Wensley, and Other Stories
Author: Edmund Quincy
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

WENSLEY

And Other Stories

BY EDMUND QUINCY

EDITED BY HIS SON, EDMUND QUINCY

————

BOSTON
Vol. I: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY
Vol. II: TICKNOR AND COMPANY
1885

Copyright, 1885,
BY EDMUND QUINCY.
——
All rights reserved.

University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

CONTENTS.

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VOLUME I: WENSLEY, AND OTHER STORIES

- EDITOR'S PREFACE
- BANKSIDE, BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
- AUTHOR'S PREFACE
- WENSLEY
- MOUNT VERNEY
- WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?

VOLUME II: THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT, AND OTHER STORIES

- AN OCTOGENARY
- THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT
- LEWIS HERBERT
- TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO
- PHŒBE MALLORY
- OLD HOUSES
- DINAH ROLLINS

WENSLEY, AND OTHER STORIES

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

————

IT is not without some hesitation and misgiving, that the editor ventures to withdraw some of the lighter writings of the late Edmund Quincy from the pages of half-forgotten magazines, and give them again to the public, together with the only novel he ever wrote. In the whirl of the present day, it can not be expected that many will stop long enough to read stories of so quiet and unexciting a nature; still there may be some to whom very accurate pictures of a way of life long passed away, and tales, all of which have a certain foundation in fact, may not be wholly without interest. The history of the octogenary, Colonel Wyborne, for instance, is in the main facts a true one; and his nocturnal visit to Boston, after an absence of fifty years, was an actual occurrence. Mr. Quincy was always of opinion that his essay on "Old Houses," published in 1837, might have suggested to Hawthorne that great magician's wonderful "Tales of the Province House," published some time after.

The best years of Mr. Quincy's life, as many of his contemporaries will remember, were given to the antislavery cause; and his writings on that subject, if published together, would make many volumes, and might furnish a contribution not without value to the history of that momentous struggle. The time for such a republication is not yet come, perhaps never will come. A few specimens only are given, at the end of this volume, of what Mr. Quincy wrote on the subject so near his heart. They were chiefly contributions to an annual called the "Liberty Bell," edited by Mrs. Chapman for the antislavery fair which was held in Boston annually for many years.

BANKSIDE.1

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

MAY 21, 1877.

[1The place at Dedham where Mr. Quincy resided during all the latter years of his life was so named by Mr. Lowell.

The poem, which the editor takes the liberty to insert, was printed in the "Nation," under the date of Mr. Quincy's funeral, and is given as being a very good description of Mr. Quincy's character.]

I CHRISTENED you in happier days, before
These gray forebodings on my brow were seen:
You are still lovely in your new-leaved green;
The brimming river soothes his grassy shore;
The bridge is there, the rock with lichens hoar,
And the same shadows on the water lean,
Outlasting us. How many graves between
That day and this! How many shadows more
Darken my heart, their substance from these eyes
Hidden forever! So our world is made
Of life and death commingled; and the sighs
Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance laid:
What compensation? None, save that the Allwise
So schools us to love things that cannot fade.

Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May,
Ere any leaf had felt the year's regret:
Your latest image in his memory set
Was fair as when your landscape's peaceful sway
Charmed dearer eyes with his to make delay
On Hope's long prospect, as if They forget
The happy, they, the unspeakable ones, whose debt,
Like the hawk's shadow, haunts our brightest day.
Better it is that ye should look so fair,
Slopes that he loved, and ever-murmuring pines
That make a music out of silent air,
And bloom-heaped orchard-trees in prosperous lines:
In you the heart some sweeter hints divines,
And wiser, than in winter's dull despair.

Old friend, farewell! Your kindly door again
I enter; but the master's hand in mine
No more clasps welcome, and the temperate wine
That cheered our long night other lips must stain.
All is unchanged; but I expect in vain
The face alert, the manners free and fine,
The seventy years borne lightly as the pine
Wears its first down of snow in green disdain.
Much did he, and much well; yet most of all
I prized his skill in leisure and the ease
Of a life flowing full without a plan;
For most are idly busy; him I call
Thrice fortunate who knew himself to please,
Learned in those arts that make a gentleman.

Nor deem he lived unto himself alone;
His was the public spirit of his sire,
And in those eyes, soft with domestic fire,
A quenchless light of fiercer temper shone
What time about the world our shame was blown
On every wind; his soul would not conspire
With selfish men to soothe the mob's desire,
Veiling with garlands Moloch's bloody stone;
The high-bred instincts of a better day
Ruled in his blood, when to be citizen
Rang Roman yet, and a Free People's sway
Was not the exchequer of impoverished men,
Nor statesmanship with loaded votes to play,
Nor public office a tramp's boozing ken.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF WENSLEY.

————

As the last sheets of this work were passing through the press, my friend in Boston, who is kind enough to read the proofs for me, was asked by the competent authorities of the printing-office for the preface. Now, it had never occurred to me to write a preface; and I do not believe I should ever have thought of it had it not been for this official reminder. But, when I came to think the matter over, it seemed to me quite likely that the "gentle readers, and still gentler purchasers," (may their name be Legion!) might possibly marvel within themselves why I should have thought it worth my while and theirs to confide to them the passages of my life herein recorded. So, perhaps, as it has been put into my head, I may as well tell just how it all came to pass.

I am sure, if anybody wonders at finding himself (or herself) the depositary of personal confidences on my part, I am much more astonished to find myself making them. It fell out on this wise. In the early part of August, 1852, while the monthly bearing the superscription of Mr. Putnam, 10 Park Place, New York, was as yet only in supposition, a gentleman now prominently connected with the management of that excellent periodical chanced to be my guest for a while. An accident which befell him while on a pedestrian tour among the Appalachians, the particulars of which are immaterial to my present purpose, though sufficiently interesting in themselves, obliged him to remain for some time under my roof. The many who enjoy his acquaintanceship will think it a very natural consequence of this adventure that he should have made me a friend; while the few who possess mine will esteem it a very odd one that he should have made me an author. But so it was.

And thus it was. Confiding to me the project of the intended magazine, he kindly invited me to contribute something for its pages. Now, I had always wished to leave behind me some sketch, however imperfect, in the lack of a more skilful limner, of my revered and beloved friend Mr. Bulkley; and here seemed to be the occasion and the repository offered ready to my hand. So in due time I wrote, and forwarded to New York, the substance of what the reader will find in the first two chapters of the book before him; that is, if he have not already read the book on the supposition that he had laid hold of a novel, (a species of literature which I have no wish, as there is certainly no occasion, to encourage), and now turned back to the preface last of all, as Sir Walter Scott tells us is the way with that class of students, to find out what the author would be at.

The kindness with which this outline was welcomed, and the friendly encouragement I received to fill it up, induced me to enlarge my canvas, and to paint in the other figures that seemed likely to illustrate my main design. It was throughout my purpose to have Mr. Bulkley the central figure of the group, and to make him the chief object of observation and interest. I say thus much to excuse myself to those readers who object to the appearance of egotism, which is inseparable from the autobiographic form which my narrative naturally assumed. I say naturally, because it seems to me more simple to recount any passages in which one took a part one's self in the first person rather than in the third; though, to be sure, there are illustrious examples to the contrary—as Julius Cæsar of Rome, and Major-General Heath of Massachusetts, in their respective Commentaries. The first of these military authors says, "Cæsar did so and so;" and the other, "This being the opinion of our general, he did this and that." But, as I was never suspected of being a hero, I prefer the more plain and straightforward form of speech, which, if it savor more of vanity (which I doubt) than the other, at least smacks less of affectation, which is worse yet.

Thus it was that my narration grew up to its present bulk, and extended itself through all the numbers of a whole volume of Putnam, instead of occupying a modest corner of one. After it had run its race in that arena, I supposed that there was an end of the whole thing; when, one day a while ago, I received a letter from the eminent publishers, Messrs. TICKNOR AND FIELDS, of Boston, proposing to print it in book form. At first I could account for the proposition only on the hypothesis that that respectable firm had been seized with a sudden paroxysm of insanity—a theory rendered the more probable by the accounts the Boston newspapers were then giving of the untimely raging of the dogstar in those latitudes, driving great numbers even of the canine race out of their wits. But finding, on inquiry, that no commission of lunacy had as yet been issued against those worthy gentlemen, I was prevailed upon to yield my opinion to theirs, and to consent to their proposal, the rather that it included inducements which no true-born, well-brought-up, intelligent American citizen could find it in his heart to resist.

This is the way by which Wensley has come into the hands of the reader in its present shape. I can hardly help laughing to see myself in such relations with the public after so many years of absolute retirement. But then, to be sure, it is very likely that the critics, should they get hold of me, will make me laugh the other side of my mouth. If my publishers were indeed in the rabid condition above suggested, when they proposed giving it this form and pressure, I must hope, for their sake merely, that they may succeed in biting uncounted multitudes throughout the country. But if they should not, and they should find that they have made a loss by the operation, the responsibility as well as the loss will be theirs alone. I never asked them to undertake it. But should the public, which I acknowledge as the tribunal of the last appeal, in passing upon my part of the matter before them, pronounce judgment against it, I shall bow reverently to the decree; and all that I shall have to say in mitigation of sentence, and extenuation of my fault, will be expressed in the formulas of the ancient pleas of the nursery and the school room: "I did not mean to do it; I am sorry for it; and I will never do so again."

ST. PHILIPSBURGH, Monongahela county,
Penn., April 1, 1854.

WENSLEY.

WENSLEY:

A STORY WITHOUT A MORAL.

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CHAPTER I.

HOW I CAME TO GO TO WENSLEY.

I BELIEVE I have a natural affinity—it may be only an elective one—for odd people. At any rate, allowing for my limited opportunities, it has been my hap to fall in with my share of them during the time past of my pilgrimage. And I began betimes too. I dare say not many of my readers ever heard of the Rev. Mr. Adrian Bulkley of Wensley, in Massachusetts; and yet I will make bold to assure them that they have not had many acquaintances better worth knowing than he; or, if they have, their luck has been more than mine. It is a thousand pities that he had not fallen in the way of Charles Lamb or De Quincey. They, or Hawthorne, would have delighted in making him immortal. But for the lack of a sacred bard he must needs be forgotten, like the heroes that lived before Agamemnon, and be as if he had never been. Possibly his name may yet be one of the household words of the little inland town over which he predominated for so many years; and perhaps the genial eccentricities of his life and speech may still make the staple of a winter's tale round a farmer's fireside there. But, beyond these narrow bounds and the not much wider sphere of his clerical exchanges, he was but little known while he lived; and even within them his memory must, by the natural laws of decay, be gradually mouldering away, along with his dust in the Minister's Tomb, out of men's minds. So that it will not be many years before his name will survive only in the homely annals of the parish records, on the tablet lately erected by the Wensley Sewing Circle to the deceased ministers of the town, and in the triennial catalogue of Harvard College.

I well remember my first sight of him; and well I may; for it was connected with a little incident in my life such as usually makes a deep impression on any ingenuous youth whom it befalls. Not to mince the matter, the government of the college charged with my education were misled by a train of untoward circumstances to the conclusion that a residence of some months in a rural district, remote from the temptations incident to academic life, would be at once beneficial to me, and of good example, by way of warning, to the rest of the university. I need hardly say to any one who knew me at that time, or who enjoys that advantage now, that they were entirely mistaken, and rested their conclusions upon very erroneous premises. The facts were these: there was at that time a sodality, or voluntary association of youth for mutual improvement, the object of which was to combine abstract with practical science. Their purpose was to imitate, at a humble distance, the example of the divine Socrates, and to call philosophy down from heaven to minister to the necessities of man. They delighted in nicely observing the effects of fire, for instance, on certain animal and vegetable substances. They curiously watched the chemical changes resulting from the mixture of divers liquids one with another. And they speculated profoundly on the laws of pneumatics, whereby, through the agency of fire at the one end and of a gentle suction at the other, a desiccated vegetable convolution could be returned to its original elements of air and earth in the form of smoke and ashes—pulvis et umbra, as Horace would have said touching it, had he not died before the sight.

This harmless, not to say praiseworthy, fraternity appropriately denominated themselves "the Deipnosophoi," or supper philosophers,—a term which very aptly described the practical nature of their scientific pursuits. It did sometimes happen to them, as it hath to the ardent followers of science in all times, that they pursued their investigations a little too far, and that occasionally the supper was rather too much for the philosophy. It was the gloss of the rulers of the university, that the night which was the immediate cause of my introduction to Mr. Bulkley was one of these exceptional occasions. I neither admit nor deny the imputation. It was affirmed on behalf of the prosecution that songs of a lively character, interspersed with laughter of a vociferous nature and an occasional shout of triumph, disturbed the stillness of the night. It did also happen that the windows of an unpopular tutor (since a very eminent literary and public man) were broken in a most emphatic and unqualified manner that particular night. But I defy the world to the proof that any of our party had anything to do with that. But suppose both these charges could have been substantiated, I appeal to every impartial and well-regulated mind whether any inference could be drawn from them to the disadvantage of young votaries of science, who could not refrain from seizing a favorable moment for testing the principles of acoustics, or were unable to resist an eminently tempting opportunity to reduce to practice the laws governing projectiles. These liberal views, unfortunately, did not inspire the proctors when they gave hot chase to our party, who, resorting to the laws regulating muscular locomotion with great energy, all made their escape with the exception of my unlucky self. But I, after practically experiencing the law of the resistance of matter by striking my foot against a stone, exemplified that of gravitation by measuring my length on my mother earth.

Of course there was no use of resistance or disguise when the enemy had me at such a deadly advantage. Wellington, Napoleon, General Taylor himself, would have surrendered under such circumstances. I was seized and identified, and then ordered to go to my rooms. This was quite superfluous, as I had no intention of going anywhere else. So I went thither, cursing my ill luck, and having a particularly ill opinion of supper-eating combined with philosophy. Nor did this unfortunate conjunction rise in my estimation when I was summoned before the college government in full conclave the next morning to answer for the deeds done the night before. Honest old souls! Not one of them left! I hated some of them then, but I think tenderly and reverently of them all now. Of course I admitted what could not be denied, but resolutely refused to give any information that should implicate any one else. So I was thought to have got off very easily when the president sent for me soon after and read to me my credentials, (then popularly known as my walking ticket), stating that the government, in consideration of Osborne's having assisted at a festive entertainment on such a night, sentenced him to be suspended for nine months, to pass the same under the charge of the Rev. Adrian Bulkley of Wensley.

After a little advice, given in the kindly and friendly tone which has given him a place in the hearts of all his academic sons, the president dismissed me with "a merry twinkle in his eye," as if he did not regard me as a sinner above all others, enjoining it upon me to leave town within an hour. Having expected this, and having escaped much better than I had feared, a chum of mine drove me to Boston as fast as Read's best horse could carry us. Here I reported my misfortune to my guardian, (having been an orphan since infancy); and after receiving, like Don Juan, "a lecture and some money," I took my place on the top of the stage-coach which passed through Wensley on its way to Haverford, and found myself, about five o'clock on a fine afternoon in June, whirling up to the door of Grimes's tavern, well renowned in all the region round about for flip, the loggerhead whereof never grew cold.

Old Grimes—I beg his pardon, I mean Major Grimes—squinted a welcome to me out of his one eye, while his copper nose glowed with anticipated hospitality as he assisted me to descend from my elevation. But his hopes of immediate advantage from my advent were dampened by my inquiring, as soon as I had complied with the custom of the time, and done my best to qualify the coachman for breaking the necks of the travellers I left behind me, by a stiff glass of toddy,—by my inquiring, I say, for the house of the Rev. Mr. Bulkley.

"Mr. Bulkley!" repeated the Major, wiping his toddy stick as he spoke, and laying it reverently aside for the next occasion, sure soon to recur; "you are a relation of his, perhaps, sir?"

"None whatever, that I know of," was my curt response.

"Ah, only an acquaintance, then?" persisted the gallant toddy mixer.

"Never saw him in my life," said I.

"Only know him by reputation?" suggested the Major.

"Never heard of his existence till this morning," I returned, rather snappishly; "but for all that I wish to see him, and shall be obliged to you if you will tell me where he lives."

"Oh, I understand," drawled out mine host, cocking his eye afresh at me with an indescribably knowing leer, which was also indescribably provoking, "now I understand it all. When did you leave Cambridge, sir?"

"Cambridge be d——d!" said I in my haste, (I do not justify this summary disposition of that ancient seat of learning, but historical accuracy compels me to record that this was the precise formula I made use of): "is it any business of yours, I should like to know, where I came from? What I want of you is to know where I'm to go."

"Not the least business of mine in the world," responded my interrogator with the most quiet equanimity, still regarding me out of the corner of his eye with an expression in which fun and toddy seemed to be mixed, half and half; "but I have directed several young gentlemen to Priest Bulkley's in my time, though it is a good while since the last one. I know how they look, sir: there's no mistaking 'em." And he chuckled till I felt inclined to close up the one organ he had left for making such observations on the rising generation under difficulties. But, restraining my wrath, I contented myself with saying,—

"I should like to know what the devil you have to do with my affairs, sir. If you can answer my question without any more impertinence, answer it; if not, I will try and find my way by myself."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," replied the Yankee Boniface; "I meant no offence. I know that young gentlemen will get into scrapes, sir; though it seems to me that the beauty of a scholar is to keep out of the scrapes, sir. Not a bad scrape, I hope, sir?"

"Go to the devil!" I bounced out in a towering passion, and at the same time bounced out of the tavern door to find my own way. But I soon heard the inquiring Major hobbling after me; for he was damaged in one leg as well as in his visual orb.

"I say, sir," he called out after me,—"I say, sir, don't be mad with a fellow. I meant no harm. Why, Judge Waldo, and Parson Tisdale, and General Shaw, and half a dozen others I could tell you of, have been sent to the old priest since I have lived here, just as you are now, and nobody thinks any the worse of 'em for it. Halloo, sir!" he exclaimed, seeing me only hurry on the faster to get out of the reach of the catalogue of my illustrious predecessors,—"halloo, sir! You ain't going the right way! You'll bring up at old Dr. Fitch's, in Southfield, instead of Priest Bulkley's, the way you're going. But perhaps he'd do just as well."

This brought me up standing; and I soon put my course about, and returned to the tavern-door, the Major talking all the while without stopping to draw breath or even to spit. When at the door, summoning all the dignity of incensed nineteen into my face, I said,—

"Now, sir, I will thank you to put me in my way without any more words."

"Can't be done without 'em, sir," replied my imperturbable tormentor; "must use 'em, unless I go along with you. Perhaps I had better."

"Tell me the way, if you can, and be hanged to you!" I exclaimed in a rage. "I want none of your company. I've had enough of it already."

"Oh, very well," replied the placable man of war with perfect good-humor; "you will just keep straight on through the village till you come to the meeting-house; and the priest's house is the third beyond it, on your left hand, just at the head of the road."

"And why could you not have told me this an hour ago?" said I, setting off at a round pace, the Major sending his winged words after me as long as I was within hearing, and I dare say a good while longer.

"You'll find the parson at home, sir. I saw him ride by just before you came; and if his old horse hasn't fell to pieces, he's to home by this time. I'll take good care of your trunk, sir. The priest'll send black Jasp after it for you. Hope you'll give me a call, sir. Best of wine and spirits. No such flip in the country, sir, nor punch, neither. Priest Bulkley tries to keep his scholars away from me; but it's of no use, sir. They will come. And so will you, I hope, sir," etc.

And when I turned my head to transfix the loquacious sinner with a Parthian look of indignant contempt, I saw him laughing with all his might as he halted back to his dominions. I felt very much as if I should have liked to kill him just then; but we became very good friends before long. Perhaps there was more danger of his killing me.

So I passed on through the main street of the village, which, indeed, was no street at all, but a country road sprinkled with farm-houses, none of which seemed to have been built since the old French war, with fine old elms and buttonwood-trees in front of most of them. Near the bridge which spanned the pretty little Quasheen, which ran through the town, was the grocer's shop, which also contained the post-office, from which favorite retreat and the bench in front of it stared forth whatever loungers the village could boast; but in sooth they were not many, and were mostly made so by the potent spirits of which Major Grimes had boasted himself. But in those days a certain allowance of topers was thought as necessary a result of the institutions of New England, in every town, as a due proportion of militia officers or of church-members.

Just over the bridge on the other side of the way, "under a spreading chestnut-tree," stood the village smithy, which was about the only other place that showed signs of animation, with its glowing forge, flying sparks, regular sharp strokes that made the anvil quiver, and with the farmers waiting with their horses and wagons for their turn of the Cyclopean art. Still, so rare was the sight of a stranger that for a moment even the anvil had rest, and the weary lungs of the bellows ceased to fan, like the breath of a mischief-maker, fires that were hot enough before into tenfold fury, while they all took a good look at me, and then, no doubt, discussed all the possibilities of my personal identity and antecedents, substantially very much as such phenomena are treated in the bow-windows of English clubs or the smoking-rooms of American hotels.

I soon came to the meeting-house, leaving which on my left hand, I approached, much faster than I liked, my destination. The parsonage was full in sight of the meeting house; but though, as the Major had informed me, there were but two houses between them, it was a good third of a mile to it. The road taking a bend just there, the ministers had apparently taken it up as a good raking position, commanding the church and the green about it, and thus serving as a sort of outpost or tower of observation, appurtenant to the walls of their Zion. I confess that I did not regard the edifice before me with any violent emotions of pleasure. To be delivered up for nine mortal months to the tender mercies of a Calvinistic minister of the very straitest sect (for such I had ascertained him to be) seemed rather a severe retribution for one night of supping philosophy. But it is in vain to contend with inexorable fate. I strode on, resolving to face mine with the best grace I could. But, as often happens, I found the frown which I had dreaded turn into a most attractive smile. For this acquaintance, thus forced upon me and thus unpromising in anticipation, proved one of the chiefest pleasures of my youth and early manhood, and ended in a friendship which lasted as long as his life, and which certainly was not buried with him. But I am now close upon him, and will introduce him to the reader as soon as I have made his acquaintance myself. A new chapter, however, is the least compliment I can pay to either party.

————

CHAPTER II.

THE MINISTER AND HIS MAN.

THE parsonage was merely a plain, unpainted farm-house, some hundred and fifty years old, with its roof sloping to the ground behind, and overgrown with moss. The grass grew green up to the broad doorstone, which was divided from the high road by no fence. The house was overshadowed by a magnificent elm, which had taken root apparently before Columbus had begun to dream of a western passage to the India of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville. On a rough seat which ran round this tree sat a gentleman, who, I knew at the first glance, must be my fate for nine months at least. As I approached near enough to give him assurance that my visit was meant for him, he laid aside the pipe with which he was solacing himself and rose to receive me. He advanced, erect and a little formal, but with an air of one that had seen the world, for which I was not prepared, as I knew nothing of his history. His dress, I am bound to say, bore no marks of inordinate care, and possibly might have been the better for a judicious application of needle and thread in some of its departments. But, for all that, he had eminently the look of a gentleman of the old school.

The hat which he raised when I approached was, I regret to say, one of the profane round abominations which came in with the French revolution, and which still deform the heads of the nineteenth century. And it was his own white hair (for he was then near seventy) that it covered.

His cocked hat, not long relinquished, yet hung behind the study-door; and his wig, which had anticipated his hat by some years in its flight from before the innovating spirit of the age, still stood in its box on the bookcase to your right as you faced the fireplace. His knee-breeches, I rejoice to say, he lived in to the last—and for that matter died in too. Later in our acquaintance, when, in spite of the difference in our ages,—

"We talked with open heart and tongue,
Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends,"—

Mr. Bulkley would sometimes assume, for my edification, these ancient symbols of clerical dignity, and, with his gold-headed cane in his hand, step as it were out of the middle of the last century, every inch a minister of a time when the New England clergy were, indeed, what M. Kossuth wished the United States to become—"a power on earth."

Upon my introducing myself, and presenting the letters introductory with which my Alma Mater had favored me, he courteously welcomed me to Wensley, and then, glancing at the document, looked at me, with a comic expression out of the corner of his eye, over his spectacles, which he had donned for the nonce, and said,—

"A festive entertainment, eh? That's what they call 'em now, is it? Bad things, festive entertainments, Mr. Osborne."

"Oh, sir!" I interpolated, "it was quite a mistake; a very innocent affair, I assure you."

"No doubt, no doubt," responded he. "The college government is subject to error, like all human bodies; and it is rather remarkable that they have happened to be mistaken in the case of every young gentleman that they have ever sent to me. Quite a Massacre of the Innocents, I do assure you!" and he laughed so cordially and good naturedly that I could not help joining him.

"For all that, sir," I replied, "mine was a very harmless business, as I believe you will allow when I tell you the particulars; if, indeed, you consent to receive me."

"It is a long time," he said, "since I have afforded a city of refuge to the ill-used sons of Mother Harvard,—if she may not be rather entitled to be called step-mother, an injusta noverca, you know, in such cases,—and I had about made up my mind to shut up my sanctuary for good. But may I ask if you are the son of the late Hon. Joseph Osborne, of Boston?"

"I have the honor to be Mr. Osborne's son," I answered; "though he died before my remembrance."

"Of course he must have," Mr. Bulkley continued; "but you have a trick of his face that reminds me of him. As the country people say in these parts, you favor him decidedly."

"You knew my father, then, sir?" I asked.

"Knew him? Why, my dear sir, he was my very old and very good friend. He was a year before me in college; but, for all that, we were intimates of the closest description. Ten thousand pipes have we smoked together;" and he sighed as his mind reverted to those fleeting joys. "But our friendship did not end in smoke, if it began in it," he continued, with a melancholy kind of smile: "it lasted until he died,—too soon for his friends and his country, though he had served both long and well."

My heart warmed to the old man at hearing him thus speak of my father, for whose memory I cherished the strongest admiration and reverence; and I began to feel a wish growing within me that he might accept me as an abiding guest during my term of exile. So I said,—

"I hope, then, sir, you will not refuse to receive my father's son under your roof. It would be a great satisfaction to me to live under the care of a friend of his; and I will endeavor to give you as little trouble as possible."

"It is not the trouble I am thinking of, Mr. Osborne," he replied; "but I doubt whether I can make you comfortable in my strange bachelor way of living. It suits me; but I am afraid that it may not suit a young gentleman like you."

I was proceeding to assure him that he need give himself no uneasiness on that score, when he interrupted me with,—

"Well, sir, you will stay with me to-night at least, and to-morrow we will decide as to the rest of the time. Here, Jasper! Jasper!" he called out, clapping his hands as the Orientals do for lack of bells.

And at the word Jasper appeared, issuing from the front-door. He was black as ebony, and his blackness was set off by the perfect whiteness of his hair, which had scarcely a perceptible wave in it, and by the glitter of his teeth. He was a remarkably handsome old man for all his complexion. His features were more Caucasian than African as usually seen; his nose straight, though a little thicker than the Apollo's; and his lips not larger than those of multitudes of men calling themselves white. He evidently came of a comelier race, such as travellers assure us exists in the interior of Africa, than that furnished by the Guinea coast, the Southern Hive from which have swarmed the involuntary emigrations of the negro race. He stood two or three inches over six feet in his stockings, and was not at all bent by his threescore and ten years. He stood firm and erect, awaiting his orders.

"Jasper," said Mr. Bulkley, "you remember Mr. Osborne, who used to come here twenty years ago?"

"Lawyer Osborne, of Boston," answered Jasper, in a tone of deliberate recollection, "who got off Pomp Jaffrey from being hanged in the year three?" Mr. Bulkley nodded. "Yes, sir, I remember him."

"This young gentleman," proceeded his master, indicating me with the stem of his pipe, which he had resumed, "is his son, and will spend the night here."

"Proud to see you here, sir," replied Jasper, still remaining perfectly erect, but bringing up his hand to the military salute in the most respectful manner.

"Take your wheelbarrow, Jasper, after tea, and go and fetch Mr. Osborne's trunk from Grimes's.—You left it there, I suppose?" turning to me.

I assented, of course; and Jasper bent his whole body a few degrees in token that he understood his orders. He then faced to the right about and marched back to the parsonage. We followed him almost immediately, and found him rearranging the tea-table to meet the rare emergency of company. This was laid in the study, the room on the left as you entered the front-door, and the only room occupied by the minister by day, (he slept in the one opposite), and which was drawing-room and dining-room as well. It deserved, indeed, to be called the library; for its walls were covered with a collection of books which would be thought large for a private one even at this day of larger things. They were, like their master, of no very modern date or dress, but of sterling and various merit—good substantial friends of all ages and of many climes. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Italian were there good store, and English down to the end of the last century. There he stopped; for, as he said, of buying as well as of making books there was no end. I remember he had never heard of Lord Byron until I introduced him to his acquaintance. And he would not like him then, in spite of my boyish enthusiasm for the Harolds, Manfreds, Laras, Conrads, and other aliases under which it was his lordship's pleasure to disguise himself. But down to his own time he was thoroughly well read, and a discriminating and entertaining critic, though something odd in his taste as it was then accounted oddity. I recollect he first brought me acquainted with old Burton, and with Ben Jonson, and the earlier dramatists.

Jasper soon furnished forth an ample New England tea, to which I was quite prepared to do an ample justice. But while I am discussing in imagination the excellent johnny-cake and rye-and-Indian bread, and while Jasper waits upon us with the gravity and decorum of the butler of a duke, let me pause, and dwell for a moment on the images of the two men, inseparable to my mind's eye as it glances back at those happy days. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Tom Jones and Partridge, Peregrine Pickle and Pipes, Roderick Random and Strap, Uncle Toby and Trim are not more one and indivisible in the general mind of English readers than are (with all reverence be it spoken) the Rev. Mr. Adrian Bulkley, and Jasper, his man-of-all-work, in mine. Maid-of-all-work he might also be denominated; for he was both maid and man to the worthy minister, and performed all feminine as well as virile offices in the household and domain of his master. I do not know whether Jasper's cooking and sweeping and bed-making would have come up to the highest ideal of the more fanatical of the sect of the housekeepers. I am not quite sure whether I myself should relish their results now as I did thirty odd years ago, in the undiscriminating freshness of nineteen. But they answered Mr. Bulkley's purposes; and, such being the case, I shall not stir the question of details, conceiving that they are none of the reader's business.

The fairer portion of my readers would have divined by this time, even if I had not inadvertently let the fact slip a few paragraphs ago, that Mr. Bulkley was a bachelor. But let them not condemn him too summarily or too severely for this blemish in his character; for I believe there was an excuse for it the validity of which they should admit, though I could never get at the precise facts, as it was a subject to which he would bear no allusion. It is enough to say that, according to the unbroken tradition of Wensley, he had an early and unhappy passion for the beautiful Miss Julia Mansfield, who was the toast of every mess table during the siege of Boston. It was the old story of Crabbe's Patron over again, as far as I could gather; only that Mr. Bulkley was not so easily killed as poor poet John. He came into Mr. Mansfield's family as tutor to his youngest son, Thomas, (afterwards the Colonel Mansfield who was killed by a shell, in his tent, before

Badajos) soon after leaving college; and, finding there the most lovely young woman in the province,—gay, thoughtless, coquettish, and seventeen,—is it any wonder that he found his fate there too? He did not know that she was vain, coldhearted, and selfish (perhaps he never knew it) until the mischief was done.

It was done, however; and poor Bulkley had taken leave forever of the unkind Julia and of his dream of happiness, and was finding what consolation he might in the pursuit of divinity (a very different mistress) before the war broke out. At the evacuation, Miss Julia accompanied her father (who, all the world knows, was one of Governor Hutchinson's mandamus councillors) into exile; and she married, not long afterwards, Colonel Ferguson, the receiver-general of Jamaica. It was not a well-assorted marriage, and its history is not one that I care to record. The lovers of Old-World scandals can mouse out the details from the contemporary chronicles of such matters for themselves, as I did, if they must know them. But the old Wensley people used to say that the minister was plunged into a deeper dejection by the news, in the year eighty-seven, of the duel in which her husband shot Sir James Carlton on her account, near Spanishtown, than even at that of her death, which arrived soon afterwards. He seemed to feel it as a personal dishonor. It was a cruel iconoclasm,—that shot, which broke in pieces the idol he had privily worshipped in the secret places of his heart for so many melancholy years.

After Jasper had cleared away the tea-things, Mr. Bulkley and I sat by the window and entered into a long conversation, which I have not time to record, though I remember a great deal of it. We began with the college and the latest news therefrom, including, of course, my own escapade, which my new Mentor did not seem to look upon as a crime of the blackest dye. He laughed merrily at the details I gave him of my adventure, which I did, unconsciously, with as much freedom as if I were talking with one of my own contemporaries. There was that about this gentleman which put one at perfect ease with him on the first acquaintance; and there was nothing in his tone or manner which asserted his claims as a superior by virtue of age and experience. Of course, as in duty bound, he stood by the college government as touching the necessity of inflicting the discipline they did, having had the misfortune to make the unlucky discovery. But he evidently rather cottoned (to use a Fanny Kembleism) to the Deipnosophoi; and would have thought it good luck, and no great harm, if they had all escaped with a whole skin, even if some of them should have done it with a full one. The temperance movement had not, at that time, begun to play the mischief with the old drinking usages of New England; and a slight convivial exuberance occasionally was looked upon as no very heinous offence even by the graver classes of society.

Mr. Bulkley belonged to a grave class of society, certainly; but he was no very grave member of it when he unbent himself from the serious business of his profession. A merrier man "within the limit of becoming mirth," one does not often talk withal in one's journey through this working-day world. I think he had the finest voice for a story (and, like most of his cloth at that time, he abounded in them) that I ever heard. It was as good fun as seeing Mathews to hear him tell one. And then his laugh! He did, indeed, "laugh the heart's laugh," before which no blue devils, however resolute, could hold their ground. From this latest piece of college history he made a transition to his own times, and told many piquant anecdotes concerning the customs of those times and the adventures of men afterwards famous. The hardest sort of drinking seemed to have been quite the general rule of his day; and his stories showed that some advances had been made in refinement, at least, between his time and mine. The Deipnosophoi, I am happy to say, could furnish no parallels to some of the instances he related of the potatory achievements of our grandfathers. I had begun a paragraph to tell of some of them; but, on the whole, I believe I will not "draw their frailties from their dread abode." Let one brief specimen, by no means one of the best or the most characteristic, suffice.

"I remember poor Tom Frost," said he, "whom you must have heard of. He turned democrat; and

Jefferson sent him consul to Tripoli, where he died of the plague." I intimated that I had heard him mentioned, and Mr. Bulkley continued, "I remember, one Commencement Day, he fell into the company of a set of jolly blades,—being, in general, a very steady-going fellow,—and got most undeniably and unequivocally drunk. It was with some difficulty that he was put to bed; but at last he was fairly between the sheets, and we thought he was disposed of for the night. But we had not been gone long, when we heard a heavy sound in his chamber, and, hastening thither, found that he had fallen out of bed. After replacing him, one of his friends remonstrated pretty sharply with him for giving us this new trouble. 'Why, I'll tell you how it was, fellows,' said poor Tom, with drunken gravity; 'it was not my fault. I held on to the cursed bed as long as it could be done. For, as soon as you had gone out, it began to whirl round one way, and then it spun round the other; and then the head of the bed was lifted up to the ceiling, and then the foot; and then it rocked from one side to the other like a raving-distracted cradle. And I held on to it like a good fellow. It couldn't shake me out, let it do its worst; but when the d——d thing turned upside down the devil himself could hold on no longer, and no more could I!' " And the minister laughed his musical laugh till all rang again.

"Your friend," said I, "certainly fulfilled the conditions laid down by an English Cantab in Blackwood lately, who says that he thinks it most unfair and ungenerous to call a man drunk as long as he can hold on by the sheets. But if he will persist in tumbling out of bed as fast as you put him into it, then the most candid must admit that it is no abuse of language or of charity to pronounce him drunk."

Mr. Bulkley laughed, and the conversation took a new departure, and ranged far and wide over books, and politics, and Old-World family histories, until the late summer evening closed in about us. After it grew dark, Jasper entered, holding one of his own dips in his hand, with which he made a sort of military salute to me, saying, "Your trunk is in your chamber, sir;" and then, placing his candle on a stand near the opposite window (for the study filled the entire breadth of the house, having windows on the two sides), and taking a large folio from a lower shelf, put on his heavy iron-bound spectacles and set himself diligently to read it. It was evident, from the perfect simplicity with which it was done, that it was nothing out of the common course of events; but it took all my scanty stock of good breeding to conceal the astonishment I felt at such a phenomenon. Had the minister's old horse (which, like Yorick's, was "full brother to Rozinante, as far as similitude congenial could make him") walked in from the stable and squatted himself on his haunches, like a Houyhnhm, beside me, I could not have been more taken aback. I fully assented to the general reputation which pronounced Parson Bulkley a very odd man.

Poor Jasper read, with the help of his forefinger and with a laborious murmur of the lips, like one whose reading had not "come by nature," but by hard work, after he was grown up; and I had a suspicion that this lecture was rather for my edification than for his own, though, when I discovered afterwards that it was a volume of "Hakluyt's Voyages" he was encountering, I was somewhat shaken in it. There was a comical expression in Mr. Bulkley's eye, too, which showed that he was not without the same surmise. We talked on without regarding Jasper's presence, until nine o'clock, when the minister read a chapter in the Bible, and prayed, according to the ancient custom of New England. After prayers, Jasper put up his book and took himself and his dip off to bed, making us a military salute at the door by way of good night.

When he was gone, and Mr. Bulkley had lighted the pipe, which was to wind up the labors of the day, he said to me,—

"I noticed that you were a little surprised at seeing Jasper make himself so much at home here."

I made a dubious sort of a bow, hardly knowing whether I should acknowledge such a feeling about a matter which was clearly none of my business.

"It was natural enough," he continued, "that you should have wondered at it. But Jasper and I have slept too many years under the same tent for me to mind having him in the same room with me when he has done his work."

"Under the same tent, sir?" I repeated, interrogatively.

"Certainly," he replied; "he has never left me since he came to my rescue at Brandywine, when I was lying flat on the field with an ounce of lead in me, which, for that matter, I carry about with me still. The bayonet was raised that would have finished the business, had not Jasper despatched the grenadier that stood over me, and carried me off on his back to the rear."

"So you served in the Revolutionary War, sir?" I exclaimed. "Were you long in the service?"

"Pretty well," he answered, smiling. "I began at Lexington and ended at Yorktown. I don't know that any one can say more than that. You see that old firelock," he continued, pointing to a fowling-piece of formidable length and venerable age, which was crossed over the fireplace with a silver-hilted sword; "that was the gun with which I left Parson Sanborne's study for Lexington on the morning of the 19th of April, and the old sword is one I picked up on the Boston road that day and wore for the next seven years."

"In what capacity did you serve, sir?" I inquired, a little bewildered by this new flood of ideas.

"Why, I began as chaplain," he replied. "But as there was more need of the arm of flesh, and as there was an especial lack of educated men for officers, I took a commission from General Washington; and I ended as a captain, doing the duty of brigade-major.

My health was not firm at that time, and I thought a campaign would do me good; and, being once in for it, I found it hard to break off, and so kept on to the end."

"And Jasper?" I suggested.

"Oh, Jasper was born the slave of Colonel Cuyler, of New Jersey, who emancipated him on his consenting to enlist, and afterwards employed him as his servant, a soldier being allowed to every officer, for that purpose. Colonel Cuyler dying of a fever consequent on the exposures of the campaign in the Jerseys, Jasper remained in the ranks until he was taken by me, at his request, as my servant. It was of some advantage to him in the way of mounting guard and the regular drills; though he was still on the rolls, and required to return to active duty whenever in the neighborhood of the enemy."

"And he has been with you ever since?" I inquired.

"Ever since," he replied; "and now I think it would be rather hard to oblige him to mope by himself in his kitchen when he has done his day's work. His greatest pleasure is to sit in the corner of my fireplace in winter and watch me as I read or write. He does not come so regularly in summer; but he comes when he pleases, and I think I should be a beast to deny so cheap a pleasure to my old companion in arms and most faithful friend. At any rate, I do not intend doing so. Indeed, in my solitude, his presence in the long winter evenings, though not society, is human companionship, and I am confident I am the better for it."

I cordially expressed my concurrence of opinion on all these points; and then Mr. Bulkley, knocking out the last ashes of his pipe, (he never lapsed into the later heresy of cigars), laid it in its place, and proposed to show me the way to my chamber. This done, he shook hands with me as he bade me good-night; and I lay awake for some time after I had gone to bed, ruminating over the revolution which the last fifteen minutes had wrought in my first ideas of the minister and his man.

————

CHAPTER III.

THE TORY AND HIS DAUGHTER.

"PRAYER-BELL rung yet, Charley?" said I, gaping fearfully, the next morning, awakened by hearing somebody putting down my shoes by my bedside, and catching a glimpse of a black face through my half-shut eyes. "Not the second bell, I hope."

"It's me, sir; it's Jasper," said that worthy functionary, as he moved softly towards the door; "the young college gentlemen always ask me that the first morning, sir. We don't ring no bell, sir; but master breakfasts at six, and has prayers afterwards. It's just five, now, sir."

And the truth streamed in upon me, with the sun through the uncurtained windows, that I was an exile from college; that this was Wensley, and not Cambridge; and that the sable form which had just quietly vanished was a revolutionary hero, and not Charley Richmond—a cadet of an ancient family of color, which had served for several generations the wealthier sort of students in the capacity of what the English Cantabs call a gyp, and the Oxonians a scout; which Mr. Thackeray, when he rolled the two single universities into one as Oxbridge, also amalgamated into a skip.

As I had an hour before me, there was no occasion for hurrying myself; so I lay still and revolved in my mind the current chapter of my history. A quarter of an hour was all that was thought necessary in those good old days, before shower baths and hair gloves, for anybody's toilet; so I had time enough and to spare. Bless my soul, I must have a good hour and a half to get myself up for the day now! These hygienic and physiological new lights have a great deal of other people's time to answer for. I lay still; and, as I lay, that mysterious homesick feeling which always comes over me (I wonder whether it does over other people) the first time I wake in a strange place took full possession of me. I had left no home; my parents were both dead; I had neither brother nor sister; I hated college, or fancied I did, and had just as much business to be in Wensley as anywhere else; and yet I felt the strongest disposition to cry at finding myself there. And if I did actually cry, men do more unmanly things than that, and pretend they are not ashamed of themselves, every day of their lives. Perhaps the excitement of finding myself in a new place, quickening the flow of my ideas, brought these facts, or the emotions they naturally excite, with a fresh shock to my mind; and surely they were enough to make anybody cry.

But I am no metaphysician, and shall make no attempt to puzzle other people by trying to explain what I do not understand myself. But such is the psychological fact, whether it belongs to my special idiosyncrasy or not. I never felt the emotion more strongly than I did, years afterwards, the first morning I opened my eyes in London, and, casting them out of the window of my chamber on the roof of the Adelphi, saw the great dome of St. Paul's rising, as it were, out of a surging sea of fog, and heard the ceaseless rush and roar of life chafing in the channels far beneath me. It was a moment which I had been looking forward to for long years as the Christian pilgrim to that of the first glimpse of the holy sepulchre, or the Mussulman to the supreme instant that gives him the vision of the tomb of the Prophet. I had reached "the Mecca of my mind," and yet I thought of everything rather than of it. I have heard it said that, when a man is drowning, the whole of his past life rushes before his dying eyes in an instantaneous phantasmagoria. Well, it seemed as if my plunge into the boiling ocean of London worked the same miracle with me. The roar of its tide was in my ears; but I heard it not. All of my past life, especially every sad and tender image, came streaming through my mind in a flash of thought, and oppressed me with a bitter pang of homesickness—Heaven knows why. So it was, though I don't pretend to expound the philosophy of it. But, then, as it has nothing in particular to do with my story, it is of the less consequence.

But the bluest of devils cannot long withstand the genial influences of early sunlight and of youth,—that early sunlight of life, God bless it! though the benediction is quite superfluous, for God will bless it whether or no; and mine vanished before their potent exorcism by the time I was half dressed. And by the time my toilet was finished I felt no more longing to hear the cracked voice of the chapel bell, or the stamping to and fro over my head, and the scuffling of feet backwards and forwards in the entry and on the college stairs,—the familiar sounds which I had yearned for when I first awoke,—and was well content to accept in their stead the riotous vivacity of the birds and the undertoned hum of the insects in the trees on both sides of my chamber. For it filled the entire breadth of the house, and it was not very broad, for all that, and had two windows on one side, and one on the other; the one behind occupying a deep cut into the sloping roof, and looking directly into the thick boughs of a lime-tree buzzing with insect life. The walls were plastered and white-washed; a thick beam ran lengthwise through the ceiling; and so queer was the shape of the room from the obliquities of the roof that it would have puzzled a better mathematician than I was to calculate its contents. There was a strip of carpet by the bedside, the floor (the face of whose scenery was of a rather rolling character) being otherwise bare. A few wooden chairs and a pine table made up the furniture. But what cared I for those things? God made us men before we made ourselves upholsterers; and I had not yet passed into the factitious and out of the natural state.

"Well, Mr. Osborne," said Mr. Bulkley, as we sat at breakfast, "do you like your quarters well enough still to wish to remain in them?"

"I like both my quarters and my company, sir," I replied; "and should be very sorry should you determine not to take me."

"And that would be a pity!" he said,—"would it not be, Jasper?" Jasper inclined his assent. "In fact," the minister went on, "Jasper has been interceding for you; and the prime minister, you know, does what he likes at court; and I suppose I must let him have his way."

"I am greatly indebted to him for his interest," said I, bowing with mock gravity towards Jasper, "and shall endeavor to show myself worthy of his good opinion."

The minister smiled; but his man took it all in perfectly good faith, and with serious grace acknowledged my little speech with his military salute as he stood firm and erect behind his master's chair.

"Jasper having given his sanction to your remaining," Mr. Bulkley resumed, "and you continuing to wish it, after having a taste of our bachelor's way of life, I suppose I may as well acknowledge to having no particular objection to it myself: so we will consider that as arranged, if you please." And we shook hands across the table to close the bargain. Though what he said about Jasper's consent was spoken jestingly, yet I found afterwards that it was literally true that he would not have received me, had Jasper disliked the plan.

"As to-day is Saturday," the minister proceeded, "we will defer our plans of study until Monday, Saturday is my working day, and shall be your holiday. Perhaps you would like to get a little acquainted with the Siberia to which you have been banished. Or you may use my study just as if I were not here, or establish yourself in your own chamber, as you like. We dine at twelve, and drink tea at six; at which hours you will report yourself, if you please."

After which Jasper brought the great Bible, and we had prayers; which done, I whiled away the time as best I could with old books and cigars, and in sauntering round the premises in quest of amusement, which did not seem very easy to be found, till dinner time. After dinner, as the sun was a little mitigated by clouds, I set forth upon a voyage of discovery into the unknown regions round about. I passed through the village, where my apparition again caused a general suspension of labor, and variation of idleness, as long as I was in sight. So I took myself out of sight as speedily as possible, turning into the road to your right just after you have crossed the Quasheen, and winding along its banks. It was a most charming walk, solitary, shady, with glimpses of rich pastures dotted with cattle, by the water-side.

There was no discordant jar of machinery. The innocent little stream had not yet been compelled by the genius of the lamp or of the ring to help build the palaces of our New England Aladdins; it yet ran sparkling and dimpling to the sea, without having to buffet with mill-wheels, and to fling itself headlong, as it fled, over injurious dams in desperate waterfalls. Cows stood up to the middle in its shady little bays; ducks led out their flotilla of ducklings upon its waters, and swallows dipped in it with none to molest, or make them afraid. It was a delicious walk, as I said before.

Here and there along the road was a farm house of the oldest description of New England rustic architecture, but not many of them. It seemed as if this little town were a nook which the tide of improvement, as we are pleased to call it, had swept round, and left it overlooked in its haste, leaving it just as it was a century before. Nor was this effect diminished by a glance I got at a house, having decidedly the look of a gentleman's seat, off at my left; for such were always sprinkled over the face of the New England landscape. It was a square wooden house, having a porch in front, with seats on either side, flaunting with honeysuckles, as I could see at that distance, with windows in the roof, and an ornamental balustrade running round it. The ground sloped up to the house, and, being fine mowing land, had as lawnish a look as land can well have in our climate. A few aboriginal oaks stood singly here and there; and there were clusters of shrubbery near the house, but apparently kept low for the benefit of the prospect. Beyond the house it seemed as if there was an old-fashioned avenue of elms running down the other side of the hill to parts unknown. I passed about a mile and a half farther, pondering as to who could be its inhabitants, but meeting no one of whom I could make the inquiry.

But when I had gone, by my estimation, about three miles from the village, the clouds which had at first invited me to go out now more strongly urged me to go back. They rolled up blacker and thicker, and seemed almost to touch the tops of the trees, among which the road sometimes wound. There was evidently a thunder-shower altogether too near at hand for my advantage: so I set my face homewards, and made what speed I could, though with little hope of escape. I came, however, in sight of the capital mansion and messuage (as an auctioneer might say) just described, before the critical moment arrived. Still I hurried on, and soon found there were other people in haste besides myself; for just then I heard the sound of hoofs behind me, and an elderly gentleman and a young lady on horseback galloped past me. As they passed they gave a glance of surprise at me, and presently reined up, and had evidently a brief exchange of words; or rather the gentleman said something to his companion, and I could see that the tassel of her riding-cap waved an affirmative. He then turned his horse's head towards me, and, putting spurs to his sides, pulled up before me in an instant.

"Young gentleman," said he, touching his hat as I raised mine, "there is a violent shower at hand. Let me beg you to take shelter in my house there," indicating the capital mansion aforesaid with his riding-whip. "Pray do not hesitate, for I feel the first drops already. By striking across that field you will be at the door nearly as soon as we."

He touched his hat again, and, wheeling round, galloped off, and he and his companion were the next instant hid from my sight by a turn of the road. I was a bashful boy, and felt as awkwardly as such animals are apt to do in an emergency like this. But still I had a little rather not spoil my new hat; and, moreover, the thing had a spice of adventure about it which could not but make it relishing: so I leaped the stone wall, and then "set down my feet, and ran," to such good purpose that I did actually reach the house before the pair dashed up, just as the rain was coming down in good earnest. As there was no time for ceremony, I stepped up, blushing like the morn, lifted the young lady off her horse, and set her down safely under the porch. I had had some little practice in this line before, having often performed this office for——; but on the whole it is no concern of yours who it was for. It is enough that I had had practice. The young lady hastily bowed her thanks, and, after giving her habit a good shake, hurried into the house.

The gentleman, having given over the horses to the servant who ran up to take them, now joined me, and courteously invited me to walk in. He was a man of middle height, and well proportioned, though of rather a slight figure. He was between sixty and seventy; but as he wore powder it was not easy to tell to which extreme of the decade he inclined. Perhaps he was about half way between the two. He had a cultivated and well-bred voice, as well as deportment, and his tones were more English than American in their modulations. And yet he did not look like an Englishman. His face must have once been very handsome; though time, and perhaps sorrow, had made their mark upon it. He gave one the impression of a man that had suffered, and through suffering had lived more than his years. He led me into a good-sized and well-furnished room on the right of the hall-door, and then through a narrow, arched door, by the farther side of the fireplace, into a larger back room, which appeared to be his library, though his collection was not much. Here I found a wood-fire burning, though it was hot summer, but which, nevertheless, was exceedingly acceptable to a damp stranger like myself. Inviting me to be seated, and sitting down himself, he said, pointing to the blaze,—

"I trust you will find this whim of mine, as I find it is thought to be hereabouts, not a bad one to-day. You remember, perhaps, the Spanish proverb, that nobody ever suffers from cold, except a fool or a beggar. And as I hope I am not quite a fool, and as I know that I am not absolutely a beggar, I am resolved to guard myself against the inclemency of your summers as well as of your winters."

"My winters!" thought I to myself: "I should suppose they were as much yours as mine, my good sir." But I said, "Many people, I believe, sir, would be glad to imitate your example, if they had but the strength of mind."

He smiled and said, "Indeed, it does require some resolution. I know I had to put forth a good deal before I could overcome the opposition of Mrs. Warner, my housekeeper. She would have put out all my fires on the first of May, and not allowed me another spark until the first of November, had I not raised an insurrection in the house."

"Your victory seems to have been complete, sir," said I.

"Oh, a perfect Waterloo, my dear sir!" he replied; "and that, although my undutiful child was inclined to side with the enemy. A diversion from my own camp, by Jove!"

"His child!" thought I again; "then she is his daughter! Well, it's much better than being his wife." But I said, "I am sure, sir, I have reason to rejoice at your courage and success. And I imagine the young lady herself would not be disposed to question your wisdom, any more than your generalship, this afternoon."

"I dare say not," he rejoined. "I wonder she has not come down yet. I think that she likes my fire, as well as myself, in her heart; for I often find her nestling down by it in the mornings and evenings. Jupiter! what a flash!"

And it was a flash, indeed, followed by an almost simultaneous crash of long-rattling thunder. We instinctively rose and approached the window; but the darkness of the shower had settled down again over the landscape almost as black as night; while the heavy drops fell like shot on the roof, and poured down on all sides in sheets, the spouts being entirely unequal to the occasion.

"That flash struck not far off," observed my host. "I hope it has done my trees no damage."

"Your hope comes too late, papa," said a voice behind us; "for I saw one of the oaks on the lawn struck as I came down stairs."

"Not the Sachem's Oak!" exclaimed papa. "I had almost as lief have had the house struck as that."

"I believe not," she returned; "but I could not tell certainly, it is so thick and dark. I think it was the next one to it."

"I will go and see," he said quickly, "if this gentleman will excuse me." And, without waiting to see whether I would or not, he hurried out of the room.

I have had greater calamities befall me since then than being left alone with a pretty woman. In fact, I have long since ceased to regard it as a misfortune at all. But at that particular juncture of my life,

I would a little rather that papa had remained with us. I was getting on pretty well with him; and, with him to back me, I think I could have encountered this new form of danger with tolerable presence of mind. And I must do the enemy the justice to say that she did not seem to have any particularly hostile designs towards me. She seated herself near the fire, but yet sidewise to it, and with her face turned round, looking out of the window at the driving storm with an abstracted air, as if she were thinking not much of that, and still less of poor me. I don't know whether her attitude as I have described it will appear to have been a graceful one to my readers; but if it do not, they may be assured it is entirely their fault or mine. The attitude was perfect, and the more perfect because entirely unstudied and unconscious.

"And so she was handsome?" you will all say. Handsome! to be sure she was. Do you suppose I should be writing about her at this present if she had not been? Currer Bell may broach and preach her damnable heresy of homely heroines, with pug noses and carroty hair, if she please. The republic of letters has no established church; and, if she can build up a sect on that foundation, she may. But I belong to the good old orthodox school. None of your Jane Eyres or Lucy Snowes for my money! To be sure, this is not a novel, but a veracious history; and so I have nothing to do but to tell the simple truth. But I might have held my tongue, I suppose. There is a great deal of talk nowadays about woman's rights, and I am told clever things are written about them on both sides. And then reverend gentlemen write treatises on "the true sphere of woman," and "woman's mission," "the duty of woman," and so on. Now, I am a practical philosopher, and never meddle with abstract discussions; but my private notion of the sphere, the mission, and the duty of woman, is, that every woman ought to be handsome. It is a duty she owes to society. That's my simple moral philosophy; and, till somebody can show me a better, I shall stand by it.

I think, if you could have seen my heroine,—for the dullest reader must have discovered before this that we have found my heroine at last,—you would have acknowledged that she filled her sphere, fulfilled her mission, and performed her duty; for she was marvellously handsome. But I am not going to give an inventory of her charms. It's of no use; and I do not intend making a fool of myself by making the attempt. All I shall say is, that her hair was of a tinge very uncommon in America, and what I suppose poetical people mean when they talk about "golden locks" and "sunny tresses" (not red; I vow and protest it was not red; the most malicious rival could not have called it so); while her eyes and eyelashes were as near black as they could be without actually being so. Her complexion was the véritable peau de lys, as smooth and pure as the petal of a lily, and, though with the expression of perfect health, generally as colorless. But, when passion or emotion did summon the "blushing apparitions" into her cheek, it was a sight, indeed, that Raphael might have dreamed of. And as to her mouth and her teeth, if nature or art could have improved upon them, I should like to see the handiwork.

"Quivi due filze son di perle elette,
Che chiude e apre un bello e dolce labro."

And I would go a good way to see a finer arm and hand and foot than hers. But I won't describe her. Only I will say, that the effect of the contrast of her dark eyes with her hair and skin was as odd as it was fine. I have never seen more than two or three of the kind in the course of a pretty extensive and careful study of the subject.

I thought I must say something, though I dare say she would not have missed it if I had not; and so I ventured to suggest,—

"I hope you are not afraid of thunder and lightning."

"What, I?" she exclaimed, starting from her revery, and turning towards me. "Oh, no, indeed! I delight in them."

Delight in thunder and lightning! I must say I could not sympathize with my fair friend in this taste. I have not learned to like those unpleasant explosions yet, and had still less fancy for them then. But the horrid idea flashed into my mind that she might suspect as much. So, turning with as composed an air as I could command to a portrait which hung over the fireplace, but which I could see but very indistinctly in the gloom of the day and the room, I said,—

"A portrait of your father, I presume?"

"A portrait of papa!" she replied, smiling, and shaking her head. "Oh, dear, no! Don't you recognize it as that of his late Majesty?"

His late Majesty! Old Farmer George, whom Byron had just left practising the Hundredth Psalm when his "Vision of Judgment" ended—whose only merit, according to the same infallible authority, was

"That household virtue, most uncommon,
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman."—
what business had he here, in the heart of his revolted province? Who could these people be? Before I could ponder this problem further, the master of the house came in, saying,—

"It was not the Sachem's Oak, my dear, but the old one I have been trying to persuade myself to cut down these two years. But the lightning has taken it into its own hands now, and has settled the question forever. It is breaking away, however, and the shower is passing off to the westward. I have not heard such thunder since that storm among the Bernese Alps."

The Bernese Alps! Had they been there, too? I looked at them with new respect; for you will remember foreign travel was not as vulgar then as it has become since. It was a distinction, at that time, to have been abroad: now, the distinction is to have staid at home. We have become a match for the English in our migratory habits. James Smith, I believe it was, who said, apropos to their invasion of the continent after it was first opened, that soon there would be a sight set up of an Englishman who had not been to Rome. I should think it might be worth Mr. Barnum's while to add to his other curiosities an American who had not overrun Europe. But he must make haste, though, or there will not be one left to be caught.

This, however, gave us something to talk about, or rather for him to talk, and for me to listen about. He talked like a man of sense and education; and I should have been well content to have listened to him, and to have looked at his daughter, for an indefinite time. She took no part in the conversation, except when appealed to by her father, but sat looking abstractedly into the fire. I could not but feel that she was not thinking about me. Indeed, I could not flatter myself that she would ever think of me again after I had passed out of her sight. I felt as "young" as David Copperfield did when the father of the eldest Miss Larkins asked him "how his schoolfellows did."

But, as we talked, the storm which had "scowled o'er the darkened landscape" passed away, and the "radiant sun" extended his evening beam over it with farewell sweet. I had no longer any excuse for staying. My host rang the bell, and an elderly matron, whom I suspected to be the housekeeper, of whose leaning to the anti-Vulcanian theory I had heard, entered, bringing wine. After partaking of this then universal hospitality (for as yet temperance societies were not), I took my leave with many grateful acknowledgments. The young lady rose, and graciously returned my parting bow, while her father accompanied me to the door and wished me a pleasant walk.

I passed on under the dripping trees vocal with birds, and over the saturated turf which the slant sun glorified into beatific diamonds and emeralds, and through the clear, cool, moist air, but thinking more of those whom I had left than of the sights and sounds about me. Nothing had escaped them which indicated who or what they were. They had shown no curiosity as to my poor self, had asked no questions as to my name, home, or business. They evidently only regarded me in the light of a lad whom they had saved from a ducking, and should see no more. Who could they be? Of course I should pluck out the heart of the mystery when I reached the parsonage; for Mr. Bulkley must know all about them. So I made what haste I could, and soon found myself at the worthy minister's door.

————

CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH I LEARN WHO THEY ARE.

I WAS soon at the parsonage; and, as it was too early for the minister to have relaxed from his task of sermon-work, I walked round to the garden at the back of the house. There I found Jasper, hoe in hand, whistling merrily as he waged war against the weeds, which had apparently availed themselves of a temporary suspension of hostilities, and made a stand against the foreign intruders upon their native soil.

"Jasper," said I, "who is it that lives in the large house on the river road, about two miles from here?"

"The big house with the two rows of trees behind it?" he asked, in his turn.

"To be sure," said I; "there is but one that I can mean. Who lives there?"

"Queer man, sir!; queer man, sir!" he replied, shaking his head mysteriously, and resuming his work with great gravity.

"Queer or not," I answered, "I suppose he has a name, hasn't he?"

"Name!" he responded. "Name enough, sir, for the matter of that! Bad name, too, sir."

"Well, what is it, then? It won't hurt me, will it? Tell me: I'm not afraid of it," said I.

"Mr. Miles Allerton is his name, sir. They call him Colonel Allerton. But I don't think he's any business to be called so here."

"Why not? Why shouldn't he be called so, if he be a colonel?" I asked.

"I don't think they ought to call such sort of folks so," he replied: "it ain't right. It makes me mad to hear 'em."

"Why, what's the matter with him, Jasper?" I asked, my curiosity being a good deal aroused. "He's an honest man, I suppose, isn't he?"

"I don't know that," he replied, with an emphatic stroke of the hoe into the ground; "we didn't use to think such kind of folks none too honest. But times is changed from what they used to be."

"He pays his debts, don't he? He isn't a swindler, I hope?" said I, laughing.

"Oh Lord, yes, sir! He pays his debts well enough. Why, he's the richest man this side Boston, they say!"

"Well, then, in the devil's name, what ails him? He isn't a Democrat, is he?" I persisted; for I had moused out that Mr. Bulkley was a stanch Federalist of the extremest sort, like most of his profession in New England at that time, and that Jasper was no whit behind him in zeal.

"Oh Lord, no, sir!" he exclaimed with a sort of deprecating tone, as if he had really gone too far in having excited such a suspicion; "not a Dimocrat! He ain't so bad as that, sir! He's only an old Tory."

I laughed heartily at Jasper's distinction; for, like Yorick, I do love a good one, in my heart. And, after all, there is something respectable in a well-preserved, good old prejudice, always provided that it is old enough. An old gentleman in breeches and hair powder is a respectable object in all eyes; while a man in a five-year-old coat is one justly contemptible to every well-regulated mind. There was something very comic in this conflict of prejudices in Jasper's mind. But, on the ethical theory of somebody,—I forget who,—of doing the duty that lay nearest him, he honestly hated the Democrat of the present generation more than the Tory of the last.

"What amuses you so much?" said a voice behind me. And, looking round, I saw Mr. Bulkley, who had come out to take a turn before tea. "Has Jasper been saying something witty?"

"Rather wise, sir, than witty," I replied; for I was a fierce Federalist too. And I told the minister what had passed between us, and the occasion.

"Ah, that's one of the few points of difference between me and Jasper," said Mr. Bulkley, smiling. "He has no charity for the Tories, and thinks it a weakness in people that they are beginning to forget to hate them.—But everybody has not such a memory as you, Jasper. It doesn't last for fifty years generally."

"I shall never get to like a Tory," replied Jasper doggedly, "if I live fifty years more. They're too mean."

"Nor a Democrat either, I suppose?" said the minister, laughing.

"No, indeed, sir," answered Jasper, con spirito,—"not if I live a hundred."

Mr. Bulkley and I laughed again, and then paced up and down, side by side, the centre walk of the garden, which was nicely edged with box, and hard with well-rolled gravel.

"So you took shelter at Colonel Allerton's," said he, "during the thunder shower. You were in luck; for it is not easy to get admission there. And did you see Miss Eleanor, too?"

I told him all the circumstances of my adventure, and concluded by begging him to let me know who these mysterious people were.

"All I know about them," he replied, "is soon told. You must have heard of the famous Tory, John Allerton, so notorious in colonial history before the Revolution. He was attorney-general, and afterwards judge of admiralty, under the crown, in Hutchinson's time, and went away with the Tories. Well, this gentleman is his son, who, at the time the siege was formed, was in college, and, not being recalled in season, was cut off from the town and prevented from joining his family. We kept him, together with other members of Tory families in the same predicament,—women and children chiefly,—in a sort of honorable captivity, as hostages for the good treatment of the families of the patriots who were detained in Boston. I was acquainted with Judge Allerton's family, and was able to make the young man more comfortable than he would have been otherwise."

"Was there no communication between these prisoners at large, in and out of the town, and their families all that time?" I inquired.

"When a flag was sent in or out on other business," he replied, "open letters, to be inspected by the authorities on either side, might be exchanged. That was all that could be allowed. I tried to get permission for young Allerton to go into the town when it became tolerably certain that it must be evacuated; but the apprehension of the mischief that the British troops might do as they retreated prevented our parting with any pledge of their good behavior. He was sent to Halifax, however, in the first cartel that came in for exchange of prisoners afterwards."

"And what was his history after that?" I asked.

"I merely know its outlines," replied Mr. Bulkley. "The British government behaved well, as you know, to the loyalists who had suffered in its cause. Judge Allerton received a liberal compensation (though necessarily not a full one) for his losses, and was appointed chief justice of Barbadoes, where he died. This son, the only child he had, received a commission in the army, and rose early to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He resigned, however, many years ago, on his marriage with Esther Arbuthnot."

"And who was she, sir?" I inquired.

"She was the daughter of Peter Arbuthnot, another famous Tory. He was registrar-general. I remember her well, before the siege, as a pretty little girl. Her father was made a commissary, and afterwards became a contractor, and made a large fortune in Mr. Pitt's first war against the French Revolution. This, I presume, all went to his daughter, Mrs. Allerton; for his only son died before him, in Jamaica, of the yellow-fever. I knew him well, poor fellow; and so did your father."

"And Mrs. Allerton is dead, too, I suppose," said I.

"Yes, she died, ten years or more ago, in the south of England, where they lived after their marriage, chiefly."

"And how came they in this country again?" I inquired; "and when did they come?"

"They came about two years ago," he replied; "but the why and wherefore I do not profess to know. Mr. Hayley, his man of business in Boston, told me that it was to look after the landed estates of his great-uncle, Ralph Clarke, who died without heirs, just as Madison's war began, in 1812, and which escheated to the state. He has sent in a petition to the General Court, and is prosecuting it; but the estates are hardly valuable enough to account for such an exertion, even if his chance for getting them were better than it is like to be."

"But how came they here?" I asked. "What particular attraction drew them to Wensley of all places in the world?"

"Why, I believe I must do my modesty the violence to say that I consider myself a main cause of that," responded the minister. "I was in Boston, attending the convention,1 during election week, just at the time he came to town from New York, where he arrived from England, and happened to meet him at dinner at General Bradstreet's. He remembered our old acquaintanceship, which was renewed the sooner that I was almost the only one surviving of his former friends. He came up to visit me; and just at that time the estate where he now lives was for sale. Old Mr. Remington, whose father built it early in the last century, was just dead; and his third wife, promoted to be his widow, preferred living in Boston, where her wisdom has been justified," he went on laughing, "by her marrying the other day, Dr. Hobart of the New East Church."

[1Of Congregational ministers, held that week in Boston from time immemorial.]

"And so he bought the Remington estate," suggested I, to bring him back from this episode.

"Yes," he replied; "its solitariness seemed to suit him; and there was something about the lay of the land and the disposition of the trees which reminded him of Walford Hall, his house in Devonshire. I flatter myself that my being his neighbor was no objection in his eyes; but I am quite sure that there being no other within seven miles was a still greater inducement."

"It must be rather dull for the young lady," said I.

"One would think so," said he; "but she seems perfectly well content with their way of life. She is a charming creature, although a most loyal subject, like her father, to his Britannic Majesty. Still, she has won all hearts in the town by her beauty and graciousness. Even Jasper has surrendered to her; though he still holds out against the old Tory, her father."

"And is he the only one of the Wensleyans that holds fast to the faith that their fathers delivered to them—of hating the Tories?" I inquired.

"Almost the only one," he replied. "Colonel Allerton's liberality, and kindness of heart, have succeeded in driving away the prejudices and suspicions with which he was at first regarded. Even Jasper's professions of dislike I fancy to be rather a point of honor than of feeling with him. Corporal Berry himself, although he has limped through life cursing the Tories, ever since he was shot through the leg at the time of Arnold's attack on New London, could not withstand the battery of blankets, flannels, meat, wine, and firewood, that was kept up on his citadel at the north part of the town, when he was close besieged by the rheumatism last winter. He even calls his benefactor 'colonel;' which Jasper has not made up his mouth to do yet," he added, laughing.

"You give them a good character, sir," I said.

"No better than they deserve," he answered. "I have unlimited authority to call upon him in case of any distress in the town. And, what is better, he and his daughter often visit in person poor people in sickness or other trouble, to see for themselves what they really most need. He says it is a habit they formed at home—by which he means England, of course. And what else do you think he is going to do for the town, sir?"—and he rubbed his hands gleefully at the thought,—"a clock, sir, a clock for the meeting house! He had old Willard up here last month, and has given him an order for one of his best. It will set the poor old thing quite on its legs again." And he looked affectionately at the tower, as if he beheld in vision its future glories.

"Deacon Holt," he went on, "objected to it as unscriptural, at first; but I put him down with the dial of Ahaz, and clinched the argument by the examples of the Old South and other sound churches of Boston. So it is all settled now, sir, and the orthodoxy of the clock is fully established."

And he laughed out one of his ringing, musical laughs, which I still hear in my mind's ear, (why should not the mind have an ear as well as an eye? it certainly should be allowed the full possession of all its senses), and then led the way into the house to tea. As the sabbath began at Wensley on Saturday night at sundown, ceasing at sundown on Sunday, I retired to my chamber after tea, and spent the evening in preparing an epistle to the Deipnosophoi, describing the adventures of which their enthusiasm for the vital principles of their foundation had been the remote cause. This finished, and directed to Tom Stacey, the worthy head of the order, I went to bed with even a better opinion of Wensley, as a place of academic retirement, than I had the night before.

————

CHAPTER V.

MY FIRST SUNDAY IN WENSLEY.

THE next morning was a truly delicious one. The shower of the afternoon before had cleared the air, and breathed a fresh life of verdure into the trees and grass. White, fleecy, Ruysdaelesque clouds floated in the azure depths, relieved in sharp perspective against the blue; and their gigantic shadows gave a fresh grace to the landscape as they glided over meadow, stream, and tufted hill. I sat at my window, after breakfast, and revelled in the affluence of rural sights and sounds and smells which were poured out around me. I had left the minister in sole possession of his study, both that he might give, if he chose, a finer edge and point to the spiritual shafts he had been forging the day before, to be aimed on this at the hearts of his flock, and also because, though there was nothing in the least grim about his piety, he maintained a uniformity of seriousness in his deportment on Sundays very different from his working-day manner, which made it more agreeable to me to sabbatize by myself in my own room.

We often hear of the sabbath stillness of a day or place; and it seems to be generally taken for granted, because Sunday is a day of rest, that it is, therefore, a day of unusual quietness. Now, it was not so at Wensley. On the other six days of the week the very spirit of repose seemed to be brooding over the town. Sitting at my back window, which commanded a lovely bend of the Quasheen, always brimming to the brink but never overflowing, with rich fields sprinkled with timber sloping down green and firm to its very margin, and, on the farther side, with the sweetest little wooded knoll lying clasped in its embrace,—sitting there, I say, one might imagine one's self leagues away from any habitation or haunt of men. No sight or sound was there that was not intensely rural. The silence was audible, and made only the more palpable to the mind by the chirping of birds, the hum of insects, the quiver of the leaves, and the rippling of the waters. And on the street side it was only now and then that an ox-cart came creaking lazily along the road, or a barefooted urchin loitered whistling by as he drove the cows to pasture, or home again. It always seemed to me as if it were an outlying dependency of the Castle of Indolence, just beyond the park-palings, and that one might see its dreamy turrets rising above the woods in the distance, if one would but take the trouble to look for them. I dare say it was not a great way off.

But on Sunday it was quite another thing. Then there were sights and sounds that gave a human interest to the scene. As long as Mr. Bulkley lived, there was no schism in Wensley. Methodists, Baptists, and Universalists refused to disturb the quiet of his parish while it was his. But when he slept with his predecessors, the revolutionary spirit, which had been controlled by the personal affection felt for him, broke forth; and its monuments are to be seen in three or four ugly little wooden conventicles, which perk their pert cupolas in the face of the good old meeting-house, like so many irreverent Quakers or Anabaptists giving themselves airs of equality in the presence of an ancient, substantial, steeple-crowned, Puritan magistrate. But in my time there was no open dissent. The meeting-house at the Centre was the only one in the town. It was a large building, with two galleries, and every part of it was entirely filled every Sunday. It was a sight which has not been seen in New England, I suppose, for twenty years at least; if, indeed, this were not the last surviving example of an absolutely unbroken parish.

After the first bell had rung, the roads leading to the meeting-house, which was fully commanded by my window, began to be alive with church-goers, and to pour an increasing tide upon the green on which the building stood. Some came on horseback, but more in bellows-top chaises, or gigs with leathern heads, that shut back with springs, and had a certain resemblance to the follicular convenience from which they derived their name. A few were conveyed in vehicles which have been long numbered among the extinct races, and which had come down from the middle of the last century. Square-top chaises they were denominated, or gigs with immovable leathern heads, and little windows at the back and sides. Some of them had a seat in front for a boy to sit upon, and drive. But modern Wensley (or young Wensley, as it would be called now) turned up its nose at these venerable relics of a former generation, and (to anachronize a little slang) voted them "slow;" which, indeed, they were.

But the greater part of the people, young and old, honestly trudged on foot. They came trooping along in families, and sometimes in pairs, the latter not unfrequently looking rather sheepish and conscious; though I am sure I don't know why they should. They were perfectly well-behaved young men and women for all I could see. Arrived at the church, the "leathern conveniences" were put in the horse-sheds which formed a sort of outwork on three sides of the meeting house. The women all entered the house as they arrived, and were seen no more by me for the time; but the men remained without, standing about the door or dispersed in groups over the green, discussing the weather, the crops, or the next election. It was their weekly exchange.

As I watched this lively scene, the second bell began to ring. Presently Jasper tapped at my door to let me know that the minister was ready to proceed, and I incontinently joined him. The moment the door of the parsonage opened, and the minister was seen to issue forth, the bell began to toll, and the men about the church-door to hurry in. Mr. Bulkley, leaning upon my arm, walked on erect and stately; while Jasper, no less stately and erect, followed us, a few paces behind, with a music-book under his arm. As we advanced in this state, I saw a plain carriage and pair drive up from the direction of the bridge and stop at the meeting-house door. Of course I knew that it must contain my hosts of the thunder-shower. The horses were spirited and restive; and, before the elderly coachman could descend from his box, a white-headed old man hobbled up, and opened the carriage-door and let down the steps. The minister pressed my arm, and said, with rather a weekdayish look out of the corner of his eye, in a low tone,—

"Corporal Berry opening Colonel Allerton's carriage door! Toryism is triumphant in Wensley, I'm afraid;—or would be, but for Jasper."

A guttural ejaculation, rather emphatic than distinct, and which, we will charitably hope, had no element of profanity in it, was heard behind us, expressive of the patriotic consistency of that veteran's opinions. There was a slight symptom of incipient rebellion in the region round about the minister's mouth; but he resolutely quelled the insurrectionary tendency, and arrived at the church door the very personification of gravity.

Mr. Bulkley strode up the broad aisle with majestic self-possession, the whole congregation remaining standing to receive him. I, who was not accustomed to be the target at which such volleys of eyeshot were directed as were now aimed at me, followed him with less ease and a good deal more self-consciousness. Arrived at the pulpit-end of the aisle, he opened the door of his pew, the front one on the left-hand side, and, waving me into it, ascended the pulpit-stairs as a king might mount to his ancestral throne. As soon as he had disappeared in its vast recesses, a noise not unlike an irregular volley of musketry was heard over the house, being that of the seats slamming down, which had been turned back on their hinges, for room's sake. It was a fortunate hearing for me; for, not being acquainted with this fact in the natural history of the old parish churches in the country, I should have infallibly seated myself on the floor but for the warning sound. This same salute was repeated every time that the congregation resumed their seats after rising for any of the services, and was generally executed with a fervor commensurate, as I suppose, with the warmth of their devotion.

Jasper I had missed as soon as we entered the house; and I was pleased to discern him belaboring a huge bass viol in the choir (for that innovation had reached even the seclusion of Wensley) when we stood up at singing time. I also discerned that the Allerton pew was on the opposite side of the aisle, answering to the minister's. But devout church-goers need not to be told that this is one of the most unfavorable situations for personal observations of an edifying nature, that the economy of an ecclesiastical interior affords. A place in the deacon's seat—where Deacon Holt and Deacon Williams, the one burly and red-faced, and the other lank, lean, and squinting in every direction, sat with their backs to the pulpit, overlooking the audience—would have been a much more eligible position for enjoying some of the incidental advantages of public worship. As it was, I could only observe that Miss Allerton was quietly attentive to what was going on; while her father, like an old soldier as he was, fairly dropped asleep with a cannonade of the heaviest sort thundering over his head, aimed at the errors of the Church of England, of which communion he and his daughter were the only two members within a dozen miles. But the serene height, away up under the sounding-board, from which he manœuvred his ecclesiastical artillery, saved the good parson from the mortification of seeing how his hot shot passed over the head of the enemy.

Dear old man! he never held back his hand from smiting the heretical Philistines that infested the region round about. His were good old-fashioned polemical sermons, well fortified with texts of Scripture, and garnished with quotations in the original tongues, which were none the less relished by the congregation because they did not understand them. It confirmed them in the faith, which was only second to that they entertained for Holy Writ, that he was the most learned man in the world. To be sure, there must have been all this time an undercurrent of heresy loosening the hold of some of his people upon their old anchorage, as we know from its breaking openly forth as soon as his restraining power was removed, and scattering abroad the barks which had remained peacefully in the old harbor as long as he had command of the fleet. But, during that period, no piratical Universalist, nor buccaneering Methodist, ventured to hoist a flag in the calm waters of Wensley. But he kept his batteries pounding away at them, and at all dissentients from the strictest rule of the ancient faith of New England, all the same as if they were within point blank range of his guns. I have often thought whether this persistent warfare upon his theological enemies, and the constant statement of their arguments, which was necessary to give force to his refutations, might not have had something to do in bringing about that dispersion which followed so soon after his death.

Mr. Bulkley was, as I have said, a Calvinist of the very straitest sect; and he was none the less earnest a one for having become such, as the Quakers say, "by way of convincement." He was born and bred in the Arminian, or Latitudinarian, school of the last century; and when that form of faith lapsed into Unitarianism at the beginning of this, he was at first carried by the tide into those waters. The investigation, however, which the Unitarian controversy induced, led him ere long to cut away from his old moorings, and to drop his anchor where he thought it would take a firmer hold. But, surely, never did a more genial and affectionate spirit qualify the severe necessities of religious logic. A milder and kinder soul never looked forward to the ultimate damnation of the vast majority of mankind, including all heathendom, ancient and modern, and all unregenerate infancy; for he was not a man to shrink from the logical consequences of his premises. He pitied the Unitarians; but he cordially despised those divines, claiming to hold the good old Orthodox faith, who devised ways of escape from the stern results of the doctrines of election and reprobation, of original sin and redemption by grace. He used to call them——; but, on the whole, it's no matter what he used to call them. It was not a complimentary epithet.

But not only did he keep at bay during his time all avowed adversaries of the faith that was in him, but he kept at a distance, also, all irregular practitioners even of the regular school. "How many years have you preached here, sir?" I asked him one day. "I have reigned here," he replied, nodding his head cornerwise at me with an indescribable look of fun out of his gray eyes,—"I have reigned here forty years save one." And it was very much so. It was his business to take care of the souls of his parish; and he would have no assistance but such as he chose to call in on his own responsibility. No strolling revivalist, or starveling evangelist, ever ventured to set foot on the remotest corner of his territories as long as his sway lasted. Had he heard of such an incursion, I will not say that he would have taken down the firelock of Lexington, or drawn the sword of Yorktown, from their honorable retirement over his fireplace, to vindicate the integrity of his soil; but I do think he would have charged the invader, at the head of Jasper, gold-headed cane in hand, and driven him over the border, an example to all such intruders for the time to come. And the whole parish would have stood by him.

For my own part, I had many a sermon launched at my head during the time I lived with him, as I sat defenceless under the shadow of his pulpit. For I was (to use another Quakerism) a "birthright" Unitarian; and he doubtless felt it to be his duty to set in order before me the errors of my hereditary faith. But it was all in vain. I knew nothing of the arguments on my side of the question: indeed, I could not well see that there was any such thing as standing up before the battalions of texts, and squadrons of syllogisms, with which he bore down upon me, and rode furiously over me. But, though he could overrun me, he could not keep possession of me. All I knew was that my father and mother had been Unitarians; and I regarded it as a point of honor, binding upon me as a gentleman, not to forsake the faith in which they had lived and died. I was by no means clear that my Mentor was not right, and that the doom which he so fervidly described as that of all such misbelievers did not impend over my head. But that made no difference. It merely gave me a kind of exhilaration of spirits (I neither account for the phenomenon nor defend it: I merely describe the sensation), such as a suspicion of danger, or the knowledge that he is considered as exposed to it, is apt to inspire in a lad of spirit. And I rather think I was quite as well fitted to die for my faith, in a war of religion, or at the stake, as a good many heroes and saints who have won for themselves the crown of martyrdom. But all Mr. Bulkley's prelections for my benefit were confined to Sunday and the pulpit. He never labored for my conversion in private. Either he saw that I had a good share of that virtue which we call firmness in another when it answers our purposes, and obstinacy when it thwarts them, and so knew it would be of no use, or else he thought that his Sunday labors would be more likely to act favorably on my mind if he left them to their natural influences during the week, without disgusting me with his zeal by making it a perpetual annoyance. Whatever his motive might have been, I was very happy to compound for the result.

When the services were at last over (and it was an at last, for Mr. Bulkley was none of your twenty-minute men) and the benediction was pronounced, I hastily gathered together my hat and gloves, and was for joining in the precipitate retreat I had always seen expected from all the churches I had ever attended before. But I had no sooner thrown open the pew-door, and put one foot out of it, than I saw that all the rest of the congregation remained standing, with their faces turned towards the broad aisle. I drew back, and, raising my eyes, encountered those of Colonel Allerton, who stood facing me. He smiled at me, as if understanding my case (very likely it had been his own once), and bowed, as if recalling our interview of the day before. I returned his bow, not a little abashed at finding myself again the centre of all the eyes Wensley had in its head, and, abiding the result, presently perceived that it was the custom of the town (once universal throughout New England) to wait and let the minister go out first. Presently Mr. Bulkley descended the pulpit-stairs, not having apparently hurried himself at all, and passed slowly down the aisle, bowing royally from side to side in acknowledgment of the rustic salutations which he received. As soon as he approached me, he made me a sign to follow him, and then shook hands with Colonel Allerton, who joined him in his progress through the capital of his dominions.

It was a necessary consequence of this order of procession, that Miss Allerton and I came out face to face into the aisle. She graciously returned my bow; and we walked after the elders, side by side, kindling yet more speculation in all the eyes of Wensley, eager to spy out what I could be. As we came out into the porch, the two gentlemen remained a little on one side in conversation, and I proceeded to put the young lady into the carriage which stood ready drawn up at the door. I hoped that she had experienced no harm from the shower yesterday afternoon; which hope, she was able to inform me had become fruition. I then informed her that it was an uncommonly fine day, and on this point I am happy to say our views cordially coincided. What I should have stated next, I can hardly imagine; for the congregation were now swarming out, and many were lingering within earshot to discover what sweet influences this "bright particular star" of theirs was shedding upon me; and the consciousness of this fact did not help to concentrate my ideas. But, fortunately, just at that moment her father approached, and, as he stood with one foot on the carriage-step, he offered me his hand, saying,—

"Mr. Osborne, I am happy to know your father's son. I met him often, and knew him well, at Paris, when I was there during the peace of Amiens."

I bowed and blushed my acknowledgments for his goodness.

"I hope," he continued, "that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at Woodside at some time when you can have a less stormy reception than that you had yesterday."

"I could not have a kinder one, I am sure, sir," I replied, "nor one that I should be more happy to experience again, if you will allow me to pay my respects to you and to Miss Allerton."

"With all my heart," said he, smiling; "only without the thunder and lightning, if you please. We three may meet again, I hope; but not, I trust, in thunder, lightning, and in rain. So good morning."

And they drove away, leaving me upon the steps. And now, I suppose, the sagacious reader will expect an account of my sensations; for of course he (or she) takes it for granted that I fell fearfully in love with the fair Eleanor at first sight. But they must wait a while. I am not quite ready to go into the confessional just yet, with his (or her) ear glued to the grating. Perhaps I scarcely knew how I felt myself; for I have more than once acknowledged my inaptitude for the dissections and demonstrations of metaphysical anatomy. And perhaps it is hardly fair to require a man to conduct his own autopsy. But whatever may have been my own state of mind, one fact, mortifying as it may be, I must needs confess. It must be admitted that the beautiful Eleanor did not fall in love with me either at first or second sight. Perhaps it was no proof of her taste or discernment; but the fact cannot be denied. Her deportment towards me was perfectly kind and well-bred; but I could not help feeling that my image might never again occur to her, if not recalled by my bodily presence. Of course, such a conviction was not flattering to my vanity (if, indeed, I or any man was ever subject to such a weakness); but did it go near breaking my heart? It is altogether too near the end of a chapter to enter into an inquiry of this intricacy, and so it must be adjourned to a day future. I am none of your epic writers, who dive at once into the middle of things, and then plunge and splash about until they have somehow or another brought the beginning and end together. I am a plain narrator of a simple passage of biography, and tell things just as they happened, and must be allowed to take my own way, or I shall be sure to make a botch of the whole thing.

When they were gone, Mr. Bulkley put his arm in mine, and we walked off towards the parsonage together. He told me, what I had surmised before, that I was what they were talking about, he having asked Colonel Allerton if he had not known my father during his public life in Europe. He had then told the Colonel who I was, and, as I surmised, the occasion of my residence in Wensley; but he did not say so, nor did I ask, as the day, if not the subject, was too serious for a joke, and it would have been too much for his human nature or mine to have suppressed one under such favorable circumstances. The order of our return home was the reverse of that which had distinguished our march to the meeting-house; for Jasper, instead of bringing up our rear, was discerned far in our van, and, in fact, just entering the parsonage. This apparent breach of subordination, however, would have been pardoned by a stricter martinet than I, on beholding the excellent cold dinner which he had set out in the study, ready for us on our arrival: at least it would have been, if the martinet in supposition had been as hungry as the worthy parson's diatribe against bishops had made me.

————

CHAPTER VI.

AN INVITATION AND A DINNER AT WENSLEY.

THE Allerton pew was empty in the afternoon. I was not sure that it was not the morning's onslaught upon the Anglican church that had driven away its inhabitants, until Jasper assured me that they never went to meeting in the afternoon. This he resented as a slight to his master, and as one of the many mischiefs of the Church of England, for which the worthy Afrite had much the same mysterious horror that many excellent people feel for the Church of Rome, and probably with about the same degree of knowledge. I discovered, afterwards, that it was the belief of Wensley that there was a chapel fitted up at Woodside, where the Colonel read the service of the church to his daughter and her maid, Ann Petchell, the only other member of that communion in Wensley. This was some explanation of the phenomenon to its curious inhabitants, and perhaps made them easier under it, on Priest Bulkley's account, of whose honor they were as jealous as Jasper himself. I am bound to say, however, that a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the house in after-times never revealed to me any such secret place of worship; and

Colonel Allerton, with all his various excellences, seemed to me as little likely to become an amateur chaplain as any possible man when I came to know him better.

These facts, or myths, I learned that evening from the conversation of Deacon Williams and Major Grimes, and one or two of the parish besides, who called in to see the parson, and possibly to take a look at me also. When the sun went down on the day which bears his name, all the sabbatical shade of seriousness which rested upon it passed away with him. By this time Mr. Bulkley's spirits seemed to rebound from the pressure of unwonted solemnity, and to be elastic and joyous as usual. His stories were more and better; he fought his old battles over again with new vigor; and his jest was more frequent, and his laugh more resonant, than ever. Sunday evening was the time when his parishioners usually came to call on him. Then they were mutually at each other's service. They had nothing to do; and he was well content to do nothing in their company after the labors of the day.

He was a student of men as well as of books; and I have never known any one better versed in the niceties of Yankee character and dialect than he. He could draw them out with marvellous skill, of which the subjects were perfectly unsuspicious, and all with no shadow of ill nature, or purpose of satire. It was simply the study of man, in which he delighted, and for which he must use such materials as came in his way. As we sat round the wall in summer, waging internecine war with the mosquitoes or round the fire in cold weather, discussing all manner of public and parish politics, with the apples and cider, which formed the staple entertainment, there were odd traits of character, and curiosities of expression, enough to have made the fortunes of a score of Yankee Hills or Haliburtons. I wonder whether there are any such people left anywhere in New England now. I am afraid that they have had all their sharpnesses ground down by the mill-wheels, and that they are all reduced to undistinguishable particles; or that their originality has been all crushed out of them by the locomotives that fly, screaming like so many devils, all over the country.

Major Grimes, I must do him the justice to say, had changed his mode of address towards me since he had put me in the right way two days before. He was perfectly respectful and deferential now that he found that the old priest had actually received me under his roof, and had discovered, furthermore, who I was.

"You find Priest Bulkley a fine man, sir," said he, when he had an opportunity for an aside, "don't you?" using the epithet "fine," as almost all Americans do, to denote mental and moral qualities, and not, as an Englishman uniformly does, to express fine presence and personal beauty. You may hear an Englishman say, "He is a very fine man: what a pity that he is such a fool!" and an American, "She is a very fine woman: what a pity she should be so homely!" But this is parenthetical.

"From what little I have seen of him, I judge him to be a very fine man," I answered, coolly.

"You will think more and more of him, sir, the more you see of him," replied the major. "I didn't think he meant to take in any more young college gentlemen; but when I heard who you were, from Jasper, when he came after your things, I knew he would."

"Indeed!" said I. "You knew more of my influence over him than I did, then."

"Oh, but your father and he used to be so thick together," rejoined the martial dispenser of toddy; "they were the greatest cronies you ever saw. And the old priest isn't a man to forget his friends, alive or dead, I can tell you. That's why he took you, sir."

"I'm very glad of it, whatever brought it about," said I.

"Your father used always to put up his horses at my place when he came to Wensley. He used to drive a phaeton and pair; and good horses they were, I can tell you, sir. Are you fond of horses, sir?" he went on.

"I like them well enough when I have occasion for them. I am no judge of them, and have nothing of the fancy for them that some men have."

"Because, if you ever want a saddle horse, I don't believe you can find a better in Boston than my Turk; and for a chaise, (videlicet, gig), you won't often sit behind a better beast than my mare, Black Sally. Colonel Allerton wanted to buy her; but it was of no use. I wouldn't part with her."

"The Colonel is a judge of horses, then, I suppose," said I.

"A judge! I believe you!" he replied, briskly. "There isn't a man in New England that knows horse-flesh better. Why, he keeps five himself here; and I have heard say that he had near twenty in England."

"It's no wonder, then," I said, "that he fell in love with Black Sally. I should have thought he would have had her at any rate."

"Well," returned her fortunate possessor, rather drawlingly, "you see he wasn't willing to give me quite as much as I thought he ought to for her. At the same time that I offered her (reasonable, too) to the Colonel, I told him he might have Turk for three hundred. But he didn't want a saddle-horse just then, he said. And I'm glad of it, for I should have missed him training-days. He'll stand cannon, musketry, music, anything. General Smithett would give me five dollars a day for him any muster, if I didn't want him myself."

I was just telling my military friend that I would certainly try the quality of his stud on my first occasion, when a quick double knock was heard at the door, and in another moment the personage whose name was the last word in our mouths was ushered into the presence by Jasper. Colonel Allerton entered nimbly and shook hands cordially with the minister, and afterwards with me; and then, bowing kindly to the other guests, all of whom rose on his entrance, he sat down by me.

"The Parson gave us a capital sermon this morning, Deacon," said he, addressing that functionary, whose eyes seemed to be more than ever in all places at the same time. "Rather hard upon me and my daughter, perhaps. But it is a positive pleasure to be flogged by some people, it is so cleverly done."

I thought the deacon might have said that it was well for some other people, that, like tops, the more they were whipped, the better they slept. But he did not. Perhaps the dispersion of his vision over the remoter regions of the meeting house prevented his seeing what was so directly under his nose. What he said was,—

"I'm glad you liked it, sir."

"Liked it! To be sure I did," rejoined the Colonel; "and, egad, Parson! I should be sorry to be required to answer you. But I'm not converted, for all that, you know. You can't suppose me such a pitiful fellow as to be driven from my religion merely because I can't defend it against a militant minister, armed to the teeth, like you. No, no! You must make another breach before you'll carry me by storm, much less Eleanor."

"I shall try for it, you may be sure," said Mr. Bulkley, smiling; "for I am sure that, if you are hard to carry, you will be easy to hold. There'll be no backsliding in your case, or Miss Eleanor's, either."

"I think you're right, by Jove!" returned the Colonel; "and, that we may keep your good opinion the better, I think we'll not backslide from where we stand now. But do all you can to unsettle us, pray. You are perfectly welcome to do so, if you can, I do assure you."

I felt that if he always had the invention blessed by Sancho about him, to wrap himself in, and to serve as

"Feather bed 'twixt castle wall
And heavy brunt of cannon ball,"

he was really in no great danger from the good parson's theological gunnery.

After a little more talk between them, in which no one else joined, unless appealed to, the Deacon and the Major, followed by the other village visitors, rose and took their leave. As soon as they were gone the Colonel said to the minister,—

"Well, Parson, to show that I bear no malice, I have walked down this fine night to ask you and Mr. Osborne to come and dine with me as soon as you can. When shall it be? To-morrow?"

"To-morrow is rather soon," Mr. Bulkley replied, "as Mr. Osborne and I have not yet reduced ourselves into our order of studies. We had fixed upon to-morrow to begin."

"Very well. If not to-morrow, fix a day for yourself. Only let it be some day this week."

"Shall it be Thursday?" inquired Mr. Bulkley, looking over to me.

I intimated that all days were alike to me, and that Thursday suited me perfectly well. So the dinner was fixed for Thursday.

"I wish to have you come this week," said the Colonel, rising to depart, "because I shall have to go to Boston next week, and may not be able to return until the very end of it, or the beginning of the week after. On Thursday, then, I shall expect you."

And he was taking his leave, when the Parson and I thought that we would walk with him, the night being extremely fine, as far as the bridge. Our society was gladly accepted; and we walked merrily along the road, accompanied by many a story and jest and followed by many a laugh. No doubt, as we passed by the scattered houses of the village, people said, "That's Priest Bulkley's voice! I should know it among a thousand. I wonder if anybody's been took sick. It can't be, though, or he wouldn't laugh so."

At the bridge we parted—the Colonel pursuing his way by the river road, and the Parson and I going back over our steps.

"It was so like him!" said Mr. Bulkley, as soon as we were fairly out of hearing.

"What do you mean, sir?" I asked. "What was so like him?"

"His coming so instantly to invite you," said he.

"He never hangs fire—the Colonel. He always goes off at half-cock."

"Well, sir," I replied, "provided he hits as well as he has to-night, it's not a bad way of going off."

"Not at all, not at all," he returned; "a short aim is generally the best. But he's a queer man, sir, as Jasper told you—an odd compound of openness and reserve. He seems so transparent, that you would think you could see straight through him at a glance. But you will find yourself mistaken. You may look your eyes blind, without really making him out."

"Do you suppose, sir," I asked, "that he has anything really to conceal, or that he does not choose to make talk of his private affairs, merely because they are private?"

"I can't tell," he replied, "I can only say, that intimate as I have been with him, and the only person he really associates with for the greatest part of his time, he has never let a word drop as to any of them; not even as to his motive for coming to this country, or the probable length of his stay. It must be systematic to be so uniform."

"Is he as close as to his life in Europe?" I asked.

"Very nearly," he replied; "that is, as to the more recent part of it. He talks fast enough about old times, and very well too. However, it's none of my business; and I suppose he is of the same opinion. But you will find him a charming companion, as well as Miss Eleanor; and I am glad you have got admission to the house."

"Is she as sly as her father?" I inquired. "She does not seem to have as much to say, at any rate, judging by the little I saw of her."

"I hardly see enough of her by herself to judge," he answered. "And, besides, I am afraid I am hardly the confidant she would be likely to choose if she had anything to tell. But it would not have been strange if her father had sometimes, by chance, let fall to me something of his history or plans that might not be proclaimed in Grimes's bar-room. But no such chance has ever happened. You know as much of them as I do; and what I have told you I obtained from other sources than themselves."

We were now at home; and I bade him good-night, smiling a little, privily, at the good man's curiosity (of which he did not seem at all suspicious) to know of his neighbor's affairs; which, however, I am given to understand, was no idiosyncrasy of his particular constitution, nor even one confined to small rural parishes like Wensley. There was a shade, however, of wounded feeling in his expression, as if he had not received quite a just return for the fulness of confidence he was ready to pour into the bosom of his friend, at which I had no disposition to smile. But is there any of us that has not some Bluebeard's chamber in his heart which he keeps close shut, even to his nearest and dearest? I do not pretend to know more than my neighbors; but, from what I have seen and heard, I surmise that there are married men even, who would be ready to play Bluebeard in good earnest, if they should find that the very wives of their bosoms had found a cranny through which to peer into those prohibited recesses. I wonder what they would see there. And Mr. Bulkley himself,—would he have exposed to the eye of his dearest friend the sacred though dishonored image of his fatal Julia, and the troop of recollections, emotions, and agonies, that waited upon it? I think not, even to have the veil lifted from the most secret places of any other life.

Thursday arrived, as it usually does, as nearly in the middle of the week as possible. And, moreover, it was a very fine day, so that Mr. Bulkley and I chose to go to Woodside on foot, rather than disturb the bones of Smiler, the minister's cross old horse, from their repose in the stable. Jasper had brushed up his master's buckles, and made him as smart as his best coat and breeches (it would hardly be historically correct to call them his new ones) could make him; and, as he was a vigorous walker, we were soon at the hospitable door, which stood open to welcome us. On the threshold stood the master of the house, ready to give us a most cordial reception and to usher us into the presence of his daughter. She looked handsomer than ever; and as she sat in the window (which she had had cut down to the ground, an astonishment to all Wensley) opening into her flower-garden, in the light of that lovely day, she did look as lovely as the day itself.

The dinner was excellent, such as wealthy gentlemen of that day used to set before their guests. The table furniture was handsome but plain, and all display of wealth was evidently repressed. The table linen was of the finest of damask, and the service of Nankin china. The silver forks were the first that had penetrated to Wensley, and were a marvel, and a mystery to its oldest inhabitants, who had never heard of the like. At that time this luxury, which has now become almost a necessity, was confined, even in the cities, to the very rich, and, indeed, not always in daily use with them. So that it is no wonder that their advent caused a sensation in Wensley, nor that Jonathan Snell, the Colonel's coachman, should have condescended one day to take a specimen in his pocket to show to the astonished inhabitants, at their special instance, after custom had bred familiarity with that great man. Mr. Bulkley would never give in to this new fanglement, as he called it. So he was always supplied with a good old-fashioned three-pronged steel fork, with which—"sævitque tridenti"—he did manful execution.

Mr. Bulkley, of course, took Miss Allerton in to dinner—which ceremony he performed by bearing her hand aloft, with an Old-World grace, like a septuagenarian Sir Charles Grandison. He would have scorned the custom, had he been cognizant of it, of clapping a lady's hand under his arm like a brown paper parcel from the grocer's. The Colonel and I followed after them; and though he made no sign of remarking the good man's gallantry, he could not control a little twitching of the muscles about the corners of the mouth. During dinner I had but little to say to Miss Allerton beyond taking wine with her, and assisting her in the dispensation of the dishes at her end of the table. With two elders at table, who talked so much and so well as her father and Mr. Bulkley, there was little occasion or opportunity for us to display any conversational gifts we might possess, except that greatest one of listening well—that "grand talent pour le silence" which Talleyrand (or whoever it was) showed more wit than sense in laughing at. What would he have done, I should like to know, if there were not some people willing to hold their tongues?

It was entertainment enough to sit and hear the two men talk and to look at the lovely mistress of the house. Colonel Allerton had seen all the public and literary men of the end of the last century and the beginning of this, and had known many of them personally. It was something to hear a man talk who had seen Garrick during his last season, and had had the vision of Dr. Johnson rolling along Fleet Street, though he had never met him face to face as an acquaintance. He had breakfasted in company with Gibbon, and had dined at the same table with Sheridan; and, of all the orators and authors and beauties of that period, he had had opportunities of personal observation, and could make report of them from what his own eyes had seen. Whatever secret reserve he might have to his best friends, of which Mr. Bulkley had complained, there was no sign of it in his conversation. Nothing could be more free and flowing than his stream of talk. It seemed as if you had only to give it a direction, and it would waft directly to your feet all the facts of his experience. But he was not in the least an overpowering talker. He did not compel you, as Carlyle says Coleridge did, "to sit as a passive bucket, and be pumped into whether you consent or not;" which, he goes on to say justly, "can, in the long-run, be exhilarating to no creature." On the contrary, he carefully drew out Mr. Bulkley, and made him appear to his best advantage, and was very far from neglecting me.

Mr. Bulkley, indeed, was not a man to be easily put down. Just to others, he was just also to himself, and it would have been a clever man that could rob him of his fair share of what talk was going on. But nobody who had ever heard him talk (your oppressive talkers never hear anybody but themselves) would ever wish that he should talk any less. Though he had lived in retirement so long, still his seven-years' apprenticeship to the world, during the war, had made him a master of that craft, and had furnished him with inexhaustible stores of personal recollections, all connected with the most interesting times and people. Then the very quaintness of manner and speech which his solitary life had bred, set off by his extensive though odd reading, gave a rare raciness to his talk. His intimate acquaintance, too, with the peculiarities of character and dialect of the country people whom he had made his study for so long, and his uncommon powers of mimicry, which he would exert in safe societies, made him, I think, the most entertaining companion I ever met in the course of a pretty long acquaintance with the world.

"The choir sung very well last Sunday, parson," said Colonel Allerton, with the slightest possible glance at his daughter and me. But if there were any irony in the tone, the Parson did not notice it.

"Yes, I think they improve," he said, "I'm sure I take pains enough with them."

"Do you know," returned the Colonel, "that I was rather disappointed, on coming here, at finding the noses of good old Sternhold and Hopkins put out of joint by Dr. Watts? I was in hopes of hearing once more sung, line by line, by the whole congregation, as of old, 'The Lord will come, and he will not;' and then, as a distinct proposition, puzzling to my infancy, 'Keep silence, but speak out!' "

"If you had come only five years sooner, you would have had your wish," replied Mr. Bulkley. "I believe Wensley was the last town that yielded to the innovation. I withstood it as long as I could; but the Association^1 would give me no rest till I fell in with it. But I found it hard work, I assure you."

[1In New England, from the earliest times, the Congregational ministers within a convenient distance of each other form associations, which meet at regular intervals.]

"What! were the people unwilling to make the change?" exclaimed the Colonel. "I respect them for it."

"Loath enough, at first," responded the Parson. "Most of the old women actually believed that those were the very strains which King David sang to his harp, and looked on the change proposed as little short of blasphemy."

"And how did you manage it?" asked Miss Allerton.

"Why, to tell you the truth, my dear young lady," returned the minister, "I found the young people my best allies. The allurement of a singing-school for the winter nights and the glories of the singing gallery on the sabbath, were more than they could resist: so, by playing off the vanities of the young against the prejudices of the old, I gradually brought all round except Deacon Holt. The Deacon maintained the faith long after all the rest had given in."

"And how did you overcome him?" inquired the Colonel.

"I'll tell you," pursued the parson. "I knew that he was as self-willed as one of his own bullocks; and so I left him until the very last of the opponents had submitted. Then, supposing he must have been somewhat mollified by the change of opinion in the parish, I moved up to the attack myself. I found the Deacon sitting at his front door one fine sabbath evening about sundown. The delicious west wind did, to be sure, bring with it an occasional whiff from his slaughter-house hard by; but the Deacon liked it none the worse for that. So, by way of making my approaches regularly, I said, 'An uncommonly fine evening, Deacon.' 'Ya-as, parson,' he replied; 'the weather is dreadful fine, as you say. It somehow makes a fellow feel kind o' nohow. I was just a-saying to Miss (Nov-Anglice for Mrs.) Holt, it was such-a-most-a-beautiful arternoon, if it wasn't that it's Sa-a-ba-a-day, I feel just as if I should like to sla-a-ter suthin!' (slaughter something.)"

The Colonel and I roared at this, of which no print can give any idea of the perfection of the Parson's twang. Miss Allerton laughed too, but with some exclamation of horror at the Deacon's association of ideas.

"But, my dear Miss Eleanor," expostulated Mr. Bulkley, "you should allow for an artist's enthusiasm. I did; and, waiting sympathizingly until it had exhaled, I thought that now was my time; and so I broached the subject at once. 'Deacon,' said I, 'I am surprised to find that a man of your piety and discretion should oppose the substitution of Watts's for the old version;' and then proceeded to give the reasons in favor of the one over the other. He shook his head. 'Parson Bulkley,' said he, 'I'll tell you what: I've two good reasons why I won't never agree to it.'—'May I ask,' said I, 'what they are?'—'My first objection is,' said he, 'that Watts isn't an expired man.' 'Watts not an expired man!' I exclaimed. 'My dear sir, I am astonished to hear a man of your intelligence say such a thing. I do assure you that there is nothing more certain than that he is an expired man.' 'Be you sartain?' the astonished Deacon asked, somewhat shaken by my confidence. 'I am not more certain of my own existence,' I replied; 'it is a perfectly well-established fact.'—'Well,' said he, slowly, 'if you be sartain sure, I s'pose I must give up that pint.' "

We all laughed merrily at this; and the Colonel said, "And what was the other point, Parson?"

"That's just what I asked the Deacon," he replied; "and the Deacon said, 'My second pint is, that there's a word in it that isn't in Scriptur.'—'Indeed!' said I; 'that is vital. Pray, what is the word?'—'PAUSE!' said the Deacon; 'there's the word pause in it; and it ain't nowhere in the Bible!' and he looked triumphantly at me, as if he had cornered me now.1 'My good friend,' I replied, 'I am more astonished at this objection than at the other. Pause not in the Bible! Please just reach it to me. Look here, now (1 Sam. xvii. 37), "The Lord hath delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear." The paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, taken together, make "paws," don't they? How can you say, then, and you so well read in the Bible, that the word paws isn't in it?' "

[1The non-evangelical reader, if, unfortunately, there are any such, may need to be informed that Dr. Watts hath divided his longer psalms and hymns into two or more portions by the interposition of the word "PAUSE."]

We all shouted with laughter at this new exegesis; and Miss Eleanor fairly clapped her hands, saying, "And was the Deacon silenced?"

"Completely," replied Mr. Bulkley. "He has never been heard to say a word against Dr. Watts or his psalms from that day to this. My victory was complete. But this is the first time I ever told the particulars, and you will see that I have put myself in your power. It is a secret of the confessional. But I am not afraid to trust you."

The cloth being removed. Colonel Allerton said, that, out of regard to Mr. Bulkley's feelings, he would give the President's health first; but it was on condition that the King's should be duly honored afterwards. As the wine was excellent, of course the minister made no objection to this; only when the toast was given he slyly improved it as he drank it, thus: "The King's health—and amendment!" And even these, his loyal subjects, in view of the recent developments consequent on the Queen's trial, could hardly say that his Majesty was absolutely beyond the reach of such an aspiration.

Miss Allerton soon withdrew; and as the two gentlemen began to talk politics earnestly, about which I cared nothing, I overcame the opposition of my natural bashfulness, and yielded to the influence of the more attractive metal in the drawing room,—or parlor, as it was called in those days,—and soon joined her.

She made room for me by her window, and, the excellences and oddities of Mr. Bulkley giving us a beginning, we soon went off into a brisk conversation. Perhaps she found that I was not quite such a booby boy as she might have taken it for granted I was. I did not waste much of my time at the university, to be sure, upon the stupid routine laid down by the authorities; but then I was extremely well read in many authors not contained in the college course. The respective merits of Lord Byron and Walter Scott, the mystery hanging over the Waverley novels, the relative rank to be assigned to those delightful fictions, the comparison of our opinions as to our favorite characters, gave us plenty to say.

We did not always agree, by any means. For instance, she was a warm admirer of Wordsworth; whereas I was entirely too bigoted a devotee of the Byronic school to allow him more than a very small modicum of merit. I remember that I made her lift up her hands and eyes by denying that he was the founder of any school at all, only a duller sort of Cowper, with Cowper's knack at landscape-painting, but without his wit. She retorted, however, by asserting that Byron plagiarized from Wordsworth in the third canto of "Childe Harold," which I stoutly denied; declaring, however, that, if he had, Wordsworth should be forever obliged to him for the honor done him. This was all said playfully and banteringly on both sides; and, when the two gentlemen came in to coffee, we were on the easiest terms imaginable.

After coffee, Miss Allerton gave us some music. In those days people had not grown too fine to like Tom Moore; and she sung "Oft in the Stilly Night" and the "Last Rose" with a roundness of voice and pathos of tone which made the tears roll down Parson Bulkley's withered cheeks. Moore was as fresh to him as Byron, and he could not deny his lyric power. He was never tired of hearing his Melodies sung even by me, much less by the fair Eleanor. But as there must be an end of all things, however pleasant, so the time came in due course when we had to take our leave. Mr. Bulkley made the move about eight o'clock. Miss Allerton cordially offered me her hand at parting, and joined in her father's hearty and repeated invitation to visit Woodside as often as I could.

Mr. Bulkley said, as we went along, that I was a lucky dog to find such a solace to my exile in that out-of-the-way place; and, indeed, I was very much inclined to think that my reverend friend was not far wrong in his opinion. We talked the day over merrily as we walked home, where we found Jasper waiting for us in the study. I went to bed early, and fell asleep in a confused whirl of ideas and images. I remember that I could hardly believe that it was only a week since the scientific session of the Deipnosophoi had resulted in my finding myself where I was. It seemed an age since then. I don't see why it should. Why should my making the acquaintance of two old gentlemen and one young lady (for I don't believe Jasper had anything to do with it) make that week seem so long? I am sure it had been a pleasant one enough. But, as I have said formerly, I am no metaphysician, and only state facts in psychology, without pretending to explain them.

————

CHAPTER VII.

BEING ONE OF ACCIDENTS.

MY acquaintance with Miss Allerton went on prosperously from that time forward. The next Sunday evening, I walked over to Woodside to call upon its inhabitants after their hospitality, and was invited to join their riding-party the next afternoon. This enabled me to redeem my promise to Major Grimes, that I would improve the first opportunity that offered of putting the virtues of Turk to the test of experience. Perhaps I did not feel as much surprise, after this taste of his quality, at Colonel Allerton's refusal to come up to the worthy Major's terms at the time the treaty for the possession of that valuable animal was pending, as his gallant proprietor expressed when he gave me the history of the negotiation. But I forbear to dilate on his personal qualities. Such a digression would be foreign to the purpose of this work. If his performance did not absolutely come up to the promise of the Major, still I imagine that officer was not the first military commander whose bulletin was more brilliant than his campaign. If he did not excel all other steeds in swiftness, he might be pardoned as a comfortable exception to the celerities of the fast age in which he lived; though indeed, at that time, it was but just getting its speed up. If he did stumble a little now and then, let the biped that hath never done the same thing, and with less provocation and on a smoother road, throw the first stone at poor Turk. I remember him with emotions of tenderness; for he is associated with the beginning of a memorable acquaintanceship, and of a succession of charming rides, that lovely summer, through a country as lovely, in my eyes, as the summer itself.

Philosophers differ as to the very most advantageous position in which one can be placed in relation to a charming young lady on whom one has no specific objection to making an agreeable impression. Some think that a walk "by moon or glittering starlight" is the very best invention that the wit of man hath ever hit upon; other some, that the corner of a blazing wood-fire on a winter's evening is indeed "a coign of vantage," if rightly improved by a judicious mind. There are who hold that a sleigh-ride in a clear, cold, crackling, winter's night, is not incapable of being turned to a good account, with all its manifold exhilarations and excitations. And there are not wanting who maintain that a ball-room, with all its heat, and crush, and bustle,—

"When music softens, and when dancing fires,"—

furnishes that exact combination of proximity and isolation, which constitutes the most congenial atmosphere for civilized love to grow in, from the first incipiency of flirtation to the final desperation of proposal. There was much to be said in behalf of this theory in the days before the incursions of barbarian dances had shaken the institutions of civilized ball-rooms to their foundations. The country-dances of our ancestors, and the quadrilles of our own times, were not unfavorable to the gentle flutterings of the hovering Loves. But it must be a stout Cupid indeed, of a robust constitution and a hardy disposition, that can stand up before the frantic rush of a polka or redowa, and not be swept away into utter annihilation by the very tempest and whirlwind of those whisking petticoats.

But it is my notion that a tête-à-tête ride on horseback, through lonely lanes and solitary wood-paths, is not the worst way of being brought into confidential communications with a lovely young woman. Sometimes, you know, one cannot avoid guiding her bridle-hand in some emergent difficulty; and cases have come to my knowledge in which an enlightened philanthropy could not be satisfied without supporting her jimp waist with a sustaining arm in narrow and perilous passes. A painful and dangerous position indeed; but then, you must allow, one could not suffer her to run the risk of falling from her horse. I wonder the Humane Society does not reward such heroic risks by the awarding of gold medals to the virtuous adventurers. Merely plunging into the water to pull out a stupid boy or blundering man were a safe and easy feat in the comparison.

My Monday's ride with Colonel Allerton and his daughter was blessed to me in this very form and manner. Finding that I was a tolerable horseman, and withal a very modest and discreet youth, the Colonel proposed to me that I should accompany the young lady in her rides during the rest of the week, which, as he had previously informed me, he should be obliged to pass in Boston.

"And, by the by," said he, in reply to my blushing acceptance of his proposition,—"by the by, I think you had better make use of my Prince here. I fancy he will carry you better than the beast you have under you. Isn't that the horse Grimes wanted me to buy?"

"The horse you wanted to buy of him, rather," I replied, laughing; "for that was the statement the Major made to me of the case."

"Was it, indeed!" he answered, laughing in his turn. "I certainly ought to have wanted to buy him if he had had half the virtues vouched for him by the Major, and he would have been cheap at twice the money. But it was he proposed the trade, and he had the impudence to ask three hundred dollars for him."

"So I inferred, from what dropped from him afterwards," said I. "But your refusal, sir, raised you many degrees in his estimation. He thinks you a doctor in the science he esteems the highest of all—the science of horse flesh."

"I could hardly help picking up the elements," he replied, "considering I was for more than twenty years in a cavalry regiment. I do not profess to be a doctor, or even a master, in the art; but I know enough to know that such a brute as that is not worth the half of three hundred dollars."

The next day Colonel Allerton departed for Boston, and in the afternoon I walked over to Woodside, and found Miss Eleanor all ready, waiting for me, her Fairy and her father's Prince pawing the gravel before the hall door. We were soon in the saddle, and, as she was perfectly well acquainted with the country for ten miles round, we were not long in reaching as sweet a winding and wooded by-road as any country could furnish. The mania for improvement, so deeply seated in the character of New England, which, at the beginning of this century, found its relief in cutting infinitely extended straight lines of turnpike roads in every direction over the country, had spared this remote corner of its domain. Even the road to Haverford, by which I had journeyed to Wensley, was the old road, which, avoiding the turnpike, (as the road itself is invariably called in New England), meandered about from village to village, according as the early settlers had arranged the division of the soil when they first helped themselves to it. And so the by-roads through which our course lay wound themselves around the homesteads and outlying fields of the farmers, or swept by the skirts of their woodlands (wood-lots they call them there) like Schiller's river,—

"Honoring the holy bounds of property."

"Is this ride anything like those you had in Devonshire, Miss Allerton?" I inquired of my fair companion, as the road plunged into a depth of wood thick with brushwood, the branches of the pines almost making it impassable for two riding abreast, so broad and long did they stretch themselves. "You are too civilized there, I take it, to permit such impediments as these to cross your path."

"Yes," she replied; "England has been inhabited rather too long to have left many such primitive scenes as this—at least in the south, where I have mostly lived. I never saw that, for instance," she said, pointing with her riding-whip to the tangled undergrowth which choked up the passages between the trunks of the trees,—"I never saw anything like that till I came here."

"And you wish it away, as a deformity, I suppose," said I.

"No, not as a deformity," she replied; "it is characteristic of an aboriginal wood, as I suppose this really is; for, though the ancestors of these trees may have been cut away once or twice, I fancy it has never been anything but a forest; and it is picturesque and beautiful in itself. But I own I long for an opening now and then under the trees, by which one might escape from the beaten road, like a damsel or knight of fairy in quest of adventures."

"We must first find a well-disposed magician, or benevolent enchantress, to clear our way for us," I answered; "for I fear that we shall never find the undergrowth cleared away by any Yankee, until the caitiff is ready to hew down the trees too—as, indeed, he is but too well inclined to do. We are but beginning to outgrow the antipathy which our fathers instilled into us against trees and Indians. As they grow scarce, we may grow merciful to the aborigines of both kinds."

Talking thus we rode along; and my companion entertained me with descriptions of the neighborhood of Walford Hall, and the differences between those scenes of ancient civilization and exact culture, and the rough and half-reclaimed country around us. Presently she drew rein at a narrow opening into the forest which the woodcutters might be supposed to have made for their own occasions.

"Come," said she, "what say you to trying our luck down that path? Who knows but it may lead us to some adventure? I know all these roads by heart; and, if you will back me, I will try and find out a new one."

"I imagine you will find it a passage, like those in the Long Story, that leads to nothing," I answered. "But still, if you are for the trial, I'll not fail you. Only let me have the honor of leading the van, and facing the perils of the enterprise first, as becomes a good knight."

I turned my horse's head for the purpose of preceding her, and, in the first place, of removing two or three bars which crossed the entrance; but she was too quick for me. Giving her mare a smart blow with her riding-whip, like another Di Vernon she made her leap the low fence, and so secured the lead; for the pathway was too narrow to admit of my passing her. Now, though I was a tolerable horseman, as I have already said, I had had no particular experience in leaping fences, that being a freedom in which we are not much indulged in this land of liberty. But still, like Frank Osbaldistone, I was piqued to show my horsemanship by such an example, and accordingly pressed my steed to the point, not without a secret misgiving that I might find myself performing a mathematical curve of some unknown description over his head. It was lucky for me that I was backing Prince at this critical moment; for I should have been sorry to put Turk up to such a trial of his mettle. But Prince took the fence as if he were used to much greater feats than this, and thought but little of it. So I followed my fair leader, who shook her golden curls, which had escaped from under the control of her riding-cap, and shot me through and through with her laughing glances as she looked back at me.

She was in the highest spirits, and talked and laughed in a most bewitching manner. We could not proceed very rapidly; and, as I followed in her track, I had an excellent opportunity of admiring her firm, erect figure, and the admirable manner in which she sat her horse. Still she often turned her face half round to me and chatted away in the liveliest way possible. The absence of mind which I had observed at my first interview, and of which there had been an occasional trace at the few times I had seen her since, was entirely gone. The exhilaration of the fine, clear sky; the delicious air, fragrant with the spicy smell of the pines, and growing cool as the sun dipped lower and lower; the excitement of the exercise, joined to the sense of pleasure which must always, I suppose, attend an exploring expedition on however minute a scale,—all united to make her seem a totally different creature from what I had imagined her from my previous observations.

And possibly it might have been that the companionship of the only young creature she had seen for so many months helped to unlock her spirits by the secret magic of youthful sympathy. She must have discerned that I was a harmless as well as a sheepish youth, without the least mixture of the lady-killer in my composition. She could not but know that I admired her extremely; and in that desert, even the admiration of a college lad like me was something. Moreover, I had made no demonstrations of a lovemaking nature. I was by far too modest for that, had I had any constitutional tendency to that complaint, or rather vice. Making love, indeed! A vile phrase—as bad as that of "falling in love," which Yorick justly reprobates as implying that "love is something beneath a man." No, no! Love is none of your confounded manufactures. It is an indigenous growth. You cannot make it. You may tend, and cherish, and foster it, and sit in its shadow, and crown yourself with its blossoms, and feast upon its fruits unto everlasting life; but you can no more make it than you can make a rose bush or a grape vine.

And now I suppose my readers would like to know whether this magic growth had sprung up in my heart and taken possession of me. A very natural curiosity, I admit, but one which I hardly think it time yet to satisfy. I fully concede the reciprocal rights and duties of this confessional, of which these lines, at which the reader looks and listens to me, may represent the bars, or lattice; and I shall be ready to make a clean breast of it in due time. Perhaps I am not, at this point of my narrative, in a sufficiently penitential frame of mind. Possibly I am not clear in my own mind how it was with me at that precise point of time. You know that my acquaintance with her was very young, "Ah, yes!" you will reply; "and so is Dan Cupid very young, too. We all know from authentic story, if not from our own experience,—we all know that he springs to life, all armed, at a single glance of an eye." I admit the general proposition; but, then, I have already assured you that she had not shown the faintest symptom of falling in love with me. But here you shake your heads with one consent, and agree that that is nothing to the purpose. Why, what would become of the whole tribe of novel-writers and story-tellers if the course of true love ran smooth all the time? Are they not obliged to cast about, every mother's son of them, for sticks and stones to throw into the stream, so as to make it chafe and murmur the more musically rough in its passage to the tranquil lake of matrimony, which they have spread out to receive it at last?

This, again, I cannot gainsay. But, then, I have not told you yet the fatal truth, that I had formed the decided opinion that she was at least a year, if not two years, older than I. I positively looked upon her with a certain sensation of respect for her advanced years, and, whatever sentiment I entertained for her, it was qualified by a feeling of reverence for her age. I thought she must be at least as much as twenty. And here, once more, you all look arch and knowing, and ask me if I don't know that a man always falls in love, for the first time, with a woman older than himself. You are right again, my friends. Your observation is founded in the nature of things, and is just as well as original. But, then, how do you know that it was the first time? Have I opened to you the seals of all the books of my whole past history? Did I tell you who it was that I used to lift off her horse, when it was on the very tip of my tongue, in narrating one of the most surprising adventures of this true history? If you only patiently bide your times, you will be told all things that are fit and edifying for you to know.

In this manner we fared onwards, finding it very often hard enough to keep our saddles, so difficult was it in places to make our way good through the boughs interlacing across our pathway. Presently, however, she called cheerily to me to make haste after her, for she had come within sight of land. I was soon by her side, and found that our narrow way emptied, so to speak, into a wide clearing, which showed signs of having been cultivated at some former time, though then in a sluggardly condition. Here and there charred stumps raised themselves above the level of the field; but they looked as if the rains of many summers, and the snows of many winters, had been blanching their grim skeletons since they were first submitted to the ordeal of fire. But the greater part of the plain was perfectly cleared, and furnished a sufficiently hard surface for riding purposes. It was nearly surrounded by wooded hills, the pine-trees sloping upwards to the hill-tops, and looking like spectators in some vast amphitheatre, peering over one another's heads at the arena in which we were the sole actors.

"A race! a race!" she exclaimed; and, suiting the action to the word, she put her mare to her speed, and I was not slow to do the same good office by Prince. The horses sprang forward over the turf in the direction of the only opening in the amphitheatre of hills, which appeared to be about a quarter of a mile distant.

My horse was much stronger and heavier than hers; and in a long run he would, undoubtedly, have had the advantage. But for a short distance Fairy was more than a match for him; and, besides, her mistress was perfectly well acquainted with her ways, and could command her best speed as I could not well do the first time I had ever been upon Prince's back.

So my companion had fairly the start of me, and was entering the gap in the hills, which was the goal at which we aimed, when I had not cleared much more than two-thirds of the distance. She was hid from me for an instant by the shape of the ground; and the next moment I was horror-stricken to hear a sudden splash and scream from the direction where she had disappeared. I struck my spurs "up to the rowel head" into the sides of my horse, who leaped forward as if intelligent of the distress, and in an instant I was on the spot from which the cry came. The first glance showed the nature and occasion of the accident. The Quasheen, which washed the wood on that side, was so near the opening at which I had lost sight of my companion, that, before she could check her speed, her horse carried her into the middle of the stream, where, by the suddenness of the shock, she lost her seat and was plunged into the river.

The stream, though not wide, was deep, and quite sufficient to drown a stouter person than Miss Allerton. But, though she had lost her seat, she had not lost her presence of mind; and she held fast by Fairy's mane, being well assured that she would bring her through her peril. I threw myself from my horse, and was already in the water, when my hopes of being the preserver of my fair charge were unexpectedly disappointed. A man suddenly stepped into the river opposite where she was, (for Fairy had swum a little way down the stream), and, seizing Miss Allerton by her floating riding habit, drew her towards him, and then carried her in his arms to the landing-place whence she had made her plunge.

Oh, shouldn't I have liked to have killed him at that moment! And then to be obliged to thank him for having robbed me of my unquestionable prerogative! But any such emotions as these were soon put to flight by the effect which the sight of her rescuer produced upon Miss Allerton when she had fairly recovered herself enough to look at him; which was as soon as he had set her down, dripping like a Naiad, upon her feet. Clearly all recollection of her recent danger and of her obligation to the man before her was lost in stronger emotions. She seemed struck mute with amazement and to be pale with some yet stronger passion. It seemed to me that it looked like fear. The man was obviously a gentleman; though he was roughly dressed for trout-fishing, in a coarse sailor's jacket, boots which came up above his knees, and a weather-beaten, broad-brimmed hat. His face was as pale as hers, but calm with a calmness that concealed deep feelings of some sort. In the surprise and suddenness of the whole thing, I could not read his features very accurately; but, as I remembered them afterwards, it seemed to me that they conveyed a strange expression of exultation and defiance, with some deeper passion under all; but I could not make out whether it were love or hate. I remember I thought it could hardly be the first. He must have long since survived that passion at the age he had reached. He was, probably, about five or six and thirty.

As soon as Miss Allerton could command her voice, she said to him, with a tone in which was mingled no gratitude for the service he had done her, but only coldness and aversion, and, as it still seemed to me, some dash of terror,—"And so you have followed us hither, too?"

"You I have followed hither, and will follow farther than this, as you might have guessed. But"—He paused, and, turning to me, said, "Perhaps this young gentleman will be good enough to catch your horse for you, or it may get out of reach down the stream."

I understood the drift of his suggestion, and looked at Miss Allerton for instructions.

"Do," said she, inclining her head to me. So I had nothing left for it but to go and leave them together, to my most cruel disappointment; for the adventure seemed to be fast reaching its climax. I hurried along the bank of the river, sometimes having to wade in it up to my middle, as the trees often grew so close to the water's edge that there was no room to stand on. I had toiled on in this way for about a quarter of a mile before I came to poor Fairy, who had not yet found rest for the sole of her foot. She was just trying to scramble up a steep bank on the opposite side of the river when I came upon her: so I had fairly to plunge in, accoutred as I was, to reach her, and thus was as thoroughly drenched in her service as I had been most desirous of being in that of her mistress. My only comfort was, that her mistress seemed as little pleased with the way of her escape as I could be myself. So, contenting myself as well as I could with these reflections, I took Fairy's bridle over my arm and made the best of my way, like an active personage whose name it would be improper to name in this presence,

"O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,"

until I found myself at the point from which I had started.

If I had happened to be in love with the fair Eleanor, I certainly had no occasion for jealousy in the relations she seemed to hold with the stranger. They were so absorbed in what they were saying, that they did not notice my approach at first; so that I could not help hearing Miss Allerton say,—

"I owe you no thanks for that. I could have saved myself without your help; and, if not, God knows I had rather have died than owe my life to you!"

"You are an ungrateful girl," he replied, with a smile which made me hate him more than ever. "But you will behave better by and by, and know that I am, if you will let me be so, your best friend." Eleanor made a gesture of impatience. "At least you know," he resumed, as if provoked, but still calmly,—"you know that it is not the first time I have saved you. It may be," he added, significantly,—"it may be, that the time may come when

I will not. But here comes your horse," perceiving me for the first time. "Let me put you on him, and entreat you to lose no time in getting home."

He advanced towards her; but she turned from him, and, beckoning to me, invited my assistance to place her in her soaking saddle. She turned her horse's head away from him, and took no notice of the parting salutation he made her. I mounted Prince, whom the stranger had secured to a tree after I had gone in search of Fairy, and followed her, touching my hat to my unknown acquaintance, which he did not return—not, however, from incivility, as I judged, but because he was looking so earnestly after the lady that he did not see me. Miss Allerton disappeared first in the wood; and, as I took a parting look behind, I saw him slowly turn away and walk towards the bank of the river. But I imagine his fishing was over for that day.

Miss Allerton and I pursued our way in silence. As I followed her I could perceive that she was deeply agitated, and that she was indebted more to Fairy's instinct than her own care for getting safely over the narrow and uneven pathway. In one place it was just wide enough for two persons to ride abreast. She drew on one side and walked her horse, as an invitation to me to join her.

"Mr. Osborne," she presently said, in an agitated voice, "I have a favor to ask of you. It is, that you will not mention what you have seen to-day to any one."

I readily gave her the assurance she asked for.

"I cannot tell at this moment," she went on, "how far I may explain to you what you must have thought so strange—not stranger, I am sure, than it has seemed to me. But you shall know all about it some time or other."

"If I can be of any service to you, my dear Miss Allerton," said I, "tell me what you think best. But I do not desire to pry into any of your affairs, as a mere busybody in other men's matters."

I lied there; for I was dying to know all about them.

"Oh, Mr. Osborne," she resumed, in a voice scarcely audible from agitation, "I am an unhappy girl, no mother, no sister, no friend, and yet needing so much the sympathy and help of the wisest and tenderest friendship!"

She could contain herself no longer, but fairly burst into tears on Fairy's neck—on Fairy's, who seemed perfectly callous to the blessing. Launce's dog could not have been more insensible to the affliction of his respectable family. Was there never another neck near that would serve her turn?

I was a tender-hearted youth at that time, and the sight of a woman crying was too much for me. Perhaps I ought to be ashamed to confess that it was all I could do to keep from bearing her company; but I am not. I was deeply moved at her distress, and would have given the world (or as much of it as usually falls to the share of any one person) to comfort her.

"But, my dear Miss Allerton," I ejaculated, thinking, like a fool, that I must say something, "there is your father."

"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with a fresh burst of weeping,—" yes, dear papa! But, then, he"——she interrupted herself, and presently added, "I hardly know what I say, my spirits are so confused by the surprise of this afternoon. Pardon me if I say nothing; for I may say what I ought not."

As we were now approaching the high-road, she evidently made a strong effort to command herself. She dried her eyes, and, pulling down her veil, proposed that we should get over the ground as fast as possible, that we might avoid at once observation and the ill consequences of our exposures. Though she said this, I believe she was thinking as little as I of the watery plight which we were both in. I believed the strong excitement she was under would prove an effectual antidote to the wetting she had got; and, as for mine, I cared nothing for it. I would repeat the treatment every day for a month in her good company. We fortunately arrived at Woodside without meeting any of the Wensleyans; but were received by Jonathan Snell, when he came to take our horses, with the most unequivocal marks of astonishment and concern. And no wonder; for a pair of more thoroughly ducked fellow-creatures could have seldom come within the range of his philosophy.

"Mr. Osborne," said Miss Allerton to me when we alighted, "I insist upon your coming in until

Jonathan can put the horse into the gig to take you home."

I remonstrated; but she persisted. "You need not fear giving extraordinary trouble; for I must send him to the village directly, and he can take you round perfectly well."

This being the case, I yielded to her kindness. and not the less willingly from the consciousness of what a figure I should cut in passing the strait by the bridge, between the post office and the blacksmith's shop, as well as of the gossip of which I would be the theme for the next week. So I went into Colonel Allerton's own room, where his fire was still kept trimmed and burning, notwithstanding his absence from home, and gyrated before it like an animated joint of meat primitively suspended by a string, with a penchant for roasting. Miss Allerton retired up stairs, and I saw her no more that day. When the master of the horse was ready I joined him, and we set forward for the village. That eminent officer of the household, of course, was curious to know the particulars of our adventure; which I gave him, with no more of the suppressio veri than the case required. He was not a man of many words, and he made use of very few on this occasion; but it was quite clear to my mind, that he thought me a very incompetent person to have charge of his young lady. And perhaps he was not far wrong.

When we came to the post office, instead of driving by, as I had hoped, he drew up at the door, which was watched, as it seemed to me, by a double corps of observation, which made ample use of its opportunities as I sat holding the reins. Jonathan, as he resigned them to my deputed care, took a letter from his pocket, which I saw at a glance was carelessly folded and hurriedly written, and directed to Colonel Allerton. He said Miss Eleanor was earnest that it should not miss the mail-coach which would pass through from Pentland on the edge of the evening of that day.

So she had written to her father an account of the adventure she had encountered. It was, then, nothing peculiarly and especially her own. That was some consolation in my ignorance. What could be the rights or the wrongs of the matter? I had no time for protracted speculation, however; for I was soon deposited at the minister's door, who was at first alarmed by my appearance, and then diverted by my story, told, as it had been to Snell, according to Captain Absolute's directions, with "no more lies than were absolutely necessary." I thought he would never be done rallying me on my misadventures as a Squire of Dames. But I was too full of what I could not tell him to mind much his comic commentary on what I could. My boyish sensitiveness was somehow hardened over since the morning. I did not mind his fun half so much as I should have done the day before. Indeed, it was rather a relief to me.

————

CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH ANOTHER CHARACTER APPEARS.

"OSBORNE," said Mr. Bulkley to me the next morning, as we sat at breakfast, "do you recollect who your grandmother was?"

"My grandmother?" I repeated "I suppose I must have had the usual allowance; but really, sir, upon my word, I"—And I shook my head. "But what is my grandmother, supposing I had one, apropos to—to boots?"

"No, no," returned he—"to something much more to the purpose than boots. I mean your father's mother—was she not a Shuldham?"

"That was the name, I am quite sure; though I am afraid I should not have been able to recall it of myself. But what of her, sir?" I asked.

"Much, and to the purpose," he replied. "Your grandmother Shuldham's mother was a Tindall, daughter of Lieutenant Governor Tindall, who died in office in the year 1717, or thereabouts; and his son Matthew, who was for so many years speaker of the House, had an only daughter. Do you understand?"

"Well, sir," I answered, "I cannot deny it, if I wished to; but how does it concern me?"

"Thus," he replied: "that daughter married Judge John Allerton; and was, consequently, the mother of the Colonel. D'ye see now, young man?"

"Why, yes," I answered; "I see that the Allertons and I are far-away cousins, and"——

"Far-away cousins!" he interrupted. "Only four degrees removed! Do you call that far away? When I was a young man, sir, I should have called cousins with a pretty girl like Miss Eleanor, if it were twice as many."

I laughed, and assured him that I was infinitely obliged to him for bestowing upon me so charming a relation, and that I would claim all my cousinly privileges, even though the claim were as many removes farther off. And this I subsequently did; and it gained me one great advantage when my cousinship was allowed, as it was, with much merriment, as soon as I communicated to them this result of the good parson's genealogical studies, in which, indeed, he was a great proficient. Miss Allerton and I became Cousin Eleanor and Cousin Frank from that time forward; an advantage, which if the reader doth not appreciate, he is unworthy of ever having a pretty cousin—an institution the blessings of which should be confined to those who can properly value them. But this was not immediately acquired, as it was some time before I felt that I was intimate enough, or that Miss Allerton would relish a jocose interlude of this sort, after the tragic, or at least melodramatic, adventure of the forest and the river. Indeed, I did not see her for the rest of that week. That plaguy fellow in the jack-boots, whoever he might be, had effectually put an end to our rides together for the time being. I could not tell what influence he might have upon the fair Eleanor's fortunes; but I was sure I cursed him by my gods for his sinister interference with mine.

Colonel Allerton returned before the end of the week—recalled, doubtless, by his daughter's letter. I had called, of course, the day after our adventure on Miss Allerton to "humbly hope she caught no cold" from her accident; but Petchell, her maid, brought me a very kind message, saying that she should not leave her chamber for a day or two in consequence of it, after which time she should be glad to see me. So I had perforce to wait until her father came back. After his return, I visited at Woodside as usual, and was even more cordially and kindly treated than before. Eleanor looked a little paler than usual, though her roses were usually rather Yorkist than Lancastrian; but all the more charming from the new and mysterious interest I felt in her. Nothing could be kinder than her reception of me when we first met; and after that meeting, at which her manner was necessarily a little tinged by a consciousness of what had passed when we were last together, she fell back into very much her former way of life and conversation.

Perhaps a shade more of sadness clouded her serene beauty, and perhaps her thoughts wandered oftener from the things around her. Perhaps, however, this was only my imagination; and, at any rate, I had now no difficulty in accounting for and excusing those untimely flights from the ignorant present to the past or the future. What would I not have given to have been able to look down through those lustrous eyes, at the soul that looked out of them and saw what was hidden from my sight, and to have known why it was disquieted within her! What were the phantoms, the spectres, that passed before her eyes when they looked into vacancy?

"Ah, fixed on empty space, why burn
Her eyes with momentary wildness?
And wherefore do they then return
To more than woman's mildness?"

How I longed to protect her, to cherish her, to drive far away whatever it was that molested and made her afraid! But I feared that this adventure was not reserved for me.

After the Colonel's return our rides were resumed, and Turk once more had the honor of keeping company, by their grace and favor, with Prince and Fairy. Occasionally, when her father was occupied, I was again allowed the privilege of escorting her alone. But we had no more adventures of the wood and the stream. Eleanor's passion for exploring seemed satisfied; and we kept to the highway in as humdrum a fashion as the most rabid stickler for the proprieties of life could require. She saw no more, when I was in company, of the intrusive benefactor of the Quasheen, and she never made any allusion to him or his works. So I was obliged to solace myself with the recollection of her promise, that one day I should know all about him. Indeed, I cannot deny, though Eleanor proposed no new voyages of discovery, that I may not have attempted one or two on my own account. I whipped the Quasheen for trout more than one Saturday, for miles (though neither the Quasheen nor the trout suffered much from the flagellation), in hopes of coming upon that anomalous angler yet once again. But I saw him not. He was as shy as the trout themselves.

Afterwards I visited the taverns of the neighboring towns, and made many a libation of punch and toddy on the altar of my curiosity; and not wholly in vain. Captain Pettingell, who kept the Rising Sun in Bradfield, the next town, thus invoked, told me, from the oracular recesses of his bar, that a person answering my description had staid at his place for a week or ten days; that his name was Smith; and that he was gone all day with his fishing-tackle, and sometimes, he added, came back with fish enough for a week's consumption, and sometimes without having had a bite. The captain believed him to have been a Britisher; but, as he paid his way well, and was a good friend to the house, he overlooked that error, as well as a way he had of profanely cursing and swearing (the captain was a professor, and a pillar of Dr. Babson's church) when anything happened to go against the grain. And, by the captain's account, he had given his vocabulary in this kind an airing extraordinary, one night when he came home dripping wet from having missed his footing, and fallen into the river. He seemed to have taken this accident, one surely ordinarily incidental to the gentle craft, so much to heart that he had retired from the neighborhood in disgust, and taken the Pentland coach the next morning for Boston. This was all I got in repayment of much time and some liquor which I wasted in this research; and it was not much more than I had known before.

Matters went on thus for a few weeks, when my frequent complaints of the inadequacy of Turk to the exigencies of my case induced Mr. Bulkley to suggest whether it would not be better for me to have a horse of my own. This proposition met with my cordial approbation; and Jasper was forthwith called into council as to the possibility of carrying it out. As I had already established myself in his good graces by my admiration of his master, and my eager attention to his own personal narrative,—which I delighted in extracting from him, and which, to do him justice, he was ready enough to communicate,—he was not long in consenting to advise what he saw we both wished to be done. He loved a good horse, he said, and should like to take care of one of Mr. Frank's if he only had time. This objection Mr. Bulkley made light of, and I made away with by offering to pay for the hire of as much outdoor labor as would make good his outlay in my behalf. This having been made all easy, the next thing was to obtain the consent of Mr. Moulton, my guardian, to this investment in horse-flesh. As my application was backed by the recommendation of Mr. Bulkley, and supported on the ground of my valuable health, Mr. Moulton interposed no more opposition than was essential to vindicate his authority in a matter of this moment. And his letter containing his assent included, also, a proposition by no means repugnant to my own ideas of the fitness of things. He suggested, as this was a purchase of some importance, and which it was as well should be entirely to my own mind, that I should come down to Boston for a week, and assist at the researches preliminary to its final adjustment. To this suggestion Mr. Bulkley was pleased to lend a friendly ear; and with his full consent I intercepted the Haverford coach the next morning (having, I trust it is needless to say, walked over to Woodside, where the transaction excited the interest its importance deserved, to give notice of my intended absence), which, in due time, deposited me at Mr. Moulton's door in Autumn Street.

This gentleman was no ill specimen of his class, with specific idiosyncrasies of his own. He was descended of an old New England family, which, however, had gone to decay for one or two generations. He found himself, on attaining to man's, or rather youth's, estate, in a remote country-town, with no advantages of education but such as the town-school had afforded him; with no capital but what he carried in his head, and what he had invested in an excellent character. After various struggles to rise above his hereditary position in the country, he changed the scene of action for the city, (or rather the metropolis; for Boston was a town only, for years after that), where he buffeted and battled with fortune, with alternations of failure and success (which, well told, would be a curious picture of life), until he at length achieved a place among the foremost merchants of the nation. It is unnecessary to say that he was a man of eminent ability; for such is almost necessarily implied in great success of any kind. The talent that could build up a great fortune from nothing by commerce, if it had received another direction, would, in all likelihood, have achieved eminence on the bench, or in the Senate, or, perhaps, even in literature.

Mr. Moulton might, possibly, sometimes be caught tripping in his speech, and his verbs and nominative cases might not always bear that precise relation to each other that the more bigoted disciples of Priscian choose to exact; but the substance of what he said was good sense, according to the sense of his times, and most unequivocally to the point. He was not without his provincialisms and his prejudices. He verily believed that as Massachusetts politics went, so would go the country, and, as the country, the world. He really thought that all the hope of liberal principles throughout Christendom depended on the fragment of the New England mind that had accepted for truth the Unitarian idea. He was benevolent and open-handed to the poor, and would found charities, and endow professorships; but he would take the bread out of the mouth of every Democratic lawyer, minister, doctor, or artisan, if he could, and count it to himself for righteousness. He gloried in his liberality of opinion; but he hated and despised a Calvinist in about equal proportions, and was firmly of the faith that no good thing could come out of that Nazareth. His multifarious affairs, and complicated commercial connections, made him intellectually aware of the fact that a considerable portion of the civilized world lay beyond the purlieus of State Street; and probably arithmetic would have convinced him, had he applied it to the subject, that a good deal of the mind of Christendom lay beyond the domain of the Unitarian denomination; but practically, as far as his walk and conversation were concerned, the one constituted the true State and the other the true Church Universal. But, where his prejudices did not interpose between his natural goodness of heart and any person or class that he could benefit, he was liberal, even generous, of his money, his time, and his influence with others.

I am sure that I have good reason to speak well of him; for he took excellent care of my estate, and let me do very much as I liked. And yet he was not negligent of me either. He had a cordial detestation of vice in all its shapes, and, without preaching, made me feel that he looked upon me as incapable of anything so low and ungentlemanlike. This confidence was, no doubt, as well judged as it was well intentioned, and, I trust, was not misplaced or unrewarded. But perhaps the kindest and wisest thing he did for me was his introducing me to the excellent society which at that time, as much as any other before or since, distinguished Boston. To be sure, my connections with the prominent members of that society entitled me to be free of it; but it was to the kind encouragement and good offices of my guardian that I owed an earlier initiation than my years demanded. His own children were grown up and married off, excepting one bachelor son at home; so that he seemed to feel, and certainly expressed in his conduct, the sort of partial yet discreet indulgence a sensible man often shows to his youngest child. All this, however, is not particularly to the purpose of my narrative, of which I am by no means the hero; and I do not know why I should suppose that the public will care about my own private concerns. But the image of this worthy gentleman rising up before me as I looked back at that particular portion of my life, I felt impelled to jot down the slight pen-and-ink sketch you see above. And as I hate rewriting anything, we will let it stand.

"I am glad you came to-day, Frank," said Mr. Moulton, after the first cordial greetings were passed; "for I expect a youngster to dine with me not long from college."

"Indeed, sir!" I replied. "And who may he be?"

"Oh, none of your acquaintances," he answered; "none of your Yankee collegians, let me tell you.

He is from Oxford or Cambridge, one or both; and I want you to be civil to him."

"An Englishman, then, I take it for granted," said I.

"Why, yes—he is, after a fashion," Mr. Moulton replied; "that is, he was born in England; but his father was a refugee Tory,—James Markham,—who raised and commanded a company of riflemen during the Revolution."

"And what is his business here, sir?" I inquired.

"His business is his pleasure, I guess," returned Mr. Moulton. "The Bellinghams and Mildmays are a sort of cousins of his, and he has been renewing the connection. Anne Shippen [one of his married daughters] thinks that he is sweet upon Esther Mildmay."

"Indeed!" I rejoined. "And has he been long enough here for that? I never heard of him before."

"Why, as to that," he answered, "how long, think ye, does it take a young fellow to get up a flirtation? and how long do you suppose it takes for the report of it to get wind?" looking at me with a quizzical kind of significance, which made me feel as if a sudden growth of nettles were springing under favorable circumstances from the entire surface of my body. "And as to your not having heard of him before, why, if a young gentleman's health requires his going into the country, he mustn't expect to be posted up to the very last minute. However, he has been here about a fortnight. But much may be done in a fortnight, Master Frank, I would have you know."

I could not reasonably have denied this proposition if I had felt disposed to be argumentative, which I did not. I was wondering whether any rumor of my frequent visits at Woodside had reached my guardian's ears; and, if so, whether he had drawn any inferences from them to the effect that I was in love with the charming Eleanor. Like most shy people, I was as proud as Lucifer, and scorned the idea of being supposed sighing at any lady's feet, seriously, until it was known that she had consented to extend her royal hand to place me by her side. Of course I was never without some princess or other, whom I served most faithfully till she was dethroned by some fresher usurper; but nobody ever regarded these transitory submissions as even looking towards a permanent allegiance. So I was resolved to take up my very last flirtation just where I had left it off two months before, and to prosecute it with redoubled zeal by way of blinding my Argus. Whether or not it was the most effectual way, experts in the art of love must decide according to their own experience. But I must defer these passages of mine with Matilda Robinson until I have more space than I have to spare here. I have in contemplation the preparation of a work to be entitled "The Philosophy of Flirtation; its Origin, Uses, and Tendencies: with Illustrations from the Life." Should this plan be carried into effect, the reader will there find everything made clear which the stern necessities of this particular case compel me to leave under a cloud.

Dinner-time came, and brought Harry Markham with it. He was three or four years older than I, and therefore I was the more disposed to like him when he showed an inclination to be friends with me. He had taken his bachelor's degree at Oxford a year or two before with good reputation, and was therefore a personage of great dignity and high interest in my sight. I was never tired of cross-examining him as to the details of university life and discipline in England; and he had not been so long delivered from them as not to like to recount them. During the fortnight of my stay in town (for my week grew by degrees to that size) we were constant companions. By day we scoured the country round in search of points of view (for he was an excellent draughtsman) and of historical interest. In the evenings we resorted to the pleasant societies still to be found even in many town houses, although it was early in August,—for the dispersion of the summer was not then as universal as it has since become,—or else we drew rein at some of the villas within ten miles of the city, where we were sure of a hospitable entertainment. Pleasant, cheerful, happy hours they were. And why not? It were hard, indeed, if the hours between nineteen and three and twenty were not pleasant, cheerful, and happy—and those, too, the hours of a fine August flitting over the face of a lovely country, fit residence, of as lovely inhabitants; at least, some of them.

I have forgotten to mention, what was not unimportant to the prosecution of these adventures, that I had succeeded admirably in accomplishing the object of my visit to Boston. I had mounted myself to my entire satisfaction, and in this had derived material assistance from the skill of my new friend in horse-flesh. He had not wasted the whole of his time at the university over Latin and Greek. He had improved a portion of his hours in more practical pursuits, among which might be reckoned the occasional pursuit of foxes and hares; and one result of these studies was a more than common knowledge of the noblest of the servants of man. Having thus secured what I had come down for soon after my arrival, I thought it advisable to give my new purchase a full and fair trial before taking him to the distant solitudes of Wensley: hence these rides of which I have spoken, and hence the agreeable episodes I have hinted at in the course of the last paragraph. So Whitefoot,—for such was the Homeric designation we bestowed upon him from the color of his off forefoot—Whitefoot and I formed the friendship which lasted for the rest of his life, under these pleasant circumstances and in this good company. To be sure, it took some time to satisfy all my scruples as to his sufficiency; and we had to make a good many afternoon and evening excursions, not always unaccompanied by side-saddles and riding-habits, before he had vindicated to himself his claim to my entire confidence. But it was erring, if erring it were, on the side of prudence and discretion—virtues which were early developed in my character, and which I still regard as its chiefest jewels.

I do not know what inference my readers may draw from this voluntary prolongation of my leave of absence. Perhaps I ought not to have told of it. It may not be creditable to me, that I was willing to exchange the society of Miss Allerton for that of any number of other beauties. I certainly saw none other so handsome; but then, you know, safety may lie in other multitudes than those of counsellors. In fact, although I do hate inconstancy as much as my Lord Byron did, and, like him, "loathe, detest, the mortal made of such quicksilver clay that on his breast no permanent impression can be made" (I do not remember the quotation accurately enough to reduce it to verses), still even the most constant swain will occasionally make an excursion to gaze on other shepherdesses than his own, if it were only to glory in her supremacy over all others.

And perhaps I may have had a lurking idea that my cousin Eleanor might value her newly-found relative none the less for a brief interval of absence. All this on the supposition that she was more to me than any other pretty woman, which, you are aware, I have not yet admitted. But story-readers, as well as story-tellers, are a gossiping generation, and can seldom see a young man and woman in company together, without putting constructions on what they say and do, which perhaps it had never entered into their hearts to conceive. But as my course is a perfectly straightforward one, with no traps and pitfalls set to catch the interest of the reader, it is my duty to remove out of the way all objections that arise as they come along.

But still, as my fortnight's fast was drawing to an end, I began to feel a good wholesome appetite for Wensley again. Not only did I feel the wish growing strong within me to renew my cousinly relations with Woodside, but I longed to see the good Parson once more, and the worthy Jasper, whose sable image formed, as it were, the shadow of that of his master. In my talks with Markham I told him all that I have told you about these characters in my rural drama, and he expressed a strong wish to be brought face to face with them. Of course I was not slow in asking him to come and pay me a visit. Major Grimes's doors, both of his house and his stable, ever stood open for the welcome of man and beast, and I could warrant him a friendly reception from all the rest. He thanked me, and promised to come at some convenient season before he left New England on his tour through the country.

I was a little surprised at his not being more in a hurry, when I made an accidental discovery in the course of one of our rides. We were discussing the comparative claims of two rival beauties, both of whom we had visited in the course of the afternoon. I do not remember how it came about; but I illustrated some criticism of mine by a reference to Miss Allerton, whose superiority over both the ladies in question I maintained. I averred that, beautiful as they both were, they had nothing so striking as the effect of Miss Allerton's upward glance, from the contrast between her dark flashing eyes and her "fairly fair" complexion and golden hair.

"It is perfectly unique," I said, "as far as my observation goes. I have seen nothing like it."

"Not so remarkably so," he replied, quickly, "as her downward look. Her eyelashes are perfectly preternatural."

"What!" I exclaimed. "Then you have seen her? I had not an idea of that!"

"Why, yes," he answered, a good deal disconcerted, for he had evidently committed himself, very much to his own vexation,—"why, yes. Have I never mentioned it to you before?"

"Mentioned it!" I responded. "To be sure you have not! But where did you meet her? and what do you think of her? and why have you not been up to see her?"

"Why, as to that," he replied, still somewhat confused, "I hardly feel myself sufficiently well acquainted with her to visit her at this distance of time and place. I met her once or twice in Devonshire, when reading there during the long vacation, about three years ago. It was not long before they came to America, I believe."

"But did you not think her splendidly handsome?" I inquired. "You don't mean to say that you have many such women in England, do you? Was not she as uncommon there as here?"

"She was very handsome, certainly," said he, with more coolness than suited my own ideas. "But her style is not so rare in England as it is here. Yes," he continued, with an air of deliberation, "I think I may say that I have seen as handsome women as she."

I did not believe him, and put down his affirmation to the credit of his John Bullism, which would not suffer him to admit that anything could be better in this country than he had left at home.

Having talked over the daughter a little more, I tried to get him upon the father, and endeavored to extract from him some further particulars of his history than I had been able to gather from Mr. Bulkley. But, if he knew anything about him, he kept his own counsel; for I got nothing by my cross-examination. He lived like a gentleman, he said, with nothing observable or distinguishing about him. He had himself been brought into contact with him from the circumstance of his being employed by the British Government in the dispensation of the bounties of the Crown to the families of the loyalists. He was the accredited agent through whom the funds of many of those that had suffered in the Revolution reached the beneficiaries, especially those of them who had returned to America, or settled in the Provinces. He possessed the confidence of the ministers, and was eminently fitted for this business by his personal knowledge of almost all those unfortunate exiles, reaching back, in many cases, to the very time of the emigration. Markham's own father having belonged to this same category, he had had some intercourse with him at the agency in London on his part, and in consequence of this had received friendly attentions from him when he came into the neighborhood of Walford Hall on the occasion above recited. All this was natural enough, and I could not gainsay a word of it. Indeed, I believed it was all literally true; but I was by no means so sure that it was quite the whole truth. Markham, too, seemed to be entering into the conspiracy to mystify me about these people, whose affairs were certainly no business of mine. But, then, if people attended only to their own affairs, a stupid world we should have of it.

Nor was this the only share he had in my mystification. Not long afterwards we were just returning from a ride, and were proceeding towards the livery stable which was connected with the Exchange Coffee House—at that time the chief hostelry that Boston boasted—just as the New York stage-coach drove up to the door of the hotel. Everybody who visited Boston at that time will remember that the passage-way in front of that house of entertainment was very disproportionately small when compared with its size and pretensions; so much so, that we were interrupted in our career by the sweeping round of the four horses, and had to pull up for a moment. But that moment was sufficient; for just before my eyes, sitting on the coach-box, was the identical interloper whom I had last seen emerging like a water god from the waves of the Quasheen. There could not be a doubt of it. Though I had seen him but for a moment, the circumstances of that sight sufficed to stereotype his looks upon my memory forever. I should have known him if I had met him on the top of Mount Hecla. He looked at me from under his shaggy eyebrows (which, however, did not hinder his being a very well-looking fellow) as if he had seen me somewhere before. But I do not think he recognized me, as he probably took much less notice of me than I did of him.

His scrutiny of my countenance, however, was over, the moment his eyes glanced at my companion. He evidently enough recognized him, and derived no particular satisfaction from the recognition. He was very clearly a man not to be easily taken aback, and one that had a tolerable command of his countenance; but he could not control the expression of surprise and displeasure that was extorted from him by the suddenness of the encounter. Markham's face showed less equivocal marks of dislike, if not of surprise, as became his younger years and less disciplined facial muscles. He muttered an indistinct comment on the occasion which did not reach farther than my ears; which being the case, and as it involved an adjective or two which might justly grieve godly ears, I shall forbear to put it upon permanent record. He on the coach-box made a kind of a motion, of the nature of a salutation, in the direction of the brim of his hat, which Markham acknowledged by the faintest perceptible swaying of his head, and then, turning away, rode on through the arch that led to the stables.

"That gentleman doesn't seem to be fond of you, Markham," said I as naturally as I could. "Who may he be?"

"Oh, he's a countryman of mine," he replied; "that is, he is my countryman and yours too. He's a half Yankee as well as myself. We are not over fond of one another, as you suspect."

"And his name is Smith, is it not?" I put interrogatively.

"Smith!" he answered. "What do you mean by that? Do you suppose every Englishman is named Smith?"

"Why, it is a tolerably generic name," I answered; "but I had a more specific reason for supposing it to belong to him, for I have been told so by a landlord of his."

"For God's sake, what do you mean, Osborne?" he demanded in strong surprise. "Where have you ever seen him? He surely doesn't pass here by that name!"

I then stated that I had met this personage, whoever he might be, in the neighborhood of Wensley, when fishing, not long before, and that I had accidentally learned from the landlord where he lodged, that he rejoiced in the general appellation I had applied to him. Of course I made no mention of my cousin Eleanor's name in the business, and seemed to know no more of him than I have just related. Why shouldn't I have my little mystery, too? And I rather imagined that he would have given all I wanted to know in exchange for what I had to tell. But my lips were sealed, of course, as to all that had passed between them in my presence. And Markham had to spell out the mystery, as well as he could, without my assistance.

"This is very strange!" said Markham, half to himself. "What could he have been lurking about there for, under a nom de guerre?" And then, addressing himself to me, he went on: "The man's name is Ferguson; and I am almost as much at a loss as you to account for his changing it without royal license. But Englishmen have a charter to be odd, and possibly this is the form which Mr. Ferguson's oddity takes unto itself. At any rate," he went on, as if talking to himself again, "we will hope there are not many Englishmen like him. He's a black sheep."

He then changed the conversation; and, it being plain he wished to avoid the subject, I could get no more satisfaction from him about it. And as this was the last time we were to be together previous to my return to Wensley, I had no further opportunity of recurring to it. At parting, however, he promised me, of his own accord, that he would certainly beat up my quarters before very long; until which time I was perforce compelled to adjourn my curiosity. We parted that night; and the next day Whitefoot carried me safely to Parson Bulkley's door, at which we were both of us joyfully received both by master and man.

————

CHAPTER IX.

WHICH IS EPISODICAL, BUT PROGRESSIVE.

THE attentive reader will not, perhaps, be surprised to hear that the very first event in the Wensley life of Whitefoot was a visit to Woodside, which occurred on the afternoon of the very day succeeding that of his arrival. He was fortunate enough to meet with the approbation of my cousin Eleanor, and also, which was perhaps a more important testimony to his character, with that of my much respected and more experienced cousin, the Colonel. That gallant officer made a close and scientific inspection of his various points with the eye at once of an amateur and of a connoisseur, and was pleased to pronounce him very well indeed for a horse bred and broken in America. This, I was well aware, was as high praise as an Englishman (for such Colonel Allerton persisted in considering himself, notwithstanding his New England birth and parentage) could be expected to bestow on Bucephalus, or Pegasus himself, were one or both of those celebrated animals trotted out for his opinion. So I accepted it as the seal of my bargain, and felt entitled to brag according to knowledge of his merits whenever Major Grimes and his party saw fit to disparage him as an interloping rival of Turk.

This interested opposition, however, was confined exclusively to the Grimes faction, (a pretty large one, by the way); for the Wensleyans in general, outside of the charmed circle described by the Major's toddy stick, were unanimous in giving Whitefoot the pre-eminence over his Moslem competitor.

And the feeling of triumph was very universal; for I flatter myself I had become by this time rather a favorite in the town, though neither my modesty nor the necessities of my story will allow of my recounting the whereby and wherefore. I say it caused a widespread feeling of satisfaction when the last convincing proof of his excellence was given by Major-General Boardman, an eminent house-carpenter (builder he would be called in these euphuistic days) of Haverford, the capital town of the county, who did Whitefoot the honor to borrow him for the fall muster, selecting him out of all the steeds of the shire as the most worthy to bound beneath his weight (which was considerable) along the arms-presenting line and to share with him the dangers and glories of that important field day. To be sure, Major Grimes was heard to suggest to some of his faction that "it wasn't likely Mr. Frank Osborne was going to take any hire for his beast;" which indeed it was not; nor yet, I should hope, that an officer of such distinction should have been influenced by so sordid a consideration.

It was also unfortunately true that the gallant general gave occasion for disrespectful language on the part of his subordinate officer, by returning his borrowed charger with a piece of the skin (technically called the bark) taken off his near hind leg, occasioned by backing him against the wheel of a gun-carriage. This gave the enemy great cause for triumph; and I was not over well pleased with the circumstance myself. As for Colonel Allerton, who had the natural antipathy of a regular for a citizen soldier, when I told him of the mishap, he was louder and deeper in the expression of his sense of the General's stupidity than even I had been. Indeed, he spoke of it in terms, which, as they might be neither acceptable nor edifying to the serious reader, I shall considerately pretermit. Suffice it to say that they were of a nature, which, had the Colonel been under the General's command, would have justly subjected him to be court martialled for "unbecoming and disrespectful language towards his superior officer." I, however, regarding the accident as the fortune of war, to which I was myself in some good measure accessory by consenting to expose my white-footed friend to its casualties, possessed my soul in such patience as I could muster, inly resolving that he should be exempt from military duty from that time forward.

I have thrown these particulars together in this place, although thereby I run before the regular course of my history, to which I am in general careful scrupulously to confine myself, in order that the reader might take in at a glance all the bearings of this important affair, and also that it may be cleared out of the way, so as not to interfere with those scenes of intense interest, which, like the rain in the almanac, may be looked for about this time. We will now return to the afternoon when I first submitted my horse to the cousinly inspection above mentioned. The examination over, and Whitefoot consigned to the care of Mr. Jonathan Snell, (who was also pleased to vouchsafe his gracious approval of the same), the colonel retired to his own room, the same described in my third chapter as enjoying the brevet rank of the library, and my cousin Eleanor and I strolled out to enjoy the exquisite summer afternoon just melting into evening.

We took our way towards the avenue of elms which I have already said descended the other side of the little hill on which the house stood. It was as sweet a walk as a pair of lovers (had we only happened to have been such) could have desired. The avenue led nowhere, to be sure, excepting to a rough field, not long cleared, which was skirted by the old wood which gave its name to the place; but the turf was elastic and velvety, from being kept closely mown and well rolled in the English fashion; and the branches, thick with leaves, and alive with birds, stretched themselves long and wide until they clasped each other over our head. And after descending the first sharp though short descent, assisted by steps cut in the turf, you were hid by a screen of shrubbery from the house, and might have imagined yourself in Arden or the Black Forest for any signs of human neighborhood that forced themselves on your notice.

As we paced up and down this "dry, smooth-shaven green," my lovely cousin magnetizing me with the gentle weight of her hand on my arm, we launched at once into the animated discourse of friends to the current of whose talk the interposition of a short absence has given at once a greater fulness and a swifter flow. She gave me such bits of gossip as the village had afforded during the two weeks of my absence, of which Petchell, her maid, who had established relations with certain of the inhabitants, was the voucher. Perhaps it was peculiar to this young lady that she did not dislike to hear tell of the loves and the bickerings, of the history (private and public, civil and ecclesiastical) of the little neighborhood at her door. And why not? Human beings are human still in such an out-of-the-way nook as Wensley; and they are no more in the throngs of Hyde Park or the Boulevards, of St. James's or the Tuileries. And one who sympathizes with the joys and sorrows of men and women, and not with the cost or fashion of their clothes or carriages, who finds interest in their characters and fates rather than in their houses and furniture, will find food enough for sadness and for mirth in more unlikely spots than the one which my gentle heroine gladdened by the genial influences of her sweet and kindly presence.

But I was, in virtue of my absence, expected to be the chief talker; and, accordingly, I retailed whatever store of news I had collected in Boston, for her amusement. In those days, the connection of an inland town, like Wensley, with the capital of the State, was hardly so intimate as the connection of that city with the capital of the world is now, so effectually has steam accomplished that annihilation of time and space for which the lovers celebrated in the Bathos prayed. "The Columbian Centinel" afforded the only loophole through which the curious inhabitants peeped, twice a week, at the busy world; and I believe Mr. Bulkley and Colonel Allerton were the only regular subscribers its hearty old editor, Major Ben. Russell, had in the town. The Colonel, to be sure, had the English papers; but they came at long intervals and with no great regularity.

I told Miss Eleanor all the private history I had learned, the engagements, the marriages, the deaths, the feuds, and the reconciliations, which made up then, as they do now and ever will, the staple of our communications about our acquaintances and friends. Having emptied my budget of everything I had to tell, excepting the things I was thinking most about, we sat down on a rustic bench placed near the head of the avenue, at a point from which the sunset could be commanded, and remained for a while silently gazing at the gorgeous clouds, which the touch of celestial light had transformed from cold masses of vapor into cliffs and billows of gold and violet, as the eye of genius looks on the commonest things of earth and they glow as with hues caught fresh from heaven.

As we sat watching these glorious apparitions together,—Eleanor, I am afraid, thinking more of them than of me, and I, I am sure, thinking more of her than of them,—she said, presently, rather to herself than to me,—

"It is a strange thing that a sight like this, which happens every day, should never look twice alike either to the eyes or to the mind. The feelings it creates, or recalls to the heart, are as varied, though not always as bright, as the hues it leaves on the clouds there."

"True, cousin Eleanor," I replied; "but all sunsets are not brilliant and bright like this. Some suns go down in clouds and storms, you know, and darkness comes upon us with no glorious prologue like that before our eyes."

"Yes, indeed," she answered, "more than of such as these. The analogy holds good, which poets and moralists have discerned, and which no one can help feeling, between the closing scenes of life and of day. There are few men, as well as few suns, you remember,—

'whom scenes like these await;
Who sink unclouded in the gulfs of fate.' "

"That is true again," I returned; "but then it is the very clouds that seek to oppress the sinking sun that make his ending so splendid, when he has the power to overcome them and make them contribute to his glory."

"And even where clouds and darkness rest upon him when he goes to his rest," she resumed, "we know that he is still the same bright and blessed orb as when he shone at noonday, and that he will be sure to return again as beautiful and beneficent as ever."

"We know that of the sun," I replied; "for we have the experience of hundreds of generations to the fact. But there, I imagine, the analogy ends. The dead never return again, be their setting bright or dark."

Eleanor turned her eyes from the fading sunset and looked into mine. "Cousin Frank," said she, "you have thought seriously for so young a man." (She, you will recollect, I judged to be a matter of a twelvemonth or so older than I, and, as such, entitled to talk wisdom to me). "I should think that your day was bright enough to keep the thought of its ending out of your mind."

"You forget, Eleanor," I replied, dropping the usual consanguineous epithet for the first time,—"you forget that, though my day may be young, it has not been without its morning clouds, neither. It is not altogether a cheerful thing, cousin, to have neither father nor mother, nor brother nor sister. Mine have all sunk into the gulfs of Fate you just spoke of, and left me to live out my day by myself as I may. I was not old enough then to know or to feel my loss; but I am now to do both."

"I had forgotten, dear cousin Frank," said Eleanor kindly, in reply; "I confess I had, just then. But I should not have done so; for I am too nearly in your condition myself. My father indeed lives; but he is my only blood relation. And my estate is in one thing sadder than yours; for I do remember my mother, and the agony her death caused is still fresh in my mind. Perhaps, however," she said, with a sigh, as it were to herself again,—"perhaps, however, it saved her from a yet deeper agony, had she——." And she stopped, as if recollecting herself.

"I do not understand your allusion, of course, cousin," I replied; "but I do not accept your philosophy. It is no consolation to me to think my father and mother are spared from possible or certain evils. I wish them to be alive and live out their days, as Nature meant they should. She never meant that they should leave me, a wailing infant in the cradle, a burden to friends, or a task to hirelings. It was my part to have laid their heads in the grave long years hence, after they had reared, guided, and taught me in my way of life, which I must now enter upon alone. No, no, my cousin: life is a better thing than death, let its circumstances be what they may; unless, indeed," I added, quite casually, by way of an exceptive demonstration of a general proposition,—"unless, indeed, it be infamy. Dishonor, indeed"—

I stopped short; for, looking at Eleanor, who was earnestly listening to me as I spoke, I saw that something touched her. A sort of spasm seemed to contract her features; her eyes closed; and she bit her under lip so suddenly that the blood actually trickled down her beautiful chin. At the same time she violently but unconsciously clutched my arm. I was greatly alarmed, and exclaimed,—

"Dearest Eleanor, you are very ill. Let me call Petchell. Let me help you into the house, for God's sake!"

"No, no," said she, recovering herself, as I spoke. "I am well again. It was a transient pain; but it is gone now," opening her eyes, which looked preternaturally bright, and, contrasting with her pale face and the trickling crimson from her lip, gave her an expression which almost frightened me, it was so unnatural and wild.

"Come," she said, presently,—"come, let us take a turn or two. It will make me better."

We rose and walked slowly down the path under the trees. She leaned heavily on my arm; and after a single turn, in which she rather tottered than walked, she said that she must go in; and we approached the turf steps, which, as I have said before, assisted the ascent to the house. Eleanor paused for a moment at the foot; and I, merely to assist her in mounting them, passed my arm round her waist for her more effectual support. We were kinsfolk, you know,—at least after a sort,—and common humanity, as well as cousinly affection, made it imperative upon me to see that she received no detriment while under my charge. At any rate, as she found no fault with the arrangement (I am afraid that she never noticed it), I apprehend that it can be no manner of concern of yours. Perhaps there was no absolute necessity of continuing it after the steps had been scaled; but something must be forgiven to the force of habit (and some habits do not take long to form); and then it must be remembered that the ground still sloped gently upward as you skirted the screen of shrubbery which divided the avenue from the house.

As we labored rather slowly along this "verdurous wall," some one suddenly turned the corner, and advanced towards us. At first I supposed that it must be her father, and was glad he was coming to my help. But, when I raised my eyes to his face, to my great surprise I saw before me Henry Markham, whom I had parted from at the Exchange Coffee House only two or three days before. I don't know how it was; but I was not as glad to see him at that moment as I would have sworn I should have been to meet him in Wensley, when we arranged his visiting me at some time future. It was quite a new revelation to me that he was on such terms with Eleanor as to come to see her without some greater show of ceremony. And, to do him justice, he did not seem to be much better pleased with the particular grouping of the figures before him. Perhaps he thought it too particular. I am sure it was not unpicturesque, and, if he did not like it, why, it was the worse for him. As for Miss Eleanor, she seemed to be surprised out of all her late agitation, and stood quite firmly again in the face of this apparition. The blood rushed into her cheeks with the pretty effect I have celebrated when I first introduced her to the reader's acquaintance; and she had a look out of her eyes at this young man, which was not altogether well pleasing in mine. I spoke first.

"Markham," I exclaimed, "you are better than your word! You are upon me before I have had time to tell Miss Allerton that you were coming to Wensley. But you are welcome all the same; and I am right glad to see you."

I am afraid this assurance must be reduced into the category of that description of embroidery about which Mrs. Amelia Opie wrote a story, which was much in vogue about that time (though, as I remember them, her white lies, if they were not black ones, well deserved to be such), as well as the assertion that I had not had time to tell Eleanor that he was coming. I think that I might have found time, if I had been economical of it, to have told her as much as that. But, for some reason or other, I did not like to tell her of the approaching advent of so handsome and taking an Old-World acquaintance of hers. She cast a look, in which there was a good deal of surprise mingled with a little displeasure, as I thought, at my reticence, and then, bowing to Markham, said,—

"I had heard from papa that Mr. Markham was in the country, but did not expect the pleasure of a visit from him at Wensley."

"I had no intention of intruding myself upon Miss Allerton," said Harry, a little discomposed, but a good deal miffed; "but, missing of my friend Osborne at the parsonage (with rather a savage look at my right arm, which was now relieved from its recent duty, and was supporting hers), I took the liberty of walking over here to find him, and at the same time to pay my respects to Colonel and Miss Allerton."

"Papa and I will be always happy to see the friends of Mr. Osborne," Eleanor returned, rather stiffly; "and, if you please, we will return into the house, and I will send for him."

It is barely possible that Markham would have dispensed with this last attention; but he could not well refuse it; and so he turned and walked along with us.

"Are you quite well, Miss Allerton?" he presently inquired. "I am afraid you have met with some accident just now," looking at the scarlet stain on her ivory skin. "Have you fallen?"

"A slight accident," she replied, putting her hand to her lip; "of no consequence at all. A little cold water will put it all to rights again."

There was no time for further speech; for we were now in the parlor. Eleanor, after ringing the bell, and ordering her father to be called, went up stairs to her dressing-room to wash away the bloody witness from her face. My curiosity was well aroused, as may be well supposed, to learn the relations of my new friend and my cousins; but I had no time for inquiry, as the alert step of the Colonel was heard approaching at the same time almost that her light foot was over the other threshold. He entered with his usual open and cordial face of hospitality, that ever beamed upon the stranger within his gates. At the shades of evening were beginning to prevail, he had actually grasped the hand of Markham before he saw who he was. When he discerned his visitor's face, the expression of his own changed as suddenly as did that of the landscape under the thunder-cloud to whose good offices I had owed my first introduction to Woodside. The pressure of his hand was checked in mid-grasp, and that of his visitor dropped, after no prolonged salutation. His air was pervaded with a perfectly courteous but thoroughly frigid tone, enough I am sure to have turned me into an icicle, had I been the object of it.

I really pitied poor Markham, though I was not regarding him just then with absolute complacency. I saw that more had passed between him and the Allertons in England than he had chosen to intimate to me; and I would have given Whitefoot and boot besides to anybody that could tell me how it all was. But there was no apparent danger of my being led into such a rashness. There was no one who could enlighten me on this side the Atlantic. But stop—was there no one? There was Petchell. She must know all about it. But it would be base and ungentlemanlike to pry into the secrets of my hospitable cousins in that kind of way. So it would. But, on the whole, I am rather glad that I had no opportunity for a tête-à-tête interview with "Machiavel the waiting maid," about that time.

The salutations over, as above described, Colonel Allerton waved us to seats, and then took a chair himself. He first made civil inquiries after Markham's family; which being satisfied, he then proceeded,—

"I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you in America when we parted in London."

"I did not then anticipate visiting this country," said Markham; "but circumstances have made it seem important to me to come hither, though I may have over-estimated their urgency."

"Indeed!" replied the Colonel rather dryly, though very politely. "I had no idea that Mr. Henry Markham's affairs were of such pressing moment. I hope they will arrange themselves to his satisfaction."

"I hope, sir," he returned, "that I shall accomplish the purpose of my journey; though it was not undertaken for my own benefit, and I do not expect either gratitude or reward for what I came to attempt."

"That would be a pity," answered Colonel Allerton, a little sub-acidulously; "and perhaps it would have been well to have considered how your services were likely to be regarded by your clients before you volunteered them in their cause. Working for others for nothing, and without their desire, is not the way to become lord chancellor, Mr. Markham. But, then,

I know nothing of the nature of your affairs," he added, in a courteous tone.

"I do not defend the wisdom of my conduct," said Markham, in a tone of deeply mortified feeling; "but I am sure of its motive; and, as I hope for no recompense, I hope I may be forgiven if I have been fool enough to throw away my own time and pains, looking not for my own again."

"That, sir," replied the Colonel, with cool politeness, "is a question which you alone can decide, as you alone know what your plans are. But you will pardon me if, as an old man, I advise you, a very young one, to direct your chief attention in affairs to those with which you are thoroughly acquainted and in which you have a legitimate call to assist."

Markham was evidently much hurt by the words and manner of his host, though I could see no reason why. Of course I knew that more was meant than met my ear; but that was small comfort to me. He made no reply except a bow, by no means as easy and dégagé as those I had seen him make in the drawing-rooms about Boston. But just then Miss Allerton re-appeared, calm and composed as ever, and forthwith rang for lights and tea. The conversation was not very well sustained after this event; the three others being, apparently, thinking of something besides what they were saying, and I as busily engaged in thinking what that something could be. I was rather too fast in saying that Eleanor's manner was as calm and composed as ever. It was plain to me, on the close though guarded observation to which I subjected her, that she was making a strong effort to appear as if it were. But there was a little tremor in the hands as she took her cup of tea, and a careful avoidance of Markham's eye, which soon recovered courage enough to go in search of hers, which I saw plainly enough, and which, though it was none of my business, I did not like at all.

For the first time since I had visited at the Allertons', and often as I had partaken of the fragrant decoction of Cathay in their company, the elements of that most social of meals (some people prefer breakfast, but I am apt to be sulky then) were dispensed from a circumambulatory tray, instead of resting on a solid, steadfast tea-table. It was, in short, what some opprobriously, but justly, style a lap tea—an institution which I detest and execrate. I must confess to a secret sense of exultation when I have seen a clumsy boy upset a cup of tea over the glossy silk of the lady of the house, or drop a slice of bread and butter—"and always on the buttered side"—upon the puffy pile of her Wilton or Axminster carpet. It must have been a "lap tea" at which Belinda assisted on the fatal day of the Rape of the Lock; only it was before dinner, and was coffee, and not tea. For what did the sylphs think it necessary to do?

"Straight hover round the fair her airy band:
Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fanned;
Some o'er her lap their careful plumes displayed,
Trembling and conscious of the rich brocade."

Now, there would have been no such need of this anxiety if her (I beg pardon, "la reine d'Espagne n'a point des jambes,")—if her lap had been safely ensconced under the mahogany. What wonder, then, that, while thus engaged, the relentless baron should have reft the envied tress

"From the fair head forever and forever."

I am the more zealous to maintain the integrity of the tea-table, as an occasional slight fit of the gout (entirely hereditary) compels me, though so young a man, to forego prolonged sessions after dinner. But this is aside from the stately march of my narrative.

I drew one inference from this innovation on the customs of Woodside; which was, that, though its character for hospitality was to be maintained, it did not think it necessary to be cordial. So, after the tray had made its third and last round, I ordered my horse, and took my leave. Markham, though he had come on foot, departed with me, and with no entreaties to the contrary to resist. The Colonel and Eleanor bade him good-night very civilly; but they threw even more than their usual cordiality into their manners towards me. I was not flattered by it this time, nor yet was poor Markham; for we both understood it well enough. He walked alongside me, with his hand on the saddle (Whitefoot walked remarkably fast and well), and I accompanied him to Grimes's door.

He said but little, and I not much more, as it was impossible to say what I wanted to. He showed no disposition to make me his confidant; and I was none the nearer plucking out the heart of this mystery, supposing it had one, than when I first suspected its existence. Arrived at the Major's, I resolutely declined Markham's invitation to go in, and the more earnest if less disinterested urgency of the host himself to partake of a mug of flip or a rummer of punch as a safeguard against the night air. Facing this enemy without either infallible spell against its perils, I put my horse up to his speed, his hoofs marking their course by a continuous line of sparkles, and the bridge returning a hollow roar, heard far through the village, as he galloped over it. A very brief time sufficed to bring us to the parsonage and to Jasper.

The next morning at breakfast, as I was telling Mr. Bulkley the particulars of Markham's visit to Woodside,—only suppressing, as is usually the case with most human communications, what was most characteristically essential to them, and he was listening eagerly to my narration,—Jasper entered with a more important countenance than usual, looking as if he had something to say too. When I had done my story, the parson turned to Jasper and said,—

"Who was that in the wagon I saw you talking with just now? Anybody to see me?"

"No, sir," replied Jasper; "it was only Jehiel Abbot, from Jericho, (meaning, not the ancient city of that name, at which unscrupulous moderns—why I know not—are apt to wish troublesome things and persons; but a remote school district so christened by common consent). He says there's a scrape up there, sir."

"Scrape! What scrape? What d'ye mean?" interrogated the divine.

"Why, he says, sir," answered Jasper, "that old Captain Hunt swears that his daughter Sukey Ann shan't marry Jeremiah Adams nohow. And she's taking on dreadful, he says, sir."

"Not marry Jeremiah!" exclaimed the minister. "What's the meaning of that? Were not the banns stuck up in the meeting-house porch last Sabbath?"

"Yes, sir," responded Jasper. "I saw the folks reading 'em; and I looked over Pete Spicer's shoulder, and they was there, sir."

"Well, then, what's the matter with the Captain?" inquired his master. "What has Jeremiah done?"

"Nothing, sir, hasn't Jeremiah," replied the man. "It's Squire Enoch, his father, that the Captain's mad with. It's something about the right to drive his cattle over Hog's Neck down to Rocky Valley to pasture. The Captain fenced in Hog's Neck into his nineteen-acre lot; and the squire broke the fence down, and said he'd as much right to go over the Neck as the Captain had to go over the road to meeting."

"Oho," said the parson; "it's the old quarrel about the right of way over Hog's Neck, is it? The land on Hog's Neck," he proceeded, addressing himself to me and laughing as he spoke, "is worth about three cents an acre, and that of Rocky Valley is worth full three cents less. I thought I had patched up that trouble a long while ago. So it's broken out afresh, you say, Jasper?"

"Worse than ever, sir," Jasper said. "The Captain said he'd shoot the Squire if he touched the fence again; and the Squire told him to fire away, and pulled it down the next morning. Then the Captain swore he'd sue him; and the Squire told him to sue and be"——

"Never mind that part of it," interrupted the minister, laughing. "And the upshot of the matter is, that the match is off between pretty Susey Hunt and Jerry Adams, is it?"

"So the Captain says, and the Squire too; but Jehiel says Jerry says he won't stand it, and he'll marry her whether or no," said Jasper.

"There's a fine fellow!" rejoined the minister, rubbing his hands complacently; for he took the interest of a girl in all the marrying and giving in marriage in Wensley. "He ought to be kicked, though, if he didn't say so. But I must try and hinder any breach of discipline if I can. Things had better be done decently and in order. So the captain says he'll sue, does he?"

"He swears he will," replied Jasper; "and Jehiel was to stop at Grimes's and tell the stage to call round this afternoon, as he's going to Lawyer Pratt, at Haverford, about it."

"Merciful goodness!" exclaimed the minister, half in jest, but a full half in earnest. "If he has gone that length, it is time for me to step in, to be sure. Lawyer Pratt in Wensley! That must be hindered at any rate. I can have no such wolf as that among my lambs. Jasper, get my horse ready, and I'll see after it at once."

"Hadn't you better take mine, sir?" said I. "He will carry you to the field of action the sooner."

"No, no, I thank you," he replied, shaking his head. "I'll stick to my old friend as long as he lasts; for I'm afraid I should not stick to your new one. I served in the infantry, you know, and was brigade major for only two campaigns. And, by the way, as you will want to see your friend to-day, I'll grant you a furlough from actual service for that time. Bring him to dinner with you if he will come."

And as soon as he was brought round, the brisk old man mounted his old horse, as if he had been a charger smelling the battle afar off, (and perhaps he did), and shambled away upon him in the direction of Jericho. His taking the field thus promptly against the threatened invasion of Lawyer Pratt was, as I had already learned, only a part of the established policy of his realm. He seemed to have erected himself into a high court of justice within its limits, and for many years had judged without appeal in the controversies which would sometimes arise in his parish. Such a thing as a suit at law was unheard of within the memory of the middle-aged section of the Wensleyans.

It is needless to say that such a state of things was unpropitious to the prospects of the noble profession of the law. It was many years since the last suckling practitioner who had ventured to occupy the little square office between the grocer's shop and the meeting-house (built by Mr. Remington, the predecessor of the Allertons at Woodside, away back in the last century, literally before the year one)—it was many years, I say, since Eliphalet W. Peabody, now member of Congress for the twenty-ninth district of Ohio, fled to the western wilderness, as it was then, from before the face of fate, of starvation, and of Parson Bulkley. The office had been for more than a quarter of a century converted (or perverted) into the primary-school-house of the first district, presided over in my time by Miss Lucinda Jane Sparhawk (now Mrs. Judge Wilkinson, of Bytown), who was not a bad-looking girl either.

But I may as well mention, à propos to the tender griefs of Jeremiah and Sukey as recounted by Jasper, that there was another troubler of the peace than law, about which the good parson took an active interest whenever it applied to any of his parishioners; and that was—love. Though a bachelor past hope for many years, he was a great promoter of matrimony. He had a sharp eye for a love affair; and, when he approved of the connection, he was an invaluable auxiliary. Many was the match to which he had smoothed the way, and many was the course of true love of which he had cleared away the impediments that hindered it from running smooth. To look at, he did not seem to be a much properer person to trust a love tale to than Cato himself. But there was nothing stoical about him; and this was so well understood that the young people of the town were as ready to confide their difficulties in this sort to him as to any of their contemporaries. They were sure of a tender and active interest in their affairs which scarcely ever failed to bring them to a happy conclusion, if they deserved such an ending.

In short, he was in himself a parliament of love, as well as a high court of justice, for the domain of Wensley. And he bore his faculties meekly, as well as absolutely, so that no one complained of him—the very Trajan or Antonine of village despots. I thought I could observe that he had composed a little sort of romance in his own mind, of which Eleanor Allerton and I were chief characters. But I rather felt than saw it, as he abstained from any demonstrative interference or intimation of it with the most scrupulous delicacy. So scrupulous was he, indeed, that I should have found it hard to get an opportunity to tell him what our relations to each other really were. But, if I could, I wonder whether I should have done it. It is odd what satisfaction we find in this world of ours, not only in our own delusions (what should we be without them?), but also in the delusions of others about us.

————

CHAPTER X.

IN WHICH THE CALDRON BEGINS TO SIMMER.

I SPENT the morning with Markham, as the minister had supposed I should; and we made such a reconnaissance of the country as the good grace of Black Sally accorded to us. She performed her part of the contract safely and surely, if not with inordinate velocity, and enabled us to respond to the almost parental pride with which the Major seemed to boast of his horses, without more than a simple fracture of the truth. The Major was, of course, a new study to Markham, who had only known the obsequious and deferential landlords of merry England; but he was of a temperament to adapt himself to any concatenation of circumstances which might involve him, and was by no means slack in accepting the platform of social equality which placed the old-fashioned New England host on a level with his guest. Markham was singularly free from the John-Bullism which makes so many of the progeny of that respectable sire appear so very much like calves when they find themselves in a new pasture.

To be sure, he was a parcel Yankee; and his mother's milk might yet qualify the elements of which he was kindly mixed. But, as a general thing, your half-breed Englishman is more unpleasantly national than the full-blooded animals themselves,—Anglis ipsis Anglior,—and appears to take more than an Englishman's delight in making himself disagreeable. But Markham was none of this sort. He was a cosmopolitan gentleman, and carried with him all over the world that sweetness of temper and sincere wish to make those with whom he found himself happy and on good terms with themselves, which was sure to extract what good there was from whatever men or manners he lighted on, and at the same time to make friends and well wishers every where.

Being such as he was, what could have been the reason of the cold and severely civil treatment he had met with at Woodside from persons whose characters and manners seemed to be so eminently like his own? I could not make it out at all to my satisfaction. Nor could I well seek satisfaction from Markham himself, unless he led to the subject and volunteered the explanation I desiderated; neither of which things he did during this morning's drive. He was not quite as chatty as he used to be in our rides round Boston; and there was a little shade over his features at first, such as even a passing grief leaves behind it for a season; but it gradually rose from his countenance and dispersed itself, as the shadow of a cloud passes away from the landscape, and he became cheerful, if not mercurial, as usual, long before we betook ourselves to the parsonage in accordance with Mr. Bulkley's invitation.

My account of that excellent man had made Markham intelligently curious to see him; and they came at once into friendly relations with each other. Their points of resemblance and of difference equally fitted them for a close adaptation to one another. Mr. Bulkley was an old man, and Markham a young one. The former had lived for near forty years in the almost eremitic seclusion of Wensley; the latter had spent in the crowds and turmoil of London all the years of his life that had not been passed in the differing but not diverse excitation of a great university. Both were lovers of learning (Markham had graduated with high honors) and of queer books. Markham was vastly more exact in his knowledge of the mechanism of the ancient languages, and more critical in all their ornamentation of metres and quantities, than the imperfect instruction of Mr. Bulkley's youth had made him. But the latter was quite as fully master of the spirit of the greater classics as my younger friend; and he was familiar with a much wider range of authors more talked of than read, including the later Platonists and the mediæval Latinists. Markham, however, was much better versed in contemporary literature than Mr. Bulkley pretended or cared to be—much better, indeed, than English university men, wranglers, and medallists, who take high honors at Oxford or Cambridge, are apt to be even at this day. Neither of them was a man of surpassing abilities; but they had both of them made the most of what they had, and had them always in order for use. And for "human nature's daily food," I preferred them to most of the great geniuses I have encountered in my walk through Vanity Fair; and I have stumbled, at one time or another, on almost all of special note within the last quarter of a century.

When we were fairly seated at the table,—which Jasper had done his best to set out in honor of the occasion, though he cast rather an evil eye at Markham at first, as "the spawn of an old Tory," as he phrased it with more of emphasis than elegance,—I asked Mr. Bulkley as to the success of his campaign against Jericho.

"Why, I found it shut up almost as strait as Jericho of old," said he; "but I think the walls will fall down by the time I have compassed it once or twice more and blown a blast or two on my ram's horn."

"Well, sir," I put in, "and Jasper and I will shout in your cause; for we are all the people you have to help you, I suppose."

"Pray, make me free of your tribe," said Markham, whom I had possessed of the facts of the case.

"With all my heart," answered the parson; "but I hope you will only have to shout for my victory, and not in my help. I think I have nearly arranged it."

"And how does it stand, sir?" I inquired.

"I'll tell you," he replied. "I found it all as Jasper told us. Squire Adams and Captain Hunt were in high feud, and poor Sue in great affliction, and Jeremiah in a towering passion, and all about a right of way over nothing to nowhere; for that is about the exact value of the matters in dispute."

"Did you tell them so, sir?" I asked.

"Bless you, no, indeed!" he answered. "I made much of it, you may be sure. To make short work of the story, I at last prevailed on Hunt to postpone his visit to Lawyer Pratt, agreeing to get the opinion of Boston counsel as to the right of way over Hog's Neck. And I afterwards got Adams to agree that, if the opinion were against himself, he would give the Rocky Valley pastures to Jeremiah on his marriage to Sukey, if Hunt would concede the right of way to him. So I imagine I shall settle the quarrel without promoting a lawsuit and without damaging a lovesuit. And I am now quite ready for my dinner."

"I am sure you have deserved it, sir," said Markham; "but, if there were many such clergymen as you, I am afraid it would go hard with us lawyers."

"Fear nothing, my young friend," returned the parson; "there is little danger of the gospel prevailing against the law in your day. The juice of Mother Eve's apple is not worked out of the veins of her children quite yet. And that puts me in mind, Jasper, that you have not brought up the bottled cider."

This oversight was speedily remedied; and frothing cups, such as Phillips, the bard of cider, might have sung, crowned the board. This beverage, of which both the parson and Jasper were justly proud, as the production of their own orchard and mill, was made from a receipt given to Lieutenant Bulkley by Major Sir John Knatchbull, a baronet of the cider county of Gloucestershire, when he was a prisoner on parole after Burgoyne's surrender. It was produced only on rare occasions,—such as a visit from an Oxonian, who was also the son of an old-world friend from whom he had been separated for such long years by politics and the ocean. A moderate glass of very excellent Madeira, the gift of Lieutenant-Governor Bromfield years ago, concluded the repast. The Parson then lighted his pipe, and Markham and I our cigars; and a fine afternoon of talk we had of it. But that must be passed by in silence; as there is a limit at which a story, like patience, ceases to be a virtue. Before we separated, which was not till after tea and well into the evening, Mr. Bulkley informed us that he should go to Boston the next morning.

"I meant to go the next day," said he, "to see about Dr. Felch's council of dismission; but I prefer putting myself out of my way a little to break this Hog's Neck, inasmuch as they both are a trifle ashamed of giving me the trouble I am to have; and I am confident it will clinch the matter. I think Mr. Hayley must give an opinion which will answer my purpose; and, which is better; he'll ask nothing for it."

Markham, hearing this, declared that he would avail himself of the chance of his company back to town, as he had accomplished his visit to me. I remonstrated against this determination, in which the minister joined me; though, as he said, he was arguing against himself. Markham was firm, however; and the next morning, accordingly, he was in the coach when it came round to the parsonage; and it whirled them both off together, after brief time for leave-taking—Parson Bulkley declaring that if the proverb were true, that "good company was as good as a coach," certainly good company and a coach too were better still.

Left thus alone, with only the company of Tacitus and Euripides (I do not mention Jasper, as he was engaged in composing some practical Bucolic or Georgic in the fields) to console me, the judicious reader will not be surprised to hear that, after wrestling for a season with these ancient worthies, I closed their "ponderous and marble (covered) jaws" which they had expanded for my torment, and thought that a walk to Woodside would be no more than a proper reward of my diligence. As I passed directly by the post office in my way thither, I of course looked in to see what was the state of my correspondence. The cross old postmaster, who had held the office since its erection, under Washington, handed me a thick letter, telling me gruffly that there was only a cent to pay, as it was a drop letter, or one put into the office at the town—the only one, he went on to say, in a tone of injured innocence, that had been put in for more than a year. He guessed it was a love-letter.

As I had no reason that I knew of, for sharing in this conjecture, I opened the envelope as I went along, and, to my surprise, found that it contained a letter addressed to Ann Petchell, my cousin Eleanor's femme de chambre. A few lines were written inside the envelope, asking me to do the writer the favor to deliver the enclosure to Ann Petchell herself, as it was a matter of importance to her, but without signature, and in a hand that I did not know. I could not imagine what it meant; and concluded at last that old Kimball, the postmaster, was probably not far wrong, and that the document must be neither more nor less than a love-letter. I was not over well pleased with being made thus the go-between of a waiting maid, and marvelled at the impudence of her correspondent. And it occurred to me further, that if Miss Petchell were involved in an amorous correspondence, such as I supposed this to be, she was not altogether what Eleanor took her for, and perhaps not precisely the person she would choose to have about her if she knew the fact. So I determined that I would let her or her father know the circumstance before I performed my part of Mercury to Petchell.

I had an opportunity speedily afforded me; for, as I was approaching the gate, which admitted you into the grounds from the high road, I met Colonel Allerton, who was coming down the road from the opposite direction. We turned into the sweep together, and, as we walked along the hard gravel, he said to me,—

"I see you have an unopened letter in your hand. Do not refrain from reading it on my account. You are at the happy age when a letter is a pleasure. Don't delay yours."

"I am much obliged to you, sir," I answered, laughing; "and I should like particularly well to read this particular letter. But, unluckily, it does not belong to me."

"Indeed!" he replied. "Is it for me, or Eleanor?" holding out his hand for it.

"It is for one of your family, sir," said I; "but for neither you nor my cousin Eleanor. It is for Miss Ann Petchell." And I told him the odd way in which it came into my possession.

"Let me see it, if you please," said he. "I see no reason why you should be troubled with her letters. This is odd," he went on to himself, closely scrutinizing the handwriting; "this is very odd, indeed. What can it mean?"

We were now at the door; and we forthwith proceeded to his library, where we found Eleanor seated by her father's fire, which a little chilliness and dampness, incident to our hottest summers, made by no means unsatisfactory. While we were exchanging salutations and inquiries the Colonel rang the bell, which was answered by Mrs. Warner, the housekeeper.

"Send Petchell here directly," said he. "I wish to see her."

"Petchell!" said Eleanor, looking at him and then at me in surprise. "Petchell!"

But there was no time for explanation; for the door opened, and that handmaiden entered, courtesyingly and simperingly; but still with a look of some alarm on her features at being so suddenly sent for by the Colonel, who, though a kind and considerate master, was a strict martinet in his family, and the whole corps domestique held him in reverential awe.

"Petchell, here's a letter for you," said he, abruptly, holding it out to her.

She courtesied as she took it, with a glance first at the letter and then at her young lady, and was about to leave the room.

"Stop, if you please," said the Colonel, in an authoritative tone; "if you have no objection, I wish you to open and read the letter here. I wish to know, if it be not a secret, how you come to be receiving letters from Mr. Ferguson, and why they should come under cover to Mr. Osborne."

Eleanor, on hearing this, gave me a half-reproachful glance, which made me fear that I had made some terrible blunder, though I could not divine what; and Petchell looked as if she should like to tear my eyes out. However, there was no help for her; so she hastened to open the letter with what show of indifference she could muster. Her fingers trembled, however, in the agitation she obviously felt; and, before she could prevent it, a letter dropped out of her enclosure and fell on the floor. Colonel Allerton, with the activity of six-and-twenty, instantly picked it up, and, after glancing at the direction, said to Petchell,—

"This is enough. It is all I want of you at present. You may go now."

And she went, apparently nothing loath.

Turning then to Eleanor, he said, handing her the letter, "I did not expect to find you in correspondence with Ferguson, I must confess. And I am still more at a loss to conceive why it should be carried on clandestinely. You did not use to be on such terms with him."

"It is all on his side, papa, now," said Eleanor, paler than ever, but evidently in strong perturbation; "I assure you it is. I have no wish to be on any terms at all with him. Whatever communications he has had with me he has intruded upon me against my will."

"I am sorry," he replied, "that you will still persist in thinking so ill of him. But I cannot imagine why he should annoy you, after what has passed, as you say he has, and still less why he should take this indirect way of doing it. It is not like him."

"Not like him! Oh papa!" exclaimed Eleanor, lifting up her hands with an expression of impatience and vexation.

"Certainly not," replied her father. "He was always open and candid in his intercourse with us at home; and we are certainly under great obligations to him."

Eleanor made a deprecating gesture of dissent.

"Why," he went on, "you know he told us of the blundering folly of"—— he stopped, with a glance at me, and then went on without mentioning any name—"and did his best to counteract it."

I thought that it was about time for me to make a move to retire; as this seemed to be a scene, however interesting, which had better have only the actors for audience. But Eleanor went on without minding me.

"Perhaps we were too hasty in believing him. I thought better, or not so ill, of him at that time; but I would not have believed his story then, had it not been made likely by the circumstances he brought to our knowledge."

"Perhaps, my dear," said the Colonel, very politely, but a trifle provokingly, "you would have been less incredulous had the offender been any one besides Mr. Markham."

If blood was ever eloquent, as we are told it sometimes is, that in Eleanor's cheeks made a very fine speech on this occasion, and one that gave me an odd sensation, which I had never felt before, nor have I since, at least in the same degree. She paused a moment, and then said, very quietly,—

"I think, papa, it would have made no difference. You certainly know that it did not, as it was."

"I beg your pardon, my love," replied her father, caressing her head with his hand. "I was wrong in saying what I did. But you know it provokes me to have you so unjust to Ferguson. He could have none but friendly motives in coming to this country at this time; for his own affairs might have waited a year or two. But he came now that he might be of service possibly to us. And this after what had passed between you."

Eleanor shook her head, as if she received none of this doctrine. The Colonel went on:—

"But how long have you known that he was in America? Knowing your feelings towards him, I did not think it necessary to say anything about it to you."

"I imagine," she replied, "that I knew of it nearly as soon as you, if not sooner. I have known it these six months."

"These six months!" exclaimed her father; "and never mentioned it to me! That is strange. But have you ever seen him?"

"Only once," she answered, looking at me. "It was the day that I sent you word of my getting into the river. I meant that it should bring you home; and I did intend to tell you that it was he that helped me out. But I changed my mind, and cousin Frank here had to bear all the credit of it."

"I cannot conceive why you should have concealed this from me," he replied, in a tone of some displeasure. "I am not too proud to be grateful for a good office, if you are."

"I could well have dispensed with the service," she replied; "for cousin Frank here can tell you that the danger was nothing, and that, if it had been anything, he was sufficient to the emergency."

I cordially confirmed her statement in its entirety; for I well remembered wishing the fishing boots at a considerable distance and in a much warmer place than the Quasheen—though that was not very cold that afternoon.

"You see, sir." she proceeded, "that there was no great call for gratitude in the case; and I certainly felt none whatever."

"Eleanor, Eleanor," he repeated, "I do not understand you. You are a changed creature. I cannot make you out this morning."

He rose from the sofa where he was sitting and took a turn or two up and down the room. Then, stopping short before her chair, he said, somewhat sternly,—

"And perhaps you intend to keep me equally in the dark as to the nature of your communications with him. I suppose they must have related to my affairs. They were not likely to have been anything improper for me to know," with a suspicion of a frown on his brow; "but I do not wish to intrude myself into your confidence, nor into that of Mr. Ferguson."

"Dear papa," said Eleanor, earnestly, "do not reproach me so. What real secret can I ever have from you? I may have done wrong in not telling you all about it at once; but I thought I was sparing you from pain, perhaps from danger, by saying nothing for the present. Indeed, I meant to tell you all in time."

"Well, well, my dear," he answered kindly, for, though quick of temper, he was the most placable of men, "I dare say you can explain it all. I have never thought you wrong yet, and I shall be slow to begin now."

The explanation I understood to be adjourned only till I was out of the way; and I was accordingly about to make another demonstration of departure, when Colonel Allerton said, before I could rise,—

"But, Eleanor, you have not read yet the letter of which Osborne here was the courier. I dare say it has nothing in it which he may not see. He ought certainly to be paid postman's wages; and perhaps he will be content to take it out in kind. Had you not better see what it says?"

Eleanor looked up suddenly from the carpet at which she had been gazing, and, glancing first at her father, and next at me, and last of all at the letter, which had lain in her lap all this while, she took it up and opened it. After running her eye over it she handed it to her father, who read it out, to this effect:—

"It is essential that I should have the interview with you I have so long solicited. It cannot be delayed, and it must be had. I have that to say which is of vital importance to you, and—if it be of greater weight with you—to your father. Time presses with me; and the interview I solicit must be at noon this day, or not at all. I will be at the Sachem's Seat at precisely twelve. If you object to coming alone, you can bring your maid with you, or the lad (lad indeed!) I saw with you when we met, who I understand is your cousin—if he be discreet."

"I cannot conceive," said the Colonel, studying the note closely, as if to extract its hidden meaning, "what Ferguson can have to say to you about me or yourself that he might not just as well certainly say to me in person. However, my dear, I should not be afraid to make you my plenipotentiary; and I think he would not make this request without some reasonable motive. So you had better get your bonnet, and take Frank's arm, since he is permitted to share in this mystery, and make haste; for," he added, looking at his watch, "it wants but a quarter to the trysting hour."

While Eleanor was gone for this purpose, he went on to me: "So you have seen Mr. Ferguson, it seems."

"Yes, sir," I answered. "I saw him for a moment on the afternoon when he drew my cousin out of the water, as she has told you. Indeed," I added, recollecting myself, "I did see him for a literal moment, when I was in Boston, on the top of the New York coach."

"Ah, yes," he replied; "I knew he had been at the South. I did not know he had returned until this morning. Did not you think him a handsome young fellow?"

Handsome! I thought him as ugly a monster as I had ever seen. And young! Why, the wretch could not have been less than five and thirty. But seventy and nineteen have different eyes for such things. I did not trust myself to speak, and only made a bow oracularly enigmatical. He went on, without waiting for further answer:—

"You may have inferred from what has passed this morning that there have been some former dealings between him and us. Indeed, I may say to you in confidence, as one of the family (I made a bow here of unequivocal gratitude), that he was an old admirer of hers (old enough, I parenthesized to myself) in England. Had she liked him, I should have been well pleased; for I did. But, as she did not, there was nothing to be said. She has a rooted dislike to him, apparently, which I cannot understand; but, right or wrong, it is something to be considered in the matter of marriage."

"I must say, sir," I put in, "that it seems to me that my cousin Eleanor is the last person in the world to form an unreasonable prejudice. She is candor and sweetness personified."

"She is a good girl, sir, a good girl," he resumed; "but the best of them take the bit between their teeth sometimes. And then there's nothing to be done but to give them their head. If they're good blood, they'll bring up safe enough when they've had their fling. But here she comes; and it is high time you were off."

We accordingly passed out at what Lord Castlereagh might have called "the back-front" door, which let us out in the direction of the avenue celebrated in the last chapter. We paced again down the length of the walk, and then left it by a path through a belt of trees skirting round the clearing, which connected it with the aboriginal forest, or what remained of it. At no great distance within the wood, but still far enough to be out of the reach of interruption or eavesdropping, was a small opening of less than a quarter of an acre in extent, either natural or of a very old formation, as there was no trace of stumps or roots among the short, soft grass. It was believed to have been made by the Indians; and a large stone, which had something the look of having been rudely shaped into a sort of chair, was called the Sachem's Seat.

Tradition said that this was the sacred stone on which the great King Miantowusett, so formidable to the Puritans before King Philip's days, used to sit and rule his tribe. I can only say that, if he were of like passions with other men, his majesty must, like many another sovereign, have sat uneasily upon his throne. Eleanor said nothing to me during our walk. To be sure, it was soon over; for we walked fast. But she seemed to be absorbed in the anticipation of what was before her; and the only sign she gave of being conscious of my presence was the way in which she rather grasped than leaned on my arm, as if it were done rather to steady her mind than to support her steps.

When we entered the cleared space we found Ferguson walking up and down its narrow diameter, holding his watch in his hand. When he saw us he returned it to his pocket and saluted us, or rather Eleanor, with a politeness which was rather punctilious than easy. She made as slight an acknowledgment of his bow as could be and be any at all; while I unglued my hat from my head just as much as I thought my share of his courtesy demanded. Eleanor dropped my arm, and, advancing by herself, sat down upon the Seat of the Sachem as Portia might have assumed the judgment seat had it been hers of right.

I admired the spirit and grace of the movement, while I thought I understood its motive. She was resolved, at all events, to have the firm support of this seat before she suffered herself to be subjected to the agitation or provocation of what this man had to say. I dropped modestly back towards the alley by which we had come in, and left the stage to the two performers. Ferguson took a stride or two more on the greensward; while Eleanor said, as calmly and coldly as if a statue had spoken,—

"I am here, sir. What may your pleasure be with me?"

"My pleasure is," said he, pausing in his walk and turning towards her,—"my pleasure is to do you good, if you will let me."

She answered only by the haughtiest inclination of her head, which spoke more of scorn than of gratitude.

"You think, perhaps," he went on, eying her with no amiable expression of face,—"you think, perhaps, madam, that I offer more than I can perform, when I say I wish to do you good."

"If I can put any faith in the letters with which you have annoyed me for so long," she replied, "I must suppose that you can do me some hurt, though you have not been pleased as yet to indicate how or why."

"And if that be true," he returned, "even in the offensive sense in which you choose to take my wish to serve you, is not the refraining from doing a hurt sometimes a positive good?"

"I did not come here, sir," she replied, "to enter into any discussion with you, or to hold any conversation not essential to the business, whatever it may be, which has made you call me to this place. If you have anything to say to any purpose I will listen to you; otherwise I will return as I came."

"Eleanor—Miss Allerton," he went on, after a pause, in a softened tone, "you know that I have had but one motive in following you to America—but one in seeking you here. I do not pretend to the romantic folly of seeking your happiness apart from mine. I hope to deserve my own by securing yours. Is there no service that can purchase hope? I ask no more as yet."

"I thought, sir," she replied with a coldness which might have frozen quicksilver,—"I thought, sir, that all this was at an end long ago. If I have ever done anything to make you think that fresh importunity would make me think better of what I said when we parted in England, it has been my misfortune, and not my design. I never give hopes, sir, which I do not mean to fulfil."

She made a motion as if about to rise and retire; but Ferguson made a restraining gesture and said,—

"You have, indeed, done nothing to give me heart; but perhaps others have. Circumstances may have happened which may alter even your resolution. Your father——"

"My father!" she interrupted. "You do not presume to say that you sought this interview with his knowledge?"

"Oh, no, indeed," he replied; "he knows nothing of it. I did not choose he should at present, or I should not have communicated secretly with you as I have done. You know he would have made me welcome to his house, if I had seen fit to come openly."

She bowed an unwilling sort of assent and said, "What of him, then, sir?"

"He is a gentleman of a distinguished position, of an honorable name, of unblemished honor, of a large estate."

"Well, sir," said Eleanor, somewhat anxiously, "what of it? I believe none of these things have ever been disputed."

"Perhaps not," he answered, fixing his eye, which was generally looking down, on hers, as if by an effort. "Certainly not. But you know that there have been men as happy as he in all these particulars who have lost them all."

"No doubt there have been many," said Eleanor, suppressing an intense interest as well as she might. "But what is that to me or to my father?"

"Suppose his entire estate in England were lost and confiscated."

"Well!" said Eleanor, growing almost breathless as he proceeded.

"Suppose his honor were blasted, his place among men obliterated, and his name infamous."

"Well!"

"Suppose him condemned to drag out his life in poverty and disgrace, an exile from his country, from which he is shut out by the absolute certainty, if he returned, of dying the death of a forger?"

"Well!" in a low voice, and pale as ashes.

"And then suppose one, who can bring all this down upon the father, lays his power at the daughter's feet, and seeks, as his chiefest good, to identify himself with the life, honor, and prosperity of the one, and to devote himself to the happiness of the other."

"And this was what you have been hinting to me through the letters you have forced upon me," said Eleanor, her color returning and her eyes kindling with some strong emotion or other.

"Precisely this," he answered; "though I was not prepared till now—I did not see fit—to tell you the exact truth."

"The exact truth!" she exclaimed, in a tone of the most derisive unbelief. "Had you told me all this at first, you would have spared me some anxious fears which your black suggestions conjured up. I thank you for relieving me of them all."

And she rose with a deal of scorn looking beautiful "in the contempt and anger of her lip," and was moving towards me, when Ferguson laid a detaining hand upon her arm, which she shook off as if it had been some crawling reptile.

"Stay a moment," said he. "I do not blame you for rejecting what I say at the first hearing. It would be strange indeed if you did not. But do you suppose I would commit myself in this way if I had not facts and evidence behind me? I do not ask for my reward till I have established my claim by indisputable proof of the service."

"Service! reward! facts!" ejaculated Eleanor, as if she could not quite put her thoughts in order. But presently she said, very collectedly, "And I can purchase exemption for myself and for my father from all this misery by taking you as my—husband?"

"Not purchase exemption," he replied; "but reward fidelity and devoted service."

"Fidelity!" she exclaimed, starting up from the stone on which she had seated herself again. "And, if I reject your offer, you will let it loose upon our heads? Am I to understand that to be the alternative?"

"I believe it to be inevitable as death," said he in reply. "Your fate and your father's is in your hands. It lies with you to decide whether it shall be life or death, honor or infamy. And you must decide at once."

"It will not take me long," said she, her eyes flashing, and her voice tremulous with anger. "I give no credence to what you say. I believe you capable of any villany, of contriving any plot, to compass any end you have in view. But do you suppose I will believe my father capable of what you charge him with? And even were he"——

"Had you not better wait," interrupted Ferguson, "until you know, whether capable of it or not, what the case against him is?"

"The case!" she exclaimed, stamping her little foot. "I care nothing for your case! You have proved yourself a villain by the proposal you have made me; and I am sure my father would sooner die on—as you say, than suffer me to purchase his life so infamously."

He looked as black as midnight, and scowled at her as he said, between his teeth, "You reject my offer, then?"

"Reject it!" she said, with a look of utter loathing. "I spurn it! I trample on it! I spit upon it!"

"Then take the consequences!" he said, struggling against a furious passion. "The ruin of your father, which you might have prevented, be on your head! And perhaps," he added, after a pause, in a quieter tone, but one steeped in malignity,—"perhaps the world will believe other rumors touching other persons. I have helped suppress them. Perhaps it will be impossible any longer. Mr. Markham has been seen in this neighborhood, I believe."

Eleanor blushed deeply with just anger at this insolence; and I stepped forward and said,—

"Sir, I accompanied this young lady hither by her request and for her protection. You will repeat your impertinence at your peril!"

"At my peril, you monkey!" he thundered out in a towering passion, which he was glad to vent upon somebody; and he advanced upon me with uplifted hand. I was but a mouthful to him; but I happened to take up, mechanically, as I came out with Eleanor, the cane which I usually carried. It had a blade in it, as college canes were very apt, foolishly enough, to have in those days. I drew it in an instant, and, shortening it as he approached, exclaimed,—

"Lay a finger upon me, sir, and by ——, it will be the last mischief you will do!"

Perhaps my eye was a little wicked; but at all events, he stayed his hand a moment, while Eleanor screamed aloud and was rushing between us, when we were all brought to our bearings by a quick rustling among the branches behind me, instantly followed by Colonel Allerton's voice of command.

"What's this?" he said sternly to me. "Put up that gimcrack, sir. What in God's name is the meaning of this disturbance?" looking first at one and then at the other.

"It means, sir," said I, "as far as I am concerned, that that rascal there (perhaps the noun was qualified by an expletive 'now better far removed') insulted Miss Allerton, and when I interfered he offered to strike me; and I was only giving him to understand that he wouldn't do it more than once."

"Ferguson! Eleanor!" he said, in a great amazement. "What is the meaning of this? Eleanor, is it true that he insulted you? Frank must be beside himself."

"Insulted me! Yes, indeed, sir," said she, "and you too."

"Me? Impossible!" cried the father. "In what way, pray?"

"Miss Eleanor," Ferguson put in, as if to give her time to reflect and withhold her communication, "regards the renewal of my unfortunate addresses as an insult to her and you. But I hope, sir, you may not regard it so seriously when you know my motives for my presumption."

"Don't believe him, papa!" cried Eleanor. "He is a liar, and the truth is not in him. What do you think," she continued, going up to him and resting her hand on his shoulder and looking up into his face,—"what do you think this wretch has been saying about you?—that you had committed some horrid crime,—forgery, I believe,—and that it depends on him to save you or to"—and she burst into tears on his shoulder.

"Yes," said I; "and the price of his silence, of your life, I believe, was to be Eleanor's hand in marriage."

"Ferguson, are you mad?" said Colonel Allerton to him. "Can you have said these things?"

"Mad!" cried Ferguson, who did seem nearly beside himself with rage and disappointment. "Mad indeed! Well for you if I were! Can I have said these things? I have said them, and they are TRUE!"

"True!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Mr. Ferguson, you know such charges as these must be brought to a strict account."

"Strict enough, sir," replied Ferguson, with a devilish sneer; "you may be assured, of that. But it must be by twelve men, and not by twelve paces. Satisfaction, sir, is the due of a gentleman, and not a FELON."

"Scoundrel!" cried the Colonel; and, shaking off Eleanor, he snatched my blade, still unsheathed, and made a step towards the other. Eleanor clung again to his arm, and I stepped between them; while Ferguson said, laughing loudly,—

"Come on, by all means, sir. Add murder to your other crimes. A man can be hanged but once!"

"Tush!" cried Colonel Allerton, tossing down his weapon.—"I meant nothing, Eleanor, my girl. It was an involuntary movement. Let the rascal go. I wouldn't touch him."

"I humbly thank you, sir," cried Ferguson, taking off his hat and making a mock bow to the party, with eyes full of hatred and malice; "and, since I have your gracious permission, I will go, as I have business elsewhere. Good morning."

And, turning round, he stooped under the branches of the trees in the side opposite to the entrance on our side, and disappeared. As we stood looking after him, we could hear him crashing his way through the undergrowth and the interlacing boughs of the forest.

————

CHAPTER XI.

IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND WHAT CAME NEXT.

WE stood in silence for a moment after Ferguson disappeared under the branches. I scarcely knew which way to look; but, without knowing it, I found myself glancing out of the corner of my eye at Eleanor, who had remained standing during all the last part of this singular scene. She stood gazing earnestly at her father, whose eyes were not yet withdrawn from the place where Ferguson had vanished, with an expression upon his face in which a towering passion seemed to contend with an extreme astonishment. Presently, however, as if controlling himself by a strong effort, he turned to Eleanor, and taking her arm under his, without saying anything, hastily proceeded to the avenue and thus on to the house. I followed at a proper distance, so that they might have spoken together, had they chosen to do so, without fear of being overheard by me. But they made no use of the opportunity, both appearing to be absorbed in their own thoughts; or, rather, the father seemed plunged in a moody cloud of meditation, while the daughter was anxiously considering him and his conditions. Though she stepped firmly, and kept pace with her father in his hurried walk, I could see that her arm trembled upon his, and that she was trying, as she had opportunity, to get an unsuspected glance at his face.

That I felt a profound curiosity, as well as interest, about what I had seen, need not be said; though I could not help feeling that my presence, although fairly and honestly brought about, might be intrusive and unwelcome. So I was meditating a sudden and secret retreat as soon as we approached the house, thinking that, as my room might be better than my company, it was very likely my companions would not notice my sudden substitution of the one for the other. Just as they entered the house, however, through which it was necessary for me to pass to make a dignified retreat, Eleanor said a few words to her father, with a glance at me over her shoulder. I pretended to drop my cane, and lingered behind so as to leave them free to say what they liked about me; when Colonel Allerton stopped, and, turning round to me, said,—

"Frank, step into my room, if you can spare the time. I should like to have your advice in a matter of some importance."

I felt greatly flattered of course, and looked on myself as promoted to be a middle-aged man at a jump; or, at least, as having received the brevet rank of five and twenty. I passed on through the hall and went into the library, the father and daughter remaining in conference near the hall door, while

I seated myself before the fire that was never quenched, and gazed up at the white wig, rubicund face, and wild, protuberant eyes of his late Majesty, who returned my look with a half-frantic expression not altogether out of keeping with the queer doings of the last hour. Presently I heard Eleanor's step ascending the stairs, and immediately afterwards that of her father approaching the door of the library. I rose as he entered; but he made me a sign to take my seat again, and then walked two or three times up and down the room in silent thought. Then seating himself on the sofa, which made an angle of some sort (I never was much of a mathematician) with the fireplace, he turned to me with the cordial, confiding air which marked his manner, whatever might have been the reserve it covered, if Mr. Bulkley's theory was right, and began,—

"Well, Frank, you will have a lively scene to describe in your next letter to the Deipnosophoi. Quite a godsend to your journal, by Jove! You could hardly have hoped for anything so animating in such an out-of-the-way corner of the world as this. I am sure I little thought what was coming when I walked down the avenue to meet you as you came back, and to make Ferguson come along with you."

"I will not deny, sir," I replied, "that I have been deeply interested in what I have seen this morning, and in what has come under my notice before as to this Mr. Ferguson, if that be his name; but I beg to assure you that nothing I have seen or heard will ever be told to any living soul, unless it be the wish of my cousin Eleanor and yourself that the facts I have been witness to should be truly stated at some future time."

"Thank you, thank you," he answered. "I believe you to be a discreet lad; and perhaps it may be as well not to make this adventure a topic of gossip just yet. It is quite likely it may become such, however; and, in such case, I am quite willing to leave your testimony in your own keeping, to be used or withheld at your own discretion. And I am sure Eleanor would feel the same. She has a high opinion of you, Frank, my boy; though the little accident by which you were brought into Parson Bulkley's keeping did not argue vehemently in favor of your prudence and steadiness of character at first."

I blushed to the very soles of my boots to hear this opinion of Eleanor in my favor; though, had I known as much as I do now, (the more's the pity!) I should have known that prudence and discretion are not always the best recommendations of a man to a woman. Luckily for me, however, these virtues have not always been so inconveniently preponderant as to stand materially in my way.

"I am much obliged to my cousin Eleanor and to you, sir," I said, half laughing at the conclusion of his speech, "for your good opinion of me. I am sure that I shall always look on the accident you speak of as one of the luckiest things that ever could happen to me; as, without it, I should have never known you, or her, or Mr. Bulkley. I do not pretend to be wise above my fellows; but I have sense enough to know the value of such friends as you all have shown yourselves."

"I thank you for our share of the compliment," said the Colonel; "and the rather, considering the character which you have just heard an older acquaintance than yourself bestow upon me, and the fate he was obliging enough to suggest as my due."

"His may be an older acquaintanceship than mine, sir," I replied; "but I know that mine is the better of the two; for it is enough to make me laugh at any such ebullition of spleen as that."

"I was taken by surprise this morning, myself," he resumed; "and was nearly as much astonished as you could have been at what Ferguson said. I have always thought well of him, and, had Eleanor fancied him, I should have been very well content to have had it a match. But she seems to have known him better than I did. By Jove! these women have an instinct which is a surer protection to them than the knowledge of the world we men brag so much of."

"She certainly had an escape; sir," I interpolated, as he paused; "for he must be a precious scoundrel, besides having a devil of a temper."

"You are right, undoubtedly," he went on; "though I was not clear-sighted enough to read him so. I thought him a sincere friend in the vexation in which I was involved through your friend Markham's étourderie; and I liked him all the better for it, because he was a rejected admirer of Eleanor's. But no doubt, as I always supposed indeed, he hoped thus to recommend himself to her."

He paused, and, as I knew nothing of the circumstances of which he spoke, I had nothing to say, excepting a confused observation to the effect that he would have been a fool as well as a rogue if he had failed to do his endeavor in such a cause. But the Colonel did not heed what I stammered out, but went on as if no break had taken place in the chain of his ideas.

"However that may be," he continued, "there is no doubt now as to his villany; and I only wish that I knew the extent of it. Angry as he was, and carried by his passion beyond his self-control, he had some meaning in what he said. It was 'miching malicho,' as Hamlet says, and meant mischief. I dare say he would give his ears (I wish to God they were nailed to the pillory, as they deserve to be!) that he had kept his tongue between his teeth. But, as he was surprised out of what he did not mean to say, I must make my advantage of it. And the first thing I must do is to get back to England as soon as I can to confront his charges; for I have no doubt that he is already on his way thither to make them, whatever they may be."

"To England, dear papa!" said Eleanor, who entered by the door behind him as he was uttering the last sentence; and she laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder. "To England! And why to England?"

"Because, my love," he replied, taking her hand in his as he spoke,—"because it is there I must be hanged, if Mr. Ferguson be a true prophet. I really don't recollect having done anything worthy of death since I came to America. Ferguson is not a fool; and he did not talk in the way he did, though he was in a passion, without some vicious meaning or other. He has some design, and it must be put into execution in England; and there I must be to counteract it."

She passed round the corner of the sofa where he sat, still holding his hand, and seated herself by his side.

"No, no, dear papa," she said, in a voice full of tender emotion; "do not put yourself within the reach of that villain. You do not know his ability in wickedness. You will find it more than a match for your innocence and the simple honesty of your way of dealing. Pray, do not go! Stay here with me!"

"What! my dear," he said to her half reproachfully, but all tenderly, "you surely would not have me stay here, and admit by default whatever slanders he may have concocted? That is not like my Eleanor. For my own part, I had rather mount the drop at Newgate next Monday morning than live under such an imputation. I will at least show my own confidence in my innocence, whatever happens. But you shall remain here until the whole thing is settled."

"I remain here!" she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears, which she hastily brushed off her long lashes before they fell,—"I remain here, papa, while you go to difficulty, if not to danger! That would be like me, indeed! You know that I was not thinking of myself; but I have a dread of this man's power of mischief which I cannot help. He has haunted me for more than two years; and I am afraid of him, I confess. If we are beyond his reach here, for God's sake, sir, let us stay here till he is out of our way."

"For more than two years, Eleanor!" said her father, in a tone of surprise. "What do you mean, my dear? How comes it that I have never heard of this before?"

Eleanor blushed deeply, and, looking divinely downwards, said, after a moment's pause, "I could not tell you, papa: indeed I could not. I could not trust you; for the man——" She paused a moment, and then added, as if with pain and difficulty, "The man insulted me. And"——

"Insulted you!" exclaimed her father, starting up, with a deeper imprecation than I had ever heard come from his polished lips. "Why did you not tell me of this on the instant? But it is not too late to overtake him yet." And he had his hand upon the bell-pull, when Eleanor seized his arm, exclaiming,—

"Dearest papa, this man is not worth your anger: he is beneath your resentment. What, what, are you going to do?"

"Do!" he exclaimed. "I am going to order my horse and be after him. I can be in Boston as soon as he."

"And what then, papa?" Eleanor persisted, still holding on to his arm.

"Leave that to me, my dear. I will find a way to chastise him for his insolence. Have no fears on that score," said the veteran; and he glanced significantly at me.

"Ah, dear papa," expostulated Eleanor, in a tone that might have disarmed Sir Lucius O'Trigger himself, "surely you would not put your life on a level with that wretch's, if that is what you mean: for you can hardly hope to inflict any chastisement in any other way. And now you wonder that I did not tell you all this two years ago. You have a pretty way, haven't you, of coaxing my confidence? Come, now, sit down by me again, and ask Cousin Frank there if he does not think you a choleric, testy, foolish old gentleman."

Bluebeard could not have withstood such entreaties and the blandishments that accompanied them; and Colonel Allerton did sit down again, evidently growing cooler and cooler, and said, "Well, and what does cousin Frank think on the subject?"

"I think, sir," I replied, "that you do well to be angry for such a cause; and I can find no fault with your wish for satisfaction if it were a case in which it could be had. But, putting aside the question of whether this man is entitled to be treated like a gentleman,

I suppose he could use this accusation, whatever it is, as he has already suggested this morning, as a reason for refusing to meet you if he chose. And besides, sir, you will remember this is not Old England; and the ordeal by combat is not one our Puritan notions accord with."

"Very true, very true, Frank," he said, quite calmed down again. "I was an old fool to have thought of such a thing. And then he might say that I wanted to rid myself of my accuser in this extra-judicial way. So go on, my love, and tell me how he has continued to annoy you since"—And his eyes flashed again, and his hand clinched, at the thought he did not utter.

"He hinted to me before we left England," she resumed, "substantially what he said to-day—that he had your honor, if not your life, in his hands. And he made me believe that he actually prevented your arrest, when we were on the eve of sailing, by putting the officers on a wrong scent."

"And why did you not tell me all this, my child?" said her father.

"Perhaps I was wrong, papa," she answered; "but I did what seemed to me for the best. I knew you well enough to know that nothing would prevent you from staying and facing any hazard if you knew of it; and I was weak enough to wish you safe on this side the water. I knew that the perplexity into which Mr. Markham's imprudence had thrown you was capable of being put into a bad shape; and I was sure that this man was capable of twisting it into any shape that suited him best. So I let things take their course. But, if I have done wrong, I have been fully punished; for I have suffered tortures of mind the last two years." And she closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her forehead, as if in severe bodily pain.

"My poor Eleanor," said her father, tenderly taking her hand, "you would have done better to have told me all this. I could have convinced you that his assertion about the arrest must have been a lie, and that so his others most likely were."

"Could you indeed, sir?" said Eleanor. "He told it to me connected with so many circumstances which I knew to be true, and actually pointing out the officer, that I thought that was certain, if nothing else."

"Had you been acquainted with affairs, my dear," he returned, "you would have known that an arrest of such a character could not be initiated without a degree of notoriety which would have followed us here, and that the subsequent legal measures could not be done in a corner. But no matter for that now: let me know what you have had to do with Ferguson since then."

"He wrote to me several times from England, proposing to renew his addresses to me, and on that condition, to hush up the 'ugly business,' as he called it.—The next time I knew anything of him was when we saw him together at the river," she said, addressing herself to me; and then, after briefly reciting the adventure to her father, she proceeded, "One other letter, under cover to Petchell, (as, indeed, all his letters were sent), came while Cousin Frank was in Boston. It was postmarked 'Washington.' But I was on the lookout for this; and as soon as it arrived, without opening the outer sheet, I sent it back to him at Boston, where I knew he would be before leaving the country."

"And that was the reason, no doubt," said her father, "why he enclosed the letter of this morning to Frank here. He thought it would be more sure of being opened, if it came through him; though, to be sure, it might have met with no better luck than its precursors had it not been for Frank and me."

"It certainly would not," she replied. "But I am very glad now it happened so, though I was not very well pleased with it at first, as you may have surmised," turning to me, (she was quite right—I had so); "for I am now rid of the first secret I ever kept from you, papa; and it shall be the last, I promise you."

And she put her arms round his neck and kissed him twice. Great Heavens! why was not I sixty-five years old and a papa? Sir Walter Scott somewhere feelingly complains of the affliction caused "to us male creatures" by the sight of the caresses which the ladies are so fond of wasting in such unnecessary profusion upon one another. I am not sure that it is any better to see them thrown away upon heavy fathers and stupid brothers. However, it is a part of the discipline of this mortal life; and I had to submit to it in this instance, as in a many since. Colonel Allerton presently resumed:—

"But still, darling, I am not clear that I ought not to return to England, to show that I am not keeping out of the way of his accusations. What think you, Frank?"

Eleanor gave me an imploring look; and, as I certainly had no wish to give an answer that should send them out of the country, I replied,—

"I cannot give you any opinion, sir, on the subject. I do not know enough about it to have formed one.

"Is that so?" he replied. "I have been talking to you all this while under the belief that Eleanor had made you her confidant and told you all about our affairs."

I assured him that I had not been thus happy. And Eleanor, while she confirmed my statement, was good enough to say that she had determined to do so at the very first opportunity that offered itself.

"I did so long for a friend to talk with about these things, which I could not tell whether I ought to keep to myself or not! I was so in want of advice and comfort!" she said and sighed.

Oh, why had she not yielded to this impulse? I do not know how I might have answered as a friend and comforter; but I am sure I should have done my best; and, at any rate, it would certainly have been a very great comfort to me.

"You would have done right," replied her father. "Frank is entitled to our thanks and our confidence; for he has shown himself truly discreet and friendly, as I understand it, and he shall have both." I bowed, and he continued, "In fact, there is not much to tell you. Just as I retired from the army, now more than twenty years since, old Vinal Grayson, who had been the agent for the loyalists ever since the year '80, died; and, as it was important that the post should be held by some person having some knowledge of the colonies and the people claiming relief from time to time, I was persuaded by Lord Hobart, then colonial secretary, to act in that capacity, though much against my will. For, though a limitation of time was prescribed in the bill for the compensation of the loyalists, still the government was very liberal and considerate in the admission of claims in cases of special hardship which might be strictly barred by lapse of time."

"The British government stood handsomely by those who stood by them, I have always heard," said I.

"You have heard the truth," he replied. "Of course it was impossible to satisfy the demands of all that made them; nor could the real losses we sustained be made good. But the successive ministries all behaved as well as they could, I believe. But this liberality exposed the government to the danger—which, indeed, is incident to all systems of compensations and pensions—of fictitious and forged claims. This could hardly be avoided with the greatest diligence, especially as many of the pensioners had returned to this country, and the distances over which they were scattered made it very hard to keep a strict eye upon them all."

"That is plain enough," said I. "I should think it must have been out of the question."

"We did our best," he went on; "but it was hard to guard against all the devices of the enemy. Some three years ago or thereabouts I was strongly suspicious that an extensive fraud had been carried on for some time. In the course of my investigations I had consulted with this Ferguson, as I had done frequently before, regarding him as a shrewd legal adviser, and as one particularly well qualified to act as such from his own connection with the loyalists. Young Markham, too, who was frequently at my offices in London with his father, and who was just then about to be entered at the Inner Temple, was also taken into confidence and employed in a subordinate capacity from time to time."

"What was the nature of the fraud you suspected?" I asked.

"It was a claim purporting to be of one Michael St. John," he replied, "for a large seizure of specie and goods which he was transferring from New Jersey to New York, at the beginning of the Revolution, for protection from the British troops, and taken by the rebels. With interest upon interest, it was made to amount to near fifty thousand pounds. It seemed so well supported by vouchers and affidavits, and the case as stated appeared so hard a one, that Mr. Perceval (for it happened during his short rule) consented to allow the man a pension of five hundred pounds a year for his life, provided Mr. Jackson, then minister at Washington, should certify to the necessary facts. This was done; and as soon as the certificate arrived in due form it was all settled, as I supposed; and all I had to do was to remit the money to New York every year on receiving the regular evidence that the man was alive."

"And how long did this go on, sir?" I inquired.

"For eight or nine years," he answered; "and it would never have been suspected that there was anything amiss, had I not had occasion to look into some American despatches in the foreign office on another matter relating to my department; and, to my surprise, I found no record at the time the certificate of the identity of St. John was sent over, of any such transaction. Mr. Jackson was dead, and his secretary at one of the Northern courts; and there was no immediate way of sifting it. I looked farther back, and found several other cases of like nature (of less amount, but very considerable in the aggregate), all of which were payable to the same agent in New York who held St. John's power of attorney."

"And what did you do then, sir?" I asked, naturally interested in the story.

"I at once sent for Ferguson," he answered, "who seemed as much perplexed and amazed as I was; and he advised me to say nothing for the present to the colonial secretary, but to lay a trap for the rogue at New York, so as to get his testimony as to the origin of the business."

"And you did so, I suppose?" I suggested.

"Yes; I am sorry to say I did. It was the grand mistake I made. I ought to have reported the whole thing at once; for when it transpired in that quarter—as it very soon did, through Markham's imprudence or ill luck—it had an ugly look."

"And how was that, sir?" I inquired of him.

"Why," said he, "Markham had a brother who was a clerk in the colonial office; and he happened to be there one morning when the secretary came through the room where he was. He remembered that Markham had been sent to him by me on business once or twice, and called him into his private room to ask him some questions on a matter to come before Parliament that day, that he supposed he might know about. I can't tell you how the cross-purposes occurred; but Markham, supposing he was speaking of this matter, of which his own thoughts were full, made answers which aroused the curiosity of the minister, and he did not release him till he had learned all he had to tell."

"That was unlucky, certainly," said I. "But it was rather poor Markham's misfortune than his fault."

"So I have tried to persuade papa," Eleanor put in, blushing and looking down; "but he——

"Ah, but you forget, my dear, that, although he was taken by surprise at first, he admitted that he went on deliberately afterwards in his account of the matter, thinking forsooth that it was best for all parties! He think, indeed!"

"But perhaps he was right, papa," said Eleanor, growing a little warmer as she went on. "You say that you were mistaken in not doing this very thing at first; why, then, are you so very severe on poor Mr. Markham?"

"He and I were very different people, my dear," he replied; "and the conduct which might have been wise in me was uncalled for and impertinent in him. And that is harder to forgive than an intentional injury—of which I have never suspected him. Had he held his tongue, we should have been at Walford to-day instead of Wensley."

I really could not find it in my heart to bear him malice for that; though I did not think Miss Eleanor had any occasion to blush so when she named him. I only said, however, "And what was the upshot, sir?"

"Why, the upshot was, as you might suppose, that the minister was high, and I was as high as he. He spoke of the whole business in a way that I could not stand, sir; and I threw up the office on the spot. His lordship made no objections to receiving my resignation, and soon afterwards appointed this very Ferguson my successor."

"Ferguson!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, yes," he replied; "and a very proper appointment it seemed to me then." Eleanor lifted up her eyes and hands as a slight protest. "Well, there was no reason I knew of why it was not, my dear; and I made no quarrel with Ferguson on that score."

"But how was this connected with your coming to America, sir, if I may ask?" said I.

"Very naturally," he answered. "As these frauds had occurred during my incumbency, I felt myself bound to do my best to get to the bottom of them, and to bring the perpetrators to justice. It was due to the government and to my own character; and the most direct way seemed to be to look into them in person and on the spot. And so I came over; and, as this foolish girl would not be left behind, I had to bring her with me."

"And what success have you had, sir?" I inquired.

"Indifferent enough," was his reply. "The conspirators on this side the water must have had timely notice of the discovery: for I have got no trace of them yet; and I fear I never shall now. But I had resolved never to go home until I had cleared this mystery up; and nothing but some imputation on my honor and character, such as Ferguson threw out to-day, would shake my resolution."

"Perhaps, sir," I suggested, "what he said was a mere burst of spite and vexation; for I must say that my cousin's reception and treatment of him were not of a gratifying description. Will it not be time enough to decide and to act after you have some definite information as to what he means to do and say? Possibly you may never hear from him again."

"I do not think that at all likely," he rejoined. "But, as you say, perhaps there is no hurry about it. At any rate, I will be ruled by a girl and boy to the extent of taking time to consider before I do anything further."

And Eleanor thanked him again in the manner heretofore protested against by Sir Walter Scott and myself. I added, when this was over,—

"And I wish, sir, you would take the boy's advice in another particular."

"Ah, and what is that?" said he, smiling graciously.

"I wish you would take Mr. Bulkley into your counsels. He is odd, but kind; and a genuine friend to this house, if faith may be given to his words behind your backs. And he is shrewd and wise in his generation, and as true as Toledo steel; and I know that your confidence would be very gratifying to him."

"Oh, I have the highest value for the good Parson," he replied good naturedly, "and would trust him with my soul, body, and estate. I do not imagine he can do much for us; but, if you should like to take him into counsel, I have no objection.—Have you, Eleanor?"

"No, indeed, papa," she replied; "and I think he is a very knowing old man. Perhaps, as Cousin Frank says, he may make some useful suggestion. At any rate, he will be a kind and good friend; and surely we have no superfluity of such."

"You may tell him what you think best of our affairs, then," the Colonel said in conclusion, "whenever he comes home, and say I should like to talk matters over with him. And now, come, take Eleanor into the dining-room; for you must be ready for your dinner by this time."

And so in truth I found myself, as soon as I could descend to consider the matter; and, as the hour when poor Jasper had spread his table for me was long past, I made no resistance to this hospitable suggestion. I don't know whether I ought to put it on record or not; but the fact is, that, notwithstanding the agitations of one kind and another we had undergone, we gave all the evidence good appetites could imply of good consciences. During dinner we talked on indifferent subjects; and the servant who waited on us could not have suspected from our ways that anything out of the common course had occurred that morning. Such are the funny conditions of the human microcosm. After dinner I returned to the parsonage, and applied myself to my classics with what appetite I might.

————

CHAPTER XII.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.

BY the encouragement of Colonel Allerton and Eleanor I was almost daily at Woodside until the return of the good parson, which was delayed several days beyond the time he had fixed for it. And, so curious is the mechanism of humanity, it seemed to me that I had never seen them so much at their ease as since the adventure of the Sachem's Seat. Eleanor, particularly, seemed as if she had thrown a load from off her heart; and its shadow, which used too often to steal over her features, had disappeared with it. There was certainly a little flush of excitement often on her cheek; but the air of abstraction and revery was gone entirely. Her manners to her father were more caressing and tender than ever, and to me as open and affectionate as a friend could desire. Colonel Allerton retained his old calmness of exterior, and looked, as he said he was, as if he were waiting for the next move. Eleanor spoke freely to me of the relief she felt at having this mystery which had been haunting her for so long take a definite shape, so that she knew what it was she had to fear, and at the restoration of entire confidence between her father and herself. I had a full intellectual sense of the rascality of Ferguson; but I could not but feel that he had done me the best of service by putting me into these confidential relations with the people I valued the most on earth.

Things went on thus for some days until the minister at last returned. I was standing ready to assist him in alighting from the coach, which arrived just before tea-time. I noticed that he did not seem so cheery and lightsome of mood as he usually was; but I attributed it entirely to the fatigue of the journey, which even he might feel more than he would choose to admit at seventy years. At tea I asked him as to the issue of his onslaught on the Hog's Neck; and he told me that Mr. Hayley had given him in writing just such an opinion as he expected, and which he was sure he could use to restore peace within the walls of Jericho. But, still, he did not treat the matter in the jocose and airy strain with which he was wont to encounter such oddities of adventure. Indeed, he did not seem to be thinking about it even while giving me this account of his success. I thought, too, that I could observe him regarding me, when he thought I was not noticing him, with an air of deep sympathy and commiseration. In short, he had a good deal the air and manner of one of those fearful friends who have some piece of bad news for you which they keep back in order to prepare you for the shock, but which they can't help from peeping out from the corners of their eyes and mouth, and which frightens you ten times more than the baldest and rudest display of the facts would do.

"——Ye gods, avert
Such plagues from righteous men!"

When Jasper had withdrawn the tea-things and gone about his business to some other part of the domain, I said to Mr. Bulkley,—

"My dear sir, you do not seem yourself this evening. You are not usually so done up by a journey of twenty odd miles, are you? You have heard some bad news I am afraid, sir."

"Bad news!" he repeated. "Why so? why should you think I had heard bad news? I have heard none that affects myself or you particularly." And I could see that he was eying me with the look of a tender-hearted surgeon (if such an anomaly exist) just before cutting off the pet leg of his intimate friend.

"Perhaps, then, it relates to the Allertons," I suggested. "I don't know who else there is that we have any common interest in."

"The Allertons!" he replied, still looking kindly but mournfully at me. "And why should you think of them and bad news together? Have you any reason to suppose that any such may be likely to be heard of them?"

"Perhaps I have, sir," I answered; "and I will not imitate their reserve, of which I have heard you complain, if you will be as open with me."

"I have little to tell, my dear boy," said he, with strong marks of surprise and interest in his face; "and that is merely the gossip of Boston, which may have no foundation whatever. So, pray, tell me what it is you mean."

Thus urged, I proceeded to tell him all that I have already told the world in the foregoing pages, and especially the final explosion, not forgetting the permission they had given me to take him into the secret and the request of Colonel Allerton for his counsel.

"The secret!" said the minister, after he had listened with the most earnest attention to all that I had to say. "I am afraid that there is no longer any secret to be admitted into. This business was the talk of Boston this morning. I do not mean that all the details you have given were blown; but there was a vague rumor that Colonel Allerton had fled his country for some great crime which had only been recently discovered. As to my advice and assistance, if I can afford any, God knows all I have is at their service. But, Frank, you seem to have been taken into their confidence in a remarkable sort of way. I should have been most glad to have known it before this mischief developed itself."

I assured him that my being admitted into their counsels had been owing to inexorable circumstances, and that I had received no more confidence from them than had been extorted by the necessities of the case. He shook his head and said, sadly, after a short pause,—

"I am an old fool, I suppose. But I had been building a castle in the air for you and Eleanor, I confess; and I was made unhappy, I admit, by the thought that this scandal would probably blow it sky high. I never made a match for myself; but I have always been making matches—planning them, that is—for other people. To be sure, I have been oftener disappointed than not in my schemes."

"This scandal, sir," I replied, determined to keep a good face, though I caught my breath a little as I spoke,—"this scandal would have nothing to do with your castle; for I am afraid that I am not the man Eleanor has chosen to inhabit it with her. But had it been otherwise, and should even this slander be proved to be truth, I should have scorned myself if I permitted the fault of a father to influence my feelings or my conduct towards such a daughter, had I any species of claim upon her, which I certainly have not."

"You are right, Osborne," he replied, still looking sadly and kindly at me, which I pretended not to observe,—"you are right, and speak as a man of honor and just feelings should. But suppose we walk up to Woodside at once. We shall find them just done tea."

Of course I made no objection to this proposal; and we were soon on our way thither, only making a forced halt at the post office, where the Parson was intercepted by Major Grimes, Deacon Holt, and several of the other dignitaries of the village, and compelled to disburse the latest news from town. He then received, in his turn, their contributions as to the condition of the parish, particularly as to health and sickness; for I believe I have forgotten to tell, among other particularities of Wensley, that the Parson was not only its lawyer, but its doctor to boot. Whether it was owing to his skill in medicine (for he had dabbled a little in that as in almost everything else) or to his very moderate exhibitions of the same, Wensley was always in a state of rude health truly disheartening to any young and enterprising practitioner; so that the few that had ever pitched their tents there had soon struck them again and departed for more hopeful fields of labor.

Jasper was Mr. Bulkley's main assistant in his medical practice; for he had learned to breathe a vein during the war, with perfect accuracy, when in attendance for a while on the hospital department; and, as phlebotomy was still a main arm of the war service against disease at that time, he was an invaluable auxiliary. In cases of a critical character, to be sure, he would call in the famous Dr. Whittredge, of Sandover, who was his ancient friend and willing adviser, and almost as great an oddity as himself. When I was last in Wensley there were more doctors' signs even than meeting-houses, regular and irregular, allopathic, homœopathic, hydropathic, botanic: all systems had their zealous professors, ready to dispense life and health to all who had the faith and knowledge to come to them. I wonder whether Wensley is better in body and soul now than it was when Priest Bulkley lorded it there, with gentlest despotism, in things temporal and eternal?

We were most kindly received, on presenting ourselves at Woodside, and the good parson cordially thanked for the promptitude of his visit. If there were any embarrassment on either side at the meeting, it was on ours. Colonel Allerton and Eleanor possessed their souls in the same calm and imperturbable equanimity which generally marked their manners, and which I alone had been permitted to see disturbed. We talked over the Ferguson business with perfect openness and discussed its various bearings freely, or rather the elders did; for Eleanor and I were only listeners, for the most part.

They did show some sensibility, indeed, when Mr. Bulkley told them that their affairs were the town gossip in Boston that day; for who can know that their conduct is the theme of common talk and vulgar discussion, however blameless they may know themselves to be, without a feeling of wounded pride and a bitter sense of injustice—to feel that, at that very moment of time, hundreds of strangers, or, which is worse, professing friends, are engaged in exclaiming, wondering, and conjecturing about your affairs, and in tearing your character to shreds—extenuating nothing, and setting down everything, if not in malice, at least with a good nature, which is an excellent imitation of it? However, they swallowed the momentary pang, and the conversation proceeded.

"The essential thing to be done," said Mr. Bulkley, "seems to be to discover the agent who was employed to receive the moneys in New York. Have you no clew to him?"

"None whatever," replied Colonel Allerton. "I made it my first business to inquire him out; but he had disappeared past recovery. He had no domicile, apparently, there, but came to the city as the remittances were expected."

"That is strange," said the Parson. "But does it not occur to you as possible that some trace might be got of him by the way of this St. John you speak of—the man in whose name the pension stood? Of course he is probably dead; but there must have been such a man, I take it, and somebody must remember him."

"I don't know that," replied the Colonel. "I could hear nothing of him in all the inquiries I could make after him. Did you ever hear of such a person?"

"No," said the minister; "I never did. But, then, I have no acquaintance in the Jerseys; nor do I know anybody that has. But stop a minute," he continued, putting his finger to his forehead; "I'm not so sure of that. There's my Jasper; he's a Jerseyman. It's barely possible he may remember such a person; for he never forgets any one, and especially a Tory," laughing as he spoke.

"It is not at all likely," replied the Colonel, "that he should have put his rebel memory to so good a use as this, especially as it would be to oblige another Tory; but it can do no harm to ask him the question."

"Another thing," said Mr. Bulkley. "Has it ever suggested itself to you that this Ferguson may have had some cognizance of this matter? He seems rascal enough for it."

"I certainly never thought anything of the sort," returned the Colonel, "until the other day. Since then, I confess, it has occurred to me; but I have no ground of suspicion except my ill opinion of him."

"But what are his connections in this country?" asked the minister. "You said, I think, that he was of Tory blood. That may give us some inkling to guide us."

"His family were from the Middle States somewhere," answered the other; "though I believe his mother was from New England. But she died before I knew anything about them. His father was Colonel Robert Ferguson, who died in Jamaica about the year five. I knew him there ten years before."

The minister's countenance fell. After a brief pause he asked, in a constrained voice,—

"He was receiver-general there, was he not?"

"Receiver or registrar general, or something of the sort," replied the Colonel, little thinking how rude a wound he was giving his old friend.

I comprehended the whole in a moment. It flashed into my mind at the same moment it did into Mr. Bulkley's that this Ferguson must be the son of the fair, the frail, the unworthy Julia Mansfield, his first and only love, whose unworthiness he had mourned more bitterly than her scorn or her death. This man was the inheritor of her blood—her representative!

Mr. Bulkley sat in silence for a few minutes as if to recover from the shock, as I saw. Our companions did not remark it; for, though they had heard the story of the good Parson's cross in love, they had paid no particular attention to the names of the parties and had probably forgotten them entirely. Presently he rose and took leave, saying he would come again the next day and talk over the matter further.

"And if you will give me leave," said the Colonel, as we were leaving the house, "I will walk down to the parsonage to breakfast to-morrow and hear what Jasper has to say on the St. John matter, if the day be fine."

Of course this suggestion met with a cordial acquiescence; and Mr. Bulkley and I passed out into the night. It was cold for the season; but the chill air seemed to refresh him. He drew a long breath and set off rapidly towards home. Then he slackened his pace and then quickened it again, as if unconscious of what he did. I felt his arm tremble upon mine, and knew that deep feelings and strong passions agitated his aged bosom. I reverenced his sorrows and paid them the homage of perfect silence. His was a heart that never could grow old; and out of its warm recesses what were the images that glided forth and walked with him through that glimmering night? What eye but his could see the phantom in all the loveliness, and innocence, and gayety of fifty years ago evoked by the necromancy of a chance word that stirred his being to its depths? What visions of youth, and love, and hope waited upon her! What memories of disappointment, of despair, of grief, harder to bear than either, followed after her! Who but he could tell?

I could not tell what was the procession of shadows that passed before him as we walked side by side; but I felt that it was sweeping by, and I religiously forbore to disturb it by a loud breath. I had no sense of the fifty years that separated us. Something there was (I wonder what it could have been?) that contemporized us, to use a word of Sir Thomas Browne's coinage. The sympathy I felt with him was that of youth with youth, and not of youth with age. He felt, too, that I understood him, though no words had passed between us; and his grateful pressure of my hand, as we stood on the door-stone, told me so and thanked me for it. He took the candle from Jasper, who opened the door for us, and went directly into his bedroom, and we saw him no more that night; though the great Bible lay open on his study table, with the lights, all ready for prayers.

Jasper looked at me as I went in and took up one of the candles, and said, shaking his head, "Somebody's been a-talking to him about that Tory Mansfield girl?"

I nodded acquiescence; and he went on: "I knowed it as soon as I see him. It's been just so this forty odd year that I've lived with him. Ah! master Frank," he continued, in a truculent tone, "a woman's bad enough, anyhow; but a woman that's a Tory, too, is the devil!"

With this apothegm he made me his military salute and left me to my meditations. And he had certainly given me a text for them too. I could not help feeling, as I lay in bed thinking the day over, that I knew an individual of the kind, and with the specific difference he had thus denounced, whom yet I could not consent to refer to the order in the spiritual hierarchy to which he had reduced all such in a lump. While still engaged in these commentaries I fell asleep.

The Colonel was as good as his word the next morning, and arrived before Jasper had laid the table for breakfast. Mr. Bulkley and I were walking up and down the gravel walk which bisected the garden, enjoying the clear light and bracing breath of a fine October morning, when he passed through the house and joined us. He seemed not quite as well at ease as he had done the evening before; and, after salutations had been exchanged, he said,—

"My walk has been productive of more enlightenment as to the state of my affairs than I had expected when I proposed coming here."

Of course we both of us begged to know from what direction this illumination had come.

"By a natural way enough," he replied. "As I was passing the post-office, old Kimball came running after me with a letter, which he said had fallen aside yesterday afternoon when Snell went for the letters. It is from the British Minister at Washington."

We neither of us knew precisely what to say; and so prudently waited till he was ready to proceed, which he presently did.

"It is a private and friendly, not an official letter. He is my very old friend, and, as such, wishes to give me all the help he possibly can. But, as it might be misrepresented, perhaps it is better that the circumstance should not be mentioned."

We assented; and he gave Mr. Bulkley the letter, who read it out as we walked. It was friendly in its tone, but diplomatic in its terms, and gave no more information than was necessary for his object. Beginning with expressions of regret at what he had to tell, his excellency informed Colonel Allerton that charges and evidence had been forwarded to England by the packet of the sixth which might give rise to a criminal prosecution against him, but which he, the Minister, was sure Colonel Allerton was fully prepared to meet and explain. He thought it not improper, considering their ancient friendship, to state to him these facts, in order that Colonel Allerton might take such measures for his exculpation as the case demanded. And he felt it the more incumbent upon him, as a personal friend, to give him timely notice, inasmuch as Colonel Allerton must be aware that his property in England would be taken possession of by the government, to await the final issue of the affair.

"It's very odd, by Jove!" said he, when the reading of the letter was done, "that I had never thought of that before. But of course it is a fact; and I must reduce my establishment within the limits of my American property, which, unless your general court sees fit to let go its gripe on the Clarke estate, is little enough. But, luckily, I have just received the balance of my half-yearly settlement with my agent at home; so that I am not absolutely without the means of carrying on the war for a while."

Our consideration of this point was presently interrupted by Jasper, who appeared to announce breakfast. While we were engaged in discussing the admirable results of his morning's labors (and he had an artist's pleasure in making the work of art before us as perfect as possible) Mr. Bulkley said to him,—

"Jasper, in what part of New Jersey did Colonel Cuyler live?"

"Up north, sir," he replied, "among the mountains, on Marking's Kill, three or four miles west of Williamsboro', near the Pennsylvany line."

"Very good," responded the minister. "And did you ever happen to know a man in Jersey named

Saint John—Michael Saint John?" giving out the name of the evangelist with emphatic distinctness, and laying particular stress on the title which Christendom in general agree to prefix to it, (though he never used it in his public services, regarding it as a rag of Romanism), so as to impress the name strongly on Jasper's mind and to recall the man if possible.

Jasper took time to consider, during which we hung upon his lips in anxious expectation; but he shook his head and said,—

"No, sir; I never knew any such man there, nor nowhere."

All our countenances fell a little at this, as we had all entertained a faint hope that we might get some glimpse of light from our dark friend. Even Colonel Allerton looked rather disappointed; though he affirmed that he had reckoned nothing on this most remote and unlikely possibility. So we presently resumed our conversation and pursued it as if this interruption had not taken place, and went over again the St. John mystery, as men will talk over a hopeless business, as if discussion gave relief, if not hope. We none of us minded Jasper's presence; both because we knew that he might be trusted with an absolute confidence, and because there seemed no particular reason for making any more of a mystery of the matter than it was in its own essence. After breakfast Colonel Allerton took his leave and proceeded towards the village, leaving the minister and me to our morning tasks.

We had not been long engaged upon them when Jasper came into the room from the garden, whither he had repaired after disposing of his breakfast things, and said to Mr. Bulkley,—

"I beg your pardon, sir; but I have just been thinking that I used to know another man in Jarsey that you were talking of this morning."

"Another man!" said the Parson, rubbing his forehead. "I don't remember, whom do you mean?"

"Why, I used to know a Mr. Sinjin there before the war. I don't know whether you care about him, sir."

"Bless your soul!" cried the Parson, jumping up. "And was his name Michael?"

"I believe it was, sir," replied Jasper; "though I'm not sure of that. But there was a Mr. Sinjin lived the other side of the Kill, about two miles off. My master hadn't much to do with him latterly; for he was a bloody Tory, and went down to York before we went to the wars."

"It must be he! it must be he!" exclaimed the minister, making the historian Tacitus describe a somerset in the air quite out of keeping with his usually staid and saturnine temperament; and then, clapping his hands, added, "It must be the very man, Osborne, mustn't it?"

I assented to the probability.

"Do you know anything of him since then, Jasper?" he continued.

"No, sir," Jasper answered. "I have never heard of him or about him for better than forty year."

"Never mind, never mind," the sanguine Parson proceeded. "We have found the first track; and it will be hard if we don't follow it up. You could direct us to the very place, I suppose, couldn't you?"

"Lord bless you, yes, sir," answered Jasper. "I could find my way there in the dark if you'll put me down at Williamsboro'."

"To be sure you could!" said the minister; "to be sure you could! This comes of the English habit of eating up proper names. The Colonel shall not hear the last of it soon, I promise you. Sinjin, indeed!"

"Perhaps, sir," I suggested, "he may have something to say to you; for, if you had given the name as he did, Jasper would have known what you meant. He was the judge of how the name was to be pronounced, you see, after all."

"Ah, but you see the man was a Tory," said the minister, in high spirits; "so it's no wonder he didn't know how his own name should be pronounced, is it, Jasper."

"He was a Tory," answered Jasper, simply, as if that was the gist of the matter, as he left the room.

————

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH GREAT PROGRESS IS MADE.

I SUGGESTED to Mr. Bulkley that it would be well to lose no time in apprising Colonel Allerton of what Jasper had said. He assented to the general proposition, but added,—

"It will be soon enough after dinner. This is news that will keep cold. And as our studies have been somewhat interrupted of late, I think we will hold by them this morning, if you please."

Of course I had to comply, whether I pleased or not; and we resumed our lecture, though to what degree of edification I do not think I can precisely testify at this distance of time. The morning was over, however, at last, and dinner was despatched, and a proper interval allowed for the difference of dinner-time at Woodside. Then the Parson told me I had better proceed on my errand by myself, as he must make a journey to Jericho to settle the rights and wrongs of the Hog's Neck. So I set off alone, not unwillingly. On arriving at Woodside I entered the hall-door, which was standing hospitably open, it being a fine day, though well on in October, without giving any warning of my presence. My habits of intimacy at the house also authorized me to enter the parlor where Eleanor usually sat without ceremony.

The room was never very light, owing to the shadow of the piazza and the climbing and drooping plants that festooned it; and on that afternoon the curtain of the second window to your right was let down to keep out the blaze of the westering sun. As I entered I saw, as I thought, Eleanor and her father seated at the very end of the room in earnest conversation—so earnest, indeed, that they did not at once notice my approach. I advanced hastily, full of my news, when the pair rose in evident haste and embarrassment on perceiving me. I had my message on my lips, when, my eyes turning from Eleanor to her companion, I was astonished at seeing that it was not her father, but Mr. Harry Markham. My own confusion eclipsed theirs when I perceived this conjunction, which my heart misgave me boded me no good.

The feeling that mine was a most unwelcome intrusion crimsoned my cheeks for a second; but a bitterer pang soon drove the blood back to my heart. A flash of light seemed to search the closest coverts of my being, and I saw myself as I never did before. I had never said, even in my secret thoughts, "I love Eleanor Allerton!" till now that I felt that she was lost to me forever. It seemed as if years had passed over my heart since I entered the house a few moments before. I was a youth no longer. The passions of a man burned fiercely in my heart, and the simplicities and follies of boyhood shrivelled and vanished in the flame.

I was conscious that my agitation of mind was written in my face. I felt that my knees trembled and my throat was parched; and I waited a moment till I was sure of commanding my voice before I spoke. But I was master enough of myself to see that I was not the only embarrassed one of the party. Whether it were the sight of my emotion, or the conflict of strong feelings of her own, the alternations of Eleanor's countenance (and its expression changed continually) had a painful, suffering air as she looked at me, which I thought I could read plainly enough.

"She is sorry for me—poor, foolish lad!" I said bitterly to myself; and I felt as if I could eat my heart with rage that she should know that I was to be pitied.

"And does he, too, extend his tender compassion to me?" I continued, within my teeth,

I could not tell; but I thought, on thinking it over afterwards, (I could only see and feel then), that his thoughts were not on me. Why should they be? He was not a demonstrative person at any time, and his face was not a book easy to be read. But it did not express a mind at ease. A mind at ease! Disturbed, perhaps, at the very height of his dream of joy, and hardly knowing whether it were a dream or a reality, how could it be at ease? It must be so. And I—I had discerned where my life of life was garnered up, just as it was scattered to the winds. It was a cruel moment for me—a moment into which an eternity was crushed together.

As soon as I could somewhat command my voice I stammered out, in a huskyish tone, "I—I beg pardon; but—but I had a message for your father; and—and I thought I should find him here. Is he in his library?" And I made towards the door by which I had entered.

Eleanor advanced towards me and said, not without agitation of look and voice, "Stay here, Cousin Frank; I will call him. He will be glad to see you; and we will hear your message together, if there be no objection."

And she disappeared through the arched doorway which led into her father's room. Left alone with Markham, he came up to me and offered me his hand, which I could not refuse; and we exchanged a few sentences of mutual inquiry, though I have no recollection of what it was now, if I had any perception of it at the time. I stood in a whirl of thoughts and emotions which I could not analyze. I could not reason; I could only feel that the lamp of my life was trampled out just as I discerned the shrine before which it burned, and that I was doubly orphaned from that hour forward.

I had not long to wait however; for, as we were talking, I heard the quick step of Colonel Allerton moving about in his room; and almost immediately he entered, alert and erect as ever, followed by Eleanor. After giving me a friendly greeting he said,—

"And so you have a message for me, Eleanor says. And what has the good Parson to say now? You needn't mind Markham here. He knows all that we do." And he gave him an open, cordial, friendly look, very different from the frigid politeness of his address when I saw them last together, but which stung me to the heart. What could be the meaning of it? Was there to be a mystery always brooding over this house?

I told my story as collectedly as I could, but with very little of the animated interest which I had brought with it from the parsonage, but which I had laid down at the threshold of that room. Luckily it was not a very complicated narrative, or I should have bungled it; for I was thinking but little of what I was saying. My statement, however, greatly interested Colonel Allerton; and he succeeded in making the other two talk it over with him as a circumstance which might possibly grow to some importance in their affairs. I took no part in the conversation, and found it hard to express the interest I ought to feel, and really did at bottom, when any of them addressed themselves to me. I could see that Eleanor was privily observing me, which did not assist me in concentrating my ideas; but Markham was clearly so full of what concerned himself and his friends, for such they now plainly were, that he had no thought to bestow on me. Colonel Allerton, however, was more observing; and after the matter had been discussed and put in all probable points of view, and not much more remained to be said, he turned to me and said,—

"But what ails you, Frank, my boy? You are not like yourself this afternoon. Are not you ill?"

I confessed to a headache, (though I apprehend that the seat of the disease was not the head), and rose to depart, to cover myself from further observation.

"Nay, but stay and spend the rest of the afternoon with us," the Colonel hospitably urged. "You have not seen Markham this long time; and I prescribe his good company and Eleanor's as excellent for a headache. I have tried half the mixture," he continued, looking at Eleanor, "often myself, and have always found it a sovereign remedy."

I tried to laugh; and I thought, though I did not say so, that the remedy was like to be worse than the disease. So I resolutely excused myself, alleging that Mr. Bulkley would expect me and that I must go.

"Then come again this evening," persisted the Colonel; "and be sure and bring him with you. I want to hear his opinion about it."

I was going to decline again on my own account; but, looking at Eleanor, I saw her eyes fixed on me, while her lips expressed rather than uttered,—

"Do come!"

So I half muttered and half bowed an assent and hurried away. Still, as I walked homewards I again resolved that I would not return to Woodside again while Markham was there. I could not endure it.

It was plain, that, however it had been brought about, the displeasure which Colonel Allerton had felt towards him, and in which his daughter had certainly appeared to share in a lesser measure, was now removed. He was there apparently on familiar and intimate terms. Could it be possible that the change in their circumstances had bent the proud spirits of the father and daughter, and made them willing to accept addresses for her now which they had spurned in more prosperous days? That his name had been connected with hers, that there had been a closeness of connection and intimacy between them enough to excite remark and gossip, I knew from Ferguson's insolence, which compelled my interference, at the Sachem's Seat. I had observed, too, her embarrassment on more than one occasion when he had been spoken of, and her attempts at a partial defence of him from the strictures of her father.

I soon rejected all that was unworthy of Eleanor and her father in these surmises. I blushed that I had ever entertained them. It lowered me in my own eyes. But still, the main result of my conference with myself on the subject was the same. Everything confirmed it. His coming to America at this time; his reserve on my first acquaintance as to his relations with her; the particularity of these relations at some former time, proved by the very coldness and distance of his treatment at his first visit as well as by what Ferguson had said; her own looks and language when he was in question; this sudden change of demeanor towards him; the earnest tête-à-tête I had interrupted,—all, all proved beyond a peradventure that whatever had parted them was removed—that Markham was the favored, the accepted, lover of Eleanor Allerton.

Well, suppose he was. Was it anything to me? Could she ever be anything to me more than the kindest of sisters and friends? I cursed the idea of sisterhood and friendship. An hour before, I should have blessed them. The scales had fallen from my eyes, and I saw that they were not what I wanted. I cursed the hour that brought me to Wensley; and the next moment I cursed myself for the thought, and could have wept to think of never having known, though but to lose her forever. In short, I was furiously in love and furiously jealous, and was guilty of as many follies as my predecessors and successors in that category. Follies are they? Perhaps they are; but there is a good deal of what passes current for wisdom that one would exchange for them if one could—ay, and give boot into the bargain.

I had some time to torment myself with these thoughts and imaginations before the Parson returned. But at last he arrived, chuckling over the success of his mission, which, it seemed, had resulted in the renewal of the family compact between the two dynasties, to be consolidated by the marriage of Jerry and Sukey and confirmed by the sacrifice of the Hog's Neck. Mr. Bulkley was so full of his story that he did not remark the slight attention I gave to it, though it was garnished by many of his best imitations and attended by a running accompaniment of his merriest laugh. At last, however, when he was entirely done, and had wiped the tears from his eyes, which always waited on his best laughs,—tears like those of Matthew, "of one worn out with mirth and laughter,"—he suddenly seemed to catch sight of my face as of some new thing.

"Bless me, Osborne!" he exclaimed, "What is the matter with you? Has anything happened at Woodside? Nothing wrong there, I hope."

"Everything is wrong there for me, sir," I replied, bitterly; and then, yielding to an impulse which seemed to urge me on whether I would or no, I told him the whole history of the afternoon, of the revelation which it had made to me of myself, and of the cruel despair in which it had left me. I have said before that the minister was a chosen confidant of love troubles within his own jurisdiction; and I now felt the influence upon my own mind which made him such. I do not think that there was another human being to whom I could have made that confession. But there was a sweetness and sympathy of soul about that blessed old man that invited and drew forth perfect confidence. I never could have said the same thing to any of the Deipnosophoi. No, indeed. The sense of the ridicule which is so often, though so cruelly, made to wait on a hopeless passion, bad enough in itself, heaven knows, would have sealed my lips upon the rack. But such an idea could not be associated with that of my dear old friend. Were there many such priests as he, I should accept the sacrament of confession. He listened to my story with the tenderest interest and tried to give me what comfort he could. But I thought I could discern, under all the consolation and encouragement he gave me, that he was of my opinion in the matter. Indeed, he gave me no direct encouragement; only he soothed my irritation of spirit so wisely, and showed me how I might have been too hasty in my conclusions, after all, that it had the effect of comforting me.

At teatime I could hardly help laughing through all my distress to see how the good old man pressed upon me the best of everything on the table, and made Jasper bring out his choicest stores, reserved for solemn occasions. If the very best tea in the house, and preserves, and marmalade, and diet bread (as sponge cake used to be called in those days) were a specific for a wounded spirit, mine would have been whole on the instant. I did my best, however, to satisfy his kind intentions; and soon after he had released me from my endeavors, which hardly came up to his wishes, I reminded him that Colonel Allerton wished to see him at Woodside. I was still inclined to remain at home; but he would not hear of it, and insisted on my accompanying him.

We arrived before the Woodside party had risen from their tea table. And here I saw again that the relations of the parties around it were changed since I last assisted with them at that evening sacrifice. Here was no lap tea, but a well-spread, sociable board, around which the three sat as friends, with every appearance of entire cordiality. I was sorry I had agreed to come. But it was too late then; and I took my share of the welcome extended to us with the best grace I could assume. I could feel with "the sixth sense of love" that Eleanor's eyes were often fixed upon me with a melancholy earnestness when I was looking another way; but they were dropped or withdrawn before mine could meet them. I despised myself for being the object of her pity; and I could see that Mr. Bulkley was covertly watching us; and this did not assist in the preservation of my equanimity.

We soon adjourned to the Colonel's room, where his wood fire gave out a cheerful, crackling, dancing light, in which we sat and talked over what was most in our minds (or rather in theirs), and never thought of ringing for candles till it was nearly time to break up the session. I did not attend much to what was going forward; but I could perceive that the talk was chiefly on the possibility of making some use of the glimmer of light Jasper had thrown upon our darkness, and whether it might not show us a way out of our perplexities. After a brown study of some duration, during which I sat with my eyes fixed on the blazing logs and listening rather to the spattering hiss with which the sap exuded from them upon the hearth than to the discussions going on around them, I was aroused from it by hearing the minister say,—

"An excellent plan, indeed! And I'll tell you what—Osborne shall go with you. He is entitled to have a run for a week or two; and I'll be answerable for him to the authorities at Cambridge."

"With all my heart," replied Markham; for it appeared that the remark was addressed to him; "it is just what I should have proposed myself if the plan went forward. What say you, Osborne? Will you go with me?"

"Yes—certainly; that is," I stammered out rather uncertainly, "if I can be of any use—if Mr. Bulkley thinks best."

"Oh, I do think it best, by all means," the minister replied; "so consider that as a settled thing."

As I thought I might as well know what the settled thing was of which it seemed I was to be a component part, I rallied my thoughts and tried to fix them on what was going on; and before we parted I had gathered that Mr. Bulkley had inspired the Colonel with a portion of his own confident belief that Jasper's information might be followed up to some good result; and they had agreed that Jasper had better be sent to the spot with some judicious person, who might pursue the game which he might by possibility set on foot. Markham at once volunteered to be the judicious person aforesaid, and offered to set off on the shortest notice; and it was as an amendment to this suggestion that the minister moved that my name, too, should be put into the commission. As soon as I understood how it was I fell in with the plan with a feverish eagerness; for I was just in the state of mind when motion and change of place are hungered and thirsted after. I felt a burning, longing wish to be anywhere away from Wensley, and was comforted to hear that we should set out the following day.

It soon grew to be time to go; and we took leave at the same time—Mr. Bulkley, Markham, and I—and walked to the turning to Grimes's together. I took a hasty leave of Eleanor and her father, and resolutely pushed out of the room first, so as to give Markham a moment with her without the Parson and me as spectators, which I considered (and do still consider) a handsome thing on my part. But he followed very soon after us, which might have surprised me had I not reflected, that he would probably walk up the next morning to renew the "sweet sorrow" of farewell. This hypothesis did not tend to concentrate my thoughts on what was passing between my companions; and I am not sure whether it was during this walk that the parson extracted from Markham the secret of his altered relations with Woodside, or whether it was during the next day's journey to Boston. But the facts were briefly these.

Markham's brother, the clerk in the colonial office, had just written to him, that it had transpired in the office that it was Ferguson himself who had given Lord Bathurst the hint touching the trouble in Colonel Allerton's department, which had induced his lordship to enter upon the cross-examination the result of which had drawn down Colonel Allerton's displeasure on poor Markham's head; and Ferguson it was that had persuaded Markham that it was best for all concerned that the facts should be made known to the secretary, though it was done so skilfully, that he could deny it with a good face if laid to his charge; and Markham now remembered, that it was Ferguson that contrived the accident which took him to the colonial office that particular morning. Having received this intelligence, and hearing of the rumors about Colonel Allerton before they had got wind fully, he sent it at once to Wensley with all these explanations. He at once received a cordial invitation to repeat his visit, which he lost no time in doing, and had a very different reception from the one he had before—the Allertons looking upon him as the innocent instrument of the same man who had wound his toils about themselves. They acquitted him of all blame, even for indiscretion, and felt the desire natural to generous minds to make more than amends to one whom they had treated with injustice. So he said to us. "Amends with a vengeance!" said I to myself.

The next morning we were unable to take the

Haverford coach, as we had to apprise Jasper of his unexpected expedition, and to make all our preparations. Jasper entered into the plan very readily, only doubting how his master would get on by himself. But when he found that this difficulty had been provided against by the Allertons insisting upon his becoming their guest during the absence of the grand vizier (or wuzeer, as they ridiculously spell it now) on foreign service, his scruples were at once at an end, and he lost no time in putting the house in order for so extraordinary an event. As we wished to make what despatch we could, we resolved not to wait for the Pentland coach, which came along towards night, but to put Black Sally into the Major's covered wagon, and get over the ground before night. When we had come to this conclusion Mr. Bulkley suddenly expressed his determination to accompany us as far as Boston. He should like the excursion, he said; and he thought he could manage to drive Sally back again by himself the next day or the day after. Of course we were glad enough to have his society—at least I was; for I did not care for a tête-à-tête journey with Markham after all that had passed. And I shrewdly suspect that it was the feeling that this was the case, that induced him to volunteer his company.

We arrived before dark, and, after putting our horse up at the Exchange Coffee House stables, and bespeaking our passage by the Providence coach for the next morning, I proceeded at once to Mr. Moulton's, accompanied by Mr. Bulkley, to obtain his permission for the expedition. There was no great difficulty in procuring this on the representations of the good minister, for whom my guardian had conceived a warm regard. I did not pay much attention to the reasons he urged in my favor; but I well understood in my secret soul, that the real ones which induced him to make the original suggestion were not so much the expectation of good to the Allertons as of good to myself, which might accrue from this diversion of thought and passion. However, the consent was granted, and Mr. Bulkley prevailed upon to be Mr. Moulton's guest for the night. Markham did not come, though I had invited him. He is writing to Eleanor, said I to myself; and the glass of wine I had at my lips (though it was the famous old Suffolk Madeira) almost choked me at the thought.

The next morning came in due season. Who does not remember, that is old enough, the morning of a journey to New York in those days before railways? I had slept but little during the night; and was just fairly asleep, about four in the morning, when a thundering knock at the hall-door and a violent ring at the bell announced that the coach would soon come lumbering along. Then the dressing in the dark, the half-awake, slipshod servants, making a pretence of getting you some breakfast, which was always just too late; the dressing-gowned and slippered friends (Mr. Moulton and the Parson in my case) stumbling out upon you to see you off in spite of your entreaties overnight, that they would do no such thing. Then the long, hot or cold, dusty or muddy, never pleasant journey to Providence. And then the old Fulton steamer. How we used to admire her! What a marvel of speed and comfort that ill-contrived old hulk seemed to our innocent minds, not as yet sophisticate with the later luxuries of locomotion! To be sure, it was better than the week's hard coaching which was necessary to bring the two cities together before her time. And New York itself,—Newest York now,—how changed since that my first visit! Her very caravanserais have fled, like the sojourners of a day. Where is Bunker's? Echo, if she could make herself heard above the roar of traffic, might answer, if she had nothing better to say, Where? And where is the City Hotel? Oh Chester Jennings, art thou indeed forever fled? And the Park Theatre too? But I forbear.

We hurried through New York and put ourselves on the road to Williamsboro' with all the speed we could command in those more deliberate days. But it took us nearly two days, as the roads were bad, and the wagons, bearing the local rank of coaches, yet worse. But here Jasper made our fatigues less with the stories he had to tell, suggested by almost every point of our route; for he was now among familiar scenes. There, a mile or two on this side of Hackensack, he had first smelt gunpowder, one cold autumnal night, in a slight affair of outposts.

Farther on, it was coming out of that house that he had first seen General Washington. And at Morristown, where we spent the night, he showed us, not only the head-quarters of the commander-in-chief, but the very baker's shop over which he himself had been billeted. And it happened, oddly enough, that the business was still carried on by the baker's son, a boy at that time, but who perfectly remembered the sable guest of his father. The next day we got more and more, as we advanced into his own country, and he had a history for almost every house we passed. It seemed to have been a region, fertile in Tories; for his narratives were mostly of that tribe, which was to him as that of Barabbas. We arrived at Williamsboro' too late to push on to the scene of our inquiries that night.

The next morning we took an open wagon and pair and proceeded onward. Jasper's interest in all the scenes about him now grew intense. He had not seen them for nearly fifty years; and he seemed to remember them and to cling to their memory with the strong local attachment of his race. We sympathized so strongly with his feelings, that, though in impatient haste ourselves, we proposed a stop at the house of the Cuyler family, where he was born. But here he was doomed to disappointment. The house was there, to be sure; but it was degraded into a mere farm-house, and not a well-appointed one neither. It had a decayed, tumble-down look; and the out buildings and fences were sadly out of repair.

A shrewish-looking woman, not over clean, sharply asked our business; and her inquiry was enforced by half a dozen hungry, snarling curs, who opened mouth upon us in full cry; while a swarm of dirty children clustered about the door, staring over one another's heads at the rare spectacle of strangers. She did not seem particularly well satisfied with the account we had to give of ourselves; and, though she called off the dogs and did not order us to leave the premises, she kept a suspicious eye upon us as we looked about them.

But there was not much to detain us. The only thing that recalled the former state of the Cuylers was the old chariot of the family, which stood rotting to pieces in a dilapidated coach-house with one door off its hinges, and which, if not a habitation for dragons and owls, was clearly one for cats and chickens—a litter of kittens garrisoning the inside; while the outworks bore unmistakable evidence of being a roosting place for poultry. There had plainly not been energy enough to clear away this old piece of lumber, as it must have seemed to the occupants. The woman of the house rather apologized for its toleration by saying that the children liked to play in it. But she had no knowledge of its former owners. She came from Pennsylvania, she said, and had never heard of the Cuylers. The very name of the family seemed to have died out even upon their ancestral acres. We left the place almost as sad as Jasper himself.

We hastened on, and, crossing the Kill, soon arrived at the house where the Michael St. John, the unconscious cause of so much trouble to us all, had lived. Jasper led us directly to its door, as he had said he could, without inquiry or hesitation. And here we received a very different welcome from our last from John McCormick, its present owner. He was a hale, middle-aged man, of a cheerful and intelligent countenance, and well disposed to give us what information and assistance he could. It did not seem to be much, however. St. John had never returned to that part of the country, the father of McCormick having bought the firm of the State, by which it had been confiscated; and he knew nothing of the particulars of his fate. This seemed to be death to our hopes. We looked with blank disappointment in one another's faces; and Mr. McCormick went on:—

"There has been inquiry made about this St. John before; and if my father and I had not possessed this farm for more than forty years, I should think there was some design upon it."

"And, pray, when and by whom was there ever inquiry made about him?" asked Markham, with the air of a man catching at a straw.

"It was ten or a dozen years ago," McCormick replied. "There was a man came from York way who hunted up everything that could be found out about him from town records, parish registers, and what not. He didn't make much noise about it; but, as I thought it might concern my title-deeds, I kept an eye on him and found out what he was at;"

"And do you know his name?" asked Markham, eagerly.

"His name? Yes," he answered. "Let me see. Yes, his name was Abrahams; he was a sort of Jew lawyer, I believe."

Markham and I looked at each other. It was the name of the agent in New York who used to draw the pensions.

"Abrahams!" said Markham. "And do you know anything further about him, or where we should be likely to find out where he is?"

But he knew nothing on the subject; and we were in the dumps again. We liked the appearance and frankness of McCormick so much, that, after a consultation of looks between Markham and me, he briefly stated to him our case and how important it was to us that this man should be found, he being unquestionably the accessory to the fraud on this side the water. He could give us no clew to what we wanted; and we talked over the matter in a spirit of despair. Presently Jasper said,—

"You say he was a Jew, sir?" McCormick assented. "And his name was Abrahams? I wonder if he could be the son of Aaron Abrahams, who was a commissary in the year seventy-seven?"

"His name was Aaron, I remember," said McCormick; and so did we.

"Did you know him?" said I.

"Know him!" repeated Jasper. "I guess I had reason to know him. I know he almost starved us; and would quite, had not a lot of our men threatened to burn his house down about his ears for him. They tried to do it, too. Ben Simpkins was hanged for it, poor fellow!"

"Then you know where he lived?" asked Markham and I in a breath.

"I guess I do," he answered, laughing. "I mounted guard there for a month after poor Ben was hanged. And I lived well too, I tell ye; for they was awfully frightened."

"And where was it?" we all asked at once.

"It was down Monmouth way," said Jasper, "not far from Horseshoe Inlet, near where the Falmouth was wrecked. It was an awful wrecking-place, and old Abrahams's house was full of cabin furniture and things. Folks said he had got rich by wrecking. He was rich, any way. But I don't believe such riches is any good to people."

We looked at one another again and with more hopeful faces. To be sure, it was not much to hope about; but it was better than nothing. Jasper seemed really to be our guardian angel; though poor Tom might have called him a black one. We held a consultation over this hint, and resolved, as we did not know what better to do, that we would follow it up and see whether we could get any trace of Abrahams in that neighborhood. It was the faintest of possibilities; but, as we had been disappointed in our discoveries at this place, we were impatient to be trying after them in some other. I felt relief only in motion, and was in haste to be off.

McCormick pressed us to stay until after dinner; in which case he agreed to accompany us, with a reasonable compensation for his time, the rather as the heaviest of the harvesting was now over. Markham had made this proposition to him when it first occurred to us to continue our search, inasmuch as it would be convenient, if not essential, to have some one of the party able to identify Abrahams if he could be overtaken. So we yielded to his hospitable urgency and partook of a plentiful Jersey farmer's dinner, presided over by his eldest unmarried daughter, a fine girl of eighteen, his wife having been dead for several years. He was urgent, furthermore, that we should spend the night there and commence our journey fresh in the morning. But we would not hearken to this proposal; and, according to our first plan, we set off about two in the afternoon, our host with Markham in his own wagon and pair of stout black horses, and Jasper and I in the one we had brought from Morristown—having first sent information of our intentions to the owner, so that we need not have the hue-and-cry after us as horse-thieves.

In this order we traversed nearly the entire length of the state. It took us nearly three days to accomplish it. I had purposely chosen Jasper as my companion, because I could talk with him or be silent as I pleased. I was moody enough for the first part of the way; but, when we got upon the line of operations of the campaigns of '76 and '77, I could not help being diverted from the gloomy train of my own thoughts by the lively reminiscences of my companion. He was familiar with the whole of the ground; and it was like having been part of those movements one's self to hear his account of them. It was the little personal details proper to himself that gave this DeFoeish air of reality to his narrations.

When we were passing over the battle-field of Monmouth, for instance,—"It was about here," said he, "that I was coming up with the reserve when General Washington came riding back from the front, where he had been on a lookout. It was an awful hot day; and he pulled up by me and says, says he, 'Jasper,' says he (for he had seen me often with Colonel Cuyler when he was alive, and had slept under the same tent with me, bless you, the night before we got to Morristown), 'Jasper,' says he, 'what have you got in your canteen?' 'Rum and water, sir,' says I. 'Very good,' says he; 'let me have some.' I took it off and reached it to him. 'Take a drink first yourself,' says he (that, you know, was because somebody had tried to poison him just before). So I took a pull; and so did he, a good one too, after me; and then we went into action."

Farther on towards the sea coast, too, his knowledge continued fresh; for he had been stationed in that quarter to keep the Tories in order during the spring of '77, after the successes at Trenton and

Princeton (in both of which he partook) had induced Sir William Howe to evacuate the Jerseys. Towards night on the third day we reached a shabby little village, or rather hamlet, not far from the shore, called Sinkers—a place of a very evil reputation as the head-quarters of wreckers of the worst description, who in those days, not to say in these too, infested that "shipwrecked coast." At the wretched tavern which dispensed their daily rum to these worthy citizens, and at which we were compelled to put up, we directed Jasper to try and find out what he could about this tribe of Abrahams without exciting notice. This he easily did while busy about the horses in the stable; and he soon came to us with the unexpected intelligence that the commissary was yet living at his old house, though much reduced from his former flagitious prosperity, as Jasper had esteemed it.

Encouraged beyond our hopes by this news, we sent him forward that night to reconnoitre his old ground and find how matters stood. When he returned he reported that he had attempted an entrance, but had been repulsed by the very commissary whom he had helped to guard in former days. He could not, or would not, remember any such service; and refused to acknowledge any gratitude for it or to admit him to whom he owed it into his house.

"There was sickness there," he said; "he could not come in. There was a tavern at Sinkers; he might go there." The noise of this discussion brought up the effective reserve of Mrs. Abrahams, an aged matron among the daughters of Israel, who opened a fire of flying artillery upon him, which soon made him beat a retreat. "What business had he to come there at that time of night disturbing them, and they with a son at the point of death in the house? If he didn't take himself off they'd let fly the blunderbuss at him for a black rascal as he was." And much more of the same sort.

So Jasper did take himself off, and reported progress as above. Matters seemed now to be in the train we had long wished for. We considered what step to take next, and agreed that the time had come for the interposition of the civil arm if we could get hold of it. We were for looking up the nearest magistrate; but McCormick dissuaded us, on the ground that it would be better to procure one from a little farther off the coast. So we gladly assented to his proposal that he should mount one of his horses and ride back to Monmouth and apply to "an honest lawyer," as he termed him, whom he had had dealings with, to come over and help us. The next morning early he accordingly appeared with this phenomenon, Mr. Sturdevant by name, and an officer, in case of need. About ten o'clock we proceeded to the scene of action. We left the large covered wagon at the foot of the steep, sandy hill, just on the other side of which Abrahams's house stood, and walked up it, both for the sake of speed and secrecy. Jasper was to bring it slowly after us.

Arrived at the door of the house, it was some minutes before we could effect an entrance. We were aware that we were reconnoitred; and it was not until we made an assault on the door that threatened to bring it down that it was at length opened by old Abrahams himself. He would fain have held parley with us; but we pushed by him into the room at our right, of which the door was open, and which proved to be the kitchen, but yet the apartment usually occupied by the family. Here we made a stop, and the old man had time to ask us our business. To this, under the circumstances, not unreasonable request, Mr. Sturdevant stated that our business was with his son Aaron, whom we knew to be in the house. He denied the fact, and fortified his denial by a volley of imprecations more appropriate to the character of a Christian than of a Jew.

Mr. Sturdevant intimated to him that he had the necessary process and officer, and should proceed at once to satisfy himself by a search of the premises. Old Abrahams seemed greatly alarmed at this information; and, changing his tone, begged to know why it was that this perquisition was set on foot. He was informed that it was on a charge of being concerned as principal or accessory in an important forgery. This naturally enough increased the old man's distress; but he still persisted in maintaining that his son was not there, but with less voluble assurance. At this point the wife, the very heroine who had routed Jasper and put him to flight, came in by a door opening into the kitchen, and said, disregarding the signals telegraphed to her by her husband,—

"And what do you want here? What business have you to disturb an honest man's house in this way? Are you the gang of that black rascal that tried to break in here last night? Don't you know that there's a sick man in the house? Get off with you, or you'll be the death of my poor son. He's been plagued enough already this morning, poor fellow, and you'll finish him!"

This is a very faint copy of the tirade with which she favored us, and which seemed to produce more effect on her husband than on us. He stamped with his feeble foot, and clinched his fist impotently, more at her than at us, but said nothing.

"We must see your son, ma'am," said Mr. Sturdevant, kindly but firmly.

"You shall do no such thing," the dame responded as resolutely, setting her back against the door.

"It must be done, ma'am," he continued, in the same tone; "but it shall be done as quietly and with as little disturbance to him as possible."

He then gently removed her, though she struggled violently and made a resistance which saved the credit of her courage and spirit, although she had to yield to a superior force. We pushed through a narrow passage, at the end of which was a door opening into a bed chamber, where lay the man we were in search of, propped by pillows, and testifying by his looks to the truth of what we had heard as to his condition. As soon as we had looked at him, our eyes all involuntarily turned upon McCormick, who signified by a nod and look that he was the man we were after.

Having received this confirmation, Mr. Sturdevant approached the bedside of the sick man to open his business. Just at this moment we heard a loud noise, in which Jasper's tones were distinguishable, as if there were some difficulty on his line of march. At Markham's request, McCormick went out to see what the matter was, while we remained to see the main play played out. Mr. Sturdevant had not advanced very far in his cautious statement of the reason of our being there, when we heard loud voices and footsteps approaching the house. Jasper's and McCormick's voices were soon heard in the kitchen; and Markham and I forthwith went thither to see what had happened. Jasper we found sitting on a rush-bottomed chair, with one arm over the back, looking very faint, while a stream of blood was dribbling down from the ends of his fingers upon the floor. But this spectacle did not hold us long when we looked at the third person of the party.

"Ferguson!" exclaimed Markham.

I was too much amazed to say anything.

"Yes, sir, Ferguson!" the other repeated fiercely. "And I should like to know whether it was you that set this black ruffian upon me as I was peaceably upon the highway."

Markham and I looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to say, when the magistrate came out of the sick chamber, and we briefly explained the facts. He turned to McCormick, who only said that he had found Jasper and this man struggling together on the ground, the former wounded and bleeding, and had merely interposed and brought them both along to the house; which he was quite competent to do, though Ferguson was a strong man. We all now turned to Jasper, who said, rather feebly,—

"First tie a handkerchief tight round my arm, just below the shoulder." This was done at once. "Now, Master Frank," he went on, "put your walking-stick through the bandage and give it a hard turn, and hold it so." I did as I was directed; and this extemporized tourniquet, which Jasper had learned in the hospital, stopped the bleeding. A small exhibition of brandy, of which medicine McCormick happened accidentally to have a moderate supply about him for emergencies, restored poor Jasper to the speaking point.

The amount of his information was, that as he was slowly coming down the sandy hill, having stopped for some time on the top to rest the horses, he saw a window of the Jew's house open, and a man jump out of it and hurry up the hill towards himself. It immediately occurred to him that this must be the very man we were after; and, accordingly, he appointed himself to the service of cutting off his retreat. This he found to be one of no little difficulty and of some danger, inasmuch as his antagonist drew a knife after they had closed, and stabbed him in the arm; and, had not McCormick come to his assistance, the enemy would have made good his escape.

"Well, gentlemen," said Ferguson, "this is all true enough; but what objection have you to make to what I did? I merely defended myself when attacked, without provocation, on the highway."

But Mr. Sturdevant intimated that his sudden exit from Abrahams's window, taken in connection with the known circumstances of the case, would justify his detention for further inquiry.

"Very well, sir," said Ferguson; "you know that you act at your own peril; and you may be assured I shall exact all the redress I can get."

Mr. Sturdevant merely bowed his acquiescence and said, "But you also know, sir, that I must have your person searched. Anything not bearing upon this case will be immediately returned to you." And he called the officer from the bed chamber.

At this announcement Ferguson turned pale as death, and, hastily putting his hand in his pocket, drew out a crumpled packet of papers and threw them on the fire. Luckily it was an economical household, and the fire was but newly kindled. Ferguson sprung forward to strike them into the coals with the heel of his boot, but was held back by McCormick; while I snatched them, only a little singed from the flames. This authorized more emphatically his being taken into custody, which was formally done. But the papers did not afford us much light at the first glance, as they were written in cipher and were Sanscrit to us. After a brief consultation aside, Mr. Sturdevant returned alone to the sick Jew's chamber, taking the manuscripts with him. We remained busy in taking care of poor Jasper, who seemed very weak, and in keeping guard over Ferguson. But his spirit seemed to have deserted him. He appeared as one stunned, and sat in gloomy silence at the table, leaning his head on both his hands. Markham and I exchanged looks of congratulation—believing, though we did not know how, that a way of deliverance was opened before us.

It was long before Sturdevant returned to us, so long that we had despatched McCormick for a surgeon, who had dressed Jasper's arm and departed before the magistrate appeared. But we had not waited in vain. I have not time to go into the detail of all the particulars; for it is high time that the thread, too long spun out, of this narrative should be snipped off. But of course everybody whose memory (Heaven pity them!) can extend back thirty years will remember all about the story, which made a nine days' wonder in this country, and a week's even in England. Any one that will take the trouble to consult a file of the London Times of that date will find all the documents, letters, and affidavits, with the official exoneration of Colonel Allerton, at full length. As near as I remember them,—for my mind was not entirely engrossed by them even at the time,—they were substantially these:—

Ferguson, from his knowledge of that department and of the parties likely to obtain relief from the government, had planned this St. John forgery, and several other lesser ones, and had found an apt instrument in Mr. Aaron Abrahams. This gentleman had transacted the American part of the business more to the satisfaction of his employer than his own, inasmuch as he did not think he was allowed his full share of the booty. The communications between them were carried on in cipher after the very beginning, which was arranged when Ferguson was in New York on a former visit undertaken for the purpose. After the suspicions of Colonel Allerton had been excited, Abrahams, who had received instant notice of them from Ferguson, took himself out of the way until the storm should blow over—this being undoubtedly Ferguson's object when he advised a delay in communicating the facts to the secretary. So effectually had Abrahams done this, that Ferguson himself had great difficulty in tracing him; for he seems to have had no great confidence in his English confederate; and it was not until his illness took him back to his father's house that he fairly came up with him.

The object he had to gain was twofold: first, to arrange Abrahams's testimony so that it should throw the whole blame on Colonel Allerton; and, secondly, to get possession of the letters in cipher, which contained his instructions to his agent during the whole transaction. In these laudable pursuits he had been engaged for a day or two at such times as he could have access to the sick man, and in these he was busy when our opportune arrival interrupted him; and he had succeeded so far as to induce Abrahams to produce the letters (which he always kept with him) on some pretence, but with the unquestionable purpose of getting possession of them by force or fraud. When the alarm was given of our arrival, and he actually saw Markham and me, he snatched the documents and made his escape as described by Jasper.

The principal difficulty Mr. Sturdevant had to contend with on the part of the excellent invalid was to persuade him on which side his interest lay. But it being made clear that whatever hope of favor or reward the case admitted of lay with us, he ingenuously stated the whole matter, and gave the key to the cipher, which made it perfectly clear as to where the guilt rested. This he was the more willing to do from his discontent with his principal, nothing allayed by this last operation of his, which plainly was intended to leave him without proof of any connection between them.

Before we left the house Markham and I had the satisfaction of shaking hands upon the entire success of our expedition; and our satisfaction was increased by knowing that the relief of our friends had been greatly hastened by it. Although it was Mr. Sturdevant's opinion and our own that such a web of fraud and perjury could not have stood the test of an English investigation, still it was much better to avoid it with all its gossipings, and scandals, and lifelong suspicions. Ferguson was committed to the county jail to await the decision of the higher authorities as to the jurisdiction to which his crime belonged; while an officer was put into the Jew's house to keep guard over Abrahams. We returned to the inn, taking with us poor Jasper, who was not fit to be removed farther for a few days.

My mind being now at liberty to dwell on my own affairs without distraction, I was half frantic at this delay, and felt that I must know how matters stood between Eleanor Allerton and Markham or die. Sometimes I hoped that things were not advanced as far between them as I had feared. He certainly did not seem inordinately happy; but then he was parted from Eleanor. Then, again, I was quite sure that he had had no letter from her. To be sure, it was hard to hit us, as we always were on the wing; but I think I could not have pardoned Eleanor, were she my lady-love, had she not contrived to do it.

The suspense was intolerable. I was haunted by a thousand insane imaginings. I was afraid I should be taken ill, too; perhaps I should die, and never see her again. And it was Markham himself that relieved me from my distress at last. He it was that proposed that I should be the messenger of our glad tidings. He wished to wait on the spot until the whole business in regard to Ferguson was settled. "Is this a happy lover?" said I to myself; and I felt a foolish sort of comfort as I said it. The only difficulty was about poor Jasper; and this was settled by McCormick agreeing to stay with him till he was able to travel, and then to see him to New York, and, if necessary, to Wensley.

Things being thus arranged, I did not suffer the grass to grow under my feet. I set out at daybreak the next morning, and got on to New York as fast as men and horses, urged by money, and, I am afraid, by Newark whips, could take me in those days. But I did not reach the city till the next day. Fortunately, the Fulton sailed that evening; and I was at Providence about three o'clock the next afternoon. I would not wait till the stage coaches could describe the two sides of the triangle, but pushed on over the base line, which I had just mathematics enough to know must be less than the sum of the other two. I spared neither money, pains, nor horse flesh, and hurried on across the country to Wensley. I had to stop over night at Wexboro'; but, early the next day, I was on my hot way again. I came in sight of Wensley about eleven o'clock in the morning of a delicious Indian-summer day. The haze, that was not a haze, gave a dreamy beauty to tree, and hill, and stream. At the gate I leaped out of the open wagon which had brought me my last stage and hastened up the sweep. I entered the house. I passed on to Eleanor's parlor. I opened the door. She was sitting at the farther window, and alone. When she saw me she started up and exclaimed only,—

"Frank!"

"Eleanor—dear Eleanor," said I, "all is well! Everything is cleared up, and all is safe!"

I had nearly crossed the room before I had finished my sentence. She gave me a look never to be forgotten; and, coming forward a step or two to meet me, fell upon my neck and burst into tears. Aha! it was not Fairy's neck this time. It was my turn now. And these were tears of joy.

Presently I led her to the sofa, and, still holding her hand (she let me, by Heaven!), told her as briefly as I could the whole story. When this was done, and we paused a moment from the subject, I looked into her eyes (how could I have ever thought them hard to read?) and said,—

"Eleanor, then it was not Markham, after all?"

"No," she replied, her lip quivering and her eyelids drooping under my gaze; "no, Frank; it was not Markham."

Ah, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott, it was well for your peace of mind that you were not within eyeshot just then!

————

CHAPTER XIV.

BEING THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.

THERE is really no occasion for this chapter. The little more I have to say could be stitched on to the last one just as well as not. But, then, I do think that chapter ends well; and, moreover, I would not have this story of mine rounded by a thirteenth chapter. No, indeed; I would as soon have had thirteen guests round my wedding supper table. So we will have chapter fourteen as L' Envoi, if only for luck.

Well, well, it seemed a good while before that marriage supper was spread. But, it came at last. And it has been a good while longer since, only it has not seemed so. Not that we had any very cruel opposition to encounter. Had I been writing a novel I should have been a dunce to have allowed Eleanor to have had so good-natured a papa. But I cannot help the fact; and in real life such characters are not uncommon, and by no means unpleasant, if uninteresting. Colonel Allerton only laughed at us, and refused to recognize any engagement for a year or two, thinking that it was only right a boy and girl of nineteen (for I found that I had imagined Eleanor older than she was, as boys are apt to do in such cases, and that I was, in fact, just eleven days her elder) should have a full opportunity to change their minds. But as he allowed us perfect freedom of intercourse personally and by letter, we consoled ourselves by resolving to show him that we could not change our minds. At any rate, we did not.

Mr. Bulkley was, of course, the first person out of that family to whom I communicated all the good news I had to tell, withholding nothing. The whole story gave him the extremest pleasure, but none so exquisite as the part which told that I was the accepted lover of Eleanor. His joy was not profuse of words; but it glistened in his eye, and seemed to pervade his whole nature and to glow in his whole life. I believe he loved us both dearly, and rejoiced from his heart that we loved each other. And then a constitutional match maker feels an artist's pride in the match he has planned and help to make.

I thought he would be more distressed than he seemed to be at Jasper's mishap. But he treated it very slightly. He seemed still to hold to General Wolfe's doctrine, that it was the business of a soldier to die; and, of course, that includes being wounded. Only he was glad that he had done his duty and been mentioned with distinction in the despatches. This was also very much Jasper's own opinion, when he arrived soon after in the company rather than in the care of the good McCormick, who came on with him to see the Allertons, at their earnest request and at their charges. Major Grimes told me Jasper said "that a fellow that made a campaign in the Jarseys must be willing to run the risk of being stuck by a Tory." As the story was told to me, the future state of the Tory was somewhat distinctly intimated. But, as Jasper had lived so many years in a minister's service, I cannot but hope that the qualifying participle was an interpolation of the gallant narrator.

The remainder of my exile from college soon passed away, and I returned thither with much more reluctance than I had left it; and I returned much older in heart and mind. I was a boy then; I felt that I was a man now. My pursuits were modified by the change in my feelings; and, if I did not absolutely forsake the Deipnosophoi (which would have been ungrateful in view of my obligations to them), at least their ritual services absorbed a very small part of my thoughts or my time. Encouraged by the hope of showing myself worthy of the love of Eleanor and of the good opinion of her father and Mr. Bulkley, I gave myself to study as I had never done before; and I believe that, when I came to take my degree, I neither disgraced myself nor disappointed them.

Within a year after my graduation, having then attained my majority, Mr. Bulkley joined Eleanor and me in holy wedlock at Wensley. It was an occasion of mixed joy and sorrow, of smiles and tears, as all such momentous crises must be to those that reflect and feel. The greatest grief that clouded that happy hour was the thought that it foreshadowed the sad hour of separation from Mr. Bulkley and Wensley; for, almost immediately after our marriage, we accompanied Colonel Allerton back to England, where we lived until his death, which occurred about three years afterwards. There our friendly relations were renewed with Markham, who had returned home almost immediately after the events of the last chapter and succeeded to the office left vacant by the dismission of Ferguson, which he held until it expired, not long since, with the gradual extinction of the unfortunate class it regarded. I never knew what passed between Eleanor and him at the time of his visit at Woodside. I never asked her, and she never told me.

After the death of her father, Eleanor and I returned to America and lived a year or two at Wensley. But the climate of New England did not agree with her health; and we removed to Pennsylvania, where we live to this day. Our house stands finely on a spur of one of the Appalachians, just where the mountain range begins to melt into the champaign country below. Behind us the mountains stand in everlasting yet ever-changing beauty; while, before, the rushing river foams and flows through a delicious country of meadows, pastures, cornfields, and woodlands, dotted with cattle and sprinkled with villages, until it is lost to sight in the blue distance. It is situated in the township of St. Philipsburgh and the county of Monongahela, about three miles off the state road from Harrodstown to Foxley, to the west. There we have lived for many years and have had——but as Miss Martha Buskbody said to Mr. Peter Pattieson, when he was about to make a minute statement of the felicities of the married life of Henry Morton and Edith Bellenden, "It is unnecessary to be particular concerning our matrimonial comforts."

As long as Mr. Bulkley lived we never failed to pay him a visit of two or three months every summer, and for that purpose retained Woodside until after his death. This took place about twelve years from the time of our marriage, at the age, as the inscription on the monument erected by the Wensley Sewing Circle informs us, of eighty-four years, seven months, and five days. It was, as he had always wished it should be, instantaneous. I chanced to be in New York when it happened; so that I was able to reach Wensley in time to lay his head in the Minister's Tomb. Eleanor mourned him as another father, and I as the only one I had known. He left a moderate property, as he had had a captain's pay for several years under the last pension act. This he left to the town, the income to be paid to Jasper during his life. His books he bequeathed to me; also his sword and firelock, which, as I write, are crossed over the fireplace of my library as they were over his. His cocked hat, wig, and gold-headed cane I bought at the executor's sale at a moderate figure, and still preserve them with filial reverence.

Jasper survived his master nearly ten years, and was a good deal past ninety when he died. He was "a prosperous gentleman" in his last days; for, besides Mr. Bulkley's bequest, he had savings of his own, as he was a pensioner under the first act, and received his ninety dollars a year till his death. He suffered me to give him the use of a cottage near the borders of a pretty little wooded lake, which is known as Jasp's Pond to this day. I was never in Boston without going to see him; and, though I was at home when he died, I honored his memory with a marble headstone, according to a promise made to him during life, and which seemed to reconcile him more than anything to the idea of dying. The Minister's Tomb is in the north-east corner of the burying-ground, and Jasper lies buried a little to the west and south of it. You would know the place by a fine larch which grows near it.

I have been so busy with the memories I most love that I had almost forgotten to tell what became of Ferguson. After the first joy of the discovery of his villany was over, I could see plainly that the minister was depressed by the idea of his undergoing any shameful punishment. I mentioned this to Colonel Allerton; and he, too, felt no disposition to pursue him to extremities. This he intimated to Mr. Sturdevant, who informed him that he should promote his wishes the more readily from the great doubt he entertained whether Ferguson could be prosecuted to conviction. He could not be sent to England for trial; and it was more than doubtful whether the original instigation of the crime, when in this country, could be proved, after the death of Abrahams, which soon followed the scenes at his bedside. So he was discharged from custody by the consent of all parties. His spirit was thoroughly broken, however, as may be inferred from this fact. When the negotiations relating to his release were going on, Mr. Sturdevant received from Boston an anonymous letter, containing a draft for five hundred dollars, to be given to the prisoner on his discharge. This he must have supposed to have come from Colonel Allerton, the man he had tried to ruin; and yet he took it. We knew that it was an offering to the memory of Julia Mansfield. Ferguson went to South America, where the revolutions were then raging, and nothing definite was ever heard of him. If the rumors which reached us were true, his life and death were miserable enough.

And now I do wish to Heaven that I had the least spice of invention in my whole composition. I always thought that these facts, simple and natural as they are, were capable of artistic treatment in proper hands. And here I have bungled the whole thing, because all I could do was to tell them in the order in which they occurred. I had not the least intention of saying anything about myself or my concerns, except with respect to Parson Bulkley and Jasper, when I began. And yet I have told you this long story, of which, after all, I seem to have blundered into being the hero much against my will.

But I could not help myself; I could not arrange and improve my incidents. All that I can claim is the humble virtue of strict and literal fidelity in my narrative of facts. I believe the faculty of imagination was left out when I was put together.

Then, again, I wonder whether this is "A STORY WITHOUT A MORAL" or not. I am sure I did not mean that it should have any. I have been taken in so often by false pretences, and found that I had bought a tract against Catholicism or against Protestantism, in favor of free trade or of protection, of high church or low church, when I thought I had been buying a novel, that I was determined, when asked by my intrepid publishers to furnish something for their press, that it should be something not in the remotest degree edifying or instructive. I don't know how I have succeeded; but I have done my best. I was horribly afraid, however, when I first saw the name in print, that it might turn out, after all, a "MORAL WITHOUT A STORY." But I don't think it has. The only moral I can discern in it is, that, if a young gentleman gets into a row and is sent away from college, he will be rewarded with the most charming of young women as a wife. But I really think this is too violent a generalization; and I would earnestly entreat the academic youth of America not to act upon it as a settled principle. If my story have any moral, it is because one is the inevitable attendant upon all the events of human life. I will only say, at parting, that I shall be amply rewarded for my pains in telling it if I have succeeded in exciting for a brief moment in the minds of my readers a portion of the interest and pleasure which is ever renewed in my own breast by the name of WENSLEY.

MOUNT VERNEY.

MOUNT VERNEY;

OR, AN INCIDENT OF INSURRECTION.1

————

"Rise like lions after slumber,
In unconquerable number!
Shake to earth your chains, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you!
Ye are many! they are few!"—SHELLEY.

[1I had my grandfather, Josiah Quincy, jun., in mind, as the motive of the description of Mr. Langdon. This story has a ground-work of historical truth. There was such an insurrection in 1739, in South Carolina.]

IT was towards the close of an April day (how different from those he had left behind him!) in the year 1773, that a gentleman of some political prominence in the town of Boston found himself riding up the approach to Mount Verney,—an estate lying in one of the midland counties of South Carolina. The visit of Mr. Langdon (by which name it is our sovereign pleasure that our traveller shall be known) to the Southern Colonies was partly of a personal, and partly of a political nature. His physicians had doomed him to expiate his intemperate excesses of study and professional application by some months of exile from New England; and the stirring character of public affairs at that time induced him to select the more important of the Southern provinces as his place of banishment. The signs of an approaching collision with the mother-country were too plain to be mistaken; and Massachusetts Bay, as the ringleader of the gathering revolt, was naturally anxious to know to what extent the other Colonies were ripe for the conflict, and how far she might rely upon them for assistance in the last appeal.

It is no part of my purpose to give any particulars of his success or ill success in his demi-public capacity. I will only say, that though his mission looked towards "Disunion," and even towards the possible contingency of "cutting their masters' throats," his reception and treatment were very different from that extended a year or two since by the same sovereignty, to an accredited ambassador of Massachusetts, who visited it for the purpose of instituting a suit-at-law, before the tribunals of the nation, to settle a question of personal liberty. Nor will I embrace the opportunity, though a tempting one, to remark upon the folly of the Northern provinces, even at that early day, in reaching after the broken reed of Southern alliance, which has from that time to this only pierced the hand that leaned upon it for support. My only object in giving these particulars is to satisfy the constitutional craving of my countrymen, which would not be content without a sufficient explanation of the circumstance of my traveller being in the avenue to Mount Verney on the day and year I have indicated.

There he was, however, and, as he walked his tired horse along the picturesque road that wound its way up the side of the gentle hill upon which the house stood, he could not help contrasting the scene and the climate with what his native land was affording at that moment. Though it was early in April, the luxuriance of the vegetation put to shame the leafiest summer of his colder clime. The sides of the hill he was ascending were hung with tufted woods of the tenderest green, stretching far away upon the plain. Though the primeval forest was in some sort cleared from the hillside by which the planter's mansion-house was approached, still there were left clumps of forest-trees and thickets of flowering shrubs, with here and there a single tree of colossal dimensions, which threw sharply defined shadows upon the brightest and freshest of greenswards as the sun hastened to his setting. Delicious perfumes, wafted from a thousand blossoming trees and shrubs, and myriads of birds of strange plumage and new song, and the balmy sweetness of an atmosphere which it was luxury to inhale, made the traveller feel that he was indeed transported leagues away from his bleak native coast, and borne nearer to the sun.

Following the windings of the road along the park-like slope of the hill, Mr. Langdon at length drew rein before the chief entrance of the mansion. It was a building of no particular pretensions to architectural beauty, excepting such as it might derive from its adaptation to the climate. Deep piazzas, their slender pillars garlanded with creeping plants of an ever-changing variety of flower and fragrance, lent to the lofty hall and spacious apartments a shade and coolness deeply delicious. The rankness of the vegetation gave to the grounds in which it stood a somewhat untrimmed and neglected aspect; yet the place had a distinguished air and a look of tropical elegance. It seemed to be an abode where the mere pleasure of animal existence, and the delights which dwell in the senses, might be enjoyed in their highest poignancy.

The rare event of a visitor at Mount Verney was soon made known by the clamorous uproar of an infinity of dogs of every degree, and by a bustle, scarcely more intelligent, of troops of curious negroes jostling one another in their anxiety to see, under the pretence of serving, the new arrival. The master of the house, to the monotony of whose life any interruption would have been a relief, hastened out to welcome his guest with hospitable earnestness. He had heard that Mr. Langdon was in Charleston, and had written to him to beg him to take Mount Verney in his way. His prominence among the disaffected of the Colony, his intelligence, and his wealth, made Mr. Langdon think it worth his while to accept the invitation, although it took him somewhat out of his way. Mr. Verney ushered him into the house, and heaped upon him every hospitable attention.

Mr. Verney was a bachelor of some forty years,

"or by'r lady" inclining to five and forty. He lived alone with his slaves, without the solace or the care of female society. Like most men of such habits of life, he had an older look than belonged to his years, and there was, besides, that indefinable air about him, which gives one an instinctive consciousness that he who wears it is not a happy man, that melancholy and depression are his abiding guests. But, though these fiends might not be far remote, they were certainly exorcised for a season by the magic of exciting and intelligent companionship. He was all animation and festivity of spirits under the stimulus of the congenial society of a man fresh from the world of life and action. He was full of questioning curiosity about that world from which he chose to live remote, and seemed to relish the rare luxury of conversation with all the keenness which long abstinence could give.

The evening wore away in various talk, for which their common friends at Charleston, the newest gossip of the town, and the latest public news, afforded topics enough and to spare. Supper-time came, and they were ushered by a sable seneschal into the dining-room, the size of which was curiously disproportioned to the number of the party. The appointments of the table indicated the wealth of the host in the affluence of plate and china they displayed. The viands were rather barbaric in their profusion, perhaps, than recherché in their preparation; but they were none the less welcome to a hungry traveller.

This repast, in those days and latitudes, was the principal meal of the day. The chase and other sylvan sports, which formed the chief business of the planters, furnished their tables with every variety of game. The yet unexhausted soil yielded, almost without labor, the choicest vegetables and fruits. The "murdered land" had not as yet begun to haunt its assassins with the spectres of poverty and want. Those were the golden days of Carolina.

The repast was accompanied and succeeded by flowing cups. The cellar of Mount Verney was bid to yield up its most treasured stores in honor of this hospitable occasion. Punch, too, the most seductive and deceitful of beverages, was there in a brimming bowl of the daintiest of china,—a libation with which that generation welcomed, speeded, and crowned the business of every day. Neither the health nor the habits, however, of Mr. Langdon permitting the indulgence which was the approved custom of that day, the circulation of the bottle and the bowl was made to give place to animated discourse, which was prolonged late into the night.

As the large hours began to melt into the smaller ones, they gradually concentrated their discourse on the serious temper of the times and the portentous events which seemed impending. The probabilities of an actual contest with England, and its chances, if it could not be avoided, were fully discussed. The weight of the several Colonies in the scale of battle, should battle come, was considered and calculated,—which could be relied upon as firm in the faith, which were wavering, which strong, and which weak, in the prospect of the coming struggle. Mr. Verney did not hesitate to indicate the radical weakness of the Southern Colonies.

"Our slaves," said he, "will be a continual drag upon us. The British will forever have an army of observation, and of occupation too, if opportunity serves, in the very heart of our country, cantoned about in all of our houses, and quartered upon our estates."

"You do not think, then, that the slaves are to be depended upon, in case of an invasion?"

"Depended upon! Were slaves ever, since history was, to be depended upon when they had a chance to be even with their masters? Yes, they may be depended upon for our deadliest and bloodiest enemies."

"I cannot but think," replied Mr. Langdon, "that you do not take sufficiently into consideration the force of long habits of obedience, and the personal affection of the slaves for their masters."

"Their personal affection for their masters! My dear sir, had you lived your life among slaves, as I have done, you would know what reliance to put on that head! God knows that I have had an experience against which no theory and no philosophy can stand." And as he spoke a deep shade of melancholy clouded his features.

After a pause Mr. Langdon proceeded, "What you say is an argument fatal to the defence of your slavery. It shows it to be incompatible with the existence, or at least the safety, of any commonwealth where it is permitted."

"To be sure it is!" replied Mr. Verney. "None but a fool or a villain would attempt to defend it on its merits. But what are we to do? We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither keep him, nor let him go."

"It is hard to say, indeed," said Mr. Langdon. "But could you not first tame your wolf, and then let him go? A wolf may be tamed: a negro may be civilized. Educate your slaves, prepare them for freedom, and then there can be no danger in giving it to them. Does not a wise foresight point this out as the only feasible precaution against consequences terrible to think of?"

"My friend," replied his host, in a voice agitated by strong emotion, "you talk of you know not what. Relax your hold upon the wolf, as you must if you would tame him, and he will bury his fangs in your vitals for your pains. No, no! such an attempt would be full of ruin. My whole life has been but too bitter a commentary on your philosophy. God forbid that the curse of an unreasoning philanthropy be visited upon other innocent heads!"

Mr. Langdon saw that his new friend was deeply moved by some uncontrollable emotion. He knew nothing of his history, and consequently could not divine its cause. He felt a strong curiosity to know what it was; but politeness, and a sense of what was due to the evident mental sufferings of his host, forbade any expression of it. He accordingly waited in silence.

After a short pause, Mr. Verney recovered his equanimity, and, turning to his guest, said, "But I ought to apologize for keeping a tired traveller so long from his rest. Shall I show you your chamber?"

Mr. Langdon assented, and, following his host, was ushered into his apartment.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

The room into which Mr. Verney conducted his guest was on the same floor with the dining-room and parlors, as they were called in those days, before drawing-rooms. It had the look of having been intended, and of having been formerly used, for the reception of company. The furniture, though evidently of an age anterior to that of the inhabited part of the house, was of a style and description better befitting what our ancestors used to call a "day-room" than a bed-chamber. The height and size of the room, however, made it a very fit place for the invocation of slumber in the climate of Carolina. A journey of thirty or forty miles on horseback gave it a very inviting air to the tired traveller, and he thought he had seldom seen a more tempting object than the ample and luxurious bed, to be ascended only by a pair of steps, which reared itself in one corner, as if the appointed altar of Morpheus himself.

Mr. Verney shook hands with his guest at the door, and, wishing him a good-night, left him to his repose. Mr. Langdon was too tired and sleepy to take much notice of anything the room contained, excepting his couch; but he could not help observing, as he was undressing, two large portraits, nearly full-lengths, of the size of life, which occupied corresponding panels on the side of the room opposite to the bed. The one nearest the bed was of a gentle man in the dress of the days of Queen Anne, or of George the First, his dark intelligent face looking out from the fullest of full-bottomed wigs; and the other, of a lady in a fancy dress, which made it more uncertain as to the age in which so charming a shepherdess had predominated over the two sheep which seemed to make up her flock. Mr. Langdon took but a hurried glance at them as they looked down upon him from their elaborately carved frames of tarnished gold. He bestowed one wondering thought upon them as he climbed up to his repose, marvelling that two old family portraits of the apparent consequence of these pictures, were suffered to hang neglected in a place where they must be so little seen. But sleep soon banished all thought of his neighbor's affairs, or of his own, from his mind.

It was broad day the next morning when he awoke (for early rising was not one of the vices of Mount Verney), and, when he looked at the pictures again in the light of the sun, he felt yet more surprised than he had done the night before, to think that they should be relegated to a remote bed-chamber.

He was no connoisseur, as he had had few opportunities of seeing good pictures; but a correct natural taste, assisted by personal intimacy with Copley (then in the prime of his genius), and familiarity with his works, made him sensible that they were paintings of no common merit. Especially in the picture of the gentleman did he think he perceived the hand of a master. Upon taking a more minute survey of his apartment, his surprise was yet further increased by the discovery of a picture opposite to these, of three beautiful children—two boys and a girl; the boys, apparently, from seven to ten years old, drawing the little girl, of four or five, in a garden carriage, or rather the elder drawing, and the younger pushing it from behind—in all the glee and romping spirits of childhood. There was a quaintness about the look of the children, dressed, according to the fashion of that day, in the costume of men in miniature, that struck Mr. Langdon, whose passion was children, even more than the elder portraits.

After breakfast, by Mr. Verney's invitation, he rode with him the rounds of his extensive plantation. He inspected the fields of rice and of indigo, on which depended the profits of the proprietor, and surveyed the plantations of Indian corn, yams, sweet-potatoes, and other esculent vegetables for the support of the negroes and the supply of the great house. He visited "the quarter" where the slaves lived, and saw how slavery looked in the shape of womanhood, of worn-out old age, and of childhood, more hopeless and melancholy than old age itself. Although the arrangements for the slaves were as good, or better, than he had seen on the other plantations he had visited, still there was that about the home that was no home,—sordid, cheerless, melancholy,—of the negroes, that struck a deeper horror of the system through the veins of the stranger than all the burning toils of the field. The gardens and grounds about the house were viewed the last. At each stage of their excursion, the economy of a great plantation was explained and illustrated by Mr. Verney, whose strong native sense, joined to his long experience, eminently qualified him for such a lecture.

The ride occupied the chief of the morning, and dinner was announced soon after their return home. As they were sitting over their wine, after dinner, it was next to impossible that they should talk of anything but slaves and slavery. Mr. Langdon had a natural abhorrence of the system, which was not at all diminished by what his own eyes had seen of it. His zeal for liberty was a principle universal in its nature and in its application, and he was deeply sensible of the disgraceful inconsistency of a contest for freedom carried on by the masters of slaves, and trembled lest this element might prove fatal to the whole movement. Mr. Verney assented to all his general principles, and had nothing to say against his deductions from them.

"What you say, my friend, is all unquestionably true. But here are we, and there are the slaves, and what are we to do?"

"I will tell you what you may not do, if you really wish to be rid of this horrid curse, and that is—nothing. You are in the mire, I admit; but you can only get out of it by putting your shoulder to the wheel, and, the sooner you begin, the better for you."

"It is easier to say that something must be done than to say what that something should be. We find ourselves bound up with the blacks in this infernal spell, and how to break it passes my art, I must confess."

"Were it not," replied Mr. Lagdon, with some hesitation, "that the suggestion last night seemed to give you pain, I should insist on what I then said, that you cannot expect your slaves ever to be in a condition to receive their liberty, unless you begin to put them in a condition to receive it. Pardon me," he continued, seeing a cloud again begin to brood over the brow of his friend,—"pardon me, if there be anything painful or improper in what I have said; for you must know that I can have no design to give you pain."

"There can be nothing improper," Mr. Verney replied, "in so natural a suggestion as yours; but I will not affect to deny that it is painful, deeply painful, to me. If I have reason to know anything on earth, it surely is the fallacy of your proposition. It does indeed touch me nearly."

Observing Mr. Langdon looked concerned and interested, he proceeded,—

"I see that you are curious to know what all this means, and, having raised your curiosity, it is no more than right that I should gratify it, though it be a task that I would willingly decline."

Then, silencing with a hasty gesture a polite attempt on the part of his guest to waive the subject, he added,—

"Nay, what I have to tell is no secret: it is part of the history of the Colony. And it is a weakness in me to shrink from what I am liable to hear of, and do actually hear of, from almost everyone (but that is not a great many) that comes to see me. Did you observe anything in particular in your bed-chamber last night or this morning?"

"You can hardly think me so blind," replied Mr. Langdon, hoping that here was an opportunity of saving his host from an unpleasant personal narrative, "as not to have observed and admired the admirable family pictures that hang there. I only wondered at their being there instead of here or in the hall. By whom, pray, were they painted?"

"They are what I meant," said Mr. Verney, with a forced calmness eloquent of deep emotion. "They are all that remain to me of my house, once an honored one in two countries,—my father, my mother, my brothers, and my sister, all united in one horrible destruction, and I left alone, of the happiest of households, the last of my name and race. You can hardly wonder, my friend, that I do not choose to have such mementos always before my eyes. You will wonder the less when I shall have told you of their fate."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

I shall give the substance of Mr. Verney's narrative, as it remains among the papers of his guest, in my own words, for the sake of the succinctness and brevity which the inexorable limits of this volume demand. I believe that I have omitted nothing material to the story, though I have left out many conversational digressions, and explanations of the way in which the narrator obtained his knowledge of incidents which did not come under his personal observation. I only hope, that, in laboring to be brief, I may not become obscure.

Colonel Verney, the father of our acquaintance, was the grandson of the first emigrant of the family to the New World. His grandfather was a French Huguenot, of a noble family, who was one of the multitudes dragooned out of his native country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Vicomte du Verneuil and his ancestors had always been among the pillars of the Protestant faith in France. Their blood had helped swell the orgies of the feast of St. Bartholomew, and had been poured out on almost every battlefield during the long wars of religious ascendency. For the century, nearly, that the Edict of Nantes remained in force, they were always active in the intestine broils which disturbed the reign of

Louis XIII. and the minority of his successor, and in the later intrigues which gave to religious bigotry the air of statesmanship, in the act which expelled half a million of the best subjects of France from her soil. The representative of this turbulent house, therefore, had no claim for exemption, had he wished it, from the common fate of his faith.

M. du Verneuil first took refuge in England. He was kindly received, as were all his unfortunate countrymen who escaped thither. But his very superiority in point of rank made his position more irksome to him than the humbler artisans, who easily obtained employment, and melted into the mass of the laboring population, found theirs to be. He had brought away with him a remnant of his property, which, though relatively large, was very inadequate to support him and his family in the style they deemed essential to their dignity. He was soon obliged to cast about for some mode of living which would save his pride and his dwindling estate at the same time.

About this period, public attention in England was strongly directed towards the proprietary Colony of Carolina. The noble proprietaries were endeavoring to revive on those distant shores the decaying feudality of the Old World. They had called philosophy to their aid, and, in making John Locke the Lycurgus of their infant realm, the fantastic spirit of Shaftesbury thought they had imitated the wisdom of the ancients, who made their philosophers their lawgivers. But the experiment redounded as little to the credit of philosophy, as the incorporation of negro slavery with the institutions he ordained did to the honor of the philosopher. But at the first establishment of the constitutions of Carolina, their defects were not developed, and their fanciful structure attracted more general attention, doubtless, than a more rational plan would have done. But there was one great want yet to be supplied. Palatines, landgraves, and caciques, chancellors, chamberlains, and admirals, there were good store; but the proprietaries sadly lacked common people over whom these dignitaries were to predominate. Accordingly, they did their best to promote emigration by every means in their power.

The tide of industrious and worthy emigrants which now flowed from France came very opportunely for them, and they endeavored, with success, to direct it in part towards their new Colony. The names of many of the principal families in Carolina—Manigault, Petigru, Legare, Gaillard, DeSaussure—still bear witness to that great emigration to her shores, as the names of Bethune, Revere, Deblois, Amory, Bowdoin, Faneuil, and many others, testify to our own share in it. M. du Verneuil, as a man of some property, was a very desirable recruit. His attention was drawn to this Eldorado of the West by the Earl of Berkeley, and all its real and imaginary advantages set forth in golden phrase. It seemed to be what he wanted, and he was easily persuaded to embark himself, and all the fortunes of his house, in the hazardous adventure. He set sail for the New World, and arrived with his wife and only child, a youth of about sixteen, at Charleston, in November, 1686.

It need hardly be said that his golden expectations were disappointed. He found a scene as different from that whence he came, as can well be imagined. But with the elasticity of spirit, and power of adaptation, of his nation, he soon conformed himself to his new circumstances, and became one of the most prominent men in the rising Commonwealth. Madame de Verneuil died soon after their arrival in the Colony, having sunk under the strange hardships and discomforts of her new lot; but his son, the grandfather of Mr. Langdon's host, took kindly to his adopted country, and throve apace in it. He married early, and established himself, after his father's death, at Mount Verney, then on the frontiers of the province. His name, the pronunciation of which had long been an offence to English tongues, was finally corrupted, and Anglicized into Verney, a change to which he readily consented. As the Colony flourished, he grew rich, and increased in goods, and like a patriarch, as he was, he had gold and silver, men-servants and maid-servants, and much cattle.

His contentment with his lot, however, did not blind him to the disadvantages of his position for the education of children. He accordingly sent his only son at an early age to England, to receive his education there. As his body-servant, and in some sort his companion, he sent with him a young slave, who had had charge of him from his earliest years. Arnold, for so the slave was named, from his original master, was not many years older than young Verney; but he had shown a discretion and considerateness so much beyond his years, and evinced so genuine and tender an affection for his young charge, that Mr. Verney was perfectly content still to intrust the care of his personal safety and comfort to him. Arnold, as well as his young master, looked forward with delight to the new and strange scenes in store for them, and he felt a sense of trust and responsibility which raised him sensibly in his own estimation.

To England they went early in the last century. Young Verney, still accompanied by Arnold, proceeded from Eton to Oxford, and from Oxford to the Inns of Court. Wherever he went, Arnold was still a prime favorite both with his master and his young companions. His imperturbable good humor and lightness of heart were a continual letter of recommendation, while his sterling excellences of character won for him genuine respect. He availed himself of such snatches of instruction as he could seize by the way, with such success, that it was a common saying among Verney's companions, that Arnold knew more than his master. However this might be, he was singularly well instructed for one in his condition of life, and might have passed muster very creditably among persons of much higher pretensions than he. In his zeal for knowledge, he was encouraged and assisted by his young master, who seemed to feel as if all the intelligence of his sable satellite was but the reflected radiance of his own.

At length the time of return arrived, and some where about 1720, Verney, accompanied by Arnold, sailed for home. It was a great change for Verney—that from the crowds and gayeties of London to the solitude and monotony of his father's plantation. But it was a yet greater change for poor Arnold, who found himself transported from a land of freedom to a land of slaves. The kindness with which he had been uniformly treated, and the circumstance that in England he was rather better treated than worse, on account of his color, had almost made him forget that he was a slave. His return to Carolina was to him almost like a reduction from absolute freedom to hopeless slavery. His eyes had been opened, and he saw his own condition, and that of his race, in all its horrors. The abominations, the cruelties, the debasement, which necessarily attend upon slavery, shocked him as they never could have done, had he remained always surrounded by them. The thought that he, too, was one of the victims appointed by an inexorable fate to this dreadful destiny, filled him with anguish and despair which could not be uttered.

Gloom and despondency settled down upon his soul. The change which had come over him was obvious to all, and the old planter easily divined the cause.

"You have spoiled that boy, Jack," said he to his son: "you have made him above his business. You had better let Jones put him into the field for a while. There's nothing like hard work and flogging to take the sulks out of a nigger."

His son, however, refused to take this humane advice, and still kept Arnold about his person, as his body-servant, contenting himself with forbidding him the use of books and writing-materials. He prided himself much upon his sagacity in devising this notable remedy, when it appeared at last to be crowned with success. After a long period of depression and melancholy, the cloud seemed suddenly to pass off from Arnold's countenance, and the weight to be removed from his heart. He addressed himself to his duties with all his former assiduity, if not with all his old gayety of spirit. Had his master been an acute physiognomist, he would have seen that the look out of his eye, the air of his head, the carriage of his body, were all different from what they were of old. But he only observed that he was cured of the sulks, and congratulated himself on his wise prescription of abstinence from books and pen and ink.

But this change had deeper springs than the philosophy of Verney dreamt of. It proceeded from the reception of a great idea, the adoption of an absorbing and abiding purpose for which to live. While he was plunged in the depths of his despondency,—despairing for himself and his race,—a thought flashed into his darkened mind, and illuminated its gloomiest recesses.

"Why," thought he, "are my people and myself slaves? Why do we remain slaves? Is there, in deed, no remedy? Is it a necessity, that when we outnumber our tyrants four to one, and every one of us is a match for four of them in strength,—is it a necessity that we remain slaves forever?"

The thought nerved his mind anew. His gloom passed away. He saw clearly the relative strength of the masters and slaves. He remembered that the Spaniards were at hand in Florida, ever ready to sow dissension in the Colony, and to breed discontents among the slaves. He felt that a blow might be struck, which would give all the broad lands of Carolina to those hands that extorted wealth from them for others. He felt that a mind only was wanting to watch and guide events in order to conduct such a revolution to a triumphant issue. He was proudly conscious that his was a mind capable of this great task. He looked upon the advantages of education he had enjoyed as something providential, and designed for a mighty end. He saw himself the appointed leader of his people in their exodus out of the land of bondage. In his excitement of thought, he saw the whole process of deliverance pass, as it were, before his eyes, and he beheld his nation free and happy in the homes they had wrested from their oppressors. He accepted this natural operation of the mind as a prophetic intimation of duty and revelation of success. His destiny was fixed. He devoted himself to the rescue of his miserable race. A deep calm brooded over his soul. He was conscious to himself that he was equal to the work he had undertaken, and he was at peace. And he had yet another seal of his fitness for his mission,—he was willing to wait.

Long years he waited; but the purpose of his soul was fixed. The deliverance of his race became the absorbing, the overwhelming passion of his being. The degradation in which he saw them plunged, the vices which were forced upon them, the barbarities which they endured, made his life bitter to him, and his only relief was in the distant hope of rescue and retribution. His character was obviously changed; but, under the quiet gravity with which he performed his offices about his master's person, nothing was suspected to lurk, except the desperate contentment of a hopeless slave.

As time passed away, the usual changes which it works were wrought in the condition of Colonel Verney; for such was the rank which Arnold's master held in the colonial establishment. Death, marriage, and birth had bereaved and blessed him, according to the common lot of man. He succeeded his father in the possession of Mount Verney, he won the chiefest of Carolinian beauties to share it with him, and he was girt with growing infancy, the charm of the present moment and the hope of future years. His political position was eminent and influential.

His plantation was a mine of still increasing wealth. He seemed to have nothing left to desire.

The public duties of Colonel Verney took him regularly every winter to Charleston, and frequently to various and distant parts of the Colony. On all these expeditions he was attended by Arnold as his body-servant. The opportunities which were thus given to the restless observation of the slave to discern the strength or the weakness of the different portions of the province, and to select the disaffected spirits among the servile population on whose cooperation he could rely, were faithfully improved. His manner of life, too, was eminently favorable for watching the signs of the times, and for seizing the moment which they should pronounce auspicious. He bided his time in patience, well aware of the momentous issues of the enterprise he revolved in his mind, and determined not to endanger its success by any premature or ill-considered action.

Nearly twenty years had thus glided away since Arnold first accepted what he considered a call to be the deliverer of his people, and the favorable moment had not yet appeared. At last the conjunction of events seemed to portend the hour at hand. The relations between England and Spain became every day more and more disturbed. The aggressions of Spain upon English commerce and English rights were the favorite topics of one of the mightiest oppositions that an English minister ever had to encounter. Sir Robert Walpole lingered out with difficulty his wise and pacific policy, with continually dwindling majorities, against such antagonists as the elder Pitt, Pulteney, Wyndham, and Lyttelton in the Commons, and Bathurst, Carteret, and Chesterfield in the Lords. But the public mind of England was at fever-heat, burning for a Spanish war. It was obvious that the only chance of the pilot at the helm of state to retain his hold upon it was to shape his course with the tide, whose current was too mighty for him to resist. A Spanish war was inevitable.

The relations of the Colonies of Carolina and of Florida were among the vexed questions which were to be adjusted by the sword. The Colonies, in those days, were ever the pawns of the royal chess-players of Europe, the first to be moved, and the first to suffer, as the "unequal game" of war proceeded. The Spanish governor of Florida, Don Manuel de Monteano, was a man that well understood the nature of the move required of him. His theatre was a narrow one; but he was an actor that gave dignity to the boards he trod, and he was resolved to grace his narrow stage with action worthy of the widest scene. Long before affairs were ripe for war, he had been busy in forecasting preparation for it. His emissaries had been dispersed, in various disguises, over Carolina. The relative strength of the whites and blacks, the false security of the former, and the necessary disaffection of the latter, were well known to him. He had that greatest of gifts in the craft of government,—a wise choice of instruments with which to work.

His most confidential agent was one Da Costa, a Jew of Portuguese extraction, who fixed his head-quarters in Charleston, where he lived unsuspected, as a pawnbroker, and dealer in small wares. The character of his traffic was such as brought him without suspicion into constant communication with the slaves, and gave him opportunities of judging which were the fittest tools for his purposes. He was too keen an observer not to single out Arnold, at almost his first casual interview with him, as the man of men for whom he had been long in search. A short acquaintance made them thoroughly understand each other, and they became of one mind and of one heart in the work that lay before them. They digested their plans; they assigned to each other and to the few confederates they could trust the parts they were to play. A general insurrection was to be sustained by a Spanish invasion. The freedom of the slaves was to be guaranteed, and the Colony was to be governed by the blacks, as a dependency of Spain. It was a good plot, well conceived and well arranged, and there seemed to be no reason why it should not succeed.

A part of Arnold's business was the encouragement of an extensive system of evasion into Florida by the slaves. This was done to such an extent that one entire regiment of escaped slaves was mustered into the service of his Catholic Majesty, armed, equipped, and paid on the same footing with the rest of the Spanish army, and officered by the picked men of their own number. The Colonelcy of this regiment was offered to Arnold; but he justly considered that the post of danger and of honor in such a perilous enterprise as this was in the heart of the insurrection, and not at the head of the invasion. So he voluntarily remained a slave,—though escape was easy, and though freedom, distinction, rank, and equal society were within his grasp,—that he might be a more faithful and effectual servant of his injured race.

Notwithstanding, however, the intimate relations of Arnold with Da Costa, he was far from giving him his entire confidence. He had no faith in the abstract zeal of the Spaniards for human rights, and he believed that their real purpose was only to substitute Spanish for English masters. He foresaw that his end could only be achieved by another servile war, under much less favorable circumstances, following upon the one impending, unless he could guard against this danger. He meditated the subject long and deeply; and his conclusion was one that startled and dismayed himself. He could discern but one way of permanent peace and safety for the blacks; and that was the utter extermination of the whites.

He could not escape from the terrible presence of this dreadful necessity. His heart died within him when it first stood revealed to his sight. It haunted him by day and by night. It was almost enough to stagger his resolution, and make him abandon his design with horror. The images of his master, the companion of his youth and the unalterably kind friend of his manhood; of his mistress, the beautiful, the gentle, and the good; of the generous Arthur; of the frolic, mischief-loving Edward, his especial pet; of the little Alice,—of all of whom he was ever the chosen playfellow and bosom friend—these phantoms made him quail for a moment as they rose before his mental sight in that fearful midnight when this ghastly idea first startled him with its apparition. He had neither wife nor child. All his affections centred with passionate intenseness in his master and his children. They were all he had to love. Was this terrible blood-offering required at his hands? His own life he was ready to pour out. He foreboded that he should not survive the coming struggle. But must he sacrifice lives infinitely dearer to him than his own? He flung himself in an agony of despair upon his face, and wept long and bitterly.

But presently a wail was borne upon the air through the open casement, distant, but fearfully distinct. It was the chosen hour for punishment. He started to his feet. It was a woman's voice, shrill and shrieking, that reached his ear from the remote "quarter." It sounded like the "exceeding bitter cry" of his race, whose wrongs he had forgotten, reproaching him for his weakness. He thought of their blood and tears crying to Heaven for vengeance: a vision of chains and whips and branding-irons, and an endless procession of enslaved generations, rushed upon his soul. Was this great deliverance to be wrought without the dearest sacrifice? Was it to be purchased without a price? He would not shrink from his part of it, dreadful as it might be. But God grant that he might not survive the victory it was to buy!

This necessity was felt by all the blacks who were admitted into his confidence. It was agreed upon that the massacre should be universal, and the future exclusion of the white race from the province the condition of its submission to the Spanish power.

Everything was ready. England and Spain were at war. The Spanish auxiliaries were at hand. The day approached—it arrived. It was a Sunday, and one of the loveliest of autumnal days. Arnold repaired early to the slave-quarter, and harangued the slaves upon a case of surpassing cruelty they had witnessed the night before. A tumult of excitement was gathered around him. The alarm spread. Jones, the iron-haired, iron-featured, and iron-hearted overseer, approached, with two assistants, to suppress the disturbance. Seeing Arnold, whom he hated because beyond his usual authority, he rode up to him with savage glee and uplifted whip. In a moment he was stretched lifeless on the ground. His assistants met with the same fate in the twinkling of an eye.

The taste of blood and of revenge had been given, and Arnold knew that the appetite would grow with "what it fed on." He mounted the overseer's horse, and, sending messengers to the neighboring plantations, led the crowd of slaves towards the great house. As they rounded the offices, and came in sight of the house, Colonel Verney was seen hastily approaching them. His commanding figure and military bearing, acting upon their habit of subordination, checked the progress of the slaves, and they stood indecisively looking at him and at each other. Arnold saw that this was the moment on which all would depend. He rode in front of the confused crowd.

"Why, Arnold!" exclaimed his master, "what is all this? How came you on Jones's horse? and what means this disturbance?"

"It means, sir," answered Arnold,—"it means liberty to slaves, and death to tyrants!"

"Tyrants, you rascal!" replied Colonel Verney. "Dismount this instant, and I will soon thrash this insolence out of you."

Arnold dismounted, and approached his master with a firm step, while the gaping crowd stood awaiting the issue. As soon as he was within reach, Colonel Verney lifted his cane, and aimed a blow at his slave's head. Arnold closed with him. In an instant he had wrested the cane from his master's hand. A slight motion made the scabbard fly far off upon the lawn; the blade which it had concealed glittered in the air for a moment, and in the next it was buried deep in the heart he loved most on earth.

"Ungrateful slave!" exclaimed the dying man as he fell heavily to the ground.

"No," replied Arnold, more to himself than to his master. "A slave cannot be ungrateful."

I state facts: I do not propose examples. As an historian I tell the doom which slavery once brought upon its victim tyrants. As an abolitionist I show the only method by which such horrors may be averted. But let no one who boasts of blood shed in the battles of freedom affect a horror at such scenes as I have described. If ever blood was spilt righteously for the vindication of rights or the redress of wrongs, that which has flowed in servile insurrection is the most hallowed of all. And let no one whose classic enthusiasm kindles at the story of a Brutus or a Timoleon, whose love of country and of freedom was too mighty for the ties of sonship or brotherhood to hold them back from imagined duty, brand as foul and unnatural murder the sacrificial act of Arnold the slave.

The blow was decisive: it turned the tide of feeling at once. The negroes rushed forward with shouts of triumph, over the dead body of their master, towards the house. Arnold checked them, and found them willing to listen to his directions. He hastily told them that they must make all speed towards Stono, a small settlement about five miles off, where there was a warehouse full of arms and ammunition. Ten were detailed for the bloody business to be despatched at Mount Verney, under command of the only confederate Arnold had on the plantation,—one whom he could rely upon to see that there was no superfluous cruelty committed. All the rest, following Arnold, who had remounted his horse, hurried in the direction he had indicated.

As they hastened along the high road, they were continually re-enforced by parties from the neighboring plantations, so that, by the time they reached Stono, they were four or five hundred strong. The little settlement was soon carried and sacked, every white put to death, and a large supply of muskets and cartridges secured. Arnold now called a halt and reduced his promiscuous multitude to something like order. The guns and ammunition he distributed, as far as they would go, among those of his followers on whom he could most depend. The rest were armed with axes, scythes, clubs, or whatever other weapons their hands could find. A quantity of white cloth furnished them with banners. Drums and fifes were also in the warehouse, and musicians are never wanting where Africans are to be found. Arnold knew human nature too well not to avail himself of these appliances. So they took up their march towards Jacksonburgh, with drums beating and banners flying, in some show of military order.

Long before this, the tragedy was over at Mount Verney. The party to whom it was confided did their work quickly and thoroughly. I will not harrow up the hearts of my readers, nor my own, by the details which my materials afford. Humanity naturally revolts at the horrors of slavery, whether they are administered by the masters or by the slaves, according as the one or the other have the power in their hands. It is enough to say that Mr. Langdon's host, then a child of six years old, was the only white left alive in the house. And his escape was owing to the affection and presence of mind of his nurse, who by affecting zeal in the work, and pretending to despatch this part of it herself, managed to deceive the destroyers until they had left the bloody scene, and hastened after the main body of the insurgents. The terror of the child might well extend its influences over the whole of life. The ghastly spectacles which blasted his infant sight when he was released from his hiding-place changed the current and the complexion of his being. He was thenceforth what these cruel calamities had made him. Such a cloud passes not away with the morning of life, but sheds its baleful shadow over its noontide and its evening hours.

Meantime the insurgent force moved successfully on towards their destination. They destroyed every house on their way, and put every white person they met to death. Unfortunately for them, they found abundance of liquor in the houses they sacked. Their chief in vain urged upon them the necessity of entire sobriety for their safety and success. The temptation was too strong to be resisted, and Arnold saw with dismay an element of failure developing itself, on which he had not counted. He hurried them on, in hopes of engaging them in some active service before they became unfit for it. Presently a small party of gentlemen were seen riding rapidly towards them.

They stopped suddenly on perceiving the strange sight before them, and anxiously reconnoitred the armed mass. Arnold at once recognized in the chief of the party Governor Bull, with whose person he was familiar. The Governor saw the whole truth in a moment, and, wheeling about, galloped off with his companions in the opposite direction. Arnold, who had retained his horse for such an emergency as this, pursued them at full speed, accompanied by a few other mounted slaves. They fired upon the flying horsemen, but without effect, and were soon obliged to give over the pursuit, as the Governor and his company were much better mounted than they. Here was another untoward occurrence, ominous of ill success.

A large congregation was assembled at the little village of Wiltown, in the Presbyterian church, to hear the famous Mr. Archibald Stobo preach. The preacher was in the midst of his sermon, when a sudden noise of horses' hoofs drew the attention of the audience from him. They looked towards the door, and to their surprise they saw Governor Bull enter. They rose to receive him, and Mr. Stobo paused in his discourse. Acknowledging their civility with a slight wave of the hand, his Excellency exclaimed, standing at the door of the church, "Gentlemen, a large body of insurgent negroes is close at hand. They have fire-arms, and it looks like a serious matter. Make a stand against them here, while I ride on to Jacksonburgh for re-enforcements."

In another moment he was off; but the scene of confusion that he left behind him passes description. The men sprung to their arms, which they were required by law to carry with them to church, and issued forth upon the green. The screaming women and children were left within its walls for protection. Captain Bee, the principal gentleman of the neighborhood, assumed the command, and led the small force out of the village towards Stono. His own house stood on an eminence about half a mile off, and the first thing he saw was that it was in the possession of the insurgents. They had evidently got at his wine-cellar, and showed unquestionable marks of intoxication. A negro on horseback was busy among them, riding from group to group with earnest gestures of exhortation.

It was none other than Arnold, who found his forces becoming more and more untractable and insubordinate at the very time when order and discipline were needed the most. He in vain endeavored to prevail upon them to move upon the enemy. Presently the enemy moved upon them. Captain Bee led his men rapidly along the road, and, guided by his knowledge of the country, posted them so as to command the insurgents on the lawn, while they were sheltered by the trees that skirted it. Arnold saw their danger, and ordered the small body of sober men that obeyed his directions to fire upon the enemy in their covert. As soon as their fire was thus drawn, Bee and his men issued from their cover, and, passing by Arnold and his few without notice, poured a volley with deadly effect into the drunken and dancing crowd on the lawn. The panic was instantaneous and complete. They dispersed in every direction, throwing away their arms as they fled.

Arnold now drew off his command to a thicket that bounded the lawn on one side, and bade them sell their lives as dearly as they could. The numbers were now more equal, and the conflict was long and desperate. At last, on the road from Wiltown, a re-enforcement was seen approaching, which the Governor was leading to the battlefield. Seeing his chance of maintaining his ground gone, Arnold rushed out at the head of his surviving friends, to cut their way through the enemy's ranks, before the succors arrived; but it was too late. A body of horsemen galloped upon the ground. The negroes, with Arnold at their head, fought desperately, but in vain. He was cut down, and as he fell, a dozen sabres were uplifted to make his fate certain. But Governor Bull dashed into the circle, exclaiming,—

"Stop, gentlemen! This fellow must not die yet. He knows things which we must know first."

He was taken from beneath the horses feet, and carried to the town, where his wounds, which were not dangerous, were dressed. This done, he was thrust into a den of torment, called a slave-prison, belonging to a private person, to spend the night. And what a night it was!

The next morning he was brought out and examined; but no word of knowledge could they extract from him. He acknowledged and justified his own part in this rising; but he utterly refused to implicate any others, or to give any information as to the extent of the conspiracy. He was tied up and flogged (for the first time in his life) until he fainted from loss of blood; but no syllable of information, or cry of pain, could be extorted from him. This ordeal was repeated for three days, with fresh inventions of torture; but all in vain. His firmness was unshaken. Then they spoke of pardon and favor as the reward of frankness. But the only reply they could obtain was a bitter laugh, which mocked the delusive offer of the cruelest torture of all. At last, wearied with their vain attempts, and fearing lest he might die of exhaustion, they dragged him to a tree in the public square, and hanged him like a dog.

He died; but his memory, spectre-like, long haunted the Province. His talents and his endurance, which his examination and torture had displayed, alarmed the planters even more than the bloody effects of the insurrection. At the very next session of the colonial Legislature (1740), the instruction of slaves was made a highly penal offence. The alarm was universal. Every man feared lest he might have an Arnold on his estate.

And there was reason for their fears. Notwithstanding the cruel examples which were made of the captive insurgents, the spirit of Arnold seemed to walk in the Province. Partial insurrections, the fruit of his labors, were frequent for several years after his death, and it was not till after the peace with Spain that the Colony regained its former tranquillity.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

"Was I not right," said Mr. Verney, with a mournful smile, when he had finished the narrative of which this is an imperfect sketch, "was I not right in saying that I had had an experience that refuted your theory of educating slaves for freedom?"

Mr. Langdon could make no reply to such a question after such a story. He wrung his friend's hand in silence. He had nothing to say; for philosophy had not as yet taught men by examples, that the safe, sufficient, and only possible preparation for freedom is EMANCIPATION.

The next morning he took leave of Mr. Verney, and pursued his journey homeward, a sadder if not a wiser man. He hated slavery more than ever for this dreadful picture of its works. But, while his heart bled for the blight which it had shed upon the life of Verney, he could not disguise from himself, standing as he did on the brink of a civil war for liberty, that his deepest sympathies were with Arnold.

When the Revolution broke out, Mr. Verney joined the army, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the line. He fought in many of its battles with the desperation of a man for whom life has no charm, and death no terrors. But he survived all the great battles in which he had a part, to fall at length in a partisan expedition on which he had volunteered, when on a leave of absence, in his native State.

As he died without children or kindred, his estate escheated to the sovereign people. It has passed through many hands, and has been racked and "murdered," like many another. I am told by one who lately visited its neighborhood, that it is now a barren sandhill, its house in ruins, its trees cut down, its fields a desolation. The pictures which elicited this story alone remain to recall it. But it is only for their merit as pictures that they are valued; the portrait of Colonel Verney being, perhaps, the only original Kneller (except one of Jeremiah Dummer, in Boston) in the country. They are preserved in a public collection in Charleston, and admired by multitudes, as works of art. But their history is fading from memory, and it is only to a few old men whose daily life is in the past, that they recall the pride, the sorrows, and the ruin of MOUNT VERNEY.

WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?

WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?

————

I.

"IF anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years old," said the Consul, holding up his wineglass between his eye and the setting sun,—for it was summer-time,—"it would be that he can remember Malibran in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty odd years ago. Egad, sir, one couldn't help making great allowances for Don Giovanni, after seeing her in Zerlina. She was beyond imagination piquante and delicious."

The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing this great republic at one of the Hanse towns, I forget which, in President Monroe's time. I don't recollect how long he held the office; but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him "the Counsel" which, I believe, for I am not very fresh from my schoolbooks, was etymologically correct enough, however orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life, however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had seen many cities, and the manners of many men and of some women,—singing-women, I mean,—in their public character; for the Consul, correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial intermediacy of the coulisses, still less to the lower depth of disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.

"Yes, sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all,—Catalani, Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag, though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so permanently as the Signorina Garcia, or that I can see and hear so distinctly when I am in the mood of it by myself. Rosina, Desdemona, Cinderella, and, as I said just now, Zerlina—she is as fresh in them all to my mind's eye and ear as if the Park Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been hearing her there only last night. Let's drink her memory," the Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy, a mood to which he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.

Now, no intelligent person who knew the excellence of the Consul's wine could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira, which divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the communion of good-fellowship from the south of France and the Rhine.

"A glass of champagne," he would say, "is all well enough at the end of dinner, just to take the grease out of one's throat, and get the palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but Madeira, sir, Madeira is the only standby that never fails a man, and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast."

I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,—which, for a heretic, is some thing remarkable,—and had no scruple about uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to the faith that was in him; for partly by inheritance, and partly by industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the last gentleman that I know of, of that old school that used to import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves, their bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events. Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it, from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.

"I suppose it was her youth and beauty, sir," I suggested, "that made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned seventeen when she sung in this country."

"Partly that, no doubt," replied the Consul, "but not altogether, nor chiefly. No, sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. 'She was a phantom of delight,' as that Lake fellow says,"—it was thus profanely that the Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,—"and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!"

"And did you never see her again?" I inquired.

"Once only," he answered, "eight or nine years afterwards, a year or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in Norma. She was different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one oddly, and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in Camille or Phèdre. It was true genius, and no imitation, that made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had, by the force of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the scene before you."

"But do you rank Malibran with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.

"I cannot tell," he answered. "But if she had not the studied perfection of Rachel,—which was always the same, and could not be altered without harm,—she had at least a capacity of impulsive self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character she personated,—not always the same, but such as the woman she represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight and twenty! What might not ten years more have made her!"

"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York; for it was unlucky enough, I believe—was it not?"

"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending. It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria Garcia was the one who suffered the most by the operation."

"I have always heard," said I, "that old Garcia was cheated out of the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. Malibran got his wife on false pretences."

"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false pretences, to be sure; but it was not Garcia that suffered by them.

M. Malibran, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet Garcia got it, for all that."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "It must have been a neat operation. I cannot exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"

"I see no reason why not," said the Consul. "The sufferer made no secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year '35."

"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"

"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass, and passing the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind you, and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the mountains as soon as the sun is down."

I beg your pardon—did you make a remark? Oh, what mountains!—You must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clew as that to the identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient reasons. But, if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number, you may take your choice of all the mountain-ranges on the continent, from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only you must leave a gap to the west ward, through which the river—also anonymous for the present distress—breaks its way, and which gives him half an hour's more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul's apothegms, namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another. I imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following story. I will tell it in my own words,—not that they are so good as his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.

————

II.

NEW YORK has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed, had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea, in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species, Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal or immortalizing Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the votive stocking,—they come from the mother-city, where she sits upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them, come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables, or to deck our beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story, though the immediate connection between Holland linen and Malibran's marriage may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still it is a fact that the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine Hollands; and this is the way in which it came to pass.

Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a city whose merchants are princes, and have been kings. His transactions extended to all parts of the Old World, and did not skip over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of London; and, as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825 it seemed good to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel, with a cargo chiefly made up of linens, to the market of New York. The honest man little dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the winter before, and was present at the début of Maria Garcia at the King's Theatre. He must have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful Rosina, had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to Doctor Bartolo in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a more serious provocation to himself in downright earnest. He thought of this himself after it had all happened.

Well, the good ship "Steenbok" had prosperous gales and fair weather across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam, when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address, and evidently of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, "whether he had the linens he had advertised yet on hand."

"They are still on hand and on sale," said Mr. Schulemberg.

"What is the price of the entire consignment?" inquired the customer.

"Fifty thousand dollars," responded Mr. Schulemberg.

"And the terms?"

"Cash on delivery."

"Very good," replied the obliging buyer. "If they be of the quality you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms. Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118 Pearl Street, to-morrow morning, and I will send you the money."

"And your name?" inquired Mr. Schulemberg.

"Is Malibran," responded the courteous purchaser.

The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually well pleased with the morning's work, and bade each other good-day.

Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer; but, as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that. He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on Change, and thence to dinner, in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good appetite. It is to be supposed that M. Malibran did the same. At any rate, he had the most reason, at least, according to his probable notions of mercantile morality and success.

————

III.

THE next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens to M. Malibran's warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg's counting-room, according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point of fact, M. Malibran was not in at the time; but there was no doubt that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so large a scale as M. Malibran, and conducted them on the sound basis of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when a week had elapsed, and no tidings had been received either of purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. Malibran to receive the promised price, or to know the reason why. If he failed to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them, Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,—

"Is M. Malibran in?"

"No, sir," was the answer, "he is not; and he will not be, just at present."

"But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing business of importance."

"Not to-day, sir," replied the clerk, smiling expressively. "He cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever."

"The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago. I have not seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where does he live? for, if he be alive, I will see him, and hear what he has to say for himself, and that speedily."

"Indeed, sir," pleasantly expostulated the clerk, "I think, when you understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear disturbing M. Malibran this day of all others in his life."

"Why, what the devil ails this day above all others," said Mr. Schulemberg somewhat testily, "that he can't see his creditors, and pay his debts on it?"

"Why, sir, the fact is," the clerk replied, with an air of interest and importance, "it is M. Malibran's wedding-day. He marries this morning the Signorina Garcia, and I am sure you would not molest him with business on such an occasion as that."

"But my fifty thousand dollars!" persisted the consignee. "And why have they not been paid?"

"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, sir," replied the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles was a daily occurrence. "M. Malibran will, of course, attend to that matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that, in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature, the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but, as soon as he returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and you will hear from him without delay."

The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact the part of skeleton at the wedding-breakfast of the young Prima Donna. There is something about the great events of life, which cannot happen a great many times to anybody,—

"A wedding or a funeral,
A mourning or a festival,"

that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all, and makes it return no uncertain sound. Shylock himself would hardly have demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been Antonio that was to espouse the fair Portia. Even he would have allowed three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his bond. Now, Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer of the lovely Garcia. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of marriage with that divine creature should forget every other consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness, even if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his mind under the delay, that old Garcia was by no means the kind of man to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the notes of the Signorina Garcia as so much collateral security for his debt.

So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the discharge of M. Malibran's indebtedness to his principal. He had advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment, and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But, as days wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet influences of the honeymoon by his intrusive presence, or permitted that nectareous satellite to fill her horns, and wax and wane in peace, before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time, after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he took his hat and cane one fine morning, and walked down to No. 118 Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. Malibran joy of his marriage, and of receiving the price—promised long, and long withheld—of the linens which form the tissue of my story.

"The gods gave ear, and granted half his prayer:
The rest the winds dispersed in empty air."

There was not the slightest difficulty about his imparting his epithalamic congratulation; but as to his receiving the numismatic consideration for which he hoped in return, that was an entirely different affair. He found matters in the Pearl Street counting-house again apparently something out of joint, but with a less smiling and sunny atmosphere pervading them than he had remarked on his last visit. He was received by M. Malibran with courtesy, a little overstrained, perhaps, and not as flowing and gracious as at their first interview. Preliminaries over, Mr. Schulemberg, plunging with epic energy into the midst of things, said, "I have called, M. Malibran, to receive the fifty thousand dollars, which, you will remember, you engaged to pay down for the linens I sold you on such a day. I can make allowance for the interruption which has prevented your attending to this business sooner; but it is now high time that it was settled."

"I consent to it all, monsieur," replied M. Malibran with a deprecatory gesture. "You have reason, and I am desolated that it is the impossible that you ask of me to do."

"How, sir!" demanded the creditor. "What do you mean by the impossible? You do not mean to deny that you agreed to pay cash for the goods?"

"My faith, no, monsieur," shruggingly responded M. Malibran. "I avow it; you have reason; I promised to pay the money, as you say it; but, if I have not the money to pay you, how can I pay you the money? What to do?"

"I don't understand you, sir," returned Mr. Schulemberg. "You have not the money? And you do not mean to pay me, according to agreement?"

"But, monsieur, how can I, when I have not money? Have you not heard that I have made—what you call it?—failure, yesterday? I am grieved of it thrice sensibly; but if it went of my life, I could not pay you for your fine linens, which were of a good market at the price."

"Indeed, sir," replied Mr. Schulemberg, "I had not heard of your misfortunes; and I am heartily sorry for them, on my own account and yours, but still more on account of your charming wife. But there is no great harm done, after all. Send the linens back to me, and accounts shall be square between us, and I will submit to the loss of the interest."

"Ah, but, monsieur, you are too good, and madame will be recognizant to you forever for your gracious politeness. But, my God! it is impossible that I return to you the linen. I have sold it, monsieur—I have sold it all!"

"Sold it?" reiterated Mr. Schulemberg, regardless of the rules of etiquette,—"sold it? And to whom, pray? and when?"

"To M. Garcia, my father-in-the-law," answered the catechumen blandly; "and it is a week that he has received it."

"Then I must bid you a good-morning, sir," said

Mr. Schulemberg, rising hastily, and collecting his hat and gloves; "for I must lose no time in taking measures to recover the goods before they have changed hands again."

"Pardon, monsieur," interrupted the poor but honest Malibran. "But it is too late! One cannot regain them. M. Garcia embarked himself for Mexico yesterday morning, and carried them all with him."

Imagine the consternation and rage of poor Mr. Schulemberg at finding that he was sold, though the goods were not! I decline reporting the conversation any further, lest its strength of expression and force of expletive might be too much for the more queasy of my readers. Suffice it to say that the swindlee, if I may be allowed the royalty of coining a word, at once freed his own mind, and imprisoned the body of M. Malibran; for in those days imprisonment for debt was a recognized institution, and I think few of its strongest opponents will deny that this was a case to which it was no abuse to apply it.

————

IV.

I REGRET that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he obtained his liberation in due time, his

Dutch creditor being entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of him by passing him between the bars of the debtor's prison, though that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his young wife to Europe, and there lived by the coining of her voice into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another matrimonial venture in partnership with De B——. I have nothing to do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not quite done yet: it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising impresario, Signor Garcia, who had so deftly turned his daughter into a shipload of fine linens.

This excellent person sailed, as M. Malibran told Mr. Schulemberg, for Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers, and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a whole shipload of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow of San Juan de Ulua; and her precious freight in all its varieties was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous height. So the good Garcia had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing the naked, and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost-price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in those latitudes, Signor Garcia set forth for the Aztec City. As the relations of meum and tuum were not upon the most satisfactory footing just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither was a triumphal procession. Not Cortés, not General Scott himself, marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads from the seacoast to the table-land than did this son of song. Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and from each one he levied tribute, and bore spoils away. And the vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.

Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself master of it,—a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. Garcia was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit, if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and, though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes, and give them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of señoras and señoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their fair hands rained flowers upon the on ones. And they have a very pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway-conductors and hotel-clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself never showered "on her kings barbaric pearl and gold" with a richer hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the portly person of the happy Garcia. Saturated at length with the golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond—if, indeed, singer were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable forever, like a sieve of the Danaïdes,—saturated, or satisfied that it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going, and sent him forth upon his way with blessings, and prayers for his safe return.

But alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate, they did not take that care of the worthy Garcia which their devotees had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the halls of the Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the vicissitudes of operatic life to some safe retreat in his native Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy of his heart, until he had descended from the tierra caliente to the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the impresario was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in this case, as Signor Garcia was a Spaniard by birth, and their expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.

Now, Signor Garcia had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense. Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights, pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe, and in the opinion of Signer Garcia, at least, very much inferior to it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped, these irregulars wore huge sombreros, much the worse for time and weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter's fancy-dress breakfast,—for this integument, I say, these minions of the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away, these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them: so they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while their captain bade our good man stand and deliver.

There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it was entirely unequal to the emergency, even if it were not, as was afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or to have his breath stopped first, and his estate summarily administered upon afterwards, by these his casual heirs, as the King of France, by virtue of his Droit d'Aubaine, would have confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor Garcia had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely chose the part of discretion, and surrendered at the same. His new acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking-open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever felt a stronger passion, took swift wings, and flew from his coffers to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breastpins were ravished from the shirt-frills,—for in those days studs were not,—and the rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road. Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as he professed to feel.

At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they should do, though the apothegm had not yet received the authentic seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their utmost, and poor Garcia and his companions in misery stood in the centre of the ring, stripped of everything but the clothes on their backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded Signor Garcia of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he had been so long familiar, and whose operations he had himself directed. Some one of the troop, who, however "fit for stratagems and spoils," had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were unwilling to let their prey go, until they had also ravished from him some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued. Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground, a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon Garcia for a song. A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a stage as well as the "green plat" in the wood near Athens did for the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of "a tiring-room," as poor Garcia had no clothes to change for those he stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for, when he hesitated, the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.

So he had to make his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold," before an audience, which, multifold as his experience had been, was one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening began to fall, rough torches of pine-wood were lighted, and shed a glare such as Salvator Bosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he delighted to paint. The rascals had taste; that the tenor himself could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely, and applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Duval or Richard Turpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It was lucky for the unfortunate Garcia that their approbation took this solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating audience had exhausted their musical repertory, and had as many encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert, and betook themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.

And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering for a moral may discern, that, though Signor Garcia received the price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing, and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes; but then it is equally true that M. Malibran actually obtained his wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest I don't see how it is to be done. It is "all a muddle" in my mind. I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the Prima Donna—and I have done it.

————

V.

"I CONSIDER that a good story," said the Consul, when he had finished the narration out of which I have compounded the foregoing, "and, what is not always the case with a good story, it is a true one."

I cordially concurred with my honored friend in this opinion, and if the reader should unfortunately differ from me on this point, I beg him to believe that it is entirely my fault. As the Consul told it to me, it was an excellent good story.

"Poor Mynheer Van Holland," he added, laughing, "never got over that adventure. Not that the loss was material to him,—he was too rich for that,—but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to a parcel of Mexican ladrones, after buying an opera-singer for a Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human nature to the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or opera-singers all the rest of his life. And, by Jove! I don't wonder at it."

Nor I, neither, for the matter of that.

THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT, AND OTHER STORIES

AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE.

AN OCTOGENARY

FIFTY YEARS SINCE.

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CHAPTER I.

"A gentleman he was of the old time,
One of those relics of the golden past
That stand among the things of modern times
Like column-shafts taken from ruins hoar,
Yet perfect in themselves, to grace the halls
Of our secluded mansions."
VICTORINE, A MS. DRAMA;

IT is now something more than fifty years ago that I was an undergraduate at Harvard College. My home was in a remote part of New England, which in those days before railroads were imagined, and before even stage-coaches were introduced, was practically as far distant as the most remote of the last batch of new States is at the present day. My intercourse with my family was necessarily confined to two or three short visits during the course of my college life,—one of which I accomplished on foot,—and to a straggling letter, which now and then came lagging along in the saddle-bags of the mail-carrier, and which by a wonderful coincidence, scarcely less remarkable than the consentaneous decease of Adams and Jefferson, sometimes fell into the hands of its lawful proprietor. Whatever may be the sins of the gentleman who now presides as tutelary genius over the mail-bags of the nation at Washington, I believe that no one who remembers the way in which the epistolary intercourse of the country was managed half a century ago, would care to exchange the system of which he is the head for the good old plan which encumbered the days of the Confederation. I truly believe that the ingenuous youth who are relegated by their anxious sires to the universities of the petty princes of Germany to learn how to act the part of Republican citizens, and who often return, spectacles for men and angels, wiser than their masters, with beard and hair streaming more meteor-like than theirs, and transcending even the transcendentalism of the newest school of philosophy, in short, as Tacitus says, Germanis ipsis Germanior,—I say I truly believe that these rising hopes of our country are more liable to be regularly and easily interrupted in their more important pursuits by the arrival of long-drawn-out epistles, full of the exploded doctrines of the New England school of philosophy and religion, though three thousand miles removed, than I was at a distance of little more than a hundred and fifty.

Be these things as they may, whenever one of these loitering missives did arrive, it was sure to contain, among much excellent advice and sound instruction, an injunction to take the earliest opportunity of visiting old Colonel Wyborne, a distant relative of the family, and one to whom my father was under serious obligations for good services done him before the Revolutionary war compelled him to retire from Boston. Like a foolish boy as I was, I postponed complying with this repeated injunction from year to year. I felt a natural awkwardness about going near twenty miles to see an old gentleman, of whom I knew nothing with certainty, except that he lived in the most complete seclusion, and whose reputation for eccentricity, much exaggerated by common report, made me rather nervous about my reception. I much preferred spending my holidays in the congenial society of my dear old aunt Champion, and begrudged the monstrous piece that a visit twenty miles off would cut out of the longest of my available vacations. But at last my continued negligence drew down upon me a severer rebuke than I had yet received, when I was on my summer's visit during my junior year, and I was laid under the parental command (in those days the highest earthly authority) to devote the ensuing Thanksgiving holidays to a visit to this venerated relative. Upon my return to college I made it my earliest business to write an apologetic letter, excusing my long delays, and asking his permission to pay my respects to him during the Thanksgiving week. In due course of time I received a cordial affirmative, couched in the most courteous and condescending language, disclaiming any right on his part to expect such a sacrifice of time and pleasure on mine, but at the same time giving me full credit for my readiness to make it, and expressing the warmest pleasure at the idea of seeing once more in his solitude the son of his old and valued friends. The elegance and urbanity of his letter, as well as its spirit and fire, prepossessed me strongly in favor of the venerable writer; and though I could not but be conscious that I did not deserve all the commendations that he bestowed upon me, yet I resolved that my conduct should be such in future, that he should have no reason to think them misplaced. My curiosity was now awakened with regard to his character and history, and I lost no time in endeavoring to learn what I could respecting them from the kind oracle to whom I have before alluded.

On the very next Saturday I found myself sitting opposite my excellent aunt Champion, separated from her, as she sat in her high-backed arm-chair, only by the small mahogany table from which the cloth was just withdrawn by the faithful Dinah, revealing its polished surface and carved edges; and which reflected in its rosy depths the images of the aspiring decanter, rising with a graceful swell from its firm base to its tapering neck, filled with the rich vintage of the most fortunate of "the islands of the blest;" and decorated, as were the wineglasses,—perfect cones, resting securely on their apices upon the tall stems,—with a galaxy of stars, and festoons of ribbons with fluttering bows. The beams of the afternoon's sun, struggling through the leaves of the garden trees, shone aslant, with a pleasant autumnal glow, upon the carpet just behind her chair. My good aunt, when she filled her glass, and half in jest and half in earnest, gave her invariable toast, "THE KING" (a political heresy which the sterling excellence of her wine went far to palliate), looked like some dame of a former age, who had burst her cerements, and returned to upper air to reveal some ancestral secret to her youthful descendant. Having duly drained my glass in honor of his Britannic Majesty (for my excellent relative, orthodox in all points, abhorred heel-taps), and incontinently replenished it, I held up the brimming beaker to the light, and admiring the rich hue of the liquid ruby,—glowing with a richness and depth of tint which might have put to shame any cathedral-window in the world,—I sighed, and, betwixt game and earnest, said, "Ah, my dear aunt, we must make the most of this good wine, for it is now hard to find. The confounded Revolution has demolished half the cellars in the country."

"It is so indeed!" the good lady responded. "It was but last week that I dined with Governor Hancock, and I assure you the wine was scarcely drinkable. Indeed, his Excellency apologized for it by saying that his cellar had gone to the Devil during the war, and that he was but just getting it to rights again. As for his wine having gone to the Devil, I could easily account for that, for the biggest part of it had gone down the gullets of the Sons of Liberty. But that he should have been so besotted with party madness as to have neglected to keep up the well-earned fame of his cellar, is amazing—he who was acknowledged to have the best in the Province! I could almost pardon his treason sooner than this abominable folly," she said, and consoled herself with an emphatic pinch of snuff.

"It is, indeed," replied I, "a sad defect in his character. It was not so in the good old times of the royal governors."

"Bless you, my dear boy! no, indeed! that it was not," rejoined my good aunt. "Why, the cellars of the old Province House were a perfect history of the Colony: they were the very archives of good-fellowship. The old gray-headed negro butler who was transmitted from one governor to another for many years, had a history for every pipe and bin; and many a good story could he tell of the merry times of Burnet and Pownal. Ah! they were sad fellows, and had a set of roystering blades about them. All this, you understand, however, was under the rose; and their revels were so managed as to give as little offence as possible to their righteous subjects. It was pretty well understood, however, that, like old Noll, they were more given to seeking the corkscrew than the Lord."

"Our gentlemen, too," said I, "have lost much of the spirit which honorably distinguished their fathers, who would have submitted to a reproach on the fair fame of their ancestors as on that of their cellars. These confounded politics have distracted their attention from matters of real importance."

"True enough, true enough!" rejoined Mrs. Champion. "And there you have another blessed consequence of this glorious Revolution! What can you expect of men who make a boast of despising their claim to an honorable descent? They deserve to drink bad wine for the rest of their days. Cellar pride cannot long outlive family pride." She ceased and sighed.

A short pause ensued, which I profitably filled up by sipping the genial juice with the reverence which the thought that it was the last of a generous stock was fitted to inspire. My dear aunt sat silent, tapping her snuff-box with her fruit-knife, and evidently absorbed in sad meditation on the degeneracy of the times, and on the change which had stolen over the little world in which she lived, and tinged with a more sombre hue the evening of her days.

Willing to divert her mind from this melancholy abstraction, I reverted to the subject immediately before us, and, throwing an air of sympathy and interest into my manner, I inquired,—

"Pray, my dear aunt, what may be the history of this good wine?"

"This wine," she replied, starting from her revery, "this wine is the Quebec wine, so called from the circumstance of its having arrived in harbor on the same day on which the news of Wolfe's victory was received. My husband immediately christened it with the name of that glorious battle, and always, as long as he lived, nursed the infant liquor with peculiar care. One pipe of it, I remember, he forthwith, on the very day, despatched to John Wyborne at Sanfield."

"What!" interrupted I, "old Colonel Wyborne? He is the very person I wanted to ask you about; and this is certainly a pleasant introduction to my inquiries. Pray, aunt, what manner of man was he? For I am going to spend the next Thanksgiving holidays with him."

"John Wyborne! He is a nobleman of God's own creation, a man of ten thousand. I have known him from his boyhood, and have never known a man on whose mind and body Nature had more plainly stamped GENTLEMAN. However, I have not seen him for these twenty years; for, since I laid down my carriage on your uncle's death, I have never been to see him, and it is more than twice that number of years since he was in Boston; so that it is not unlikely that time may have made some inroads on his outer man. But I will answer for the freshness of his mind and his heart."

"I think you may safely do that, my dear aunt," I replied, "for I have proof of it under his own hand and seal;" saying which, I produced his letter to me, and by my aunt's request read it to her, she having mislaid her spectacles. Her eyes glistened as I proceeded; for the characteristic animation and point and high-breeding of the letter, evidently awoke recollections and feelings which had long slept, and carried her back to the days when they were both young and hopeful and happy. When I had done, and restored the epistle to my pocketbook, after a moment's musing she said,—

"Ah! that is like him: that is like John Wyborne. What a man was lost to the world when he forsook it! That was the only mistake he ever made—except, indeed, his taking the wrong side in the late Rebellion."

"I have heard," said I, "that he is the least in the world of a humorist, though no one seems to know much about him. Do you know what induced him to give up the world and retire to Sanfield in the prime of his life?"

"Oh, yes!" she replied. "I know all about his history. But as to his being a humorist in the usual acceptation of the word, I do not believe a word of it. I have sometimes thought that a distinction should be made in that order of nature between the bad humorists (by far the larger division) and the good humorists. The first are a set of selfish, peevish wretches, the torment of their wives and servants, and the annoyance of their neighbors; who think that the reputation of oddity which they have cultivated will cover and excuse the multitude of their vexatious though petty iniquities. The second class is composed of men of the finest natures and gentlest dispositions, whom some unlucky crook in their lot has put a little out of conceit with the world and its ways, and who, withdrawing from the beaten paths of life, pursue by themselves what seems to them the chief good of existence, indifferent to the wonder and contempt of those who are in hot chase of the more generally recognized objects of human pursuit, and in whose heart it is not easy to conceive of any other motives of human action. This sort of men, however, are most fastidiously careful never to permit their oddities to chill the kindliness of their hearts, and to interfere with the comforts of others: they ride their hobbies with so careful a rein, that they never run against or unhorse any of their neighbors whom they meet prancing on theirs on the King's Highway. A humorist in this sense it cannot be denied John Wyborne is."

"But what was the disturbing cause," I inquired, "which made him shoot from his sphere? Was he crossed in love, or ambition, or business? Or what might it have been?"

"Why, he can hardly be properly said to have been crossed in either," replied my aunt; "and yet it was certainly disappointment that drove him into seclusion. But it is a long story—too long to be told now: we will reserve it for some of our winter evenings."

"But pray, my dear aunt," I remonstrated, "give me a skeleton of his history and character, if you have not time to dissect them scientifically" (I was at this time dipping into medical and anatomical books), "for I may not see you again before I pay my visit; and I should be sorry to venture into such a curious country without some sort of a map for my direction."

"Well, well," good-naturedly rejoined my aunt, "you were always a spoiled child, and, never having been refused anything you thought proper to ask for, I suppose that is a good reason for your not being denied anything now. So fill your glass and mine, and we will drink the good Colonel's health." Which having been duly performed, my aunt proceeded: "John Wyborne's father was a merchant in the golden days of the town (commercially speaking, I mean), when it had a free trade to all parts of the world, and no man asked of any New England ship whence it came or whither it went. In that world, before colonial policy or custom-house officers, old Mr. Wyborne flourished, and made a princely fortune, for those days, or, indeed, subsequent times; for he left at his death no less a sum than fifty thousand pounds sterling. When the Colonies had grown into importance enough to attract the attention of the ministry at home, and restrictions were laid upon the trade of the Province, Mr. Wyborne withdrew from business; and obtaining admission into the General Court, and afterwards into the Council, spent the remainder of his days agreeably enough in annoying the Governor, and doing his best to thwart all his favorite measures, and cut down his salary. In the intervals, however, of these useful and pleasant avocations, he found time hang rather heavily on his hands, and bethought himself of taking a wife to help him bear the burden. In those days, as now, it generally happened, by some chance or other, that a man with fifty thousand pounds in his pocket was not long to seek for a wife. Mr. Wyborne was no exception to the rule, and before many months he was the husband of Miss Armytage, a daughter of one of the oldest families in New England—or in Old England either, for that matter. I have heard my mother tell of the splendid style in which they lived in their fine house in King Street: there was no family in the Province who approached them in their manner of living. They had no children till the birth of Colonel Wyborne, in the year 1701.

"Mr. Wyborne died in the full prime of his life, in the year 1711, when his son was but ten years old; but his widow survived him for many years. Colonel Wyborne was reared in the usual style of that day; was flogged by Master Cheever at the Latin School into a competent knowledge of Latin; and, after the usual transmigrations from the fagging freshman to the dictatorial senior, he took his degree in the year 1720. He remained at Cambridge for three years,—till he proceeded Master of Arts, which was then a usual thing for those who could afford the expense. Having thus finished his academical course, he resolved to visit Europe,—an undertaking of no common occurrence in those days, when it was thought little less than a tempting of

Providence for a man to cross the ocean, unless it were to bespeak a cargo of English goods, or to look out for a grateful recipient of salt fish and lumber; which, of course, altered the moral bearings of the transaction altogether. Mrs. Wyborne most strenuously opposed her son's plan, and urged against it all the arguments which she could draw from the perils of the sea and the temptations of the shore,—a species of logic which I have remarked to make but little impression upon the understandings of young gentlemen who have been infected with a propensity to do as they liked, and had the power in their own hands of doing it. Dr. Cotton Mather, too, employed a whole afternoon and evening in attempting to defeat a project which would remove from his congregation one of its wealthiest members for an indefinite period, at the very time of life when his own influence might be most certainly fastened upon him, and who might not, improbably, return with a yearning after the more liberal atmosphere of the Manifesto Church. Maternal entreaties and ecclesiastical warnings were, however, in vain, and to London he went by the next ship that sailed for home. Not long after his departure, his mother consoled herself for his loss by marrying the Rev. Mr. Selleck, minister of the town of Sanfield, where Colonel Wyborne now lives. For a year or two after his departure, his young contemporaries and friends received frequent letters from him, giving full and glowing accounts of his success, beyond his hopes, in accomplishing the great objects of travel. A variety of circumstances, which I cannot now recapitulate, aided by his ample means, prepossessing appearance and address, and also by the novelty of his character as an accomplished transatlantic, introduced him into the brilliant circles of wit and fashion which distinguished the reigns of George I. and George II. He was well received by 'the wicked wasp of Twickenham,' was domesticated at Lydiard a few years later, and when in Dublin was admitted to a share in the somewhat unclerical frolics of the Dean of St. Patrick's. His success, however, was not confined to that disappointed though brilliant coterie; for he was admitted to the dressing-room of Lady Mary Wortley, had bowed at Sir Robert's levee, and was well received at court. His good fortune accompanied him to France, where he had an opportunity of witnessing, and, I fear, of partaking, the profligate revels of the Regent Duke of Orleans, and was well acquainted with Voltaire in his prime. The blandishments of Paris, however, did not detain him long from Italy, where he lingered for two years, seduced by its delicious climate and immortal ruins. At the end of two years he returned to England; but before this time his correspondence with his Boston friends had flagged, as correspondences are apt to do, and soon after breathed its last. His intercourse with his mother was kept up till her death; but, from the distance at which she lived, we in town gleaned but scanty accounts of his adventures. In fact, from about the year 1726 or 1727, we almost entirely lost sight of him; and, as years rolled away, his image grew less and less distinct in the mind's eye of his best lovers; and it was pretty well understood that he had lived so long in the sunshine of courts and the fellowship of wits, that he was unfitted to return to the austere and somewhat pedantic society of New England. The gentlemen who now and then went home on business could only learn that he lived in the north of England, for the most part, and but seldom visited London. Fifteen years from the time of his departure passed away, and all expectation of ever seeing him again was abandoned, when one day the ship 'Speedwell' was said to be below, from London. This was much more of an event in those days than now, and the talk of the town for some time before and after it occurred. My husband immediately took a boat, and visited the ship in the roads, and soon returned with the strange news that John Wyborne was on board; and that was not all,—that he had brought his wife with him. Here was a surprise. His wife! Why, we had never heard that he was married, or even thought of such a thing! Who was she? How did she look? Was he much changed? My husband, however, broke off my exclamations and inquiries by the intelligence that the returned prodigal and his English spouse were to be our guests until they could take possession of their own house. This information threw me into a little of a nutter, for I was but a young housekeeper then; and though pleased with the idea of seeing my old playfellow again, and gratified at his choosing my house as his temporary home from amongst the many hospitable roofs of friends and relatives proffered to his acceptance, still, I could not but feel a little anxious, lest the difference should be too marked between the appliances of luxury to which he had been accustomed at home, and the more humble though substantial comforts which I could provide. And then his wife—an Englishwoman, too! However, there was luckily not much time for self-tormenting, for it was now one o'clock, and our guests were expected before dark. You may imagine how poor old Dinah, then a strapping wench, and Celia, who died before your memory, bustled about, not unassisted by me, to put the blue chamber overhead in due order, and to get all things in readiness for the due welcome of the coming guests. When all things were ready, or in train, and I had duly arranged my dress, I descended to the opposite parlor to await their arrival. Having now nothing more to do, I began making myself work by displacing and then rearranging all the furniture in the room, and now and then giving an uncalled-for poke to the blazing fire, which Cæsar had just lighted on the hearth; for it was one of those delightful clear, cool days in autumn, when a good fire of an evening is relished as a luxury, and not regarded as a mere necessary of life, as in winter. At last, about six o'clock, they drove up, accompanied by your uncle, in the chariot, and, as soon as they appeared, I felt that all my previous twitter had been unnecessary: the first glance I had of them told me that.

"The fifteen years which had elapsed since I last saw John Wyborne had transformed the slight though graceful youth into an elegant man of mature age; but the hurried warmth with which he approached and saluted me, and the evident emotion which he felt at the sight of the familiar faces and scenes of his youth, assured me that he had passed through the ordeal of a European life without injury to the better feelings of his nature. He was now thirty-seven or thirty-eight years of age, but did not look a day more than thirty. He was more than six feet tall, and of a noble presence. His face beamed with manly intelligence; and his dark eye, which was at that moment quenched with emotion, at calm times sparkled with animation, or glowed with enthusiasm. His mouth was rather large than otherwise, but susceptible of the most varied expression, and his teeth were of the most glittering whiteness. But," continued my aunt after a short pause, shaking her head with a pensive air, "it is hardly worth while to describe so particularly what the ruins you are going to see once were; but all who ever knew John Wyborne in his best estate will tell you that they have never forgotten the fascination of his smile and eye."

"I assure you, my dear aunt," I answered, my curiosity being now fully awakened, "that you cannot be too minute for me; but, as time presses, pray give me some account of his wife. Was she as fine a creature as his wife should have been?"

"Indeed she was," replied my aunt: "at least, as far as one could judge from appearance and manner, she was well worthy of her husband. But there was some mystery about her which we never could fathom, and, where there is mystery, there must always be a degree of doubt as to the worthiness of the person, especially of the woman, to whom it attaches. But, poor thing, she did not live long to be the theme of the gossiping small-talk of the herd of society, or of the anxious and legitimate curiosity of her near relatives."

"Did she indeed die so early?" exclaimed I. "But pray go on with your story, for I am impatient to hear the end of it."

"That you will soon hear," my aunt resumed; "for there is but little more to tell. John Wyborne and his wife remained our guests for about six weeks, while the old family mansion in King Street was getting in readiness for them. This time was filled up by a succession of gayeties in honor of their arrival. Governor Belcher entertained them at a grand dinner at the Province House, at which were assembled the most distinguished of the gentlemen and ladies of the town. All the principal inhabitants vied with each other in welcoming the new-comers with splendid hospitalities. The fine autumnal days which were free from engagements in town we employed in scouring the country round, sometimes in the chariot, and sometimes on horseback, to display the charming scenery of New England, glowing with the tints of a New England autumn. On these excursions we always stopped at some of the gentlemen's seats, which were sprinkled over the country in every direction, and the gates of which always stood wide open to invite the passing friend. Alas! too many of those hospitable portals have been closed by the cruel Revolution, or passed into niggard hands.

"Well, the six weeks soon passed away, and our guests left us, and took possession of their own house. And a fine establishment it was, being the result of taste combined with wealth; and yet there was no attempt to outshine their neighbors: everything was in the very best style of the town, and nothing more. When they were fairly fixed in their new abode, they gathered around them a circle of the choicest society; and that winter was a memorable one in the annals of anyone who was admitted within that charmed circle. Mr. Wyborne gave a weekly dinner on Wednesdays, which he managed to make a very different affair from the somewhat stiff festivities of set dinners at that time, or any other time either, for that matter.

"It was observable, however, after the first excitement of a new country and the first bustle of hospitalities were over, and they were quietly settled down by their own fireside, that Mrs. Wyborne was but ill at ease. Her form by degrees lost something of its symmetrical roundness, her brilliant complexion was exchanged for an alabaster chilliness, and her eyes gradually lost much of their peculiar beauty. Her husband seemed but to live for her, and there was no circumstance of watchful love and sedulous attention in which he was wanting. She, however, drooped from month to month so palpably as to excite the anxiety of her best friends and the lively curiosity of her common acquaintance.

"One thing was remarkable enough, and that was that neither she nor her husband ever made the faintest allusion to her parentage or history previous to their marriage. Mr. Wyborne so promptly and dexterously parried all attempts to extract any information on these points from him, and his wife met them with such a mournful embarrassment, that it was soon understood that they were forbidden topics in their presence; though you may well imagine that they were discussed in all their bearings, known and imagined, when they were absent. The circumstance, too, that she was plunged in double gloom upon the arrival of every fresh packet of letters from Europe, did not tend to damp the curiosity, or to extinguish the conjectures, of those kind inquirers who are more solicitous about the affairs of others than about their own."

"That certainly did look rather suspicious," interrupted I. "Did it not excite some doubts in the minds of the lovers of scandal as to whether they were married at all?"

"That scandalous construction," Mrs. Champion replied, "would no doubt have been put upon their unaccountable behavior, if Mr. Wyborne had not, probably with a foreboding of such a rumor, taken good care to exhibit as an interesting autograph his marriage-certificate, signed by the famous Dr. Young, who performed the ceremony in London by special license. Matters went on thus for some months, their house being the centre of our limited sphere, and almost always thronged with company, which John Wyborne anxiously gathered round him in hopes of dissipating the growing melancholy of his wife.

"The winter wore on pleasantly enough to all except the fated mistress of the mansion. John Wyborne had received his library, the finest private one in the country, which he had collected abroad, and had arranged it entirely to his mind. Many valuable pictures, a few statues (rather shocking to the primitive taste of those days), and what was to us a rich collection of articles of virtu arrived, and added to the attractions of his house. A superficial observer would have pronounced John Wyborne a happy man. He had health, riches, taste, a well-cultivated mind, a splendid library, warm friends of congenial tastes, and a charming wife. What could man desire more? Surely he had clutched the rare boon of unmixed felicity. Alas, my dear boy! he was no exception to the general doom which condemns man to trouble. All the appliances of luxury, all the qualifications of taste, even all the leisure and ample means for gratifying a passion for elegant letters, bring no balm to the wounds of a gentle nature, inflicted by the sight of a beloved object consuming away before the sight of a mental malady beyond the leech's arts. Religion only, my son, religion only, has consolations adequate to support the soul under such a burden." She paused, for the memories of her own sorrows were painfully rising to her brain, and a phantom train of unburied griefs stretched in long perspective before her mind's eye. She, however, never long yielded to the painful influences of the past, and soon resumed the thread of her narration.

"Matters went on thus till the middle of February, when Mr. and Mrs. Wyborne, having their establishment now complete, issued cards of invitation to all their acquaintance to an entertainment given in return for the multitudinous attentions which had welcomed them on their arrival.

"It was bitterly cold, a glittering, clear winter's night, which well set off the genial and brilliant scene within. Your uncle and I dined there, and helped them to oversee the last preparations. By six o'clock all the company were assembled, comprising all the town which had any claim to admittance, from old Dr. Coleman down to the freshest and prettiest young girls just escaped from the nursery.

"The recollection of that scene is indelibly impressed upon my memory by the sudden change which soon was brought over it; though there is not half a dozen of the gay crowd which filled the rooms that night that now survive. What a strange thing is memory!—that I at eighty-three should at this moment be, as it were, in the midst of a brilliant and happy crowd of half a century ago, almost every one of which is now in the grave, except a few withered, weak old men and women just tottering on its brink. I could describe to you, if I had time, and you cared to hear it, every dress in the room, from the splendid brocade and diamonds of the mistress of the house, whose chief ornament, however, was her beautiful hair, falling in natural ringlets over her neck (for powder was not then in fashion), and from Governor Belcher's black velvet coat and breeches, richly embroidered waistcoat, point-lace ruffles, diamond buckles, and dress sword, down to the beautiful Mary Osborne, now old Mrs. Estridge, in her white watered silk, and glistening high-heeled shoes, which Cinderella might have envied, seated on the window-seat, half hid by the heavy damask curtain, listening to Ralph Estridge (whom she not long afterwards married), who had just returned from home, the image of a London petitmaitre, in a peach-bloom silk coat lined with white, pink satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, white satin breeches and white silk stockings, and a rapier with a steel handle, glittering like diamonds. Books, flowers, paintings, beautiful women, and elegant men, made it a picture to be recalled with pleasure, if it were not for the dark cloud which soon gathered over it.

"Well, everything went on well enough. All were animated, and most were happy. The mistress of the house looked like herself again; the young people made love; their elders talked of the prospect of a war with Spain; some of the more austere of the elder school of New England manners privily shook their heads at the frightful havoc which luxury was making in the good old simplicity of the fathers. The most rigid of the reverend divines and honorable judges, however, smoothed their stern features on this occasion, and looked on with complacent smiles. At about half-past eight supper was announced, and we ascended to the supper-room, led by the Governor and the mistress of the house. It was a beautiful spectacle. The tables lavishly adorned with flowers, the luxurious banquet served almost entirely on plate, the lovely and graceful figures which were grouped around the board in the full flow of youthful spirits, and the venerable forms and beneficent countenances of the elder guests contrasting with them, made up a scene of enchantment which I have never seen approached since. The master of the feast seemed to be doubly inspired by the spirit of the scene, and never shone more brilliantly, both in his own proper powers of entertainment and his tact in drawing out the resources of others. My good old friend Dr. Byles, then a young and brisk divine, was in his element, and often set the table in a roar with his lively sallies; and many a sharp encounter of wits took place between him and his host. Suppers, however, like all other terrestrial things, must come to an end; and after about an hour and a half had been delightfully spent over the table, we returned to the parlor. Soon afterwards his Excellency, the clergy, and the more dignified portion of the company, took their leave, which was the signal for the appearance of the violins and the commencement of what was then a most unusual event—a ball. Mrs. Wyborne opened the ball with a minuet with Mr. Hutchinson (our late governor); and, that prologue being happily over, the country-dances began in good earnest, and were kept up with untiring devotion till nearly four o'clock, when the assembly gradually melted away. My husband and I, as we had been the first on the ground, were the last to leave it. As we walked through the deserted rooms with our charming hostess, and observed with pleasure how the excitement and success of the evening had recalled her vanished bloom, and rekindled her faded eyes, we little thought that the next occasion which would summon us to those apartments would be her funeral."

"Her funeral!" I exclaimed.

"Even so," she mournfully rejoined, "and so soon. She was taken violently ill the very next day,—probably from undue excitement, and unusual fatigue acting upon a frame already debilitated,—and in less than a week she was dead." She paused, and, as I looked at her, I saw that her aged eyes were wet at thought of the sad images which her story had recalled.

"And how did her husband bear the dreadful blow?" I inquired.

"His despair was frightful for the first few days," she replied. "He refused admission to his best friends, and would not be comforted. He shut himself up for hours with the beloved remains, and the anxious and affectionate servants listened with dismay to the tempest of grief which they could hear raging within. Such violence of sorrow, however, could not last long; but, when the first fierce paroxysms were over, the preternatural calmness which succeeded was scarcely less shocking than they. I can never forget, should I live a century longer, the dreadful change which that short week had wrought in his face: death had not thrown a more gloomy change over the features of the beloved dead,—his cheeks as hollow as a ghost's, his eyes of a stony vacancy, his pale lips quivering, and his whole energies apparently bent upon a mighty effort at calmness.

"That funeral was worth a thousand homilies. There she lay at length in her coffin, who, but a little week before, was the charm of all who saw or heard her; in the very room, too, in which she had led the dance, and surrounded by most of the very revellers who had basked in her radiant presence. It was a chastening though grievous vicissitude, from the house of feasting to the house of mourning, and from the garments of joy to the weeds of heaviness. The contrast of those darkened rooms, filled with mournful countenances and suits of woe, to the glittering lights, splendid dresses, flashing eyes, and merry hearts of the time of their last meeting there, must have inscribed an ineffaceable lesson on the most thoughtless hearts. Nothing broke the sepulchral stillness but an occasional sob, which would find its way from some woman's heart, or a half-suppressed sigh from some manly bosom, till at length Dr. Sewall rose, and raised all our souls upon his eloquent prayers to heaven. When this impressive service was over, the last sad procession was marshalled to the tomb.

"It was one of those dark, gloomy winter's days, when the sky looks like a vault of stone almost resting upon the roofs of the houses. The ground was covered with snow, and a few flakes now and then fell heavily down through the still cold air. The pall was held by the lieutenant-governor and five other of the principal gentlemen of the time. Then followed the bereaved husband, supported by my husband and Dr. Sewall. Then came the governor and magistrates, succeeded by along train of relatives and friends in the deepest mourning. Behind followed the family coach, the carriage, as well as the servants, in mourning, then the governor's coach, and next the carriages of almost all the gentry of the town and country round. As the black train swept through the streets, the common people, who thronged them to witness the spectacle, all uncovered as we passed, and showed none of the levity which I have some times seen to accompany great funerals.

"At last, after making a large circuit, in consequence of the numerous attendance, we arrived at the King's Chapel churchyard, and all passed round by the family tomb of the Wybornes, and took a last look at its latest and fairest tenant before its ponderous jaws closed upon her forever. Poor John Wyborne could bear up under his heavy grief no longer, but was supported by his anxious friends, almost insensible, to his coach. The rest of the melancholy attendants stood reverently by as the mourner was borne along, and then dispersed, and, entering the coaches which were in waiting, were slowly rolled to their various homes.

"The gloom of this event hung over the town for all the remainder of the season and for months afterwards. It seemed as if every family was mourning over some household death. The difference which it made to me, you may easily imagine. It was almost the first severe loss of the kind that I had ever encountered: Heaven knows it was not the last!" After a short pause, she resumed, "John Wyborne continued throughout the spring in a most pitiable state: the violence of his first grief was succeeded by an apathetic listlessness from which nothing could arouse him. He formed a plan for returning again to Europe, which was encouraged by his friends as the medicine most likely to be effectual; but he did not seem to retain enough of the energy with which he used to overflow to make the necessary preparations. At last, when May was well advanced, my husband proposed to him to visit Sanfield, the town in the Old Colony where his mother had spent the last years of her life after her marriage with the Rev. Mr. Selleck and where a considerable estate was going to decay for want of the eye of the master. As this excursion did not involve much expenditure of resolution or trouble, Mr. Wyborne consented to accompany Mr. Champion to the scene of his mother's later years. It was a most exquisite spring day when they went down, when the country was clad in its softest and freshest green, and the fields were white with apple-blossoms, and the delicious air seemed as if it might have been a balm even for a broken heart.

"Mr. Wyborne seemed to feel the benefit of the change of place almost immediately; and the appearance of his house and grounds, and of the village in its vicinity, seemed to strike his fancy. The house, which I will not describe, as you will soon see it, was somewhat the worse for want of inhabitants for a number of years, since the decease of his reverend step-father; but the avenue of fine elms and grove, which sheltered it from the sea, had grown up prosperously, though untrimmed and neglected. The garden was something like that of the sluggard, to be sure; and the sun-dial in its centre was almost hid by nettles and weeds, and the wall was in many places broken down, and the fish-pond was almost choked up with rubbish. I should have told you that the new part of the house was built, the trees planted, and the grounds laid out, by an English Church clergyman of fortune, who emigrated to this country about the beginning of the century, and who, finding small encouragement in his clerical capacity, had employed himself in the business and pleasures of a country life, and of whose heirs Mrs. Wyborne had purchased it on her second marriage.

"There was enough of native luxuriant beauty about the place to captivate the good taste of its owner; while there was an air of neglect and desolation about it which seemed to suit the present melancholy mood of his mind. My husband was well pleased to hear him avow his intention of putting the place to rights, and making it his residence for a part of the year. He encouraged him in his plan, and recommended that no time should be lost in putting it into execution. Accordingly they hunted up a farmhouse in the neighborhood, whose owners were willing to take him and his servant in until the old house could be made habitable. Rejoiced to have been the means of providing a healthful occupation for his friend's sick mind, my husband returned to town, expecting that he would follow in about a fortnight. A fortnight elapsed, and a month, and a year, and yet he tarried.

"He left his house in town for a couple of days, perhaps a week; and now almost half a century has passed away since then, and he has never once recrossed its threshold, or revisited his native town. He had found the first comfort which his wounded spirit had known among the old trees and green meadows of his new home and by the side of the ocean which washed his estate less than half a mile from the house; and he felt for them the love of a mourner for the tried friends of his affliction. Nothing, however, was further from his intention than making that sequestered place his permanent abode. But the first summer and autumn were insensibly wasted away in the pleasant tasks of bringing order out of the chaos of his grounds, and of restoring to the old mansion the comfort and elegance of which time and neglect had stripped it. Then, just as winter set in, his house was ready for his occupation, and he could not bear to leave this new home, which was invested only with happy associations, for that roof which was overshadowed by the gloom of his mighty sorrow, and under which he would be haunted at every turn by the ghosts of his buried joys. So the winter passed away and when spring returned he had made up his mind to make this his chief residence, and sent for his library. When winter again arrived, his attachment to the place had strengthened, and he determined to spend it as he did the last. In this way his habits of life became gradually fixed; his love for his new home, and his disinclination to return to his old one, increased with every year; and so his prime of manhood and his green old age have worn away in that retirement."

"Had he any society in his solitude?" I inquired.

"But little in his immediate neighborhood," my aunt replied, "except the clergyman and one or two country gentlemen. But for many years, during the summers and autumns, he had no lack of company from Boston: his house was scarcely ever empty, at those times, of his old friends and companions. Your uncle and I always paid him at least one visit a year, as I told you before, until I gave up the coach upon his death. By degrees, however, as his old friends died off, his younger ones grew less frequent in their visits. And then the Revolution came in to confound all old friendships; so that for a good many years he has been thrown almost entirely on his own resources. I am told, however, by some old friends who are still constant to him, that he has acquired no cynicism from neglect, and gathered no rust from solitude, but is still, in his manners, dress, and way of living, a fine relic of the thoroughbred gentleman of the middle of this century."

The good old lady here ceased. I warmly thanked her for her story, and assured her that it had increased my curiosity to make the personal acquaintance of its hero a hundred-fold.

"I am glad you are going to see him," she resumed; "for you may never chance to meet with exactly such another specimen of the old school again: at least I do not know where his fellow is to be found."

At this point we were interrupted by the entrance of Dinah with the tea-things, which brought us down from our high converse about other days to a sense of present realities. After my good aunt had dispensed the fragrant infusion in china's earth, the sun began to remind me, by the peculiar mellowness of his light among the leaves of the trees, that it was time for me to set forth on my return to my rooms. My horse being accordingly brought round by Cæsar, I affectionately saluted my dear old friend, and, receiving from her a needless injunction not to fail to make my visit to Sanfield, I mounted my nag, and rode briskly back to my home among classic shades.

————

CHAPTER II.

MY aunt's history had made so strong an impression upon my fancy, that I became as impatient for the time of my visit to arrive as I had formerly been ingenious to invent excuses for putting it off. My strong curiosity to see the subject of her narration, actually sometimes inspired a kind of nervous apprehension that something would happen to prevent my visit, that I might be summoned in some other direction, or that the good old gentleman might in the interval exchange his quiet home for the vault of his ancestors. No such impediment, however, occurred. The autumn months melted gradually away, and at last brought round the annual festival of the Pilgrim Fathers. I obtained permission to leave Cambridge a day sooner than the regular holidays began in order that I might have a good three-days' visit, which I thought little enough for my purpose; the reverend president giving a ready assent to my application when he understood its object, for Colonel Wyborne was his old and valued friend. He intrusted to me a packet containing some sermons of his which had been recently printed, as well as a verbal message of friendly compliments; and having instructed me to call upon him on my return, with an account of his excellent friend, "he shook his ambrosial curls (of his wig), and gave the nod," which was the signal for my departure.

I louted low, and withdrew, inly pleased at the successful issue of an interview which was then considered as the most appalling of human ordeals.

On Tuesday morning of the last week in November, I bestrode the very indifferent beast which enjoyed the somewhat unenviable distinction of being the best livery horse in Cambridge, and set forth, like Yorick, with (not quite) a half-dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches in my portmanteau, on my long-looked-for excursion. Contrary to established usage in such cases, the day was fine and the roads excellent. It was one of those delicious, mild, soft days which sometimes occur at the very close of autumn, and seem to breathe a second spring in the very presence of winter himself; and to desire

"Upon old Hyem's chin and icy beard
To hang a chaplet of young summer buds."

As I rode over Brighton bridge upon a steed which had not yet got over the stimulus of his double allowance of oats, with my back turned upon my nursing mother, whose cares are but too often felt to be only vexatious till it is too late to profit by them, and a week before me unhaunted by the apparitions of dead authors and living tutors, I respired the bland air with a joyous feeling of young life, and felt as if there were no such thing as pain or trouble in the world. I trotted along the pleasant winding roads through Roxbury, Brookline, and Dorchester, with a heart ready and willing to receive pleasure from every object which struck the senses. The trees were almost bare, and the earth was sear and brown; yet the yellow light of the rejoicing sun seemed almost as beautiful as the leafy glories of their summer's estate. The farmhouses, with their roofs sloping to the ground; the sheds laden with the golden pumpkins, prophetic of pies to come; the corn-barns with the yellow ears peeping out from between the interstices of the sides; the wood-pile, suggestive of images of comfort and merry winter nights; the picturesque well-pole, not yet supplanted by the prosaic pump of these utilitarian days,—all were fruitful of happy thoughts and pleasant day-dreams. As I ascended Milton Hill, I saw for the first time the magnificent prospect it displays, and checked my horse on its summit to admire the wide sweep of country, the tufted hills, the winding river, and the glorious burst of ocean, with here and there a white sail gliding along its blue surface, which it commands. On the other side of the road I saw the charming villa of Governor Hutchinson, with the fine plantations he had made, and the trees under which he had hoped his latter days would have declined in peace; and I felt that his exile from this beloved and lovely spot was punishment enough for his political offences as a public man. It is said, and I can well believe it to be true, that he died of Milton Hill. It must have been a bitter thing to have revisited its beloved shades, and gazed on its gorgeous view in the visions of the night, and then to have awoke a neglected, impoverished, despised exile, forever separated from the spot of earth which was dearer to him than all the world beside.

As I wound farther into the country, I often met, jogging cheerfully along, hale ruddy countrymen; some young, some gray-haired, presiding over wagons groaning under the weight of the victims which had been sacrificed against the coming festival. Hecatombs of beeves, ghostlike forms of turkeys, partridges never again to rise on whirring wing, ducks fated to swim no more save in their own gravy, passed in long procession, like the shadowy train of Banquo's descendants. As I passed through the villages in my way, they had all a sort of pleasant holiday look. The labors of the year seemed to be over, and the inhabitants to be assisting one another to do nothing in the most neighborly manner possible. The boys, let loose from school, were playing football with all the energy which that manly game demands, but stopping in their sport to look at the passing stranger, and salute him, according to the good old custom, with uncouth demonstrations of respect.

At noon, I bated from my journey, though bent on speed, and drew the rein at the door of what was to me a most promising hostelry, being a farmhouse of the oldest description which New England affords, with its jutting second story as a "coigne of vantage" against the Indians, its diamond panes of glass set in lead, and its window-frames opening inwards like folding-doors; and which was proclaimed to be a place of entertainment for man and beast by a most truculent portrait of General Washington, which hung in chains from a superb old elm before the door. I soon learnt that the hospitable proprietor was no less a person than Captain Crake, who had seen hard service both in the old French war and in the recent struggle for independence. The gallant captain did me the honor to invite himself to dine with me, and I found him an entertaining specimen of a large class of our revolutionary officers, who had superinduced the military frankness and ease of one conversant with camps upon the sturdy independent yeoman of the Old Colony. While I patiently exercised my molars and incisors in an almost hopeless attempt to subdue a beefsteak, which seemed as if it might have been ravished from the yet living flank of the sire of Abyssinian herds, I quite won the heart of my worthy landlord by the interest which I took in his descriptions of his campaigns and of the well-fought fields which he had seen. He exhibited with much satisfaction the honorable scar in his arm which he had received at the storming of Stony Point, and the sword which the Marquis de Lafayette had presented to him, and his insignia of the Cincinnati. He also displayed a richly chased gold watch, which had been given to him by a French nobleman whom he had made the captive of his bow and of his spear in Canada, I think at the taking of Fort Niagara, as a token of his sense of the humanity and courteous treatment which he had received at the hands of his captor. During his long term of service he had associated on terms of equality with gentlemen of much higher rank in society than he had been accustomed to know, except at a humble distance; and he felt the loss of the company of his old companions-in-arms most severely after the army was disbanded. He had, as a resource against ennui, rather than any expectation of gain, hoisted the head of his beloved chief before his paternal door to invite the passing guest; and the neighboring gentry always made it a point to stop at the captain's door as they passed, and gratify the veteran by treating him as one who had bravely fought his way to an equality with themselves at a time when the distinctions of rank were still strongly marked. I subsequently cultivated the acquaintance of the erect old man, and extracted from him many a curious fragment of public and private history. But my horse is again at the door, and I must return the military salute of mine host with what grace I may, and hasten onward, for I have no time to lose.

My horse, who, during the course of his long and active life, had done little else than tread and retread the weary round of what were in those days entitled the great and the little squares, which were certain roads encompassing Boston at a greater and less distance, began to show unequivocal symptoms of weariness and disgust at my eccentric orbit. No logic, either of whip or spur, could convince him of the propriety of advancing at a more rapid rate than a sort of shamble between a walk and a pace. To crown all, he managed to cast a shoe at the most inconvenient place possible, so that I had to lead him for a matter of four miles before I could find a blacksmith. All these untoward circumstances combined to make my approach to the end of my journey as gradual as might well be. Accordingly, when the sun set, as sober suns will do, at a little after five o'clock, he left me about five miles from Sanfield. Now this distance I could have soon annihilated if I had been unincumbered with my impracticable companion; but, as it was, I was obliged to do as wiser men have been obliged in like cases to do before me,

"And will again, pretend they ne'er so wise,"

even to succumb to the wayward humor of my ill-conditioned helpmate, and to console myself with cursing the evil hour in which I formed the ill-starred union.

The day, which had been cloudless as a midsummer's noon, began, before the sun went down, to be overcast with black clouds, portentous of showers. A piercing north-east wind reigned in the stead of the vernal breeze of the morning, and whirled the brown leaves in rustling eddies like a miniature tornado. As I stumbled onwards upon my journey, the twilight faded away, and was followed by a moonless night. I could scarcely distinguish my road, which seemed to grow longer and longer, under my feet. In something more than two hours, however, I was cheered by the ruddy blaze of a blacksmith's forge, which gave me assurance of being near a village. Upon reaching the smithy, I inquired of the son of St. Dominic as to my whereabouts, and was informed that I was on the confines of the village of Sanfield, and had ingeniously managed to take a wrong turning a few miles back, which had brought me more than a mile beyond my destination by a wrong route. Nothing remained for me now but to take the instructions of the worthy smith, and turn my horse's reluctant head in the opposite direction, and, having been put in the right way, to pursue it till I should come to the high trees, which were the mark of my journey's end.

My nag, contrary to my expectation, seemed to snuff afar off the comfortable provender which awaited him, and laid his feet to the ground with a speed he had not put forth since the morning. As I advanced, I earnestly bent my eyes into the thick darkness on my right hand, in hopes of distinguishing the friendly branches which were to point me to the termination of my weary way. I looked with the more earnestness as a few drops of a cold November rain began to fall, and to threaten no inconsiderable addition to the discomfort of my benighted estate. At last, however, as I descended a considerable hill, I heard the sough of the blast stirring the boughs of many lofty trees on my right hand, and could perceive lights glimmering through the darkness at a considerable distance. These I at once knew must be the indications of the hospitable habitation I sought. The pitchy blackness of the night compelled me to dismount, and grope my way to the fence, and along it, in search of the approach to the house. This I felt to be prudent as I heard the hoarse murmur of what seemed to be a considerable stream near me. I groped in vain, however, for the carriage-road; and could find but a small gate, intended only for human ingress, about opposite where the little candle threw its beams into the night, like "a good deed in a naughty world."

In this distress I had nothing left for it but to tie my horse to the fence, and follow the adventure on foot. Entering the gate, I proceeded onwards, with the withered leaves crackling under my feet, and the wind sighing among the bare branches over my head. The rain now began to patter in more frequent drops upon the dead leaves over which I walked, with the peculiar clattering noise which is delightful to listen to before a comfortable fire, but less musical to the ear of an amateur of Nature's harmonies, when he is behind the scenes and in the midst of the performers. As I neared my hoped-for haven of rest, I was saluted by the fierce barking of a dog, who, if his size were answerable to his voice, might be a match for the shaggy "Dog of Darkness" himself. Now, however sweet it may be

"To hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home,"

I put it to anyone who has tried the experiment, whether it be an equally delightful sound as we approach a strange house of a dark night. I venture to say that the stoutest hearted despiser of dogs and devils would feel some misgivings under such circumstances, lest his fate might be at least as hard as that of the noble bard just quoted, who was welcomed on his return to Newstead by having

"His Argus bite him by the breeches."

It would not do, however, to be daunted by this new lion in my path, which I afterward found was chained, like the one in Pilgrim's Progress: so on I fared, like any errant knight, resolved at all hazards to achieve my adventure. The house seemed to recede as I advanced, and I thought that I had measured a good mile before I reached it: it was, in fact, about a quarter of a mile. As, however, there is an end to the disagreeables as well as to the agreeables of life, I at last stood in the porch, wet, hungry, and tired, and made the brazen knocker give clamorous notice of my presence. The door was soon opened by an elderly woman of respectable appearance, of whom I inquired if this was Colonel Wyborne's house, and whether he were at home; to both which interrogatories I received the expected affirmative, together with an invitation to walk in. The good woman, eying me attentively, then said, in the negative-affirmative form in which inquiries are generally put in New England,—

"Sure you are not the Mr. Dalzell whom the Colonel expects from college, are you?"

I assured her of my confident belief in my identity with the individual in question; upon which she replied,—

"Well, the Colonel will be right glad to see you, sir, though he did not expect you till to-morrow, or he would have sent the chariot to meet you at Captain Crake's. But how did you get here, sir? You surely haven't walked all the way?"

I gave the information desired; upon which she promised to send the coachman for my horse, and requested me to walk into the parlor, where the Colonel was sitting. She accordingly threw open the door on the right as I entered the hall, and ushered me into an apartment, the lightsome cheerfulness of which was enhanced by the chilly, wet, famished condition in which I entered it. The master of the house, however, was not there; though the chair drawn to the fire, the small mahogany table, covered with a green cloth, and sustaining a massive silver candlestick and wax candle, and the second volume of Sir William Temple's works in folio, showed that he had not been long absent. The housekeeper then left the room by the door by which we had entered, for the purpose of finding him, and announcing my arrival. The first object which attracted my attention was the noble fire which roared up the chimney, to which I incontinently rushed, and bathed my shivering frame in the genial warmth. When I had imbibed as much caloric as my forward man required, I turned what Lord Castlereagh used to call "a back-front" to the generous blaze, and took a survey of the apartment. The walls were panelled in oak, with a gilt moulding, now a little tarnished. Between the two windows opposite was a large mirror, framed in mahogany, with gilt sconces for lights. Under it was a table covered with a rich Turkey rug, which was well piled with books and papers, and beneath which appeared a couple of small globes. The closed window-shutters were well-nigh concealed, as well as the high window-seats of oak, by the depending folds of the crimson damask curtains. Between the two windows on my right hand was a card-table of mahogany, black with time, clasping heavy balls in its clawed feet. On the side of the room opposite to the card-table was a most luxurious easy-chair—a fit cradle for declining age—and a footstool, both covered with chintz protecting the crimson damask, which on occasions of importance was revealed, to match the curtains. In the nook on the side of the fireplace answering to the door by which I entered was a secretary, its looking-glass doors opening over what seemed to be a chest of drawers, but which, when drawn out, formed a writing-desk with pigeon-holes innumerable. Above the looking-glass doors were three smaller drawers; the inner one with fluted rays diverging from the middle of its lowest side to its edges; the whole crowned by a sort of pyramidal pediment, the polished wood reflecting the surrounding objects like marble, and the brass handles glistering like gold. A thick Turkey carpet covered the floor, and a sufficient number of inviting chairs, with carved frames and well-stuffed seats, expanded their arms to welcome the weary guest. It may be readily conceived that I took in this inventory in less than a tithe of the time it has taken to recount it, and had again turned to the blazing hearth. The chimney was one of those which men built when the forests grew up to their very doors, and it was their ambition to consume them as rapidly as possible. The fireplace was encircled with my favorite Dutch tiles, and surmounted by a capacious mantel-piece, which, as well as the panels over it, were covered with particular care.

While I was thus engaged in surveying these images of comfort, and basking in the blessed warmth, I heard a slight noise behind me, and, turning suddenly round, I saw before me my venerable host, who had just entered by a door which I have not mentioned, opening from the side on the left of the fireplace as I stood with my back to it. The apparition was one which might have startled one who might be taken by surprise. His face was furrowed with wrinkles, his teeth gone, his eyebrows bushy, but of a snowy whiteness, under which his eyes looked out with a keenness and brilliancy which seemed almost preternatural. His head was covered with a crimson velvet cap with a silk tassel in the centre, under which he wore a linen cap, turned up in front and at the sides over the velvet one, of the purest white. He had on a branched-damask dressing gown, pearl-colored silk breeches, a large flapped waistcoat of the same, embroidered with silk, white silk stockings, and black velvet slippers; his neck encircled by a white stock clasped behind with a large paste buckle. In his hand he bore the fellow of the silver candlestick upon the stand before mentioned; and under his other arm he carried the mate to the volume of Temple's works which I have said lay open upon it.

It was plain that my arrival had not been announced to him, as, indeed, it hardly could have been in the minute or two which had elapsed since my entrance; and he stood for a moment gazing at me from beneath his shaggy eyebrows with an earnestness which had the expression of sternness and almost of austerity. I immediately advanced, and, relieving him of his folio and candlestick, introduced myself as his dilatory cousin, who had at last redeemed the promise which his parents had made for him, of a visit to their much-honored relative. By the time I had delivered myself to this effect, and had deposited his honorable load upon the stand, he had fully recovered himself, and, with a countenance beaming with affectionate pleasure and hospitable joy, he took both my hands, and warmly pressing them, he bade me a most cordial welcome to his house, adding,—

"I am the more glad to see you, my dear boy, because your being better than your word in coming a day sooner than you promised shows that you were really in earnest to give an old man pleasure, and not merely induced by your dear parents' request. However, I am afraid that your ride hither has been a more fatiguing one than I had hoped to have made it, for I should have sent John and the carriage to meet you at Crake's. But however, here you are, and you cannot come too soon, or stay too long." Saying which, he again shook me by the hand, and wheeling his arm-chair, with my assistance, to the fireside, he motioned me to take a chair by his side, and we sat down and talked

"Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends, though I was young,"

and though my revered friend had the advantage of the Matthew of the poet by a dozen years. The punctilious politeness of the old school, informed with the soul of real kindliness of heart and the evident gratification which my visit to his solitude gave him, made me feel as much at my ease with him as if a draught from the Fountain of Youth had washed away threescore and ten of his years. We talked first and foremost of my parents, of whose well-being I gave him what information I possessed, and in every particular of whose way of life in their new home he displayed the warmest interest. He then inquired after the welfare of his old friend, my aunt Champion, and received with marks of hearty satisfaction my accounts of her abounding in all that should accompany old age, as well as the affectionate salutations of which I was the bearer. He then talked about the college, in which he felt all that warm interest which has in all times done honor to her sons, with but few melancholy exceptions. I duly presented the greetings of the president, and announced the advent of the sermons which graced my portmanteau. Having suitably acknowledged these favors, my venerable friend suddenly looked up in my face, and said,

"By the way, I am very selfish to be catechising you in this way without remembering that you must be almost starved. How long is it since you dined?"

I replied that I dined at Captain Crake's at about one o'clock. "Bless me!" he replied: "that is seven hours ago and better. Do me the favor to pull the bell, and this matter shall be put to rights. Are you not ravenously hungry?"

I should have done injustice to the sentiments of my heart if I had replied in the negative, and accordingly assented to his proposition in its fullest extent, and, having pulled the bell as he desired, heard with unmitigated satisfaction his directions to Mrs. Waldron, his housekeeper, to have supper anticipated, and furnished forth with all despatch. Many minutes did not elapse before that excellent person made her appearance, and with the assistance of a gray-headed negro brought in a small dining-table from the hall, which was soon covered with a tablecloth of the finest damask, and spread with a pair of nicely roasted cold chickens, and a ham worthy of Westphalia itself, a loaf of the purest of wheat bread, and some smoking roasted potatoes, flanked with a decanter of old Madeira, and a flagon of home-brewed beer. After due justice had been done to these viands, they were replaced by a pumpkin-pie of wonderful dimensions and admirable composition, escorted by a cranberry-tart, the white flaky paste of which was beautifully contrasted with the celestial rosy red of the fruit, and by a noble Stilton cheese. My hospitable entertainer surveyed my feats, as I rapidly made the good things before me invisible with the appetite of a hungry boy, with an air of complacent good-humor, and as I approached the end of my labors, suggested the medicinal virtues of a bowl of hot punch to my consideration. I could not dissent from a proposition emanating from such a source, and the motion was carried by general consent. Peter, the gray-headed negro just mentioned, was accordingly despatched for the materials, and soon returned with the lemons, sugar, shrub, and old Jamaica, and a small kettle of hot water; which being deposited, he retired again, and brought back with him the punch-bowl, of the most precious porcelain of the Celestial Empire, and a fit receptacle for the nectarous compound it was to receive. Peter, under the special eye of his master, concocted the mixture, and, having launched the last lemon-paring upon its bosom, consigned the precious burden to his master's hands. He, having touched it to his lips, passed the bowl to one who took a more liberal draught. Peter having removed the remains of the supper, and moved the table nearer the hearth, Colonel Wyborne and I drew our chairs closer to the fire and to each other, with the genial bowl between us (for the heresy of ladies had not crept in within the pale of good-fellowship), and we wore away the evening hours in most delightful talk.

The conversational powers of my host were unimpaired by years, and had just enough of a smack of what was then called the old school to give a racy flavor to his abundant small-talk. His remarks were rich and varied to a degree which I have never heard surpassed, though I have listened in my time to most of the famous conversationists of the age. His experience of life, which, though it had been completed a half a century before, was of the most extensive description, seemed to be as fresh in his recollection as if he had left the bustling scene but yesterday. The images of his early years and his European sojourn were as distinct and sharp in their outlines as if they were but just impressed; for the events of his retirement were not numerous or striking enough to have effaced or impaired them. His society, both on this occasion and all following ones, had a charm from this very circumstance, which that of no other man—even one who had enjoyed the same early opportunities, but had continued to mingle with the base crowd—could possess. He seemed to transport you by the magic of his words to an age that was past, and to a circle which had become historical, and many members of which had taken their niches in the temple

"Where the dead are honored by the nations."

The insignificant particulars which he now and then incidentally dropped of the habits and way of life of the illustrious acquaintances of his youth, gave a vitality to the cold ideas I had formed of them from books and their works, and almost seemed to evoke them from the shades to our presence. He delighted, too, as most old men do, to go back to his schoolboy and college days, and describe the boyish troubles and frolics of those hours when that flame burnt high and strong, which was now flickering in its socket.

Thus, in various converse, the hours flew imperceptibly away. Blazing logs had been reduced to a glowing mass of coals; the candles had nearly measured out their little span of life; and the great clock in the hall had tolled the knell of another day. The good housekeeper, who had several times made for herself errands into the room to see what was going on, at last entered, unbidden, with the chamber candlesticks, and, wishing us a good-night, withdrew. The Colonel then made a move to retire, declaring that he had not so egregiously violated the regularity of his life for many a year. He first desired me to ascertain whether the bowl was empty, and having been assured by me, in return, that "the tankard was no more," invited me to light the candles, and be shown to my sleeping-apartment. He accordingly, assuming one of the tapers, marshalled me the way that I should go, through the hall, up a pair of stairs properly so called, ascending in two flights with a spacious landing between, and as unlike as well as may be the corkscrew abominations which put in jeopardy the lives and limbs of the present generation. My chamber was in the front of the house, over the winter parlor in which I had spent the evening. My host, giving a general survey to the apartment, to see that all was in due order, shook me affectionately by the hand, and, enjoining it upon me to lie as long as I chose in the morning, bade me a good-night, and left me.

The appearance of my dormitory was quite in keeping with the specimen of the house I had seen, as far as I could judge by the light of my candle, assisted by the expiring rays of a few brands, which were all that were left of a cordial fire which had been lighted on my arrival. The bed was of ample capacity, swelling up with a downy buoyancy, and covered with a gorgeous quilt, evidently the handiwork of fair hands of other days; the pillows were ruffled, and the sheets of a most inviting whiteness. Over the bedstead the tester was suspended from the ceiling, from which flowed on all sides thick curtains of green damask. An India cabinet occupied the space between the windows opposite the bed, yet redolent of the perfumes which it imbibed in Far Cathay, and displayed on its pictured surface the rich costumes and quaint customs of her inhabitants. Between the windows opposite the fireplace was a massive chest of drawers, upon which stood an old-fashioned oval dressing-glass, turning upon pivots on what had once been a white and gilded frame. The chairs were of richly-carved mahogany, without arms, the backs having a lotus-like expansion outwards at the tops, and the seats apparently the fruit of the same gentle labors which had produced the quilt. By the bedside was an elbow-chair, the brother of the one below, only this was covered with white dimity. Upon a table in the middle of the room I found my portmanteau, while the open door of a closet on the right of the fireplace displayed drawers already expanded for the hospitable reception of my integuments. On the other side of the fireplace was another closet, with a window opening into it, with water and the appliances of the toilet, and a shelf of books. The floor was covered with a comfortable English carpet, and green damask curtains hung heavily before the windows.

The gardens of Alcina would not have smiled more invitingly upon me at that moment than did that snug apartment. The extinguisher was soon on, and I was luxuriously buried in a soft valley between two mountains of down. I lay awake for a moment to enjoy the sound of the winter's wind howling around the house, and every now and then dashing the rain against the windows with a fitful violence, and some times roaring down the chimney, as if the fiend that rode the blast were in vain clamoring for his prey. These sounds, however, fell fainter and fainter upon my weary ear, and I was soon fast asleep.

————

CHAPTER III.

I SLEPT soundly through a dreamless night, and awoke about eight o'clock the next morning. I was at a loss, for a minute or two, to define where on earth I might be: soon, however, the scattered images of the day and night before began to group themselves palpably and distinctly in my recollection; and I began to realize that I was actually beneath the roof I had so strongly desired to visit. I sprang out of bed, and, having learned the hour from my watch, I despatched my toilet in all convenient haste. The cheerful light of the sun, peeping through the oval perforations in the tops of the window-shutters, informed me before I left my couch, that the complexion of the weather had changed since I had left the pelting, pitiless storm roaring about the eaves, and gone to the Land of Dreams. Upon opening the window-shutters in the front of the house, I saw the scene through which I had passed the night before in the blackness of darkness, all bathed in the living light of the blessed sun. The black, bare branches of the superb elm-trees, which rose high above the roof, and extended in two rows, one from each side of the house, to the roadside, were dripping with raindrops glittering in the morning ray. The brook, which I could now perceive brawling along just beyond the house on the right as I stood, was hurrying away to the sea, its dancing waters crowning its brink, but not overflowing it, black as ink in the shade, but of a translucent amber-color where they were kissed

"With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod."

On the left of the house I plainly discerned the carriage-road, which I had vainly sought the night before, the trees extending a canopy of boughs over it. It was separated from the lawn in front of the house by an ancient hedge of boxwood cut into the fantastic forms which were the delight of the English gardeners of the old school, and which Pope has immortalized by his satire, but which, nevertheless, my revered friend scrupulously preserved as a memorial of former times. The lawn was skirted on the other side by a double row of the verdant fence which guarded it on this. The lawn itself fell in a gentle slope, scarcely perceptible, to the roadside, and was now buried beneath the dishevelled tresses of the overarching trees, ravished from them by the winds of autumn. A low wooden fence, shielded on the outer side by a thick hedge of English hawthorn, divided the lawn from the high road.

These observations were soon made while my toilet was making; and, as soon as it was finished, I hastened down to the parlor below, which had witnessed my hospitable reception. On entering the room I saw that my venerable host was beforehand with me, and that the breakfast-table was awaiting my appearance. Colonel Wyborne was sitting by the fireside in his elbow-chair, dressed as the evening before, with the exception that a well-powdered bag-wig had succeeded to the crown of his head in the stead of the velvet cap of yesterday. He was busily engaged in reading a large quarto, which I subsequently discovered to be the Greek Testament, and did not immediately perceive my entrance. I cheerfully bade him good-morning, and desired him to observe how punctiliously I had observed his parting injunction to lie abed as long as I liked. He immediately rose from his chair, and, having laid aside his book, shook my hand cordially, and, bidding me good-morning, thanked me for having made myself at home; and all in a manner as if I were an honored contemporary rather than a college lad, and with that sterling courtesy of address which is the exponent of true benevolence and kindliness of heart; a very different thing from the base metal which too often passes current in the world as the sterling coin, but wanting the stamp of the heart. Compliments being over, I drew a chair alongside of his, and answered the careful inquiries which he made as to my comfortable lodging the preceding night. His hospitable anxiety on this subject being relieved, a touch upon the bell-pull evoked our ministering spirits, Peter and the housekeeper, from the culinary realms, bearing in their hands the substantial and the more ethereal components of that repast, which, when well administered, deserves the precedence which is conceded to it in the due order of the important events of every day. The breakfast which these worthy functionaries imposed upon the board bore no resemblance to the tea-and-toast abominations which usurp in these days that honored name, and to the prevalence of which I attribute much of the degeneracy which is allowed to have dwarfed the present generation. Peter marshalled the way, bearing upon a tray the massive silver coffee-pot, fuming like a courser, and diffusing a fragrance worthy of Araby the Blest. This monarch of the breakfast-table was surrounded by a cortege of dishes temptingly concealed from view by silver covers; which when duly set in order, and revealed to sight, displayed the luscious rounds of toast saturated with the most delicious of butter, the broiled chickens, the piquant sausages, the beefsteak, worthy of the famous Club devoted to its service. Then there was the egg-boiler full of the freshest of eggs, the honey, the smoked salmon, the wheaten loaf and the rye-Indian bread, the cream of the richest, and sugar of the whitest. All these, and other cates which I do not recollect, were all, too, for my especial eating; for at the heels of Peter followed the housekeeper, with a large silver salver, adorned with rich antique chasing, upon which she bore an ample bowl of the finest China, filled with a frothing sea of chocolate and a certain number of slices of delicately toasted wheaten bread, which was the long-established morning meal of the master of the house.

When all preliminaries had been adjusted, we commenced a well-directed and vigorously sustained attack upon the several divisions to which we were opposed, and soon effected a notable breach in the opposite ranks. My host hospitably encouraged me in my endeavors to do the amplest justice to his good cheer, and enlivened the meal with a description of the Scotch breakfasts which had cheered his journey through the Land o' Cakes, which had not then been transformed into a fairy-land of romance and poetry by the magic wands of Burns and Scott, but was regarded with the kind of belittling prejudice which afterwards stamped the pages of Smollett, and colored the mental vision of Johnson. He contrasted those justly famed repasts, which have disarmed even calumny and prejudice by their sterling virtues, and have surprised even the bitterest enemies into applause, with the déjeuners à la fourchette of France and the Continent, and gave the palm to the substantial elements of the northern breakfasts over the patés, grapes, figs, and sparkling wines of the south. He had evidently given the subject the attention which its importance deserved; and I have seldom had occasion in my experience of life to doubt the soundness of his opinions on this subject or any other.

After breakfast was over, and we had chatted on various subjects for half an hour or so, Colonel Wyborne proposed a walk over his farm, to which I readily assented. Peter, being again summoned to his master's assistance, helped him to substitute a pearl-colored broadcloth coat, embroidered about the cuffs and skirts with silk, for his morning-gown; and having invested his feet with a stout pair of square-toed, high-quartered shoes with heavy heels, he brought from the hall his gold-laced cocked hat and gold-headed cane. Thus equipped, my venerable friend took my arm, and we sallied forth from the side door opening upon the carriage-way, and first took a survey of the exterior of the house. It was composed, in fact, of two houses of two different periods: the newer, as it were, growing out of and overshadowing the more ancient. The English clergyman, of whose heirs I have before said the estate was purchased by Colonel Wyborne's mother, had found a farmhouse of almost the earliest description of New England rural architecture; its roof declining from two stories in front till it almost touched the ground behind, and a close porch projecting before, with windows on either side, and compacted of massy timbers of oak, on which the mark of the axe was in many places to be seen, knit together with a firmness and strength which showed that our forefathers built for their posterity as well as for themselves. The wooden walls of our ancestors would, if unmolested, survive, I doubt not, in many cases, the boasted strength of the granite structures of the present day. The original purchaser liking the situation of the house, but not thinking it worthy of his pretensions, built a new edifice, two stories high, with attics; its rear joining upon the side of the older structure, so that the original house was degraded into the servile condition of the habitation and offices of the servants. He in this way secured to himself an abode of capacious dimensions and convenient distribution, but somewhat of a heterogeneous appearance. The carriage-road, in which we were walking, turned abruptly away from the house before it had reached the end of it, and swept round a circle of trees and towering plants to the stables, which were, in the leafy time, effectually planted out of sight by the verdant screen. Immediately behind the house was a broad terrace of green sod, from which you descended, by a flight of stone steps with iron balustrades, to the garden. The transitory glories of this spot were of course vanished for this year; but the plan of the whole was plainly enough discernible. In the centre of the garden was a small fish-pond, with a neat stone curbing, which was filled with gold and silver fish. Immediately in front of the fish-pond was an ancient sun-dial standing upon a pedestal of stone, and preaching a lesson, by its silent shadow, of the irrevocable flight of the gliding hours, a thousand times more impressive than any told by

"The iron tongue of Time."

From the fish-pond as the common centre, radiated eight well-gravelled walks, extending from the centre to the boundaries, and intersecting a circular gravel walk which was described with mathematical exactness, halfway from the central point to the extremities of the garden. The sixteen portions thus marked out were of exactly the same size; and in summer, when they were filled with flowers or vegetables corresponding to each other, must have answered Pope's description of an old-fashioned garden, where

"Each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other."

The garden was surrounded by a thick English hawthorn hedge, which by age and constant trimming had become almost impervious to sight, even when stripped of its leaves. At the bottom of the garden a small gate admitted us into the orchard, which was of several acres in extent, and filled with apple and pear trees of every variety of sweetness and spicy flavor which distinguishes those gentle races. Of his fruit Colonel Wyborne was proud, with good reason; for he had done much to introduce new varieties, and a better mode of cultivation than used to prevail. The orchard, and the whole domain indeed, was sheltered from the ocean blasts by a gently swelling hill, "feathering to the top" with a thick grove of various trees, which had now reached their full growth, having been planted by the first purchaser, with the exception of one magnificent aboriginal oak, which stood in the midst of the younger trees an acknowledged monarch, and which had not yet disrobed itself of the gorgeous scarlet mantle with which autumn had invested it. Under this regal canopy there was a rustic seat, which allured us to its embraces. My aged companion seated himself upon it, while I took my place beside him, and we surveyed together in silence the brown meadows, and the trees with every bough and every twig standing sharply out, with all their fantastic ramifications, in the yellow sunshine of one of the last days of the Indian summer.

"There is something exceedingly captivating to my imagination," my venerable friend began, after a silence of some duration, "in the analogies between nature and the experience of human life. These you will apprehend and appreciate more and more as you grow older. They are among the many benevolent contrivances of the great Author of nature and life to make the never-dying soul contented and cheerful during its brief imprisonment in these frail bodies and this visible diurnal sphere. When I was of your age, I loved the spring with its budding promise and tender green; for it was in unison with the consciousness of new life and springing existence which bounded in every vein. During my residence in England, and for the first years of my life here, I left my first love for the mature beauties of summer and of opening autumn; and I delighted to watch the untiring, never-resting activity and life which informed all the grand and all the minute processes of the great system of nature, which goes on forever in sublime silence, working out the beneficent purposes for which its Creator framed it. But now the close of autumn and the snows of winter awake the solemn echo in my heart more readily than all the glories of spring or summer. Nature, though she never rests, now seems to suspend her toils. The business of the year is over. And the audible stillness of the fields and the sight of the trees,—which, after their task is done, have thrown down the beautiful livery of their toil,—while they swell the heart of man with gratitude, also seem to invite it to rest.

"On such a day as this, with this scene before my eyes, I can almost hear a blessed voice whispering me that my long, long year is almost over, and that I shall soon be with them that rest. Like this old tree under which we sit, I have outlived almost all my contemporaries, and am surrounded by a new generation, which knows me not; and, though I will gratefully sustain the burden of old age which the great Taskmaker has imposed upon me, still I shall bow with joyful acquiescence whenever he shall direct the axe to be laid at my root."

"You think, then, sir," I observed when he paused in his observations, or rather his soliloquy, for he seemed to address himself rather than me,—"you think, then, sir, that the retirement of a country life is a more fitting scene for the last act of a long life than the exciting bustle of a great city and the pleasures of a various society?"

"To a well-constituted mind," he replied, "I think it is; that is," he continued with a smile, "to a mind constituted like mine. There are natures which would show anything but wisdom in exchanging the busy throng and a tumultuous life for a solitude for the pleasures of which they have no tastes, and against the perils of which they have made no preparation. For my own part, I have never long regretted at any one time my withdrawing from the world. I have spent my many days pleasantly to myself, and not been wholly useless to others. At the beginning of the Revolution, indeed, I felt some visitings of remorse that I had reduced myself to the condition of a spectator, at a distance only, of that mighty drama; while so many of my contemporaries, and friends of a later generation, were shaking the scene, which was extended over a continent, before the admiring eye of the whole civilized world. These regrets, however, soon gave way to more wholesome suggestions. The brilliant part of the action was in the hands of the great men whose names are forever identified with it; but there was a subordinate but equally important portion of the business of the drama which I was in a favorable position to discharge. My relations with this part of the country enabled me to do something towards kindling and keeping alive the flame of patriotism; and I have the satisfaction to think that I was enabled to send many of the best soldiers and officers, too, to the battle, besides keeping the countryside in a state of self-defence. I could contribute, too, to one of the sinews of war. So I soon consoled myself by being useful for not being illustrious; for ambition was but an idle dream at the time of life to which I had then attained, if it be ever anything more than a will-o'-the-wisp. On the whole, then, I think that I chose wisely for myself in retiring from the world; but I would never advise any person whose heart has not been weaned from it to imitate my example."

"But can it be possible, sir," I said, "that you have never felt the want of the society to which you were admitted on such friendly terms in Europe? I should have thought, sir, that the choicest spirits you could have collected around you in the capital of your native province would have seemed tame and insipid after the circles you had left, let alone this seclusion in a remote country-seat."

"In the first place," he replied, "you must remember that I had had my fill of the society you mention: I had lived on intimate and friendly terms with the men about whom posterity will be the most curious of any of our age; so that the feverish thirst which at one time I felt to know face to face those illustrious men was entirely slaked. And in the second place, which perhaps you will scarcely believe, the familiar society of eminent men is in most cases not so very different from that of other well-bred and well-educated men of the same rank in life, and their intimacy is perhaps a pleasanter thing in recollection than in possession. For many years, too, I was in no lack of companions, and now in my old age I ought not to expect to be exempted from the doom of outliving my best friends, which is inseparably annexed to an unusual extension of life. Still I am by no means left alone in the world. My excellent friend Mr. Armsby is an invaluable friend: although he is speculatively one of the most rigid disciples of labor, yet in his life and conversation he is one of the mildest as well as one of the merriest of men. But come," he continued, rising from his seat, "let us continue our walk to the seashore."

We accordingly skirted along the hill, and soon, doubling its side, the wide ocean lay stretched before us, broken by only one or two little islands in the far distance. The waters were of the deepest and darkest blue, with here and there a white sail stealing along their surface. The beach was hard as marble; and the surf, which yet felt the sway of the storm of the night before, rolled slowly and heavily in upon it in long and broken ridges. To our left, at about a quarter of a mile's distance, the brook which watered the grounds about the house found its way to the ocean after many meanderings: to the right, at a considerable distance, a wooded bluff came abruptly down to the shore, and terminated the prospect in that direction. As we slowly paced along the sands, listening to the voice of many waters, and watching the sea gulls as they hovered on dipping wings over the waves, or rode lightly over their crests, Colonel Wyborne said with a smile,—

"I hope that I have made a more rational as well as a more happy use of these rolling waters since I have lived by their side than did the pining and discontented spirit of Tully during his exile, who, you remember, spent his repining hours in counting the waves as they danced to the shore, and sighing for the Senate, the forum, and the shouts of the people—

'Bidding the father of his country hail.'

The voice of the ocean has never sounded in my ears like an invitation to return to the world I have left, but more as a friendly counselling that there are pursuits and pleasures higher and better than any that world can give."

"Do you think, sir," I inquired, "that you could be contented to live in an inland town, unless you could occasionally visit the seashore?"

"I should be sorry," he replied, "to be compelled by duty or by poverty to try the experiment. There is something about the grand features of Nature, such as the ocean or mountains, which seems to make an unfading impression on the hearts of those who have lived from childhood in their neighborhood, and which always excites the sensation of home-sickness in their breasts when separated from them. I have a good deal of the passion for the ocean which the Swiss have for the Alps; and, if I should be compelled to retire inland, I fear that the roar of the wind among the forest-trees would be a Ranz des Vâches to my heart. I would not have you construe, however, my young friend, my complacent review of my own retirement into a recommendation to you to try the same plan of life. Fit yourself for the action of life, but do not set your heart upon success in it; for such are the chances and changes of this sublunary state, that the best accomplished for achieving a brilliant lot often fail in compassing the fulfilment of their ambitious hopes, unless they can woo fortune to be the handmaid of enterprise."

"Are not, however," I observed, "the chances of a man who is absorbed in great purposes and plans, embracing, perhaps, a continent in their scope, and reaching forward to distant posterity, better for true and exalted happiness than those of one who leads a useful and innocent life within a narrow circle?"

"I think his chances for permanent happiness less," replied Colonel Wyborne. "His moments of success may be more exquisite than any of the tranquil hours of the private man; but then the vexations and obstacles which he encounters, the calumny and detraction which assail him, and the too frequent failure of his best laid and most benevolently formed plans, which perhaps embrace the whole race, make up a mighty balance against the intense delight of those rare minutes. I grant you that there may be instances, as there have been a few in history, of minds so constructed, blest with such clear views of the true ends of human existence, and moved by such pure and sublime yet simple springs, that they make a happiness for themselves, even of disappointment and defeat, and regard nothing as worthy of regret but the being unfaithful to the powers and the purposes which Providence has committed to them."

"You do not believe, then, sir," said I, "that every man may be the 'architect of his own fortunes,' as has been stoutly maintained?"

"Indeed I do not," he replied. "That is a fallacy which lures on many an aspiring youth, who mistakes ambition for ability, to miserable disappointment, and sometimes to ruin. We see men standing triumphantly at the goal with the wreath of victory on their brows, and remember, that, even at the starting-post, their prophetic souls had grasped the prize; forgetting how many competitors, full at the outset of as confident hopes, have been outstripped in the course, and have turned broken hearted away. Every man may be and must be the architect of his own happiness, and every man may learn the alchemy which will teach him to extract happiness out of the bitterest fruits which overhang his path; but let him not attempt to wrest the sceptre from the hand of the Disposer of events, and presume to dictate to him the precedence which he is to have in the ranks of his human servants."

"Surely, sir," I interrupted, "you are not a fatalist! You would not take away the accountability of man by making him a mere blind, helpless tool in the hand of a higher Power?"

"Nothing can be farther from my views or my wishes," he replied. "Man is accountable to the uttermost farthing for the use he makes of the talents bestowed upon him; but the number of the talents and the sphere in which they are to be employed are fortunately appointed for him by Infinite Wisdom. We find ourselves in this world, in this country, in this age, without any agency or volition of our own; we find within us certain powers and passions, differing in every man from his neighbor, and differing, too, in the opportunities for their improvement and the occasions for their right or wrong employment; and all this seems to be the work of accident. But no rightly judging mind can believe it to be so. The feeling of this truth gave rise to belief in, the dark and inevitable fate, which, according to the Greeks, governed the destinies of gods and men. They attempted by this melancholy abstraction to solve the enigma of existence. They found themselves, they knew not how, in a various and inexplicable scene. Some found crowns on their brows; some, the philosophic gown upon their shoulders; some wielded the truncheon of victorious armies; and some swayed the fickle populace with their breath—and all these various fortunes growing from a combination of circumstances and events over which they had exercised little or no control. Surrounded by these impenetrable shadows, men in a later age attempted to derive some light from the stars to illuminate the darkness which was about them; and so astrology arose. They made the blessed constellations an alphabet by which they endeavored to spell out the decrees of fate. And this was natural enough before the invention of the telescope had revealed the immensity of the universe; for men could not believe that the glorious apparitions which looked down upon them from the heavens every night were made only to delight the eye; and there was something soothing to the bewildered mind of man in thus connecting his unaccountable destiny with those beautiful and fadeless orbs of light. It was a sort of antepast of immortality."

"You would then, sir," I observed, "had you lived two thousand years ago, have stood under the shadow of the Portico, and maintained the non-existence of evil and the sufficiency of man for himself?"

"I believe I might have asserted the sufficiency of man for the creation of his own happiness," he smilingly replied; "but I think I should have maintained my doctrines beneath the living shades of the Garden rather than under the cold shadow of the Porch. There is nothing," he continued more seriously, "that fills my whole mind with such a certainty of the divine origin of our religion as the contemplation of its perfect system in comparison with those of the wisest of the ancients. The son of a carpenter in a remote and despised province founding a school of the divinest philosophy, which explains all the mysteries of our being, fathoms the depths of the human soul, directs the aspirations of the loftiest minds, and provides for the wants of the humblest, is to my mind a standing miracle. All the concentrated wisdom of all the wisest of the heathens collected around the intellect of Socrates as a nucleus, faded into nothing, like the morning star before the sun, when the divine mind of Jesus of Nazareth dawned upon the benighted world. Not all the sublime procession of prophets by which he was heralded, not all the stupendous apparatus of miracles which encompassed him, not all the noble army of martyrs which have borne witness with their blood to the truths he brought to light, bring such irresistible conviction to my mind as the simple contemplation of the teachings of the Master, limned out in his own life while on earth. The peasant of Galilee resolves the doubts which had perplexed the wisest of antiquity, explains the questions which the subtlest minds had raised, and establishes a system suitable to the wants of all the nations of the earth and to all the individuals which compose them,—a system to which the wisest of his disciples in the course of eighteen hundred years have been able to add nothing, and in which his craftiest enemies have been able to discover no fault. You, my dear young friend," he continued, turning his face towards me, and laying an affectionate hand upon my arm, "you are just launching away on the voyage of life which I have nearly finished. Do not refuse to listen to the counsel of one who has sounded all its depths and shallows: take with you the teachings of Jesus as your compass, and his life as your chart, and, fixing your eyes steadfastly on these unchanging guides, seize the helm with a firm hand, and steer right onward, fearing nothing that can befall you; and then, whether your course be over a summer's sea or amidst threatening waves, whether you ride conspicuous in the eyes of your fellow-voyagers, or glide unobserved along, you will be sure at last of entering in triumph the haven of everlasting rest.

"And now come," he added after a short pause, "let us turn homeward, and I will show you my farmhouse and farm; for so far you have only seen my pleasure-grounds."

With these words he turned towards the farm-road into which we had entered after leaving the grove; and, following it along, it led us through wide fields, some of which showed as stubble-fields are apt to do at harvest-home: others bore evident marks of the recent disinterment of potatoes and other esculent roots. At some distance was a burly white man, guiding a plough drawn by a noble yoke of oxen under the influences of a tall black man in a white frock, preparing a place for the early wheat, which would spring up at the due time, unchilled by the snows of winter which had rested upon it for months. Five or six other men, some black and some white, were employed in various ways; some repairing fences, some spreading the compost of the barnyard, and one conducting a load of seaweed to that most necessary repository.

As we walked along, I inquired of Colonel Wyborne as to the economics of his mode of life, and how far he was dependent on the metropolis for his necessaries and luxuries. In reply, he told me that he procured nothing from town but his wines, liquors, tea and coffee, and such products as our own country does not afford. His own farm supplied him with bread, vegetables, the riches of the dairy, and in a great measure with butchers' meat and poultry. Wild fowl and fish were to be had for the trouble of shooting or catching them. His cider was the boast of the country round. His farm-people and servants were almost wholly clothed from the flax and wool which grew on his estate. His wood was procured from a range of well-timbered hills, which he pointed out to me in the distance. The finest of venison was brought to his door at the proper season, in any quantities, from the Sandwich woods. His life, as he described it to me, seemed to be one of the most relishing and enviable of lots, and put me in mind of Gil Blas' account of his life at Lirias; and I thought that I should be perfectly contented if I might look forward at the close of life to such a retreat, where I might inscribe upon my doors, with him of Santillane,—

"Inveni portum, Spes et Fortuna, valete!
Sat me lusistis, ludite nunc alios!"

But, alas! no such white days were in reserve for me.

The farm-road brought us, after some windings among the fields, to his farmhouse, which was situated about a third of a mile from his mansion. The house was old, but in perfect repair, and stood in almost too immediate neighborhood of two modern barns and an old-fashioned corn-barn. The barnyard was alive with fowls of all kinds—chickens, turkeys, ducks, guinea-fowl, and a gorgeous peacock. Beneath the barn farthest from the farmhouse was the piggery, which might have served for the courtiers of Circe herself. The barns themselves were filled to the utmost of their ample capacities with the gifts of summer and autumn. About a dozen cows were ruminating in a large enclosure opening from the nearer barn, in which were their stalls and those of the farm-horses. A flock of about thirty sheep were sheltered in a fold about a stone's throw from the barn, towards the shore. Under a shed open towards the house was a cider-press, full of rural and festive associations; the dense mass of pomace yet remaining beneath the relaxed pressure of the spiral screw speaking of a recent vintage. As we approached the farmhouse door, it opened, and the farmer's wife advanced, with a child in her arms and a couple more clinging to her homespun gown, peeping at the Colonel with a mixture of bashfulness and of joy at the sight of their old friend glowing in their ruddy faces. The good woman invited us to come in and rest ourselves, which proposition we declined, as it grew late. We just entered the kitchen, and stood for a minute within the enormous jambs of the chimney, on each side of which was a comfortable seat of brick, built for the accommodation of the more ardent worshippers of the Penates. A settle of truly uneasy straightness of back and narrowness of seat made an obtuse angle with the fireplace, covered with towels of various degrees of whiteness and dryness. A sufficient supply of rush-bottomed, red-painted chairs, in different degrees of preservation, stood about the apartment.

A brilliant display of pewter graced a number of shelves on one side of the room. As I gave a glance up the yawning chimney, I discerned a black array of hams and flitches of bacon receiving the incense of the smoking fires below. The good woman made many apologies for her kitchen being in a litter, resting her main defence, however, upon its being the day before Thanksgiving, and the weight of duties which devolved upon her. Colonel Wyborne was occupied, while I was making my survey, and listening to the very unnecessary excuses of the good wife, in taking the youngest child in his arms, and patting the heads of the others, and distributing some of the little bribes which cheaply buy the affection of children, and which the kind-hearted old man was seldom without. I was struck with the sort of affectionate veneration with which the good woman regarded Colonel Wyborne, and with her self-respect, too, which she thought in no manner impaired by the most reverential observance of her kind landlord.

Freeing himself at last from his little friends, Colonel Wyborne bade Mrs. Davis a good-morning, and we set forth on our return to his house. The farm-road led us on to the stables, where we stopped a moment to inspect its arrangements. The black coachman was busy cleaning the chariot; the hind wheel, slightly raised from the ground, whirling merrily round under a shower from a watering-pot in the hands of the African Jehu. This worthy functionary had all the happy contentment beaming from his polished face, and grinning from his ivory teeth, which usually marks a well-fed and well-used negro. His master told me that he had been born on the place, and, together with all the other blacks which he had owned before the abolition of slavery in the State, had voluntarily remained in his service. He left his work to exhibit to my admiring gaze the horses over which he reigned; and as he displayed the glossy hides of the stout coach-horses, and the little nag for "massa's" own riding, and the old white pony which had retired on half-pay for the remainder of his life, he seemed to be filled with as honest a pride as ever swelled the bosom of a master of the horse. Having bestowed all due commendations upon this branch of the service, I accompanied my host along the sweep of the road to the house.

Upon gaining the door, we were met upon the threshold by the excellent housekeeper, who announced, with an air of no small importance, that Mr. Armsby, the clergyman of the parish, was in the parlor. Colonel Wyborne immediately hastened to open the door of the apartment indicated, and we perceived, standing with his back to the fire, waiting for us, the reverend gentleman in question. He was a tall man of about fifty-five, "or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore," broad-shouldered, with the least in the world of a stoop, of a dark complexion, with thick black eyebrows beetling over a pair of sharp, austere gray eyes. He was suitably attired in a black cloth coat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a pair of thick boots coming nearly up to the knee upon his legs, and a white bushy wig upon the excrescence formed by nature for that use. Colonel Wyborne received him with all the respectful courtesy which was due from a gentleman to an honored equal, and which the pastor returned with much formal politeness; through which, however, might be discerned by an accurate observer a priestly consequentiality, now, alas! but seldom seen, which told how much superior, in his own opinion and that of society generally, was the director of the spiritual affairs over the most honorable and honored of the laity. When the two gentlemen had concluded their salutations, Colonel Wyborne, turning to me, presented me in due form to his reverend friend as a young gentleman just from the arms of their common mother. Mr. Armsby, turning upon me an austere regard, without even the ghost of a smile upon his lips, and with the slightest imaginable inclination of his head, coldly extended his large hard hand to me in acknowledgment of my reverend observance and profound obeisance. Having surveyed me from head to foot with an annihilating scrutiny which nearly sunk me to the centre, he took a chair, in compliance with Colonel Wyborne's invitation, and, entering into conversation with him, apparently lost all memory of so insignificant an object as myself. They talked of the weather, the crops, the Thursday lecture the week before in Boston (which Mr. Armsby had attended), and of the fearful prospects of the times and of the country; both uniting in predictions of utter misrule, subversion of ranks, and destruction of property, which were shortly to ensue.

"Before this young man's career is over," said Colonel Wyborne, "these States will be split into rival monarchies, or else into anarchies inviting the foot of the foreign conqueror."

"Yes," asserted his reverend adviser, turning his severe eyes upon me,—"yes, young man, you will have a worse fight to maintain than we have had with England. You will have to contend with intestine factions, to strive for the protection of property, for the preservation of religion, for the maintenance of all that is worth having in this world. The old scenes of which you read at college in Grecian and Roman history will be acted over again in these new commonwealths before your head is gray."

"For my part," added Colonel Wyborne, "I rather incline to the opinion that our unhappy country is destined to be one of the dependencies of France. In the present humiliated condition of England,—bleeding from the disruption of her Colonies, and tottering under the weight of an overwhelming debt,—it is hardly to be supposed that Louis XVI. will not be encouraged to revive the old scheme of universal dominion which his ancestor, Louis le Grand, at one time seemed likely to bring about. England once subdued, the subjugation of the rest of the continent would soon follow, and then poor we would be but a mouthful to the ambition of the Grand Monarque."

"True enough," replied Mr. Armsby. "No human wisdom can foretell what such a nation as the French, consolidated under a single absolute king, may accomplish. I confess I tremble for the cause of Protestantism in the world. Who knows but we may see a cardinal legate holding his court in Boston!" And the worthy divine shuddered at the bare imagination. Colonel Wyborne continued,—

"I think that the American Provinces, States, I mean, have yet strength and courage enough to resist a crusade under banners blessed by the Pope; unless, indeed, it should not be preached until our little jealousies and quarrels have ripened into serious hatred, and the lines of division have become too deeply marked to be filled up even by such a danger. The sooner such an attack should be made, the better I think it would be withstood; for every day seems to weaken the green withes which bind together the strong but jarring giants of the Confederacy. In a few years England herself might conquer us in detail, for all prospect of any permanent connection seems desperate."

"It is too true," replied the clergyman; "and, bad as that would be, it would scarcely be worse than the utter dissolution of all the elements of society, which seems to hang over our heads. The industry of the country palsied, the land filled with sturdy vagabonds, law and justice mocked and defied, subordination a laughing-stock, religion and her ministers neglected, property uncertain, magistrates unrevered and disobeyed,—with all these things staring us in the face, what can we expect but sudden destruction or gradual ruin?"

In this manner were these two excellent gentlemen pleased to make themselves unhappy, and to scare unhappy me with these hobgoblins which they conjured up. I was not then as used as I have become since to the croakings of such boding fowl,—which I have happily lived to see many times disappointed of the ruin they predicted,—and I felt serious alarm as to the instant safety of my purse, and ultimate integrity of my throat. The conversation, however, at length changed to books; and, some allusion requiring a reference to some work which was not at hand, Mr. Armsby proposed going to the library in search of it. Colonel Wyborne, assenting, turned to me and said,—

"I believe that you have not yet penetrated to my adytum: so perhaps we will all go together."

We all accordingly left the parlor, and, following Colonel Wyborne across the hall, entered after him a door on the opposite side. Upon passing the threshold, I was surprised and delighted by a display of books which I had never seen equalled except in the college library. The library consisted of a room extending the whole breadth of the house; the two rooms having been thrown into one for the accommodation of Colonel Wyborne's numerous collections. The walls were covered with well-filled shelves, tapering up from the massive folios beneath to the pygmy twelves at the top. Busts in marble of Homer, Socrates, Cicero, and Horace, stood on pedestals in the four corners of the room; and one of Lord Bacon and of Newton kept guard in the middle, where a portion of the old partition-wall yet projected from the sides of the rooms, carried into an arch in the centre of the ceiling. A study-table, covered with green baize, occupied the middle of one of these divisions. An abundance of well-stuffed chairs were distributed about in excusable confusion, and a set of library-steps stood against one of the bookcases. A fireplace filled up either end of the apartment; the panel over the one nearest to the door by which we had entered being occupied by a full-length portrait of a gentleman of about five and thirty, in whose form and features I could with difficulty trace any resemblance to the venerable wreck which I beheld before me. Fifty years had swept away almost every trace of the manly figure and handsome face which looked as if it might defy age and misfortune, and left a "withered, weak, and gray" old man standing and waiting on the shores of eternity; and yet here the cunning hand of the artist had bade the sun as it were stand still, and had bestowed a sort of immortality upon one hour—long since vanished—of the summer of his days. He was dressed in a hunting-suit, apparently the uniform of a hunter; and a fine hound was crouched at his feet. Behind him on the left of the picture were two pillars, with a crimson curtain depending from their capitals; while to the right you saw a landscape representing a level country, well planted, with a river winding through it, and terminated by misty hills in the distance. The corresponding panel over the opposite fireplace was filled by a picture answering in size and frame to this, but concealed from view by a green velvet curtain which was drawn across it. My imagination readily filled it up with the portrait of his beloved and long-lost wife of whom my aunt Champion had told me. Why it should be thus mysteriously veiled, I could not conjecture; but the circumstance certainly had the effect of increasing my curiosity to see it to the most intense degree.

While I was thus engaged, the two elders had found what they wanted, and were returning to the parlor. I was strongly tempted to frame some excuse for remaining behind; but a secret awe of the clerical dignitary, and a fear lest my curiosity might be obvious to Colonel Wyborne and give him pain, deterred me; but I fully resolved to uncover the features concealed by that veil at the first opportunity I could find or make. We accordingly returned to the parlor; and, after a short sitting, Mr. Armsby rose and took his leave, being accompanied to the hall-door by Colonel Wyborne and myself, and reminded by the former of his standing engagement to dine with him on the following day. This was the first intimation I had had of the existence of such a prescription; and, lover as I even then was of old customs, I confess that in this instance I should have been better pleased with its breach than its observance. I did not at all relish the idea of having this uncomfortable third, with his stony step and hard eye, coming to the table, and displacing our mirth with his unseasonable severity. Colonel Wyborne, however, assured me that I should find him another man when we were a little better acquainted, saying that his excellent friend was one of that old school, which held that religion and virtue were most effectually recommended to the young by a harsh and forbidding exterior and deportment in their votaries.

"To-day," he added, "you have had a touch of his theory: to-morrow, I doubt not, you will see a specimen of his practice."

————

CHAPTER IV.

DINNER soon followed the departure of the pastor, and was sauced with discourse which I would that my limits would permit me to record. The afternoon and evening passed swiftly away, sped by "old wine, old books, old wood," and an "old friend." At an earlier hour than the preceding night, the chamber candles lighted us to bed, and my hospitable host shook me by the hand with a cordial good-night. After he had retired, I felt but little inclination for repose, and, as a good fire was blazing on the hearth, I procured a volume of Swift from the closet of my room, and sat down by the fireside to read. My thoughts, however, soon wandered from the page on which my eyes were fixed, and began to brood over the strangeness of the place in which I found myself and the singular history of my kind old host. I figured to myself the stripling parting from his mother's roof, and seeking the land of his ancestors. Then I saw him in the midst of the stir and bustle of London, and imagined his first palpitating interviews with Pope and Young and Gay. Then I would see him mixing in the hollow crowd of courtiers in the great man's antechamber, or joining in the fluttering throng which passed in review before the old monarch on a birthday,—that throng whose follies and vices are portrayed in fadeless colors upon the pages of Lady Mary Wortley.

The scene changed, and he was sitting between a couple of haycocks with Bolingbroke at Lydiard, or was listening to a chapter of pointed complainings at Pope's breakfast-table, or was chased up and down stairs by the Dean of St. Patrick. Another wave of the wand transported him to Paris, and plunged him in the recesses of the Palais Royal; and yet another, and he stood among the ruins of Rome. Again he was in England, and then came a mist over the mirror, and objects were but faintly and uncertainly seen in it. Among them, however, was a beautiful woman moving about, and busy with his destiny. She was now sitting alone in an old manor-house, gazing listlessly at the trees of the park as they spread their green canopies over the herds of deer, and at a single swan floating majestically in the stream which flowed beneath them. A sound is heard: she raises her head from her pensive hand, and shakes back her clustering locks, and eagerly listens. It is the tread of a horse galloping up the approach. She hastily rises, and with faltering steps advances towards the door. It opens, and Wyborne enters. Her gestures seem to entreat him to hasten away, for there is danger in his stay. He re-assures her with looks of joyful love. And now he seats himself by her side; her head droops upon his shoulder, and her passive hand rests in one of his, while the other, half-encircling her waist, plays with the tangles of her hair. Can there be any doubt as to the theme of their glowing discourse? But hark! What noise is that in the courtyard? Is it possible that the chase can be over? They both start up. She entreats him to fly: he moodily shakes his head. It is too late. The door flies open. A gray-haired man, but hale and ruddy, and of Herculean proportions, enters. He starts—turns pale with rage: his lips move with dire imprecations. His sword is out, and he advances furiously upon Wyborne, who puts his blade aside with his sheathed rapier. The old man stamps with passion, and seems to call for help. A train of liveried menials enter, and at their master's beck approach the intruder. Wyborne gently disengages himself from the clinging girl, and tenderly places her fainting form upon a couch. His steel glitters in the air. He describes around him a magic circle, which the baffled crew dare not pass. The door closes behind him, and, before the dependents can ask the further pleasure of their lord, the clang of his horse's hoofs is heard lessening in the distance.

Then again I saw them riding over the waves of the Atlantic, and I beheld her gentle form pining away on a distant shore, perhaps under the fatal ban of a father's curse—and then her funeral.

"I must see her picture before I sleep!" I exclaimed, starting up, strongly excited by my waking dream. "I must gaze upon her lovely features as they are feebly shadowed forth on the canvas below, or the phantom I have conjured up will haunt me till dawn." I opened the door softly, and listened: all was silent as the grave. I took off my shoes, and, snuffing my candle, prepared to descend. I have to confess that I was not at that time of my life free from the fumes of the superstitious lore which in my boyish days formed the chosen aliment of childhood, and which was employed by the ignorant nurses of those days both as a reward and a punishment. I own my curiosity more than half gave way when the hall-clock struck TWELVE as I was groping my way down stairs. I reached the library-door; my hand was upon the lock: I hesitated for a moment, and looked hastily over my shoulder. The lock turned, and, as the door slowly opened, I felt as if I should encounter some spectral form in the deserted apartment. All was still, however, and nothing was to be seen as I advanced into the room, but the white, ghastly busts in the middle of it, casting long black sepulchral shadows into the void beyond. I advanced stealthily along, shading my flickering candle with my hand, when I was suddenly startled with a shock and a noise. I had stumbled over a chair. Apprehensive lest the noise should alarm the house, I returned hastily to the door, and listened. But no sound broke the dead silence of the night, and I returned with more cautious steps to pursue my way. At last I stood before the mysterious curtain which concealed the features of the long-buried fair. I felt strangely excited; I felt as if some appearance, natural or supernatural, would yet baffle my curiosity. The mantel-piece was so high, that I was unable to reach the curtain from the ground, and, putting down my light, I went in search of the library-steps, which I carefully arranged before the fireplace. Taking up the candlestick, I mounted the steps, and laid my hand upon the fringe of the curtain, and was in the act of withdrawing it, when I heard a rustling sound behind me. Turning suddenly around, I saw before me an apparition, which in such a place and at such an hour might well have daunted a stouter heart than mine. A figure in white drapery falling to its feet, a white covering upon its head, and its pale and withered features lighted up by a taper held in its long bony fingers, was looking sadly yet sternly upon me. My candle dropped from my hand, and I was near falling to the ground.

"Young man, what do you here?" inquired a well-known voice. It was Colonel Wyborne, who had been disturbed by the falling of the chair at my first entrance, and who had descended as he was, in search of the cause. My confusion may be imagined: I would almost have exchanged his presence for that of one of the beings of another world, which for a moment I had imagined him to be. He stood looking at me with a kind of bewildered curiosity, and again said, before I had recovered from my confusion,

"Young man, how came you here at this time of night?"

By this time I had descended from my elevation, and had in some degree collected my spirits, and, thinking that the truth was the best excuse I could make, I apologized for having disturbed his repose, and accounted for my strange conduct by the strong curiosity which my aunt Champion's description of Mrs. Wyborne had excited in my mind to see her portrait. I added, that, as the picture was veiled, I had concluded that the subject was one upon which I was not to touch in his presence; but that my curiosity was certainly not diminished by that air of mystery, and it had perhaps got the better of my sense of what was due to my host; which certainly should have prevented me from prying into what he saw fit to conceal. I concluded by heartily begging his pardon for my unauthorized intrusion upon such sacred ground, and promising to offend no more in future.

I had gathered up my candlestick and broken candle, and was passing by him, feeling sufficiently foolish, when the kind old man laid his hand upon my arm, and gently detained me.

"Stop," said he, "there is no great harm in what you have done: your chief fault has been in not having told me of your desire to see all that remains to me of my beloved wife. I did not know that you had even heard of her; and she is a subject to which I never lead, unless I am sure of an interested auditor.

Ascend the steps again, if you please, and draw the curtain."

Much relieved, I obeyed with alacrity, and the portrait was soon unveiled. The light of the two faint candles gave but a tantalizing view of a form of the softest grace, and features of the most bewitching beauty. There she sat in the bloom of early womanhood—

"In freshest flower of youthly years."

The side of her figure was presented to you; but her face was turned as it were suddenly to yours, as if upon some happy surprise; life and joy breathing from her half-smiling lips, and flashing from her dark hazel eyes. The graceful proportions of her bust, too, were brought skilfully into view by the attitude the painter had chosen. Her light brown hair, forming a singular but beautiful contrast with her dark eyes, fell in natural ringlets upon her shoulders, and shaded her pure brow. Her right hand rested upon the smallest of lapdogs, which (evidently a portrait, too) was apparently roused by the same cause which had excited his mistress, and was half standing upon her lap, and regarding you with a serious earnestness of expression. She was seated under a tree, as was usual in portraits of women of that day; and a landscape, which I could scarcely discern, formed the rest of the scenery of the picture.

I stood for many minutes gazing upon this lovely vision, this being long since vanished from the earth, and yet here before me in all the rosy light of youth and joy. Colonel Wyborne did not interrupt my abstracted gaze till I drew a long breath, as if after a long draught of beauty. He at length broke the silence.

"It is like her," said he, "too like her, I sometimes think; and at other times I look at it till the resemblance seems to vanish in the stronger light of memory. It is for this reason that I have hung the curtain before it; for I find that the reality of the portraiture impresses me more vividly if it be presented only occasionally to my view."

"She must have indeed been a creature," I exclaimed, "to be remembered to the end of the longest life! I am sure that her image will never fade from my remembrance, should my days be protracted to the utmost verge of existence."

"You are right, my son," returned my aged friend: "you are right. She was one of those beings who bore the stamp of immortality upon her brow while she was on earth; and she breathed an undying remembrance into the hearts of all who knew her. We have been long parted; but she has never been absent from me. And now this fleshly veil must soon be withdrawn, and we shall again see one another face to face."

As he was speaking, I turned my eyes from the lively portraiture before me to the living countenance at my side. His eyes were raised; the tears rolled down his wrinkled but unmoved cheek; his mind had, as it were, for a moment escaped from its prison-house, and rejoined the companion-spirit, the long-lost, but the unforgotten.

"The tears of bearded men," it has been said, and often quoted, "stir up the soul of him who beholds them with a far deeper, because stranger sympathy, than is called forth by the ready tears of woman." But what are they to the tears of extreme old age?

I was deeply moved, and, descending from my elevation, I advanced to my venerable friend, and, taking his hand, reproached myself for having thus agitated his aged bosom by my ill-timed curiosity. He looked at me, and seeing in my wet eye and quivering lip the sympathy which annihilated the years that separated us, he looked benignantly upon me, and said,—

"Nay, my dear boy, it is I who should apologize for having thus given vent to emotions which are far better confined in the breast. But you have taken me at unawares, and the strangeness of the hour and the unexpectedness of this interview quite disarmed me. But come," he continued, taking me by the arm, "we will live over together those long-gone years at some more seasonable time. And now let us betake ourselves to our chambers again."

With these words we slowly retired from the library, and ascended the stairs in silence. When we reached the door of my apartment, Colonel Wyborne expressively pressed my hand without a word, and left me—

"To chew the food of sweet and bitter fancy."

It was now near one o'clock. My fire was almost out, and my candle was flickering in its socket: so I speedily disposed myself for rest. It was long, however, before sleep consented to be wooed to my pillow. The figures of my aged host and of the bride of his youth for a long time flitted around my couch, and drove sleep away. At last, however, the twin-brother of Death waved his poppies over my head, and my senses were lapped in forgetfulness.

When I awoke in the morning, the midnight events, which were the first which occurred to my remembrance, seemed, like the visions of the night, to be "such stuff as dreams are made of." But the rays of the sun soon chased away the shadows which had lingered after sleep had fled, and I realized that I had actually had the singular interview with Colonel Wyborne in the library, which dwelt on my memory. I felt at first as if our morning meeting might be a little awkward after our midnight parting, and I resolved to make no allusion to the matter, unless my host led to the subject; but upon second thoughts I determined not to treat it as a circumstance of which I was ashamed, but as one which had excited a strong interest in my mind, of which I could not forbear to speak.

Upon my reaching the parlor, I found Peter busily employed in laying the breakfast-table, with an air of even greater importance than usual; which I accounted for by the fact of its being Thanksgiving Day. His master had not yet appeared. But a few minutes, however, elapsed, before the door opened, and he came in. He bade me good-morning in his usual manner, and I could perceive no trace of the agitation of a few hours before. When Peter had marshalled the last division of the multitudinous array of comestibles which were provided for my refreshment, and the housekeeper had duly furnished forth the simpler components of Colonel Wyborne's repast, and they had both withdrawn, I begged to know if my kind entertainer had experienced any ill consequences from his unusual exposure, of which I was the unintentional cause. He set my fears at rest upon that point, and showing no disinclination to the subject, I reverted to it, assuring him that it was an hour the remembrance of which would abide with me to my dying-day. He seemed pleased with my enthusiasm, and gratified to think that the memory of his wife, which he had supposed would have been buried with himself, would take root in a younger breast, and flourish for another generation. He inquired how much of his history I had learned from Mrs. Champion, and then added many particulars which she had omitted, from her having figured favorably in them, of his short residence in Boston. He also added, beginning at the breakfast-table, and continuing his narrative in a short walk in the garden, a succinct history of his first acquaintance with Maria Somers, the difficulties he surmounted, his clandestine marriage, and the reasons which made it expedient to transfer his residence from England to

America. His history, strange and eventful as it was, I must reserve for some opportunity which affords an ampler verge than is left by this too protracted though "ower true" tale. We continued sauntering up and down the gravel walks, and bathing in the delicious soft air and hazy light of a day better worthy of a place among the bright ring that circle in joyous dance around the merry month of May than to be of the train of the gloomy month which ushers in the winter, till the sound of the first bell reminded us that it was time to make our preparations for divine service.

My toilet was soon completed, and I occupied myself until it was time to go to church in a daylight visit to the library. The lovely features of Maria Wyborne were still unveiled, and smiled upon me even more sweetly than they had done the night before, as the rays of the sun seemed to penetrate the darkest recesses of the picture, and to bring boldly out all that was dimly seen at midnight. When I heard Colonel Wyborne leave his chamber overhead, I drew the curtain, and, having removed the steps from the fireplace to their appropriate nook, I issued out to meet him.

The second bell was just beginning to ring, and the carriage was already at the door; the sable coach man sitting complacently enthroned upon the dicky, while Peter, hat in hand, stood by the expanded door and unfolded steps of the old-fashioned chariot. Colonel Wyborne stood before me as he reached the lowest stair, the very image of a gentleman of the generation which was then just leaving the stage. His wig was elaborately powdered, and terminated behind in a black silk bag, which swung pendulously from shoulder to shoulder as he walked. His coat was of a deep claret-color, with gold buttons, and embroidered about the button-holes, skirts, and cuffs. His waistcoat, of the same material, richly laced about the ample pocket-flaps, opening in front, displayed a world of the finest lace waving in the breeze. Ruffles of the same gossamer fabric shaded his hands. His breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his shoes were graced with ample buckles of the purest gold. His gold-headed cane—full half as tall as himself, now only seen on the stage—and his cocked hat were brought by the vigilant Peter, who left his post by the carriage-door upon his master's approach. Having invested him with these ensigns of dignity, Peter took the cloak from the hands of the attendant housekeeper, and with fitting reverence enveloped his master's form in its ample folds. Alas for the scarlet cloaks of our fathers! They have vanished, with many of the other habits of our ancestors, and have carried with them to their last home much of the graceful reverence for age and rank of which they were the emblems. Peace to their shreds!

Colonel Wyborne, being at length invested with all his habiliments, leaned upon my arm, and somewhat painfully ascended the uncertain footing of the carriage-steps. I followed him, and the door was closed upon us by Peter, who duly took his stand behind the carriage. The heavy vehicle moved slowly forward, and, as we turned into the high-road, it might have been thought that one of the frontispieces to the old editions of Sir Charles Grandison was suddenly inspired with life, and had turned out the family coach of Uncle Selby, or the more elegant equipage of Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, or the mercurial Lady G., upon the king's highway. Turning to the left as we came into the public road, we ascended a considerable hill, from the top of which we saw before us the village meeting-house, forming, as it were, the centre of the little rural system. As we drove along the road we saw the inhabitants of the village issuing from their comfortable houses, and wending their way to church. They were mostly dressed in the productions of their own farms and looms, and had an air of substantial plenty about them, without any attempts on the part of man or woman to ape the manners and costume of the town. The road was also covered with the farmers who lived beyond walking-distance, mounted on stout farm-horses, with their wives or daughters seated on pillions behind them; and now and then a heavy square-topped gig, or chaise as it was then called, looking like a sedan-chair cut in two and placed on wheels, came lumbering along, filled with an amount of humanity which proved to a demonstration the infinite compressibility, if not perfectibility, of human nature. The meeting-house was of the earliest style of construction; the belfry in the centre of the roof, which sloped up on four sides to it: the principal door, which was opposite to the pulpit, was on one of the longer sides of the parallelogram, while the shorter sides were adorned and accommodated with porticos. As we passed by the cheerful groups of walkers or riders,—for, it not being the sabbath, they did not think it incumbent upon them, though going to meeting, to put on their Sunday faces,—they all made due reverence to Colonel Wyborne, who was universally beloved for his bountiful and courteous spirit. When we drew up at the church-door, many a brawny arm was proffered to assist him in his descent, which he acknowledged with the most perfect grace of good-breeding, and said something to each of his humble friends, which made them better contented with themselves, and of course with him.

I followed Colonel Wyborne up the broad aisle to his pew, which was the fourth from the door on your right hand and the nearest of the pews to the pulpit, the space between the pews and the pulpit being filled up with benches, upon which were arranged the aged parishioners who were not owners of pews, in order of seniority; the post of honor being the one nearest the minister. The pulpit was of oak, unpainted, and surmounted by an enormous sounding-board, looking like a gigantic extinguisher just on the point of putting out the luminary beneath. Beneath the pulpit, the deacons' seat embraced within its ample enclosure the dignified officials for whom it was designed,—one bald-headed, with an unquestionable squint, and the other with his thin gray locks falling almost to his shoulders, and with a sharp face and meagre person; both seated with their backs to the pulpit, and their faces to the congregation. Two galleries ran round the walls; one filled with women, and the other with men. Near the ceiling, on the left hand as we sat, a phenomenon was presented to the inquiring eye in the shape of an oblong hole in the wall, surrounded by a sort of wooden frame in which was set a human face, which glared upon the meeting-house door with an earnestness almost supernatural. About every ten seconds the face of the apparition underwent a sort of downward twitch, which was succeeded with a sharp toll of the bell; but the eyes were ever riveted upon the door. At length a twitch of more convulsive energy than usual was followed by an emphatic clang of the bell, which said as plainly as the tongue of bell could speak, "There, my work's done for to-day!" And, while its undulating sound was vibrating on the ear, the Rev. Mr. Armsby walked majestically along the aisle, and ascended the stairs; his well-powdered wig diffusing a miniature snow-storm upon the small precise cape of his black cloak. After a short pause, the services proceeded. The prayers of the revered pastor were admirable, eloquent, devout, fervid, mostly clothed in the language of Scripture, or at least in language which gushed from a mind deeply imbued with the spirit of the Hebrew prophets. As the rich, deep tones of his voice uttered forth the recital of the blessings and bounties which this people had received at the hand of Heaven,—of freedom, of peace, of plenty, and, above all, of the knowledge of the true God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent,—and then described their unworthiness and ingratitude and sinfulness, and deprecated the impending wrath of Heaven and the awful judgments which were reserved for an ungrateful, godless nation, all wrapt in the dark and terrible imagery of the prophecies, I could almost imagine that I heard one of the seers of old telling in thunder-tones his message of warning and denunciation to the chosen but erring race.

The innovation of a choir had displaced the good old custom of singing the hymns "line by line" by the whole congregation. Of this part of the service I will say nothing, except that it bore no resemblance which could shock the most rigid Puritan, to the choral symphonies of the Sistine Chapel, or even to the heathenish melody of that legitimate daughter of the old Scarlet Lady, the Church of England. A bass-viol grated its share of harsh discords in addition to those of the human instruments, all of which together, if the science of music does not lie, must have amounted to harmony. Colonel Wyborne, in the goodness of his heart and the abundance of his good will to any persons who earnestly did what they could to assist at the service of the sanctuary, though himself an excellent judge of music, stood up alone during the performance, and encouraged the choristers by strict attention, and beating time, and, when they finished, by an emphatic, "Very well, very well indeed!"

audible over the whole house. My gravity, I confess, received a severe shock, and I fully expected to hear a general titter run round the assembly; but a hurried glance around satisfied me that it was a usual act of my admirable old friend, and was regarded with pride and pleasure by the singers and the rest of the congregation, and by no means looked upon as anything out of the common way. This circumstance brought Sir Roger de Coverley at once to my mind; and, the idea being suggested, I recalled a good many points of resemblance between the warm hearted old baronet and Colonel Wyborne; though the latter was entirely free from any hallucination like that which sometimes sent Sir Roger's wits a wool-gathering.

The introductory services being over, the minister rose and took a prefatory look around at his flock. Before giving out his text, however, he desired the audience, in a tone of authority and decision which would have well become Dr. Johnson himself when he scolded Boswell for having a headache, not to interrupt the discourse by coughing or sneezing; which ebullitions he assured them were entirely unnecessary. It may be well to add that his commands were strictly obeyed; thus affording a new fact in support of Kant's theory of the power of the will over bodily ailments. This preliminary being adjusted, he announced his text, and proceeded with his sermon. It was a truly masterly production, and displayed those remarkable powers which not long afterwards procured his translation to the more congenial atmosphere of the metropolis. It was a work like one of the Pyramids; its foundations, broad and deep, resting on eternal and universal truth, and the superstructure tapering in sublime simplicity up to the blessed duty of gratitude,—massive blocks of sense and reasoning piled regularly in lessening rows upon one an other, and clamped together by cogent quotations from the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures; all ascending upwards to a single truth, and making upon the mind, undistracted by meretricious ornament, an impression of oneness, the feeling of a grand whole. The music of his intonations and the harmony of his gesture are still present to my mind, as if it were but yesterday that he spoke. He was listened to with the most profound attention; and, when he ended, his auditory all seemed to take a long breath, and each man looked upon his neighbor with a flushed cheek and a dilated eye.

But one circumstance interrupted the solemnity of the discourse, and that was too characteristic a one to be passed over in silence. In the midst of the sermon an unlucky child in the women's gallery began to cry. The pastor stopped short, turned his severe eye upon the dismayed mother, and sternly said, "Take that child away!" In unutterable confusion the poor woman gathered up her descendant; and the urchin, kicking and screaming with an energy worthy of a better cause, quickly vanished from our sight. This little episode, however, attracted but little attention on the part of the rest of the audience, and, the moment it was over, they were as deeply absorbed as ever in the march of the discourse.

After the blessing had been pronounced, the whole congregation remained standing in their places, as was their invariable custom, until Mr. Armsby and Colonel Wyborne had left the house. While the clergyman was making his preparations for his departure, Colonel Wyborne left his pew, and kindly advanced to the venerable band of old men, and made friendly inquiries as to their well-being; and I could catch the sounds of their grateful voices thanking him for the bountiful gifts which he had bestowed upon them at this joyful season. When Mr. Armsby descended from the pulpit, Colonel Wyborne took his arm, and, giving me a signal to follow, slowly left the house, courteously inclining his head to the right and left in acknowledgment of the respectful salutations which he received from the sturdy farmers on either side. We all three entered the coach, which we found ready at the door, and were soon conveyed to the scene of the solemnities which yet remained to be performed appropriate to the great New England festival. On the way, the conversation was engrossed by the two gentlemen, and I confess that I regarded my reverend companion as a sort of a Mordecai at my gate, and looked forward with a kind of dismay to the cloud which he would bring over the joyous festivity which I had anticipated at the Thanksgiving table of my genial host.

Upon our arrival we were shown into the library, at either end of which a blazing fire worthy of an English Christmas diffused a generous warmth through the apartment. The cheerful heat had an evident effect on the ice of the reverend gentleman's manners; for, there being no provision made in those days for warming churches, we were all glad enough to greet the cordial welcome of the blaze. As we walked from one fireplace to the other, and stopped before each to imbibe a portion of its warmth, Mr. Armsby, for almost the first time, turned to me and said, "Well, young gentleman, how do you like being between two fires?"—a jocular abortion which I received with a laugh worthy of a better jest, with an explosion which would not have discredited a Schœpen in the eyes of a jovial burgomaster. The worthy gentleman evidently took my laugh in good part, and by being put on better terms with himself, was disposed to regard me with more consideration than he had yet done. He made some more rather cumbrous attempts at jocularity, which being met more than halfway by myself, we soon rapidly neared one another, and before long, not unassisted by the good-nature of our host, we were fairly engaged yard-arm to yard-arm. My awe of him gradually melted away, and, before Peter made his appearance with the tankard of punch, I began to wonder that I could ever have felt any.

As I have hinted in the preceding sentence, in due time the door opened, and the excellent functionary there alluded to was ushered in, bearing with fitting solemnity upon a salver the silver tankard, which in those days ever heralded the serious business of the day. A grateful perfume arose from its brimming mouth, and filled the apartment. Colonel Wyborne received the fragrant offering at the hands of the sable Ganymede, and, having raised it to his lips, passed it to his most honored guest, who paid it the homage of a deeper libation, and then consigned it to my ingenuous hands. This harbinger of better things to come (now, I admit, better far removed) performed its orbit round our little circle with a rapidity and regularity which would have given a temperance society a fit of delirium-tremens, until the last drop was drained. Admirer as I am of old customs, I must allow that this was one which I am glad to have survived. The punch-drinking of a morning, which our ancestors looked upon in the light of an innocent amusement, not to say of a positive duty, is extinct, and with it have vanished in a great measure the gout, and a train of "immedicable ills" of which it was the fruitful parent. Since its disappearance, too, drunkenness is a vice almost unknown to the educated classes; which was far from being the case in my time. On the present occasion, however, the bewitching draught seemed to unlock the secret source of a thousand sympathies till then unsuspected, and to bring to light a multitude of affinities, unfelt before, between the morning, the meridian, and the evening of life. Under its deceitful though delicious enchantment, the barriers which time and custom had raised between us, and which but a short time before seemed to be impassable, were levelled with the ground, and we stood side by side as friend by friend.

Precisely as the hall-clock struck two, Peter, reentering, announced dinner, and, marshalled by that dark seneschal, we proceeded in due order to the dining-room. Mr. Armsby blessed the meal with a grace which seemed at least sufficiently long to a hungry boy, in which he did not omit, in the enumeration of blessings, the Governor, Council, the churches, the college, and the old Congress. When he had concluded, and we had taken our seats, the covers were removed, and displayed an array of dishes which would have seemed preposterous for the supply of three persons, did we not know that a multitude of retainers were assembled in the kitchen, eagerly awaiting whatever might fall from our table. A noble tautaug,1 with his tail in his mouth, lay grimly before me, like the Egyptian emblem of eternity. At the foot of the table, Colonel Wyborne was intrenched behind a formidable round of beef à-la-mode. A roast turkey was stretched, victim-like, upon his back before the sacerdotal knife of the pastor; while on the other side of the table a pair of boiled chickens lay patiently awaiting their immersion in the oyster-sauce which stood ready for the deed. Vegetables of every description filled up all the interstices of the well-spread board; and decanters of white wine (for as yet red wine was not) kept watch and ward, like tall sentinels, over the whole scene of action. Soon the remains of the fish before me were decently removed, and replaced by an admirable haunch of venison, attended by all that should accompany that prince of meats,—the sacrificial fires; the jelly, "sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear;" the thin parallelograms of toast, brown as the Arabian berry. All our energies were soon wholly engrossed in this new career of duty, which we pursued with an untiring zeal and indomitable perseverance, which should have entitled us to a high place among the benefactors of mankind.

[1Vulgarly called black-fish by the many.]

But, alas! even venison may cease to please. At least a foreboding of future good yet to be revealed from the dark recesses of the kitchen prompted forbearance ere it was too late. At length the viands which I have feebly attempted to describe were transported from our eyes, and a new generation occupied their vacant places. The beef à-la-mode suddenly gave place to the much-injured bird which saved the capitol; the venison, with a sigh, yielded its throne to a triple alliance of wild ducks; a pair of partridges dislodged the reluctant turkey; while the boiled chickens with the attendant oyster-sauce fled amain before the incursion of a horde of lesser "fowl of game." The transitory nature of all human things is well illustrated by the sentiment of one of the heroines of "The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement," in the Anti-Jacobin, where she says (I quote from memory), "The beef of to-morrow will succeed to the veal of to-day, as the veal of to-day has succeeded to the mutton of yesterday." But the flying courses of a single repast bring home even more forcibly to the reflecting mind the instability of our most substantial joys, and afford a lively picture of the fleeting generations of mankind, hurrying, like them, over the bountifully spread and richly adorned banqueting-table on which Boon Nature feasts her children. The change which had just come over the scene before us was not destined to endure any more than the one which had preceded it. The shining face of Peter is again seen, full of busy importance, bustling about the board. And now the table is cleared; and anxious expectation sits impatient on every brow. A pause ensues. The door opens, and, lo! he comes, the Pudding of the Plum, Thanksgiving Day's acknowledged chief. He comes, attended, conqueror-like, by the dethroned monarch of Christmas Day, Mince-pie, who follows, crestfallen, in his triumphal train. Apple-pie, too, rears his "honest soncy face" in sturdy yeoman pride. Custard, no longer "blasphemed through the nose," receives the respectful deference due to fallen greatness. And thou, Pumpkin-pie, my country's boast, when I forget thee, may my right hand forget its cunning! And Squash-pie, too, when I refuse to celebrate thy praise, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!

Then came the dessert, chiefly composed, from the necessity of the season, of dried fruits; but then such apples and such pears!—apples for which Atalanta might well have lost her race, or which might well have been thrown by Discord among the gods. The pears, too!—St. Michael's spicy fruit, St. Catherine's immutable glow,—"the side that's next the sun,"—worthy the cheek of a cherub; St. Germain's celestial gust; and other gentle races which confer by their virtues higher honors on their patron saints than any they derive from their canonization.

Then, too, came from the subterraneous crypts, where they had been confined for many years, the imprisoned spirits whom Wit obeys; not those fierce demons which are called into being amidst the fierce combustion of the still, and which soon tear in pieces the victims whom they have singled out for their prey, but "delicate spirits," like the gentle Ariel, bursting into life in the year-long summer's day of the Fortunate Islands, and summoned across the Atlantic waves to impart their native summer to Northern hearts. Alas that any magicians should now be found who would fain exorcise them, and condemn them to the fate of vulgar devils! But then it must be admitted that the degeneracy of modern times has reached even these ethereal powers. The grapes of the present day do not express the same juice which gushed from the veins of their progenitors. Their thin potations have debauched this washy generation. Did the French philosophy take root amongst us before our clay had been soaked in claret and champagne? Were we overrun with the weeds of German metaphysics before the Rhine had poured an acid deluge over the land? Talk of the schoolmaster being abroad! The heresies which infest this age were unknown until the wine-merchant went abroad.

I wish that I could find it in my heart to detain the gentle reader from the perusal of things better worth his reading, and recount the talk of that genial day. But the milkiness of my nature forbids. Besides, a separate essay will not be too much to devote to the oddities, genius, and virtues of Richard Armsby. He was a choice specimen of that racy class of originals, the elder New England clergy; men who were in a great measure raised above the control of public opinion, and the sharpnesses of whose characters were not smoothed down by the friction of society, and the excursions of whose eccentricities were checked neither by the inquisition of squeamish coteries nor by the censure of a fastidious age. I have never looked upon his like since he entered into his rest. He united the playfulness of Yorick and the simplicity of Parson Adams with the logical acuteness of Butler, the strong sense of Barrow, and the redundant imagination of Taylor; and all these shining and solid materials which went to make up the web of his remarkable mind were strongly relieved by the dark groundwork of the sternest Calvinism upon which they were woven. And yet this man is forgotten. His sermons, which should have constituted an integral portion of our literature, have been fated to "clothe spice, line trunks," or to fall into the sacrilegious hands of the "oblivious cook." Surely this was a man of whom the world in which he lived was not worthy.

That day is an epoch in my life, for it was the first time that I had ever listened to the table-talk of the highest description. I might have searched the world through, and yet not have met with two such men, so different and yet so admirable, as the two whom, the chances of life had thrown together in the remote village of Sanfield. I have since listened to most of the celebrated men of conversation of our times, and the chimes of midnight have often fallen unheeded upon my ear as I yielded myself to the enchantment of their eloquence and wit; but the remembrance of that brilliant day still holds the first place among my convivial memories.

We remained at table till about six o'clock, when we returned to the library, where tea and coffee were served. After this ceremony was over, Mr. Armsby's pipe was brought,—"his custom always of an afternoon,"—and taking, as it were, a new departure from this event, he swept gallantly on through a sea of talk, growing more and more brilliant as he went. At last, however, ten o'clock came. He knocked out the last ashes of his pipe, and, taking a glass more of wine as a stirrup-cup, he prepared for his departure. The carriage was soon at the door; and our charming friend, for such I could not but regard him in spite of his ministerial dignity, bade us a cordial good-night.

As I attended him to the carriage, he warmly pressed me, nothing loath, to visit him at his bachelor's house.

When I returned to the library, Colonel Wyborne begged to know whether I did not think that his prophecy the day before, of the change which a day would bring forth in Mr. Armsby, had not been fulfilled. I replied with expressions of the warmest admiration of the qualities of his reverend friend. "And pray, sir," I added, "why did not you tell me how extraordinary a man he is?"

"Simply," he replied with a benignant smile, "simply because I wished to give you the pleasure of finding it out for yourself."

We soon separated for the night; but it was long after I had sought my couch that the clear tones of the pastor's voice died upon my ear. The strange groups of thought, in which ideas that never before dreamt of meeting each other found themselves side by side; the freshness and beauty of his classic allusions, and the grotesque narrations of scenes and characters such as are only known in a simple and primitive state of society, delivered with a spirit and life which Matthews never surpassed, all together produced a degree of pleasurable excitement which drove sleep far from my eyes. The walls of my solitary chamber rung with the echoes of a foregone merriment; and, if my pillow were that night wet with tears, they were the tears

"Of one worn out with mirth and laughter."

————

CHAPTER V.

THE next morning, after breakfast, Colonel Wyborne proposed to me a drive to the parsonage to pay a visit to Mr. Armsby. I gladly closed with this proposition, as my experiences of the day before had excited a strong curiosity on my part to know more of that true original—in the best sense of the word. The coach having been ordered, my excellent host, at my request, commenced a short account of his reverend friend, which he concluded as we drove towards his local habitation. His history was not very different from that of hosts of other ornaments of the New England Church and State. His father was a painstaking farmer, who extracted by the alchemy of intelligent labor, from the rocky and ungenial soil of one of the least propitious portions of Massachusetts Bay, a plentiful and comfortable subsistence for a family of some twelve children. The early education of his son Richard had been in the school of agricultural labor. The plough and the spade were the earliest teachers his rugged intellect had known. During the leisure hours of "workless winter," indeed, he had picked up the rudiments of knowledge, and secured those branches of learning, which, according to high authority, "come by nature."

Having acquired the key to knowledge, he soon employed it to unlock all the stores which were within his reach. His father's literary collections were not of a very extensive or a very various description. A few books of Puritan divinity, and many printed sermons of New England divines, in loose pamphlets, formed the staple of his library. These works, however, for want of matter more attractive, were eagerly devoured. Among his father's books, however, was Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," which soon became his favorite author. His admiration was excited by the display of learning which so liberally garnishes those curious pages; and his wonder was none the less because he could not detect the pedantry and bad taste of the load of quotations with which the author's original matter is overlaid, and of the conceits in which he delights to indulge. To a boy in an inland town, brought up in Puritan habits, this book was truly fascinating. The histories of the worthies who had founded or embellished the infant empire; the descriptions of the persecutions which they endured in England, and of the hardships which they encountered when they snatched their civil and religious rights to these bleak and inhospitable shores; the stirring descriptions of the Indian wars, which so often threatened destruction to the whole province, and of which there were many survivors in his neighborhood, full of traditionary lore; and especially the solemn recital of the mysterious phenomena of witchcraft, of the wiles of Satan for the extirpation of God's people, some of which, it must be confessed, did but little credit to the sagacity of the arch-enemy—all these topics formed fertile themes for winter evening study and for summer noontide dreams.

I do not wonder that the belief in witchcraft took such strong hold of our ancestors' imaginations, living as they did in a country but half explored, overshadowed with primeval forests—filled with heathen foes and with savage beasts—from the depths of which strange sounds came at midnight upon their ear, and whose varying shadows and lights assumed to the superstitious eye of the wayfarer the grotesque or ghastly forms of demons or spectres. There was an infinite deal more romance in the primitive days of our ancestors, planted as they were on a narrow belt between the ocean and the wilderness, than we can dream of in these prosaic days of steam and railroads.

Richard Armsby's love of books early aroused in his father's breast the ambition, which in those days lingered in every parent's heart, of seeing his son one of the clergy, one of the religious aristocracy of the land. His narrow circumstances, however, made the prospect almost a hopeless one, until one day the pastor of the parish, in one of his parochial rounds, discovered the young enthusiast busily employed with his favorite volume. It so happened that "the fantastic old great man" was a favorite with the good man; and his heart warmed towards the lad when he found how thoroughly he was acquainted with all that he could learn from that not too authentic source of the history of his country. His father's wishes and his own tastes were soon made known to their several advisers, and he undertook the task of preparing the young man for college. This was speedily accomplished by the vigorous intellect, and earnestness of purpose, of young Armsby. The work of preparation being finished, he was despatched to Cambridge, with but a small stock of money, but with an ample supply of faith and hope. His struggles in the cause of good learning were severe, and his heart at times almost died within him, and he was more than once on the point of abandoning his studies. In a happy hour, however, he went, one winter's vacation, to keep the village school of Sanfield, where he soon attracted the kind notice of Colonel Wyborne. The sagacity and knowledge of character which were almost instinctive with that excellent gentleman, soon discerned that the rough diamond he had lighted upon was a gem of the first water. From that moment, all his difficulties were at an end. His kind patron's liberality removed all obstacles from his way, and made the remainder of his literary path one of pleasantness. Soon after his college career was finished, the minister of Sanfield died; and Mr. Armsby was very soon inducted into his place, chiefly through Colonel Wyborne's influence. For the many years that had elapsed since that day, they had lived on terms of the most cordial intimacy; their esteem for each other increasing with their years. Mr. Armsby having never been married, their friendly intercourse had never encountered the interruption which the intervention of Hymen but too often works in the best-grounded friendships; and I doubt not that the minister's congenial society greatly contributed to cheer and prolong his aged friend's existence.

The substance of this narrative was just imparted as the carriage drove up to the parsonage-door. It was a very old building, unpainted, situated just on the edge of the village. It stood on a high bank, at some distance from the road, with two or three trees of aboriginal growth waving their twisted arms above its roof. The master of the house received us at the door with much formal politeness. On entering the front-door, we descended one step, which had nearly been a step too much for me, having never before been greeted with such a reception at any threshold I had ever passed. In front of us was a wooden seat, which opened on hinges, and displayed a sort of chest. The stairs ascended abruptly, almost from the very door. Turning to our left, we were ushered into the study, which was almost the only apartment which the solitary minister used of his whole house. It was a room of good size, but with a low ceiling, and a bare beam, rough-shaped with the axe, passing through its length. The walls were well covered with dingy-looking books, most of them formidable folios of controversial divinity, but relieved by excellent editions of the Greek and Latin classics

(for Mr. Armsby was a ripe scholar and a good one), and by some of the sterling English authors. There was the folio edition of Shakspeare, and the little shabby quarto first edition of "Paradise Lost," in ten books, and there was the first edition of Burton's "Anatomy," which I had ever seen. A wooden arm chair with a leaf to it was the throne of the sovereign of the domain. A few wooden chairs—of various shapes, and apparently of different epochs in the colonial history, but none of which would have excited the envy of a Sybarite—were scattered about the room in a somewhat dusty confusion. A deal table or so, and a woodbox, completed the furniture of the apartment. The floor was unconscious of a carpet, and to all appearance had been long innocent of the knowledge of the virtues of soap and fair water. The hearth was of red brick, on which was built a wood fire of exemplary brightness. The bricks of the chimney-back, to be sure, had yielded to the hand of time ("What will not Time subdue!") but then one of them afforded a timely aid to one of the andirons, which, in the course of many years' service, had lost a leg. The neatness of the whole establishment did not certainly afford much room for commendation; but then, as no commendations were expected or desired, it was of the less consequence.

Our reverend host having resigned his chair of state to his honored guest, and provided himself and me with humbler stools, we all drew up cheerfully to the fire, and talked merrily over the day before.

Though the manner of Mr. Armsby towards me was not distinguished by the convivial freedom of the day before, still it was entirely free from the austerity and coldness which marked it at our first acquaintance. It was now just what the demeanor of a gentleman of his time of life, and standing in society, should be towards a lad of eighteen, kind, affable, without being familiar or free; which made me feel perfectly at my ease in his company, and yet which made it perfectly impossible for me to forget the distance which separated us.

After we had discussed a variety of topics, which he treated in a manner to show that wine and wassail had nothing to do with his powers of entertainment, he inquired about my plans for returning to Cambridge. I informed him that I must set forth early the next morning in order to reach the arms of my Alma Mater before night. As, in the course of the conversation which ensued on the subject, I expressed no great satisfaction in the prospect before me, of a twenty-miles' ride upon a sorry hack, Colonel Wyborne seemed to be suddenly struck with a new idea, which he uttered to this effect: "It never occurred to me before; but I think that I can save you that tedious ride, if you have no objection to an expedition in a row-boat."

I assured him that boating was one of my choicest amusements, and awaited with some curiosity to know the nature of his proposition.

"If that be the case," said he, "I think, that, as the weather is so fine, we can manage it in this way. I will take my boat, and accompany you to my farm on Vincents Island this afternoon, where we will spend the night; and to-morrow you shall continue your row up to Boston, while I await the return of my boat."

"But my horse?"

"Oh, John can take him home on Monday, on his way to town: it will be but a few miles out of his way."

The only difficulty in the way being thus obviated, I most heartily concurred in the plan, which promised to substitute a cheerful ride over the waves for a dreary one over the high-road, and, besides, to give me nearly a whole day to myself in Boston. These preliminaries being adjusted, Mr. Armsby was invited to make one of our water-party, with which proposition he readily closed, to our general satisfaction.

The conversation turning upon the early colonial times, Mr. Armsby displayed in that most curious portion of history a minuteness of erudition which I had never before seen exhibited. It was evidently his hobby, and he caracoled and curvetted upon it in a manner which excited my wonder and delight. He displayed many curious manuscripts of the fathers, illustrative of their history, and several of the old Indian deeds and treaties. In his library, too, were many books which the Pilgrims had made the chosen companions of their wanderings and exile, rendered more precious by copious marginal notes, which it would have puzzled the younger Champollion himself to decipher. In a walk which we took together round his house, he pointed out the scene of a bloody fight with the Indians, and showed many perforations in the walls of his house, made by the bullets of the savage foe. Then there was the pear-tree which Elder Brewster planted with his own hands, and the very oak under which Captain Miles Standish and his little company bivouacked on the night of their return from the discomfiture of Morton and his rabble rout at Merry Mount. The interest which I took in these relics of the last age, and the attention which I gave to his commentaries upon them, evidently raised me many degrees in his estimation, and laid the foundation of a friendship which only ended with his life.

After a visit of nearly two hours, we took our leave, having first arranged that Mr. Armsby should join me at dinner, so as to be ready for our excursion. We then returned home, and were duly joined at an early hour by our reverend friend. The airy prologue of the punch, the grave drama of the dinner, and the cheerful epilogue of the madeira, being over, it was announced that the tide served, and the boat was in readiness. We accordingly proceeded on foot to the shore, John and Peter following us with our cloaks and luggage. We took a little different route from the one which Colonel Wyborne and I had followed on the first day of our visit, and bent our steps towards the mouth of the little stream which washed his estate, on the banks of which the boat-house was built. On arriving at the place of embarkation, we found the boat launched, and the four boatmen—two black and two white—resting on their oars, awaiting our arrival. Our places were soon taken: Peter, with our luggage and a stupendous hamper of provisions and wine for the voyage, was seated in a grinning delight; and the "trim-built wherry" was speedily dancing over the crests of the wave.

The afternoon was more like one in May than one on the very brink of winter. The sun shone brightly; the sea was placid as a land-locked bay or inland lake; the sea-fowl hovered above or about us, or dived beneath the billows; while in the distance the white sails glided like happy spirits among the islands of the blessed. The scene was one full of quiet and of tranquillizing beauty, which rather provoked revery than conversation. A favorable breeze soon springing up, the mast was fixed in its place; and the sail, given to the gale, soon made us leap forward on our course with a new alacrity. Our voyage was pursued in silence, only broken by occasional exclamations at the beautiful effects of light and shade caused by the floating clouds, and at the varying hues of the distant ocean. The sun set before we had reached our port, and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we sat watching the stars emerging from their ocean-bed, and beginning the solemn procession which nightly moves in sublime order around "this dim spot called earth."

Colonel Wyborne seemed to be buried in deepest revery, sad yet not melancholy, as if the magic of the scene had conjured up to his half-dreaming eye—

"The spectres which no exorcism can bind,
The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, to view
The mourned, the loved, the lost—too many, yet how few!

We respected the meditative mood of our venerable friend, and sat in silence till the boat reached her destined haven; when the oarsmen unshipped the mast, and pulled stoutly for the little mole which was projected into the sea.

We were soon disembarked, and on our way to the farmhouse of Colonel Wyborne, which was occupied by an excellent man and his wife, now just beginning to feel the hand of time, who had lived in the sea-girdled home for the chief of their days. They received us with many demonstrations of kindness and respect, and seemed in nowise disconcerted by our unexpected arrival. Indeed, the ample supplies of provisions which our commissary Peter brought along with him removed all hospitable apprehensions as to our due alimentation. We were received in the ample kitchen of the farmhouse, which was illuminated by a blazing pile of logs, roaring up a volcano of a chimney, and diffusing a ruddy light and cheerful warmth throughout the apartment. We were soon comfortably established by the genial fireside, while the goodwife was busily employed in preparing our evening meal. When our repast was ready, and we had taken our places at the table, Colonel Wyborne still seemed absorbed in his dreaming mood, and was evidently in spirit far away from the wave-washed islet where he was present in the body. His silence imposed an unavoidable restraint upon Mr. Armsby and myself. At last, however, he seemed to rouse from his revery, and, looking up at us, said,—

"I know that you will think dotage has come rapidly upon me, when I tell you of the resolution which I have been forming. But my mind is made up: I go to Boston to-night."

"To Boston to-night!" exclaimed in one breath both his companions; both, no doubt, a little suspicious that something was out of joint in the good old gentleman's intellectuals.

"Even so," replied he in his blandest but most determined manner. "It is now fifty years since I saw my native city, and I once thought that nothing could induce me to visit it again; but a strange impulse, which I have often felt before, urges me with an almost irresistible force to see once more, before I die, the scene of my early days and of the short lived happiness of my prime of manhood."

"But why to-night?" inquired Mr. Armsby.

"Because," he replied, "it may be my last night. This strange possession often comes over me, sometimes in my solitary walks, or lonely musings in my library, but most frequently in those wakeful hours of nights which form a heavy share of the burden of old age. I feel that to-night the craving may be satisfied, and that, if I neglect to use this night, another opportunity may never come to me."

"But I do not exactly comprehend your plan, my dear sir," observed his reverend companion.

"It is this," he replied. "The moon will rise in an hour: in three hours we may reach the town. I propose to land after all the inhabitants have deserted the streets, and to revisit my old familiar haunts by moonlight, and then return before the earliest stirrer is abroad."

Mr. Armsby in vain represented to him the fatigue, the sleepless night, the night-air, the mental excitement, which the execution of his scheme would bring upon himself. His heart seemed to be set upon the plan; and he expressed his determination to accomplish the adventure by himself, if we declined accompanying him. This, of course, was not to be thought of; and, his resolution being taken, we prepared to accompany him on his singular expedition. Mr. Armsby very evidently did not much relish the idea of exchanging his snug corner of the chimney in possession, and his comfortable bed in prospect, for a damp, chilly row of three or four hours by moonlight. I, on the other hand, was just of an age to enjoy anything which had the appearance of novelty and the air of romance.

Our trusty boatmen were speedily roused from their lair, and ordered upon this new and unexpected service. They were soon in readiness; and we all re-embarked, as well protected against the night-air as broadcloth could make us. As soon as we had pushed off, and cleared the shadow of the island, we saw the moon, "rising in clouded majesty" just above the waves, and shedding a long and tremulous line of light upon the dancing waters. The scene was truly enchanting. The slight murmur of the waves, the measured dip of the flashing oars, and the distant bark of the watchdog of the island we were leaving behind us, were all the sounds which broke the stillness of the midnight sea. The light, fleecy clouds which accompanied the appearance of heaven's "apparent Queen" were soon dispersed, and she shone forth in matchless lustre. The magic air which her silver light gave to the whole world of waters was the more charming to us who had just seen the orb of day sink in a sea of molten gold. The stars stood out from the firmament with all the sharpness and distinctness of a winter's night; while the glimmering lights twinkled at unequal intervals from the line of coast along which we skirted, and the numerous islands amidst which we threaded our devious way.

Thus we sped along, for the chief of the way in silence, till at length we shot under the guns of the Castle, and the town lay before us, seen dimly in the uncertain moonlight. As we glided along to the measured music of the oars, Colonel Wyborne's eyes were fixed, with an earnestness almost painful, upon the shadowy mass of buildings in the distance. His thoughts were, doubtless, transported to the day, half a century before, when he last approached his native town by sea. How different the circumstances under which he approached it then and now! Then, in the pride of manhood, he walked over the waters in a gallant ship, in the clear light of an autumnal day. The wife of his love was by his side; troops of welcoming friends stretched out their arms from the shore to hail the wanderer's return. Though he had spent many years amidst the superb cities and magnificent ruins of Europe, and had dwelt as a familiar friend in the bosom of the most gorgeous scenery and time-hallowed relics of a classic world, still it seemed to his true heart as if he had never gazed upon a scene so lovely or so beloved as was present to his filial eyes as he drew near his native land. Now, in the spectral light of the moon, he glided like a ghost to haunt the scenes of his former happiness. The wife of his bosom, whose gentle hand was clasped in his when he last moved over those waves, had been for fifty years the latest tenant of his ancestral vault. The numerous friends whose cordial grasp welcomed him home were, with scarcely an exception, long since gone from earth; and the few survivors were, like him, transformed from men of the prime to faint old men just tottering on the brink of the grave. A thousand recollections of buried love, of vanished youth, of half-forgotten friends, of well-remembered griefs, of blighted hopes, of transitory joys, crowded upon his musing soul.

At last the prow of our boat struck the stairs of the Long Wharf, and our voyage was ended. Just at that moment, the clock of the Old South Church struck twelve, and was answered from the towers of all the other churches in long-drawn-out, but sweet and solemn tones. Mr. Armsby and I assisted Colonel Wyborne to disembark, who then, leaning upon our arms on either side, commenced his strange and melancholy pilgrimage. The fifty years which had elapsed since his departure from Boston had wrought none of those changes in the appearance of the town which the spells of modern speculation have in these latter days often worked in a single lustrum. The aspect of the place was almost unchanged. The population had scarcely increased during that period, and the small addition had been contented to fix their habitations upon the large extent of unoccupied ground within the peninsula, without laying their parricidal hands upon the roofs which had sheltered their fathers. As we slowly proceeded up King (now State) Street, there were to be seen on either side the same dwellings which our aged friend had left when he took his last leave of the metropolis. How different was that scene from the one which the same ground now presents! Now it is metamorphosed into one great granite temple to Mammon, whose pavements are worn by the frequent feet of his busy worshippers. The household gods have fled from its precincts; the fire is quenched on the domestic altar; the voice of woman and the laugh of childhood are there heard no more. But on that night, more than half a century since, the moon which looked down upon the sleeping city bathed in her silver beams a multitude of happy homes. The houses, substantial yet elegant, stood betwixt ample courtyards in front, and trim gardens behind. Old trees overshadowed them; shrubs and flowers in their season adorned them. Hospitality and religion sanctified them. Now how changed!

As we gained the end of the wharf, and entered the inhabited street, Colonel Wyborne seemed scarcely to notice the familiar habitations of his friends on either side, but with a hurried step pressed forward toward the house in which he was born, and which was his home during his brief abode in Boston. It was situated on the right-hand side of the street. It stood on the highest of three terraces of moderate height, and was approached by as many flights of stone steps, guarded on either side by iron balustrades, of the fashion of the beginning of the century. The grounds on either side were planted with evergreens, and numerous trees of ornament and shade. A heavy iron gate admitted you within the courtyard. The house itself was of brick, painted of a cream-color, Corinthian pilasters reaching from the ground to the eaves, and with grotesque faces looking from the tops of the windows.

When we had reached the house, our venerable companion paused in manifest emotion. For a moment he laid hold of the iron bars of the gate for support; but his spirits soon rallied, and he regarded the happy home of his childhood and of his married life with sad composure. Strangers now inhabited those apartments which were associated with his earliest memories. Other children played in the grounds which were his childish empire. Other hearts which he knew not, and which knew not him, were happy in the charities of domestic life within those walls that had witnessed his happiest days. Long he stood gazing upon that beloved home. He seemed to forget our presence, and to be in the midst of another age and a former generation. I have witnessed many strange scenes in the course of my pilgrimage; but none that I have seen returns upon my memory so often, or seems so extraordinary, as that moonlight walk. The attenuated form and pallid features of our friend might well have befitted an inhabitant of another world, returned to revisit by the glimpses of the moon the spot on earth he loved the best. The superstition which believes that the spirits of the departed hover over those places loved while on earth is one which even enlightened natures have loved to indulge; but it is a chimera born of ignorance and fear. The blessed spirit which has put off "the vesture of decay," and broken the fleshy chain that linked it to earth, yearns not for the little point of space around which its mortal affections clustered. If it ever returns to this visible sphere, it is the chambers of the human heart that it haunts; it is the beloved souls yet in prison that it visits, and strengthens for the struggles of earth, which are to fit them for the crowns of heaven.

As we stood gazing at the old mansion, a female form with a light in her hand passed across one of the windows, thus giving us assurance that the house was yet tenanted by more material forms than those of memory and fancy. The circumstance seemed to strike palpably upon Colonel Wyborne's heart, and to give vitality, as it were, to his dream of the past. It seemed for a moment as if he had only to open the door, and to walk into the midst of his long-buried household joys. But the mood soon passed away, and he slowly turned his fixed regard from his former home, and, resuming his hold upon his companions, proceeded up the street. He now observed on either hand the former residences of his early friends, every one of which had passed into other hands, through the lapse of time, or the chances and changes of the Revolution. He paused to contemplate the old Town House (then the State House), which was and is full of the memory of old colonial quarrels between the royal Governors and their Legislatures, and of the machinery which set the ball of the Revolution in motion. This historic edifice still stands, as little changed as could be expected when we know that it is at the mercy of a civic board.

We then stopped for a moment before the Old Brick Church, almost opposite the Town House, and surveyed with reverence the oldest building erected by our fathers for the worship of God. We then passed along Cornhill to the Province House, then degraded from being the residence of the representatives of royalty to some plebeian use, but still standing, unshorn of any of its externals of rank. The trees still waved in the courtyard; and the iron fence which had surrounded it for more than a century still seemed to tell the vulgar to keep their distance. Many a festive image was called up before the mind's eye of our companion by the sight of this scene of provincial grandeur.

We then continued our walk until we came to the house of my good aunt Champion, which had received him and his bride under its hospitable roof on his first arrival from Europe. This was almost the only one of all the habitations of his many kindred and friends which had not passed into strange hands. The sight of its well-remembered walls seemed for a moment to shake his resolution of returning to his retirement without revealing his presence to any of his friends. But the settled habit of seclusion was stronger than his wish to see his dear old friend. The thought, too, of the twenty years which had elapsed since they had met, perhaps brought to his mind the changes which years had worked in both of them, which would make their last interview on the shore of time one of melancholy emotions as well as of sad recollections. We then proceeded across the Common to the foot of Beacon Hill, a natural monument, which in an evil hour was torn from its firm base, and buried in the sea, to glut the insane cravings of the monster speculation, which threatens to swallow up our land.

At this distance of time I cannot recall all the particulars of our midnight ramble. I remember pausing to see the princely mansions of the Bowdoins, Faneuils, the Vassals, sleeping in the moonlight. Opposite the Faneuil House was the King's Chapel churchyard, in a distant corner of which slumbered whatever remained of Maria Wyborne. The gate was locked, so that we could not enter the gloomy precinct; but Colonel Wyborne pointed out to us the spot with an almost cheerful air, as he added,—

"But a few days, and the gates of the resting-place of my fathers will close forever on the last of their race."

We visited, too, the North End, then as now the most populous portion of the town; and as we threaded its narrow streets, many well-known thresholds greeted the eyes of the time-worn pilgrim, which he had often passed in gay or in serious mood. Passing hastily by them, however, and stopping but a moment before the former residence of Cotton Mather, his early pastor, we hastened back to the wharf through some of the devious lanes which Colonel Wyborne seemed to remember as distinctly as if he had passed through them but yesterday. He seemed exhausted by the fatigue of the unusual walk and by the conflicting emotions which agitated his soul. We emerged into King Street from an alley about opposite his house. He stood earnestly looking his last at the place he loved so well, and then turned sadly away to return to the home of his declining years. His heart seemed too full for words; but, as he slowly walked down the wharf, he pressed my arm, and said almost inarticulately,—

"Tell my dear friend, Mrs. Champion, what I have done and seen to-night, and tell her that I shall spend the remainder of my few days in more content and satisfaction for this night's ramble. The earnest longing of my heart to see once more these beloved scenes is satisfied, and I shall die content."

When we had reached the spot where our boat was in waiting, my revered friend tenderly embraced me in his aged arms, and, giving me a tremulous "God bless you!" sunk into his place, and supported him self on the shoulder of his faithful servant. Mr. Armsby took his leave with a cordial grasp of the hand, and hastened to assume his seat. The oars fell with a sudden plash into the water, and the boat was soon gliding over the waves far from the shore. I stood and watched its departing course as long as the flashing of the oars in the moonbeams indicated its pathway. At length nothing was to be seen but the gleaming of the moonlight on the waves, and I turned away in an inexplicable frame of mind, in which it seemed to me as if I were but just awaking from a strange mysterious dream.

I returned up the street, with my portmanteau in my hand, and after some difficulty procured admission at the Bunch of Grapes, a hostelry of no mean fame in its day. The next day I spent with my good aunt Champion, whose faith was hardly sufficient to make her credit my story of her old friend having actually, but a few hours before, been looking up at her windows. Before night, I returned to my chambers at Cambridge, with a fund of cheerful and of sadder images over which to brood at leisure, and which, at the end of half a century, still return in clearest vision upon my memory whenever I call to mind my visit to AN OCTOGENARY FIFTY YEARS SINCE.

THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT.

THE HAUNTED ADJUTANT;

A TRADITION OF THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.

————

CHAPTER I.

"BY Jove, the ghost has a good taste in quarters!" exclaimed the young Captain Hazlehurst, as he stood with his back to a rousing fire (in "a gentlemanly attitude," like Mrs. Todgers), and complacently surveyed the comfortable apartment of which he had just taken possession. And indeed there were few gentlemen of his rank in his Majesty's army that were better lodged than he. It was a spacious room, on what Americans call the second, and Englishmen the first, floor of a large old-fashioned house, situated in a narrow street leading out of Hanover Street, far down in the depths of the "North End" of Boston. The house had been the residence of a patriotic gentleman, who had found it convenient to take his departure in such speed from the town, as the siege was fast enclosing it in its iron embrace, that he had left all his furniture and appliances of luxurious life behind him as they stood. Several officers of higher rank than its present occupant had successively inhabited it, but, on one pretence or another, they had all of them in succession exchanged it for other quarters. They gave no credit, not they, to the foolish stories which were rife among the common people and the soldiery, to the discredit of the character of the house. They begged it might be understood that it was no superstitious folly that caused the shifting of their quarters; but then, it was too far from parade, or it was in too confined a situation, or the kitchen chimney smoked, or there was some other very sufficient reason for the removal.

And let no one think the worse of those gallant gentlemen, if their actual motives did not exactly correspond with these plausible pretences. Many a hero has been afraid to go to bed in the dark, and many a fire-eater, who would storm a battery of cannon without flinching, might be frightened out of his wits by a white sheet and a drag-chain. At least it was so in the good old times, before ghosts were snubbed, and sent to Coventry; when they were welcomed with a fearful joy to the drawing-room fireside, and before they were injuriously driven thence, first to the nursery, and thence again to the servants' hall, and at last reduced to scour out kettles, on their knees, with the fat, foolish scullion in the kitchen. Dear souls, you are a much abused generation! It is no wonder that you are cowed, and are ashamed to show your faces in good company. Confound this march of mind! It has hardly left us a good comfortable superstition to our backs!

Be this as it may, there stood the gallant Captain Hazlehurst, looking round upon his new domain. And a comfortable-looking domain it was, as I said before. The walls were panelled in longitudinal compartments, each bordered with the "egg-and-anchor" carvings in which the souls of our forefathers delighted. Two portraits adorned the side of the room opposite the fireplace: one, of a beautiful girl of eighteen, of that peculiar style which combines dark flashing eyes with blond hair, the exquisite glow of whose skin, and the inimitable finish of whose point-lace ruffles could have owned no other hand than Copley's; and the other, an elderly gentleman, in a full-bottomed wig, and formal cataract of cravat pouring down over his laced waistcoat, plainly the work of an earlier and an inferior artist. Between the windows on your left, as you turned what Lord Castlereagh used to call "a back front" to the fire, was a tall mirror, in a frame of tarnished gold, surmounted by a bird of nondescript characteristics, which a naturalist might class with eagles, with pelicans, or with herons, at his pleasure. Beneath the glass, stood a low, curiously carved chest of drawers, the handles and key-holes flashing back the fire from their glittering brasses. Upon this stood a Japan, or rather a Chinese dressing-case, with curious drawers in the centre, and comical little doors at the sides, and gold mandarins, "with women's faces," and mandarinesses, "with yet more womanish expressions," taking tea all over it with much contentment, upon a glossy background. Opposite the glass stood the bedstead, none of your modern French abominations stuck upon the side of the wall like a hornet's nest, but a substantial, solid, imposing four-poster, with chintz draperies above, and draperies below, which I am not upholsterer enough to describe. The bed itself puffed up in all the elasticity of feathers, as beds of any character were wont to do, before paillasses and mattresses came in from France, with Jacobinism and thin potations. The table in the centre of the room was round, of shining mahogany, its edges scalloped, its legs clasping large balls in their claws, as if about to engage in a game of bowls. The chairs were heavy and hair-seated, the backs presenting a sort of mahogany lace-work, of a strange pattern, and unfolding themselves outward at the top in a bell-like expansion.

And then, if you turn and examine the mantel-piece, it will reward your trouble. The curious carvings of grotesque heads on either side, and the delicate sculpture of fruits and flowers in the centre were the work of no mean artificer. And then the Dutch tiles guarding the orifice of the fireplace! Heavens! it is strange that so much piety should have been left to our ancestors, when their earliest ideas of saints and patriarchs were derived from those earthen tablets! What bandy-legged kings, and dumpy queens! What squat prophets, and squab apostles! I see now, in my mind's eye, King David ogling a Bathsheba, from the roof of his house, whose portraiture excited my youthful horror at the taste, rather than at the crime, of his Hebrew majesty. But there they were in blue and white, grim, grisly, and grotesque; the blazing logs below lighting up their square faces and repairing their halos with a light not their own. The andirons, too, and the shovel and tongs were well worthy a description; especially as they are likely soon to become an extinct generation, whose very name will be a puzzle to future antiquaries.

But my story is waiting for me, and will soon get impatient. Still, you must take a glance at the roaring wood fire, which goes crackling up the chimney, and acknowledge its superiority over the pitiful grates and subterranean furnaces, which are drying up the present generation to mummies. If flesh be indeed grass, anthracite will soon desiccate the American public into a very creditable hortus siccus. Was there anything else in the room demanding notice? Oh yes, there was the carpet, a heavy Turkey one, half worn, and evidently promoted, "like a crab, backward," from the parlor to the best chamber. On either side of the fireplace was a closet, each with a window and a window-seat, the one on the right-hand side large enough to contain a bed for the Captain's servant, who had stipulated for this arrangement before consenting to accompany his master to a house of so dubious a reputation.

"By Jove, the ghost has a good taste in quarters!" exclaimed Captain Hazlehurst, rubbing his hands, and then giving them one gentle pat together, expressive of infinite content. "It is certainly much to his credit to prefer such snug lodgings as these to a mouldy church-yard or a damp, dilapidated old ruin."

Then drawing up the easiest of the chairs to the front of the fire (it is a strange instinct which always tells a man which chair is the easiest!) he established one foot on either andiron, and resigned himself to the comforts of his situation in an attitude rather redolent of ease than grace. But a handsome young fellow of two-and-twenty may twist his limbs into any posture without much danger of criticism.

And it was a night fitted for the intensest comfort. The wind roared down the chimney; the snow was dashed against the windows in fitful gusts; the old elm which overshadowed the house groaned and creaked as it tossed its huge arms about in the storm. Tibullus himself could not have wished for one more congenial to his notions of enjoyment, as he has recorded them in his immortal couplet. Having thus taken a survey of his new dominion, and imbibed as much caloric as his sitting man was fitted to take in, he naturally began to think about his supper.

"I wonder where that rascal John can be," said he, a little testily; "he has had time enough to go to the Green Dragon and back again fifty times since he went out. But there he comes," he continued, in a milder tone, as he heard a man's step ascending the stairs; "but how happened it that I did not hear him open the hall door?"

The steps ascended the stairs slowly and heavily, and then came "tramp, tramp" along the entry, till they appeared to stop at the door of the room.

"Come in, can't you!" called out the impatient Adjutant (for he was adjutant, as well as captain, as you shall presently hear). "What the devil are you stopping for?"

Then recollecting that John might by possibility come with both hands full (though fortune never does), he jumped up, and incontinently flung the door open to its utmost capacity of swing. And was not John obliged to him for this timely assistance? Why, bless you, he wasn't there! No! Who was there, then? If anybody, it was that personage well known in the best regulated families by the name of Mr. Nobody. In short, there was nobody there.

"Whew!" softly whistled the Captain, "if this is the ghost, he is a heavy-heeled lubber, and it's hard if I can't catch him, and lay him, if not in the Red Sea, at least in some of his own claret."

With these words he took a candle from the table, and a stout regimental cane, such as officers wore in those days at drills and off duty, from behind the door, and proceeded coolly to search the hall and the chambers opening out of it. But it was all to no purpose. The ghost, if it were one, had vanished, and not left so much as a "melodious twang" behind it.

"It's very strange," he soliloquized. "Could it be that villain John, making game of me? If it be—but no, it's impossible!"

And the impossibility was soon put beyond a doubt, by a multitudinous stamping and kicking in the porch, such as indicates a return from a walk through a deep snow-storm, and then by a sudden opening of the hall door, which admitted John, and a furious draught of wind and snow by way of accompaniments. The doors above banged to, the Captain's light blew out, and a fresh stamping, kicking, and shaking bore noisy evidence that the new-comer was none other than John himself in the flesh. Captain Hazlehurst stole back into his room, not caring to acknowledge the extreme civility of his disembodied visitor, in making him a call so very early after his arrival; though, in his secret heart, he could not but think him "most infernally polite." He had scarcely resumed his chair and relighted his candle, when the veritable John made his appearance, his shaggy great-coat white with snow, and making altogether a spectral appearance in very good keeping with his whereabouts.

"Why, John," said his master, "I thought the ghost must have got you, and my supper into the bargain."

"Oh dear, your honor," cried John, setting down his basket, and taking off his great-coat, "please don't talk in that sort of way. The ghosts are made quite mad-like when they hear themselves made fun of. I was almost afraid to come up those creaking stairs. My grandmother once"——

"Never mind your grandmother just now, John,"

interrupted his master, "but let me see what you have got in your basket; for I am hungry enough to eat a ghost myself, if it should appear in the shape of a boiled scrag of mutton, like the one at Oxford, which was laid by eating him with mashed turnips and melted butter."

John groaned in spirit at this blasphemy against the powers of the air, as a Methodist may do when some unlucky scapegrace raps out an oath in a stage-coach. However, he proceeded to lay a snowy napkin over the table, and then to produce from his basket a cold chicken, some slices of ham, and bread and butter and cheese, which he duly disposed upon the board. From a yet lower deep he evoked a string of sausages and a dozen potatoes in the prime of their age. With a precision, which showed him to be an old campaigner, he next deposited the potatoes in the ashes upon the hearth, and taking down a small saucepan from the closet, began to fry the sausages, which soon sent up an aromatic perfume, that might well summon to the presence any spirit yet in the body, whatever its effect might be on one that had shuffled off his mortal coil. When these conjurations were over, he deposited the result with the other comestibles upon the table, and then intimated to his master that there was nothing to wait for.

While the young soldier was carrying the war with spirit into the enemy's country, his faithful squire was not idle in his yet unfinished vocation. He took down a silver tankard, with a heavy lid falling back on its hinges upon the solid handle, and slicing the lemons, and heating the water, and mixing the sugar, and pouring (I grieve to say) the rum, he compounded that insidious concoction with which our sires welcomed the noon, bade farewell to the departing sun, and chased the shades of night. When the ingredients were duly mixed, and the whole made "slab and good," he set it down upon the glowing coals, to acquire a new fire from without to reinforce that within.

His supper ended, and his libation poured, Hazlehurst prepared for bed. He could not help revolving the sounds he had heard over in his mind, and he was fully of the opinion that there was some trick designed him by his comrades or some waggish rebels. He thought it was entirely contrary to the etiquette of the spirit-land for its accredited envoys to go creaking about in clouted, hob-nailed shoes, like a live ploughman. "Gliding," "skimming," "floating," "sailing," he well knew to be the appropriate mode of ghostly locomotion, but as to stamping and dumping, he believed them to be unworthy of any goblin of good breeding and a liberal education. So he was resolved to be upon his guard. John lingered about his master's toilet as long as he could, and seemed loath to depart.

"And so your honor doesn't believe there is any ghost at all?" he suggested.

"Ghost!" his master responded, as he untied his right garter, "I believe there's no ghost but has a head to be broken, and a—hinder man to be kicked; and so I advise all such gentry to keep out of my reach!"

"Oh, Lord! I wish your honor wouldn't talk in that sort of way. My grandmother"——

"Plague take your grandmother," cried the Captain peevishly, slipping his left leg out of his scarlet unmentionables (they called them breeches in those days), "you are half a granny yourself. I tell you no ghost will dare to come within the reach of these magic circles"—pointing as he spoke to the muzzles of his pistols; "if they do, they'll find that there is a spell in them that will soon send them packing to the Red Sea."

He spoke thus in a raised tone of voice, and then cocked and uncocked his pistols, that his words and their "strange quick jar" might fall upon the ears of the walls, if, peradventure, as often happens, they were provided with them.

"But, Lord bless you! what good will they do, sir?" persisted John. "I heard of a ghost once that caught a brace of bullets in his hand, and flung them back in the gentleman's face that fired them at him."

"Then, I shall save my lead, at any rate," rejoined the Captain, laughing; "but to bed with you, for I am tired and sleepy." With these words he turned into bed, and the unlucky John, after replenishing the fire, and clearing away the things, was fain to do likewise.

But though Captain Hazlehurst pretended to be asleep, he was never more broad awake in his life. He lay for a good while watching the flickering phantoms which danced in the light of the wood fire upon the panels of his chamber. And then he thought a multitude of thoughts, for there are no such promoters of thought as night and watchfulness. The steps which he had heard in the evening certainly suggested some of his meditations; but he was not superstitious, and believed they appertained to some being of flesh and blood, whom it was his business not to be afraid of. As he had seen the door carefully bolted, and had, beside, double-locked it and put the key under his pillow, he felt tolerably secure from any visitants, other than such as might make their entrance through the keyhole, without some sufficient warning of their approach. These thoughts, then, soon vanished from his mind, and his imagination was soon a thousand leagues away, disporting itself in the glades of the park of his ancestors, watching the deer in the fern, the swans on the stream, or the whirring coveys as they rose from the cover. There he saw himself, and perhaps a fairer form or two, wandering through its paths, or sitting at the foot of its old trees, in the light of that farewell sun which ever sheds a Claude-like glow around our last day at home, when we live it over again in other days and distant climes.

And, perhaps, the scene changed to his ancestral hall, and it was evening, and the lights shone bright upon his father's erect form and thoughtful face, upon his mother's placid brow and calm smile, upon the manly figures of his brothers, and the graceful shapes of his sisters, as he saw them all on the night before his departure for America. And there were those other forms, too, that had been with him in the park (who were not exactly sisters, but who would have been almost as much missed from the dream-circle as they); they were there, too, and he was leading down with them the contra-dance (for, alas! the waltz, and even the quadrille, then were not), with interludes in the intervals of the dance, which are very well to dream about, but which it would be a breach of the confidence reposed in me to reveal. And then he thought, too, of the charming, the perplexing Clara Forrester, his latest flame (for I grieve to say that my hero was un peu volage), who had made more of an impression upon him than he cared to admit, even to himself, was within the power of a provincial beauty. His visions, however, grew more and more indistinct, and, like many a sleepless lover before him, he was soon sound asleep.

He had not been long asleep when he was aroused by a hurried shake, and a gasping entreaty to awake. He instinctively seized his pistols, and was near putting them to their natural uses without further inquiry, when he was stopped by the voice of John.

"Don't fire, Captain—don't fire, your honor. It's the ghost—the ghost!"

"D—n the ghost!" exclaimed the Captain, provoked, as gentlemen are apt to be, at being waked out of their first sleep, "I've a great mind to make a ghost of you, you blockhead."

"But don't you hear him, your honor?" cried John, in an agony of terror, "don't you hear him walking about over our heads, as if"——

"Hold your tongue, can't you, and let me listen," said his master, whose attention was thoroughly aroused by this intimation of the character of the ghostly visitation. He listened, and heard the same heavy tread, stepping backward and forward, with slow and measured step, in the chamber directly over his head.

"Give me my cloak, you villain," exclaimed Hazlehurst, as he leaped out of bed and ensconced his feet in his slippers, "and light the candle and come along with me."

"And where are you going, sir?" inquired John, with woe-begone face and chattering jaws.

"Going?" was the reply. "Why to see who it is that is making that infernal noise upstairs, and make him choose some other place for his promenade."

"Oh, Lord! your honor, pray don't—pray don't! perhaps he'll fly away with the side of the house if we provoke him."

"Never mind," replied the Captain coolly, "the house don't belong to me. But make haste, and come along."

"Oh! but I am afraid to go, indeed I am! Pray, don't go, sir, for God's sake! I shall die if I go, indeed I shall."

"Then stay, and be"—blessed, the Captain would probably have said, as he snatched the candle which John had just lighted out of his hand, had he not interrupted him to say that if he were resolved to go, he would go with him, as he was a good deal more afraid to be left alone.

"Come along, then," said the Captain, as he led the way, a pistol in one hand and his sword in the other, followed by John with the candle up the creaking staircase.

Reader, was it ever thy hap to be awakened in the dead of the night by a mysterious noise in the kitchen? and, urged by the instances of thy wife or sister, hast thou descended, poker-armed, to the eerie spot? I doubt not thou art a valiant man, a proper fellow of thy hand, but tell me true (for doth not an author stand to his reader in the relation of a father confessor? Fear not that I shall betray the secrets of the confessional!), did not thy manly heart go pit-a-pat as thou approachedst the fatal door and puttedst thy hand upon the lock, the turning of which might reveal to thy sight a ferocious band of robbers, whiskered to the eyes and armed to the teeth? And didst thou not wish in thy secret soul that thy desire to appear a man of prowess in the eyes of thy womankind had suffered thee to lie quietly, with thy head covered in the bed-clothes, saying unto thyself, "Lo! is it not the wind?" And when, on opening the door with a desperate thrust, thou hast discovered a whiskered robber, indeed, and one well-armed, but of the feline, not felon, race, with her head stuck in the cream-jug, its milky whiteness on her sable fur testifying to her crime, and a heap of upturned trays bearing evidence to her desperation, didst thou not feel thy bosom's lord sit lightly on his throne, and didst thou not receive the gratulations of thy fair instigators, and sip thy creamless coffee the next morning, with more contentment than if thou hadst sacrificed to thy insulted household gods a hecatomb of burglarious varlets? If such has ever been a part of thy experience, thou canst appreciate the sensations of master and man as they ascended with noiseless step the stairs which led to the next floor.

Pardon this digression, dear reader. Your confessions in the premises shall be sacredly kept secret. But it was necessary for the due preservation of the unities (for which I am an Aristotelian stickler), that my characters should have time to get upstairs. As they approached the door the steps ceased suddenly, as if the owner of them had paused to listen. Who could he be? It clearly could not be the cat. For, first, they had no cat; and, secondly, no cat could have made such a fearful tramping, unless, indeed, it had been the prime minister of the Marquis of Carabas, the redoubtable Puss in Boots himself.

I have the greatest tenderness for my hero's reputation, but my duty as a faithful historian obliges me to say that there was the slightest possible nervous contraction of his left arm as he seized the lock of the door, to throw it open, having slipped his sword under his arm to enable him to do it. He had led his company up Bunker's Hill without flinching, to be sure, but this was an entirely different case. There is a wide range allowable to tastes in the matter of throat-cutting, as well as in the rest of the fine arts. A man may be ready enough to submit to this elegant depletion on a field of battle, with all the enlivening concomitants of such a scene, who might reasonably object to the operation at the top of an old house, in the middle of the night.

However this might be, he flung open the door to its utmost extent, at the same moment recovering his sword and presenting his pistol. He was prepared for the worst, and resolved to encounter the enemy in whatever shape he might appear. He presented a figure at once civil and military; his night-cap, and night-gown fluttering under his cloak, fairly representing the toga, while the "sword and pistol, which did come at his command," as at that of the celebrated Billy Taylor, might well stand for the arma,—for making which last yield to the first, Tully was so well quizzed by the Edinburgh Reviewers of his day. There he stood, ready to kill, slay, and destroy any and every antagonist, however formidable. And for whom was all this energy so well got up? Who was the object upon whom this well-cooked wrath was to be bestowed? Bless you, nothing at all! The very identical Mr. Nobody who had walked up stairs early in the evening, and stopped at the door below on his way up! There was no sign of any mortal creature near!

"The devil!" exclaimed the Captain, as he lowered the point of his sword and the muzzle of his pistol, and drew a long breath.

"Lord! sir, don't mention him, or perhaps he'll come back again," ejaculated the trembling John, who was peeping, with a foolish face of fear, over his master's shoulder.

"It is very strange!" monologized that gentleman. "What can be the meaning of it?" And stepping gently into the room he examined it and its closets with all care, but without any clue to the mystery.

But just as he had completed his search, probing the darker recesses with his sword, "and wounding several shutters and some boards," without any satisfactory result, his attention was arrested by a tremendous crash in the room below. One leap brought him to the door of the room, two more to the head of the stairs, and a hop, skip, and jump in addition, to the door of his own chamber. And there he saw a scene of confusion which might well have roused the ire of Moses, the meekest, or of Job, the most patient, of men. The bed-clothes were stripped off the bed, and coiled up on the floor like a spectral boa constrictor. The andirons lay lovingly together on the top of the deserted bed. The tongs bestrode, like a Colossus, the dressing-case on the chest of drawers under the glass, while the shovel seemed to regard its old companion's exploit with a chuckling laugh of satisfaction, from the easy-chair in the corner of the room. And to complete the scene, the table in the centre of the room was overturned, and, with all its miscellaneous contents of books, glasses and etceteras, lay in one wide heap of ruin upon the floor.

All this was not at first visible, as the fire was almost out, and panting John toiled after his master, if not in vain, at least so slowly as to put him entirely out of patience. But when the candle came, and the chaos was revealed, who shall paint the rage of the master or the dismay of the man? "The devil!" exclaimed the choleric Captain, with added emphasis, and I am afraid I must allow that he made use of other expletives of more significance and weight, as he danced about the apartment in a most heroic passion. For it is a melancholy fact that the British armies did "swear terribly" in America in Captain Hazlehurst's day, even as they did "in Flanders" in that of Captain Shandy. If the recording angel undertook to write down all the oaths the gallant Captain uttered, he must have gone nigh to have written up his wings; and if, in consideration of the provocation, he should have attempted to drop a tear upon every one of them, to blot it out forever, he must have infallibly cried his eyes out. Whatever may have been the proceedings in Heaven's chancery, I am afraid that just where he was, Captain Hazlehurst would have maintained that he felt the better for the effort.

But, be that as it may, as soon as his first transports of anger and amazement were over, the Captain made a minute examination of the chamber and the house, but without finding any trace of the perpetrator of these deeds. He was all the more convinced that he was made the victim of a practical joke, as he could not believe such pranks worthy the gravity of disembodied, or the dignity of evil spirits; but he could not refuse to allow that the joke, if it were one, was well done. Poor John, on the other hand, whose notions of the moral or the social proprieties of the inhabitants of a world he knew very little about, were much less exalted than his master's, laid the whole blame upon their airy shoulders. It was as much as he could do to command himself sufficiently, after the Captain had finished his researches, to put the room to rights again, fearing lest some spectral hand should resent his interference with the admired disorder it had created. But no such displeasure was manifested, and after the bed had been readjusted, the Captain retired to it again, marvelling much at the events of the night. He lay long awake pondering upon them, and neither he nor his man fell asleep till the neighboring clock had told that the small hours were fast growing into the larger ones. It is no wonder, then, that they overslept themselves, and that, when he awoke, his curiosity as to his adventures of the night should be merged for the moment in his fears of being late at the morning parade. His hurry would allow no time for remark from his attendant, whose mind was full of nothing else, while the business of the toilet was proceeding. Captain Hazlehurst, however, found time to enjoin it upon John, as he was giving the last sprinkle of powder to his plastered and pigtailed head, to say nothing about the night's adventures, as he valued his favor, till he had his permission. His determination was, he said, to sift the matter thoroughly, and, in the mean time, he wished no reports to be spread of what had happened, as it might interfere with his investigation. With these injunctions he left the mortified John in great vexation, as he had been reckoning on the pleasures of telling the ghost story as his only compensation for his fright, and hurried with all the speed he could command to the parade-ground on the Common.

————

CHAPTER II.

YOU were late at parade this morning, Captain Hazlehurst," said Lord Percy to his young adjutant, as he called for the orders of the day, immediately after breakfast.

"I have no excuse to offer, my lord," was the deferential reply, "excepting my removal to new quarters at the other extremity of the town; for I am afraid that my having overslept myself would be regarded by your lordship as rather an aggravation than a palliation of my dilatoriness."

"To be sure, to be sure," answered his lordship, who was somewhat of a martinet, "but be more careful in future; that's all. But where are your new quarters, Hazlehurst?" he continued, his disciplinarian gravity relaxing into a friendly smile, for Hazlehurst stood high in his good graces.

"At Mr. Vaughan's house, at the North End, my lord," responded the Captain.

"What, the haunted house!" exclaimed Lord Percy, laughing, "why, you are a bolder fellow than I took you for, my lad. I hope the ghost did the honors of his mansion like a gentleman, and treated you with becoming hospitality."

"I had no reason to complain, my lord," was the guarded response.

"I trust that your oversleeping yourself this morning had nothing to do with any nocturnal merry-making with any honest fellow of the last generation, or flirtation with any of the rebel grandmothers, who look so temptingly down upon us from some of these old picture-frames," pointing, as he spoke, to some lovely forms with which the pencil of Blackburn had decorated the walls of his parlor.

"Nothing of the sort, I assure you, my lord," replied Hazlehurst, "no boon companions and no ladye love, whether in the body or out of the body, had any thing to do with my tardiness this morning, which I shall take care shall not occur again."

"Right, right," said the son of "Duke Smithson of Northumberland." "I have every reason to be satisfied with you in every respect. But, by the way, how is Miss Forrester?" he proceeded, for his lordship had a discursiveness of discourse, and a talent for knowing all the details of the garrison gossip, which vindicated his hereditary claim to cousinship with royalty.

"She was well, my lord," answered Hazlehurst, "when I had the honor of seeing her last. But that was not yesterday, nor the day before."

"Lovers' quarrels—lovers' quarrels," said his lordship, laughingly; then added, more seriously, "but, my dear Hazlehurst, pardon me if I ask whether you have considered what may be Sir Ralph and Lady

Hazlehurst's opinion of a New England daughter-in-law, should you be disposed to present them with one?"

"I have not given the subject any consideration at all, my lord," replied Hazlehurst quickly, "because I have no intention of subjecting them to any such trial at present. I beg that your lordship will give no credit to the talk of the mess-table or of the assembly-room on such subjects, at least where I am concerned. My sword is my bride till this war is over, and I shall suffer no rivals in my affections, of flesh and blood."

"Bravo! bravo! Hazlehurst," answered Lord Percy; "these be brave words. Only I hope that you will not have to serve for your bride of steel as long as Jacob did for Laban's daughter. Excuse my caution, which I am glad to know is not wanted. But I advise you to do as I used to do when I was addicted to falling in love."

"How was that, my lord?"

"Always to take care to be in love with two or three at the same time. You will find it an excellent rule, I assure you."

Hazlehurst joined cordially in the laugh with which the stout earl uttered this apothegm, and assured his noble commander that he would not neglect his advice.

"Here is your orderly-book," added his lordship, handing it to him; "I take it for granted we shall meet at the assembly to-night, where I trust I shall see you reduce my instructions to practice."

"Never fear, my lord, but you will find me an apt scholar in love as well as in war. I only wish I could hope to rival your lordship in either service."

To this his lordship replied only by a good-natured nod, which the adjutant understood to be his signal to take his leave, which he accordingly made haste to do.

"Confound that Clara Forrester," soliloquized Captain Hazlehurst, as he walked slowly along Hanover Street, after he had discharged his regimental duties, "what is there about her that plays the devil with me, in a way that no other woman ever did before? It can't be her beauty or her accomplishments, for I have seen her superiors in both. I don't know though, on the whole, as to her beauty," he said to himself, in a tone of more deliberation. "It's a peculiar style, to be sure, but she's devilish handsome, there is no doubt about that. And as to her accomplishments, what have they to do with the matter, I should like to know? It must be this cursed siege, which shuts us all up so close together. Well, I have not been to see her for these three days, and I sha'n't be in a hurry to call on her, after her flirtation with that puppy Bellassis, I can tell her. She shall see that I am not dependent upon her, that I'm resolved upon."

As the gallant Captain had just made this valiant resolution, he found himself opposite the house of the Hon. James Forrester, one of his Majesty's council, &c., &c. This house was situated in Hanover Street, just before you come to the turning into Duke Street, in which were Hazlehurst's quarters. For in those days you must know that the North End was (pardon the Hibernianism, my maternal grandfather was an Irishman) the West End of the town. There did the great body of the colonial court and aristocracy reside. Far be it from me to insinuate that this circumstance of juxtaposition was any element in the determination of the Captain to take up his new quarters. But so it was. And as he accidentally raised his eyes to the window of Mr. Forrester's house, just as he was internally ejaculating the doughty resolution just recited, he caught a glimpse of a pair of sunny eyes smiling upon him from between two flowering shrubs, which stood upon the window seat, and the next minute he was standing in the porch thundering away at the knocker.

People may say what they please about dreary dilapidated houses, haunted by old dead men, but if I had a young son, or nephew, or ward (which, God be praised, I have not), I should warn them to avoid the bright and cheerful homes haunted by young live women. These are the haunted houses to be afraid of. And, no doubt, they would take my advice. At least, I am sure I did whenever my grandfather, or uncle, or aunt gave me any such admonitions, "in my hot youth, when George the Fourth was King." "Never mind the old witches," a gentleman celebrated in civil and military life, of the last generation, used to say, when speaking of the witches of his native town of Salem, "never mind the old witches, it is the young witches that do all the mischief!" And I incline to think that he was more than half right.

I have a great mind to seize upon the opportunity, while my hero is waiting for the knocker to be answered, to give my friendly readers some account of him. I have been waiting for a chance to put in a word on the subject ever since I began. But the tide of events has swept me on with such resistless force that I have not had a moment to take breath. Indeed, my plan is epic. I have plunged in medias res, and it is about time for the hero, sitting over his wine with his mistress, or some Phœnician Amphitryon, to relate his birth and parentage, "his breed, seed, and generation," and all the surprising adventures that had preceded his appearance in their domains. But lest I should find no passage recorded in this true history to that effect, I think I will fill up this pause in the march of the story with the little I know of his previous history. And little enough it is. If any reader asks me for his story, I can only answer in the words of the knife-grinder—

"Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir!"

My hero then, in short, bore the baptismal and patronymic appellations of Charles Hazlehurst. He was the eldest son of a Somersetshire baronet. He was six feet high, with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and a clean leg. I can't tell you the color of his hair, for I never saw it without that powder which has passed away with so many of the virtues and graces of the last age.

"God bless their pigtails, though they're now cut off!"

When to this I add that he had a round, ruddy face, clear blue eyes, and the most perfect of teeth, I trust my readers will take my word for it that he was as dangerous a Cupidon déchainé as ever disguised himself in a red coat and breeches, wore epaulets instead of wings, and used a regimental sword for a bow and arrows. In addition to this you will please to remember that he was but two-and-twenty, which is an essential item in the inventory of his perfections. I am well aware that objection will be made to his claims as a lady-killer, on the score of his rosy cheeks and blue eyes. But you should recollect, my dear madam, that your thin, black-eyed, sinister-looking, "sublime, sallow, Werter-faced men" had not then come into fashion. And so you must excuse the taste of your grandmothers, who thought health and good humor main ingredients in manly beauty. As to the number of times he had been in love, I am unable to say with anything like accuracy, as I have not as yet received returns from all the towns where he went on the recruiting service, or was stationed in garrison, before his regiment was ordered to America. Should they arrive in time, I shall add them in an appendix, reduced to a tabular form for convenience of reference. If there is anything on which I do pride myself, it is the business-like manner in which I do up my work.

So much for love; and now for war. He had "fleshed his maiden-sword,"—figuratively, for he didn't kill anybody,—at the modern Chevy Chase of Lexington,

"Made by the Earl Percy."

He attracted attention by his good conduct on that unlucky occasion, but he chiefly distinguished himself at the battle of Bunker's Hill. On that famous day he led his company up the hill, under the murderous fire of the rebels, twice, his captain having been killed in the first attempt to dislodge the enemy from their entrenchments. As a reward for his gallantry on that occasion, he obtained his captaincy; and, the adjutant of his regiment being killed at the same time, and the number of officers being sadly reduced by the fatal aim of the American marksmen, he was appointed to fill that station also, until other arrangements could be made.

But it would be cruel to keep him waiting on the steps any longer, in one of the coldest days of that bitter winter. However, he felt warm enough, nor did he feel in any violent hurry to have the door opened. Have you no recollection, my reader, of the queer sensation, after you had rung the bell at the door of your particular princess, and when you had a feeling as if you might be left to do something desperate, if you got in, with which you awaited the servant's approach, hardly knowing whether to be glad or sorry to hear that she was not at home? There is nothing like it, unless it be the odd feeling when you have rung the bell at the door of your particular friend, for the purpose of asking him to accompany you to the "tribunal of twelve paces," at daybreak the next morning. But I postpone any further reflections until my chapter on bell-pulls.

After a rather longer interval than was usual in that well regulated household (I once knew a famous man who used to say that he judged of the domestic management of a house by the space which intervened between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the door), the portal was expanded by a particularly ugly negro, whom Hazlehurst did not recollect to have ever seen before about the premises. Upon asking whether Miss Clara were at home, the new porter made an inarticulate sort of sound, which the visitor chose to consider as an affirmative, and walked in without further ceremony. He was left to open the parlor door himself, for the attendant spirit took no further notice of him. He accordingly ushered himself into the comfortable apartment where Miss Forrester sat, diffusing an air of cheerfulness throughout it, even beyond that (at least our adjutant thought so) dispensed by the good logs that blazed upon the hearth. The scarlet curtains, the pleasant window-seats, with their velvet cushions, the plants that were placed upon them to catch a glimpse of the wintry sun, the thick Turkey carpet, and all the appointments of the parlor (for in those days drawing-rooms were not), spoke to the heart that comfort was a word understood in New England at least, if nowhere else beyond the precincts of the fast-anchored isle.

The front windows looked into the street, as my readers may have partly gathered, and those on either side of the fireplace opened upon a thin slice of garden which extended down to the street, and stretched and expanded itself far behind the house, the shrubs and fruit trees all glittering, to the finest ramifications of their smallest twigs, with the snow which had fallen the night before. On one side of the door, opposite the fireplace, was a large mahogany book-case, with glass doors and resplendent brasses, containing the library of Miss Forrester, the books bound uniformly and stamped with her name. There was the pabulum upon which our grandmothers nourished their intellectual natures. Good, hearty food, i' faith! None of your modern kickshaws which the pastry-cooks of the circulating libraries supply to tickle the palate withal, but solid substantial viands, such as good master cook furnishes forth to replenish the heart with its best blood.

There the Spectator sat with his club, in his short face, long wig, rolled stockings and high-cut shoes, over a squat bottle of wine, in the frontispiece of his closely printed twelves. The Tattler, too, was to be seen in his original fine-paper quarto. History, also, there was good store, arid biography, such as those days afforded. And was not Shakspeare there, and Ben Jonson, and Spenser, and Milton? Sir Charles Grandison, too, looked ready to step down and bow over the hand of his fair mistress, so like was the scene to the dear cedar parlor of "the venerable circle." I don't know whether it will do to say it, but so it was, there stood Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews and Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle, as bold as lions, alongside of Tristram Shandy, who did not look the least bit ashamed of himself. My fair readers must excuse my heroine for keeping such rollicking company, for they must remember that she had not the privilege they enjoy of the pious conversation of Sir Lytton Bulwer (or Sir Edward Lytton, or whatever title please his ear), or of Monsieur Victor Hugo, or of the epicene George Sand. She had no choice, poor thing; and, upon my word, I never could perceive that she was a jot the worse for their society. In the other corner of the room, answering to that filled up by the book-case, was what was in those days termed a buffet, a closet without doors, with its shelves loaded with the curious old plate, and rare glass and China, which had been accumulating for generations in the family.

Miss Forrester sat upon a curiously carved settee, with devices of flowers and birds in choice mahogany on the back, which looked like one uncommonly broad-bottomed arm-chair, or, by'r lady, like two single chairs rolled into one, cushioned with green damask, and drawn up to the table in the centre of the room, and inclining in an angle of—I am not mathematician enough to tell the exact number of degrees, say forty-five—to the fire. Her work-basket was by her side, which she graciously removed to the table, and made room on the settee for Captain Hazlehurst, when he had made his advancing bow,—a very different thing, let me tell you, from the shrug and jerk, performed chiefly by the antipodes of the head, with which your modern exquisite "shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod," when he enters a room. And when they were sitting there side by side, I protest, I don't believe that there was a handsomer couple in all his Majesty's dominions. Clara Forrester was—but I won't describe her. I never could describe a pretty woman. And, for that matter, who ever could? Suffice it to say, she was a blonde, with a profusion of fair hair, I doubt not, but its color was concealed by that plaguy powder; and yet I can't say the effect was unbecoming to her pure brow, her blooming, downy cheeks, and sweet mouth. And that morning cap had a most coquettish and killing air.

"And then her teeth, and then, oh Heaven! her eye!"

It was as wicked and roguish an eye as you would wish to see on a winter's day looking into yours by the side of a good fire. And then her hand, and her foot, and her shape! But I won't go on. If you can't see her, just as she was sitting there, it's of no use for me to be trying to fit your mind's eye with a pair of spectacles. It's your fault, and not mine, reader, if you don't see her sitting in that old-fashioned room, in the glittering light of that clear winter morning of seventy years ago.

I don't know how it was, but Hazlehurst had not sat by her side a minute, when he felt all the wrath he had been nursing for three days, to keep it warm, oozing out of the palms of his hands, like Acres's courage, and no more recollected Major Bellassis (whom he had just before, in violation of the articles of war, and of the respect due to his superior officer, irreverently styled a puppy) than if there had been no such dashing sprig of nobility in existence.

I might give the details of their conversation; but I don't know that it would be quite fair, as it was communicated to me in confidence. But there was nothing particular, that is, very particular, upon my honor. They talked of the news of the siege, of the advances of the rebels, of the probabilities of repulsing them. And then they diverged to the small talk of the garrison, the rise and fall of the flirtation stocks, and the variations of the match market. Then they talked of the last review, and of the comical figure that Colonel Cobb, the ci-devant jeune homme, cut when he was thrown from his new horse, and could not get up again,—not because he was hurt, but because he was too tightly girt. And the assemblies, too, and the private theatricals, afforded endless topics of mirthful discourse. Though there was not much that was enlivening in the siege itself to those who were shut up in the narrow limits of the beleaguered town, still youth and good spirits would make their way, and find a thousand divertisements for speeding the weary hours. God bless them! what would this working-day world be without youth and good spirits?

"And so I hear," said the fair Clara, at last, when they had pretty well exhausted all the topics which a three days' absence had accumulated, "and so I hear that you have come into our neighborhood. And, pray, how do you like your landlord?"

"My landlord!" exclaimed Hazlehurst in some surprise. "I am as well satisfied with him as a man usually is with himself; for I am the only landlord that I have to my knowledge, unless indeed it be the quartermaster-general."

"Ah, you put it off very well!" persisted Miss Forrester; "but be honest now, has not Captain Honeywood paid his respects to you yet? He is much too fine a gentleman, I am sure, to have neglected it."

"I have not the honor to understand you, Miss Forrester," replied the Captain. "It was never my chance to hear the gallant Captain's name before. Pray, in what service might he be?"

"Oh, in the sea service, you may be sure," answered the lady; "but did you never hear of the noble Captain, who makes continual claim, as papa says" (papa was a lawyer), "to the Vaughan house?"

"Never, upon my honor," protested Hazlehurst. "And I shall feel myself especially obliged if you will introduce me to his acquaintance."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Clara, laughing, "but

I have no objection to talking a little about him behind his back."

"That is better yet," said Hazlehurst. "It is to be hoped then that his character is bad enough to be well talked over."

"Bad enough to gratify your warmest wishes, I assure you. I believe he was as wicked an old villain as you could possibly desire to see," replied Clara.

"Many thanks for the compliment to my taste," answered the Captain, bowing, "but did you ever happen to know this amiable individual?"

"Know him?" cried Clara. "Good Heavens! why, he's been dead these sixty-five years!"

"Bless me!" exclaimed Hazlehurst, "dead sixty-five years, and yet lay claim to a good piece of real estate! What an unconscionable old dog! I only hope his example will not be very extensively followed."

"It is to be hoped not," responded the lady, "but if you really do not know about the claimant to your premises, I will tell you all I know about him, which is little enough."

"You will lay me under everlasting obligations," bowed the Captain, as he inclined his ear to her in mock seriousness.

"Well, then, all I know about him is," resumed Miss Forrester, "that he was a master of a vessel out of this port, some hundred years since, who went to sea, and was gone five or six years without any tidings being heard of him. At last, however, he returned in a ship from Europe, telling that his vessel was lost in the East Indies, and no soul was saved but himself, who was taken up by a Dutch vessel, and, after various adventures, found his way home again. This story would have done very well, had he not soon made a great display of wealth, among other things building the house in which you (and people do say he) now reside. This went on for a few years, and by dint of giving good dinners, going regularly to meeting and Thursday lectures, and being eminently liberal to one or two of the most influential ministers, he was getting to be in very good odor with the Boston public. There were those, to be sure, who still marvelled whence he got his wealth. Some thought it must be witchcraft, but the majority, more charitable, believed it to be only piracy and murder. Their suspicions were confirmed by the occasional moody and depressed turns to which Captain Honeywood was subject. People thought that there was something weighing upon his mind. This, however, did not prevent a young lady of one of the chief families from being willing to marry him, and the ceremony was about to be celebrated with all the pomp which the times permitted, when they were prevented by an untoward occurrence. It so happened that the very night before the marriage was to take place, a sloop of war came into the harbor, with orders to arrest our amiable friend, and carry him to England for trial, on a charge of murder and piracy. It seems that a sailor had been arrested for a recent impropriety of this sort, who had purchased his own pardon by revelations touching our valuable townsman. The Captain of the sloop-of-war came up to the Province House, and communicated his orders to Governor Phipps, who, with the sheriff and other officials, proceeded to effect the arrest. But on arriving at the scene where it was to be completed, they found themselves too late. The bird was flown. They searched the house and the neighborhood, and offered large rewards, but all was in vain. The Captain was never heard of again. The disaffected in the colony hinted that notice was given to Honeywood, by persons in authority, of the design to take him, in time to favor his escape. Others, and this was the opinion of no small number, believed that the devil had for once helped a friend upon a pinch, and spirited him away. Some supposed that he had concealed himself in some secret place designed for this emergency in his house, and had there starved to death. At any rate, he was heard of no more. In due time sentence of outlawry was passed upon him, and his house, with his other property, declared forfeited to the crown. When it was sold, and the purchaser took possession of his estate, it was found to be more than the crown of England could do to give him a quiet possession. The pranks that were played, the noises that were heard, the sights that were seen, among them the apparition of the very Captain himself, are not to be told. The intruder was soon forced to quit the premises. All who subsequently ventured to occupy the house were ejected in a like summary manner. For years it stood untenanted. Property in the street fell in value, and people were afraid to pass through it after nightfall. After many years had elapsed, an elderly man arrived from England, with the avowed intention of spending the rest of his days here. He could not be suited to a house to his mind, and at length pitched upon this deserted one. He bought it at a low price, and, in spite of its ill name, fitted it up for his residence, and there spent the remainder of his days. He shook his head when questioned as to the claims of its former possessor, and gave people to understand that he could tell much if he chose. So the ill-repute of the mansion continued unimpaired. It was a singular fact that he found the lady of the love of the former inhabitant still unmarried, and by some strange coincidence they married each other, and lived together in as much comfort as the ghost of his predecessor would allow. That is his portrait that you may have seen in the chamber over the right-hand parlor"——

"And who," interrupted Hazlehurst, "is the young lady in the same room?"

"That," replied Clara, "is the portrait of his granddaughter, the only child of his only daughter, the child of his old age,—my dear friend Fanny Vaughan. For you must know that after his death his heiress married Colonel Vaughan, and this is the way in which the house came into the Vaughan family."

"And, pray," inquired the Captain, "did this inexorable claimant continue to keep up his claim to his property under the Vaughan dynasty?"

"It is so asserted and believed by the common people," said Clara, laughing; "it would be a pity to spoil so good a story, and any disclaimers on the part of the reigning family have been always received with a proper degree of incredulity. But here ends my story, and I must say that I think it a passably good one."

As she ceased speaking, she stretched out her hand to the bell-pull and gave it a gentle pressure. Hazlehurst thanked her gayly for her narrative, which he protested was one of the best authenticated ghost stories he had ever heard. As he was speaking, the same negro who had opened the door for him entered with a salver of wine and cake.

"Where is James?" inquired Miss Forrester, with an air of the slightest possible vexation. The servant replied by a succession of grotesque gestures, and some sounds which seemed to be unintelligible gibberish to Hazlehurst.

"Very well," said the young mistress, and dismissed the uncouth attendant.

"You seem to have a new page of honor," said Hazlehurst, smiling. "I do not think I have ever seen this groom of the chambers before."

"No," replied Clara, a little confused at the exposure of this unseemly appendage to her well-appointed household, "I dare say you have not. He never before made his appearance in the parlor when any one was here. I suppose James was sent out by my father. He was a servant of a family that we knew well, and that left the town at the latest allowable instant, in such haste as to leave this faithful follower behind, who happened to be out of the way at the moment. He was the most devoted creature, but is a little unsettled in his intellects, in consequence of a blow upon the head received in defending his master from an attack from some street ruffians late at night. My father found poor Peter in great distress, and took him home out of humanity to himself and friendship to his master. He has been even stranger than usual since he has been with us, in consequence of missing his old friends, but we make him as comfortable as we can."

"I am sure that it is highly to your honor and that of your father," said Hazlehurst, with feeling; "but I see that it is about time for me to repair to the mess-room, if I have any regard for my dinner. But before I go," he continued, rising as he spoke, "will you permit me to ask the honor of Miss Forrester's hand at the assembly this evening?"

The lady smiled an assent, and the young officer took his leave cheerily, and walked up the street towards the Green Dragon with a much better opinion of human nature in general, and of female nature in particular, than he had entertained when he walked down it.

On arriving at the mess-room, he found himself very closely examined as to his experiences of the night before, especially by those officers who had been his predecessors in his quarters. He parried their importunities, however, as adroitly as he could, and kept his own counsel most religiously. He slipped away as soon as he could after the cloth was removed, and hastened home to dream over his morning with the gentle Clara. He found every thing in proper order, and John awaiting his commands. On interrogation, that worthy asseverated that he had stoutly denied that anything unusual had happened. "He hoped he had not been an officer's servant so long without knowing how to tell a lie upon occasion."

"Very well, John," said the Captain, "I don't believe the truth will suffer in your hands. So you may now go where you please, only be here at six o'clock to dress my hair."

John departed, and his master sat down to think over the doings and sayings of the morning. He could not but examine the portrait of the former inhabitant of the apartment, and think of the strange thoughts that must have haunted him while he sat in that place; and at the picture of his lovely grandchild, and compare her charms with those of her lovely friend,—I need scarcely say to whose advantage. The adventures of the preceding night troubled him not; he was haunted by another and more dangerous phantom in that solitary chamber.

At length he was aroused from his revery by a knock at the door, which, when opened, revealed his orderly-sergeant, whom he had directed to come to him at that hour, with the best padlock he could find in Boston, and all its appliances. The man had been a blacksmith, and he soon affixed it with its staple to the door of the room and departed.

"If the ghost come to-night, while I am gone," said Hazlehurst to himself, "he shall not come in at the door if I can help it!"

When John had returned, and the toilet was finished, Captain Hazlehurst proceeded to set forth for Concert Hall, the yet surviving scene of many a pre-revolutionary festivity. He dismissed John with instructions to meet him at the Hall at twelve o'clock. As he was leaving the room, his pocket struck against the side of the door.

"There's no occasion for carrying my orderly-book with me, that I know of," said he, carelessly, to himself, and, as he spoke, threw it on the table in the centre of the room. He then locked and double-locked the door, and to make assurance doubly sure, applied the padlock, and, with both keys in his pocket, walked cheerily up the street to the scene of action.

I wish I could indulge my dear readers with a description of that brilliant assembly, but the inexorable limits of my chapter (which I have already overstepped) forbid. You would not have supposed that the scene of that bright and gay festival was in a besieged and straitened town. One of the finest bands in the British service discoursed its sweetest music to inspire the dance. The Hall was admirably lighted, and decorated with flags and other loyal insignia. The Governor, the General commanding the troops, with their brilliant staffs, the officers of the various regiments, comprising many of the younger branches of the best families of England, the principal civil functionaries, and the loyal gentlemen of the town, all in the rich costume of the days when a gentleman was known by his dress, were present. And there, too, were the dashing wives of the married officers, and the flower of the provincial beauty that still remained loyal to its king. The appointments of the supper, the plate-chests of the several regimental messes being laid under contribution for the purpose, were of the completest description, and the table was covered with viands and wines which showed that the sea was yet open to the beleaguered army. All was joy and mirth. Every one seemed determined to shake off whatever of despondency the darkening prospects of the siege might urge upon their hearts, and to be happy for at least one night. Ah! What a glancing of scarlet coats and of gold lace! What a rustling of damasks and brocades was there! But of all the brilliant assemblage, I will maintain it à l'outrance, there was none that surpassed in beauty or in grace my Clara Forrester and her Charles Hazlehurst. It was a blessing to see them glide down the dance, and to look upon their beaming eyes. Lord Percy shook his head, when he saw how his young favorite had taken his advice, and smiled inwardly as he watched them without looking at them. But then it was no concern of his. He had discharged his duty in putting Hazlehurst on his guard. He must now take his own course, on his own responsibility.

But such evenings (alas! that it should be so!) cannot last forever. At a late hour the signal for breaking up was given, and the party dispersed, "shut up in measureless content." Hazlehurst handed Clara into her carriage, and, I am afraid, found it necessary, as it was a slippery night, to hold her hand rather closely as he performed this duty. I recollect I used sometimes to find it unavoidable. However, she drove off, and Hazlehurst, followed by John, walked down Hanover Street to his quarters. So absorbed was he in his meditations upon the hours just fled, that he thought of neither ghost nor goblin till he found himself at the door of his room. Reminded by the sight of his padlock of the reason of its employment, he said, laughingly, "I flatter myself that I have been rather more than a match for his ghostship to-night! But we shall see."

With these words he unlocked his various fastenings, and, followed by John, made his way into the apartment. A few embers yet glimmered upon the hearth, and John soon lighted the candles. Hazlehurst cast his eyes around the room. Everything was in its proper place and order. He chuckled inwardly at the success of his plan, and rubbed his hands with internal satisfaction. Everything was right, no intruder had been there. He glanced at the table in the centre of the room. He started forward, and gazed upon it yet more earnestly. He stood silent, and motionless with astonishment. BY HEAVEN, THE ORDERLY-BOOK WAS GONE!

————

CHAPTER III.

THE orderly-book was gone! Death and furies! What was to be done now? The pranks of the night before, though, like most practical jokes, more amusing to their perpetrators than to their victims, seemed to have been but the prologue to a more serious jest,—one of those jests which are paradoxically but truly called "no joke." As long as the ghost was content to confine the overflowings of his animal spirits to new combinations of the tables and chairs, to a novel arrangement of the bed-clothes, or to a summary divorce of the shovel and tongs, his effervescences, if not absolutely agreeable, were at least not positively mischievous. But to meddle with what was none of his business, but, on the contrary, with what was emphatically the business of his Majesty's —th regiment, was an entirely different affair. The ghost could not be a loyal ghost, that was plainly to be seen. Old Honeywood, to be sure, had no particular reason to love a government that intended promoting him to the yard-arm, if it could have laid hold of him; but it was not handsome in him to resort to such a pitiful revenge as this, particularly in his own house. It was hardly fair to visit the sins of Queen Anne's Lords of the Admiralty upon an unoffending captain and adjutant in the army of King George.

It is plain that he was a rebel at his heart, and, had he been in the flesh, would have waged war in the name of the Colonies against his liege sovereign, with as much gusto as he did against mankind in general on his own account, especially if there happened to be any rich London or Bristol ships within range of his guns. He had a natural taste for such pursuits: his only mistake lay in interfering as an amateur in what was strictly a professional monopoly. There is great virtue in a commission or letter-of-marque. A piece of sheepskin and a pair of epaulets make all the difference in the world in the moral qualities of actions. In many cases it makes all the difference between a hempen cord and a red ribbon round a man's neck. Many a hero has gone out of the world in the embrace of a halter, his achievements only recorded in the Newgate Calendar, who, had his noun substantive been only qualified by an adjective or two, would have received "the Senate's thanks," have glittered with medals and orders, and been commemorated by world-famous historians and poets. Such is luck! But it is none of my business to moralize in this way. All I have to do is to relate this true passage of history with the most absolute accuracy of detail Revenons à nos moutons. Let us to our muttons again.

While we have been indulging in these profitable reflections, our hero has been through a variety of evolutions. First he stood aghast, as if, instead of gazing upon nothing at all, his sight had been blasted by some particularly ill-favored apparition. This was the only idea that his look and gesture communicated to his trusty squire, who turned his eyes with difficulty in the direction of his master's in the confident expectation of being rewarded by the vision of a raw-head and bloody-bones at the very least. Disappointed, however, of any such pleasing spectacle, he was by no means so ill informed in the very rudiments of demonology, as not to know that it did not necessarily follow, because he could discern nothing beyond the common, that his master was equally unfortunate.

"What is it, sir? Where is it, sir?" inquired John, in a voice of hollow emotion.

"The orderly-book, you scoundrel! the orderly-book!" responded the Captain, in a low, concentrated tone.

"The orderly-book, your Honor!" returned John. "Well, sir, I never heard of the ghost of a book walking before! What does it look like, sir?"

It is evident that John was not a reading man (the march of mind had not then been taken up, nor had the schoolmaster gone abroad), or he would have known that nothing is more common than for the ghost of a book to walk. Indeed, what is a book but the ghost of the man that writes it? Oh, blessed necromancy of reading, mightier than that of the Governor of Glubdubdrib, or the Island of Enchanters, once visited by that only truthful traveller, Lemuel Gulliver! For whereas his could only command the departed for the space of twenty-four hours, thine can summon them to the presence at all seasons and for any time. But John did not know this, and so he asked what the ghost of the orderly-book looked like.

"Look like, you villain!" somewhat testily answered Hazlehurst. "It looks like nothing at all. It's gone, you dog!"

"Gone already, sir!" exclaimed the astonished John. "And where was it, sir?"

"Exactly in the middle of the table there, with its right cover leaning against the candlestick, its hinder end cocked up upon the inkstand."

"Bless my soul!" shuddered John at this picturesque description. "And how long ago is it since your Honor saw it last?"

"Just as I was going to the assembly this evening," replied his master.

"Lord! is that all?" exclaimed the man, much relieved. "I thought your Honor had just seen it, when I could see nothing at all."

"Confound your nonsense!" returned the Captain sharply. "I wish to God that I had seen it! What under Heaven I am to say about it to Lord Percy to-morrow, God knows! But light all the candles in the room, and let us have a thorough search for it, though it is not likely that it is here."

This foreboding was but too true. His prophetic heart had told him an ower true tale. They looked above, around, and underneath. They crawled over the floor on their hands and knees, and, like the serpent of old, "upon their belly did they go" under the bed. They looked into every drawer, and inspected the most impossible places. But it was all in vain. The mystic volume was not to be found in the wood-box, nor did it drop from the inverted jack-boots. The window-seats were ignorant of its whereabouts, and the window-curtains wotted not of its presence. The cooking utensils knew not of it, and their basket and their store was not blessed with its possession. Where the devil could it be? It seemed as if the devil only could tell.

There was no sign of any other disturbance in their premises. This made the matter look the more mysterious. It was a much more awful affair than if the disappearance of the book had been accompanied by any of the gambols and funniments of the night before. That looked like fun: this looked like earnest. The orderly-book contained information relating to the strength and state of the royal forces, which it was of the last importance should not fall into the hands of the rebels. And beside this there were loose papers, given to our hero by Lord Percy to be copied, as he acted in some sort as his private secretary as well as adjutant, which were of a still more secret nature; such, for example, as his lordship's reply to the requisition of the commander-in-chief for the opinions of his principal officers as to the state of affairs in the town, and the best course to be pursued. This, and other documents, involved an amount of intelligence as to facts and opinions, which might be of infinite mischief if they fell into the enemy's hands. Hazlehurst knew too well what a mass of disaffection existed in the town, not to feel that the worst was but too probable.

After every place, probable and improbable, had been ransacked, and to no purpose, the search was abandoned for the night. The room was secured as far as locks and bolts were concerned, though they seemed to be of but little moment in this chamber of bedevilment, and Captain Hazlehurst retired moodily to bed to seek for such rest as he could find. It was an uncomfortable night, to be sure; not from any renewal of the disturbances of the night before, for all was quiet, but from his harassing thoughts and internal vexation. His sleep was broken by visions of his interview with his commander, in which he should communicate this provoking occurrence. Words of censure and reprimand rung in his ears. He even saw himself, in the phantasmagoria of his waking dreams, standing without his sword before a court-martial detailed to try him for neglect of duty. In the confusion of his thoughts he could not very accurately determine what would be considered the exact measure of his military offence; but he could not help feeling that it would be no advantage to him in his professional career, even in the most favorable event. He cursed the evil hour in which he sought these unlucky quarters, and heartily wished them, and everything connected with them, at the devil. He perplexed his thoughts in vain with conjectures as to the motives and the method of the trick that had been played him; and though he resolved not to rest until he had plucked out the heart of the mystery, still he feared that the injury to the service and to his own prospects would be completed before he could accomplish his purpose. It was a miserable business altogether. If he escaped with a reprimand from headquarters, and with the dread laugh of the mess-table, he would be a lucky fellow.

I have often wondered how much the beaming eyes and laughing mouth of Clara Forrester mingled in these visions of the night. I am afraid that all the little loves by whom he had been escorted down Hanover Street, after he had put Miss Forrester into the carriage, were sent to the right about by the first tempest of his astonishment and vexation. But they are volatile creatures, and, though easily brushed aside for a moment, soon return again to the charge. Like flies, it is easy enough to drive them away; but, before you can congratulate yourself on being rid of them, back they are again. There is one villain, for example, that has been buzzing about me all the time I have been writing, and evidently takes an intelligent pleasure in tormenting me. "Get out, you scoundrel!" There he stands on my paper, rubbing his hands, and shaking his head, in perfect diabolic glee at his success. Ben Jonson and the old dramatists knew what they said when they called a familiar spirit—a young devil, saving your presences—"a fly." Just so the little loves come fluttering back again after you think you have effectually scared them away. But there the analogy ends; for although they do mischief enough sometimes, still, like my Lord Byron, "I cannot call them devils." They played the devil with me, to be sure, a good many times in my hot young days, but I don't believe they meant any harm. At any rate, I should then have been devilish sorry and still should be (but that is between ourselves) to miss their gentle ministrations altogether.

Be this as it may, I have the best reasons for believing that they returned before daybreak, and buzzed merrily about the pillow of Hazlehurst. The mosquito-net is not yet invented that can keep them out. I cannot depone positively to the exact proportion of his waking or of his sleeping dreams that was of their weaving; for I am scrupulous never to state any fact in an historical document like the present, which I am not prepared at any moment to authenticate by affidavit before any magistrate or justice of the peace. But I am quite certain that those soft eyes and that bewitching smile floated before his mind's eye, mixed up even with his least pleasant anticipations. In case of the worst, youth and nature would suggest that there might be some comfort yet left him. Though his cup might be a bitter one, still there was at least one cordial drop at the bottom of it. Though censure or derision might visit his misfortune, still there was one whose soft bosom would feel with him, and who would view it with the eyes of love, and not of discipline.

Perhaps the events of the day and evening had encouraged this state of feeling; for, to be candid, she had been tolerably encouraging. He felt more sure that she loved him than he had ever done before; and, although he could not exactly define his own views and intentions in the premises, still he yielded (and who can blame him?) to the delicious dream of love. If any of my readers can recall to recollection the time when he first truly believed that he was beloved by a beautiful young woman, and yet can find it in his heart to wonder that Hazlehurst should have gilded the gloomy hours of that unlucky night with dreams of Clara Forrester, I wish he would just do me the favor to lay this true history aside. He is not worthy to be my reader. But then it is impossible that there should be such a man.

The hours of the night wore on, and at last the morning came. It was a black morning to poor Hazlehurst; but he resolved to meet the unpleasant consequences of his mishap with the best face he could. As his candle-light toilet was proceeding, the orderly-sergeant called for the book.

"I shall call myself upon Lord Percy, Williams, immediately after parade: so you need not wait."

The veteran stared a little at this deviation from routine; but it was his business to obey: so be bowed and retired.

It was a bitter cold morning, and the keen wind was improved in sharpness by the broad expanse of frozen water which then separated the Common from the country beyond; but Hazlehurst felt warm enough in the prospect of what was before him. There is no external or internal application of a more calorific tendency than the inevitable necessity of doing a particularly disagreeable piece of work at a certain specified hour near at hand. It makes the heart seethe like a caldron, and the boiling blood is sent bubbling through the veins.

The parade was over: the troops were dismissed. Hazlehurst was moving slowly towards the mess-breakfast, thinking of the duty that must follow it, when he was aroused from his revery by hearing a horse reined up suddenly by his side. It was Lord Percy himself.

"So Williams tells me, Hazlehurst, that you have something to say to me. Come and breakfast with me, my boy, and you will have the best of opportunities to say it. I shall be quite alone."

"It will give me infinite pleasure, my lord," replied Hazlehurst, "and I will be with you immediately."

"Right, right," said his lordship: "punctuality at drills and at mess is a great military virtue. I shall expect you in a quarter of an hour."

With these words he cantered along the frozen road

(for it could hardly be called a street then) that led to his excellent quarters.

I am afraid that my hero lied the least in the world, when he said that it would give him infinite pleasure to breakfast with his noble friend and commander. Not that he had any fears as to the quality of his breakfast or of his society; but the thoughts of the sauce which he brought to both plagued him in advance, and he wished that a longer time and a wider space could have elapsed before it was necessary to administer it. But delay was useless and impossible: so he strode toward the quarters of his host with a firm tread, and ascended the long flight of steps that led to the house, and gazed upon the trees and shrubs in the courtyard, all glittering with ice, with as easy and careless an air as he could assume.

The breakfast-room, into which he was shown, was a spacious wainscoted apartment, with a low ceiling, but an air of great comfort. A blazing fire of logs roared up the chimney; and the breakfast-table, with all its appliances of luxury, was drawn into a comfortable proximity to it. The winter's sun looked brilliantly through two windows of the room. Fresh plants stood in the windows, and old pictures looked down from the walls. It was not Alnwick Castle, nor Sion House, to be sure; but it was a very inhabitable place, for all that. An older campaigner than his lordship might have thought himself well off in worse quarters.

In a few minutes Lord Percy appeared,—having exchanged his uniform coat for a brocaded dressing-gown, and his military boots for Turkish slippers,—and, after a cordial welcome to his young friend, rang the bell for breakfast. The tray was brought; the coffee was poured; the eggs were cracked; the toast was crunched. The breakfast was despatched with the appetites of young men sharpened by a daybreak parade with the thermometer at zero. Their discussions were confined to the good things before them and the things to which they were naturally allied, until the table was cleared and the servants withdrawn. Then Lord Percy, drawing his chair up to the fire, and comfortably nursing his left leg placed over his right knee, turned to Hazlehurst with an air of comic gravity.

"Well, my lad," thus his lordship opened the palaver, "so you have somewhat to say to me? Faith I thought as much last night!"

"Last night, my lord!" exclaimed the adjutant. "I don't know that I rightly apprehend your meaning."

"Oh, of course not," replied the Earl. "But you can hardly suppose that I failed to observe how carefully you followed my advice last evening. You must not suppose that Cupid has bandaged all our eyes as effectually as he seems to have done yours."

"Ah, yes!" replied our hero, "your lordship alludes to my little flirtation with Miss Forrester. I was only following your own advice, to fall in love with two or three at the same time. But you know my lord, that it is necessary to begin with one. Now I begin with Miss Forrester."

"Bravo, bravo, Hazlehurst!" said Lord Percy, laughing. "A ready answer is a good thing, in love or in war. Well, well, you understand your own affairs best, and are old enough to manage them for yourself. Upon my honor, I can hardly blame you, young man. I was half inclined to fall in love with her myself last night. She is a fine creature."

"One does not often see a finer, indeed, my lord," answered the lover; "but you are quite at liberty to enter the lists with me, if you choose," he doughtily continued: "I have no pretensions to any monopoly in that quarter."

I believe the fellow knew he lied when he said that; but these, I believe, are the sort of lover's perjuries at which Jove laughs. You will see this idea illustrated and enforced in my folio on the subject, now in the press. Whether Jove laughed at this or not, Lord Percy did, as he replied,—

"Very likely, very likely. Thank you, thank you! I do not know that I should like to run the risk, were I not armed in proof on that side. Then I suppose your business of this morning does not relate to this matter, as I thought at first it might."

"No, my lord," answered Hazlehurst, plucking up his courage, and determined to have it over at once—"no, my lord. I am sorry to say that my errand is of a much less pleasant character; and it relates rather to war than to love, and to me than to Miss

Forrester. It is not the loss of my heart, but of your orderly-book, that is in the question."

"The orderly-book lost, Hazlehurst!" exclaimed Lord Percy. "What the devil do you mean?" in a tone of the utmost surprise a little mixed with incredulity.

"Exactly what I say, my lord," replied the adjutant, waxing cooler as he went on. "The orderly-book and all its contents is gone; and what is worse I see no sort of prospect of ever recovering it again."

"What do you mean? what do you mean?" repeated the Earl in great astonishment. "You know very well that this is a serious matter, and can hardly be jesting."

"I was never more serious in my life, I assure you, my lord," asseverated the young officer. "I wish it may turn out to be a jest in the end. Sorry as I should be to be guilty of any disrespect to your lordship, I would willingly encounter your displeasure for an untimely jest, so that the service were in no danger of mischief from this unlucky business."

"But how could it be lost, Captain Hazlehurst?" his lordship replied a little sternly. "How could it be lost, when it was in your custody, and you could not but know the vital importance of keeping it safe? How came it lost, sir?"

"I am well aware, my lord," replied poor Hazlehurst, "of the importance of this matter to his Majesty's service, as well as to my own honor and prospects—if I may mention them in the same breath.

I beg your lordship to listen patiently to the story I have to tell you; and I beg that you will pardon the apparent nonsense of the first part of my narration, as you will see that it leads to a serious termination. I presume I need bring no other evidence of the truth of my statements before your lordship's tribunal than my own assertion. The evidence of my servant will be ready to corroborate them before less friendly judges, should the matter end as seriously as I fear it may."

He then proceeded to relate to his commander the whole history of his two last nights, from the mysterious footsteps to the vanishing of the orderly-book. His lordship looked grave as the story proceeded, and, rising, walked thoughtfully about the room after it was finished. At length he thus addressed his young friend, who sat in anxious expectation,—

"This is a strange business, Hazlehurst, a very strange business. I am afraid there is mischief in it. At first I thought it might be a mystification of some of your messmates: but they would hardly have ventured upon such a dénouement."

"That is my own opinion, my lord. The pranks of the night before were all fair, though a little rough play. But I do not think that the ennui of a garrison life, however much it may sharpen the wits of its victims, would lead them to commit an action which might injure the service, to say nothing of the character of a brother-officer."

"That is true enough, Hazlehurst," resumed his lordship. "I think it must be a contrivance of some of the disguised rebels in this cursed town to assist their rascally friends on the other side of the river. My God! I would have sooner lost the best horse in my stables than have had those papers fall into the rebels' hands."

"I hope that your lordship does not look upon my part in this unfortunate business as amounting to culpable negligence, or neglect of duty," Hazlehurst humbly ventured to suggest, seeing that his commanding officer was in a milder mood than he had apprehended he would be.

"Why, as to that matter, my friend," replied his lordship, "you can hardly think, that sitting here with you as my fellow-officer and companion, when off duty, I can attribute any moral blame to you for this accident. Whether you may not be regarded as responsible in a military sense for the loss of this valuable book, is a question I can express no opinion about here and at this time, as I may have to form one officially on the subject before long. The book was properly in your custody: if it be not forthcoming when regularly demanded, the question will arise, Why? And it is not for me to decide now whether the facts you have stated will be considered sufficient to discharge your responsibility."

"Will your lordship have the goodness to advise me what course to pursue under these circumstances—as a friend, as one gentleman advising another in a case of difficulty, and not as my superior officer?"

"Why, my dear fellow," returned the stout Earl, sincerely feeling for his young favorite in his awkward predicament, "the best advice I can give you is to ferret out these rascals, and find the orderly-book again before it is missed. When that fails, we will see what can be done next."

"But how much grace have I to make search, even if I could get a clew to the villany, before it must be reported at headquarters?"

"I can give you only till next Saturday, when I must make up my full weekly report to General Howe. There is no need of saying anything about it before then; and it gives you four whole days to work in, as it is now only Tuesday morning. Leave no stone unturned, my good fellow, to get at the bottom of this affair. Much may be done in four days."

"I am heartily obliged to you, my lord," said Hazlehurst gratefully, for he felt much relieved and comforted by the kindness of Lord Percy's words and manner, "and you may be sure that I will lose no time in sifting this matter to the best of my abilities. And you may be sure, also, that your lordship's goodness and consideration for me will be gratefully remembered by me as long as I live, whatever may be the event of this affair."

"Keep up a good heart, my lad," returned the Earl kindly, "and hope bravely for the best. You may rely upon my doing all I can for you consistently with my duty. And now you had better set about your inquiries, as there is no time to be lost. And when Williams comes to you, send him to me, and I will have a new orderly-book ready for you before evening parade."

With these words the heir of "the Percy's high-born race" bowed his visitor out of the room. Hazlehurst descended the steps with a lighter heart than when he had ascended them, and he felt, what we have all felt in our time, how much more unpleasant the discharge of a disagreeable duty is in the anticipation than in the actual performance. His actual position was in no wise changed, and yet he felt as if it were bettered. Such is the relief of the communication of a secret sorrow, and such the magic of a kind thought fitly clothed with words of kindness.

There is a great deal of one very excellent thing in this world. There is at least one article which everybody is ready to give away, though there are comparatively few who are ready to accept it. I mean there is a great deal of very good ADVICE floating about. James Smith, I think it was, once suggested the formation of "A Society for the Suppression of ad-Vice." But I am sure I should not encourage such an institution. Why, bless you! I don't know what my neighbors would do if my issues of advice were stopped or curtailed. The interest I take in their affairs is worth much more to me than the ten per cent I get for my money. I really don't think the neighborhood could get along at all without my advice. "It's unknown" what good I do, as were the tears Mrs. Malaprop shed at the death of her poor dear Mr. Malaprop. I consider the benevolent Howard as a hard-hearted villain in comparison with me. No, no! it will never do to suppress advice. The difficulty in this branch of benevolence lies in finding out how to apply the advice to practice. But that is the concern of the party benefited. If he do not know how to avail himself of your good advice, that is no affair of yours. Dr. Johnson settled it long ago, that no man should be expected to furnish ideas and understanding at the same time.

Now, here was a case in point. Lord Percy had given Captain Hazlehurst some very excellent advice: the perplexity was to know what to do with it, now he had got it. It was very easy for his lordship to say, "Hazlehurst, ferret out these rascals, find the orderly-book again;" but it was quite another affair for the gallant Captain to reduce his instructions to practice. However, he resolved to do his best; and, as safety is said to be found in a multitude of counsellors, he thought he might as well take some more advice—on the homœopathic principle adopted by the philosopher of Islington for the recovery of his eyes after they had been scratched out in his celebrated leap into the quickset hedge. So he thought he would take into his counsels some of his trustiest comrades and especial cronies.

Calling at Captain Lyndsay's quarters, he was so fortunate as to find him at home, and his Pylades, Major Ferguson, with him. Dr. Holcombe was speedily summoned to the council; and Hazlehurst soon laid the matter, under strict injunctions of secrecy, before them. It was a grave matter, requiring all the aids that reflection or art could afford. Accordingly, they lighted the calumet of consideration, and sought for illumination in the circling clouds of smoke that curled around their heads. In those days, dear reader, cigars were not; but pipes daily reminded frail mortals that they, too, were made of clay, and that their lives were but as a vapor of smoke, that soon vanisheth away.

But as suffumigation, though a powerful agent, did not seem to be alone sufficient to summon the powers most needed, the worthy surgeon, as one well skilled in potent mixtures, brewed a smoking caldron, in which he mingled many opposite ingredients, of various kingdoms of nature [to make the mixture "slab and good"]. When his incantations were ended, the magic bowl was placed in the centre of the circle, and was solemnly passed round from mouth to mouth of those who sought from it wisdom and inspiration. In those primitive days, the heresy of ladles had not yet entered the pale of orthodox good-fellowship. The genial mother-bowl was not then split up into as many sects as there were disciples. I beg to be distinctly understood that I by no means sanction this concoction of the "medicine-man," nor do I wish to imply that the spirits thus summoned to their aid were the best assistants in council or in action. I merely relate the fact, and leave it for others to form their own opinions about it. It is not my fault if they drank punch, and smoked pipes, in the morning. But what would posterity say to me, if I suppressed so important a feature of this important consultation, from a wish to whitewash their characters in the eyes of this water-drinking generation?

"By Jove, Hazlehurst!" said Major Ferguson, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "this is the most extraordinary ghost I ever heard of, and one that will take a bishop, at least, to lay him."

"In default of a bishop," suggested Lyndsay, "here is the Doctor, who as a university man, and one of a learned profession renowned for making ghosts, must serve us for want of a better man."

"This is the first time," said the Doctor, setting down the bowl, from which he had been, in a most unprofessional manner, engaged in swallowing his own prescription—"this is the first time in my life that I was ever taken for a conjurer. But, as Ferguson justly remarks, as this is a case calling for the piety of a bishop, I am certainly the only man in company fit for the adventure."

"I wish to Heaven you would undertake it, then," said Hazlehurst, who thought his friends rather inclined to make light of a serious matter. "It may be sport to you, but it is"——

"Not death to you, my dear fellow," interposed the Doctor: "you are not so easily killed, as the d—d Yankees knew, when they saw you running up Bunker's Hill faster than they ran down it. Besides, you should never mention death in the presence of a doctor. You might as well talk of cabbage to a tailor. It's professional, my dear fellow, it's professional."

"I wish, then," resumed Hazlehurst, "that you would bring your professional artillery to bear upon the villain who has stolen the orderly-book; and you may call in the aid of your natural ally, too, if you please."

"I should like to have the treatment of his case," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "I think that I could manage it."

"And I should like to have the qualifying him for your treatment, Doctor," said Lyndsay. "I am quite sure that I could manage that."

"No doubt, no doubt," replied Holcombe. "Any fool can break a head. It takes a wise man to mend it again."

"And what," retorted Lyndsay, alluding to an operation he would persist in considering as unnecessary, in consequence of a knock over the head at Lexington,—"and what if, in mending the hole, he makes two?"

"He puts at rest forever," replied the Doctor gravely, "the disputed question, whether or not the party had any brains. There were not much, to be sure; but it can never be denied again that there were some."

"Truce to banter," said the graver Major Ferguson, "and let us see what can be done to help poor Hazlehurst out of this scrape."

"With all my heart," resumed the Doctor. "It seems to me that the thing to be done is to set a trap for the thief. But what the deuce shall we do for bait?—unless, indeed, the commander-in-chief would lend us his private papers for the purpose."

"He cannot be a vulgar thief," said Ferguson, "or he certainly would not have left your tankard and spoons behind him, Hazlehurst."

"Not only the plate," said Hazlehurst, "but my watch and purse, lay full in his sight. So plunder could not have been his object."

"He is an extraordinary fellow, certainly," said the Doctor, "and we must as certainly contrive to catch him, if it be only for the curiosity of the thing. What is your plan, Ferguson?"

"I can suggest nothing better," said the Major, "than to keep a strict watch for a few nights, both within and without the building; for it seems to me our only chance is to find him at his old tricks, or prowling about the premises, as we have no idea of where else to look for him."

"I can see no other plan that we can follow," said Hazlehurst.

"Nor I," said Lyndsay. "Can you, Doctor?"

"We can try it, at any rate," returned the leech. "We shall probably have plenty of time, in the intervals of his visitations, to devise other schemes. I am ready for my share of the watch; that is, if Hazlehurst's punch and tobacco are what they should be."

"You need have no fears on that point," answered Hazlehurst; "for John will brew you an Atlantic of punch, and pile you up a Chimborazo of tobacco, when he knows that you have entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, against the ghost."

"I am your man, then," cried the Doctor, finishing the punch, "and I will bet you a supper at the Green Dragon that I am the first man to see the ghost."

"Done!"

"Done!!"

"Done!!!"

And the session was adjourned.

————

CHAPTER IV.

AFTER the conference at the quarters of Captain Lyndsay was broken up, our hero walked deliberately down Hanover Street toward his own abode. He was busily planning operations in accordance with the result of the council as he walked along. But he was not so much absorbed by his own affairs or his own meditations, as to be unconscious of his approach to the habitation of his ladye-love. In those days it was an essential part of good breeding for a gentleman to call upon his partner on the morning after a ball, "and humbly hope she caught no cold," though he had to canter over half a county in the service. It was not likely, therefore, that Hazlehurst would pretermit the performance of this duty when his path took him past her very door. So he knocked boldly, and was speedily admitted, and ushered into the presence of the fair Clara, who, of course, was expecting his visit. She wore her apple-green silk that morning,—a color I would not recommend to my lady-readers, unless they are very sure that their complexions can bear it,—and, by Heaven! she did look divinely. It is provoking to see how the most unbecoming colors will set off a complexion and eyes that need take no thought for themselves. But I am not going to rave. I only state the simple truth in saying that she looked divinely: at least, I never saw anything prettier than the sweet glow of consciousness that mantled over her cheeks and neck, and the smile that kindled in her eyes, as she met the ardent gaze of her advancing lover. At any rate, I am quite sure that he agreed with me in this opinion; for he hardly seemed to know whether he was in the body or out of the body, as he walked up the room. Lovers are foolish creatures—at least, so I have heard, for I was never one myself. But for the life of me I can't conceive why that silly Hazlehurst should have gone and seated himself in the arm-chair on the other side of the fireplace, when the gentle Clara had taken pains to leave plenty of room for him on the sofa by her side. I am sure I never should have done that. However, he did, and it is my business to relate, not to account for, the fact.

They were soon seated vis à vis, with nothing but the little work-table between them, and there seemed to be no reason why they should not make themselves agreeable to one another. And I am by no means sure that they did not, although they had very little to say for themselves apparently. What Hazlehurst might have whispered to Clara the night before, at Concert Hall, as they stood apart, sheltered by a battalion of card-playing dowagers, and covered by the full burst of a regimental band, I am unable to say, for I was at that time engaged in overhearing what

General Howe was saying to Governor Gage at the other end of the room. But I think it must have been something that altered their relations to each other in some way, for they were not half as chatty and conversable as they were the day before. And yet it could not have amounted to a full understanding, or that stupid Hazlehurst would not have been sitting two yards away, looking at her pretty foot (not but what it was well worth looking at) as it rested on the edge of the footstool; nor would she have kept her eyes fixed upon her embroidery all the time with the prettiest confusion you ever saw. And I don't believe that they would have talked over the night before in a sort of way that made it perfectly plain that they knew nothing at all of what they were talking about, if they had felt quite at ease in their own minds. It was clear that they were thinking of something else than their words. Poor Hazlehurst was evidently in the state of mind of an unlucky moth that has been well advised by its wisers and betters, that candles are dangerous things in general, and especially that specific candle in particular, and who yet cannot keep itself away from the shining mischief. The attraction of the brilliant object before him was quite too much for any dimly remembered warnings of his distant family against American beauties, or for the fresher hints of his friendly commander, to keep him from flying at last into the flame.

I can't tell you how it was, my dear reader, but somehow or other, in less time than I have been writing these lines, Hazlehurst was by the side of Clara, his left arm encircling her slender waist, their right hands clinging together, and her sweet head gently drooped upon his shoulder. It was a charming group, I do assure you. There are many more disagreeable situations in the world than that of young Hazlehurst at that moment. It was a grand pantomime of action. No words could have expressed their meaning more eloquently. It was not a time for words: they would have been impertinent and superfluous. Accordingly, their lips gave utterance to no sound. Whether their lips did any thing else to the purpose, it is not my intention to disclose. I am "trusty Mr. Tattle" as to all matters which should be kept private. Nothing of that sort was ever wormed out of me. The ladies need have no hesitation in placing the most entire confidence in my discretion.

But this silence, though deep and delicious, could not last forever. Alas that it could not! Murmuring words soon displaced it, and the faith of two true young hearts was plighted to each other forever. Ah, holy troth plight! Thine is the true marriage, the era of the mystic union of souls, of which the blessing of the priest is but the statement and proclamation. Woe to those who profane its mysteries by levity, by covetousness, or by falsehood!

As soon as their young joy had subsided into a sort of tumultuous calmness, how they sat, with their hands locked together, talking over their love and their hopes! They traced with fond curiosity the course of their true love—"Great Nature's Nile"—up to its small beginnings and unsuspected springs. Bruce himself could hardly have surpassed them in zealous or minute investigation. And then the more dubious future how were its uncertainties turned into realities, and its doubts transmuted into sanguine hopes, by the potent magic of youth and love!

"Ah, love, young love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,
These hours, and only these, redeem life's years of ill."

Clara's doubts as to her reception into the family of her lover were eagerly driven away by his earnest assurances of a cordial welcome. Sir Ralph and his mother were the best of human beings, and had no earthly wish beyond his happiness; and was not his happiness wrapped up in her? Such is the logic of youth and love, and it easily prevailed over one willing enough to be convinced. The best of human beings sometimes take very different views of the component elements of earthly happiness from their children: at least, so it is said. They were too happy to fear. The future would take care of itself. The present was enough for them.

But such interviews, though they live forever, must come to an end in time and space. The time came when the plighted lovers were to part for the first time since they had exchanged their sacred vows. Dinner-time will come round on the day of rejoicing and on the day of mourning, and interpose its material demands between our souls and soft emotions of tenderness and grief. The necessities of the body often afford a healthful distraction to thoughts too highly strung to sensations of joy or of sorrow. The body is a "homely nurse;" but it is a faithful one, if it be not maltreated, and does its best to guard and help the immortal child that is intrusted to it to be carried in its arms during its days of infancy. So the time of parting came, and they parted; not for any interminable space of time, to be sure, but it was their first parting. It was not, as I just said, an eternal separation, for there was to be a great sleighing-party that evening, and Hazlehurst had already engaged Clara to be his companion. With as many last words as if they were to part for years, he at length departed, with quite unnecessary entreaties to her not to forget the evening's engagement.

It was all over. The irreparable step was taken. The Rubicon of life was passed. The hour that was just expired would tinge with its hues every future moment of his life. He felt that it was no light thing that he had just done, and, though he was conscious of a deep happiness, it was no boisterous joy, and it was not only with ease, but with satisfaction, restrained within the limits of his own breast, until the due time of disclosure. It was a pleasure to feel that he had a secret hoard of happiness, known only to himself, which he might count over with a miser's joy, but with none of a miser's guilt or folly.

One thing, however, was remarkable. The idea of the orderly-book, or of the ghost, had never once crossed his mind after he had found himself hurried on to the catastrophe of the interview. He was sorry that he had not made Clara the confidante of his troubles, and resolved to repair the omission at the first opportunity. Confidence should not be kept back first on his side. He rather rejoiced that he had a misfortune which she might share with him. Perhaps his philosophy would not have stood him in such good stead, had his misfortune been a little greater than it was. But everything helps to feed a healthy love. It is your feeble, rickety brats, that expire of the first unsavory mess of earthly pottage.

The mess-dinner was over. There had been some quizzing on the subject of Miss Forrester and of the ghost; but it was all evidently at random, and they had no idea how very near the wind they were going on either tack. Hazlehurst and his friends kept their own counsel, and after dinner met by appointment at Dr. Holcombe's quarters to finish the plan of their campaign against the midnight forager of orderly-books. They had, as they had agreed upon, selected a number of picked men, on whose secrecy and fidelity they could rely, who were to keep watch and ward, duly relieved, by night and day, without making any noise about it; so that if the ghost should return, clothed in his "vesture of decay," to the scene of his former operations, he would be pretty sure to be laid by the heels. The officers themselves also agreed to mount guard, by turns, in the Captain's chamber, so that it should never be without a sleepless eye on the lookout. Arrangements were made that the sentinels and their officers should rendezvous quietly in the neighborhood, at a small inn, as if by accident, and the men be shown their posts of observation without any bustle to attract notice; John and Orderly Williams being left in garrison of the haunted building until it was properly invested. Everything happened at the time and in the order that it should, and the arrangements were carried into effect with military precision. One man walked up and down the street, with injunctions never to lose sight of the front of the house. The three other sides were in charge of three other trusty men, so placed that no approach could be made to the house on either side without instant detection. A guard was also placed on each floor of the house on the inside, although it had been most thoroughly searched, in advance, in every corner. It seemed as if the Prince of the Power of the Air alone, approaching through his own peculiar principality, could obtain entrance unobserved. And so they rested on their arms.

In the mean time, the winter's sun made haste to put an end to the short day, and the time arrived for the great sleighing-party to rendezvous in the North Square. Captain Hazlehurst's graceful little sleigh, contrasting curiously with his stout cob, was at the door, and he was speedily drawn up in front of Mr.

Forrester's mansion, awaiting the pleasure of its fair mistress. She soon appeared, breathing a fresh summer upon the cheek of winter, and yet looking like his youngest daughter, so befurred and betippeted, and becloaked was she. Still, through all, you could see the graceful outline of her shape, while her happy face glowed through her world of habiliments, like the sun through evening clouds. The moon would perhaps be a more appropriate, but the sun is a more splendid, simile: so let it stand. She was soon by the side of Hazlehurst, and they were rapidly careering away toward the North Square. A very few minutes brought them to the rendezvous, where they found a large company of the élite of the garrison and the townspeople, preparing for a merry scamper round the town. There were large sleighs drawn by two, and some by four, horses, containing parties, which like the family party of the Vicar of Wakefield, if they did not have a great deal of wit, they had a great deal of laughing, which answered the purpose just as well. There were not wanting modest single sleighs, like that conveying our hero and heroine, which, if not as well adapted for frolic as their larger companions, were better calculated for sentiment and for flirtation. After the usual time had been wasted in waiting for loiterers, and adjusting where everyone should go, the procession set forward in due order; the quadrigæ taking the lead, and the more unpretending vehicles following in due succession.

Aha! what a merry jingling of bells, and ringing of laughter, resounded through the streets of Boston as the horses dashed through them, making the frozen earth resound with their tread! It was a sound of merriment that jarred gratingly upon the ears of many an unwilling listener, separated by the siege from beloved hearts, and suffering, perhaps, from cold in the depth of that dreadful winter, or with hunger, within the sound of the revelry of their oppressors. To many an ear the sweet bells seemed "jangled, out of tune, and harsh." But what was that to the revellers? What cared they for the pining of rebel hearts? Away, away! Up Hanover Street, down Queen Street, through the succession of streets now all amalgamated into Washington Street, up to the lines on the Neck! How the crackling snow glitters in the light of the full moon! What a volcanic effect do the rebel watchfires give to the lovely hills in the distance! You can hear the very hum of the camp, so near are you to it; and you have the pleasing uncertainty as to how soon a battery of cannon may open upon you, or a shell be sent to convey to you the compliments of those who are knocking at your gates. But what of that? Away, away! Back again to the Common, round it, and then dash down to the line of wharves that enclose the harbor, look out over the frozen sea, and then round again across those desolate fields which are now all populous streets or crowded marts. Oh, it was a merry drive! What though the hardships of a seven-years' war, ghastly wounds, and grizzly death, awaited some of the revellers, and the bitterness of disappointed hope and of interminable exile was the appointed lot of others? They knew it not. That glittering night was theirs—and who has more?

There are worse places for a flirtation or a tête-à-tête, let me tell you, than a sleighing-party, especially where you have a sleigh to yourselves, the noise and the bustle isolates you so completely. And then the bear-skins roll you up together so comically, that positively you sometimes mistake your neighbor's hand for your own. It's very odd, but so it is. Poets may talk as much as they please about summer moons; but I have known quite as much mischief done under winter moons. And, if I had a daughter, I would quite as soon trust her with a "detrimental" in a summer grove, beside a murmuring stream, with the very best moon that was ever manufactured hanging over their heads, as I would in a snug sleigh, behind a good horse, making good time over a ringing road, in a cold, clear, sparkling night.

"Now, ponder well, ye parents dear,"

and lay these, my words of wisdom, to heart.

Clara and Hazlehurst, you may be sure, did not fail to improve their opportunities; and the evening's drive furnished a very satisfactory epilogue to the morning's drama. After a brief interval of silence, as they rushed up King Street, Clara turned to Hazlehurst, and said laughingly to him,—

"But, Charles, you have not told me yet what Captain Honeywood had to say to you; for, of course, he must have been to call on his tenant by this time."

"Ah, my dear Clara, I am satisfied that he was a piratical old dog. I have but too good reason to think ill of him."

"Indeed! And how so, pray? Has he laid you under contribution already? Perhaps he intends collecting his rent in advance."

"If that were all," answered Charles, "I should care little about it. But I am afraid that the old villain is more of a rebel than a pirate. I fear he bears more of a grudge against the King than against me."

"That is natural enough, you know," replied Clara, "for it was his Majesty's predecessor who put him to so much inconvenience for his little mistakes in the matter of ownership. But you mean something, Charles—now tell me all about it."

"The all is soon told," said he. "The crafty old sea-dog has helped himself to the very thing that it is most important, for the sake of the service and for my own sake, should have been kept out of his hands—and I suppose I may have to pay for his villany."

"Good God, Charles!" exclaimed Clara, turning pale with affright. "What do you mean? What has happened?"

"Nothing, my love," he responded, "excepting that he has carried off the orderly-book of the regiment, which may convey intelligence to the rebels that will bring them buzzing about our ears, if they have the sense to make use of it."

"But you—how will it affect you?" inquired Clara, evidently thinking more of her lover than of her liege lord. "You said that it was bad for your own sake that this book had fallen into his hands."

"Indeed I hardly know myself exactly," he answered; "but I am quite certain that it can do me no good. And what a court-martial may think of it, they only can tell."

"A court-martial!" exclaimed Clara in consternation. "Dear Charles, what have you done for which you can be court-martialed? Pray tell me that you are only in jest."

"I wish I were in jest, my dearest Clara," said he in reply; "but it is no joke, I assure you. The orderly-book was in my custody, as the adjutant of the regiment. I left it on my table when I went to the assembly last night, and when I came back it was gone."

"Gone!" repeated Clara, echoing his words.

"Gone, my dear," he repeated. "And how or whither, the thief, and the devil that helped him, only knows. And when the loss is reported at head-quarters, I have reason to fear that I shall be held responsible for it, and it may prove a serious business."

"But what can they do to you, dearest Charles?" almost gasped poor Clara. "It certainly was not your fault that it was taken."

"I cannot think it was," he answered, "after all the precautions I had taken. But one cannot tell what views these old fellows may take. If it come to a court-martial, a reprimand would be the least punishment, the loss of the adjutancy, I think, would be the greatest. But the worst is the effect it will be likely to have upon my promotion."

"This is dreadful, dreadful!" sobbed poor Clara, bursting into tears. "O Charles, Charles! what is to be done?"

"Dear, dear Clara," answered Hazlehurst, brushing away her tears in a manner for which I can only account on the supposition that she could not get at her pocket-handkerchief, and from the fact that they had dropped into the rear of the procession, "do not be distressed about it, my love. I and my friends are resolved to find out what this business means, and, if we can get to the bottom of it by Saturday, all will be well, and, if not, the worst can be borne."

"By Saturday!" said Clara, clearing up a little: "that is a good while to come, and much may happen before then. I wish that I could do something to help yon. Can I not?"

"Nothing, my love, but your good wishes and sympathy, I believe," said Hazlehurst "But stay, there is a thing that you can do. You can ask your father to let our poor fellows have the shelter of his summer-house, which commands the rear of the Vaughan house. It will be a serious service to them these bitter nights."

"Certainly," answered Clara cheerfully, "you can have the key to the little gate that opens upon your grounds,—that was made for the accommodation of Miss Vaughan and myself,—and, as the fence is an open one, they can keep watch as well in the summer-house as in the yard."

"Thank you," he replied: "that will be doing us good service. I hope," he continued after a short pause, "that you will pardon me for not telling you all this this morning. But in truth I never thought of it once. It was hardly fair, as you did not have all the facts of my case before you. But it is not too late, you know, now to change your mind."

"You do not think that this, or anything else that you could do, would make any difference in my love for you, Charles?" said Clara, looking up in his face. "I know you do not."

"Indeed, I do not, dearest," he replied, and as he spoke he leaned his lips so near her cheek, that I should have thought that they must have touched, had I not known that it would have been improper.

"But here we are at the Royal Tavern," he exclaimed, as they drove into Dock Square, and drew up at the door of the inn, where it was proposed to close their expedition. "Now clear your brow, and repair your eyes, lest the gossips put things, and people too, together."

There is a time of life when three days seem to be an all-sufficient eternity, and my Clara was happily not past that blessed period. So she soon dismissed the unpleasant tidings she had just heard from her mind, and endeavored to mingle in the gayeties of the Royal Tavern. The scene was not a very magnificent one, to be sure; but the company was as gay as if it had been a royal palace. The mulled wine was beyond praise. The floor of the large parlor was swept, and a noble fire diffused light and heat through the room. They had not a regimental band, as they had the night before; but the fiddle of a musical negro belonging to the house was sufficient to set them all dancing and flirting. And what could his Majesty's own band itself do more? At a proper time an excellent supper was served in the dining-room,—none of your perpendicular abominations, but a good, regular, sit-down supper, all hot from the spit, and served, if not with metropolitan magnificence, yet at least with provincial plenty. Ample justice was done to the viands; and the port wine and the everlasting punch were not neglected. After the sacred rage of hunger was appeased, the company returned to the great parlor, and resumed their gayeties, which were protracted until a late hour. Such were some of the schemes to which the beleaguered inhabitants of the town resorted to speed away some of their weary hours. And very good schemes, they were, in my opinion.

I do not know how it was, but the garrison gossips, of whom Hazlehurst had warned Clara, remarked that he was not as devoted to her as usual. From this they augured, with the sagacity of their tribe, that he was inclined to be off from the flirtation. Now I formed a directly opposite opinion from the circumstance.

I am too old a bird to be chaffed in that way. I know, however, that the young lovers compared notes of what they heard and overheard on the subject, as they drove home, and that they were entirely satisfied with the success of the evening. What could have made them dissatisfied with it?

On arriving at his quarters, Hazlehurst found every thing ready, but no ghost as yet. Dr. Holcombe, who much preferred a comfortable arm-chair, a pipe, and a tankard of punch, over against a rousing fire, to all the sleighing-parties that ever manufactured pleasure out of cold and discomfort, had volunteered to mount guard for the first evening in Hazlehurst's room. He protested, however, that all had been quiet, and not so much of a ghost stirring as would make the candles burn blue. He and Hazlehurst sat up till near morning, and then lay down alternately for an hour or two—but all was still. "Not a mouse stirring." They had their labor for their pains that night. Still they were not discouraged in their campaign against the powers of darkness by this withdrawal of the enemy. They still believed that they would have a brush with him yet. In this faith they renewed their arrangements for the next day, carefully managing them so cautiously that there should be no ground of suspicion given to the world around that there was anything extraordinary going on.

The allies met after breakfast to talk over the matter, and to decide whose turn should be the next to face the enemy. Major Ferguson, in right of seniority of rank, received the privilege. The men who were on guard during the night were examined; but they maintained that there was nothing that could be construed into a suspicious circumstance that had fallen under their observation. Renewed charges of secrecy were given and exchanged, not only for fear of the ghost's getting wind of the conspiracy against him, but lest the laugh at the mess-table might be turned against them. Lord Percy was curious to hear the result of the night's campaign, when the adjutant waited upon him for orders, and gave his approval of the steps taken, and encouraged them to proceed.

Another day, and yet another, passed away. Ferguson and Lyndsay had successively taken the field against the ghost; but none would come when they did call for him. Old Jamaica was the only spirit that was raised, and tobacco-smoke was the only intangible essence that infested them. What was to be done now? It was plain that the ghost was more than a match for them. They believed that they might be his masters in the field; but he certainly had the advantage of them in the strategy which avoids the presence of a superior enemy. They felt, in the slightest degree in the world, like fools, that they should have lost their natural rest for three nights, and expended a degree of skill and energy sufficient to have raised the siege, and all for nothing. Friday night was come. The morrow was the fatal Saturday, when the orderly-book must be found, or the loss reported at headquarters. The confederates sat rather gloomily over their wine at Ferguson's lodgings,—for Ferguson was a married man, and did not live at mess, and considered with themselves what was to be done next.

"You have not won your supper at the Dragon yet, Doctor," said Ferguson. "The ghost does not seem to regard you with any more favor than the rest of us."

"The Ides of March are not past yet, my friend," observed the Doctor. "I shall have a double chance, as I shall keep watch the last night of the siege, as well as the first. You cannot tell what this night may bring forth."

"So you are not discouraged, I am glad to find," said Hazlehurst, "and still hold to your intention for the night. But don't you intend to go to Miss Forrester's this evening? I know you are invited, and your watch can begin after the party ends."

"Not I, indeed," responded the son of Galen, "not I, indeed! I am not quite boy enough for that. It is all well enough for you youngsters, who have no turn for rational pursuits; but a pipe and a tankard for me, against all the gatherings together of flirting boys and girls, and gambling papas and mammas, that were ever held. I shall repair to my post early in the evening, and maintain it unseduced and unterrified."

"And faith! I believe that I will bear you company, Doctor," said Ferguson. "My wife has not got over the cold she got at that cursed sleighing-party, and intends going to bed, instead of the party."

"Do so, by all means," replied Holcombe, "and I dare say, that, besides having a rational time together, we shall have a good account to give of the ghost by the time these boys are ready to come home. Only, I suppose, if we see the ghost both at the same time, you will expect to go snacks in the supper?"

"To be sure, I shall," said the Major, laughing. "We will be partners in the battle and in the spoils."

The party soon after dispersed, and went their several ways; and it will not surprise my readers to learn that Hazlehurst's way led him to Clara Forrester's. He just looked in to see if he could be of any service. He found the fair Clara in some little perturbation.

"What goes wrong, my love?" he inquired. "Has the Governor sent an excuse, or has la belle Wilton turned sulky, and refused to come?"

"Worse than either, I assure you, Charles," she replied. "I could spare a dozen governors and beauties better than black Domingo, who has selected this particular occasion to fall sick, and to throw me back on the mercies of James, who is hardly equal, as you know, to such an emergency."

"That is unlucky, indeed," said Hazlehurst. "But my John is quite at your service, such as he is; and he is certainly competent to the ministerial, if not to the legislative, duties of such an occasion."

"Thank you!" she answered. "He will be of great use, and I gladly accept your offer. But what will the Doctor and Major Ferguson do, without him to attend them, since you say that they are determined not to smile upon me?"

"Oh, never fear for them!" replied Hazlehurst. "John shall brew them a double supply of punch, and leave their supper ready laid for them, and they can wait upon themselves fast enough: they are too old campaigners to be disconcerted by a trifle."

"They shall be better treated than they deserve, then, for not coming to me," said she; "for I will send poor old Peter over to them with their supper, and with a bowl of the punch I have been superintending myself for the evening. So you will be good enough to let me have John as soon as you can spare him."

"He shall be at your command directly," he replied,—"as soon as he can put himself in proper trim. Peter will answer all the purpose for the Doctor and Ferguson."

After a few more passages between the lovers, which I do not think particularly concern my readers, Hazlehurst took his leave of his ladye-love, and proceeded to his quarters. I beg that no unkind imputations may be laid upon my Clara in consequence of her holding this festivity on the eve of the important Saturday; for the arrangements had been made for it before she knew anything of Hazlehurst's troubles. And as they were still a secret, and as she had as yet no acknowledged interest in them, if they were public, there was obviously nothing to be done but to go on. But the dear girl had suffered great distress and anxiety about it, especially as the week drew to an end without any tidings of the missing volume. But she had to put a good face upon the matter, and go through her hospitable duties with the best grace she could.

In those days the hour for the assembling of company was a very different one from that which now brings a party together. Before seven o'clock the rooms were filled. I cannot stop now to describe (though description is my forte) the beauty and splendor of the scene. We have nothing in these days, excepting the awkward imitation of a fancy ball, that approaches the glories of the days of brocades and scarlet coats, of gold lace and gold buttons, of diamond buckles, and steel-hilted rapiers that looked like diamonds, of powder, and high-heeled shoes. Ah! those were the good times, when you knew a gentleman by his coat, and were not obliged to cipher him out by his conduct or his conversation.

The company were received by Mr. and Miss Forrester, with all the ceremony of the old time. I have not introduced Mr. Forrester to the reader as yet, simply for the want of time. As he made no objection to Hazlehurst's proposals, when they were laid before him, only declining to ratify the engagement formally until the consent of Sir Ralph had been received, and as I, therefore, could make no use of him in the only way fathers can be successfully managed,—as cruel tyrants trampling on the young affections of their daughters,—I have had no occasion to mention him. He would have been well worth your knowledge, however, as a favorable specimen of the old pre-revolutionary New England gentleman. But I have no time left for you to cultivate his acquaintance. The fact is I want three volumes to make use of my materials. Maga is very good; but, like Chanticleer in the fable, "she is not enough." All that was eminent in rank or station (civil or military), all that was brilliant in beauty, and attractive in manners, that the besieged town could command, was gathered together on that gay evening. Youth and folly, old age and cards, were in happy proximity. And whatever there might be of love about the former conjunction, there was certainly nothing of it in the latter. Mrs. Battle herself never despised playing cards for love more heartily than the former generation of Boston dowagers. Gaming was in those days almost as much a necessity of life as drinking. At the proper time, when supper was announced, his Excellency led the procession, bearing aloft the fair hand of his lovely hostess, and not tucking it under his arm like a walking-stick or a wet umbrella. The tables were loaded with the choicest viands and the rarest wines, "and all went merry as a marriage-bell."

While these festive proceedings were going on in the next house, Dr. Holcombe and Major Ferguson were whiling away the hours as best they might, in such talk as the garrison and the mess afforded. The punch-tankard stood between them upon a little table, and filled up many pauses in their conversation. As they lazily puffed out the smoke from their mouths, they thought with satisfaction of the wisdom of their choice. The distant hum of the party, and the music, only enhanced their solitary satisfaction. At length, a tap was heard at the door, which, opening, admitted the sable form of poor Peter, to whom we introduced our reader in the second chapter. He entered the room with a dogged and almost an unconscious air of stupidity, bearing a basket in either hand, from one of which he produced some elegant extracts from the great supper, and from the other a fresh flagon of the most delicious punch that they had ever dreamed of, and, besides, two bottles of the celebrated old Forrester Madeira, which had "put a girdle round the earth" in its travels, and knew more years than I dare mention.

It is hardly necessary to say, that as soon as Peter had disposed of these edibles and potables upon the table, and retired, the friends drew up to it, and commenced an assault upon its contents which did infinite honor to their military education. The flagon was in constant requisition, and was pronounced nectar worthy of the Hebe who had dispensed it. Then, after their supper was finished, they uncorked the wine, and, drawing up to the fire, set in for serious drinking. They were seasoned vessels; but I am sorry to say, that in due time the liquor began to make inroads upon their brains, and to set their tongues in perpetual motion. They told excellent stories, only forgetting the point; but this, as they both talked at once, was of the less consequence. The Doctor grew professional, and the Major musical. The one described operations, and the other broke down in the midst of songs, all of which he sung to the tune of "Water parted from the Sea." Their eyes began to glaze, and their tongues to trip. They were not at all surprised at seeing duplicates of all the objects in the room, nor at finding themselves stopping short in the midst of stammering sentences. In short, I grieve to relate it, they were getting very drunk.

"I say, Doctor," stammered the Major, "won't you take another glass—of—ghost?"

"D—n the—ghost!" hiccoughed the Doctor. "I do be-believe, Ferguson, you're dr-drunk! I should like to see the gh-ghost that would face me n-now."

"Suppose—you—see, Doctor—whether the door's—drunk!" said the Major. "It looks d—d tottering to me."

The Doctor laid his course for the door, and, after a few judicious tacks, succeeded in making it. It was slightly ajar: so he shut and locked it, apostrophizing the ghost as he meandered back to his chair.

"D—n you! You'll have to c-come through the k-keyhole, to-night, m-my friend—if you c-come at all."

Having with great generalship recovered his seat, they attempted to resume their "rational enjoyment" and improving conversation. But nature was too strong for them, and it was not many minutes before they were both fast asleep in their chairs. I am sorry to say that such scenes were not so rare, or so discreditable, in those three-bottle days, as they have happily since become; and the sight of two middle-aged gentlemen drunk on either side of a fireplace would have been no astonishing sight seventy years ago.

How long it was after this point of their adventures, I cannot exactly tell, but it was not long, before the men who were keeping guard were alarmed by a loud and most startling noise in the haunted chamber. They all incontinently rushed to the door, and heard within the sounds of a clamorous struggle. The ghost was evidently caught at last. But it was also plain that he was fighting for his life. He was game to the last, clearly. He was apparently almost a match for his two adversaries; for loud cries resounded through the house.

"Here he is, d—n him!" "I've got him!" "By ——, he's choking me!" "Murder, murder!" "Help, help!" "Where are you, you scoundrels?" All attended by a running accompaniment of furniture-breaking and chairs tumbling into chaotic heaps. The men tried in vain to open the door, when Hazlehurst rushed up stairs in hot haste, having been summoned, by his own direction, at the first alarm.

"Where are your muskets, men?" he cried in strong excitement. "The bloody rebels are murdering them! Dash open the door with the butt-ends!"

Seizing a musket, he suited the action to the word, and the door was soon broken down, though not without difficulty, as doors were then. The scene was frightful. The furniture was overturned; the lights were out; and lying on the floor, either mortally wounded, or exhausted by a fruitless struggle, lay the watchmen of the night.

"Where is the villain?" cried Hazlehurst, rushing into the room.

"Here's the d—d scoundrel!" cried the Doctor, laying hold of the Major.

"This is the infernal rascal!" bellowed the Major, seizing the unhappy Holcombe by the throat.

And, as they shook each other, they vainly endeavored to rise from among the wreck of things that surrounded them.

It needed no conjuror to tell how the matter stood. Hazlehurst sunk into a chair, which, fortunately, had survived the fray, and made the whole house ring with interminable peals of laughter. His followers could not resist the contagion, which was made the more irresistible by the drunken gravity of the two heroes, who sat like so many tipsy Mariuses amid the ruins of another Carthage. You would have thought that a legion of laughing imps had taken possession of the mansion, and were consecrating it to their service.

As soon as Hazlehurst could command his voice, he gave directions to the men to separate the unlucky ghost-seers, and to carry them carefully to bed. Then, taking a candle, he surveyed the prospect before him. The emptied flagons and broken bottles sufficiently accounted for the scene he had just witnessed. He glanced his eye upon the table. His color changed. He started forward. By Heaven! THERE LAY THE ORDERLY-BOOK!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Two or three years had passed away, and a happy family party were assembled around a Christmas fire at Hazlewood, the seat of the Hazlehursts. Vigorous age and blooming infancy clustered around the hearth: in the centre of the circle were Charles Hazlehurst and his lovely Clara. He had consented, reluctantly, to retire from the army, that he might sustain the declining years of his parents. He had brought his wife with him, and there they sat, as happy and beloved a pair as ever lived and loved.

The evening had been sped away with games and gambols. At last the sports were over, and the party, closing round the firebrands, yielded to the inspiration of the hour, and vied with each other in tales of diablerie. At last, Charles is asked to narrate his adventure. He told it well, and was rewarded by alternating deep-drawn breaths of interest and by peals of laughter. But the mystery still remained unsolved. While they were all offering their several explanations, Hazlehurst exclaimed,—

"I would pay down a handsome reward to any one who would tell me where that book was during those four days!"

"And would you grant an amnesty," asked Clara, "to all concerned, if you could know it?"

"That I would, with all my heart; for the excellence of the joke, now that no mischief came of it, redeems its roguishness."

"Then I can easily satisfy you, my dear," resumed his wife. "It was all the time in my dressing-table drawer."

There was a moment of silent astonishment, and then Hazlehurst exclaimed,

"In your drawer? Why, were you the ghost, Clara?"

"Not exactly," she replied. "But I had an Afrite that did my will quite as well as any ghost could do."

"What do you mean, my love?" inquired her husband. "You are surely jesting. What Afrite do you mean?"

"You remember poor Peter?"

He nodded assent.

"Well, he was the ghost, and none but he. I never meant to tell the story; but it is too good a joke to be kept to one's self."

"But how? What had you to do with it?"

"Remember your proclamation of amnesty, and I will tell you. You know that he was the servant of the Vaughans"——

"No," interrupted Charles, "I knew no such thing—only that he belonged to a family that had left the town."

"True," she resumed. "I remember that I kept back that particular, for fear of exciting your suspicion. But their servant he was, and treated with merited kindness for the service done his master; which resulted in disordering his poor brain. After he came to live at my father's, he never seemed to feel at home, but would often wander away at night. I suspected that his resort was to his old master's house, and that it was his prowling about it that gave it its bad name. But, as the officers who first occupied it were not especially pleasant neighbors, I did not interfere with his amusements. But when you came, my dear"——

"You took me under your protection, and I thank you," said Charles, laughing.

"Certainly I did," she continued; "but I thought he might just try your courage for one night. I had him watched out of the house by my maid, and, from the glee in which he returned, I had no doubt of his entire success. That was the first night."

"But pray tell me," asked her husband, "how he performed the feat, if you happen to know. He must have had wings, though I never saw them."

"That I can," she replied. "Poor Peter was a native African, and was as lithe and agile as a monkey, though you would not think so to look at him. He could go up the side of a house by the spout, or the slightest inequalities, like a cat. When you heard him walking over your head, and went up to look for him, he swung himself out of the window, shutting it cunningly after him, and, sliding down the spout, was in a second at the window of your closet. It was but the work of a moment to do what you found done, and of another moment to escape as he entered. It was a sort of spite he felt against intruders in that house."

"But how came he by my orderly-book?" inquired Charles.

"That I must claim as my unwilling glory," answered Clara. "I cross-examined Peter privately on the subject of his night's adventures, and strictly forbade his repeating his visits without my knowledge. I must confess, however, to a strong desire to mystify you a little further, especially as I had learned from my maid, who was a flame of your orderly, of your precautions. I accordingly told Peter that he might visit your room once more, disturbing nothing, and only bringing away a single book from the table. When I found what it was, I was frightened enough, and, when I learned how much mischief I was near doing, you know I was half distracted."

"I remember it well, and put it all down to my own account."

"And so you should, to be sure, Charles. It was all on your account. I was relieved by finding that the mischief could be repaired if the book were returned in time. So I devised several ways of getting it back to you, which I abandoned, for fear of detection.

My party, however, on Friday night, gave me the opportunity, you recollect, of spiriting away your servant, and getting poor Peter within your lines of intrenchment. By watching his opportunity, he climbed unperceived to your closet, where he ensconced himself, biding his time. I had told him to restore it as nearly as he could to the place whence he took it, for fear of mistakes. In due time, the snoring of your watchful friends told him that the season of action was come. He stole into the room, deposited the book on the table, blew out the lights, knocked the two sleepers' heads together, and retired, covered with glory. The rest you know as well as I. This," continued Clara, "is the revelation of the only secret I ever kept from you. It was the first: it shall be the last."

"Well," said Hazlehurst, as the party rose to retire for the night, "there is an end of my only ghost-story. But this is not the first time that THE DEVIL has had the credit of a piece of mischief which was, in truth, only due to A WOMAN."

LEWIS HERBERT.

LEWIS HERBERT;

AN INCIDENT OF NEW ENGLAND SLAVERY.

"WORDS are things," said Mirabeau, and very troublesome things men have sometimes found them. Abstract propositions are now and then as dangerous as edged tools. The "rhetorical flourish" of the Declaration of Independence has produced effects of which the honest men who uttered it never dreamed. It produced an explosion in France, which shook all the thrones of Europe, and unsettled the deepest foundations of old establishments. It has overthrown the domestic institutions of the British West Indies, and is even now threatening our own with destruction. There is no telling where its ravages will be stayed. Indeed, a new idea is at any time a very dangerous thing to be allowed to go at large in a quiet community. If a man has hold of one, he must take care how he lets it go. If he cannot knock it on the head, let him make a cage for it in his own breast, where it may serve to divert himself and his particular friends occasionally; but let him beware how he turns it loose upon society. It will be almost sure to worry himself first of all, and then to play the very deuce in the neighborhood. And the mischief is, that, when a new idea is once on foot, it is next to impossible to catch it or destroy it. And this, notwithstanding the respectable part of society has an instinctive antipathy to the anomalous monster, and does all it can to prevent its mischiefs and to despatch it, and that, generally, without much regard to the punctilios of the chase. The world is sadly infested at this moment with these vermin. A man cannot be at peace in his study, his pulpit, his business, his sect, his party, or his possessions, for them. They respect not the old philosophies and theologies; they dabble in physic and in law; they buzz about in churches and capitols; they interfere between men and their spiritual and temporal masters; like harpies, they carry away the very meat and wine from our tables; they demand a reconstruction of society; they even come betwixt us and our very bank-stock and money-bags. I wonder that the well-disposed part of mankind do not make a grand battue for the extermination of these pests of the species. We shall never have a quiet world again until they do.

Our ancestors of the times that tried men's souls had their own experience of the impracticable nature of new ideas. The discussions which ushered in the great "rhetorical flourish" of the Fourth of July, "that all men were created free and equal," were not held in a corner, and would not always be limited to a fit audience. The slaves, as they stood behind their masters' chairs (for be it known to our Southern brethren, that their favorite system, though ever a patriarchal, was not always a peculiar one), or mingled in the excited crowds in the streets, could not help hearing statements of general principles, which, though notoriously a stupid generation, they contrived to generalize sufficiently to make them include themselves. A practical consequence of these new ideas of human rights was, that many slaves made free with so much of their masters' property as was comprised within the circumference of their own skins, and, dispensing with the parental care under which they had grown up, rashly undertook the charge of themselves. Among this thoughtless and ungrateful class was Lewis, the slave of a wealthy and distinguished New England gentleman, whose real name I shall disguise under that of Herbert. Lewis was born in the house of Mr. Herbert, and had grown to manhood in his service. He had no reason to complain of harsh treatment, or of inattention to his bodily necessities. He had passed the middle period of life, and was not many years younger than his master, who ever treated him with much consideration and indulgence. In the realms of the kitchen he ruled with absolute sway,—one of those despots of whom most families whose traditions reach so far back have heard the fame and the deeds. Mr. Herbert scarcely dared to bring a friend home to dine with him, without consulting the convenience of

Lewis; and as to a dinner-party, the master of the house knew himself to be but second in command on such a field-day. Over the larder, the kitchen, the wine-cellar, the plate-chest, and the china-closet, he reigned undisputed sovereign.

Notwithstanding his ample rule and high prerogatives (and Lewis magnified his office), he was never quite satisfied that he had his due. He heard the word "slave" used as the most ignominious epithet that could be applied to human infamy, and he learned to hate it. He heard the blessings of liberty extolled as the birthright of all mankind, and he wished to know what they were. He did not see (poor slave that he was) why he should endure a condition which so many great men seemed to regard with such abhorrence, or why he had not as good a right to that freedom of which they discoursed so eloquently, as they had. I must do Mr. Herbert, however, the justice to say, that it was not from his lips, or in his house, that Lewis imbibed these extravagant ideas. He was (God bless him!) a stanch Tory, and held all these levelling doctrines in utter abhorrence. But the air was tainted with them, and it is not to be wondered at that poor Lewis should have been infected, especially as his temperament and condition predisposed him to receive the contagion. He was so severely afflicted, that he resolved to leave the home where he had been born and bred up, and where he enjoyed all the substantial goods of life, in pursuit of that phantom, Liberty,—that ignis fatuus which has often led men such a dance, and at last left them in the mire. Accordingly, one fine night, he left his master's house, with a heavy heart and many tears; for the love of the African race for their homes and old familiar haunts amounts to a passion. With many a bitter regret at leaving his old master and his young mistress, and with many a sigh at all he left behind, he fared forth in search of what great men have deemed but a name,—of freedom and self-mastery. Whether his experience confirmed or confuted this philosophy, I am not able to say. All I know is, that he never returned to his master's house, though he well knew that he would receive a joyful welcome, and full restitution to all his former dignities. Mr. Herbert, though grieved and hurt at the departure of Lewis, took no measures to recover his services, but suffered him to seek a better condition if he could find it.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Several years had passed away since the flight of Lewis, and no tidings had been heard of him. The cloud which had been so long gathering, now brooded in blackness over the land, ready to burst upon it in a storm of desolation. Indeed, the first red drops, the forerunners of the coming tempest, had already fallen at Lexington, and men were awaiting the general crash with hearts of mingled hope and fear. The siege of Boston was forming gradually; and the timid of either party were endeavoring to escape to it or from it, according as their political principles led them to welcome or to abhor the protection of the British crown. Mr. Herbert was a loyalist,—the most loyal of the loyal. His faith in the omnipotence of the British Parliament was worthy of a crown lawyer. He believed that the struggle would soon be over, and its only result would be to establish King George III. more firmly than ever upon his throne and in the hearts of his people. He had retired several years before to his country-seat, about ten miles from Boston; and his advancing age and increasing infirmities indisposed him to a hasty removal to a beleaguered capital. Though he had held office under the crown, still he was not especially obnoxious to the popular side, and he hoped that he might be permitted to remain a quiet spectator of the struggle, unmolested by either party. He thought that an elderly man and his young daughter could not be regarded as very dangerous obstacles to the progress of a revolution. He hoped that age and innocence might be safe from popular violence. But, good easy man, he had been brought up under the old ideas. Had he lived at this time, he would have known better.

It was a blustering evening about the beginning of May (not the May of the poets, but the May of New England), in the year of grace 1775. Mr. Herbert and his daughter, his only child, were seated together in the parlor (for in those days drawing-rooms were not) of his pleasant country-house. The shutters were closed, and the heavy crimson curtains drawn, concealing the deep recesses for the windows and the inviting window-seats, now, alas! seen no more below. The light of the noble wood fire (always a necessary attendant on a New England May, and that season was what Horace Walpole would have called a hard spring), roaring up the ample chimney, its jambs adorned with Dutch tiles, and its mantel-piece with carving in wood, of which Grinling Gibbons need not have been ashamed, flashed comfortably back from the panelled walls, pleasantly overpowering the rays of the wax candles on the table. Every panel of the wall supported a full-length portrait of some of the ancestral Herberts, from the pencil of the Smiberts and the Blackburns of the early provincial days; while upon two of them the magic art of Copley had impressed an immortal moment of the cheerful age and of the brilliant youth of the pair before us. Change but the brocaded dressing-gown and crimson velvet slippers of the old man for his claret-colored dress-coat with gold buttons, and gold-buckled shoes, and divest his head of the black velvet skull-cap turned up with white silk, and you could scarcely tell which was the picture, and which the original. And under the green riding-habit, heavily laced with gold, and the riding-cap, with its black ostrich-plume, you could not fail to discern the form and features of the beautiful Emily Herbert. Curiously carved, high-backed arm-chairs; cabinets that would have driven a modern collector mad; tables of every variety of shape, some grasping a huge ball in a single clawed foot, while others sustained themselves upon an unaccountable confusion of legs; and other strange furnitures, whereof modern upholstery knows not the names, were duly arranged in their proper places about the ample apartment. The survivors must blush at the confusion in which they now awake and find themselves, after their half-century of sleep, in modern drawing-rooms. Books there were good store, and in the corner, by the door, a globe, brought from the library for some special consultation. The father and his fair child sat by the fire, beside a small table, upon which stood the supper-tray. The repast was slight; but the display of plate was such as would be thought unbefitting the occasion in these days. But in that world, before fancy stocks,—when cities under water, and railways to the Dismal Swamp, were unimagined things,—much capital, comparatively, was invested in plate. And these marks of wealth, reported by the British officers who were feasted in Boston on their return from the conquest of Canada, are said to have been a main temptation to the ministry to seek to repair their necessities by the taxation of the Colonies. Tall decanters blushed with the glowing vintages of Madeira and Portugal, and beside them an exquisitely delicate bowl of curious china sent up the fumes of that punch which was our fathers' "earliest visitation, and their last at even."

The old man sat looking wistfully into the fire, while his daughter, leaning her cheek upon her hand, gazed anxiously upon his face; for those were days that made fair young brows look sad and thoughtful before their time. The clock in the hall had just struck ten when they were roused from their contemplations by the sudden opening of the door. They hastily looked round, and, to their surprise, the long-lost Lewis stood before them. Time had somewhat altered him; and his whole air and bearing was changed from what it was of old: but he it was. "So you have returned at last," began Mr. Herbert; but he was hastily interrupted by Lewis. "Sir," he exclaimed in an earnest tone, "you must instantly leave this house. You have not a moment to lose."—"Leave my house! at this hour! Why, pray?"—"Because the mob is coming, vowing your destruction and that of all that belongs to you."—"The mob! and for what?"—"They say that you have been the cause of all their troubles; that they have discovered letters and what not—but make haste, sir. They are close at hand. If you will listen, you can hear them even now." He hastily opened the window, and a confused murmur of voices was heard, approaching nearer and nearer. Mr. Herbert, who had started to his feet at the first address of his slave, now sunk despondingly back again in his arm-chair. "I cannot go," said he. "Save my child, and leave me to my fate."—"For God's sake," exclaimed Lewis, "rouse yourself. They will murder you. They swear that you are worse than Hutchinson, and that they will have your heart's blood."

The old man shook his head. "Leave me," said he faintly, "and save her."—"Dearest father, do you think I will leave you?" cried Miss Herbert, passionately embracing him. "If you will stay, I will stay with you. But will you suffer your only child to see you murdered before her eyes, and then to be exposed to the fury of a rebel mob?" This expostulation seemed to revive him in some degree; and the resolution beaming from his daughter's eyes gave him new strength and courage. There was indeed no time to lose. The shouts and imprecations of the excited populace were now too distinctly audible, as they approached the rear of the house. Mr. Herbert was almost carried out of the house, through the hall-door, between his daughter and his slave. The house was about a quarter of a mile distant from the high-road. There were no artificial grounds around it. The thick grass grew up to the door, and the natural lawn was irregularly dotted with aboriginal elms and oaks which the axe of the pioneer had spared. At some distance on the left, the lawn was skirted by a young growth of forest-trees. To this point Lewis first directed the steps of his charge; and under its shelter they approached the road before the mob had reached the house. There he paused for a moment, to allow his companions to take breath, and to permit the stragglers who were coming in from the country around to leave the road free. They looked towards the house. Lights were seen flashing at every window. The mob were in search of them.

They could hear distinctly their curses of disappointment and rage. Presently the windows were dashed through, and the furniture thrown furiously out upon the lawn. The very quiet room, where, a quarter of an hour before, all had been peace and stillness, was stripped of all its treasures to heap high the bonfire which was to crown the orgies of the night. The mob had soon broken into the wine-cellar; and this circumstance, and the prospect of the "festal blaze," it is probable, was the safety of the fugitives, by delaying the pursuit. Presently the bonfire began to crackle and blaze; and the shouts became more and more ferocious under the combined influence of liquor and mischief.

Foolish tourists in America complain that we have no amusements in this country. I wish they could have been at Walnut Hill that night. But they are a perverse generation. Have they never heard of our merry times of old,—sacking Governor Hutchinson's house, and tarring and feathering obnoxious officials, and the grand old tea-party of '73? And then our rare sport in burning convents, and halls dedicated to freedom, and dragging insolent varlets about the streets, who dared to say that the Declaration of Independence meant anything, and shooting them down at the doors of their printing-offices! They might at least have remembered the fun we have had in hoaxing "the English epicures" into investing their solid hoards in a very rotten commodity of ours, called public faith, worth about as much as a dicer's oath, or the bought smile of a prostitute. And our repudiation, too! If that be not an excellent jest, I should like to know what is. I say nothing of the royal pastimes of burning men alive by a slow fire, of hunting negroes with bloodhounds and rifles, of whipping women to death, and selling one's own children by the pound; for these are the recreations of our betters, the guarded prerogative of the privileged classes. This kind of game is strictly preserved, and secured for the amusement of our masters, as the chase was in old time confined to the corresponding class in Europe. Like them, too, our lords claim the privilege of pursuing their game over the soil of their vassals. But, though shut out from these diversions of our superiors, we can still share with them the stirring excitement of the mob, the delicate pleasantry of repudiation, and the delicious irony of lynch law. Why, what would these cavillers have? No amusements, indeed!

The blazing bonfire soon attracted all the loiterers in the road, and Lewis seized the opportunity to cross it, with his companions, into the fields beyond. He knew that the main roads in every direction would be soon thronged by yet greater numbers, attracted by the blaze; and he pushed across the fields towards the seashore, about two miles off, as the most probable way of concealment or escape. They hurried along, as fast as the infirmities of Mr. Herbert would permit, over the uneven surface of the land; and slow enough it seemed to his companions. The night was more like one in November than in May, and the chilly wind drifted the clouds in black masses over the waning moon. They accomplished in safety about half the distance, and found themselves in a lane leading to the coast. Here Mr. Herbert declared that it was impossible for him to proceed. It was in vain that his daughter and Lewis endeavored to re-assure him, and drag him forward. He sunk despondingly upon the ground. At that moment a single horseman rode up. He stopped to see what was the matter. The cloud passed from the moon for an instant, and he saw at a glance how it was. "So the old rascal has got away," said he with an oath; "but I'll soon bring those that will settle his business." He was just putting spurs to his horse, when Lewis, seeing the emergency of the case, seized his bridle fast. It was but the work of a moment. The horseman was dragged from his seat, and thrown upon the side of the lane, and Lewis had lifted Mr. Herbert into the saddle. Leading the horse, and entreating Miss Herbert to assist in steadying her father upon his back, he hurried onward as fast as he dared. This was the more necessary, as they heard the dismounted cavalier, as soon as he could recover his breath and his senses, making towards the light, roaring for assistance. It seemed as though they never would reach the end of the lane. Mr. Herbert swayed upon the saddle like a drunken man, and it was with difficulty that they kept him from falling. Before they had gained the shore, they knew that their pursuers had been put upon the right scent. They were nearing them fast, when the fugitives at last came out upon the sands. The hurried footsteps, shouts, execrations, and dancing lights of the mob, seemed fearfully near. What were they to do? Fortunately, Lewis espied a gentleman's boat-house, built over a little creek hard by. "I must make free with Colonel Vernon's boat," exclaimed he, and, suiting the action to the word, he demolished the padlock on the door with a huge stone. By an equally summary process he freed the boat from its moorings, and pushed it out of its covert. It seemed to be too late, for the rioters were almost upon them. He dashed through the waves, and, taking Mr. Herbert in his arms, deposited him in the forward part of the boat, and then, in like manner placing Miss Herbert at the helm, with a hurried instruction how to hold it, grasped the oars. A second's delay or misadventure had been fatal; for the crowd were already upon the beach, exulting over their prey. But a single stroke of the oars placed them beyond their reach. Maddened with drink and rage, the pursuers rushed into the sea with yells and imprecations, in hopes to seize the boat. A shower of stones rained upon the fugitives. But, luckily, the rioters had no fire-arms, and a sweep or two more of the oars placed them beyond danger and annoyance. The bay upon which they were launched was so completely land-locked, that it was more like an inland lake than the wide Atlantic.

They were soon careering over the gentle billows, leaving the confused noise of the baffled mob far behind them, and they forgot for the moment, in the sweet sense of present security, what they had suffered and lost.

As soon as the first tumults of joy were over, Lewis explained his agency in the matter. It seems, that, after he left Mr. Herbert's house, he had gone to Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, where he lived until he happened to hear that his old master had removed permanently into the country. He then returned to Boston, not long before, and went into the service of a distinguished patriot. He had left the town previously to the siege, with this gentleman's family. It was in this situation that he heard of the popular excitement against his old master, as a traitor to the country (whether just or not, we have not time now to inquire), and of the determination of the populace to wreak their vengeance upon him. By pretending to join them, he had been able to get enough in advance of them to defeat their plans, as we have seen. While thus explaining, the boat rounded the point of Long Island, and was instantly challenged from his Majesty's frigate "Arethusa," which lay at anchor in the channel. Explanations were soon given. The fugitives were cordially welcomed to the hospitalities of the ship for the night, and the next morning they were safely landed in Boston.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Long years passed away. The struggle was over. The seven years of apprenticeship were at an end; and the American Colonies, erected into the United States, had set up the trade of government on their own account. The expectations of the English ministry were disappointed, and the hopes of the loyalists crushed forever. The treaty of Paris had crowned the work: and the rebellion was transmuted, by the magic of success, into the Revolution. Many hearts rejoiced at the prosperous issue; some, because they glowed with patriotic fires; some, because they saw a new and untried career of ambition opened before them; some, because the final seal was set upon the confiscations and forfeitures of the troublous times, and confirmed their titles to other people's estates. But there were, too, sorrowful spirits and breaking hearts, wearing out sad years of exile in a foreign land, upon whose ears the distant rejoicings sounded like the death-knell of their hopes. To such we turn.

One of the gloomiest days of a London November was drawing towards its close. The sun vainly endeavored to pierce the thick fog that buried the city in an untimely night. The street-lamps were lighted, though it was not yet sunset: and the windows of the shops and houses shot forth uncertain glimmerings into the darkness. A single candle sufficed to light up a humble room on the fourth floor of a dilapidated house in an obscure part of the city. It had not much to reveal. A ragged carpet strove to hide the middle of the floor; a few common chairs (no two alike), a deal table, and a rough bedstead, all bearing the tokens of poverty and the pawnbroker's shop, filled up the disposable space of the chamber. A handful of coals upon the grate seemed to be endeavoring to excite themselves into a blaze, sending out into the room an occasional puff of smoke as an earnest of their good intentions. The room was scrupulously clean, but in all other respects bore the marks of extreme poverty. Upon the bed reclined an old man, propped by pillows, apparently in the last stage of life. By his side sat a woman of perhaps thirty, but upon whose countenance care and sorrow had done the work of many years. The unnatural brightness of her eye, the hectic spot on her cheek, and the frequent though stifled cough, showed that she was not much longer for the world than her aged companion. "Emily, my love," said Mr. Herbert, for he it was, "what was that knocking that just awoke me?"—"It was nothing, sir," replied his daughter, "but Mrs. Hobbs, coming after her rent. You remember that the doctor's fee last week, when you were so ill, swallowed up that week's rent, so that we are now a fortnight in arrears. But I pacified her by promising she should be paid as soon as Lewis arrives. You know it is Saturday night."—"Ah! she awoke me from a most delicious dream. I thought I stood, as I often do in dreams, upon the lawn at Walnut Hill. The shadows of the old trees fell, sharply defined, on the grass; beyond, the Neponset reflected the trees on his banks, as he used to do; the Blue Hill was on my right hand, the old woods on my left, and the ocean gleamed in the distance. As I stood there, it seemed to me as if all that I have ever known during my long life passed in friendly procession before me. First my parents, and brothers and sisters, then my school-fellows and college-companions, and so on, as long as I had a friend left. It seemed as if they were gathered to some great festival, of which I was the central attraction. How I rejoiced in the sight of their beloved countenances!"—"You have at least one friend left, sir," interposed his daughter. "True, my dear, and one worth hundreds that have called themselves so. What would my proud ancestors have said, what should I have said in my pride of life, had it been foretold that I and my child would one day be dependent for our daily bread on the bounty of a negro!"—"Dear Lewis!" said Miss Herbert, "he has saved our lives many times. What should we have done without him?"—"What, indeed!" rejoined her father. "When the compensation allowed for my losses by the government was absorbed by my old English debts, and when, that not sufficing, my very pension was sold, we must have starved, or come upon the parish, but for him. God will reward him." A light tap was heard at the door, which was gently opened, and Lewis entered, his face beaming with satisfaction, for it had been a prosperous week with him. Years had grizzled his hair, and slightly bent his frame; but "his age was like a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly." He wore the dress of the waiter of a tavern, in which capacity he had for many years supported himself and his protegés. On his arm he bore a covered basket containing provisions, which he had just been purchasing. He cheerfully advanced to Miss Herbert, and gave her money for her clamorous landlady and other expenses. He then busied himself in putting the room to rights, and in performing various services about the sick-bed. There was a cheerful alacrity about him which showed that his labors were indeed those of love. There was nothing of servility about the marked respect which he paid to Mr. and Miss Herbert. His good-breeding was learnt in no coterie or court; but it could not have been surpassed by the most accomplished graduate of either; for he bestowed the greatest of benefactions without seeming conscious that they were such, and saved the pride of his beneficiaries while he supplied their necessities. He was fully aware of the obligations under which he had laid the helpless pair before him, and they knew it; but they both felt as if his relation to them was that of a father or a brother. Misery is a great leveller of the distinctions men have made between themselves and their fellow-men. But there was nothing in the deportment of Lewis that ever reminded his former master and mistress of their obligations to him.

At last, he said that it was time to go, as there was a great supper at the Angel that night. As he turned to leave the room, Mr. Herbert detained him. "Lewis," said he, "I feel as if my time was short, and I have a word or two to say to you." Lewis put down his hat, and approached the bedside. "My friend," Mr. Herbert resumed, "my child and I owe you many lives. You saved us from a mob in America, and from starvation here." Lewis made a deprecating gesture; and his countenance indicated so much distress, that Mr. Herbert proceeded, "I am not going to thank you, my friend, for that I can not do,—God will thank you,—but to ask you to continue to be the friend of my child when I am dead." Lewis looked half reproachfully at his old master, as if hurt at the implication that such a request was necessary, and then turned his eyes upon Miss Herbert. They filled with tears as they rested upon her; for he saw, though her father did not, how short a time she was destined to remain behind him. He could not speak; but he took Miss Herbert's hand and kissed it. Lord Chesterfield could not have done it more expressively. Mr. Herbert was made easy on that point. "Now tell me," he resumed, "whether you have made any inquiries as to my old loyalist friends at the other end of the town: do they suspect where I am?"—"I have good reason to know," replied Lewis, "that they believe you returned long since to America, and have no suspicion of your being still in London."—"That is well," rejoined Mr. Herbert: "let the secret be still kept, that the world" (his little loyalist world) "may never know of the latter days of Philip Herbert." He extended his hand to his benefactor, and, sinking back upon his pillow, closed his eyes. Lewis, in strong emotion, stole from the room. He returned about midnight, and, as soon as he looked upon the face of the sick man, he saw that he was dying. Miss Herbert had suspected as much, and was anxiously awaiting his arrival. They exchanged looks: no words were needed. Lewis took his station on the other side of the bed, and they remained all night watching the face of the dying man. Towards morning, he opened his eyes, and turning them first upon his friend, and then upon his child, with that look which only a dying man can give, he closed them again forever.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

I need not prolong my tale. More than half a century has passed away since all its actors disappeared, like drops of rain in the ocean. They sleep together in one of the hideous churchyards of London, and are forgotten. Of the colonial glories of the Herberts, of the miseries of their exile, of the heroic self-devotion of Lewis, not a trace is left, except this imperfect tradition. Heroic his conduct surely deserves to be called; for what is heroism but intelligent self-devotion to an unselfish end, self-sacrifice for the advantage of others? And when those for whom the sacrifices of years were made had inflicted upon him who made them the greatest wrong man can do to man, when self-devotion was thus the companion of godlike forgiveness, surely it was a height of virtue to which the annals of the race can furnish but few parallels. For Lewis was no besotted slave, whom favors or blows had so imbruted that he could not discern his own rights, so that he blindly followed his master, in the belief that he was entitled to his lifelong service. He had shown his sense of the degradation and injustice of his servile estate by leaving the persons and the scenes he loved, for freedom, though in a worse condition, and refusing to return again until misfortune had overshadowed them. That he did not grudge his services, he showed by his cheerful gift of them to those he loved, when they were his own to give.

Perhaps there may be some who will deem it strange that the Herberts should have consented to be thus the dependents of a negro once their slave. Such should be very careful of their censures, for they may reach farther than they think. Was it more disgraceful to the Herberts to live in London upon the earnings of a negro, freely offered for the love he bore them, than it is to grave judges, learned divines, and honorable women, to live upon the earnings of negroes in Charleston or Baltimore, extorted by the fear or the application of torture? Which is the meaner and more ignominious livelihood of the two? The same practical results are worked out on many a broad plantation and in many a splendid city mansion, that we have seen produced in an obscure garret in London; only the motive-power that creates them is the scourge or the branding-iron, instead of generous affection. There are many men of eminent station, and who boast loudly of the sensitiveness of their honor, who eat dirtier bread every day of their lives than did the Herberts during their last and evil days.

There may be others who cannot understand why Lewis, when he was so ready to give his services for nothing in the days of his master's distress, should have deserted him in the days of his prosperity, when his fidelity might have met with some reward. If there be any who cannot perceive the difference between the free gifts of love and the extorted tribute of involuntary servitude, I have no time left to point it out. I can only say, that, if it were an error, it was one which he shared with the noblest natures and the most generous spirits. The divine instinct of liberty, to which he yielded, and which is even now urging hundreds of fugitives towards the polar star, is that which has shed the purest glory upon the page of history, and given to poetry its truest inspiration. Its manifestations, however coarse or barbarous they may have been, ever have appealed with resistless power to the universal human heart. It was this principle that wreathed with myrtle the sword of Harmodius, and has invested with immortal memories the steel of Brutus and the shaft of Tell. It was this that sent Hampden reeling in his saddle, a dying man, from Chalgrove field; that taught Milton

"To scorn delights, and live laborious days;"

and that made Vane and Sidney lay down their heads upon the block, as if it were some beloved bosom wooing them to repose. To those who feel that freedom is the only element in which the soul can grow and expand, and who can appreciate the virtues which are its genial growth, in however humble a breast or obscure a lot, I cheerfully commend the memory and the example of LEWIS HERBERT.

TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO.

TWO NIGHTS IN ST. DOMINGO;

"AN OWER TRUE TALE."

————

IT was a gay night at the Habitation du Plessis, that of the 22d of August, 1791. The evening breeze, fresh from the cool fields of the ocean, had breathed a new elasticity into hearts that had been all day fainting beneath the vertical sun of a tropical midsummer. The first rustle of its wings, as it stirred the trees that imbosomed the mansion, had summoned the scattered guests from their various inventions for speeding the weary day, and assembled them in the great hall that occupied the whole depth and height of the central building. The lofty doors were flung open, and the tall windows on either side of them expanded their slender valves from the floor to the ceiling to welcome the healing gale. The small party, consisting of some half-dozen besides the master and mistress of the house, were dispersed over the spacious apartment, in various attitudes and different employments. A card-table engrossed the souls of the elder and more sedate division of the company. A younger group was clustered around the harp of the beautiful

Mademoiselle de Mirecourt, the sole heiress of this noble estate and its thousand slaves. And, when her song had ceased, the gay Abbé de Valnais showed by the brilliancy of his sallies and the piquancy of his bons mots, that he had left neither his wit nor his good spirits behind him at Paris, when he fled from it with the first emigration.

While the hall rung with the gay voices and merry laughter of this mercurial circle, Mr. Vincent, a young American newly arrived in the island, and but that day at the Habitation, stood by himself beneath the broad veranda, and looked out upon a scene of such beauty as he had never before gazed upon. Beneath him lay the plain of the Cape, sleeping in the mellow light of a moon that might well put to shame most of the suns of his colder skies, skirted by shadowy mountains, standing around it like guardian giants, and terminated in the far distance by the ocean, that gleamed in the moonlight like a sea of molten silver. All around him was a wilderness of trees and shrubs, new to his Northern eye. The multitudinous sounds of a tropical night fell strangely, but not unharmoniously, on his ear; while the air that played about his temples came loaded with perfumes such as might have breathed from "the spicy shores of Araby the blest."

He turned his eyes to the scene within, and it was scarcely less a scene of enchantment to one who had sprung up to early manhood on the rocky shores of New England. The lofty and beautifully proportioned hall, filled with all the appliances and means of tropical luxury,—somewhat too massive and gorgeous in its furniture, perhaps, to please a severe eye, and better suited to the meridian of Paris than of St. Domingo, but all splendid with gilding and carved work, in the rich though somewhat questionable taste of the later days of the French monarchy,—seemed as if it might be the palace of Armida rising in the midst of her enchanted gardens. Out of the hall opened a noble library, rich with the spoils of all past time. Next to it, the billiard-room invited the lovers of such pastime. On the opposite sides, the saloons, or, as they would now be called, the drawing-rooms, their walls glittering with gilding, and flashing with mirrors, and furnished as only French upholsterers then knew how, seemed as if some magician had transported the saloons of Paris many a league across the ocean, from the banks of the Seine to this distant isle. Adjoining them was the dining-room, furnished with equal richness, though in a more quiet style; the splendid sideboard groaning beneath the ancestral plate of many a generation, and its walls hung with choice cabinet pictures, chiefly of festive and joyous scenes, suggestive of wine and mirth. But at this torrid season the hall, from its greater height and airiness, was the chosen scene of the reunions of the household. As the young American turned from the scene of beauty without to that of splendor within, he thought only of the happiness which must be the attendant of such boundless wealth: his mind dwelt as little at that moment on the misery and wrong upon which all this splendor was upreared, and on the ruin which the upheaving of those foundations was about to work, as it did upon the volcanic fires that lay beneath the exhaustless soil and superb vegetation that surrounded him, and which might in a moment make the whole paradise a waste.

And the Marquis de Mirecourt himself, as he laid down his cards, and joined the rest of the party, when supper was announced, for a moment forgot, as he gave himself up to the enchantment of the scene, that he was an exile from that Paris he so dearly loved. Though surrounded with every luxury that the most unbounded wealth could furnish, in the most delicious of climates, and in the midst of the divinest of scenery, he still sighed in secret for the narrow streets, formal gardens, and crowded saloons of the metropolis of the senses. He had left France amid the very first mutterings of the Revolutionary storm, and, leaving his paternal chateau in Dauphiné to the mercy of his white slaves, whose hour had at last come, he betook himself to the estate in St. Domingo, which he had received by marriage with a young Creole heiress, whom he espoused from the convent, whither she had been sent for her education.

On this night, however, his heart was glad within him; for he was surrounded by kindred spirits,—men of high birth, of aristocratic habits, of refined tastes—such as had been the companions of his happier days. The supper-table was laid in the centre of the hall. In all its appointments it would have done no discredit to the most historical of the houses of the age of petits soupers. Candelabras of massive silver poured down a flood of light upon the repast; tall shades of the clearest crystal guarding the wax candles from the welcome gale. The most exquisite of French dishes (for M. de Mirecourt had not been so improvident as to leave his chef de cuisine behind him), served upon solid plate, gave place at their due time to the most delicious of the tropical fruits, glowing in the beautiful porcelain of Sêvres, a gift of royalty when royalty was something more than a name. The richest and rarest of wines, cooled to a charm, were marshalled in that festive procession, which the experience of successive generations of gourmets had established as their due order of precedence. The delicate chablis ushered in the feast; the frolic champagne, and the freshness of the fragrant Rhine-wine, enlivened its solemn march as it moved onward; while

"The gay, serene, good-natured Burgundy"

threw a sunset glow over its brilliant conclusion. A slave in the rich livery of the De Mirecourts stood behind every chair, in seeming, an automaton of ebony, moved only by the will of him whom he was appointed to serve. A white Major Domo, in plain clothes, stood by the temporary sideboard to anticipate the slightest wish, and to prevent the labor of its utterance. Nothing that wealth could summon from the four quarters of the globe, to heighten or add a poignancy to luxury, was absent from that splendid banquet.

And the circle for which it was furnished forth was not unworthy of the magic feast. Besides the Marquis and his beautiful daughter, there was Madame de Mirecourt, a beauty somewhat past her prime, who had superinduced an affectation of French vivacity upon her native Creole apathy and indolence. Here was the Abbé de Valnais, of whom honorable mention has already been made, and the Chevalier de Tillemont, who had served with distinction in America under Rochambeau, and now commanded one of the regiments at Cape François, with the Cross of St. Louis suspended from his button-hole. A cadet of a noble family in France, who was attached to the general government of the island, at that time swayed by M. de Blanchelande; a wealthy planter and his Parisian wife, who were on a short visit at Plessis; and the American Vincent, to whom the knowledge of these particulars is due—made up the rest of the party. All were in the highest spirits. The national festivity of spirits, relieved for the time from the anxieties caused by the progress of the Revolution at home, and the sympathetic excitement of the colonial extremities of the French monarchy, which had checked its genial current, gushed forth with the joyousness of a fountain leaping from its cavern. Exile and impoverishment, and blighted prospects, and disappointed hopes, and homesick yearnings, were all forgotten. The magic of the present hour triumphed over them all. The troubles in France and in St. Domingo would soon be over, and the old régime virtually restored. The fierce populace of Paris, and their humble rivals in the Provinces and Colonies, would soon be reduced to their natural position,—under the feet of the noblesse. It was as absurd to suppose that the sans-culottes at home could permanently lord it over their birthright masters, as it would be to suppose the negro slaves capable of maintaining an ascendency over their natural lords. A sudden tempest had disturbed the elements of society; but, as soon as it was blown over, things would find their natural level again.

Ah! there were gay visions seen through that convivial atmosphere that night. The Abbé beheld in the brilliant distance a mitre, perhaps a cardinal's hat; and there were some dim images that looked like Mazarin and Richelieu. A marshal's bâton danced before the eyes of the chevalier. The Marquis saw himself restored to all his baronial rights and enormous rents; while the opera, the Comédie Française, the masquerades and balls of dear Paris, once more seemed within the reach of Madame de Mirecourt and her daughter. As to the rich planter, he saw armies of negroes, and mountains of sugar, which were to help him to a speedy return to France, and perhaps to a patent of nobility. The young American, I fear, had no more gorgeous or chivalric imaginings than of heavy commissions, great profits, cent per cent, the largest house in Boston, and the neatest villa in its neighborhood.

It was a night, too, to be remembered for itself, divested of the tragic interest with which a few hours invested it. The absurdities and awkwardnesses of the new men who had taken the place of the old nobility in the direction of affairs, and the comic situations into which their ignorance of the conventions of society betrayed them, afforded fertile themes for the gay wit and playful raillery of the Abbé, and for the bitter sarcasms of the Marquis. The politics of the theatre and of the ballet were discussed with a seriousness which those of the Revolution could not command. Literature, and the quarrels and private history of the world of letters, were suggestive themes to men who had sat at the tables of D'Holbach and De Geoffrin and Du Deffand, and who remembered Voltaire and Rousseau and D'Alembert and Diderot. Scandal, too, lent its wings to hasten on the hours, and the Queen of the Antilles witnessed that night the death of many a Parisian reputation. The crowning satisfaction, however, of their Epicurean philosophy, to which they often recurred with new glee, was their happy removal from the disturbed heart of the kingdom to a spot whence they could watch its mighty pulsations in safety and peace. Here, at least, they might live without danger from the slavish mass, which must, in all civilized countries, form the groundwork of society. The quarrels which had distracted the Colony had arisen from the struggles of the superior classes alone for the mastery. All classes looked with equal contempt and certainty upon the submissive deportment of the slaves, whose toil supplied them with their wealth. Strong in this security, they enjoyed a "Lucretian pleasure" in standing in safety upon the shore, and seeing the barks of others buffeted about by the tempest, or sink foundering in the billows. M. de Mirecourt felt and said that he could not feel as if all were lost, even if he never recovered his confiscated estates in France, so long as a thousand negroes extorted from the soil of Plessis half a million of livres every year, and emptied them into his coffers. With such an income, life might be endured for a time, even in that banishment. All were blest in the consciousness of present security and the confident expectation of future good. Gay wit, light laughter, and rosy hopes, all helped to chase the hours of that genial night.

But the most genial of nights must have an end at last, and the most perfect of suppers cannot endure forever. At length the party separated, at an hour when the Southern Cross, quenching its radiance in the Atlantic waves, told that the morning was at hand of a day ever memorable in the history of mankind. They all dispersed "in measureless content," weary with mirth, and tired with revelry, little dreaming that sleep would be that night, for the last time, a visitant to the princely Habitation du Plessis. All retired, and all slept, except the American Vincent.

The excitement of a scene so new to him drove sleep from his eyes, and after attempting for an hour or two to banish from his mind the beaming faces, gay voices, and ringing laughter of the last few hours, he rose, and in his robe de chambre walked forth upon the terrace on which the house was built. The moon had set, and a world of new constellations glittered gloriously above his head in a firmament of the blackest blue. The thousand voices of a tropical night still maintained their eternal concert. The vast masses of vegetation which covered the mountain-sides, and which were to be dimly descried through the night in the nearer distance, seemed to be clothed with the very blackness of darkness, gilded, indeed, by the flashing light of innumerable fireflies. It was a scene of peace and coolness which soon quieted Vincent's excited brain.

As he turned to seek his apartment again, he heard the conch sound in the distance, summoning the field slaves to their daily toil. He knew then that sunrise was near, and he waited to look upon its glories. He had not gazed into the night long, before the sun vaulted, as it were, from the eastern waves, "and that moment all was light." The darkness fled away, like a fiend before the rebuke of an angel, and all the landscape was bathed in the rejoicing beams. From the height on which he stood, the vast plantations of the plain of the Cape seemed like fairy gardens. No portion of the soil was left neglected. The soft green of the canefields and of the Guinea-grass beautifully contrasted with the darker hues of the coffee-plantations, and of the overarching trees that sheltered them from the scorching heat, looking like graceful columns supporting a canopy of verdure. The mountains, feathering to the top with their forests of enormous trees, reared themselves in a thousand shapes of beauty, while endless varieties of light and shade played over their surface. In the far distance might be discerned the smoke, curling upwards from the city of the Cape; and farther yet, the amethyst and emerald sea, with here and there a white sail gliding over its surface, like blessed spirits floating over a lake in Paradise. And presently the long lines of slaves were seen winding their way to their appointed task, each division driven by an overseer, a long-lashed whip under his arm, with which he would ever and anon urge his lagging herd to a brisker pace. The almost naked forms of the negroes as they dispersed themselves over the canefields, and the loose white linen dress and overshadowing hat of the overseers, beheld from that distance, and in the midst of that tropical landscape, seemed to a stranger's eye like a scene from the Arabian Nights. As Vincent gazed upon it, he felt no forebodings of a coming woe. There were no signs in the air of that lovely day, that told of the dread Nemesis that brooded over the fated island to avenge the hoarded wrongs of bloody centuries. No earthquake heralded the downfall of the white race. No tornado shadowed forth the approaching tempest.

All was bright and fair and calm on that last morning of slavery.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

There was to be a state dinner-party at Plessis on the 23d of August. Several of the neighboring planters had been invited to meet the distinguished guests who enjoyed its hospitality. This is a serious matter anywhere and at any time, but especially beneath an August sun, between the tropics. The guests had retired to their apartments to endure the tortures of a Parisian toilet within twenty degrees of the equator. Madame de Mirecourt sat listlessly in her dressing-room, bewailing in that sacred retreat the ungenerous hostility of the climate to rouge, while its inroads upon the complexion made such foreign aid the more important, when the door opened, and Stéphanie, her own woman, hastily entered the apartment. Madame de Mirecourt wondered, as much as her apathetic habits would admit of such an emotion, at her unsummoned appearance; but then Stéphanie was her foster-sister, and had lived with her in France, and in a humble way shared her education, and might be permitted liberties which could not pass unpunished in any other slave. The surprise of the mistress was increased, when the slave cautiously opened all the doors that led out of the room, as if to ascertain that no one was listening, and then placed herself before her.

"What does all this mean, Stéphanie?" drawled out Madame de Mirecourt, "My indulgence has bounds—and Le Fronde has a whip!"

"It means," replied Stéphanie in a low voice, "that the time has come when the accursed Le Fronde's whip will be broken, and when he will taste some of his own infernal cruelties himself, and know how sweet they are."

"You forget yourself, Stéphanie," replied her mistress. "You have been brought up too tenderly. You have heard of the proverb that speaks of the insolence of an unwhipped slave?"

"It is to that tenderness of which you speak, madame," replied Stéphanie, "that foolish tenderness, that you will owe your life, if indeed it can yet be saved. It is an unwhipped slave that would save you and yours a faint taste of those horrors which your race has so long heaped upon mine."

"Just Heaven!" exclaimed the Marchioness, startled out of her apathy. "What is it you mean?"

"I mean," solemnly answered Stéphanie, "that Heaven is just; that the day of my people's deliverance is come; that this night the whole plain of the Cape will be filled with fire and blood,—a slight atonement for centuries of outrage! The insurrection, thank God! is so well matured that failure is impossible. And now it is my folly to wish to save you for your selfish kindness to me. And yet"——

"God! my daughter!" exclaimed the agonized mother; for there was that in the tone and looks of

Stéphanie which forbade her to question the truth of her words. "Oh, save her! save her!"

"Command yourself, madame," replied the slave, "and you may both be saved; but it will depend entirely on your control of yourself."

"O Stéphanie, Stéphanie!" exclaimed the humbled mistress, throwing herself at the feet of her slave, and embracing her knees in an agony of despair. "Remember all you owe to me! Recollect my kindness, my indulgence, from the day when we had but one mother!"

"Yes," answered Stéphanie bitterly—"yes, I remember that you treated me like a petted lap-dog or a tame paroquet. And yet I do owe you more than you imagine; for, had it not been for the lessons you permitted me to receive in the Convent of St. Agnes, this holy insurrection could never have been so secretly and yet so surely planned as to be certainly triumphant. But rise, madame: that is a posture never again to be assumed by one mortal to another in St. Domingo."

"Not till you have promised me to defeat this dreadful rebellion," cried Madame de Mirecourt, still clinging to Stéphanie. "You shall have your freedom; you shall have wealth such as none of your caste ever dreamed of possessing; you shall be honored forever as the savior of the white race, if you will but delay it till troops can be brought hither from the Cape."

"My freedom!" replied Stéphanie scornfully. "I thank you, madame; but I mean to take that myself without the leave of any earthly being. As to delaying the sacrifice, it is not in my power to do it; but, if it were, not all the wealth of France would induce me to defer it a moment when it is ready to be offered."

"Then I will do it myself," exclaimed the Marchioness, starting to her feet, and making a movement towards the door.

"Stay, madame," said Stéphanie calmly, and detaining her mistress with a grasp not to be resisted. "You will but hasten the catastrophe by such madness. The first peal of the alarm-bell,—the first shriek that will tell that all is known,—and in five minutes twenty knives will be in the heart of every white man on the estate, and in a quarter of an hour the flames of Plessis will tell to the whole plain that the hour is come. As to the women," she continued, partly unsheathing a knife concealed in her bosom, "I shall take care, in such case, to save you and mademoiselle from the terrible vengeance which I fear the husbands, fathers, and brothers of the outraged slave-women will wreak on the wives, daughters, and sisters of their tyrants."

"O God!" exclaimed the distracted Marchioness, sinking, half-fainting, upon a couch, "what is to be done?"

"Leave that to me, madame," said Stéphanie: "your part is to appear below as if all were well. After you are dressed, I shall see M. le Marquis, and concert my plan with him. Remember that all depends on your playing your part well, so that no suspicion may be awakened in the minds of the slaves behind your chairs. For I need not say that suspicion would be instant death. And now, madame, to your toilet."

And never since Stéphanie had performed those offices about the person of her mistress did she discharge them more accurately than on that last day of her servitude. Madame de Mirecourt, half-stunned, and feeling the power of a strong mind over a weaker one, yielded herself implicitly to the hands of her slave, and promised to obey her directions in all points. She wore her diamonds, at the instance of Stéphanie, and concealed other valuable jewels about her person.

"These would have been mine," said Stéphanie. "But no matter: you will need them more than I in the strange land whither you must go." Madame de Mirecourt shuddered at the idea of poverty and exile; but nearer and worse dangers soon drove it from her mind. Heavens! What a toilet was that!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

It was a princely banquet that graced the great dining-room at Plessis that day, but as dreadful to some of those that sat around the board as was the Egyptian feast to the novice, when the falling rose-wreath disclosed to him the grim features of his skeleton companion. M. de Mirecourt had managed to inform all the gentlemen of his household guests of their danger, and of his plan of escape.

The circumstances with which Stéphanie had confirmed her story had put the matter beyond a doubt. Nothing remained for them but to save their lives by flight, according to the plan she pointed out. And there they sat in full dress around the splendid table, with this dreadful secret weighing upon their hearts, playing the part of gay revellers! Ah, it was a ghastly feast! How changed their hearts since the merry hours of last night's revel! The ancient story, of the sword suspended by a single hair over the head of the parasite, as he reclined at a regal banquet such as was spread for his tyrant, did but shadow forth the horrors of that night! Oh, those interminable courses! It seemed as if they would never come to an end. How "palled the tasteless meats and joyless wines!" And then those insufferable guests of the day, who knew nothing of the fearful truth—how they did prose! They ate and drank as if they knew that it was their last dinner, and were resolved to make the most of it. They discussed the viands and wines as if an accurate acquaintance with their virtues was the necessary passport to paradise. And then they talked of their crops and their slaves, the annual loss by overworking and necessary correction, and all the economics of whipping and starving and maiming—and this to men who knew that the slave behind every chair had a cane-knife, sharpened on both sides, in his bosom! Human nature, even French human nature, could not have endured it much longer.

At last—and it was an at last—the guests made a move to depart, murmuring something of the lateness of the hour and the distance they had to go, hoping to be pressed to stay with hospitable urgency.

"Must you go, indeed!" exclaimed the Marquis, assuming an air of half-tipsy jollity. "Then we will all escort you a mile or two on your way, and drink a parting bottle by the roadside, in the moonlight."

The proposition was hailed by all, in the secret and out of it, as a most whimsical and admirable frolic. The coaches were ordered round; and the Chevalier de Tillemont directed his horse to be saddled, as better fitting his knightly character. When the carriages came round, that of the Marquis took the lead, and was followed by two others of the planter guests. As they were entering them, Vincent protested against being enclosed in any such prison upon wheels, and declared his intention of mounting the box, so that he might see the country to the more advantage. As the moon had not yet risen, and it was almost pitch dark, this was hailed as an excellent jest; and the Abbé also, in the same vein, insisted upon mounting the box of the carriage that came next. M. de Tillemont rode alongside of the third.

In this order they proceeded until they came near the place where the two planters would turn off from the road to Cape François. Here, at a signal from the Chevalier, Vincent pointed a pistol at the head of the coachman by whose side he sat, and threatened him with instant death unless he suffered himself to be pinioned peaceably. The Abbé, at the same moment, threw his arms round those of his neighbor, and confined them until he could be secured; while the Chevalier, mounted on a charger which obeyed the least touch of the foot or slightest word, with a pistol in either hand, took charge of the third coachman and of all the footmen, and with the help of the attaché, and of the gentleman who had been a visitor at Plessis, succeeded in binding them all on the ground before they well knew what had happened to them. He then briefly stated the exigency of the case to the planters who were not in the secret, and who were scarcely less astonished at the treatment their slaves had received than they were themselves. They were not convinced, however, of the danger. Their contempt of the blacks supplied whatever might be wanting in personal or moral courage, and they persisted in proceeding to their own homes. There was no time for expostulation: so, after their slaves had been disarmed, they were set at liberty, and proceeded with their masters across the plain. It is needless to say that those masters never saw the light of another sun.

The rest of the party crowded into M. de Mirecourt's carriage, which Vincent undertook to drive, with the exception of the Chevalier, who, with a passing farewell, put spurs to his horse, and galloped off at the top of his speed along the rough road as it wound around the side of the mountain; the sparkles from his horse's hoofs marking his course long after he himself was lost in the darkness. Vincent was no experienced whip, and was entirely unacquainted with the road; so that their progress seemed slow to their excited fears. Thus they proceeded through the dark night, when of a sudden a ruddy glow shot through the air. They turned their heads, and far away, where it was notched into the mountain's side, they saw Plessis one sheet of flame. It was a beautiful though a fearful sight; but it was one that told the Marquis that he was a beggar.

They were now emerging from the mountain-side upon the plain. They had been hitherto unmolested; but the number of estates they would have to pass rendered the next two leagues of their journey full of danger. This was soon made more clear to them; for, as if they had waited for the signal-fire to be kindled on the height of Plessis, the whole plain, and the sides of the skirting mountains, were lighted up with a hundred conflagrations. In the glare of this fearful illumination they drove on for a mile or two farther, when they came to an estate the mansion of which was but a bowshot from the road. It was just wrapped in flames,—the negroes could be seen dancing in mad mirth around it,—while fearful shrieks, such as Vincent remembered to have heard ushering in the day at the Cape, and even at Plessis, though now issuing from other lips, were heard above the roar of the fire and the shouts of the insurgent slaves. It was soon plain that they were perceived, and their errand suspected. They were loudly ordered to stop; and, when this command was disregarded, a company of thirty or forty negroes set out in full pursuit. It was a pastime that had the charm of novelty to the pursuers. They had some of them been the quarry of the slave-hunt; but they had none of them ever engaged before as the hunters in the chase of the white man. Vincent had nothing left for it but speed. He lashed the horses with all his strength, and gave them the rein. They dashed onward with furious speed, and he hoped soon to leave his pursuers far behind. But unluckily, when in full career, sweeping away over the plain, one of the horses fell, and, though he almost instantly recovered himself, the accident gave a fearful advantage to the pursuers.

Before Vincent could put up his steeds to their full speed again, it was clear that the enemy were gaining upon him. Their yells sound nearer and nearer; the light of their torches flashes brighter and brighter from behind; their footsteps fall more and more numerously upon his ear. The taste they have had of the white man's blood that night has only maddened, not satisfied, their thirst. They are even now upon him. Some seize the spokes of the wheels to hold them back. Others rush to the horses, and attempt to hamstring them, and to cut the traces. Vincent has no longer any control over them as they plunge and rear in pain and terror. He gives up all for lost; and well he may, for a more formidable band never set about a work of death. Some bore in their hands huge brands from the burning house, which they waved over their heads; some brandished their cane-knives in their hands; and others had them fastened to long poles. Some were armed with axes, and some with huge iron bars. Some were almost naked; and others were fantastically dressed in the rich damasks and brocades of their masters and mistresses. Almost all had blood on their hands or on their garments. They seemed like fiends who had been for a long time subjected to the will of a magician, but who had at length surmounted the charm, and were enjoying the delight of torturing their tormentor.

They gathered around the coach, and their cry was for blood. Vincent exhorted the gentlemen within the carriage to sell their lives as dearly as they might. They were only armed with the short rapier, which at that time formed an indispensable part of full dress: he had, besides, a pair of pistols. With these, he attempted to keep the insurgents at bay, but with brief success. Uttering a charm which they believed a specific against gunshot wounds, they rush upon him, clambering in crowds upon the coach-box. Others force open the doors of the carriage, and are about to drag out the occupants. All seems to be over when a rushing sound is heard in the distance.

What is it? The assailants pause for a moment to listen. It is surely the tread of horses' feet. It sweeps on nearer and nearer. Can it be possible? Yes, it is indeed the gallant De Tillemont, at the head of a detachment of his regiment, coming to their aid at their utmost need. They advance at their fullest speed,—their carbines are unslung,—they pour a sharp though scattering fire upon the insurgents, and then charge upon them with the sabre. The negroes had not then learnt that they were a match for the regular troops of France, and they slowly and reluctantly retired, and left their prey.

This was indeed a deliverance out of the very jaws of death. But there was no time for congratulations or compliments. They did not know but that a multitude to which their force might be unequal would intercept their return. Troop horses hastily supplied the place of those that the insurgents had wounded, and in the shortest possible time they were on their rapid way to the city. Years of sensation were crowded into that hour. It was worth the experience of many a long life to have shared that brief but fearful journey from Plessis to the Cape. They met, however, with no further opposition, and entered the city just as the bell of the cathedral tolled twelve.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

They were safe for the night; but Vincent was sure that the insurrection would soon sweep over the city. He had a vessel in the harbor, under his control, and he determined to make use of her for his escape. He offered a passage to all his late companions in peril. None accepted it but M. and Madame de Mirecourt, and their daughter. The rest all felt safe under the protecting arm of France. But many months had not elapsed, before they had all of them fatal reason to regret their confidence. The very next day, Vincent and his late hosts set sail for America; and within a fortnight of the day when M. de Mirecourt rejoiced in the possession of a thousand slaves and half a million of rent, he stood upon the shores of New York without a resource save the jewels which Stéphanie the slave had secreted about the person of her mistress. For a while after his return to Boston, Vincent heard of them often as favorites in the fashionable circles of New York; but at last they disappeared, and all his researches after them were in vain. Whether they returned to France, and there perished in the Days of Terror, or whether, after their stock was exhausted, they carried their poverty to some distant part of America, where, under a different name, they could without shame support themselves by manual labor, is yet uncertain; and it is not likely that it will now ever be known. The latter fate was most probably theirs. It was a common one in those days of change. Many of the proudest of the historical names of France fled to this country at the time of the emigration, and, after shining a while in this new firmament, set forever, and were seen no more below. Many an emigrant sunk a marquis, a viscount, or a chevalier in one city, and rose a cook, a confectioner, or a hair-dresser in another. In that obscurity did many of the noblest names of France go out, and leave no trace behind. Had Sterne made a sentimental journey to this country fifty years ago, he might have seen stranger sights than a Chevalier de St. Louis selling pies in the streets of Versailles. If such were the fate of the Marquis de Mirecourt and his family, we may at least hope that they were happier, as they were certainly more innocent and useful, in their humble occupations, than when they rioted in luxuries wrested from the unwilling hands of a thousand slaves.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Such was the story which Mr. Vincent would tell on a winter's evening to his children and his friends. It has a moral, which is not limited by the scene nor the actors of this little drama. It exemplifies the operation of eternal and universal laws. It shows that the day of account will surely come wherever there is wrong or crime. Who knows what country may afford the next example of this awful retribution! Nemesis never sleeps. Though she is long-suffering, she forgets nothing, and overlooks nothing. When men have filled their cup with blood and cruelties and unutterable abominations, to its brim, it is that very cup that she commends to their own lips. There is but one Power of might enough to wrest it from her inexorable hand, and that Power is REPENTANCE.

PHŒBE MALLORY.

PHŒBE MALLORY; THE LAST OF THE SLAVES.

————

"But when returned the youth? The youth no more
Returned exulting to his native shore;
But forty years were past, and then there came
A worn-out man, with withered limbs and lame,
His mind oppressed with woes, and bent with age his frame."
CRABBE.

I WAS once a great pedestrian, and have performed feats in my time which should entitle me to a respectable standing, if not an exalted rank, in the sporting world. I used to think little of forty miles a day, and have "made" my six miles within the hour. But all that is over.

"It is not now as it hath been of yore."

Walking for its own sake, like virtue on the same terms, is but too apt to be an enthusiasm of youth. I have not, indeed, entirely subsided into the opinion which a gentleman, recently deceased, who successively distinguished himself in the gay world, at the bar, and in the pulpit, once pronounced ex cathedra, in my hearing,—that "legs are given to man only to enable him to hold on to a horse;" but still a sober ten miles satisfies me now. It will be well for me if this be the only good habit of my youth from which I have fallen away.

During my days of pedestrious grace I resided in Boston, and my walks made me tolerably familiar with the beautiful country that environs it for ten miles on every side; itself being ever the crowning charm of the landscape. It is a great advantage Boston possesses over most other cities, that one can almost immediately exchange the bustle of the streets for some of the most lovely and rural scenes in the world. An hour's drive, or an afternoon's walk, transports you, as it were, into the heart of the country. The winding country-roads and green lanes, hedged with barberry-bushes, might beguile you to believe that you were a hundred miles from a great city, were you not continually tempted to turn and see how gracefully, at airy distance, she seems to sit upon her three hills, and lord it over the prospect.

One fine autumn afternoon about ten years ago, when I had been

"Wasting in woodpaths the luxurious day,"

I found myself on the summit of one of a chain of hills, looking towards the city. And what a prospect lay before me! On my right were hills covered with woods clothed in the gorgeous hues of autumn, looking like troops of "shining ones" just alighted on some mission of mercy; in the middle distance, tufted groves, village spires, farmhouses, meadows dotted with cattle, and a brimming river sparkling in the slanting rays of the sun; in the distance the city, relieved against the Blue Hills; and on the left the noblest burst of ocean,—Nahant breaking the expanse, with Egg Rock beyond, and then stretching leagues and leagues away, till it had put a girdle round the earth. It was a noble prospect.

After I had feasted my eyes and heart on these glorious apparitions, I was recalled to a sense of the things of earth by the reflection which was forced upon me, that I had had no dinner. I accordingly marked from my hill-top, where all the country lay mapped out at my feet, the course I would pursue on my return home. Descending the precipitous face of the hill, I plunged into

"An alley green,
With many a bosky bourne from side to side,"

which led me, though somewhat deviously, in the direction of the city. After I had followed its windings for some miles, I began to wax thirsty, and, to say sooth, a little weary to boot. So I looked about me as I walked, for some hospitable door at which, though no saint, I might ask for a cup of cold water.

I pique myself on my skill in the physiognomy of houses, and it is not at every door, any more than of every man, that I would ask a favor. Accordingly I passed by several houses of some pretensions, but which had to my eye an ill-favored and ill-conditioned expression, and passed onward till I came to one that I thought might answer my purpose. It had not much to recommend it in its exterior. It was a cottage of the very humblest description, the walls of bare boards, blackened with age; but yet there was something about it that made my heart warm towards it. It stood a little withdrawn from the road, and the grass grew green up to the broad flag-stone, half sunk into the earth, which served for its door-stone. There was no litter or dirt about the door; the windows were all whole; and there was a general air of neatness about it which showed that the poverty of the inhabitant was at least not sordid.

It had a promising look, and I knocked at the door. It was opened, after a short interval, by an "old, old" woman, as black as jet, slightly bent by age, and leaning upon a staff. Though not expecting to see a person of color, I was pleased to find, that, as far as I could judge from her appearance, I had not been deceived by the lineaments of her habitation. Her dress was of the coarsest materials; but the snowy whiteness of her cap and handkerchief, and the scrupulous cleanliness of her checked gown, proved the presence of that virtue which is said, on high authority, to be akin to godliness. She received me with the kindliness and good-nature which mark her race, and, upon making my necessities known, she cordially invited me to walk in. This I did, nothing loath; and, while my hostess was selecting the best of her three mugs for my service, I seated myself, at her pressing instance, in one of her two flag-bottomed chairs, and took a survey of the premises.

They were rough and bare enough, God knows, but still were not without that air of comfort which thorough neatness and good order can give to the humblest dwelling. Her house could boast of but one apartment; but that was sufficient for her purposes. A bed, two chairs, an invalided table, and a pine chest made up the sum of her furniture. The walls could boast of no decoration except a print, over the head of the bed, of the capture of André, in which the cow-boy militiamen were looking most truculently virtuous as André tempted their Roman firmness with a watch of the size of a small warming-pan. The floor was well scrubbed and sanded; and some peat embers smouldered upon the hearth. After I had slaked my thirst with some delicious water, of which she was justly proud,—all cold and sparkling from the open well, ministered unto by the picturesque puritanic well-pole,—she resumed her chair and her knitting; and as I rested myself I entered into conversation with her.

She seemed pleased with the interest I felt in her affairs, and simply and frankly told me all she had to tell about herself and her way of life. She had lived on that spot for many years, and had mainly depended upon her skill as a laundress for her subsistence. As she had grown old, however, and the infirmities of age began to press heavily upon her, she confined herself to the nicer branches of her profession; for the exercise of which the ladies of the neighborhood supplied her with ample materials. Whatever deficiency there might be in her means of comfort, after she had done her best to provide them, was cheerfully made up to her by the kindness of her neighbors; for, to do them justice, neglect of the poor, black or white, at their own doors, is not one of the vices of the people of New England. She seemed to be very well satisfied with her share of the good things of this life, and evinced a degree of unaffected contentment which is not always seen to accompany a much higher degree of prosperity. I was greatly interested in her character and history, and never walked in that direction again without calling to see her. In the course of my acquaintance with her, I learned at different times the simple incidents of her story, which I am about to relate. They seemed to me, when I heard them, to be worth the telling; but I am by no means sure that anybody else will be of the same opinion. Such as they are, however, you have them here.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Phœbe was born somewhere about the middle of the last century, in the family of the Honorable James Mallory, for many years one of his Majesty's Council for the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He used to live in that fine old house with the Corinthian pilasters, and the magnificent lime-trees in the courtyard, which stood on your left hand as you went down King Street towards Long Wharf. It vanished years ago, and gave place to one of the granite temples of Mammon which have long since thrust from their neighborhood all human habitation. There was Phœbe born. Her father and mother were both of them native Africans, who had lived out all their life of servitude under the roof of Mr. Mallory. They were fortunate in falling into such good hands. The few New England slaves were mostly owned by the wealthy families, and were chiefly employed as house-servants, and their treatment was at least as good as that of the same class in any country. But, Phœbe said, nothing could prevent her father from remembering the day, when, as he was hunting the hippopotamus in the sacred river that flowed by his hut, just as he leaped from his iron-wood canoe to draw the monster ashore by the line fastened to his spear, a party of a hostile tribe rushed from among the reeds, and hurried him to the seacoast, fifty miles away, and there sold him to a Bristol trader. To be sure, he had obtained civilization and Christianity by his involuntary emigration; but—as the one appeared to his half-savage mind to consist in wearing clothes, and cleaning another man's shoes; and the other in sleeping on his knees through family prayers, and in being obliged to listen, from the gallery of the Old South Church, for several hours every Sunday, to sermons which he could never have comprehended, delivered in a tongue he very imperfectly understood—he must not be blamed as ungrateful, if he thought them but inadequate compensations for the exchange he had made of the sunny skies and golden sands of Africa for the leaden firmament and rocky coast of New England.

Phœbe was more fortunate than her parents in being "native, and to the manner born;" so that her lot was much more tolerable than theirs. She was kindly treated, and taught to read and write. She felt all the strong attachment of the African race to the house in which she was born and to the family which had brought her up. To the end of her days she believed that there was never a house that equalled in magnificence that of Mr. Mallory in King Street. There was never anything half so graceful and dignified as the manners of Mr. Mallory himself, or half so beautiful and accomplished as the daughters, or so handsome and good-natured as the sons, of his house. Many were the Old-World stories she told me of the loves and the feuds of that generation,—of their joys and their griefs, of their festivities and their funerals. A petted slave, brought up from infancy in one of the foremost families of a small community such as Boston was then, she became a perfect incarnation of all the gossip and scandal of that little world. And some very choice bits of both I extracted from her, I assure you. She certainly had no artistic skill in her narrations, and yet there was a life in the very simplicity with which she related facts, which painted them vividly to the mind's eye; and I think I have a clearer notion of the way in which people lived in

Boston eighty years since, from them than from more generally recognized authorities.

Her admiration, however, was not entirely monopolized by the higher powers of the family. There was a certain Ambrose, who had also been born in the house a few years before Phœbe, and had been brought up along with her, who claimed his share. They had played together as children, and worked together when they grew older, and it will not surprise the experienced reader to hear that they fell in love with each other as soon as they were old enough to take the infection. Ambrose was a fine, well-made, athletic young fellow, shrewd and capable, and of the most imperturbable good-humor. His skill in music was such that he was often summoned to the parlor, with his violin, to excite the dance when his young masters and mistresses had their friends with them. Both Ambrose and Phœbe were great favorites with the whole family,—old and young, bond and free,—and their loves were looked upon by all with complacent eyes. They formed a little under-plot in the domestic drama, which was not unamusing or uninteresting to the actors or actresses in similar scenes above stairs. Their true love flowed smoothly on, and it seemed as if no obstacles could be interposed to disturb its course. It was a conceded thing that at some convenient season Ambrose and Phœbe were to be married.

While the affairs of the humble lovers were in this prosperous train, great events were at the door. The signs which prognosticate a coming storm were frequent and menacing. Voices were heard in the air, telling of disaster and woe to come. Portents were seen in the political firmament,

"With fear of change
Perplexing monarchs."

It was obvious to all discerning persons who were willing to see, that great changes were at hand. Mr. Mallory was a Tory, as might be expected from his official station and position in society. Like many others of his way of thinking, he exaggerated the power of the British king to suppress disaffection, and undervalued the powers of resistance of the colonists. Though he had never permitted himself to doubt that the fever-fit of the Province would soon pass away, still his position was sufficiently disagreeable while it lasted. He had made himself obnoxious to the popular party, and his situation was at times worse than disagreeable: it was absolutely unsafe. Phœbe described to me the night when the mob, flushed by the impunity which had attended their previous excesses, came trooping down King Street to execute summary justice on the Tory Mallory. Their approach was so sudden, that the family had barely time to escape as they were, through the garden, leaving the candles burning, and the work-boxes and books open on the table, as they fled.

Mr. Mallory's house would probably have shared the fate of Governor Hutchinson's, had it not been for a singular and unexpected diversion. When the mob was gathering in the street in front of the house, and preparing for the assault, the hall-door opened suddenly; and Ambrose, like a new Orpheus, issued from it with his violin in his hand. He immediately struck up a lively air, and the effect was magical. The many-headed monster was in a better humor than usual that night. Whether it was that the edge of its appetite was in some degree taken off by the sop it had already had, or whether it was that the patriotic punch (which has never yet had its due as one of the main promoters of the Revolution) had not yet more than half done its work, still the mood of the mob was changed at once from mischief to fun. This unexpected apparition moved their mirth; and Ambrose, taking advantage of their humor, performed such antic tricks in the moonlight as threw them into inextinguishable fits of laughter. With all the caprice of a mob, they themselves soon began to dance to his music; and not all the influence of their leaders could bring them up again to the point of mischief—

"So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes."

This danger over, the arrival of the British regiments prevented any apprehension of its renewal. But the situation of the Mallorys was gloomy and uncomfortable enough. The gayeties which the arrival of the forces produced in the loyal circles were no compensation for the breaking-up of old friendships, and for the doubt and uncertainty that hung over their future. At last the provincial resistance began to assume a more threatening form. The siege clasped the town around with its iron arms. The beautiful hills which encompass the town were now changed into mimic volcanoes, belching forth fire and smoke and death against it. All who could and dared fled from its borders. Mr. Mallory's political offences were too flagrant to allow him any choice. He was obliged to abide by the result of the conflict where he was. To be sure, neither he nor his children would ever admit, even to themselves, the probability of the rebels being ultimately successful; but then there could not but be painful misgivings as to what might befall before the insurrection was finally quelled. It was a dismal winter, indeed, as Phœbe told its private history. Not all the balls and assemblies and private theatricals that were devised to while away the weary hours could dispel the sense of pain and apprehension which their situation excited in the breasts of the loyalists.

It was not long before the forebodings of their prophetic hearts were fulfilled. The dreary winter wore away and the dreary spring began. The intentions of the Commander-in-chief were kept strictly secret; but there were plenty of surmises abroad as to what they were. But that Boston, open as it was to the sea, of which England was the mistress, would be occupied by the British forces until the rebellion was suppressed, was a thing that had settled down into a recognized certainty. It could not enter into a loyal heart to conceive that the royal troops could be dislodged from the capital of New England by the rabble rout that surrounded them. But at last the fatal news fell upon their ears like a clap of thunder, that the town was to be evacuated, and abandoned to the besiegers. What distress and despair of those who had placed themselves and all they had under the protection of the British sceptre, and who found it powerless in their utmost need! All remonstrance on their part was in vain. General Howe was inflexible, for he knew that his post was no longer tenable; but he assured the distressed loyalists of all possible assistance in removing their persons and effects beyond the reach of the exasperated rebels.

Phœbe described to me with lifelike effect, for it was what she had the most to do with, the confusion of the few days that elapsed between the announcement of the intended evacuation and the embarkation. The grief of the Mallorys at leaving the home of their childhood, perhaps forever, and the uncertainty which hung over their future fate, was disturbed by the necessity of deciding which of their effects they should take with them. A limited amount of freight was all that could be possibly assigned to each refugee, and it was hard to decide, among all the objects which habit had rendered necessary, or association dear, which should be chosen, and which abandoned. All was hurry and bustle and distress. They were obliged to select such articles as contained the most value in the compactest form, and to leave the rest behind. Their clothes, plate, jewels, and such other valuables as they could compress into the smallest possible space, were all that they could take with them. But all the old companion furniture, speaking to them of ancestry and of happier days, the family pictures, the trifles which affection magnified into things of moment, because they were seen through the atmosphere of love and friendship which surrounded them, all, all had to be left behind them.

It was a dreadful night, that of the 17th of March, 1776—the last that they were to spend in the home of their fathers. Early the next morning they were to embark on board the transports, to go they knew not whither. The young ladies, deprived of their usual employments, and their recent mournful occupation being over, as the trunks and packing-cases were already on board, wandered about the house, from room to room, like ghosts haunting scenes once loved, reluctant to look their last upon those beloved walls. The gentlemen of the family were busy in making what arrangements they could to secure the wrecks of their property. It was long past midnight before they retired to rest, if rest they could, for the last time under that old-accustomed roof. They had not been long retired, however, when they were aroused again by a clamorous knocking at the door, and the intelligence that they must repair at once on board ship, if they would not be left behind.

The rebels had taken up a position on Nook's Hill, which rendered it necessary to evacuate the town at an earlier hour than the one first appointed. The confusion may be imagined. The carriage was at length at the door, and performed its last service in conveying the family to the wharf, before it passed into the hands of the patriotic gentlemen who had purchased it at a fourth of its value. They found, with some difficulty, the transport assigned to them, and, embarking, awaited the signal of departure.

While they were thus expecting their sailing-orders, one of the young ladies discovered, that, in her hurry, she had left her watch behind her. It had a value beyond its intrinsic worth, as having belonged to her mother. Her distress was great, and the question arose whether there was time to send for it. The captain of the transport gave it as his opinion that there would be ample time. Then who was to be the messenger? Ambrose could not be spared from some essential service in the arrangement of the luggage: so Phœbe alone remained to perform the errand. She was accordingly despatched, with strict injunctions to make a speedy return. It was a raw blustering March morning, and, as Phœbe threaded the narrow streets, the light snow was blown in fitful gusts in her face. She made a somewhat wide circuit to avoid the principal streets, which were now full of soldiers; the inhabitants being under orders to keep within doors until a certain hour. She had some difficulty, too, in procuring the house-key from the neighbor who had charge of it; and when at last she obtained entrance, it was still dark, and she had to strike a light in order to commence her search. Everything seemed to conspire to delay her return to the ship. And, after she had procured a candle, the object of her search was not to be found. She looked for it in every place where it should and where it should not be, but without success. This consumed many precious moments. At last she abandoned the matter in despair, thinking that her young mistress must have the watch about her after all, or else it had been dropped on the way to the ship. After securing the house again, she made what haste she could to the wharf. But what was her amazement and despair at seeing no sign remaining of the good ship on board of which all her treasures were embarked!

She could not at first believe her eyes, and she stood for some time in mute astonishment. But before long her mind received a distinct impression of the dreadful truth, and she made the air resound with her shrieks and lamentations. She flew distractedly up and down the wharf, imploring to be taken on board some of the transports destined for the same port; but no one had any leisure to attend to her. It was in the height of the hurry of the embarkation, and ship after ship was dropping down with the tide, and making what haste they might to Nantasket Roads. Almost immediately after Phœbe had left the ship, orders came down directing her to get under way directly, and she was already out of sight. She remained on the wharf in a state but little removed from distraction, renewing her entreaties to all she met for assistance in regaining her master's party. But all the reply she received was curses, and orders to mind her own business and to get out of the way. Exhausted at length by her exertions, and finding there was no hope for her, she returned in agony of mind to the deserted house in King Street. There, in solitude and despair, flung upon her face on the nearest sofa, she lay for hours, weeping as one that refused to be comforted. The merry peals of the bells, and the distant sound of military music, might have told her that General Washington and his victorious army were making their triumphal entry into the town; but she neither heard nor heeded them. Her heart and her eyes were following the stout ship which was bearing away from her, probably for ever, the friends of her childhood and the lover of her youth.

In this state she continued for four and twenty successive hours. But, after the first paroxysm of grief and despair had exhausted itself, Phœbe was not of a nature to abandon herself to fruitless repinings. It was fortunate for her that it was necessary to take some immediate measures for her own support; for the poor girl was now in a singularly unfortunate predicament. She absolutely belonged to nobody. The imperfect legislation of those primitive days had not provided for such a case of destitution.

Had she had the luck to live in these times, in the Southern States, such an anomaly could not have occurred. There, the abeyance of the abandoned property in herself would have been terminated in favor of the fortunate finder; or at worst it would have resulted to the State. But in those days, before political economy, she was suffered to escheat to herself. And so she had nobody to take care of her. Thanks, however, to the thorough breeding she had received in Mr. Mallory's house, she was able to command at once her choice of the best services in the town; and she was soon as comfortably situated as she could be under her unhappy circumstances.

The long years of the war, of course, cut off all definite intelligence of the Mallorys and of Ambrose. And the longer years of the peace which followed it brought little more satisfactory information about them. All that was certain was, that Mr. Mallory had been provided for by an appointment in Antigua, and it was taken for granted that he had proceeded thither with his family. The humble Ambrose, of course, had no share in these imperfect advices, and Phœbe was left to guess at his fate as best she might. The Mallorys left no relatives behind them in the Province, and all interest in them or their affairs soon died away. There was but one humble heart in which they occupied all the room that was not before engrossed by Ambrose their slave.

Meanwhile more than thirty years rolled away since the emigration. Phœbe was become a prosperous woman. She had been for some years retired from service, and had invested her earnings in a small confectioner's shop, which was well frequented by those who respected the excellence of her character and of her pastry. She had never married, though not unsought, but still remained constant to the memory of Ambrose; though she had for many years abandoned all hope of ever seeing or hearing of him again.

One afternoon, as she was sitting sewing behind her counter, a man entered her shop. His dress was sordid and travel-stained, and he walked with difficulty, supported by a rough stick. He stood with his back to the light, so that Phœbe could not see his features distinctly. He stood, and gazed long and earnestly in her face. She grew alarmed, and asked his business. In the act of replying, he shifted his position, so that the setting sun shone full upon him. She started from her seat, shrieked, and fell senseless upon the floor.

"I dropped," to use her own words, "as if I was shot." It was Ambrose himself, come in the flesh to claim her at last. Happily, joy is not a mortal disease, or Phœbe might not have survived to tell me her story. Water was at hand, and she soon opened her eyes upon the face of him whom she had loved so long and well. It was changed indeed. Years of slavery had not passed over his head with out leaving furrows on the brow, and wrinkles on the cheek. But still it was his face, and that was all she asked. Time and ill usage had grizzled his hair, and bent his broad shoulders; but to her eyes he was still young, for she saw him with the eyes of her heart.

It would be hard to say whether pleasure or pain predominated in that first interview. But it was not long before they knew that they were happy. Phœbe took Ambrose to her house, fed, clothed, and nursed him, and finally married him. And though their union was late, and did not continue long, it was as happy a marriage as ever knit two hearts in one.

The story of Ambrose, when he was able to tell it, was simple and common enough. He had followed his master from Halifax to London, and from London to Antigua. There Mr. Mallory died. The young ladies married, and returned to England; and the sons took to bad courses, and died not long after their father. Ambrose was taken in execution for a debt of the last of them, and sold to a Jamaica planter. In Jamaica he suffered for many years the horrors of sugar-making, aggravated by the contrast of the easy service of his previous life. A few months before, he was sent to Kingston with a load of sugar, and, finding a vessel on the point of sailing for New York, he concealed himself on board, and succeeded in effecting his escape. Arrived in New York, he begged his way to Boston, being detained on the road by a fever, caused by the sudden change of climate, and arrived footsore, weary, and sick at heart, little expecting the happiness that awaited him.

Before long, Ambrose grew weary of the town, and, as his health had never been good since his return home, Phœbe sold her shop, and bought the cottage in which I found her. Here they supported themselves comfortably enough for the few years that Ambrose lived. But the hard winters of New England were too much for the constitution of one so long accustomed to the climate of the tropics. He died of a consumption, lovingly watched over and tenderly mourned by his faithful Phœbe.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Such is a plain narrative of the incidents of her life, which I gathered from Phœbe Mallory in the course of my acquaintance with her. I think that they might have been invested with a good deal of romantic interest, had they fallen into the right hands. But such as I have I give unto you.

Phœbe always averred that she was the last surviving slave in the State; and, as I could not contradict her, I was willing to believe that it was so. I confess it increased my interest in her, and made me look upon her in some sort as an historical character. And I could not but think of the day when the last American slave will excite a feeling in the breast of some future inquirer somewhat analogous to that created by the sight of the last mouldering fragment of the Bastille. May that day soon arrive!

Several years ago I removed from the city, and lost sight of poor Phœbe. Not long since, having a leisure day in town, I felt strongly moved to go and see if she were yet alive. Yielding to the impulse, I took the well-remembered road that led by her hut. But it had vanished away, and in its place stood a fine Gothic cottage with an Egyptian entablature at one end supported by four fluted Doric pillars. I knew at the first glance that it would be of no avail to inquire after my old friend at such a structure as this. So I continued my stroll till I came to the village, about two miles off. There I inquired of the first man I happened to meet, whether he knew anything of the fate of Phœbe Mallory. I was in luck in my man; for he chanced to be none other than good master Sexton himself. With the cheerful solemnity which marks his calling, he informed me that she had died about three years before, and was buried in the churchyard over against which we stood. I asked him to show me her grave, which he did with professional alacrity. It is the third grave beyond the elm-tree, on your right hand as you enter the gate, next the wall.

I could not but feel a sense of satisfaction, mingled with regret at the loss of my good old friend, to think that the last relic of Massachusetts slavery lay buried beneath my feet. I felt proud of my native State for what she had done as a State to mark her aversion to slavery; and I hoped that the time was not far distant when she would brush aside the cobweb ties which prevent her from telling the hunter of men in yet more emphatic tones that her fields are no hunting-grounds for him.

I have no taste for monumental memorials, as a general thing. At least, I see no fitness in attempting to preserve the memory of mediocrity or obscurity by monuments whose very permanence is a satire on the forgotten names they bear. But I have no quarrel with the feeling which prompts men to mark with marble the ground where the truly great repose, or to record the resting-place of humbler merit when it is fairly invested with some just historic interest. Of this latter class I esteem the grave of Phœbe Mallory. And I shall think it neither absurd nor extravagant, if, within a few months, a plain white marble slab should be found marking the spot where she lies, with an inscription somewhat to this effect:—

"HERE RESTS FROM HER LABORS,
BENEATH THE FREE SOIL OF MASSACHUSETTS,

Phœbe Mallory,

THE LAST SURVIVOR OF HER SLAVES."

OLD HOUSES.

OLD HOUSES.

————

I LOVE an old house. Even though its walls, battered and decayed, speak of nothing but poverty and toil, still there is something touching in the thought of the tide of human passions and human affections which have flowed through it; of the happy marriages, the joyous childhood, the cheerful age, which it has sheltered; of the many spirits which it has beheld beginning the strife of being, which, after enduring the labor and heat of the longest of life's days, have gone to their eternal home, of whose existence not a single trace remains in any mind on earth. It is not necessary that the many centuries which are required in older countries to invest the habitations of man with the venerable dignity of old age should have swept over its threshold and its hearthstone to sanctify to my heart one of those quaint constructions which I love to people anew with the beings of a vanished generation. All I ask is, that it should speak to me of the past, of the forgotten.

It is my delight to take my solitary walk through those streets of our city which have suffered least from the levelling hand of modern improvement. I eschew, as I would an infected district, that mushroom growth of human habitations which has climbed the airy heights of West Boston, and filled up its pleasant valleys, where in my boyhood I used to play, with a profane load of brick and mortar. But where Washington Street extends its tortuous length, and where the North End displays her labyrinthine maze of narrow lanes and alleys,—now, alas! with a pitiful ambition, all erected into streets, as every petty prince must nowadays, forsooth, be a king,—there, to the mind of a true lover of bygone days, the spirit of the past broods as sensibly as over the most ancient metropolis of Europe. What matters it to him, that the din of busy life is in his ears, that he is jostled at every turn by eager traffickers, and that his escape with life from the thundering throng of drays and stage-coaches is a standing miracle? He hears not the uproar; the bustle disturbs not him; his eyes are with his heart, in the good old days when schoolboys played unmolested in what are now the busiest thoroughfares. Visions of fine old men, in a costume worthy of the dignity of men, and gorgeous dames worthy of the men they loved, float before his mental sight. He walks in the midst of a generation which now lives on earth only on the canvas of Copley, where their brocades and satins still rustle, and their faces still beam with the bloom of immortality. The old walls around him are still vocal with the mirth and gladness of households which many a sorrow has chastened, with the frolic laugh of children who have long since reached—faint pilgrims!—the utmost boundary of human existence, and gladly laid down the load of life in the still chambers of the tomb. Friendly faces look kindly upon him from the casements; sweet though solemn voices tell him of the days gone by, and remind him that the century that will comprise the lives of all his contemporaries is hastening on rapid wings to join the ages before the flood, and that the hour will soon be here when the memory of him and his will be swallowed up in the advancing tide of coming ages, as a drop of rain melts into the ocean. The roofs under which our fathers lived and died are full of instruction: they teach us a lesson, mournful, yet pleasant to the soul, of the brevity of human life and the uncertainty of human hopes.

This edifice before us is but of yesterday, as it were; and yet who laid the corner-stone? Who counted the cost, and thought he was undertaking a work of mighty moment? Where are the hands that reared the pile, and brought daily bread to their children from their daily toil? Where is she who first established within its boundaries the gentle sway of domestic government? Perhaps she passed over its threshold a smiling, tearful bride, casting a lingering look behind at the happy home she had left, yet regarding the one before her with the hopeful confidence of a woman's heart. Where are the troops of friends which flocked to its portals with cheerful looks and hearty congratulations? Where are the children, in whose promise and success hearts were garnered up? They have all departed from the earth. To us they are as if they had never been. One after another their funeral processions have blackened the streets. For each, in succession, have human hearts refused to be comforted, and for a season thought that the sun would never shine on them again as it used to do, until time and care and fresh griefs plucked from the bosom the sorrow which seemed to be rooted there forever. One by one the actors who played their parts on this little stage have withdrawn from the scene, and the curtain long since dropped, when the last lagging veteran retired, and the drama was ended.

But although I love an old house in itself, for its own sake, and independently of any specific associations, yet in a special manner do I delight in the dwellings of my old familiar friends, whose faces are familiar to my eye, whose characters are dear to my heart, whose various fates are as present to me as my own personal history. Mistake me not. I do not mean any of the round-hatted, frock-coated, breeches-less generation which now encumber the streets. I care but little for this stereotyped edition of humanity, all bound alike, and not differing much in the nature and value of their contents, like the washy concoctions of some knowledge-diffusing society.

No, no! I refer to times when "Nature's copy"

wore a dress which spoke to you of the meaning it contained, as in some solemn library the tomes

"Which Aldus printed, or Du Sueil has bound,"

tell you, even before you open them, of the classic mind within.

Too few, alas! of these abodes, consecrated by the memory of departed worth, have escaped the ruthless hands of the money-lovers of this age, who regard one of my dear old houses as only so much improvable real estate, and who think of nothing, when they gaze on its time-honored walls, but how much the old materials will bring. The good old class of "garden-houses," in which it is recorded that Milton always chose to live, is now almost as entirely extinct here as in London itself.

How well do I remember one of these, in which some of my happiest days and merriest nights were spent! It stood with its end to the street, overshadowed by a magnificent elm of aboriginal growth, which made strange and solemn music in my boyish ears when the autumn winds called forth its hidden harmonies at midnight. Entering the gate, you proceeded on a flagged walk, having the house close to you on your left, and on your right the courtyard, filled with "flowers of all hues," and fragrant shrubs, each forming the mathematical centre of an exact circle cut in the velvet greensward. When within the front-door, you had on your left hand the best parlor, opened only on high solemnities, and which used to excite in my young mind a mysterious feeling of mingled curiosity and awe whenever I stole a glance at its darkened interior, with its curiously carved mahogany chairs black as ebony with age, its blue damask curtains, the rare piece of tapestry which served as a carpet—all reflected in the tall mirror, with its crown and sceptred top, between the windows. I remember it used to put me in mind of the fatal blue chamber in Bluebeard. I am not sure now that there was not something supernatural about it.

But it was the parlor opposite that was the very quintessence of snugness and comfort, worth half a hundred fantastic boudoirs and modern drawing-rooms bedizened with French finery. On your right hand as you entered were two windows opening upon the courtyard above commemorated, with their convenient window-seats—an accommodation which I sadly miss—with their appropriate green velvet cushions, a little the worse for wear. On the opposite side of the room to the windows was a glass door opening into the garden, a pleasant sight to see, with its rectangular box-lined gravel walks, its abundant vegetables, its luxuriant fruit-trees, its vine trained over the stable-wall. As you returned to the house through the garden-door, you had on your right the door of a closet with a window looking into the garden, which was entitled the study, having been appropriated to that purpose by the deceased master of the house. This recess possessed substantial charms to my infant imagination as the perennial fountain of cakes and apples, which my good aunt—of whom presently—conducted in a never-failing stream to the never-satisfied mouth of an urchin of six years old. I thought they grew there by some spontaneous process of reproduction.

A little farther on, nearer to the study-door than the one by which we entered, was the fireplace, fit shrine for the Penates of such a household; its ample circumference adorned with Dutch tiles, where stout shepherdesses in hoops and high-heeled shoes gave sidelong looks of love to kneeling swains in cocked hats and trunk-hose; while their dogs and sheep had grown so much alike from long intimacy as to be scarcely distinguishable. How I loved those little glimpses into pastoral life! I have one of them now, which I rescued from the wreck of matter when the house came down. Within the ample jaws of the chimney, which might have swallowed up at a mouthful a century of patent grates, crackled and roared the merry wood fire,—fed with massy logs which it would take two men to lift, as men are now,—casting its cheerful light as evening drew in on the panelled walls, bringing out the curious "egg-and-anchor" carvings, which were my special pride and wonder, and flashing back from the mirror globe which depended from the beam which divided the comfortable low ceiling into two unequal parts. And let me not forget the mantelpiece, adorned with grotesque heads in wood, and clusters of fruit and flowers, of which Grinling Gibbons himself need not have been ashamed. And then the Turkey carpet, covering the breadth, but not the length, of the room; and the books,—the "Spectator's" short face in his title-page, the original "Tatler," the first editions of Pope. But time would fail me were I to record all the well-remembered contents of that dear old room,—the sofa or settee, of narrow capacity, looking as if three single chairs had been rolled into one; the card-table, with its corners for candles, and its pools for fish scooped out of the verdant champain of green broad cloth. But enough: let us now approach the divinity whose penetralia we have entered, and who well befits such a shrine.

In an elbow-chair at the right of the fireplace, sat my excellent aunt, Mrs. Margaret Champion, widow of the Honorable John Champion, long one of his Majesty's Council for this Province. When I first remember her, she had passed her seventieth year, and she lived in a green old age till near a hundred winters had passed over her head. What a picture of serene and beautiful old age! Her placid countenance, which a cheerful piety and constitutional philosophy had kept almost unwrinkled; her large black eyes, in which the fires of youth were not yet wholly extinguished; the benevolent smile which was seldom absent from her lips—spoke of a frame on which Time had laid a gentle hand, and of a mind at ease. When I knew her, the profane importunities of the fairer part of her relatives had obtained a reluctant consent to abandon the gently swelling hoop and lowering crape cushion in which she once rejoiced. But you could never have seen how she became her decent white lace cap, her flowing black lace shade, her rich silks for common wear, and her stiff brocades for high solemnities, and not have known that she was a gentlewoman born.

I attribute a good deal of my love of other days to the short winter afternoons and long winter evenings which I sometimes spent alone with her. I say sometimes, for she was not one of the instances of neglected old age; but her society was courted by young as well as old.

"The general favorite as the general friend."

My aunt Champion was born not long after the commencement of the last century, and remembered Governor Dudley. The succeeding inhabitants of the old Province House were familiar to her recollection, from Colonel Shute down to Sir Francis Bernard. She was a stanch Tory, God bless her! and loved the king to her dying day, and thought that no greater men ever lived, at least on this continent, than his Majesty's representatives in the Province. How well would she touch off the characters of the successive Excellencies who in turn did penance in the unthankful office of provincial governor! With what skill (though all unconscious of any) would she individualize them, and bring them body and soul before your eyes!—Shute, with his military bluntness and frank sincerity, relieved by a little of the subacidity of temper which distinguished Mr. Shandy, and rather too much aptitude to go off at half-cock; Burnet, mild and gentlemanlike, fond of pleasure and of elegant letters, and intended by nature and education for a wider and more brilliant sphere, and whose gentle nature was not made of stubborn stuff enough to bear up against the perpetual dropping of the petty vexations which he encountered in his official duties, and the dislike with which his genial propensities were regarded by the sterner religionists of the day. I think that he was my aunt's favorite; but then his reign was contemporary with her own, and she looked upon him and his court with the eyes of eighteen. Then came Belcher, plain, serious, dignified, whose appearance and conversation indicated a sound judgment and a cultivated mind, but whose character, though acceptable to the colonists as one of themselves, and of interests identical with their own, did not find equal favor with his predecessor in the eyes of a lively young woman who loved to hear of the court of Anne and George, and of the brilliant constellation of wits which shed its selectest influences in that period of Burnet's life when he was the chosen companion of Addison, Pope, Steele, and Congreve. Next appeared the elegant, versatile Shirley, intelligent, graceful, full of nice tact, which stood him in good stead in his public as well as private life. He was the only one of the colonial governors who so laid the course of the ship of state as to avail himself both of the tide of royal favor and of the shifting gales of the popular breath, and to keep the helm for nearly eighteen years. His was a glorious reign too.

During his supremacy, Louisburg fell,—an event ever memorable in New England history. With what interest would my good aunt describe the intense anxiety which filled every heart while the fate of the expedition was uncertain! and then the transports of joy with which the news of its complete and almost unhoped for success was received, the sermons, the illuminations, the oxen roasted whole, the oceans of punch, the broached hogsheads of wine; for in those days temperance societies were not. Mrs. Champion looked upon this victory as totally eclipsing all the military glories of the Revolutionary War, and indeed it was not surpassed by any single action of that great struggle: as for Sir William Pepperell, why, General Washington was a fool to him.

Then came Pownal, gay, hearty, jovial, whose brilliant balls and gay dinners almost made my dear aunt forgive his leaning to the popular side. His festivity of temper and the gay coterie with which he had surrounded himself made her sorry, I am sure, though she would never admit it, when he was removed to make way for the less accommodating nature of Sir Francis Bernard, whose saturnine temperament and impracticable temper made him a suitable lever in the hands of an infatuated ministry to detach entirely and forever the American Continent from the British Empire.

Then how many tales she had to tell of pre-revolutionary festivities, of the old aristocratic families, too many of which are now extinct, or scattered by the Revolutionary storm over foreign lands! And again: there were sadder stories of later days,—the bitter scenes which preceded the flight of the Tories from their native land, when they stood, a small phalanx, surrounded by a host of the bitterest foes, filled with a jealousy and hatred even surpassing that of warring brothers; and when, the cruelest of all, the flame of discord raged in almost every family, destroying all the charities of domestic life, and alienating fathers from sons, and daughters from mothers. And then, when the confident hope which they had entertained, of the power of the British Government to protect them, at last failed them; when the report—at first disbelieved, and more dreadful than the rebel cannon—was confirmed, that the town was to be evacuated; what consternation filled all their hearts! To stay would be to encounter the rage of the rebels flushed with victory: to fly, perhaps forever, from all the scenes they loved best, would be to leave their estates to certain confiscation, and to reduce themselves to a miserable dependence on the precarious bounty of the British king. What agonies of indecision, what years of suffering, were crowded into those few hours! what heart-breakings, when the most obnoxious resolved on flight! what leave-takings of parents and children, of brothers and sisters, of husbands and wives! what partings—

"Such as press
The life from out young hearts."

of the beloved and the betrothed!—some, alas! never to meet again, and others not till years of sorrow and of hope deferred had changed their countenances, and perhaps chilled their hearts.

Then she would tell melancholy tales of how the condition of the refugees was changed from that palmy state which their better days had known, of the neglect they encountered, of the poverty they endured; some of them long lingering out a sordid existence in obscure parts of London on the pittance which their royal master allowed them, buried in the utter solitude of a great city; some ending their days in the King's Bench; the most fortunate passing the rest of their lives in an honorable exile, in some petty official station in the pestilential climate of a sugar island.

I do not know whether it is from the sympathy which naturally springs from the contemplation of great reverses in private life, when we are far enough removed from the distorting passions of contemporaries, or whether it is that I caught the infection of my good aunt's enthusiasm, still, though I reverence the fathers of our liberty, and am on principle of the Revolutionary side, I must confess that I do love the Tories. I am glad that I was not old enough at that time to take an active part on either side of the divisions that then rent society asunder—for I am afraid that I should have been a Whig.

Mrs. Champion herself was bound to the soil by too many ties of offspring and kindred to be able to break away. And happy for her it was, or perhaps she would have died of a broken, homesick heart, like her sister, or perished beneath the sun of Jamaica, like her two brothers, instead of attaining a happy old age, attended with all that should accompany it, honored even by those who abhorred her loyalty.

The mention of my dear old aunt has led me far away from my theme; but it is hard to check the procession of images which her name conjures up to my imagination. Let us return to the present day, and contemplate one or two of the yet surviving localities of her happier hours, and mourn over those that have vanished.

The old Province House—for about a century the centre of that world which was comprehended within the bounds of Massachusetts Bay—still stands; but how shorn of its beams! After passing through a variety of evil fortunes, it is now an eating-house; and those apartments which a century ago beheld the assembled wisdom, wit, and beauty of the Province, and witnessed the elegant hospitality of the foremost man of all that little world, now see nothing but greasy citizens, impatient for their dinner, or clamorous for their grog. It still bears some traces of its better days in the iron railings, the freestone steps, and some of the ornaments of its front. It has the air of some ancient gentleman, who, after spending his youth and manhood in a sphere suited to his rank, is reduced in his old age to some unworthy, perhaps menial, condition: whatever may be his employment, and however dilapidated his dress, you feel that he is not in his right place. The old Indian, too, still bends his bow above its roof, and not without his legend, which used to tell my wondering boyhood that at midnight, just as the clock struck twelve, the bowstring twanged, and the shaft sped away into unknown worlds,—whither, I neither asked nor cared. I troubled not my head with sceptical inquiries into mysteries which are the province of unseen powers. Its ample courtyard, which had beheld many a military and many a civil pomp, has been long since filled up with a staring row of vulgar modern brick houses, presuming, like some upstarts newly rich, to turn their backs upon their betters. An envious screen! And yet I do not know but that it is now more pleasing to the genius of the place to have its wreck of former greatness thus shielded from the common gaze. I think it may save the stout old walls some blushes.

Reader, be pleased to exercise at my bidding that wonder-working power which we all possess, and sweep away that mass of brick and mortar, replant the noble trees, and restore the fine old pile to its pristine splendor. Conjure up the men and boys of a hundred years ago, and, as you love me, forget not the women. It is a lovely day in June. All the world is abroad. The country seems to be superinduced upon the town. It must be some special holiday. It is, indeed, the greatest of the year, always saving and excepting Commencement. It is the feast of the ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY, the most ancient military institution in the United States, and which was regarded at its creation with a jealous eye by our prudent ancestors, forewarned by the example "of the Prætorian Band among the Romans and the Knights-Templars in Europe." There they are, drawn up martially before the gate, ready to take up the escort. Their presence has just been intimated to the Governor. The door opens, and, surrounded by a splendid cortege, his Excellency appears. Observe his collarless scarlet coat, richly laced with gold, his embroidered white satin waistcoat, his scarlet breeches, white silk stockings, high quartered shoes and gold buckles, and neglect not to remark the cut steel handle of his dress-sword. Mark with what an old-school grace he takes up his cocked hat, and advances bowingly forwards in acknowledgment of the lowered pikes, presented firelocks, and rolling drums of the citizen soldiers, and the hearty shouts of the gazing crowd. Would that time would serve us to follow the procession to the Old Brick, and listen to a sermon containing matter enough to furnish forth a century of the delicate discourses of our times! Thence we might repair to the well-spread board; and, when those rites have been duly solemnized, we might accompany them to the Common, and witness, with a generation long vanished, the ceremonies of the pomp and circumstance of which we have now but a type. And then the brilliant evening, when his Excellency threw open his doors to a polished and elegant circle unsurpassed at any subsequent period! But something too much of this.

It is about four years since I took a melancholy walk to the North End, to take a last farewell of one of the few historical houses which then survived. I mean the mansion of Governor Hutchinson, a man whose name will by degrees lose much of the odium with which the unfortunate view which he took of the interests of his country has invested it, and whose faults will be thought, perhaps, by posterity, to have been expiated by his misfortunes. When I arrived, the hand of destruction was already there. The house was disembowelled, the windows gone, and the whole scene presented an air of desolation which would have transported a less vivid imagination than mine to the morning—seventy years since—which succeeded the night, disgraceful in our annals, when a brutal and inebriated mob made a ruin of the finest house in the Province, and, what was worse, destroyed collections for the loss of which our history must ever mourn. The political magicians of that day, who foresaw the tempest which was brewing, and thought that they could so direct the storm as to produce only the good effects of a wholesome agitation of the political atmosphere, found, too late, that in fostering the mob-spirit they had evoked a devil which they could neither control nor lay, and which, once raised, seems like to become the master of their descendants. It will be many years before we shall see another house at all comparable to this one of the last age, either in its architectural excellence, or the substantial elegance of its internal economy.

From the ruins of this edifice and those of one other adjoining house of one of the old Tory families—which well deserves a separate essay for its description—have sprung a crop of SIXTEEN fine new brick houses, all stark alike, as if they had been run in the same mould, meaningless, soulless masses of matter. How heavily must their weight lie upon his soul who effected the change! I would not have such a load on my conscience for the world.

Another venerable monument of a former generation has since bowed its head in the dust, and given place also to a crowd of upstart heirs, who perk their commonplace, vulgar visages in your face as if they were of better worth than the noble ancestral stock from which they sprung. It was the residence of Sir William Phipps. That "fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston," which, before the tide of his affairs had turned, he prophetically boasted to his unbelieving spouse that he would one day possess, is forever gone; and the fine old height, from which it once proudly surveyed the country round, is the abode of a brick-and-mortar monster, compared with which the gerrymander was grace and proportion itself. This stately house, to which the adventurous boy had looked forward as the summit of human hopes when he was keeping sheep at Casco Bay, or wielding the adze and the hammer in one of the shipyards of Boston, was completed after his extraordinary enterprise had been crowned with remarkable success, when the hand of majesty had laid the honor of knighthood on his shoulder, and the poor journeyman mechanic had returned to his native land invested with its highest dignity. It is well that corporations have no souls, or I fear that the one which delivered up this last stronghold of the past into the hands of the Philistines would stand in fearful peril of utter perdition.

There is, however, still standing an abode of less aristocratic pretensions, but of more illustrious associations, than those just celebrated. It is the house in which Benjamin Franklin spent his early years. It makes the corner of Hanover and Union Streets on your right hand as you go towards the North End from Court Street, and may be distinguished by a ball protruding as a sign, with the date 1698. I have somewhere seen a letter from Doctor Franklin, in which he says that he was born in this house; but accurate antiquarians who have carefully investigated the subject are of opinion that his father did not remove to this house till after the Doctor's birth; which they assert took place in a house (now, of course, demolished) which stood on the site of Barker's furniture warehouse in Milk Street, a little lower down than the Old South Church, on the other side. However this may be, whether Milk Street or Hanover Street may boast of having witnessed the entrance of the great philosopher on the scene which he so long adorned, still we may be sure that those unpretending walls beheld the first dawning of his infant intellect, and were associated with his earliest recollections. It was from that door that the self-complacent urchin issued with his pocket full of coppers on that famous holiday morning when he exchanged all his treasure for the ever-memorable whistle, and with it bought the experience, which, comprised within the compass of a proverb, he has added to the stock of the world's wisdom. It was in that cellar, that, in his early economy of time, he shocked his worthy progenitor by proposing to have grace said in the lump over the whole barrel of beef which he was putting down, instead of over each piece in detail as it came to the table. Here, too, it was, that his father, patriarch-like, sat at his table surrounded by thirteen grown-up children; of which numerous race I believe there is not a single descendant extant, certainly not of the name. It was to this home, too, that young Franklin returned, after his successful elopement to Philadelphia, with a fine coat upon his back, and money in his pocket the admiration of his parents and the envy of his brethren. If walls had tongues as well as ears, what histories might not these unfold! Reader, if you are worthy to look upon this hallowed scene, make haste, delay not your pilgrimage till to-morrow, nor even till after dinner; for, even while I write, its fate may be sealed and its destruction begun. In other countries the roofs which have sheltered less eminent men than Benjamin Franklin are preserved with filial reverence, and visited with pilgrim devotion. It should be so here.

Both time and patience would fail me if I were to recount at large the other deeds of destruction which have been worked out within a few years past. The mansion-house of the Faneuils, with its princely courtyard and old French palace-like front, with the grotesque heads grinning from the tops of the windows; the house of the Vassalls, the headquarters of Lord Percy during the siege, and afterwards the abode of Mrs. Hayley, the sister of John Wilkes, with its hanging-gardens terraced to the summit of one of the original peaks of old Trimountain; the hospitable home of the Bowdoins, eloquent of the past—they are all vanished. The very soil on which they stood is removed, and cast into the sea.

I have lived long, and seen many changes. The friends of my early years are mostly cold, either in death or in estrangement. The grand-daughters of my early loves now reign in their stead. The world is governed by a generation yet unborn when my career of active life began. I have seen heresies in politics and in religion usurp the rightful supremacy of the good old orthodox platform. I have witnessed the decline of hoops, the desuetude of powder, the almost total extinction of breeches. The last of the cocked hats, too, has set forever, and is, like the lost Pleiad, "seen no more below." I have beheld divinest punch driven forth from the society of polite man, and forced to take refuge in the grogshops. Even Madeira's generous juice have I seen elbowed aside by pretending coxcombs from the south of France and the Rhine. But stay! I take back the disparaging epithet. One is too apt to undervalue the merits of newer friends when they interfere with the modest claims of long-tried and well-known worth. I will not be unjust to the newer excellence of

"The gay, serene, good-natured Burgundy,
And the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine;"

but surely, surely for the solid, serious drinking that man came into the world to do, Madeira is the only satisfying good.

All these changes, however, have stolen so gradually upon me, that my natural and acquired disinclination to change has not been rudely shocked. The times have changed, and I have changed with them. But the violence that is done to my steadfast nature by the sudden and total demolition of my old companion walls, the very scenes of my youthful pleasures, is mitigated by no gradual and stealthy approach. The pickaxe enters into my soul. The difficult tug which in the death-grapple can hardly bring the sturdy old walls to the ground, too roughly tears the web of remembered joys. I rejoice to think that I shall not remain long enough behind to behold the utter extinction of all of my old familiar friends. This roof, at least, under which I write, and which has sheltered more than four generations of my ancestors, will remain to be the abode of my age. It cannot yield to Vandal force until I have exchanged its friendly shelter for "the house appointed for all living."

DINAH ROLLINS.

DINAH ROLLINS.

————

ALL the world knows that the blessings of the patriarchal system were not always monopolized by our Southern brethren. New England, also, once rejoiced in its benign influences. Although the fathers of New England did not exactly make "slavery the corner-stone of their republican institutions" (for the science of political ethics was then in its infancy), still they were not so fanatical as wholly to reject it from the fabric of their new State. The scarcity of laborers in those early days reconciled some of them to a system, which, when first proposed, they rejected with abhorrence; and the obvious convenience of having their work done without having to pay for it might well help to silence any fantastic scruples as to the justice of the arrangement. Others, again, in whom the religious principle predominated over the economical, thought they discerned the finger of Providence indicating the spiritual things which were to be imparted to the involuntary immigrants in exchange for their carnal things; and they hailed every fresh importation of African heathens as so much raw material to be worked up into American Christians, and thus, before the inception of the foreign or domestic missionary enterprises, united the benefits of the former plan with the conveniences of the latter. The privilege of extending the advantages of modern civilization and Christianity to these savage and Pagan strangers, whose experience of both during the middle passage would favorably prepare them for their reception, reconciled these good men to any apparent hardship in the mode of bringing their neophytes within the sphere of their influences. The happy project of reshipping them or their descendants to their native country, after they had been fully saturated with the blessings of that of their adoption, had not then been developed, or the philanthropy of their benefactors would have received a new impulse from the beatific vision of these new apostles carrying back the civilization and religion they had learned during their sojourn in this favored land to that of their birth; which, if truly reported to their savage countrymen as preached and practised by the vast majority of ministers and people of almost every denomination, could not fail of awakening in their breasts a holy emulation, and of inducing an instant renunciation of their favorite barbarisms of fighting, killing, and enslaving one another. Not withstanding this disadvantage, our good ancestors satisfied their consciences as well as they were able, in one way or another, and submitted to be served without wages with the best grace they could. In justice to their memories, however, it should be said that New England slavery was the very mildest form of involuntary servitude. The nature of the agricultural and mechanical productions of that day, the difficult communication and comparatively infrequent intercourse between the different Colonies, and the severe morality which marked the character of that peculiar people, prevented the overworking of the slaves, the separation of families and disruption of natural ties, and that toleration, if not compulsion, of the grossest vice and licentiousness which form the most hideous features of the system as it exists at the present day in this country. Tradition relates that the old slaves often ruled with almost absolute sway over the farmhouses in which they had passed their lives, while by the wealthier families they were frequently indulged more like spoiled children than favorite domestics. Many circumstances might be related to show that the value of "this peculiar species of property" was very different in those days and these; or else that our fathers were not the wise men in their generation that they are reputed to have been. I will only mention the advertisements which are not unfrequently found in the curious little newspapers of the times, to this effect: "TO BE GIVEN AWAY, a likely negro child of five years old; apply to the printer." Now, among the many modern slave advertisements which I have consulted, whether in the columns of Southern newspapers themselves, or when transferred to the collections of the curious in such matters, as affording the most indisputable, unimpeachable evidence of the true character of the system (unless, indeed, it be true, as was once suggested to me by an elderly gentleman of respectable appearance in a stage-coach, that they are inserted in the Southern papers by the abolitionists, for the purpose of making an impression at the North), it never has been my fortune to light upon an advertisement of this description. Now, as generosity is well known to be the inseparable companion of chivalry, it cannot be supposed that the absence of such advertisements is owing to any lack of a giving spirit. It must be accounted for either by modesty, which shrinks from such a parade of liberal designs, or by a change in the value of the gift, which makes such a proclamation unnecessary in order to find one willing to accept it. The reader must settle this point for himself while I proceed to my historiette.

It was in that world before wages, but towards the close of those happy days of primitive simplicity, that our heroine made her first appearance upon this disjointed scene of things. She was "born," about seventy years since, "in the house" of Judge Rollins of Somersworth, N.H.,—a circumstance, which, we learn from high authority, brought her as effectually within the protection of the scriptural sanctions of slavery as if she had been "bought with his money."1 If her master happened to be troubled with any silly scruples about his relation to poor Dinah and his other slaves, it is a thousand pities that he lived too soon to enjoy the ghostly consolations just quoted, and others equally cogent and to the point; as, for example, the positions recently maintained by a reverend divine (Rev. E. Fuller of Beaufort, S.C.), that "the domestic relations here existing" are authorized by God, not condemned by Jesus Christ, and "expressly authorized" by the Holy Ghost; and that consequently their condemnation by abolitionists is "a direct insult to the Unchangeable and Holy One of heaven."2 In default of such comforters, however, Judge Rollins and his family appear to have quieted their conscientious scruples, if they had any, by treating their slaves in the kindest manner. As long as any of the family survived, Dinah remained an affectionate inmate of their household. At length, however, the Rollins family became extinct, as was the case with many others of the old New Hampshire families, which helped to transmute the most aristocratic of the Colonies into the most democratic of the States; and poor Dinah was left without anybody to take care of her. The reader will perhaps conclude from this, her unhappy predicament, that she either immediately took to begging, if not to stealing, or else transported her poverty to another State, or at best came upon the parish. No such consequences ensued, although we are credibly assured that such must be the inevitable effects of emancipation. She migrated no farther than Portsmouth, where she obtained an honest livelihood by serving as hostler in a livery-stable.

[1See the passage on this subject in the work on Moral Philosophy by the Rev. Jasper Adams, D.D., president of the college in Charleston, S.C.]

[2See his Letter to the Rev. Elon Galusha, in the Recorder and Watchman.]

I apprehend that a less authentic historian than myself, priding himself on the dignity, rather than the truth of his narrative, might be tempted to soften this circumstance, if not to suppress it entirely; for in the course of a pretty extensive and careful circle of studies, including most of the Annuals and Souvenirs of the last dozen years, and other kindred branches of literature, I do not remember to have read of a single heroine, whatever might have been the extremity or the variety of her distress, who was reduced to rub down horses, and sweep out stables, for her support. I am apprehensive, too, lest my Dinah should seem to some masters in our Israel to have been "impatient of her proper sphere," and to have "stepped forth to assume the duties of the man" in her choice of a field of labor; and that she may even come within the range of the fulminations of the Pastoral Letter of the Massachusetts General Association of Congregational Ministers, and be exposed to be likened unto "a vine, whose strength and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work, and half conceal its clusters," but which "thinks to assume the independence and overshadowing nature of the elm." I am concerned, also, lest a distinguished gentleman who stands in the first rank, if not in the first place, of our Republic of Letters, and who has lately discoursed eloquently to an elegant audience on the sphere of woman, or some of his admirers (should this little story fall under the observation of any of them), may condemn her as deficient in that perfect propriety and feminine delicacy, which form the chief ornaments of the sex. My business, however, is to relate facts, and not to extenuate them, and I must leave poor Dinah to the mercy of all censors, whether clerical or laic, who may choose to sit in judgment upon her. I must, in justice, however, state, that, great as may have been her deviation in this particular from the gentle elegancies and graceful proprieties of perfect womanhood, it was not owing to anything unfeminine in her education. I am not sure that she is even possessed of those elements of reading and writing, which, according to Dogberry, "come by nature;" and I think that I can assure the fastidious reader that she is perfectly innocent of the knowledge of the classics, of metaphysics, of the higher mathematics, and, in general, of all the eminently masculine branches of learning.

Whatever may be the opinion of the learned, or of posterity, as to the abstract fitness of Dinah's position in the livery-stable, there she was when the circumstance occurred which I have thought worthy of recital. While she was thus engaged in the charge of steeds, an occupation for which I forgot in the proper place to say she had the example of the Homeric princesses and of the dames of chivalry, she was one day accosted by a white woman who had once lived at service with her, and who told a piteous tale. She had spent a long life in menial service, and after having drudged for many years, and endured the caprices and exactions of many masters, she was now in her old age, and when disabled from labor by infirmity, thrown destitute upon the world. No resource seemed left her but the alms-house, for which she entertained the dread so common to honest poverty, and which seems to argue some vice in the system, which cannot be entirely subdued, even when it is administered in the most humane and enlightened manner. It was a common tale, and of every-day distress, such as would excite but little attention at the corners of the streets; but it went straight to the good heart of Dinah. Here was an old friend in want, and what could she do for her? When the heart is opened to receive a friend in distress, the door does not long remain closed. If the heart is large enough, the house is seldom found too small. Accordingly, Dinah soon remembered that her habitation, though small enough for one, was still large enough for two. And as for the increased expenses of her establishment—why, she must work the harder to meet them, that was all. Her plan was soon arranged in her mind, and as speedily reduced to practice. She took her old companion to her humble home, and has ever since (it is now several years) shared it and all that it contains with her. So little did she think that she had done anything out of the common way, that it was a long time before her remarkable action became known. Since then she has been an object of interest and of good offices to many benevolent individuals. What has seemed most extraordinary to those who have observed her proceedings has been the natural delicacy and good breeding which has taught her so to dispense her bounty to her helpless charge as to take from it the appearance of an obligation. This, no doubt, arises from the circumstance, that she does not think of herself as conferring one; and having the things, benevolence and forgetfulness of self, it is but natural that she should possess the politeness which is but their visible sign. If she had ever read Cicero (which, as I have already observed, I do not think probable), she might cite in support of her philosophy the wise saying of Socrates, which he quotes: "Whatever you would seem, be." I will mention one instance of her delicacy in her treatment of her guest, which will perhaps be more highly appreciated by some of my readers than by others. "Knowing," as she said, "that white folks don't like to have colored folks live with them," and having but one room for their joint accommodation, she divided it into two parts by means of a line hung with old clothes, that she might give her guest a separate apartment in deference to her supposed prejudices. Her conduct in every respect towards her unfortunate friend, I am assured by those who are well acquainted with the facts, might serve as a model of disinterested kindness to persons of much higher pretensions and greater advantages.

I was told this story during a visit which I lately made to the beautiful town of Portsmouth, and I conceived a strong desire to see the scene and the heroine of it. It was the annual Thanksgiving of New Hampshire, and I was invited, though a stranger, to join an affectionate and accomplished family circle on that domestic festival. The rain poured in torrents; but we heeded it not, for "our sunshine was within." Notwithstanding these inducements, both within doors and without, to stay where I was, I stole away after dinner, from the hospitable table, and proceeded with an old college acquaintance, one of the clergymen of the town, to the abode of Dinah Rollins. She was not at home when we first arrived at her door, but soon made her appearance from a neighboring alley. And now shall I describe her? A more prudent historian would leave his readers to imagine how she looked; but I feel it due to them and to Dinah to portray her appearance. She certainly was a very different person from the heroines of the generality of the "hot-pressed darlings," which are annually furnished forth by "the trade" to friendship and love, as gifts for Christmas and New Year.

She would find herself brought acquainted with strange company in the "Book of Beauty" or the "Flowers of Loveliness." Her face was of the intensest black, and her features of the strongest African cast; but still there was an expression of goodness and benevolence pervading her countenance, which, if it did not amount to positive beauty, at least made amends for the want of it. She was between four and five feet high, very broadly and strongly built. She wore a man's hat upon her head; a cloth cape, like that of a man's great-coat, coming down to her waist, over her shoulders.

She received us kindly, and invited us into her house, or rather room, which presented a different aspect, to be sure, from the scene of elegant hospitality I had just left. The room contained a few rude articles of furniture and a stove. The plastering had parted from the laths of the ceiling; so that the sawdust of the mechanic's shop overhead would shower down at times upon the floor. Within the enclosure of counterpanes and old clothes we found "the old lady," as Dinah always calls her, who has been bedridden for a long time, being eighty-four years old, and so deaf as to be absolutely impervious to sound. She seemed, however, sensible of the kindness of our intention in coming to see her. The devotion of Dinah to her, and her absolute unconsciousness that she was doing anything remarkable, was perfectly beautiful. She did not seem to know but that such a scene was acting in every house in Portsmouth.

In a sort of shed behind her room she showed us a hog of huge proportions, which she was raising for winter supply, and also her harvest of Indian corn, which she had garnered there; for, the infirmities of her old friend requiring more time than her office of mistress of the horse could spare, she had resigned it, and turned her attention to other more manageable modes of getting a subsistence, among which was farming on a small scale. She cultivated to good purpose, as I should judge from her crop, a small piece of land belonging to the town; and to the honor of the town be it told that it refuses to take any rent of her, thus affording an exception to the general rule that corporations have no souls. She showed us these stores with an honest pride, and evinced none of the shame, or indeed of the consciousness, of poverty.

I do not know but some scrupulous persons may be disposed to find fault with Dinah's protegé for being willing to be a burden upon her scanty revenue. Possibly some admirer of the Caucasian race may think it especially unworthy of a daughter of that superior family to receive her support from one of African descent. I would entreat such a one to desist from his speculations at once, lest he should find himself tampering with "delicate subjects," or, peradventure, meddling with what is none of his business. I would, however, in justice to my old friend at Portsmouth, say that she is kept in countenance by multitudes of reverend divines, learned judges, and honorable women in the Southern States who are provided with board and lodging, and supplied with pocket-money, by negroes. Nay, more; that not a few of the most eloquent advocates of the rights of man, and the boldest opposers of monopolies, in both branches of the national Legislature, and some, at least, of those who from the chair of state have uttered forth the oracles of democracy, are or have been dependent for their daily bread and necessary clothing upon the earnings of colored men and women. So I conceive that Dinah's friend is borne out by the example of these illustrious paupers, and is not to be called in question by any one as to her means of subsistence. Moreover, it should be remembered that her support is given her cheerfully and voluntarily, which, it is said, is not always the case in the other instances I have cited; so that it appears the difference is in her favor in the particular in which the cases are not parallel. I did not hear, indeed, of any attempt on her part to flog, brand, or even sell her benefactress, upon any temptation of pique or profit. But we must make allowances for the disadvantages of her former condition and for the defects of her early education.

What I saw and heard at this visit seemed to imply that slaves may be able to take care of themselves, and to dispense with the providence of a master, without danger of starvation or beggary. I also gathered from it that they were competent, not only to take care of themselves, but of white people too, even though they might not stand to them in the relation of proprietor. Moreover, I perceived that goodness of heart and refinement of feeling are not limited by color, or conferred by education. I discovered, too, that the truest riches may be possessed by the poorest person, and that there are nobler acts of munificence than those chronicled in religious newspapers. Grateful for these lessons, I took a kind farewell of her who had imparted them, and heartily bade God bless her; and if ever I am tempted to take a gloomy view of life, or to despair of the improvement of the race, I shall refresh my spirit by reverting to my interview with DINAH ROLLINS.