IIARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINES No. CCCLY.DECEMBEIi,1879. YoL. IA. THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. / BOUT ninety years ago a great trou- ilege had attained a development which A bie, as of a strange and unearthly seems almost incredible, and yet the arts- sunrise, was moving over the face of tocracy had lost all real power in the France. The evils of despotism had state. There was a glittering and splen- grown intolerable precisely at the mo- did court, without the means of paying ment when despotis~u had grown too for its expenses. There was a great weak to defend itself. Aristocratic priv- army, commanded by the most accom NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL. Entered accordin 1.0 Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by Harper and Brothers, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at ~Vashington. vos,. LX.No. 555.i 2 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. pushed nobility in the world, and corn- utterly ignorant. The purest democrat posed of a soldiery the most mutinous in in the cabinet was the King. It is only history. The system of taxes was the you and I, he said to M. Turgot, who most onerous ever known, but the treas- love the people. When Joseph II. of ury was forever empty: the most powerful Austria visited France, he was amazed at CARLO BONAPARTE, FATHER OF NAPOLEON. forcing-pump can do nothing after a vac- this delirium. He had democratic tend- num is attained. During the last two or encies himself, but knew where to draw three reigns the misery of the people had the line. When his sister, the Queen, increased in direct proportion with the wanted him to meet Franklin, he replied: splendor of the court. Occasional insur- Madame, the trade I live by is to be a rections and riots had been promptly royalist. punished by the gallows or a volley of Among the high and the low the age musketry, and the wild people had gone of fable had returned. The aristocracy back whipped to their wretchedness. But of birth and of learning had caught from now all this was changed. A growth of the philosophers the habit of considering philosophers and lovers of men had aris- the people good and gentle, to whom all en, peculiar to the country and the age. things must be yielded. The people had An odd sort of cultusthe Religion of taken philosophy their own way, with a. Humanityhad taken the place of other difference, and considered the aristocracy forms of worship, and was working sin- bloody-mimided robbers, deserving of pil- gular results. It began among solitary lage and death. Even the Queen and the dreamers in squalid garrets, and had at court loved the peopleand the people last spread to palaces, and infected thrones, believed the filthiest calumnies on the The unhealthy dreams of Rousseau had Queen and court. But over all, rich and turned the heads of dukes and princes, poor alike, there floated this strange dream The visit of Dr. Franklin to Paris was of a better time which was soon to come. one long homage of privilege to democ- The way in which it was to be realized racy. These amiable aristocrats, these differed according to the ima~,inations of innocent tyrants, were playing with the individuals and classes. Some believed lightning, of whose properties they were in an idyllic return of Saturnian reigns,,, THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 3 where the oniy law was to be Liberty, pass, as the result and consequence of Equality, and Brotherly Love; others, like those horrible atrocities which dismayed M. Marat, the farrier of Monseigneur DAr- the world a few years afterward. tois, thought the first specific was the tak- The profit to the world at large of this ing off of 260, 000 aristocrat heads. The vast upheaval is, however, not the matter scheme of this great revolution will always remain the warning and the amazement of the world. It pursued its remorseless course without human let or hinderance, and apparently also without human aid. The loftiest virtue, the most extraordi- nary talents, produced scarcely any effect upon it. The innocent enthusiasts went softly bleating of Liberty and Fraternity to their doom. The most ferocious scoun- drels followed their own victims to the Place de la R~volu~ion. Anarchy raged, all-devouring, until, aliment lacking else- where, it turned and devoured itself, and the exhausted and agonized land was ready again for a master. Great things were certainly accomplished for France in the midst of that terror and destruc- tion. No event in the worlds history so dwarfs and belittles all criticism and com- ment; and the most marvellous thing about it all is that many of the objects seen in the rosy mist of fancy by the dreamers of 1789 have actually come to which we propose just now to consider, but rather its effect upon the fortunes of a single family of poor estate in Corsica. When the mob burst into the Tuileries on the memorable 10th of August, and the monarchy of France looked its last out of the palace windows before betaking itself to the cruel protection of the Legislature, the eyes of poor Louis XVI. might have beheld in the street, among the crowd of curious spectators, the man for whose ad- vantage the throne of St. Louis was crum- bling into dust. He was a captain of ar- tillery, off duty at the moment, who had come to see the riot with those intelligent eyes of his, and whose name was Napoleon Bonaparte. He was rather a fierce pa- triot too, in those days, and sympathized strongly with the mob, so far as death to tyrants and liberty to the people were con- cerned. But his love of orderly and efil- cient fighting was more natural to him than his passion for the people, and when he saw the gallant Swiss of the palace LETIZIA RAMOLINO, MOTHER OF NAPOLEON. 4 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. making their brave defense against over- powering numbers, he could not help say- ing to himself, If I commanded those fine fellows, I would make short work of all that canaille. But there was no one to command them, and the monarchy fell to pieces, and the Swiss were murdered, and waited many years for Thorwaldsen and Carlyle to make them immortal. The time came quite soon enough for the ar- tillery officer to justify his confident esti- mate of himself and a mob of Paris. The family of Bonapartes were of pure ItalLin race; there was not a drop of French blood in any of them. Their an- cestors had come from the main-land in the early history of Corsica, and their names are found in the remote annals of Ajaccio. Carlo Bonaparte was a poor gentleman of excellent breeding and character, who married in his youth a young and romantic girl named Letizia Ramolino, who followed him in his cam- paigns up to the moment of the birth of Napoleon. It is impossible to say how much the history of Europe owes to the high heart and indomitable spirit of this soldierly woman. She never relinquish- ed her authority in her family. When all her children were princes and poten- tates, she was still the severe, stern Ma- dame M~re. The beauty and grace of Josephine Beauharnais never con- quered her; the sweet Tyrolese prettiness of Maria Louisa won from her only a sort of con- temptuous indulgence. When her mighty son ruled the continent, she was the only human be- ing whose chidings he re- garded or endured. She was faithful in her re- bukes while the sun shone, and when calami- ty came, her undaunted spirit was still true and devoted to the fallen. Her provincial habit of economy stood her in good stead in her vigor- ous old age; she was rich when the Empire had passed away, and her grandchildren needed her aid. It must have been from her that Napo- leon took his extraordinary character, for Carlo Bonaparte, though a brave soldier and an ardent patriot in his youth, was of an easy and genial temper, inclined to take the world as he found it, and not to insist too much on having it go in his es- pecial way. After the cause of Corsican liberty was lost by the success of the French arms, he accepted the situation without regret, and becoming intimate with the conquerors, he placed as many of his family as possible on the French pen- sion list. His sons Napoleon and Louis were given scholarships at Brienne and at Autun, and his eldest daughter, Elise, entered the royal institution at St. Cyr. While yet in the prime of life, he died of the same deadly disease which was to finish Napoleons days at St. Helena; and the he- roic mother, her responsibilities becoming still heavier by this blow, lived for eight years longer amid the confusion and civil tumult which had become chronic in Cor- sica; and then, after the capture of the island by the English in 1793, she made her escape with her children to Marseilles, where she lived several years in great penury. Her family of five sons and three daugh- ters would have been a heavy burden upon her resources if they had been children of JOSEPH BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON. THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 5 the ordinary sort. But the two elder sons rapidly made their way, and always evinced a parental interest in their jun- iors. The oldest, Joseph, had been edu- cated at the seminary of Autun and the university of Pisa, through the friendly patronage of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The year after the family moved to Marseilles he made a happy and brill- iant marriage, gaining the hand of one of the great- est heiresses of the South, Mademoiselle Marie Julie Clary. Her father, whose destiny it was to have two kings for sons-in-law, and to leave behind him for many generations a royal posterity, was a Marseilles merchant. Four years aft- er the wedding of Joseph Bonaparte, a younger sis- ter, Mademoiselle D~sir~e, was sought in marriage by the dashing and magnifi- cent soldier Bernadotte, who, after serving with distinction under Custine, Kleber, and Bonaparte, had been sent as ambassa- dor to Vienna, and for whom still higher honors were in storeminister, marshal, and King of Swe- den. But in spite of Jo- seph Bonapartes learning and wealth, and the success of his matrimonial ven- ture, the head of the family was the sec- ond son, and all the house acknowl- edged his supremacy from the first. This is of itself enough to show how powerful ly his personality impressed itself upon those around him, for there is no princi- ple more firmly fixed in the minds of the people of Corsica and Southern France than the dignity and authority of the first-born son of the house. No mere material success of a cadet ever disturbs this natural precedence; one of the most touching passages of M. Daudets great romance is the scene where the million- aire brother acknowledges his allegiance to the worthless vagabond who was born before him. But it does not seem that from early youth any one disputed the claim of Napoleon to be the head of his family; though disobedience sometimes rose to rebellion, it was always felt to be such on both sides. He was not, on the whole, an ungentle patriarch to those of his blood; and when they were all young and poor together, he was self-sacrificing, generous, and kind to his brothers and LIJCIEN BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON sisters. It was little in the way of mon- ey that he could spare from his scanty wages as a subaltern of artillery, but he spared what he could, and where it was possible he spent much of his time with them, and superintended their studies. He was able to give them a good deal of care, for in those years of utter disorgan- iEation of society the discipline of the army was shamefully lax, and the young officers spent as much time at home and in their debating clubs as they did at their barracks. Joseph and Lucien were by their age somewhat removed from his act- ive control, but over Louis and Jerome and his sisters he exercised an authority which was justified by his affection and his care. Never was careful training niore needed in any family in the world, for every one of these children was to govern remote and distant principalities and kingdoms, and to mingle with the I I (3 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. purple-born monarchs of immemorial de- scent as equals and as superiors. No family in history was ever raised to such lofty fortunes so suddenly; and few families that ever existed could have sus- tained themselves at such altitudes with so much of ability, cleverness, and dignity. The first great opportunity offered to Napoleon Bonaparte was on the 5th of October, called in the fanciful calendar of the Revolution the 13th Vend6miairethe month of the vintage. He had previous- ly distinguished himself by a remarkable exploit at the siege of Toulon, and had shown great capacity in a short cam- paign in Piedmont. But achievements like those only commended him to the notice of soldiers. He had now an op- portunity to bring artillery into politics, and he did it with terrible effect. The Convention was confronted with the arm- ed mob which had placed it in power, and which proposed to direct it, as the Jacobin mobs had directed its predecessors. The moment was critical. The victors of Thermidor would have been outcasts and fugitives in another day, had Barras not thought of his young friend Bonaparte, who could handle artillery better than any man in France. Napoleon was in the gallery, and heard his name mention- ed, and retired in great dis- turbance of mind to consider what he should do. Honor or the guillotine was in the throw. By the next sunset he would be either a prisoner condemned to speedy death as a traitor, or a man necessary to the Directory. He decided as such a man must decide for action. He instantly dis- patched his adjutant, Murat a young officer who knew how to rideto Sablons for the ar- tillery. He got there just in time with not a minute to spare: the sections were on his heels. The guns were post- ed in the night at every avail- able point, and the ne~t day, after several hours of threat- ening demonstrations, the con- test began, and in an hour the guns of Bonaparte had blown to the four winds a far more formidable attack than any of those before which the mon- archy had gone down. The Convention was saved, but the sallow, silent young man whose cannon had made peace in the streets had a claim for salvage which would be presented in due time. This was the true beginning of his career, and also the beginning of the end of the short-lived Republic. Pub- lic opinion had risen against the govern- ment; the government had blown pub- lic opinion in pieces with artillery; and the young man who could handle artil- lery in that way was sure of his future. When his time should come, he could no doubt serve the government as he had served its assailants. The flight of the eagle was taken, and there was no longer any check or pause in his career until all was over. His suc- cess in Paris gave him access to the best official society, and he there met the love- ly and accomplished widow of one Vi- comte de Beauharnais, who was one of the brightest ornaments of the Thermi- dorean circle. His wooing was as abrupt and energetic as that of a young lion. The lady of his love was bewildered and alarmed at the violence of his devotion and by the extraordinary assurance with which he promised her to win glory and power with his sword. She was six years his senior, and naturally distrusted this LOUIS BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON. THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 7 youthful arrogance. But her indolent tent with plundering and betraying them, creole temperament yielded to his im- he called them, in a letter to Talleyrand, petuous suit, and Barrass wedding pres- an indolent, superstitious, buffoonish, ent was the command - in - chief of the cowardly population. What he said in Army of Italy. The honey-moon was of his own speeches and proclamations he the briefest; the wedding was on the 9th of March, and a few days afterward he was at his head-quarters at Nice. From this time began that marvellous career which seems already fabulous. In a fortnight after crossing the frontier he had won four victories, and conquered Bar- dinia, and he kept up in the same colossal fashion the series of conquests thus be- gun. It is to be hoped the world will nev- er see again such a spectacle of prodigious ability. His treachery, his rapacity, his cold-blooded selfishness, his duplicity and cruelty, are as marvellons as his unending success. He treated the Directory with utter contempt, and sent them such loads of treasure that they pardoned his insults. He flattered the prelates of Rome with words which they still quote with pleas- ure, and he spoke of them at the same time as babbling dotards. He never lost an opportunity to laud the Italian people in his proclamations; but not con- admits is mere romance. He was ut- terly cynical in his orders to his officers. When he commanded Perr~e to seize the navy of Venicea power with which he had no cause of quarrel whateverhe wrote: Seize everythino but take care to call it always the Venetian navy, and constantly have on your lips the unity of the two republics ! But he was regal in all his qualities and crimes. When he had established himself at Montebello, near Milan, and Madame Bonaparte had joined him, he kept the greatest court in Europe. Only a year before, he was a poor unfriended officer on the Paris pave- ment, cramped in his circumstances, un- certain of his livelihood. But even his enemies admit that he kept his court at Milan like a king. He surrounded him- self with savans and artists, with gener- als and beauties. He dined in public, like sovereigns of the ancient r6gime, and received the h6mage of the people as if JEROME BONAPARTE, BROTHER OF NAPOLEON. 8 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. his ancestors had been demigods. He never had to learn the trick of royalty. It was not the ermine or the crown that gave him in after-days his motions and habitudes kingly. He was an imperator a commanderlong before the Pope anointed him Emperor of the French. His interests at home were jealously and intelligently guarded by his brothers Joseph and Lucien, who had become men of importance in the government before his return from Italy; and when he was absent in Egypt it was his brother Joseph who dispatched the wily Greek Bourbaki in hot haste to warn him that the fullness of time was come for him to make an end of the Directory. The success of the 18th Brumaire was due in great part to the fact that the three allies upon whom he most implicitly counted inside the gov- ernment were his own brothers, bound to him by every tie of affection and in- terest. Joseph had declined the mission to Berlin, to remain in Paris as a mem- ber of the Council of Five Hundred; Lucien was President of it, and young Louis was also a member. His brothers were his principal go-betweens in that drama of unparalleled treachery by which the Directors were divided and disarmed. On the final day at St. Cloud, when Na- poleon had failed in his attempt to intimi- date the Assembly, and had been borne fainting from the hall, it was Lucien who, mounting on horseback, presented him- self to the troops as the representative of the law, and commanded them to disperse by the bayonet the Assembly he had be- trayed. He showed on this occasion far greater courage and presence of mind than Napoleon, and roused the soldiers to enthusiasm by a piece of comedy which now seems absurd enough. He seized a sword, at the end of his harangue, and cried: I swear to thrust this through the heart of my brother if he should ever strike a blow at the liberties of France. The soldiers applauded; Murat hurried them forward at a quick step. The drums beat a charge, to drown the voices of the outraged legislators, and the liberties of France were at an end for many long years. In the recently published memoirs of Madame De Remusat some curious de- tails are given of the social life of the Tuileries after the Bonapartes had taken possession of the palace. It made a sin- gular impression upon thi~ high-born lady the swarms of uneducated and rough- riding soldiers, mingled with the few no- blemen who, like Talleyrand, adhered to the new r6gime for the place and power it afforded them, and the crowds of pret- ty women with whom the First Consul loved to be surrounded. Something of this incongruity seems to have struck Napo- leon himself. He liked fine dresses for his court and his officers, but was best pleased when he himself was dressed shabbily. He said, one day of ceremony, to Ma- dame De IRemusat, The right to be sim- ply dressed does not belong to everybody. At another time, while his marshals were squabbling for precedence, he said, It is very convenient to govern Frenchmen by vanity. He seemed, then as always, to regard himself as a man apart, not sub- ject to the laws which governed the rest of the human race. After the death of his nephew and presumptive heir, the son of King Louis of Holland, when Talley- rand proposed he should show some signs of mourning, he said, abruptly, I do not amuse myself by thinking about the dead. In reply to some remonstrance from his wife about his too open immo- ralities, he said, with perfect calmness I need distractions. I am not a man like other men, for whom laws are made. Lucien, with all his adroit devotion, was the only brother of Napoleon who did not become a king. He was, it is true, Minister of the Interior during the early years of the Consulate; but his in- dependence soon embroiled him with the First Consul, and after a short but brill- iant service as ambassador and tribune, he married the divorced wife of the great broker Jouberthon, against his brothers positive prohibition, and encountered his bitter and malignant hostility for the rest of his days. He never surrendered his dignity and manhood; and after the Con- sulate had blossomed into the Empire, and Napoleon was disposing of crowns and thrones among his family with a lavish hand, Lucien alone had the cour- age to refuse these glittering bribes which were offered as the price of his honor. The Emperor knew his value, and wished to employ him: he offered him a crown the crown was not specified, but he al- ways had a supply on hand, or made them when he wisheda princely hus- band for his daughter, and a duchy for his wife if he would divorce her. But Lucien declined; and the Emperor, in a THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. whirling rage, struck his name out of naparte dynasty in 1870. Pierre after- the imperial almanac strangering him ward went to England, in straitened cir- with his curse. Misfortune united them cumstances, and his wife, the daughter of only for a moment, after Waterloo, and Lucien. whom the Pope had made Prince of Canino, passed the evening of his life tranquilly in arclneological studies in It- aly, where he died in 1840, leaving a nu- merous and amiable family, many mem- bers of which became famous in the world of literature and science, and married with members of the highest aristocracy of Italy. The celebrated Madame Ratazzi was his granddaughter; and the shoot- ing by his son Prince Pierre Napoleon of a small and sufficiently worthless journal- ist named Victor Noir contributed pow- erfully to shake the popularity of the Bo a blanchisseuse of the St. Antoine quar- ter, opened a millinery shop in the Brit- ish capital, not of the first class, where English tradesmen~ s wives could enjoy the luxury of scolding a princess if their gowns did not fit, which was more than probable. It may be said that none of the broth- ers were especially happy in their thrones. Joseph had the capacity to make a very respectable king in quiet times. He had a happy gift of pleasing, and sufficient dignity and ease of manner to fulfill with credit and distinction the sort of dutie which devolve on kings at ordinary pen- NAPOLEON I.~ EMPEROR. 10 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ~ds. He was the most finished diploma- tist of the family, and conducted many difficult negotiations with credit and suc- tess. He was the safe and vigilant guard- ian of his brothers interests in Paris while he was spreading his conquests over the world; and when the Emperor returned from Austerlitz, radiant with the intolerable glory of that prodigious victory, and, as it seemed afterward, with his head a little turned with a success too great for a mortal brain to bear, in the first batch of kings that he made to cele- 1~rate his triumph, he gave Joseph the crown of Naples. He went reluctantly to his kingdom, but soon came to like its soft air and pleasant people, and regretted it when, two years later, he was forced to leave them to go to Spain. His royal robes were little more than a livery, after all, for he must go wherever his fraternal tyrant bade him, and he went with a heavy heart to take his new post in the 7monarchy of Pelayo and Isabel the Oath- olic. It is related that when the brothers stood together at the foot of the grand staircase of the Palace del Oriente, with its massive steps of white and black mar- ble, its balusters adorned with the twined collars of the Golden Fleece, and its ala- baster lions guarding the landings, above which flame the frescoes of Giacinto rep- resenting the monarchy of Spain render- ing homage to Religion, the Emperor laid his conquering hand upon the sculptured mane of one of the lions and cried, in ex- ultation, At last I hold thee, my Spain ! And then turning to Joseph, he said, in ~ tone half of pleasantry and half of envy, My brother, thou wilt be better lodged than I. It is probable that the Emperor had more gratification in that fleeting mo- ncient than his brother during his whole troubled kinghood. Three times in five years he was driven from his rebellious eountry; and finally, when misfortunes were thickening fast about the imperial standard, he hastened to Paris once more, and offered, in a vain impulse of brother- ly affection, to take Napoleons place as a prisoneras if the finest cat that ever lived could possibly be mistaken for the royal Bengal tiger! The brothers parted with au revoir en Am6riquc, and Jo- seph, under the name of the Comte de ~urvilliers, sailed for America, where, after years of patient waiting, he heard the fatal news from the African seas that he should never meet again his loving educated, and became a lieutenant in the and imperious master and idol. The time he spent in America, partly at Borden- town and partly in the Adirondack woods, was the happiest and most tranquil of his troubled life; but lie wearied of its mo- notony at last, and hearing that the Duke of Reichstadt was rapidly failing in health, he hurried off to Europe again; and after a dozen years more of journeys, and pro- tests, and wranglings, and nerveless in- trigues for a cause in which his heart was no longer enlisted, he died in Florence at a good old age. Still more unhappy was the lot of Louis. In his youth he was a gay and dashing soldier, yet fond of books and the society of women, with tastes and habits that promised happiness. But the baleful shadow of his brothers greatness blasted his life. He was early raised to heights too giddy for him, and he was forced to marry Hort~nse Beauharnais, for whom he had neither sympathy nor re- spect. When the crown of Holland was given him, his evil star seemed to culmi- nate, for while the Emperor was making the farewell speech which informed him, with little pretense of concealment, that he was to govern the Dutch as a French satrap rather than as an independent sov- ereign, the cold eyes of Admiral Verhuel were regarding him, and the injury which was to defile two thrones was already plotted. He endeavored loyally to be a good king to Holland and a good hus- band to Hortense, but his intentions in ei- ther direction met with no appreciation, and it was only after he had lost both wife and crown that he found some meas- ure of comfort in life. He parted finally from Hortense the year before Louis Na- poleon was born, and betook himself to a sentimental sort of literature and philoso- phy. His first-born son died in infancy. His second son, for the possession of whom he had a bitter litigation with Hor- tense, died in the bloom of his early man- hood at Forli, in Italy, and he had little pleasure in Louis Napoleon, whom he at first refused to recognize as his son, but whom later he took to his heart with the senile fondness of an unhappy man. Jerome, the Benjamin of the family, had, first and last, the easiest and most satisfactory life, in spite of the vicissitudes inseparable from a fate so exceptional. He grew to adolescence in the full blaze of his brothers successes, was carefully THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 11 navy at seventeen years of age. At nine- teen he committed the escapade of marry- ing Miss Patterson, of Baltimore, and aft- er a year or so of wedded felicity he went home with her, doubtless expecting a wig- ging from his august elders, but imagin- ing that her beauty and grace would coin- mend his wife to them as soon as she was seen. But they never gave her the oppor- tunityMadame M~re had already filed her legal protest against the marriage, and Napoleon ordered his sister-in-law back to England without granting her audience. Jerome, like the great Gibbon, sighed as a lover, perhaps, but he obeyed like a son and a soldier, and never saw his young wife again until long years afterward, when, walking in the Pitti gallery with his second spouse, Caroline of Wiirtem- berg, he came across this ghost of his adventurous youth. No words were ex- changed between them, and he hurried away from Florence. His obedience was rewarded by rapid and repeated promo- tions to general, marshal, prince, and finally King of Westphalia, and the heir- ship of the Empire, although by his will the Emperor changed this arrangement in favor of the children of Hortense. Je- rome never took his monarchy very seri- ously, and annoyed the Emperor by his frivolities at his little capital of Cassel. But on the day of trial he showed good qualities, and after his prowess at Ligny and Waterloo, Napoleon embraced him and said, My brother, I have learned to know you too late. His life was a quiet and undistinguished one until the Empire was re-established by his nephew, when he became once more Prince, Imperial High- ness, and Marshal of France, and died in state at the Invalides. He was, in spite of his few days of creditable fighting, an unheroic personage. A good deal of ro- mance has been wasted upon his relations with Miss Patterson. There was nothing remarkable in a boy of nineteen making an imprudent marriage, or in being bul- lied and bribed to desert his wife after- ward. Her part of the play was scarcely less sordid. Her recently printed letters show that she married him for his name and rank, and that after he had cast her off she got a divorce, because the atten- tions she had received from people of rank in England inspired the idea tbat she might marry advantageously again. The sisters of Napoleon were too valu- able as counters in his game to be allow- ed to give their hands where they liked. I1~llise, it is true, chose for herself before his period of omnipotence, and became the wife of young Bacciochi, a poor Cor- sican officer, who lived to share with her a throne which was scarcely wide enough for two. She was made Princess of Pi- ombino and Lucca, and Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and left a family who after- ward held positions at the court of Napo- leon III. The life of Pauline, the second sister, if written as only herself or the re- cording angel might have done it, would probably have surpassed anything that the Sieur De Brant6me has left for the wonder and the scandalized amusement of mankind. While she was yet little more than a child her hand was disputed by Junot, Duphot, Fr~ron, and Leclere. She chose the last, and accompanied him to Santo Domingo, undeterred by pesti- lence and massacres, and after faithfully nursing him through his fatal illness, she brought his remains back to France for burial. She was then taken in hand by her brother, who needed to strengthen his interest in Rome, and married to Prince Camillo Borghesea union un- happy from the wedding benediction. Perhaps she had loved Le- clercshe certainly adored CANO A~ 5 VENUS VIUTRIX 12 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. her brotherbut the rest of the world of men, with the exception of poor Borgliese, seemed to her alike creatures of her con- quest and her insatiable curiosity. She was one of the niost beautiful women of her time. She posed to Canova for his Venus Victrix, and the great sculptor was reported to have said that, with such models, statues could be made by journey- men. She had many virtues: she was amiable. generous, enlightened, and intel- ligent; she loved letters and art, and, as Duchess of Guastalla, kept a brilliant and popular court. The ablest politician of the three sisters, and the least personally interesting, was Caroline, who married Murat, and became successively Duchess. of Cleves and Queen of Naples. She was splendidly educated, brave as a lioness in battle, and possessed of a singular admin- istrativc ability; but she betrayed her brother too readily when fortune frown- ed, and she married General MacDonahi too soon after her husbands tragic death.. EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, WIFE OF NAPOLEON I THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 13 The marriages of the Bonapartes play an important part in the story of their fortunes, and none of them were so sig- nificant and important as those of the Emperor. To one who, like him, looked upon the world as made for him, and upon laws merely as something which were good for him to impose upon oth- ers, it must have appeared that his two wives were admirably planned for his use. Jos6phine de Beauharnais was an ideal wife for a young and rising man of gen- ius. She had everything which would appeal to a fancy like his, at once selfish and passionate. She had beauty, rank, the power of pleasing, and a certain indolent grace that promised an obe- dience reasonably free from jealousy. lip to the time that he mounted the imperial throne and seated her by his side, she was all that his narrow heart and boundless ambition could desire. But after the marvellous victory of Wagram had opened up to his fevered imagination still wider perspectives of dominion, he looked for another style of wife, and found her in Maria Louisa of Austria. Her blonde beauty, formed of pihk and white color and roundly curving lines and the golden floss of a childs hair, appealed strongly to his jaded taste. He was not old, but, as he said to the Directory, one ages fast upon the field of battle, and he wanted some such solace as this soft, unintellectual beauty (somebody has called it the Alderney style of pretti- ness) in his home, if such a word may be used of the Tuileries. Besides, he doubtless felt that an emperor should have an emperors daughter to wife, and this was a young girl who had a hundred monarchs for her ancestors, and yet she would be gen- tle and obedient, and not argue with him or answer him, and would give him heirs. He was genuinely attached to her, and if he knew nothing about her, and had no premonition of Count Neipperg, it was all the better for him. She also was quite taken by storm with him, and for a while the novelty of being loved by an ogre f or such she had always considered him was agreeable to her. But his tumultuous glory was quite too much for the daily food of such a human small being as the Empress, and she was doubtless relieved when the indignant soul left his body at Longwood, and she was free to follow her ignoble little heart and marry Neipperg. Josephine would have had her revenge if she could have foreseen the course of history for even a few years. It is she, and not the pretty Austrian, who will be known forever as the wife of Napoleon. It is her statue that rises in marble in the public places of Paris. It is her name and those of her children that mark the great avenues of the metropolisAvenue Josiphine, La Reine Hortense, Boulevard du Prince Eug~ne. Though she was oust- ed remorselessly from a throne to make room for Maria Louisa, it was her children the children of the creole proscriptwho should become the tenants of palaces, and not those of her rival. The Duke of Reich- stadt was to pass a youth of inglorious pleasure, and was to die before his prime, and leave no son to inherit his claims to empire; while the Beauharnais line was to stretch out like the swarm of kings seen by the Thane of Cawdor in his vis- ion. Eugene, her heroic son, after the fall of the Napoleons, returned to the court of his father-in-law, the Kino of Bavaria, and became Prince of Eichstiidt, Duke of Leuchtenberg, and Ii st noble- man of the kingdom. His daughter, united to the son of Bernadotte, became Queen of Sweden; another became a prin NAPOLEON II., DUKE OF REIdHSTADT. 14 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. cess of Hoheuzollern, and a third Em- press of Brazil. His oldest son won the hand of the Queen of Portugal, and the younger married a daughter of the Czar Nicholas of Russia. And whatever doubt might be thrown on the purity of the Napoleonic descent by which the Em- peror Napoleon IlL claimed the throne, he was unquestionably the son of Hor- tense, and was Beauharnais and Tascher- la-Pagerie beyond challenge. The grand- son of Josephine, Louis Napoleon, ruled France in peace and with a sort of splen- dor for the space of twenty-two years while the period of the first Napoleons reign, counting Consulate and Empire to- gether, was but fifteenthough so power- ful was the personal imprint made by tbe uncle, and so vague was tbe individual character of the nephew, tbat the shorter reign seems like an age, and the longer like an episode. EMPRE55 MARIA LOUISA. THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. The exiles which followed their respect- ive reigns were singularly in keeping with their different characters. The part of Louis Napoleons career which followed Sedan was scarcely less happy than that which preceded it. He grew stout at Wilhelmsh6he, and when removed to Chiselhurst he led the tranquil life of a bourgeois retired from business, until his peaceful end. But for Napoleon, the im- prisonment on that bleak rock in a dis- tant sea was the fitting close of a tragedy more vast than human annals ever before recorded. The great myth ended in dark- ness and mystery, and the hero, unseen by Europe, preserved to the last the fabu- lous character with which friend and foe had alike invested him. To the French people he was their Prometheus chained to a thunder-blasted rock on the vague limits of the world, tormented by vul- tures, but still godlike in his pains. To England he was an enemy of preternatu- ral force and treachery, who could only be kept from harmful activity by the in- violable bars of thousands of miles of sea. His exile and death are therefore among the most picturesque and moving scenes of his history, and the English artist Hay- don painted the most fortunate of his por- traits in that famous picture which repre- sents the imprisoned conqueror looking out from his rocky realm, with unuttera- ble thoughts, upon the dreadful and im- placable sea, which even he could never tame nor conciliate. For pictures, as for men, there are ad- vantages and disadvantages in being cop- ies. They can never have the fire and spirit, the brilliancy and charm, of the original, but they can be more correct; they can profit by criticism, and avoid the errors of the creating genius. Louis Napoleon came into the world with his work marked out for himto be as near- ly as possible like his uncle in fate and achievements. He had scarcely any nat- ural qualifications for the part; he was of a gentle and dreamy nature, not fitted, one would say, for war or government. But he had his name, his share in the in- fatuation of France for the Napoleon le- gend, and an obstinate though quiet will to be. Emperor. He studied artillery be- cause his uncle dict life wrote a socialist book because his uncle had written Le Soupcr dc Bcaucaire in his youth. He parodied the descent from Elba with the ridiculous attempts of Strasburg and Bon logne. Because his uncle had carried the eagles of France in triumph over three continents, he taught a tame eagle to swoop down on his hat for fresh meat. But he was not always ridiculous in his. imitations. He managed his first election as President, in 1848, with admirable skill and cunning. He swore oaths of alle- giance with the same imperturbable anJ treacherous coolness which were so re- markable in the founder of the family. One who reads the story of the 18th Bin- maire and the Coup dEtht of December is startled with the absolute similarity of conditions and processes by which the two usurpers gained the supreme power. There was the same pretense of a conspir- acy, the same accusation of the legisla- ture, the same corruption of the army, the same outrage upon the civil authori- ties; and to make the resemblance still more remarkable, the actor who played the part of first assistant in the treason was in the one case Lucien, and in the other case De Morny. The candid reader must admit that the nephew had bettered his instructions. The Coup dEtat was a~ much more perfect and workman-like per- formance than the 18th Brumaire. The great Napoleon was lamentably weak be- fore the Assembly, and his nephew, hid- ing himself in the Elys~es, and pulling the strings of the plot, made a more satis- factory piece of work than the original which he followed. The wonder is that. the same net, spread in the same way, in the sight of the same bird, should have twice secumd its prey, unless we conclude that they were both providential men, and that France had need of such disci- pline. The resemblance in their marriages was. not so strong, though in this respect also Napoleon III. pretended to follow copy. Eug~nie de Montijo, Countess of Thba, was a beautiful woman of twenty-seven, who had had a youth of vicissitudes, and was well known in many capitals for her beauty, grace, and rank, which, having no fortune to support them, gained her and her mother only the undeserved title of adventuresses. The malice of party has. raged fiercely against this ladys name, but there is not a particle of proof to sus- tain it. Her ability, her affectionate de- votion to the interests of her family, and her religious fervor are, so far as the world knows, as unquestionable as her- beauty and her personal charm. No~ 16 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. queen in history has better fulfilled a queens duty as leader of the fashions; and while she reigned, the dress of wom- en was at once beautiful, decent, and con- venient. Hers was the prettiest face, the most graceful bearing, the most winning smile, in all that dazzling court of the Tuileries. But she had a Spaniards love of political intrigue, and an Andalusian s bigotry, and she contributed powerfully to engage her husband in the evil way that led his policy to Rome and his army to Sedan. There is a story told by Ars~ne Houssayecertainly no unfriendly chron- iclerthat at the cabinet council called to decide the question of peace and war, aft- er the final interview of Benedetti with King William at Ems, the peace party carried the day, and the Emperor went to bed. But the Empress, being left behind with the council, won over to her war- like views the gallant Dc Grammont and the absurd Lebceuf, and reversed the de- cision, and then went in triumph to the Emperors chamber, where he was sleep- ing the sleep of the just, and gained his assent to the fatal declaration which was made next day by the jaunty De Gram- mont, with his hands in his pockets, and by Ollivier, with his cccur k~jcr. The Empire attained its most resplen- dent bloom the year before its fall. In 1869 occurred the centennial anniversary of the birth of Napoleon, and the grand fete of the 15th of August was celebrated that year with extraordinary glare and tinsel. The Champs Elys~es were like a region of fairy-land at night. The spout- NAPOLEON MUSING AT ST. HELENA. THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 17 ing fountains of the Place de la Concorde, Only a year later, the writer of these pages played upon by van-colored lights, seem- was in Paris on the Fete Napoh~on again. ed in turn of gold, of diamonds, and of There was no celebration of the day. A blood, like the legend they were celebra- few servants of the edility were tearing ting. The grand sweep of the avenue to down the pipes and gas-fixtures which had the Place de lEtoile was one sea of glim- been planned to celebrate the entry of mering radiance, and the Arch of Tn- the French army into Berlin. At every nmph at the crest of the hill was trans- figured by the magic of lime light into a vast dome of porcelain and mother-of- pearl, a temple standing in the midst of the opulence and art of new Paris, dedi- cated to the worship of the material splen- dor of Napoleonism. There were peace and plenty in the land, a submissive ma- jority in the legislature. The 01(1 nobil- ity had greatly overcome their hostility, and as for the people, when they were asked if they were content with the Em- pire, seven millions of them said Yes! Voi,. LX.No. Bii.2 corner panic-stricken groups were read- ing the bulletins, in which a false color- ing was given to terrible defeats. A beat- en army was rolling back toward Paris, shouting, as beaten armies always sbout, Treason, and the Emperor, stunned and helpless, abandoning the command to oth- ers, was muttering with the iteration of idiocy: I have been deceived They also have mitrailleuses A few days later the Empire was at its end. Dr. Evans, the famous American dentist, was entertaining some friends at NAPOLEON III. 18 HAIRPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. dinnerfor one must dine, though king- doms are crashing like potsherds. A serv- ant enters and announces a lady, who in- sists on seeing him. He at last rises and goes out, somewhat petulantly, to see this importnnate, and when her veil is raised it discloses the beautiful face of the Em- press, convnlsed with grief and agitation. The mob is in the Tuileries again, after its old habit, and the Empress owes her life to two foreignersan American, Evans, and an Italian, the Chevalier Nigra. The latter displayed a marvellous presence of mind. On entering a carriage near the Tuileries a street gamin recognized the Empress, and cried, VoiWt lLnp6ra- trice I Nigra cuffed him and said You little scoundrel, Ill teach you to say Vive la Prussc ! Others followed his exam- ple, and before the astonished nrchin could get his breath and insist on his sto- ry, the carriage was out of sight. Napoleon III., in surrendering to the King of Prussia, began his note with the words, Having been unable to die with my troops. It is a strange fact that of all this race of warriors, the only one to whom a soldiers death has been allotted was the gentlest of them all, who was slain by savage enemies in a quarrel not his own. Except in its tragic close, his life ran in curious parallelism with that of the Duke of Reichstadt. Both were born in the purple, their advent heralded EMPRESS EUG~NIE, WIFE OF NAPOLEON III. THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 19 by the booming of cannon and the flutter inaction at Chiselhurst. His very vir- of a thousand banners. Both lost in tues, his studiousness, his gentle obedi- their tender yonth father and empire ence to his mother, thongh they were the alike; both found in a foreign monarchy natural expression of his delicate and sen- tbe education and practice in arms denied sitive nature, seemed to grow irksome them in France. Both possessed, with even to himself. He felt he must do their fathers claims to a ebimerical roy- something to prove that he was a Bona- alty, their mothers gentleness and grace. parte--a man of action and of war. There Both died in the morning of life, one at bave been wars enough in Europe of late, twenty-three and the other at twenty- but he could not enlist under the flag that one, baying known nothing of the com- pleased him, like any other young soldier mon joys of life. They stand, as Napoleon of fortune. He must observe all nation- IT. and Napoleon IV., the visionary sim- ulacra of emperors, in a line in which they dreamed of usefulness and glory. The beginning of their lives might well have inspired the envy of the world, and the end claims no sentiment but that of tender pity. Even the soldierly death of poor Prince Louis, the only Bonaparte who has died on the field, had in it noth- ing glorious. He pined and chafed in al susceptibilities, because of the great po- litical future before him. At last the vic- tory of Cetywayo at Isandula gave him his opportunity. The doughty savage had no friends whose hostility could em- barrass any Emperor of France. Prince Louis says, in a letter recently publisbed, I took counsel of no one, and came to the decision in forty-eight hours. The poor lad imagined lie was a person of THE LATE PRINCE IMPERIAL, NAPOLEON IV. 20 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. great energy for deciding so important a matter so promptly, and dwells upon it. Nothing could make me hesitate for a momenta fact which will not astonish those who know me. But how many people know me ? It is pitiful to see this gentle, tender soul deceiving itself in this way. I am truly ashamed of hav- ing to speak thus of myself, he contin- ues, but I desire to dispel the doubts which have on some occasions been mani- fested concerning the energy of my will. When one belongs to a race of war- riors, it is only with the steel in your hand that you can prove what you are. And so he went away, after seriously making his will, and confessing his little sins, and embracing the mother who loved him. He had letters from the Duke of Cambridge to Lord Chelmsford telling him in effect to let the Prince amuse him- self, but not run any risks and to the common eye his holiday was no more dangerous than a game of polo. But in his first skirmish he fell, hacked to swift death by Zulu spears. The whole world was sorry for him, and England was quite nervous in her grief; and in her ea- ger desire to punish somebody for it, she seems to have made a scape-goat of the young Lieutenant Carey, who, in the hur- ry of mounting, thought more of his own life and his own mother than he did of the life of Prince Louis and the grief of an empress. Would her Majesty the Queen have been better pleased if, in ad- dition to the Prince, she had lost the whole scinad? It appears that she would. We have two recollections of this un- fortunate Prince, to which his cruel fate has given a pathetic significance. One was the opening of the Legislative Body in the year 1866, when the Emperor first associated his son with him officially. The splendid Throne-Room of the Louvre was crowded with the most brilliant com- pany of Christendom, with the great of- ficers of state, of the army, and the impe- rial household. The Emperor entered and took his place on the raised dais; at his left sat the stout Prince Napoleon Jerome, and in an episcopal robe of vi- olet silk the young and Apollo-like eccle- siastic, since Cardinal Bonaparte, son of the Prince of Canino; while on his right sat the little Prince, then ten years of age as sweet and gentle a child as ever de- lighted a mothers heart. A year or two afterward, on the reserved terrace of the Tuileries, we saw two boys playing with their velocipedes, and keenly enjoying the air and the exercise. One of them was the Prince Imperial, and the other Don Alfonso of Spain; the former seemed secure in the prospect of the most con- spicuous throne in the world, the other had just been driven, finally as it seemed, from a land which had decreed eternal banishment to his race. We can not fathom the immutable will that rules the event of human fortunes: who could have dreamed that iii these few years the one of those boys would be lying dead in an African corn field, and the other we know not how firmly, established in the palace of his ancestors? The shadow of the imperial crown-of which it is not wise to speak contemptu- ously, for no one knows in what shock of elements the shadow may become sub- stance-now rests upon the brow of Prince Napoleon (Jerome), who is in many points of view the most interesting and pictur- esque character of all the Bonapartes. He is the only one with royal blood in his veins, that is to say, with that especial kingly ichor which dates from beyond the culbute g4n~i~rale of 1789. He is the only orator among them all, if we except Lu- cien. He is a brilliant and able speaker, and his talent was so marked in the Sen- ate that his detractors asked, Who writes his speeches ? until one day, in a running debate of an hour, which was from its very nature impromptu, he surpassed himself, and unhorsed every assailant. He enjoy- ed that day his one sweetest taste of popu- larity. The students of the Latin Quarter crowded to the gates of the Palais Bour- bon, and cheered him wildly as he left the hall. He had another oratorival success at the unveiling of the Napoleon statue at Ajaccio in 1865; but the radical sentiments he uttered there were so little to the taste of his imperial cousins that a sharp rebuke from the Emperors hand appeared in the Mortiteur, and the haughty Prince resign- ed every public function he had held. He played at opposition and liberality from that time forward, and was called in France the Red Prince, until the name was taken by the fiery-whiskered Carl of Prussia. Napoleon Jerome has been a great traveller, also. He has classical tastes, and built in Paris, near the Bal Mabille, a Pompeiian house, a perfect re- production of a noblemans town house on the Bay of Naples two thousand years THE FORTUNES OF THE BONAPARTES. 21 ago. He looks wonderfully like his great uncle, only much larger every way, so that B~ranger called him a Napoleon medal dipped in German fat, and anoth- er witty person described him as a Napo- leon souffl~. He is a man of remarkable energy in speech, and equally remarkable indolence in action. A gentleman who met him with his cousin at a country house in England, several years before the Second Empire, was struck by the contrast between them. Napoleon Je- rome talked on every subject which was mentioned with great dash and spirit, while Louis Napoleon sat silent and pull- ed his mustache. But when the company mounted for the days hunt, the cousins seemed to change characters. Jerome was the timid, careful, nervous rider, while Louis became a centaur, and cared no more for ditches and fences than for the thistle-down in his path. An incident is told of the death of the Prince Imperial that gives rise to a long train of memories and suggestions. It is said that his comrades found upon his dead body, stripped of everything else, an amulet in a locket covered with minia tures, which the savages in their supersti- tion had spared, for the Zulus believe that an amulet taken from a slain enemy will bring his fate upon the conqueror. It is understood that this locket contains the Charlemagne relic, famous in the Napo- leon annals, which the great Emperor gave to Fastrada his wife a thousand years ago, which Otto III. took from his tomb, and which the city of Aix-la-Cha- pelle presented to Napoleon, and he in turn gave to his beloved Hortense, Queen of Holland. It was said to possess the mag- ic power of keeping peace in the family, and occasional lapses need not invalidate the claim. Napoleon III., receiving it from his mother, cherished it in exile and captivity, and finally after his grandeur and fall bequeathed it by a special clause in his will to his heir. His unhappy son, inheriting it with the family glories and disasters, wore it to his last fatal feld. It would be curious to know if the esprit fort, the rationalist Napoleon Jerome, will now put on this amulet so deeply connected with the history of his family, so closely associated with all its splendors and all its catastrophes. PRINCE NAPOLEON JEROME BONAPARTE. THE NEW YORK COOKING SCHOOL. IN the spring of the year 1873, Miss Juli- et Corson, who was at the time secre- tary of a benevolent institution in this city devoted to teachin,~ women useful occupations, became interested in the question of diverting some of the surplus of female labor into domestic channels. For two years her lessons were given in charitable establishments. Keenly appre- ciating the fact that in the profession of cookery might be opened a new and hon- orable field of labor for women, and hop- ing by uniting the best foreign methods into one practical intelligible system, va- riously modified, and promulgated among the people, to introduce a culinary reform in this country that would benefit all, but more especially the working classes, Miss Corson, in the fall of 1876, opened a cook- ing school in New York, and there gave the first lessons to the wives and daugh- ters of working-men in the kind of cook- ery best adapted to their needs. In August, 1877, just after the great railroad strike, Miss Corson published for free circulation fifty thousand copies of a pamphlet entitled, Fifteen-Cent Dinners for Working-Mens Families. This work was eagerly welcomed by numbers of the class it was intended to benefit, as many as two hundred persons applying for it at her house in a single day; but later Miss Corson was repeated- ly threatened and warned to desist from either circulating it or speaking in public, by political demagogues and socialists, who inflamed the minds of the working- men by assuring them that the author was in league with the capitalists, and if they listened to her, and le~rned how to live better on less money, employers would immediately reduce their wages. This influence lasted only for a short pe- riod, the common-sense of the laboring- man coming to his rescue. Miss Corsons free lectures are now attended by large and respectful audiences of this class, and she is also in constant receipt of letters of commendation and inquiry from the same source. At the school in St. Marks Place young women and children from the mission schools were given free lessons in kitchen and dining-room work, the training they received being most admi- rable and complete. A department de- voted to teaching plain cooking to cooks and the daughters and wives of working- men, opened March 13, 1877, was so suc- cessful in its results that a number of la- dies who had become interested in its progress felt justified in establishing it as a permanent institution. Accordingly it was incorporated in May, 1878, and its guiding spirit is the brave, modest, intelli- gent woman, the pioneer of culinary re- form, since it is to her efforts New York is indebted for this school of model cook- ery, the benefactor of the working class- es, for she teaches them how to make two dishes where formerly they made but one; and the friend of women, for she has shown them the way to a useful and hon- orable profession. In no other country in the world is there such an abundance of food, or such a wasteful extravagance, as in our own fa- vored land. Says Miss Corson, in one of her culinary works: In Europe prov- inces would live upon what is wasted in towns here, and it is in this point she hopes to work a reform. It may be also said, in no country is there such a variety of food, yet in spite of this fact it is not uncommon to hear a housekeeper exclaim, as if she were at her wits end, What shall we have for dinner to-day ?there are only beef, nirutton, and pork to choose from, after all. As if our market were not teeming with everything of the best from flood and field. What are the causes of this too com- mon complaint? The too close adherence to the notions of our ancestors, who laid it down as a rule that only certain cuts and qualities could be used for the boil, bakeor rather roastand fry in their kitchens; the disposition to avoid trouble, as if anything excellent could be arrived at without trouble; and intolerance of in- novation in the shape of anything savor- ing of foreign cookcry. Come with me to the New York Cook- ing School to-morrow, said I, recently, to one of these disconsolate housekeepers. Miss Corson takes her class to Fulton Market for a marketing lesson. It is the very thing you need. Then, after lunch, attend the cooking lesson, and learn to make a new dish to set before your hus- band. You will be so delighted, you will join the Ladies Class at once. How glad I am to know this ! said my friend, brightening up. I can not tell one piece from another, and that

THE NEW YORK COOKING SCHOOL. IN the spring of the year 1873, Miss Juli- et Corson, who was at the time secre- tary of a benevolent institution in this city devoted to teachin,~ women useful occupations, became interested in the question of diverting some of the surplus of female labor into domestic channels. For two years her lessons were given in charitable establishments. Keenly appre- ciating the fact that in the profession of cookery might be opened a new and hon- orable field of labor for women, and hop- ing by uniting the best foreign methods into one practical intelligible system, va- riously modified, and promulgated among the people, to introduce a culinary reform in this country that would benefit all, but more especially the working classes, Miss Corson, in the fall of 1876, opened a cook- ing school in New York, and there gave the first lessons to the wives and daugh- ters of working-men in the kind of cook- ery best adapted to their needs. In August, 1877, just after the great railroad strike, Miss Corson published for free circulation fifty thousand copies of a pamphlet entitled, Fifteen-Cent Dinners for Working-Mens Families. This work was eagerly welcomed by numbers of the class it was intended to benefit, as many as two hundred persons applying for it at her house in a single day; but later Miss Corson was repeated- ly threatened and warned to desist from either circulating it or speaking in public, by political demagogues and socialists, who inflamed the minds of the working- men by assuring them that the author was in league with the capitalists, and if they listened to her, and le~rned how to live better on less money, employers would immediately reduce their wages. This influence lasted only for a short pe- riod, the common-sense of the laboring- man coming to his rescue. Miss Corsons free lectures are now attended by large and respectful audiences of this class, and she is also in constant receipt of letters of commendation and inquiry from the same source. At the school in St. Marks Place young women and children from the mission schools were given free lessons in kitchen and dining-room work, the training they received being most admi- rable and complete. A department de- voted to teaching plain cooking to cooks and the daughters and wives of working- men, opened March 13, 1877, was so suc- cessful in its results that a number of la- dies who had become interested in its progress felt justified in establishing it as a permanent institution. Accordingly it was incorporated in May, 1878, and its guiding spirit is the brave, modest, intelli- gent woman, the pioneer of culinary re- form, since it is to her efforts New York is indebted for this school of model cook- ery, the benefactor of the working class- es, for she teaches them how to make two dishes where formerly they made but one; and the friend of women, for she has shown them the way to a useful and hon- orable profession. In no other country in the world is there such an abundance of food, or such a wasteful extravagance, as in our own fa- vored land. Says Miss Corson, in one of her culinary works: In Europe prov- inces would live upon what is wasted in towns here, and it is in this point she hopes to work a reform. It may be also said, in no country is there such a variety of food, yet in spite of this fact it is not uncommon to hear a housekeeper exclaim, as if she were at her wits end, What shall we have for dinner to-day ?there are only beef, nirutton, and pork to choose from, after all. As if our market were not teeming with everything of the best from flood and field. What are the causes of this too com- mon complaint? The too close adherence to the notions of our ancestors, who laid it down as a rule that only certain cuts and qualities could be used for the boil, bakeor rather roastand fry in their kitchens; the disposition to avoid trouble, as if anything excellent could be arrived at without trouble; and intolerance of in- novation in the shape of anything savor- ing of foreign cookcry. Come with me to the New York Cook- ing School to-morrow, said I, recently, to one of these disconsolate housekeepers. Miss Corson takes her class to Fulton Market for a marketing lesson. It is the very thing you need. Then, after lunch, attend the cooking lesson, and learn to make a new dish to set before your hus- band. You will be so delighted, you will join the Ladies Class at once. How glad I am to know this ! said my friend, brightening up. I can not tell one piece from another, and that THE NEW YORK COOKING SCHOOL. 23 leaves me entirely at the mercy of the butcher. Henry has declared a dozen times that he would have to take the mat- ter in hand himself. In regard to the cooking, I am not so much at a loss. I have maua~ed to learn the standard dish- es myself, but one does need more variety than the ordinary routine gives. Ill go, and add some new dishes to my list. The course of lessons in the Ladies Classes has been adapted to the use of those who desire to combine some of the ele- gancies of artistic cookery with those eco- nomical interests which it is the duty of every woman to study, and embraces marketing, cooking, and carving. Les- sons on Ladies Day, and private class in- struction where pupils choose bills of fare, pay for materials used, and own finished dishes, and single private lessons are given, economy in all being inculcated as a virtue. It was a merry group that picked their way daintily through the market to a poultry stand next morning, headed by Miss Juliet Corson; half a dozen charm- ing young girls chattering and sparkling with the novelty of the trip; and several sedate young housekeepers, fully impress- ed with their own dignity and the impor tance of the occasion, among them my young friend. Some poultry was taken down and laid on the stall. In a twinkling all mirth was hushed, and a dozen heads bent for- ward in grave attention, as Miss Corson spoke the first words of the lesson. Fresh poultry, said the lady, may be known by its full bright eyes, pliable feet, and moist skin; the best is plump, fat, and nearly white. The feet and neck of a chicken suitable for broiling are large in proportion to its size; the tip of the breast-bone is soft and easily bent between the fingers. As Miss Corson concluded, there was a general putting forth of slender hands to test the youth and tenderness of a pair of fowl brought down for their inspection. The young girls smiled at each other, but a fine judicial expression stole over the countenances of the young matrons, as one of them, pronouncing the pair excel- lent, bought them, and Qrdered them to be sent home. Turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, grouse, and other game were then discussed; and then passing on to the vegetable stands, the class was informed concerning roots, tubers, and green vegetables. LADIES cLAsS. 24 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Roots and tubers must be plump, even- sized, with fresh, unshrivel]ed skins, and are good from ripening time nutil they begin to sprout. All green vegetables should be very crisp, fresh, and juicy, and are best just before flowering. Mushrooms, sweet herbs, okras, chives, cresses, and other products of mother earth claimed successive attention; and then the procession filed away to the meat stalls. As we passed a group of loungers, various comments reached my ear. Whatever be those, Bill ? whispered a rongh voice, as softly as it could. One of yer Sunday-schools out for an airin, replied another, oracularly, its owner a picturesque young fellow in a Turkish fez. As we assembled around a stall laden with good store of meats, most of the young girls wore a puzzled air, but the matrons assmned an impenetrable grav- ity, which might mean any amount of knowledge, or answer very well to cover its absence. I know corned beef when I see it. said one of the girls, triumphantly, to her neighbor. And I know a marrow - bone, girls. But listen: Miss Corson is explaining about beef. Beef should be of a bright red color, well streaked or marked with yellowish fat, and surrounded with a thick outside layer of fat. Good mutton is bright red, with plenty of hard, white fat. Veal and pork should be of a bright flesh-color, with an abundance of hard, white, semi- transparent fat. Lamb of the best kind has delicate rosy meat, and white, almost transparent, fat. At this point my young housekeeper, to show what she had learned, selected and bought a breast of lamb for her lesson in the afternoon. At the close of the lesson in meats, the class were led by a circuitous route to the outer fish stalls, upon which were piled heaps of shell, river, lake, and sea fish. The fish arcade, with its tanks of water fill- ed with speckled trout, and its finny treas- ures of every sort, awakened the liveliest interest in every member of the class. Fish, when fresh, have firm flesh, bright, clear eyes, rigid fius, and ruddy gills, commenced Miss Corson. Lob- sters and crabs must be bright in color and lively in movement, like these. As the lesson proceeded, a hundred questions were asked, ill-natured crabs and snappish lobsters were poked at with pencils, stupid clams and reticent oysters were interviewed right merrily, and a vacant-looking cod was invited to tell when he arrived from sea. When we were leaving, a young girl timidly order- ed a red snapper for baking, as Lent was near at hand; and we then proceeded up town rejoicing. After luncheon I escorted my young housekeeper to the Cooking School. It was a pleasant scene into which I ushered her. Fifteen or twenty ladies were seated in rows before a long wooden counter or ta- ble, behind which stood Miss Corson, a fine, pleasant-looking lady, engaged in cx- plaining the mysteries of a consomme h La Royale. On the right hand a large, SERVANTS cLAss. THE NEW YORK COOKING SCHOOL. 25 brightly polished range, with shining cop- stage, filled my friend with snrprised ad- per saucepans and boilers, from which al- miration. When Miss Corson, taking a ready issued savory odors. On the left a breast of lamb, deftly boned, trimmed it tall cupboard for dishes, casters, smaller of superfluous fat, seasoned and spread it utensils, etc., and near by, on the wall, a with a dressing of bread, chopped onion, blackboard inscribed with the lesson of and fine herbs, rolled it up and secured it the day. Two assistantsa clever young with stout twine, placed it in a sauce- man in a white apron, and a bright little pan on a bed of celery, carrot, turnip, girl in a French capaid Miss Corson in parsley, and onion cut in small pieces, her demonstrations, adding two thin slices of bacon and the As the lesson proceeded, the clear, con- juice of a lemon, and covered the whole cise instructions accompanying it, the ex- with boiling water, my young housekeep- quisite neatness and method of every er clapped her hands mentally, and look- CHILDREN 5 CLASS. 26 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ing at me with beaming eyes, exclaimed: I mean to try that dish to-morrow. I am sure it must be delicious, and one can buy that part of lamb or mutton at so much less cost than the loin or hind- quarter. The next dish was baked red snapper. An excellent Southern fish, though oth- ers may be cooked in the same style, said Miss Corson, as she scored its sides, and inlaid the cuts with strips of pork, and proceeded to fill its interior with a dress- ing of soaked bread seasoned with thyme. Like the preceding dish, the fish was laid on a bed of ve~etables in a baking-pan, a small dipper of hot water poured in, and the fish placed in the oven. Ah, every one knows how to do that even I do, whispered my friend, as Miss Corson announced that she was going to prepare a piece of beef for roasting. A new light, however, dawned on her coun tenance as Miss Corson, after taking the ribs out and secur- ing the meat in place with strong twine, said, Never use skewers, as they cause the meat juices to escape. The preparation of salade h la Romaine also afforded a bit of valuable information not known to the average Amer- ican housekeeper. Never touch lettuce with a knife, as it impairs the flavor and destroys the crispness of the leaf; always tear it apart with the fingers, said Miss Corson, daintily suit- ing the action to the words. A lesson in bechamel and Spanish sauces was then given, followed by ap- ple m~ringues and kisses for dessert. The dishes were handed around for inspec- tion, and the session was over. A hum of soft voices mingled with a ripple of low laughter, as the ladies, flocking around the table, delightedly sniffed and tasted the results of the lesson. Have you learned anything, my dear ? said I to my friend, as we passed out to the street. Jam brimful of ideas, and mean to take a full course of lessons. Ah! how many trials I might hax~e been spared had I learned how to cook and keep house be- fore! But I never dared go near old Vio INSTRUCTION IN FISh SAUCE. THE NEW YORK COOKING SCHOOL. 27 lets kitchen; she would have driven me out with the broom or the carving-knife. Ah! there is no monarchy more absolute than a favorite old cooks. Thank Heav- en, my Ellen is stupid and good-natured If she is willing to learn, I would send her to the Cooks Class at once. Theres our Bridget, for example, just as you describe Ellen. When I proposed to her to take lessons, and described what it was like, the honest creature exclaimed: Faix, maam, an its me that will go to plaze ye; an if Bridget Ryan dont have the makins of a fust-class cook afther the tachin, may the divilsavin your pris- incerun away wid her! Send Ellen, and give her a trial to-morrow. Brid~et is growin.~ such a treasure, one does not mind the cost of teaching at all. I dropped in next day upon the Cooks Class, taking a youn~ friend with me who was about to be married. I met her on my way down town, and in the course of conversation about her future life she told me she intended to save up money to buy a billiard table, remarking, innocently: It will be such a good thing to keep my husband at home with. You know, if he has the proper sort of amuse- ment at home, he wont go off to clubs, and all that sort of thing. My dear girl, replied I, did you ever hear the old saying, The way to reach a man is through his stomach? Learn to be a good economical cook and housekeeper. Why, how can I do that? I have no time, and Ann wont let me put my head in the kitchen. Come with me to the Cooking School: it is the Plain Cooks Class this after- noon. The instruction is not only for domestics, but for young housewives be- ginning, or about to begin, married life in comfortable circumstances for in- stance, as you and Charlie expect t9. The room as we entered looked cheer- ful enough, with its neat table, warm range, and copper utensils sending forth a cloud of fragrant steam. Five or six neatly dressed women sat watching Miss Corson intently, among them Bridget and Ellen, with faces beaming and smil- ing till they showed rows of teeth as white as the snowy aprons under which their hands were folded. A couple of prettily dressed, sweet-looking girls also listened with great interest to the lesson; and all seemed pleased but one woman who sat near the table with hands folded on her chest, nose in the air, and a gen- eral air of protest about her whole body, that said as plain as words: I dont be- lave in none o your nonsinse. Im here because of the missus. The likes o ye cant tache me nothin. The first dish was roast duck and water-cresses. Directions were given for drawing, trussing, dressing, and roasting. A fowl was then prepared for boilin,,, with oyster sauce. This was fol- lowed by a pair of pigeons, which furnish- a boning lesson. If a cook, said Miss Corson, as she prepared the pigeons, can draw her birds without mangling or soiling them, and then prepare them so as to combine an inviting appearance with an enjoyable flavor, she proves that she has pursued her art with taste and discretion; soit will be well to attend carefully to the instruc- tion given in this lesson. Two pigeons were next in order for broiling. These were split down the back, the entrails removed, the birds wiped clean with a damp cloth, and placed in readiness for the gridiron. A fowl was then cut in joints, a lesson in fricassee given, and the class broke up with ex- pressions of adniiration for the nate, tidy body, the knowledgeable leddy, and the wise young woman, as they variously called their instructor. It is generally supposed that small chi]dren, from their volatile temperaments and forgetfulness, can not be taught or trusted with cookery. Miss Corson has proved quite the contrary. Last year she had a class of children from the New York Home for Soldiers Families; this year ten of them do the entire cooking for the inmates, at least 150, in that institu- tion. In all the classes of the New York Cooking School no pupils are more indus- trious, helpful, and intelligent than the little children from the mission schools and charitable institutions. In point of fact, the children s classes are the most charming and useful and im- portant, for the wholesome effect they will have on the strata o.f society they repre- sent. The artisan course of instruction for these little folks and elder girls com- prises the preparation and cooking of 5mm- ple dishes, setting the table, bringing in the dinner, waiting at table, removing and washing soiled dishes, and regulating kitchen and dining-room. 28 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Let us go and take a peep at the chil- dren. A little flock, under the guidaiice of a kindly matron, is passing down to the basement; we enter with them. How merrily they babble as they divest them- selves of hats and shawls! What a rip- ple and trill of childish laughter as they strive for the first rows of chairs! Listen: a sudden hush, a settling down in seats, and a smoothin~ of aprons, as Miss Cor- son appears, and, doffing bonnet and cloak, takes her position behind the ta- ble, with a cheery Good-afternoon, cliii- dren. The lesson of the day, says the black- board, is Fried Fillets of Flounder, Maitre dH6tel Butter, Grilled Fish Bones, and Caramel Custards. Two or three girls are i~sually chosen different ones at each lessonto assist in making the dishes; so when the material was laid on the table, and the lesson an- nounced, Miss Corson said, What little girl is anxious to help me cut the fillets ? some one with strong hands. A dozen hands were held up at once. Selecting one of the eldest girls, who came around and stood by her side, Miss Corson, taking up a sharp, thin-bladed knife, deftly cut off the whole side piece or fillet of the fish entire, and then hand- ing the knife to the watchful girl at her side, gave minute dii ections from time to time, which were followed so accurately that the remaining three fillets were soon lying, skin side down, on the counter. Miss Corson, then taking the knife, show- ed the class how to cut the fillets clean from the skin. Meanwhile another little girl is called for to make the breading. With flushed cheeks and an air of importance, a little wee thing steps up, seizes the roller, and vigorously rolls the bread-crumbs to pow- der, beats an egg up with a spoonful of water, and retires. The eider girl, who by this time has prepared the remaining fillets, breads them, dips them in the egg, and in the bread again, and lays theni on a dish, in readiness to be fried a delicate brown in smoking-hot lard. Now, children, you observe that we have a nice bone left; shall we throw it away, or use it? I think it would be nice grilled. We will take some mustard, salt, pepper, salad-oil, and vine~,armake a paste of them, and spread it over the bone. Then h~t us broil it on an oiled gridiron, and afterward serve it with sprigs of pars- ley or slices of lemon. Now, besides the fillets from the fish, we have this, making two delicious dishes where people com- monly make but one. The children looked very wise, a little hungry for the coming feast, and exceed- ingly interested. An unusual flutter took place, however, when two little girls were called for to make lemon custards, and one to make Maitre dH6tel Butter. All the hands went up at once at the mere mention of custards. The fortunate girls who were chosen marched around behind the counter, and the resigned remainder subsided into placid attention. One of the little maids beat the eggs lustily, while the other, sweetening and flavoring a quart of milk according to direction, set it on the fire to boil, stir- ring it carefully; then a sieve was held over the beaten eggs, the milk with its lemon rind and sugar strained therein, then poured into cups, which were placed CUSTARD. THE NEW YORK COOKING SCHOOL. 29 in a baking-pan with hot water surround- ing them. The little girl then cautiously slid the pan into the oven, her face aglow with pride in the safe performance of ber task. Meanwhile the third little damsel had chopped her parsley, mixed it with an ounce of butter, a tea-spoonful of lem- on juice, and a little salt and pepper, after which she retired to her seat, and another small cbild came forward to drop the fil- lets in the smoking lard. All the class waited for the lemon custards, casting troubled glances at the clock. As they were slowly drawn forth from the oven and placed upon the table, the lesson concluded, the children crowded around to taste and receive their shares of the fin- ished results of the lesson. Little tin pails popped up mysteriously to receive the well-earned dainties. Hats and shawls were hastily donned, the little ones hur- ried out of doors, and pausing on the pavement, cooed and fluttered with satisfaction over the contents of their little pails like so many doves in a dovecote pecking corn. Watching the innocents for a moment, we hurried away, feeling that the New York Cooking School is an institution worthy of good peoples patronage and praise, not only for its sending out young housekeepers educated in the economic principles of cookery, but because of the grand work it is doing in teaching the children of the poorer classes. CHILI)JIEN GOING hOME. UNITED STATES COURT-HOUSE AND POST-OFFICE. THE CITY OF ATLANTA. ~ TLANTA, the present metropolis of f Georgia, has had a history peculiar for a Southern town. Those who have spoken of the city as the Chica~o of the South, appear to have struck not very wide of the mark. Forty years ago there was nothing at all here. Maps of the pe- riod, very minute and careful in their to- pography, show no such place. All the wagon roads centred at Decatur. at Man- etta, and at Canton. Creeks and Chero- kees occupied the whole region, and there was hardly even a cross-roads at this point. The turnpike between Georgia and Tennessee did not pass through it, and no large river furnished facilities for navigation, or offered power to ruove ma- chinery. How, then, did Atlanta come to exist at all; and, much more, how did she succeed, like the goddess whose name she suggests, in outstripping all her older sisters, Augusta, Savannah, Macon, and the rest? The answer is found in one wordrail- ways. Atlanta is a fiat town, and was put where she is by act of Legislature rather than by the natural course of events. It is an interesting and exceptional example of prosperity ensuing from forced condi- tions, and came about in this wise: When the experiment of steam locomotion had proved a success in England, and was be- ing introduced on this side of the Atlan- tic, Georgians were quick to perceive that they needed this new invention, and as early as 1833 charters were granted to several interior railway companies. It was also seen that the State required rail- way communication with the West and Northwest, in the shape of a trunk line, in the advantages of which all the inte- rior roads could share. The Legislature was therefore consulted, and in 1835 an act was approved authorizing the con- struction of a railway from the Tennes- see line, near the Tennessee River, to the southwestern bank of the ~Dhattahoochee River, at a point most eligible for the runnin~,, of branch roads thence to Ath- ens, Madison, Milledgeville, Forsyth, and Columbus. A survey was made accord- ingly, and it was found that at this point, seven miles east of the Chattahoochee, spurs of the Blue Ridge intersected in such a manner that a natural centre oc

UNITED STATES COURT-HOUSE AND POST-OFFICE. THE CITY OF ATLANTA. ~ TLANTA, the present metropolis of f Georgia, has had a history peculiar for a Southern town. Those who have spoken of the city as the Chica~o of the South, appear to have struck not very wide of the mark. Forty years ago there was nothing at all here. Maps of the pe- riod, very minute and careful in their to- pography, show no such place. All the wagon roads centred at Decatur. at Man- etta, and at Canton. Creeks and Chero- kees occupied the whole region, and there was hardly even a cross-roads at this point. The turnpike between Georgia and Tennessee did not pass through it, and no large river furnished facilities for navigation, or offered power to ruove ma- chinery. How, then, did Atlanta come to exist at all; and, much more, how did she succeed, like the goddess whose name she suggests, in outstripping all her older sisters, Augusta, Savannah, Macon, and the rest? The answer is found in one wordrail- ways. Atlanta is a fiat town, and was put where she is by act of Legislature rather than by the natural course of events. It is an interesting and exceptional example of prosperity ensuing from forced condi- tions, and came about in this wise: When the experiment of steam locomotion had proved a success in England, and was be- ing introduced on this side of the Atlan- tic, Georgians were quick to perceive that they needed this new invention, and as early as 1833 charters were granted to several interior railway companies. It was also seen that the State required rail- way communication with the West and Northwest, in the shape of a trunk line, in the advantages of which all the inte- rior roads could share. The Legislature was therefore consulted, and in 1835 an act was approved authorizing the con- struction of a railway from the Tennes- see line, near the Tennessee River, to the southwestern bank of the ~Dhattahoochee River, at a point most eligible for the runnin~,, of branch roads thence to Ath- ens, Madison, Milledgeville, Forsyth, and Columbus. A survey was made accord- ingly, and it was found that at this point, seven miles east of the Chattahoochee, spurs of the Blue Ridge intersected in such a manner that a natural centre oc THE CITY OF ATLANTA. 31 curred for all the most likely routes of railway communication then surveyed or likely to be laid out. Heie, then, right out in the woods, it was resolved to be- gin the State railway north to the Ten- nessee line, and the spot naturally came to be known as Terminus. Passengers on the Air Line road to Washington will remember a little break- fast station called Central, up in the mountains of Western South Carolina. As the train comes round the bend of the hill, and slows up, a dinner-bell is heard, and the eye takes in a white building, with a long cool piazza, where stands a man whose genial smiling face and fat throat, whose generous amplitude of waist and solid support of legs, augur well for the fare that awaits within. He rings the bell steadily with one hand, and with the other busily welcomes the pas- sengers as though they were all old friends. Then how urgently he presses upon you a choice of good things! how distressed he is if you do not eat as heart- ily as he thinks you ought! how solicit- ous to assure you that there is time enough! and with what benignity, mild- ly protesting against the necessity, does he take your fifty cents! Do you won- der that he is known from one end of the Cotton States to the other, and that ev- erybody loves Cousin John Thrasher? The path to a maiis heart lies through his stomach, it is said, and this generous easy-natured caterer bas secured the right of way in this part of the world. Well, the point of this digression is that Cous- in John is the original oldest inhabitant of Atlanta, because in 1839 he came here and built the first house. Soon after, other families settled at Terminus, and Mr. Thrasher opened a store; but he had little faith in the future of the village, for in 1842 Cousin John sold out, for a few hundreds, land now worth half a million or more, and departed. Patience fails to recount the growth of the settlement into a village, and the ex- pansion of the village into the city which now calls itself a metropolis. It seems to have been essentially a pioneer town, owing its life wholly to the railways, augmenting its size as new lines were opened and the business of the older roads increased. It was in 1842 that the first locomotive was seen in Atlanta. It did not come, as locomotives usually do, upon tracks laid up to that point, but was dragged across the country from Madi- sonthen the terminus of the Georgia Railroad upon a wagon drawn by six- teen mules. To most of the rustics of that region a locomotive was a novel sight, and they gathered in a great crowd to witness its trial trip. The engineer saw a chance for a practical joke, and claiming that he must have help to get the machine started for the first time persuaded a great number of young men to push. Their first efforts were of no avail, and the crowd began to jeer at the engineer. But he induced them to make a second trial, and just as they were put- ting forth their strength prodigion sly, he turned on the steam, and sprang from nuder them, leaving a sprawling and dusty crowd to take his place as the butt of rustic raillery. This same year also witnessed the first sale of real estate by public auction, and one of those three town lots, bought then for an insignificant sum, has remained ever since in the hands of its original pur- chaser. It stands at the very centre of business, is covered by a block of brick buildings, and simply by increase of value cousiz JOhN THRAShER. 32 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. / - now forms a snug fortune, giving a large annual yield to its owner. Speculation in real estate soon began, however, when it was seen that the pre- diction of John C. Calhoun, made years before, that Atlanta would be the me- tropolis of Georgia, was about to be veri- fied. Before many years fancy prices were asked for property, and rents re- quired that were out of all proportion to value. It was supposed at first that the town would be built some distance west of its present position, and money was in- vested in that region. Then a shrewd land-owner gave the site of the present Union passenger station, which was accepted by the railroads, bringing the centre of growth in the town over to that spot. Thus money was lost and made, but the city increased in popula- tion, got rid of the criminal ele- ment which had predominated in her earlier history, educated the country people, became en- terprising, and in assuming the powers and legal privileges of a municipality, took to herself city-like ways and pride, and asserted herself to be the gate to the South, through which all commerce and emigration from the Northwest must pass. The map of Atlanta shows a circular line representing the boundary, and having for its centre the railway station. The radius is one and a half miles. Within this circle (and some- what also outside of it) is an ar- ray of streets so utterly irregular that you wonder how it was pos- sible they ever could have been built up in that way. They go crooked where it would have been easier to go straight, show acute angles where a square cor- ner could be made with less ef- fort, and come to a sudden stop or run away into vacancy at the most unexpected points. The explanation is ready, and re- minds one of the Dutch cow- paths which are said to have determined the pattern of lower New York. It must be remem- bered that before the town ex- isted the east-amid-west road from Marietta to Decatur and beyond crossed at this point a road running north and south. They were such irreg- ular rambling turnpikes as are charac- teristic of this hilly region, and the vil- lage extended itself along them without any attempt at straightening. Reckoning from the junction, as habitation spread, the road to Marietta naturally became Mari- etta Street, while that leading in the op- posite direction was soon called Decatur Street. Not far north of the village was an old justice-court ground (a State reser- vation) known as tIme Peach-tree Court- House. A few miles southward stood a tavern, famous among all the teamsters THE CHAIR VENDER. THE CITY OF ATLANTA. 33 through Georgia as the White Hall. The pole at your elbow bears the little red two crooked roads leading north and box that carries the electric fire-alarm to south thus became Peach-tree and White- ever-ready steamers and ladder trucks; ball streets; and in the case of the latter the lamp-post serves as standard for the it is told that the detour made by the mail drop-letter box; and a policeman in stage-driver in going about a bad mud- full uniform will assist you into a street hole one winter is preserved by an elbow car for any part of the city, if you need in the street. The bend is there, certainly, the help of the force. There are but the evidence of the chuck-hole~ has gone, or rather it is distributed through- out a mile of bad paving. Then the three railway lines introduced new factors of discord, and finally the owners of the orioinal half-dozen farms and land lots each laid out streets for himself entirely irrespective of his neighbor. The result is a city in some parts easy, and in others very difficult, to get about in, and which, from a birds or balloonists point of view, must appear very confused. So, derivin~ her success from a multi- tude of business advantages, and from her favorable situation in point of geography and climate, Atlanta has waxed great and powerful, and, withal, very attractive. All the evidences of busy life are around you, and only unless you are fresh from New York or Baltimore or Chicago do you notice the provincial air. The telegraph voL. LX.No. 35~5.3 banks, and boards of trade, and business exchanges, and all the rest of the list of modern conven- iences,~~ from artificial ice to a Turkish bath or a complete sys- tem of telephonic comm unication. Yet, however comfortable this is for the citi- zen, it has the drawback to the maga- zine writer and artist that it makes At- lanta too much like a hundred other large towns with which we are all acquaint- ed in the North, and leaves less that is peculiar, characteristic, and picturesque than perhaps exists in any other city in the South. She looks to me more like a Western town, since her newness and en- terprise hardly affiliate her with Augusta, Savannah, Mobile, and the rest of the sleepy cotton markets, whose growth, if they have any, is imperceptible, and whose pulse beats with only a faint flutter. Yet there are certain features that strike the strangers eye. On Monday you may see tall, straight negro girls marching through the street carrying enormous RAILROAD DEPOT ATLANTA~ 34 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. stack of home - made, splint-bottomed chairs, out from among the white legs and rungs of which his black visage peers curiously; or urchins under baskets of flowers poised like crowns. Troops of little black boys, bare-footed, bare-headed, and ragged to a degree, as a certain English novel- ist is fond of expressing it, go about car- rying bags in which they gather up rags in a manner wholly different from the New York chiffoniers. At certain cor- ners stand farmers in scant clothing of homespun, and the most bucolic of man- ners, waiting for some one to buy for a dollar, or even half a dollar, the little load of wood piled up on the centre of a home-made waoon so diminutive that two men could walk away with the whole af- fair, while a third carried the mule under his arm. It is great fun, too, to go to the p& st-office after the arrival of the noon mails from the North. The office closes its windows, although it is in the middle of the day, and devotes itself to the task of distribution. Meanwhile a crowd ac- cumulatemostly the rabble who get a letter about once in four weeks, but mix- ed up of all sortsand amuse themselves by making remarks not always compli- mentary to the rule of the office, or stand patiently in line until the window opens. This delay in a post-office which supports the delivery system looks like a relic; but every- body has time enough in Georgia. On certain days you will hear the beat- ing of triangles, and have your attention attracted to the red flag of the curb-stone auctioneer, whose volubility will be heard above the din of traffic. These out-of-door auctions are always amusing, and the crowd of negroes, poor whites, and loungers that they gather afford an inter- esting study to the lover of physiognomy. It is like a bit of the Bowery or Chatham Street turned out of doors; but the arti- cles sold are more miscellaneous and wretched. You may buy worn-out stoves and tables, second-hand bacon, mnddy croquet sets, rubber hose of one kind and cotton hose of quite another, canary-birds, hat racks, baby carriages, old fruit jars, clothing, bath tubs, straw sun - bonnets and hats, squirrel cages, carpets, books, bedclothes made befoh (le wah, sweet- oil, saws, crockery, iron garden settees, ice-cream freezers, saddles, window-sashes everything out of time and miserable, from a pair of snuffers to a horse and wagon alive and harnessed. As yet Atlanta has no market-house; but it is proposed to build one at an early day, which shall be supported upon arch- Ill ____ K bundles of soil- ed clothes upon their heads; or a man with a great unpainted, and THE CITY OF ATLANTA. 35 es over the railway tracks between White- hall and Broad streets. This would util- ize (and handsomely too) a waste space; but if a locomotive should explode its boiler under there, wouldnt the rise in breadstutTs be so sudden as to disturb the market? Another event of the travellers life in Atlanta, which may or may not be amus- ing, is his contact with the brush fiend. This imp, or rather this species of imp, for there are many individuals, finds its borne at the hotel, and there lies in wait for the unwary tourist, as the spider crouches in quiet anticipation of its muscine meal. You enter the door and walk half way across the marble floor, when you feel a gentle stroke upon your shoulders, and turn your head to see an uplifted whisk in the hand of a darky, who grins in a con- ciliatorv manner. But you harden your heart, proceed to the register, and lend your auto~,raph in support of the emi- nent respectability of the house to which that much-blotted book is supposed to tes- tify. The flourish is not yet from under your pen, when your modest hand-bag is seized, and down comes a broom upon your coat tail. A look fails to arrest the brush, and you flee. At the foot of the stairway is a shadowy corner. You are unsuspicious, not havin~, yet learned to give it a wide berth. Just as your foot is upon the first stair, out leaps a whisk- broom and begins upon you. Now you must shout your menaces in language strong if you would be saved. Escaped this, you meet a fiend at the first land- ing. You watch him firmly grasping a brush as you approach, but you are ready. Fixing upon him your eagle eye, you say, Lift that whisk-broom but one inch, and I pitch you down stairs ! You turn your head as you go past, and never relax the deadly gleam of your eye until he is far behind. Fin ally you reach your room, and the porter opens the door, sets down your baggage, raises the curtains glances at the toilet arrangements, and being satisfied, civilly retires to the door hesitates, seems to be trying to remember something, and softly asks, Would you you like to have your coat while out of his pocket steals the handle of a broom. The heavy match-box is nearest, and it flies, while you look for the iron poker with one hand and feel for your pistol with the other. But the imp is used to this, and has prudently vanished. You bolt the door, and find yourself in possession of the field; but he is the real victor, and until you either maim him for life or pay generous tribute of dimes, the brush fiend will torment, and the spirit of whisk-brooms refuse to be laid. Atlanta has been a military post for United States troops for many years, and the McPherson Barracks, in the north- western edge of the city, is one of the -~ -. ~--~---- ----~ I. 36 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 7 points of interest for a stranger. The Barracks are commodious, and the offi- cers quarters, surrounded by neat gar- dens and hidden in masses of honeysuckle and wistaria, form attractive homes. A succession of re~iments has held them, and they have bewailed when orders came sending them to the frontier, or trans- ferring their post to some fever-haunted garrison on the sea-coast. At present the Fifth Artillery are stationed here, and making themselves agreeable to the citi- zens, who find the presence of the garri- son pleasant as well as profitable. From the Barracks, which a~re upon high ground, a wide and enchantin~ landscape spreads northward before the eye, terminating in the pale outlines of Tennessee mountains where Lookout, Mission Ridge, Resaca, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga recall such exciting memories. Near by towers the lofty double peak of Kenesaw Mount- ain, scene of the most severe fighting of the whole Atlanta campaign; and my companion, captain of a Confederate bat- tery, has a bloody incident to tell of each landmark as lie guides my eye over the wide expanse of this vast field of battle. Imagination alone must fill the distance with the action which his stories relate: but as he ex- plains the method of advance, the successive retreats and con- quests by which the lines of at- tack were narrowed more and more upon the beleaguered city, the evidences of war become more apparent, and we can bring the remains of hostile operations actually before the eye, helping the fancy to picture the stirrin scenes. Down there in the val- ley stretches a long, low, irregu- lar embankment, not yet over- grown with grass. That is the inner line of intrenchment which surrounded the city. Beyond it, appearing now and then in the second growth of woods, here lost in a valley, there enlarging into a fort upon a commanding hill-top, is an outer line, and all about are 2 scattered the little piles of earth thrown up at the rifle-pits, and the half-filled trenches which the pickets dug to protect themselves from sharp - shooters and stray cannon-shot. Georgia seems to have little desire to hide her scars. The red soil upturned by the soldiers spade contains no dormant seeds, and takes so slowly to a new planting that for fifteen years compassionate Nature has tried in vain to hide these marks of Mars under her mantle of herbage and wild shrub- bery. Everywhere as you ride out of Atlanta you cross cordon after cordon of earth - works, pass through woods torn with round shot, where shells cut long pathways, and wander across fields sown with the leaden seed. Gradually the city is extending itself beyond these red lines of embankments, and in twenty yeais their scant remains will become curiosities to the traveller. In the rural districts, however, they bid fair to last a very long time. Five or six miles out oii the Peach-tree Road, for ex- ample, is a fort crowning a hill, whose lines and angles and full height are as well preserved to-day as though the work was thrown up only yesterday. It saw no fighting, however. The tide of war swept by without coming under the range of its guns, and its symmetrical outlines were never trampled beneath the feet of a storming column. THE BRUSh FIEND. On the other hand, some of the fields of the fiercest battles leave little to show of the strife and carnage once enacted over their sunny slopes. To the strangers eye the city itself presents few marks of that tide of TUE BUSINESS CENTRE OF ATLANTA. war which crept up to it, and finally surged so destructively across its whole before the war. We had to leave dur- area. There are ruins in the suburbs of ing the siege, she said; the cannoTiad hat were once stately mansions, that ing ruined the house, and the soldiers have ever been rebuilt, and you see and all just spoiled my beautiful flower scattered about the lonely stone chim- beds. I had a rare lily that was given to neys that stand as monuments of a fire- me by the royal gardener at Berlin, and. side forsaken, and a roof-tree long ago that was killed; and I do believe, when I thrown down or burned away. The city got back, of all the dreadful ruin, the loss itself has been rebuilt, and the houses of that flower hurt me the most. that survived the shelling are already be- It was in 1865 that the citiNens and comi g dignified with historical interest, merchants came back to their desolate Usually it is some ery in ignificant mci- homes. Only one building, of all the dent which preserve the recollection of commercial part of the town, had sur- the conflict in particular places. Atlanta vived the flames. Business had to be is a region of roses. A lover of them built up from the very foundation again, never tires of peeping over the fences and and the energy with which this task was pausing before the conservatories in this attempted shows the strong faith Atlanta early May season, so rich in the superb men feel in their lively town. One of blossoms. One day we came to a mod- the first to return was the present presi TIIF~ CITY OF ATLANTA. 37 est garden, where an old lady was busy among her thorny pets. We stopped and talked with her a few moments. ~be told us she had one hundred and twenty-five kinds there, but that her rose garden now was nothing compared with its splendor 38 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. dent of the Board of Trade. He secured The same is true of the canned meats of a cellar under the sole remaining build- Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati packing- ing (on Alabama Street), paying $150 a houses: this is a very important item of mouth for its use, and began the produce her wholesale business. The provision and groceries trade, increasing his in- men naturally were the first to obtain foot- come by renting ground privileges of a hold in the new town. After them came few feet square on his sidewalk at $20 a the dry-goods people. Most of them be- month each. Soon the owner of a cor- gan in a very modest waybrought their ncr lot on Whitehall Street built a brick goods tied up in a blanket almostyet building containing two store-rooms. As now the jobbing trade in dry-goods alone soon as these were ready, our merchant amouiTts to some millions of dollars an- and another moved in, nually. No tobacco can be grown in the paying $3000 a, year 41 vicinity of Atlanta, hence she is without rent each, and giving ,~ tobacco factories; but she used to handle half of it in advance an enormous quantity of it, and there are in order to aid the pro- half a dozen firms who deal wholly in it pri~tor to go on with now. It was found that Atlantas dry, his construction. (The equable climate, consequent upon her great accommodations for altitude, made this point the safest place to keep stores of the grateful plant: it would not mould, as it is liable to do in a damp at- mosphere. A few years ago the revenue regulations were not as effective as at present. The practice of stencil-plating packages of tobacco afforded easy means of evading the payment of duty, and great warehouses here were stored with blockade tobacco, from which Uncle Sam had derived very little, if any, pocket- money. Enormous profits ac- crued, but the introduction of the stamp system put a stop to this, though Atlanta was left a very large legitimate business in storing and selling tobacco at wholesale. Another source of prosperi- which that $6000 a year was paid now rent ty to the city is cotton. The cotton belt for $1500.) Thus by mutual help and en- of Georgia is a strip of country between terprise, together with a vast amount of here and Augusta. Years ago the land personal labor, the ruins were replaced by became exhausted, and tIme cultivation substantial business edifices, new hotels of cotton caine to be of small account. of magnificent proportions were erected, Then followed the discovery of the guano churches more lofty in gable and spire islands of Peru, and the subsequent in- arose upon the sites of those destroyed, and vention of artificial fertilizers having the vacant streets were refilled with people. similar qualities to the natural manure. Atlanta became at once the distributing These superphosphates are manufactured point for Western products, and now finds mainly in Boston, and cost the farmer tributary to her a wide range of country. about forty dollars a ton. It was proved She handles a large portion of all the grain that by their use the worn-out cotton belt of Tennessee and Kentucky, besidesmuch could be made to produce as bountiful from the Upper Mississippi Valley. Much crops in a series of five years as the Mis- of the flour of the Northwestern mills sissippi bottoms did; and, moreover, that comes into her warehouses, and thence cotton could be raised as far north as the finds its way southward and eastward. foot of the Tennessee mountains. At- WASHINGTON STREET, ATLANTA. THE CITY OF ATLANTA. 39 lanta, therefore, has come to be not oniy a great d~p6t of supply for this guano, furnishing its vi- cina~,e a hundred thousand tons a year, but also the entrep6t of all the cotton produced within a circle of nearly two hundred miles. This cotton is bought mainly for foreign export, and is shipped under through bills of lading to foreign ports, thus dodging the factors at New York, Savannah, and other coast cities. The business is not done on com- mission, but by buying and selling on a margin of profit. There are other extensive business in- terests. Iron is mined near by, and ex- tensive foundries and rolling-mills man- ufacture it. Great crops of coru and grain are raised throughout the central part of the State, which find tbeir way into Atlanta distilleries, while her wine- merchants are many and rich. She can make the best of brick, and has a whole mountain of solid ~ranite close by, with other building material accessible and cheap. She sighs for only one more com- mercial adxTantage, namely, a railway to the coal regions of Alabama. Now her coal is largely supplied fron~i ex-Governor Browns mines in the extreme northwest- ern corner of the State. Looking away from the city, Barracks Hill furnishes a good vantage-point, as I have already hinted; but to view the town itself, let me commend a ride along the new boulevard on the eastern edge. This broad, well-formed driveway fol- lows the crest of one of the many ridges into which the surface of the country is cut up, and the solid squares of the citys business houses, the lofty proportions of her great hostelries, the scores of spires of her handsome churches and school-houses and the charming, foliage-hidden avenues of her dwelling-places and suburbsall appear to the best advantage. No one will deny that she is attractive. Just at the northern extremity of the boulevard is a pretty little vale, npon which some slight cultivation has been attempted, mineral waters haviiig been discovered bubbling out of tbe bank a few years ago. The name Ponce de Leon Spring was at once given to it, and the spot has become a pleasure resort, always visited in the course of an afternoons drive. The horse-cars run out there along a wonderful tramway, laid through a se- ries of cuts and over a long trestle-work, like a steam railroad. The waters have a sulphurous, nasty taste, and therefore it is quite likely that they possess some at least of the medicinal properties as- cribed to them. But I fancy the bracing violet-scented air, the tramping about un PONCE DE LEON SPRING. 40 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. der the trees, and the vigorous bowling over of ten-pins have more efficacy in ac- coxnplishing cures. On the outer side of the boulevard, as it follows the circle of the city boundary eastward and southward, runs a strip of tangled woodland, where two or three lit- tle streams meander in shadow and negli- gence. The ground is rough, and the au- thorities propose to take advantage of all this prettiness by annexing the vale and forming it into a park. It is certainly to be hoped that the scheme will be carried out. Atlanta has no park at all at pres- ent, excepting the grounds about the City Hall. This is less to be deplored here, how- ever, than in any other town you could find in the country, perhaps. One doesnt appreciate how healthful is the position of this favored spot until he studies it. At- lanta stands npon an outmost spur of the Blue Ridge, eleven hundred feet above the seaan altitude equalled by no other city of her size in the United States. Her cli- mate is equable and pleasant. The nine- ties, with which New-Yorkers and Phil- adelphians are so familiar, are an almost unexplored region to Atlantas mercury, while in winter the southern latitudes preserve her from long or severe cold. The head waters of the Ocmulgee and several minor streams spring within her very boundary, and flow both east and west to the Atlantic and to the Gulf. Her drainage is therefore excellent. Men and women do die thereno denying it; but epidemics are unheard of, and the locality is an island of health in the treacherous yellow-fever climate of its region. It is all Dci gratia, however. No sanitary measures worthy of mention have ever been effected, or even tried; yet Atlanta is by no means a dirty city. From a consideration of her healthful- ness we turn by antithesis to Oakland, the most artistic and beautifully cared- for cemetery south of the oak groves. It shows a marked contrast to the de- cay and complete neglect of grave-yards prevailing in all the rural towns. Here lie some thonsands of dead Confederate soldiers, and a plain but enduring mon- ument watches over the graves. At this grateful season the cemetery becomes a garden of flowers, and is worth being seen for these alone. Here too, as else- where in Atlanta, the number and per- fect growth of the hedges are very no- ticeable; but that finest of all Georgias hedge plants, the historic holly, is not often seen, though abundant in a wild state in all the hilly regions of this part of Georgia. Public buildings in Atlanta are not im- posing. The United States is just finish- ing a custom-house, court-room, and post- office in the shape of an attractive struc- ture of brick and granite, modelled in a manner happily different from the ordi- nary government architecture. The State- house of Georgia is a square, business- looking building on a prominent street, having as unofficial an air as any ware- house, and almost as roughly furnished within. The Court-house and City Hall form a large square building, surmount- ed by an accumulation of cupolas, remind- ing one of the touching ballad of Ka- foozalum, where the hero appears as a gentleman in three old tiles. The site is high and beautiful, and will before long be adorned by an ornamental building for public purposes. A noted trial for homicide was in prog- ress, and I went in to witness the pro- ceedings. The court-room was crowded to repletion with men, half of whom were I AM A GEORGIAN [SEE PAGE 42.] THE CITY OF ATLANTA. 41 smoking, though all had their hats off except an officer or two. The prisoner was in a happy mood, perhaps following Mark Tapleys rule as to jollity under creditable circumstances. The 5~~ER~IANTO~YN. lawyers and jury and every- body else were mixed up in the most pic- I throng as naturally would gather at a turesque style, and the judges bench had murder trial in the provinces. No city been seized upon as a good point of view man or person of delicacy did more than by a dozen or more eager spectators. glance in out of momentary curiosity, Notwithstanding these seemingly unfa- unless he had a direct part in the pro- vorable conditions, good order was pre- ceedings. It was interesting to watch served. It was a good place to study these farmers and roughs, the consump- faces. The audience was just such a tion of unlimited quantities of tobacco in THE LIBRARY. 42 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. every shape forming a bond of union among them. I fancied an indefinable air hnn~, over the assemblage which would not pervade a Northern crowd of similar character, or want of character. Each one of these gaunt-limbed, high-cheeked, swarthy bun ers see med to say: Imay be poor, ignorant, diseased, and bevermin- ed, may have come here in a two-wheeled cart with a mule in a rope harness, and sat on the bottom because I was too lazy to arrange a seat; no donbt Im an utter- ly useless Corn-crackerbut Sir,Ia~~a Georgian I, There have been persons in the halls of Parliament and on the floor of Congress who have attempted to assert themselves En,.,lishmen and Americans, with the intent to be impressive in their patriotism, but I am perfectly snre none of them ever really did make the assever- ation half so strong as do these butternut- dyed Crackers by a single glance of the black eyes and a sin~,le toss of the shaggy head. Well, to be a Georgian is some- thing; otherwise these fellows would be hard put to it to define their position in the economy of nature. Atlanta boasts, undoubtedly upon a firm basis of facts, that she offers the best educational privileges to her citizens of IN THE AIR. any community, large or small, south of the line. Unless Richmond, Virginia, be excepted, this is true. Atlanta has a complete system of graded and high schools, and they are fully attended. Then there are two or three commercial colleges, two universities for colored pupils who desire more than a common- school education, two medical colleges, and an instructive display of the geolog- ical and agricultural resources of the State at the State-house. The Library of Atlanta is peculiarly Southern in its asso- ciations, Around the walls of its hand- some hall on Marietta Street are hung portraits and engravings of Confederate leaders, some in the gray uniform of the defeated cause, and sonie in the flow- ing robes with which painters love to en- shroud their statesmen. Swords and ban- ners and maps and other relics of war are profusely displayed. The Library is self- supporting, contains some thousands of well-selected and, what is more, well-read volumes, has chess-rooms and reading- rooms attached, and is a matter of just pride and comfort to the town. A feature of the city to which no well- ordered resident will be likely to direct a strangers attention is Shermantown TH ~RE 5 MUSIC THE CITY OF ATLANTA. 43 a random collection of huts forming a dense negro settlement in the heart of an otherwise attractive portion of the place. The women take in washin, and the males, as far as our observation taught us, devote their time to the lordly occupa- tion of sunning themselves. When Gen- eral Sherman occupied Atlanta, it is said, barracks were located here; hence the name. After dinner I take a cigar and saunter out. The streets are very quiet. People have hardly risen from their evening meal; and as I walk on out Peach-tree Street, and the moon rises proof-bright toward the starry zenith, it is not easy to realize that I am in the midst of forty thou- sands of busy men and women. Beautiful homes, varied, tasteful, sometimes grand in exterior appearance, luxurious in inte- rior appointments, stand thickly on either side, embowered in trees and surrounded by hedges and lawns, thickets of shrub- bery, and parterres of flowers. Between the sidewalk and the hard but nnpaved roadway stand lines of venerable shade trees, through whose dense foliage the moonbeams struggle in uncertain man- ner, and sketch a flickering mosaic of light and shadow across the path. Attracted by music down a dark alley- way, I find five laborers, each black as the deuce of spades, sitting upon a circle of battered stools and soap boxes, and forming a string band, despite the in- consistency of a cornet. The whole neigh- borhood is crowded with happy darkies, and though the music is good, I choose the enchantment of distance. Not far away I strike another little circle of freed- men, and discover that a guitar and a banjo are the attractions. On a vacant lot near the railway station a vender of patent medicine has set up a rough plat- form, and hung about it some flaring par- afline lamps. Two negroes genuine ne- groes, hut corked in addition to make themselves blacker dressed in the regu- lation burlesque style familiar to us in the minstrel shows at the North, are dan- cing jigs, reciting conundrums, and bang- ing banjo, bones, and tambourine to the amusement of two or three hundred de- lighted darkies. Ten oclock arrives, and with many another lounger I saunter down to the station to see the trains from the north and east come in. Then the lights of the station are extinguished. Even the Raven who croaks his dismal forebod- ings of fatality, and sells accident policies to travellers, has disappeared. THE RAY EN THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. * T lIE position of Palestine on the map of the world has fitted it and its sue ___ cessive peoples for a remarkable place in history. Here is a little country, with only eight thousand square miles. or two thousand less than our State of Vermont, which, if we measure it by the scope of its history, the remote antiquity of its liter- ature, and the great forces it has started into irresistible movement, we must place among the foremost in the ancient family of nations. It is practically the meeting- place of three continentsAfrica, Asia, and Europe. If Belgium is the cock pit of Europe, where many of the chief battles of modern times have heen fought, Palestine holds the same relation to the ancient world. Her plain of Esdraelon has been the battle-ground of nations and civilizations from Abrahams day to Na- poleon Bonapartes. This little country was the pathway of the nations on land, while on the sea it was her Ph~nicia which planted colonies all around the shores of the Mediterranean, created Car- thage, rival of Rome, and dared to send ARBOR COVERED WITH A GOURD. The Load and the Book. By WILLIAM M. ThOMSON, D.D.

THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. * T lIE position of Palestine on the map of the world has fitted it and its sue ___ cessive peoples for a remarkable place in history. Here is a little country, with only eight thousand square miles. or two thousand less than our State of Vermont, which, if we measure it by the scope of its history, the remote antiquity of its liter- ature, and the great forces it has started into irresistible movement, we must place among the foremost in the ancient family of nations. It is practically the meeting- place of three continentsAfrica, Asia, and Europe. If Belgium is the cock pit of Europe, where many of the chief battles of modern times have heen fought, Palestine holds the same relation to the ancient world. Her plain of Esdraelon has been the battle-ground of nations and civilizations from Abrahams day to Na- poleon Bonapartes. This little country was the pathway of the nations on land, while on the sea it was her Ph~nicia which planted colonies all around the shores of the Mediterranean, created Car- thage, rival of Rome, and dared to send ARBOR COVERED WITH A GOURD. The Load and the Book. By WILLIAM M. ThOMSON, D.D. THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 45 her ships as far north as Britain. There I pie and land it touched. Take from our is something, too, akin to niagneti sm in knowledge of Egyptian history all we this wonderful little land. It gave a cer- have learned from the Mosaic narrative, tam measure of historical importance, and there will be a marvellous diminution and, indeed, of immortality, to every peo- of the fund. It is only where Assyria in 46 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. an early day came into relations with Syria that we get something of a definite knowledge of that great Oriental power. We find Rawlinson, in his Five Monarch- ies, and Wilkinson, in his Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, constantly ap- pealing to and leaning on the Scripture history, in order to treat the subject in hand in consecutive form. It is Pales- tine that brings all great ancient countries within our vision. It is our best telescope for a view of the remote past. We read the fortunes of other peoples through her. Of right she did not possess the Greek lan- guage. It was foisted upon her through Alexanders conquest, and yet so careful- ly did she learn the new tongue that it became the receptacle for the new faith from Him of Nazareth, and the medium of its communication to the remotest shores known to men. Palestine long resisted Rome, and finally suffered de- struction through Titus. Her acres and faith were bartered like a piece of mer- chandise, and were, in turn, owned by Canaanite, Jew, Assyrian, Greek, Syrian, Maccab~ean, and Roman. But in three centuries we find Bethlehem supplanting Rome. Christianity held the sceptre on the Seven Hills, and paganism became a thing of the country village, or pagus. This historical importance of Palestine does not come within the purpose of Dr. Thomson. While he admits this fact, and could have drawn upon his rich experience in the country for abundant illustration, he has aimed to show that the country of which he writes, though now in wretched decline, and broken up many a score of times by the ploughshare of war, can still tell the story of its own varied fortunes. He goes farther than this, and proves that the people who live in the country, and the very surface of the land itself, with the vegetation and animals that exist now, are all witnesses to the exactness and au- thenticity of the Biblical narrative. The Bible, then, has taken l~he coloring of the country itself. No other country could have produced it. A stranger drifted ashore at Jaffa, and never inquiring what country he was in, could see from the people and their daily life, and from the fields, and houses of the poor, and hum- ble labors of the husbaudman, that he was in the country of the Bible. The first edition of Dr. Thomsons work, in two volumes, is now to give place to a Larger one, in three volumes, which ad- heres to the same fundamental thought, but is essentially a new work. It reverses the itinerary of the former edition, and begins with the south country, traverses the entire hill country of Jud~a, and con- cludes with Jerusalem and the environs. In our examination of the volumes we shall make liberal use of the authors own language. With Jaffa as a starting-point, one of the first things we observe is the system of irrigation. The use of the water-wheel is constant in Egypt, but it was one of the inducements which Moses held out to the Israelites, that if patient and earnest in their journey, they would not need the water-wheel in their new home: For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a gar- den of herbs. Nothing could be more laborious and tedious than the plying of the little Egyptian water-wheel by the feet. If the whole of the promised land had to be irrigated by such a process, it would require a nation of slaves like the Hebrews, and task-masters like the Egyp- tians, to make it succeed. The Hebrews had learned by bitter experience what it was to water with the foot, and this would add great force to the allusion, and ren- der doubly precious the goodly land which drank of the rain of heaven, and required no such drudgery to make it fruitful. But the labor of the feet does not cease with getting the water upon the surface of the ground. The farmer or gardener is often compelled to con- duct the water about from plant to plant and furrow to furrow by his feet alone. When one place is sufficiently saturated, he pushes aside the soil between it and the next furrow with his foot, and con- tinues to do so until all are watered. He is thus sometimes knee-deep in mud, and many diseases are generated by this slav- ish work. But the people of Palestine, while they do not use the little wheel worked only by the feet, make use of the large and clumsy Persian water-wheel. Hundreds of these are to be seen in the Jaffa region, and to them must be attrib- uted largely the delicious fruit of the gar- dens and orchards. Simple in construc- tion, cheap, quickly made, soon repaired, easily worked, they raise an immense quantity of water. Many efforts have been made to introduce pumps, but they THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 47 always fail, and get out of repair; and as ber of these buckets depend of course there is no one able to mend them, they upon the depth of the well, for the buck- are thrown aside, and the gardener re- ets are fastened on the hawser about two turns to his naurah. A clumsy cog- feet apart. The depth of wells in Jaffa wheel, fitted to an upright post, is made varies from ten to forty feet. If the to revolve horizontally by a camel at- mule or camel turns the wheel rapidly- tached to a sweep; this turns a similar which he rarely doesa bucket with one perpendicularly placed at the end of about two gallons of water will be car- a heavy beam, which has a large wide ned over the top of it and discharged into drum built upon it directly over the mouth the trough every second, and it must be a of the well. Over this drum revolve two good pump that will steadily do as much. rough hawsers, or thick ropes, made of The hawser is made of twigs, generally of twigs and branches twisted together, and myrtle, not merely because it is cheap upon them are fastened small jars or and easily plaited by the gardener him- wooden buckets. One side descends while self, but because its extreme roughness the other rises, carrying the small buck- prevents it from slipping round on the ets with them, these descending empty, wheel, as an ordinary rope would do, and those ascending full, and as they pass thus fail to carry up the loaded buckets. over the top they discharge into a trough There are other kinds of water-wheels which conveys the water to the cistern, in use. The shadfif, so conspicuous on The length of these hawsers and the num- the Nile, is nowhere to be seen in Pales- OLD WATER-WHEEL AT HAMATLI. 48 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. tine, but the well-sweep and bucket are used in many places. Another method is common in Philistia. A large buffalo-skin is so attacbed to cords that, when let down into the well, it opens, and is instantly filled, and being drawn up, it closes so as to retain the water. The rope by which it is hoisted to the top works over a wheel, and is drawn by oxen, mules, or camels, that walk directly from the well to the length of the rope, and then return, only to repeat the oper- ation, until a sufficient quantity of water is raised. This also is a very successful mode of drawing water. The wheel and bucket, of different sorts and sizes are much used where the water is near the surface, and also along rap- id rivers. For shallow wells, merely a wheel is used, whose diameter equals the desired elevation of the water. The rim of this wheel is large, hollow, and divided into compartments answering the place of buckets. A hole near the top of each bucket allows it to fill, as that part of the rim, in revolving, dips under the water. This, of course, will be discharged into the trough when the bucket begins to descend, and thus a constant succession of streams falls into the cistern. The wheel itself is turned by oxen or mules. This system of wheels is seen on a grand scale at Hums, Hamath, and all along the Orontes. The wheels there are of enor- mous size. The diameter of some of those at Hamath is eighty or ninety feet. Small paddles are attached to the rim, and the stream is turned upon them by a low dam with sufficient force to carry the huge wheel around with all its load of ascend- ing buckets. There is, perhaps, no hy- draulic machinery in the world by which so much water is raised to so great an el- evation at so small an expense. Neither is there any so picturesque or musical. These wheels, with their enormous loads, slowly revolve on their groaning axles all day and all night, each one singing a different tune, with every imaginable va- riation of tone sobs, sighs, shrieks, and groans, loud, louder, loudest, down to the bottom of the gamuta concert whol- ly unique, and half infernal in the night, which, heard once, will never be forgotten. In 1834 Dr. Thomson resided for sever- al months in Jaffa, and, to pass away the time, frequently came out in the after- noon to the gate through the city, and prepared his seat in the street. There the governor, the cadi, and the elders of the people assembled daily, in a void place, CITY GATE, JAFFA. THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 49 and held an extemporaneous divau at which affairs of every kind were discussed and settled with the least possible ceremony. But recently from America, Dr. Thomson was greatly amused with this novel open - air court, conducted amidst the diu, confusion, and uproar of a thronged gateway men, women, and children jostling each other horses prancing, camels growling, donkeys braying, as they passed in and out of the gate; but nothing could interrupt the proceedings, or disturb the judicial gravity of the court. The scene with all its surroundings, was wholly Oriental, and withal had about it an air of remote Scriptural antiquity which ren- dered it doubly interesting. The Biblical descriptions of pottery are singularly applicative to the present pro- cess of manufacture. Now, in tbis nine- teenth century, the potter sits at his frame and turns the wheel with his foot. Or, as we read in the Apocrypha: So doth the potter, sitting at his work and turn- ing the wheel about with his feet: he fashioneth the clay with his arm. The potter had a heap of the prepared clay near him, and a pot of water by his side. Taking a lump in his hand, he placed it on the top of the wheel, which revolves horizontally, and smoothed it into a low cone, like the upper end of a sugar-loaf; then thrusting his thumb into the top of it, he opened a hole down through the centre, and this he constantly widened by pressing the edges of the revolving cone VOL. LX.No. i55.4 between his hands. As it enlarged and became thinner, he gave it whatever shape he pleased, with the utmost ease and ex- pedition. It is evident, from numerous expres- sions in the Bible, that the potters vessel was the synonym of utter fragility; and to say, as David does, that Zions King would dash his enemies in pieces like a potters vessel, was to threaten with ruin- ous and reinediless destruction. We who are accustomed to strong stone - ware of considerable value can scarcely appreciate some of these Bibli- cal refercuces, but for Palestine they are still as apI)roI)riate and forcible as ever. Arab jars are so thin and frail that they are literally dashed to shivers by the slightest stroke. Water jars are often broken by merely putting them down upon the floor; and the servant frequent- ly returns from the fountain empty- handed, having had all his jars smashed to atoms by some irregular behavior of the donkey. The steam-plongh has not yet reached DAMASCUS GATI, JERUSALEM. HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Palestine. To witness the primitive meth- country. Every agricultural village and od of separating the grain from the husk, town in the land has them, and many of one would suppose himself living far back them are more ancient than the places in the primitive days. Yusef the Moslem whose inhabitants now use them. They gets at the kernel in precisely the same have been just where they are, and ex fashion as did Abraham the patriarch. Some very interesting incidents of Bibli- cal history are connected with this pecul- iar agricultural custom. The common mode of threshing is with the ordinary mowrej, which is drawn over the floor by a yoke of oxen, until not only the grain is shelled out, but the straw it- self is ground into chaff. To facilitate this operation, bits of rough lava are fast- ened into the bottom of the mowrej, and the driver sits or stands upon it. It is rare sport for children to get out to the baidar, as the floor is called, and ride round upon the mowrej. These floors, which one sees at Yebna and elsewhere, have, perhaps, changed less than almost anything else in the aetly as they were, from a period to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. In very many eases the topographical conditions of the sites necessarily decided the place of the thresh- ing-floors. It must be an unoccupied spot near the ontside of the village, in a place exposed to the prevailing wind, and suf- ficiently large for one or more of these floors. Generally there are several in the same vicinity. The construction of the floors is very simple. A circular space, from thirty to fifty feet in diameter, is made level, if not naturally so, and the ground is smoothed off and beaten solid, that the earth may not mingle with the grain in threshing. In time the floors, especially on the THE POTTER AND THE WHEEL. THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 51 mountains, are covered with a tough, hard sward, the prettiest, and often the only, green plots about the village; and there the traveller delights to pitch his tent. Daniel calls them summer thresh- ing-floors, and this is the most appropri- ate name for them, since they are only used in that season of the year. The en- tire harvest is brought to them, and there threshed and winnowed; and the differ- ent products are then transferred to their respective places. In large villages this work is prolonged for several months, but all is finished before the autumn rains on the grain, and the driver has a seat upon it, which is certainly more comfort- able. In the plains of Hamath, Dr. Thom- son saw this machine improved by hav- ing circular saws attached to the rollers. It is to this instrument in all probability that Isaiah refers in the forty-first chap- ter of his prophecies: Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instru- ment having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. This passage has several allusions which residents in Palestine can readily understand. and from thence on to the next harvest Treading out the corn was also employ- the floors are entirely deserted; but when ed to separate the grain from the husk and occupied, and the threshing in full opera- stalk. On some floorsat Yebna, for ex- tion, the scene is both picturesque and amplethere is no machine of any kind, eminently Oriental, hut boys ride or drive horses, donkeys, The Egyptian mowrej is quite different and oxen, either separately or yoked to- from this. having rollers which revolve gether, round upon the grain, and it is SUMMER THRESHING-FLOOR. 52 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. this in part which makes the scene so pe- culiar. Some run from left to right, and others the reverse, and no one continues long in the same direction, bnt changes every few minntes, to keep the animals from becoming dizzy, while some seek to secure the same result by fastening blind- ers over the eyes of the bewildered animals. Eliha says, The whirlwind cometh out of the south. Is that still the case? According to Dr. Thomsons experience it is, and also that fair weather cometh out of the north. There is in both state- ments an indication that the author of them dwelt in the south country, in which these phenomena are most fre- quently witnessed, and where one looks earnestly northward for relief from perse- verin g and relentless rain. With i egard to whirlwinds, there is something in the manner in which they catch up the chaff, and whirl it hither and thither, over hill and plain and thorn hedge, in a sort of manifest fury, that vividly excited the im- agination of the Hebrew poets. For ex- ample, in the first Psalm, and the thirty- fifth, and the eighty-third, and in Isaiah xvii. and xxix., and Hosea xiii., and else- where, every incident is noticed which could intensify the destruction denounced against the ungodly as chaff of the mountain, chased by the wind, and driven out of the floor by the whirlwind. These whirlwinds are extremely common, and very curious. Without warning or appar- ent cause, they start up suddenly, as if by magic or spirit influence, and rush furi- ously onward, swooping dust and chaff up to the clouds in their wild career. The intention of the farmer is to grind down his unthreshed grain to chaff, and much of it is reduced to fine dust, which the wind carries away. The references to the wind which drives off the chaff are numerous in the Bible, and very forcible. The grain, as it is threshed, is heaped up in the centre of the floor, until it frequent- ly becomes a little mound, higher even than the workmen. This is particularly the case when there is no wind for several days, since the only way adopted to sepa- rate the chaff from the wheat is to toss it up into the air, when the grain falls in one place, and the chaff is carried on to another. There seems, likewise, to be no change in preparing food for bread. The grind- ing of the grain by two women goes on now as in the remote times. One hears this low rumbling sound in every town in the land, and can see for himself this un- changcd custom. Solomon says, The grinders cease because they are few; the sound of the grinding is low. Jere EGYPTIAN MOWREJ. THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 53 miah also saddens his picture of Israels desolation by Nebuchadnezzar with the prediction that the sound of the mill- stones should cease. And upon Babylon, whose king stilled the voice of the grind- ing in Jerusalem, Jobn denounces the like desolation: The sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee. Southward through Philistia there are 110 mill-streams, and one constantly hears the ham of the hand-mill at every village and Arab camp, morning and evening, and often deep into the night. When t work, two women sit at the mill facing each other; both have hold of the handle by which the upper is turned round upon the nether millstone. The men do with the whip or crosscut saw. The proverb of Christ is true to life, for women only grind. Dr. Thomson recalls 110 instance in which men were grinding at the hand-mill. It is tedious, fatiguing work, and slaves or servants are set at it. From tile king to the maid-servaut that is behind the mill, therefore, embraced all, from the very highest to the very low- est inhabitants of Egypt. This grinding at the mill was often imposed upon cap- tives takeii in war. Thus Samson was abused by the Pliihistines, aiid, with Mil- ton for his poet, bitterly laments his cruel lot: To grind in brazen fetters under task, Eyeless, ill Gaza, at the iiiill with slaves. one whose hand is disengaged throws in tile grain, as occasion requires, through the hole in the upper stone, which is called el rukkTh, the rider, in Arabic, as it was long ago in He- brew. It is not correct to say that one pushes it half round, and then the other seizes the handle. This would Every traveller in Palestine learns from be slow work, and would give a spas- experience that lie has to pay an ample modic motion to the stone. Both retain price for everything lie receives and en- their hold, and pull to or push from, as joys. There seems to be no fixed price, THRESnING-FLOOR AT YEBNA. 54 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. but the vender or employd gets all lie might see fit. Every one who has tray- finds it possible to procure. But one of elled at all leisurely through the country his methods, peculiar enough, is to begin has met with similar instances of shrewd his bargain by making no charge. We bargaining. Dr. Thomson says he has remember that the dragoman to whom we been presented with hundreds of houses applied at Nablus to conduct us to Damas- and fields and horses, and by-standers were called in to witness the deed, and a score of protestations and oaths were taken to seal the truth of the donation; all of which meant just nothing, or rather just as great a price as he could possibly be in- duced to pay. A knowledge of this adroit method of dealing, still current in Palestine, greatly facil- itates our understanding of Abra cus refused at first to make any charge whatever for his services, but declared he would be amply rewarded for his eight days going and returning by the mere companionship of a Frank. On urging him to name a price, he put so high an estimate upon his valuable aid that we were compelled to forego the pleasure of his company. We found out that it was all a ruse. He was hoping to be offered our price, thinking it might be a large one, and was determined that if it did not suit him, he would then raise it as high as he hams purchase of a burial-place for his wife. Hebron is much the same to-day as in his time. If one were to arrange for the purchase of a tomb for a member of his family, he would likely be told that he could have one for nothing. There is great exclusiveness in the matter of tombs, and a high price is expected. The Hittites said to Abraham, on his application for the purchase of one: Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his WOMEN GRINDING AT THE MILL. THE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 55 sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. Beautiful compli- ment! but only compliment. Abra- ham, however, was too shrewd a man not to see through the trick; so he repelled the liberal offer, but insisted on paying for the burial- place. Ephron, with all due po- liteness, said: Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. But Abraham understood the proposition for bukshecsh too well to ac- cept, and insisted on an outright pur- chase. So Ephron named four hundred shekels of silver. But four hundred shekels; what is that betwixt me and thee ? A mere trifle by name, but a very large price in fact. This, however, was se- rious business for Abraham, and he made no objection. So he proceeded to weigh out the money, just as men do now in Palestine, with a little pair of scales, to see that none of the coins are clipped. But Oriental custom requires that all the specifications be named in every contract. When you buy a house, not only the build- ing, but every room in it, must be named, above and below, down to the kitchen, pantry, stable, and hen-coop. So when Abraham bought a field, he also bought the cave that was therein, and all the trees in the field, and all that were in all the borders round about. Then this sale was effected in public, just as all similar trans- actions in these days are brought about. When any sale is now effected in a town or village, the whole population turn out to witness it, in the space about the city gate. All the people take part in discuss- ing the matter with as much interest as if they were personally concerned. In this way the transaction acquires legal force; it has many living witnesses. From the grave we turn to a more TOMBS OF THE JUDGES VALE OF UPPER KIDRON. 56 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. cheerful scene, namely, a matrimonial event in this same family of the emeer Abraham, and near this same Hebron. The chief sei vant in the family of a sheik or emeer has very great functions in these days. So it was not at all an unusual oc- cnrrence that Eliezer, the steward of Abra- ham, should have so much respect and confidence shown him as to be made the manager of the matrimonial engagement for Abrahams only son Isaac. Abrabam was solicitous that hi~ son should marry one of his own kindreda desire in exact accord with the customs of Oriental no- l)ility, where a relative has always the preference. The oath of fidelity which Ehiezer took was very sacred, and in har- moimy with his delicate mission. The preparation and outfit for the journey were just what would be made to-day for such an errand and such a distance as that from Hebron to Mesopotamia. On reaching Nahor, Eliezer made his camels kneel down by a well of water at the time of evening, when women go out to draw water. The place of a well, in all the East, determines tIme site of the village. The people build near it, but the well re- mains outside of the city. It is about the fountain that travellers and caravans as- senible. About the large cities the men carry water, both on donkeys and on their own backs, but in the country vil- lages it is only women who carry the wa- ter. The way that Rebekah carried her pitcher or jar was precisely the prese t Palestinian mode on her shoulder. She wemit down to the well, for in the East the wells are in the wadies, and are often reached by steps. She watered the cam- els, amid emptied her pitcher into the trough, just as one always sees now be- smde the fountain. The jewels for the head, neck, and arms are still worn by the women, probably without any varia- tion between Eliezers days and ours. LOWER POOL OF HEI3RON. TIlE PALESTINE OF TO-DAY. 57 Labans address, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord, was the ordinary Oriental compliment, while the inclusion of the camels in the invitation to come into the house is still kept np. The water to wash the feet, the mode of negotiating the mar- riage contract, the presenting of the gifts, and the management of the whole affair by the parents, with the advice of the eld- est son, ho~vever, are all in precise accord with the customs of our time in Syria and Mesopotamia. In taking leave of this first installment of the new edition of Dr. Thomsons work, we can not forbear to express our admira- tion for his great fidelity to his original plan of tracing the truth of the Scriptures in the Oriental life of the present times, and for the important additions lie has made to his group of evidences. Were it not for his array of indisputable facts, it would seem almost incredible that a land which has undergone so many changes, or rather complete revolutions, should pre- serve so many traces of its original life and thougbt. We suspect, however, that with the new interest in Palestine there will be large accessions to this store of parallels between the former times and the present. We observe in this new edition of Dr. Thomsons work that the publishers have provided it with an en- tirely new set of illustrations, derived from fresh observations in Palestine. Having been for nearly half a century an Amer- ican missionary in Palestine, Dr. Thom- son has had better opportunities than any man miow living for close observation of the life and habits of the people. In ad- dition, he has made wise use of the labors of Warren, Wilson, Conder, and all the recent explorers sent out by the explora- tion societies of Great Britain, France, Germany, and America. ARABS AT TIlE WELL. 58 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. THE IRON PEN, MADE FROM A FETTER OF BONNIVARD THE PRISONER OF CHILLON; THE MANDLE OF WOOD FROM THE FRIGATE CONSTITUTION AND BOUND WITH A CIRCLET OF GOLD, INSET WITH THREE PRECIOUS STONES FROM SIBERIA, CEYLON, AND MAINE. I THOUGHT this Pen would arise From the casket where it lies Of itself would arise, and write My thanks and my surprise. When you gave it me under the pines, I dreamed these gems from the mines Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines; That this iron link from the chain Of Bonnivard might retain Some verse of the Poet who sang Of the prisoner and his pain; That this wood from the frigates mast Might write me a rhyme at last, As it used to write on the sky The song of the sea and the blast. But motionless as I wait, Like a Bishop lying in state Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold, And its jewels inviolate. Then must I speak, and say That the light of that summer day In the garden under the pines Shall not fade and pass away. I shall see you standing there, Caressed by the fragrant air, With the shadow on your face, And the sunshine on your hair. I shall hear the sweet low tone Of a voice before unknown, Saying, This is from me to you From me, and to you alone. And in words not idle and vain I shall answer, and thank you again For the gift, and the grace of the gift, O beautiful Helen of Maine! And forever this gift will be As a blessing from you to me, As a drop of the dew of your youth On the leaves of an aged tree.

58 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. THE IRON PEN, MADE FROM A FETTER OF BONNIVARD THE PRISONER OF CHILLON; THE MANDLE OF WOOD FROM THE FRIGATE CONSTITUTION AND BOUND WITH A CIRCLET OF GOLD, INSET WITH THREE PRECIOUS STONES FROM SIBERIA, CEYLON, AND MAINE. I THOUGHT this Pen would arise From the casket where it lies Of itself would arise, and write My thanks and my surprise. When you gave it me under the pines, I dreamed these gems from the mines Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines; That this iron link from the chain Of Bonnivard might retain Some verse of the Poet who sang Of the prisoner and his pain; That this wood from the frigates mast Might write me a rhyme at last, As it used to write on the sky The song of the sea and the blast. But motionless as I wait, Like a Bishop lying in state Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold, And its jewels inviolate. Then must I speak, and say That the light of that summer day In the garden under the pines Shall not fade and pass away. I shall see you standing there, Caressed by the fragrant air, With the shadow on your face, And the sunshine on your hair. I shall hear the sweet low tone Of a voice before unknown, Saying, This is from me to you From me, and to you alone. And in words not idle and vain I shall answer, and thank you again For the gift, and the grace of the gift, O beautiful Helen of Maine! And forever this gift will be As a blessing from you to me, As a drop of the dew of your youth On the leaves of an aged tree. SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. HEAVY and regular, like the re- current strokes of a sledge-ham- mer, the hoofs of Sheriff Joshua Heinpsteads horse strike the Nor- wich turnpike, and horse and rider, alike stout of heart and strong of limb, go lumbering on through the darkness. The dwellers in the scat- tered farm-houses, as they turn in their beds, recognize that steady thud, thud, and it gives them a sense of security, for they know that all rogues must flee before the valiant sheriff of New London. Every three miles he passes a tavern. At Dodges, nearest the town, they are put- ting up the shutters, and a colored valet is endeavoring to persuade an inebriated gentleman to leave the basset table, and venture on what is sure to prove a tem- pestuous voyage, to his home just around the corner. At Finks tavern, further on, fiddles and bassoon still keep up a jovial din, and flying silhouettes are OLD HEMP5TEAD HOUSE. thrown upon the window-shades, a ka- leidoscopic panorama of ribboned queues and high combs on cushioned hair, for Finks is the favorite tavern to which to drive for dances. The horses waiting in the shed, and harnessed to quaint sulk- ies, gigs, chaises, one-horse chairs, and phaetonsvery different vehicles from those which bear the name nowadays

SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. HEAVY and regular, like the re- current strokes of a sledge-ham- mer, the hoofs of Sheriff Joshua Heinpsteads horse strike the Nor- wich turnpike, and horse and rider, alike stout of heart and strong of limb, go lumbering on through the darkness. The dwellers in the scat- tered farm-houses, as they turn in their beds, recognize that steady thud, thud, and it gives them a sense of security, for they know that all rogues must flee before the valiant sheriff of New London. Every three miles he passes a tavern. At Dodges, nearest the town, they are put- ting up the shutters, and a colored valet is endeavoring to persuade an inebriated gentleman to leave the basset table, and venture on what is sure to prove a tem- pestuous voyage, to his home just around the corner. At Finks tavern, further on, fiddles and bassoon still keep up a jovial din, and flying silhouettes are OLD HEMP5TEAD HOUSE. thrown upon the window-shades, a ka- leidoscopic panorama of ribboned queues and high combs on cushioned hair, for Finks is the favorite tavern to which to drive for dances. The horses waiting in the shed, and harnessed to quaint sulk- ies, gigs, chaises, one-horse chairs, and phaetonsvery different vehicles from those which bear the name nowadays ~5O HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. (for this was during the war of the Revo- lution)neigh to the powerful horse that strides over the road; and the sleepy hostlers and grooms shake themselves, and wonder what rascal is doomed now. Then they note the good points of the shei4ffs horse, and tell how when a thief sprang down an off-set eight feet high, the horse leaped after him, and pinned him down by the clothing with his fore- feet until his master could alight and se- cure him. At Hortons tavern all is dark and quiet, but Hempstead refreshes his horse at the trough, and the landlord, unbolting a shutter, first shows a night- capped head, and then brings out a stir- rup-cup to strengthen the arm of the law. On through the night, till at Norwich the sheriff secures his prisoners two runaway sailors, who, having pocketed the bounty paid for enlisting, have deter- mined to quit the service while they are still in a condition to enjoy itand at early dawn he sets out again for New London, tying his prisoners together, and driving them before him. While still at a distance from the town he notices that the fastenings have become loosed, and that the sailors are free. He springs from his horse, but the men at the same instant exchange glances: their only safety is in separation, and they set out at a run in different directions. The sheriff plunges after one, but the other is already out of sight in the wood, and his escape seems very probable. Joshua Hempstead has returned to the place where he alighted from his horse, holding the arm of the unlucky sailor in his powerful clutch, but the animal which he ne,4ected in his haste to fasten is no longer there. The captive grins at this contretemps; but a whinny is heard a lit- tle further on, and the sheriff drags his unwilling companion toward the sound. There stands the black horse, with his teeth in the collar of the other runaway. When his master had given chase to the first, he had comprehended the situation, and dashed after the other. Sheriff and deputy-sheriff return in triumph with their prisoners, and deputy is after this a public character in New London. He carried the dispatches between Boston and New London during the war, bring- ing the news of the battle of Bunker Hill in one day and ni~,hta distance, as the road was then travelled, of one hundred and ten miles. And Joshua Hempstead was no light weight: there were giants in those days. When lately the sheriffs bones were removed from one cemetery to another, men gazed with wonder at his colossal frame, whose huge jaw-bones would have fitted easily as a visor over any modern countenance. The work of New London during the Revolution was very much the sante as Sheriff Joshua Hempsteadsthat of fur- nishing sailors, willing or unwilling, for tbe American navy. The antiquarian turning over snuff - colored files of the Connecticut Gazette, a little sheet pub- lished in New London during the Revolu- tion, will be struck by the frequent inser- tion of notices such as the following: All Gentlemen Volunteers who are desirous of making their fortunes in 8 weeks time are hereby informed the fine Privateer called the New Broome, mounting 16 pieces and 4 Pounders, besides swivels, is now fitted out for an 8 weeks cruise near Sandy Hook, in the Sound, and will have the best chance that there has been this War of taking Prizes. She only waits for a fe,w more Men, and then will imme- diately sail for her cruise. July 26, lITS. The new and swift sailing Privateer Brigantine Le Marquis de la Fiyette, mounting sixteen 6 pound Cannon, with Swivels and Small Arms compleat, will sail on a Cruise against the enemies of these United States in eight days from the date hereof at farthest. All Gentlemen Seamen and able-bodied Landsmen who are desirous of making their fortune an Opportunity now presents, by applying on Board said Brig, when they will meet with good Encour agement. PETER RIcHARDs. Nsw LOaDON, Feb. T, 1T51. The call is repeated again and again, with very little variation except in the names of commanders and vessels. In the lat- ter a grim humor is often displayed. The New Broome, already mentioned, was evi- dently designed to become a besom of destruction. The Wilful Murder and the Sturdy Beggar, both authentic names of privateers, strike a somewhat piratical key-note, but they were regularly coni- missioned vessels of war sailing under let- ters of marque and reprisal issued by the government, and stand in the relation of great-grandfathers to our present navy. The official history of the navy of the Revolution is comprised in the corsair- like exploits of these privateers. In December, 1775, Congress chose a committee for carrying into execution its resolutions for fitting out armed vessels. New London became the head-quarters for the Connecticut quota. Its fitness as a naval station is demonstrated by a re SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. port made to the British government in 1774, before the breaking out of the Revo- lution: New London, the best harbor in Connecticut, from the light-house at the mouth of the harbor to the town is about three miles, a breadth of three- fourths of a mile, from five to six fathoms of water, and entirely secure and commodious one mile above the town for large ships. The principal trade is to the West India Islands, excepting now and then a vessel to Ireland and England, and a few to Gibral- tar and Barbary. There are 72 sail now belonging to this district, in which there are 406 se -faring men employed, besides upward of 20 sail of coasting vessels. Almost every sort of British manufactures are here imported, of 150,000 or 160,000 sterling per annum. The custom-house officers here are at- tentive to their duty, besides which this harbor is so situate(l that the comiu~ in from the sea is between the east cud of Long Island and Block Island, and by the xvest end of Fishers Island, where the kings cruisers are generally upon the look-out, and very critical in examining the vesseis they meet with, etc. Blank letters of marque were sent to the Governor of Connecticut, vessels were built and remodelled, notices requesting Gentlemen Volunteers began to appear in the Gazette, and the work of enlisting went merrily on. Four captains com- missions were issued by Congress at this timeone to Dudley Saltonstall, of New London, who afterward rose to the rank of commodore. Among those receiving the rank of lieutenant at the same date was the fatuous John Paul Jones. Twen- ty-six vessels were fitted out from Con- necticut, and sailed away to dispute the arrogant boast: The winds and scas are Britains wide domain,. And not a sail but by permission spreads. Prizes as they were brought in were an- nounced in the Gazette, and referred to the decision of the Maritime Court, where the owners of the property seized were summoned to appear and claim their goods, first having proved themselves. loyal to the new government. The fol- lowing summons is taken at random from a score of similar ones, and will serve as. an example of the established procedure: Stole of Cossaecticstt, ~ Towborn it may concern: (iosialq of New London. ) KNoxv Yz that Libels are filed before the Hon- oreble Richard Law, Esq., Judge of the Maritime Court of New London, in Favour of John Murow Commander, Elias Parshal, Owner, and the Men on board the Sloop Hulicer, against two Whale Boats laden with British Goods taken on the 18 of March, 1781.... In Favour of Amos Judson, Commander of Boat Revenge, and his Associates, against two trunks and a Box of European and India Goods seized and taken on I~ong Island.. . . Which Whale Boats and Goods the Libellants claim as Lawful Prizes. The hcaring of said Libels will be at New London the 17 Day of April, 1781 : of which all persons claiming Property are to take due notice. Per Order of the Judge. WINTHROP SAaroxsrxeI, Regr. 61 A REVOLUTIONARY RECRUHING OFFICEPRIVATEER5MEN IN NEW LONDON. 62 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. It is an acknowledged fact that naval stations are the gayest society centres, and while the personnel of the little navy of the Revolution were busied with exciting enterprises taxing their courage and en- durance on the high seas, they were all the more ready to indulge in social enjoy- ments when iu port. The ladies of New London, too, were as patriotic as they were handsome, and devised innumerable en- tertainments for their gallant defenders. The Marine Tavern and the Golden Ball in the town, as well as the inns on the Norwich and Old Lyme turnpikes, became scenes of revelry, while private mansions outvied each other in hospitality. Some of the old mansions of the town are par- ticularly rich in miniatures and others in oil-paintings of the ladies of this period refined, sweet faces, set off by elaborate coiffures and great ruffs. The miniatures painted by Mrs. Champlin at the beginning of this century, in especial those of the Coit sisters, have a deli- cacy of treatment and a purity of sentiment peculiarly suited to the fair young faces of her sitters. The family portrait gallery of the Shaw family in- troduces us most vividly to the early society of New London. It is difllcnlt not to imagine while gazing on these aristo- cratic dames, stately gentle- men, and gentle girls who surround us, standing at full A GARDEN PARTY GIVEN TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. 63 length in their tall frames, that they are looking at us through open doorsthat Madam Temperance Shaw, in her white satin and mob-cap, with the open Bible in her hand, is not expecting a visit from her pastor, the Reverend Gurdon Salton- stall. Nathaniel Shaw, her son, with his long light locks, sober dress, and knee and shoe buckles, reminds us of William Penn, but of William Penn minus his rotund figure. In his almost Quaker simplicity of attire he forms a decided contrast to his courtly wife, in her stiff gold-colored satin dress, bosomed like Ru- benss wife, with pearls in her hair and around her beautiful throat; she holds a red rose in one shapely hand, and as she stands there is the embodiment of haugh- ty aristocracy. And yet this proud dame, when the war ships in Shaws Cove, on which the mansion fronts, were full of men dying with ship-fever, opened her house, turning it into a hospital, nursed the stricken men with her own hands, and fell at last, sad to say, a victim to the same malignant disease. What a romance might be written in this pic- ture-gallery ! The next portrait is that of pretty Polly Shaxv, sister of Nathaniel Shaw. The portrait represents her at fifteen, in a dress of white satin, simply cut, with a square neck its only orna ment is a formal cross-of-Malta-shaped rosette of four loops of satin ribbon, with a tear-shaped pearl in the centre. All in- nocence, is our thought as we look at the serious young face. She stands in a gar- den, with a basket of fruit and a shade hat upon her arm. She is going to visit the poor, said my companion; we need not be told that she married a minister. Here too is the portrait of her daughter, a coquettish woman in a bee-hive head- dress, which reminds us of the portraits of Madame Le Brun in her white muslin tur- ban. She holds a baby on her lapa baby who, grown to mans estate, became the father of the present generation now occu- pying the house. How far back it throws everything! And yet, as we walk through the manorial house, peep into the library with its portrait of Cromwell in armor stand reverently in the room that enter- tamed Washington, half expecting to see his figure held as by a sensitive plate in the high mirror, and stroll through alleys of box that rise a high hedge on either hand, up the knoll crowned with a summer- house a century and a half old, where La- fayette, who visited the place twice, prob- ably toasted the bright eyes of pretty Polly Shaw in those spiral-stemmed, monogram- engraved Champagne glasses. and Wash- ington presided at the lawn party. ladling PORTRAIi GALLERY IN THE 5HAW MANSION. 04 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the punch from the magnificent Chinese bowlhow real and near it all seems! These pictured ladies are the real and only dwellers here; we flesh-and-blood intrud- ers are only ghosts. There are not many old houses in New London so rich in associations, for when Arnold burned the town in 1781 he made thorough work, anxious to ingratiate him- self with his commanders by doing all the injury in his power to the cause he had deserted. Every locality has its epoch to which it refers in determining the date of every event; in New London nothing is old which did not exist before the burn- ing. No attempt was made to defend the town at this time, the militiamen, one hun- dred and fifty-seven in number, attempt- ing only the defense of Fort Griswold, on the other side of the river, under the com- mand of Colonel Ledyard. The greater part of the town was laid in ashes. While it was being fired, Arnold dined at the Christopher housea quaint old wooden building, still standing, and next to the imposing stone mansion of the Shaws; its roof projects like that of a Swiss chalet over a porch, and from it de- pend ancient trellises of antiquated pat- tern. Mr. Christopher was a rank old Tory, but a very good friend of Mr. Shaw; and when the beautiful old manor-house, which had been built of limestone, was fired, he extinguished the flames by pour- ing on them a vat of vinegar from the roof of his wood-house. Miss Caulkins, the author of The His- tory of New London laments in a little poem the absence of antiquities in the town: Weve nothing old: our parchment proofs, Our red-ink print, our damask woofs, All perished with our gabled roofs When Arnold burnt the town. The strange, quaint fashions of old time Three-cornered hats, white wigs sublime, Red cloaks, knee-bucklesleft our clime When Arnold burnt the town. Hood-pinners, and blue homespun dye, The pillion, and the ride and tye, The spinning-wheels, lo% since went by, When Arnold burnt the town. Our London is forever New, Our Father Thames runs on as blue, As smooth, as on that day of rue When Arnold burnt the town. It is possible that the very destruction of the greater part of their household gods caused those that were rescued to be cher ished with greater care than is usually the case. Certain it is that New London is quite as rich in relics of old time as most towns of its size. Old china of exquisite shape and translucency may be found carefully treasured here. I recall one set that would have made the heart of an Avis swell with envy. Each piece was deco- rated, not with a single bright feather, but with a different bird, herons, doves, hawks, storks, and sparrows pencilled so finely that they resembled drawings or engrav- ings. The Washington and sailors keep- sake pitchers so much prized by collectors are occasionally found. The owner of the bird set possesses one with the inscription: When riding oer the Mountain wave The Hardy Sailor, ever brave, He laughs at danger, smiles at fate, And risks his life to save his mate. A pewter porringer supported by dolphins, and a coffee-urn of very graceful shape, are heirlooms in the same family. The coffee at evening parties was often not only made but ground at the table. The lover of Pope will recall the lines: For lo! the board with cup and spoons is crownd, The berries crackle, and the mill turns round On shining alt. rs of Jap~ n they raise The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze; From silver spouts the erateful liquors glide, While Chinas earth receives the smoking tide: Coffee which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half- shut eyes. The fragrant cups were passed, it is very possible, by some negro footman, for slav- ery early found a lodgment here. It is interesting to see how this question was viewed by some of the wise and good of ancient times. In the early days of the colony, before the importation of negroes, the Indians were sold as slaves. We quote from a letter to John Winthrop: SIRMr. Endecot and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus, etc. Wee have heard of a dividence of women and children [Pequot captives] in the bay, and would bee glad of a share, viz., a youn~ woman or girle and a boy, if you think nood. I wrote to you for some boyes for Bermudas. In the following letter, to the same, written in 1645, a scheme for the slave- trade is broached: If upon a Just warre with the Narraganset the Lord should deliuer them into our hands, wee mi~ht easily haue men, women, and children enough to ex- change for Moores, which wil be more gaynefuhl pil- ladge for us then wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive vntill wee gett into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our buisines, for our childrens children will hardly see this great Continent filled SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. with people, soe that our servants will still desire freedome to plant for them selves, and not stay hut for very great wages. And I suppose you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20 Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant. The Gortrtecticmt Gazette during the Revolution contained frequent advertise- ments for runaway slaves, among them, very black negro men, branded with scars received in Africa, Mustee boys, and Indian women. The time seemed to have been seized upon for a general hegira. The reward offered for their re- turn was seldom more than five dollars. Dr. Johnsons derisive taunt, that the loudest yelps for liberty were heard from a slave-keeping people, seems to us at this day to have been not without its justice. We have already touched on the matter of dress. The enaction of rigid sumptu- ary laws was proposed during the Revolu- tion by a letter of instruction to the Con- necticut members of Congress, written in 1774 by Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, chair- man of a committee from the counties of New London and Windham. However, gentlemen, says Mr. Saltonstall, it is at least possible that this almost infinitely impor- tant dispute [between England and the colonies] may he brought to a decision without the interven- tion of carnage. The Nation [England] are not blind and callous to their own interest, and what can so effectually touch that in the most tender place as in good earnest to break off all commercial inter- course with Great Britain What a trifling hard- ship should we he subjected to! Why, truly no more than for many to cease impoverishing them- selves in the pursuit of the extravagancies and luxuries of the rich and great in the Mother Country. But even if we were for a while re- duced to Bread and Water, or Mallows and Juniper for food, and Sheep-skins and Goat - skins for covering, what would that be to del- u~in~ our country with blood too pretious to be spilled in vain? and yet that would be preferable and far sooner take place than a submis- sion to such horrid and un- natural oppression. Some of the people of Connecticut were not satisfied with sheep- skins and goat-skins an naturcl for cloth- ing, but preferred the intervention of the looms and dyes of England to convert them into elegant fab- VOL. LX.No. 3Cti.5 rics, and a small business was done in surreptitious importation. British man- ufactures, whether smuggled or seized as prizes by privateers, were advertised throughout the entire war. We quote again from the Gazette: A number of pieces of choice brocaded and other Eng- lish silks, flowrd, stripd, blossomd, blue, pink, and green lutestrings and sarce- nets, are advertised with Pad Locks, Raisons, Ostrich Feathers, Rum, Sickles, Allum, and Bohea Tea. Good Pork tak- en in pay for goods. Even the very first of the New London settlers gave some attention to fashion and to smart clothing, as we may judge from one of the oldest wills extant in the county, that of Mary Harries, in 1655: I give to my daughter Mary my blew mohere peticote and my straw hatt and a fctl~er boulster. And to her eldest sonne a silver spoone. To her second a silver whissel. ~ 0ive to my youngest daughter a peece of red 66 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. broad-cloth; alsoc a damask livery cloth, a gold heavily embroidered with silver thread; ring, a silver spoone, a fether-bed and a boulster, it belonged to some ancestor of the sturdy my best hat, my gowne, a brass kettle. Alsoc I give my three daughters of the dyaper table cloth, sheriff, whose huge gun, of a make ante- I give to my sister Migges a red peticoat, a silke nor to the old Queens arm, still hangs on bud, a quoife, and a neck cloth, the hooks in the summer-tree, a rafter To my daughter Elizabeth, my great chest. To Mary, a ciffer Ecoiffure ?]. To my brother Kawlin, a lased band. I give to Rebekah Bruen a pynt pot of pewter, a new petticoat and wascote web she is to spin ber- selfe; alsoc an old byble and a hat wch was my sonn Thomas bis batt. The mark of MAav ilAnaTEs. Wittness hearunto: JOHN WINTIIHOP and others. In the Hempstead house, the oldest building now standing in New London a fortified house which dates back to the founding of the town in 1645is still care- fully preserved a sky-blue satin waistcoat running across the keeping-room ceil- ing. The waistcoats owner could not have been of the same stuff as the bearer of the heavy musket. We fancy him some cavalier Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane. It was probably when the sumptuary laws were f~vorably regarded that Patty Hempstead, finding her father averse to the purchase of a new ball dress in which she might shine before the young naval officers, desecrated the sacred vestment of PATTY HEMPSTEAD IN HER GEANTHERS WAISTCOAT. SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. 67 the courtier ancestor by a pair of rash lit- tle scissors, which changed the relic of stately awkwardness into a jaunty jock- ey or jacket, which, worn over an India muslin, must have been marvellous be- coming to Miss Patty. The waistcoat has been restored as nearly as possible to its original shape, but it still bears the snippings of the scissors which adapted it to the softer outlines of the feminine form. The jockey must have figured at a dance, for dancing was about the only amusement. There was no theatre or opera here; no art atmosphere, as at Newport. The popular sports, the dance excepted, were of a grim nature. Pope- day was annually celebrated on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Two effigies were ex- hibited, one representing the pope and the other the devil, each with a head of hol- low pumpkin, illuminated from within by a candle, the pope wearing a paper tiata and the archfiend a pair of horns. The procession passed through the principal streets, the effigies being borne on men s shoulders. Songs were sang, and it halted fre- quently to levy contri- butions of money or re- freshments from every house of any impor- tance. The day closed with the burning of the two figures, while the crowd danced around the pyre. In 1729 the first ap- pi oach to a circus vis- ited the towna lion drawn in an ox-cart. The previous autumn it had travelled from New York to Albany. While in New London the illustrious stranger was lodged in Madam Winthrops stable. Deer were hunted on Fishers Island. A rec- ord remains of a famous hunting party in 1739, in which Colonel Saitonstall brought down a doe and Mr. George Mnmford two bucks, one of which was immediately sent by a carrier to Mr. Wanton at Newport. Fishers Island remained through six gen- erations the property of the Winthrops. This family is the one most celebrated in the early annals of the town. Fitz-John Winthrop, major-general in the Indian wars, was for many years Governor of Connecticut. The records of the State of the year 1693 state that This Court by their vote made choyse of Major Generall Fitz John Winthrop to be their agent to goe ouer for England and to endeanoure to present our addresse to their Maties and to obteeyn in the best way and maner he shall be capeable a confir- mation of our charter priniledges. The Court grants rate of a penny upon the pound of all the rateable estate in the Colony to defray the charge of sending an agent to England, and if any can not pay money they bane liberty to pay doble in wheat, rye, pease or indian. Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall is invited to go to England with Geni Winthrop. Learned Winthrop then by general consent Sat at the helm to sway the government, Who prudently the people doth advise To ask the king for chartered liberties. All like his counsel well, and all reply, Sir, you must undertake our agency. The Winthrop mansion still stands, and is an exceedingly interesting one; the best room is panelled, and the fire- 68 HAIRPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. place surrounded with tiles of Scriptural jokes. The Quakers came and sat in his design. Anothei~ building that escaped church with their broad-brims on, their the burning is the old Manwaring wives bringing their spinning-wheels and house. The family deserted it on the spinning in the aisles. approach of the British, and returiiing after their departure, found a wounded Hessian lying upon the floor. The Gen- eral Huntington house an imposing mansion, but not so old as those already mentionedwas modelled after Washing- tons residence at Mount Vernon There remains little record of schools; probably Yale College supplied the needs of higher education. Nathan Hale, the martyr spy, taught a boys school here before the Rev- olution. The church history of these early times abounds in interesting episodes. The Rev. Mather Byles, so well remembered as the son of the wittiest of clergymen after Swift, was first settled in New London. But he found his parish little to his lik- ing. The people were given to practical Gurdon Saltonstall, another facetious minister, resigned his functions as a preacher for the office of Governor. A religious sect arose professing allegiance to Christ only, and acknowledging no authority in the civil law. Among other peculiarities of their creed was the right to contract marriage with out the sanc- tion of the civil authorities. A man named Gorton was their leader. He ap- peared before Governor Saltonstall one day, as his Excellency was peacefully smoking his long pipe, and announced that lie was married to a woman whom he had brought with him, and that with- out the sanction of the law. The Gov- ernor serenely removed his pipe, and ask- e(l, And thou art determined to have this woman to thy wife h SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. 69 I am, replied Gorton. And you, madam, have taken this man for your hnsband ? That I have, Sir, was the prompt reply. Then exclaimed the Governor, by the anthority and in accordance with the laws of the State of Connecticut, I prononnee you legally man and wife. Gurdon, thon art a cunning creatnre, replied the discomfited Gorton. All the religious sects then known in America were represented in New London. Here were to be found the Churchman fond of power; The Quaker, sly; the Presbyterian, sour; The smart Freethinker, all thiu~s in an hour. It was in New London, says Trumbull, that the Separatists, or Baptists, carried their enthusiasm to such a degree that they made a large fire to burn their books, clothes, and ornaments, which they called their idols. This imaginary work of piety and self-denial they undertook on the Lords day, and brought their clothes books, neck- laces, and jewels together in the main street. They began with burning their erro- neous books, but were prevented from destroy- ing their clothes and jewels. Among the scientific inventions of the period, one that seems to foretell Jules Vernes dream of submarine navigation claims our attention. It was called the American Turtle, and was so ar- ranged as to be propelled under water toward the enemys ships, where an infernal machine could be attached which would blow up the ship five hours afterward. Only the electric light, which the commander of the Nautilus made so useful, was lacking. MATHER BYLES PREACHING TO QUAKERS. 70 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. How many luckless expeditions for bur- ton Mr. Gardiner trembled and hesitated ied treasure have been carried on alon~ when ordered by the Earl of Belimont to these shores, stimniated by the history of give np the chests. Kidds visit to Gardiners Island, just A favorite haunt of Captain Kidds was across the Sound, in his black-flag sl~oop at Block Island, at a lonely house occu- Antonio, which he commanded after sink- pied by Mercy Raymond, wbose husband ing his first ship, the Adventure. How was much of the time absent at New Lon like an old romance is the account of Mrs. Gardiners roasting a pig for the pirate prince, and cooking it so very nice that he made her a present of enough cloth of gold to make dresses for her two daugli- ters, while her frightened husband was made the unwilling guardian of the iron chests buried in the swamp, with the in- junction that lie must answer for their safe-keeping with his head. No wonder that even after Kidd was secured at Bos don. Here, the legend says, Captain Kidd brought a strange lady, whom he called his wife, and whom Mercy Raymond boarded for a considerable time. When he finally departed he bade Mercy hold out her apron, which he filled with hand- fuls of gold and jewels. The lamentable ballad of Captain Kidd, which we subjoin, gives his name as Rob- ert, but more authentic records assert that it was William: CAPTAIN KIDD5 GIFT TO MERCY RAYMOND. SEA-DRIFT FROM A NEW ENGLAND PORT. 71 The Song CAP TNIN KIDD Oh, my name was Robert Kidd, as I saild, as I saild; Oh, my name was Robert Kidd, as I saud. My sinful footsteps slid; Gods laws they did forbid; But still wickedly I did, as I saild. Id a Bible in my hand when I saild, when I saud; Id a Bible in my hand when I saild. Id a Bible in my hand, by my fathers great command, And I sunk it in the sand, when I saild. I spied three ships of France, as I saild, as I saild; I spied three ships of France, as I saud. I spied three ships of France; to them I did advance, And took them, all by chance, as I saild. I spied three ships of Spain, as I saud, as I saild; I spied three ships of Spain as I saild. I spied three ships of Spain; I fired on them amain, Till most of them were slain, as I saild. I murdered William Moore, as I saild, as I saild; I murdered William Moore, as I saild. I murdered William Moore, and I left him in his gore, Not many leagues from shore as I saild. Id ninety bars of gold, as I saild, as I saild; Id ninety bars of gold, as I saild. Id dollars manifold, and riches uncontrolled, And by these I lost my soul as I saild. 72 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. THEY met while yet the year was young, And mid the blossoming boughs they sung, Like other birds, their tale of love. Like other birds they wandered free In tender shade of bush or tree, Or sunlight of the sky above. They wan(lered free, and loved the dawn, Brushed with their wings the dews at morn, And innocently sped the days. Like other birds, when autumn came, Sure it could never be the same, They went alone their separate ways, With half a smile and half a sigh, When, as the winter hours go by, Comes, like a melodys refrain, A scent of blossoms, softly Ilung, They murmur, When the year was young Twas sweet. Twill never come again.~~ BLOSSOMS.

72 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. THEY met while yet the year was young, And mid the blossoming boughs they sung, Like other birds, their tale of love. Like other birds they wandered free In tender shade of bush or tree, Or sunlight of the sky above. They wan(lered free, and loved the dawn, Brushed with their wings the dews at morn, And innocently sped the days. Like other birds, when autumn came, Sure it could never be the same, They went alone their separate ways, With half a smile and half a sigh, When, as the winter hours go by, Comes, like a melodys refrain, A scent of blossoms, softly Ilung, They murmur, When the year was young Twas sweet. Twill never come again.~~ BLOSSOMS. LondoiY Glory, and JFhttti4gZW~ R en own oR~ A. LookifIg~Gla(~ for Citizens of L OND ON Lou don p~Lnttxt~%~ ~Iow aU~7 au~ to ~o~zboU be1Ofl~? ~gg b~%vvobi~ene~, 2ui~rnt~g1flflfl i~rne te4 f~fli~ ~EO2b ~a~2OI Landau. tie, born ~ i4~fLoiiaon~ t1~nr tm a~antzItW1fl~ fr~itfje~ bi~Ijn ~ ~1~r~UiOt1~O1 to be, in ~tti~ii~4 fk~ftg. ~7c~ / /1/ --- -

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We stared at these strange things. Our good Queen T was the first to approach them. She took them np as if she expected they would bite her. Oh, Mary, she says, there is not one for younot one. Angus Sutherland glanced quickly at the girl. But there was not the least trace of disappointment on her face. On the contrary, she said, with a cheerful in- difference: So much the better. They only both- er people. But of course they had to be opened and readeven the bulky parcel from Strath- govan. And amid much trivial domestic and other news, one of us stumbled upon one little item that certainly concerned us. lit was a clipping from the advertisement column of a newspaper. lit was inclosed, without word or comment, by a friend in London who knew that we were slightly acquainted, perforce, with Mr. Frederick Smethurst. And it appeared that that gentleman, having got into difficulties with his creditors, had taken himself off in a surreptitious and evil manner insomuch that this newspaper clipping was nothing more nor less than a Hue and Cry after the fraudulent bankrupt. That letter and its startling inclosure were quickly whipped into the pocket of the lady to whom they had been sent. By great good luck Mary Avon was the first to go on deck. She was anx- ious to see this new harbor into which we had got. And then, with consid- erable dismay on her face, our sov- ereign mistress showed us this ugly thing. She was much excited. It. was so shameful of him to bring this disgrace on Mary Avon! What would the poor girl say? And this gentle lady would not for worlds have her told while she was with usuntil at least we got back to some more def- inite channel of information. She was, indeed, greatly distressed. But we had to order her to dismiss these idle troubles. We formed ourselves into a committee on the spot; and this com- inittee unanimously, if somewhat prema- turely and recklessly; resolved: First, that it was not of the slightest. consequence to us or any human creature where Mr. Frederick Smethurst was or what lie might do with himself. Secondly, that if Mr. Frederick Smeth- urst were to put a string and a stone round his neck and betake himself to the bottom of the sea, he would earn our gratitude, and in some measure atone for his previous conduct. Thirdly, that nothing at all about the matter should be said to Mary Avon: if the man had escaped, there might prob- ably be an end of the whole business. To these resolutions, carried swiftly and unanimously, Angus Sutherland added a sort of desultory rider, to the effect that moral or immoral qualities do sometimes reveal themselves in the face. He was also of opinion that spare persons were more easy of detection in this manner. He gave an instance of a well-known character in Londona most promising ruffian who had run through the whole gamut of discreditable offenses. Why was thcwe no record of this brave career written in the mans face? Because na- ture had obliterated the lines in fat.. CHAPTER XIV. EVIL TIDINGS.

WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. indeed returned to the world: WE had first thing we saw on entering the saloon in the morning was a nnmber of lettersactual letters that had come through a post-officelying on the break- fast table. We stared at these strange things. Our good Queen T was the first to approach them. She took them np as if she expected they would bite her. Oh, Mary, she says, there is not one for younot one. Angus Sutherland glanced quickly at the girl. But there was not the least trace of disappointment on her face. On the contrary, she said, with a cheerful in- difference: So much the better. They only both- er people. But of course they had to be opened and readeven the bulky parcel from Strath- govan. And amid much trivial domestic and other news, one of us stumbled upon one little item that certainly concerned us. lit was a clipping from the advertisement column of a newspaper. lit was inclosed, without word or comment, by a friend in London who knew that we were slightly acquainted, perforce, with Mr. Frederick Smethurst. And it appeared that that gentleman, having got into difficulties with his creditors, had taken himself off in a surreptitious and evil manner insomuch that this newspaper clipping was nothing more nor less than a Hue and Cry after the fraudulent bankrupt. That letter and its startling inclosure were quickly whipped into the pocket of the lady to whom they had been sent. By great good luck Mary Avon was the first to go on deck. She was anx- ious to see this new harbor into which we had got. And then, with consid- erable dismay on her face, our sov- ereign mistress showed us this ugly thing. She was much excited. It. was so shameful of him to bring this disgrace on Mary Avon! What would the poor girl say? And this gentle lady would not for worlds have her told while she was with usuntil at least we got back to some more def- inite channel of information. She was, indeed, greatly distressed. But we had to order her to dismiss these idle troubles. We formed ourselves into a committee on the spot; and this com- inittee unanimously, if somewhat prema- turely and recklessly; resolved: First, that it was not of the slightest. consequence to us or any human creature where Mr. Frederick Smethurst was or what lie might do with himself. Secondly, that if Mr. Frederick Smeth- urst were to put a string and a stone round his neck and betake himself to the bottom of the sea, he would earn our gratitude, and in some measure atone for his previous conduct. Thirdly, that nothing at all about the matter should be said to Mary Avon: if the man had escaped, there might prob- ably be an end of the whole business. To these resolutions, carried swiftly and unanimously, Angus Sutherland added a sort of desultory rider, to the effect that moral or immoral qualities do sometimes reveal themselves in the face. He was also of opinion that spare persons were more easy of detection in this manner. He gave an instance of a well-known character in Londona most promising ruffian who had run through the whole gamut of discreditable offenses. Why was thcwe no record of this brave career written in the mans face? Because na- ture had obliterated the lines in fat.. CHAPTER XIV. EVIL TIDINGS. WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. When a man attains to the dimensions and appearance of a scrofulous toad swollen to the size of an ox, moral and mental traces get rubbed out. Therefore, contended our F. R. S., all persons who set out on a career of villainy, and dont want to be found out, should eat fat-pro- ducing foods. Potatoes and sugar he es- pecially mentioned as being calculated to conceal crime. However, we had to banish Frederick Smethurst and his evil deeds from our minds, for the yacht from end to end was in a bustle of commotion about our going ashore; and as for us, why, we meant to run riot in all the wonders and delights of civilization. Innumerable fowls, tons of potatoes and cabbage and lettuce, fresh butter, new loaves, new milk: there was no end to the visions that rose before the excited brain of our chief commissariat officer. And when the Laird, in the act of stepping, with much dignity, into the gig, expressed his firm conviction that somewhere or other we should stumble upon a Glasgow newspaper not more than a week old, so that he might show us the reports of the meetings of the Strathgo- van Commissioners we knew of no fur- ther luxury that the mind could desire. And as we were being rowed ashore we could not fail to be struck by the extraor- dinary abundance of life and business and activity in the world. Portree, with its wooded crags and white houses shining in the sun, seemed a large and populous city. The smooth waters of the bay were crowd- ed with craft of every description; and the boats of the yachts were coming and go- ing with so many people on board of them that we were quite stared out of counte- nance. And then, when we landed, and walked up the quay, and ascended the hill into the town, we regarded the signs over the shop doors with the same curiosity that regards the commonest features of a foreign street. There was a peculiarity about Portree, however, that is not met with in Continental capitals. We felt that the ground swayed lightly under our feet. Perhaps these were the last oscil- lations of the great volcanic disturbance that shot the black Coolins into the sky. Then the shops: such displays of beau- tiful things, in silk, and wool, and cun- ning wood-work; human ingenuity de- claring itself in a thousand ways, and ap- pealing to our purses. Our purses, to tell the truth, were gaping. A craving for purchase possessed us. But, after all, the Laird could not buy servant-girls scarfs as a present for Mary Avon; and Angus Sutherland did not need a second water- proof coat; and though we reached the telegraph office, there would have been a certain monotony in spending innumer- able shillings on unnecessary telegrams, even though we might be rejoicing in one of the highest conveniences of civilization. The plain truth must be told. Our pur- chases were limited to some tobacco and a box or two of paper collars for the men; to one or two shilling novels; and a flask of eau-de-Cologne. We did not half avail ourselves of all the luxuries spread out so temptingly before us. Do you think the men will have the water on board yet ? Mary Avon says, as we walk back. I do not at all like be- ing on land. The sun scorches so, and the air is stifling. In my opeenion, says the Laird, the authorities of Portree are deserving of great credit for having fixed up the ap- paratus to let boats get water on board at the quay. It was a public-spirited project it was that. And I do not suppose that any one grumbles at having to pay a shil- ling for the privilege. It is a legeetimate tax. I am sure it would have been a long time or we could have got such a thing at Strathgovan, if there was need for it there. Ye would scarcely believe it, maam, what a spirit of opposition there is among some o the Commissioners to any improve- ment: ye would not believe it. Indeed, she says, in innocent won- der; she quite sympathizes with this pub- lic-spirited reformer. Ay, its true. Mind ye, I am a Con- servative myself; I will have nothing to do with Radicals and their Republics; no, no, but a wise Conservative knows how to march with the age. Take my own po- seetion, for example: as soon as I saw that the steam fire-engine was a necessity, I withdrew my opposition at once. I am very thankful to you, maam, for having given me an opportunity of carefully con- sidering the question. I will never for- get our trip round Mull. Dear me! it is warm the day, added the Laird, as he raised his broad felt hat, and wiped his face with his voluminous silk handker- chief. Here come two pedestrians, good-look- ing young lads of an obviously English type, and faultlessly equipped from head 80 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. to heel. They look neither to the left nor right; on they go manfully through the dust, the sun scorching their faces; there must be a trifle of heat under these knap- sacks. Well, we wish them fine weather and whole heels. It is not the way some of us would like to pass a holiday. For what is this that Miss Avon is singing lightly to herself as she walks carelessly z on, occasionally pausing to look in at a shop? And often have we seamen heard how men are killed or ondone, By overturns of carriages, and thieves, and fires in London. Here she turns aside to caress a small ter- rier; but the animal, mistaking her inten- tion, barks furiously, and retreats, growl- I WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. 81 ing and ferocious, into the shop. Miss Avon is not disturbed. She walks on, and completes her nautical ballad, all for her own benefit: Weve heard what risk all landsmcn run, from noblemen to tailors, So, Billy, lets thank Providence that you and I are sailors! What on earth is that, Mary l her friend behind asks. The girl stops, with a surprised look, as if she had scarcely been listening to her- self; then she says, lightly, Oh, dont you know the sailors song? I forget what they call it. A strong souwesters blowing, Billy, cant you hear it roar now? Lord help em, how I pities all unhappy folks on shore now! You have become a thorough sailor, Miss Avon, says Angus Sutherland, who has overheard the last quotation. II like it betterI am more inter- ested, she says, timidly, since you were so kind as to show me the working of the ship. Indeed, says he, I wish you would take command of her, and order her pres- ent captain below. Dont you see how tired his eyes are becoming? He wont take his turn of sleep like the others; he has been scarcely off the deck night or day since we left Canna; and I find it is no use remonstrating with him. He is too anxious; and he fancies I am in a hurry to get back; and these continual calms prevent his getting on. Now the whole difficulty would be solved if you let me go back by the steamer; then you could lie at Portree here for a night or two, and let him have some proper rest. I do believe, Angus, says his hostess, laughing in her gentle way, that you threaten to leave us just to see how anx- ious we are to keep you. My position as ships doctor, he re- torts, is compromised. If Captain John falls ill on my hands, whom am Ito blame but myself ? I am quite sure I can get him to go below, says Mary Avon, with decision quite sure of it. That is, especially, she adds, rather shyly, if you will take his place. I know he would place more dependence on you than on any of the men. This is a very pretty compliment to pay to one who is rather proud of his nautical knowledge. Voa. LX.No. 355.6 Well, he says, laughing, the re- sponsibility must rest on you. Order him below, to-night, and see whether he obeys. ~If we dont get to a proper anchorage, we will manage to sail the yacht some- how among usyou being captain, Miss Avon. If I am captain, she says, lightly though she turns away her head some- what I shall forbid your deserting the ship. So long as you are captain, you need not fear that, he answers. Surely he could say no less. But it was still John of Skye who was skipper when, on getting under way, we nearly met with a serious accident. Fresh water and all provisions having been got on board, we weighed anchor only to find the breeze die wholly down. Then the dingey was got out to tow the yacht away from the sheltered harbor; and our young doctor, always anxious for hard work, must needs jump in to join in this service. But the little boat had been straining at the cable for scarcely five minutes when a squall of wind came over from the north- west and suddenly filled the sails. Look out there, boys ! called Captain John, for we were running full down on the dingey. Let go the rope! Let go! he shouted: but they would not let go, as the dingey came sweeping by. In fact, she caught the yacht just below the quarter, and seemed to disappear altogether. Mary Avon uttered one brief cry; and then stood paleclasping one of the ropes not daring to look. And John of Skye uttered some exclamation in the Gaelic, and jumped on to the taifrail. But the next thing we saw, just above the taifrail, was the red and shining and laughing face of Angus Sutherland, who was hoisting himself up by means of the mizzen boom~ and directly afterward appeared the scar- let cap of Hector of Moidart. It was upon this latter culprit that the full force of John of Skyes wrath was expended. Why did you not let go the rope when I wass call to you l It iss all right, and if I wass put into the water, I have been in the water be- fore, was the philosophic reply. And now it was, as we drew away from Portree, that Captain Mary Avon endeav- ored to assume supreme command, and would have the deposed skipper go below and sleep. John of Skye was very obedi- ent, but he said: 82 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Oh, ay. I will get plenty of sleep. But that hill there, that iss Ben-Inivaig; and there iss not any hill in the West Highlands so bad for squalls as that hill. By-and-by I will get plenty of sleep. Ben-Inivaig let us go past its great, gloomy, forbidding shoulders and cliffs without visiting us with anything worse than a few variable puffs; and we got well down into the llaasay Narrows. What a picture of still summer loveliness was around us !the rippling blue seas, the green shores, and far over these the black peaks of the Coolins, now taking a purple tint in the glow of the afternoon. The shallow Sound of Scalpa we did not yen- ture to attack, especially as it was now low water; we went outside Scalpa, by the rocks of Skier Dearg. And still John of Skye evaded, with a gentle Highland courtesy, the orders of the captain. The silver bell of Master Fred summoned us below for dinner, and still John of Skye was gently obdurate. Now, John, says Mary Avon, seri- ously, to him, you want to make me angry. Oh no, mem; I not think that, says he, deprecatingly. Then why wont you go and have some sleep? Do you want to be ill ? Oh, there iss plenty of sleep, says he. Maybe we will get to Kyle Akin to-night; and there will be plenty of sleep for us. But I am asking you as a favor to go and get some sleep now. Surely the men can take charge of the yacht. Oh yes, oh yes, says John of Skye. They can do that ferry well. And then he paused, for he was great friends with this young lady, and did not like to disoblige her. You will be having your dinner now. After the dinner, if Mr. Sutherland him- self will be on deck, I will go below and turn in for a time. Of course Dr. Sutherland will be on deck, says the new captain, promptly; and she was so sure of one member of her crew that she added, and he will not leave the tiller for a moment until you come to relieve him. Perhaps it was this promise, perhaps it was the wonderful beauty of the even- ing, that made us hurry over dinner. Then we went on deck again; and our young doctor, having got all his bearings and directions clear in his head, took the tiller, and John of Skye at length suc- cumbed to the authority of Commander Avon, and disappeared into the forecastle. The splendor of color around us on that still evening !away in the west the sea of a pale yellow-green, with each ripple a flash of rose-flame, and over there in the south the great mountains of Skyethe Coolins, and Blaven, and Ben-na-Cail- leachbecome of a plum-purple in the clear and cloudless sky. Angus Suther- land was at the tiller, contemplatively smoking an almost black meerschaum; the Laird was discoursing to us about the extraordinary pith and conciseness of the Scotch phrases in the Northumbrian psalter; while ever and anon a certain young lady, linked arm in arm with her friend, would break the silence with some aimless fragment of ballad or old-world air. And still we glided onward in the beau- tiful evening; and now ahead of us, in the dusk of the evening, the red star of Kyle Akin light-house steadily gleamed.* We might get to anchor, after all, without awaking John of Skye. In weather like this, remarked our sovereign lady, in the gathering dark- ness, John might keep asleep for fifty years. Like Rip Van Winkle, said the Laird, proud of his erudition. That is a wonderful story that Washington Irving wrotea verra fine story. Washington Irving !the story is as old as the Coolins, said Dr. Sutherland. The Laird stared as if he had been Rip Van Winkle himself: was he forever to be checkmated by the encyclopedic knowl- edge of Young Englandor Young Scot- land ratherand that knowledge only the gatherings and sweepings of musty books that anybody with a parrot-like habit might acquire? Why, surely you know that the le- gend belongs to that common stock of le- gends that go through all literatures ? says our young doctor. I have no doubt the Hindoos have their Epimeni- des; and that Peter Klaus turns up some- where or other in the Gaelic stories. However, that is of little importance; it * Oh yes, Mr. Yachtsman, you are perfectly correct. Sailing according to strict rules, we ought to have kept Kyle Akin light white: no douht. But then, you see, some of us had heen round this coast once or twice heforeperhaps even three or four timcs. We were not in imminent danger. WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. 83 is of importance that Captain John should get some sleep. Hector, come here. There was a brief consultation about the length of anchor chain wanted for the little harbor opposite Kyle Akin: Hectors instructions were on no account to disturb John of Skye. But no sooner had they set about getting the chain on deck than another figure appeared, black among the rigging; and there was a well- known voice heard forward. Then Cap- tain John came aft, and, despite all re- monstrances, would relieve his substitute. Rip Van Winkles sleep had lasted about an hour and a half. And now we steal by the black shores; and that solitary red star comes nearer and nearer in the dusk; and at length we can make out two or three other paler lights close down by the water. Behold! the yellow ports of a steam-yacht at an- chor; we know, as our own anchor goes rattling out in the dark, that we shall have at least one neighbor and companion through the still watches of the night. CHAPTER XV. TEMPTATION. BUT the night, according to John of Skyes chronology, lasts only until the tide turns, or until a breeze springs up. Long before the wan glare in the east has arisen to touch the highest peaks of the Coolins, we hear the tread of the men on deck getting the yacht under way. And then there is a shuffling noise in Angus Sutherlands cabin; and we guess that he is stealthily dressing in the dark. Is he anxious to behold the wonders of day- break in the beautiful Loch Alsh, or is he bound to take his share in the sailing of the ship? Less perturbed spirits sink back again into sleep, and contentedly let the White Dove go on her own way through the expanding blue-gray light of the dawn. Hours afterward there is a strident shouting down the companionway; every- body is summoned on deck to watch the yacht shoot the Narrows of Kyle Rhea. And the Laird is the first to express his surprise; are these the dreaded Narrows that have caused Captain John to start before daybreak so as to shoot them with the tide? All around is a dream of sum- mer beauty and quiet. A more perfect picture of peace and loveliness could not be imagined than the green crags of the main-land, and the vast hills of Skye, and this placid channel between shining in the fair light of the morning. The only thing we notice is that on the glassy green of the waterthis reflected, deep, almost opaque green is not unlike the color of Niagara below the Fallsthere are smooth circular lines here and there; and now and again the bows of the White Dove slowly swerve away from her course as if in obedience to some unseen and mysteri- ous pressure. There is not a breath of wind; and it needs all the pulling of the two men out there in the dingey, and all the watchful steering of Captain John, to keep her head straight. Then a light breeze comes along tbe great gully; the red-capped men are summoned on board; the dingey is left astern: the danger of being caught in an eddy and swirled ashore is over and gone. Suddenly the yacht stops as if it had ruin against a wall. Then, just as she re- covers, there is an extraordinary hissing and roaring in the dead silence around us, and close by the yacht we find a great cir- cle of boiling and foaming water, forced up from below and overlapping itself in ever-increasing folds. And then, on the perfectly glassy sea, another and another of those boiling and hissing circles ap- pear, until there is a low rumbling in the summer air like the breaking of distant waves. And the yachtthe wind having again died downis curiously compelled one way and another, insomuch that John of Skye quickly orders the men out in the dingey again; and again the long cable is tugging at her bows. It seems to me, says Dr. Sutherland to our skipper, that we are in the mid- dle of about a thousand whirlpools. Oh, it iss ferry quate this morning, says Captain John, with a shrewd smile. It iss not often so quate as this. Ay, it iss sometimes ferry bad herequite so bad as Corrievreckan; and when the flood-tide iss rinnin, it will be rinnin likeshist like a race-horse. However, by dint of much hard pulling and judicious steering, we manage to keep the White Dove pretty well in mid-cur- rent; and only onceand that but for a sec- ond or twoget caught in one of those ed- dies circling in to the shore. We pass the white ferry-house; a slight breeze carries us by the green shores and woods of Glen- 84 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. elg; we open out the wider sea between Isle Ornsay and Loch Hourn; and then a silver tinkle tells us breakfast is ready. That long, beautiful, calm summer day: Ferdinand and Miranda playing draughts on deck, he having rigged up an umbrel- la to shelter her from the hot sun; the Laird busy with papers referring to the Strathgovan Public Park; the hostess of these people overhauling the stores, and meditating on something recondite for dinner. At last the doctor fairly burst out a-laughing. Well, said he, I have been in many a yacht, but never yet in one where ev- erybody on board was anxiously waiting for the glass to fall. His hostess laughed too. When you come south again, she said, we may be able to give you a touch of something different. I think that, even with all your love of gales, a few days of the equinoctials would quite satis- fy you. The equinoctials I he said, with a sur- prised look. Yes, said she, boldly. Why not have a good holiday while you are about it? And a yachting trip is nothing with- out a fight with the equinoctials. Oh, you have no idea how splendidly the White Dove behaves ! I should like to try her, he said, with a quick delight; but directly afterward he ruefully shook his head. No, no, said he, such a tremendous spell of idleness is not for me. I have not earned the right to it yet. Twenty years hence I may be able to have three months con- tinued yachting in the West Highlands. If I were you, retorted this small person, with a practical air, I would take it when I could get it. What do you know about twenty years hence ?you may be physician to the Emperor of China. And you have worked very hard; and you ought to take as long a holiday as you can get. I am sure, says Mary Avon, very timidly, that is very wise advice. In the mean time, says he, cheerfully, I am not physician to the Emperor of China, but to the passengers and crew of the White Dove. The passengers dont do me the honor of consulting me; but I am going to prescribe for the crew on my own responsibility. All I want is that I shall have the assistance of Miss Avon in making them take the dose. Miss Avon looked up inquiringly with those soft black eyes of hers. Nobody has any control over them but herselfthey are like refractory chil- dren. Now, said he, rather more seri- ously, this night-and-day work is telling on the men. Another week of it, and you would see insomnia written in large let- ters on their eyes. I want you, Miss Avon, to get Captain John and the men to have a complete nights rest to-night a sound nights sleep from the time we finish dinner till daybreak. We can take charge of the yacht. Miss Avon promptly rose to her feet. John! she called. The big brown-bearded skipper from Skye came aftquickly putting his pipe in his waiscoat pocket the while. John,~~ she said, I want you to do me a favor now. You and the men have not been having enough sleep lately. You must all go below to-night as soon as we come up from dinner; and you must have a good sleep till daybreak. The gentlemen will take charge of the yacht. It was in vain that John of Skye pro- tested he was not tired. It was in vain that he assured her that, if a good breeze sprung up, we might get right back to Castle Osprey by the next morning. Why, you know very well, she said, this calm weather means to last for- ever. Oh, no! I not think that, mem, said John of Skye, smiling. At all events we shall be sailing all night; and that is what I want you to do, as a favor to me. Indeed, our skipper found it was of no use to refuse. The young lady was per- emptory. And so, having settled that matter, she sat down to her draught- board again. But it was the Laird she was playing with now. And this was a remarkable circumstance about the game: when An- gus Sutherland played with Denny-mains, the latter was hopelessly and invariably beaten; and when Denny-mains in his turn played with Mary Avon, he was re- lentlessly and triumphantly the victor; but when Angus Sutherland played with Miss Avon, she, somehow or other, gener- ally managed to secure two out of three games. It was a puzzling triangular duel. The chief feature of it was the splendid joy of the Laird when he had conquered the English young lady. He rubbed hi~ WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. 85 hands, he chuckled, he laughedjust as if he had been repeating one of his own good ones. However, at luncheon the Laird was much more serious; for he was showing to us how remiss the government was in not taking up the great solan question. He had a newspaper cutting which gave in figuresin rows of figuresthe proba- ble number of millions of herrings de- stroyed every year by the solan-geese. The injury done to the herring fisheries of this county, he proved to us, was enor- mous. If a solan is known to eat on an average fifty herrings a day, just think of the millions on millions of fish that must go to feed those nests on the Bass Rock! The Laird waxed quite eloquent about it. The human race were dearer to him far than any gannet or family of gannets. What I wonder at is this, said our young doctor, with a curious grim smile that we had learned to know, coining over his face, that the solan, with that cx- traordiuary supply of phosphorus to the brain, should have gone on remaining only a bird, and a very ordinary bird too. Its brain power should have been devel- oped; it should be able to speak by this time. In fact, there ought to be solan school boards and parochial boards on the Bass Rock, and commissioners appointed to inquire whether the building of nests might not be conducted on more scientific principles. When I was a boyI am sor- ry to sayI used often to catch a solan by floating out a piece of wood with a dead herring on it: a wise bird, with its brain full of phosphorus, ought to have known that it would break its head when it swooped down on a piece of wood. The Laird sat in dignified silence. There was something occult and uncanny about many of this young mans sayings they savored too much of the dangerous and unsettling tendencies of these modern days. Besides, he did not see what good could come of likening a lot of solan-geese to the Commissioners of the Burgh of Strathgovan. His remarks on the herring fisheries had been practical and intelligi- ble; they had given no occasion for gibes. We were suddenly startled by the rat- tling out of the anchor chain. What could it mean ?were we caught in an eddy? There was a scurrying up on deck, only to find that, having drifted so far south with the tide, and the tide begin- ning to turn, John of Skye proposed to secure what advantage we had gained, by coming to anchor. There was a sort of shamed laughter over this business. Was the noble White Dove only a river barge, then, that she was thus dependent on the tides for her progress? But it was no use either to laugh or to grumble. Two of us proposed to row the Laird away to certain distant islands that lie off the shore north of the mouth of Loch Hourn; and for amusements sake we took some towels with us. Look now how this long and shapely gig cuts the blue water. The Laird is very dignified in the stern, with the tiller-ropes in his hand; he keeps a straight course enough, though he is mostly looking over the side. And indeed this is a perfect won~ der-hall over which we are making our waythe water so clear that we notice the fish darting here and there among the great brown blades of the tangle and the long green sea-grass. Then there are stretches of yellow sand, with shells and star-fish shining far below. The sun burns on our hands; there is a dead still- ness of heat; the measured splash of the oars startles the sea-birds in there among the rocks. Send the biorlinn on careering, Cheerily and all t%ether Ho, ro, clansmen! A long, strong pull together Ho, ro, clansmen I Look out for the shallows, most dignified of cockswains: what if we were to imbed her bows in the silver sand ? Another cheer! Our isle appears, Our biorlinn bears her on the faster Ho, ro, clansmen! A long, strong pull together Ho, ro, clansmen I, Hold hard ! calls Denny-mains; and behold! we are in among a net-work of channels and small islands lying out here in the calm sea; and the birds are wildly calling and screaming and swooping about our heads, indignant at the approach of strangers. What is our first duty, then, in coming to these unknown islands and straits ?why, surely, to name them in the interests of civilization. And we do so accordingly. Herelet it be forever knownis John Smith Bay. There, Thorleys Food for Cattle Island. Be- yond that, on the south, Brown and Pol- sons Straits.* It is quite true that these * Advertisers will please communicate with the 86 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. islands and bays may have been previous- ly visited; but it was no doubt a long time ago; and the people did not stop to bestow names. The latitude and longitude may be dealt with afterward; meanwhile the discoverers unanimously resolve that the most beautiful of all the islands shall hereafter, through all time, be known as the Island of Mary Avon. It was on this island that the Laird achieved his memorable capture of a young sea-birda huge creature of un- known species that fluttered and scram- bled over bush and over scaur, while Den- ny-mains, quite forgetting his dignity and the heat of the sun, clambered after it over the rocks. And when he got it in his hands, it lay as one dead. He was sorry. He regarded the newly fledged thing with compassion, and laid it tenderly down on the grass, and came away down again to the shore. But he had scarcely turned his back when the demon bird got on its legs, and, with a succession of shrill and sarcastic yawps, was off and away over the higher ledges. No fasting girl had ever shammed so completely as this scarce- ly fledged bird. We bathed in Brown and Polsons Straits, to the great distress of certain sea- pyots that kept screaming over our heads, resenting the intrusion of the discoverers. But in the midst of it we were suddenly called to observe a strange darkness on the sea, far away in the north, between Glenelg and Skye. Behold! the long looked-for winda hurricane swooping down from the northern hills! Our toi- let on the hot rocks was of brief duration; we jumped into the gig; away we went through the glassy water. It was a race between us and the northerly breeze which should reach the yacht first; and we could see that John of Skye had remarked the coming wind, for the men were hoisting the fore stay-sail. The dark blue on the water spreads; the reflections of the hills and the clouds gradually disappear; as we clamber on board, the first puffs of the breeze are touching the great sails. The anchor has just been got up; the gig is hoisted to the davits; slack out the main- sheet, you shifty Hector, arid let the great boom go out! Nor is it any mere squall that has come down from the hills, but a fine, steady, northerly breeze; and away we go, with the white foam in our wake. Farewell to the great mountains over the gloomy Loch Hourn; and to the light- house over there at Isle Ornsay; and to the giant shoulders of Ard-na-Glishnich. Are not these the dark green woods of Armadale that we see in the west? And southward and still southward we go, with the running seas and the fresh brisk breeze from the north: who knows where we may not be to-night before Angus Suther- lands watch begins? There is but one thoughtful face on board. It is that of Mary Avon. For the moment, at least, she seems scarcely to rejoice that we have at last got this grateful wind to bear us away to the south and to Castle Osprey. CHAPTER XVI. THROUGH THE DARK. Ahead she goes! the land she knows ! WHAT though we see a sudden squall come tearing over from the shores of Skye, whitening the waves as it approach- es us? The White Dove is not afraid of any squall. And there are the green woods of Armadale, dusky under the western glow; and here the sombre heights of Dun Bane; and soon we will open out the great gap of Loch Nevis. We are running with the running waves; a general excitement prevails; even the Laird has dismissed for the moment cer- tain dark suspicions about Frederick Smethurst that have for the last day or two been haunting his mind. And here is a fine sight !the great steamer coming down from the north and the sunset is burning on her red fun- nelsand behold! she has a line of flags from her stem to her topmasts and down to her stern again. Who is on board ? some great laird, or some gay wedding party? Now is your chance, Angus, says Queen T , almost maliciously, as the steamer slowly gains on us. If you want to go on at once, I know the captain would stop for a minute and pick you up. He looked at her for a second in a quick, hurt way; then he saw that she was only laughing at him. Oh no, thank you, he said, blushing publishers. Further expeditions will be fitted out for Africa, and elsewhere. The most obscure persons generously treated with. We hope, by a strict attention to business, to give satisfaction to our employers. WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. 87 like a school-boy; unless you want to get rid of me. I have been looking for- ward to sailing the yacht to-night. Andand you said, remarked Miss Avon, rather timidly, that we should challenge them again after dinner this evening. This was a pretty combination: we referred to Angus Sutherland and herself. Her elders were disrespectfully described as them. So the younger people bad not forgotten how they were beaten by them on the previous evening. Is there a sound of pipes amid the throb- bing of the paddles? What a crowd of people swarm to the side of the great ves- sel! And there is the captain on the pad- dle-boxout all handkerchiefs to return the innumerable salutationsand good- by, you brave Glencoe! you have no need to rob us of any one of our passengers. Where does the breeze come from on this still evening ?there is not a cloud in the sky, and there is a drowsy haze of heat all along the land. But neverthe- less it continues; and, as the gallant White Dove cleaves her way through the tumbling sea, we gradually draw on to the Point of Sleat, and o.pen out the great plain of the Atlantic, now a golden green, where the tops of the waves catch the light of the sunset skies. And there, too, are our old friends Haleval and Haskeval; but they are so far away, and set amid such a bewildering light, that the whole island seems to be of a pale transparent rose-purple. And a still stranger thing now attracts the eyes of all on board. The setting sun, as it nears the horizon line of the sea, appears to be assuming a distinctly oblong shape. It is slowly sink- ing into a purple haze, and becomes more and more oblong as it nears the sea. There is a call for all the glasses hung up in the companionway; and now what is it that we find out there by the aid of the various binoculars? Why, apparently, a wall of purple; and there is an oblong hole in it, with a fire of gold light far away on the other side. This apparent golden tunnel through the haze grows redder and more red; it ibecomes more and more elongated; then it burns a deeper crimson, until it is almost a line. The next moment there is a sort of shock to the eyes; for there is a sudden darkness all along the horizon line: the purple- black Atlantic is barred against that lurid haze low down in the west. It was a merry enough dinner party: perhaps it was the consciousness that the White Dove was still bowling along that brightened up our spirits, and made the Laird of Denny-mains more particularly loquacious. The number of good ones that he told us was quite remarkableun- til his laughter might have been heard through the whole ship. And to whom now did he devote the narration of those merry anecdotesto whom but Miss Mary Avon, who was his ready chorus on all occasions, and who entered with a great- er zest than any one into the humors of them. Had she been studying the Low- land dialect, then, that she understood and laughed so lightly and joyously at stories about a thousand years of age? Oh, ay, the Laird was saying, patron- izingly, to her, I see ye can enter into the peculiar humor of our Scotch stories: it is not every English person that can do that. And ye understand the language fine... .Well, he added, with an air of modest apology, perhaps I do not give the pronunciation as broad as I might. I have got out of the way of talking the provincial Scotch since I was a boyin- deed, ahm generally taken for an English- man maselfbut I do my best to give ye the speerit of it. Oh, I am sure your imitation of the provincial Scotch is most excellentmost excellentand it adds so much to the hu- mor of the stories, says this disgraceful young hypocrite. Oh, ay, oh, ay, says the Laird, great- ly delighted. I will admit that some o the stories would not have so much hu- mor but for the language. But when ye have both! Did ye ever hear of the lad- die who was called in to his porridge by his mother ? We perceived by the twinkle in the Lairds eyes that a real good one was com- ing. He looked round to see that we were listening, but it was Mary A#on whom he addressed. A grumbling bit laddiea philoso- pher too, said he. His mother thought he would come in the quicker if he knew there was a fly in the milk. Johnny, she cried out, Johnny, come in to your parritch; theres a flee in the milk. It 11 no droon, says he. What? she says; grumblin again? Do ye think theres no enough milk? Plenty for the parritch, says hekee! kee! keel- sharp, eh, wasnt he? Plenty for the 88 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. parritch, says heha! ha! ho! ho! ho ! and the Laird slapped his thigh, and chuckled to himself. Oh, ay, Miss Mary, he added, approvingly, I see you are beginning to understand the Scotch humor fine. And if our good friend the Laird had been but twenty years youngerwith his battery of irresistible jokes, and his great and obvious affection for this stray guest of ours, to say nothing of his dignity and importance as a Commissioner of Strath- govan? What chance would a poor Scotch student have had, with his test- tubes and his scientific magazines, his rest- less, audacious speculations and eager am- bitions? On the one side, wealth, ease, a pleasant facetiousness, and a comfortable acceptance of the obvious facts of the uni- verseincluding water-rates and steam fire-engines; on the other, poverty, un- rest, the physical struggle for existence, the mental struggle with the mysteries of life: who could doubt what the choice would be? However, there was no thought of this rivalry now. The Laird had abdicted in favor of his nephew How- ard, about whom he had been speaking a good deal to Mary Avon of late. And Angusthough he was always very kind and timidly attentive to Miss Avonseem- ed nevertheless at times almost a little afraid of her; or perhaps it was only a vein of shyness that cropped up from time to time through his hard mental character- istics. In any case, he was at this moment neither the shy lover nor the eager stu- dent; he was full of the prospect of having sole command of the ship during a long night oii the Atlantic, and he hurried us up on deck after dinner without a word about that return battle at bezique. The night had come on apace, though there was still a ruddy mist about the northern skies, behind the dusky purple of the Coolin hills. The stars were out overhead; the air around us was full of the soft cries of the divers; occasionally, amid the lapping of the water, we could hear some whirring by of wings. Then the red port light and the green starboard light were brought np from the forecastle and fixed in their place; the men went be- low; Angus Sutherland took the tiller; the Laird kept walking backward and forward as a sort of look-out; and the two women were as usual seated on rugs together in some invisible cornercroon- ing snatches of ballads, or making imper tinent remarks about people much wiser and older than themselves. Now, Angus, says the voice of one of them apparently from somewhere about the companion, show us that you can sail the yacht properly, and we will give you complete command during the equinoctials. You speak of the equinoctials, said lie, laughing, as if it was quite settled I should be here in September. Why not ? said she, promptly. Mary is my witness you promised. You wouldnt go and desert two poor lone women. But I have got that most uncomfort- able thing, a conscience, he answered; and I know it would stare at me as if I were mad, if I proposed to spend such a long time in idleness. It would be out- raging all my theories, besides. You know, for years and years back I have been limiting myself in every wayliv- ing, for example, on the smallest allow- ance of food and drink, and that of the simplest and cheapestso that if any need arose, I should have no luxurious habits to abandon But what possible need can there be ? says Mary Avon, warmly. Do you expect to spend your life in a jail ? said the other woman. No, said he, quite simply. But I will give you an instance of what a man who devotes himself to his profession may have to do. A friend of mine, who is one of the highest living authorities on Mate- na Medica, refused all invitations for three months, and during the whole of that time lived each day on precisely the same food and drink, weighed out in ex- act quantities, so as to determine the effect of particular drugs on himself. Well, you know, you should be ready to do that Oh, how wrong you are ! says Mary Avon, with the same impetuosity. A man who works as hard as you do should not sacrifice himself to a theory. And what is it? It is quite foolish ! Mary ! her friend says. It is, she says, with generous warmth. It is like a m2n who goes through life with a coffin on his back, so that he may be ready for death. Dont you think that when death comes, it will be time enough to be getting the coffin ? This was a poser. You know quite well, she says, that WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. 89 when the real occasion offered, like the one you describe, you could deny yourself any luxuries readily enough; why should you do so now At this there was a gentle sound of laughter. Luxuriesthe luxuries of the White Dove I says her hostess, mindful of tinned meats. Yes, indeed, says our young doctor, though he is lau~hing too. There is far too much luxurythe luxury of idle- nesson board this yacht, to be wholesome for one like me. Perhaps you object to the effeminacy of the downy couches and the feather pil- lows, says his hostess, who is always grumbling about the hardness of the beds. But it appears that she has made an ex- ceedingly bad shot. The man at the wheelone can just make out his dark figure against the clear star-lit heavens though occasionally he gets before the yellow light of the binnacle-proceeds to assure her that, of all the luxuries of civ- ilization, he appreciates most a horse-hair pillow; and that he attributes his sound sleeping on board the yacht to the hard- ness of the beds. He would rather lay his head on a brick, he says, for a nights rest than sink it in the softest feathers. Do you wonder, he says, that Ja- cob dreamed of angels when he had a stone for his pillow? I dont. If I want- ed to have a pleasant sleep and fine dreams, that is the sort of pillow I should have. Some phrase of this catches the ear of our look-out forward; he instantly comes aft. Yes, it is a singular piece of testi- mony, he says. There is no doubt of it; I have myself seen the very place. We were not startled; we knew that the Laird, under the guidance of a well- known Free Church minister, had made a run through Palestine. Ay, said he, tbe further I went away from my own country, the more I saw nothing but decadence and meesery. The poor craytures !living among ruins, and tombs, and decay, without a trace of public spirit or private energy. The dis- regard of sanitary laws was something - terrible to look~atas bad as their uni- versal beggary. That is what comes of centralization, of suppressing local gov- ernment. Would ye believe that there are a lot of silly bodies actually working to get our Burgh of Strathgovan annexed to Glasgowswallowed up in Glasgow ? Impossible 1 we exclaim. I tell ye it is true. But no, no! We are not ripe yet for those radical mea- sures. We are constituted under an act of Parliament. Before the House of Commons would dare to annex the free and flourishing Burgh of Strathgovan to Glasgow, Im thinking the country far and near would hear something of it ! Yes, and we think so too. And we think it would be better if the hamlets and towns of Palestine were governed by men of public spirit, like the Commissioners of Strathgovan; then they would be proper- ly looked after. Is there a single steam fire-engine in Jericho? However, it is late; and presently the women say good-night and retire. And the Laird is persuaded to go below with them also; for how otherwise could he have his final glass of toddy in the saloon? There are but two of us left on deck, in the darkness, under the stars. It is a beautiful night, with those white and quivering points overhead, and the other white and burning points gleaming on the black waves that whirl by the yacht. Beyond the heaving plain of wa- ters there is nothing visible but the dusky gloom of the island of Eigg, and away in the south the golden eye of Arduamur- chan light-house, for which we are steer- ing. Then the intense silencebroken only when the wind, changing a little, jibes the sails and sends the great boom swinging over on to the lee tackle. It is so still that we are startled by the sudden noise of the blowing of a whale; and it sounds quite close to the yacht, though it is more likely that the animal is miles away. She is a wonderful creatureshe is indeed, says the man at the wheel, as if every one must necessarily be think- ing about the same person. Who? Your young English friend. Every minute of her life seems to be an enjoy- ment to her; she sings just as a bird sings, for her own aniusement, and without thinking. She can think too; she is not a fool. Though she does not look very strong, continues the young doctor, she must have a thoroughly healthy constitu- tion, or how could she have such a happy disposition? She is always contented; she is never put out. If you had only seen her patience and cheerfulness when 90 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. she was attending that old womanmany a time I regretted itthe case was hope- lessa hired nurse would have done as well. Hiring a nurse might not have satis- fied the young ladys notions of duty. Well, Ive seen women in sick-rooms, but never any one like her, said he, and then he added, with a sort of emphatic wonder, Im hanged if she did not seem to enjoy that too! Then you never saw any one so particular about following out instructions. It is here suggested to our steersman that he himself may be a little too par- ticular about following out instructions. For John of Skyes last counsel was to keep Arduamurchan light on our port bow. That was all very well when we were off the north of Eigg, but is Dr. Sutherland aware that the south point of EiggEilean-na-Castlejuts pretty far out; and is not that black line of land coming uncommonly close on our star- board bow? With some reluctance our new skipper consents to alter his course by a couple of points; and we bear away down for Ardnamurchan. And of what did he not talk during the lone star-lit nightthe person who ought to have been look-out sitting contentedly aft, a mute listener-of the strange fears that must have beset the people who first adventured out to sea; of the vast expend- iture of human life that must have been thrown away in the discovery of the most common facts about currents and tides and rocks; and so forth, and so forth. But ever and again his talk returned to Mary Avon. What does the Laird mean by his suspicions about her uncle ? he asked on one occasionjust as we had been watch- ing a blue-white bolt flash down through the serene heavens and expire in mid-air. Mr. Frederick Smethurst has an ugly face. But what does he mean about those relations between the man with the ugly face and his niece ? That is idle speculation. Frederick Smethurst was her trustee, and might have done her some mischief; that is, if he is an out-and-out scoundrel; but that is all over. Mary is mistress of her own property now. Here the boom came slowly swinging over; and presently there were all the sheets of the head-sails to be looked after tedious work enough for amateurs in the darkness of the night. Then further silence; and the monot- onous rush and murmur of the unseen sea; and the dark topmast describing cir- cles among the stars. We get up one of the glasses to make astronomical observa- tions, but the heaving of the boat some- what interferes with this quest after knowledge. Whoever wants to have a good idea of forked lightning, has only to take up a binocular on board a pitching yacht and try to fix it on a particular planet. The calm, solemn night passes slowly; the red and green lights shine on the black rigging; afar in the south burns the guid- ing star of Ardnamurchan. And we have drawn away from Eigg now, and passed the open sound; and there, beyond the murmuring sea, is the gloom of the isl- and of Muick. All the people below are wrapped in slumber; the cabins are dark; there is only a solitary candle burning in the saloon. It is a strange thing to be re- sponsible for the lives of those sleeping folk, out here on the lone Atlantic, in the stillness of the night. Our young doctor bears his responsibil- ity lightly. He hasfor a wonderlaid aside his pipe; and he is humming a song that he has heard Mary Avon singing of latesomething about Oh, think na lang, lassie, though I gang awa, For Ill come and see ye in spite o them a, and he is wishing the breeze would blow a bit harder, and wondering whether the wind will die aw~y altogether when we get under the lee of Ardnamurchan Point. But long before we have got down to Ardnamurchan there is a pale gray light beginning to tell in the eastern skies; and the stars are growing fainter; and the black line of the land is growing clearer above the wrestling seas. Is it a fancy that the first light airs of the morning are a trifle cold? And then we suddenly see, among the dark rigging forward, one or two black figures; and presently John of Skye comes aft, rubbing his eyes. He has had a good sleep at last. Go below, then, you stout - sinewed young doctor; you have had your desire of sailing the White Dove through the still watches of the night. And soon you will be asleep, with your head on the hard pillow of that little state-room; and though the pillow is not as hard as a THE CONNEMARA HILLS. 91 stone, still the night and the sea and the stars are quickening to the brain; and who knows that you may not perchance after all dream of angels, or hear some faint singing faraway? There was Mary Beatonand Mary Seaton Or is it only a sound of the waves? THE CONNEMARA HILLS. I. IT was now twilight. As we advanced over the rocky path, the air, sweet with the scent of the heather, was still warm. The sky was gold and purple, the mount- ains were clothed with a rich and mellow tint, and the mists that settled between the lakes and hills were now russet, and a~,ain pearly blue. The quiet lakes re- flected the beautiful tints of the arc above, and the shrill cry of the curlew broke on the air with a strange, wild emphasis. Yesterday every leaf and sod was dark and dripping with rain, but now the heather was like a soft carpet, the vegeta- tion dry and aromatic from the ripening sun, and the tints of the landscape had the depth and richness seen in South- ern climes. We were now compelled by the ruggedness of our path to dismount, and leave the horse and car in charge of the light-footed maiden. We continued our way over a narrow stony foot-path among the furze, which here grew breast- high, until, arriving at the brow of the hill, we saw beneath us a lake almost en- circled by precipitous cliffs, one side alone opened to the mountains and sea. The lake was about a mile in length, while its breadth varied from a few yards in some places to a mile in others. A multitude of islets dotted its waters, some consisting of a mere rock and clump of brush, others large enough for a pleasure-garden or lit- tle farm, if such similitudes are not too incongruous for so desolate a scene. Do you see there beyond on the far island a curl of smoke ? asked the po- theen-maker, pointing to what I had sup- posed to be the blue mist hanging over the lake. That is our island, and on it is our still, which by the blessing of God we have run, father and son, among these hills and islands for a hundred years. We descended a steep path, carved among the bog and rocks, into a rude stairway, and arriving at the border of the lake, saw tethered there a miserable, frowzy-looking pony, which could do his forty miles with a load on his back, I was told, on a handful of oatmeal and a drain of water, and moored to a clump of brush a rickety boat, half filled with water. My companions immediately set to work bailing out the skiff, while I stood in the mud, feeling my curiosity growing cooler every moment. Before reaching the island to which the skiff now served to carry us, the potheen man rose three times to his feet, at the imminent risk of capsizing the craft. I learned that his movements would be tak- en as a signal that all was right to those who were watching from the island: without it, all the appliances of their trade would be hidden, and the spirits either buried or thrown into the lake before our arrival. On landing, we were accosted by a straight-haired, wide-browed youth of seventeen, as handsome as Apollo, but with a great deal more vivacity of expres- sion. Through the deepening twilight I descried the rank underbrush and the long ferns forming a very romantic-look- ing retreat for so vulgar and reprehensi- ble an occupation as the illicit distillation of whiskey. In a wretched hovel, without window or chimney, three men were seen through the smoke, busied with the fire and the still. They looked more like gnomes than human beings. The suffocating smoke, combined with the odor of the potheen, was more than~my inexperienced olfactories could endure, and I retired precipitately to the purer air without. Here, seated on a stone, we partook of a repast of potatoes and buttermilk. I profited by this occasion to make a sketch of my host, while he entertained me with some particulars concerning his trade. Thirty years ago, he informed me, there were between forty and fifty thousand private stills at work in Ireland, but now there are not many hundred, the most of it being made by small farmers who have a surplus of grain. Although it is sold for one-half the price of the Parliament- ary whiskey, as he termed it, the profits are still so large that, notwithstanding the severe punishment inflicted on detec- tion, it seems impossible for the govern- ment to thoroughly eradicate the evil. The islands off the Connemara coast are even more extensively occupied in its manufacture. One of the principal du- ties of the coast-guards, we are told, is the

THE CONNEMARA HILLS. 91 stone, still the night and the sea and the stars are quickening to the brain; and who knows that you may not perchance after all dream of angels, or hear some faint singing faraway? There was Mary Beatonand Mary Seaton Or is it only a sound of the waves? THE CONNEMARA HILLS. I. IT was now twilight. As we advanced over the rocky path, the air, sweet with the scent of the heather, was still warm. The sky was gold and purple, the mount- ains were clothed with a rich and mellow tint, and the mists that settled between the lakes and hills were now russet, and a~,ain pearly blue. The quiet lakes re- flected the beautiful tints of the arc above, and the shrill cry of the curlew broke on the air with a strange, wild emphasis. Yesterday every leaf and sod was dark and dripping with rain, but now the heather was like a soft carpet, the vegeta- tion dry and aromatic from the ripening sun, and the tints of the landscape had the depth and richness seen in South- ern climes. We were now compelled by the ruggedness of our path to dismount, and leave the horse and car in charge of the light-footed maiden. We continued our way over a narrow stony foot-path among the furze, which here grew breast- high, until, arriving at the brow of the hill, we saw beneath us a lake almost en- circled by precipitous cliffs, one side alone opened to the mountains and sea. The lake was about a mile in length, while its breadth varied from a few yards in some places to a mile in others. A multitude of islets dotted its waters, some consisting of a mere rock and clump of brush, others large enough for a pleasure-garden or lit- tle farm, if such similitudes are not too incongruous for so desolate a scene. Do you see there beyond on the far island a curl of smoke ? asked the po- theen-maker, pointing to what I had sup- posed to be the blue mist hanging over the lake. That is our island, and on it is our still, which by the blessing of God we have run, father and son, among these hills and islands for a hundred years. We descended a steep path, carved among the bog and rocks, into a rude stairway, and arriving at the border of the lake, saw tethered there a miserable, frowzy-looking pony, which could do his forty miles with a load on his back, I was told, on a handful of oatmeal and a drain of water, and moored to a clump of brush a rickety boat, half filled with water. My companions immediately set to work bailing out the skiff, while I stood in the mud, feeling my curiosity growing cooler every moment. Before reaching the island to which the skiff now served to carry us, the potheen man rose three times to his feet, at the imminent risk of capsizing the craft. I learned that his movements would be tak- en as a signal that all was right to those who were watching from the island: without it, all the appliances of their trade would be hidden, and the spirits either buried or thrown into the lake before our arrival. On landing, we were accosted by a straight-haired, wide-browed youth of seventeen, as handsome as Apollo, but with a great deal more vivacity of expres- sion. Through the deepening twilight I descried the rank underbrush and the long ferns forming a very romantic-look- ing retreat for so vulgar and reprehensi- ble an occupation as the illicit distillation of whiskey. In a wretched hovel, without window or chimney, three men were seen through the smoke, busied with the fire and the still. They looked more like gnomes than human beings. The suffocating smoke, combined with the odor of the potheen, was more than~my inexperienced olfactories could endure, and I retired precipitately to the purer air without. Here, seated on a stone, we partook of a repast of potatoes and buttermilk. I profited by this occasion to make a sketch of my host, while he entertained me with some particulars concerning his trade. Thirty years ago, he informed me, there were between forty and fifty thousand private stills at work in Ireland, but now there are not many hundred, the most of it being made by small farmers who have a surplus of grain. Although it is sold for one-half the price of the Parliament- ary whiskey, as he termed it, the profits are still so large that, notwithstanding the severe punishment inflicted on detec- tion, it seems impossible for the govern- ment to thoroughly eradicate the evil. The islands off the Connemara coast are even more extensively occupied in its manufacture. One of the principal du- ties of the coast-guards, we are told, is the 02 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. prevention of illicit distillation on the isl- ands, and in conjunction with the police they have to make visits as frequently as practicable for the purpose. When the chance offers, the islanders have their stills at work, and at such times have a sentinel with a telescope on a high rock to give warning of the approach of the enemy. Manufacturers from the main- land also frequently avail themselves of the favorable situation of the island to come across and make a venture. If the look-out is vigilant, a capture is rarely made. When the approach of the coast- guards or police is announced, the rapid- ity of the work of concealment is said to be marvellous. The still is taken to pieces and hidden amongst the rocks or buried in the sand, sometimes taken out to sea and sunk, with a small floating mark at- tached, and the materials secreted in va- rious ways. Every one gi-~es help except the light-house keeper and his assistants, as it is a point of honor to do all that is possible to outwit the revenue. The moon had now arisen, and shone with wonderful brightness it seemed as if the lingering twilight had melted back into day. I hurried to resume my jour- ney; and on taking leave of the illicit dis- tiller he pressed upon me a bottle of spir- its, which he assured me upon his oath to be twenty-five years old. As I sped along the road I admired Na- ture under a stran~,er and wilder aspect than I had ever seen her. The lakes and sky seemed like a flood of subdued silver light, broken by the greenish-gray of the mountains and the strips of brown heath- er; here and there jutted forth a rugged line of rocks. The gray stones, which by daylight gave a dreariness to the scene, now glittered like silver and gold. Far off we heard the roar of the sea, and the cry of the curlew, as restless by night as by day. Since leaving the potheen-makers, Elan- igan had been unremitting in beating and scolding the pony, without any apparent reason. When spoken to, he said the same thing over many times, with a thickness of enunciation that savored strongly of potheen. In answer to my suggestion that he had been imprudent in his libations, he called on a very select and respectable company of saints to witness the contrary, assuring me that nothing had passed his lips save a little luncheon. He then lighted his pipe, and relapsed into silence. After some miles the constantly recurring mountains and lakes became monotonous, the pony seemed to have lost his ambi- tion, and even my drivers whistle lacked its usual sharpness. I took out my book and read with ease by the clear moonlight, until the fleecy clouds that had slept on the horizon multiplied and darkened the sky; the wind, bearing its salty ocean odor, sighed fitfully over the moors, and warn- ed, with most solemn cadence, of an ap- proaching storm. Something of this mel- ancholy crept over me. The clouds, rap- idly gathering into huge masses, obscured the moon, and left only a few stars. Elan- igan adjusted my water-proof and India rubber coverings, and buckled around me a strap which these outside cars are al- ways supplied with as security against fall- ing. At last the storm came, and obscured everything. The monotonous sound of the ponys feet on the hard road acted like the old prescription of counting to make one sleep. Notwithstanding that great gusts of rain were dashed into my face from the hand of the storm, I fell into one of those persistent sleeps which we often experience under unaccustomed cir- cumstances, and thought of the troopers I had seen in deep slumber in their saddles during the Franco-Prussian war. The pat- tering of the ponys hoofs seemed now the glib chatter of an Irish peasant, and again and again I awoke, straining to catch their sense. Sleep still pursued me, and still came these uncomfortable awaken- ings, now caused by the jolt of the car, and now by the strap which kept me from falling to the road beneath. When I became thoroughly aroused, I found I had been asleep many hours. On the other side of the car crouched Flani- gan, with his head bored into the corner of the car; the pony was proceeding at the slowest possible walk, and I think was asleep too. The storm had passed, and the sun was rising over the distant mount- ains, which, instead of being on our right, now surrounded us. I felt stiff, cold, and fatigued, and deeply annoyed at my guides remissness. I awoke him, and reproved him in no very amiable terms. He did not himself know where we were, and his bewilderment was probably in- creased by my severity. I concluded, however, to continue, in the hope of meet- ing some one who could set us right. Ere long we descried an individual standing at the door of a hovel, smoking his matu THE CONNEMARA HILLS. 93 tinal pipe, who, upon being asked whith- er the road led, replied, To Joyces Country. Where is that ? I said, in despair. Isnt it a quare thing to say, he re- plied, in an indignant tone, that ye niv- er heard of Joyces Country ? While I was trying to excuse my igno- rance, a priest passed. I be~ged him to tell me the most direct road to Clifden; he said we would have to return and take the third road to the right: it was twelve Irish miles. I was drenched with rain, and too tired to go further without some rest or refreshment. I looked about vain- ly for a resting-place. The priest, point- ing to his own house, a cabin far off on the mountain-side, said his fare would be too humble for me; but a gentleman lives near, to whose house I will accom- pany you, and I am sure he will give you an Irish welcome. He took a seat on the car, and after fifteen or twenty mm- utes ride we arrived at a little cottage sur- rounded by trees and shrubbery. In front was an old-fashioned garden, with well- trimmed borders, and an asserAblage of dahlias looking like country girls in their Sunday finery. Even the well-trimmed thatch told of comfort: it was thick and new, and crossed by innumerable ropes, as though it defied both wind and rain. A loud knock brought an old woman to the door, who gave the priest the usual welcome, and bade us enter, adding that both master and mistress were within. We were ushered into a parlor, whose genial warmth and home-like aspect were most welcome; on either side of a large grate, that was packed with blazing turf, were great broad chairs, whose arms seem- ed outstretched to welcome us. Every- thing in the room looked at least a hun- dred years old, but an air of cleanline~i3 and care pervaded all. On the mantel- piece were some ornaments of the now celebrated old Chelsea ware a well-worn but neat carpet covered the floor, and heavy curtains hung at the window. The picture was a charming one: to complete it, two old people in the costume of Georges time were needed to fill the arm- chairs. Soon the door opened, and an old gentleman entered, followed by his gentle wife. They both welcomed the priest, who explained my troubles to them. The old lady cried out, Why are you stand- ing, when the chair is there waiting for you by the fire ?, I said I was very tired. To be sure you are, said the host, and you must go to sleep, after a cup of tea, and rest until mid-day. A Frenchman would have turned to ISNT IT A QUARE THING ~ THE PRIESTS HOUSE. 94 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the priest and added: Monsieur le curi, since it is to your good offices we owe the pleasure of madames visit, increase our obligatioh by giving us the pleasure of your company to dinner. But the Irish- man said, Bedad, father, there will be only three of us to dinner now, and as it is an unlucky number, youll make another at table for luck. Ive made three so often~ the father replied, that I suppose I owe the amends of making, when possible, the luckier number. Meanwhile my hostess hurried about, giving orders to a maid, who finally an- nonnced my room was ready. It adjoin- ed the parlor, and was, as regards comfort, a reflex of it. On a tiny three-legged ta- ble stood a miniature Japanese tea service. A fra~,rant cup of tea and a piece of bread sufficed; for the luxuries of warm water, and the bed whose snowy covers were al- ready turned down, were irresistible. I resolutely shut my eyes to the quaint fur- niture and ornaments of the room, prom- ising myself the pleasure of another in- spection after my nap. I awoke feeling fully refreshed, and set about my preparations for dinner, with some feminine regrets at having nothing in the shape of dress with which to do hon- or to my entertainers. An old piece of tapestryit was so well preserved that I only knew its date by the costumes of the figures upon itcovered the wall of one end of the room, and little oval-backed arm-chairs, covered with embroidery of the time of Louis XVI., stood around. When my toilet was completed I rang, and the maid appeared, followed by her mistress, who was again so warm-hearted in her hospitality that I felt deeply touch- ed. In the parlor I found the priest and the old gentleman in warm discussion upon the question of Home Rule. I do not suppose that the fact of my being an American had any weight in the cordial hospitality of this excellent lady and gen- tleman; I am sure their greeting would have been as warm to any stranger in need of it; but they spoke with affection and interest of America. The old gentle- man added: Our poor boy went there many years ago, but he did not succeed very well. He lost his health, and came home and died; but I know a great many who, having gone there with nothing but their brogue and blunders, have amassed large fortunes. Those who go in the steer- age come back in the cabin, and those who go in the cabin come back in the steerage. In a little while, I think, there will be no Irishmen left in the land. I will confess that pleased as I was with the good people around me, I was more so when the repast was served. Although we may affect to despise the material part of life, a good dinner occupies the large portion of every travellers time and thoughts. May I stop for an instant to say how delicious were the dainty little trout and fat salmon, which were all the sweeter because they had been enjoying life a few hours before. The lobster was large and red enough to have been an alderman, if there be aldermen in the sea; and a roast of the delicious mutton that is peculiar to these mountains, along with great mealy potatoes which had burst the buttons off their jackets in a plethora of heartiness, formed part of our dinner. The national dish of bacon and cabbage stood with a kind of proud reserve, as if await- ing that homage which it knew every true Irishman would accord. Nor can I pass by without some notice the rare old china, the worn, polished silver, spread upon lin- en of snowy whiteness and finest texture, that seemed to have just issued from the family stores of some lavendered press. As we lingered over our dessert, my good priest expatiated upon the beauties of the Irish language, which is certainly the best preserved, as it is the purest, of all the Celtic dialects. It contains writ- ten remains transmitted from so remote an antiquity that it has become nearly unintelligible. Manuscripts so old that they had become ancient in the fourth and fifth centuries, and required a gloss- ary, which glossary has become nearly as obsolete as the work it was designed to explain, formed part of the possessions of this language. As an evidence of the love of the peasantry of Connaught for their own tongue, he told the story of a priest who was called upon to administer the last rites to an old woman. As he entered she spoke to him in English; he conversed with her a few moments, where- upon she began her confession in Irish. To the priest this was an unknown tongue, and he told her so. If you cant speak to me in my own language,~~ she said, what brought you here ? He replied: You u~derstand English, wherein the rites can be as well admin- istered as in Irish. THE CONNEMARA HILLS. 95 The dying woman raised herself from her pallet of straw, and angrily cried: And do you think I am going to say my last words to the great God in the lan- guage of the Sassenach ? with which she dismissed him. The priests reminiscences of his people and the antiquities of their language in- terested me so much that he was encour- aged to dwell upon them at great length. These recitals had a contrary effect, how- ever, upon our host and hostess, probably ~-~ 7 because they were no ~ longer new to them, for they were fast asleep. On parting for the even- ing, the priest proposed to accompany me to a hurling, which, he said, will give a clear- er insight into Irish character than any other scene. You will there see their fighting and their love- making, their mixture of the tenderest senti- ments with the rudest sport. I promised to defer my departure for the purpose of ac- companying him, and found the scene no less curious and character- istic than he had de- scribed. He re-appeared with the morning sun, and after taking leave of my kind entertainers, he accompanied us as far as the little village where the hurling was to take place. Our way lay over a rugged mountain road, but our slow progress was de- prived of all tedium by the beauty of the scene. Every hawthorn bush and barren stone was made bright and beautiful by a sun as warm as midsummer, but tempered by the delicious mountain air, and made musical by the robin, thrush, the piping bullfinch, the. linnet, and all the family of glorious songste~s that abound in Ire- land. - The gray gr~nite of the mountains glistened like the precious minerals which their bosoms contain, and the clear blue sky above shone with richness and brill- iancy. Far to the left of us, through a little gorge, rose the shrill and hurried notes of the pipes. Turning in that direction, we saw a procession of merry-makers. At the side of the piper a man bore a pole, upon which was suspended a basket made of laurel branches, and on the summit float- ed a green flag. The chosen bride, with her friends and companions, followed. Twelve stalwart fellows, who were her champions, were in one group, while about her were ranged as many laughing girls. Their best apparel was donned for this oc- casion, and arranged according to the taste of the wearer. The bride had on at least five petticoats and a cloak; the oth- ers varied from the same number to two or three. The worldly wealth of these mountain girls is exhibited just as much by the number and quality of their patti / ii ~ #3/ CONNEMARA COSTUM 5. 96 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. coats as is that of the most aristocratic lady by her silks and diamonds. They exhibit them by adjusting each one in such a manner that the hem of the other is seen beneath it. The cloak is seldom worn in Connemara; a petticoat serving as a mantle is nsed instead, sometimes covering the head, again prettily worn upon the shoulders, and one side thrown up to disencnmber the arm; others put the head and one arm through, and gather it up with much grace. They wound along to the village, and stopped at a shebeen, where they partook of refreshments, and joked and gossiped with each other. The priest informed me that the games of hurling were made the occasions of bringing young people together in a kind of match-making frolic. The heads of two families who have an eligible son and daughter meet and arrange the prelimina- ries of the game. The boythey are all boys in Ii eland until marriedchooses twelve companions, or groomsmen, the family of the girl selects twelve others from their relations or friends, and each party starts to the ground selected for the festivity, led by a piper ancbbanner-bearer, as we have seen. The basket made of laui~el branches which surmounts the ban- ner is filled with oranges and apples, and is planted on the ground till the con- clusion of the game, when a general scramble takes place for its contents. As nearly all assemblages of Irish rustics terminate in a fight, a good deal of skull-cracking is often done on these occasions. Matches are also made be- tween other participants of the game and the fair damsels, who how meet for the first time, perhaps, the young men of the neighboring parishes; another day for hurling is then appointed, and the same scenes are again enacted. The newly arrived party were now busy with their preparations for the game, and already beginning to circulate the inether of potheen. The boy is late, cried one, to the in- tended bride; he is going to skirt. No matter for that, said an old wom- an; shell get his equal any day: the year is long, and God is good. The shrill notes of the bagpipes an- nounced that the groom and his company were approaching. They passed through the only street of the village, preceded by a piper and a banner-bearer as before. The hurling boy, a fine stalwart fellow, and his twelve groomsmen, were followed by his family and friends. A loud shout of welcome arose from the assemblage, quickly repressed, however, as they caught sight of the priest, whom they now de- scried for the first time. Every hat was raised, and a murmur of God speed your reverence, and give you long life ! broke from every lip; and an old man stepped forward, and kneeling, asked a blessing. You see, said the priest, turning to me, I will spoil their merriment if I re- main; and to save you a disappointment, I will take my leave of you. With which he bade me adieu, and I never saw him again. The mistress of the shebeen was a tall, black-haired woman, who was busy pre- paring refreshments. When I entered she took down a chair from a nail on the wall, and giving it an extra polish with her apron, placed it for me in the chim- ney - corner. I watched her make the cakes, as they are called, and relished them so much after they were made that I can not refrain from giving the recipe. Into half a stone, or seven pounds, of flour she mixed thoroughly a small quantity of soda, and upon it she poured gradually a pint of buttermilk. The oven in which it was baked was a large iron pot with a heavy lid, on which hot coals were placed, while beneath and around it was heaped a mass of burning embers. The bread, eaten warm with fresh butter, was delicious. I turned to the window, and witnessed the game without. The poles were plant- ed in the field, where the wickets and hurls were placed, and the boys began to pre- pare for the contest. The hurl is a sort of curved bat, which they use with great dexterity. Some twenty-five or thirty were engaged in it, and all not being sup- plied with hurls, they went to work madly with feet and hands, sending the balls in every direction. Many severe blows were dealt, and many a fight took place, before the game was done. Meanwhile serious flirtations were going on among the coin- pany; even the bride so far for~,ot her po- sition as to smile upon one of her cham- pions so amiably that her intended made a frantic attempt to deface the charms of his rival then and there. The old people walked about, or sat upon the rocks talk- ing of the crops and the weather, for which they invariably blessed God when com- plaining of its severity. THE CONNEMARA HILLS. 97 While the landlady was at work, two old men strolled in for refreshment. One of them was evidently a small farmer. He wore his hat pulled down over his eyes, and appeared occupied by a matter of some weight. Talking to him earnestly and in a low tone, his companion, an old fellow with a shabby hat, shiny breeches, and much-worn shoes, looked about him with cunning eyes for the most retired nook, and pulling out an old stool, said, Sit ye there, man, and well have a pint and a talk. The colorless potheen was served them, and each drank a tum- blerful of it as if it had been water. Now, man,~~ said the smaller and older of the two, why not make a match between them? He is a smart lad, and she is a fine girl, God bless her! Just say what you will ~ give her, and we can have done with it be- fore the game is out. Well~ said the farmer, after pulling and cracking all his fingers, I have no thought of being mean. I will give her a cabin, a quarter acre of land, with the potatoes till- ed and brought to the door. There was silence on the other side. I will give her a fine feather-bed. Very good, very good, said he with the cunning eyes. Well have another pint. They were served with the fiery liquid, and smack- ing their lips over it, declared it the best. The players must be near through. The farmer, staring in the bottom of the cup, added, I will give her fifteen pounds in gold. A short quick laugh from his com- panion was the response: Thats very good, man; you are doing well, God bless you ! Her mother will give her the best of petticoatsand that is about all. And enough it is, if her mother would not forget the old silver beads, so that she voL. LX.No. 355.7 - - --- A can prepare her soul for heaven when the end comes. What, then, said the other, a little defiantly, has your boy got ? Drawing his stool closer, and fixing his little gray eyes on the old man, he said, Sorra a hapenny; but hes a good lad for all that, and can knock as much work out of a day as any boy in the country, and in a fight can bate anybody that stands before him. It isnt a fighting man I want for my daughter, responded the farmer, testily; theres little good comes of it. Well, well, he need not do that same but hes good for it if wantin. Ill not stand for money, as hes a nate, tidy boy : the farmer was some- what mollified. Ill buy him a boat, and he can knock his living out of it. Long life to ye! Shall it be next Thursday? Ill stop to-night to see the priest and have it all ready. To my horror, the farmer now called for another pint, with which they sealed their bargain. In spite of all the wishes and mano~u- vres of the parents, the boys and girls meet sometimes others whom they prefer, and the match falls through. cLIFDEN. 98 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. I saw from the window that the game weather and dry roadsa few hours of was about finished. A dash was made for sun and wind suffice to dry this soil the poles, the apples and oranges were tempted me to walk. I sat down upon a scattered about, and the players strug- rock that overhung the road, and sketch- gled madly for the fruit. Shouts and ed one of the most beautiful little lakes I SOME ART CONNOISSEURS. yells of pleasure and wrath filled the air. Not a leaf of laurel or piece of fruit was left uncrushed. After partaking of the buttermilk bread, tea, and whiskey, they prepared for the dance. The suitor took his bride, and the attendants paired off for a jig, which was entered into with sur- prising spirit and energy, to the shrill ac- companiment of the two bagpipes, which made up in vigor what they lacked in time. After a while the old folks left their bread and tea to join in the dance, aroused by the notes of some old Irish air, and hobbled off as merrily, if not as brisk- ly, as the youngest of them. In passing the hats of the pipers, each dancer be- stowed a piece of money. We again set out for Clifden. Plani- gans luncheon on this occasion not hav- ing been of an intoxicating nature, he was fully alive to his duties. The fine had seen on my travels. Its waters gleamed in the sun, and the little islands basked on its bosom, the homes of innumerable birds. Not a sound broke on the airthe songs of birds seemed to en- hance rather than mar the stillness that reigned. I had finished a sketch of this charm- - - - ing spot, when a rag- ged boy approached, leading a little girl, who was vainly try- ing to screen herself behind him; another in petticoats brought up the rear. Observing my occupation, they had, with more intelli- gence than most peas- ants, divined its char- acter, and begged me to take their likenesses. Notwithstanding this ardent spirit of patron- age for the arts, I could not conscientiously ad- vise an artist to take up his abode in that region. The urchins, like the most civilized of amateurs, were pleased to see themselves on paper. Thc eldest, after looking at the drawing for some time, said, That 11 do. Our road now led through a ravine, past the hovel, miscalled a house, from which this little brood had come. It ad- mitted the rain, and did not keep out the cold. I asked their father, a stalwart fellow clothed in rags, with an anxious expression of face, why his landlord did not repair the hut. Oh, your honor, he replied, he would tell me to lave it. And lave it I must this year, for the potatoes are black, and where can we get money to pay our rent? A society gives us free tickets now for Australia, and though I am sorry to lave the old country, I must go, for the childers sake. /Y ~ ~/b. C? THE CONNEMARA HILLS. 99 As I left him standing by his wretched one more miserable than the rest, I home, with his poor little family around thought, from which emerged an old him, ready any minute to leave their land woman, who gave him two or three pota- forever, Goldsmiths lines seemed more toes. One would suppose this poor wom- sadly true than ever: an a more pitiable object of charity than Scourged by famine, from the smiling land the beggar upon whom she bestowed her The mournful peasant leads his humble band; mite. All over Ireland one meets the And while he sinks, without one arm to save, strange spectacle of the poor begging The country bloomsa garden and a grave. from the poor: there seemed to be none Further on, where a few sheep were so abject in their poverty but that anoth- sunning themselves on the rocks, and er can be found still more wretched. some long-haired cattle sniffing for rain, One does not often find a more beauti- we passed a little whitewashed cottage, at fully situated town than Clifden. It the door of which stood a beautiful girl, seems to have been placed by a poet whose talking, with laughing and blushing face, sole consideration was setting a pictur- to a knee-breeched swain, who, leaning esque village in a situation where it both upon the back of his ass, unmindful of a adorns and is adorned by the surrounding listener, poured into her ears, I doubt not, mountains and sea. As we approached it the story which in all climes and among I was fascinated by its beauty, and prom- all classes is still the same. At least such was the verdict of Flanigan, who, eying them through a whiff from his pipe as we rode by, laconically remarked, Courting. They were probably arrangingmatters with much less parade and a happier result than the match - makers I had quitted a few hours be- fore. Impelled by that curiosity which is too generally admitted an endowment of our sex to need apology here, I stopped and asked the shortest road to Clifden. The man, who had no mind to be interrupted in his love - making, vouch- safed no reply; but the girl, with that woman- ly address which nev- er appears to be do ing what she is doing cOURTING. most, left her lover, and pointing to a hill before us, said, ised myself a repose of some days in this Clifden is just beyond; you can see it charming spot. This anticipation, how- from the top of the hill. ever, was doomed to a bitter disappoint- Just before arriving at Clifden we ment. As a reverse to the beautiful pic- passed through a collection of miserable ture presented by the town from a dis- huts, which is hereabouts dignified with tance, I found houses and people, on a the title of a village. A forlorn beggar, near inspection, the most insipid, com- going from door to door, stopped before mon, and utterly uninteresting I had ever 100 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. seen. The buildings, comparatively new, for the most part unpainted, had a piti- able look of cheap respectability. In- deed, it had the appearance of a town built by contract, but which the abscond- ing contractor had heartlessly abandoned before completion, so that houses and streets seemed to be hopelessly waiting for their finishing touches. When we arrived at the hotel door my enthusiasm was in this manner almost entirely dis- pelled; but when I entered the imposing- looking hostelry, the wood of whose doors and windows grinned through a single coat of paint, as if in mockery of their disguise, my heart sunk within me. New as the place was, at its very threshold I perceived a musty odor. The reckless flinging about of chops, potatoes, and dusting rags, so eminently characteristic of Irish hotels, was evidently here in its carnival season. When I have more leisure I will write a dissertation upon Irish landlords, who always greet their guests as if they were a bad bargain, only accepted from a force of circumstances, who always have the air of grand gentlemen that have seen better days, and who are excessively punc~ tilious in their ideas of the consideration due them. The landlord in this case had greasy lapels to his coat, and a profusion of garnet studs in his bosom. His hair, of which he wore an elegant sufficien- cy, shone with a pomade which I think even he would have changed had his nose occupied any other place than the centre of that radius of perfume which he bore about him. The table dh6te, served with great pre- tension and formality, would have speed- ily quieted the keenest appetite. Even in this out-of-the-way place I descried among the guests at table a fellow-countryman in a tall lank youth with a small head, long neck, and untrim- med hair. His noncha- lant manner, and the peculiar dry contempt with which he meas- ured everybody and ev- erything, apart from being a birthright of Americans, had some- thing familiar in it. I recognized a youth who had impressed himself upon my memory a year before, during a visit to the Tower of London. He had ex- cited my interest by the silent pertinacity with which, while his keen and restless eye wan- dered unceasingly over every object, he had masticated the same mouthful of tobacco from the court-yard, through thewondrous collection of ancient arms and armor, past the Koh-i-noor and crown jewels, till he ar- rived at the cell where we were informed Sir Walter Raleigh had been imprisoned thirteen years; thereupon he expectorated sufficiently to remark, It was good for him. When I went to my window the next morning a terrible Atlantic storm was venting its fury upon the town. The gusts of rain beat against the window and streamed down the panes, and the wind seemed to shake the house from its very foundations. The chamber - maid who entered to make the fire dropped a court- esy, and saying good - morning, added, Its a cruel day, maam, glory be to God ! I, THE WIDOW 5 MITE. YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. IITHAT sort of people were we to meet to-night? Pleasant people, you said. And clever people, from Edinburgh and London, visitors in the house. Lady Symington brought one or two of them to call here to-day. I liked them. And I am sure they liked you, my darling, said Roderick, with a tender pride. Well, it will b~ rather nice to go back for an hour or two to the old life, and rest ones ears from the endless buzz of machinery. Though I am fond of ma- chinery, added he, hastily and cheerily. It is like presiding as a temporary prov- idence over a cosmogony of ones own making; taking care that all the wheels are kept going; doing ones utmost, and waiting calmly the final result, as one must in all things. Yes, I enjoy my work, and I mean to enjoy my play, if I am not too tired. He had come in very tired; he often did; but, refreshed with tea and tender words, had now begun dressing for the Symington dinner, putting on his dia- mond studs, brushing out his curly hair; and his wife could see he rather liked the proceeding. He was a young man still. She was young toonot at all above the pleasure of making herself pretty, as he told her she looked in her white wedding dress, with her wedding veil transmuted into a shawl. He admired herthey mutually admired one anoth- er, and took a childish pleasure in the same. I wish I could give you a carriage, sighed Roderick, as he muffled her in hood and plaid for the ten minutes walk un- der the fir woods, through the clear frosty December night. I am content with my own two feet, dear. Lady Symington offered the car- riage, but I declined. Quite right. The poorer we are, the more independent we will be. Always stick to the principle, Owe no man any- thing. Except to love one another, Si- lence added, gently. . I cant help lov- ing herthat sweet old ladyhowever rich she is. And she is so cheerful, too. How she laughed at my thick boots, and showed them to the two young ladies she had with hermost gentlemanly young ladies, who dress almost like men, and pity themselves for being only women. Now it may be very conceited of me, dear, but I never wished to be a man in all my life. Thank Heaven for that ! said Roder- ick, with such energy that they both burst out laughing, and so started merrily, lan- tern in hand, through the solemn fir wood, and across the open, breezy, star-lit moor. Silence clung to her husbands arm. This feels like the old daysthe days when you used to walk home with us at night. She paused, and then contin- ued, in the low smothered tone which he had learned to understand now: Did you ever think then that I loved you that it was heaven to me just to walk be- side you for a quarter of an hour? and now we walk together alwaysthrough lifeinto eternity. NoI shall not lose you even there. He pressed her little hand nearer his heart, but said nothing. They walked on, watching the round red moon, which was creeping up slowly through a cleft in the hills. Neither said, How beautiful ! just as neither said, I am happy ; but they knew it without speaking. So they reached, two humble pedestri- ans, the Symington hall door. Are you afraid ? asked Roderick, as they paused to let a carriage pass them the Castle Torre carriage, full of very re- splendent MacAlisters. Not afraid of my host and hostess, but very much afraid of the butler, the foot- man, and the groom of the chambers. Nevertheless, let us face even them, CHAPTER XII.

YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. IITHAT sort of people were we to meet to-night? Pleasant people, you said. And clever people, from Edinburgh and London, visitors in the house. Lady Symington brought one or two of them to call here to-day. I liked them. And I am sure they liked you, my darling, said Roderick, with a tender pride. Well, it will b~ rather nice to go back for an hour or two to the old life, and rest ones ears from the endless buzz of machinery. Though I am fond of ma- chinery, added he, hastily and cheerily. It is like presiding as a temporary prov- idence over a cosmogony of ones own making; taking care that all the wheels are kept going; doing ones utmost, and waiting calmly the final result, as one must in all things. Yes, I enjoy my work, and I mean to enjoy my play, if I am not too tired. He had come in very tired; he often did; but, refreshed with tea and tender words, had now begun dressing for the Symington dinner, putting on his dia- mond studs, brushing out his curly hair; and his wife could see he rather liked the proceeding. He was a young man still. She was young toonot at all above the pleasure of making herself pretty, as he told her she looked in her white wedding dress, with her wedding veil transmuted into a shawl. He admired herthey mutually admired one anoth- er, and took a childish pleasure in the same. I wish I could give you a carriage, sighed Roderick, as he muffled her in hood and plaid for the ten minutes walk un- der the fir woods, through the clear frosty December night. I am content with my own two feet, dear. Lady Symington offered the car- riage, but I declined. Quite right. The poorer we are, the more independent we will be. Always stick to the principle, Owe no man any- thing. Except to love one another, Si- lence added, gently. . I cant help lov- ing herthat sweet old ladyhowever rich she is. And she is so cheerful, too. How she laughed at my thick boots, and showed them to the two young ladies she had with hermost gentlemanly young ladies, who dress almost like men, and pity themselves for being only women. Now it may be very conceited of me, dear, but I never wished to be a man in all my life. Thank Heaven for that ! said Roder- ick, with such energy that they both burst out laughing, and so started merrily, lan- tern in hand, through the solemn fir wood, and across the open, breezy, star-lit moor. Silence clung to her husbands arm. This feels like the old daysthe days when you used to walk home with us at night. She paused, and then contin- ued, in the low smothered tone which he had learned to understand now: Did you ever think then that I loved you that it was heaven to me just to walk be- side you for a quarter of an hour? and now we walk together alwaysthrough lifeinto eternity. NoI shall not lose you even there. He pressed her little hand nearer his heart, but said nothing. They walked on, watching the round red moon, which was creeping up slowly through a cleft in the hills. Neither said, How beautiful ! just as neither said, I am happy ; but they knew it without speaking. So they reached, two humble pedestri- ans, the Symington hall door. Are you afraid ? asked Roderick, as they paused to let a carriage pass them the Castle Torre carriage, full of very re- splendent MacAlisters. Not afraid of my host and hostess, but very much afraid of the butler, the foot- man, and the groom of the chambers. Nevertheless, let us face even them, CHAPTER XII. 102 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. said Roderick, gayly, for I am deter- mined to have a pleasant evening. It felt like it when, having passed bravely through the ordeal of the en- trance hall, they found themselves in the fine old drawing-room, rich with the rel- ics of a dozen generations of Symingtons, where Sir John and his wife received their guests. There was once a popular song, If I had a thousand a year, wherein the sing- er describes what he would do with that noble incomecounted but a small one nowadays. But ten thousand a year- what could one do with that? I think, precisely what Sir John Symington did. A rich man, of cultivated tastes, with every right to gratify them, knowing enough of sorrow to humble his heart to- ward God and soften it toward his neigh- bor; gifted with not only the power but the will to do good, and having lived long enough to reap the fruits of an honorable youth in a calm old age. Such a man is, spite of his riches, not unlikely to enter the kingdom of heaven. Ay, even in this world, as you could see by his contented look, and quiet, stately bearing. They were indeed quite a picture, this old couple; he, tall and thin, she, round and rosy, with a cheek like a girl, and a smile like a child, as they came forward to meet the young couple, to whom life was only at its beginning. Thine own friend and thy fathers friend, forsake thou not. Mr. Jardine, it is kind of you to come here to-day. I hope it will be not the last time by many that Blackhall honors Symington by en- tering its doors. These words, spoken with antique for- mality, and in a rather loud toneSir John was slightly deafwere heard by everybody. Everybody saw, too, how Lady Symington kissed Mrs. Jardine on both cheeks, foreign fashion, in cordial welcome. This might have been chance, or wise and kindly intention, but it had its effect. The MacAlisters, and all the other neighbors, came forward at once, ignoring both the poverty and the mill- work, and added their greetings. These old families, as well as the clever Eng- lish guests, were much simpler, Silence found, both in manners and toilets, than the Richerden people. Very soon they made her feel thoroughly at home. The more so as she saw her husband was at home likewise. There is in some houses an unconscious atmosphere of domestic and social ozone, which brightens everybody. Wealth can not give it, nor poverty take it away. As they went in to dinner, Mrs. Jardine leaning on Sir Johns arm, as the stranger and the bride, she and Roderick smiled at one another, satisfied. It was a recherch6 rather than a sump- tuous meal, not one of those where the guests are evidently far less important than the food. And it was short, too an hour and half being, the host said, quite enough to spend over eating and drinking. Also, not long after the ladies retired, the gentlemen followed them. You see, having been much abroad, we have adopted the best of foreign cus- toms, said Lady Symington, smiling to see Mrs. Jardines smile at the unexpect- ed apparition of her husband behind her chair. Sir John likes a pleasant even- ing, good talk and good music, quite as well as a good dinner; and I like it much better. Indeed, I am afraid I am very fond of society. So are we, said Roderick, looking down on his wifes happy face. And just as his host called him to join a group of men, every one of whom was some- body,~ or haJ done something, he found time to whisper, You were quite right, Silence; I am glad we came. After that she watched him, talking, listening, and being listened to, holding his own always with his habitual courte- sy, but nevertheless with the firmness and self-respect of a man who has cast his lot in life, whose fate is fixed, and heart at rest, so that he is now ready for the work of the world. He stood a good way from her, scarcely looking toward herwhat need? This mingling with others made both feel only the more keenly and secure- ly the sweet inward tie my own, my very ownV As she sat in her quiet corner, that pas- sionate ambition, not for self but a dearer self, which in some womens hearts is as strong even as love, woke upno, it had already wakenedbut it seemed to make itself felt to the very depths of her soul, until there came added to it another feel- ing, roused by a few chance words she overheard. Yes, a fine fellow, a very fine fellow indeed. What a pity he is married ! Do you think so ? Just swamped; every man is, unless YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. 103 he can get that rara avis, a wife who is a help and not a hinderance, not only at home, but in society. Hush, there she is, that quiet little thing in the corner. Silence had sharp ears; at least she seemed to hear by instinct every word that was said about her husband. As the two gentlemen passed her they saw oniy the composed face, the quietly folded hands, butshe had heard. Half an hour afterward, IRoderick, a lit- tle surprised, but glad, saw her the centre of a circle, talking to all who talked to her, not only in her pretty precise Eng- lish, but in French and Germanthere were several foreigners in this cosmopo 104 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. lite house. Also, when requested by Lady Symington, she went at once to the piano and sang. It was a very simple song; their favor- ite, 0 Nannie, wilt thou gang wi me ? but after it came a hush, and then a burst of involuntary delight. Yes, that is my wife, Silence heard her husband answer to some one, very briefly; but she caught both the look and the tone. She went back to her seat, all her nervousness gone. She could face the world now. He was not ashamed of her. Human nature is human nature after all. Many a good man loves with patient tenderness a wife very inferior to him- self; many a woman upholds faithfully before the world the man she has mar- ried, who, all the world sees, and wonders sometimes if she sees, is altogether un- worthy of her. This is right, noble; but it is also a little sad. The perfect bond, the true marriage, must always be be- tween those who not only love, but are proud of one anotheras were these. The evening slipped by fast, so fast that the guests were already leaving; but Lady Symington begged the Jardines to stay a few minutes more. Well, the moon is full, and our horses will not catch cold by standing, said Rod- erick, gayly, to his wife. He was so thor- oughly enjoying himself that, for the first time, he did not notice the little tired face. But Lady Symington did, and put Silence in her own arm-chair, secured round by curtains, above which hung the sweet pic- ture of the long-dead boy. Upon it the eyes of both women, the young and the old, met tenderly. He must have been so pretty, Silence said. Yes. Almost like an angel, or it seems so now. He was a Christmas child. This Christmas he would have been thirty-nine, no, forty years old. How strange ! The old lady spoke calmly, as old peo- ple learn to do. And then, like one ha- bituated to repress herself and think of others only, she added: Your husband is not near forty yet; he could not be, for Henry Jardine mar- ried late in life. Sir John lost sight of him after that, but he was always very fond of him. We thought him so clever, so sure to make a name for himself one day. Perhaps his son will. I hope he will; yes, he shall. The words were brief, but there was a sudden flash in the eye, indicating the faith which creates the hope, and the will which brings about both. And then, startled at herself, Silence shrank back behind the curtains of her pleasant nook, glad to hide for a few quiet minutes after the efforts even of their happy evening. She strained her ears to catch her hus- bands voice, but instead she only heard the idle buzz of conversation behind her, little heeded, until her own name struck her ear. Jardine? surely I met a Mrs. Jardine at Richerden last week. Could she be a relative, mother or aunt, to that young fellow? Impossible I Why impossible ? Oh, Mrs. MacAlister (the speaker was one of the Symington guests), if you had seen her! Astonishing in ac- cent, and, still more astonishing in dress; clannish, as I suppose you Scotch would call italways talking of her family, and evidently considering it the most im- portant family in all Scotland. She had three daughtersone married to a man, Thomson ugh! a nice son-in-law to have! You should have seen him in the drawing-room after dinner. But she nev- er spoke of any son. Still, I believe this is her son. You dont say so! That coarse, ig- norant, vulgar woman ? At this talk heard quicker than it takes to write, and impossible not to hear, for the speakers were behind the curtain Silence looked at her companion, whose eyes were cast down on the carpet. Mak- ing some remark quite foreign to the sub- ject, Lady Symington rose; then, seeing the poor little scarlet face, she let all po- lite pretenses drop. My dear, les absents ont toujours tort. Let it passwe will move away. How can I let it pass? It is not true. And she is his mother. It can not be true. If it were, said tbe old lady, quietly, it could not affect any right-minded people. Your husband is what he is, a Jardine of Blackhall, and the very image of his father. Still, a mother is a mother always. I had one once. In another moment, putting aside Lady Synmingtons detaining hand, she stood before the two ladies. I beg your pardon, but I overheard YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. 105 you. I could not help overhearing. You mistake. Mrs. Jardine, my mother-in- law, is a very good woman. Her chil- dren love her much. Uneducated she may beher father was a working-man but coarse, vulgarit is impossible. Whether or no, said the young Lon- don lady, equally touched and surprised, I am sorry I said it. It is a certificate of merit to any woman that her sons wife should be so fond of her. The poor little face, pale with pain, flushed visibly. It is not that; it is be- cause of the injustice. One should never let an injustice pass if one can help it. The eager voice, pathetic even in its in- dignant pride, the manner so simple and straightforward Mrs. MacAlister said next day that young Mrs. Jardine was the oddest and most unconventional young lady she ever knew; but there was no mistaking her meaning. Both ladies felt themselves, as the younger expressed it, quite shut up, and made no end of incoherent apologies. Silence accepted them smiling. It does not matter, since only I heard you not my husband. Just then, turning round, she saw Rod- erick standing beside Lady Symington, and was quite certain, by the expression of his face, that he had heard, or guessed, everything that had passed. He said nothingwhat was there to say ?only came forward, bowing with almost more than his usual rather stately courtesy to the two ladies, drew his wifes arm in his, and making their adieux to their hostess, took her away immediately. Not until they had got out into the dark the quiet, soothing, solitary nightdid he break out in a passion of anger and grief. Coarse! vulgar! how dared they say it? Ignorant she may be. How could she be otherwise with her up-bringing? But she is, as you said, a thoroughly good woman. Thank you for saying it; thank you, my darling, for being so generous to my poor mother. Not generous, only just, whispered the soothing voice. I could not be un- just to any mother, least of all to yours. They did not know her, those people, and they were sorry. You heard them say so. I heard all; I was close by; but how could I speak! Coward that I was! It was you who were brave. Again, thank you, my darling. They walked on a while in total silence, then Roderick burst out again: Yes; she is my mother. No unkind- ness can alter that. And she has done nothing really wrongnothing that can make me cease to respect her. Her weak- nessesI know them every one. It is nonsense to say children should not see their parents faults; they must and do. But then there is the love that covers all. She loved me too, once. If I saw her this minute, I believe I should forget every- thing except that she was my mother my dear old mother. And a great sudden sob, like a boys, be- trayed what his wife had long guessed the pent-up grief which even she could not wholly heal. It was hard, very hard; but Silence was neither hurt nor offended. Faithful in one thingfaithful in all, she murmur- ed. Clasping both her hands round his arm, she crept still closer to the true heart; all the truer and dearer because even its love for herself had failed to deaden any other lawful tenderness. Forgive me, my wife. You must not think that I think only of you, and of your bit- ter pain. It must be conquered, and shall, by- and-by. Or else the tide may turn; who knows ~ No, I have little hope of that. My mother has strong prejudices. In one sense she is, as they called her, a thor- ough Scotchwoman, a warm friend, a bitter enemy. No, no, do not give me hope of things changing. Better let us submit to the inevitable. It is inevitable now. They walked a little way in sad silence, then Roderick broke out again: Did you hear what they said about Bellas husband? Poor Bella! I knew it would come to that; I told her so, but she would not believe me. She was dazzled, blinded, overpersuaded. Girls often are, I suppose. Perhaps I ought to have spoken out more thoroughly; but I hated speakingthey never would understand me. And then they worried me so! Still, I should have done my duty to them, whether or no. I have not liked to vex you, my darling, but sometimes I have vexed myself for days together with the doubt if I had really done my duty to them all. I can not forget them. My dearest 106 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. my very dearest alwaysyou would not wish me to forget them ? No. Thank you. And then, with anoth- er half sob, he recovered himself. Now we understand one another quite; so let us put it all aside. What is done, we can not undo; we would not if we could. Blood is thicker than waterespecially with us Scotchbut love is beyond all, and stron- ger than all. When it is righteous love. Ours would not have been such if it had made us do wrong. We did not do wrong. We had a right to marry if we chose. It made us happy, and it harmed no human being. Firm and fearless, holding the bal- ance even, and as just to herself as she would have been to any other woman, Si- lence spoke out. Her voice soothed and strengthened him as if it had been the voice of his own conscience. You are right, as I think you always are. After all, if it comes to the point, a man must leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and she will cleave to himeven though he may try her a little. Do I ? Man-like he might have wished this fact denied; but Silence was too honest. Yes, dear ; and just then, as they came out of the dark wood into the moon- light, her pale face seemed to gain a sort of Abdiel-like look, angelic sternness min- gled with its sweetness. Yes, dear, you do try me very much sometimes, as no doubt I do you, as all married people must, more or less, try one another; but I love you I love you ! Do you? I often wonder why, Rod- erick answered, with that almost child-like humility and doubt of himself which was so pathetic, so winning. I love because I honor, and there- fore I am afraid of nothing; because nothing could make me cease to love, ex- cept ceasing to honor. Me, myself, you might forsake, wound, torture, and if it were for conscience sake, I should accept it all, and love you through all. But if I ever came to despise youas some wom- en have to despise their husbandspity might last, and duty; but love would go dead out, and no power on earth would light it up again. But nowbut now She turned to him, her eyes shining with perfect trustthe very heart of love, love rooted in righteousness. He turned too, and clasped her in his arms, with a passion such as even his lover days had never felt. Then it was the restless crav- ing after uncertain bliss. Now it was the deep content of satisfied union, each find- ing in the other more and more every day a perpetual refuge and rest. My mother told me I should soon get over my love for you, and marry some other woman, who would do just as well. If it had been, and I had lost you, and had to live all my life without you! But now Oh, Silence, what in the world should I do without you now ? Without answering she looked up at him, a sudden, strangely earnest look. Roderick, who had begun with a laugh, as if anxious to get back into the light commonplace of life once more, put his arm round her. Are you tired? Let me help you. I think I could almost carry you. Lean on me, darling. Yes. I always do. And so, half led, half carriedfor she was evidently very wearythey came to their own door. What a pleasant door it seems I Rod- erick said, as they watched the long gleam from the parlor window across the dark lawn. I enjoyed Symington. I like luxuries, as I like all pleasant things, but I can do without them. Now there are certain things I could not do without. What are they ? A peaceful, sunshiny, orderly home, and a wife to love me. She laughed merrily. Yes, it is a dear home, if we could only get into it. For they had found the door fasteneda rare factand had been ringing and ring- ing, till at last Janet appeared, scared and flurried. Have you been asleep, Janet? Noth- ing wrong? No ghosts frightening you ? said Roderick, kindly. Na, na; but the leddy, she bade me steek the door. What lady ? She came in a carriage, and said she was come to bide here. Shes been wait- ing in the parlor these two hours. Roderick went hastily in, his wife following. There, still bonneted and shawled, dressed richly in velvet and fur, but with a face so haggard that it was no wonder even her brother did not at first recognize her, sat the leddy. Bella! YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. 107 Yes its me. You didnt know me, I suppose ? Dear Bell! so glad to see you. And he went over and kissed her affectionate ly. But Bella made no response. Stop a minute, she said, in a hard, dry tone. Dont be too glad to see me. Ask your wife first. Im not respectable. Ive run away from my husband. Roderick started. Not with a manoh no, thank you! Ive had enough of menwith the ghost of her old laugh only with a baby. She opened her fur cloak and discover- ed the white long-clothes of a tinysuch a very tinyinfant, with such an old, withered, ugly little face. Nevertheless, Silence sprang to it and took it in her arms. Oh, youre quite welcome, if you want it. I dont, though its my own, said Mrs. Thomson, with another laugh. A month ago, when it was born, I hated the very sight of it, it was so like its father. Nowwell, I endure it, thats all! Isnt it a miserable scrap of a thing ? It certainly was; but in an instant Si- lence, throwing off her wraps, had sat down to warm its skinny stone-cold legs by the fire, with a look on her face that even her husband had never seen before. She seems born to be a mother, which Im sure I never was; I always hated children. They look exactly like young frogs or toads. No doubt this will turn out a toad, and spit in my face, likeonly its a feminine, not a masculine article, thank goodness! It can never grow up a man like him. Do you mean your husband ? said Roderick, gravely. To be sure. The man I was fool enough to marry. Why didnt my moth- er prevent me, as she tried to prevent your marriage? But mine was all rightor she thought so-as she thinks still. Ive got a handsome house, horses and car- riages, butler, three footmen, and a page. Didnt I dodge them all cleverly? crept out in the dark of the afternoon, and took a tramme, Mrs. Alexander Thomson a common street tramto the railway. What would Mr. Thomson have said ? Ha! ha! ha! I wish he knew it, if only just to vex him. Roderick sat down by his sister, grieved and sad. She was in such an excited state that he did not attempt a single question, but she went on rapidly talking. What a hunt therell be! Not that he cares for me, not two straws, but it isn t respectable to have ones wife run- ning away. And they will think I have gone mad, and killed the babyhe knew I hated it. But Im not mad, I am quite in my sober senses, Rody Is that a noise? I told the girl to bolt the front door: some- body might come after me, though I dont think it. And they never would imagine I had come here to you. No, said Roderick, with involuntary bitterness. Nevertheless, I being still your brother, and you having chosen to take refuge with me, you are safe. Be satisfied. He laid his hand on her shouldershe was shaking from head to foot-then un- tying her bonnet and cloak, he made her lean back in the arm-chair. Tears started to Bellas eyes. Thank you; you were always kind to me, Rody, and you have got used to womens ways, I see. But dont be uneasy, I shall not faint, I never do. Im tough, like main- ma, or I should have been killed long ago. He was such a bruteyouve no idea. That is, when he was drunk. So- ber, he iswell, only a fool! I must have been blindmany silly girls are passing her hand wearily over her eyes but, oh, Rody, fancy, to wake up after a week or two and find yourself tied for life to a drunkard and a fool! A brute too, as I say. Roderickclutching him by the armyou, a man, with a wife of your own, andyes, I know would you believe that the very day before that poor little wretch was born, he he struck me ? Roderick sprang to his feet. Dont get furious; you can do noth- ing, nobody can. Its only the drink. Hes decent enough, just a fool at most, till he drinks; then hes a devil; and I hate him as I hate the devil. Its right. Right or wrong, you must keep qui- et, said the brother, himself making a vi- olent effort at quietness and self-control. My wifethe instinctive appeal which had become habitual now my wife, come here. Silence came, with the small bundle, so piteously still, as if only half alive, in her arms. She had been going in and out of the room with it while they talked. Your bed is quite ready. Come, sister. Bella, occupied with herself and her 108 HAIIPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. brother, had apparently forgotten her brothers wife. When Silence stood be- fore herthe young mistress of the house, the woman with the womanly heart, which that forlorn babe seemed already to have found out, for it was fast asleep on her warm breastthis other woman the miserable fine lady, the mother with the unmotherly soul, was struck with a mingled feeling, half surprise, half com- punction. Yes, of course we are sisters. But I thought you would hate mehate us all. It was Roderick I ran away to. I never thought of you. That was natural. But now, all that are his are mine, as is also quite natural. Come. Bella grasped the offered hand and rose, saying, with a feeble laugh, Rody, your wife must be an exceedingly good woman. Cela va sans dire, I hope, said he, trying to laugh, as he hurried them away up stairs, and sat down over the fire, thankful to be alone. Most men dislike scenes, he more than most. The sight of his sister, the sound of her familiar voice, even down to the old boyish pet name, which belonged ex- clusively to those early dayshis wife had never used itaffected him deeply. Then, too, he was a man, with all a mans feeling about marital rights and duties. To find himself sheltering a run- away wife, though even his own sister, was very distasteful. Still, every broth- erly and manly emotion blazed up into righteous indignation at thought of Bellas wrongs. To strike heractually strike her! Poor, poor girl! If I had been at hand if she had had a brother to stand up for her ! And again his tender conscience smote him, as if he had not done half enough, as if his passive acceptance of fate had been of itself an error. Should he resist now? Seeing that his sister had come to him for refuge, should he not hide herthat was impossible; nor, had it been possible, would he have stooped to any concealment, but would have openly protected her against her husband, her mother, and all the world. His head dropped in his hands to think it over. But he had grown unused to solitary thinking now. Wearily he look- ed round for the second self, always be- side him, ready at least with the sympa thy which is often almost as good as coun- sel, sometimes even better still. But it was almost an hour, quite the middle of the night, before Silence came in. She looked very pale and tired; but there was a deep joy in her face. With her light curls dropping over her white dressing-gown, she stood beside him, a vision of peace. Dear, you put me in mind of one of Fra Angelicos angels. But I have been doing no angels work; I have been washing baby. She looked so sweet, though she is so very, very small. Then I put her to bed beside her mother, who said she felt quite safe and comfortable. Poor Bella! And youI fear you are terribly worn out, my darling ? Oh no, I like looking after people. And youyou are glad to have one of your am folk under your roof? Is it not strange, after our talk to-night ? Very strange. Andwith a kind of sad apologyyou will be good to her? You dont dislike her ? Dislike her ? No; there are likable points about her, poor girl! And she has suffered so much! What shall we do with her? I have been wearying myself with think- ing. Can she stay here ? Of course she can. We have con- trived admirably: I rather like contriv- ing. She brou~ht no clothes for herself, but she did not forget her baby. She has a great bundle of all things needful. I do believe she cares for it, after all. She laughed actually laughed when she saw it so happy in its bath, which was our wash-tub. Only think! neither she nor I had ever washed a baby before; we were quite afraid; but Janet, who has had little brothers and sisterssix, I thinkcame to the rescue and helped us. Poor Janet, she was so proud ! The simple, wholesome, domestic de- tailscomedy neutralizing tragedyRod- erick laughed at them, and felt more com- forted than he could tell. Then, turning to his wife, he pressed his lips on the small right hand, so soft, yet so busy and so strong. Coals of firecoals of fire, he mur- mured, much moved. Silence did not at first understand the allusion; then she said, Yes, coals which melt and purify all sterling ore; that was how my father always explained the text. YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. 109 And who knows? she may be softened are meant to melt. Seldom had there yet. been a brighter breakfast table than that My mother ? in the little parlor at Blackhall, even I have been hearing all about her; though Bella kept it a long time waiting how good she is, how generous and warm- which must never happen again, said hearted. And she was always so proud the young master to the mistress. But of you. She thought you ought to mar- for once both forgave; and when Mrs. ry a countess at least, and you married only me! It really was a little hard for her. Roderick drew his wife down upon his kneea Era Angelico, but a mortal woman stilland buried his head on her shoulder. He did not speak, or nothing that she could hear, but she felt his tears. The said coals of fire, when duly heaped up, warm others besides those they Alexander Thomson sailed in, her splen- did clothes contrasting strangely with her piteously white face, knelt with her broth- er and his wife round the family hearth, and then took her seat at the simple fam- ily table, all the misery outside, the dreary past, the doubtful future, could not take away a certain sense of peace. But the simple breakfast of porridge and tea, bread, butter, and eg0 s, which AS SHE SAT IN THE ARM-cHAIR, HER FEET ON THE FENDER. 110 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. always satisfied Roderick, had, to confess the truth, its difficulties with the guest. Despite her condescending smile, it was evidently not exactly what Mrs. Alexan- der Thomson was used to, and she felt that she was condescending. Also, after the first warm pleasure of meeting, both brother and sister became conscious of that curious sense of strangeness, which, notwithstanding the closest tie of blood, rises up after a while between those whose lives have drifted wide apart, never to be united more. So much so, that by-and- by, conversation flagging, it was quite a relief to hear a feeble wail overhead. Thats baby! What a bother she is! Could Janet go to her ? I will, said Silence, and vanished from the room. That wife of yours is the very kind- est of women, Rody; but I hope she will not overfatigue herself, remarked Bella, politely, though making no effort to pre- vent the fatigue. She always had a trick of never doing for herself what another was willing to do for her. And as she sat in the arm-chair, her feet on the fend- er, she looked the very picture of luxu- rious ease, except for the haggard, restless look so sad to see. I must leave you, Roderick said. You know, Bella, I am a working-man now, and get my own living. Yes, she told me. It must be very disagreeable. On the contrary, I rather like it. Daily bread, honestly earned, is far sweet- er than the old idleness. Is it? Then I wish I could earn mine. You have no need, having your own independent fortune. Yes; he cant get it, mercifully; mamma tied it up too safe. But neither can I, unless she chooses, and she will not choose. She will do nothing for me un- less I stay with my husband, like a re- spectable woman, as she says. I doubt if she will ever forgive my running away even to my own brother. Who, I suppose, is not respectable, said Roderick, bitterly. Nevertheless, she must be told. Shall I telegraph to her for you this morning ? He spoke firmly, having already made up his mind to this; but he was not pre- pared for the agony of terror and misery which came over the unfortunate wife. Tell her, and shell tell my husband, and he will come and fetch me. Not that he cares for menot a pin; but only for the sake of appearances. Oh, Rody, dont tell anybody! Keep me safehide me. If you only knew what I had suf- fered ! My poor Bell, my Heather Bell, said he, tenderly, using the old pet name he had invented for her in the days when they played together among the broom. At that she quite broke down. Oh, I wish I were a girl again. I wishI wish I had never married. Some- body once said to me that a women has always a future until she is married, then she has none. Tied and boundtied and bound forever. And I am but seven-and- twenty. That look, half appeal, half despair, it went to Rodericks heart; for he knew it was only too true. She was tied and bound with the chains she had herself riveted. Even her own brother, how- ever he pitied her, was powerless to set her free. Only seven-and-twenty, she repeat- ed. Such a long life before me. How am I to bear it? Till death us do part. And I cant die. And hehe wont die; those sort of people never do. Hush ! said Roderick, turning away aghast. You dont know what you are saying. I do know it only too well. Many a time, when, after raving like a madman, he has sunk to a mere drunken dog, and lain asleep on his bed like a log of wood, I have thought of Jael and Sisera, or Ju- dith and Holofernes, and others of those holy murderesses. If it would only please God to take him as our minister says. He would be much better in heav- en. He couldnt get any drink there. This ghastly mixture of the horrible and the ludicrous, added to what he knew of the utter recklessness of Bellas nature when roused, was almost too much for Roderick to bear. He looked instinctive- ly round for the one who now was al- ways at hand, helping him to bear every- thing; but Silence was still absent up stairs. Then, laying a firm hand on the poor violent woman, at once violent and weak-Ait is so often thushe placed her back in her chair. You are talking nonsense, Bella; you know you arethe most arrant nonsense, or worse. Dont be afraid: you have a brother still, who will do his best to take A NEW AND TRUE GHOST STORY. 111 care of you; but you must let me do it in the right way. Nothing cowardly, noth- ing underhand. Your mother, at least, must be told where you are. My wife says so. She and I were talking it over this morning. Very kind. It was kind, and wise too, was the grave reply. Silence is the wisest wom- an I know. And I the most foolish. It looks like it. Very well. Cast me off if you like. Turn me out of doors. Ill take the child and go. But it was only a hysterical impulse, which ended in a flood of hysterical tears. Utterly bewildered and perplexed, Rod- erick went to the foot of the stairs and called Silence, in the sharpest tone he had used since their marriage. Why do you leave me? You know I cant do without you, he said. Then added, as she descended, with tbe wailing child still in her arms, It is hard for you too, my wife. Our peaceful days are all done. Not quite, she said, smilingit was wonderful the sweetness of her smile whenever she had that baby in her arms. I see, when she perceived Bella, and heard her frantic sobbing. My friend (the loving mon ami which she still used sometimes), you are of no use here. Leave her to me women understand women. She will be all right soon. Take your hat and go. Outside work is quite hard enough for you. Good-by, my dearestdearest. She lifted up her face to be kissedthe pale, firm, peaceful face, such a contrast to the other oneopened the door, shut it after him, and watched him safe away. Then, with a great sigh of relief, she went back to her unfortunate sister-in-law. A NEW AND TRUE GHOST STORY. COME, my Tavvie, Jennie, Florey, Paul and Maidie, if twont bore ye Come and hear my new ghost story! Certain true it is, and therefore Something that perhaps youll care for. On the rocks well sit together, In this bless~d summer weather, Holding hands, the moonlight watching, With no fear of bad cold catching. Paul, you rogue, if you dont falter, You shall win a prime Gibraltar, And the girls shall have four others, Just as if they were our brothers. Now were seated, all is ready, So be silent, firm, and steady. Never mind, it is no matter, If your teeth do clash and clatter. They are wisdom-teeth that chatter When a true ghost story rises, Filling us with new surprises. On the beach that lies before ye Is the scene of my ghost story, And it came to pass in Ju-ly, Sure as eggs is eggs and tru-ly. Well, it really makes me shudder When I think in what a pudder That same night my nerves went jumping, And my heart kept loudly thumping. Deary me! lets all sit snugger, In a general kind of hugger, So if any sprite should bump us, Well together share the rumpus. Im a sleepless kind of fellow; Moonlight always makes me mellow; And I like to walk when people Are as silent as a steeple Where the bell-rope has been rended Twenty years, and cant be mended. So, last month, when all was stilly Midnight, moonlight, nothing chilly From our hill-top I descended, And by Masconomo wended. Overhead the stars ceased swinging; Underfoot the beach stopped singing; Not a mollusk then was stirring; Not a fairy-puss was purring; Not a love-sick periwinkle His guitar took out to tinkle; All the Sirens, silver dripping, Into amber caves were slipping; Even Neptune, that old schemer, Ventured to become a dreamer Everything and everybody Passed into the land of Noddy. I began to feel quite creepy, Thinking of a world so sleepy; Still I kept on, walking, walking, Sometimes to myself low talking,

A NEW AND TRUE GHOST STORY. 111 care of you; but you must let me do it in the right way. Nothing cowardly, noth- ing underhand. Your mother, at least, must be told where you are. My wife says so. She and I were talking it over this morning. Very kind. It was kind, and wise too, was the grave reply. Silence is the wisest wom- an I know. And I the most foolish. It looks like it. Very well. Cast me off if you like. Turn me out of doors. Ill take the child and go. But it was only a hysterical impulse, which ended in a flood of hysterical tears. Utterly bewildered and perplexed, Rod- erick went to the foot of the stairs and called Silence, in the sharpest tone he had used since their marriage. Why do you leave me? You know I cant do without you, he said. Then added, as she descended, with tbe wailing child still in her arms, It is hard for you too, my wife. Our peaceful days are all done. Not quite, she said, smilingit was wonderful the sweetness of her smile whenever she had that baby in her arms. I see, when she perceived Bella, and heard her frantic sobbing. My friend (the loving mon ami which she still used sometimes), you are of no use here. Leave her to me women understand women. She will be all right soon. Take your hat and go. Outside work is quite hard enough for you. Good-by, my dearestdearest. She lifted up her face to be kissedthe pale, firm, peaceful face, such a contrast to the other oneopened the door, shut it after him, and watched him safe away. Then, with a great sigh of relief, she went back to her unfortunate sister-in-law. A NEW AND TRUE GHOST STORY. COME, my Tavvie, Jennie, Florey, Paul and Maidie, if twont bore ye Come and hear my new ghost story! Certain true it is, and therefore Something that perhaps youll care for. On the rocks well sit together, In this bless~d summer weather, Holding hands, the moonlight watching, With no fear of bad cold catching. Paul, you rogue, if you dont falter, You shall win a prime Gibraltar, And the girls shall have four others, Just as if they were our brothers. Now were seated, all is ready, So be silent, firm, and steady. Never mind, it is no matter, If your teeth do clash and clatter. They are wisdom-teeth that chatter When a true ghost story rises, Filling us with new surprises. On the beach that lies before ye Is the scene of my ghost story, And it came to pass in Ju-ly, Sure as eggs is eggs and tru-ly. Well, it really makes me shudder When I think in what a pudder That same night my nerves went jumping, And my heart kept loudly thumping. Deary me! lets all sit snugger, In a general kind of hugger, So if any sprite should bump us, Well together share the rumpus. Im a sleepless kind of fellow; Moonlight always makes me mellow; And I like to walk when people Are as silent as a steeple Where the bell-rope has been rended Twenty years, and cant be mended. So, last month, when all was stilly Midnight, moonlight, nothing chilly From our hill-top I descended, And by Masconomo wended. Overhead the stars ceased swinging; Underfoot the beach stopped singing; Not a mollusk then was stirring; Not a fairy-puss was purring; Not a love-sick periwinkle His guitar took out to tinkle; All the Sirens, silver dripping, Into amber caves were slipping; Even Neptune, that old schemer, Ventured to become a dreamer Everything and everybody Passed into the land of Noddy. I began to feel quite creepy, Thinking of a world so sleepy; Still I kept on, walking, walking, Sometimes to myself low talking, 112 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Sometimes sotto voce chanting Songs like Shelleys, that come haunting All our fresh-awakened senses With their lovely moods and tenses. Tennyson I sang and shouted; Longfellows brave words I spouted; Homer, with his grand emotion, How I thundered to the ocean! All the bards seemed there assembled, As alone I walked and trembled. In my memories and forgeteries Never night had stich et eceteras; Never did the moon shine brighter; Never did the waves dance lighter. Warmth and coolth were gently blended, Like two lovers, Triton-tended; Every breeze came in caressing, Freighted with an amorous blessing. Solitude oped every portal. Never was a lonelier mortal! Still I trudged along, and listened Now and then, as round me glistened Sand and rock, but not a whisper Came from any human lisper. What is that so white and tiny, Moving slowly toward the briny World before meonward gliding, Pausing, resting, tripping, sliding? Heavens! what is that baby vision, Wandering there from haunts Elysian, Coming nearer, nearer, nearer, Growing clearer, clearer, clearer? Soon my hair began to bristle, And I tried in vain to whistle. Could it be a ghost invidious, Moving on with step insidious, Bent on helpless mans destruction, Like a vampire full of suction? Should I run ?that was the question. Perish such a base suggestion! No! because my limbs rheumatic Banished feats on land aquatic. Should I boldly face the danger, And regard the little stranger? Sure that form is nothing human But a pigmy faery woman! Now the figure ceases motion, Gazing out upon the ocean. What a pair of eyes to look on! What an arm for love to hook on! Oh, what golden ringlets rippled! Mouth where spirits might have tippled, And become inebriated, Kissing oft but never sated! Pearly hands just left off waving, Pinky toes in foam beds laying. What a ravishing admixture, Gracing that infantine fixture! What impelled me then to snatch up In my arms this ghostly catch-up, Who can tell? I cant determine. But I did, as if twere ermine, Or a bunch of pure white roses, Lilies, or any other posies. Yes, I did, and then, good gracious! What happened then? Dont be rapa- cious! Five young listeners know the sequel; To write it out I dont feel equal. But, if you will take your pottage Some day in our Gambrel Cottage, Ill explain to lads and lasses What the ghost was. It surpasses, Paul says, mortal comprehension, And quite worthy your attention. WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. T3J ES got the dreadfulest will, Parson 11 Roberts! Im een-amost afeard of him ef he says he will do anything, for hell do it, whether or no; and here I be, a widder, and next to nothin left in the way of means ; and then the poor little woman burst into tears. Mr. Roberts was a young man, and an honest man, so he did not say anything: his repertory of spiritual consolations was as yet small, and strictly conventional. There was nothing in it fitted to this particular dis- tress of a willful son, which really seemed a greater trouble to Mrs. White than the death of Joel, who had just expired in the lean-to bedroom. Joel had not been a help or a comfort to her for the last ten years. He had at last died of the tre- mens, as she phrased it, and left her with only the little brown house that had three rooms and a loft in it, and a half acre of garden ground. It was a bleak November day, the air sour and dark, the trees leafless, the earth sodden with chill rains, and a dreadful silence and peace settling down on this small shelter by the road-side that had for a week past resounded with shrieks and groans. Mr. Roberts had been sent

112 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Sometimes sotto voce chanting Songs like Shelleys, that come haunting All our fresh-awakened senses With their lovely moods and tenses. Tennyson I sang and shouted; Longfellows brave words I spouted; Homer, with his grand emotion, How I thundered to the ocean! All the bards seemed there assembled, As alone I walked and trembled. In my memories and forgeteries Never night had stich et eceteras; Never did the moon shine brighter; Never did the waves dance lighter. Warmth and coolth were gently blended, Like two lovers, Triton-tended; Every breeze came in caressing, Freighted with an amorous blessing. Solitude oped every portal. Never was a lonelier mortal! Still I trudged along, and listened Now and then, as round me glistened Sand and rock, but not a whisper Came from any human lisper. What is that so white and tiny, Moving slowly toward the briny World before meonward gliding, Pausing, resting, tripping, sliding? Heavens! what is that baby vision, Wandering there from haunts Elysian, Coming nearer, nearer, nearer, Growing clearer, clearer, clearer? Soon my hair began to bristle, And I tried in vain to whistle. Could it be a ghost invidious, Moving on with step insidious, Bent on helpless mans destruction, Like a vampire full of suction? Should I run ?that was the question. Perish such a base suggestion! No! because my limbs rheumatic Banished feats on land aquatic. Should I boldly face the danger, And regard the little stranger? Sure that form is nothing human But a pigmy faery woman! Now the figure ceases motion, Gazing out upon the ocean. What a pair of eyes to look on! What an arm for love to hook on! Oh, what golden ringlets rippled! Mouth where spirits might have tippled, And become inebriated, Kissing oft but never sated! Pearly hands just left off waving, Pinky toes in foam beds laying. What a ravishing admixture, Gracing that infantine fixture! What impelled me then to snatch up In my arms this ghostly catch-up, Who can tell? I cant determine. But I did, as if twere ermine, Or a bunch of pure white roses, Lilies, or any other posies. Yes, I did, and then, good gracious! What happened then? Dont be rapa- cious! Five young listeners know the sequel; To write it out I dont feel equal. But, if you will take your pottage Some day in our Gambrel Cottage, Ill explain to lads and lasses What the ghost was. It surpasses, Paul says, mortal comprehension, And quite worthy your attention. WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. T3J ES got the dreadfulest will, Parson 11 Roberts! Im een-amost afeard of him ef he says he will do anything, for hell do it, whether or no; and here I be, a widder, and next to nothin left in the way of means ; and then the poor little woman burst into tears. Mr. Roberts was a young man, and an honest man, so he did not say anything: his repertory of spiritual consolations was as yet small, and strictly conventional. There was nothing in it fitted to this particular dis- tress of a willful son, which really seemed a greater trouble to Mrs. White than the death of Joel, who had just expired in the lean-to bedroom. Joel had not been a help or a comfort to her for the last ten years. He had at last died of the tre- mens, as she phrased it, and left her with only the little brown house that had three rooms and a loft in it, and a half acre of garden ground. It was a bleak November day, the air sour and dark, the trees leafless, the earth sodden with chill rains, and a dreadful silence and peace settling down on this small shelter by the road-side that had for a week past resounded with shrieks and groans. Mr. Roberts had been sent WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. 113 for at the last moment, with that vague idea of ghostly help at the very extrem- ity that we all feel, whether we believe in it or not; but he had come too late for even an attempt at healing the sin-sick spirit: it had fled far away, and now he stood gazing out of the window at the dreary landscape, listening to the wind that cried in the spout, and the widows moans in the kitchen, with about as much idea how to exhort the one as the other; but he did the best thing after all: he knelt down at the next chair and prayed fer- vently for a comfort and help beyond mans power to give, and Mrs. Whites soul grew calm with the very lifting of her thoughts into a purer atmosphere. Two days after, the funeral was held. A scant assemblage of neighbors came in to listen to the reading of Scripture and singing, which was purposely made as in- appropriate as possible, for to utter that which was really the right thing, as far as honesty went, would have been a gra- tuitous insult to the living, and useless to the dead; but Mr. Roberts grew fairly elo- quent in the fervor of his prayer for the mother and her son, and Will White bent his handsome curly head lower still to hide the real emotion that glittered in his eyes and flushed his face as Mr. Roberts asked of the Lord that he might be a help and a stay to the old age and weakness of his remaining parent. The widow rather resented the terms in which he alluded to her age, for she was only forty-seven, as she said to herself, and felt quite com- petent for all future emergencies if Will would behave himself; but of course this little chagrin could not express itself, and Mr. Roberts never was aware of it; so the prayer did her no special good in its utter- ance, but it woke up Will to a sense of manliness and responsibility that answer- ed the petition while yet it was spoken. ~ Ill do it, he thought. And when he took his place behind the coffin, with his mother on his arm, there was a look of resolution and courage on his boyish face that struck the few who saw him, though they did not understand it. Sakes ! said Mrs. Ellis, under her breath, to another widow who walked with her. Jest look at Will White! haint he growed awful old lately ? Well, he does appear aged some, piped Mrs. Crane, feebly; but its a good deal for a boy like him to have sech a terrible shiftless }~a as hisn was. Hes VOL LX.No. 355.8 had to buckle to moren most of em, I expect. No, lie haint, was the sharp response. Hes run wild; she hasnt never had no government at all. Hes done what he darn please right along, and he wont never be no goodyou see f he is. Shell slave an slave for that feller jest as she did for Joel, and hell hey his own way, for all her, till the day after never. I wouldnt stand in her shoes for nothin. Mercy to me I if it aint a-snowin! Come, Miss Crane, hurry up. I cant stay through the prayer; I shall have rheuma- tiz for certain ef I do. And snow it did, bitterly and continu- ously, all that night and the next day, which was the old and honored festival of New EnglandThanksgiving-day. Will had to shovel a path to the wood- pile, and spent the dark cold morning bringing wood into the back shed; for Dea- con Peters had sent a load last week to Mrs. White in behalf of the church, and in odd hours Will had sawed and split it. While he put it out of reach of the weath- er, his mother went about slowly, get- ting such dinner as she could. In the vil- lage, not a mile away, fires were bright, pantries overflowing, families gathering in the old homes, children laughing, ta- bles spread with every homely dainty ac- cordant with the season; but the widow White and Will sat down to a dinner of boiled pork and potatoes, and a pot of sage tea. They did not say anything to each oth- er while the scanty meal was eatenit is not New England fashion to be social at meals, and there was nothing to warm their hearts in the poverty and solitude of their condition; and when at last it was over, and the dishes disposed of, Will sat down by the fire and cracked some nuts he had gathered a week before, and picked out the fresh meats for his mother. It was an unusual attention, and his mother thanked him with a tearful sort of smile; but he had lapsed into such a reverie he did not hear her, and she took up her knit- ting and stared out of the window at the rapid flakes that made a dizzy whirl in upper air, but fell soft as wool upon the shrouded earth, and hid its woes and scars with deep fleeces. The little womans great soft eyes grew darker as she gazed, her thin lips quivered, and her needles flew: she was looking back into a dreary past, forward into a threatening future. 114 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Nominally she believed and trusted in God; but, like a great many of the rest of us, she did not always live up to her pro- fession or intention, and just now her fears hid Him as the snow hid His heavens, and sight got the better of faith decidedly. Mother! said Will. Mrs. White jumped. She had just seen herself dying in the poor-house, and Will lost at sea: no wonder she started. Why, Will, how you scart me ! she chirped; but Will did not apologize. Mother, we wont ever have such a mean Thanksgiving again, now I tell ye. When Im ten years older, well have as good a dinner as Squire Hall, and well have it in a good house too. Oh, William White, how you do talk! Why, were moren likely to be in the town-house afore that time comes. Now, mother, you shut up! I tell you, we 11 have a good house and a good dinner this day ten years, as sure as Im alive. But mabbe youll die, Will. No, I shant. I know I shant. I aint goin to make no calculations about that. Ive sot my mind on that dinner, and well have it. Oh, Will, youre awful presumptu- ous. You aint nothin but a mortal boy, and youre leavin the Lord out of your calculations entire, seems to me. Spellin-book says the Lord helps them that helps themselves, and it looks sensible, and Im a-goin to try it on. Well, I hope youll fetch it, dear, sighed the widow, hopelessly. I will, was the confident answer; and though the widows soul recoiled from the audacity of the boys speech, yet its courage thrilled her. She turned away from the storm, lit the tallow can- dle, and put another stick into the stove small symptoms of the cheer that was kindled within her; but then the cheer was small and frail, it might not last. Like many another woman, she had never known more than the surface life of the child she had borne and nursed. Hard work; a husband who abused and impoverished her; a succession of droop- ing, sickly babies, over whose births she mourned far more than over their deaths; the hourly fight for life that absorbs the poor and sufferingall these had kept her from the close and tender intimacy with her only living child that might have given her a better understanding of the resolution, strength, capacity, and tenderness of the nature that lay hidden under the rude health and undisciplined spirits of a boy who spent most of his time out-of-doors, and was an adept at all the sports and occupations of country boys, and withal a quick scholar at the district school, though hitherto his mis- chief and merriment had made for him a bad record that overshadowed his good lessons. But his fathers death was a crisis in Wills life; his careless boyhood fell away from him like a maskers mantle, beside that dreadful and disgraceful death-bed, and the deep affection for his mother, that had been only a dormant instinct, sprang into conscious existence and action. The widow White went to bed that night with more reason for thanksgiving than she was aware offar more than Judge Hall had, whose only son came home from college ostensibly to keep the holiday, but never went back, having been expelled for the best reasons; more than Mrs. Payne could find for herself in the aspect of her beautiful daughter, who brought home with her from a New York visit an elegant youth in the character of her promised husband, and saw him be- come wildly drunk at the dinner table; yet both that father and that mother held the widow White, in the expressive lan- guage of Scripture, among those whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. The first fruits of Wills resolve were shown the next morning with conunend- able promptness: he shouldered his spade, and went into the village to clear paths. It was not a very lucrative piece of work; he got a hot cup of coffee at one place, half a pie at another, a dime here, and a few cents there, till they counted up to twenty-five, and when he came home at night to a supper of cold pork, rye bread, and baked potatoes, he was hungry enough, in spite of the pie and coffee, to enjoy his meal heartily. This was only the beginning. His quick wit and ingenuity devised plenty of small industries that would pay: in the long winter evenings he carved fairy sets of furniture with his pocket-knife out of red cedar, and sold them in a Dartford toy-shop; he snared partridges, and sent them to the hotels; he caught rabbits in traps, and many a good~woman in Cramp- ton was glad to buy those for a pie or WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. 115 stew, and sell her chickens at a profit, in- stead of eating them. Then when he had made a little money, he invested it in a basket, a bundle of papers, and half a bushel of popping corn, and sold various small wares besides corn and papers on the Dartford trains, driving quite a heavy trade, when the time came, in Christmas greens, for the winter was mild, and se- vere frosts held off till January, and Will kaew well where the ground-pine trailed its verdant wreaths along the hill-side, and the coral pine laid soft fingers on the dead grass. Toward spring he hunted the spicy berries of the winter-green, and sold them in rough baskets of birch bark; and bunches of the first arbutus blossoms brought him a quick return in silver for their fragrant bloom. He not only helped support hi mother, who helped herself meantime in doing whatever came to her hand about Cramptonwashing, ironing, sewing, or even sick-nursingbut he had laid up ten dollars in the Dartford Dime Savings-bank by the first of June, and then he obtained steady work. He was handy and helpful on the train always; more than once he had spelled a brakeman who wanted to go home over a train, and with his quick perception he had learned their duties. Now a conduct- or had been promoted to a longer line and better pay, a brakeman took his place, and the vacancy at the brakes was offered to Will. Steady wages and steady work; this was more than he had hoped for so soon, and he knew well it was worth far more to him than his precarious earnings in the cars, so he jumped at the offer. He was almost sixteen now, large for his age, well built, active, and handsome: even his rough dress and dusty face and hands could not disguLe the rich curls, the sparkling eye, the merry laugh, and regular features that made the widow White so proud of her boy. Everybody that worked with him liked him, and he made himself agree- able whenever he came in contact with any of the passengers. Civility, cheerful and helpful, invariably smooths the way of this world, and Will was always ready to help an old lady down the steps, to car- ry a baby for some tired mother, to take a school-girl books while she gathered up her kirts daintily to enter the car, or to give ome stout old gentleman a lift with his strong young arm. But when Annie Hall began to go to Dartford Seminary, and went in and out daily on Wills train, he began to think he liked to help her bet- ter than anybody else, and between the sta- tions cast many a furtive glance through the end window at her, though ordinarily her position only afforded a view of her heavy braids of soft light hair, the slender throat below, and the jaunty hat on top of them. Now and then, when other girls joined her, she turned about and bewitched him with a view of her soft sad blue eyes, her delicate coloring, and the plaintive smile she affected; for Miss Annie was a senti- mental chit, who read mild poetry, cried because tears were so sweet, and talked of an early death as the great blessing to a heart too feeling to endure the toils of life. This was all very well for Judge Halls daughter, who had never known a want or had a care in her life; and the gentle sadness of spirit which she cher- ished suited her soft eyes, fair pale face, and pink lips wonderfully, and set a halo round about her in the eyes of Will White, who was working hard for his living, and was merry as a cricket by the fireside. Will began to look for her with a be~t- ing heart, to find things very disagreeable all day if she failed to come, and to hate Saturday as the worst day in the week. In short, he fell heartily in love before he knew it; and whereas his ambition had hitherto been to be rich, now he wanted also to be distinguished. But could he, a brakeman on this little local road, ever be or do anything that should put him on a level with Squire Halls daughter? Luck- ily for him, he had been born an Ameri- can, and what is the use of a republic if everybody can not be as good as anybody else? He had read all sorts of tales of The Butter Boy of Boston, The Millers Boy of Maine, The Tanner of Tinkton, and The Hunter Boy of the Prairie, all of whom had been either Governor, Chief Justice, or President, and why should he despair? Had he not in his very early youth been found crying in a corner, and after some persuasion explained his mystic grief by sobbing, Ow! ow! Ive got to grow up to be the President? To feel the strong necessity of becoming Squire Halls son- in-law was not as painful a prospect, and seemed no less possible or probable. By the end of his first winter on the train he had opportunity to do the squire service; for Sam Hall, the youth previ- ously mentioned as sent home Thanks- giving-day from college, had carried out 116 HAIRPEIIS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. his promise of a reckless and evil future, and in some drunken fight in a New York saloon been beaten terribly, and brought home to his fathers house in Crampton a mere wreck; fever had set in, and though his injuries were not necessarily fatal, his native constitution was feeble, and the fe- ver took mortal bold of what dissipation and blows had left of it. The widow White was sent for to help nurse poor Sam, for the judge was lame with rheu- matism, and Mrs. Hall always delicate. But there were watchers needed, and the young men of Crampton came in for that office, Will White more frequently than any other, for he was so handy, so careful, so tender of the miserable boys aehes and pains, that Sam would have been glad to have him there always, and the judge was grateful in his own pompous way, while Annie condescended to turn her tearful eyes on him with a faint smile whenever they meta smile that sent Will tempora- rily into ecstasy, and glorified the cars, the station, the steps, and even the creak- ing brake-wheel, while it lasted. Certain- ly Annie did look exquisitely lovely in her rich soft furs and heavy winter gar- ments; a tea-rose could not have showed more fair out of dark folding mosses. But when Sam died, and the touching symbols of grief shroudcd her in clinging robes of blackness and gloom, she looked to Will like a real angel, love and pity so trans- figured her girlish eauty; and if it had been suggested to this infatuated brake- boy of the road that angels never wore crape and cashmere, he would have indig- nantly retorted that they ought to. Judge Hall had solemnly thanked the young man, and liberally paid his moth- er, thinkingif he thought anything that his affairs with that family were con- cluded. Deluded man! the play had but just begun. Will could contain his pas- sion in silence no longer; the opening spi~ng brought Annie to her daily jour- neys again, temporarily interrupted by Sam~s illness and death, and afforded op- portunity for a series of small attentions on Wills part, impertinent enough, consider- ing their mutual positions, but chiming so well with Annies romantic ideas, train- ed long on a course of flabby novels and weakly as well as weekly story papers, that she accepted them with a blushing conde- scension pretty enough to see, and mad- deningly lovely to Will. Tiny gifts they were that dropped into her lunch basket as she passed him, or were tucked into the strap of her books, which he held while she tripped up the car stepsbirch-bark boxes filled with winter-green berries or butternut meats; bunches of the pinkest arbutus nestled in the plumes of standing ground-pine; now and then a red Spitz- bergen apple carefully preserved in dry straw for this sacred purpose long after apples in general had gone: simple to- kens of an admiration that deepen d daily, and shone without disguise from Wills handsome eye whenever Annie caught their glance. But thou~h he forgot it, there were oth- er Crampton people besides Judge H Ils daughter who came and we t on th Dart- ford train, and amon:, them a ma den cousin of the judges wife, old Miss Cyn- thia Swett. Her youth had never been disturbed with love affairs. Proud, poor, and homely besides, nobody had ever ap- proached her with any pretension of af- fection or passion, and she had not a spark of sympathy for such weaknesses; but she had very sharp eyes to perceive them, and an equally sharp tongue to i terfere. Bu messfor she was the Crampton mil- linertook her in and out to D tf or frequently, and very soon she observe poor Wills devotion to iss Annie, marked the shy greetings, the gracious response, the berries, flowers, and apples, that she knew Annie never bathered for her elf, and with the perseverance of a spider she waited for more positive evi- dence. Nor was Miss Cynthia the only observ- er. Lovers are like ostriches, hi h hide their heads in a bush, and think nobody sees them. Wills love was already a mat- ter of jest to his comrades on the train; the conductor smiled ~,rimly when he saw him wait anxiously till the last mo- ment at Crampton Station for the slight figure that lit up his face like a burst of sunshine when it appeared, and more than one frequent passenger exchanged mild jokes about the brakemans love- making. One day Miss Cynthia chanced to overhear a few remarks of this nature which made her mistress of the situation. The very next morning she posted over to Judge Halls, and walked into the sitting- room brimful of portentous news. Now the judges office opened from this family room, and on a chilly day like thisone of those June days that belie the season his door was always left open to get the WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. 117 benefit of the wood fire blazing in that sitting-room fire-place; for nothing less than a coal stove warmed the office in winter, which was taken down in sum- mer, of course; but the judge was terri- bly rheumatic, and loved the dry air of the fire on a damp day, even if it were in August. This Miss Cynthia knew very well, so she did not follow up her cousin to the dairy, or the kitchen, or the garden, as was her wont, but waited patiently for her to appear. It was not long before Mrs. Hall came in, and Cynthia proceeded to unfold her budget. She sat very near the open door into the office, and the gentle, anxious mother, as soon as she perceived the com- munication concerned her Annie, rose to shut it. Leave that door open ! growled the judge, who sat suspiciously near. And trembling Mrs. Hall whispered to Cynthia: Speak a little lower, Cynthy. Speak a little louder ! thundered the squire. What are you saying about Annie ? And nothing daunted, the resolute spin- ster proceeded to lay before these parents the shocking fact, extenuated, and set down in full malice, that their precious daughter was flirting openly and wick- edly with a brakeman on the Dartford train, and that their love passages were the scorn and ridicule of all the passen- gers, far and near. The judge was furious, and Mrs. Hall drowned in tears. Now, ef I was you suggested the spinster. Which you aint, severely snapped the judge, but to no purpose; she merely resumed the thread of her words like an echo: Ef I was you, I wouldnt say nothing to Annie; shes awful romantic, and senti- mental, and all that, and it 11 only set her ont right off. Shes jest the one to keep it up ef she knows you dont favor it none. Ef I was you You wouldnt be a fool ! growled the judge. I havent been married twenty- five years for nothing, Cynthy Swett. I know women-folks by this time. Well, I shouldnt wonder ef you did, judge; but it doos beat all things to think of her takin up with old Joel Whites boy. I dono but what hes a decent-be- haved boy, gently chirped the weeping mother, anxious to excuse Annie. He was real good to Sam, you know, hus- band; he set up with him more frequent than anybody. Well~ well, that isnt to the purpose, wife. I paid his mother moren was real- ly reasonable, because of that: were quits as fur as that goes. I wont have him foolin round Annie, anyway; but I know how to manage it. I dont say but what Im obleeged to you, Cynthy. Im glad to know of it, but I can take care of it myself now. And with a majestic wave of the hand the judge dismissed tbe sub- ject, and the two women-folks retired to discuss it after their own fashion in Mrs. Halls bedroom. The judge, it must be owned, went about the matter very cannily. He said noth- ing, but used his influence among the offi- cialsfor he was a director and heavy stockholder on the Eastern Railroad, of which the Crampton and Dartford line was a branchand in a week or two Will was promoted to the conductorship of a freight train, which never even passed the morning express, or was passed by it. He was pleased and pained both. His wages were increased, but he could not see Annie; and though he was conscious that thus he made one step toward her, he was actually thrust away from her sweet pres- ence. Only Sundays could he be at home, and the very first Sunday she was not in church. She and her mother had gone to Dartford shopping, Mrs. White said, and staid over to hear a wonderful preacher. But the second Sunday he found his usually placid mother boiling with indig- nation. For all his boasted knowledge of women, the squire had not reckoned on Miss Cynthias tongue, or the power of gos- sip in a little country village. Filled with a lively view of her own penetration and importance, the spinster had revealed her discovery and her counselling with Judge Hall to at least three dear friends, under vows of secrecy; but each of them found out that the other two knew as much as she, and indignant at Cynthias want of reticence, concluded not to keep such a general secret any longer; and of course a friend felt it to be a duty that Mrs. White should know why Will had been removed to the freight train, and Annie sent to the boarding - school, for such Cynthia had been sure would be the next move. And from hand to hand the suggestion had grown into certainty, the school selected, and the date of Annies departure fixed 118 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. all of which would have been as much news to the Hall family as it was to the widow White. But grief and indigna- tion overpowered the poor woman afresh as she poured out the story to Will. How could you think ont, William? Why, Squire Hall wouldnt scurce let an angel out o heaven have his girl. Now did you expect hed so much as let you look at her ? Wills face darkened with resolve and a certain righteous anger. Judge Hall is nothing but a man, anyway, mother. I shant ask him whom I shall marrynot much! This is a free country, if its any- thing. And now my minds made up: I will marry Annie Hall before I die,wheth- er or no. Oh, Will! Will! now dont you be so masterful. Oh dear! I had ought to have broke your will whilst you was a boy, and youd ha been spared lots. -Dear me ! I shouldnt be worth a cent, mother, if I hadnt a will of my own; and as long as I dont set myself to do anything worse than make a good home for you and mar- ry Annie, I dont think you had ought to complain. I havent forgot about that Thanksgiving-day. And Will laughed out in such a cheery, brave way, his moth- er almost smiled; but she shook her head withal, for her common-sense stood in the way of her sympathies. But Will was not to be daunted. He slept precious little that night; his brain was busy with plans for the future. He recognized it as the first necessity that An- nie should not be allowed to forget him. For the present he must keep his situa- tion. Next winter a series of evening schools for adults was to begin in Dart- ford, and his train brought him there for the night. He must attend these, and work hard to lay the foundation of an edu- cation, for the fruit of the tree of knowl- edge is the hereditary longing of man, and the end of his repose, even unto this day. These two things he was set upon; and ascertaining that Annie was still at home, he rose long before dawn on Monday morn- ing, wal~ed over to Squam Pond, and com- ing ba9k by early daylight, hung on the side d ~o r of Squire Halls mansion a bas- ket of ripping water-lily buds and leaves, fragra~it and pure as the ideal he carried in his heart, and directed on a rude label of bark to Annie. This was the begin- ning of his siege. Scarcely a week pass- ed but some token of a watchful affection reached the girl, if it was only an exqui- site flower from a hot-house, or a bunch of speckless and translucent grapes, for even these small gifts bore heavily on Wills small means, though he. grudged nothing to attain his object. - Still, all his efforts might have been useless but for an ally in the enemys camp he knew nothing of. There is a certain impartiality in gossip that some- times does duty as a virtue; talk is like air, it goes everywhere, often where it would willingly be kept from going; and in all the buzz and bustle there was in Crampton about Annies stifled love af- fair, it was impossible but that something should reach her ears and fire her imagi- nation. To be the heroine of a real ro- mance, with a devoted lover and a cruel father, seemed to her the height of bliss. She did not know how much easier it is to read a three-volume novel than to live one; and it was mightily pleasant to re- ceive these anonymous gifts, knowing perfectly well whom they came from, and brood over them with all the romantic fancies and visions of sweet seventeen. It was not quite so agreeable when the judge, going out one morning unusually early, discovered a bouquet with her name attached hanging to the door-knob, and hurled it, with an ignominous expletive, into the pig-pen across the roada place of deposit from which she could not res- cue even a fragment to weep over. But the angry father builded better than he knew ; that spark of opposition kindled the tinder ready for conflagration in her girlish heart, and the destroyed bouquet was the first gun fired in a long interne- cine war. In vain did the judge lie in wait for tokens of communication be- tween the lovers: a quicker wit than his forestalled him. And when, in a fl1 of des- peration, he did at last send Annie away to school, he could not forbid the express company or the mail to carry the con- stant tokens which kept up her interest in and recollection of the handsome, spirited young fellow who evidently adored her, though afar off. In the mean time Will improved his opportunities at Dartford; he studied with unflagging zeal; and his naturally quick mind, stimulated by the ardor of passion and the force of that will his mother so lamented, seemed to defy obstacles and literally devour the way. In a year from the time he was made conductor on the WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. 119 freight train he gave up his situation, and went into a physicians office, where what work he did was taken as an equivalent for his board, and he was allowed time to recite in certain classes at the Dartford High School the lessons he learned while he mounted guard in Dr. Hydes office. Some writing he got to help him along for the only thing his mother ever had time to teach him was her own fair and even handwritingand some occasional hits of bracket-sawing fell in his way, so that with his small savings from the wages he had received he kept decently clothed; and when Annie Hall met one day in the streets of Dartford, as she was on her way home from school, a tall, handsome, well-set-up youth, in a suit of light summer clothes, who lifted his hat to her with the grace of a polished gentleman and the devotion of a lover in all his aspect, she blushed up to her eyes, and smiled like an amiable rose-bud. Will had studied manners as well as his school-books, and improved outwardly as well as inwardly thereby, for manners imply a man behind them, though the implication sometime,s fails. But however strong a will may be, or however eager a lovers wishes, time does not speed the faster or delay the longer for wish or will: peace. is for the heart that can steady its own beats to the great pendulum, not for that which throbs fast with fever or lags heavily with pain. The slow years went on, and at last Will had studied and slaved enough to get into the Dartford Medical College as a student, paying his way partly by certain services in and about the building. He loved the profession he had chosen, and bent all his soul to acquiring it. The professors re- garded him with favor, for he evidently was in earnest. If they had known how he longed sometimes to join the other stu- dents in their frolics and wild exploits, those grave faces would have darkened. Will was a boy at heart still, and ready for fun as the wildest of his companions, but his strong resolution held him with iron bands to the work he had set his life on. Success meant Annie for his wife, and a home for his mother; it was not to be perilled for an impulse of the moment or a passing gratification. So he studied on, and by dint of applying his native common-sense to the theories of the books and lectures through which he plodded, he learned far more than the rest of his class, and in three years was installed once more in Dr. Hydes office, as his as- sistant. Five times Thanksgiving had come and gone since the sad day he had made that promise to his mother, and he seeTned little nearer its fulfillment; but he did not despair, and suddenly the sky brightened for him. An elder brother of Dr. Hyde had long ago gone to California, and acquiring a fortune, had settled in one of the southern towns, and made for him- self a beautiful and luxurious home. The doctor had always wanted to visit him, but never found the time; and about six months after Will came to help him, a letter from one of his nieces arrived, say- ing that her father had been seized with paralysis, and though he had rallied from the first shock, life seemed so insecure to him he must see his brother as soon as possible. So Dr. Hyde, who was a child- less widower, made his few arrangements rapidly, put his practice into Wills hands, and obeyed the summons. This was indeed a stroke of fortune. Dr. White had made already a favorable impression in Dartford, and when on one or two occasions of grave importance the celebrated Dr. Packard, of New York, was called to counsel with him, he expressed himself with great urbanity, and strong approbation of Dr. Whites treatment of the cases, adding that he himself could have done no more. This, indeed, was a feather in Wills cap, and did him more good than a years experience with the rather distrustful clients among those left to his care. He took courage, and what- ever time his practice left him he devoted still to study, for which Dr. Hydes fine library offered him every facility. In the mean time Annie Hall had grown up into a beautiful young woman, and plenty of lovers cam down the glen ; but to each and all she turned a deaf ear. If she was romantic, her heart was faith- ful; and though she would not own even to herself where its constancy belonged, she still felt very positively that no other man moved or interested her; and though Judge Hall sometimes wondered what made his little girl so very fastidious, he did not want to lose her, and she had her own way in peace. Through all these years the slight and nameless tokens of remembrance had never ceased; no festi- val of the year was unmarked by them, and never a Thanksgiving passed without Will Whites appearance in the village church, beside his mother, and one deep 120 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. bow and eloquent look always awaited establish himself there, but that he should Annie at the church door. The judge actually have had the impudence to make never went to church on Thanksgiving- love to Annie, and she the audacity to day, and Cynthia invariably spent it in accept itthis was more than flesh and Dartford, so Annie had her bit of ro- blood could bear! He stormed at his wife, maice in peace. and raged at Annie. Mrs. Hall cried, of But it was not always to be so. The course; but Annie stood still, calm, though judge was seized with a severe attack of very pale, and looked straight in his face. pneumonia the winter after Dr. Hyde left This was too much; he could not bear it. Dartford, and as the Crampton doctor was ~ Do you hear me, miss ? he roared. helpless with a broken leg, Dr. Hyde was I forbid you to speak to that fellow sent for, and his substitute, Dr. White, again! Marry him, indeed! indeed you came instead. Judge Hall was too ill to wont ! recognize him, and Mrs. Hall too glad to I shall, said Annie, tranquilly. have a doctor at all, to think of past mis- The judge turned purple. If a pin on fortunes; and Annie received him with a his table had peeked up in his face, and blush that was exquisite, and a smile radi- gone off like a pistol, he would not have ant enough to illuminate any mans soul. been more astounded; never before had Will went about his task with skill and his will been defied by anybody. Wh- energy. The judge was very ill indeed, wh-what do you mean, you little hussy ? and for several days hung between life he stammered, fairly choked with fury. and death; but at last th~ balance turned Just what I said, father. I have toward this world, and, weak as a baby, promised Will White to marry him, and the pompous old man crept back into life I mean to keep my promise. by the slowest progress; but it meant The judge swore a loud and mighty living, and that was enough. Mrs. Hall oath: it was not his habit, and Annie was blessed the doctor over and over, and both shocked and startled. He saw it in cried herself into joyful hysterics. An- her start of surprise and look of dismay, nie went up to him with both hands out, and went on. Dont you dare to look and a face speaking far more than her at him again, much less to His head words. began to swim, and his sight grew dark I dont know how to thank you, Dr. he fell to the floor insensible. White, she said, softly. When he awoke, the scene was changed; Shall I tell you ? significantly in- he lay on his own bed, weak as a man quired the doctor, could be, unable to lift hand or foot, even Annie did not answer, but I am inclined to fully open the lids from under which to think he took her silence for consent, he peered doubtfully about him. Annie since half an hour afterward Miss Cynthia, and Dr. White stood by a little table, the who had arrived in the nick of time to doctor dropping some medicine, and An- soothe and scold away Mrs. Halls hyster- nie looking on. Presently she spoke, in ics, burst into the library, when that con- a guarded voice; but the judge heard her. genial task was over, to find Annie, and Will he live ? she said. found her, indeed, with her head on Dr. The doctor looked up at her tenderly. Whites shoulder, and his arm about her Yes, dear, he will get over this attack, waist. at least, and he may live for years; but he For mercys sakes ~ she screamed, and will have to be careful: apoplexy is not a fled, slamming the door behind her. matter to trifle with. Annie laughed, and Will whistled; But I am so glad he is better ! ear- they were both aware of an enemy, but nestly answered the girl. did not care to acknowledge it. And so am I, Annie. I want him to The judge recovered well enough now like me, you know. without further need of a doctor; but as The judge could not believe his ears; soon as he was about again, Miss Cynthia for years he had hated this young fellow felt it her duty to tell him of her new dis- whenever he happened to think of him, covery. He had almost forgotten Will that is; within a few weeks past he was White in the last few years, but now he conscious that his most fervent wish had was furious: to think this fellow should been to get him out of the way in some not only have been his physician, taking mannerneither death nor exile would advantage of his unconscious condition to have been objectionableand yet the man WILLS WILL, AND HIS TWO THANKSGIVINGS. 121 wanted him to live, and had been doing his best to save him from death. The judge shut his eyes, and feebly meditated the matter, but he said nothing. Night brings counsel, says the proverb; and so may sickness, for it has the nights silence and leisure for thought. When the judge got better, and crept about with a staff, he found he had learn- ed a lesson from the death so closely faced. He did not say anything to Annie, but it was significant that he kept silence. Mrs. Hall could not understand it, and Cynthia said hed got a warnin. Perhaps she was right: he had certainly got an en- lightening, if nothing more; and Annie, who daily expected he would resume the conversation so sadly interrupted, began to wonder if the fit had really erased from his memory the passion and fury which had brought it on. But they all misunder- stood him; he was chewing a cud of bitter thought and fancy all this time. To have been on the edge of death is to see things differently after we return from that low brink. Judge Hall had learned there to respect the calm judgment and strong character of his daughters lover. He knew well what an advantage Will White might take any day of Annies very will- ful naturea nature hitherto dormant be- cause never thwarted, but which he him- self had discovered only of late. He could see that this young man had worked him- self into a position where he would soon be independent. He knew, too, that his own days were numbered: another shock of apoplexy would be his death-signal; and the judge took such counsel with his own heart as drove him to read his Bible with different eyes from those that had made its perusal a mere ceremonial ob- servance before. A year went on now in quiet. Will was not yet ready to take Annie away from her home, but letters went constant- ly back and forth between them. The judge grew more and more gentle and gracious from week to week. Annie loved him as never before, and Mrs. Hall gazed at him with a mild and tearful awe that found broken expression to Miss Cynthia: Hes a-ripenin for heaven, Cynthy, he is. Hes a changed man. Why, hes jest like a cosset lamb about the house; he dont take me to do as he used tonot once in a week. Well, I told ye hed got a warnin. Folks that is so masterful as he was has to get a good knock most always before they die. I dono but what the judge was a Christian before now; he was a pro- fessor, I know, but he didnt seem to be no great fist at it; didnt make a business ont, so to speak. But now hes seen his latter end clus to, as you may say, and its quite affectin to him. I shouldnt won- der but what hes experenced religion over agin. Dear me! I do hope he aint a-goin to die jest as he gits real pleasant to live with, quavered Mrs. Hall. Law sakes, Sophrony! why dont you take it tother eend fust? Folks aint no- way fit for the next world ef they aint fit for thisleastways not for the heavenly part ont. I should think, now, youd have rec hected his immortal soul fust thing. Mrs. Hall sighed, self-convicted. Poor little woman, her first natural thought had been of the years she had been in bondage through fear, and the sad recall of what might have been had the judge been kinder and more reasonable. She could not excuse herself to her own sim- ple, humble soul; so she let Cynthia bristle up with her superior spiritual conscious- ness, and said no more. When Dr. Hyde had been away almost two years, he wrote home to say that his brother, after lingering beyond any prece- dent, had at last died, his wife having pre- ceded him to the grave but a few weeks, and both had extracted from the doctor a promise that he would stay with his four young nieces, and manage their large property for them till their marriages should take place. Dr. Hyde had already laid by a snug little sum in the Dartford Bank for his old age, his brother left him as much more, safely. invested, and the good-will of his practice and his comfort- able old house were worth something be- sides, so that he had no need to work at his profession any longer. His ties in Dart- ford were few and slight; he had already learned to love his nieces, and to feel at home with them. He wrote to offer Will his house and practice on terms that were reasonable enough, and only demanded partial payments year by year. There was no doubt in Dr. Whites mind that he ought to accept this offer; and when an- other year of patient economy and steady work had passed by, he was able to send even a larger sum to Dr. Hyde than he had promised, and to keep half of the house, which hitherto he had leased to 122 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. two families, and install his mother as housekeeper. It wanted now a year of the ten he had promised himself to achieve a home. He had succeeded beyond his hopes. But be- fore Thanksgiving-day came he was call- ed again to Crampton. Judge Hall was stricken once more with apoplexy. This time he rallied more slowly than before, and Will spent his Thanksgiving away from his mother for the first time in years, watching the faint spark of life flicker, tremble, gather strength, and at last burn up again in this old mans bosom. The judge returned to this worlds affairs more humble and grateful than ever. He knew his time was short; and a month after, sit- ting by his bedroom fire, the wreck of his old pompous, dogmatic, ruddy self, he called Annie, in a broken whisper. She dropped her work, and came. Annie, he said, feebly, youve been a good, patient girl; but I dont suppose youve given up that fellow ? No, father. Well, you havent fretted and pestered me a bit; and Im free to say I think bet- ter of him than I did. If you will have him, why I dont say but what Im willing now. Annie bent over and kissed him tender ly. She~could not say anything. But, Annie, the judge went on, dont never set up your will against his as you have against mine. If you do, I tell ye youll come to grief: his is the biggest; hes rightly named. Perhaps I shant want to, laughed Annie, shyly. Dont lot on that: youre a woman and they all want their way, from Eve down, muttered the old man with gentle sarcasm. Then Ill make his way my way, daddy, and we shall both be suited. Hm ! said the judge, contemptuously. But he did not live to see it. The Will that orders us all, even our willfulness and our resolves, sent the third and last summons before spring ripened into sum- mer, and the judge was gathered to his fathers. When the tenth Thanksgiving after that solitary feast in the kitchen came about, Will White, his mother, his wife, and his wifes mother were seated around the table in Judge Halls dining-room, for the house belonged now to Annie, and Will had taken the Crampton doctors place, as the judges money was enough to set them far above want, and Annie loved her old home too well to leave it, besides which Dr. Grey had six children and an ailing wife, and was glad enough to exchange Crampton for Dartford. The dinner was abundant and elegant, but, with a touch of unconscious poetry, the widow White had placed before Will a covered dish; he lifted the lid, and saw before him a piece of boiled salt pork and a few potatoes. Wills eyes dimmed as he looked from the dish to his mother. I told you so, mother ! he said, with a thrill in his voice. Oh, my dear! my dear! twant all your will, Will; dont lot on it: the Lord helped you, my son, or you wouldnt have been here to-day. The Lord helps those that help them- selves, mother, said Will, reverently; and then he bent his head and gave fer- vent thanks to Him who had worked it in him both to will and to do, and given them all such great cause to keep this sec- ond Thanksgiving. MARY ANERLEY. CHAPTER XVIII. GOYLE BAY. WHILE all the world was at cross-pur- poses thusMr. Jellicorse uneasy at some rumors he had heard; Captain Car- roway splitting his poor heel with indig- nation at the craftiness of free-traders; Farmer Anerley vexed at being put upon by people, without any daughter to console him, or catch shrimps; Master Mordacks pursuing a noble game, strictly above- board, as usual; Robin Lyth troubled in his largest principles of revolt against rev- enue by a nasty little pain that kept going to his heart, with an emptiness there, as for another heart; and last, and perhaps of all most important, the rector perpet- ually pining for his game of chess and utterly discontented with the frigid em- braces of analysiswhere was the best, and most simple, and least selfish of the whole lot, Mary Anerley? Mary was in as good a place as even

122 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. two families, and install his mother as housekeeper. It wanted now a year of the ten he had promised himself to achieve a home. He had succeeded beyond his hopes. But be- fore Thanksgiving-day came he was call- ed again to Crampton. Judge Hall was stricken once more with apoplexy. This time he rallied more slowly than before, and Will spent his Thanksgiving away from his mother for the first time in years, watching the faint spark of life flicker, tremble, gather strength, and at last burn up again in this old mans bosom. The judge returned to this worlds affairs more humble and grateful than ever. He knew his time was short; and a month after, sit- ting by his bedroom fire, the wreck of his old pompous, dogmatic, ruddy self, he called Annie, in a broken whisper. She dropped her work, and came. Annie, he said, feebly, youve been a good, patient girl; but I dont suppose youve given up that fellow ? No, father. Well, you havent fretted and pestered me a bit; and Im free to say I think bet- ter of him than I did. If you will have him, why I dont say but what Im willing now. Annie bent over and kissed him tender ly. She~could not say anything. But, Annie, the judge went on, dont never set up your will against his as you have against mine. If you do, I tell ye youll come to grief: his is the biggest; hes rightly named. Perhaps I shant want to, laughed Annie, shyly. Dont lot on that: youre a woman and they all want their way, from Eve down, muttered the old man with gentle sarcasm. Then Ill make his way my way, daddy, and we shall both be suited. Hm ! said the judge, contemptuously. But he did not live to see it. The Will that orders us all, even our willfulness and our resolves, sent the third and last summons before spring ripened into sum- mer, and the judge was gathered to his fathers. When the tenth Thanksgiving after that solitary feast in the kitchen came about, Will White, his mother, his wife, and his wifes mother were seated around the table in Judge Halls dining-room, for the house belonged now to Annie, and Will had taken the Crampton doctors place, as the judges money was enough to set them far above want, and Annie loved her old home too well to leave it, besides which Dr. Grey had six children and an ailing wife, and was glad enough to exchange Crampton for Dartford. The dinner was abundant and elegant, but, with a touch of unconscious poetry, the widow White had placed before Will a covered dish; he lifted the lid, and saw before him a piece of boiled salt pork and a few potatoes. Wills eyes dimmed as he looked from the dish to his mother. I told you so, mother ! he said, with a thrill in his voice. Oh, my dear! my dear! twant all your will, Will; dont lot on it: the Lord helped you, my son, or you wouldnt have been here to-day. The Lord helps those that help them- selves, mother, said Will, reverently; and then he bent his head and gave fer- vent thanks to Him who had worked it in him both to will and to do, and given them all such great cause to keep this sec- ond Thanksgiving. MARY ANERLEY. CHAPTER XVIII. GOYLE BAY. WHILE all the world was at cross-pur- poses thusMr. Jellicorse uneasy at some rumors he had heard; Captain Car- roway splitting his poor heel with indig- nation at the craftiness of free-traders; Farmer Anerley vexed at being put upon by people, without any daughter to console him, or catch shrimps; Master Mordacks pursuing a noble game, strictly above- board, as usual; Robin Lyth troubled in his largest principles of revolt against rev- enue by a nasty little pain that kept going to his heart, with an emptiness there, as for another heart; and last, and perhaps of all most important, the rector perpet- ually pining for his game of chess and utterly discontented with the frigid em- braces of analysiswhere was the best, and most simple, and least selfish of the whole lot, Mary Anerley? Mary was in as good a place as even MARY ANERLEY. 123 she was worthy of. A place not by any means so snug and favored by nature as Anerley Farm, but pretty well sheltered by large trees of a strong and hardy or- der. And the comfortable ways of good old folk, who needed no labor to live by, spread a happy leisure and a gentle ease upon everything under their roof-tree. Here was no necessity for getting up un- til the sun encouraged it; and the time for going to bed depended upon the time of sleepiness. Old Johnny Popplewell, as everybody called him, without any pro- test on his part, had made a good pocket by the tanning business, and having no children to bring up to it, and only his wife to depend upon him, had sold the good-will, the yard, and the stock as soon as he had turned his sixtieth year. I have worked hard all my life, he said, and I mean to rest for the rest of it. At first he was heartily miserable, and wandered about with a vacant look, hav- ing only himself to look after. And he tried to find a hole in his bargain with the man who enjoyed all the smells he was accustomed to, and might even be heard through a gap in the fence rating the men as old Johnny used to do, at the same time of day, and for the same neg- lect, and almost in the self-same words which the old owner used, but stronger. Instead of being happy, Master Popple- well lost more flesh in a month than he used to lay on in the most prosperous year; and he owed it to his wife, no doubt, as generally happens, that he was not speedily gathered to the bosom of the hospitable Simon of Joppa. For Mrs. Popplewell said, Go away; Johnny, go away from this village; smell new smells, and never see a hide without a walking thing inside of it. Sea-weed smells almost as nice as tan; though of course it is not so wholesome. The tan- ner obeyed, and bought a snug little place about ten miles from the old premises, which he called, at the suggestion of the parson, Byrsa Cottage. Here was Mary, as blithe as a lark, and as petted as a robin - redbreast, by no means pining, or even hankering, for any other robin. She was not the girl to give her heart before it was even asked for; and hitherto she had regarded the smug- gler with pity more than admiration. For in many points she was like her fa- ther, whom she loved foremost of the world; and Master Anerley was a law- abiding man, like every other true Eng- lishman. Her uncle Popplewell was also such, but exerted his principles less strict ly. Moreover, he was greatly under in- fluence of wife, which happens more free- ly to a man without children, the which are a source of contradiction. And Mis- tress Popplewell was a most thorough and conscientious free-trader. Now Mary was from childhood so ac- customed to the sea, and the relish of salt breezes, and the racy dance of little waves that crowd on one another, and the tidal delivery of delightful rubbish, that to fail of seeing the many works and plays and constant variance of her never wearying or weary friend was more than she could long put up with. She called upon Lord Keppel almost every day, having brought him from home for the good of his health, to gird up his loins, or rather get his belly girths on, and come along the sands with her, and dig into new places. But he, though delighted for a while with Byrsa stable, and the social charms of Master Popplewells old cob, and a rick of fine tan-colored clover hay and bean haulm, when the novelty of these de- lights was passed, he pined for his home, and the split in his crib, and the knot of hard wood he had polished with his neck, and even the little dog that snapped at him. He did not care for retired people as he said to the cob every eveninghe liked to see farm-work going on, or at any rate to hear all about it, and to listen to horses who had worked hard, and could scarcely speak, for chewing, about the great quantity they had turned of earth, and how they had answered very bad words with a bow. In short, to put it in the mildest terms, Lord Keppel was giving himself great airs, unworthy of his age, ungrateful to a degree, and ungraceful, as the cob said repeatedly; considering how he was fed, and bedded, and not a thing left undone for him. But his arrogance soon had to pay its own costs. For, away to the right of Byrsa Cot- tage, as you look down the hollow of the ground toward the sea, a ridge of high scrubby land runs up to a forefront of bold cliff, indented with a dark and nar- row bay. Goyle Bay, as it is called, or sometimes Basin Bay, is a lonely and rugged place, and even dangerous for un- wary visitors. For at low spring tides a deep hollow is left dry, rather more than a quarter of a mile across, strewn with 124 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. kelp and oozy stones, among which may often be found pretty shells, weeds richly tinted and of subtle workmanship, stars, and flowers, and love-knots of the sea, and sometimes carnelians and crystals. But anybody making a collection here should be able to keep one eye upward and one down, or else in his pocket to have two thingsa good watch and a trusty tide- table. John and Deborah Popplewell were ac- customed to water in small supplies, such as that of a well, or a road-side pond, or their own old noble tan-pits; but to un- derstand the sea it was too late in life, though it pleased them, and gave them fine appetites now to go down when it was perfectly calm, and a sailor assured them that the tide was mild. But even at such seasons they preferred to keep their distance, and called out frequently to one another. They looked upon their niece, from all she told them, as a creature almost amphibious; but still they were often uneasy about her, and would gladly have kept her well inland. She, howev- er, laughed at any such idea; and their discipline was to let her have her own way. But now a thing happened which proved forever how much better old heads are than young ones. For Mary, being tired of the quiet places, and the strands where she knew every pebble, resolved to explore Goyle Bay at last, and she chose the worst pos- sible time for it. The weather had been very fine and gentle, and the sea delight- fully plausible, without a wavetide after tidebigger than the furrow of a two- horse plough; and the maid began to be- lieve at last that there never were any storms just here. She had heard of the pretty things in Goyle Bay, which was difficult of access from the land, but she resolved to take opportunity of tide, and thus circumvent the position; she would rather have done it afoot, but her uncle and aunt made a point of her riding to the shore, regarding the pony as a safe companion, and sure refuge from the waves. And so, upon the morning of St. Michael, she compelled Lord Keppel, with an adverse mind, to turn a headland they had never turned before. The tide was far out and ebbing still, but the wind had shifted, and was blow- ing from the east rather stiffly, and with increasing force. Mary knew that the strong equinoctial tides were running at their height; but she had timed her visit carefully, as she thought, with no less than an hour and a half to spare. And even without any thought of tide, she was bound to be back in less time than that, for her uncle had been most particular to warn her to be home without fail at one oclock, when the sacred goose, to which he always paid his duties, would be on the table. And if anything marred his seren- ity of mind, it was to have dinner kept waiting. Without any misgivings, she rode into Basin Bay, keeping within the black bar- rier of rocks, outside of which wet sands were shining. She saw that these rocks like the bar of a river, crossed the inlet of the cove; but she had not been told of their peculiar frame and upshot, which made them so treacherous a rampart. At the mouth of the bay they formed a level crescent, as even as a set of good teeth, against the sea, with a slope of sand run- ning up to their outer front, but a deep and long pit inside of them. This pit drained itself very nearly dry when the sea went away from it, through some stony tubes which only worked one way, by the clos- ure of their mouths when the tide return- ed; so that the volume of the deep some- times, with tide and wind behind it, leaped over the brim into the pit, with tenfold the roar, a thousandfold the power, and scarcely less than the speed, of a lion. Mary Anerley thought what a lovely place it was, so deep and secluded from anybodys sight, and full of bright wet colors. Her pony refused, with his usual wisdom, to be dragged to the bottom of the hole, but she made him come further down than he thought just, and pegged him~ by the bridle there. He looked at her sadly, and with half a mind to cx- postulate more forcibly, but getting no glimpse of the sea where he stood, he thought it as well to put up with it; and presently he snorted out a tribe of little creatures, which puzzled him and took up his attention. Meanwhile Mary was not only puzzled, but delighted beyond description. She never yet had come upon such treasures of the sea, and she scarcely knew what to lay hands upon first. She wanted the weeds of such wonderful forms, and col- ors yet more exquisite, and she wanted the shells of such delicate fabric that fairies must have made them, and a thou- sand other little things that had no MARY ANERLEY. 125 names; and then she seemed most of all to want the pebbles. For the light came through them in stripes and patterns, and many of them looked like downright jew- els. She had brought a great bag of strong canvas, luckily, and with both hands she set to to fill it. So busy was the girl with the vast de- light of sanguine acquisitionthis for her father, and that for her mother, and so much for everybody she could think ofthat time had no time to be counted at all, but flew by with feathers unheed- ed. The mutter of the sea became a roar, and the breeze waxed into a heavy gale, and spray began to sputter through the air like suds; but Mary saw the rampart of the rocks before her, and thought that she could easily get back around the point. And her taste began continually to grow more choice, so that she spent as much ti?ne in discarding the rubbish which at first she had prized so highly as she did in collecting the real rarities, which she was learning to distinguish. But unluckily the sea made no allowance for all this. For just as Mary, with her bag quite full, was stooping with a long stretch to get something morea thing that per- haps was the very best of all, and there- fore had got into a cornerthere fell upon her back quite a solid lump of wave, as a horse gets the bottom of the bucket cast at him. This made her look up, not a minute too soon; and even then she was not at all aware of danger, but took it for a notice to be moving. And she thought more of shaking that salt- water from her dress than of running away from the rest of it. But as soon as she began to look about in earnest, sweeping back her salted hair, she saw enough of peril to turn pale the roses and strike away the smile upon her very busy face. She was standing sev- eral yards below the level of the sea, and great surges were hurrying to swallow her. The hollow of the rocks received the first billow with a thump and a slush, and a rush of pointed hillocks in a fury to find their way back again, which fail- ing, they spread into a long white pool, taking Mary above her pretty ankles. Dont you think to frighten me, said Mary; I know all your ways, and I mean to take my time. But even before she had finished her words, a great black wall (doubled over at the top with whiteness, that seemed to race along it like a fringe) hung above the rampart, and leaped over, casting at Mary such a volley that she fell. This quench- ed her last audacity, although she was not hurt; and jumping up nimbly, she made all haste through the rising water toward her pony. But as she would not forsake her bag, and the rocks became more and more slippery, towering hi~,her and higher surges crashed in over the barrier, and swelled the yeasty turmoil which began to fill the basin; while a scurry of foam flew like pellets from the rampart, blinding even the very best young eyes. Mary began to lose some of her pres- ence of mind and familiar approval of the sea. She could swim pretty well, from her frequent bathing; but swim- ming would be of little service here, if once the great rollers came over the bar, which they threatened to do every mo- ment. And when at length she fought her way to the poor old pony, her dan- ger and distress were multiplied. Lord Keppel was in a state of ~abject fear; de- spair was knocking at his fine old heart; he was up to his knees in the loathsome brine already, and being so twisted up by his own exertions that to budge another inch was beyond him, he did what a horse is apt to do in such condition he consoled himself with fatalism. He meant to expire; but before he did so he determined to make his mistress feel what she had done. Therefore, with a sad nudge of white old nose, he drew her at- tention to his last expression, sighed as plainly as a man could sigh, and fixed upon her meek eyes, telling volumes. I know, I know that it is all my fault, cried Mary, with the brine almost smothering her tears, as she flung her arms around his neck; but I never will do it again, my darling. And I never will run away and let you drown. Oh, if I only had a knife! I can not even cast your bridle off; the tongue has stuck fast, and my hands are cramped. But, Keppel, I will stay, and be drowned with you. This resolve was quite unworthy of Marys common-sense; for how could her being drowned with Keppel help him? However, the mere conception showed a spirit of lofty order; though the body might object to be ordered under. With- out any thought of all that, she stood, 126 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. resolute, tearful, and thoroughly wet through, while she hunted in her pocket for a penknife. The nature of all knives is, not to be found; and Marys knife was loyal to its kind. Then she tugged at her pony, and pulled out his bit, and labored again at the obstinate strap; but nothing could be done with it. Keppel must be drowned, and he did not seem to care, but to think that the object of his birth was that. If the stupid little fellow would have only stepped forward, the hands of his mis- tress, though cramped and benumbed, might perhaps have unbuckled his stiff and sodden reins, or even undone their tangle; on the other hand, if he would have jerked with all his might, something or other must have given way; but stir he would not from one fatuous position, which kept all his head-gear on the strain, but could not snap it. Mary even struck him with her heavy bag of stones, to make him do something; but he only looked re- proachful. Was there ever such a stupid ? the poor girl cried, with the water rising al- most to her waist, and the inner waves beginning to dash over her, while the outer billows threatened to rush in and crush them both. But I will not abuse you any more, poor Keppel. What will dear father say? Oh, what will he think of it? Then she burst into a fit of sobs, and leaned against the pony, to support her from a rushing wave which took her breath away, and she thought that she would never try to look up any more, but shut her eyes to all the rest of it. But suddenly she heard a loud shout and a splash, and found herself caught up and carried like an infant. Lie still. Never mind the pony: what is he? I will go for him afterward. You first, you first of all the world, my Mary. She tried to speak, but not a word would come; and that was all the better. She was carried quick as might be through a whirl of tossing waters, and gently laid upon a pile of kelp; and then Robin Lyth said, You are quite safe here, for at least another hour. I will go and get your pony. No, no; you will be knocked to pieces, she cried; for the pony, in the drift and scud, could scarcely be seen kit for his helpless struggles. But the young man was half way toward him while she spoke, and she knelt upon the kelp, and clasped her hands. Now Robin was at home in a matter such as this. He had landed many kegs in a sea as strong ~or stronger, and he knew how to deal with the horses in a surf. There still was a break of almost a fathom in the level of the inner and the outer waves, for the basin was so large that it could not fill at once; and so long as this lasted, every roller must comb over at the entrance, and mainly spend itself. At least five minutes to spare, he shouted back, and there is no such thing as any danger. But the girl did not believe him. Rapidly and skillfully he made his way, meeting the larger waves side~vays, and rising at their onset; until he was obliged to swim at last where the little horse was swimming desperately. The leather, still jammed in some crevice at the bottom, was jerking his poor chin downward; his eyes were screwed up like a new-born kit- tens, and his dainty nose looked like a jelly-fish. He thought how sad it was that he should ever die like this, after all the good works of his lifethe people he had carried, and the chaise that he had drawn, and all his kindness to mankind. Then he turned his head away to receive the stroke of grace, which the next wave would administer. No! He was free. He could turn his honest tail on the sea, which he always had detested so; he could toss up his nose and blow the filthy salt out, and sputter back his scorn, while lie made off for his life. So intent was he on this that he never looked twice to make out who his benefactor was, but gave him just a taste of his hind-foot on the elbow, in the scuf- fle of his hurry to be round about and off. Such is gratitude ! the smuggler cried; but a clot of salt-water flipped into his mouth, and closed all cynical outlet. Bearing up against the waves, he stowed his long knife away, and then struck off for the shore with might and main. Here Mary ran into the water to meet him, shivering as she was with fright and cold, and stretched out both hands to him as he waded forth; and he took them and clasped them, quite as if he needed help. Lord Keppel stood afar off, recovering his breath, and scarcely dared to look askance at the execrable sea. How cold you are ! Robin Lyth ex- claimed. You must not stay a moment. MARY ANERLEY. 127 No talking, if you pleasethough I love your voice so. You are not safe yet. You can not get back round the point. See the waves dashing up against it! You must climb the cliff, and that is no easy job for a lady, in the best of weather. In a couple of hours the tide will be over the whole of this beach a fathom deep. There is no boat nearer than Filey; and a boat could scarcely live over that bar. You must climb the cliff, and begin at once, before you get any colder. Then is my poor pony to be drowned, after all? If he is, he had better have been drowned at once. The smuggler looked at her with a smile, which meant, Your gratitude is about the same as his ; but he answered, to assure her, though by no means sure himself: There is time enough for him; he shall not be drowned. But you must be got out of danger first. When you are off my mind, I will fetch up pony. Now you must follow me step by step, careful- ly and steadily. I would carry you up if I could; but even a giant could scarce- ly do that, in a stiff gale of wind, and with the crag so wet. Mary looked up with a shiver of dis- may. She was brave and nimble gener- ally, but now so wet and cold, and the steep cliff looked so slippery, that she said: It is useless; I can never get up there. Captain Lyth, save yourself, and leave me. That would be a pretty thing to do ! he replied; and where should I be after- ward? I ~m not at the end of my de- vices yet. I have got a very snug little crane up there. It was here we ran our last lot, and beat the brave lieutenant so. But unluckily I have no cave just here. None of my lads are about here now, or we would make short work of it. But I could hoist you very well, if you would let me. I would never think of such a thing. To come up like a keg! Captain Lyth, you must know that I never would be so disgraced. Well, I was afraid that you might take it so, though I can not see why it should be any harm. We often hoist the last man so. It is different with me, said Mary. It may be no harm; but I could not have it. The free-trader looked at her bright eyes and color, and admired her spirit, which his words had roused. I pray your forgiveness, Miss Aner- ley, he said; I meant no harm. I was thinking of your life. But you look now as if you could do anything almost. Yes, I am warm again. I have no fear. I will not go up like a keg, but like myself. I can do it without help from anybody. Only please to take care not to cut your little hands, said Robin, as he be- gan the climb; for he saw that her spirit was up to do it. My hands are not little; and I will cut them if I choose. Please not even to look back at me. I am not in the least afraid of anything. The cliff was not of the soft and friable stuff to be found at Bridlington, but of hard and slippery sandstone, with bulky ribs oversaling here and there, and threat- ening to cast the climber back. At such spots nicks for the feet had been cut, or broken with a hammer, but scarcely wider than a stirrup-iron, and far less inviting. To surmount these was quite impossible except by a process of crawling; and Mary, with her heart in her mouth, re- pented of her rash contempt for the crane sling. Luckily the height was not very great, or, tired as she was, she must have given way; for her bodily warmth had waned again in the strong wind buffeting the cliff. Otherwise the wind had helped her greatly by keeping her from swaying outward; but her courage began to fail at last, and very near the top she called for help. A short piece of lanyard was thrown to her at once, and Robin Lyth landed her on the bluff, panting, breath- less, and blushing again. Well done ! he cried, gazing as she turned her face away. Young ladies may teach even sailors to climb. Not every sailor could get up this cliff. Now back to Master Popplewells as fast as you can run, and your aunt will know what to do with you. You seem well acquainted with my family affairs, said Mary, who could not help smiling. Pray how did you even know where I am staying ? Little birds tell me everything, espe- cially about the best, and most gentle, and beautiful of all birds. The maiden was inclined to be vexed; but remembering how much he had done, and how little gratitude she had shown, 128 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZTNE. she forgave him, and asked him to come to the cottage. I will bring up the little horse. Have no fear, he replied. I will not come up at all unless I bring him. But it may take two or three hours. With no more than a wave of his hat, he set off, as if the coast-riders were after him, by the path along the cliffs toward Filey, for he knew that Lord Keppel must be hoisted by the crane, and he could not manage it without another man, and the tide would wait for none of them. Upon the next headland he found one of his men, for the smugglers maintained a much sharper look-out than did the forces of his Majesty, because they were paid much better; and returning, they man- aged to strap Lord Keppel, and hoist him like a big bale of contraband goods. For their crane had been left in a brambled hole, and they very soon rigged it out again. The little horse kicked pretty freely in the air, not perceiving his own welfare; but a cross - beam and pulley kept him well out from the cliff, and they swung him in over handsomely, and landed him well up on the sward within the brink. Then they gave him three cheers for his great adventure, which he scarcely seemed to appreciate. CHAPTER XIX. A FARM TO LET. THAT storm on the festival of St. Mi- chael broke up the short summer weather of the north. A wet and tempestuous month set in, and the harvest, in all but the very best places, lay flat on the ground, without scythe or sickle. The men of tbe Riding were not disturbed by this, as farmers would have been in Suf- folk; for these were quite used to walk over their crops, without much occasion to lift their feet. They always expected their corn to be laid, and would have been afraid of it if it stood upright. Even at Anerley Farm this salam of the wheat was expected in bad seasons; and it suit- ed the reapers of the neighborhood, who scarcely knew what to make of knees un- bent, and upright discipline of stiff-cra- vated ranks. In the northwest corner of the county, where the rocky land was mantled so fre- quently with cloud, and the prevalence of western winds bore sway, an upright har- vest was a thing to talk of, as the legend of a century, credible because it scarcely could have been imagined. And this year it would have been hard to imagine any more prostrate and lowly position than that of every kind of crop. The bright weather of August and attentions of the sun, and gentle surprise of rich dews in the morning, together with abun- dance of moisture underneath, had made things look as they scarcely ever looked clean, and straight, and elegant. But none of them had found time to form the dry and solid substance, without which neither man nor his staff of life can stand against adversity. My Lady Philippa, as the tenants called her, came out one day to see how things looked, and whether the tenants were likely to pay their Michaelmas rents at Christmas. Her sister, Mrs. Carna- by, felt like interest in the question, but hated long walks, being weaker and less active, and therefore rode a quiet pony. Very little wheat was grown on their es- tates, both soil and climate declining it; but the barley crop was of more impor- tance, and flourished pretty well upon the southern slopes. The land, as a rule, was poor and shallow, and nourished more grouse than partridges; but here and there valleys of soft shelter and fair soil relieved the eye and comforted the pocket of the owner. These little bits of Goshen formed the heart of every farm; though oftentimes the homestead was, as if by some perversity, set up in bleak and barren spots, outside of comforts elbow. The ladies marched on, without much heed of any other point than onewould the barley crop do well? They had many tenants who trusted chiefly to that, and to the rough hill oats, and wool, to make up in coin what part of their rent they were not allowed to pay in kind. For as yet machinery and reeking factories had not besmirched the country-side. How much further do you mean to go, Philippa ? asked Mrs. Carnaby, al- though she was not travelling by virtue of her own legs. For my part, I think we have gone too far already. Your ambition is always to turn back. You may turn back now if you like. I shall go on. Miss Yordas knew that her sister would fail of the courage to ride home all alone. Mrs. Caruaby never would ride with- 1~IARY ANERLEY. 129 out Jordas or some other serving-man better. The only way to get such things behind her, as was right and usual for a is to make them. lady of her position; but Lady Philippa Then I think that you might make was of bolder strain, and cared for n6- enough for us both, if you had any re- bodys thoughts, words, or deeds. And gard for them, or for me, Philippa. she had ordered her sisters servant back Mistress Yordas smiled, as she often did, for certain reasons of her own. at her sisters style of reasoning. And she Very well, very well. You always cared not a jot for the last word, so long will go on, and always on the road you as the will and the way were left to her. choose yourself. Although it requires a And in this frame of mind she turned a vast deal of knowledge to know that there corner from the open moor track into a is any road here at all. little lane, or rather the expiring delivery The widow, who looked very comely for of a lane, which was leading a better ex- her age, and sat her pony prettily, gave istence further on. way (as usual) to the stronger will; though Mrs. Carnaby followed dutifully, and she always liked to enter protest, which Heartsease began to pick up his feet, the elder scarcely ever deigned to notice. which he scorned to do upon the negli- But hearing that Eliza had a little cough gence of sward. And following this good at night, and knowing that her appetite lane, they came to a gate, corded to an had not been as it ought to be, Philippa ancient tree, and showing up its foot, as (who really was wrapped up in her sis- a dog does when he has a thorn in it. ter, but never or seldom let her dream of This gate seemed to stand for an orna- such a fact) turned round graciously and ment, or perhaps a landmark; for the said: lane, instead of submitting to it, passed I have ordered the carriage here for by upon either side, and plunged into a half past three oclock. We will go back dingle, where a gray old house was shel- by the Scarbend road, and Heartsease can tering. The lonely moorside farmif trot behind us. such a wild and desolate spot could be a Heartsease, uneasy you have kept my farmwas known as Wallhead, from heart by your shufflings and trippings per- the relics of some ancient wall; and the petual. Philippa, I want a better-stepping folk who lived there, or tried to live, al- pony. Pet has ruined Heartsease. though they possessed a surnamewhich Pet ruins everything and everybody; is not a necessary consequence of life- and you are ruining him, Eliza. I am very seldom used it, and more rarely still the only one who has the smallest power had it used for them. For the ancient over him. And he is be~inning to cast fashion still held ground of attaching the off that. If it comes to open war between idea of a man to that of things more cx- us, I shall be sorry for Lancelot. tensive and substantial. So the head of And I shall be sorry for you, Philippa. the house was Will o the Wallhead ; In a few years Pet will be a man. And a his son was Tommy o Will o the Wall- man is always stronger than awoman; at head; and his grandson, Willy o Tom- any rate in our family. my o Will o the Wallhead. But the Stronger than such as you, Eliza. one their great lady desired to see was the But let him only rebel against me, and unmarried daughter of the house, Sally he will find himself au outcast. And to o Will o the Wallhead. prove that, I have brought you here. Mistress Yordas knew that the men of Mistress Yordas turned round, and the house would be out upon the land at looked in a well-known manner at her this time of day, while Sally would be sister, whose beautiful eyes filled with full of household work, and preparing tears, and fell. their homely supper. So she walked in Philippa, she said, with a breath like bravely at the open door, while her sister a sob, sometimes you look harder than waited with the pony in the yard. Sally poor dear papa, in his very worst mo- was clumping about in clog-shoes, with a ments, used to look. I am sure that I do child or two sprawling after her (for Tom- not at all deserve it. All that I pray for mys wife was away with him at work), is peace and comfort; and little do I get and if the place was not as clean as could of either. be, it seemed as clean as need be. And you will get less, as long as you The natives of this part are rough in pray for them, instead of doing something manner, and apt to regard civility as the VOL. LX.No. 355.9 130 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. same thing with servility. Their blunt- ness does not proceed from thickness, as in the south of England, but from a surety of their own worth, and inferiority to no one. And to deal with them rightly, this must be entered into. Sally o Will o the Wallhead bobbed her solid and black curly head, with a clout like a jelly on the poll of it, to the owner of their land, and a lady of high birth; but she vouchsafed no courtesy, neither did Mistress Yordas expect one. But the active and self-contained woman set a chair in the low dark room, which was their best, and stood waiting to be spoken to. Sally, said the lady, who also pos- sessed the Yorkshire gift of going to the point, you had a man ten years ago; you behaved badly to him, and he went into the Indian Company.~ A deed, replied the maiden, without any blush, because she had been in the right throughout; and noo a hath coom in a better moind. And you have come to know your own mind about him. You have been steadfast to him for ten years. He has saved up some money, and is come back to marry you. I heed nane o the brass. But my Jack is back again. His father held nuder us for many years. He was a thoroughly honest man, and paid his rent as often as he could. Would Jack like to have his fathers farm? It has been let to his cousin, as you know; but they have been going from bad to worse; and everything must be sold off, unless I stop it. Sally was of dark Lancastrian race, with handsome features and fine brown eyes. She had been a beauty ten years ago, and could still look comely, when her heart was up. My lady, she said, with her heart up now, at the hope of soon having a home of her own, and something to work for that she might keep, such words should not pass the mouth wiout bin meant. What she said was very different in sound, and not to be rendered in echo by any one born far away from that country, where three dialects meet and find it hard to guess what each of the others is up to. Enough that this is what Sally meant to say, and that Mistress Yordas under- stood it. It is not my custom to say a thing without meaning it, she answered; but unless it is taken up at once, it is likely to come to nothing. Where is your man Jack ? Jack is awaa to the minister to tell of us cooming tegither. Sally made no blush over this, as she might have done ten years ago. He must be an excellent and faithful man. He shall have the farm if he wish- es it, and can give some security at going in. Let him come and see Jordas to- morrow. After a few more words, the lady left Sally full of gratitude, very little of which was expressed aloud, and therefore the whole was more likely to work, as Mis- tress Yordas knew right well. The farm was a better one than Wall- head, having some good barley land upon it; and Jack did not fail to present him- self at Scargate upon the f6llowing morn- ing. But the lady of the house did not think fit herself to hold discourse with him. Jordas was bidden to entertain him, and find out how he stood in cash, and whether his character was solid; and then to leave him with a jug of ale, and come and report proceedings. The dogman dis- charged this duty well, being as faithful as the do~,s he kept, and as keen a judge of human nature. The man hath no harm in him he said, touching his hair to the ladies, as he entered the audit-room. A hath been knocked aboot a bit in them wars i In- jury, and hath only one hand left; but a can lay it upon fifty poon, and get surety for anither fifty. Then tell him, Jordas, that he may go to Mr. Jellicorse to-morrow, to see about the writings, which he must pay for. I will write full instructions for Mr. Jelli- corse, and you go and get your dinner; and then take my letter, that he may have time to consider it. Wait a moment. There are other things to be done in Mid- dleton, and it would be late for you to come back to-night, the days are drawing in so. Sleep at our tea-grocers; he will put you up. Give your letter at once into the hands of Mr. Jellicorse, and he will get forward with the writings. Tell this man Jack that he must be there before twelve oclock to-morrow, and then you can call about two oclock, and bring back what there may be for signature; and be careful of it. Eliza, I think I have set forth your wishes. MARY ANERLEY. 131 But, my lady, lawyers do take such a time; and who will look after Master Lancelot? I fear to have my feet two moiles off here Obey your orders, without reasoning; that is for those who give them. Eliza, I am sure that you agree with me. Jordas, make this man clearly understand, as you can do when you take the trouble. But you first must clearly understand the whole yourself. I will repeat it for you. Philippa Yordas went through the whole of her orders again most clearly, and at every one of them the dogman nodded his large head distinctly, and counted the nods on his fingers to make sure; for this part is gifted with high mathematics. And the numbers stick fast like pegs driven into clay. Poor Jordas! Philippa, you are working him too hard. You have made great wrinkles in his forehead. Jordas, you must have no wrinkles until you are married. While Mrs. Carnaby spoke so kindly, the dogman took his fingers off their nu- meral scale, and looked at her. By na- ture the two were first cousins, of half blood; by law, and custom, and educa- tion, and vital institution, they were sun- dered more widely than black and white. But, for all that, the dogman loved the lady, at a faithful distance. You seem to me now to have it clear- ly, Jordas, said the elder sister, looking at him sternly, because Eliza was so soft; you will see that no mischief can be done with the dogs or horses while you are away; and Mr. Jellicorse will give you a letter for me, to say that every- thing is right. My desire is to have things settled promptly, because your friend Jack has been to set the banns up; and the Church is more speedy in such matters than the law. Now the sooner you are off, the better. Jordas, in his steady but by no means stupid way, considered at his leisure what such things could mean. He knew all the property, and the many little hold- ings, as well as, and perhaps a great deal better than, if they had happened to be his own. But he never had known such a hurry made before, or such a special in- terest shown about the letting of any tenement, of perhaps tenfold the value. However, he said, like a sensible man (and therefore to himself only), that the ways of women are beyond compute, and must be suitably carried out, without any contradiction. CHAPTER XX. AN OLD SOLDIER. Now Mr. Jellicorse had been taking a careful view of everything. He wished to be certain of placing himself both on the righteous side and the right one; and in such a case this was not to be done without much circumspection. He felt himself bound to his present clients, and could not even dream of deserting them; but still there are many things that may be done to conciliate the adversary of ones friend, without being false to the friend himself. And some of these al- ready were occurring to the lawyer. It was true that no adversary had as yet appeared, nor even shown token of existence; but some little sign of compli- cation had arisen, and one serious fact was come to light. The solicitors of Sir Ulphus de Roos (the grandson of Sir Fur- san, whose daughter had married Richard Yordas) had pretty strong evidence, in some old letters, that a deed of appoint- ment had been made by the said Richard, and Eleanor his wife, under the powers of their settlement. Luckily they had not been employed in the matter, and possess- ed not so much as a draft or a letter of in- structions; and now it was no concern of theirs to make, or meddle, or even move. Neither did they know that any question could arise about it; for they were a high- ly antiquated firm, of most rigid respecta- bility, being legal advisers to the Chapter of York, and clerks of the Prerogative Court, and able to charge twice as much as almost any other firm, and nearly three times as much as poor Jellicorse. Mr. Jellicorse had been most skillful and wary in sounding these deep and silent people; for he wanted to find out how much they knew, without letting them suspect that there was anything to know. And he proved an old womans will gra- tis, or at least put it down to those who could afford itbecause nobody meant to have it provedsimply for the sake of get- ting golden contact with Messrs. Akebo- rum, Micklegate, and Brigant. Right craftily then did he fetch a young member of the firm, who delighted in angling, to take his holiday at Middleton, and fish the 132 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. goodly Tees; and by gentle and casual discourse of gossip, in hours of hospitality, out of him he hooked and landed all that his firm knew of the Yordas race. Young Brigant thought it natural enough that his host, as the lawyer of that family, and their trusted adviser for five-and-twenty years, should like to talk over things of an elder date, which now could be little more than trifles of genealogical history. He got some fine fishing and good dinners, and found himself pleased with the river and the town, and his very kind host and hostess; and it came into his head that if Miss Emily grew up as pretty and lively as she promised to be, he might do worse than marry her, and open a connection with such a fishing station. At any rate he left her as a chose in action, which mni~,ht be reduced into possession some fine day. Such was the state of affairs when Jor- das, after a long and muddy ride, sent word that he would like to see the master, for a minute or two, if convenient. The days were grown short, and the candles lit, and Mr. Jellicorse was fast asleep, having had a good deal to get through that day, including an excellent supper. The lawyers wife said: Let him call in the morning. Business is over, and the office is closed. Susanna, your master must not be disturbed. But the master awoke, and declared that he would see him. Candles were set in the study, while Jordas was having a trifle of refreshment; and when he came in, Mr. Jellicorse was there, with his spectacles on, and full of business. Asking of your pardon, Sir, for dis- turbing of you now, said the dogman, with the rain upon his tarred coat shining, in a little course of drainage froni his great brown beard, my orders wur to lay this in your own hand, and seek an- swer to-morrow by dinner-time, if may be. Master Jordas, you shall have it, if it can be. Do you know anybody who can promise more than that ? Plenty, Sir, to promise it, as you must know by this time; but never a body to perform so much as half. But craving of your pardon again, and separate, I wud foin spake a word or two of myself. Certainly, Jordas, I shall listen with great pleasure. A fine - looking fellow like you must have affah~s. And the lady ought to make some settlement. It shall all be done for you at half price. No, Sir, it is none o that kind of thing, the dogman answered, with a smile, as if he might have had such op- portunities, but would trouble no lawyer about them; and I get too much of half price at home. It is about my ladies I desire to make speech. They keep their business too tight, master. Jordas, you have been well taught and trained; and you are a man of saga- city. Tell me faithfully what you mean. It shall go no further. And it may be of great service to your ladies. It is not much, Master Jellicoose; and you may make less than that of it. But a lie shud be met and knocked doon, Sir, according to my opinion. Certainly, Jordas, when an action will not lie; and sometimes even where it does, it is wise to commit a defensible as- sault, and so to become the defendant. Jordas, you are big enough to do that. Master Jellicoose, you are a pleasant man; but you twist my maning, as a lawyer must. They all does it, to keep their hand in. I am speaking of the stories, Sir, that is so much about. And I think that my ladies should be told of them right out, and come forward, and lay their hands on them. The Yordases always did wrong, of old time; but they never was afraid to jump on it. My friend, you speak in parables. What stories have arisen to be jumped upon ? Well, Sir, for one thing, they do tell that the proper owner of the property is Sir Duncan, now away in India. A man hath come home who knows him well, and sayeth that he is like a prince out there, with command of a country twice as big as Great Britain, and they up and made Sir Duncan of him, by his duty to the king. And if he cometh home, all must fall before him. Even the law of the land, I suppose, and the will of his own father. Pretty well, so far, Jordas. And what next ? Nought, Sir, nought. But I thought I wur duty-bound to tell you that. What is women before a man Yordas ? My good friend, we will not despair. But you are keeping back something; I know it by your feet. You are duty- bound to tell me every word now, Jor- das. The lawyers is the devil, said the dog- MARY ANERLEY. 133 man to himself; and being quite used to this reflection, Mr. Jellicorse smiled and nodded; but if you must have it all, Sir, it is no more than this. Jack o the Smithies, as is to marry Sally o Will o the Wallhead, is to have the lease of Shipboro farm, and he is the man as hath told it all. Very well. We will wish him good luck with his farm, Mr. Jellicorse an- swered, cheerfully; and what is even rarer nowadays, I fear, good luck of his wife, Master Jordas. But as soon as the sturdy retainer was gone, and the sound of his heavy boots had died away, Mr. Jellicorse shook his head very gravely, and said, as he opened and looked through his packet, which confirmed the words of Jordas, Sad in- discretionwant of legal knowledge headstrong womenthe very way to spoil it all! My troubles are beginning, and I had better go to bed. His good wife seconded this wise re- solve; and without further parley it was put into effect, and proclaimed to be suc- cessful by a symphony of snores. For this is the excellence of having other peo- ples cares to carry (with the carriage well paid), that they sit very lightly on the springs of sleep. That well-balanced ve- hicle rolls on smoothly, without jerk, or jar, or kick, so long as it travels over alien land. In the morning Mr. Jellicorse was up to anything, legitimate, legal, and likely to be paid for. Not that he would stir half the breadth of one wheat corn, even for the sake of his daily bread, from the straight and strict line of integrity. He had made up his mind about that long ago, not only from natural virtue, strong and dominant as that was, but also by dwelling on his high repute, and the solid foundations of character. He scarcely knew anybody, when he came to think of it, capable of taking such a lofty course; but that simply confirmed him in his stern resolve to do what was right and expe- dient. It was quite one oclock before Jack o the Smithies rang the bell to see about his lease. He ought to have done it two hours sooner, if he meant to become a hum- ble tenant; and 1~he lawyer, although he had plenty to do of other peoples busi- ness, looked upon this as a very bad sign. Then he read his letter of instructions once more, and could not but admire the nice brevity of these, and the skillful style of hinting much and declaring very little. For after giving full particulars about the farm, and the rent, and the covenants required, Mistress Yordas proceeded thus: The new tenant is the son of a former occupant, who proved to be a remarkably honest man, in a case of strong temptation. As happens too often with.men of probity, he was misled and made bankrupt, and died about twelve years ago, I think. Please to verify this by reference. The late tenant was his nephew, and has never perceived the necessity of paying rent. We have been obliged to distrain, as you know; and I wish John Smithies to buy in what he pleases. He has saved some capital in India, where I am told that he fought most gallantly. Singular to say, he has met with, and perhaps served un- der, our lamented and lost brother Dun- can, of whom and his faniily he may give us interesting particulars. You know how this neighborhood excels in idle talk, and if John Smithies becomes our tenant, his discourse must be confined to his own business. But he must not hesitate to im- part to you any facts you may think it right to ask about. Jordas will bring us your answer, under seal. Skillfully put, up to that last word, which savors too much of teaching me my own business. Aberthaw, are you quite ready with that lease? It is wanted rather in a hurry. As Mr. Jellicorse thought the former and uttered the latter part of these words, it was plain to see that he was fidgety. He bad put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal, and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock. But the very last thing that he ever dreamed of doubting was his power to turn this old soldier inside out. Jack o the Smithies was announced at last; and the lawyer, being vexed with him for taking such a time, resolved to let him take a little longer, and kept him waiting, without any bread and cheese, for nearly half an hour. The wisdom of doing this depended on the character of 134 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the man, and the state of his finances. And both of these being strong enough to stand, to keep him so long on his legs was unwise. At last he came in, a very sturdy sort of fellow, thinking no atom the less of himself because some of his anatomy was honorably gone. Servant, Sir, he said, making a sa- lute; I had orders to come to you about a little lease. Right, my man, I remember now. You are thinking of taking to your fa- thers farm, after knocking about for some years in foreign parts. Ah, nothing like old England after all. And to tread the ancestral soil, and cherish the old asso- ciations, and to nurture a virtuous family in the fear of the Lord, and to be ready with the rent Rent is too high, Sir; I must have five pounds off. It ought to be ten, by right. Cousin Joe has taken all out, and put nought in. John o the Smithies, you astonish me. I have strong reason for believing that the rent is far too low. I have no instructions to reduce it. Then I must try for another farm, Sir. I can have one of better land, under Sir Walter; only I seemed to hold on to the old place; and my Sally likes to be under the old ladies. Old ladies! Jack, what are you come to? Beautiful ladies in the prime of life but perhaps they would be old in India. I fear that you have not learned much be- havior. But at any rate you ought to know your own mind. Is it your inten- tion to refuse so kind an offer (which was only made for your fathers sake, and to please your faithful Sally) simply because another of your family has not been hon- est in his farming ? I never have took it in that way be- fore, the steady old soldier answered, showing that rare phenomenon, the dawn of a new opinion upon a stubborn face. Give me a bit to turn it over in my mind, Sir. Lawyers be so quick, and so nimble, and all-cornered. Turn it over fifty times, Master Smith- ies. We have no wish to force the farm upon you. Take a pinch of snuff, to help your sense of justice. Or if you would like a pipe, go and have it in my kitchen. And if you are hungry, cook will give you eggs and bacon. No, Sir; I am very much obliged to you. I never make much o my think- ing. I go by what the Lord sends right inside o me, whenever I have decent folk to deal with. And spite of your cloth, Sir, you have a honest look. You deserve another pinch of snuff for that. Master Smithies, you have a gift of putting hard things softly. But this is not business. Is your mind made up ? Yes, Sir. I will take the farm, at full rent, if the covenants are to my liking. They must be on both sidesboth sides, mind you. Mr. Jellicorse smiled as he began to read the draft prepared from a very an- cient form which was firmly established on the Scargate Hall estates. The cove- nants, as usual, were all upon one side, the lessee being bound to a multitude of things, and the lessor to little more than acceptance of the rent. But such a re- sult is in the nature of the case. Yet Jack o the Smithies was not well con- tent. In him true Yorkshire stubborn- ness was multiplied by the dogged tena- city of a British soldier, and the aggre- gate raised to an unknown power by the efforts of shrewd ignorance; and at last the lawyer took occasion to say, Master John Smithies, you are wor- thy to serve under the colors of a Yor- das. That I have, Sir, that I have, cried the veteran, taken unawares, and shaking the stump of his arm in proof; I have served under Sir Duncan Yordas, who will come home some day and claim his own; and he wont want no covenants of me. You can not have served under Dun- can Yordas, Mr. Jellicorse answered, with a smile of disbelief, craftily rousing the pugnacity of the man; because he was not even in the army of the Com- pany, or any other army. I mean, of course, unless there was some other Dun- can Yordas. Tell me !~ Jack o Smithies almost shoutedtell me about Duncan Yor- das, indeed! Who he was, and what he wasnt! And what do lawyers know of such things? Why, you might have to command a regiment, and read covenants to them out there! Sir Duncan was not our colonel, nor our captain; but we was under his orders all the more; and well he knew how to give them. Not one in fifty of us was white; but he made us all as good as white men; and th~ enemy MARY ANERLEY. 135 never saw the color of our backs. I wish I was out there again, I do, and would have staid, but for being hoarse of com- bat; though the fault was never in my throat, but in my arm. There is no fault in your throat, John Smithies, except that it is a great deal too loud. I am sorry for Sally, with a tem- per such as yours. That shows how much you know about it. I never lose my temper, with- out I hearken lies. And for you to go and say that I never saw Sir Duncan I said nothing of the kind, my friend. But you did not come here to talk about Duncan, or Captain, or Colonel, or Nabob, or iRajah, or whatever potentate he may beof him we desire to know nothing morea man who ran away, and dis- graced his family, and killed his poor fa- ther, knows better than ever to set his foot on Scargate land again. You talk about having a lease from him, a man with fifty wives, I dare say, and a hun- dred children! We all know what they are out there. There are very few tricks of the human face divine more forcibly expressive of contempt than the lowering of the eye- lids so that only a narrow streak of eye is exposed to the fellow-mortal, and that streak fixed upon him steadfastly; and the contumely is intensified when (as in the present instance) the man who does it is gifted with yellow lashes on the un- der lid. Jack o the Smithies treated Mr. Jellicorse to a gaze of this sort; and the lawyer, whose wrath had been feigned, to rouse the others, and so extract full information, began to feel his own tem- per rise. And if Jack had known when to hold his tongue, he must have had the best of it. But the lawyer knew this, and the soldier did not. Master Jellicorse, said the latter, with his forehead deeply wrinkled, and his eyes now opened to their widest, in saying of that you make a liar of your- self. Lease or no leasethat you do. Leasing stands for lying in the Bible, and a seemeth to do the same thing in York- shire. Fifty wives, and a hundred chil- dren! Sir Duncan hath had one wife, and lost her, through the Neijan fever and her worry; and a Yorkshire lady, as you might knowand never hath he cared to look at any woman since. There now, what you make of thatyou lawyers that make out every man a rake, and every woman a light o love? Get along! I hate the lot o you. What a strange character you are! You must have had jungle fever, I should think. No, Diana, there is no danger~ for Jack o the Sniithies had made such a noise that Mrs. Jellicorse got frightened and ran in: this poor man has only one arm; and if he had two, he could not hurt me, even if he wished it. Be pleased to withdraw, Diana. John Smithies, you have simply made a fool of yourself. I have not said a word against Sir Duncan Yordas, or his wife, or his son He hath no son, I tell you; and that was partly how he lost his wife. Well, then, his daughters, I have said no harm of them. And very good reasonbecause he hath none. You lawyers think you are so clever; and you never know anything rightly. Sir Duncan hath himself alone to see to, and hundreds of thousands of darkies to manage, with a score of British bayonets. But he never heedeth of the bayonets, not he. I have read of such men, but I never saw them, Mr. Jellicorse said, as if think- ing to himself; I always feel doubt about the possibility of them. He hath ten elephants, continued Soldier Smithies, resolved to crown the pillar of his wonders while about it ten great elephants that come and kneel before him, and a thousand men ready to run to his thumb; and his word is law better law than is in Englandfor scores and scores of miles on the top of hun- dreds. Why did you come away, John Smithies? Why did you leave such a great prince, and come home ? Because it was home, Sir. And for sake of Sally. There is some sense in that, my friend. And now if you wish to make a happy life for Sally, you will do as I advise you. Will you take my advice? My time is of value; and I am not accustomed to waste my words. Well, Sir, I will hearken to you. No man that meaneth it can say more than that. Jack o the Smithies, you are acute. You have not been all over the world for nothing. But if you have made up your mind to settle, and be happy in your na- tive parts, one thing must be attended to. It is a maxim of law, time-honored and 136 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. of the highest authority, that the tenant must never call in question the title of his landlord. Before attorning, you may do so; after that you are estopped. Now is it or is it not your wish to become the tenant of the Smithies farm, which your father held so honorably? Farm produce is fetching great prices now; and if you refuse this offer, we can have a man, the day after to-morrow, who will give my ladies 10 more, and who has not been a soldier, but a farmer all his life. Lawyer Jellicorse, I will take it; for Sally hath set her heart on it; and I know every crumple of the ground better than the wisest farmer doth. Sir, I will sign the articles. The lease will be engrossed by next market day; and the sale will be stopped until you have taken whatever you wish at a valuation. But remember what I saidyou are not to go prating about this wonderful Sir Duncan, who is never like- ly to come home, if he lives in such grand state out there, and who is forbidden by his fathers will from taking an acre of the property. And as he has no heirs, and is so wealthy, it can not matter much to him. That is true, said the solder; but he might love to come home, as all our folk in India do; and if he doth, I will not deny him. I tell you fairly, Master Jellicorse. I like you for being an outspoken man, and true to those who have used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on about him among the tenants. His name hath never crossed my lips till now, and shall not again without good cause. Here is my hand upon it, Master Lawyer. The lawyer shook hands with him heart- ily, for he could not but respect the man for his sturdiness and sincerity. And when Jack was gone, Mr. Jellicorse play- ed with his spectacles and his snuff-box for several minutes before he could make up his mind how to deal with the matter. Then hearing the solid knock of Jordas, who was bound to take horse for Scargate House pretty early at this time of year (with the weakening of the day among the mountains), he lost a few moments in con- fusion. The dogman could not go with- out any answer; and how was any good answer to be givAm in half an hour, at the utmost? A time had been when the law- yer studied curtness and precision under minds of abridgment in London. But the more he had labored to introduce rash brevity into Yorkshire, and to cut away nine words out of ten, when all the ten meant one thing only, the more of con- tempt for his ignorance he won, and the less money he made out of it. And no sooner did he marry than he was forced to give up that, and, like a respectable butcher, put in every pennyweight of fat that could be charged for. Thus had he thriven and grown like a goodly deed of fine amplification; and if he had made Squire Philips will now, it would scarcely have gone into any breast pocket. Un- luckily it is an easier thing to make a mans will than to carry it out, even though fortune be favorable. In the present case obstacles seemed to be arising which might at any moment require great skill and tact to surmount them; and the lawyer, hearing Jordas striding to and fro impatiently in the waiting-room, was fain to win time for consideration by writing a short note to say that he proposed to wait upon the la- dies the very next day. For he had im- portant news which seemed expedient to discuss with them. In the mean time he begged them not to be at all uneasy, for his news upon the whole was propitious. CHAPTER XXI. JACK AND JILL GO DOWN THE GILL. UPON a little beck that runs away into the Lune, which is a tributary of the Tees, there stood at this time a small square house of gray stone, partly greened with moss, or patched with drip, and opening to the sun with small dark windows. It looked as if it never could be warm in- side, by sunshine or by fire-glow, and cared not, although it was the only house for miles, whether it were peopled or stood empty. But this cold, hard-look- ing place just now was the home of some hot and passionate hearts. The people were poor; and how they made their living would have been a mys- tery to their neighbors, if there had been any. They rented no land, and they fol- lowed no trade, and they took no alms by hand or post; for the begging-letter sys- tem was not yet invented. For the house MARY ANERLEY. 137 itself they paid a small rent, which Jor- das received on behalf of his ladies, and always found it ready; and that being so, he had nothing more to ask, and never meddled with them. They had been there before he came into office, and it was not his place to seek. into their history; and if it had been, he would not have done it. For his sympathies were (as was natural and native to a man so placed) with all outsiders, and the people who compress into one or two generations that igno- rance of lineage which some few families strive to defer for centuries, showing thereby unwise insistencc, if latter-day theories are correct. But if Master Jordas knew fittle of these people, somebody else knew more about them, and perhaps too much about one of them. Lancelot Carnaby, still called Pet in one of those rushes after ran- dom change which the wildness of his nature drove upon him, had ridden his pony to a stand-still on the moor one sul- try day of that August. No pity or care for the pony had he, but plenty of both for his own dear self. The pony might be left for the crows to pick his bones, so far as mattered to Pet Carnaby; but it b mattered very greatly to a boy like him to have to go home upon his own legs. Long exertion was hateful to him, though he loved quick difficulty; for he was one of the many who combine activity with laziness. And while he was wondering what he should do, and worrying the fine little animal, a wave of the wind carried into his ear the brawling of a beck, like the humming of a hive. The boy had forgotten that the moor just here was broken by a narrow glen, engrooved with sliding water. Now with all his strength, which was not much, he tugged the panting and limping little horse to the fiat breach, and then down the steep of the gill, and let him walk into the water and begin to slake off a little of the crust of thirst, But no sooner did he see him preparing to rejoice in large crystal draughts (which his sobs had first forbidden) than he jerk- ed him with the bit, and made a bad kick at him, because he could bear to see noth- ing happy. The pony had sense enough to reply, weary as he was, with a stron- ger kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee, and discouraged him for any further contest. Bully as he was, the boy had too much of ancient Yordas pith in him to howl, or cry, or even whimper, but sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and meditate revenge against the animal with hoofs. Presently pain and wrath combined became too much for the weakness of his frame, and he fell back and lay upon the hard ground in a fainting fit. At such times, as everybody said (espe- cially those whom he knocked about in his lively moments), this boy looked won- derfully lovely. His features were almost perfect; and he had long eyelashes like an Andalusian girl, and cheeks more ex- quisite than almost any dolls, a mouth of fine curve, and a chin of pert round- ness, a neck of the mould that once was called Byronic, and curly dark hair flying all around, as fine as the very best peruke. In a word, he was just what a boy ougbt not to be, who means to be- come an Englishman. Such, however, was not the opinion of a creature even more beautiful than he, in the truer points of beauty. Coming with a pitcher for some water from the beck, Insie of the Gill (the daughter of Bat and Zilpie of the Gill) was quite amazed as she chanced round a niche of the bank upon this image. An image fallen from the sun, she thought it, or at any rate from some part of heaven, until she saw the pony, who was testing the geology of the district by the flavor of its herbage. Then Insie knew that here was a mortal boy, not dead, but sadly wounded; and she drew her short striped kirtle down, because her shapely legs were bare. Lancelot Carnaby, coming to himself (which was a poor return for him), open- ed his large brown eyes, and saw a beau- tiful girl looking at him. As their eyes met, his insolent languor fellfor he gen- erally awoke from these weak lapses into a slow persistent rageand wonder and unknown admiration moved something in his nature that had never moved be- fore. His words, however, were scarcely up to the high mark of the moment. Who are you ? was all he said. I am called Insie of the Gill. My father is Bat of the Gill, and my mother Zilpie of the Gill. You must be a stran- ger, not to know us. I never heard of you in all my life; al- though you seem to be living on my land. All the land about here belongs to me; though my mother has it for a little time. 138 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. I did not know, she answered, softly, and scarcely thinking what she said, that the land belonged to anybody, besides the birds and animals. And is the water yours as well ? Yes; every drop of it; of course. But you are quite welcome to a pitcherful. This was the rarest affability of Pet; and he expected extraordinary thanks. But Insie looked at him with surprise. I am very much obliged to you, she said; butlneveraskedanyoneto give it me, unless it is the beck itself; and the beck never seems to grudge it. You are not like anybody I ever saw. You speak very different from the people about here; and you look very different ten times over. Insie reddened at his steadfast gaze, and turned her sweet soft face away. And yet she wanted to know more. Differ- ent means a great many things. Do you mean that I look better, or worse Better, of course; fifty thousand times better! Why, you look like a beautiful lady. I tell you, I have seen hundreds of ladies; perhaps you havent, but I have. And you look better than all of them. You say a great deal that you do not think, Insie answered, quietly, yet turn- ing round to show her face again. I have heard that gentlemen always do; and I suppose that you are a young gen- tleman. I should hope so indeed. Dont you know who I am? I am Lancelot Yordas Carnaby. Why, you look quite as if you could stop the river, she answered, with a laugh, though she felt his grandeur. I suppose you consider me nobody at all. But I must get my water. You shall not carry water. You are much too pretty. I will carry it for you.~~ Pet was not introspective ; otherwise he must have been astonished at himself. His mother and aunt would have doubted their own eyes if they had beheld this most dainty of the dainty, and mischiev- ous of the mischievous (with pain and passion for the moment vanquished), care- fully carrying an old brown pitcher. Yet this he did, and wonderfully well, as he believed; though Insie only laughed to see him. For he had on the loveliest gaiters in the world, of thin white buck- skin with agate buttons, and breeches of silk, and a long brocaded waistcoat, and a short coat of rich purple velvet, also a riding hat with a gray ostrich plume. And though he had very little calf inside his gaiters, and not much chest to fill out his waistcoat, and narrower shoulders than a velvet coat deserved, it would have been manifest, even to a tailor, that the boy had lineal, if not lateral, right to his rich habiliments. Insie of the Gill (who seemed not to be of peasant birth, though so plainly dress- ed), came gently down the steep brook- side to see what was going to be done for her. She admired Lancelot, both for bravery of apparel and of action; and she longed to know how he would get a good pitcher of water without any splash upon his clothes. So she stood behind a little bush, pretending not to be at all concerned, but amused at having her work done for her. But Pet was too sharp to play cats-paw for nothing. Smile, and say thank you, he cried, or I wont do it. I am not going up to my middle for nothing; I know that you want to laugh at me. You must have a very low middle, said Insie; why, it never comes half way to my knees. You have got no stockings, and no new gaiters, Lancelot answered, reason- ably; and then, like two children, they set to and laughed, till the gill almost echoed with them. Why, youre holding the mouth of the pitcher down stream 1 Insie could hardly speak for laughing. Is that how you go to fill a pitcher ? Yes, and the right way too, he an- swered; the best water always comes up the eddies. You ought to be old enough to know that. I dont know anything at allexcept that you are ruining your best clothes. I dont care twopence for. such rub- bish. You ought to see me on a Sunday, Insie, if you want to know what is good. There, you never drew such a pitcher as that. And I believe there is a fish in the bottom of it. Oh,if there is a fish, let me have him in my hands. I can nurse a fish on dry land, until he gets quite used to it. Are you sure that there is a little fish ? No, there is no fish; and I am soak- ing wet. But I never care what anybody thinks of me. If they say what I dont like, I kick them. MARY ANEIRLEY. 139 Ah, you are accustomed to have your own way. That any one might know by looking at you. But I have got a quan- tity of work to do. You can see that by my fingers. The girl made a courtesy, and took the pitcher from him, because he was knock- ing it against his legs; but he could not be angry when he looked into her eyes, though the habit of his temper made him try to fume. Do you know what I think ? she said, fixing bright hazel eyes upon him; I think that you are very passionate sometimes. Well, if I am, it is my own business. Who told you anything about it? Who- ever it was shall pay out for it. Nobody told me, Sir. You must re- member that I never even heard of your name before. Oh, come, I cant quite take down that. Everybody knows me for fifty miles or more; and I dont care what they think of me. You may please yourself about be- lieving me, she answered, without con- cern about it. No one who knows me doubts my word, though I am not known for even five miles away. What an extraordinary girl you are! You say things on purpose to provoke me. Nobody ever does that; they are only too glad to keep me in a good tem- per. If you are like that, Sir, I bad better run away. My father will be home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no business here. I! No business upon my own land! This place must be bewitched, I think. There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take almost any shape; butbut they say she is three hundred years of age, or more. Perhaps, then, I am bewitched, said Insie; or why should I stop to talk with you, who are only a rude boy, after all, even according to your own account ? Well, you can go if you like. I sup- pose you live in that queer little place down there? The house is quite good enough for me and my father and mother and brother Maunder. Good-by; and please never to come here again. ~ You dont understand me. I have made you cry. Oh, Insie, let me have hold of your hand. I would rather make anybody cry than you. I never liked anybody so before. Cry, indeed! Who ever heard me cry? It is the way you splashed the water up. I am not in the habit of crying for a stranger. Good-by, now; and go to your great people. You say that you are bad; and I fear it is too true. I am not bad at all. It is only what everybody says, because I never want to please them. But I want to please you. I would give anything to do it; if you would only tell me how. The girl having cleverly dried her eyes, poured all their bright beauty upon him, and the heart of the youth was enlarged with a new, very sweet, and most timor- ous feeling. Then his dark eyes dropped, and he touched her gently, and only said, Dont go away. But I must go away, Insie answered, with a blush, and a look as of more tears lurking in her eyes. I have stopped too long; I must go away at once. But when may I come again? I will hold you, and fight for you with every- body in the world, unless you tell me when to come again. Hush! I am quite ashamed to hear you talk so. I am a poor girl, and you a great young gentleman. Never mind that. That has nothing to do with it. Would you like to make me miserable, and a great deal more wick- ed than I ever was before? Do you hate me so much as all that, Insie ? No. You have been very kind to me. Only my father would be angry, I am sure; and my brother Maunder is dread- ful. They all go away every other Fri- day, and that is the only free time I have. Every other Friday! What a long time, to be sure! Wont you come again for water this day fortnight ? Yes; I come for water three or four times every day. But if they were to see you, they would kill you first, and then lock me up forever. The only wise plan is for you to come no more. You can not be thinking for a mo- ment what you say. I will tell you what; if you dont come, I will march up to the house, and beat the door in. The landlord can do that, according to law. If you care at all for me, said Insie, looking as if she had known him for ten years, you will do exactly what I tell you. You will think no more about me for a fortnight; and then if you fancy 140 HAIRPEIRS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. that I can do you good by advice about your bad temper, or by teaching you how to plait reeds for a hat, and how to fill a pitcherperhaps I might be able to come down the gill again. I wish it was to-morrow. I shall count the days. But be sure to come early, if they go away all day. I shall bring my dinner with me; and you shall have the first help, and I will carve. But I should like one thing before I go; and it is the first time I ever asked any- body, though they ask me often enough, I can tell you. What would you like? You seem to me to be always wanting somethincr I should like very muchvery much indeedjust to give you one kiss, Insie. It can not be thought of for a mo- ment, she replied; and the first time of my ever seeing you, Sir ! Before he could reason in favor of a privilege which goes proverbially by fa- vor, the young maid was gone upon the winding path, with the pitcher truly bal- anced on her well-tressed head. Then Pet sat down and watched her; and she turned round in the distance, and waved him a kiss at decorous interval. Not more than three days after this, Mrs. Carnaby came into the drawing- room with a hasty step, and a web of wrin- kles upon her generally smooth, white forehead. Eliza, asked her sister, what has put you out so? That chair is not very strong, and you are rather heavy. Do you call that gracefully sinking on a seat, as we used to learn the way to do at school ? No, I do not call it anything of the kind. And if I am heavy, I only keep my heart in countenance, Philippa. You know not the anxieties of a mother. I am thankful to say that I do not. I have plenty of larger cares to attend to, as well as the anxieties of an aunt and sister. But what is this new maternal care Poor Pets illnesshis serious illness. I am. surprised that you have not noticed it, Philippa; it seems so unkind of you. There can not be anything much amiss with him. I never saw any one eat a bet- ter breakfast. What makes you fancy that the boy must be unwell ? It is no fancy. He must be very ill. Poor dear! I can not bear to think of it. lie has done no mischief for quite three days. Then he must indeed be at the point of death. Oh, if we could only keep him. always so, Eliza ! My dear sister, you will never under- stand him. He must have his little play- ful ways. Would you like him to be a milksop ? Certainly not. But I should like him first to be a manly boy, and then a boyish man. The Yordases always have been manly boys; instead of puling, and puk- ing, and picking this, that, and the other. The poor child can not help his health, Philippa. He never had the Yordas con- stitution. He inherits his delicate system from his poor dear gallant father. Mrs. Carnaby wiped away a tear; and her sister (who never was hard to her) spoke gently, and said there were many worse boys than he, and she liked him for many good and brave points of character, and especially for hating medicine. Philippa, you are right; he does hate medicine; the good mother answered, with a soft, sad sigh; and he kicked the last apothecary in the stomach, when he made certain of its going down. But such things are trifles, dear, in compari- son with now. If he would only kick - Jordas, or Welldrum, or almost any one who would take it nicely, I should have some hope that he was coming to himself. But to see him sit quiet is so truly sad. He gets up a tree with his vast activity, and there he sits moping by the hour, and gazing in one fixed direction. I am al- most sure that he has knocked his leg; but he flew into a fury when I wanted to examine it; and when I made a poultice, there was Saracen devouring it; and the nasty dog swallowed one of my lace handkerchiefs. Then surely you are unjust, Eliza, in lamenting all lack of mischief. But I have noticed things as well as you. And yesterday I saw something more portent- ous than anything you have told me. I came upon Lancelot suddenly, in the last place where I should have looked for him. He was positively in the library, and readingreading a real book. A book, Philippa! Oh, that settles everything. He must have gone alto- gether out of his sane mind. Not only was it a book, but even a book of what people call poetry. You have heard of that bold young man over the mountains, who is trying to turn po- etry upside down, by making it out of EDITORS EASY CHAIR. 141 every single thing he sees; and who de- spises all the pieces that we used to learn at school. I can not remember his name; but never mind. I thought that we onght to encourage him, because he might know some people in this neighborhood; and so I ordered a book of his. Perhaps I told you; and that is the very book your learned boy was reading. Philippa, it seems to me impossible almost. He must have been looking at the pictures. I do hope he was only looking at the pictures. There is not a picture in the book of any sort. He was reading it, and saying it quite softly to himself; and I felt that if you saw him, you would send for Dr. Spraggs. Ring the bell at once, dear, if you will be kind enough. I hope there is a fresh horse in the stable. Or the best way would be to send the jumping-car; then he would be certain to come back at once. Do as you like. I begin to think that we ought to take proper precautions. But when that is done, I will tell you what I think he may be up the tree for. A man with the jumping-car was soon dispatched, by urgency of Jordas, for Dr. Spraggs, who lived several miles away, in a hamlet to the westward, inaccessible to anything that could not jump right nim- bly. But the ladies made a slight mistake: they caught the doctor, but no patient. For Pet being well up in his favorite treeporing with great wonder over Lyr- ical Ballads, which took his fancy some- howthence descried the hateful form of Dr. Spraggs, too surely approaching in the seat of honor of the jumping-car. Was ever any poesy of such power as to elevate the soul above the smell of phys- ic? The lofty poet of the lakes and fells fell into Pets pocket anyhow, and down the off side of the tree came he, with even his bad leg ready to be foremost in giving leg-bail to the medical man. The driver of the jumping-car espied this action; but knowing that he would have done the like, grinned softly, and said nothing. And long after Dr. Spraggs was gone, leaving behind him sage advice, and a vast benevolence of bottles, Pet returned, very dirty and hungry, and cross, and most unpoetical. (f~tIitUE~i ~n~lj !II)u it. ~ 0 much have I been impressed by this, that studying the subject objectively, and from the educational point of viewseek- ing to provide that which, taken altogether, will be of the most service to the largest 1mm- herI long ago concluded that if I could have but one work for a public library, I would select a coniplete set of Harpers Monthly. These very gratifying words we find in a little pamphlet by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jun., coutaiiiing three papers on the Public Library and the Common Schools, founded upon a close and shrewd observation of the schools and public library in the town of Quincy, in Mas- sachusetts, and the racy way in which lie tells his story makes it very entertaiuin~ as well as very suggestive reading. Mr. Adams is fully aware that there are no more important institutions than those of which he treats, and also that there are none of which the manage- ment is more Likely to fall into ruts, and to need therefore the most careful watching and the plainest exhortation. The words that we quote are an honorable tribute to the charac- ter of this Magazine, whose issues now extend over a generation, and yet it is but a just tribute. If the author be happy who, dying, leaves no word that he would wish to blot, the Magazine, that impersonal author, may mod- estly congratulate itself that there is not one of its pages that it would wish to expunge. The words of Mr. Adams re a recognition of the purpose and spirit with which the Maga- zine was founded and is continued, namely, to be a friend of the people, not in Marats dern- a~o(~i c sense, but in that of Lincoln when lie spoke of the plain people, of which he was himself a noble type. The public library is the permanent common school of the whole community, but its value depends largely upon the habit of rendin aniong those who use it. This habit is gener- ally untrained. The reader comes with a de- sire of