. Blake had learned how the land lay from
Mrs. Clifford, and he resolved to make the young
people reparation. He owed it to them in all conscience.
They were married in about six weeks;
and when the ceremony was over, a parcel was
brought in, directed “To Mrs. Franklin, with the
compliments of Messrs. Blake, Blanchard & Co.,”
which, on being opened, was found to contain a
superb Cashmere shawl—thirty yards of the £12
lace, and a neat mahogany box, with a coronet of
diamonds for the young criminal.

We wont go into the history of the ladies’ objections
to accepting these costly testimonials. Mr.
Blake pleaded almost as eloquently as Franklin had
done, till at last Franklin “put his foot down,” as
I recommend all young husbands to do on such occasions,
and showed Mr. Blake who was master.

Nor was this all either.

A number of years afterward, when Mr. and Mrs.
Franklin had returned to New York, and while the
fond wife and happy mother was one day profoundly
engaged in arranging a highly ornamented
and curious little cap, her husband entered with a
letter, and read as follows:

To Mrs. Caroline Franklin.

London, Feb. 10, 184-.

Madam,—It has become my duty to inform you,
that, by the will of the late Mr. Blake, of the firm of
Blake, Blanchard & Co., you have become entitled
to his blessing, and a legacy of £2500 sterling, which,
upon proving your identity, you can either draw
for on me, at thirty days, or have remitted in any
other way you desire.

I have the honor to be, madam, very respectfully,
your obedient servant,

John Lockley,

Solicitor, No. —— Russel Square.

A FUNERAL THOUGHT.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

THE MEMORIAL TREE.

BY WM. GILMORE SIMMS, AUTHOR OF “THE YEMASSE,” “RICHARD HURDIS,” ETC.

THE RAINBOW.

BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

SPIRIT-YEARNINGS FOR LOVE.

BY MRS. H. MARION WARD.

THE RIVAL SISTERS.

AN ENGLISH TRAGEDY OF REAL LIFE.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “THE ROMAN TRAITOR,” “MARMADUKE WYVIL,” ETC.

It has been gravely stated by an Italian writer of
celebrity, that “the very atrocity of the crimes which
are therein committed, proves that in Italy the growth
of man is stronger and more vigorous, and nearer to
the perfect standard of manhood, than in any other
country.”

A strange paradox, truly, but not an uningenious—at
least for a native of that “purple land, where
law secures not life,” who would work out of the
very reproach, an argument of honor to his country.
If it be true, however, that proneness to the commission
of unwonted and atrocious crime is to be
held a token of extraordinary vigor—vigor of nerve,
of temperament, of passion, of physical development—in
a race of men, then surely must the Anglo-Norman
breed, under all circumstances of time, place,
and climate, be singularly destitute of all these
qualities—nay, singularly frail, effeminate, and incomplete.

For it is an undoubted fact, both of the past and
present history of that great and still increasing race,
whether limited to the narrow bounds of the Island
Realm which gave it being, or extended to the boundless
breadth of isles, and continents, and oceans,
which it has filled with its arms, its arts, its industry,
its language—it is, I say, an undoubted fact, that those
dreadful and sanguinary crimes, forming a class apart
and distinct of themselves, engendered for the most
part by morbid passions, love, lust, jealousy, and
revenge, which are of daily occurrence in the southern
countries of, Europe, Asia, and America, are almost
unknown in those happier lands, where English laws
prevail, with English liberty and language.

It is to this that must be ascribed the fact, that, in
the very few instances where crimes of this nature
have occurred in England or America, the memory
of them is preserved with singular pertinacity, the
smallest details handed down from generation to
generation, and the very spots in which they have
occurred, howmuchsoever altered or improved in
the course of ages, haunted, as if by an actual presence,
by the horror and the scent of blood; while on
the other hand the fame of ordinary deeds of violence
and rapine seems almost to be lost before the lives
of the perpetrators are run out.

One, and almost, I believe, a singular instance of
this kind—for I would not dignify the brawls and
assassinations which have disgraced some of our
southern cities, the offspring of low principles and an
unregulated society, by comparing them to the class
of crimes in question, which imply even in their
atrocity a something of perverted honor, of extravagant
affection, or at least of not ignoble passion—is
the well-known Beauchamp tragedy of Kentucky, a
tale of sin and horror which has afforded a theme to
the pens of several distinguished writers, and the
details of which are as well known on the spot at
present, as if years had not elapsed since its occurrence.
And this, too, in a country prone above all
others, from the migratory habits of its population, to
cast aside all tradition, and to lose within a very few
years the memory of the greatest and most illustrious
events upon the very stage of their occurrence.

It is not, therefore, wonderful that in England,
where the immobility of the population, the reverence
for antiquity, and the great prevalence of oral
tradition, induced probably at first by the want of
letters, cause the memory of even past trifles to dwell
for ages in the breasts of the simple and moral people,
any deed of romantic character, any act of unusual
atrocity, any crime prompted by unusual or extraordinary
motives, should become, as it were, part and
parcel of the place wherein it was wrought; that the
leaves of the trees should whisper it to the winds of
evening; that the echoes of the lonely hills should repeat
it; that the waters should sigh a burthen to its
strain; and that the very night should assume a
deeper shadow, a more horrid gloom, from the awe
of the unforgotten sin.

I knew a place in my boyhood, thus haunted by
the memory of strange crime; and whether it was
merely the terrible romance of the story, or the wild
and gloomy character of the scenery endowed with a
sort of natural fitness to be the theatre of terrible
events, or yet again the union of the two, I know not;
but it produced upon my mind a very powerful influence,
amounting to a species of fascination, which
constantly attracted me to the spot, although when
there, the weight of the tradition, and the awe of the
scene produced a sense of actual pain.

The place to which I allude was but a few miles
distant from the celebrated public school, at which I
passed the happiest days of a not uneventful life, and
was within an easy walk of the college limits; so
that when I had attained that favored eminence,
known as the sixth form, which allows its happy occupants
to roam the country, free from the fear of
masters, provided only they attend at appointed
hours, it was my frequent habit to stroll away from
the noisy playing-fields through the green hedgerow
lanes, or to scull my wherry over the smooth surface
of the silver Thames, toward the scene of dark tradition;
[Pg 14]
and there to lap myself in thick coming fancies,
half sad, half sweet, yet terrible withal, and in their
very terror attractive, until the call of the homeward
rooks, and the lengthened shadows of the tall
trees on the greensward, would warn me that I too
must hie me back with speed, or pay the penalty of
undue delay.

Now, as the story has in itself, apart from the extraneous
interest with which a perfect acquaintance
with its localities may have invested it in my eyes,
a powerful and romantic character; as its catastrophe
was no less striking than un-English; and as the passions
which gave rise to it were at once the strongest
and the most general—though rarely prevailing, at
least among us Anglo-Normans, to so fearful an
extent—I am led to hope that others may find in it
something that may enchain their attention for a time,
though it may not affect them as it has me with
an influence, unchanged by change of scene, unaltered
by the lapse of time, which alters all things.

I propose, therefore, to relate it, as I heard it first
from an old superannuated follower of the family,
which, owning other, though not fairer demesnes in
some distant county, had never more used Ditton-in-the-Dale
as their dwelling place, although well nigh
two centuries had elapsed since the transaction which
had scared them away from their polluted household
gods.

But first, I must describe briefly the characteristics
of the scenery, without which a part of my tale
would be hardly comprehensible, while the remarkable
effect produced by the coincidence, if I may so
express myself, between the nature of the deed, and
the nature of the place, would be lost entirely.

In the first place, then, I must premise that the name
of Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer,
as the house and estate which bear that name, are
situated on what a visiter would be at first inclined
to call a dead level, but on what is in truth a small
secondary undulation, or hollow, in the broad, flat
valley through which the father of the English rivers,
the royal-towered Thames, pursues, as Gray sang,

But so destitute is all that country of any deep or well
defined valleys, much less abrupt glens or gorges,
that any hollow containing a tributary stream, which
invariably meanders in slow and sluggish reaches
through smooth, green meadow-land, is dignified with
the name of dale, or valley. The country is, however,
so much intersected by winding lanes, bordered
with high straggling white-thorn hedges full of tall
timber trees, is subdivided into so many small fields,
all enclosed with similar fences, and is diversified
with so many woods, and clumps of forest trees, that
you lose sight of the monotony of its surface, in consequence
of the variety of its vegetation, and of the
limited space which the eye can comprehend, at any
one time.

The lane by which I was wont to reach the demesne
of Ditton, partook in an eminent degree of this character,
being very narrow, winding about continually
without any apparent cause, almost completely embowered
by the tall hawthorn hedges, and the yet
taller oaks and ashes which grew along their lines,
making, when in full verdure, twilight of noon itself,
and commanding no view whatever of the country
through which it ran, except when a field-gate, or cart-track
opened into it, affording a glimpse of a lonely
meadow, bounded, perhaps, by a deep wood-side.

On either hand of this lane was a broad, deep ditch,
both of them quite unlike any other ditches I have
ever seen. Their banks were irregular; and it would
seem evident that they had not been dug for any purposes
of fencing or enclosure; and I have sometimes
imagined, from their varying width and depth—for in
places they were ten feet deep, and three times as
broad, and at others but a foot or two across, and
containing but a few inches of water—that their beds
had been hollowed out to get marl or gravel for the
convenience of the neighboring cultivators.

Be this as it may, they were at all times brimful of
the clearest and most transparent water I ever remember
to have seen—never turbid even after the
heaviest rains; and though bordered by water-flags,
and tapestried in many places by the broad, round
leaves of the white and yellow water-lilies, never
corrupted by a particle of floating scum, or green
duckweed.

Whether they were fed by secret springs I know
not; or whether they communicated by sluices or
side-drains with the neighboring Thames; I never
could discover any current or motion in their still,
glassy waters, though I have wandered by their banks
a hundred times, watching the red-finned roach and
silvery dace pursue each other among the shadowy
lily leaves, now startling a fat yellow frog from the
marge, and following him as he dived through the
limpid blackness to the very bottom, now starting in
my own turn, as a big water-rat would swim from
side to side, and vanish in some hole of the marly
bank, and now endeavoring to catch the great azure-bodied,
gauze-winged dragon-flies, as they shot to
and fro on their poised wings, pursuing kites of the
insect race, some of the smaller ephemera.

It was those quiet, lucid waters, coupled with the
exceeding shadiness of the trees, and its very unusual
solitude—I have walked it, I suppose, from end to
end at least a hundred times, and I never remember
to have met so much even as a peasant returning
from his daily labor, or a country maiden tripping to
the neighboring town—that gave its character, and I
will add, its charm to this half pastoral, half sylvan
lane. For nearly three miles it ran in one direction,
although, as I have said, with many devious turns,
and seemingly unnecessary angles, and through that
length it did not pass within the sound of one farm-yard,
or the sight of one cottage chimney. But to
make up for this, of which it was, indeed, a consequence,
the nightingales were so bold and familiar
that they might be heard all day long filling the air
with their delicious melodies, not waiting, as in more
frequented spots, the approach of night, whose dull
ear to charm with amorous ravishment; nay, I have
seen them perched in full view on the branches,
[Pg 15]
gazing about them fearless with their full black eyes,
and swelling their emulous throats in full view of the
spectator.

Three miles passed, the lane takes a sudden turn to
the northward, having previously run, for the most
part, east and west; and here, in the inner angle,
jutting out suddenly from a dense thicket of hawthorns
and hazels, an old octagonal summer-house,
with a roof shaped like an extinguisher, projects
into the ditch, which here expands into a little pool,
some ten or twelve yards over in every direction, and
perhaps deeper than at any other point of its course.

Beyond the summer-house there is a little esplanade
of green turf, faced with a low wall toward the
ditch, allowing the eye to run down a long, narrow
avenue of gigantic elm-trees, meeting at the top in
the perfect semblance of a Gothic aisle, and bordered
on each hand by hedges of yew, six feet at least in
height, clipped into the form and almost into the
solidity of a wall. At the far end of this avenue,
which must be nearly two-thirds of a mile in length,
one can discern a glimpse of a formal garden, and
beyond that, of some portion of what seems to be a
large building of red brick.

At the extremity of the esplanade and little wall,
there grows an enormous oak, not very tall, but with
an immense girth of trunk, and such a spread of
branches that it completely overshadows the summer-house,
and overhangs the whole surface of the small
pool in front of it. Thenceforth, the tall and tangled
hedge runs on, as usual denying all access of the eye,
and the deep, clear ditch all access of the foot, to the
demesnes within; until at the distance of perhaps a
mile and a quarter, a little bridge crosses the latter,
and a green gate, with a pretty rustic lodge beside it,
gives entrance to a smooth lawn, with a gravel-road
running across it, and losing itself on the farther side,
in a thick belt of woodland.

It is, however, with the summer-house that I have
to do principally, for it is to it that the terror of blood
has clung through the lapse of years, as the scent of
the Turkish Atar is said to cling, indestructible, to
the last fragment of the vessel which had once contained
it.

When first I saw that small lonely pavilion, I had
heard nothing of the strange tradition which belonged
to it, yet as I looked on the plastered walls, all
covered with spots of damp and mildew, on the roof
overrun with ivy, in masses so wildly luxuriant as
almost to conceal the shape, on the windows, one in
each side of the octagon, closed by stout jalousies,
which had been once green with paint, but were now
green with damp and vegetable mould, a strange feeling,
half of curiosity and half of terror, came over
me, mixed with that singular fascination of which I
have spoken, which seemed to deny me any rest until
I should have searched out the mystery—for I felt
sure that mystery there was—connected with that
summer-house, so desolate and so fast lapsing into
ruin, while the hedges and gardens within appeared
well cared for, and in trim cultivation.

I well remember the first time I beheld that lonely
and deserted building. It was near sunset, on as
lovely a summer evening as ever shed its soft light
on the earth; the air was breathless; the sky cloudless;
thousands of swallows were upon the wing,
some skimming the limpid surface of those old
ditches, others gliding on balanced pinions so far aloft
in the darkening firmament that the eye could barely
discern them.

The nightingales were warbling their rich, melancholy
notes from every brake and thicket; the bats
had come forth and were flitting to and fro on their
leathern wings under the dark trees; but the brilliant
dragon-flies, and all the painted tribe of butterflies
had vanished already, and another race, the insects
of the night, had taken their places.

The rich scent of the new-mown hay loaded the
air with fragrance, and vied with the odors of the
eglantine and honeysuckle, which, increased by the
falling dew, steamed up like incense to the evening
skies.

I was alone, and thoughtful; for the time although
sweet and delicious, had nothing in it gay or joyous;
the lane along which I was strolling was steeped in
the fast increasing shadows, for although the air aloft
was full of sunshine, and the topmost leaves of the
tall ashes shimmered like gold in the late rays, not a
single beam penetrated the thick hedgerows, or fell
upon the sandy horse-road. The water in the deep
ditches looked as black as night, and the plunge of
the frogs into their cool recesses startled the ear amid
the solitude and stillness of the place.

It was one of those evenings, in a word, which
calls up, we know not why, a train of thought not
altogether sad, nor wholly tender, but calm and meditative
and averse to action. I had been wandering
along thus for nearly an hour, musing deeply all the
while, yet perfectly unconscious that I was musing,
much more what was the subject of my meditations,
when coming suddenly to the turn of the lane, the old
summer-house met my eyes, and almost startled me,
so little did I expect in that place to see any thing
that should recall to my mind the dwellings or the
vicinity of man.

The next minute I began to scrutinize, and to wonder—for
it was evident that this building must be an
appendage to the estate of some gentleman or person
of degree, and, knowing all the families of note in
that neighborhood, I was well assured that no one
dwelt here of sufficient position to be the owner of
what appeared at first sight to be a noble property.

Anxious as I was, however, to effect my entrance
into that enchanted ground, I could discover no means
of doing so; for the depth of the water effectually cut
off all access to the hedgerow banks, even if there
had been any prospect of forcing a passage through
the tangled thorn-bushes beyond. Before I could find
any solution to my problem, the fast thickening
shadows admonished me that I must beat my retreat;
and it was only by dint of redoubled speed that I
reached college in time to escape the consequences
of absence from roll-call.

An early hour of the evening found me at my post
on the following day; for having a direct object now
in view, I wasted no time on the road, and the sun
[Pg 16]
was still some distance above the horizon, when I
reached the summer-house.

It had been my hope, as I went along, that I might
find some shallow spot, with a corresponding gap in
the hedge, before reaching the place, by means of
which I might turn the defences, and take the enemy
in the rear; but it was all in vain; and I came upon
the ground without discovering any opening by which
an animal larger than a rat could enter the forbidden
ground.

Difficulty, it is well known, heightens desire; and,
if I wished before, I was now determined that I
would get in. Quickening my pace, I set off at a
smart run to reconnoitre the defences beyond, but
having found nothing that favored my plans, in some
half mile or so, I again returned, now bent on forcing
my way, even if I should be compelled to undress,
and swim across the pool to the further side.

Before having recourse to this last step, however,
I reconnoitered my ground somewhat more narrowly
than before, and soon discovered that one of the main
limbs of the great oak shot quite across the pool, and
extended some little distance on my side over terra
firma.

It is true that the nearer extremity of the branch
was rather of the slenderest, to support the weight
even of a boy, and that the lowest point was a foot
or two above my head. But what of that? I was
young and active in those days, and somewhat bold
withal; and without a spice of danger, where were
the pleasure or excitement of adventure?

It did not take me long to make up my mind, and
before I had well thought of the risk, I had swung
myself up into the branches, and was creeping, with
even less difficulty than I had anticipated, along the
great gnarled bough above the mirrored pool.

Danger, in fact, there was none; for slender as the
extremities appeared, they were tough English oak,
and the parent branch once gained, would have supported
the weight of Otus and Ephialtes, and all their
giant crew, much more of one slight Etonian.

In five minutes, or less, I had reached the fork of
the trunk, and, swarming down on the further side,
stood in the full fruition of my hopes, on that enchanted
ground.

It was as I had expected to find it, a singular and
gloomy spot; the tall elm trees which formed the
avenue, and the black wall of clipped yew, which
followed their course, diverging to the right and left,
formed a semicircle, the chord of which was the low
wall and hawthorn hedge, the summer-house standing,
as I entered, in the angle on my left hand.

Although, as I have said, the sun was still high in
heaven, the little area was almost dark already; and
it was difficult, indeed, to conjecture for what end
the wisdom of our ancestors had planted a sun-dial in
the centre of the grass-plat, where it seemed physically
impossible that a chance sunbeam should ever
strike it, to tell the hour.

If it had not been for the narrow open space between
the oak tree and the summer-house, the little
lawn would even now have been as black as night;
as it was, a sort of misty-gray twilight, increased,
perhaps, by the thin vapors rising from the tranquil
pool, filled all its precincts; and beyond these, stretching
away in long perspective until the arch at the
further end seemed dwindled to the size of a needle’s
eye, was the long aisle of gloomy foliage, as massive
and impenetrable to any ray of light as the stone
arches of a Gothic cloister.

The only thing that conveyed an idea of gayety or
life, to the cold and tomb-like scenery, was the
glimpse of bright sunshine which lay on the open
garden at the extremity of the elm-walk, with the
gaudy and glowing hues, indistinctly seen in the distance,
of some summer flowers.

Yet even this was not all unmixed with something
of melancholy, for the contrast of the gay sunbeams
and bright flowers only rendered the gloom more apparent,
and like a convent-garden, seemed to awaken
cravings after the joyous world without, diminishing
nothing of the sorrow and monotony within.

But I was not in those days much given to moralizing,
or to the investigation of my own inward
feelings.

I had come thither to inquire, to see, to learn, to
find out things—not causes. And perceiving at one
glance that my first impression was correct, that the
grass-plots were recently mown, the gravel-walks
newly rolled, and spotless of weeds, the tall yew
hedges assiduously clipped into the straightest and
most formal lines; that every thing, in short, displayed
the most heedful tendance, the neatest cultivation,
with the exception of the summer-pavilion,
which evidently was devoted to decay, I became but
the more satisfied that there was some mystery, and
the more resolute to probe it to the core.

It was quite clear that when that garden was laid
out, and that avenue planted, how many years ago
the giant size of the old elms denoted, the summer-house
was the meaning of the whole design. The
avenue had no object but to lead to it, the little lawn
no purpose but to receive it. Doubly strange, therefore,
did it seem that these should be kept up in all
their trimness, that suffered to fall into decay.

It was the tragedy of Hamlet, with Hamlet’s part
omitted!

I stood for a little while wondering, and half overcome
by a sort of indescribable fanciful superstition.
A cloud had come over the sun, the nightingales had
ceased to sing, and there was not a sound of any kind
to be heard, except the melancholy murmur of the
summer air in the tree-tops.

In a moment, however, the transitory spell was
shaken off, and, once more the bold and reckless
schoolboy, I turned to the performance of my self-imposed
task.

The summer-house, as I have said, was octagon,
three of its sides, with a window in each, jutting out
into the clear pool, and three, with a door in the
centre, and a window on each side, fronting the little
lawn. But, alas! the windows were all secured with
jalousies, strongly bolted and barred from within,
and the door was secured by a lock, the key of which
was absent.

A short examination showed, however, that the
[Pg 17]
door was held by no bolts at the top or bottom; and
the rusty condition of both lock and hinges rendered
it probable that it would not stand a very violent
assault.

Wherefore, retreating some twenty paces, I ran
at it more Etonensi, at the top of my speed, planted
the sole of my foot even and square against the key-hole,
with the whole impetus of my charge, and had
the satisfaction of feeling the door fly open in an
instant, while a jingling clatter within showed that
my entrance had been effected with no greater
damage to the premises than the starting of the staple
into which the bolt of the lock shot.

Having entered thus, my first task was to repair
damages, which was effected in five minutes, by
driving the staple into its old place by aid of a great
stone; my second, to provide means for future visits,
which was as speedily managed by driving back the
bolt of the lock with the same great stone; and my
third, to look eagerly and curiously about me. To do
this more effectually, I soon opened the two windows
looking upon the lawn, and let in the light, for the
first time, I fancy, in many a year, to that deserted
room.

If I had marveled much before I entered, much
more did I marvel now; for although every thing
within showed marks of the utmost negligence and
decay, though spiders had woven their webs in every
angle, though mildew and damp mould had defaced
the painted walls, though the gilding was black and
tarnished, though the dust lay thick on the furniture,
still I had never seen any thing in my life, except the
state-rooms at Hampton Court and Windsor Castle,
which could have vied with this pavilion in the
splendor of its original decoration.

Its area was about thirty feet in diameter, and in
height nearly the same, with a domed roof, richly
fretted with what had once been golden scroll-work
upon an azure ground. The walls were painted, as
even I could discover, by the hand of a master, with
copies from Guido and Caracci, in compartments
bordered with massive gilded scroll-work, the ground
between the panels having been originally, like the
ceiling, of bright azure. The window-frames had
been gilded; and the inside of the door painted, like
the walls, in azure, with pictures of high merit in
the panels. Every side of the octagon but two, the
opposite walls to the right and left, were occupied
by windows or a door; but that to the right was filled
by a mantel-piece, exquisitely wrought with Caryatides
in white Carrara marble, with a copy of the
Aurora above it, while the space opposite to it had
been occupied by a superb mirror, reaching from the
cornice of the ceiling.

Nearly in the centre of this mirror, however, there
was a small circular fracture, as if made by a stone
or a bullet, with long cracks radiating, like the beams
of a star, in all directions over the shivered plate;
and when I looked at it more closely, I observed
that it was dashed in many places with large drops
of some dark purple fluid, which had hardened with
time into compact and solid gouts.

I thought little of this at the time, and only wondered
why people could be so mad as to abandon so
beautiful a place; and why, since they had abandoned
it, they did not remove the furniture, of which
even a boy’s eye could detect the value.

There was a centre-table of circular form, the
pedestal of which, curiously carved, had been
wrought, like all the rest, in gold and azure, while
the slat, when I had wiped away with some fresh
green leaves the thick layer of dust which covered it,
positively astonished my eyes, by the delicacy and
beauty of the designs with which it was adorned.
Beside this, there were divans and arm-chairs of the
same fashion and colors, with cushions which had
been once of sky-blue damask, though their brilliancy,
and even their hues, had long ago been defaced by
the dust, the dampness, and the squalor of that neglected
place.

I should have mentioned, that on the beautiful
table I discovered gouts of the same dark substance
which I had previously observed on the broken
mirror: and that there were still clearly perceptible
on one of the divans, dark splashes, and what must,
when fluid, have been almost a pool of the same
deep, rusty hue.

At the time, it is true, I paid little attention to these
things, being busily employed in the boy-like idea of
putting my newly discovered palace of Armida into
a complete state of repair, and coming to pass all my
leisure moments, even to the studying my Prometheus
Bound, and composing my weekly hexameters and
Alcaics in this sweet sequestered spot.

And, in truth, within a week I had put the greater
part of my plan into execution; purloined dusters
from my dame’s boarding-house, green boughs of the
old elms for brooms, and water from the ditch, soon
made things clean at least; and the air, which I suffered,
so long as I was there, daily, to blow through
it in all directions, soon rendered it, comparatively
speaking, dry and comfortable; and when all its
windows were thrown wide, it would be scarcely
possible to find a more lightsome or delicious spot for
summer musing than that old English summer-house.

Thus things went on for weeks, for months, unsuspected—for
I always latched the door, and secured the
windows from within, before leaving my fairy palace
for the night; and as all looked just as usual without,
no one so much as dreamed of trying the lock, to
ascertain if a door were still fastened, the threshhold
of which, as men believed, no human foot had crossed
since the days of the second James.

I could often, it is true, discover the traces of recent
labor in the immediate neighborhood of my discovery;
I could perceive at a glance where the grass
had been newly shorn, the yew hedges clipped, or the
gravel-walks rolled, but never, in the course of
several months, during which I spent every fine
evening, either reading, or musing, or composing
my boy verses, in that my enchanted castle—for I
began really to consider it almost my own—did I see
any human being on the premises.

The cause of this, which I did not suspect until it
was revealed to me, after chance had discovered my
visits to the place, was simply this, that my intrusions
[Pg 18]
were confined solely to the evening, whereas, so
great was the awe of the servants and the workmen
for that lonely and terror-haunted spot, that nothing
short of absolute compulsion, or the strongest necessity,
would have induced them to go near the place,
after the sun had turned downward from the zenith.

In the meantime, gratified by the complete success
of my first inroad, and the possession of my first discovery,
I felt no inclination to push my advances
further, or to make any incursion into the body of
the place.

Every evening, as early as I could escape from the
college walls, I was at my post, and lingered there
as late as college hours would permit. It was a
strange fancy in a boy, and stranger yet than would
at first appear in this, that there was a very considerable
admixture of something nearly approaching to
fear, and that of a painful kind, in the feelings which
made me so assiduous in my visits to that old
pavilion.

There was, it is true, nothing definite in my fancies.
I knew nothing, I cannot say even that I suspected
any thing, concerning the mysterious closing of the
place; and often, since I have been made acquainted
with the tale, I have marveled at my own obtuseness,
and wondered that a secret so transparent
should have escaped me.

So it was, however, that I suspected nothing,
although I felt sure that mystery there was; and being
of somewhat an imaginative temper, I used to amuse
myself by accounting for it in my own mind, weaving
all sorts of strange and wild romances, and inventing
the most horrible stories that can be conceived,
until, as the shadows would fall dark around
me, daunted by my own conceptions, I would make
all secure and fast with trembling fingers, swing myself
back across over the pool by my accustomed
oak-branch, and run home as hard as my legs could
carry me, haunted by indistinct and almost superstitious
horror.

Thus things went on, until at the end of summer
I was at last detected in my stolen visits, and the
whole mystery was cleared up.

I remember as clearly as if I heard it now, the exclamation
of terror and dismay uttered by the old
gardener, who, having left some implement behind
him on the lawn during the morning labors, had been
forced to bend his unwilling steps back to the haunted
ground to recover it.

I could not but smile afterward, when he recounted
to me his astonishment and terror at seeing the old
summer-house, which never had been opened within
the memory of man, with all its windows wide to
the free air and evening sunshine—when he told me
how often he turned back to seek aid from his fellows—how
he almost believed that fiends or evil spirits
were holding their foul sabbath there, and how he
started aghast with horror, not now for himself, but
for me, as he beheld the young Etonian stretched
tranquilly upon the blood-stained couch—for those
dark stains were of human gore—conning his task
for the morrow.

I rushed out of the place at his hurried outcry; a
few words told my story, and plead my excuse—with
the good, simple-minded rustic little excuse was
needed—but it was not till after many sittings, and
many a long afternoon’s discourse, that I learned all
the details of the sad event which had converted that
fair pavilion into a place as terrible, to the ideas of
the country folks, as a dark charnel-vault.

“Ay!” said the old man, as he gazed fearfully about
him, after I had persuaded him at length to cross the
dreaded threshhold, “Ay! it is all as they tell, though
not a man of them has ever seen it. There is the
glass which the bullet broke, after passing right
through his brain; and there is his blood, all spattered
on the mirror. And look, young master, those spots
on the table came from her heart; and that couch you
was lying on, is where they laid her when they took
her up. See, it’s all dabbled yet; and where your
head was resting now, the dead girl’s head lay, more
than a hundred years since! Come away, master—come
away! I never thought to have looked on these
things, though I know all about them.”

“Oh, tell me—tell me about them!” I exclaimed.
“I am not a bit afraid. Do tell me all about them.”

“Not now—not now—nor not here,” said the old
man, gazing about as if he expected to see a spirit
stalk out of some shady nook of the surrounding
trees. “I would not tell you here to be master of all
Ditton-in-the-Dale! But come up, if you will, to the
great house to-morrow, and ask for old Matthew
Dawson, and I’ll show you all the place—the family
never lives here now, nor hasn’t since that deed was
done—and then I’ll tell you all about it, if you must
hear. But if you’re wise, you’ll shun it; for it will
chill your young blood to listen, and cling to your
young heart with a gloom forever.”

“Oh, I will come, be sure, Matthew! I would
not miss it for the world. But it is getting late, so
I’ll fasten up the old place, and be going;” and suiting
the action to the word, I soon secured the fastenings,
while the old gardener stood by, marvelling and muttering
at the boldness of young blood, until I had
finished setting things in order, when I shook hands
with the old man, slipping my one half crown into his
horny palm, and saying,

“Well, good night, Matthew Dawson, and don’t
forget to-morrow evening.”

“That I wont, master,” he replied, greatly propitiated
by my offering. “But which way are you
going?”

“Oh, I’ll soon show you,” I replied; and swinging
myself up my tree, I was beyond the precincts of the
haunted ground almost in a moment.

“The very way he came the time he did it,” cried
the old gardener, with upturned hands, and eyes
aghast. But I tarried then to ask no further questions,
being quite sufficiently terrified for one night; although
my pride forbade my displaying my terrors to the
old rustic.

The next day I was punctual to my appointment;
and then, for the first time, I heard the melancholy
tale which, at length, I purpose to relate.

It was a proud and noble Norman family which
had held the demesnes of Ditton-in-the-Dale, since
[Pg 19]
the reign of the last Plantagenet—a brave and loyal
race, which had poured its blood like water on many
a foreign, many a native battle-field. At Evesham,
a Fitz-Henry had fought beside Prince Edward’s bridle-rein,
against the great De Montfort, and his confederate
barons; and afterward through all the long
and cruel wars of the Roses, on every field a Fitz-Henry
had won honor or lost blood, upholding the
claims of the true sovereign house—the house of
York—until at fatal Bosworth the house itself went
down, and dragged down with it the fortunes of its
bold supporters.

Thereafter, during the reign of the Tudors, the
name of Fitz-Henry was heard rarely in the court,
or on the field; impoverished in fortune by fines and
sequestrations, suspected of disloyalty to the now
sovereign house, the heads of the family had wisely
held themselves aloof from intrigue and conspiracy,
and dwelt among their yeomen, who had in old times
been their fathers’ vassals, stanch lovers of field-sports,
true English country gentlemen, seeking the
favor and fearing the ill-will of no man—no, not of
England’s king.

Attached to the old religion, though neither bigots
nor zealots, they had escaped the violence of bluff
Harry, when he turned Protestant for Bullen’s eyes;
and had, though something to leeward of her favor,
as lukewarm Romanists and no lovers of the Spaniard,
passed safely through the ordeal of Mary’s
cruel reign.

But with the accession of the man-minded Elizabeth,
the fortunes of the house revived for a while.
It was the policy of that great and gracious queen to
gather around her all that were brave, honest, and
manly in her realm, without regard to family creeds,
or family traditions. Claiming descent as much from
one as from the other of the rival houses of Lancaster
and York, loyalty to the one was no more offence
to her clear eyes than good faith to the other. While
loyalty to what he honestly believed to be the true
sovereign house, was the strongest recommendation
to her favor in each and every subject.

The Fitz-Henry, therefore, of her day, a young and
gallant soldier, who visited the shores of the New
World with Cavendish and Raleigh, fought for his
native land, although a Catholic, against the terrible
armada of the Most Catholic King, with Drake, and
Frobisher and Howard, waged war in the Low
Countries, and narrowly missed death at Tutphen by
Philip Sidney’s side, stood as high in the favor of his
queen as in the estimation of all good and honorable
men. It is true, when the base and odious James
succeeded to the throne of the lion-queen, and substituted
mean and loathsome king-craft for frank and
open English policy, the gray-haired soldier, navigator,
statesman—for he had shone in each capacity—retired,
as his ancestors had done before him, during
the reigns of the seventh and eighth Henrys, to the
peaceful shades and innocent pleasures of Ditton-in-the-Dale.

So true, however, was he to the time-honored
principles of his high race, so loyally did he bring up
his son, so firmly did he strengthen his youthful mind
with all maxims, and all laws of honor, linking the
loyal subject to the rightful king, that no sooner had
the troubles broken out between the misguided monarch
and his rebellious Parliament—although the
veteran of Elizabeth had fallen asleep long before,
full of years and honors—than his young heir, Osborn
Fitz-Henry, displayed the cognizance of his old
house, mustered his tenantry, and set foot in stirrup,
well nigh the first, to withdraw it the very last, of
the adherents of the hapless Charles. So long did he
resist in arms, so pertinaciously did he uphold the
authority of the first Charles, so early did he rise
again in behalf of the second, that he was noted by
the Parliament as an incorrigible and most desperate
malignant; and, had it not been that, by his gallantry
in the field, and his humanity when the strife was
ended, he had won the personal good-will of Cromwell,
it is most likely that it would have gone hard
with his fortunes if not with his life.

After the restoration, he was of course neglected
by the fiddling, gambling, wenching, royal buffoon,
who succeeded the royal martyr, and whose necessities
he had supplied, when an outcast pauper exile
in a foreign land, from the proceeds of those very
estates which he had so nearly lost in fighting for his
crown.

Osborn Fitz-Henry, too, was gathered to his fathers.
He died little advanced beyond the prime of life,
worn out with the toil he had undergone in the camp,
and shattered by the wounds which he had received
on almost every battle-field from Edge-Hill to Dunbar
and Worcester.

He had, however, married very young, before the
breaking out of the rebellion, and had lived to see
not his son only a noble and superior man, ready to
fill his place when vacant, and in it uphold the honor
of his family, but his son’s children also advancing
fast toward maturity.

Allan Fitz-Henry, the son of Charles’ stout partisan,
the grandson of Elizabeth’s warrior, was the head of
the house, when my tale commences.

He, too, had married young—such, indeed, was
the custom of his house—and had survived his wife,
by whom he had two fair daughters, but no heir;
and this was a source of vexation so constantly present
to his mind, that in the end it altered the whole
disposition of the man, rendering him irritable, harsh,
stern, unreasonable, and unhappy.

Fondly attached to the memory of his lost wife,
whom he had loved devotedly while living, it never
entered his mind to marry a second time, even with
the hope of begetting an heir by whom to perpetuate
the honors and principles of his house; although he
was continually on the fret—miserable himself, and
making others miserable, in consequence of the certainty
that he should be the last of his race.

His only hope was now centered in his daughters,
or to speak more correctly, in his eldest daughter—for
her he had determined to constitute his heiress,
endowing her with all his landed property, all his
heirlooms, all that could constitute her the head of
his house; in return for which he had predetermined
that she should become the wife of some husband of
[Pg 20]
his own choosing, who should unite to a pedigree as
noble as that of the Howards, all qualifications which
should fit him to represent the house into which he
should be adopted; and who should be willing to drop
his own paternal name and bearings, how ancient
and noble soever, in order to adopt the style and the
arms of Fitz-Henry.

Proud by nature, by blood, and by education—though
with a clear and honorable pride—he had been
rendered a thousand times prouder and more haughty
by the very circumstances which seemed to threaten
a downfall to the fortunes of his house—his house,
which had survived such desperate reverses; which
had come out of every trial, like pure gold, the better
and the brighter from the furnace—his house, which
neither the ruin of friendly monarchs, nor the persecutions
of hostile monarchs, nor the neglect of ungrateful
monarchs, had been able to shake, any more
than the autumnal blasts, or the frosts of winter, had
availed to uproot the oak trees of his park, coeval
with his name.

In the midst of health and wealth, honor and good
esteem, with an affectionate family, and a devoted
household around him, Allan Fitz-Henry fancied himself
a most unhappy man—perhaps the most unhappy
of mankind.

Alas! was it to punish such vain, such sinful, such
senseless, and inordinate repinings?

Who shall presume to scrutinize the judgments,
or pry into the secrets of the Inscrutable?

This much alone is certain, that ere he was gathered
to his fathers, Allan Fitz-Henry might, and that not
unjustly, have termed himself that, which now, in
the very wantonness of pampered and insatiate success
he swore that he was daily—the most unhappy
of the sons of men.

For to calamities so dreadful as might have disturbed
the reason of the strongest minded, remorse
was added, so just, so terrible, so overwhelming,
that men actually marveled how he lived on and
was not insane.

But I must not anticipate.

It was a short time after the failure of the Duke
of Monmouth’s weak and ungrateful attempt at
revolution, a short time after the conclusion of the
merciless and bloody butcheries of that disgrace to
the English ermine, the ferocious Jefferies, that the
incidents occurred, which I learned first on the
evening subsequent to my discovery in the fatal
summer-house.

At this time Allan Fitz-Henry—it was a singular
proof, by the way, of the hereditary pride of this old
Norman race, that having numbered among them so
many friends and counsellors of monarchs, no one of
their number had been found willing to accept titular
honors, holding it a higher thing to be the premier
gentleman than the junior peer of England—At this
time, I say, Allan Fitz-Henry was a man of some
forty-five or fifty years, well built and handsome, of
courtly air and dignified presence; nor must it be
imagined that in his fancied grievances he forgot to
support the character of his family, or that he carried
his griefs abroad with him into the world.

At times, indeed, he might be a little grave and
thoughtful, especially at such times as he heard mention
made of the promise or success of this or that
scion of some noble house; but it was only within
his own family circle, and to his most familiar friends,
that he was wont to open his heart, and complain of
his ill-fortune, at being the first childless father of his
race—for so, in his contempt for the poor girls, whom
he still, strange contradiction! loved fondly and
affectionately, he was accustomed in his dark hours
to style himself; as if forsooth an heir male were the
only offspring worthy to be called the child of such a
house.

Though he was fond, and gentle, and at times even
tender to his motherless daughters—for, to do him
justice, he never suffered a symptom of his disappointment
and disgust to break out to their annoyance,
yet was there no gleam of paternal satisfaction
in his sad eye, no touch of paternal pride in his vexed
heart, as he looked upon their graceful forms, and
noted their growing beauties.

And yet they were a pair of whom the haughtiest
potentate on earth might have been proud, and with
justice.

Blanche and Agnes Fitz-Henry were at this time
in their eighteenth and seventeenth years—but one
summer having passed between their births, and
their mother having died within a few hours after the
latter saw the light.

They were, indeed, as lovely girls as the sun of
merry England shone upon; and in those days it was
still merry England, and famous then as now for the
rare beauty of its women, whether in the first dawn
of girlhood, or in the full-blown flush of feminine
maturity.

Both tall, above the middle height of women, both
exquisitely formed, with figures delicate and slender,
yet full withal, and voluptuously rounded, with the
long taper hands, the small and shapely feet and
ankles, the swan-like necks, and classic heads gracefully
set on, which are held to denote, in all countries,
the predominance of gentle blood; when seen at a
distance, and judged by the person only, it would
have been almost impossible to distinguish the elder
from the younger sister.

But look upon them face to face, and never, in all
respects, were two girls of kindred race so entirely
dissimilar. The elder, Blanche, was, as her name
denotes, though ladies’ names are oftentimes misnomers,
a genuine English blonde. Her abundant
and beautiful hair, trained to float down upon her
snowy shoulders in silky masses of unstudied curls,
was of the lightest golden brown. There was not a
shade of red in its hues, although her complexion was
of that peculiarly dazzling character which is common
to red-haired persons; yet when the sun shone
on its glistening waves, so brilliantly did the golden
light flash from it, that you might almost have
imagined there was a circlet of living glory above
her clear white brow.

Her eyebrows and eyelashes were many shades
darker than her hair, relieving her face altogether
from that charge of insipidity which is so often, and
[Pg 21]
for the most part so truly, brought against fair-haired
and fair-featured beauties. The eyes themselves,
which those long lashes shrouded, were of the deepest
violet blue; so deep, that at first sight you would
have deemed them black, but for the soft and humid
languor which is never seen in eyes of that color.
The rest of her features were as near as possible
to the Grecian model, except that there was a
slight depression where the nose joins the brow,
breaking that perfectly straight line of the classical
face, which, however beautiful to the statue, is less
attractive in life than the irregular outline of the
northern countenance.

Her mouth, with the exception of—perhaps I should
rather say in conjunction with—her eyes, was the
most lovely and expressive feature in her face.
There were twin dimples at its corners; yet was
not its expression one of habitual mirth, but of tenderness
and softness rather, unmixed, although an
anchorite might have been pardoned the wish to
press his lips to its voluptuous curve, with the
slightest expression of sensuality.

Her complexion was, as I have said, dazzlingly
brilliant; but it was the brilliance of the lily rather
than of the rose, though at the least emotion, whether
of pain or pleasure, the eloquent blood would rush,
like the morning’s glow over some snow-crowned
Alp, across cheek, brow, and neck, and bosom, and
vanish thence so rapidly, that ere you should have
time to say, nay, even to think,

Such was the elder beauty, the destined heiress of
the ancient house, the promised mother of a line
of sons, who should perpetuate the name and hand
down the principles of the Fitz-Henries to far distant
ages. Such were the musings of her father,

and at such times alone, if ever, a sort of doubtful
pride would come to swell his hope, whispering that
for such a creature, no man, however high or haughty,
but would be willing to renounce the pride of birth,
even untempted by the demesnes of Ditton-in-the-Dale,
and many another lordly manor coupled to the
time-honored name of Fitz-Henry.

Her sister, Agnes, though not less beautiful than
Blanche—and there were those who insisted that she
was more so—was as different from her, in all but the
general resemblance of figure and carriage, as night
is from morning, or autumn from early summer-time.

Her ringlets, not less profuse than Blanche’s, and
clustering in closer and more mazy curls, were as
black as the raven’s wing, and, like the feathers of
the wild bird, were lighted up when the sun played on
them with a sort of purplish and metallic gloss, that defies
alike the pen of the writer, and the painter’s
pencil to depict to the eye.

Her complexion, though soft and delicate, was of
the very darkest hue that is ever seen in persons of
unmixed European blood; so dark that the very blood
which would mantle to her cheek at times in burning
blushes, was shaded, as it were, with a darker hue,
like damask roses seen through the medium of a gold-tinted
window-pane.

Her brows and lashes were as black as night, but,
strange to say, the eyes that flashed from beneath
them with an almost painful splendor, were of a clear,
deep azure, less dark than those of the fairer sister,
giving a singular and wild character to her whole
face, and affecting the style of her beauty, but
whether for the better or the worse it was for those who
admired or shunned—and there were who took both
parts—to determine. Her face was rounder and
fuller than her sister’s, and, in fact, this was true of
her whole person—so much so that she was often
mistaken for the elder—her features were less regular,
her nose having a slight tendency to that form which
has no name in our language, but which charmed all
beholders in Roxana, as retroussie. Her mouth was
as warm, as soft, as sweetly dimpled, but it was not
free from that expression which Blanche’s lacked
altogether, and might have been blamed as too wooing
and luxurious.

Such were the various characters of the sisters’
personal appearance—the characters of their mental
attributes were as distinctly marked, and as widely
different.

Blanche was all gentleness and moderation from
her very cradle—a delicate and tender child, smiling
always, but rarely laughing; never boisterous or
loud even in her childish plays. And as she grew
older, this character became more definite, and was
more strongly observed; she was a pensive, tranquil
creature, not melancholy, much less sad—for she
was awake to all that was beautiful or grand, all that
was sweet or gentle in the face of nature, or in the
history of man; and there was, perhaps, more real
happiness concealed under her calm exterior, than
is often to be found under the wilder mirth of merrier
beings. Ever ready to yield her wishes to those of
her friends or companions, many persons imagined
that she had little will, and no fixed wishes, or deliberate
aspirations—passionless and pure as the lily
of the vale, many supposed that she was cold and
heartless. Oh! ignorant! not to remember that the
hearts of the fiercest volcanos boil still beneath a head
of snow; and that it is even in the calmest and most moderate
characters that passion once enkindled burns
fierce, perennial and unquenchable! Thus far, however,
had she advanced into the flower of fair maidenhood,
undisturbed by any warmer dream than devoted
affection toward her parent, whose wayward grief she
could understand if she could not appreciate, and
whom she strove by every gentle wile to wean from
his morbid fancies; and earnest love toward her
sister, whom she, indeed, almost adored—perhaps
adored the more from the very difference of their
minds, and for her very imperfections.

For Agnes was all gay vivacity, and petulance,
and fire—so that her young companions, who sportively
named Blanche the icicle, had christened her
the sunbeam; and, in truth, if the first name were ill
chosen, the second seemed to be an inspiration; for
like a sunbeam that touched nothing but to illuminate
it, like a sunbeam she played with all things, smiled
[Pg 22]
on all things in their turn—like a sunbeam she brought
mirth with her presence, and after her departure, left
a double gloom behind her.

More dazzling than Blanche, she made her impression
at first sight, and so long as the skies were clear,
and the atmosphere unruffled, the sunbeam would
continue to gild, to charm, to be worshiped. But
if the time of darkness and affliction came, the gay
sunbeam held aloof, while the poor icicle, melted
from its seeming coldness, was ever ready to weep
for the sorrows of those who had neglected her in the
days of their happiness.

Unused to yield, high-spirited when crossed, yet
carrying off even her stubbornness and quick temper
by the brilliancy, the wit, the lively and bold audacity
which she cast around them, Agnes ruled in her
circle an imperious and despotic queen; while her
slaves, even as they trembled before her half sportive
but emphatic frown, did not suspect the sceptre of
the tyrant beneath the spell of the enchantress.

Agnes, in one word, was the idol of the rich and
gay; Blanche was the saint of the poor, the lowly,
the sick, and those who mourn.

It may be that the peculiarity of her position, the
neglect which she had always experienced from her
father, and mediately from the hirelings of the household,
ever prompt to pander to the worst feelings of
their superiors—the consciousness that born co-heiress
with her sister, she was doomed to sink into
the insignificance of an undowered and uncared-for
girl, had tended in some degree to form the
character which Agnes had ever borne, and which
alone she had displayed, until the period when my
tale commences.

It may be that the consciousness of wrong endured,
had hardened a heart naturally soft and tender, and
rendered it unyielding and rebellious—it may be that
injustice, endured at the hands of hirelings in early
years, had engendered a spirit of resistance, and
armed her mind and quickened her tongue against
the world, which, as she fancied, wronged her. It
may be, more than all, that a secret, perhaps an unconscious
jealousy of her sister’s superior advantages,
not in the wretched sense of worldly wealth or position,
but of the love and reverence of friends and
kindred, had embittered her young soul, and caused
her to cast over it a veil of light and wild demeanor,
of free speech, and daring mirth, which had by degrees
grown into habits, and become part and parcel
of her nature.

If it were so, however, there were no outward indications
that such was the case; for never were
there seen two sisters more united and affectionate—nor
would it have been easy to say on which side
the balance of kindness preponderated. For if
Blanche was ever the first to cede to her sister’s
wishes, and the last, in any momentary disappointment
or annoyance, to speak one quick or unkind
word, so was Agnes, with her expressive features,
and flashing eye, and ready, tameless wit, prompt as
light to avenge the slightest reflection cast on
Blanche’s tranquillity and coldness; and if at times a
quick word or sharp retort broke from her lips, and
called a tear to the eye of her calmer sister, not a
moment would elapse before she would cast herself
upon her neck and weep her sincere contrition, and
be for hours an altered being; until her natural spirit
would prevail, and she would be again the wild,
mirthful madcap, whose very faults could call forth no
keener reproach than a grave and thoughtful smile
from the lips of those who loved her the most dearly.

Sad were the daughters of Allan Fitz-Henry—daughters
whom not a peer in England but would
have regarded as the brightest gems of his coronets,
as the pride and ornament of his house; but whom,
by a strange anomaly, their own father, full as he
was of warm affections, and kindly inclinations,
never looked upon but with a secret feeling of discontent
and disappointment, that they were not other
than they were: and with a half confessed conviction,
that fair as they were, tender, and loving, graceful,
accomplished, delicate and noble-minded, he
could have borne to lay them both in the cold grave,
so that a son could be given to the house, in exchange
for their lost loveliness.

In outward demeanor, however, he was to his
children all that a father should be; a little querulous
at times, perhaps, and irritable, but fond, though not
doting, and considerate; and I have wandered greatly
from my intention, if any thing that I have said has
been construed to signify that there existed the slightest
estrangement between the father and his children—for
had Allan Fitz-Henry but suspected the possibility
of such a thing, he had torn the false pride, like
a venomous weed, from his heart, and had been a
wiser and a happier man. In his case it was the
blindness of the heart that caused its partial hardness;
but events were at hand, that should flood it with the
clearest light, and melt it to more than woman’s
tenderness.

[To be continued.

SONNET TO GRAHAM.

New Orleans, October 1, 1847.Altus.

MARGINALIA

BY EDGAR A. POE.

We mere men of the world, with no principle—a
very old-fashioned and cumbersome thing—should
be on our guard lest, fancying him on his last legs,
we insult, or otherwise maltreat some poor devil of
a genius at the very instant of his putting his foot on
the top round of his ladder of triumph. It is a common
trick with these fellows, when on the point of
attaining some long-cherished end, to sink themselves
into the deepest possible abyss of seeming despair,
for no other purpose than that of increasing the space
of success through which they have made up their
minds immediately to soar.

All that the man of genius demands for his exaltation
is moral matter in motion. It makes no difference
whither tends the motion—whether for him or
against him—and it is absolutely of no consequence
“what is the matter.”

In Colton’s “American Review” for October, 1845,
a gentleman, well known for his scholarship, has a
forcible paper on “The Scotch School of Philosophy
and Criticism.” But although the paper is “forcible,”
it presents the most singular admixture of error and
truth—the one dovetailed into the other, after a
fashion which is novel, to say the least of it. Were
I to designate in a few words what the whole article
demonstrated, I should say “the folly of not beginning
at the beginning—of neglecting the giant Moulineau’s
advice to his friend Ram.” Here is a passage
from the essay in question:

I have written an essay on the “Rationale of
Verse,” in which the whole topic is surveyed ab
initio, and with reference to general and immutable
principles. To this essay (which will soon appear)
I refer Mr. Bristed. In the meantime, without troubling
myself to ascertain whether Doctors Johnson
and Campbell are wrong, or whether Pope is wrong,
or whether the reviewer is right or wrong, at this
point or at that, let me succinctly state what is the
truth on the topics at issue.

And first; the same principles, in all cases, govern
all verse. What is true in English is true in Greek.

Secondly; in a series of lines, if one line contains
more syllables than the law of the verse demands,
and if, nevertheless, this line is pronounced in the
same time, upon the whole, as the rest of the lines,
then this line suggests celerity—on account of the
increased rapidity of enunciation required. Thus in
the Greek Hexameter the dactylic lines—those most
abounding in dactyls—serve best to convey the idea
of rapid motion. The spondaic lines convey that of
slowness.

“Thirdly; it is a gross mistake to suppose that
the Greek dactylic line is “the model in this matter”—the
matter of the English Alexandrine. The Greek
dactylic line is of the same number of feet—bars—beats—pulsations—as
the ordinary dactylic-spondaic
lines among which it occurs. But the Alexandrine
is longer by one foot—by one pulsation—than the
pentameters among which it arises. For its pronunciation
it demands more time, and therefore, ceteris
paribus, it would well serve to convey the impression
of length, or duration, and thus, indirectly, of
slowness. I say ceteris paribus. But, by varying
conditions, we can effect a total change in the impression
conveyed. When the idea of slowness is conveyed
by the Alexandrine, it is not conveyed by any
slower enunciation of syllables—that is to say, it is
not directly conveyed—but indirectly, through the
idea of length in the whole line. Now, if we wish
to convey, by means of an Alexandrine, the impression
of velocity, we readily do so by giving rapidity
to our enunciation of the syllables composing the
several feet. To effect this, however, we must have
more syllables, or we shall get through the whole
line too quickly for the intended time. To get more
syllables, all we have to do, is to use, in place of
iambuses, what our prosodies call anapœsts.[1] Thus,
in the line,

the syllables “the unbend” form an anapœst and,
demanding unusual rapidity of enunciation, in order
that we may get them in in the ordinary time of an
[Pg 24]
iambus, serve to suggest celerity. By the elision of
e in the, as is customary, the whole of the intended
effect is lost; for th’unbend is nothing more than the
usual iambus. In a word, wherever an Alexandrine
expresses celerity, we shall find it to contain one or
more anapœsts—the more anapœsts, the more decided
the impression. But the tendency of the Alexandrine
consisting merely of the usual iambuses, is to convey
slowness—although it conveys this idea feebly, on
account of conveying it indirectly. It follows, from
what I have said, that the common pentameter, interspersed
with anapœsts, would better convey celerity
than the Alexandrine interspersed with them in a
similar degree;—and it unquestionably does.

To converse well, we need the cool tact of talent—to
talk well, the glowing abandon of genius.
Men of very high genius, however, talk at one time
very well, at another very ill:—well, when they
have full time, full scope, and a sympathetic listener:—ill,
when they fear interruption and are annoyed
by the impossibility of exhausting the topic during
that particular talk. The partial genius is flashy—scrappy.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness—imperfection—and
usually prefers silence to
saying the something which is not every thing that
should be said. He is so filled with his theme that he
is dumb, first from not knowing how to begin, where
there seems eternally beginning behind beginning,
and secondly from perceiving his true end at so infinite
a distance. Sometimes, dashing into a subject,
he blunders, hesitates, stops short, sticks fast, and,
because he has been overwhelmed by the rush and
multiplicity of his thoughts, his hearers sneer at his
inability to think. Such a man finds his proper element
in those “great occasions” which confound
and prostrate the general intellect.

Nevertheless, by his conversation, the influence
of the conversationist upon mankind in general, is
more decided than that of the talker by his talk:—the
latter invariably talks to best purpose with his
pen. And good conversationists are more rare than
respectable talkers. I know many of the latter; and
of the former only five or six:—among whom I can
call to mind, just now, Mr. Willis, Mr. J. T. S. S.—of
Philadelphia, Mr. W. M. R.—of Petersburg, Va.,
and Mrs. S——d, formerly of New York. Most
people, in conversing, force us to curse our stars
that our lot was not cast among the African nation
mentioned by Eudoxus—the savages who, having no
mouths, never opened them, as a matter of course.
And yet, if denied mouth, some persons whom I have
in my eye would contrive to chatter on still—as
they do now—through the nose.

Is it possible that the poet did not know the apparent
diameter of the moon to be greater than that of
the sun?

If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize,
at one effort, the universal world of human thought,
human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity
is his own—the road to immortal renown lies straight,
open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has
to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its
title should be simple—a few plain words—”My
Heart Laid Bare.” But—this little book must be
true to its title.

Now, is it not very singular that, with the rabid
thirst for notoriety which distinguishes so many of
mankind—so many, too, who care not a fig what is
thought of them after death, there should not be found
one man having sufficient hardihood to write this little
book? To write, I say. There are ten thousand
men who, if the book were once written, would laugh
at the notion of being disturbed by its publication
during their life, and who could not even conceive
why they should object to its being published after
their death. But to write it—there is the rub. No
man dare write it. No man ever will dare write it.
No man could write it, even if he dared. The paper
would shrivel and blaze at every touch of the fiery pen.

What these oft-quoted lines go to show is, that a
falsity in verse will travel faster and endure longer
than a falsity in prose. The man who would sneer
or stare at a silly proposition nakedly put, will admit
that “there is a good deal in that” when “that” is
the point of an epigram shot into the ear. The rhetorician’s
rules—if they are rules—teach him not only
to name his tools, but to use his tools, the capacity of
his tools—their extent—their limit; and from an examination
of the nature of the tools—(an examination
forced on him by their constant presence)—force him,
also, into scrutiny and comprehension of the material
on which the tools are employed, and thus, finally,
suggest and give birth to new material for new tools.

Among his eidola of the den, the tribe, the forum,
the theatre, etc., Bacon might well have placed
the great eidolon of the parlor (or of the wit, as I
have termed it in one of the previous Marginalia)—the
idol whose worship blinds man to truth by dazzling
him with the apposite. But what title could
have been invented for that idol which has propagated,
perhaps, more of gross error than all combined?—the
one, I mean, which demands from its
votaries that they reciprocate cause and effect—reason
in a circle—lift themselves from the ground by pulling
up their pantaloons—and carry themselves on their
own heads, in hand-baskets, from Beersheba to Dan.

All—absolutely all the argumentation which I have
seen on the nature of the soul, or of the Deity, seems
to me nothing but worship of this unnameable idol.
Pour savoir ce qu’est Dieu, says Bielfeld, although
nobody listens to the solemn truth, il faut être Dieu
même—and to reason about the reason is of all things
the most unreasonable. At least, he alone is fit to
discuss the topic who perceives at a glance the insanity
of its discussion.

THE PENANCE OF ROLAND.

A ROMANCE OF THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE.

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

PART I.

PART II.

PART III.

PART IV.

NOTES.

The judgment of the peine forte et dure, on an instance
of which our ballad is founded, was well known in the ancient
law of England. As has been seen, it was terribly
severe. The circumstances of the judgment were as follows:
When a prisoner stood charged with an offence, and
an indictment had been found against him, before he could
be tried he was called upon to answer, or, in technical parlance,
to plead. A plea in bar is an answer, either affirming
or denying the offence charged in the indictment, or, if of a
dilatory character, showing some ground why the defendant
should not be called upon to answer at all. In
those days, in all capital cases, the estates of the criminal, on
conviction and judgment, were forfeited to the crown.
The blood of the offender was considered as corrupted, and,
as a consequence, his property could not pass to his family,
who, although innocent, suffered for the faults of the
criminal. Crimes, therefore, where the punishment fell, not
only on the criminal but on his family, were comparatively
of rare occurrence. An admission of guilt produced the
same effect as a conviction. If the defendant, however,
stood mute, obstinately refusing to answer, by which
behaviour he preserved his estates to his family, he was
sentenced to undergo the judgment of the peine forte et
dure.

“The English judgment of penance for standing mute,”
says Chief Justice Blackstone, in his admirable Commentaries,
“was as follows: That the prisoner be remanded
to the prison from whence he came, and put into a low,
dark chamber; and there be laid on his back, naked, unless
where decency forbids: that there be placed upon his body
as great a weight of iron as he could bear and more; that
he have no sustenance, save only on the first day, three
morsels of the worst bread; and, on the second day, three
draughts of standing water, that should be nearest to the
prison door; and in this situation this should be alternately
his daily diet till he died, or (as anciently the judgement ran)
till he answered.”

With respect to this horrid judgment, Christian, in his
notes to the same work, goes on to say: that “the prosecutor
and the court could exercise no discretion, or show
no favour to a prisoner who stood obstinately mute.” “In
the legal history of this country,” (England,) he continues,
“are numerous instances of persons who have had resolution
and patience to undergo so terrible a death in order
to benefit their heirs by preventing a forfeiture of their
estates, which would have been a consequence of a conviction
by a verdict. There is a memorable story of an
ancestor of an ancient family in the north of England. In
a fit of jealousy he killed his wife; and put to death his
children who were at home, by throwing them from the
battlements of his castle; and proceeding with an intent to
destroy his only remaining child, an infant nursed at a
farm-house at some distance, he was intercepted by a storm
of thunder and lightning. This awakened in his breast
compunction of conscience. He desisted from his purpose,
and having surrendered himself to justice, in order to
secure his estates to this child, he had the resolution to die
under the dreadful judgment of the peine forte et dure.”
This tale is the base of our romance.

THE SEA NYMPH’S SONG.

BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.

THE LITTLE GOLD-FISH.

A FAIRY TALE.

BY JAMES K. PAULDING, AUTHOR OF THE “DUTCHMAN’S FIRESIDE,” ETC.

In the reign of good King Doddipol, surnamed the
Gnatsnapper, there lived in a stately castle, on the top
of a high mountain, a rich old Norseman, who had
an only son whom he loved with great ardor, and
little discretion, on account of his being the last of an
illustrious family. The youth was called Violet,
partly because he had for his godmother the Fairy
Violetta, and partly on account of having on his left
shoulder an impression of that flower, so perfectly
defined, and so vivid in color, that the old nurse mistook
it at first sight for a real violet, and declared it
smelled like a nosegay.

Being the only son of a great and rich nobleman,
as well as somewhat indolent and unambitious, Violet
passed much of his time, while growing up to manhood,
in thinking much and doing nothing. He was
without companions, having no equals around him,
and was prohibited from associating with his inferiors
by the strict etiquette which prevailed throughout the
dominions of good King Doddipol. As he grew up
thus in almost entire solitude his temperament became
highly poetical and imaginative, his feelings irregular
and ardent, and it was predicted that some day or
other he would become a martyr to love.

Much of his time was spent in lonely rambles
among the mountains which surrounded the residence
of the Old Man of the Hills, as he was called, a distance
of many miles in every direction, and one summer
day, wandering on without knowing or caring
whither he went, he at length found himself in a
region where he had never been before. It was a
deep, sequestered, rocky dell, shaded by gloomy
pines, from the farther extremity of which there tumbled
a bright cascade of snow-white foam, which,
after forming a deep transparent basin at its foot,
escaped murmuring among the rocks below and disappeared.
Not a sound was heard but that of the
falling waters and the gurgling stream, for the birds
delight not in the gloom of perpetual shade, and neither
hunter nor woodman ever visited this lonely retreat.

Tired with his long ramble, Violet sat down at the
foot of a lofty tree, whose roots seemed to drink of
the crystal basin, and fell into a deep reverie, during
which his eyes were fixed unconsciously on the transparent
water, which, though clear as our northern
lakes, was so deep that no one could see the bottom.
While thus occupied in weaving webs of youthful
anticipation, he saw a little gold-fish suddenly dart
from under the rock on which he was seated, and
play around with infinite grace, quivering its fins and
fanning its tail, while their bright colors glittered in
the rippling water with indescribable brilliancy.

The youth watched its motions with increasing
interest, and an eagerness he had never experienced
before. Sometimes it would come up
close to the spot, almost within reach of his hand,
and after balancing on the surface awhile, again dart
away, only to return and play a thousand fantastic
gambols, full of vivacity and grace. At other times
it would remain stationary awhile, looking him in
the face with its mellow, melancholy eyes, and an
expression of sorrowful tenderness that sunk into his
heart. He remained watching its motions in deep
solicitude, until the gathering shadows of twilight
warned him away, and reached home so late that he
found his father anxiously awaiting his return. The
Old Man of the Hills inquired of him where he had
been, and what had detained him so long; but he
answered evasively, being ashamed to confess he had
been fascinated by a little gold-fish.

That night he could think of nothing but the little
gold-fish, and when at length sleep came over his eyelids,
he dreamed it was a beautiful princess, transformed
by the power of some wicked enchanter or
malignant fairy. The impression was so vivid in
his mind, that when he awoke he could not decide
whether it was indeed a dream, or whether he had
not actually seen the charming princess, whose features
were indelibly impressed on his memory. The
next morning he again sought the path he had traveled
the day before, and about mid-day arrived at the glen
of the shining cascade. He had scarcely seated himself,
when the little gold-fish darted from under the
rock as before, and winning its way to the surface of
the crystal basin, looked at him with an expression
of its beautiful eyes that spoke a joyful welcome.
Violet put forth his hand, and tried to woo it still
nearer, but it only gave a melancholy shake of the
head, and when he attempted to seize it, retired beyond
his reach with a lingering hesitation that seemed
to indicate a mingled desire and apprehension.

Thus the little creature continued to coquette with
him for several days during which he repeated his
visits, staying all day, and dreaming every night the
same dream of the beautiful princess changed into a
little gold-fish. While absent from the crystal basin,
his imagination was forever dwelling on the form and
features of the princess, and the mysterious connection
he was convinced subsisted between his waking
thoughts and experience and his nightly dreams. By
degrees the two became inseparably associated together
in his mind, and insensibly he fell in love to
distraction, but whether with the beautiful princess
or the little gold-fish he could not decide. He became
[Pg 32]
so melancholy in consequence that the latter, as if
conscious of his feelings, permitted him to take it in
his hand, kiss it, and nestle it in his bosom at pleasure.
At such times he would beseech it in the most
moving terms to speak to him, tell him if his dreams
were true, and respond to his devoted affection. But
it only replied by a silent tear, and a look of strange
meaning, which he could not comprehend.

Violet grew every day more sad, and his youthful
form continued to waste away, so that as he walked
in the sun, his shadow could scarcely be seen. During
this period the behavior of the little gold-fish was so
full of inconsistencies and contradictions that Violet
was well nigh distracted. Sometimes it would contemplate
his pale cheek and wasted form with tears
in its eyes, while at the next moment it looked at him
with an expression of unfeeling triumph. Then its
eyes would glance rapidly and eagerly, sometimes
toward himself, at others down on the crystal basin,
and at others upward to the skies.

One bright morning, when the position of the sun
toward the east had become gradually changed, and
the beams of the former fell directly upon the crystal
basin, Violet was sitting, as usual, fondling the little
gold-fish in his hand, admiring its soft hazel eyes, and
addressing a thousand endearments to the little dumb
creature, which at that moment appeared insensible
to his affection. Keeping its eyes earnestly fixed on
the transparent waters, which now glittered in the
golden beams of the sun, the youth suddenly felt it
tremble as if with ecstasy in his hand, as with a sudden
spring it vaulted into the basin and instantly disappeared.
He gazed with intense anxiety, expecting
every moment it would reappear; but it returned no
more, and after waiting in vain, until dusky twilight
enveloped the glen in shadows, he bent his way
homeward, scarcely conscious whither he was going.
That night he slept from the mere weariness of sorrow,
and dreamed the beautiful princess appeared to
thank and bless him for her disenchantment.

The next day the Old Man of the Hills called his
son before him, and announced with great satisfaction
that he had just concluded a treaty of marriage between
him and the oldest daughter of King Doddipol,
a lady of great discretion, and old enough to be his
mother. The young man quitted the presence of his
father in despair, and, scarcely conscious of whither
he was wandering, sought the crystal basin at the foot
of the shining cascade. Here, seated on the rock, he
gazed himself almost blind, in the hope of seeing the
little gold-fish once more appear, to receive his last
farewell. But he gazed in vain for hours, and hours,
until in the bitterness of disappointment he at length
cried out aloud—”It is all in vain. It will come no
more, and nothing is now left me but a remembrance
carrying with it eternal regrets. But one hope remains.
I will seek my adored princess, for such I
know she is, where she disappeared from my sight,
and either find her or a grave.” Saying this he
plunged into the basin in an agony of despair.

He continued to sink, as it appeared to him, for
nearly half an hour, without once drawing his breath,
until, just as he felt himself quite exhausted, he found
himself precipitated into what seemed a new world,
far more beautiful than that he had just abandoned.
The skies were of a deeper blue, and being likewise
far more transparent, reflected the features of the lower
world as in a vast illimitable mirror. There was no
sun visible in the heavens. Yet a soft, delicious
mellow light, more rich and yet more gentle than
that of summer twilight, diffused itself everywhere,
giving to every object the charm of distance, and
giving to the air a genial warmth inexpressibly grateful.
The meadows seemed like endless waving seas
of verdure, and together with the foliage of the woods,
exhibited all the freshness of the new-born spring;
the little warbling birds seemed to revel among the
groves and verdant meads in joyous luxury, filling the
air with their melodious concert; the meadows were
sprinkled with beds of flowers of various hues and
fragrance, and a thousand delicious odors gave zest
to every breath he drew. Vast fields of violets, most
especially, were spread out in every direction, larger
and more beautiful than any he had ever seen before.
A gentle river meandered deep and clear through a
long valley spread out before him, skirted on either
side by pale blue hills, so high they seemed to reach
and mingle with the heavens above. A cool, refreshing
zephyr played about his brow, and as he breathed
its inspiring odors, Violet felt himself suddenly restored
to all his wonted vigor and activity.

As he stood gazing in almost stupefied wonder at
the scene before him, and doubtful whether it was
merely a creation of his bewildered fancy, he perceived
a radiant female form approaching, seated in
a chariot formed of a single violet, and crowned with
a diadem of the same flowers. Her dress, too, was
composed of many-colored violets, and her chariot
drawn by butterflies, whose wings of gold and purple
were of glorious lustre. The chariot stood still on
coming up to the youth; the lady springing out,
lighted on the flowers without ruffling their leaves,
and giving him her tiny hand addressed him as follows:

“Welcome, Prince Violet, for such you are by
birth, and by my creation. I was the friend of your
mother. I presided at your birth, and I gave you
your name. I therefore feel in some measure responsible
for your happiness, and am come hither to
give you the benefit of my advice and assistance.
Know, my prince, that you are brought here by a
destiny you could not avoid. You are in the dominions,
I might almost say in the power of the
wicked enchanter Curmudgeon, who is as potent as
he is wicked. Among his other diabolical acts, he is
an adept in the new science of animal magnetism,
can put you to sleep by the waving of his hand, pull
out your teeth without your knowing any thing about
it, and divorce your spirit from your body, sending it
wandering away to distant regions, while the body
remains unconscious though not inanimate. In short,
there is no end to his wicked devices, and he is the
most mischievous, malignant monster in the world,
inexorable in his revenge, and clothed with the power
of gratifying it to its utmost extent. It is to warn you
against him that I am here. My name is Violetta.”

The prince, as he must now be called, listened to
this speech with great gravity and decorum, though
he thought it rather long, and replied with infinite discretion.
He thanked the fairy for her kind intentions,
and concluded by observing that he had often, when a
child, heard his mother speak of the Fairy Violetta
with great affection.

“Your mother was a woman of taste,” said the
fairy, “but there is not a moment to be lost, for the
enchanter is by this time apprized of your coming,
and the purport of your visit. Do not ask me what
that is. It is sufficient that you are here to fulfill your
destiny.”

The fairy then stamped three times with her little
foot on a bed of violets. At the first stamp there rose
out of the ground a superb suit of violet-colored
armor; at the second a sword and spear; and at the
third a gallant violet-colored steed richly caparisoned.

“Take these, arm thyself, mount, and away. You
will meet with many obstacles in your course, but
you have nothing to fear so long as you fear nothing.
Your first enemy will be a little mischievous caitiff,
called Master Whipswitchem, a creature of the
wicked enchanter; your second a monstrous giant;
your third a beautiful spectre, and your fourth the
enchanter himself. The first you must circumvent
by your wit; the second by your valor; the third by
your self-command; and the fourth by your promptitude
and sagacity. There is no magic in your
weapons, though they are equally good and true.
Your dependence must be on yourself alone; on your
valor, your constancy, and your cause; and remember,
that should you ever turn your back on an
enemy, whether man, beast, or fiend, your happy
destiny will never be accomplished. You will never
see your little gold-fish again.

“My little gold-fish!” exclaimed the prince eagerly—”What
dost thou mean? O tell me, most beneficent
fairy!”

“You will know in good time, if you do not turn
recreant,” answered the fairy, with a significant
smile. “But away, away, my prince. Mount and
away. Follow the course of the river, and once more,
never turn aside let what will be before you, remembering
that nothing is impossible to courage, conduct,
and perseverance in a good cause.”

The prince bowed himself before the lady, repeated
his grateful thanks, mounted his neighing steed, which
pawed the ground impatiently, and was about clapping
spurs to his sides, when the fairy suddenly stopped
him.

“Hold, prince! I had almost forgotten. Take this
bouquet of violets, place it in your bosom, and guard
it well. But be careful not to draw it forth except in
the last extremity, depending always on your valor
and your sword. When your life shall hang suspended
by a single hair; when the last breath is
quivering on thy lips, and all other means fail,
then, and not till then, use it as your instinct may
direct. Adieu, my prince—be faithful, bold and fortunate.”

The fairy mounted her chariot, the butterflies spread
their gorgeous wings, and ascending rapidly through
the transparent skies the whole pageant disappeared.
The prince lost not a moment in pursuing the course
pointed out by the fairy, and as he proceeded, gradually
fell into a reverie, the subject of which was the
hint that it would depend on himself whether he ever
saw the little gold-fish again. The thought roused
him to the utmost height of daring, and he resolved,
come what might, nothing should be wanting on his
part to the accomplishment of a glorious and happy
destiny. He fell himself suddenly animated by this
determination to gain a noble prize by noble exertions,
for nothing is more certain than that none but
groveling, abject beings, to whom nature has denied
the ordinary faculties of mind, can remain insensible
to the excitement of glory, or the rewards of
love.

He had not, however, proceeded far, when on a
sudden there alighted on the head of his steed, right
between the ears, one of the most extraordinary creatures
he had ever seen. It was a little imp, about
three feet high, exactly resembling one of those scarecrows
we sometimes see in corn-fields, except that
it was a great deal more outre in its form and dimensions.
It wore an immense hat, of the shape of a
cullender, and with almost as many holes, through
which protruded little wisps of straw instead of
feathers. The face was perfectly undefinable, having
neither dimensions nor shape, resembling nothing of
the live human species, and consisting apparently
entirely of a nose which projected several inches beyond
the brim of his hat; his shirt-collar was tied
with a piece of rope; his jacket was as much too
short as his breeches were too long, one being out at
the elbows, the other at the knees, the latter of which
were tied with a wisp of straw tortured into a true
lover’s knot; his legs seemed nothing but a pair of
short broom-sticks, of neither shape nor substance,
ensconced in an old pair of spatterdashes; and the
toes of his shoes curled upward like a pair of old-fashioned
skates. Altogether he cut a curious figure,
and the prince could not help laughing at his new
traveling companion. “This,” thought he, “must
be Master Whipswitchem.”

But his gallant steed did not seem to enter into the
spirit of the joke. He pricked his ears, pawed the
ground, snorted, champed and foamed, and finally
stood stock still, trembling like a leaf. Prince Violet
began to wax somewhat impatient. Yet at length
said to him very courteously—

“My friend, if it is the same thing to you, I had
rather you would get off and walk.”

“Thank you, my friend, but if it’s the same thing
to you, I’d rather ride. Ho-ho! ha-hah!” and thereupon
he laughed like a whole swarm of flies.

Then the valiant prince drew his sword and gave
Master Whipswitchem a great blow under the short-ribs,
which he took it for granted would cut him in
two; but the sword rebounded as if it had struck on
an empty bladder, while the little imp only bounded
upward about three yards, alighting in the same place
as before, and crying out, “Ho-ho! hah-hah!” At
this rate, thought Prince Violet, I shall never get to
the end of my journey. Still he repeated his blows,
[Pg 34]
at each one of which the pestiferous little imp only
jumped higher and laughed louder, and the gallant
steed only snorted, pawed, and stamped more vehemently,
until both steed and master became quite exhausted.
The latter then resorted to artifice, seeing
that force was unavailing. So putting up his sword,
he affected to expostulate with his troublesome companion
on the impropriety of his conduct, watching
at the same time for an opportunity of laying hold of
him. When he seemed off his guard, and was crying
“Ho-ho! ha-hah!” with infinite glee, the prince suddenly
throwing himself forward, seized him by the
long nose, and after holding him up kicking in the
air for a few moments—for he was as light as a
feather—with a sudden jerk pitched him away out
into the river, where, after bobbing up and down
some half a dozen times, and crying “Ho-ho! ha-hah!”
he disappeared. “Ho-ho! ha-hah!” cried the
prince, “I think I have done Master Whipstichem’s
business this time.” After which he proceeded gayly
on his journey.

Before, however, he had time to enjoy the victory,
his gallant steed suddenly began to rear up before,
and then to kick up behind with great violence. The
prince clapped his hand on his trusty blade, thinking
he was approaching the giant, but on looking round
in every direction could see neither castle nor draw-bridge.
Indeed nothing visible seemed to justify the
horse in his unseemly gambols, and the prince accused
his gallant steed of being in league with his enemies,
when happening to look over his shoulder, who
should he see but Master Whipswitchem seated
quietly on the crupper, and spurring away with an
old rusty nail he had fixed in the heel of his shoe,
while he held by the horse’s tail for a bridle. “I
swear by the eyes of my beautiful gold-fish,” cried
the prince, “but this is too bad!” And then he attempted
to dislodge the pestilent imp, by thrusting his
elbow into his back; but the little caitiff every time
bounced up like a tennis-ball, and the next instant
was in his seat, crying, “Ho-ho! ha-ha!” louder than
ever. This time he was too cunning for the prince;
for knowing by experience that his nose was the
most exposed part of his outworks, he kept his back
to the prince, and his face toward the tail of the
horse. At the expiration of an hour the prince became
so worried that he could scarcely lift his hand
to his head, and his horse so exhausted that he could
kick no more. At length, however, while the little
caitiff was spurring and laughing away with great
glee, the prince turning suddenly round on the saddle,
seized the rope which he wore round his neck for a
cravat, and leaping from his steed, hoisted him up to
an old sign-post at the road-side, where he left him
dangling in the air. “Ho-ho! ha-ha!” said the prince,
“I think I shall have no more trouble with Master
Whipswitchem.”

Finding himself as well as his steed quite exhausted,
and both requiring rest and refreshment, Prince
Violet dismounted in a pleasant, shady grove, through
which meandered a clear stream, bordered by rich,
luxuriant grass, thus furnishing both drink and food to
the panting animal, whom, having turned loose, he left
to roam at will. Seating himself among a bed of fragrant
flowers, he lighted a cigar, and sat smoking
and thinking of his future prospects.

“Ho-ho! ha-hah! my prince, what are you about?
You put me in mind of a smoking chimney, though
from your mighty contented look, I should suppose
you were very pleasantly occupied. I should like to
take a puff too, if you have no objection.”

“O, beneficent Fairy Violetta,” exclaimed the
prince, “what shall I do with this pestiferous caitiff,
who minds neither hanging nor drowning?” And thereupon
the fairy, who doubtless heard his adjuration,
inspired him with a lucky thought. Knowing that
the little caitiff was but a man of straw, animated by
the wicked enchanter, he at once resolved to take
advantage of that circumstance.

“Ho-ho! ha-hah! are you there, my friend?” replied
the prince. “Well, I see there is no use in
quarreling with such a pleasant fellow. Come, sit
down, and take a puff with me, and let us swear
eternal friendship.”

“Agreed!” replied the little caitiff, briskly. “It is
true you played a joke or two on me, but I flatter
myself, on the whole, I paid you beforehand; and for
the present the account is pretty well balanced.”

So they sat down and smoked very sociably together,
talking about various matters, until the little
caitiff’s cigar being burnt to a stump, and somewhat
incommoding his long nose, he began turning and
twisting it about, until it set fire to some blades of
straw that projected from his nostrils, which straight-way
communicated to his head, and thence to his
body, and in a moment he was in full blaze.

“I am a gone sucker!” exclaimed he, and the
words were scarcely out of his mouth when, he became
nothing but a heap of black ashes.

“Ho-ho! ha-hah!” quoth the prince, “if he is a
gone sucker, I take it for granted, it is all Dicky with
Master Whipswitchem.” And then, himself and his
horse being sufficiently refreshed, he mounted and
rode forward on his journey.

Ascending a high, wearisome hill, he saw at a little
distance a great and magnificent castle, which he at
once took for that of the enchanter Curmudgeon.
The crisis of his fate was then at hand; and after inspecting
his armor and equipments, the prince spurred
on briskly to consummate his destiny. A few moments
brought him to a tower, at the end of a draw-bridge,
where hung an enormous bell, which, without hesitating
a moment, he rung till it resounded far and
near. Instantly at the sound there rose up from the
inner side, a monstrous and deformed giant, upward
of sixteen feet high. As he advanced, he seemed all
body and no legs—the latter being utterly disproportioned
to the former; his shoulders rose like mountains,
one higher than the other, almost to the top of
his head; his body was all over covered with impenetrable
scales like an alligator, and he wore on his
head an old Continental cocked-hat, from which projected
a queue of such unaccountable length that it
was said nobody ever saw the end of it. But his most
atrocious feature was a great proboscis, growing just
over a little pug nose, he used for smelling, about the
[Pg 35]
size of that of an elephant, which it exactly resembled
in strength and elasticity.

“What want you here?” roared the monster, in a
voice so loud and horrible, that it set the bell tinkling,
and in a most discourteous manner peculiar to giants,
who are notorious for their ill manners.

“I wish to see the far-famed and puissant enchanter,
the great Curmudgeon, with whom I have a bone to
pick, an please your worship,” replied the prince,
with infinite politeness.

“You see him—what good will that do? He would
not look at, much less speak to, such a sloppy
stripling as you. To the right-about—march! or I’ll
make mince-meat of you in less than no time.”

“Stand aside, and let me pass!” cried the enraged
prince, drawing his sword.

“Advance at your peril!” roared the giant, twirling
his proboscis, and twisting his long queue like a great
black-snake.

And now commenced a battle, the like of which is
not recorded in history, tradition, or romance. The
sword of the valiant prince gleamed, and flashed, and
flew about like lightning, raining such a shower of
dry blows on the monster, that had not his hide been
invulnerable to any but enchanted weapons, he would
in good time have been a gone sucker, as Sir Bruin
said. The giant, on the other hand, had managed his
proboscis with admirable skill, his great object being
to entwine the prince in its folds, and squeeze him to
death. Sometimes he would stretch it out at least six
yards, and at others draw it in suddenly, in hopes the
prince would be deceived as to its length, and come
within the sphere of its action. But the prince being
gloriously seconded by his gallant steed, displayed an
activity fully equal to the craft of the giant; and for
an hour at least the fight continued doubtful. The
only vulnerable part of the monster was his long
queue, which the prince, in hopes that, like Sampson,
his strength might peradventure lie in his hair, by an
adroit manœuvre cut off about six feet from his head.
Thereupon he roared like ten thousand bulls of Bashan,
insomuch that the enchanter, Curmudgeon, feared he
was vanquished, and trembled in the recesses of his
castle.

The giant frantic with rage at the loss of what he
was more vain of than even his stately proboscis,
now redoubled his efforts, while the prince every moment
became more exhausted, and his gallant steed
ceased his usual activity. The giant seeing this,
watched his opportunity, till he at length succeeded
in throwing a slipping noose, made by twisting his
proboscis over the head of the prince. This he
gradually tightened with all his force, until the prince
perceived himself rapidly suffocating. His eyes failed
him, and seemed bursting from their orbits; his vision
presented nothing but gleams of many colored lights
dancing before him; his heart heaved and panted with
throes of desperate agony; his arm became almost
nerveless, and his sword fell from his hand, while
the shouts of the giant announced that the victory
was won.

At this moment of extreme peril, when the last
gleam of consciousness lingered in his brain, the
prince recollected the bouquet of violets which he
still carried in his bosom, and drawing it forth with a
desperate effort, thrust it into the little pug nose of the
giant, which was directly before him. That instant
the proboscis relaxed, as if by magic, and the giant
suddenly untwining its folds, commenced a fit of
sneezing, awful to hear, jumping up several feet from
the ground at every paroxysm, swearing at intervals
like a trooper, and cutting the most enormous capers.
The moment Prince Violet recovered himself sufficiently,
he dismounted, and regaining his trusty
sword, belabored the impenetrable hide of the egregious
monster with such arrant good will, that he retreated
backward between every fit of sneezing, until
finally falling into the moat, he stuck fast in the mud,
sneezing and roaring most vociferously.

Prince Violet lost no time, but passed swiftly into
the castle, and proceeding through several apartments,
far more vast and magnificent than the palace of King
Doddipol, at length came to the study where the
wicked enchanter practiced Mesmerism, and other
diabolical devices. The old sinner was seated in an
arm-chair of ebony, curiously carved, and ornamented
with figures of strange, misshapen imps, among which
the prince recognized his old friend, Master Whipswitchem.
By his side stood a female of such transcendent
and inimitable beauty, that the prince at
once concluded this was the phantom against whom
he was so emphatically warned by his good friend
the fairy. He allowed himself but one glance, which
sufficed to convince him she resembled exactly the
charming princess he had so often seen in his dreams,
and which had like to have proved fatal. Then shutting
his eyes, he advanced backward, sword in hand,
toward the enchanter, who at the first moment he saw
him, began those mysterious wavings of the hand
with which he was wont to put his victims to sleep,
and those cabalistic words which changed men into
beasts, insects, and reptiles. But the prince having
his eyes shut, and his back toward him, could not
see his motions, and the enchanter being horribly
affrighted, as well as naturally a great blockhead, was
so long in recollecting the formula of his incantation,
that the prince, seeing by a sly glance over the
shoulder, that he was sufficiently near, suddenly
turned round, and with one blow severed his head
from his shoulders. Then catching it before it fell to
the ground, he threw it into the great kettle that hung
boiling over the fire. He was just in time, for Curmudgeon
had got to the last but one of his cabalistic
words, and in a single instant more, Prince Violet
would have been changed into a cabbage. No sooner
was the head thrown into the kettle, than the water
began to hiss and foam, and blaze up in spires of blue
sulphureous flame, until finally the kettle burst into a
thousand fragments, and the head disappeared up the
chimney. Then the phantom beauty, uttering a shrill,
dismal scream, melted into air—and the enchantment
was dissolved forever. At that moment Prince Violet
heard a voice from the skies, as tuneful as the music
of the spheres, saying, “Well done, my prince, the
death of the wicked enchanter was necessary to the
recovery of thy lost gold-fish—for while he lived thou
[Pg 36]
wouldst never have seen it again. Go on—thy destiny
ere long will be accomplished.” A strain of
aerial music succeeded, which gradually faded into
whispering zephyrs, bearing on their wings the
mingled perfume of a thousand flowers.

The prince took possession of the castle by right of
conquest; and when the people over whom the
enchanter had reigned with a cruel and despotic
sway heard of the gallantry with which he had rid
them of their tyrant, they gathered themselves together,
and with one voice chose him for their king.

Prince Violet proved an excellent sovereign; but,
though he made his subjects happy, he partook not
in what he so freely bestowed on others. The recollection
of the little gold-fish, and of the beautiful
princess he had so often seen in his dreams, was ever
present, and poisoned his days and nights with perpetual
sorrows. Though courted by King Grabyall,
and all the surrounding potentates, who had grown
up daughters, he declined their advances, passing
most of his leisure hours in wandering along the
river he had followed in his journey, and which
flowed just at the foot of the terrace of his stately
castle. He remembered that it issued from the aperture
through which he had emerged from the crystal
basin, and constantly fed his sickly fancy with the
hope that the little gold-fish might have vanished in
the same direction. If so, it was probably still in the
river, if it lived at all; and he was perpetually bending
over the stream, watching the gambols of the finny
tribes, to see if he could not detect among them his
lost wanderer.

One day having rambled much further than he had
ever been before in that direction, he perceived in
turning a sharp angle of the river, a noble marble
villa, which had never attracted his notice before. It
basked its white, unsullied beauties on the bank of the
murmuring stream, and its turrets rose from out a sea
of green foliage that almost hid them from sight. Led
by curiosity, or rather by his destiny, he approached
the building by a winding walk, that seemed almost
a labyrinth, now bringing him near, and anon carrying
him to a distance, until tired at last, he stopped,
and rested himself under the shade of a stately beech,
that spread its broad arms afar, and afforded a delightful
canopy. Here, gazing around in listless
apathy, his attention was attracted by the letter V,
carved on the smooth bark, and environed with a
chaplet of violets, underneath which the motto, “Forget
me not,” was cut in graceful letters. While
pondering on this rural emblem of constant love, he
was startled by a low and plaintive female voice
chanting the following simple strain, with the gentle
pathos of chastened sorrow:

These words, sung to a sweet, melancholy melody,
equally excited the sympathy and wonder of the prince.
The idea of a young lady being delighted at seeing the
face of her lover wither, and his body waste away,
he thought did little credit to the heart of woman; and
that what made him sad should make her gay, appeared
to show a great want of sympathy. As to the
“little scaly imp,” he could make nothing of it.
Still there was that in the song which seemed to bear
some strange allusion to his own peculiar situation;
and his curiosity became so excited, that without reflecting
on the impropriety of his conduct, or its consequences,
he, as it were, impelled by an involuntary
yet irresistible impulse, advanced in the direction
whence the voice proceeded.

Passing through a long winding avenue bordered
by beds of violets, and overshadowed by lofty trees,
he at length came to a bower of clambering vines
entwined with each other, at the further extremity of
which, seated on a bank of flowers, he beheld a female
figure, her cheek resting on her hand, and tears flowing
from her eyes. He gazed on her face, which
was turned toward the heavens, and shuddered as he
recognized an exact likeness of the phantom beauty
he had seen at the side of the enchanter’s chair. He
sought to retreat, but continued to advance by an
irresistible impulse, until the lady, at the sound of his
footsteps, looked toward him. The moment she saw
the prince she uttered a piercing shriek, at the same
time rushing forward with extended arms, and a face
glowing with joyous welcome. Then, as if suddenly
recollecting herself, she hastily retired, and sunk
down on the seat, her cheek glowing with blushes.
The prince continued to advance, controlled by an
influence he could not withstand, and coming up to
her, apologized as well as the confusion of his mind
would permit, for his unceremonious intrusion.

The lady remained gazing at him, with mingled
smiles and blushes, for a few moments, and then addressed
the prince in words that seemed to come
from a mouth of roses.

“Don’t you know me, my prince?”

“Know you,” faltered he, “I believe—I fear—I
know you but too well. You are the phantom
beauty. The chosen instrument of the wicked enchanter,
Curmudgeon.”

“Alas! no. I am no phantom, nor, I trust, an instrument
of mischief at least to you. The phantom
was formed in my likeness, because—because, as
the enchanter confessed, he could create nothing so
[Pg 37]
beautiful as myself by the utmost exertion of his
arts.”

The prince gazed at her in a trance of admiration,
for never, with the single exception of the phantom,
and the idol princess of his dreams, had he seen a
being so enchantingly lovely. The lady received his
scrutiny with smiles of modest pleasure, and at length
repeated her question—

“Do you not know me, my prince?”

The prince emboldened by her smiles, or impelled
by his destiny, seated himself by her side, and gazed
ardently, yet wistfully, in her face. There was something
in the expression of her eyes he fancied he had
seen before, but when or where he could not call to
mind. At length the lady, compassionating his perplexity,
again anxiously asked—

“Do you remember a certain little gold-fish?”

“Remember? I shall never forget,” and his eyes
glistened.

“Do you remember how you used to come to the
crystal basin, at the foot of the shining cascade, and
stay all day long fondling a little gold-fish, kissing its
eyes, and hiding it in your bosom?”

“Remember!” cried the prince, “the recollection
constitutes the hope, or rather the despair, of my life.
Would that I could see my dear little companion
again. Methinks I should then be happy, or at least
die content.”

“Look in my face—look steadily,” replied the
lady, greatly agitated.

Their eyes met, and that look of mutual intelligence
which never deceives, disclosed the mystery.
He recognized at once that glance of mingled love
and gratitude he had so often seen beaming from the
soft expressive eyes of the little gold-fish. He started
from her side, threw himself at her feet, and exclaimed—

“Tell me—tell me! art not thou my little gold-fish?”

“I am,” rejoined the lady. “Once thy little gold-fish,
now thy faithful and devoted handmaid, the
Princess Violetta. It is to thy constancy I am indebted
for the recovery of my former self; and such
as I am, I will be to thee what thou choosest to
make me.”

“Mine forever! my beloved, my adored wife!”
cried the prince, as he folded her in his arms, kissed
her as he was wont to do the little gold-fish, and at
that moment reaped the reward of all his sufferings.

After enjoying the first delights of mutual love, the
princess said to him, “Doubtless you are anxious to
know how I came to be transformed into a fish; and
I will tell you now, that there may be nothing to explain
hereafter. I must begin early, for my misfortunes
commenced almost at my birth. I am the only
child of King Grabyall, in whose dominions you now
are; and according to the universal custom of all
royal christenings, a great many fairies were invited
to mine, and some few vulgar things came without
invitation. Among the latter was an old fairy, so ill-natured
and malicious, that, though very powerful to
do evil, no one would pay her the least attention;
for they knew that no kindness could conciliate the
wicked old creature. Of course, neither my father
nor mother paid her the least attention, or made her
presents; and no one spoke a word to her, at which
she flew into a great rage, and went away shaking
her wand, and mumbling in a spiteful manner, ‘Well,
good people, you are all mighty silent now, but before
long you shall have talking enough, I promise you!’

“Everybody laughed at the spiteful old woman—but
it was no such laughing matter, I assure you,
my prince; for she was hardly out of sight, when, to
the astonishment of the whole court, I began to talk
with such volubility that nobody could keep pace
with me. First I scolded the nurse, then abused the
fairies, and finally took my parents to task roundly
for attempting to stop me. The courtiers tried to
persuade them that this was only an omen of my precocious
genius, and that, beyond all doubt, I should
one day become the wisest, most eloquent princess
in the world. But they remembered the threat of the
malicious old fairy, and became exceeding sorrowful.
As I grew up my volubility increased; I talked from
morning till night, and all night too. Sleeping or
waking, it was just the same; and my voice was so
loud and shrill that it could be heard all over the
palace. What rendered the matter still worse, I was
exceeding ill-natured, satirical, and witty, insomuch,
that all were afraid to come near me; and I was
obliged at last to talk to myself. It is necessary I
should apprise you that I grew up to great beauty,
and by the time I was sixteen, many of the neighboring
princes came to pay their addresses to me.
But I never gave them an opportunity, for before
they could open their lips, I poured a torrent of
satirical reproaches in their ears that struck them all
dumb; insomuch, that it was said some of them never
recovered their speech afterward. Do you not hate
me, my prince, for being such a termagant?”

The prince, to say the truth, was a little startled at
this detail, but replied with a look that was perfectly
satisfactory; and the princess proceeded with her
story.

“At the age of seventeen, the enchanter, Curmudgeon,
incited by the report of my beauty, came
to pay my father a visit—my mother being long since
dead. He at first sight fell violently in love, and demanded
me in marriage of my father, who, though a
kind-hearted, good man, was, I believe, heartily glad
to get rid of me, but at the same time frankly apprized
him of my infirmity. ‘O, ho!’ answered the enchanter,
‘never mind that—I shall soon cure her, I
warrant you.’ He then approached to make his declaration,
when, being exceedingly provoked at his
slighting expressions, which I had overheard, I gave
him such an explosion of satire, spleen, and ill-nature,
as he had never probably heard before. I ridiculed
his pretensions, scoffed at his person, despised his
offers, and defied his power, until he could stand it
no longer. Stamping his foot on the floor, waving
his hand, and muttering some cabalistic words, he
at length cried out in a rage, ‘Be dumb forever! or
at least till such time as some prince shall be fool
enough to fall in love with you, and pine away until
he makes no shadow in the sun.’

“At that moment I found myself changed into a gold-fish,
and swimming in the crystal basin where you
first saw me. How long I remained there before you
made your appearance I cannot tell, but I know that
I was heartily tired of my loneliness, and at first felt
the loss of speech very severely. I rejoiced when I
first saw you. Your caresses penetrated my heart,
and—you must forgive me, my dear prince—but when
I beheld you wasting away daily, and knew it was for
love of me, my happiness grew with your sorrows,
for I felt that my deliverance was at hand, and that
I should live to reward you for all your sufferings.
The day the sun first shone full into the crystal basin,
and I saw that you cast no shadow there, you may
remember, I suddenly darted from your hand and disappeared.
It was very ungrateful, but I could not
resist my destiny. I was instantly transformed to my
original likeness, and—but don’t be alarmed, my
prince, for I assure you my propensity to talking was
effectually and forever repressed, by the long habit of
silence I had preserved as the little gold-fish. I was
received by my father with affectionate welcome,
and—and what else shall I say? I have mourned
your absence day after day, until I almost ceased to
hope that I should ever see you again. But,” added
the princess, with a look of unutterable tenderness,
“thou hast come back once more to me—thou hast
sought and found thy little gold-fish, and I am
happy.”

The prince had scarcely time to return suitable acknowledgments,
and vow eternal love, when they
were roused by the sound of the hunter’s horn, announcing
the return of King Grabyall from the chase.
The princess introduced him to the prince; and his
majesty being in high good humor, having been very
successful that morning, beside having an excellent
appetite for dinner, received him most graciously. The
ardent prince lost no time in declaring his love; and
King Grabyall, knowing that he had been chosen to
govern the territories of the enchanter, Curmudgeon,
beside inheriting all his vast riches, graciously consented
to the marriage. He did this the more willingly,
knowing from late experience that the princess, having
fulfilled the denunciation of the malicious old fairy,
had survived her infirmity.

There was never in this world such a splendid and
happy wedding; and what added to the pleasure of
all parties, was seeing the good fairy, Violetta, enter
the superb saloon to honor the ceremony.

“Welcome, my prince,” said she, holding out her
little, delicate hand, “I congratulate you; you have
triumphed by valor and constancy.”

When the ceremony was over, the prince inquired
anxiously whether she knew aught of his father, and
was informed that he had married the daughter of
good King Doddipol, and was wasting his substance
as fast as possible, by giving fêtes to the bride, and
lending great sums to his father-in-law. Prince
Violet sighed at the fate of the Old Man of the Hills,
but in good time forgot all his griefs in the arms of
love and beauty.

The Princess Violetta made a most excellent wife,
and never afterward talked more than became a reasonable
woman. The wicked giant, who, it should
have been premised, had been extricated from the
moat, and finished his fit of sneezing, being freed
from the diabolical influence of the enchanter, Curmudgeon,
took the pledge, became a tetotailer, and
lived ever after an example to all overgrown monsters,
past, present, and future.

THE VESPER BELL.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

THE TEACHER TAUGHT.

BY MARY S. ADAMS.

“Three months’ imprisonment! Heigho!” soliloquized
Harvey Hall, as he entered the school-room,
and surveyed the array of seats before him. “Well,
poverty is a crime punished not only by one’s state
and country, but by the whole world. Here am I
longing for a profession which shall give some play
to my mind, which shall enable me to take a stand
among men; and now to purchase that profession I
must ‘teach young ideas’ till the requisite sum is obtained.
The daughters of Darius were condemned
for the murder of their husbands to fill leaky vessels
in Tartarus—that is, they became teachers! It is
hard that those who have neither been nor murdered
husbands should endure like punishment.”

Harvey Hall always spoke the truth, albeit sometimes
the truth a little swollen; so he was, as he said,
condemned to a temporary reign over children and
spelling-books, in order to pursue his studies—for
the expenses of which the limited finances of his
parents would not suffice; and he had taken the
academy at L., with the due announcement of all
his qualifications in the county newspaper.

“Some bright faces here,” thought he, as his eyes
glanced over those of his scholars upturned to him, and
rested on one with eyes bright enough to light Cupid
on his way to any untenanted heart, but bearing the
expression of smothered mirth, never relished by
those who do not happen to know the mot d’enigme.
Small white fingers traced something rapidly on the
slate, which was then given to a young lady, who, on
the perusal of its characters, gave a stifled laugh, and
buried her face in a handkerchief. But the author of
the mischief, whatever it was, instantly turned to
gravity, and met the searching gaze of Hall with a
demure look which amused him not a little.

“That daughter of Parson Hinton finds fun enough
in something. I wish her father could preach her
into better behavior. She is the most troublesome
sprite I have in school. Young ladies,” he said,
assuming all the dignity of his position, “less whispering,
and more attention to your studies would conduce
to your improvement.”

Annie Hinton and her chum took their books, and
were soon apparently absorbed in them. Annie met
with some question she could not solve; and taking
her book to the teacher, she asked an explanation.
It was given.

“And you made an observation just now, sir,
which I wish to remember. Will you be so kind as
to repeat it,” she added, bending toward him with the
greatest mock attention and deference.

It is said that the worst reception of a compliment
is to request its repetition; and the remark is just as
applicable to a reproof. Certainly Harvey Hall found
it so. Impudence he could have met successfully;
but there was something in the arch air of respect, so
evidently assumed, and in the polite tone accompanying
bright eyes which would almost laugh out,
which told him that the present scene would figure in
some after frolic formidable enough to young gentlemen
who are never proof against the ridicule of
mirthful girls in their teens. He longed to laugh with
her at it all, but an assembled school, a roguish scholar,
would not exactly admit of this; so, coloring a little,
and then provoked at himself for the gossiping blood
which betrayed his inward embarrassment, he said,

“Oh, merely that study is more appropriate to the
school-room than amusement. I shall be happy to
have it dwell in your memory and practice, Miss
Hinton.”

Annie bowed gracefully, gravely, and turned away,
but not before Hall mentally resolved never to admonish
her again if he could avoid it.

When the day for compositions came—that bore
which all parties would gladly overlook instead of look
over—Hall, dreading trite essays on all the hackneyed
themes of school, told the misses under his charge to
write on any thing that interested them—they might describe
some of the manners and customs among them.

“But we have no manners, and very few customs,
Mr. Hall,” said Annie.

“Well, select any subject that pleases yourself,
Miss Annie.”

The composition was on Dignity, and was so ludicrous,
so personal a description of it, that Mr. Hall
was fairly puzzled. What shall I say to this merry
damsel, who seems to turn into sport all I say or do.
I cannot correct her.

“Miss Hinton, carry this home to your father, and
see if he says it is a proper article for you to bring
in as a composition.”

The next day it was returned with, “My father
thinks Dignity one of the finest things he has ever
seen,” she said, half hesitating, as if unwilling to
utter such praise, but looking as if all the spirits of
fun had taken the opportunity to look out of her eyes.
Of course, her reverend parent had never had a
glimpse of it—and this her teacher very well knew.

But why watch her with more interest than all
the “well behaved” of his school? In accordance
with Scripture, he left the ninety and nine just ones,
to search for the one who went astray. The lessons
she recited had for him a double interest; the days
she was absent were like the dull, gray sky of autumn—nay,
several times he even acknowledged to himself
that teaching was not the dull routine he had supposed,
and the term of his probation had not the
leaden wings he had anticipated.

But there was an apprehension to disturb the tenor
of his thoughts, and fall heavily upon his official capacity.
He had—yes, he certainly had seen Annie
Hinton receive a billet from Charles Lane; and
Charles Lane was a bright youth—a fine scholar—ready
to enter college the next term—and just her
age. It was wrong, decidedly wrong, to have any
silly flirtations between mere boys and girls—he had
always considered it so; but now it was wonderful
to see how strong his reasoning, and firm his opinions
were on this subject. And personal experience has
an extraordinary power in giving edge to moral reflections;
how it draws them out of the shade, concentrates
and clinches them.

Well, Harvey Hall felt really grieved that scholars
should have their attention drawn away from their
studies by such nonsense as a children’s love affair.
Charles Lane was a promising boy to be sure; but
he must go through college, and be settled in life before
he ought to think of fancying any one. He
might become dissipated—such bright boys often did;
or fickle—in short, no one knew which rein of his
character the future might pull. And Annie—pretty
creature—who could not pass a day without some
mirthful episode, how ridiculous for a child like her
to think of selecting a lover! her mind was not disciplined
at all—her taste not pronounced; she might
make a different choice when she really knew her
own wishes, and had seen more of the world. It
would be wrong to entangle herself with any passing
fancy like the present—really wrong to suffer a child
to make a decision by which the woman must abide.
And then the good minister would be shocked to see
his plaything, Annie, forming any foolish attachment.
Yes, he must do all he could to prevent it. But how
could Parson Hinton be so blind? The other evening
when he called there, Charles Lane knocked at the
door, to bring a slip of geranium, which he had
walked several miles to get for Annie; and the old
gentleman only said, “You are very obliging, Charles—drop
in and see us often.” So strange, not to know
it was just like such precocious youths to fancy themselves
in love with every pretty girl. So laws were
enacted stricter than those of the Medes and Persians,
against all billets passed in school; as if Cupid, had
he made the essay, would not have delighted to
jeopardize all regulations, and fly in the face of
all laws.

One day as Mr. Hall was ascending the steps to
enter school, he saw Annie give Charles Lane a
knitted purse, and heard her say something about
“the phillipina.” As I said, he was principled against
such interchange of sentiment, or gifts, between such
children; but the present instance did not come precisely
under his dominion, being out of school—and
he entered upon his duties with a somewhat cloudy
brow. Every one has observed how much the sky
of his feelings influences the earth of reality. If
one wakes “out of tune” in the morning, the events
of the day seldom harmonize him. Let you walk
out in a city, feeling blue and burthened, and how
many things conspire to annoy you. You are blinded
by dust, or contaminated with mud, or the snow
slumps, or your feet slip at every step; a child is
almost run over in the street; people jostle rudely;
the bell tolls; the town-crier seems to scream at
every corner where you turn; the lady you particularly
admire is talking with vast animation to ——,
and does not even perceive you; a bow thrown
away; Mr. Lawkens, the deaf man, will cross over
to speak to you, but cannot hear your answer,
although you have repeated it the third time; a gust
of wind blows off your hat, and a bore holds you by
the button to tell you, what you well knew, the election
has gone against your favorite candidate; while
you inwardly exclaim, “misfortunes never come
single.”

Our pedagogue had a hazy atmosphere around his
spirit this day—and nothing cleared it. The recitations
were miserable, and the boys full of pranks—which
boys are heir to; the girls were any thing but
book-intent. The class in chemistry was called,
and as Mr. Hall was performing some experiments
on the apparatus, he said,

“Now, when I apply this, you will see that—it
wont go,” he added, as the desired result, from some
cause, failed.

“Certainly, we see it,” smilingly whispered Annie
to the next on her seat.

The sound reached Mr. Hall, already mortified by
the failure of the experiment.

“Miss Hinton,” he exclaimed, in a loud, stern
tone, “take your books, and go home.”

Annie looked surprised, as well she might, and
waited, as if to be sure she did not misunderstand
him. The attention of the school was roused—there
could be no revocation—so the mandate was repeated,
and obeyed.

Poor Hall! his chemical manipulations were no
more successful that day; classes were called, and
heard at random. The small scholars thought “it
was a grand time—master did not seem to mind
them;” while older ones wondered at his unwonted
humor. Meanwhile his reflections were any thing
but agreeable. How could he have been so harsh
for such a trifle, and ungentlemanly too. All Annie’s
faults were the mere exuberance of a joyous spirit;
and she was quick to acknowledge and regret them;
and yet he had not expostulated, but abruptly commanded
her to leave. How she must despise him!
And she had a great deal of sensibility; he had seen
the color suffuse her face, and the tears glisten in her
dark eyes, when a tale of sorrow or delicious poem
had excited her emotion. Perhaps she was at that
very moment weeping at his harshness; and then
proofs of interest in him, albeit she was a laughter-loving
spirit, stole over his memory. He thought of
an evening he had lately passed at her house, when
his conversation seemed to rivet her attention,
although he afterward heard her say, “There! Mary
Jane has a party to-night, and I entirely forgot it until
too late. Well, I have enjoyed myself better here.”
And he, the ingrate! how had he returned it, by unwarrantable
rudeness! She was just beginning to
talk to him with confiding frankness of her books,
her tastes, and opening to his study a mind as well
[Pg 41]
worth it as the changing loveliness of her face—when
this folly had destroyed it all. And what would
the good minister say? He who had received him so
kindly; so hospitably told him to come to him at any
and all times when he could be of assistance—what
would he say to have his pet, at once his amusement
and pride, turned out of school like any common
urchin?

Oh! how the hours of school dragged. Every
moment seemed to bear a weight of lead, and carry
to the luckless teacher a thousand arrows poisoned
by self-reproach. No sooner was his fiat of release
obtained, than with mingled regret and apprehension,
he wended his steps to the parsonage. He knocked
at the door, desired to see Mr. Hinton, and was accordingly
shown up into his study.

“He looks as if something lay on his mind,” thought
the clergyman, as he saw him enter, and advanced
to shake hands with him. “Perhaps he is considering
the concerns of his soul. Heaven help me to
counsel him aright!” and there was an unusual kindliness
in his tone, as he urged him to be seated, which
was “heaping coals of fire” on the head of the
conscience-stricken teacher.

A pause. “I am—I have called—I regret—”

“Ah, yes,” mentally ejaculated the old man, “he
feels the burden of sin, and is under conviction,
I see—”

“In short, sir, I am sorry to trouble you at this
time, but I—”

“Speak out freely, my dear young man,” said his
benignant listener.

Is it possible he does not know what has passed?

“I regret to say that, vexed by the inattention of
the scholars, and by whispering, in which Miss Annie
joined, I hastily told her to leave school.”

“Told my daughter Annie to leave school!”

The door of the study was thrown open, and Annie
danced into the middle of the room, her bonnet hanging
on her arm, flowers in her hair, and a bouquet in
her hand, fresh from the woods in which she had
been rambling. “Father! father!” she stopped, and
gazed first at her father, and then at Mr. Hall, with
a mingled expression of regret and surprise. Her
long walk that afternoon had given her a heightened
color; and the varied feelings which moved her
were clearly depicted on her face.

“Come here, Annie,” said Hall, extending his
hand, “come here, and say you forgive the rudeness
of this afternoon.” She hesitated an instant—the
crimson deepened on her cheek, and the lip slightly
trembled; then looking up with one of her own
radiant smiles, she gave her small, white hand to
the teacher.

Not long after he made another visit to the good
minister’s study, not, indeed, to ask forgiveness for
turning Annie out of school, but to beg permission to
transplant her one day to a home of his own. Whatever
was said, we suspect Annie might have served
as “an instance in point” for that rather broad generalization
of Swift,

“Young gentlemen,” said Harvey Hall, (Judge Hall
then,) when some years afterward two or three of
his law students were spending the evening at his
hospitable mansion, “young gentlemen, never regret
the necessity of exerting yourself in order to obtain
your profession; for beside the habit of self-help
thus formed, which is invaluable, you may,” he
added, glancing archly at the face, fair as ever, of
her who sat with muslin stitchery by the centre-table,
“meet with a wayside rose as precious as Annie.”

THE SUNBEAM.

(FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE.)

MARY E. LEE.

THE ISLETS OF THE GULF;

OR, ROSE BUDD.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PILOT,” “RED ROVER,” “TWO ADMIRALS,” “WING-AND-WING,” “MILES WALLINGFORD,” ETC.

(Continued from page 293.)

PART XV.

Matthew Lee.

It was high time that Capt. Spike should arrive
when his foot touched the bottom of the yawl. The
men were getting impatient and anxious to the last
degree, and the power of Señor Montefalderon to
control them was lessening each instant. They heard
the rending of timber, and the grinding on the coral,
even more distinctly than the captain himself, and
feared that the brig would break up while they lay
alongside of her, and crush them amid the ruins. Then
the spray of the seas that broke over the weather side
of the brig, fell like rain upon them; and every body in
the boat was already as wet as if exposed to a violent
shower. It was well, therefore, for Spike that he descended
into the boat as he did, for another minute’s
delay might have brought about his own destruction.

Spike felt a chill at his heart when he looked about
him and saw the condition of the yawl. So crowded
were the stern-sheets into which he had descended,
that it was with difficulty he found room to place his
feet; it being his intention to steer, Jack was ordered
to get into the eyes of the boat, in order to give him a
seat. The thwarts were crowded, and three or four
of the people had placed themselves in the very bottom
of the little craft, in order to be as much as possible
out of the way, as well as in readiness to bail out
water. So seriously, indeed, were all the seamen impressed
with the gravity of this last duty, that nearly
every man had taken with him some vessel fit for
such a purpose. Rowing was entirely out of the
question, there being no space for the movement of
the arms. The yawl was too low in the water, moreover,
for such an operation in so heavy a sea. In all,
eighteen persons were squeezed into a little craft that
would have been sufficiently loaded, for moderate
weather at sea, with its four oarsmen and as many
sitters in the stern-sheets, with, perhaps, one in the
eyes to bring her more on an even keel. In other
words, she had just twice the weight in her, in living
freight, that it would have been thought prudent to receive
in so small a craft, in an ordinary time, in or out
of a port. In addition to the human beings enumerated,
there was a good deal of baggage, nearly every individual
having had the forethought to provide a few
clothes for a change. The food and water did not
amount to much, no more having been provided than
enough for the purposes of the captain, together with
the four men with whom it had been his intention to
abandon the brig. The effect of all this cargo was to
bring the yawl quite low in the water; and every seafaring
man in her had the greatest apprehensions about
her being able to float at all when she got out from under
the lee of the Swash, or into the troubled water. Try
it she must, however, and Spike, in a reluctant and
hesitating manner, gave the final order to “Shove off!”

The yawl carried a lugg, as is usually the case with
boats at sea, and the first blast of the breeze upon it
satisfied Spike that his present enterprise was one of
the most dangerous of any in which he had ever been
engaged. The puffs of wind were quite as much as
the boat would bear; but this he did not mind, as he
was running off before it, and there was little danger
of the yawl capsizing with such a weight in her. It
was also an advantage to have swift way on, to prevent
the combing waves from shooting into the boat,
though the wind itself scarce outstrips the send of the
sea in a stiff blow. As the yawl cleared the brig and
began to feel the united power of the wind and waves,
the following short dialogue occurred between the
boatswain and Spike.

“I dare not keep my eyes off the breakers ahead,”
the captain commenced, “and must trust to you,
Strand, to report what is going on among the man-of-war’s
men. What is the ship about?”

“Reefing her top-sails just now, sir. All three
are on the caps, and the vessel is laying-too, in a
manner.”

“And her boats?”

“I see none, sir—ay, ay, there they come from
alongside of her in a little fleet! There are four of
them, sir, and all are coming down before the wind,
wing and wing, carrying their luggs reefed.”

“Ours ought to be reefed by rights, too, but we
dare not stop to do it; and these infernal combing seas
[Pg 43]
seem ready to glance aboard us with all the way we
can gather. Stand by to bail, men; we must pass
through a strip of white water—there is no help for it.
God send that we go clear of the rocks!”

All this was fearfully true. The adventurers were
not yet more than a cable’s length from the brig, and
they found themselves so completely environed with
the breakers as to be compelled to go through them.
No man in his senses would ever have come into such
a place at all, except in the most unavoidable circumstances;
and it was with a species of despair that the
seamen of the yawl now saw their little craft go
plunging into the foam.

But Spike neglected no precaution that experience
or skill could suggest. He had chosen his spot with
coolness and judgment. As the boat rose on the seas
he looked eagerly ahead, and by giving it a timely
sheer, he hit a sort of channel, where there was sufficient
water to carry them clear of the rock, and
where the breakers were less dangerous than in the
shoaler places. The passage lasted about a minute;
and so serious was it, that scarce an individual
breathed until it was effected. No human skill could
prevent the water from combing in over the gunwales;
and when the danger was passed, the yawl was a
third filled with water. There was no time or place
to pause, but on the little craft was dragged almost
gunwale to, the breeze coming against the lugg in puffs
that threatened to take the mast out of her. All hands
were bailing; and even Biddy used her hands to aid
in throwing out the water.

“This is no time to hesitate, men,” said Spike,
sternly. “Every thing must go overboard but the
food and water. Away with them at once, and with
a will.”

It was a proof how completely all hands were
alarmed by this, the first experiment in the breakers,
that not a man stayed his hand a single moment, but
each threw into the sea, without an instant of hesitation,
every article he had brought with him and had
hoped to save. Biddy parted with the carpet-bag, and
Señor Montefalderon, feeling the importance of example,
committed to the deep a small writing-desk
that he had placed on his knees. The doubloons alone
remained, safe in a little locker where Spike had
deposited them along with his own.

“What news astern, boatswain?” demanded the
captain, as soon as this imminent danger was passed,
absolutely afraid to turn his eyes off the dangers ahead
for a single instant. “How come on the man-of-war’s
men?”

“They are running down in a body toward the
wreck, though one of their boats does seem to be
sheering out of the line, as if getting into our wake.
It is hard to say, sir, for they are still a good bit to
windward of the wreck.”

“And the Molly, Strand?”

“Why, sir, the Molly seems to be breaking up
fast; as well as I can see, she has broke in two just
abaft the fore-chains, and cannot hold together in any
shape at all many minutes longer.”

This information drew a deep groan from Spike,
and the eye of every seaman in the boat was turned
in melancholy on the object they were so fast leaving
behind them. The yawl could not be said to be sailing
very rapidly, considering the power of the wind,
which was a little gale, for she was much too deep
for that; but she left the wreck so fast as already to
render objects on board her indistinct. Everybody
saw that, like an overburthened steed, she had more
to get along with than she could well bear; and, dependent
as seamen usually are on the judgment and
orders of their superiors, even in the direst emergencies,
the least experienced man in her saw that
their chances of final escape from drowning were of
the most doubtful nature. The men looked at each
other in a way to express their feelings; and the moment
seemed favorable to Spike to confer with his
confidential sea-dogs in private; but more white water
was also ahead, and it was necessary to pass through
it, since no opening was visible by which to avoid it.
He deferred his purpose, consequently, until this
danger was escaped.

On this occasion Spike saw but little opportunity
to select a place to get through the breakers, though
the spot, as a whole, was not of the most dangerous
kind. The reader will understand that the preservation
of the boat at all, in white water, was owing to
the circumstance that the rocks all around it lay so
near the surface of the sea as to prevent the possibility
of agitating the element very seriously, and to the
fact that she was near the lee side of the reef. Had
the breakers been of the magnitude of those which
are seen where the deep rolling billows of the ocean
first meet the weather side of shoals or rocks, a craft
of that size, and so loaded, could not possibly have
passed the first line of white water without filling.
As it was, however, the breakers she had to contend
with were sufficiently formidable, and they brought
with them the certainty that the boat was in imminent
danger of striking the bottom at any moment. Places
like those in which Mulford had waded on the reef,
while it was calm, would now have proved fatal to
the strongest frame, since human powers were insufficient
long to withstand the force of such waves as did
glance over even these shallows.

“Look out!” cried Spike, as the boat again plunged
in among the white water. “Keep bailing, men—keep
bailing.”

The men did bail, and the danger was over almost as
soon as encountered. Something like a cheer burst
out of the chest of Spike, when he saw deeper water
around him, and fancied he could now trace a channel
that would carry him quite beyond the extent of the
reef. It was arrested, only half uttered, however, by a
communication from the boatswain, who sat on a
midship thwart, his arms folded, and his eye on the
brig and the boats.

“There goes the Molly’s masts, sir! Both have
gone together; and as good sticks was they, before
them bomb-shells passed through our rigging, as was
ever stepped in a keelson.”

The cheer was changed to something like a groan,
while a murmur of regret passed through the boat.

“What news from the man-of-war’s men, boatswain?
Do they still stand down on a mere wreck?”

“No, sir; they seem to give it up, and are getting
out their oars to pull back to their ship. A pretty
time they’ll have of it, too. The cutter that gets to
windward half a mile in an hour, ag’in such a sea,
and such a breeze, must be well pulled and better
steered. One chap, however, sir, seems to hold on.”

Spike now ventured to look behind him, commanding
an experienced hand to take the helm. In
order to do this he was obliged to change places with
the man he had selected to come aft, which brought
him on a thwart alongside of the boatswain and one
or two other of his confidents. Here a whispered
conference took place, which lasted several minutes,
Spike appearing to be giving instructions to the men.

By this time the yawl was more than a mile from
the wreck, all the man-of-war boats but one had
lowered their sails, and were pulling slowly and with
great labor back toward the ship, the cutter that kept
on, evidently laying her course after the yawl, instead
of standing on toward the wreck. The brig was breaking
up fast, with every probability that nothing would
be left of her in a few more minutes. As for the yawl,
while clear of the white water, it got along without
receiving many seas aboard, though the men in its
bottom were kept bailing without intermission. It
appeared to Spike that so long as they remained on
the reef, and could keep clear of breakers—a most
difficult thing, however—they should fare better than
if in deeper water, where the swell of the sea, and
the combing of the waves, menaced so small and so
deep-loaded a craft with serious danger. As it was,
two or three men could barely keep the boat clear,
working incessantly, and much of the time with a
foot or two of water in her.

Josh and Simon had taken their seats, side by side,
with that sort of dependence and submission that
causes the American black to abstain from mingling
with the whites more than might appear seemly.
They were squeezed on to one end of the thwart by
a couple of robust old sea-dogs, who were two of the
very men with whom Spike had been in consultation.
Beneath that very thwart was stowed another confident,
to whom communications had also been made.
These men had sailed long in the Swash, and having
been picked up in various ports, from time to time,
as the brig had wanted hands, they were of nearly
as many different nations as they were persons.
Spike had obtained a great ascendency over them by
habit and authority, and his suggestions were now
received as a sort of law. As soon as the conference
was ended, the captain returned to the helm.

A minute more passed, during which the captain
was anxiously surveying the reef ahead, and the
state of things astern. Ahead was more white water—the
last before they should get clear of the reef; and
astern it was now settled that the cutter that held on
through the dangers of the place, was in chase of the
yawl. That Mulford was in her Spike made no
doubt; and the thought embittered even his present
calamities. But the moment had arrived for something
decided. The white water ahead was much
more formidable than any they had passed; and the
boldest seaman there gazed at it with dread. Spike
made a sign to the boatswain, and commenced the
execution of his dire project.

“I say, you Josh,” called out the captain, in the
authoritative tones that are so familiar to all on board
a ship, “pull in that fender that is dragging alongside.”

Josh leaned over the gunwale, and reported that
there was no fender out. A malediction followed,
also so familiar to those acquainted with ships, and
the black was told to look again. This time, as had
been expected, the negro leaned with his head and
body far over the side of the yawl, to look for that
which had no existence, when two of the men beneath
the thwart shoved his legs after them. Josh
screamed, as he found himself going into the water,
with a sort of confused consciousness of the truth;
and Spike called out to Simon to “catch hold of his
brother-nigger.” The cook bent forward to obey,
when a similar assault on his legs from beneath the
thwart, sent him headlong after Josh. One of the
younger seamen, who was not in the secret, sprang
up to rescue Simon, who grasped his extended hand,
when the too generous fellow was pitched headlong
from the boat.

All this occurred in less than ten seconds of time,
and so unexpectedly and naturally, that not a soul
beyond those who were in the secret, had the least
suspicion it was any thing but an accident. Some
water was shipped, of necessity, but the boat was
soon bailed free. As for the victims of this vile conspiracy,
they disappeared amid the troubled waters of
the reef, struggling with each other. Each and all
met the common fate so much the sooner, from the
manner in which they impeded their own efforts.

The yawl was now relieved from about five hundred
pounds of the weight it had carried—Simon
weighing two hundred alone, and the youngish seaman
being large and full. So intense does human
selfishness get to be, in moments of great emergency,
that it is to be feared most of those who remained,
secretly rejoiced that they were so far benefitted by the
loss of their fellows. The Señor Montefalderon was
seated on the aftermost thwart, with his legs in the
stern-sheets, and consequently with his back toward
the negroes, and he fully believed that what had happened
was purely accidental.

“Let us lower our sail, Don Esteban,” he cried,
eagerly, “and save the poor fellows.”

Something very like a sneer gleamed on the dark
countenance of the captain, but it suddenly changed
to a look of assent.

“Good!” he said, hastily—”spring forward, Don
Wan, and lower the sail—stand by the oars, men!”

Without pausing to reflect, the generous-hearted
Mexican stepped on a thwart, and began to walk
rapidly forward, steadying himself by placing his
hands on the heads of the men. He was suffered to
get as far as the second thwart, or past most of the
conspirators, when his legs were seized from behind.
The truth now flashed on him, and grasping two of
the men in his front, who knew nothing of Spike’s
dire scheme, he endeavored to save himself by holding
to their jackets. Thus assailed, those men seized
[Pg 45]
others with like intent, and an awful struggle filled all
that part of the craft. At this dread instant the boat
glanced into the white water, shipping so much of
the element as nearly to swamp her, and taking so
wild a sheer as nearly to broach-to. This last circumstance
probably saved her, fearful as was the
danger for the moment. Everybody in the middle of
the yawl was rendered desperate by the amount and
nature of the danger incurred, and the men from the
bottom rose in their might, underneath the combatants,
when a common plunge was made by all who stood
erect, one dragging overboard another, each a good
deal hastened by the assault from beneath, until no
less than five were gone. Spike got his helm up, the
boat fell off, and away from the spot it flew, clearing
the breakers, and reaching the northern wall-like
margin of the reef at the next instant. There was
now a moment when those who remained could
breathe, and dared to look behind them.

The great plunge had been made in water so shoal,
that the boat had barely escaped being dashed to
pieces on the coral. Had it not been so suddenly
relieved from the pressure of near a thousand pounds
in weight, it is probable that this calamity would have
befallen it, the water received on board contributing
so much to weigh it down. The struggle between
these victims ceased, however, the moment they
went over. Finding bottom for their feet, they released
each other, in a desperate hope of prolonging
life by wading. Two or three held out their arms,
and shouted to Spike to return and pick them up.
This dreadful scene lasted but a single instant, for the
waves dashed one after another from his feet, continually
forcing them all, as they occasionally regained
their footing, toward the margin of the reef,
and finally washing them off it into deep water. No
human power could enable a man to swim back to
the rocks, once to leeward of them, in the face of
such seas, and so heavy a blow; and the miserable
wretches disappeared in succession, as their strength
became exhausted, in the depths of the gulf.

Not a word had been uttered while this terrific
scene was in the course of occurrence; not a word
was uttered for some time afterward. Gleams of
grim satisfaction had been seen on the countenances
of the boatswain, and his associates, when the
success of their nefarious project was first assured;
but they soon disappeared in looks of horror, as
they witnessed the struggles of the drowning men.
Nevertheless, human selfishness was strong within
them all, and none there was so ignorant as not to
perceive how much better were the chances of the
yawl now than it had been on quitting the wreck.
The weight of a large ox had been taken from it,
counting that of all the eight men drowned; and as
for the water shipped, it was soon bailed back again
into the sea. Not only, therefore, was the yawl in a
better condition to resist the waves, but it sailed materially
faster than it had done before. Ten persons
still remained in it, however, which brought it down
in the water below its proper load-line; and the speed
of a craft so small was necessarily a good deal lessened
by the least deviation from its best sailing,
or rowing trim. But Spike’s projects were not yet
completed.

All this time the man-of-war’s cutter had been
rushing as madly through the breakers, in chase, as
the yawl had done in the attempt to escape. Mulford
was, in fact, on board it; and his now fast friend,
Wallace, was in command. The latter wished to
seize a traitor, the former to save the aunt of his
weeping bride. Both believed that they might follow
wherever Spike dared to lead. This reasoning was
more bold than judicious notwithstanding, since the
cutter was much larger, and drew twice as much water
as the yawl. On it came, nevertheless, faring much
better in the white water than the little craft it pursued,
but necessarily running a much more considerable
risk of hitting the coral, over which it was
glancing almost as swiftly as the waves themselves;
still it had thus far escaped—and little did any in it
think of the danger. This cutter pulled ten oars;
was an excellent sea boat; had four armed marines
in it, in addition to its crew, but carried all through
the breakers, receiving scarcely a drop of water on
board, on account of the height of its wash-boards,
and the general qualities of the craft. It may be well
to add here, that the Poughkeepsie had shaken out
her reefs, and was betraying the impatience of Capt.
Mull to make sail in chase, by firing signal guns to
his boats to bear a hand and return. These signals
the three boats under their oars were endeavoring to
obey, but Wallace had got so far to leeward as now
to render the course he was pursuing the wisest.

Mrs. Budd and Biddy had seen the struggle in
which the Señor Montefalderon had been lost, in a
sort of stupid horror. Both had screamed, as was
their wont, though neither probably suspected the
truth. But the fell designs of Spike extended to them,
as well as to those whom he had already destroyed.
Now the boat was in deep water, running along the
margin of the reef, the waves were much increased
in magnitude, and the comb of the sea was far more
menacing to the boat. This would not have been
the case had the rocks formed a lee; but they did not,
running too near the direction of the trades to prevent
the billows that got up a mile or so in the offing,
from sending their swell quite home to the reef. It
was this swell, indeed, which caused the line of white
water along the northern margin of the coral, washing
on the rocks by a sort of lateral effort, and breaking,
as a matter of course. In many places no boat could
have lived to pass through it.

Another consideration influenced Spike to persevere.
The cutter had been overhauling him, hand
over hand, but since the yawl was relieved of the
weight of no less than eight men, the difference in the
rate of sailing was manifestly diminished. The man-of-war’s
boat drew nearer, but by no means as fast as it
had previously done. A point was now reached in the
trim of the yawl, when a very few hundreds in weight
might make the most important change in her favor;
and this change the captain was determined to produce.
By this time the cutter was in deep water,
as well as himself, safe through all the dangers of the
reef, and she was less than a quarter of a mile astern.
[Pg 46]
On the whole, she was gaining, though so slowly as to
require the most experienced eye to ascertain the fact.

“Madame Budd,” said Spike, in a hypocritical
tone, “we are in great danger, and I shall have to
ask you to change your seat. The boat is too much
by the starn, now we’ve got into deep water, and
your weight amidships would be a great relief to us.
Just give your hand to the boatswain, and he will
help you to step from thwart to thwart, until you
reach the right place, when Biddy shall follow.”

Now Mrs. Budd had witnessed the tremendous
struggle in which so many had gone overboard, but
so dull was she of apprehension, and so little disposed
to suspect any thing one-half so monstrous
as the truth, that she did not hesitate to comply.
She was profoundly awed by the horrors of the
scene through which she was passing, the raging
billows of the gulf, as seen from so small a craft,
producing a deep impression on her; still a lingering
of her most inveterate affectation was to be found in
her air and language, which presented a strange
medley of besetting weakness, and strong, natural,
womanly affection.

“Certainly, Capt. Spike,” she answered, rising.
“A craft should never go astern, and I am quite
willing to ballast the boat. We have seen such
terrible accidents to-day, that all should lend their aid
in endeavoring to get under way, and in averting all
possible hamper. Only take me to my poor, dear
Rosy, Capt. Spike, and every thing shall be forgotten
that has passed between us. This is not a moment
to bear malice; and I freely pardon you all and every
thing. The fate of our unfortunate friend, Mr. Montefalderon,
should teach us charity, and cause us to
prepare for untimely ends.”

All the time the good widow was making this
speech, which she uttered in a solemn and oracular
sort of manner, she was moving slowly toward the
seat the men had prepared for her, in the middle of
the boat, assisted with the greatest care and attention
by the boatswain and another of Spike’s confidents.
When on the second thwart from aft, and about to
take her seat, the boatswain cast a look behind him,
and Spike put the helm down. The boat luffed and
lurched, of course, and Mrs. Budd would probably
have gone overboard to leeward, by so sudden and
violent a change, had not the impetus thus received
been aided by the arms of the men who held her two
hands. The plunge she made into the water was
deep, for she was a woman of great weight for her
stature. Still, she was not immediately gotten rid of.
Even at that dread instant, it is probable that the
miserable woman did not suspect the truth, for she
grasped the hand of the boatswain with the tenacity
of a vice, and, thus dragged on the surface of the
boiling surges, she screamed aloud for Spike to save
her. Of all who had yet been sacrificed to the captain’s
selfish wish to save himself, this was the first
instance in which any had been heard to utter a sound,
after falling into the sea. The appeal shocked even
the rude beings around her, and Biddy chiming in
with a powerful appeal to “save the missus!” added
to the piteous nature of the scene.

“Cast off her hand,” said Spike reproachfully,
“she’ll swamp the boat by her struggles—get rid of
her at once! Cut her fingers off if she wont let go.”

The instant these brutal orders were given, and
that in a fierce, impatient tone, the voice of Biddy
was heard no more. The truth forced itself on her
dull imagination, and she sat a witness of the terrible
scene, in mute despair. The struggle did not last
long. The boatswain drew his knife across the
wrist of the hand that grasped his own, one shriek
was heard, and the boat plunged into the trough of a
sea, leaving the form of poor Mrs. Budd struggling
with the wave on its summit, and amid the foam of
its crest. This was the last that was ever seen of
the unfortunate relict.

“The boat has gained a good deal by that last discharge
of cargo,” said Spike to the boatswain, a
minute after they had gotten rid of the struggling
woman—”she is much more lively, and is getting
nearer to her load-line. If we can bring her to that,
I shall have no fear of the man-of-war’s men; for
this yawl is one of the fastest boats that ever floated.”

“A very little now, sir, would bring us to our true
trim.”

“Ay, we must get rid of more cargo. Come, good
woman,” turning to Biddy, with whom he did not
think it worth his while to use much circumlocution,
“your turn is next. It’s the maid’s duty to follow
her mistress.”

“I know’d it must come,” said Biddy, meekly.
“If there was no mercy for the missus, little could I
look for. But ye’ll not take the life of a Christian
woman widout giving her so much as one minute to
say her prayers?”

“Ay, pray away,” answered Spike, his throat becoming
dry and husky, for, strange to say, the submissive
quiet of the Irish woman, so different from
the struggle he had anticipated with her, rendered
him more reluctant to proceed than he had hitherto
been in all of that terrible day. As Biddy kneeled in
the bottom of the stern-sheets, Spike looked behind
him, for the double purpose of escaping the painful
spectacle at his feet, and that of ascertaining how his
pursuers came on. The last still gained, though
very slowly, and doubts began to come over the captain’s
mind whether he could escape such enemies at
all. He was too deeply committed, however, to recede,
and it was most desirable to get rid of poor
Biddy, if it were for no other motive than to shut her
mouth. Spike even fancied that some idea of what
had passed was entertained by those in the cutter.
There was evidently a stir in that boat, and two forms
that he had no difficulty, now, in recognizing as those
of Wallace and Mulford, were standing on the grating
in the eyes of the cutter, or forward of the foresail.
The former appeared to have a musket in his hand,
and the other a glass. The last circumstance admonished
him that all that was now done would be
done before dangerous witnesses. It was too late to
draw back, however, and the captain turned to look
for the Irish woman.

Biddy arose from her knees, just as Spike withdrew
his eyes from his pursuers. The boatswain and
[Pg 47]
another confident were in readiness to cast the poor
creature into the sea, the moment their leader gave
the signal. The intended victim saw and understood
the arrangement, and she spoke earnestly and piteously
to her murderers.

“It’s not wanting will be violence,” said Biddy,
in a quiet tone, but with a saddened countenance.
“I know it’s my turn, and I will save yer sowls
from a part of the burden of this great sin. God, and
His Divine Son, and the Blessed Mother of Jesus
have mercy on me if it be wrong; but I would far
radder jump into the saa widout having the rude
hands of man on me, than have the dreadful sight of
the missus done over ag’in. It’s a fearful thing is
wather, and sometimes we have too little of it, and
sometimes more than we want—”

“Bear a hand, bear a hand, good woman,” interrupted
the boatswain, impatiently. “We must clear
the boat of you, and the sooner it is done the better it
will be for all of us.”

“Don’t grudge a poor morthal half a minute of
life, at the last moment,” answered Biddy. “It’s
not long that I’ll throuble ye, and so no more need
be said.”

The poor creature then got on the quarter of the
boat, without any one’s touching her; there she placed
herself with her legs outboard, while she sat on the
gunwale. She gave one moment to the thought of
arranging her clothes with womanly decency, and
then she paused to gaze with a fixed eye, and pallid
cheek, on the foaming wake that marked the rapid
course of the boat. The troughs of the sea seemed
less terrible to her than their combing crests, and she
waited for the boat to descend into the next.

“God forgive ye all, this deed, as I do!” said
Biddy, earnestly, and bending her person forward, she
fell, as it might be “without hands,” into the gulf of
eternity. Though all strained their eyes, none of the
men, Jack Tier excepted, ever saw more of Biddy
Noon. Nor did Jack see much. He got a frightful
glimpse of an arm, however, on the summit of a
wave, but the motion of the boat was too swift, and
the surface of the ocean too troubled, to admit of
aught else.

A long pause succeeded this event. Biddy’s quiet
submission to her fate had produced more impression
on her murderers than the desperate, but unavailing,
struggles of those who had preceded her. Thus it is
ever with men. When opposed, the demon within
blinds them to consequences as well as to their duties;
but, unresisted, the silent influence of the image of
God makes itself felt, and a better spirit begins to
prevail. There was not one in that boat who did not,
for a brief space, wish that poor Biddy had been
spared. With most that feeling, the last of human
kindness they ever knew, lingered until the occurrence
of the dread catastrophe which, so shortly after,
closed the scene of this state of being on their eyes.

“Jack Tier,” called out Spike, some five minutes
after Biddy was drowned, but not until another observation
had made it plainly apparent to him that
the man-of-war’s men still continued to draw nearer,
being now not more than fair musket shot astern.

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Jack, coming quietly out
of his hole, from forward of the mast, and moving
aft as if indifferent to the danger, by stepping lightly
from thwart to thwart, until he reached the stern-sheets.

“It is your turn, little Jack,” said Spike, as if in a
sort of sorrowful submission to a necessity that knew
no law, “we cannot spare you the room.”

“I have expected this, and am ready. Let me have
my own way, and I will cause you no trouble.
Poor Biddy has taught me how to die. Before I go,
however, Stephen Spike, I must leave you this letter.
It is written by myself, and addressed to you. When
I am gone, read it, and think well of what it contains.
And now, may a merciful God pardon the sins of
both, through love for his Divine Son. I forgive you,
Stephen; and should you live to escape from those
who are now bent on hunting you to the death, let this
day cause you no grief on my account. Give me but
a moment of time, and I will cause you no trouble.”

Jack now stood upon the seat of the stern-sheets,
balancing himself with one foot on the stern of the
boat. He waited until the yawl had risen to the summit
of a wave, when he looked eagerly for the man-of-war’s
cutter. At that moment she was lost to view
in the trough of the sea. Instead of springing overboard,
as all expected, he asked another instant of
delay. The yawl sunk into the trough itself, and
rose on the succeeding billow. Then he saw the
cutter, and Wallace and Mulford standing in its bows.
He waved his hat to them, and sprang high into the
air, with the intent to make himself seen; when he
came down, the boat had shot her length away from
the place, leaving him to buffet with the waves.
Jack now managed admirably, swimming lightly and
easily, but keeping his eyes on the crests of the waves,
with a view to meet the cutter. Spike now saw this
well planned project to avoid death, and regretted his
own remissness in not making sure of Jack. Everybody
in the yawl was eagerly looking after the form
of Tier.

“There he is on the comb of that sea, rolling over
like a keg!” cried the boatswain.

“He’s through it,” answered Spike, “and swimming
with great strength and coolness.”

Several of the men started up involuntarily and simultaneously
to look, hitting their shoulders and bodies
together. Distrust was at its most painful height; and
bull-dogs do not spring at the ox’s muzzle more fiercely
than those six men throttled each other. Oaths, curses,
and appeals for help, succeeded; each man endeavoring,
in his frenzied efforts, to throw all the others overboard,
as the only means of saving himself. Plunge
succeeded plunge; and when that combat of demons
ended, no one remained of them all but the boatswain.
Spike had taken no share in the struggle, looking on
in grim satisfaction, as the Father of Lies may be
supposed to regard all human strife, hoping good to
himself, let the result be what it might to others. Of
the five men who thus went overboard, not one
escaped. They drowned each other by continuing
their maddened conflict in an element unsuited to
their natures.

Not so with Jack Tier. His leap had been seen,
and a dozen eyes in the cutter watched for his person,
as that boat came foaming down before the wind.
A shout of “There he is!” from Mulford succeeded;
and the little fellow was caught by the hair, secured,
and then hauled into the boat by the second lieutenant
of the Poughkeepsie and our young mate.

Others in the cutter had noted the incident of the
hellish fight. The fact was communicated to Wallace,
and Mulford said, “That yawl will outsail this loaded
cutter, with only two men in it.”

“Then it is time to try what virtue there is in lead,”
answered Wallace. “Marines, come forward, and
give the rascal a volley.”

The volley was fired; one ball passed through
the head of the boatswain, killing him dead on the
spot. Another went through the body of Spike. The
captain fell in the stern-sheets, and the boat instantly
broached to.

The water that came on board apprised Spike fully
of the state in which he was now placed, and by
a desperate effort, he clutched the tiller, and got
the yawl again before the wind. This could not
last, however. Little by little, his hold relaxed,
until his hand relinquished its grasp altogether,
and the wounded man sunk into the bottom of
the stern-sheets, unable to raise even his head.
Again the boat broached-to. Every sea now sent
its water aboard, and the yawl would soon have
filled, had not the cutter come glancing down past
it, and rounding-to under its lee, secured the prize.

[To be continued.

THE LAND OF DREAMS.

BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

SONNET—TO S. D. A.

BY “THE SQUIRE.”

General William O. Butler

Engraved by T. S. WELCH. FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE

FROM AN ORIGINAL DAGUERREOTYPE

[Inscription: Truly your friend–W. O. Butler]

Entered according to act of Congress in the Year 1847 by G.R. Graham
in the Clerks Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
P^a.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
OF GENERAL WILLIAM O. BUTLER.

BY FRANCIS P. BLAIR.

In memoirs of individuals of distinction it is usual
to look back to their ancestry. The feeling is universal
which prompts us to learn something of even
an ordinary acquaintance in whom interest is felt.
It will indulge, therefore, only a necessary and proper
curiosity to introduce the subject of this notice
by a short account of a family whose striking traits
survive in him so remarkably. General Butler’s
grandfather, Thomas Butler, was born 6th April,
1720, in Kilkenny, Ireland. He married there in
1742. Three of his five sons who attained manhood,
Richard, William and Thomas, were born abroad.
Pierce, the father of General William O. Butler, and
Edward, the youngest son, were born in Pennsylvania.
It is remarkable that all these men, and all
their immediate male descendants, with a single exception,
(who was a judge,) were engaged in the
military service of this country.

The eldest, Richard, was Lieut. Col. of Morgan’s
celebrated rifle-regiment, and to him it owed much
of the high character that gave it a fame of its
own, apart from the other corps of the Revolution.
The cool, disciplined valor which gave steady and
deadly direction to the rifles of this regiment, was
derived principally from this officer, who devoted
himself to the drill of his men. He was promoted to
the full command of his regiment sometime during
the war, (when Morgan’s great merit and services
had raised him to the rank of general,) and in that
capacity had commanded Wayne’s left in the attack
on Stony Point. About the year 1790, he was appointed
major-general. On the 4th of November,
1791, he was killed in St. Clair’s bloody battle with
the Indians. His combat with the Indians, after he
was shot, gave such a peculiar interest to his fate
that a representation of himself and the group surrounding
him was exhibited throughout the Union
in wax figures. Notices of this accomplished soldier
will be found in Marshall’s Life of Washington,
pages 290, 311, 420. In Gen. St. Clair’s report, in
the American Museum, volume xi. page 44, Appendix.

William Butler, the second son, was an officer
throughout the revolutionary war; rose to the rank
of colonel, and was in many of the severest battles.
He was the favorite of the family, and was boasted
of by this race of heroes as the coolest and boldest
man in battle they had ever known. When the
army was greatly reduced in rank and file, and there
were many superfluous officers, they organized
themselves into a separate corps, and elected him to
the command. General Washington declined receiving
this novel corps of commissioned soldiers,
but in a proud testimonial did honor to their devoted
patriotism.

Of Thomas Butler, the third son, we glean the following
facts from the American Biographical Dictionary.
In the year 1776, whilst he was a student
of law in the office of the eminent Judge Wilson of
Philadelphia, he left his pursuit and joined the army
as a subaltern. He soon obtained the command of a
company, in which he continued to the close of the
revolutionary war. He was in almost every action
fought in the Middle States during the war. At the
battle of Brandywine he received the thanks of
Washington on the field of battle, through his aid-de-camp
Gen. Hamilton, for his intrepid conduct in rallying
a detachment of retreating troops, and giving
the enemy a severe fire. At the battle of Monmouth
he received the thanks of Gen. Wayne for defending
a defile, in the face of a severe fire from the enemy,
while Col. Richard Butler’s regiment made good its
retreat. At the close of the war he retired into private
life, as a farmer, and continued in the enjoyment
of rural and domestic happiness until the year
1791, when he again took the field to meet the savage
foe that menaced our western frontier. He commanded
a battalion in the disastrous battle of Nov.
4, 1791, in which his brother fell. Orders were given
by Gen. St. Clair to charge with the bayonet, and
Major Butler, though his leg had been broken by a
ball, yet on horseback, led his battalion to the charge.
It was with difficulty his surviving brother, Capt.
Edward Butler, removed him from the field. In
1792 he was continued in the establishment as major,
and in 1794 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel
commandant of the 4th sub-legion. He commanded
in this year Fort Fayette, at Pittsburg, and
prevented the deluded insurgents from taking it, more
by his name than by his forces, for he had but few
troops. The close of his life was embittered with
trouble. In 1803 he was arrested by the commanding
general—Wilkinson—at Fort Adams, on the
Mississippi, and sent to Maryland, where he was
tried by a court-martial, and acquitted of all the
charges, save that of wearing his hair. He was
then ordered to New Orleans, where he arrived, to
take command of the troops, October 20th. He was
again arrested next month; but the court did not sit
until July of the next year, and their decision is not
known. Col. Butler died Sept. 7, 1805. Out of the
arrest and persecution of this sturdy veteran, Washington
Irving (Knickerbocker) has worked up a fine
piece of burlesque, in which Gen. Wilkinson’s character
[Pg 50]
is inimitably delineated in that of the vain and
pompous Gen. Von Poffenburg.

Percival Butler, the fourth son, father of General
Wm. O. Butler, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
in 1760. He entered the army as a lieutenant at the
age of eighteen; was with Washington at Valley
Forge; was in the battle of Monmouth, and at the
taking of Yorktown—being through the whole series
of struggles in the Middle States, with the troops
under the commander-in-chief, except for a short
period when he was attached to a light corps commanded
by La Fayette, who presented him a sword.
Near the close of the war he went to the South with
the Pennsylvania brigade, where peace found him.
He emigrated to Kentucky in 1784. He was the last of
the old stock left when the war of 1812 commenced.
He was made adjutant-general when Kentucky became
a State, and in that capacity joined one of the
armies sent out by Kentucky during the war.

Edward Butler, the youngest of the five brothers,
was too young to enter the army in the first stages of
the Revolution, but joined it near the close, and had
risen to a captaincy when Gen. St. Clair took the
command, and led it to that disastrous defeat in which
so many of the best soldiers of the country perished.
He there evinced the highest courage and strongest
fraternal affection, in carrying his wounded brother
out of the massacre, which was continued for miles
along the route of the retreating army, and from which
so few escaped, even of those who fled unencumbered.
He subsequently became adjutant-general in
Wayne’s army.

Of these five brothers four had sons—all of whom,
with one exception, were engaged in the military or
naval service of the country during the last war.

1st. General Richard Butler’s son, William, died
a lieutenant in the navy, early in the last war. His
son, Captain James Butler, was at the head of the
Pittsburg Blues, which company he commanded in
the campaigns of the Northwest, and was particularly
distinguished in the battle of Massissinnawa.

2d. Colonel William Butler, also of the revolutionary
army, had two sons, one died in the navy,
the other a subaltern in Wayne’s army. He was in
the battle with the Indians in 1794.

3d. Lieut. Col. Thomas Butler, of the old stock,
had three sons, the eldest a judge. The second, Col.
Robert Butler, was at the head of Gen. Jackson’s
staff throughout the last war. The third, William E.
Butler, also served in the army of Gen. Jackson.

4th. Percival Butler, captain in the revolutionary
war, and adjutant-general of Kentucky during the last
war, had four sons: first, Thomas, who was a captain,
and aid to Gen. Jackson at New Orleans. Next, Gen.
William O. Butler, the subject of this notice. Third,
Richard, who was assistant adjutant-general in the
campaigns of the war of 1812. Percival Butler, the
youngest son, now a distinguished lawyer, was not
of an age to bear arms in the last war. Of this
second generation of the Butler’s, there are nine certainly,
and probably more, engaged in the present war.

This glance at the family shows the character of
the race. An anecdote, derived from a letter of an
old Pennsylvania friend to the parents, who transplanted
it from Ireland, shows that its military instinct
was an inheritance. “While the five sons,” says
the letter, “were absent from home in the service of
the country, the old father took it in his head to go
also. The neighbors collected to remonstrate against
it; but his wife said, ‘Let him go! I can get along
without him, and raise something to feed the army
in the bargain; and the country wants every man
who can shoulder a musket.'” It was doubtless this
extraordinary zeal of the Butler family which induced
Gen. Washington to give the toast—”The Butlers,
and their five sons,” at his own table, whilst surrounded
by a large party of officers. This anecdote
rests on the authority of the late Gen. Findlay, of
Cincinnati. A similar tribute of respect was paid to
this devoted house of soldiers by Gen. La Fayette,
in a letter now extant, and in the possession of a
lady connected with them by marriage. La Fayette
says, “When I wanted a thing well done, I ordered
a Butler to do it.“

From this retrospect it will be seen that in all the
wars of the country, in the revolutionary war, in the
Indian war, in the last British war, and the present
Mexican war, the blood of almost every Butler able to
bear arms has been freely shed in the public cause.
Maj. Gen. William O. Butler is now among the highest
in the military service of his country; and he has
attained this grade from the ranks—the position of a
private being the only one he ever sought. At
the opening of the war of 1812, he had just graduated
in the Transylvania University, and was
looking to the law as a profession. The surrender
of Detroit, and the army by Hull, aroused the
patriotism and the valor of Kentucky—and young
Butler, yet in his minority, was among the first to
volunteer. He gave up his books, and the enjoyments
of the gay and polished society of Lexington,
where he lived among a circle of fond and partial
relations—the hope to gratify their ambition in shining
at the bar, or in the political forum of the state—to join
Capt. Hart’s company of infantry as a private soldier.

Before the march to join the northwestern army,
he was elected a corporal. In this grade he marched
to the relief of Fort Wayne, which was invested by
hostile Indians. These were driven before the Kentucky
volunteers to their towns on the Wabash,
which were destroyed, and the troops then returned
to the Miami of the lakes, where they made a winter
encampment. Here an ensign’s commission in the
second regiment of United States infantry was tendered
to the volunteer corporal, which he declined,
unless permitted to remain with the northwestern
army, which he had entered to share in the effort of
the Kentucky militia to wipe out the disgrace of
Hull’s surrender by the recapture of Detroit. His
proposition was assented to, and he received an
ensign’s appointment in the seventeenth infantry,
then a part of the northwestern army, under the command
of Gen. Winchester. After enduring every
privation in a winter encampment, in the wildernesses
and frozen marshes of the lake country, awaiting
in vain the expected support of additional forces,
[Pg 51]
the Kentucky volunteers, led by Lewis, Allen, and
Madison, with Well’s regiment, (17th U. S.,) advanced
to encounter the force of British and Indians
which defended Detroit. On leaving Kentucky the
volunteers had pledged themselves to drive the
British invaders from our soil. These men and their
leaders were held in such estimation at home, that the
expectation formed of them exceeded their promises;
and these volunteers, though disappointed in every
succor which they had reason to anticipate—wanting
in provision, clothes, cannon, in every thing—resolved,
rather than lose reputation, to press on to
the enterprise, and to endeavor to draw on to them,
by entering into action, the troops behind. It is not
proper here to enter into explanations of the causes of
the disaster at the River Raisin, the consequence of
this movement, nor to give the particulars of the
battle. The incidents which signalized the character
of the subject of this memoir alone are proper here.

There were two battles at the River Raisin, one
on the 18th, the other on the 22d of January. In the
first, the whole body of Indian warriors, drawn together
from all the lake tribes, for the defence of
Upper Canada against the approaching Kentuckians,
were encountered. In moving to the attack of this
formidable force of the fiercest, and bravest, and most
expert warriors on the continent, a strong party of
them were descried from the line with which Ensign
Butler advanced, running forward to reach a fence,
and hold it as a cover from which to ply their rifles.
Butler instantly proposed, and was permitted, to anticipate
them. Calling upon some of the most alert and
active men of the company, he ran directly to meet
the Indians at the fence. He and his comrades out-stripped
the enemy, and getting possession of the
fence, kept the advantage of the position for their
advancing friends. This incident, of however little
importance as to results, is worth remembrance in
giving the traits of a young soldier’s character. It is
said that the hardiest veteran, at the opening of the
fire in battle, feels, for the moment, somewhat appalled.
And Gen. Wolfe, one of the bravest of men,
declared that the “horrid yell of the Indian strikes
the boldest heart with affright.” The strippling
student, who, for the first time, beheld a field of
battle on the snows of the River Raisin, presenting in
bold relief long files of those terrible enemies, whose
massacres had filled his native State with tales of
horror, must have felt some stirring sensations. But
the crack of the Indian rifle, and his savage yell,
awoke in him the chivalric instincts of his nature;
and the promptitude with which he communicated
his enthusiasm to a few comrades around, and rushed
forward to meet danger in its most appalling form,
risking himself to save others, and secure a triumph
which he could scarcely hope to share, gave earnest
of the military talent, the self-sacrificing courage, and
the soldierly sympathies which have drawn to him
the nation’s esteem. The close of the battle of the
18th gave another instance in which these latter traits
of Gen. Butler’s character were still more strikingly
illustrated. The Indians, driven from the defences
around the town on the River Raisin, retired fighting
into the thick woods beyond it. The contest of sharp-shooting
from tree to tree was here continued—the
Kentuckians pressing forward, and the Indians retreating,
until night closed in, when the Kentuckians
were recalled to the encampment in the village.
The Indians advanced as their opposers withdrew,
and kept up the fire until the Kentuckians emerged
from the woods into the open ground. Just as the
column to which Ensign Butler belonged reached the
verge of the dark forest, the voice of a wounded man,
who had been left some distance behind, was heard
calling out most piteously for help. Butler induced
three of his company to go back in the woods with
him to bring him off. He was found, and they fought
their way back—one of the men, Jeremiah Walker,
receiving a shot, of which he subsequently died.

In the second sanguinary battle of the River Raisin,
on the 22d of January, with the British and Indians,
another act of self-devotion was performed by Butler.
After the rout and massacre of the right wing, belonging
to Wells’ command, the whole force of the
British and Indians was concentrated against the
small body of troops under Major Madison, that
maintained their ground within the picketed gardens.
A double barn, commanding the plot of ground on
which the Kentuckians stood, was approached on
one side by the Indians, under the cover of an
orchard and fence; the British, on the other side,
being so posted as to command the space between it
and the pickets. A party in the rear of the barn
were discovered advancing to take possession of it.
All saw the fatal consequences of the secure lodgment
of the enemy at a place which would present
every man within the pickets at close rifle-shot to the
aim of their marksmen. Major Madison inquired if
there was no one who would volunteer to run the
gauntlet of the fire of the British and Indian lines, and
put a torch to the combustibles within the barn, to
save the remnant of the little army from sacrifice.
Butler, without a moment’s delay, took some blazing
slicks from a fire at hand, leaped the pickets, and
running at his utmost speed, thrust the fire into the
straw within the barn. One who was an anxious
spectator of the event we narrate, says, “that although
volley upon volley was fired at him, Butler, after
making some steps on his way back, turned to see
if the fire had taken, and not being satisfied, returned
to the barn and set it in a blaze. As the conflagration
grew, the enemy was seen retreating from the rear of
the building, which they had entered at one end, as
the flame ascended in the other. Soon after reaching
the pickets in safety, amid the shouts of his friends,
he was struck by a ball in his breast. Believing from
the pain he felt that it had penetrated his chest, turning
to Adjutant (now Gen.) McCalla, one of his
Lexington comrades, and pressing his hand to the
spot, he said, “I fear this shot is mortal, but while I
am able to move, I will do my duty.” To the anxious
inquiries of this friend, who met him soon afterward,
he opened his vest, with a smile, and showed him that
the ball had spent itself on the thick wadding of his
coat and on his breast bone. He suffered, however,
for many weeks.

The little band within the pickets, which Winchester
had surrendered, after being carried himself a
prisoner into Proctor’s camp, denied his powers.
They continued to hold the enemy at bay until they
were enabled to capitulate on honorable terms, which,
nevertheless, Proctor shamefully violated, by leaving
the sick and wounded who were unable to walk to
the tomahawk of his allies. Butler, who was among
the few of the wounded who escaped the massacre,
was marched through Canada to Fort Niagara—suffering
under his wound, and every privation—oppressed
with grief, hunger, fatigue, and the inclement
cold of that desolate region. Even here he forgot
himself, and his mind wandered back to the last
night scene which he surveyed on the bloody shores
of the River Raisin. He gave up the heroic part
and became the school-boy again, and commemorated
his sorrows for his lost friends in verse, like
some passionate, heart-broken lover. These elegiac
strains were never intended for any but the eye of
mutual friends, whose sympathies, like his own,
poured out tears with their plaints over the dead.
We give some of these lines of his boyhood, to show
that the heroic youth had a bosom not less kind than
brave.

THE FIELD OF RAISIN.

These lines are introductory to what may be considered
a succession of epitaphs on the personal
friends whose bodies he found upon the field. It
would extend the extract too far to insert them. We
can only add the close of the poem, where he takes
leave of a group of his young comrades in Hart’s
company, who had fallen together.

Shortly after his return from Canada. Ensign Butler
was promoted to a captaincy in the regiment to
which he belonged. But as this promotion was irregular,
being made over the heads of senior officers
in that regiment, a captaincy was given him in the
44th, a new raised regiment. When free from parole,
by exchange, in 1814, he instantly entered on
active duty, with a company which he had recruited
at Nashville, Tennessee. His regiment was ordered
to join General Jackson in the South, but
Captain Butler finding its movements too tardy,
pushed on, and effected that junction with his company
alone. Gen. Call, at that time an officer in
Capt. Butler’s company, (since Gov. of Florida,) in
a letter addressed to Mr. Tanner of Kentucky, presents,
as an eye-witness, so graphically, the share
which Capt. Butler had in the campaign which followed,
that it may well supersede any narrative at
second hand.

“Tallehasse, April 3, 1844.

“I am, sir, very respectfully,

“R. K. CALL.”

“Mr. William Tanner.“

General Jackson’s sense of the services of Butler,
in this memorable campaign, was strongly expressed
in the following letter to a member of the Kentucky
Legislature:

“Hermitage, Feb. 20, 1844.

“ANDREW JACKSON.”

Gen. Jackson gave earlier proof of the high estimation
in which he held the young soldier who had
identified himself with his own glory at New Orleans.
He made him his aid-de-camp in 1816—which station
he retained on the peace establishment, with the rank
of colonel. But, like his illustrious patron, he soon
felt that military station and distinction had no charms
for him when unattended with the dangers, duties,
and patriotic achievements of war. He resigned,
therefore, even the association with his veteran chief,
of which he was so proud, and retired in 1817 to private
life. He resumed his study of the profession
that was interrupted by the war, married, and settled
down on his patrimonial possession at the confluence
of the Kentucky and Ohio rivers, in the noiseless but
arduous vocations of civil life. The abode which he
had chosen made it peculiarly so with him. The
region around him was wild and romantic, sparsely
settled, and by pastoral people. There are no populous
towns. The high, rolling, and yet rich lands—the
precipitous cliffs of the Kentucky, of Eagle,
Tavern and other tributaries which pour into it near
the mouth—make this section of the State still, to
some extent a wilderness of thickets—and the tangled
pea-vine, the grape-vine and nut-bearing trees, which
rendered all Kentucky, until the intrusion of the
whites, one great Indian park. The whole luxuriant
domain was preserved by the Indians as a pasture for
buffalo, deer, elk, and other animals—their enjoyment
alike as a chase and a subsistence—by excluding
every tribe from fixing a habitation in it. Its
name consecrated it as the dark and bloody ground;
and war pursued every foot that trod it. In the
midst of this region, in April, 1791, Wm. O. Butler
was born, in Jessamine county, on the Kentucky
River. His father had married, in Lexington, soon
after his arrival in Kentucky, 1782, Miss Howkins,
a sister-in-law of Col. Todd, who commanded and
perished in the battle of the Blue-Licks. Following
the instincts of his family, which seemed ever to
court danger, Gen. Pierce Butler, as neighborhood
encroached around him, removed, not long after the
birth of his son William, to the mouth of the Kentucky
River. Through this section the Indian warpath
into the heart of Kentucky passed. Until the
peace of 1794, there was scarcely a day that some
hostile Savage did not prowl through the tangled
forests, and the labyrinths of hills, streams and cliffs,
which adapted this region to their lurking warfare.
From it they emerged when they made their last formidable
incursion, and pushed their foray to the environs
of Frankfort, the capital of the State. General
Pierce Butler had on one side of him the Ohio, on the
farther shore of which the savage hordes still held
the mastery, and on the other the romantic region
through which they hunted and pressed their war enterprises.
And here, amid the scenes of border warfare,
his son William had that spirit, which has animated
him through life, educated by the legends of
the Indian-fighting hunters of Kentucky.

To the feelings and taste inspired by the peculiarities
of the place and circumstances adverted to, must
be attributed the return of Col. Butler to his father’s
home, to enter on his profession as a lawyer. There
were no great causes or rich clients to attract him—no
dense population to lift him to the political honors
of the State. The eloquence and learning, the industry
and integrity which he gave to adjust the controversies
of Gallatin and the surrounding counties,
would have crowned him with wealth and professional
distinction, if exhibited at Louisville or Lexington.
But he coveted neither. Independence, the
affections of his early associates, the love of a family
circle, and the charm which the recollection of a
happy boyhood gave to the scenes in which he was
reared, were all he sought. And he found them all
in the romantic dells and woodland heights of Kentucky,
and on the sides of the far spreading, gently
flowing, beautiful Ohio. The feeling which his sincere
and sensitive nature had imbibed here was as
strong as that of the Switzer for his bright lakes,
lofty mountains, and deep valleys. The wild airs of
the boat horn, which have resounded for so many
years from arks descending the Ohio and Kentucky,
floating along the current and recurring in echoes
from the hollows of the hills, like its eddies, became
as dear to him as the famous Rans de Vache to the
native of Switzerland. We insert, as characteristic
alike of the poetical talent and temperament of Butler,
some verses which the sound of this rude instrument
evoked when he returned home, resigning with rapture
“the ear piercing fife and spirit stirring drum”
for the wooden horn, which can only compass in its
simple melody such airs as that to which Burns has
set his beautiful words—

The music of this song made the burden of the
“Boatman’s Horn,” and always announced the approaching
ark to the river villages.

The sentiments of the poet, as well as the sweet
and deep tones which wafted the plaintive air over
the wide expanse of the Ohio, may have contributed
to awaken the feeling which pervade these lines.

THE BOAT HORN.

This retirement, which may almost be considered
seclusion, was enjoyed by Col. Butler nearly twenty-five
years, when he was called out by the Democratic
party to redeem by his personal popularity the congressional
district in which he lived. It was supposed
that no one else could save it from the Whigs. Like
all the rest of his family, none of whom had made
their military service a passport to the honors and
emoluments of civil stations, he was averse to relinquish
the attitude he occupied to enter on a
party struggle. The importunity of friends prevailed;
and he was elected to two successive terms in Congress,
absolutely refusing to be a candidate a third
time. He spoke seldom in Congress, but in two or
three fine speeches which appear in the debates, a
power will readily be detected which could not have
failed to conduct to the highest distinction in that
body. Taste, judgment, and eloquence, characterized
all his efforts in Congress. A fine manner, an agreeable
voice, and the high consideration accorded to
him by the members of all parties, gave him, what it
is the good fortune of few to obtain, an attentive and
gratified audience.

In 1844 the same experiment was made with
Butler’s popularity to carry the state for the Democracy,
as had succeeded in his congressional
district. He was nominated as the Democratic candidate
for governor by the 8th of January Convention;
and there is good ground to believe that he would
have been chosen over his estimable Whig competitor,
Governor Owsley, but for the universal conviction
throughout the state that the defeat of Mr. Clay’s
party, by the choice of a Democratic governor in
August, would have operated to injure Mr. Clay’s
prospects throughout the Union, in the presidential
election which followed immediately after in November.
With Mr. Clay’s popularity, and the activity
of all his friends—with the state pride so long
exalted by the aspiration of giving a President to the
Union—more eagerly than ever enlisted against the
Democracy, Col. Butler diminished the Whig majority
from twenty thousand to less than five thousand.